The Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society, JeeVika, a state-led women’s self-help group, is active since 2007. Based on primary research, this article highlights the potential role of the individual rural woman – the didi – in driving the social and economic shifts necessary for sustainable poverty reduction in rural Bihar. The term didi is used to address an elder sister. It embodies the notion of respect. Traditionally, the term has remained...

The Centre on Monday cleared for implementation the Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls — known as ‘Sabla' — aimed at enhancing their nutritional and economic status. The scheme will be run along with the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) project in anganwadi centres in 200 select districts, targeting girls in the age group 11-18. The districts will be selected using a set of indicators and will be a...

After nearly 15 straight months of double-digit food inflation, the government announced on Thursday that food inflation had dipped to 9.67% for the week that ended on July 17. That's small consolation for most Indians, particularly the poor, who have seen a relentless assault on their food budgets that has resulted in essential items being dropped from the menu, giving rise to a whole new enforced "austerity diet". Since no...

In an upstairs classroom at a residential school in Mal, near Lucknow, the girls are revising for their exams. As the light starts to fade at the glassless windows, each girl takes a brightly coloured plastic lamp and carries it to her space on the floor. There is no electricity, but the lamps are solar powered. They have been donated jointly by Swedish company Ikea and the United Nations Children’s...

Conservatives appeared to trump the “radicals” as the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council met today to consider revolutionary suggestions to widen the content and targets of a proposed “right to food” law. The food rights campaigners in the council wanted a targeted public distribution system (PDS) to cover all except the affluent, providing not just cheap cereals but also other requirements of nursing mothers, children, the aged and the physically challenged. The...