-DNA If we observe closely, the women entrepreneurs who run a variety of local small businesses are drivers of the local economy in many ways. Never ending stretches of backwaters and lush green coconut groves welcome you as you drive through the southern Indian state of Kerala. It is the only state in India where the sex ratio is of 1084 females per 1000 males. At 92%, Kerala has one of...

-The Hindu In Bihar, ‘development’ comes laced with caste. For the upper castes, it is Modi’s pitch on investment that matters while for Backward Classes, Nitish’s social welfare agenda makes him a governance icon. The BJP, having no regional match for Nitish, has banked on Modi’s popularity. “Development” is a word that one encounters frequently across poll-bound Bihar, with people across caste lines using it to explain their political preferences. However, this...

Inclusive Media for Change invites applications from media persons in English and Hindi for Inclusive Media - UNDP Fellowships 2015. The Fellowships are given to increase and sharpen media coverage of rural distress/ development and the issues of the marginalized people. The fellowships are aimed at promoting democratic social change, particularly through empowerment, participation, good governance and better understanding about media and the marginalised. The ideal candidates would be willing to...

-The Indian Express The MGNREGA promises 100 days of employment every year to each rural household. The Act mandates that at least a third of the workers under the scheme should be women. The flagship rural job guarantee scheme may have succeeded in ensuring that a significant proportion of its workforce comprises of women, but it has failed to bridge the gender gap and include women in a holistic way, a...

-The Times of India India and her neighbors are going through a tortuous process of urbanization - slow, messy and partly hidden. This is seen in severe problems of livability and congestion, making cities unattractive for rural migrants. As a result, whatever benefits urban agglomerations could have offered in terms of economic advance are getting diluted. This is the dire analysis of a 200-page World Bank report on urbanization in South...