Farmers are improving crop yields, using new technologies besides learning video-making skills — thanks to Digital Green which is catalysing a quiet revolution in the little hamlets of India. Delhi-based Digital Green focusses on educating farmers about farming techniques through locally produced videos in which local cultivators are featured. The project works in over 200 villages across Jharkhand, Orissa, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh with seven NGOs, helping famers improve their...

The government of India's Sarvashiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is preparing to provide education to at least 50,000 students in the state, in the age bracket of 5 to 14. This project, 65% of whose cost is being borne by the Centre and the rest by the state government, will educate children who're presently deprived of schooling. The total cost of the initiative is slated to be Rs1,330 crore for the present financial...

The arrest of BJP MP Dinu Solanki's nephew, in the RTI activist Amit Jethava's murder case, has reopened some interesting dossiers on the duo. Police officials, investigating this case, have laid their hands on reports prepared earlier on Dinu Solanki and his nephew Shiva Solanki in the break down of law and order in Kodinar in 2003. Three letters written by three senior police officials in 2003 laid bare a...

The Mahila Swaraj Abhiyan in association with the Mahila Adhikar Abhiyan organised a two-day tribunal for women activists and elected members of the gram panchayat. The aim is to discuss the implementation of various schemes designed for the empowerment of rural India. The tribunal was organised to study the implementation of various programmes and its implementation at the grassroots level by the state government.Around 200 women participated in the tribunal and pointed...

Slain Gujarat—based RTI activist Amit Jethwa has been chosen for a gallantry award instituted by a voluntary organisation working in the field of transparency. The organisation, National RTI Forum, has instituted several gallantry awards for RTI activists who have dared the adversities to get information from government on the issues concerning larger public interest and exposing corruption in the process. Jethwa will be given the ‘Satish Shetty Award for Gallantry’ posthumously. The ‘Lalit...