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Signs Of Light: Good News From South Asia
Below are some "good news" excerpts from our newsletters. Please subscribe in the right column to get these features delivered to you by email.
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| Making Micro Yunuses |
A rural women's university is pioneering an effort to teach microfinance through practical lessons in the villages of Sonepat
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Source: Business Standard,
Posted: Apr 27, 2010)
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| Winning the Battle against Hunger, Silently |
Winds of change are blowing across Medak in Andhra Pradesh, India. Marginal farmers are resurrecting the art of growing millets, bringing traditional recipes back into the kitchen, and insuring themselves against hunger.
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Source: IndiaTogether,
Posted: Apr 21, 2010)
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| Empowerment of a Colorful Kind |
Okhamandal Taluka in Gujarat is home to more than 200 Self Help Groups of men and women. It is from these communities that the Appliqué handicraft under the well known“Okhai” brand name has been created.
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Source: The Better India,
Posted: Apr 14, 2010)
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| Nepal's God of Sight |
Dr. Sanduk Ruit, the Nepalese master surgeon, is able to poke, slice and pull the grape-like jelly masses out of an eye, then refill it with a tiny artificial lens, in about five minutes. Free of charge.
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Source: Seattle Times,
Posted: Apr 6, 2010)
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| Jharkhand’s Women Bring Down Infant Mortality |
Ekjut, an NGO, started working with roughly 20 women in three villages around Chakradharpur, India six years ago. By now, it has 20,000 trained women, spread across more than a thousand villages.
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Source: Times of India,
Posted: Mar 29, 2010)
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| Indian School Helping the Brightest Muslims |
In a congested part of Patna, capital of India's Bihar state, stands a striking yellow building - a 100-year-old mansion that has clearly seen better days.
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Source: BBC,
Posted: Mar 25, 2010)
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| The Off-beat Entrepreneur |
V. Muthulingam who won the Citi Micro Entrepreneur Award 2009, ventured into the business of making musical instruments in Chennai, India with help from the Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust.
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Source: The Hindu,
Posted: Mar 19, 2010)
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| Cost Effective Sanitary Napkins |
A school dropout from Coimbatore, India, Muruganandam invented a sanitary napkin machine that costs just Rs 65,000. The machine can produce 1000 pieces of napkins in just eight hours.
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Source: The Hindu,
Posted: Mar 13, 2010)
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| Gorakhpur’s women of soil |
Farmer Prabhawati Devi, 40, rubs shoulders with landowners in the village haat as she selects seeds, pesticides and fertilizers for her crops and decides where the yield should be sold.
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Source: The Hindu,
Posted: Mar 10, 2010)
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| Business On Pedals |
After Gaya and Bodh Gaya, Irfan Alam, an MBA from Pondicherry, has decided to introduce Samman pre-paid rickshaw services in Patna next month.
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Source: TimesOfIndia,
Posted: Mar 3, 2010)
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| Gandhian Engineering |
Do you need to sacrifice quality or features to produce an inexpensive product? Should only the world's richest people be able to afford the newest technologies? Is developing technology only about making a profit? The answer to such questions is a resounding no, according a fairly new concept called Gandhian engineering. Embracing Mahatma Gandhi's ideal of "doing more, for less, for more," the growing movement aims to democratize technology by developing ultra-low-cost products for the world's poorest citizens while still creating a profit for companies.
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Posted: Feb 25, 2010)
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| From Drug Addicts to Healers |
Members of Punorjibon, an organisation dedicated to make a drug free society, conduct awareness campaign against drug abuse and have set up a service centre for addicts in Bangladesh.
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Source: The Daily Star,
Posted: Feb 24, 2010)
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| The Zero Rupee Note |
A zero-sum game is one in which the gains of one player are exactly balanced by the losses of another. In India a local NGO has invented a new sort of zero sum which, it hopes, will leave everyone better off: the zero-rupee note. The note is not legal tender. It is simply a piece of paper the colour of a 50-rupee note with a picture of Gandhi on it and a value of nothing. Its aim is to shame corrupt officials into not demanding bribes. And it's working!
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Posted: Feb 16, 2010)
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| From a Calcutta Brothel to a New York University |
Born into a brothel in the Indian city of Calcutta, Avijit Halder's life has undergone a dramatic transformation.
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Source: BBC,
Posted: Feb 10, 2010)
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| Turning Plastic Waste into Roads |
A week long anti-polythene campaign has yielded enough plastic to tar a stretch of 138 kilometers in Himachal Pradesh, India.
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Source: OneWorld,
Posted: Feb 3, 2010)
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| Putting the Best Foot Forward |
Mr.Ramakrishnan was diagnosed cerebral paisy at the age of six months. He taught himself to paint using his two good toes.
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Source: indiabuild.net,
Posted: Jan 27, 2010)
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| Proud Mothers of Sri Lanka |
Five years after it was devastated by the tsunami, the fishing village of Mahaskaduwa in Kalutara district of Sri Lanka is back on its feet.
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Source: InfoChange India,
Posted: Jan 20, 2010)
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| BookBole - Solutions for the Visually Impaired |
We read, we learn, we understand. Sites like the one you are currently reading, along with countless other blogs, books, newspapers make up our reading spectrum. Make us aware, make us improve.
But what if we were to be visually impaired? How would we fare with a total lack of reading material? Did you know that [...]
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Source: BetterIndia,
Posted: Jan 12, 2010)
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| Profile: Ravi Gulati of Manzil |
Ravi Gulati left a corporate job and took to teaching children of drivers, barbers and maids near his home in New Delhi's Khan Market. Today, in his unusual classroom every student is a teacher and every teacher a student.
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Source: Rediff,
Posted: Jan 5, 2010)
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| Indian Heroines of 2009 |
A look at some every day heroines who have turned the societal tide against them.
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Source: OneWorld,
Posted: Dec 30, 2009)
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