Sumi Hunni Purti, 62, was an independent old woman from the village of Patrade in the state of Jharkhand. The last surviving member of her family, Sumi had been proudly sustaining herself with the Rs. 200 old-age pension that she was entitled to under the National Old Age Pension Scheme....
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan claims to have constructed around 80 lakhs toilets around the countryside across India yet our Community correspondent Usha reports a completely different picture of what is happening in the Batauwan village of Uttar Pradesh. Lack of toilets in the village is forcing these women to not relieve...
Handwara was an irrelevant small town in Kupwara district of Kashmir until April 12th, 2016. A 16-year old schoolgirl had alleged that an Indian Army jawan had attempted to sexually molest her in a public toilet. The incidents shook the Kashmiri youth, and the rest of India into action, crying...
The residents of Dumnabad village of Jharkhand were a confused lot when they received a monthly electricity bill, for they had had no electricity in their village for a few months. The newly installed 10-Kv transformer, under the centre’s rural electrification scheme Deendayal Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY),...
A remote tribal village of Chhattisgarh has never seen electricity. While government schemes such as Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY), worth $11 billion, have visions to provide continuous power supply to rural India, the Parevachapa village in Pandaria district of Chattisgarh, a village established 16 years ago, is...
“Our toilets are so dirty, we need to relieve ourselves in the open,” said Anshika, a bright, young student of Kanwari Mustakam elementary school of Basti district, in Uttar Pradesh. Just like Anshika, more than 100 other students of this school, both boys and girls, had to relieve themselves in...
Twenty-two years ago, in 1994, Jugla Vasave was ousted from his home and farm in Chimalkhadi village in Nandurbar district of Maharashtra, when the Sardar Sarovar Dam was built along the Narmada river. He, along with many others, was promised to be rehabilitated with an arable land by the state...
The provision of teachers is essential for all children, including those from rural India, to ensure that all have access to quality education. To ensure the same, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 has set a pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) of 30:1. However, teaching in...
