Times of India group has been getting serious about large-scale national level social change efforts. Their strategy has been to use the group’s media muscle to create buzz around these efforts to encourage public involvement and participation. Of course, the Lead India campaign has been their flagship effort so far. However, they just launched a [...]

Editor’s Note: This article is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of top accredited universities. She invites your questions and writing job opportunities at her personal email address. Very rarely do we come across people who are genuinely interested in serving those less fortunate than themselves; and once in a while [...]

In what appears to be a natural marriage, Intellecap (featured on TC-I numerous times here) has created a partnership between two of its programs. Intellecap, whose goal is to leverage innovative business solutions for low-income markets, held last week the third annual Srijan (Sanskrit for creativity) Business Plan Competition. Recognizing that many of these ventures [...]

Made famous by the epynomous report on climate change, Sir Nicholas Stern spoke recently on the need to reframe the climate change debate through the lens of development. He said that the two were tied at the hip. Here is the video. [vodpod id=ExternalVideo.619024&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26] more about “Stern words for climate change and de…“, posted with [...]

Your daily dose of information: Energy and Environment: PM Manmohan Singh unveiled the country’s new Climate Action Plan, which will focus a large portion of its efforts on solar power. The plan also emphasized that these efforts are domestic in nature and that India is still firm on its stance against current international agreements. Health: [...]

This website is intended for both organizations and individuals. You do not have to be some non-profit or NGO to benefit from the site. Let’s say that I have the desire to teach English on my weekends to local teenagers. I can post it on Earnkarma to see if anyone else in my area wants to join, and coordinate with them from that post. In this way the site could help create new organizations locally.

The composition of the microfinance sector is becoming increasingly hybridized, as microfinance institutions (MFIs) morph into profit-making entities, and global financial institutions such as Citigroup, Inc. or HSBC Holdings become (unintended) vectors of poverty alleviation (refer to “Global Financial Institutions and Microfinance: A Promising Marriage?” for further context). The equation isn’t anything new (in fact, [...]

Story source: Livemint “Abhihlasha,” a pilot project being run in the Uttam Nagar area of Delhi is putting the mobile phone banking story in action. The initiative is a collaboration between Eko India and Centurion Bank of Punjab (now taken over by HDFC). The modus operandi of the system has been designed simple. The mobile [...]

Earlier this month, I attended the inaugural ceremony of the “Nandini Mobile Van” at the Safai Vidyalaya (Environmental Sanitation Institute (ESI)), Sughad, an organization which is considered a pioneer in the sanitation sector, largely due to the principled and passionate leadership of its founder, Ishwarbhai Patel (affectionately referred to as “Ishwarkaka”). Before I elaborate further [...]

A few months ago, I discussed the idea of social intrapreneurs based on a SustainAbility case study that featured Hindustan Unilever’s Project Shakti. This month, the World Bank Institute’s publication titled Development Outreach focuses on business and poverty, with an article written by those involved with the same project. The authors describe the project not [...]