The Ashden Awards is a UK-based charity that works to increase the use of local sustainable energy worldwide. They find, reward and publicise the work of leading sustainable energy programmes working across the developing world and in the UK. They just announced the finalists for the 2008 Global Green Awards. Among an impressive list of [...]

We reported here on TC-I couple of months back about India’s first sex-workers bank being set up in Mumbai. A group of sex workers in Mysore have gone a step-further and emerged as successful entrepreneurs. Organized under an organization called Ashodaya Samithi, the group of 150 female, male and transgender sex workers have set up [...]

While the government of India wrestles with its official stance on homosexuality, the gay-lesbian scene in Bangalore is flourishing. Just last week, The Delhi high court directed the Union government to figure out its stance on homosexuality; the ministry of home affairs favours prosecution (homosexuality is punishable under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code), [...]

Here is a video from TED.com featuring Paul Collier and his approach to addressing the bottom billion. [vodpod id=ExternalVideo.583168&w=425&h=350&fv=bgColor%3DFFFFFF%26file%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fstatic.videoegg.com%2Fted%2Fmovies%2FPaulCollier_2008_high.flv%26autoPlay%3Dfalse%26fullscreenURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fstatic.videoegg.com%2Fted%2Fflash%2Ffullscreen.html%26forcePlay%3Dfalse%26logo%3D%26allowFullscreen%3Dtrue] more about “Paul Collier: 4 ways to improve the l…“, posted with vodpod  

Self Help Groups, or SHGs as they are better known, have come to be accepted in India as a potent means of empowering people who are suck on the wrong side of the poverty line – with special emphasis on rural women. SHGs, typically, consist of a group of 15-20 people who come together with [...]

I was a little shocked when I heard that the Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF), Government of India launched a eco-labelling scheme called ‘Ecomark’ in 1991: To increase consumer awareness, the Government of India launched the eco-labelling scheme known as `Ecomark’ in 1991 for easy identification of environment-friendly products. Any product which is made, [...]

Top posts: Prerna’s op-ed on income generation for women Shital’s post on a promising model for ecotourism Vinay’s feature of the pot-in-pot Reaching into the archives: A few months ago, Santhosh featured SELCO, a company focusing on renewable energy that is trying to scale up, and its founder Harish Hande, who has continued to receive [...]

Our weekly review of opportunities. Please send along any other opportunities to Fellowships UnLtd India, an organization that exists to find, fund and support early stage social entrepreneurs to enable them to develop as leaders, start up sustainable, high-impact initiatives, and prepare their fledgling organizations for further investment, currently looking for exceptional individuals in [...]

Education’s Woes and Pros: A new study conducted by UNESCO reveals that less than 30% of schools have access to electricity and only half of them have toilets for girls. In order to address such woeful capacity, the Rajasthan’s state government has signed a public private partnership with UNICEF to expand education across the state [...]

Using some of the more basic principles of physics, a grassroots inventor in Nigeria named Mohammed Bah Abba developed a way to refrigerate items simply by using two different sized clay pots. Malapati Sekhar on the Rural Development of India blog explains how this invention, called the Zeer, works: The pot-in-pot consists of two earthenware [...]