The challenges of creating functional and reliable distribution networks to (and from) India’s rural base-of-pyramid are well documented. Although some methods have shown varying degrees of success, the costs of creating new networks for consumer products go well beyond the capacity of many social entrepreneurs. Have we been looking at it from the wrong angle? [...]

ITC, famous among the rural folks in India for its e-choupal initiative has paired up with Monster India, a known job portal to launch rozgarduniya.com to help the rural youth to find job opportunities. The portal is available in both Hindi and English. As reported by Livemint, Every application will be routed through an e-Choupal [...]

You may like or you may hate it. But if you are a resident of India, you can’t ignore the inevitable auto rickshaws. If you ever wonder how it would be to ride auto rickshaws, better still race on it, now  you can test it out at the Rickshaw Challenge‘s Mumbai Xpress. The third edition [...]

This op-ed was submitted by Suresh Pramar, and is a user post. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of TC-I, but we feel that it is important to cultivate opinions from all sides. India like the rest of the world has not escaped the impacts of the current downturn. The sudden rush in [...]

Editor’s Note: Guest blogger Lindsay Clinton is an Associate Vice President at Intellecap, where she is the Managing Editor of Beyond Profit and Microfinance Insights. Prior to joining Intellecap, she worked as the Marketing and Communications Director at The White House Project, a women’s leadership organization based in New York City. Lindsay writes a semi-regular [...]

The Global Social Venture Competition, a MBA social venture competition that partners several different universities around the world, wrapped up this past weekend at UC Berkeley Haas Business School.   The GSVC is one of the most competitive gatherings in the social enterprise world, bringing together business plans that look at both profit and social impact.  [...]

Doodh Bhandar (DB), a plan focused on revolutionizing milk production in rural India, has reached the finals of the Harvard Business School (HBS) Business Plan Contest in the Social Enterprise track. Cattle are one of the most important assets for rural families in India and an improvement in their productivity will have a significant socio-economic [...]

We alerted our readers about Sankalp, and the event is now around the corner!  Check back with ThinkChange India as we bring you updates and guest posts straight from the forum.  Adrienne Villani and Sujatha Mutthaya from Intellecap provide more background: More than 300 social entrepreneurs, a plethora of international and regional investors, funding agencies, [...]

The organization Chirag is offering a one-year fellowship to work in a rural area of India. Called Swades Ki Khoj, it begins on July 1st and applications are due on until May 15th. The program’s flyer is after the jump. Click on it to link to their site for more information.

India is represented strong in the list of participants from the 2009 Global Social Benefit Incubator, which is a program led by SocialEdge and Santa Clara University that “assists social benefit entrepreneurs in developing business plans that enable their organizations to reach increasing numbers of beneficiaries.”  The following individuals, and their associated organizations, will be [...]