This article is part of our Rural Reset series, where we evaluate forward-looking, long-term solutions to the issues and challenges facing the people of rural India. Check out our LinkedIn page every Wednesday to find proposals for innovative solutions in the areas of education, gender and livelihoods. The informal sector of employment has been the most impacted by the unprecedented lockdown of 2020. Azim Premji University and partner civil society organizations conducted surveys amongst nearly 5000 self-employed, casual and regular wage workers in 12 states of the country between 13th April and 23rd May and this study revealed that the lockdown had caused a massive spike in unemployment with two-thirds…

This article is part of our Rural Reset series, where we evaluate forward-looking, long-term solutions to the issues and challenges facing the people of rural India. Check out our LinkedIn page every Wednesday to find proposals for innovative solutions in the areas of education, gender and livelihoods. In 2020, the government released information that the agrarian sector is expected to grow 3-4% in the upcoming year. This is 60% more growth than the non-agrarian sectors in the country. The government attributes this growth to a good monsoon which increases the availability of water resources in the rural areas. However, there is an alternate discourse to consider. The managing director of…

This article is part of our Rural Reset series, where we evaluate forward-looking, long-term solutions to the issues and challenges facing the people of rural India. Check out our LinkedIn page every Wednesday to find proposals for innovative solutions in the areas of education, gender and livelihoods. At the start of the nationwide lockdown back in March, India saw the reversal of a multi-year trend of jobs and workers moving to cities in search of opportunity. Seemingly overnight, jobs and wages in urban areas dried up completely. And what followed was millions of migrant workers who onced crossed state lines and moved many miles from their native villages making that…

Imagine an algorithm that detects the presence of the COVID-19 virus through a lung scan? If this technology was readily available all over the world, then the way we dealt with this pandemic would have looked dramatically different. The good news is, this is a possibility in the near future as technology and artificial intelligence penetrate the healthcare world. Medical images account for at least 90% of all medical data today. They are by far the largest and fastest-growing data source in the healthcare industry and this voluminous amount of data poses equally large challenges for diagnosis. Having to deal with these data adds a tremendous amount of stress to medical…

After weeks of working from home with internet support from our end, we finally opened our offices again with maximum caution and protection. Impact beyond Employment As an impact-driven social enterprise, the health and wellbeing of the community we work in is very close to our heart. In the past year, we have impacted close to 3500 people with free healthcare services. With COVID-19, we have doubled down on our efforts to ensure the the safety and health of all community members with several initiatives. Our employees volunteered to distribute masks for members in the community to help reduce the spread of COVID-19. To support frontline workers in the community,…

This article is part of our Rural Reset series, where we evaluate forward-looking, long-term solutions to the issues and challenges facing the people of rural India. Check out our LinkedIn page every Wednesday to find proposals for innovative solutions in the areas of education, gender and livelihoods. Every day it seems we spend more and more of our lives in front of a screen. While technology already played a large role in our daily lives pre-COVID, the pandemic has accelerated the entry of technology into many sectors, and education in particular. Practically overnight, digital technologies moved from a supplementary classroom aid to the forum through which the entirety of instruction…

This article is part of our Rural Reset series, where we evaluate forward-looking, long-term solutions to the issues and challenges facing the people of rural India. Check out our LinkedIn page every Wednesday to find proposals for innovative solutions in the areas of education, gender and livelihoods. Periods are not a new phenomenon. They are a regular part of most women’s adolescence and adulthood. But for millions of rural women, the onset of menstruation is associated with a significant decrease in quality of life. Lack of access to menstrual hygiene is the fifth biggest killer of women in the world each year. And for those who continue to live with…

Impact organisations across the country are working towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030. Samvāda: Dialogue for Impact is an initiative by IndiVillage to facilitate dialogue, ideation, networking, and collaboration between impact organisations. The first Samvāda session was initiated in August 2019 and included participants from recognised organisations such as Ashoka Changemakers, Amani Institute as well a presentation from our own CEO Smita Malipatil. The sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the need for dialogue and learning between impact organisations as a way to cope with the increasing challenges. To support this need, Samvāda: Dialogue for Impact has decided to focus on ‘Problems and Solutions During the…

This article is part of our Rural Reset Series, where we evaluate forward-looking, long-term solutions to the issues and challenges facing the people of rural India. Check out our LinkedIn page every Wednesday to find proposals for innovative solutions in the areas of education, gender and livelihoods.  For the nearly half million Indians who were employed at the start of the pandemic, work looks a little different than it did a few months ago. An estimated 122 million Indians lost their jobs at the start of the national lockdown in April, primarily small traders and wage laborers. The images of the millions of migrant workers forced to endure starvation, dehydration…