A Magical Fable About Global Warming

A documentary fable by Mumbai filmmaker Nitin Das was handpicked to be a part of the UN Environment Programme’s “Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign.” Over two billion trees have been planted around the world under the campaign, and all sectors are encouraged to engage in voluntary action to address the issue of climate [...]

TC-I Tidbits

Here is the daily dose of headlines:

Water supply: In Chennai, city officials have made it mandatory that buildings connected to the main water supply install meters to measure consumption.
Government transparency: The Central Information Commission (CIC) will now require political parties to make their income tax returns available to the public. Sending the exact opposite message, [...]

Jagriti Yatra

The online registration for Jagriti Yatra, an annual train journey to awaken the entrpreneurial spirt of youth ages 18-25, is now available. The program takes about 400 selected Indian youth around the country on a sixteen day trip to introduce them to entrepreneurs and ideas. The program will take place from December 24, 2008 to [...]

Evening News Feed

Clearly Reservations in India is making big news after the landmark Supreme Court Judgement on reservations. Atanu Dey has a great (but long) analysis of reservations in the Indian Education System (Part 1 of a multi-part series). If you want to learn more, I also recommend this for a detailed history of affirmative-action in India

Doug [...]

Soap Operas and Social Change: UNICEF gets it

There has been considerable discussion with regard to the role of Cable television in influencing womens’s status in India. Not long ago a couple of economists from the NBER used panel data in India and found that introduction of Cable TV increases autonomy among women, reduced incidence of domestic violence, increased female school enrollment and [...]

Midday Newsfeed

Some titillating headlines:
Microfinance:

Whole Planet Foundation (WPF), a Whole Foods Market nonprofit that “empowers individuals in the global community through entrepreneurship” recently announced the creation of the Whole Planet Foundation Supplier Alliance for Microcredit (WPFSAM), a coalition of natural foods companies that aims to support the financial endeavours of WPF. The WPFSAM Alliance has pledged [...]

Films for World Peace: Pangea Day

Can films promote peace?
2006 TED Prize winner, filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, certainly believes they can. And so, on May 10, 2008, known as “Pangea Day,” several cities across the world - Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro - “will be linked via satellite for a live program of powerful films, [...]

MP Experiments with Accountability to the Public

Do you have a grievance or complaint against the state government, but don’t think anything will ever be done about it?
Well, if you live in Madhya Pradesh, your voice might actually be heard. In an unprecedented move, the government of MP is going to establish an “integrated citizen facilitation service centre for better public [...]

SocialSync: Creating a web presence for Indian non-profits

SocialSync is a exciting new Indian social sector start-up. I pulled out the below presentation from their homepage. Turns out there are 500,000+ NGOs in India and many of them lack a real web-presence. At the same time, there are 40 million web users and 10 million on Orkut alone! So, SocialSync has created a [...]

Mumbai in 2100: Underwater

A new Greenpeace report states that by 2100, the main thoroughfares and heartbeat of India’s Gateway will be underwater, due to global warming. The Greenpeace report predicts that
a potential increase in temperatures by 4 to 5 degrees due to greenhouse emissions at the current rate would mean a corresponding rise in sea levels of [...]

Evening Edition

Some headlines to start your evening off right:

The government of Himachal Pradesh announced at a three-day international conference this weekend that they are drafting a master plan for the development of backpack tourism in the state through strategic public private partnerships (PPPs).  The government ensured that the plan will “optimise the use of natural resources [...]

AIDS Awareness Through Film

Media is a powerful tool for raising awareness about important social issues. AIDS JaaGO is a series of short films that highlights “the human dimension of the disease” in India. The films cover the topics like migration and prejudices as they relate to AIDS. By employing high-profile stars with well-known directors like Mira Nair, the [...]

South Asia Region Development Marketplace Finalists Announced

The South Asia Region Development Marketplace recently accounced 75 finalists (out of a total of approximately 1000) for their HIV/AIDS themed competition for this year.  What exactly is the South Asia Development Marketplace, and what purpose does it serve?  Here is a brief description from their website:

The Development Marketplace (DM) is a competitive grant program that identifies [...]

How Effective is the Right to Information (RTI) Act?

The Center for Media Studies recently published a Transparency Review through its Journal of Transparency Studies, which gauges the overall impact of the Indian Right to Information Act (RTI). The review is critical in its assessment of the effectiveness and extent of impact of the RTI Act. A summary of the concerns [...]

Condoms and Kabbadi

Building off of the momentum from a first campaign that reached 18 million men in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, a new effort — funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — will use the game of kabbadi as its medium:
The campaign’s TV advert shows a kabaddi match in which [...]