NASHIK: In a first, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday launched a pilot project that seeks to provide 12-hour power supply to 600 farmers in Ralegan Siddhi through 2MW Solar Agriculture F

New Delhi: Assuming charge as the water resources minister, Pawan Kumar Bansal said on Wednesday that the finalization of the national water policy by March 2012 would be his first priority. “We are very keen to meet the March 2012 deadline. My predecessor Salman b h a idid a very good job. I hope to take it forward...

PUNE: Activist Anna Hazare catapulted into national stardom following his relentless pursuit of the Lokpal Bill, but the unassuming dhoti-clad social worker has been a star in his state, and village, for a long time now.

Fifty-year-old Maruti Auti recalls the days when villagers in Ahmednagar's Ralegan Siddhi, 80 km from Pune, lived in abject poverty over three decades ago.

Anna Hazare's long career betrays a naivete that makes him easy to manipulate. Rana Ayyub profiles the man who started the storm

Sunita Narain profiles the man who never took half steps to development and transformed a drought-hit village into a prosperous one back in the 1980s Anna Hazare The first time I met Anna Hazare was in the mid-1980s. My colleague Anil Agarwal was travelling in search of answers to how India could regenerate lands and address desperate poverty.

Poverty remains to be the most important development issue facing India with an estimated 301.72 million Indians (27.5 percent) living below the poverty line in 2004-2005. In 1975, Ralegan Siddhi was just another drought prone, poverty stricken village, but it has had much success in poverty reduction since then.

For the rural poor – who depend above all the land for their survival – a central development challenge is to sustain a base of natural capital that can support a robust local economy. In India, government mismanagement of forests, grazing lands, and water resources has often alienated rural people and exacerbated resource degradation.

This paper presents four case studies from India in which rainwater harvesting has lead to both ecorestoration and poverty alleviation.

Report of a CSE media task force to Ralegan Siddhi.