IDR18 Sept 2026
What does development mean for a place like Lakshadweep? On paper, the islands do considerably better than most of India on development parameters such as literacy and women’s land rights. It is also largely a middle-class society. But this picture sits alongside a set of ecological and economic shifts that are reshaping how people live. Since the 1960s, the primary source of livelihood for the islands has been pole-and-line fishing for tuna, a practice that is low-volume and inherently su
IDR18 Sept 2026
https://youtu.be/QEwmd4nLGJc?si=Tt912sSsse-5zzDM Almaas Masood and Swati Thapa are independent journalists reporting from India's coastlines and hill states on labour, gender, migration, and the environment. Their work comes with a cost that rarely gets talked about, one that most newsrooms in India aren’t set up for: financial precarity, field risk, online harassment, and little to no institutional support. Watch this video where they talk about the toll that reporting takes on their mental hea
IDR17 Sept 2026
If there is one thing we have learned from our several decades of experience in the social sector, it is that complex problems require different actors to come together. Attempting to solve problems in isolation, no matter how well intended, rarely works. This article seeks to unpack our experience and learnings so they can be shared with others who are also committed to the path of long-term social change in India. Community as the pathway to scale For civil society organisations (CSOs) like ou
IDR17 Sept 2026
We, the people behind Zerodha, have been actively investing not just in start-ups but also in social enterprises and nonprofits that create a positive impact in society. We use the word ‘invest’ and not ‘donate’ because we firmly believe that funding nonprofit social enterprises and endeavours is an investment in the future. They are as important to us as our for-profit start-up investments. For instance, with the Rainmatter Foundation, we have committed significant philanthropic capital t
IDR16 Sept 2026
The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 (MHCA), which came into force in 2018, marked a significant shift in India's approach to mental healthcare. The MHCA seeks to protect the rights of persons with mental illness by recognising their autonomy, legal capacity, and right to access mental healthcare and treatment without discrimination. The importance of this legislation can be understood amidst the long history of abuse, stigma, discrimination, and coercion experienced by people with mental healt
IDR14 Sept 2026
Professional journeys in the social sector begin with a laundry list of WhatsApp group invitations. Here’s what that looks like, from the perspective of someone who routinely wakes up to 25+ group notifications every morning. While access to a majority of these groups is granted instantly, there is always one unofficial group without the project head where you must earn inclusion by demonstrating the ability to crack cryptic e-mails, provide emotional support, and share unofficial updates.
IDR11 Sept 2026
In January 2026, the forest department began felling dhupi (Cryptomeria japonica) across the rain shadow ridges of Gupti and Mungrang in the Sadam Hills of Namchi District, southern Sikkim, along with chir pine and juniper. Officials of the Namchi Territorial Division are removing dhupi from several reserved forests in the region. According to the department, the objective is to conserve natural
IDR11 Sept 2026
https://youtu.be/TAjrwzNZywc?si=u_mZb3Cw4C6qOt0D I have been harvesting mahua flowers in Dhipa Toli, Jharkhand, for the past 50 years. Our mahua trees are older than some of the residents in our small village, and have been passed down within families over generations. Traditionally, we have collected mahua through controlled burning of fallen leaves. This would separate them from the flowers, making it easier to pick the flowers. However, as the trees age, we are worried about the decline in th
IDR10 Sept 2026
Martin Macwan is a human rights activist from Gujarat, India, and the founder of Navsarjan Trust, Dalit Shakti Kendra, and Dalit Foundation. The recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2000, Martin has spent decades challenging untouchability by mobilising marginalised communities and organising campaigns across the country. His mentorship and grassroots activism have inspired generations of young leaders from India’s marginalised communities. In this interview wi
IDR10 Sept 2026
For two nonprofits working at very different ends of the climate change spectrum, AI has changed what they can credibly offer the people they serve. SEEDS India, which works on building the resilience of people exposed to disasters and climate change impacts, and Farmers for Forests (F4F), which works in agroforestry, arrived at their respective AI solutions from different starting points and in pursuit of different aims. But both have seen a shift in the basic value proposition of their work: f
IDR10 Sept 2026
Martin Macwan is a human rights activist from Gujarat, India, and the founder of Navsarjan Trust, Dalit Shakti Kendra, and Dalit Foundation. The recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2000, Martin has spent decades challenging untouchability by mobilising marginalised communities and organising campaigns across the country. His mentorship and grassroots activism have inspired generations of young leaders from India’s marginalised communities. In this interview wi
IDR9 Sept 2026
In 2023, SNRas Systems, a social enterprise, came to Villgro, a support organisation for social enterprises, with a problem that had nothing to do with their business model. They had 19 patents in aquaculture technology, contracts with retail chains, and a clear path to scale. What they lacked was INR 50 lakh in working capital to expand to new markets. Every bank they approached said the same thing: insufficient collateral. This is a familiar scenario for anyone working with impactful early-sta
IDR8 Sept 2026
“I understand my village,” a woman sarpanch in Sehore district told us. “But whenever the discussion turns to budgets, rules, or government procedures, I have to depend on the [village] secretary.” Her statement captures one of the central dilemmas of the panchayati raj today. The sarpanch was not inexperienced. She was the only woman in her community to have studied up to Class XII. For more than a decade, she had managed the mid-day meal programme through her self-help group (SHG). She had str
IDR7 Sept 2026
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IDR4 Sept 2026
Health researchers argue that factors such as where we are, who we are with, and how we feel play a crucial role in our experience of pain, which therefore has a direct impact on our well-being. While clinical medicine often ignores these factors, palliative care recognises that pain perception is directly connected to the psychological and social conditions of a person. As a specialised care model, it brings together doctors, psychologists, nurses, physiotherapists, allied health professionals,
India Forum4 Sept 2026
Education in an unequal society, Citizens, suspects, and the portable border, Who belongs or not to the SC and ST, and more
IDR3 Sept 2026
Artificial intelligence is beginning to move from pilot projects and chatbots into the everyday machinery of urban governance. Chandigarh Municipal Corporation’s 2026–27 budget reflects this shift. Of its total ₹1,712 crore budget, ₹12 crore has for the first time been allocated for a package of information-technology upgrades, including AI-based systems, digital file tracking and online billing and payment systems. The city has also previously introduced BIRBAL, an AI-enabled chatbot that helps
IDR3 Sept 2026
Fundraising is often spoken about as a specialised function, as a job that’s done by the founder, CEO, or a dedicated fundraising team. It is considered a ‘gated’ space associated with high stakes, long-term relationships, difficult conversations, and high rates of rejection. Donors, too, often expect to meet the most senior person in the room, making fundraising feel like a responsibility that only a select few can hold. Yet fundraising is about much more than simply raising resources. It is ab
IDR2 Sept 2026
Across Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj (Allahabad) district, there are eight food packaging and processing plants responsible for meeting the nutritional needs of pregnant women, lactating mothers, and young children. These plants are part of the Take Home Ration (THR) programme, which is an extension of the Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS) (subsumed under Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 in 2021). Launched in 1975, the ICDS has since evolved into one of the largest community-
IDR1 Sept 2026
Women's leadership in India's development sector presents a paradox. There's plenty of scaffolding—mentoring circles, workshops, leadership academies, networking dinners—built with genuine intention and care. Women climb it. They lean in, network, build credentials, and do the quiet work of becoming legible to power. And yet numbers and conversations are not as promising as they should be. According to a study published in 2025, women hold 67 percent of leadership in small social sector organisa
IDR31 Aug 2026
It started, as these things do, at midnight on LinkedIn—the app that has quietly replaced Instagram as your doomscroll of choice. This is a well-documented condition among the unemployed and the underemployed: an obsessive, Pavlovian attraction to anything resembling a job, especially a good one. The moment you see the words ‘research associate’ or ‘MEL’ or ‘project management’, your thumb stops scrolling on its own before the rest of you has caught up. Then you begin to read it—the post that ca
IDR28 Aug 2026
On the morning of July 19, at around 6 am, a landslide hit Mon town in Nagaland. According to reports from the end of July, 11 people lost their lives, and the calamity impacted over 28,000 families across 280 villages and wards, damaging 1,746 houses and destroying 1,593 acres of cultivated land. Mon was among several districts affected by persistent monsoon rains, flash floods, mudslides, cloudburst and landslides across Nagaland, including Mokokchung, Longleng, Meluri, and Noklak.
IDR27 Aug 2026
Nearly 50 years after the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1978, primary healthcare remains one of the core tenets of global health. Governments endorse it; international organisations advocate for it; and researchers routinely point to it as the foundation of equitable health systems. Despite this broad consensus, surprisingly little agreement exists about what primary healthcare constitutes in practice. For some, it refers to a package of services delivered through clinics and health centres clos
IDR26 Aug 2026
India’s economy is sustained by a vast, informal migrant workforce that circulates between villages and expanding urban and industrial clusters. This migrant workforce contributes to 10% of India’s GDP, working in the construction sector, manufacturing industries, domestic work, the hospitality sector, and street vending. Their numbers range between a 2018 estimate of 63 million ‘vulnerable circular migrant workers’ in urban areas, to a 2020 estimate of 250 million circular migrant workers, not
IDR25 Aug 2026
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP Act) governs how organisations in India collect, store, and use personal data. In November 2025, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology government notified the act and the DPDP Rules, and organisations have until May 2027 to become compliant. The act applies to any entity that collects personal data, which includes nonprofits. For a sector that has long relied on field staff, offline forms, and informal channels such as WhatsApp to c
IDR25 Aug 2026
When it comes to technology for advancements in health, India has often displayed ambition and expertise. Over the last few years, a variety of health-tech solutions have been piloted, including a portable DNA testing device that identifies infections and drug resistance, an AI assistant in delivery rooms, and algorithm-based detection of tuberculosis in chest X-rays. These are more than ideas developed in urban innovation hubs; they have been deployed or adopted in real world settings. De
IDR24 Aug 2026
Feature picture courtesy: Shagil Kannur via Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY
IDR21 Aug 2026
https://youtu.be/oc--hkMyeBI?si=motUDovr6UBWVYtB In Meghalaya’s Khweng village, the headman was once chosen by a voice vote at a village meeting. Whoever got the most voice votes and the loudest shouts was chosen. Women were neither part of this meeting nor did they have a say. Iohnam Syiem, secretary of the Village Employment Council, and Redian Syiem, former secretary of the women’s group Seng Kynthei, pushed the village council to change this. Watch this video where Iohnam, Redian, and
IDR20 Aug 2026
A Revathi is a writer, actor, and trans rights activist based in Tamil Nadu. She has worked with civil society organisations (CSOs) that serve sexual and gender minorities since the late 1990s She has authored and been the subject of books including Our Lives, Our Words (2006), The Truth About Me (2010), and A Life in Trans Activism (2016). She has written and performed Vellai Mozhi, her solo play based on her life, across several places in India and abroad, and now runs a theatre group called N
IDR19 Aug 2026
In April 2026, nearly 8,000 teachers across Jharkhand taught in classrooms while fasting in protest. The action was organised in response to reports that the School Education and Literacy Department had halted funding for 223 of the state’s 523 non-aided institutions for FY 2025–26. Teachers warned that the move would put the education of nearly four lakh students at risk and announced a statewide mahadharna in Ranchi. That same month, the government delayed the long-overdue Jharkhand Teac
IDR18 Aug 2026
Three years ago, Vinod Kumar Maurya (33) travelled village to village in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur on his two-wheeler to inform farmers about an upcoming carbon project in their region. Maurya’s tasklist was long, and so he packaged the information in simple terms: “Farmers who don’t burn their crop residue and plough it back to the soil instead, and who use minimal chemical fertilisers, will receive some subsidy.” Maurya did not have an answer to the follow-up questions of “when?” and “how much?”
IDR17 Aug 2026
1. Email chor These are the managers or leaders who simply forward the team’s hard work with a cheery line: “Happy to share that we successfully completed…” which translates to, “I didn’t do it, but I’m definitely sharing it. Because I can.” 2. Mic chor Their privilege gave them the vocabulary and confidence to take up space and raise their voice. At the slightest opportunity, they grab the mic and conveniently forget to pass it to the one whose idea they just stole and repackaged as their ‘deep
IDR13 Aug 2026
In 1983, I was in Golana village in Gujarat, where my colleagues and I were working with the local Dalit population. They had been alotted around 33 acres of land under the land reform legislation, but the dominant castes would not allow them to take possession of it. I was the secretary of the local cooperative and insisted that if the land was in their name, they should be able to go and occupy it. Two emissaries were sent to the panchayat office, and the original owners of that la
IDR12 Aug 2026
Every year, organisations working across themes in the social sector invest significant time and resources in conferences. They book auditoriums, invite keynote speakers, curate panel discussions, and design detailed agendas weeks in advance. These gatherings undoubtedly create opportunities for learning and networking. Yet many participants are barely allowed to contribute. The agenda, the speakers, and often even the questions have already been decided before they enter the room. There are con
IDR12 Aug 2026
When we think of death with dignity, its meaning can vary across cultures, socioeconomic circumstances, and even by the degree of illness or injury. However, what is certain is that almost everyone wishes to spend their last days at home, or somewhere that feels like home—with their loved ones, without pain, and at peace—as opposed to being alone in a busy hospital ICU, attached to machines, with no agency over what's happening. The concept of dignified dying was framed against this very