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Sustainable Lifestyle

Local entrepreneurship : Seeds of hope in the times of corporate chaos

India, as most other countries, needs communities that are significantly more resilient, with less dependence on externally sourced products and services for basic needs fulfillment.  It is imperative, therefore, that transformation towards a truly sustainable society be driven through business models with distributed epicenters of local value creation. These models …

Hamara Gaon

Most of the rural communities in low-income countries are isolated from the mainstream national economy and suffer numerous deprivations that impact the quality of life of their inhabitants. Poor infrastructure, degraded local natural resources and inadequate linkage to markets combine to create a poverty trap which village economies usually find …

TARAgram Yatra – the journey

Yatra – Our vision The dictionary defines yatra as a journey or pilgrimage. At Development Alternatives (DA), yatra more specifically pertains to a journey of knowledge and learning to attain higher goals. TARAgram Yatra (TGY) is an annual event led by the DA Group designed to deliberate on issues of development with the mission of …

Solutions for new urbanism in India: Smarter, Sustainable and Humane Cities

In a discussion that was centred around the much talked about topic of ‘smart cities’ in India at present; Professor Amitabh Kundu raised an important question- why the current plan for smart cities is focussing only on 100 ‘smart cities’ and why can’t 1000 ‘smart cities’ be envisioned in this …

2015 promises to be a Watershed year

There is growing evidence that the current levels of social inequity, environmental destruction and economic profligacy cannot last much longer; without massive political, ecological and economic disruption. On many fronts – the impending revolutions in the global economy, the transformations in geopolitical relationships, the generation of breakthroughs in science and …

Laying the Path for Sustainable Development in 2015

2015 has been in the news, since the past three years now.  Ever since the UN conference on Sustainable Development, commemorating twenty years of the Rio declaration; the preparations for 2015 have been afoot. Globally, nation states, member countries, “major groups” representing key stakeholders with varied interests, experts from various …