Informal Sector

Featured Articles
October 17, 2022 While informal groundwater markets cater significantly to the needs of smallholder farmers in India, they continue to be unacknowledged and understudied.
Groundwater, a finite resource (Image Source: TV Manoj via Wikimedia Commons)
December 7, 2020 The new farm related bills will spell doom for women workers who form the bulk of small and marginal sections of Indian agriculture, warns Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch (MAKAAM).
Farm women, overworked and underpaid (Image Source: India Water Portal)
October 21, 2019 In this interview, Joy talks about his work as an activist working in rural Maharashtra, and how he came to work on water conflicts in India.
KJ Joy speaks at a felicitation for the late Professor Ramaswamy Iyer.
September 24, 2019 Policy matters this week
Despite the ban, manual scavenging continues. (Image courtesy: The Hindu)
September 13, 2019 Arecanut farmers in Karnataka are reeling from dipping groundwater levels and infrequent water supply for irrigation. In this article, some solutions are proposed.
Young arecanut trees grown in drylands of Tumkur region (Gubbi Taluk, Hodalur Village) Pic Credit: Chandana Eswar
Salt and sweet: When sun turned saline water potable
A Rajasthan village gets to drink sweetwater despite high salinity in its groundwater, thanks to a solar-powered desalination unit. Posted on 18 Oct, 2017 07:08 PM

Solawata, a small village in Jaipur district is barely 10 kilometers away from Sambhar, India's largest saline lake which is a major centre of salt production that produces about two lakh tonnes of salt a year. On our way to the village from Sambhar, we see caravans packed with bright coloured camel saddles parked on the road.

Villagers operate the solar-powered reverse osmosis desalination plant that provides safe drinking water to the community at Solawata.
What happens to your e-waste?
Though informal e-waste handling, segregation and import are prohibited by the law, e-waste business is thriving in the country. Posted on 05 Aug, 2017 05:44 PM

Take a walk through the maze of lanes at Seelampur in north-east Delhi, you could see small children rummaging through electronic waste that has made its way here from all over north India. They segregate end-of-life electrical and electronic products, prise them apart, put them through acid wash and also burn circuit boards in the hope of extracting precious metals.

Boys sort discarded computer parts as sparks fly from a grinding machine.  (Image: Greenpeace, Flickr Commons; CC BY-ND 2.0)
Power at play in water business
While informal water market plays an important role in meeting the water needs of peri-urban Hyderabad, its power dynamics with the authorities determine its efficiency. Posted on 03 Jul, 2017 05:49 AM

The informal water market plays a crucial role in meeting the drinking and domestic water security of peri-urban communities. The increasing reliance on private informal water vendors in all our study villages speaks of their significance.

Sourcing water: When informal is the norm
Villages in peri-urban Hyderabad rely on various informal water sources for their daily needs. Posted on 05 Jun, 2017 11:02 AM

In the first hour of our field work in Malkaram--another village in peri-urban Hyderabad--for the project Ensuring Water Security in Metropolitan Hyderabad, one thing became very evident.

People depend on informal sources of water in peri-Urban Hyderabad. (Source: SaciWATERs)
The dirty picture
A hard-hitting documentary film ‘Kakkoos’ looks at the politics behind the banned practice of manual scavenging and how the civil society connives to keep it alive. Posted on 12 May, 2017 11:27 AM

Kakkoos, a compelling documentary film on manual scavenging in Tamil Nadu is all about showing the practice as it is without any filter.

Manual scavenging is a caste issue. (Image: Divya Bharathi, Facebook)
When streets get smart
While the states prepare to build their smart cities, we look at the feasibility of the government’s smart city mission. Posted on 17 Apr, 2017 05:13 AM

India's urbanisation continues unabated but most of its 53-million plus cities offer an appallingly low quality of life.

Smart city model at Trade Fair, New Delhi (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Ryots wronged, take protest to Delhi
As the TN farmers’ protest in Delhi enters its fourth week, all eyes are on the Centre which is not budging. Posted on 13 Apr, 2017 05:51 AM

A woman stands with a begging bowl and a placard strung around her neck. An old man shuffles along barefoot in the street at Jantar Mantar, the official site of a farmers’ protest in the heart of New Delhi. He finds his way through a group of farmers gathered at the protest site on a hot summer afternoon.

Tamil Nadu farmers protest for drought relief in Delhi.
Budget beyond gender
Women are not considered farmers despite their active participation in farming in rural India. A gender responsive budget and its implementation are essential to support and empower women farmers. Posted on 08 Apr, 2017 08:00 PM

Sneh Bhati, a 52-year-old farmer from Madanpur Khadar in Delhi’s fringes finds the change in the landscape of her 100-year-old village in the last two decades remarkable. Yet it has not taken away the rural charm.

It's her field too: Policies and budgets for women are a good beginning towards gender parity in agriculture.
Election update: Its hills vs plains in Manipur
The land of gems will have a new government soon. We look at what leading political parties have to say about issues related to natural resources. Posted on 04 Mar, 2017 05:33 PM

The key issue in the Manipur Assembly election is the ongoing economic blockade in the state, which, in turn, is attributed to the present government’s decision to

A Manipuri family. (Source: Coffee Table Book, Government of Manipur)
The search for a shelter
The sorry state of urban slums are testimony to poorly implemented policies for the rehabilitation of migrants. Posted on 01 Feb, 2017 08:46 PM

In the last few decades, India has seen an increasing number of people migrating from rural areas to urban cities in search of work and better living. These migrants often get employed in the informal sector as construction workers, vendors, domestic servants, etc. They also live in informal settlements, generally known as slums.

Residents struggle for a pot of drinking water at Bhuri Tekri, Indore.
×