Category: The Swaniti Blog

Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY): Bridging the perception gap

SAGY is an initiative by the Central Government of India in which honourable Members of Parliament adopt a Gram Panchayat and develop it into a model village or “Adarsh Gram.” As a SPARC (Supporting Parliamentarians in Analysis and Research in Constituency) Associate to honourable Member of Parliament Mr. Anurag Thakur from the parliamentary constituency of […]

DISHA- Putting Development on the right track

Do you remember the character Mushaddi Lal portrayed by the critically acclaimed actor Pankaj Kapoor in the famous TV series ‘Office Office’? The series took a dig at how government officials work and how projects and grievances of citizens keep moving around from one department to another via files. Having gone through similar experiences at […]

Dabbling with Data : Healthcare in Rajasthan

[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”] [et_pb_row admin_label=”row”] [et_pb_column type=”4_4″] [et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] Dabbling with Data : Healthcare in Rajasthan Only in an alternate universe would one have thought of Indian governmental institutions as lean business enterprises underpinned by interoperable information systems and robust business processes. However, the times are changing. The inexorable march of data and technology has transformed […]

Thinking Out Loud – Working with an MP

This is the season of weddings in Tamil Nadu, the time of the year when I meet my long-lost relatives and face their curiosity of what’s happening in my life. The most awkward moment in these interactions at family functions right now is to explain my job to my relatives. Usually, I start off by […]

Taking on the Development Challenge

Working for social impact, was an unfulfilled goal that I hoped I’d be able to do something about before I turned 30. Fortunately, it happened at 26. In November last year, when I got the opportunity to work with Swaniti Initiative, an organization working towards making the government administration more robust, I jumped at it.  […]

Development and Governance: Challenging Beliefs

It was a strongly held belief – that carrying out any work under government systems is next to impossible, that government structure were too complex to navigate and that institutional mechanisms were ridden with archaic systems. Fortunately, by working on ground with Honourable Member of Parliament, Mr. Dushyant Chautala, I was able to challenge those […]

Handlooms as a tool for Empowering Women of North East India

For more than 100 years, International Women’s Day has been celebrated to mark the extraordinary struggles faced by women worldwide for gender equality and to accelerate empowerment in the society. This is a day to reflect on the progress made, to call for a change and to celebrate the acts of courage and determination by […]

India truly lives in its villages

 “India is not Calcutta and Bombay; India lives in her seven hundred thousand villages.” Mahatma Gandhi mentioned the above statement more than half a century ago. Even today, the statement holds true. As per the Census of 2011, nearly 70% of the country’s population still resides in rural areas. Hence, it becomes obvious that for […]

A Glimpse in the life of tribal women in Tripura

“I am restless and I don’t mind leaving this comfortable, static life. I could live a year on my own in a remote village”. -Michael Palin Between densely forested areas and breath-taking natural landscape of Ambassa, lies Kathalbari Village Committee (VC)[1]. Dominated by Schedule Tribe population, Kathalbari Village Committee is the first among the Gram […]

Making Sikkim Sustainable

It has been a little more than a month since I arrived in Gangtok, and about two months since I started working at Swaniti as a SPARC Associate to Mr P. D. Rai, Honourable Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), from Sikkim. Ever since I have arrived here, I have been fortunate enough to interact with […]