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The assignment started with documenting ‘rural livelihood projects for excluded communities’ in India supported by Change Alliance. What we saw amazed us. It definitely demanded more than ‘documentation’. There are inspiring experiments and practices going on all over India, in every eco-region by small and marginal farmers. On the other hand, the only story the Indian middle class knows about agriculture is that farmers commit suicide. This has perpetuated a negative image about agriculture among opinion makers. All of this is bad news.

India’s mega-cities have been growing at an unforeseen pace. But effective restructuring requires an understanding acceptance of the problem.

Cities like Delhi are looking to rezone, expand and create larger and more effective spaces for multi-modal transport and economic activity. Nehru Place was selected as the case study for such a discussion. Recommendations were to be made to Municipality. In order to get the point across, succinct and persuasive communication was required.

There are debates about fortification of food, but it is definitely a valid emergency measure.
The World Food Programme (WFP) ran a pilot programme of distributing iron-fortified rice
through Mid-Day Meal. The exercise consisted of lifting rice from Food Corporation of India, getting it fortified after selecting a miller, distributing to schools, and finally providing students cooked lunch. Along the way, there was strict monitoring of quality and documentation.
The result was compared with the neighbouring district of Rayagada. The benefit was positive, if

Mangroves for the Future was initiated to respond to the impacts of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Mangroves became an iconic species reflecting the impact of climate change on coastal communities. MFF focused on the continuous coastal area from Pakistan to Vietnam. The programme funds small grants [very few large grants] for civil society organisations, business corporations to carry out action research in the coastal communities.

Coastal populations, often resource poor, have little capacity to respond to climate change impact. Ensuring that they have the resilience to respond requires an in-depth understanding of their specific context.

The AdaptCap project of GIZ had worked with 18 rural communities and 6 urban centres in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The project brought together an integrated understanding of climate change response and management.

The International Youth Forum – Go4BioDiv – brought together young people from different
marine world heritage sites, to share their realities and experiences. These stories were shared
at the 2012 Conference of Parties, Convention on Biodiversity in Hyderabad, India.The first
convention was held in 2008 in Germany, and the second was in 2010 in Japan.

The Ganga is a river at risk. Industrialisation, urbanisation, intensive agriculture and the impact of climate change have all affected the quality and quantity of water in the river. The Living Ganga Programme brought together stakeholders, over an 800km stretch of the river, to develop an integrated and holistic action plan to restore the ecological integrity of the Ganga.