After Cyclone Gaja wreaked havoc in Tamil Nadu, a community radio station in Nagapattinam district started an initiative called “Voice of the Vulnerable”. The initiative aims to engage and empower coastal communities with stories of environment and climate change affecting their everyday lives. The radio station also conducts community journalism workshops to train the youth about the various issues in the regions and also ways to report them.
Click here to read the article written by Kartik Chandramouli as part of the Mongabay Series: Environment and Her.
With the ability to reach many farmers with timely and accessible content, the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for agriculture (ICT4Ag) has the potential to transform farming and food production, worldwide. ICT4Ag supports new methods in the monitoring and management of soils, plants and livestock (precision agriculture), access to online markets, and improved communication between value chain stakeholders, among others. The services provided are vital in connecting farmers with the information they need to improve their agricultural productivity and reduce poverty. Through case studies and examples of ICT4Ag initiatives from across Asia, the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa, the first chapter looks at how ICT4Ag actually works to drive economic development across developing economies.
Child marriage is being increasingly recognized globally as a fundamental violation of human rights. Child marriages occur globally in varying degrees across countries and regions. South Asia alone accounted for almost half of the total number of child marriages that have occurred globally. Early marriage can lead to serious ramifications such as school drop-out, early pregnancy, maternal morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of a multi-pronged community-based intervention and the role of access to mass media on early marriage, early pregnancy and school retention among young people in two states of India.