Ekam Eco Solutions, founded in 2013, is transforming India’s sanitation landscape through innovative waterless urinal technology. Its flagship product, Zerodor, helps save up to 1.5 lakh litres of water annually per unit while promoting sustainable sanitation solutions across India. Ekam Eco Solutions Is Rewiring What a Urinal Does. India flushes 70,000 litres of clean water…
Bindeshwar Pathak transformed sanitation in India through the Sulabh Sanitation Movement, promoting affordable toilet technology and challenging the practice of manual scavenging. His legacy highlights the need for effective rehabilitation, safer sanitation systems and dignity for sanitation workers. He once picked up human waste with his own hands. Do not confuse it for a metaphor…
India’s CSR impact assessment rules require eligible companies to independently assess qualifying CSR projects, but disclosure practices remain inconsistent. A KPMG India review of Nifty 250 companies highlights gaps in assessment methodology, sample-size reporting and public access to detailed studies. Standardised reporting of baselines, comparison groups and outcomes could improve transparency and comparability in CSR…
CSR spending in India rose to over ₹1.22 lakh crore by FY2024, while the share of companies using CSR implementing agencies such as NGO partners fell from 78% in FY2020 to 28% in FY2024. The shift towards corporate foundations and in-house CSR implementation raises concerns about NGO capacity, funding opportunities, and community impact. The number…
CSR funding for education is shifting towards outcomes-based financing, as demonstrated by Haryana’s Early Literacy Development Impact Bond, which linked payments to measurable learning outcomes for children. The initiative highlights how CSR in education can prioritise foundational literacy, accountability, and long-term learning impact over activity-based spending. The reading gaps ASER 2024 is the latest national…
EnAble India, founded by Shanti Raghavan and Dipesh Sutariya in 1999, has built a disability-inclusive employment model focused on skills, employer engagement and ability rather than sympathy. Over two decades, the organisation has worked with companies, policymakers and communities to expand employment opportunities for persons with disabilities across India. When Shanti Raghavan’s younger brother Hari…
Amul began as a farmer-led cooperative in Gujarat, connecting dairy cooperative societies and milk producer members to create a farmer-owned dairy movement. Through Operation Flood and the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, the model helped transform India’s dairy sector and strengthen rural livelihoods. Before 1946, milk farmers around Anand in Gujarat sold their produce to…
Aravind Eye Care System, founded by Dr Govindappa Venkataswamy, developed a sustainable healthcare model combining cross-subsidy, high-volume cataract surgery and rural outreach. Its approach has made affordable, high-quality eye care accessible at scale while influencing healthcare organisations in India and abroad. In 1976, at the age of 58, a retired government ophthalmologist with rheumatoid arthritis…
Every January, thousands of volunteers walk into villages across India carrying nothing more than a clipboard and a set of flashcards. They are not government inspectors. They knock on doors and ask children to read a paragraph or solve a subtraction sum, whether or not the child is enrolled in school. This is the Annual…
The Officer Behind the Right Every year, millions of Indian children walk into a neighbourhood school believing this is a rightguaranteed to them by law. That guarantee exists largely because of a civil servant who spent nearly 3 decades turning elementary education from a policy aspiration into a legal right. MsAnita Kaul (1954-2016) is a…
