Economics and Technologies

Community-based alternatives for production, consumption, and exchange

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This section features stories of initiatives that help to create an alternative to the dominant neo-liberal or state-dominated economy. These include: localisation of economic activity with democratic control, producer and consumer collectives, local currencies and trade, non-monetised exchage and the gift economy, ecologically sensitive products and processes, macro-economic concepts that respect ecological limits, and approaches to human well-being that go beyond growth, GDP and other narrow measures and indicators.

What we do not feature are superficial and false solutions, such as market and technological fixes for problems that are deeply social and political, or more generally, ‘green growth’ kind of approaches that only tinker around with the existing system.

Seed is better preserved this way

A Gondi Adivasi lady preserves seeds for over 12 years using a traditional technique!

Passive Solar Housing keeps people warm in icy Ladakh

The south face of a building needs to be all windows, as it gets maximum sunrise to sunset exposure in winters.

Digital push boosts incomes for Sundarbans’ organic farmers

A digital platform helps women farmers to sell organically grown indigenous rice directly to customers, helping them to book higher profits

Green Toilet in my backyard

Ecosan (short for ecological sanitation) toilets are improved versions of old dry toilets that do not demand water for flushing

Guwahati now has India’s first solar Powered railway station

The solar-powered station is aimed at reducing carbon-footprint as well as cut down power costs drastically.

Meet the man who is digitally conserving and restoring the Ajanta caves

The paintings in the 2000-year-old Ajanta Caves are in a precarious state and can’t be fully restored. But there is an attempt to restore them digitally

Direct selling, adivasi style

The weekly Bissamcuttack market, nurturing the area’s ecologically-attuned agricultural traditions, forges a connection between consumers and farmers

Organic haat starts at Vedic Village

"We want to build better trust between farmers and consumers. We want more youths to join the movement," she said

A Decade of Pour Tous Distribution Centre (PTDC) : the evolution of an Auroville institution

PTDC was the first major breakthrough towards an economy with no exchange of money, in contrast with previous experiments.