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.

TRANSITION TOWN MOVEMENT

It is an initiative or model that refers to grassroots community projects. The aim is to create the means for sustainable self-sufficiency at the local level to reduce the potential effects of peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability.

Hakki Pikki: The global nomads of Karnataka 

The Hakki Pikkis are an entrepreneurial community. Theirs is an economy of subsistence and the marginalised. Their trade networks do not conform to the known notions of the ‘poor’.

भारत का वैकल्पिक भविष्य: कुछ झलक (In Hindi)

यह दो लेख ‘ऑल्टेर्नेटिव फ्युचर्स: इन्डिया अन्शैकल्ड’ किताब जो २०१७ में छपी थी, से लिये व अनुवादित किये गये हैं।

The Ladakhi Story In A Grain

Through barley, the mela projected an inter-connected web of life and how the death of any one of those nodes disturbs the entire web leading to ills and illnesses of many kinds. 

Weaving together Threads of Then and Now

Conservation of traditional Himachali designs, and promotion of rural and women development through skill development, employment generation and independence

Facilitating progress towards a successful blue economy

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and Ocean Accounting (OA) are both important tools in promoting sustainable blue economy; both are on the anvil in India.

Emancipation through Education: Movement for Scavenger Community

Eradication of caste violence and discriminatory attitude towards the scavenger community by facilitating leadership education.

India at 75: Stepping back from an ecological abyss

The biggest challenge: can ecological sustainability be ensured while generating livelihood security and dignity for more than a billion people?

Artisanal soaps to lavender tea, Chhattisgarh’s gobar revolution is helping rural women

It is now in the process of transforming these gauthans into what it calls rural industrial parks, or centres for cottage industries that the government hopes will create retail products that can “compete with the market”.