IDR13 Oct 2026
Democracy is more than distant institutions or elections every few years. It is precarious and urgent, a struggle by people to assert their most basic rights in their daily lives. Over the past few weeks, protests across the country have made questions about rights and accountability a public conversation. Workers, artists, activists, collectives, and students have come together on to the streets–many for the first time–to exercise their right to dissent and to make their voices count. As slogan
IDR12 Oct 2026
1 "Log hamesha 'Mann ki Baat' sunte rahenge to 'Mann ki Baat' bolenge kab?" — Overheard in a flower shop by protesters pretending to be tourists. 2 “Of course we support people's right to protest peacefully. But we reserve the right to decide if they can do it in public.” — Overheard on a Broadcast news channel. 3 "Pehle ghar mein cardio karta tha. Ab protest mein karta hoon.” — Overheard in the Decathlon running section. 4 “CM Rekha Gupta finally addressed the public...at a Dandiya Raas.”
IDR9 Oct 2026
“The biggest change after I moved into the new role was that I no longer spent my time in the field and with communities the way I used to. There were meetings, planning, review calls, reporting, and the responsibility of taking the team along. At that time, I had no idea how to manage all of this at once. Sometimes it felt like the whole day had gone by, but I had not actually done anything.” This is how Biraj Krishna Upadhyay, Senior Manager at Network for Youth Development and Healthy Environ
IDR8 Oct 2026
Kumar,* a 68-year-old man with stomach cancer, began treatment at a tertiary-care centre in Bengaluru in December 2025. Over the next few months, the disease progressed despite treatment, and the risks of further cancer-directed treatment came to outweigh its likely benefits. More side effects meant worse quality of life and an inability for him to do things he enjoyed. He then spent three weeks in intensive care due to sepsis, leading to several complications. Kumar survived, but left the hospi
IDR8 Oct 2026
In her recent article on July 27, 2026 titled ‘What does courage cost us?’, Smarinita Shetty, CEO and co-founder of IDR, posed a critical challenge to India’s civil society, urging organisations to find their spines and demonstrate genuine courage in an increasingly hostile environment. This brings us to an uncomfortable question: Does our development sector ecosystem have the political capability for courage? Or does the process of institutionalising nonprofits dull the ability to question powe
IDR7 Oct 2026
What does it take to design an AI tool that people use? For nonprofits, the answer may have less to do with the sophistication of the underlying technology and more to do with how well it understands the intended user. ARMMAN and SNEHA, both working in maternal and child health, serve as useful examples. ARMMAN has built a WhatsApp-based AI assistant to help Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) access clinical guidance at the point of care. Meanwhile, SNEHA’s chatbot is designed to help pregnant wome
IDR6 Oct 2026
In 2025, two nonprofits asked their funders for a technology grant. One was told no. The other was told yes, and it spent more than a year building a tool that the team did not adopt because the programme had ended by the time it was launched. Both nonprofits are now back to maintaining paper registers and copying data into Excel. The problem here does not rest solely with the funder or the nonprofits. It is that both treat software as something you buy rather than something you run. Technology
IDR5 Oct 2026
1 What is said: Let’s take this offline What it means: This conversation isn’t going anywhere, and I would like it to stop happening in front of everyone. 2 What is said: Why don’t we leverage existing partnerships for this? What it means: We know someone who might know someone who could possibly help. 3 What is said: Can we put a pin in this? What it means: I have no idea how to resolve this and I don’t want to think about it anymore. 4 What is said: It’s an evolving space What it m
India Forum2 Oct 2026
India's democratic resilience in a majoritarian setting, What ails public transport in Delhi, and more
IDR25 Sept 2026
CEDA’s previous analysis of India’s informal manufacturing sector showed that while women account for the majority of enterprise owners, they are concentrated in just four industries and a narrow range of economic activities within them. This article extends the same lens to the other two major sectors of the informal non-agricultural economy, trade and other services. Women own around one-in-seven informal trade enterprises (14.5 percent) and one-in-six informal other services enterprises (16.5
IDR24 Sept 2026
Community-driven change can be difficult to measure. Organisations working closely with communities often work towards change and impact in areas such as agency, confidence, collective problem-solving, and social norms. These changes can take years to emerge and are not always captured by conventional monitoring and evaluation metrics. Social Return on Investment (SROI) offers one way of making these outcomes more visible. It helps assign an economic value to social outcomes. It also enables org
IDR23 Sept 2026
Social issues can be complex, deep-rooted, and difficult to solve. Whether we look at the climate crisis, economic insecurity, or inequities in education, many systems and stakeholders—who themselves face unprecedented challenges—are involved and shape outcomes in unpredictable ways. Over the past two years, we at SwaTaleem Foundation have been exploring how changemakers can confront this complexity. Through our multi-stakeholder project called Girls’ Education for Transformation,[1] we se
GatewayH23 Sept 2026
The sustainability of the Mecca Accord is determined by its response to three geopolitical challenges represented by India, Iran, and Israel. The India test centres on preventing the export of South Asian conflicts to the Gulf, the Iranian test rests on institutionalising sustainable deterrence beyond formulas of perpetual clash, and the Israeli axis tests the mechanisms for reshaping Saudi ties with American security and the future of regional normalisation. The post Essay: Mecca Accord re-engi
IDR22 Sept 2026
Pooja,* a 50-year-old daily wage labourer in Delhi, endured physical, verbal, and sexual violence from her husband for 30 years. During this period, she stayed in shelter homes more than once, but the lack of long-term alternative housing and support forced her back to her abusive matrimonial home. Each time she approached the state for help, officials pushed her towards reconciliation instead. After her fifteenth complaint, the state assigned her a legal aid lawyer. He spoke to her once and fil
IDR21 Sept 2026
Impact frameworks, strategic roadmaps and culture statements looks impressive on proposals for capacity building. But none of them replaces the work of actually fixing the cracks running through an institution's foundation. Illustration courtesy: Ishani Mody
IDR18 Sept 2026
What does development mean for a place like Lakshadweep? On paper, the islands do considerably better than most of India on development parameters such as literacy and women’s land rights. It is also largely a middle-class society. But this picture sits alongside a set of ecological and economic shifts that are reshaping how people live. Since the 1960s, the primary source of livelihood for the islands has been pole-and-line fishing for tuna, a practice that is low-volume and inherently su
IDR18 Sept 2026
https://youtu.be/QEwmd4nLGJc?si=Tt912sSsse-5zzDM Almaas Masood and Swati Thapa are independent journalists reporting from India's coastlines and hill states on labour, gender, migration, and the environment. Their work comes with a cost that rarely gets talked about, one that most newsrooms in India aren’t set up for: financial precarity, field risk, online harassment, and little to no institutional support. Watch this video where they talk about the toll that reporting takes on their mental hea
IDR17 Sept 2026
If there is one thing we have learned from our several decades of experience in the social sector, it is that complex problems require different actors to come together. Attempting to solve problems in isolation, no matter how well intended, rarely works. This article seeks to unpack our experience and learnings so they can be shared with others who are also committed to the path of long-term social change in India. Community as the pathway to scale For civil society organisations (CSOs) like ou
IDR17 Sept 2026
We, the people behind Zerodha, have been actively investing not just in start-ups but also in social enterprises and nonprofits that create a positive impact in society. We use the word ‘invest’ and not ‘donate’ because we firmly believe that funding nonprofit social enterprises and endeavours is an investment in the future. They are as important to us as our for-profit start-up investments. For instance, with the Rainmatter Foundation, we have committed significant philanthropic capital t
IDR16 Sept 2026
The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 (MHCA), which came into force in 2018, marked a significant shift in India's approach to mental healthcare. The MHCA seeks to protect the rights of persons with mental illness by recognising their autonomy, legal capacity, and right to access mental healthcare and treatment without discrimination. The importance of this legislation can be understood amidst the long history of abuse, stigma, discrimination, and coercion experienced by people with mental healt
IDR14 Sept 2026
Professional journeys in the social sector begin with a laundry list of WhatsApp group invitations. Here’s what that looks like, from the perspective of someone who routinely wakes up to 25+ group notifications every morning. While access to a majority of these groups is granted instantly, there is always one unofficial group without the project head where you must earn inclusion by demonstrating the ability to crack cryptic e-mails, provide emotional support, and share unofficial updates.
IDR11 Sept 2026
In January 2026, the forest department began felling dhupi (Cryptomeria japonica) across the rain shadow ridges of Gupti and Mungrang in the Sadam Hills of Namchi District, southern Sikkim, along with chir pine and juniper. Officials of the Namchi Territorial Division are removing dhupi from several reserved forests in the region. According to the department, the objective is to conserve natural
IDR11 Sept 2026
https://youtu.be/TAjrwzNZywc?si=u_mZb3Cw4C6qOt0D I have been harvesting mahua flowers in Dhipa Toli, Jharkhand, for the past 50 years. Our mahua trees are older than some of the residents in our small village, and have been passed down within families over generations. Traditionally, we have collected mahua through controlled burning of fallen leaves. This would separate them from the flowers, making it easier to pick the flowers. However, as the trees age, we are worried about the decline in th
IDR10 Sept 2026
Martin Macwan is a human rights activist from Gujarat, India, and the founder of Navsarjan Trust, Dalit Shakti Kendra, and Dalit Foundation. The recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2000, Martin has spent decades challenging untouchability by mobilising marginalised communities and organising campaigns across the country. His mentorship and grassroots activism have inspired generations of young leaders from India’s marginalised communities. In this interview wi
IDR10 Sept 2026
For two nonprofits working at very different ends of the climate change spectrum, AI has changed what they can credibly offer the people they serve. SEEDS India, which works on building the resilience of people exposed to disasters and climate change impacts, and Farmers for Forests (F4F), which works in agroforestry, arrived at their respective AI solutions from different starting points and in pursuit of different aims. But both have seen a shift in the basic value proposition of their work: f
IDR10 Sept 2026
Martin Macwan is a human rights activist from Gujarat, India, and the founder of Navsarjan Trust, Dalit Shakti Kendra, and Dalit Foundation. The recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2000, Martin has spent decades challenging untouchability by mobilising marginalised communities and organising campaigns across the country. His mentorship and grassroots activism have inspired generations of young leaders from India’s marginalised communities. In this interview wi
IDR9 Sept 2026
In 2023, SNRas Systems, a social enterprise, came to Villgro, a support organisation for social enterprises, with a problem that had nothing to do with their business model. They had 19 patents in aquaculture technology, contracts with retail chains, and a clear path to scale. What they lacked was INR 50 lakh in working capital to expand to new markets. Every bank they approached said the same thing: insufficient collateral. This is a familiar scenario for anyone working with impactful early-sta
IDR8 Sept 2026
“I understand my village,” a woman sarpanch in Sehore district told us. “But whenever the discussion turns to budgets, rules, or government procedures, I have to depend on the [village] secretary.” Her statement captures one of the central dilemmas of the panchayati raj today. The sarpanch was not inexperienced. She was the only woman in her community to have studied up to Class XII. For more than a decade, she had managed the mid-day meal programme through her self-help group (SHG). She had str
IDR7 Sept 2026
1 2 3 4 5
IDR4 Sept 2026
Health researchers argue that factors such as where we are, who we are with, and how we feel play a crucial role in our experience of pain, which therefore has a direct impact on our well-being. While clinical medicine often ignores these factors, palliative care recognises that pain perception is directly connected to the psychological and social conditions of a person. As a specialised care model, it brings together doctors, psychologists, nurses, physiotherapists, allied health professionals,
India Forum4 Sept 2026
Education in an unequal society, Citizens, suspects, and the portable border, Who belongs or not to the SC and ST, and more
IDR3 Sept 2026
Artificial intelligence is beginning to move from pilot projects and chatbots into the everyday machinery of urban governance. Chandigarh Municipal Corporation’s 2026–27 budget reflects this shift. Of its total ₹1,712 crore budget, ₹12 crore has for the first time been allocated for a package of information-technology upgrades, including AI-based systems, digital file tracking and online billing and payment systems. The city has also previously introduced BIRBAL, an AI-enabled chatbot that helps
IDR3 Sept 2026
Fundraising is often spoken about as a specialised function, as a job that’s done by the founder, CEO, or a dedicated fundraising team. It is considered a ‘gated’ space associated with high stakes, long-term relationships, difficult conversations, and high rates of rejection. Donors, too, often expect to meet the most senior person in the room, making fundraising feel like a responsibility that only a select few can hold. Yet fundraising is about much more than simply raising resources. It is ab
IDR2 Sept 2026
Across Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj (Allahabad) district, there are eight food packaging and processing plants responsible for meeting the nutritional needs of pregnant women, lactating mothers, and young children. These plants are part of the Take Home Ration (THR) programme, which is an extension of the Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS) (subsumed under Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 in 2021). Launched in 1975, the ICDS has since evolved into one of the largest community-