The library in the village hosts books from renowned authors and poets, as well as those from new writers. That's why during summer vacations, monsoons, or the biting cold of December-January, children come here after school.

The benefits of decentralised midday meal kitchens, where noon meals are freshly cooked at the school premises, go far beyond the health benefits for students. These kitchens can be a game changer for rural women as I learnt from Manu Naik, a widow and a mother of two.

Since 2014, Shantilal Khardi has been cultivating more than 200 medicinal roots, shrubs and herbs on his 30 bighas of land in Bhamti village in Rajasthan.

Road accidents claim 19 lives per hour in India. Abhay Pratap Singh, a gram pradhan in UP, lost his brother too, and that has motivated him to start an awareness campaign on wearing a helmet. He has been donating helmets to villagers.

Twenty two women in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, are using locally available resources to produce biofertilisers, biopesticides and bioinsecticides, which they package and sell to farmers to promote organic farming.

Today, Children’s Day is also the birth anniversary of Padma Shri Sindhutai Sapkal who dedicated her entire life to taking care of orphaned children.

They grew up watching their moms and grandmoms make chutney, jam, dried apple, and other traditional eatables at home. And now the women of Kotgarh in Himachal Pradesh run a business around these products under the Kotgarh Valley Village Organisation.

The old ritual forces a woman’s family to pay several lakhs of rupees to the husband and his family in case the woman wants to walk out of an abusive marriage, or call off a child marriage. The team of Laal Chunar has rescued 276 victims and helped file 450 FIRs.

Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network, a non-profit, is helping the women of TY Shah village in Kashmir to produce and market the jam they make out of the wild raspberries found in the local forests.

Veer Shaheed Ganesh Hansda Library in Bhandarshol village in East Singhbhum is encouraging tribal children to read and is helping them prepare for competitive exams.