Some good developments from India

Daring Dalit starts green revolution against myth.
More hereBengal's millionaires | Rajasthan's wonders | Bihar BPO
( both via Rohit)
Good government interventions and co-operatives fromFrontline:
"The young Indian Administrative Service officer soon realised that he has been entrusted with the responsibility of a district that produces the best organic ginger in the world. The average annual production of ginger in the district is 30,000 tonnes and it is grown by about 10,000 farmers. The ginger grown in Karbi Anglong has a low fibre content. Varieties such as Nadia and Aizol, which yield high quantities of dry rhizome and oleoresin oil, are in great demand among domestic buyers and exporters.

The information was enough to give birth to a new initiative under the Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojana (RSVY), a flagship programme of the United Progressive Alliance government. Thus was formed the Ginger Growers Cooperative Marketing Federation (GIN-FED) in Karbi Anglong in April 2007 with about 3,500 shareholders. The brainchild of Angamuthu, it had the support and guidance of P.C. Sarma, Chief Secretary, and P.P. Verma, then Principal Secretary, Planning and Development Department.

Within a few months of its formation, GIN-FED was able to spice up the lives of ordinary ginger-growers and free them from the clutches of middlemen. At the first meeting of its shareholders at Diphu, GIN-FED issued to each of them a bar-coded G-Card – the first commodity-based debit-cum-credit card in India for farmers to avail themselves of cash advances of up to Rs.10,000 from banks to cultivate ginger on two bighas of land.

Earlier, ginger-growers had to go in for distress sale of their produce at Rs.2.50 to Rs.3 a kg. Following GIN-FED’s market intervention, the demand for Karbi ginger has grown phenomenally and the same middlemen who once short-changed them now offer up to Rs.15 for a kg. The administration’s initiative has got heaps of praise from elected representatives such as Biren Singh Engti, Member of Parliament, representing No. 3 Autonomous Constituency, Diphu.
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Agriculture was not the only success story of the administration’s efforts. The district needed an efficient administration that could address the grievances of the public through speedy delivery of services. Being the main instrument of development, the office of the Deputy Commissioner had to be turned into a accountable, responsive and service-oriented institution.

This became a reality on January 25 when Karbi Anglong was certified as ISO 9001:2000 compliant by Det Norske Veritas, headquartered at Rotterdam, the Netherlands, after the office of the Deputy Commissioner at Diphu established, documented, implemented and maintained a Total Quality Management system. This helped the conflict-ridden district to acquire a new image as one of the best-administrated districts with people-friendly practices. It now has the enviable record of being the first government organisation in Assam, the first district in north-eastern India and the fourth in the country – after Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, and Latur and Jalgaon districts of Maharashtra – to be ISO 9001:2000 compliant."
See also the previous post of Ravi Kuchimanchi on some NRI efforts. It seems that several such efforts of different sorts are needed.