Vivek Umrao Glendenning The Founder, CEO, and the Editor, Ground Report India The Vice-Chancellor & Co-Founder, The Gokul Social University
The distinctions :
Rejuvenation of four rivers, 250 large water harvesting structures (JOHAD/जोहड़) in more than 100 villages, 25,000 families, 200,000 people and 60 million dollars annual economy in ten years period (2006 to 2016).
200 drinking water ponds (KUND/कुंड), most of them between 1998-2005.
Converting thousands of acres barren land into fertile land.
Forests rejuvenation, plantation and development.
Holistic development.
Amla Ruia didn't start working with wealthy and powerful farmers. She began working with peasants.
Amla Ruia did not begin working in fertile areas.
She started working with her family's money.
There was no land acquired by Amla Ruia's organisation for building offices, staff residences, or a campus. Neither did she use public funds to buy lands or build buildings for offices, staff housing or the campus.
Rather than using media publicity, she developed her works on her own. In various states in India, she reached hundreds of villages through word-of-mouth.
Around nineteen years ago, Amla Ruia, following the voice of her consciousness, started to build drinking-water ponds in Shekhavati, Rajasthan, to solve the lack of drinking water problem. Over a period of seven to eight years, she built around 200 KUNDs. During her search for solutions to the problem, she contacted many water activists in India, including Rajendra Singh, who was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2001 and Stockholm Water Prize in 2015. Following the trial-and-error method, she decided to use her own experiences.
The groundwater revolution
Changing the lives of thousands of very poor peasant-families
With the suicides of farmers, her daughter, who married into the family of late Jaidayal Dalmia who founded the Dalmia Group of companies, was unsettled. She gave money to her mother Amla so she could help farmers financially. During her work on the construction of drinking-ponds, Amla Ruia realized that financial support was not a solution, as a farmer will again be in financial crisis after spending his money. Amla discussed her ideas with her daughter regarding a sustainable economy.
Amla began building a water harvesting structure in 2005-2006, with the help of her daughter's money, in a village in Neem Ka Thana, Sikar, Rajasthan, a region with little rainfall, dry hills and stony ground. During her 60s, she was constantly traveling from Mumbai, Maharashtra to Neema ka Thana, Rajasthan to build this JOHAD. Even though she came from one of the wealthiest families in India, she would often work as a labourer if she needed to. Having this mindset and commitment, she became knowledgeable in the building technologies of JOHAD and learned about the village family and social system. Later on, she built hundreds of JOHADs, and became an expert in the field of water harvesting structures and community motivation.
Several rivers in the region, including GADRATA and GARNAU, have been revitalized due to the construction of JOHAD chains. Rivers and forests have been revitalized, bringing an economic revolution to many villages. The villagers began calling Amla Ruia PANI MATA (water mother). Amla Ruia gained the trust of the people and began walking towards self-sustainability and development.
Rivers Rejuvenation (Photos)
Up to 70% of the cost of the new JOHAD is contributed by Amla Ruia, her family, her friends and her voluntary organization. Village-funds are established by her in each village; each family contributes a percentage of their annual agriculture income to the village-fund. Village funds are used for new JOHADs, forest development, and maintenance or as the village committee determines for village development.
Villagers were inspired by Amla Ruia to use solar energy for lighting and drinking water pumps. There are solar lights in the homes and streets of these villages. Solar lights are used by children for studying and by women for household chores at night.
Women no longer need to carry heavy water pots many kilometres for domestic use; instead, solar pumps are used for groundwater. Villagers say that we cultivate groundwater and use groundwater. Villagers have started to send their children to better schools and cities because they can now afford the expenses. Women are also involved in the building of JOHADs, they serve on village committees for JOHADs, and they contribute to village funds, so they have a say in the decision-making process.
For each cow that Amla Ruia provides to villagers, they are asked to contribute a healthy heifer, free of charge, to their neighbour or someone in another village in reciprocity.
Chemical fertilisers and pesticides are not used in these villages. Natural organic compost is made by decomposing plant matter in JOHADs, along with the flow of rainwater from forests. Profits are good for farmers due to very low recurring costs. These villages now have concrete houses, tractors, motorbikes, cows, buffaloes, water-coolers, and fans.
Cauliflowers
Bottle Gourds
Rabi Crop
Millet
Tomatoes
Wheat
Amla Ruia in an agricultural field
The newest JOHAD, which cost INR 3.5 million (about 55,000 USD), generated INR 545 million (about 8.4 million USD) in net income for 700 families across seven villages in the first year.
In Ramgarh, Rajasthan, Amla Ruia founded an education center with innovative teaching methods. This center does not use traditional teaching methods. Instead, it uses self-learning, open classrooms, free-group learning, and creative techniques.
A teacher training center was also founded by her in Ramgarh, Rajasthan. The centre invites non-government teachers across India to help them improve their teaching skills. The center focuses on practical learning. Trainers gain experience by teaching various ages of students, ranging from small children to teenagers. Teachers and students at this center are provided with food and accommodation for free. There is no charge for training.
Amla Ruia teaching kids
No conventional classroom
Self Learning Methods
Teacher is only for support
Amla Ashok Ruia
Amla Ruia is around 70 years old and still very active; she has expanded her work from Rajasthan to the various villages of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and other states.
One of the wealthiest families in India, Shanti Prasad Jain of West Bengal was her grandfather. She married Ashok Ruia, owner of Phoenix Mills Limited, which was founded by textile tycoon Mr Ramnarain Ruia. Phoenix Mills, Dawn Mills, and Bradbury Mills were owned by Ruia.
Rather than take a job for money after graduating from mechanical engineering and working on renewable energy research, he chose to do volunteer work with exploited and marginalized groups in very backward areas rather than working for a salary.
In India, a PhD scholarship from a European university could be a lifetime dream for a student, but he preferred to work with marginalized communities rather than accept a PhD scholarship from a European university.
He walked many thousands of miles covering thousands of villages over a period of time to obtain ground realities and unmanipulated, primary information. Through these intense marches, meetings, and community discussions, he had direct dialogue with more than a million people before he was forty.
In his work, he has been researching, understanding and implementing concepts of social economy, participatory local governance, education, citizen journalism, ground reporting and rural reporting, freedom of expression, bureaucratic accountability, tribal development and village development, relief, rehabilitation and village revival.
His work in India included establishing or co-founding various social organizations, educational and health institutions, cottage industries, marketing systems, and community universities for education, social economy, health, the environment, the social environment, renewable-energy, groundwater, river revitalization, social justice, and sustainability.
About fifteen years ago, he got married to an Australian hydrology-scientist, but stayed in India for more than a decade to work for exploited and marginalized communities. The couple decided before marriage that they will not have a child until their presence in India is required for the ongoing works. Therefore, they waited eleven years to have a baby after their marriage.
Hundreds of thousands of people from marginalized groups in backward areas of India love and regard him, and even consider him a family member. All these achievements and prestige he had achieved were left behind when he became a full-time father to his son and put his life on hold. Before leaving India, he donated everything except some clothes, mobiles, and laptops.
He now lives in Canberra with his son and wife. He contributes to journals and social media that cover social issues in India. He also provides counseling to local activists working for social solutions in India. Additionally, he is involved with some international peace and sustainability groups.
———
Through Ground Report India editions, Vivek organized nationwide or semi-national tours to explore the ground realities covering up to 15000 kilometres in each one or two months to establish a constructive ground journalism platform with social accountability.
As a writer, he has written a book in Hindi, “मानसिक, सामाजिक, आर्थिक स्वराज्य की ओर”, about various social issues including community development, water, agriculture, ground works, and conditioning of thought & mind. Several reviews say it covers "What" "Why" "How" practically for the socioeconomic development of India.
This report is very inspiring. The Earth Federation Movement believes strongly in local/community projects. The Federation’s Earth Constitution (designed to replace the obsolete United Nations Charter), addresses global issues via a World Parliament that local organizing cannot change, like ending war and the enormous waste of resources for death and destruction. With war outlawed, there will be a huge release of resources available to local communities.
Warning: Undefined array key 0 in /home/shi9fruqstv087j9/public_html/monthly/wp-content/plugins/wp_edit_pro/main.php on line 1765
Warning: Undefined array key "wp_edit_pro_buttons_wp_visitor" in /home/shi9fruqstv087j9/public_html/monthly/wp-content/plugins/wp_edit_pro/main.php on line 1795
Insert WP Edit Snidget
Select a WP Edit Snidget below to add it to your post or page. Yes, they can be used in content areas too!
He has been a radio producer (Earthstar Radio, San Francisco), organized and worked with the homeless, and is an advocate/activist in the nonviolent protest movement for safe energy, human rights, and peaceful solutions.
He is USA Vice President of the World Constitution and Parliament Association whose mission is to build a parallel world body to the United Nations, an emerging Earth Federation with a Provisional World Parliament under the Earth Constitution.
[/themify_box]
First published at:
">Roger Kotila PhDDr Gary G Kohls MD[/caption]
is a retired physician who practiced holistic, non-drug, mental health care for the last decade of his forty year family practice career. He is a contributor to and an endorser of the efforts of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights and was a member of MindFreedom International, the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.
While running his independent clinic, he published over 400 issues of his Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter, which was emailed to a variety of subscribers. (They have not been archived at any website.) In the early 2000s, Dr Kohls taught a graduate level psychology course at the University of Minnesota Duluth. It was titled “The Science and Psychology of the Mind-Body Connection”.
Since his retirement, Dr Kohls has been writing a weekly column (titled “Duty to Warn”) for the Duluth Reader, an alternative newsweekly published in Duluth, Minnesota. He offers teaching seminars to the public and to healthcare professionals.
[/themify_box]
">Gary G KohlsGeorge Monbiot[/caption]
Studied in Oxford University, columnist with The Guardian newspaper, also the author of the bestselling books The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order and Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed, No Man’s Land, How Did We Get into This Mess? Politics, Equality, Nature and other.
Prof Johan Galtung was born in Oslo. He earned the PhD degree in mathematics at the University of Oslo in 1956, and in 1957 a year later completed the PhD degree in sociology at the same university.
Prof Johan Galtung received nine honorary doctorates in the fields of Peace studies, Future studies, Social sciences, Buddhism, Sociology of law, Philosophy, Sociology and Law.
State Councilor of St. Petersburg, Russia. Founding President, Global Harmony Association (GHA) since 2005. Honorary President, GHA since 2016. Director: Tetrasociology Public Institute, Russia. Philosopher, Sociologist and Peacemaker from Harmony. Author of more than 400 scientific publications, including 18 books in 1-12 languages. Author of Tetrism as the unity of Tetraphilosophy and Tetrasociology – science of social harmony, global peace and harmonious civilisation. Director, GHA Web portal “Peace from Harmony”. Initiator, Manager, Coauthor and Editor in Chief of the book project “Global Peace Science” (GPS).
[/themify_box]
First published at :
">Leo M SemashkoRobert C Koehler[/caption]
writes for the Huffington Post, Common Dreams, OpEd News and TruthOut. He considers himself a “peace journalist.” He has been an editor at Tribune Media Services and a reporter, columnist and copy desk chief at Lerner Newspapers, Chicago. Koehler launched his column in 1999. Robert Koehler has received numerous writing and journalism awards over a 30-year career in USA. He writes about values and meaning with reverence for life. He is praised as “blatantly relevant” and “a hero of democracy”.
[/themify_box]
First published at :
">Robert C KoehlerRobert J Burrowes PhD[/caption]
has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘
[/themify_box]
">Robert J BurrowesProf Richard Falk[/caption]
an international relations scholar, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, author, co-author or editor of 40 books, and a speaker and activist on world affairs.
Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies, and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His most recent book is Achieving Human Rights (2009).
[/themify_box]
First published at :
">Richard FalkDr Gray Corseri, PhD[/caption]
is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment. He has published and posted articles, fiction and poems at hundreds of venues, including, TMS, The New York Times, Village Voice, Redbook Magazine and Counterpunch.
He has published 2 novels and 2 collections of poetry, and his dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere. He has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum and has taught in universities in the US and Japan, and in US public schools and prisons.
[/themify_box]
First published at :
">Gary CorseriAntonio Carlos Silva Rosa, Editor, TMS[/caption]
born 1946, is the editor of the pioneering Peace Journalism website, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS, an assistant to Prof. Johan Galtung, and Secretary of the International Board of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.
He completed the required coursework for a Ph.D. in Political Science-Peace Studies (1994), has a Masters in Political Science-International Relations (1990), and a B.A. in Communication (1988) from the University of Hawai’i.
Originally from Brazil, he lives presently in Porto, Portugal. Antonio was educated in the USA where he lived for 20 years; in Europe/India since 1994.
[/themify_box]
First published at :
">Antonio Carlos Silva Rosa
John Scales Avery is a theoretical chemist, Associate Professor Emeritus, at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is noted for his books and research publications in quantum chemistry, thermodynamics, evolution, and history of science. His 2003 book Information Theory and Evolution set forth the view that the phenomenon of life, including its origin, evolution, as well as human cultural evolution, has its background situated in the fields of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and information theory.
He is an Indian citizen & permanent resident of Australia and a scholar, an author, a social-policy critic, a frequent social wayfarer, a social entrepreneur and a journalist;He has been exploring, understanding and implementing the ideas of social-economy, participatory local governance, education, citizen-media, ground-journalism, rural-journalism, freedom of expression, bureaucratic accountability, tribal development, village development, reliefs & rehabilitation, village revival and other.
For Ground Report India editions, Vivek had been organising national or semi-national tours for exploring ground realities covering 5000 to 15000 kilometres in one or two months to establish Ground Report India, a constructive ground journalism platform with social accountability.
He has written a book “मानसिक, सामाजिक, आर्थिक स्वराज्य की ओर”on various social issues, development community practices, water, agriculture, his ground works & efforts and conditioning of thoughts & mind. Reviewers say it is a practical book which answers “What” “Why” “How” practically for the development and social solution in India.
worked as a mediator for the church in Belfast; as faculty at The School of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, and as Executive Director, the Right Livelihood Award Foundation. He has founded several Indian NGOs, is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.
[/themify_box]
First published at -
">Vithal RajanRene Wadlow[/caption]
is the President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation on and problem-solving in economic and social issues.
[/themify_box]
">Rene WadlowBaher Kamal[/caption]
[themify_box]
Baher Kamal
Egyptian-born, Spanish-national secular journalist. He is founder and publisher of Human Wrongs Watch. Kamal is a pro-peace, non-violence, human rights, coexistence defender, with more than 45 years of professional experience. With these issues in sight, he covered practically all professional posts, from correspondent to chief editor of dailies and international news agencies.
[/themify_box]
Credits :
">Baher KamalRosa Dalmiglio with Lama Mongolia[/caption]
She is a member of the China Council Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe (special art, culture and humanity), which touches the hearts of all people and portrays the strong willpower so encouraging to 60 million Chinese disabled persons.
Ms. Dalmiglio is Intermediary Agent of CICE, Centre International Cultural Exchange, a direct subsidiary of the Ministry of Culture, People’s Republic of China. CICE is a comprehensive institution engaged in cultural exchange programs, professional publication and presentation of cultural art works such as exhibits, receiving foreign art troupes and artists, holding international cultural research programs, and producing intercultural and interreligious documentary films.
She is a member of China Disabled Person’s Federation, CDPF. She is also a member of the International Women Federation, which is concerned with the financial ethics of women s enterprises in underdeveloped areas.
[/themify_box]
credits:
">Rosa Dalmiglio
Director, Guru Arjan Dev Institute of Development Studies.
A recipient of Cultural Doctorate of Philosophy of Economics from USA. He is an active member of various professional bodies, namely -
He participated and presented papers in various International/national/regional seminars, conferences etc.. He remained member of the Academic Council of Punjab Technical University, Jalandhar. An unwearied researcher has about 200 research papers published in various international and national journals of repute and 15 research monographs to his kitty. Besides, he has authored/co-authored /edited 15 books which have been well received and highly acclaimed during his three decades of professional career. He was honoured by various national and international awards, namely, Guru Draunacharya Samman, Vijay Rattan Award and so on.
Dr Ron Paul served in U.S. House of Representatives three different periods: first from 1976 to 1977, after he won a special election, then from 1979 to 1985, and finally from 1997 to 2013.
During his first term as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Paul founded the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (FREE), a non-profit think tank dedicated to promoting principles of limited government and free-market economics. In 1984, Paul became the first chairman of the Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), a conservative political group founded by Charles Koch and David Koch 'to fight for less government, lower taxes, and less regulation.' CSE started a Tea Party protest against high taxes in 2002. In 2004, Citizens for a Sound Economy split into two new organizations, with Citizens for a Sound Economy being renamed as FreedomWorks, and Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation becoming Americans for Prosperity. The two organizations would become key players in the Tea Party movement from 2009 onward.
Dr Paul proposed term-limit legislation multiple times, while himself serving a few terms in the House of Representatives. In 1984, he decided to retire from the House in order to run for the U.S. Senate, complaining in his House farewell address that 'Special interests have replaced the concern that the Founders had for general welfare.... It's difficult for one who loves true liberty and utterly detests the power of the state to come to Washington for a period of time and not leave a true cynic.'
He is known nationally and internationally as a pioneer figure in the study of culture and psychopathology who challenged the ethnocentrism and racial biases of many assumptions, theories, and practices in psychology and psychiatry.
In more recent years, he has been writing and lecturing on peace and social justice. He has published 15 edited books, and more than 250 articles, chapters, book reviews, and popular pieces.
[/themify_box]
Credits:
">Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D.Jason Hickel[/caption]
He is international consultant of the UN – FAO and international consultant for sustainable development and sustainable future of humankind of Universal State of the Earth - USE.
On 8th October 2016 he was appointed as The Chairman of the Humanity, Nature, Space and Environment protection Committee of the USE, the Supreme Council of Humanity - SCH from Athens, Greece and London, UK.
He is researcher working on: Nature; the Nature, Space and Environment protection; the Climate change system; System thinking; Globalization and global studies; Networking, Complexity and Swarm research: Sustainable Development and Sustainable Future of Humankind. He was among the pioneers researchers (1986 – 1994) to apply nature, space, and environment protection in a local community by activities we call today Local Agenda 21 Processes – a holistic program for survival of our civilization under new challenges of the third millennium.“Commencing from Local Community Sustainable Future and moving towards Sustainable Future of the Global Community of Humankind”.
He is independent researchers with many domestic and international publications and talks. Together with many researchers in co-operation worldwide within philosophy, operational research, global studies, case studies and complex problem solving research, system thinking, requisitely holism, networking and complexity, swarm research, integration and disintegration of matter and energy and universal upbringing, education and lifelong learning. He is contributing a systemic, requisitely holistic and a better understanding of the present. His latest research within the system theory, system thinking, networking, complexity and swarm research may provide a possible answer enabling people to better understand our world of humans.
During 2014 he completed 50 years of research work (1964 - 2014). This year he completed 50 years of been Dr. Vet. Med. Since 1986 he worked on the protection of Humanity, Nature, Space and Environment and completed 30 years of research.
For research on the climate change system and the book “System Thinking and Climate Change System (Against a big “Tragedy of Commons” of all of us), Ecimovic, Mayur, Mulej and co-authors, 2002, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize 2003. His work on “The Information Theory of Nature” was his second nomination for The Nobel Prize during 2007 in Physics. His third nomination for The Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 was for “The Environment Theory of the Nature”, published in the book “Three Applications of the System Thinking”, Ecimovic, 2010. Within last 10 years he has contributed trilogies: “The Nature”, “The Sustainable Future of Mankind” and “The Life 2017” – please see at: www.institut-climatechange.si
I grew up in Chile, got my medical degree there, began an academic career in 1970, and left for the USA due to the military coup in early 1974. My first job in the USA was working as a public nutrition professor in the international programme of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.
I started to travel to Africa in 1975, and worked a year in Cameroun in 1980 helping to prepare their five-year nutrition plan. I then moved to New Orleans, to Tulane University’s School of Public Health, and taught in the department of nutrition for ten years, before moving to Nairobi where I was an advisor in the Ministry of Health. Seven years there got me into extensive consulting in Africa, often on nutritional issues. In 1995 moved to Vietnam where I worked for two and a half years in the Ministry of Health as a senior primary health care advisor.
Many years of touching the reality on the ground, in Latin America, then the USA, then Africa and Asia, has made me understand that the real challenge is in the social and political determinants of malnutrition. I have devoted my writings and teaching to that. Over the years, I have found an important shift in my colleagues’ attitude and understanding towards acknowledging the basic causes of malnutrition. But yet I see little happening as a result. I submit that it is our guild’s lack of experience in the political arena that explains this dichotomy. I devote much of my energy to bridge this gap, and am a fervent advocate of empowering claim holders to demand needed changes from duty bearers. Nutrition is a perfect port of entry for that. Equity, social justice and people’s empowerment in a human rights sense is what really will make a difference.
There is no alternative but to deal with nutrition problems as indivisibly linked to social, political and environmental problems. We need to address them as such. The question is: are we all prepared to do that? The answer, in my view, decides whether we are part of the solution or part of the problem. Travelling and living in different parts of the world has reinforced my conviction that we need to get down from our academic ivory towers, and need to change the curricula of our young and upcoming colleagues, to give them the tools to act in such a context. To me, public health nutrition cannot be anything but that.
[/themify_box]
">Claudio Schuftan Dr MDProf. Ram Puniyani[/caption]
Dr. Roger Kotila
March 21, 2017 @ 3:30 PM
This report is very inspiring. The Earth Federation Movement believes strongly in local/community projects. The Federation’s Earth Constitution (designed to replace the obsolete United Nations Charter), addresses global issues via a World Parliament that local organizing cannot change, like ending war and the enormous waste of resources for death and destruction. With war outlawed, there will be a huge release of resources available to local communities.
रजनीश के झा
March 26, 2017 @ 6:42 AM
Nice