In a cramped shed behind Sharjipet village, a young man watches his mother, Laxmi, wince after every one of the 9,000 arm circles it takes to prepare a single Pochampally sari. By 1999 he will have turned those circles into one smooth, 90-minute glide.
In Piplantri, Rajasthan, the birth of a girl child is celebrated not with hesitation but with hope—through the planting of 111 trees. What began as a grieving father’s tribute has grown into a movement rooted in ecology, empowerment, and community resilience.
In the remote hills of Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district, Amai Mahalinga Naik, a quiet farmer with little formal education, achieved what many would call impossible. Armed with just a pickaxe, crowbar, and unyielding determination, he spent over four decades digging surangas—traditional horizontal water tunnels—through rocky terrain to bring life to his parched land.
