Under the NABARD partnership programme, a three-day Proposal Development meeting was held with Bundelkhand Knowledge Platform partners at TARAgram Orchha, from April 26 to 28, 2012. The workshop was held in partnership with the Lifeline Service Society, People General Association, Sagar, Sumitra Sansthan and Darshana Mahila Samiti, Chattarpur and NOSWO - National Action for Social Welfare Organisation, Tikamgarh.

Under the Integrated Watershed Management Programme at Datia, 500 acres of land were covered under the rainwater harvesting structure in Datia. Also, wheat production showed a marked 20 per cent enhancement by way of the MP-4010 variety in Datia.

A 45 days’ training programme on Cutting and Tailoring is being conducted at Village Muderi under DPIP Shivpuri (MP) from April 21 to June 4, 2012. A total of 33 SHG members (women) are participating in this training session.

A 45 days’ training session on Handloom Products making is being held at Village Bhopalpura under DPIP Tikamgarh (Madhya Pradesh) from April 23 to June 6, 2012 with 32 SHG women members.

The Integrated Watershed Development Project of Rajiv Gandhi Watershed Mission, Bhopal, conducted a 15-day training for Watershed Committee Presidents Secretaries at TARAgram, Orchha on April 16-30 with 50 participants.

TLA has conducted a 1-day training cum exposure visit for 55 participants (SHG members and user group members) of the Integrated Watershed Development Project at Sagar, Madhya Pradesh.

TARA, in association with the Materials R&D team of ISB, has developed and field tested an improved version of wire cut extruder. Hollow bricks have been produced in this extruder with a strength improvement of more that 100 per cent. At present, around 15 per cent of the soil can be saved through the holes in the brick. The capacity of the extruder is more than comparable with machines available worldwide.

A South Asian regional workshop on ‘Information for Climate Change Adaptation’ was held at the DA Headquarters on April 10-11, by Development Alternatives and World Resources Institute (WRI). The presentations and discussions in the workshop worked towards identifying ways to improve information access and availability and the means to cope with imperfect information. DA presented a case study on the use of information in the identification of adaptation options in Bundelkhand based on learnings from the Indo-UK and SDC-SCSI projects.

 Pramod kumar attended a four days’ training programme on ‘Decentralised Waste Water Treatment and Reuse’, organised by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), with the focus on understanding and addressing issues of domestic effluent treatment. The training provided learnings in terms of skill development for designing small domestic waste effluent treatment systems and proper reuse of treated wastewater.

The Earth Day 2012 marked the launch of ‘iAdapt for a Carbon CLEAN-India’, an initiative of CLEAN-India in partnership with Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN), Earth Day Network and the Department of Environment, Delhi Government, where 70 participants from schools and colleges came together to learn about urban adaptation to climate changer through sustainable lifestyles and biomimicry.

The Rural Reality Show has completed its second elimination round, wherein from the 42 groups that had participated, 20 groups have moved to the third stage.

A new partnership between DA and Read India has been developed for the roll-out of ICT-based adult literacy programme, TARA Akshar+ in Rajasthan. In its first phase the programme will address 100 illiterate women followed by another 1000 women in the second phase.