e-choupal

I guess it was Francis Bacon who said "Knowledge is Power" . The sentence is immensely true in the knowledge economy these days where companies compete on intellectual horsepower. The Indian victory call of the 60's ( Jai Jawan , Jai Kisaan ) is becoming increasingly relevant , as Indian Agriculture strives to match up with the Services Sector. Nothing much seemed to have happened after the Green revolution and uneven monsoons & increasing urbanisation has only added to India's agricultural woes.

ITC has pioneered the Community initiative e-choupal ( Choupal in Hindi is a gathering place ) . e-choupal makes global agricultural information available to the farmers at Kiosks ( the eqvt of a cybercafe ) at free of cost and this information empowers them and also kiosks help them in knowing about the weather , monsoons and other natural phenomena. They have already covered 11,000 villages & 1,00,000 farmers. As Gandhiji said India lives in its villages and it will be initiatives like this aimed at the rural markets which will wipe out our Poverty and not Glitzy shopping malls & discotheques.

Read this Case study ( Its a .pdf file) to know more.