Civil Society - May 2019

In this issue

Cooperatives come with well-known frailties. In a way, Campco is no exception. It was set up to serve the interests of areca nut farmers in Karnataka and has had to survive the pulls and pressures of multiple interests being at play. Campco is a really good example of how a cooperative can benefit farmers when it finds creative and purposeful leadership. Thanks to the late Varanashi Subraya Bhat, areca nut farmers learnt the advantages of hedging their bets by also growing pepper and cocoa. Taking a big leap into addition of value, they also set up a factory for producing chocolates. It was difficult to imagine a factory let alone build one from scratch and get it into production. Yet, in the face of innumerable odds, Campco has succeeded in becoming a significant maker of chocolates. In times when farm incomes are the reason for so much concern, we thought it would be useful for Civil Society to tell this amazing story of what Campco has achieved.
Dr Harivansh Chaturvedi has been a friend of this magazine for a long time. A gentle but blunt person is what we have known him to be and we were delighted that he didn’t disappoint us in his interview on the state of higher education in India. Dr Chaturvedi has recently edited a volume of articles on the importance of better rating and accreditation of higher education institutions in India. It is an important collection because with rampant privatisation and the rapid decline of government-run institutions some introspection is urgently needed.
Increasingly, businesses provide the social solutions we have been waiting for. We feature in our business section a Punjab-based company which has a machine for segregating and composting garbage at source. A trial is underway in the Delhi Cantonment. Could this be a model for other municipalities? There is a strong case for harnessing entrepreneurial energy for better governance. The socially driven entrepreneurs we come across in Civil Society have a lot to offer governments.

Civil Society Magazine Description:

Civil Society is an independent magazine published from New Delhi.

It was launched in September 2003 to tell stories of change from across the chaotic landscape of post-reforms India.

A newly growing economy has winners and losers — as journalists we wanted to tell the stories of those who were making it and as well as those who were getting left behind.

In the past 15 years, Civil Society has come to be known for its refreshing style of covering people, events and trends. We are credited with redefining mainstream concerns in the Indian media.

Civil Society's reportage has brought to national attention individuals and groups who play leadership roles and drive change but get overlooked. We have shown that there is an India that exists beyond prime time.

This has been possible because we moved out of big media jobs to create a small and efficient enterprise through which journalists could look for stories where it may not be fashionable to look for them.

A democracy thrives on credible information. Small media entities, freed up from the demands of big capital, allow journalists to innovate and explore new frontiers. A large and complex country like India needs more alternative voices.

Started with just Rs 4 lakhs (about $6,000) of personal savings, one small car and a single computer, Civil Society has shown that it is possible for professional journalists with skills and clear values to build influential enterprises in the media.