The North East India (NER) region has been historically underbanked, yet the cumulative advancements in digital technology have for the first time made it plausible to bridge over the challenges posed by lack of brick and mortar banking infrastructure with the digital equivalent. In the previous decades, nationalization of banks, priority sector lending stipulations, the…
The Government of India has introduced four labour codes – the Code on Wages, Social Security Code, Industrial Relations Code, and Occupational Safety, Health, and Working Conditions Code which are supposed to replace the 29 labour laws. Since 90% of India’s workforce is in the unorganized sector, the Government of India wants to ensure than…
When the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in 2020, news about violence against women being on a rise also came out from various countries around the world. Women face violence and harassment at various levels – at work, outside the household, within the household in the domestic sphere, and more recently – online. The last one…
The conference, Enabling Rural Women from Livelihood to Entrepreneurship: Challenges & Opportunities focussed on rural women’s entrepreneurship Assam was organised by the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) and Council for Social and Digital Development (CSDD), and North East Development Foundation (NEDF), at NEDFi campus on 16th November, 2022, Guwahati, Assam. The goal of the consultation was…
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on communities all over the world by wiping out several years of development gains made in the past several years. The social sector and the government sector cannot alone undo the damage done by the pandemic. This is where the role of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) becomes…
Assam has been the best performing state in terms of CSR investment in the North East region (NER). This policy brief a continuation of the attempt of Council for Social and Digital Development (CSDD) and the North East Development Foundation (NEDF) and to start discussions around CSR spending and its role in development in the…
Apart from these socio-economic disadvantages which have been highly documented, the tea community of Assam is also largely digitally excluded. Why should we talk about digital inclusion and what why is it important? The present century can be termed as the ‘digital age’. The world has been dramatically changed by the processes of globalization and…
Arapid assessment studydone by the Council for Social and Digital Development (CSDD), Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), and North East Development Foundation (NEDF), to understand the ICT readiness and capacities of the farm community in Assam towards ICT based financial education and counseling brings out key highlights. The study was conducted during September and October 2021,…
In the wake of a resource depleting global economic system, the need for a new system with effective resource performance has become increasingly important. It is in such a situation that debates and conversations around circular economy have been increasingly emerging. Circular economy (CE) is an industrial system, which is an alternative to highly extractive…
On 20th August 2021, North East Development Foundation and Council for Social and Digital Development organized the policy brief consultation on “Bridging the CSR and Philanthropy Divide in North East India”. The keynote speaker of the discussion was Prof Mahendra P Lama, a development economist, the pro-vice chancellor of IGNOU, and the founding vice chancellor of Sikkim University…
The policy brief seeks to bring attention towards the importance of increasing CSR presence and investments in bridging the regional, social and development gaps of the region vis-a-vis rest of the country. The brief also seeks to focus on the various nuances of CSR expenditure, activities and impact within the region and the sectors on…