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#IAmOdisha: 7 Everyday Odia Inspirations We Should All Celebrate
This article has been powered by Industrial Promotion & Investment Corporation of Odisha Odisha is India’s ninth largest state — a state known for its stunning architecture, delicious food and...
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Durgabai Deshmukh: How a Child Bride From Andhra Became the ‘Mother of Social...
There is no question that Durgabai Deskhmukh remains one of India’s most dynamic freedom fighters, a defender of social welfare and champion of women’s rights. Married off at the age of eight to a...
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Raped, Pregnant & Minor: Girl Saved From The Brink By 2 Noida Strangers
If you come across a young girl with a suppurating infection on her leg roaming haplessly on the street, what would you do? Would you spare a moment of concern and contemplate what could be done? Or...
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Gone But Not Forgotten: These 4 Hero Dogs Saved Mumbai from a Hidden Danger...
Ten years after Mumbai experienced the life-changing terrorist attacks on 26/11, The Better India pays homage to the heroes who fought bravely that day and their efforts to rebuild afterwards....
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After Watching Friend Bleed to Death, Lucknow Man Has Saved 60 Lives in 27...
The year was 1991. At 10 pm on a foggy night, Janakipuram-based Pramod Tiwari was travelling home from work when a speeding vehicle rammed into him and drove away. When Pramod did not return home until...
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After Losing Son & Daughter-in-Law to 26/11, This 85-YO Fought For a Safer...
Ten years after Mumbai experienced the life-changing terrorist attacks on 26/11, The Better India pays homage to the heroes who fought bravely that day and their efforts to rebuild afterwards....
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The Unsung Tale of Indian Army’s ‘Cartoos Sahib’ Who Chopped Off His Own Leg...
Several extraordinary war tales have undoubtedly emerged from the battle of Sylhet; from both the Indian and Bangladeshi fronts. However, nothing will come close to the bravado of Major General Ian...
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This ‘People’s Officer’ Is the Only IAS To Be Honoured With a Statue. Here’s...
At a time when states across India are coming up with grand plans of erecting gargantuan statues, there is one statue in Hyderabad which will probably not be visited by hordes of people or receive...
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IAS, IPS, IRS: Meet The 10 Officers Whose Initiatives Made 2018 Better
The Better India Presents ‘Spotlight 2018’: A celebration of trailblazers, champions, and pioneers of change! Ordinary folks whose extraordinary and inspiring actions have made the world stand up to...
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Residents of 11 Villages Join Forces, Help IAF Repair Damaged Airstrip in...
In today’s world, it is a rare sight to see a congregation of people coming together to work towards building a better tomorrow. And, at Arunachal Pradesh’s remotest circle, Vijaynagar, this has...
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For 35 Years, Truck Driver & His Wife Rescued The Homeless, Buried Unclaimed...
Hunger and poverty can lead a person to make unexpected decisions. For 18-year-old Dev Dass Goswami, it was the two issues combined with the apathy he witnessed in his fellow human beings that made him...
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Republic Day: Meet Nani Palkhivala, The Legendary Lawyer Who Saved Our Democracy
In his treatise on political theory ‘Hind Swaraj’, Mahatma Gandhi heavily criticised lawyers for being instruments of British colonial rule and sucking the lifeblood of the poor. A strange criticism...
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This Brave Lady’s 9-Year-Fight Stopped Convicted Criminals From Being MLAs, MPs!
In 1919, the Southborough Committee on Franchise, which the British colonial government had set up to design a system of electoral representation for the Dominion of India, called upon Dr BR Ambedkar...
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Exclusive: After Saving Thousands in Kuwait, 82-YO Soldier Now Helps Tame...
Every morning, while heading to work or elsewhere, most of us are met with an unfortunate urban reality—Traffic. Even if we plan and time the commute, it feels like every hour is rush hour. Amidst the...
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Amid Gaza’s Violence, Here’s How One Palestinian Used The Mahatma’s Ideals To...
This article has been sponsored by the Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation 32 years ago, on 9 December 1987, during an infamous uprising in Palestine, a Palestinian found himself in a difficult position. The...
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Backstage Genius: This Unsung Student of C V Raman Helped Him Perfect The...
National Science Day is celebrated every year on February 28 to commemorate the discovery of Raman Effect by Sir C V Raman on this day in 1928. The discovery won him the Nobel prize in physics a couple...
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Working Weekends, B’luru Techie Has Singlehandedly Cleaned 14 Acres of a Lake!
At a glance, Venugopal Kumpalli, 39, is a hard-working IT professional in Bengaluru, the Silicon Valley of India. Like many others, he wakes up every morning and battles with the treacherous traffic of...
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Poverty Shattered his MBBS Dreams. So He Opened a School For Underprivileged...
The year is 1986. A 19-year-old teenager from India’s Golden district, Kolar, has arrived in his city of dreams, Bengaluru, with only one shirt and trouser. Although he has no place to live and no...
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Working for 40 Years, Kerala’s 85-YO Devaki Amma Grew a Forest All By Herself!
9-year-old Gouri is both anxious and excited to know the status of the sapling she had planted in December last year. She rings up her great grandmother Kollakkayil Devaki Amma for answers. Not wanting...
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Bengal Driver Distributes 4000 Pairs of Clothes to the Needy, Elderly Every...
Saju Talukdar, a 47-year-old commercial car driver, runs the Bir Birsha Munda Cloth Bank (BBMC) near Dimdima Tea Garden, nearly 100 km from Siliguri in the Alipurduar district of West Bengal. Though...
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B’luru Auto Driver Takes Pregnant Lady to Hospital, Looks After Newborn for...
After dropping a passenger at the railway station, Babu Muddrappa was on his way home in Whitefield on April 15. It was around 2.30 in the afternoon when he heard the distressed cries of a pregnant...
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Kerala Techie Single-handedly Took on Armed Robbers, Sacrificed Life While...
When 29-year-old IT engineer Saju Samuel was called to the Nashik office of Muthoot Gold Finance to fix some technical glitches in their system earlier in June 2019, little did he know that he would...
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Pradyot Kumar Bhattacharya, The Unsung Hero Who Gave His Life For India
“Dearest Mother, Do not weep for me just because I’m on my way to embrace death. Tell all my brothers that my heart lives inside the incomplete work I left behind. Finishing the remaining work rather...
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Kamal Ranadive, The Unsung Scientist Who Made Science Accessible to All Women
The Better India always strives to bring out little-known stories of India’s unsung heroes, and today we pay our tribute to the eminent scientist, Dr Kamal Ranadive. Kamal Samarth, better recognised as...
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Despite Death Threats, Fierce Official Frees 6,000 Hectares of Forest Land
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article indicated that the official had taken action against ‘poachers’. This was incorrect and a misuse of the official term. The action was taken against...
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‘We Shall Die to Awaken The Nation’: Bagha Jatin, Whose Bravery Shook the...
Siliguri, Bengal, 1907: It was a crowded railway platform. A man was rushing to his compartment, bringing water for a sick co-passenger, when he accidentally brushed past a British captain. With usual...
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Students, This #Coronawarrior Teacher’s Videos Are the Dose of Current...
Rajeev Poddar, 49, an Accounts and Economics teacher in Kolkata, was paralysed at the age of 9 in the year 1980. He had to drop out of school after Class 2, and for forty years now, he’s been confined...
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Kerala’s Man of ‘Final Goodbyes’ Has Helped Bring Back 5000 Bodies of Expats
“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.” This quote by Haruki Murakami comes to mind as I sit down to write about Ashraf Thamaraserry. In the last 20 years, Ashraf has repatriated the...
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After Losing Mom to Cancer, Odisha Man Served 7000+ Patients; Cremated 1300...
Odisha has featured in the headlines several times for heart-wrenching instances of poverty, so much so that often families cannot afford to offer a dignified farewell to their deceased dear ones, and...
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Man Turns Solar Auto into Water Hut, Gives Free Water to 3,000 People Daily
Mohammed Aabad from Rajasthan’s Churu district begins his day at 6 AM by hopping on to his unique autorickshaw and driving it through various parts of his quaint town, Sujangarh, until late evening....
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Meet The 84 YO Who Single-Handedly Dug 16 Ponds, Ending His Village’s Water...
Some drink. Some gamble. Some set out on wild adventures. But 84-year-old Kaamegowda has a unique addiction — digging ponds. The shepherd and small-time farmer from Daasanadoddi, a village in...
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Revered by Nobel Laureates, This Unsung Hero Has Uplifted 2 Million Lives in...
Joseph Madiath was a mere boy of six when he organised the labourers at his father’s rubber plantation in Kuttanad, Kerala, demanding better wages on their behalf. Sent off to a boarding school soon...
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The Forgotten African Woman Who Helped India Battle the British in 1857
To talk about the Revolt of 1857 without mentioning the valiant women’s contributions who fought in the war would be a gross injustice. When we think of the war in the women’s context, Rani Lakshmibai...
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Mumbai Fisherman Breaks His Back Saving Lives, Gives 49 Souls A 2nd Chance
On a sweltering afternoon in May 2013, Rajaram Joshi, a fisherman from Vashi in Navi Mumbai, had just returned home after selling his day’s catch. Just when he was about to take a nap, his phone began...
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‘Want to Help Before I Die’: Mumbaikar Donates Spare Oxygen Cylinder, Raises...
Two weeks ago, Pascol Saldhana(54) received a distress call from Rafique Siddiqui, the principal of Holy Mother school, Malwani. He was desperately trying to locate an oxygen cylinder for one of his...
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Unsung Punjab Scientist Saved 1000s In Odisha, But Denied Credit Because He...
Today, cities such as Bengaluru and Hyderabad are considered to be some of the finest and most notable science hubs in India. However, lesser-known is the story of the undivided state of Punjab, which...
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This Hero Turned His Auto Into an Ambulance For Injured Animals
Last week, I came across a sick puppy outside my home in Chennai. She was wailing in pain and unable to move. Her condition was such that when I put out water and milk for her to drink, she couldn’t...
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For 20 Years, Banker Performs Tens of Thousands of Funerals With His Savings
“Main roz jeeta hoon aur roz marta hoon. Mujhe life se koi expectation nahi hai.” (I live and die everyday. I have no expectations from life.) Ashish Thakur, a 42-year-old banker from Jabalpur, has...
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Forgotten Pioneer Who Launched An Airline To Ferry Refugees During Partition
Every year on 6 April, residents of a small village named Alagappa Nagar—originally a township for the staff of the Cochin Textile Mill, near Thrissur district, Kerala—cut a cake to honour the birth...
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TBI’s 5 Most-Loved Stories of 2021 Are an Ode to Human Spirit & Creativity
2021 comes to a close, and what a frantic and extraordinary year it has been, in both senses. Thanks to the pandemic and our economic conditions, it has been extraordinarily difficult. But once again,...
View ArticleOf Grit & Glory: The Better India Celebrates The Nation’s Unsung Sports Heroes
Elite athletes sweating it out in their relentless pursuit of excellence. Winning World Championships. Watching the tricolour being raised as the National Anthem plays. Medalists being feted and...
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‘Capsule Gill’ Biopic: True Story of Mining Engineer Jaswant Gill, Who Saved...
Akshay Kumar is all set to start shooting for Capsule Gill, a biopic on the life of Jaswant Singh Gill. While working as a chief mining engineer, Gill saved the lives of 65 people when a coal mine in...
View ArticleDelivery Executive’s Quick Thinking Saves 12-YO School Girl From Horrific Injury
Timely help is what saved a 12-year-old girl on 1 July. The girl was playing near the gate of Vasant Vihar Municipal School in Thane, Maharashtra, where she studies when a metal portion of the gate...
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What Happens to Kids of Prisoners? Couple Used Savings to Built Them a Safe...
In the early 1990s, while working at the Reserve Bank of India in Bengaluru, V Mani would pass through the Central Jail on his commute. Here, he’d notice several children hanging around the premises....
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Quit His Dubai Job to Revive 118 Water Bodies: Meet the Winner of India’s...
With a high-paying job as a software developer in Dubai, Thanjavur-born Nimal Raghavan’s life was going well. But in November of 2018, his perspectives would shift when he visited his hometown. This...
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In Delhi, Two Brothers Help Hundreds of Daily Wage Workers Get Free...
Mornings on a few streets in Delhi begin with a heartfelt endeavour — you may spot lines of people availing free medical assistance. Most of those in queues are migrant workers or daily wage workers...
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In Kerala, A ‘Tree of Goodness’ Helps Thousands Get Free Food, Palliative...
24 March 2020. Just like the rest of India, a town named Kanhangad, located in Kerala’s Kasaragod, went under lockdown. This was a shock and a major impediment to the many street dwellers, migrant...
View ArticleMeet the Heroes Saving Lives as Himachal Battles Massive Floods & Landslides
North India experienced heavy rainfall in the past three days. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued warnings that more heavy downpour is expected in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand,...
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Meet Hare Ram Pandey, The 66-YO Who Dedicated His Life to Raising 35 Girls As...
On 9 December 2004, Hare Ram Pandey’s life changed forever. He found a newborn girl abandoned in a forest. “When I found this girl, she was in a very bad condition. There were ants all over her...
View ArticleThis Hyderabad Man Has Served 10 Million Free Meals To People Outside Govt...
Mohd Sujathullah began his social work in 2016 when he was 22 years old. A student back then, his journey started by using his pocket money to feed the poor. He recalls the first time he offered some...
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