5 Brilliant Ways in Which NRIs Are Helping People in Rural India with Just a Few Phone Calls!

This article on using mobile technology for social good is part of the #Mobile4Good series & is made possible by Vodafone India.

Who says you cannot serve your country from far away? A group of NRIs is using technology to help people in rural India very effectively. From water scarcity to lack of electricity – they are busy solving these problems from thousands of miles away.

‘One phone call a day to keep problems away’ is the basic mantra with which Suresh Ediga, an NRI living in New York, has been working for people in rural India.

It was four years ago that Suresh came to know about CGNet Swara, a voice-based news portal, operational in Adivasi areas of states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Telangana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. CGNet Swara is basically a platform where people can report or listen to news on local issues by dialling a number. All the recorded messages are translated into Hindi and English and published on the website, where journalists, NGOs and other organisations can listen to them and help resolve the problems.

Immediately after going through the website some years ago, Suresh decided to help. He would take one issue every week, call up the concerned authorities in India, and would keep calling until some action was taken. After a few years of doing this, he decided to get more people on board so the impact could be larger.

Today, he leads a group of 12 NRIs who meet online once every week, discuss and decide which issues they will take up, and make all the necessary calls.

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100 reasons to Return to India (R2I)

Are you thinking of Returning to India (R2I)? You are finding it difficult to make an R2I decision? Your logical mind couldn't come up with enough reasons to R2I? You are not sure about how much India has changed since you left to US? Thoughts about your kids' future & the quality of life in India is stopping you from making an R2I decision? Don't worry ! I bet, you'll find answers to most of your questions/concerns in this blog post.

The objective of this blog post is not to motivate/force you to return back to India. But, if you have been contemplating about R2I for a while & couldn't make up your mind because of the lack of enough data points/reasons - this blog post is exactly for YOU. If you want to know the reasons for returning to India (R2I) - you can find them here. If you are wondering whether you should stay in US or move to India, this is the post for YOU.

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