Like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, Sodi Mada charms children and leads them to schools in the Maoist belt of Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district. Mitali Mohanty Ghosh tells us about the young farmer

On Mumbai local trains he seeks donations. Though begging is banned, no one harasses this former marine engineer. Kavita Kanan Chandra tell us about the mission of Sandeep Manohar Desai, who runs a few schools for underprivileged children

Anil Joshi built 10 check dams in a drought-stricken area in Madhya Pradesh, collecting Re 1 from each villager. Yes, you read the story early this year and lauded him and his work. Now we have chosen him for the ‘Person of the Year’ award

Sujata went to Ladakh following her trekker husband’s trail but ended up taking education to the children there against all odds. Shudip Talukdar tells us the story of commitment and courage

Watching the ordeals of rickshaw pullers in Varanasi, as a boy, Naveen Krishna embarked on a mission to help the pullers come out of the grip of mafia-styled vehicle owners. Though he succeeded, the ride was a bumpy one, says Akash Bisht

When a check dam in Jharkhand was washed away, the villagers affected by it did not go to the government to rebuild it. Instead they did it themselves in three weeks. Now, they are planning to build eight more dams, says Santosh H K Narayan

A group of young doctors landed in a dusty village called Ganiyari, now in Chhattisgarh, 10 years ago to provide quality healthcare to locals. Today, they are the pride of medical profession

Ajay Chatruvedi, who gave up a lucrative job abroad, has been focusing in rural India, changing the lives of villagers by setting up BPOs for women and trying to run the centres with gobar gas and solar power. Kavita Kanan Chandra reports

Sai Prasad Vishwanathan, India's first disabled skydiver, will add another feather to his cap when he goes to Antarctica in 2013 as the first Indian with disability to visit the icy continent

People magazine of the Time magazine group, which usually features celebrities and film stars, has profiled Anand Kumar, founder of Super 30, hailing him as a ‘People’s Hero’. A report  

When he was a child, his mother did not want him. Now, Lobsang Phuntsok is more than a mother to 82 children, who had been abandoned and abused. Madhu Gurung meets the monk, whose name means kind heart, at his orphanage in Arunachal Pradesh

An MBA holding a job with ITC, Jaya Prakash Dabral should have been climbing the corporate ladder at the age of 35. But he went back to his roots, the place where he hailed from, and saved trees from being felled, says Kavita Kanan Chandra

Thanks to the conservation efforts of a group of women, forest cover has gone up by 63 percent in a village in Odisha, which was devastated by the 1999 super cyclone, says Richa Sharma

Village volunteers or Gramdoots have changed the government machinery - to work for the people - in around 1,000 villages of Maharastra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, says Aparna Pallavi

In the jungles of Muthurkham Chaura and Kadel Pahar in Jharkhand, which is a Maoist corridor and haven for timber mafia, there roams a 42-year-old woman, Chami Devi Murmu, whom the locals fondly call ‘Lady Tarzan’. Saadia Azim tells us why