Swadesha Sharma

PARI Library Team

Editor

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2023 was a busy year.India experienced extreme weather events almost every day between January and September. In September, the Lok Sabha passed the Women’s Reservation Bill to bring more women into the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, BUT, it will only be implemented in 2029. Meanwhile, data released by the National Crime Records Bureau showed 445,256 cases of crimes against women in 2022. In August, the Supreme Court released a handbook on combating gender stereotypes which suggested alternatives for certain ‘stereotype promoting’ terms even as a five-judge bench of the SC ruled against legal recognition for same-sex marriages. Nine states conducted state assembly elections and flare-ups along communal and caste lines dominated the news cycle. Between March 2022 and July 2023, the number of total billionaires in India rose from 166 to 174. The average unemployment rate among people aged 15-29 years stayed around 17.3 per cent in the first nine months of the year.

With so much happening throughout the year, the Library worked to collate and stock relevant reports.These ranged from acts and laws, books, conventions and charters, essays and anthologies to glossaries, government reports, pamphlets, surveys, articles – even a <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/the-price-some-pay-for-sugar/">comic book</a> adaptation of one of our stories! One of our new projects this year was the Library Bulletin – an occasional round-up of PARI stories and resources on specific concerns. We published four of these this year, on <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/notes-from-the-pari-library-womens-health/">women’s health</a>, pandemic affected <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/working-through-a-pandemic-in-rural-india/">workers</a>, the conditions faced by <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/everyday-lives-of-queer-people-in-rural-india/">queer people</a> in the country, and the state of <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/pari-library-bulletin-on-indias-classrooms/">education</a> in rural India.

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In the reports we carried, inequality in climate responsibilities revealed itself in how the richest 10 per cent of the world population contribute nearly half of the total <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/climate-inequality-report-2023-fair-taxes-for-a-sustainable-future-in-the-global-south/">carbon emissions</a>, overshooting the limits necessary to contain global warming. This is despite the 2015 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/the-paris-agreement/">Paris Agreement</a> that was adamant on the need to limit average global temperature within 1.5° above pre-industrial levels to prevent catastrophic climate extremes. Clearly, we are way off track. Greenhouse gas emissions have instead <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/climate-change-performance-index-results-2023/">grown</a> by 40 per cent since 2000. The Indo-Gangetic plains – home to around 40 per cent of the country’s population – have now become the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/air-quality-life-index---june-2022/">most polluted regions</a> of India, and Delhi records the most polluted air of all megacities across the world. Several reports that crossed our desk indicated that although all of India faces climate risks, some states like Jharkhand and Odisha are <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/climate-vulnerability-assessment-for-adaptation-planning-in-india-using-a-common-framework/">especially vulnerable</a>.

Design courtesy: Dipanjali Singh

Nearly 20 million people in the country had to migrate due to climate-related hazards in 2020. Considering that around 90 per cent of the country’s workforce is informal in nature, effective social protection is the need of the time, added <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/social-protection-and-informal-job-market-reform-for-tackling-the-climate-migration-nexus/">this report</a> by the International Institute for Environment and Development.Questions of informal employment and migration are inevitably linked to education by way of the children who migrate with their families. A survey of <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/a-study-on-access-to-education-by-children-of-migrant-workers/">migrant households</a> in Delhi NCR and Bhopal found that around 40 per cent of children belonging to migrant families were out of school.The <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/search?q=periodic+labour+force+survey&amp;type=resource">quarterly bulletins</a> of the Periodic Labour Force Survey continued to be useful in tracking worker participation and unemployment rates as well as workforce distribution ratios across primary, secondary and tertiary sectors.

Design courtesy: Siddhita Sonavane

The changing media landscape was a popular concern this year. A <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/media-in-india-access-practices-concerns-and-effects/">limited survey</a> showed that one-third of all Indians watch television daily, however only around 14 per cent read newspapers everyday. Another report found that <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/indian-languages---understanding-indias-digital-news-consumer/">729 million Indians</a> were active internet users. And 70 per cent of those who consumed local news online, did so in Indian languages.  Documents like <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/the-law-isnt-straight-a-queer-persons-guide-to-accessing-rights/">A queer person’s guide to accessing rights</a> bolstered the conversation championing a just legal system. <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/glossary-for-addressing-the-lgbtqia-community/">Glossaries</a> and <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/handbook-on-combating-gender-stereotypes/">Handbooks</a> published during the year were handy guides promoting the use of inclusive vocabulary for across the gender spectrum.

Bridging the gap between complex scientific jargon and the general public, the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/the-climate-dictionary/">Climate Dictionary</a> helped us speak climate a little more fluently. This <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/atlas-of-the-worlds-languages-in-danger/">atlas</a> we carried, highlighted the shrinking linguistic diversity of the world, recording almost 300 languages to be under threat in India. And &#39;Language&#39; got a <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/rooms/language/">room</a> of its own in the PARI Library! Among dozens of reports, the room houses <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/first-history-lessons-the-languages-of-our-country/">First History Lessons</a> which brings forth the connections between language and power by trailing the changes in Bangla, its dialects, and their history. The Library also began hosting the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/linguistic-survey-of-india-bihar/">Linguistic Survey of India</a> reports, with one in place and many more to come next year. 2023 was a busy year. 2024 will be busier. Keep popping in to check out what’s new!

To volunteer with PARI Library, write to <a href="mailto:contact@ruralindiaonline.org">contact@ruralindiaonline.org</a>If the work we do interests you and you would like to contribute to PARI, please write to us at contact@ruralindiaonline.org. We welcome freelance and independent writers, reporters, photographers, film makers, translators, editors, illustrators and researchers to work with us. PARI is a not-for-profit and we rely on donations from people who appreciate our multilingual online journal and archive. If you would like to contribute to PARI please click on <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/pages/donate/">DONATE</a> Cover design: Swadesha Sharma

The PARI Library: more than just data

پاری لائبریری: صرف ڈیٹا ہی نہیں، زندہ دستاویز

PARI గ్రంథాలయం: కేవలం సమాచారానికి మించిన ప్రపంచం

பாரி நூலகம்: வெறும் தரவுகள் அல்ல

ପରୀ ଲାଇବ୍ରେରୀ : କେବଳ ତଥ୍ୟ ନୁହେଁ, ଏକ ବ୍ୟାପକ ଉତ୍ସ

പാരി ലൈബ്രറി: സ്ഥിതിവിവരക്കണക്കുകൾക്കും അപ്പുറം

ಪರಿ ಲೈಬ್ರರಿ: ಅಂಕಿ-ಸಂಖ್ಯೆಗಳಾಚೆಗಿನ ಲೋಕ

पारी लाइब्रेरी: सिर्फ़ आंकड़ा नहीं, ज़िंदा दस्तावेज़

પારી લાઇબ્રેરી: માત્ર આંકડા અને માહિતી કરતાં ઘણું વધારે

पारी लाइब्रेरी: नियाव अऊ हक के संग, खोज-खबर

पारी लाइब्रेरी: जरूरी जानकारी आ संसाधन के ठिकाना

তথ্য পেরিয়ে প্রজ্ঞা আর প্রেক্ষিত সন্ধানী পারি লাইব্রেরি

পাৰি লাইব্ৰেৰী: তথ্যৰ যোগেদি প্ৰজ্ঞাৰ সন্ধান

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India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

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The PARI Library: more than just data

Hundreds of reports and surveys, thousands of words were archived in the Library during the last 12 months, and each one supporting and validating issues of justice and rights

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