Countries

She Borrowed ₹200 From a Cooperative and Now Ships Products to 12 Countries

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She Borrowed ₹200 From a Cooperative and Now Ships Products to 12 Countries

In the summer of 1998, a twenty-three-year-old woman in Bhujodi village, Kutch district, Gujarat, walked into her local cooperative society office and asked for a loan of ₹200. The clerk hesitated — the amount was so small it barely covered the paperwork. She wanted to buy raw cotton yarn and natural dyes to weave shawls … Read more

The Nilgiris Cooperative That Sells Tea, Coffee and Spices to 14 Countries — Without a Single Middleman

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The Nilgiris Cooperative That Sells Tea, Coffee and Spices to 14 Countries — Without a Single Middleman

At 6,200 feet above sea level, in the mist-wrapped slopes above Coonoor, a 62-year-old Toda tribal woman named Lakshmi picks the season’s second flush of orthodox tea — two leaves and a bud, repeated hundreds of times before noon. Two decades ago, a private buyer would have paid her roughly ₹8 per kilogram of green … Read more