A master weaver in Varanasi can spend three months producing a single Banarasi silk sari worth ₹40,000 in a Delhi boutique — and walk away with less than ₹4,000 of that. The gap between what skilled hands create and what they earn has defined India’s handloom economy for generations — until a quiet ownership revolution … Read more
PERSON: Ghanshyam Das Birla PERSON: Harsh Mariwala PERSON: Thomas Timberg ORGANIZATION: Marico ORGANIZATION: Confederation of Indian Industry ORGANIZATION: Aditya Birla Group ORGANIZATION: Bajaj Group LOCATION: Rajasthan LOCATION: Shekhawati LOCATION: Calcutta <p>Thirty-seven families from a narrow strip of arid land in northern Rajasthan hold stakes across India's most valuable listed companies, with combined market capitalizations that … Read more
The Mondragon Corporation — a worker-owned industrial empire headquartered in the Basque Country of Spain — generates over €12 billion in annual revenue and employs more than 80,000 people, yet most economics departments spent three decades treating it as a curiosity rather than a model worth replicating. That indifference is ending, and the reasons reveal … Read more
When the farmers of Anand — a small, dust-settled town in Gujarat, India — formed a dairy cooperative in 1946, they collectively processed just 247 liters of milk a day, owned no refrigeration equipment, and had no brand anyone had ever heard of. The company they were about to challenge, Polson Dairy, had British colonial … Read more
Off the coast of Thiruvananthapuram, fishermen were losing money every single morning — not because the fish had disappeared, but because they had no idea where to sell them. That changed in 2007, and what followed quietly became one of the most extraordinary wealth stories in modern India. I first heard this story from an … Read more
The butter I spread on toast this morning came in a Land O’Lakes package. The cranberry juice in my fridge was made by Ocean Spray. The news story I read at breakfast was filed through the Associated Press. Every single one of those brands is a cooperative — owned not by Wall Street shareholders, but … Read more
Two of India’s most ancient natural fibers — silk and coir — are quietly fueling a new wave of rural prosperity, and most people outside these communities have no idea how profitable these cooperative ventures have become. I’ve been tracking the growth of fiber-based cooperatives across southern and eastern India, and the numbers tell a … Read more
I’ve spent years studying the economics behind India’s decentralized textile sector, and one question keeps surfacing among weavers, policymakers, and cooperative advocates alike — does joining a powerloom cooperative actually put more money in a weaver’s pocket than working independently? The answer is more nuanced than most people assume, and the income gap between these … Read more
Thousands of cooperative societies across India produce world-class agricultural goods, handicrafts, and dairy products — yet most never set foot on an international exhibition floor. The gap between production capability and global market access remains one of the biggest missed opportunities for the Indian cooperative movement, and 2026 is shaping up to be a turning … Read more
The lakadong turmeric grown in Meghalaya’s Jaintia Hills contains up to 7.5 percent curcumin — nearly three times the concentration found in most commercial varieties and a figure that makes it the most chemically potent turmeric on earth. For three decades, that extraordinary quality translated into almost nothing for the farmers who grew it, because … Read more