Book Review Vikram Singh Mehta, Neelima Khetan and Jayaypadma R. V. (Eds), Anchoring Change: Seventy- five Years of Grassroots Interventions that Made a Difference. Harper Collins India, Gurugram,

Some of the experiments and innovations made by the NGOs and the changes they have made have been widely appreciated, and in some cases, the governments adopted them in their mechanisms of delivery of services or simply responded to the efforts of the NGOs and took several initiatives. [...] Anchoring Change gives us interesting accounts of 24 major interventions at the grassroots, many of which owe their origin to the efforts of civil society organisations, and some to the efforts of the state or local governments, or the corporate sector, and how they made a difference to the well-being of the people. [...] Eklavya -- a micro-level experiment on curriculum changes in elementary schools initiated by the Kishore Bharati known as the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme started in the district of Hoshangabad in the early 1980s has drawn the interest of academics from universities, teachers from schools, the youth, and the elderly citizens, and attracted the attention of curricular reformers everywhere. [...] The activity of the Mysore Resettlement and Development Agency (MYRADA) launched in 1968 in 18 districts in Karnataka has been found to have played an important role in the emergence of self-help groups (SHGs) and credit management groups (CMGs) on a large scale in the country in the subsequent years. [...] As the editors observe, most of the interventions at the grassroots have been driven by the interactions of the triad of the state, the market, and society.