Kurukshetra’s April 2026 Special Issue, themed “Digital Pathways for Rural India” (Hindi: “Digital Path Par Agrasar Gramin Bharat”), surveys how digital rails are rewiring rural governance and the farm economy: BharatNet and CSCs as access infrastructure, digitised PACS and Smart Panchayats as institutional upgrades, and AgriStack-era agritech as the productivity layer.
Articles in This Issue
- Digital Transformation of Rural India - 548 million rural internet users, BharatNet’s 2.18 lakh service-ready panchayats, JAM-DBT delivery of Rs 34 lakh crore
- Food Safety in the Digital India Era - FSSAI’s FoSCoS, InFoLNet, FICS and FoSTaC stack; blockchain for farm-to-fork traceability
- Digitising Cooperatives: PACS in Transition - 63,000 PACS on one ERP platform; PACS as CSCs, Fair Price Shops and Kisan Samriddhi Kendras
- Smart Panchayats - eGramSwaraj-PFMS, AuditOnline, SabhaSaar AI, SVAMITVA drone mapping
- Agritech and the Data-Driven Rural Economy - Digital Agriculture Mission, AgriStack, precision farming, Namo Drone Didi
Key Concepts
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| BharatNet | National optical-fibre project connecting Gram Panchayats |
| CSC | Common Service Centre; last-mile digital service delivery kiosk |
| JAM Trinity | Jan Dhan + Aadhaar + Mobile, the DBT backbone |
| FoSCoS | FSSAI’s Food Safety Compliance System for online licensing |
| PACS | Primary Agricultural Credit Societies, base tier of rural cooperative credit |
| SabhaSaar | AI speech-to-text tool digitising and summarising Gram Sabha proceedings |
| AgriStack | Foundational digital layer of farmer, land and weather databases |
| SVAMITVA | Drone-survey scheme giving rural property ownership cards |
UPSC GS Relevance
- GS2: e-governance, local government (73rd Amendment institutions going digital), cooperatives (97th Amendment context)
- GS3: agricultural credit and marketing, food safety, digital economy in rural India
