People's Archive of Rural India

What People's Archive of Rural India does

People's Archive of Rural India (PARI), founded in December 2014 by journalist P. Sainath and operated by the CounterMedia Trust (formed September 2011), is a non-profit digital journalism platform and living archive documenting everyday rural Indian life. PARI publishes multimedia content—video, photographs, audio, and text—in 15 Indian languages spoken by an estimated 1.2 billion people, with all content available free of charge under Creative Commons licensing. The platform maintains specialised archives including the Grindmill Songs Project (over 100,000 ovi sung by rural Maharashtra women), the Songs of the Rann archive of Kutchi folk music, the Adivasi Children's Art collection, the Women's Health Series, Visible Work Invisible Women, the Freedom Fighters' Gallery, the FACES national facial-diversity mapping project, the Climate Change Reporting project, and Livelihoods under Lockdown.

PARI's core offerings are PARI Stories (a living multimedia journal), the PARI Library (a free, downloadable repository of reports, gazettes, Supreme Court judgments, and rare historical documents), and PARI Education, which engages close to 150 schools, colleges, and universities through classroom programs and student reporting. Distribution is community-led, relying on volunteer contributions—over 320 registered volunteers, with 40–50 active at any time—and grassroots reach through physical exhibitions at bus and railway stations, factory gates, and educational institutions.

PARI generates no commercial revenue and operates entirely on donations from individuals and foundations. It explicitly accepts no government or corporate grants, in order to preserve editorial independence, and donations qualify for tax exemption under Section 80G of India's Income Tax Act. The organisation maintains a small core editorial team in Mumbai alongside a distributed network of journalists, filmmakers, photographers, and academics.

Name

People's Archive of Rural India

Legal name

CounterMedia Trust

Website

https://ruralindiaonline.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

People's Archive of Rural India (PARI) is a non-profit, 15-language digital journalism platform documenting rural Indian lives through free multimedia stories, a downloadable Library, and PARI Education programmes engaging roughly 150 institutions.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Digital Journalism Archive

NAICS

Libraries and Archives (519210), Translation and Interpretation Services (541930), Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services (5192)

SIC

Miscellaneous Publishing (2741), Services-Motion Picture & Video Tape Production (7812), Services-Mailing, Reproduction, Commercial Art & Photography (7330)

akta.pro primary industry

Public Media Archives, Libraries & Content Preservation (MPABADAL)

akta.pro secondary industries

Translation & Transcreation Services (Script/Dialogue Adaptation) (MPAHAFAD), Government, Public Policy & Regulatory Reference (Public Administration, Regulatory Guidance) (EDAGAGAK)

Keywords

• Rural journalism
• Digital archive
• Multilingual media
• Nonprofit media
• Community reporting

Headquarters

HQ city

New Delhi

HQ country

India

HQ region

Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Individual Donations: PARI accepts donations from Indian citizens in Indian rupees, ranging from modest amounts (Rs. 100-200/month) to larger contributions. Donations are eligible for tax exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act.
2. Foundation and Institutional Donations: PARI receives funding from foundations and institutions that value independent and free media. No direct grants from governments or corporations to maintain editorial independence.
3. Volunteer Labor: A voluntary network of reporters, professional filmmakers, photographers, documentary filmmakers, journalists, academics, teachers, researchers, and tech professionals donate expertise for site design and content creation.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

PARI operates a multilingual digital journalism platform and living archive that publishes multimedia content (video, photo, audio, text) documenting the everyday lives of rural Indians across 15 languages spoken by 1.2 billion people. It also maintains specialized archives (Grindmill Songs Project, FACES, Adivasi Children's Art, Freedom Fighters' Gallery) and a free downloadable Library of reports, gazettes, books, and historical documents. All content is published under Creative Commons licensing and made freely accessible to the public.

Product overview

PARI (People's Archive of Rural India) is a multilingual digital journalism platform and living archive dedicated to documenting the everyday lives of rural Indians. The platform publishes content in 15 languages spoken by 1.2 billion Indians. Its core offerings include PARI Stories (a living journal with video, photo, audio and text content), the PARI Library (free downloadable documents, reports and books), and PARI Education (engaging students in exploring rural India). PARI also maintains several specialized archives: the Grindmill Songs Project (over 100,000 songs by rural Maharashtra women), the Songs of the Rann archive (Kutchi folk music), the Archive of Adivasi Children's Art, the PARI Series on Women's Health, the Visible Work Invisible Women photo exhibition, the Freedom Fighters' Gallery, the FACES facial diversity mapping project, and Climate Change reporting. All content is published under Creative Commons and is completely free to access, with no subscription fee or advertisements.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• PARI Stories (Living Journal) A living journal publishing multimedia digital reporting on rural India, including video, photo, audio and text content covering the everyday lives of everyday people, freely accessible across 15 languages.
• PARI Library Free downloadable repository of reports, studies, surveys, documents, books, gazettes, Supreme Court judgements, draft bills, constitutional amendments, copyright-free literature, and research papers, with volunteer-written summaries for each entry.
• PARI Education Educational initiative that engages students through classroom programs, workshops, and internships, and publishes stories by student reporters exploring rural India.
• Grindmill Songs Project Digital archive of over 100,000 ovi (couplets) sung by women in rural Maharashtra, with recordings, videos, transcripts, translations, and contextual stories.
• Songs of the Rann: Archive of Kutchi Folk Songs Multimedia archive of 341 Kutchi folk songs featuring an informal collective of 305 percussionists, singers and instrumentalists from Kachchh, Gujarat.
• Archive of Adivasi Children's Art First-ever archive of paintings by Adivasi schoolchildren (Classes 3-9, ages 9-15), with 111 paintings by 98 children from 57 schools in Odisha, each accompanied by video introductions.
• PARI Series on Women's Health Journalistic survey across India covering reproductive health rights of rural Indian women, with 50 stories foregrounding voices and lived experiences, including stigma around infertility, female sterilisation, and inadequate rural healthcare.
• Visible Work, Invisible Women First fully digitised, curated still-photo exhibition presenting photographs by P. Sainath across ten Indian states between 1993 and 2002, each panel with its own 2-3 minute video on average.
• Freedom Fighters' Gallery Archive preserving stories of India's freedom fighters through photos and videos of little-known foot soldiers of freedom, with their stories, family photos, and videos.
• FACES Project First and only systematic nationwide mapping of India's facial diversity, with photographers submitting pictures from every district and block of the country.
• Climate Change Reporting Climate change reporting project covering multiple agro-ecological zones across over 30 regions and sub-regions, foregrounding voices of farmers, labourers, fisherfolk, and nomadic pastoralists; winner of four awards.
• Livelihoods under Lockdown Coverage of the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on millions of livelihoods, carrying over 200 stories documenting the human cost of the pandemic.

Quantifiable outcome

• Largest multilingual journalistic endeavor in the world (15 languages, 1.2 billion speakers)
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature6 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• United States Library of CongressflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 25 April 2020On April 25, 2020, the United States Library of Congress recognized PARI as a valuable resource and wrote to PARI seeking permission to record and archive PARI on their own website and database. This recognition validates PARI's significance as a national knowledge repository on rural India.

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Direct peers

• Newslaundry: An independent digital news platform with multimedia and video-led journalism supported by reader subscriptions. Comparable as an independent digital media organization with non-corporate funding and editorial independence.
• Scroll.in: A digital news outlet covering Indian social, political, and cultural issues with multimedia storytelling. Comparable as a digital-first, multi-format (text, video, photo) Indian publication addressing underrepresented stories.
• The Wire: An independent digital news platform covering Indian politics, society, and marginalized communities. Comparable as a non-corporate, donor-supported digital publication focused on issues underrepresented in mainstream media.
• IndiaSpend: A data-driven, non-profit digital journalism platform focused on India's development and public-interest issues. Comparable as an independent, non-profit digital publication targeting accountability and underrepresented topics.
• Article-14: An independent digital publication focused on Indian law, rights, and justice through long-form storytelling. Comparable as a non-profit, digital-first journalism outlet covering underreported Indian social issues.
• The News Minute: A digital news platform covering South Indian states with multimedia storytelling in English and regional languages. Comparable as a digital-first, multilingual publication serving underrepresented regions.
• India Development Review (IDR): A non-profit digital media platform covering India's development sector, social impact, and marginalized communities. Comparable as a foundation-supported digital publication documenting India's social realities.
• Khabar Lahariya: A rural-focused, women-led digital news organization publishing in multiple Indian languages from rural districts. Directly comparable to PARI as an independent, rural-rooted digital journalism platform serving underserved linguistic communities.

Broad incumbents

• The Hindu: A major mainstream Indian newspaper with extensive digital presence and multimedia capabilities. Comparable as a broad incumbent covering rural India, though with a metropolitan-elite editorial focus that PARI explicitly differentiates against.

Emerging players

• Gram Vaani: A social-tech company operating community media platforms in rural India via mobile and IVR. Comparable as an emerging player in rural Indian media infrastructure, though with a tech-platform rather than editorial-journalism approach.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/PariNetwork
• Facebookfacebook.com/PARInetwork
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/people-s-archive-of-rural-india

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles10 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about People's Archive of Rural India