India, home to one-sixth of the world's population, is also home to over two million non-governmental organizations, or NGOs. While these NGOs address thousands of different issues, all have the general goal in mind of improving the quality of life for people living on the Indian subcontinent. Encompassing everything from small scale grassroots groups to large scale international movements, NGOs in India receive half a billion dollars a year in foreign funding, making these international donations the largest single source of funding for the nonprofit sector in India.

With all of these organizations to keep in mind, many people interested in contributing to nonprofit causes in India have often found it difficult on their own to identify reliable vehicles for sound philanthropy and social action in India. Without a trustworthy source of information on non-governmental organizations working on development in India, many would-be philanthropists have turned their interests away from India despite the immense need for their resources and knowledge in the region.

As a result of conversations with prominent members of the Indian American community and executives of major U.S. foundations, the Asia Society has undertaken this web guide to the issues of health and education in India. This site, made possible by a generous grant from the Ford Foundation, focuses on health and education sectors as an introduction to some of the philanthropic causes on the Indian subcontinent. While there is a multitude of important and pressing issues in India, we have arbitrarily chosen health and education as a launching pad for information on NGOs in general. By no means a comprehensive study, this site is intended to be a starting point for people interested in giving something back to India.

This site is organized into three main sections: Searchable Databases, Health, and Education. The first section of this site, Searchable Databases , lists webpages that contain searchable databases of NGOs in India. These pages allow searches for specific organizations working in a particular sector or region of India.

The second section of this site focuses on Health, dividing the issue of health into the subcategories of Government Resources, Medical Development and Defense Spending, Women's Health , HIV,Prostitution and Sexual Health, Family Planning, Occupational and Environmental Health, and Organ Trade.

The third and final section of this website focuses on Education and is divided into the subcategories of Education of Girls and Women, Literacy, Rural/Urban Divide, Lower Caste/Tribals, Street Children, People with Disabilities, and Science and Technology. For both the health end education sections, each subcategory is further divided into articles and background information, views and debates, and organizations of note.

We hope that this guide will be useful in thinking about philanthropy and social action in India.