About

Rice Bucket Challenge is a social media charity campaign inspired by the internationally popular Ice Bucket Challenge in which the participant gifts a bowl of rice to a needy individual and shares a photograph of the random act of kindness on Facebook with a nomination for a friend to carry on the good deed. Upon its launch in late August 2014, the challenge quickly spread among Facebook users in India.

Origin

On August 23rd, 2014, the Facebook page Rice Bucket Challenge^[2] was created, which laid out the four steps to complete the challenge and credited the idea for the challenge to Manju Latha Kalanidhi. As of September 2014, the page has gained over 63,000 likes.

Spread

On August 24th, 2014, Twitter user naman_bhandari^[3] introduced the hashtag #ricebucketchallenge. Within a month the hashtag^[4] was tweeted out 11,000 times.

The same day Buzzfeed^[5] published a post titled "“The Rice Bucket Challenge” Is India’s Brilliant Alternative To The Ice Bucket Challenge."

Also on August 24th, YouTuber Prasar Bharti^[8] uploaded a video titled "India Rice Bucket Challenge for charity" which features the rules of the challenge and pictures from those who completed it. As of September 2014, the video has gained over 21,000 views.

The following day the challenge was covered by several major news sites including CNN^[6] and CNBC.^[7]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References