Mari Thekaekara: I cannot bear it when people say they come to uplift someone
Mari Marcel Thekaekara is a writer and co-founder of ACCORD – the Action for Community Organisation, Rehabilitation and Development. Born into a deeply religious family, Mari was brought up with a Jesuit Catholic education that taught her to question all her beliefs and developed a deep sense of empathy within her. She went on to […]
Stan Thekaekera: How do you strategically plan to eliminate fear? (Part 2)
This is Part 2. We recommend you listen to Part 1 first. Stan Thekaekara is a social activist who has worked with indigenous and Adivasi communities for over forty years. He co-founded ACCORD, or the Action for Community Organisation, Rehabilitation and Development and organisation that helped found the Adivasi Munnetra Sangam (AMS), a membership based […]
Stan Thekaekera: How do you strategically plan to eliminate fear? (Part 1)
Stan Thekaekara is a social activist who has worked with indigenous and Adivasi communities for over forty years. Born into a deeply religious family in Bengaluru, Stan found himself grappling with his privilege at a very young age. These feelings, accompanied with his exposure to social action through All India Catholic University Federation, or AICUF, […]
Dr Darshan Shankar: Traditional knowledge has contemporary relevance
Padmashri Dr. Darshan Shankar is the Chairman of the Indian Institute of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine, Managing Trustee of Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT) & Founder Vice Chancellor of the Trans-Disciplinary University (TDU) in Bengaluru. Born into a family of modern scientists, Dr. Shankar has always stood for innovation in education from […]
Maja Daruwala: Prisons are the dumping ground for all the dysfunctions in the justice system
Maja Daruwala has been an activist for human rights and social justice for over four decades. Born in 1945, as the second daughter of Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw, Maja grew up in the cantonments of India, where her early syncretic experiences impressed upon her the fraternal and plural nature of India, then still a young […]
Vijay Mahajan: The engineer who showed India that the rural poor are credit worthy
Vijay Mahajan, is the co-founder and founder of some of India’s most well known livelihoods and social enterprise groups: the NGO PRADAN, and the BASIX Social enterprise group that has transformed the livelihoods of over three million lower income households across twenty states in India, as well as in other countries across the world. Born […]
Dr Yellappa Reddy: The Trees Must Always Come First
Dr A.N. Yellappa Reddy is a renowned environmentalist, a former Indian Forest Services officer and member of the Lok Adalat or Karnataka High Court for environmental project initiatives. Throughout his career, Dr. Reddy has actively championed the conservation of natural forests, water systems and rehabilitation of endangered flora and fauna. Born in the small village […]
Devaki Jain says that when you count women’s work you make them visible
Devaki Jain is one of India’s best known feminist economists, with a long career working closely with institutions to first recognise and then mainstream women’s issues. Born in 1933 in the erstwhile princely state of Mysore where her father was a minister, Devaki has degrees from the University of Mysore and the University of Oxford […]
Dr Ravi Chopra says that selfless service is an article of faith
In this episode of Grassroots Nation we hear from Dr Ravi Chopra is the founder Director of the People’s Science Institute in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Through his career he has helped establish several pioneering organisations in the social and development sector, from livelihoods, disability rights, human rights, water resources management and much more. Born in 1947, […]
Prof Madhav Gadgil: We must work with the people to protect nature
Welcome to Ep 11 of Grassroots Nation, a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies, a show in which we dive deep into the life, work, and guiding philosophies of some of our country’s greatest leaders of social change. Professor Madhav Dhananjaya Gadgil is one of India’s most prolific and well known ecologists. He was born in […]
Dr Armida Fernandez: No one achieves anything alone
Subscribe to Grassroots Nation: Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher. Dr Armida Fernandez is one of India’s foremost neonatologists, treating babies born in some of the most underprivileged and marginalized homes in Mumbai. She has dedicated her life to service in public health. From pioneering the cause of neonatology in the country by focusing on low cost solutions that […]
Dr Madhav Chavan and Dr Rukmini Banerji (Part 2): Go to the people. Love them, learn from them.
TRANSCRIPT PART 2 In Part 2 of this episode of Grassroots Nation, Rohini Nilekani continues her conversation with Rukmini Banerji and Madhav Chavan, CEO and Founder of Pratham. Set up in 1995, Pratham’s mission is to see every child in school and learning well. It is a deeply influential organization whose mandate far exceeded its […]
Dr Madhav Chavan & Dr Rukmini Banerji: Pioneers in Literacy & Learning in India
In this episode, we hear from pioneers in literacy and learning in India: Dr Madhav Chavan and Dr Rukmini Banerji of the Pratham Education Foundation. Pratham is one of India’s best-known non-governmental organizations and was established in 1995 by Madhav Chavan and Farida Lambe. Since then the organisation has strived to improve literacy amongst India’s […]
Al Fernandez: Mentor, Guide & Lodestar to the Social Sector
Subscribe to Grassroots Nation: Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher. Aloysius Fernandez prepared for a life of service in the Church – and was even ordained as one in 1953. But when he witnessed the abject suffering caused by the Bangladesh refugee crisis and the blight of poverty on people in Maharashtra in times of […]
Bunker Roy: There is no urban solution to a rural problem
Subscribe to Grassroots Nation: Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher. How did a Doon School and St. Stephens College Alumni end up spending his life in service to rural India? Bunker Roy, born Sanjit Roy in 1945 in Burnpur, Asansol, had a privileged, elite upbringing. But a visit to Bengal during the famine in 1965 affected him deeply and […]
Dr Kamal Bawa: The Evolution of a Conservation Biologist
Subscribe to Grassroots Nation: Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher. Born in pre-independence India in 1939, Dr Kamaljit S. Bawa grew up in Kapurthala in Punjab, witnessing partition and inspired by the speeches of our country’s founding leaders. It was on a field project to the Northeast of India as a Master’s student that opened […]
Aruna Roy: If I’m really fighting for accountability, the first person I should make accountable is myself
Subscribe to Grassroots Nation: Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher. This is part 2 of Aruna Roy’s story. Listen to part 1 on our feed. In part 1, Aruna spoke about her early life and upbringing, her career with the Indian Administrative Service and her move to Tilonia, Rajasthan to work at the Social Work […]
Aruna Roy: The demand for rights has to be understood as a demand for dignity
TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to Grassroots Nation, a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies, a show in which we dive deep into the life, work and guiding philosophies of some of our country’s greatest leaders of social change. Aruna Roy is an activist, feminist and social leader of Independent India in a category of her own. she has […]
Dr H Sudarshan: Service is a part of the divine, the cosmos & nature
Subscribe to Grassroots Nation: Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher. In our second episode, we meet a tribal rights activist who dedicated his life to working on rural healthcare and livelihoods. Dr Hanumappa Sudarshan is the founder of the Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra and the Karuna Trust. Dr Hanumappa Sudarshan was born in 1950, and […]
Dr Ashok Khosla: It’s possible to do good, and good business
Subscribe to Grassroots Nation: Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher. In this first episode of Grassroots Nation we meet Dr Ashok Khosla, an environmental visionary, a pioneer of sustainable development and the founder and Chairman of Development Alternatives. Dr. Khosla began thinking about the environment and our collective future well before climate change became something […]
Trailer – Grassroots Nation
Listen to this Podcast Trailer – Grassroots Nation Grassroots Nation is a new podcast series from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies in which we deep dive into the life, work and guiding philosophies of some of the country’s greatest leaders of social change. Part personal narrative, part oral history, each episode gives you, the listener, a chance […]
