Blog
Conference and Seminars in Academic institutions often follow template of bygone era when knowledge was considered as prerogative of “scholars” and everyone else was expected to thankfully slurp their verbiage. The Learning Society UnConference (LSUC) 2025 at Kumaraguru College of Technology Coimbatore by Shikshantar Aandolan and the Multiversity Alliance India is one of the most enjoyable gatherings I have can in recent times. LSUC was different from academic Conferences as the name indicates. Diverse gathering of about 800 people, lots of kids and parents together, academics, activists,…
Sudarshan Chariar has been interning at Samanvaya this summer. He is pursuing Economics and Politics at the Ashoka University and is currently doing the internship as part of his summer break. He will write later on the experience and insights. The first part of his submission (below) is on reading of Hind Swaraj, the basic Gandhian work. As someone reading this for the first time and recording his impressions, this offers a fresh perspective on the work. When I first read M.K. Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj, each new chapter felt like a slap in the face. There were arguments so polemic, so…
Branding need tweaking tools, unbranding need VALUES this is the first sutra of UnBranding. Stepping aside from STANDARDIZED global lifestyle is today an act of asserting freedom. This is the second sutra of UnBranding.To be Sustainable we need to be ready to be called an ENEMY of consumptive market. This is the third sutra of UnBranding. To take effort to KNOW the producer of what we consume is against the principles of consumer markets. This is the fourth sutra of the UnBranding. To Brands is to create a recognizable identity, to UnBrand is to create a…
Jaychandran has this infectious energy with which he is able to communicate the burning issues with sincerity and solutions with hope. Media personnel at the peak of their career often do not digress from popularity centric events, initiatives and pursuits. Popularity is the critical differentiator in the media sector and particularly if it is combined with performing arts. As a television personality who is recognized in most households in Tamil Nadu, it is his training in social work and concern for society at large that stands him apart and his amazing initiative. He has been posting…
My conviction that women leadership is what will change the world has gained strengths repeatedly through my reading of Gandhi and JC Kumarappa as well as the interactions I have had with several thought leaders. I have interacted, spoken to, conducted workshops with, sat in meetings, with thousands of rural Indian women over the past 30 years of being in the change making space. I can today say with complete conviction that if the world has to transition into the space of safe planet, India has to nurture more and more of women in roles and spaces of leadership. Economically, JC…
Buddha Poornima is a special day for me. On this day I spend most of the day in meditation or special reading and expressing gratitude towards the sangha that we belong to. One of my constant efforts has been to read the precepts that I received from Thay Thich Nhat Hanh in a beautiful ceremony in 1997. I have had the good fortune of being in several sanghas during the three decades. Today I missed being in one sangha and that's what I am writing about here. Between a Sangha and Utopia Between 2015 and 2019 until the pandemic brought us to a abrupt stop, as the co…