Online initiatives of Samanvaya are not several and diverse. All of them are need based initiatives that have been created, co-created, curated, collaborated and / or administered by the organization. While some of these initiatives have been time bound, others are active still.
Raattai - The Podcast in Tamil
The Wheel is a joint podcast that Ramasubramanian, Director of Samanvaya co-curates along with the public intellectual, Baskar of Tiruvannamalai. Baskar is a public intellect, education thinker, mentor and entrepreneur. This Tamil (and Tanglish) podcast started in late 2022 covers diverse subjects. It is available in all the podcast platforms. You can listen to them here
Environmental & Social Research for Action (ESRA)
It was way back in 2017 that a small group of people gathered to think of advocacy on social and environmental issues.
It was immediately after Samanvaya had conducted and launched a study on the Forest Rights Act (FRA) implementation in the state of Tamil Nadu. Subsequently, a small group of volunteers got together online in 2021-22 to continuously engage with environmental and social issues and launch knowledge centric advocacy based on the same. While the broad areas of interest were social and environmental research, the specific concern remained that of building a ecosystem for green economy. There is a dedicated website on the same, here
Pandemic Diary
During the early days of the pandemic (2020), Director of Samanvaya wrote an daily diary to record the reflections of himself and others and concerns of that time to be capturing the same for a later date. These were popular as it got circulated both in the online group and social media as well. It was a way of recording what transpired during the pandemic and represents some of the most debated issues of that time as well as some amazing civil society initiatives. The blog itself is available here.
Prof. G.D.Agarwal’s campaign to save the Himalayas
Samanvaya showed its solidarity with creating an online repository of all the related material for the work of late Prof. G.D.Agarwal and his bid to save the Himalayas from large scale destructive dams construction. He had started his first hunger fast in 2008, at that time there was hardly any material online about his fast, so, Samanvaya team decided to support and show solidarity through its continued updating of material from his friends as he went on fast. The first one was followed quickly by another and then
another...as the Government kept going back on the promises made to him. He kept going back, much like the mythical Sage Bagiratha whose Tapasya (meditation) is supposed to have resulted in bringing down the river Ganges into the plains of India from the head of Lord Shiva.
While briefly the construction was stopped, it was continued further yet again. The earthquake in Uttrakhand in 2013 and the cracking of houses in early 2023 are a testimony of the several warnings that he kept giving. Prof. Agarwal during the course of the several fasts, took up sannyasa and changed his name to that of Swami Swanand. He suceded in giving up his life for the Himalayas when his health took for worse during yet another hunger fast in 2018, when he succumbed to the prolonged struggle. Only time can bear testimony to whether he managed to convince anyone. As things stand, there is no visible change in the attitude towards big dams and large construction programmes, both of which are still considered as ''development'' in national and state capitals. All his campaign writing and materials are available in the blog we maintained as part of his campaign here.
Other Blogs
Small Satori at Work
Satori is a moment of insight that can arrive with great clarity in a moment of relaxation to anyone. In the Samanvaya office, it has always been a practice to acknowledge small moments of such insight, acknowledge and record them as a practice of mindfulness at work. Small satori at work was started as a blog to document such insights.
Indian World View
We firmly believe that Indian civilization still prevails in several ways through practices and ideas that are prevalent among ordinary people of this country. Over the last two decades, regular engagement with people’s institutions and organizations has given us a lot of insights on the civilizational uniqueness. The same is periodically recorded in the online repository under the title Indian World View.