19th Dec 2025: Sustainability & Livelihoods - Academic conferences continued to be disappointing through the year as alternative imaginations and gatherings with genuine questions and non-pretentious resolutions made more realistic sense. The last one I attended was organized with the help of the Fair Trade network in MSSW which continued the streak of academic indifferent conferences. Billed as a national conference, I was invited to talk on sustainable rural livelihoods alongside a young entrepreneur from Andhra Pradesh. The chairperson for the session who had met me for the first time, introduced me as someone in the 'middle path' though she had no idea about what I may say or where I come from. Here is a summary of what I spoke about. One new year resolution is not to attend such meaningless academic programmes even for friends in 2026.
Jan 4th 2026: Economy of Permanence - Talk on the urgency to re-visit and rejuvenate at the ideas of the Gandhian Economist, J.C.Kumarappa delivered at the Maghan Sangrahalaya, Wardha. Giving a half hour presentation on the works of JCK in the current day context was easy, but doing so in Hindi for an audience whose interest and comprehension I didn't have prior knowledge about was difficult. Everyone did understand my Hindi and it came in for some appreciation as well, which was good. There was a request for a 2-day workshop on the works of JCK in March which I hope can happen.
The Facebook live of the event is here.
The presentation for those interested is here.
Jan 6th 2026: Did Policy fail the Indian Farmer? - Panel talk & discussion, at the AG-Liberte Eco-Alliance for Participatory Growth Conference, in Coimbatore. The notes for the presentation is available for those interested, but, the key points which I made were as shown below. 
Failure Mode | Community Failure Impact |
Cooperatives without power | Farmer suicides tied to weak cooperative credit in Maharashtra |
MSP without agency | Farmer protests demanding legal MSP guarantee; cotton selling below MSP |
Productivity without power | Agrarian distress persists despite yield increases; indebtedness |
FPOs without authority | Struggling FPO lacking capital and market power |
Panchayati Raj without economic role | Agricultural students protest vacancies undermining local support |
Contract farming without safeguards | Punjab’s failed public contract farming policy |
Jan 12th 2026: Addressing Apprehensions & Challenges - Online talk to aspiring home schooling parents with the Coimbatore based Homeschoolers network It was interactive programme with several questions of a practical nature by aspiring home schooling parents. I had outlined the following as the key apprehensions that they may face and had addressed them during my brief talk after which the lively discussion took place.
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