If a wheel chair bound person has to travel a long distance, the general choice will be to board a means of transport with somebody’s assistance and to get a wheel chair at the destination to continue the journey. Ajit, Tanmay, Ramkrishna and Nikhil, four students from Pune designed a three wheeler which a wheelchair…
No matter how empathetic a delivery system, there is always a scope to do more, to do better and to think farther. During my recent visit to Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh for a foundation day lecture on Doctors as Designers of an inclusive healthcare system, I learnt so much about the innovations…
The desire for reforms and policy redesign at much faster pace than is the case just now is growing in society. The impatience with inertia is a good sign and public policy makers must take that as a positive sign. Without a set of demanding clients, no institution can pursue continuous innovation. How to institutionalise…
I am just returning from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota from where India injected twenty satellites in a single launch at an extremely low cost. While interacting with scientists, visitors from IITs and other top institutions, and young engineers, I tried to understand their motivation for persistent excellence. I also wanted understand the roots of…
How do we differentiate between self –respect and ego? This is a question I come across quite often among my students and colleagues? The dividing line is thin, but not very blurred. When the cause for which we work gets hurt because of our supposed hurt or annoyance, we are perhaps inflating ego. When we…
Reminders serve little purpose if the victims also resign to a kind of learned-helplessness. With the exception of a few private attempts to dig small tanks, there has been no campaign in the country to store rain water where it falls, that is, in situ conservation. Why has budgetary allocation for such a strategic goal…
A moral dilemma gripped Professor Gupta when he was invited by the Bangladeshi government to help restructure their agricultural sector in 1985. He noticed how the marginalized farmers were being paid poorly for their otherwise unmatched knowledge. The gross injustice of this constant imbalance led Professor Gupta to found what would turn into a resounding…
The drought has taken its toll in Goa as well. There were many regions where people received water once in two days through the tankers. One could see several dry wells and ponds. The ones that had water were perhaps not adequately utilized. While moving from south to north Goa, we also came across regions where plantation crops…
A place where almost every house in rural areas tends to be different in colourand architecture, diversity is deeply embedded in culture. One of the shodhyatris was too tired yesterday after a long walk in summer. Chetan, the coordinator of the yatra requested a mobyke riding youth to please stop and consider giving him a drop at night…
Last week, I looked at the problems that country is currently facing due to drought and the challenges, which are ahead of us once it rains. I was reflecting on the reasons responsible for so much collective neglect. It doesn’t matter which political party in power, the apathy for long-term drought mitigation persists. The…