Global Innovation challenges-1: a call for creative connections with children, youth and women When any society learns to live with solvable problems by reinforcing inertia, indifference and also internalizing helplessness, then imagination gets stifled first. Once imagination gets constrained, innovations are unlikely to follow. UNICEF and SRISTI have joined hands to announce a global challenge…
In a diverse civilizational society, it is inevitable that one would find multiple perspectives on the concept of nationhood. To expect uniformity, would be to kill the source of sustainability: that is diversity. The real tension begins when we start measuring and monitoring the boundary of the diversity. How much latitude different groups should have…
It is well known that in many states, economic development does not always lead to educational development. Why should ranking on economic and social indicators vary so much? One reason, I have repeatedly mentioned over last two decades is that top level policy makers don’t spend enough time, not even one hour a week with…
You may be a writer artist, small or big investor, entrepreneur, academic, school teacher, ecologist, food technologist; agricultural, veterinary, human or microbiological scientist, engineer, fabricator, student, a vendor on the street, shop keeper, householder, translator, government servant, corporate executive, lawyer, manager of an incubator, a start-up, or just a farmer, pastoralist etc. You may just…
With increasing pressure on urban and rural spaces, there is a looming crisis ahead of us in the next few decades. How will we negotiate scarcity of physical spaces with our cultural, emotional and spiritual spaces for “the other” getting squeezed more and more. There is a major onslaught on pluralistic vision of future living…
How do we reshape electoral discourse: can we go beyond caste and communal agenda The election commission had to first time issue an advisory to all political parties to shun use of basal identities for invoking participation of people in the festival of democracy that is election. Why has discourse in the biggest democracy…
Deification of Dr A P J Abdul Kalam legacy will be the greatest disservice to his memory. Having his statues on crossroads would not make him more venerated. We killed Gandhi, many times over by deifying him. I hope Dr Kalam will survive this tendency of making idols of people and forgetting…
There is a very welcome upsurge of entrepreneurial interest among the young people in the recent years. Several initiatives from universities, state and central governments and private sector have been taken to smoothen the journey from mind to market. There is a worldwide interest in the concept of frugal innovation which I proposed in early…
Every time there is a tragedy, the parliament discusses the issue and then business resumes as usual. I hope things will change this time. Not because in the presence of thousands of people, a farmer was allowed to commit suicide. But because the conditions which lead some farmers to take extreme step have their…
Education matters despite policy neglect! ‘Kaju katri khao, teacher’, said the student ( will you eat cashew sweet ?), Teacher asked, ‘from where did you get this?’ and took one piece. ‘A rich man had died today’, replied the student. He used to work at cremation ground in Surat. And Bina Rao has been providing…