I recently realised a paradox in our thinking about designing frugal solutions for contemporary problems. I share it here to reflect and get feedback. There has been a long tradition in our country and many other societies of artists, designers, architects not signing their creations. Unlike the European tradition, where every creation is signed and…
Birds, bridges and beautiful memoryscapes: Shodhaytra in Tripura-II For a long stretch, while walking in Gondacherra region, Dholai district of the state, we did not hear the songs of the birds nor did we see them flying. Later, we discovered that they used to make clay balls,…
Educational institutions are the primary instruments of formatting mind and fomenting turbulence for social change. When we deliberately try to vaccinate such institutions against excellence, and sometimes even relevance, the task of change agents becomes so much more difficult. The efforts for such vaccination have been going on for decades. If despite that India has…
“Will you tell us what medicine you will use for cancer?” when asked, Anant Kumar Chakhma replied, “How can I can your question? Unless I see the symptoms cannot prescribe the medicine, there are different kinds of cancer.” Seldom have we come across traditional healers who are so précis in their pedagogy and have their…
It is very fortuitous for Indian PM to visit china so soon after the visit of the President of China to India. I am a great supporter of Indian non alignment policy and believe that Indian friendship with China need not be at the cost of its relations with USA and Russia. In fact, Indian…
The number of people dead or affected by earthquake in Nepal has been increasing every day. It seems 10-15 thousand people might have lost their lives; ten to twenty times more have been hurt and traumatized. There are obviously a lot of mistakes which have been committed in preparing for the disaster in one of…
We are happy to invite applications for third summer school on inclusive innovation program from 21st May 2015 to 11th June 2015 organised by SRISTI.org. We are inviting enthusiastic young minds who wish to spend their summer break in the process of solving social challenges with possible mass impact in the following fields: Developing…
The coming Shodh Yatra will be organised in Dhalai district from Wednesday 13th May to Monday 18th May, 2015. http://www.sristi.org/cms/35thshodhyatra
I want to continue the discussion on how do we educate our children, particularly pre-school and primary school children. I can never get tired of recalling what my grandfather, a monk had told me years ago, when I had just become a young parent. He said, ‘don’t teach your children. They observe you all the…