India’s environmental movement is unique because of its deep connection to social justice, indigenous rights, and grassroots activism. Unlike purely conservation-focused movements, many Indian efforts combine scientific inquiry, strong legislation with the protection of livelihoods and local cultures. It is a widely held view that conservation must work in harmony with the needs of local communities. India’s conservation efforts do face huge challenges due to rapid industrialization, infrastruct...
Jun 19, 2025•30 min
This is a mini series from Grassroots Nation that presents some of the key themes that have arisen in our conversations with some of India’s greatest social leaders. Each episode will explore a set of ideas: from watershed moments in India’s history that have left lasting impressions, to reflections on how their personal philosophies took shape and how they see their work contributing to the larger efforts of nation building. Today, in this second episode, the importance of institution building....
May 15, 2025•36 min
This is the first of a mini series from Grassroots Nation that presents some of the key themes that have arisen in our conversations with some of India’s greatest social leaders. Each episode will explore a set of ideas: from watershed moments in India’s history that have left lasting impressions, to reflections on how their personal philosophies took shape and how they see their work contributing to the larger efforts of nation building. In this first episode: we hear first-hand accounts from l...
Apr 17, 2025•24 min
Ananthapadmanabhan Guruswamy has been at the helm of many institutions in India. Before earning a B.Tech in electrical engineering from IIT, Chennai, Ananth’s early inspirations and explorations in education led him to teach and be associated with the Krishnamurti Foundation India in Chennai, where he taught at the school for 11 years. He then led Teacher Education at the Azim Premji Foundation, was the CEO of Greenpeace India before becoming Greenpeace International’s International Program Dire...
Mar 13, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Dr Abhay and Rani Bang both grew up in families with deep roots in public service. Dr. Abhay Bang’s parents were followers of the Sarvodaya movement and were deeply inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. In fact, he grew up in the Mahatma’s Sevagram ashram in Wardha Maharashtra. Rani Bang, born Rani Chari, was born into a family of politicians and freedom fighters. The couple met at Nagpur University, where they both completed their MBBS medical degrees, and obtained their MDs before getting their Masters ...
Feb 20, 2025•2 hr 17 min
Mari Marcel Thekaekara is a writer and co-founder of ACCORD – the Action for Community Organisation, Rehabilitation and Development. Born into a deeply religious family, Mari was brought up with a Jesuit Catholic education that taught her to question all her beliefs and developed a deep sense of empathy within her. She went on to join several institutes that shaped her passion for social action such as the All India Catholic University Federation, or AICUF, and the International Grail which is a...
Aug 27, 2024•1 hr 16 min
This is Part 2. We recommend you listen to Part 1 first. Stan Thekaekara is a social activist who has worked with indigenous and Adivasi communities for over forty years. He co-founded ACCORD, or the Action for Community Organisation, Rehabilitation and Development and organisation that helped found the Adivasi Munnetra Sangam (AMS), a membership based tribal organisation with 4000 families as members. Stan is the founder of Just Change, an international cooperative linking producers, investors ...
Aug 08, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Stan Thekaekara is a social activist who has worked with indigenous and Adivasi communities for over forty years. Born into a deeply religious family in Bengaluru, Stan found himself grappling with his privilege at a very young age. These feelings, accompanied with his exposure to social action through All India Catholic University Federation, or AICUF, set him on the path to working with marginalised communities. After stints in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, Stan and his young family moved to the N...
Aug 06, 2024•39 min
Padmashri Dr Darshan Shankar is the Chairman of the Indian Institute of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine, Managing Trustee of Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT) & Founder Vice Chancellor of the Trans-Disciplinary University (TDU) in Bengaluru. Born into a family of modern scientists, Dr. Shankar has always stood for innovation in education from a very young age. While working on problems of development and healthcare, his outlook throughout his career has been ...
Jul 09, 2024•1 hr 32 min
Maja Daruwala has been an advocate for human rights and social justice for over four decades. Born in 1945, as the second daughter of Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw, Maja grew up in the cantonments of India, where her early syncretic experiences impressed upon her the fraternal and plural nature of India, then still a young nation. Maja Daruwala went on to study law in England and became a Barrister at Lincoln’s Inn. Her interests have always lain in protecting civil liberties, gender equality and...
Jul 03, 2024•1 hr 33 min
Dr. A.N. Yellappa Reddy is a renowned environmentalist, a former indian forestry services officer and member of the Lok Adalat or Karnataka High Court for environmental project initiatives. Throughout his career, Dr. Reddy has actively championed the conservation of natural forests, water systems and rehabilitation of endangered flora and fauna. Born in the small village of Adugodi to an agriculturist father, Dr. Yellappa grew up with a deep and abiding respect and fascination for nature and sci...
Jul 03, 2024•1 hr 25 min
Vijay Mahajan, is the co-founder and founder of some of India’s most well known livelihoods and social enterprise groups: the NGO PRADAN, and the BASIX Social enterprise group that has transformed the livelihoods of over three million lower income households across twenty states in India, as well as in other countries across the world. Born in 1954, Mahajan graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in 1970. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad in 1981 and ...
May 21, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Devaki Jain is one of India’s best known feminist economists, with a long career working closely with institutions to first recognise and then mainstream women’s issues. Born in 1933 in the erstwhile princely state of Mysore where her father was a minister, Devaki has degrees from the University of Mysore and the University of Oxford and taught economics at Delhi University. In this episode of Grassroots Nation, Devaki speaks of how walking with Vinoba Bhave influenced her early work, her lifelo...
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr 21 min
In this episode of Grassroots Nation we hear from Dr Ravi Chopra is the founder Director of the People’s Science Institute in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Through his career he has helped establish several pioneering organisations in the social and development sector, from livelihoods, disability rights, human rights, water resources management and much more. Born in 1947, the year India gained her independence, Dr. Chopra was one of the country’s midnight children. After earning a B.Tech. in Metallur...
Feb 20, 2024•1 hr 55 min
Welcome to Season 2 of Grassroots Nation, a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies, a show in which we dive deep into the life, work, and guiding philosophies of some of our country’s greatest leaders of social change. Professor Madhav Dhananjaya Gadgil is one of India’s most prolific and well known ecologists. He was born in 1942 into an illustrious family - his father, Dhananjaya Gadgil was an Indian statesman and economist who put together the Gadgil formula. From an early age, Madhav Ga...
Jan 30, 2024•1 hr 8 min
Dr Armida Fernandez is one of India’s foremost neonatologists, treating babies born in some of the most underprivileged and marginalized homes in Mumbai. She has dedicated her life to service in public health. From pioneering the cause of neonatology in the country by focusing on low cost solutions that are available to all, she has championed breastfeeding in India and even started the first human milk bank in the country. In 1999, Dr Fernandez’ founded SNEHA or the Society for Nutrition, Educa...
Nov 28, 2023•1 hr 15 min
We continue our journey with pioneers in literacy and learning in India, Dr Madhav Chavan and Dr Rukmini Banerji of the Pratham Education Foundation. In this episode we dive deep into the story of Pratham and the ASER survey. Pratham is one of India’s best known non governmental organizations and was established in 1995 by Madhav Chavan and Farida Lambe. Since then the organisation has striven to improve literacy amongst India’s children with the mission ‘Every Child in School Learning Well’. Pr...
Oct 20, 2023•53 min
In this episode, we hear from pioneers in literacy and learning in India: Dr Madhav Chavan and Dr Rukmini Banerji of the Pratham Education Foundation. Pratham is one of India’s best known non governmental organizations and was established in 1995. Since then the organisation has strived to improve literacy amongst India’s children with the mission ‘Every Child in School Learning Well’. Pratham conducts the Annual State of Education Report (ASER) Survey, a nationwide household survey on the state...
Sep 26, 2023•53 min
Aloysius Fernandez prepared for a life of service in the Church - and was even ordained as one in 1953. But when he witnessed the abject suffering caused by the Bangladesh refugee crisis and the blight of poverty on people in Maharashtra in times of drought he decided to leave the Church and pivot to working in development. An economist by training, Al Fernandez spent over forty years at Myrada, helping transform the idea of financial inclusion and microfinance, and pioneered the Self-Help Group...
Aug 17, 2023•1 hr 16 min
How did a Doon School and St. Stephens College Alumni end up spending his life in service to rural India? Bunker Roy, born Sanjit Roy in 1945 in Burnpur, Asansol had a privileged, elite upbringing. But a visit to Bengal during the famine in 1965 affected him deeply, and made him question the privilege he enjoyed. This led him to reject a prospective career in the private sector to work in rural India. Bunker moved to Tilonia village in Rajasthan, and began working on water issues in the drought ...
Jul 12, 2023•57 min
Born in pre-independence India in 1939 Dr Kamaljit S. Bawa grew up in Kapurthala in Punjab, witnessing partition and inspired by the speeches of our country’s founding leaders. It was on a field project to the Northeast of India as a Masters student that opened his eyes to ‘a whole new world’ and set him on his journey in the space of conservation biology. Dr Bawa earned his PhD from Panjab University in 1967 at the age of 28, and moved to the United States to work as a post doctoral researcher ...
Jun 23, 2023•51 min
This is part 2 of Aruna Roy’s story. Listen to part 1 on our feed. In part 1, Aruna spoke about her early life and upbringing, her career with the Indian Administrative Service and her move to Tilonia, Rajasthan to work at the Social Work Research Centre where she developed deep friendships with the women of the village, and equally learnt from them. In this episode, Aruna speaks about her move to Devdungri in 1987, to live by the values of sangharsh, or struggle, in the search for a way to work...
Jun 01, 2023•59 min
Activist. Feminist. Social leader. Aruna Roy is in a category of her own. She has been at the forefront of several people-led movements such as the Right to Information movement, the Right to Work campaign which led to the establishment of MGNREGA, and the Right to Food movement. A Gandhian, Aruna believes that change comes from within, and all her life choices have been motivated by her values and her desire to contribute towards the realisation of the founding ideals of our nation. She brings ...
May 25, 2023•49 min
In our second episode, we meet Dr Hanumappa Sudarshan, a tribal rights activist who dedicated his life to working on rural healthcare and livelihoods. Dr Hanumappa Sudarshan is the founder of the Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra and the Karuna Trust. Dr Hanumappa Sudarshan was born in 1950, and it was being a helpless witness to his father’s death at a young age that made him realize that while everyone should have easy access to good healthcare, the most vulnerable and marginalized communiti...
May 05, 2023•44 min
In this first episode of Grassroots Nation we meet Dr Ashok Khosla, an environmental visionary, a pioneer of sustainable development and the founder and Chairman of Development Alternatives. Dr. Khosla began thinking about the environment and our collective future well before climate change became something we hear, discuss and worry about on a daily basis. An experimental physicist by training, his early memories were marked by partition, and as a young man Dr. Khosla went on to study science, ...
Apr 20, 2023•54 min
Grassroots Nation is a new podcast series from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies in which we deep dive into the life, work and guiding philosophies of some of the country’s greatest leaders of social change. Part personal narrative, part oral history, each episode gives you, the listener, a chance to revisit watershed moments in India’s past through the eyes of the country’s social architects and find out how these events were the catalysts for their life’s calling. Episodes release fortnightly. Fi...
Mar 22, 2023•6 min
