Samanvaya News Room

this place marks the location where the villagers of chinnalampatti sat on the tracks to stop a train in which Gandhiji was travelling to Madurai...today one can see this simple structure to commemorate the aspirations of simple folks near the crossing at Gandhigram, someone places fresh flowers there every day even today giving the place next to the level crossing a strange presence so difficult to ignore despite the rather sad condition of its immediate neighbourhood... On 26th Oct at Gandhigram, amazing legacy and spirit in rural constructive work, several small initiatives...old ideas being re-invented for the contemporary lifestyle, good...though had a reality check when i spoke to the management students (I was there to talk to them on Rural Livelihood careers)...they hadn't heard of J C Kumarappa. Their seminar hall had small wooden decor with quotes from Dale  Carnegie  to Steven Covey, couldn't see a single quote of any Gandhian, the management institute i...

March Against Monsanto,Chennai on 12th October 2013 Images It was great to see such a large turnout of crowd for the March Against Monsanto organized on the eve of the World Food Day in Chennai by the Safe Food Alliance. The March  in the Marina Beach had a drumming session at the beginning and culmination. It has farmers, activists, students, journalists, housewives, performing artists participating. The street theatre group, Kooth-u-pattarai performed a small skit highlighting the plight of farmers post-Monsanto and GM crops at the Gandhi statue where the march ended. A good news report below and some images shared in the link above.  City says no to GM crops source:  http://www.thehindu. com/news/cities/ chennai /city- says-no-to-gm-crops/ article5229476.ece A number of farmers, students and activists hit the streets on Saturday, taking a stand  against  genetically-modified crops. The  march   against   Monsanto , a multinat...

Sevagram Ashram near Wardha in Maharashtra is special for us. It is here we have spent several months with the late Gandhian thinker Sri. Dharampal. It is here that we re-learnt Gandhi and discusses several issues on Development with amazing co-learners and activists including, late Sri. Rajiv Dixit, Sri. Shivdutt Mishra, Sri. Pradip Dixit, Sri. Sanjay and many others.  Here we had met with several amazing individuals for the first time and since then these people have become friends forever.  It was great visiting the Ashram after many years (oct 4-7). Here are some pictures from the visit... spinning charkha in the afternoon outside the Bapukuti, a daily ritual at the Ashram the amazing Malti behn, here seen with a cow that had just delivered a calf... the kuti where Dharampalji used to live earlier...now it is a museum, too many memories of the place ensured that we never ventured to even enter the place for fear of losing some of the memories!

At the beautiful retreat centre of Jiddu Krishnamurthy outside Hyderabad for a discussion...nice sunset watch here...

Had a whole day workshop for the Tamilnadu State Rural Livelihood Mission (TNSRLM) district officials in Chennai on the Mahila Kisan Saskahtikaran Pariyojana ( MKSP ). The workshop was organized at the request of the CEO, TNSRLM and for the district level officers of the projects of MKSP that have been already accepted by the State Government under the Annual Action Plan (AAP) for the year 2013-14.  the MKSP workshop at Breeze Park, T.Nagar, Chennai It was an insightful encounter with the different district level officials, it showed quite a bit of lack of understanding amongst some of them and there were far too many lacunae. There was much apprehensions expressed by officials coming from other district departments who were not sure about the speed and scale of the implementation that was being projected by some of the Pudhu Vaazhvu Project (PVP) district managers.  The programme was moderated by myself in the capacity of the MKSP, Consultant for the TNSRLM an...