Samanvaya News Room

The Dharma of the Expert! RAMASUBRAMANIAN The article appeared in the January 2018 issue of Vedanta Kesari , an 105 year old magazine on Vedanta established by Swami Vivekananda and published by the Ramakrishna Math, Chennai The advent and domination of modern technology today extends from our daily domestic use to national defence and international communications. However, whenever questions are being posed by modern technology such as the Nuclear Power Plant in Koodankulam or the introduction of Genetically Modified Crops, we find that even the best among us don’t have a framework or approach that is clear and easy to understand. Questions such as ‘What is the limit to the usage of modern technology?’, ‘How do we measure its benefits as  against its harms?’ and more importantly, ‘When to reject modern technology?’ are not always eliciting a clear response from intellectuals, leaders and even scientists and technocrats. We find that they are unable to ba...

Invitation to the Workshop the resource persons at the workshop Partha, the lead resource person taking the participants through the formation and the management challenges of FPOs in detail Olaganathan introducing the management practices and principles Subbbu sharing the compliance challenges and accounting processes Prasanna sharing the opportunities for the FPOs in the Social Entrepreneurs space Ram introducing the programme to the participants  CEO of one of the FPOs sharing their concerns Consultative Meeting Ram, Samanvaya giving a memento to Prof. Stephen of Holy Cross College

It was in 2004, perhaps in the month of September that we released our small publication, " Indian System of Management - An Introduction ". The publication was released in the Goethe Institute, Chennai (the old building at that time, not the current new location) during a workshop on the same subject. At that time, Samanvaya intended to bring out several follow-up publications on the subject as a series. However, subsequent developments took us further and further away from this much needed work. An attempt was made in 2014 to revive the same through a series of workshops in Chennai, unfortunately, this too had to be given up as there were far too many practical difficulties. For those who don't know, Indian System of Management (ISM) was a new body of knowledge that emerged in the 80s and 90s as part of the movement to try and articulate "Indian" view of everything - we had "Indian" science & technology, "Indian" psychology, etc., c...

What’s our perspective on farming? Published in the October issue of Raibar, a periodic magazine brought out by SIDH, Mussoorie . A search for ‘farmer crisis in India’ fetches, 1,82,00,000 results in 0.87 seconds. A search for ‘solutions for farmer crisis in India’ fetches, 2,11,00,000 results in 0.70 seconds. So, what is there to write on farming situation today which has not been already written? This is a question that anyone today having to put a pen on a paper (or more like opening a file in a computer) needs to ask of himself / herself. So, at the cost of repeating someone else, I need to write something that I feel like worthy of repeating.  I seek to share some thoughts on the one area of farming that bothers me as a society and as a nation, our perspective on farming. As a nation or society with one of the longest continuing histories in the world, we have always had farming as an activity in this land in some form or another all through a thousand ye...

The head of a prominent business family of Murugappa Group, its former Chairman  and a dear friend of Samanvaya, Sri. M.V.Murugappan, passed away yesterday. Here below a short note by Ram, Chief Samanvaya and an article written by Sri. Murugappan 10 years ago.   The last time I met with Mr. M.V.Murugappan was during the obituary meeting of the legendary organic farming leader, Sri. Nammzhvar in Chennai. We have sent out a note on the meeting by email to several people and true enough there was a phone call  from him earlier that day asking where was the venue. He turned up as he does ahead of time and was happy to sit among the audience. “I am not keeping good memory these days, don’t ask me to say anything, I just wanted to be here to honour him”, he said as he sat among the audience. This was the character of the man and his commitment to the various groups that were in pursuit of ‘alternatives’ in Chennai.   Sri. M.V.Murugappan in the right extreme with Ra...