In my second week at Swasthya Swaraj, I traveled with two of our team members...
Dream A Little Dream Of Me…
Trigger Warning: Mentions rape, suicide. 'Didi vo thodi pagal hai, usko...
‘Sweep’ Under The Rug Much? How We Ignore The Reality Of Who Cleans India
Rehabilitated manual scavenger, Maya Sangeliya, 45, looks on inside her house....
What A Kilometre Long Road In South Delhi Tells You About Social Structures
Recently, I relocated to Delhi. I was fortunate enough to have friends who...
The Fading Smiles of ODISHA : Laws and Ignorance
While walking through various routes in Odisha, whether it be rural or urban...
Failures : What You Learn When Things Don’t Go Your Way On Field
Third part of a 3-part series on learning from failures
Failures : Integrity vs Accommodation
First of the 3 part series by our alumni on failures.
Yeh Bahut Mehenga Hai
"Why should I pay THAT MUCH when I can buy something exactly like it at...
About My First HIV Test
On most days, I avoid taking phone calls after 11 pm. No, it's not that I sleep by 11 but I try to embrace my me-time at the end of a day. The other night, I was interrupted by repeated calls of a friend. Let’s call him Kunal. I was so engrossed in an online thriller...
Why Hiring People With Disabilities Makes Business Sense
Hiring people with disabilities may seem like a social and/or moral responsibility, but it is much more than that. More and more research is revealing that it also makes good business sense to do so. Here are some ways in which it can be advantageous for your...
Radio Has a Special Place in the Heart of Rural India
“It has been 11 years but I still remember the day when my 12th grade results were to come. I was eagerly waiting since morning. Those days, we didn't have internet. Radio was the only medium. My father was a keen radio listener and I recall how he sat throughout the...
Why Doctors Don’t Want To Work In Rural Areas
When I was doing my medical house surgeon-ship in Mangalore a few years ago, Karnataka government was planning to implement compulsory rural service for house surgeons in the state. This news was not taken in a positive light by the doctors which eventually led to...
We Are In A Crisis We Don’t Acknowledge
I was sitting on an uber comfortable Barcalounger with gigantic headphone over my ears. An ethereal voice was asking me to close my eyes, relax, think of something that makes me happy and form a picture of said happiness in my mind. Next thing I knew, I was being...
My Learning From A Genius : Stephen Hawking
On 14th March 2018 when we woke up, the world collectively experienced a huge loss. We read about the death of Stephen Hawking, the globally renowned theoretical physicist and cosmologist known for his work on general relativity and quantum gravity, in the context of...
Underlying Causes Of The TB Epidemic In India
In the recent End TB Summit held in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a campaign to eradicate tuberculosis (TB) from India by 2025, five years ahead of its globally set-deadline. Now, one might think that given 7 years we have in hand and support from...
Relevance of Affordable Private Schools for Education
In last few months, I have been interacting a lot with my community that surrounds Swarachna school in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh. Of varied things I got to know about them, a common link in all villages is that nobody wants to send their children to a government school....
Hallucinations To Reality: Child Sexual Abuse And Parenting
There are only a few people to whom I'm really close. One of them is a classmate I know since 6 years. We met in college and graduated together. Socially, he is extremely awkward and an introvert who is fascinated by trains. I have never met him after college. In...
How Would It Be To Think Without Words!
Most of my last month was spent conducting Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with students of various skill development training programs. These are short term programs, from 4-6 months, focusing on skills such as Computer Literacy, Workplace Readiness and Basic English...
Lessons From a Temporary Illness : Looking Through a Glass
The last quarter of 2017 has been quite weird. I’ve been privy to something remarkably out of my comfort zone, and in turn, have put many people out of theirs. But, that's a debate for the more refined minds. India Fellow is like that freaky mirror in Lewis Carrol’s...
What Is Demographic Dividend And How It’s Related To Education
By 2020, India is set to become the world’s youngest country with 64% of its population in the working age group.[1] This demographic advantage can be translated into more production of goods and increased services, thus improving the overall GDP growth rate, a...
Why Farmers Are Growing Cotton When Water Is Scarce
“I wish they'd had electric guitars in cotton fields back in the good old days. A whole lot of things would've been straightened out.” -Jimi Hendrix, 1970 YES, if the ‘whole lot of things’ were farmers wanting to form a band but a NO if it were racial conflicts and...
When Gender and Disability Discriminate Together
“What do you see yourself doing in 10 years from now?” This is one of the questions that I have asked repeatedly over the last two months, from disabled people I work with. I wonder if I have an answer to it but that's a story for another day. Each time, I ask this...