By Moin Qazi* Muslim Indians are the second-largest demographic of India. They constitute over 14% of the country’s population or roughly 172 million people. India is the world‘s biggest democracy, and Indian Muslims are the world’s biggest religious minority. Muslims have considered India as their home for more than a millennium and they have become so seamlessly integrated into its social mainstream that several strands of their culture and tradition have got subsumed into the national fabric. But the tragedy is that Muslims are so marginalised that their presence in important public spheres is almost invisible. Most of them are poor, semiliterate and driven into ghettos. The Hindutva movement has in the last few years orchestrated terrifying campaigns to alienate, disenfranchise and disintegrate Muslims. In an effort to create an exclusivist Hindu state out of a multifaith populace, the government is moving from episodic communalism to state-sponsored Islamophobia. Muslims continue

By Moin Qazi* One of the dispiriting features of the modern development model is that despite oceans of research and studies, there has not been a substantive transformative impact on marginalised communities. Much of the outcomes have been purely academic and we need more dedicated, courageous and purpose-driven champions who can creatively apply their core competencies and new knowledge to enhance people’s well-being. Similarly, we need to design tools and techniques that can help translate these insights into effective public policies and professional practices that can sustainably deliver quality outcomes on an exponential scale. There is now a tribe of passionate entrepreneurs who are collaborating with like-minded allies and with those with different perspectives, to build a colleagueship of expertise to address pressing human challenges and accelerate the transition of the underprivileged from subsistence to sustainability in emerging economies. Some of them are bright people wo

By Moin Qazi* It’s a journey that started with a few thousand rupees. That was the size of the first loan received by a remarkable woman named Vidya Khustale. Vidya invested the money into her tiny business selling locally made detergents and brooms. With the help of that initial investment and subsequent loans, Vidya’s business grew. In the 20 years since she received that first loan of five thousand rupees, Vidya has used the profits from her business to build a dignified life for her family, given good education to her son who is employed as an engineer and has also build a new home. A chance encounter in 2004 helped Vidya break the cycle of poverty and also put me on a wonderful journey.I was posted to Mumbai to head my bank’s state operations in microfinance. I had spent my professional career in villages working with self help groups. I thought Mumbai would mark the end of my rendezvous. I was however determined to keep alive my connections with grassroots. The opportunity came c

Often the struggles of rural communities challenge mainstream notions of development; however these are barely mentioned in mainstream history, if at all. Nandini Oza, Independent Researcher, explains how she has created a digital archive of the mass resistance against the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) on the River Narmada in Western India through the oral histories of those who have been directly involved in the powerful people’s movement, the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA): Oral history is an old tradition in India where knowledge and history are passed to the next generation orally. This is particularly true among the communities with languages that do not have a written script or in areas where the literacy rates are low, or where rural, tribal and ethnic communities adopt the practice of passing history and knowledge orally. Oral history as a discipline is also a useful method for recording the struggles of indigenous and tribal communities who are dependent on natural resources that

By Venkatesh Nayak* Soon after the then Union Finance Minister announced the Government’s plan to launch Electoral Bonds (EBs) as a method of making donations to political parties, in February 2017 I had critically analysed its implications . I had also pointed out that EBs will become the preferred method for making large-sized donations to political parties due to the anonymity that it affords to donors. The EB receipt data reported by some political parties, now available in the public domain, thanks to the disclosure of their Annual Audit Reports for 2018-19 on the website of the Election Commission of India, has proved my hypothesis. RTI interventions have also revealed that there were few takers for EBs of lower denominations like Rs 1,000 and Rs 10,000. The EB receipts data shows the sharp plummeting of corporate donations made in a transparent manner as big donors seem to prefer the EBs route. My main findings from a quick comparative analysis of the proportion of EBs to total

By Moin Qazi* Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead A highly welcome and discernible sign on the Indian development landscape is that many bright brains from the best of universities are foregoing high salaries to commit themselves to development issues such as alleviating poverty, improving education, and combating climate change. They believe it allows them to live their passion, embracing a career with meaning. Inspired by this trend and responding to his own inner calling, Tanveer Mirza decided to give up a secure career. He spent the better part of his life cruising along a well-paying corporate career when he decided to change track and switch gears. He decided to focus on empowering rural communities and mentoring young entrepreneurs among them. Mirza qualified in agricultural technology and management from G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology. Mirza is not a

By Moin Qazi* Child prodigies have been with us since early times. But over the epochs, many of them have had their genius questioned—mostly as to whether or not a parent or a mentor was behind their amazing skills. It is only when their talents were authentically established that people around them could acknowledge them as teenage wonders. Nagpur’s Shreenabh Agrawal is one such amazing kid who proved the skeptics wrong and kept consistently displaying his precocious genius after he unfurled it at several acclaimed forums. In a world in which early bloomers are rare and hence revered, there’s no underestimating the wizardry of the human brain. But despite our fascination with these pint-sized or nano geniuses, who just might blossom into future Albert Einsteins, there is paucity of research into them–and almost no consensus on their inner chemistry, or even an exact definition for them. The most consensual elucidation of these “genetic freaks” is a child, typically under the age of 10