UPDATES FROM AUGUST 2018

Arunachal Pradesh Transformational and Aspirational Leadership (ATAL) Conclave

The Government of Arunachal Pradesh in partnership with Vision India Foundation is organizing the ATAL conclave. The conclave seeks to engage the youth of Arunachal Pradesh in areas of public policy and governance. ATAL Conclave would act as a platform to tap into the huge untapped potential of the youth in the state to contribute towards ideation of policies, creating the pro-active demand for suitable policies, propose solutions to existing challenges, engaging with leaders for their feedback on proposed solutions, and finally leading to a culmination by putting ideas into action.

Sansad Eye Donation Campaign

Our elected representatives should be role models for the rest of the society to follow. In an attempt to eradicate corneal blindness in India, SAKSHAM and Vision India Foundation initiated a campaign to sign up the Hon’ble Members of Parliament for eye donation. One the MPs who supported the campaign was Shri Malla Reddy, who represents the Malkajgiri, Telangana constituency in the Lok Sabha. He also appealed to his colleagues in the parliament to follow his act.

Publications

In ancient India, discussions or debates were a means of arriving at knowledge and wisdom. Sadly, today, the very opposite is being pursued. Every other day we find the public discourse flooded with a seemingly life-or-death issue that inevitably polarises people into opposing camps. Shyam Kumar from VIF writes on how to elevate public discourse in India.
India is increasingly finding itself between a rock and a hard place following the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran. Paras Ratna from VIF writes on ‘What the US Iran Sanctions Mean for India‘.
Afghanistan’s intolerance for minorities has reached a new crescendo as evidenced by the recent killings of Hindu and Sikh leaders. The region once referred to as Gandhara in the Mahabharata, is now very close to eliminating any traces of non-Islam on its soil. Priyank Chauhan from VIF writes an article titled ‘Is It Time To Draw Cultural Boundaries?‘
West Bengal, on the Bay of Bengal with strong political economic and cultural linkage, is an opportune location to kick start Act East initiative. Both Centre and State government need to work in close coordination to capitalize the existent historical, cultural, political and economic synergies between West Bengal and ASEAN. Paras Ratna from VIF writes on ‘West Bengal as a lever in India’s Act East policy‘
With global power dynamics shifting from West to East, regional powers, namely China and India, have shifted focus to an ocean-based approach in determining geostrategies and foreign relations. Arunima from Vision India Foundation writes on India’s Island Diplomacy: Building an Indian Ocean Security Architecture

Alumni Reunions4 zonal alumni reunions took place in this month at Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, and Hyderabad. Reunions facilitate VIF alumni to share ideas and inspiration with each other. VIF Alumni have now exceeded 1000 in number and are geographically spread across the country and the world. VIF is nurturing this eco-system of change agents to enable everyone to be effective in finding a role in the nation-building movement. These change agents also network virtually on the Change Agents Network

CANCLAVE | Mumbai

Democracy needs Storytellers and Role-Models, Storytellers and Role-Models need platforms to become accessible, to permeate and to inspire action. CANCLAVE is Vision India Foundation’s alumni run initiative. It brings together the local community of change agents on a single platform to unleash new ideas to aspiring young minds. It builds and sustains a network of future leaders.

The second in the CANCLAVE series happened at Mumbai with 150+ participants. Eminent speakers including Amish Tripathi, Shefali Vaidya, Vivek Agnihotri, Haresh Shah, Girish Kulkarni, Hema Gopinathan, and Chintan Parekh inspired everyone by narrating their thought-provoking stories. The four and half hour engagement concluded with networking over lunch.

Featured Fellow of the Month

Rashma Kalsie is a research associate with Vision India Foundation. Padma Shri Prahasana, the first play in the series of modern prahasanas that Rashma wrote for the Indian stage was performed at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, with applauds in both claps and laughter from the audience. Prahasanas are sophisticated social and political satires that were once extremely popular in ancient India. It is one of the ten genres/rupakas given in Bharata Muni’s Natyashastra. Rashma is working on creating a body of modern Prahasanas as part of her journey as a Research Associate at Vision India Foundation. Rashma details this effort in this article .

Featured Alumnus of the Month

Vivek Dandapani is an alumnus of Policy BootCamp 2015. He is involved in a unique and historic venture – establishment of a powerful temple complex in Tamil Nadu. The temple complex is coming up in Thiruvadisoolam a place near Chennai. 108 temple shrines have been consecrated in one sanctum in this place of divine significance. Vivek earlier had circumambulated Mother Ganga from its source to the sea and back. Vivek is a software developer by profession.

Featured Mentor of the Month

Smt Prameela Vadrevu is a Project Director at the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), Hyderabad. She works on the BrahMos project, which recently completed 20 years of its formation since 1998, when an Inter-Governmental Agreement was signed between India and Russia. A number of historic milestones have been achieved by BrahMos in the recent past, among them which caught world attention was undoubtfully the successful integration and test firing of the advanced BRAHMOS ALCM (air-launched cruise missile) system from the Indian Air Force’s Sukhoi-30 air combat platform.