CSOs: Mirrors, not just handmaidens

Rohini Nilekani is a fierce believer in the power of being an active, participatory citizen. She quips that her friends could get irritated with her Gandhigiri, as she went about picking up waste which people had thrown on the road or requested people to stand in line at bus stops right from her childhood days. Today, […]

The macro crisis in the microfinance sector may not get resolved anytime soon. But it is a symptom of a much larger trend moving through the country. The Indian microfinance model developed differently from that in its original home in Bangladesh. It took root with self-help groups (SHGs) set up in Karnataka by Myrada, with […]

This is the most serious crisis since World War II. Politicians must step up; voters must allow them to. Politicians are elected because they campaign in poetry, but voters don’t always account for the fact that elected representatives must govern in prose. That chasm between the promise and the delivery becomes more dangerous at times […]

This is an edited version of Rohini Nilekani’s closing keynote address delivered to the 2019 class of the Strategic Non-Profit Management – India offered developed in conjunction with the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative and offered in association with the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy at Ashoka University. I think we are at a fairly […]