CSOs: Mirrors, not just handmaidens

From the beginning of October and through the end of December, our minds are more attuned to giving and sharing. The giving season starts with Gandhi’s birthday and goes on well past Christmas. In between, there are many festivals of sharing, and gratitude, including Dassera and Diwali.India’s Daan Utsav is well-timed to enhance the feeling […]

Rohini’s keynote at Indus Action’s Schemes to Systems conference. Philanthropist, Rohini Nilekani stresses on how the voice of Samaaj should be amplified and understood, while reducing the administrative gaps. Thank you to Indus action and all the people gathered here. A special namaskar to the two senior politicians here – Dr Palanivel Thiagarajan ji and […]

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 […]

In this interview with IDR, Rohini speaks about why we need to underwrite failure in the social sector, how philanthropists can support failure in practice, and shares some of her own failures as an activist philanthropist. When working on complex issues of social change, failure is inevitable. Yet, people in the social sector are reluctant […]