Exploring Forgotten Periods of Prosperity in History for Lessons on Holistic Well-being and Sustainable Societies

We have studied major events in history books. Most of the events are recorded around major wars and change of power. In Indian history, we remember Alexander’s (Sikandar) war and the birth of Chandragupta and then Ashoka Kalinga’s war which was in 2 BC. Then lots of wars between the 11th century till our recent independence.

Between these invasions there were long periods of great prosperity for 300 to 600 years (12 generations to 24 generations) which are not at all documented in our history. These periods are much longer than the entire industrial transformation over the last 175 years.

What were those successes?
A. Systems – Political, Economic, Social
B. Processes – Education and Health
C. Governance – Empowerment and conflict resolutions

The modern ‘ism’ like Communism and Capitalism have completed just over 150 to 200 years and they start showing that it’s cracking.

How do we retrieve those knowledge systems that may have possible learnings of holistic happiness built around spirituality, expertise and interdependent livelihoods with lesser greed, selfishness, ego and violence?

May 2, 2024

Linking observations into design of good social development systems

Today during the conversations with Uday, few insights surfaced

  1. The art and literature shapes the thinking of child to have his ‘Rule book’ for deciding ‘right or wrong’ in his/her life.
  2. Art and Literature is expressed in the form stories and pictures/ sculptures of god he/she gets exposed to.
  3. Theatre and Sports are the platforms for child to express and experiment.

Now my mind is working on How to link these observations into design of good social development systems.

Question to this Forum are

  1. What are villages within india or outside india where Art, literature, Theatre, Music are structured tools for social development?
  2. What are villages within india or outside where Sports has helped in self reliant communities?
    We want to collect such models to integrate in Mission Samriddhi Summit to be held in Chennai from 8th to 10th February.
February 1, 2024

Milestone of the ADK Jain Eye Hospital

I’m happy to share a heartfelt milestone from the ADK Jain Eye Hospital family. On our 4th Foundation Day, we proudly unveiled our Premium Wing—a special chapter in our journey toward providing exceptional eye care.

The day was even more remarkable with the gathering of bright minds at ROAD 2023 (Rural Ophthalmology Annual Dialogue), where we delved into insightful discussions about the future of eye care amongst rural communities.

A sincere thank you to our esteemed guests— Dr. Suraj Singh Senjam, Dr. (Prof)Taru Dewan, Dr. (Prof)Shashi Vashisht, Dr. (Prof)Punam Kapur, Dr. (Prof)Mukesh Sharma, Dr. (Prof)Ashok Pathak, Dr. H K Yaduvanshi, Dr. Manoj Yadav, Dr. Amit Kumar, Dr. Pravin Malik and other incredible individuals. Their presence added immeasurable value to the occasion.

This celebration embodies our shared vision for outstanding eye care and our commitment to making a positive impact in the communities we serve. Heartfelt thanks to everyone who played a part in contributing to the ongoing journey of ADK Jain Eye Hospital.

ADKFoundationDay #PremiumWingInauguration #ROAD23 #EyeCareExcellence #ADKJainEyeHospital #eyehospital #eyecareadvancement

December 1, 2023
October 10, 2023
October 9, 2023

The Power Of Love For Empowerment: Amazing Banwasi Seva Ashram

Dinesh Chandra’s recent post sheds light on an initiative that profoundly touched our hearts – Banwasi Seva Ashram in Sonbhadra. This sacred haven has emerged as a beacon of hope, driven by a profound belief in the transformative power of love.

In the past, this region was synonymous with violence and was associated with the Naxalite movement. However, today, the situation has taken a remarkable turn. In some of the villages here, not a single police report has been filed recently, a testament to the positive change that has occurred.

In a world that often seems to believe that violence can only be countered with more violence and that hatred can only be overcome by more hatred, Banwasi Seva Ashram stands as living proof that love possesses the alchemical power to bring about lasting transformation.

I wholeheartedly endorse Dinesh’s invitation to visit this remarkable institution to witness firsthand the profound truth that love has the potential to change destinies. Together, we can make a difference.

October 5, 2023

Ullas-The Young Achiever 26th Annual Can Do workshop 2023

Today we are celebrating Ullas – The Young Achiever, 26th Annual ‘Can Do’ workshop 2023 at Music Academy, Chennai.

The workshop has over 1100 Teenagers from class 9 from government and corporation schools selected thru proper test. The test was taken by over 5000 students from over 200 schools in Chennai.

This workshop is named as ‘Diary of Dreams’ Workshop where we encourage students to write their dream in small personal diary handed to them among 1100 other students.

This is a beginning of their journey of Design the Thinking to drive higher performance followed by 20 Life skills workshops.

The 20 workshop are divided into 4 Summits.

Summit 1 for 9th standard Summit 2 for 10th standard
Summit 3 for 11th standard
Summit 4 for 12th standard

Each Summit has 5 Workshops conducted by Polaris/Intellect Employees, Ullas Alumni and college students.

October 2, 2023

Great Example of Designing in the Minds of Villages

Transformation of villages can happen when villagers own the change and work together. In the above movie, Sidharth Tripathi, a government bureaucrat works with the tribal community and the change is visible.

  1. Complete alcohol-free tribal community
  2. Family income increases 3 times from 3 crops per year vs. 1 crop per year. This is because of water conservation.
  3. The education of the tribal women and then building SHG where banks are comfortable giving loans up to 5 lacs creating nextgen entrepreneurs.
  4. Curiosity of villagers to learn scientific agriculture and crop diversity like Shimla Mirch etc., increased income further.
  5. Youth participating in sports, this way they stay away from drugs and alcohol.
  6. Both forest conservation and water conservation i.e. ecology drivers built in.

We visited Aram Kera villages in February 2021 and were amazed to see how Personal Development with minimal cost can drive 50 to 100 times the economic viability.

#transformation #ruralindia

September 29, 2023

Teacher’s Day

Teacher is the one who triggers a new thought or connects the existing knowledge to mould the person.

Teachers can be anyone from Parents, Supervisors and peers besides formal Classroom teachers. Sometimes, a smart question by a younger person can be a teacher.

Let’s celebrate all the teachers around us and within us. Happy Teacher’s Day.

hashtag#learning hashtag#teaching hashtag#education hashtag#students School of Design Thinking Mission Samriddhi Intellect Design Arena Ltd STPI – Software Technology Parks of India

September 1, 2023

Celebrating Sixth Foundation Day of Mission Samriddhi

Today is the 6th foundation day of Mission Samriddhi. There were more than 70 participants in the workshop who decided on the name for the ‘Purpose’ they are committing to. Finally, it has to go for voting and the name Mission Samriddhi was born.

During that time, Arup Kavan helped me design the ‘Open Architecture’ for Social Development after researching various models of sustainable and scalable social development, including the United Nations. Since we knew social development is Multidimensional and Multifactorial problem, we will need Design Thinking as a methodology for arriving at small successes. MS executive Council also took a ‘Conscious Pause’ in accelerating the projects for the first 3 years. We called this phase of Mission Samriddhi a student phase doing extensive research through experiential learning by spawning multiple projects. This pause has provided us with‘ silent spaces’ to listen to the extreme noises in very large systems of social development.

Early on, the purpose of the organisation got crystallised into just 3 words instead of long sentences – Celebrate, Connect and Catalyse. This simplification helped in such a wonderful alignment among hundreds of like-minded, highly expertise-based professionals.

November 20, 2022