Product Description

All too often, the focus of conversation in India is on our failure as a socio-economic polity. We despair about our inability to realize our full potential as a country: we find fault with our political system, the leadership, the state of our institutions, the economic model and much else. What we do not do is reflect on the micro successes and the many examples of hugely impactful interventions that have shifted the needle of society in positive directions. We do not ask the questions: what were the ingredients of these successes? Are they scalable? Are there learnings from these that could be applicable elsewhere in India, and might these learnings provide the guts for a new developmental model? Anchoring Change attempts to answer these and several other such questions, through accounts of organizations from across India, spanning the seventy-five years since independence. The idea is to revisit these examples of civic action and explore their relevance for the future of India. The book has two objectives: to shift the conversation from failures to successes; and to distill from these successes relevant design principles that might have wide relevance to create an alternative, grassroots-based, sustainable development model.

About the Author

Vikram Singh Mehta is chairman and Distinguished Fellow of the Center for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP). He is an independent director of several companies including Larsen and Toubro Ltd and Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd. He received Asia House's ‘Businessman of the Year' award for 2010 and ‘Best Independent Director in India' award for 2016 from Asia Centre for Corporate Governance and Sustainability. He is the editor of The Next Stop: Natural Gas and India's Journey to a Clean Energy Future (2021). Neelima Khetan is a Visiting Fellow with CSEP. She also does consulting work on development issues, especially strategy, governance, design and impact. She has worked extensively with civil society organizations and corporate social responsibility groups, and currently serves on the boards of several foundations and non-profits. Other than family and friends, books and plants bring her abiding joy. Jayapadma R V has keen interest and engagement in sustainable social development. For close to three decades, she has journeyed through, learnt from and contributed to the work of community-based organizations, bilateral aid and corporate social responsibility organizations, as well as academic institutions. A connector and catalyst is how she imagines her work to be. Travel, writing and music are some things she holds space for. Jaya is an alumnus of the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) and a Chevening Scholar.