Category: Change Your Mind

  • Be Kind, It’s Natural

    By AARTI MADHUSUDAN —- IT was 42 degrees. The sun was beating down with a vengeance at 12 noon. I was late to pick up my son from his playgroup. He was a two and a half year old reluctant nursery goer. I couldn’t run any faster from the end of the road where all…

  • Working In Social Sector Similar To Parenting

    By GAURAV SHAH —- WHILE there may be numerous ways of bringing up children out there in the world, there’s one irrefutable, universally accepted fact about parenting: it’s tough. Funnily, the night outs, the constant worrying, the trips to the doctor, the endless negotiations (give and take on every possible thing under the sun) are…

  • A Realisation Of My Privilege

    By WYONNA D’SOUZA —- WHEN I was in class 2, I remember breaking the shower while trying to fix it in my direction. So, I immediately placed it in the shower holder and pretended as if nothing had happened. Mom thought it was the domestic worker (Suman) at fault there, and I let her take…

  • Change Yourself, Change The World

    By VENKAT KRISHNAN N —- I HAD an interesting conversation with a seasoned development professional some years back, as he held forth on why ‘charity is bad and development is good’. “Imagine,” he said, “that you are standing by a river, and you see a baby floating by, obviously thrown into the water and likely to…

  • Is Your Smartphone Preventing You From Giving?

    By MOHIT HIRA —- WHEN I was first asked to write for this blog, I tossed around a few themes. And then, as one who has crossed over from the always-waiting-in-a-queue world of the rotary-dial black telephone to on-demand-video-streaming handheld devices, I figured it was best to connect the virtual with the real. So, here goes… In…

  • Giving Back On #GivingTuesdayIndia

    By MICAH BRANAMAN SHARMA —- GROWING up in the US, the day after Thanksgiving is commonly known as Black Friday, the kick off of Christmas shopping as part of the extended Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Over the years, however, Black Friday has become more and more insane with reports of deaths as people stampede stores or intimidate…

  • Making Giving Global

    By GAUTAM ADHIKARI —- WASHINGTON DC: Politically and ideologically this country is polarised. Conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats are barely on speaking terms. They dislike, even fear, one another with an intensity unmatched in the decades since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s. Yet, in the wake of the hurricanes Harvey and Irma…

  • Ethical Consumption Is Not That Easy

    By NIMI RAVINDRAN —- A FEW years ago I read about a man who lived somewhere in Japan who had managed to create a perfectly Zen-like atmosphere in his home. All his possessions or every single thing he owned, including his watch, clothes, furniture and appliances, came up to just 100 items. A friend of mine…

  • Why You Should Hand Over All Your Money Right Now

    By SHOVON CHOWDHURY —- MONEY is important, and we think about it a lot. This is normal. But we need to recognise certain truths, which are self evident, and take action accordingly. One of them is this. You can make lots of money, and let’s hope you do, but you can’t take it with you. Whether you’re…

  • Bleeding Heart Or Change Addict?

    By RHEEA MUKHERJEE —- At 33, I have been able to rebrand myself, for all practical purposes, as a writer. I guess I always liked the written word, but with a history of moderate dyslexia, I never thought it was something I’d do full time. It started out very differently. I was what friends called a…

  • Who Are We To Decide Who Deserves Charity?

    By SANGHAMITRA CHAKRABORTY —- THERE is a time in your life when your child asks you questions. Lots of questions, repeatedly and relentlessly, about everything they see or hear. They then go on to validate and verify your answers like a keen fact-checker would. It was during such a time, when our son Josh had learnt to…

  • What It Takes To Be A Mindful Giver

    By CHAITHALI PISUPATI —- THE conventional list of basic needs of a human being is food, water, clothing and shelter and the lack of these means poverty, which seems simple enough to comprehend. I am often faced with a lot of questions regarding my work with underprivileged people. A common one that makes me very happy…

  • Real Impact Takes Time

     By ANU GUMMARAJU —- YOU can’t go far in Bangalore without bumping into someone who works in the social impact sector. You also can’t work in the social impact sector without hitting a Venture Capitalist, someone who knows a VC, or a few VC firms. And there’s literally only a degree of separation from people we know and…

  • Indians don’t want to pay for stuff

    By SAMIT BASU —- THE first time I heard of the concept of crowdfunding for creative projects, I remember thinking how wonderful it was that people in other countries were willing to pay in order to see ideas they found interesting come into the world. But I also found myself assuming, stupidly, that something like this could…