DISOM - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Fellow of the IATSS Leadership Programme

Amit was born in an indigenous village in Gumla, Jharkhand. His heart finds home in the beauties of rural landscapes and forests. He is a sum of all his meandering journeys and the people he met on the way. He practices the simplicity of his roots, though he does not deny his worldliness. He began his work-life in Jharkhand, in the development sector, first with Care, and then with Ekjut, in the area of public health. His last engagement was with the CSR division of Tata Steel where he led Empowerment and Youth Initiatives across Jharkhand and Odisha, including robust programmes on indigenous languages and cultural identity. He also was deeply engaged with its pan-India Tribal Leadership Programme. He has a graduation degree in economics from Loyola College in Chennai, post-graduation from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, and a business management degree from XLRI, Jamshedpur. Amit is a fellow of the IATSS Leadership Programme, Japan. He is also a Caux Scholar in Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding.

Anish likes to cook, be it dreams, desserts or ways to discover little transformations. With a background in the performing arts, Anish is a theatre actor, theatre activist and theatre reformer. Co-founder of the Bangalore-based organisation Rafiki, Anish has worked with and trained under masters such as Probir Guha, Raja Ravivarma, Kanan Kumar, Anamika Haksar and Michel Casanovas. His critically-acclaimed solo performance Koogu is a result of his conversations with French ballet dancer Michel Casanovas on questioning their calling as performing artistes. His collaboration with Maraa, a media and arts collective, resulted in Unreserved, a project on identity, which witnessed train journeys spanning 10,000 kilometres, involving people and organisations from Karnataka, Assam, Kashmir and Kerala. While Anish has worked with all ages and all genders, his strength lies in sharing the joys and challenges of theatre with children and young adults, with a special focus on autistic children. His training includes various forms, such as devarattam, silambattam and tai chi qigong. Whenever he finds a bit of time, he takes refuge in his guitar.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

Bhanwar is an award-winning writer, journalist and social activist. Born in a weaver's family in Sidiyas village in Rajasthan, he studied art and literature at Bhagwant University, Ajmer. As a teenager, Bhanwar became a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which he later quit and became associated with grassroots organisations working for social and economic justice. This led him to play an active role in student politics and then into full-time work at the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan for 13 years. Bhanwar was once a school teacher. He was also formerly the founder and editor of Diamond India, a monthly journal that covered issues from grassroots perspectives. He is the founder of the Dalit Adivasi and Nomadic Adhikar Abhiyan, Rajasthan (Dagar). His recent book, ‘I Could Not be Hindu: The Story of a Dalit in the RSS' has caught the attention of people from all over the world. He runs the award-winning news website, Shunyakal. These days, he has an active association with the People's Union for Civil Liberties. He is recipient of the Bhauruka Charitable Trust Award, Sarojini Naidu Award, and Ambedkar International Award.

Job Titles:

• Executive Director at LEAD

Bhawana, Executive Director at LEAD (Leadership for Environment and Development) India, finds purpose in serving and strengthening the cause of building leadership that can lead with compassion amid uncertainty.

Job Titles:

• National Research Professor

Dr. Mashelkar, National Research Professor, has been Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Chairman of the National Innovation Foundation as well as President of the Indian National Science Academy, the Global Research Alliance and the Institute of Chemical Engineers (UK). In recognition of his pioneering research contributions in polymer science and engineering, he has been honoured as a Fellow of Royal Society, Foreign Fellow of the US National Academy of Science, Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Engineering, Foreign Associate of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors. 42 universities from around the world have honoured him with honorary doctorates. However, he is probably best known to the common man because of his Intellectual Property Rights crusade against the US patents on turmeric and Basmati rice. Dr. Mashelkar, who was a member of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister for over thirty years, has been honoured with the Padma Shri, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan, three of India's highest civilian honours.

Job Titles:

• Holistic Counsellor and Trainer

Hailing from Nagaland's Dimapur, Kilentola is a Holistic Counsellor and trainer by profession, with over 10 years of experience as a teacher and mentor to children and young adults in the field of education, human development, mental health, leadership building, and community networking. She is known for her passion to bring people together for peace-building, social dialogues, as well as those involving interpersonal relationships. She is a volunteer for Initiatives of Change, India, and has worked on its outreach programmes across the country in 2018. She is on the board of Can Youth and Tribal Old Age and Daycare Centre; the NGOs work with the elderly, with school dropouts, and also in the spaces of livelihoods and mental health. Kilentola is a freelance mentor for life skills, personality development, and communication. She is also a ghost-writer / editor who goes by her pen-name, Tutu K Jamir.

A part of the team which constructed India's first indigenous nuclear submarine, Lijo has operated six attack submarines in his naval career. On promotion to Commander, he headed the Submarines' Division in Naval Dockyard, Mumbai, and was thereafter Project Coordinator of the simultaneous construction of six Scorpene submarines at the Mazagon Dock, Mumbai. An avid outdoorsman, he can roll on skates, control a puck on ice and can ski on water as well as on snow-laden slopes. He has para-dropped from aircrafts and taken laser boats for spins. His journal on his ascent of Mt. Everest, has been published in Malayalam as the Everest Diary. An alumnus of Yale University and the Robert Bosch Foundation, and a fellow at the Institution of Engineers (India), Lijo is the Founder-Executive Director at the US-based Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam Foundation that works alongside NGOs in the space of education, public health and conservation across the globe. He is also a Founder-Director at the Government to Citizens Changemakers Foundation, created for inclusive social development by better connecting governments, citizens and corporates. Lijo has been associated with the works of the Mauna Dhwani Foundation, Estah, Guru Puraskar Foundation, Young African Leadership Initiative, Red Cross and UNDP-IBIN.

Prabhat Kumar joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1963 and reached the highest bureaucratic position of Cabinet Secretary to the Government of India. He also served the people of Jharkhand as the first Governor of the newly created state. He had his education from Allahabad University where he completed M.Sc in Physics and M.Sc in Mathematics. Later, he also acquired an M.Sc in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. For more than fifty years, Kumar has witnessed the drama of public governance with a keen eye and reflected on its different aspects. He specializes in logical analysis of concepts and synthesizing different viewpoints in realistic narratives. Prabhat Kumar is also dedicated to the cause of ethics in public governance, Currently, he is the President of the IC Centre for Governance, a multi-stakeholder initiative in spreading awareness about people-oriented governance.

Rukmini works at the intersection of business, leadership, peacebuilding and systems design. For over two decades, she has worked across the globe with organisations, communities and individuals through the modalities of consulting, facilitation, coaching and dialogue. As she stepped into entrepreneurship in 2008, she integrated her work in conscious leadership, organisational development, and peacebuilding. Her consulting practice Exult! Solutions was set up after having spent the first few years of her career in employment in India and Singapore with leading corporate organisations and educational institutions. She has a Masters degrees in Organisational Psychology and Business Management, followed by a fellowship in Peace and Conflict Resolution. She is currently part of the Emerging Leaders Forum of the Inner Climate Academy and a Positive Peace Activator for Institute for Economics and Peace and Rotary International. She serves on the international board of the Rotary Peace Fellowship Alumni Association and is a member of Global Taskforce on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Rotary International, co-evolving DEI strategy impacting 1.2 million members and thousands of partner organisations. Rukmini is a student of yoga and philosophy and enjoys spending time in nature, creating nature mandalas, and reading/watching space fiction.

Job Titles:

• Chairman
• Chairman of Initiatives of Change for Business

Sarosh Ghandy, a metallurgical engineering graduate from the Carnegie Institute of Technology, joined the Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company or TELCO (now Tata Motors) as an assistant metallurgist in the late 1950s. Over a period of 14 years, he rose to become the General Manager of the Jamshedpur Works of TELCO. He joined the TELCO Board of Directors in 1973. Ghandy was an Executive Director of TELCO between 1973 and 1999. He resigned to take up the Managing Directorship of a TELCO subsidiary, TELCON. He retired in December 2002. Ghandy has been the Chairman of prominent social organisations, such as the Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), the Eastern Region Committee of the AICTE, Gram Vikas Kendra, Parivar Kalyan Sansthan, and the Nav Jagrat Manav Samaj, which works for leprosy eradication and rehabilitation. He occupied the JRD Tata Chair for Business Ethics at the XLRI and was Chairman of the Xavier Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship between 2000 and 2010. At present, Ghandy is the Chairman of Initiatives of Change for Business and is on the Board of Directors of Kirloskar Electric, Nettur Technical Training Foundation, NTTF-Edutech, Janaadhar India and Parinaam Foundation, to name a few.