Update: one more presenter!

Poornima got a degree in law and a diploma in mass communications before going on to produce her own films and raise a family. And then she decided she wanted to be a stand-up comedian. She has performed in ticketed events and corporate gigs in Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai, as well as doing Zoom shows.

Panellist bios:

Aarti is the founder of Governance Counts, an initiative that helps strengthen the boards of NGOs. An alumnus of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bangalore, she has worked both in India and abroad on the subject of good governance, including identifying key board-related issues and recommending good practice guidelines, and enabling NGOs to find appropriate board members. She volunteers with the #DaanUtsav ( Joy of Giving week), India’s largest giving festival and has founded and runs Whiteboard, an initiative within iVolunteer, that brings senior level corporate professionals together to provide pro bono advice and strategic guidance to NGOs. She recently co-founded the Women on Boards programme, an initiative with ISDM and DASRA to place a 100 women on boards of NGOs by 2023.

Madhukar is a development sector professional with specific interest in socialentrepreneurship and livelihoods. He has over four decades of experience a trainer /consultant with social ventures, government agencies and corporate organisations,and is also author of four books, including ‘Social Entrepreneurship in India: Quarter Idealism and a Pound of Pragmatism’ (Sage Publication, 2020). He has a Masters degree in Psychology from Lucknow University and a PhD from IIT, Kanpur, and has worked with XLRI Jamshedpur, Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad and National Productivity Council.

Sneha leads Indian Development Review’s editorial team and is responsible for executing its content and editorial strategy. Prior to IDR, she worked at Dasra and EdelGive Foundation, across research and diligence verticals, on issues such as health, sanitation, gender, and strategic philanthropy. She also worked at AIESEC, the world’s largest youth-run nonprofit organisation, and was a founding member of a language training company in Budapest, Hungary. She has nearly 15 years of experience leading research, building partnerships, and mentoring young people. Sneha has an MA in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex and a BA in Economics from St Xavier’s College, Mumbai.

Dear TGPian,

First, happy new year! We hope you and those you hold dear had a happy Christmas season and 2023 has gotten off to a good start for all of you.

We took an unplanned break in December — life happened — for which our apologies. This session, by our calendar, should have been on the 1st, but we assumed most of you would have been spending that time with family and/or holidaying, and the 8th was not possible for other reasons.

We start Season Four of TGP Sessions, as we did at the cusps of 2020-21 and 2021-22, with a look-back-look-forward session.

2022 was un unusual year. One that saw many of us return, with some hesitancy, some trepidation, to a semblance of the Before Times, and, as the year turned, we saw around us far more optimism about the future than we permitted ourselves since the pandemic began. As we returned to commutes and traffic, to travel and leisure, to socialisation, we found ourselves doing some things differently, perhaps even changing some behaviours completely.

2023 may well be a year that resembles the years before the pandemic, but it will be, even if turns out that we have seen the last or at least the worst of Covid-19 behind us, tinged by the three years before it. Some behaviours may go back to what they were — how many masked people are you seeing? — and firm resolutions to be different from what we were may be forgotten, but it is also true that those of us who have emerged on this side have changed in many ways. As much as we know people who wanted only to go back to the old ways and are happy to do so, we do also know of many people who made big changes in their lives: moved homes, changed jobs, ended and/or began relationships.

But enough about we think.

We invite you to come share with the group what the last year taught you, and how you plan to use those learnings (or not) in the year we have just started. It would be nice if you could let us know in advance if you would like to speak — mail us at thetgpsessions@gmail.com — but it’s completely cool if you decide to do that last minute.

We ask that you come prepared, at minimum, to answer these three questions:

What was the best advice you got in 2022?
What was the best decision you made?
How do you see the world differently now?

See you on Sunday! https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwsc-GvqToiG9DeS6OYGVGYKJcO0Le_fpVr

The Goa Project Sessions is back to a regular once-in-four-weeks schedule.

This week, you’re going to be flooded with all kinds of International Women’s Day messaging. A whole lot of it congratulatory, celebratory, or just plain exploitative. (Spa offers, anyone?) We do think IWD should be marked, but for the reasons why it was named thus in the first place: that it be a day to pay special attention to the issues that affect women, like the lack of equality with men in so many ways. That is, of course, a vast subject, so we decided we should look at one area: sports in India. Things have, of course, changed since the times when women weren’t allowed to play sports, but everyone will agree that there is a long way to go.
Our guests this week are two people who have, in their own ways, worked for a more equitable world in sports, one as a journalist and writer with a cult following, the other first as an Olympian, and now as someone who works to develop and promote more like her.

We look forward to an engaging conversation. We will see you there, yes?

Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwsc-GvqToiG9DeS6OYGVGYKJcO0Le_fpVr

Your reminder that we meet today at 5:30 p.m. IST to chat with Sharda Ugra and Neha Aggarwal about women in sports in India.

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwsc-GvqToiG9DeS6OYGVGYKJcO0Le_fpVr

https://thegoaproject.wordpress.com/

Dayal Mirchandani practiced psychiatry and behavioural medicine in Mumbai from 1981 till 2020. He now practices in Pune. He has been a Member of the Board of Studies, Psychology, of three universities TISS, S.N.D.T. and Bombay University, and has lectured extensively there. Founder of the Behavioural Science Foundation, he has been actively involved in training and therapy in the field of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy. He is a visiting faculty of the hypnotherapy course at the Charusat University, Baroda. He was Director of the psychotherapy course at the department of continuing education, SNDT University. He is the author of Healing Heart Disease Naturally (1997) and Super Performance Learning (1999), and is the co-author of Group Therapy of Addiction and a manual for the prevention of addiction sponsored by IFLD PARIS. The USIS invited him to America, under its International Visitors Program in 1990, to present his research on addiction treatment. He is a co-founder and ex-board member of the National Addiction Research Centre .He wrote a regular column for Reader’s Digest and other magazines for many years.

Aditi Raghuram is an industrial and organisational psychologist, and a certified leadership coach who runs Thrive Leadership Solutions, for talent strategy, leadership development, learning and development, diversity equity and inclusion, and workplace wellbeing. Applying scientific principles and models, she creates effective leadership programmes and interventions that maximise individual potential and team success. She has extensive experience as a culture strategist and advisor to startups and large organisations, helping them develop and maximise leadership and team potential, and create a culture of growth and wellbeing. She is a former professor, having taught in various universities across the globe. She has extensive research and teaching experience and has published research in high-impact peer-reviewed journals and international conferences such as Academy of Management. She is also certified in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) training, and is a Certified Executive Coach with ICF.

Kavish is an independent singer-songwriter and poet who writes primarily in Hindustani. He has invented Noori, a microtonal polyphonic stringed instrument that belongs to the family of rabab, sarod, guitar, and oud. He runs a musical project, Zubaan, where independent artists from different musical linguistic scenes come together, collaborate and perform across the mainlands. He has performed in 72 towns, cities and villages of India so far and is now recording his works. (Kavish’s project was featured in TGP in Goa in 2018.)

Kshitij, popularly known as RJ Kshitij, is a media and entertainment personality who has held the record of being the number one RJ and of the number one radio show in Vadodara for 10 consecutive years. He is also a TEDx speaker, a growth hacker, and a curious learner. He started working for Radio Mirchi in 2007, hosting the morning show for Vadodara, and became a significant opinion maker and influencer in the city. He also helped launch a Hindi radio station for Radio Mirchi in Hyderabad. Currently, he hosts the morning shows for New Jersey and New York for Radio Mirchi USA. He is the founder of Vatt Thi Gujarati.