Philanthropy is having something of a renaissance. At a time when governments are struggling to finance social protection, climate adaptation, public health and human development, private wealth is being invited — and increasingly volunteering — to fill part of the gap. New foundations are being established, family offices are professionalising their giving, corporations are expanding their social commitments and a new class of philanthropic advisers is helping wealthy families decide where, how and why to deploy their resources.
Yet philanthropy is not simply about generosity. It is also about power. This paper argues that the central issue is therefore not whether philanthropy is good or bad, but whether it is responsible, transparent, locally grounded and genuinely directed towards public purpose. Drawing on faith traditions, development economics and contemporary practice, it proposes ten policy directions for a philanthropic culture the paper terms “social stewardship” — one that strengthens human capability, public institutions and community resilience while remaining accountable to the society that ultimately gives wealth its meaning.
TAMIL NADU AT A TURNING POINT – A Personal Policy Memorandum for a New Era of Governance – From welfare to dignity, from expenditure to investment, and from political promises to measurable results
Hon’ble Tamilnadu Chief Minister,
You have inherited a State that has already achieved much.
That is precisely why the next stage will be difficult.
It is easier to build something where almost nothing exists. It is much harder to improve something that is already relatively successful.
Tamil Nadu is no longer simply trying to catch up. It is competing with the best-performing regions of India and, increasingly, with the best-performing regions of Asia.
That competition will not be won through rhetoric.
It will be won through institutions. It will be won through human capital. It will be won through infrastructure. It will be won through fiscal credibility. It will be won through investment. It will be won through productivity.
And, above all, it will be won through the confidence that ordinary citizens place in their government.
Your political movement has arrived at a moment when many people are willing to believe that a different style of governance is possible.
That is an enormous opportunity. But it is also an enormous responsibility.
The easiest thing would be to become another government.
The harder and far more historic task would be to become a different kind of government
Microfinance in India: Boon or Curse for the Poor and Voiceless?A Critical Review of Its Genesis, Misuses, and the Road to Revival
Microfinance was once celebrated as one of the most promising innovations in development finance: small, collateral-free credit to the poorest, leveraging social capital instead of physical assets. Originating in the successes of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, microfinance was embraced in India through the SHG-bank linkage and later via private-sector MFIs. Over time, however, many microfinance programmes in India have faltered: high delinquency, over-indebtedness, lack of livelihood integration, and borrower distress have tarnished its reputation. This paper traces the genealogy of microfinance, contextualises its Indian adaptation, examines state-wise performance, analyses delinquency and PAR (Portfolio at Risk) data, and recounts cases of borrower distress and suicides. It diagnoses structural and regulatory failures and proposes a ten-point action plan to reframe microfinance as a tool of inclusive, sustainable development—particularly relevant for India’s ~1.46 billion population (2025 estimate). Policy prescriptions emphasise accountability, mutual guarantee, market linkages, data transparency, and borrower empowerment.
LONGEVITY IS NOT AN ACCIDENT – Wellness and the Art of Growing Older — A Charter for Senior and Super-Senior Citizens
There is a strange contradiction in the way modern societies look at ageing. We have learnt how to prolong life, but we have not always learnt how to make those additional years worth living.
A person may reach seventy, eighty, ninety or even a hundred, yet spend the final decades increasingly isolated, inactive and anxious, convinced that life has already passed them by. Another person may be eighty-five and still wake up every morning with something to do, somebody to meet, something to learn, somewhere to go, and a reason to look forward to tomorrow.
The difference is not merely the number on the birth certificate. It is wellness.
Longevity and wellness should be treated as two hands of the same clock. Longevity tells us how long we live; wellness asks how well we live. The real achievement is not adding years to life, but adding life to those years. The World Health Organization makes essentially this distinction in its concept of healthy ageing: the objective is to maintain functional ability and enable older people to do what they value — a capacity shaped not only by genetics but by physical and social environment, behaviour, community and opportunity.
This essay is addressed to senior citizens everywhere — in Kerala or California, Nairobi or New York, Tokyo or Toronto. Race, nationality, language and culture may differ; the human requirements for dignity, companionship, movement, nourishment, sleep, meaning and hope are remarkably universal. The message is simple: do not retire from life merely because you have retired from employment.
HOTBED AND GRAVEYARD –
melmana@gmail.com | +91 9947670887
Ask an international investor to name a hotbed of opportunity in Asia and China still comes first, even after two years of visible slowdown. Ask the same investor to name a graveyard, and India, rightly or wrongly, is rarely far from the tongue. The question is deliberately provocative, but it is not idle. It goes to the heart of what makes capital move, what makes it stay, and what makes it flee — and it deserves an answer built on evidence rather than sentiment. This paper sets out that evidence, situates it within the wider architecture of global investment flows, and closes with ten propositions: five for the international community to weigh, and five for India’s own policymakers to act on, so that the country is not left explaining its absence from a race it is fully capable of running.
Bridging the AI Technology Gap Before It Becomes a Chasm
The world is living through a paradox. Never before have we witnessed such extraordinary leaps in technology, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI). Yet never before has the risk of exclusion been so stark. While AI transforms health, education, commerce and governance in advanced economies, large parts of the globe remain on the margins — struggling with basic digital infrastructure, skills shortages, and limited say in shaping the rules of the game.
This is not just a “digital divide” anymore. It is an AI divide, growing faster than many policymakers realize. Left unchecked, it will deepen inequality between nations and within societies. The United Nations’ recent Governing AI for Humanity report makes it clear: without urgent, coordinated action, the very technology that could help us solve global challenges may instead amplify them.
From Rome to the Field: Ground-Level Interventions for Agricultural Heritage, Food Security and Farmer Dignity
As FAO celebrates its 80th anniversary and honours a new cohort of 28 heritage agricultural systems across 14 countries—bringing the total globally recognised agricultural heritage sites to 102 in 29 countries — there is both a moment of celebration and a moment of responsibility. These heritage systems remind us that small-scale farmers, drawing on centuries of labour, knowledge and place-based adaptation, are at the heart of food security, biodiversity, rural resilience and cultural identity.
The Silent Poison on Our Plates: Why Microplastics Demand a Global Reckoning
There is a peculiar cruelty in the way modern civilisation is poisoning itself: silently, invisibly, through the ordinary act of eating a meal. Microplastics — fragments under five millimetres across, shed from packaging, synthetic clothing, tyres and cosmetics as they weather under sun and wave — have travelled from ocean sediment into rice, salt, fish, drinking water and now, unmistakably, into us. A landmark 2024 University of New Mexico study found microplastic contamination in every one of 62 human placentas it examined, at concentrations ranging up to 790 micrograms per gram of tissue. Blood studies have detected plastic particles in roughly three-quarters of healthy adults tested. Earlier this month, researchers reported microplastics in nearly every human brain sample they analysed, including from people who had shown no sign of illness. What began three decades ago as an eyesore on beaches has become a public-health question that most governments still have not found the nerve to ask.
The Role of Millets in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security: Agronomic, Nutritional and Therapeutic Perspectives for Global Wellness
Millets — a botanically diverse group of small-seeded, drought-hardy grasses that include sorghum, pearl millet, finger millet, foxtail millet, proso millet, barnyard millet and kodo millet — are re-emerging as strategic crops for sustainable agriculture, environmental resilience and public health. This paper draws together the agronomic, nutritional and clinical evidence on millets, with particular attention to their therapeutic relevance for lifestyle diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, obesity and coeliac disease. The evidence shows that millets combine a low glycaemic index, high dietary fibre, favourable lipid-modulating and anti-inflammatory phytochemistry, and an exceptional tolerance of drought and heat that requires far less water than rice or wheat. Together these properties make millets a practical, low-cost intervention for both climate adaptation and non-communicable disease prevention, particularly across the arid and semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa. The paper closes with ten policy recommendations addressed to national governments, public-health authorities and the international wellness community, aimed at mainstreaming millets within food-security and preventive-health strategy.
Nepal Cannot Afford to Rebuild the Same Country After Every Disaster
Nepal’s earthquakes, monsoon floods, landslides and glacial-lake hazards are not occasional shocks; they are structural features of a young mountain landscape now under mounting pressure from a changing climate and unplanned development. The country’s disaster losses since the 1930s – most severely in the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, which killed nearly 8,700 people and destroyed close to half a million homes – show that Nepal keeps rebuilding the same vulnerabilities it lost the last time. This paper argues for a shift from a relief-and-reconstruction model to a permanent national resilience model, built on ten interlocking pillars: hazard mapping, risk-sensitive land use, landslide prevention, watershed restoration, river management, glacier and glacial-lake monitoring, earthquake-safe construction, biodiversity protection, community preparedness and long-term resilience financing. The recommendations are addressed both to the Government of Nepal and to the international development community.
