Inhaltsverzeichnis für 2 February 2026 in India Today

IN a state-run hospital in Nagaland’s Mon district, tuberculosis once followed a predictable path. Patients came late, diagnosis took days or weeks and treatment often began after the disease had already taken root. The hospital did not even have a radiologist. Things changed when a compact, battery-operated diagnostic system was installed. The device delivered results in 90 minutes, patients were screened and placed on treatment within a day. No one announced the change in status quo. The system simply began to work better than it had before. The India Health Fund, which supported the deployment of that diagnostic tool in Nagaland, was the catalyst for this silent revolution. Founded in 2017 by Tata Trusts and shaped by Ratan Tata’s belief that science and technology must serve neglected public health challenges,…

ECOLOGISTSPEAK “We must save what still remains. Only after safeguarding our landscapes can rewilding truly begin”VIJAY DHASMANA, Rewilding expert When the NGO iamgurgaon first invited Vijay Dhasmana, a pioneering restoration ecologist, to build the Aravali Biodiversity Park in 2011, he encountered a severely degraded site, ravaged by decades of mining, quarrying, cattle grazing and waste dumping. “The extent of the degradation was striking,” he recalls. “It was immediately clear that simple plantation or cosmetic greening would not be enough. We needed a larger vision, one that reflected what Gurugram represents: aspiration.” Today, the 392-odd acres of reclaimed wilderness, carved out of an abandoned mining site at the Delhi-Gurugram border, is one of the largest urban ecological restoration efforts in the region. Instead of conventional landscaping, Dhasmana and his team concentrated on…

ICAR’S NATIONAL RESEARCH CENTRE ON EQUINES, Bikaner Key people: Sharat Chandra Mehta, Head; Talluri Thirumalai Rao, Senior Scientist Year of inception: 1989 Few know that the spotless white Nukra horse, a staple of North Indian wedding photographs, harbours a dark secret. Its coat is the result of low melanin (the pigment that shields skin from sun damage). Many Nukras suffer skin, eye and genetic problems throughout their life, but observers don’t know the pain they undergo, buying them for lakhs of rupees. Four Nukras live on the Bikaner campus of the National Research Centre on Equines. Not bought for a fancy, of course—they are trying to certify it as a separate breed and establish standards for its treatment and trading. It is popular in the adjoining Punjab and considered close to…

When Janaagraha was founded in 2001, its faith was almost romantic: that the organised voice of citizens could be the lever that fixed India’s broken cities. Swati and Ramesh Ramanathan, who walked away from successful careers in the US to return to India, believed participatory democracy would be the silver bullet for urban dysfunction. But reality intervened quickly. “We came in with a very problem-solving approach,” says Swati. “What is wrong in our cities? Why isn’t government solving it? And therefore, what can we do?” That framing led to a crucial realisation: “You can’t avoid working with government if you have ambitions of transformation at scale. Government is the vehicle through which scale happens.” At the same time, the founders insist that this engagement never meant co-option. Over the next…

ECOTOURISM AND CONSERVATION SOCIETY OF SIKKIM (ECOSS), Sikkim Key people: Prem Das Rai, Chairman; Rajendra Prasad Gurung, CEO Year of inception: 2001 Two planks are central to this NGO’s work in Sikkim: water and tourism. By combining them adeptly, they have started a virtuous cycle of healthy farm produce, steady passive incomes and lucrative skill-building across local communities. Called the Ecotourism & Conservation Society of Sikkim (ECOSS), it is a grassroots organisation that has been working in one of India’s most eco-sensitive regions for more than two decades to nudge locals towards homegrown environment-friendly policies. Founded in January 2001 and based in Gangtok, it is inspired by the simple idea that Sikkim’s natural wealth cannot be protected unless local communities steer the conversation. EXPERTSPEAK “ECOSS’s greatest strength is connecting with local…

BAIF DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH FOUNDATION, Uruli Kanchan, Pune Key people: Hrishikesh Mafatlal, Chairperson, BAIF; Bharat Kakade, President & Managing Trustee Year of inception: 1967 Uruli Kanchan village, located some 30 km from Pune, first emerged on the map in 1946 when Mahatma Gandhi came to start a nature cure ashram here. He selected Manibhai Desai, still in his 20s, to manage it. Desai was later involved in a raft of rural initiatives, such as India’s first cooperative lift irrigation scheme in the 1960s, even a sugar cooperative, before launching Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF) in 1967. In 1970, BAIF pioneered the doorstep delivery of artificial insemination (AI) services for dairy farmers. “This helped boost milk production from the two litres per animal then…. If cattle breeds had not improved, milk production…

A dedicated ecological farm and conservation initiative, Basudha functions as a trust under the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies (CIS), an umbrella organisation working on preserving traditional crop diversity, especially for India’s indigenous rice varieties. Basudha (‘Earth Mother’ in Bengali) now works out of a 1.7-acre farm in a tribal village in the Bissam Cuttack area of Rayagada district in southern Odisha, where farmers and researchers gather and learn about traditional agricultural practices, organic farming and ecological architecture. At the heart of its work is the collection and regeneration of indigenous rice varieties. Founder and conservation scientist Debal Deb says over the past many years, he has collected 1,480 varieties of rice, of which some 800 varieties are preserved only on Basudha’s farm or in national/international gene banks. Another 180…

On the outside, the Gujral House in South Delhi is imposing in its scale and sweep. But once you step inside, it reveals its impressionable heart that absorbs the spirit and essence of the people who inhabit it. For years, it was a playground and crucible for the artistic exploits of the late Satish Gujral, a crucial figure in the modern cultural movement after Independence. Conceived and built in 1969 with architect Raj Rewal, the Gujral House was a sculpture that adapted to the changing light, wind, and even time—a veritable shapeshifter. There are bare walls of exposed brick and raw concrete, lending it a canvas-like quality that now serves as a renewed gallery space that was opened to the public in November 2025. “This idea was, in fact, conceived…

A NEW TOUCH Spacescapes presents a contemplative body of abstract paintings by Sujata Bajaj, developed over six years. Shaped by her dialogue between Indian sensibilities and European modernism, they explore inner and cosmic spaces through layered textures, rhythmic movement and immersive colour fields. Resisting instant visual gratification, the paintings reward prolonged viewing. This exhibition marks Bajaj’s first major abstract presentation in the city after 15 years. COMING BACK TO LIFE Presented by DAG, Face to Face: A Portrait of a City is a portraiture showcase tracing Bombay’s political, cultural and civic life from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries. Featuring 30 works, the exhibition examines portraiture as a marker of power, lineage, aspiration and identity. From colonial academic realism to modernist experimentation, the show unites princely figures, reformers, artists and…

Mumbai’s tuberculosis programme has reported an encouraging milestone: 89 patients, from the over 1,000 with drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) placed on a new six-month treatment regimen, have been declared cured. For a disease where treatment once stretched to two years, this marks a potentially transformative shift. India carries the world’s highest TB burden, and drug-resistant forms represent its most punishing edge. DR-TB develops when the TB bacteria no longer respond to first-line drugs such as rifampicin and isoniazid. Until recently, patients faced 18-24 months of daily pills and painful injections, often with severe side-effects—hearing loss, kidney damage, nausea, depression—and high dropout rates. The new BPaL-M regimen—a combination of bedaquiline, pre-tomanid, linezolid and moxifloxacin—condenses treatment to six months, all oral. Early evidence suggests it is shorter, more effective and far easier to…

Barefoot College began as a deceptively simple idea. In the early 1970s, Sanjit ‘Bunker’ Roy—an alumnus of The Doon School and St Stephen’s College—set out to address water scarcity in India’s most arid regions. A relative at Mayo College in Ajmer advised him to begin in Rajasthan. Roy chose Tilonia, a village in Ajmer district, and started by educating locals about water harvesting and conservation. It was during this work that Roy encountered a persistent rural problem: when hand pumps or tubewells broke down, villages often waited weeks for a mechanic to arrive from a town. Roy began repairing pumps himself to demonstrate that such skills could be learned locally. If villagers could repair bicycles or work as ironsmiths, he reasoned, they could also handle basic mechanical tasks—if they were…

The founding credo of Narayana Health is simple. “If a solution is not affordable, it is not a solution. There is no point in me talking about all the developments in heart care if the common man can’t afford it,” says Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, the heart surgeon who has transformed cardiac care in India with his single-minded pursuit of providing quality healthcare at low prices. When he founded Narayana Health in 2000, Dr Shetty wanted to build a facility that could serve working-class people and be capable of performing 60 major heart surgeries a day. Today, Narayana Health’s flagship hospital in Bengaluru achieves half of that number alone. In FY24, its three heart centres and 17 hospitals across India carried out over 21,000 cardiac surgeries, making it one of…

PRATHAM EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION, Mumbai Key people: Madhav Chavan, Farida Lambay, Founders; Ajay Piramal, Chairman; Rukmini Banerji, CEO Year of inception: 1995 Pratham began with a simple if unfashionable idea: that education reform in India would succeed only as a societal mission, drawing in government, business and civil society. That instinct shaped Pratham’s mission—“Every child in school and learning well”—and continues to influence its work today. Among Pratham’s earliest work was setting up 150 balwadis in Mumbai’s poorer neighbourhoods. Community-run and low cost, these preschools relied on local women and minimal infrastructure. Within two years, Pratham was supporting nearly 3,500 balwadis. By the late 1990s, though, Pratham’s focus widened beyond preschooling. Working with Mumbai’s municipal schools, it pioneered urban ‘bridge courses’ to mainstream out ofschool children, besides the Balsakhi programme that provided…

If you ask Samamma, Tuljamma, Syamamma or anyone else in Bidakanne village about the Koppulas, their faces soften instantly. Smiles arrive first, followed by stories—and often tears. For decades, villagers say, Narsanna, 66, and Padma Koppula, 56, quietly changed the meaning of land, dignity and survival for families who once lived at the margins of rural life in the harsh Deccan outback. Always dressed in simple cotton clothes, the husband-and-wife environmentalist duo has have worked across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh since 1987, enabling farmers who were landless to gain land and self-reliance. In 1999, the Koppulas turned their home in Sangareddy district of Telangana into a learning and community space called Aranya—Sanskrit for forest. What was once 11.5 acres of rocky wasteland was transformed into a lush natural farm built…

MAJLIS LEGAL CENTRE FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN, Mumbai Key people: Flavia Agnes, Founder; Audrey D’Mello, Director Year of inception: 1991 If justice is a hard-won commodity, it is even more so for victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse, mostly children and women. On one hand exists an unfeeling justice system bristling with masculine barbs; on the other, a harsh, judging society. This is where Majlis, launched in 1991 by Flavia Agnes, has been making a difference—from providing sociolegal aid to domestic/sexual abuse victims to policy-level interventions, and capacity-building for stakeholders like the police. A victim of domestic abuse herself, Agnes left home and got a law degree. As she started practising, she realised there weren’t lawyers with a feminist understanding. Today, the association of women lawyers and activists has an…

SEVEN SISTERS DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE (SeSTA), Guwahati Key people: Varsha Mehta, Chairperson; Pradyut Bhattacharjee, Executive Director Year of inception: 2011 Development, covering the entirety of citizens’ economic lives, is an inalienable right. Thus, it all began with a question: why is Northeast India, despite its dense networks of community action, deprived of development institutions that stayed long enough to understand local realities? Founded on the principle of nirman—constructive development—Seven Sisters Development Assistance (SeSTA) grew out of the belief that lasting change would come not from short-term projects, but from building livelihoods, institutions and confidence from the ground up. SeSTA’s development works show up in quiet ways—women learning to negotiate market prices, households opening their first bank accounts, fallow land returning to use. The organisation sees itself as a catalyst enabling rural communities,…

UTSAH (UNIVERSAL TEAM FOR SOCIAL ACTION AND HELP), Guwahati Key person: Miguel Das Queah, Founder Year of inception: 2011 As a young graduate in 2008, Miguel Das Queah found the answer to the social stigma and systemic injustice around him in a question, posed to him by then president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam at an interaction. As he ranted about all that was wrong in the country, Kalam asked him, “What can you do to make it right? Do you have a plan?” Miguel did not. Kalam’s advice—“Go out and do things. You’ll figure it out”—became his North Star. Miguel’s initial plan was to start an NGO in Delhi focused on youth issues. That changed when at an event at an old age home in Guwahati, he met celebrated litterateur Mamoni Raisom…

If you were Sameer Nair, managing director of Applause Entertainment, you’d give yourself a fairly good performance review for 2025. The studio started off with the acclaimed series Black Warrant (Netflix), followed it up with another one in The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case (SonyLIV), had one more successful season of Criminal Justice featuring Pankaj Tripathi (JioStar), and delivered a powerful and popular theatrical title in Tamil film Bison Kaalamaadan. Ask Nair what was his biggest takeaway from what was also a prolific year with three more series, and he says, “What it tells me is that the audience is open to variety and is open-minded and welcoming. What they are telling us is that this whole ‘this is what audiences want and don’t want’ is not right. They…

 Vocalist-author Priya Purushothaman’s unusual account of musicians is united by their modest and often marginalised positions within the world of performance. There is the fraught story of vocalist Sudhindra Bhaumik, trained at IIT and IIM, whose quest for music was a restless oscillation between conventional jobs and his artistic muse. Rumi Harish is a skilled vocalist who had to confront gender conventions in music while transitioning to becoming a man. Shubha Joshi struggled with her broad voice until she discovered that genres like thumri allowed for alternative conventions of singing. Shubhada Paradkar, as a young mother and homemaker, used every extra hour she could find to continue her music training. Suhail Yusuf Khan’s grandfather was a celebrated sarangi maestro, but Suhail found the burden of musical conventions oppressive—particularly because his family belonged…

Q. How did you envision this festival and what is its main aim? For many decades, I’ve been presenting different festivals and programmes, but most are based on a particular theme or issue. I thought of doing a festival of choreographies because people have to continuously be introduced to artists who are doing some meaningful work. There was no point presenting the same old choreographies.... It becomes comfortable to repeat them and I have never liked to be comfortable. Q. Can you tell us a bit about the curation and why you chose particular choreographies? I wanted thinking artists. Secondly, I was looking for those who have not performed in Delhi for many years. And thirdly, after speaking to them, the assurance that they will come on board to present…

Nitin Nabin has a few firsts going for him. The youngest BJP president at 45 (in fact, he was born after the party was formed in April 1980), he also got into active politics in the post-Babri Masjid demolition era when the ascent of Modi had begun in the BJP. He is also the first person from Bihar to lead the party. Coming to the state, Nabin was just 26 when he first became MLA from Patna West (inheriting his late father Nabin Kishore Sinha’s seat), going on to win Bankipur (the seat after delimitation) four more times consecutively. The BJP president’s tenure is for three years, so Nabin will finish his term in January 2029, just months before the next Lok Sabha election. The next three years are critical…

Much before dawn breaks over the Bengaluru skyline, an assembly line kicks into production. Its processes, in which gravity plays a key role, flow from top to bottom across three levels. Tonnes of rice, vegetables and cooking ingredients stored on the uppermost floor are released to the level immediately below, where pre-processing takes place through specialised machines. Then, these are funneled down a chute into 10 large steam-fed cooking cauldrons that churn out 2,100 kg of steaming rice and 3,600 litres of piping hot sambar. As each batch is ready, they are transferred to insulated steel containers and ferried out by a conveyor belt into vans waiting outside. By 8 am, this kitchen on the outskirts of Bengaluru winds down. It is one of the 78 kitchens run by the…

DHOLAKIA FOUNDATION, Amreli, Gujarat Key person: Savjibhai Dholakia, Founder Year of inception: 2008 For as long as anyone can remember, Amreli district in Gujarat has had a dry arid landscape. In many areas, water is found 600-700 feet below ground level, and with high levels of TDS (total dissolved solids). Migration for work is commonplace in the mostly agrarian community, which is how, in the 1970s, a few enterprising young men ended up in Surat and started in the diamond trade business, eventually setting up polishing units. A few of these diamantaires developed into billionaire industry leaders. One of the biggest is Hari Krishna Exports, led by Savji Dholakia. In 2008, after the global economic crash, Dholakia returned to his village Dudhala in Lathi taluka of Amreli with a resolve to…

INDIA HEALTH FUND, TATA TRUSTS, Mumbai Key person: Madhav Joshi, CEO Year of inception: 2017 From his office in Mumbai’s iconic Elphin-stone Building, Madhav Joshi, CEO of India Health Fund (IHF), often reflects on the building’s quiet legacy. It was here that Ratan Tata spent his final working years as chairman emeritus of Tata Sons and chairman of Tata Trusts. It was also here, Joshi says, that Tata’s vision took institutional shape: that technology-led innovation could make a meaningful difference in healthcare delivery. Founded in 2017 by Tata Trusts, IHF’s mission was ambitious—to eliminate infectious diseases and reduce public health risks in domains where private capital rarely ventures. And how was that to be achieved? By funding start-up technologies that diagnose faster, work more accurately and yet remain affordable. The…

ARAVIND EYE HOSPITAL, Madurai Key people: Dr Govindappa Venkataswamy, Founder; Dr R.D. Ravindran, Chairman Year of inception: 1976 From the early hours of the morning, the corridors of Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai are a hive of activity, teeming with patients. Many are elderly, many come from rural areas. They wait patiently for consultations, screenings and surgeries. What began as an 11-bed eye clinic has grown into the nerve centre of the Aravind Eye Care System, a globally recognised institution built around a simple goal: eliminating needless blindness. Founded in 1976 by Dr Govindappa Venkataswamy—a retired government ophthalmologist known as Dr V—Aravind was born out of both urgency and conviction. “That single vision of eliminating blindness continues to guide everything we do,” says Dr R.D. Ravindran, chairman of Aravind Eye Hospital.…

INDIA MENTAL HEALTH ALLIANCE, Gurugram Key person: Vasvi Bharat Ram, Founding Trustee Year of inception: 2023 India’s mental health crisis is most acutely experienced in moments of uncertainty—where to seek help, how to judge quality and whom to trust in a fragmented system. These questions became personal for Vasvi Bharat Ram, joint vice chairperson of The Shri Ram Schools, when her daughter began struggling with her mental health. “I was forced to confront a reality I had never fully understood,” she recalls. Although her family eventually accessed care, the experience sharpened her awareness of inequity within the system. India continues to face an alarming mental health treatment gap—the share of people who need care but do not receive it is estimated at over 95 per cent. The gap has grown more…

AAJI CARE, Mumbai, Pune and Goa Key people: Prasad Bhide, Founder and CEO, a former IT professional Year of inception: 2012 Around 20 senior citizens are seated for a yoga class, being assisted by a host of young caregivers. Though some days of the week are occupied by such fitness activities, including physiotherapy, there is leisure too—weekly movie nights, trips to gardens and restaurants, and bhajan renditions. Welcome to Aaji Care, an assisted living centre for elders diagnosed with dementia or in need of post-operative and palliative care. With a staff that includes nurses, geriatric counsellors and therapists, the centre is a viable alternative for those unable to devote time to ailing parents. “I always knew I wanted to help people and make a difference,” says Prasad Bhide, Founder and CEO…

BETHANY SOCIETY, Shillong Key people: Shirleen A. B. Sawkmie, President; Carmo Noronha, Secretary; Bertha G. Dkhar, Executive Director Year of inception: 1981 Pynhoi Tang, 42, still remembers standing on the roadside every morning, crying, as other children walked past with schoolbags. Visually impaired and repeatedly pushed out of school, she was labelled ‘difficult’. In the mid-1990s, a neighbour took her to Bethany Society in Shillong. Later, when Pynhoi’s mother returned to their village, she stayed back. Today, Pynhoi works at the NEIGRIHMS hospital in Shillong, supports her family financially, and remains closely connected to Bethany. Stories like hers have defined the Bethany Society’s work since 1981. Founded by Sister Rosario Lopez, a Spanish nun working in the remote Garo Hills, the society began when she repeatedly encountered children who were blind,…

In 1952, the legendary musician Baba Allauddin Khan accepted a professorial post at Visva Bharati, Santiniketan. There, over two sittings, he recounted to Subhamoy Ghosh some episodes from his life. Transcriptions of these narrations were clubbed with additional material, including an introduction by sitar exponent Pandit Ravi Shankar, and published under the title Āmār Kathā (My Story). (I am not sure where the ‘Story of an Imperfect Musician’ in the English title derives from.) Baba traces his lineage to the Robin Hood-like brigand Dinanath Dev Sharma who adopted Islam to evade arrest. Young Allauddin was so obsessed with music that he chose to run away from home and seek tutelage in Calcutta. Dhrupad exponent Gopalchandra Chakraborty, known as Nulo or Lulu Gopal, taught him the basics of music. His untimely…