TRUSTEES

Dr. Nagarjun

Dr. Nagarjun

Trustee

Dr. Nagarjun is a general physician who practices in Chamarajanagar town. In addition to his medical service, he is also an engaged member of the Rotary Club and enjoys extending his services to several institutions and groups.

Sunita Rao

Sunita Rao

Trustee

Sunita Rao is an ecologist by training and has used her skills, over the past thirty years, to work in the areas of conservation education and small-scale food systems. She founded Vanastree, a small women farmers’ seed collective based in Sirsi, in 2001. The main focus of the group is endorsing women’s roles in tending forest home gardens thus ensuring access to highly diverse local foods, the preservation of traditional seeds, and the cultural practices of seed saving and exchange. She has been involved with Punarchith right from its inception. 
C. Balachandran

C. Balachandran

Trustee

Born in 1970, Tamilnadu & graduated in Architecture from School of Architecture and Planning, Anna University, Chennai (1993 batch). Received training under Architect Sri Anil Lal on Appropriate construction technologies at Nizamuddin Building Centre, New Delhi

Practiced Industrial Architecture in South East Asian countries with Quasi Government/private organisations till 1999.

Spent a few years working with Multinational companies like Accenture handling the delivery of IT integration projects in Telecom Industry in Bangalore/North America.

All along, developed a passion towards ‘Sustainability’ as a concept and delved in allied aspects – Cyclic Patterns, Renewability and Simplicity. Have been facilitating the marketing of Organic produce through Prakriti Food, a retail store promoting local food systems, hand made products etc in Mysuru. Handles Construction projects involving natural materials and methods primarily Bamboo and Mud. As a Community Architect, tends to amalgamate the social need and environmental context in Design and infuse appropriate technology during the implementation of the projects.

A R Vasavi

A R Vasavi

Trustee

A.R.Vasavi is a Social Anthropologist who received her master’s degree in sociology from the Dept of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, and a Ph.D in Social Anthropology from Michigan State University. She was a Visiting Professor at Tufts University (Mass, USA), faculty at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and has lectured in several universities across the world. She took premature retirement from the School of Social Sciences, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, and is currently Secretary at PUNARCHITH. Her areas of interest are alternative education, rural and agrarian studies, sociology of education, sociology of India, and contemporary social theory.

At PUNARCHITH she anchors the Integrated Learning Programme and coordinates the overall activities and work of the organisation.

Resume (pdf)

Selected Publications


2022: Book: ‘Differentiation and Disjunction: Interrogating India’s Education System’ was published by Orient BlackSwan, Hyderabad.2022.

Economic & Political Weekly – The Everyday Wars on World Agri-cultures | English PDF
Samuhik Pahal – Lessons from learners | English PDF
Adverse Integration of Rural India | English PDF
The Support that Rural India Needs: Maximum Support Policy | View online
Ten Months on, What lessons have we learnt from the farmers’ movement? | View online
As Covid and Institutional Failure Ravage us, a lament for our times | View online
UNESCO 2020 : Rethinking mass higher education: towards community integrated
learning centres | English PDF
NRAS 2020: State of rural and agrarian India report 2020 | English PDF
The Absent Agriculturist in International Affairs | Engish PDF
Societies in motion | Engish PDF
Re-imagining education | Engish PDF
‘Social Transformative Learning’ In India | Engish PDF | Kannada PDF
Suicides and the making of India’s agrarian distress | Engish PDF
‘The education question’ from the perspective of adivasis: conditions, policies and structures | Engish PDF
The Displaced Threshing Yard 2018 | Engish PDF
ಗ್ರಾಮೀಣ ಭಾರತಕ್ಕೆ ಬೇಕಿದೆ ಹೊಸ ’ಎಂಎಸ್‌ಪಿ’ – ’ಗರಿಷ್ಠ ಬೆಂಬಲ ನೀತಿ’ | Link
Compiled and Edited the Kannada version of the booklet,’ The State of Rural and Agrarian India 2020’.
‘India’s Disembedded Rural Landscapes’, in the Landscape Architecture Journal, July 2022.

 

Newspaper and Online Journal Articles:

INTERVIEWS:

Lectures:

  • On India’s agrarian issues for the University of Delhi, JNU, Sikkim University, Ambedkar University, and University of Milano (Italy)
  • Presented a paper on ‘From Magic to Miracles: Shifts in the Significance of Land’ for the Anthropology of Land seminar organised by the Wenner Gren Foundation, New York.