Groundwater is one of India’s most important natural resources and one of its least visible. On this episode of Grassroots Nation, we speak with Dr. Himanshu Kulkarni, Co-founder and Director of ACWADAM — the Advanced Centre for Water Resources Development and Management in Pune— about a lifetime spent understanding groundwater.

Dr Kulkarni is one of India's foremost hydrogeologists. Over more than four decades, his work has taken him from scientific research and academia into villages and communities across India, where he has worked to understand aquifers not simply as geological formations, but as shared natural systems that have to be understood and managed collectively. At the heart of his work is a powerful idea: when it comes to common resources like groundwater, knowledge has to reach the people who depend on the resource every day.

Through ACWADAM, Dr. Kulkarni has worked with communities to map and understand their aquifers, and develop locally grounded approaches to managing water. His work sits at the intersection of hydrogeology, community action and public policy, by bringing scientific knowledge into conversation with the lived experience. In 2025, Dr. Kulkarni became the first recipient from the Indian subcontinent of the biennial International Water Prize, awarded by the Water Center at the University of Oklahoma, an international recognition of his life's work.

In this conversation, we talk about aquifers, groundwater, water equity and sustainability. What does decades of working with communities teach us about natural resources? What can science learn from local knowledge? And can a deeper understanding of the water beneath our feet help us build a more sustainable and equitable water future?

In this episode, Dr. Himanshu Kulkarni is in conversation with Uma Aslekar, a senior scientist who has been working with ACWADAM since 2002. This interview was recorded in Pune at the ACWADAM office. Grassroots Nation is a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies. Learn more at www.rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org or follow @RNP_foundation on social media.

Sunita Narain, Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), sits down for a conversation about India’s environmental journey, the politics of pollution, and the fight for a more just and sustainable future through the work of the CSE.

For over four decades, Sunita Narain has been one of India’s most influential environmental voices. Joining CSE in 1982 under its founder, the late Anil Aggarwal, she co-edited the landmark first State of India’s Environment report in 1985 and has since worked at the forefront of debates around air pollution, climate change, water, sustainable mobility, and the rights of communities affected by environmental degradation. Her approach has consistently connected environmental protection with the needs of India’s poor and marginalised.

Sunita Narain is in conversation with Anumita Roychowdhury, the Executive Director at CSE. She has led some of CSE’s most significant campaigns on clean air and sustainable mobility, including the Right to Clean Air campaign, which helped drive stronger vehicle-emission standards and Delhi’s transition to CNG public transport. Together, they reflect on the evolution of India’s environmental movement, what has changed and what hasn’t and why science, public action, and grassroots mobilisation remain essential to environmental justice.

This episode was recorded at the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi. Grassroots Nation is a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies. Learn more at www.rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org or follow @RNP_foundation on social media.

Since the 2000s the Adivasi Academy founded by Dr. GN Devy has become far more than a centre for research. Its approach to documenting and preserving tribal culture is exemplary for the way in which it centres positive values and social transformation.

This is part two of the conversation between Dr GN Devy - a scholar, linguist, institution builder and one of India's foremost advocates for linguistic diversity and Dr Madan Meena .

In this episode, GN Devy describes the process of carrying out the People’s Linguistic Survey of India. As a person who has always been both an activist and an academic, thinker and writer, he has spent many years working with institutions like the Rashtriya Seva Dal and been affiliated with literary organizations like PEN International which he famously directed in 2018 – India’s first time hosting the landmark event.

GN Devy continues his conversation with Dr. Madan Meena. Dr. Madan Meena and Dr. G.N. Devy share a close professional, collaborative, and institutional relationship. Dr Meena is also a trustee of the Bhasha research and publication centre.

This conversation was recorded in Delhi. Grassroots Nation is a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies. For more information go to www.rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org or join the conversation on social media @RNP_foundation.

What does it mean to lose a language? And what do we lose with it?

In the season premiere of Grassroots Nation, Dr GN Devy - a scholar, linguist, institution builder and one of India's foremost advocates for linguistic diversity joins Dr Madan Meena for a deeply personal conversation about language, identity and belonging.

From his childhood in rural Maharashtra to a celebrated academic career, and from leaving the university classroom to working alongside Adivasi, Denotified and Nomadic communities, Dr Devy reflects on the experiences that shaped his life's work. He shares the stories behind the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, the Adivasi Academy and the People's Linguistic Survey of India, an unprecedented effort to document more than 700 living languages across the country.

Speaking with his longtime collaborator Dr Madan Meena, the conversation goes beyond language as a subject of study to explore language as memory, culture, history and a way of seeing the world. Together, they discuss why preserving linguistic diversity is inseparable from preserving people, and what India's many voices can teach us about building a more inclusive future.

This conversation was recorded in Delhi. Grassroots Nation is a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies. For more information go to www.rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org or join the conversation on social media @RNP_foundation.

In part 2 of this conversation, Jagdeesh Rao Puppala talks about the longstanding collaboration between theorists, researchers, practitioners and the government that has resulted in deepening our understanding of the commons. If you haven’t listened to part 1 yet, we strongly encourage you to do so first!

Jagdeesh Rao Puppala is in conversation with his colleague Irina Snissar Lobo. This interview was recorded in Goa.

Grassroots Nation is a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies. For more information go to www.rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org or join the conversation on social media @RNP_foundation.

For more than three decades, Jagdeesh Rao Puppala has devoted his life to addressing one of the most complex challenges of our time: the stewardship of the commons: our shared resources and the collective responsibility they demand. A close collaborator of Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom, he is a co-founder of the Foundation for Ecological Security and served as its chief executive for nearly 20 years. The organization is widely recognized for its thoughtful, deeply grounded approach to managing shared natural resources and for reimagining how communities can come together to protect them.

In the first of a two-part conversation, Jagdeesh is in conversation with his colleague Irina Snissar Lobo, and they reflect on his early years in rural India, his enduring connection to nature, and the difficult lessons he has learned in working to safeguard both ecosystems and the people who depend on them.

Grassroots Nation is a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies. For more information go to www.rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org or join the conversation on social media @RNP_foundation.

For over three decades, Gagan Sethi has been at the forefront of India’s civil society movement, building institutions, mentoring grassroots leaders, and advocating for the rights of marginalized communities.

A co-founder of Janvikas, his work has spanned minority rights, Dalit empowerment, gender justice, and community-led governance. Along the way, he has helped shape and nurture several important civil society initiatives, including the Centre for Social Justice, Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, Sahjeevan, Drishti, and the HID Forum.

In this episode, Sethi sits down with his long-time colleague and friend Sushma Iyengar, founder of Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan. In a reflective conversation, they revisit his early life as the child of a family shaped by Partition, his formative years working with rural communities, and the moments that shaped his lifelong commitment to justice and equity.

Grassroots Nation is a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies. For more information go to www.rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org or join the conversation on social media @RNP_foundation.

In this conversation, Dr Anita Patil-Deshmukh, Executive Director of Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research (PUKAR), speaks with Natasha Joshi, the Chief Strategy Officer at Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies about the journey that led her from medicine to development work. Together, they reflect on her formative years in a family shaped by activism, the early household lessons on equity and justice that influenced her worldview, and the dissonance she experienced when ideals at home did not always match the realities outside it.

Dr. Patil-Deshmukh shares how her medical training at Grant Medical College and decades of work as a neonatologist in the United States, along with her public health education at Harvard University, deepened her understanding of health as a matter of dignity and rights. She reflects on her return to India, and how her commitment to addressing urban poverty, social determinants of health, and youth-led knowledge production shaped her leadership of PUKAR. A thoughtful conversation on listening, unlearning, and placing research in the hands of those most often excluded.

This conversation was recorded in Mumbai.

Grassroots Nation is a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies. For more information go to www.rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org or join the conversation on social media @RNP_foundation.

In this conversation, Dr Rajesh Tandon, the founder of PRIA sits down with Nikita Rakhyani to revisit the journey of an organisation born out of a deep belief in people’s power to shape their own futures. Together, they reflect on PRIA’s early days, the ideas and values that defined its mandate, and the conviction that knowledge, democracy, and development must be rooted in participation. Dr Tandon shares why working with people has always been central to PRIA’s work, and how letting communities lead continues to be both a principle and a practice. A thoughtful look back at decades of learning, listening, and collective action.

Learn more about PRIA at www.pria.org or on Instagram @pria.india.

Grassroots Nation is a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies. For more information go to www.rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org or join the conversation on social media @RNP_foundation.

Dr. Rajesh Tandon, founder of Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), reflects on the ideas and experiences that shaped an organisation dedicated to democracy, civil society, and citizen participation. From his early academic journey—from IIT Kanpur and IIM Calcutta to a PhD at Case Western Reserve University—to a pivotal return to India during the Emergency, Dr. Tandon shares how witnessing the gap between institutional thinking and people’s lived realities transformed his approach to development. In conversation with Nikita Rakhyani, who leads New Initiatives at PRIA, this episode explores why meaningful participation, shared power, and letting communities lead remain essential to creating lasting change. Recorded at the PRIA office in New Delhi.

Grassroots Nation is a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies. For more information go to www.rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org or join the conversation on social media @RNP_foundation.