Nisha’s victory was a revelation to me personally in many senses. The rural turnout of 92% versus urban under 50%; the block voting from rural areas for a single candidate; but against these odds, the ability for a first timer to win reinforced my faith in our institution of democracy. Hopefully, Nisha can help fulfill expectations of both those blocks.

And to other people passionate about making a change, but feeling left outside the system, “Yes, you can!”

Here is link to a short presentation supporting my talk at TEDx at Jawaharlal Nehru Technical University in Kakinada (A.P.) (JNTUK). The event was themed Awakening Young India and my talk was titled India’s Second Freedom Struggle – Removing Corruption from Politics

http://www.slideshare.net/dipinder/indias-second-freedom-struggle-removing-corruption-from-politics

Comments welcome!

Location: Bangalore, India

ABOUT VIDYA

Vidya is a not-for-profit foundation established in Chicago, IL to bring educational scholarships to underprivileged children throughout India.

Vidya has three primary areas of focus: Connecting sponsors with students in need of the tuition funding through a web-based exchange portal, Encouraging academic accountability through independent testing of student performance and fostering a competitive environment for school, and helping education entrepreneurs by establishing a funding exchange.

Vidya offers an easily scalable solution that can become self-sustaining and exponentially increase the number of dollars for school funding in India while increasing academic awareness around the country.

JOB DESCRIPTION AND RESPONSIBILITIES
The Operations Coordinator will be the liaison from India to the US, for Vidya operations in the Karnataka region. The position will span responsibilities in daily administration, coordination of funding provided to appropriate schools, oversight in appropriate use of funding provided, providing information and support to partners in the testing, website development, coordination of marketing division/campaigns, and gathering information and data for a variety of development initiatives. The position reports to the US Operations Director in Chicago, IL.

Job Responsibilities:
Research
• Investigate profiles of public and private schools throughout the region
• Research testing and academic performance systems throughout the region
• Research government policies and precedent in education arena
• Provide recommendations and findings to Operations Director

Administration
• Supply school and student data to communications and website teams
( Bio/Credentials/Pictures)
• Ensure data accuracy and integrity
• Manage budgets and associated reporting
• Disburse and track payments to schools
• Project management – establish, monitor and execute timelines to maintain
progress

School Support and Liasion
• Establish and develop ties with local schools
• Create profiles of public and private schools throughout the region
• Coordinate with testing agency to conduct testing
• Assist with school sign-up process
• Coordinate contractual agreements for school to abide by regulations set forth by Vidya for funding
• Train schools in requirements to be a Vidya partner school
• Visit schools regularly to track requirements
• Serve as the liaison between schools and Vidya US Operations team

Communications
• Work with the schools to develop school and student profiles, and success stories
• Availability to work on different products and programs, as needed
• Provide additional information for marketing and website development teams
• Lead and/or participate on conference calls and projects, as needed
• Provide progress reports as required and on an as-needed basis
 
Marketing
• Manage interactions and on-site support for Vidya donors and volunteers
• Plan and execute plans to scale Vidya operations

QUALIFICATIONS AND SKILL-SET REQUIREMENTS
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience
- 10 years work experience in corporate sector
- 3-5 years operations and/or project management experience
- Experience in a start-up organization preferred

Knowledge/Skills
• Self-starter with the ability to work independently
• Flexibility to adapt to fast-paced changing environment and responsibilities
• Professional attitude to represent Vidya in all regions of India
• Strong oral and written communication skills in English and local language
• Exceptional organizational skills and attention to detail
• Ability to be innovative, set priorities and make independent decisions
• Ability to set and maintain work schedule, meet deadlines, and multi-task
• Ability to define and take action in ambiguous situations with minimal direction
• Education and / or non-profit industry experience preferred
• Proficient with MS Word, MS Excel, MS Powerpoint & MS Outlook 2007
• Proficient with internet communication tools, e.g. skype

TO APPLY
Please provide your resume to shwetasharma1@gmail.com

Deadline for applications is Wednesday, June 16.

Click here for details

Check it out.

More info, below:

—–

“We are happy to organise a town hall with folks who have been actively trying to engage youth of India and making them more informed about the political process and choices to make.
The format of the debate would be 1 hour of panel discussion followed by half an hour of audience discussion and the last 30 minutes Q & A with the panelists.
All rules of civility expected. Please login with your twitter or facebook email ids to login to participate in the townhall.

*** Panelists ***

Dr. Akalpita Paranjpe
Dr Akalpita Paranjpe is a retired scientist from the BARC. She has a long record of community service and involvement. Her interest in politics grew out of her belief that the country was being run unprofessionally. In her own words, “We were going from a country run by freedom fighters and patriots to one where a majority of politicians were uneducated and corrupt people who had entered into politics to serve themselves, not the country.” Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, she decided to be the change she wanted in the country. A few years ago, she quit her job and decided to work full-time on the task of nation building. She is actively involved in Bharat Uday Mission.  More about her here.

Dipinder Sekhon
Dipinder Sekhon (30) is a member of The Freedom Team of India (http://freedomteam.in) – a platform for liberal political leaders committed to mass-scale reform in India’s political and governance systems. A passout from the London School of Economics & Political Science (London, 2009), Sciences Po (Paris, 2009) and IIT (Delhi, 2002), Dipinder is an entrepreneur and works with his enterprise KritiKal Solutions in Noida. More about him here

Ashwin Kumar Kumaraswamy
Ashwin Kumaraswamy (29) is an eternal optimist, one who strongly believes that there is a need for a strong and efficient political leadership for India’s future. He is currently working as a Technology Venture Capitalist in UK. He has been associated with Karnataka politics and has seen politics from very close quarters – cutting across party lines. He aspires to enter active electoral politics in the near future to serve the people of India and to shoulder the responsibility of providing an efficient and effective leadership for India in this 21st century. In his words “Politics is the defining purpose of his life and also a medium through which he can be the voice of the generation next of India”. Ashwin shares his political thoughts and views on his blog and was till recently one of the moderators of Indian Politics community on social networking website – Orkut!

Amit Malviya
Amit is a management graduate and a career banker. Besides his professional commitments, his other interests include contemporary Indian and world politics. A proponent of ideology based governance; Amit spends time meeting and ideating with people from varied backgrounds. He is widely traveled both within India and globally, which has helped shape his views on various issues. Amit co founded Friends of BJP.

B Shantanu
A political activist by choice and an engineer by training, Shantanu Bhagwat (aka B Shantanu) is also a one-time diplomat and a venture investor. These days he divides his time between UK and India, working on raising political consciousness and improving political processes with a view to bring about systemic reform in India. A major part of his present activities relates to building networks and relationships across nascent political movements in India. In a career spanning two decades, Shantanu has worked across geographies and industries, including several years in Japan and in the UK. Until recently a Partner at a venture capital firm, he has also worked at Monitor Co. in London. Prior to that, spent several years in the Indian Foreign Service, working in New Delhi and Tokyo. He is the author/publisher of a popular blog on Indian politics, history and religion at Satyameva-Jayate.org More about his journey into political activism here.

27th March 2010, Saturday, 7pm IST

“

in partnership with

Friedrich Naumann Stiftung für die Freiheit

Invites you to a discussion on

India needs you! – An introduction to the Freedom Team of India

27 February 2010, New Delhi

Resource Person: Sanjeev Sabhlok, Freedom Team of India
Moderator: Barun Mitra, Liberty Institute

Registration: 1530 hrs onwards
Discussion: 1600 hrs – 1800 hrs
Hi-Tea: 1800 hrs –1900 hrs

Venue: DLF Room, ASSOCHAM House, 47 Prithviraj Road, New Delhi 110 003

RSVP: India FNF Alumni Network, New Delhi
Mobile nos.: 9899258440 (Dipinder Sekhon, FTI Delhi) &
9818499293 (Nupur Hasija, FNF New Delhi)
Email: dipinder@gmail.com  nupur.hasija@fnst.org

The Freedom Team of India (FTI), a not-for-profit trust created in 2009, is a forum for policy, strategy, and leadership development to promote freedom in India. Members of FTI are committed in principle to contest elections in India with appropriate preparation. They will offer their leadership to India along with a platform of world-best policies, hoping to directly reform India’s governance. FTI is not a political party. Proposed electoral activity will be conducted under a separate banner or platform. For more information on FTI visit http://freedomteam.in

Sanjeev Sabhlok has a doctorate in economics from the University of Southern California. He joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1982 and resigned in January 2001to pursue possible political and other goals. Presently he works in Victoria (Australia) in regulatory policy. His 2008 book, “Breaking Free of Nehru” (Anthem Press) highlighted India’s expensive but disastrous experiment with socialism. It also offered a way forward for India to become a great nation with freedom and ethical governance. The Freedom Team of India is a major step forward in the proposed solution

Sanjeev is visiting India after a gap of two and a half years primarily to attend FTI’s first conference (in Mumbai) and to extend his search for leaders. He is keen to get meet those who believe in the principles and policies of liberty and have contemplated the possibility of participating in electoral politics to reform India’s governance.

The 40th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum had a bold theme for the event, ‘Improve the State of the World: Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild.’  In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the global economic slowdown of 2009, this year’s meeting was expected to conceive of a new global architecture in which not only would such financial meltdowns would be prevented, but also would create a more inclusive and equitable world for all sections of the population.

Several world leaders from public and private sectors led the discussions, and over 2500 participants from around the world were present for the five day event.  After intense discussions both in the formal panels and on the sidelines of the event, there are three broad takeaways that can be teased out.

The first broad issue focused on the economy and financial sector regulation.  It was felt that the financial sector that caused the most recent economic mess needs to be tightly regulated.  Nicholas Sarkozy in his inaugural address raised the bigger themes around this issue, and left it to the experts over the next couple of days to come up with the answers.  The discussion was not whether the world should have capitalism, but rather what form of capitalism should prevail in the years ahead.  There were several specific suggestions that emerged in the panel discussions, but there was an underlying tension that one could sense between what government representatives, central bank regulators wanted and what the financial institutions were willing to give in to.

The economic stimulus packages that were created as a response to the crisis in several countries seem to have averted any major economic disaster in most countries.  Governments invested hundreds of billions of dollars to shore up capital and liquidity of private financial institutions, thereby preventing further catastrophic impacts on their respective economies.  This has somewhat taken away the pressure on the governments and private players to press ahead with any serious reform.  So it leaves the nagging question as to whether the crisis will at all result in any kind of major overhaul of the global financial system.

The second big theme that recurred in various ways through out the conference is that of climate change.  A number of governments were concerned about the issue, and even though the Copenhagen talks did not achieve major progress, there was still much hope and desire for concerted action.  It appeared quit clear that in the US, China, and Europe there would be large scale private investments in developing new green technologies in the next few years, quite independent of whether the governments take any concrete action on this issue.

For India, this was one more year in which the Davos platform was used to showcase our growing capabilities.  There were almost one hundred participants from India, and a significant Press contingent.  Many from India spoke on panels and made a mark on the discussions.  There were two separate panel discussions in which India was the theme.  On the financial sector, India will have to tread the path cautiously, as we have done in the past.  On climate change, India will need to take up the matter in a way that is relevant to Indian realities, but also develop a conscious strategy to promote the sector just as the IT sector was promoted about 15 years ago.  The green economy worldwide is likely to be the next big revolution and could present significant opportunities for countries and companies that are ahead on the curve.

Forty years of the World Economic Forum seems like a long time, and it is quite impossible for one to quantify the exact impact of this initiative.  In this year’s meeting did the participants ‘Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild’ the world order, one cannot say. But there are a few things that make it obviously useful.  A number of world leaders both in the public and private sectors share cutting edge ideas on a range of issues such as the economy, education, health care, regulation, the arts, etc.  The second high point is that in addition to these world leaders bringing out new ideas, there are a number of opportunities for them to meet and understand each others views better, and explore ways in which they can work together where required. And lastly, there are several opportunities for informal interaction with a range of actors across sectors, which provide very useful insights for participants most of whom are leaders in their respective spheres.

And what to say of the ‘Davos moment’ which so many people experience, as in my case, when on two occasions I turned around to find Bill Gates standing right next to me!  All of this makes Davos simply worth it.