Lead India Contest: Who Do You Want to Win?
2007
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Poonam Sharma - Profile
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Lead India Contest, Leadership
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Amul’s Take on Lead India Contest 
Well, to be honest I have not been meticulously following the contest trail till recently.
Nevertheless, Lead India contest gives hopes to incorrigible optimists like me. It is an initiative by Times of India to give opportunity to a honest, enthusiastic citizens within 25-45 age group to dream a leadership project.
The prize? One year leadership programme at Harvard University and a grant of Rs. 50 lakh towards a project of the winner’s choice.
Out of 32, 682 applications received from all over India, now 8 finalists from 8 cities have been selected. The selection is based on 50% jury judgment, 25% audience jury judgment, and rest sms poll. Here is a brief about each of the candidates:
1. Sanjiv Kaura, Delhi: A 42-year-old who served part-time as Territorial army, with a track record of being in public service. This social entrepreneur is said to be “a perfect blend of experience and idealism.”
2. Abha Singh, Lucknow: 42-year-old Director of Indian Postal Services division at Lucknow. Her dream project is to curb corruption. Other issues she feels strongly about are communalisation and castism, gradual erosion of systems and values, educational backwardness, especially rural areas and particularly women, and terrorism. She believs we can do it.
3. Devang Nanavati, Ahmedabad: 36-year-old top notch lawyer from Gujrat. He is a senior partner in Ahmedabad’s leading law firm of Nanavati & Nanavati, Advocates. Likes of Arun Jaitley and P.Chidambaram have fought cases on behalf of his firm. His interests: Billiards, human rights, and constitutional laws. Plans to embark a political career.
4. Dipayan Dey, Kolkata: 44-year-old environmentalist. He has indisputably won expert jury points, audience jury points and sms polls. He is a biotechnologist trained in sustainable development from the United Nations University in Tokyo. He has founded a NGO called SAFE that aims for poverty alleviation and protection of natural resources (such as water bodies) are judiciously exploited and the local population can earn more money. His take “curb defense budget, first fight hunger and poverty.”
5. Soumya Mishra, Hyderabad: 40-year-old IPS officer at Warangal. Has first hand experience of leadership and counseling at work. Her dream project? To start a community welfare project primarily to help redress the problems faced by people at the grass-root level due to naxalism. Not surprising choice, as she is a police officer from Naxalite-rampaged Warangal.
6. Rajendra K. Misra, Bangalore: 42-year-old entrepreneur. He retired willfully at 40 when he was MD of a successful company to devote time to public policy domain. Writing a book called Retire at 40 And Do What? Inicdentally, more can be found about him at his blog.
7. Ranjit Gadgil, Pune: 36-year-old programme director of Janwani is a technocrat-turned social activist. He returned to serve India quitting his IT consultancy job in US for. He was involved in education of underprivileged children. involved with organisations like the Nagrik Chetna Manch (NCM) and the Pune Traffic and Transportation Forum (PTTF). Talks about solid waste management and ragpickers issue (something you can read more about in this blog.) With his Lead India prize money wants to set up an organisation that can deal with urban planning and act as a source of information and support for slum dwellers.
8. Ujjwal Banerjee, Mumbai: 27-year-old, married to lawyer is an engineer-cum-MBA. Like most of us, started with MNC (in his case, TCS) and then later switched to work in a NGO after a through thoughtfulness. HE is now serving as an HR Manager in a NGO Akansha that shelters and educates street kids. He was involved to protect innocence of kids in a murkly world of brothels. His dream project? Opening internet kiosks in a couple of Indian villages to educate, benefit farmers, schoolchildren and adult learners.
My personal picks:
Abha Singh from Lucknow who aims to fight corruption. Ujjawal Banerjee from Mumbai, who gives up full-time lucrative job at young age to work for NGOs. Ranajit Gadgil for handling solid waste management system and rag picker’s protection.
Source: Check out more about finalists from Lead India contest.
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I also write at Visceral Observations.
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I would disagree with the views expressed here. Lead India campaign is certainly uni dimensionaland with a certain elitist agenda. Isn’t it unfair to assume that those who led the anti-researvation campaign actually led the youth of the country. Also, by promoting only one group as youth leaders or apparently the endorsers of lead india campaign TOI is only proving its elitist stand. The least it can do to strike a balance is to also have the people who are pro reservations as Youth endorsers of lead india campaign. Lead india campaign stands shallow if the only issue it brings on board is reservation and ignores the very many other more potent issues facing the country and young people working for them.
We should rather express outrage against the way it is being designed to actually have leaders that support a ‘development’ that will belong exclusively to a certain United Indian elite and the massive harm it would do to the plural-secular-democratic spirit of our country especially since the campaign is planned and implimented by one of the major national dailies.
To lead India you need people who are fighting for a life with dignity and Justice and I would strongly urge to consider people who have been fighting from the grassroots towards change making. Ofcourse, the initiative is TOI’s but implications are for all to carry. Like many other youth icon awards where the winner lists only goes to prove that India honours those who are in the business of either pleasure or leisure, it would be a major disappointment to see Times of India walking the same walk!
Hey, I apologize if the article lead you to think that Lead India campaign was to do with anti-reservation campaign.
Each of the candidates has a different project in mind like fighting for ragpickers, solid waste management issues, fighting against corruption. These are real issues with less of elitist agendas. If you read the profile of the finalists, they are ones who have been working at grassroot levels giving up lucrative job positions like Ujjwal Banerjee, Sanjiv Kaura, Ranjit Gadgil. How many of us are doing that?
Lead India is a good initiative – to try and highlight the critical need of able leadership in India. It is pretty evident that our political process has failed in identifying, grooming or mentoring the kind of leadership that we need in India, to step outside our “shell” of the “developing nation” or a “third world country”.
However, I am very concerned about your overall approach of making a “tamasha” out of this whole process of identifying leadership.
Is this something in our culture, to make a competition out of everything?
Why do we want to know who is the “best” leader in the “times of india – lead india contest”? OK so after a lot of tamasha you will declare one leader to be the “best” – so what? How does it help solve our intractable problems?
Do you think Gandhiji would have even qualified within your top 25 – by your metrics?
Why is it that you feel today’s leadership needs to be “glib” or “smooth” when answering questions posed by so called judges?
We need people who can act..we have enough who can “talk”…if you need the ones that can talk, go to the nearest political party.
And I believe the top “leaders” will get a budget of 50 lacs or a 100 lacs to implement their pet project!
Wow, and do you know the Govt’s budget for the social sector alone is 64000 crores?
So you expect that a paltry 50 or 100 lacs will make a dent, when 64000 crores does not budge the social indices of India?
Sorry to say, but unless TOI can justify the reason to make this into a tamasha, their overall motives seem suspect. It looks more like building buzz and furthering their brand identity by spending few hundred lacs…and actually getting a lot more via advertisement revenues and SMS charges, from Indians who get duped by this scheme.
Ultimately the poor Indians, the malnutrished Indians, the suicidal farmers, will stay where they are, while tamasha goes on…and a few leaders bask in the glow and get one more line to add in their resume.
@coovyakti: you made a valid point when you say, “Why is it that you feel today’s leadership needs to be “glib” or “smooth” when answering questions posed by so called judges?”
Yes, a good leader need not be glib. Having said that, why do you call Lead India a Tamasha? It will perhaps help me understand your concern better.
I am sure the social sector budget is never utilized for the actual beneficiaries. As for the amount of money you have pointed out for the contest, I feel every penny spent for a good cause is worth lakhs that go is corrupt deals.
I like the way Lead India provided a platform. I am pretty optimistic, I think if handled correctly, it could inspire more people. And it should be more action-based than debate-based. Also, in Lead India, all the contestants have a dream social project in mind. If they win, they get prize money to bring their dream project alive. If this execution happens, it is worthwhile. That is what I am waiting for.
It started off on the right note, but maybe we were all sort of misled, and soon it became yet another “competition” – mainly to get eyeballs and advertisement revenues, all the while claiming to meet social objectives.
And Indians, who are so obsessed with “exams” and “who is the first” etc – got bought into it.
If the whole idea was to do social good, why not choose the top 50 or so, and give them a budget? Who cares who is the “best” leader of them all? because after all the “best” is not being decided on “action” but mere “words”…for which we we have no dearth amongst the politicians of India.
The bigger problem is that we are totally ignoring the HUGE MONSTER PROBLEM OF INDIA, and not even debating it to try and find solutions. The monster problem is the totally broken delivery system of the Indian Govt – which by itself could be ignored, if it were not for the “food” it eats. But you just can’t – why? Because thousands of crores of our hard earned (collective) wealth is thrown at it – and the monster gobbles it all, and leaves just crap behind…and asks for more the next year.
Why do we have such a broken system? Here is the recipe for disaster:
1. Job for life.
2. No transparency/accountability
3. Full pay, whether you work or you don’t.
There is no “indian element” in this – you put this system anywhere on this planet and it will produce the same results.
If we are throwing 64000 crores just in the social sector alone in the mouth of this monster – and all we get is crap – should we not be urgently addressing this issue?
What bothers me is that here is a monster in our midst which is causing mayhem; this is the elephant in the room…and we simply ignore it and try to focus on a few ants.
We need to get our priorities right and we need to get a sense of the scale. We are doing this big tamasha for 50 lacs, which is 0.00078125% of 64000 crores…and we award 64000 crores and more to this monster called the “broken delivery system” of the Indian Govt … without a whimper, without a debate, without anyone asking “what will we get in return”?
What, are we blind? stupid? or is this a “holy cow” that can’t be questioned? so we just have to shut up and accept that the elephant will always be in the room and we will simply have to work around it, with our inane schemes of 50 lacs here, 25 lacs there…whereas crores and crores of our wealth is being frittered away.
Got any ideas to slay this monster? Pls share it with us.
yes, once such shows begin vying for TRPs and ad revenues, purpose is defeated, I agree. But the social budget that you pointed about is borne by governement exchequer. But this is from a private co-orperation. Perhaps they can not afford 50? Perhaps this is only a beginning, more do-good shows arrive.
Perhaps I am an optimist.
One thing that I agree is we need transparency at all levels. And one diadvantage of this show can be, if it is not action-based, that a glib talker wins.
Another thing to stop the money being fritter away, we have to be aware citizens. We must make full use of RTI and PILs. No wonder they want to take that away from us. I did not have info about the social sector budget, I guess I should file a RTI for my local area/city. They should tell me what was their budget and what did they do with the money, where was it spent. We can’t do anything if we do not have the information.
I agree that every drop is needed to create an ocean. However, we need to be realistic about the scale and its effectiveness. If some of us and the so called private sector, are just drops, whereas the Govt sector is a whole river…that too a stinky, dirty, filthy one…you need to atleast debate how to clean up the river, rather than focus on the tiny drops.
The TOI campaign is just smart PR to tug at people’s hearts and desires which is yearning for positive change in their environment, in their community, in their country – it is cleverly packaged, to further TOI’s brand and to rake in the adv and SMS revenues.
It is clear as daylight to me, that what India needs are leaders who act – not the ones who are just glib talkers…and there is absolutely no need to create an “exam” like situation and select the “best” leader. To apply the format for “natch baliye” or “indian idol” to leadership, is ludicrous. It is trivial to think that by selecting one leader, based on some glib talk, we will have somehow found out that one “Ram” in our midst, who can somehow make an impact.
Today the condition of India is so bad (in the civic governance area), that you need a whole movement and a huge number of people with leadership qualities, who can firstly understand the problem and mobilize people to solve our collective problems.
People have been providing good leadership, either on their own budgets or supported by well wishers – for over 60 years in India. Read the stories at this site: http://www.goodnewsindia.com. Why don’t you know about them? Well, because the media can’t sell papers talking about them…and they are people of action, and substance, who don’t do so for the limelight…they do it because they think it is the right thing to do.
With an “exam” like competition for the “top leader” – look at what kind of leaders we have attracted…here is the site of one of the top contenders, Devang Nanavati: http://www.devangnanavati.com/
where he tom toms his so called leadership skills – how? Oh well, because he is a member of many sports organizations and clubs in Ahmedabad and he says “Devang Nanavati has a special interest in human rights and related laws”…whereas he has been a legal adviser to the corporate world – exactly, thats where the money is!He even has the SMS number right up on the home page in bold. Not one line in his whole website talks about doing anything for anyone who does not have money. Sports? Well, you look at him and decide, whether he would be watching sports (on TV) or participating. So with all the screening that TOI apparently did – we come up with yet another glib politician with narcissistic tendencies, who is all about “me”…and “I need to win” this contest. So maybe TOI got him to this round…so they could have a “colorful character” …to draw the audience?
RTI is a good piece of legislation, just as many other pieces of legislation in India – and one that brings some hope. The big issue with all of that is “implementation” and “for someone to put their job on the line” – i.e. to take the “responsibility”. And no one does. Indian Govt has put a legislation for “right to education” – with no one taking any responsibility…and with no set targets where someone is held accountable. Tell a poor family “you have the right to education” – does that make any sense?
However, have you have been to any Govt department physically? Have you seen the files and papers that are tied together and thrown in the attic and every other place? Do you believe they even have the information available to provide it to you? Mostly they don’t – even if they were 100% serious to comply with RTI…they just don’t have the information, because it it tucked away in some file somewhere.
Very soon RTI cases will pile up just like the other cases in court – the backlog will be in millions, because they will first stonewall, then provide half baked info…which will lead to people reapplying for info…and the cases will soon pile up sky high. Either they will remove the clause for penalty for not providing info or the Govt will go bankrupt – which BTW is our own money! The only sane way would be for the Govt to cleanup their act – and the political masters don’t have any incentive to do so, and Govt employees have job for life.
And BTW, while you file an RTI to get the budget for your local Govt, try and see if TOI would be willing to tell you how much revenues it made via the “Lead India” campaign by advertising and SMS partnership. I am 100% sure they will not like you to know that – why? because actually they have something to hide.
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