Anil K Rajvanshi
This is the podcast of Dr. Anil K Rajvanshi (https://nariphaltan.org/shortbio.pdf). He is currently the Director and Hon. Secretary of Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) (https://nariphaltan.org). He has more than 43 years of experience in renewable energy R&D and rural development. He did his B.Tech and M.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from I.I.T. Kanpur in 1972 and 1974 respectively. He received his Ph.D. in Mech. Engg. from University of Florida, Gainesville, USA in 1979. He was also on the faculty of University of Florida (Dept. of Mechanical Engineering) for 2.5 years before returning to India in 1981 to work at NARI. Anil Rajvanshi is a spiritual engineer! A mechanical engineering graduate of IIT Kanpur in early 1970s he went to U.S. for higher studies. In a fit of madness and arrogance, he left a very lucrative career in U.S. and came back in 1981 to rural India thinking that he will change India! India did not change but he changed. In the process of developing renewable energy technologies for rural areas he discovered himself and the great spiritual traditions of India. He runs a small rural NGO called Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute in Phaltan, Maharashtra and has a passion of writing articles on spirituality and rural development. His articles have been published in Times of India (Speaking Tree); Huffington Post and Thrive Global, South Asia Monitor and syndicated in various other News lines. He has 5 books to his credit and has written more than 250 articles on rural and sustainable development including the interface of spirituality and technology. He is passionate about teaching youngsters and gives inspirational lectures all over India and some abroad. His mantra is Spirituality + Technology = Happiness and lives in a simple and holistic way in rural India.
Episodes
Wednesday Apr 03, 2019
Wednesday Apr 03, 2019
In a previous podcast "The three minds of the body - Brain, heart, and gut " Dr. Rajvanshi talked about how three minds of body-brain, heart, and gut work together to produce a healthy body and happiness. In this podcast, Dr. Rajvanshi talks about some more scientific conjecture to support this conjecture and shows how the brain-gut connection takes place. Transcript to this podcast can be found at: https://nariphaltan.org/braingut.pdf
Wednesday Apr 03, 2019
Wednesday Apr 03, 2019
This is the last chapter called Epilogue from the book "1970s America - An Indian students journey". Dr. Rajvanshi in this podcast narrates some of his experiences in Phaltan till 2008 (when the book was written) and why he decided to come to Phaltan and was it worth it.This book narrates the story of a young idealistic student of IIT Kanpur who in 1974 at the age of 24 went to USA to pursue higher education. He left a very lucrative career in US to come back and work in rural India in 1981 and in the process of developing technologies for rural applications discovered himself. Dr. Anil K. Rajvanshi has written in an engaging and lively style the memoirs of his stay and experiences in America as a student and as a faculty in the 1970s. It is an inspiring story and should appeal to all Indians including non-resident Indians (NRIs) and students aspiring to go abroad and who want to make a difference in India, especially rural India. The whole book is available at https://nariphaltan.org/usexpwithphotos.pdfDr. Rajvanshi narrates in these podcasts his experiences in US and what made him come back to rural India. In late 1981 when Dr. Rajvanshi returned, rarely any Indian with an IIT degree came back. Even the few who did come back went to big cities like Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore, etc. He went straight to rural Maharashtra which was as alien to him as any foreign country since he hardly knew the local language or the milieu! Why did he do it and was it worth it? This fascinating podcast will talk about it.
Tuesday Apr 02, 2019
Tuesday Apr 02, 2019
This is chapter 11 titled "Reaching at UF" from the book "1970s America - An Indian students journey". Dr. Rajvanshi in this podcast narrates his visit to various research organizations in India to work at and How he choose Phaltan as a place to workThis book narrates the story of a young idealistic student of IIT Kanpur who in 1974 at the age of 24 went to USA to pursue higher education. He left a very lucrative career in US to come back and work in rural India in 1981 and in the process of developing technologies for rural applications discovered himself. Dr. Anil K. Rajvanshi has written in an engaging and lively style the memoirs of his stay and experiences in America as a student and as a faculty in the 1970s. It is an inspiring story and should appeal to all Indians including non-resident Indians (NRIs) and students aspiring to go abroad and who want to make a difference in India, especially rural India. The whole book is available at https://nariphaltan.org/usexpwithphotos.pdfDr. Rajvanshi narrates in these podcasts his experiences in US and what made him come back to rural India. In late 1981 when Dr. Rajvanshi returned, rarely any Indian with an IIT degree came back. Even the few who did come back went to big cities like Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore etc. He went straight to rural Maharashtra which was as alien to him as any foreign country since he hardly knew the local language or the milieu! Why did he do it and was it worth it? This fascinating podcast will talk about it.
Anil Rajvanshi
This is a podcast of Anil Rajvanshi. Most of these will be on the interplay of technology and spirituality. This is the theme of his work.