Minds that (should) matter

The article by Raju Narisetti was published in Forbes India magazine on January 2, 2015.

Sunil Abraham
Executive director of The Centre for Internet and Society. Has deep insights into India’s rapidly growing digital culture as well as the threats to it from misguided government regulation.

Shuddhabrata Sengupta
Runs Raqs Media Collective and is a founder of the Sarai Collective which does the rare examination of the interplay of urban India/technology/culture.

Anusha Rizvi
The former journalist who directed Peepli Live is now a filmmaker. Peepli was the first ever Indian film to be screened at Sundance. Her response to broadcast media and society issues always make you think.

Mohandas Pai
Ex-Infosys and now with the Manipal Group, he is active in public policy and corporate governance issues, and is not afraid to speak his mind. He was behind the Bangalore Political Action Committee—first-of-its-kind in India—and is also an activist shareholder who has minority shareholders’ interests in mind.

Ramesh Ramanathan
Ex-Citibanker, who heads Janalakshmi, a micro/alternative finance organisation, that has attracted Wall Street money. Offers honest and workable solutions through Janagraha, a hybrid public-private partnership initiative.

Satish Acharya
A brilliant cartoonist from Mangalore. A small-town guy whose views on Indian politics and Indian sport are spot on as he traverses the fine line of cartoons in India: Not too cerebral, but never clichéd and banal either.

Chhavi  Rajawat
A young MBA who chose to go back to her ancestral village, Soda in Rajasthan, to help bring management skills to grassroots governance. Won elections to be its sarpanch. A high-profile doer, she will be worth listening to about hands-on governance.

Payal Chawla
While her past claim to fame is taking on Coca-Cola over workplace harassment, as a lawyer and founder of her own law firm, Juscontractus, this University of Chicago alumni would be a good way to track India’s troubled legal system.

Pushkar
A professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at BITS Pilani’s Goa Campus,  he is particularly good on a major challenge for India: Reforming its education system.

Karuna Nundy
A Supreme Court lawyer involved in major commercial and human rights litigation and legal policy, she has contributed in a major way on gender justice in India, recently helping with the new anti-rape laws.

Binalakshmi Nepram
She fights racism against people from the North East and says it like it needs to be said in a country with deep geographical and regional prejudices.

Ireena Vittal
This former McKinsey consultant has a lot of good things to say about smart cities.

Economic and Political Weekly
Ignore its left-leaning interpretations and conclusions. Focus on its outstanding data.

GVL Narasimha Rao
GVL knows his psephology like few others do. His current turn as a spokesman for the BJP yields unrelenting evidence that is often hard to refute. And he takes sides when taking sides can be personally risky.