Learning From Each Other

When a teacher teaches a student, how many are learning?

Not one but two! Because the teacher also learns.

You may have heard or read it before. But Ghumakkad has been a firm believer in above dictum. It came alive earlier this week when I was invited to launch the opening day of a 14-day residential workshop on Project Management for senior officers from Nagaland Civil Service (NCS). It was organised by MCR HRD Institute, Hyderabad under the Capacity Building Program. The participants had travelled all the way from Nagaland to attend the Workshop. It was a privilege to be the opening resource person for the Workshop. Although I had taught at the Institute on many occasions earlier, it was after many years that I was back at the sprawling Jubilee Hills campus.

Project Management

All the five stages of Project Management as listed below are well known:

1. Initiation
2. Planning
3. Execution
4. Monitoring and Control
5. Closure and Evaluation

Experiential Learning

All the above topics were to be convered in detail in the remaining 13-days of the workshop. Therefore, what I decided was to launch the topic with real-life examples and lessons. These examples were shared not only by me but also by the participants themselves. It made the whole learning process more experiential. The real-life examples from their own State added value to our discussions. Experience sharing by the participants consolidated the underlying concepts and helped in internalisation of learning. It made the whole process interactive and worthwhile more so when I had to engage them for six hours on Day-1!

Issues Discussed

Some of the live issues concerning large government projects that were discussed are listed below:

1. Is the project really needed? Who gets benfitted and how?
2. Community buy-in of the project
3. Scope creep- how to deal with changes in project Scope
4. Measuring the Impact
5. Ensuing the quality of project execution
6. Replicability of the Project across other districts and States

Learnings for the Teacher

As I said a teacher also learns in the classroom. I had many takeaways from the interaction with the experienced officers of NCS. Some of the learnings are:

1. Development challenges in Nagaland
2. Cultural diversity across hill tribes
3. Fragile ecological system
4. Rich bio-diversity of the region
5. Excellent communication skills specially in English
6. Regional and national aspirations

Gratitude

I wish to thank all the participants from NCS for their patient listening and active participation. On completion, they surprised me by honouring me with their traditional hand-made stole brought from Nagaland. I felt deeply humbled to receive this honour.  

About the Stole

Called Konyak (or Kongnai in local Ao dialect), these stoles and shawls are iconic traditional handwoven textiles from Nagaland, characterized by their specific tribal motifs and cultural significance.These stoles are more than clothing; they represent tribal identity and ancestral roots. Historically, certain patterns were reserved for warriors or clan leaders. They typically feature bold colors like red (bravery), black (strength), and white (purity). Naga traditional shawls and stoles have received a Geographical Indication (GI) tag, recognizing their unique origin and traditional production methods.

Am reminded of a quote by Calvin Coolidge who said, "No person was ever honoured for what he received. Honour has been the reward for what he gave." Once again thank you all the NCS officers for your gesture.

Other Workshops

Workshops are a great way to learn especially for working professionals. Am sharing below the links to some of the workshops conducted by me on various topics. Just click the link to browse the corresponding story.

Teaching Design Thinking Differently - When your MBA students don't want to recommend the college to others, what do you do? Think differently. Click the link.

How to Empower the Volunteers? - 3Es of volunteering by Ghumakkad

More Than A Prison - A workshop for the officers from the prison department on personality development.

Make In India and Military Systems - A workshop at IIM Indore. Have we gone beyond the rhetoric? 

Workshops if conceived well and designed for 'doing' rather than 'slide-shows', are a great way of learning. The above examples would have given you a taste and flavour. Should you need any help, do reach out to me on email hbindia@gmail.com .

Thanks for browsing. Stay connected and do leave a comment. It encourages us.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad/ Secunderabad/ 14th Feb 2026

#workshops #learningbydoing #educatingtheprofessionals #teaching #learning #interactivity #participants #diversity #internalisation #reallife #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #scopecreep

Ghumakkad Enters The Teens

Celebration time again. Ghumakkad's blog, your blog, is thirteen! Ghumakkad too is thirteen but with sixty years of wandering around!

Ghumakkad expresses his gratitude to each one of you for this exciting journey together. Like all life on earth, we the human beings are also dependent upon Nature. Ghumakkad too loves Nature. And that is why my tagline on Insta says  'Forever at Peace Outdoors'. Nature is amazing as well as mysterious. A lifetime is not enough to fathom Nature's mysteries like the picture below. The khoj खोज meaning 'the quest' continues.

With the support of our readers worldwide, we have crossed the milestone of half-a-million page views this year. In fact the count now reads 603,000 page views! Eight years ago when we crossed the 100,000 mark, Radhika Sareen one of our regular readers had commented 'You will soon cross a Million mark!' It did not seem attainable becuse it had taken us five years to reach 100,000. A ten-fold growth meant another 50 years. Not in my life time I thought! But now it seems we are getting there! It is the magic created and continued by the readers!

As we said earlier, numbers don't matter for our blog. Being a non-political, non-religious, non-commercial, non-celebrity blog it has limited readership. We are happy with the readers that we have. Your insights and encouragement keeps us going. In fact our readers have been contributing many guest stories to our blog, your blog.

When Fallen, Get Up and Go

This year Ghumakkad lost his travel companion (and life partner too). But Ghumakkad is trying to retain the spirit of the blog. The posts may have been fewer but the show has gone on. Sharing below the post dedicated to Neeta with eulogies from her near and dear ones.

We Will Miss You Forever 

Last year we had shared a snapshot of our content and its variety. We are re-posting it with suitable uodates. Read on.

The Journey

Ghumakkad started as a travel blog. Our inaugural story was a set of eight posts on picturesque Bhutan. Initially the blog was by invitation. Naturally it had very limited page views in the first three years. Once opened to public, more readers enjoyed browsing it. See the graph below which shows the current page views at 603,000 with more than 5600 comments. This is the 643rd Post of our blog.

As we mentioned, last year saw an increase of 153,000 page views as shown in the graph below.

The Content

Our blog has a variety of content with pictures and videos. Some of the themes are listed below with links to connected stories:

• Travelogues like Huka Falls Taupo New Zealand,  A Train journey in USA, Scuba diving at 65, Hiking up the Tiger's Nest in Bhutan, Toddler on a Hike, Veterans Bash In A Train

• Wildlife including The Big Five of Africa, Tigers of Tadoba, Birds of Ranganathittu, Rescuing a Black Winged Stilt, Lakshmi The Tigress Teacher, Ajgar Dadar Preserving the Pythons

• Environment including Trees (Cherry Blossom Nature's Revival, White Jamun?, Neem Trees Under Attack), plants (Friendship With Plants), insects and flowers (Brahma Kamal)

• Online Contest called Kaun Banega Ghumakkad which has completed 80 editions so far! It is though temporarily suspended.
• Lesser-known India series Tunnel Tourism, Belum Caves, Hindola Toran, Devarakonda Fort and more

• Entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship stories like Dreams to Reality, Young Entrepreneurs Bootcamp, Startup Fever Grips VVISM

• Teaching and learning (Ghumakkad is a teacher!) Jeevan Vidya Workshop- A Journey Within,  Yoga Mat With A Bandage, Implementing NEP-2020, real-life case studies and Innovations in A Convocation

• Obituaries of leaders like Ratan Tata,  Dr Abdul Kalam and martyrs like Capt Ravi Shankar

• Motivational posts like This Time of the Year and more during Covid

• Guest stories including those written by our grandchildren (Coyote Gulch Hiking in Stream), Covid survivors (I Got A New Life) and Animal Lovers like Rohini

• Picturesque Quotes having one of our pictures with a famous quote like Claude Monet on Nature and another one by a KBG winner.

• Adventure and Endurance like Ankush Does It The Ironman, Women Hiking in Water

The Readership

Thanks to the wider reach of internet, our blog is read globally. Readers from India account for only 45%, balance coming from across the globe. See the colour coded world map below.

Most Viewed Posts (All time)

Our story on 'Brahma Kamal The Queen of Night' has been read by almost 8000 readers. It shows the readers' interest in environment and Nature related posts.

Capt Ravi Shankar's life story has been read more than 7770 times. We salute his supreme sacrifice

.

See the list of most viewed posts below.

Most viewed posts during the last 12 months are shown below. Our readers have shown a wide preference for the blog posts.

Acknowledgements

There are numerous people who have helped us grow. We place on record our appreciation to the following for their unstinted support.

Trixie Asirvatham our content advisor

Chitra Shanker our advisor on plants, trees, insects and birds

Ramya Sriram logo designer of our KBG Contest

Yella Prakash Rao our ornithologist

We also thank each one of you for your continued support without which Ghumakkad wouldn't have been here! Do give us your feedback to help us improve.

Onwards to the 14th Anniversary of Ghumakkad next year!

Thanks for browsing. Stay connected

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad / 21st May 2025/ Secunderabad

#GhumakkadHarsh #GhumakkadHB #13thAnniversary #BlogAnniversary #ThrillOfWriting #JourneyOfLife #BringingSmiles #makingadifference #kbgcontest #kaunbanegaghumakkad #wellness #motivation #inspiration #positivity #nature #environment #teachers #learning #india #mysteriesofnature #travelforfun #wildlife #keepgoing #blogger #pictures #photowalks #powerofobservation #students #adventure #lesserknownindia #PQs #picturesquequotes #learningtogether #mangroves #adventure #IronMan #NewZealand #neetabhargava #lifeafterdeath

BITS Of Social Impact Is Released

"Educational institutions of repute don’t just produce engineers, scientists, doctors, and others, but create leaders. Leaders with the intellectual firepower and the moral compass to build a better world", says Dr Kumar Mangalam Birla in his Foreword to the book 'BITS of Social Impact'. He goes on to add that the book "captures the stories of BITSian Founders who have pursued their passion for making a difference in people’s lives. The stories are insightful and full of compassion."

We are delighted to share that the book has been released during BITSAA Global Meet (BGM) at Jaipur on 7th Jan 2023. See the pictures below.

Sharing few pictures with the founders of social ventures taken either during the BGM or while interviewing them for the stories.

"At last, the job is done", seems to be what the authors are saying!

Highlights

The book would be of interest to  entrepreneurs, researchers, students, budding social entrepreneurs, policy makers, civil service organisations, NGOs, educational institutions, investors and the government. It focuses on real-life stories and examples rather than any theoretical inputs. Key contents are as follows:

• A chapter titled 'Social Entrepreneurship 101' with practical examples and tips. It is like a primer on social entrepreneurship.
• Twenty-five real-life stories of founders and co-founders of successful change makers who have made a social impact. It includes the story of one posthumous change maker.
• Eight short stories of 'Emerging Stars' who have displayed empathy and passion for a chosen social cause.

Featured Founders and Co-founders

The book features the following BITS alumni who either founded or co-founded organisations which have made a social impact. There are numerous other BITSians who work in the social sector as CXOs. The rationale of selecting these founders has been explained in the teaser of the book earlier. We thank the founders for sharing their inspiring journey with us.

PART I: HEALTHCARE

1. Making Genomic Medicines a Reality - Vijay Chandru (Strand Life Sciences)

2. Creating the World’s First Braille Self-Learning Device - Aman Srivastava, 

Sanskriti Dawle, Dilip Ramesh and Saif Shaikh (Thinkerbell Labs; Annie)

3. Making Healthcare Accessible and Affordable for All - Chetan Anand, Anurag Prasad, Shashvat Tripathi and Vaibhav Singh (Visit Health)

4. Making 1.7 Billion People Free from Muscle and Joint Pain - Ashutosh Ajay

Mundhada (Your Physio)

PART II: EDUCATION

5. World-Class Education for Every Child in their Own Language - Aniruddh

Mishra (ApniClass)

6. Empowering the Underprivileged to make India Rise! - Mayur Patnala (Nirmaan)

7. Improving the Quality of Education in Government Schools through Systemic Reform - Madhukar Reddy Banuri (Leadership For Equity)

8. Making Education Accessible to Students from the Lesser Privileged Community - Naveen Bannur (Educait)

9. Caring for the Children of Migrant Labourers - Saraswathi Padmanabhan (Diya Ghar)

10. Computer Literacy for Under-Served Communities - Rakesh Suri (Computer Shiksha)

11. Management for a Just, Equitable, Humane, Sustainable World - Gaurav Shah (ISDM)

12. Towards Creating a Future, Where Passion and Profession Intersect - Surabhi Dewra (Career Guide)

13. Empowering the Rural Youth of India - Ajay Chaturvedi (Kautilya Fellowship Network)

PART III: ENVIRONMENT

14. Waste to Energy - Devendar Kumar Ahuja (Ahuja Engineering)

15. Recharging the Belly of Mother Earth - Vijay K Kedia (Kedia Rainwater Harvesting)

16. Giving Back to Nature - Raghavendra Suryavanshi and Akshat Tyagi (Sustainable Biosolutions)

17. Saving Tons of CO2 - Vinod Agarwal and Kapil Kathpalia (Applied Solar Technologies)

18. Alleviating Water Scarcity in Rural Communities - Bhagwati P Agrawal (Sustainable Innovations)

19. An Innovator Who Overcame All Odds - Bhag Chand Jain (Posthumous) and Ankur Jain (Ankur Scientific)

PART IV: ART AND CULTURE

20. A Polymath Propagating Vedic Knowledge Globally - Dushyanth Sridhar (Desika Daya)

21. Giving Wings through Arts - Vinita Sud Belani (EnActe Arts)

PART V: COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION

22. Creating Rural Entrepreneurs - Raju Reddy and Phanindra Sama (Kakatiya Sandbox)

23. Transforming the Lives of Communities Around One’s Alma Mater - Sunil Nanda (PARC)

24. The Transformation of Urban India - Ramesh Ramanathan (Jana Group)

25. Supporting the Support System - Raghu Rajagopal (Punarjanm)

EMERGING STARS

1. Ensuring Children Don’t Drop Out of School - Antara Sarkar (Sunday Class)
2. Creating Assistive Technology for The Disabled - Mohit Patil and Parth Shah (Abilitare, USA)
3. Helping the Marginal Farmers with Residue-free Cultivation Practices - Keerthi Priya (Koh! Foods)
4. Women Empowerment, Hunger and Education - Advik Singh (Chhalaang  Foundation)
5. Inculcating Social Leadership in Youth - Akarsh Shroff (YuvaSpark)
6. Making Mental Health Resources Accessible to the Young - Anagha Rajesh (Yours Mindfully)
7. Countering Hate in the Society - Pratyush Rawal (Sadbhavna)
8. Bridging the Gap between Law and Action - Tarun Cherukuri (Indus Action)

Acknowledgements

We are thankful to the following people for their contribution and support during various stages of the book:

1. Dr Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chancellor, BITS Pilani for the Foreword.

2. Dr Archana Pillai of IIM Bangalore and Dr Ranjan Banerjee of BITSoM, for brainstorming the project.

3. Kailash Gupta, K. Srikanth and the BGM-23 team for supporting the idea  behind this book.

4. J.A. Ramamoorty, Nishank Varshney, Anagha Rajesh, Kaushik P.S., Nidhi  Upadhyay and Neeti Pokharna, for research and editing-related support.

5. Akarsh Shroff, for suggesting the book title and winning the title contest.

6. ICFAI Business School (IBS), Centre for Social Initiative and Management (CSIM), Byrraju Foundation and Vishwa Vishwani Institute of Systems and Management (VVISM), all at Hyderabad, for providing the platform for  teaching and fieldwork for the courses and supervising more than 100 field projects on social entrepreneurship over the last twenty years.

7. All the students of Harsh Bhargava, the first author, who undertook projects and internships in the social sector, and thus, enriched the knowledge base with real-life  examples.

8. BITS Pilani, for nurturing and sensitizing its students to the needs of society.

9. Rakesh Chander, Pooja Sanyal, and the team at HarperCollins for rowing the boat together against the tide of time.

10. Haitenlo Semy of HarperCollins for designing the cover.

We seek the pardon of those whom we may have missed out listing here.

Lastly, we are both ever-grateful to our spouses for allowing the ubiquitous laptops to take our place during the last six months!

As a humble gesture from our side, we have pledged the entire royalty from the sale of this book to BITS Pilani.

To encourage the teenaged entrepreneurs at Young Entrepreneurs' Bootcamp (YEB) held at BITS Pilani Hyderabad campus (BPHC) recently, our book was given as Book Prize for best Team Pitch. Readers may browse the YEB story here. Sharing two pictures of the recipients of the Book Prize with Dr G Sundar, Director BPHC. Pictures courtesy DOPY, BPHC.

The book is available on Amazon- both hard copy and Kindle versions.

We hope you enjoy reading the book. We look forward to your feedback either as comments on this blog or on mail ID hbindia@gmail.com .

Postscript, 15th Jan 2023: "The 25 inspiring stories in the book embellished with visuals wherever required and also a few blurbs highlighting the core activities of these social entrepreneurship companies, is a valuable collection of material for those who aspire to be entrepreneurs on similar lines. The language is very easy to comprehend and would surely give the reader a great feel of how India's professional lot are working to make a real difference in elevating the society and mitigating its disparities", wrote Naresh Kumar in his review of our book in Hans India. Readers may browse the epaper for the complete book review.

Thanks for browsing.

   -  Harsh Bhargava with Sai Prameela Konduru/ 8th Jan 2023/ Jaipur 

#socialentrepreneurship #socialimpact #bitsianfounders #socialventures #bitsalumni #bitspailani #bitsaaglobalmeet #bgm2023 #bookrelease #bitsofsocialimpact #saiprameelakonduru #bitsaa #ghumakkadharsh #ghumakkadhb #kumarmangalambirla #reallifestories #volunteering #nep2020