The Talk in The Town

A New episode of Talk in the Town Is Here!🎉 In this special episode, to mark 10 years of Nāgrika, the team takes the mic and quiz our co-founders. This conversation between the co-founders and our team brings to the forefront the people who make it happen. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at how it all started, what we’ve learned, and how we are looking to move forward. Join us as we look back,...

On the 2nd Episode of Season 4 of our podcast “Talk in the Town”, we spoke to Mr. Nimish Sutaria & Mr. Shivkumar Rao - Members of Nagpur@2025. This is a citizen-led initiative to transform Nagpur by bringing together citizens, corporates, NGOs and the administration. Our first guest, Mr. Shivkumar Rao is the Founder-Member at Nagpur@2025. He has been working towards making Nagpur a model for c...

On the 1st Episode Season 4 of our podcast “Talk in the Town”, we spoke to Ms. Retu Chatterjee & Mr. Anoop Nautiyal - Members of the Dehradun Citizens Forum [DCF]. This civic group of 400 residents is leading efforts to address Dehradun's pressing urban, social, & environmental challenges while championing a Green Agenda for the city. The DCF recently organised a "Mayor Samvad" on 18th Jan...

On episode 7 of Season 3 of our podcast "Talk in the Town", we spoke to Hemant Chaturvedi, former Bollywood cinematographer turned documentary photographer, on a mission to document & preserve Indian cities’ vanishing cultural heritage: the single-screen cinema theatres. Since 2019, Chaturvedi has traveled over 50,000 km across 22 states, visiting over 950 towns to photograph over 1,150 of the...

On episode 7 of Season 3 of our podcast "Talk in the Town", we spoke to Hemant Chaturvedi, former Bollywood cinematographer turned documentary photographer, on a mission to document & preserve Indian cities’ vanishing cultural heritage: the single-screen cinema theatres. Since 2019, Chaturvedi has traveled over 50,000 km across 22 states, visiting over 950 towns to photograph over 1,150 of the...

On episode 6 of Season 3 of our podcast Talk in the Town, we spoke to R. Gyaneshwar Singh and H S Dharmendra, core members of the Ramsons Kala Pratishtana (RKP), Mysuru. RKP is a non-profit organization which supports the conservation of indigenous craft traditions such as paintings, dolls, and indoor games in and around Karnataka. H S Dharmendra is an art historian and curator. He is the Head of...

On episode 5 of Season 3 of our podcast Talk in Town, we spoke to Ms. Vanitha Mohan. She is a prominent entrepreneur and passionate nature lover based in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. Ms Mohan is currently the Chairman of Pricol Limited and the Managing Trustee of Siruthuli, an NGO she founded. Siruthuli focuses on environmental conservation, particularly on water management and increasing the green cov...

Meet our guest for the 4th episode of season 3 of our podcast "Talk in the Town," Mr. Debashish Bhattacharyya from Kolkata, who has been an anchor in driving the citizens of Kolkata to campaign against the systematic elimination of trams in the city of joy. Mr. Bhattacharya is the President of the Calcutta Tram Users Association (CTUA), a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and m...

The 3rd episode of season 3 of Talk in the Town features Dr. Sangeeta Rajgir from Bhopal, Founder and Member Secretary of the Bhopal Birds Conservation Society and State Coordinator of the Indian Bird Conservation Network of Madhya Pradesh. She is an avid conservationist and researcher working on wetland conservation and avian biodiversity. She has played a significant role in bird conservation ef...

The Second episode of this Season of Talk in the Town features Mrs. Shama Pawar, founder of The Kishkindha Trust, Anegundi, Hampi. She is an artist, conservationist, designer, and social impact leader, driven by a profound passion for cultural heritage. Ms. Pawar has played a pivotal role in actively engaging the local community in Anegundi, situated within the Hampi World Heritage Town, to create...

The first episode of 2024 in the Talk in the Town series features Mr. Kailash Pradhan, who is an architect by profession, but has also been a part of electoral politics in the city of Gangtok. He has been proactive in field of environmental protection and sustainable architecture, and has been a part of various local initiatives within the state like "Bato Khoju" focused on degrading quality of li...

The latest episode of Talk in the Town features Mr. Shashidhara K who has been a driving force in promoting sustainable mobility for the citizens of Bangalore. As the founder of HSR Cyclists Group, he has spearheaded over 60 cycle day events in the last nine years, fostering a culture of cycling among residents. His commitment to sustainable mobility extends to his collaboration with another organ...

This Talk in the Town features Dr. Raghavendra R who works as a programme coordinator for National Service Scheme (NSS) at Seshadripuram Degree College in Mysuru and is also the founder of Achievers’ Academy in Srirangapatna. Dr. Raghavendra has been restoring temples and reviving lakes and ponds in the city of Srirangapatna through community service for last 4 years. What started as an initiative...

In our latest episode of Talk in the Town, we had the pleasure of speaking with Nevish Deepak, Co-founder of We EmbrAce Trust. This youth-led volunteering-based NGO is dedicated to promoting Human Rights, Animal Rights, and Climate Justice in the city of Gorakhpur. They are also the City Coordinator under Fridays For Future International for Gorakhpur and a gender educator. Following the maxim “Wh...

This Talk in the Town features the Founder Trustee of Aranya Outreach Trust. Ms. Sukhprit Kaur is a freelance Environmental Educator and content writer. With an experience of almost two decades, Ms. Kaur with other like minded citizens of Mysore established Aranya Outreach Trust- a social enterprise- with an aim to create awareness on biodiversity through nature walks among people, especially the...

In the latest conversation of Talk in the Town, we have Dr. Anil Mehta from Udaipur, joint secretary of Jheel Sanrakshan Samiti- a non profit working for the wellness and conservation of lakes since last 30 years. The people's organization exists as a result of coming together of like minded citizens like Dr. Mehta who came together to question the water pollution and management issues faced by th...

Talk in The Town is Nagrika's initiative to gather perspectives of city leaders and change makers on the relationship between citizens and policies in small-mid sized cities and how this relationship can be made stronger. In the first conversation of 2023 under this series, we have Mr. Jitesh Minj, co founder of Mission badlaav- an NGO based at Gumla, Jharkhand. With an aim to help the distressed...

For our our latest conversation we spoke with Mr. Chandra Mishra, founder of a Social Impact startup called Beggars Corporation in Varanasi. With the motto of ‘Don't donate, Invest’, the corporation aims to uplift the poor by turning beggars into entrepreneurs. Being a proud Common man, Mr. Mishra believes that the quality of voice (of the common man) decides the quality of development in the city...

This Talk in the Town features the Co founder of Mangalore Civic Group (MCG), Mr. Nigel Albuquerque who is a social and civic activist. Mr. Albuquerque formed MCG with like minded citizens in 2015 to in order to address the multiple civic problems faced by the citizens across Mangaluru. Their aim was to form Ward Committees and Area Sabhas in the true spirit of the 74th Constitutional Amendment of...

This Talk in the Town features the founder of ‘Green Bricks Foundation’, Ms. Prarthi Shah from Vadodara, Gujarat. She talks to us about her social venture where people from all age groups and walks of life join initiatives on environmental awareness and climate education. Ms. Shah elaborates on methods to make citizen participation exciting and how an inspired team can work in synergy for social g...

This Talk in the Town features Mr. Mital Khetani, who has been working for animals for the past 18 years with the help of his NGO Shree Karuna Foundation Trust (Animal Helpline) in Rajkot- largest organization in India providing free on-site veterinary treatment. During this conversation, Mr. Khetani shares why he believes in encouraging people to work for animals by 'showing them how to' rather t...

This Talk in the Town features the founder of ‘The Urban Lab’- Mr. Abhijit Lokre. With an experience of over twenty years, Abhijit mentors and leads teams to provide practical solutions for creating liveable cities. During this conversation, Abhijit speaks about how the people of Bhuj are being actively engaged to shape the future of transportation and mobility in the city. He also talks about som...

This conversation of Talk in the town features Ms. Shefali Dudhbade, a freelance architect and founding member of Swachh Association Nagpur- an NGO that works in the field of waste management in and around the city. Environmentalist at heart, Shefali has been successfully treating 90% of her household waste for the past 10 years and credits her upbringing for this. During this conversation, Shefal...

This Talk in the Town features Mr. Lokesh Ohri founder of the citizen group Been there, Doon That (BTDT). Over the years BTDT has been organizing mostly free heritage walks for citizens around the Doon valley. The conversation left the Nagrika team very hopeful about the potential of citizens' voices to be heard. During the conversation, Mr. Ohri speaks about the genesis of the idea for BTDT, stor...

The inaugural conversation of the Talk in the Town. It was held in September 2021. This talk with Mr. Debasish Sen, MD, HIDCO, is in context of our study 'Small City Mobility', on the state of mobility in small cities, the future aspirations, and opportunities & challenges in creating sustainable green transport and mobility solutions for smaller cities and identifying the role of citizens in...