Podcast from Our Recent Panel: “The Two Indias: Poverty Amidst Plenty”

Trickle Up’s panel discussion on February 10^th, 2011 on “The Two Indias: Poverty Amidst Plenty,” was a fascinating and informative look at the challenges that India faces in trying to ensure that its rapid economic growth benefits all of its 1.2 billion people. India is a modern paradox, with an expanding economy and a bright future epitomized by call centers and a space program, coupled with urban slums and rural extreme poverty, which is estimated by the World Bank at about 800 million people – two-thirds of India’s population – living below the $2/day poverty line… and more than half of them – 400+ million —  surviving on less than $1.25/day. Our panelists took a close look at these realities in an attempt to reconcile India’s dichotomy, while also giving us their vision of India’s future.

Click play to listen to the Podcast:

Our panelists included:

DR. ISOBEL COLEMAN is a Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where she focuses on the Middle East and South Asia. She is the director of CFR’s Civil Society, Markets and Democracy Initiative. She is also the director of the Council’s Women and Foreign Policy Program. Her areas of expertise include democratization, civil society and economic development, regional gender issues, educational reform, and microfinance. She is the author and co-author of numerous publications and is a frequent speaker at academic, business, and policy conferences. In 2010, she served as a track leader for the Clinton Global Initiative.  Her most recent book is Beneath Her Feet: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East.  Prior to joining the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Coleman was CEO of a healthcare services company and a partner with McKinsey & Co. in New York. A Marshall Scholar, she holds a DPhil and MPhil in international relations from Oxford University and a BA in public policy and East Asian studies from Princeton University. She serves on several non-profit boards, including Plan USA and Student Sponsor Partners.

MITRA KALITA is an award-winning journalist and author. She is a senior writer at The Wall Street Journal, and recently helped launch the Greater New York section as a senior editor. Her second book, My Two Indias: A Journey to the Ends of Opportunity, has just been released by Harper Collins India. Her highly acclaimed Suburban Sahibs: Three Immigrant Families and Their Passage From India to America, dissected how immigrants have transformed suburbia. She has worked as a reporter at the Washington Post, Newsday and the Associated Press and spent two years as an editor and columnist at Mint, a business newspaper in New Delhi she helped found. She previously served as The Wall Street Journal’s deputy global economics editor, and both edited and reported for an award-winning series on the great recession. She is a past president of the South Asian Journalist Association, and is married to artist Nitin Mukul.

JUI GUPTA is Trickle Up’s Asia Regional Representative. She joined Trickle Up in September of 2005 to lead Trickle Up’s first field office in Kolkata, India. She has been the primary architect of Trickle Up’s expanded livelihood development approach in India, and works with a team of five staff members in our Kolkata office to manage a partner network that delivers the Trickle Up program to participants in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa and Bihar. Previously, Ms. Gupta worked with PRADAN, a well-respected, India-based NGO dedicated to livelihood development in seven states in northern India. Ms. Gupta is experienced in participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation, and has expertise in training, particularly in building the capacity of self-help groups, gender sensitization and leadership.

Learn more about Trickle Up’s India program by clicking here.

Photos of the event:

Jui Gupta

Middle: Dr. Isobel Coleman

Middle: Bill Abrams

Right: Jui Gupta

Mitra Kalita

From left to right: Jui Gupta, Dr. Isobel Coleman & Mitra Kalita

The Panel: Bill Abrams, Jui Gupta, Dr. Isobel Coleman, Mitra Kalita

Bill Abrams

Photographer: Maulin Mehta