Ashish Kothari is the founder of Kalpavriksh, an Indian non profit organisation working on environmental and social issues at local, national and global levels. He was trained at the Indian Institute of Public Administration and coordinated India’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. He served on boards of Greenpeace International. He is part of the coordination team of Vikalp Sangam, the Global Tapestry of Alternatives and Radical Ecological Democracy. He is the (co-)author of several books including Churning the Earth (2012) and a co-editor of “Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary” (2019).
A Flowering of Radical Change
The Flower of Transformation has five petals: radical political democracy, radical economic democracy, social justice, cultural (and knowledge) diversity, and ecological wisdom.
November 22, 2022
The promise and perils of democracy
Lets go back to basics. Democracy = demos + cracy, rule of (or by) the people. The power to take decisions is inherent to each one of us, it is part of being human.
September 21, 2021
We are Doomed if, in the Post-Covid-19 World, We Cannot Abandon Non-Essentials
If there is one lesson all of us should have learnt during the Covid-19 crisis, it is about how to separate the ‘essential’ from the ‘non-essential’.
August 11, 2020
A Search for Alternatives in India
We’re committed and excited about our attempts at cooperation between academics, movement activists, creative thinkers, and practitioners of alternatives to challenge the ever-tightening grip of corporate fundamentalism on the economy and the environment.
April 10, 2019
Legacies Crucial for the Commons
And so we must turn for hope to the many movements of sangharsh (resistance) and nirman (construction) throughout the world. These movements realise that the injustices they are facing, and the choices they must make, are not bound by the divides that ideologues play games with.
December 11, 2018
Radical Ecological Democracy: Some More Reflections from the South on Degrowth
There is no doubt that as a species we have to downsize if we are to respect the limits; not only for ourselves but —just as importantly— for the millions of other species that co-inhabit the earth with us. It is timely, therefore, to talk of degrowth in the context of humanity as a whole, and most certainly in the context of the Global North which is overconsuming and overdumping.
January 5, 2017