Atharva gets achievers award at London
Tired of too many ads? go ad free now
He received the title of best sustainable entrepreneur supporting specially abled for his exceptional work in training around 20 abandoned, multiple challenged grown-ups at Drishti Pures, a unit producing pure mustard oil and processing over 30 varieties of spices. The award was presented by Lord Daniel Brennan, Member of the British Parliament, and councillor Sunil Chopra from the House of Lords council department. Atharva also participated in a panel discussion on creating a better educational environment at the University of Oxford.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News18
03-08-2025
- News18
Remembering Lord Meghnad Desai
Last Updated: Eminent economist Lord Meghnad Desai lived not for accolades or adulation but for the harmony of ideas across borders, ideologies, and disciplines Lord Meghnad Desai's passing is a deeply personal loss. I will always remember him with the utmost respect and fondness — not just as an eminent economist, thinker, and parliamentarian, but as someone with a rare zest for life. As someone who could chat as effortlessly and animatedly about finances and fundamental rights as he could about food and films. As someone who crossed thresholds with clarity and purpose, building unseen bridges that spanned worlds and ideas. His passing at 85 marks the conclusion of a remarkable life that consistently defied easy labels and ideological boxes. July 2025 marked the first summer in over a decade that I didn't meet him in London. During my annual trips, a lunch at the House of Lords and his birthday celebration — always held the weekend after July 10 — had become a permanent fixture in my calendar. Over the years, he graciously attended several of our Foundation's events, not only in Delhi but in other cities as well. In public, be it at book launches, policy discussions, or leadership summits, Desai invariably was the centre of attention. The sparkle in his eyes revealed a man who wore his intellect lightly. Whenever he rose to speak, the atmosphere in the room changed. Here was a man who could quote Marx and Milton in the same breath, pivot effortlessly to Bollywood, and lace it all with wit sharp enough to provoke but never wound. Desai was not just a scholar but a sage who refused to play the part of one. He had the rare courage to embrace contradiction, to call himself a Marxist while celebrating market reforms, to critique both Left and Right without fear of alienation. His classes at the London School of Economics were legendary, not merely because of his erudition but because of the way he welcomed dissent. Students often recalled how he would turn a pointed challenge into the start of a new debate, ensuring that no one ever left his classroom intellectually unchanged. His writings have stayed with me. Largely because his books, including his masterpiece, Marx's Revenge, are designed not for blind agreement but deeper engagement. He constantly urged us to re-examine economic orthodoxies, to understand that ideologies must be tested against lived realities. Then there was Nehru's Hero, his extraordinary biography of Dilip Kumar. Only Desai could have drawn such a compelling parallel between the world of cinema and the sociopolitical fabric of India. In discussing Dilip Kumar's films, he offered us a new way of seeing India itself — its aspirations, anxieties, and its evolving identity. He had seen some of these films more than 15 times. Knowing him, it wasn't an obsession, it was simply fieldwork! NOT CAGED BY ANY ONE IDENTITY Desai was not one for grandstanding, focused as he was on the silent power of a gesture. This was evident in the typical humility with which he underplayed his work with the Gandhi Statue Memorial Trust, which ensured that Mahatma Gandhi's likeness found its place at Parliament Square in London. Desai's journey from his birthplace in Vadodara to London was itself the story of modern India's intellectual diaspora — anchored in our soil, yet bold enough to shape the world stage. He never lost sight of India, even as he debated in the hallowed halls of the UK's House of Lords. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned in his tribute, 'Shri Meghnad Desai Ji… always remained connected to India and Indian culture. He also played a role in deepening India-UK ties." Humour was Desai's unassuming weapon. His quips, delivered without any superiority complex, had a way of transforming the mood of a room. He wielded wit not as a shield but as a scalpel — cutting through complexity, disarming tension, and leaving his audience with both laughter and a deeper truth. His scholarship was staggering, of course. Over 35 books, countless papers, and contributions that touched everything from Marxist theory to global governance. Yet, he refused to be caged by any one identity — Indian economist, British Lord, Labour peer, crossbench intellectual. He was all these things and more, and yet somehow always just himself. I found inspiration in the way he constantly challenged conventional wisdom. At a time when so many seek comfort in ideological certainties, Desai insisted that the world is too complex for easy answers. He was a firm believer in the idea that presupposing one's own opinion before examining the evidence was the sign of a mind that had stopped thinking. This rule of thumb has remained with me as a kind of intellectual compass. SCHOLARSHIP AS A LIVING DIALOGUE WITH SOCIETY With Desai's demise, India and the UK have lost more than a voice. They have lost a conduit. In his public and private conversations, Desai would often underline the importance of cultural diplomacy — how ideas, art, and history can weave bonds far more enduring than treaties. This belief was not abstract for him. It was why he worked tirelessly to ensure that India's heritage was visible in Britain, and Britain's debates accessible in India. In his death, I feel a personal void. Not only because we will no longer hear his original speeches in the Lords, nor read his latest provocation in print, but because individuals like him are rare. He belonged to a vanishing tradition of public intellectuals who saw scholarship not as ivory-tower work but as a living dialogue with society. As I reflect, I am reminded of a line from Rabindranath Tagore: 'The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence." Meghnad Desai's life embodied that spirit. He lived not for accolades or adulation but for the harmony of ideas across borders, ideologies, and disciplines. The last I heard from him was when he mentioned he wouldn't be in London this summer. I never imagined it would be a goodbye forever. We will miss you, Lord Meghnad Desai. (A columnist and author, Sundeep Bhutoria is passionate about the environment, education, and wildlife conservation. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views) view comments Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: August 04, 2025, 00:25 IST News opinion Opinion | Remembering Lord Meghnad Desai Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Hans India
31-07-2025
- Hans India
Eminent economist, Meghnad Desai passes away at 85
Mumbai: Eminent India-born British economist, former Labour party politician, and House of Lords member Meghnad Desai passed away on Tuesday. He was 85. A prominent and well-regarded voice in economics in the UK, India, and beyond, Desai was a widely respected academic who wrote over 200 articles published in academic journals and authored over 25 books. A Professor Emeritus of the London School of Economics (LSE), where he had a long and distinguished career, Desai also wrote scores of columns in newspapers in the UK and India. In 2008, he was awarded India's third-highest civilian honour—the Padma Bhushan.
Indian Express
31-07-2025
- Indian Express
Meghnad Desai, an economist of many parts
I got to know Meghnad Desai well over the last two decades, and especially over the last 10 years. He had been unwell for some time, but his mind was as acute and incisive as ever. It was a life well lived, and I want to celebrate my good fortune of having known him 'closely' over the last decade. In many discussions (arguments) between friends, Meghnad was never at a loss for insight. Gentleness marked his approach to people — but not towards bad ideas. I had the occasion to visit him often at the House of Lords, dining and even being allowed to sit in on the debates. No visit to London was complete without a joint meal with Meghnad. We had a lot in common — cricket, economics and the difficulty of economic reforms in India, and a passionate interest in politics and films (and he has many books on politics, and one book on films — Nehru's Hero: Dilip Kumar in the Life of India). His greatest accomplishment is his book The Rediscovery of India. It starts with Vasco da Gama and extends to the end of the UPA's first term. His views on the destructive economic policies of the Congress party, Jawaharlal Nehru to Sonia Gandhi, anticipated what is now conventional wisdom. Meghnad was kind, a gentle and modest soul, with a lot to be immodest about. In many ways, he had no equal. He obtained his PhD at the age of 23, the youngest Indian to do so, along with K N Raj. While trained as an econometrician, he was everywhere in thought. His well-known works include a considerable amount on Marxian economics, including Marxian Economic Theory, a book that compares and contrasts Marxian economics with their classical and neoclassical avatars. Just so that nobody can typecast him, there are his treatises on the pricing of tin in the world market, problems with Phillips curve, history of economic thought, on Islam (Rethinking Islamism), The Poverty of Political Economy, on globalisation, and climate change. I could not find a single important economic or political economy topic that he has not written expertly on — with facts, figures, and dispassionate analysis. Sir David Hendry, a world-renowned econometrician at LSE, wrote in Arguing about the World – The Work and Legacy of Meghnad Desai (2011): 'In an era when specialisation has been a dominant force, his many and diverse contributions are a welcome beacon of genuine multi-disciplinarity, and a leading indicator of a recent recognition of the benefits of drawing on a range of skills and knowledge.' His independence of thought and action are illustrated by several acts of commission. He was at LSE, a university founded on the principles of Fabian socialism, but was extremely critical of the practice of socialism in England, and elsewhere. He was made a member of the House of Lords by the Labour Party, but resigned over its acts of racism and antisemitism. He was a 19th-century liberal renaissance individual — captivated by ideas, their origins, consequences, and remedies. He possessed, in abundance, both intellectual integrity and rigor in thought. He was a classical political economist, though his training and early career was, for lack of a better word, as a quantitative economist. From a very early age (try 23!) he was at the forefront of econometric modelling. He obtained his PhD under the guidance of Lawrence Klein, a Nobel Prize-winning pioneer in macro-modelling. His short articles for Elara Global Research summarised the economic and political scene in India, and did so as a one-handed political economist. Clear, concise, dispassionate in analysis but deeply passionate about the issues. As a young kid, I often heard a band with a funeral procession. I was told that when an old person passes away (Meghnad was 85), it is a celebration for a life well-lived. I will drink to that. Especially to the fact that Meghnad held himself up to the highest sense of intellectual integrity, a rare individual in a polarised world. Bhalla is chairperson of the Technical Expert Group for the first official Household Income Survey for India
