Join us for a conversation with Elango Rangaswamy, former village panchayat president of Kuthambakkam in Tamil Nadu.

Elango believes in an empowered panchayat local government system. Through his work in local governance, he has been able to transform Kuthambakkam village into a self-sustaining economy. His inspiration was Gandhi’s vision of true gram swaraj. He was the first engineer from his village and he setup a ​‘Panchayat Academy’ to teach the other presidents how to use their powers to enable cooperation and local involvement.

Today, India needs a workable model of micro-enterprise that utilises local resources in the villages. Gandhi advocated establishing local resource-based and local demand-based sustainable economic activities to meet the needs of the communities. This could happen through revitalising the concept of independent and interdependent village networks, as per Elango’s experience in Kuthambakkam, Tamil Nadu.

The talk will be followed by a question & answer session.