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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Barefoot founder on Time list of influentials


Thirty-eight years after he set out on his mission to provide basic services and solutions to the problems of rural India, Sanjit ‘Bunker’ Roy from Rajasthan stands in the company of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar, noted economist Amartya Sen and author Chetan Bhagat as the Time magazine names him in the 2010 list of 100 people who most affect our world.

It’s the work done by Roy’s brainchild, the Barefoot College, in developing professionals from the rural lot who are barely literate and churning out solutions in the field of solar energy, water, education, health care, communication, women’s empowerment and wasteland development, which has won him the feat. Roy has been tagged with Amartya Sen in the category of thinkers.

Set up in the non-descript village of Tilonia in Ajmer, Barefoot College, since its inception in 1972, has nurtured grassroots social entrepreneurship in the area and has trained over 3 million people. Greg Mortenson, author of ‘Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools’, writes, “Roy combines humanitarianism, entrepreneurship and education to help people steer their own path out of poverty, fostering dignity and self-determination along the way. His simple formula holds a key to what nations and aid organisations might do to build a more just world.”