Visvesvaraya: Extracting Moonbeams from Cucumbers
Sunil Khilnani explores the life of engineer, planner and politician Visvesvaraya, a frail bureaucrat who improved life for millions of Indians in practical ways.
Sunil Khilnani explores the life and work of engineer, planner and politician Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya.
Visvesvaraya was a frail bureaucrat who walked hunched, as if the burden of state-building literally pressed down on his shoulders. But in the popular imagination he turned an engineering degree into a superhuman world-fashioning prowess. He changed the Indian nation with practical and enduring improvements for millions of people, including innovations in sanitation, statistics, flood control, drainage and irrigation.
Austere to the point of dourness, but audaciously hopeful, Visvesvaraya sought to frog-march India into modernity.
Featuring Bangalore-based social scientist Chandan Gowda.
Producer: Martin Williams
Executive Producer: Martin Smith
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- Wed 2 Mar 2016 13:45麻豆社 Radio 4
- Wed 4 Aug 2021 19:45麻豆社 Radio 4
Remarkable individuals who shaped India, and sometimes the world.
Professor Sunil Khilnani introduces the second series of Incarnations.
Incarnations - The Podcast
Download all the episodes from the series and listen at your leisure.
Incarnations: Art and Music
The artists who created the illustrations and music for the series.
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Incarnations: India in 50 Lives
The history of India told through the lives of 50 phenomenal people.
