Acknowledgements & About the Authors

The ideas expressed in this book are an outcome of a long lasting dialogue between the authors and many others since 1989. If all those who have contributed to the development of these ideas were named, the list would make another 50 pages. However, there are people who have taken active interest in the Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam idea whom we wish to acknowledge. In India and Nepal, G. Narendra Nath, B.K. Roy Burman, Richa Nagar, D.L. Sheth, Devinder Sharma, Arun Kumar (economist), Arun Kumar (panibaba), Arun Singh, Rajni Bakshi, Ajit Jha, R.N. Mehrotra, Anil Bhattarai, Vagish Jha, Raman Nanda and Manvi Priya have given important inputs. In Finland and Sweden a group of activist and scholars who have taken part in the discussions include Jaana Airaksinen, Tord Björk, Outi Hakkarainen, Risto Isomäki, Meri Koivusalo, Anastasia Laitila, Leena Rikkilä, Katarina Sehm-Patomäki, Tove Selin, Folke Sundman, Olli Tammilehto, Oras Tynkkynen and Marko Ulvila. Jarna Pasanen did the final editing and effort to bring out this booklet.

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Vijay Pratap has been active in the democratic social movement, as member of youth wing of the Socialist Party since 1968 and later Janata Party at its inception. He has been founder member of a number of organisations and networks for furthering democracy and people-centred development. These include the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Lokayan and Sampoorna Kranti Manch. He has been visiting fellow and convener of dialogues at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. Currently he is attempting a dialogic engagement for democratising the international North-South relations and developing local to global networks for deepening comprehensive democracy. <vijaypratap@vsnl.net>

Ritu Priya, currently teaching at Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, has been working on the democratisation of knowledge systems. As a medical graduate with a doctorate in public health, her focus has been a search for developing approaches towards contextual and people-centre health policies and programmes. Dalit perceptions, health of the urban poor, the responses to AIDS and the links between health and democracy are some of her ongoing concerns. She has been member of People’s Union of Civil Liberties, the Medico Friend Circle and coordinator of Swasthya Panchayat, working group on health in Lokayan, Delhi. <ritupriya@vsnl.com>

Thomas Wallgren is a philosopher and senior research fellow at the Academy of Finland. His main research interests are the philosophy of modernity and epistemology. During the past decades he has played an important role in several formations of new social movements, especially in the fields of the environment and global solidarity. He has served as a vice-chairperson of Service Centre for Development Cooperation and Finnish Society for Nature Conservation and been a leading activist of many movement groups such as Finnish Forest Action Group and Alternative to the European Union. Currently he is the vice-chairperson of Democracy Forum Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (Finland) and board member of Corporate Europe Observatory (the Netherlands). <thomas.wallgren@helsinki.fi>

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