Mandaar

Apply for ReBoot Bihar

Question Assumptions.

Build Better Futures.

Mandaar is a place for questioning how societies grow, create, learn and become capable.

We explore ideas, enterprise, technology, society and public life—with Bihar as a place of inquiry and India as our larger horizon.

Know More Join ReBoot Bihar

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

What if we are asking the wrong questions?

Take Banka

Urbanization Level

As per 2011 Census

Per Capita Income

11-12%

compared to Delhi

Years to reach Delhi-like per capita income

200-300

If current high growth rate continues

Questions that make you think.

One-third of India is like Banka district.

What does progress mean when people aspire to Delhi-like lifestyles but earn barely a fraction of its income?

If development simply means catching up with metropolitan India, places like Banka may remain perpetually behind.

And what if the better question is not:

How do we catch up?

but:

How do we build places that can create their own prosperity?

This is where our inquiry begins.

What makes a society capable?

We explore questions around

FREEDOM

Can people be truly free without the capability to choose, participate and live without coercion—from the state, the market or society?

PROSPERITY

Is wealth the objective—or the consequence of a society's ability to learn, create and produce? And, like poverty, is prosperity multidimensional?

KNOWLEDGE

How does a society turn what it knows into the capability to create, produce and solve its own problems?

INSTITUTIONS

How can institutions remain accountable to society, constrain power and renew themselves without becoming ends in themselves?

POWER

How is power created, distributed and exercised—and what prevents it from becoming concentrated and self-perpetuating?

FERTILITY

What enables a society to regenerate the resources, relationships, knowledge and possibilities on which its future depends?

The Mandaar Way

Difficult questions require more than quick answers.

OBSERVE QUESTION UNDERSTAND ANALYZE EVALUATE ACT

We begin with reality, question assumptions, build understanding, examine deeper structures, make our values explicit—and then act.

Ideas must eventually meet reality.

From Ideas to Action

Mandaar works through four connected forms of work.

Research

Investigating society, economy, institutions, ecology and development.

Dialogue

Bringing people together to think seriously about difficult questions.

Experimentation

Testing ideas through enterprises, technology, education and field initiatives.

Institution Building

Creating systems and platforms that can continue learning and creating beyond individual projects.

Some of our initiatives.

Deshaj Labs Rural Tech Park

Working at the intersection of agriculture, biodiversity and climate change, intends to make rural regions centers of innovation and wealth-creation.

Mandaar Manthan

Bringing economists and social scientists from Bihar together in a retreat to deeply examine its economic and developmental challenges and develop implementable solutions.

Pataliputra Vimarsh

A forum bringing together diverse voices to engage in meaningful conversations on Bihar’s society, economy, politics and future.

ReBoot Bihar

An immersive residential program in rural Bihar enabling young people to understand Bihar deeply, question assumptions and explore possibilities for building its future.