Since January 2025, under the guidance of Mahavatar Babaji, Guruji Naushir and Swami Dattapadanand Ji, I have led the pro bono seva of the Mahavatar Babaji TadEkam Foundation. Earlier, as ADG NCC Delhi, I had done seva of Maa Yamuna in uniform. In each place, infrastructure alone had failed.
I bring strategy, leadership and community mobilisation to challenges that cannot be solved by concrete alone.
From rebuilding Delhi’s relationship with the Yamuna, to creating a future for Kangundi through culture and climbing, to reimagining river festivals as platforms for rejuvenation, my seva begins with one question:
Polluted Maa Yamuna River
Concrete & Pollutants in Maa Godavari River
Kangundi Plastic & Flex Banner Epidemic
Clean-up drives alone were making little measurable difference. My research pointed to a deeper problem—people of Delhi had lost their relationship with their holy river, Maa Yamuna.
As ADG NCC Delhi, I shifted the focus from isolated clean-up activities to rebuilding the links between Maa Yamuna and the people of Delhi, and reviving the cultural bonds between the Yamuna and Delhi (Indraprastha). We trained 36,000 cadets as Yamuna Rakshaks through our annual camps and social service curriculum. Each was educated on the importance of Maa Yamuna and trained to spread the message through an oath, nukkad nataks, rangoli, face-painting, poster-making, and more. Our campaign song ‘NCC ne thaan liya hai, swachh karenge Yamuna’ and social media posts helped spread our message from Yamunotri to Triveni Sangam, and beyond.
The aim was to make Maa Yamuna more than a subject of environmental awareness: to reconnect Delhiites with their river as part of their city’s identity and future.
Maa Yamuna’s revival entered the 2025 Delhi Assembly election manifesto, and after the BJP’s February 2025 election victory, Prime Minister Modi called the Yamuna ‘Maiya’ and Delhi’s ‘identity’ (pehchan) and ‘faith’ (aastha).
Cadets trained as Yamuna Rakshaks
Schools and colleges across Delhi
Yamuna in BJP’s Delhi election manifesto
Cadets trained as Yamuna Rakshaks
Schools and colleges across Delhi
Yamuna in BJP’s Delhi election manifesto
Kangundi is a village of Naidu, Valmiki and Yanadi communities, with a thousand-year-old fort and neglected temples of Chola and Vijayanagara periods. It has extraordinary bouldering and rock-climbing potential. Yet its cultural inheritance and natural landscape had not translated into sustained local opportunity.
Through the TadEkam Foundation, we began building a model that connects climbing, culture and village livelihoods. We launched the ‘I Love Kangundi’ campaign, recorded Kangundi’s story, mapped more than 300 boulders and rock-cliffs over six sites, trained local youths as climbing coaches and organised the Kangundi Climbing Cup with the Indian Mountaineering Foundation.
The aim is not to create a tourism destination that depends permanently on outside organisers. It is to help Kangundi build the skills, infrastructure and local ownership to sustain its own future.
My July 2025 briefing to the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh included a report on the absence of a state homestay policy. The new policy was issued in October 2025.
The 2027 festival is designed to mark the point at which Kangundi no longer needs TadEkam Foundation.
Homestays created
New local jobs created
Revenue to villagers in FY 2025-26
Homestays created
New local jobs created
Revenue to villagers in FY 2025-26
“SIR, BEFORE TADEKAM, ALL VILLAGERS WANTED TO GO TO BENGALURU OR CHENNAI FOR A BETTER FUTURE. TODAY, BECAUSE OF THE PRIDE YOU HAVE INSTILLED IN US FOR OUR KANGUNDI'S HISTORY, CULTURE AND NATURE, WE LOOK FORWARD TO RETURNING HOME EVERY WEEKEND. HOPEFULLY, NO ONE WILL MIGRATE OUT OF KANGUNDI NOW."
TADEKAM SEVA: EMPOWERING LOCALS
Chittoor District Tourism Award to Kangundi Nature and Adventure Society, 15 Aug 2026
After surveying the Godavari’s full course, we prepared a 20-page Maa Godavari Seva Strategy with three tracks: a proposed Godavari Heritage River Act, reform with saints and religious institutions, and cross-sector mobilisation. The Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister and the Nashik Mayor have adopted it for their jurisdictions.
Teeparru village has been selected as India’s first Pushkaralu Model Village. The theme is #SewaHiSnan: service as the true ritual.
River surveyed, source to sea
Andhra Pradesh Govt & Nashik Municipal Corporation adopted #WeArePushkara & #SevaHiSnan
Teeparru in Andhra Pradesh is 1st Maa Godavari Pushkaralu Model Village
Sanatani river festivals bring millions of people into a relationship with our sacred waters. I believe that relationship can become a powerful force for river rejuvenation, as was the case before the 1,000 years of foreign rule and Macaulay Education.
Through the Mahavatar Babaji TadEkam Foundation, we developed the ‘Kumbh and Pushkaralu Seva Hi Snan Strategy for Revival of Maa Godavari’ after examining the river’s course and culture, traditions and history of the people living on its banks, and the institutions and communities connected with it.
Our approach combines three tracks: Heritage River & Heritage Udgam Sthal Acts enacted by governments; saints reviving the Sanatani relationship between the river-mother and her children; and religious institutions and temples reviving eco-friendly rituals. The practical rejuvenation work will follow. Mahavatar Babaji and Guruji Naushir call this #WeAreAllPushkara i.e., we all have jal tattva shudhi sidhi and can revive our rivers.
The idea is to make seva the key element of the festivals of Kumbh, Pushkaralu, Chhath and others: not only a ritual performed at the river, but a collective responsibility to revive our river-mothers as aviral (free-flowing) nirmal (clean) jeevandayanis (life-givers). Mahavatar Babji and Guru Naushir call this #SevaHiSnan (the ecological service is the religious ritual).
Thank you to Sun God & Goddess Shashthi for sustaining life on earth
12 Indian rivers with Pushkaralu Festival
Kangundi Plastic & Flex Banner Epidemic
If your organisation needs a strategy to turn apathy into ownership, and ownership into lasting, community-owned change, this is a tested playbook
“LAGE RAHO FOR THE SWARAJ OF VIKSIT BHARAT 2047, WITH SAMATVA (EQUANIMITY), SATYAGRAHA, AHIMSA, FRUGALITY AND FEARLESSNESS, TILL HAPPINESS, EFFECTIVENESS, SUCCESS AND PEACE ARE ATTAINED."
