Pragya D VARMA

Biography

Pragya Varma Fellow of Cohort 7 takes over as new Executive Director of LEAD India from May 2007. Prior to this Ms Varma was the Programme Manager at LEAD India and was responsible for planning, design and development of projects for an environmentally sustainable world. She had steered the communication and networking activities for LEAD’s International Training Session held in February2006 which had 150 trainees from 40 countries across the globe. She had also mentored a youth leadership programme for the Uttaranchal government which is in its first year with one batch under training.

She has more than twenty four years’ of experience in communication with expertise in handling print audio-visual, electronic and other forms of media. She worked with Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology from its inception in 1986.The organisation was started by the Government of India as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Rural Development to strengthen voluntary action and promote appropriate technology in rural India. She initiated and played a pivotal role in concept, design and sustained implementation of an innovative leadership training programme in the Council for channeling energies of the youth remote areas in constructive development She has trained over 400 youth from the mountains and other backward regions of the country.

In CAPART she was also responsible for collaboration with the Planning Commission, Government of India and a network of prominent Voluntary organizations to facilitate a better understanding of their concerns and problems and bring transparency on both sides. She was the nodal person for redressal of grievances of VOs and conceptualized and drafted the Citizen’s Charter for CAPART The Charter is mandatory for Departments with public interaction to apprise a citizen of his rights.

She was Senior Consultant (Media) during 1996-97 with World Bank’s largest development programme to universalise primary education in India called District Primary Education Programme. A LEAD –Fellow (Leadership in Environment and Development) she was also awarded a fellowship by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study “Planning and Strategies in Communication for Rural Development” at Iowa State University, Ames, USA.

The initial years of her career were with a leading national newspaper and All India Radio, moving on to popular magazines and book publishing while completing her Master’ degree in English Literature after Graduating in the same from Delhi University.


She has more than twenty four years’ of experience in communication with expertise in handling print audio-visual, electronic and other forms of media. She worked with Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology from its inception in 1986 .The organisation was started by the Government of India as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Rural Development to strengthen voluntary action and promote appropriate technology in rural India. She initiated and played a pivotal role in concept, design and sustained implementation of an innovative leadership training programme in the Council for channeling energies of the youth remote areas in constructive development She has trained over 400 youth from the mountains and other backward regions of the country.

In CAPART she was also responsible for collaboration with the Planning Commission, Government of India and a network of prominent Voluntary organizations to facilitate a better understanding of their concerns and problems and bring transparency on both sides. She was the nodal person for redressal of grievances of VOs and conceptualized and drafted the Citizen’s Charter for CAPART The Charter is mandatory for Departments with public interaction to apprise a citizen of his rights.

She was Senior Consultant (Media) during 1996-97 with World Bank’s largest development programme to universalise primary education in India called District Primary Education Programme. A LEAD –Fellow (Leadership in Environment and Development) she was also awarded a fellowship by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study “Planning and Strategies in Communication for Rural Development” at Iowa State University, Ames, USA.

The initial years of her career were with a leading national newspaper and All India Radio, moving on to popular magazines and book publishing while completing her Master’ degree in English Literature after Graduating in the same from Delhi University.

This biography was last updated on September 23, 2008