• Advisory Board – India
• Advisory Board – USA

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Advisory Board – INDIA

Micky Bhatia

Micky Bhatia is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Mumbai. She has worked as a counselor at the Emily Stowe Shelter for Women in Canada as well as on the Board of DIVA, Feminist Journal of South Asian Women. She is an active support group member of Akshara and provides counseling content to soulkurry.com.

Rahul Bose

Rahul Bose is a highly acclaimed Indian cinema actor. Making his cinematic debut in the critically acclaimed film English August, Rahul received instant recognition and acclaim as an extremely talented and thoughtful "New Wave" actor. He has to his credit several notable and award-winning international performances including The Three Tigers in Congo and The Square Circles, Split Wide Open, Thakshak, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, and his directorial debut Everybody Says I'm Fine.

Anjali Gopalan

Anjali Gopalan is the founder and Executive Director of the Naz Foundation (India) Trust, a leading community based organization fighting HIV/AIDS in India. She also serves as a consultant to numerous organizations including CARE (India), Family Planning Association of India and UNDP. An expert on issues around HIV/AIDS, she previously worked with the Indian National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) and with the Asian and Pacific Islander coalition on HIV/AIDS in New York.

Indira Jaising

Indira Jaising is an advocate and the Director of the Women's Rights Initiative of the Lawyer's Collective, an organization she co-founded. The first woman to be designated as a Senior Advocate by High Court of Bombay in 1986 she has consistently focused on the protection of human rights, rights of women and those of the poor working class. She has fought and won several landmark cases in India supporting basic human rights.

Shantanu Moitra

Shantanu Moitra is one of India's leading music directors and recently won the 2005 Filmfare RD Burman Award for Parineeta. He has been the composer for major Indian films like the runaway hit, Lage Raho Munnabhai and social films, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi and Yahaan. Moitra was an integral part of Breakthrough's inception and composed the music for our first album, Mann ke Manjeere: an album of women's dreams as well as the Indipop sensation, Ab ke Sawan. Moitra began his career in advertising and represented India at the World Folk and Pop Music Festival at Almati, Kazakhastan in 1997.

Pankaj Pachauri

Pankaj Pachauri is a senior editor and prime time anchor for NDTV/Star News. He has worked in a variety of media across the world over a period of 16 years including with the BBC in London, WGBH in Boston and India Today. Pankaj is visiting faculty at the Department of Journalism at the Jamia Milia University in New Delhi.

Prasoon Pandey

Prasoon Pandey filmed the first Indian commercial to win at Cannes and has been listed among the top 100 advertising film directors in the world by Advertising Age. Pandey has served on the jury of many international advertising film festivals and won numerous awards. He directed Breakthrough's second music video on domestic violence, Babul. Pandey is currently the director of his own production house venture, Corcoise Films. He scripted Bhopal Express (1999) and plans to direct his first feature film soon.

Pramila Phatarphekar

Pramila Phatarphekar is a special correspondent with Outlook (India). She was with Outlook Traveller and has worked across the media spectrum, from television to documentaries for more than two decades. She is the author of India's first multi-media play, Being Sontake, which is about the faultlines between men and women. She has been the scriptwriter for several projects and her favorites include Sau Mein Se Ek (One in a Hundred), a documentary about epilepsy, and Rath Yatra, a tour through heritage Mumbai.

 

Advisory Board – USA

Salman Ahmad

Salman Ahmad is the songwriter and lead guitarist for South Asian rock sensation, Junoon. A firm voice for nonviolence in South Asia, Salman's poetry draws upon the traditions and messages of Sufi mystics. His efforts have gone a long way in promoting dialogue for peace between Indians and Pakistanis in South Asia and abroad. With professional training in medicine under his belt, Salman also stands on the global health stage as the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for Pakistan in the fight against AIDS.

Priya Bery

Priya Bery is the Strategy and Business Development Director at Virgin Unite, the social entrepreneurship arm of the Virgin Group. In this role she catalyzes social businesses and partnerships to drive positive change in Africa and Asia. In 2001 she helped start-up the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria with Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, where she was Director of Policy and Research for over 5 years. During the Clinton Administration she served as a Legislative Correspondent for U.S. Senator Carl Levin. Prior to this, she worked in India on maternal and child health issues and rural development.

Bill Bragin

Bill Bragin is the Director of Public Programming at Lincoln Center in NYC. As Acidophilus, he DJs with the GlobeSonic collective, spinning electronic world music hybrids. He is active in the North American World Music Coalition, is a founding co-producer of GlobalFEST, and serves on the advisory boards for Celebrate Brooklyn, Central Park SummerStage and the Black Rock Coalition. Previous positions include Symphony Space, Central Park SummerStage, George Wein's Festival Productions, Allen Toussaint's NYNO label and consulting for Lincoln Center Festival.

Gillian Caldwell

Gillian Caldwell is the Executive Director of WITNESS, which trains local human rights defenders in the use of video and communications to fight for basic human rights. Gillian was formerly the Co-Director of the Global Survival Network, where she coordinated a two-year undercover investigation into the trafficking of women from Russia, which led to the production of Bought & Sold.

Alan Jenkins

Alan Jenkins is Executive Director of the Opportunity Agenda, a non-partisan think tank and advocacy organization with the mission of advancing opportunity and human rights in the United States. Before joining OA, Jenkins worked at the Ford Foundation, where he served as Director of Human Rights, Deputy Director for Human Rights and International Cooperation, and Program Officer for Racial Justice. Previously, Jenkins was Assistant to the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he represented the United States government in constitutional and other litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he was Associate Counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where he defended the rights of low-income communities suffering from exploitation and discrimination. Jenkins serves on the Board of Trustees of the Center for Community Change and the Legal Action Center, and is a Co-Chair of the American Constitution Society's Project on the Constitution in the Twenty-First Century. He holds a law degree from Harvard Law School, a Master's degree in Media Studies from New School University, and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and Social Relations from Harvard College.

Sarah Jones

Sarah Jones is a very well known NY-based performer, songwriter, poet, and prominent figure in the New York's hip hop and slam poetry scene. Winner of the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe 1997 Grand Slam Championship, and Time Magazine's "person to watch," she has appeared on HBO's Def Poetry and in an off-broadway solo performance at the Bleecker Theatre entitled Bridge and Tunnel.

Mira Nair

Mira Nair is a highly accomplished film director, writer, and producer. Born in India and educated at Delhi University and at Harvard, Mira began her film career as an actor and then turned to directing many award-winning documentaries and films including So Far From India, Salaam Bombay!, Mississippi Masala, 11'09'01, the blockbuster, Monsoon Wedding, Hysterical Blindness, and Vanity Fair.

Lakshmi Pratury

Lakshmi Pratury is the founder of Tamarind Grove, a group that builds connections and hosts events around the Indian community in India and America.  Pratury worked at Intel for 12 years as a marketer and evangelist, then moved to a VC firm, Global Capitalist Partners. At GCP, she focused on connecting India's legendary software-development community with US tech. She began to focus more strictly on relationship-building with her move to the America India Foundation, where she founded the AIF's Digital Equalizer program, offering technology education to some 80,000 children and 2,000 teachers in India. She also launched the AIF Summit for social entrepreneurs from India. At Tamarind Grove, she plans events and meet-ups that will more tightly link the Indian and American tech communities.

DJ Rekha

DJ Rekha is one of the pioneers of New York's South Asian music scene. As a founder of Basement Bhangra and co-founder of Mutiny, she has been instrumental in introducing the sounds of Bhangra and British Asian music to North America. Having always viewed her involvement with music as inseparable from community activism, Rekha lectures extensively at colleges and institutions about Bhangra and South Asian cultural production. For more, check out www.sangament.com.

Mary Robinson

Mary Robinson, first woman President of Ireland (1990-1997) and more recently United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002), has spent most of her life as a human rights advocate. The recipient of numerous honors and awards throughout the world, Mary Robinson is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and the American Philosophical Society and, since 2002, has been Honorary President of Oxfam International. A founding member of the Council of Women World Leaders, she serves on many boards including the Vaccine Fund, and chairs the Irish Chamber Orchestra. Now based in New York, Mary Robinson is currently leading a new project, the Ethical Globalization Initiative, which works to bring norms and standards of human rights into the globalization process and to support capacity building in good governance in developing countries, with an initial focus on Africa.

Joanne Sandler

Joanne Sandler is the Deputy Director for Programs for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). She is responsible for guiding programming undertaken by UNIFEM offices in 15 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean and Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Joanne has been working in organizations that promote women's rights worldwide for the past 25 years. Prior to coming to UNIFEM, she ran a consulting business that provided organizational development support to women's organizations and development assistance organizations in the U.S. and abroad, including the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Global Fund for Women, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, many UN organizations, and women's advocacy organizations in the developing world. Joanne specialized in technical support focused on women's rights, economic justice, fundraising, and strategic planning.

Diane Dwyer Scanlon

Diane Dwyer Scanlon is a Grammy Award winning producer and composer. Her songs have been sung by platinum-selling recording artist Eva Cassidy, Laura Branigan and Tramaine Hawkins. She is currently writing with Antigone Rising and has a song on their debut CD “From The Ground Up” released on the Java/Hear label. Her extensive music catalog is administered by Rykomusic. She has an MA in International and Transcultural Studies from Columbia’s Teachers College and is an active member of the International Institute of Peace Educators. She is based in Wilton, Connecticut with her partner and two children.

Dr. Arvind Singhal

Dr. Arvind Singhal is a leading voice in the fields of entertainment education and social change communications. He is currently a Professor in the Scripps College of Communication, Ohio University, and from Fall, 2007 will be the Samuel Shirley and Edna Holt Marston Professor of Communication, and Senior Research Fellow, Sam Donaldson Center for Communication Studies, University of Texas, El Paso. He is a multiple award winning author/editor of many papers and eight books. Some of them include Communication of Innovations: A Journey with Everett M. Rogers (2006); Organizing for Social Change (2006); Entertainment-Education Worldwide: History, Research, and Practice (2004); Combating AIDS: Communication Strategies in Action (2003); and The Children of Africa Confront AIDS: From Vulnerability to Possibility (2003).

Mona Sinha

Sharmila (Mona) Sinha is originally from from Calcutta, India and spent her childhood in Hong Kong, India and London. She then moved to the United States where she graduated magna cum laude from Smith College with a major in Economics and a minor in Art History. This experience was parlayed into her first job at Morgan Stanley & Co. After three years on Wall Street, Mona pursued an MBA in Marketing and Finance at Columbia Business School, graduating with high honors in 1993. She spent several years at Anglo-Dutch conglomerate Unilever managing brands such as Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion and Pond's, and was the Marketing Director of Asia & the Pacific Rim for Elizabeth Arden. Mona currently serves on the Board of Trustees for All Souls School, where she also heads the Parents Association. She is married with three children and a golden retriever! 

Kathy Sreedhar

Kathy Sreedhar is Director of the Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Program, a grant-making foundation which supports more than 70 organizations of marginalised peoples in India working on issues of tribal, dalit and women's empowerment, social and economic justice and human rights. She serves on the Board of Directors of several funding, advocacy and neighborhood organizations.

Dorothy Q. Thomas

Dorothy Q. Thomas is an independent consultant on human rights in the United States. She has served as the founding director of the Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Division. She is the recipient of several awards and fellowships including a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Eleanor Roosevelt human rights award from the President of the United States. She is the author of several articles and reports on human rights and serves on the advisory boards of the International Council for Human Rights Policy and the Open Society Institute's Program on Reproductive Health and Rights.