MCRC organized an one day seminar on “Sustainable Livelihood Interventions for Rural Areas and Weaker Sections – New Paradigms” and Dr. C.V. Seshadri Memorial Lecture on “Innovation, Investment, Enterprise: Generating Sustainable Livelihood at Grassroots through Honey Bee Philosophy” by Prof. Dr. Anil Gupta, National Innovation Foundation, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Gujarat held on 4th December, 2010 at Ramanujan Auditorium, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, C.I.T Campus, Taramani, Chennai – 600 113.

The programme was inaugurated by Dr. Anil P. Joshi, Dr. G. Nammalvar, Shri A.V. Balasubramanian & Dr. Radha Gopalan followed welcome address by Shri. M.V. Murugappan, Chairman, MCRC.

The seminar contained four sessions with different themes focusing mainly on livelihood promotion & ways and means of income generation. The first lecture by Dr. Anil P. Joshi was on “Approach to Rural Development – Economy Decentralization”. The session was chaired by Dr. Radha Gopalan. It was followed the second session, which had a popular lecture by Dr. G. Nammalvar on “Income Raising Organic Agriculture” in Tamil, for which Shri A.V. Balasubramanian was the chair person. The third lecture was on “Barefoot College – A Living Experiment” by Dr. S. Anandalakshmy, which was chaired by Prof. Dr. M. Ravindran. The final lecture was delivered by Dr. Claude Alvares on “Social Engineering and Livelihoods: Need for Creative Dialogues” and the session chaired by Dr. G. Venkataramani.

The evening session began with Dr. Claude Alvares releasing the write up on Dr. C. V. Seshadri in the Wikipedia page, followed by Dr. C. V. Seshadri Memorial Lecture delivered by Prof. Dr. Anil Gupta.

Nearly 300 participants attended the programme, among which above 150 were from different NGOs from various districts of Tamil Nadu.