The Centre for Knowledge Alternatives
About Us

CENTRE FOR KNOWLEDGE ALTERNATIVES

Werner Heisenberg, the famous quantum physicist, used to say that we see only that part of reality which is exposed to our questions.

What if we went out in search for India, without any questions in mind?

As our first project, we map district level cultures and data to understand India. We start with a few pilots.

The first project of the Centre is to collect and synthesize India’s local data and cultures, and create micro encyclopedias and chronicles. We develop a framework and execute it in a few pilot districts to begin with.


We are inspired by Gazetteers, the encyclopedic directories of various regions in India, written by the British in a major exercise to understand us. From history to agriculture, they contained everything worth knowing a place. 

We want to go beyond the Gazetteers, and evolve online chronicles, as open-source interactive databases that celebrate local stories, and inform about local developmental challenges. We build accessible, participatory and decentralized knowledge about our towns, lives and governance.

District Fellowship Program: Maharashtra

The Centre for Knowledge Alternatives at FLAME University is pleased to announce its first District Fellowship Program, in the state of Maharashtra. This initiative is a key part of the Chronicle Project, the flagship endeavor of the Centre. The Project is pioneering large-scale documentation of district-level statistics and cultures across India. The Fellowship Program aims to capture the ‘culture' aspect of the Project. The first state to launch the project is Maharashtra.

If you are a high school or college/university student (or even a recent graduate in any discipline), and want to discover your own towns/cities/villages, this Fellowship Program is for you.

We will select Fellows from each district of Maharashtra to document their own districts.

The three-month Program promises intensive training and a culturally enriching experience to know one's own lands.

Deadline: 20 March, 24 March, 2024
Fellowship period: mid-April until mid-June.