User:Akhil Bakshi
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On completing his management studies from Germany and USA, Akhil Bakshi worked for four years in an agrochemical company. During this period, he travelled extensively throughout rural India, working and living in villages. For ten years, between 1982-1991, he assisted late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in initiating, implementing and monitoring development programs in his constituency, Amethi. As Director General of Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, he developed the institution into a youth movement and one of the largest grassroots organisation in the world. Later, as an Officer on Special Duty to the Prime Minister of India, Mr. PV Narasimha Rao, he helped initiate several national programs for social and rural development.
Due to his keen interest in public service, Akhil Bakshi has set up two non-government organizations. Yuva Shakti, a national organisation of rural youth leaders, seeks to provide good leadership at the village-level. Society for Creation of Heaven on Earth assists small and marginal farmers and landless labourers in increasing their productivity and incomes.
Akhil Bakshi has successfully merged his interest in public service and adventure. In 1994, he led the Central Asia Expedition - a goodwill mission to Central Asia and Tibet. In 1995-1996, he led the Azad Hind Expedition to refresh the national memory with the sacrifices made by the soldiers of the Indian National Army in their fight for India's liberation. In 1999, he led the expedition Hands Across The Borders, a mass contact program for promoting peace and development in South Asia. In 2006, he led the 25,200-km Gondwanaland Expedition, a scientific and friendship mission to 17 countries of West Asia and Africa.
A Fellow of Royal Geographical Society, Chairman of the Science & Exploration Committee of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, Akhil Bakshi is on the Board of several adventure organizations in India and has travelled extensively through 76 countries.
He has written three travelogues -
The Road to Freedom - Travels Through Singapore, Malaysia, Burma and India
Silk Road On Wheels - Travels Through Central Asia, Chinese Turkestan and Tibet; and
Between Heaven and Hell - Travels Through South Asia.
His fourth book, Askar Akaev – A Political Journey is a biography of the President of Kyrgyzstan.
Two more travelogues – I'll Follow The Sun and Power Places of South Asia are due for publication in 2007-2008. Besides writing several travel articles for leading newspapers and magazines, he has produced over seventy television documentaries.
