WADE RATHKE is the founder of ACORN, Chief Organizer at ACORN International, and Author of "Nuts & Bolts", "Citizen Wealth", "Global Grassroots", and "The Battle for the 9th Ward".
Kolkata I first came to Kolkata with the Organizers’ Forum more than twenty years ago. Unlike the megacities of Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru, Kolkata seems largely unchanged so far, something like the old India. The streets were full and pulsating as we came into town after midnight from the airport, which had seen an …
Bengaluru Picking up a copy of the Times of India, while waiting for ACORN’s Indian organizing directors for another session of our annual meetings, there were several articles on how Elon Musk and his Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) has supposedly uncovered a grant for $21 million from a division of the United States …
Delhi Getting back to Delhi, I was looking forward to catching up with the work ACORN has been doing with various groups of informal workers through our affiliate Janaphal. On my last visit, the progress in uniting our own hawkers’ unions and associations with other hawkers’ groups in different cities across the country had …