About Us

In an industry with 1.2 million NGOs and a workforce exceeding half a million, social development needs a dedicated space to analyze and process information, exchange views and ideas, and channelize the growing philanthropic spirit towards developing sustainable measures.

"The Alternative" aims to be the "other" space - an online platform that seeks to chronicle and support social development in India.

Read – The web magazine offers news, views and commentary on the development sector. We believe that fair, independent and non-partisan development journalism can empower a socially conscious civil society with the right information to get involved.

Be - Every citizen has the power to make a positive difference in improving human condition in our society. The magazine provides spaces that nurture discussion and dialogue leading to constructive and collective action. The online resource centre helps people take action and figure out ways and means to contribute to a more equitable social order.

The Alternative is published by the media division of Sattva Media and Consulting Pvt Ltd.

Content Team

Our stories are put together by a motley bunch of writers, photographers, engineers, lawyers, cartoonists and the like – united in their passion to bring mainstream focus to social causes, and belief that an independent media can aid the process.

Our Code talks about the editorial practices and ethics we follow.

Aarti Mohan serves as the Chief Editor of the Alternative. Vikram Rai, who heads the Sattva company, plays a pivotal role in steering the product.

Savitha Suresh Babu and Kalpana Aravamuthu are part of the editorial team. They also run the copy editing efforts.

Product team

Gayatri and Kaki from Deleveled Design Studio have designed the portal.

Our design and product integration Zens- Rick and Rajvel, Sudhir and Manoj are responsible for bringing all the pieces of The Alternative puzzle together.

The publishing technology has been developed by Mapunity, a technology company with a social mission - of conceptualizing and implementing IT enabled solutions for public benefit.

This platform has been built using Ruby-On-Rails and Sphinx frameworks, and has used many freely available Web2.0 tools. Our thanks are due to the Free and Open Source Software movement for enabling this.