Breaking walls and building bridges: Dr. Anita Patil-Deshmukh from PUKAR

In this conversation, Dr Anita Patil-Deshmukh, Executive Director of Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research (PUKAR), speaks with Natasha Joshi, the Chief Strategy Officer at Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies about the journey that led her from medicine to development work. Together, they reflect on her formative years in a family shaped by activism, the early household lessons on equity and justice that influenced her worldview, and the dissonance she experienced when ideals at home did not always match the realities outside it. Dr. Patil-Deshmukh shares how her medical training at Grant Medical College and decades of work as a neonatologist in the United States, along with her public health education at Harvard University, deepened her understanding of health as a matter of dignity and rights. She reflects on her return to India, and how her commitment to addressing urban poverty, social determinants of health, and youth-led knowledge production shaped her leadership of PUKAR. A thoughtful conversation on listening, unlearning, and placing research in the hands of those most often excluded. This conversation was recorded in Mumbai. Grassroots Nation is a podcast from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies. For more information go to www.rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org or join the conversation on social media @RNP_foundation.