January 2026: A Happy new year from Veditum!
We are grateful for a very exciting 2025, and are looking forward to what's in store for 2026! Read on to know how you can be part of this journey.
Introduction
2025 has been an exciting year for us. We saw the team expand, explored new formats of engaging with citizens for environmental accountability, and are grateful for the awards and recognition that have come our way.
The team took some time off during the winter break, met for an eventful team retreat afterwards, and is now back with renewed energy as the work around protecting our rivers is as important as ever.
We’ve started 2026 with a whole lot of programming. Read through for updates. We’re looking forward to all the work we can do together in 2026. Let’s start!
10 years of Veditum!
We celebrated 10 years of Veditum at our office in Kolkata this January. It was special as the whole team was in town, and we were joined by family and friends as well.
A decade of consistent work has not been easy to sustain, but now more than ever we feel confident in our theory of change around slow & intentional work leading to long lasting transformations.
A huge shoutout to all our supporters, partners, collaborators, and well wishers!
Support Veditum’s work with a donation or by volunteering
Please note that Veditum can accept donations only from Indian citizens and through domestic payment methods only. International cards will not work.
You can also volunteer with Veditum, read more at this link.
India Sand Watch
Evidence Building Toolkits
As we deepen our work with our project India Sand Watch, we see a lot of things missing. Especially sediments from rivers! Sediments are critical for its role in shaping rivers and lives, and are often left out of policy and law.
We are happy to share the first of our toolkits for building evidence - the legal toolkit! This is part of our intention to share our learnings, frameworks, and tools to empower citizens to take action, and introduce accountability in environmental governance.
This is a growing collection of tools and resources for action. If you need help with using any of the resources or toolkits, reach out to us via the form in the page linked below. You could even send us suggestions and ideas for new or existing tools.
Checkout the toolkits on veditum.org/toolkits
Sediment Stories 10 - with Tarun Nair
We are talking to Tarun Nair, a conservation biologist for the 10th conversation of ‘Sediment Stories’.
In our conversation, he will be speaking about how flow regimes shape river ecosystems and species ecologies, from the perspective of the iconic gharial!
📖 ‘Sediment Stories’ is a series of conversation on sediments - from creation to extraction, hosted by India Sand Watch and Veditum India Foundation
📅 Join us on Saturday, 24th January at 5pm IST
Register for the session at this link: veditum.org/sedimentstories/
India Sand Watch platform now accessible in Hindi!
In line with our efforts to make data accessible, and in collaboration with our partners at Ooloi Labs, we’ve now made the India Sand Watch Platform accessible in Hindi. The platform can now be navigated in Hindi along with English.
Check out the platform here: sandwatch.in and toggle the language button on the top right to switch between languages!
Events, Conferences etc.
Team Veditum at Justice Makers Mela 2025!
Despite the hiccups caused in air travel in December, some of our Moving Upstream Fellows were able to make it to the Justice Makers Mela in Jaipur. We had to cancel some of the other sessions, and Madappa & Rhea joined virtually for their session.
We’re producing a blog with detailed stories from the mela that’s coming soon, but here’s a glimpse of what we were able to execute:
Listening to a Desert River - Moving Upstream
A participatory storytelling session with the Moving Upstream Luni fellows from their 500 km walk along the river Luni. Spearheaded by team member Mohit Rao.
Courts of the Living
The India Sand Watch team guided participants through a meditative reimagining of rivers as complex entities, with sediment as a vital part of these living systems.
Through an engaging activity, we highlighted how river policy in India often ignores or misrepresents sediment’s critical role. We reimagined a legal system that gives sediment its due consideration and protection.बहता पानी | राजस्थान के जल-मार्ग
A hathaai (informal discussion) with the ‘Water Man of Rajasthan’ Chhattar Singh Jam, by journalist Vandita Sariya (Moving Upstream Fellow), on the wisdom generated by water as it moves through the desert, learned to paying close attention to the ways water shapes lives and landscapes.
Kolkata Change Makers (KCM)
Our initiative to engage changemakers in Kolkata has been steadily growing, with deeper conversations & emergent collaborations. We have been meeting regularly, and putting together additional learning opportunities and collaborations.
KCM Circles - December 2025 & January 2026
We hosted our monthly circles for December 2025 and January 2026. Between these circles there was a flurry of activities, but these regular gatherings keep us anchored.
Machine Learning for Environmental Monitoring - interactive talk session
We are hosting an in-person talk in our office with Ando Shah, long time collaborator of India Sand Watch, and a PhD scholar at UC Berkeley, School of Information. He will be talking about “Machine Learning for Environmental Monitoring”.
📄 Register for the talk at this link: veditum.org/vifo300126
🗓️ Session date & time: 7pm to 8:30pm, Friday, 30th January 2026
Join us for a conversation on how Machine Learning can be used for Environmental Monitoring, and our work with him at the India Sand Watch project!
Intermingle with Microbes on World Ferment Day 2026 - with Megha
We are hosting an exciting workshop on World Ferment Day 2026!
Megha from Goblette will be leading the workshop, where we will learn about fermentation, do some hands on fermentation exercises, create a community ferment, and carry back some materials back with us!
📄 Register for the workshop at this link: http://veditum.org/vifo010226
🗓️ Session date & time: 4pm to 7pm, Sunday, 1st February 2026
Collaborations & partnerships
Veditum x ALT EFF x KCM x The Red Bari Collaboration
This year Veditum & Kolkata Change Makers collaborated with ALTEFF and The Red Bari to host the 2025 ALTEFF film screenings in Kolkata, and put together a wide variety of programming around the screenings.
We found partners in KCM community members Megha & Shamika to co-design the nature immersion & reading circle, as well as the eco-art workshop. They also helped to collaborate with another KCM community member & Teach for India fellow Atri to engage young students from his school to create climate related art.
The art created by the kids, as well as the outputs from the eco-art workshop were put up as an art exhibition alongside the film screenings. We also went back to the school and played some films for the students from this year’s ALTEFF curation.
☮️ Veditum team updates
We kickstarted 2026 with our Team retreat in Kolkata! The otherwise remote team met at our Veditum office space for a fun week of rest, exploration and reflections.
We hosted workshops, explored the city of Kolkata and celebrated 10 years of Veditum at our office with friends and family. We will have a detailed blog soon about our time in Kolkata. Stay tuned!
We welcome Shamika as the newest member of the small but growing Veditum team! Shamika will be the Operations Associate & Community Facilitator based out of our Kolkata office.
Volunteer with us
If our work inspires you, do consider volunteering with us! We love sharing our work to people, and we would love for you to take it forward with us.
You can sign up for volunteering here on this link : Volunteer with Veditum
Support Veditum’s work with a donation
Please note that Veditum can accept donations only from Indian citizens and through domestic payment methods only. International cards will not work.
Thank you for reading through!
We’ll be back next month with updates from our events, more invitations, and opportunities. Until then, take care and follow us on social media if you’re active on these platforms:
Veditum: Instagram | Linkedin | YouTube | Twitter | Facebook
Moving Upstream: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Warmly,
Team Veditum
I resonate with what you wrote about slow and intentional work. Are you levaraging any cool AI for your evidence building toolkits?