Vineet Kharat, President

A well-reput­ed media per­son among his cir­cle of clients and pro­fes­sion­als, Vineet also has expe­ri­ence of over 26 years of being asso­ci­at­ed with var­i­ous NGOs that have worked with chil­dren, youth and the elder­ly. Peepal Foun­da­tion took birth in the com­pas­sion­ate heart and mind he always had towards the less­er priv­i­leged to empow­er them through var­i­ous ini­tia­tives. Came 2001, Vineet added a new dimen­sion to his work hav­ing found­ed Peepal Foun­da­tion. Vineet brought forth a mature per­spec­tive to Peepal Foun­da­tion hav­ing been asso­ci­at­ed with the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature), SPIC MACAY (Soci­ety for Pro­mo­tion of Indi­an Clas­si­cal Music and Cul­ture), Eklavya Nyasa NGO (which works for the well-being of chil­dren of com­mer­cial sex work­ers, alco­holics and sin­gle par­ents), SSP (Swayam Shik­shan Prayog) work­ing in the area of women empow­er­ment, Mitra Foun­da­tion (pro­motes renew­able ener­gy and envi­ron­ment care).

Dr. Trup­ti Mehta, Vice President

Dr. Trup­ti Mehta, a doc­tor by pro­fes­sion and work­ing as Direc­tor — Admin­is­tra­tion with a lead­ing hos­pi­tal in Pune, Dr. Mehta has been involved with Peepal Foun­da­tion since its incep­tion. Her asso­ci­a­tion with SPIC MACAY which pro­motes Indi­an Clas­si­cal Music and Cul­ture gives her an under­stand­ing of intan­gi­ble vari­ables in human devel­op­ment and hap­pi­ness. She has active­ly con­duct­ed free OPD (Out Patient Ser­vices) at Sad­hu Vaswani Mis­sion for over 5 years.

Roopa Ram­pu­ra, Treasurer 

Ms. Roopa Ram­pu­ra, a mul­ti­me­dia spe­cial­ist and phil­an­thropist, has been asso­ci­at­ed with var­i­ous caus­es viz. envi­ron­ment, girl child, and child devel­op­ment. She is well-known in the NGO seg­ment for her ‘Devel­op­ment Cen­tre’ mod­el for under­priv­i­leged chil­dren. Car­ing for ani­mals is her sec­ond nature, hav­ing adopt­ed injured stray dogs and cats and looked after their well-being over sev­er­al years.

Ran­jit Jad­havrao, Secretary

Ran­jit Jad­havrao is among the top lan­guage trans­la­tors in Pune, hav­ing tak­en to lan­guage skills as a young boy watch­ing his father work pas­sion­ate­ly on sev­er­al trans­la­tion jobs for a top pub­li­ca­tion. Ran­jit is a vora­cious read­er, and this adds a sharp­er edge to his work in translation.

Ran­jit’s rich expe­ri­ence includes his work­ing spell in a lead­ing cor­po­rate pub­lish­ing house in Pune, hav­ing worked on a broad spec­trum of assign­ments for over 21 years.

Soon, he was bit­ten by the entre­pre­neur­ship bug and set up his own busi­ness in lan­guage trans­la­tions, design­ing and print­ing. Ran­jit is an avid trekker and loves explor­ing our beau­ti­ful coun­try. He has been asso­ci­at­ed with the founders of Peepal Foun­da­tion for many years and enjoys shar­ing his time with Peepal-relat­ed projects.

Shailen­dra Yash­want, Hon. Member 

Mr. Shailen­dra Yash­want, a co-founder of Green­peace India, is a renowned envi­ron­ment jour­nal­ist and activist. He has been involved with Green­peace on an inter­na­tion­al lev­el. He is also the founder of Mitra Foun­da­tion, a Ban­ga­lore-based NGO work­ing in the field of environment.

Shirish Kaulgud, Hon. Member 

Mr. Shirish Kaulgud, a reput­ed busi­ness­man and own­er of a lead­ing IT com­pa­ny in Pune is well-known for his pro­mo­tion of Art and Cul­ture across Maha­rash­tra. He has been a key resource and guid­ing force at SPIC MACAY Pune for the last 2 decades. He is an hon­orary mem­ber of the Peepal Foun­da­tion since its inception.

Punam Dharkar, Hon. Member

Punam Dharkar comes with vast expe­ri­ence in var­i­ous fields of work. She has worked as a copy­writer with var­i­ous top adver­tis­ing agen­cies in Mum­bai. Lat­er, in Pune, she was a vis­it­ing fac­ul­ty in cre­ative adver­tis­ing ses­sions at Sym­bio­sis Insti­tute of Mass Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. She also simul­ta­ne­ous­ly took up a sec­ond career in lead­er­ship train­ing for a few years, in an MNC.

She is now involved as a founder mem­ber of a very suc­cess­ful group called Swap for pre-owned house­hold items that you can buy, sell, exchange, lend, bor­row and give away. She is a men­tor with and well-wish­er of Peepal Foun­da­tion, a men­tor at Ishanya Foun­da­tion for guid­ing stu­dents who learn to devel­op skills that can make them job-ready. Besides, she is part of a scrap band called Band Baja De where lyrics are writ­ten to pro­mote waste seg­re­ga­tion, adher­ing to traf­fic safe­ty rules, and clean­li­ness, which are sung to Bol­ly­wood tunes at traf­fic lights, bastis, and at relat­ed events. She also plays the role of the sec­re­tary of her hous­ing soci­ety hav­ing worked on sev­er­al projects for uplift­ing the ‘brand val­ue’ of the society.