Archana KAPOOR Publisher of 'Hardnews' Magazine, Founder of the NGO 'SMART' (India) Archana Kapoor is the publisher of Hardnews magazine, a fiercely independent political monthly from India, and the Founder of Seeking Modern Applications for Real Transformation (SMART), an NGO that is working with marginalized communities in India. It was as a film maker - she has made more than 250 documentary films in India and abroad on development issues - that Archana realized the need to do something urgently for the voiceless and the dispossessed. Using literacy as a tool for development, SMART works with one of the most obscurantist, and conservative societies in India where rate of literacy is perhaps the lowest in the country. These communities are deeply suspicious of modern education and are reluctant to allow their women to study or work. Through painstaking effort, SMART has mobilized thousands of women to participate in empowerment and economic sustainability programmes. Archana has worked closely with communities where women have suffered from natural calamities like cyclone, earthquake and landslides. She has documented the state of literacy and education in the Muslim-dominated South Asian countries. She has also done work on the civilizational commonalities between Ganga and Mekong Basin. Hardnews Magazine - she started with her journalist husband - is four years old, and has been reporting on the policy distortions that contribute in exacerbating the misery of a large mass of people who have little to do with double digit growth that India has been witnessing over the last few years. Its tough analysis and reporting on poverty, HIV/AIDS, abysmal state of India's farm sector, Special Economic Zones has not only got critical acclaim but also forced the national government to take a re-look at their policies. Archana has also authored a coffee table book. She has a college-going daughter and a school-going son.