on December 22nd 2015 I found myself
sitting inside India’s Parliament
watching an act which I had fought for
turn into law it was actually the first
time that Parliament was even working
and had stopped its fighting for a short
period of time so why was I there I’m
not a politician or a politician’s son
I’m not even a lawyer actually I’m a
businessman and a father of three what I
want to share with you today is a simple
tool a simple tool which helped to
transform my life from the ordinary to
the extraordinary how I returning
emigres from the United States came back
to India and was able to get Parliament
to stop its fighting for five hours I
moved back to India after having lived
20 years in the United States back in
the US I had everything we all want a
great social circle wife kids a great
life all the things we want but as I was
moving back I had a chance to reflect on
my 20 years and I realized that there
was one thing in my life which was
missing in my case that one thing which
was missing was Social Work so as I was
moving back to India I said I’m going to
give one day a week to Social Work there
was no reason to one day a week it was
arbitrary but it was a number I felt I
could live with there was a easy simple
number back when I moved it was 2013 it
was the peak of the aam aadmi party
movement now I don’t want to get into
politics here like many of us I
supported them but I got a chance to do
a little bit further I gave them one day
a week as I share with you some photos
here they talked about an incredible
experience that I had something which in
my life I would never get to experience
but what was more amazing is that while
I was doing these things I never had to
leave my normal life I just added more
to it after six months of doing politics
I gave it up I decided that things were
not the same anymore and that I should
move on I still had my one day a week so
I had to figure out what to do after
some thinking I realized that women’s
safety is a big problem in India I
decided I’m going to start giving one
day a week to women safety now I didn’t
know what to do I had never done this
before so I actually use my first one
day of my one day a week to make a plan
after a few months and a Guinness world
record attempt later I found myself
standing in front of their peers parents
and realizing that they had no one to
help them no problem uncle and Aunty I
said I will give you one day a week
using that one day a week and all the
things that I had learned in my Armani
party movement I started organizing
grassroots campaigns from university
marches to hostel meetings to anything
else that I could think of all our
planned activities took a deviation in
December 2015 just last year when we
realized that one of the murderers of
Narnia was to be released after just
three years in the juvenile home things
quickly got together and all the people
that you saw on TV were people that we
had met in our previous events we
started protests on December 19th we
quickly realized that the Juvenile
Justice Act which was sitting log-jammed
in Parliament could be passed if we got
the two largest parties the Congress and
the BJP to agree so we decided to meet
senior Congress leaders and senior BJP
leaders the Juvenile Justice Act which
was not even on the agenda for December
22nd got tabled in Parliament
that’s the photo of us driving to
Parliament just 30 minutes before it was
tabled on on that day after a five-hour
debate the Juvenile Justice Act was
unanimously passed that was probably the
greatest achievement that I’ve had in my
life so far I continued to work on
women’s safety I continued to give it
one day a week I’m presently working on
this thing called the SAFE Act and what
it promises to do is transform women’s
safety in India with the safe act all
the assault evidence if sexual assault
forensic evidence will be standardized
across India and it will be tested
within two months right now as I stand
in front of you at this very stage more
than half the samples in New Delhi have
not been tested in over 12 months that’s
3,500 women who will not get justice
that’s 3,500 years just in Delhi alone
you can only imagine what this number is
throughout India there are so many times
we read stories and see things that
upset us many of us had raised our hands
there are so many times we see something
in the paper that disturbs us and we
don’t know what we can do about it
so many things that I see on a weekly
basis well I know from experience that
we can do something I know that change
is possible so here’s my story for you
my simple tool one day a week and my
fight for Nivea thank you [Applause]