Ravi Kuchimanchi and Aravinda Pillalamarri, AID Jeevansathis, are touring AID chapters in the United States. If you have seen Swades, you may relate to some of the work that AID has done in India.

It turns out that while scripting `Swades,' Ashutosh and his team visited Bilgaon, a tribal village in the Narmada valley where AID supported a power generation project to light up the entire hamlet. Ashutosh visited Bilgaon after spending considerable time with AID Jeevansaathis, Aravinda Pillalamarri and Ravi Kuchimanchi, who returned to India from the U.S. to work for rural development and were closely involved with the Bilgaon project.
The people of Bilgaon did 2000 person-days of `shramdaan' (labour) to make their village-energy self-sufficient. (http://www.aidindia.org/projects/illus/pedal.htm)