Committed To Social Causes

Vanaprastha Ashram is managed by a Board Directors presently consisting of 9 Directors under the chairmanship of Dr.M.Narendra and Shri.N.Hariharan as Executive Director. They are committed to social cause & for the creation of elders home at a place = to be precise = to be more than a home affordable for marginally placed elders.

Founders and Past Officers

Late N. Hariharan Iyer (1933-2022)

Founder

Vanaprastha Ashram is the brain-child Late Shri N. Hariharan. His main goal was to give the seniors a sense of purpose as well as pleasant company as they wind down from their years of responsibilities. He was inspired by the concept of Cheshire Homes in UK. He worked on his idea through the 1980s as he watched elders in his family as well as close acquaintances age into their golden years and not have the same independence they once enjoyed. He worked with many of his close friends to start the first residence for the elders at Sringeri. The goal here was to appeal to the middle class, keeping the costs low, comforts high and to encourage an active life whenever possible. Sringeri homes for the elderly was inaugurated by Guru His Holiness Bharati Teertha Swamiji of Sringeri Mutt and therefore named as Bharati Seva Sadan.
Shri N. Hariharan worked with several corporate as well as individual donors to add various facilities to the homes. Later the foundation’s name was changed to Vanaprastha Ashram. Later the Bangalore facility was also started under his guidance and supervision.

Shri N. Hariharan retired from the Central Government of India as a Class 1 officer in and Assistant Official Liquidator after 25 years of service in 1979, and then spent the following three decades working in private sector as Company Secretary of large corporations, finally retiring as the Company Secretary at The Indian Express in 2008, to dedicate the rest of his life toward this ambitious project to better the lives of elders. Shri N. Hariharan worked until his last days (July 2022) for the betterment of the elder homes, raising funds, networking with others. He was himself a major donor to the organization.

Late Shri. M.S. Pai (1915-2012)

Former Director

Shri. Mangalore Sarvottam Pai, fondly known as M.S. Pai was great scholar of English and used to be admired for his great speeches in English similar to that of great, former President of India Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Shri. M.S. Pai was one of the Trustees of India Japanese Association. He was born in the year 1915 and died of his age in Jan’ 2012.

He was introduced to Mr. N. Hariharan, Founder of Vanaprastha Ashram by one of our Chartered Accountant friends Mr. Rajesh Vakil and subsequently joined Vanaprastha Ashram. He had helped in collection donations to VA from various corporates including ICICI Bank, Punjab National Bank, TATAs etc., just to name a few.

He was instrumental in acquiring the land in Sringeri for the construction of Bharathi Seva Sadan and getting the Ashram inaugurated by then Sankaracharya of Sringeri Mutt Bharathi Teertha Mahaswamigal in the year 2001 after the foundation stone was done in the year 2000 by Mahaswamigal himself. He was very tall in personality & very active through-out his life and had a very positive mindset like never said NO to any good thing. He practiced yoga religiously until his passing at age 99. He was like a pillar of strength to Vanaprastha Ashram especially to the late ED N.Hariharan. Mr. M.S. Pai was a linguist used speak many Indian languages including Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil as well as Japanese!

Current Mantle of Vanaprastha Ashram

Shri. Avali Srinivasan

Director

Mr. Avali Srinivasan is a Company Secretary by profession with more than 20 years experience in Hospitality sector. He was the President in Juniper Hotels (owned by Grand Hyatt) until 2008. Moving to Chennai then, he worked as Whole time director in Robust Hotels Pr Ltd Chennai (Hyatt group). He has been involved with Vanaprastha Ashram since 2003 and has been instrumental in various transactions that have resulted in the current establishment of the Bangalore facility.

Shri R. Hariharan

Director

Mr. R. Hariharan is a 74 yo senior, a selfless hard worker with great patience devoted to the cause and supporter of many good initiatives.
He faces his challenges radiantly. His salient talents include, timely involvement, networking with people, and initiating contacts to get things done.
In his plain words Hariharan accepts that God has blessed him in seeking his values and time participating in an institution like Vanprastha Ashram.
Hariharan is deeply impressed with the Vanaprastha Ashram Elderly Home at Sringeri, Karnataka and the kind of charity work done for the needy as well as the various support provided. He believes that the fun of meeting and taking forward the creative ideas from his fellow members has made the whole learning of Senior Citizens’ activities a unique experience to cherish.
His core strength is in people management, love to do charity, support the association with whom he is associated.
Engaging oneself in such social activities, giving back to your community gives much peace and tranquility to the mind and drives away the mundane pressures and tensions.
He employs the nuances that he has picked up over a period of time to the full advantage along with his Management experience gained after his retirement as General Manager from Corporate TCS.
Currently affiliated with 2 NGOs.
– Involved in Charitable Institution ” Dharmishta Mithran ” at Mumbai – Retd. Director
– Involved in running and managing the Elderly Homes ” Vanaprastha Ashram – Sringeri ” – where he is the Director in charge with an overall responsibility of the functioning of the Sringeri facility. This he does with gusto and dedication.
He is also a Trustee in the neighbourhood Ganesha temple and
associated with 2 Magazines with its Editorial Group.
Shri Hariharan firm belief : Transparency is the key to success!

Shri.Subramaniam Mani

Director

Dr. Rema Hariharan

Director

Dr. Rema Hariharan joined the group of directors in 2021. She is the daughter of the founder N. Hariharan and has always been a firm supporter of the organization.

Rema is currently the only NRI member of the board, she lives in Austin TX in the USA. Rema is an engineer by profession and currently works for Advanced Micro Devices leading the efforts to root cause performance issues of server systems. Rema is also a music enthusiast and a veena player, she is one of the co-founders of Antarnaada, an organization with the vision of spreading Carnatic Music to the local community in Austin TX. She is a graduate of IIT Bombay (B’Tech in Mechanical Engineering) and holds a doctorate in Operations Research from The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Shri. R. Kannan

Director

Distinguished and multi-faceted corporate leader with over 40 years of strategic excellence across Finance, Strategy Formulation, Corporate Governance, and Economic Advisory. Member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council and Certified Independent Director and Director on the board of three companies. Proven track record of spearheading corporate performance management, large-scale structural transformations, capital sourcing, and cross-border strategic initiatives at India’s most venerable conglomerates, including Hinduja Group, ICICI Bank Group, Piramal Group, TCS and PwC.

Prof. Dr. R. Gopal

Director

He was Dean and HOD in D.Y.Patil deemed to be university in their business school, an alumnus of IIT, Kharagpur, ICWA and Doctorate in Business Management. He was in various big corporates in the Senior management positions and subsequently got into the teaching profession. He has authorised many books in the field of Business analytics, Healthcare analytics, Marketing Strategy etc., and reviewer of several national & internation journals. Also guided more students for the award of PhD degree Mphil degree. Also a Board member in Management of D.Y.Patil University, Pune and also a member of the Board of Studies and Academic council of several colleges of Mumbai University.

Dr. Ramesh Hariharan

Director

Dr. Ramesh Hariharan, General Manager of Women’s Health at Natera, with previous Management experiences at McKinsey & Company, and Novartis, R&D leadership experience at GE Research, with education at IIT Bombay, Princeton and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and son of the late Founder N. Hariharan

Shri. Arjun Bhaskaran

Director

CEO of Finpro Technologies, a cybersecurity and enterprise IT organization based in Bangalore. He has 35 years of experience in IT and Cybersecurity function in Financial Sector. He has held positions in Unit Trust of India group, Mediassist Insurance TPA , TTK Healthcare and was Director in a Tata Group subsidiary. He heads India operations of Sanno Global, an India-Japan economic collaboration organization. In social work, he has contributed to the Ayurveda sector for over 18 years by collaborating with a consortium of 15 Ayurveda Medical College Hospitals.
Mr.K.V Raman

Mr.K.V Raman

Director

The Official Coordinator

Shri. P.O. Narasimhan

Official Coordinator

Shri. P.O. Narasimhan is the dedicated official coordinator of Vanaprastha Ashram. Shri Narasimhan was introduced to Vanaprastha Ashram through the founder Late Shri N. Hariharan, who was his mentor. Shri Narasimhan has a post-graduate degree in computer science and has worked through multiple start-ups and BPOs, some of which he established alongside Late Shri. N. Hariharan. His long relationship with Late Shri Hariharan, not only made him an expert in company law, but also made him committed to the lives of senior citizens. He is committed to the cause of Vanaprastha Ashram and has also helped several seniors on a casual basis, not caring for his own time and comfort. He is also actively involved in helping children of sewage workers in the Navi Mumbai area with their education.

Donate

Donors can donate using our online and offline donation facilities. Donors are eligible for exemption under 80G

Contact

Office no-03, Sai Darshan CHSL, Plot no- B36, Sector – 23, Seawoods East, Near Aishwarya Restaurant, Navi Mumbai – 400 706.

9820092514