Outliers

Nikhil Pahwa is an angry young man. But that doesn’t make him an outlier. Pahwa, 37, channelises that anger to build and scale mainstream movements such as the net neutrality campaign against Facebook’s FreeBasics in India more than two years ago. So what’s the source of all the anger and sense of activism? It’s Pahwa’s deep need for freedom of the internet. “The need for freedom led me to activism, entrepreneurship...I don’t know where it will take me next but freedom is central to everything I do,” he says. “My mission is to build an internet ecosystem which is open, fair and competitive.” Pahwa’s journey as a media entrepreneur has been filled with existential crisis because of the battle he fights. But then, those battles are also the reason why his venture, Medianama, lives today. “I’m what I’m today because of the fact that internet is open and this freedom exists. Medianama has turned 10 today because of that. I want that for everyone.” Before he committed fully to the net neutrality camp