About Us

India Currents is an award-winning, nonprofit, nonpartisan, ethnic media organization focused on the Indian American community. Our mission is to illuminate pivotal and timely narratives within the Bay Area diaspora and serve as an incubator for a new generation of diverse storytellers. We do this through dedicated community and beat reporting, as well as accountability reporting. 

As community conveners, we play a unique role in forging connections among Indian Americans, breaking down cultural silos, and fostering civic engagement that extends beyond our immediate community. Our commitment to social justice issues underpins our efforts, as we seek to inspire positive change and contribute to a more inclusive and equitable society. India Currents is more than a media outlet; we are a dynamic force shaping the narrative, connecting people, and championing the values that define our shared journey. 

India Currents has documented the life of Indian Americans in Silicon Valley for over 35 years. Our deep roots in the community make us a trusted messenger on critical issues. Our journalism draws on diverse perspectives from our multiethnic audience and from community partnerships that facilitate cross-cultural communications. We fill the geographic and topical gaps left by mainstream media and offer a unique cultural lens on issues facing Indian Americans. 

Here is a recent Q&A and case study that the Institute of Nonprofit News (INN) published about our work.

We aim to encourage thoughtful and purposeful debate on issues that impact people of color by offering a safe space for marginalized voices. Through collaborative alliances, we promote a deeper understanding of the diversity in our community. 

Like all ethnic media, our role is first and foremost to document the intimate lives of the audience we serve. We connect our audience to their heritage with relevant coverage of the arts – books, dance, and music, and produce stories beyond the prevalent model minority narrative. We also chronicle social issues that impact their lives – whether it’s cross-cultural identities, assimilation, domestic violence, or the pandemic’s impact on ethnic businesses and the onslaught of unprecedented changes to immigration policy and Public Charge on new immigrants who are Silicon Valley employees. India Currents makes sure the community has relevant information and safety net resources to cope with unexpected changes in their lives. 

Here is a sample of our community storytelling project, “We Belong“.

In 2019 India Currents transitioned from a 32-year-old print magazine into a fully digital, nonprofit entity. We are a BIPOC-led, all-female, editorial team. Four of our five board members are women. Over the last 35 years, we’ve had 80% or more people of color on staff.

During this time we have nurtured hundreds of community journalists, many of whom have gone on to become successful mainstream journalists and published authors. In 2022 alone, we worked with dozens of writers and published about 900 stories. Our staff mentored 20 youth writers and 6 student interns. 

Our editorial team produces award-winning stories from and for our community.  Over the years India Currents has established a track record for journalistic excellence and won awards and recognitions from New America Media, the San Francisco Press Club, and the California Journalism Awards. In 2021 alone, our small but mighty team produced 21 award-winning pieces. In 2022 and 2023 we won 15 awards each year.  In the last two years, our reporters have won four investigative fellowships from the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism.

The public has free access to all of the content on our website, social media, and weekly newsletters. In 2023, our website had 514,736 unique readers, reflecting a 5% growth in unique users over the previous year. Specifically, we resonated with 128,000 unique readers in California. On Facebook, we have 56,500 followers and have recently launched an Instagram channel. We have about 15,000 newsletter subscribers. 

We believe that providing access to fact-based, high-quality, professional journalism is the best way to encourage our immigrant community to find its footing in a new country. We encourage their engagement in the practice of democracy by telling the often untold stories of how decisions about key issues such as immigration, the census, or voting rights affect the lives of minority communities like theirs. Our stories are readable because we make complex topics easy to understand and publish stories, videos, and podcasts to reach our multigenerational audience.

In addition, we’ve always prized the role of convenor and advocate–the bridge that connects otherwise isolated South Asians to each other, to other communities, and the wider civic life. That’s what drew us to projects like the initiative to track hate crimes, and to Ethnic Media Service’s initiative on the census and now on the pandemic. We encourage our readers to be civically engaged and partner with local minority organizations to amplify social justice initiatives.

We have built strong alliances with Bay Area nonprofits for community-building efforts. 

Our CBO partners span diverse groups: East Palo Alto Center for Community Media (EPACCM), Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI), Ethnic Media Services (EMS), DingDing TV, India Community Center (ICC), LGBTQ support groups Parivar, among others.

Over the past three years, we have co-hosted Civic Leadership Forums to build civic leadership in Asian American communities. Over 1,000 students, community leaders, parents, and elected officials have participated in the forums and the videos and stories generated from these have reached 200,000 people in Silicon Valley. 

We have collaborated with community partners on Census 2020, and the Elections, understanding Black Lives Matter, sharing COVID resources, climate change information, vaccination efforts, and encouraging community members to vote in elections. 

Since 1987, India Currents has carved out a leadership role at the center of the ethnic media ecosystem in California and become a trusted brand and “go-to” hub for in-depth news and information on Indian Americans. We offer a successful blueprint for other local media outlets. Our insights have led the way on how nonprofit community leaders like us can innovate and deliver quality journalism in the digital ecosystem.

Most importantly, our work speaks for the Indian Americans of California. We showcase the diversity and discourse of our multi-layered community and bring their voice to the table at local initiatives, public forums, and local lawmakers on issues that matter.

What does India Currents Cover?

* Politics, aging, health care, education, environment, fiscal policy, housing, justice, elections.  

* We produce well-researched, heritage arts, comprehensive stories, explainers, in-depth projects, investigations, podcasts and videos, and election guides. All explore meaningful solutions.

* To increase public conversation and encourage public debate, we host public events with our media partners.

Why do we need an ethnic media site for the Indian American diaspora?

* Unfortunately, mainstream media does not always cover issues from the perspective of minority communities.

* Our key objective is to fill the void in the coverage of issues through a culturally sensitive lens. 

* We partner with ethnic news outlets and form community alliances in the state, including local news outlets, TV stations, radio channels, and community allies who depend on us for in-depth coverage and analysis to complement and support the work they are doing.  

How is India Currents Foundation funded?

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, we depend upon the generosity of a diverse group of individuals, along with community and other foundations for support.

To learn more contact Vandana Kumar at publisher@indiacurrents.com

India Currents is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News, which supports more than 400 independent news organizations in a new news network: nonprofit, nonpartisan, and dedicated to public service