India, Feb. 5 -- Every donation box tells a story. Too often, that story is not one of compassion, but of convenience. From childhood, we are taught that charity is a virtue. But what we are rarely taught are the values that make it meaningful - empathy, respect and accountability. The result is evident: India's charitable ecosystem has increasingly become conflated with decluttering. In fact, mindfulness, which should be the guiding principle of all donations, is almost forgotten.

Acts of careless giving expose a psychological gap between the giver and the receiver. While donors imagine they are helping the less fortunate, the reality is often different and disheartening. I first encountered the cost of this delusion in our first year o...