Are we aliens in our own World?

We are becoming more and more alienated in our contemporary society as the social evils, which we thought may happen only in un-civilized hamlets are regular practices here right under our nose and without even any attention from so called ‘creative’ media! When they are after political paparazzi, there are multiple miseries of common man which gets neglected.

When one of my friends went to Bihar to pursue his MBA after completing engineering, we all thought he’s mad! When he came back after a year on a vacation, we were eager to know about his experiences and as expected, it was virtually fitting every bit of our imagination and perception! He told that the exams were conducted on knife-points and there was absolutely no safety of life. Though the first point was very tempting for us, the second made us decide against going there…! However, my friend completed his MBA from there and he was safe & secure to that extent. He died of a sudden cardiac arrest few months back and it made me think what do you mean by safety of life??

I came across a group of teachers who are assigned with the duty of invigilation for the S.S.L.C exams at a particular school where we had installed a wind pump for lifting water from the well to the overhead tank under a scheme from Ministry of Non – Conventional Energy Sources. Though I was not a student of this school, I had been there several times on & off school time during my tenure as a member of a world bank aided Tribal Development Programme and we conducted several workshops in that place. We used to have great respect for that school as it was one among in the state border which had lot of tribal and under privileged students of the area. When I met these teachers recently, it was shocking for me to listen to horrifying stories about the same place which were similar to the Bihar stories I heard from my friend! It seems copying (especially from private streams) is very common and the invigilators who take action are victimized outside school and when the vigilance squad comes on visit, they throw their ‘bits’ to the corner and after they leave the place, the invigilators are asked to fetch it back?!

This narration by those horrified teachers is really instigating me to think that people who adore values and principle are becoming aliens in our society and leaves many questions un-answered?! Are we living in a banana republic? Where are we heading towards as a society with animal instincts and jungle rules? All these attribute to my earlier notes on the outburst of the marginalized, which will be a tragedy of the century for generations to come.  This also points towards the famous ‘20^th December 2012 (20 12 2012)’ theory and hope there will be movements to save the mankind!

Sensinomics

I’m not an economist! However, I believe in economics with sense, sensitivity and pragmatism to address a market gap. One sees market correction every now and then in the stock market and we all accept it without any questions?! When it comes to essential commodities, we (Consumers) and the producers (predominantly farmers) are at the mercy of the middlemen!

The media went ‘gaga’ over the proposed removal of FDI Cap in retail sector and one of the articles I read, referred this move as a major milestone towards controlling the food prices and attributes that to the utilization of  better systems and supply chain practices by the MNCs coming in from abroad! The article further went on to add that this move would help the farmers to get better prices as there would be direct procurement by these foreign retail giants…! This seems to be pure work of a sub – standard PR professional (Like Nira Radia), who buys over the media to create a conducive atmosphere for the Govt. to push through the reform in the favour of these MNCs! You can read the street smartness of the agency when they mention about safeguarding the interest of farmers (who had been a sentimental factor for all politicians to take advantage always in our country)!! It paints a picture that the saviors of farmers are coming from the west!!

Let us analyze each points with basic common sense and answers are very simple and it will reveal vested interests of the media in this aspect…

1)   FDI Cap removal will control the food prices:

This is absolute crap as no MNC will have any influence on the monsoons and agro – production of a country like ours, where we still depends on rain Gods for cultivation.

If the argument is that the MNCs can introduce contract farming for direct procurement, then it is possible by any of the Indian organized retail firms and it could have been promoted by now, with an integrated technology partnership programme to effectively improve the productivity as well as profitability. There is no necessity of foreign investment in this regard when Indian conglomerates are capable of investing in many MNCs outside India!

2)   Supply Chain efficiency will improve with the ‘rich’ experience of these companies:

Why our organized retail sector is not able to improve their efficiency now? Is it because our companies do not have this ‘rich’ experience?!

These questions point at the sad state of our SCM (Supply Chain Management) systems and the reasons behind it. When I had an opportunity to present a demonstration of a German “Enterprise Retail Solution” to one of the leading retail chain even before they launched their stores across the country, it was a revelation for me that an Indian company was so professional and serious about their business roadmap! The panel which was evaluating our software included some of the best paid retail consultants from Europe, USA and Middle East! In fact, we were evaluated by consultants from each formats of retail and in each discussion they were putting across 500+ scenarios to map and demonstrate! I'm sharing this incident to indicate that this ‘Rich’ experience can be hired, if required, and not necessarily should be through FDI…!

The fact of the matter is the enthusiasms of such corporates were dampened by the very Governments who now, sheepishly try to present MNCs as the saviors of the sector! Whatever may be the vested interest behind such manipulation, the reason behind the non – improvement of SCM systems is predominantly because of the unholy nexus between the ‘Agent – Criminal’ mafia in the markets and the 'Politicians'. This prevented every retailer from introducing improved systems and techniques as they are still forced to source the products from the wholesale agents of each region! There were multiple incidents where these goons were unleashed towards these retail outlets to pressurize them to source it from the conventional sources!

3)   Direct sourcing from the farmers:

This is another misinterpretation as initially, this was the original plan of every retailer present in the country  and it was sabotaged by the market agents’ mafia with the silent support of the politicians as they attacked the outlets to force the sourcing back to the conventional wholesale merchants. There were contracts signed between some farming groups and such retailers, which were cancelled due to such interventions!

Now, the Govt. should be responsible enough to answer the following questions…

1)   What is the perceived change that had occurred in the market to claim that by infusing FDI, we can empower farmers?

2)   What guarantee/ assurance the Government proposes to give these foreign institutions in this regard?

3)   Why the same support mechanism was not offered to the existing organized retail sector?

Though it looks complicated, the problem is simple…it is not the lack of ‘rich’ experience which triggered the price hike, instead it was a combination of inefficient systems, lower production and above all the artificial scarcity manipulated by these market agents, which caused the problem and the inefficiency of Government mechanism to crack down on these people kept the process of bringing down the prices so long…! Correlating this with the 'politicians – Market forces' nexus, people with common sense can understand the dynamics very well!

Well! I called this phenomenon as Sensinomics as this is what I request our super economists at the helm of power to understand before forming such critical policies!

The effect of the proposed release of FDI Cap in retail sector:

With a potential of a billion+ people with a major chunk of them in the mid income group and a GDP of average 8%, India is one of the juiciest markets in the World right now. As one of the articles couple of weeks back published in the same media attributed, the cautious opening of our markets has actually insulated our economy from most of the ill effects of the recession and the habit of savings had actually shielded our society from the distress and depression during these turbulent economic times. We are one among the very few countries who were least affected (except for the hype our media had created) and we should thank our conventional economic programme that we followed so far for the same.

When we have cap on the FDI in critical sectors, we restrict foreign investors from acquiring majority stakes in such firms and thus restricting them from having upper hand in policy making. This, in simple words means that there will be enough safety mechanism for ploughing back the money earned from this business in our economy rather than taking it away to other countries and Indian partners will have an upper hand in the board on such decisions.

If it was in the case of cryogenic engines (even for that we developed it ourselves after splitting with the Russians), it is understandable that with such a partnership, we will gain as there’s a huge saving in time in transferring/ acquiring the technology. But when it comes to retail, there are enough organizations inside our country, which can invest and run it here without any specific hitches. The expertise is available in plenty in the international market which can be hired and used to improve our systems and practices. To improve the situation, there are some major corrections to be made immediately as it is already late…

1)   There should be enough investments made in agriculture sector to attract youth into farming as a profitable business model.

2)   There should be intense and continuous training programme to empower farmers.

3)   A suitable participatory adaptation of technology need to be initiated to make farming less labour & climate intrinsic.

4)   There should be training on ‘Post Harvest Handling’ and facilitation centres with cold storages and enough infrastructure for the farmers to lean upon and resist middlemen’s exploitation.

5)   There should be a pragmatic programme on bringing in participatory research programme and introduction of precision farming with the focus of enhancing the productivity.

6)   There should be a Government appellate authority like Agro Production & Marketing Authority (APMA, in line with TRAI & IRDA) to proactively monitor and intervene in the market whenever necessary.

7)   Above all, the farmer should be educated and empowered to calculate the production cost and should be allowed to fix the prices for their product under the norms & limited controls induced by the above said agency.

8)   In brief, the illegal/ unethical intervention from the middlemen’s lobby should be prevented to safeguard the farmers as well as the consumers, equally.

The World is so small now and my intention is not to prevent any organization from entering here, but to provide equal opportunities to everyone and obviously the better ones will thrive and to provide an ideal scenario to thrive, enough precautions should be taken by the Government by setting up of APMA to effectively check ‘predatory’ practices in the sector. Otherwise, we will create another mess in the sector like what happened in 'Micro Finance' and wait for reaction from authorities after multiple mishaps, instead of being proactive! 

The Great Indian Circus

Last few months had witnessed several corruption charges against many politicians from various political parties across the country. For a change, there have been some cases against left wing parties as well!

As a most common citizen of India, I am surprised (or not surprised) at the fact that all these scams are breaking out after it had occurred and there’s no proactive action from any Government since ages…!

This brings out the following points which should be food for our thoughts…

1)     The scams happen deliberately without any fear of neither social nor judicial consequences as people behind such scams are veterans in their job and quite seasoned enough to use their positions and clout to cover it up!

2)       This also indicates at the fact that there shall be much more such scams which happened and got buried under the power of influential interventions.

3)     How many ever cases happen, how many ever commissions are engaged to enquire, nothing changes….?! In fact, these commissions & JPCs are additional burden to the exchequer! Now, there’s a jumbo JPC announced for the probe into the 2G scam…? Why these eyes wash? In fact, a survey conducted by the Times of India on whether the JPC will nail the culprits, over 70% responded negative…! This reiterates my point.

4)     Every rupee spent by the middle class (remember the rich and the poor are untouched because rich always had ways to cover up and the poor never had to pay taxes) is actually hard earned and I feel so sorry that all these (Self Inclusive) who religiously pay their taxes are fooled by such actions from these insensitive Governments and the politicos…!

5)   More over, the scams, which had been unearthed are just tip of the ice berg and there may be a scam behind every other Government expenditure!

We boast ourselves as the largest democracy and as a matter of fact we are sitting on top of a boiling volcano thinking that nothing will happen to us! The ‘Jasmine’ revolution had proved that the toughest of the states can be in trouble and it is obvious that there may be a ‘Red Rose’ revolution which may hit our country also, if our Governments, Politicians and the bureaucrats are not sensitive towards the issues of our middle class, which is amongst the largest in the World. No one should under estimate the power it can generate, if woken up..! There were early signals during the post 26/11 attack when people lashed out at the politicians and ministers for their insensitive comics; they had exhibited during the crisis hours. Two Home Ministers (Central and State) and a Chief Minister lost their jobs during that time and number of politicians from various parties were under fire for their irresponsible comments. The irony of our country is that most of them were re-instated at different levels eventually and this shows the Government’s incapability to understand the sensitivity of the people! If they don’t learn from the past and amend their ways, their over confidence on people’s short memory is going to be a fatal error in near future as they will be forced to face dire consequences and it will not be harmful just for these illiterate, cunning and uncouth political species, but for the country as a whole! I had mentioned this in one of my earlier articles published immediately after the 26/11 attack as a reminder to each one of us, who can suggest to those connected with any of us, who are in the ‘business’ of poli‘tricks’!!

However, the abuse of power kept on increasing and it is in such a level that these fools do not realize the danger waiting in the corner?! India is a young country and youth of this nation are becoming more & more impatient, day by day! Of late, I had seen some realization from some of young MPs about this fact and it becomes their duty/ responsibility to be the change agents.

All these divisions conceived, created and successfully manipulated in the names of regions and languages, by those politicians, whose political career had come to an end otherwise, may take us back to centuries behind, when we had multiple kingdoms and counties fighting with each other and made it easy for foreign powers to invade our country many times! We need to visualize the danger ahead and act to resist such deterioration as in the new age, the invasion happens under multiple disguises of geo – political designs..! I request every reader of this article to read through and between the lines written here to understand and imagine the threats ahead…!

Politics, Corruption, Society and the practices

Couple of days back, I had seen a current affair update, which suggests a reform in political fund raising citing examples of the spread of scams getting unearthed these days. The Times of India, Hyderabad edition carried an ‘Open Letter from the Youth of India’ addressed to Ms. Sonia Gandhi, constructed by Chetan Bhagat, which was also pointing at the expenses of running a political outfit and suggested a transparent system of funding so that these compulsions for impulsive corruption can be eradicated. More over politics should become an interesting profession for educated/ professional youth to enter into, so that it should compensate the efforts of a politician’s services.

I had mentioned a clear thought on the same ground in one of my earlier articles (Our Pseudo Culture & Politics) in this blog and I had categorically mentioned about the disgusting hypocrisy, we as a society exhibit when it comes to politics & morality! Before blaming all ‘Rajas’ and ‘Sukhrams’, each one of us need to look at ourselves for a self-analysis! We don’t mind bribing anybody for getting through our motives and when it comes to an issue, we will hide all that and criticize the corrupt system in length & breadth!! It is actually still more pseudo show, when it comes to morality…! We don’t mind if anybody does anything unethical with a cover and we will have multi-channel discussions on somebody who got caught in the cross fire of the king makers!! Do you think these Ministers are the only culprits behind any scam? Have you ever heard about the former telecom minister, any time before he was made a minister? Prior to his ministerdom, how many from Tamil Nadu knew that which constituency he represented? I mean to say that these insignificant individuals are only pawns in the hands of many ‘Larger than life’ King Makers!! We as a society will make huge noise over somebody appears with his would be wife and discuss it as if he had done a crime and we would conveniently ignore the facts about many big time ‘immoral rogues’ of tinsel town and those politicians who have multiple wives, when our law terms having multiple partners as illegal! We don’t have a problem…! Why there’s a selected interpretation on such aspects as per our convenience? The answer is simple…we just don't think and the media can trigger and drive this mass euphoria about anything, these days!!

To get rid of the embrace of these series of scams & corruption, we as a society need to get out of our hippocratic thought process and pseudo practices. There should be a reform in the political process by limiting the number of political parties and there should be a legal fund raising process and a practical, contemporary and transparent expenditure policy. These are not rocket science to understand, as it had been successfully implemented in many other countries with robust economies. When we make such a huge hue & cry of the looted money parked in foreign banks and tax havens, we should also realize that parts of these funds re – appear during our elections in ‘black’ formats. As rightly suggested by Chetan Bhagat, we need to be pragmatic about the election expenditure and cannot live in 1970’s expense portfolios and close our eyes to say it is completely dark everywhere!

Every one of us should contribute towards this by correcting our own thoughts and practices to avert the big danger awaiting all of us ahead, if this social beast is not tamed. You witness the sea of changes across the world and with geo-political forces working in tandem that can sweep our nation as well sooner than later! I call upon every politician to understand the danger and act sensible to refine & reform as one can’t fool all the people, all the time!

Product Support – Two awesome experiences!

I would like to share some awesome product support experiences of mine with all of you…

Let me start with the recent experience I had from Logitech, who sells a number of computer accessories/ gadgets and peripherals. I bought a wireless mouse and Keyboard combo from one of the local dealers and within few days, I lost the USB dongle which receives wireless signals from both the devices and I was forced to keep both mouse and keyboard aside as they don’t function without this receiver, which needs to be inserted in the USB drive of the system. I was little upset and tried to source it from the vendor who supplied it and the blunt answer was that it will not be available as the receiver was uniquely created for these combo products with the serial number. I went to Logitech website and explained my helplessness.

Within 12 hours, I received a mail from their Australian support centre assuring me of a replacement and asking me to confirm the product information (Serial Number, Product Code, Model, etc.) and on confirming the same I received an acknowledgement with the approximate processing time. I was excited and after few days, as I couldn’t hold on much, I had sent a reminder enquiring about the status and received a reply next day, stating that the part had been already shipped before two days and likely to reach anytime next week! I received the courier exactly in 2 more days without any fuss…! No chaos, no follow up with the courier, no address checks, nothing….! The Courier was UPS...! Hats off to Logitech support team…they had won me over! I would suggest every one of you to follow the following process to get maximum support for your product from the manufacturer….

1)  Keep Your invoices (Though not necessary in all the cases)

2)  Register the product in the manufacturer’s website.

3)  Send an email through the ‘contact us’ page of the website.

4)  You are 100% likely to get the solution.

Don’t ever call the call centres and toll free numbers as the people at such centres, many a times, don’t even understand your problem and end up complicating issues…!

Another classic example of customer support was from ‘Transcend’. I had a 2 GB Transcend USB drive with lifetime warranty and it stopped getting detected after few months of usage. When I contacted, they asked me to send it to their local logistic center (which was in Mumbai) by courier. They acknowledged the receipt of the product and then intimated me that within 20 working days they will replace it. Exactly on 11^th day I received the dongle back with a DD inside the cover for `50/-, which was the courier charges I had incurred for sending the defective item!! It was so intuitive of them and I wanted to shout the same to the world so that more people get to know about these levels of service and support. India Inc need to learn a lot from such incidents and I don’t want to spoil this well inspired article with my experience with much high value Indian products…?!!

Simplify our lives…!

In last few weeks, I have been hearing about the losses of precious lives of some of my very close friends and relatives, which makes me re – look at the life styles of mine again and again, as I have been advocating this self analysis for every individual to ratify their actions and of course, to take corrective actions, whenever necessary.

It was one of my very close business associate’s turn first to leave us forever, without even intimating any one of us…! My friend had a conference call with him at 10.30 AM and fixed up a meeting with him for another friend at 4.30 PM and close to 11.40 AM, we get a call that he’s no more with us….?! Hope you can imagine the shock it gave us and we are still not in a position to digest this fact. He had a huge cardiac arrest and died on the spot!

A few days later, I received a news that one of my batch mates and very close friend died in an accident. However, later I came to know that too was a cardiac arrest and he leaves behind his wife and daughter, who’s just 10 years old…?! What I could do was, as part of my deep felt sorrow, mourn by fasting for a week as a protest of my conscience to the Almighty!

A week later, I received the next tragic news that my very close relative dies of cancer and as a matter of fact, I had met her exactly three months back and she was in the pink of her health. We talked for long and I played with her extra ordinarily bright 8 year old daughter for quite some time! I just can empathize with the pain of this lovely child and her father and blame the cruelty of the fate….!!

I received another tragic news about a friend of mine, who is known to me for last three years who leaves his 2 year old child and wife…! It makes me think again and again to be grounded and reiterates the need of making our lives simple and happy!! I know it is easy to preach, but very difficult to practice…! However, if we intend to do so with determination, it is not impossible!!

I would like to quote an example of this family, who resides in a single room servant quarter next to my office building. When I open the venetian blinds of my windows beside my chair in the cabin, I see them and I keep looking at them for long as it has always been inspiring to observe them….! The family includes 5 members, Father, Mother and 3 boys (Approximate ages must be 16, 12 and 10 years). In the last few months, we have been working till 3 AM in the morning and that gave me an opportunity to observe them more….!

The first thing anybody will notice is the television, just across the door, which is switched on forever!! Even at 1 AM, I had seen it working…!! But since they started living in this one room quarter, I had never seen anybody shouting or quarrelling with each other…! I felt it is very unusual for a family from such socio economic back grounds, for the very reason that life is a huge challenge to them and they are roughened by the practical hardships of life!! Having worked with lots of women groups of such back grounds, I could look at the world from their perspective! But, for a change, it was all different in this family’s case! Their lifestyle was far superior and still with the flavor of village they come from, which we all miss a lot, though we pretend to reiterate that we don’t …?!

Only once I had seen the lady of the house raising her voice to the eldest child regarding studies…! Otherwise I could see that there was no pressure on children on home works or studies and on weekends (mostly on Saturdays) I could see all the children gathering on a mat spread in front of the house with open books to read/ write. I remembered my golden child hood and it was nostalgic to see these kids dancing on a rainy day in the small corridor in front of their house…! They were just back from the school and I was enjoying the looks of one of the first rains of the season! These kids came drenched and removed their clothes and threw into the house in a hurry and started dancing in the rain with excitement!! It was really nostalgic to watch that and it reminded me of my trips to school during the monsoon showers through the paddy fields and the red soiled water flows from the nearby hillock…! In those showers, we used to get soaked completely and used to make lots of paper boats and follow them on those small red rivers alongside the metal roads…!

Every time I see these kids, it reminds me of the denial we do to our next generation…be it in the name of pollution, be it in the name of hygiene or all crap reasons we had borrowed from the west! Did you ever analyze the end result? We make them couch potatoes and highly vulnerable to any viral attack as their immune system had already affected…! It is not that we should be ignorant about the modern day facts of pollution, but then there should be some equation for our young ones with the Mother Nature. I recently came across somebody talking about walking in the mud path with bare foot as a remedy to arthritis and he was addressing an elite crowd! This is what happens when we blindly adapt to western crap and realize late in life that we went all the way in the wrong direction.

We need to re-design our lifestyles so much that the basic fact of harmonizing with the nature should be kept intact and our younger ones should always be in sync with the Mother Earth. Again, I know it is difficult for everyone to pursue this, but if we are determined, there are multiple ways to make it fun for the next generation.

The lesson I learn from all the above news is that we should simplify our lifestyles as it will enhance our own life span as well as create a positive environment to live in for us and for all those around us. It is not impossible (if not complex!) to practice it, if we are seriously casual about it. I have been advocating this to those who are around me about the emptiness of unnecessary arguments and enmity as we tend to forget the objectives and goals in the process of these unnecessary arguments! Always, validate whether these arguments are worthy for moving forward or it is hampering it?!! 9 out of 10 times, you will get an answer from your inner self that it is hampering your objective of moving forward...!!

Micro Finance Menace!

In one of my earlier article (NREGA and Implementation Blues), I had mentioned about the menace of microfinance in short and now, few months later MFIs are the sensational news in the media for all the wrong reasons!

As usual, this is not a surprising challenge to the Governments as it was spreading its wings gradually in various pockets of the country. Our Governments have never been proactive and as a standard practice, wait for mishaps/ disasters to reciprocate and act!! The super economists of our country (including the whiz ministers) should have foreseen the magnitude and potential of growth of these institutions and took enough care to ensure the safety mechanism by introducing an apex body under RBI in line with TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) and IRDA (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority).

However, before taking up a campaign against all the MFIs, we need to understand the actual socio economic conditions which make the business model of MFIs lucrative…!

• The lack luster attitude and inefficient approach of macro finance corporations (All banks and financial institutions).

• The alcoholism amongst the BPL families and the financial impact it makes on these families.

• Common man’s needs and the necessity of small credit for various requirements of life.

• Common man’s inaccessibility to the Macro finance Corporations (All Nationalised, Scheduled and Private Sector Banks), due to various restrictions and regulations which distances these reliable customers from savings and the benefits of it…!

• The grip of money lenders on these marginalized families.

Now, all these socio economic conditions make the right combination of manure for a Micro Finance Institution to establish and grow well!

I know this gentleman who is a chronic Bachelor from Harward University, who was inspired by the speech of Dr. Younis and went to Bangladesh to understand the Grameen Bank model and on his way back, he resigned his job at Harward to start an organization which intended to help women groups with small credits for establishing micro enterprises for sustainable development and self reliance!

It was even difficult for my friend to open an account in the local nationalized bank and he literally struggled to establish himself amongst his target beneficiaries. He also had to undergo lots of hardships to adapt the Grameen Bank System for Indian scenario…! However, in 2005 when I was invited for their 5^th Year anniversary programme, I realized that this small organization had grown to achieve 20+ Crores turn over and about 1500 families were beneficiaries of the organization! This achievement was because of the hard work he had put in with lots of vision and nerves of steel!!

I remember he had a problem initially with some of the local politicians (from various parties), who used to send a list of names with recommendations to include them in the creditors list. I strongly believe that it was his nerves of steel, which resisted such interventions and made it mandatory to not to have any recommendations as an eligibility criteria for availing credits! Then there was a scathing attack by some of these self claimed local leaders and as a matter of fact, their point of contention was also similar to the recent one at Andhra Pradesh that the interest rate was very high and the beneficiaries are looted by this MFI..! There was some local bandh also organized by them!! However, what happened was that this entire women groups who were the beneficiaries (It was about 200 families at that point of time) had organized a support march and there ended the matter!! He brought out a transparent interest portfolio to make the public aware what is interest he’s paying to his investing banks and the cost involved in servicing the beneficiaries.

This organization’s growth was purely based on the following basic principles they follow…

1)  The eligibility criteria are not compromised under any circumstances.

2)  The first credit in a group is extended only after the group dynamics is established well among the group members.

3)  The identification of the right micro enterprise and getting some of the best professionals as resource persons for the projects to impart training for the staff and then to the BG (Beneficiary Group) to make them capable of running it on its own.

4)  Persistent analysis of each beneficiary group and to hand hold them till they become capable of handling their finances on their own.

5)  Keep up the principle to micro monitor the BG for giving them directions and not to micro manage!

6)  Refinancing options for the micro enterprises are given depending on the performance and to change course to adapt to a new variances in the enterprise and vision.

Apart from all these, the BG Members’ social financial health is monitored and intervened whenever necessary to correct and support to get going! This was possible because the decision making is centrally controlled and there were no intentions of profit making other than fulfilling the expenditures and salaries for everyone including the CEO and the honorarium for board members. However, whatever margins made go to the seed capital and roll back to the expansion schemes.

I had helped identifying the right micro enterprises for some  institutions, who operates in the north east region of India with lots of sincerity and transparency and was invited to be on the board of some institutions from Srilanka and Hongkong as well.

Now, coming back to the current scenario, it is entirely different and most of the MFIs mushroomed are re-incarnation of old time money lending/ finance companies and tried to fit into shoes of NGOs and they lack the actual vision, purpose or sensitivity of the BGs and their needs. This, added with the unhealthy competition lured the BG Families into a debt trap, which was an obvious turnout of the mushrooming number of MFIs since late 90s, which lost the credentials and ethics gradually, thanks to governments’ lackluster attitude towards the oncoming menace! The end result being the issues what we are seeing now and it is going to continue until the government form a very strong apex body to control and audit norms of functioning for these Institutions.

There are few immediate steps to be taken by Governments to arrest this surge….

1)  Curb the interest rate of the seed capital given to credible MFIs at par with the country’s PLRs and block any other funding patterns from inside or outside the country.

2)  Fix maximum interest rate tariff (MIRT) for lending by MFIs.

3)  Conduct strict audits with the help of third party firms and take stringent decisions on MFIs.

4)  Create a pattern of self appraisal for each MFIs with feedback from their respective BG’s perspective.

5)  Create performance awards and acknowledgements with social audits.

6)  Create a body to enquire into any unethical practices by these institutions.

To conclude, if the government does not act fast on this, there will be more disasters waiting in the growth curve ahead!

Marginalization in modern society

It was shocking to read Shobha Dey’s article on clear polarization of communities in Mumbai, post 26/11 and it is to the extent that even premium educational institutions deny admissions to the students from a particular community!!

This polarization and the subsequent marginalization of a group/ community was evident in early 60s in rural India, but predominantly between the rich & poor classes and this led to outbursts and fights for the marginalized in many parts of the country by virtue of Naxalism and other pro – poor ideologies! Even Phulan Devi and her contemporaries of Chambal were classic examples of the outcomes of these marginalizations and suppressions of communities, families or individuals for generations! However, it could not last long because our visionary politicians, who preserved the values of democracy to involve everyone in the democratic process and the Country had a roller coaster ride on inclusive growth as there were multiple political forces pulling the threads from different points to keep an equilibrium. However, the globalization brought greater pace in growth and eventually the controlled economy begun to open up and in place of the Controlled economy, there came market driven economy! Though there was a great surge in growth, it also created a huge divide between the rich and the poor!!

Meanwhile, there was a phenomenal leap in the economy (How good that was for the common man is still debatable…), the divide became widely evident in the rural parts of India and this eventually landed up in marginalization and exploitation of the economically backward classes…!! Instead of addressing the issue to bring the divide closer, our modern day opportunistic, uncouth and short thinking politicians used these groups to maintain them as vote bank classes by further dividing them in terms of religions, communities and regions for their petty benefits of power!

This has led a society to polarize dangerously with more & more classifications and sub groups of divisions, which is dangerously lethal, if not controlled! Our competing media also played a major role in sensationalizing non issues and by associating themselves with the hidden agenda of various PR agents, influential power centres and business houses!!

The marginalization of every group or community will definitely lead to an outburst over a period of time and with the modern day dynamics, it could be instigated by many factors and there are enough hate groups with clinically accurate agenda waiting for using these ‘on the platter’ opportunities for extracting easy advantage!

Accepting the fact that “Rama Rajya” is no more possible in the turbulent modern times, my only call to each one of us as individuals, families and communities, is to empower our young ones with an unbiased thought process, where he/ she should not take up arms under the order or influence of the species of social miscreants, who spit only hate venom in the name of caste, creed religion and regions! To achieve this, every child in every family should be sensitized towards these social evils and their thought process should be immunized to challenge every external influence by activating the consciences of each one of them!

The System of Corruption and Helplessness of Common Man

Another news item in the paper inspired me to write this….! Last week, I saw a news that the Gram Panchayat (GP) Secretary of Pudussery Panchayat (This is an Urban Panchayat situated in Palakkad district) got caught red handed by Vigilance while accepting bribe from a proposed small scale industrialist. The Kanjikode New industrial area in Palakkad district partially falls under this GP and as a matter of fact, there are hardly any new industry commenced in recent years….!!

This news reminds me of another incident! One of my friends, who works in the capacity of Deputy Secretary in a GP (Name not disclosed deliberately), recently went on a long leave due to the pressure from the GP secretary to budge himself to accept bribe and pass certain bills which are highly manipulated…! My friend was not willing to budge to the offers and threats subsequently, but found it quite difficult to sustain in the office as he had no support!

In a moment of frenzy, he called me and asked for suggestion and I had asked him if he could verify the scope of work executed before passing the bill and gave him a case study like below and sought him answer before suggesting a solution….

“ Suppose, originally the estimated cost of the work is Rs.100/- and the inflated bill is for Rs.500/-, you shouldn’t mind sanctioning it in the current corrupt system, provided you get some assurance on the fact that Rs.100/- had been spent as per the plan and there’s no compromise in the quality of the work..! ”

Though this is not the ideal solution to be suggested, this is the only ‘work around’ solution practically possible in this corrupt system!

However, his answer was very complex and he told that though he is the one to sign the passing orders, he doesn’t have any authority to assure that the work is executed without compromising the quality, because it is checked and authenticated by somebody else (the so called technical department), who are also a part of the nexus…!! This is the point where I could empathize with his helplessness and asked him to go ahead with leave application as he had 180+ days of earned leave available with him!!

The corruption in our society is in such heights that these incidents are happening when there are huge debates going on in the media on the magnitude of the corruption in organizing the Common Wealth Games!! People are least bothered or just do not care about any of these developments as they all know that nothing much happens even if caught! Instead, acquire more money so that portion of it can be used to set you free in such occasions!!

This is shocking and disgusting! I used to draft out some pragmatic solutions to various issues whenever I come across and used to have that pride in myself about my ability to solve issues! Suddenly, I’m brought down to earth by the incapability of my thought process to bring about a solution and when I tried to put myself in his position, it was really paining…!! Moreover, he would be forced to return to the same dirt after completion of him leave period and face the same music again…?!!

The only solution to this cancer is removal of that part from our system, which in democratic terms, should be a rigorous punishment to those without any compromise through the law of the land, which may definitely require some additional legislation to make it tough for the tainted..! Then only a gradual change in the mindset of the people will happen and which will, in turn bring back the courage to fight..!

Having written this, I would also like to point out at the fact that there is a necessity to analyze the root cause of the corruption in our country as well and we as a society and the Governments need to interfere on other aspects of life, such as cost of education, cost of essential commodities and cost of health management to list a few…!! I believe a vigilant control over these very primary citizen rights will, to a definite extent, eliminate the unhealthy greed (need) to demand bribe from the common man!!

National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme – Vision & Implementation Blues…!!

Few days back I read an article in the front page of Times of India on an alarming fact….National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme makes liquor lobby richer?!!

Initially, I thought that it would be another scam in this country of corruption, but when I went through the article, it was definitely a thought provoking one..! The report says that the rural folks who started getting the guaranteed income, had started spending more on Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) and reach home empty handed…! Liquor lobby had given higher bids for license as they are keen and happy on grabbing this opportunity!

This is one among many sad stories in the so called Indian development cycle of last 60+ years, thanks to our Air Conditioned offices of the planning boards, planning commissions and high flying Babus. Many of our bureaucrats hail from influential families and they are hardly sensitive towards the lifestyles of our rural public. Many of them had acquired positions by taking advantage of the quota system based on their community..! If you conduct an audit you can easily find out except a very brilliant few, many of them are there by taking advantage of scientifically wrong representation systems, though they were neither eligible nor weak in any respect.

Coming back to the issue, the Govt. move to provide guaranteed employment to the rural public was one of the dynamic decisions of ages and welcomed by one and all. Every serious and sincere citizen of  India, who looks forward to inclusive growth had visualized this as a legendary move towards such a goal, but our defunct planning and implementation ‘legends’ left enough loop holes in the entire programme, which directly or indirectly encourage different kinds of social evils at different parts of the country…!

Every company launches products after extensive market research and after checking & understanding the real requirement of the targeted users/ consumers. Can anyone refer to a single Govt. scheme which was introduced after such an extensive home work? They neither have the habit of studying what matters for the beneficiaries nor they adopt any scientific method to find the development gap..? These social evils arising out of such schemes are the classic examples of the lackluster attitude of our planning folks …! As per a World Bank survey conducted as early as in 2000 – 2001, over 70% of the rural communities who belonged to BPL, were under the grip of money lenders and their abuses..! Of late, there were mushrooming ‘Micro Finance’ organizations who took the debt over from these abusive money lenders. Though there are still some exceptionally good such micro finance organizations, many NBFCs have formed NGOs to operate their agenda as the interest rates they charge are no better than the money lenders!! Of late, the multiplicity of such organizations led to unhealthy competitions between these organizations and guided beneficiaries towards a multiple debt trap, which resulted in suicides in certain areas and thus inviting Govt. interference and regulations….!

However, there are a few such organizations which have been doing extremely admirable job in empowering micro entrepreneurs by constant micro monitoring (not micro managing) and by hand holding them till they become successful. In the process, they have re-financed them multiple times to achieve self sustenance!! This contrast between these organizations is a classic case study of the importance of understanding the unique nature and sensitivities of various rural communities to make them succeed and as a result to achieve the actual objectives of the programme.

My experience with coconut farm labourers in the Kerala – TN border in Palakkad district of Kerala is that such people are vulnerable to financial exploitation primarily due to alcoholism of husbands and the end sufferers are the women folk who are abused and misbehaved at, by the money lending lobbies. As a matter of fact, the average earnings of a male used to be Rs.150/- per day and not even a single penny reaches home as they spend everything in liquor – be it toddy, arrack or IMFL..?! When I was working close with them during a state poverty eradication mission project, I made a scheme, where I used to pay these guys only Rs.50/- per day and release the balance payment on Saturdays directly to the women folk! This had fetched double result as the absenteeism became almost nil as the women folk took extra care to send these guys to work and they could resist the exploitation of money lenders!!

As a next step, I could strike a deal with some rice mill owners to supply rice at the miller’s rate (which used to be about 20 – 30% less than the market prices) to these people as it used to be a huge weekly off take for him. This eradicated starvation of the children and women of these households as good quality rice was always available at home…! We used to make the payment from the accrued balance of their earnings and they get an additional discount from the miller..!

I quoted this experience here to reiterate my conviction on the need for our planning ‘Bureaucrats’ to understand the practical needs and social evils existing in each part of our country apart from the general socio – economic background of each place. A carpet policy shall be at the macro level and a fine tuned adaptation needed at the micro levels for implementing each programme. If the authorities don’t do a social audit and take corrective action, the NREGA will become another such scheme which may disrupt the harmony of existing social system by encouraging the liquor mafia which is waiting in the corner restlessly calm, salivating to suck the blood of these poor households …!!