From Madiba to Mabena: A tribute to Mandela Recently I happened to visit Pretoria for a conference on discourse on Innovations from Below. There were various viewpoints presented in the conference at UNISA [University of South Africa], a 140 year old Open University. Nelson Mandela was an alumni of this university. A large number of…
The inclusive development is not an obligation to be met, it is a strategy for growth and sustainability I meet many entrepreneurs to learn about the blend between business, benevolence and beauty. H.R. Gaikwad, founder of Bharat Vikas Group who started with eight lakh rupees and eight employees in 1997 and today has a turnover…
Lighting the life of the Children: celebrating diwali this way why not contribute what you wish to spend on crackers to social causes which make not just your life more meaningful but also that of others. Let me share how. If you find a cobra snake injured, what will you do? You might feel…
when we published articles on milk as a means of controlling viral disease, Indian scientists as usual ignored the evidence, now that The Economist has published news about mother’s milk being effective in hiv prevention, hopefully planners and science leaders will wake up, Ah! colonised minds, we missed two decades of possible comparative advantage incidentally,…
Can the mind of bureaucracy be reformatted? Recently while addressing the probationers who have just entered the civil service, I was very impressed with many ideas that they generated on the spot for redesigning services, sectors, and social context of various products we use. I have always realized that young people when they enter the…
32nd Shodh Yatra Punjab,28th December, 2013 to 2nd January, 2014 we pay tribute to the valiant efforts of Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal who mobilized local communities to clean the Kali bein river when state and the legal systems proved inadequate in the matter The next Shodh Yatra will bepursued in JalandharDistrict, Punjab, from 28th December…
what do we do with trees uprooted in odisha: “The high-velocity cyclone Phailin that hit Odisha about a week ago is estimated to have destroyed around 26 lakh trees in the state”. after the last super cyclone, the sp of jagatsingpur had written to us ( the letterw as published in honey bee newsletter) how…
Managing an Entrepreneurial surge: learning to replicate good ideas The national media obsessed as it is, with grand trivia and hero worship, a la Thomas Carlyle ( 1869); a series of very important policy innovations coming from south of India have been missed. I think, we need to underline their significance and create a…
Delivering public services in time to 35 million citizens? Karnataka has crated a global benchmark in terms of delivery of public services through the Sakala programme. Starting in 2012, the state has created a delivery system now covering 419 services promising a timely and satisfactory delivery of each service. Revenue, food, transport for driving license…
why should start-ups suffer so much in the decade of innovation During last two years, despite umpteen rounds of discussion, it was realized that the new India Inclusive Innovation Fund ( IIIF) would only invest in existing companies which were engaged in innovative products and services for serving poor people. No doubt, the poor people…