38th Week- 26th February to 3rd March 2012
26th February - Mid-term papers of OM and CMIB were over till evening. I am trying to stop multi-tasking for achieving better concentration and productivity. Even if I do well or don't do well. I have realized that there are certain things that are important in life. I am trying to live as per them.
Patience, Curiosity, and Irreverence have always remained the guiding tools for learning. Knowledge with fear in the heart is a quality to despise. Hence, I am sharpening the courage for defiance as it will ultimately lead me in standing for something. If we don't take a stand for a cause in the protected academic institution, what are really our chances to face injustice bravely in the real world? Standing for something isn’t just about writing it down. It’s about believing it and living it.
27th February - IRV and REPP papers were over. Currently, the whole batch is on the verge of rapidly going to 'Tragedy of Commons' due to few free riders. Hoping to resolve the situation soon.
28th February - There was an introduction to Public Policy in the REPP course. Public policy is what governments choose to do or not to do. While looking at Indian government, there seems no serious accountability and willingness in translating the well-intentioned policies into tangible action. There seems no end to the disinvestment process of cash cows to raise capital. It poses a very serious question: Do we need privatization or more accountability?
In The Market System: What It Is, How It Works, and What to Make of It (2001), Lindblom eloquently quoted that - Market System is the best mechanism yet devised for creating and fostering wealth and innovation, it is not very efficient at assigning non-economic values and distributing social or economic justice.
There is an unspoken dictum in the heads of power holders that market as a mechanism is exempt from social and cultural norms and lies outside the bounds of the society. Believing that for-profits in search of business will voluntarily serve the public good is naive. There is a contradiction between the motives of a private company and societal obligations. Currently, the free market is assumed as a hybrid of public subsidy and private profit by a common man. NDA government tried to serve the economic and political benefits of smaller strata with flawed policies and the 'India Rising' slogan, they were kicked out of power soon. Even the emerging middle class supports the private sector, but the resistance from everyday citizens of India can't be suppressed. Only massive state violence can override the wishes of people.
Public policy schools in India
IIM Bangalore - http://hrm.iimb.ernet.in/cpp/index.html
IIPA New Delhi – http://www.iipa.ernet.in/
Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi - www.cprindia.org
National Institute for Public Finance and policy - www.nipfp.org.in
NIRD, IIM A, IIMC (group PPM), MDI, ISB, Jindal Univ, BIMTECH etc. Even, XIMB is listed as one of the four in Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_policy_schools
29th February - I gave a lot of thought to Rural Consumption and Production. Due to intervention of FMCG companies, there is an improvement in the life style of few people. But, that growth is related to a service sector and over a long period of time, promoting only rural consumption is a downward spiral. Without the opportunity of sustainable income, there will be the emergence of huge economic inequality. There is a dire need of capacity building, making credit facilities available and effective utilization of productive assets. Information, Access, and Capabilities are three key indicators to measure the strength of any farmer. There is already an increasing trend of movement of agricultural cultivators to casual laborers, which is much in contradiction of the self-employment policy promoted by the government. There is a clear evidence that self employed cultivator is moving into insecure and unorganized labour market. What happens now of the dream of the self-reliant village?
There is a need for funding for rural infrastructure and market development. There are so many Agricultural Mandi's that are unreachable There is an urgent need for intensive development of cottage industries and agricultural processing units with backward and forward market linkages. The chain in the supply and distribution network is highly distorted by too many middlemen. We often tend to measure supply chain efficiency without looking into value chain analysis that can measure relevance of the nod in the network. A very nice paper to understand future of rural markets is - The Future of Small Farms: New Directions for Services, Institutions and Intermediation - Colin Poulton, Andrew Dorward, Jonathan Kydd ;
Guest Lecture by Rajiv Surana
Rajeev Surana runs a consulting & professional services firm, Scinnovation Consultants Pvt. Ltd. based in Mumbai offering “idea protection to commercialization” solutions to its clients consisting of Incubators, Individual Innovators, Research Institutes & SMEs. He gave a guest lecture that revolved around IP rights, Patents, trademarks, and copyrights with a small part deviated towards rural innovations and ideas.
1st March - REPP: There was a screening of a The film provides powerful visual evidence of the enormous potential of NREGA and outlines the reforms required to help realize this potential. Order the film on this website.
NREGA Reforms: Building Rural India - Trailer
We have to remember that NREGA will not form an engine for growth by itself. It addresses inequality by state investment, not actual wealth and job creation. There is practice of rampant corruption in panchayats which has been a convenient excuse not to decentralise power and finances.
2nd March - We were told about CENDERET first time in the class. Centre for Development Research & Training [CENDERET], XIMB, was set up in October 1988 as the rural and social development wing to highlight the issues in rural and deprived sections of the society. In 1994, a lot of funds remained underutilized due to a lack of competent manpower. There were no NGO with sufficient capacity and human resource to take any watershed and Drought prone area project. There was capacity building exercise of NGO through 120 days training by CENDERET. There was massive preparation of 450 village plans with help of these NGOs in which 60-70% were accepted and overtaken by the government. Now all these NGOs are capable of talking project from various donor agencies to the government.
3rd March - There were lectures on CMIB & CID. And the weekends on a happy note.
