Diary of a Rural Manager!

29th Week - 25th December to 31st December 25th December-   A day dedicated in the library for preparation of the upcoming exam. There is an inspiring talk by Pradeep Kashayp, CEO & Founder, MART at a TEDx event at Hyderabad (on 'Creating an Endearing Organisation - The MART story' . He been advocating entrepreneurship courses for the business school and I taught courses in XIM- Bhubaneswar in 1993 called ‘Start your own business’ . XIMB was the second institution after IIMA which had this course. Now most of the B- schools have entrepreneurship courses. MART had also developed 3M model that is an innovative approach to initiating micro enterprises based on the three tenets of micro finance, micro markets and micro planning. I was also reading about legendary management thinker Peter Drucker . In a 1984 essay he persuasively argued that CEO pay had rocketed out of control and implored boards to hold CEO compensation to no more than 20 times what the rank and f...

28th Week - 18th December to 24th December 18th December-  I again visted to the same village with more bonding and enthusiasm. While talking to villagers, I was overwhelmed by their efforts to overcome difficulty of credit, regular income, irrigation and education. Despair is frightening at this situation when you love the people but placed in the system you despair of. Farmers were poor but they were trying to cope their life with dignity and hope. They have been cheated on the development projects before and still they were helping us with full enthusiasm. They are to be admired not pitied. The field part of RLLE was over. This one month experience was a memorable one. I felt strongly that  the strength of India lies in the resilience of poor not the money power of Indian middle class.  Without the support of such agricultural workforce, the great Indian middle class bubble would have busted long back. I finished remaining day work and started journey for one ...

27th Week - 11th December to 17th December 11th December - PRA done at Hinjerpenth at Nandapur block in Koraput district. Progress is an illusory term used in the development projects. That was the crux of the learning that I got working there. 12th December - PRA done at Renga Village in Simliguda block. This village was a prosperous one and caste division was visible to an outsider also. There was great difficulty for us in gathering people come from all hamlets together for FGD (Focussed Group Discussion). Me and MM were also misjudged initially as the agents of mining companies during survey. We have to clear our project mission and our background to them for tuning. 13th December - The remaining PRA tools were applied at Renga Village in Simliguda block. A lot of information was extracted in excess of our project to get an overview of the people mindset and village level conditions. Still, I was very careful in not giving any sort of political overtones in rapport buildi...

26th Week - 4th December to 10th December 4th December - I attended the meeting for the assessment of our RLLE project at CTCRI Bhubaneswar. We were well prepared but the data was in hard copy. Overall, a good show at the end of the day. We are advised not to interfere in the political and caste problems of the village/region. I read about Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act in  Swaminomics article  by economist SA Aiyar as it is related to the recent political heating of proposed Foreign direct investment (FDI) in the fast-growing retail sector. 5th December - The whole day passed in the training of the Community Participatory Rural Appraisal (CPRA) tool at CTCRI. The training was of 3 hours but the financial estimation for next 15 working days took a lot of the time. 6th December -   I didn't go to the training due to a cold and lack of sleep. I am reading, again and again, an article 'Youthpal bill' by Rashmi Bansal who is making emphas...

25th Week - 27th November to 3rd December 27th November - I changed the old costly hotel to a cheap one. Lot of Condoms were previously used in the room when it was cleaned in front of me ! I learned that Cigarettes, Liquor and Tea have strong sales distribution network. It was an off day. 28th November - There is no photo taken in the field trip of poverty and hunger as I didn't want to glamourize the poverty. I am travelling between mountains and rice fields. Tobacco chewing is seen in both gender. There is unavailability of mobile network of airtel and vodafone . Only BSNL and Reliance has better outreach here. Accessibility of mobile network is there ;to block level and ;on highways only. There are no signals at GP (Gram Panchayat) level. Naxal affected block is identified for risk mitigation in the data collection through unofficial sources. 29th November - Government officials are cooperative but the pace of work is quite slow here. The brand name of XIMB wor...

24th Week - 20th November to 26th November 20th November - I woke up early for SKYPE meeting with a scientist at IPC. There were classes on Sunday. RMAX election. The election revealed one more basic fact about group behaviour. People don't like monopoly of a subgroup in a close community. The popularity meter affects the deserving candidate due to democratic nature of the elections. 21st November - Not selected in Summer Internship of another company after GD round. I need to improve my communication skills and a lot of introspection is needed in the career strategy. One job opportunity was told to us by our program coordinator : PMRDFs . The Ministry of Home Affairs has identified 60 districts of the country as Left Wing Extremism (LWE) districts. The Government of India has launched a special programme in these districts called Integrated Action Plan (IAP). PMRDFs (Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellows Scheme)will basically function as development facilitators,...

23rd Week - 13th November to 19th November 13th November : Sunday evening with Lucky Ali. A happening end of the leisure day. 14th November : "A person's a person, no matter how small" - Dr. Seuss, author . I learned this lesson today but don't remember where. 15th November : We presented CCD (CAFE COFFEE DAY) in marketing class and comes unscathed of any negative criticism. ADM lecture was good. Most stupid questions are those that are never asked. It was a really good quote from Gaurish Manerkar. 16th November : People don't know how to use mail. That can only I say now on public forum. Otherwise a regular day. 17th November : It was last class of ITM and PROJM. A happy end of trimester is coming soon. Learned about Brian Wasnik and Duncan J. Watts. Duncan J. Watts (born 1971) is a principal research scientist at Yahoo! Researcher and the author of the book Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. I am producing here his famous article in ...