Diary of a Rural Manager!

Previous Posts: Vocational Orientation and Counseling in Skill Development and Youth Mobilization Process in Skill Development can be accessed here. At present, developed countries don’t have the demographics to support their labor market and will need to depend on the rest of the world.  India has a working population of 400.7 million with a thriving education sector. India’s demographic dividend can be leveraged to meet the requirements of developed countries across diverse sectors. For the last 30 years or so, India’s youth have been part of the workforce across the Middle East, Canada, and the United Kingdom.   Yet the proportion of formally skilled workers in India is extremely low, at 4.69% of the total workforce, compared to 24% in China, 52% in the US, 68% in the UK, 75% in Germany, 80% in Japan, and 96% in South Korea.  Hence, the skills ecosystem should not only cater to the existing Indian industry requirements but should have a definite room for the int...

India is among the top three global economies in the number of digital consumers. With 560 million internet subscriptions in 2018, up from 238.71 million in 2013, India is the second-largest internet subscriptions market in the world. [1] The Government of India runs large-scale benefits and subsidy programs for its citizens.  To ensure accurate targeting of the beneficiaries, digital verification to eliminate duplicates, ghost recipients, and fraud. Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) was started on 1st January 2013. DBT is utilized to eliminate losses and inefficiencies in the disbursement of benefits and subsidies across wages, food, fertilizer, cooking gas, power, and other areas. Direct Benefit Transfer is already showing the changing landscape of the government-to-citizen (G2C) payments system. Requirements To further expand the reach of such digital payment programs, banking infrastructure needs to be enhanced by ensuring sufficient bank branches, banking correspondents, the post ...

“Never invest in a business you cannot understand.” - Warren Buffett Experience is a bad teacher as it gives the test before lessons. I have invested last year amid the SENSEX meltdown ( Portfolio in Aug 2020 ) and ( My Investment Universe ). The wealth was created in the bear market (60% upsurge). I have tried to document personal decisions and convictions from the experience in the equity market. Any stock market is driven by herd mentality and kept afloat by confidence. The system is inherently a closed-feedback loop. Hence, sharing experiences matters. My investment philosophy is really simple: invest in great businesses. My diligence is also focused on finding the sources of the competitive advantages of these companies, their track record of dealing with technological disruptions, and the wisdom of their capital allocation decisions. Lessons 1. The long-term target is to own 10 to 20 stocks in the portfolio. I have trimmed down the portfolio from 34 to 21 stocks. No individua...

A few days ago, I read a blog post ( Understanding Collective ) and a working paper ( The current and potential role of self-help group federations in India ) on the SHGF (Self Help Group Federation).  I have the privilege of working with Chaitanya and the NRLM program for promoting community-based institutions.  I am sharing my insights from reading literature and working with SHGF. This was long overdue with the promise made to Dr. Sudha Kothari madam.  A brief outline on SHGF before diagnosis: The role of SHGFs has varied by state, promoter organization as SHPIs (government, multilateral, or NGOs), and program maturity. SHGFs play diverse roles, their common goal is to strengthen SHGs, route the finance to SHGs, build their capacity and make them organisationally sustainable.  SHGF is usually set up in three tiers (SHG, village cluster, and federation). SHGFs engage in financial intermediation. SHGF acts as the host organization for the SHG in terms of channelin...

This post is in the continuity of the personal-finance series where earlier blog post: Personal Finance - Investment  was published in May 2020. RBI published a very important ‘ Indian Household Finance Survey ’ in August 2017. The report highlighted that: The average Indian household holds 84% of its wealth in real estate and other physical goods, 11% in gold, and the residual 5% in financial assets. A disproportionately high share of wealth allocated to physical (i.e. non-financial) assets, such as gold.  Under-investment in long-term insurance and pension products. Households can move up between 0.4 pp (percentage points) and 1.6 pp by taking on insurance to avoid the burden of emergency credit associated with medical costs Disproportionally large reliance on unsecured debt, mostly from non-institutional sources (e.g. moneylenders). ...

Management is the noblest of professions only if it’s practiced well. There are deep rewards in building up people and businesses. I identify myself as a social intrapreneur based on the behavior traits and initiatives displayed. What I lack is the endurance to iterate and scale an impact model. I was a useful professional at what I do, and was able to contribute decently, but not the man who carried the team. That changed in Rajasthan as I explored potential inside me and gradually a spark to siege the initiative. Leadership at the top levels of not-for-profit organizations tends to steer towards monopolization and loyalty culture. And the time of the leaders is mostly consumed in raising funds rather than building robust programs. That is why leaders always try to handhold individuals who demonstrate an 'entrepreneurial mindset'. The answer to this particular problem is quite clear - to create intrapreneurs. This scenario gives ample place to managers who can manage as well ...

As reading and writing are essential to participating in society, a person has to be financially literate today to plan for the future. This is essential without indulging deep into technical and jargon-filled financial concepts. The ability to save and the power of compounding is not quickly understood by many people. Investment can be done in various asset classes like equities through mutual funds and stocks, Bonds through mutual funds, Gold, P2P crowd-lending, National Saving Certificate, Public Provident Fund, Fixed Deposits through Banks, NBFC (HDFC Ltd.), Post Office, Real Estate and Currency. I have started my career in the shadow of the 2008 financial crisis and have been at the receiving ends of the global recession of 2020 due to Covid-19. Both catastrophes have revealed that we could all benefit from a clearer understanding of how markets work. Let us look at the 2007-2010 period for the fall and rise of Sensex. The meltdown in the global financial system proved to be the...