The Week Gone By

• Shoe throwing has become a fashion these days. Mr. Manmohan singh became the latest target of shoe attack at an election rally in Ahmedabad.

• Five Taliban commanders and around 300 terrorists, including suicide bombers are believed to be headed towards Islamabad, Lahore and Rawalpindi to carry out major terror attacks.

• Lankan army confines LTTE to just 8 sqkm.Meanwhile LTTE declares a unilateral ceasefire.

• Lakshi Mittal looses staggering 16.9bn pounds in a year due to global recession, but still continues to be the richest man in UK.

• Oracle acquires Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion after the talks of IBM failed with the latter.

• F1: Britain’s Jenson Button won the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday. This is his third victory in four races. His team Brawn GP formerly known as Honda.
  

World for all

India, the largest democracy in the world, the second largest populated nation, plethora of cultures and religions and also the house of Asia’s largest slum. With 42% of the Indian population below the poverty line, India is still standing large and strong with optimism for a greater nation beyond social, cultural and more importantly economical barriers and yet envisioning a religious balance and equality to be known to the global community as “truly secular”. Too far fletched a dream? In a world where everything is explored from inside of an atom to what lies beyond milky way, from cure to weirdly named diseases to solution for wrinkles, there should be enough room for innovations to further the goal of “World for All”. Leaving behind the religious harmony which entirely is dependent on the mindset of people, the economic stability is something where there is a need for great practical visionaries.

Clearly, capitalism or communism is not the solution. Distribution of wealth is rather a strain on the existing balance as these concepts “force” but not further the cause and which almost always leads to fear and ultimately rebelliousness as proved by the history. Creation of wealth should be the goal rather than distribution. The solution lies in change “from the people – for the people”. Few examples of exceptional innovations are applications of microfinance, microcredit and social business. All these systems harness the power of free market to solve the problems of poverty, hunger and inequality.

Microfinance and microcredit as we all know is the provision of financial services to low-income and self-employed clients. Microcredit is an excellent paragon of tweaking a conservative system, in this case – Capitalism, to the benefit of people. The lending of micro loans without collateral has helped many self sustained small businesses to create their own world of opportunities. It would be unfair not to mention the contributions of Muhammed Yunus, Founder of the Grameen Bank, while discussing a “poverty free world”. He pioneered microcredit, the innovative banking program that provides poor people, mainly woman an opportunity to launch businesses and create a sustainable source of income. In the past thirty years, microcredit has spread to every continent and has benefited over 100 million needy families.

Social business, on the other hand is a completely new way to use the creative vibrancy of business to tackle social problems from poverty to pollution to inadequate health care and lack of education. A business designed to meet the social cause. Businesses continue to grow, global trade is booming, multinational corporations are spreading like never before – in between all the corporate money making why anyone would consider a low profit business in developing and third world nations which are potentially a threat to development? What does social business provide to them in terms of profits?

The answer lies in the question if strategically looked for. Expansions and cross-continental presence is a key to success for a business in the globalizing world. More and more businesses have started realizing this potential as a great way to market them which in turn adds greatly to their reputation. The results of this win-win situation are more apparent in a product based business. Group Danone, a French based food products company has greatly benefitted from introducing a social element to its business. Danone has infused in most of the developing nations and promises low cost and high nutrition foods to the needy. Its products have bought more profit than ever even in the developed nations like the US due to its reputation of a ‘social business’.

Applications of social business in service sector are not left behind. Although not as huge as Danone, www.babajob.com, founded by Sean Blagsvedt, a previous Microsoft employee, is a small attempt to improving the conditions of vocational workers at the same time benefitting from the venture. Currently focused in Bangalore, the site aims at providing a streamlined job search engine for the tertiary worker class like maids, drivers etc. The site includes no fee from the job seekers but charges the employers instead who look for domestic services which is otherwise a highly luck based effort.

I am sure there are a lot of unheard examples out there like Group Danone and Sean Blagsvedt. This is where exactly the young India is needed in bringing about the change by introducing novel ways into the system.


- Sameera Kommidi

Love Thy Neighbours?

With Pakistan in the West, Sri Lanka in the South, Bangladesh in the East and China in the North, thank god India is a peninsula; we don’t have to deal with two more neighbors.

For six decades now, we have been in war with Pakistan largely over the issue of Kashmir and eventually it spread across the country. The latest attacks on Mumbai throws a whole new dimension to the rivalry. In 2008-2009 alone our country has witnessed over 70 odd attacks. With the advancement of the Taliban into Buner, a mere 100 kilometers from Islamabad, the situation in Pakistan needs no explanation and if they take over the Pakistan then they could well become our western neighbor.

In the south, there is an ongoing Civil war in the Island nation since 25 years between LTTE and its government. The spill out of which among others, resulted in the assassination of our ex prime minister. Even though it seems like an endgame for Prabhakaran, there could be some more elements of LTTE spread across the country and if the main roots of the conflict are not addressed by its government then there could be the rise of another Prabhakaran. With the ongoing massive evacuation and thousands still in the conflict zone, the humanitarian situation presently seems grave.

And then there is Bangladesh and the infiltration of the terrorists through it in the East and the traditional rival and the largest and the most powerful neighbor and competitor in the north, China. I don’t think arguably any other major country has such serious situations posed by its neighbors. Among other challenges India facing today, National Security and foreign policy continue to occupy the top slot.

As it is said, we can change history but not geography, India and its top leadership should continue to emphasize on these matters and National Security should be the top agenda of the next government which otherwise can lead to many more Kargil’s and Mumbai’s.


- Vikranth