Thanks, Janitors

Sunday morning I ended up at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), considered as one of the best design schools in the US. I was in the reception area of their admissions building where they were running an exhibition on Building Design and Architecture. The exhibition consisted of multiple rooms, covering different steps in designing a building.

The room I was standing in was dominated by numerous architectural drawing pasted on the wall, and even some on the ceiling. There was also a large (garbage like) pile of drawing and designs in the floor with disposable coffee cups, empty cigarette packets, a sketch pen without a cap, and a mop. My first guess - obviously this part of the exhibit was not done yet. They must have taken a break for the weekend before they come back and complete it on Monday.

But, there was something meticulous about the room. I was troubled to accept my initial hypothesis about the room being work in progress. There was something logical about the piles of drawings on the floor, the coffee cups, the cigarette packets and the mop!

As I was stepping out, I noticed the words on the floor - "A room for mistakes".

Completely awestruck, I took a couple of more steps backwards, and noticed the words, again on the floor - "Thanks, Janitors"

What Matters

* Disputed vote plunges Kenya into bloodshed * Bhutto's son, 19, chosen to lead Pakistan Party * The Issues in Iowa *

A sample of the front-page headlines on the NY Times over the weekend. First look, they may have nothing in common. When we take a closer look - the news is about elections, the political landscape and the democratic process. The stories also illustrate what matters in winning elections:

* In Kenya, it matters which tribe you belong to * In Pakistan, it matters who your mother is * In the US, it matters where you stand on Health care, Taxes and Immigration *

Am I over-simplifying the headlines? Probably.

But, you get the point right?

Young MPs = Better MPs?

PRS Legislative Research is a Delhi based non-profit which "is an independent research initiative that aims to strengthen the legislative debate by making it better informed, more transparent and participatory. PRS is the first initiative of its kind in India"

They have been tracking parliamentary procedures pretty closely, and recently came out with Vital Stats in 2007 for the Indian Parliament. Interesting snippets from the report:

• The total working hours of the parliament in 2007 was 40% lesses than that of 2006
  
  
• In addition, fewer number of bills were tabled and passed in 2007 as compared to 2006.
  
  
• Finally, Members of Parliament between 25 and 40 years of age, participated in far lower number of debates as compared to the older MPs (both in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha)! That goes against the premise that the 'young MPs' are out to change the world and the portrayal(by the mainstream media) that they represent the new face of Indian politics.
  

You can download the entire report here

Blogging from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I flew into Kuala Lumpur yesterday to attend the "Third Global Knowledge Conference". The conference is a annual gathering of folks interested in using information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve the lives of people in the developing world.
The theme of this year's conference is Emerging People, Emerging Markets, Emerging Technologies. I'm in Young Social Entrepreneur track of the conference, representing Profits for People.

So far I have been quite excited about things that I have seen here. I think we have reached a stage where ICT for Development is not just a buzz word anymore, but could actually help improve standards of living, even for the poorest of the poor. Below are some technologies, ventures and ideas that excited me in the first look. I hope to post more detailed posts on on each of them, in the next couple of days.

• Intel's Classmate PC. I got a chance to try out this tiny Windows XP running PC, positioned as a competitor for the hundred-dollar laptop (which BTW is sold now for $200). Intel might be actually onto something here with this macine

• OneRoof is an innovate franchising business, focusing on creating jobs and delivering information at affordable costs, by setting up a One Roof branded computer center. They are currently expanding in Tamil Nadu, India.
  
  
• Microsoft Unlimited Potential Group, a recently formed group within the tech giant seems to have an interesting mission, creating sustained social and economic opportunity for the next 5 billion people

Little more than shopping malls

The weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal has a front page on piece on three young men in India having a chance to escape out of Poverty by finding jobs in a mall in Mumbai. All three of them work in Pantaloons in Phoenix Mills - an old textile mill in central Mumbai redeveloped into a sprawling mall.

All three men are keen on being able to have enough money to be more like the 'middle-class' customers they serve in the store. There is a strong aspirational value here, which affects decisions made by the poor. For instance, one of the men in the story recently purchased a laptop! Imagine walking into a urban squatter in Mumbai - open drainages, unattended garbage, no water supply and even electricity - and you walk into one of the houses, and you find a guy sitting on his laptop. Am I the only one who thinks there is something not quite right about this picture.

I guess we need a little more than shopping malls to help us!

Funding Education through Lotteries

I was in a discussion with my close friend Sara, when I was in India this summer. Sara is an extremely smart, witty and insightful guy who I love having conversations with. He was mentioning how the problem with public services in India(like education and infrastructure) is not just delivery, but also the lack of funding.

I’m taking a class with Prof. Paul Smoke which is titled Public Finance in Developing Countries. Over the course of my master's program, my focus last year has primarily been understanding the need for public services (focusing on market failure), closer examination of these services (like healthcare, education, economic development) and understanding the institutions involved in design and delivery (which in most cases is the state).

Now I feel I’m gaining a deeper understanding of issues like funding these services (and the role of public finance), design and implementation as well as evaluation of public programs. In some sense, this gives me a holistic feeling about my Public Administration degree, which (like an MBA) creates generalists.

Coming back to public finance, I was watching a recent NY Times video on using lotteries to fund public education in the state of North Carolina. Most of our discussion so far in the above mentioned class has focused on decentralization of fiscal responsibilities, in both the revenue and expenditure dimensions. In a fairly decentralized structure like the US, the states are primarily responsible for funding public education. On the revenue side, the biggest source of income for states tends to be usually property taxes. For instance, I was talking to my friend Vincent yesterday, who is from New Hampshire, which is also struggling with the problem of lack of funds for education. In such an instance, having federal control of revenues can lead to redistribution, where underfunded states can receive help from wealthier ones. This can also happen at the state level, where the state can be a redistribute resources to poorer counties (or districts).

I have very little clue on what are the fiscal structures in India. I’m eager to learn more and may be will write a paper for class, focusing on India. I also believe school funding is an dimension that is far less explored in India as compared to institutional problems with administration, teachers etc. It takes US $ 21 million to build a primary school for 600 hundred children in North Carolina! By the way, don’t even get me started on privatization of primary education.

Reproductive Value-chain

I can give lame excuses to myself for not posting on this blog, like for instance, my laptop needing AC power (my battery was unusable). I threw the damn thing away and got a new one, which keeps me running, even in a remote corner in the Washington Square Park, for as long as five hours!

As I pretend to sit here and do work, what I actually do is to gape, sometimes with my mouth wide open. So was the case this morning, when I noticed a couple of professional nannies sitting next to me. I could not make out much of their discussion since it was in super-fast Spanish. My gaping led to reflecting, and got me thinking about a story on Onion about outsourcing childcare to India. The US couple in the story boxed their children up and shipped them over to India. For those who think Onion is a vegetable (or is it a fruit), it’s more like a fake news source.


Report: Many U.S. Parents Outsourcing Child Care Overseas

However, the real news I get from influential magazines like Marie Claire. A recent feature in the magazine highlights the new trend of outsourcing surrogate motherhood to India.

Customer service, tech support...these days we outsource everything to India. So why not pregnancy? Here is a report on the growing number of Indian women willing to carry an American child

Wow, looks like India could make a significant impact on the entire reproductive value chain. It’s no surprise, we have been the global experts in this industry for a while. I’m talking about the ‘making people’ industry.