Rural Entrepreneurship

This is one article I wrote while I was getting bored writing a code for my assignment.

 

There is much talk about “Rural Entrepreneurship” in today’s Indian economic scenario. The basic reason behind this is that although there has been an appreciable growth of the economy as a whole, the disparity in the economic developments in the urban and rural areas is strikingly contrasting. Huge investments of the multinational companies seeking to set a firm foot in the Indian growing environment, least affect the rural development. Same is the case with the big and small IT ventures which are thriving alike but are contributing nothing in terms of rural empowerment.

The major obstructions in the ways of advancement are energy, infrastructure, education and communication. We have relied a lot on the government for development and have seen it making only slow advances over the years. The best solution would be entrepreneurs coming forward and taking initiatives not only because it will be beneficial for the country but also because there is a lot of potential for growth trapped in rural entrepreneurship for almost all kind of advances. There is a need to transcend the notion of mutual exclusivity of technology and agriculture. There is a need to give up the myopic vision and look for options which are yet unexplored and have a lot of market value if unleashed via a proper medium.

 It seems that people have already sensed this pulse and are taking steps in this direction. A suitable example would be of Dr. Anand Karve’s Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) where he converts the sugarcane leaves, generally thrown away or burned after harvest, into fuel. This not only produces cheaper fuel from waste but also earns some additional money for the villagers. Then there is ITC’s e-choupal initiative which combines the information technology with agriculture and Reliance’s concept of retail marketing Reliance fresh which markets the fresh produce from villages to the market using appropriate marketing techniques. And while our general perception of banking limits it to the urban society, Muhammad Yunus has brought it to the villages in form of microcredit lending.

 What it all needs is the innovative thinking and foresight to see what treasures an appropriate application of technology in rural areas holds in a country where the share of agriculture alone to the GDP is nearly 20-25%. Rural entrepreneurship opens up new avenues of growth leading to the heights which are yet unexplored.

 

Well, this was all a time pass but i seriously do think that Rural Entrepreneurship has to come out and see the light of the day if the progress is to be made.

 

The usual farce!

I should be growing but I am not. There is a status quo. Wait! Its not even the same situation. I am actually retarding. Its the reverse gear that I have put myself into. I feel a lot less somehow ( well, not literally….more and more flab has been finding space on my body in that sense) . When I remember the days of first year, I was eager to learn. Come second year, I was in the process of learning. Passed third year and I had learnt quite a lot but the desire to grow had died. I shut myself with myself and some people who could teach me nothing/much of significance(as i see it, off course). I unlearnt some of my good ways, my open thinking, most of my better characteristics and I learnt things which were so not my type. I learnt to be superficial, to be critical, to crib, to cower, to let myself demoralize at each and everything, to feel so insignificant and unwanted. I stopped creating whether in terms of writing or drawing or anything else. I stopped playing. I stopped making merry. I started loathing, I started doing nothing, I started being toxic , I started being mean and I started to stop loving and here I stand. Dissatisfied, unhappy, confused, hurt, desperate, bored and tired.

I although fully understand that noone else is to be blamed for it other than myself but I should perhaps also remind myself that the mistake was to collect the negative energies around me and then absorb those for my own disaster. I chose friends who could not value my feelings, my thoughts, my opinions. I chose friends with whom I could not share my loneliness. I made friends who appear shallow to me now. They are alright if you want to have senseless fun or talk rubbish(and that is literally). Those useless talks don’t even give you relief, much less, knowledge. In a sense, we are all carrying each others’ friendship like an imposed baggage which we ought to carry until we are here and are secretly hoping to part ways soon. We are fed up of each other and we are doing nothing but to add troubles to each others’ lives. That’s all.

It has been like 2 full years of meaningless existence and I am desperate to change the situation and yet I often find myself running short of the necessary fuel. I feel like a dumped car which has nothing left in it but its own weight and all this at an age of 22. What could have led me to this hopelessness? Who/what is responsible? What is the remedy? What should I do?

The things look grim but the situation is not fatal. I have been finding that enthu which I had long lost. I have been finding the right kind of energy and ensuring that positivity surrounds me. I have blocked the unhealthy vibrations. I am seeking and finding joy. I am again pursuing creativity. I am playing. The wreck was huge and I know that it may take a long time to get back to normal and get rolling but I am ensuring that I take all the right steps. I will not be deterred by people who are nothing better than rats! I will not myself be let down by circumstances. I will not allow anyone to make me feel like shit. I will not let people treat me like a scum. Those who do may very well go to hell.

Originality is back and is even better. May the force be with me!!

dreams…small and big

Smallness of the dreams of people around me apalls me as only few things do. Why do people put such boundaries for themselves? Why do they dont come out and imagine flying. Perhaps that is the truth and I am flying too high for my own bad. But it seriously irritates me. And adding to it the fact that my own friends are of this nature is really sad. They are unable to take flights of fancy with me. I always thought that we had the same thinking process and hence we were together but now it is like that we are together but the thinking varies widely. And in matters of career, though they are doing extremely better than me right now but they still imagine of a future which is a result of a narrow, constricted and forced shortness of vision.

Techkriti Oh Seven!

What a way start to the day! In fact the whole weekend has played a perfect prelude to the oncoming hectic and heavily loaded week. First there was the treasure hunt and the fight and the godly breakfast it entailed. Then there was the discotheque and all the madness. Afterwards was the quiz attempt and the pizza party.Later came the Jigsaw puzzle comptt and the 1000 rupees win! That was Techkriti 2007 for me. The best techkriti in all the four years. Off course all this was interspersed with some eye candy and wonderful talks like Fadia’s hacking one It was lovely to make the group, have loads of fun and then cheer up with the tempo high thing! I will certainly miss these days without these people.!

Bbye Techkriti Oh Seven!!

Ankit Fadia and Hacking!

I attended today Ankit Fadia’s talk on basics of hacking. The talk was a part of the Institute’s Technical Festival. For the uninitiated Fadia is a world renowned hacker who is working on prevention of cyber terrorism and is also a consultant for many firms and organizations’ network security. You may find out more about him at wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankit_Fadia

Now, what is the most interesting thing about Fadia is that he is just 22 and already the world leader in hacking. He started at the age of 14 to start writing books and till now he has written about 11 books! That is impressive. There may be more gas to it than is necessary but certainly it is not all undeserving.

What this talk made me think about was not hacking ( i am not much interested in breaking into people’s or organizations’ lives) but the fact that what really makes a person successful? I figured out that the key was to follow one’s passion. Fadia dropped out of college without taking his degree, why?? Because he was busy pursuing his passion! But what one of my friends very rightly remarked was that his passion is really paying him way too well and that for everyone that’s not a viable choice. True in a sense, I said to myself and to her but in my mind remained a thought that why not?? Why not does everyone’s passion pay well?

I am still thinking about it and will add to the space later with certain conclusions of mine and others!

….to be continued…..

John Nash Jr.

Read the autobiography of John Nash Jr. ( of the “A Beautiful Mind” fame) at http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1994/nash-autobio.html

An excerpt:

Thus further time passed. Then gradually I began to intellectually reject some of the delusionally influenced lines of thinking which had been characteristic of my orientation. This began, most recognizably, with the rejection of politically-oriented thinking as essentially a hopeless waste of intellectual effort.

So at the present time I seem to be thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists. However this is not entirely a matter of joy as if someone returned from physical disability to good physical health. One aspect of this is that rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person’s concept of his relation to the cosmos. For example, a non-Zoroastrian could think of Zarathustra as simply a madman who led millions of naive followers to adopt a cult of ritual fire worship. But without his “madness” Zarathustra would necessarily have been only another of the millions or billions of human individuals who have lived and then been forgotten.

And I think that it is true what he says in the paragraph above. To make a difference, you have to be a madman somehow, in someway or the other.

It’s an interesting read.

On a different line of thought I have started to think and realize that the clearer your speech, the clearer your thoughts and stronger your fundamentals are! That has been said I know but I realized it fully only recently.

:(

What does one do when faced with incomprehensible emotions? And that too when they are not for the others but for the self? How can you maintain your respect for the self when you are surrounded by people who are probably the best in the world and there are perhaps hundreds and thousands of them more scattered all over the world. How do you fight with such insignificance? How do you prove your worth not only to others but to yourself? How do you do it? You can’t just shut out the noise that the several events generate reminding you of your smallness. Someday or the other you have to face it but how do you cope with it? How do you embark upon a journey knowing that you will almost certainly never be the among the frontrunners? Do you fight with your destiny, your genetics or accept it humbly or painstakingly or regretfully or whatever?

What purpose then you live with? What do you do to expand your horizons, to broaden your vision? Or, do you just give some false hopes to yourself assuring that you might have the potential, its just the hard work thats missing..but no! It does not work that way….

It does not work anyway! It just makes you feel disgusted and leaves it at that! That’s it! If you cannot lie you cannot feel better and it is a terrible feeling to accept what might just not be true!

I feel as crappy as hell! God knows why i don’t mind my own business and waste my time looking for reasons to get daunted by the others

What a shitty day today was! Looking forward to a new and fresh beginning tomorrow.

Rant! ( don’t read )

GooGoo Dolls say…..” you can’t fight the tears that ain’t coming..and the moment of truth in your lies…where everything is meant to be broken..you bleed just to know you are alive”…

That really captures the feeling of the low which you feel when you are affected so much as to even react or cry. The shock is too much to bear or comprehend. Lyrics of some songs sometimes touch your life in just the right way!

There have been moments when I have bled just to know that I am alive and ended up finding out that I am uncomfortably numb. There is an endless capacity in me to endure pain and that is very very dangerous. Expectations make me mad! I want to be least expected from. I am afraid of taking blames. I have become afraid of responsbility. I have become afraid of failures. I cant take it anymore. I fear the fact that I may be just any other person. I fear the fact that I am turning unambitious. I fear the fact that I may be looked down upon rather than looked up to. I fear the fact that I am not being able to steer the things in my way. I hate the fact that I have used the words fear and afraid so many times in my post.I absolutely hate it that I am turning into this weak and whining person.

I want to respect myself. I want to be myself that I used to be. I want to adore and admire the person that I am..

What the hell!

well…

What? Why? When? How? Really? Is it? Can it be so? Why not? I dont know! Wow! Shit!  Fuck! Lovely! Amazing! Awesome! Oh no! Damn! There? Can I? You think so? Comeon! Kat lo! Tulla! Bulla! coffee? tea? Walk? Dont tell me! I know! Which one? Are you? What the hell! I care a damn! Life, Love, Hate , Frenzy, Troubles, Disguise, Lies , Fear, Failure, Success, elude, Doen’t matter, actually, it does, never before, once, forever, never, true, false, hope, expectations, deah, cheat, pride, ego, esteem, rocks, bottom, lower, last , first, old , young, new, more , less, better, worse, far, near, worth, trials, friends, enemies, neutral, social, introvert, right, wrong, active, not, there, not there, grief, joy, happy, sad, fun, shock, tumult, calm, serene, contemplate, pensive, frivolous, chivalrous, decent, rob, burst, laughter, tears, smoke, fog, clouds, sun, trees, birds………….

FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!

Life and its ways!

Is it not amazing that what a day of relaxation can do to your spirits. You are up there in the air feeling all light and jumpy, ready to take the next step. Sometimes one feels so blessed to be even existing and there are times when no one else could be more unprivileged than us in our thoughts. But if you look around, you see so much, everyone struggling with their own existence…..Some people trying to catch up, others trying to maintain, some getting ahead, some falling back. What is life but a journey without a destination. And that is what perhaps most of us tend to forget that it is the journey and not the destination. You have to make your own goals from time to time and strive to achieve them.

Two days back, I met a child who works in the cafeteria here( child labour yes! ) Many a times he is seen studying in the canteen and getting up to serve whenever there is an order. I asked him whether he goes to school. He does not because school timings clash with his working hours. I could not help but feel so humbled and weirdly filled with self loath. There was I standing with all the privileges one could imagine : loving parents, well-off, enrolled in one of the country’s best colleges with best of the colleagues, buying myself a coffee to fight off the stress and spending my time loafing away when I should be studying after already having wasted one and half years. And there he was not even with an admission into a school and studying amidst all the hussle pussle . Such was his self motivation and here I have to read motivational quotes and give myself lectures on how to become focussed. Such a stark contrast!! I could not help but feel ashamed all in a matter of seconds and filled with self realization.

Comparative studies can really do a lot to make or break you. I owe this guy something. Atleast I can try to get him admitted into a school or do something like that. Life sometimes makes you face circumstances which make you learn a lot. But life is also really unfair. I would have wanted it to be fair.