Indian state empowers poor to fight corruption, By Lydia Polgreen, December 2, 2010, New York Times: “The village bureaucrat shifted from foot to foot, hands clasped behind his back, beads of sweat forming on his balding head. The eyes of hundreds of wiry village laborers, clad in dusty lungis, were fixed upon him. A group of auditors, themselves villagers, read their findings. A signature had been forged for the delivery of soil to rehabilitate farmland. The soil had never arrived, and about $4,000 was missing. The bureaucrat, a low-level field assistant who uses the single name Sreekanth, was suspected of stealing it. ‘I am a very rightful person,’ he declared. But the presiding official would have none of it. He ordered that the money be recovered and that Mr. Sreekanth be promptly disciplined. That simple verdict was part of a sweeping experiment in grass-roots democracy in rural India aimed at ensuring that the benefits of government programs for the poor actually go to the poor. It empowers villagers to act as watchdogs and to perform ‘social audits’ like the one that meted out quick justice to Mr. Sreekanth. Their success or failure could have broad implications for India’s quest to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty…”
Tag: India
Microlending – India
In India, greed creeps into microlending, critics say, By Rama Lakshmi, October 30, 2010, Washington Post: “The microcredit revolution has been celebrated for helping poor women in developing countries start small businesses. By borrowing money for purchases such as a buffalo or sewing machine, the women were able to help lift their families out of poverty. But critics say the microcredit model has been perverted by commercial greed in India, with reports of abusive collection methods and sky-high interest rates…”
Telecommunications in Developing Nations
Nokia taking a rural road to growth, By Kevin O’Brien, November 1, 2010, New York Times: “On Saturday at dawn, hundreds of farmers near Jhansi, an agricultural center in central India, received a succinct but potent text message on their cellphones: the current average wholesale price for 100 kilograms of tomatoes was 600 rupees. In a country where just 7 percent of the population have access to the Internet, such real-time market data is so valuable that the farmers are willing to pay $1.35 a month for the information. What is unusual about the service is the company selling it: Nokia, the Finnish cellphone leader, which unlike its rivals – Samsung, LG, Apple, Research In Motion and Sony Ericsson – is leveraging its size to focus on some of the world’s poorest consumers. Since 2009, 6.3 million people have signed up to pay Nokia for commodity data in India, China and Indonesia. On Tuesday, Nokia plans to announce it is expanding the program, called Life Tools, part of its Ovi mobile services business, to Nigeria…”