tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-110943172024-03-07T13:00:15.890+05:30Rural Development of IndiaThis site is an expression of a person who consider "Rural development" as his obsession. Here you find his views on Social entrepreneurship, Innovations, Rural Markets, etc.Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-55672790119399116622009-09-20T15:40:00.004+05:302009-09-20T15:57:45.301+05:30School drop-outs rate is very high in Rural India. Why?<p></p><p>School-drop out is a serious problem in Rural India (even in urban areas but just the magnitude). If we try to analyze why is this so, the first reason appears to be the supply issue. Government controls education sector in such a manner that the schools operating margins hit badly. Apart from the license/quota issue there seems to be 3 major issues: </p><ol> <li>Teaching styles </li><li>English </li><li>Mathematics</li></ol> <p>1. <b>Teaching styles</b>: Most of the teachers (and coupled by the parents in home) impose learning processes on child. The teachers/parents themselves are badly taught and so they viciously follow the cycle. </p><p>Learning is a joy. The children should feel that it is like a roller-caster ride. To get to that level, children should be taught how to learn. For example, they should be told as many as stories. Exercise to the kids on this would be to tell many more stories to other children. Children must be formed into a group of 5-10 and then teacher must guide each group. This is basically a process of peer review. They can source the new stories from parents, neighborhood, friends, relatives etc. And in fact, children are natural at creating their own stories. Songs and dance are very natural to them and TV, mobiles, competitions, etc can help in this regard. </p><p>2. <b>English</b>: Children are exceptionally talented to learn multiple languages at their very early ages. Most children in rural India struggle with the grammar rules and in turn they start to hate the language itself. The trick is to make them learn spoken language first and then to turn to Grammar but not the other way around. </p><p>3. <b>Mathematics:</b> Maths is a very critical subject and children are very natural at it. However the astounding ability to learn the subject by the children is eclipsed by the incompetency of the teachers in turn to result that Maths is regarded as the most hated subject by a minimum of 1/3 of the all children. I think children should learn it through games. Classes 1-6 should only consist of a variety of games. All exercises should be again to play at home with other kids at neighborhood areas.</p><p></p> <p><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-70390341247900999962009-06-05T14:26:00.000+05:302009-06-05T14:30:41.324+05:30Why sachets are popular in Rural India?<p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i>Rural people consume most products such as shampoo, biscuits, tooth powder, etc in micro units. This is majorly linked to the fact that they earn in daily or weekly wages. The following discussion is to reason out why do they prefer daily/weekly wages in turn to explain the popularity of shampoo sachets (and not a shampoo bottle).</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If you visit any rural household or a surrounding retail stores please observe what kind of things they have. Tooth powder in sachet, Coconut oil in sachet, Fail & Lovely in sachet, only one soap bar (though they might be using multiple soaps in a month), small biscuit packet (Do you know the very popular Britannia Tiger?? it just contains 3 pieces instead of regular 10 pieces), the telephone usage with a 1 Re coin box, mobile phone usage in small top-ups (10/- or so), chota pepsi, etc. Basically consumption world is a miniature here.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Basic reason for this micro-units of consumption is to use them for a day or for at most a week. Their consumption budget is just about a week or less. That is because their earnings fall under in similar periods. Typically in rural locations, the work contract period is about a week or less. In fact, it is day-contracts which rules here. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Before proceeding further discussion on these consumption patterns, let me talk about an interesting topic and it is about you (Yes, I am talking about you, the reader). Assume, after a shopping exercise, you came out of a shop to return your home. As you are with some luggage, you wanted to return home with a auto-rickshaw. You found 3 autos standing on the road and you know it takes about 45/- to reach your home. When you asked each auto driver, you were told 3 prices, first guy – 100/-, second guy – 50/- third guy – 10/-. Then which one will you take to reach home? and why? Think for a while before reading further.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Coming back to our original discussion, rural people plan weekly budgets unlike the Indian government which does 5-year budgets. As we have seen before that is because rural people earn in similar periods. And surprisingly, it is their choice to earn in daily but not monthly. Yes, you read it right, it is their preference. Why is that so? It is because, their logical capability to think is very limited. Just like birds, they can do additions up to 10, beyond which it is difficult for them to count. To understand things for a year period, you need to foresee a lot of things, and plan accordingly. This requires arithmetic skill-set. So it is skill-set deficiency that makes an issue with them. Again, what exactly is the issue??</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">By the way, did you find out which auto you would prefer? I am damn sure that it is not the one which charges 100/-. Moreover, it is not the auto that charges 10/- either. Second guy who charges 50/-, which is a little more than the usual charge of 45/-, is the one you prefer. Why is that so? Why do you wish to pay higher, when there is a guy who would take you as cheap as 10/- (and in fact, you are willing to pay more than the usual charge)? The reason is simple. You know that it is not economically feasible for him to run at 10/-. Because you know if the usual charge is 45/-, then any auto must be making 10-15/- (or 25%-40% margin). This means actual cost is about 30/-. Then you would start doubting the guy who just charges 10/- instead of some price more than the actual cost of transportation, that is 30/-. You would believe that he would make money in another fashion perhaps by robbing you or so and not by direct charge. That’s what is known as fear of uncertainty. <b><i>No one likes to take unknown risk</i></b>.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Rural Indians can’t take decisions beyond a week or more is due to their incapability of logical thinking or arithmetic calculations. Beyond anyone’s capability falls under uncertainty. Rural people don’t wish take those unknown risks. This is the reason for their earnings in short periods, and so, they spend on micro-units of consumable goods.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">As you see, arithmetic or logical skill-sets are so much important in life. </span><o:p></o:p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-10439766134197350322009-05-24T11:57:00.006+05:302009-05-24T13:32:08.279+05:30Accountability to the world at large!<div style="text-align: justify;">I consume more resources (both intellectual resources-ideas, knowledge, etc and physical resources-land,water,air,etc) than an average person in this world. As I use these worldly resources, I got to be accountable as well. And moreover, our life is nothing but the choices we make. So, now the question is that are those choices that we opt for are taken with considerable thought process?? And moreover, who audits them for improvements?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In this regard, I decided to note down all actions that I do every day (hour by hour basis). This is an attempt to make the world (at large) to conduct an audit on my every action to improve my way of doing things.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you did not understand the purpose of such a thing, please find the detailed post <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/2009/05/accountability-to-world.html">here</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I would write <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/search/label/Accountability">them</a> from today onwards on my personal blog (<a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>) and not on this blog.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Comments welcome!</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-29714838337676868332009-04-14T11:16:00.004+05:302009-05-24T13:36:35.853+05:30How do I choose a party to vote for?<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;font-size:12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I know it is tough job to select a candidate among fools. But then, clever among the fools is what the selection criteria.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">My first criteria:</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Rural development is my passion. So why I have been working on this domain for the past 5-7 years directly (as an academic researcher, as a technologist, as a businessman and now as an investor) and indirectly more than a decade. </div></span></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I have been trying to understand the root causes of these problems and few times, I have expressed my opinions on this blog. To my analysis, rural issues in India can be solved only if we create new cities of around 6000 just like Hyderabad, Pune, Bangalore, etc (the recently developed ones). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There is only one party, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.loksatta.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">LokSatta</span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, which is in this direction (in Andhra Pradesh, where I have my vote registered).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Second criteria:</span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; ">And coming to MP elections, as you see every party is stupid. The fundamental problem for this studity across the parties is that Dynasty politics. So I believe, BJP should win this election in order to root out this plague that is sucking the wealth of India.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So here are my choices:<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">MP elections: </span><a href="http://www.bjp.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">BJP</span></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">State elections: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">LokSatta</span></span></span></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Go ahead with your thoughts.</span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-37447129768058542842009-03-15T17:49:00.005+05:302009-03-15T19:08:32.226+05:30Broadband to takeoff, pre-paid models to be evolved<div style="text-align: justify;">At the current growth rates, number of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">broadband</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">customers</span> will not cross 10 Million in the next 2 years where as we will cross 400 Million mobile customers by March/April 09. It appears that unless some game changing steps are taken, rural India would be completely disconnect for another 5-10 years. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Recently <a href="http://www.kerala.bsnl.co.in/broadband/evdo.asp"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">BSNL</span></a>, <a href="http://www.tataindicom.com/HSIA-photon-usb-personal.aspx"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Tata</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Indicom</span></a>, <a href="http://www.rcom.co.in/Communications/rcom/RNetconnect/netconnect_broadband_device.html">Reliance</a> have started (hi-speed) <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">broadband on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">mov</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">e</span></span> services. Download speeds are typically 500 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Kbps</span> in practical scenarios (theoretically EV-DO, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">HSPA</span> protocols provide much better speeds like 2 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Mbps</span> - 3 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Mbps</span>). <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is really a welcome step considering that India is pathetic on wired infrastructure. To avail the service, users need to purchase a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">USB</span> device (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">ZTE</span> or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Huawei</span>) and pay monthly charges (ranging from Rs. 300 to Rs. 2000).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you observe the voice calls business in India, it is above 90% prepaid market. Growth in new post-paid connections is almost stagnant. Today every <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">telco</span> talks only about their <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">pre</span>-paid consumers. However, I am not clear why <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">telcos</span> push post-paid model in the case of data services?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let me structure out a prepaid model for the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">datacards</span> (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">USB</span> devices):</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Service plan:</span> 100 MB - 5000 MB recharge (uniform validity: say, 6 Months) top-ups should be available. Note that, by default, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">downlink</span> speed is the maximum available on the network.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Connecting device:</span> Recent <a href="http://pages.ebay.in/census/">eBay census report</a> says that most sold items on its website in India are <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">USB</span> memory sticks. That shows the importance to such memory devices. So the EV-DO <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">USB</span> devices should contain memory in-built and should be sold separately in the market or perhaps <a href="http://www.rentobile.com/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">rentable</span></a>. Installation files should be available inside the stick itself and the installation process should be very much simpler. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Interoperability:</span> Device should be interoperable at least with respect to same technology vendors, such as EV-DO or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">HSPA</span>. Now the user can purchase any service provider depending on SIM card in it, just like a mobile phone.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">An example scenario</span>:</span> a student who don't own a computer but can purchase (or rent) a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">USB</span> stick (say around 1000/- to 1500/-), service plan of 100 MB and connect to Internet at his college laboratory or at a friend's computer (stores his working files inside the device, just like a storage device)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">-----------------------------</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another interesting development in the similar space: 3G would perhaps increase the adoption of broadband, because it has all the ingredients to take-off: the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">pre</span>-paid model (basically, enables the micro-units of consumption), service involving SIM card, built-in memory functionality with every mobile phone. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-56105049958742732632008-11-19T10:03:00.002+05:302009-02-23T14:37:59.534+05:30Rural Market focused fund: VentureEast Proactive fund<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update: <span style="font-style: italic;">VentureEast Proactive fund</span> has several other focus areas.</span> However, this blogpost only talks about the fund's interest on rural market opportunities which is the focus of this blog. More details about the fund can be had from<a href="http://www.ventureast.net/DetFund.html/id/8"> its website</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Original Post:</span><br />After being on my own, I am now back to an employee position at a Venture Capital firm (<a href="http://www.ventureast.net/">VenturEast</a>, Chennai). This company has a fund of 100 million dollars specifically focused on areas such as "<span style="font-weight: bold;">Digital divide</span>", "<span style="font-weight: bold;">Bottom of Pyramid</span>", <span style="font-weight: bold;">etc</span>. And the decision to join was a well-thought one. It's in order to get much exposed to different companies focused on rural markets in India and moreover to learn certain new skill-sets.<br /><br />I have always supported rural market focused companies by providing strategic consulting services something that I would keep doing. Do write me your thoughts.<br /><br />PS: Although my old mobile number is still alive, but you may like to call me on my Chennai number mentioned on the sidebar of<a href="http://ruralindia.blogspot.com/"> my blog pag</a><a href="http://ruralindia.blogspot.com/">e</a>.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-72894257344864242352008-10-11T10:59:00.002+05:302008-10-11T11:32:43.603+05:30First time Internet experience would be through TV in Rural India<div style="text-align: justify;">Many venture capitalists believe that the first Computing/Internet experience for rural Indians (or broadly, most Indians) would be through Mobile. However, as I see, this is only partially true. <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">DTH players such as Airtel Digital TV, BIG TV, DishTV, TataSky etc all are already in tie-ups with India's major Internet players such as Shaadi, MakemyTrip, Indiatimes Shopping, BookmyShow (for movie tickets), Edurite (online education), MapmyIndia, multiple gaming companies etc in order to bring Internet experience to larger audience. In fact, Airtel plans to activate its Airtel Live (mobile VAS) to its DigitalTV subscribers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Particularly women, children will get the first hand experience of Internet through these TV services. This experience makes them familiar with Mobile Value Added Services and in turn to the grand daddy of all, Computer + Internet.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Although DTH is mostly urban phenomenon so far, but services like Railway ticketing, Matrimonials, Astrology, Education, Religious services, Games, Maps, on-demand movies, etc would be attractive to rural users and in particular to children and house-hold women. In this regard, local language is the first requirement (currently it is all in English).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So this means, TV--> Mobile --> Computer is the Internet-learning-cycle. And so, many business opportunities (new mode of distribution) exist for all those Internet companies who tie-up with these Cable/DTH/IPTV service providers.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-7161567006142070482008-09-10T07:49:00.002+05:302008-09-10T08:09:12.087+05:30Fundamentals are very important<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><div style="margin-top: 8px; margin-right: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 8px; font: normal normal normal small/normal arial; "><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Why fundamentals are important? Let us take an example. Can you construct infinite things using finite things? <br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">hmmm .. of course: Colors. All </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">colors</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> are made of 7 basic ones such as "violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow orange, red" (better known as VIBGYOR). Let us explore many more examples to understand this concept. Every language is made up of few thousands of words. But the number of </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">sentences</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> that we can construct using those words is infinite. Similarly alphabet is finite but </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">words</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> can be formed infinitely. The whole universe is made up of infinite </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">materials</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> but they all formed from few periodic elements. Music alphabet generally consists of 7 basic sounds. Yet you have an infinite number of </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">songs</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">. All the infinite </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">numbers</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> are formed using a finite set of digits. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Please construct few more examples before you go ahead on our discussion. In all the above examples, you can observe that finite things are used infinitely and the result is infinite combinations. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">And did you ever observe this? if you don't know the words of a language it makes no sense of sentences. Similarly if you can't understand digits then you can never learn numbers. So we can easily conclude (our original discussion statement) that, one needs to understand the basic underlying primitive fundamental concepts in your work in order to understand thoroughly and use them (fundamental concepts) in various scenarios. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Note: This lecture is one of the few experiments in order to teach young children on "how to learn". If you are interested in such creative way of teaching, then please write me on my gmail id, malapati.</span></span></div></div></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-54359433829389861662008-08-27T11:20:00.000+05:302008-08-27T11:26:26.541+05:30Bringing quality education to Masses<span style="font-family: georgia;font-size:85%;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><div><span style="border-collapse: collapse;"><p>This post actually describes what I do on education front. I am generally not interested to write on what I do, but this post is an exception.<b><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-style: italic;">What causes learning? </span></b></p><p>First of all, learning initiation happens through the exposure. For example, if I am watching a movie wherein someone traveling by flight then I may learn about how a flight looks like or even the feeling of journey in a flight. But then I get exposed to a variety of stuff every day. Do I learn all of those? The answer is 'No'. I learn only few things which I am curious about. Depending on 'how much curious I am' about a particular thing, that much I learn about it. So, it is very clear to see that if we are interested in something then we would learn quicker and deeper. Moreover, interest makes our learning much more enjoyable.</p><p><b><span style="font-style: italic;">How to identify a child's interest?</span></b></p><p>How can we understand what the child's interests are? If we can figure this out then we can encourage the kids in those stuff. We can even personalize the teaching content to each child. For a long time, I have been thinking about this. Recently I could get the answer for this interesting question. If you interact with any child for sometime, whenever he observes some stuff (interesting to him) he starts asking questions. As you answer he would ask more and more. Most parents and/or teachers discourage this process as they get disturbed frequently or if they don't have answers. Actually asking questions shows his interest on that particular object/thing.</p><p><b><span style="font-style: italic;">What a child needs to learn at minimum in order to succeed in this digital-age?</span></b></p><p>Digital world is full of information (currently it is in the magnitude of petabytes) and it is much much more than any individual can consume. This means, child need not learn whole text-books that are available to him rather he should learn few concepts that are interesting to him. In particular the child must learn how to construct such concepts on his own. Here, technology/schools/parents/<wbr>friends/etc may help in filtering the petabytes of information and provide qualitative information which suits his requirements. In order to utilize this aid effectively, at the fundamental outset, he must be skilled in "reading, writing, logic or arithmetic and 'how to learn'".</p><p><b><span style="font-style: italic;"> How to train a child to learn on his own?</span></b></p><p>I am part of a private school of 700 children (Sarojini Vidyalayam) in a rural village near Guntur (Andhra Pradesh, India) and experimenting this process in the following manner. Here, I have initiated on every week one specific day as "FUN-DAY". On this day, we conduct some interesting stuff to entertain children. One of such thing is called "Question Hour". In order to attend this class, each child is expected to bring a note (Doubts book) wherein he mentions his doubts those came into his mind during the week. These doubts could be anything like, why sky is blue? or why don't fan falls down? or why is air invisible? etc and need not be specific to their class subjects. Now assuming the classroom containing 50 children, all are divided into 5 batches (10 students per batch). Now batch-wise, that is, 10 children are to clarify their doubts among themselves. When they can't answer certain questions which will be written on teacher's notebook along with the names of the students who raised those doubts. Now the class teacher answers whatever she knows and passes unanswered questions to Principal. Question hour ends with this. Then the principal arranges a "Dial an expert" hour on the next FUN-DAY. Wherein, on a speaker phone an expert answers some of those questions to the children.</p><p>The goal of this process is to make sure that children ask right questions (obvious ones are filtered out much before it comes to the expert level). Now the expert is required to give answers filled with many more questions and provide examples/reference books/programs/etc. So that the children get the answer but then they become much more inquisitive to answer those questions (of the expert) on their own by reading the reference materials. We are considering the rewarding program for the children who answers these. Yes, learning happens through practice. So why, we have created this process in order to make the children learn on their own.</p><p><b>Can this process be scaled to the national level?</b></p><p>I am piloting these concepts at our school. Once I have matured processes, I want to use technology in order to automate and scale it to the masses across India (or elsewhere). This is what I am currently working on education front. </p><p><b>NOTES:</b></p><ol><li style="margin-left: 15px;">Experts could be anyone who is relatively more educated. I think, technology comes at this level.<br /></li><li style="margin-left: 15px;">Children (for that mater, anyone) learn by observing others or things around.</li><li style="margin-left: 15px;">Before inventing such system, my initial constraint was that not to disturb existing school system procedures.</li><li style="margin-left: 15px;">I am writing a book on Google tricks in order to help children to filter information on their own.</li></ol></span></div></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-48256067661288730602008-08-09T11:02:00.003+05:302008-11-19T14:41:10.182+05:30How many people can actually read/write in Rural India?<div style="text-align: justify;">Recently I was asked about the data (in each state) on educated population in rural India. Although government releases data about literacy rates, but I don't believe that this actually represents the people who can read and write. Say for example, consider the census of 2001. <a href="http://www.censusindia.gov.in/Tables_Published/C-Series/C-Series_link/c8_india.pdf">Download this</a> pdf file, in order to get the detailed data on education in India. Here you find that both higher secondary pass-outs and graduates are 37 million. Similarly you find that 'below primary school' educated are lesser than 'upper primary educated'. Anyone with common sense predicts that number of higher secondary pass-outs should be much higher than graduates (simply because almost all graduates are HS pass-outs and moreover, drop-out rates are very high in India). Anyway let us move ahead.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As there is no single source for such authentic data, I am attempting to collate from several sources in order to get a feel for media companies. The following data is a "rough" estimation from various sources (<a href="http://education.nic.in/cd50years/g/U/1A/0U1A0E03.htm">Ministry of Education</a>, <a href="http://mospi.nic.in/nsso_press_note517.htm">NSSO</a>, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.pratham.org/aser07/aser2007.php">Pratham</a>, etc).</div><div><div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">More than 70% of the population fall under rural India<br /></li><li style="text-align: justify;">At least 40 million people of rural India can read/write in their local language (females : 30%)<br /></li><li style="text-align: justify;">At least 18 million people of rural India do have familiarity with English, minor arithmetic</li><li style="text-align: justify;">12 million rural population can be considered for formal employment considering their interest in higher education (certificate, diploma, vocational training, industrial training, degree, etc)</li><li style="text-align: justify;">4 Million rural population (Females: 15%) can directly be trained for professional employment</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Notes: Based on Pratham's observations, here I assume that the people who completes their school education can read/write in their local language. Similarly who completes high school education successfully should be familiar with English/arthmetic. Graduates can be trained for employment.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you have any authentic sources in this regard, do let me know.</div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-17575877576125141332008-07-29T08:14:00.001+05:302008-07-31T00:20:49.782+05:30Baobab: a Billion dollar tree to change the lives of rural India<div style="text-align: justify;">In India, Mango tree is planted once and reap the fruits every year. Its tasty fruits are also very much nutritious. This is the reason, the whole world is looking for importing this fruit. I am talking about another tree which is planted once and you can reap its benefits forever. How is it possible?<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">During my childhood, in our school lessons, I learnt that every part of Coconut trees can be used one way or the other. Now what I believe is that next generation kids will learn a new tree named, African "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adansonia_digitata">Baobab tree</a>" whose every part (fruits, seeds, leaves, bark, timber etc) are much more useful than any other tree you heard of.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yes, Baobab is a <a href="http://www.dadobat.soton.ac.uk/fruits/Baobab_factsheet.pdf">multipurpose</a> tree and known for its swollen, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">hollow trunk</span> which is most commonly used for waterstorage. The hollow trunk is also reported to be used as a tomb in West Africa for griot and the leprous. This baobab tree's <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">exotic fruit</span> (6 to 8 inches, or 15 cm to 20 cm long) contain the fresh pulp (tangy, sub-acid flavour) which has twice as much calcium as milk, is high in anti-oxidants, iron and potassium, and has 6 times the vitamin C of an orange. It tastes similar to Jack fruit and so, can be processed into jams, juices and wines. Pulp can also used as a substitute for cream of tartar and moreover to curdle milk. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">The leaves</span> are rich in ß carotene, and contain a significant amount of amino acids and several trace elements. These leaves can be eaten as relish, while the fruit dissolved in milk or water can be used as a drink. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">The seeds</span> can be eaten fresh, dried or roasted and can also be used as a coffee substitute. The seeds produce edible oil and has a light, golden colour with a nuttyaroma and a long shelf-life. The oil can also be used in cosmetics (including bath oil, lotions and creams) taking advantage of its natural moisturising effects. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; ">Oil-cake can be used for feeding cattle. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">The </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; ">dried bark</span> is used for the manufacturing of packing paper. Strong inner fibre from the bark can also be used in rope making, cordage, harness straps, strings for musical instruments, baskets, nets, snares, fishing lines and cloth<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; ">. Its </span>timber<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "> can be used for making canoes and fishing floats. In fact, all parts of the tree are having medicinal properties.</span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Baobab tree averages 25 m in height and 6-10 m in diameter. The root system of a mature tree penetratesthe soil to a depth of approximately 2 m. It is drought hardy, fire resistant and prefers areas with a high water table. It grows in arid, semi-arid and sub-humid tropical climates. Most interesting part is that the lifespan of these trees is about 3000 years (yes, you read correctly). The tree is easy and cheap to cultivate and free from any serious pests and diseases. The tree provides shade, cooling the soil beneath the canopy. Deciduous leaf drop acts as a soilconditioner by providing a humus-rich top layer, improving watermoisture content and protecting the soil against erosion. In general, the fruits abscise late in the rainy season, but may persist on thetree for several months. Ripe pods, however, can be stored unopened or uncracked for a number of months inhumid climates, without refrigeration. The trees will bear pods after 8-23 years. The tree can be planted for reduction of soil erosion and to provide a habitat for many native animals, birds and reptiles.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now coming to business part, Rajasthan or Indian government can promote this fruit as food security for our nation. It is expected to become a billion dollar industry and also recently European union has approved the extract of the baobab fruit as an ingredient in foods in the European market. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Although it appears that Baobab is not grown commercially in large plantations and to be planted as an isolated tree, I think modern research would look into it in order to make imperative to whole human kind. What do you say?</div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-84395341396106336962008-07-23T14:00:00.001+05:302008-07-23T14:29:02.444+05:30Providing Urban Amenities to Rural Areas<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.vedamsbooks.com/no39310.htm">PURA</a> is an ambitious program advocated by my dream scientist Dr. A.P.J. Kalam. However this model is fundamentally flawed. Although APJ has good intentions, he needs to understand a little bit of economics before propagating such basically flawed approaches. A simple example to illustrate the same:<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">-----------------------------------</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Milk delivery system</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I live in a small & beautiful hill-top colony called "Bhawani Nagar" (located in Marol, Andheri East, Mumbai). Here there are around 2000 flats (perhaps, area could be of 500 meters by 500 meters). Consider the daily milk home-delivery system. Four delivery boys of a near-by milk-booth visit each home in the early morning and deliver the milk packet. What are the costs to the milk-booths? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One-time cost: Because these delivery boys use cycle (of value Rs. 2000/- or less) as their transport, it is about 8000/- for the four boys.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Regular monthly cost to booth owner: Salary to the delivery boys is about Rs. 3000/- per month (their responsibilities are delivering the milk to approximately 500 flats on every morning, collecting the amounts, maintaining the accounts etc).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">How this is transferred as a cost to the milk-consumers of these flats? Assume 50 Paise (about a US cent) for each day's delivery is charged to the flat owners. Now what is the revenue of the milk-booth on this home-delivery service? Monthly it is about Rs. 30000 (2000*0.50*30). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Expenses on this service: Booth owner would spend about Rs. 15,000 monthly (including salaries to delivery boys, maintenance of cycles, defaults, etc). So this is a 50% profit business.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">----------------------------------</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Consider that similar service is offered in rural India for 2000 houses as was in our previous case. Assuming that 200 houses for a village, 2000 houses would be available in 10 villages. Now our model of milk delivery would slightly be modified due to the sparsely populated rural India. Milk is kept at a central location which has physical proximity to each of those 10 villages (hub and spokes model). Now the booth owner need to employ 10 people for delivery of the milk in the early morning. Now coming to the costs & profits to the booth owner.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One-time cost: Because these delivery boys use cycle (of value Rs. 2000/- or less) as their transport, it is about 20000/- for the ten boys. It is difficult to get the trained talent and so initial training costs equate to 2000/- for each delivery boy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Regular monthly cost to booth owner: Salary to the delivery boys: Rs. 1200/- per month (their responsibilities are delivering the milk to approximately 200 individual houses on every morning, collecting the amounts, maintaining the accounts etc).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">How this is transferred as a cost to the milk-consumers of these houses? Consider the fact that rural people are relatively poor and so, 5 Paise (about a US cent) is the amount can be charged for every single day of the delivery. What is the revenue of the milk-booth on this home-delivery service? Monthly it is about Rs. 3000 (2000*0.05*30). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Expenses on this service: Booth owner would spend about 15,000/-(including salaries to delivery boys, maintenance of cycles, defaults, etc). Ideally to make this a 50% profit business he needs 30 thousand rupees revenue, however he actually makes of about 3 thousand rupees only. This makes it <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">10X disconnect</span></span>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">-----------------------------------------------------</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Conclusion:</span> Rural India needs all those service which are present in urban India. However, this is not economically feasible. Rural India is sparsely populated. And so, distribution costs of services are obviously high. At the same time income of rural people is fairly low. And so, they can afford only a small part of service charges. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Solution to this issue is by urbanizing few of the rural areas. Say, for example, create the infrastructure for 6000 urban locations. Those urban locations would in turn will provide services to neighboring rural areas. This is what exactly advocated by Atanu Dey in his <a href="http://www.dgroups.org/groups/worldbank/GDF04/docs/RISC.pdf">RISC</a> paper.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-23924687763342444372008-07-14T13:50:00.000+05:302008-11-15T20:35:38.982+05:30Rollable water container : an innovation for fun and need!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm-zSJfN6auzOp4uMHmXU9F_XDsTqGu2ot2Xcg_7HSIjObi0k39K8BIkpJYyBzqD2pf9EE-3HW1cVGIf4KJ9FD7pFu7nT_XOB0uGcvMHKRdpg2QcYI3OnQVqTqHkZ7eXSQXh2i/s1600-h/collect2.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm-zSJfN6auzOp4uMHmXU9F_XDsTqGu2ot2Xcg_7HSIjObi0k39K8BIkpJYyBzqD2pf9EE-3HW1cVGIf4KJ9FD7pFu7nT_XOB0uGcvMHKRdpg2QcYI3OnQVqTqHkZ7eXSQXh2i/s320/collect2.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5222787582859616194" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">During my journeys to tribal locations (or broadly, rural), many times I fall into tears whenever I see many small children/ women carrying 2-3 water pots (one on top of another). <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Looking back at my childhood, rolling a cycle tube with a stick was a great fun. I used to run all over the village while rolling the tube whenever I find little time for playing. <br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It appears that these two ideas are considered in inventing the following water container <a href="http://www.qdrum.co.za/">Q-Drum</a> (patented) in order to fetch water. Of course, it is apparent that this is a natural invention considering that "Wheel" was the human's first scientific invention in transporting goods. Cost of this container is unknown.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Coming to its <a href="http://www.qdrum.co.za/stats.htm">design or technical</a> aspects:</div><div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;">The Q-drum is user friendly and the uniquue longitudinal shaft permits the drum to be pulled using a rope run through the hole. There are no removable or breakable handles or axles. And it is manufactured from Linear Low Density Polyethylene through either rotational or blow moulding and has a high compatibility with foodstuffs and water. It's durability has been proven by Kaymac Rotomoulders via a 3 metre drop-test filled with water as well as extensive actual use in rural areas of South Africa and Angola.With the Q-drum, even a child can pull 50 litres of water over flat terrain for several kilometres without undue strain, and could shift the burden of water collection away from adult women to children and reduce the existing burden on the children at the same time.</blockquote></div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-4248156845517643932008-07-13T20:15:00.003+05:302008-11-15T20:35:39.218+05:30Square watermelon : interesting lesson on innovation!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQxiXGV3kqjzBHZL8b9_5q28kUMaTtQXK8n_7ek0GTR1N2tNlO_r1aecUgoLJaeyV_rI1zNPcuW_WnRZb2j1pWWRU5aFx2mYz5TjmPjNPRJA5wYCsaYlKG2eyJGQOseG-0g1q8/s1600-h/squarewatermelon2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQxiXGV3kqjzBHZL8b9_5q28kUMaTtQXK8n_7ek0GTR1N2tNlO_r1aecUgoLJaeyV_rI1zNPcuW_WnRZb2j1pWWRU5aFx2mYz5TjmPjNPRJA5wYCsaYlKG2eyJGQOseG-0g1q8/s320/squarewatermelon2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5222516302080494530" /></a><br />This blog promotes certain values. The <a href="http://hardknoxlife.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/lessons-of-the-square-watermelon/">following post</a> from Dave perfectly fits here. <blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Japanese grocery stores had a problem. They are much smaller than their US counterparts and therefore don’t have room to waste. Watermelons, big and round, wasted a lot of space. Most people would simply tell the grocery stores that watermelons grow round and there is nothing that can be done about it. But some Japanese farmers took a different approach. ”If the supermarkets want a space efficient watermelon,” they asked themselves, “How can we provide one?” It wasn’t long before they invented the square watermelon.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The solution to the problem of round watermelons wasn’t nearly as difficult to solve for those who didn’t assume the problem was impossible to begin with and simply asked how it could be done. It turns out that all you need to do is place them into a square box when they are growing and the watermelon will take on the shape of the box.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This made the grocery stores happy and had the added benefit that it was much easier and cost effective to ship the watermelons. Consumers also loved them because they took less space in their refrigerators which are much smaller than those in the US - which resulted in the growers being able to charge a premium price for them. <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What does this have do with anything besides square watermelons? There are a five lessons that you can take away from this story which will help you in all parts of your life. Here are a few of them: <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">1) <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Don’t Assume: </span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The major problem was that most people had always seen round watermelons so they automatically assumed that square watermelons were impossible before even thinking about the question. Things that you have been doing a certain way your entire life have taken on the aura of the round watermelon and you likely don’t even take the time to consider if there is another way to do it. Breaking yourself from assuming this way can greatly improve your overall life as you are constantly looking for new and better ways to do things.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">2) <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Question Habits:</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The best way to tackle these assumptions is to question your habits. If you can make an effort to question the way you do things on a consistent basis, you will find that you can continually improve the way that you live your life. Forming habits when they have been well thought out is usually a positive thing, but most of us have adopted our habits from various people and places without even thinking about them.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">3) <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Be Creative:</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When faced with a problem, be creative in looking for a solution. This often requires thinking outside the box. Most people who viewed this question likely thought they were being asked how they could genetically alter water melons to grow square which would be a much more difficult process to accomplish. By looking at the question from an alternative perspective, however, the solution was quite simple. Being creative and looking at things in different ways in all portions of your live will help you find solutions to many problems where others can’t see them.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">4) <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Look for a Better Way:</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The square watermelon question was simply seeking a better and more convenient way to do something. The stores had flagged a problem they were having and asked if a solution was possible. It’s impossible to find a better way if you are never asking the question in the first place . Always ask if there is a better way of doing the things that you do and constantly write down the things you wish you could do (but currently can’t) since these are usually hints about steps you need to change. Get into the habit of asking yourself, “Is there a better way I could be doing this?” and you will find there often is. <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">5) <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Impossibilities Often Aren’t:</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you begin with the notion that something is impossible, then it obviously will be for you. If, on the other hand, you decide to see if something is possible or not, you will find out through trial and error.</div></blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-51427549290333754492008-06-28T12:53:00.000+05:302008-06-28T16:11:19.718+05:30Strategies for rural market focused companies<div style="text-align: justify;">The following are very generic suggestions for companies focused on rural market.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Focus: </span>The company/organization must focus on a single service unlike Drishtee or n-logue or Akshaya.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Training:</span> Training is necessary for all stakeholders with the company (including employees, customers, vendors, etc). Why it is important? Because, in rural India you get raw talent. So they must be aligned to your requirements. Sometimes you may have to start from creating the whole ecosystem before actually scaling up your operations.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Adjusting to local needs:</span> Rural India consists of varied cultures, variety of traditions, etc. Your model should have flexibility of adapting to the local needs.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Technology for masses:</span> Use technology wherever is possible.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Word of mouth advertising:</span> In rural India, people love to be your brand ambassadors and talk about all good things about your product/service if they like it.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">End-to-end service delivery:</span> You need to make sure that the consumer gets service-as-a-whole delivered. For example, if you just collect a resume and charge the customer Rs. 20, and this may not be scalable. However, you collect a resume, provide him a job having salary of Rs 5000 and collect Rs. 20000. This would definitely work with rural people. Take the case of SKS, they just not only provide capital to people but also help them in their businesses similar to venture capital companies engaging with their portfolio companies.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Emotional Attachment:</span> Rural people keep the trust with your product/service and so you must live up to it. And to create such trust, you need to align with local communities in order to follow the trick, "trust is transferable".<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Efficient distribution:</span> Rural India is sparsely populated and so it is obvious that the distribution costs are high. Here, one needs to deploy innovative approaches in order to bring down the costs. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-68087563752901963862008-06-16T10:11:00.000+05:302008-06-16T11:05:45.350+05:30Pocket Shower for developmental activitsts or trekking enthusiasts<div style="text-align: justify;">I usually go for treks (interested? if you are from Mumbai or Pune, do let me know!). And I just love those visits. Moreover, I also visit Rural villages just for my own understanding of grass-root issues. During those visits, sleeping bag has been exceptionally useful. However, there is little discomfort when I love to take bath in the places surrounded by lovely green (trees). Nature makes me amazingly refreshed. I think, Pocket Shower might help for such nature baths.<br /><br />Description of <a href="http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/pocket-shower">Pocket Shower</a>:<br /><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span id="intelliTXT"><p> Made from heat-resistant waterproof fabric, the <i>Pocket Shower</i> is super compact, measuring only 3” x 6” and weighing just 4.25 ounces when zipped and empty. To use, simply fill the 10 Liter (2.6 gallon) Pocket Shower, hang it using its 20 feet of lightweight cord and two tough built-in rings, and enjoy your shower. </p> <p> The shower features a compact shower head that you can use to adjust the flow of water from an efficient trickle to a free-flowing shower that lasts about 8 and a half minutes when fully open. </p> <p> For a warm shower, fill it up early and let the black fabric soak up the sun during the day. And when not in use, you can use the Pocket Shower as a regular dry sack to transport clothes or sleeping bags.</p></span></div></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span id="intelliTXT"><p> </p></span></div> We need this Pocket Shower to be adaptable to Indian conditions and moreover with a less price tag. Any grass-root innovator there?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-25418639357973806232008-06-15T15:02:00.000+05:302008-06-15T15:10:05.215+05:30Some numbers on SME activity, employment in India<div style="text-align: justify;">According to <a href="http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/06/13/stories/2008061351571000.htm">fifth economic census</a>: </div><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">As of 2005, about 26 million rural enterprises employed 51 million people, whereas about 16 million urban enterprises employed 49 million. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;">However, this trend seems to be changing, with rural employment in enterprises (engaged in activity other than agriculture) growing at an annual rate of 3.3 per cent between 1998 and 2005, as against 1.7 per cent in the case of urban enterprises. A change in composition in favor of the former could arrest the shift of populations to cities. A growth rate of 3-4 per cent in rural enterprise employment is achieved even if agriculture sector performs poorly. Therefore, enterprises do not depend on surplus farm income. They might have come up to cope with falling agriculture incomes. Nevertheless, healthy farm sector growth helps; a 2-3 per cent growth in agriculture output is likely to lead to a growth rate of rural employment of 5 per cent or more.</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-54043561060842594352008-06-15T04:57:00.004+05:302008-06-15T14:19:15.028+05:30Water as fuel for a car!<div style="text-align: justify;">Many times I dream during my night sleep. And yes, my dreams are always like the following: Reuters' Ms. Michelle Carlile-Alkhouri<a href="http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=84561&videoChannel=74"> report</a>.<br /><blockquote>Japanese company <a href="http://www.genepax.co.jp/en/">Genepax</a> presents its eco-friendly car that runs on nothing but water. The car has an energy generator that extracts hydrogen from water that is poured into the car's tank. The generator then releases electrons that produce electric power to run the car. Genepax, the company that invented the technology, aims to collaborate with Japanese manufacturers to mass produce it.</blockquote><a href="http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080613/153276/">Click here</a> for more details on this claim. Also you would like to see their <a href="http://www.genepax.co.jp/en/">website</a>.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-64552947663914169182008-06-14T09:29:00.002+05:302008-06-14T10:45:26.929+05:30Innovations waiting in selling Insurance policies for Rural India!<div style="text-align: justify;">Till date most of the companies in India are always focused on urban market or at least they sell their products/services with the same models that of predominantly urban-market oriented. However, of the late, there is a slight shift due to the popularity of so called, "Bottom of the Pyramid" model.<br /><br />One of the main vocal point of BoP model is that understand low-income people as your consumers and make your product affordable (units) to the BoP market. Most of the companies, these days, have started to remodel their products/services according to this principle.<br /><br />However, targeting BoP market means more than this. You need to make sure your offerings suit to the local needs. That is exactly missing in Insurance sector.<br /><br />Nowadays, I have come across many insurance companies selling their policies as low as <a href="http://ruralindia.blogspot.com/2008/05/two-indian-health-care-service-models.html">Rs. 10</a>, Rs. 25 (much less than a US dollar). This is really a welcome step. And now coming to the other innovations part:<br /><ol><li>Insurance policies should be completely flexible. There should not be like <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Personal_Finance/LICs_new_idea_for_rural_clients/articleshow/3118420.cms">separately</a> priced like health insurance, life insurance, vehicle insurance, farm insurance etc. You price them as a combination (as a flexible percentage and choice is given to the customer). Now let the customer chooses the way he wants. </li><li>Second comes from distribution aspect. Do not try to keep a separate chain of distribution. Utilize 1-2 millions telecom retail distribution chains. For the simple reason that these bring the structural efficiency in order to reduce the costs. </li><li>Third comes from social angle. Most of the rural people live in joint families or at least they would love to consume services as a family. This is evident from their consumption patterns such as marriage/functions, pilgrim trips etc. So your service should consider this trick and offer them a group oriented policies. One may even consider <span style="font-weight: bold;">community based policies</span>. That would possibly become an instant hit.<br /></li></ol></div>In all of the above scenarios, recent advances in technology would play a great role. So insurance companies should start looking at the benefits that new tech developments could bring them.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-46635725367418975472008-06-12T21:21:00.003+05:302008-06-14T10:59:06.833+05:30Copyrights of the contents of this blog<div style="text-align: justify;">For the past few days, I have been writing regularly on this blog (I do have many more blogs). Can you believe this? Even though I maintain such a large blog, I don't know to write. Due to this <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/2008/06/for-past-few-days-i-have-been-writing.html">weakness of mine</a>, I have not been replying to comments for long time on most occasions. One of such comment made me to write this post. That is about copyrights of this blog.<br /><br />You can freely copy or distribute any of the blog-posts here and moreover you can even remix them but with one condition that you must attribute the original source. Yes, you must have guessed it by now. I am talking about <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/in/" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 India License</a>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Firstly, I am really suprised why I did not this licensing stuff all this while. Secondly, I have removed unrelated posts here in order to make this blog restricted to "Rural India" context alone. I decided to write all my personal or business ideas in <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">my other blog</a>.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-29095810828203665622008-06-12T15:18:00.005+05:302008-07-10T08:51:03.785+05:30Services going mobile in India<div style="text-align: justify;">I used to wonder about the business model on <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/tech/world/2004-08-17-infothela_x.htm">providing Internet service on cycle rickshaw</a> to Rural population in India. Ultimately it failed in terms of scalability. And nowadays I hear about many services offered on move. I am listing them here:<br /></div><ol style="text-align: justify;"><li><a href="http://ruralindia.blogspot.com/2007/11/court-on-wheels.html">Court</a> (Indian government's innovative thought)<br /></li><li><a href="http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14639198">Hospital on vans</a> (<span class="arial size12 black">equipped with X-ray machine, ECG machine, basic pathological services for blood and urine test, ante-natal and post-natal services and an out-patient department for common ailments</span>)</li><li><a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1109529">Hospital on Train</a><br /></li><li><a href="http://eko.co.in/pilot.html">Banking</a></li><li><a href="http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/October/subcontinent_October1054.xml&section=subcontinent">Science Train</a></li><li><a href="http://ruralindia.blogspot.com/2008/06/auomobile-spares-distribution-in-rural.html">Automobile Spare parts on Bus<br /></a></li><li><a href="http://www.afaqs.com/news/company_news/Marketing/8788.html">PCO</a> (manned pay-phone service)</li><li><a href="http://www.positiveoutcomes.com.au/page.asp?partid=312">Female on move to sell FMCG products</a></li><li><a href="http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/sagar-gubbi/archive/2007/09/17/mann-deshi-udyogini">Micro-business school</a> on a Mini Bus</li><li><a href="http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/sagar-gubbi/archive/2008/01/14/3a-bazaar-1">Retail stores</a> on Vans</li><li><a href="http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/sagar-gubbi/archive/2008/02/03/bosch-vaahan">Tools</a> on a Truck for rural carpenters, metalworking artisans, plumbers etc</li><li><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/apr07/04-22RuralComputing.mspx">Computer Training center</a> on wheels</li><li><a href="http://thinkchangeindia.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/sanitation-on-wheels-all-aboard/">Toilets</a> on wheels<br /></li></ol><div style="text-align: justify;">Guess which of these would be scalable & sustainable? I believe: banking,hospital on van, automobile spare parts on bus and retail stores would be scalable. Similarly cellphone spare parts on wheels can be a potential business opportunity.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Note:</span> I would keep updating this list as and when I find other such ventures.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-7905999363760458012008-06-12T14:21:00.001+05:302008-06-12T14:42:54.776+05:30Rural India lacks focused media<div style="text-align: justify;">These days most of the big corporates are interested to enter into Rural India. Steps needed to enter into rural market are as follows:<br /><br />1. Product/service should be tailored to (large, fragmented, dynamic) rural market.<br />2. <a href="http://ruralindia.blogspot.com/2008/05/some-attempts-to-penetrate-into-rural.html">Efficient Distribution</a> (click on the link to see some of the models mentioned in my previous post)<br />3. Effective marketing : Rural India lacks focused media. This is an opportunity in waiting to have clients like: Nokia, Airtel, Coke, Unilever, ICICI, Max New York Life, Hero Honda, Nicholas Piramal, Apollo, Mahindra, and thousands of such companies who are dying to get the attention of Rural Indians.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-86489846532693385962008-06-12T12:41:00.003+05:302008-06-12T15:53:46.018+05:30Auomobile spares distribution in Rural India<div style="text-align: justify;">Automobile spares distribution is a big issue in rural India. As users live in sparse locations, the service becomes very expensive (for the distributor as well as the end user). This is one of the major reason for lesser adoption for bikes, cars, etc in Rural India. Obvious solution is mobile distribution center. How?<br /><br />Satyam has created a mobile auto showroom cum service center, which can be taken door-to-door in a Bus, called <a href="http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14685499">Edow</a>. This bus will be equipped with everything an auto dealer needs, a display area, a workshop, a sales office and systems, hi-tech display systems and high speed connectivity. It expects demand of 40,000 for such buses in India.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-7827296599658524472008-06-11T22:52:00.001+05:302008-06-12T01:21:55.686+05:30What iPhone-3G means to Rural India?iPhone 3G is creating waves across the world that it's a very cheap device. Let me discuss from Rural India's perspective.<br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><ol><li>It costs 8400/- + taxes, however one has to add up the Internet usage cost. It may make up Rs. 800-1000 per month plan for two years. This means, device would costs about 30000/-. Now guess, how many people can afford this price gamble? Try from this hint, there are about 300,000 blackberry users in India. </li><li>As each user will have to purchase unlimited data plan along with the device, this will increase the broadband user base.</li><li>Touch screen phones are more relevant to Rural India if you consider data services. Because language could be the local one. Larger keypad can be created as an application.</li><li>More icons kind of look and feel makes people to be comfortable with the handsets in order to increase data services adoption. For example, enable voice and visual way of browsing<br /></li><li>Camera, MobileTV, Video on Demand, VOIP, GPS are the things which would drive this iPhone market in Rural India. Good business model is by charging each service separately.</li><li>Many full-scale services, targeting rural mass, would emerge such as e-health care, banking, ticketing etc.<br /></li></ol></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11094317.post-56355036962975320492008-06-11T16:29:00.001+05:302008-06-11T17:16:27.478+05:30Strategies for rural Indian market<div style="text-align: justify;">Recently <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Guest_Writer/Opening_new_frontiers_Story_at_the_bottom_of_the_pyramid/articleshow/2951438.cms">Anisha</a> has shared her insights/experiences in her new job. Some of those points I would like to mention here.<br /><blockquote>Till recently, a large part of marketing was done targeting the urban consumer, and with most marketers having no prior exposure to the rural audience, they are applying the same rules to connect with this completely different segment. The mistake that most companies make while chalking their rural strategies is to treat the rural consumer as an extension of their urban counterpart.</blockquote>You can't do this because their life style is entirely different from the urban counterparts.<br /><blockquote>The other common mistake is to treat rural consumers as a homogeneous mass without segmenting them into appropriate segments. The most relevant point to note is that this segment is extremely fragmented and spread out over a large geographical base. The cultural and behavioral differences vary not just from state to state but from village to village. Mapping out this difference in consumer behavior is the key to any successful rural strategy.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">From buffaloes to beauty parlours</span>:</span><br />Farmers verging on retirement, sensing the decline of their own profession, are encouraging their children to enter different vocations. Around one-fifth of rural households now generate their primary income from a salaried job or a small business. Besides small village shops, loans are being taken for novel business ideas like beauty parlors, popcorn machines, spice factories, tailoring shops et al. A villager equals farmer is true no more as life has moved beyond farming and agriculture.<br /></blockquote>Farming is one of the source of revenue however, it is true that rural youth are looking at alternate sources of revenues (because farming is a seasonal activity and so, during the other seasons they take up other revenue generating activities). However, most of them are employed with unorganized sector.<br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Don’t just sell dreams, tell them how to live their dreams</span>:</span><br />Thanks to the television having made substantial inroads into rural homes, villagers have also learnt to dream. Everyday they are exposed to images of ordinary people scaling extraordinary heights. This has given them enough hope about their own future, but where they flounder is the way to go about it. It is here that measured approach consisting of small actions, one step at a time, finds better acceptance and credibility. Actions where outcome can be measured from time to time and results are visible in the near future. So, go ahead and sell them dreams, but at the same time give them a solution and a formula for it to materialise.<br /></blockquote>Yes. Let us say, if you wish to a sell a insurance policy for a farmer. You can sell it only when he understands how to make use of it at its best. This is where social aspects also comes. While training the farmer, you need to relate the service to his social life.<br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Not just economic but emotional security</span>:</span><br />Even though they are receptive to new ideas, they do not readily dash into new ventures. They do not only want economic security but also emotional security. They are likely to welcome innovation that satisfies their sense of security. If they feel that a particular idea will help them improve their economic position or their social relationship, they will accept it. Selling a product to them is not a cold commercial transaction (but) an agreement of trust between the marketer and the consumer. And companies that live up to the trust that this consumer places in them will benefit immensely in the long run.<br /></blockquote>Rural people are much more social than their counterparts and this makes the difference. This is the reason you need to have local alliances.<br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Their children are like stocks in a portfolio</span>:</span><br />It’s always known that family ties are very strong in hinterland, but the difference is in the proportion of family budget that is being allocated to children, especially the male child and his education. Son’s education in a private school is like a stock market investment that is bound to yield returns far greater than any other investment. Any marketing effort that appeals to this agenda is bound to catch his immediate attention.</blockquote>This is a recent transformation. As farmers do understand that there is not much money can be made from farming. They shifted their whole investments on children education. Particularly, southern states are much more advanced in this regard compared to northern ones.<br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sharing risks and rotating savings</span>:</span><br />This insight is the basis for the success of all micro finance ventures in rural India. A simple model that lends on the back-up commitment of small groups has minimised risks and reduced bad debts to near zero percent (certainly doesn’t need the intervention of the finance minister to help institutions recover their money)! Some of the other industries that can leverage this to their advantage are insurance schemes that offer group products and innovative saving schemes.<br /></blockquote>Particularly health insurance is a low hanging opportunity here. Rural Indians have to be treated as families rather than individuals. Most services are shared among the family. For example, if one member purchases a mobile, it is like whole family purchased it. Rural marketers should get this point while putting their business models.<br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Community empowerment & inclusion</span>:</span><br />The rural communities have not been empowered in the past. So they do not participate in the development process. A participatory model that mobilises the community and makes it responsible for its own well-being is bound to find greater success. The attempt should be to turn villagers into entrepreneurs and keep the ownership of the various projects with the community. Given the vastness and diversity of the geographies involved, marketers would do well to leverage the potential of villagers themselves by creating entrepreneurial communities. Make them an extended team of your business and let them grow with you. A last word of caution, the companies entering the rural markets must do so for strategic reasons and not for tactical gains.</blockquote>This is in order to maximise the market. We have to ensure that development aspects of our efforts should be implicit.<br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><p><b>--</b><p>This blog is strictly specific to Rural India. And to read my general blog-posts, look at: <a href="http://malapati.blogspot.com/">http://malapati.blogspot.com/</a>. To provide feedback or otherwise, you may reach me at my gmail id: malapati or on my Indian mobile number: [Nime Sics Gero Gero Gero One Sics For Nime WON].</p></p></div>Malapati Raja Sekharhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02768426014090050947noreply@blogger.com0