Saturday Thinnai Matinee Farashi Conversations.

Saturday Evenings with Thinnai Matinee with Ari Anna and Prof Ananya led ground up globally networked Creole Cultures Research Initiative ‘Le Thinnai Kreyol’. Today the conversation focused on French-Bengali Connections with Prof Annu from NUS and Mr. Joy Banerjee. Great fun lah as always on many levels.

This one is closer ‘home’ as i am a NUS alum, have worked there as well in migrant worker research at the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

Good convergence on issues hardly spoken about in popular culture anymore such as the horrid Bengal Famine. And the French in the seminar with three Bengali speakers is not an issue really as I grew up listening to French Rai Music in Muscat. French is a pleasant language like Bangla.

I start a PhD soon pandemic permitting.

Last Mile Delivery of Digital Governance- A Photo Essay

The Primary School which doubles up as an Aadhar Centre in Hadapsar, Pune
The School.
The face of digital public goods delivery.

The Aadhar details update process is a rather straight forward one, the Maha e-service centre in our urban village Devachi Uruli on the outskirts of Pune helps in arranging an appointment as well as filling up the form for the main Aadhar office which is a classroom in a primary school in Hadapsar. The biometric and computer terminal is operated by a Hijabi Mother-Daughter duo who run a smooth set up as a node of last mile digital governance in India.

The Aadhar is the edifice of public goods delivery in the country and is a part of the everyday from the Bank to the Sim Card. It’s time it’s ubiquitous nature is understood in its own terms.