Author: changethinker

Born and raised in Mumbai, India with an undergrad degree from Oman and a masters degree from the National University of Singapore. I am an Environmental Professional with a passion for Sustainability, Social Innovation and Governance related issues. A Change Agent in the making who believes that small is beautiful and that impact can be achieved -one soul at a time.

Unpacking the Myth of ‘Shared Value’

The past decade has led to an explosion in tri-sector interaction frame-works in popular business literature with leading American Policy Academic Joseph Nye exalting business leaders to re-frame their capabilities as a ‘Tri-Sector Athlete’; by adapting  the requisite tools required for each sector to maximize shared value.  The Private Sector under the wider conceptual rubric of Corporate Citizenship is working hand in hand with Philanthropic Foundations plus Global NGO’s and diffused citizen grassroots organizations to create an illusion of sensible corporate governance. Some drinking water here, some solar panels there is the current regime of tokenism.  Social Development Professionals who work in corporate funded foundations and think tanks often complain of being sidelined by the marketing team who hijack whatever good can be achieved in a transnational shareholder capitalism context with green washing the naïve consumers. A serious empirical study needs to be done of how effective the rhetoric about ‘The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid’ in the past decade has really been. The black box of management fluff needs to be deconstructed in order to understand whether the ‘real’ shareholders are being hoodwinked in believing thin air rather than real meat.

How real is the ‘Shared Value’ for the citizen sector? Is the value for the 3rd sector only in terms of paying the flight tickets and hotel costs of top honchos of Green peace?  Let’s have some researcher do some Randomized Control Trials in a Monitoring & Evaluation Framework to know its efficacy.

As of now Shared Value has worked for Financial Institutions, FMCG Majors and Retail Chains to expand rural market share and procuring new targets (Grameen Group in Bangladesh has synergistic operating model- microfinance to dairy to telecom and rural renewable energy). I do not see how the power dynamics will work for the underfunded and undermanned non-profit in West Papua where the voices of marginalised communities are erased and co-opted in the name of Development for all in neoliberal governance architecture. Who is this ‘All’ after all?.

In order to operationalize this rather normative argument, let the corporations begin by making their current CSR initiatives more impactful by walking the talk, after all shared value should not be a footnote in its annual sustainability report, right?

 

Lessons in Business from a Bottom up Urban Entrepreneur

The Food & Beverages Sector is the most segregated and stratified in the country as it ranges from the street corner fast food joint to a reasonable eatery to the ephemeral star hotels.  An eatery has severe quality control limitations as an authorised eatery will have to get about 70 odd registrations and licenses done to open one. The F&B sector is glamorous with the Michelin Star Chefs sexing it up. Anyway the contemporary business media discourse is about eulogizing and manufacturing the myth of the entrepreneur. This post is about recognizing the potential for bottom up entrepreneurship in the ‘R’uban space and unpacking the black box of what makes an entrepreneur tick! (a term coined and popularized by Iconic Singaporean Architect & Urban Planner Tay Kheng Soon and recently quoted by Prime Minister Modi in his first Parliamentary speech)

The protagonist of the narrative is a certain Mr. Shyam who runs his corner store eatery in Gurgaon’s upmarket residential neighborhood, where he cooks and sells every single dish which the costumer demands. Costumer is King for him. Whether it is catering lunch to the office goer in the next block or the student who comes in for the rather oily fried Indian Noodles for an evening snack.   23 year old Shyam looks like a teenager due to his youthful dressing sense and negligible facial hair. His corner shop tries to deploy a modicum  of a restaurant with the napkin, the silver foil container for takeaways, proper cutlery and outdoor cane chairs. Well, the family run store tries its best to attract quality crowd. Shyam once quipped that even if folks are not eating and simply sitting on the outdoor cane chairs, it will give a signal to the prospective buyer that the store has a clientele and hence shall infuse confidence aka validation in the store, that He/She may try out the place. 

Brilliant business insight from a guy who just studied till Grade 6. Education has nothing to do with ability. Smriti Irani will make a great Cabinet Minister. A degree from Harvard or an IIT does not make for a good Entrepreneur or a seasoned politico (read some Mr. Kejriwal). Shyam left his town in Northern part of West Bengal at the age of 14 for Bangalore where he worked in a restaurant and learnt the tricks of the trade. In a few years, he moved to Gurgaon to start his corner store and moved up the social ladder.

Fire in the belly and being open to learning fresh ideas is the key to entrepreneurship. Humility, Drive and Risk taking ability are the traits that have distinguished Shyam from others of his habitus.

Simple Folks, Massive Insights. Entrepreneurship is a transformative social elevator.

 

The tough questions for the knowledge sector?

Global Capital is accumulated and dispersed in the hyper-connected superhighways of the ICT Sector-Financial ‘fort’ Industrial Complex. Information Technology, Finance, Consulting are the jobs which the brightest of brains in the developing world are vying for. The Nehruvian Ideal of Industries being the Temples of Modern India are passe. Manufacturing in India has been a non-starter because of draconian labor and land acquisition laws. These sectors are great, but where are the real jobs being nurtured and created?

The knowledge sector’s currency is innovation. But does everyone have the necessary skill-set of communication, analytically thinking and most importantly staying ahead of the curve. Elite academic brands dominate the market, and the elite brand is a network of exclusive contacts. This elite have the key to wealth creation? 

Globalization’s greatest gift is the service sector, but as the world urbanizes, the de-agrification occuring and gini coefficients dipping, is the knowledge sector with its call centres, consulting offices and bank terminals the panacea for growth. Strategic Infrastructure is the key to jobs. Water Supply Plants, Dams, Highways should be the operational hubs of the knowledge economy, and not offices in Palo Alto.

Reimagining the Left of Centre in India

With the triumphant win of the Narendra Modi campaign and the Right riding home with an absolute majority; the Political Right in India has gauged the pulse of the nation by moving away from faith based politics and riding the wave of the strong rhetoric of development and muscular leadership. In contrast, the Left of Centre- the motley bunch of the semi-national players that brandish themselves by secularism, regional pride and somewhat pragmatic definition of secularism were marginalised. AIADMK, TMC and BJD as regional behemoths expanded their space, but the once mighty Congress and the traditional left (read CPM) and quasi-socialist actors in form of the SP, BSP, JDS, JDU, NCP all had to eat humble pie (or halwa for all that matter). The alternative political discourse offered by the Aam Admi Party was silenced by the Tsu-NaMo that wiped it off in the political landscape of Delhi. The indecisive leadership and aborted governance story of Kejriwal was a damp squib. 

The Left of Centre is rudderless such as the BJP after the 2009 polls under an uninspiring campaign under Mr. Advani. The youth factor of Rahul & Co + State Welfarism (i.e Jairam Ramesh administered MNERGA) won the day for UPA. Then it went into self destruct policy paralysis mode and with all the mega scandals time was ripe for a strong decisive leader which the Sangh and the BJP capitalized on. The mood of the nation mandated a message of salvation. A message which was communicated well.

So, What lessons can the Left of Centre political continuum derive to drive its politics in the Modi Age. A few pointers are stated below:

Congress: Rahul Factor was ineffective. With 44 seats, Congress needs a reboot. Priyanka has more charm and will help a lot more. It would be great to have a Jyotiraditya and a Shashi to lead the party region wise, dismantle dynastic high command culture and project a strong leadership orientation. Secularism is a hackneyed horse. Pluralism and Inclusive Growth are values that still resonate. More empowered Regional Leaders and an aspiration oriented message is the need of the hour. In short, wake up or Congress as we know will be history as TMC, NCP and YSRC have more muscle and overpower them.

AAP: A ground up self organised urban movement that had a lot of energy and lost its way in the quest to spread itself thin. Message for AAP; Let Kejriwal be the anarchist and the organizer, and have a Yogendra Yadav lead the political face of the party. Aspirational, Educated, Urbane. Concentrate on a few geographies and expand such as Delhi, Punjab and Haryana where they still have purchase.

Left Front : Ideologue named Prakash Karat is as charismatic as a brick wall. The left is decimated in Bengal and a marginal entity in Kerala. Tripura is a dot on the map with two MPs.  Needs an energetic Young Leader with a national catch phrase. Learn from your ideological cousins in Beijing comrades!

SP, BSP, NCP, JDU : The quasi-socialist gang have exhausted their caste and minority appeasement card. The nation wants a clear cut development agenda. Caste Cauldrons of UP and Bihar have voted for development. Re-structuring of the political message needed.

Values of pluralism and inclusiveness are treasured in the intellectual fabric of the Idea of India. The Demographic youth bulge has spoken. Jobs and Services are tangibles that are political weapons in the gladiatorial theater of Indian Electoral Democracy.

The Left under reformist Buddhadeb won 35 of 42 seats, won urban Bengal in 2004 polls and Left dictated terms for 4 years until the Indo-US Nuclear Deal Fiasco. International Ideological positions over rode energy security. Lessons from History are to be learnt. If the BJP can, i hope the opposition can too.

Why it is a good idea for India to have a Temasek Holdings of its own?

Recently there has been talk of India having its own Sovereign Wealth Fund. The idea espoused by TV 18 Founder Raghav Bahl has attained additional intellectual fuel by Economic Thinker Arun Shourie’s backing of the idea. A Sovereign Wealth Fund for India will be a holding company for the profitable public sector enterprises, and will be a ‘National Champion’ in French parlons extrapolating National Power overseas such as an Alstorm or a Arcelor. According to policy research, the locus of the corporate headquarters helps the organization to leverage national assets in a globalized marketplace of ideas and assets. In short it is an extension of foreign policy and state capitalism. Temasek Holdings and GIC, the Sovereign Wealth Funds of the Republic of Singapore have been vehicles of this meritocratic City-State to help it punch above its weight class in the international financial community. Singaporean Sovereign Wealth Fund’s were one of the biggest investors in the 2008 financial depression. The Changi Naval Base in Singapore regularly hosts US Navy ships.  Financial and Economic might go hand in hand. Recently, Singapore has emerged as the largest offshore trading hub for the Chinese Yuan.

Qatar Holdings is one of the world’s most aggressive sovereign wealth funds snapping up assets across the globe. Although Qataris are incredibly affluent with an absolute monarchy, its prominence in the domain of state craft is a case in point.  A country such as India should not compare with these islands of affluence. China, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico are probably better examples to draw a comparative. As a prominent media commentator from Singapore quipped on my Facebook discussion thread on the same theme as this post,  that India missed the competitive resource nationalism bus vis-a-vis China long time back but an ONGC Videsh would have found it much easier to compete with a CNOOC if India had an over-arching SWF to back it in the international financial markets.

A muscular foreign policy needs the cash of an SWF to enforce its talk. The ability to raise capital and acquire assets at will is crucial towards projecting strength. A good idea whose time is ripe, actually long over due.

 

Urban self-organised movements: what does the AAP case portray?

The Aam Admi Party is a text book case-study in self-organized urban movements that have utilized the power of web 2.0 to the hilt. Aam Aadmi Party metamorphosed from a civil society movement against corruption lead by the political sage Anna Hazare to a political phenomena that stormed Delhi State Politics in the December 2013 polls. It had fresh faces, intellectuals, the real common dweller in Delhi behind it fueled by crowd sourced rupees and dollars with NRI social media and on the ground volunteers coming together as a never before alternative to Indian Political Scene. The 49 day Kejriwal Administration was an extended version of a Bollywood Potboiler aka Nayak starring Anil Kapoor in 2001.

But Real Politik is not the same as reel life. Then , the story unraveled. Against a well oiled PR (Development powered) machinery of Narendra Modi Inc; The AAP activist narrative came a cropper. All its candidates in Delhi and Haryana lost, but it surprised everyone with four parliamentary seats won in Punjab. It is slowly occupying an alternative space between the Akalis and the Congress. It was the silver lining in a sky of gloom. 

Kejriwal’s theatrical antics help in mobilizing media focus. Kejriwal’s Tihar Arrest boosted online donations 35X in one day.  Street Politics is a good thing but the urban voter wishes to have mini Singapore’s in his/her neighborhood and not dharna disrupting his traffic flow back home from office.  

I do agree that the entire point of AAP was about making a point. But in order to scale up a political start up like AAP it needs a product that closes the deal with the voter. A Strong Leader with a sharp oriented focus like Modi is the need of the hour that India needs vis-a-vis a rhetoric based AAP. 

AAP needs to re-calibrate its business plan. Otherwise it shall be relegated to the infamous annals of contemporary Indian Political History as a one hit wonder. I am sure Kejriwal and YY has more bright ideas.

 

‘How a Chai-wallah came to occupy 7RCR’ : the Leadership Story of the Modi Campaign

India’s social architecture is changing. India’s demographic dividend is finally paying up (a term popularized by Technocrat Politico Nandan Nilekani). This 9 Phase atrociously staggered election was punctuated with every nuanced characteristic of the Idea of India whether its is caste, religion, jingoism, and all the varied characters which would befit a Bollywood multi-starrer. This election leveraged Social Media to the hilt and the poll where 24×7 news TV made a resounding comeback (really entertaining coverage to admit must add at Times Now and CNN IBN). The BJP ran a very detailed 360 degree communications strategy with a technocratic precision with the on the ground hardware interface of the Sangh, The oratory prowess and the charisma of Narendra Modi vis-a-vis a quite non-verbose (pun intended) Manmohan Singh and rather amateurish Rahul Gandhi (demonstrated aptly via his inadequate interview with Arnab). 

In Delhi, where i currently live i was constantly bombarded with images of a strong Narendra Modi at the Bus Stop, Metro System and even on the radio the commuter is not sparred with the emotive communication with the tenor-theme of ‘Inflation Escaping and Development Coming in to the Country’. It was myth making sound-byte by sound byte. Manufactured Consent building via the media discourse is the hallmark of this communications campaign. To a certain extent this was an intelligent media campaign with respect to the flawed and disastrous ‘India Shining’ Campaign where boastful noise crowded out the message of the growth story post the Kargil War.

The media campaign was presidential carved around the twin heads of Leadership and to a shade lesser the prospective narrative of development. Both the themes reinforce one another. A strong leader can deliver the vision of development with force. The nuances of a 56 inch chest, Bangladeshi infiltrators, taking Mamata di head on are all symbolic of a masochistic political thought. Young India is raging high on hormones. It appreciates the brash, not the weak projection of the leftist intellectual class representative of the National Advisory Council. The ‘In the Face’ media narrative of the NaMo Campaign resonated well with the urban youth as they were all enthused with the proactive message rather than the emasculating, deafening silence of the UPA dispensation.

The narrative was constructed through a series of interviews with media honchos such as Arnab Goswami. Modi gamed the interview with him unlike the Rahul Gandhi one which TMC Leader Derek O’Brien called it a ‘Kindergarten Interview’. He has deftly put the issues of the long flogged horse of Secularism and minority community apprehensions regarding a Modi Government to the backburner. It is a communications home-run, for sure. How Team Modi managed to thwart the negative 2002 back-story and build a momentum is a Political Branding Case-Study at a Business School.

Whether or not a Narendra Modi Administration is a hit in the long term is a secondary issue, and honestly not the topic for analysis at-least in this post. This soul of this narrative is how a ‘chai-wallah came to occupy 7RCR’ , through the straight forward message of leadership and hope. 

 

Sustainability …

Sustainability is a multi headed creature encompassing Social and Ecological Justice translated in to actionable instruments to deliver a better quality of life. Sustainability has to mesh well within the paradigm of Industrial Capitalism as Environmentalism cannot exist in a void

The past two ye…

The past two years have been the journey of my own personal re-discovery of India, the amazingly complex creature called Hindustan. A Brutal Teacher, a friends friend, a mentor of character. From the Forests of Alwar to the tip of Kanyakumari, Shes been awesome. But i do miss my kopio in Clementi though, albeit sometimes.

Two Years of work life in India

Its all about location Stupid: Gurgaon and its Sociology of Space

I have been a Gurgaon resident for half a year now, which is quite stunning in itself as I thought I would not survive here at all. It is a decent decent place, as I would like to contradict its detractors.  Gurgaon like Navi Mumbai, my quasi hometown is a satellite city originally planned to create space for the working classes to commute to the Central Business District in the morning and drain out the city later in the evening. But these cities have evolved to carve a unique urban footprint of their own with being Corporate Hubs with the signature DLF Cyber City or a Vatika Business Park in Gurgaon. These are all inclusive lifestyle hubs with their customised entertainment focal points as DLF Cyber City has its Cyber Hub with 600 meters of the best eateries lined up from the world over, a Hard Rock Café rubs shoulders with a Thai fine dining restaurant Soi 7 and the Singapore based Wine Company. Eclectic area, pretty women too. Amen.

A similar illustration for Navi Mumbai would be the IT Park Ecosystem around the swanky Vashi Railway Station with eateries, In Orbit Mall and nightlife hotspots  aka Rude Lounge. The Palm beach road resembles Sheik Zayed Road in Dubai more than the spatial landscape of a Nariman Point. The gentrification of Gurgaon and Navi Mumbai is the story of urbanization in India. The upmarket corporate locus Cyber City in Gurgaon is 30 minutes from the International Airport in Delhi and near the south Delhi hotspots of Saket, Vasant Vihar and Greater Kailash. Although the so called Millennium City of Gurgaon has a bad water and electricity issue; the Kohinoor of Haryana grows insatiately in to Rajasthan along the Jaipur Highway (may be because of the lower crime rates in Rajasthan).  Skyscrapers share the boundary wall with a society next door of low height buildings all over Gurgaon. DLF Phase 3 with U Block and Sahara Mall with Chakkarpur in Phase II which gives you a feel of a tier 3 town in India than Downtown Mumbai.  Gurgaon is much for the folks in Chakkarpur and U Block as it is for the Golf Course Road Residents. Local Politician Tayyib Hussein competes with a Yogendra Yadav and Rao Inderjit Singh here for the Parliamentary seat.

The spatial geography of Gurgaon follows the norms associated with Sociology of Space eschewed by Marxist Theorists such as David Harvey and Henri Lefebvre. The capital is concentrated round regions with access to markets and consumers. The money circulating in the global circuit of free market gung ho capitalism is embedded symbolically in the office towers of Gurgaon. Top Dollar Attracts Top Dollar, as simple as that crude maxim. The gated communities of DLF Phase 5 and Golf Course Road exude elitist values of exclusivity and privilege with American Style Suburban Homes. Exit a gated community and you are back to the harsh reality of pot holes which depict the crater of the moon than an urban centre. A light shower and the roads of Gurgaon are a muddy puddle. There seems to be governance disconnect somewhere.

The ordinary chap in Gurgaon drinks at Machan- a term burrowed from Punjabi for an open Attic at a countrywide home. The Machan in Gurgaon is a social institution (positioned next to an office complex at a traffic intersection like the Sector-29 Machan) as one (a lower to middle income working class chap) purchases the booze at the adjoining alcohol shop and get in to sit at an open air eatery where they have a rather mediocre band chugging out even more average fare which I guess suits the musical tastes of the intoxicated patron who wishes to forget the petty office politics. It is an embodiment of all the male stereotypes ringing in popular culture. It is an all-boys club.  The saving grace is the absence of a pole dance platform. The food is palatable, I must admit.

As the Indian Urbanization Story blazes its tracks, the spatial dynamics speaks a lot for the terms of reference regarding social justice.