This op-ed was submitted by Suresh Pramar, and is a user post. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of TC-I, but we feel that it is important to cultivate opinions from all sides. India like the rest of the world has not escaped the impacts of the current downturn. The sudden rush in [...]

What do the words “new start-up”  and “garage” bring to your mind? The old stories about how all the tech companies started off to make today’s Silicon Valley? If that sounds a little too boring now, here is something as appetizing as a pizza. Started right here in India’s Silicon Valley by by Padma Srinivasan, [...]

K.M. Basheer’s educational qualifications make him an unlikely leader of a medical movement. He has not studied beyond Class X. But this farmer from Nilambur in Kerala’s Malappuram district heads a society that arranges for home and neighbourhood-level care for the chronically ill. His venture, the Nilambur Palliative Care Society, has inspired several other groups. [...]

Yesterday in my Leadership in Organizations class we discussed the concept of empowerment up and down the organizational chart — basically giving even the ‘lowest’ rungs on a corporate ladder the ability to make their own decisions and take control over their jobs. I could not help but think about my visit this January to [...]

Here is an interesting approach to the technological hurdles of mobile banking. Called Cashnxt, this venture in Kerala, uses high-pitched sounds via mobile phones to encrypt and decrypt the secure data needed to perform a financial transaction. An article on ReadWriteWeb, explains it as such: As a customer, if you and a vendor are a [...]

India Post has inked an agreement with National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) to facilitate micro-credit to women-run Self Help Groups (SHG) in eight states and north eastern states. In this strategic partnership, India Post will lend the unparalleled reach it has gained into India’s remote villages and the credibility as a reliable family [...]

Envirofit International has introduced a range of “clean-burning and biomass-based cooking stoves” in India, starting with the rural homes in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Envirofit’s announcement on its website says: Designed by an international team of globally recognized scientists and engineers, the cookstoves reduce toxic emissions by as much as 80%, while using 50% [...]

I came across two articles today where the railroad industry in Kerala is pushing some small scale innovations of their own. Here is the first story. The railways is providing broadband Internet connection in the state through the Railtel Corporation of India. The biggest incentive for those taking the net service of Indian Railways is [...]

Recently, the NYTimes featured an article entitled, “Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?”, in which it highlighted a new wave of “human behaviour” research funded by cellphone companies such as Nokia in order to tap into less developed markets. The author of the article centers around a series of conversations/interactions with Jan Chipchase, a [...]

India’s coastlines extend a distance of 7,500 kilometers and are contiguous with 8 states, including Orissa, West Bengal, Andra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa, and Maharashtra. In 2 recent posts entitled, “Predicting a Shift: Climate Migrants” and “Mumbai in 2100: Underwater“, we spoke to the displacement risk faced by coastal inhabitants as a result of [...]