Ajangaon, June 2020 14/06/2020 Day 82 Started early for the farm today. A tractor was arranged to do pre-sowing weed removal from both the plots. After the land is ploughed and made ready for sowing, a few brief spells of rain can lead to a burst of all sorts of weeds. In a near miraculous … Continue reading Day 82: One Straw Revolution in these times
Category: Development
Day 79: Howe and Strauss’ The Fourth Turning
11/06/2020 Day 79 This morning I began early because I have been frustrated about not being able to read and write enough as I sit here in the town. By this morning I was several unfinished posts behind. Though I keep notes on the way a day goes and what I did, I tend to … Continue reading Day 79: Howe and Strauss’ The Fourth Turning
Day 78: Resuming even as pandemic rages
10/06/2020 Day 78 There is not much to write about these days in terms of the direct effect of the pandemic - locked cities, restrictions on movement and a sense of anxiety appear to have faded out. Most countries are busy ‘opening up’. Even as this is happening, infections and deaths continue to happen at … Continue reading Day 78: Resuming even as pandemic rages
Day 59: India’s Covid Economic Package
22/05/2020 Day 59 The direct interfacing that governments across the world are now having with citizens is higher than normal times. With work from home being the default mode, it has opened up possibilities of watching press conferences on long play. In one of the important series, the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Affairs held … Continue reading Day 59: India’s Covid Economic Package
Day 55: Articulating the new state
18/05/2020 Lockdown Day 55 I heard Jan Breman in conversation with other researchers (Ravi Srivastava, Atul Sood, Renana Jhabvala) on the labour and economic trajectory that India has taken with its economic package announcement. This triggered some thoughts. But first, let me quote Breman verbatim, from the webinar today - In imagining the state, in … Continue reading Day 55: Articulating the new state
Day 50: Return to farms
13/05/2020 Day 50 ‘The primary motive for good care and good use is always going to be affection, because affect involves us entirely’, wrote Wendell Berry in an essay. He cites Aldo Leopold's example when in 1935 he bought an exhausted Wisconsin farm and began restoring it. Leopold was an ecologist. One imagines that he … Continue reading Day 50: Return to farms
‘At least they have a job’ : Objectivity, social sciences & my research
In the last six months that I have been researching work in gig economy in Bengaluru I have had to revise my idealism and those social science theories that I carried from university.
Notes from an Indian highway
Towns and villages along Indian highways that connect major cities are being transformed in ways that will have significant bearing on the growth trajectory of this country. It is in these locations that India is changing perhaps more rapidly. One tends to imagine the metropolis as a site of reading transformation in a society, which … Continue reading Notes from an Indian highway
[Policy Thinking]: A Flowchart
In the type of work we do in our consulting practice - research, evaluation and advisory, there is seldom time to develop theoretical insights, during the preparatory phase or during an ongoing work. It helps us to have (relatively) quick process flows; application oriented concepts and most importantly actionable insights. This is where one cannot … Continue reading [Policy Thinking]: A Flowchart
Economics, Development & Policy Takeaways, 2017
It has been an extraordinary year in academic realm, especially in public policy and economics. This is the year when economics got realistic, if one regards the annual Nobel Prize in Economics as a defining moment in economics research. Richard Thaler won it for for showing how the human traits of 'limited rationality, social preferences, and lack of … Continue reading Economics, Development & Policy Takeaways, 2017
Contested Realities 