Communication with Prof.Achyuta Samanta, Founder of KISS & KIIT---Global Social Forum

Esteemed Prof. Achuyta Samanta,

One question that always rings in my mind is “why all path breaking Ideas, Innovation, Product and Institution of recent times should emanate from western countries?” KISS has now attained an observer status at United Nations and your initiatives on the Art of Giving, India against Negativity and Kompassions have been well received. I wish to suggest an Initiative on Social space that could be Taller and in a Global scale.

The changes in the Geo-Politics of Asia, growing sectarian violence in our neighborhood, racial discrimination & its reaction in Western Countries and growing religious intolerance across the World demand some initiative to find a durable and sustainable solution. Economy is just a subset of the Society; however, “The World Economic Forum” has been popular across the World for just Business Networking; though, it could not find any solution for the Global recession. However, ‘Global Social Forum’ could actually find an answer to current Global Economic Crisis and lasting solution for peace and prosperity of the World. 

1.      KISS & KIIT in its out reach program could explore the possibility of starting an organization (not for profit) named as “Global Social Forum” in association with Leading Social Organization, State Governments, Confederation of Indian Industry and FICCI with an objective to end civilization conflict, promote Global Peace through disarmament & cut in defense expenditure, religious harmony, racial unity and eventually control Global Economic Recession.

2.      “Global Social Forum” could hold its International Summit at Bhubaneswar every year during the month of December just like “World Economic Forum” at Davos.

3.       Global Social Forum could offer a platform for networking of Global Social Organizations. It should deliberate on social issues of Global Concern and draw a road map to enhance religious understanding and to create global family across race, religion & region.

4.      Global Social Forum can rope in US Govt., United Nations, World Economic Forum and 1000 nos of top social organizations to partner in this mission.

5.      This initiative could put India in the hearts and minds of Global Citizens which could have deeper economic and political ramifications in the long run.

BANDHAN BANK---INCLUSIVE BANKING

BIKASH CHOUDHURY

23 August 2015 would go down in the history of Indian Banking with the Inauguration of Bandhan Bank---149^th schedule commercial bank. It is Historic because RBI in its wisdom has taken the second initiative after Regional Rural Bank to make the banking services available to uncovered or under covered rural areas and demography with granting a commercial banking license to Badhan Bank; whose focus would be SME in Rural & semi-urban areas. Badhan Bank is starting with a capital of Rs.2570 Crore, little over five times of the RBI new norm; and, it has 501 branches, 2022 service centers and 50 ATMS across 24 States and has plan to scale up to 632 branches,250 ATMS in 27 States in next 18months(by 31March 2017).

                             It would have been much better if Bandhan Bank concentrated on the eastern region of the country with a strategy to saturate the demand for banking services in the area and captured idle cash sitting in rural homes (in RBI assessment 42 % of the total Idle cash remain in rural areas) and met the financing requirement of new social groups and youth apart from its traditional base of women self help groups and NGO. It could have claimed some viability gap funding from central govt. for bringing Idle cash into the mainstream in the entire eastern region. Since, Bandhan Bank has its strong base in the region; it could have scaled up much faster to completely cover approximately over 1.5 lakh villages in next 5 years and captured the benefit of economies of scale and lower span of control to manage the cumbersome and mammoth banking operations. This certainly could have created an economic multiplier effect and push up our GDP by 0.5-1 %. In contrast, spreading the Banking operation of Bandhan Bank thinly across the country would push the cost of operation quite unnecessarily and would result in faster burn out of valuable and expensive capital; thus, repeating 3 mistakes of Regional Rural Bank (Gramya Bank) in their lives.

In India we rarely understand the satisfaction of completing a task; rather, enjoy keeping a few half completed or uncompleted tasks which is a bane of Indian mindset that holds up the country from faster progress and advancement; be it in technology or business.                            

                                  There is a huge opportunity for Bandhan Bank to be able to spruce up our rural economy by adding Agricultural & Agro Consulting Division to its operation to offer practical guidance to farmers with their crop plan, its processing, storage and marketing with deployment of suitable technology at a fraction of the cost of public sector banks and at the same time could add an additional revenue stream to its existing portfolio. Over a period of time Bandhan Bank could also attempt to create entrepreneurs in rural areas in the domain of food processing, warehousing, cold storage and logistics. In five years from now Bandhan Bank could turn out to be one of the largest and most profitable commercial banks of the country knowing the virgin market and untapped potential of a universal bank at a lower transactional cost.  

     

Communication with Vishal Sikka,CEO of Infosys--Transformational Changes in Enterprise

Vishal Sikka,

This is with reference to your statement “principles of Aikido transforming the chaotic energy of an enterprise into focused precision that can help move the enterprises forward”. In Indian context we could use three other techniques for bringing transformational changes in an enterprise.

1. Prof. M.S.Anand, former Director of IIT Madras once said “assign a team of competent unlike minds to crack toughest of problems of an enterprise and give them a time frame to complete the task without outside supervision; 80% of the time they would come out with something that would be of surprise & of immense importance for the enterprise”. I wish to add—in India we have diversity in language, religion and culture in each part of our country; our brains must be wired differently; that would come handy in cracking problems of an enterprise if we carefully select the team. This is just an opinion that needs validation.
2. We can develop an organization culture of applying our minds to resolve the problems in our Macro Environment that would eventually train the employees to resolve the Micro Problems of an enterprise in technology or business with much more competence and discipline. For example if Infosys employees at different location examine the civic problems of the city on a voluntary basis and come out with solutions pertaining to say Traffic Management, Solid Waste Management, Quality of Road Infrastructure and Forestation. The same team would contribute with new product or service design for Infosys over a period of time. Problem Solving in real life would become a way of life and an organizational culture.
3. Ignite Creativity—Enterprise can also bring transformational changes in the organization by Igniting the Creativity of their employees. Enterprise can sponsor programs on Art, Music & Literature in regular intervals for interested employees and even can reimburse the training cost of those who excel in any one of the activity to make them happier in life that should translate into a very healthy bottom line of enterprise with new additions to innovative products and services.

Hope, Infosys would make an attempt to validate these Ideas.   

Two Machines that can change India

                                                          Bikash Choudhury            

‘What’s App’ has created a rage like no other, in mobile computing space in recent times; a day does not pass when a friend or family politely request you to use the application and add him in the network. It is indeed a useful application for instant communication with minimal cost. However, India needs two products that its poor people can afford just like a mobile phone. These two applications could solve half of India’s problems. Excuse me to propose an automatic toilet and an automatic bio-composter. The biggest, and by far the most inscrutable problem that India face is cleanliness, hygiene and pollution of air and water. That has defied a solution. Our river system continue to be poured with untreated black sewage water our cities and towns have become a dump yard of solid waste and our rural areas practice open defecation that add to the health hazard and consequent cost on public health. India currently spends about 40 billion Dollars in importing electronic goods and our IT exports have touched 80 billion Dollar.  Can’t India invest just 1 Billion Dollar to design and produce these two machines? It is said “necessity is the mother of invention”. If such machines does not constitute a necessity; then, what else? A few years from now 40% of our population would live in urban space in over 500 cities and towns that would make the cost of providing sewerage connection to urban homes prohibitive as one kilometer of such connection would cost over one crore rupees and treatment of such a huge quantity of black water would certainly break the back of urban municipal bodies. The solution lies in an ‘automatic toilet system’ or even better we can give this a sobriquet of ‘smart toilet system’ keeping with times that could process the night soil into manure and convert black water for tertiary use in garden. This machine alone could save a few thousand billion dollars for our country while conserving our water bodies, river systems and public health.

The solid waste disposal system of our cities and towns has almost nearing a breaking point that begs for a creative solution. If we could design a bio-composter that converts bio wastes of homes into vermin compost;  then, half of solid waste disposal problem could be contained as bio-waste constitute 50% of all solid waste. On top of it the home production of compost would lead to a movement of kitchen garden that translates into better public health. Apart from the direct benefits of such machines; the production and consumption of such machines could create a multi billion dollar Industry with an employment potential of a half a million keeping the potential demand and scale of operations in mind. Our IIT & NIT system could design and develop such technology that could put western mobile technology & what’s app to shame. Shall we?              

Union Budget 2015-16 Suggestion

Bikash Choudhury

The principal policy of current years budget should be to “Strengthen the Intensity of Human Activity” in all walks of life including an important segment of our population Women.

Revenue Tax Proposal: 1- Rental income remains unreported or under reported; therefore, through a simple procedure of submission of ‘affidavit’ on actual rental income along with the tax return would help improve Revenue. Identically the cash income of Doctors, Architects, Coaching Centers and Wellness Centers could be targeted.

2- Expand the tax base by taxing Grocery Stores @ Rs.1000-Rs.3000 for a turnover of Rs30- Rs. 50 lakh per annum and Hotels & Restaurants with an annual turnover of Rs.15-Rs.25 Lakh through simple procedure of self declaration and provision of a bank deposit in any bank branch and online transaction.

3- Govt. should penalize cash transaction and encourage formal transaction @

Rs. 1 lakh & above. A cash transaction tax could be reintroduced above one lakh for individuals and two lakhs for business or a suitable parameter could be crowd sourced as it was an unpopular tax.

4. Rs. 5 surcharge on each Rail & Air Ticket for “Swachh Bharat Aviyan” including the cleanliness and Hygiene in the Railways.

5. Rs. 50 surcharge on luxury goods and services for Ganga Cleaning.

6. Rs. 10 surcharge on each Mobile Phone purchase and Re. 1 for a Rs. 100 mobile recharge/top up/bill and Rs. 100 surcharge on each two wheeler purchase and Rs.500 surcharge on Four Wheeler towards Road Infrastructure.

7. Re. 1 surcharge on each 1 lt. bottle of aerated drink and packaged water towards Water Conservation and Family Health.

Revenue Savings Proposal: 1. GoI should make a huge savings in Capital & Revenue expenditure on Automobile Purchase and its maintenance and salary of personnel; which can be transferred to an employee managed company in collaboration with Private sector that provide logistic solution to all GoI offices on rental basis only charged to the revenue expenditure of the Govt.

2- GoI has huge unused or under used assets like Human resources, Land, Building and Automobiles; an inventory of such assets could be made and that could be either disposed off or optimally used to save the tax payers money.

Tax Concessions for a Larger Goal: 1- Govt. could offer 100% tax benefit to Corporate/Business/Industry/High Net Worth Individuals for Investments made in “Adarsha Gramya Yojana” by adopting Villages. Stringent guidelines need to be developed to prevent chances of revenue leakage if any.

2. Tax concessions to Software and other Export companies having Offices in USA and Europe if they chose to Promote Indian Handicrafts and Artisans.

3. Tax concessions for all Hospitality Companies who wish to promote Indian Food and Culture (Indian Style Marriages and Festivals) in USA & Europe.

4. Excise tax concessions for house holds on all items that go into the Installation of Rain Water Harvesting Systems (RWH) in Homes and Workplaces.

5. Tax concessions for those Banking and Financial Services Institutions who Invest in setting up “Start Up Village” Entrepreneurial Incubators at our Higher Education Centers like University/Colleges both technical & non-technical.

6. Ignite Creativity: Tax concessions for Individuals & Corporate on purchase of Art Work/Sculpture and for setting up of Art Gallery, Art Funds and Art Auction House.     

     

   

Email: streben.market@gmail.com Twitter: @ideasofhope Blog: www.ideasofhopebikash.blogspot.com Mob: 09853426657/07504106233     Address: Plot No: 3309 Adarsha Vihar Lane-2 Patia Bhubaneswar Odisha-751024                    

Letter to Prime Minister on Governance & Development

Esteemed Prime Minister,

I wish to draw your kind attention to the following points on New Year 2015.

Sir,

Our NDA Govt. under your leadership has taken series of new initiatives that would take little time to show its result; however, the expectation of people from the Prime Minister and his Govt. has grown manifold as we capture sample opinions from Tea shop & drawing room discussions. Therefore, I propose the following:

1. Prime Minister’s vision of the country need to be converted into an ‘expressed mindset’ inside the GoI bureaucracy to start with; that would convert Ideas & Intention of Prime Minister into concrete result in a much shorter time frame.                a. GoI offices should be transformed into “fun work place” that, apart from motivating and inspiring our bureaucracy to contribute to their core work much better while promoting team spirit & team work; they would enjoy their work and work environment as their other aptitude, interest and skills get recognition among their peers. This initiative can be jointly executed by DoPT and IIM Ahmedabad.

                      b. DoPT could take an initiative to encourage the spouses of bureaucracy to start social & cultural organization that should later “egg” the bureaucrats to perform to provide better Governance & Development in the country.

     2. Swachh Bharat Aviyan 2.0: In three months time this program has generated unprecedented awareness in the country on the subject; now it is time to show concrete result though in a smaller scale. I propose let us actually clean and maintain cleanliness in all 6 metro cities, All State Capitals and All cities of Tourist attraction like Varanasi & Puri.

                     a. GoI could launch a website/portal for “SBA’ that would enable all volunteers to join the program who wish to contribute 1hr a week in their designated cities, those who wish to contribute technical know-how and equipments and those who wish to donate technical personnel, accessories and finance for their respective cities.

                     b. The website/portal could generate 10,000-20,000 hard core volunteers who would create awareness and actually donate their labor to clean their city entirely including drainage system, roads, railways and all public places just like advanced countries.

                     c. GoI only needs to provide a team of officers with genuine interest on the subject to each city to coordinate with civic bodies and State Govt. to make things happen.

                     d. Gandhiji started his cleanliness drive from ‘Harijan Basti’ and we could start such a program from each slum in the respective cities.

                     e. This program if successful will improve savings in healthcare of respective cities and give a boost to tourism.

I hope ideas discussed here would be of interest to our prime minister.

Yours Faithfully,

Bikash Choudhury

Socio-Economic-Political Activist

Email: streben.market@gmail.com Twitter: @ideasofhope Mob: 09853426657/07504106233     Address: Plot No: 3309 Adarsha Vihar Lane-2 Patia Bhubaneswar Odisha-751024                     

IDEA OF PAKISTAN NEED ALTERATION

Bikash Choudhury

Genesis of Pakistan was backed by sectarian violence in British India and its inception carried a gigantic human tragedy in both sides of the borders of India & Pakistan. In last sixty plus years India has accepted inevitable but sad partition of the country on religious line and focused on socio, economic and political development of its people with creation of robust institutions and made peace with itself. Now, after getting a State and Territory for majority Muslim Population of British India; why Pakistan still remain a very volatile region in South Asia? Recent massacre of tiny school students at Peshawar has drawn Global attention to fratricidal war within Pakistan. It remain unanswered why Muslims slaughtering people pursuing Islamic faith in such large numbers and in such an organized manner. Obama administration has chosen to reward Pakistan with one billion dollar aid to control terrorism; however, it has been observed violence has generated more violence and terror groups get more recruits. Terrorism can be managed or controlled when we eradicate the mindset that propels young people from offering themselves as ‘suicide bombers’ to kill innocent people. We should create environment where life & lives gets celebrated not death & dead bodies. Pakistan has turned into a ‘confused state’ and that remain the main stumbling block against its consolidation and growth. In one side it consider itself as ‘Islamic Republic’ and in other side it hold on to its liberal and secular ethos of ‘Hindustan’. Terrorism and violence in Pakistan is the manifestations of deeper conflict that exist about the genesis and more profoundly ‘the idea of Pakistan’.

                                                It has become an ‘a priori’ globally that Pakistan has become the fountain head of terror all across the world as the 9/11 in New York and 26/11 at Mumbai was conceived and executed from Pakistani soil and dreaded Osama Bin Laden was eventually found in the luxurious shelter of Pakistan Army & its spy agency-ISI. That is not all; ISI was credited with the murder of its own Army Chief & then President of Pakistan Ziaul Haq and American Ambassador to Pakistan. Pak Army still sponsor terror group to conduct murderous attack on Indian soil of Jammu & Kashmir. Pakistan claims to be the victim of Global terror while it also aid terrorism from its soil. It is not an irony; but, hard reality that ‘violence’ as the State policy of Pakistan has also consumed many a tall political leaders in its grip at different points of time in its history; however, no attempt has been made to resolve its ‘conflict inside’ that continue to take a heavy toll of its institutions that now make Pakistan one of the dangerous place on earth and a ‘Rogue Nation’ that does not function as per its rule of law. 

                                                Idea of Pakistan needs little alteration to become a vibrant Nation once again on the back of its creative and hard working people. It has to first drop its tag and pretensions of a ‘Islamic’ Nation which it is not in spite of its majority of people pursuing Islamic faith as its founding fathers designed a Muslim majority secular Nation for better Governance & Development of its people. Pakistan should come out of its Identity crisis and concede its century old ‘Hindustan’ identity in which it would find Mogul emperor Akbar a secular King ruling over entire Indian continent for over half a century having a majority of its people following ‘Hindu’ religion. Emperor Akbar was equally admired by his Hindu & Muslim subjects then and even at present; as the Monarchy State had no religion of its own and both faith prospered economically and culturally on their respective merit; which needs to be emulated by Pakistan to have a tryst with its destiny and nip the global terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism in its bud. Once this is done, the three top Institutions of Pakistan Viz., Civilian Government, its Armed Forces and Judiciary would function as per their respective objectives in the rule of law while clipping the wings of its spy agency-ISI from meddling in politics and thus bringing much needed peace and prosperity for people of Pakistan sooner than later. This is easier said than done; however, if the Diaspora of Indian Sub-continent and Obama led USA administration make a common cause on this issue then before long Pakistan could walk firmly on a new path towards real progress & development and our World could become much safer to live in. Shall we?     

(Author socio-economic-political activist from India)

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