Project Krushi: Together Forever

Our second to last day in India was spent visiting the Korukonda Sainik Orphanage in Hyderabad.

“Project Krushi” was born in the year 1994. It began by setting up a “Home for former street children” at a rented premise in Begumpet, Hyderabad. Later in the year 2007 a new home popularly known as “Krushi Home” was established in the out skirts of Hyderabad.

This was a wonderful experience to wrap up our last few days in India. It was such an amazing feeling to see all the little faces light up just because we were sitting and eating lunch with them. Korukonda Sainik is an all boys orphanage, with 92 boys currently living on the complex.

We were given a tour around the campus and played basketball and volleyball with all the boys outside. Later we at lunch together in the mess hall while some the boys continued to tour us around, showing us the computer and television rooms.

It was honestly to hard to say goodbye. Just being there for a few hours I already did not want to leave. I would love to come visit again to help educate the children.

http://www.projectkrushi.org/

The Indian Nightlife

One of the great things about traveling is being able to check out the different types of nightlife that other countries have. India's nightlife is diverse and growing. Tucked away, you’ll find small bars, pubs and nightclubs. I was very eager to find out what the nightlife was like in India! The first night out was in Chennai with Cynthia, Saran, and Dr. Rao. We had some appetizers and drinks at a rooftop restaurant at The Park, a 5-star hotel and ended the night visiting a small nightclub. There were white cabanas surrounding a gorgeous pool with tiki torches and relaxing music. It felt like we were in NYC, and then to look out into the distance and know we were in India was such an incredible feeling!

In most cities in India, nightlife is early to start and early to end because of the curfews in place.  Though, large clubs that are exempt from the curfews are usually only found in 5-star international hotel complexes, and sometimes in shopping malls.

We spent our last night at nightclub inside the Taj Banjara Hotel in Hyderabad. This was such a great night; we met lots of students from America that are currently taking classes at the University of Hyderabad. The dancing was very different from the dancing in America, which I was ready for! The DJ played a mixture of rap/hip-hop and techno until 10:30 and then the Hindi trance music came on.

Making sense of Bangalore: Edward Glaeser

Bangalore is considered to be one of the fastest growing cities in Asia and also one of the most sought after cities in India by people, companies, and tourists. It was already called Electronic City of India but the establishment of Silicon Park on the out skirts has converted it into Silicon City of the World. The city holds many Indian as well as multinational Infotech companies.

The population in the city has grown enormously on account of migration of people from all corners of India, neighboring cities and countries from the West. The majority of the rapid economic growth has been brought about by the IT and other associated industries.

This has led to an escalation of the vehicle population and continues to grow exponentially. The unplanned nature of the rise and growth of these industries and the city’s design, the economic growth has also led to a great deal of traffic and congested roads. The city’s roads were not designed to accommodate the massive traffic. As the city continues to expand, the necessity for proper planning and road infrastructure to commute through the city increases.

In my opinion, proper planning, construction monitoring and quality control are essential. Projects and construction simply need to be finished and cleaned up. Proper lane markings and properly operating traffic lights will make a huge difference. Better road surfaces and the cleaning of the debris all over will also help.

Aside from the not-so-improving infrastructure problem, Bangalore still remains the Silicon Valley of India. The large IT service providers, such as Infosys, continue to attract global buyers. Bangalore has grown from low-end ITO and BPO such as coding and data-entry processes to now doing high-end ITO and BPO such as embedded systems and voice-based technical support respectively. The city could claim to have the highest number of captives across the globe. Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Cisco, Google, Yahoo, HP, Motorola, Siemens, Samsung are among the ITO sector. BPO would cover Citi, Reuters, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Dell and JP Morgan.

Every city has its own culture, traditions, and customs. Bangalore, too, has its own distinct personality and way of life. It is an awesome cosmopolitan city. The youth is attracted to the city because of its lively pop culture and great weather, throughout the whole year.

Imagining India: Nadan Nilekani

Nadan Nilekani, author of “Imagining India,” a book that covers a wide variety of the different interpretations of India, gives his perspective of India’s past in an interview throughout this video clip. His reasoning for choosing India as a topic was the urge to explain India’s contradictions and to dig deeper into the explanations of why there is such a large gap between the wealthy and the poor.

Nilekani strongly believes that the key to growth is in expanding access to resources and opportunity. His book is divided into four parts, giving an overview of some of India’s most immediate challenges and a good variety of ideas that will dominate public discussion in years to come.

India is similar to the U.S.in that things do not happen just because someone said so. A large mass of people need to believe in the idea together. Nilekani explains that India will be the only country in the world that will experience a demographic dividend. This “demographic dividend” of a young population is as much an opportunity as it is a challenge. The task of meeting global talent needs with an educated and trained workforce is very difficult for any one nation to take on.

The key to success is education. India is off to a good start with the majority of this young population understanding the need to have education. Also, parents are beginning to see the economic costs of lack of education. India’s recently improved education system is often cited as one of the main contributors to the economic development of India. The education system in the country is growing at a much faster rate and the government has allowed free and compulsory education to all up to the age of fourteen. Also, making an effort to spread education in the rural areas and villages.

Unfortunately, there are negatives at the both ends of the spectrum. There are still many areas that lack education and even if it’s there, poorly qualified teachers and inappropriate infrastructure do not deliver the right kind of education. Those who have the education are burdened under heavy competitive pressure in terms of grasping things, speaking fluently, and acquiring academic skills.

Nilekani continues to discuss how the Internet and technology have a huge impact on the education system and the strong need for improvement in skilled education, such as vocational schooling. He then goes into detail discussing the areas that India is on its way to excelling at. For example: technology, innovation in manufacturing, how to design quality products at low costs.  India’s long term progress will be based upon having good relations with the surrounding neighbor countries. It has been a challenge for India being surrounded by areas that are not very peaceful.  

            India is in the middle of a huge transformational process and after listening to Nilekani’s interview, I would suggest this book to anyone unfamiliar with the present situation in India. It shows a general overview of the positive and negative aspects of the growing Indian economy and on social development in India.

Let's Celebrate Pongal

Pongal is the harvest festival of Tamil Nadu (Tamil Nadu is a southern state, which is bordered by the states of Puducherry, Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh). It’s celebrated with much enthusiasm, similar to Thanksgiving in America. Pongal is celebrated on the same dates every year, at the start of the Tamil month, Thai, and takes place from January 14-17.

Fortunately we were able to experience the first two days of Pongal during our stay in Hyderabad. Driving to a company visit one day we heard loud noises like gun shots were going off! Right away I thought some sort of fight broke out and we were in trouble. But it was actually fireworks being let off in the streets to celebrate the festival! Everywhere we went Happy Pongal and Happy Sankrant were written in beautiful bright colors on the street in front of homes and markets.