Serendipity

This is an article that I first posted in June 2002. I think this is still a very interesting read. I am reposting it as this article as it shows what the article The poor may not be getting richer has tried to convey. Kerala is not the richest state in India, in fact it is one of the poorest, but its people enjoy one of the best quality of life anywhere in the world. — By Adam Hochschild (From the San Francisco Examiner dated: July 1999) During the five months that I…read more

But they are living longer, eating better, and learning to read— Ronald Bailey Wealthier is healthier—and more educated, more equal for women, more electrified, automotive, and computer-literate. So the conventional wisdom in development economics has long been that to boost the prospects of the world’s poor, one needs to boost their incomes. This is still true, but as World Bank economist Charles Kenny points out in a provocative article titled "Why Are We Worried About Income? Nearly Everything that Matters is Converging," income growth does not tell the full story.

NBR: You have been credited with inventing the microcredit movement more than 30 years ago. Why did you go in that direction? Yunus: I had no idea that I would ever get involved with something like lending money to poor people, given the circumstances in which I was working in Bangladesh. I was teaching in one of the universities while the country was suffering from a severe famine. People were dying of hunger, and I felt very helpless. As an economist, I had no tool in my tool box to…read more

Sometime back in one of the discussions groups that I am member of we had some very interesting discussions on the proposed Expressway project in Kerala, India. This summarised version has been posted on the website of Roads & Bridges Development Corporation of Kerala. This is a long post – and is a collection of emails passed between the members of the group. And the oldest message is on top – so there is continuity for reading purposes. Thanks to Simon Sam for compiling this. Hi, I just browsed through…read more

Came across this editorial on dropout rates in Schools in India in The Hindu At a time when there is a great deal of buzz about India taking off as a "knowledge-based economy and society," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s admission that the dropout rate in schools continues to be "unacceptably high" is honest recognition that, in 57 years of Independence, the socio-political system has failed to ensure that at least a majority of children between the ages of 6 and 14 are in school — instead of making up the…read more