I know I haven't written anything in a while; that's because nothing really interesting has happened here in the last 10 days. I spent my first Diwali in India, actually, and it was definitely pretty boisterous. Kids (and adults) lighting crackers everywhere; it's deafening at times but I suppose if it's just once a year, why not? I also think Indians do volume-on-full-blast better than anyone else. Every rickshaw or shared jeep/car that we take invariably has a driver trying to make you feel like you're going clubbing in the backseat. Maybe it's a reaction to the incessant honking, I'm not sure. Whatever the reason is, silence is definitely a rare treat in Hyderabad, which is overflowing with more traffic than I've ever seen. Crossing the road is an adventure every day, but it's far easier now than in the beginning.

Actually, the pressing matter now is looking for housing; our guesthouse is closing down on November 17th and so we need to find a new place by then. I've checked out some places but haven't had much luck so far. It turns out one of the guys in the office, Dilip, is looking to move and he wants a roommate. So hopefully he and I can find something within the next week or so.

I am actually on my laptop, with wireless in the office, and so I'll post a few of the pictures I couldn't before.

Here's one of Priya and me the day we visited Birla Mandir:















Here's the view of the city from Birla Mandir:
















And a shot of Hussein Sagar, the massive man-made lake the in center of Hyderabad (you can see it in the earlier picture too). There's a huge statue of Buddha in the center, which you can just make out in this shot.
















And to cap off the random selection of pictures, here's one from near Birla Mandir which I enjoyed.

14 October 2006
After work today we went to a little house party thrown by a couple of Columbia girls (Radha and Neeta) who are working in Hyderabad on a women’s health project. Reminded me of the good old days. I managed to stay vegan, too, despite an assortment of dairy-filled delicacies. Here are a couple of pictures:

Priya, Radha, and Neeta The three of us (not sure if you can see this)




15 October 2006
Today was the day of the much-hyped party meeting, and I think it lived up to expectations. Some background: since Lok Satta just announced the formation of their party a couple of months back, they needed to have a public gathering in which party leaders outlined their message and vision for the party. None of that seems out of the ordinary from the American political perspective, it’s just that we don’t often see political parties forming under our noses. I thought the event was pretty well attended (apparently some 15,000 people were in attendance) but by the standards of party gatherings in India, this was small. Party gatherings often attract up to 1 lakh (100,000) people, though many of them are induced to come through cash or other incentives. Before I get into the details of the meeting, here's a shot of the AP Legislative Assembly, which we passed on the way to Nampalli Exhibition Grounds, where the meeting was held:



All in all, the people who came seemed very absorbed in the proceedings. There was the inevitable odd yawn, but on the whole those in attendance were intensely interested.


Dr. JP’s speech, which capped off the evening, was met with rapt attention and hearty applause. Though I know virtually no Telugu, it’s easy to see that he’s an accomplished public speaker with a forceful presence. He mixes in the odd dose of humor, too. I hung out with Prakash during most of the speeches and cultural performances (a few dances), and he filled me in on the important details. Here's are a couple of shots from a raised area to the right of the stage, where Lok Satta staff were sitting. In the picture on the left you can see a few political leaders (Indian and non-Indian) who Lok Satta apparently draws inspiration from. From left to right they are Subhas Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Abraham Lincoln, and two other men. I think they're the first chief minister of AP and another Telugu political personality, but I'm not sure.



There's also a big Gandhi and Ambedkar theme to the party, which you can see here:



All in all, it was an interesting event to attend; the energy was pretty electric at times. It will be really fascinating to see how Lok Satta does in the elections they contest. There's one coming up in Vishakhapatnam next year, so they're preparing for that now. Also, Prakash tells me they would refuse any coalition formations except possible with CPI and CPI(M). That's interesting because Dr. JP and Lok Satta in general seem pretty pro-capitalist (although they also envision a big, interventionist state). I guess the Left parties aren't all that anti-capitalist these days, either...


19 October 2006
Two nights ago Sarita left for Jabalpur, and Priya for Karnal early this morning, so I’m holding it down alone in Hyderabad. Since we’re officially on Indicorps holiday, I will probably split my time between the office and doing other things. I do have Diwali plans, though. Sridhar, a Lok Satta volunteer who I just met yesterday, invited me to spend Saturday evening with him, his sister, and brother-in-law at their place in Secunderabad. So that should be fun. Will post more after Diwali/Dipavali.

Not sure if I've mentioned this, but the focus of my project has changed quite a bit. I'm now looking at the intersection between education reform and providing employable skills to young people. That means both college graduates whose degrees haven't prepared them for the job market, as well as secondary school students who might be looking for a vocational education program. So I'm looking at what sorts of systemic reforms are necessary in both the vocational education system in India (which on the books is pretty well developed but in practice only serviecs a minute number of students) and the higher ed system. I think as time goes on the focus of whatever I'm researching/writing will have to become a lot more narrow. One of the big issues is how to tailor the vocational education system to the informal sector (which is where over 90% of the jobs are still located).

Okay...again some excerpts from my journal about the past few days:

8 October 2006

Today is Sunday; we met with Dr. Rao Chelikani, the president of the International Foundation for Human Development. I think the “international tag” comes from Dr. Rao’s ties to Paris and prior affiliation with UNESCO, but we primarily looked at his organization’s work in Tarnaka. Tarnaka, in the far eastern reaches of Hyderabad, falls under the 100th (and last) ward in Hyderabad, and it’s apparently also the ward with the highest number of resident PhDs. My initial impression was that such a highly educated community would be more receptive to collective civic action, but Karthik was of the opinion that they are the least willing to organize. That might make sense; if they enjoy a high standard of living (as well as an urbane cynicism) there’s far less at stake.

At any rate, Dr. Rao and a number of individuals have succeeded in getting a drainage system for Tarnaka, have built a pretty decent rapport with the policemen, and have a set up a system where Ward Sabha leaders can directly approach municipal officials to discuss their problems. This bypasses the normal procedure of filing an application, only to have it disappear from sight. I think this is yet another indication that institutions are only as strong as the personal relationships cultivated between “ordinary citizens” and the individuals that staff those institutions. We spent the Indicorps orientation discussing the importance of personal relationships at length, but for some reason when it comes to governance it’s easy to get lost in abstract discussion of institutions and service delivery. I don’t know why I never thought of our “personal relationships” discussion in this context. For some reason I only thought about these relationships on an “equal” footing and never as cutting across official power dynamics. But maybe what Dr. Rao is talking about is the only way to effect real governance reform; the distinction between government official and citizen has to break down if one wants a truly responsive government.

Dr. Rao and IFHD have also done a number of other interesting things that fit more neatly into my conception of relationship-building. One of their experiments is in creating a strong flat culture – basically he has organized (and other volunteers have followed suit in their own apartment buildings) activities to bring the residents closer together, resolve minor disputes, and also a system in which children are responsible for maintenance of community space via a self-governing system. Pretty impressive stuff.

Dr. Rao was also quite eager to explain his own brand of political theory. In his view, human communication is beginning to conclusively supplant political power, which means the state ought to recede from our daily lives. (An example of this are the direct discussions that Tarnaka Ward Sabha members have with municipal officials to resolve their dispute. A better example might be two citizens who figure out a way to solve some community problem on their own.) In the age of high-speed, distance communication, Dr. Rao thinks the state has become obsolete. However, he was also quick to say that in India, the bulk of people only obey naked power and so the state’s role hasn’t yet been completely obviated. But the state should recede from its “interference” in daily lives because politicians, to paraphrase Dr. Rao, are no more qualified to govern than the people. I asked him if the homogenizing effects of the state (via mass literacy, standardization of education campaigns) are precisely what make the application of direct communication possible. He seemed to agree; so it’s kind of paradoxical but perfectly logical – that state has set the stage for its own waning power. Dr. Rao, like many other people, thinks that the trend is toward smaller government that’s also farther away – regional and international governments.

I’m always struck by people’s ideological pronouncements in India; they are often charged with a particularly strong idealistic fervor. Somehow I think there’s a much more vibrant link between sentiment and philosophy, whereas among intelligentsia in the U.S. pragmatism (or cynicism) is much more prevalent. We talked a lot amongst ourselves at Orientation about how people in India have a much higher stake in change than in the U.S. I think the fact that people speak so passionately about ideals here is a reflection of that deeper investment. That sense of urgency and investiture is palpable even in what people like Dr. Rao (who is in all likelihood quite wealthy) have to say. In a lot of ways that kind of emotional investiture in change and in political ideals is exciting and can be a real driver of progress. I'm not suggesting that people don't care passionately about their ideals in the U.S., I'm just noting a few differences.

On a lighter note...here's an amusing picture I took on the way to IFHD's office in Tarnaka. THIS is how to advertise...promise realistic goals, like losing 6 inches in 90 minutes. Why not?















12 October 2006
Today I visited the Advanced Training Institute (ATI) in Vidyanagar along with Prakash-garu, a volunteer in the Lok Satta office. He’s a really great guy, and an amazingly hard worker. He wakes up every day at 3:30, works a 4am-7am shift with a Telugu newspaper near his home in Dilsukhnagar, then makes the two-hour commute to the Lok Satta office in Punjagutta, and leaves there at 6 PM. He only works with Lok Satta on an as-needed basis, though. Since the party formation has generated so much work, he’s here regularly now. But all that could change. It was absolutely great to leave the office with a purpose, and to get to know Prakash a lot better. We left around 2:30, jumped on an east-bound bus , switched buses not too far from Secunderabad Railway Station, and eventually made it to the ATI campus by about 3:45 or 4 PM. By the way, no one believes in north-south directions in India, it's all right left, here there. Nevertheless, I still insist on referring to things in terms of direction!

Anyway...Prakash took an auto mechanic training course at another institute on that campus, the Vocational Rehabilitation Centre for Handicapped. We initially had no luck in finding anyone on the ATI campus to speak with, so we went to the Vocational Rehabilitation Centre, where he introduced me to his old teacher. He, in turn, introduced me to S.M. Karimuddin, the man who runs the Centre. Though my primary purpose was to find out about ATI, I ended up getting better information on the Rehabilitation Centre. VRCH was founded in 1968 with the intention of developing an evaluation and training program for “differently abled” people to be able to adjust to the job market. The U.S. government provided some guidance to the program, apparently. Both VRCH, ATI, and a couple of other programs on that campus all fall under the jurisdiction of the Directorate General of Employment and Training, which in turn falls under the Minsitry of Labour.

The primary focus of VRCH is on people with progressive-nature disabilities (less emphasis on permanent disability, and almost none on temporary), because as their condition is always in flux they need a strategy to adapt to their working environments. VRCH conducts a four-step evaluation process: medical, socioeconomic, psychological, and finally, a work-related evaluation. Following this, they suggest that the individual follow one of three tracks:
1) Salaried employment in either government or private sectors. VRCH will canvass for these people and try to find something suitable.
2) Training programs, either formal training like in an ITI (Industrial Training Institute), non-formal training which is offered through VRCH, or apprenticeships
3) Self-employment in small-scale ventures

After the individual leaves VRCH, there is a follow-up to make sure that the ex-trainees are adequately adjusted and in a good situation. On paper, certainly, this is a fantastic system. But Prakash-garu was telling me that there’s less and less demand for ATI and VRCH because students who graduate struggled to find jobs. They were unlikely to get bank loans needed to start small-scale ventures, and their skills were not in demand at larger outfits.

After a twenty minute chat, S.M. Karimuddin then took me to another building to meet his friend at ATI, whose name is either M.K. Parial or Parikal. We waited for about twenty minutes and then Parikal arrived. Disappointingly, he had no literature to give me, but he explained that there are four national schemes that the Institute runs:
1) Craft Instructor Schemes, which run 3 different modules to train the people who teach in ITIs (state-run).
2) Model Training Institute, which issues National Trade Certificates for any vocation.
3) Craftsman Training Scheme
4) Industry Technician Training, which consists of short courses (a few weeks) designed to provide skill-upgradation. These programs are tailor-made to meet industries’ need, either done through tie-ups with those industries, or simply on the basis of ATI’s study of what those industries need. They do occasionally use certain industries’ facilities to supplement their training, as well.

Karthik wanted me to find out about the social composition of ATI, which he suspected was largely rural. But it turns out that it’s just the opposite – since most of the people are coming through government organiations or specific industries, the bulk of them are from urban areas. There are a number of people at the Hyderabad ATI from all over the country, as well as from Andhra Pradesh. Students at ATI who come from rural areas are primarily “private” candidates – that is, they have no affiliation to a company or government agency.

After we finished at ATI Prakash and I went to a café for chai (him) and Coke (still-vegan me). He’s incredibly nice, invited me to his house and his office at the newspaper as well. I’ll definitely take him up on both at some point. Even though the ATI visit itself wasn’t incredibly fruitful, I was quite excited to be doing something related to my project, to be interacting with people, and getting closer to someone at the office. All in all a heartening day…

Today’s Friday the 13th, I’m not normally a suspicious guy, but I’m happy to report nothing bad seems to have happened here at least. Heard about the airplane crash on the Upper East Side, though. Terrible…

I hope everyone’s doing well. I’ll post again within a week’s time.

Continuing...Also nearHussein Sagar is Birla Mandir, a huge Sri Venkateswara temple that offers great views of the city. Cameras are forbidden at the top, unfortunately, but I do have a shot of the temple itself, which is a pretty imposing structure:

From there we headed to Kamat Hotel, a rather large restaurant with prices not very different from our own Little Hut's. We walked around Hussein Sagar for some time, which has a large statue of Buddha in the center. I have a picture but can't upload it for some reason...

We then tried to walk back in the direction of Nampalli but directions prove tricky here at times. We did come across some interesting street-ads for political parties:

Eventually we got to a main bus station, and Sarita and Priya got on the first 127K bus for Kondapur. They were packed, though, so I had to wait for a couple more before I was able to get on. All in all, a fairly eventful holiday.

Tuesday (3 Oct) - In the morning we tried to call Usha Rani at Jan Shikshan Sansthan (JSS) but couldn't get through. We also emailed Byrraju Foundation and Nandi (other NGOs with a strong Hyderabad and AP presence) to get more information and to see if we could set up a meeting time. Then we decided to just head to the JSS office. Sarita and I took a rickshaw to Hyderabad train station, and after the customary confusion got our one-way tickets to Ahmedabad for the Nov. 28th workshop. We couldn't get the return tickets because they have to be purchased less than 60 days in advance, which I thought they were...regardless we'll have to go back in a few days for that. Finding JSS proved pretty difficult actually, we just had to keep asking people until someone was confident about where "Golden Threshold" was. Usha Rani was not at JSS that day, but we did meet with another man who gave us some background about JSS (they have offices in 9 of AP's 23 districts). JSS's budget comes from the government, but they are supposedly autonomous in their operations. They don't really take volunteers; rather, they have a permanent staff that responds to identified "needs" in various communities. This JSS office in Nampalli is responsible for Ranga Reddy district, excluding the city of Hyderabad. The JSS office that covers Hyderabad is somewhere else, so perhaps we can visit that, though I think if the scope for volunteers is nonexistent we might just want to focus on meeting Usha Rani to chat about housing. It was getting pretty late after that, so we wandered by "Big Bazaar" for a bit, and then caught the same Kondapur-bound bus back. Wednesday (4 Oct) - Followed up with a phone call to Nandi's number, spoke with one Mangala(?)-garu, who again took my name and email address and promised that she would pass the info along to several people, who would respond. I'm skeptical, we may have to try a trip in person. We are still waiting to talk to Karthik about NGO contacts and about the VoteMumbai schedule. We spent the afternoon brainstorming a bit for the next VoteIndia magazine issue, and wanted to make the content more interaction-based. We’re thinking of what sorts of things we can do in Hyderabad itself, it's all a bit tricky because Lok Satta's not too keen on mobilization in the near future. They want to craft a large communication and strategy paper, to be supplemented by policy papers, before they really think about any kind of community activities under the VoteIndia banner. That's rather at odds with our initial expectations of the project and with the central aim on Indicorps. Hopefully we can iron out these issues. That's pretty much where things still stand on October 5th...more to come in a few days I guess. Also, apologies about my overdue emails to some of you guys...I will try to rectify that ASAP but net connectivity is limited. I'll get to it, I promise.

And another post about the last few days' events:

Sunday (1 Oct)– I walked around High Tech City, here is a picture of the "famous" Cyber Towers that epitomizes the high-tech boom in Hyderabad:

Monday (2 Oct)– Dashara and Gandhi Jayanti , the office was closed as we found out upon getting there. Murali-garu (one of Lok Satta's accountants) was by the lift, though, and he took us to Lok Satta's campaign office in Nampalli, where the public kick-off for the party was taking place. We sat there for about half an hour, Sarita followed quite a bit of the very formal Telugu Dr. JP was using. Here's a shot of the banner outside the campaign office...

After that we left, walked past the AP Legislative Assembly building and into some public gardens, which were very nice. The compound had a large statue of a cow in the center, and there was some brilliantly colored rangoli on the ground:

We weren't far from Hussein Sagar, the huge man-made lake in the center of Hyderabad, so we walked in that direction. Along the way we came across a castle that shattered the mold of Best Westerns I've seen in the States. Yes, this is a Best Western:

I'm going to continue this in another post, having a few problems with uploading images.

My roommate in the guesthouse is Rajkumar, a Tamil guy who works for a software development company in High Tech City. He's a really great guy, and his incessant watching of the Tamil channel has helped me keep my Tamil alive.

Here's me in the room last night, a picture courtesy of Rajkumar:

And here I am again, this time plotting mischief. Rajkumar is blissfully unaware...

...because he's retired for the night:

So that's life in a nutshell so far. This coming week I hope to visit a couple of universities to chat with kids about their opinions on problems in governance and the need for education reform (my specific area of research here). Hopefully I'll have more pictures and stories for the next time I get to posting, which I can assure you will be well before 8 weeks elapse...

Till then, staying classy in Hyderabad.

There are three Indicorps fellows in Hyderabad - Sarita, Priya, and me. We're working with Lok Satta, an NGO that works on governance reform. They've got a really robust presence throughout Andhra Pradesh, and have decided that if they are to effect the next level of change, they need to work from inside the system. That's right...they decided to form a political party. This has complicated things for us quite a bit, since Indicorps is a strictly non-partisan and non-religious organization. Lok Satta actually has split into two entities, though, and we will be with the NGO/thinktank called the Foundation for Democratic Reforms (FDR). We're working on a project called VoteIndia (http://www.voteindia.org/), which is a governance/electoral reform campaign with three goals:
1) Change the current electoral system from a First-Past-The-Post system to a mixed system of Proportional Representation and FPTP. The idea is that this change would reduce the compulsion for vote-bank politics in the extreme, reduce divisiveness in campaigns, and allow for greater minority representation in legislatures.
2) Directly elect the executive (Chief Minister) at the State Level - accountability is the goal.
3) Establish standards that require internal democracy and transparency in political parties.

An ambitious campaign to be sure, but it's exciting to be working on it. VoteIndia has launched a couple of chapters around the country (Mumbai and Ahmedabad) and we're planning a visit to VoteMumbai soon to see what has driven their success in mobilization.
http://www.votemumbai.org/

Okay so that's the work background, time for the few paltry pictures I've taken.

This is a picture of the inside of my room at Lee Board Guesthouse, in Madhapur (the western part of Hyderabad and just east of "Cyberabad, " HighTech City.

So most of you probably thought I'd never post on this blog again, and I did too. In fact, I did make it to India -- I landed in Mumbai and spent a few days with family. Then it was on to Indicorps's one-month orientation just outside Ahmedabad. We stayed in Sughad village at the Environmental Sanitation Institute (aka Safai Vidyalaya). Check out their website, they have done some pretty incredible work. http://www.esi.org.in/

Orientation was an interesting, often exhilarating, event-filled month. This post is not going to do it justice, I'm just giving you a very brief sketch because I need to cover about 2 months in one hour. A lot of the time was spent on ESI's campus doing leadership and team-building activities, but by far the most enjoyable parts were when we left the campus. We visited the Sughad village school on the first full of Orientation, and also spent a few hours in an Ahmedabad theme park with a bunch of teenagers with an organization called "Muskaan" (smile). That remains one of my fondest memories from Orientation -- we all just went crazy on the rides, playing frisbee in the pouring rain, and belting out songs during Antakshari (singing game) on the bus. We also had an "Amazing Race" day in Ahmedabad where we had to accomplish a bunch of tasks in teams. One of my most enjoyable experiences was a "livelihoods" activity. I spent half the day, from 5 am to 11:30, with a vegetable seller (shaak bhaaji-walla) named Kurdaas-bhai in Ahmedabad. We went to Kalapur bazaar in the morning, bought his vegetables, and then went back to his house where I had tea and chatted with his family. After that we put the vegetables on his cart, and set off the surrounding neighborhood to sell them. He was a really friendly, warm guy, and in just a few hours we managed to talk about just about everything under the sun. Another interesting activity in Ahmedabad was a trip to colleges (in my group's case, Gujarat College), where we were supposed to "inspire" the students to do something. The other two schools that the 21 of us visited had really strong ties to service organizations and initiatives, so it was almost a bit ludicrous that we would try to inspire that sort of activity. Even so, I think they all had a great time. AT Gujarat College, however, there's not a well-established, pervasive culture of community service ("seva"), so we had some interesting experiences. We ended up putting up a poster on one of the building's columns asking in Hindi and Gujarati "What is wrong with our world?" After a lot of initial hesitation and awkwardness, dozens and dozens of students came to write a really interesting variety of responses, ranging from "the generation gap" to "apathy" to "greed" and "politics." After that we tried a second posterboard, this time asking what we could do. Again, a number of interesting respones, but primarily large-scale, nonspecific responses. Exactly what I would have done if someone asked me those questions on the spot. That activity really drove home a lot of the untapped energy of youth here, and I think applies pretty well to the work we are doing in Hyderabad. Transitioning to what I'm doing to now....

Before I do that, I should say that I'm not posting any pictures because I managed not to take a single picture of my own during Orientation. Thankfully, my roommate Sheel was just the opposite, and took a ton. He also posts regularly on his blog, so I'm going to put the link here if you want some good pictures and stories, both about Orientation, and about what he's up to now. www.sheelm.com/blog

Now on to Hyderabad....