Rural Innovations Blog

Tampa Bay Event - RHC Trunk Show August 21st at Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay

2010-08-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

The excitement has begun! RHC will be kicking off our very first trunk show this August in Tampa, Florida by featuring a brand of amazing colors, designs and uniqueness, all hand crafted by our artisans in rural India. On display for purchase will be our ethnic infused summer and fall lines from home décor to handbags and scarves. We look forward to having you join us at this signature event as we leave the RHC imprint on Tampa. You can preview featured products on our website.

Rural Handicrafts Trunk Show

2010-07-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

Elegant Pleats Clutch Hobo : Clutch Purses by RHC - $14.99

2010-03-06T16:15:00.000-08:00

Elegant Pleats Clutch Hobo : Clutch Purses by RHC - $14.99

RHC - Rural Handicrafts Company - Rural Excellence In The Urban Marketplace!

2010-01-03T23:41:00.000-08:00

RHC - Rural Handicrafts Company - Rural Excellence In The Urban Marketplace!

Indian Princess - In Black : Embroidered Hand Bags by RHC - $29.99

2009-11-19T14:42:00.000-08:00

Indian Princess - In Black : Embroidered Hand Bags by RHC - $29.99

Bags by RHC !
Indian Princess in Black. Hobo bag with long wide strap. This bag is a perfect blend of the East and West with an alluring design and beautiful artwork. This is the typical hobo bag style that rests on your hip and usually worn cross-shoulder. It is a must-have for every wardrobe! This bag can be customized in different colors for individual orders. Made in Rural India.

Black Gold: The Hottest Bag This Christmas

2009-11-13T10:02:00.000-08:00

Black Gold: The Hottest Bag This Christmas : Embroidered Hand Bags - $29.99 : Rural Handicrafts Company - Rural Excellence In The Urban Marketplace!

The Hottest Bag This Christmas! Hobo bag with long wide strap. This bag has artwork embroidered in golden and silver colored silk threads. This is the typical hobo bag style that rests on your hip and usually worn cross-shoulder. It is a must-have for every wardrobe! This bag can be customized in different colors for individual orders. Made in Rural India.

The Coolest Bag this Christmas

2009-11-13T00:39:00.000-08:00

Black Gold : Embroidered Hand Bags - $29.99 : Rural Handicrafts Company - Rural Excellence In The Urban Marketplace!

Why capitalism sounds like a dirty word, what about single mothers in rural India and how social-entrepreneurship is just glorified entrepreneurship?

2009-09-23T19:05:00.000-07:00

The one statement that is stuck in my head, and will probably define capitalism for the next three years is this, “capitalism is actually legalized greed”… Then people start making money again and when everyone’s got enough, we are back to the “Capitalism is a good thing” world again and ignore the rants and raves of people such as Michael Moore. This is because the ones who think capitalism is bad and socialism is good suddenly have an influx of people who feel bad for themselves and think that their neighbor who works less than them and makes a lot more money is probably a greedy capitalist. My professor used to say, “Recession is when your neighbor loses his job, and depression is when you lose yours.” Capitalism is this well oiled lean and mean machine that is bound to rebound again; you’ve just got to hang in there and spend, spend and spend even more and things will be just fine (over simplified but you get the point).

So check this out. Single mothers in rural India (Jharkhand, India) are making a statement by coming to work and that’s not all, they now want to bike to work. Here’s a bit of background on this amazing story. These single mothers were without a job since it is a stigma in rural India to be a single mother and hence no one would hire them. The fact that the husband walked out on the marriage does not reflect poorly on the man, rather it is “understood and accepted” that the woman must have done something wrong for the man to walk out on the marriage. Well, their employment with Rural Handicrafts Company is changing all of that. Now, they come to work every day, work hard, are extremely productive and are making an impact in their society. One day they approached me and wanted to know if they could bike to work and it hit me like a bolt of lightening. This is what I call empowerment. I've given them jobs, but the initiative to stand up for themselves has to come from within and it was both a surprise and extremely refreshing to hear them talk about wanting to push and shove against their man-made boundaries. I offered to help by coming up with the down payments needed to get them all bikes and now we have workers at RHC who bike to work every day. By the way, it is extremely uncommon to see women on bikes in rural India (another one of those empowerment issues).

So what’s with all the Indian business journals featuring social entrepreneurs on their covers and extensively covering entrepreneurial ventures in India. I guess it’s free publicity for these guys and I am happy for them. The thing about these articles and the coverage in general that irks me is that they have the word social attached to entrepreneurship. Now, there are a few social entrepreneurs in these magazines and I recognize that, but the majority of them are just plain ol’ bread and butter entrepreneurs who are trying to make it big and since 80% of India is made up of villages, their ventures are either located in villages or cater to the villagers. This does not make their ventures a social venture. The argument of the editors is that these ventures help people, well guess what, if a venture does not help people, social, capitalistic, anarchist or otherwise, it is not going to survive. Maybe it is just that India is such a nascent capitalistic country recovering from the hangovers of socialism that it is a bit embarrassing to acknowledge its entrepreneurs as people who are out to make a lot of money and has to use a euphemism and mask them as social entrepreneurs.

Here’s a link to our entrepreneurial venture, Rural Innovations Company.

Has Capitalism Failed Us? – An Entrepreneur’s Perspective

2009-09-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

Michael Moore’s now famous statements on Jay Leno, “Capitalism is actually legalized greed, “is another exalted point of view thrown into America’s collective retrospection on how and why we are poorer today than we were a couple years ago and if the system that got us rich, has failed us. Here’s an entrepreneur’s two cents on the topic.

The recession has sparked new debates and bought back to life dormant ones on whether capitalism is good for the country. The definition of capitalism from dictionary.com: “an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth”. There is nothing about the verb “capitalism” that stands out as “evil” so why then are the anarchists and socialists calling it so? They do so because the people who practice and benefit most from capitalism have exhibited an uncommon level of stupidity, both as corporations and as individuals in the last couple years. Somehow good behavior and ethical decision making are considered a way of life for people in authority and power, when it is not the case as history, both recent and distant, have so clearly pointed out. So, to understand capitalism, we need to differentiate its users from its usability.

As an entrepreneur, for me capitalism is synonymous with incentives. Capitalism gives you the right incentives to do whatever it takes to bring your dreams to life; no other form of economic theory or practice gives you the outright freedom to do so. America has always been ahead of the rest of the world, neither because of its political ingenuity, nor its natural resources, America is the world’s only superpower simply because of its economic might and it got there because of its people. Honest, hardworking people, who work harder than people anywhere else in the world, and do so because they know that they will be rewarded for their hard work. The reason they work harder is because they dream of making it big. A lot of Americans I talk to have dreams of setting up their own companies and becoming the next Wal-Mart or GE. This is a dream not many people can have outside America. [In India, it takes four months to just get your company registered (personal experience), so it might take about a 100 years to become a large company and enjoy the rewards of entrepreneurial sacrifice parts of Asia]. You remove this incentive and you will soon lose the motivation and sacrifice that success incessantly asks of its followers. What if we say that there is a limit to the amount of money one can earn and the rest will be taxed at 50%. It removes the incentive to dream big and without economies of scale, you lose efficiency.

The point I am trying to make is that we have a system in America that has made what it is today. There aren’t faults with the system; it is that we expect the system to do what is never meant to do, to keep people honest and ethical. Capitalism is just a system that gives people the incentive to work hard and enjoy the rewards of their hard work; it does not address greed or corruption, for that we need to have laws. All other systems are designed to help people through other people’s hard work, and you know that I will never sacrifice my sleep just to see the money I make go to help pay for my neighbor’s laziness. Of course there are people in need and we should be able to help them, that’s why we pay taxes to have a government in place that can help them, but when that government starts to forcibly take from me what I don’t owe it, I lose the incentive to make money.

Then there are those who work for humanity and want to do it all for charity, but I can’t remember the name of even one of them who helped discover the cure for a medicine and then manufactured it for six billion people, or helped make travelling more efficient or even designed homes that were eco-friendly and safe. The ability to feed a billion people cannot be the undertaking of a single government, the pressing need to provide a vaccine to contain a flu cannot translate into a solution by any of our world’s governments, and the advancements in today’s technology could never have been conjured up by the world’s smartest military minds; all these were, are and always will be only possible if we give common people the right incentives. Charity and socialism never worked, will never work and Africa will always be poor as long as we keep giving money and do not create a system for their entrepreneurs to succeed.

Capitalism is neither evil nor greedy, but people are and people always will be, especially the ones in power, as unfettered power corrupts. For the rest of us, we have to be smart and work on being smarter so that we can hold onto what we own today for if we give our power away for somebody else to help us, then the price we pay is our right to choose for ourselves and that is a right that has to be earned, not guaranteed.

Are Profits the Only Business of Business?

2009-08-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

Here's an essay that I wrote in college, around April 20th 2006. It is about the social responsibility of corporations.

In the wake of the scandals that have rocked the corporate world, an issue that has been brought to the forefront, debated widely in newspapers and has everybody’s attention is, “are profits the only business of business.” The articles provided for this discussion have the distinguished Milton Friedman, 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize winner for economic science arguing that profits are the only business of business and Robert Almeder, Professor in Philosophy at the Georgia State University arguing that there is a social responsibility of business that goes beyond profits seeking. From the outset of this argument, the undeniable fact is that the primary business of business is to make profits and be profitable. The point of contention is whether making profits is the “only” business of business.

“There is also one and only one social responsibility of a business- to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.” –Milton Friedman.

Does this famous assertion, made by Milton Friedman more than three decades ago, hold true today? Was Mr. Friedman assuming human morality as a given when he set the rules of the game, i.e. without deception or fraud. Maybe this assumption stemmed from his belief in Adam Smith’s laissez faire and the invisible hand that regulates the market. While the answers to most of these questions could only be speculated upon, the one question that requires a definitive answer is if in the 21st century economy there is a social responsibility of business that extends beyond generating profits, a responsibility to the society that involves moral, ethical and charitable considerations.

Let us first take a closer look at the “rules of the game” and see if we can show that this does not hold true in at least one instance. Mr. Friedman describes the rules of the game as open and free competition without deception or fraud. So the question then is, can a company engage in activities that are legal and yet immoral? He puts forth the argument that morality is subjective, what is moral to you can be immoral to me. For that reason, let us use Mr. Almeder’s example of “murder for profit.” Hopefully, we all agree that killing for money is immoral for the simple fact that it is impossible and more importantly immoral to place a monetary value on the life of a human being. The infamous Cost-Benefit Analysis of Ford Motor Company in rationalizing the decision to not recall the defective Ford Pinto is a perfect example of how one corporation decided the monetary value of a human life.

One of the tools that Ford used to argue for the delay was a "cost-benefit analysis" of altering the fuel tanks. According to Ford's estimates, the unsafe tanks would cause 180 burn deaths, 180 serious burn injuries, and 2,100 burned vehicles each year. It calculated that it would have to pay $200,000 per death, $67,000 per injury, and $700 per vehicle, for a total of $49.5 million. However, the cost of saving lives and injuries ran even higher: alterations would cost $11 per car or truck, which added up to $137 million per year. Essentially, Ford argued before the government that it would be cheaper just to let their customers burn! (Engineering.com)

In this case Ford Motor Company was within legal limits because it was willing to pay the fines yet was undeniably unethical. We can therefore logically conclude that a business has a social responsibility that is an amalgam of profit and moral considerations.

In addition to moral concerns, let us investigate the possibility that there could also be an obligation for corporations to be charitable. Mr. Friedman does not believe that a corporate executive has a social responsibility in his capacity as a businessman to be charitable. According to him, a corporate executive has only one business and that is to perpetuate the interests of his owners, the stockholders, or in layman’s terms, make the stockholders richer. In a purely capitalistic world this would be true but in the real world, which is the world we live in, capitalism does not exist in its truest form because history has shown that there is a need for market regulation through government intervention. As a result of living in a society that has a portion of socialism thrown into the mix, there arises the need for a business to be charitable.

Let us look at Wal-Mart, a pioneer in the discount retail industry, efficient, innovative, tremendously successful and highly profitable. It has obviously attained its primary goal to be profitable, however, does it have an obligation to be charitable? According to Fortune 500, Wal-Mart posted a profit of more than 11 billion in 2005 yet over half of its 1.6 million employees cannot afford or are ineligible for medical insurance and have their healthcare subsidized by their states (walmartwatch.com). According to Milton Friedman, the CEO Lee Scott has carried out his responsibility of increasing the wealth of his stockholders. He however has failed as an employer to look after the interests of his employees, which has resulted in lawsuits and petitions in many states to create laws to protect the interests of the employees. Government intervention in the economy is the antithesis of the capitalistic ideology but cannot be prevented if corporations do not look after their employees. It is the employees who elect their representatives to form the government; hence pure and unrestricted capitalism is surely the high road to a socialist or authoritarian society. The only way capitalism can survive is if it includes socialism in its capitalist practices. Wal-Mart has had to learn it the hard way. Months of bad publicity have finally forced it to make its practices more humane.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has been urged by some of its own shareholders to clean up its act. It follows a series of embarrassing incidents such as its recent fine for employing illegal immigrants and a class action sex discrimination suit. Some of its largest investors have written an open letter to the US group demanding action, saying its employment practices are hurting its shares. (BBC news)

Eventually Wal-Mart gave in and came up with the value plan which aims to:

Reduce the waiting period by half for part-time associates. All Wal-Mart associates – both part-time and full-time – can enroll in company plans after no more than 12 months of work; and Offer health coverage for children of all eligible Wal-Mart full-time and part-time associates. (Walmartfacts.com)

An article in the Wall Street Journal, on the 18th of this month, highlighted the story of Dr. McGuire, CEO of United Health Group Inc., one of the nation’s largest health-care companies. According to the same article, 46 million people lack medical insurance because they cannot afford the high premiums companies like United Health Group Inc. charge yet Dr. McGuire draws $8 million a year in salary plus bonus, enjoying perks such as personal use of the company jet. He also has amassed one of the largest stock-options fortunes of all time. Unrealized gains on Dr. McGuire's options totaled $1.6 billion, according to United Health’s proxy statement released this month. Even celebrated CEOs such as General Electric Co.'s Jack Welch or International Business Machines Corp.'s Louis Gerstner never were granted so much during their time at the top. The company is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission to see if the executives used any unethical means to get rich. (WJS.)

In the modern society the social responsibility of business goes beyond mere profits. Consumer awareness has forced companies to make their practices more transparent. What is amazing is that today a corporation’s profitability hinges on the public’s perception of its ethical values. In a survey by The Conference Board, roughly 46 percent of Americans say they have either purchased from or spoken out in favor of a company that they considered socially responsible in the past year. Consumers are slightly more likely to dis a business if it scores low on social causes: 49 percent say they've avoided buying a firm's products or spoken critically of a company in the past year because of negative perceptions. The U.S. survey is part of a larger worldwide poll of public opinion on the changing role of companies. More than 20,000 interviews were conducted in 20 countries, including China, Russia, and South Africa. Globally, more than one in five respondents say they've taken some action because of a corporation's dismal social performance. What matters most to U.S. consumers when they're judging companies? Collectively, roughly 56 percent cite a corporation's social responsibilities, such as labor practices, business ethics, and environmental issues (American Demographics.)

A large number of corporations make donations to various charities every year and this is a growing trend.

Then there is the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, have endowed a foundation with more than $28.8 billion (as of January 2005) to support philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global health and learning, with the hope that in the 21st century, advances in these critical areas will be available for all people. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has committed more than $3.6 billion to organizations working in global health; more than $2 billion to improve learning opportunities, including the Gates Library Initiative to bring computers, Internet Access and training to public libraries in low-income communities in the United States and Canada; more than $477 million to community projects in the Pacific Northwest; and more than $488 million to special projects and annual giving campaigns. (Microsoft.com/billgates)

In conclusion, social responsibility is a necessity if capitalism is to survive. Companies like Goggle, Home Depot, Pfizer, Starbucks and even Nike are changing the way businesses do business. Social responsibility is no longer an obligation instead it is has become a credo for many a successful corporation. So where does one draw the line as to how much charity is enough charity? Who decides morality and where does social responsibility begin? This is the debate of the 21st century corporate community and as some of them like Enron are finding out, morality and ethics are far more clearly defined than are made out to be. My prediction is that this century belongs to the corporations that are not just driven by the bottom line but are living to make a few sacrifices for the greater good of the society and as many will find out the hard way, in the betterment of their fellowmen lies their best interests and their profits as well. Robert Almeder perfectly summarized these issues in a rather succinct statement he made in his paper, “morality in the marketplace,” “Indeed if what I have been suggesting is correct, the only kind of enduring capitalism is humane capitalism, one that is at least as socially responsible as the society needs.”

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2009-07-19T23:18:00.000-07:00

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Survival of the Fittest: The Being Remarkable Theory

2009-07-05T09:58:00.000-07:00

So I happened to come across an article that talked about Seth Godin, and since I didn’t know who he was, I had to look him up on Wikipedia. While reading his biography, there was one line that caught my attention “Finally, Godin asserts that the only way to spread the word about an idea is for that idea to earn the buzz by being remarkable” and it forced me to stop and think. There must have been an era when clout, financial, political or otherwise, decided who sold what and to whom. Then survival meant having buying power, not having to necessarily be remarkable. The arrival of the information era has changed all that. Today, the survival of the fittest is decided by what you are, not who you are. I remember as a kid my mother telling me, whatever you do, do it well. Maybe, that adage needs to go a step further in today’s world. To survive in the fast-paced world of commerce today, a business cannot just do things well, it has to do them remarkably well. Here is why.

It is because information is available at demand and people are incessantly talking, commenting and speaking out. Reputations are being built and torn down in forums and blogs across the internet. If you do not believe me, do a Google search on your business name and see for yourself, and if you do not find anything, well, you are not doing anything remarkable yet. All this talk is a little stale as the being remarkable theory is neither original nor brand new. What’s new is that the business community is still coming to grips with this bare-all, be good for goodness sake style of doing business. You still find people cutting corners, providing unremarkable customer service and selling bad products but not for long, because the smart businesses have figured it out and they will be the ones who survive.

Let me know if there is a business in your community that is doing something remarkably well.

Rewriting the rules of our game

2009-05-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

When monetary incentives do not create the necessary enthusiasm in a business relationship, you realize that the rules you were taught of in your MBA classes have changed. In fact, in these tribal villages you can leave behind most of what you were taught, just bring along one golden rule, “be willing to adapt”.
Early on, as we worked with tribal artists, we tried to identify the correct monetary incentives to speed up production, to attract craftsmen and to increase quality. We realized very soon that while a fair wage was expected and sought out by the artisans, an increase in money did not result in any added enthusiasm to increase their production. It was the combination of verbal communications and quality personal time spent with the artists in understanding their trade that actually helped us increase efficiency and output.
For these new players, the incentives seem to be “the appreciation of their trade” and “an inclusive business enterprise”. We willingly agreed to play by their rules and we have come to see why these rules are superior to the rules of our corporate boardrooms. Here one is able to appreciate hard work and skill, whereas these qualities are sometimes lost in the numbers game of meeting targets and deadlines when the human element is left out. Of course we need a bit of both, some appreciation of the handiwork behind the product and some deadlines that have to be met. What we had gotten used to were pure numbers and bottom lines but working with rural artisans has brought back into sharp relief the value of the double bottom line, or in other words, the value of the human element.

Clay Candle Holder

English Garden - Clay Candle Holder

Retro Vegas - Clay Candle Holder

Pink Roses - Clay Candle Holder

If You Build It, They Will Come

2009-04-06T01:26:00.000-07:00

This famous line from “Field of Dreams” captures the entrepreneurs’ anthem accurately. It has been our inspiration as well in venturing into the tribal lands with our FarmAid project. We believe that there is a need out there for us to meet and hence we have built our little store in our field of dreams. While this movie was based on fantasy, our dream is built on solid facts. Here are some of them.
• Decades of exploitation by the local money lenders and landlords
• The shops with the basic supplies for agriculture are at least 30 miles away
• The lack of expert knowledge in the modern techniques of agriculture
• Complete dependence on the monsoons.
• Growing and harvesting rice is the only source of income and sustenance. This option exists only for four months out of the year.

Areas for Opportunities:

• Providing the tribal villagers with a store that treats them with respect and is completely honest and transparent in its transactions.
• Stocking up on agricultural solutions that are relevant and cost-effective
• Giving them the option of using our in-store experts to plan against the changes in the weather, and also learn to use our modern tools for better yields.
• Providing alternate solutions for the lack of rainfall, like water harvesting and motor pumps.
• Ensuring that they have access to year round employment through our other ventures.
There are other factors that we are cognizant of that are very important in ensuring our success. Some of these have to do with cultural sensitivity; centuries of exploitation and abuse of these tribal villagers have resulted in deep-rooted suspicion of outsiders, and rightly so. Therefore, we have consulted with social welfare organizations who already work there to come up with a set of ethical, moral and social guidelines that will act as a framework within which we will work.
We are building in our field of dreams, a store that can fulfill dreams, meet needs and act as an outpost that brings the world to their doorsteps and them to us, for we know that “if you build it, they will come”.

Here are a few pictures of the store under construction:

Rural Innovations Company Seeks Private Funding

2009-03-23T08:13:00.000-07:00

We have finally reached a stage where we can use some private funding and we have decided to actively seek investments in our Rural Pantry division. While it is exciting to think that we can now grow at a much faster rate, it is a little sobering that we will have to relinquish ownership of a part of our company. We will also have to explain our actions to our investors. So, there are pros and cons to our decision but nevertheless we are excited about our big step forward.
Here are a few quick updates on the rest of the company. We are launching our ecommerce website ( www.ruralhandicrafts.com )on the 3rd of April. It will be fully functional and will be the primary platform to advertise and sell our handicrafts products.
On the 11th of April, we will be inaugurating our FarmAid store in Ruthvadi. I will be adding a few pictures to our website to give you an idea on what the store looks like. We will be selling seeds and other farm related goods from that store. The store itself is built of mud and has one room, one attic and a courtyard in the back. It is small and meager looking but definitely beautiful.
On the 27th of April we will be inaugurating our Food Processing division. I will be giving you a few more updates on that shortly.
I am attaching a picture from our program over the weekend to honor and recognize Amit Singh’s hard work and commitment to his work. He became the first full time permanent employee of Rural Innovations Company on the 21st, our hats off to him.

Update on the FarmAid store

2009-03-13T09:54:00.000-07:00

So here's a quick update on our FarmAid store project. Our first FarmAid store is being constructed in Ruthvadi, Jharkhand and is set to open on the first of April 2009. Ruthvadi is a little tribal village about 30 miles from the town of Madhupur and about 270 miles from Kolkata. Ruthvadi is a town that time had left behind a long time ago. Here the tribals live without electricity, running water and many other basic amenities we cannot dream to live without.
However, life here is still beautiful, tranquil and refreshing in ways that money can never buy. And here is where our FarmAid store is being setup, to give the Santals access to some much needed supplies, without disturbing their lives and their beautiful village.

If by Rudyard Kipling

2009-03-12T00:41:00.000-07:00

I came across this poem the other day, one that I first read in high school. It inspired me then, and it had the same effect on me, all these years later.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

FarmAid

2009-02-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

Rural Innovations Company is taking the first steps in setting up its FarmAid store in rural India. The FarmAid store is something like the Home Depot in the US, a store that is a one-stop shop for everything you need for a do-it-yourself job.
The concept behind this store is that the store will give the people in the villages easy access to goods that they have to travel 40 kilometers to buy. The goods in this store will be relevant to their daily lives and will also serve as a seasonal seeds outlet.
This store brings will be innovative in a few ways. It will have in-store experts to work with the villagers on water harvesting, use of fertilizers and pesticides and also guide them through the various seed options they have for each season. The store will also explore the option of offering personal lines of credit based on their ability to make monthly payments.
At the end of the day, the success of a business enterprise depends solely on the long term sustainability of the venture and that is the primary goal of this FarmAid store; to make a decent profit while providing quality service to the village.

Inefficiencies of the Indian Bureaucracy

2009-02-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

The single biggest reason for the failure of the bureaucratic system in India is the lack of accountability. There are lots of other minor reasons as well, ones ranging from simply laziness to lack of motivation. It is this 800 pound gorilla in the room that India acknowledges but shrugs off as impossible to tackle and therefore pretends to ignore, that is crushing the spirit of the Indian Entrepreneur.

When I went to the State Bank of India, a nationalized bank in India, a few months ago to discuss my business venture and the prospects of a loan, I raised quite a few eyebrows. The manager was extremely eager to talk to me and I was there for a while. When I was leaving, he pulled me aside and explained the reason for his enthusiasm; I was the first entrepreneur who was starting a business in this town in 50 years.

I was amazed back then, now I am not. Five and a half months have gone by since that conversation. Today I think I am crazy to have started a business here. This is why:

Broadband internet service: 5 months since my initial application and still waiting. The excuses in the past two weeks have been that first the technician’s wife was unwell, then the technician was unwell and this morning, the technician’s boss was unwell.

Opening a business account: 2 weeks (It took me one week just to get the application form because the guy who knows where the form is stored in the bank was not available)

Registering the business: 2 months (I was told that it would have happened much faster if I have bribed the official)

Guess how long all this would have taken in the US: less than four hours!

The inefficiencies of the bureaucracy are the result of an inherently flawed system but through my dealings with these officials I have realized one other fact; that an inefficient system slowly starts to create inefficient and dishonest people almost in a Darwinian evolution sort of way whereby in the end it is not just the system that is corrupt, but the very souls of the individuals who work in the system are irreversibly corrupted as well.

Where Transformation Requires Innovations

2009-01-28T02:00:00.001-08:00

I know of a place where transformation requires innovations, in fact without innovations, transformation is almost impossible in this tribal village. This is a village where there is no clean drinking water and from where you would have to walk 20 miles to get to the nearest hospital. Where education is not an option and employment opportunities are non-existent.
This is a village where people are willing to work but have no jobs. They are eager to send their kids to school but have no schools and they sure do fall ill, only to suffer through it and escape death miraculously each time. This is a place where the need is so great and the hurdles so tall that the transformation these people yearn for, is impossible without innovations.
For us, this is the kind of crisis that we have set out to solve. Rural Innovations Company is working with tribal villages in Jharkhand, India to provide business solutions for their socio-economic problems using innovations.
Innovations that look for answers in all aspects of problem solving; from everyday solutions discovered in the course of living life to techniques derived from advances in science and technology. This is how we are bringing about the transformation of these tribal villages, one village at a time.
Check us out at http://www.ruralinnovations.com to find out how you can become a part of this solution. If you have an idea on how we can do something better, please do share it with us.

“Change” that inspires.

2008-11-05T09:55:00.000-08:00

As I watched the extensive coverage of the US presidential elections and the various recorded sound bites from the past that marked the course of the history that brought us today to this momentous occasion, the victory speech of Barack Obama, it was evident that the event that was unfolding on the television screen was holding the attention of people around the world for a myriad of reasons, some curious, others anxious, but for me it wasn't just the event, the triumph of the Democrats over the Republicans nor the fulfillment of dreams bit that caught my attention, it was something altogether different.

It was like we were watching an ancient battle in an arena, like in Rome from the Biblical times, where Barack Obama was a gladiator who was fighting for mankind, and the US elections, his opponent was on the other end. There were many before him, who had fought valiantly and had lost. Many who never stood up on their feet to pick up their swords for the odds seemed insurmountable. Thus his victory did not merely give him the right to rule the land; it gave mankind hope, hope that inspired.

Hope that tells us that if we did what we do well, and did it to the best of our ability, we can succeed. And that was it, plain and simple. Everything else for me was lost in the noise.

Investment Opportunities

2008-04-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

Do you believe that your money should do more for you than just multiply itself ? Do you want to receive along with your monthly financial statement a statement that outlines the growth in the local economy that has come about as a direct result of your investment? Are you a socially conscious investor? If your answers to these questions are yes, then we believe that we have an investment opportunity for you.
There are areas around the world that hold enormous potential for economic growth but have not realized this potential yet. Our company has come up with a unique way to convert this potential into sustained economic growth in the region while making money for our shareholders.

Given A Chance

2008-03-29T06:08:00.000-07:00

Given A Chance
Give him a chance and he will show you why
You should; he’ll run faster and work harder than his peers,
If his run is neither in chase of cattle nor his toil for food to eat.
Give her a chance and she’ll reward you with a smile,
A smile that’s been lost in the sweat, grime and pain,
Tilling the earth under the noonday sun, her efforts in vain.
All he needs is for you to believe and she, to teach her how to smile.
All they need is one chance, to prove to the world that they matter.
That given a chance, they will overcome.
Given A Chance!

About Us

2008-03-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

www.ruralinnovations.com

An Idea
Social Change as an inadvertent outcome of a Capitalistic Enterprise

Its Application
A successful free market enterprise competing in the global marketplace and creating value for its shareholders

The Outcome
Total transformation of the region and its people, a grassroots revolution