It is ten o’ clock in the morning when I arrive at the K Channasandra bus stand in Bengaluru and start looking for Jayashri’s dairy shop. I take a lane and couple of turns before I find it. Jayashri is standing next to it — at what appears a small tea-stall, and tells me… Continue reading People of Bharat: Jayashri, Bengaluru
Image by @abhijeetgaikwad10 on UnSplash Ever since the coronavirus pandemic hit the global economy, economists have been discussing the exact shape the recovery will take. Will it be a U-shaped recovery, i.e a prolonged downturn followed by upturn; or a V-shaped recovery, a downturn followed by a quick upturn; or a W-shaped recovery, a recovery followed… Continue reading Impact of pandemic induced labour shortage in Chennai
Abstract: This case describes the evolution of MHFC, a player in the Indian informal housing sector. As a new entrant offering micro home loans to the financially excluded lower income families of urban India in 2008, MHFC had grown to an annual number of 18,000 loans worth INR 8 billion with an average ticket size… Continue reading Micro Housing Finance Corporation: Growing and exiting a venture in affordable housing loans segment in India
Image by pixelfusion3d on iStock The Problem Statement Mutual insurance models in India are extremely localised and at times exist at some scale in pre-formed communities such as Self-Help Group Federations(SHG). The existing mutual models take a long learning curve to build, and are exclusive (entry restricted by microfinance) and investment heavy. Most of the… Continue reading Building a Digital Twin for Mutuals
Image by Gram Vaani In order to identify ICT based applications that rural women use or can use for livelihood services, we are speaking to experts who have done groundbreaking work in these fields. We highlight out takeaways from our conversations so far, in this blog post. Takeaway 1: The need for… Continue reading Mobile Enabled Services for Rural Women
Image by azadjain1 on Shutterstock As a nation, we have been hearing and discussing recent farm bills (turned Acts now). While we are still understanding the barriers of the market, it is vital to also understand the barriers to capital. For both capital and market are important for the success of farmer organisations. Going forward,… Continue reading With great crisis comes great reforms!
Image by aqabiz on iStock In spite of the pandemic scare on our research survey, we were successfully able to complete the survey across states of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat and NCR markets — covering 416 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in rural, semi-urban and urban markets. Of course, reaching out to only rural MSMEs was… Continue reading Decoding MSME Personas through Primary Data Collection
Image by Roxanne Shewchuk from Pexels In our previous blog we looked at an ideal, architectural solution for the community economy from a data cooperatives perspective. That eventually led us to seek out the real world equivalents, and the extent to which the current architecture can be leveraged, and what we can learn from the existing implementations.… Continue reading Cooperatives as Data Fiduciaries
I spot Shashikala’s house in a distance and the first thought that strikes me is the pink colour on the outer walls. Recently whitewashed, it stands out among the other two-room houses in the same row in the Vada Madurai area in Coimbatore. I note a satellite TV connection on the roof as I… Continue reading People of Bharat: Shashikala, Coimbatore
In this blog, we discuss the findings of a survey conducted with members of mutual and cooperative insurers in the three Indian states — Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu (states with the highest density of mutual and cooperative insurers). This blog compares typical characteristics of mutual and cooperative insurers versus actual on-ground observable evidence,… Continue reading Comparing Reality vs. Theory: Indian Mutual & Cooperative Insurers
I wind my way deep into the streets — into lanes and by-lanes and find myself at the house of Bhargavi. The house is really two rooms, one of which is the kitchen. Bhargavi later tells me it has been partitioned off from the ancestral property of her husband’s family. I guess these rooms… Continue reading People of Bharat: Bhargavi, Bengaluru
Photo by CRSPhoto on Shutterstock Aashish was on his two-wheeler, riding on a dusty road in some small town in the central state of India. He had yesterday’s matchmaking meeting for his marriage running in his mind. One old man from the prospective bride’s side asked him, ‘The post of CEO of a Farmer… Continue reading Ease of doing business: Still some miles to go for an FPO