Rain and Books

(Source : http://www.imd.ernet.in/section/satmet/dynamic/sector-vis.htm)

(Source: www.weather.com/maps/maptype/satelliteworld/indiasatellite_large.html)

If you sitting at home due to rain outside (this is likely to be the case if you are anywhere in the western Maharashtra), and want to spend time reading, following is list of books you might find interesting.

• A Mighty Heart By Mariane Pearl and Sarah Crichton



• Indira By Katherine Frank

(Book cover link to Harper-Collins Publishers India)

Mumbai Rain

Yesterday (June 23rd 2007) huge amount of rain poured in Mumbai. In the evening, I went to IITB bookshop hoping to get book '(Matrix Computations by Golub et. al.), I should have checked forecast before going out.





At around 7.30 PM large dark clouds gathered in the sky and huge downpour started. I was carrying a umbrella, started walking towards the gate. I decided to go back to home as soon as possible and picked an auto rickshaw.

There is lot of construction going on starting from IIT main gate till hiranandani and Navy training institute. There are no signs "Under construction", so any driver new to the area, its dangerous driving especially in the rain. I saw a car tilted with its left hand side tires beyond the left border of the road. Due to huge level gap car tilted.


There was water everywhere on the road. Near Cafe Coffee Day there was huge amount of water. We were worried about possibility of auto rickshaw breaking down due to water getting into its electrical system. Thats exactly what happened.

I got down, help driver for some time and later got into another auto. To cut the story short, I finally reached home safely, full wet. Two more places to note down where there was water logging are, link road before SEEPZ flyover, and in front of Akruti Center.

Lessons learned :

• Check local forecast for possible thunderstorms before you venture out in the city.
  
• Do not expect much (overestimate) of roads/infrastructure in general, at least for few more years.

There is lot of good work (road,fly-overs, underground drainage) done, but lot remains to be done, and at some places its not up to to the mark. Is it possible that there is lack of enough competent civil engineers?

Microfinance: Giving opportunities to small vendors.

Few weeks back, I watched a TV program about Microfinance and Muhammad Yunus who pioneered Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.


An an young economist, one question that bothered Yunus is "Why so many people in his country are poor?".

He met a woman who made bamboo stools in a village. He found that, she borrowed money from "evil lender" for buying raw material. "Evil Lender" gave her money on a strict evil condition that all finished bamboo stools should be sold to only him at price lower than the market price of stools. So woman could earn very small amount of money at end of month, barely enough to buy food, no savings to buy raw material on her own. So next month she has NO other option than to borrow money from "evil lender". Government and private banks won't lend money to her without any collateral (which she did NOT have). She was stuck in hell.

So the microfinance idea is to provide poor woman enough money, trust in her skills, her ability to create small profitable business, her instincts to efficiently manage the money and take care of her children and family, make her independent.

Overall it was a inspiring TV programme. I need to find some more details about microfinance.
There is one idea in my mind, from my observation of street vendors (selling fruits, flowers, vegetables etc.) in big cities in India. Rightnow problem is they do not have a place/shop where they can store their products and sell to customers.

• A place where they can scale (meaning increase the size).
  
• A place which will protect them and their inventory from rain and sun.
• A place where customers will come to buy.

Maybe a 200 sq. feet. shop in a mall/vegetable marker. How do they get money to buy the shop? Can micro-finance ideas help? Are banks ready to lend them small load? or what if banks lend money to somebody who buys the shop(s) and rents them to poor vendors.
Does anybody knows about such banks?