Author: Rajesh Jain

In Anand, we visited two Amul factories, thanks to a friend at Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing (GCMMF). It was amazing to see the huge integrated equipment which process the milk and convert it to butter and milk powder, among other products. Working on computers all my life has limited exposure to the mighty machines that make stuff we consume in our daily lives. The Amul story, brought to life in a 20-minute video, is in some ways the story of India.The second visit was to the chocolate factory. Seeing first had how cocoa beans get converted into the stuff we so enjoy was quite an experience. We saw all the various processes closely, and ended with the kids and adults joyously chomping down the chocolates!

As Abhishek walked around, I was almost reminded of the story, “Curious George and the Chocolate Factory.” He could relate to what has happening and was almost tempted to replicate some of George’s antics. (George is a curious monkey.)

We took the kids  (Abhishek and his cousin) to Anand to visit Amul for our obligatory one-day outing. Amul was one of my first customers during the IndiaWorld days, and from there started a relationship that has stayed through for fifteen years.

Anand is about 225 kms from Surat. It took us about three-and-half hours to cover that distance by road. The twin drives were quite different – going early morning on near empty roads and returning late night on truck-filled ones.

Driving on the 6-lane NH8 and then the 4-lane NE1 expressway is as good as it gets in India. The signage is excellent. Flyovers have been built on NH8 on most intersections ensuring that one can maintain a speed of about 60-80 kms for the most part. On the expressway, 100 kms seemed to be the norm.

We took a small deteour giving on the Golden Bridge across the Narmada at Bharuch since there is ongoing repair work on the main bridge. The 130-year-old bridge brought back memories from our drive to Rajasthan more than 30 years ago. For some reason, the Bharuch bridge has always stayed in my memories!

Last weekend, I made a short visit to Surat, with a 1-day trip to Anand. The family was already in Surat. With Abhishek’s vacation now underway, we are back to our short here-and-there trips.

I have been visiting Surat for more than 15 years. Surat is about 260 kms from Mumbai. It takes about three-and-half hours by Shatadbi. I came back by Flying Rani which took about four hours and 40 minutes to cover the distance.

In the past few years, there has been at least one trip each year. Surat has grown dramatically over the years. The infrastructure in terms of roads is keeping pace. Every time I go there, I see some new flyovers, which are more like elevated roads given how long some of them are.

There are three places we visited on the day I was there: ISCON mall, an amusement park opposite that and of course, Pizza Hut, which is one of the few all-veg joints they have in the country.

Surat is one of India’s better managed cities. Let us hope it stays that way.

The last part of my series from a year ago:

What we need to start doing is to stand up and be counted. Stand up and say, Yes, I am willing to do by bit to help change India’s political and policy climate by 2014. And then, look around. You will be amazed by how many people you will see standing. Today, we sit and think – and so do many others. And so, we don’t see anyone else.

Middle India is waiting for real leadership. We can either continue on the dismal path that India’s past leaders have set India upon, or we can create a different path that leads India to its true destiny. It will not be an easy path – it is a road that will have many twists and turn, and obstacles at every turn. We have do take this new path if for nothing else but to be able to look our children in the eye and say, “Yes, my dear, we did what we had to do and we did it well.”

This week’s links:

• 10 Asian Tech companies beating American ones: from Business Insider.
• Why Cities Keep Growing, Corporations and People Always Die, and Life Gets Faster: from Edge. A conversation with Geoffrey West.” The question is, as a scientist, can we take these ideas and do what we did in biology, at least based on networks and other ideas, and put this into a quantitative, mathematizable, predictive theory, so that we can understand the birth and death of companies, how that stimulates the economy?”
• The 10X revenue club: by Bill Gurley. “All revenues are not created equal.”
• Egypt: Not just the Facebook Revolution: from Business Week.”Egypt’s largest independent newspaper, Al-Masry Al-Youm, is showing Egyptians what a free press looks like. More than social media, that may be the key to the nation’s future.”
• The 100Most Creative People in Business: from Fast Company.

Every once in a while, I do not know what to blog. Today is one which day. I have a few topics that I’d like to write about but they require some thought and time, and I haven’t been able to do either of them lately! So, think of this as a placeholder where you can give some suggestions. A few topics I plan to write about sometime soon:

• Good Books that I have read/ am reading
• Digital real-time communications
• Personal Portals, Microblogs, Mobile Social Networking
• More Entrepreneurship Experience Learnings
• A Letter to our PM
• A Centre-right vision for India

Any suggestions from you?

“Transforming India: Big Ideas for a Developed Nation” by Atanu Dey is now available for sale on Flipkart for Rs 200.

If you care about India’s future, then this is a must-read book. Here is more about the book and Atanu:

Book Summary of Transforming India

Have you ever wondered-

• Why is India so poor?
• Is India a free country really or is it under “British Raj 2.0” post 1947?
• How can it become a rich nation?
• How will India meet the challenges it faces in energy, urbanization, transportation and infrastructure?
• What will it take to fix India’s dysfunctional education system?
• Where should the focus of rural development be – rural people or rural areas?
• Why does the “license permit quota control raj” inevitably lead to rampant public corruption?
• Should government run businesses at massive public losses?
• What can you do to make a difference and bring about positive change?

If you have, then this book is for you.

It is about India’s possible transformation from a very poor, impoverished, “Third-world” nation to a rich, developed, dynamic country by 2040. For us to make that happen, we must intelligently ask and honestly answer questions such as those. This book is an attempt at addressing them and outlining a course of action. We must act but awareness and understanding have to precede action. We have to understand precisely what has impeded India’s progress to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. We have to rescue and transform India – we owe it to ourselves, our children, and our children’s children.

Atanu Dey received his PhD in economics from University of California at Berkeley. He is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and Rutgers University (computer science), and of Nagpur University (mechanical engineering.) As a Reuters Fellow at Stanford University, he developed a model for catalyzing rural economic development called RISC. On his blog “On India’s Development” at www.deeshaa.org, he writes on a wide range of topics such as education, technology, economics and politics. Atanu lives in the San Francisco Bay area and works as the chief economist at NetCore Solutions in Mumbai.

It is easy to miss the forest for the trees. Reading the newspapers daily is a bit like that. So much noise, so little signal. Especially in the past few days with the political events that have been taking place.

The focus has to be on India’s development. Very little of what we are seeing nowadays is taking us in that direction. That is the unfortunate part. And many of us get caught in the maelstorm of the news that comes through and the instant discussion that takes place on who is right and who is wrong, and the implications.

The reality is that public memory is very short – 90 days, as someone once put it. Street protests and satyagraha did not get India’s freedom (contrary to the history we learn), and neither will it get black money back, a Jan Lok Pal Bill or end corruption. As a friend puts it, all it will do is increase sales of candles.

It is that time of the year again! Having lived through yet another summer in an air-conditioned office and car (thankfully, at home, we still prefer the fan most of the time) and not noticed much of it, the rains will definitely make their presence felt. The rains started somewhat early last week and continued through for most of the weekend.

Rains bring out many memories – and most of them relate to my school and college days. That is because one actually noticed and felt the rains so much more then. Now, the office cocoon has distanced me from the rains except seeing them beyond the water-proof glass partition. Getting drenched in the rains was so much fun – it is time to do it again perhaps!

I also wish we would take water-harvesting much more seriously, like they do in Chennai and some other parts of India. It is tragic to see so much rainwater just get wasted away.

Thanks very much for the suggestions.

We have decided to go to two destinations for five days each for the vacation – Bali and Binsar. I guess Bali doesn’t need much explanation. Binsar (Uttarakhand) came up because of two reasons: I had some Club Mahindra days that were expiring, and I also wanted Abhishek to experience an India vacation. Binsar was one of the few ClubM properties that I could get a booking at, so decided to go there.

So, quite a change. Just a few weeks ago, we were planning a 10-day visit to California, and now this. It will be different because much of this will be a “do-nothing” vacation – just relax. That is something which is a rarity on my busy vacations!