Tag: india

Response to comments on the Aakash Op-Ed

Akshat Rathi1 Comment

On March 29th I wrote an Op-Ed in The Hindu, a national newspaper in India, on the Indian government’s plans to hand out $35  tablets to poor students. It attracted a number of comments and emails. I’m writing this post as a response to some of the common points that they raise.

1. Are test scores the best way to evaluate student’s learning?

The studies I quote (references to which can be found here) also took into consideration other factors. For instance, the Peru study looked at behaviour of the students: enrolment, attendance, study at home, and reading habits. While even this is not perfect a way to evaluate students, but I believe it enough to draw conclusion about the success or failure of this large scheme.

2. India already has plans in place to take care of malnourished children. There are mid-day meal programs and healthcare program like the National Rural Health Mission (NHRM). Isn’t it ok for the Human Resources Development (HRD) ministry to work on other issues?

This is true. But consider the fact that NHRM was started in 1975. In nearly 40 years it has not been able to cut down the number of malnourished children. More than 40% still suffer from stunted growth, which means that they don’t reach their proper physical or mental potential. Read detailed report here. These are serious worries, and despite government’s efforts little has happened. One of the reasons may be that it is not just the lack of food that is causing malnutrition. Read this excellent article to find out more.

3. Many schools don’t have access to books beyond their curricula. Aakash will enable them to get that access without added expenditure. Isn’t that good?

I’d accept the first argument about scalability But one needs to weigh the utility of gaining more knowledge while most of those who will get it may not even have the basic knowledge to approach the idea gaining more knowledge.

4. The infrastructure requirement for 3G is minimal when compared to building schools and it has a profit component which invites private expenditure. Even if it’s not profit-based, it’s easier for the govt. to deal with huge mobile companies than with different contractors working in every village.

The physical infrastructure needed for Aakash might be less, but the software and educational material that will be needed for it is by no means a small project. It is scalable as it can be deployed on all tablets at once, but the implementation of that material will need teachers on the ground. So I don’t think it’s as easy as that.

5. This is only the beginning. The trickle down effect of this initiative will be large.

This particular comment can be made about pretty much every initiative of the Indian government. See the NHRM example in answer 2 above.

6. Your complaint of poor hardware is justified, but if that is overcome then content will reach more people. The content is there, look at Khan Academy

It’s nice to hope that content that worked for the west will also work for India. See answer 4.

Some notable comments below:

It also seems that the government has taken pre-orders for the device. From an email:

I’ve made an advance payment of Rs. 2999 for the much publicized Aakash Tablet by GOI in Feb 2012. Now even after a year, Datawind has not delivered it. My reminders are answered with a reply stating that the delivery is under process.

On The Hindu’s website:

From Himanshu:

The middle ages had Tughlaq and his leather currency .. we have Sibal and Akash.

From AAKASHHULK:

ITS JUST A POLITICAL TRICK TO GRAB A FEW VOTES.

From Saurabh Sharma:

I got a SIM Card buy just showing my Aadhar card. The pleasure was immeasurable. For once I felt I was a decent human being and not a punching bag of government rules. Aadhar is another favourite punching bag of pessimists and armchair critics.

From S Nandakumar:

Whatever said and done even in the age of e-learning and Computer Based Training there is nothing like effective classroom interaction between students & teachers

Social entrepreneurs in India: Water for all

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Nearly three-fourths of all diseases caused in India are due to water contaminants. Despite that, one in eight Indians still lacks access to clean drinking water. The poor now realise that paying for clean water can save much more in health-care costs later. It was this market that Sarvajal, a social enterprise in India, wanted to cater to.

Founded in 2008, Sarvajal—which in Sanskrit means “water for all”—now sells clean drinking water to more than 70,000 people in rural India. In bigger villages, it employs local people to man filtration plants and sell water. In small villages it installs solar-powered water dispensing machines (pictured) that use prepaid (or pay-as-you-go) smart cards that can be topped up just like a mobile phone. The machines send data to a central server via SMS, which helps Sarvajal ensure regular supply of clean water.

Sarvajal started with some help from the Piramal Foundation, a charity. And it is not alone: Water Health International was launched with an investment from the Acumen Fund and the Naandi Foundation’s not-for-profit company was backed by a charity with the same name. What sets Sarvajal apart is that it has stayed away from government subsidies while still keeping the price of water low. It sells 10 litres of water for four pence (or six cents), just as much or lower than its competitors.

“Subsidies are not a long-term solution,” says Anand Shah, Savajal’s founder, who grew up in America and moved to India to become a social entrepreneur. It took a healthy bit of tinkering to lower the price of installation and maintenance for its water supply infrastructure. It costs on average $2,500 to install a filtration plant, which is about half the expense of similar projects. Sarvajal claims to recover those costs within three years.

Setting up its project was not easy. Savajal needed to deal with things that few businesses in rich countries have to worry about: lack of proper roads in villages, irregularity of power supply, unreliability of water sources and devising a system of money transfer. Having reached a respectable size, Mr Shah is hopeful that scaling up his business further will be less challenging.

Apart from villages, Sarvajal’s other obvious market is the urban poor. Nearly 100m people live in very densely populated slums in India’s cities. They are more willing to pay a higher price for water than villagers who have a much smaller disposable income. But Mr Shah says that “water barons”, sellers of bottled-water, have been trying to block Sarvajal’s entry into cities. After many months of efforts, this time not without help from the government, Sarvajal will soon be launching its first filtration plant in Delhi.

First published on economist.com.

Image credit: Sarvajal

Uniting against cancer

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Researchers from 15 developed and developing countries have called for better global coordination of research and prevention efforts against cancer, which kills 7.5 million people each year (about 15% of all deaths). A joint report published earlier this month (6 March) in Science Translational Medicine focuses on five areas that will help slash cancer cases and deaths: better and more coordinated registries, stronger action on prevention, easier and cheaper screening methods, better access to treatment, and the open exchange of research findings.

Global team urges cancer R&D collaboration,  SciDev.Net, 18 March 2013.

Image credit: Visual Photos