Category: The Swaniti Blog

Enhancing Employability of Youth in Balasore

[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”] [et_pb_row admin_label=”row”] [et_pb_column type=”4_4″] [et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] Member of Parliament, Balasore invited Swaniti team to assist him in developing his constituency. He wanted Swaniti to focus broadly on Skill Development, Horticulture and Self Help Groups. Located in North-east Odisha, Balasore is a coastal district around 250 Kms from Kolkata and around 200 Kms from […]

Decorating Visakhapatnam with Ornaments

Amongst several powerful experiences during our field visit to Visakhapatnam , the time spent in Zila Parishad High School of Thotagaruvu stands out. We were interacting with standard 10th students who had been religiously studying algebra. One of the students mentioned that while she really enjoyed the classes she wished she had a chair to […]

Reflections from a visit to Nagrota, Jammu

It was a usual Saturday before we got a call from the MLA from Nagrota. We had no plans to work in Jammu and Kashmir in the near future, but here we were, the same Saturday evening, sitting with an MLA who wants us to support him in developing his constituency. Interestingly, the MLA wouldn’t […]

How Long Can We Ignore Goldratt?

Eliyahu M. Goldratt, a physicist turned business management guru proposed the ‘Theory of Constraints’ which states that a chain can’t be stronger than the strength of its weakest link. I always feel amazed by the simplicity and yet the extent of applicability of the concept of ‘Theory of Constraints’. It has been six months since […]

Barak Diaries

Getting the opportunity to work on a project in the Barak Valley was fascinating . As a part of Swaniti, working with the Member of Parliament of Silchar, we decided to reach Guwhati and take the National Highway 44 to Silchar, thanks to the broad gauge conversion of the Lumding-Silchar railway line which was under […]

Tunnel Vision

Without know-how, jurisdiction and staffing, India’s urban planners are in the trenches even before they start digging. Inaugurated in 2003, the Hebbal flyover in Bengaluru was once considered a shining example of modern infrastructure in the city. In 2008, the city’s airport was inaugurated down the road from the flyover. Today, a traffic jam is […]

Railway Budget 15-16: Though still far from a symphony, budget strikes the right notes

By Surbhi Maheshwari An often proudly stated fact is that the Indian Railway network carries more number of passengers every year compared to any other nation in the world. However, there is another aspect to railways which is often overlooked and that is freight.More than two-thirds of Indian Railway’s revenues come from freight business. The […]

Numbers and the Government

In 2013-14 India spent approximately 1545 billion rupees on healthcare, education, rural development and agricultural security, however the Statistics and Census programs are only allocated only 9.8 billion rupees to collect data and gauge the effectiveness of the programs (.6 percent of the budget). We are a country of big numbers. Now consider this, in […]

Federalism and Finances – Looking Beyond Centre and State to the Third Tier

The recommendations of the Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) have been hailed almost unanimously for ushering in a new era for Centre-state relations in India. The most significant of these recommendations – accepted by the government – is the one that devolves 42% of the divisible share in the centrally levied tax pool to the states, […]

Development Stamp on Ballot

Two thousand and fourteen was a sweeping year for India and India politics. Eight of the nine State elections that were held last year had the winning party emerge with an overwhelming margin of at least twice as many seats (with the exception of Jammu & Kashmir). The general election indicated a similar pattern with […]