DANTEWADA MASSACRE
(Written on 8th April, 2010)
I was shocked by the killing of 75 CRPF jawans in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh by the maoists. It only increased my resolve and readiness to go and work in such remote and backward areas. Even now, I do not have deep ill will against the naxals. But, I do not support such dastardly attacks by any stretch of imagination. I realise that winning the confidence of the people is the answer to the problem. But, right now it has reached such a stage that outright military action can only establish civilian administration in such areas.
I am hopeful that the cycles of offensive and counteroffensive by the government and the ultras does not degenerate into mere blood bath without addressing the core concern of the backwardness of the regions. If human rights violation takes place in further operations, the government may end up alienating itself from more number of tribals. In fact, I was shocked to know that many tribal people were also involved in the Dantewada massacre with their bows ans arrows. What may have led to such innocent people taking up arms and fighting against the mighty establishment?
I was initially angry with the naxals for their antiquated ideology and the path of violence that they adopted. But, after reading newspaper reports about various committees' findings, I realised the deep rooted nature of the problem. Now, both the parties (the government and the naxals) claim to be the champions of the poor and berate others as betrayers. It looks that the poor tribals living in far flunged forests are the ultimate victims.
We must admit that even after sixty years of independence, the government is unable to play a central role in the lives of the people living in such remote areas. The systematic denial of user rights to the forest dwellers through various forest laws led to the loss of their livelihoods. All the dams and development projects only led to the displacement of the underprivileged. All the mining projects and factories are perceived by the tribals as looting ventures by outsiders. We also could not get them educated so that they can be reasonably employed in such projects. Unfortunately, tribals are not as vociferous and agitating like many dalits and OBCs in the northern belt who got awakened in the last couple of decades.
Tribals must have felt that naxals can offer them a better deal when they distributed public land in such areas. Naxals started operating parallel administration and delivered instant justice through local courts by punishing the moneylenders and land grabbers from outside. As the violence component kept increasing, the naxals now have grand dreams about overthrowing the civilian administration and hoisting red flag over the red fort.
The measures adopted by the government could not sufficiently address the quantum of seriousness of the problem. Poor police response initially and insufficient training of the police personnel only allowed strong linkages that naxals forged across the 'red corridor' and even from outside the country. Idealogical support to 'salwa judum' only led to dividing the tribals into mutual faction groups affecting their livelihoods very badly. Now, the writ of the elected government does not run in many districts at all. Hence, law and order administration and development administration must go hand in hand to solve the issue.
It looks to have become natural that we do not listen to the voice of the hungry people unless they start agitating. So, we must thank the naxals for shaking the government to the grave needs and aspirations of the remote and inaccessible areas. We can afford to forget such areas only at the expense of losing such territory to misguided elements. Let us use this opportunity to integrate tribals and their habitat with the mainstream on equitable terms. Their unique culture needs to be preserved and the pristine natural surroundings must be conserved. But, they also need to be educated like us, get health facilities and must have infrastructure like in other places.
The same issues that government raised in the early days of independence like land reforms are now used by the naxals. Hence, the government must walk the extra mile and display utmost commitment in addressing the concerns of the people. As long as government servants look at the work in inaccessible areas as punishment postings, the tribals will remain like before. The urban conglomerations are moving ahead at such a rapid pace that we can not imagine how the world will look like in the coming decade. Hence, we want the best of talented people to work in geographically disadvantaged areas as well. The government must be ready to provide extra facilities so that people do not work out of compulsion, but out of volition.
The increasing human needs will place more demands on the ecology and forests. The new paradigm of sustainable development must aim at rejuvenating the resource base in proportion to the growing needs. There are no more contradictions, but all mutual interconnections. The battle against naxals is a military one only in the short one. But, it is an ideological and developmental challenge in the long run. Let us take the challenge for the benefit of all.
As I write these lines, I become impatient to go and work in such districts. I am hopeful that GOD gives me an opportunity to go and do it this year. If I do not get through now, I will not be disappointed that I did not get a job. But, there will be definite unhappiness that I need to wait for some more months. Anyway, now or in future, the destiny remains the same.
May 5, 2010
DEVELOPMENT – A PAKKA BUSINESS PROPOSITION
(Written on 31st December, 2004 in IRMA)
At the outset, I understand my limited capability to comment on different development theories proposed by knowledgeable thinkers over the decades. The term ‘development’ is thought to be so vague that all the explanations given carry some amount of credibility when looked at from that perspective. In this small note, I would neither attempt to question any of the previous theories nor propose a new theory of my own. I just put down my notion of development from my two-year experience in IRMA.
Perhaps, most of us might have not have attempted to look at the society from the dichotomous perspective of development sector and commercial sector had we not come to IRMA. But, I feel that after our two-year stint with IRMA, either we get romanticized with the words ‘development’ and ‘sector’ or get disillusioned about the same words. The first category of people nurture the notion that commercial organisations would not benefit the targeted sections of rural populace whose cause we want to champion. The second category of people gets disillusioned with the notion of ‘development’. They consider development sector as a place where nothing substantial gets materialized. For them, development essentially means personal sacrifice and non remunerative in monetary terms. The first lot may compare the noble mission that they have embarked upon with the monetary loss and gratify themselves that the former is more dignified in the eyes of the society. Based on this kind of thinking, students join either ‘development’ organisations (Essentially involves sacrifice in the eyes of majority of the batch mates) or the ‘commercial’ organisations within the ‘sector’. Some students are even ready to redefine the boundary of ‘sector’ by choosing those organisations, which are still not designated. Those adventurers will essentially be branded as ‘out campus’ students.
Does Development Involve Sacrifice?
I would not question the idea of classifying the organisations into development or commercial as per their nature. The logic of classification could be the legal status or the intended target beneficiaries or the residual claimants. I only question the thinking that development essentially involves sacrifice or social work. In other words, I would not agree to the point that business logic is absent or is not the main motive in development. Whenever we talk about the business logic, my understanding is that there is no free meal in business. But we bring the notion of philanthropy in development. I say that development is equally strong in terms of business logic. Unless the resources used in the effort generate adequate returns, which can outweigh the physical, technological, financial and human resources used in the effort and also the corresponding depreciation of such resources, we cannot claim that development has taken place. So, let us not call or attempt to name any effort, which has failed to generate sufficient returns as development unless it meets the above criteria. In all such cases, development is nothing but a failed business.
Development is Very Much Quantifiable
One more notion about development is that it is qualitative in nature. It is supposed to be a social transformation process, which is very difficult to detect. I am referring to terms such as empowerment, participation and emancipation, which are often quoted to be the goals of development. My understanding is that development effort is not worth it if it fails to generate substantial financial returns at the individual as well as societal level. Unless the development efforts impact local economies significantly by increasing and improving livelihood opportunities for all, even as they bring to their members sustainable and significant financial gains, there is no meaning to such efforts. So, let us not escape from our failure of not being able to generate such surplus by quoting the amorphous goals of participation and empowerment. Let us not persist with such goals as elusive entities. In fact, nothing is non-quantifiable in this world. The only thing could be that the degree of difficulty in quantification may vary. So, let us first put them in strict quantifiable terms. Then not only our effort becomes much more meaningful but we always have a reference to check with.
Does Development Mean Championing the Cause of the Poor?
One more feeling about development is that it wants to champion the cause of disadvantaged and the marginalized (I am in fact sufficiently bored with the usage of these terms). My feeling is that this idea assumes the existence of inequality in the society with regard to the power balance or the distribution of assets. Why should we always start with the assumption that there is great amount of inequality and imbalance in the society and therefore the need for intervention as a corrective mechanism? My feeling is that the society is not that bad as we visualise to be. In most of the cases, there is nothing like exploitation as we think it to be. After all, depending on the ability, pro activeness and innovative instincts of some individuals in the society, some enjoy a better position over others either in terms of ownership of assets or enjoying certain benefits. I mean to say that rich are not rich because they always exploit the poor but because they must have been more entrepreneurial and proactive than the others.
If I say that existing societal balance is fair, is there any need for development? When I say that poor are poor because of their inability to grab the chances, perhaps there is no need for any development effort. But still such need exists. Why? The problem arises because of the non-fulfilment of the basic needs of the poor. Here I make the distinction between the needs and the wants of human beings. The society would have been perfectly fine had there been parity in the exchange among different sections. However, the fundamental assumption to my early argument is not satisfied when there is pressure of basic needs on the poor. So the pressure of ‘basic needs’ works to the transactional disadvantage of the poor. Hence the need for external assistance. Assistance is not about philanthropy. It is a much bigger challenge. The one who wants to help these poor people who are at a transactional disadvantage should be able to understand the resource base that they have so that comparative advantage of such base is taken care of. It is not about making the poor owners of assets with the help of externally pumped money. It is about creating the transactional advantage for the local resource. So identification of the correct usage of the resource (May mean canalising from the current usage or non usage), which leads to value creation at the local economy, is the cornerstone of development. That is why we refer to development as an enabling effort or making the people realise their potential. (I am again not satisfied with myself if I use the word ‘capacity building’) So, such effort should not be disabling by making them dependent on the external agencies.
Challenges in Development
Development effort should be able to tackle the institutional, financial, marketing and technical challenges involved. Such challenges are listed in detail as below.
Institutional – It is about taking care of the existing societal power structures and income disparities. As I wrote earlier, rich does not necessarily represent evil in the effort just because they are likely to get a bigger proportion of the benefits. They may get a bigger share because of the existing disparity in the asset ownership. But as development professionals, our challenge lies in creation of such institutions that benefit the disadvantaged without offending those whom we may not want to be the major beneficiaries.
Let us also not be guided by the stupid notion of equality. We often to resort to this idea of equality as being fair and democratic. If all the people fail to contribute equally, why they should get an equal share? It is simply like awarding the same grade to all the students despite the varying efforts as reflected in the performance. Here, our ingenuity in the design of benefit sharing mechanism comes into picture. To the extent we are successful in linking the benefits to the efforts put in by the people, we are more successful in our development efforts. When we want the poor to be benefited in the process, we can make efforts to link the pay offs to such contributions that the poor are more comfortable with.
Financial: Here I go beyond the project’s economic viability measured in terms of Net Present Value and Cost Benefit Analysis. My focus is more on the scale of operations. Unless the threshold level of operations is achieved, the effort may not yield adequate results to set off the depreciation of resources used in the process. Therefore, we should be careful in our planning to see that we achieve such scale. Scale may also mean better replicability, which can impact the local economies on a large scale in a wider geography.
Marketing: There are various competing forces in the society who are always ready to serve the unfulfilled needs. The question is about the detection of such opportunities at the earliest. Here market orientation as opposed to production orientation assumes significance. When we want our venture to be one the of best value propositions in the local economy, we should be able to serve the customer’s needs in the most appropriate manner. We should not look at the actors involved in traditional marketing mechanisms as always detrimental to the interests of the poor. So, middlemen that we see in almost all the supply chains of agricultural commodities do not necessarily exploit the poor. They also add value to the chain in their own way and take a share in the rupee paid by the consumer. Unless we remove the information asymmetry through innovative ways, we cannot think of giving the farmer better share in the final price realised. So, instead of cribbing over the so-called middlemen’s mal practices, let us take the challenge of bringing better coordination in the overall chain.
Technical: Technology is something that helps us to add value or create utilities (form, time or place). I view technology to be more important from the angle that only an enhanced technology can solve the problem of depleting resource base and the increasing needs of the burgeoning population. I would not say that technical solution comes free of cost. It may mean different order costs to the society. But in the current context of raising concern over the ecological sustainability of the resource base, I feel that only a higher order of technical solution will solve the problem. If even that solution proves to be inadequate after sometime, mankind has the challenge of finding even a higher degree solution.
I would not discount the need for conservation of the existing resource base. Whenever we raise concern over the global phenomena, we should realise that it is the sum result of breakdown many local eco systems. So, unless corrective action is initiated at all such micro level local contexts, global issues cannot be addressed. If such coordinated effort does not take place at all the places, only a technical solution can improve the things on large scale. So, whenever we think of development at the local level, let us be aware of the necessity for local level action as a small step towards correcting the global level issues.
However, a resource cannot be sustained for the sake of future generations’ needs if the immediate needs of the poor are not satisfied. Strong interlinkages exist among the sustainability of the resource, livelihood and institutional processes. Therefore, it is important to create a balance among them for ensuring institutional robustness. Challenge lies in the design of such institutions, which can balance the present generations’ needs, and that of the future. We can also talk about concern for other creatures in the world if we do not want to be branded as anthropocentric.
Development as a joint exploration
All the time, I was talking as if the external interveners like the development professionals will transform the local economies once they understand the idea of development. But it is not that the local people are oblivious of the opportunities. Perhaps they could be the better judges in many cases. Therefore we should also have the humility to accept their beliefs and learn from their knowledge system. I am not referring to the good old ‘participation’ in the development process. Development is a joint effort towards better future for the society. So let us bring synergy between the knowledge system of professionals like us and that of the local people and the soundness involved in traditional practices. There could also be elements which neither the interveners nor the local people are aware of. Let us use development as a joint exploration towards knowledge generation, value addition and happiness in the society.
Let Us Take a New Perspective to Development
Development organisations are certainly odd creatures in this society. Most of the time, they act as brokers. They depend on the generosity of the donor agencies for generation of the resources for their existence. Such donors cannot get a direct feel of the effectiveness of the resources, as they do not directly receive the services. Even the target beneficiaries are not aware of the cost of provision of such services. As a result, many of the development organisations continue to exist in spite of their failure to do justice to the resources that they have used from the society. We as development professionals should take it as a challenge to check the staggering consumption in the society.
For that to happen, we need to reorient ourselves about the notion of development. As long as we see it as a noble act or an act of philanthropy or part of societal concern, we can never do justice to the resources that we use. Let us brush away from our mind any feeling that we are sacrificing something by committing for development. In fact, we are taking a much bigger challenge upon ourselves of doing justice to the resources that we take from the society. Let us take it as a pakka business proposition and prove that we can win in a business context too. But we should realise that it is a much tougher proposition, as we do not get the much-needed feedback unlike a business enterprise, which gets ditched by its customers once they find the services to be inferior. In a development context, we should be true to ourselves about the value that we could generate. The funding agencies may crib about some particular aspects. Within the constraints imposed by them, we should be able to convince ourselves about the work that we did as being value adding to the society.
In fact, it does not really matter in which sector we are (it is only a matte of semantics or the so called ‘sectoral’ concerns that we embrace as a default choice of being in IRMA). Let us take the bigger challenge wherever it is present, and prove that IRMANS have a bigger heart. In my opinion, a true test to our self is provided by the following question. ‘Am I able to make this place much better than what it was earlier?’ If we can tell to our heart that I am able to help these many people to realise their dreams, nothing else can mean more significant to our life. Let us take the bigger challenge of development not because we need to sacrifice our life for the sake of it but because it is a much tougher business proposition and worth it.
(Written on 31st December, 2004 in IRMA)
At the outset, I understand my limited capability to comment on different development theories proposed by knowledgeable thinkers over the decades. The term ‘development’ is thought to be so vague that all the explanations given carry some amount of credibility when looked at from that perspective. In this small note, I would neither attempt to question any of the previous theories nor propose a new theory of my own. I just put down my notion of development from my two-year experience in IRMA.
Perhaps, most of us might have not have attempted to look at the society from the dichotomous perspective of development sector and commercial sector had we not come to IRMA. But, I feel that after our two-year stint with IRMA, either we get romanticized with the words ‘development’ and ‘sector’ or get disillusioned about the same words. The first category of people nurture the notion that commercial organisations would not benefit the targeted sections of rural populace whose cause we want to champion. The second category of people gets disillusioned with the notion of ‘development’. They consider development sector as a place where nothing substantial gets materialized. For them, development essentially means personal sacrifice and non remunerative in monetary terms. The first lot may compare the noble mission that they have embarked upon with the monetary loss and gratify themselves that the former is more dignified in the eyes of the society. Based on this kind of thinking, students join either ‘development’ organisations (Essentially involves sacrifice in the eyes of majority of the batch mates) or the ‘commercial’ organisations within the ‘sector’. Some students are even ready to redefine the boundary of ‘sector’ by choosing those organisations, which are still not designated. Those adventurers will essentially be branded as ‘out campus’ students.
Does Development Involve Sacrifice?
I would not question the idea of classifying the organisations into development or commercial as per their nature. The logic of classification could be the legal status or the intended target beneficiaries or the residual claimants. I only question the thinking that development essentially involves sacrifice or social work. In other words, I would not agree to the point that business logic is absent or is not the main motive in development. Whenever we talk about the business logic, my understanding is that there is no free meal in business. But we bring the notion of philanthropy in development. I say that development is equally strong in terms of business logic. Unless the resources used in the effort generate adequate returns, which can outweigh the physical, technological, financial and human resources used in the effort and also the corresponding depreciation of such resources, we cannot claim that development has taken place. So, let us not call or attempt to name any effort, which has failed to generate sufficient returns as development unless it meets the above criteria. In all such cases, development is nothing but a failed business.
Development is Very Much Quantifiable
One more notion about development is that it is qualitative in nature. It is supposed to be a social transformation process, which is very difficult to detect. I am referring to terms such as empowerment, participation and emancipation, which are often quoted to be the goals of development. My understanding is that development effort is not worth it if it fails to generate substantial financial returns at the individual as well as societal level. Unless the development efforts impact local economies significantly by increasing and improving livelihood opportunities for all, even as they bring to their members sustainable and significant financial gains, there is no meaning to such efforts. So, let us not escape from our failure of not being able to generate such surplus by quoting the amorphous goals of participation and empowerment. Let us not persist with such goals as elusive entities. In fact, nothing is non-quantifiable in this world. The only thing could be that the degree of difficulty in quantification may vary. So, let us first put them in strict quantifiable terms. Then not only our effort becomes much more meaningful but we always have a reference to check with.
Does Development Mean Championing the Cause of the Poor?
One more feeling about development is that it wants to champion the cause of disadvantaged and the marginalized (I am in fact sufficiently bored with the usage of these terms). My feeling is that this idea assumes the existence of inequality in the society with regard to the power balance or the distribution of assets. Why should we always start with the assumption that there is great amount of inequality and imbalance in the society and therefore the need for intervention as a corrective mechanism? My feeling is that the society is not that bad as we visualise to be. In most of the cases, there is nothing like exploitation as we think it to be. After all, depending on the ability, pro activeness and innovative instincts of some individuals in the society, some enjoy a better position over others either in terms of ownership of assets or enjoying certain benefits. I mean to say that rich are not rich because they always exploit the poor but because they must have been more entrepreneurial and proactive than the others.
If I say that existing societal balance is fair, is there any need for development? When I say that poor are poor because of their inability to grab the chances, perhaps there is no need for any development effort. But still such need exists. Why? The problem arises because of the non-fulfilment of the basic needs of the poor. Here I make the distinction between the needs and the wants of human beings. The society would have been perfectly fine had there been parity in the exchange among different sections. However, the fundamental assumption to my early argument is not satisfied when there is pressure of basic needs on the poor. So the pressure of ‘basic needs’ works to the transactional disadvantage of the poor. Hence the need for external assistance. Assistance is not about philanthropy. It is a much bigger challenge. The one who wants to help these poor people who are at a transactional disadvantage should be able to understand the resource base that they have so that comparative advantage of such base is taken care of. It is not about making the poor owners of assets with the help of externally pumped money. It is about creating the transactional advantage for the local resource. So identification of the correct usage of the resource (May mean canalising from the current usage or non usage), which leads to value creation at the local economy, is the cornerstone of development. That is why we refer to development as an enabling effort or making the people realise their potential. (I am again not satisfied with myself if I use the word ‘capacity building’) So, such effort should not be disabling by making them dependent on the external agencies.
Challenges in Development
Development effort should be able to tackle the institutional, financial, marketing and technical challenges involved. Such challenges are listed in detail as below.
Institutional – It is about taking care of the existing societal power structures and income disparities. As I wrote earlier, rich does not necessarily represent evil in the effort just because they are likely to get a bigger proportion of the benefits. They may get a bigger share because of the existing disparity in the asset ownership. But as development professionals, our challenge lies in creation of such institutions that benefit the disadvantaged without offending those whom we may not want to be the major beneficiaries.
Let us also not be guided by the stupid notion of equality. We often to resort to this idea of equality as being fair and democratic. If all the people fail to contribute equally, why they should get an equal share? It is simply like awarding the same grade to all the students despite the varying efforts as reflected in the performance. Here, our ingenuity in the design of benefit sharing mechanism comes into picture. To the extent we are successful in linking the benefits to the efforts put in by the people, we are more successful in our development efforts. When we want the poor to be benefited in the process, we can make efforts to link the pay offs to such contributions that the poor are more comfortable with.
Financial: Here I go beyond the project’s economic viability measured in terms of Net Present Value and Cost Benefit Analysis. My focus is more on the scale of operations. Unless the threshold level of operations is achieved, the effort may not yield adequate results to set off the depreciation of resources used in the process. Therefore, we should be careful in our planning to see that we achieve such scale. Scale may also mean better replicability, which can impact the local economies on a large scale in a wider geography.
Marketing: There are various competing forces in the society who are always ready to serve the unfulfilled needs. The question is about the detection of such opportunities at the earliest. Here market orientation as opposed to production orientation assumes significance. When we want our venture to be one the of best value propositions in the local economy, we should be able to serve the customer’s needs in the most appropriate manner. We should not look at the actors involved in traditional marketing mechanisms as always detrimental to the interests of the poor. So, middlemen that we see in almost all the supply chains of agricultural commodities do not necessarily exploit the poor. They also add value to the chain in their own way and take a share in the rupee paid by the consumer. Unless we remove the information asymmetry through innovative ways, we cannot think of giving the farmer better share in the final price realised. So, instead of cribbing over the so-called middlemen’s mal practices, let us take the challenge of bringing better coordination in the overall chain.
Technical: Technology is something that helps us to add value or create utilities (form, time or place). I view technology to be more important from the angle that only an enhanced technology can solve the problem of depleting resource base and the increasing needs of the burgeoning population. I would not say that technical solution comes free of cost. It may mean different order costs to the society. But in the current context of raising concern over the ecological sustainability of the resource base, I feel that only a higher order of technical solution will solve the problem. If even that solution proves to be inadequate after sometime, mankind has the challenge of finding even a higher degree solution.
I would not discount the need for conservation of the existing resource base. Whenever we raise concern over the global phenomena, we should realise that it is the sum result of breakdown many local eco systems. So, unless corrective action is initiated at all such micro level local contexts, global issues cannot be addressed. If such coordinated effort does not take place at all the places, only a technical solution can improve the things on large scale. So, whenever we think of development at the local level, let us be aware of the necessity for local level action as a small step towards correcting the global level issues.
However, a resource cannot be sustained for the sake of future generations’ needs if the immediate needs of the poor are not satisfied. Strong interlinkages exist among the sustainability of the resource, livelihood and institutional processes. Therefore, it is important to create a balance among them for ensuring institutional robustness. Challenge lies in the design of such institutions, which can balance the present generations’ needs, and that of the future. We can also talk about concern for other creatures in the world if we do not want to be branded as anthropocentric.
Development as a joint exploration
All the time, I was talking as if the external interveners like the development professionals will transform the local economies once they understand the idea of development. But it is not that the local people are oblivious of the opportunities. Perhaps they could be the better judges in many cases. Therefore we should also have the humility to accept their beliefs and learn from their knowledge system. I am not referring to the good old ‘participation’ in the development process. Development is a joint effort towards better future for the society. So let us bring synergy between the knowledge system of professionals like us and that of the local people and the soundness involved in traditional practices. There could also be elements which neither the interveners nor the local people are aware of. Let us use development as a joint exploration towards knowledge generation, value addition and happiness in the society.
Let Us Take a New Perspective to Development
Development organisations are certainly odd creatures in this society. Most of the time, they act as brokers. They depend on the generosity of the donor agencies for generation of the resources for their existence. Such donors cannot get a direct feel of the effectiveness of the resources, as they do not directly receive the services. Even the target beneficiaries are not aware of the cost of provision of such services. As a result, many of the development organisations continue to exist in spite of their failure to do justice to the resources that they have used from the society. We as development professionals should take it as a challenge to check the staggering consumption in the society.
For that to happen, we need to reorient ourselves about the notion of development. As long as we see it as a noble act or an act of philanthropy or part of societal concern, we can never do justice to the resources that we use. Let us brush away from our mind any feeling that we are sacrificing something by committing for development. In fact, we are taking a much bigger challenge upon ourselves of doing justice to the resources that we take from the society. Let us take it as a pakka business proposition and prove that we can win in a business context too. But we should realise that it is a much tougher proposition, as we do not get the much-needed feedback unlike a business enterprise, which gets ditched by its customers once they find the services to be inferior. In a development context, we should be true to ourselves about the value that we could generate. The funding agencies may crib about some particular aspects. Within the constraints imposed by them, we should be able to convince ourselves about the work that we did as being value adding to the society.
In fact, it does not really matter in which sector we are (it is only a matte of semantics or the so called ‘sectoral’ concerns that we embrace as a default choice of being in IRMA). Let us take the bigger challenge wherever it is present, and prove that IRMANS have a bigger heart. In my opinion, a true test to our self is provided by the following question. ‘Am I able to make this place much better than what it was earlier?’ If we can tell to our heart that I am able to help these many people to realise their dreams, nothing else can mean more significant to our life. Let us take the bigger challenge of development not because we need to sacrifice our life for the sake of it but because it is a much tougher business proposition and worth it.
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