Spread the word... Better still, if you have "connections", do something to bring the wrong-doers to justice.
The entire city ought to protest this outrage... and the lack of protection from the law.

http://stuffireadrandomly.blogspot.com/2009/02/taliban-lives-in-india.html
http://bangalore.praja.in/blog/murali772/2009/02/17/face-goons
http://muthu-booksandbeyond.blogspot.com/

Tags: bangalore, lawlessness, shame, taliban
Current Mood: angry

This weekend, I chanced to see an article on babajob.com. If you've ever hired home help, you know how it works. You tell your neighbours, their staff, the security guys, watchman etc and they sort of spread the word. If you're lucky, someone shows up at your door, and if you're luckier still, they have good references and their track record alleviates the discomfort of hiring someone totally unknown.  This is clunky at best.

Babajob brings that whole mechanism online, and very innovatively!. The best part of the brilliant model is that the job seekers don't need to be computer savvy - they just need to know someone who is!!. The "mentors" not only bring the job seekers and the jobs together, but they also bring in a dose of credibility to a job seeker. Also, the incentive structures are setup in such a way that everyone comes out ahead and it encourages use of the system. Model aside, the implementation is great too!. Maps & Mobile are used very effectively, and their search interface is awesome (can refine on many attributes such as gender, languages, religion, eating habits, locality etc). They launched recently and are in beta, but I already found a lot of good results when I tried out a search for drivers in my area (which is the boonies to an average banglorean).

A former Microsoft employee, Sean Blagsvedt joined hands with his stepfather (and former Microsoft colleague) Ira Weise to start babajob to "connect the yuppies of Bangalore with its wage laborers". The beta product is focussed on bangalore. Do check it out.

The obvious benefits of the internet - open, instant, scalable - are brought to bear beautifully on a problem a lot of people face everyday!. I'm overflowing with admiration for the founders of babajob - I think it is the best startup I've seen in many years.

While babajob caters to the job seekers at the bottom of the pyramid, what about those who want to be entrepreneurs?. I believe an opportunity exists to create a "babaloan" to help such aspiring folks with access to microfinance. For a fact, there are poor people paying loan sharks 5-10% interest PER MONTH on loans which are their only means to running their small business (which is their only means to basic survival).

Tags: babajob, bangalore, jobs for the poor, microfinance, social entrepreneur, urban poor

Over the weekend, I was talking to some of the scholars of Pragati Educational Foundation who are pursuing graduate studies in bangalore colleges. The college they get admission to, and the fees they pay to these colleges is largely dependent on the rank they obtained in the CET exam. The net is that they have very little control on the proximity of the college to their home, and a lot of them are actually spend 3-4 hours every day going to-and-fro. I also chanced to talk to a lecturer in a college, who also validated the fact that a lot of students do spend a lot of time commuting.

When the commute is on a cycle, motorcycle or a crowded bus, it can be physically draining, besides being nearly impossible to use productively.

It is indeed sad to see precious cycles of our young and future torch bearers getting wasted like this. Now, it is a complex problem to solve, and I'm sure there are many many things that can be done to alleviate the bite. I'm not about to delve into a complex analysis of causes & effects & possible solutions. But traffic congestion stands out as a huge factor to me. And there's one little thing we can all do and encourage others to do, which may make a palpable impact - and that is to stay off the roads to the extent possible. If you have 4 errands to run, try to do them on a single trip rather than four trips. And try to get out there in the least intrusive way possible -  on foot, on a bicycle, a motor bike, a bus, a car - in that order. Try and get as much done on the telephone or internet as possible. Use a courier in favour of personally delivering things, etc etc. If not to keep the roads less clogged, the personal economic [time & money] benefit alone, of each of the above ways, will make it worthwhile.

Tags: bangalore, traffic problems
Current Mood: hopeful