Although there has been rapid growth in the number of citizen sector organizations in India, the practice of social entrepreneurship and management of social businesses as effective tools for solving social problems are not receiving their due attention. The Government departments and Public Sector Corporations still handle most of the social sector programs in India. Due to the sheer size of resources needed for the social sector and also due to political factors, this picture is not likely to change much in the near future.

Some of the large business houses are gradually showing interest in the social sector. Their intervention is needed, not only because they can inject financial resources into the social sector, but also because they can provide sophisticated technologies and creative solutions for this sector. As an example, the "e-choupal" initiative of ITC Ltd. is likely to generate large social impact in several rural areas.

In view of the above-mentioned points, the social entrepreneurs are needed not only in citizen sector organizations i.e. NGOs and community-based organizations (CBOs), but also in the Government and private business sectors in India. Some social entrepreneurs may be able to operate only as "free-agents" (i.e. without any formal institutional affiliations).

Many development challenges like provision of water and sanitation, health, education and power for the weaker sections of society can be best addressed if there are collaborative arrangements involving Government, business and citizen sectors. The social entrepreneurial values and methods can play significant role in successful accomplishment of such collaborative missions.

Many of the public sector enterprises (e.g., Housing Development Corporation, Agro-Industries Corporation, Irrigation Development Corporation etc.) and cooperative sector units were established long back in India with primarily social goals in view. However, most of them have turned bureaucratic, ineffective, and loss-making units over the years. There is considerable scope for injecting entrepreneurial energy and passion for social development in many of these enterprises through collaborative arrangements or through outsourcing of works to NGOs. In order to be successful in developing such collaborations, the support from policy-makers is often required.

"Many economists treat development as a form of ‘tough love’. Fortunately, most development planners have now recognized the importance of social and ecological factors and processes in the development approach."

In recent years, micro-credit, micro-enterprises and self-help groups have emerged as major tools for development of poor people. NGO sector has been playing a major role in these fields. In many areas, mutually aided cooperative societies and linkages with banking institutions have been formed to provide sustainable structure for these initiatives. Such initiatives have also infused some degree of business discipline, leadership and entrepreneurship among a section of poor people (participants in these initiatives) as well as among the NGOs. Many leading social entrepreneurs are working in these fields.

Several of NGOs have made major contributions and innovations in implementing natural resource management projects such as watershed management, wasteland development, and participatory irrigation management. Implementation of these projects has included strategies for empowerment of poor people in rural areas and for encouraging them to set up micro-enterprises. In general, the quality of people’s participation in development programs has improved significantly in India during the last two decades. The credit for this achievement goes largely to social entrepreneurs in NGO sector.

Many economists treat development as a form of "tough love". Fortunately, most development planners have now recognized the importance of social and ecological factors and processes in the development approach. Consequently, more people are now talking about sustainable development. In his recent book Development as Freedom, the famous Economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen writes: "the overarching objective of development is to maximize people’s capabilities – their freedom to lead the lives they value, and have reason to value." To a certain extent, this may sound too idealistic; but if we use the spirit of this viewpoint, much of it can be accomplished by promoting social entrepreneurship in conjunction with business entrepreneurship and general development approaches.

Social entrepreneurship, although an old field of practice, is a new and emerging field of systematic knowledge and learning. The growth in social entrepreneurship should not be left to chance. In his famous book Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Peter Drucker writes: "... everyone who can face up to decision making can learn to be an entrepreneur and behave entrepreneurially. Entrepreneurship, then, is behavior rather than personality trait. And its foundation lies in concept and theory rather than in intuition". Even if we concede some role for personality factors (as some other experts have suggested), a large number of selected people (after initial screening) can be trained to be entrepreneurs. Extending this logic further, I think that most people who can combine a spirit of social service and entrepreneurial behavior can learn and develop themselves as social entrepreneurs.

It is important that this field of practice develops as a knowledge- based practice, rather than just a random occurrence based on "hit or miss" approaches and intuition. Furthermore, when social entrepreneurial education and training is spreading in other countries (e.g., USA and UK), there is growing need to promote such education in India also.

"Social entrepreneurship, as a special type of leadership, can flourish here only if its value is recognized by a significant section of Indian society."

Social entrepreneurship can draw and adapt much of its knowledge from the fields of business entrepreneurship, and social and environmental sciences.

In UK, the Blair Government is taking initiative in promoting social businesses in a big way. Since the Government is a prominent player in social sector in India also, India can learn several lessons from the experience in U.K.

Social entrepreneurship, as a special type of leadership, can flourish here only if its value is recognized by a significant section of Indian society, especially the policy makers, media and the other important players. If this happens, it can make major contributions for the equitable and sustainable development of India.

K.L.Srivastava, M.Tech. (Agricultural Engineering) from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, is a specialist in natural resource management, technology-community interface, and rural development. Earlier, he has worked with International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) as a Senior Scientist. He has also worked as a Consultant in several development projects. Presently, he is working as a Consultant with PRDIS (an NGO based in Hyderabad.)

Attachment: Benefiting from SE in India - Full Article.pdf (38 KB)

K.L.SRIVASTAVA - Nov 22, 2004 4:46 pm (#1 Total: 14)
Researcher and Consultant,Hyderabad,INDIA


Based on my experience of working in rural development projects in India, I have recognized the necessity for social entreprenurial research and education incorporating relevant elements from three broad areas: (a) development management (including environmental concerns), (b) business entrepreneurship and management, and (c) social welfare. As a hybrid field of practice, the social entrepreneurship is likely to offer ‘hybrid vigor’ and new opportunities as well as challenges for the practitioners in this field. However, I am not aware of any significant initiative for promoting research, education and training programs on social entrepreneurship in India so far.

In this context, I suggest following topics for your comments and discussion:

1. Any general comments on the article or on the meaning of terms used. Any clarifications? 2. If you feel that social entrepreneurship and social businesses are important for India, how should they be enriched and promoted? What strategies should be used? 3. What can India learn from educational, training, and promotional activities in other countries? What aspects need to be emphasized in India? 4. What should be the roles of government sector, private business groups, charitable foundations, international development agencies and NGOs in promoting research, education and practice of social entrepreneurship in India?

Keely Stevenson - Nov 26, 2004 1:25 am (#2 Total: 14)
Royal Bafokeng Economic Board


Hello K.L. Great article. You pointed out many important topics relevant not only to India, but the evolution of social entrepreneurship globally. I would be curious to hear more about the "e-choupal" initiative that you mentioned. What do they do exactly and how are they are generating large social impact in several rural areas?

Cheers!

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Nov 26, 2004 11:10 am (#3 Total: 14)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Hi, KL:

And thanks for hosting this event (and for your email kindly drawing it to my attention). I was here yesterday, before Keely posted, and wanted to say hi but not to occupy the first post out of the gate, so I'm glad someone has now posted and delighted that it's Keely who did so -- hi there, Keely!

In any case, we're under way. Your article gives us a rich overview of a vast field, KL, and as Keely says, much of what you say could be transposed to other parts of the world. And since you ask us to mention terms we'd like to see explained, I too can say that I'd like to hear more about the "e-choupal". I know Steve Rudolph has mentioned this topic here before, and Al Hammond did so at response 7 in his own recent event.

*

Underlying your whole post -- and our whole situation here as people who would like to see improvement in Amartya Sen's "freedom to lead the lives they value, and have reason to value" – to my mind is the great psychological issue which you characterize thus:

Many of the public sector enterprises … and cooperative sector units were established long back in India with primarily social goals in view. However, most of them have turned bureaucratic, ineffective, and loss-making units over the years.

I call that a psychological issue, though it may seem like an obstacle (fact) and hence an opportunity to others, because it seems to me to be a pattern that recurs across history wherever the prophetic and poetic congeals into the prosaic and the mundane. It's as though there's an oxidation process by which ideals grow rusty and no longer gleam after a while. I'm constantly looking for a solvent for that rust, I guess a lot of us here are…

Your insightful comment:

Many economists treat development as a form of 'tough love'.

reminds me of something Keynes wrote, which Schumacher quoted in Small is Beautiful:

For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.

It's such a curious paragraph – I wonder how much those few words have influenced the world we are now living in.

*

And lastly, if I may, you know my interest in issues having to do with water… Stephen J. Lansing's work, set forth in his book, Priests and Programmers: Technologies of Power in the Engineered Landscape of Bali (Princeton 1991), is already something of a benchmark for a new approach: one which validates both the innate knowledges of the "locals" and the advances in an increasingly subtle global understanding of – for want of a better phrase – how systems work.

How is India faring in terms of similar ventures which combine local traditional knowledges with technical savvy? This seems to me to be one of the crossover areas where much "hybrid vigor" will be found.

Warm regards to all…

K.L.SRIVASTAVA - Nov 28, 2004 3:41 am (#4 Total: 14)
Researcher and Consultant,Hyderabad,INDIA


Hello Keely,

Thanks for your message.

The e-choupal initiative is a successful example of combining business goals with rural development. This initiative has been launched by ITC Ltd. which is a leading private company in India.

The word 'choupal' in Hindi means village meeting place. The company places computers with internet facilities in villages at its own cost. ITC has made significant investments in creating and maintaining its own IT network in rural areas and to idenify and train a local farmer in each of such selected villages.

The e-choupal serves several purposes: (a) social gathering place, (b) e-commerce hub, (c) local information and recreation centre etc. The host farmer takes public oath to serve the community.

This system is alleviating rural isolation in a large number of Indian villages and empowering the community through IT tools. The income of farmers has also increased.

The e-choupal initiative has helped ITC in its agricultural trading operations and improved its profits. Simultaneously, it has contributed significantly in empowerment of rural people and rural development.

Thus the private company has set an example of earning profit by investing in rural development.

Please visit following link for further information:

www.digitaldividend.org/case/case_echoupal.htm



Thanks and regards,

KL

K.L.SRIVASTAVA - Nov 28, 2004 5:10 am (#5 Total: 14)
Researcher and Consultant,Hyderabad,INDIA


Hi Charles,

Happy to meet you on the edge and receive your 'gift'. As always, your post provides us with food for thought.

I fully agree with you that the management of welfare, development, and business entrepreneurship interface (i. e. Social Entrepreneurship) involves several psychological considerations.

Basically, there are three factors : (a)motivation for the entrepreneur for undertaking innovations, taking risk and doing hard work, (b)competiveness of product or service at the market place, and (c)motivation for the community for engaging in self development and hard work.

Normally, profit motive and wage incentives drive us to strive for higher level of performance and better results.

However, there has been significant advances in understanding of human psychology. Social Entrepreneurship has to tap this understanding, and knowledge of people like you to improve the situation.

The public sector units in India did not tap the passion of capable people for achieving social development and welfare goals. In name of accountability, these units introduced bureaucratic procedures and mind set which inhibited innovations and flexiblty. In nutshell, these units did not apply social entrepreneurship in their operations.

Similarly,the model of social entrepreneurship should strive for opportunities for self development in the communities. There has to be a balance between welfare, development and business depending on the local factors.

Also, there are new approaches like social investing, fair trade, ethical buying etc. which should be utilized for achieving fair profits along with development and welfare.

The challenge before social entrepreurship is to prove Keynes wrong in this new era. The new century can bring happiness and development to a large number of people (not just to a chosen few).

Your point of hybrid vigor in water sector by combining local wisdom with modern science is quite useful. To some extent, it has been used but much remains to be done.

Again, thank you charles for your post.

Regards,

KL

mitra - Nov 28, 2004 1:53 pm (#6 Total: 14)
Natural Innovation


KL, I think when you say:

"The public sector units in India did not tap the passion of capable people for achieving social development and welfare goals. In name of accountability, these units introduced bureaucratic procedures and mind set which inhibited innovations and flexiblty. In nutshell, these units did not apply social entrepreneurship in their operations."

It needs to be repeated over and over again, I've seen the dead-hand of accountability, and "good governance" kill the spirit of many organisations, and essentially drive away the innovative, creative, people.

Of course, without a doubt, there are people who will use a position of responsibility in a non-profit for unreasonable personal benefit.

The challenge is how to provide the right balance, I found Ricardo Semler's book "The Seven Day Weekend" interesting in showing how a different balance was found inside a company, Semco, in Brazil. I'm not sure where we have good models in the social enterprise field of giving people the freedom to do their best.

- Mitra

suhit - Nov 29, 2004 1:58 am (#7 Total: 14)


No less a corporate guru than Peter Drucker, the grand old man of corporate management theory, has now devoted several books to the subject of management of non-profit organizations which, he says, is a much more difficult task than management in the corporate sector. A chief reason it is so difficult, he says, is that the non-profits are more democratically run and there isn't a "bottom-line" focus to act as a good standard of measurement.

The Not-for-Profit sector in the US of A is leaps and bounds ahead of other countries. It has created institutions like the Salvation Army, identified by Peter Drucker as "by far the most effective organization in the United States,".

Drucker says that [PDF], Statistically the nonprofit sector is America´s largest employer. Over 80 million people work as a volunteer. They work in average nearly five hours each week in one or more nonprofit organizations. This is equal to 10 million full-time jobs and if this where paid volunteers they would earn $150 billion.

The Harvard Business School celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Social Enterprise Initiative recently. This is a significant initiative considering that HBS attracts regularly some of the best people in the world. This in turn means that some of the biggest problems in the world are tackled by them.

This is the goal of SEI @ HBS :

The Social Enterprise Initiative at HBS generates and shares knowledge that helps individuals and organizations create social value in the nonprofit, private, and public sectors. Social Enterprise plays a critical role in supporting the School's mission to educate leaders who make a difference in the world by integrating social enterprise-related research, teaching, and activities into the daily life of HBS.

The SEI group is hearing suggestions on the The Next Ten Years of Social Enterprise.

The question at hand: What will the next ten years of social enterprise look like at HBS, and how can the School continue to contribute to the social sector in meaningful and important ways?

The overriding sentiment from panelists: Think big; change the way the world works.

Nancy M. Barry (HBS MBA '75), president of Woman's World Banking (WWB), urged the SEI to take a problem-solving approach, using cases and research to examine social issues and explore ways to solve them.

She encouraged Harvard to take on the role of catalyst, using its resources and talents to show businesses that they can do well by doing good—what she termed "enlightened capitalism." She proposed that HBS and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government collaborate by first choosing a cause such as global poverty and then working to fix it. "Change the way the world works," she challenged.

Barry warned against a tendency to focus solely on nonprofit organizations and routine management issues that are covered in any business school education.

Thomas J. Tierney (HBS MBA '80), founder of Bridgespan, a nonprofit consulting company, offered another challenge and framework for the audience to use in formulating ideas about the future of SEI: What would this university have to do to increase its social impact on the world ten-fold in a decade?

Tierney focused on what he sees as a "crisis of leadership" in social enterprise. People are leaving the sector because of issues of money, geography, and burnout, and often there aren't enough qualified, socially oriented leaders to replace them. With money piling into the sector, we need leaders who have the skills to address the complex issues involved in running a social enterprise, he said.

This leadership crisis won't be solved simply by HBS turning out more leaders, he continued. Educational institutions involved in social enterprise issues need to work together to train leaders and solve social problems.

One factor working against educational institutions interested in producing more socially aware leaders is business school rankings produced by various publications. The lower starting salaries earned by graduates going into nonprofits can drop a school's ranking, Tierney said. These rankings should begin to take the nonprofit sector into account, perhaps weighting salaries of nonprofit sector graduates differently. Publications should also rate schools on their contributions to society.

India requires a focus on the Non-profit/NGO sector. We need a Social Initiative group at an IIM. We need a C K Prahalad thinking, writing and working with the social sector. More than anything else we need 100 million Indians volunteering their resources - time, expertise, knowledge, money to increase the social impact on India ten-fold in a decade.

suhit - Nov 29, 2004 2:02 am (#8 Total: 14)


Look at this example of One World, which is a classic case of a Social Entrepreneur.

In who can't pay dies John McMillan, who in his book "Reinventing the Bazaar" talks about the market system which enables the creation of innovative and life saving drugs.

But these life-saving drugs do reach the poor in the developing countries. One of the conclusions was that the biggest problem was povery. A new company, One World has developed a new business model which can revolutionize the pharma-drug delivery industry to the developing world.

The Scienticfic American has the story on the couple who have created the first non profit pharmaceutical company in the USA. [http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa001&articleID=0006B5F7-A926-1084-A92683414B7F0000&pageNumber=1&catID=2]

When Victoria Hale left her job as a pharmacologist at Genentech in 1998, she made a list. It detailed areas that she felt the pharmaceutical industry had ignored: orphan drugs for metabolic disorders, treatments for substance abuse, modernization of contraceptives, and global infectious disease. Hale, an ebullient woman who also had more than five years of experience as a drug evaluator at the Food and Drug Administration, looked over what she had written and decided that, of the various choices, fighting infectious disease would have the most pronounced impact on public health.

To achieve her goal, however, would require setting up a venture that would differ radically from the traditional business models embraced by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. To make drugs affordable in places where annual family incomes were often less than the cost of an MP3 player, the first thing that would have to be jettisoned was the profit motive.

Even on her first trip to Switzerland in 1999, however, she gained answers to some basic questions. The most important one had to do with identifying the mission for a nonprofit drug company with virtually no resources except human capital. Philippe M. P. Desjeux of WHO suggested that an opportunity existed for an off-patent antibiotic that needed one last clinical trial to prove its worth as a drug against a deadly parasite.

Hale's husband, Ahvie Herskowitz, a physician, had also decided to leave his job. He had been running large clinical trials for the Ischemia Research and Education Foundation. Both he and Hale started their own drug-development consultancy. The work gave Hale enough time to travel and explore her idea. Herskowitz often became locked in discussions with his wife about whether a profitless drug company would really be practical. He, too, began to devote more time to the venture. As a child of Holocaust survivors, Herskowitz was driven by some of the same impulses as Hale: "I am lucky to be alive--I was successful professionally and felt I needed to help those less fortunate."

In 2000 the pair launched the Institute for OneWorld Health, with Hale as chief executive and Herskowitz as chief medical officer. The first obstacle was bureaucratic: getting Internal Revenue Service approval for a nonprofit pharmaceutical company, a designation that, at first glance, seems like an oxymoron--and one that the agency had difficulty grasping.

But the timing of Hale's vision for a new type of drug company was impeccable. Just about when the two were getting started, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was coming into its own. When Hale approached the foundation, the officers told her that they were already supplying money for leishmaniasis through support for vaccine research for the disease. Hale emphasized that vaccines for parasites had a pitiful track record--malaria being a notable case in point. In 2002 the Gates Foundation agreed to provide $4.7 million, most of it for a Phase III leishmaniasis trial. "They're doing great stuff," Bill Gates says. "Just take that one thing, kala-azar. Hey, that's going to be a medicine [paromomycin] that is going to save a lot of lives." Late last year the foundation decided to supply another $5.3 million.

The biggest challenge will be to build a distribution system to ensure that the drug gets supplied to those who need it. "Pharmaceuticals haven't penetrated into the depths of these communities as much as Coca-Cola," Herskowitz remarks. In the past, India has had in place an emergency system that was mobilized when the disease reached epidemic proportions--and a collaboration of OneWorld, WHO and the Indian government will try to construct its supply network on this model.

Word of OneWorld's work has spread, and the company receives frequent calls from scientists and executives at other pharmaceutical firms who wonder how they can play a part in the nonprofit's mission. Celera Genomics licensed to OneWorld royalty-free a drug for Chagas disease that it inherited when the company acquired a smaller biotech firm. And Yale University and the University of Washington licensed on the same terms another compound for the parasitic disease, which afflicts 16 million to 18 million people in Mexico and Central and South America and causes 50,000 fatalities every year. The Chagas treatments, with some of the development work funded by the Gates money, will test the company's ability to take a drug all the way through the clinical trial process. And OneWorld has the makings of a pipeline--it has early-stage development programs for drugs to treat malaria and diarrhea.

At a juncture when the global pharmaceutical industry is under siege for the prices it charges, Hale and the 25 employees of OneWorld have demonstrated that the spirit of the entrepreneur can be directed toward supplying something besides simple knockoffs of cholesterol and depression medication.

K.L.SRIVASTAVA - Nov 29, 2004 7:37 pm (#9 Total: 14)
Researcher and Consultant,Hyderabad,INDIA


Hello Mitra,Suhit and other friends,

Thank you very much for your contributions and for sharing your perspective with all of us.

Social Entrepreneurship has potential for generating new energy, creating new intellectual capital, and providing new methods for solving our old problems. But this field of knowledge and learning is still at its infancy. It needs good upbringing, nurturing and support from the society. I was in the US sometime back, I felt so happy to see the rapid and healthy growth of SE there. Being a member of Social Edge also keeps me informed about the developments.

But back home in India, I am yet to see any networking or coordinated effort. Occasionally, it is raised in some forums, but soon it fades away because of lack of wider interest or support.

Of course, there are some very good social entrepreneurs in India who have learned by trying different ideas. But the country needs several hundreds of them. It is obvious that there is need for research, education and training facilities in the country so that more people can develop themselves as successful social entrepreneurs. As Suhit says, the IIMs should take a lead. Many other initiatives will also be needed. A related question that needs to be addressed is: What are opportunities for meaningful work (either as self-employment or paid employment) for educated/trained work force.

I treat this discussion as a new beginning in our journey on a uncharted path of research, education and training in India. We can continue this discussion outside this forum even after this event comes to a formal close today. I am leaving my e-mail address below:

klsrivat@yahoo.com



With warm regards and best wishes,

KL

K.L.SRIVASTAVA - Dec 1, 2004 8:54 am (#10 Total: 14)
Researcher and Consultant,Hyderabad,INDIA


In my previous post, I wrote my concluding comments assuming that a new event will be featured from Nov30. Subsequently, I have learnt that we can continue discussion on this topic for another week.

I have been looking for information on different institutions conducting educational,training and promotional programs on social entrepreneurship and related subjects. Let me share information about an institution which is working in this field. I am also connected with some of its activities.

Centre for Social Initiative and Management(CSIM) started its activities in Chennai in year 2000, and in Hyderabad during December,2002. CSIM's Founder and Managing Trustee, Mr P.N.Devarajan is deeply interested in Social Entrepreneurship. CSIM has a mission of shaping social change agents for meeting challenges in the field.

You can learn more about this institution at the following site: www.csim.org

I wish to request social edge members to provide information about other institutions who are working in this field.

Also, I wish to see more comments on the points I raised in my opening statement.

In post#6, mitra enquired about organizational models for optimum utilization of innovative people. Let us know if you have information on this subject.

Thanks,

KL

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Dec 4, 2004 9:49 am (#11 Total: 14)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


KL:

I'd like to thank you warmly for your panel here, brief though it has been, and to endorse your call for continuing conversation on the topics you and others have raised. More generally, I'd like to invite all those who came here for this forum to use our search function to locate other conversations across SocialEdge that might be of interest and to join them. Short events like this have the potential to snowball into a rich community of discussion if some of us who may come here for a specific, time-limited event "migrate" to the larger SE community and join in (or start up, or revive) topics of interest...

And thanks again, KL, I look forward to your coninuing posts around the SE discussions.

Trilok Kumar Jain - Dec 9, 2005 12:51 pm (#12 Total: 14)
Professor and Researcher (Social Entrepreneurship)


I believe that it is wrong to rely on Government for social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is not new in India. In the past, in pre-independent India, many social institutions used to function. However, many of them were organsied on some erstwhile social models which are not appropriate today. While social entrepreneurship should develop with economic prosperity, Why the spirit of social entrepreneurship is not growing - it is due to over dependence on government and on funding agencies. What is needed is transparency which can bring this sector its desired glory and enable it to move towards public ownership.

force3 - Jan 7, 2006 9:08 am (#13 Total: 14)
force3 ( forum for Creative entrepreneurship)


If farmers continue to get the same unremunerative price & the ITC gets 30-35% savings on its landed price at factory gate; it is GOOD only ITC & not for Farmers. I still await Nagpur office's "Fact finding" field visit for myself. Local ITC staff was instructed by none other than by ITC chief Mr Deveshwar himself. eChaupal at best is GOOD only for ITC, it is definately not good for farmers. There is no point in allowing Farmers co-operative institution to get over-riden by ITC's well managed publicity. Hype, International awards given undeservedly without cross xchecking facts on the grounds are responsible for all such initiatives... Open to criticism if any...

Srijith Sridharan - Sep 6, 2006 12:28 pm (#14 Total: 14)
Social Service Foundation

Hi Friends and Experts @ Social Edge,

I am not sure whether I am attaching the right post to the forum, but am taking enough courage to do so and feels you all will accept the same.