My Views My Country

Mr. Deep Joshi - Pradan

What is your focus area for the year 2004 ?

We are a livelihoods' promoting organisation and we have a lot of work in Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. We will continue to work in of all these places.

We are trying to form women self help groups and then we will help them to take up some economic activities. It may be related to agriculture or farming systems, which include livestock or related to forest etc. or even small enterprises like poultry, mushroom cultivation, spinning and wheeling of tusser.

So, basically we will be expanding these activities and will also be increasing our reach to more number of people in each of our existing projects.

In Rajasthan and Chattisgarh, the productivity of paddy is very low, so, we are trying to do variety of things to help people improve the farming practices. We are helping people to diversify from one crop to another.

For example in Jharkand the land is undulated and 90% of their cultivation is during Monsoon. The main crop in Jharkhand is paddy even though the upper part of undulated terrain is not suitable for this crop and there is always a problem of monsoon in those areas. We are asking them to cultivate crops that require a less water. So crops like pulses or may be horticulture etc.

The objective is to improve productivity by using better farming practices and also to diversify crops so that they are less vulnerable.

Last year we worked with almost ten thousand families in this project and next year we would like to increase the number to fifteen thousand. Most of the families with whom we have worked last year would need support this year also as things take time before it becomes a part of people's way of doing.

We have almost five thousand self-help groups and would like to introduce livelihood activities in all of them.

We have a project in Madhya Pradesh where we are working with state govt. on " District Poverty Initiatives" Project. In one of the places at Vidisha district, Pradan is implementing this project where in Government gives fund for creating livelihood infrastructure like well, ponds etc. and also gives support for improving livelihood.

One of the things we have done in Vidisha is trying to improve Soya bean cultivation, which is the major crop there, and last year we worked with almost 500-600 families. This number should increase to 1500 to 1600 families as we have done a very interesting work for which Pradan has got an award, so we will continue to do that.

There is also a District poverty initiative's project in Rajasthan for that we are supported by DPIT. Dairy is one of the activities there and we will continue that work also.

We have so many self-help groups but as of today not all of them are assisted with livelihood activities. So, the groups are there and they are lending their own money and sometimes we provide them access to banks. We help them get loans from bank. But for a tribal family it takes much more to grow from where they are to the next level of income, production and consumption. That needs technical help, training and also linkages with market, acquiring new capital assets. This is our livelihood promotion program, where in we build SHGs and help the members of the SHGs to plan as to what they would like to do?

We also then help them get the resources, the know-how and the systems. The objective is to make use of whatever livelihood activity they take.

What are your concerns about Corporate Funding ?

There is a lot of talk about Corporate Social Responsibility. To me CSR at one level is, if the company is running ethically and not doing things that are harmful to the society like pollution or promoting certain values and also if the company thinks itself as a citizen of the society and follow fair trade practices etc.

On one end, CSR will truly mean a grand vision whereby they realize that in the present day structure of society where a person who can, has and the person who cannot does not.

The resources of society are not such that everybody in the society cannot have, what an American has or a rich Indian has.

Those people who have, come to that kind of consciousness and are trying to create a different type of society where companies think that just because I happen to be running a company does not mean that I own everything. I also owe to the society so I should give something back to the society.

The other extreme of CSR is where everything in the society is done with the same goal of maximizing the well being of all people of all kind. If you run the company this way, then this seems to be a Utopian idea and I don't think this is going to happen in my lifetime.

We wish that a company should share some of their wealth with the marginalized people, but if the approach is one whereby you expect some kind of returns like in terms of visibility or fame from your investment for poor people, then it is not good. In that sense a lot of corporate giving is of that nature.

I have great regards for trusts created by TATA's and the institutions like TIFR, National Institute of Sciences, NCPA etc. set up by those trusts. Jamshedji himself used to spend time thinking about the well being of the communities in and around his township. So there are corporate houses those take their CSR very seriously. They believe that they have a role to play in building this country that goes beyond creating wealth.

Companies like TATA, Infosys, Azim Premji Foundation and Godrej etc. are not doing it to get some returns out of it, they truly believe the need of their role in improving standards of marginalized not only by creating quality products or creating wealth but by actually sharing a part of their wealth.

These two trusts of TATAs together have a huge budget of Rs 80 Crore to
Rs 90 Crore today. To me this is Philanthropy and social responsibility wherein you do something which society needs, not what will bring you good name and fame. The kind of commitment Mr. Ratan Tata has is not different from NGO leaders who believe that they are giving their lives in serving the society.

Share examples of Corporate Partnership and in what way Corporates can work with you ?

Currently we don't have that kind of partnership but in few places what we have tried to do is to link-up with companies that are agriculture based.

In Jharkhand, last year we promoted cultivation of Maize as a new crop on a large scale that is something they didn't do earlier.

People don't eat maize there, as it is mainly a rice eating area. So the idea was that they would cultivate maize as a crop for selling.

For that we have tied-up with couple of companies and Godrej Agrovet was one of them. In our arrangement with them, they buy maize from us.

Similarly in one of our other projects, tribal people produce mushrooms and for that we have a tie-up with HLL. We are one of their suppliers. They did a quality check and inspected the premises and our production center. They have also inspected our packaging etc. and then they listed us as one of their quality suppliers. Now, most of the mushrooms would get sold to HLL through their channels.

So, there are relationships of this nature. The firms, those can have gain-gain relationship with the people; we would have linkups with them.

Similarly for credit; apart from working for banks in the fields, we tried to link self-help groups with local banks. Often that link doesn't work out as most of the times the banker is not very happy or excited in working with poor farmers and so on.

So, we have tried to work out an arrangement with ICICI bank whereby they would provide credit to self-help groups recommended by us. ICICI Bank does not have branch network in the countryside so they are trying to work with NGO's like Pradan or some small non-Government, non-corporate micro finance institutions. They would channelise their funds through these entities.

So now in our arrangement with them, we would identify SHG's who want to take up loan for some income generation activities. We will also process these applications and send them to ICICI bank. We can even give advance from our own funds till ICICI send us the money back and then we will recover the money from people and pass it on to the Bank. The borrower is the group and Pradan is playing a role of facilitator. This is also another kind of corporate relationship.

Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Ratan Tata Trust have also supported us. They are our major donors and they are supporting various development projects. They have also provided us corpus funds. They have supported our livelihood promotion programs. We continue to work with them and we see them as one of our major resource partners.

Way back in early eighties, I tried to explore the idea of corporate funding but I found a lot of window dressing there and also no regular seriousness. There is always this idea among the corporates, "What am I getting out of this"?

We are not an organisation, which will take projects just because somebody is giving us funds. We are working in specific geographical parts of the country and we have a vision for all our activities. If some corporate asks us to do a project in our areas of intervention, we would be delighted to do that but if a corporate expects that we go and work in their backyard, it will not be acceptable.

As of today in my experience, there is a lot of PR but if you take a hard view of what a corporate is doing in terms of work on the ground, it is really very small.

Long back I also thought of starting an organisation like Pradan that could partly be supported by some corporate house but even after having discussions with few renowned corporates, nothing came out of it. One or two of them actually asked, "What do we get out of this"?

I believe, if you want to do development work thinking that there is some return for you then it is not a very positive way of looking at what people call Corporate Social Responsibility.

Either, you work on a purely business relationship wherein we'll give a fair deal to the organisation or on a pure Philanthropic idea.

For example, we are producing quality mushrooms and a company needs mushrooms, so instead of buying it from big factory outside Delhi; the company says that it will buy it from us, as in this case, the money will go directly to the poor people. That's a very constructive relationship and I think this is something, which we should be looking on.

Some Corporates can even take up some economic activity to help poor people, for example organic farming has a lot of scope and it has a very good export as well as domestic market. This is also one of the areas where the company can make profits as well as they can be considerate to poor peoples' livelihood.

Corporates can also think of collaborating with some NGO or they can set up a trust, in the same way as TATA's, Infosys, or Azim Premji Foundation has done. They support development activities as a matter of Philanthropy or as a matter of doing good to the society. To manage these kind of organisations, one should hire professional staff. Funding for development work is fairly sophisticated work. There is Knowledge and there are issues involved here, so for a Corporate to think that since we know how to run a company, we can also run Philanthropy, there is an error in this kind of thinking.

If we have no presence in some particular state and we are asked to start a programme as per the company's convenience, then we will not be promoting these factors. There can be chance meetings, for example we are working in Jharkhand and we are also working in areas, where the TATA Group has their steel plants etc. As we were there, TATAs asked us to help them find a project wherein they could support the community. If this kind of incidence happens with some other corporate then we will surely welcome that.

Somehow I had a very bad experience of issues of seriousness among the corporates. The way companies are serious about making money we are serious about promoting livelihood and therefore if there is a relationship that can be worked out on the basis of mutual respect with some substantive interest in development then we can surely have partnerships.

Other wise as of now we are not doing anything of the kind where in one can say the company is supporting development activities. There is not a problem of principles or ideology but till now I have not come across such corporate partners.

Share examples of Corporate Partnership and in what way Corporates can work with you ?

Currently we don't have that kind of partnership but in few places what we have tried to do is to link-up with companies that are agriculture based.

In Jharkhand, last year we promoted cultivation of Maize as a new crop on a large scale that is something they didn't do earlier.

People don't eat maize there, as it is mainly a rice eating area. So the idea was that they would cultivate maize as a crop for selling.

For that we have tied-up with couple of companies and Godrej Agrovet was one of them. In our arrangement with them, they buy maize from us.

Similarly in one of our other projects, tribal people produce mushrooms and for that we have a tie-up with HLL. We are one of their suppliers. They did a quality check and inspected the premises and our production center. They have also inspected our packaging etc. and then they listed us as one of their quality suppliers. Now, most of the mushrooms would get sold to HLL through their channels.

So, there are relationships of this nature. The firms, those can have gain-gain relationship with the people; we would have linkups with them.

Similarly for credit; apart from working for banks in the fields, we tried to link self-help groups with local banks. Often that link doesn't work out as most of the times the banker is not very happy or excited in working with poor farmers and so on.

So, we have tried to work out an arrangement with ICICI bank whereby they would provide credit to self-help groups recommended by us. ICICI Bank does not have branch network in the countryside so they are trying to work with NGO's like Pradan or some small non-Government, non-corporate micro finance institutions. They would channelise their funds through these entities.

So now in our arrangement with them, we would identify SHG's who want to take up loan for some income generation activities. We will also process these applications and send them to ICICI bank. We can even give advance from our own funds till ICICI send us the money back and then we will recover the money from people and pass it on to the Bank. The borrower is the group and Pradan is playing a role of facilitator. This is also another kind of corporate relationship.

Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Ratan Tata Trust have also supported us. They are our major donors and they are supporting various development projects. They have also provided us corpus funds. They have supported our livelihood promotion programs. We continue to work with them and we see them as one of our major resource partners.

Way back in early eighties, I tried to explore the idea of corporate funding but I found a lot of window dressing there and also no regular seriousness. There is always this idea among the corporates, "What am I getting out of this"?

We are not an organisation, which will take projects just because somebody is giving us funds. We are working in specific geographical parts of the country and we have a vision for all our activities. If some corporate asks us to do a project in our areas of intervention, we would be delighted to do that but if a corporate expects that we go and work in their backyard, it will not be acceptable.

As of today in my experience, there is a lot of PR but if you take a hard view of what a corporate is doing in terms of work on the ground, it is really very small.

Long back I also thought of starting an organisation like Pradan that could partly be supported by some corporate house but even after having discussions with few renowned corporates, nothing came out of it. One or two of them actually asked, "What do we get out of this"?

I believe, if you want to do development work thinking that there is some return for you then it is not a very positive way of looking at what people call Corporate Social Responsibility.

Either, you work on a purely business relationship wherein we'll give a fair deal to the organisation or on a pure Philanthropic idea.

For example, we are producing quality mushrooms and a company needs mushrooms, so instead of buying it from big factory outside Delhi; the company says that it will buy it from us, as in this case, the money will go directly to the poor people. That's a very constructive relationship and I think this is something, which we should be looking on.

Some Corporates can even take up some economic activity to help poor people, for example organic farming has a lot of scope and it has a very good export as well as domestic market. This is also one of the areas where the company can make profits as well as they can be considerate to poor peoples' livelihood.

Corporates can also think of collaborating with some NGO or they can set up a trust, in the same way as TATA's, Infosys, or Azim Premji Foundation has done. They support development activities as a matter of Philanthropy or as a matter of doing good to the society. To manage these kind of organisations, one should hire professional staff. Funding for development work is fairly sophisticated work. There is Knowledge and there are issues involved here, so for a Corporate to think that since we know how to run a company, we can also run Philanthropy, there is an error in this kind of thinking.

If we have no presence in some particular state and we are asked to start a programme as per the company's convenience, then we will not be promoting these factors. There can be chance meetings, for example we are working in Jharkhand and we are also working in areas, where the TATA Group has their steel plants etc. As we were there, TATAs asked us to help them find a project wherein they could support the community. If this kind of incidence happens with some other corporate then we will surely welcome that.

Somehow I had a very bad experience of issues of seriousness among the corporates. The way companies are serious about making money we are serious about promoting livelihood and therefore if there is a relationship that can be worked out on the basis of mutual respect with some substantive interest in development then we can surely have partnerships.

Other wise as of now we are not doing anything of the kind where in one can say the company is supporting development activities. There is not a problem of principles or ideology but till now I have not come across such corporate partners.

What are your concerns about Corporate Funding ?

There is a lot of talk about Corporate Social Responsibility. To me CSR at one level is, if the company is running ethically and not doing things that are harmful to the society like pollution or promoting certain values and also if the company thinks itself as a citizen of the society and follow fair trade practices etc.

On one end, CSR will truly mean a grand vision whereby they realize that in the present day structure of society where a person who can, has and the person who cannot does not.

The resources of society are not such that everybody in the society cannot have, what an American has or a rich Indian has.

Those people who have, come to that kind of consciousness and are trying to create a different type of society where companies think that just because I happen to be running a company does not mean that I own everything. I also owe to the society so I should give something back to the society.

The other extreme of CSR is where everything in the society is done with the same goal of maximizing the well being of all people of all kind. If you run the company this way, then this seems to be a Utopian idea and I don't think this is going to happen in my lifetime.

We wish that a company should share some of their wealth with the marginalized people, but if the approach is one whereby you expect some kind of returns like in terms of visibility or fame from your investment for poor people, then it is not good. In that sense a lot of corporate giving is of that nature.

I have great regards for trusts created by TATA's and the institutions like TIFR, National Institute of Sciences, NCPA etc. set up by those trusts. Jamshedji himself used to spend time thinking about the well being of the communities in and around his township. So there are corporate houses those take their CSR very seriously. They believe that they have a role to play in building this country that goes beyond creating wealth.

Companies like TATA, Infosys, Azim Premji Foundation and Godrej etc. are not doing it to get some returns out of it, they truly believe the need of their role in improving standards of marginalized not only by creating quality products or creating wealth but by actually sharing a part of their wealth.

These two trusts of TATAs together have a huge budget of Rs 80 Crore to
Rs 90 Crore today. To me this is Philanthropy and social responsibility wherein you do something which society needs, not what will bring you good name and fame. The kind of commitment Mr. Ratan Tata has is not different from NGO leaders who believe that they are giving their lives in serving the society.

Could you suggest some small projects - in the range of Rs 5-10 lakhs for Corporates entering CSR or extending their coverage of issues ?
We absolutely can think of doing that. If a corporate comes with an open mind and asks us to decide upon a place and project and says, "I would like to have a proper account of it and I would be happy if some third party monitors the use of money". We will be happy to do that.

Corporates can even suggest the sector in which they would like to invest in money like education, AIDS, livelihood etc. All that is perfectly fine but when you begin to say that do the project in my backyard and I will get lots of photographs then it is not Corporate Social Responsibility.

We don't have difficulty, if the donor asks some outside expert to examine the project to assess the impact. But for amounts like five to ten lakhs, one should not expect miracles to happen. They should also try and understand with the help of some third party, what all can be done in this amount.

A corporate can also think of supporting some professionals who are working in villages by providing scholarship etc.

Different projects and activities can be done like buying cows for poor women or in some irrigation project.

For example if you want to do a watershed project, you have to think of investing in around fifty lakh over a period of time but a small project like lift irrigation project serving 25-30 families will cost you only 1.5 to 2 Lakhs.

Every year we can choose three to four villages to support. So there are possibilities and one can go as small as twenty thousand, which would be the cost of a good cow.

One can even leverage, like if somebody makes and contribution of 'x' amount and ask us to arrange rest of the money on our own, that sort of thing is also possible.

If Corporates would like to support with a sum of 5-10 lakh, we can mention their name on out site and our newsletter or annual report. But for small amounts, it is very difficult to mention the contribution in reports etc.

We have an annual budget of Rs 6 to 7 crore a year of our own and most of the people who work for Pradan or through Pradan are professionals and that is our philosophy, so their salaries are also moderate.

We have six hundred donors, so it is very difficult to mention small contributions. We were listed on the site of one of the foundation portal but we took our self out of that because contribution of 300, 500 or 1000 will come and then people would like all kind of photographs etc.

It became very difficult for us to manage these activities. So one should be realistic about the impact of one's money. We would surely be able to suggest projects in this amount.

How do you think programs can be made self-sustainable ?

One cannot have a blanket sort of norm for everything. There are things that can be self-sustainable and also things that cannot. I keep saying, "a person should not acquire a cow that can not pay for itself." So if you are creating productive assets then there is no reason to provide subsidies for that. As far as the productive activities are concerned or productive assets are concerned, you don't need subsidy for the actual investment.

But again there are things where the gestation period is very long like infrastructure. In these cases, it's not only the poor people who need subsidies, but even industrialists, corporates require subsidized infrastructure And for that subsidy society has paid in terms of taxes.

There are certain things like Watershed project. It takes a log time to regenerate a piece of land that is degraded. If you do an economic analysis over twenty years of time, then it will pay for itself and that means it is economically viable.

There are certain categories wherein some amount can come from beneficiaries but the entire amount cannot be financed. For example funding a piece of land which is undulated etc. and even to start an activity, the gestation period is very long. Therefore you require some subsidy for that in activities like digging a pond, building a school or road etc. There are activities, which are economically viable, but a poor beneficiary won't be able to pay the whole amount for these.

Now things like building peoples' capability. That is an area, which is very poorly understood. Among the thinkers and academicians only Prof. Amatya Sen has described it in a right way. "In poverty, the problem is not lack of assets, these are actually symptoms. The problem is actually with the capabilities."

A family that has never reared a cow and we support him by buying a cow, then one has to help them not only by providing them loan to buy the cow, but also the knowledge to rear a cow has to be provided.

A person going for management education probably can pay for its education, but for training on how to rear a cow, it would be too much to expect from that person to pay for it.

For example when you form an SHG, you want the group to be functioning democratically. So as a first step towards it, you teach them to sit in a circle. If you are sitting one behind the other, the dialogue exchange on one to one basis can not happen. So, for these small lessons you cannot expect women to pay for it.

Poverty is lack of capability and poverty is also actually historically exclusion. Over a period of time the way society has developed under various influences like caste systems, politics, Governance and economy etc., have excluded some people and included some people.

So those who are excluded through whatever processes, their ability to reintegrate themselves back to society takes time. Somebody has to invest his time to make them aware of their capabilities and in building their confidence.

During one of our villages' studies, I came across a very green patch in a remote village of Ranchi. I was very surprised to see the kind of crops cultivated there. On enquiring, I came to know that traditional farmers from outside have come and cultivated those crops. They had taken land from tribal people on a lease at the rate of Rs 500 per acre and they were making money by farming on their lands.

It happened because, tribals were not confident to take this up on their own. So, issues of capability, issue of exclusion are such where you cannot expect people to pay to negating it.

I don' think there is a way for the recipient to pay for it. In a broader way it is sustainable in a way that let the society pay for it.

After suppressing women for so many years, now if you want to raise them in society, you cannot expect them to be paying to somebody to help them raise their status.

As long as there are excluded people, society has to pay them for bringing them back and in building their self-confidence.

How we can improve management of NGOs in India ?

In some ways there are similarities between business and NGO sector. Basically just as businesses are set-ups by individuals, similarly NGO are set ups by individuals, who may be motivated by the idea of doing something for the society.

As in the business world, there are small businessmen as well as big time and not everybody who wants to set up business wants to get managers.

So this is one level of issue that mostly NGOs are initiated by individuals, and they may be inspired but may not have capabilities to do everything required to create an institution out of their wish.

For example, if I am the one who is prime mover, unless I am convinced and committed, the organisation is not going to change. I need to have a perspective. A lot of time people talk about improving management by imparting training. Very often 'We' the 'Social Entrepreneur', who has set up the organisation have limited vision and perspective.

A little training in MIS, project planning and accounts etc. is not going to help that person completely as the problem is at the level of vision or perspective. The other side of the problem is non-availability of skilled personnel in this sector.

Pradan was initially set up with this idea of professionalising Non Governmental Development work.

In 1977, I came across a doctor couple at Jamkhed in Maharashtra. They have done remarkable work as professionals in this sector. Some NGOs like 'Sarvodaya' etc. were engaged in economic activities but they knew nothing about pumps, pipe water flow etc.

I realised that a lot of good will is there, but corresponding knowledge and systems were absent. So, if we could work out a mechanism, whereby professionals can work with NGOs, things will be changed.

All the NGO leaders want professionals to join their organisation but then there were issues like where do we get them? And even if we get them, then their salary will be completely out of proportion to the salary we are paying to our current staff.

So, Pradan was also created as an intermediary, which used to depute professionals to other NGOs. In the organisation, people know that if Pradan has deputed those people then they might be getting salary sometimes even double or triple from a person who has been engaged with the organisation for twenty-thirty years.

Very few people are ready to work with the limited salary and the infrastructure NGOs are able to offer. Unless there is a change at the level of NGO leaders' thinking, you cannot change the management or systems etc. and then even if they change, then there are not much professionals available to work at that low salaries.

To have all the systems in place, there is certain amount of continuity of resources required. Most NGOs function Project to project and month to month basis.

So, in this kind of situation nobody has a time to think about long term horizon and therefore investment in staff development systems don't happen. If the amount of goodwill in the NGO sector is matched by capabilities, which includes human capability and infrastructure, then I think we would be able to do much more than what we are doing today.

When did you think of getting in to development sector and why ?

I came from a very remote village of Pithoragarh district in Uttranchal. We still don't have a motor road near our home and we still have to walk through to reach our house.

The first community development work was started in 1954, when blocks were created etc. In our village the first VLW was a young chap wearing trousers.

He came to show us Japanese technique of cultivating Paddy. As we used to help in farms after our schools, I used to see him regularly. I was quite surprised to see that a 'Babu' with shovel is teaching us how to do farming?

This one incidence remains deeply engraved in my mind. For a long time after that I never thought the way civic society works. My idea always was that development work is the responsibility of Government. That time the concept of NGOs, voluntary organisations was totally alien to me.

I completed my Mechanical engineering degree in 1968 and during my visits back home I used to think about doing something for my area. But at that time, I could only think of installing micro-hydel etc. I never seriously thought that I could come here and do it myself as an individual.

I took up teaching after completing my graduation with some sort of idealism and as it used be the ideal vocation that time.

After that I got national scholarship from Indian government and went to US to pursue doctorate in engineering. There, we Indian scholars used to discuss about issues like poverty etc. back home and that was the time when I seriously began to think about development as an issue.

I took management degree and studied courses like Development Economics, Nutrition Planning etc. After coming back to India, I joined an organisation, which used to work in Public System Research in Pune. This was an organisation, which used to work with government and was trying to introduce management and systems or with public sector co-operations or with NGOs.For example developing a Management Information System for a Government project in which they wanted to put up MIS for a drought prone area.

My first assignment was to go and look at an NGO working in Jamkhed at Ahmednagar district on "Comprehensive Rural health project" set up by a doctor couple Raj Arole and Merul Arole. My job was to evaluate the project as well to develop a model that can be replicated to other places as well. That was my first experience of an NGO, working in the development sector.

The sight of a doctor women sitting on floor with poor people was an unusual site. And that is where the idea came in mind, that this is what we need for our society. Why it is not that a doctor does not work with village men and women and help them improve their health systems? Why can't an engineer work in a village to help them with improved technology?

So, the idea of educated people or capable people going and working in villages to bring change, the seed actually got into my head by seeing the great work done by Aroles'. After that I also worked in a rural area after leaving that organisation.

Around 1980, I was very clear in my mind that to bring in change you need capable, skilled people and with all that you also need compassion to feel for the common people. I was also touched by the relationship Merul Arole had shared with those illiterate women. To bring changes, not only being a doctor was enough, but also her ability to think those people as equal and having compassion in heart for marginalized people.

Pradan is built around a belief that for development you need people with head as well as heart. As the problems are very complex, knowledge is required, skills are needed and you also need the fellow feeling without which you cannot do anything. So in a way I think of Arole couples as my 'Gurus'.

- Anima Jain
(Delhi)