Desi Enterprise: Doing India Proud!

Very often people make statements like Indians are good at running things rather than creating or we are good at “jugaad”. These statements show a lack of confidence Indians have in them. What I am seeing (as is apparent from the attached article) is that the new generation of Indians who are not carrying any of the pre-independence baggage (either directly or by the influence of their parents) are not only good at “Jugaad” but also thinking out of the box and coming up with new ideas. One such example was discussed by Tom Friedman in a NY Times article about these two brothers who took the Hawala Concept and converted it into a legitimate micro-banking enterprise. These kinds of visionaries will make Mother India proud and prosperous.

Do Believe the Hype
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Here’s an example of why I ask these questions. It’s a typical Indian start-up I visited in a garage in South Delhi, EKO India Financial Services. Its founders, Abhishek Sinha and his brother Abhinav, began with a small insight — that low-wage Indian migrant workers flocking to Delhi from poorer states like Bihar had no place to put their savings and no secure way to send money home to their families. India has relatively few bank branches for a country its size, so many migrants stuff money in their mattresses or send cash home through traditional “hawala,” or hand-to-hand networks.
The brothers had an idea. In every Indian neighborhood or village there’s usually a mom-and-pop kiosk that sells drinks, cigarettes, candy and a few groceries. Why not turn each one into a virtual bank? So they created a software program whereby a migrant worker in Delhi using his cellphone, and proof of identity, could open a bank account registered on his cellphone text system. Mom-and-pop shopkeepers would act as the friendly neighborhood local banker and do the same.
The article can be read at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/opinion/03friedman.html?_r=1&hp