The CEO of India’s ambulance service was among the first generation of women in her Rajasthan town to receive an education beyond high school. Sweta Mangal received her MBA from the University of Rochester, with the full intention of finding a job and remaining in the US. But less than two years after she graduated, she felt an itch – an India itch – and without telling her family, she flew back to India.
Shortly after she returned, the friend of Ravi Krishna, another US-educated Indian, died in a car accident because he did not receive prompt medical attention. In response to this tragedy, Sweta and a few friends started talking about India’s need for an ambulance system. “In the US,” she said, “we would have just dialed 911. But there wasn’t anything like that here.” In 2003, Sweta and a few friends created an initiative to provide ambulance services for Mumbai residents, buying two ambulances and putting them on the road. As demand grew, they bought eight more ambulances. They also expanded their services to provide a women’s helpline as well as first aid workshops at schools and colleges. Two years ago, Mangal left her day job to become CEO of Dial 1298 for Ambulance. By April 2011, they expect to have 500 ambulances across India.
Mangal is part of a growing trend of young Indians who are increasingly unwilling to accept India’s inequality gap as immutable truth. This gap means that in medical emergencies, the wealthy are rushed to private hospitals in chauffeur-driven cars, while the poor are forced to hope for a run of luck that will save their lives. Indeed, India is (in)famous for its information technology capabilities even though there is no assurance of a constant supply of electricity in most parts of the country. India is renowned for its cardiothoracic surgery facilities even though access to basic sanitation for the majority of the population is non-existent. The wealthy have Ferraris in cities known for clogged roads and cashmere scarves in areas whose temperatures rarely drop below 70 degrees, while slum children burn plastic bottles to keep warm.
This inequality gap has become more apparent in recent years, where in an attempt to address the issue of the scarcity of public services – such as electricity, water and healthcare – the government has encouraged the privatization of these sectors. But rather than alleviating the gap, the inequality has persisted, and in some cases, deepened. This is a democracy of disproportion; and young Indians like Sweta Mangal are looking for a way to relieve this asymmetry.
The work of reducing this imbalance clashes against the predictable troika of engineers, doctors and entrepreneurs that India is known for producing. But this professional holy trinity, while still alive culturally, is in the process of being scrambled. Increasingly, young Indians are balancing culturally ordained ideas of success with social change.
“It isn’t like it was before,” said Ms. Mangal. “Before if you were an entrepreneur, all you did was make money, and if you wanted to make this country better, your only option was to be like Mother Teresa. Now, we’re doing both.” Social entrepreneurship is on the rise in India, as young people examine methods of bridging the inequality gap so that India can experience inclusive growth. And as India amasses financial capital, the pool of potential funding sources – from philanthropic organizations to corporate houses – is growing.
While the Indian education system’s business programs have traditionally geared students towards solely making money, universities are recognizing this cultural shift towards social enterprise. The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Lucknow recently unveiled its Center for Social Entrepreneurship as well as an annual awards ceremony recognizing and promoting innovative ideas for social change.
Irfan Alam is one entrepreneur who has been recognized by a number of institutions and political figures, such as President Obama, for his creative social enterprise. Blending his management background with his desire to uplift the community of his native Bihar – a state infamous for its desperate poverty and rampant corruption – Alam founded Sammaan, a cycle rickshaw-organizing initiative. Calculating that cycle-rickshaw operators support almost 5% of the population but are a disorganized sector, made up of illiterate labourers who rely on the mafia for their rickshaws, Alam created a business model which empowers rickshaw pullers through training, capacity-building, education and financial support. Rather than giving up a large portion of their daily profits in rental, Sammaan sets cycle rickshaw operators up with micro-lending schemes. They are given safety and health workshops, bank accounts and health insurance. The back of the rickshaw is transformed into an advertising board, and the cycle-rickshaw operators sell bottled water and fruit juices to their customers. They keep 50% of the profits.
Mr. Alam went so far as to reach out to the local mafia who had been renting the cycle rickshaws to the pullers, believing that incorporating them into a new system would be more effective than attempting to extricate their involvement. The mafia agreed, and they have worked with Sammaan on their larger goal of making rickshaw-pulling a dignified, sustainable livelihood. Mr. Alam calls this “a holistic means of shifting the system.”
Sweta Mangal and Irfan Alam are two of many young Indian social entrepreneurs who are working towards larger institutional reform as they provide stopgap services for those who need them. They are well aware that the complexity and gravity of the issues that India faces will not be solved by one well-meaning social enterprise. But the promise lies in what is believed to be a generational shift. “There is a revolution happening right now,” Alam says, “where young people want to be involved in India’s future.” Indeed, as India gains prominence on the world stage, young Indians are looking to be involved in this country’s history, and social entrepreneurship is becoming the way to do it.
The National Social Entrepreneurship Forum claims to have seen “an unprecedented surge in the interest level amongst youth in this sector,” as the professional holy trinity of engineers, doctors and entrepreneurs participate in what appears to be a national reckoning; an enumeration that looks not at spreadsheets but souls, an appraisal of a country. For all of India’s leaps and bounds splashed in cashed-out, marigold-strewn glory across the front pages, the needs of many people who energize these leaps and bounds have not been answered. The basic systems their government has promised have been compromised or waylaid entirely. And the explosion of technology and ease of access to information has meant that young Indians have become the eyes and ears of the country, forming the collective conscience of the nation.
Neil Dantas, a 31-year old furniture designer, turned to graphic design to speak out against the tragedies and inequalities by which he was surrounded. Before the terrorist attack on Mumbai commuter trains in 2006, Mr. Dantas was “just a talker.” But following the brutal attacks which ravaged Mumbai, leaving 186 commuters dead, Dantas found himself colonized by a narrative of change that was sweeping the city. He created a design of train handles, with the words “we are still holding on,” underneath and made a t-shirt. The t-shirts were eagerly sought out by youth across the country. Seeking to both educate and inspire young Indians to examine social and political issues, Dantas has since made t-shirts of what he calls “indirect political statements,” addressing issues including safe sex, alcohol abuse and voter turnout. His most recent t-shirt combines the Hindu om symbol with the Muslim crescent moon, speaking to the country’s longstanding tension between many Hindu and Muslim communities.
As India flexes its economic and diplomatic muscles, elbowing its way forward on the global stage, there is another revolution taking place in people’s minds. The professional holy trinity is being undone, aspirations are gaining dimension and the promises of the Constitution are no longer regarded as distant dreams, but as questions, even, challenges. Compared to the energy bills, the trade partnerships, the multi-billion dollar business deals, it is a quieter revolution, but it seems, no less riotous.
source: thefastertimes
In the surge of “youth”, the multitasking wonderful daring “never mind” digital generation of India, the 30+ generation is “aspiring” and “doing their best” to get back their “lost” teenage. The 30+ is a generation who struggled in their teenage to buld their career, satisfy their parent’s “dreams and aspirations” and to get “established”…and after having “almost everything” they understood that they have somehow missed “the fun” this liberalizations children (they, who is born during the liberalization of India’s foreign policy, in 90’s) is having today! The multi-options of entertainment…the multi-options of “putting opinions”…they are the one who has money to have fun, but the time is gone! So, they wants to “rewind” and have the fun they missed. In terms of fashion, lifestyle, luxury, kink, dare, attitude….at least in the weekends!
So, the global brands ("youth brands", specially) who’s targeting the youth segments to test their luck in India, must and should primarily focus to pamper this generation without shifting their focus on “being young...” (cause, if your brand looks “oldy” 30+ will not buy!)
Check this video: http://vimeo.com/16638983 , the gen X in west is what 30+ segment is in India…only, they were never being “pampered” by media and “choices”! and today they have "everything" but craves for being "teen" again...
so do the "teen-i-fiction" of 30+ to win them(fashion, gadgets, SNS and all those "oh so kids")!
Whenever I meet a global "youth" brand for discussion over their plan-d-India, a “blunt” question is being asked : “Is there any “indigenous” subculture/ youth culture/ unique counter culture in India?”…I know, its easy to ride over the “flow” of youth culture to make it “cool” and this is how many brands succeeded in west…but fortunately/ unfortunately, in India, we don’t have any “indigenous” subculture/ style culture which is deeply rooted among youth (other than the superficial visual elements, which emerges as fads and vanishes faster...for example, appearing as “Goth” by wearing black without knowing what is gothism!)…
Any [youth]subculture, is a result of “revolution” against one or many social systems (punk, hippies, zooties, skinheads, hiphop…) and the expression of revolution are shown as “visual elements” through fashion/ style/ music/ literature/ attitude/ promotion of opinion among the like minded peer groups (across the intra or inter demography) …no subculture ever emerges to be “cool” but to be “authentic” and different from the “rest of craps”…finally, by the “conspiracy of system”, when an authentic youth subculture becomes “cool” among mass, the so called “loose crap tadpoles” (they, who r not rooted to a sub cultural belief, system, rules and regulations etc.) join in and finally sends a subculture into “hibernation”, hence ensuring a “visual death of the same”…. the brands immediately move to another subculture to make it “cool” to ride on that flow! That’s the basic system of “promotion” of “youth oriented products” around the world….this system somehow doesn’t work in India!
Lets discuss, what is India, what are the “values” of being youth in India…their priorities, preferences, “boundaries”…and how they break it to be unique.
(will be continued…)
New Delhi, Nov 21 (IANS) Roman Polanski once said, 'Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theatre.' Had the Polish-French director seen 30-year-old Vimarsh Bajpai enjoying movies in trains and cars, completely oblivious to his surroundings, he would have been a happy man.
Bajpai, a jet-setting Delhi-based communication and content consultant who consumes the majority of his cinema on the move, is a proud owner of an iPod Touch - the one gadget he 'will never bargain for'.
He belongs to a new breed of movie watchers who like their cinema personalised, isolated and customised - on laptops, iPods and other devious little portable gadgets. The tribe is part of a technological revolution which is changing the dynamics of the movie experience in India.
'For me, movie watching is not something that just has entertainment value; it also shapes my thinking. There are certain scenes in movies like 'The Shawshank Redemption' which I always remember and go back to for my personal experience, any time, anywhere, at the click of a button,' Bajpai said.
From the humble black and white TV and charming single screen theatre to snazzy iPods and nomadic laptops, the movie baton has passed through many mediums. Some bowed out with the changing times, while some have held their ground.
Tech-guru Rajiv Makhni calls the trend a 'revolution'.
'People are watching movies on iPads, laptops...All this is happening because we have gone digital. You can download a movie or you can buy one legally, the media has created this revolution and this is going to continue in many different ways,' Makhni, an authority on the subject, told IANS.
'It will change a lot of equations in future. Like if a movie is released Friday, how will it fare in the first and second weeks?' he added.
Makhni, of course, believes cinema halls will never be short of a loyal audience as 'movies will always be a large screen experience'.
So there will still be the Sunday movie outing for family members. But when they return home, animatedly discussing what they saw, chances are that a gawky 20 something will irritably hit the pause button on her laptop and ask them to hush up so she can resume watching her film, very much in the comfortable confines of her room.
Twenty-two-year-old Rakesh Rawat is one such youth. With a vocabulary that includes streaming videos, bit torrents, flash drives and DVD writers, Rawat has been downloading and watching movies on his laptop for three years.
'I don't like listening to people's comments in a movie hall. There's a certain forced ambience in a theatre that irritates me. If people find a scene funny and I don't, I hate to listen to their sounds of laughter,' said Chennai-based Rawat.
'But when I watch a film on my laptop, I can be my own self and not get affected by the artificial environment.'
While there are many who can't stop raving about their little weapons of entertainment, film expert Gautam Kaul doesn't quite welcome the trend.
'Traditionally, human society has had characteristics of a gregarious group. Cinema has been a form of sharing experience, a congregational activity. However, after the advent of the electronic age, for the first time the congregational activity has been disappearing,' Kaul said.
'You sit in isolation, you experience films but don't share your emotional notes with anybody. Cinema, in this form, is not able to give you any emotional nourishment. This ruins the original gregarious nature of individuals and leads to a change in human character. You become neurotic.'
Kaul even goes on to say that pornography will have a larger audience in future if the trend continues.
'If ever cinema is removed from its large assembly of audience, it will be a threat to family life and a loss of culture. Porn films will be having a major audience.'
The same emotions are echoed by Ashok Deshpande, 48, a worried father of a tech-savvy teenager.
'My son keeps himself locked in the room and is always watching some or the other movie on his netbook,' Mumbai-based Deshpande told IANS on phone.
'I tell him this is no way to watch a movie, it should be watched with the family. But how will he listen unless he removes those stupid wires from his ears?'
But the young are not bothered. They have after all downloaded and watched new movies like 'The Social Network' and 'Break Ke Baad' long before their actual release!
By Mohita Nagpal
Source: Yahoo News
Fairness still in demand among India’s “midnight’s children” (older generation)
The obsession of Indians for white beauty and their craving for fair skin, shows how important it is for a girl to be white, in order to marry a so called “decent” boy! The boy may have been bestowed with ebony complexion, but screams loud in all the advertisements he puts for a prospective wife. And how wicked can commercials be when they portray fair skin as the key to success.
The Indian brown complexion is the most elegant symbol of beauty around the world and these morons of cosmetic companies and the iniquitous, uneducated, uncreative ad agencies are promoting fairness in a society where majority of people have a wheatish or dark complexion. The so called perception of white skin is rooted in Indian psyche from the British period and still it has its influence among the elder generation about “beauty”.
One commercial shows a sad father who wished to have a son and not a dusky daughter, whose complexion, he believed, diminished her prospects of attracting a good husband, and a well-paid job. She uses fairness cream to become an eligible beauty. Another ad shows a dark girl using the same cosmetic and thereby landing a job as an air hostess.
The photoshop images of bollywood actresses/ celebrities continuously influence the perception and acceptance level of skin tone among Indians which will change slowly along with the eradication of castes and classes in the society.
“Fair & Lovely” ads of “Fairness” cream can be seen in youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-9tcXpW1DE
By Ragini Sinha, Trendspotter, Delhi
