Looking Forward

October 15 is the Blog Action Day 08 , this is my contribution to the global conversation on poverty.

The sound of iron hammer smashing concrete woke me up, looking out of my bedroom window I can see labours working on demolition site few meters away from my house. There isn't a single impact drill or any kind of mechanical device in sight, work here in India is done manually with hand tools and brute human strength.

1. Action Point "Health"

From construction workers to BPO and software developers, India is perhaps one of the largest workforce in the world, coming next only to china. The health of workforce is of great importance, affordable health care and nutrition for the young would be the things to watch out for in the coming years.

Lately we have indeed taken few right steps to make affordable generic drugs available in the country and early diagnosis and prevention of genetic and epidemics is in place. However there is lot to be done for making life bearable for those living dangerous close to the poverty line.

2. Action Point "Education"

Education is the second important action point, I hope in a few years we will have laws to enforce compulsory primary education. Being able to letter ones name is not enough, Education encourages individuals to question what is wrong and unjust and brings about awareness to use laws such as the Right to Information (RTI) act to its fullest.

3. Action Point "Technology

As a technologist I strongly believe that the ICT technology can empower people, in once instance a group of farmers used Google earth to show that the land which was declared are barren and assigned to a Special Economic Zone(SEZ) project in Maharashtra was green and provided sustenance to many. Systems like eSagu allows farmers query timely information to largely agricultural Indian economy.

In the times when raising inflation is pushing new segments of society under the poverty line, if we the educated young men and women can't address this global problem then we are the indeed the poor.