Huh, Interesting... New Delhi looks oddly like it should be called Old Delhi...

I hate to even say it, but sadly it is true. Run down and dilapidated, New Delhi is dismal, torn up, and there are no signs of bringing it back to life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IQVwjTWXt0

Having said that, seeing the interesting buildings made from the natural red clay was cool and the experience of being here, while surreal, is valuable. The human condition is amazing, and while there are so many complexities and differences, there are also similarities the span the globe. Amidst the chaos here, there are people hanging out in the park socializing. There are teenage girls in the square giggling. Little cute kids run around playing tag. Vendors sell their goods. People sit on park benches eating and chatting. Cars come and go. We saw a funeral procession. People live... and they die.

But, in a country of 1.2 billion people, virtually one-sixth of the world's seven billion and second largest in the world close behind China (and largely exceeding the USA's 300 million), social, cultural and economic issues are magnified like a tsunami is to a ripple in the water. Over half of the people live in rural areas, about 20% without any electricity. Though difficult to exactly quantify, it appears that about 35% live on less than $ 1.25 / day. That amounts to about 420 million people, more than the entire population in the USA! Understandably, Indian culture is grounded in 5,000 years of Hindu spirituality that accepts self sacrifice. Tribalism and the caste system, largely illegal today, is still prevalent. Each person is marked by their name and there is a general acceptance for their lot in life, so to speak, on the belief of a better next one. The government is ill-equipped to deal with the magnitude of the social issues and the NGOs are not efficient or productive enough to handle it all.

We learned today about social entrepreneurship and that issues faced in India need to be addressed by the private business sector. While social economics is important and can be a vehicle for transformation, e.g. micro-financing for women, marketing and innovation provided by big business is also critical alongside NGO and government and individual efforts. Our speaker, borrowing from Prahalad's work, feels that democratizing opportunity is the next phase of globalization and she believes that solutions to problems must be at the forefront of driving strategy rather than a more traditional, corporate, profit-from-product orientation - in order to sustain long-term social impact. Social responsibility, in fact, is not so hard-pressed to develop in India as it is probably in our western cultures. It can be traced back to a religious responsibility going back to "dana", the act of giving, from Rgveda.

I see here an area that is struggling to live up to the status that western civilization has granted it as a developing, glowing, future economy of opportunity versus its strong grounding in older traditions and the scale of the problem versus the resources. I wish I could remember which speaker made this comment to our group: "India lives in different centuries at one point in time." Nevertheless, I am drawn to Zander & Zander's story from the Art of Possibility about the salesman that goes to a country where people where no shoes and reports back that there is no opportunity, nobody wears shoes. A second salesman goes to the same country and reports back good news that this is the land of opportunity because nobody YET wears shoes. I think this opportunity abounds intertwined only with social enterprise ventures. What do you think?