Vivek Srinivasan

About Vivek Srinivasan

I work with the Program on Liberation Technology at Stanford University. Before this, I worked with the Right to Food Campaign and other rights based campaigns in India. To learn more, click here.
Madras is one of those conservative cities that likes to keep its boys and girls at a safe distance. Parents clamour to get their children enrolled in colleges that are rather strict about this, and colleges have responded to this with enthusiasm. One famous college made a rule that girls will sit at the front of the college bus and boys behind and there will be a firewall of teachers in between. To counter this attraction other colleges have come up with separate roads and staircases inside the campus for boys and girls. In this context of competitive conservatism, I […]

Salsa in Madras: Social dance in a conservative city

NREGA has been relatively successful in many states in creating a large volume of employment, but critics have pointed out that the quality of projects is often poor. I agree with this assessment and argue that employment tends to be provided since there is a pressure for creating work and paying wages on a timely basis. But there is little pressure for quality from any source, be it administration, social movements or people at large. Unless we get some pressure group for ensuring quality, it is likely that quality of work in NREGA will continue to be poor in the years to come.

Who cares about quality in NREGA?

NREGA presents an unprecedented opportunity for disabled persons across India to earn a living and to showcase their talents. But as things stand, NREGA is not designed for disabled people to participate in it, but we can change it all with some tweaking.

NREGA for the disabled

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Mihir Shah argued in a recent article that trained workers should be appointed in each Panchayat if NREGA has to fulfill its promises. While Panchayats need personnel to implement NREGA, I argue that for the purpose of planning it would be better to create nodal agencies that take up planning sound works in a campaign mode.

Will trained workers in Panchayats improve the quality of NREGA?

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Rumblings of an ex-activist in his early thirties Why have I ceased to care about the world? Why is my commitment vanishing? Fifteen years ago if I saw blind person struggling to cross the road, I would jump off my bicycle to help him cross, and make a mental note on how I will change public transport. Now I watch my watch and glide away hoping someone will do my job for me. I wonder today if I cared then since I did not have a care in the world. Caring parents, carefree friends and a careless school set the […]

I cared because I did not care

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Rumblings of an ex-activist in his early 30s It seems like a short while ago when no dream seemed like just a dream. Making a billion, changing the world, ending poverty, peace and a few such things seemed pedestrian and utterly possible. There was a fire in me to go and be a part of the action, with merely passing doubts about what’s possible. Nothing seemed big, and I wanted to be everywhere. The thirties have come and my dreams have become smaller. A comfortable bed excites me more than a peace march, and jobs more than work. I fear […]

Age is the greatest fire extinguisher

“To be ruled is to be kept an eye on, inspected, spied on, regulated, indoctrinated, sermonized, listed and checked off, estimated, appraised, censured, ordered about…to be ruled is at every operation, transaction, movement, to be noted, registered, counted, priced, admonished, prevented, reformed, redressed, corrected”. Proudhon quoted by James Scott in Seeing like a state. The power of information is often used by those in powerful positions to control others.  The right to information movement inverts this principle and turns the gaze on those in positions of power by making their actions visible and thus amenable to democratic control.  Sharing information […]

Politics, technology & accountability II

In an earlier post I asked if there are technological answers to the problem of accountability, or if accountability is purely a political problem needing political solutions.  I then argued that while accountability is best seen as a political issue, technology can have an impact on the political terrain, and thus have an impact on accountability.  Let me illustrate this an example. Micro-politics of accountability At the heart of accountability in government programmes lies the process of specifying a set of responsibilities, clearly recording activities of various agents, cross verifying this information and holding agents accountable if there are breaches […]

Politics, technology & accountability I

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Improving accountability depends on political and social initiatives, and not technological solutions. But technology can shape society and politics in limited ways. This article looks briefly at how the Unique id project can help in improving accountability of the government to people in India.

Will the Unique ID project improve accountability?

An application to send custom auto responses in Gmail Gmail’s Canned responses feature allows you to send fairly sophisticated customised auto-responses based on incoming mails.  First we have to draft different kinds of responses we would like to send and label them.  For example, being the party animal I am becoming, I’d want a mail like, “This sounds great, I am on my way” for any e-mail inviting me for a party.  I will create it and label “Party mail”.  I can then create a filter in Gmail to scan all my incoming mails based on senders, keywords in text, […]

Custom auto-reply in Gmail for grad students and secret lovers

At one point I used to think that mothers know us the best.  Today there is someone to beat mothers thumbs down in how well they know us – the advertiser.  Unlike my mother they seem to have the access to my innermost thoughts, conversations and moods with access to my mails, facebook, search histories, and what not.  With the advent of targeted advertising I have started learning what they have learned about me. Last week almost all advertisements carefully picked for me were buxom women, enticing me to join a dating service. These advertisements seem to suggest that the […]

On being the target of targeted advertisements

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An effort to build a list of good international news programmes to get news from diverse perspectives Over the last few years, I have developed an interest in international affairs. Unfortunately, International English news sources were dominated by channels in USA and Britain.  BBC and CNN that were available widely had some high quality programmes but put forward highly circumscribed views.  My earning for diversity of views got a fillip with online news channels.  I am now trying to compile a list of good weekly programmes, documentaries, etc. that we can watch now and then to catch up with major […]

Best international news programmes: A list

Acemoglu and team have authored a set of influential papers arguing that colonial experience has had a lasting influence on the growth rates of countries well after colonisation through the lasting impact they have had on institutions. Apart from very neat econometric estimations testing of their hypothesis and evaluating them against a variety of alternate thesis, they also draw attention to a host of historical literature on this subject. All this is very impressive. They make a spirited argument that countries with extractive institutions have done poorly in terms of growth. This is where their work starts getting under-defined and […]

What is expropriation in Acemoglu’s work?

Book: The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics Author: William Easterly Magnanimity of IMF and World Bank leads to policies unfavourable to poor people – The Fund and the Bank did not go far enough, argues Easterly The Elusive Quest for Growth by William Easterly reviews various theories of growth and the consequent efforts by World Bank and IMF. As the title indicates he looks at how these approaches ‘failed’ and traces some reasons for their failure. The book is interspersed with live accounts of little cases (“intermezzo”) from the field to animate the discussion. […]

Review of Easterly’s Elusive quest for growth

Understanding popular theories and their challenges is crucial to understanding institutions. Notions such as Clash of civilisations by Huntington have a powerful influence on how foreign policies are shaped in the United States. In a memorable talk, Edward Said takes on Huntington’s thesis with a powerful critique. Edward Said incisively analyzes Huntington’s notion that differences in culture between the ‘West’ and ‘Islam’ will lead to conflicts between the two civilizations. Arguing against monolithic understanding of cultures, Said makes a powerful case for multiculturalism. Edward Said is one of the most powerful speakers I have listened to off-late, and this dense […]

Edward Said’s talk on ‘Clash of Civilizations’ by Samuel Huntington

Book: India: Development and participation Authors: Amartya Sen & Jean Dreze My favourite book on India’s development issues. Provides a comprehensive overview of many important development issues In my opinion this book is gold standard and is a must read for anyone intersted in development issues. Amartya Sen is distinguished for his ability to incorporate a wide variety of concerns including growth, inequalities, gender issues, power relations, etc. Dreze complements these abilities and also brings in significant field-level experience apart from rigorous research. India: Development and Participation combines a broad understanding of development with remarkable balance in dealing with various […]

Best book on India’s development by Amartya Sen and Dreze