getstumped

I was reading this story in rediff this morning.

http://specials.rediff.com/news/2008/jul/02hwl.htm

I can’t say it is a nice one but I felt rather sad reading this. Here is a farmer in his late twenties having considerable land not able to make the points meet, because of no rain.

It seems rediff offered to help him by giving some money, but the farmer declined the offer but asked the readers to pray for a good monsoon. There can be two schools of thought in this.

1. Appreciating the farmer’s dignity even in tough times. Here is a man who respects his honor more than any monetary gains and I believe he is uneducated. I feel happy to be part of a system that injects this culture into your lifestream.

2. Feeling sorry for a man who wasted a opportunity that had a probability to make his life better. Instead, he asked people to pray for a better monsoon. More sadder.

I am taking the second one. Though education is a whole issue here, I think the society has to have solutions for people who have more problems to worry about than getting educated. Micro-credit is one. Muhammad Yunus has this working model for decades now, but why couldn’t it be replicated to all parts of society in this information age? I don’t think politics is going to help here as it is still mostly corrupted, but something like Acumen fund which has corporate ideologies for the betterment of the poor.

I wish India has its own, soon.