Just off the plane from a two-week trip to South Asia, I am energized by what I saw in India: a quickly evolving business ecosystem poised to serve India’s 600,000 villages. India’s flourishing IT sector, epitomized by the massive traffic jams and lack of hotel rooms, has been widely hyped, but perhaps even more apparent on this journey was the growing base of practitioners, development folks, NGOs, government agencies and – yes – businesses that view India’s rural population – much of which earns less than $4 a day – as true consumers who want to make their own choices and solve their own problems. This should not be surprising, considering 1 in 8 people on the planet lives in an Indian village, but it really hit home being on the ground and seeing how much energy is going into identifying and deploying solutions.

This ecosystem is made up of actors from a wide spectrum, who approach poor markets from a different perspective. Drishtee – an Acumen investment whose ambitious growth plans will soon connect India villages through the deployment of service-rich kiosks – is making significant impact with its innovative model, and we are committed to helping them realize that vision. (more…)

On my last trip to India, I was struck by the number of people who raised the threat of the Naxalites - the Maoist rebels who number an estimated 10,000 individuals and are impacting over a quarter of the country’s 602 counties. The groups see themselves in some quarters as modern day Robin Hoods but are bringing violence and instability to the poorest areas that need the most assistance. They are an indication of the growing gap between rich and poor, and something to be monitored in our world where forces compelling the gap to grow are powerful. How to provide the poor with the real opportunities of the global marketplace becomes a more urgent imperative for all of us. This article from the Star-Ledger provides more information about the Naxalites.