India’s booming population makes it a significant player in the healthcare industry which is expected to cross $75 billion by 2012 and (more…)

This year’s Nobel laureates Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson are the proponents of a theory based on the idea of transactions and their related costs. Coase (1999) rightly emphasized the importance of transactions and their centrality in the research program promoted by neo-institutionalists. Without transactions and their relevant organizations, it would be impossible to take advantage of division of labor or of innovative technologies. In that sense, there is a primacy of transactions over conditions of production. In what follows I present the views of  Claude Ménard and J.P.M. Groenewegen about this “alternate” paradigm for understanding production relations. (more…)

Got an opportunity to attend a session on ‘The Propogation of RTI culture - Role of Media’ organized by The Central Information Comission.  It was disturbing to note that media seems to now realize that RTI backed news story are not ‘SEXY’ enough for the national media to carry.

The power of RTI lies in the hand of the citizen- the “aam-aadmi”, it gives him the power to get the information.  In nine out of ten cases the information would concern specific issues to an individual or a small community.  If every RTI information unearthed large scams then we as a nation would have been in ‘deep shit’.  There would be larger questions on governance.  Well the media is now disappointed and has put the RTI in the backburner. 

Barring the intial euphoria, the traditional media both print and television seem to play a wait an watch game.  Selectively picking information to create bigger news value. Thus all the foreign trip by babus and ministers in the last three years, aggregated using many RTI applications, together became a national news during the seaon of austerity.  But information on delay in the road construction in Mandavali is left behind.�
Fine, the media does not see a lot of news value in the information unearthed by an RTI application. So, why should media be dragged into this?

Yes, it does not deserve a place in the main headines. But the local residents in Mandavali need to know this information unearthed by one of their neighbour. And someone has to disseminate this information.  The media houses have always prided on their role as custodians of impartial information dissemination.  This is thus a challenge for the media to evolve a mechanism of disseminating such specific information in a focussed manner.

The internet as a medium can do that. However, poor penetration of the internet makes it less potent. As the penetration increases in India, this would be the big threat that the new media would have over the traditional.  Similar to what Google by tapping the needs of the local business, mangaed to do in the advertisement space of the traditional media.

Good to see the ‘Nobel’ Prize going to a ‘non-economist’..Elinor Ostrom is a political scientist. (more…)

Currently at Indicus, we are doing a report on healthcare sector in India - India Health Report - 2010,  which is set to be released in February next year. The focus of the report would be on (more…)