The Hindu : Building social entrepreneurship

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 11, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore

Building social entrepreneurship

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE May 10. The immense potential of social entrepreneurship to change society, improve quality of life, and cover the maximum number of people was demonstrated at the induction ceremony of Ashoka fellows here on Saturday. Ashoka Innovators for the Public is a non-profit organisation committed to building the profession of social entrepreneurship. It was founded in 1981 and has since pioneered the "social venture capital'' approach. There have been 217 Ashoka fellows in India after the first group was elected in 1982.

At a panel discussion on "Cross sector partnerships - Fostering social entrepreneurships'' that capped today's induction ceremony, H. Sudarshan, who was in the first batch of fellows, spoke of how the fellowship had changed him from an "arrogant NGO" who had nothing but contempt for the Government and the corrupt part of the bureaucracy, to a person who today wears two hats: that of an NGO and of a Government representative.

He said true development was possible only when all sectors participated and contributed equitably. There were corrupt officials, many fence-sitters who could to be bracketed in any manner, and a seal percentage of absolutely incorruptible people.

Sashi Kumar of Asian College of Journalism, said that while journalists must do their bit to help the development sector achieve its goals, co-opting them into the sector in toto was akin to what Noam Chomsky had defined as "manufactured consent''.

The media must be allowed its space outside the sector, as a critic, and allowed its excesses. It was the media's job to investigate and expose wrongs and even scandals.

Co-opting the media into the NGO sector would compromise the journalists, and the negative story would never get told. "No journalist worth his salt would like to be held guilty of that,'' Mr. Sashi Kumar said.

HP Labs' Ramani said India was happily capable of applying the benefits of technology to improve quality of life, and in this task, the scientific community and the voluntary sector must look at how to cope with the changing circumstances to create new jobs.

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