Day 63, 64,65,66

20, 21, 22, 23 June. 2011

I prepared a schedule. Its like less than a month remaining for the completion of my internship. I now realize how much more do I need to do. The first thing I wanted to do was to get villagers opinion on computers. Based on their opinions, I would do my final recommendations. I started of with preparing for a FGD in Abhepuri. I planned a visit to Abhepuri with two purposes. One was to build a website for them and the other to conduct the Focused Group discussions. Well, the website is just a headfake. The real purpose is to get into the community and know them better. Well, this is the crux of any rural program. You need to know the need of the community. Its not like one size fits all. Every village is different. It is said that in India, the dialect changes every 100 KMS. Well, I have a corollary to it. The village needs and wants change every 100 KMS. Abhepuri is 25 KMS from Panchgani and 37 KMS from Mahabaleshwar. Its been raining cats and dogs in here and Abhepuri is all dry with a few drizzles. And hence due to such biasing of nature, the needs are different. Anyway, coming back to what I had been doing - preparing for FGD. So I prepared for FGD and then yesterday I went to Abhepuri to conduct it.

We reached in the morning. Ashok Mandhre was waiting for us. We first started off with the website. I had a team of 6 young people who were interested in making the website. We started discussing what should be there in the website and how should we approach them. It was finalized that the team would be divided in 3 sub teams. Each team would be responsible for collecting some information on a few of the predecided topics. Then, I started with the FGD. It was a sort of not-so-good FGD. I probably made a lot of mistakes and I probably expected more from the people. But some of the key learning that came from the FGD :

• No introduction about the moderator. This filters out the information.
• Need to do an ice breaker activity which would socialize the participators and make them comfortable.
• Speak less, probe less. Let them speak the most.
• Search for the tapering voices. Encourage them to make their points.
• Don’t make concluding statements. This would give a biased response.
• Make short questions. Once they provide answers in yes or no, then probe to ask the reason. This would make it comfortable in answering.

I am still analysing the responses. Would talk about it soon. I plan to conduct more such FGDs to understand the people better and probably giving them a better solution.

More Later.
SD

Day 62

19th June, Sunday

This was a perfect sunday. woke up late, went to Lucky Bakery in the town for breakfast with Nikhil. Came back and had a game of paddle tennis. Went back to Market with other interns, met a few peoplw from panchgani, had lunch at the centre, went to Dhom Dam with the interns, had wonderful swim there. And then dinner! Wow! A perfect Sunday.

When I went to market with other interns and Suresh Mathew, I met Bonty - A young lady from Panchgani, but basically Gujarati. She is Suresh's friend. She was a ticking bomb. She teaches english to foreign students in panchgani. She says that she has seen panchgani moving from a green hill station to a noisy town. She has a lot of anger in her for this. I think she should use this anger to do something productive instead of cursing. Anyway, her choice, but glad to know that such people are still there in Panchgani who have the fire to save the town.

More later,
SD

Day 60, 61

17^th, 18^th June

Life was bit settled these 2 days. I started to learn piano here. We have a grand piano in the IofC auditorium. Eun Young – a Korean friend is helping out. The atmosphere was also more or less good except a few happy drizzles. And yes, the power cuts. Due to the heavy rain fall yesterday, some electricity tower has fallen and so we are without electricity for a couple of days. This has actually turned out to be a good time to experience the nature and observing our dependencies on the man made power. The day went quite nice with the entire busy schedule – the conference, the paddle tennis match and all. After dinner, it was a total black out here. No computer, no internet, for that matter no light! Our neighbor gave us a candle and a match box. I lit the candle, put it in the candle stand and kept it in front of the mirror to make the room brighter. Nikhil (my roommate) has a radio. He turned on the radio and we listened to the music playing on it. Then we decided to take a walk to enjoy the moon lit sky. It was totally dark but the moon had enough light to show us the way. We went on the way towards Grampari and then diverted towards the table top. This is the first time in my life that I am seeing fireflies. And today I saw them all in their harmony. It seemed like a series of decorative LEDs had been put on the trees. All the LEDs came to life in a moment and the next moment they went off! And it would be one tree at a time. The trees went on and off in a rhythmic pattern. The light effects were supported by the sound effects of the frogs and the insects. I don’t think I would have ever got a chance to be in such an atmosphere if it was not my internship!

Day 59

16^th June

The atmosphere here is awesome and strange. The mornings would be sunny and bright. The noon it would be darker than dusk and it would start raining any time. The wind is confused which direction it has to go and keeps fighting with the trees as if trees are not allowing them to blow. Rain in bright sun is a normal scene here. Today was such day. It was bright in the morning. Grampari team was moving to Pune for a couple of days. I was kind of incharge for the place. All of a sudden a lot of black, dark and heavy clouds covered the sky. It didn’t follow the normal procedure of starting with a drizzle and moving towards heavier side. It jus t started! It was raining cats and dogs, sorry horses and tigers(This was the best analogy I could find in the larger size). I had to reach Grampari by 2 PM as a part of daily routine. I reached and opened the doors of the lab and what I saw was a keyboard and a mouse totally wet because of a whole in the roof of the lab. Ya – in the roof! I had to start rescue operation at warfront as the rains were getting heavier by the minute. I first of all disconnected the electric connections, took the drenched keyboard and mouse and wiped them with cloth. Then I tried finding the plastic covers of the monitors. I covered all the monitors, removed all the key boards, mice and other peripherals and packed them in a cupboard and moved all the CPU cabinets under the table. I ran to the Grampari workshop to see if any large plastic sheet is available. I ran up to the centre as I would not find any plastic sheets. I reported the condition to the admin dept and asked them for some large plastic sheet and if they could help with repairing the roof. They said they would get a large sheet in some time. I went back to Grampari and just as I reached there, opened the door and closed my umbrella, the rains stopped abruptly and sun came out laughing at me. I lost – that’s what the sun wanted to say in that laughter. It is strange – the atmosphere of Panchgani. The changes are more often than my mood swings!

Day 57 58

14 and 15th June

Grampari has a program called Livelihoods. Sewing, knitting, self help womens groups, solar lantern making, mobile repairing and computer classes are part of it. Recently some one from Grampari had to leave the organization and Dange - the person who mostly handles the livelihoods had to go to his home. So I got the responsibility of handling the campus for a few days.

The campus is amazing! MRA centre is like the grown fatherly figure standing tall at the foot hills of table land who has seen the ups and downs of life and who knows the world. Grampari is the kid growing in the lap of nature, not worrying about what is happening with the world, struggling with its own small problems, laughing and crying with mother nature. The weather makes the campus nearer to the nature.

The Campus holds the livelihood programs and the workshops conducted by Grampari. the first day was really challenging as I had 5 bunches of leys with me and did not know which key is for what lock! Moreover, I first time sat with the computer classes students in their class. the class had been running since 15 days. But I was surprised to know that they are not even aware of the parts of computer. The lab was not in a good shape. The wires wondering on the floor as if they were on a picnic at this place! the anti-viruses were removed from all the PCs. The server firewall was turned off and the support person replied that I don't need to look into that(a nice way of saying - mind your own business. Probably he didnt know that that exactly was my business :P ). All things combined with inability to complete the planned tasks for the day - Thats how the two days went. I have asked Tamim and Sefat to help me with putting things into order.

But I learnt one thing - Learning by doing is the best way of learning.

Day 55-56

12th, 13th June

'Discussions are exchange of knowledge and arguments are exchange of ignorance'. This is one statement which is some one said in the quite sessions that happened recently. There are some people who would not at all understand your point of view. This statement seems very true when we talk about them. Anyway, coming back to the point which I have not yet started. Focused Group discussions - a technique used to get opinions and conduct survey. My project here would I think require FGDs to take place. This is because I do not have resources to conduct big surveys and the secondary data available is not enough. So I am planning to start with FGDs with various communities. Moreover Ineed to start talking to people who have already implemented the rural Kiosks. More Later.

-SD

Day 54

11th June, 2011

A saturday, but a boring one. Still the infection in my throat is not clear - Antibiotics are taking their own time. This reminds me of a conversation with Mr RD Mathur in MRA. He is associated with MRA since it was born in India. We were discussing about the current affairs and related topics. He was sharing his experience of his recent dinner with Chinese ambassador in Delhi. He said a sentence which banged in my head. The infection spreads rapidly in a wound. Today India is being attacked from various fronts in one or the other form by one or the other known or unknown agency to dampen one or the other factor or parameter of prosperity in India. This is not possible unless one or the other internal organ of the body called 'India' is wounded. The wounds which I am referring here are not the external ones, but the internal ones which are extremely hard to heal, though not impossible. The stories I hear here at MRA are the proof of the fact that healing IS possible. Switching to my throat, the bacterial infection in there is result of a wound - not to be sentimental, it was an external wound due to a lot of shouting and lot of cold water and ice creams. And it is still not clear even after a full course of antibiotics! An infected throat, the rains, the wet atmosphere and the hell lot of work load - a perfect combination for a boring day. But then the interns came up with a plan of watching movie. Movie called My Name is Khan. I had watched it 2 times already and I was not at all in a mood to watch SRK pretending to be an abnormal human with asphurgur's syndrome and wieredly telling people around that his name is Khan and he is not a terrorist and yes - Kkkhan from the epiglottis! But then I didnt have any option as a lot of them wanted to watch it and I had to give up! The movie started after dinner. Well, I must admit that it was different this time.

It was different. The audience was different. The atmosphere was different. The reactions were different and the observation was different. I was sitting with the interns. 2 of them muslims from Afghanistan, 1 from Uganda and 1 from Korea. Last time when I watched the movie, I had people around me with similar line of thoughts. But this time, the minds were from various parts thinking in way different manner than what we do. After the movie, we went to my room and had a healthy discussion about the present situation of moslims and the Hindu muslim relations in India.

I was glad to know that the 2 Afghanis knew Islam way better than the self proclaimed leaders of Islam all over the world. The word Jehad is a highly misunderstood word. It is said in quran somewhere that Jehad is to be done against the unjust. Which is very similar to what Krishna said in Geeta to Arjun - Fight for the justice. People have started generalizing Islam with terrorism and thanks to the media for helping that happen. They always say that Most of the terrorists that are caught follow Islam. Hence lets declare Islam as a cruel and violent religion. If we look at the numbers then people killed by Hitler and Mussolini during their reigns is far more than total of all the terrorist attacks in the world. And they were christians. Then why not declare christianity to be a violent religion! It is clearly mentioned in Quran that killing of an innocent is killing of humanity. The point that I want to make is that its not the religion that is bad, its the people. One more fact that I would mention here is that most of the muslim terrorists that are caught are Pakistanis. Make your own judgement now. Moreover as RD Mathur rightly said - Infection spreads more rapidly in the wounds. We need to see the wounds and try to cure them up. Only then this infection (read terrorism) can be stopped.

Thanks Tamim Alam for this wonderful eye opening discussion.

-SD

Day 53

Recently, there had been some 15 people roaming around the campus of MRA with some heavy electronic equipments on their back. Looked like some cameras and lights and things like that. That was a film production crew. Yes there was some shooting going on here.It was for a documentary being made on MRA-IofC. The guys kept interviewing a hell lot of people around. Some footage was taken for me too. But what made me happy was this person called Nikhil. He is my room mate and is doing his interns here at MRA. He is a mass communication student from symbiosis and the happiest person in that crew. He said that people in his college would die to get a chance to work in a film production crew. I understand how it feels when you get a chance to work on something you really look forward to. He is an amazing person, at least the coolest among the people here. We go along good together. Coming back to the film being produced here, the documentary is meant to cover various aspects of MRA - the history, the present and the future. They are also making a documentary on Grampari. I was interviewed in that regard. It was a nice experience. Almost 10 people are standing behind the camera and you are asked to talk, not to those folks, but to the camera! that s a tough job - atleast for person like me who is more of a social animal! How can u talk to a non living thing. But on the other hand, its that non living thing that gives life to many living things. I heard someone saying this at MRA - The world looks more beautiful through the camera! Anyways, More to come later.

-SD

Day 40 - 52

May 28 to 9th June

This is a long period. I mean 12 days! Well, for me though, it went as if 12 hours. It was hectic... quite hectic. There was a series of events that transpired through these days. A presentation, preparation for the Grampari kids’ camp, the kids’ camp, a post event meeting, me getting sick, a youth camp at MRA and me recovering from the sickness. Let me review them all one by one.

The Presentation.

This was a presentation about the rural resource centre and kiosks. I studied a lot of research papers on the rural kiosks. Some were on understanding the implementation part. Some were on the post implementation part. And some were on the social aspect of it. But a lot of reading happened. I came to know about lot of projects going on in this area like the akshaya project in Kerala, Gyandoot on MP, nlogue in the private sector and a few more. Most of them were on a larger scale like on a district level and state governments being involved in it and a lot of funding happening for them. What I wanted is the kiosk on a lower scale. Well that’s what Grampari is planning to work on. It is not a full-fledged organization of that scale yet where it can do projects of this big volume. So basically I am looking towards having one kiosk on a pilot basis and observe how it goes. I would be uploading a separate post on the topic soon.

Next was the Kids camp. This camp was of 3 days. We expected 50 kids of age 8 to 12. Jayashree aunty asked us, the interns to make a program which turns out not only enjoyable for them but also which can imbibe the core values of IofC in their hearts. We discussed for almost 2 days and came up with a program. The program had wonderful sessions of IofC, games, environment and movies. The kids were supposed to come at 10, start their registration and the program was supposed to start at 12. The day arrived. I reached Grampari at 9. I see 20 kids already there roaming in Grampari. The registration started. Some of us went in the hall to arrange audio and video. We come out after 30 mins and see 40 kids at the registration desk. I was like – They have become punctual! We started with some games and ice breakers to keep the rest of kids engaged while some were still registering. In a matter of 20 mins, the registration desk was over crowded. At 12 noon, we had 72 kids already in and still the 25 kids who confirmed their presence were yet to arrive. At 1 PM they arrived and we had around 90 kids in the campus, with the preparation of only 50! We all went crazy. And on top of it, it started raining on day 2 which did not stop till day 3. But then we managed it nicely! Even this deserves a separate post. J

Since the last day of the camp, my throat was all dead. It is seven days now and am still suffering from throat infection. The throat infection was the result of all the shouting in the camp plus three days being drenched in the rain + a lot of sweet dishes! Just yesterday I went to see the doc. He gave some meds and now it seems to be better, otherwise all night I keep on coughing, disturbing not only my sleep, but also that of my room mate’s.

Moreover, there was a youth camp going on in the MRA. There were some 150 young folks coming from all over the country. They had very strong discipline during the program. The program coordinator, Mr Viral Mujumdar, was very strict about it. Of course he has to be or else these young kids won’t listen him.

Last few days I am not doing much. More on rest. The whole night I would be coughing and the rest of the day, eating and sleeping. Its almost 4 days not doing much work. More over its raining cats and dogs these days in Panchgani. I am fed up of coughing.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and some sickness these days. Posting it was pending since quite long. I would write on the kids camp soon. Till then Ciao!

-SD

Sorry

Got a lot of stuff on my plate right now... Am sorry for not posting! I know very few people care about my posts :P but its a sorry for my commitment and my few readers :)

Day 39

27th May, 2011

The day started with a session from Suresh Khatri, an amazing session about how to use the quiet time and how to divide the time and make mind concentrate on some things that are useful. It was really a nice session. Next session was by Commercial tax commissioner of Karnataka. He talked about how to reduce corruption and how he has implemented projects in his departments to reduce corruption. The facility of e-sugam in Karnataka was started by him. He also shared some cases on which he is working presently. One of them being the tax evasion by the multiplexes. I was able to connect to the e-sugam part because I had worked on a similar project in TCS.

The solutions he came up with were quite amazing. It was a paradigm shift in doing things. Talking about the e-sugam project, normally at the checkposts, the documents would be brought by the truck drivers and they were entered manually in the computers. That took a lot of time and was vulnerable to errors. What he did was - Enter the documents before coming to the check post on the E-sugam site. Get a unique number and come to check post. The check post would just verify the number and let you go! Less efforts, more accuracy and less paper work.

Thats what I call think out of the box!

-SD

Day 36, 37, 38

24^th , 25^th and 26^th May, 2011

Tata – a brand associated with almost every business. They make everything from watches to salt to cars and software. Come on! Who doesn’t know them! I mention the name of Tatas here because since last three days I have been meeting Mr Russi M Lala – a well known non-fiction author who had known the Tatas quite well. He has written a lot of books on the Tatas; The creation of wealth, the heartbeat of a trust and beyond the last blue mountain – to name a few. I first time met him in the MRA center. The interns here had a special session with him. He was happy to see the young people getting into the idea of MRA. At the first look, he is an old man of 82 years with shivering limbs who can hardly walk with the use of his walker. But when he speaks, he gets a new wave of energy in every new thread of thoughts he starts. His sentences are full of knowledge and each word he speaks carries the load of the experience he has gathered during these 82 years. Probably that might be the reason of his looks. The way he explains things is amazing. The voice modulation with the modulating emotions seems quite natural in his speech. Well, you can understand if one can do wonders with his pen, what if that pen starts speaking!

Suresh uncle gave me a recording of RM Lala’s lecture on ‘The role of purpose in Life’. I broke it into 6 parts and uploaded them on youtube. Suresh uncle asked me to show to Mr Lala, what exactly have I done. So I brought my lappy and after lunch I showed him his videos on youtube. Well, it was a small job for me but I was astonished to see the pleasure on Mr Lala's face when he saw himself being published on net. He asked me to come for lunch the next day to Pune. He was going to have lunch with Mr Chetan Tolia, the director of Tata Management Training Center, Pune. I really find myself privileged to have lunch with such dignitaries. They both had some stories and anecdotes to share about their experiences with Tatas. Mr Lala shared a story about how JRD cared about people. I have read many such stories about JRD. But this was the first time I was listening it from some one who has been WITH JRD when things happened! It was as if everything turned live. He insisted me on going to Tata Archives and have a look at the exhibition about the Tatas. It is one place to visit in a life time. When rest of the population in India was struggling for the political freedom, this family was preparing for India’s economic liberalization. From India’s aviation industry to automobile, from steel to software – they have pioneered many such industries. And in this exhibition there were bits and pieces of those moments. Its like visiting the Gandhi Ashram. I am thankful to Mr Lala who insisted me on going there. Otherwise I was in a plan to skip it.

All in all, I had wonderful time with the man called Russi Lala. Some of the most precious moments that I would carry back would be from these 3 days.

-SD

P.S. The Video Link - Role of purpose in life; RM Lala's website

Day 35

23^rd May, 2011

We visited Abhepuri today to attend the Grampanchayat meeting and then discuss things about the present and future projects. The discussion was more about a plantation program. The objective of the Panchayat was not to plant trees, but to get the monitory grants from government. The plan was to plant about 100 saplings. For that they needed 100 pits. This was a huge task. We suggested about Shramdaan, but the villagers were more keen on getting the JCB machines to dig the pits. They did not even plan for the maintenance. So it became very clear that their objective is not plantation, but the grant. During the discussion we met a person called Sachin. He was an electrician by profession and worked in Pune. He was a person full of energy. I was astonished to learn that the whole village was under debt of 60 millions. The village was facing water scarcity program and did not have more than one crop in a year. So they were in no condition to pay it back. And Sachin even feared that the banks might keep their lands on auction in future if they were not able to pay them back.

How come the whole village was in debt! That should be the next question. There was a scheme. A scheme to get water from the dam. I really don’t understand what happened and how the villagers were convinced, but all the villagers took debts from various banks. The scheme failed. The maintenance cost went too high. Moreover, no one was ready to take ownership. And so they did not attain the breakeven and finally in debt they are of 60 millions.

Sachin had a plan in mind. He had been studying some documents and maps. He had the map of the pipes and pumps in place. He had a plan in mind of how the village can be connected with the water in the dam. But then I don’t know why, the authorities did not seem to be convinced by it. Rather probably they did not want to get convinced. What ever the case may be, but there seemed a divide between the sarpanch and sachin. We went to the places around with Sachin. He showed us the pumps and wells. Jared said that if this system works out, most of the water problems of Abhepuri might get over. Lets see whats next.

-SD

Day 33, 34

21^st, 22^nd May, 2011, Saturday – Sunday

This weekend was fun. Saturday the interns planned to visit Pune. The Koreans wanted some authentic Korean food and rest all wanted to go for shopping. We started in the morning after tea and reached Pune by 10 30. The shops were still in the sleeping state. So went to one of the malls nearby. The lunch was planned at Café Maroo – a Korean restaurant. Koreans went crazy looking at the restaurant and the menu. Most of the items were non-veg, but they ordered something veg for me. It was a good experience having ‘Kimchi’ – a cabbage salad with a lot of red pepper and ‘Bibbibab’- very similar to mix veg pulao. But then it is always nice to experience something new. And in addition, having the sight of Korean girls eating religiously, I am happy for them. The rest of the day went in shopping! Amazing day.

The Sunday went lazy. Did not do much. Just lazed around, talked to people, cleaned the room and read a book.

More to come later

-SD

Day 31

19th May, 2011

Learning comes at very later part of the life - these are the words of Mr Vartak, the secretary of the MRA trust. Yesterday i had a chance to listen to the life story of Mr and Mrs Vartak. They are a very jovial couple. The turning and the learning points of their lives have really made an impact on my mind. This happens at the MRA center once in a week. Some or the other has to share their life story. This helps others in understanding the person better. So, that was it. These days I spend more time in the office. That too more on the internet searching for some or the other article or white paper written on anything related to rural villages and information and communication technology. I really wonder how the researchers can do this amount of research! Its really boring job. You have to first go through a hell lot of things that some other people have worked upon so that you do not re invent the wheel. It is not only going through, but you also need to understand what they have written all about! And trust me, its tough to read them. All the geeky and jargon-y language! I don't think I can do that. And I am kind of person who believes in getting some thing tangible, something that can be felt and touched, something that shows out put quickly. Lack of patience - I call it. But then yes, the research and the papers too are important. They create a base for what tangible output we can get from a system. Anyway. These days even Disha is taking up a form. Disha is a MRA or IofC Magazine published quarterly. The next Disha is dedicated to Grampari. And probably I would have an article or two in that. Lets see how it goes!

-SD

Day 24-25-26-27-28-29-30

12-13-14-15-16-17-18

One full week. I observe that the frequency of writing is decreasing with the increasing number of days I spend here in Grampari. I would take a note of it and try to make it more frequent.

I don’t even remember what I did on 12^th. But I am sure I might not have done anything important. Otherwise I would have definitely remembered it. Neither do I remember what I did on 13^th. But I guess I know why I don’t remember the stuff. It was because we were going to meet J ! She was coming on 14^th morning. Let us not discuss who she is and where did she come from and what she came for and etc. We were together for 3 days. I really enjoyed the 3 days. Anyway, so that’s till 16^th. The 17^th went on to make a schedule of rest of the days here. That’s about it. See… How easy it is to shrink things when you really don’t feel like writing. :P

More to come later.

-SD

Day 21, 22, 23

9th , 10th, 11th May, 2011

OMG! These kids are too much!

29 kids - 21 boys and 8 girls of roughly same age(14-16) have filled the grampari campus with a lot of fun and a lot of chaos. They are here on a 3 day camp which would include the four values of IofC, Importance of villages and Career opportunities for the youth. The first day started with the introduction session. I thought they were too shy to speak up. But that shyness remained only for 2-3 hours. After that as the sessions started and they got familiar with the place, the cacophony raised. By the dinner time, they were full fledged in their moods. But then they are kids. They are made to be mischievous!

The camp went wonderful. The kids were introduced to the idea of MRA and the four absolute standards. Later, we had discussions about various topics on the same lines. I opted to sleep with them in Grampari. Well, I must say, I had a horrible night! Some or the other noise kept on bugging me.

The second day was more of Grampari tour and Shram daan. They had a feel of what grampari worked on, the types of projects and livelihood programs. They also did shram-daan (labor donation). They built a tippytap, cleaned the weeds and the compost pit. In the evening, they discussed various problems they face in their villages. After dinner, it was dance, dhamaal and masti!

The third day was more of serious one. It was more focused on the opportunities in rural places and career development.

A few points that I learnt during the whole 3 day camp:

• Some things that we take for granted, are extremely important for villagers - eg. electricity, water and sanitation.
• We need to put ourselves in their shoes to understand their point of view. They are very simple and honest. Its just that we fail to understand that.
• Let the kids know the reality of the cities. They think that the migration to cities is the best possible solution to all the problems they face in the villages.
• Some of the sharpest minds of India reside in villages. Don't ignore them.

I made many friends during the camp. Pratik, Tejas, Sameer, Shreyas, Amit and Satish are few of them. Hope to see them soon.

The 23rd eve we had a meeting with Mr Ashok Mandre from Abhepuri. I must have referred him in other posts. He is very keen on making a website for his village. We discussed about the possibilities of it and how the website would be helpful in the development of the village. The discussion ended with 3 options.

1. A social website which lists out the achievements of the villagers
2. An internal site which would help them in organizing their data and increase in transparency of the operations of grampanchayat.
3. A website containing factual data about the village.

He has to decide on one of the options and come back to us.

Thus were these 3 days. hopefully, more would come later.

-SD