Development inclusive of people in rural areas is not really distinct from development in general. Indeed it is not possible to have real development while excluding the majority of the people — the majority of Indians are rural.
Generally speaking, Indian rural populations and subsistence agriculture are almost exactly congruent notions. As long as that equation persists, India will continue to be underdeveloped and poor. The reason is that subsistence agriculture does not scale, and therefore the productivity is bounded by a very low limit.

Navi Radjou’s blog post titled, “India’s Rural Innovations: Can They Scale?” in harvardbusiness.org concludes with:
I strongly believe that the only way India can sustain its long-term economic growth is by unleashing and harnessing the creativity of its grassroots entrepreneurs, especially in rural areas. But here is the challenge: these grassroots inventions don’t scale up. Indeed, most rural innovation initiatives such as DesiCrew and grassroots inventions like Mitti Cool, however impressive they may be, are sadly limited in their impact to a local or regional market of a few hundred …

I have been promoting that idea — that the solution to rural development lies in urban planning — for a few years. The RISC model (Rural Infrastructure & Services Commons) is about planting the seeds of in situ urbanization in rural India. Glad to see that the idea that urbanization is essential for development and growth is gaining momentum. One of these centuries, the government of India may even wake up. Although by then, I will be with yesterday’s seven thousand year.

In an article in the Business Line titled “Kalam’s PURA will not work,” Lee Kuan Yew makes the case for urbanization of the population for India to develop.

The following is an article by me that appeared in ISB’s in-house magazine insight June 2008 issue.
There is a definite positive relationship between the size of the habitation and the productivity of the population.”
The full article is below.

Golf, not Chess
Economic growth in a sense, and to a much larger extent economic development, is more akin to a game of golf than a game of chess. In golf, the opponent’s moves matter very little; you may as well play by yourself and later compare scores if needed. In chess, your move depends on how your opponent has moved and how he is likely to respond to your move. In other words, chess is a strategic game while golf is not. All this is very broadly speaking, naturally. I …

India has been singularly unlucky in the sense that its movers and shakers don’t seem to get what it takes for the economy to prosper. Therefore it comes as a terribly pleasant surprise when one comes across a M&S who apparently gets it. Not only does the man get it, he gets it in spades and how.
Mukesh Ambani apparently gets it.

I was invited to attend a meeting at the Ministry of Rural Development at the Krishi Bhavan in New Delhi on the 7th of July. (Here is a note which I wrote while waiting in the lobby.)
The meeting was chaired by Renuka Vishwanathan, Secretary, Mininstry of Rural Development. Largely the meeting was attended by secretaries from various state governments such as Chattisgarh and Orrisa. There were a couple of people from President Kalam’s office; Dr PV Indiresan, the architect of PURA; Dr PS Rana, Chairman and MD of HUDCO (Housing …

Today’s Business Standard carries Rajesh Jain’s article on Transforming rural India, the hub way in which he discusses the RISC model.

The development of an economy is a natural consequence of the shift of labor from agriculture to manufacturing, and subsequently from manufacturing to services. Note that the shift refers to the labor; agriculture has to go on still but with fewer people.

John McCarthy of Stanford University has the following in his .signature file:
Those who refuse to do arithmetic are doomed to speak nonsense.
Over the years I have seen too many instances of errant nonsense that a little bit of arithmetic would have prevented. I think that the power of arithmetic is not fully appreciated. Even people in very powerful positions utter complete nonsense when they refuse to do simple calculations.