The latest issue of Businessworld has an in-depth interview with Vinod Khosla in which Vinod refers to the economic model RISC — Rural Infrastructure & Services Commons. (Unfortunately, the reporter does not get the name of the model correct in his reporting.)

An email exchange with Reuben got me thinking about biodiesel. I wrote saying:
I am not sure what ‘biodiesel’ is. I am assuming that it is some sort of oil that is extracted from some plant that is grown for the purpose and which oil can be used to fuel a diesel engine.

It is important to remind ourselves from time to time what poverty is all about. Poverty has something to do with production. Not exactly the most esoteric bit of knowledge but often it gets forgotten in the shuffle. To produce you need to have what we call factors of production which are usually broadly classified into land, labor, and capital.

In an email to Yuvaraj, Mr. M V Subbiah of the Murugappa Group wrote:
Thank you very much for sending me the RISC model.
I have read it with interest and entirely agree that India has very little chance of being a major player in world without integrating the rural economy. Having said that and having been trying in our own small way to integrate the rural areas which we are working with in our sugar factories, I am beginning to believe that we need to get some help from specialists who …

Understanding what motivates a specific solution to a problem is important if we are to have some reason for pushing the solution. Here is mine with respect to RISC – Rural Infrastructure and Services Commons .