Blog Categories Blogging ! In my limited perusal of this form of "self expression on the web" I have realized(noticed ?) that there are essentially some basic broad categories of blogs ..

One is the diary format spilling out my daily "..I got up in the morning and used Dabur laal dunt manjan as toothpaste, aaj i ate pickled porcupine pastry, puked, still couldn't stop eating, hate my job and my boss, today he told me to walk his dog types.. ).Basically these are the online versions of some kind of a reality TV show, recounting ones daily life, though unlike on TV you can choose to talk about what you want ! There also includes some analysis of why they are like they are and what they think etc.. I think these are the majority ones ..

Then there are the others, which usually have no references to their personal life as they live it day to day, but are of the "things we love and want to share" ..the touchy feely, maudlin kinds...
("phool"y kinds), the cute baby version of the blogging world

Then ofcourse you have the link integrators (most professional blogs are like this) ..where the blogger puts together "interesting" links in his subject of expertise and usually leaves a minimal comment accompanying each link..

Then there are others like mine (most boring of the types ofcourse), where there are minimal links..and more like a commentary on a particular issue ..

In the next few posts I will try to include all the different styles mentioned above .. should be interesting..would also welcome comments from people about other characterizations of blogs.. :)

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  Micro Credit I have not blogged for a considerable period of time now and happy to note that some closest friends and family have been complaining. Good to know that atleast *someone* actually reads this stuff..

I guess one of the reasons I didnt write is nothing really "shook me up" enough to take out the finger (so to speak) and start typing away. I recently heard from a blogger that the person actually writes out something during the night and then finalizes it in the morning. I can almost never do that. My writing is a steady flow of consciousness. I dont think much during writing , it works best when its just a flow of awareness , a train of crystal clear realization, a rapid procession of ideas that are waiting ,bound in chains of thought, peeking out, waiting expectantly to leap out at the at the first opportunity when they are set free, on to the screen.That is why by necessity something should be sufficiently interesting and get me excited and worked up enough to actually blog !

There was such an idea which I hapenned to see on television a few days back which actually forced me to say that I have to blog this ! I was watching Charlie Rose ( a great show btw, just a no frills round oak table, and sublime, engaging, literate,intelligent conversation between Rose and a wide variety of the most interesting and talented people in the world ) on PBS on Friday night. The guest this night was a man names Mohammed Yunus. He is the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Basically this person was the pioneer of a concept called "micro credit". Yunus a PhD in economics and a professor of economics in Bangladesh approached all the major banks in Bangladesh in 1977 asking them a simple question. Why dont you give credit to the poor ? The bank managers baulked at the idea. They told him they dont have any collateral to provide, if there is a bad debt then we have no way of getting our money back and so on.He then started personally providing his name as the guranteer for the loans.Eventually he realized that it would be better if they opened their own bank which they did in 1983, the Grameen bank.Today the Grameen bank provides micro-credit loans without a collateral to more than 3 million people in Bangladesh.

Several absolutely fascinating things came out of this discussion. The professor said that he believed that as, the right to live, right to work etc are basic human rights in most countries of the world so should a right to credit. He said that about 3 billion people in the world (about half the population of the world) still lives under 2$ a day. The biggest challenge facing mankind today is to raise their level of living, to eradicate this scourge of poverty.The promise of science and technology in making our lives "easier" cannot be fully realized if half the world is still living even without any basic means to sustain themselves.So what to do ?

To add to that (my comments) it is not possible that you can expect everyone to have an advanced education like some of us have had the good fortune of having. You cannot reasonably expect every villager in a third world country to have the one thing which would take him out of the poverty trap,education. However and this is key, if provided the bed rock , the seed , the very fundamental starting point of a business , i.e capital they can perhaps atleast build a small business and can lead a better life. For that they need credit. But no bank in the world today would give them this accutely needed resource. So basically this half of the world is denied even an opportunity to "do something with their life" ..actually forget about that (to worry about that is the perogative of brooding arm chair pseudo intellectuals like us), they are not being even an opportunity to live a life in which they have enough to eat and a decent place to stay ! The Grameen bank seeks to rectify that..and as mentioned above it provides small loans to those people who want to start their own businesses and its been a very big success with a staggering 95% repayment rate.
I like this idea , it appeals to me in the "Give a person a fish, you can feed him for a day, teach him to fish you can feed him forever" kind of way...

He also mentioned one more very interesting fact. He said that 95% of those loans were made to woman, because they realized over time that they were the ones which had a much higher promise of return. He said that in third world countries poor women become experts at money management, they become true masters of stretching the dollar as far as it can go. Over a period of time, it becomes ingrained in their genes how to make do with the meagre money their husbands provide, how to make the most of it. That is why they found that woman tend to use their earnings wisely, investing it prudently for the children's education and procuring healthy food etc..Moreover they are the ones who use their traditional house hold skills to run sucessful businesses (like selling milk, thrashing out paddy, making traditional food items and handicrafts ).

Overall I think its a fantastic and potentially "changing the face of the world" idea. It is something which has the potential of providing everyone in the world a chance, an opportunity , atleast a faint beacon of hope to lead a somewhat more comfortable existence :)  ¶ permalink 5 comments