
“Development has been a buzzword in the past few years which has been used and abused to shape the political and economic dimensions of entire nations. It is projected as a broad purpose and justification of all activities, often without answering the questions of whose development and how. Three decades of being a development practitioner while also wearing the hats of an academician, leadership consultant or policy advocate at times has not been enough for me to arrive at a definitive definition of development. The experience has certainly helped me evolve my understanding of development and the fact that it has multiple dimensions, that there are multiple perspectives about it and that it is not enough to just define development, but more important to comprehend what it truly means and feels like to different people. Further, my belief that development is a “constant expansion of human capabilities” and that it must result in the creation of ‘Human & Social Capital’ to be meaningful has only strengthened over the years.” – Excerpt from the book, ‘i, the citizen’ by Dr R Balasubramaniam.
Listen to my thoughts on this in a video talk that I gave to volunteers from a corporate.