Even Elephants Can Dance

My friend Zakir Thomas is a revenue service officer; but he is more comfortable in developmental work than being an enforcement officer. At present he is the project director for Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) a unique initiative by Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and is personally mentored by its DG, Dr. Samir Brahmachari.

Though concept of Opens Source development has been in practice for a long time (though not in this name), it has become quite popular with the advent of internet, more so with the availability of collaboration tools (now referred to as web 2.0) which has enabled communities across the globe to work on solutions to complex problems.

Internet itself is product of such collaboration and Linux, the Operating System, is one of the most known open sources software. There are hundreds and thousands of such initiatives out there today in a variety of fields. Sequencing of human genome can be seen outcome of such a participative effort. However, in fields like Pharma where the cost of research, testing and regulatory approval can be phenomenal, collaboration is considered suicidal. On account of such high cost Pharma companies have least interest in working on development of drugs for ailments which particularly affect the poor (TB, Malaria etc) or which affect few people are very limited. They are keener on development of drugs for lifestyle ailments like Blood Pressure and Coronary Diseases

It is in this area the model of open source development is attempting to play a role. Today there are only few such initiatives in the world like Tropical Drug Initiative (Participants from University of California Berkeley, Dukes University, University of Sydney), Institute of One World Health, TB Alliance etc.

OSDD initiated by CSIR is an initiative attempting to provide affordable health care to the developing world, presently focusing on development of drug for TB which today kills two people every three minutes in India. OSDD has taken of well with participation from about 4500 scientists/ students from 130 countries. It has completed mapping of TB bacteria genome a record time. It already has two molecules for TB in the pipeline. CSIR hopes that they will be able to bring out at least one drug for TB in the near future.

I asked Zac what has made this possible. “A few People with commitment and Tools that made collaboration possible” he replied. He introduced me to two fellow scientists who were with him then who is working from Institute of Genomics & Integrative Biology(IGIB). Sridher Sivasubbu is a PhD in fish genetics and Vinod Scaria a medical doctor who is equally comfortable with computers. Both of them are young and highly qualified to have picked up high paying jobs in private sector in India or abroad. But they have decided to dedicate at least few years of their life to this initiative. Their energy level, enthusiasm and commitment for bringing multidisciplinary skills through collaboration to develop better drug for TB is awe-inspiring.

There are more of such dedicated scientists across the labs who share this passion. Zac suggested that I read the book “Geek Nation” by Angela Saini in which she has dedicated an entire chapter (titled The impossible drug) on this collaborative effort of a number of committed professionals from multiple labs across India to find a cure for TB. (This book is worth reading as it gives an interesting perspective on the dream, hope and possibility of India becoming a scientific super power).

What OSDD has done is to make the platform available to for these professionals to collaborate among each other and with the best around the world who are willing to join. I hope that OSDD is able to build on this momentum and don’t get ossified to a white elephant when the pioneers move on.

It is a commendable achievement for a government institution to work on such revolutionary models. We see such islands of excellence in many parts of the government. What is unfortunate is that often there is no mechanism to sustain this momentum. When the pioneers move on there is no planned succession. Successors are not selected keeping in mind the requirement of such exceptional institutions; but following a process which is meant to manage routine operations. And that is the tragedy of governance we face often.

Elephants can dance; so long as we play the right music…

"It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed." - Charles Darwin

Related Readings

Competitive Advantage - A case for blogs and wikis

If wishes were horses

Dare to Differ

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“It is elementary my son” (humour)

One of my friends mailed me this funny story. Once upon a time on a cold wintry morning a sparrow was out from his comfortable nest looking for few morsels to fill his stomach. It was too cold and the wind was so harsh, that the sparrow fell down almost frozen. He was lying there helpless. Then a bull passed by and pooed on him. The hot manure warmed the little sparrow and he felt very comfortable. He was happy and he started to sing. A cat heard the song and it found the sparrow relaxing in the warm poo and it pulled the sparrow out of the poo and ate him up.

There are four morals we learn from this story.

i) Those who shit on you may not be your enemies: In our life and career, there will be many instances when the action of somebody will harm, belittle or demean us. Very often it may not be intentional; but just coincidence or matter of his survival. If we look from the other person’s point of view, there may be extenuating circumstance if not genuine reason. Sometimes it could be their revenge or they could be absolute a--holes. Whatever be the reason we suffer and we feel hurt.


The important thing is that we need to survive this assault, this insult or this harm. If we get caught up in the anger and spent our time in planning for revenge, we waste our time, our effort and our health which otherwise could be channelized for towards more fruitful end.


If we are in a situation where we have to deal with with unadulterated a—holes, it is better to kick them out or get out from such a place. (The book “No Asshole Rule” by Robert I. Sutton makes an interesting reading on this topic)


On the other hand, if we hurt somebody (specially their ego) we need to keep in mind that most humans love to get back and take revenge. If we want to avoid escalation of this conflict, we should either try to patch up or make sure that we are not in the line of fire of they won’t dare to react :-).


ii) Those who take you out of shit may not be your friend. When we are down and out, many of our old friends may not take a second look at us. Then we come across somebody who is keen to deal with us. We feel thankful and obliged. May be they are good Samaritans; maybe they are trying to take advantage of our plight or weakness. Even if it is genuine good will, don’t overstay our welcome; else he may not remain our friend

We need assess the situation dispassionately. The temporary setback should not make us succumb to any deal. The failure or loss in one arena does not diminish our value in all spheres; there is no need to feel defensive and no need to negotiate from an area of weakness. We negotiate based on what we are good at and more so based on our faith in ourselves.


iii) When you are in deep shit, keep your mouth shut: Some of us are very trusting, which is very good if we mix it with prudence. When the chips are against us, we need to be more careful about what we share, what we complain about, what we cry out loud about, or what challenges we broadcast or whom we trust. Discretion becomes all the more critical or else we give us away.

iv) Eventhough it may provdie some comfort shit is still shit:  Very often when we indulge in actions that are illegal, currupt, unfair or unscrupulous we may derive certain money, fame, pleasure and comfort. But if we decide to wallow in this shit, one day it is going to catch up. Remember the big cats know where to look for.
“I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself” Niccolo Machiavelli

Taming the Corruption Tiger

Corruption (‘private gain at public expense’) has always been a matter of concern for the mankind since time immemorial. Many people love to eliminate this completely; but this is a disease which we may never be able to eradicate totally.

We see wide disparity in the level of corruption across the countries. Transparency international undertakes an annual survey and publishes Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of countries. No single country has ever got the perfect score of 10. Only five countries out of 182 get score above nine, 23 above seven and 47 above 5. India with a score of 3.3 has a rank of 87 which falls in the middle.

One of the interesting revelations of the CPI is the strong correlation between human development, economic progress and CPI. Is it that the economic progress reduces the incentive for corruption or the low corruption facilitates economic progress? It is both. There is a strong mutual dependency between economic progress and CPI. Chile is one of the few countries  that has managed to move from being a developing country to an almost developed country in the last few decades. Chile is also one of the very few developing countries with a high CPI score (7.2) giving it a rank of 21, which a level USA.

Corruption is a part of human nature. What can control it are the mechanisms in place to restrict it. The legal infrastructure and the strength of enforcement determine how easy it is to get away with corruption. (I don’t deny the influence of culture in corruption. But I strongly believe that this culture of corruption is not hardwired into the brain of certain class of people making them more corruption prone. Some people may find it easy in comparison to others to behave with less civic sense and in more socially unacceptable manner. Strong enforcement and an environment that is conducive can limit this cultural bias and bring about better discipline. Denmark today with a CPI score of 9.3 is the world topper. Remember the famous quote from Hamlet "there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark". Another example from home is the extent of cleanliness and efficiency Delhi metro has managed in its trains and stations which is significantly of higher degree compared to any other public utilities)

We in India have been struggling to manage this high level of corruption. The Anti Defection Law and the Right to Information (RTI) Act definitely help in this direction. The Jan Lokpal Bill has been struggling to get acceptance by the parliament for more than four decades (The recent high profile initiative by Anna Hazare of Civil Society was an attempt to force the government to take a definite action on this) We still don’t have a proper whistle blower protection act.

Legal enablement is definitely a necessary requirement; but, it is not a sufficient condition. Strong Judiciary can ensure justice; but, today we have a serious problem of a large number of pending cases blocking the judicial machinery. “Justice thus delayed is Justice denied”. RTI is an excellent tool to bring about transparency. But the resource constraints can prevent this from scaling up.

When we look at the disparity in the level of corruption across countries, the major differentiator is the extent of corruption and inefficiencies in the areas that affect day-to-day life of the citizens, whether it is to get some clearance, approval or certificate or to run their business. Corruption in high places and in areas with high stakes is the most difficult to control anywhere in the world. But if we manage the former, 90% of the irritant value may be removed for the society as a whole. When we take care of this petty corruption, it may also help to bring to open high-end corruption because  the dealing hands have all the incentive to blow whistle as they do not benefit from corruption anymore and thus no more are they partners in crime.

Today the progress in information Technology provides us with significant opportunities to improve governance processes. IT enabled Governance (IteG) can help improve process efficiency, it can help in bringing about better transparency, it can measure performance efficiency and publish the same, it can provide analytical support for risk management, it can reduce leakage and so on which are all elements that can bring about improvement in governance and reduce opportunities for corruption.

It will also help easy outsourcing of service delivery without loss of control enabling government to focus on policy making and policy administration. The income Tax Department’s outsourcing of PAN issuance, the Ministry Company Affairs online initiative and the Ministry of External Affairs initiative of Passport Processing etc are examples of successful implementation of this model. In each of these case we have witnessed significant improvement in turnaround time and elimination of petty corruption.

The IT enabled Governance (ITeG) is still in its early stage. It was not so far away when we could observe the PCs in a typical government department placed at the boss’s cabin with secretary using this as a word processor. Those days are gone. But we still have a long way ahead. Even when a catalytic role is played by some central authorities, it is often limited to budgetary control by purse holders with limited appreciation of the larger role of technology enablement. This is akin to what happens in the corporate sector when the controller (Finance and Administration) is in the driver’s seat as far as computerisation is concerned. What we need is to evolve a nationwide strategy for ITeG and develop a framework for managing ITeG Projects with respect to people, process and technology.


The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference ~ Bess Myerson

Related reading

Amateur’s tips on e-Governance
Give us the Facts
To be or not to be (Part 1) - The Art of Cooking
The art and ethics of lying - Part II

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