{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-post-query-tsx","path":"/news_post/business-standard-had-lunch-with-dean/","result":{"pageContext":{"post":{"slug":"/news_post/business-standard-had-lunch-with-dean/","title":"Business standard had Lunch with Dean","date":"Jan 08, 2015","timeToRead":7,"description":"Our Executive Director, Dean Spears had lunch with the financial daily Business Standard. Dean answered a question which is often asked, 'why did r.i.c.e. choose to work in India?'. He also discussed the current state of Swachh Bharat Mission and why it should keep its focus on eliminating open defecation, rather than getting diverted from a life-saving campaign to cleaning up the litter from the markets of urban rich.","body":"function _extends() { _extends = Object.assign || function (target) { for (var i = 1; i < arguments.length; i++) { var source = arguments[i]; for (var key in source) { if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(source, key)) { target[key] = source[key]; } } } return target; }; return _extends.apply(this, arguments); }\n\nfunction _objectWithoutProperties(source, excluded) { if (source == null) return {}; var target = _objectWithoutPropertiesLoose(source, excluded); var key, i; if (Object.getOwnPropertySymbols) { var sourceSymbolKeys = Object.getOwnPropertySymbols(source); for (i = 0; i < sourceSymbolKeys.length; i++) { key = sourceSymbolKeys[i]; if (excluded.indexOf(key) >= 0) continue; if (!Object.prototype.propertyIsEnumerable.call(source, key)) continue; target[key] = source[key]; } } return target; }\n\nfunction _objectWithoutPropertiesLoose(source, excluded) { if (source == null) return {}; var target = {}; var sourceKeys = Object.keys(source); var key, i; for (i = 0; i < sourceKeys.length; i++) { key = sourceKeys[i]; if (excluded.indexOf(key) >= 0) continue; target[key] = source[key]; } return target; }\n\n/* @jsxRuntime classic */\n\n/* @jsx mdx */\nvar _frontmatter = {\n  \"title\": \"Business standard had Lunch with Dean\",\n  \"date\": \"2015-01-08\",\n  \"template\": \"post\",\n  \"slug\": \"business-standard-had-lunch-with-dean\",\n  \"postedLink\": \"https://riceinstitute.org/news_post/business-standard-had-lunch-with-dean/\",\n  \"description\": \"Our Executive Director, Dean Spears had lunch with the financial daily Business Standard. Dean answered a question which is often asked, 'why did r.i.c.e. choose to work in India?'. He also discussed the current state of Swachh Bharat Mission and why it should keep its focus on eliminating open defecation, rather than getting diverted from a life-saving campaign to cleaning up the litter from the markets of urban rich.\",\n  \"tags\": \"Media\",\n  \"banner\": \"business-standard.jpg\"\n};\nvar layoutProps = {\n  _frontmatter: _frontmatter\n};\nvar MDXLayout = \"wrapper\";\nreturn function MDXContent(_ref) {\n  var components = _ref.components,\n      props = _objectWithoutProperties(_ref, [\"components\"]);\n\n  return mdx(MDXLayout, _extends({}, layoutProps, props, {\n    components: components,\n    mdxType: \"MDXLayout\"\n  }), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Our Executive Director, Dean Spears had lunch with the financial daily Business Standard. Dean answered a question which is often asked, 'why did r.i.c.e. choose to work in India?'. He also discussed the current state of Swachh Bharat Mission and why it should keep its focus on eliminating open defecation, rather than getting diverted from a life-saving campaign to cleaning up the litter from the markets of urban rich. He also talked about the reasons why the average height of a Chinese baby is greater than the average height of an Indian baby.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"We have posted the full interview here. \\xA0Its available online on the Business Standard website \", mdx(\"a\", {\n    parentName: \"p\",\n    \"href\": \"http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/lunch-with-bs-dean-spears-115010201065_1.html\",\n    \"target\": \"_blank\",\n    \"rel\": \"noopener noreferrer\"\n  }, \"here\"), \".\"), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"Rural India is a dismal outlier when it comes to open defecation and that\\u2019s a major reason for its stunted, unhealthy children, the Princeton economist tells\\xA0Kanika Datta\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"It never occurs to\\xA0\", mdx(\"a\", {\n    parentName: \"em\",\n    \"href\": \"http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=Dean+Spears\",\n    \"target\": \"_blank\",\n    \"rel\": \"noopener noreferrer\"\n  }, \"Dean Spears\"), \" that an invitation to\\xA0Lunch with BS\\xA0might be an opportunity to indulge in even the mildest of hedonism. Since the meal is on Business Standard, many of our guests understandably choose upscale restaurants. Spears\\u2019 first suggestion for our meeting was the canteen at Delhi School of Economics where his wife, Diane Coffey, co-founder of Research Institute for Compassionate Economics (Rice), was making a presentation.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"Too noisy, I say, so he innocently suggests we could carry the food into the visitors\\u2019 room, a solution I reject out of hand. His next choice is a shade more ritzy: Evergreen Restaurant in Green Park, famous in the area for its vegetarian snacks and sweets.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, mdx(\"a\", {\n    parentName: \"em\",\n    \"href\": \"http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=Rice\",\n    \"target\": \"_blank\",\n    \"rel\": \"noopener noreferrer\"\n  }, \"Rice\"), \" is a three-year-old policy and advocacy group focusing on child and maternal health in India and it\\u2019s already making an impact. It was founded with funding from the Gates Foundation and, recently, the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the US department of health and Spears, an economist from Princeton, is widely considered its moving spirit.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"Both he and the institute have been attracting notice for highlighting the strong link between widespread open defecation in rural India, high infant mortality and the stunted growth of children, factors that ultimately impact a country\\u2019s economic productivity. These are issues that go right to the heart of Prime Minister Narendra Modi\\u2019s\\xA0\", mdx(\"a\", {\n    parentName: \"em\",\n    \"href\": \"http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=Swachh+Bharat+Abhiyan\",\n    \"target\": \"_blank\",\n    \"rel\": \"noopener noreferrer\"\n  }, \"Swachh Bharat Abhiyan\"), \" campaign launched with such fanfare on October 2 last year.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"In June, Rice came out with The SQUAT Report, an extensive survey in rural India of Sanitation, Quality, Use, Access and Trends, to spell out the full form, that proved depressingly revelatory. Among other things, it revealed that uniquely in India open defecation isn\\u2019t just a result of poor access to sanitary infrastructure but also a behaviourial choice. Most rural Indians, the report said, can afford a toilet but preferred not to have one. Even more incredibly, those who did own toilets often preferred to defecate in the open. In fact, the report highlighted, India was one of the significantly worst performers in terms of sanitation compared with even significantly poorer countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"When we do meet, I discover Spears is just 31 years old, roughly in the same age cohort as those Indians the media and businesses are wont to describe as \\u201Caspirational\\u201D. Rail thin and yet to shed his college grad aura, it is clear that Spears\\u2019 only aspiration is for his mission. But he is no\\xA0jholawala\\xA0in any sense of the term. He and his organisation rely on painstaking, unfashionable data collection and hard statistics to present a distinctly unlovely picture of an insanitary, unhealthy rural India.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, mdx(\"span\", {\n    parentName: \"em\",\n    \"className\": \"gatsby-resp-image-wrapper\",\n    \"style\": {\n      \"position\": \"relative\",\n      \"display\": \"block\",\n      \"marginLeft\": \"auto\",\n      \"marginRight\": \"auto\",\n      \"maxWidth\": \"173px\"\n    }\n  }, \"\\n      \", mdx(\"span\", {\n    parentName: \"span\",\n    \"className\": \"gatsby-resp-image-background-image\",\n    \"style\": {\n      \"paddingBottom\": \"209.82658959537574%\",\n      \"position\": \"relative\",\n      \"bottom\": \"0\",\n      \"left\": \"0\",\n      \"backgroundImage\": \"url('data:image/jpeg;base64,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')\",\n      \"backgroundSize\": \"cover\",\n      \"display\": \"block\"\n    }\n  }), \"\\n  \", mdx(\"img\", {\n    parentName: \"span\",\n    \"className\": \"gatsby-resp-image-image\",\n    \"alt\": \"1420217705 098\",\n    \"title\": \"1420217705 098\",\n    \"src\": \"/static/5274c63d7ab9ffba42f845e46ed35bc0/3cf25/1420217705-098.jpg\",\n    \"srcSet\": [\"/static/5274c63d7ab9ffba42f845e46ed35bc0/3cf25/1420217705-098.jpg 173w\"],\n    \"sizes\": \"(max-width: 173px) 100vw, 173px\",\n    \"style\": {\n      \"width\": \"100%\",\n      \"height\": \"100%\",\n      \"margin\": \"0\",\n      \"verticalAlign\": \"middle\",\n      \"position\": \"absolute\",\n      \"top\": \"0\",\n      \"left\": \"0\"\n    },\n    \"loading\": \"lazy\"\n  }), \"\\n    \"))), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"Dean Spears\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"We\\u2019re on the first floor of Evergreen. Spears is a frequent visitor and he quickly orders in fluent if accented Hindi\\xA0\\u2013 rajma,\\xA0butter naan and Diet Pepsi. To save time I do the same. \\u201C\\xA0Chawal ya naan?\\u201D\\xA0\\xA0Spears asks me.\\xA0Chawal,\\xA0my Bengali genes automatically respond.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"Why should two young Americans, with access to the best that life can offer at home, choose the dubious comforts of India in general and Sitapur, a rural district in Uttar Pradesh, in particular to live? It was a joint decision with Diane, he explains. \\u201CWe\\u2019re economic demographers and both of us wanted to do work as useful as possible. India is the best place for that for a lot of reasons.\\u201D\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"First, he says, there is an enormous number of poor but also \\u2013 and this sounded encouraging to me \\u2013 \\u201Can environment where one hopes the evidence of research and better understanding can help one do something about it. The number of people who live in India is almost the same as the number of people who live in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America put together,\\u201D he continues. \\u201CWhat is less known is that the fraction of people who live on a $1.25 a day, the extreme poor, is almost the same in India as those two regions put together \\u2014 and so is the infant mortality rate.\\u201D\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"These facts, he says, get overlooked mainly because international development experts are used to seeing India as one country. So Sitapur has a population of 4.5 million people, which means it\\u2019s basically the size of a country even though it\\u2019s just one of India\\u2019s 600-odd districts. Also, \\u201Cthe population of Sitapur is almost the same as Sierra Leone and Liberia and, strikingly, the infant mortality rate of Sitapur is almost the exact same as the infant mortality rate of those two countries. Now, those two countries are some of the biggest human development basket cases on earth. Sitapur would be too if it were a country. Sierra Leone and Liberia have a health ministry, education ministry, a Unicef mission; Sitapur has none of that. So it made a lot of sense to go somewhere like that and add value,\\u201D he concludes.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"The food arrives in record time. The spicy rajma reminds me of boarding school where it was dished out regularly for being cheap and nutritious. I covetously eye a crisp naan dripping with butter and Spears generously asks me to help myself, which I do with alacrity while he spoons a tiny portion of rice on to his plate.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"I am most admiring of his command of Hindi since despite nearly 18 years in the capital my grasp of the language remains inept. \\u201COh, it\\xE2s not all that good,\\u201D he demurs, \\u201CDinah mujhse hoshiar hai,\\u201D \", \"[\", \"Dinah is better than I am\", \"]\", \". He explains that his wife\\u2019s name becomes Dinah in Hindi since, pronounced slightly differently, diane\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"is the Hindi word for \\u201Cwitch\\u201D (which roughly corresponds to dynee\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"in Bengali, I think).\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"\\u201CNow tell me about yourself, so that I can get in a couple of bites,\\u201D he says. This recitation is embarrassingly short so he manages a few mouthfuls before the talk inevitably turns to Swachh Bharat. He\\u2019s worried that it is going to be too much like a giant construction programme like the United Progressive Alliance\\u2019s Bharat Nirman Yojana.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"\\u201CBuilding a bunch of cement buildings is the easy part. The hard part is that it fundamentally matters what people do. The latrine is an asset that households have; open defecation is a behavioural pattern. What we want to do is to get more people to use latrines. But the last time I checked, the budget for Information, Education and Communication had decreased\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"from 15 to 8 per cent. That\\u2019s moving us in the wrong direction.\\u201D\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"Still, he\\u2019s happy that the government has been talking about a latrine-use monitoring survey. \\u201CAnd when the prime minister says he hopes to eliminate open defecation by 2019, I am delighted and hope that we can come together and succeed.\\u201D\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"What also worries him is how far the campaign stays on track. He whips out a tablet from his backpack to display a picture he\\u2019s taken of a hoarding in Defence Colony with a verse that ran \\u201CClean up the clutter/Shun the litter\\u2026\\u201D and so on. \\u201CI\\u2019m very much afraid Swachh Bharat will be diverted from a life-saving campaign on sanitation to cleaning up the litter in markets of the urban rich,\\u201D he says.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"Isn\\u2019t one impediment to greater latrine-use water shortage? \\u201CThat\\u2019s a myth,\\u201D he shoots back. \\u201CSub-Saharan Africa has much lower access to water than India but also much lower rates of open defecation. India is a global exception \\u2014 60 per cent of people who defecate in the open in the world live in India. Every year, that number goes up. When we asked people, nobody talks about water.\\u201D Nor, he adds, did it have anything to do with education \\u2013 plenty of people in rural India have high school degrees and still defecate in the open.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"I suggest women must be the biggest advocates of latrine use because of the safety and privacy. True, Spears says, but the issue is more complex. \\u201CIf you have a latrine, young women are a lot more likely to use it than men are. Yet, a majority of women in their twenties in households with a government-built latrine defecate in the open. Then, we ask women who do use latrines what will happen when you get older and become the saas\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"? Many of them say, \\u2018then I\\u2019ll go back to defecating in the open\\u2019! I must say I don\\u2019t claim to perfectly understand this,\\u201D he laughs.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"It was the puzzle about height that got him interested in research about sanitation. \\u201CEconomists care a lot about height because average population-level height is an important monitor of human development. The best evidence: European populations got taller not when the food environment got better but when the disease environment improved and infant mortality fell. And the average height of a population is basically about the health and nutrition of its babies in the first two years of their life.\\u201D\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"Surely south-east Asia and China are counterfactuals? He surprises me by saying the average Chinese baby is much taller than the average Indian baby. Height, he explains, is measured by something called a Z-score, where zero is average and a negative number is bad. In China, the average number is (-) 0.75; in India, it is (-) 2. And in China, open defecation may be 3 to 4 per cent.\")), mdx(\"p\", null, mdx(\"em\", {\n    parentName: \"p\"\n  }, \"We\\u2019ve polished off the rajma and eschew dessert in favour of tea (for me, to counter the soporific effects of the rice). Spears settles for the caffeine fix in his 600 ml bottle of Pepsi. Meanwhile, the bill is placed, as Spears notes, in front of him \\u2013 \\u201Chave you noticed, they always expect the man to pay?\\u201D I\\u2019m too busy noticing the amount, which at Rs 433 has got to be the cheapest lunch\\xA0Business Standard\\xA0has ever hosted.\")));\n}\n;\nMDXContent.isMDXComponent = true;","tags":[{"name":"Media","slug":"media"}],"banner":{"childImageSharp":{"fluid":{"src":"/static/f22fe31cabc7e28117c4c4bf94a07f30/29765/business-standard.jpg","srcSet":"/static/f22fe31cabc7e28117c4c4bf94a07f30/55357/business-standard.jpg 200w,\n/static/f22fe31cabc7e28117c4c4bf94a07f30/29765/business-standard.jpg 500w,\n/static/f22fe31cabc7e28117c4c4bf94a07f30/1f218/business-standard.jpg 1000w","aspectRatio":2.5,"sizes":"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px","base64":"data:image/jpeg;base64,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"}}}}}},"staticQueryHashes":["318001574","3787687951","3787687951"]}