E-Paper
Stop migration to check exploitation
IF MIGRATION of people from the rural to urban areas were controlled, with the help of social entrepreneurs, the living standard of millions of workers could be improved by preventing their exploitation by industries and society could achieve overall development. This was stated by three German management students who arrived in the city during their visit to India. The students were here to bridge the gap between the developed and the developing countries by studying the social entrepreneurs.
IF MIGRATION of people from the rural to urban areas were controlled, with the help of social entrepreneurs, the living standard of millions of workers could be improved by preventing their exploitation by industries and society could achieve overall development.
This was stated by three German management students who arrived in the city during their visit to India. The students were here to bridge the gap between the developed and the developing countries by studying the social entrepreneurs. To complete their academic project, The students of the University of Witten and Herdecke in central Germany are visiting 25 developing countries in a period of eight months.
The three students, Jan Holzapfel, Tim Lehmann and Matti Speiker, have already visited Mumbai and the Thar desert in Jodhpur.
Talking to the HT, Tim, who defined social entrepreneurs, said, “Social entrepreneur is a person who is primarily guided by a particular mission. For him, making money is a secondary issue.”
In an effort to expand their networking, these students are carrying a device, Explora- 500, which provides uplinking and downlinking facility with IRMASAT while holding video-conferencing with the academicians, students and businessmen in Germany and other parts of the world.
Sharing a delightful experience on the Thar desert of India Matti Speiker said, “I was amazed at seeing that people of a village in the Thar desert have made storage facility of water for their daily uses, and it was because of their meticulous thinking that these people have almost overcome the water scarcity in desert area.”
They feel that owing to cheap manpower available in India multinational companies are exploiting them. At the same time, these multinational companies are making huge profit by selling the product in the country and exporting it to other countries.
“T-shirts manufactured in India are sold at a meagre cost in Germany or any developed country because of low manufacturing cost being incurred in India,” Matti said. These students were astonished at the fact that workers in India get low wages against their counterpart in European countries and expressed resentment at it. They said it happened due to ill effects of globalisation.
“In Germany, a labour works for eight hours and for every hour’s work he gets 14 euro while in India they get only Rs 70 to 140 for a whole day’s work,” said Tim Lehmann. They also said that experience to the maiden visit to India was very exciting but like other developing countries it should take initiative to encourage social entrepreneurship for the uplift of the society.
