The Misfortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
Nearly 20% of India's population forms the base of the socio-economic pyramid, earning less than Rs. 100 per day By the time Mr. C.K. Prahalad published his most famous and cited work in August 2004, I had spent two years in Pratham, the largest primary education NGO in India. Till then, I had seen the innards of our metros - particularly Delhi and Mumbai - and had seen enough to know that the reverend management Guru had a point, but was not convinced in entirety. The book spoke of the BoP as the 4 billion poor of the world, living on an annual income of less than $1500 (which translated to just over Rs. 5000 per month then). In the Indian context, this Bottom of the Pyramid had a population of 400 million, around 40% of the country's people. But it was clearly visible, even then, that this BoP has several layers, and the bottom-most of these layers (often called the poorest of the poor) did not qualify for any of Prahalad's theorizations. Thousands of young me...