

Bill Gates in India, Day 1: Getting Better All The Time - manishsp
http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Topics/Health/Day-1-India-QA-with-Prannoy-Roy-and-Aamir-Khan

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fpp
Remember meeting Mr G in New Delhi while I was working for an organisation his
foundation has so far provided more than $1.2Billion to.

Now I'm working on creating transparency with open data so that others can
find out where these and $23Billion more went.

See the project at [http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/open-data-for-
transparency...](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/open-data-for-transparency-
in-development-aid)

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melling
India is the US + ~1 billion people. It would be great if great if most of the
country could move into the middle class within a generation.

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option_greek
"Last year our foundation sponsored a “re-invent the toilet” fair where 14
universities submitted innovative answers to that problem."

The toilet designs provided in the link are interesting. It looks like nothing
can actually replace water usage for sanitation completely.

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chiph
Once you get above a certain population density (and India is way beyond
that), you have to apply significant technology to the problem. Example:
London in the 1840's, where there were repeated cholera epidemics. Their
solution was to build over 100 miles of sewage line to move it closer to the
ocean. That's not an option in much of India (the Ganges and other major
rivers are already toxic with human waste), so they'll have to spend hundreds
of millions of rupees on advanced treatment & reclamation systems.

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robomartin
Here's what I don't get: India has about one hundred nuclear weapons. Yet they
can't invest in a sensible sanitation infrastructure?

I know at some level this is nonsensical. The question really is more about
whether this is a problem of priorities rather than capability or finances.

The average income in India is reported at somewhere around USD $100 per
month. How many people and resources do you need to construct the required
infrastructure? How much would it cost?

I don't know the cost of a typical nuclear weapon and the required support
infrastructure. It can't be cheap. A billion dollars would put a million
people to work for ten months. Is it a matter of misplaced priorities?

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teeboy
India lives in a hostile neighborhood. And those programs also employ
thousands of engineers and scientists. I know it is tough to reconcile, but
progress has to happen all fronts simultaneously. Like USA couldn't wait to go
to the moon in 1969 even though they had millions of poor.

~~~
robomartin
And in what universe do nuclear weapons fix the neighborhood?

"Interesting game. The only way to win is not to play."

~~~
teeboy
We don't live in a utopic world. Nuclear weapons did fix a lot of things. Like
being free from constant bullying tactics. It also led to the greatest stretch
of indigenous development of technology since India's independence. The
economic blockage helped us stand on our feet with pride.

So yes, it was a positive development.

