Mumbai - January 5

I am currently typing this blog on a Gateway P.C. tower which has a floppy disk drive connected to a Samtron 56V, and using WordPad as my word processor (which lacks spell check--I've done my best) and the machine sounds like a freight-train. The internet is running at 100mbps, but it's about as slllllllow aaaaaas molllllllasses.
Anyways, onto my blog:
Although I experienced many surprising and exciting events, places and people here, there were a few events that made the most impact on my visit in Mumbai. I was most impressed by the academic panel that we listened to and spoke with during our first day in Mumbai. We had a panel of four women professors speaking to us on a range of topics that are greatly important to current India. The two topics that were of great interest to me were women entrepreneurship and foeticide. During the discussion on women entrepreneurship we heard about how the ratios of women entrepreneurs are low, which I recognize as being similar to the U.S. However, it seems to me that the types of women entrepreneurs are different than those in the U.S. The women in India are almost singularly in areas of cultural/social entrepreneurship. I am very interested in how women entrepreneurs find financing for their ventures, as I know that it is much more difficult for women in the U.S.to find financing, over men. I asked the panelists and they responded with the overwhelming surprise that there are many organizations that are offering venture capital opportunities for women, like Marashtra, NavaBean, and the MCED.
The second topic that I had interest in was foeticide. Another professor spoke on the subject starting my stating that 55% of India's population is under 25 years of age. This blew me away. She spoke about the ethical, social, and legal situation with middle to upper class urban women choosing to abort female children after a prenatal sex-determination. I was unaware of the rates at which these incidents were occurring and was interested to hear about the many NPOs (not-for-profit-organizations) and NGO (non-governmental-organizations) that are currently becoming involved in taking action to help eliminate this phenomenon. The most profound statement that this professor made was "The first step, and most important step, is to create change agents. Once this has begun, we will be on our way."

I'm currently freezing, which is common as the AC's are extraordinarily powerful here as it gets so hot outside. According to one classmate, I look like a safari-lady, another one said I look like an archaeologist. It might be the last time that I wear khakis. :)
Chalo!!! (that's Hindi for "let's go") which might not sound like a good parting phrase but it is the extent of my language after 3 days--aside from food names that is!!!)