DK Kapila The Oracle

  The   Mindset of an   Agri Tech S tart Up Founder – A Perspective By Dinesh K Kapila, CGM (Retd) NABARD.   Traditional agribusinesses have historically operated within linear, low-margin frameworks, a new class of agritech founders has now emerged to redesign agribusiness, critical value chains and manufacturing. However, building a scalable agritech enterprise is structurally distinct from digitized platform based entrepreneurship. The agritech founder must possess a unique psychological architecture, it diverges sharply from that of a urban oriented standard enterprise entrepreneur. Because agriculture is fundamentally an open-air, biologically constrained, and culturally entrenched system, founders require a profile of measured risk tolerance, operational patience, and deep, field-level empathy. The fundamental goal of agritech is the optimization of resource use, the reduction of post-harvest waste, and the enhancement of farmer income throu...

  Three short stories from Haryana, maybe an insight somewhere !! Dinesh K Kapila Haryana, the normal perception is that religion or spirituality or being urbane is normally miles away from its residents. Let us see if this theory holds, as I heard these stories, or what I understood of the stories, I am sharing. Now to the first story. A person from Haryana, deep in the hinterland, saw videos about people meditating and said to his friends, just why are we sitting quietly, see all these guys sitting in Benaras and Badrinath and other religious places who have managed to evolve into higher souls. Why the hell should I be left? I am also going to pray, so he decided he was not only going to pray but attain a higher level of consciousness. He decided he was going to go to the nearest hill and climb on top of the highest point in the open and then only he would start to meditate. The second he he started to climb he thought once he reached the peak he would smoke a bidi before ...

  Real World Wisdom – Do not Keep a Cat as a Pet. By Dinesh K Kapila   This story is from centuries ago. There was a small village, an old wise Sage, as they say in the West, Swamiji as we say, used to live there in an ashram. It was set against a thick forest and a stream. A young man in search of wisdom, serenity and the secret of life came to this ashram (hermitage). He requested the old wise Swamiji to   accept him as his disciple. The Sage said I am rather on a different path, my quest for awakening and the connect to divinity is through a lived experience of life with spirituality and meditation alongside. The disciple readily agreed and joined as a   young monk   and became very soon a devoted disciple, always engaged in acquiring the knowledge of spirituality.   After two years the young man had progressed a lot in the quest of spirituality, but was still a novice. He realised that the old Swamiji was very old and declining in health, he would...

  Review - The Book Insights from the Frontlines of Governance. Author - Mr Suresh Kumar. IAS (Retd ), Former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt of Punjab and Chief Principal Secretary to The Chief Minister, Govt of Punjab.     Review by – Dinesh Kumar Kapila , CGM (Retd), NABARD, Author / Mentor. This short review of the captioned book examines its core themes, framework, and the assessment of Governance, of course it has an emphasis on Punjab but it goes much beyond Punjab. It’s a reflection of the author’s experience and simultaneously its looking forward on Governance, along with its challenges, complexities and aspirations.   The chapters on Punjab resonate for those who hail from this region. The Author, Mr Suresh Kumar, a retired Indian Administrative Service officer, brings decades of grassroots and macro-level administrative experience to the book. The fundamental premise of the book is that governance is a continuous learning process rather tha...

  Stories about Frauds and the Mind of a Fraudster Dinesh Kumar Kapila Just an opening question to lead into the topic, why do some men, even seventy plus years old, fall for the oldest fraud in the world, that a young lady out of nowhere is calling up and is genuinely interested in them, then repenting after sometimes paying out huge sums. Before trusting the Fraudster, they should simply look at the mirror and know their own reality ! This question is to lead into the issue, the flavour of it.  A friend of many years was speaking to me today. The name of a mutual acquaintance came up as we talked, I came to know that inspite of a stellar and well known track record in committing frauds, this mutual acquaintance had pulled off yet another fraud. Even after knowing about him, the victim still played along, believing he, the victim was also onto something major to gain. And the amount was also substantial. Yet it happened. And ever so smoothly.  No matter the fall out or t...

  For a short Doordarshan interview, kind courtesy Ruchit Garg, Founder HFN and our informal Agritech forum, being based in this region I could only say that maybe shifting the focus on shifting from a "yield-maximization" mindset to an "income-optimization" mindset was a given. Every structure and system had a life and then needed to be revitalised or reset. We had to understand this while fully understanding the plight of the marginal farmer as also rural aspirations. 1. The Pivot: From Commodity to Commerce "Commercial Agriculture" isn't just about farming; it's about business management. Farmers need to treat their land as a factory and their crops as products. A shift away from the traditional wheat-paddy cycle by exploring high-value alternatives such as horticulture, floriculture, and specialized oilseeds, would be in order provided they are linked to pre-arranged market buyers. Or a clear marketing path carved out.,In this context I h...