Ten identical bays stand on a single grey baseline against an off-white ground. Each bay has a solid teal ground floor, and above each ground floor rises an upper storey drawn only as a grey dashed outline, the outlined storeys varying in height across the row.

Series

Keralam 2040

Ten essays on what Keralam in 2040 would have to be, and what it must start building now to get there. Keralam manufactured the hardest input a modern economy needs, an educated population, and then watched much of it leave. The series traces the gap between the degrees and the firms that could have employed them, and argues for a domestic-led answer: the sharing network Keralam already has and what it is currently pointed at, research over rote schooling, builders over investors, one industry chosen and built whole rather than incentives spread thin across every sector, an ecological estate restored rather than spent down, cities that work with their water and green cover rather than paving over them, and the kind of company that no longer has to be founded somewhere else.

10 essays

  1. Part 1

    The Half-Finished Miracleമലയാളം

    Keralam solved more of the human development problem than almost any Indian state, but not the productivity problem. From a series asking what Keralam 2040 would have to be.

  2. Part 2

    Literate, Yet Joblessമലയാളം

    Keralam produced degrees more successfully than it produced people whom high-productivity firms can hire. From a series asking what Keralam 2040 would have to be.

  3. Part 3

    Factories Will Not Save Keralam

    Keralam does not need a factory. Keralam needs an institution that can hold a thirty-year industrial bet. From a series asking what Keralam 2040 would have to be.

  4. Part 4

    Built for Rescue

    Keralam owns a machine that can find anyone in the state when it matters. Whether machinery built for coverage can carry knowledge to a production line is the harder question. From a series asking what Keralam 2040 would have to be.

  5. Part 5

    Beyond Literacy, a Research Republic

    Keralam produces more papers each year. That is a starting point, not a destination. From a series asking what Keralam 2040 would have to be.

  6. Part 6

    Builders, Not Investors

    Keralam's diaspora has been sending capital home for forty years. Very little of it has been structured to build firms. The question is what would have to change. From a series asking what Keralam 2040 would have to be.

  7. Part 7

    One Industry, Built Whole

    A state that has the right kind of capital still has to say what it is for. Choosing one industry means building everything that choice requires, and the evidence says choose for what can be learned rather than for what is already in the ground. From a series asking what Keralam 2040 would have to be.

  8. Part 8

    What Keralam Is Still Sitting On

    Keralam protects what ecological wealth remains and quietly degrades the rest. Restoring it is not idealism but infrastructure with a measurable return. From a series asking what Keralam 2040 would have to be.

  9. Part 9

    The City Keralam Forgot to Build

    Keralam has the raw material most cities would pay to manufacture: backwaters, canals, forest edges, coastal frontage. Its cities are spending that asset down instead of building on it. From a series asking what Keralam 2040 would have to be.

  10. Part 9.5

    Your Turn, Keralam

    Nine essays argued a case for what Keralam in 2040 would have to be. This one asks what you would do with it. Three questions, and an interview you can run yourself. From a series asking what Keralam 2040 would have to be.

Still to come

Working titles. They may change as the essays are finished.

  1. Part 10

    A Company in Kochi