[by Cerius Shah] While Sergey Brin is enjoying Zero Gravity flights with the Mayor of San Francisco, Google.org has teamed up with Soros and the Omdiyar network (philantrophic firm founded b Pamela and Pierre Omdiyar, the founder of eBay) to put $17 million in a venture to fund small and medium enterprises in India.
According to the press release, the fund will target the “missing middle”, equity investments between $500,000 (Rs 2 Crores) and $3.5 million (Rs 14 crores).
Google has a few data mining/philanthropy projects operating in India. It has a $1 million multi year grant to IFMR for creating “district level development indices” that support mapping of information including government database information.
It also has a $880,000 multi-year grant to PRS Legislative Research to track the performance of members of parliament, and procure photocopies of state laws throughout India. Maybe I am being paranoid, but non-profits have a history of covert control and ‘tracking parliament member performance’, is ting-a-ling my spidey sense.
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