ADULT CRITIQUE OF STUDENT-SELECTED WORK TO: Tharun Ragupathi FROM: Kiruthika Ragupathi SUBJECT: Critique of Analysing the Reasons

for the Continued Success of the Public Distribution System in Tamil Nadu, India Firstly, I would like to congratulate Tharun on a job well done. Having attended the briefing and the symposium on HSSRP featuring three groups in 2010, he set a target for himself and his team (as a team leader) to be the ones chosen to present at the following years symposium. And it was such a pleasure to have watched him achieve the goal he had set. I would like to highlight a few qualities in him that made it possible: Careful planning of the short overseas trip planning interviews, the questions, meeting with people from varying income levels, overcoming language barriers, making his team-mates feel at ease in a foreign country and being there for them throughout the trip. I had the opportunity to watch the team in action as they went interviewing rural villagers. They had dynamic ideas. At one occasion there was an opportunity to meet a village Panchayat president (not a scheduled visit), Tharun had probing questions to understand the system, and in the process actually was able to learn a lot more on the history of the system. They were patient in listening to those villagers who thought that they were helping the officers tweak the distribution system. There were days when they were on their toes from 9am 7pm. Team work encouraged team members, especially those who did not have the opportunity to take the trip to participate in all team discussions and influenced his team-mates to go beyond what was necessary A sense of ownership and enjoyment it was good to see the team have a sense of pride and ownership of the project. But Tharun also made specific plans for his team-mates to explore some parts of rural India. This project has also motivated Tharun to undertake more projects involving social service. Presentation skills both in drafting the report and delivering the presentation at the symposium held at the National University of Singapore in 2011. It was such a pleasure to have been able watch him present at the symposium. He was confident in the way he started the talk. He was able to handover sections of the presentation seamlessly. It is also important to note that he handled the questions from the audience well. They had anticipated some of the questions and were polite and confident in answering the questions.

However, I felt that during the final stages of completing the paper, he could have managed the time properly in preparing the drafts and the final paper. He had not anticipated the time delays that would be caused when drafts need to be submitted to the mentor and the supervisor. This led the team to do a last minute scrambling to get the final paper be submitted on time. They worked through a long weekend to finally get it settled.

Childs Name: Adults Name/Signature:

Tharun Ragupathi Kiruthika Ragupathi /

Date:

28 July 2011