KERALA RISING · FROM EXPORTING PEOPLE TO EXPORTING IDEAS continues to fall year on year. Against civic budgets that run to thousands of crores, the verification cost is immaterial; the substantive costs are people and coordination, which the book does not understate. – That it need not be a standing burden. The institution is structured to develop its own revenue over time and to cover its running costs, so the public commitment is a one-time capitalisation rather than a recurring subsidy, and the technology at its centre is the least costly component, not the most. None of these claims requires believing anything novel about human behaviour, public institutions, or technology. Each rests on combining established, separately-evidenced facts. That is a point in the framework’s favour: a proposal that depended on an untested theory would deserve more caution than one that recombines what is already understood and already documented. The quality of the evidence The book’s factual claims are drawn from named, verifiable public sources, including this state’s transport and sanitation authorities, its tourism statistics, national public-health research, World Bank estimates, and the official migration survey, and every decision-relevant figure is presented as an illustrative planning assumption to be confirmed 18