KERALA RISING · FROM EXPORTING PEOPLE TO EXPORTING IDEAS and that publishing its most sensitive asset is both the strongest discipline on its own conduct and the foundation of the revenue that helps fund it. 7. Monitoring, evaluation, and the stop protocol Every programme publishes an independent assessment in full, regardless of outcome; the verification layer publishes its own error rate and corrections; and a written unwind protocol applies wherever an assessment is negative. This is the single most important administrative feature for a cautious department: the state’s exposure is capped at the next gate at every point, the evidence is public at every step, and stopping is a designed, orderly option rather than a political embarrassment. Being wrong in public, on the record, is treated as part of the design rather than a failure of it. WHAT A DEPARTMENT WOULD ACTUALLY BE DECIDING Not whether to adopt the framework, and not whether to fund it in full, but whether to authorise a small, bounded, fully-reversible first step, with the governance constituted before any money flows and an independent assessment published before any second step is considered. The largest commitment on the table at the outset is the cost of one proof corridor, and it is 29