Best Commencement Speeches Ever delivered

admin — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 05:18:10 +0000

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Do you remember when was the last lime you actually heard a speech and remembered even one single thing that the speaker said?

No, I am not questioning the ability of any speaker on how well he/she can engage the crowd, rather I am trying to insist on the fact that most of the people are least interested in hearing speeches. F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, Speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.' And yes, there are some speeches that actually left an impression on those listening and even on the ones who read thereafter.

Here we are bringing some of the best commencement speeches by people who are known in their industry. Please spare us in case we have missed on at some otherdo not forget to mention it in the comments section. Here you go

1.Three Stories of my Life: Commencement Speech by Steve Jobs at Stanford University
You may call it my personal choice but believe me this one actually deserves to be on number one. This Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005, is the most liked and shared commencement speeches on the internet.

Read full speech here

2.Commencement Address by J K Rowling, The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination, at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association
I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.

Read full speech here

3. Greylock Partners data scientist DJ Patil's Commencement Address on Utter Failure at University of Maryland, May 2012
DJ Patil delivered the commencement speech at University of Maryland speaking about the role failures play in everybodys life.

On your day of such great accomplishment, Id like to talk about something we rarely celebrate: failure. And why we are counting on you to fail. Now bear with me, and youll see where Im going.

Read full speech here

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Learning Management through Movies

admin — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 05:12:44 +0000

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Can Management Education be imparted with the help of something as frivolous as watching movies? And Im not talking BBC documentaries or lecture videos from Harvard (telling us how beautiful our lives can get because of that new Economic theory.) What Im talking of are movies that we see purely for entertainment. But isnt that a little ironical?

Arent movies supposed to be a source of entertainment? Some sort of respite from the stressful schedules, the rigors of assignments and the paranoia associated with GPAs and placements?
Isnt movie-watching far removed from the hustle and bustle of a B-School class, typically characterized by no-nonsense lectures, never ending PPTs and assignments, surprise quizzes and intense competition?

Movies give us those rosy fantasies where nothing can go wrongmanagement education throws at us those real- life problems which unlike in the movies, we may never be able to set right.
How then the twain shall align?

Had I been asked all this a couple of months back, I would have scoffed at the idea and probably the question too. But, here I am, writing about this and by now, the reader must have realized where this is heading to.

So what made me change my mind?

For starters, I joined MDI, Gurgaon and met teachers who not only were masters of their subjects but also champions in the art of generating interest about it. It was Prof. Ashok Kapoor (Faculty, Communications) who gave us the idea as a method of effective learning. Needless to say, people were skeptical. But then, after a few sessions, the results were there to see. Class participation had increased, classes were more interactive now and the theories which were so tough to remember earlier, were branded in the memory. The method was a masterstroke and one thing was for sure. at MDI its not about rote learning!

BUT, the question still remains. Does Salman Bhais Bodyguard really have hidden management lessons?

It may or it may not. This article is not written with an intention to prove that every other movie that is churned by our film industry is a disguised tutorial in management, but then there are movies which really teach us a lot and can act as wonderful tools to aid management education.
I will share my experiences of a few movies that we analyzed as a class during these two months.
Truth be told, it was a little troublesome to critically evaluate every scene in the movie from the perspective of Marketing strategies, Organizational behavior, Effective and Ineffective communications or HR practices. But it has now become a habit. We call it Watching movies: The MDI way

The first movie that we analyzed was Twelve Angry Men, the 1957 American film which was adapted from a teleplay of the same name. The film tells the story of a jury made up of 12 men as they deliberate the guilt or acquittal of a defendant when reasonable doubt exists. I had seen the movie before, but never could I have imagined that it could act as such a strong discourse for outlining the problems associated with Consensus-building, Communication barriers and Perception biases.

12 men Conflicting opinions Arguments Selective Filtering Noise Information overload!
It appeared as if somehow the chapter which deals with Barriers in effective communication had suddenly come alive. There were various instances in the movie when one or more of the jurors were depicted as taking a biased stand over some particular issue. Perception biases like stereotyping, halo effect and horn effect which act as an Achilles heel for administrative decision making were outlined. There also were insinuations of racial segregation and we could see how even educated people who were at such powerful positions, knowingly or unknowingly indulged in Racial profiling.

As an HR student, I found all this to be of particular interest. Reading about perception biases clouding decision making or the problems of building consensus is one thingto actually see them happening is another.

The other movie which was particularly enriching in terms of content and the value it provided was our very own Chak De India.

The film was actually arranged as a tool to help us understand the various tenets of Coaching and Mentoring in a better way. Throughout the course of the movie, we were encouraged to take note of the various ways in which SRK was able to inspire the Indian National Womens Hockey Team.

Ideas flew thick and fast, the class was abuzz with activity and it was remarkable to see how interesting the module had suddenly become. The one thing which everyone talked about was Passion. Shahrukh was passionateabout hockey, about winning. He wanted to instill the same passion and enthusiasm in each member of his team. Therein went our first lesson. A true mentor instills passion in the mentee.

Also, Shahrukh outlined the vision clearly. The players were playing for the Indian National Womens Hockey Team and were there to compete in the World Cup. Nobody was bigger than the team and nobody played for their State teams or for themselves. It was INDIA they were playing for.

A leader must play that unification role. He should unite and not divide. He should bring parity and he should bring cohesiveness.

Sometimes tough decisions have to be taken. Shahrukh as the coach of the team, made a senior player sit out. He also allowed himself to be perceived as a villain by everyone, just to get the team together and unify them. He was willing to be the fall-guy. That is the hallmark of a true mentor.

Sometimes, his decisions may not please the mentee, but then, those decisions have to be taken. Performance orientation was a highlight of the coachs working method. He was not bothered about past records, reputations or seniority. That objective approach was a key for the ultimate success. The importance of discipline cannot be overemphasized and we could see how discipline was inculcated. Mentors sometimes have to be hard taskmasters.

Another important aspect was the coachs emotional connect with most of the team members. A mentor isnt just a performance manager. He has to be a counselor, a father figure, someone whom the mentee looks up to in times of trouble! No decision about mentorship and Chak De India can ever be complete without talking about the Strategic role that must be played by the mentor. The movie is replete with instances where Shahrukh formulates effective strategies which help the team overcome all odds and become the world champions. A mentor should be a strategist par excellence. Last but not the least, who can forget the pep talk by Shahrukh Khan to the players in the dressing room just before the final match against Australia! The mentor should inspire, encourage and bring out the best from his pupils.

Its not been long here at MDI, and I already have something that Ill cherish forever. The practice of watching movies-the MDI way is sure to continue. And I am sure we will continue to enrich ourselves with this unique way of learning.

Until then.Cheers for those who came up with such awesome movies! And a sincere hope that we still have meaningful movies in the future.

Concluded.

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Learning Management through Sports

admin — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 05:10:34 +0000

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Students at MDI Gurgaon are finding novel ways of learning the aspects of management. Recently last week, they organized the Mandevian Premier League (MPL) formulated by the Sports Club of MDI designed on the lines of the popular national cricket league IPL. Apart from just playing the sport the intention was to practically learn the aspects of Game Theory and Strategy.

Explaining the process, The Nominations were invited from the batch to be managers of different teams who then took up the bidding for the various players participating in the cricket tournament. All the teams were given equal amount of virtual money (Rs12000/-) and similar to IPL the team managers had to bid for icon players which had a base price. The managers then had to start bidding for the rest of the team based on the available pool of players. As the points allotted to every team were limited they had to make the team keeping in mind the available points. At the same they had to keep in mind that the popular players with superior performance will be bid higher and as such the team had to have a balance of star as well as other players.

MDI offers the subject of An Application to Game Theory and Business by Prof. Rohit Prasad. Under this course students learn to apply the concept of Game theory in real life situations.

Game Theory is the study of strategic decision making. It can be applied to different fields like economics, political science, sports, biology as well as psychology.

Auctions are good examples where game theory can be applied. There are in fact 4 distinct type of auctions that take place in todays world: First price sealed bids, Second price sealed bids (Vickrey auction), Open ascending bids (English auction), Open descending bids (Dutch auction).

In the process at MDI, The managers had virtual money. With this money had to bid for different set of players to make their team and their payoffs are the combination of strategies that derive expected utility (winning the bid for the desired players) for the managers. The auction of the players is based on the traditional English auction known as going, going, gone auction although some progressive base price was identified for the icon players based on the bidding. Further all the players had their base prices based on their respective popularity as identified by the Sports Club.

This is where interesting part comes in. The managers all have a fixed amount of money and a team to make. They learn the art of portfolio management, and act as venture capitalists who have to analyze and judge the players on practice or past performance.

Both the batches of the PGP programs participated in the novel concept and it turned out to be a huge success. Once done, students tried to improvise and are now planning to hold a Vickrey auction for a similar league in Futsal.

Students of 2 year also take up projects as part of the Game theory subject where they shall analyze real life examples/ cases and make scholarly articles on them at the end of the term.

Concluded.

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Book Review: Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat

admin — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 04:19:10 +0000

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Introduction: The author of Revolution 2020, Mr. Chetan Bhagat is a famous author whose preceding novels were bestsellers. Most of his works inspire movie makers to cinematize the plot. His books strike a chord with the youth. Bhagat is a pass out of prestigious institutes of the nation-IIM and IIT, which is what, makes him even more appealing to the generation next.

The book revolves around struggles of a protagonist (actually antagonist) Gopal and how he gives in to the condemnable system. The landscape of Revolution 2020 also entwines the lives of Aarti & Raghav into Gopals life.

The plot, set against the backdrop of small town Varanasi, paints the aspirations and scrambles of Gopals life. Gopal is ambitious about earning money. He wishes to be rich but doesnt know right path. Gopal falls in love with Aarti and the only thing he dreams of is becoming her lover. His career goals go for a toss, if his friendship with her is not going well. She however is in love with Raghav. Raghav has a dream for his country and courage to chase his dream. He is passionate about the values that he upholds. Raghav aspires to be journalist who does meaningful journalism for his citys welfare.

Analysis & Evaluation
The central theme suggests that Indias education system is flawed. Year after year, engineers are being churned out of private institutes with meaningless degrees. Bhagat satirizes on the directionless youth and parents who try to squeeze their unattainable dream out of their children.
The book depicts todays Indian youth. It is yours and mine story involving all neighbourhood characters. Chetans writings are so figurative that one can mentally sketch out his description. The sheer grace, with which he defined Varanasi, almost made the book a tourism campaign. Also, Bhagat magnifies human thoughts beautifully.

However, there is rawness in the story. The book is full of unfounded aphorisms about girls. The end isnt impactful. There is predictability in the plot, stuffed with clichs. When you name a book Revolution 2020, it is supposed to be ultra-radical, especially in times of Anna Hazare. However, the book doesnt live up to its name. It delves deeper into the emotions of the protagonist forgetting the bigger picture. Revolution against corruption is only present in bits and pieces throughout the book. The major chunk is a sardonic sarcasm against the education system without any thoughtful solution.

However, we must pat Bhagats back for choosing to write on the most significant issue pertaining to education system. The effortless narration and flow of the plot is also commendable. He captures umpteen human shades suggesting that there is no black and white, it is all grey. All in all a light hearted novel which most youngsters would relate to.

Conclusion
Youth, today are chasing unwarranted goals without putting much thought. Few of them, who are oriented, are incapacitated owing to the systemic inadequacies. The system is eclipsed by corruption. The despondency lies in the indifference of youth towards the insurmountable task of eradicating corruption. Youth should garner enough courage and initiative to uproot corruption. Their unstinted support is a must have for a better India.

Concluded.

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8 qualities a person must possess to succeed in a relationship

admin — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 05:00:38 +0000

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Relationship- the word itself might sound like sweet music to some whereas for others it might send jitters down their spine. So what exactly differentiates between these two breed of people? Well, little things make all the difference. Now the term relationship is so broad- it may stretch from the ties of kindred to the intimacy of romance to the not-so-romantic relationship with your boss; that it is practically impossible to dwell on the entire spectrum of relationship. So lets just stick to the romantic bit as of now. So what exactly is the mantra for being successful in a relationship?

Well, read on to find out!

Trait 1: Being communicative: Talk to your partner about practically anything and everything ranging from the very intimate of your feelings to the mundane tid-bits of day to day life. The baseline here is to keep the line of communication open no matter what. Distance too cannot pose a barrier these days what with all the technologies around. No matter where you are, your love is just a phone call or a left-click away.

Trait 2: Honesty: Communication should be open as well as honest. Remember that lies cannot be hidden forever and the skeletons in your cupboard are gonna fall out some day. So if you have a Pinnochio hiding somewhere within you, just nip it in the bud. A relationship based on conceit is bound to fail.

Trait 3: Having that emotional connect: A lot of relationships are superficial as though the partners do interact verbally and physically, that emotional connect which is the elixir of a relationship is missing. But well as you might have guessed, unlike the other traits it happens more by chance than by toil. But still, there is no harm in trying.

Trait 4: Work-life balance: It is crucial to the success of a relationship. It happens so often that you are so lost in the labyrinth of your work that you just have no time or inclination to give time to your partner. You might think it as just a temporary situation that will pass but trust me my friend, work never ends and love never stops for your work.

Trait 5: Ability to say sorry: Never consider apology as a sign of weakness but rather a sign of strength as it reflects ones ability to admit his/her mistake. Though you might not notice it, but just as the little saplings grow into big trees; so do the little differences that crop up everyday between people give rise to irreconcilable differences. The bottomline is instead of waiting for the other person, be gracious enough to apologise and move on.

Trait 6: The strategist trait: Well, its not actually a business plan we are talking about or the Lokpal bill but even your relationship requires an effective strategy. Now we dont exactly expect you to jump at this last statement and rush to the nearest desk, but a little seriousness is welcome all the same. Unless you analyse what went wrong, how are you gonna rectify it?

Trait 7: Health: So enough of your relationship. Now lets talk about your physical health. While having Supermans physique is welcome; that is not exactly what we mean. What is important is to keep healthy. If you are not physically fit, how are you gonna cope with everything else. As some very great man (and I have a gut feeling it was me in my last birth) once said: Health is wealth.So it is.

Trait 8: Positive outlook: Be positive towards your work, performance, opportunities and your life as a whole and your positive outlook is surely gonna rub onto your partner. Remember that everyone loves a smiling face and it can be achieved only when you have hope throbbing in your heart.

So that is all as of now and if anyone is wondering whether I am out of ink or out of juice then my friend, kindly remember that I am a firm believer in trait 4 and as I write these last lines, I sense my girlfriend giving me some not so friendly glances and my belief in practising what I preach forces me shut down my laptop and finish this little masterpiece of mine.

Concluded.

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IPL Cricket : Double O' Quits?

admin — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 06:49:49 +0000

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When the two-piece swimsuit bikini was launched in 1946 it was presciently named after the Bikini atoll in the Pacific where the first atom bombs were being tested. What the atom bomb did to warfare and thus to politics the bikini did to swimwear, public sexuality and modernity. The IPL has not been given a prescient name but its impact on cricket and sports in general, and on Indian capitalism will prove to be as far reaching as the bikini or the Bomb.

Is IPL a good thing or a bad thing? Despite bouts of bad press IPL is going from strength to strength. It began with Lalit Modi`s outrageous genius and it has galvanized Indian and world cricket, refilled ageing and abandoned stadia, skyrocketed TRPs of TV, brought in an avalanche of glamour, money, women, fashion, cars, booze, parties, media and a whole new buzz into the art and business of cricket. Inevitably it has also brought in new varieties of sleaze and scandal replacing old varieties.

Exactly like what happened when the bikini first came, a lot of ageing and spinsterly voices are getting scandalized over IPL, and in their outrage are getting their knickers in a twist. MPs want to ban IPL, worried about nobility of sport, morality, and the chastity of Indian culture being threatened by IPL`s hedonism. Cultural pontiffs are shaking their heads in wise I-told-you-so manner. Some say the sport itself is getting defiled. All this just because of some extra booze, broads and moolah? Rubbish. Truth is IPL has started a new cricketing era with a bang. Let us set the record straight.

First the Puritanism. What after all is the source of sacredness in the 5 day, 2 innings version of the game? Tracing it back we find it located in its origin and pedigree, in the form of cricket that was played among the counties in the feudalera of England in short, in imperial snobbery. As the name of county cricket itself indicates it was the game of counts, dukes, and earls and their lads whacking around the leather all day during lazy, long summer months with bouts of boozing and wenching thrown in. It inevitably palled by the fifth day. In essence this is the fountainhead of cricket`s purity.

Next, what of test cricket? What exactly is the testing element in test cricket? All games are a contest but no other game is called a test. There are no football tests, hockey tests, baseball or basketball tests. Why? A little reflection will trace the origins again to England`s imperialism.

When did test cricket start? After decolonization, and in the times of national independence movements. On the imperial side the attitude was, okay you coolies may have learnt to ape us but your mimicry of cricket needs to pass the test, preferably at the Lord`s. On the colonized side the attitude was, beat the sahibs in their cricket and that will stop their strutting and preening. Cricket too was an arena of national independence movement of the people. The testing element was not in the art of batting or bowling but in the national aspect of the pro- and anti-imperialism in the colonies. Public interest in cricket even now is, not surprisingly, confined to ex-colonies of England.

Much water has flowed down the Ganga since. The empire has struck back with vengeance, and all nations are now equal supplicants at the Yankee high table. So in the Post-Everything 21st century let the whining about test cricket be finally laid to rest.

In India the prime test cricket era was the heyday of BCCI, a club of ex maharajahs of Thispur and Thatpur apeing the counts of England and overseeing their sons and dependants playing the stately game. It absentmindedly managed Ranji and national cricket, helped along with benign patronage of the State. Ranji trophy itself was named after a princeling who swung a mean bat in county cricket. Overwhelmingly male, sexist, upper caste, and deeply feudal that pre-IPL cricket of India was preeminently crony-feudalism.

Truth is pre-IPL cricket was actually savarna-dominated matrices of patronage produced by Nehruvian State-feudalism, not some democratic harvester of cricketing talent. Once you passed the Kafkaesque meshes of patronage and got into the Team you played, regardless of your performance till you could even lift the bat. Very much like and parallel to the golden age of bollywood music when only less than half dozen artists sang for thousands of films till they croaked.

In that era cricket in India had no money, or hope of a future to offer to the talented boys of UP, MP, AP, etc except through the narrow and chancy stranglehold of patronage politics which excluded nearly all of them from the outset. That cricket belonged to the constellation of Doordarshan, fountain pens, industrial licences, celluloid films, Bakelite telephones, Ambassador cars, Bata shoes, and carbon copying. People were interested in test cricket because of the evaporating but still residual freedom-struggle nationalism which was totally unlike today`s combative market-brand nationalism. The older nationalism was inward, bound up with self-discovery if you won or scored a good shot you were modest about it while exulting inwardly. Today`s market-brand nationalism is aggressive, a vehicle for self-assertion players and even spectators ( who buy Rs. 1000 stadium ticket each day) in victorious moments pump the sky violently and roar and rage with wide open carnivorous mouths like predators.

It was the good fortune of India and global cricket that capitalism caught up with cricket not in England but in India. And it luckily happened precisely when, unleashed by Manmohan Singh, India was given its chance of connecting with a global capitalism going viral in the post- Soviet era space. And like wherever capitalism goes IPL too is tearing apart all shibboleth and also holy verities.

It is only IPL 5 yet but already it is the Mecca of the best players of the world. It is seen by the talented boys of small town India as a democratic and viable career option despite their humble status of caste or connections. It is keeping alive cable television industry in India otherwise deadened by the advertising mughals. It has created city-clubs of teams with some real social allegiances for the first time in history. It has set in motion huge hoards of money comparable to other major branches of industry. Soon womens IPL too will see light of the day. In short, IPL will transform Indian and world cricket beyond recognition. We are seeing just the opening overs now. The prophets of Manmohanist globalization are a tad embarrassed to claim it yet, but things like IPL are about all that they have to offer to Indias youth, alongwith Kaun Banega Crorepati and BPO call centres.

These are early days yet. But IPL has already undermined the all powerful BCCI fundamentally. Already some voices are talking about delinking the two. Soon BCCI will be history when IPL will have attained puberty. It is not insignificant that some far-seeing elements of the BCCI itself have already started owning or investing in IPL teams.

What of the art of the game itself? When power tennis first came with the likes of John McEnroe serving highly angled serves to the amiable Arthur Ashe, there was much tut-tutting. But who remembers the amiable tennis now? Sad but true.

Moreover, focusing on the craft itself, what is inherently true about bowling or batting endlessly without limitations of time or overs? Close examination of the game reveals that one gets out eventually mainly because of fatigue-driven lapses. What does it test? Endurance, or stamina, but that is all. Instead, T-20`s tightened framework of overs` limitation, field restrictions, no ball and bouncer management, etc makes the game a much sharper test of a larger number of cricketing skills actually. Anyway, games evolve, driven by the needs of players and spectators. Always have.

But sleaze? Of course there is sleaze. But capitalism is like that. Why single out cricket alone? Does it not exist in industry, medicine, military, politics, judiciary? Give this cricket some time. It too will sanitize the risible side of it, and stabilize it. Capitalism does that too.

IPL-25, News report: Silver jubilee IPL had its opening ceremony in Srinagar yesterday. Art and Gym show was followed by a spectacular march past by girls and boys of all IPL Cricket Academies including from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia. This follows the successful end of the one-day World Cup Test Trophy last month. The historical section, sparsely attended, had films and posters of cricket`s past including items like BCCI, ICC, 5-day tests, Dhoni, Pietersen. The Lalit Modi torch was lit by Bhola Pasi, captain of the last years winners Patna Panthers.

Concluded.

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Women MBAs who made it Big

admin — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 04:52:02 +0000

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Women is Sri, she is radiant, her aura is illuminating. She is effervescent, enlightened, astute and thoughtful and more so her ability to handle too many things at a time is exceptional.

It has been said time and again that women make good managers. They have this natural ability to handle ten things at a time. Breaking the glass ceiling in a male dominated society is difficult. It has its own challenges, requires sacrifices, has family and society related pressures, which are well absorbed by women.

We are dedicating this article to this quality of women and to those who have beaten all the odds and have emerged as a winner in their field. Lets take a look at Indias leading corporate ladies who made it big after attaining MBA.

Chanda Kochhar, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Bank Limited, she began her career with ICICI as a Management Trainee in 1984 and has thereon successfully risen through the ranks by handling multidimensional assignments and heading all the major functions in the Bank at various points in time.

Born in Jodhpur, Rajasthan and brought-up in Jaipur, Rajasthan, Chanda moved to Mumbai, where she did Bachelor of Arts from Jai Hind College.

After graduating in 1982, she pursued Cost Accountancy ICWAI and later went on to do Masters Degree in Management Studies from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), Mumbai.

Shikha Sharma is MD and CEO of Axis Bank Ltd. An MBA from Indias leading B-School IIM Ahmedabad (Batch of 1980), Shikha gave 28 years of her career to ICICI Group as ICICI Prudential head.

She completed her schooling at the Loreto Convent in Delhi and graduated in economics from the Lady Sreeram College, Delhi.

After finishing her post graduate diploma in software technology from the National Institute of Software Technology, Mumbai, she went on to do MBA from IIMA.

Vinita Bali, Managing Director, Britannia Industries, has always made unconventional decisions. In 2005, she left Zyman Group to take over as CEO of Britannia Industries and later became MD of the company.

A Bachelor of Economics from Lady Shri Ram College for Women at the University of Delhi, she earned an MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), Mumbai.

She received a scholarship to Michigan State University in the United States and served as an intern at United Nations Headquarters. Her name has also appeared in 2011 Forbes 'Asia's 50 Power Businesswomen' list.

Group General Manager and Country Head of HSBC India, Naina Lal Kidwai, 54, is a chartered accountant by profession, who also earned a Bachelors degree in Economics from University of Delhi and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1982.

She was one of the first women to enter the formerly male bastion of investment banking and rise spectacularly.

She has repeatedly ranked in the Fortune global list of Top Women in Business and 12th in the Wall Street Journal 2006 Global Listing of Women to Watch.

Roopa Kudva, Managing Director and CEO of CRISIL, a Standard and Poors company, has been with the rating agency for 19 years.

She is also Region Head, South Asia, of Standard & Poor's, which holds majority shares in CRISIL.

She holds a Degree in Statistics and MBA from IIM-A.

Renuka Ramnath is a private equity investment manager who pioneered the establishment of ICICI Eco-Net Limited, a company promoted by the ICICI Bank. She has been the Managing Director & CEO of ICICI Venture since 2001.

A graduate in Engineering from the prestigious Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), Mumbai, Renuka holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Bombay.

She also completed the Advanced Management Program at the esteemed Harvard Business School.

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85% of India's GenY use Facebook to connect instantly: TCS Survey

admin — Thu, 31 May 2012 12:52:49 +0000

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Indias Generation Y is fast changing the communication paradigm by quickly adopting new modes of networking using social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, as well as tools like instant messaging (IM) and chat, according to the findings of the TCS GenY survey 2011-12, which was released today.

The findings of Indias largest survey of over 12,300 high school students across 12 Indian cities reveal that smart devices and online access are making GenY instant connectors. This is transforming the way tomorrows professionals are conducting their academic and social lives.

Findings of the TCS Survey
Commenting on the survey, N Chandrasekaran, CEO & MD, said, Combination of more bandwidth, availability of smart devices and the surging popularity of social networks is changing the way Indias high school students conduct their academic and social lives. As significant employers of Indias talented youth, we need to understand how to leverage these social trends to create engaging careers for tomorrows professionals.

Releasing the survey, Ajoy Mukherjee, Executive Vice President and Global Head, HR, said, The survey highlights the increasing relevance of concepts like social networks and gaming, which can be used to drive collaboration, creativity and productivity among young employees inside the enterprise. This can help keep GenY professionals engaged and energized through their careers.

Top 10 Trends	Percentage
Use Facebook	85
Access internet from home	84
Own mobiles	79
Use internet for school-related research	74
Own and access the internet through a PC	68
Use internet for chat / to connect	68
Make voice calls to communicate	59
Use email as a tool of communication	45
Prefer IT as the first option for a career	34
Spend more than an hour on the internet everyday	33

Note: These percentages represent all-India Figures.)

Survey Highlights:

The TCS GenY Survey 2011-12 shows common trends among urban high school students across India but also reveals differences between metros and upcoming Tier II towns, which are emerging as mini-metros:

School-2-Social: Three out of four students cited Research for School as the main reason to access the internet followed by social reasons like chatting/connecting with friends (68%) and listening to music (50%). Over 84% of the students go online from home compared to just 58% (in 2009).

Use of cyber-cafes as an online access point has dropped dramatically from 46% in 2009 to 20% today.

Gr8 Networks: Social networks like Facebook is the clear favorite among students to connect with their peers with 88% of respondents from the six metros having a presence on this social platform. One-third of all respondents said that it was their preferred site. Other platforms like Orkut and India-based networks like Apnacircle, iBibo and Hi5 are more popular in mini-metros compared to metros.
Tweeting as a medium of communication is now being used by one in three students in the TCS survey, though only 1% listed it as their preferred site.

Made 4 Mobility: Eight out of every ten high school students own mobile phones and more than 40% use mobile phones to access the internet (compared to just 12% in 2009). While PCs continue to dominate internet access for students (68%) at home, one in two said that they used laptops as well.

An emerging trend is the use of tablets with almost 14% using these new devices.

Text, dont Call: The TCS Survey makes it clear that increasingly Indias urban Gen Next is turning to text and chat as alternatives to voice. 50% of those surveyed in metros said that they used SMS the most to communicate while 45% used IM and 38% used Facebook or Twitter all significantly higher than the number of students in metros who said they used email (34%) for the same purpose.

Reflecting poorer connectivity levels, use of email (55%) in mini-metros continues to higher than metros (34%).
Lower access to bandwidth also means that in mini metros email continues to be more popular for communication among high school students than SMS (23%), IM (22%) and social networks (17%).

TV is Remote: Indian youths like their entertainment on the move. Their least favorite gadget is the television with less than one percent voting for it. Their favorite gadget with 28% votes is the mobile phone. Gaming consoles are also increasingly becoming popular even in mini-metros with a little over 16% of students owning at least one gaming console as compared to nearly 45% in metros. Music players are also very popular with 60% of the respondents owning them.

Tablet PCs and Tabs, though nascent, have penetrated far more intensively in metros with 15% respondents listing it as their choice of device to access with mini-metros at 7%.

Career@IT: The Web 3.0 generation school students are far more conscious than before. They seem to be clear about what they would look for in a future job. IT remains the top career preference amongst youngsters, irrespective of geography, with Engineering and Medicine coming next. Media / Entertainment is emerging as a clear urban favorite.

Linking in: Early use of career sites like LinkedIn are more popular in business-centric cities like Mumbai and Ahmedabad and significantly lower on a national basis.

TCS Web 3.0 Survey Primer:

WHAT: The TCS Web 3.0 Survey conducted by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS) the leading IT services, consulting and business solutions firm, Indias largest IT solutions provider, is among the largest youth surveys of its kind in India. The survey was conducted across 12 Indian cities - Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune, with over 12,300 high school students in ages of 12-18. The primary data was collected from the participants by means of a questionnaire at each of these locations.

WHEN: The TCS Web 3.0 Youth Survey was undertaken from July to December 2011 during the nationwide TCS IT Wiz program to get a pulse of the digital habits of school students from grades 8-12 to capture the changing trends of the youth across the nation with a focus on technology. The objective was to comprehend and compare the difference between school students in the major metros and mini-metros of India. The TCS Web 3.0 Youth Survey is one of the most comprehensive school level studies of this scale, in India, capturing information access trends, social networking preferences, career interests, etc.

HOW: The questionnaire comprised sections such as Gadgets, Social Networking, Information Access, Career Interests, Media and Communication preferences. Interestingly a look at the media preference and usage shows that television seems to be losing its sheen. While the advent of internet is high, young India still reflects faith and belief on newspapers as a research tool.

Source: http://www.tcs.com

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Stories Old and New: The Third Room*

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 09:07:02 +0000

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If such things have any beginnings at all, it began the day the old man decided to get iron railings installed at the back terrace. This had remained undone for many years; after he had used up all his money, his wifes money, and the Housing Loan for building the house. It was a big house, and his wife had never imagined she would live in such a house in her life.

It had three main rooms in three corners. The fourth corner, near the entrance, was the kitchen. There was a drawing room, called TV room, and a small guest room. The space between the inverted V of the roof and the ceiling was used as the puja room. The wooden staircase to the puja room rose from one of the main rooms. The other two main rooms had a narrow balcony outside, which was used for hanging washings, and for having tea with elderly relatives in the evenings.

All this was on the first floor of the house. The ground floor, similar in construction, was divided into two portions, which were rented out to make up the instalments of the Housing Loan.

The balcony had iron railings, with horizontal iron rings welded at regular intervals. In these, the old mans daughter, studying economics at the University, had placed used tins of refined vegetable oils filled with mud. These sprouted weak plants with sharp, small flowers.

There was a small landing outside the entrance, from where a cemented staircase descended to the ground floor. This was the back-terrace for which railings had now become suddenly necessary, because the baby daughter of the elder son had become old enough to run around in the house.

The old man was Superintendent in a government Department. He had had three sons in a row, and then a daughter. The two older sons were also working in government offices. They were married and lived in the house. The youngest son had done his M.A. last year, and had got a job in a public sector engineering company. He was in Bombay, during the initial training period. The daughter was studying at the University.

The two grandchildren were from the eldest son. A daughter beginning at the alphabet and numbers, for whom the railings had become necessary, and a son who was still an infant. The second son did not have a child yet. The two daughters-in-law were working as bank clerks. The children were looked after during daytime by a servant girl brought from the elder daughter-in-laws village, and by the old woman.

While the old man was musing about talking to his old mistry in office about the railings, the old woman suggested that something needed to be done about the puja room. This meant that a carpenter too would be needed. All her life the old woman had voiced her opinions and desires at the last and effective moments. The mistry and the carpenter were working in the old mans Department, and he decided to speak to them. Their being in his Department had always helped his money go a longer way, since the Department itself dealt in construction material. Like most things the old woman had wanted in her life and she had not wanted much the investment in puja room was unexceptionable.

Puja had a special place in the familys life. From early childhood the old woman had brought up the children on a regime of twice-daily worship. Every morning, before leaving for work or education, each member of the family put some red-hot coal in an incense-burner and sat in prayer before the gods in the puja room; and there was a similar prayer every evening after sunset. The womenfolk also tinkled a small bell during prayer. The two daughters-in-law had initially found this tedious, but like good daughters-in-law they had fallen in line.

The railings job was simple. These came in prefabricated frames, and had only to be welded to the steel rods of the cement structure. A half-days job. Puja room was different. It was left to the old woman.

She wanted made a wooden platform set on short curved legs, with a temple-like canopy supported on rods carved like pillars of a temple. She wished to hang silk curtains under the canopy, to shield the gods when they were not being actively worshipped. She had been saving the right cloth. The carpenter had brought along his young apprentice, and the basic unfinished work took the whole day. In the evening she placed the mandap, with the gods installed, against the middle of the wall of the puja room, exactly beneath the apex of the roof. Now the whole floor could be used for sitting before the gods.

When the family returned home from work that day, everyone came up to see. The only light in the room came from a bulb hanging from its wire at the centre of the apex-beam. Earlier, the gods had been placed directly below this bulb on an embroidered Kashmiri mat. Now they were under their new curtained canopy against the wall at the far end. On parting the curtains it was seen that the weak bulb did not light the gods. On their calm faces fell a dark shadow of the canopy. Only their toes were bright.

The familys reaction was mixed. Sensing this, the old woman said that a new bulb will be fitted above the canopy. She said this as if this had been the plan all along. She explained that now the whole family and guests could sit together under the old light, while the gods will have their own new light.

There was an animated conversation over dinner. The elder son had a suggestion.

Now we can have large keertans, and invite a lot of people.

This caused a silence. Everyone did not greet the suggestion. The elder son was widely known, even in the neighbourhood, to be very obedient son. This was a very good thing, but somehow caused vague uneasiness in everyone. The daughter broke the silence.

We could make skylights in the roof. Then we can have daytime keertans. She had seen pictures of skylights in magazines. The elder daughter-in-law smiled widely at her sister-in-law.

Then we will have to cut the roof, and fit new frames for the glass. That would be very expensive, no?

Yes, welders charge hourly, said the old man.

Anyway, we will think of that later, the elder son said reasonably. The daughters-in-law remained silent, and after some general talk the discussion ended.

Before breaking up for TV, while the daughters-in-law were clearing the dishes, the old woman said concludingly that two large durries would have to be bought, for covering the whole floor for keetans. The second son had been reading the newspaper all through dinner.

That night the elder daughter-in-law did not speak to her husband, and got up several times during the night to go to the toilet. In one such trip, towards dawn, she met the old woman coming out of the toilet. She was told to go, since she was up so early, and wake up the daughter who had to study for her exams. The second daughter-in-law had wanted to talk with her husband. But he had not finished the newspaper, and he read it till they turned out the lights.

From the next day, everyone had a new alertness. Women in the neighbourhood remarked upon it, and they were invited to the puja room in the afternoons to admire the plans being made. The daughters-in-law were courteous to the bank customers. The grandchildren got more attention, and new games were played with them on the now safer back-terrace. The daughter bought some posters from the Hare Rama Hare Krishna van that had been visiting the University for some time. She stuck these in the puja room. The electrician came and fitted the new bulb. The old man, who had been feeling somewhat sidelined in life since making the house, enjoyed the renewed activity around him.

The first keertan was held, for which all the relatives living in the town were invited. All came; although menfolk brought their women and children in the morning, and left to attend to urgent work, returning late in the evening. There was great activity all day.

During the days preparations were being made of the keertan, the second daughter-in-law reminded her husband about curtains in their room. She had been wanting to change them for quite some time, and they had together selected a design in a shop some time back. The existing curtains were hung on a spring-wire, and she had always wanted proper pelmets. Since the carpenter was coming for several days to do the puja room anyway, the pelmets could be got fitted too. He told her to buy the curtains, and on the way to office that day he met the carpenter and told him about pelmets.

The carpenters apprentice brought the material for pelmets on the day of the keertan. He had finished with the puja room only the day before. Somehow pelmets had not been mentioned to the family. So the old woman and the elder daughter-in-law came to know of these on keertan day, along with the relatives who thought these would make the curtains look beautiful. Like everyone, the second daughter-in-law too was natural about it. The old woman told the apprentice to do the work next day because the noise would disturb the keertan.

The apprentice started his work on the next day. The carpenter, who had to do office work during daytime, came in the evening for the finishing touches, as usual. That evening the elder daughter-in-law came home with a migraine. She used to have these attacks during her second pregnancy, but lately this had improved. Tying her head with a ribbon she retired to her room with her infant son, and did not join others for dinner.

During dinner nobody spoke for a long time. The carpenters hammering was shaking the walls.

I was thinking we should fit pelmets in all rooms, the second son broke the silence.

Yes, otherwise it will look odd, said the daughter, although for my room I dont mind. I dont even want curtains on the windows.

That is not your room, said the old woman. You will get married and go away. That room is for Prakash and his wife.

Prakash was the youngest son, now in Bombay. A match had already been found for him. The second daughter-in-law addressed the old woman for the first time since the keertan.

Oh, Prakash wouldnt be leaving Bombay so soon. It is a good city, especially for a young man.

And I think Prakash did not like the photo of the girl we sent, said the daughter. I think he loves another girl.

Dont speak of things you dont understand, the old woman said curtly to the daughter, and avoided looking at the daughter-in-law, who got up and went to the kitchen to fetch more water. The elder son was saying that the girl would be good for Prakash, when his wife entered carrying the crying baby. She handed him the baby saying that she couldnt sleep in the noise of hammering, and went back to her room. The old woman got up, and went for her last puja of the day.

Next day the old man told the carpenter to fix pelmets in all rooms. From the following week the apprentice came every day. Hammering and sawing went on late into the nights.

One day the elder daughter-in-law told her husband that the babys things got mixed up with other clothes in their cupboard. It would be better if a small wardrobe could be fitted above their bed, because everyone was disturbed especially when the baby woke up at nights. He spoke to the old man one day, who discussed this with the old woman that night. She agreed; it was for their only grandson.

Hammering and sawing continued.

The younger daughter-in-law spoke to her husband about her dressing table. It had come with her dowry; but for one reason or other the mirror had never been got fitted onto its frame. She had been using the common dressing table in the T.V. room. Now that the carpenter was available the mirror could be got fitted easily. He told the carpenter and, while speaking to the old man over phone on some other matter, mentioned this in passing. The old man told the old woman. She did not say anything.

During these days the elder daughter-in-law wrote a letter to her parents asking them to send the double-bed which was a part of her dowry. It had been left since the wedding day with her parents because the old woman had told her son before marriage that it was healthier, and more convenient for babies, to sleep on mattresses spread on the floor. Like in all matters he had obeyed, although the daughter-in-law had been very upset about this. But she had got busy in child bearing, and had forgotten about it.

Having written the letter she told her husband about it. He did not mention this to anyone. The bed arrived promptly, because it was a matter of prestige between in-laws. Coolies delivered and installed the bed with much hefting and manoeuvering one afternoon, when only the old woman was at home.

The baby will fall down and get hurt, she told crossly to the coolies. They smiled politely and shuffled their feet. That night she did not have the usual discussion with the old man before sleep. He spoke, but she pretended to be asleep. He was worried about expenses. It had been more than a fortnight, and the carpenter was far from finished.

Prakash came home on a short vacation. Actually it was more than a vacation. The old woman had written to him to come home and finally consent to the marriage. The girls parents wanted an early decision, so that they could negotiate elsewhere, if necessary. Prakash had a secret ambition to have a love marriage, but his small courage had wilted after a couple of encounters with Bombay girls. The family sat together one evening, and he said yes. Everyone was overjoyed. Planning for the marriage started.

Prakash liked the alterations being made in the house, and had active discussions with the carpenter. Relatives dropped in to share the happiness. The house resounded with hilarity and carpentry. Although the tenants had been getting restive at the continuing noise, they could not help being pleased at the coming marriage.

It occurred to Prakash one day that after his transfer from Bombay had been arranged, and after he was married, he would be living in the third main room. That was the room with the staircase to the puja room, and everyone going up to the puja room had to pass through it. He talked to the old man about this.

That night there was a prolonged discussion between the old man and the old woman. The old man saw reason in their staircase being a disturbance to Prakash and his wife. But the old woman found it hard to accept. Years back she had planned that the three sons would live with their wives in the three main rooms, and the daughter would be married off. They themselves would die anyway. It was unimaginable that the staircase to the puja room could be a disturbance to anyone. The old man reasoned with her, whispering in the silence of the sleeping house, but she would not accept. She was very upset, and could not sleep that night. She decided to speak to Prakash first thing next morning. He was to leave for Bombay by the evening train.

But morning was a hectic time; with so many people getting ready for offices, breakfast to be cooked, tiffin-boxes to be prepared, and relatives and children to be looked after. Later in the day some old classmates of Prakash dropped in, and the carpenters apprentice arrived and started his work. The old woman found herself deferring her talk with Prakash. In daylight, and in the bustle and noise of the house, her mind began to sense the meaning of the old mans words last night. During her morning puja, alone in the puja room, her heart was strained in prayer.

Prakashs friends stayed for lunch, and helped him pack his suitcase afterwards. The old woman heard their laughter in the third room. It was afternoon. When Prakash came out to fetch something from the living room, she casually asked him if the staircase would be inconvenient in his room. Prakash was walking back to his room, a pair of socks dangling in his hands, still smiling from his friends jokes.

Of course, he said, it will be like living on the street, and went inside to his room, grinning at his joke.

The old woman did not speak much with anyone after this. The day was very full. Everyone returned early from their offices to see off Prakash at the railway station. It was a different Prakash they were seeing off this time. The old woman, as usual, did not go to the station. Later in the night the old man asked her if she had spoken to Prakash about the staircase. She did not reply. She remained awake till late, and did not pretend to be asleep.

These days, the new staircase is being made adjacent to the main toilet. Walls have had to be broken brick by brick, and the old staircase has been dismantled. The tenants have complained, and there is bad feeling in the house. The third main room cannot be used. It is full of masonry and woodwork. The daughter sleeps in the TV room. The old man and woman sleep in the guest room. Hammering and sawing goes on late into the nights. As they lie in darkness in the guest room they hear the noise, and they have little to discuss anymore.

*1984

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EUROPE in Rehab

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:14:21 +0000

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Committing to and carrying out real structural reforms, managing citizens expectations, finding ways to grow the economy while keeping the spending on track is a BIG task but it has been done before in Europe and it looks like this is what the policy makers in Germany want from their southern European partners.

The question is are the folks on the streets in Southern Europe willing to sacrifice their living standard and livelihood for the greater good of the European Union in the long run or will Germany offer flexibility in the short term to ease the pain and change course? Well, we will have to wait and see.

There is no doubt that folks in Southern Europe benefitted the most from the European Union idea in the last decade without realizing that all the rise in their living standard and good times hasn't been paid for and is infact being subsidized by others specially in Germany. Yes, in the current environment it is easy to criticise Germany's stance on Austerity but I believe it is important to point out that there is a serious trust deficit among European partners so Europe has no choice but to go through the grind. It is no secret that policy makes in Germany are tempted to use this CRISIS as an opportunity to bring about far reaching changes across Europe and although I have always found myself siding with folks who disagreed with the severe austerity drive without any serious plan for growth there is no denying the fact that while Germany did carry out far reaching structural reforms during its reunification period and was referred to as The SICK man of Europe by the market its counterparts in southern Europe saw a big jump in their living standards and hence got busy partying. And now while most in Europe are struggling Germany is certainly ripping the rewards of the decisions made during the time of reunification which required west Germany to invest over Euro 1.3 trillion and also significant sacrifices were made by its population in terms of accepting lower wages, cut in pensions and benefits among others so may be folks in southern Europe need to do a REALITY CHECK and remember NOTHING IS FREE and good times dont last forever.

The protests and civil disobedience across Europe are probably some of the side effects of the REHAB process that Europe needs to go through in order to get back in shape and as we all know rehab is never a quick in and out procedure. It is a process that requires strong will and commitment and this will no doubt test the resolve of the Europeans but it must be said that a good rehab programs gets an ADDICT off the addiction slowly and this is done to manage the side effects better and ease the PAIN. So its probably time for Europe to consider a balanced approached through delivered a GROSTERITY (i.e. growth with smartly targeted cost cutting measures to bring down the deficit over a period of time) plan instead of its current front loaded severe austerity drive on all fronts.

A strong and sustainable Europe is in everyone's interest and the solution to the ongoing European CRISIS is a more integrated and competitive Europe on all fronts and not less of Europe. From the onset European Union was a flawed idea which allowed its members to get high on an addiction where everyone assumed their living standards will rise forever without realizing that they may be sleep walking into a disaster waiting to happen because the policy makers got blinded by the BLING BLING of Europe.

Greeks and others in Europe may not like austerity but going back on the European idea is simply not a good option because they are not prepared for the aftermath. Also there is no evidence to suggest that economies like Greece will benefit immensely by having a devalued currency in fact with a devalued currency it will take Greece more than 30 years to recover especially if all the far reaching structural reforms needed to revive the competitiveness of the country is not fully implemented. And also lets not forget the human cost that will come with exiting Euro. No doubt, a large population of Greece has seen the benefit of EUROPE so saying goodbye is probably not a viable option for them and the same applies for other countries in the Euro Zone area including of Ireland, Spain, Italy and Portugal among others.

Europe needs to come together with a strong resolve and will to get through the CRISIS. The aftermath of this CRISIS should be a strong, resolute, realistic, functional and more integrated Europe but this will depend on the policy decisions made by the European policy makers today. Europe is capable of finding its own FIX but this will require a strong political will and sacrifice. And its probably worth mentioning as analogy that you can make a football team with different nationalities, cultural background work together and also win trophies but only if all the team member share the same vested interested.

In short Europe has to be good and should work for all its member and not just some but this will require looking beyond national interests for the greater good of the Europe Union. Also the policy makers will need to come up with a balanced approached and folks on the street will have to get realistic about their expectations but I wonder If they are able to look beyond TODAY?

The problem is we live in a world where we expect instant results and changes without realising that this crisis didnt develop or happen overnight and fixing it will take time and also the FIX will come at a COST. The fate of the European Union is not at the mercy of the markets but its people and the ability of the policy makers to come together.

Concluded.

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Meet World's 10 Richest CEOs

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 06:21:03 +0000

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Stories about people who became rich and famous with their hard work and dedication are always a good read. That is why we found this article fit to be curated for our readers. The worlds richest chief executives either inherited or came from their modest beginnings to appear in the list of The Worlds richest CEOs. From a newspaper boy to an insurance salesman to a mortgage broker, their stories are awe-inspiring.

This list of 10 richest CEOs spans across four generations; the youngest CEO being just 27 year old while the oldest being 82. The ranking is based on Wealth-X net worth findings about the CEOs wealth. Though the recession in 2008 and a slowdown in global economy in recent years did affect their wealth, but they still manage to appear in the top 10 list.

10. Aliko Dangote, Age: 55, Company: Dangote Group, Net worth: $11.2 billion, Compensation: $16, 510

Billionaire Aliko Dangote is the richest man in Africa, according to Forbes. He is also the founder and CEO of Dangote Group, which owns Nigerias largest listed company by market cap Dangote Cement. Dangote founded the group in 1977 as a rice, sugar and cement trading company before it grew into a full-scale manufacturing firm and one of Africas largest conglomerates. The group now has 13 subsidiaries in sectors like real estate, telecommunications and oil and gas. It operates in 14 African countries and recorded revenue of more than $3 billion in 2010, according to its website.

9. Mark Zuckerberg, Age: 27, Company: Facebook, Net worth: $18.1 billion, 2011 compensation: $1.49 million

At 27-years-old, Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest CEO on the list. As the founder and CEO of the worlds largest social networking website with 845 million monthly users, Zuckerberg is likely to leap up the rankings once Facebook goes public this year. His roughly 28 percent stake in the company is valued at $17.9 billion, according to Wealth-X. The tech giants highly-anticipated $5 billion IPO could value the company at $100 billion and push Zuckerbergs net worth up to $28 billion.

8. Larry Page, Age: 39

Company: Google
Net worth: $18.3 billion
2010 compensation: $1,786

Google co-founder Larry Page was the companys first CEO, but he stepped aside in 2001 and became President of products. Page returned to the post of Chief Executive last year.

Page, along with classmate Sergey Brin, founded the company in 1998 while pursuing a PhD at Stanford University. Considered a pioneer in the field, Page was born into a family of computer scientists with both parents professors at the University of Michigan where he graduated with a bachelors degree in engineering. The tech mogul has been quoted as saying that he began playing with computers as a six-year-old and knew by age 12 that he was going to start a company.

7. Lakshmi Mittal, Age: 61, Company: Arcelor-Mittal, Net worth: $19.1 billion, 2011 compensation: $1,739,000

Lakshmi Mittal is the founder and CEO of ArcelorMittal the worlds largest steelmaker.

The 61-year old steel tycoon founded the company in 1976 as LNM Group, parting ways from his India-based family steel business, which he helped run to venture out on his own. The firm went on to merge with Arcelor in 2006 to form ArcelorMittal.

6. Sheldon Adelson, Age: 78, Company: Las Vegas Sands, Net worth: $24.6 billion, 2010 compensation: $11,356,866

Sheldon Adelson is the chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands, the most valuable publicly traded U.S. casino company.

Adelson rose from poverty in Boston and worked his way into the financial industry before developing one of the worlds largest computer tradeshows COMDEX in 1979. Ten years later, he bought the Sands Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and constructed the Sands Expo and Convention Centre. In 1995, Adelson sold the COMDEX trade shows for more than $860 million and constructed the $1.5 billion Venetian Resort Hotel Casino.

5. Charles G. Koch, Age: 76, Company: Koch Industries, Net worth: $24.7 billion,
Compensation: N/A

Charles G. Koch has been the chairman and CEO of Koch Industries one of the largest privately owned companies in the U.S. since 1967. The groups annual revenue is more than $100 billion, according to Forbes.

Koch Industries was co-founded by Charless father Fred C. Koch and classmate Lewis E. Winkler in 1925 as Winkler-Koch Engineering. The company developed an innovative cracking method of turning crude oil into gasoline. After the death of Fred Koch in 1967, sons Charles and David Koch, both engineers, took control of the Kansas-based mid-size firm and expanded the Koch empire globally to have a presence in 60 countries with interests in energy, textiles, petrochemicals and pulp and paper. Koch Industries is considered among the worlds top independent oil traders by turnover.

4. Eike Batista

Age: 56,

Company: EBX,

Net worth: $31.6 billion,

Compensation: N/A

Eike Batista is South Americas richest man, and the founder and CEO of holding company EBX.

Known for taking risks in his rise from a door-to-door insurance salesman to Brazils leading business tycoon, Batista first made his fortune buying gold from Amazon miners in the early 1980s before going on to found EBX in 1983.

The group now consists of more than 10 companies, five of which are listed on Brazils benchmark Bovespa exchange. The diversified conglomerates interests include oil, logistics, mining, real estate and sports.

3. Lawrence J. Ellison, Age: 67, Company: Oracle, Net worth: $35 billion, 2011 compensation: $77.6 million

As the co-founder and CEO of Oracle, Larry Ellison is also the sixth richest person in the world and the third wealthiest in the U.S., according to Forbes.

Ellison co-founded Oracle under the name Software Development Laboratories (SDL) in 1977. The company picked up a contract with the CIA in the same year to build a database program code-named 'Oracle.' In 1980, the firm had only eight employees and turnover of less than $1 million, but after IBM adopted Oracles mainframe systems the following year, its sales doubled every year for the next seven. Since then, Oracle has grown to over 380,000 customers and is the third-largest software company based on revenues behind IBM and Microsoft.

2. Warren Buffett, AGE: 81, Company: Berkshire Hathaway, Net worth: $44.7 billion, 2011 compensation: $491,925

As chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett is the worlds second-richest CEO and the worlds third-richest man. His companys holdings include American Express, Coca-Cola, Costco, and Moodys.

Buffetts early job as a paperboy in Omaha, Nebraska in the 1940s helped him earn the $5,000 and launched him into the world of value investing and eventually led to the creation of the Berkshire investment empire.

1. Carlos Slim, aGE: 72, Companies: Grupo Carso, Telmex, America Movil, Net worth: $70 billion, Compensation: N/A Carlos

Slim has been the worlds richest man for the past three years, and his wealth is equivalent to nearly 6 percent of Mexicos annual economic output.

Slim is the Chairman and CEO at three of his companies: telecom giants Telmex and America Movil, which is the worlds third largest cellphone company by subscribers, and conglomerate Grupo Carso. Mexico-born Slim, who is of Lebanese descent, studied engineering before starting his own company in 1965, which would later be known as Grupo Carso. Slim continued to build his empire by purchasing troubled companies and turning them around. He also has stakes in some well-known North American names like the New York Times, and retailer Saks.

Click here to read full article http://in.finance.yahoo.com/photos/the-world%E2%80%99s-richest-ceos-1334...

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Therapy*

admin — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 04:40:26 +0000

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I was new to Delhi, and was looking for a house. I was something of a novice in big city-life, and some people say that I will always remain one. I had landed a job as a trainee journalist in city paper. I was ready for anything.

People back in my provincial town had told me that South Delhi was a posh area with big buildings, where rich people let out their top-floor barsatis cheap to young bachelors like me. Because I have been warned against brokers who would fleece me, I spent all evenings and weekends walking around in these colonies, scanning the barsatis, looking for unoccupied ones. I carried a canvas grip with some books and a lock in it. I had been told that whenever I got a deal and made the advance-payment for two months, I should leave some possession inside and put my own lock on the door. Because on getting a better deal after Id left these rich people were capable of denying everything, including the advance payment. There were no receipts.

It was my fourth day of house hunting. A Sunday afternoon in late September, with a dirty yellowish haze far up in the sky which made the day dull and indirectly lit. The colony was of the kind where very rich people live mysterious lives. Elegant three-storey houses with silent blank glass fronts, black-painted delicate metal gates, and excessively green lawns. Some had slack-looking guards in khaki sitting on wooden stools outside the gates. The houses made me think of basements and international air travel.

There were very few people about. Some stray dogs who seemed to have learnt not to make noise, and some dark-skinned but well-fed ayahs who sat talking in sedate flirtation with the guards, spitting paan-juice sideways. Even the colonys cinema-hall looked as if only cars came there for the movies, not people. From the road, I was finding it difficult to decide about the barsatis. All looked vaguely unoccupied. There were occasional faint sounds nearby of high-wattage western pop enclosed inside upholstered walls.

On turning a block I saw a red Toyota twenty yards ahead, with both front doors wide open. On the driving seat there was a smart girl, and a big oldish man sat on the passenger seat who could have been her father or boss. Both were looking outside silently through their open doors, their faces turned away in opposite directions.

I was wearing my old blue jeans and white T-shirt, with white sports shoes. When I neared the car, the old man who sat facing the curb, gave me a wide grin.

Where are you heading for, sonny? he said, in English. He was wearing a check suit, the type secure businessmen wear. From close now, he looked older and his eyes were surrounded by some kind of darkness under gold-rimmed glasses. He had rings on all fingers of both hands, and the colours of their stones did not fit with his suit, or the car.

Looking for a house I said, with a smile.

Imagine that, he said and turned to the girl. I looked at the girl and saw that she was smiling too, although she was wearing dark glasses. A tall bony girl, wearing blue jeans and a blue silk shirt with peacock feather design. The complexion of her face contrasted with her hands, which were clear and smooth.

Hop in, she said, and gave a small laugh.

The old man had stepped out of the car. He thumped me on my back, and got into the back seat. The girl was looking up at me in a friendly way, and patting the seat he had vacated. I was puzzled, but I got in and put my bag on my knees. The girl started the car like an expert.

Nobody spoke for some time, and I didnt know what to say. I kept a smile on. We reached the end of the lane, and turned into another block.

Actually I want a barsati, just for myself, I said and turned my head, to include the old man, who was sitting directly behind me.

Sure, son. Well find something. His tone was rich and friendly. The girl was smiling, as she drove slowly. I looked ahead, ducking my head to peer at the top of the houses.

We drove in silence, and turned again into the next block. The old man stirred, and reached over to pick up my bag. He put it on the back seat.

Ill keep it here, he said. Lots of room.

I felt the cold air on my legs. The girls smile went out for a moment, and came back again. She nodded, and gave me a quick glance. I was beginning to feel uneasy.

Look, I think I am getting in your way. I mean, I dont want to trouble you with this. I can manage actually.

The old man bent ahead, and patted my shoulder.

It is no trouble, son. This is a big place here. We were driving around anyway. We do this a lot. Rita is learning driving.

His face was close to my head and I felt his breath on my ears, laden with some heavy kind of aftershave.

Dont worry, man, Rita said. Just keep on the lookout. I know a few places too. Ill take you there. Well all look, okay?

Her voice was very clear, but hard like in TV. But she was smiling, in an amused way. We drove on slowly, cruising.

In my mind, I ticked off the wrong notes. Rita had learnt driving long time back; these people had no intention of finding me a house; the old man need not have made a point of making me sit in front; the business about my bag did not make sense; they were driving around not in search of something, yet it was clear that they were not driving for pleasure; they were not tense or cunning, yet they were not relaxed. Kidnapping or robbery was out of question. So was kindness for me. These people couldnt be terrorists, or could they? Spies? There was something professional about them.

We will stop for a minute, the old man said.

I saw that we had stopped in a shopping centre, the type where many empty cars wait all day in parking lots. Rita had got out, and was entering briskly into a brightly lit shop.

For ice-cream, the old man said, also getting out of the car. Rita wants ice-cream.

I saw that he was a tall man, with a neat abrupt paunch.

Come on, have one yourself, he opened the door for me and flashed his teeth in a smile. I got out; decided not to make a run for it. I was into something.

The shop sold two kinds of things. On our right was an ice-cream parlour, with dozens of pots of coloured ice-cream inside a slick refrigerated glass case. A smart attendant in clinical white topped by a beret-type cap stood behind the ice-creams, with a smooth grave face that seemed to miss nothing. On the left was a gifts counter, also brightly lit. Things like cute note-pads, naughty statuettes, shining plastic and wooden jewellery, and hundreds of small attractive objects that need focused eyes. I felt like a seventeenth century African bushman. Behind this spread sat a young woman intent on doing her nails. Her short hair was dyed red in henna. Rita bought three cones with double scoops, all vanilla.

Hold these for a sec, okay? she told me, fishing for money inside her handbag with her left hand. She was the only customer then. I took the ice-creams from her, and walked across to the old man who was talking to the jewellery woman. She was listening, her eyes bent on her furious nail-file. As I reached them, the old man looked up and took a cone from me.

This is Sunny, he told the woman. She looked up at me.

Hi, she said and returned to her nails.

Rita came over, took a cone from me, and started talking to the woman. The three were speaking in gentle tones, about someone they all seemed to know. I drifted around in the shop, licking my ice-cream. I did not know what was happening, and now I did not give a damn. I knew there was no bloody danger for me. There was some hidden music playing, I noticed only then; soft electric guitar interminably seeking some unreachable melody. I licked at my ice-cream and watched the wall posters. One whole wall was covered by an orange red poster, in which some wild muscular horses with flowing manes were galloping towards a bloated orange telephoto sunset. My ice-cream was nearly finished.

I heard decisive clatter of shoes on the floor. Their conversation finished, Rita and her old man were moving out, both smiling at me.

Lets go, Rita called me loudly. The jewellery woman was looking at me. She waved, interrupting her nail file.

We went out to the car. The evening sky had turned brown; and the remaining daylight seemed to cut me off from everything else of my life, except these two people and their lives. They had hardly started on their ice-creams. The old man reached the car first, and got into the back seat. Licking her ice-cream, Rita looked at me across the top of the car.

Your drive now, she said.

I cant drive, I said, as if it should have been obvious.

Oh hell, she said, with a glint of sun on her dark glasses, and got into the drivers seat. I too got into my passenger seat, ready for the battle.

Hold this, she gave me her ice-cream, and turned on the ignition. She started the car, got out of the shopping centre, shifted gears, and took back her ice-cream. There was silence in the car. She was steering with one hand, and she was not smiling anymore. I looked into the rearview mirror to see the old man, but I saw only the handles of my bag on the backseat. I was back to my own life which did not include these two people.

Look, I said. Whats the game? What is going on? We can finish it now, if it is finished.

Nobody spoke. I looked at Ritas profile, driving the car efficiently. Her eyes were directed away from me, into their dark glasses. I turned round the old man, who was crunching his ice-cream cone with a neutral face.

Okay, I have done your job. Now let me get out. I will find my own barsatee.

The old man didnt speak. I turned back to look at Rita.

Relax, she said.Well find you a house.

Her mouth was grim, and her voice had lost something. Lost what? There was more silence which gave me voice.

Forget the house. You were never interested in a house for me. You were after something else, something for yourself. What is it?

Ask him, she said, and jerked her head backwards.

Look Sunny, it is not that we didnt want to help you in finding a house. We still might. But we had other things to do.

What things? Like buying ice-creams, like chatting with that jewellery woman?

The old man didnt speak. I saw Rita give a bitter smile, and felt that the old man saw it too.

Come on, tell me. It doesnt matter what. I am a stranger, not Sunny. What are you, some kind of perverts?

O god, said Rita.

Dont get angry son. Its not what you think. Just some family business. No Rita?

Rita didnt say anything.

How do I fit into your family business? How can I? Unless it is something dirty?

Look, man, we were just helping someone, some sick person, Rita spoke, looking at the road ahead, in a straight voice for the first time. It was a voice I could begin to understand.

Help who? That jewellery woman?

No.

Then who?

It is a therapy, son. For Ritas mother. She is ill.

The old man was speaking, sitting very still. Rita shifted in her seat.

So? Where did I fit in? In this therapy?

You were a part of it; role-play. Havent you heard of role-playing techniques?

I have heard.

Well, you were playing the role of Ritas boyfriend. It makes her mother feel good, that she is having a normal life.

But she didnt see us. Nobody saw us. Except that jewellery woman at the shop.

The old man hesitated.

Well, she will be telling her. She is her niece. It is all therapy.

We were silent, and Rita gain fidgeted in her seat. The road passed smoothly under the wheels, and the neon lights were beginning to stand out against the sky. I looked at Rita.

It doesnt make sense.

It is therapy, the latest medical treatment, the old man said speaking precisely.

There was more silence, tyres buzzing on the road.

Look, Rita spoke abruptly. My mother has been ill for a long time. Shes been bedridden for more than four years. She has suffered a lot; weve all suffered a lot. She even tried suicide.

Depression, said the old man, as if repeating for the hundredth time.

I had an image of a rich silent household with many subdued servants; an old woman richly dressed, lying in her bed with full make-up and tinkling jewellery.

Rita was pursing her lips, concentrating on the road.

But why this indirectness? Why cant you take your boyfriends home so she can see them, and talk to them? It will be nicer for her to spend some time with them. No?

I saw her sharp Adams apple move as she swallowed, but she didnt say anything. She appeared tired of driving.

I wouldve thought even the doctors would suggest that. Instead of this role-playing. No?

I turned toward the old man.

Doctors orders son, therapy, he said with some kind of finality.

Rita abruptly screeched the brakes.

Balls.

She swerved the car fast, and stopped it at the side of the road. The car was suddenly silent, except for a ticking in the depths of its metallic heart.

Tell him, she said, still looking at the windscreen.

Rita.

Yes, tell him. He thinks we are weird.

Who is he? His voice was gentle. Let him think whatever. You know there is nothing weird.

I dont know.

What?

I dont know.

She was staring through the windshield, her smooth arms rigid on the steering wheel, pushing her shoulders into the back of the seat. The old man was hunched forward, staring at her. I again smelt his aftershave, now mixed with warm engine oil.

Look, you dont have to tell me anything, I was opening my door. It doesnt matter.

Wait, said Rita. It is like this. She spoke looking at me and the old man.

Rita.

Because of her illness, because of many other things, my father and mother do not get along well.

Look Rita, the old man raised his voice.

But she shook her head, and looked at him.

It doesnt matter. Even he said it didnt matter, didnt he? It doesnt matter to me either. She took off her dark glasses.

My mother thinks that he has other women. She suspects. The doctor said she shouldnt know the truth. Itll break her heart. I dont know the truth either.

Rita.

Yes, I dont know. But I dont care. Only I dont want her hurt.

So, you

Yes. We tell her that we go for drives, movies and ice-creams with my boyfriends. We know that my cousin spies for her. So we go to her shop for ice-cream. We pretend we dont know of her spying. Afterwards he drops me at my real boyfriend, and goes to his women or whatever. She paused for a moment. Do you think this is weird?

Shes got it wrong, said the old man.

No, I havent. Any man would need to go to a real woman, after all this mess.

Okay, I said, and got out of the car.

The old man handed me my bag, his rings flashing under the neon lights. I stood on the road, looking at the two. Rita had switched on the lights inside.

But why did you put my bag away?

So that you two in front could look more intimate, the old man smiled. Rita was smiling too.

I looked at the old man and his offspring sitting in the car and looking at me from the car windows. They seemed linked by some pervasive stable mystery that excluded me completely. It was not only something to do with their being rich. I get a similar feeling when I see a cat looking up at me, with her newborn litter crawling all over her reclining furry body.

* Broadcast on BBC World Service Radio, London, 1985.

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Ajit Balakrishnan delivers IIM Calcutta Convocation Speech on Thought Leadership

admin — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 06:29:12 +0000

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This past year, our 50th, was a banner year for IIM Calcutta. Our PGP class was placed in 4 days flat, in the All India Management Association survey we were ranked as No 1 among management schools and we added a quarter- million square feet to our class-rooms and hostel infrastructure.
But, while all that is gratifying, the real measure of an academic institution lies in the extent it contributes to thought leadership. I want to share with you today how we have fared in that area.
The journey of an intellectual idea often starts as a working paper or a case, evolves into a journal article then as a conference presentation, finally as a book chapter or even a book. In a vibrant thought leadership system each leg of this journey is important. During this past year our faculty produced nearly a hundred research papers. These were published as working papers, cases, or presented as conference papers, as articles in peer reviewed journals, or as book chapters.
You will find the full list of papers published by IIM Calcutta faculty in the folder that is with you but please allow me to whet your appetite by summarizing a few of these . I freely admit that the ones I have chosen to summarize are an idiosyncratic choice.

Let me start with a paper that deals with an issue that is life and death for modern businesses- the Supply Chain challenge. How do you as a business respond fast enough to the sudden increase or decrease in customer demand that is a feature of modern business life. If you respond too slowly you pay for the lost sales opportunity, if you respond too fast you may end up with excess inventory. Prof Rahul Roy of our MIS Group has mathematically modelled a Supply Chain as a management game for use as a teaching tool. The originality of this paper lies in the fact he has done this for items of inventory that are perishable. . His paper, The Cake Game- comprehending perishability, was written together with a person from JDA, the leading supply chain platform provider which makes it doubly interesting. It was presented at the 15th Annual International Conference of the Society of Operations Management.

The second paper that I want to draw your attention to deals with a topic that dominates media headlines in India, the battle over telecom spectrum. Little thought has gone into the true underlying cause of this- the narrow definition of a slice of spectrum as being 'owned' by each operator leaving some portions of spectrum idle and other portions hotly contested and every allocation decision being greeted by accusations of corruption. Professor Debasis Saha of our MIS group and Sadukhan of our Computer Centre have a paper that may bring some rationality to this world of smoke and mirrors. They devised an algorithm that dynamically allocates a common pool of spectrum using concepts from game theory. What is gratifying for me is that their paper, A Meta-heuristic based Fair Dynamic Spectrum Allocation Policyis written jointly with executives from BSNL and Wipro and scholars from Jadavpur University. Such cross-sector creative work is very exciting. It was presented at the IEEE 5th International Conference on Advanced Networks and Telecommunication Systems in December 2011.

The third paper that Id like to draw your attention to today tacklesthe paradox of giant glitzy shopping malls in which our citizens window shop but only occasionally make a purchase. This phenomena has led this year to a crisis in the organized retail industry. ProfRohit Varman papercould possibly explain why this happens. He it says that t for Indians, shopping malls are much more than places to efficiently buy things; they are, his words, 'spectacles of Western-ness andsymbols of progress and development....a masquerade through which young consumers attempt to transform themselves and to disguise or temporarily transcend their Third World realities'. His paper, Consuming Postcolonial Shopping Malls, was published in the internationalJournal of Marketing Management in February 2012.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers in New York and the cascading global financial crisis brought home the inter-connectedness of the world financial system. The worlds financial markets seem to be part of a giant international social network where a problem in one centre cascades into a world-wide financial crisis. Ram Roy a Fellowship studentand Prof Utttam Sarkar used the mathematical techniques normally used in modelling social networksto to determine which international stock indices matter. Their paperwas presented at the 2nd International Conference on Ambient Systems, Networks and Technologies, in Ontario, Canada, September 2011.

We all appreciate in a general way that news events can make stock market prices respond in a volatile manner and many researchers have attempted to mathematically model these fluctuations. Prof Ashok Banerjee of our Finance and Control Group used high frequency firm-specific news as proxy for information flow and mathematically modelled the impact of news on volatility of stock returns in his paper, 'Impact of information arrival on volatility of intraday stock returns'. This paper is an early example of work from our Finance Lab, which as many of you know was singled out for mention by the Finance Minister in last years Union Budget with a grant of Rs 20 crores. The other aspect is that this work was done in collaboration with students at IIT Khargpur and people at The Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Optimisation Modelling, Brunel University, UK. Such inter-institutional collaborative work force-multiplies the quality and impact of academic research.

At this point Id like to pause and demonstrate to you that IIM Calcutta faculty are not entirelypreoccupied with esoteric mathematical models. Professors Bhaskar Chakrabarti and Raghabendra Chattapadhyaypaper focuses on the high stakes endeavour of improving the management of our panchayats. Their study of what management systems work achieving co-ordination between panchayats and theline departments of government should be of interest to government administrators. This paper was published in The Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, Nov 2011.

In another policy oriented paper , Professor Sudip Chaudhr looks at the impact of India switching from a process patent regime to a product patent regime in pharmaceuticals. You will recall that our Product Patent regime, that we had adopted in 1970 what whathad given birth to the a large and vibrant pharma industry in India and also made drugs in India available at some of the cheapest prices in the world. Prof Sudip Chaudhrisstudy points out that the switch back to the product patent regime has made large Indian pharmaceutical companies, who are the major R&D spenders in the country, focus on the larger and the more lucrative markets of the developed world. His work appears as a chapter, The Pharmaceutical Industry in India after TRIPSin theforthcoming bookThe New political Economy of Pharmaceuticals in the Global Southby Palgrave Macmillan.

Many of our faculty members had engaged with the challenges and dilemmas of economic growth. Prof Mritiunjoy Mohanty examines why high rates of per capita income growth co-exists in India with rising unemployment as well as democratic contestation ( presented at the University of Massachusetts Amherst May, 2011) ; Prof Amitava Bose examines the inflation- growth relationship in India in one paper and the reasons for intersectoral disparities in growth in another; Prof Manisha Chakrabarty examines what policies will enhance individuals capability to succeed in the labor market and improve their earnings; Sasanka Chanda and Prof Sougata Ray examine whether developmental programs, microcredit and Gandhian innovation can be pillars of a bottom of pyramid strategy, Nimruji Jammulamadaka examines the adhocism in microfinance policy formulation and in another paper the conflict between tribals and mining interests in Orissa; Bhaskar Chakrabarti studies the contested identity of Junglemahal Maoists; Suman Nath and Bhaskar Chakrabarti provide a fascinating account of the Political Economy of Potato Cold Storages in West Bengal; Annapurna Shaw studies the differential effect of the repeal in 1999 of the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act and published her paper in the Journal of Eurasian Geography and Economics,
As you know, we have a giant software services industry but not enough academic work on management issues in that industry. This past year saw a number of studies across different faculty groups at IIM Calcutta on this topic: what makes for optimal outsourcing contracts (Preetam Basu), what determines user involvement in software projects and another paper on the use of simulation to judge software requirements volatility ( both by Rahul Roy), what makes for Agile software companies ( Subir Bhattacharya), HR practices that possess option value in software companies (Prodip Seth); Explaining Sophistication in Collaborative Technology Use (Sanjiv Vaidya and Priya Seetharaman),

Our Finance and Control contributed a number of papers: three papers from Prof Rama Seth: the first on what determines bank risk exposure, the second on how Central Bank Target Rates affect Term Structure of Interest Rates and the third on foreign banks lending behaviour during recessions. There are also papers on how earnings management affects corporate governance ( Manju Jaiswal), , the use of neural networks to forecast one day stock volatility ( BB Chakrabarty), using the real options method for investment decisions in the oil industry ( Ashok Banerjee) and a paper on how to price telecom infrastructure in a monopolistic market ( Ashok Banerjee)
The papers that I have recounted so far are just a few examples of the good work being done here at IIM Calcutta during this past year; please dip into the folder before you for the full list of nearly a hundred papers.

There is another aspect of our work at IIMC we are proud o and that relates to scholarly conferences that we host. The India Finance Conference in December, 2011, donejointly with IIM Bangalore, the 15th Annual International Conference of the Society of Operations Management, in December , 2011and the conference on Management Education for A Sustainable Tomorrow, November, 2011 are some examples.

These conferences attract scholars from the leading management schools from around the world and we are justifiably proud of that.

But even more importantly these conferences provide a platform to stimulate scholarly work in the 3000+ management schools we have in India.. As I remarked last year, when our nations leaders founded IIM Calcutta 50 years ago India was a very poor country that had problems in even feeding its population. Through those difficult early years government funded us in the hope that such public investments would trigger a qualitative change in the whole of management education in this country.Thus, I am glad that through our conferences we were able to trigger research papers from institutions as diverse as,Ramjas College, Delhi University, the Institute for Financial Management and Research Chennai, , the Institute of Information Management & Technology, Aligarh,Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, J&K, and even theNorth?Eastern Hill University, Shillong, to name a few of the many dozens who have benefited. We take seriously our responsibility to help bring all these institutions to a world class level.

Finally, I am glad to report that the Ministry of Human Resources, Government of India, has requested IIM Calcutta to take the lead on organizing a world management conference. This conference, planned for later this year will hopefully do for IIMs and Indian management schools what the Literature Festival at Jaipur has done for Indian writing- put it on the map of must attend conferences in the world . We are grateful for being given this opportunity and are hard at work on it. I also hope that we will see many of you at that important event.

Thank you

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8128

Street talk

admin — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 08:22:53 +0000

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I never had enough money to buy as many books as I wanted to from the bookshops. Besides, bookshops generally kept only the current books on their shelves, and had little by way of surprise in browsing-experience as they call it today. Pavement bookshops of Delhi have been foundation of my lifelong engagements with books. I dont know about the world but in India I have found that Delhi has the best pavement bookshops. Yes, better than Calcutta.

I bought my first Wodehouse, Durrell, Greene, etc for Rs.2/- in 1970s in the small temporary kiosk of books adjacent to the shoe repair kiosk at the entrance to the Indian Coffee House in CP where now the Palika Bazar is. Sanjay Gandhi had demolished the Coffee House during Emergency because it was a place of smuggling ideas or worse, and Rajiv Gandhi built the Park-cum-Palika Bazar on the wreckage which is now a place for smuggling pirate media or worse. The man who ran the book kiosk is now a venerable old man, retired, and his three sons run major bookshops in Janpath, South Extension and Green Park. His sons remember me and nod hello. It pleases me very much, when the world has very little of that for me.

Pavement bookshops are obviously the ultimate reflection of what is selling today. It is the sensex of books market. If an author/publisher makes it to that 3 metre square space, s/he is Blue Chip.

These are also, sociologically, the clearest observatory of what ideas and concerns are impelling the citizen. These bookshops have the produce of human mindscape for which the average and indigent citizen is willing to part with hard-earned cash. These bookshops are peepholes into citizens mind par excellence.

You would also notice, whether it is a Wheeler bookstall in Rajahmundry Railway Station(actually they are pavements stalls dressed up as shops, courtesy the Railways)or a roadside plastic sheet in Sector 17 market in Chandigarh, that the arrangement and layout of books have a fixed pattern which has no doubt been arrived at after long years of market-buffeted experimentation.

On one side, usually to the left (as you face it), is a pile of thick, cheap, classics Dickens, OHenry, Shakespeare, Mein Kampf, etc which are out of copyright and easy for any publisher to churn out. At the central periphery are the current and popular, a bit expensive, books mainly Penguins, Chick-lit, Management stars like the Monk who sold his Ferrari, Zen and Business, and suchlike. These two piles are vertical. In the area enclosed by these two are placed horizontally (face up), the current bestsellers-ranging from Grisham, Clancy, etc to Management stuff, and Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet types, to whatever. Adjacent to these best sellers are the ever present (which tells a big story) Self-Help books where Carnegie is still at it. To the right of these, again horizontally, is pornography, with the softer stuff on top and harder variety hidden below or even in a separate bag. This then is the topography of citizens` minds.

I think I have got sidetracked a bit. The other day when I was cruising past the pavement stalls at CP, I noticed something odd. This thing about pavement bookshops was triggered by that.

As you too can see, I saw in one Classic-Cheap pile a fat Das Kapital with the photo of Karl Marx. That stopped me. I am nearly an old man now and it is clear that I have been around pavement book stalls all my life. I can tell you I have never seen this before. Tagore, Maupassant, Tolstoy, Sherlock Holmes, Hitler, even Khalil Gibran, yes but never Marx. Like everyone else, I too had bought my Kapital in the form of the cheap and excellently produced volumes by Progress Publishers (now extinct), Moscow. And today, in 2012, it comes up in the Classics-Cheap pile! Surely this means something.

I had thought like everyone else that Marx and Marxism was finally dead and gone after Soviet Union collapsed in 1989.

Marx is definitely dead for humankind. Benedetto Croce, one time mentor of Gramsci, had said this in an article. That was in 1907. He was among the first to say this. Not the last, yet.

Over about 100 years there have been about a dozen major campaigns to bury Marx. But the jury is still out it seems.

Instead there have been strange phenomena of people turning towards Marx repeatedly. People, strangest things of the planet. Here are some random notes I made:

In December 2000, in order to celebrate the new millennium BBC TV note, UK`s Foreign Office funded BBC ran an opinion poll about the Thinker of the Millennium. Shakespeare, Galileo, Einstein, even Churchill were offered as candidates. When all the votes came in around 30th December, BBC was shocked: the people had voted for Marx. BBC had fudged announcement of the results and hastily cancelled the planned follow-up programmes.
Well after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Herr Jorn Schutrumpf of M/s Karl-Diet in Berlin, the German publisher of the works of Marx and Engels had this to say in 2005: We are seeing a very distinct increase in the demand for the books, a demand which we expect to rise more steeply..
The Caracas Book Fair, one of the biggest book fairs in Latin America, has seen from 2006, a huge interest in books by Marx and Engels apart from Chavez of course.
Publishing industry in China reported in 2009 that sale of Das Kapital and Maos Red Book has seen a 5-fold increase since last year. This trend continues.
In Japan, from 2009, Marx is being published as Manga Series comic books in Tokyo. Das Kapital is in the bestsellers list.
Thinking that I might have seen a stray, freak of a pavement stall I walked around CP looking at all the stalls. As you can see the canny publisher (of perhaps Daryaganj) had covered all the stalls presumably all over India, at least. Does this mean something? Or am I just an old man, only too willing to be deceived?

There is a joke in and around Delhi. Question: Why when for others after death the last ceremony is held after the 4, 7 or 11 days but for a dead Jat it is held only after full 13 days? Answer: Because you burn his body, his khaat, and still you wait just to be sure he is dead. Is Marx turning out to be the ultimate Jat?

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8120

Consulting the Eye: Trusting Intuition

admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:43:31 +0000

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Ministhy Dileep

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Ministhy Dileep

“By intuition, Mighty Things
Assert themselves – and not by terms –
“I”m Midnight” – need the Midnight say –
“I”m Sunrise” – Need the Majesty?
Omnipotence – had not a Tongue –
His lisp – is lightning – and the sun –
His Conversation– with Sea –
“How shall you know”?
Consult your eye!” (Emily Dickinson)

I liked Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. The core idea is all about intuition, the two seconds-a blink decision. His idea is about trusting the great gift which often operates behind the locked doors of our minds. One knows a fraud because “ it felt like a fraud.’ (I was reminded of that fairytale character Bluebeard. His sisters-in-law on seeing the handsome suitor out to charm their naïve younger sister, said, “Naaaaahhhh…something, something about that blue color that is Just Not Right”. Turned out that he made a hobby out of killing his brides.)

The book makes a case for trusting the power of blink decisions while being aware of blind spots and stereotypical prejudices. He also warns about biases (being tall and good looking does NOT always translate to integrity and strength of character- Warren Harding was a horrible choice for Prez, though he 'looked' the role. And so, we are better off thinking twice- before falling for the Tall, Dark, Handsome variety; considering them an epitome of all possible virtues).

The case of Abbie Conant, who auditioned for the trombone ( a ‘male” instrument as was thought) and was selected because the selection committee did not see ‘who” was playing( she played behind a screen) makes wonderfully enlightening reading. “When the screen created a pure Blink moment, a small miracle happened, the kind of miracle that is always possible when we take charge of the first two seconds: they saw her for who she truly was.”

The last chapter was called ‘Listening with your eyes”. I did search for Emily Dickinson in the Index considering how suitable her little poem was, to the whole theme. I also searched for Dr.Clarissa Pinkola Estes who has written so much about intuitive wisdom. However, our good Mr. Gladwell does not seem to be a great fan of either- for there were no references to either author in the Index.

But that is alright- it helps my intuitive argument that students of management shall benefit a lot more- if they do a lot of reading totally away from their core subjects. You see, it will add link up in the end.

For example, as per Immanuel Kant’s philosophy, Intuition is a cognitive faculty. Bergson discussed Intuition with reference to Metaphysics. Sherlock Holmes was a great user of both logic and intuition and you can find self-help sites that quote extensively from Conan Doyle to justify trusting that unseen voice to become like the legendary sleuth! If you google Intuition and Economics, you will be staggered at the number of articles on the subject-arguing for and against the topic. And if it is William Shakespeare, Calpurnia, wife of Julius Ceaser, did dream of Ceaser’s murder and warned her husband, ‘You shall not stir out of your house today.” (2.2.9)

(Altogether, I felt quite like a sleuth myself after going on an exploring spree thanks to this book. I got to know for example, that in ancient Rome, sometimes superstition was used for decision-making. The commanders of Roman military fleets counted on “sacred” chickens to predict success in battle. If the chickens ate vigorously, the combat would be successful. If the chickens did not eat, the signs were unfavorable. One commander whose sacred chickens refused to eat at sea threw them overboard. “If they won’t eat, let them drink!” he said. The commander apparently lost the battle.)

By the way my intuition also says that Book Reviews should be fun. Don’t Blink.
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