Placement Season

It is that time of the year which every one was looking forward to. The placement week kicks in and most of the guys are all set to crack it. The placement season looks good here in India despite the rumors of impending recession. But looking at the state of our economy its looks like we would be able to tide over the recession, probably with a little bit of bruises.
How ever unlike the last recession in which asian economies suffered huge losses india's exposure to foreign funds is limited and the funds invested in the country seem to have sound investment reasoning. unlike the last time another threat facing the world economies is the subprime crisis. even though our banking system do not have direct exposure to US subprime I forsee an indian subprime crisis brewing. This is purely my own personal opinion. from the ground realities which I have seen most of the indian professional have gone in for some sort of personal loans either be it home loan or vehicle loan. Now what will happen if there is a cut in salary. There is bound to be default. This might lead to banks sitting on lots of NPA's and consequtly another crisis brewing..

Let us wait and watch..

An impartial observation on FT Rankings

This article makes an interesting reading.
http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/2008/01/congratulations-isb.html

How free is the free press

India is among the few countries in the world which boasts of providing considerable freedom to press. How ever What I have observed is that this freedom is completely misused and even some "reputed" newspaper do not follow the basic decency of reporting news items with the seriousness it deserves.

I first came across such incidences during my previous avatar at a prestigious organisation. Any of achievements of this organisation was usually pushed to 3 or 4 tha page of this prominent business newspaper since the newspaper had some spat with the parent organisation. Later on when a big advertising campaign was launched by this organisation and it started to give some advertisement to this particular newspaper the newsitems started to appear on the front pages.

How ever one of the recent instances where this dubious freedon was misused was in the recent rankings of ISB. One of the most respected newspaper in South India published this news item on the last page. That is a page which is usually reserved for reporting some inconsequential events. This is an achievement which draws no parallel in the immediate history of the indian academecia. And as a country India should be proud of such an achievement.

What are the news media hoping to achieve by such kind of partisan reporting. If their major objective is to have a selective and partisan reporting then they have achieved their aim. But they are not doing justice to the citizen who persume that the newspaper offers them unbiased news.

ISB Ranked in FT Ranking

In the latest FT Ranking ISB has been ranked 20th. ISB is the youngest business school Ranked in Top 20. The Ranking's can be seen in http://rankings.ft.com/global-mba-rankings.

The News can also be seen on NDTV at http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/videopod/default.aspx?id=22830

I am f***** smart

Probably one of the best answers ever being told to an Interviewer at Harvard Business School.

For those who do not know the history, this is what Jeff Skilling (CEO of Enron) told during his interview for HBS MBA and no doubt he was selected. Not only this he was among the top 5 % of the class (and probably a Baker Scholar..I am not sure of this).

Wikipedia defines smartness as "Smart usually means highly intelligent."

So what was it that prompted people like Jeff to undertake such devious ways. After learning tid bits of accounting in my MBA class (courtesy Mark Finn and Siva) I now understand that they had retorted to some accounting practices which never existed previously. A gross example of this malpractice would be "they started counting the profits of their Dhabol projects when they had just begun its construction". And the rest as they say is history.

I have had the opportunity to interact with people of various talents and skills। What I observe is that the more accomplished a person is the more humane and natural he becomes. But I have also seen many guys who "seems" to have accomplished a lot (or that is what they pretend) and are at their arrogant best.

One of the common themes which I observe in the arrogant people is their futile attempt to create "macho" image of themselves. In case of Enron CEO I even hear that he used to go for mountain bike riding while he was the CEO. I have come across people who have done tremendous things in life like trekking for 3-5 days at the age of 60 or working in less glamorous jobs in spite of good qualification. In spite of all these these individuals have maintained a relatively low profile

So then What really goes wrong.. I don't really have an answer as of now.

Where were you?

Lots of water has flown in Ganges since my last post.

It was not that I did not have time but Blog never occupied a priority item in my mind. I am currently in term 6 and with 2 more terms to go placement is what is occupying everyones mind. Things move quite fast and it is almost difficult to believe that I have spend 8 months here at ISB. This period brings about lots of good memories like those wonderful lectures and some great friends whom I have made at ISB. This week is the alumni reunion and hence lots of activites in campus. Lots of alums have made it to the campus and I had the opportunity to meet some accomplised people (especially the enterpreneurs). One of the alums I met was working for a prominenet newspaper and was also running a social enerprise. She said that she plans to quit the professional job and concenterate on the social venture. It takes more than guts to do it. I think people in India have started awakening and have the guts to follow what their hearts say.

Kudos to the new India!!!!

Day One and Here you Go..

So after much of fun and frolic the guys and back to work. The guys who took the preterm already have there feet wet but for others it is like plunging into an Ice cold pond. But there is no other way than to take the plunge.

After the first two lecturers I have some confessions to make. Here I discover myself amongst a batch of achievers and I feel I am and the least proficient of the lot. But one thing which impresses me is the pedagogy. It is not like anything which I have come across till now. Here the emphasis is on practical aspect of subject and how it is applied in the real world rather than emphasizing on formulas and its application. I think that the education here resembles more closely to the American education system. We have some very good professors from Wharton and Kellog teaching us and some excellent resident faculties from ISB too.

I have two classes tomorrow and lots of pre reading to do...So Bye for now..