64th Week@XIMB

64th Week@XIMB - 26th August to 1st September, 2012

26th August Past performance are not an accurate predictor of future outcomes. Yet they can give a reference line about the academic career of the person. So much can be said in reference to the academics grades. Are we the student more than the CV and grades?

There was also a lot of thinking gone over the news item - Placement reportage: How the DMS, IIT Delhi 2012 placement report is designed to mislead you?. This shoddy practices of fudging placement report without having a real-world experience of running a values-driven company possess a serious ethical challenge. It is actually a less known but well performed malpractice in most of the B-School!

While army officers go beyond the call of duty sacrificing life for the country, investment bankers do exactly opposite. I can understand root cause of such problems in our education system only that never punishes plagiarism and other such activities. This makes me deeply critical, but am trying hard not to become cynical. As thy folklore wisdom persist that MBA is hyped but post MBA life is over hyped.

27th August There was talk given by Mr.Roy Prosterman, Founder of Rural Development Institute (RDI). He has twice been nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.

There was exhaustive discussion on Spectrum Brands, Inc.--The Sales Force Dilemma in SDM class.

28th August There was virtually not much substantial gain in attending MFM, CM and HRM lecture today.

29th August - A huge discussion on the future of RM program in QRM class. RM program has currently ambi dextrous nature. With its position, it is difficult to find any College to do bench-marking for academic curicula. To understand crux of the debate, one need to use right nomenclature either development or management. Any college should have these aspects for growth: Creation of knowledge through research, Application of knowledge within the industry through commercialization and dissemination of knowledge through classroom lectures. There is a huge gap in research area that needed major thrust .

Any college is built around three pillars: administration , faculty and alumni. At the moment, all of them are not clear about their own vision of XIMB and the third we don't listen any about. There is a practical joke in XIMB that those few who raise the slogan of RM in the loudest voices have nothing to do with the vision of this program. Testosterone and allegiance-driven student community has no place to stop and think over vision of the programme.

Not a single memorial exists today for Fr. Bogaert. What a shameful state of XIMB RM that can't even honor its own pioneering professor and patron. Father Bogaert was the first co-ordinator who facilitated in setting up of CENDERET in 1989. He was the driving force for this Rural Development(RD) program that later evolved in to Rural Management(RM).

30th August - The last class of ESM was on corporation and sustainability. The transition to sustainable capitalism will be one of the most complex our species has ever had to negotiate. Traditional accounting methodas never takes in account natural assets.Current financial tool like NPV or IRR can't easily account for intangible benefits. Sustainability is a parameter of long term impacts and we have to look in the economics with more timeless way, for next generation rather only as discounted cash flows. There was an article on sustainable practices of ABB ltd. on same day worth looking.

One of our Alumnus Mr. Nikhar Gyanesh (2005-07 Batch) currently working with CEAT Tyres as Senior Product Manager visited campus. His talk revolved around Tyre industry and importance of academics in the industry for 'gyaan'. Tractor companies were major clients of Tyre Industry. M&M has a share of 41.4 per cent in the tractor market, followed by TAFE at 23.4 per cent and Escorts at 11.4 per cent. John Deere accounts for a market share of only 7.5 per cent.

31st August - I visited to the C&FA office of Dulux paint today. This visit was done for understanding sales and distribution network of Dulux paint. The discussion was very small due to last day of the month. AkzoNobel is the parent company of this brand. We were given additional 'gyaan' that AkzoNobel has been ranked as the most sustainable chemical company in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DSJI).

1st September - I have heard and seen a lot of XIMB-RM social group’s view of reality. A lot of talks with fellow rural managers became an important data source on ecosystem of the college, private thoughts, and feelings about after-school jobs and future possibilities.

63rd Week@XIMB

63rd Week@XIMB - 19th August to 25th August, 2012

20th August - Since 1997 Dr Debal Deb has been conserving 700 varieties of native rice that seed companies are trying to drive out. He works for biodiversity conservation, knowledge transfer and non-commercial seed exchange within and beyond India's indigenous communities.

Folk Rice Dr Debal Deb



21st August - Today is my birthday. I will only quote Benjamin Franklin on life :"Content to live, content to die unknown, Lord of myself, accountable to none."

21st August I participated in Kurukshetra and Spardha Launch. There was a good Harvard Business review article uploaded by SDM faculty : Ending the War Between Sales and Marketing by Philip Kotler, Neil Rackham, Suj Krishnaswamy (Complete Reading)

22nd August - There was presentation on OSCARD by our group in CM. We cam ro know about: Narasimham Committee on Banking Sector Reforms (1998). There was discussion on MFI Andhra Crisis in MFM class.What's wrong with microfinance? edited by Thomas Dichter and Malcolm Harper is a good book that must be studied in detail for academic knowledge. Ticket size of loan given by ACCION International is between 200-300 $ at Latin America in comparison to average loan size of Rs 5000 -1000 in Indian Micro-finance Industry. Hence, the cost of regulation is much higher in Indian context. So we require more patient not passive capital for revival of Indian Micro-finance Industry.

23rd August - Triple Bottom Line was discussed in detail. The phrase “the triple bottom line” was first coined in 1994 by John Elkington, the founder of a British consultancy called SustainAbility. Now companies are looking for businesses to bring value to their societies. There were not much classes this week. Hence, quite and relax week was coming to the end.

24th August - XIMB organized a ‘Business Conclave Week’. Top executives across the industry would be visiting our campus from 24th to 26th August, 2012. Everyone put up a good show.

I missed preparation as well as functioning of ENVISION 2012 program that was part of this business conclave. That is not what me to be as a professional. Clive Lloyd’s team returned WestIndies with 5-1 pounding at the end of the 1975-76 series in Australia. Clive Llyod said: ‘never again’. They searched some fierce fast bowlers and nurtured young batsman, and turned the table against Australian. I also declare today that this laziness will never happen again.

25th August - Last class of HRM was a guest lecture.

Guest Talk: Mr Saroj Mohapatra, HR JSPL Orissa Unit.

Saroj Mohapatra stressed on the quality is more important than the package of the job. Management education has been born out of school of economics and industrial sociology. In colleges, subjects are taught in compartment wise while its chaos and mixture in the reality.

He told us a story of vision. Revenue source of Dubai was coming only from oil resource. Prince of Dubai planned for non -oil revenue in future. So he set up the most unusual target : making Dubai a tourist destination. That was achieved through engineering and good management. This is what we lacking in India. The task of government is governance and regulation not running business. When there was no investment, there was worried about utilization of mineral resources. Now, with investment coming, government has been worrying about people. There is a structural problem at policy level.

There is a rent seeking mindset embedded in Indian people. When government displaces for road or irrigation project, there is not much talk about compensation package. But, when private parties do this for like steel plant, there is always talk of rehabilitation and justified compensation package. JSPL is paying 5 times package yet there is demand for the job guarantee for grandsons. There must be peaceful co existence of under-developed, developing and developed. Unless there is provision of social mobility, this can't be achieved.

62nd Week@XIMB

62nd Week@XIMB - 12th August to 19th August, 2012

12th August - There is a policy paralysis in India. There are concerns over contraction in industrial output and drought need to be addressed soon. India's economic growth could fall below 5 per cent in the the first quarter of current fiscal.

13th August - Mr. K. Ramkumar, Executive Director on the Board of ICICI Bank is responsible for Human Resources, Customer Service & Operations. Are top business schools losing sight of what hirers want? is a probing article by him with a countering answer from N. Ravichandran, Director IIM Indore - Institutions need time to mature made by day.

RBI had released long ago Malegam Committee Report on micro-finance. Report of the RBI Sub-Committee of its Central Board of Directors to study Issues and concerns in the micro finance institutions (MFI) Sector.

14th August - I had taken an interesting question for the research while doing later assignment of QRM. How students of PDGM-RM in XIMB identify effective (and ineffective) areas of the curriculum offered to them ? The parameters were field work, demand in market, relevance in development field or attributes like value addition of knowledge etc.

15th August - On the occasion of the 65th Anniversary of India's Independence Day, I have to say nothing. Facebook pages are colored with the heart of patriots.

16th August - ‎"Start Your Venture" not floating this year 'due to some last minute procedural problems' ... a step back for RM program.

TALK DELIVERED BY MR. AJIT KANITKAR AND MR. DINESH AWASTHI

As part of the Livelihood sharing series a special talk by Ajit Kanitkar (Program Officer, Ford Foundation and former Professor, IRMA) and Dinesh Awasthi (Director EDII) was organized on 16th August, 2012. Livelihoods MANTHAN is a collaborative effort to envision the participation of management and higher educational institutions as an important part of the livelihoods ecosystem int the county. The distinguished speakers spoke on the theme “Grassroots Entrepreneurship and livelihoods” and interacted with the XIMB, Rural Management students at length. The talk was coordinated by Prof. C. Shambu Prasad and a few representatives from NGOs and professionals working in the livelihood sector also attended the session.

Ajit Kanitkar reminded the audience that agriculture itself is an enterprise, albeit a very risky one. Uncertainty about the monsoon, price fluctuations, spurious seeds, storage and transportation, pest attacks and so on makes agriculture the riskiest enterprise. Under these circumstances the speaker argued that there has to be a multipronged strategy to generate enough livelihood options for the people and it should specifically address three major areas of concern. First, there can be no substitute for agriculture in a country like India where 60-70 crores of people are still dependent on it. We have to find ways and means to make agriculture a profitable enterprise. Secondly people have to start respecting vocational education. Time and resources has to be allocated for training a large number of young people for skill development. Thirdly, Mr. Kanitkar mentioned about the need to promote social enterprises.

“Economy of scale and scope is the most important factor for successful running of any social enterprise” - Dinesh N. Awasthi.

Dinesh N. Awasthi firmly believes that until unless all the people are economically empowered it will be impossible for them to get social and political empowerment. According to him Social Entrepreneurship is all about making products and services available to people which are accessible as well as affordable. He explained the three different views about social entrepreneurship.

a) Ashoka Foundation view:- It believes that whosoever is doing social innovation and trying to fix social issues, irrespective of the facts like whether it is getting grants and funds or not, its earning profits or not and whether it is self-sustainable or not it should continue doing the work.

b) Muhammad Yunus view:- His view is opposite to Ashoka foundation’s view. According to him a social entrepreneur must be self-sufficient; its activities should be self-sustainable and must make profits. People, organizations who are investing in a social enterprise should re-invest the profits in these activities only. They should not take away any part of the profits that are being generated.

c) Any enterprise should address the need of bottom of the pyramid following the principles Availability, Accessibility, Affordability.

17th August - There was a group presentation on Individual lending in MFI. That passed quite well. I learnt the difference between asset based and collateral based lending.

There was career counselling Session with Prof. Govindrajan. I expressed my interest in either consulting or development sector. Market research will be my third option. I am looking forward for off campus amid weak economy that may affect placement.

Vijay Mahajan: Rebuilding a Stronger Microfinance Sector in India - Vijay Mahajan, the president of the Microfinance Institutions Network of India and also the founder and chairman of the Basix social enterprise group talked to India Knowledge@Wharton about the implications of the new bill and the way ahead for the sector.

Why research that establishes causality is better than just correlation? by Krishnamurthy V Subramanian, Assistant Professor (Finance), ISB. Correlation is the basis for superstition while causation forms the basis for science.

18th August - I visited office of The Odisha State Cooperative Agricultural & Rural Development (OSCARD) Bank. That was followed by brief discussion between our team and one of the staff member of OSCARD bank. They were not so reluctant to share financial data but it looked more like white elephant of the government.

Mechai Viravaidya: How Mr. Condom made Thailand a better place

61st Week@XIMB

61st Week@XIMB - 5th August to 11th August, 2012

5th August - Professor Dilip Soman from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, speaks at a conference about behavioral economics and mental accounting.

Fear of Finance: Financial Literacy and Planning for Post secondary Education



6th August - One of our faculty is an IRMA alumnus. She shared a valuable insight about rural management course. IRMA has no case studies as reading material in its early years. Faculty, students and visiting fellow of the institute thrived hard to develop their own case research material. Today, we all are benefiting from their ground work. As long as basic principles of reliability, rigour, precision and validity are followed, the research quality will always be good. There is a great and valuable resource of Working Papers (228) on IRMA website useful for rural managers. These working Papers provide an opportunity for IRMA faculty, visiting fellows and students to sound out their ideas and research work before publication and get feedback and comments from their peer group.

Rural management student must check this page of International Journal of Rural Management for latest developments. The International Journal of Rural Management (IJRM) is the first international journal that focuses exclusively on rural management as opposed to rural or community or sustainable development.

7th August - ESM: Agriculture should be looked from the livelihood point of view rather than contribution to GDP. Industrialized farming is not sustainable and there is hidden cost of subsidy with health issues. There are success stories built on sustainable agriculture. With dedicated investment of time and energy for three years, Rajeev Baruah has proved this fact. There is no need of crazy maverick backed with foreign aided NGO to do this job.

Slow Food is an international movement founded by Carlo Petrini in 1986 and expanded globally to over 100,000 members in 150 countries.

8th August - We have already news of weak monsoon rains that can slow down sowing of key crops. There is also a story of public private partnership in Maharashtra. Maharashtra govt join hands with PepsiCo, Unilever and others to develop value chains for vegetable crops. FMCG companies are shifting focus from premium products because consumers will be trading down due to inflation and low income due to uneven rains. As per India Meteorological Department(IMD) Rainfall deficiency is large in Punjab, Haryana, west Rajasthan and Saurashtra and Kutch.

9th August - ESM: There was full on discussion on Watershed Management as a strategy for managing natural resources. There was presentation of documentary of Waterworks India: Four Engineers and A Manager. The camera travels from the remote cold desert of Leh to far south in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, then visiting two outstanding rural engineers in Rajasthan.

No talk of Water Management is complete without mention of Rajendra Singh
known as "waterman of India". He won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2001 for his pioneering work in community-based efforts in water harvesting and water management.

Water Mangament Workshop by Rajendra Singh-Part 1


2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Part of the talk can be viewed on the you-tube.

India Water Portal is an open, inclusive, web-based platform for sharing water management knowledge amongst practitioners and the general public.

10th August - There was talk given by three eminent fellows:
1- Debashish Sen - Head, Natural Resources Management at PSI attached
2- Dr Nagesh Kolagri on participatory GIS in empowering rural communities.
3- Dr. Baharul Islam Mazumdar (Sr. Agronomist, Tripura) on SRI

There was a batch meet called by placement committee on the scenario. It was an eye opener for those sleeping with cushion of brand name XIMB. It's time to buck up and start revising their knowledge stock and flow !

11th August - Only two closing lectures of immersion course ensured a peaceful weekend.

60th Week@XIMB

60th Week@XIMB - 29th July to 4th August, 2012

29th July - Sunday is celebrated through a video on rural marketing sharing experiences of Airtel, M&M, and Hero Honda in rural India



Eyeing on the monsoon reality, farmers in northern India always use the proverbs of Ghagh aur Bhaddari for weather forecasting. There has been a research paper - Farming proverbs: analysis of Their Dynamics and Farmers' Knowledge by Ranjay K Singh and A Dorjey.

The linkage of good monsoons and the Indian market is too close still we keep ignoring the reality of the rural market. With inadequate monsoons rural consumption falls and so do the overall sales of agri-input companies. There are many more companies whose sales are indirectly dependent on the agricultural cycle but with the poor monsoon that will also go down. Farmers try to maximize their returns in times of drought through the use of local, non-hybrid seed varieties and cheaper micro-irrigation.

30th July - A two-day workshop on “Markets That Empower Farmers (& Consumers)” has started today at XIMB. This learning and brainstorming workshop is jointly organized by XIMB and ASHA (Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture) and is coordinated by Prof. Shambu Prasad. There was detailed coverage on the blog of Kisan Swaraj.

My Learning:-

1- People have lost many years doing wrong things. But you have to do wrong for long enough to realize this. It's worthwhile to do something not for the sake of money and pleasing society.

2- Too much consumer centric approach has diverted our attention from the problems of primary producers and rural livelihood. Policy, Market, and Technology are currently used for agri-business rather than agriculture. Farmers are in crisis, not farming.

3- Diversity is the key concept for sustainable agriculture. Sustainability should be the keyword for the next green revolution. More collectivization of farmers is required to increase bargaining power. Bina sanskar nahin sahkar, bina sahkar nahin udhar (without morals no cooperation, without cooperation no uplift).

Fact: 5000 liters of water is required for rice in comparison to negligible irrigation for millet. Per capita yield must be matched with the per capita nutritious value of the crop.

31st July - There were guest speakers in the ESM class: Joseph Thomas, Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship, IITM,  and Sridhar Radhakrishnan who runs a Zero Waste Center in Kovalam, recycling local waste and converting it to useful products, thereby generating livelihood for locals. Both of them were critical of the engineers. One of them was about the design of sewage systems design and the other was about the use of incinerators for the disposal of solid waste.

One quote mentioned in the slide quite touched my emotional chord: “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

The concept of waste management is good and useful for assessment of product life cycle assessment. While the whole class was very vocal in their support of organic farming, I found that response quite shallow. The core message of organic farming forms an antithesis for the students looking for their bright future in fertilizer giants like Monsanto, DSCL, Tata Rallies, etc. I will support my assumption by quoting Upton Sinclaire: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

1st August - M-CRIL is Micro Credit Rating International Ltd. M-CRIL is a global leader in the financial rating of micro-finance institutions and sectoral advisory services.

2nd August - Prof Nonita Yap, Professor in Rural Planning and Development at the University of Guelph delivered a talk on "Greening the economy - opportunities through cleaner production and industrial ecology" at XIMB. She touched on the topic of Decarbonisation of the whole energy sector, Industrial Symbiosis at Kalundborg, and the "Quasi Cyclic" economy. There was criticism of the cluster approach of industries in her talk as these clusters concentrate pollutants. In India, industries rarely see waste as a resource.

3rd August - The immersion course Agribusiness Value Chain Finance (AVCF)and Carbon Management and Carbon Trading (CMCT) started today.

4th August - I was sick with a fever and still managed to attend a few classes of immersion courses. With the weekend looming, enjoy this video!

Making the Market Work for the Poor: This session was moderated by Elliot Gerson, Executive Vice President, The Aspen Institute USA, and the panelists included Adarsh Kumar, Executive Director, All India Artisans and Craftworkers Welfare Association; Lakshmi Venkatesan, Founding Trustee and Executive Vice-President, Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST); Deepender Hooda, Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha (Indian National Congress); and Amitava Chattopadhyay, The L'Oreal Chaired Professor of Marketing-Innovation and Creativity, INSEAD, Singapore.

The majority of Indians are still not reaping the benefits of liberalization. While there seems to be a growing consensus that the trickle-down theory is not working for India, is there a way that markets can be made more responsive to the rural poor in particular? Beyond NGO activism, how can the poor buy into the market economy?

12th Week @ XIMB

12th Week --- 28th August to 3rd September

28th August - Sunday. No work and missed Envision organized by XSYS. SRP work finished today.

29th August - Thanks to Partha and AP that I landed up in the class for right time.

30th August - Every teacher is in hurry to finish the course.

31st August - Eid Holiday !

1st September - Ganesh Pooja Holiday ! Lunch food had came from ISKCON. There are students who didn't know how to eat from their hands. It was hilarious to watch them eating from 2 fingers :P

2nd September - A long day to get tired. 5 classes a day. I was in the part of 2 team and one personal presentation. Goofed up in one slide and mistype "blind spot" as "blood spot";

3rd September - ME test was done on the basis of pure chances. But QM presentation was superb. Happy with the positive feedback of sir and my team. Gave feedback of each subject and teacher. Indra Nooyi and Ela Bhatt were chosen as examples of woman leaders in LTB class.

11th Week @ XIMB

11th Week --- 21th August to 27th August

21st August - Birthday. Sunday. Batch took me in the air from room to the hostel front. Love you RM 2011-2013 BATCH.

22nd August - Nothing special but exhaustive day in classes.Launch of Spardha was awesome. Theme waschosen from starting scene of Gulaal. Mashaal and Gulaal added the colour in the show. Literally, it stirred the sentiments of the people.

23rd August - Mother Teresa and remembered the book The missionary position by Christopher Hitchens that dealt with a frank expose of the Teresa cult. Learning about Financial sheet is quite good. Feeling happy with the content of FR course ; Shadow placement committee work.Website discussion. A form was float to know expectation of the batch internship and job expectations. Launch of LAXIM 1 ( lol !)

24th August - COMM classroom discussions were awesome : Ethical sensivity, whistle-blower in company, Is business a commercial or social activity, spiritualism, focus on deadlines and Incentives vs Karma theory of work. Learned that take chance for choice. Rupika is reaaly good speaker on public platform !

25th August - Talk on rural marketing by Kalpana Kaul (Raina); LITTE preparation for dinner. Long chat with Deopriya madam, she has amazing knowledge of poetry.

26th August - Never make question in sequential manner for survey. It should capture
holistic approach. That I learned from OB lecture. SADA video presentation. It was damn wrong evaluation. Emotion matters more than facts and statistics.

COMM discussion were deep. Batch shows hidden maturity. Take 2 minute timefor yourself. On learning about Economic rent, I remembered Atanu Dey analysis of 2G spectrum case.

27th August - Red Letter Day of my life ! Missed class ME,soft skill lesson and Envision 2011. Gone to temple :)

Very nice song by Manhar from Movie 'Aap To Aise Na The' that came in mine mind today.


Learning of Week : You don't stop asking question if you don't get answer.

10th Week @ XIMB

उम्मीद वक्त का सबसे बड़ा सहारा है, गर हौसला है तो हर मौज में किनारा है। -'साहिर' लुधियानवी

10th Week --- 14th August to 20th August

14th August - Bike came to Bhubaneswar ! SRC cordially invited everyone for the candle march tonight in honour of country's Independence Day.

15th August - First Holiday of the Trimester ! Not attended flag hosting ceremony due to sleep. Spent time with children at orphanage for SRP project. That was much better way of celebrating independence.

16th August - Summer Internship Process started today. I was busy man today as a shadow Placecom member. Literally run 100m for a cup of coffee to HR. Gaurav Anand, Joslin Jose, Abhijeet and Anshul were finally selected in this agri input company.

17th August - Not much happening day. Sportscom Applicants were invited and most ; Yogesh Joshi was finally selected in any committee.

18th August - Robert Mulhal of Lucca Leadership gives a brilliant interactive session. He pointed out about : Awareness to Serve and Everybody is leader.In,Shoelace game was really good. Then, there was RDA presentation; We presented our ppt on Peru's famous NGO Flora Tristan;

Check this video for inspiration presented by Robert.


19th August - Learned in OB-1 lecture that about deep impact of the repetition of micro stresses and Techno stress. F M Sahoo asked us : Never do any work on holiday!

It was World Humanitarian Day; S. Parsuraman, Director, TISS, Mumbai and Mr. Mihir Bhatt, Founder, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI), Ahmedabad were there in the list of speakers. Seminar revolved around disaster events that has impacted India. More details here on SRC blog.

20th August - RDA quiz was there on Saturday.Pretty good show for whole batch; Not attended launch of Kurushetra. Came in the Game Committee Defaulters.

Learning of the week - New term learned this week Servant Leadership.

9th Week @ XIMB

9th Week --- 7th August to 13th August

7th August - I opened my eyes in Jharkhand. And our train reached at Jamshedpur in the morning. I remembered Udaan movie.

8th August - Returned from XLRI,Jamshedpur in the afternoon. Mr. Inir Pinheiro an alumnus of XIMB RM addressed us tonight. He is a Social Entrepreneur, Founder of Grassroutes. His emphasis on dreams, networking and sharing ideas with role models was the core of the talk. Yes, he told about the sacrifices made in personal and professional life throughout this 5 years.

MBA schools are over hyped placement agencies. That line completely knocked me down.

9th August - Biresh Sahoo is an awesome person and definitely an outlier. Today, he compared h index of the research papers in the microeconomics class. None of the teacher stands near to him in XIMB. He unveiled the mask of sophistication in the research field of many eminent names in XIMB.Research gives one frustration while teaching gives money. Only conclusion that I can draw from the Indian education system. I am planning to do same case study for my previous Alma mater.  FR class is quite interactive in nature.

10th August - CEO of Srijan and Ashoka fellow- Mr. Ved Arya was cancelled. Another fellow from Srijan, an IRMA graduate gives a very balanced talk. As per him, it is necessary to get your hands dirty in young age with field work.

11th August - We reached Gram Vikas, Bahrahampur after 2 hours of train and bus journey. Have got the preview of the organization.Gram Vikas uses water and sanitation as a cleansing force for societal ills, and an in-roads to social equity and holistic village empowerment and development.


12th August - I have the chance to have field trip to a tribal village in Orissa. 30 odd families of Kondha tribe were there. A memorable day of my life. Happy with the performance and participation of the group. My group consist of Sreevidya, Suma, Vandana, Vaibhav, Dr. Jyoti , Joslin, Nafis, Gaurish and me. Sad with the immature behaviour of my batch.

दिल ना उम्मीद तो नही, नाकाम ही तो है, लंबी है गम की शाम, मगर शाम ही तो है. --फैज अहमद 'फैज

13th August - Our batch missed the breakfast due to late night work. It hurts Peppin Sir. I am too feeling like guilty of crime in wasting food. Joe told us about demystification of various myths propagated by social conditioning. Returned back to Bhubaneshwar.

हजार बर्क गिरें, लाख आंधियां उठें, वह फूल खिल के रहेंगे, जो खिलने वाले हैं। --साहिर लुधियानवी

8th Week @ XIMB

8th Week --- 31st July to 6th August

31st July - "Teach for India" came for a Presentation at XIM, Bhubaneswar. Sunday Morning was good. SAMBANDH 2011 kicked started in the evening.

वो इंतजार था जिसका ये वो सहर तो नहीं, ये वो सहर तो नहीं जिसकी आरजू लेकर.

I remembered this line today. The batch is doing awesome in dance, song, games and every extra curricular activities. Yet no body is uttering a single word either about B Plan or Social Entrepreneurship. What a batch of under performers. Anyone's role model define the horizon of his/her aspirations. Our batch is choosing wrong role models for rural management programme.

1st Aug - SADA class was good today because there was discussion on Ideology. I loved one quote mentioned in slide. "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why are they poor, they call me a Communist."

Pandit Shri Hari Prasad Chaurasia conducted a Hindustani Classical Flute Recital today. It was mesmerizing and worth experiencing. His consummate artistry and inimitable style held the audience spell bound for 2 hours. As they say : The flute is the symbol of the spiritual call - The call of the divine love.

Sports Committee Launch also happened. Another day in XIMB is over. But I will quit alcohol and cigarettes. As in the words of Suma - Music has an overwhelming effect to change the mood.

2nd Aug - XQuizzite Launch Quiz. One team used smart phones for quiz that was quite sad.

3rd Aug - ME (Managerial Economics) marks came. 3.5 out of 10. Not bad for me.

4th Aug - LTB lecture was a disaster for the class.

5th Aug - RDA quiz is disaster for the batch. Rest of the day was passed in relaxing way. Milind Gete is upset over the pedagogy employed here. I agree with him. Ours batch is under-performing despite of huge potential.

6th Aug -Finally, the pending initiation of Field Familiarity Program by Kajri Mishra today. No group presented the ppt but we have a talk delivered by a fantastic person named Joe Madith. Joe Madith founded Gram Vikas in 1979; He make a few sarcastic/formal comment on Shambhu sir, students and XIMB in his speech but that was quite well articulated in the nature.

Social entrepreneur Joe Madiath, founder and executive director of Gram Vikas tells about his life to NDTV.



Joe Madith told about his life. He was involved heavily in students politics and expelled from several schools during early adolescent. He is an alumnus of Loyola College Chennai. He had done cycle tour of India covering each district.  He was working on Bio Gas (Bullshit) and then he shifted to sanitation (Full-shit) programme. He doesn't believe in change but complete transformation and there was a lot stress on Human dignity in his speech. That part touched me. I always felt that lack of dignity of physical labour is rampant in India. Despite of his left oriented thought process, he is working as CEO of Gram Vikas.

Two anecdotes are especially mention-able. First, George Bush sit on the last bench in the classroom. That was pointed by his professor in Harvard Business School. Hence, an open warning was given to backbenchers. Second, he was offered a meeting and cup of tea after several protests by British consulate in Chennai. While American consulate asked his principal for prosecuting him to due to his non violent protests against Vietnam war and equal rights for Afro Americans. A good example of difference between policies of two nation in a third world country...

Lesson Learned : First, poor people don't want miserable solution. They want the best like any other humans. Second, authority is not the source of truth. Third and last, exclusion of many as birthrights by few is an orthodox practice prevailed all over India.

Social entrepreneur Joe Madiath, founder and executive director of Gram Vikas, tells Global X what happened when, at age 11, he tried to unionize the workers who were employed by his very own father. Within two months, he was in boarding school!

I am going XLRI for sports meet today in the night. Don't ask me which game that I didn't know either.