24th February - Its not about good grades. Its about surviving the last trimester..!!
25th February - Abhijit Sen Committee was setup once to examine whether and to what extent futures trading has contributed to price rise in agricultural commodities. I couldn’t find the report on any of the government website but found the report on Mint’s website (Draft Report of the Expert Committee on Commodity Futures Trading). There was no evidence to suggest that futures trading stoked inflation.
26th February - The line between recklessness and overconfidence can be difficult to find. I crossed that line in CMD end term paper and find bamboozled by the question paper. That came as an shocking eye opener for the last trimester.
Batch 2011- 2013 at XIMB gets grand farewell with recalling success, achievements and memories over the last two years. People will be missed, but never forgotten.
27th February - Milestone Achieved! XIMB Rural Management Achieves 100% placement for 2011-13 batch today. A fabulous job done by Placement committee. Thanks to Niraj Kumar sir and Jeevan J Arakal sir for their continuous support. Great work done by Krishanu, Darren, Gautam, Rupika, Jisha, Mithilesh, Rahul, Jyoti. Heartfelt congratulations and best wishes for your continued success.
28th February - End term exam is going on. I am feeling relieved with end of each paper.
1st March - I didn't submit any assignment of either GID or G&D. That was highest act of insincerity in my academic career at XIMB.
2nd March - Baggage of rural manager has to be kept aside for a new journey ahead. I am ending this daily updates today. It takes years of self-reflection and asking some really uncomfortable questions about yourself, but you do come out of it a better person. That was the purpose of writing about daily learning in the journey of two years.
89th Week@XIMB - 17th February to 23rd February, 2013
17th February - Sikkim Trip
18th February - Sikkim Trip
19th February - Sikkim Trip
20th February - All classes were finished till now. I only remember Hobbes quote mentioned in Ethics class - It is a bleak world where there is continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
The following seven students of RM II have won the worldwide ACARA Challenge of USA (University of Minnesota). The Teams are: Pure Pots- V Ramesh, Pabitra Nayak- Prize $ 1500 ; Nutricycle- Jyoti Kumar Mainali, Omprakash Singh, Shreyas Bhartiya- Prize $ 1000 ; Community Shops- Amit Verma, Sachin Pethkar- Honorable Mention- (Prize money on Pitching)
21st February - Only one student had completed IRP in a entire batch of 330 students, and that puts his effort in perspective. B Srinivas Rao completed his IRP with full dedication and efforts.
22nd February - This was the last class of CMD where I learnt about futures market in more detail. The recent growth of futures trading has taken place in the backdrop of a long history of ban on forward trading when the perception about these markets was not good. These markets are bound to challenge status quo and adversely impact some interest groups. Whenever futures markets try to grow faster than the under developed physical spot markets of underlying commodities, disconnect between the two gets widened thereby exposing the futures market to the criticism of being driven by speculators, even if closely regulated.
23rd February - From a distance it seems that XIMB-RM is two poles: the potential, educated progressive half; and the self indulgent and bias, backward half. And they are quite dynamic in nature depending on situations ;) But a neanderthal legacy of hullabaloo over civilized and reasoned debates exist in the students.
88th Week@XIMB - 10th February to 16th February, 2013
10th February - A person's essential fair-mindedness is perhaps its most striking and skillful feature that can won him over adversaries. That was my assumption until I came at XIMB. Here, the bias decision will win you more friends and build a reputation of caretaker. I hoped that such scenario changes in coming times in vain. The lobbies, peer pressure and affiliation became stronger with each passing day. I read a quote by Warren Buffett that cleared the fog in the mind : "If they don't have integrity, they never will. The chains of habit are sometimes too heavy to be broken."
11th February - George Orwell had said long time back: "Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it." This holds so true for each batch of engineering or management that I have been part of.
12th February - I read a wonderful statement on Economic inequality in a Journal : (Economic) Inequality materializes the upper class, vulgarizes the middle class and brutalizes the lower class.
87th Week@XIMB - 3rd February to 9th February, 2013
3rd February - Not in campus.
4th February - Not in campus.
5th February - Not in campus.
6th February - I returned to the campus and attended GID lecture. I became aware of the term Green GDP for first time. The green gross domestic product (green GDP) is an index of economic growth with the environmental consequences of that growth factored in. Due to lack of training in economics, I was also unaware of the term Shadow Pricing. While discussing more about economics, I came to know about Ithaca Hours, Joan Robinson, Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) . There was a general consensus that our society with market economy has transformed into market society in the age of neo liberalization.
7th February - There was discussion on audit process of an organization in GD class. That led our informal discussion in the class to Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India.
8th February - “When in Rome, be a Roman” is an often quoted idiom, but I never believed in the the practicality of this phrase. Moreover, it's everybody desire to be like, looked at and responded for walking on an offbeat path. This routine statement became more important in the context of state versus individual. No one can deny moral courage, of a person who stands in the face of public and governmental pressure and to do what is right rather balancing the views. It is necessary to be different and unique in its own sense. That individual walking a different line can only became a though leader and can be taken as an asset for social structure even when society is not conducive to adapt the contradictory form of truth. It is important not only for all of us to understand importance of such person. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult.
9th February - In the absence of Prof Kajri Mishra, our lecture was taken by Prof. Debi Prasad Mishra, who handles the general management strategy and policy department as a senior faculty member at IRMA. The complete lecture was around public system management. There was brief discussion on externality and Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003 (FRBMA). In context of Indian state, post independence state has taken responsibility to provide fair value to producers, reasonable price to consumers and employment to the work force. That was a nearly impossible for any state to attend multiple objectives of the contradictory nature. And generations have to bear the good and bad consequences of such experiment.
It is a common complain that bureaucracy is not of customer friendly nature. It's wrong because there definition of customer is quite different. Citizen who pays for services is not a customer but who is in power hierarchy is a customer for them. This was a deja-vu moment of my learning about government. There are various methods like Citizen's Charter, RTI, Social Audit and e-governance has been taken to make state more citizen friendly. Let me end this week with an old, if cynical, saying about government : “Never believe anything until it is officially denied.”
86th Week@XIMB - 27th January to 2nd February, 2013
I am away from the laptop, internet and XIMB for a complete week on a trip to home. I was becoming stoic calm proof against vicissitude of academic pressure.
The power of "rural": A special on rural marketing
26th February - Mid-term papers of OM and CMIB were over till evening. I am trying to stop multi-tasking for achieving better concentration and productivity. Even if I do well or don't do well. I have realized that there are certain things that are important in life. I am trying to live as per them.
Patience, Curiosity, and Irreverence have always remained the guiding tools for learning. Knowledge with fear in the heart is a quality to despise. Hence, I am sharpening the courage for defiance as it will ultimately lead me in standing for something. If we don't take a stand for a cause in the protected academic institution, what are really our chances to face injustice bravely in the real world? Standing for something isn’t just about writing it down. It’s about believing it and living it.
27th February - IRV and REPP papers were over. Currently, the whole batch is on the verge of rapidly going to 'Tragedy of Commons' due to few free riders. Hoping to resolve the situation soon.
28th February - There was an introduction to Public Policy in the REPP course. Public policy is what governments choose to do or not to do. While looking at Indian government, there seems no serious accountability and willingness in translating the well-intentioned policies into tangible action. There seems no end to the disinvestment process of cash cows to raise capital. It poses a very serious question: Do we need privatization or more accountability?
In The Market System: What It Is, How It Works, and What to Make of It (2001), Lindblom eloquently quoted that - Market System is the best mechanism yet devised for creating and fostering wealth and innovation, it is not very efficient at assigning non-economic values and distributing social or economic justice.
There is an unspoken dictum in the heads of power holders that market as a mechanism is exempt from social and cultural norms and lies outside the bounds of the society. Believing that for-profits in search of business will voluntarily serve the public good is naive. There is a contradiction between the motives of a private company and societal obligations. Currently, the free market is assumed as a hybrid of public subsidy and private profit by a common man. NDA government tried to serve the economic and political benefits of smaller strata with flawed policies and the 'India Rising' slogan, they were kicked out of power soon. Even the emerging middle class supports the private sector, but the resistance from everyday citizens of India can't be suppressed. Only massive state violence can override the wishes of people.
29th February - I gave a lot of thought to Rural Consumption and Production. Due to intervention of FMCG companies, there is an improvement in the life style of few people. But, that growth is related to a service sector and over a long period of time, promoting only rural consumption is a downward spiral. Without the opportunity of sustainable income, there will be the emergence of huge economic inequality. There is a dire need of capacity building, making credit facilities available and effective utilization of productive assets. Information, Access, and Capabilities are three key indicators to measure the strength of any farmer. There is already an increasing trend of movement of agricultural cultivators to casual laborers, which is much in contradiction of the self-employment policy promoted by the government. There is a clear evidence that self employed cultivator is moving into insecure and unorganized labour market. What happens now of the dream of the self-reliant village?
There is a need for funding for rural infrastructure and market development. There are so many Agricultural Mandi's that are unreachable There is an urgent need for intensive development of cottage industries and agricultural processing units with backward and forward market linkages. The chain in the supply and distribution network is highly distorted by too many middlemen. We often tend to measure supply chain efficiency without looking into value chain analysis that can measure relevance of the nod in the network. A very nice paper to understand future of rural markets is - The Future of Small Farms: New Directions for Services, Institutions and Intermediation - Colin Poulton, Andrew Dorward, Jonathan Kydd ;
Guest Lecture by Rajiv Surana
Rajeev Surana runs a consulting & professional services firm, Scinnovation Consultants Pvt. Ltd. based in Mumbai offering “idea protection to commercialization” solutions to its clients consisting of Incubators, Individual Innovators, Research Institutes & SMEs. He gave a guest lecture that revolved around IP rights, Patents, trademarks, and copyrights with a small part deviated towards rural innovations and ideas.
1st March - REPP: There was a screening of a The film provides powerful visual evidence of the enormous potential of NREGA and outlines the reforms required to help realize this potential. Order the film on this website.
NREGA Reforms: Building Rural India - Trailer
We have to remember that NREGA will not form an engine for growth by itself. It addresses inequality by state investment, not actual wealth and job creation. There is practice of rampant corruption in panchayats which has been a convenient excuse not to decentralise power and finances.
2nd March - We were told about CENDERET first time in the class. Centre for Development Research & Training [CENDERET], XIMB, was set up in October 1988 as the rural and social development wing to highlight the issues in rural and deprived sections of the society. In 1994, a lot of funds remained underutilized due to a lack of competent manpower. There were no NGO with sufficient capacity and human resource to take any watershed and Drought prone area project. There was capacity building exercise of NGO through 120 days training by CENDERET. There was massive preparation of 450 village plans with help of these NGOs in which 60-70% were accepted and overtaken by the government. Now all these NGOs are capable of talking project from various donor agencies to the government.
3rd March - There were lectures on CMIB & CID. And the weekends on a happy note.
19th February - RLLE is an integral pedagogical component of the PGDM-RM course at XIMB. The objective of this live experience of one month is to develop respect for the poor and rural people while living with them and listening to their joys & sorrows, and appreciating their capacity to lead their life with dignity amidst several odds. We worked with the International potato Center on the phase of area identification of the project "Root & Tuber Crops for Food Security in the Asia Pacific". We had done the work in two phases:
Secondary data collection, Household listing and Field visit for identification of villages for the project area intervention & Primary data collection and analysis using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools in the selected villages.
This field learning and experience from rural India was a joy of our life and definitely unforgettable for us. We want to share our moments through the process of "learning by unlearning" and hope that it will help all to experience through our eyes. We documented the entire trip in a short video of five minutes - XIMB RLLE (2011-13)- International Potato Center
There is a hypothesis that creativity isn't a linear, consistent phenomenon but rather happens in clumps and creative states are only super creative for a short time. Assuming our creativity can capture your attention. This project would not have been possible without my teammates Mriganka Mondal, Chandan Kumar and Kuldip Kalita! All thanks to them.
20th February - I rested today. We finished our RLLE report and chart for RLLE mela. It was pleasant to see that each of us avoided credit grabbing. By giving credit to the people where it is due, creates an environment of mutual trust and respect.
I saw a funny picture on Facebook about IRMANS that hold quite true for Rural Managers at XIMB also. I am reproducing the image here without any malicious intention -
21st February - RLLE Mela was much better organized than we anticipated. Our faculty and administration were advised by the director to read the book - Rethinking the MBA by Srikant M. Datar, David A. Garvin and Patrick Cullen.
22nd February - There was deep reading material given in REPP class of Politics of Economic Growth in India, 1980-2005 (Part 1 and Part2); The paper stress that Indian government policies were more pro-business than pro-market. I somehow agree with that. This article is not having asinine views of the market but a different perspective about the transformation of the political economy of India before and after liberalization.
23rd February - Only 16 students attended the CMIB lecture, the rest of them were kicked out due to failure in submitting assignments on time. I don't have clear disdain but always hidden anger against the establishment. But at this time, the strict action taken to maintain class discipline was justified. As per my opinion, punishment should be the last resort of any civilized society, but a society that is not prepared to punish those who would rule it by force and chaos is doomed to become uncivilised. "Stop passing the buck, nip it in the bud" is the best strategy to control mob behaviour. There are few students in the RM program who had a track record of indiscipline in the class. That is why I supported the actions of the administration.
RIM: There is a general assumption of the existence of the perfect merit and fair market among the elite and higher caste students. Even price discovery is a top-bottom approach in most of the commodity market. Hence, it's very difficult to establish true people's market. One more hidden fact: Caste reduces the transaction cost in India. That was an important lesson that needs to be much researched and studies by Indian management students. There is already research on this that suggests that socially backward castes do face disadvantages in finding regular employment in the sense that they face either higher transaction costs or social boycott by the trader community associated with entry into the market. Economic deprivation is a serious disability, So is social discrimination and oppression. One can access journal papers on the study of transaction costs at Ronald Coase Institute.
25th February - Midterm exam of UDO was over. There were five fascinating essays in the course material: Social Action to Overcome Someday by Harsh Mander, Building Bridges across Boundaries: Partnerships for Development by Arun Maira, Grassroots Development through Community Action by Bunker Roy, Sustainability of Interventions: Withdrawal - The concept, Need and Implications by M K Bhat and Anita Cheria & NGOs Civil Society and Political Development.
12th February - It was a lazy Sunday morning. I visited Balihanta Haat for the survey with my RIM group. That was a different perspective of the markets often neglected by the mainstream.
We were sent an e-book of the Statistical Year Book India 2012. The present issue of the Statistical Year Book India 2012 is the 45th edition of the publication in the series. The present volume of the publication contains comprehensive data on economic and social sectors, spread in 44 chapters covering more than 350 tables. The data includes the latest state-wise indicators. In addition, a variety of graphs and charts have been given to represent pictorial data. [Official Source]
13th February - There was systematic preparation of the pictorial representation of the vision statement of any organization in the UDO lecture.
The Mentorship Program for the XIMB aspirants-2012 was rolled out and I am involved in this initiative. I had also written a possible list of the question that may be asked to aspirants by the interview panellists. Rural Management GD-PI Preparation ;
There was an intense discussion on Free Trade, Fair Trade and Price rigging at the REPP e-group. The success of the nation nowadays is increasingly measured on its ability to attract foreign investments rather than the welfare of its people and territorial security alone. There is a need to re-look the policies and practices in the institutes building minds of India. One learns by going much against the traditions rather than with them. One must have a pinch of contempt for the authority, otherwise, he will become spineless down the years by the system. The need for critical thinking by students to solve complex social, political and economic problems is more. Critical thinking starts with curiosity and observation. It saturates when one started asking questions about the validity of the axioms. Critical thinking reaches a zenith when you can understand the complexity of dialectical thoughts.
14th February -I was inspired by hearing the word axiom in today's REPP class. Currently, I lack the zeal and intensity to write like a madman. I recalled those old days when I had written an article questioning the axioms on my blog with the sheer passion and fire burning within. I was once an elegant writer and have a deep and nuanced understanding of the various topics. MBA education had somehow diluted the real me. I assume that it would take time to rediscover what I want to do again and maybe I just haven’t had that time. The logical explanation being that once primary goals are achieved, there is a sense of emptiness. I have been taking lectures, quizzes and doing assignments almost non-stop for the last month. Even the holidays were spent on the journey. I am finding myself unable to plan for any B-plan or social entrepreneurship plan. Yet, I am happy with the academic pressure of this trimester. It's pushing me against the wall to utilize time in a much more efficient way. A diamond isn't recognized as just any of the allotrope of carbon of unknown quality. It is a diamond because of the rigour and pressure it is put through in a specific environment. Hoping for the same metamorphosis for me.
15th February - This was an off day. I thought about these stabilized seven months where I actually enjoyed the whole atmosphere. Tall peaks are not always better than long plateaus as true greatness must include protracted excellence for a sustainable time. I am enjoying my current performance and stay at XIMB. The work I did for our corporate created their profits and I received a good salary, but it was making me miserable in the process. Rather than matching the job to our skills, often we tend to match our skills for the jobs. That was a mistake done from my side also.
Why do one work on the project? Either to increase our CV value or to have a real social impact! There is always a choice. I assume that a person should go with what makes one happy. Forget the society. Society would not come to help you if you were starving and naked in a gutter. There are economic constraints but more often it's a social status that barricades them from serving the needy.
16th February - RIM: This class amazes and talks a lot about humans, particularly in consumption behaviour. Perception is the reality in marketing. Rahul Gandhi tore apart the SP memorandum without even reading it in the public meeting. There is no rationale behind this but it has a mass appeal that isn't there in intellectually debating over the memorandum.
There was a talk about freedom and responsibility in the classroom deviating from regular studies. A manager can't afford to be an overpaid supervisor. There will be a loss of credibility. A manager should be able to go into the details and also be able to get the job done.
When there is the maximization of individual freedom, that destroys the cohesive system. The basic framework should be maintained otherwise adults will not be able to make good choices individually. Only by putting constraints on the individuals, social returns can be maximized. I don't know whether to agree or disagree over this issue.
17th February - Capital Investment Decisions (CID): This was the first class of Prof Banikanta Misra. As is popular wisdom, an educational institute is only as good as its faculty members. This was the peak of our interaction of the first among equals in the several Professors of XIMB. There are five topics that a student should cover for learning Finance: Basic Statistics, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Basic Accounting and Proper Communication Skills to frame the logic in the words.
We watched Swades movie as a part of the CMIB course to understand community mobilizers. I was able to see the positive impact of religion in rural India and the transformation of SRK from Bisleri to tapwater with more ecstasy. I had once written an article about the impact of this movie upon me. Revisiting old memories again Swades: 5 years onward...
CID: The second lecture was slow and steady in nature. Yet, we were ashamed of our low knowledge level in accounts and finance to openly interact with such a good professor. Literally, the whole class was spent in the awe of him.
The whole day was long and tiring for me. There was be a Guest Lecture on e-Governance at the end of the day.
The invited speaker told us about the use of a web portal to give voice to the people and on the same lines making available all the government records in the public domain. There was quite an open and healthy debate on the problems like Computer Illiteracy, Conversion of hard copies to soft copies of records, beneficiary feedback for project evaluation, lack of data operators even at the block level and technical limitations of the web portal. Time Issue and Coordination Issue were the major factors behind the delay of the project. Time Issue becomes more intense with the decentralization of the plans. Converging all micro Planning at the village level to the macro extent is a challenging task that can be faced by any organization.
5th February - IRMA has declared their GD-PI list one month ago. XIMB-RM cut off for rural management course had been declared now. This year CAT, XAT & IRMA scores are valid for the entrance from this year. I welcome this diversification of application with different scores.
Lot of debate and analysis will go again in the rural management community.It is a course that has unique fusion of rural development and business management. Rural Management is a different course whose people are convinced of the superiority of their mission and are obsessed with the inferiority of their merit on CAT/XAT scale. As per mine opinion, a rural manager must be more professional and learned as comparison to the normal MBA college manager as one has less capital and more complex problems to deal with. More about rural manager as per point of view of an IRMA at pagal guy.
I respect IRMA for their immense work in the field of development. Yet, governemnt and IRMA adminsitration have failed to set up more number of colleges on such pattern. With 32 years of establishment, there is no substantial increase in the number of seats offered from 80's to 2010. A very low increment of seats while the population has 65 billion to 112 billion people shows lag of government in the higher education. This is a drastic policy lapse from both IRMA and Central Government. They should take lessons from IITs and IIMs who are opening colleges without the illusive fears of quality dilution by few elites. Here, I will lay emphasis on the private colleges like XIMB that are putting efforts for developing such niche program with a different framework. Yet, reservation of seats for a youth from BPL card holder family by IRMA is a nice move. I heavily appreciate this progressive step. Way to go !
6th February - Quiz in IRV ; I was selected in the new XSYS Team that is the Systems Association of XIMB. That is a good progress happening slowly in mine professional life.
There is much beyond classroom to learn. The attitude of Spoon-feeding knowledge has killed the spirit of questioning and search for the solutions. Its hard to get the spirit of questioning in the last stages of your academic career.
7th February - ADM end term exam was there and hence it led to the official end of the 2nd trimester today. I missed two classes of REPP and RIM for the exam. It was a low point of my post-graduation academic session. There was huge and open discussion on the caste system with referring to an EPW article : An Obituary on Caste as a System by M N Srinivas. The changing social dynamics of India throughout centuries was well documented in this. Yet, the article misses to say much about caste system in Islam and Christianity of the converted community.
Mr. Sandeep Rajan and Mr. Harihar Dubey of PGDM(RM) 2010-12 batch have won the Earthian Awards 2011-12 declared by WIPRO.
8th February - I heard the name of Harsh Mandar who is a bureaucrat turned activist in UDO lecture. This was the last class of IRV. Prof summarized the class with anecdotes of his life and a nice video giving message to live simply.
Life is like Coffee
9th February -"What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over ― Aleister Crowley". Robert Chambers points out different type of biases that a rural manager should be minimizing. Its often true that we convert our developmental intervention as rural development tourism. In 1983, six biases of such visits : spatial, project, person, seasonal diplomatic and professional - against seeing, meeting and learning from the poor people were identified and described. In 2008, the seventh bias of security was added and all these biases continue to reinforce popular wrong perceptions.
There is Ganesh Devy and Mahashweta Devi who are working for tribal languages unknown to most of us. While they are unheard by most of us, we tend to read more Dickens than Mahashweta Devi to understand our own backyard. I was lucky to get a TED talk by G N Devy. Professor Ganesh Devy talks about how languages evolve. And how local Indian languages are dying, taking with them a treasure of historical knowledge and wisdom.
RIM: I learned about Distribution strategies and tactics of rural market. Companies are reviewing the rural marketing concept and trying to outreach rural market with NGO's and SHG other than the channel partners. There was discussion on SHG. The average life of SHG is 39 months as per a study (No reference document available).
There was a video shown on Project Shakti of HUL. HUL collaborate with self-help groups and non-governmental organizations to identify underprivileged women and train them to be saleswomen.
Film on Project Shakti
Congratulations to Suma Pratyusha and Sreevidya Gowda of RM-1 batch for finishing at Silver Level in the Acara Challenge 2012 organized by the University of Minnesota. Kudos to them !
10th February - It was the last day of National CSR Conference. Only lecture of REPP was possible with Joseph C Kumarappa. Economy of Permanence is a famous book written by him. Unfortunately the book is out of print but was downloaded and supplied to the whole batch by GB. [Download PDF Version]
11th February - There is case discussion in BIS over CCD. The approach to teach BIS completely through case studies is quite strange with most of the public coming from agriculture and commerce background. As they have consider BIS a technical subject with unheard jargon.
Guest Lecture by Biju Dominic
Biju Dominic is an alumnus of XIMB. He is currently CEO of FinalMile Consulting. . He mostly focused his talks om behaviour architecture- changing human behaviour with the help of Cognitive Neurology and Behavioural Economics. He talked a lot about solving macro level problems with micro- management.
- The genuine question raised by him was - Does Brain take a shortcut ?
- Indian politician is a person to learn man- management.He gave various example from Kerala to US Presidential elections to prove his claims.
- Sucking out of money phenomenon. This is happening to the big farmers at Noida and Gurgaon who had became suddenly rich with the higher prices of the real estate. The habit of austerity has given place to mindless consumerism. And they consume most of their money within few years, and never make a substantial investment . It has lot of do with irrational nature of the human beings that neo-liberal economics fail to explain.
29th January - The whole day passed in the train journey back to the college. I was retrospecting about my career shaping at XIMB. It was the right question that led Atanu Dey to a different career. His question: “Why is India poor?”. Asking the right question can make all the difference. Critical thinking is the most effective approach towards learning and self discovery. I have initiated that process 3 year ago with the series of failures and wrong choices. We all know that streak of losses can be self-perpetuating. And one start to wonder where that elusive win will come from. One start blaming luck and all other external factors. One start hating the crowds and find oneself in that rut but until, one starts to win/gain even a small achievement. I am feeling confident with good academic record and grasping of the subjects in the rural management program. Atleast now, I am asking the right questions.
30th January - IRV assignment and UDO quiz welcomed me in the morning. Break even point analysis came handy while studying capacity strategy in OM class. For any profit and non profit organization, the cost effectiveness and efficiency in operational planning is must for achieving the suitable outcome. We learnt about the theory of constraints (TOC) that adopts the common idiom "A chain is no stronger than its weakest link" as a new management paradigm.
There was lecture in IRV on basic concept of design of market and valuation of assets. There was further heavy discussion on Law of one price, Information Asymmetry, Gambling and Legitimate Risk. The regulatory behaviour of market led me thinking into the zone of US model of laissez-faire and the European model of deficit-driven welfare states. There is always need for the right balance between markets and provision of public goods. Also, the tax imposed on the companies should not led us back into the license-raj era since welfare state depands on how much taxpayers are willing to pay for them. Present day recession is caused by too-big-to-fail banks and big cartels that could have been averted by stricter supervision and regulation of a financial system.
31st January - I learned in MR class that consumption pattern depends on occupation, education, values and socialization of the household. While during socio-economic surveys in urban areas, there is comparison through education-occupation matrix, the rural areas are compared by type of house and education. We didn't take income in survey as that is difficult to gather due to the privacy reason and may be seasonal in the nature. The occupation otherwise is more stable form of variable.
Professor at BIS lecture presented Cisco Telepresence Magic to show the future of the technology.
There is lot of positive thing that can be done by technology in the area of health care and education. As we are finding Aravind (India) or Narayana Hrudayalaya (India) using the latest medical technology for serving poor. I am more cautious with the approach. As higher technological innovation comes with patent and research cost leading to the monopoly of the producer company.
Heard first time about NCAER socio-economic survey, Thompson Rural Market Index and MICA rural market ratings.
The symptom of undeveloped district in India can be easily seen through credit deposit ratio of the bank. It is same like checking cash inflow /outflow in the company. Micro Planning lectures are good and must be put forward in our civics books from 10th onward.
SEC elections were held in the night. They were full of candidates with inflated promises and flattery. How defenseless we are in the face of flattery! I was viewing the whole election as market segmenting, art of choosing and irrational nature of targeted consumers. The networking, deceit, lies and articulating speeches were making it look like a sop opera. It all lasted more than six hours. Speaking about the candidates : Flamboyancy created a mass following but also reduces the credibility with a poorer image. In the time of goodwill, erosion of credibility and intentions into question, no individual, company or NGDO can survive.
I will paraphrase here about “state of nature” and social contract. Any human condition absent from any political order, usually termed the “state of nature”. In this condition, individuals' actions are bound only by their personal power and conscience. Then, individuals unite into political societies by a process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept corresponding duties to protect themselves and one another from violence and other kinds of harm. From this shared starting point, social contract theorists seek to demonstrate, in different ways, why a rational individual would voluntarily give up his or her natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order.In our democratic political order at college level, it is necessary to qurantine the early intruders (unworthy candidates) in bud. Otherwise the well-meaning and merited representatives will be kicked out by these intruders either personally or by proxy depending on the nature of appointment or election. That is the summary !
2nd February - In CMIB, there was discussion on case study between the two approaches of development : facilitator or advocate what's the difference ? We again encountered the terms like 'critical thinking', 'paternalism' and 'sustainable development'.
Cavinkare Private Limited - Serving Low Income Consumers: The case discussed in RIM lecture highlights the understanding for rural market and innovations needed for the successful tapping of opportunities present in the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) markets. The Lessons :
2- Multi-attribute segmentation is key to the successful business. Tapping of economic activity clusters like Haats and Melas show the quick feet thinking of Cavin Kare. More about Marketing of Chik BY C K Ranganathan
3- FMCG companies like Perfetti with the brand like Alpenliebe represent the operational efficiency and low margin-high volumes segment.
The block launches of MAXINATIONS started in the night with the event 'Last Manager Standing' in which GR2 was clear winner.
3rd February - Paul C Mueller of US Consulate delivered a talk today. It revolved around New Silk Road strategy proposed under Hilary Clinton. They also talked about bilateral trade and investment in the infrastructure for longer terms with lower interest rates. I participated as audience of GR2 in the quizzing event of Maxinations.
4th February - Classes were cancelled at the last moments. I was busy in assignments. An important thing done was to vote in Pagal Guy Ranking 2012. An aspiring student should have more information with the higher level of transparency and competence provided by rating agency. Yet I don't have high regard for the Ranking and Admission criteria used by any magazines like Outlook or India-today. There sample population is very low and the process is not much transparent. They may be influenced by external factors like financial sponsorship. But most of the B Schools or Engineering colleges have a conviction based on a pervasive cult of their superiority which cannot be reasoned with. Colleges use the ranking system whatever shows them in good public light. Access to quality education for a student depends not just on availability and affordability, but also on the information gap between aspiring students.
