Industry Connect Talk

On 30th June 2019, I had an esteemed opportunity to participate in Industry Connect Talk of Xavier School of Rural Management. The talk was conducted for the Rural Management batch of 2019-21. Truth be shared, this is the first time, I’ve given a talk in public place and that too a batch of aspiring rural managers. The speech revolved around exploring diverse opportunities in two years of college stay. I also gave a brief overview of the skills, students are expected to acquire before they venture into their careers in the respective domains of their choice

Career or academic goals may vary from time to time yet few qualities always help in gaining new heights. These three qualities were insights of a colleague (Subash Kumar). These are: Relationship Management, Deep commitment to Work and Always remembering 'Bad times will last longer than good times'. Interaction with students was really good but student debt was on the mind of each & every rural manager.

PS: I am sharing a paper by Dr. Michael Halse depicting an academic history of rural management domain. This will also bring historical context into perspective for millennial. “A new institute of rural management – and a new developmental discipline?”

Fellowship or MBA in Development Sector

Today, the development sector has emerged as an unconventional yet full-fledged career option amongst the youth worldwide. People seeking careers in Development Sector face a dilemma on the choice between MBA in Rural/Health/Forest management and fellowship opportunities pan India. There are pros and cons to each choice:

1. Academia: Most candidates become largely irrelevant in running social enterprises by putting effort to keep themselves either too much academic or searching for degrees from premier colleges. B School always provides a broad base knowledge base than that is gathered in classroom training of Fellowship.

2. Seeking Experience - The grassroots experience is a must before jumping into solving an issue as one has to acknowledge the gap between ideology and lived experience. Fellowship experience will be much more diverse and fruitful than 2 years in MBA school.

3. Network Effect - The number of students enrolling and attending the MBA is much more than the fellowship program. There is an inherent advantage due to networking in the majority. The majority and minority are about positions in the career ladder, not numbers alone. Yet old institutions have good alumni networks required to establish oneself in employment markets.

4. Future Study Abroad: A full-time MBA program gives a base through academic rigor. MBA schools in the development sector refine skills by having options like IRP/Mini Thesis on chosen topics. This forms a launch pad for students looking for opportunities to study abroad in courses like Public Policy and Public Administration.

5. Peer Quality - Applicants for both go through assessments like Reasoning, Aptitude Tests, Group Discussions or presentations about a subject related to the development sector, and a face-to-face interview. The focus is more on the quantity rather than fit in MBA. Hence, many dedicated and like-minded peers will be more likely to be found in the fellowship program.

6. Content of the Program - The content of both is nearly the same with different weights to the mix of NGO Visits, Classroom Experience, Village Studies, & Leadership Activities. The exposure to different ideas is much limited in fellowship but the depth of the program helps those people who had already made choices for the career goal.

7. Social Entrepreneurship - SE is a combination of both thorough knowledge and action-driven attitude. The fellowship is a much-preferred way to effectively diagnose risk aptitude and aspirations. The fellowship gives a lot of independent thinking and supports entrepreneurship through business skills training, etc.

8. Leadership Development - The leader-centric functioning of nonprofits has always doomed the development sector but this is a less talked phenomenon in the classrooms. But even various theory of Leadership (Analyst, Architect, & Strategist) doesn't come much good in real life. Fellowship provides a direct opportunity to interact with Non-Profit leaders who are taking tactical and strategic decisions in handling the resources.

Prestigious Fellowship in India

1. Transforming India Initiative
2. Teach for India Fellowship
3. Legislative Assistants to Members of Parliament (LAMP) Fellowship
4. William J Clinton Fellowship
5. Gandhi Fellowship
6. Azim Premji Foundation Fellowship Program
7. Ashoka Fellowship
8. India Fellow Social Leadership Program
9. Indian School of Development Management (ISDM)
10. Deshpande Fellowship Program
11. Pradan
12. Young India Fellowship

MBA Option: Private MBA-School has a pure market orientation since higher infrastructure and faculty cost can't be covered with lower admission fees and lower batch sizes of students. Subsidized education at public institutions like IIFM and IRMA gives a much better option to start fresh and new as a development professional. Let us cross-examine the private & public institutions in rural management.

Rural Management of Xavier University Bhubaneswar will cost around INR 15 Lakh (Program fee - INR 11 Lakhs, Development Fund: INR 1 Lakhs, Boarding and Lodging Expenses: INR 1.76 Lakhs, Course Material, IT, Alumni & Placement Expenses: INR 1.4 Lakhs). The highest domestic salary stood at INR 11.00 Lakhs per annum. The average annual compensation stood at INR 7.32 Lakhs per annum. The Median annual compensation stood at INR 7.00 Lakhs per annum. The high-end jobs belong to Banking and Rural Marketing sectors. So even with 20% of the savings from the average income, it will take almost 10 years to repay the loan here. These high fees have been dissuading young students from studying in private institutions to make a career in the development sector. Even public institutions like IRMA will cost around INR 12 Lakh (Program fee - INR 9.5 Lakhs, Activity Charge- 0.6 Lakhs, Boarding and Lodging Expenses: INR 1.5 Lakhs). The average annual compensation stood at INR 10.22 Lakhs per annum. So, with the same logic, it will take a minimum of 5-6 years to repay the education loan.

I assume that appropriate candidates for fellowships are freshers with 1-2 years of experience and mid-career professionals who have a commitment to public service, leadership traits, and the potential for professional advancement. The unexperienced students must prefer public institutions like XISS, TISS or IIFM otherwise choose fellowship over private MBA institutions. The burden of a loan restricts a professional in long-term decision-making and financial freedom. Mostly, aspirants engaged in the job or college hadn't enough time to think without peer pressure, analyze the career and work out what is vital to get the best out of oneself. But, in the end, one has to think deeply, discover options, and take bold yet pragmatic decisions before making a career in the development sector.

Reviewing 1st National Symposium on Rural Management

“Small changes can produce big results – but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious.” – Peter Senge

XIMB hosted 1st National Symposium on Rural Management on November 9th-10th 2012 [Photo Album]. The event brought together institutions, academics, professionals, key client groups and other stakeholders to deliberate on the issues, pool experiences and develop strategies and designs for expansion, institutionalization and better domain engagement. Papers / presentations were invited on five aspects of the Rural Management field listed here -

1. Rural Management in the Next Decade – Tasks, Organizations and Professional Needs
2. Rural Management – Defining the Field
3. Programs in Rural Management – Intent, Design, Content and Issues
4. Praxis in Rural Management
5. Strengthening Rural Management

NSoRM Welcome Flash Video

I attended few of the lectures/presentation and it was worth attending them. Eminent personalities like Dr. Mihir Shah, K V Raju, M S Sriram, Shailendra Kumar & Dinesh Awasthi participated in the symposium. On the funny side, whole symposium gave a false impression of IRMA alumni union ! Issues like Health, ICT, Policy, Rural Marketing, Rural Development, Human Resource Management, Natural resource management etc were discussed in great details by thematic experts.

I observed that three developing trends must be watched by rural manager - Rapid urbanization, Greater income stratification and Consumer Market Growth. There is increasing level of urbanization from 27.81 % in 2001 Census to 31.16 % in 2011 Census. Rural business has emerged as a big employer for rural managers, but there has been a shift towards looking at rural people as consumers. Consumption in rural India growing faster than urban areas. National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) data shows that during 2004-05 to 2009-10 rural construction jobs rose by 88 percent, while the number of people employed in agriculture fell from 249 million to 229 million.

Most of the student have motive to join - to study ‘management’ rather than ‘rural management’. That is the fact of the whole education. Rural Manager have neither many peers/seniors to correct him/her, nor one to look up to for guidance. His/her actions can make or break many livelihood of many if not lives. While students working at NGO think - Low Pay Scales & Can't fundraise; Yaar paisa bhi nahi, learning bhi nahi. It becomes easy to frustrate working in a non-professional environment where only requirements – report writing, proposal writing & ayah-duty for funding agency visits. Hence, the sector is plagued by high attrition and lack of long term commitment from professionals. But the first decade of career as rural manager has assured employment at low pay scale while second decade will bring recognition and reputation.

Its not sectoral job any more. Managerial roles merge irrespective of sectors and there is need to learn a lot by learning courses on Public Systems Management and Program evaluation, Project planning and implementation, Project Funding, Advocacy, Consulting, Communication, Marketing, Monitoring & Evaluation. One more factor that I found in their talks was lack of knowledge management. There are rural managers (men of action) who are a storehouse of information which they often don’t know how to share with academic and student community. Their valued experiences are lost without documentation and appear only in the conversation with their peers.

There are so many colleges offering courses related to rural management like - IRMA; XIMB ; KSRM ; IIFM,Bhopal; IIRM,Jaipur; XISS,Ranchi; NIRD,Hyderabad; TISS,Mumbai; Amity school of rural management ; Agribusiness Management (IIM-A, IIM-L, VAMNICOM, MANAGE). One of the major contribution of these institutes have been bringing about professionalism in the development sector.
All of the people attending were more or less agree on one thing - Rural Management can't be a molded in design of established framework of business management. There can be no unique approach programme design has to be tailor made suiting to the group needs and flexible. While the sector has been growing, Institute have dilemmas of their own - Institution location, Faculty, Placements, Self Financing, Aspiration of Graduates! Alumni are the best ambassadors of what college is all about. That will be my sole criteria on judging quality of institutes.

The Blind Men and Elephant story holds so true in this field. There are no overall experts here. Everybody is a generalist integrator looking for complete picture and specialization comes much later! The whole symposium left many question that were lingering in the minds of working professionals and academic community. Does RM mean RD? What lies beyond Donor Agencies, livelihoods and MF ? Society values “Rural Managers” (??) or Rural Management degree?? And eternal question - "What is a rural manager ?" was discussed again and again for new interpretations.

Prof. Shambu Prasad takes the Academic Contribution Award

Prof. Shambu Prasad, Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, is the strict choice of the Villgro Awards' jury for Academic Contribution in 2013.

It is so nice to hear and feel lucky to be taught by our own professor who is getting recognized for his works. Such achievements help in positioning XIMB as an institute with a difference.

Grassroutes: Developing Villages through Rural Tourism

Inir Pinheiro is a MBA in Rural Management from XIMB of 2004 – 2006 batch. He skipped placement offers to start up his own company, Grassroutes. Grassroutes is based on the concept of responsible rural tourism wherein tourism is run, managed and owned by local village communities. Today, it is a sustainable and profit making venture transforming unknown small villages, near the metros, into viable tourist destinations; sustainable for him and giving livelihood opportunities to the villagers. There is enough Media Coverage of this rural tourism venture.



The best part in his story that he is a "typical city boy", born and brought up in Mumbai. Inir learnt about the realities of village India much later. Inir proves that one need not to belong to villages to work in rural areas. He described once his work in the words of Regina Spektor -

“It started out as a feeling,

Which then grew into a hope,

Which then turned into a quiet thought,

Which then turned into a quiet word

And then that word grew louder and louder…….

'Til it was a battle cry !”

You know you’re a Jhabierite when….

1. You checked your stu-mail/Notice Board more habitually than you breathed or blinked
2. You could login to AIS even in your sleep
3. You found it easier to sleep right under the prof’s nose than in your room
4. You slept through all of the CEO talks (read: mass sleep-athons) and couldnt care less if the speaker performed a blindfolded back-somersault while simultaneously balancing a marble on his nose
5. You perfected the art of nodding off while standing during a presentation
6. You had your stumail,gmail,AIS,printer,IM,twitter passwords at your fingertips but still somehow managed to forget your girlfriend’s birthday everytime
7. You were addressed as someone from ‘XLRI Bhubaneswar’ on your train journey back home & you resisted the urge to rip his tonsils right off
8. You sulked about the prettiest faces on campus always being in the other section, the senior batch or in a different programme altogether
9. You had more visitors to your room from the amphibian family than from MTR/RMH
10. You regard your MBA education not as an investment but as a ‘sunk cost’
11. You agree that a course such as COMA could not have been more aptly named
12. You cant remember the last time you had breakfast in the mess
13. Your basic food groups were: 1.Beer 2.Caffeine 3. Masala Thums-up 4. Maggi 5. Pizza 6. Some more beer
14. You felt like you were cheating on Country Kitchen on the rare days you had dinner in the mess
15. You flashed your college ID at a restaurant manager’s face seeking a discount but ended up having it shoved down your gullet instead
16. You knew that even if the world were to end, there would still always be X-Café & Walmart
17. You got away with saying ‘yes sir’, ‘present sir’, ‘yes sir’ back to back during attendance
18. You have actually seen GOD and even had HIM call out your name during attendance
19. You knew that a ‘Bring your laptops to class today’ notice actually meant ‘look buggers, I’m in no mood to teach today, so why don’t you just do your stuff & let me do mine’
20. The 4 P’s you live by stand for Pessimism, Procrastination, (Bi)Polarism & Plagiarism
21. Your business awareness levels paled in comparison to your blood-alcohol levels
22. You found a newspaper’s obituary section more interesting than the business page
23. You were more willing to swallow a sword laced with cobra poison and have your body crevices pierced with red hot iron rods rather than attend that last remaining lecture of the day
24. You envied the strays outside the main gate for having a better social life than you
25. You feel like killing a baby everytime you come across the word ‘Mandatory’
26. You acknowledge that the wheel is not the most important human invention, Google is
27. You couldn’t thank Xerox enough the night just before your exams
28. You can type 316 words a minute but struggle to read your own handwriting
29. You show how it’s possible to be illegible even on MS word & MS excel
30. You wasted your time partaking in compelling cinema such as Gunda, Chandaal & Jallaad on X-Sys when you could have done something worthwhile like harvesting dried kharbooja seeds or adopting a maroon monkey for your farm in FarmVille
31. You count Crazy Taxi, Bouncing Balls & Throw the mummy among your favourite sports, (and not X-cricket)
32. Facebook is not just a site for you, it’s a way of life
33. You went to the library to socialize (read: check out the cute chick ) or to have yourself clicked with books so that you could put them up on FB/Orkut for your parents to see & feel all reassured & happy
34. You said “Arre pata, usne apna marriage proposal CONVERT kar liya”
35. You know a HR professional when you see (and hear) one
36. 7 am lectures were a myth, and attending them, a crime
37. 5 pm was your idea of a perfect morning
38. You can peacefully sleep through earthquakes, meteorite showers, alien invasions & of course, JLT’s
39. Your next door neighbour (who lived within 30 cms of you) sent you an email asking you NOT to wake him up the following morning
40. You set your mobile phone alarm for the 9 am lecture, then reset it for the 2pm lecture, and then again reset it to 5pm for the snacks, and eventually went on to miss dinner
41. You didn’t remember what sunlight looked like, and often confused sunrises with sunsets (also males with females)
42. X-pressions was the only time you were active & that too because you got to check out the chicks from other colleges & then tut-tut about how rotten your luck was
43. Terms such as ‘pataka, hot chick, garma garam item’ inadvertently brings to mind the image of a girl perspiring & burning in the Bhubaneswar heat
44. You abused the term ‘it depends’ to such proportions that Oxford just stopped short of filing a case of harassment against the institute
45. You called upon X-Sys to complain that you were unable to access Facebook, only to realize that typing www.facebook.com in notepad gets you nowhere
46. The dosa they served in the mess was the worst dosa in the world but you still got up every Sunday morning at 9 am to line up in the queue
47. You thought breaking into Fort Knox was a cakewalk compared to MTR
48. You took a bath everytime there was a solar eclipse
49. The last time you did your laundry, Halley’s Comet had made an appearance
50. Almost all your t-shirts are from X-pressions, Alumni or game/interest committees
51. The only time you had given your superhero costume (read: business suit) for drycleaning was before you got here
52. Your saw your entire life flash before your eyes as soon you were handed your valuation end-term question paper
53. You needed SPSS to convince you that your bakar time is inversely related to your QPI
54. There was nothing surprising about Surprise quizzes anymore
55. You mulled over taking the CFA exam without even knowing what CFA stood for
56. You took up the ‘fight against deadlines’ cause with pretty much the same zeal with which Bollywood stars take up the ‘fight against Polio’ cause
57. You used font size 32 for your assignments as a desperate ruse to get to the minimum 10 page limit
58. You used font size=Amoeba??? for your last minute scribblings on your exam paper
59. You resorted to the good old ‘Cntrl C-Cntrl V’ for your Business Ethics term paper titled “Plagiarism- a social malady”
60. You finished two whole seasons of LOST/FRIENDS in 2 days flat just before your end terms kicked in and then proceeded to finish three more seasons while they were on
61. You promised yourself you’d start preparing for placements tomorrow, but that tomorrow somehow never arrived
62. CQPI was just another four letter word
63. You can quote dialogues from any of IMDB’s top 250 movies
64. Conniving with your friends during exams is what you called Group Dynamics, not cheating
65. You could quote Kotler at the drop of a hat but couldn’t remember your postal address
66. You attended batchmeets religiously but never bothered to turn up at Alumni talks
67. You often discussed Pizza Hut’s core competency/product differentiation vis-à-vis Smokin’ Joe’s
68. You subconsciously started addressing your elder brother as ‘bhaina’
69. You tell your dad you’re taking the dog out for a X-walk
70. You start writing executive summaries for your tweets, SMSes, status messages..everything
71. You can prepare a 40 page dossier replete with all the MBA jargons in the book to arrive at the conclusion that inanimate objects do not need air/oxygen to survive and are therefore non-living
72. You can beat any Tom, Dick, Harry, Yadav, Patel, Sharma, Singh, Khan, Thirunakarasumaiyalamma at the fine art of pfaffing
73. You refrain from using the word ‘bhakti’ in spiritually stimulated discussions & at family pujas
74. You gave Maxinations more consideration than your sister’s wedding
75. You have the attention span of an armless monkey with a major flea problem
76. You would happily give your right arm away for a JLT
77. You get turned on everytime you see a chain mail
78. You dont find prison jokes funny anymore
79. Masochism has become as much a part of your social fabric as say human sacrifice to the Aztec culture
80. Messrs. Levin & Rubin seemed as grotesque manifestations of Jack the Ripper & Hannibal Lecter
81. You swore that had Gandhi studied here, he would have killed more Jews than Hitler
82. The admin & acads screwed you so bad you contemplated taking a pregnancy test
83. You likened Gladi, Kuruk, Skill & Helios to Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba & Harkat-ul-Mujahideen respectively
84. You equated balancing your acads, responsibilities & personal life to a tightrope walk on a cord made from burning charcoal while balancing a family member on the head and at the same time have Sunny & Bobby Deol dancing to Kajraare on either ends of the rope
85. You were socked in the face with the realization that 90 mins was actually 5400 seconds of raw, unmitigated torture eventually leading to death
86. You believe in reincarnations (having died multiple deaths yourself during the course of a single lecture)
87. S.O.B means more than just a slur to you
88. Khajoor isn’t exactly your favourite fruit
89. You sniggered everytime you heard one of those CEOs or recruiters say “you are the crème-de-la-crème..the top 1%..the future leaders of the country..blah blah”
90. You crack up everytime you hear the words ‘MBA’ & ‘value-add’ in the same sentence
91. During placement week, the only company you cared about was ‘female company’
92. During Convocation, you realized you had forgotten almost everything you had learnt at school, were left with the engineering skills of a brick & only had this degree to show for your efforts
93. You realize that the only thing more difficult than getting into XIMB is getting out of XIMB

*The End and Flush*

-------Adapted from the blog post of Soorma Bhokali.

Life of A Rural Manager

What is unofficial tagline of Brand Rural Management Programme at XIMB : “We Try Harder”

A quick question is fired by an aspirant, “Why does anybody ever want XIMB-RM as first choice in admission ?”

Yes, we all know that “XIMB-RM is only No. 2.”

Yet the reply is simple: “We try harder in nurturing our budding rural manager because we have to make a point. It's always the second ranker who works harder and learns a lot more in the process.”

The origination of the answer is not to create a cute, gimmick, but instead it was – and is -- a business philosophy that every XIMB-RM students holds true. Each and every student of rural management knows that he must work harder and learn extensively than their counterparts. XIMB - RM focus on frank and truthful statements about our ranks and education philosophy. This institution is a Sangam (confluence) where we seek to find balance between mainstream business and development of people on margins.

As I write this, I'm enjoying cool breeze of Vagator beach, Goa with a chilled beer. Actually, that’s not the true case at all. I'm sitting in a small room with bare minimum facilities at Gajapati district during winter internship. I assumed before joining XIMB that I can handle the weather of Odisha. Rarely, it rains mildly with a romantic weather. Its always either a dull humid weather or heavy rains. Nothing weakens Superman like Green kryptonite, the humidity acts same way here draining all energy! For once, we can wish cool weather every day (yes dear XIMBians, We all love Bhubaneshwar weather :X)! To add to that rigour were other matters like bad food (very very important). We love cuisine like Night-mess ka roasted chicken to X-cafe ka garlic chicken soup.

Arbeit macht frei is a German phrase, literally "labour makes (you) free". The slogan is known for having been placed over the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust, but that should be put on the entrance of this place. Yes, life is not so cool here. Time is a scarce commodity in this place. Yet, one can see endless usage of time in various activities. People still have the spirits to involve in various Committees, quizzes, games and X-Walks. But this is a thing about XIMB: you rarely get time for yourself. Even the whole 24 hours seems to be exhausting, tiring and even suicidal as it can sometimes get, I don't think any of us would want it any other way.

When Rural India wakes Up at 5:00 AM only then our rural managers stop their interactive chatting sessions and start dreaming of liberal days of graduation. 15 minutes before beginning of the class, get you Ass Up Fast is the call from the beloved lazy neighbor. Even then, 9 out of 10 Rural managers are firmly grounded on their bed. Such is the start of the day and the forecasting of whole saga of two years can be made on this start.

There are not only Intelligentsia, Devil's Advocate, Activist, Salesman and Social workers but also Mamas, Chachas, Night-Owls & Free-riders present in each batch. There are people here who provide a lot of joy whenever they leave the room. While one or two are such masterpiece while everybody was drinking from the fountain of knowledge they only gargled. Yes, there are superstars who gives solid evidence of halo effect. Some of ours species can even argue with a signpost but there is one with whom it's hard to believe he beat out 1,000,000 other sperm. I fall in the category of rural managers who set low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.

Before a layman goes on a trip, one may want to read more about the history, the people, the landscapes, and the present political and cultural situation of the destined place. That is the pedagogy of academics for rural manager. Donor Mentality, CSR activities, Development tourism, Caste based business, deep poverty, top down approach of government, rehabilitation policy etc ... we were mentored for two years to question authority and yet develop leadership traits.

Our alumni travel across India and are ease with corporate office as well as a tribal community in a remote region. That sets us apart from our colleagues in India. We have our internal conflicts like how we will integrate development (not sure what it meant then) with surging profits of the company. We know both about CK Prahlad and P Sainath. P Sainath who? A question that is asked too frequently from the rural managers.

And we learn in two years : For India, reality bites. But Lage Raho India, dream on! Business Managers are good Hegelian. They have a good theory, forget about the reality. Hence, the author has chosen to become rural manager. Yes, I will be saying golden jargons in the end : We all have a deep love for 'sustainable development' of all 'stakeholders'.

Notice: This was a draft written long ago treasured in archives of the blog for unknown reason. It's been like 8 months since I last wrote in one flow. I am throwing a glimpse of life of a rural manager tailored at XIMB.

Convocation @ XIMB

On Monday, March 25, 2013 at 6.00 P.M. we had our 22nd Convocation. Shri Jaspal Singh Bindra, Executive Director and CEO-Asia, Standard Chartered PLC of Standard Chartered Bank Ltd. came as the Chief Guest. I finally convocated from the Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar(XIMB). The degree of rural manager was awarded not only in letters but also in spirit. It will be impossible to say when so many of us will gather at the same place again. May be in upcoming 10- 15 years ! This could not have been achieved without emotional support and confidence by my parents, Prem bhaiya, Chandan, Shreyash, Abhishek and college friends like Gaurish, Gautam, Anshumani, Partha, Abhijeet etc.

As an overpriced assets, we all are out of the walls of the college campus. I suddenly understand why values like humility, sincerity and honesty are more important than qualities like intelligence and achievements. A person's most useful asset is not a head full of knowledge but a heart full of love, with an ear open to listen & a hand willing to care.

In coming times, we will be busy in work and burdened with more loans (namely House, Car & Personal). When a person has the single most important thing in life - choice, then one is empowered. As a student receiving quality education from premier institute, this degree has given me a basket full of alternatives. One has choice either to become brick of the foundation or finished top of the dome. I wanted to be an innovator rather than copy-paste machine. I just like to end by quoting thoughts of two eminent personalities -

"A teaching university would but half perform its function if it does not seek to develop the heart-power of its scholars with the same solicitude with which it develops their brain-power. Hence it is that the proposed university has placed formation of character in youth as one of its principal objects." ~ Mahamana Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya, The Founder of Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

"Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt . they can't afford the time to think. Tuition fee increases are a “disciplinary technique,” and, by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the “disciplinarian culture.” This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy." ~  Noam Chomsky, an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, historian, political critic, and activist.

Sparsh: Development in a Trimester of rural management - 6...

Sparsh: Development in a Trimester of rural management - 6...: 1- In economics, the Dutch disease is a concept that explains the apparent relationship between the increase in exploitation of natural res...

90th Week@XIMB

90th Week@XIMB - 24th February to 2nd March, 2013

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

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

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.

13th February - Not in campus.

14th February - Not in campus.

15th February - Not in campus.

16th February - Not in campus.

87th Week@XIMB

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

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

85th Week@XIMB

85th Week@XIMB - 20th January to 26th January, 2013

20th January - I got a great Facebook status over sales job : In Sales -someday you are the P*mp and someday you are the Whore. I am not much of a sales or finance person but what I realized that it only matters to do our work with integrity, excellence and discipline irrespective of where one is working in future.

21st January - Small clusters of graduation friends is a creating frog in the well attitude of the entire RM community. Author himself has not dwelled much beyond 100 people but has not hard lined himself with any lobby or Legacy system.

22nd January - We have started to speak the language of B schools and consultancies like ‘products’, ‘customers’ or 'stakeholders' even in our normal talks. This education is showing its toxic side effects.

23rd January - No updates for today.

24th January - I was packing for the upcoming home trip.

25th January - Our mid term exam of CMD got postponed to March 2013.

26th January - I left for home. Farewell.

84th Week@XIMB

84th Week@XIMB - 13th January to 19th January, 2013

There was no record written for this whole week. Procrastination and laziness has completely captured me. The jargons like - Knowledge, Networking, Soft-skills, Development, Corporate, High asymmetry of information, Dichotomy, Business and government, Market, Customers and Growth, Value creation, Stakeholders, Institutions, Relationship Management, Structures, Innovation and Entrepreneurship: rampantly used in GD & PI's were put on rest. I am leaving readers with a brilliant convocation address and will be away from all social networking websites like Blogs, Vlogs, Blogs, wikis and even micro blogging site Twitter for a week.

Salman Khan gives commencement address at MIT (2012)

83rd Week@XIMB

83rd Week@XIMB - 6th January to 12th January, 2012

6th January - 'Theory of maximising shareholder value has done great harm to businesses' : Meet Philip Kotler, the SC Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management in Chicago, and, in the words of Management Centre Europe, “the world’s foremost expert on the strategic practice of marketing”.

7th January - I was feeling quite low and listening to this song.

Hausla Buland - Haywards 5000 Anthem Theme Song



8th January - I started preparing for AIDMI, Srijan and OLM with keeping in mind that risk of unemployment reduces slowly and at great cost.

9th January - I applied in Ujjivan Microfinance today but withdrew my application later. Yet, I attended talk of CEO, Ujjivan MFI given by Mr. Samit Ghosh. Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Ujjivan Financial Service (Ujjivan), a micro finance institution which provides financial services to over a million urban & semi-urban poor across 20 states in India. Ujjivan started operations on November 1, 2005 and is headquartered in Bangalore. Ujjivan believes in holistic approach to poverty alleviation and works closely with a sister non-profit institution, Parinaam Foundation to provide services in healthcare, education, vocational training & community development to its microfinance customers.

The whole batch was unaware that average tenure of CEO is only 1.5-2 years. The clarity in your structures, Walk the Talk, Leadership & Types of Investors always define any organization. Ujjivan MFI wants happy customers not a money lending NBFC(MFI) and it had proven by emerging virtually unharmed at the times of MFI crisis as with their risk assessment, they decided not to move in Andhra.. That validated that company is going in right direction. Mr. Ghosh told us about middle class financial inclusion in late 1980's and 1990's era. There was a gradual movement middle class - ICICI, HDFC, HSBC and CITI Bank leading the baton of the private sector. Currently available two wheeler, four wheeler and housings loan were unheard in 1985. The same process is going for bottom of pyramid customers now. BOP customers even bank account but they were not financially included till now.

10th January - The pressure is on. As they say, it rains hardest on those who deserve the sun. We were delighted to host Ved Arya for a talk today. Ved shared his experiences founding and building SRIJAN -- "Creation" in Hindi, and an acronym for Self-Reliant Initiatives through Joint Action. It was registered, as a public charitable trust in Delhi with the aim to promote strong self-reliant village organizations, partnerships and enterprises to enhance people’s access to natural resources and their capacity to manage them sustainably. I was especially impressed with Ved's holistic perspective on the value chain of self-help and joint-support and cluster development and technological innovation which come together to be of differentiating benefit to rural Indian farmers and their families.

11th January - I applied for two enterprises working in the development sector. One was SRIJAN (Self Reliant Initiatives through Joint Action) that is a not-for-profit organization. They were looking for professionals who are enthusiastic to work at grassroots for the upliftment of the rural population of India. I had good discussion with Ved Arya who considered me unsuitable for this job. This was partially due to my commitment to family and age factor. It is very strong to comment but people like C P Mohan and Ved Arya involved in core development will always fail to grab why money security is a prime motive for rural managers of neo-liberalization era.

The other enterprise was National Rural Livelihood Mission, Odisha. It was a contractual job similar on the lines of Jeevika, Bihar. More can be read about their sister organization: TRIPTI and Aajeevika. I qualified three rounds consisting of written Test(Essay on Poverty and its eradication), GD (FDI in Retail)and Personal Interview (Based on Winter Internship and Book Reading).

I had finally seized the day. Carpe diem !!!

12th January - Streak of lazy days has just began.

82nd Week@XIMB

82nd Week@XIMB - 30th December to 5th January, 2012

30th December - I stayed true to myself and started preparation for the development sector.

31st December - Why MBA in Rural Management and Engineering? The most cliche and funny answer given these days is 'competitive advantage'.

1st January - I went out to Chilika Lake for a vacationer tour.

2nd January - I missed classes to study for placement purpose. I had a surprise quiz in

3rd January - I was not selected in BRLPS (Jeevika). I studies from the website only but find this document(pdf) quite useful.

4th January - I was not selected in AISECT. I studied and prepared from a compendium on Mission mode projects under NeGP.

5th January - I am posting here the websites that will be useful for exploring data. FAOSTAT, World Bank Data Center, OECD Statistics & Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, India (National Data Warehouse of Official Statistics)

81st Week@XIMB

81st Week@XIMB - 23rd December to 29th December, 2012

23rd December - XIMB stops accepting IRMA scores for rural management program, will now only accept CAT, XAT or CMAT. That is the news rolling over at pagalguy. I don't know its implications. XIMB-RM may succeeds tactically in the eyes of AICTE, but fails strategically in the eyes of applicants in term of its reputation.

Rather than trying to be a person I cannot be - to do this or do that - I went back to reconstruct my own strengths. I had come here for development hence will not go for a high paying (sales/marketing) job.

24th December - CMD, GID and SER class.

It was quite nice to study sociology in GID lecture. Even today, after years of education and modernity, women didn't get the respect that they are entitled to. Yes, low enrollment of girls in this course is quite dramatically low. May be these girls either know everything or just don't want to discuss these issues.

25th December - Christmas is in the town, hence holiday. I had became shadow of the person who once was possessed with an individuality and self-belief. There is a clear difference between me as the person on two different occasion- one fighting inner demons, the other surrendering to the mental barriers.

Sound logic with brutal and bare truths is the Australian way. I will be adding conversation with friends, meditation and music in the to daily routine.

26th December - There were more discussion in GID class about sex and gender issues. Diversity of views were amazing that made me look and appreciate perspectives that I never knew existed.

27th December - Managers have to navigate the dynamics of governance contexts at various levels that impact organizational trajectories of the international environmental and trading regimes to shifts in national policy or market regulation to changes in organizational relationships with partners and networks. Thus was the brief introduction of GD course.

Yes, there is hidden apartheid and distinction between various courses floating at XIMB. Not all courses are treated equally by majority of faculty and administration. Some of this can be attributed to the lack of sincerity by RM students throughout many batches. There is no clear communication by faculty encourage people to plan their life and career more sensibly. A vocational college fails under current framework when its student operate under pressurized and uncertain job situation, as this don't provide them even elusive social or economic security necessary for survival. People also say “we all agree that we need to ensure rural managers get paid” even though, from the perspective of an individual welfare against loan, discussions rather than action are completely unimportant.

28th December - Our seniors had left few companies that are not well-suited to them in less than a year. That is harming our proposition in this dull market.

29th December - I am not able to focus for few minutes on a single thing. IRP field work is pending from a long time. I had made my life in the pursuit of short term goals.

Sparsh: Development in a Trimester of rural management - 5...

Sparsh: Development in a Trimester of rural management - 5...: I didn't come down to XIMB to oversleep. I've worked below what I am capable of. Here in 5 points what I learnt in last 3 months: ...