57th Week@XIMB

57th Week@XIMB - 8th July to 14th July, 2012

08th July - The rest-day must be utilized in watching good video from you-tube. So, here comes a video where with wisdom, eloquence and wit, Anupam Mishra talks about the amazing feats of engineering built centuries ago by the people of India's Golden Desert to harvest water. A simple as yet a very accurate presentation of the actual state of Rajasthan.

Anupam Mishra: The ancient ingenuity of water harvesting



09th July - There was discussion on a case study :- ICICI Bank: Challenges in Rural Banking in SDM lecture. Abstract : ICICI Bank challenge is to set up and ran an effective sales and distribution system (that is primarily non branch based) for rural Banking lending business and to scale up and so profitably.

10th July - Our Ecological Footprint is growing larger. Ecological Footprint is a standardized measure of demand for natural capital that may be contrasted with the planet's ecological capacity to regenerate. This means the average world citizen has an eco-footprint of about 2.7 global average hectares while there are only 2.1 global hectare of bioproductive land and water per capita on earth. Humanity has already overshot global biocapacity by 30% and now lives unsustainable by depleting stocks of “natural capital". Hence, business as usual is not an option anymore.

11th July - There was launch of Rural Managers` Association of XIMB (RMAX) today and Systems Committee of XIMB (XSYS).

12th July - The Biosphere Rules (Harvard Case Study) - The rules for the biosphere’s operating system are built upon bio-logic, which nature uses to assemble life and structure ecosystems. There is complete reading of 8 pages at Scribd.

13th July - There was team presentation on Maharashtra State Co-Operative Sugar Factories Federation in CM lecture.

FMCG firms draw up fallback plans : Following deficient rains, a demand slowdown, especially in rural areas, looms large.

14th July - Even I was learning Data Analysis from long time, I learnt about Goodness of fit quite later. Better later than never.

56th Week@XIMB

56th Week@XIMB - 1st July to 7th July, 2012

1st July - There was an interactive session with Mr. Paul Polak, Founder and Director of IDE (International Development Enterprises)in the Auditorium. Paul Polak‘s latest adventure is Spring Health, which plans to provide access to clean water to 10 million people within four years. I am embedding TED talk delivered by the Paul. He wrote a book 'Out of Poverty' on his tryst with poverty.

TEDxMileHigh - Paul Polak - The Future Corporation


Quote: “Talk to the people who have the problem and listen to what they have to say.”

2nd July - I have still a lot to catch up in writing a priori reasoning and null hypothesis in AMDA. Yet, I am happy to learn in details about forecasting and estimation method. Mathematical model is helpful in making decision with a holistic view of economy. Thanks to IndiaStat for amass of data to experiment with.

3rd July - Learned about financial and social inter-mediation of Micro-finance Institutions.

4th July - Missed QRM lecture due to sleep.

5th July - Agropedia is a comprehensive, seamlessly integrated model of digital content organization in the agricultural domain. It aims to bring together a community of practice through an ICT mediated knowledge creating and organising platform with an effort to leverage the existing agricultural extension system.

6th July - I searched a new website for freetime pleasure reading : GoodNewsIndia- News from India of positive action, steely endeavour and quiet triumphs. Salute to the website of D V Sridharan for documenting us news that is little known.

7th July - Those rural management students interested in selling fertilizers must be aware of NPS (Nutrient Based Subsidy).Until 31.3.2003, the subsidy to urea manufacturers was being regulated in terms of the provisions of the erstwhile Retention Price Scheme (RPS). Under the RPS Retention Price was fixed for each unit by the Govt. The difference between the Retention Price of Urea and the maximum retail price of urea was paid as subsidy. Details can be obtained from studying fertilizer policy of the government.

55th Week@XIMB

55th Week@XIMB - 24th June to 30th June, 2012

24th June - Sunday was spent with some business analysis news and listening to Mr. Prabhat Patnaik on the topic "The Perverse Transformation"..

Reebok is revamping the branding strategy with an inspiration from the Dominno's Pizza. After all, what was the market for home-delivered pizzas before Domino's began operations? Zero. The most efficient, most productive, more useful aspect of branding is creating a new category. Start something totally new. Hence, the learnings were clear: "Ask not what percentage of an existing market your brand can achieve. Ask how large a market your brand can create by putting resources behind creating a category."

Aditya Birla Nuvo to invest Rs 1,600 crore in Kishore Biyani's Pantaloon Retail. That is a big story to be watched in the coming years. Launched in 1997, the Pantaloon format is spread in 35 cities with 65 stores and 21 factory outlets covering total retail space of over 2 million square feet. As per my assumption, this move has been done to bring a consolidated position in multi brand retail market where the government may soon notify 100 percent foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail. (Source) Rapid expansion of the retail chain with high cost of real estate became unfeasible to finance. The interest rates were higher, hence there was failure of big brands in retail sector.

22nd Rajan Memorial Lecture - by Prabhat Patnaik @ IRMA



The 22nd T S Rajan Memorial Lecture was delivered by Mr. Prabhat Patnaik on the topic "The Perverse Transformation". The memorial lecture seeks to bring renowned development practitioners in the rural sector to address the participants and interact with them.

25th June - Theory building is mostly qualitative work and require a lot of triangulation of the data. QRM lectures are getting more boring with each passing day.

26th June - Conclave on MDGs is being organized tomorrow which will be attended by prominent speakers. There was talk of N C Saxena, Dr. John Oommen and Professor Peppin delivered in Odisha MDG Forum presentations.

HRM (Human Resource Management)classes are boring but revised Delphi method.

27th June - While reading about Cooperative Model in India, the role of registrar comes under scrutiny.

28th June - There was use of term Markov Analysis in HRM class. In QRM class, there was a long monologue of Professor on Philosophy of research and Reality. That reminded me back again to the folk story of Blind men and an elephant, Rashomon effect and Stereotyping. Humans have habit of hasty generalization that define their belief structures. Interpretation of reality must address the manifold nature of truth.

“We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” -Werner Heisenberg

29th June - There was discussion on The Myth of Kalahandi in ESM lecture. 19th Century travelogues mentioned Kalahandi Granary of east and this place supplied food at Bengal famine. Kalahandi became a classic case of environmental degradation leading to poverty and deprivation. Why have things changed? Rain never failed Kalahandi. Mismanagement did. In 1946, traditional structures irrigated 38,684 ha, 1970 to 8,007 has 80% drop with declining forest cover 67% (1900) to 13%.

Johl Committee Report, 1986, recommended diversification within farming away from wheat-paddy rotation to the extent of 20 per cent in favour of fruit and vegetable, fodder and oilseeds crops. Here is an clip of his interview where talks about the importance of the policy environment for the conservation of water in India, and effective techniques.

SS Johl Interview at Columbia Water Center, New York


30th June - Individual Photo session for placement brochure. Closing the week with a quote of Martin Luther King - Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Over the bleached bones of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: Too late.

54th Week@XIMB

54th Week@XIMB - 17th June to 23rd June, 2012

17th June - I started traveling for Bhubaneswar from home. Traveling in the various compartments of the train makes our interaction different class emerging and present in India. A 8 hour journey in jam pack general compartment of the train makes one tough and bares grim reality of poor infrastructure of this developing country. Yet if we can choose, we can live in the world of comforting illusion.

18th June - The train was late in the arrival just by 2 hours. Rain and storm welcomed me back to the educational institute of east India. There was new batch roaming around in XIMB. A new group of budding rural managers were going to start their journey.

In my opinion nearly all students who enter this prgramme with a certain amount of idealism and desire to serve the public, but after two years of competition and loan.
And slowly everybody care for nothing but the right job with the right company where we all can get in top level management in coming years and earn big bucks. May be this is required for our own sustainability.

19th June - There was first lecture of CM (Cooperative Management)in which history of the cooperative movement were discussed. The modern cooperative movement can be said to have started in 1844, with the creation of the Rochdale Principles.

Cooperative Credit Societies Act, 1904 was the first Incorporation that later lead to the development of Cooperative Societies Act, 1912. Post Independence, the Committee on Cooperative Law under the chairmanship of Shri S.T.Raja in 1956 recommended a Model Bill for consideration of State Governments. In 1990, an Expert Committee, under the chairmanship of Choudhary Brahm Perkash, was appointed by the Planning Commission to make a rapid review of the broad status of the cooperative movement, suggest future directions and finalize a Model Cooperatives Act. The Committee submitted its report in 1991. Report of the High Powered Committee on Cooperatives can be studies in much details.

20th June - I came to know about Mousetrap Fallacy theory that is held in high esteem in marketing. The additional sophistication may increase measuring ability and effectiveness yet may be unusable at such cost. This was taught interestingly in the 2nd lecture of QRM.

The video aims at explaining the foundation of sustainable development planning, i.e., each policy and investment decision must take into equal consideration its economic, social and environmental impacts.

The Future We Want


21st June - I didn't attend the first lecture of ESM (Ecosystem and Sustainability Management) where there was screening of the movie 'The call of Bhagirathi' that was winner of the national award as the best investigative film in 1992. It revolves around the big costs of big dams, a film by Anwar Jamal.

A trailer -The call of Bhagirathi



There was kick off start of the official interaction (viva) session with the PGPRM 2012-2014 batch since has arrived in the campus.

22nd June - RM Knowledge depository was restored on the XSYS-server. Thanks to seniors and XSYS team for this feat.

CM - ICA provided the information about co-operatives worldwide that is the apex organization. UN proclaims 2012 International Year of Co-operatives: "Co-operative enterprises build a better world"

There were five acts necessary for managers working in India. They are - Indian Trust Act, Indian Societies Registration Act, Trade Unions Act, The Companies Act and The Co- Operative Societies Act.

FAQ - A Non Profit Organisation can be registered in India as a Society, under the Registrar of Societies or as a Trust, by making a Trust deed. A third option is registration as a section-25 Company under the Companies Act, 1956.
Whether a trust, society or section-25 company, the Income Tax Act, 1961 gives all categories equal treatment, in terms of exempting their income and granting 80G certificates, whereby donors to non-profit organisations may claim a rebate against donations made.

23rd June - Placement Batchmeet was held for the placement season coming soon this year. In this depressing economy, there is challenge

A mail was floated for the suggestions by Team Placecom. There was a bottom line in the mail that inspired me. That ended week on the high note. "Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success".

53rd Week@XIMB

53rd Week@XIMB - 10th June to 16th June, 2012

Arbeit macht frei is a German phrase, literally "labour makes (you) free" . The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. These last 52 weeks were not tedious labour yet occupied me with several assignments.

This was full vacation week away at home from anything related to academics. I visited to Varanasi for a retrospective tour. I celebrated one year of satisfied student life.

13th June 2011 was the last working day and I was out of the front gate of CSC. Within two minutes of final settlement, the mental pain of incompetency in the software arena sublimed. Bye bye team meetings, bye bye security pass, bye bye management. I posted an awesome resignation email to all my team mates.

The sun has never shone so bright, the air has never tasted so sweet, I have never felt lighter, than that moment. I was free. I was free. I was so ecstatically free I could smell the trip to new adventure!

Yes, I was neck deep involved in packaging for XIMB. Work Experience taught me other than discipline and career planning familiarity with the words such as competency, change management, paradigm, bell curve, KRA etc. I strongly suggest a newbie wanna be joining MBA program to mandatory serve a stint in operations to get hang of the business.

Any positive or negative employment experience help in our learning curve. With all sort of the questions, comments, concerns, appraise, complaints, feedback, frustrations, irritations, aggravations, allegations, accusations and inputs has mad me tough and more open to new challenges.

I was not knowing whether my decision to XIMB was right or wrong. We can only analyze the forces shaping the future, but not the way it will turn out. I read a great line that gave me solace : ‎"I don't believe in taking right decisions. I take decisions and then make them right" - Ratan Tata.>