59th Week@XIMB

59th Week@XIMB - 22nd July to 28th July, 2012



22nd July - Sunday was gone in studying for mid term exams.

Raising an Olympian - MARY KOM : As the Proud Sponsor of Mom, P&G presents a series about the Mom behind each Olympic athlete.







23rd July - ESM exam is over.The big news was about Hindustan Unilever Ltd. HUL increased its net profit by 112 per cent for the first quarter of 2012-13 to Rs.1,331.2 crore, thanks largely to a one-time gain on sale of property amounting to Rs.607 crore.

Hindustan Unilever Profit More than Doubles on Strong Sales and Speaking at company AGM, HUL Chairman Harish Manwani lays emphasis on role of corporate in financial inclusion.

24th July - Tuesday was a holiday. I came across an article: How Hindustan Unilever is making every employee a marketer.

25th July - Mid Term exam of MFM was more analytic than based on rote learning. With Q2 session results are coming, companies are coming up with reports. Here a positive news from agri-business sector: ITC's e-choupal boosting company's FMCG business. ITC typically organises 60,000 Pradharhan Khets and 6,000 Choupal Haats in a year. There is a general criticism that its expansion has benefited only large farmers as their produces could be sold at somewhat better prices and perhaps quickly through e-choupal. But, they are ignoring the ITC is market development initiative with its huge cash piles against nexus of caste based strong lobby of traders and middle men.

26th July - CM quiz was last one and that finishes mid term on happy notes. Let us watch a conversation with Wharton Marketing Professor Jagmohan Singh Raju .

Multinational Corporations and Rural India:





27th July - Lectures started after the mid term. That was a boring stuff. I am also struggling with facebook addiction and attention deficit disorder.

28th July - This was a sleeping day still I was lucky enough to read Report of the Nair Committee on Priority Sector Lending. There was also news of RBI enforcing foreign banks to raise their priority sector lending (PSL) portion to 40 per cent from 32 per cent currently. The move will impact only four of 55 foreign banks, which have over 20 branches. Only four foreign banks — Standard Chartered Bank (94 branches), Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (50 branches), Citibank (42 branches) and Royal Bank of Scotland (31 branches) would come under the ambit of the new norms. Another foreign lender, Deutsche Bank, has 16 only branches. That's a welcome move by RBI.

Some loans that would be classified as priority sector -:

• Loans up to Rs 1 crore to micro and small service enterprises
• Loans to food and agro processing units
• Loans to distressed farmers indebted to non-institutional lenders
• Overdrafts up to Rs 50,000 in no-frills accounts
• Loans to individuals other than farmers up to Rs 50,000 to prepay their debt to non-institutional lenders
• Loans up to Rs 25 lakh for housing in metros having population above 1 million
• Loans up to Rs 15 lakh for housing in cities having population less than 1 million
• Education loans up to Rs 10 lakh for studying in India and Rs 20 lakh for studying abroad

While doing AMDA assignment on Multicollinearity, I read about Demonstration effect (Keeping up with the Joneses) and Cobweb model. I also made inquiry about Co-variance and correlation. The problem with covariances is that they are hard to compare due to metric units. Notably, correlation is dimensionless hence more author friendly.

Why Do I Love IRMA ? : The memoirs of an IRMA alumnus in one page article is beautiful reading on this weekend.

58th Week@XIMB

58th Week@XIMB - 15th July to 21st July, 2012

15th July - Sunday is always wasted in some entertainment and long sleep. Today there was Individual Profile verification for Brochure and work ex certificate submission by placecom.


16th July - In QRM lecture, there is lot of emphasis given on ethical behavior of the researcher. A researcher must not opt either for socially desirable or biased answers for personal economic benefits. Such type of researchers /journalist are hard to find these days.


17th July - Rural poverty can be attributed a lot to ecological poverty or in easy terms biomass scarcity available for commons. Hence, a rural development program must be quite eco-specific. Auxiliary benefit of NREGA includes eco-restoration & regeneration of natural resources.Once upon a time, World Bank sees NREGA as policy barrier hurting economic development and poverty alleviation.


18th July - One opportunity for XIMB is to track performance in state livelihood missions. It’s happening in Bihar, Odisha government is also now planning. If students take this opportunity, XIMB can possibly look to become sole leader in this space, something like IRMA is in so many.

PRADAN has an advanced course on livelihoods and they have an intensive workshop lasting around 18 days. They get experts from across the country and collecting different curriculum from across schools.

19th July - Neo-urbanization is a new mega-trend rising in India and other parts of the world. It is the extension of traditionally urban benefits and opportunities to semi-rural and rural communities. Neo-urbanization can transform market needs by empowering people in many ways. These are the views of global telecommunications equipment corporation Alcatel-Lucent.

Neo Urbanization - the new paradigm shift




I will not call this paradigm shift like the company promoting this video. This was a gradual change with the development of infrastructure connecting periphery of urban centers and rural area. Foreign companies have been slow in realizing the emergence of rurban area in India. For beginners, the new land development between a rural area and the EDGE of a developed suburban area is called rurban.

20th July - I was busy whole day in lectures.There was a scuffle between workers and management employees at Manesar plant of Maruti on 19th July. Awanish Kumar Dev, a manager in the Human Resources department of the Maruti Suzuki Manesar Plant was killed. Maruti Suzuki management has not even constituted the Grievance Redressal Committee and the Welfare Committee at its Manesar plant which was agreed upon after the last dispute in October 2011. So who can prevent such violent outrages of the workers.

21st July - XSYS interview for the selection of the shadow members were conducted.

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.