Term 3 done - 37.5% MBA

A little over four months ago 422 young and old kids enrolled into this cute and fancy little program. They were all dreamy eyed, energetic and were ready to conquer the world. Today the dreamy eyes have given place to eyes that long for sleep, the energy levels are barely enough to withstand the battles at the testing arena. But one thing, they all still want to conquer the world. And they all took one more step closer towards this goal. At the end of another term of wizening, they are heaving a big sigh of relief, because as per past survivors the worst is now behind them. This term, of course, was the hardener 'coz they learnt some real serious stuff like Corporate Finance, Operations Management, Managerial Accounting and Entrepreneurship. As usual the learnings were immense but they were also daunted by the biggest roadblock in life called time. The day unfortunately had only 24 hours and the body would not always co-operate. But still they trudged along. Some managed to sprint in some phases and helped the others come up and some others did it when these guys stuttered. Everyone had some fun, some enlightenment, some realizations and some reassurances thrown in at them. And guess what they all managed to survive once more.

As much as they are all looking for the real challenges like ELPs, PAEV's and international placements, which are round the corner, they all are looking forward to this 5 day break. Cheers once again !

From War zone

Two weeks and no post. These two weeks have possibly been the most hectic period at ISB so far. I have averaged 4-5 hrs sleep everyday due to the innumerable assignments and case studies that were pending. Tomorrow is once again exam time. Feeling much more relaxed compared to earlier terms even though I still have a long way to go tonight. One major update is me and KS have finally managed to launch a new social club called 'Vistas and August house' club. We are primarily focussed at literary events, soft-skills workshops and epicurean pursuits. In two days I'll be home in Chennai and I get 5 full days off. Yahoo!
International placements start next term and I donno which companies I want to apply to. Hopefully the economy stays up for one more year of rocking placements.

Jeffrey Sachs on India

6:30 PM, August 8th, 2007: The Indian School of Business played host to the greatest economist of this generation, Mr. Jeffrey Sachs, Director, Earth Institute, Columbia University. Jeffrey needs no introduction to the ISB students. Prof. Krishnakumar from Rand Corporation taught us Global Economics in term 2 and he extensively used videos featuring Jeffrey solving hyper-inflation and extreme poverty in third world countries. After a raunching introduction by Rajat Gupta, Jeffrey walked up the stage to talk about 'Climate change and Sustained development in India'. He started out talking about the three major phases of economic development in India since independence, the 1947 to mid 1960s perios when essential PSUs were set up, the mid 1960s to 1980s when Green Revolution and infrastructure development happened and finally the 1990s onwards opening up of the economy and the rapid growth. Prof. Sachs feels that any country has to do two three things(in that order) to achieve sustainable growth.

i) End extreme poverty
ii) Achieve rapid growth
iii) Create a framework for sustained growth

And all of these have to be done consistent with our environment. Sadly, India has achieved the second step, achieving rapid growth, but has failed very badly on the first and third step. The high incidence of stunted growth in children(malnutrition), maternal and infant mortality is proof for that. In spite of great advances in the technology & infrastructure sectors the spending on primary health is among the least in the word (Some thing like $10 per head compared to $3000 in US). To add to this India is a coal based energy producer which contributes to a lot of carbon addition, a major greenhouse gas. The need of the day is to have public-private partnerships to uplift the poorest of poor in India and improve the primary health care system. he particularly lauded the efforts of the Satyam group which was setting up mobile public health clinics using a public-private partnership model. Prof. Sachs likes the fact that anything if decided happens very fast in India and he wants our country to target achieving this by 2015. After conquering this major challenge starts the gargantuan task of achieving sustained growth in an environmentally friendly way. He strongly encouraged carbon sequestering and use of nuclear and solar energy to a greater extent. Then followed audience questions. He stunned everybody with his knowledege about India. I felt that he was not just an economist. He is a technologist, environmental activist, public planner and visionary all packed into one wiry body. It was indeed a privilege to listen to such a great legend from such close quarters. Three cheers to ISB.

The happening place

This is an incredible week at ISB in terms of what hogs the calendar. On Monday we had Prof. Raghuram Rajan(Ex IMF chief economist) address the students on 'Liquidity Glut' (It is a different story that a good part of the advanced finance talk went over my head). Today we have Prof. Jeffrey Sachs talking to us on 'Climate change and sustainable development in India'. We are all so looking forward to litsen to Jeff talk in person, after seeing him in so many videos in the "Global economics" series. Tomorrow we have the chairman of the ISB board, Rajat Gupta having an interactive with the students. And once again every student wants to see the man who conceptualized ISB. To keep things in perspective we also have the mid-terms on friday :-). As if this was not enough a group of us had a one to one with our dean, Prof. Rammohan Rao. Had a really free flowing 1 hr of discussion with him and in the process got to know from him that ISB will be in the FT world rankings to be released in Jan/Feb 2008. Man this is really a happening place.

Turning 60

Its hardly a week away. Yes come August 15th, it is going to be 60 years of free India. It is a day to commemorate our victory over colonial forces, to pay our respect to the sacrifices of the millions of freedom fighters and the thousands of soldiers who fight to safeguard independent India. At ISB we are going to have one of the major events of the Net Impact Club called ‘Bandhan’ - an event for the underprivileged kids of 5-15 years age group from 6 NGO run schools of Hyderabad. In association with Sports Club, Arts and Creativity Club, SFA Club and the Dramatics Club several recreational and creative events on this occasion will be held to make it a memorable day for these kids. The club is short on funds but students are contributing generously(in spite of shrinking wallets) to make this event a success. Yesterday the Spouses and Family Association(SFA) organized an event called Drizzle and put up fun-stalls and food joints to raise money. It was good entertainment and hopefully a good amount of money was collected.

Just doing a simple calculation. If each of the 422 students contribute Rs.25 per month we can collect Rs.10,550 per month. But how to go about doing that? Direct debit can be one option but not all students have a direct debit account. If we had a mandatory smart card system we could have implemented a keep the change system to collect trickles of change. Blokes, if you can think of some interesting ideas to raise funds in a campus type environment please do let me know. Talking about student fundraising this funny video captures elements of bad fundraising by students. Enjoy !



BTW news is out and my last assignment at work has turned out to be a success( see deal) and an official press release came out a couple of days ago. So its time to feel proud :-) !