Why?

Recently, I came through a news article that said that private hospitals all over India have started doing a basic test to check for HIV virus in every patient's blood and immediately several groups have started protesting against this saying that the hospitals are violating the fundamental right 'to consent' to be a subject of the test. What crap? I mean, in my opinion, these hospitals have taken an incredible step. When the HIV demon is proliferating at such a rate in India and can stand as one of the country's biggest challenges in the years to come, this kind of screening of blood is of paramount importance. When social groups should start appreciating this move and make the government make this mandatory everywhere, they are actually protesting against this !! I donno what kind of bloody motivation is there behind these protests.

On the other hand, the Ram setu controversy is reaching its crescendo. Haven't we already done enough damage to our country by playing with the religion card. I'm sure we can use scientific evidence to prove all mythology wrong. But here we are talking about emotions and sentiments. When we can be sentimental about a pen or a piece of jewellery, why not appreciate the fact that some people are sentimental about the Adam's bridge. I really can't understand "Why?" !!!

Helicopter Man comes to ISB

On Saturday, the Entrepreneurship club at ISB played host to the 'no-frills' hero, Capt.G.R.Gopinath, the pioneer of the low cost airline concept in India. It was the most stylish entry by anyone who has come to ISB so far. Capt. flew in his own chopper from Bangalore and spoke to us about his village upbringing in Karnataka, his stint with the army, his return back to his village farming, his sericulture business, his helicoptering ventures and finally the saga called 'Air Deccan'. It was truly inspiring to hear his story because he attributes all his success till date to just one thing 'perseverance'. He was truly a 'no-frills' man and we were privileged to listen to Chevalier de la legion d’Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour from the French Government)

I don't know

I don't know why we still know each other only by name, although you strangely knew mine before I got yours. I don't know why I never try to barge in, although you hang around with guys I know very well. I don't know why I can't try and find out if you are already committed. I don't know why I didn't get into the habit of saying "hi" to you. I don't know why my heart skips one beat every time I see you. I don't know why my tongue almost went into a double knot, the one or two times I talked to you. I don't know why I hesitate to add you on to my Orkut friend's list. I don't know why I haven't gotten over some of my bitter past. I don't know why I still get nervous. I don't know why I like you, although you are quite short for me. I don't know how I will feel when you leave for your exchange program. I don't know if I will come up and tell "you look brighter" after your next facial. I don't know if it is really sensible to pursue you. I don't know why I'm blogging about you. I don't know if you will ever read this and post a comment. I don't know if I will ever get any further.
-Prequel to the formation of the Flippant hearts club@ISB

Onam@ISB

Last week we had Onam celebrations (albeit a bit late) on campus. Me, SP and SR organized the tug-of-war, Pookalam competition(floral rangoli) and had Sarovar serve an Onam sadhya. The ISB students and spouses unleashed their creative best and came out with incredible patterns.

See the winning entry from Section B



And here is Section D's creation(Our section got the second place)

An Intellectual Orgasm

Term 3 introduced many of us here to the world of Corporate Finance. Although I had heard of some of this jargon before, I was never aware of a discipline called Corporate Finance. A major aspect of teaching is the way a subject matter is delivered. Although many of my batchmates with a financial background will disagree with me, Prof.Bhagwan Chowdhry, UCLA, exposed us to CFIN in a truly unparalleled style. While he had to skim over a few really deep topics, I got to understand that the subject was really profound. While I'm not going to delve into all topics that he taught, I want to record some of the wittiest moments in my blog. Some call his jokes playboy stuff but everyone surely enjoyed his wit in class.

On the adverse selection problem...To a girl in my class(TL), Do you agree that guys at ISB range from sleazeballs to nice guys. She said yes. So on an average guys at ISB are jerks. She said yes again. So 'coz you consider the average guy to be a jerk, you don't get the guys above the average jerk(the nice ones) and you are stuck with the sleazeballs. She couldn't do anything but nod in approval.

On Arbitrage opportunity, Situation in a party. You are a guy, like many around, who has never had any luck with women. And all of a sudden, a beautiful young lady walks up to you and says, "Mein tumhare bachey ki ma banna chahti hoon - I wanna become the mother of your child". Can you believe it?...The catch is there is no free lunch.

On private valuation, I'm reading a book and my wife calls me to do the dishes. I ask her if she knows my billing rate. But she says that I'm just reading a book and not consulting right now. But the reason I'm reading the book is because I value the book more than consulting. But I still ended up doing the dishes 'coz she threatened no sex tonight.

Talking about benefits of going public he says, Human beings fornicate and read newspapers.

And talking about the costs of going public, Good or bad somebody will sue you

On signaling, he said something to this effect, I have my head tonsured to signal that I'm macho :-)

On underpricing in an IPO, The common investor gets too many lemons and too few peaches. Underpricing is the sweetener

On VCs, Venture capitalists are like your father-in-law

Finally his advice to us, Even though I look very young, I'm actually old enough to give advice :-). Use the GEO principle to decide who to work for or who to recruit. GEO is Generous, enthusiastic and optimistic.

This guy is truly a gem. Given a chance I would do CFIN again from the start and I think most of my classmates will agree too.

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 :-) !