Life after Great Lakes

Discovered in Velacherry!!

2009-02-28T01:44:00.000-08:00

Our maid took 2 weeks medical leave for her operation & so we have been eating out these days. N & I were thinking about a good joint to have lunch. Lots of restaurants came across our minds, but nothing that gives us Value for our money!

Suddenly remembered G saying that there is an Andhra Mess in Velacherry , just opposite Latta stores. We thought we will give it a try. We landed up there, looked around Latta stores, actually all around. But we could not find a board with the wordings “Andhra Mess”. Perplexed we checked with a near by shop keeper, who then showed a small gully just opposite Latta store. There we found a flip flop board kept in front of the gully.

We walked in the gully for 20 meters & found out a rather big hall with lots of bachelors having a great time. We had to wait for some time, before we could get a seat. A lady in mid thirties was managing the show. Her kids were playing around her. Probably it is a typical family managed business. All the employees of the mess were conversing in Telugu. The owner mistook me for an Andhra-ite & started asking me something in fast in Telugu. Reading my face she understood & rephrased in Tamil.

The food was good & was typical Andhra style. It had pappu, ladies finger-potato fry, subjis & all the usual stuff. It was a big hall that could seat 50 at one shot & it was jam packed. 99% were bachelors. Even non veg is available. Coming to the price, unlimited meals at Rs 30 & omlette at Rs 7 was real value for money.

We came out wondering why we didn’t try this earlier! If you are an Andhraite & if you are in Velacherry , you know where to go to satisfy your appetite.

What can halt terrorism?

2008-09-21T06:48:00.000-07:00

When we were casually browsing through channels yesterday night, we came across the Islamabad Marriot bomb blast breaking news in NDTV. It was a really bad explosion. 40 people killed & 100 injured. The real figures might be more. Today morning in papers I saw the 25 feet deep crater that was formed at the site. Also it seems the terrorist had a used a truck full of explosives (1000 kg) for the blast.

This set me thinking about a solution to terrorism & what is lacking in India. I feel POTA / COTA can’t be a solution to terrorism. These acts will only serve in inducting new terrorists on board. Someone suggested death sentences for such terrorist acts. Yes, to a certain extent this will create fear in the minds of public at large, but when you closely observe, when these terrorists are open to killing themselves ( suicide attacks), I don’t think a death sentence will stop them.

For the near term solution , I think what we need to have is set-up like the SSN in USA, wherein when you type the SSN of a citizen you get to know everything of that person right from his/her DOB, Schooling, College, Work , Credit history & stuff like that. Though this might not directly deter terrorists, we might get to unearth the network really fast with most of the information from just one guy. Also whenever any citizen gets in touch with any kind of government service the details of the transaction must be tagged on to his/her SSN. This helps a lot in crime scene investigation. This will definitely deter all first time crimers. Implementing this will take some years (atleast 3 – 5 years to cover 80% of populace depending upon the staffing thrust) , but India can make use of its IT prowess here.

Critics might say this is like invading one’s privacy, but in the larger scheme of things if you weigh that against the lesser crime rates, one will understand the benefits. Needless to sat that the SSN information must be regulated & access controlled only to organizations like CBI , RAW etc.,

The longer term solution is to ensure compulsory education till a bachelor degree to all Indians. Only education will bring maturity to an individual to judge for oneself about the benefits of terrorism & violence. Social reforms to decrease regional / religious divide would also help.

Life after Great Lakes...

2008-04-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

Time has come for me to change the name of my blog from “My MBA at Great Lakes” to “Life after Great Lakes”. This is more to reflect the current state. I remember when in my first job there was a name change from Tata Engineering to Tata Motors. Most of us were apprehensive about that name change ( It costed in crores to change the Corporate Identity boards of Sales & Service outlets of the company all over India), but now I think we need to change with changing times to reflect the current state of affairs.

Off late, I have been seeing a lot of movies (Tamil & English) & I feel my blog has kind of become a Tamil movie review blog, which I want to change. Hence forth I am planning to write about social & business issues.

Many of us would have heard about Right To Information Act. For people who are not aware of it , this is a law that mandates government officers to disclose information to public when demanded.

This can be effectively put to use when you just don’t receive your IT refunds or in situations like Police is not acting on your complaints etc. As a citizen of India we have a right to demand information from government officials.

Here is a personal story of my friend who got back his IT refund after three years!

Can violence win ?

2008-02-17T06:28:00.000-08:00

This question has been answered well in couple of movies that I saw recently. The first one was Bheema. Everybody in the plot is killed. The film’s songs were good, but the screenplay was a huge let down. The film could have been made better.

The other on similar lines was Pattiyal. Starring Arya , Bharath , Pooja & Padmapriya. Bharath could not carry his role to perfection. His inexperience shows. Arya has done a good job. The screenplay is decently done. The director gives us the message that any body who takes the path of violence will only lose.

The path of violence is very emotional & people can easily fall into that trap. Later they realize it is not easy to come out. Some of the warring organizations are one such real life example.

Gandhiji’s non violence proves the point !

December movies !!

2007-12-25T09:41:00.000-08:00

Just back from Devi theatre, watched the movie “Oram Po” with Vimal & Sudarshan. The movie is total time pass. The first half was really too humourous. The second half also was decent. Arya has done well. On the negative side the film had too many blunt & indecent swear language. They could have cut down that. But overall a decent time pass.

Last Saturday I had watched “Kallori” at Devi with Hari. Kallori was a really good film. Very thoughtfully made & couple of songs are good. The film has a shock ending. The director has skillfully delivered a social message in a love cum college setting. This is a must watch movie.

In English , I saw Forrest Gump last week. Cool movie. Tom Hanks’ acting is too good. He proves that he is class actor. It is a simple tale, rivettingly told. This is must watch movie.

Catch you all later !!

August Update !

2007-08-31T09:18:00.000-07:00

August was an eventful month. The following things are worth mentioning

My 28th birthday celebrations at Besant nagar with Cognizant colleagues was a memorable event. Some hotel called Clay. I don’t remember the exact name. Food was really good & we found it economical. It came around to Rs 170 per head for seven of us.

Other activity I was busy in August was with flat searching. I have visited around 10 sites till date & interacted with close to 30 builders. I also saw a couple of second hand flats too. But still undecided where to buy. Hope in the coming months things will be clear.

We had a meet the uncle session for Alumni in Chennai. We had really good turnout for the event. Another event in August we Shankar's marriage. It was a old cinema theatre converted into a marriage hall. It was a great function.

Krishna is driving his Pulsar to Madurai.Hope he will have great tales to tell when he comes back.

C U All !!

July Update !

2007-07-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

I have watched Sivaji twice. First time with college mates in Sathyam & second time with brothers Aravindh & Yogan in Santham. This perhaps is the first movie I am watching twice in a movie hall. Sivaji is a feel good film. Anybody who just wants to chill out should definitely watch it. Rajni Kanth has done his role perfectly. Shriya has been very cleverly used by Shankar in the film. Vivek stands out with his one liners.The songs have been shot really well. It is not a kind of movie where you sit and analyse the movie. If you did you won’t find any logic. But Rajni’s movies are just felt & not analysed. Sivaji is a perfect movie for the average Rajni fan.

The IT industry is facing tough times these days. Looks like the honeymoon period is over & conditions are toughening. I am referring to the appreciating value of Rs, which is brining down the “cost arbitrage” advantage for Indian IT firms. This has been proved by the fall in growth of profits in the first quarter of FY 07 08. To overcome this Indian IT companies should come out with innovative solutions, which are tough to be copied by others. Such solutions only will give these companies a temporary competitive advantage over cos in low cost nations. As an immediate action cos are taking about improving utilization & hedging. Only time will tell how the industry comes out of the problem.

Developmental issues in Chennai need a special mention. IT industry has spurred unbelievable growth in the last 5 years in Chennai. Moring from 07:30 till 10:30 roads are choked with the various IT company buses. Especially in OMR the condition is very bad. This is because of the road repairing work that is going on. Hopefully with 2008 we would have congestion free OMR !

Vaastu !!

2007-06-18T07:06:00.000-07:00

Hi All

Vaastu looks complicated to strangers & I thought I could demystify it. Hence this post on the science of Vaastu Sastra !! Here it is goes !!

5 Commandments of Vaastu :

1. The house plot needs to be a square / rectangle. In case of rectangle the length should not be more than twice the breath. The plot needs to have a compund wall on all four sides.

2. While constructing the plot, ensure that is more freespace is left on east than west. Similarly ensure more space is left free on North than South.

3.The building should be a square or rectangle.

4. NE corner needs to be 90 deg or less ; SE corner can be 90 or more than 90; SW corner has to be exactly 90 deg; NW corner can be 90 deg or more. Four corners stand for four Gods - NE - Esaniyam ; SE - Agni ; SW - Kanni or Nairuthi ; NW - Vayu

5. The master bed room of the home shoul be at the Kanni (SW) corner of the building.

I will post the other commandments in the subsequent posts !!

Cheers !!

Refer : http://www.shrifreedom.com/vastu_vastupurusha.shtml
www.punditravi.com/vastu_shastra.htm

Interesting site !!

2007-05-31T07:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.google.com/trends

The analysis provided makes it really interesting. Hope they come out with regional versions soon !

Cheers
Prasadh

Last presentation @ Great Lakes

2007-04-21T13:14:00.000-07:00

07 April 07

Today we had an early morning class. 8:00 – Prof. V K Murti & Subject : Small Business Marketing. Arun,Ashok, Rajesh & Myself were part of the group. Our topic was “Mercedes”. We made a good presentation.

Evening Kamal & myself watched “American History X”. I liked the movie very much. “Life is too short to be pissed off with everything” is the punch dialogue said by Edward Norton’s brother in the movie. Really gripping movie. Liked it !!

21st April 2007

Memorable day in my life !! This day was my last day at Great Lakes. We had a day long workshop on Market Research & Integrated Marketing Communications. Faculty was Mr. Aditya Kaushik . He is IIT Madras & IIMC guy. Ex P&G. Lives in Toronto & runs a BPO called Red Tree. Red Tree is into Analytical Marketing Research.

The first session of the workshop was on focus groups. The next session was on Information Pump. IP is a variant of a focus group which in quality discussions carry incentives. After that he gave us a case on “Nintendo’s Game Boy Color Launch” at 11:30 & asked us to present the solutions by 13:15 hrs. The case was a tough read. Also as we were not familiar with the gaming industry in USA, it took us some time to understand the context.

Arun & myself presented the case. The prof appreciated the clarity of the presentation. We had recommended that Nintendo must target only kids, should not decrease the price & remove the old B&W game boy. Most of our predictions were true & we were happy to close the life at Great Lakes on a personal high.

22nd April 07

Sriram Iyer of Pioneer batch & myself were in the airport waiting for Uncle Bala. Today happens to be our convocation & that is the reason why uncle is in town. Also with us were Praveen, Keshav of JP, Sahoo of JC, Jagan, Vikranth & Bala Pradeep of our batch.

We saw Kalanidhi & Dayanidhi Maran at the airport. Uncle was full of energy & told about how he happened to interact with TN Governor Dr. Surjit Singh Barnala, who is the chief guest at our convocation.

Expect interesting posts after convocation !!

Learnings from my travelling experiences !!

2007-04-15T10:22:00.000-07:00

Dear All

My experience in Bombay local trains has been a great learning.

I will tell you some stats about the trains in Mumbai. every train is designed to carry 1000 passengers. But in reality each train carries around 5000 passengers. Frequency is 3 minutes.

First thing that I have gained from travelling in electric trains is punctuality. If you are late by a minute you will miss your train. I used to take the 7:20 local from vashi to VT. This train starts from Vashi, so I will get a place to sit. If I am late & miss the 7:20 local, then I need to take the next train at 7:30. In this train I won't get a place to sit, because it starts from Panvel. It comes jampacked. Suppose you miss the 7:20 train, then you are in for hardships the whole journey. You will be made to bend in all possible degrees.You will get free massages in all parts of your body. people will walk on your shoes as though that is their birthright. Most difficult part is you need to protect your mobile phone & purse from pick pocketers. One my friends has lost his mobile phone in a train.In crowded staions like Kurla & Dadar, if you by chance get into the way of the crowd that is getting down , they will ensure that you also get down at Dadar along with them. Young slum children throw stones at trains. So if you stand on the entrances then you might get hurt by the stones. The whole compartment will be smelling like rot because there is no air circulation , as people get only one feet across one feet to stand.

After such a wonderful journey you will finally get down at VT. For a moment you will not recognise yourself!! Your shoe would have changed its colour. You actually should be happy if you were wearing the shoe in the firstplace. Your trousers & shirts will all be totally crippled. To add to that you will be profusely sweating & your shirt will be totally sticky.

While walking into office, your receptionist will give you a laughing look & will ask why you had missed the regular train.Then you will think all this because of you not being punctual.

Bombay locals make you disciplined !!

My other travelling experience...

Nagarajan & myself were travelling in Dadar Chennai after we finished our training. My friend had come earlier to the station. He had come around 6:00 PM for the 9:00 PM train. He was sitting alone & at that time a stranger had started talking to him. The stranger introduced himself as Sundar, a Film Director & son of famous film director S P Muthuraman. Moreover he said that he had come to Mumbai to book Ayesha Takia as the heroine for his forthcoming film. He told that he lost his money (Rs 25 lacs) , laoptop & mobile phone & train ticket in the taxi. So he did not have any money to board the train. He told that however he had booked the ticket in III AC. He asked for Rs 2000 from my friend. He told this amount will help him to pay the fine the TT will levy for ticketless travel. The guy was speaking to my firend for around two hours regarding various cine actors & actresses. My friend completely believed that he indeed was son of SP Muthuraman & handed over Rs 2000.00 to him. The train started. I told my friend you should not have paid the amount. He told me that this guy was genuine & will give back his money the moment train reaches Chennai. My friend went to the III AC compartment , to chat with him. He returned back taking all bad words against him. I could understand what had went wrong. The guy was missing. There was some other SUndar in that berth. He had escaped with 2000. Hehad planned the whole operation very meticulously to an extent that he had first found the name of a passenger travellin in III AC & then used that as his name & cheated my friend.

To sum it up....

The two main points I wish to state is that one needs to be punctual when commuting in Mumbai & when travelling to a new city it is better not to trust strangers.

C U all !!

LIFELESS TALK

LIFELESS TALK

LIFELESS TALK

Movies & Movies

2007-03-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks,

Got to see lot of movies in the last two weeks. I am giving my ratings for each one of them.

On 19th Feb I went to Patchai Kili Muthu Charam a movie by Goutham Menon. It was the Sathyam complex. I liked the film very much because of the amazing screenplay & good acting by Sarath, Andrea & Jyothika. Music is very good too. Worth a watch !

We went to Sathyam complex again. Movie was Mozhi. It had really good songs & the theme was different & worth watching once.

I saw a lot of films on my lappie. Shawshank Redemption , The Departed, American Pie V, Scent of Woman & Derailed. Outstanding movies were Shawshank Redemption , The Departed & SoW in that order. Pls do not miss them.

Went with Vimal to Six Degrees for watching “The pursuit for happiness”. Amazing movie & Will Smith has proved that he is a class actor.

C u in the next post!

AGLOCO

2007-03-05T08:42:00.000-08:00

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Thanks

My blog is one year old !!

2007-02-20T18:31:00.000-08:00

Celebration time !! My blog is one year old !! I think it is quite an achievement of sorts. I had planned at the beginning of the year that I would not a miss a month while blogging & at the end of the year I look back & see that I have blogged on all the months that too with an average of two posts per month.

The weakest of all weak things is a virtue that has not been tested in the fire - Mark Twain. Yup, this was my Toast Masters table topics session. It was a good experience.

My friend from MIT days, Senthil is currently in Berlin, Germany. Senthil in fact was my roommate in MIT. He is doing his Doctoral Programme there. I am linking his blog here. His first post is very impressive. He writes about his experiences in Germany. Do not miss it !!

Bye for now !!

Movies !!

2007-02-15T12:00:00.000-08:00

Feb 4th was a very memorable day at Great Lakes. The day of campus placements & I got through in a good company. Details in later posts……..

I have identified four areas around which I am going to write in future. Movies, Music, Books & Great Lakes. Expect tagged posts.

Movies

I saw two Hindi movies & a Tamil movie yesterday. Guru, Dhoom 2 & JOK.

Guru

Abhishek Bachhan stands out as a great actor. I never thought he could act this way. The way he was portrayed in the screen was very natural. I am saying this because in Dhoom 2, I didn’t find him attractive / handsome. In that way Mani Ratnam is doubtless a perfect caster & knows how to get the best out of his cast. The songs were good & cinematography was very good too.

On the negative side I felt the movie itself did not have a captivating charm. The story was more or less known & hence there was no interest that was built from frame to frame. Also Ash’s initial scenes gave a feel of Madhubala of Roja. Overall I would rate it as OK types.

Dhoom 2

Next, got to see 3/4th of Dhoom 2. 3/4th , because my friend did not give me the final part of the film. The producer & director have slogged to make a Hollywood action film out of Bollywood. I must comment that they have succeeded to a large extent. The Namibia train sequence or the AB, Uday Chopra fight in the water shed have been shot spectacularly. Ash looks stunning in her costumes. AB unfortunately is not cast well & doesn’t look smart. Overall the movie is OK types.

JOK

Third movie was “Jillendru Oru Kadal” . The songs stand out. Bhoomika & Jyothika both look really beautiful. Surya does his part of acting. The reason why it did not click is the fact that Tamil audience are conservative & the fact that the heroine “donates” her husband to his ex-girlfriend for a day is bit of far stretch. It is kind of a radical thought. Overall I would rate the movie worth watching once.

Bye for now.

My new year resolutions ...............

2007-01-01T05:09:00.000-08:00

Straight to the point, I wanted to make my New Year Resolutions. I have been thinking about this the whole day & here they go………..

1. Read 24 good books in 2007
2. Learn a new language
3. Make four speeches at Toast Masters
4. Exercise half an hour everyday
5. Weigh around 75 - 80 kgs at the end of the year
6. Read news papers everyday
7. Make 100 new friends
8. Blog every week
9. Keep talking to relatives

I am sure I will live up to the resolutions. We will however revisit at the end of the year to find out the effectiveness of the resolutions.

New Year is here !!

2006-12-31T07:04:00.000-08:00

I am getting ready to welcome the new year. I am sure it will be a great year for me & Great Lakes. With Uncle Bala around there is lot of excitement here. We are awaiting to hear C K Prahlad on Jan 3rd.

Wish all of you who visit my blog a happy & prosperous new year !!

Ms Indra Nooyi in all praise for Great Lakes !!

2006-12-27T10:33:00.000-08:00

Chennai, December 25, 2006: The PepsiCo Chief Ms. Indra Nooyi, emphasized that everyone should cultivate a global mindset and a local insight in order to make a mark in this globalized economy. Ms Nooyi, who is acclaimed by Forbes magazine as one of the world’s powerful women, made a special appearance and delivered key note address at the Yale – Great Lakes Center for Management Research’s International Conference on “Global Mindset, Indian Roots” held in Chennai. Ms Nooyi, who epitomizes the theme “Global mindset, Indian Roots”, felt that it was time for academia and research to come with more contemporary methods of ‘predicting future behavior’ of consumers by observation, by cultural focus and by ethnography rather than using the traditional methods of qualitative research.

Ms Nooyi commended Great Lakes Institute of Management for having an excellent international focus. Ms Nooyi said she was very much impressed to see Chinese language being a part of curriculum, a feat which even eminent universities doesn’t have. Ms Nooyi, alumni and also a Board member of Yale, commended Great Lakes Institute of management for partnering with Yale. She said that ‘Yale’ is very dear to her heart and she would extend her support for strengthening this initiative.

Dr Venkat R. Krishnan, the Director of Yale - Great Lakes center for Management Research, speaking on the occasion, said that the center aims to promote, facilitate and advance India-centric management related research which contributes to the development of basic and applied knowledge in the field of management. He said that this conference will act as a bridge that links scholars around the globe with India as a common interest.

Apart from Ms Indra Nooyi, several illustrious thought leaders and professors of the world shared their views in the conference. Dr Seenu V. Srinivasan of Stanford University, who is regarded as world’s foremost authority in marketing research, expounded the technique of a using ‘conjoint analysis’ as a method to predict future behavior. Prof Paul Prabhakar, Dean of FSU spoke about the DNA of a sustainable business enterprise. Dr Sudhakar Balachandran, who was awarded the outstanding faulty award at Columbia Business School, spoke on Share holder value maximization. There were many interesting case studies/talks by Dr Suj Krishnaswamy, Dr Sridhar Moorthy, Dr Rama Shankar, Dr Siva Nathan, Dr Ashok Vasudevan and Dr Neharika Vohra. Paper presentations from many well known schools like Indian Institutes of Management – Ahmedabad & Bangalore, Indian School of Business-Hyderabad, IIT-Khargpur, IIT- Chennai etc also attracted the audience. Prof Sriram, Executive Director of Great Lakes thanked Ms Indra Nooyi and all other distinguished professors for making such thought provoking speeches.

We have got land !!

2006-12-01T11:05:00.000-08:00

Memorable day at Great Lakes !! Read below for details.............

Great Lakes Institute of Management Announces setting up of own Campus

~ Great Lakes Setting up own campus on ECR road ~
~Announces New Chair professorships~

Chennai, November 30, 2006: Great Lakes Institute of Management, a leading B-School, with an objective of offering world class education, has announced setting up of its own campus on the East Coast Road of Chennai. The three year old B-School is currently being run in leased premises. The B-school invested huge money in acquiring the 14 Acres land in the serene East Coast Road which is the new knowledge corridor of Chennai.

The new campus will be a sophisticated, full fledged one with all modern amenities. The institute plans for a total built up area of 1,80,000 sft and out of it 1,25,000 sft will done in the first phase. The campus would be a complete residential one with facilities like hostels, amphitheatres, electronic classrooms, auditorium, staff quarters and spacious playgrounds. The design of the building is ready and The Institute plans to start the construction activity in couple of months and wishes to start complete operations by 2008 academic year.

New Chair Professorships
Great Lakes Institute of management, which was started by illustrious academicians of US along with the support of Indian Industry bigwigs, aims to become an Institute of excellence in Management education in India with in 2 years. While the new campus infrastructure catapults the learning ambience, the institute is also focusing on the enhancement of its knowledge capital by taking new faculty on board. In addition to the existing chair professorships, Great Lakes announced few more Chair professorships. Mr Gopal Srinivasan, MD of TVS Electronics and Mr KB Chandrasekhar, Chairman of Jamcracker Inc donated Rs 1 Crore each for setting up the prestigious chair professor ships in two domains. Three more chairs in the areas of Finance& Banking, Infrastructure, and technology are also on the cards.

Marketing Focused school
The Institute, during the visit of the marketing legend, Dr Phil Kotler, announced that it has identified its core competence in the area of marketing and that it aims to become a marketing focused school. With this, Great Lakes is following the footsteps of premier US B-Schools which are known have focus in one area. Its no wonder that Great Lakes, which is closely associated with Kellogg chose to become a marketing focused school.

Giving the rationale for focus on Marketing, Prof Sriram, executive director, said that Great lakes has an unparalleled intellectual support from the illustrious marketing professors of the world. The legendary Dr Philip Kotler visited Great Lakes and will be associated with research for the next 5 years to support the center in all forms. Dr Seenu V Srinivasan, the Adams distringuished professor of Marketing Research of Stanford University, regularly teaches here. In addition to them, Dr Paul Prabhaker, the Dean of the School of Business and Economics. Fayetteville State University, North Carolina, has keen involvement in the operations of the institute.

To take marketing focus much further, Great Lakes, along with DrPhilip Kotler, announced setting up of “Kotler-Srinivasan Center for Marketing Research” for enhancing marketing based research in India. This center receives financial as well as Knowledge support from both the stalwarts on which the center is named. A member of the Academic Advisory Council of Great Lakes, Dr. Kotler is involved with their key research projects at this B-School. This center is the second research center for the school which already houses Yale-Great Lakes Center for Management Research, promoted jointly by Yale University.

B School ratings

2006-10-16T12:26:00.000-07:00

Dear All,

Pls see the B-School clustering done by Career Launcher.

http://www.careerlauncher.com/mba/about_mba/topbschools.html

Cluster 1

IIM-A, IIM-B, IIM-C, ISB, IIM-L, XLRI,

Cluster 2

IIM-I, IIM-K, FMS (DU), SP Jain, MDI, NITIE, IIFT, JBIMS, IRMA, IIM -A
(ABM), IIM-L (ABM), MICA, TISS (PMIR)

Cluster 3

IIT-B, IIT-D, MDI (HR), FMS (MS), Great Lakes Institute of Management,
NMIMS, IMT (Ghaziabad), SCMHRD (Pune), SIBM, TAPMI, IMI, XIM, GIM

Cluster 4

UBS, IISc, IIT Kgp, IIT K, Sydenham, Welingkar, KJ Somaiya, ICFAI Hyderabad,
IIT Madras, IIFM, BIM

Cluster 5

IIT Roorkee, FORE, NIRMA, MFC, MBE, ICFAI Gurgaon, SIES, LIBA, MET, IES,
SIIB

Thinking beyond 4000 pounds of steel

2006-09-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

We had to submit an article review for our GB&S course. I had chosen the subject article. Authors are from A T Kearney - Automobile Domain. I found that very interesting. Sharing the same with you all.

Abstract:

In the larger sense the authors talk about six new thinking tools which can help a company to realign your business needs & be very successful in a declining market. The article sites the examples of Retail giant Tesco, computer maker Dell , low cost airlines like Southwest Airlines & Ryanair.

Specifically the article talks about the hassles faced by the customers of auto industry & their real needs that have not been satisfied. It also details the current scenario of the global auto industry & what ails the auto industry. Authors finally suggest a new business model for auto industry that will give a ROI that is way above the current industry average.

Gist:

Today’s car owners spend considerable time & effort to maintain / service / repair their cars. Considerable time is also wasted in finding finance / insurance options. Deeply analyzing, basic needs of car owners are mobility & service. AT Kearney’s new car concept promises that car owners won’t need to undergo these hassles & would provide enhanced mobility economically than the current cars available in the market. The car concept has been named as Indego. The concept also has potential to bring in more ROI than compared to the ROIs of existing car makers.
Auto industry today suffers from huge fixed costs covering engineering, manufacturing , distribution infrastructure & HR activities. In fact health care costs are around in US$1400 in every General Motors car that is produced. Add to that the cut throat competition in the industry, which results in lower profitability from the core car making business.

Two interesting developments need to be looked at closely. The first one is about the Southwest & Ryanair. These two airlines clearly understood that the basic customer needs are low cost travel & they came up with a radical business model which addressed this need. Both the airlines were very successful. Similar case is with Dell computers. The real basic need of customers was a customized computer. The same was delivered to customers with the help of a flexible supply chain model & Dell was very successful.

Auto customers too look out for low cost mobility on road & don’t want to go through the hassles of maintaining the car. AT Kearney’s new concept Indego is a new idea, which focuses on the above needs. Indego would not sell cars but lease them out to customers for anything between US$7 to US$16 ( US$2700 to US$ 5800 per year). In the process the company returns a return on sales of 22% when compared to the industry average of 6%. In essence, Indego would sell mobility, not motor cars.

The concept of leasing, gives the company access to the performance parameters of the car during its whole life. Approximately Indego will be using cars for 8 years before scrapping. During the 8 years of maintaining the car, the company would be able to garner most of the revenues from servicing / spare parts / insurance / accident repairs. Today the revenues from these streams flow out to many other members on the value chain.

Most important part of the business model is the fact that most of the design, manufacturing & distribution were outsourced. As a result, Indego’s cost base would be more of variable costs than fixed costs. Additional services like onboard telemetry, traffic alerts, navigation assistance, roadside assistance would increase the revenue flow.

The investment required would be around US$2 billion over four years. Hence true startups would really not get into this industry. Rather established players like Microsoft, Wal-Mart & GE who are looking for diversification might enter & create a successful venture.

Existing car manufacturers could not change themselves into the new model because of the fixed costs heavy legacies. They might as well try getting into it slowly. They might first start with Dealers to capture much of the aftermarket revenues. They could then reduce their manufacturing costs by adopting flexible manufacturing / lean manufacturing. Companies from India & China would be in the best position to implement this concept when they star their operations in Western countries.
There are six principles that help develop Indego strategy. On a general note these six principles help to rethink the existing business models & come out with a radical one which is far more profitable. They are take the best from other industries , capture lifetime revenue streams, create adjacent revenue streams from products & services , capture & exploit customer information , periodically assess the impact of technological innovations & guard against future legacy.
These six principles can be applied to any industry , either by incumbents wishing to protect and grow their market share or by new entrants who wish to challenge the existing industry dynamics.

Critque of the article:

Authors mention that by outsourcing most part of manufacturing, design & distribution, the cost structure will become more of variable than fixed. This is not correct as authors fail to understand that the high technology cars can not be assembled by anybody & everybody in many places, all over the country. Authors also forget that to note that the ROI for such people would not be good, as there would not be scale & hence they would not come forward to take up manufacturing alone.

Authors assume that the cars can be run for 8 years on lease. One important thing that was left out was the fact that there won’t be any takers for older cars &this might severely affect the revenue estimates.

Leasing as a concept is already present in Global auto industry. Maruti has promoted its leasing services through Lease Plan Ltd for around 5 years now. But actually leasing has not taken off because of the high costs involved. So it is doubtful that Indego will work out successfully.

Outsourcing most of design , manufacturing & distribution systemmight make a company vulnerable. By not having full fledged operations, it might be susceptible to easy take overs by suppliers / competitors etc.,

Name of Authors:

Philip Dunne – Vice President – A.T.Kearney – Global Automotive Practice
Steve Young – Vice President – A.T.Kearney – Global Automotive Practice

Book’s Name:

Executive Agenda
Volume VII No 4
Fourth Quarter 2004

Publisher’s Name:
A.T.Kearney , Inc
Marketing & Communications
222 West Adams Road ,
Chicago
Illinois – 60606
USA

How did you find my review ? Do drop in your comments !! C U Later !!

Adieu to Term 3 !!

2006-09-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

We had Optimisation Techniques , Business Communication, Strategic Management,
Financial Management II & Chinese in Term 3. Dr. TAS Vijayaraghavan of XLRI took Optimisation Techniques for us. TASV’s teaching style was different. He was a very hands on teacher. We would have asked him to do the chairs & tables simplex problem at least thrice & he readily taught us again & again. He also used a lot of chalk. Other Profs generally stay away from chalk & use the whiteboard. The global oil case & Maharashtra Cement Corporation case were all just too good & he demystified those tough problems. However his mid term & end term question papers were real terror & proved us that we had a lot of ground to cover up in OT. He used funny caricatures in the OT question papers, which were in a way embarrassing to all of us.

We had Dr.Ram Sriram from Georgia State University, Atlanta teaching us Financial Management II. He had very matured approach of handling our classes. He told us that he has no interest in teaching volumes , but he wanted us to understand whatever he taught. His focus was on learning rather than teaching. His classes used to be more of debates than of one way lecturing. His classes on Risks & Return , IRR & NPV methods were particularly interesting.

Strategic management was taught by our beloved Prof. S Sriram, who has been leading Great Lakes in the last three years. His classes were very interactive with many of us participating. Memorable cases include the Honda case (crafting strategy – Henry Mintzberg ), GE case , Crown Cork case , Coke Vs Pepsi case, Michael Porter - P&G Video , Wal Mart case were really good & helped us understand the overall strategy employed by all these firms.

Business Communication classes were hugely awaited. This could because of the faculty Prof. Lalitha Maheswaran who handled the classes with élan & her own unique style. The course was very interactive & she made us speak & also participate in Group Discussions. Her feedback sessions were good & generally gave us scope to evaluate ourselves against our classmates.

Lighter stuff :

My birthday party celebrations on 21st Aug were really memorable. Kamal & Satya did a great job in ensuring that this birthday will remain very close to my heart. Friends smeared the cake all over my face & though embarrassing it was a different feeling. After that , I had the tough time, got the birthday bums. One friend was holding me by my arms, tucked under his shoulders, another friend held my legs at the other end. Friends who were singing Happy Birthday charged in & showed their real love by kicking bums. I had to beg guys to stop their pyara bum kicks. It has been a tradition at Great Lakes , that everybody gets innumerable bums during his birthday, so that it remains an unforgettable experience……

We had a get together arranged by Senthil Prakash on 15th September. We had it in Hotel Savera. We could occupy the cornermost table in the roof top the 10 / 12 floor building , which gave a wonderful view of Chennai. I met SP , Anbu Maran , Mahesh , Karuppaih, Nanda after 5 years & it was a wonderful feeling. We shared our goals in life, about our future life partners & about what we did in the last 5 years etc., It was real good fun. The most important part was the fact that the next day Balaji’s birthday & we were in Savera till 12:00 & wished Bals happy birthday & then we dispersed.

Term 4 is currently in progress. The term has a strong HR focus because of the fact that it has HRM Systems , Business & Society, Re engineering Human Potential , Market Research & IT for Managers.

We had lot of fun doing our Market Research Project. After the I stage of designing the questionnaires, we were out to the field to collect responses. We chose Spencers & we had spent around 2 hrs the first day in Spencer & got valuable feedback from lot of strangers. It gave us an understanding on the types of issues that interviewers face. After the first session of data collection we had our debriefing session , wherein we changed quite a number of questions. We could collect only 10 responses in Spencers. We had a lot of interesting experiences , I had met up with the Guy who was actually the security manager at Spencers & the guy actually started asking me whether I got the permission my Information Desh before starting the data collection. We silently slipped to the second floor & started the job. After the debriefing session , we went to Odessey & spent around 2 hours & got some 20 odd responses. It was because of the special efforts of Ipsita. Last day of data collection we had been to Besant Nagar ATMs today. We got around 20 questionnaires. In total we expect to collect around 100 responses before we sit for the analysis. Totally it was a great experience meeting people & understanding the different opinions people have on the same issue…..

Now its time for me to wind this lengthy post & will catch you up with the reflections on Term 4 later !!!

Growing older !!

2006-08-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

I am 27 years old !! Yes, I am celebrating my 27th birthday on this day. It is a mixed feeling whenever one keeps growing. Good feeling because when you grow old, you take more responsibilities. Not so good a feeling because you are no more a kid & cannot be carefree as you used to be say 5 years back.

Independence Day celebrations at Great Lakes was spearheaded by the Different Strokes Committee. They had skit, dance ,song , Dumb C & a lot of other interesting stuff. Most interesting fact is that most of the students had come in traditional Indian dresses. Girls were in sarees , guys were in Kurtas & Dhotis. The day was fun filled & was indeed a memorable day. Around 300 pictures were taken by students & were posted in the common folder.

EDF Karma is another committee that is doing a great job. They are conducting a Personality Development Training programme for engineering college students in Chennai who wish to secure IT jobs. They had charged each participants Rs500/--for the 5 day course. They have been able to easily enroll 20 students in the first batch. This entrepreneurial initiative , which is a real time business, adds a lot of confidence to members of the Entrepreneurship Development Forum – Karma division. This will come in handy when they start their own enterprises in the future !!

Dr. Bala V Balachnadran’s classes were very good, because he mixes Managerial Accounting with a lot of humour & delivers lectures in a way that reaches us effortlessly. Activity Based Costing was the biggest take away from Man Ac.

Prof Narendar Rao had his characteristic style of starting classes with a motivational message. The 3 major corporate finance decisions like Investment decision, Financing Decisions & Pay Off decisions were dealt very elucidly by him.

Prof Vaidy Jayaraman handled Operational Management classes very well. We had interesting sessions on Supply Chain Management , TQM, Inventory Management , Statistical Tools for Quality control etc.,

Prof Radhakrishnan helped us learn the basic concepts of Micro Economics like Price elasticity, Income & Cross elasticity, Monopoly & game theory etc.

Organisation Behaviour has been taught by Prof Irudhaya Raj. Classes are still on & probably we will have the end term by first week of September. The biggest takeaways have been the ability to understand the human mind so that we can be better managers at work.

Prof Rasheed’s classes on Strategy were really good. He used give us innumerable examples of corporate stories, which helped us in understanding the concepts really well. Michael Porter’s five forces model was the real take away from the strategy classes !!

That is it for now & ll be back with more about Term 3, in the next post !!

Dr. Kotler's visit & Term 2 !!

2006-07-31T11:26:00.000-07:00

ofQuite long that I have not updated my blog – Most important reason would be the fact that the schedule at Great Lakes had been real hectic, leaving little time for everything else.

Finally when I thought that I had to blog, blogs were blocked by Government of India. I think it is insane to blog the whole lot of all blogs. If GOI finds some blogs instigating violence, then there is a point in blocking those sites. Any technological advancement would have both merits & demerits. Blogs have helped a lot of people to discover that they are good writers & also information sharing has improved tremendously.

Meanwhile we had Dr. Philip Kotler’s lecture two weeks back.It was really good. He introduced the concept of Creating , Communicating & Delivering Value (CCDV) in plae of the traditional 4 Ps of Marketing (Product , Price, Promotion & Place).

The following are some links in the media covering his visit :

Companies failing to use the Internet are making a big mistake" - Dr Philip Kotler – Exclusive Interview on PaGuLGuY.com
http://www.pagalguy.com/index.php?categoryid=68&p2_articleid=417

"Marketing as a tool not utilized enough in India" - Philip Kotler at Great Lakes: PaGuLGuY.com
http://www.pagalguy.com/index.php?categoryid=44&p2_articleid=416

Dr. Philip Kotler Enthralls MBA Students at Great Lakes: Coolavenues.com
http://www.coolavenues.com/bschools/060724/glakes_kotler_4.php

http://202.87.40.145/news/innernews.asp?storyId=10354&lmn=1&cat=5

Dr. Philip Kotler to visit India : Indiainfoline
http://202.87.40.145/Bschool/innernews.asp?storyId=9105&lmn=13&val=1

Great Lakes Institute of Management Organizes Dr. Philip Kotler's Visit to India : Coolavenues.com
http://www.coolavenues.com/bschools/060710/glakes_kotler_1.php

Great lakes Organizes Dr Philip Koler’s Visit to India : PaGuLGuY.com
http://www.pagalguy.com/index.php?categoryid=44&p2_articleid=414

Kotler Launches Marketing Book : Chennaionline.com
http://www.chennaionline.com/education/Books/2006/07kotler.asp

Dr. Philip Kotler & Great Lakes Institute of Management to Set-up Marketing Research Centre in India : Coolavenues.com
http://www.coolavenues.com/bschools/060724/glakes_kotler_2.php
http://www.coolavenues.com/bschools/060724/glakes_kotler_3.php

Kotler Comes to India : BusinessWorld
http://www.businessworldindia.com/b_school/news_articles88.asp

Centre for Research in Marketing to be set up in Chennai : MoneyControl.com
http://news.moneycontrol.com/india/news/management/

The tragic incident that happened 2 weeks back, was the train bomb blasts in Mumbai. One of my colleagues Mr.Anish Baindoor died in the blasts. He was a very talented guy. He was looking after MUV Product Marketing at Tata Motors. More tragic is the fact that he has 1.5 years old girl child. Terrorism of this sort needs to severely condemned.

Term 2 is about to end. We are having Managerial Accounting , Financial Management I, Organisational Behaviour, Operations Management, Micro Economics & Strategic Management . We have our Founder Dr.Bala V Balachandran taking MA , Dr. Narendar Rao taking FM I , OM we had Dr. Vaidy Jayaraman , M E we had Prof. Radhakrishnan , Dr. Abdul Rasheed for Strategic Management.

More about the subject take aways in my next post !!

Reflections of Term 1

2006-06-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

Term 1 is slowly inching towards a close. We have marketing exam on 22nd & that will be our last exam in term 1.

What have I learned in Term 1 ? What difference has it made it to my life ? It is perhaps a big question. Neverthless I will make an effort to answer that.

Financial Management :

We had the prep courses by Mr. Raghu Iyer. We came to know about the Indian P& L s & Balance Sheets. I understood by reading these 2 statements we can know about the health of the company. We also understood that these nos can be fudged & fool people . His explanation of what happened in Enron case was too good. We came to know how one should not run a company. Mr.Krishnamurthy Surysekhar started where Mr. Raghu Iyer left. Mr. K S as I had mentioned in the earlier post taught as the American way of Accounting. He went into the details of the individual items that are seen in the Income Statement, Balance Sheet & the cash flow statement. In his midterm we had set right jumbled balance sheets & the effect of transactions on Assets , Liabilities , Owner’s Equity , Retained Earnings & Net income. His lectures on Stock Dividends (small & big) , Types of investments – Trading , Available For Sale & Equity Method Securities all gave us a vivid picture of specific American GAAP was. In spite of all these controls there are people who outsmart all of us.

Marketing Management :
Dr. Paul left us craving for more on Marketing. We understood the important role that marketing plays in modern business. The various branches of marketing targeting , segmentation & positioning , 4 Ps , Branding, PLCs ,Portfolio analysis & business strategy etc., For more details pls refer my earlier post on Dr. Paul.

Business Statistics:
Mr. P K Viswanathan covered the importance of stats in business. Key learning would include sampling / ANOVA. Stats will be useful in Marketing & Operations.

Philosophy :
Very interesting & we invested a lot of time on this subject. Gives you the opportunity to introspect & improve oneself. Vivekananda’s readings are real good material , but one needs a lot of patience to understand the real meaning of what he says.

Macroeconomics:
Dr. Rakesh Singh took macro for us. He used give us a lot of assignments for every class. We used to slog for every class of his. It was good learning. He is not the kind of guy who concentrates too much into theories & numbers. He is very practical & looks at what macroeconomics means to a MBA grad. He is an authority on rural marketing & I really can’t forget his last class. The essence of what he spoke in the last class is as below:

What a class we had!! Truly inspiring… Our Prof Rakesh Singh showed his class today in his last class. We were discussing the case of Indian Economy from 1991 till date. He summarized all the happenings from 1985 – Rajiv Gandhi , 1988 – when India pledged gold in UK & then the great BoP crisis of 1991, the reasons of 1996 slowdown ( cooked by Congress ) & then the so called shining India. We discussed the role of politicians in fooling people. Examples of recent TN elections Karunanidhi promised one kg of rice at Rs 2.0 .Comparisons to Shivsena’s victory in Maharashtra, when SS announced Jumka Baker for Rs 1.0 was very apt.

Sustaining the shine ………….What we need to do to sustain the shine ? Investment in institution building ( reforms in labour, police , judiciary & bureaucracy)

Pitfalls in Agri Sector ;
Ban on exports
No contract farming
No interstate sales
Low govt procurement price
Sale only to mandis

The food processing sector has a potential to grow as a 30 Bn dollar industry if there are encouraging policies by government.

Chinese:

This is one class I am really struggling. Perhaps I unable to over come my inhibition to learn something totally new. The prof is a veteran & slogs to make us learn. He also has started giving quizzes in every class, so that we take Chinese a bit more seriously. I hope I learn up fast.

Overall it has been a great experience at Great Lakes. Hope the results are good as well. Meanwhile the second term has also begun. We have got real big names lined up in the 2nd term. Now more on that after a while : -)

Mesmerising Dr. Paul !!

2006-05-31T11:13:00.000-07:00

Last ten days passed away like 10 minutes. We were all mesmerized by the magician Dr. Paul Prabhaker, excepting for the fact that he was not a magician but a Marketing Guru. I have never seen a Prof so focused & clear. BTW Dr. Paul teaches at Illinois Inst of Tech – Stuart School of Business- Chicago. He infact is the Asst Dean there. He is basically a IIT M - IIM C grad. He has inspired a lot of us study Marketing.

http://www.stuart.iit.edu/alumni/StuartBusiness/fac_news.htm

Dr. Paul does’nt teach only from Kotler’s book. He beautifully blends Kotler ( Summarises the book’s content) , shares a lot of his consulting experiences with Motorola & Ford & also tells about the challenges facing the world of marketing, for ex Better ways to measure CSI & the relation between CSI & Profits , How to keep the customers away from the zero economic profits point ? How to prolong the occurrence of the Zero economic point ?

Dr. Surysekhar has started taking Financial Accounting these days. He is also a IIM C grad. He is very simplistic & very gentle.Quality of all the overseas faculty is just outstanding to say the least.

Last week also was the inauguration for our new classroom. The classroom has been named Lake Veeranam. At first instance when I heard the name it was real funny. Now we are used to hearing the name.

Most important I forgot to mention , we are sleeping less than 6 hrs everyday !! Leaving college by 12:00 hrs in the night!! Life has become very hectic. Lots of assignments , projects & committee meetings.

That is the reason why I am not blogging often. However I wish to blog every week. I got be more organized & find time every week for blogging.

Finding my feet........

2006-05-13T06:48:00.000-07:00

Today I am relatively free & hence decided to make the best use of the same. Schedule here at Great Lakes is real hectic. It is the 80:20 rule that works here & our Profs tell that for every 20 hrs of lecture we need to prepare for 80 hrs. Before every class we get to know the list of chapters we need to read & we have to read them & go for the class.

This pedagogy keeps the student up to date at any point of time & the students are real focused. Credit should go to our professors who are giving us a lot of material to read. As laptops are expected only after a week, we had a tough time even to browse / make the report in our lab. Once the laptop arrives the pressure will ease a bit.

As a part of the philosophy subject, we need to do a karmayoga project. We had visited an NGO in R A Puram. It is an NGO for special children. It basically runs a non residential school for special children ; helps them acquire social skills. They also have vocational div where these children are taught to make candles, plastic garlands , vadams etc., The products are marketed by a retailer. This way the special children also make a decent living & most important are not a burden to their family members.

This was the main objective of the Director , she said that the current public opinion of the all NGOs helping special children is of charity; she wants to change the same to a self sufficient model which will be a long term sustaining one. We have decided in our little ways to help them. First 2 weeks we will visit them & spent some time with the kids, helping them to socialize.

Lot of committees have been formed, Admissions com, Placement com, Events & PR, Entrepreneurship etc………..& lot many study groups. I am in the placement com & we have had 3-4 meetings. Though it takes time to come to a consensus, it is fun working as a team.

Tomorrow we have our first class on Financial Accounting. Life will get more hectic , what else ?? By the by, tomorrow is Sunday guys !!. This is the way how it works in a 1 year program!!

Cracker of a start !!

2006-04-30T06:17:00.000-07:00

First , apologies for my delayed post. I could not get time at all - Believe me :-)

10 days induction at Great Lakes -

First day we didnot meet any of the profs sobering over the mic. Truly !! Whole day all programmes were done by our seniors. We had an interesting presentation by B Rama Krishnan - Senior with 20 yrs of exp !! Next day we had guest lectures by eminent pepole from Dexterity / JY Tyres & Grandfus . We had sessions running till 9:00 in the night on the first 2 days.

Next 3 days we were out to GreenCoconuts - Resort in ECR road for the outbound prog. Prog was conducted by Mantra - We infact learned Salsa - Italian dance too. The outbound had its dose of CEO Lectures - We had Mr. Lakshminarayanan - CEO of CTS & Mr. Rao - CEO of Orchid Chemicals adressing us. It was really good. We also had all the usual stuff - Trekking , Tug of war , Physical activity & Management games. What was unique to the prog was a session in theater by Karthick of Chennai Theater. It had emphasis on better communication.

Days 5 & 6 - We then had lots of lots of presenations by seniors on the various commitees. Seniors also conducted a cultural nite for us. Real good one. Then we had the real big thing. Our course inaugration by Mr. Ravi Venkatesan - Chairman - Microsoft . Uncle Bala was at his best in the event. Then we had Mr. Sankar - CEO of Sanmar Group addressing us . There was a MOU signed with IIT Madras by Uncle Bala. Then we had the convocation function for the Junior Pioneers . Mr. Adi Godrej & Mr. K B Chandra had attended it. It was at the Taj Ball Room. Then we had interaction with Mr. Ratan Tata - only 75 of us -- at Taj Ball Room. Meeting people of such stature adds a lot of confidence to students like us. Next day we bid farewell to our seniors at Flames - Le Royal Meridian. That was a real rocking party !!Too good - They enjoyed it !!

What a start to the programme. Wonderful. Fast track !! As a matter of fact, we have got a new Directoe -Mr. Venkat Krishnan. Mr. Venkat has come from XLRI. Heard he is tough task master & has a great reputation at XLRI.

Looking forward to a challenging year ahead !!

Awaiting 19th

2006-04-11T23:33:00.000-07:00

Lastweek went in mourning the death of my beloved aunty in Vijayawada. We had rushed to that place & paid our last respects. Sometimes it is tough to interpret life. All the competition & money minded society , everything comes to a grinding halt when one lays there motionless. Felt bad ,why God did this to her. Stopped by in Madurai for 4 daystrying to console granny. I draw all my courage from her. She cries a lot. This is such a kind of loss which nobody in the world can console. Only time can cure this pain.
I am going through the email on the GLIM Chennai meet. Pics posted in the yahoo group by Kartikeyan. Getting to know about others beforehand is good. Planning to attend the next one on 18th.
I feel Great Lakes has got real tough competition as it has to find way among ISB & Executive progs of IIMs. IIM A -PGPX has commenced already & IIM C starting next year. Placement is another aspect Great Lakes needs to improve upon.
Hope to have real good time ahead in Chennai !

French Vs English

2006-03-28T04:34:00.000-08:00

French President Jacques Chirac walked away from an EU summit meeting last week, since one of the French Delegate started addressing the gathering in English rather than French. Only when the speaker started speaking in French, the President walked back in. This news item caught my attention immediately.

From the French point of view what Chirac did was correct. He wants French to thrive & this is the way of promoting French. When the president of the nation acts this way, all the 62 million French citizens of the world will also do the same. The rivalry between French & the Brits is well known & has only got hotter because of this. If there is no resistance to English, they fear it will eat up French & French culture as whole. It is absolutely right & I agree with this view.

On the other side I feel English has become this popular only because of the fact that Americans also speak the language. If Americans had invented their own language then there would have been severe competition to English. Add to the fact the India & Australia were colonies of Brits & hence English was accepted in these places too. Hence the overall popularity of English has grown.

There is no stopping English & if there is no resistance (like the Chirac issue) then English will swiftly become the global language.

What strikes me is the Indian analogy of Tamil Vs Hindi. Very very similar case. In late 60s politicians vehemently opposed the entry of Hindi in TN & hence have halted its reach in Tamil Nadu. Politicians like Karunanithi , Ramadass , Thiruma & Vaiko all are here to ensure that Hindi doesn’t catch up fast in Tamil Nadu. They do it by stirring up the Tamil love among Tamils, the way Chirac does it for the French.

It is the same all over the world ;-)

Sad News........

2006-03-21T06:35:00.000-08:00

Pramod called me @ 6:30 in the evening & said there is a sad news.I told him to go ahead. When he said Manjunath is no more, I could not react.He kept speaking , said how it happened & all, but I could not speak. I was just listening. I did not know how to react.

Manjunath was my ex colleague at Tata Motors. He was a mechanical engineer from MIT, Manipal. Graduated in 1999. He was a jovial person.Though my interactions with him had come down drastically since I shifted to Pune, I still remember him very clearly. I used to argue with him quite often.

Shocking thing is that he had an strain in his married life & yesterday had filed an FIR at the Gurgaon Police station at night 10:30. Police had come to their home & counselled the couple. Then it seems at 12:30 midnight he jumped out of his 12th floor flat & ended his life.

Manjunath was cremated today afternoon. The investigations are on & I hope the mystery is solved.

I can not believe I have heard this news & I am paying my tribute to Manju !! May his soul rest in peace..

Mumbai Musings

2006-03-20T08:34:00.000-08:00

Hi !!!

Spent last weekend & today @ Mumbai. Met Senior Arockiasamy @ 26th Floor WTC. Evening met Pramod Gawas , Kedar Vilankar & Amit. Went for"9211" picture with them. Timepass movie ; Nana Patekar is good.

Next day went to " Thambi" Tamil movie alongwith James & A.Samy. Good movie..action packed. Madhavan in a different role. Read about the director Seeman who is a supporter of Che Guevara -- Bolivian communist great , Periyar & Velu Pillai Prabhakaran !!

Today had been to Bandra Kurla Complex & gave a complaint letter to the tax authorities to release the refund.Hope they do that early.

Kamal called me & told that he has paid Rs50,000 as admit fees into Great Lakes. Was telling that it is very tough to get loan for 4 lakhs. He told that his father has to come & sign the documents. Just wondering what am I going to do. I think I have to pay within oct 06. Have got some time , hopefully I ll figure it out.

I have made the resolution to be different & to defy convention ; I have started wearing my watch on my right hand !! wat a way to start !!

Mixed Doubles & Malamal Weekly

2006-03-11T22:04:00.000-08:00

Hi !!!
Last Saturday saw the Movie Mixed Doubles. Directed by Aparna Sen. Had good dose of sex. Message was that be Indian & don't get swayed by every thing foreign.The hall was full. Can watch once. Then caught up with Alok. Most probably he might join NM. Another friend might join XIMB it seems. Good decision.

Yesterday went to watch Malamaal Weekly at Vishal. Good movie .Priyadarshan proves that he is a matser in comedy movies. Paresh Rawal & Om Puri excel in the movie. Must watch !!

Spoke to Kamal yesterday. He told me the interview went decently well. I am sure he will get through. Jaya is planning to leave by 14th March. I am also planning to visit Mumbai coming week. Lots of friends are there to meet.
Currently reading Made in America by Sam Walton. Wonderful book !! Hoping to finish the book this week.
Rest next week !!

Fun with Dick & Jane

2006-02-25T00:36:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday Jaya had come to Pune & is staying with me. I took a day off this thursday & we went to 'Fun with Dick & Jane' at Inox. Manikandan my MIT senior also had come. We also met Venkat anothern MIT senior. Venkat is with MICO & Mani is with TELCO.The movie started off well, but lost steam soon after the first 30 mts. Never seen Jim Carrey in such a not so funny role. Film shows the struggles undergone by employees of companies that have shut down like Enron. Some how I would not recommend this movie.
Joined the gym & attending the classes daily morning at 6 : 00 !! Different experience.
Kamal is applying to Great Lakes. Had a discussion with him.
Nothing more this week.

The days that went by .....

2006-02-18T07:14:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday went to Vishal Theatre to watch Rang De Basanti.....Good movie I liked it. Though a bit unrealistic, it had a strong message, unlike other run of the mill movies. Siddharath has got a plumb role & acted well.

Today went to Jayshree theatre in CHinchwad for "Aksar" - Starring Dino Moreo, Emran Hashmi & Celina. Time pass entertainer. Emran again lives upto his name of the best smoocher.

Tomorrow Jaya is coming to Pune. He will be staying in my flat & will have a great time with him. He argues for anything & everything. I also enjoy arguing with him.

Evening I had visited a gym near my flat. The guy told it would cost my Rs 575 for a month. I am planning to join & build my body !!

Weeklong I have been following up Pagalguy for updates on Great Lakes & then reading news about Art Of Living's silver jubilee. Infact joined the AOL Chennai yahoo group. Planning to do Level 2 before I leave the company.

Hope it happens !!

Get Set Go !!!

2006-02-03T03:50:00.000-08:00

After many months of reading blogs of alums & other B Schoolers, finally here I am, all set to Blog !!

My first post ----------

I left Sivakasi yesterday for Chennai by Tenkasi Exp. Morning I reached Sankar's place by 8:30. Left for Great Lakes by 9:45 alongwith Jaya.

Met Hari Prashanth (Glimmer 06) & had very fruitful discussion on the latest scene on placements. Hari told not to worry about placements !! Went to the Admissions Office -Met Ms.Geetha Priya & collected my fee receipts. Got info that 67 have been confirmed in the 1st phase of admissions.

Currently posting from my friend Jaya's PC @IIT Madras. I will blog in detail once I reach Pune.

Cheers !!