Henry Miller to Anais Nin

In 1932, months after first meeting in Paris and despite both being married, Cuban diarist Anaïs Nin and hugely influential novelist Henry Miller began an incredibly intense love affair that would last for many years and, along the way, generate countless passionate love letters. Below is one of the most powerful examples, written by Miller in August of 1932 shortly after a visit to Nin's home in Louveciennes.

August 14, 1932

Anais:

Don't expect me to be sane anymore. Don't let's be sensible. It was a marriage at Louveciennes – you can't dispute it. I came away with pieces of you sticking to me; I am walking about, swimming, in an ocean of blood, your Andalusian blood, distilled and poisonous. Everything I do and say and think relates back to the marriage. I saw you as the mistress of your home, a Moor with a heavy face, a negress with a white body, eyes all over your skin, woman, woman, woman. I can't see how I can go on living away from you – these intermissions are death. How did it seem to you when Hugo came back? I can't picture you moving about with him as you did with me. Legs closed. Frailty. Sweet, treacherous acquiescence. Bird docility. You became a woman with me. I was almost terrified by it. You are not just thirty years old – you are a thousand years old.

Here I am back and still smouldering with passion, like wine smoking. Not a passion any longer for flesh, but a complete hunger for you, a devouring hunger. I read the paper about suicides and murders and I understand it all thoroughly. I feel murderous, suicidal. I feel somehow that it is a disgrace to do nothing, to just bide one's time, to take it philosophically, to be sensible. Where has gone the time when men fought, killed, died for a glove, a glance, etc? (A victrola is playing that terrible aria from Madama Butterfly – "Some day he'll come!")

Anais, I only thought I loved you before; it was nothing like this certainty that's in me now. Was all this so wonderful only because it was brief and stolen? Were we acting for each other, to each other? Was I less I, or more I, and you less or more you? Is it madness to believe that this could go on? When and where would the drab moments begin? I study you so much to discover the possible flaws, the weak points, the danger zones. I don't find them – not any. That means I am in love, blind, blind. To be blind forever! (Now they're singing "Heaven and Ocean" from La Gioconda.)

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

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Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

"If militancy and gun culture resurface in Kashmir, responsibility is India's"

The oldest surviving hardline separatist, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, after being released after a 19-day house arrest in New Delhi following the execution of Afzal Guru, tells Aditya Raj Kaul in an exclusive interview that India should be prepared for the consequences of the hanging.

What was your first reaction to Afzal Guru’s hanging?
Afzal sahab was hanged at February 9 at 9 am; Delhi Police personnel in large numbers entered my room. Lady constables were made to sit in the next room. The male police officers were in my room. There was no formal document or an able officer who could explain why I was being kept under house arrest. They probably thought that after Afzal’s martyrdom, I will fly to Srinagar to be a part of the protests which would follow. My intention was indeed to return to Kashmir, which they anticipated quickly. For 19 days, I was kept locked in these two rooms. Most painfully, for the first 32 hours, the security personnel did not even leave my room, neither was I allowed to go out. Even when I prepared for the Friday prayers, I was not allowed to go. It was a Congress decision in haste. They did not apply their minds. BJP wanted Afzal to be hanged and the Congress played along, thinking they could use it as ploy against the main opposition party in the upcoming elections. That is why they hung Afzal, without leaking any information. It was a judicial and a political murder. Afzal himself was not part of the group which attacked the Indian Parliament. All the attackers were killed on the spot. At that time, I had condemned the event in the strongest possible terms. These are terrorist actions and we’ll never agree with them. Afzal was never given a chance in the trial court, he was not given an opportunity to defend himself. It was a human rights violation that even the family wasn’t informed before he was hanged.

The execution was followed by a blanket curfew in Kashmir.
That is very obvious. India’s actions are so brutal that it is clear that she wants to remain in Kashmir on the basis of brute force. They do not want people to get their birthright, they do not want democracy and freedom to speak, write and travel. All our basic rights are being crushed. Before coming to Delhi in December 2012, I was kept under house-arrest for nine months in Kashmir. The same happened in 2011, 2010 and 2009. Even when my son-in-law Iftikhar’s father passed away, I wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral. I cannot attend wedding ceremonies of relatives. India’s attitude only shows their arrogance. Curfew is clamped and four youngsters have been killed.

You were at Jantar Mantar protesting Afzal Guru’s hanging. What were you demanding?
I was at Jantar Mantar to talk about India’s lapses. When I reached Srinagar on March 7, I was picked up at the airport and taken home, ostensibly for security reasons. There is a lot of official security at home. It’s a lame excuse to hide India’s brutality. What can I do if I am not allowed to meet my neighbour Afzal Guru from Sopore? I wanted to go to meet Tabassum beti to offer my condolences directly from the airport. It is my moral responsibility and right as a Muslim. Our demand is that Afzal’s dead body should be returned to the family since they can offer prayers as per ritual. It will bring a sense of satisfaction.

Did Omar Abdullah have a role?
Home Ministry had released a statement soon after the hanging which stated that “we have taken the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir into confidence”. This means that the Chief Minister was taken in confidence well in advance. Now if he says we were not asked or we didn’t know anything, these are crocodile tears. Just like Farooq Abdullah had signed Maqbool Bhatt’s death warrant, Omar Abdullah is involved this time.

JKLF Chairman Yasin Malik shared stage with most-wanted terrorist Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan.
(laughing) This is an irrelevant question for me. No need to answer it.

I interviewed Hizbul Mujahideen commander Syed Salauddin in June last year. He said armed struggle in the valley will never stop. Hasn’t Kashmir seen enough bloodshed?
The responsibility of armed struggle of 1990 lies with India. They are not ready to resolve the dispute according to the commitments made through peaceful means. When you push a community to the wall, what is the alternative? If militancy and gun culture re-surface in Kashmir, the responsibility lies on the Indian government and not the people of Jammu and Kashmir. In 2008 and 2010, lakhs of people came out on the streets in protest but India took no notice. In 2010 an Indian parliamentary delegation came to seek commitment for talks. No one says no to talks. I am ready for talks but they have to be meaningful and result-oriented. That cannot happen till India agrees that Jammu and Kashmir is not a part of India and is a disputed territory. This should be followed by removal of armed forces and release of political prisoners. This will pave the way for talks. Otherwise we’ve had talked more than 150 times without any result. What is the alternative? Should we submit to the rule of the armed forces in Kashmir?

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

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Ranked 6th Overall
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Castro'phic regime

Cuba needs to bring more transparency in its election process

Living in a world where elections have become a synonym of extravagant campaigns and corruption, the Republic of Cuba stands aside in the queue. However, following a single political party regime (Communist Party of Cuba) doesn't sound like a fruitful proposition anymore! All the candidates who stand for the national parliament get elected because of zero competition and when there is no competition, chances of bribery and corruption involved in the process of elections become zilch. The election procedure in Cuba is one of its kinds where there is no room for election campaigns and ads. Such acts are totally out of question in the country.

The on-going electoral process of Cuba has invited a lot of criticism both from outside the country and within. According to Guillermo Rodriguez, a revolutionary intellectual, “The citizen doesn’t have the option of choosing between one candidate or another. The most they can do is not vote for those they don’t like.” Moreover, many deputies are elected to represent places they haven’t lived in for decades – and in some cases, they’ve never lived there! The moot point is that when they haven’t been a part of the place they represent, how can they address the problems of their constituencies and needless to say, these problems will never be solved. To make matters worse, the image portrayed for decades has been that of a parliament that limits itself to unanimously “legalising” each of the measures announced by the executive. Cubans have never seen a deputy questioning a ministerial or executive report.

What catches our fancy is the fact that with only one political party, why make a mockery of elections and play around with the hopes of the citizens? Most important of all, why do people participate in the entire process and end up voting? It is believed that the pressure on the people is very high and if they don’t participate in the voting process then they are exposed to stringent actions by the Cuban government. Castro’s Communist regime trespasses on citizens' privacy rights and repudiates freedom of speech, press, assembly and association. The government limits the distribution of foreign publications and maintains strict censorship of news and information.

Cuba holds the general elections every five years but with the same procedure going on for years, the situation of the country is likely to deteriorate. However, a nation surrounded by powerful neighbours like the US who is leaving no stone unturned to break the existing regime of Cuba, the nation needs some degree of control over information flow and intelligence. But people should enjoy freedom and liberty. They will revolt for sure if they are deprived of the basic human rights for long – history is witness to this. There is dire need for free elections and concurrently there is a dire need for state-control on information flow. The choice is tough and the clock is ticking.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

Book Review : Seven Deadly Sins

From hero to zero

Somewhere in the middle of this 430- page exposé of Lance Armstrong, journalist David Walsh recounts the story of his son, John, who died when he was all of twelve. Never afraid of asking questions and never holding anything so sacrosanct as to believe in it unquestionably, John once had a tiff with his teacher at his school. In the Bible class, where the nativity story was being recounted, his teacher insisted how Joseph and Mary lived a modest life. Confused and intrigued in equal parts, Walsh’s son shot back, “If they were so poor, what did they do with the gold they were given by the three wise men?” Heartbreaking as it might sound in retrospect, it tells us something about the Walsh family.

The Lance Armstrong saga can safely be adjudged as the biggest saga of triumph and eventual downfall in the history of sports in living memory. The story of a cyclist who fought and recovered from testicular cancer and went on to win a record seven Tour de France titles, and then followed it with a bestseller biography and a behemoth of a charitable organisation, appeared too good to be true to many. However, it needed immense courage to delve deeper. And one person who did that, David Walsh, the Irishman who works as the Sunday Times’ chief sports writer, found out that the going was tough. “He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy,” he had commented in his measured understatement. In unearthing the truth, he did one heck of a job. And, Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit Of Lance Armstrong is the product of that perseverance.

Completed a couple of months after the release of USADA’s ‘reasoned decision’ document that accused, with solid evidence, that Armstrong was the ringleader of “the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that sport has ever seen”, the book traces Walsh’s rather elongated and difficult pursuit to unearth what many say was the single biggest cover-up in the history of cycling.

Readers will benefit to know that this is not Walsh’s first book on this topic. It is his third. He has penned L.A. Confidential: The Secrets of Lance Armstrong and From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France, both dealing with the same issue. However, it has not been easy to pursue this case. Because of stringent libel laws in the UK, the books attracted an unusual amount of litigation, a few leading to subpoena as well.

The book describes the troublesome period, including how it all started. Walsh admits that he was kind of soft in his early career, especially when he started covering Tour de France in 1982, partly because he loved the sport and partly because he loved the sportsmen, his compatriots, Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche. And since he was writing the biography of Sean Kelly, he chose to under-report the clear evidence of doping on Kelly’s part. Similarly, he was mighty impressed by Armstrong during his early stint and confessed that he wanted to like him.  “He had something inside that made him unlike any other young sportsman I had met. Radioactivity,” he writes.

However, something changed after the Michelle Smith controversy during Atlanta Olympics. When the ace swimmer was caught tampering with her urine sample after a splendid performance, Walsh and other journalists started to see performances more cynically. By the end of the decade, that cynicism grew into scepticism and the first sportsperson that caught his radar was Armstrong.

He was the first to report that Armstrong had worked with tainted Dr Ferrari. The report set the world against him. He was called names and variously referred by Armstrong, his entourage as well as the fraternity as a “fucking little troll” and “the worst journalist in the world”.

It was around this time that brought names like Paul Kimmage, Betsy Andreu, Greg LeMond, Pierre Ballester and Emma O’Reilly to the forefront and started building evidence against Armstrong.

Though at times it might appear vindictive, the book is a great work of investigative journalism that tested the limits of the writer’s credibility, conviction and more importantly perseverance. It is not without it flaws though. The later chapters appear to have been completed in haste.  Also, while much of the book is based on painstakingly gathered primary evidence, the last section is dependent mostly on secondary sources.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

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Flower power

Though initially aimed only at the export market, the domestic floriculture industry is growing in leaps and bounds with a little help from the government and NGOs, writes Agnibesh Das

Back in the early nineties, the government of India began to look at floriculture as a possible export option for the country. Floriculture had a lot of potential as it did not have a lot of constraints that is faced by agriculture in the country. For one, small land holdings, the biggest bane to efficient produce that India faces, does not affect this industry. Two to three acres of fields would be good enough to profitably enter the industry. It was capital intensive, but if sufficient numbers of entrepreneurs could be involved, it could be a big export. Several state bodies, like the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce, started outreach programmes to further give a boost to the industry.

It seemed to be working for a while as well, with a boost in both growth and exports in 2006, but that quickly fizzled out. The hurdles were many. Freight costs were extremely high and that made it difficult for the small and medium investors to operate. More importantly, the export industry works on very stringent standards of quality. Even a single specimen in an entire shipment could result in the rejection of the entire shipment. With a commodity as delicate and with as little shelf life as flowers, this posed a huge problem indeed.

While the exercise was not a success in the strict sense of the word, it did open up another possibility. There is a huge internal demand in the country as well. With greater exposure to the world, this demand is growing, not only in size but also in sophistication and variety. Given the large domestic market, it would be a viable option to take up floriculture in a big way for domestic consumption. Not only is there a huge domestic demand, the country is actually importing a good deal of flowers now.

A common north Indian spends more than a lakh on floral decorations during a marriage ceremony. The market, as is evident, is huge. The industry has grown in leaps and bounds in the past few years. “Approximately 2.4 lakh hectares are under floriculture cultivation in the country at present, with a turnover of more than Rs 1 lakh crores. You see, the return of investment is pretty high here. In even a half acre area, the farmer can turn a profit of four to five lakhs,” says Dr SC Pawar of the Union Ministry of Agriculture.

Here, too, there are hurdles. Problems exist on several levels. For one, there was no organised and controlled market. Most of the mandis were illegal affairs run majorly by local toughs. Says S Jafar Naqvi, president, Indian Flowers and Ornamental Plants Welfare Association (iFlora), “It was complete chaos. These people would go to the farmers and promise to buy their entire produce. They would make deals and for the first few times, make good on their promises. Then, as the trust grew, they would take a huge advance and then disappear. Since the shops were mostly illegal, the farmers could not track these people down. They actually went from state to state with this scam.”

Since there was no regulation or control, they also muscled in on the prices that were being paid. So, on the one hand, the consumers, especially the large scale consumers like hotel chains and decorators, were having to pay through their noses while on the other hand, the farmer received a pittance, most of the profit eaten up by the middlemen.

The other problem was supply of the infrastructure. When it came to hybrid varieties of seeds, plastic sheets for green houses or other equipment, huge number of counterfeit companies were operating under the brand-names of international giants. As a result, a farmer would pay through the nose yet not get the desired quality. They would pay for seeds of plants guaranteed to produce flowers of a certain size and quality and get something quite different. Sheets that were supposed to last at least three  years would not even last a season. It was only when they took the matters up with the companies that the counterfeit was realised.

Another major problem is the post harvest losses. In India, almost 40 per cent of the harvest is wasted every year due to lack of proper storage, transportation and a smooth procurement process. This amounts to a total loss of almost Rs 23,000 crores every year. The government is trying to bridge this gap by providing large amount of subsidies in infrastructure development. It is also a matter of bringing the farmer in contact with international brands that provide post-harvest solutions. Most of the floriculture farmers are able to afford the infrastructure, just that they are not aware of the available technology.

However, things began to change from 2005, with the government stepping in to regularise the industry. For one, the New Delhi mandi at Connaught Place has been completely legalised. Most of the vendors who originally used to sell flowers here were offered permanent stalls for a fee. Since these are shops that have been paid for, chances of the dealers evaporating into thin air are few.

To give the industry a boost, the government has also set up the Directorate of Floriculture Research under the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in 2010. Though it is, as of now housed in the AIRI complex, the processes to acquire and provide it its own campus is already in the pipelines. In all probability, it will be set up in Pune in the near future.
Another big factor has been contributions from the NGO iFlora. Every year, the organisation hosts the International Flora Expo in association with the Media Today Group, with the sponsorship and support of the Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority and several other state government bodies. This annual trade fair, the biggest in the industry has been a huge platform for both the farmers as well as companies that provide the raw materials and infrastructure.

“I was exposed to the exploitation of the farmers when I used to go to the New Delhi mandi for reporting. I realised that I had to do something for the farmers, had to eliminate the middle men. That was how iFlora was started. We held the first expo in 2005 in Bangalore. It was a huge success. We would see one farmer saying a particular dealer had been good to him while five others would start shouting that it was the same person who had ripped them off. The scam was laid bare and exposed. When we saw the positive response, we decided to shift the expo to Delhi,” says Naqvi, a founder member of iFlora, who also runs the Floriculture Today magazine.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

On the couch with the cat

I was walking behind my father on a narrow ledge when a movement behind my right shoulder caught my eye. I turned sharply and regretted it as my eyes met a pair of predatory pupils. I froze. Sudden or nervous jerky movement, I remembered reading, often triggers the ‘if it twitches like a hot prairie-dog, it must be one’ response in bears in Yellowstone.

But I wasn’t in Yellowstone. No not even in the same continent. I was many latitudes away in Northern Thailand, and the eyes staring into mine were of a large male Indochinese tiger, less than 10 feet away. But I must have only been a temporary distraction and I couldn’t hold its interest for long. The tiger slowly turned away from me and focused straight ahead. I followed gaze and saw it focus on my father as he, oblivious to the silent drama behind his back, walked on ahead. The tiger must have been following my father for a while for its whole body was poised in a straight line pointing straight at my father. And the tiger wasn’t approaching casually, but with purpose, its body streamlined and taut, as it slowly, with measured muscle, brought down a large front paw, heavy with intent, as it reduced the distance between itself and my father. As it crouched into a low pre-leap stance, my mind raced through a blur of questions. Was this a part of the intended script? Is the tiger just looking for a game of tag? Or has something in that moment triggered a deep primal urge in a once wild beast to express its fierce forest spirit? Should I do something to stop the tiger? And how…?

My questions did not get the time to bake their answers. In a flash, Lek, one of the trainers stepped between the tiger and my father and waved a baton in front of the great beast’s nose and broke the spell… for both of us.

This was Tiger Kingdom. A fantasy tourist outpost that had sprouted on the rim of the city of Chiang Mai. For a sizeable sum, visitors could cuddle cubs, run around with slightly older adolescent felines or if one dared, enter the cage of a full grown adult and go cheek to cheek for a photo op.

After chasing some of the cubs around their enclosure, my father and I decided to brave the perils of entering a tiger’s lair. My mother, and my wife who was carrying our son in her womb at the time, chose to watch from the sidelines. This wasn’t the untamed wilderness of Thap Lan National Park. This was a controlled environment where tigers had been hand-reared and tamed. They had names and thousands of visitors had touched and played with them. There were pictures all around us, testifying that it was all safe and easy, like a thrilling fairground if you will. So what could possibly go wrong?

Nothing at all, insisted the lady at the reception, and then with an air of practiced nonchalance, pushed a legal document for us to sign, releasing the management from any liability in case one got mauled, was dismembered or worse… ‘just a minor formality’, she assured us.

Then along came a tiger trainer and a staff photographer, followed by the rules. Don’t approach the tigers from the front. Don’t touch the front paws. Don’t put your fingers in the animal’s mouth. Don’t touch the tiger’s head. And don’t pull a stupid stunt that irritates the tiger. When you touch the tiger’s back, and mind you, only the back, be firm and steady with your touch. As long as we followed these rules, we should be fine. As we signed our lives away, I wondered if anything had ever gone wrong with the tigers…

The trainer and the photographer exchanged a few words in Thai, and chuckled, like they were ruminating over an old private joke. Leaving my question unanswered, the pair pried a wire mesh door open and then ushered us into the kingdom of the tiger.

Trepidation was swept away by a wave of excitement as a large drowsy tiger rolled on its side, mere inches away from our feet. The trainer went around and sat near the tiger’s head and motioned for us to take our positions next to its rump. My father loves animals, and he was like a kid on an Avengers movie set, running from one striped superstar to another. And it was while traversing the length of the enclosure from one tiger to another lounging on a wooden platform that he caught the attention of a third tiger that started mock-stalking him.

It is difficult to say what would have happened if the trainer hadn’t intervened. However, once he did, the tiger snarled, recoiled, and then its demeanour changed abruptly, and like a purring hose cat, it rubbed itself against a tree and then loped away without throwing a second glance our way.

A quick search on the phone while returning from the centre threw up a few unnerving horror stories. Ruth Corlett for instance, wasn’t so lucky. Ruth and her husband Stuart, aid workers from New Zealand had been posing for pictures with a tiger at the center when the trainer asked her to get up. As soon as she did, the tiger spun back and buried its fangs in her thigh. More than 50 stitches later, Ruth knows she is incredibly lucky to be alive. Reports say that at the time of the accident, there were no first aid facilities available at the centre and nor did the trainers and management seem equipped to handle or even prevent such an attack. Apparently, the trainer’s only solution in this situation was to strike the tiger on the muzzle in the hope that it would release its victim and then escape.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

BBA Institute

Return of a King

Rare is a book that makes you sit up and take notice. Rarer still is one that sends a chill down your spine. William Dalrymple’s latest offering, Return of a King, does both and then some. Over the last two decades, Dalrymple has firmly established his reputation as a writer who knows how to narrate history without making it boring. He does that without resorting to gimmickry. He has only improved upon that trait in his latest outing.

The Anglo-Afghan War, for many, is a lost tale. With the exception of Punjab where a few see the era through the prism of the triumph of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, it has been forgotten. In the West, racks of books have been written on the debacle, including many life stories of the protagonists of the Great Game, Alexander Burnes and Ivan Vitkevitch. However, over time it slipped out of popular imagination.

Edmond Burke famously quipped, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The story of this debacle has come back to haunt the West as another defeat looms large in Afghanistan.

Return of a King is the story of two warring tribes of what is now Afghanistan – the Sadozais and the Barakzais, and the British misadventure of hoisting one of the rulers, Shah Shuja, on the “usurpers” Barakzais and a largely unwilling Afghan population. This, followed by the bloody rebellion that wiped out the 18,000 strong Company Army came to be known as the First Anglo-Afghan War.

Dalrymple brings in previously unused sources in English, including the fabulous translation of Maulana Hamid Kashmiri’s Akbarnama (the poetic biography of Barakzai Wazir, Akbar Khan), Waqi’at-i-Shah Shuja (Biography of Shah Shuja) and Naway Ma’arek. He has illustrated troubling parallels between the war fought 170 years ago and the one being waged now.

In fact, this stark resemblance is chilling: the British preference for heeding arm-chair bureaucrats rather than people like Alexander Burnes who reported from the ground, the desire to introduce Western customs, the knee-jerk reactions and more. The Americans today seem to have taken every leaf out of the debacle of their trans-Atlantic cousins 170 years ago.

The story also tells a lot about the Afghan mindset. Most of it is conveyed through the actions of a rather fractured Afghan resistance that took on the British. Backstabbing, treachery, and unspeakable brutality runs amok as readers realise that Afghans had no moral superiority over their imperial invaders. It also signifies how circumstances make legends out of strong characters such as Wazir Akbar Khan, who trounced the British in the absence of his father Dost Muhammad Khan, who otherwise would have been lost into oblivion.      

But what makes this book a class apart is the way several sources have been woven together to present a balanced account of the War. You have colonial sources, including diaries and letters of officers on the ground. The Afghan point of view is taken up through aforementioned books. Then you have diaries of the Gorkhas and other Indian sepoys who participated in the war, most notably that of Moti Ram. You also have this rather spectacular account by Mohan Lal Kashmiri who, although on the payrolls of the British, was  emotionally detached and rational to a frustrating degree. 

On the other hand, the author has also made a valuable contribution by stripping legends like Burnes and Ivan Vitkevitch of whatever flab they acquired in all these years. More than their brilliance, what stands out are their ultimately fatal failings. Burnes’ escapades make for an engrossing read whereas Vitkevitch’s rise from a Polish prisoner-in-exile under Russia to the protagonist of the Great Game leaves you stunned. Indians will also find it particularly intriguing how Maharaja Ranjit Singh is presented with his own share of triumphs, failings and eccentricities. 

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

Seizing the moment

Collateral damage has become part of the politically correct lexicon ever since the war on terror was launched. Puja Awasthi investigates how many young muslims are living that grim reality.

lucknow riotIn the short seconds that it takes Zoya Tariq to say that jail is a place where good and educated grown-ups are locked, an encyclopaedia of pain can be read and re-read. Five years ago, her father, Tariq Qazmi was picked up by security agencies for his role in the bomb blasts across the courts of Lucknow, Faizabad and Varanasi. Unknown to Zoya, a government mandated inquiry, yet to be released but appropriately ‘leaked’ has poked holes in the manner and logic of his arrest. What she does know is that her father, a doctor, left home one morning for his clinic and never returned. Zoya was then five. Her youngest sibling was six months old.

In her modest home at the village of Sammopur, which stands next to a large yellow one which the media has so gleefully portrayed as evidence of Qazmi’s ill gotten wealth (it actually belongs to a relative), Zoya stands in a dank corridor, small arms crossed against her body as she listens to her mother, Ayesha’s lament of helplessness.
“For five years we lived on hope. Then this government came and it all faded. Sometimes I want to bang my head against the walls of the jail. Someone might listen. Then I think of our children...”, Ayesha trails off.

Zoya and Ayesha are centre and circumference of an imperfectly drawn, poorly understood curve of pain, helplessness and betrayal that has closed in on Azamgarh’s Muslims. Across the state, a similar amalgam of negatives feeds a rapidly growing disenchantment but even four years after the Batla House encounter, Azamgarh remains the definitive emblem of all that is going wrong with and for the state’s largest minority.

In the market of Badarka, where the noise of vehicles competes with the holler of push cart vendors, Shahid Badr, former president of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) attributes an ugly, pervasive anger against the government to ill conceived political caprice. “Deep in the villages, women took it upon themselves to motivate other women to vote. Women who had never voted came out, propelled by the Samajwadi Party’s promises. It was as if the drowning had been thrown a life jacket. They did it for their boys. Now they realise it was in vain”, says Badr.

The steady stream of patients and visitors to the clinic of a greying Badr, who as a gentle, soft spoken doctor of Unani medicine, is unimaginable as a man who was once charged with spewing anti national speeches, offer their own elaborations on his observation. One says that the Samajwadi Party (SP) manifesto, in its Urdu version had made its way to almost every home to be read, discussed and propagated as a symbol of change that promised the community, among other things, special support packages, reservation and a re- look into the cases of terrorism. Another, charges the government with doublespeak—projecting itself as the custodian of Muslim interest and then brushing aside protests and sending a senior minister to Israel. A third says that while change has not happened, even the scant sense of security that minorities enjoyed under the previous regime has vanished as proved by the rioting and arson of the last eight months.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

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B & E This Month

Dell: stake sell
Will going private revive the PC maker’s fortunes?

Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Inc., the third-largest PC maker globally, is discussing the possibility of a potential buyout with private equity firms. Top private equity firms such as TPG Capital and Silver Lake are reportedly discussing the deal with Michael Dell, the chief executive and founder of the company who owns about 15% stake in Dell. For several years now the computer maker has been losing value and market share and has been struggling to regain its position in the PC market. The personal computer business remains Dell’s bread and butter, bringing in 70% of revenues. But as tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices have eaten away at PC sales, shares of the firm have struggled. Over the last five years, Dell’s shares have fallen by 43%, sinking into the single digits by the end of 2012.

To revive growth and cope with competition Michael Dell, who retook the CEO position in 2007, has been considering taking the company private. Dell’s enterprise value of $19.1 billion is 4.4 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the last 12 months, according to Bloomberg. That’s a lower valuation than every computer-hardware maker larger than $1 billion, except Hewlett-Packard Co, which has a multiple of 3.5, the data show. But Dell’s net cash balance of $5.15 billion provides some downside buffer as it produces opportunity for a leveraged buyout under the right conditions.

The buyout, if and when it takes place, could actually be one of the largest deals in the technology space since 2007, when KKR & Co bought First Data Corp for more than $25 billion. A buyout can be good for a company even it means investors aren’t able to trade its stocks. Entering into private ownership could amount to more maneuverability for Dell as it tries to stay afloat in a terrain full of pitfalls for PC makers.

Rio Tinto: CEO EXIT

Bad bets force head honcho to quit

In the latest string of exits forced upon leaders of the world’s biggest mining companies, Tom Albanese, the CEO of the London-based minerals explorer Rio Tinto has been replaced by the company’s iron ore boss Sam Walsh. Albanese resigned over a $14bn writedown involving two of his most significant acquisitions, Mozambican coal mining and the Alcan aluminium group. The bulk of the writedown, between $10 billion and $11 billion, relates to aluminum assets acquired in 2007, while the remaining $3 billion is for Mozambique coal operations acquired only two years ago. Albanese has admitted ‘accountability’ for the loss of assets following the bad deals. Prices for metals and their ingredients have fallen sharply over the past several years with the sharp tempering of demand for mineral resources in China, Prices for coking coal have dropped 43% since 2011, when Rio Tinto made its Mozambique move. Aluminum prices have dropped 22% since 2007. At least 20 mining CEOs have stepped down in the past year under pressure from investors and boards, who blame the executives for costly mining projects that were conceived during the commodities boom.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION: GENERAL MOTORS

When GM went broke four years ago, not many gave it a chance to come back from rehab. Those Cassandras are now eating their words as the lumbering giant strikes back with a vengeance.

But despite making the most of the opportunities in the past year, the real test of GM’s ability will be to consolidate and expand its market share without diluting its profitability. Already, Toyota has come out with its sales forecast of 8.48 million units for the current year, Volkswagen is pulling out all the stops to top the industry league tables by 2018 and Ford is on track taking its One Ford strategy to the next phase that might give it a fair shot at becoming market leader. In other words, GM is up against the most competitive automobile market in its history and its ability to continue delivering stellar results is bound to come under increasing strain. “GM has to push harder to get ahead of the curve to compete head to head with other companies in all market segments globally,” says Laurie Harbour, President, Harbour Results, an industry analyst.

But after clawing its way to the top the hard way, GM is not likely to give ground either. The company made $8 billion in profits last year (a record high!). In fact, it is planning to raise its profit margins from 6% last year to 10% this year (on par with its best-in-class rivals such as Hyundai and BMW). It is expected that this move will help GM to post $10 billion in profits in the current year. However, one irritant is its share price, which even after such a bullish forecast, is still hovering around the $25 mark. For the investors to recover all their money, GM’s share price should reach $53 (which is still a distant dream for the company). Another nettlesome issue is GM’s European business, which continues to haemorrhage copius red ink. The carmaker took a hit of $580 million in losses in the first nine months of 2011, and fourth-quarter results, whose announcement was being awaited when this story went into print, were expected to come in even worse.

Despite the odds, GM will continue to be the market leader this year as well. Toyota’s 8.48 million units sales forecast for this year will just be good enough to make it second best. But although GM sales are growing globally, the company will need to focus beyond sales numbers to improving its overall financial health. To avoid any kind of financial let-down in future, GM needs to beef up its profitability and pump more growth in the markets it operates in. To its credit it has been making serious efforts to amplify its product range with fresh line-ups and models. Last year it turned out new small cars and mainstream SUVs. Now GM is focusing on strengthening its roster of higher-profit, luxury models for its Buick and Cadillac divisions.

With sales on a rebound and with new products to offer, GM can look forward to keeping its competitive metabolism cranked up.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

Now, a super body to fast track projects!

Will the government’s plan to set up a National Investment Board to act as a single clearing window for large projects serve its purpose or will it be another bureaucratic exercise in futility?

An ambitious new plan by the Indian government to cut red tape and speed up decision-making on big ticket infrastructure projects has triggered apprehensions in certain quarters, and not without justification. First mooted by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, the plan calls for setting up a National Investment Board (NIB) to fix chronic delays in implementing key infrastructure projects.

There are projects worth over Rs.7 trillion, in sectors such as roads, power, ports, airports, railways etc, which are currently stuck due to problems in getting approvals from different ministries. According to to the Centre for Monitoring the India Economy (CMIE), projects worth Rs.1.8 trillion were shelved during the April-August 2012 period alone, mainly because of problems related to land acquisition, environmental clearances and lack of fuel and mineral linkages.

To stimulate the economy and expedite mega projects worth Rs.10 billion and more, the government wants to set up the NIB, which would be headed by the Prime Minister. Once the NIB greenlights a project, no ministry will have the power to overrule its decision. The Finance Ministry expects that a decision on setting up the NIB will be taken soon.

Post-1991, there have been repeated calls from the industry to set up a body that simplifies the procedure for starting a project. For the last 10 years, there have been four models that have come up for deliberations. The first was a Fast-tracking Board under the Cabinet Secretary. The second was an infrastructure ministry; third, a Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB)-like structure. And, the fourth a high-powered institution like the National Development Council (NDC) where even chief ministers could be involved with clearances and permissions. While all these models had their pros and cons, the government’s choice in setting up the NIB reflects a combination of a Fast-tracking Board and the FIPB.

Industry bodies have welcomed the idea. “It is possible to have such a mechanism as envisioned in the NIB without violating any existing Act or rule as the intention is to speed up the decision-making process and not bypass any law,” says FICCI President R.V. Kanoria, adding that many investments in infrastructure projects just remain on paper because investors ultimately get frustrated with the delays and abandon their plans.

But the NIB proposal is being strongly opposed by the Environment Minister Jayanti Natarajan. In a letter to the PM, Natarajan said she found the proposal ‘disturbing’ and in conflict with the goals of her ministry. “Often, hard decisions have to be taken to balance the imperatives of development with the crucial need to preserve the environment. In this context it would be utterly against the spirit of the Environment Protection Act to allow an investment board, or the finance ministry, to overrule or decide upon environmental concerns,” Natarajan observed. The Tribal Affairs ministry and various NGOs are also opposing the move to set up the NIB.

But the significance of a body like the NIB can be appreciated in the context of the tangled web of permissions required for a project. Sample this: There are over 65 clearances that are required for a thermal power project at the federal, state and local levels. There are 17 ministries at the central level that directly or indirectly look after infrastructure projects. With three more central institutions involved with clearances – Planning Commission, the finance ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) – we have 20 clearance gateways in New Delhi. Then, there are 29 states. Each of them mirror many of these ministries as state-level departments. Some clearances are at the state capital level and some at the local levels. This is the maze that the NIB will have to negotiate.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

Pneumonia wins in India

The government needs to urgently take steps towards mass prevention and cure

November 12 is marked as World Pneumonia Day. But this year, the World Pneumonia Day brought some horrifying numbers in tow. The third annual International Vaccine Access Center’s (IVAC) Pneumonia Progress Report 2012 reveals that nearly 1,088 children under 5 years of age die every day in India, an increase by 6.7% from 2008.

In a developing country like India, young children under the age of 5 are often victims of pneumonia owing to malnutrition, unhygienic surroundings, overcrowding and pollution. Lack of awareness and education among the poor often leads to delays in treatment, with fatal consequences. Recent estimates from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) show that pneumonia continues to be the number one killer of children not only for India but also across the globe – causing 18% of all child deaths – which means an estimated 1.3 million child deaths in 2011 alone.

WHO has recommended the inclusion of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in countries that have an infant mortality rate of more than 50 per 1,000 live births. Shockingly, India has not included the pneumococcal vaccine in its immunisation programme simply because it is expensive (Rs.3,800 per dose!). That is unfortunate, since the newest generation of pneumonia vaccines would have successfully protected our children from 23 common strains of the disease.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

Policy uncertainty and the slow recovery

Policy uncertainty in the aftermath of economic crisis’ tends to slow recovery and suppress consumer spending

Financial turmoil, the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009, and the weak recovery that followed ushered in a period of heightened uncertainty in the United States. Even a year after the recession ended, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke described the economic outlook as “unusually uncertain.”

Many analysts claim that uncertainty about economic policies and their consequences has been an important factor slowing recovery. Uncertainty about taxes and the effects of policy on interest rates, prices, health costs, and other economic variables can lead households to defer consumer spending, and companies to cut back on capital investments, new product development, hiring, and worker training. Because new projects are expensive to reverse and because workers are costly to hire and fire, companies have an incentive to wait for greater political stability and policy certainty before proceeding with new business undertakings. If too many companies adopt a cautious stance in response to policy uncertainties, economic recovery may not take hold.

The price of policy uncertainty indeed could be high, according to a recent study titled, Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty undertaken by me and Stanford University professor Nicholas Bloom. We developed a new index of policy-related economic uncertainty. The index reaches historically high levels after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and again over the past year in reaction to the eurozone crisis and the US debt ceiling impasse. We estimate that an increase in policy uncertainty of the size experienced from 2006 to 2011 leads to a fall in real Gross Domestic Product of 3.2%, a sharp drop in business investment spending of 16%, and a loss of about 2.3 million jobs.

The financial crisis and recession presented new and difficult challenges for policy makers. We believe that unusual policy challenges created by extraordinary economic disturbances were the main sources of elevated policy uncertainty in 2008 and 2009. The most threatening aspects of the financial crisis were contained by the middle of 2009, causing our policy uncertainty index to fall substantially in the latter part of 2009.

The index rises again in 2010 and 2011, however, reaching even higher levels than it did at the peak of the financial crisis. High levels of policy uncertainty in the past two years partly reflect deliberate policy choices and political gridlock. A clear example is the debt-ceiling dispute in the summer of 2011 between Democrats and Republicans, which created a real threat of a partial government shutdown. Congress eventually raised the debt ceiling, but agreement came at the last minute and with huge market volatility. Much of the high levels of policy uncertainty in 2011 were caused by policy decisions and policy maker conflicts over how to proceed.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

Reservation hits a dead end... again!

The fracas over quota in promotions underscores a perennial reality – politicians hardly understand reservation in its true sense; and misuse it towards their political ends

Over the years, the issue of quota in government jobs and educational institutions (meant to bring marginalised sections to the mainstream) has only become more contentious and politically polarising with every passing day.

Contrary to its original idea, reservation has catered more to caste-based politics and politicians; helping secure their vote banks. For years together, politicians have used reservation as a bait to invoke emotions pertaining to communal or caste-based divisions & translate them into votes.

The government’s latest proposal seeks to implement reservations in promotion for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in government jobs with retrospective effect from June 1995. The bitter political battle over the Constitution Bill, 2012 (One Hundred Seventeenth Amendment), which provides for reservation to SCs/STs in job promotions, also saw a deeply divided Parliament. Cornered from all sides over the ‘Coalgate’ issue, the Congress had shown great intent to get the bill passed in Parliament. “We do want to pass the Bill. We also issued a whip to our members. We will try for the passage of the Bill again tomorrow. We are listing it again,” said Parliamentary Affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal on September 5. The government’s hurry to push the Bill through in the monsoon session was also demonstrated when the Department of Personnel & Training prepared a note on September 3 for the cabinet meeting scheduled for the next day, and the Bill was introduced the day after. However, some interesting revelations cast a shadow of doubt on the party’s earnestness. Sources close to the development reveal that on September 21, the government referred the quota promotion bill to a parliamentary standing committee. This move, sources say, gives the Congress an opportunity to extend the ambit of the proposed move to include Other Backward Classes (OBCs) among the beneficiaries of the quota in promotions. There are two interesting points to note. First, OBCs comprise of the SP’s core vote bank and second, the decision to refer the bill to a standing committee came just hours after SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav pledged his support to the UPA government in order to keep ‘communal forces’ out of power!

Ironically, Mulayam’s SP had led the opposition to the Bill when it was introduced in Rajya Sabha. Just after Minister of State for Social Welfare V Narayansamy introduced the Bill, Naresh Aggarwal from the SP and Avtar Singh Karampuri from the BSP almost came to blows as they pushed each other. Mulayam had gone to great lengths to describe the bill as ‘unconstitutional’, and even vowed to continue opposition to it. “Juniors will become seniors. Is it some kind of a joke? Running the government has become a joke,” Mulayam said, adding that the move would create chaos in administration. Going by the current developments, one can only wonder what his next stand would be.

“There was indeed a cynical design behind the hastiness with which the UPA government introduced the Constitution Amendment Bill... The Congress sought to position itself as the champion of the rights of SCs and STs; apart from putting the BJP in the dock in a context where the principal opposition party was bent upon disrupting Parliament over the coal block allocation,” says political observer V. Krishna Ananth.
 

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

China’s trial of the century

Bo Xilai and Gu Kailai affair may only be a prologue, because the only clear truth to emerge from it is that the Party leadership is fractured

The trial, conviction, and suspended death sentence of Gu Kailai, the wife of purged Chinese leader Bo Xilai, has called into question not only China’s legal system, but the very unity of the Communist Party leadership.

Let us begin with the many questions raised at the trial. For starters, Gu claimed that she killed the British businessman Neil Heywood only to protect her son. But, given Gu’s power as Bo’s wife, she could have had someone like Heywood jailed or expelled from China at the snap of her fingers. No need for cyanide. Still, she not only admitted her guilt, but seemed to embrace it as a sort of historical necessity. “In order to uphold the sanctity of the law,” she told the court, “I am willing to accept and calmly face whatever judgment I am given, and I also expect a fair and just judgment.” Not since Stalin’s show trials of the 1930’s has a defendant so effusively praised a judge who seemed bound to condemn her at a trial where no witness or evidence against her was presented. The bitter irony of Gu’s high-speed trial is that she was a true believer in China’s legal system.

Indeed, Gu was an avatar of the Maoist form of legality that China has maintained long after Mao’s death. Having failed the entrance examination to Peking University, Gu was nonetheless granted an exception and admitted to read law soon after the Communist Party restored the law departments. Prior to that, she sold pork in a Beijing market, where she earned the nicknamed, “Yi dao zhun,” meaning that she could hack off a desired slice of meat with one blow.

Gu was one of the first lawyers to receive her license. But, with the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989, the authorities clamped down on the profession’s autonomy. The Party reasserted control over every aspect of justice through a core department: the Communist Party Central Committee’s Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC). This totalitarian organ has no known address, yet it manages China’s police, prosecutors, courts, and justice ministry, and appoints their leadership. All lawyers fall under its remit. Most important, all local PLAC secretaries simultaneously lead the local public-security bureau. Small wonder, then, that the artist Ai Weiwei could be detained in secret, Liu Xiaobo could be sentenced to 11 years in prison for starting a petition, and Li Wangya could “commit suicide” while in custody. But even this monolithic system of control is porous. Had Wang Lijun, the former Chongqing police commissioner and close ally of Bo Xilai, not feared for his life and fled to the United States’ consulate in Chengdu, Gu would still be helping Bo to rule the city.

Wang is no saint. Before he became Bo’s police commissioner, he was the director of the Field Psychology Research Center, where the condemned were executed and their live organs removed. Wang’s paper, “A Study of Organ and Receptor Transplantation after Execution by Injection,” earned him the Guanghua Innovation Contribution Award. In the paper, he credits “our achievements” to the “thousands of transplantations.” Given his familiarity with the brutality of the Chinese system, Wang no doubt understood that, after falling out with Gu and Bo, the US consulate might be the only place he could find safety. After all, when it came to the public-security organs, the courts, and the prison system, Gu always had the final say. She acted as her husband’s adviser for cracking down on crime and corruption, and was responsible for sending two people – including the PLAC secretary in Wushan County – to prison.

In fact, a few days after killing Heywood, Gu donned a major general’s uniform (which could have belonged to her father, General Gu Jingsheng), convened police officers in Chongqing, and falsely claimed that she had received a secret order from the Ministry of Public Security to protect Wang’s personal safety. The uniform, perhaps, was intended to intimidate the Chongqing police.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year