Big Brother with you, always

The NSA's program is an affront to the idea of personal privacy

The post 9/11 world has seen the security apparatus spread its tentacles through use of surveillance technology in military, business and social establishments of the United States. One such surveillance program by the National Security Agency has not only made headlines but has also sparked considerable debate and controversy. The program in question is the NSA’s ambitious data mining partnerships with technology firms, which has been codenamed “Prism”. At least nine transnational internet behemoths are involved in Prism operations, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple and Skype. There have been reports of many instances of cooperation between these tech firms and the NSA on “Prism” operations.  If these reports are true there is a likelihood of the deal being thrust upon these firms by the NSA either by threat or through blandishments. However, most of these firms have vehemently denied their involvement. Facebook’s website says: “We do not provide any government organisation with direct access to Facebook servers.”

In any case, tech firms are obliged to furnish information under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and none of the information sharing requests done through it have been declined. However, the firms are not obliged to do the same for NSA. But reports about secret deals of cooperation being struck with the NSA and the firms listed in Prism have gained currency. The surveillance of millions of customers’ data is gross violation of an individual’s freedom and the right to privacy. The process is not transparent and to execute such an opaque and secretive mission on the innocent public is reminiscent of a Soviet style monitoring that Americans deeply abhor.

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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

The original Don

Surajdeo Singh became the byword for mafia in the 1970s and 80s

Late Surajdeo Singh, the original coal mafia `don’, belonged to Gonia-Ranigunj village in Uttar Pradesh’s Balia district. His story is no less exciting than Haji Mastan’s.

He started life as 'khalasi' in the Ranigunj Coke Association in West Bengal but soon moved to Dhanbad. He soon became a key muscleman of BP Sinha, who was an influential labour leader during the 1950s, a man credited with the very emergence of mafia in Dhanbad.

Soon after Indian coal was nationalised in 1971, Surajdeo Singh started grabbing the reins of Dhanbad's treasure trove of coals, clearly outsmarting his mentor Sinha in both arm-twisting and political connections.

Gradually Singh established his own labour association called the Janata Mazdoor Sangh (JMS) and began bringing in influential labour leaders and cadres of the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) ) under his flag. By 1974, he successfully merged BP Sinha's labour unions of Borargurh and Kushtaur coal mines to his JMS.

In 1977, there was an epic clash of authority over Bhuridih mines between Sinha's supporters and JMS musclemen. After Sinha was murdered at his residence on March 28, 1979, Surajdeo Singh became the uncrowned mafia king of Dhanbad.

However, unlike Sinha, whose supremacy was inarguable and who had succeeded in making key mafia figures his associates, Singh came under fierce competition from Sinha's supporters, all of them dons themselves, and thus began a circle of violence that threw law and order out of gear in Dhanbad – for all times to come.

The fact that Surajdeo Singh belonged to the native village of former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar helped his transition to politics. He won the Jharia Assembly seat on a Janta Party ticket in 1977, after which he further cemented his position as the undisputed don of the mining underbelly.

By 1975, he is supposed to have made as much as Rs 50 crore (a huge sum if you consider the fact that the Bofors scam which rocked the nation a decade later involved only Rs 64 crore paid in kickbacks to top defence officials) with his illegitimate businesses.

It also became a family business. Singh's illegal errands, murder and loot were carried out by his brother Bachcha Singh, who also had many criminal cases pending against him. Another brother Ramdhir Singh too was involved.

Surajdeo's other trusted sword arm was Raghunath Singh who is believed to have played a major role in the killing of BP Sinha.

Surajdeo Singh was ruthless with people who posed a challenge. When one of his former associates Sakaldev Singh floated a parallel labour union called Bihar Janta Khan Mazdoor Sangh (BJKMS), he was immediately on Surajdeo’s radars.

In 1983, in a spine chilling, cinema-like climax, his men fired at Sakaldev's house at Sijua crossing in Dhanbad continuously for two hours in broad day light without any police intervention!

Surajdeo's ways became the talk of the nation. On February 1, 1988, his men led another dramatic attack, this time on SK Roy, INTUC leader and rival. At about 11 in the morning, they surrounded the INTUC office and fired indiscriminately on Roy's ambassador car, killing his bodyguard Collector Singh and three others, Vinay Sharma, Surendra Rai and Anandi Rai. Surendra Rai was to appear before a special trial court a week later to testify against Surajdeo Singh who was accused of a failed murder attempt on SK Roy in 1982.

With the mafia don's death in 1991, family power had waned in favour of another mafia honcho Suresh Singh, but not for long. The don’s legendary residence, Singh Mansion in Dhanbad, continues to remain an epicentre of activity with significant political clout.  His widow Kunti Singh is Jharia MLA, brother Ramdhir Singh is Ballia Zila Parishad Chairman and son Sanjiv Singh is being groomed to take over family 'business’.

Times have changed but the Singh Mansion continues to be a beehive of activity, reportedly knee deep in the battle to control both ballot and bullet so as to keep their political clout and mafia rackets going.

Closer to the Godfather saga, Sanjiv Singh, Ramdhir Singh and his son Sashi Singh are main accused in the December 2011 slaying of Congress leader Suresh Singh, an old Surajdeo adversary.

In turn, Suresh Singh was believed to have masterminded the disappearance and alleged murder of Sanjiv Singh’s brother Rajiv Ranjan Singh. The names of these two families have become synonymous with 'blood’ killings.

Sanjiv Singh, however, dismisses allegations against his father. “The fact remains that my father was a trusted leader committed to peoples’ welfare. We were named accused in coal merchant Pramod Singh’s murder case but the court absolved us of all charges. Local leaders cannot digest people's continued affection for us which is why they concoct stories and try framing us in false cases.” Touching indeed.

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’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

Curtains or a fresh lease?

The long-term fate of the Congress in Odisha will crucially hinge on whether it can cash in on the anti-incumbency factor in the 2014 Assembly polls, writes Dhrutikam Mohanty

For Odisha Congress, there is hope in the air. But so is trepidation. Leaders of the state party may not admit as much, but they are acutely aware that the 2014 Assembly polls will be their last chance to bounce back after being out of power for a decade and a half. On the face of it, the current political scenario in Odisha seems to be in favour of Congress, which has been out of power since 1999. With the anti-incumbency factor kicking in, this is the party’s best chance to topple the Naveen Patnaik government.

Congress, which held uninterrupted sway over Odisha for 35 years after Independence, is now facing an acid test. If it can’t get its act together this time around, it could well mean the beginning of another long spell in the wilderness.

 The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) could face dissidence over distribution of party tickets. Its former strategist, Pyari Mohan Mohapatra, has floated a new political party, Odisha Jana Morcha (OJM), and has announced his intention to upset Naveen Patnaik’s applecart. Many BJD poll ticket aspirants could gravitate towards OJM if they are not nominated by the ruling party.

Having been BJD’s election manager in the last two elections, Pyari Mohan knows the party’s chinks. He will definitely play a role in diverting the BJD vote towards non-BJD candidates. This is bound to work to the advantage of the Congress.

The launch of Pyari Mohan’s new political party last week has stirred the pre-poll pot. He announced he would go in for an alliance with any non-BJD party to oust the “blind and autocratic government of Naveen Patnaik”. He claimed that national-level leaders of many political parties are in touch with him for pre-poll tie-ups. He said his alliance will win 80 to 85 seats (in the 147-member Assembly).

Asked about the possibility of OJM joining hands with Congress in Odisha, state Congress president Niranjan Patnaik says, “We are a national party, so any-poll alliance has to be decided at the central level. But Mohapatra has declared that OJM will contest 110 seats. This leaves only 37 seats for the Congress at best. How can we accept this?”

The results of the recent civic body elections in the state have been a shot in the arm for Congress. Candidates of OJM and Congress won most of the seats in the  polls in Hindol, Atabira and Nuapada.While in the newly-formed Hindol Notified Area Council (NAC), Congress won seven and OJM-supported independents won six seats, the ruling BJD managed to get only two seats out of a total of 16.


Similarly, Congress won seven seats in Nuapada NAC against BJD’s four. In the newly formed Atabira NAC, Congress and BJD won six seats each. Political analysts say this is the first poll setback for BJD after Pyari Mohan’s suspension.

But is Congress ready to make the most of the opportunity? “I don’t think so,” says senior political analyst Prashant Patnaik. “Organisationally, Congress is weak. The party faces acute infighting and the senior leadership is bitterly divided.”


Dissidence has indeed been the bane of Odisha Congress for the past decade and a half – a fact that has harmed the party’s stocks in the eyes of the public.

The last spell of Congress rule in Odisha was under Janaki Ballava Patnaik in 1995. It was chaotic and scandal-ridden. Corruption charges, scandals and weak leadership made the party unpopular. The party’s decline in Odisha began when it failed in relief and rehabilitation work in the aftermath of the 1990 super cyclone.

In the 2000 Assembly elections, Congress was down to only 26 seats from 80. In 2004, the party did marginally better, winning 38 seats. In the current Assembly, however, the party has 27 seats. Similarly, while Congress won nearly 35 per cent of the vote in 2004, its vote share declined to 29 percent in 2009.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi visited the state in February. During his two-day stay, he interacted with party functionaries at the district, block and panchayat levels and held marathon sessions. He wanted to figure out why Congress had become so weak in Odisha.

After Rahul’s visit, the state Congress leadership declared that grassroots workers would have a say in the selection of the party’s poll candidates, preference would be given to youth, and no family would be allowed to field more than one aspirant.

Sivananda Ray, state Congress vice-president claims, “People are no longer obsessed with the so-called clean image of Naveen. They are fed up with rampant corruption and irresponsible administration. I strongly believe Congress will return to power.”

If it does not, the party would be in danger of going into terminal decline in Odisha the way it has done in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.

The Congress last ruled Tamil Nadu in 1967. Since then, it has only been riding piggyback on either of the two main Dravidian parties, DMK and AIADMK. The recent UNHRC resolution on Sri Lanka was a good opportunity for the party to attempt a political comeback. But that opportunity was lost. Right now, the national party is seen as a liability in TN and no outfit would want to align with it to fight the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Similarly, Congress has been out of power for over 20 years in Gujarat, with Narendra Modi performing an electoral hattrick. Problems abound for the party in the state, once its stronghold.

The situation is no different in Chhattisgarh, where a factionalism-ridden Congress is struggling to make a comeback. The Raman Singh-led BJP is eying a hattrick in the state. Last year, soon after the Congress defeat in the Bastar Lok Sabha byelection, a young Congressman had accused the party of being “BJP's B team”.

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

Kurt Vonnegut to Charles McCarthy

In October of 1973, Bruce Severy — a 26-year-old English teacher at Drake High School, North Dakota — decided to use Kurt Vonnegut's novel, 'Slaughterhouse-Five', as a teaching aid in his classroom. The next month, on November 7th, the head of the school board, Charles McCarthy, demanded that all 32 copies be burned in the school's furnace as a result of its "obscene language." Other books soon met with the same fate. On the 16th of November, Kurt Vonnegut sent McCarthy the following letter. He didn't receive a reply.

November 16, 1973

Dear Mr. McCarthy:  
 
I am writing to you in your capacity as chairman of the Drake School Board. I am among those American writers whose books have been destroyed in the now famous furnace of your school.

I want you to know, too, that my publisher and I have done absolutely nothing to exploit the disgusting news from Drake. We are not clapping each other on the back, crowing about all the books we will sell because of the news. We have declined to go on television, have written no fiery letters to editorial pages, have granted no lengthy interviews. We are angered and sickened and saddened. And no copies of this letter have been sent to anybody else. You now hold the only copy in your hands. It is a strictly private letter from me to the people of Drake, who have done so much to damage my reputation in the eyes of their children and then in the eyes of the world. Do you have the courage and ordinary decency to show this letter to the people, or will it, too, be consigned to the fires of your furnace?

I gather from what I read in the papers and hear on television that you imagine me, and some other writers, too, as being sort of ratlike people who enjoy making money from poisoning the minds of young people. I am in fact a large, strong person, fifty-one years old, who did a lot of farm work as a boy, who is good with tools. I have raised six children, three my own and three adopted. They have all turned out well. Two of them are farmers. I am a combat infantry veteran from World War II, and hold a Purple Heart. I have earned whatever I own by hard work. I have never been arrested or sued for anything. I am so much trusted with young people and by young people that I have served on the faculties of the University of Iowa, Harvard, and the City College of New York. Every year I receive at least a dozen invitations to be commencement speaker at colleges and high schools. My books are probably more widely used in schools than those of any other living American fiction writer.

If you were to bother to read my books, to behave as educated persons would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are. It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life. Especially soldiers and hardworking men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered children know that. And we all know, too, that those words really don’t damage children much. They didn’t damage us when we were young. It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us.

If you and your board are now determined to show that you in fact have wisdom and maturity when you exercise your powers over the eduction of your young, then you should acknowledge that it was a rotten lesson you taught young people in a free society when you denounced and then burned books–books you hadn’t even read. You should also resolve to expose your children to all sorts of opinions and information, in order that they will be better equipped to make decisions and to survive.

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

BBA Institute

So what ails the Yamuna?

And why is NRCD not being pulled up immediately?

For those who may not know, NRCD stands for the National River Conservation Directorate. Perhaps the hidden nature of the directorate is more deliberate than by chance, as in all the brouhaha surrounding the recent furore on the increasing pollution in Yamuna, there was not even a ghost of a mention of NRCD, a body which technically should be the one being pulled up for destroying – through the lack of sustained action plans – whatever was left of the Yamuna. More amusing is the fact that NRCD, which is supposedly heading the Yamuna Action Plan, comes under Ministry of Environment and Forests rather than the Ministry of Water Sources.

It was the Supreme Court which first ordered a scrutiny on the pollution levels of the river 19 years ago and directed the Yamuna Action Plan in1993. However, reports by prominent agencies (Center for Science and Environment, MIT and others) including the recent SC reviews, reveal that the river remains as dead and polluted as usual in spite of the last two decades' effort and massive investments of Rs.6,500 crore to clean the river.

Inadequate capacity of sewage treatment, inefficiency of fund utilisation and delayed project implementation worsened the condition severally. A report submitted to the SC by an inspection team highlighted that “Delhi's 17 Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) have a capacity of 2,460 MGD against a utilization of 1,558 MGD” where the city generates sewage around 3,800 MGD. In the same line, the Delhi Jal Board’s inceptor sewers project (to treat sewage before it flows into major drains) became a major failure as it was just able to spend only Rs.51 crore of the Rs.1,963 crore allocated. Sadly, apart from the inceptor scheme, the whole budget to restore Yamuna has simply gone down the drain since 1993. Over time, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi have spent around Rs.2,052 crore, Rs.2,084 and Rs.2,394 crore respectively. The YAP First Phase had to be accomplished by 2000 but was delayed by three years. And the proposed inceptor project would be completed by 2014 instead of 2012.

So who should be pulled up? The IIPM Think Tank has regularly argued that randomly hitting whichever departmental spokesperson walks into the court is no solution. The NRCD should be necessarily broken down into sister organisations, with one organisation heading the management of each river of national importance.

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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

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

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

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.

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’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

National

RBI: interest rate cuts
Apex bank leaves India Inc. disappointed
Seems that the stalled growth engine of India Inc. will have to wait for some time more before it gets some further rev ups. In its latest review of monetary policy, the RBI decided to keep benchmark interest rates and cash reserve ratios unchanged, leaving many market participants and analysts crestfallen as they were hoping for further cut in policy rates. On the contrary, the central bank warned that reducing key policy rates at this juncture could accelerate inflation rather than spur growth. This stand of RBI is in divergence with its earlier stated policy of bringing down the interest rate if core inflation is below 5% (core inflation was hovering around 4.9% at the time of the announcement.) Currently, repo rate (the rate at which RBI lends funds to other banks) and cash reserve ratio are at 8% and 4.75% respectively. However, RBI has increased the limit of export credit refinance from 15% of outstanding export credit of banks to 50%, which will potentially release an additional liquidity of over Rs.300 billion, equivalent to about 50 basis points reduction in the CRR. But RBI’s stance is going to baffle foreign investors no end. After a span of two years, even China has now started to reduce its interest rates in an attempt to boost the economy. Brazil, another member of the BRICS club, has also been cutting its key policy rates for quite some time. Even a recent report of rating agency Moody’s has said that India could turn out to be the weakest amongst all BRICS countries.

Oil: high diesel demand
Private refiners make hay
Due to the huge difference in the prices of diesel and petrol, the demand for diesel in the country has shot up. So much so that demand outstrips supply by a wide margin. Demand for diesel has skyrocketed and exceeds supply because of petrol prices, which is 70% costlier than diesel. As a result, PSU oil refiners have been forced to buy diesel from Reliance Industries Ltd and Essar Oil. State run oil firms like Hindustan Petroleum, Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum are buying nearly 15 million tonnes of diesel per year from the two private refiners. Essar Oil operates 1,391 operational outlets, including 249 under construction. Reliance has about 700 operating outlets. The private refiners are able to charge diesel at international prices from the PSU refiners leading to huge windfall gains for the former. On the contrary, state firms are suffering a revenue loss of Rs.10.20 per litre of diesel they sell in the retail market. IOC, India’s biggest oil refiner with a capacity to process 66 MT crude oil, annually bought about 42% diesel from other domestic refiners in the first two months of the current financial year. The company produced 4,485.4 thousand metric tonne diesel in first two months of the current financial year against a sale of 6,371.2 TMT in the same period. According to oil ministry’s data keeper, Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell, while petroleum consumption recorded monthly growth at 0.2% in April (lowest in the last one-and-half years), about 47% of total consumption in that month was of diesel. “This is one strong indicator of dieselisation of the economy due to price distortion among competing fuels,” PPAC said in its latest report. Diesel rates in the country are frozen since June 2011. It is sold at Rs.41.29 a litre in Delhi while petrol costs Rs.70.24 a litre in the metro.

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

 

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Meet the enemy of the internet – Facebook!

We all know Facebook as the dorm room idea that popped out of no where and changed the world. And recently bombed at the bourses. But then, there’s also the counter argument...

Before I explain how, let me first give you a quick background about why Facebook is in a position to threaten the internet.
 The story behind the network
Till about the rise of online media as a means to access news, print, radio and television were the only options. But soon, Google came along and mainstream media was no longer the only gatekeeper of news, It was a great way to express oneself and anyone was free to post anything anywhere on the internet, My blog is an example of the same. Most of the online content was relevantly available through search giant Google. With the rise of social networks, the concept of sharing came into prominence. Twitter and Facebook bring news straight into our News Feeds and we do not have to go anywhere else searching for news.

If it is not shared on Facebook it does not exist! While Twitter still remains a niche network with a small percentage of active users who make all the noise, the dominance of Facebook has been so overwhelming that almost everyone we directly know is a member there, and quite active too. Apart from this, we have celebrities and brands who keep long for us to ‘LIKE’ their pages on Facebook at the expense of their own official websites. Facebook pages are far more attractive to them because that is where all the people are. In due course of time Facebook has become not just another website but the Internet for many

This places Facebook in a position of great power. As such, we expect Facebook to act with maturity as people depend on it to bring them the news. Instead, it is slowly turning out to be a very smart villain and with the IPO money, things can get really bad. Therefore, the focus of this piece is on Facebook, on how it treats ‘The Internet’ as its arch enemy, and why we should be concerned about it. When I say ‘The Internet’ I mean the internet that exists outside the walls of Facebook.

But isn’t it nice to use Facebook to access content from all across the web, shared by our friends and pages that we like, all in one News Feed? Why should we be bothered about the rest of the internet? Here’s why. Facebook hides more stuff than it shows! At any given time, the News Feed shows only a small percentage of all content that is shared by our friends and Pages that we like. If we try and change the settings to show Most Recent posts, we might find few more updates, but still, a huge percentage of updates are hidden from us. That also means, whenever we post status updates, they reach only a small percentage of our friends. Facebook itself has said that the reach is around 12% to 16% of total friends. Beat that, more than 84% of our friends don’t even see what we are sharing or talking about even when we are online at the same time! Isn’t this a violation of our fundamental right to speech? Shouldn’t we be deciding whose updates we need to see in our news feeds and shouldn’t our voice be heard by our friends?

Facebook says that it does it to control noise in the News Feed. Too many updates can inundate the users feed, so Facebook devised an ultra sophisticated mechanism that reads our minds (It always asks “What’s on your mind”, so that it knows) and shows us what it thinks is appropriate and relevant to us.

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

When push comes to shove

Sales figures for november saw HMSI stage a quiet coup in the domestic two-wheeler market as TVS Motor was edged out of its number three perch. Can it claw its way back?
 
Appearances can be deceptive. They may conceal more than what they reveal. At first blush, the Chennai-based $2.2-billion TVS Motor Company’s 7.79% growth for the month of November 2011, in which it sold 1,50,406 two-wheelers, appears to be a fairly good showing, all the more so considering the macroeconomic challenges and the overall poor market sentiment in the Indian market. However, one only needs to look a bit deeper to arrive at a fuller picture. During the festive month of November, the two-wheeler industry grew by 25.27% and its (TVS) arch rivals like Hero MotoCorp and Honda Motorcycle & Scooters India (HMSI) managed to beat the industry trend by registering top-line growth of 27.28% and 59.04% respectively. For TVS, worse was yet to come. The month also saw it ceding its No. 3 slot in the two-wheeler market to HMSI, whose November sales logged 189,970 units.

Sure, the figures are for just the month of November. For the two contenders, the scales of fortune could tip either’s way and there could well be many a slip betwixt the cup and lip in the months ahead. For the past few years and till as late as November 2011, TVS was the third-largest two-wheeler manufacturer with a market share of 14.5%. The company sold 1,282,117 units as compared to the 1,228,987 units sold by HMSI during the April-November period. But the latest coup by HMSI has set tongues wagging. Will TVS be able to claw back the lost ground in the Indian two-wheeler market going ahead?

An e-mail sent to TVS Motor Company for its comments on this story did not elicit any response. But it is worth mentioning here that in October 2009, Business & Economy did a story discussing the fight for the #3 slot in the Indian two-wheeler industry between TVS and HMSI. As far back as two years ago, the magazine made a prediction that has come to be almost prophetic in hindsight. The story in question strongly made a case for TVS to pull up its socks or suffer the fate of watching HMSI vroom ahead. That fate has now come to haunt TVS. Considering the pace that HMSI has picked up of late, TVS will need to pull off a visceral performance and push sales aggressively to come back into the game with its honour intact.

Venu Srinivasan, the Chairman and Managing Director of TVS Motor Company, is not new to facing challenges. In fact, he has a reputation for thriving when the going gets tough. As a student of business management at Purdue University in the US, he spent a summer hawking the Good Book Bible in North Carolina. Despite being the grandson of the founder of the group (T.V. Sundaram Iyengar), Srinivasan started his career with the group as a grunt mechanic and put in a lot of elbow grease before moving up the ladder and becoming the CEO of Sundaram-Clayton (a TVS Group company) in 1979. And it was not before the mid-1980s that he rose to the top and was calling the shots at the two-wheeler manufacturer.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
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
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
IIPM B-School Facebook Page
IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

Making sense of the incorrigibly Cognizant!

Cognizant’s ability to consistently achieve astronomical revenue growth has surprised many. Will it’s new strategic outlook be able to keep the ‘shock & awe’ coming?

While debating on a particular strategy related to employee & customer orientation in a technology company with a top CEO, I gave the logic that works best when you are trying to escape an argument – the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the particular company was doing well. The CEO smiled at me and nodded his head, saying that even the most unconventional strategy looks great when someone successfully applies it. The whole world then analyses why the strategy worked for that unique organisation and feel we have got collectively smarter through the entire process. The fact is, perhaps that next time too, we will only identify the merits of an unconventional strategy when it has met the benchmarks of success.

Though Cognizant is not the company I was discussing, there is no doubt that the successful rise of this company which has become the flavour of the season in the IT space. Cognizant, which beat Wipro in terms of revenues to reach the number 3 position among Indian IT players in the quarter, saw revenue rise by 34.4% yoy to reach $1.48 billion and net income reach $208 million, a growth of 20.78% yoy. And the surprising part is that IT experts weren’t really counting on the company delivering these numbers, as it still got 77.8% of its revenues from North America, a region that the IT world is looking to slowly derisk from. Annually, the company is showing a growth of 40% on an average over the past five years, which also include the recessionary phase. It makes sense to understand what makes the company stand amidst this environment, and whether the growth is indeed sustainable.

There were a number of things that Cognizant, a relatively young upstart did that made it different from its peers since it commenced operations in 1994 as the IT development and maintenance services arm of Dun & Bradstreet. The first was its initiative to shift headquarters to the US within two years of commencement of operations and ensured that its top management was where its clients were. Linked to this decision, it also pioneered and trademarked the ‘Two-in-a-box model’, which combined the global delivery model with the relationship manager onsite to give clients a differentiated service experience.

Cognizant is extremely dependent on employees in India, which account for over 75% of the workforce. In that sense, it ensured an effective utilisation of both worlds, and other Indian companies, even though their business is also largely driven by US and Europe, developed a global positioning much later. In fact, Cognizant is also lobbying for change in H1B visa norms, and CEO Francisco said at the CEO Council recently on outdated immigration laws, “Millions of foreign skilled professionals are in legal limbo due to a massive backlog for permanent resident visas, hampering their ability to fully contribute to the US economy & discouraging talented foreign professionals to consider working or starting a new business in US.”

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
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
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
IIPM B-School Facebook Page
IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

B&E Indicators

Signs of recovery

While the global private equity (PE) industry in 2010 may not have recovered at the rate that was expected, there were signs that the industry within the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region may be on the road to recovery. Reason: The year 2010 saw an increase in funds raised, from $1.1 billion in 2009 to $1.4 billion, indicating that investors continue to see considerable value in the region.

Raising capital remains a challenge
Although cumulative funds under management grew to $22.4 billion in 2010, raising capital continued to be a challenge for fund managers. In fact, 2010 saw just nine funds successfully raise capital totalling $1.4 billion in contrast to the industry peak in 2007 & 2008. Moreover, of the new funds announced in 2010, eight raised capital totalling $1.3 billion while one fund, announced in 2008, raised an additional $57 million.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
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
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
IIPM B-School Facebook Page
IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
IIPM – FLP (Flexi Learning Program)

B&E This Fortnight

INTERNATIONALBUSINESS, ECONOMY & FINANCE

Riding with Germans
While rivals Hewlett-Packard and Dell made headlines in the acquisitions market last year, the Chinese computer giant Lenovo is making some big ticket bids of its own this year. Four months earlier Lenovo signed a strategically positioned JV with NEC Corp to sell laptops in Japan. The company is now all set to buy Germany’s Medion AG in a deal that values the consumer electronics company at $671 million. The deal is expected to double the market share to more than 14% of the PC market in Germany, which is Europe’s biggest economy today and give the combined company a share of around 7.5% in the western European PC market. Hewlett-Packard accounted for 17.6% of the global PC market last quarter, declining from 18% a year earlier, Taipei-based Acer dropped to 12.9% from 14.6% and Lenovo, the fourth largest, increased its share to 9.7% from 8.2%. In the past year, HP made over $7 billion in acquisitions and for its part, Dell bought IT consulting firm Perot Systems for $3.9 billion in 2009, and more recently, Boomi, a cloud computing integration service, for an undisclosed sum. Lenovo shares fell by 3% on the announcement amidst concerns of investing in a slow growing market like Germany. In addition competitors like Dell and HP are moving into the high margin consulting business, while Lenovo is still stuck in hardware.

Ford’s Smallest
Automobile companies are bracing themselves for the rising costs of transportation. Ford Motors, the world’s No. 4 auto maker is developing its smallest engine ever to squeeze out greater fuel savings. The new EcoBoost, a three cylindrical engine, is designed to have a higher fuel economy without sacrificing power & performance. The engine should be available in 90% of Ford’s vehicles in North America by 2013. The company’s profits of $6.6 billion in 2010 have indicated a long awaited rebound as Ford lost $14.6 billion in 2008.

Pandora raises IPO
The music streaming superstar Pandora has dominated the headlines with its announcement of a public offering, which would help them to raise $142 million; announcing a target price range of $7 to $9 per share price. Pandora, which tops the list in terms of music experiences, has recorded a revenue of $43 million during the first quarter by averaging a new user every second with a list of 90 million registered users. Pandora expects to raise $96 million to $142 million.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
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
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
IIPM B-School Facebook Page
IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
IIPM – FLP (Flexi Learning Program)

Be a Pilot @ Rs.25 Lakh!

Basic Medical Facilities may not be Available to all in India, but a Job as a Pilot, well, as The Recent Developments Expose, is not very Difficult to get if you have a Thick Wallet.

In its latest breakthrough, the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police, investigating the case of Airline Transport Pilot Licences (ATPLs) and Commercial Pilot Licences (CPLs) in wake of the furore over issuance of fake pilot licences, on April 6, arrested two more officials of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), exposing the rot in a system that has long been known to be an exclusive premise of the high and mighty. It is quite evident now that it was impossible to work the system without the help of DGCA insiders. The point gathers weight as out of a total of thirteen individuals arrested in this regard so far, three are DGCA officials.

The DGCA has been known to dole out favours and change regulations to suit airlines and the siblings of senior ministry officials, and it had all been smooth sailing for the fraudsters until IndiGo pilot Parminder Kaur Gulati landed on the nose wheel of her plane at the Goa airport, though not for the first time. Investigations into Gulati’s faulty landing in January revealed that she had obtained her licence based on a fake marksheet. Further probe revealed that Passi’s daughter Garima, a pilot with SpiceJet, had also obtained her licence through a fake marksheet, allegedly with her father’s assistance. DGCA Assistant Director Pradeep Kumar in the licensing department and R. K. Passi, Director, Safety, DGCA, are among those in the Crime Branch net for allegedly assisting touts, mostly comprising of flying school instructors in Madhya Pradesh and Ahmedabad, to obtain pilot licences using forged documents.

Furthermore, former DGCA chief and now Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, S. N. A Zaidi’s son was employed with Jet Airways. The son of R. P. Sahi, Joint Director General, DGCA, was also a Jet Airways employee. Deputy Director-General A. K. Sharan’s daughter worked for IndiGo Airlines. Director, Air Transport, Lalit Gupta’s daughter handled revenue management for IndiGo. Chief Flight Operations Inspector Capt. H. Y. Samant’s daughter also worked for a private carrier.

“Unlike previous instances where we were unsure whether the DGCA Assistant Director knew that he was pushing for licences based on doctored marksheets, in this case, both the DGCA officials were fully aware that they were using fake marksheets. Thus, while only Rs.25,000 was charged by Kumar to expedite the process of issuing these fake licences, the duo arrested by us charged Rs.4.50 lakh from the tout operating from Ahmedabad,” DCP (Crime) Ashok Chand told B&E. The three pilots currently in the dock include Capt. Swaran Singh Talwar of MDLR Airlines, Capt Meenakshi Singhal of Indigo Airlines and Capt. J. K. Verma of Air India.

In the meantime, the Government was also quick in its display of action against those linked to the fake pilot licence scam and set up an independent committee for the scrutiny of all 4,500 ATPLs, 10,000 CPL licences along with an audit of the 40-odd flying schools in the country. While Union Minister for Civil Aviation Vayalar Ravi says the Government will not spare anyone found guilty, experts say that there is an urgent need to overhaul processes within the DGCA. Before we delve into the intricacies over how the system can be manipulated to suit a privileged few, here is a quick look into the pilot licence racket and how it operates.

Read more....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
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
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
IIPM B-School Facebook Page
IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
IIPM – FLP (Flexi Learning Program)