The Theory of Relativity

Friends, just like most of us, even I am not fascinated by the complexity of Science. So you can be rest assured that this post is not about scientific applications of the theory of relativity. But the essence is derived from it. That’s why this theory assumes so much importance as it touches us every day. Let’s explore how?

Einstein's theory of time and space, special relativity, proposed that distance and time are not absolute. The ticking rate of a clock depends on the motion of the observer of that clock; likewise for the length of a "yardstick.” So if you haven’t guessed yet, this post is about Relative Grading. A much used term in academic set up especially in the past few decades. As the common saying goes, “Nothing is absolute, everything is relative.”

This is how IITK introduces Relative Grading, “Many ideas and things were shipped from Washington DC to Kanpur. When a packet from one of these shipments was opened, a brilliant proposal of adopting "relative grading" emerged. And IIT Kanpur was amongst the first, in the country to adopt this relative method of evaluating performance.” Their inputs have been used in the following paras to shed more light on this topic.

Rebranding in Real Life

After discussing a few social issues, college experiences and even movies, this time we’ll discuss marketing in real life i.e. not limiting ourselves to consumer products. The topic for this discussion will be 'Rebranding'. First let me define it. Rebranding is the attempt or an exercise, usually by an established brand (which could be a company, a person etc.), to develop a new position in the minds of stakeholders which could include customers, competitors, fans etc. It’s mainly an attempt to keep oneself relevant with changing times.

One day of Entrepreneurship

This blog is an outcome of the fun we had fulfilling a course requirement. Yes, you heard it right. The course was or should I say is “Managing new Ventures” and the assignment was to come up with a venture with an investment of Rs. 1000. The activity could include selling food items, providing printing services, consultancy etc. We were divided into teams of six each and given a week’s time to show and present our learnings. It was an exciting task given the opportunity to become an entrepreneur for a day.

Now I will share my learnings that we had about entrepreneurship after the task and class discussion. I know it would be premature on my part to come to a conclusion after a very short stint in a predictable environment but nevertheless a few generic but exciting things did come to the fore.

A peep into "Peepli-Live"

"सरकार मरने का पैसा देती है!” This line pretty much forms the basis of the storyline of Aamir Khan produced film: Peepli Live. In other words, "a farmer in need of money would prefer to commit suicide if the government gives him muaawzaa (compensation)". You all might be wondering if I am trying to do a movie-review in this blog. Well my answer would be a Yes as well as a No. Yes because I will discuss the different realms touched by this movie and a No because this blog is not a commentary on the quality of filmmaking or acting or for that matter the music of this movie.

The Past, The Present & The Future of Asia.

We all love keenly contested battles. Isn’t it? Such contests can take place on the sports ground, in the academic setup, on the battlefield etc. The one such battle that I am going to talk about, is taking place on the global scale. It’s the battle to become the next economic superpower of Asia. In this blog I’ll discuss the three countries that look set to stake their claim for the Numero Uno tag. The great thing about this contest is that we could have three different leaders at three commonly classified points of time i.e. the Past, the Present & the future. So, let me break the suspense on the trinity (if there was ever one). They are Japan, China & India. Let’s us analyze their strengths, weaknesses and the possible road ahead.

The Campus Placement Process

Scene 1: The setting, early 1980s. Rakesh has done his father proud. He has made it to the coveted government engineering college. He is the first engineer from his locality. Well-wishers have made a beeline to his home. They have garlanded him and the sweets are being distributed to one and all. The boy, who was better known by his nickname “Raju”, has a new name now; “engineer sahib”. There is glint in his eyes. This glint symbolizes excitement. He knows that the road ahead is not easy. He will have to fight it out for the few available government jobs when he passes out after four years. But he is least worried rather he is excited about joining the engineering college. He has heard great things about it. It’s a temple of learning to him. He is keen to learn under the guidance of a few well known professors as well as eager to quench his thirst of knowledge at the institute’s library and laboratory, two things he sorely missed at the district schools and colleges.

Out Of Home but not Out Of Sight

Don’t worry I am not going to share stalking techniques through this post. Rather through this blog, I will try to break the monotony of topics based on finance and social issues. I will try to share my learnings from one of the projects I did with an FMCG major. It came under the ambit of Sales and Distribution.

Some if not all of us must have noticed that right from the time we wake up and till we finally go to bed, consumer products especially FMCG ones touch us on various occasions be it while bathing, eating, shaving etc. But the plethora of options available to you at the nearby retail stores would have given you a fair indication that there is a lot of competition in this sector. So firms are looking at different ways through which they can reach out to their customers at different places and at different times. This is where the concept of OOH or “Out of Home” comes to play. The appeal of this topic lies in its innovativeness as it adds a “service” dimension to what used to be a purely “sales” product.

The Need for Indian Case Studies

After a hiatus of almost three weeks due to the academic projects, exams and the launch of The Money Manager-the pan-IIM finance magazine, Saketvaani is back with you to ignite the discussion. This time the focus would be “the case for Indian case studies”. Though all of us may not be familiar with case studies but you can use words like journals, research papers etc. interchangeably for cases. First let me tell you the reason behind choosing this topic.

I have finished almost 70% of my MBA education in an Indian B-school and most if not all the cases that I have come across are prepared by foreign B-school (read Harvard Business School: HBS). Should it really be a cause of concern as haven’t we been brought up mainly on books by foreign author? So why complain now, that too in a B-school clamouring for global recognition?

Is regulation the only way to create sustainable cities?

There has been too much emphasis off late on regulations being the only way to create sustainable cities. Through this blog, I would like to express my opinion on the above mentioned topic. 

I think we can play with the question a bit i.e. we can aim at creating self-sustaining cities rather a sustaining one. This is because one of the prerequisites for sustenance is the participation of the stakeholders and in this case it is residents of the city. For it to thrive, the actions of the dwellers will have to be in sync with the requirements of sustainability i.e. taking care of the environmental concerns, politically acceptable and economically beneficial. I know this balance is hard to achieve but so is the concept of “sustainable cities”.

Base Rate System : A change for the real ?

(My heartfelt thanks to Mr. G. C. Nath, Senior V.P., CCIL for his invaluable insights on this topic)

There hardly is an adult nowadays who hasn't felt the need or has gone ahead to avail a loan. You can blame it on the increasing consumerism or the inflationary forces. Anyways, I am not going to discuss the rate of inflation or conspicuous consumption rather I will focus on the rate of interest on these loans. These rates were affected by a major change that took place on the 1st of July, 2010. This happening was; "coming into effect of Base Rate System".This blog is on Base Rate System and its likely impacts. 

Family creates value

The idea of writing this blog came to my mind when I was in Ahmadabad for my summer internship.Apart from the Gujarati splendor what I witnessed was a quite different type of business lingo. The bosses and the sirs were replaced by bhaiyaa, bhai or even pappa. Even though the firm that I worked for happened to be a B-School but things were no different over there either. In fact this lingo was more common when the discussion was among the higher-ups in the firm.So what was so different about the businesses in Ahmadabad or rather the Gujarati style of functioning? It was the style or type of ownership. They were the Family owned businesses (FoB).

Too Big To Fail

I have always wondered, why things are so hard to change even when we are at a consensus that they must. Take the case of corruption, inefficient bureaucracy, casteism, communalism... the list is endless. The reason is that they have become "too big to fail (TBTF)". Take the case of government office saddled with corruption. Though a lot of people are at a receiving end due this menace but they are mostly the external stakeholders of this system. On the other hand, those benefiting from it, the peon, the kirani babu and the bada saheb can directly affect this system and most importantly, they are a sizable lot characterized by greed. In order to satiate their insatiable desire, they go out of their way to guard their territory.

ICT based distance learning programme - IV

In this fourth and last blog of this series, I will share the framework that I have developed for a model distance learning institute. 

The learner centric model for a Distance Learning institute

Note: C&A:Curriculum & Assessment, LR:Learning Resources, Infra:Infrastructure (Technical and Physical)

ICT based distance learning programme - III

In the third part of this series,I will present the consolidated findings of some of the breakthrough research done in this field.Please refer the First part for Introduction and Second part for the Importance of ICT.

ICT based distance learning programme - II

After introducing ICTs and some common terms associated with it in my last blog, in this part I will enumerate, why ICTs are assuming greater importance in the field of education.

ICTs are a potentially powerful tool for extending educational opportunities, both formal and non-formal, to previously underserved constituencies—scattered and rural populations, groups traditionally excluded from education due to cultural or social reasons such as ethnic minorities, girls and women, persons with disabilities, and the elderly, as well as all others who for reasons of cost or because of time constraints are unable to enroll on campus. With advancement in technology, not only the robustness has increased but so has the cost involved in its deployment.

ICT based distance learning programme - I

(This is the first of the series of posts that I am devoting towards creating awareness about the distance learning programmes which,if implemented effectively,could play a crucial role in democratizing education. The Second Post will be on the importance of ICT in distance education and the Third will be on the findings of breakthrough researches in this field. In the fourth and the last one, we'll develop a framework for a Distance learning programme.  Looking forward to your comments.)

Distance education, or distance learning, is a field of education that focuses on the pedagogy, technology, and instructional system designs that aim to deliver education to students who are not physically "on site" in a traditional classroom or campus. It has been described as "a process to create and provide access to learning when the source of information and the learners are separated by time and distance, or both." The University of London was the first university to offer distance-learning degree in 1858. Almost all the countries have at least a distance teaching university and many countries such as UK, Australia, Canada,USA and India even offer DE programmes within on-campus universities.

Union Budget 2010

(This article was originally written for the CNN-IBN blog)

Burgeoning fiscal deficit, inflation breathing down your neck and the promise to keep the growth story intact, not the best time to be the Finance Minister. Pranab Babu had his task cut out. How does his respond? Does he come up with a populist budget (the WB election issues are there) or he buckles down the pressure exerted by the India Inc.

Let’s try to analyse it under different heads:

 

Tax: 

The new income tax regime ensures that the salaried middle class ends up paying less and the upper middle class lesser. We were just discussing fiscal deficit by the way and the deficit will now go up by 26000 cr. Tax savings by an additional amount of Rs 20,000 for investments in long-term infrastructure bonds are now allowed but is it enough considering the major portion of the savings still finds its way to the savings bank account. I think the FM has missed out here. The excise duty inches up 2% (on car and SUVs) and the oil prices shoot up not because revolutionary deregulation has become a reality but basic duty on petroleum products has been enhanced. So FMCG companies gain as the middle class spends more but who loses out, it’s him again, the ‘aam aadmi’, who doesn’t earn enough to be taxable but still relies on kerosene. Though there was a relief from the service tax front as it stay put at 10%. Raising the rate of Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) from 15 per cent to 18 per cent of book profits could be the cause of complaint for the infrastructure firms. 

Reforms: 

GST, the tax reforms aimed at uniformity, transparency, widening the tax net and that has found favour in more than 100 nations still seems to be in the dock as no concrete roadmap was announced. Labour reforms, oil deregulation, fertilizer subsidies, the most hotly debated topics considering the existing scenario didn’t get the due attention. So, it seems the structural deficiencies causing deficit are here to stay.

 

Agriculture: 

Nutrient based fertilizer subsidy is a step in the right direction but unless followed up with more radical steps so that the benefits directly reach the farmer, it could be the case of too little too late. Providing project import status with a concessional import duty and full exemption from service tax to installation and commissioning of mechanised handling systems, pallet-racking systems, cold storage, cold room and processing units in mandis and warehouses will reduce the wastages during handling and storage. It’s high time we looked at agriculture as a source of revenue by taxing the rich farmers and passing on the benefits to the marginal and landless farmers. 

Infrastructure: 

It was noteworthy that forty-six percent of plan allocations in 2010-11 will be for infrastructure development. It goes to show that the FM has realised that for the sustainability of the Indian growth story, infrastructure has to be robust. Tax breaks on investments in long-term infrastructure bonds is a welcome step. The major concern would be proper execution of such projects. 

Social Sector: 

Increased allocation to rural development initiatives like National Rural Employment Scheme, Bharat Nirman, Rajiv Awas Yojana for slum dwellers etc shows that Bharat will no longer be neglected vis-à-vis India but the major cause of concern with such schemes have been corruption and leakages in the system. Unless these issues are properly dealt with, they would be a burden on the exchequer. The NREGS too needs to go beyond funding temporary activities like digging up wells, check dams etc. It could be used to develop permanent assets for irrigation. Provision for further capital for regional rural banks will help in credit penetration as well as stop fund leakages as targeted beneficiaries can be directly paid through bank accounts. National Social Security Fund has been created for workers in unorganised sector. This is modest beginning but a much needed initiative nevertheless. 

Other Initiatives: 

Clean energy cess on coal produced in India, concessional duty on solar power rickshaw developed by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, increased allocation for new and renewable energy are a proof of the progressive thinking of the government but it needs to be sustained to be effective. The higher education was neglected by the FM that too considering the immense possibilities of PPP in this sector. The continuing shortage of skilled workforce should have rung a bell or two by now. 

All in all a budget that will yield positive results if the initiatives are effectively implemented. Else it could be the classic case of, ‘Too much boast, little toast”. 

Rail Budget 2010

(This article was originally written for the CNN-IBN blog)

So, the first Railway Budget of the new decade is now out of the bag. It won’t be wrong to say that it is on expected lines considering the track record of the incumbent Railway Minister, Ms Mamta Banerjee i.e. High on populism.

The good news for the commuters is that the train fares have not been raised. Seven years without any increase in fare, must be some sort of a record in an inflation ridden world. The transportation of essential commodities like food grains, kerosene and fertilisers will attract lower freight rates. Commendable effort provided the benefits are passed onto the consumers.

Deregulation of Oil Prices in India

Raghu is a clerk by profession who lives with his wife and two daughters. He uses the city bus services to commute daily to his office. Though not highly educated, he loves going through the newspapers to keep him abreast of the latest happenings. He is especially fascinated by the news related to the ‘aam aadmi’ (a typical middle class person; the new rage amongst the TV channels and politicians). He was happy that the government was making special efforts to keep oil prices in check so that people like him could benefit. The efforts of the central government had helped him keep his household expense viz. LPG cylinder, bus tickets etc in check. 

But he was surprised how his neighbour Rajesh, a businessman, could afford the latest gas guzzling cars when the government was finding it so tough to keep the fuel prices in check. In order to satisfy this curiosity, he asked this question to Rajesh. Rajesh replied, “In the existing scenario when the international price of crude oil is constantly threatening the 100$ (per barrel) mark and in India you could still afford it for Rs 50 per litre, why not make the most of it?” After replying, Rajesh sped past him in his latest SUV. Raghu was puzzled. Was the government step really pro-aam aadmi or was it bad policy? For the past few days the news related to a panel headed by a gentleman named Kirit Parikh has caught his attention as it is related to “deregulation” of oil prices in India. He wonders what this topic is all about and how does it affect an average Indian? Let’s try to answer his question.

Is the Government ready to roll out the GST?

(This article was published in the 7th Dec, 2009 edition of the Financial Express. The Link for the same can be found here.)

Reaching a consensus between the Centre and states on the issue is the biggest stumbling block

The goods & services tax (GST) is part of the proposed tax reforms aimed at evolving an efficient and harmonised consumption tax system in the country. Presently, there are parallel systems of indirect taxation at the central and state levels. The world over, goods & services attract the tax. But what is the key to the introduction of GST? The first step is to progressively harmonise the service tax rate and the Cenvat rate. The central government plans to roll out GST by April 2010. Therefore, the question is, are we ready to do it?