A Time To Reflect

charukesi February 6th, 2004

Cheap IIMs. Is Indian corporata ready for this ?

The Union HR Minister Murli Manohar Joshi has announced an 80% slash in the yearly fees : from Rs. 1.5 lakhs to Rs.30000. Who gives him this right to interfere in everything he chooses? If corruption (all this started with the leak in this year’s admission test papers) is his peeve, then it is time to close in on the innumerable private dental colleges and engineering colleges across the country that charge students much much more and provide them with worthless degrees at the end of it all (that is, when the college has bothered to carry on classes for the specified three or four years).

That being that, here are a few more steps proposed for the IIMs starting this academic year :

* IIMs will now take lessons in fund generation and adminstration from such private colleges….. And fill in quotas openly. And take ‘building donations’…..

* Next, of course, the texts prescribed by the IIMs will come in for scrutiny. How dare they teach the works of foreign writers and thinkers here!

* There will also be a new subject introduced in the curriculum, jyotir vigyan, or vedic astrology…..

* And finally, all IIMs will now be renamed….. As Chhatrapati Shivaji Institutes of Management…..

Heil Joshi !

• Indiawatch , - Education
• Comments(0)

charukesi February 6th, 2004

About my post you want values?, I must say that people have missed the point entirely…….

The holler was not about observing (or not observing in this case) a holiday or remembering (or not) a specific date. Nor was my intention to compare Amitabh Bacchan with Mohandas Gandhi.

(Gandhi) He was as much of an icon as Anil Ambani or Amitabh Bachchan. Its only that, the youngsters do not relate to his principles anymore, says Divya…. and that is precisely my point…. That values are changing…. The kind of things people (I don’t not use the much abused word, youth here) relate to and want are drastically different…. And it reflects in everything they do…..

Geert Hofstede, a social psychologist / behavioural scientist in 1991 came up with this explanation of culture. In his view, ‘culture’ is like an onion: a system that can be peeled, layer by layer, in order to reveal the content. Imagine the whole onion as ‘culture’ and as you peel on, you see different levels which work on and influence culture (in any particular society).

At the core of his onion are ‘values’, in other words, how people believe things ‘ought to be’, what they hold dear to them. This level is invisible and is manifested through the three other layers : symbols, rituals and icons.

- symbols : words, artefacts, pictures that carry a special meaning
- rituals : such as festivals, ways of paying respect, ‘hanging out’ trends
- icons : persons admired by the society as a whole

And every generation, every society sees changes in the other three layers mentioned above. And students of social psychology (naively, according to some) believe that Hofstede was right and that values are indeed changing, going by the changes in outward manifestations…..

• - Armchair Analysis , - Alternative methods
• Comments(0)

charukesi February 5th, 2004

Pespi (and Coke too, not one to be left behind) now has a new variant : Organic Cola…..

Go Organic With The Cooler Cola?

• Branding and Marketing
• Comments(0)

charukesi February 5th, 2004

Debashish’s Hindi blog Nuktachini has a guest post by me….. Do read it…..

It is great fun reading a Hindi blog….. even if a little tiresome for Madrasis like me :))

Go for it, Debu !

• The World of Indsight
• Comments(0)

charukesi February 4th, 2004

Uma’s development agenda ranges from absurd to the weird, says the Indian Express.

From absurd to the weird, right. But development agenda???

The Prime Minister has set a 100 day dead-line in Madhya Pradesh for perform or else….. Mid-way between, the CM has decided, in her own inscrutable wisdom that ‘development’ is too tedious and thankless a route. She now takes an alternate route to development.

What I am hearing loud and clear is this : lack of development can bring about the downfall of a Government (Diggy fell because of the roads and powerless days and nights)… but is development enough to bring a Government to power? Sure, the BJP surged into MP with its election platform of ‘road and electricity’….. but she also believes that the next time around, people will remember her for her gaushalas(cowsheds) and for renaming Bhopal Bhojpal rather than for laying any old road.

Is this mere weirdness? A total insensitivity to conditions around the state and a lack of understanding of people’s immediate needs. Or does she believe (or worse, realise) that people have actually no hopes of seeing development and would rather settle for such populist measures…..

Maybe Uma Bharati thinks that people who put up with Digvijay Singh for so long will also put up with her. After all, she’s given the state capital a new name….

The BJP had a vision 2010 for Madhya Pradesh as part of the pre-election run-up to Chief Ministership…. Vision 2005 to me is a cow-based economy (or what survives of it)…. Moo to you, Bharati!

Ruling parties have changed, but little else has changed in Madhya Pradesh……

• Indiawatch , Society & Development
• Comments(0)

charukesi February 2nd, 2004

Following my poser on the relevance of Mahatma Gandhi and his life in today’s times, Prayatna has this interesting article. He quotes Ramachandra Guha from the latter’s speech on the multiple careers of Mahatma Gandhi

Very interesting…..

• Indiawatch
• Comments(0)

charukesi February 1st, 2004

Is India Shining, asks Rediff. Do you think the ‘feel good’ factor sweeping India is more imaginary than real?

I don’t know if India is shining…… but when was the last time we even dared to talk about ‘feel good’……

What do you think, is India shining?

• Indiawatch
• Comments(0)