Happy Re-Public Day!!!!

One of the best days in IIM Ahmedabad. Nope I didn’t crack any examination. Neither did I score a great inning in cricket. Not a pizza or barbeque nation treat. Nor hot water in D7 (which now has become a distinct reality). It was just the gathering on a nice winter morning for the Republic day celebration at LKP. People basking in the small strip of sunlight flowing gently into LKP from between the classroom blocks & the library. Kids chirping around merrily, playing hide-n-seek between the LKP crowds, Profs laughing (yes and i meant laughing ), Victor sir playing guitar & students’ eyes eagerly awaiting the sight of sweets

On a regular day one finds the place totally deserted. A few people seen around – enjoying the morning are either the staff of IIMA or the poor souls residing in dorms who have their classes at 8.45AM running around to reach in time. But today it was all very different, very unrealistic, very virtual. I loved it. Although i had to take the pains to wake up early after the detailed ‘placement preparations’ last night & get into a decent dress (difficult to find in my wardrobe) suitable for the occasion, the pains were worthed to be taken.

Infact, the sole thing driving me to attend the occasion was the patriotic soul in me eager to get out of the student facade. The busy schedule and material aspirations has barricaded the path of simple social deeds i loved or rather love doing. During childhood, after 14th January Makarsankranti celebrations, the only thing to look-out for a kid was the republic day parade. The streamlined flow of parade and the synchronization of the army officers was treat to watch. Also the colours coming out of the various parades by the states is a pleasing sight. Every year i saw it (although there wasn’t any significant change to the structure YoY), I cried inside – ‘I love my India & I am ready to do anything for the nation’. Sadly I am not doing it and each one among us knows why.

Today 26th January, 15th August & 2nd October have only one relevance for a desi Indian: A national holiday. Little do these days ring a bell in the hearts that it is something great about our wonderful country that happened on these days. We have the baton in our hands to be carried forward – fast – and hand it over in the right manner to the generations to come. Little do we have the zeal in ourselves to work for something that doesn’t bring material profits for us. Living for society and the nation is a bigtime NS. And I too am a victim of this ‘selfishomania’ egoist culture coming up. The fact that we don’t respect the day, the fact that we are not considering ourselves responsible for the society, the fact that we shrug ourselves off the problems of the society – are the symtoms that our nation sadly is going to witness just facades of patriotism hiding the inherent virus of greed inside.

Anyways the good part is, although people are not helping around with tangible deeds their sheer presence on the day for celebration shows the fire (although subsiding fast) to work for the nation. Just a vent to converge the sparks and flush the issues out. and

By the time I was done thinking about the strategy of how to collate these spirits and frame the solution, I was pretty well VitaminDized in the sun and sweets were in front of me. I walked away with the hollow thought & sweets in my hand. Happy Republic Day !!!!

Biggest learning @ WIMWI!!!! – WimwiLeela

Having had a relatively chilled weekend we were expected to have a tough sunday evening with WAC, Mkting and FRA on monday. As decided we all met at 10 at Robin’s place. 45 min Marketing. 30 min FRA and then was the biggest drama one can ever witness @ WIMWI. It had more thrills than a reality show. Probability concepts losing their lustre. Murphy’s law taking the center stage.

We all had to regroup with following new group conditions:

1) New group should be of 4/5 members and should preferably have a FPM or non-engineer.

2) Atleast one change should be there in the group to accomodate a new coming member.

My group – Group12 comprized of Chinmay (Chinchau the Juicer), Pradeep (the SWOTer), Robin (Koshu, the Kaul boy), myself (Champu, the giveup), Vatan (Cupid the stupid) and Jaya…. We all loved the names we all got. Jaya was the only FPM in our group and hence initially for a change it didn’t make sense to have her out of the group, although she was a free flyer. Pradeep is one of the contributers to the group but couldn’t gel well with the group dynamics. He contributes and shys away. Vatan is an active member of the group who keeps people involved. Robin & Chinmay are the chief contributors to the project, hard to choose between the two.

12AM: We looked at the options that we have of dividing ourselves and we decided that we’ll have one person thrown out. The options we had for doing this were

1) Randomization

2) Do a feedback session for each individual

3) Do a closed voting

Being future managers people (including myself) decided that we are not going to leave everything on fate and will decide ourselves. Hence randomization was eliminated. So was Closed voting as it is an act of cowardice. So the option left was to go for feedback session for each individual to be followed by voting. Each member had to rank other 5 members on basis of motivation, creativity, team-player, quality of work done and (one more that i forgot as usual). I knew i’ll be 3rd after Chinchau and Kaulboy and so were the results. As expected Jaya was last by a huge margin. she too accepted the fact that she is the least contributor to the team. And then was the biggest reality show, the one thing i dreaded about closed poling. We had to choose the name of two members whom we considered

Mr FM you have got it all wrong !!!! – wrt 60,000 Crore Rupees Loan Waiver

Does the title strike a note or two in you mind…. Well the dialogue you are looking for it ‘Mr Bucknor you have got it all wrong’ – said by Sunil Gavaskar in the Second test in which Indian team got loads of bad decisions going their way…. Perhaps I have discussed about it in some other blog too… so no point contemplating the past….

Well FM on 29 Feb gave a very socialist budget – for corporates no rise in corporate tax, for Middle class he raised the Tax slabs, excise duties on small cars reduced – getz, santro, M800 r 20K cheap now, welfare for backward class and minorities, …. but the thing most discussed about will be the 60,000 crore loan waiver for farmers…. First thing i did when i heard about the news was that i changed the TV channel and tried to get myself back on track by watching the SL vs Aus Match (which SL won by 13 runs)… Well i too don’t want my fellow citizens suiciding and living a dejected life… but i am completely against the loan waiver thing…. The problems i have with it are as follows:

1) You are just providing them a very temporary solution to the problem and possibly ruining the chances of providing a better future to their kids. How? its 60,000 crore that matters…. I don’t have the problem with allocation to agriculture sector… its the place where Mr FM wants it…. By completely waiving off the loan he’s enticing farmers to take more loans as now they know that eventually - during election time the loan is gonna be waived off…. Its where people are not responsible for their deeds…..
A simple example would be that he is asking the farmers not to jump off the cliff right now….. but he’s taking them to new heights from where if farmer wants to fall he’ll definitely have desired results….

2) From where r u getting 60,000 crores???? is it loan from IMF ???? or the hard earned money of middle class which governmentsucks as Tax…. or the Corporation tax that the companies which are trying to make 
their name in international arena manage to shell out…. its very important that this money is used judiciously and not considering that the elections are round the corner – which is the case right now…. FM has just made a very selfish effort to buy the votes…. Sorry sir but the words are coming from within….. you cheated me and whole of the hard working middle class and corporates…..

Possible Solution: One thing that you did good was that  you didn’t waive it for all the people…. you waived it only for those farmers who took government loans and have land less than one hectare…. thats pretty smart…. but along with it i hope that some biasing is not involved in selecting the farmers and the ones who have profit…. only the needy ones who had poor rain and bad crop get the loan waiver….. i know that i m being idealistic but the era in which we live we need 2 cut short on each expenditure….

An ideal solution would have been: allocation of the money to irrigation projects similar to Narmada Sarovar Dam project…. which will help them not only now but also in future…. Here the problem might just come up again after 3 years: what 2 do then??? One shouldn’t try to delay the solution but should look for one…. he could have allocated the amount to some 2 irrigation projects on some rivers in Maharashtra and AP and might have provided better future for the farmers after 5 years…. but he choose to think otherways…. maybe not his fault….. indian politics is like that only…. but till we do not get out of this cycle we can’t expect to get good output from agriculture….. with ecosystem being imbalanced a lot, we can expect even more failed crops and inconsistency in rain….

Reference: IBN LIVE