Dedicated to the Memory of Investment banks...

Well it seems to be becoming a pattern for every Saturday and Sunday. For the 2nd week in a row the following events have occurred:

1. Arsenal rocked in the EPL, their rivals faltered.

2. Terrorism struck again.

3. Financial world was turned upside down.

4. And i suffered through yet another exasperating exam at SP.

So begin with the bad news first, its the end of an era, so the Financial whizz in my class tells me, there no longer exist any investment banks, the 2 large remaining behemoths of the game are now just run of the mill banks. Not earth shattering news to the layman, but men in the world of business, it is as if someone pulled the rug from beneath their feet. And it is especially bad news for the MBA grads who dreamt of careers in i-Banking (and believe me there are a lot of them), because it causes them to seriously rethink there career goals. Not that it means all of suddenly we MBA's become jobless, but maybe some of them will have to climb down a bit from their lofty perches. It helps in that case when you are a fresher with very meagre expectations, and anything goes. Just for additional info, the marketing students at SP had a field day at the expense of brothers in Finance. All of a sudden selling soaps and shampoos doesn't seem that bad a proposition.

Now we move on Arsenal, yet again Arsenal rocked and their rivals were bad. The Man Utd-Chelsea game seemed like the 2 teams forgot how to play football, and were concentrating more on getting the opponents foot than the ball. And yes Liverpool are still the most boring team ever. But let's move off the pitch for a while, and there is this interesting bit of info I came across. As the financial turmoil shows, its not been a good time for banks, but what about football clubs. Even they have suffered badly in this situation. Its been quite widely mentioned about how Malcolm Glazer (Man Utd) and Hicks & Gillette (Liverpool) have had trouble repaying interest on their loans which they made to purchase these clubs, because of the credit crunch. But even Arsenal have been hit in an unexpected way. After Arsenal switched stadiums in 2006, the site of the old stadium Highbury was used to develop a housing complex to act as an additional source of revenue.But the downturn in the economy, especially the Real Estate sector, has seriously affected the profitability of the project and is probably one of the reasons why Arsenal maybe short of funds for players. So there you go, football and business in the same post.

I really don't wanna talk about stuff like bombs and exams, because after a depressing week I am finally in a good mood now. So lets just say that these horrible things happened, and maybe we can put them behind us, at least till the next mindless terror attack takes place or till I get my exam grades.

On another note, one of my friends asked me for the meaning of a word I had used in my previous post - Schadenfreude.

Well Schadenfreude basically means taking satisfaction from the misery of others. And basically scientists say that no matter how much we pretend to be empathetic and sympathetic, there is some sense of schadenfreude in each of us.

Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude

Brought this up today, cause there was obviously a lot of schadenfreude around today after the whole i-Bank collapse.

So bye from me for now. As I write this I realise that I am one week away from become a 16.67% manager (end of TRIM-I). So heaven and hell wait at my doorstep. Goodnight and good luck to all.

Random Thought for the Day : The plot for the next Jurassic Park sequel will go something like this - "A bunch of intrepid and reckless individuals, characterised only by the initials M.B.A enter into the deadly financial jungle looking for the extinct beast they once knew as the 'i-Bank'. This once powerful being is now nowhere to be found, but the remnants of its existence still remain in the form of a swamp of written of loans, and the deadly 'bad debts'. So the question remains will the men find this beast, will they be able to control it, or will it devour them also."

My Top 5 - I

This idea is inspired by the tradition of having Top 5's during birthdays here in the SPJIMR Boys Hostel, the subject matter however is something different.

I have basically decided that from time to time I am going to put up lists of my own, giving my top 5 on anything that catches my fancy. So here goes..the first Top 5

My TOP 5 - Songs to Get Away from it All

Sometimes when life becomes really hectic and chaotic (refer last post), I find my solace in music, and sometimes you have these songs which you just close your eyes and listen and forget about everything else in the world. These songs somehow just take me to place where I am alone with only the thoughts in my head. And boy do I need them nowadays.
So in no particular order:

1. Tuesday's Gone - Lynrd Skynrd
A really melancholy song, with beautiful instrumentals and those awesome country vocals.

2. Mr.Tambourine Man - Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan's awesome lyrics, it feels like poetry flowing through your brains when I listen to this song.

3. Wrote a Song for Everyone - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Not a very famous song, but just couldn't get it out of my head when I heard it the first time. Thank you Winamp Shuffle!!

4. Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton
My favorite romantic song of all time. Clapton's guitars and that slow waltzy beat just make this an awesome getaway song.

5. Comfortably Numb- Pink Floyd
This list wouldn't be complete without a Floyd number. My getaway play list probably has more Floyd songs than any other band's.

Honourable Mentions:
Orion - the Acoustic Version by Rodrigo y Gabriela
Soldier of Fortune - Deep Purple
Wish you were Here - Pink Floyd

Random Words for the day :
"I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it." - Mr Tambourine Man - Bob Dylan

One More Thursday, One More Week....

As one more Thursday disappears into the horizon, its time to reflect on what has been a truly tumultuous week, not just for guys at SP, but across the world.

Where do I start, for one it was possibly one of my most stressful weeks at SPJIMR till date, with 9 hr classes almost every day, tons of assignment, falling like bricks, and a few quizzes to to add to the chaos. All of which was accentuated by the return of the rains. And this just a prelude to the real hell awaiting us in the final week of our trimester - 3 Term Project submissions, 3 quizzes, 6 End term exams and probably more rains. I guess from now on we call this business as usual. And somehow my life seems so chaotic nowadays, so much work to do, that I don't even remember all of it, no clue where to start, and in generally I am so confused.

And the funny thing, is that somehow the entire world around me is mirroring this chaos and desperation( or maybe it's the other way round). First we had the bomb blasts in Delhi, and the frantic manhunt following it. Not mention the fear which has enveloped the nation. And then almost immediately came the news which spent the world's economy on a downward spiral. The collapse of Lehman Brothers and sale of Merill Lynch in the same day. Then AIG's last gasp rescue just the day after. And news coming in that even players like Goldman Sachs are looking for salvation. I have never seen a bleaker economic outlook in my life, and its down to a stage where all the finance graduates are virtually shitting in their pants worried about there future.

Even the Red and White couldn't cheer me up, Arsenal got only a draw at crummy Dynamo Kiev, and the only good thing about the match was that I couldn't watch it. And it turns out that the career of a player I really like, Tomas Rosicky, is in serious danger due to a debilitating injury. It just kept getting worse.

I made plans to watch Wall-E thrice and had to cancel them all the times. I saw Rock On, liked the move, but for some reason just couldn't enjoy it. And as if to top it of the book which I got as a part of my college book club this week was - "Death of a Salesman". Ironic isn't it?

I guess for some reason I saw everything through a black shade. Maybe it was just one of those weeks!!

And finally, possibly the most depressing thing I read all week, is the one which cheered me ; the inflation in Zimbabwe hit 11.2 million percent this week (the highest in the history of history) and well It got me thinking, atleast I am not stuck in god forsaken Zimbabwe.

Schadenfreude` Anyone?

An Innovative Business Model for Helping the Society

One of the first things you learn in a B-School, is that for any business to succeed is the need for a good business model. The same I believe can be applied to social service. The problem with most social service initiatives in the country today, is that they don't consider the basic understandings of the people working for them. Also most of them struggle to become self sustainable and are overly reliant on the altruistic spirit of human beings. Which is my most of them get underway but fail to take off and don't make a significant impact.

Recently however I had the opportunity to listen to a very impressive presentation by a group, which I really believe have an idea that will work. The organisation was called Teach For India and they proposed an idea which can go a long way in eradicating educational deficiencies of the impoverished section of the country. The basic idea was this : the organisation planned to go around the country to the finest educational institutions and aim to recruit the best students from these universities, through quite a rigorous selection process I might add, and then train them to teach in a government school in a poor section of the country for 2 years. Now after this is where the real innovation comes in. After the 2 years of teaching experience the participants in the program are free to stay or leave to return to their careers and ambitions. And in order to facilitate that the group plan to (and have already started) to establish ties with corporates and educational institutions, to allow people to take up deferred job placements and the educational institutions provide preferential treatment to people who have undergone this program. This program which has already been tried in the USA included institutions such as Harvard and organisations such as Goldman Sachs.

Now here is why this plan can work:

- The people who sign up for this program are amongst the most intelligent and well educated, which increases it's chances of success.

- They have something tangible to gain out of this. A great experience which will add on to your resume`. A better chance to get into a good college (SPJIMR has already signed up for this program with Teach for India, and several other prestigious institutions might do so).

- For graduates with time on their side, many of whom often spend few years unnecessarily in meaningless jobs only to go on and do an MBA, this is a great chance to do something worthwhile and also to improve their chance for success.

- Most importantly, the organisation is self sustaining in the long run.

I wanted to share this idea with you because I believe it's a model for not only improving education but also for all other forms of social service in the country. Basically what we need more than just a spirit it needs to be modeled properly, we need to provide sufficient value to the people who are a part of it. The problem with our country is that we jump into action without enough thought and planning. Whether it be improving education or flood relief, we are far more comfortable throwing money and charity than trying to finding a viable solution.

I truly hope that the 'Teach for India' innovation succeeds, at least it will act as a fine model for others.

The Gun(ner)s were Blazing...But unfortunately,so were the bombs...

Well, another saturday goes by, where the rest of the world enjoys a nice weekend while the future leaders of the country at SPJIMR slog their asses away. We had yet another gruelling mid-term today, DMS. And although my performance wasn't particularly heartening, I will say one thing, God bless the man who invented relative grading (you are not screwed, If everyone else is also screwed). And btw, if you seem to discover a pattern amongst my posts, wherein almost every post has some quiz or mid-term mentioned in it, it's because of 2 reasons mainly : 1) There are just so many of them!!! As one of my friends puts it, when we first came here our reactions to quizzes was - WHAT!!!, and now it is - So what!.

2) With so many quizzes around it's probably, there is no time for anything else here, its the most worthwhile bloggable thing that happens around here.

It was a mixed day really, after the dampner of the DMS mid term, my favorite team in the world, brought a smile back to my face, as the The Gunners demolished Blackburn Rovers with a 4-0 scoreline and a 5-star performance. And it seems Adebayor finally put his shooting boots back on,as he got a hattrick. And if anyone wonders why this team is so special, Arsenal finished the game, with a team on the pitch whose average age of the outfield players was around 23. And the entire team probably costs less than one whiny cry baby Dimitar Berbatov, whose presence could not prevent Manchester United from losing to a Liverpool team without their 2 best players. I do remember somebody saying Man Utd sucks without Ronaldo, oh wait a second, that was me. 

Earlier this week I posted about the futility of rankings, particularly for educational institutions. A couple of my friends told me that I was wrong, and not that I am trying to justify my position, but take a look at this, a ranking for B-Schools, by one of the most popular networks in the country:

http://campusfever.com/blog/forms/zee-bschool-survey

Please do pay attention to the positioning of IIPM in the rankings. And every B-School student or aspirant knows where IIPM stands. And its not just this one fact, look at the various sub-categories given in the rankings. With any amount of decent research and information gathering it is extremely easy to see what a piece of crap these rankings really are. I am not even going to get into the details. But just one glimpse, MDI, Gurgaon, arguably one of the best in the country when it comes to infrastructure is ranked as low as 13th.

The day however ended on a sour note, with the bombings at Delhi. Its really sad to see these kind of incidences occuring so frequently now. And I don't what to jump on the 'attack the government' bandwagon, but really isn't there anything we can do about these things. The cloud of fear is slowly creeping over this nation, and it has almost reached a stage where all the citizens of the major cities are living in a constant state of fear. In fact I remember about a couple of months ago, when the blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad took place, a week after that I had to travel to Marine drive by train for a class assignment, I had to think twice before travelling and almost postponed the trip, because of the threat of an attack. It has almost become a perennial Sword of Damocles, hanging over our heads. And I know we have almost made a catchphrase out of the whole India bounces back again and again thing, but there has to be a limit. We shouldn't have to bounce back so often. Someday we might just stay down. And this attack comes on the eve of one of the biggest celebrations in Mumbai, the Ganesh visarjan and I do believe the mood for the festivities will be dampened by today's events and the extreme security bound to present tomorrow.

May peace be with the families of those affected by this act.

Random Quotes for the Day: "Terrorism is contempt for human dignity"

Random Thoughts

Its been a lazy thursday. And after another hellacious week at SPJIMR, it was nice to be able to relax a bit, sleep late and generally not do anything for a change.
Of course as I am writing this I realize that I have a DMS (Decision Making Science) mid-term coming up in couple of days, which basically means that the my R&R ends the moment this post is done.
Still it's been a good SP weekend (Wednesday night and Thursday).

For one I went out for Italian food last night, and after eating the crap the mess people have thrown at me in for another week, it was like walking into an alternate universe. Of course that makes it just as hard to step back into reality again.

Also one of my favorite footballers, Theo Walcott (yes, he plays for Arsenal) had an awesome game yesterday night for England, scoring a hattrick against Croatia. And as much as I hate seeing England win, it was great that Theo won the game for them. And interesting Arsenal turncoat David Bently who had said that Theo should leave Arsenal, saw this magnificent display from the stands (he was'nt even in the squad for England). And to top it all Theo was playing in the position that Bently hoped to make his own after Beckham's departure from the team.

Oh and I will be making my 3rd appearance on TV on a channel called UTVi, in a program called Cracking Careers, for a 30 second sound byte. My previous 2 appearances included a show which was done by UTVi again on Independence day at the SPJIMR campus and a small segment on CNBC a couple of days ago when they spoke to B-School students about the Nuke deal. I know it's not much, but hey not many people can claim they have been on television thrice in the space of 2 months. :)

And finally on a slightly sour note, I read in TOI today that some girl committed suicide after reading the numerous reports on newspaper and the Web, that the world was going to come to and end because of the LHC experiment (see my previous post). Supposedly she couldn't handle the suspense and popped some pills. Now although this is a an extreme case (and sounds kind of fishy to me), it neverthless shows the irresponsible reporting that has been associated with the LHC experiment. For instance Rediff.com's headline was "A Wednesday! Will the world survive it?", this either shows either a gross lack of knowledge or a pure disregard for facts. In fact just to clarify the LHC experiment has just begun and it might take a while to genereate any results (meaningful or otherwise) let alone cause world destruction. And despite repeated assurances from scientists that the whole black hole fears were unjustified and a statistical improbability, a certain section of the media has just ignored them. And while I have absolute respect for most of media in general, some of them can be just pure as****es.
And just to clarify my last post, I dont believe that the world will come to an end and that we should'nt be thinking of the netherworld just yet. It was just an interesting thought.
And for anyone who might still be waiting for doomsday, read this nice piece for clarification:
http://news.economist.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/eBbUo0YNyd60Mo0FGgy0E5

Random Quote for the Day: "Europe's Large Hadron Collider just fired up. It's a $10 billion particle accelerator designed to probe the mysteries of the universe. I think it is worth the money if we can find just one unicorn. But I would also settle for an elf, or free will, or Jimmy Hoffa's body. I'm just saying I'm not fussy when it comes to discovering stuff." - Scott Adams

Science meets Science Fiction : The Moment of Truth?

September 10th could be the biggest day in the history of mankind. It could be the day some of the most intriguing questions of life get answered. It could be the day we find out the true nature of the universe. If some others are to be believed it is the the day the entire world could come to an end. It could of course also end up being just another depressing, quiz filled rainy day in SPJIMR, Mumbai, as far as I am concerned.

But being the eternal optimist that I am, I do believe that September 10th will be something special, because on this day the Large hadron collider, the largest particle accelerator ever built (by CERN) is going to go operational.

For the uninitiated who don't know what the LHC is and what it is capable of, it is the similar to the device mentioned in Dan Brown's(remember him) 'Angels and Demons' which produces the dark matter. And for further info read this:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/god-particle/achenbach-text
Just quoting from the above article:

"Starting sometime in the coming months, two beams of particles will race in opposite directions around the tunnel, which forms an underground ring 17 miles in circumference. The particles will be guided by more than a thousand cylindrical, supercooled magnets, linked like sausages. At four locations the beams will converge, sending the particles crashing into each other at nearly the speed of light. If all goes right, matter will be transformed by the violent collisions into wads of energy, which will in turn condense back into various intriguing types of particles, some of them never seen before. That's the essence of experimental particle physics: You smash stuff together and see what other stuff comes out."

So what so special about this particular smashing exercise? Well the stuff they expect to come out might tell us some very interesting things, answers to questions you have never thought of asking. For instance ever wonder, if matter is made of atoms which in turn are made of protons, electrons and neutrons, then what are the protons made of (everything has to be made of something right) ? Fundamentally it could give us what comprises the mass of the universe.

Now if all that was nice and pleasant, the real question is what else will happen? And if some doomsday mongers are to be believed then this experiment will result in giant black holes and wormholes which will cause the world to disappear into itself. And although the ideas seems ridiculous to most individuals, it has actually caused legal issues for CERN, producing lawsuits preventing the machine from starting up.

Personally I am not a physics enthusiast, but I did try to read up about the whole black hole concerns on wiki and well couldn't make head or tail of it. But then it got me thinking if the world were to dissolve in a black hole, how would it happen. I mean think about it, how will you kick the bucket, if you do actually kick the bucket in this scenario. Or will I exist in some other parallel universe. Or will I just stop existing. I mean I can imagine just sitting in class breaking my head on Working Capital management one second and then the next second I stop existing !!! Would I even know that my time on this planet is up? Correction would I know that the whole planet's time is up? And what about all the stuff that we have learnt about, souls, aatma, parmatama, salvation etc etc..I mean are you eligible for entry into heaven if you don't actually die. Or will you soul be wandering around the universe aimlessly? And what about God? Imagine that God could be just sitting around his office happily going about His job of monitoring humanity and all of a sudden he realises that humanity has disappeared and He's lost his job?


And wait a minute..what if this is my last blog post ever. Should I be wasting it talking about particle accelerators, black holes, souls and divine unemployment. So ask yourself, if you could write one single post on one topic only, what would be your last post on this planet? Your parting message to humanity.

Would you try and wax philosophy? Would you attend to unfinished business like vent your anger on someone, or tell a girl you have a crush on that you like her? Or would you just say a nice goodbye to all your loved ones? And how would all of this affect your life if you ended up posting a doomsday message and the world in fact did not end on the next day.

And the most important in this series of questions - would you give a rat's ass if the world actually came to an end at an arbit point of time tomorrow? Knowing that you are not going to leave behind any loved ones, or that all your dreams and hopes are going to vanish along with you. And that you wont be leaving behind any unfinished business, cause the business itself no longer exists.
Finally...How can anyone have feeling about an event that you can never foresee coming and after it has occurred you no longer exist.Would the event make a difference in your life, in the way that you think, in any decision that you make?
Think about it......

As for me I honestly don't know.

But all I will say is one thing, if the world has to come to an end tomorrow, all I would ask is that it happens before my IT in Business quiz.

As for last words (if the world were to collapse on itself), I will go with Karl Marx on this one -"Last words are for those who haven't said enough in a lifetime".

Ciao.

Dont Panic!!!!!

The Futility of Rankings

We as a race are generally obsessed with lists and orders (I am sure all of you remember the Mercedes advertisement) and even more obsessed with comparisons. The fact is proven by the no. of blogs and sites on the net devoted entirely to lists and the fact that we come out with rankings for everything and anything under the sun, whether it be colleges, movies, travel destinations, in fact I think you will find that if you can name an object, someone somewhere has been kind enough (or jobless enough) to come up with a ranking system for it. Now, if you ask me rankings are, for a lack of more articulate terminology, a load of crap. And possibly the most futile activity on this planet (well okay maybe sessions of the Indian parliament are a little more futile).


Now for a little background on why I have decided to spend my precious time on talking about a futile activity. About a couple of months ago my alma mater Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) was ranked no. 10 in India by India Today. This caused one hyper active dude from IIIT- Hyderabad to rant and rave about what a crap hole VIT is and how the world should be engulfed in a giant ball of flame just because somehow VIT was ranked better than IIIT-H (maybe he didnt say those exact words, but I can paraphrase right). Now my 1st reaction was, dude get a life and secondly why do you care so much. And then I realised that he cares because unfortunately the rest of our ranking obsessed nation does. And I realised this when all my friends were somehow aghast by Mr.IIIT's rant and responded in kind. And then when a short while back Outlook came up with it's ranking (VIT placed 5th in list of Private colleges) a friend of mine, Baldy (check out the YDNTN's various blog) did a brilliant comparison between IIIT-H and VIT (my quant prof would have been proud of u Baldy) to basically try and refute the IIITian. And you understand where these guys are comin from, because they feel that the reputation of our Alma mater is at stake. However observe carefully the method of rankings and think aout it and you realise how deeply flawed the whole system is. For instance the entire ranking system is a cyclic process, consider a college ranked no.1 in the country, it attracts the best students, students who add to its intellectual capital (one of the categories commonly used for ranking colleges ). Which means that the college ranked higher will always have a higher quality intake and a college with higher quality intake will have a higher rank. The same goes for placements as well, college with higher ranks have better placements leading to stronger alumni which means better placements which means a better rank. Same goes even in the business world, a brand ranked as the most powerful in the world will obviously increase its brand power and the ranking will only make it more secure. Simply put rankings beget better rankings and once the cycle is formed it's almost impossible to break. And the best example would be the college rankings in India, anyone want to bet against the IIT's and IIM's being atop rankings 20 years from now, I wouldn't. And another thing about rankings is that its all about perception, what appears better is ranked better and so natural progression leads people to think that its better. And I have no better example than the 2 colleges I belong to, VIT and SP Jain. SP, I think is amongst the best B-Schools in the country, I didnt think so before coming here but now I do, I dont think they should be in the so called second rung below the IIM's, in fact I dont think the IIM's are a rung above,because the way we do things here is so different from the IIM's that there is no comparison between them. And I think this holds true for all good colleges, because the best do things differently and it is not possible to compare them. And then there is VIT a place which has supposedly broken into the top rankings, why because they have great buildings, a great infrastructure and above all else excellent PR. But I for one honestly believe that a good college should be much more (sorry to Baldy and the guys, I know you wont agree with me). And ultimately a ranking system is just that a slap in the face of originality and a an advocate of conformism, because it force us to align with a percieved view of what is good and what is not.



And whats really messed up about this whole system is that the ranking clouds judgement often preventing us from looking into the truth. I was just reading yesterday that Jet Airways is India's most powerful brand, one of only 2 brands to have gotten a AA+ rating from the Economic Times brand finance study. Now here are a few points to note about Jet Airways:

1) Known for its lack of punctuality. (Ask any frequent flier)

2) Not great in service either.

3) Its one of the only companies in the stock market, which neither appreciates in value and neither do they give dividend to shareholders.

And they are India's most powerful brand.

Quite how and why that happened I dont know. And once again you only look at the reverance people attach to colleges in India, again i have to give the example of IIT's and IIM's (this is not an anti IIT/IIM piece) where people aim for a specific college without even being concerned about the actual kind of education that they really want. The no. of people who have buried their creativity, desire and dreams all to study in the best college in the country is endless. Rankings began as a system to help people without access to information. Today they have began an endless nuisance which is often biased and does nothing but confound our brain. And they are now completely redundant given that most information we need to make an individual assesment is readily available anyway. Unfortunately we being the practitioners of herd mentality would rather follow the crowd rather than trust our own judgement and research.



Finally I'll close this post by quoting TV Journalist Bill Maher, who said "Saying that Iam no.1...in the world is like saying that my wife is the best wife in the whole world. Which is so idiotic, because all that matters is that my wife should be the best for me" . Couldn't have described it better, myself. So next time you want to make a decision look for the facts and do your own research.