blog@Yantrajaal

Subhrendu Mukerjee "Never Born, Never Died. Stopped by the World between 1927 and 1992" The dark fortnight before Durga Puja, ending on the new moon of Mahalaya is when people in India formally remember their ancestors and acknowledge their presence with offerings of food, water and black sesame seeds ("teel"). From now till the day of Mahalaya, we are expected to perform the tarpan ritual every morning. In this digital age, I thought of creating this simple scrolling mechanism that will spell out what I would be saying in memory of my ancestors. ভরদ্বাজ গোত্রস্য পিতা শ্রীশুভ্রেন্দু দেবশর্মা ত্রিপ্যতামেতত সতিলোদকং তস্মৈ স্বধা। ভরদ্বাজ গোত্রস্য পিতা শ্রীশুভ্রেন্দু দেবশর্মা ত্রিপ্যতামেতত সতিলোদকং তস্মৈ স্বধা। ভরদ্বাজ গোত্রস্য পিতা শ্রীশুভ্রেন্দু দেবশর্মা ত্রিপ্যতামেতত সতিলোদকং তস্মৈ স্বধা। ................................................... ভরদ্বাজ গোত্রস্য পিতামহ শ্রী প্রভাতনাথ দেবশর্মা ত্রিপ্যতামেতত সতিলোদকং তস্মৈ স্বধা। ভরদ্বাজ গোত্রস্য পি...

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An excellent evening of folk music.

The B-School business is in a bit of a crisis ! Globally, MBA applications are falling [ WSJ ] and in India many B-Schools, especially those run by slightly shady operators, are shutting down [ ToI ]. An obvious reason for this state of affairs is that, at least in India, the AICTE has created an environment where only shady people with little interest in education but with bags of money are allowed to build and operate B-Schools. Given the current state of political leadership in the country it is futile to expect any kind of policy support and so it is up to the B-School community to figure a way out of this rut. Should we revamp the curriculum ? To make it more relevant ? Datar in Rethinking the MBA   has identified that MBA programs should focus on leadership skills, creative and critical thinking. In an earlier post I have explored the possibility of replacing the functional approach in the MBA program [ Marketing / Finance / Operations / HR ] with a more ho...

Goa. Sep 7 - 8 2012

"No army can stop an idea whose time has come." This quotation from Victor Hugo  has often been used in defence of many new but unpopular ideas and I will invoke it here to justify the usage of distance learning techniques, particularly in business schools that lead up to an MBA degree. Image "borrowed" from http://smude.edu.in/blog/tags/distance-education Whether we like it or not, many global trends are first set in the United States and then the rest of the world joins in and distance learning is one of them. Respected and well known schools like Stanford, Harvard and others are offering a large number of undergraduate and postgraduate programs that are based on a calibrated mixture of on-line and on-campus pedagogy. Despite criticisms of being less effective than face-to-face teaching, distance learning is here to stay and grow because of compelling economic reasons -- many students are simply not able to pay the kind of fees that big US schools charge...