Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Strike: loss is in the air

Air India strike shows a highly unprofessional attitude

A beautiful nation is not a gift; it is a result of good vision, continuous effort, strong political will and many more. But beyond this, perhaps small but more important factors are good governance, efficient bureaucracy and less corruption. Many of these are the factors which made Singapore, a tiny island nation an Asian country to qualify as the 'First world nation'. On my recent visit to Singapore (as a part of the IIPM GOTA programme), while in a conversation with a taxi driver, I came to know about Singapore efficient and corruption free culture. He told me numerous incidents where one was not allowed to contest election since he had committed a crime, perhaps a decade before.

But the worse was yet to come. On May 26, 2010, we (I along with 17 of my students) were running exhaustively at the airport after knowing that Air India employees are on a strike.There was news that the strike was pre-decided, if that is so, then Air India should not have issued tickets for those particular days and even if they have issued the tickets, the management should have some efficient mechanism to ensure that passengers would have alternative flights to reach respective destinations without hassle and harassment on time. Well, no such arrangement was on place. In fact, there was hardly any Air India employee to provide any kind of information and guide hundreds of clueless passengers at the airport. And more interestingly, this one or two days strike also gave another reason to show why the government undertaking entity is struggling to make profit. Each passengers paid to Air India about Rs.20,000, on an average for their journey. And Air India spent approximately Rs.81050 (about Rs.24,150 on accommodation and food, Rs.6900 on transport and about Rs.50,000 for alternative flights via Bangkok) on each of these passenger — who were in a few hundreds in number. Meanwhile, the Aviation ministry releases press brief that it’s not going to interfere over the issue, it will back the management’s decision completely. What was even more interesting was that our stay at Bangkok airport, for over six hours, never made us realise that we are in the same nation which is being torn apart through riots since years. The arrangement and flight procedures inside the airport was perfectly in place and it was made sure that the internal disturbance don't harm the business of airlines.

In a casual conversation I asked a receptionist of Hotel Mandarin Oriental Singapore, where we were staying as we were waiting for an alternative flight arrangement, that can employees of Asia’s one of the most successful airlines, Singapore Airlines, go on strike on similar context? He confidently said no though it doesn’t mean that their demands can’t be heard and met by respective authorities. Strike is illegal while employees have all the rights to raise their demands.

It’s high time for us to wake up, at least, for the sake of the nation. This small incident exemplifies the uncivilised manner we deal with issues. There is no logical reason harassing hundreds of commuters who have nothing to do with the strike's agendas (whether they are selfish or greedy in nature). Similarly, there is no point that Aviation Ministry should be so careless on such issues especially when no airlines, even public run airlines are making big money.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009


An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, June 17, 2010

A different act

No one can match Salman Khan when it comes to attitude and the right one at that. Salman was to be interviewed recently for an award function, which was completely scripted. The organisers were putting up an act where Salman was to be questioned on Katrina Kaif upon which he was to get offended and walk away. This was to be used by them as a part of television promotions. But Salman didn’t want to stoop to this level for publicity and refused to abide by the script. For Salman, not every publicity is good publicity!

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009


An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Legacy on its last leg?

Will the Shehnai have to reconcile to the fact that there may not be another Bharat Ratna Ustad Bismillah Khan? The son who was his successor is dead; the others are struggling, and there’s little other than memorial concerts to keep the tradition going. Puja Awasthi reminisces of the time when there was hope…

Ustad Nayyar Hussain Khan “Bismillah” passed away following respiratory problems at a Varanasi hospital on December 17, 2009. To me, he had begun to fade away in July of that year itself, when, as I got up to leave that baithak plastered with photographs and awards (including the Bharat Ratna) of his father the late Bismillah Khan, he thrust a couple of brochures (titled Music Represents Soul) and visiting cards in my hand and said, “Kaam dilwao. Koi bhi kaam chalega. Shaadi aur party mein bhi bajayenge.” (Get me work. Any work will do. I will play at weddings and parties.) I did not fail to notice that the Ustad’s name was bolder than Nayyar’s on the card. And that here was a man aged 70, the second son of a legend who had put a simple wind instrument to his lips and coaxed such sweetness from it that it ceased to remain an accompaniment to flashier ones, begging for work. The Ustad would neither have understood nor approved.

But when like Nayyar Khan, you live with four brothers, one sister and 30 children and grandchildren, in a lane that’s named after your father in a narrow, white house with 10 rooms, you have responsibilities you cannot shrug. And Nayyar Khan, being the successor to his father had to bear them all.

Such is Varanasi’s association with the Ustad that when he had passed away in August 2006, there were many who lamented “Bharat Ratna chala gaya” (The Bharat Ratna has gone). To his own family it was as though life had been sucked out of all those who had been left behind.

“My Abba had a generous heart but a sharp tongue. Nobody who came to our home would leave without a meal. After a concert, the cooks would work overtime to cater to those who came to congratulate him. Some had even named our home Bismillah hotel. But after him, the staunchest of his well-wishers have disappeared. There is just the occasional phone call. Yes, there are problems,” Nayyar had said going on to detail how he even had to haggle about the number of musicians he could take in his group for a performance. No one would of course have dared to make such talk to the Ustad. Yet, Nayyar was looking forward to a tour of the USA this year. “Before every performance, I tell the audience that they should listen to me as Ustad Bismillah Khan’s son, not as the Ustad himself and grant me some grace,” he had said.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009


An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

IN THE COLONEL’S DEN

A change in counter-insurgency tactics has helped Pakistan smoke out Taliban from FATA, but the real challenge will be to consolidate the gains.

Imageries are beautiful. But they tend to stick. Time flies by, but the imageries remain ensconced in the human mind. They start affecting judgement. Imageries are dangerous. Much of what we visualise about the Tribal Areas in Pakistan comes from the imageries drawn by Rudyard Kipling and Orientalists like Robert Wilkinson-Latham. Their writings on these areas are vivid and enriching. But there is a problem there. These writings are a century old and the Tribal Areas have moved ahead. We and our imageries are yet to.

So as our Mil MI 17 hovered above Bajaur agency of Federally Administered Tribal Areas, popularly called FATA, we were in for a shock. The area is not a “muddy mountainous hamlet of aboriginal tribes” as some western analysts would have us believe. With metalled roads, stone-brick houses and schools, the place can give an average village from the Bimaru states in India a run for its money. In fact, the entire brouhaha over it being inaccessible is just that: brouhaha. So what is it that has fed the insurgency? Of course, the terrain. Modern insurgencies have been terrain-based. Here and everywhere.

So, first the geography. Nestled at 2800 feet above sea level, Bajaur is one of seven—and the northernmost—agencies of FATA. Spread over 1290 sq km, the agency has more than a fair share of rugged frontier hills. While it shares its east, south and north boundaries with other agencies, on its west is the unruly and ungoverned Afghan province of Kunar. A perfect stage for insurgency. At least that is what Colonel Muhammad Nauman Saeed thinks.

In the traditional attire of Bajaur Scouts—the paramilitary that he spearheaded in the battle against Taliban—Colonel Nauman Saeed looks every bit the no-nonsense man that he is. For him, the battle has been up close and personal. In fact too close. On September 9 last year, when the convoy of Major General Tariq Khan—who was also serving as Inspector General of Frontier Corps—was ambushed near Nissarabad, Colonel Nauman himself mounted a tank and led a Quick Response Force to extricate the crew. His tank received multiple hits by RPG-7s, but the Colonel stopped only after Khan was extricated. He makes it a point to lead all the operations himself. The confidence shows when he talks.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009


An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

Monday, June 07, 2010

Time to move on...

Bollywood’s dusky girl, Lara Dutta feels that her 30s have given her “a sense of liberation” from the “angst and confusion” of the 20s. Though films like "No Entry" and "Partner" have got her noticed, her screen presence in "Blue" reminds one of her beachwear charm that earned her the highest points at the swimsuit round way back in 2000 at the Miss Universe contest. While she's tasted real success with comedy, the sexy lass seems ready for a shift and plans to move to some new genre of films other than comedy.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Friday, June 04, 2010

Holidays from Hell!

When the Alps call you not, nor the allures of the Parisian markets enchant you, but the abandoned buildings in Pripyat intrigue you and horrifying tales of heinous crimes get your pulse racing, then you are in for a vacation that could change you forever… Anu Gulmohar throws light on dark tourism.

“We have not had any tours to the eruption site at Eyjafjallajƶkull as the surrounding area has been closed. We did, however, take almost 700 persons in different tours to see the eruption in Fimmvorduhals, a few weeks before the eruption in Eyjafjallajƶkull. One tour was a coach tour that drove into a valley next to the eruption so passengers could view from a safe distance. Another tour of ours drove the passengers up to Myrdalsjokull glacier and from there they went on snowmobiles to see the eruption up close. The third one was a super jeep tour driving in as close as one km from the eruption site. Our customers were from all over the world… UK, USA, Scandinavia. Many Icelanders went there as well. To see a volcanic eruption is once in a lifetime experience for most people. You get to see the forces of nature in action which is just indescribable,” said Gudrun Thorisdottir, Sales Manager, Iceland Excursions – Gray Line Iceland (www.grayline.is). The disastrous impact of the volcano eruption – from forcing Icelanders to flee their homes at 2am to travellers stranded for days at various airports – has captured the world’s attention. In addition to voicing their outrage, the multitudes were also seen struggling to pronounce Eyjafjallajƶkull (AY-uh-fyat-luh-YOE-kuutl-uh). Iceland has been grappling with a severe financial crunch and the foreign money brought in by the tourist eruption following the eruption of the volcano gave some welcome relief to the country’s government. It also posed a challenge of handling visitors 24x7 and rescuing several of those getting too close to the zone and not taking sufficient precautions.

Cut to Gopinatham, a small village in Karnataka, which is (in)famous for being home to Veerappan, the forest brigand, responsible for the reign of terror. He murdered 184 people, smuggled sandalwood worth Rs 103 crore and poached about 200 elephants for twenty long years on 6,000 sq km of forests. While the forests have finally been freed of this bandit, his exploits still arouse much interest among the people. The government has come up with a plan to launch tours based on the life and trails of the notorious smuggler/poacher. This would include a trekking scheme called Mystery Trails, which would include legends and myths around Veerappan and re-trace his hideouts and escape routes. K Viswanatha Reddy, Tourism Director, does not take kindly to the ‘terror tourism’ tag though. “It (the tour) will definitely have universal attention though not universal appeal. It will be successful because it is in a negative note,” said Reddy. When presented with the concept of the tour, Sue St Clair, a Canadian, said, “Yes, I would be interested in undertaking such a tour.” Sue is a self-confessed dark tourist. What is a dark tourist you ask? Dark tourism is ‘the act of travel to sites associated with death, suffering and the seemingly macabre’ [Stone, P.R (2006) ‘A Dark Tourism Spectrum’, 146], for people who travel not just for the sun, sand and shopping, but for a chance to glimpse at the macabre and gulp down each and every horrifying detail. While German extermination camp at Auschwitz, Poland, is perhaps the best known site for dark tourism, Sue listed her favourite dark spots to us, “The Tower of London (grisly history), Jack The Ripper walking tours (London, England), Underground Catacombs (Paris, France), Dracula Tours in Romania, all have a very dark history, and are enjoyable.” The volcano in Iceland isn’t her idea of Ibiza though. “I would not want to be breathing in that ash nor risking being too close to it, and possibly being injured or worse. I prefer dark history,” she reiterated.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009


An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Rakesh Roshan shares stories about the father-son duo

Cinema has changed a lot from the time when you were an actor. Is there anything that you feel was better back then?

It was much better back then. Instead of improving cinema, I think, we are deteriorating. If you see the films these days, it has the same song and dance, girls dancing in bikinis, coming out of the sea, dancing in the sand, we’re just not moving forward in any way. In those days there was Bimal Roy making good films, Mehmood making good films. Then there was Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu Chatterjee, Manmohan Desai, Prakash Mehra and there are many other names. They made films which we sat and thought about. It led us to wonder how did they make such films; how did Raj Kapoor make films? But today we just don’t find any filmmaker of that caliber. There’s no one thinking out of the box. People feel that 'yeh chal raha hai to yehi do audience ko'. That’s why they are not succeeding because the audience does not want that. We actually end up underestimating the audience. After long, there was a new film and a new concept like “3 Idiots”.

Any thoughts of returning to acting?

Oh no. I’m involved in my projects now. I have bigger responsibilities on my shoulder.

Between directing and acting, what did you enjoy more?

As far as enjoyment is concerned, there’s nothing like being an actor because you go to the sets, act and you know, the preparation is up to a limit. But as a director, you have to think for 24 hours. You have to be in the sun, preparing the shot, whereas, as an actor you get the benefit of staying in the van till your shot is ready. So an actor’s life is more comfortable as compared to a director.

Anurag said that he was left to do the film on his own. Being a director yourself, were there times when you felt the need to chip in?

It’s nothing like that. I was involved with him while making the script. I was there with him at the locations and was there to fulfill his requirements. Throughout I knew what was happening. Nothing went without my notice. I gave all my experience to the film and all that he needed. He wanted a chopper; I provided that for the film for 10 days. That’s how I work. And Anurag has done a very good job with the film.

As a director, what is your idea behind making a film?

Entertainment, that’s my idea.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009


An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

House blues for CM

Chouhan upset as Cong boycotts special Assembly session

Afour-day special session of Madhya Pradesh Assembly (May 11-14) generated a heated debate in the state. The session that was held to build a political consensus on development issues actually divided political parties with the main opposition party Congress boycotting it. Besides, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) also criticised the whole procedure as wastage of time and energy.

Also, deputy Speaker Harvansh Singh of the Congress didn’t participate in the session. While the BSP legislators protested outside the House, the Congress organised a parallel session at Iqbal ground in Bhopal. Calling it unconstitutional, the Congress claimed that it will not serve the purpose of raising people-oriented issues in the House. They also staged a sit-in in the Assembly building to the chagrin of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

This was for the first time in the state’s history that the opposition boycotted the special session. The CM tried his best to convince the Congress legislators to attend the session and discuss ways to address the problems. He even wrote a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi to ask her party legislators to participate in the special session aimed at seeking suggestions on development.

But there was no positive response from the Congressmen in the state. In response the Congress sent a letter to BJP national president Nitin Gadkari. They requested him to direct his party colleagues and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to hold discussions on issues related to people rather than organising a special session of the Assembly. However, no positive steps were taken from both the sides.

They stuck to their own stand. The Congress and BSP lambasted the state government. They said that the government has lost its moral right to hold such a session at a time when six of its ministers were facing investigation from Lokayukta and Economic Offences Wing (EOW).

Besides, both the parties lashed out at the CM for the power shortage in the state. They said that the state government first needs to address the problem of malnutrition in the state as some 600,000 children have died of it. President Pratibha Patil was earlier supposed to address the special session but her visit to Bhopal was called off due to “unavoidable reasons.” However, on the final day of the session, the CM said: “After discussing the issues with all legislators we have decided to work for the development of the state. We want to achieve our goals by 2013.”

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009


An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)