Bombay limping back

Bombay literally became an island ,over the last few days ,thanks to the record breaking rains. Staying in campus shields you from the life outside , we had no clue about the loss of lives and property outside.No power supply , mobile networks were down and ,of course, our lifeline - internet was down till today morning .

Bombay ,meanwhile, is getting back to normalcy;the spirit of 'mumbaikars' is what makes bombay special , you have to be here to believe it ,elsewhere there is talk of replacing bombay as the fin capital of india after the recent rains and the infra issues , i feel no other city can probably replace bombay as the financial capital of india ,it's not the infrastructure , it's the people stupid!

Rediscovering Badminton

...The last time i played badminton was during my engineering days ,esp the first two years,now,this was atleast 6 years back ,later on i moved on to other games - squash and tennis primarily. But looks like good old days of baddie are back , thanks to the andheri sports complex just a few paces away from our college.

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...I felt it was a great destresser , after days of chasing grades (of course , the bloody chase has just started). One tiring game of badminton was sheer magic.That one hour, i could forget everything else, and the best part(try this) ,imagine your opponent is one of your hated subjects personified and try smash after smash (pick such players of course) ! It feels good :)

...

Looks like am gonna stick to badminton for the next 2 years ,atleast as often as possible. The complex has squash and tennis as well,and college gives full reimbursement, but then am yet to find good partners. Baddie for now , to rescue.

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Try it,friends , who needs yoga !

My Computer savviness ( whats yours ! )

Computer Illiterate 0 - 14
Tech Support Nightmare 15 - 24
Computer User Wannabe 25 - 39
Computer Geek Wannabe 40 - 59
Low-Rank Computer Geek 60 - 69
Mid-Rank Computer Geek 70 - 79
Computer High-Geek 80 - 89
??? 90 - 94
??? 95 - 100

Assessment and Development of Managerial Aptitude and Potential (ADMAP !!!)

Over the years, people have come to realise that there is little correlation between academic performance during the MBA education and success in the corporate world as a ‘practicing’ manager - fewer MBAs reach the CEO level! There is a real concern about management education and the need to focus on the ‘practice’ of management and not just ‘business’.Most managers, spend a great deal of their time in dealing with people, getting things done, making intuitive decisions and working with heterogeneous teams…..tasks that have little to do with knowledge of management at an intellectual level !

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Nobody trains you to be manager,to me it's like learning swimming,all the theory can prepare you to certain extent ,beyond that you have to take the plunge,make mistakes ,take your chances,calculated risks and eventually learn to swim.

..

"At SPJIMR, ADMAP or 'Assessment and Development of Managerial Aptitude and Potential ' is one fantastic non class room learning initiative created for the exact reason.ADMAP was conceived as one such initiative, 12 years ago.It is our Dean, Dr. Shrikant’s brain child, born out of a conviction that ‘practice’ of management must be the focus of management education and that it can be acquired in a non class room ‘laboratory’ setting by practice, coupled with reflection and integration, and then more practice by way of application. This is a radical departure from ‘teaching’ to self-managed ‘learning’: from teacher centric to participant centric approach; and from class room to ‘non class room learning’.

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Some 17-ADMAP Committees comprising various functional units of the Institute wherein the participants perform tasks specific to that committee and learn administration and team skills. Each committee has a Faculty­ in‑charge who facilitates identification of the ‘vision’ and goals for the committee; and guides participants throughout the program. "

I found my treasure even before the hunt began ...

Group Dynamics workshop is the name given to the annual 4 day outdoor event for first years at SP ,usually at lonavala ,a hill station near mumbai.

Day 1 / icebreaker day : By the time we reached our lodge it was late in the afternoon.We kicked off the icebreaker in th evening. Icebreaker was nothing but coming up with three small sized groups initially and then a larger group of size 9 ,where each one shared info about their life so far : fancies,whims,hobbies .....

Day 2 Trek + Treasure hunt: The trek to duke's nose was interesting , not too tough ,but then it was my first monsoon trek,so as you can imagine we were all wet, wet and wet by the time we were done with the trek!!

Treasure hunt was fun and engages your attention,but the setting was lovely,green fields,hills in the background,slight drizzle , a small hamlet in the background,well ... , i found my treasure even before the hunt began ...

Day 3: Assault , quite a misleading name , no assault rifles included ,just a few group games ,physical,strategical,tactical stuff ...

Day 4: Last day was for shopping ,which means buying truck loads of the famous 'chikki' and 'fudge'.One thing you can't miss in lonavala is the number of people surviving on the two food stuff ,all the prime locations in the bazaar were for the chikki and fudge shops.

I was wondering, the lonavala chikki story does make an interesting case study , intangibles,premium pricing and all the little i know about micro-economics.

am back

am back in bombay after the lonavala trip,
but my blog can wait
as varma's "sarkar" can't
got to run for the movie

Results don't matter

....Good morning ! , we are all set to go on a 4 day trip to lonavala,personally i'd love to go back to bed ,but the coordinator is prowling in the wing like a predator making sure no one goes back to sleep,no wonder his nick name is ' the leopard'.

..... Atleast we are done with our exams and presentation for communications to finish off foundation to give us decent 14 hours of sleeptime all yesterday evening. In the true spirit of gita results don't matter atleast for the next four days as we head towards lonavala for a 4 day grp session (includes trekking ,games etc ) . My canon's out of hibernation finally.Let's see if can get a few decent pics.But am curious and a bit worried about the monsoon trek at lonavala.

Trim-1 kicks off after the trip.Diwali vacation is after trim-1.Whoever said ,'when you have long term goals you are not frustrated by short term failures',was spot on ,my long term goal is the october (my longest vision for now ) vacation and Trim-1 hiccups don't matter.

Hyderabad : India gets 1st semiconductor fabrication unit

Finally ,India's first semiconductor unit is set to come up near my hometown ,hyderabad.Lots of indians ,especially from the IT sector,have been waiting for this news for a long long time.Every discussion on India's role in world IT eventually ends with the discussion about lack of hardware units in India and need for India to focus on hardware along with software.The fab unit could be the trigger ,esp considering that fab units require some decent level of infrastucture,something India was not known for.

The news:

"India gets 1st semiconductor fabrication unitThe Asian Age India Our Correspondent
Hyderabad: India's first semiconductor fabrication unit, estimated to cost $600 million, expects to finalise its financial and technology partner in the next 60 days, P. June Min, a South Korean, who is the principal promoter of the project, said on Sunday.

Speaking to reporters at the ground-breaking ceremony for the fabrication unit, which is to be set up by Nano-Tech Silicon India, Mr Min said the technology partner would be investing up to 20 per cent in NTSI's equity. Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy unveiled the foundation stone for the project, which is to be built in Shamshabad, a suburb of Hyderabad, which is also the site for the new international airport. Asked whether International Business Machines Corp. would be the technology partner, he said that "there is now a 50 per cent chance of that."

Dr Min said a leading bank in India had agreed to syndicate a $290 million debt financing for the project. While he did not dislcose the name of the bank, Dr Min had told this newspaper on January 7 that the State Bank of India had evinced interest in financing the debt portion.According to an NTSI press release, the equity component, of between $64 million-$72 million, and the debt portion of $116 million-$130 million, and a $150 million construction fund are expected to be tied up in the next two months.

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At least one school didn't give a shit who his daddy was....

Got this interesting piece on Bush George from someone :

"Considering that he went to Yale and HBS, it says something about what a fine institution UTexas at Austin is as it rejected George. At least one school didn't give a shit who his daddy was.... "

How to kill a tiger

We had this interesting discussion ,in our economics session, on the ASIAN currency crisis , while we were discussing currency/money market as the 'perfect market' and how most countries followed the US model of "perfect market" in money market and "imperfect market" for products. And ,of course, george soros,mahatir and their roles were discussed.

Here's an interesting news item on the asian crisis , the opening act of the drama that we all know as "asian currency crisis"

How to kill a tiger