City Tour Tomorrow

I’ve volunteered to take the junior batch (along with a few of my batchmates) on a city tour organised by the college. However, as usual they have gone overboard by making this “compulsory” for all the freshman (waay cooler term!). This means that we will have a fleet of 7 buses filled with IIMC junta making their way across the city.

Also the tour’s actual plan is kinda lame. It takes you to a couple of temples (Kali Mandir and Belur Math). While Belur Math is a nice place, its really really far in an area where nothing else exists, while Kali Mandir is in another nearer corner. This means that we will be spending most of our time in the bus! Also by making it a half-day tour and ending it around 1-2 pm means that all of us will be baked in the cruel Calcutta sun by the time we get back. I would’ve thought a roam through the streets of colonial Calcutta (like the wonderfully named Chowringee and Shakespeare Sarani) would’ve been nice – and so would’ve been a stop at the Victoria Memorial and the Eden Gardens. And if we had to go somewhere far, I’d take Salt Lake and the Salt Lake Stadium and the Science City anyday!

Anyway, the point for me is to meet these “kids” – and get to know them a little better. The hectic schedule that they will be under might not afford either of us much time to do so in the future.

June 19th, 2009 / 0 Comments / Tags: city tour, iimc / Trackback

Mid exam update

Exams done : Corporate Finance, India And World Economy.

The India and WE paper was interesting. There were just three questions that decided the credit for the entire course. It was an open book / laptop exam. I was ready with my searchable/pdf copy of the Oxford Companion to Economics in India a very fine publication (and strategically useful since our prof contributed to it!).

Anyway the three questions were:

1. The prof had listed 7 measures that the Indian government has employed in the fiscal stimulus plans it has announced. We were asked to rate them from 1 to 7 and give a reason for why we chose the best and the worst measure. I chose the plan for the 100,000 crore PPP infrastructure grants above the 4% reduction in CENVAT. I’d presented in class a model to evaluate these plans, and in that model what is important is the efficiency of the expenditure and the percentage of “idle resources” the plan is able to draw into the economy. In my opinion there is no guarantee that the CENVAT savings will be spent on consumption to scale up demand. And PPP projects have a good track record as far as efficiency is considered.

2. This question asked us to list parameters in decreasing order of importance to measure an economy’s performance. We were then asked to state figures for these parameters pre and post liberalization and comment on how well liberalization did on these counts. The point that the prof wanted to make probably was that if you considered employment and poverty as being more important than GDP and Fiscal Deficit, Current Account deficit then the reforms haven’t really done that well.

3. This question was trying to bring out a correlation between GFCF (Gross Fixed Capital Formation) and Industry growth. I didn’t particularly like this question, but that was probably because I still haven’t gotten the point. The point that everyone ended up making is that there is a lag – and a point that the course brought out was that your fiscal borrowings have to go into these sort of investments (which lead to GFCF) and not into financing the revenue deficit.

And that was it! 3 questions will decide the credit. To be frank, I didn’t particularly enjoy the prof’s teaching and the class – it was too muddled and confusing. But the readings (as I found out too late!) were interesting and the exam, I must concede was well set.

March 3rd, 2009 / 3 Comments / Tags: iimc, eco / Trackback

@Rashmi Bansal - Nothing Happened to IIM Calcutta

One of the popular posts on the internet about IIM Calcutta is this one by Rashmi Bansal. Now Rashmi is the founder of JAM magazine, that is more than decent in terms of its quality. Also she was implicated in the IIPM-JAM Controversy along with Gaurav a good friend of mine. Hence I considered her opinion with more attention that I would normally.

Unfortunately though, the post itself is quite damning. If you were thinking about coming to IIM Calcutta, no matter how strong your convictions you would be forced to rethink. I did too.

Now that I’ve been year for almost 6 months, I decided to revisit the article and see how true it is. Unfortunately, the image she portrays is incorrect and misleading. There are a lot major defects in our system, yes. But not the ones that she points out to. Not all anyway.

Let us consider the points that she makes.

1. The natural beauty of the campus
It is a well known fact that the campus is really beautiful. Its a bird sanctuary, a haven for photographers etc. Rashmi grants us that. I concur totally in her views. This place is quite awesome that way.

2. Infrastructure
Rashmi says that

“The whole atmosphere is friendly, not intimidating.[…] a sense of this being a larger than life institution(IIMA) remained. That sense is missing at IIM C.”

Last time I checked “intimidating” was bad. It makes sense to have an intimidating backdrop if you were NDA and code of conduct, discipline was what you needed from your students. I don’t see how an “intimidating” backdrop can help you in a business course. In fact business is all about being entrepreneurial and self-starting and perhaps even creative. Not regimental and disciplined.

3. Laidback academic culture
Rashmi points out that our academic culture here is laid back. We have a 75% attendance requirement. She contrasts this at IIMA where “weeks feel like ‘Survivor’ episodes”. And again she counter-intuitively states that the former is worse.

In my opinion an enforced rule which forces you to sit through a class makes you much worse off that a system which allows you some leeway. The time you spend taking an Operations course you have no interest in, could be better utilized doing something you like. I’d take an academic lifestyle where I choose what I do with my time, rather than living under some enforced rule. We did not have the 75% rule either a few years back, and it flummoxes me as to why it was introduced in the first place.

I think it’s a major advantage that our first year is NOT a grind. Thankfully, you don’t need to “survive” your first year at IIMC.

4. World Class Amenities
I must concede that we do not have amenities like we should. The admin. is in full construction mode to fix that, as I type. But more importantly it’s not as bad as she paints it out to be.

Now I’m a pretty finicky sort of guy. I like my space and I like my luxuries. And I get all the basic necessities here. I don’t think that “you can barely fit in one bed, and study table.” in our rooms. They are much bigger. I get piping hot water for bath, have a telephone in my room to order anything I want from the night canteens on campus and there are washing machines in my hostel.(though I’ve never used it because I get my clothes washed by the dhobi who washes and irons clothes via room delivery) In short – sure I would’ve like an air conditioner, banquet meals and carpeted floors! But that does not mean that what I have is inadequate by any measure.

Rashmi has tried to be reason why IIMC’s rankings have dropped over the years. And I think she has done so honestly. However she the examples and the points that she makes are invalid and inaccurate. In my opinion, the real reasons lie in matters as external as our location to the fact that we don’t give a rat’s ass about our PR. Maybe I’ll try to analyse those issues one day.

However this explanation was in order to set the record straight.

December 24th, 2008 / 4 Comments / Tags: JAM, rashmi bansal, IIMC, IIMA / Trackback

Plug

There is a legend in college about the quizzing superpowers of Arnav Sinha and Vijay Anand Menon. They won A LOT of quizzes in their two years – even though the quality of these “business type” quizzes is still under investigation.

Now they have demeaned their superpowers by offering their quizmastering selves to you for a fee. So pay up – and avail yourself of the services of MnA – IIM Calcutta’s first quizzing company (or not).

As Nehru so famously said – “ A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when […] the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.” All my repressed quizzing brethren, I cannot vouch for their quizzes – but if the quality of the punning by this guy is anything to go by, then you surely will have some fun.

December 3rd, 2008 / 0 Comments / Tags: quizzing, iimc / Trackback

BTW

I and team-mate Ram won the local edition of the ET in the Campus quiz. This was a first in two ways for me. First, this was the first time I’ve taken part (and won) in a Giri quiz. Secondly, this is also our first win in IIMC colours.

An online edition can be perused here

Incidentally, while on stage I was doing what I do best. Pimping the BCQC and the photo they carried in the ET has me in that worn-off shirt with the letters visible. Only just!

September 4th, 2008 / 0 Comments / Tags: quiz, iimc, et, giri, et in campus / Trackback