Omar Abdullah ko gussa kyon aata hai?

By questioning his state’s accession to India, the Jammu and Kashmir CM is only continuing with a time-tested family formula, reports Haroon Reshi 

The Abdullahs of Kashmir have a long and distinguished history of issuing intriguing statements and adopt seemingly contradictory postures. The great Sheikh Abdullah, reigning Chief Minister Omar’s grandfather and the state’s first head of government, kept New Delhi guessing about his true intentions. A patriotic statement issued in the Indian capital, a not-too-subtle statement underlining the disputed status of Kashmir in the valley and at another time, an unilateral discussion with Chinese Premier Chou en Lai in a third country on an independent status for Kashmir. So which was the true Sheikh?

Farooq Abdullah toed his father’s line. Loyalty to India was balanced by some pretty anti-Indian statements when the need arose – and there were plenty of those occasions. Omar Abdullah, therefore, is just following a hoary family tradition. Two weeks after Parliament unanimously passed a resolution affirming Jammu and Kashmir, including Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), as an integral part of India, Omar Abdullah argued that the state's accession to India was conditional. On March 25, he told the state assembly said, “Those who repeatedly claim that Jammu and Kashmir is ‘atoot ang’ (integral part) of India forget that the accession was only on three subjects; communication/currency, defence and foreign affairs.” Without naming New Delhi, the young CM alleged that the state’s special status had been eroded by successive Indian governments.

Omar Abdullah’s assembly sermon was delivered in the backdrop of the controversial arrest of former Kashmiri militant Syed Liyaqat Ali by the Delhi Police, which claimed that Ali had hatched a conspiracy to carry out a suicide attack in Delhi on the eve of Holi to avenge the hanging Afzal Guru. Omar Abdullah’s government has refuted Delhi Police claims, saying that the former militant was living in POK for the last 16 years and he along with his wife and children were heading to his native place under the government-backed surrender and rehabilitation policy.

 Be that as it may, the CM has a track record of questioning the state’s accession to India – particularly when his chips are down. In 2010 when people were protesting alleged killings by security agencies, Omar told the state assembly that ``Kashmir acceded to India, unlike Hyderabad and Junagadh it did not merge with India.”  On March 5, when a youth was reportedly killed by the Army in north Kashmir’s Baramullah District, Omar hit back, ``What answer will I give to the people. Have we held the Indian flag in our hands for this?”

In his moment of agony, Omar uttered the ultimate truism:`` Somebody (Afzal Guru) is hanged somewhere. The decision is taken by someone else (Government of India) and the mercy petition is rejected somewhere else. And the incident comes knocking to my house as if I have hanged him.”

Why is Omar Abdullah getting desperate? Kashmir watchers believe it has deep roots. ``National Conference (NC) and the Abdullahs, unlike other mainstream parties, are deeply rooted in Kashmiri nationalism. It goes back to the Sheikh’s Quit Kashmir moment and the autonomy resolution passed by a two-third NC majority in the assembly in 2006,’’ Noor Baba, head of the Political Science department, Kashmir University, told TSI.

Baba’s argument seems legitimate. Omar’s father Farooq Abdullah, currently a union minister, is a former member of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation front (JKLF). Nearly 26 years after the accession, Farooq had formally joined the JKLF, when he had visited POK in 1973.

Mustufa Kamal, Sheikh Abdulla's nephew and Omar’s uncle, told TSI: ``You may or may not like it but Kashmir is an unsolved dispute. When Omar Abdullah says that Kashmir had acceded to India only on three counts, he is reminding you of an undeniable historical fact. What is wrong ? Truth should prevail. Kashmir is not an integral part of India like the other states.''

It would appear that public opinion is on his side. Says Sheikh Abdullah's biographer and well known scholar Muhammad Yusuf Teng, ``The NC has never accepted J&K as an integral part of India and I believe this is the only reason why it is the only grassroot-level cadre-based regional political party in the state. Omar wants to refresh the party’s basic position by challenging the ideology of the Indian state.''He should know.

However, some other political observers attribute more than just nationalism to this Abdullahspeak – more specifically the 2014 assembly elections. ``The fact is Omar Abdullah and his party are going to face a tough situation in the 2014 elections. To convince the people, NC seems to have nothing in its hand to sell. It has lost its ground in Jammu to the BJP and in Kashmir to the PDP. Now their leaders are trying to allure Kashmir’s Muslim sentiment by questioning the accession to India,” Zareef Ahmad Zareef, author and President, Valley Citizens Council, told TSI, adding, ``The ground reality is that Omar Abdullah has failed to deliver. He could not even fulfill the promises he had made to the people in terms of the revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and the implementation of the recommendations of the working group on centre-state relation headed by Justice (retd) Sagir Ahmed, who has recommended more autonomy for the state.”

Apart from the mysterious deaths at Shopian in 2009 and the killing of 100 people during the stone pelting agitation next year, Omar's tenure has been marked by relative calm until the Afzal Guru hanging this year. That has been a signal for another round of curfews, arrests, an unofficial media gag and detention of popular separatists. Concurrently, militants appeared to be beginning to reassert. Half-a-dozen panchayat members have been killed in the past six months. There have been frequent skirmishes and casualties between militants and Indian security forces.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Book Review: Ash in the Belly: India's Unfinished Battle against Hunger

Silent suffering

India in the 21st century surges ahead, impatient to claim its long-sought status as an economic giant, with a burgeoning middle class. Confident and predatory, Indian business leaders stalk the world for new corporate acquisitions. According to Forbes, the combined wealth of India’s fifty-five wealthiest people was $ 246.5 billion in 2011. Between 1996 and 2008, wealth holdings of Indian billionaires are estimated to have risen from 0.8 per cent of GDP to 23 per cent. Yet it is an irony that India is also home to the largest number of impoverished people who sleep on an empty stomach in the world’s largest producer of milk and the second-largest wheat grower.

Often neglected by the government and dismissed by the middle class, 360 million poor people estimated by Planning Commission are around us in our films, literature, poetry and find a mention in  election manifestos and budget speeches at regular intervals. Even now our attention is diverted when 24x7 electronic media invades the countryside with their intrusive cameras and accusatory interrogation to break exclusive stories of starvation deaths.

Harsh Mander, the author of Ash in the Belly, has fought a long battle to put an end to hunger – as a former bureaucrat in districts of central India, a member of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council and as a food security campaigner along with noted activists like Kavita Srivatsava, Jean Dreze, Colin Gonsalves and Biraj Patnaik, among many others.
Alternating between analyses and harrowing life-cycle tales of hunger narrated by destitutes from intensely food-insecure social groups in eight villages in Odisha, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, Mander, in his book, attempts to uncover the political economy of hunger in India, its sociology and psychology and the achievements and failures of public policy in battling its occurrence.
 
The book moves the reader enough even before one embarks on the first chapter as the author’s note and prologue establishes how hunger, reality of millions of Indians, is insufficiently acknowledged except by those who are condemned to live with it.
Gajalachmi, 32, a widow from dalit Madiga caste of Andhra Pradesh in Medak district, died of hunger and caught in the vicious cycle of debt. In death, she had to be buried as she had lived without solace and dignity. “And without even a fistful of rice,” notes the author.

Though hunger is an unremitting way of life in India, Mander warns us not to reduce people living with hunger to statistical ammunition, subjecting their suffering and valiant resistance only to cold economics of costs and benefits, and calculus of calories.

A group of women of the Musahar community in Uttar Pradesh, Mander recalls in their conversation that the most terrible of lessons that each one has to teach her children is the lesson about how to sleep hungry. “If they are small, we sometimes beat them until they sleep. But as they grow older, we try to teach them how to live with hunger. This lesson will equip them for a lifetime. It will be their companion for the rest of their lives”.

Similarly Antamma in Andhra Pradesh, widowed early, only begged once for the leftovers from the government-funded school meal for children. Soon she was torn by guilt afterwards that she had eaten the children’s share.

One wonders how India could be on a trajectory of higher growth often highlighted by policy-makers when millions of children, women and men go to sleep hungry every night. Anyone complacent about the development that India has achieved should read this compelling and insightful book that reminds us that the right to food with dignity is indeed the right to life.
Though these tales may evoke sympathy, they equally reminds us that a much larger population who struggle daily to feed their families and themselves co-exist with readers and policy makers who gloat over shining India or high growth story.
“People living with hunger are not helpless – pitiable and passive receptacles of charity agents and state largesse – but are active agents with often sturdy spirit and humanity, who stoically endure want and oppression,” Mander writes, while passionately arguing for the passage of a universal right to food law which guarantees food to all persons not as State benevolence but as a legal entitlement.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Movie Review: ABCD

Anyone can make a film

If you put your heart into dance, dance will never leave your heart – that is the profound aphorism that the plot of ABCD – Anybody Can Dance is predicated on. It is a film that wants you to leave the auditorium with a spring in your steps and a sparkle in your eyes, even if you are not much of a dance freak.


Nothing wrong with that per se. ABCD – Anybody Can Dance is a rather well-meaning entertainer that showcases plenty of nimble-footed, high-spirited dancing talent. It is the overall impact of the film that comes up woefully short for want of genuine emotional force.


As you get into the swing of things, you certainly want the underdogs to come out on top. But their struggles with themselves and the world at large do not add up to much simply because the antagonists are poorly etched, shadowy figures sans the malefic drive that would make the audience want to hate them with all their hearts.   
For all its energy and style, choreographer Remo D’Souza’s 3-D dance film suffers from the lack of a screenplay good enough to catapult all the youthful hype and hoopla beyond the surface level and make this the ultimate tribute to the joys of choreography.


ABCD – Anybody Can Dance holds its own only when the actors are engaged in what they are good at – swaying to the beats of foot-tapping music. Besides Prabhu Deva and Ganesh Acharya, the cast includes Dance India Dance participants like Dharmesh Yelande and Salman Yusuff Khan, among others.


They are all wonderful dancers no doubt, and their acts do exude infectious verve and vigour. Unfortunately, the narrative is too whimsical and jerky to allow the string of robust dance performances to come together as a cohesive, euphoric whole.


The film is understandably replete with dance routines, and some of the set pieces are nothing short of spectacular. Sadly, the newcomers in the cast are infinitely more comfortable with calisthenics than histrionics.
But then ABCD also has Kay Kay Menon in a pivotal role. As always, he is a delight even when he resorts to over-the-top methods in order to be heard above the din.


Menon is the only major member of the cast who isn’t required to break into a jig on the slightest provocation. Yet he brings a certain rhythm to bear upon his performance as the cynical owner of a hip and happening dance troupe who is willing to stoop to any level to win a television reality show.


Pitted against him and his troupe is a livewire Prabhu Deva as a dance teacher who loses his job in the aforementioned company because he does not see eye to eye with the proprietor.


With the help of a friend (Ganesh Acharya), the slighted protagonist cobbles together his own team of dancers, boys and girls from a disadvantaged background.


The rich kids-poor kids divide isn’t the only classic cliché in the screenplay. There are subplots galore and love, friendship, heartbreak, parental opposition, drug addiction, jealousy, betrayal, tragedy and eventual triumph are all thrown into the cauldron for good measure.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

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Goodies and not-so-goodies

the sixth edition of the DSC Jaipur literature Festival had, as always, much going for it, with many sessions leaving the audience asking for more. But there were moments during the event that one had a nagging feeling that it was probably beginning to bite off more than the organisers could chew
 
Merely six years or so ago, when the inaugural edition of Jaipur Literature Festival was held, no one, not even the optimistic organisers, would have thought that it would go on to become arguably the biggest literature event in Asia, if not the most serious one. And it is in its sheer size that lies both its attraction and repulsion. The sixth annual DSC Jaipur Literature Festival, in more ways than one, has added up on that reputation.

The 2013 edition of the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival was launched with a keynote speech by celebrated author and activist Mahasweta Devi. In her speech, she reflected upon her long career as an author and described how regional writing draws its inspiration from the rich world of ideas and incidents that mean so much to people who are not in the limelight. "The air I breathe is full of words," she reflected, and I am sure no one in the crowd would have disagreed.

Speaking about thetribal and rural cultures from which she draws the inspiration of her writing, she maintained that a writer must deal with the “culture of the downtrodden” to get a proper grounding in literature. In fact, she proposed that the “right to dream” should be made the foremost fundamental right for all human beings.

In the keynote address, titled O to Live Again, Mahasweta Devi revealed, “My early years proved to be formative for my future work as a writer and activist. I also have a different approach to my writing process and I mull over the subjects in depth before setting out..."

The festival, down the years, has developed a clear pattern on which it pushes itself beyond the limit. There is a potent mixture of debates, readings, recitation and exchange of ideas. Normally, a topic is proposed and writers whose works have revolved around these topics are asked to strike a conversation, quite often, but not always, through a moderator.
The festival has the distinction of bringing together people with extreme and contrasting ideologies on a single stage to explore new ideas. And it has served the festival and the audience well in all these years. So you have “Godless Commies” rubbing shoulders with religious gurus and thinkers, and the spirited proponents of free market capitalism taking on leftists on a single stage.

This year, the festival explored themes as distinct as the history of miniature painting and war reporting, Sharia law and LGBT literature, the art and state of the Jewish novel, the 18th century sexual revolution, and the literature of 9/11.

Seperate sessions also focussed on the new writings in Latin America and among both Iranians in exile and the domestic Iranian readership. Domestically speaking, sessions focusing and critically analysing the economic prospects of India as well as on an exploration of the mixed legacy of the British Empire drew the biggest crowds. And, like most literature festivals worldwide these days, it had something to add to the much explored theme of the decline of America and the rise of China.

Some of the writers that attracted massive viewership included Commonwealth Prize winner Aminatta Forna from Sierra Leone, Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson, and two Orange Prize winners Linda Grant and Madeline Miller. It also saw some of the most respected novelists in the Arab world, including Ahdaf Soueif and Tahar Ben Jalloun.

In spite of the threats from the Hindu right wing, quite a few Pakistani writers managed to attend and enthrall the audience, including Nadeem Aslam and Jamil Ahmad. From Latin America, Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman, the playwright known for the much appreciated work Death and the Maiden, carried the flag. No literature festival can function without some quintessential Brits. Here too, the audience got the taste of celebrated historical novelist Lawrence Norfolk, as well as three of Britain’s arguably most popular literary writers, Sebastian Faulks, Deborah Moggach and Zoe Heller, whose award-winning books have been mounted into critically acclaimed and intellectually layered cinematic adaptations such as Birdsong, The Exotic Marigold Hotel and Notes on a Scandal. On the poetry front, the audience had the chance to listen to some of the most prominent poets from Europe, including the highly acclaimed Simon Armitage and John Burnside. The session featuring Armitage drew an unparalleled crowd.

If the sessions on fiction writers and poets drew huge crowds, the sessions featuring the non-fiction writers and writings saw even bigger ones. And why shouldn't it,considering this year's edition featured as many as three winners of the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction, Frank Dikkoter on Mao, Wade Davis on Everest and Orlando Figes on Stalin’s purges? On the other hand, Pulitzer winner Andrew Solomon enthralled the audience on his acclaimed new book, Far From the Tree.

For public consumption, the festival had Diana Eck from Harvard, whose book India: A Sacred Geography has caught the nation's imagination. On the other hand, philosopher Michael Sandel brought his immensely popular BBC Radio 4 series, The Public Philosopher.

If Harvard sent its best bet forward, then Columbia was not far behind. The audience enjoyed the session of the much-appreciated post-colonial and post-modern literary critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Rivals Oxford too sent one of the most potent weapon from its arsenal; acclaimed authority on Eastern Europe, Timothy Garton Ash and the Shakesperean Christopher Ricks. On the arts front, the conversation between Anish Kapoor, Marc Quinn and William Kentridge left the audience clamouring for more.

The more nuanced among the readers particularly loved the sessions by Elif Batuman of the New Yorker and Ian Buruma of the New York Review of Books.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

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Mind your Language

Even police should be made accountable for their sweeping remarks

Controversial remarks from responsible citizens are not something very new to the society. However, a big question today is, do we also hold police officials accountable for their sweeping statements that malign individuals. Although the Indian Constitution clearly allows a citizen to seek punishment on anyone who shows the citizen disrespect “on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever”, sweeping remarks are still not considered as a part of hate speech and, thus, go unprosecuted – and more so if the commenter belonged to the police.

The country was furious when Asaram Bapu, a self-proclaimed Godman  blamed the recent rape victim herself for her plight; and a case was registered against him in Bihar. All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM or MIM) MLA, Akbarrudin Owaisi was sent recently to Adilabad district jail for spreading communal hatred. Very recently, Swami Kamlananda Bharati was arrested on January 14 in Hyderabad for making a hate speech against Muslims. In 2007, the authorities had charged the late Maqbool Fida Husain for hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus when he had painted Mother India as a nude woman. Likewise, in 2007, Pune police arrested four software-engineers for posting an obscene profile on the Internet.

In this context, an example is the recent remark of the Thane Police Commissioner that women should keep red chilli powder and should not venture out late night to avoid rape. Another example is when in January 2013, the Punjab police heartlessly revealed the name of a gang rape victim. The contentious statements coming from persons who upon joining their service pledge to keep the nation and its citizens safe has outraged many. But the moot point is, when all of the above instances against citizens ended up in the police taking action, then why not hold police officials also accountable and responsible for their inept comments. In a sting operation conducted by Tehelka across 23 police stations of NCR, the shallow attitude of police officers and their stance on rapes in the city was revealed. The investigation exposed how certain police officers blame women equally if not more for the crime and concluded that some police officials think that “almost all women deserve to be raped.” Such a comment shows abysmal lack of thoughtfulness on the part of police officials. The situation is somewhat similar in the US where NYPD warned women not to wear short skirts because they could get raped.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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The Perils of Bodo Anger

THIS WAS PERHAPS THE DEFINING ANGER OF THE YEAR. MONALISA GOGOI GOES DEEPER INSIDE THE PSYCHE OF THE BODOS TO FIND OUT WHY THEY ARE UP IN ARMS AND ARE WILLING TO FIGHT EVEN A DE FACTO CIVIL WAR
assam violenceThe 2012 ethnic violence in Assam that claimed more than 100 lives has been interpreted in many different ways. For local Bodos, it was entirely a clash between indigenous people and illegal migrants. Politicians who use communalism to make a point have given it the spin potraying it as a clash between local Hindus and Muslim migrants from Bangladesh and elsewhere. Most familiar with the region agree that illegal migration has encroached upon tribal area and space, creating a sense of identity crisis for the indigenous people. Though the violence has come to an end, the question on everyones' lips is this: why do Bodos become angry from time to time? What are their principal grievances? Is it only related to illegal migration?

Prabhakar Bodo, spokesperson of the Bodoland People's Front (BPF) and former president of the All Assam Students' Union (AASU), says the BTAD clash between migrants and the indigenous people is an old point of discord dating back to the 1970s. "There was a time when Bodos introduced themselves as a part of the Assamese people but the state's high castes refused to grant them their due. When the Bodos began their movement, the Asom Sahitya Sabha had protested. In 1983 when they demanded the introduction of Bodo as the official associate language, there were loud protests. So Bodo leaders were compelled to withdraw their moral support to the Assam agitation,'' he said.

According to him, Bodos regard themselves as part of the Assamese society but oppose the claims of those who now claim to be representatives of that society, namely the Assam Sahitya Sabha and AASU, who have consistently ignored their sentiments. "They have not planned any developmental activities for the Bodos, who are now convinced that a merger with the Assamese society would endanger their identity. Most intellectualls here do not want to see Bodos grow,'' he alleges.  Bodos, one of the oldest ethnic groups in Assam who also claim  son of the soil status, feel they have been left out of the power stakes. They were also the first to demand a separate homeland. According to senior advocate and former Assam Agitation leader Nekibur Zaman, "The Bodo community is one of the oldest ethnic groups in the state and feel they have traditionally been exploited. At different times during their agitations, they have not got the support of local organisations and have operated in isolsation. The government had suppressed their movements using undemocratic means. Their women were raped and many Bodo youth lost their lives. The security forces tried to suppress their demand with the help of armed forces. The sense of insecurity and dissatisfaction among them led to an armed struggle. And this is how their ethnic militant groups NDFB and BLT came into existence. Because of their armed struggle, Adivasi, non-Bodos and caste Hindus were compelled to leave Bodo-dominated areas, ’’ he points out.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

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Parties Play The Caste Trump Card

With national political parties finding themselves out on a limb in Karnataka, it’s the caste-based regional outfits that are calling the shots. Will the political cookie in this southern state crumble the way of Uttar Pradesh?

Karnataka is gearing up for Assembly elections in April. With the fortunes of the ruling BJP and the Congress hitting the skids in the state, caste-based regional formations are likely to gain in the post-poll scenario.

Karnataka is set to go the Uttar Pradesh way. UP is India’s largest state and is accustomed to electoral fragmentation on caste and community lines. Karnataka, only one third the size of UP, is not. So, if a hung Assembly is what the April elections yield, the development would mark a paradigm shift in Karnataka politics. Congress, BJP and Janata Dal are the three parties that have traditionally jostled for seats in the Vidhana Soudha. Two new forces have lately jumped into the fray. Former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa’s Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) and Badava Shramika Raitha Congress (BSR Congress), led by B Shriramulu, the right hand man of jailed mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy, are likely to queer the pitch for the national parties by taking away a chunk of their votes.

While none of the five contenders are in a position to sweep the polls, KJP and BSR Congress could both wrest enough seats to give the principal parties a run for their money. But in the run-up to the elections, none of the political formations is keen to get into any alliances, preferring to wait and watch the for eventual outcome. For Congress and Janata Dal (Secular), the April polls could be just another electoral battle. But for BJP and KJP, it would be an acid test. The BJP would be out to demonstrate that it has the strength to live down Yeddyurappa’s exit. For the party leaders who have been instrumental in pushing Yeddy out of the BJP, the likes of KS Eeshwarappa, Ananth Kumar, Sadananda Gowda and Jagadish Shettar, the upcoming election would be an opportunity to prove a point.

Yeddy too, would be determined to make the BJP, a party he served for four decades, pay for the folly of neglecting a regional mass leader with the backing of the dominant Lingayat community.

The BJP will also have to contend with the BSR Congress. Yeddy’s mass support and the Reddy’s money power had catapulted BJP to power in Karnataka in 2008. With both now gone, it would be an uphill task for the party to retain power. BJP is unlikely to win more than 50 to 60 seats. In that eventuality, it would be back on the Opposition benches.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

The seven things that surprise new Chief Executives

Harvard Business School professors Michael E. Porter, Nitin Nohria and Jay W. Lorsch, write on surprises that new CEOs get at the workplace

Most new chief executives are taken aback by the unexpected and unfamiliar new roles, the time and information limitations, and the altered professional relationships they run up against. Here are the common surprises new CEOs face, and here’s how to tell when adjustments are necessary.

Surprise One: You Can’t Run the Company

Warning signs: You are in too many meetings and involved in too many tactical discussions. There are too many days when you feel as though you have lost control over your time.

Surprise Two: Giving Orders is Very Costly

Warning signs: You have become the bottleneck. Employees are overly inclined to consult you before they act. People start using your name to endorse things, as in “Frank says…”

Surprise Three: It Is Hard To Know What Is Really Going On Warning signs: You keep hearing things that surprise you. You learn about events after the fact. You hear concerns and dissenting views through the grapevine rather than directly. Surprise Four: You Are Always Sending A Message

Warning signs: Employees circulate stories about your behaviour that magnify or distort reality. People around you act in ways that indicate they’re trying to anticipate your likes and dislikes.

Surprise Five: You Are Not The Boss

Warning signs: You don’t know where you stand with board members. Roles and responsibilities of the board members and of management are not clear. The discussions in board meetings are limited mostly to reporting on results and management’s decisions.

Surprise Six: Pleasing Shareholders Is Not The Goal

Warning signs: Executives and board members judge actions by their effect on stock price. Analysts who don’t understand the business push for decisions that risk the health of the company. Management incentives are disproportionately tied to stock price.

Surprise SEven: You are still only human

Warning signs: You give interviews about you rather than about the company. Your lifestyle is more lavish or privileged than that of other top executives in the company. You have few – if any – activities not connected to the company.

Implications for CEO Leadership

Taken together, the seven surprises carry some important and subtle implications for how a new CEO should define his job.

First, the CEO must learn to manage organisational context rather than focus on daily operations. Providing leadership in this way – and not diving into the details – can be a jarring transition. One CEO said that he initially felt like the company’s “most useless executive,” despite the power inherent in the job. The CEO needs to learn how to act in indirect ways – setting and communicating strategy, putting sound processes in place, selecting and mentoring key people – to create the conditions that will help others make the right choices. At the same time, he must set the tone and define the organisation’s culture and values through words and actions – in other words, demonstrate how employees should behave.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
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The worst ceos of 2012 and why smart ceos make bad decisions

CEOs today face far greater challenges than just perfecting the art of outperforming bottomline target estimates quarter after quarter. From keeping activist shareholders at bay, to satisfying consumers who demand innovation at the blink of an eye, today’s Chief Executives have their hands full. Not surprisingly, many of these highly-regarded strategists stumble. Prof. Sydney Finkelstein, Steven Roth Professor of Management, Tuck School of Business, writes on why such business leaders fail

2012 has been an eventful year as far as business is concerned. The global economy was stuck somewhere in between managing a full blow financial crisis on one hand and dealing with its after-effects on the other. However, this year did give CEOs an opportunity to reconsider changes that had been impacting their businesses and reinvent in response. And I would say that this is one area where business leaders have faced a great deal of trouble.

For many CEOs, adapting to change – especially dramatic and technological change – is disturbing. Companies like Motorola, Research in Motion and Kodak had to deal with big changes in the recent past mostly due to technological shifts in the economy and their respective industries. What they’d been doing effortlessly in the past stopped working. And unfortunately, they continued doing what made them successful in the first place. Business model innovation is a tricky proposition because even from a psychological point-of-view, it’s difficult to stop doing something for which one has been amply rewarded – and consistently so – in the past. However, the repercussions of not adapting are evident. Motorola was acquired by Google (not for a great line-up of products but more so for the patents), Kodak filed for bankruptcy and Research in Motion is struggling to sustain operations.

Nevertheless, there have been two chief executives in particular who, despite their short tenures, have demonstrated phenomenal leadership and a strong strategic outlook. Marissa Ann Mayer of Yahoo! and Tim Cook of Apple definitely stand out this year.

If you consider Meyer, she’s really given Yahoo!! a shot in the arm. She’s given the company a sense of purpose and if you ask employees and shareholders at Yahoo! today, they’ll tell you that they have much more confidence in the future direction of the company. In recent past, she has proved herself a leader at one of the most successful Internet businesses of our times – Google. And currently, that shows in her understanding of strategy. There is clear consensus now that Yahoo! is a media company – something which previous CEOs could not clearly establish. Further, Meyer has started unlocking some value that lay dormant in Yahoo!’s assets.

On the other hand we have Tim Cook, who has put up a commendable performance at Jobs’ exit. He launched the iPad Mini (despite Steve Jobs’ belief that the market wouldn’t like a small tablet) demonstrating that he is ready to adapt and change. He also had the courage and honesty to accept that Apple Maps was a mess. Some critics have been blaming him for the loss in the stock value of the company. But I don’t see how he’s responsible for any of that. Agreed that Apple didn’t launch a freakishly great product, but the iPhone 5 still sold record units. Apple’s market capitalisation is a case study in itself. To justify such high valuations, you literally need to reinvent the world. And I think Cook has done a fairly decent job till now. He deserves a little more time to demonstrate something even better.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

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Is Wal-Mart Losing The Plot?

The US retailer has turned soft on its initial aggressive plans for India. Are infrastructure bottlenecks and a far-from-ideal FDI policy in retail thwarting its growth ambition?

The government’s decision to allow 51% FDI in multi-brand retail and 100% FDI in single-brand retailing, though subject to riders, have brought good tidings for large international retailers eagerly waiting to tap into the estimated $500 billion Indian retail market. But even three months after the announcement of the policy, the Bentonville, US-based Wal-Mart, which has been plying wholesale retail in India since 2009, has not disclosed any concrete plans about how it intends to move forward on capitalising on the new retail regime. The company currently operates only wholesale stores in India via its joint venture with Bharti Enterprises, but it has so far been the most aggressive foreign supermarket operator in India, operating 18 cash-and-carry stores, selling to smaller retailers such as vegetable vendors, hospitals, restaurants and other firms.

The company expects to open its first consumer retail store selling directly to the public in 12-18 months, aiming to turn a profit in 10 years, something it could manage in China only after 12 years, where it operates over 350 stores. As of December 31, 2011, the overall losses of Bharti Walmart totalled Rs 7.65 billion. During the year, it posted over 140% increase in sales y-o-y at Rs 18.76 billion, but its net loss rose 66% to Rs 2.77 billion. The company is targeting $1 billion in sales in India by 2013-14.

According to the Investment Commission of India, the retail sector is expected to reach almost $660 billion by 2015. But instead of seizing on this consumer retail opportunity, the American retail giant finds itself entangled in an unsavoury controversy related to alleged payment of bribes in the country, which is a violation of US anti-bribery laws. The payments involve forking out “facilitation payments”, or “speed money” – or bribes – to advance the process to obtain 40 to 50 government licenses to set up retail stores. The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it a crime for US corporations and their subsidiaries to bribe foreign officials to win or retain business abroad.

With allegations flying thick and fast, and to avoid getting sucked into this vortex deeper, the company instituted a probe, which has led to the suspension of its chief financial officer as well as its entire legal team in the country. The development comes at a challenging time for Wal-Mart in the country, with political pressure mounting against the Congress-party’s drive to open up the retail sector to foreign investment.

To compound Wal-Mart’s woes, its investment of $100 million in a domestic unit owned by its wholesale joint-venture partner Bharti Retail is also being investigated by India’s Enforcement Directorate for possible infraction of the country’s foreign exchange rules. Wal-Mart’s investment in Bharti Retail has come under the scanner amid allegations that the former may have entered India’s front-end multi-brand retail business surreptitiously two-and-a-half years before the government actually permitted foreign investors in the sector.
 

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
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ExecutiveMBA

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) recently celebrated its 100th mission with a flawless launch of a PSLV from Sriharikota. No mean feat, as for ISRO it all began just 37 years ago when, in 1975, it launched India’s first experimental satellite – Aryabhata. In an exclusive conversation with B&E’s Kumar Buradikatti, Prof. U. R. Rao, Former Chairman of ISRO and the man behind Aryabhata, recalls how he led his team and heralded India into space age
 

B&E: Who all were there in the Aryabhata team?
URR: In Aryabhata team we had about 250 engineers and scientists. But it all started with a small group in Ahmedabad and Dr. Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, Former Chairman of ISRO and the Space Commission, was one of them. In fact, many of them were my students. I also had a small group in Trivandrum. They all came. They just said, “We are coming with you.” Then we recruited. Everyday, we conducted six interviews. I even wrote to some institutions and requested them to send two of their best students to us. Many young students came. Some would see the place – an area without proper infrastructure in place – and ask, “Sir, are you going to build it in this shed?” I would simply reply, “Look, if you believe me, you can join me. Otherwise, go back and don’t waste my time. I only have two and a half years to build the satellite and I am bent on meeting it.” I was really changing my life. That’s why I took two years to accept Dr. Sarabhai’s proposal. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai was not only my professor, my guru, but also a wonderful person. We started building Aryabhata in August-September 1972 and had launched it by April 1975. At the time the satellite was being made, the average age of the team was 25 years, and I was the eldest at 40!

B&E: What type of support did the Aryabhata team received from the Russians and others?
URR: As far as Russians are concerned, they gave us a free launch, which was the most important thing at that time. We didn’t pay anything at all. In fact, they even launched Bhaskar-1 and Bhaskara-2 for free. Then, IRS onwards, they started charging us. But a nominal fee, much lesser than what others normally charged. Similarly, for the first experimental communication satellite, Apple, we got free launch from European Space Agency. Second time onwards, we had to pay. These free launches certainly helped us a lot.

B&E: How did you execute the project?
URR: We made a team of three, me being the Chairman. T. N. Seshan, who was the Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Space at that time, was one of the members. We were completely armed and decisive. We would just discuss and place the orders. Since we had nothing, we would buy everything, from furniture to expensive machinery. However, within three months we had set up a wonderful laboratory! Everyone said that it was wonderful and they wanted to come and see the place. In fact, many internationally renowned personalities, including heads of all space agencies, visited it. Even all Prime Ministers, from Morarji Desai to Indira Gandhi, and Presidents visited the laboratory. Everybody thought that something strange is going to happen and cooperated wonderfully. I also gave a list to MIT and NASA headquarters and said, “These are the things I need and it’s up to you figure out how you can help me. But I don’t have much time.” Every evening, I would get a box! Seeing this, some would ask as to how I was going to pay them. I would simply reply, “I won’t pay them. I have friends across the globe and they are helping me.” Everything went like this.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
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"Our competitors are... good people!"

Life for S. D. Shibulal, CEO & MD, Infosys Ltd., hasn’t been particularly smooth since he took over the helm. With volatility in the environment persisting and Infosys’ growth engine hitting a speed bump, Shibulal is under severe pressure to bring in numbers that cheer the market in the short term. However, as he reveals to Virat Bahri, Editor, B&E, these pressures aren’t on his priority list

B&E: The Infosys 3.0 transformation was launched some time back. Where do you stand with respect to its impact on your numbers?
S. D. Shibulal (SS): We have completed our strategic transformation. ‘Building tomorrow’s enterprise’ is a framework for innovation and co-creation. We organised ourselves completely into global industry verticals with new leadership in place. The strategy is in place, and we have a new structure and new leadership in place. We are purely in the execution mode. At the same time, where we started the transformation, we were coming out of the high of 2009; the environment was much more stable. Today, it is much more volatile. So actually, there are some delays in realising the benefits of the transformation; but we are confident that in the medium to long term, we should be fine. In any kind of transformation, you look at early indicators, but receipts are getting delayed. So we look at other early indicators. Traction is excellent with respect to our clients. We have conducted 50 plus workshops on building tomorrow’s enterprise with CXOs. Look at some of the wins we have announced like Atlas Copco & United Laboratories – some of them are driven by our workshops. Airtel and India Post are also driven through our innovation process. We have built a $380 million TCB on our products and platforms, which is a very strong booking. It is a new and different business. In a KPMG survey, we were ranked the most innovative in India. A recent Forrester report has also completely endorsed our strategy on IP & asset-based service portfolio.

B&E: There are challenges in the short term in your key verticals. What is your outlook?
SS: Retail is doing well for us. We are very well recognised in the digital market – digital commerce & social commerce. We have a SocialEdge platform for social commerce, a BrandEdge platform for marketing solutions and a TradeEdge platform for international business. We have strong service as well as IP capability in that space. Retail is growing above company average. Manufacturing is another industry where we are seeing very good traction and mostly in the business and IT operations space. Harley is a good example of that and so is Syngenta. In manufacturing, our wins are driven by the drive for efficiency in operations as well as IT. Financial services remains an area of challenge, especially capital markets. We have a higher dependence on financial services, where revenues are not going up. There are regulatory problems in a volatile situation and there is an enormous amount of focus on cost. So we continue to be challenged. In the Energy and Utility Communications Services provider space – there the segment in communication services has been an issue for us. Now we are increasing our investments in wireless and cable, where the spend is happening. So we expect medium term gains.

B&E: Critics lament your focus on margins, which make it hard to grow. How relevant is that?
SS: One thing you must remember. People link price and margin directly. Margin is a reflection of the company’s aspirations, philosophy, efficiency in operations, how do you manage, et al. So onsite-offshore ratio will impact margins. Utilisation will impact margins; the pyramid structure will impact margins. Currency will impact margins and so will portfolio. Some services have higher margins. Even client choices impact margins. We should delink the two. Everything that we do is to meet our aspirations. Our aspirations are to have above industry average growth and to have leading margins. I am having this margin conversation for the last ten years, or even longer. There is no guarantee for the future. But with our new focus areas – building tomorrow’s enterprise, balanced portfolio, global verticals, increasing consulting and system integration, products and platform strategy – it’s all going to meet our aspirations for the future.

On the price front, we are quite flexible. You have to look at your portfolio and your strategic clients. You don’t walk out of a deal with a strategic client because price does not meet by say 50 cents. Today our industry verticals have full flexibility with respect to pricing decisions.

Read more....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

“There are certainly more drivers apart from price”

Dr. Manish Gupta, Director – IBM Research, India asserts that innovations for the Indian market aren’t only about bringing down the price points

B&E: IBM has been driving a lot of R&D activity from India. What is your view on reverse innovation potential from this market?
Dr. Manish Gupta (MG): I am not parochial in this regard. I am not claiming that innovation will only happen here, it will happen in all parts. I feel that cost is just one aspect, and we in India often make the mistake of equating innovation with low cost. A lot of times, people talk about how can you bring down the cost. That’s only one form. In our work, we have seen several different drivers for ‘reverse innovation’. They can be related to the scale and price point, and they may simply be linked to different needs unique to the Indian market, which does not mean they are necessarily low cost. I prefer to use the term leapfrog innovation for this kind of innovation, where you have to rethink a solution, take a different approach to solving a problem, and then you can apply the same ideas to other markets.

B&E: What drivers do you see that will enable more of such innovation coming from India?
One driver is often scale, which many other people have pointed out. Often, the scale of what you see in a country like India and China is much higher as compared to the US. One example is what our own lab colleagues have done in the context of telecom accounts. As you know, IBM provides the entire IT infrastructure for telecom companies like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone. We deployed a solution in one of the telecom accounts in India I cannot name. We developed a first of a kind solution where instead of having different kinds of analytics applications working on their own copy, of what is call detail record data, we have brought in a streaming data solution. As the data gets generated, even when the data is new, different apps start their own processing. You have the data flow through different applications. While it was driven initially by scale & price point, it delivered some real business value, as the company can now access the same day’s data rather than the four days old data it accessed earlier. It has been pitched to the likes of AT&T, et al.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

BBA Institute