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Thursday, May 02, 2013

A weak power sector: What’s the cure?

Power blackouts that occurred recently have put the spotlight back on a troubled power sector. Grid failures, shortage of coal supply, financial losses, poor infrastructure & governance, and political finger-pointing are making matters worse

For some, it was their worst experience ever. For others, it was a repeat of the horror. We are referring to the blackouts that left over 680 million people in a state of darkness and despair for long hours together on July 30 & 31, 2012. But more than the unforgiving power cuts and crippled state of trains and metro rails that resulted from failure of three transmission grids in the country, it was the kind treatment offered to the one responsible for the disruption that embarrassed India, Sushil Kumar Shinde (the-then power minister), that made bigger headlines. Post the incidence, Moodbidri Veerappa Moily was made the power minister and Shinde was asked to take charge of a higher office in the government. [He is today the Union Home Minister.] When questioned over objections raised by critics on this move, Shinde clarified that he rated the performance of the power ministry under his tenure as nothing short of excellent. “I have briefed the Prime Minister’s Office... In USA, light does not come for four days. Here we got it in a matter of hours. People should appreciate how work is done at the grid,” was Shinde’s justification. [He was referring to a blackout in North America in 2003 that lasted 4 days.]

Starting 2.35 AM on July 30, the whole of North India experienced a power cut for 10 hours after the Northern Grid tripped. The next day saw a bigger outage hitting 19 States and two Union Territories when the Northern, Eastern and North-Eastern grids all went on the blink. An estimated 684 million people, or a-tenth of the world’s population, were left without power for up to 8 hours. Shinde was quick to blame States like UP, Punjab and Haryana for overdrawing power.

The event that lasted two days was just a bellyache – a symptom of the deep malaise that afflicts governance in the power sector in India.

On the face of it, many would assume that the power ministry has its task cut out for itself. But hasn’t it always been so? Are long power cuts new to India? Has the 100 million tonne gap between coal demand and supply just emerged? Are issues related to supply of coal and gas new? Or has the fact that over 400 million people still lack access to electricity just struck India?

The recent grid failures that won India international shame and exposed the lack of grid discipline in the Indian power sector, could act as a trigger to implement corrective measures to eradicate problems which the sector is reeling under. That would call for bold measures on the part of the new minister.

To begin with, he will have to put in place a system that ensures strict adherence to grid discipline (a present, violations due to overdrawing of power by various states are common). As per the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), it had issued four directives to States not adhering to their set limits of drawing power. But to no avail. The reason – political compulsion. Moily though, claims that the guilty will be brought to book. “There is a provision to imprison authorities or the state chief secretary for disobeying grid discipline. Perhaps we need to enforce that,” he said.

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

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year
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
IIPM B-School Facebook Page
IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Four looks like a crowd

Sony is looking to get a better grip on its mobile phone division by acquiring Ericsson’s stake in the JV. But a real turnaround may require radical rethinking on the company’s strategy

For Chairman, President & CEO Howard Stringer, who is expected to step down next year, mixed feelings would normally be a given. But he may mostly end up contemplating on what could have been. Sony hired the Welsh-born former President, CBS and founder, TELE-TV, in 2005 to turnaround its businesses and revive the brand’s iconic status. Neither of the aims seem to have been met.

This year, the TV business is expected to lose money for the eighth year in a row with competitors like Samsung gnawing away market share fast. Other businesses like computing and gaming also face tough competition from the likes of Microsoft and HP. Sony Corp. has sold a lot of its TV manufacturing plants since 2009. It now plans to further restructure the division, which may include teaming up with other companies or spinning off the business in its entirety. At one point of time, Sony was worth $100 billion. Today it is valued at $18.05 billion (November 7). Its m-cap is down by more than 50% since Stringer became Sony’s first non-Japanese CEO. Despite being the first mover and market leader in portable music players, Sony lost it all and Apple is the one, which really struck gold on multiple occasions with iPod, iPhone and iPad. There were some victories – like gaming, Blu-Ray and 3D film making, and Stringer has successfully unleashed a series of cost cuts in the company. But mere cuts, unless they are accompanied by strong & inspiring ideas and painstakingly immaculate execution, cannot take a company too far.

On October 27, 2011, Sony announced that it would be acquiring Ericsson’s stake in the Sony Ericsson JV for $1.45 billion. If one looks at Sony’s performance over the past decade, it gets apparent that apart from financial misfortunes, its strategy has been a complete misfit across business segments (except for gaming). And smartphones is one of them, a wrong that Sony hopes to correct with this deal.

In 2000, Sony was struggling to make a mark in the global cell phone market with a marginal 1% market share. It then forged a JV with Stockholm-based Ericsson in August 2001. However, the JV bombed, as it managed to appreciate market share by a mere 1%. The company is now looking at upping its stakes in smartphones. When contacted by B&E, Sony’s spokesperson for A-Pac commented, “It has been Sony Ericsson’s target to become a leader in the global Android phone market in terms of value share. (rf. Sony Ericsson’s CY11Q3 market shares are 11% in value). Through integration of Sony Ericsson, Sony will be able to integrate functions such as product R&D and design, and accelerate adoption of new platforms & technologies for better user experiences.”

Read more....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

Thursday, April 04, 2013

Reaching out for The Broadband Dream

Over a year has Passed by since The Broadband Spectrum auction, which raised hopes of bringing Internet to The Masses. What’s delaying The Launch of BWA services?

Can Internet penetration in India match the surge in the number of mobile phone subscribers? It’s a far-fetched thought at the moment. Today, every second person in the country owns a mobile phone. At last count, the number of wireless phone subscribers stood at 840 million and tele-density had crossed the 50% mark. According to Voice&Data, approximately 10 million mobile phones were sold in India every month in 2010, while at the same time, an average of 622,000 new users signed up each day to a mobile service; adding 227 million new mobile subscribers in 2010. In contrast, the total number of internet subscribers in India is just 18 million out of which those with a broadband connection make up a paltry 11 million, according to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. That’s 9 million less broadband connections than what was originally targeted by the government. India was supposed to double its rate of broadband reach to 2% – 20 million broadband connections – by 2010, but missed it by a long shot. In comparison, other Asian nations like China, South Korea and Japan have broadband penetration of 21%, 95% and 75% respectively. According to the latest figures from China’s Internet Network Information Center, the number of internet users in China rose to 457 million at the end of June, 2010, an increase of about 73 million over the past six months. The figures show that the number of broadband users reached 126 million while the internet penetration rate climbed to about 34%. On the other hand, in India, the rate of growth of Internet connections actually fell to just 4.4% during the December quarter, 2010, or 23% compared to the last three months of 2009.

A World Bank study shows that every increase of 10% in broadband penetration can lead to an increase in GDP growth by 1.4%, and can add more than 200 million jobs. Last year, the French government announced a budget of €2.8 billion for broadband penetration. In 2009, when the rest of the world was grappling with recession, the Australian government set aside a specific fund for broadband penetration.

Clearly, internet penetration is very important for the economic growth of a country. However, it has been more than a year since Broadband Wireless Access spectrum was auctioned in India, barely days after the controversial 3G spectrum sales. The BWA auction raised Rs.385.4 billion compared with Rs.677.2 billion for the 3G spectrum. But while 3G services were launched by private operators in December 2010, none of the private operators has rolled out BWA services. Only BSNL, which was given start-up spectrum much earlier than private operators, has launched BWA services in a few circles on WiMax technology.

Read more....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Sunny Side up for DTH Firms

India’s DTH Industry is Making a Bold Gambit to take off into Profit zone on The Back of Growing Popularity for High-Definition and value-added Services.

Decades ago, when celebrated American author and critic John Mason Brown spoke about television being chewing gum for the eyes, the visual medium was still years away from efflorescence. Today, as the total number of digital TV households worldwide fast approaches the 1-billion mark, representing a penetration rate of 65%, those words have even found global utterance.

According to UK-based research and forecasting agency Informa Telecoms & Media, which delivers strategic insight on the display industry based on global market data and primary research, more than 401-million digital TV homes are expected to be added between the end of 2010 and the end of 2015, with China contributing a massive 136 million, followed by India with 47 million. A recent report by DisplaySearch, a leading global market research and consulting firm specialising in the $770-billion display supply chain market, says total worldwide television shipments increased 6% from 205 million units in 2009 to 218 million units in 2010.

The boom in TV sales is feeding the demand for high-end LCD and LED television sets by consumers looking for quality TV viewing. Industry observers say that there are about 13 to14 million households buying LCD and LED TVs every year in India. Approximately 700,000 LCD TVs were shipped by brands in India during the month of October alone last year. As television buyers in India gravitate to purchasing more of flat panel displays, direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television has emerged as the choice medium for digital and high-definition (HD)-quality video over other media channels like digital cable networks or IPTV, offering a broader entertainment experience to subscribers. On offer are entertainment, news and lots more options such as searching for job vacancies on TV, looking for prospective marriage partners and choosing travel packages across India that DTH viewers living in even remote nooks & corners of the country can choose from. Proliferation of television channels, viewers increasing sensitivity to quality transmission & programming of their choice and a growing demand for value-added services, have further promoted DTH revolution in the country.

“The need to be entertained, coupled with the diversity of broadcast channels, pay-per-view (PPV) opportunities, gaming and interactive services are the biggest growth drivers for DTH in India,” says a senior executive of a DTH service provider. “The big opportunity for DTH in India”, believes R. C. Venkateish, Chief Executive Officer, Dishtv, “is a virgin market served only by terrestrial broadcaster Doordarshan”. There are still large swathes of cable-starved areas in the country, where people watch only Doordarshan channels. Also, by and large, cable networks in India still run on analog technologies and are not yet digitised. According to analysts, the Indian market has a huge opportunity despite having seven DTH players, including government-owned DD Direct. The total number of households in India is estimated around 232 million, of them only 141 million have TV sets. Of the total number of the households, 116 million have cable and satellite connections of which DTH users count for just 31 million.

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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Sizzling Apples, Burning Berries!

With RIM’s Traditional Stronghold Under Attack, Balsillie is hoping to do a Counter Attack in the Tablet Space. But it would be much more Important to Ensure that the Smartphone Battle is not Lost Forever

Apart from his role as Co-CEO, RIM, Jim Balsillie is well known for his repeated unsuccessful attempts to buy a hockey team and take it to his home state of Ontario, Canada. For those who know him, he is the ultimate fitness expert and sports enthusiast. But one would certainly doubt whether Balsillie would count apples as one of his favourite things, given the tit-for-tat slanging match that Jim is into with none other than Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

The match is now more than a mere one off altercation. First we give a quick snapshot of the prologue. Simmering sentiments were spurred among all competitors when Apple was in the midst of Antennagate, the negative backlash linked to iPhone reception problems. Even that time, Apple had chosen to make a generic statement to the effect that smartphones from RIM, Samsung and HTC had similar problems with attenuation and signal loss; a claim to which RIM reacted vociferously. The RIM standoff really started with the Apple quarterly result announcement, where Steve Jobs bragged that RIM would not be able to catch up with Apple any time soon. He got those bragging rights when Apple posted sales of 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter compared to 12.4 million Blackberrys (IDC). Also, on Job’s firing line was the Blackberry OS (RIM plans to upgrade to Blackberry 6 and also bring in the QNX for its upcoming Playbook tablet) as well as the concept of small 7 tablets (like Playbook); in fact he called the latter tweeners! Jobs said that with 3,00,000 applications on Apple’s app store, RIM had a “huge mountain to climb”. Balsillie has responded by taking potshots at antennagate, Adobe Flash (which Apple does not support), reiterated his confidence that 7” tablets will succeed and his belief that Apple’s app centric approach is no longer relevant, since all apps that developers really need are available online. He summed it up by saying that customers were now “getting tired of being told by Apple what to think” and dividing the world into people living within and beyond Apple’s “distortion field”. If recent reports are to be believed, Apples ‘field’ has extended to some of RIM’s enterprise sales personnel, who joined Jobs’ forces recently.

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Wednesday, February 06, 2013

TOYOTA: PRODUCT RECALL

Toyota President Akio Toyoda’s apology was supposed to firefight the recall controversy – it made it worse! Welcome to the world of unintended consequences

The Japanese carmaker on the other end is very confident about a fast recovery and has forecasted a net profit of $892 million for the current fiscal. Apparently this seems to be a very bullish a forecast as compared with a loss of $2.2 billion previously foreseen, and an actual loss of $4.8 billion last year. The forecast also estimates a narrower operating loss of $2.2 billion, compared with a loss of $3.9 billion in the prior November outlook. But strangely, amidst all this, rather than being at the forefront of the public relations efforts of Toyota, Akio Toyoda is preferring to avoid being at the communications forefront, with his latest noncommittal approach to come to the US to attend a scheduled hearing of a Congressional panel on the recall issue – there are now reports of the possibilities of a subpoena against Toyoda being issued if he refuses to appear before the committee. A part of Toyoda’s lack of responsive behaviour is cultural too – Japanese CEOs are not generally groomed to be the spokespersons of their corporations. To that extent, post Akio Morita, it would be rare for the outside world to know of even one Japanese company’s CEO’s name. Toyoda has to realise that breaking these cultural paradigms, he has to single-handedly rebuild the trust of the Toyota brand. For each day of his failing to do this, Toyota loses millions. “Getting the company back on track is Toyoda’s biggest challenge now as the sales have already started showing a decline,” says San Oppenheim’s Christian Breitprescher to B&E (GM and Ford, for example, are offering discounts of up to $1,000 to Toyota owners trading in; a report from UBS suggests that the Japanese automaker is incurring a weekly loss of $155 million from the lost sales since announcing the recall). Toyoda’s has to be an all-guns-blazing firefighting effort, as nothing else will be able to reduce the debilitating fall in sales the company may suffer. Toyoda could well take a sneak look at Sony’s CEO Howard Stringer who is a delightful example of what all positive PR can achieve; and he isn’t even Japanese!

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Monday, February 04, 2013

Water harvesting is the sole solution for this grave crisis

Water harvesting is the best way of tackling the drinking water crisis. We get sufficient water from rain, but we fail to replenish it. What is needed is good infrastructure and citizens’ resolve. So don’t let rain water go waste.

Experts estimate that rain falling on a house built in a 1,500 sq. feet area can generate enough water to serve a family of six. So collect it and preserve it. In towns where we have fewer open spaces we need boring wells to draw water from the earth’s surface. We can collect water by digging soak pits in our gardens and fields. These recharge the ground water and tube wells. We should also ensure a better garbage management system so that ecological balance is maintained and chemical wastes are deposited safely. Chhattisgarh leads India in water harvesting. Water management is an art and we should learn it. Thousands of litres of water are wasted every day because of overuse. To stop this misuse, we must use buckets in place of bath tubs. While brushing our teeth we must ensure that the tap is not open all the time. To wash our vehicle we must use wet cloth instead of bucketfuls of water. To preserve drinking water NGOs, industrialists and the youth should work together. If we don’t understand the importance of water then the crisis cannot be resolved. Bin pani sab sun (without water, there is nothing).

Water is a lifeline for people. And the crisis is felt mostly in summer. Drinking water has become scarce in big cities and rural India. In the hinterlands the situation is worse as villagers have to trudge miles to get drinking water. And in small towns there are many who wait for hours and hours for water tankers. Besides, there have been reports of water riots. All this has happened because we have failed to preserve rain water.

The crisis is further accentuated by depleting ground water levels. In many areas it has gone from 50 feet to 600 feet. Alarmed by the situation, water authorities are proposing a model legislation to prevent further erosion of the water table. The Central Groundwater Board carried out a survey and found that about 800 areas are in the danger zone. The water level has gone down drastically in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Daman and Diu, Andhra and Tamil Nadu.

Many areas of Haryana, including Narnaul, Samlakha, Karnal and Moga, Sangur, Maha Kalam, Ahmedgarh in Punjab, Surajgarh, Behror and Bhinmal in Rajasthan, Gandhinagar in Gujarat have seen depleted water levels. Water experts say in coastal areas of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu deep drilling of tube wells has led to saline water ingress from the sea destroying prime agricultural land. And sometimes this endangers the only available source of drinking water. In 43 blocks further extraction of ground water has been banned. Several states have been informed about the worsening situation. They have been told to adopt water harvesting as a means to tackle water crisis.

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Friday, February 01, 2013

Macro economic environment in a recession

Firms need to take a holistic view of the macro economic environment in a recession

how is the government?
Firms are constantly making decisions about their near future. In developing economies in particular, the value of imports, like a piece of equipment, a computer or new software for example, depends on the exchange rate. If the government has a monetary policy that is dedicated to stabilise its currency and has conservative fiscal policy, firms will have a relatively clear view of the investment horizon. In that case choosing an array of safe assets with an acceptable return is not that risky.

For instance, countries like Argentina have been able to absorb the shock better than its big neighbours like Brazil or some other countries because its monetary policy stabilises the peso (Argentine currency) to the dollar around a predicable market value. It imposes restrictive capital controls and has a conservative fiscal policy to support its stabilisation plan. It is true that its credit market has felt the impact, but it was not well developed before the crisis. So, one can say that the economic activities in Argentina were not significantly affected by the global crisis. Moreover, because the government taxes the country’s agricultural exports, necessities like beef and grains, revenues have remained stable.

In countries where the government has a floating exchange rate regime and where financial capital can flow freely, relative prices tend to behave erratically during a crisis because fear affects the value of currencies, and thus prices, in unexpected magnitudes. In these cases firms may have to consider relocating to more stable economic environments or to invest in safer assets until the crisis subsides to levels at which the future is more predicable.

As a result, a good understanding of the country’s macroeconomic policy may prove to be important during the process of analysis and planning because successful planning depends in part on the ability of the managers to read the future. And forecasting is more an art than a science. The analyst pieces together different parts of the puzzle to construct a tapestry about the future. The process requires not only formal knowledge of particular production processes, consume behaviour, the characteristics of the markets for the various inputs including labour, fiscal impact on the firm and various other issues, but it also needs to have an open mind to find new niches and to be willing to withstand the storm under an umbrella of falling margins while imagining new ways to allocate the existing assets in the less predicable environment that looms ahead in the next few months of this year.

Read more....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year
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
IIPM B-School Facebook Page
IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
IIPM – FLP (Flexi Learning Program)

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Two wars, none the smarter...

Europe gloated during the meltdown, claiming it would be left untouched. The claims return to haunt a failing Europe

I945: Europe is completely devastated and in ruins after the Second World War. It is also facing the haunting spectre of Communism emanating from the Soviet Union. And yet, Western Europe rises from the ashes and emerges as a powerhouse of economic growth and all round prosperity. The resurgence is thanks largely to the Marshall Plan implemented by the United States.

1957: A handful of European nations come together and form the European Economic Community that seeks a ‘European’ perspective on global as well as local issues. This is the first tentative attempt by Europe to emerge out of the trans-Atlantic embrace with America. Many more nations join by 1967 and Europe starts dreaming of a unified market that can emerge more powerful than America.

1993: The European Union emerges as an actual rival of the United States with 500 million citizens and 30% of the world output. By now, Europe is frequently critical of America and its policies – political, strategic as well as economic. The criticism climaxes after the foolhardy George Bush decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and many start openly talking of EU as a rival to the US and euro as the rival to the dollar.

2008: In the early days after Lehman Brothers collapsed, there is much glee amongst many in Europe. Analysts and hacks point out how Europe has fostered a more ‘responsible’ model of capitalism while America has gone beyond the pale. In a parody that seems inconceivable now, European media praises banks for responsible lending and handling of assets.

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Saturday, December 08, 2012

TOYOTA & HONDA: SUCCESSION

Toyota & Honda are in trouble... And now, they have new leaders too! But really, have the batons been passed onto the right man? Will they deliver?

Moreover its product-mix includes two-wheelers, which is serving it well in emerging markets. Yes, it’s also true that the company is not immune to global environment, and that it has to delete names from its rolls and curb production for months to come; but having said that, the job ahead for Ito appears less rougher than his Toyota counterpart, and the fact that Honda still expects to close FY2009 with a profit of $860 million (an 86% drop as compared to 2008) stands allibi. And this is where we come to the ‘third-gen descendant’ Toyota President.

Research has proven it in the past – appointing a family CEO isn’t the best solution during times of trouble! To quote just two such works – the 2004 paper by Villalonga (HBS) & Raphael (Wharton) proved after an analysis of Fortune 500 firms that “when descendants of founders serve as CEOs, firm value is destroyed!” Then there was the 2005 report by Hillier (Leeds) & McColgan (Aberdeen) that revealed how family CEO successions are “almost always followed by dramatic declines in not only stock performance, but dangerously, even in operating results.” Indeed, besides the fact that Toyota has reduced its global sales target for 2009 by more than a million units, and that its losses would continue to mount, forcing it to shut plants in US and cut manpower further, it might just have made a succession planning bungle!

Times will get tougher for all in the industry as even Christian Breitsprecher, Analyst, Sal Oppenheim opines, “The scenario for the industry will only worsen in 2009 & I don’t see the industry making a comeback before end-2009.” The coming weeks will surely test the experience of both leaders and while you still wouldn’t want to complain about the powerless Honda engine or about your broken-down Toyota, do plan to pray; these men would surely need it.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Saturday, December 01, 2012

HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTIONS: FAILURE

Really, that’s what powerful nations have taught us... Kill the innocent!

Forget about noble intentions, cases of a million people slaughtered in Rwanda or another 200,000 butchered in East Timor speak volumes about how much America under George Bush loved peace.

And what was the West doing then? What was the UN busy with? Remember the manner in which thousands of innocent people in West Timor were slughtered by the Indonesian army? Well, Washington provided arms for the same; after all Indonesia was Washington’s ally! What happened to Afghanistan? The whole country smashed to smithereens, and all because Americans needed an excuse to dispose off their old bomb shells! Were even the two and three year- olds guilty?! In short, humanitarian intervention can’t overpower geo-political interests of powerful nations; well, it hasn’t till now atleast!

Read more....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Friday, November 30, 2012

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS: INSIDE CONFLICTS

For the upcoming assembly elections, parties face a tough time

That’s why BJP has already announced Prof. Vijay Kumar Malhotra as their candidate for CM. On the third side, BSP supremo, Mayawati has made Brahm Singh Bidhuri as the new state president and has entrusted the responsibilty of make election strategies on the shoulders of Nasimuddin Siddiqui.

Every leader wants more and more of his people to get tickets. And for the same all parties are facing trouble. They have to face opposition as well as unhappy people within the party. It makes them weak and that’s what is happening now. If candidates are selected on the basis of ability and performance, many names would get cut. A dilemma each party faces.

Read more......

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

‘C’alumnious ‘S’currilous ‘R’apscallions

Are Corporate Social Responsibility acts really the way corporates portray it? Not really! A. SANDEEP, EDITOR, B&E does a reality check...

Oh yes, even I didn’t understand these words when I read them the first time? That’s the problem with many CEOs. They don’t understand many such words that start with C.S.R, or at least feign incredibly well not to. The protagonist of my editorial is clearly ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’... It was during the late 1990s that this concept of CSR started attaining prevalence within communities, spawning sporadic regulators who kept cribbing about the lusty profits being earned by the so-called “selfish” corporations, and advocating a dire need for society to “reign in” these “money making monsters.” Sadly, CSR is just a clever term that has been used by many CEOs and governments to mask their own under-performance, and worse, to ludicrously waste shareholders’ wealth – for the truth is that CSR should never be undertaken by firms sincere about their commitment to society! In a comprehensively researched paper sponsored by Oracle in 2005, the statement by David Gerald, founder of Securities Investors’ Association (globally one of the top agencies set up in fact to protect corporate governance), dramatically revealed the frittering away of precious shareholders’ wealth by international corporations, “(Company) boards should be given no mandate to give to charities.

If they want to do that... then they should put it to a shareholder vote.” Year 2005 reports by Fortune (of more than a hundred Fortune 1000 companies) and Economist Intelligence Unit (of more than 200 companies’ executives and investors, including in India) killingly revealed the pathetic double speak by global CEOs. While Fortune showed how 91% of surveyed CEOs regurgitated the ostensible statement that “CSR management creates shareholder value,” the Economist report correctly proved how, in reality, only a laughable 2% of investors globally said they’ll invest in companies undertaking CSR. The report also showed how one of the top two reasons for CEOs to undertake ‘corporate responsibility’ was, hold your breath, corporate scandals. Hilariously, “society” as a factor for undertaking CSR did not even find a mention in this list. Oh yes, NGOs did find a thoroughly insignificant mention in the list of who all are considered a firm’s “most important stakeholder”; they were ranked second from bottom (with the coveted last rank going to ‘none of the above’).

Read more......

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Monday, November 26, 2012

TERRORISM: BIOLOGICAL WEAPONRY

Bio-terrorism adds to the global fear of organised terrorist attacks

But then, all that is, as they say, officially. It is well documented that Iraq was alleged to have conducted R&D to develop bio-weapons in the 80s, which – at a secondary level to WMDs – ultimately led to the Gulf war. In 1984, members of a quasi-religious sect of a spiritualist leader called Rajneesh were accused of using salmonella on local people in New Oregan to win a local election, which resulted in over 751 people falling sick. 1995 saw Aleph, a small terror group using Sarin gas in Japan, which killed twelve and injured over 5,000 people. In 2001, the US was frightened sick with several Anthrax attacks on US citizens.

Bioterrorism is becoming easier as agents are much easier to make. Any trained biologist can engineer it with comparatively lesser cash, but remain equally lethal. Only the US has been able to fight back bio-terrorism with strong regulation and with its capability to produce vaccines. Most of the remaining countries remain vulnerable to it. As the threat from terrorism is increasing, so is the same from bio-terrorism.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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