Friday, June 28, 2013

How Hardliners Win in Chaos?

In all revolutionary settings, Islamisicts, repeatedly cooperated with party of moderate libertarian inclination, and later have double-crossed them to capture power for themselves. Let's take an hypothetical example where Islamic Ulemas are allowed to make a list of 'ALL' the things that are wrong with society, and then suppose power center instituted EVERY social change that they demanded. Within couple of years, they will come with new list and with fierce pressure within . The drive for power is only satisfies by imposing a code of moral behavior.

Once the power-hungry and orthodox types have captured control of the movement, there are many moderate Muslims of a gentler breed who inwardly disapprove of many of the actions of the leaders, but cannot bring themselves to oppose them. They need their faith in the Islam, and because they cannot give up this faith and act against social pressure, they go along with the leaders. And those who have guts to oppose them will be physically assaulted, exiled, jailed and even boycotted with the help of the twin notions of blasphemy and apostasy. Thus the fact that many individual Muslims are personally tolerant and fairly tolerant people by no means prevents Islamic hardliners form having a totalitarian tendency to capture power.

However, the most dangerous individuals of all are True Believers. They are governed by dogmatic approach to Islamic ideology who avoid aggressive behavior but work quietly to promote collectivist values even with absolutely good intentions. But they create a society which gradually outcaste individuals with individualistic behavior, and so forth. Denial for others and blind belief are the instruments of True believers and their followers.

The funny thing is replace Islam with Left and all the logic will still appear to be true.

There was a great marxist named lenin, who did two or three million men in. That's a lot to have done in, But where he did one in, That great Marxist Stalin did ten in. - Robert Conquest.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Tawang: The Hidden Paradise.

I planned to Tawang for my dreams to see Buddhist monasteries . The three musketeers (Gautam, Mriganka & Himanshu) were the travelers. We had finalized our tour itinerary for Arunachal after reading all tour reports on travel sites. We started from Bhubaneswar and reached Guwahati via Kolkata. Route to Tezpur from Guwahati was unexpectedly a plain grassland and took nearly 5 hours with state bus service. We got our permits done at Tezpur office only just before closing of the office. It seems sad to take Inner Line Permit to visit in our own country. But when we have draconian acts like AFSPA in North east India, this seems to be less of our all worries. This part of India is seeing a grave human rights violation and things will go messy in future due to our state actions today.

We took a 6 days tour package from Tezpur ASTC agent Miraz. The route from Tezpur to Tawang have patches of really bad road. Bhalukpong was the start of Arunachal Pradesh. There is a proposal of train line to Bhalukpong. 370 km route was covered in two days with a transit stay at Bomdilla. We traveled through West Kameng, home to the Sessa Orchid Wildlife Sanctuary but March was not the right season for their flowering. Tawang is a beautiful place. Local people talk about Koyla Movie shooting and 1959 escape of 14th Dalai lama to India. We were lucky to get permit to visit Bum-La Pass. The road to Bumpla Pass from Tawang is of strategic importance but badly constructed. I will assume that a certain level of corruption in this. We trekked nearly one and half km on the road to Bumla pass as our vehicle can't go due to fear of slipping on the road. It took really some effort to walk and enjoy beauty of Bumla pass situated at 15000 ft. Seeing a Madhuri lake on the return was a most calming thing on our nerves in the whole journey. We returned to Tezpur with one night stay at Derang.

Gautam and Mriganaka at Sela Pass
We @ Bum La Pass
Indian Army with Us
Madhuri lake View
Tawang Monastery
Sela Pass during snowfall

I had not talked much about tour itinerary, hotels and cuisines here. Momo and Thupka are really things to try out there. Chinese items were flooded in the market. So decide oneself what to purchase. We did learn about 1962 war through memorials of Rifleman Jaswant Singh Rawat and Subedar Joginder Singh Sahnan. Nature lovers can enjoy Rhododendron and orchid sanctuary in their flowering seasons. This trip takes us through Fall, lakes, valleys, mountains and passes with all season of Rain, snow & sunshine coming together in six days.

There are ample opportunities to develop tourism here. There is a high unemployment rate while road construction, military contracts and tourism industry are only booming ones. Irom sharmila chanu and Mary Kom are well known and represent Manipur but there is no famous personality except Dorjee Khandu in my knowledge from Arunachal Pradesh. Our drivers(companions)told us about many problems faced by NE states. They were especially extortion and kidnapping by Bodo in Assam, insurgency in Nagaland & illegal migrants of Bangladesh. They even claim (not sure) of open for sale market of AK 47 and pistols at Dimpaur. Vulgar remark about the driver and army people on their need of women wherever they go left a bad taste in my mouth.

Ethnic people consist of Nepali, Garo, Bodo with Buddhism and Christianity as emerging religion. I learn that Buddhism have different sects and even more rituals than other religions. 'Om Mani Peme Hum' is the most widely used of all Buddhist mantras. It was again told to us that Christianity is having soothing effect on tribal people (not sure of this). Muslim -Tribal tension is really building here. It seems that a lot of money is pumped by central government but there is misuse of funds by local political leaders, military and bureaucracy. North-East region has sadly turned into one of the worst-hit conflict zones in Southeast Asia.

What I like was the whole society has given more liberty to women in every aspect than their northern or southern Indian counterparts. It is a shameful and racist act to use word Chinki for them. Continuous use of that word "chinki" represents ignorance, bigotry and deep rooted callousness even in our well educated class. Now can we start respecting NE people by not calling them Chinky? While Super Mom Magnificent Mary is making India proud more than any of us, its shame Northeast women are often stereotyped as "cheap" and "easy".

I need to read more about history of NE region. Any reader can suggest me a good book. That will be helpful.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Reading about B Schools

"Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind." - Walter Landor

The most critical issue in B schools today is that of quality. It is because of aspirations for “quality” education variously perceived by different social classes where MBA degree is often equated with “good education” by most parents as a social status symbol. The exponential growth of b-schools happened during 1995-2011 and resulted in the increased supply of MBAs or PGDMs, far in excess of actual industry demand.

As a MBA student, you end up learning several theoretical concepts through case studies, projects and field assignments. Beyond this grades will be left behind and work experience starts to matter more and more. Vijay Govindrajan, professor at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, says even in the US a majority of CEOs have MBA degrees. "There are three main rationales for getting an MBA: intellectual capital (knowledge), social capital (network), and legitimacy (brand name). All the three propel the best of the MBAs to reach the top," he says.

There are some changes coming in the B School world that are reported in mainstream news.

1- IIM-A Needs to Step Out Into the Real World. Read more:

2- Truth about astronomical IIM packages. Read more:

3- Never released official placement report for 2012 batch, says DMS IIT Delhi in RTI reply. Read more:

4- How do you choose a b-school when the top 10 choices seem out of reach. Read more:

5- Placements at IIMs are not an entitlement, determined by mood in corporate India. Read more:

6- Placement season: Companies prefer to recruit from top-tier B-schools than lower-ranked IIMs. Read more:

7- B School bubble burst. Read more:

Only complain that i have - Students fail to appreciate the socio-environmental issues as impacting Businesses, is because there are very few academic social science inputs in the course-work. While “Economics” (which provides a grounding in enhancing financial wealth creation) is taught, there is no “social science” dept., which provides a grounding in subjects like Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, etc. This is particularly important in India, where increasingly most students come with a science/ engineering degrees, and increasingly solving business problems requires grounding in social science disciplines.

Just for fun :- A layman’s guide to classifying MBAs!