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ISB beat BITS (Pilani) in football today to lift the first Sierra Atlantic Cup. Stud had a major contribution in the win .... Stud and soccer are probably inseparable. There was a sizable crowd present to cheer both teams and the din created by the drums could be heard miles away. We had the first Admissions Information Session for this year today in ISB's Khemkha Auditorium and had a huge turnout for the event. Close to 1000 candidates registered and when I left the reception area just before the presentation was supposed to start, there were about 600 people who had already checked in. Admissions committee had expected about 400 people to register. Current students split themselves in batches to give a campus tour to people who came for the session. It was a good experience interacting with the people in the group to which I was assigned. Three of them were from Delhi which brought back memories of home sweet home. We have this book called "Goal" prescribed as supplementary reading for our operations management course. Though I haven't read the book yet, I got the chance to watch the movie made on the book and was really impressed by the way they have tried to explain things in a simple, elucidative manner. Haven't read a single word today ... not that this is a rare happening though. There is a business presentation workshop running for a few batches in our class this weekend. Poor souls have to dress up in formal business attire and attend classes on Saturday & Sunday. This feeling of pity/happiness is short-lived upon realization that the same fate would dawn on me too in one of the coming weekends. This was probably the only weekend in a long long time involving such less effort from our side on assignments. So its kind of sad that its coming to an end. Let me enjoy whatever little is left of it :-) posted by Ram at 7:42 PM 2 comments  
There is a party tonight at one of the student villages here. Its supposed to be full of fun with lots of games like tug of war with water throwing, beer drinking competition etc also lined up. After a long time, there have been a lot of sports related activities this weekend. The volume of assignments in Term 2 left no breathing space during the weekdays or weekends. This term also has a lot of assignments but they may not be as blood-sucking as Term 2. There is an "ultimate frisbee" competition running. There are two teams from my section, one of which lost and the other won the preliminary rounds played yesterday. Semifinals and finals will be played this Friday. To check out what ultimate frisbee is click here. There is also a football match between students of BITS Pilani and ISB tomorrow. There is a staff 'vs' students cricket match later this week. There have been a lot of talks this weekend. Some of the people who have been doing the talking include Dr. K.R.V. Subramaniam (CEO, Ascendum Systems), Mr. Sanjeev Bhasin (CEO, Rabo India Finanace Pvt. Limited, Rabobank), Mr. Pankaj Srivastava (GE Leadership Program), Mr. B.V. Jagadeesh (Co-founder, Exodus Communications) & Mr. Rajul Garg (COO, Indus Logic). Went to the session on careers in banking by Mr. Sanjeev Bhasin ... was a very informative one. TiE-ISB Connect 2005, a forum connecting aspiring entreprenuers with VCs and other successful entreprenuers, was organized at the ISB on 28th July 2005. Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Dr. Y.S.Rajashekara Reddy, who inaugurated the event, was supposed to land in a helicopter in the football field just behind my apartment. Woke in the morning on the 28th to find cops and dogs all around the field. Couldn't watch the CM land as I had classes at that time. To find out more about TiE-ISB Connect, click the following: 1) AP to set up incubators for young entreprenuers 2) TiE-ISB Connect receives 56 business plans 3) Early stage funding to see improvement There are also articles on the same on www.rediff.com posted by Ram at 10:57 AM 0 comments
Just came back after attending an awesome 2.5 hrs carnatic classical vocal concert by famous singer Sanjay Subrahmanyam. Decided to skip dinner@ISB and stay till the concert ended. Am really happy that I went to the concerts yesterday and today .... was a really good experience .... also reminded me that I need to keep my music practice going however much short time might be. For carnatic music fans, here is the song list of Sanjay's concert: 1) valachi (varnam) - navarAgamAlika - kothavAsal venkatrAma iyer - Adi 2) sidhi vinAyakam - shanmukhapriyA - m.dIkshitar - rUpakam 3) abhimAna - bEgadA - patnam subramaniya iyer - Adi 4) karIkalAbha - sAverI - m.dIkshitar - rUpakam 5) ayyappan avadharitha - karaharapriyA - ?- Adi 6) nannUpA limpa - mOhanam - thyAgarAja - Adi 7) RTP - chArukEsi - misra chApU 8) nAthahare - sindhubhairavi - jayadeva - Adi 9) kAnavendAmo - sriranjani - pApanAsam sivan - rUpakam 10) thiruppugazh 11) bavamAna - sowrAshtram - thyAgarAja - Adi posted by Ram at 11:35 PM 1 comments
Today was one of the most satisfying days after coming here .... got a chance to attend a Carnatic Classical Vocal concert of the famous singer P.Unnikrishnan @ Ravindra Bharati, Hyderabad. Its been a long time since I played in or attended any concert and it felt really nice taking some time out of the busy ISB schedule to get involved in what I love the most - "music". Here is a partial song list for any carnatic music buffs reading this post: 1) eranApai (varnam) - thOdI - patnam subramania iyer - Adi 2) deva deva - mAyamAlavagowla - swAti tirunAl - rUpakam 3) AndavanE - shanmukhapriyA - pApanAsam sivan - rUpakam 4) entaninnE - mukhAri - thyAgarAja - rUpakam 5) akshaya linga - shankarAbharanam - m. dikshitar - misra chApu Unni sang the raga alapana of shankarabharanam really well. The rest of the songs have been sung by Unni many times in previous concerts, so nothing much exciting about them. I had to leave at this point to be back in time for a dinner hosted by the family of Cyclo (one of my study group members). I reached late after hearing the music and had to face the music at the dinner ... sorry ... that was a real bad one. There is a case study to be read and prepared for discussion, another case study to be submitted and an article to be read for tomorrow. Too much work to be done in too little time. Lets see what I finally manage to do. Tomorrow there is a concert at the same venue @ 6PM by one of my favorite singers - Sanjay Subrahmanyam. Planning to go for the same. posted by Ram at 11:55 PM 0 comments
We have had one class each of all the subjects of this term. Prof Rajeshwar Upadhyay, who took a part of the Leadership Development Program in Term 1 is back to take the remaining sessions this term. He is an awesome speaker and claims that he can detect yawns and mental drifts on the part of the listener to topics unrelated to what he is talking about very quickly. First hand experience tells that he is indeed good at these arts and hence most students pay lot of attention to what he talks. I found Prof S. Venkatraman (Entrepreneurship) also quite impressive. Seating arrangement changes here every term and for the first time I am sitting in the first row. The world looks different from here and it seems really strange to suddenly have the professor standing at an arm's length. Its also more like watching a movie from the front row in a theatre .... I have to keep my neck stretched a bit and head tilted upwards when the Prof stands very close, especially for Prof. Sunil Chopra (Operations Management) as he is very tall. The India leg of the ISB Admission Information Sessions has commenced. Info sessions are being held in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam.The details are as follows. Visakhapatnam Date: July 31, 2005 Time: 11AM Venue: Godavari 1,Taj Residency, Beach Road Hyderabad Date: July 31, 2005 Time: 11AM Venue: Khemka Auditorium, ISB Campus Anyone can register for these sessions and/or find out the time/venue of the session at his/her city of choice at http://www.isb.edu/pgp/visit/admissions_important_india.asp posted by Ram at 8:50 PM 0 comments
I am back @ ISB and the first thing I saw today morning as I was walking towards my room was a batchmate of mine carrying a heavy load of books. Was shocked to hear that they were for him and not for his kid ... which of course meant that I also needed to buy those books. Just came back after buying 3 of the 4 required texts. Believe me ... they are real bulky. The subjects we have this term and the profs who will be teaching us are as follows: 1) Operations Management - Prof. Sunil Chopra (Kellogg) / Prof. Sudhakar Deshmukh (Kellogg) 2) Managerial Accounting - Prof. Sri Sridharan (Kellogg) 3) Entrepreneurship - Prof. S Venkataraman (Darden) / Prof. Ramakrishna Velamuri (IESE) 4) Corporate Finance - Prof. Rangarajan Sundaram (Stern) & Bhagwan Chowdhry (UCLA) 5) Leadership Development Program - Prof. Rajeshwar Upadhyay To find out more about the profs, click here or google them out. You can get a brief outline of the courses here. We can also take an additional elective this term. For those of us who opt for the ELPs (projects), heavy work will start soon. I think the chartered accountants (CAs) are going to have a ball this term as two of the subjects (2 and 4 above) will just be a cake-walk for them. The others are going to have to slog it out. There is so much to be read before going to the class tomorrow ... no prof is going to discuss less than 5 chapters tomorrow in the book he has prescribed and that is an awful lot to be covered. I am in no mood to read all of that right now .... I mean what a pleasant weather .... heard its been raining here continuously since Friday. Hope its still raining in Chennai .... Chennai-ites desperately need it. Don't know when I will get a chance to go home to Delhi ... don't think I will get one before the course ends :-( posted by Ram at 4:25 PM 0 comments
Can't believe it? I can't either ... but it seems that rains follow me wherever I go and Chennai has been no exception. It rained heavily in Delhi somedays before I left for ISB. It rained heavily in Hyderabad when I came there to ISB... and now when I come to thirsty Chennai, it rains like crazy here too. People here are so happy ... it hasn't rained like this in ages and who doesn't know the water shortage faced by Chennai and other places in TN. I heard that the condition is somewhat improving in Chennai these days. Leaving for ISB tomorrow ...... signing off ... in a hurry right now. Apologies to those to whom I have not been able to reply back in the isb-pgp yahoogroup over the past 1-2 days. Life has been really hectic here in the break too. Will continue the posts on reaching ISB. posted by Ram at 12:25 PM 0 comments
I am so happy !!!! Term 2 exams are over and I am off to Chennai for the next 3 days. Did better than expected in the Design Models and Optimization exam today. Expected was that I would probably just go through the question-cum-answer booklet and return it without doing/marking anything. Thats all a matter of the past now .... CFO is going home today .... his long term ambition will be finally fulfilled ..... wondering who the hell is CFO? ... click here and check out one of my previous posts. Have to rush to be in time to catch the train .... see you folks ..... posted by Ram at 5:53 PM 0 comments
Two exams got over today - Global Economics and Competitive Strategy. The competitive strategy paper, apart from what it was meant for, was also a test of whether we could keep writing so much stuff continuously for two hours. Its been ages since I have written so much by hand at a stretch. It was an open book, open notes exam which meant that we could take books, notes etc into the exam hall with us. Everyone had a pile accumulated on his desk and it was real fun sorting through it trying to find the right stuff. In the middle of the exam, my question paper got mixed up with my class notes and handouts and I had to search for a considerable amount of time before I could manage to locate it !!! Next term promises to be even more stressful. Need a breather badly. Eagerly waiting for 4:30PM tomorrow when I will be done with the remaining two exams too. Looking forward to the Chennai trip. Will be not be having regular access to internet this week ... so won't be able to post frequently. posted by Ram at 7:40 PM 0 comments
3 more days including today for the exams to get over. There is someone who has a comparative advantage in producing cheese and someone else who has more comparative advantage in making wine ... but what the hell is the point I am trying to drive home by proving all this ... that trade is beneficial .... huh .... and know what .. this is just slide 1 of chapter 1 and there are so many other complex things to be studied, understood and cashed into marks tomorrow. But all said, I have started developing a true liking for macroeconomics ... so much so that it is eating into the time I am supposed to devote for other subjects too ... it shouldn't happen that I lose marks heavily in both economics as well as other subjects as a result. Just wanted to narrate a humorous incident ... Prof Jagmohan Raju in his cold calls came up with a question that was not directly related to what we had learnt so far and the guy who was supposed to answer it was told to try his best. Even if he couldn't answer, the whole class could collectively think and try to arrive at one. Know what is the guy's response? ....... "Am I allowed to use a lifeline?" .... and know what he asks next ? ..... "Can I phone a friend?" ... and know whom he chooses for a friend? ... "Prof. Scott Ward". The whole class burst out laughing. (Prof. Scott Ward taught us marketing in Term 1) posted by Ram at 12:15 PM 0 comments
Managing time is very important here if you do not want to get bogged down by stress and people try to do it in ways that suit them. At the micro level, for instance, we were thinking of cutting short the time we take to finish our breakfast & dinner during exam times. We were targeting to finish dinner within 10-15 minutes yesterday but then ended up talking, talking and talking to other batchmates on the dinner table. Took us an entire 50 minutes go get back to our apartment. Sarovar, the hotel chain that does the catering, housekeeping etc here, is also doing its bit to keep us kind of busy. For instance, they had this "Italian Nite" day before yesterday with a "live" pasta counter wherein we could get the chefs to make pasta with whatever ingredients we wanted (out of the ingredients available there). Dining hall was crowded and it took us a lot more time than expected to get our choice of pasta made. In general, I really like the breakfast we get here ... not that I hate lunch or dinner. You can have a really healthy breakfast and also have a lot of items to choose from. Time to start studying ... its 6AM now. I am happy that I woke up early, thanks to my flatmates who kind of slog it out in the night and are usually nearing the fag end of their day by the time I get up. Its like office days when colleagues in US used to slog it out in the night and would pass on the baton to you in the morning. The only difference is that there cannot be collective yet mutually exclusive studying done for the exams here and I cannot benefit from the fact that my flatmate has read the thing. Slept at 10PM yesterday which makes it a healthy 7 hours of sleep ... not healthy for study purposes though, especially during the exams. posted by Ram at 6:02 AM 0 comments
This is for people who are applying this year to ISB or are thinking of doing so sometime in the future .... ISB info sessions will be held in different cities this year too as in the past. For more details on the same (& for registration info), please click here. Free feel to mail the current students and alumni @ isb-pgp@yahoogroups.com in case you have any queries. Its started raining rather heavily again in Hyderabad. In this awesome weather, folks in my section are actually having fun recollecting through mails, humorous incidences that happened this term in the class. Generally there is a flurry of mails on some topic or the other a day or two before before the exams and people continue spamming on the topic for almost the entire day. Last term the topic was a fictitious visit to Golconda fort and everone sort of went crazy applying whatever they had learnt last term to whatever they wanted to write in their mails. People started writing about externalities, moral hazards and what not. Wonder what is going to be the topic this term. posted by Ram at 6:47 PM 0 comments
Had the last class of Term 2 today - Global Economics by Prof.Krishna Kumar. Awesome teacher with a very good knowledge of the subject, though he was going at rocket speed today because there was lot to be covered. There are two schools of thought in macroeconomics - "The Classical Approach" and "The Keynesian Approach". Prof Krishna belongs to the former school and never loses an opportunity to criticize the Keynesians (who belong to the other school). He shows us different portions of the "Commanding Heights" video in every class. Its been sort of happening consistently that the entire class bursts out laughing whenever there is any comment made by George W Bush in the video. Not feeling well ... just 3 more days to exams ... have to recuperate fast and try do something. Tickets for the chennai trip have arrived ... thats probably the only thing to feel happy about today. posted by Ram at 4:30 PM 0 comments
Most of the Profs for this term will be leaving this week as Term 2 ends and exams begin next week. We had a small cake cutting ceremony in their honour. Here are a few snaps from the same ....... One of the cakes  posted by Ram at 8:31 PM 0 comments
Asst. Dean Savita Mahajan, Prof. Raju and Prof. Harbir Singh 
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Prof. Ziv Katalan (Decision Models & Optimization) 
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Prof. Krishna Kumar (Global Economics) 
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Prof. Harbir Singh (Competitive Strategy) & Prof. Raju 
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Prof. Jagmohan Raju (Marketing Decision Making) 
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This is the last week of classes in Term 2 and we are not done yet with all the assignments. There has been a phenomenal increase in the number of assignments to be done this term as compared to the last one. There is a competitive strategy project which has the last date for submission set after the exams are over. This term has been really action packed and much more stressful than Term 1. As each term goes by, I keep learning from my mistakes as to how to manage time better. For those of you who plan to apply to ISB and are not aware ... there is a yahoo group called "isb-pgp" where a number of current students and alumni answer questions posted by applicants. Might be beneficial to join the group in case you are applying this year or plan to apply in the future Best of luck to all applicants !!!! ..... and ..... forgot to mention this ..... I am a part of the "Admissions Task Force" for this year's admissions. posted by Ram at 10:48 PM 0 comments
Its been raining like crazy here. It rained almost non-stop yesterday and its been raining intermittently today too .... and guess what all of us are doing here???? Cracking assignments .... shit ... how boring. Life would have been wonderful had there been "garm garm pakode" or "samose" and I would have just been sitting in some cozy thing by the side of the window and enjoying the awesome weather. Not that I am not enjoying the weather here now .... a window is there and so is a chair (which is not very cozy) .... but there are no pakode .... only books, notes and a laptop to keep company. The mention of books reminds me .... end term exams are on 18th & 19th July and there is just this week left .... which also means that the frequency of my posts in this blog is going to go down .. not that I usually post that frequently or write anything great though. Planning to go to Chennai (not to home in Delhi) this term break coz mom has come there and its been a long time since I saw her or any other kith 'n' kin and had home made food. May not get another chance to venture out of ISB in the other term breaks coz something or the other is supposed to be lined up. Can't wait for July 19th to arrive ........ chennai: here I come. posted by Ram at 4:00 PM 0 comments
Our class @ ISB is divided into study groups. Each group has 4-6 members. You can do many things within your study group though the only thing you end up doing together generally is solving group assignments and participating in any group activities that may come up. My study group includes me (of course), Stud, Condi, Heroine, Cyclo & CFO. Shouldn't take you much time to figure out who out of this is the only girl in the group. Plan to stick to these nicknames in my future posts, though changes may be done depending on the extent of opposition, if any, from my group mates. Stud shows a lot of enthu in all activities, be it studies or sports, and is very hard working. Condi brings in "out of the box" ideas and is very intelligent and active whenever he is around. Heroine and Stud keep fighting all the time over something or the other and the fights turn physical many a times .... I think I am in for a bashing tomorrow ;-) Cyclo is the Mr. Know It All. He has so much of experience that he can answer almost all questions you can think of related to business, marketing etc. He is a walking encyclopedia. CFO is the excel expert. His main activity is cribbing about how bad he is doing here @ ISB, though his grades tell a completely different story. He is always found talking about returning back home by the next available train (no flights he says coz there is no money). He is very quick in almost all of Bill Gates' products and is very well organized. We played a retailer simulation game in the "Decision Models and Optimization" class today and came first !!! Was a really nice feeling being at the other end of the spectrum for once, though my contribution was close to zero. All credits go to Stud for burning the midnight oil and devising a strategy to crack the game. More study group tales in the coming posts ..... posted by Ram at 9:50 PM 2 comments
If you thought we were still sane out here, here is the final nail in the coffin ..... the whole of last night was spent calculating the number of contact lenses to be manufactured for chickens, profit that can be achieved from this laudable activity and so many other figures of utmost importance to a company that wanted to be pioneers in this business. This activity was mandatory to finish the latest case study assignment in marketing ..... else which guy in his senses would do such things on his own ..... that too make lenses to blur the vision of the poor bird and not improve it. Guess what .... the product was discovered by accident ..... now don't start comparing this to penicillin or some other stuff that came out of serendipity. In case you are unable to resist yourself from going cuckoo over cocks and hens, google out "optical distortion, inc" or "animalens". Discussion on this case in today's class with Prof. Jagmohan Raju was one of the most interesting and humorous ones we have had till date. A few topics for discussion in the class as well as though mails were: 1) To debeak or not to debeak 2) Who might be your future competitors in this business - Bausch & Lomb ? 3) Can the company's CEO or VP or whoever live up to his dreams of growing taller than IBM by running this business? 4) What would be your company's positioning statement? 5) What other modifications can you make in chickens to achieve the same objectives? ...... and so on ...... There are chances of our section party happening this Saturday. Such parties remind you that there is something more to life than just assignments and case studies. posted by Ram at 3:55 PM 0 comments
ISB has a host family program wherein students are allotted local Hyderabadi families with whom they remain associated (at least) during the year they are at ISB. The formal launch of this program took place this Sunday. Our (my study group's) host is a well-known industrialist family. S, who represented his family at the launch was very friendly. We are all planning to chill out with him and visit his plant sometime soon. ISB admissions for the next batch are open. Click here for the details. Best of luck to all applicants !!!! Signing off .... ~ 100 pages (including a case) to be read for tomorrow's Competitive Strategy class ... better start now. for fans of carnatic music ... here is a rare varnam by the composer Swathi Thirunal .... click here for the audio ..... got a chance to hear this piece after a long long time. posted by Ram at 9:02 PM 0 comments
Commanding Heights was screened in the ISB auditorium today by Prof. Krishna Kumar. Really good video. Won't bore people who are not interested with the details. Those who want to know more and want to watch it online: click here . You will really enjoy it, as we all did today. posted by Ram at 7:20 PM 0 comments
That was precisely my reaction when I opened the question-cum-answer booklet of the mid-term global economics exam paper today. I thought they had wrongly given me some marketing paper ... could only see case study type questions everywhere. Managed to regain composure and do whatever best I could. They allowed us to take one-side single page cheat sheet to the exam and I had stuffed all I could into that sheet. Font size would have been 0.5 and it was written by yours truly in his own, truly wonderful hand writing. So you can imagine how the sheet would have looked. Two or three people were planning to get my cheat sheet photocopied initially but they ran away after they saw the wonderful job I had done with it. I think I can go in for "Rice writing" next. We had our first class with Prof. Krishna Kumar (Global Economics) yesterday .... he was just awesome. No wonder he got the best prof award last year. Doesn't feel like the mid-term exams are over .... got so many more assignments and then something or the other happening tomorrow and day after. A tam movie is going to be screened tomorrow and as always I am planning to be there. 1 1/2 terms over ... 6 1/2 more to go ... posted by Ram at 11:50 PM 1 comments
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Name: RamView My Profile Orkut me !! Previous Posts
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