Madras University Exams

I have heard a lot of University of Madras engineering students claiming that the semester exam correction is totally random and you could do really well and still get only a 45 on 100 or you could do really badly and still manage an eighty or a ninety.

Actually thinking carefully, that’s not true in most cases. Over the years, the people you expect to do well – do well, and the people you expect to just pass – just pass. So, what’s the problem with the grading? Of course, some mistakes do happen and that’s solely because of an insanely large number of students appearing for these exams every time.

Maybe its just fashion to complain about the grading system, maybe its just like how people keep saying that the world’s largest software company Microsoft creates stupid products (then why does everybody buy them), maybe it spices up conversations, maybe the person who is talking has been affected by it (that’s acceptable, in that case, according to me, the CBSE grading sucks), I don’t know.

But the point is: There’s not much that is wrong with the grading in Madras University. Guess, it’s easier to make this statement once you know for sure, you are never going back to that place again! If I knew that there’s the minutest of chances that I’ll go back to Madras University, I would never make this statement, and that’s what is wrong with the grading! The way they conduct things, it doesn’t give you the confidence that they are doing things right.

Recruiting Information – why don’t tech schools advertise them?

Check out www.ece.utexas.edu and www.ece.cmu.edu

Also, check out www.mccombs.utexas.edu and www.isb.edu

One glaring difference you can see is that “Placement and Recruiting” is advertised like crazy in b-school websites. The ECE departments have a simple link to their career services website and don’t even have information on which companies usually come on campus to recruit.

Even between b-schools, there’s a lot of difference. ISB and IIMs even go to the extent of naming their top-salaried students. US B-schools do give out numbers but don’t divulge personal information.

Is there a specific reason for all this? I am not sure, but let me come up with some

1) B-Schools have nothing else important to post on their website. Faculty and research info isn’t enough to attract top students.
2) It is assumed that – money and placements shouldn’t be reasons why you should stay tech, if you are interested only in the money, just go to b-school
3) The main reason to go to b-schools is the job and the money as opposed to the “knowledge” you gain at tech/engineering schools :-P
4) Engineering/tech smart asses can figure out where they will get to work themselves as opposed to b-school folks who need to be told what their options are…

Ok…guess it time to cut the crap. The only sane reason I can think of is probably, some b-school started publishing placement information and figured out that this attracted the best-possible set of students, so everybody else followed suit.

On the other hand, maybe tech schools didn’t want to change their winning combination and believed that just information about research and faculty got them the kind of student population they wanted. In general though, I think it’s definitely a good idea for tech schools to start publishing recruiting information, just so that incoming students can plan their careers better.

Lok Paritran Returns

After all the opposition I got for my “opinions” on Lok Paritran, I was just thinking about this.

Lok Paritran’s website has some crap about ideology and strategy. If (a big IF, its painfully, excruciatingly, tortuously boring) you read it carefully, it’s a combination of some philosophical stuff which is completely abstract. The bottom line according to them is “Knowing the problem is knowing the solution”. Well, don’t you think “implementing the solution” is the key? They have nothing in their website or press releases that talks about what exactly they are planning to do.

The other point I noticed was…they seem to be targeting the educated class, the middle class that usually doesn’t vote. But, the educated middle-class is actually quite satisfied with the current political system. Lot of people still keep complaining, but whatever said and done the Indian economy has grown quite handsomely over the past few years. So, there’s no reason to be unhappy with the current political system, when actually, the educated middle class have risen a notch to give the upper class a run for their money.
If at all, anyone has to be unhappy with the current political system, it’s the people below the poverty line. “Lok Paritran” wants to do something for them, but its asking for votes from the educated group. Weird.

I have a question for them. It’s totally cool they want to get into politics and change the system top-down. But, why not, atleast on the side, do something concrete for the people below the poverty line? This will also help them get some votes.

I am not trying to say these guys aren’t doing anything useful, but I feel they could do much more than just talk. If they are going to do just that, might as well stick to the known folks who are atleast not doing a bad job(atleast as far as the educated group is concerned)

Now, I had a question for myself? Would I go out there and do something like these guys? I don’t think so, NO. But then why keep criticizing folks who atleast are trying to do something?

Well, the answer to that is, criticism is fair if there’s some valid reasoning associated with it. If every cricket journalist were a cricketer, then we wouldn’t read any cricket-related articles.

Lok Paritran

A bunch of highly qualified economists and ex-IITans have started this political party – “Lok Paritran”. They are contesting the Tamil Nadu elections this time and it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Here’s some analysis on Lok Paritran, the people who have started this party and what I think about their strategy to date.

The people:

A lot has been written about how these highly qualified, US educated guys have “sacrificed” top notch jobs to work for “our” nation. Frankly, I don’t think they have sacrificed anything. What they are doing is very similar to doing a start-up. After their high-quality education they have seen this opportunity to do a start-up in politics. They have this idea and the idea is to form a political party for the “educated Indians” and they want to see how things go. It’s definitely a very good idea. There is no question about it. If the start-up works out, great, India can look forward to some sensible educated leaders. If it doesn’t work out, these guys can always get back to some pretty good jobs.

Their Strategy- the positives:

They have chosen the right constituencies to contest the elections. If at all anybody is going to vote for them, it’s the educated class. The highest % of the educated dudes in TN live in: Mylapore, T.Nagar, Anna Nagar, Thousand Light, Park Town, Saidapet, and Rasipuram. Mylapore especially will be interesting because Vasudev (Lok Paritran’s chief advisor) is fighting against SV Sekar and Napoleon. 70 % of Mylapore usually doesn’t vote. Let’s see if economist Vasudev can change this trend.

All these guys have a good background in economics, so they really know, at least theoretically, what it takes to build on a nation’s economy and what developing and developed economies mean.

They have also got their basics right. These guys are getting full-time into politics. This is not their part(y)-time job. They seem pretty committed to their ideals and principles. And, it seems like if their start-up fails, they wouldn’t modify their ideals just to be successful.

The negatives:

Dude, remember you are contesting an election in Tamil Nadu. Half the people there can’t pronounce “Lok Paritran” even after loads of help. It doesn’t take a New York University economist to figure this out.

Marketing: They haven’t done the right things as far as marketing goes. I know a huge bunch of people who would definitely vote for them, who have no clue these guys exist.


It’s wonderful someone decided to implement Mani Ratnam’s idea. But to be a successful start-up, it takes more than just high quality education. Their performance in Mylapore, T.Nagar and Annanagar will give us a good indication of how well these guys started off.

Innovation ?

I am certainly not an expert in innovation or startegy and all that good stuff, but one observation I have made over the last few years of following a bunch of american and indian firms is that .... Innovation is not necessarily about creating new things and generating new ideas, but more about using some existing ideas in various contexts and creating things which appear to be new as far as the target audience is concerned.

Sony Entertainment India didn't take too long to figure out that the Indian counter part of American Idol will definitely be extremely sucessful in India. They quickly signed some agreements with the creaters of American Idol, and stole the idea into Indian homes. Today , Indian Idol is second only to Kaun Banega Crorepathi (which has its roots in one more american TV show) in TRP ratings.

Jim Cramer called rediff.com the Indian Google. Rediff is trying to do exactly that and they are doing pretty well. They have the "rediff sponsored links" , the "rediff news hound" , all aping various concepts google came up with.

Google themselves have created finance.google.com which makes some minor but effective modifications to finance.yahoo.com. Google, now synonymous with internet search, actually came into the search engine business after yahoo and maybe even msn did , but just did it better.

We can, quite easily, pick umpteen other cases of "innovative ideas" which are actually just a modified version of what someone else has already done. The key, obviously is to make sure that the customer group that you are targeting finds it as innovative as you do. With the world economy doing quite well recently, we might actually see a lot more cash-rich companies comming out with some interesting products based on already existing products. It might not be long before IBM "innovates" with a next-generation mp3 player thats better than ipod or Taj Indian hotels comes up with a "Idly-Vada-Tikka" chain that competes with Mcdonalds.