Be it in Bilgaon’s micro hydel project or in the Tilonia Project of non violence education Gandhi’s experiments with truth still continue even 58 years after he left. If Dilip’s post summarizes the change these experiments have undergone then the Telecom Italia’s add does indicate the manifold effect of these experiments in a changed world.
Marty’s day does revive this Gandhian spirit in most of us. We realize that something of the sort of Bilgaon or Tilonia to happen we need to keep this spirit alive and hence we at IIM Indore organized a small blood donation camp.
Statistically, for any city, the yearly requirement of blood is merely 1% of the total population of the city. Indore has a population of around 30,00,000 which means only 30,000 people need to donate blood once a year. Medically a person can donate 1 unit i.e. 300ml of blood every 3 months hence we require merely 7.5 thousand people to donate blood 4 times a year. Interestingly not even this 0.25% of people is available from this historical city.
I hope a small contribution of 85 units from the IIM Indore family would in some way help revive the Gandhian spirit and not confine it merely to the statues on squares.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Swades Remade
After a 14 hour of tiring journey three chaps from the Planet I drove into a land where they were going to have a brush with reality over the next two days.
This land of “Mogli” (the character from Rudyard Kyping’s Jungle Book) now popularly called Seoni, is situated on the Satpura Plateaus of Madhya Pradesh, India. The visit was a part of the project which IIMI had taken to provide professional assistance to the district government with the “100 day assured employment scheme (NREGP)” launched by the central government.
To have a better understanding of the topography and demography of the place, we happened to visit Block offices, Panchayat offices and attended Gram Panchayats in villages over the next few days. But this turned out to be a remaking of Swades for all three of us.
We always knew that India as shown in Swades does exist; but it is easy to brush past it in an AC theatre and digest it over a discussion on a dinner table. But when confronted with this India in reality, our purpose of existence was shaken to the roots. I remember my hands shaking in a gram panchayat when Mr. Tiwari (from Green Brigade, an NGO) tried to explain the villagers that this scheme has an assured employment of 100 days and at no point would they be cheated.
I thought that how can somebody cheat these people who are struggling to live from hand to mouth. And the answer I got was “In The same way as people like you and I turn a blind eye to what we have seen and realized”.
Even if I fail to deliver what we are expected to of this huge project, one thing which I am damn sure of now is that I am not turning a blind eye this time.
This land of “Mogli” (the character from Rudyard Kyping’s Jungle Book) now popularly called Seoni, is situated on the Satpura Plateaus of Madhya Pradesh, India. The visit was a part of the project which IIMI had taken to provide professional assistance to the district government with the “100 day assured employment scheme (NREGP)” launched by the central government.
To have a better understanding of the topography and demography of the place, we happened to visit Block offices, Panchayat offices and attended Gram Panchayats in villages over the next few days. But this turned out to be a remaking of Swades for all three of us.
We always knew that India as shown in Swades does exist; but it is easy to brush past it in an AC theatre and digest it over a discussion on a dinner table. But when confronted with this India in reality, our purpose of existence was shaken to the roots. I remember my hands shaking in a gram panchayat when Mr. Tiwari (from Green Brigade, an NGO) tried to explain the villagers that this scheme has an assured employment of 100 days and at no point would they be cheated.
I thought that how can somebody cheat these people who are struggling to live from hand to mouth. And the answer I got was “In The same way as people like you and I turn a blind eye to what we have seen and realized”.
Even if I fail to deliver what we are expected to of this huge project, one thing which I am damn sure of now is that I am not turning a blind eye this time.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
City Beautiful - An analysis
City Beautiful - Chandigarh, the only planned city in India which has been immitated throughout the country in one form or the other. Designed about half a century ago it has survived all kinds of pressures on its infrastructure and still retained the tilte. But would it survive the another half?
Let us do a small analysis -
The whole infrastructure of the city including water, sanitation, transport system is built for approximately people based on following alculation -
(48 sectors)x(4 sub parts)x(1200 houses each)x(5 people each) = 11,52,000 people which is I guess a fair estimate.
The population according to 2001 cencus is 9,00,914 people with a decinnial growth rate of 40% approx. Leave apart the transient population.
This means that we wiil approach the limit within this decade.
Repurcussions -
a) Transport system sufferes first due to an unexpected explosion in the number of vehicles. Parking can be taken care to some extent through underground planining. But Safety on roads would definitely go down (But the Traffic Police till now is doing a wonderful job). First impact of it which is quiet visible now would be on the pollution. Next to go would be the squares - some of it has started already. Not to mention that these squares do add to the overall beauty of the city.
b) Water and Sanitation system poses pressure on Sukhna which has already been too much disfigured what I saw of it a decade and a half back. Again a major source of physical beauty would get on the verge of disapperance.
c) Even if these pressures are taken care of and We start building sky scrapers and say in a span of next 30-40 years we create something on the lines of New York. How many parks would exist is the question?
d) For the subject of the impact of these changes on the people of the city beautiful - I guess the answer can be found in the Desmond Morris's book - 'Human Zoo' which does describe impact of such an expansion on people taking cues from the human evolution.
Thus the real question is - If the administration is really aware of all these things what is it doing currently to face these challenges?
Above all, as citizens of City Beautiful, what is that we need to do is the question?
Can we really sit back thinking it to be a passing phase and wait for it to receede?
Manish
Let us do a small analysis -
The whole infrastructure of the city including water, sanitation, transport system is built for approximately people based on following alculation -
(48 sectors)x(4 sub parts)x(1200 houses each)x(5 people each) = 11,52,000 people which is I guess a fair estimate.
The population according to 2001 cencus is 9,00,914 people with a decinnial growth rate of 40% approx. Leave apart the transient population.
This means that we wiil approach the limit within this decade.
Repurcussions -
a) Transport system sufferes first due to an unexpected explosion in the number of vehicles. Parking can be taken care to some extent through underground planining. But Safety on roads would definitely go down (But the Traffic Police till now is doing a wonderful job). First impact of it which is quiet visible now would be on the pollution. Next to go would be the squares - some of it has started already. Not to mention that these squares do add to the overall beauty of the city.
b) Water and Sanitation system poses pressure on Sukhna which has already been too much disfigured what I saw of it a decade and a half back. Again a major source of physical beauty would get on the verge of disapperance.
c) Even if these pressures are taken care of and We start building sky scrapers and say in a span of next 30-40 years we create something on the lines of New York. How many parks would exist is the question?
d) For the subject of the impact of these changes on the people of the city beautiful - I guess the answer can be found in the Desmond Morris's book - 'Human Zoo' which does describe impact of such an expansion on people taking cues from the human evolution.
Thus the real question is - If the administration is really aware of all these things what is it doing currently to face these challenges?
Above all, as citizens of City Beautiful, what is that we need to do is the question?
Can we really sit back thinking it to be a passing phase and wait for it to receede?
Manish
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Jobs Gallore
Approaching the end of the last term, there is only one thing on everyone's mind - Job!
Well, I am not going to discuss the plus and minuses of starting your own business or joining a multinational. Its just that the management education prepares you for everything and anything. The only thing to be found out is what one actually wants to do! Some like Bhagat Singh know from the begining what they were born for, some like Sidin find it out in the course of ones life and some just regret of missing it on their death bed.
Kim Woo-Choong rightly says "Every Street is paved with Gold". One only needs to open up his eyes to look the world around.
In Jasdeep's Words the best job in this world is something like - Being a "Test Driver" for Ferrari. Man! they pay you for Driving a Ferrari, skidding it around and trying out what not.
Just on my way to set out, to look for something similar, I thought of droping in a few words around.
Manish
Well, I am not going to discuss the plus and minuses of starting your own business or joining a multinational. Its just that the management education prepares you for everything and anything. The only thing to be found out is what one actually wants to do! Some like Bhagat Singh know from the begining what they were born for, some like Sidin find it out in the course of ones life and some just regret of missing it on their death bed.
Kim Woo-Choong rightly says "Every Street is paved with Gold". One only needs to open up his eyes to look the world around.
In Jasdeep's Words the best job in this world is something like - Being a "Test Driver" for Ferrari. Man! they pay you for Driving a Ferrari, skidding it around and trying out what not.
Just on my way to set out, to look for something similar, I thought of droping in a few words around.
Manish
Monday, January 02, 2006
A Random Thought
History speaks of Holland as the home of letters, science and art, and undoubtedly the most learned state in Europe. The per capita number of laureates and scientists that the state produced is unmatched till today.
Such a heaven, today, is out of this world.
But there is one interesting point to ponder - What is required to be a successful scietists apart from inquisitve thinking and sound basics? "Money"!
Be it Keplar or be it Einstein - why is it that almost all the famous scientists have to be poor?
Now if I link all of these thoughts - A budding scientist has a sound head over his shoulders, needs money to fund his researches and most probably is poor!!
So, why not impart the knowledge of business subjects to science students so that in future they could fend for their endeavours for themselves.
Such a heaven, today, is out of this world.
But there is one interesting point to ponder - What is required to be a successful scietists apart from inquisitve thinking and sound basics? "Money"!
Be it Keplar or be it Einstein - why is it that almost all the famous scientists have to be poor?
Now if I link all of these thoughts - A budding scientist has a sound head over his shoulders, needs money to fund his researches and most probably is poor!!
So, why not impart the knowledge of business subjects to science students so that in future they could fend for their endeavours for themselves.
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