Sunday, April 30, 2006

When was the last time you explored the creative side of u???? [:-/]

Dear Alumni,

We the Bacchus are proud to announce the XL- Delhi T-Shirt Slogan Contest * for the Alumni in and around Delhi.......

The winner of the best slogan will recieve some really exciting and surprising gifts.....

We want you to go back in time give your whackiest ideas....concerning XL.....we are sure you guys will do a great job and make the Delhi Alumni Meet 06 a party to remember !!!!

* Details :
1) A person can submit as many entries as possible.
2) The slogan will neccesary need to be about something that all Xlers share in common eg..XL-IIMC / Bodhi Tree / Jesu [;)] .....
3) The winning slogan will be printed on all XL - Delhi Alumni Meet T-Shirts.
4) Send your Entries to alvin_raskina@rediffmail.com
/ 9868 340 364 (Alvin Raskina)
or chocodusk@yahoo.com / 98719 24864 (Sandhya Krishnan)
5) The entries should reach us latest by Sunday 7th May 2006 by 6 pm

Looking forward for your eager participation.......

regards,
Alvin Raskina
SAPPHIRE Secy and Co-ordinator Alumni Meets 06

Delhi Alumni - Prep Lunch Party on 7th May, Meet 27th May

And this is how we begin the party- true XL STYLE!

We have planned for a pre-alumni-meet-enthu-lunch on Sunday the 7th May at DT megamall Food Court, Gurgaon -- 11 am.

Attendance mandatory for atleast one member from each batch (more is also great!)
There is also a plan to fork off for a movie after the Lunch.

Agenda for the meeting will be to discuss on themes, fancy event and game ideas, giveaway designs and gifts, publicity plans, slogans and of course some good natured ek-do-teen-char ;)

We are looking at an event that is entirely informal, filled with lotsa exciting moments, nostalgia and loads of activity. We havent seen the previous Alum meets - so for us this is going to be the biggest wetnite party ever. We are also planning to bring in some very speacial surprise guests for the evening ( I hope you have all blocked your dates for the 27th May)- so look out!

Volunteer Sponsers for above event please mail me - free souvenirs promised :D

To confirm attendance mail me at this id or call 98719 24864 (Sandhya) / 9868340364 (Alvin)

Waiting for your call!
Sandhya
EL secy and Coord of Alumni meets '06

Update on Manjunath Shanmugham Trust

PFE the latest update. Also available on www.manjunathshanmugamtrust.org

Please keep fingers crossed for the framing of charges date at Khiri Sessions Court, today, 29th April 2006. We need your collective wishes.
Warm regards, Anjali

Case Update:
1. Trustees just back from visit with lawyer to Lakhimpur Khiri Sessions Court. IOC legal dept manager accompanied us .
2. The date for 'framing of charges' (stage prior to start of trial) is on 29th April 2006.
3. Public Prosecutor (PP)has agreed to have our lawyer as part of the prosecution team. With this, we now have direct representation. We have now got all the documents related to the case and our lawyer - a man of quality and integrity - is working to push the PP and IOC lawyer to join him in analysis and decision of how the case should be fought.
4. Met with the SP, Zaqi Ahmed, an extremely nice and dedicated IPS officer; as also the Investigating Officer (IO). The IO has done a painstaking job of the investigation. A meeting is scheduled with him and our lawyer and the PP to analyse any gaps in the chargesheet and how they can be filled.
5. IOCL had not been following up as they should
6. We have met with the Oil & Petroleum Secy in Delhi and spoken to the GM (UP State) of IOCL; he has assured us that he was not aware of this, and will ensure that going forward, IOC will be present at every hearing and push their lawyer to ensure he is updated and active on the case.
7. Indian Express and TOI editors met and updated. Read this article( http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTC8yMDA2LzA0LzI3I0FyMDAxMDA=&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom ) published yesterday 27th April in TOI: as requested, just before the 29th April date and the first one in months. Both newspapers are sending a reporter to Khiri on 29th.

Other Actions Update:
1. Business Plan for the trust has been drafted and will be finalised shortly.
2. Manjunath's father is being updated regularly
3. Multiple people have been met and their support enlisted - an erstwhile CBI director ; erstwhile DGP of police in Lucknow; serving IG in Vigilance Cell; minister in SP ministry; politician (IIML alumnus!) in Rahul Gandhi's core team - the effort continues.
4. Fund raising effort continues, though weakly due to lack of volunteers - current small group has their hands full. We are at Rs. 15.4 lakh, and have some way to go. Please donate today and ask your friends to do so: http://syg.com/web/manjunath/?page_id=8 has details on 'how to contribute'.
5. Volunteers have come in from UAE, Far East and London. Some volunteers have however, completely fallen off the radar. Please return, all is forgiven, family missing you very much!
6. Oil adulteration ? A few positive steps from the Government: Orders use of technology, staff incentives to clean up pumps http://www.indianexpress.com/story/2278.html

Next Major Activities (Volunteers needed!) :
1. We plan to set up a desk at all alumni association parties (in India) , which happen end-May. Nitin Bansal, IIMB '98 will lead the effort.
We need Volunteers just until May end for this effort.
2. Senior IIM alumni (CXO level) presence at the first case hearing, possibly in May: This will have a tremendous impact on the local judge and give us much media coverage.
We need references/volunteers for the team that will attend the trial.
3. We are evaluating a PIL against oil adulteration. Government steps are a good start but not seen as sufficient measures.
We need people to help with the legal research and as part of the core team driving this action. Long term involvement necessary.

Please visit www.manjunathshanmugamtrust.org or contact:
V. Sabitha (vsabitha@gmail.com) in the US;
H.Jaishankar (jai@corporateacademy.com) in India;
Vinit Chauhan (vinits.chauhan@gmail.com) in the UK;
and Ritesh Maheshwari (ritesh_ma@yahoo.com) in Singapore, for any further queries.

Friday, April 28, 2006

Hyd big summer bash - Need your support May 13

Hi folks,

We have our big Annual Dinner on Saturday, May 13 ! Venue will be communicated

We need your help to make the dinner a success. Please!

# 1. We need sponsorships. It's the generousity of you and your companies that make the event a success. Please take the extra effort in getting your company to sponsor the dinner and venue. [Contact me for details]

# 2. We want to make sure all the alumni in Hyderabad know about the event. Please send this email to everyone you know.

# 3. Make the most of the evening by ensuring all your batchmates come. What can beat a gang bang?

The summer trainees are in town so when you bump into them spend the time to catch up on XL.

Thanks & looking forward to your support!
regards,
Gautam

HydXlers meet the Diro

Director Fr. Casimir Raj was at Hyderabad, being invited for the CII conference.

Dear HydXLers,

It was great to meet up 16 of you and 12 summer interns at Our Place. For those who could not attend here are the details Fr. Casimir Raj shared:

a. XL needs people to come down to and take specific classes during weekends. The cost for travel would be borne by XL. To find out more contact the Director's office at XL. Heh, that'd be a low cost option to build your organization's brand in campus.

b. The big news is that XL is looking at opening an additional centre in India ...and that Hyd might be an option !

c. The salaries of the faculty will be going up by 15 to 25%. The current war for talent is also impacting B Schools!

d. The Exec Fellow Program has taken off with 30 participants. That's a great pipeline to create new profs!

e. What was surprising to note is that applications to the HR course are dropping. Is it due to other instis in the metros starting off specialization in HR? Maybe.

Gautam Ghosh
http://gauteg.blogspot.com - The Blog
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gautam - The Profile

Monday, April 24, 2006

More XLer authors (94, 98 and 99batch) - forthcoming books

In case you people want to know about a certain book - a collection of short stories - "Drizzle of Yesteryears" - written by a certain XL G-Sec of 99batch, who currently lives in Kuala Lumpur, and in his free time does restructuring of a certain FMCG MNC..
http://www.geocities.com/ajaymkonchery/index.html
Write to these people:

FROG BOOKS
ZZEBRA
4A, Diamond House, Linking Road,
Parallel Road to National College,
Bandra (W)
Mumbai 400 050 India
Telephone: 0091 22 26496713
Email: editor@zzebra.net

(the more you pester them, the earlier they will bring out the title - these publishers, otherwise, are worse than XL students when it comes to on-time submission... they take there own sweet time...

I mean, look at what is happening to the book "Unequal Equations" (Pragya Prakashan) written by S Ministhy, IAS (98PMIR) - it is pending since last 2 months!!)... same with Anu Kumar's (1994PMIR) novel "Letters for Paul" (Mapin Publication)

[PG Wodehouse had once desired that publishers should be fed to bears - he was perhaps correct in his sentiments, except that to get books published, one needs a publisher:(
... unless one blogs;0)

Any other XL authors around?
;0)

ciao
madhukar

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

A fellow MBA - (IIMC) who found a different calling...

Ruchi from the 98 batch brought this to my notice. Thought I would post this on my XL blog because the effort needs attention & help.
Kim


Hi,
I recently became aware of efforts of Vinayak Lohani, IIM C Alumnus (2001 -03) who opted out of placements and started a home for abandoned children in Calcutta (www.Parivaar.org)
The Director IIM Calcutta Prof. Sekhar Choudhary in his 15-20 minute speech on Annual Convocation on 1st April, 2006 spoke for at least 4-5 minutes on Parivaar. (excerpt of the Parivaar portion from his speech is attached below)
Ruchi
(BMD - 1998)


Ladies and gentlemen,
I am very happy to inform you that besides the Initiative for Community Action (INCA) which I just mentioned there is another very important social sector initiative taken by one of our recent graduates. 'Parivaar', a social service organization, was started by Shri Vinayak Lohani, an IIT Kharagpur and IIM Calcutta alumnus of the 2001-03 batch. Shri Lohani did not seek final placement through the Institute's Career Development and Placement office. Inspired by the spiritual and humanistic ideals of Shri Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Swami Vivekananda, he decided to devote his life to the upliftment of homeless children. It started with just 3 children in
a small rented building with almost no financial resources, and today there are currently 162 children who have found a new Home, Family and Future at Parivaar.

Parivaar Ashram at Bakhrahat, about 30 km from Kolkata in 24 Parganas (South) district, is spread over 2 acres of land. Currently Parivaar runs two (2) Bal Ashrams. A facility with a capacity of 400 hundred children is now under construction.

The children admitted into Parivaar Ashram can be broadly classified as homeless and family less and are from categories like orphans, abandoned children, street and pavement children, railway platform children, children from red light areas and other such highly vulnerable children. The children are admitted at a very young age (generally 3 to 8 years) and have no exposure to any kind of education. It is a great challenge to train them initially to enable them to get admission into a class that corresponds to his/her age in a quality formal education school. To achieve this the child admitted in Parivaar undergoes an in-house Rapid Learning Course for a period of one year. The admission into quality formal schools is not easy as the children have to go through rigorous competitive entrance examinations conducted by various schools. Thus the child has to compete on his/her merit.

Since the category of children Parivaar works with needs total rehabilitation, which includes meeting all living costs like food, clothing, education, recreation, etc., the average cost per child is very high compared to education and other day-care initiatives.

Parivaar works with the idea of providing support to each child with a minimum
commitment of 12 to 15 years, right from his/her kindergarten stage till he/she grows up and makes good in life. Parivaar has been successful in this by attracting funds through financial contributions from individuals. A point to note is that 300 IIM alumni have enrolled as regular Parivaar donors and more than 200 IIM Calcutta alumni have donated to Parivaar.

For one who is so well qualified, having graduated from two of the most acclaimed institutions in the country getting jobs in top MNCs would have been a cake walk. However, Vinayak chose a life of sacrifice for a larger cause. For one so young such sacrifice is even more poignant. A visit to the Parivaar Ashram where the hitherto uncared for children are laughing, playing and living happily in gay abandon is a most humbling experience. The Institute community is extremely proud of the achievements of our alumnus Shri Vinayak Lohani.

For more details on how you can contribute to a child's development at Parivaar, visit http://www.parivaar.org/come.shtml#Read

Fortune Article praises HCL's Nayar. (BMD 85)

Read the Entire Fortune Article Here

The world's most modern management - in India
HCL Technologies is empowering its employees and pointing the way to the future of business.

By David Kirkpatrick, Fortune senior editor
April 14, 2006: 12:41 PM EDT

NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - I have seen the future of management, and it is Indian. Vineet Nayar, president of India's 30,000-employee HCL Technologies (Research), is creating an IT outsourcing firm where, he says, employees come first and customers second.

"Everybody was aghast the first time I said that," admits Nayar.

Here are some things I can say about him with confidence: He is good at motivating employees, very committed to building a great team, but a little shaky on getting things done on time. These are not my observations. They are what his employees told him in an extraordinary process of upward evaluation he implemented last year at HCL.

Read the Entire Fortune Article Here



Vineet Nayar is an XLer of the 85 batch (BMD). This is high praise indeed, since Indian magazines are often citing Western examples on management excellence. This article is a welcome change & its simply great that its about an XLer.

XL Summer Alumni Meets - update

Further to the mail of Prof Madhukar Shukla re the proposed Alumni meet, this is just an advance intimation that the Summer Trainees are on the job.

The tentative dates being considered are Saturday May 20th or June 3rd....27th is booked by Bangalore and
since one bearded gentleman has plans to party hop (no XL alumni party can be complete w/o him);besides the
home grown XL band is also likely to perform(something to look fwd to) at these 2 centres, hence we need to
stagger our dates.

So if you want to enjoy Booze & Chicken(??) lets have some inputs too.

Best wishes.
PCMehra
Delhi Chapter Co-ordinator

Hyd CII HR Conclave - an XL Event???

Of the 11 speakers in the CII HR Conclave (April 27, Hotel Taj Krishna), 6 happen to be from XL (including the current Director) as the list below shows:

Mr. B Ramalinga Raju, Chairman, Satyam Computer Services Ltd.
Mr. Dilip Ranjekar, CEO, Azim Premji Foundation
XL 90PMIR:Mr. Piyush Mehta, SVP, Human Resources, GENPACT
Mr. S R Tulasi, Vice President (HR), ITC Ltd ? Paperboards & Specialty Paper Division
XL Fellow Prog: Mr. Hari Iyer N, Culture Officer, Sasken
Dr. Parakala Prabhakar, Director, Centre for Public Policy Studies
XL Director:Fr. N Casimir Raj, SJ, Director XLRI & Founder Director of LIBA*
Mr. Tatwamasi Dixit, Consultant and Vedic Scholar
XL 99PMIR: Mr. Prabir Kumar Jha, Vice President - HR, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd
Mr T Hari, Sr Vice President - HR, Satyam Computer Services Ltd.
XL 84PMIR: Dr. Bagha Singh, Director - Operations, Alliance Consulting Ltd
XL 83PMIR: Mr. S V Nathan, Vice President - HR, Deloitte Consulting

Does this call for a XL get-together on 27th? ;0)... A sort of warm-up for something larger later in May-June?
... oh, just a thought;0)

Ciao
madhukar

Hyderabad XLers Meeting Diro on 27th April

Since the Diro (Fr. Casimir Raj) is coming to town (Hyderabad) on 27th we're trying to corner him for a dinner. for that purpose would need feedback from you on who's interested to attend the dinner.

would also need help from XLers on arranging the venue for the dinner.

Diro is addressing a CII HR conclave at Taj Krishna so any place around Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills would be welcome

Would also request you to spread the word and get XLers who are not on the egroup to sign up for it.

Gautam Ghosh gautamghosh[at]yahoo[dot]com
http://gauteg.blogspot.com - The Blog
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gautam - The Profile

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

XL Summer Alumni Meets - Yr Inputs and Support

Folks!
Summers are here, and as has been happening since 1997, the current batch students are planning to organise the Annual Alumni Meets in different cities (Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi).
The teams are formed, and the plans are "to rock" - as one put it;0)
but am writing for two purposes please mark a copy to madhukar[at]xlri[dot]ac[dot]in

1. A Quick Market Survey:
The idea of these meets has been to provide a time/space for alumni to meet each other, and to renew the contact with the alma mater. In the past, some tfew things went right, some not so.
So please tell us, what would you like to have in these meets. More specifically, things we should have/no have.... Can't promise everything, but will sure like to try to make it an enjoyable event for all who attend.

2. Your Help and Support to the Organising Teams:
Needless to say, these are events for the local alumni in these places - and you can be of great help to the "bachchas" who are trying to organise these meets. As you can imagine, many of those who have volunteered to organise these events, may be visiting your cities for the first time in their lives... (and working their a** off simultaneously, to do a good job of their summer internship, so that they may get a PPO;0)
In some chapters, we have active local core-teams of senior XLers, who have been very helpful in the past events - in some others, we still have no local owners, who can help them out, and we need some from the older batches to come forward to help out.

So please, do help out with your inputs/ contacts/ help and support to them

please do write to me if you can be part of organising the event - and I will put them in touch with you.
Hope to do a repeat of 'party hopping" this year too;)... and be there for the meets

ciao
madhukar
aka alumni coordinator

Monday, April 10, 2006

Microsoft's Rajiv Kaul (92BMD) to join Actis as partner in UK

Microsoft's Rajiv Kaul to join Actis as partner
06/04/2006. Source: AltAssets.

Emerging markets private equity investor Actis has appointed the former managing director of Microsoft in India, Rajiv Kaul, as partner, based in London.

Paul Fletcher, senior managing partner of Actis, said, 'Rajiv brings to Actis immense experience and understanding of what it takes to build accomplished businesses in emerging markets.

'It will be a great benefit to our portfolio companies to be able to draw on Rajiv's extensive experience in the technology sector. His legacy of success will provide the necessary skills for us to raise our game across Asia,' Fletcher continued.

Kaul added, 'My professional experiences reinforce the premise that today's emerging markets will be super markets of tomorrow. I believe that private equity has a significant role to play in the rapid economic development of countries such as India, China and other emerging markets. Actis's focus on these markets provides me with a perfect platform to continue to build on my strengths and to work with entrepreneurs and corporations in the IT sector, helping them grow rapidly.'

Actis is an independent private equity investor that currently has about $3bn of funds under management.

Copyright © 2006 AltAssets

Wednesday, April 5, 2006

Hari Jha PMIR 1969 bids ITC adieu

Mr. Hari Jha, PMIR 1969, VP-HR, ITC Hotels bids adieu on supperannuating from the services of ITC on 5th April after a 28 year stint.

I have personally had the pleasure of knowing him over the last 37 years, soon after he passed out of XL in 1969 and he is a cherished friend, a reverred senior and last but not the least a wonderful human being.

As he hangs up his boots, on behalf of the Delhi Chapter, of which he is an important constituent, we wish him a period of wonderful retirement with loads of good health & happiness.

Cheers Hari Bhai !!

P.C.Mehra
Chapter Co-ordinator
Delhi Chapter

Tuesday, April 4, 2006

10th year reunion

The 50th Annual Convocation also coincided with a 25th batch reunion & a 10th batch reunion.

This is a report on the 10th batch reunion from a student of that batch. Anyone want to contribute to the 25th batch reunion details....

The Tatanagar Times
April 1 2006

Unconfirmed reports from XLRI, that famous center of management education in Eastern India, indicated that a mixed group of middle-aged balding persons were seen in its vicinity. They are said to have been seen swaying to the beat of long forgotten filmi tunes dating at least a decade back, staring at various parts of the campus & asking bystanders if the construction was recent, & gulping water every half hour or so as the sun took its toll.

Y K Rajasekar, a second year, posted on his blog that a pot-bellied, blackberry-wielding "corpo-type"(he wouldn't specify if it was corpolent or corporate) pointed to the men's hostel & demanded where the ladies hostel "was being hidden". He became violent on being told that the structure has been standing there since Y K could remember, & "in a scene reminiscent of the ending of 'Planet Of The
Apes' went down on his knees & cried incoherently".

While the search for the LH may have been a dampner, a quest into the MH seems to have been less disappointing. Apparently the motley crew, most in a state of inebriation, ran down the corridors, sqeualing & shrieking with apparent delight, & banging on doors till the occupants were forced to open up.

Raghuveer 'Rocky' Patnaik, a first year student, is quoted in the same blog describing the incident. "It was about 1am, & my friend Sun.. er... Sushmita & I
were discussing some our upcoming presentation on SADMAN, when there was an unearthly pounding on the door. Sunshmita jumped out of her skin & most of her clothes, so unexpected was this intrusion. After a few moments I opened the door, & a person I have never seen before (but for his clothes, I would have thought he was a visiting prof.) stared sternly at Su... slinking away & then barged into the room with another similarly unknown person. They pointed excitedly at the walls, pulled open my cupboard, looked under my bed, opened the window, & took a lot of photos. I was too stunned & a little scared to say anything about this despicable invasion of privacy, leave alone protest. As they left, I heard one telling the other, how '... their room still looks the same...' whatever that means."
School officials could not be reached for comments. Student representatives did not return calls. Sources said that they did not want to jeopardize their placement chances by commenting on this incident.

Also, Reuters reports, various persons of Indian origin, in their mid-30s & living in North America, complained to the local constabulary that they received prank calls in the early hours of the day from persons claiming to be their batchmates & calling from the Eastern Indian town of Jamshedpur. Reuters quoted a Mr. JT, who said he was enjoying a quite conversation with a lady friend at a coffee shop in downtown Toronto, when a person, identifying himself as "Harami" reportedly cursed him in Hindi (a language Mr. T is not very familiar with) & ordered him to "come down to Jampot where the babes are hot". Mr. T recalls hearing drunken shouts & loud music from Bryan Adams's (a Canadian artist popular in India in the 90s) "Summer of 69" in the background. He promptly hung up.

Prof. Madhukar Shukla has posted the pictures at http://returnof96.blogspot.com/

A new batch of MT"s : Out to Conquer the world

Since the 50th Annual Convocation has just taken place for the 2006 batch, I thought I would link to 2 articles here which seemed very appropriate for this time.

The first is By Prof. Madhukar Shukla :
B-School Campus Placement "Season" is over, Convocations are happening, and suddenly in the next couple of months, a few thousands of MBAs will spread out across companies and country to "manage" things as varied as people, products, machines, money, markets, etc.

About two years back, Henry Mintzberg had written this slightly strongly-worded article about the MBA Menace. I am sure not many will agree with him, but there is a grain of truth in what he is saying...

...I mean, if you are an MBA, about to join your first job, just think about it: how much do you really know about the company, its products/ services and the industry that you are going to join?

Read on, anyway...

Dear new MBA:

Congratulations! You have a sparkling new degree, highly prized in this world. You have learned a great many things about business. You have invested two years of your life, not to mention lost wages and a small fortune in tuition, in this impressive undertaking. As a result, you are fully qualified to go out and become a menace to society.


Read the Entire article here.

The Second is By Surya Nair PMIR '06 :

So how do I feel on the last night ar XL? I miss my friends - or rather, my best friend. he was my secret keeper and personal diary; i used to tell him all the highs and lows of the sitcom called my life and my umpteen crushes... More than the fact that he has left XL, what irks me is the no outgoing calls clause in my cell phone...

I wont be missing my friends, as i usually keep in touch with them... but i will miss the huge raucous group, the arbit conversations and the verbal duals that i had with a bunch of good friends... from many-to-many to one-to-one or one-to-many -- it sucks. :(

Read the Entire Post

Monday, April 3, 2006

Mr Sujit Baksi (72 PMIR) joins TechMahindra

An XLER Mr Sujit Baksi has joined TechMahindra as President Corporate Affairs.



A stalwart in the arenas of people management, operations management and corporate strategy, he has a highly enviable track record that spans over three decades. He was recently the CEO of HCL Technologies (BPO Solutions & Services), and has worked for TCS, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Bank of India and Union Carbide earlier during his career. Sujit pursued his Bachelor's degree at the Presidency College in Kolkata and specialized in Personnel Management during his Master's at XLRI, Jamshedpur. His thorough understanding of people and processes enable him to leverage their true potential through innovative and comprehensive use of technology.


Previous news about Mr. Sujit Baksi

Songs Mom won't listen to

by Mayank Tewari
New Delhi,
April 1


Call them the Marilyn Mansons of the subcontinent. Their songs are composed of expletives — not lyrics. But, every third person who has iTunes is busy downloading B**** c*** sutta (BCS, aka smoker's anthem) by Karachi-based band Zeest, and G**** mein danda (GMD) by XLRI Jamshedpur band bodhiTree (that has a female drummer): two songs about lovable losers.

Chances are that MTV and Channel V are not going to belt out these numbers- and neither will FM channels. But just hop across to the nearest pub and you might hear these two gems even before you finish your first drink.

"I heard GMD and BCS on a friend's iPod and immediately transferred it to mine. For the last two months I have given this song to at least 500 people through file sharing," says Ramit Shah, a class XII student.

The downloading started in September last year. Within 21 days, 8,000 people had downloaded BCS. Soon after, bodhiTree got in with its act. "Today, in Delhi, bootlegged CDs are being distributed all over," says Dhruv Arora, a student of Kirori Mal College.

The lyrics have also raised some 'discriminatory' questions. If artistes like Eminem and 50 Cent get airtime to be 'explicit', why can't local rock bands?
BCS talks about a boy who gets caught by his livid father while smoking; GMD derives its stuff from the carrots-and-sticks treatment going on at a business school.

Interestingly, the hottest request on various music download forums is for the instrumental version of BCS. Obviously, the numbers pack in quite a punch when it comes to the music as well.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_1664838,0015002500000000.htm

Indian HR thought leader series featured on DesiPundit

99 batch's Gautam Ghosh's series has now been featured on Desipundit, the premier linking site for Indian blogs.

http://www.desipundit.com/2006/04/02/indian-hr-thought-leaders-series/


Gautam Ghosh has been interviewing several leaders in the HR sector in the Indian corporate world. After his first interview with Abhijit Bhaduri (FritoLay), he has spoken to: