Stonewalling transparency

There is a unanimous opposition from political parties to the CIC order that puts them under the ambit of the RTI Act. Parimal Peeyush has the details.

There was distinct unanimity on television screens after an order by the Central Information Commission (CIC) put six national parties under the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Setting ideological and personal differences aside, the political class has united in their quest to prove why the act does not and should not apply to them and that the CIC had acted beyond its mandate.

On June 3, 2013, a full bench headed by Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra, held that the ‘‘INC, BJP, CPI(M), CPI, NCP and BSP have been substantially financed by the Central Government under section 2(h)(ii) of the RTI Act. The criticality of the role being played by these political parties in our democratic set up and the nature of duties performed by them also point towards their public character, bringing them in the ambit of section 2(h). The constitutional and legal provisions discussed herein above also point towards their character as public authorities... it is held that AICC/INC, BJP, CPI(M), CPI, NCP and BSP are public authorities under section 2(h) of the RTI Act.”

In October 2010, NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Subhash Chandra Aggarwal had filed RTIs seeking information regarding contributions received by the various political parties. In response, except the CPI, all other parties refused to disclose information stating that they don’t fall under the purview of the RTI Act. Subsequently, a complaint was filed with the CIC in March 2011 requesting that political parties be declared as public authorities.

Since then, political parties have launched an all out attack on the CIC for going beyond its mandate and explaining how and why they just could not be held accountable. And the consensus was breathtaking. Said Congress’s Janardan Dwivedi,‘‘It is not acceptable. Such an adventurist approach will damage democratic institutions’’.  Sharad Yadav, Janata Dal (United) believed that the ‘‘CIC has acted outside its jurisdiction. The government should step in.’’ Congress’s archrival, BJP’s Nirmala Seetharaman, concurred. ‘‘Political parties are already giving information to the Election Commission (EC) and the Income Tax (IT) department. How many authorities are we going to respond to?’’ The CPM could not agree more with the BJP. Says CPM’s Nilotpal Basu, ‘‘this order opens doors to interference in the internal functioning of political parties. There also needs to be clarity on whether political parties are public bodies in the sense as laid down by the Constitution.’’

Political parties are wary when it comes to transparency in their own functioning. Their major contention: we cannot be defined as pubic authorities since we have not been established or constituted by and under the Constitution, nor by any other law made by Parliament or the State Legislature, nor are these bodies owned or controlled by any appropriate government.

The CIC agrees but declares them as public authority due to the substantial funding they receive from the government in the form of land, accommodation, free air time on state-run Doordarshan and All India Radio, electoral rolls, income tax exemptions and other services availed at highly subsidised rates.

Other major points that parties have raised include ambiguity on being answerable to multiple authorities and that the information, particularly related to funding of political parties, is already being furnished to the IT department and the EC. But critics are unimpressed. “They do not know the ABC of the RTI Act. There is a misconception that they will now be answerable to two authorities - the EC and the CIC. RTI Act does not say that public authorities are accountable to the CIC. It says that they are accountable to the public. The role of the CIC comes much later,’’ RTI activist and petitioner in this case Subhash Chandra told TSI.

Another concern is interference in internal party affairs. However, activists point out that there are provisions under Section 8 of the RTI Act that enables them to withhold information. “It is the fear of the unknown that is making political parties so wary,’’ says founder member of ADR Jagdeep Chhokar.  He adds,‘‘When the RTI Act was being implemented, there was stiff opposition from the bureaucracy. Later, a survey revealed that over 60 per cent of RTI petitions filed came from government servants. In the present context too, it is the political leaders who are scared of RTI, not the rank and file,’’ he adds.

Parties are apprehensive on the issue of funding, most of which comes in the form of donations. Under the Representation of People Act, 1951, parties are required to submit contribution details received in excess of Rs 20,000 from any person or a company. Politicians however do not include in it multiple donations made by the same person, entity or company aggregating Rs 20,000 or above during the year. Political parties have also adopted the coupon system for collecting funds by issuing of coupons in lieu of receipts to donors for cash contributions. Since these are cash donations, it becomes all the more difficult to establish the identity of the donor. This implies that a lot of cash donations received remain unaccounted for in the books of accounts as only those amounts would be recorded for which a receipt has been issued.

Data obtained through RTI makes a strong case for transparency. Income of political parties from 2004-05 to 2010-11 shows steady growth. The total income of INC went from Rs 222 crore in 2004-05 to Rs 307.08 crore in 2010-11. This was followed by the BJP whose income rose from Rs 104 crores in 2004-05 to Rs 168 crores in 2010-11 and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which registered a growth from Rs 4.2 crores in 2004-05 to Rs 115.7 crores in 2010-11.

When it comes to the share of donations received in excess of Rs 20,000 in total income, BSP has declared that the party has not received any donations above Rs 20,000 though its total income from the party's ITR has been declared at Rs 17267.84 lakh; of the national parties, 57.02 per cent of total income for CPI has been received through donations above Rs 20,000 while BJP’s donations above Rs 20,000 amount to 22.76 per cent of the total income. Of the regional parties, RJD (56.13 percent) and TDP (37 percent) derive maximum income from donations above Rs 20,000.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
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Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

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The Miracle that Matters

Imagine.. A ledge, high, very high, more than three miles high above the waters of the nearest sea... High above the clouds, where shards of ice fly like witches on brooms in winds that howl like banshees and where snowy glaciers still carve out morraines like they have since time began...   Looking down on all of creation, from the roof of the world sits that ledge...

And on that frozen ledge sits a man.. the high winds and the sun have carved their own story on his craggy features. He sits with his eyes closed and his long dark hair piled into an untidy mop on his head. Now imagine that on in those frigid and giddy heights, he sits naked in the snow, wrapped in a coarse blanket. But that blanket does not keep him warm for it has been dunked in the icy waters of nearby river. To wrap that blanket around one’s body is to feel the cold congeal into a blade that seems to saw through bone... through every bone. But if you are there already and can see him there on that cliff then you must also see the steam rising from the blanket that covers the man’s body... You stare in amazement as the steam rises like mist from a river. You wonder what fire burns in this man’s core that can dry a blanket like it was wrapped around not flesh and blood but an industrial oven.

Most of us would have died of hypothermia while the frost bit through our extremities. But here this man sat on his seat on the crag, calm and serene while ice turned to smoke all around him. Is that a miracle, you ask. And answer is it is not, for there are many monks that wander in the frigid wastes of the Himalayas, both in India and in Tibet,  who are adepts at the art of raising a fiery storm through their yogic powers that would keep them warm on  the coldest nights. This drying of a wet cold blanket is almost a rite of passage for yogis and monks across many  orders. The Tibetans call it ‘tumo breathing’ and some Western explorers have learnt this art too.

It is said that Alexandra David-Neel, one of the first Western women to travel to Tibet in the early 1900s, learnt this ancient technique of generating internal heat from the monks.  During her 12 years in Tibet, Alexandra found many opportunities to be grateful to those from whom she had learnt this art for without it, she too might have perished in cold vastness of Tibet’s passes where many explorers, unable to meet the harsh demands of this beautiful yet unforgiving landscape, have given up and left to meet their maker. Alexandra David-Neel’s accounts of her journeys to the roof of the world are replete with accounts of yogic masters performing miracles every day. I came across these accounts while digging up stories to validate the claims made by the subject from last week’s column – The five Tibetan rites of rejuvenation.

Another miraculous feat that these monks from the mountains seem to have mastered is the art of ‘lum-gom’ trance walking. Trance walkers have trained their bodies to cover long distances in effortless leaps. Explorers to the Tibetan plateau, even Western scientific research teams have claimed that they have seen these yogis bounding across the rugged mountains in long leaps in a manner that seemed to suggest that they were floating through the air. Both ‘tumo’ and ‘lum gom’ are techniques that are taught in monasteries on the high passes. They involve special breathing and visualization techniques. And unlike stories of masters from other cultures, these miracles aren’t restricted to a few individuals and are relatively common across different sects.

Perhaps the most popular legends that have floated out of these secretive mountains that kept Tibet secluded from the rest of the world have been tales of amazing longevity. At a 100, it is said these masters have merely entered their youth. Early explorers to Tibet have claimed that they have met masters who been around for more than 200 years. Unfortunately, there aren’t very many gerontologists who have studied these yogis but if you were to look to go to places like Dharamshala and meet the oldest lamas who have made India their home, you will see 80 year olds walking up the steep mountain trails with the kind of vigour that would do men half their age proud. They may not live well beyond the ‘usual 100s’ but these Tibetan yogis definitely live their years well. I don’t know if it’s the mountain air, their Spartan lifestyle or their yogic practices that give them this youthful constitution, but whatever it is, it really works.

But these are miracles I have only read about or heard. Except for the rather fit octogenarian lamas I came across in Dharamshala and Mcleodganj, there isn’t much I can personally vouch for. But there is one miracle that this Tibetan meditative life path has given ample evidence of to all who chose to ask and it is this…

When the Chinese army invaded Tibet in 1949, it did what invading armies do. Resistance was crushed. Defenseless monks were  tortured and killed and a cultural and religious purge was followed by attempts at Hanification of Tibet. More than a million people lost their lives, perhaps brutally. Every Tibetan home would have lost a loved one or more. Tibet should be a country seething with anger.

And yet, every Tibetan I have met in my travels has spoken of the Chinese invaders with a degree of compassion. Some have said that they hold no ill feelings towards the Chinese even though they suffered at the hands of the invaders. Some lost loved ones, others lost homes and livelihoods. And yet they feel that they had earned this suffering through their actions in another life. The Chinese were mere puppets in the hands of their own karmic fruits.  In a film about the yogis of Tibet, I saw a young monk admit that he felt a degree of  anger and resentment towards the Chinese. His family had suffered unspeakable atrocities and had seen libraries and monasteries destroyed. But then, the monk added that (unlike his elders) he perhaps felt this anger because he hadn’t progressed enough in his practice.

In an interview in the same film, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, recounts this story about a monk who had been jailed and tortured by the Chinese. After his release, the monk escaped into India where he met His Holiness. One day, the Dalai Lama asked him about his time in prison and the monk replied that there were times when he felt that ‘he was indeed in danger…’. And when His Holiness asked about the nature of this danger’, the monk replied that at times while he was being tortured, he was indeed in danger of losing compassion for the Chinese

I had met the Dalai Lama for an interview about two years ago. And the words that I still remember from that day were in response to a question about what should one’s response be to an oppressor, be it a nation or an individual like let’s say, an Osama or a Hitler? The Dalai Lama had just smiled and said we should remember that it is the oppressor who needs compassion far more than the oppressed because while the latter has already endured a karmic cycle, the former has only begun to sow the seeds of his sins.

And this approach of treating one’s enemy like a teacher and forgiving him or her all his sins is perhaps the greatest miracle that has emerged from those passes in the mountains. Heat that vaporizes ice, leaping across miles or living a very long life might all be miracles worth chasing.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

The Mamata factor

Powerful state units of the Bengal and Kerala CPM are preparing for a showdown

While Trinamool Congress might have unleashed a reign of terror in Bengal against CPM leaders, the April 9 Delhi incident where CPM cadres decided to heckle and insult chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her Finance Minister Amit Mitra, has brought the Left party’s influential West Bengal and Kerala units on a collision course.

Following the Delhi attack, Trinamool has already launched a violent retaliatory campaign but more than anything else, it was the action of CPM’s Delhi unit that has further vitiated relations between the central leadership, read general secretary Prakash Karat, and the West Bengal unit. Tempers are running so high that the state CPM has accused Karat with ignoring the state unit before embarking on adventurism of this kind.

Veteran Leftist leader Ashok Ghosh, secretary of the Forward Block, openly sought a clarification from the state CPM leadership, particularly from CPM secretary Biman Bose, asking ``how long should we suffer for the blunders committed by your party?” Leader of another Left constituent RSP’s Khitij Goswami, too toed the same line and questioned the rationale of the Delhi action at a time when the Left was facing the Trinamool onslaught as well as trying to consolidate its position which was drastically eroded in the assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

The CPI(M) had traditionally thrown its weight around at its smaller partners and even the `historic’ defeat has not helped change this equation. While Left constituents are angry with big brother, within the CPM, leaders have questioned this so-called party programme of the Delhi unit directly under the control of Karat. The incident has revived the old battle lines between general secretary Prakash Karat and Buddhadeb Bhattacharyya, who is unhappy at Delhi’s unilateralism.  Bhattacharya’s anger is justified. For the first time since Mamata came to power, CPM had an opportunity to push the government into a corner and was brimming with the possibility of revival.

The Delhi episode has put paid to their plans. Biman Bose, sources say, had informed Karat of their displeasure. According to reports, people protesting in front of Planning Commission were all members of CPM’s local committee in West Delhi and not its affiliate Students Federation of India (SFI). The Delhi action was carried out by party full timers

Apparently to deflect peoples’ attention and to gain the confidence of state leaders, Karat wrote to President Pranab Mukherjee urging him to decide whether West Bengal Governor M K Narayanan’s ‘political intervention’ in seeking an apology from the party Politbureau for the Delhi incident was justified. To the utter dismay of Karat, this action has failed to mollify the state leadership with even front partners viewing it as a gimmick, a ploy to hide his own failures.

These leaders privately admit that Narayanan was right. After all the Chief Minister and Finance Minister were attacked. They do not feel it was highly improper for the governor of a state, who holds a constitutional post, to declare that a political party or its leaders have ‘forfeited their right to function within a democratic framework’. These leaders feel that Karat should have had the moral guts to confess his wrong instead of blaming the governor. The governor said that CPM was entitled to voice complaints, but could not resort to using rods against ministers. He even suggested that this ``premeditated” attack was “serious enough to warrant a public apology from the CPM Politbureau.’’

The anti-Mamata demonstration was planned to protest against the attitude of the West Bengal government towards the custodial death of SFI leader Sudipta Gupta in Kolkata.

West Bengal CPM leaders and Karat have been at logger heads for quite some time and state leaders blame the general secretary for this miserable state of affairs in its once strong hold West Bengal. They say Karat forced his dictates against the will of the state unit and eventually the party had to suffer huge electoral losses.

While CPM leaders do not intend to intensify their agitation against the Trinamool government for the moment as it would send a wrong message to the people, Karat and his associates want the state to embark on a militant form of agitation. Even secretary of Delhi CPM, Puspendra Grewal, a Karat protegee has come out justifying the action.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

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Movie Review: Django Unchained

Is that a nigger on a horse?

Welcome to Tarantino’s history lesson number 2. In our last outing, Inglourious Basterds, we learnt that Hitler didn’t commit suicide but was assassinated by French revolutionaries.

Now we get to know that in the antebellum era, a time when black slavery was at its heights, a black slave called Django, gets to ride a horse, eat white cake and shoot white people.

Tarantino makes you fall in love with cinema once again. He truly shows what this art form is capable of. Django Unchained tells the story of a freed slave who treks across the United States with a bounty hunter on a mission to rescue his wife from a cruel plantation owner.

Jamie Foxx plays Django; a role which has to be played with just the right amount of hesitation and steadily growing confidence as Django’s mentality slowly evolves from that of a slave to a man who bows to no one.

 Dr. King Schultz, the bounty hunter who frees Django, played by the amazing Christoph Waltz is the star of the film. Having played an impossible role earlier in Basterds, Waltz returns to sizzle the screen with an impeccable performance as the bounty hunter who trains Django to live his life as a free man.

Leonardo DiCaprio appears as Calvin Candie, the plantation owner with a hell lot of charisma but with a deviant streak of cruelty. Having been warned by his house slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) of Django and Schultz’s plans, Candie is killed by Schultz before all hell breaks loose. Django is finally confronted with an epic western shootout, which he finally wins and takes his wife safely away.

The word “nigger” is sprayed around as if it was running out and Tarantino often crosses the line with bloody slave fights and gruesome revenges. But hey, it wouldn’t be a Tarantino film otherwise. Go watch it. It will be one of the best films you see in your lifetime…

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

Of Kingmakers and Emperors Without...

Nitish Kumar has been anointed as the new kingmaker by the media. he needs to be wary of hubris and the voter.
 
“He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me....".  There is many a Congress leader who could be playing this teen fantasy game while thinking about Nitish Kumar. Now that the DMK has done what it should have done about three years ago, Nitish Kumar becomes even more crucial. To borrow language from the ISI of Pakistan, Nitish Kumar and his party can provide "strategic depth" to the Congress when it faces an angry, frustrated and vengeful electorate in 2014 (if not earlier!). During his so called Adhikar rally organized in the capital, the Bihar Chief Minister gave enough hints that he, his vote bank and his allegiance could be up for grabs. So don't be surprised if the media keeps a relentless focus on Nitish Kumar and his future plans. In fact, his acolytes have stated a fantasy scenario that could called Nitish as Prime Minister. And why not, surely he has better credentials as a politician and administrator than Manmohan Singh, I.K. Gujral, H.D. Deve Gowda and V.P. Singh! If only a pesky upstart called Narendra Modi was not hovering on the horizon! But there is no mistake about this: Nitish Kumar is the favour of the season and the latest kingmaker of Indian politics.

But it might be instructive for the Bihar Chief Minister to read up on contemporary political history and learn some lessons. Kingmakers of Indian politics have a nasty habit of acquiring a common disease called hubris. And the Indian voter has a nasty habit of exposing kingmakers as emperors without clothes! Let's go back a bit to 1989 when V.P. Singh was riding the Bofors bandwagon towards power in Delhi. One of key charioteers of this bandwagon was the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N.T. Rama Rao who had acquired cult status as a film star, and who had humiliated the mighty Congress. He was the loudest and most vocal voice of an emerging anti Congress alliance across the country. And what happened then? V.P. Singh did manage to humble Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress to emerge as possibly the worst Prime Minister that India ever had (tough competition from Manmohan Singh!). But voters had something else in store for NTR. His party Telugu Desam was decimated and humiliated in the 1989 Lok Sabha and assembly elections. The kingmaker had lost his crown and throne.

In the tumultuous days of 1999 when a tea party enjoyed by Sonia Gandhi and J. Jayalalitha led to the collapse of the Vajpayee government which lost a no confidence motion by just one vote, Sharad Pawar emerged as the new kingmaker. Sensing an opportunity - something which he couldn't grab in 1991 when the Congress preferred a safe P.V. Narashima Rao to an ambitious Pawar - the Maratha strongman revolted against Sonia Gandhi and formed his own party called NCP. The calculations back then were quite clear. Kargil was yet to happen and not many expected the NDA led by Vajpayee to win a decisive victory. So there was every chance of a hopelessly hung parliament and who more qualified than Sharad Pawar to play kingmaker and dream of his own Kingdom? But the Indian voter had other ideas. Sharad Pawar was forced to eat humble pie and share power with the Congress in Maharashtra, failing to even have the NCP take the post of the Chief Minister. Vajpayee, of course, was voted back with a comfortable majority. Ever since, the halo around Sharad Pawar has been dimming consistently. Even his most loyal and die hard loyalist now knows that Pawar as Prime Minister is a fantasy.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

Who directed Ek Tha Tiger, Khiladi 786,Son Of Sardar ? Who Cares? !

Monojit Lahiri probes the status of today’s B-town directors, rocking the fashionable Rs 100 crore club and discovers, shockingly, that most of them are invisible!

The redoubtable genius, stormy and controversial polish director Roman Polanski (Knife in the water, Rosemary’s Baby) had once categorically stated that “the director is always a superstar. The best films are best because of nobody, but the director. You speak of classics – Citizen Kane, 8 ½, Seven Samurai, Gold Rush and City Lights – it’s the director who is the star. He and he alone makes and creates the film.”  Actually, Europe has always been the Camelot for directors. Comparatively, in Hollywood, they were – thanks to the feudal studio system – on a tight leash. The director was usually a hireling along with the writer, cameraman and wardrobe lady. He was apprenticed at the studio where he got his tutoring and he tunneled (as best as he could) through someone else’s choice of cast, script and editor, as effectively possible. Sure there were exceptions (Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, John Ford, Billy Wilder) but then, most of them were Producer-Director. The rule was simple. The Producer ran the show and the studio put its stamp upon it.  Formulae were sacred. Directors were not, and eminently interchangeable at will!

In year 2013, doesn’t this diktat apply scarily to B-town as well?  Does any mainstream director have the guts to say, ‘I think of myself not as a director, but a filmmaker; someone who strategically and creatively uses people and equipment to make a personal expression that will resonate with my audiences?’ Before anything, however, let’s get some facts straight and perspective in place.  As SRK has repeatedly pointed out, stars in Bollywood dominate the minds and hearts of the Indian audience and their presence remains the single biggest magnet for the insane popularity and craze of the blockbusters.  The truth is there for all to see. The late Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra may have propelled some of Amitabh Bachchan’s greatest box-office successes (Zanjeer, Namak Halal, Sharabi, Muqaddar ka Sikander, Amar, Akbar, Anthony; Coolie, Mard) but what has been their scorecard before and after the Big B connect happened? Farah Khan’s twin successes were also with SRK (Main Hoon Na & OSO) and flops with Akki (Tees Maar Khan). And so on and so forth…

Cut to the present scenario. The recent Ajay Devgn starrer, Son of Sardar was a hi-decibel, hi-profile offering chewing miles of publicity due to its public spat with Yash Raj Film’s (YRF) Jab Tak Hai Jaan (JTHJ), remember?  Now, can you remember the name of the director?  Okay, who is the director of Akki’s return to the Khiladi franchise, Khiladi 786?  Next, the biggest, YRF’s Dhoom 3 is one of the most eagerly awaited release of 2013, both because of the dazzling and popular franchise value and the first-time-pairing of Aamir Khan (playing baddie!) and Kat Kaif. Guess who wields the megaphone? Do I see an entire ocean of blank faces? Chill. Not your fault, guys. The age and ritual of celebrating the director -  Bimal Roy, Mehboob Khan, Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor,  Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar and Basu Chatterjee among others – is clearly over and it’s the star who categorically calls the shots in the mainstream universe. Get any one of the Khans, Hrithik, Ajay or Akshay or even Saif  and chances are half your battles are over in terms of funds, audience connect or media exposure. Chuck in Katrina, Priyanka, Kareena or Deepika and the project, overnight, takes a life of its own! Which production house? Who’s directing? Who cares?! For your information, the director of Son of Sardar was Ashwini Dhar and the director of Khiladi 786, Ashish R. Mohan. For the Dhoom 3 project, the earlier helmsman Sanjay Ghadvi (now on a huge downer with two back-to-back bombs Ajab Ghazab Love and Kidnap) has given way to a Vijay Krishna Acharya, best known for a flop named Tashan.  Clearly, the powers are that have clearly seen and read the writing on the wall and run with red-hot star-charisma rather than promoting the director. When you have Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar and Aamir–Katrina as your headliners, does anyone give a damn about anything else? Sure there are exceptions – Karan Johar, Rajkumar Hirani, Rohit Shetty, Sajid Khan, Aditya Chopra – but (quite honestly) they too depend mostly on star power. Don’t agree? Okay, check out their strike rate with non-stars…

The one area, however, where the director as a visionary and moving force works is the crossover / small films. Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Shoojit Sarkar, Sujoy Bose, Anurag Basu, Habib Faisal and gang have proved that they are the real stars and actors are their great, gifted collaborators helping them to flesh their vision with the appropriate passion and purpose. It is amply clear from Wasseypur and Shanghai, Vicky Donor and Ishaqzaade, Sahib, Bibi… and Paan Singh Tomar; who called the shots and whose shadow coloured the narrative. Critic Rauf Ahmed wraps up this discourse offering his learned observations. “There is a huge, mistaken belief that today’s movie-going audiences, unlike early times, are smart, sharp, knowledgeable and discriminating and will dismiss any film that is not focused and does not engage their attention. While it is true that this audience base has indeed powered several unknown non-glam directors and non-starry projects to win attention, awards and modest returns, for the larger part, clearly it is star power that has rocketed the big projects up, up and up!  Undoubtedly, the director had a part to play in the success of the hits, but can you honestly think of JTHJ without SRK, Dabangg 2 without Salman, Rowdy Rathore sans Akshay, and Talaash without Aamir? And how many people know (or care to know) and remember the name of the extremely talented Reema Kagti as the person who helmed Talaash?”  So, as SRK always reminds us, directors are wonderful and actors are great… However, in India and B-town, it is the stars who dazzle!

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Movie Review: Lincoln

Portrait of America
The phenomenal Daniel Day-Lewis plays Lincoln with the immersive, invested method acting, only he is capable of. This is acting at its finest.

It is chilling to find an actor play a character with such impeccability where every little mannerism is taken into account and every little run of words carefully practiced.

Stephen Spielberg’s Lincoln is one of his most audacious projects till date. The expectations about such a film are just too great. Spielberg simply ignores those expectations and in doing so transcends them.

Lincoln covers the final four months of Lincoln's life, focusing on the President's efforts in January 1865 to have the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passed by the United States House of Representatives.

For those who find politics too boring, this film isn’t much about politics. Even though, it talks about bills and amendments, the film ultimately shows the inner nature, flaws, weaknesses and workings of democracy’s greatest defender.

In adapting just a small part of Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, the 2005 bestseller about Lincoln and his Cabinet, screenwriter Tony Kushner blows the dust off history by investing it with flesh, blood and indomitable spirit.

Lincoln doesn’t spend time in flashbacks and backstory. It is all about forward thrust and urgency; verbal fireworks taking over visual stimulation. It is remarkable to see Lincoln using every single twist and turn in the book to pass the amendment and abolish slavery once and for all.

Spielberg, Kushner and Day-Lewis dare greatly in giving us this complex, conflicted portrait of a great American leader. The result, glitches and all, is a great American movie.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

Flirting with danger

From times immemorial, man has been drawn towards the unknown – be it Ferdinand Magellan and his trip around the world or Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in their quest to conquer the highest mountain peaks in the world. As these men challenged the limits of their endurance and courage, there were hundreds others who stood behind them with vital support – both economic and moral. While India has had its fair share of daredevils, mass support and more importantly media exposure has largely been absent. For example, Colonel Kotiyal, who has been atop Mount Everest twice and back, is a completely unknown figure. However, there is growing a breed of Indians who are making a name for themselves in the international community by nurturing as well as indulging into the spirit of adventure.

Take Anchal Khurana for example. While she is not exactly a popular public figure, the circle of people who take an interest in sky-diving know her well as someone who is doing her bit to make the sport accessible in India. She is running the Kakini Enterprises which is working specifically to provide opportunities to more and more people to jump from the skies, quite literally. Her team of instructors have got the ratings in free fall and tandem jumps, having made their mark in para jumping in the armed forces.

Anchal's work has not been easy nor is she anywhere near her goal. A lot of work and streamlining remains to be done before skydiving becomes a popular sport. “This sport needs meticulous preparations and a lot of money to train people. You require an aircraft or a helicopter to jump from and then you require a parachute which will cost upto Rs 5 lakhs" says she. Apart from money, there are a number of permissions that need to be taken like clearances from the Director General, Civil Aviation, the nearest Airport and the local administration.

Similarly, Ajit Chouhan and his band of friends have been hard at work to promote adventure sports in the backwaters of Raigarh. Self funded, this group of 13 that calls itself the Friends Foundation has started organising a congregation of a whole gamut of adventure sports since 2012 in an event they call ‘UDAAN – flight to your dreams’. Ajit talks about the interesting story behind this initiative: “All of us are into business and whatever time we get, we try participating in one of the many adventure activities. And then suddenly it struck us,: if instead of going on individual adventures, we did this on a larger scale, it would let both our families and other people participate. Thus, in February 2012, we made a beginning.”

TSI visited Raigarh and witnessed this event which is one of the few platforms where every activity in the adventure category is available. Para gliding, hang-gliding, para sailing, bungee jumping, rappelling, hot air balloon, all terrain biking; these are are just a few of the  activities that were on offer. What is interesting to note is that a large part of the adventurers were women. Many of them had come with their families, like Natwar Aggarwal, who was encouraging his teenaged daughters to jump off from a huge height with bungee cords tied to their feet. Kakini Enterprises was a part of it as well, with the response being overwhelmingly large. “We had to turn people back even though they were ready to pay us as much we wanted,” says Anchal.

There has been some positive response from the government as well. Many states have come up with their own plans to help in organising adventure sports and activities. Speaking to TSI, Chattisgarh Tourism Minister Brij Mohan Aggarwal said, “I was not aware that UDAAN is so well organised and is of this high scale. We are giving them a support of Rs 10 lakh and are busy formulating policies to help such activities.” TSI got to know that the Chattisgarh state government recently took the help of professionals to devise methods to make Chattisgarh a adventure sports hub. Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh are helping to get such activities organised as well, and for good reason.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

Parties Play The Caste Trump Card

With national political parties finding themselves out on a limb in Karnataka, it’s the caste-based regional outfits that are calling the shots. Will the political cookie in this southern state crumble the way of Uttar Pradesh?

Karnataka is gearing up for Assembly elections in April. With the fortunes of the ruling BJP and the Congress hitting the skids in the state, caste-based regional formations are likely to gain in the post-poll scenario.

Karnataka is set to go the Uttar Pradesh way. UP is India’s largest state and is accustomed to electoral fragmentation on caste and community lines. Karnataka, only one third the size of UP, is not. So, if a hung Assembly is what the April elections yield, the development would mark a paradigm shift in Karnataka politics. Congress, BJP and Janata Dal are the three parties that have traditionally jostled for seats in the Vidhana Soudha. Two new forces have lately jumped into the fray. Former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa’s Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) and Badava Shramika Raitha Congress (BSR Congress), led by B Shriramulu, the right hand man of jailed mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy, are likely to queer the pitch for the national parties by taking away a chunk of their votes.

While none of the five contenders are in a position to sweep the polls, KJP and BSR Congress could both wrest enough seats to give the principal parties a run for their money. But in the run-up to the elections, none of the political formations is keen to get into any alliances, preferring to wait and watch the for eventual outcome. For Congress and Janata Dal (Secular), the April polls could be just another electoral battle. But for BJP and KJP, it would be an acid test. The BJP would be out to demonstrate that it has the strength to live down Yeddyurappa’s exit. For the party leaders who have been instrumental in pushing Yeddy out of the BJP, the likes of KS Eeshwarappa, Ananth Kumar, Sadananda Gowda and Jagadish Shettar, the upcoming election would be an opportunity to prove a point.

Yeddy too, would be determined to make the BJP, a party he served for four decades, pay for the folly of neglecting a regional mass leader with the backing of the dominant Lingayat community.

The BJP will also have to contend with the BSR Congress. Yeddy’s mass support and the Reddy’s money power had catapulted BJP to power in Karnataka in 2008. With both now gone, it would be an uphill task for the party to retain power. BJP is unlikely to win more than 50 to 60 seats. In that eventuality, it would be back on the Opposition benches.

In the past, the Congress has had to suffer the consequences of sidelining Veerendra Patil, who was not only a mass leader but also had control over the party’s rank and file. This was something that Yeddy lost no opportunity to remind the BJP’s central leadership of.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

BBA Institute

Has BJP lost the plot in its entirety?

At a time when it should ideally have been gunning for the UPA government’s head for its failures, the saffron leadership finds itself busy dousing in-house fires. With just over a year left for the big elections, the BJP leadership looks surprisingly bent on giving the Congress another term on a platter.

The infighting within the country’s principal opposition party is certainly not a revelation. Neither is the fact that the BJP has failed to arrive at a consensus over its prime ministerial candidate. These are issues that could have been easily brushed under the carpet for a later day; had the timing not been so crucial for the party’s ambitions of coming to power, and if only the BJP had acted responsibly as the Opposition. However, a chain of events has exposed the absence of decisive leadership in BJP and the turmoil that it faces internally. As the country’s principal Opposition party, it was the BJP’s responsibility to expose the chinks in the Congress-led UPA government’s armour. However, unable to handle its own problems, that job was rather easily ceded to Arvind Kejriwal and his team. As Kejriwal and Co. went on an attacking spree against the who’s who of the Congress’ leadership, the BJP was left with no option but to be satisfied with merely reacting to the allegations levelled by India Against Corruption. The BJP’s inability to tend to its weaknesses has not only given the Congress a breather; it has also helped Kejriwal hijack the issues that were predominantly in the Opposition’s kitty earlier. Be it price rise, corruption or black money, Kejriwal has used these issues to position himself as perhaps the BJP’s biggest rival. What is worse is that the lack of decisive action against allegations of corruption made on both leading national parties has lent more credence to Kejriwal’s attempts to paint both the Congress and the BJP with the same taint brush.

The BJP’s reactions to the claims and the allegations made by Kejriwal have also put on display the conundrum that party strategists are reeling under. Soon after Kejriwal attacked BJP president Nitin Gadkari for receiving 100 acres of agricultural land in Maharashtra in what appeared to be a quid-pro-quo deal with the Congress-NCP government in the state, the party trashed the allegation as false and baseless; and borne out of Kejriwal’s attempts to hog prime time limelight. “A lot of hype was created about the press conference; as if some big bomb is being exploded... Kejriwal tried his best to dig out some scam but could not find anything,’’ maintained Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha.

Contrary to the party’s understanding of what the press conference achieved, Gadkari now finds himself in the middle of a major controversy surrounding his dubious business dealings. Moreover, his refusal to step down from his post has rendered himself, and the BJP, extremely vulnerable to charges of being soft on corruption. This, until recently, was the BJP’s persistent agenda against the Congress!

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

BBA Institute

"States are taking initiatives to develop solar power"

In an exclusive interaction with B&E, Inderpreet Singh Wadhwa, CEO, Azure Power, talks about how solar power production is evolving in India and its prospects for the future

B&E: What was your outlook about the solar energy sector in India when you started Azure Power and how has it evolved since then?

Inderpreet Singh Wadhwa (ISW): When I founded Azure Power in 2008, most of the solar energy efforts in India were targeted towards rural electrification. However, there were very few large-scale solar projects then. This was the real inspiration for us. We built our first plant in Punjab at the tail end of the grid. There were about 32 villages around the plant which were getting electricity from the Bhakhra Dam through nearby substations. By the time power would reach the substation, there was a lot of transmission loss. So we constructed a 2-megawatt plant in Awan near Amritsar. This plant not just reduced all the grid disparities but it also created a sustained income for the community as we had leased the land instead of buying it. The National Solar Mission has also played a very important role in setting the tone for solar energy generation in the country since then. Various solar energy purchase obligations for distribution companies have benefited solar power generation companies.

B&E: How do you plan to scale up your operations and what targets you have in mind?

ISW: Our aspiration is to become the most affordable solar power producer in the country. We build and own power plants and sell the electricity on a long term contract. We have got a project each running in Punjab, Gujarat, Rajasthan and have also got two more projects coming up in Gujarat and another one in Rajasthan. The upcoming Gujarat project is going to be a 2.5-megawatt rooftop project in which roof owners will get lease rent. The key here is to aggregate many roofs so that one can take the advantage of economies of scale.

B&E: How do you find the regulatory environment for the generation of solar power in the country?

ISW: Solar power plants can be built anywhere in India barring a few northern and north-eastern areas where sunlight is not available throughout the year. Nowadays, almost every state has policies favorable for the sector. The central regulator has put regulations in place for every distributor to buy a certain proportion of their portfolio from solar power. Hence, all the states are following it. States like Gujarat have taken even larger initiatives to build one of Asia’s largest solar energy parks.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

BBA Institute

"We'll stick to what has made us a winner globally"

Vikram Bakshi, MD, North & East, McDonald’s India, on the chain’s aggressive strategies to meet its 2015 goals amidst intensifying competition among QSRs

B&E: What has been the core strategy responsible for McDonald’s good show over the last few years?
Vikram Bakshi (VB): Our main strategy has been to get closer to customers in a meaningful way. So we have been experimenting with formats like drive-thru’s. Since we can’t operate all these formats in cities, we have opened on national highways and satellite towns. Then we have been very successful in working in tandem with retail development. We ensure that we get the corner space in big malls, and it has worked really well for us. Also, we are moving into newer places with our brand extensions. Like opening our restaurants at gas stations, at Metros and cinema halls. We’re also getting aggressive with home deliveries; it’s doing very well for us. Then we have 24-hour open format restaurants on national highways. So for every standalone restaurant, we are doing three brand extensions, which can be anything from a 24-hour format on national highway to a kiosk, a delivery or a drive thru.

B&E: So what is your expansion target over the next three years?
VB: Currently we are doing about 257 restaurants. In three years we will reach about 500 restaurants, and another 700 brand extensions, which we are not counting as separate restaurants. So I would say I will have over 1,000 customer touch points.

B&E: You have cut down prices of some products. What’s the strategy behind it considering that almost every FMCG company is hiking prices due to rising input costs?
VB: It’s a very clear strategy aimed at attracting more consumers to our restaurants. So I would not say it’s cutting down prices, but more of a rationalization of prices of some items. What we are doing is what any smart brand will do in a market like this. We want to sell more at a time when people are pulling back on spending due to rising inflation. So we’re making our products affordable for them. I never look at money in percentage terms (e.g. bottom line or profit) but more in the absolute value of it, as we are still in a growth and expansion phase here. Next year is important for us, as we plan to grow far more aggressively than we have grown this year.

B&E: What has been your growth rate in the last fiscal and what’s your target for the ongoing one?
VB: We have grown in excess of 40%, and expect to grow by more than 50% in this fiscal year. We have doubled the number of restaurants in the last three years, and our target it to double it again in the next three and a half years, by the end of 2015. If you look at it, this means we aim to achieve by 2015, what we have achieved in the last 15 years. It’s a tough target and we need to stay focused and on course.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

“We seek to apply our solutions in multiple contexts & markets”

Meera Sampath, Director, Xerox Research Centre, India, asserts that Xerox would like to work on ‘locally inspired, yet globally relevant’ innovations

B&E: How important is the Xerox India Innovation Centre to the company’s emerging market strategy?
Meera Sampath (MS): All our research centres support Xerox’s innovation needs across its different lines of businesses – be it our traditional documentation technologies-related research, which would be research related to our design and development of our devices, the works/ applications connected with that, et al as well as associated services in our existing lines of business, like management of large imaging centres, taking over and running infrastructure of large enterprises as well as SMEs and creation of customer communication material. Other lines of business that have recently been added to Xerox post the acquisition of ACS, have been innovation that supports the IT outsourcing (ITO) business and innovation in support of the BPO business. Two things were very clear from the outset when we set up the R&D centre here. The first was that the centre had to support innovation for expanding and rapidly growing Xerox’s businesses in emerging markets. The second was that given India’s unique set of skills and competencies and given Xerox’s need to expand its services over and beyond emerging markets, this research centre would endeavour to leverage the talent in India to significantly contribute to accelerating innovation in services delivery for our global customers. 

B&E: In your experience, how are needs for developed and developing markets different? 

MS: It depends on the vertical or market segment we are looking at. In terms of large enterprises, the needs and pain points may not be so significantly different as compared to developed markets. But in other segments, we may be significantly different. For instance, we are developing a smart banking solution to significantly improve costs and operational efficiencies and turnaround times for the banking industry. This leverages unique expertise in terms of the capabilities of our devices, document management or smarter document technologies and our capabilities in imaging, et al. This is a solution that we found – locally inspired but globally relevant. Interestingly, we have found takers for it in Brazil, Canada, Mexico and even US. We at our research lab consider that as the typical space we would like to play in. We develop fundamental technologies, fundamental concepts and solve research problems, which can be applied in multiple offerings, contexts and geographies.

B&E: How do you tackle the critical talent shortage issue in India?
MS: It becomes important for us to form the right partnerships, rather than competing for talent. We work with partners to ensure that they become part of the Xerox research family and the Xerox research group without becoming ‘employees’ of Xerox. Every researcher has a mandate to not only work on internal research projects, but to also actively participate in open research projects in partnership with universities.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

The war for ecosystems

As Apple continues to dominate the tablet market, other players are jumping in to make the most of this episode of device convergence. Despite popular belief, this time too, the war is not for dominance in the hardware business. The one who can integrate ecosystem (hardware, software and content) successfully will have the last laugh

At 660F, San Francisco woke up to a cool morning on June 27, 2012. Home to the most awaited tech conferences around the world, the city has witnessed some of the most significant announcements that have changed the world of computing. That day was important for tablet lovers and online advertisers alike. Google, the leader in online search and display advertising business [96.4% of its revenues came from this source in FY2011] had stepped into the room of tablet sellers. The company announced the launch of the Android OS-based Nexus 7 tablet [manufactured by ASUS priced at $199] during its annual developers conference. Just a week back, Microsoft had joined the race with the Surface tablet. The word was out. With Apple sitting pretty with a 66.5% market share (CY2011 as per Gartner) – with the new iPad launched in March 2012 helping Apple deliver yet another record quarter in Q1, 2012 – and Amazon on a new high already with its low-priced Kindle Fire (with a share of 14% in 2011), the war to rule the tablet zone had got tougher.

Study the numbers, and you realise why Google’s interest in the tablet market is easy to understand. As per IDC, 17.1 million tablets were shipped during Q1, 2012 – a 120% growth y-o-y. Another encouraging forecast exists. Gartner claims that in CY2012, the count of tablets that will fly off the shelves will hit the 118.88 million mark – double as compared to last year (98.08% more to be precise).

Tablets are also growing attractive in the enterprise space. With this segment predicted to account for 35% of total tablet sales around the world by 2015 and with many workplaces expected to implement a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy, the search giant sure found a good reason to invest in hardware. But optimism surrounding the green bot isn’t the only reason why Google got drawn into this game.

What was perhaps a bigger reason is the slower than expected rise of Android-based tablets. Last year, these tablets accounted for a 28.8% share of the market. This year, their portion is only expected to swell marginally to 31.1%. The fact that shipment of Android tablets, after having risen from the sub-3% mark to 44.6% in a span of just fifteen months (Q4, 2011) fell sharply during the course of a quarter to 32.0% (Q1, 2012; as per IDC) is bad news for Android [and a good one for the iPad (whose share rose 13.3% q-o-q to 68.0% in Q1, 2012)]. The shocking revelation that the Kindle Fire (which accounts for 54.4% of all Android OS-based tablet sales; as per comScore between December 2011 to February 2012) lost 12.8% market share in a span of a quarter to account for just 4% of global tablet sales in the first quarter this year meant Google – despite its disaster-laden history with Google-branded hardware – had to jump into the ring. Sounds desperate, but throwing in the towel – luckily or not – wasn’t an option. Not with Android. Not with tablets.

Onlookers claim that the search giant wants a big share of the tablet market. Some say it is gunning for Apple. Whatever it be, stakes in this fight has just gone higher.

Read more....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM B-School Facebook Page
IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

So far, it just about fits the prescription

In the past couple of years in particular, Indian pharma companies are seeing the fruits of their labour, particularly in the US generics market. However, retaining their competitive edge may not be as simple

For Big Pharma, this is a period of unprecedented difficulty, a time to retrospect on past failures. However, Indian generic firms are bang in the middle of a potential dream run. As a recent Frost & Sullivan report points out, drugs worth around $150 billion are expected to go off patent protection globally. This naturally opens a huge window of opportunities for Indian drug manufacturers. Are they ready?

Profitability figures certainly suggest that some players are moving away from the shadow of a difficult past in the latter part of the previous decade. Sun Pharma, which has got the highest number of drugs in its ANDA (Abbreviated New Drug Application) pipeline, reported revenues of Rs.40.15 billion, a growth of 29.3% yoy. Its net profit stood at Rs.19.27 billion, growing by 39% yoy; and it gained 13 places in the Power 100 list to rank at 41. The US business of Sun Pharma alone grew by nearly 30% in the same period. Cipla’s profit rose by 16% yoy to reach Rs.11.23 billion in FY 2011-12 and it was ranked 65 in the Power 100 (a gain of 12 positions). Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, which has just entered the BSE-30, also reported a healthy 28% rise in topline in the fiscal to reach Rs.67.39 billion. Its net profit, however, grew by just 2.1% yoy to Rs.9.12 billion, even as it gained two places to be ranked 80 in the B&E Power 100. The company was stung by the poor performance of its generic version of Zyprexa and falling margins in its core business. Contrarily, launches of generic versions of Caudet and Zyprexa have helped Lupin. It managed double digit growth in US. However, its PAT for FY 2011-12 shrank nominally and stood at Rs.8.04 billion owing to high depreciation and interest costs; taking its rank to 86 (a gain by two positions). The BSE Healthcare Index surged by around 5.6% yoy and has outperformed the Sensex by around 14 percentage points.

In 2010 and 2011, companies like Glenmark, Aurobindo and Sun Pharma were able to further consolidate their positions in the US generics market by bagging around 33% of ANDA approvals from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA approved a 2,244 ANDAs between 2007 and 2011, of which Indian companies grabbed final approval for 694.

Considering the intense competition from their BRICS counterparts, the figure holds high significance. During the same period, aggregate tentative approvals by FDA reached 518, out of which Indian companies secured 200 (FDA data).

Also, Indian companies are consistently growing their para IV filings and niche complex chemistry molecules. Most of these segments, especially injectables, inhalers, ophthalmic, oral contraceptives and controlled release products are set to lose patent guard beyond 2012. Moreover, being characterized by complex manufacturing techniques, entailing greater investments in R&D and manufacturing, these segments have higher entry barriers and thereby potential for higher profitability. Also, the percentage of US FDA approvals won by Indian firms has jumped from 27% to 33%. Raghavendra Saha, Senior Advisor, CII asserts, “In the past 15 years, not even a single new molecule has been found. Hence, it isn’t hard to claim that the era of blockbuster drugs has gone and the future belongs to generics.”

However, Indian companies need to manage their litigation processes well, since this led to massive cost escalations in the past, particularly with Ranbaxy Laboratories (incidentally, the Daiichi Sankyo-owned company declared a loss of Rs.30.52 billion for the nine months ending December 2011, as per its most recent report). Dr. Kamal Kumar Sharma, MD, Lupin Ltd. says, “At Lupin, we do not chase any and everything possible. We try to sort out and identify cases where we have a decent chance of winning.”

Read more....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM B-School Facebook Page
IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face