Yantrakaal

Dzhongs are a unique and integral part of life in Bhutan, the Land of the Thunder Dragon that we had the pleasure of visiting this summer. A dzhong is an architectural structure -- somewhat like a fort -- that brings together the civil and religious administration of the country under a single roof. Most dzhongs have their origin in the military requirements of the local feudal lords but today they contain offices of the district administration and interestingly serve as a residence for Buddhist monks who are responsible for the Buddhist temple that is always colocated in the same premises. Here are two pictures of the Dzhong at Thimpu and this is us in Thimphu, the capital city of this tiny, land locked country wedged between India and Tibet. many of today's architecture in Bhutan is also modelled on the dzongs as you can make out from this picture of the Clock Tower in the central square of Thimphu. After Thimphu, we crossed the Dochula Pass on our way to Punakha Puna...

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The pioneering PPP project gets off the ground in the Indian education sector with the ground breaking for the new IIT Kharagpur, VGSOM hostel by the Director, Prof Damodar Acharya today.

Indira and her band Nayontara presented "Udasi Haoa" an eclectic collection of Tagore songs at the Halo Heritage Art Gallery, Calcutta on 23 May 2010 This div will be replaced

What is expected of an MBA graduate ? An MBA graduate should have the ability to handle uncertainty ! As a manager that is what you are paid for : for the routine stuff, companies have "other ranks" ! So when an MBA graduate walks into an interview the most important arrow in his quiver should be the ability to make sense of an uncertain situation and rapidly formulate a response that is best suited for the occasion. What can a candidate expect in an interview ? To begin with one should be prepared to give crisp, clear-cut answers on all aspects of his bio-data : academics, extra-curricular activities, family background, strengths, weaknesses, goals and career aspirations. How do interviewers evaluate a candidate ? No two interviewers are the same -- after the basic discussion on educational and family background -- each person will take a different approach. Some will go for theory : they will ask you detailed questions on specific topics of the MBA...

When I was in school, my knowledge about World War II was built up by reading war comics -- or Commando Comics, as they were called in the 1960-70s. This had led me to believe that the British soldiers were all smart and brave whereas the Germans were either fools or cowards and could only shout "Achtung ! Achtung !!" before they were all killed ! It was only much later, when I had come across an English translation of “The Foxes of the Desert” by Paul Carell that I came to realise that the Germans too were equally brave and smart. I also understood that history is generally written by the winners and in such history, the winners always come across with flying colours. Could this be the case with the Mahabharata ? And in this epic story of the war between Good and Evil, is it that the Pandavas are shown to be righteous and good simply because they won the war and had the luxury of writing the history ? How honest and righteous were the Pandavas anyway ? Consider the follo...

In an earlier post on de-stressing higher education , I had argued about the irrelevance of the JEE / AIEEE as instruments of selection for entrance to higher education and the Damodar Acharya committee has recommended that the JEE should be scrapped . This is good. But the proposal to replace the same with a SAT style aptitude test is not a good solution either. These aptitude tests -- earlier referred to as IQ tests -- have been found to be rather flawed because they seem to measure one aspect of what is known as "intelligence" or "aptitude" and would again be another strain on the students. Instead, let us focus on one examination and let that be the CBSE XII. Why do I say this ? Because the cost and effort involved in managing the logistics of two nationwide examinations is better utilised in making sure that one examination is managed better. Second,  by making the process more broad based, we will be able to iron out the vagaries and uncertainties of perfo...

Some people look at the world around them and wonder why - Creative folks look around and wonder why NOT ? We have had corrossion resistant steel and pest resistant Bt-cotton, so why can we not have institutional systems that are corruption resistant by design ? In my youth and childhood, when I was a consultant in an earlier professional avatar, I have had the opportunity to work with Indian and foreign companies and with some agencies of the government to design processes and systems that meet certain organisational goals. Some of our ideas were successful and some where not and when I look back on these assignments, the one common thread that spans across all successful assignments was the fact the organisation concerned, or at least some significant individuals, were committed to a successful implementation and worked with us to introduce the changes required for our ideas to be successful. Unfortunately this is not so in most government assignments. Government agencies in...