Posts on Miscellany
October 14, 2005
YAIP (Yet another IIPM post)
Someone left a comment early this morning on my blog. It just said http://weloveiipm.blogspot.com. Curious enough (especially because it said IIPM (my roommate Abhimanyu Radhakrishnan, now with CNBC had tried to do an expose on them a few years ago). What I unravelled was this huge web of blogs covering a massive issue I had no clue about.
The shortest possible story (it's really really short - start with the links in this blurb, and you'll see how huge a story it is):
IIPM is an educational institution that offers postgraduate diplomas in business management / related subjects. They have been controversial right from start, because of their brash advertising techniques, and blatant deceptional marketing strategies. The founder/dean/whatever, Arindham Chaudhury is an in your face "Economist and Management Guru" who has a "bestselling book" called 'Count your chickens before they hatch.' I can't say much without being too personally biased, but as an economics student myself, atleast I can say I don't think he's much of an Economist, no thanks in some part that he did an MA Economics through correspondence from Madras University. He recieved an "academic gold medal" from his own father's institution, and has it plastered all over his biography. He might have deserved it, but if you visit http://www.arindamchaudhuri.com/ for yourself, you'll understand what I'm talking about.
Anyway, JAM Magazine, an Indian college/youth magazine did an expose on IIPM by putting out a lot of interesting factual inaccuracies that IIPM was purpotrating. There are so many that it's just better to read it yourself. IIPM got kicked out of a Business School ranking because they gave the magazine false information. Quite fun a topic to discuss... or so you'd think.
IIPM launched a viscious online war against the author of the article, and sent her a legal notice. Another popular Indian blogger, Gaurav Sabnis wrote a comment supporting Rashmi Bansal, the author of the article. He got a legal notice from IIPM as well, and here is the text. A couple of other innocent bloggers also got a notice. They then threatened his employer, IBM with demonstrations and what not, which forced Gaurav to resign to save his employer the trouble (they didn't ask him to and stand by him, but he felt it necessary).
After that, Rashmi wrote an outstanding defense on her blog, only to have a group of vandals (probably angry students of IIPM) write nasty comments accusing her of being an expelled lesbian among other more interesting things. That's when the war erupted.
IIPM is now #2 on the Technorati search list. Everyone (and I mean everyone) is talking about it online. This seems to be all out war... spurious institution versus the heavweights in the blogsphere. It's highly melodramatic, there are atleast ten thousand pages to read online, and it's quite gripping.
Perhaps LSE / London might be interested in joining in? Just google it... it's huge!
August 1, 2005
University Challenge with the Economist Powerhouse
Ooh! Nerdy Post Alert!!!!
University Challenge on BBC2 featuring European Interpreters, and... you'll never believe it... the Economists! The team from the Economist magazine is up against a team from Brussels. This is bound to be a good watch!!! Wohooo... something to do on Monday night!!!!
Interpreters are winning 30 - 0. Will keep you updated.
Err... 65 - -5. Yes thats minus 5 to the bloody economists.
Oooh... 65 - 5. Yes Plus five... they just redeemed themselves.
Go baby! 80 - 135, go economists! ten minutes to go!
They Win!!!!! The Economists won 210 to 105 (Thanks Ziad for the final score of the interpreters!). A thrashing!
Posted by vinayak at 8:37 PM
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July 21, 2005
changing the way you live
Another bunch of bombs...!
Now, I used to do a lot of immature political commentary early on when I first started blogging, until I realised that it was just stupid to do so.
Maybe I'm stupid, but I really felt like talking about this one... they're going to start checking bags in New York's subways.
Now I'm a proud American, I really am, but I really disagree with this one. When Tony Blair swore never to let it change the way Britons lead their life, he stuck to it. The day after the bomb, life was normal (barring the odd incident on the street). On the whole, the system just went back to the way it used to be. I'm really proud to live in a city that can actually do that.
By checking bags in subways, surely we're letting them win. Sure, we're living through some of the scariest hell imaginable, but to be able to piece together threads of normalcy in the face of this hell... thats something worth our useless lives.
These changes have to happen behind the scenes. We have to be more vigilant, more careful about the way we treat our right to live with disdain!
All these years we've managed to collude with each other and maximise our gain. After all, that is how it works right? You trust me, I trust you, we trust each other not to bomb each other, so we can ride the train to work without thinking twice. It's sad to see Cournot and Nash win in this particular game.
Ok, I'm just crapping... move along.
Posted by vinayak at 7:09 PM
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