It was Red! I was on Mars. and it had rained. These were the initial things on my mind when I opened my eyes to the alarm at 5 am. Dawn had never been any prettier. For a moment, I even enjoyed the view from my window. Immediately decided that it was time to go running and quickly did 10 kms in about an hour and 10 minutes. Kinda slow but planning to get back on track soon. But the desert has many ways of fooling people. And I had been miraged by it as when the clock hit 7, it was scorching hot again. Back to reality on the ship, and we sailors back to our daily chores.
It was Prof Lakshmi Kumar who took the first one about the current economic situation in India. She started off with all statistics and numbers involving GDP, inflation, fiscal deficit etc. There was one important thing I learnt about her. She has been actively involved in the government policy making, though in a critical way, and is opinionated and having strong views in certain policies. Unlike the 'teacher being unbiased no matter what way of learning, this was new to me, when teachers themselves have opinions and judgement on the things they teach. I think that is how teaching at a B-school works out. We would just have to choose to disagree on certain topics and thats how it is. She gave some examples on policies brought about by the UPA government like MGNREGA, Food Act, subsidies which involved revenue expenditure from the government which she was strongly against. I am guessing with the current scenario of these policies, she has completely lost hope to corruption and malpractices when any such policies are brought about involving revenue expenditure by the government. But the best part about her session was that her slides were not a series of dissappointments but a hope on improvement and some positives about the Indian economic scenario.
Next on was Prof Krishnan explaining the Risk management in Banks. His presentation had a corporate taste to it as he was not from academia but working in the Banking sector for a long time. It reminded me of the knowledge transition sessions and the presentations that we used to sleep on during our cognizant Times. Tried hard to fight sleep and hunger over concepts like how important assessing the risk is, what are the opportunities in the risk and so on. It was an overload of banking terms for me but I took them down in my notebook to wikipedia them later on.
Post lunch it was the placement professors and naturally there were LOTS of questions. Professor Badrinath started with how serious these two years are going to be and how it is totally desirable not to take them lightly. Frankly this was an overkill for me as this is all I learnt during my times in Cognizant. Post Cognizant times, one of the few things Ive realized is the responsibility and the actual seriousness of my 2 years in IFMR. So he went on and on making the freshers and others realize how important this time is to build the character and knowledge which will help in placements.
Finally it was time for Finance and banking session to conclude the day. Oh boy, Prof kannan sure knows how to go on and on. I mistook him for Bharti sir who was my Chemistry teacher in school and almost gave out a giggle when he gave examples of hydrogen and oxygen reaction and some potassium per manganate reaction. Well this was about the 3 main entities that monitor and regulate the financial institutions and banks in our country. The RBI, which was the banks regulator, the SEBI which was the capital market regulator and the IRDA which is the insurance and pension scheme regulator. It was kinda fairly easy to get the point but his examples were the ones that was making it really hard to concentrate. For us, rather than to digest the new banking terminology into our brains, we were kinda stuck with spending time in relating his examples with the concepts. For more than one time I thought he was selling ICICI bank (where he had worked previously) to all the students. He was going about the features that the ICICI bank has and how all the components in banking involving the traditional banking and the investment banking have all integrated as one. But frankly, I didnt know why he mentioned about ICICI bank ATMs 3 times in the presentation. Did they invent it? If yes, fine why are you bragging about it here. Anyways he overshot his time by way too much and we gave him a loud applause when he left.
To end our day it was Satya saran talking of all the issues still in the hostel and main building. Another fish market and another brilliant control exhibited by him. I was now more than impressed with him. I was his fan now. Hopefully he lives upto my expectations throughout the term and hopefully he takes a subject here as well on how to charm and control the crowd. He even agreed to me keeping my bicycle in the room. Now I just cannot wait to go home and get it on Sunday. And now counting the days to Sunday when Im back on the saddle!
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| The red sunrise and canal in the campus |
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| Overnight rain, an evidence only for the early ups |
It was Prof Lakshmi Kumar who took the first one about the current economic situation in India. She started off with all statistics and numbers involving GDP, inflation, fiscal deficit etc. There was one important thing I learnt about her. She has been actively involved in the government policy making, though in a critical way, and is opinionated and having strong views in certain policies. Unlike the 'teacher being unbiased no matter what way of learning, this was new to me, when teachers themselves have opinions and judgement on the things they teach. I think that is how teaching at a B-school works out. We would just have to choose to disagree on certain topics and thats how it is. She gave some examples on policies brought about by the UPA government like MGNREGA, Food Act, subsidies which involved revenue expenditure from the government which she was strongly against. I am guessing with the current scenario of these policies, she has completely lost hope to corruption and malpractices when any such policies are brought about involving revenue expenditure by the government. But the best part about her session was that her slides were not a series of dissappointments but a hope on improvement and some positives about the Indian economic scenario.
Next on was Prof Krishnan explaining the Risk management in Banks. His presentation had a corporate taste to it as he was not from academia but working in the Banking sector for a long time. It reminded me of the knowledge transition sessions and the presentations that we used to sleep on during our cognizant Times. Tried hard to fight sleep and hunger over concepts like how important assessing the risk is, what are the opportunities in the risk and so on. It was an overload of banking terms for me but I took them down in my notebook to wikipedia them later on.
Post lunch it was the placement professors and naturally there were LOTS of questions. Professor Badrinath started with how serious these two years are going to be and how it is totally desirable not to take them lightly. Frankly this was an overkill for me as this is all I learnt during my times in Cognizant. Post Cognizant times, one of the few things Ive realized is the responsibility and the actual seriousness of my 2 years in IFMR. So he went on and on making the freshers and others realize how important this time is to build the character and knowledge which will help in placements.
Finally it was time for Finance and banking session to conclude the day. Oh boy, Prof kannan sure knows how to go on and on. I mistook him for Bharti sir who was my Chemistry teacher in school and almost gave out a giggle when he gave examples of hydrogen and oxygen reaction and some potassium per manganate reaction. Well this was about the 3 main entities that monitor and regulate the financial institutions and banks in our country. The RBI, which was the banks regulator, the SEBI which was the capital market regulator and the IRDA which is the insurance and pension scheme regulator. It was kinda fairly easy to get the point but his examples were the ones that was making it really hard to concentrate. For us, rather than to digest the new banking terminology into our brains, we were kinda stuck with spending time in relating his examples with the concepts. For more than one time I thought he was selling ICICI bank (where he had worked previously) to all the students. He was going about the features that the ICICI bank has and how all the components in banking involving the traditional banking and the investment banking have all integrated as one. But frankly, I didnt know why he mentioned about ICICI bank ATMs 3 times in the presentation. Did they invent it? If yes, fine why are you bragging about it here. Anyways he overshot his time by way too much and we gave him a loud applause when he left.
To end our day it was Satya saran talking of all the issues still in the hostel and main building. Another fish market and another brilliant control exhibited by him. I was now more than impressed with him. I was his fan now. Hopefully he lives upto my expectations throughout the term and hopefully he takes a subject here as well on how to charm and control the crowd. He even agreed to me keeping my bicycle in the room. Now I just cannot wait to go home and get it on Sunday. And now counting the days to Sunday when Im back on the saddle!
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