The government&rsquo;s proposal to set up a minimum support price (MSP) commission to fix assured prices for minor forest produce has pros as well as cons, which need to be weighed carefully before a final call is taken. The proposal envisages the forest MSP panel as having its own elaborate establishment, allowing it to set minimum prices for non-timber forest produce while taking into account various criteria, including the minimum wages paid under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The commission will also identify cooperatives and other agencies in each state that will procure the items. Certainly, the idea&rsquo;s objective &ndash; to improve the earnings of forest produce gatherers, mostly members of the Scheduled Tribes &ndash; is laudable.

Forest of problems

Business Standard

Clients in India will eventually look to their agencies for strategic communications, not simply for media relations. This is already happening. Companies such as Wipro ask their agencies to help them understand how best to communicate their messages and present them in a context that is meaningful for clients, analysts, investors and journalists.

Understanding the Public Relation Industry in India 

To tide over their bad loans and structure their loan products in a better way, banks will now rate B-schools and other educational institutions. In a recent meeting between banks and over 150 education institutes, it was decided that Indian Banks Association will come up with a rating model for institutes. This would be done under the aegis of Pritam Singh, director, International Management Institute, New Delhi.

Banks to rate institutes

Economy expands at a nine-year low of 6.5% in 2011-12, as high interest rates and global factors impact the manufacturing sector.

Country on the downturn 

Now that the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has endorsed the fears expressed earlier by foreign weather bureaux about the emergence of the monsoon-unfriendly El Nino in the second half of the season, the government should begin preparing right away for mitigating its adverse impacts on agriculture, water reservoirs and other areas.

El Nino's looming shadow

All billable employees at a software services company are at the mercy of their clients in the US. With the &ldquo;Bharat bandh&rdquo; called by the Opposition parties and trade unions across the country on May 31 to protest against the petrol price rise, the company has issued a directive that all billable employees are bound to come to office by hook or by crook. As an employee exclaimed: &ldquo;If there&rsquo;s no transport allowed, then I will have to call in dead.

Dead serious

Press conferences by Parsvnath Developers are usually a crowded affair, as much for the hospitality on offer as the unwitting entertainment provided by some of its officials. It is also the only real estate company in the national capital region to hold a press meet to announce its results. This year, however, the realtor departed from tradition by announcing that the company&rsquo;s results would be sent by email.

Realty check

M K Narayanan, former national security advisor, may have bargained for more than he expected in his role as West Bengal governor. While Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called the shots at the chaotic celebrations that the state government had organised for the victorious IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders, a hapless Narayanan was seen standing in the sweltering heat for more than an hour as the team inched its way to Eden Gardens. With a beaming Banerjee looking on, Narayanan then went on to describe the day as the &ldquo;true paribartan&rdquo; that Banerjee had promised a year ago. Which is one way of describing the events.

Didi's field day

&ldquo;Education is not the filling of a vessel but the kindling of a flame,&rdquo; said Socrates. Yes, that&rsquo;s a tough call but management education institutes in India seem to have done a decent job so far. An entry into an IIM is a passport to success for many. This is based on past history of IIM pass-outs getting plum jobs in the information technology sector, in banking and in other fields. Indeed, Indian professionals are in great demand across the world. It is not simply because they hail from reputed educational institutions but also because they put in a lot of hard work to prove themselves.

Down but not out

The economic slowdown seems to have taken the steam out of entrepreneurship &mdash; at least in the campuses of premier business schools.

Entrepreneurship bug lies low at B-school campuses

It started with the trash can. Funny, when one thinks about it. Last Monday, I inadvertently kicked my trash can and since it was the time to train with the MD, I was too rushed to clean it. Gerard, my European boss, did it in my absence (would you believe that?) and then sent me a mail saying: &ldquo;J, I cleaned your trash can today. I won&rsquo;t do it again.

Business Standard: Trash talk

As companies stay away from campuses and pay packages plunge by over 30 per cent, the lesser known business schools in the country are asking students to look out for jobs on their own. B-schools began their placements last October-November, but five months down the line, they have been able to place only 30 to 50 per cent of their batch sizes.

B-school students to fend for themselves

The older Indian Institutes of Management have competition from the younger ones. After learning the tricks of the trade from their mentors, the younger IIMs are now approaching the regular set of companies that visit older IIMs for placements.

IIM vs IIM for placement pie

The Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, is the latest entrant to the growing Rs 350-crore executive education space in India. The school, ranked number two by Financial Times in its Global MBA rankings, said it will soon have its own centre in India.

After Harvard, Wharton looks for a classroom in India

A bad job market and a relatively unknown institute profile have made many B-schools add a new component to their charges &mdash; placement fee.

The art of placement: Cash under the table

At a review meeting in June 2011, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, decided to do away with the Joint Management Entrance Test (JMET). The decade-old exam, a qualifying test for getting admissions into business schools run by IITs and the Indian Institute of Science, has now given way to the Common Admission Test (CAT), promoted by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).

Shot in the arm for CAT, as B-schools seek credibility	

The Congress seems to be in an Alice in Wonderland-like state &mdash; or, a willing suspension of disbelief &mdash; at least as far as Andhra Pradesh is concerned. When asked how dismal the poll prospects for the party looked like in the upcoming bypolls, now that Jagan Mohan Reddy was massively gaining from the sympathy factor after his arrest, Congress spokesperson Renuka Chowdhury retorted, &ldquo;We are not losing anything. In fact, the situation is how many seats the Congress is going to win and how many Jagan is going to lose.&rdquo; This is despite every indication on the ground pointing to a complete rout for the Congress in the 18 Assembly seats and a ground swell for Jagan&rsquo;s YSR Congress in the June 12 polls. For Chowdhury, who also hails from the state, it is certainly a case of delusion.

In denial?

It seems senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L K Advani has not forgiven former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa for making personal attacks at him. The leader gave a miss to Yeddyurappa&rsquo;s granddaughter&rsquo;s wedding held in Bangalore recently. However, the new-found bonhomie between BJP President Nitin Gadkari, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley was evident, as the three leaders were mostly together during the ceremony.

No RSVP

Bill Gates, the former chief executive officer of Microsoft, was in India recently, and spoke to a group of senior corporate executives in Bangalore. His days, however, of pitching the relationship between the giant company he founded and India&rsquo;s information technology sector are long past. He was in India, as he has been several times a year in the recent past, to try and persuade India&rsquo;s rich to give more of their wealth away. India has long been an anomaly in terms of philanthropy; while among the world&rsquo;s most unequal and stratified societies, its rich have generally shunned the idea that their money should be shared. This is in stark contrast to other capitalist societies. In the United States, since the days of Andrew Carnegie &mdash; who famously gave away all the money he ever made as America&rsquo;s greatest steel baron &mdash; there has been a long history of philanthropy, particularly from owners and senior executives of businesses.

Gates to giving 

India&rsquo;s economic growth over successive quarters of the last financial year, 2011-12, makes for scary reading. In the first quarter, growth in gross domestic product (GDP) was reasonably robust, at eight per cent. A harsh slowdown was visible in the second quarter, when GDP growth was 6.7 per cent; but the government insisted that better times were just around the corner, and the second-quarter results were below trend. Instead, the third-quarter GDP growth was 6.1 per cent. Many in the government insisted that this was the economy &ldquo;bottoming out&rdquo;, that the same policy environment that had created eight-plus per cent growth was still in place. Now that fourth-quarter growth is known to have been 5.3 per cent, that argument has been shown up. Clearly, no merely cosmetic changes will be enough to arrest this precipitous slide. Several major reforms &ndash; such as foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail &ndash; are essential.

At the highest levels

The increase in petrol price by Rs 7.50 per litre met with howls of protest from almost all quarters. The Bharat Bandh, on May 31, received spontaneous support from the entire political spectrum, even from a section of the ruling party. But oil marketing companies (OMCs) have sound justification for the price increase and the government of India had to bite the petrol bullet as an inevitable recourse. What was most explosive about the whole issue was its timing.

Business Standard

Business Standard

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