The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDUCATION

CAMPUS
B-schools must adopt holistic approach to nurture talent
Gaurav Choudhury

A number of critical issues facing the Indian management schools in their quest for globalisation and benchmarking of processes and the changing requirements for user industry came to the fore in the recent 6th Directors' Conclave on Globalisation and Management Education: Issues and Challenges', organised by the All India Management Association (AIMA) in the Capital.

The consensus that emerged at the lively daylong conclave was that Indian business schools should aim at constantly improving the quality of their input through effective entry level processes and moulding the students through a holistic and full-integrated approach, based on academic rigour, building character and nurturing values and a curricula for meeting needs of external environment and user industry expectations.

Underlining the need that what mattered ultimately is the quality of the output of the business schools, eminent directors of B-schools urged the tapping of overseas opportunities in terms of faculty, student and institutional exchange. They were also in favour of leading business schools sharing their resources in a spirit of competitive collaboration. The aim should be to raise the intellectual capital wealth of the country in the knowledge era of the 21st century.

The keynote address at the inaugural session was delivered by Dr Pritam Singh, Director of IIM, Lucknow. He suggested, among other things, that select B-schools could join hands to offer Indian management education of international students.

Prof A.Ahmad, management educationist and Pro VC, of Delhi University, wanted campuses to impart high quality management education focussed on the global economic environment.

Director of S. P Jain Institute of Management, Dr N. K Sen Gupta said that B-schools should look beyond organisations to society and be proactive to the needs of the community than merely catering to the needs of user industry alone.

Dr Pramnath Sinha, Dean, Indian School of Business, said his institute encouraged the students to acquire practical learning through real life cases with a company that pays them a stipend for undertaking their projects.

Director of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Dr Amitava Bose, emphasised the need for a strong academic orientation based on rigorous conceptual studies to develop high quality intellectual capital. Dr J L Batra of the Amity School of Business said that the system of 'participative teaching' or mentoring of the faculty should be followed in B-schools.

Prof M .M Pant, former Pro VC of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) pointed out that the skills of a lifetime could vanish in a second in the wired world, where geography or distances had no meaning. But the current era is also of the intellectuals. India with its massive talent pool, could easily gain an advantage if its human resource is properly managed, he said adding that the job of a manager begins where that of the computer ends.

Seminar on volunteerism

A seminar on 'Volunteerism: Dimensions, Directions and Opportunities' was organised by the Department of Social Work, University of Delhi in the Capital last week. Prof K. K Mukherjee, Head of the Department of Social Work, said that empowerment of society is not possible only when the state is powerful. The initiatives of the civil society make the society, state and initiatives sustainable.

Dr P. N Mishra, Director, Institute of Management Studies, Indore stressed upon the commitment level of volunteers. He said that actions taken with the assistance of the government, international agencies and religious organisations have a drawback of uncommon and unshared vision between people at both ends.

More than 250 volunteers, academicians, philanthropists and government officials from various states participated in the seminar.

World Water Day

The School of Environment Management, GGS Indraprastha University, organised a conference on World Water Day on March 22 to discuss various options to augment Delhi's water quantity and quality. The conference was inaugurated by the Union Minister of Health, Dr C.P.Thakur, who released the water quality map of the river Yamuna depicting characteristics of the water within Delhi stretch.

Vice Chancellor Prof K .K Aggarwal mentioned that the School of Environment Management has been monitoring the water quality of river Yamuna and it is disheartening to find that the river is being polluted many folds within the city limits. He emphasised that the water quality modelling and Source Apportionment studies should be done simultaneously in order to properly target the causes of pollution. With this objective, a Center of Hydrology would soon be set up in the school. Dr Thakur mentioned that the cost of water pollution has become so high that it is offsetting most of the gains of development. He emphasised on the role of people's movement through awareness campaign and roof top rainwater harvesting as an urgent need of the society today. Proper pricing of water is also necessary to capture the real value so that people are sensitised for its conservation and this would also strengthen the Jal Boards to supply reliable and quality water. He appreciated the role of Vice Chancellor for taking the initiative in environmental activities of the school.

Institute of retail

The Home Stores ( India ) Limited has established the Indian Institute of Retail, to offer training in retail management. The institute of conceptualised and designed to impart retail oriented courses to turn sellers into retailers. The institute also aims at providing career options to computer stricken Indian students. The institute will provide theoretical and practical training at retail stores and training on retail management.

President of Home Store (India) Limited, Mr Arif Sheikh said that retailing in India is still not considered as a preferred career option. "Indian Institute of Retail is an initiative to create awareness about the potential of retail employment in India. We would like to promote retailing as a science rather than an act of selling", he said.

The institute will be operational by April 2002 and will provide career opportunities to the freshers and career advancement for working retail professionals; he said adding that the sole purpose behind the institute is to create main resource centre for all kings of retail manpower for the industry. The training programme at the institute would involve a three-tier structure, which include a three-week intensive orientation programme, a three months certificate in retail management and a one year retail training programme.

Education fair

An Australian Education Fair is being held from March 27 to April 3 at Delhi, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata by Sonya Johar's Education Centre ( SJEC), a students counseling consulting organisation. The universities participating in the fair are: Monash, RMIT, Swinburne University of Technology, La Trobe, Deakin, VUT, University of Sydney, University of Technology, Sydney, Insearch, University of Ballarat, Melbourne Institute of Business and Technology and Box Hill Institute of TAFE.

Sanskrit teaching

Union Minister of Human Resources Development has released the first set of "A Sanskrit self study programme" - a set of books on informal Sanskrit teaching, designed by the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan. The programme is aimed at simplifying and popularising the learning of Sanskrit.

Dr Joshi, in his address during the meeting, emphasised the necessity of bringing out a software in Sanskrit language. The language must become an integral part of the Information Technology wave. The traditional scholars of Sanskrit are unfortunately not showing much interest in this area, he pointed out.

The Minister pointed out that efforts must be made to encourage a larger number of programmes on DD/AIR in Sanskrit.

Besides, the institutes teaching Sanskrit must encourage their students to write articles in articles and new methods in pedagogy must also be given thought to for teaching Sanskrit, Dr Joshi added.

New partnership

Publishing major, Macmillan India, has collaborated with some of the country's premier institutions for professional learning to offer pioneering management, design and self-development courses online at www.develop.emacmillan.com.

The courses include finance for non-finance executives, international finance, CRM, corporate finance, graphic and industrial design for effective packaging, personal effectiveness in the new economy and e-Business planning and implementation. These development programmes are in collaboration with Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Kolkata, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon and National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad.

Marketing congress

Union Minister of Power, Mr Suresh Prabhu inaugurated the 29th World Marketing Congress on "Marketing Strategies for Banking, Insurance and Financial Institutions in the 21st Century", organised by the Institute of Marketing Management in the Capital last week. The Congress deliberated on various topics including marketing strategies for banking and insurance sectors, emerging trends in financial services, corporate governance and rural marketing of financial services among others.

Material management

The College of Material Management (CMM), Jabalpur, has been accorded five star status, the highest rating by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) recently. The NAAC is an autonomous institution of the University Grants Commission (UGC). The CMM is an institution imparting training to defence personnel as well as civilians in the field of material management.

Jamia hostel security not in safe hands
Rana A Siddiqui

Date: March 22. Time: 1. 30 pm. There is knock at room no 39 of Mridula Sarabhai Working Women's Hostel of Jamia Millia Islamia. The room is one among 24 others on the second floor, in close proximity to the staircase.

The inmate assumes that the person outside is a resident or a female worker of the hostel as the entry of the male fraternity is prohibited. But, she finds a stranger standing there with a couple of letters in his hand. "Madam, courier," the man hands over a letter to the inmate.

He asks her to sign on the dotted line. His eyes, meanwhile, shifts to all possible angles on the floor where some rooms are wide open, but not a soul is around.

Signing quickly, the inmate asks, "Who allowed you inside?" The courier replies nonchalantly, "I came on my own. Nobody stopped me. In fact, there is no one at the visitors' room, so I just walked in."

The inmate warns, "Males are not allowed here. Leave quickly, else you will be taken to task. You should have waited for someone to escort you here."

The man gets scared. "How do I know," saying this, the man slips out.

In fact, the inmate is scared. She tries to find out why two female workers and two male guards are not on duty. Only one female worker, supposed to be near the entrance gate, is seen coming from somewhere. The other worker is nowhere to be seen.

"It's the workers' duty to be present at the entrance always. They prefer to sleep, bathe, wash clothes and chat with their companions instead, " complains a sweeper.

She is right. Such incidents are not uncommon on the hostel premises. Only last year, around 3 pm in the broad daylight, locks of 10 rooms were found broken simultaneously and an inmate of room no. 27 found her gold chain, earrings and Rs 3,000 stolen from her purse which too was kept inside a locked cupboard in the room. Though there were no reports of theft in other rooms, most locks were either broken or had hammer scratches on them. The incident had created a scare here. The warden was informed. The provost was called from her place in Mujeeb Bagh, who said that the guilty would be punished. There has been no progress in this case so far.

Only a few days back, a saleswoman was selling suits in the common room inside the hostel, without taking the permission from the warden. She was not questioned by any worker. She too was scared away by an inmate of room 39.

According to the rules, one has to take the permission of the warden to go beyond the visitors' room. Permission is given to mechanics, plumbers or cable operators only and a worker accompanies them until he finishes his job inside a room.

Whenever some construction is carried out inside the premises, the workers and the labourers from outside have a field day here. They are seen sleeping, eating, and chatting in hostel gardens, especially in the afternoon. Only a day back, one labourer was given a tongue-lashing by his master for eve-teasing inside the premises. During last elections, a few boys sneaked into the hostel backyard which is almost a jungle, on the pretext of looking for a cricket ball.

Similarly, only a few years ago, young boys in the neighbourhood would scale the hostel walls to come to the garden and play cricket. It is only after several complaints, the height of the walls was raised and the passage inside the premises from backyard was blocked. However, the fact remains that the place is grossly unsafe. The aged guards at the main gate are meagerly paid. "We have only a lathi as a weapon and sometimes a wireless set. In case a mob attacks on the campus, we would not be able to do anything on the spot. We must be given something concrete to look after some 300 inmates here," said a guard.

Rohtak
Nepali servant gets life term for killing employer
Jatinder Sharma

Rohtak, March 27
The Additional Sessions Judge, Mr Shiva Sharma, today sentenced Krishan, a Nepali immigrant, to life imprisonment on charges of murdering his former employer, Phoolwati, resident of DLF Colony here.

According to the prosecution, Krishan was working as a domestic servant in the house of Phoolwati but she was not satisfied with his work. She removed him from service and Krishan nursed a grudge against Phoolwati.

A few days after his dismissal from service, Krishan allegedly trespassed into her house on the intervening night of August 22 and 23, 1998 and killed the old woman and took away gold ornaments.

Pronouncing the judgment, Mr Sharma said that the circumstances of this case made a chain so complete that they did not raise any other reasonable hypothesis save that of guilt of the accused.

The circumstances of this case were totally incompatible with the innocence of the accused and inferentially excluded all reasonable doubt about his innocence. Although the accused had claimed he was innocent and that he was falsely implicated, he had not attributed any motive against the prosecution witnesses for his false implication. “Therefore, I unhesitatingly reject the defence plea and hold that the prosecution witnesses have deposed the truth,” the order said.

The entire warp and woof of the prosecution case showed that accused Krishan had voluntarily caused the death of Phoolwati after trespassing into her house in order to kill her. The mere fact that the accused went to the house of the deceased empty handed did not help him because he knew that he could strangulate an old lady without any weapon.

Thus, the prosecution had established commission of offence by the accused under Section 302 and 449, IPC. The accused had committed house trespass by night by entering into the house of the deceased between sunset and sunrise and had caused various injuries to her with a ‘thappi’ and had strangulated her by smothering her mouth. Thereby he voluntarily caused her death and thus committed an offence under Section 460, IPC. Yet, he could be convicted under Section 459, IPC because there was no marked difference in the two sections, the judge said.

The prosecution evidence further showed that the accused had committed theft of gold ornaments etc and thus an offence under Section 382 of the IPC was also committed by the accused. The judge awarded life imprisonment for the offence committed under Section 302, IPC and a fine of Rs 2,000. He awarded life imprisonment for offences committed under Section 449 and 459 of the IPC with a fine of Rs 2,000 in each case.

The accused has been awarded 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1,000 for the offence committed under Section 382, IPC.