A RECENT ARTICLE on Brain Pickings stated that to “reap the fruits of genius, we must plant the seeds of practice and process”. And what if these ‘seeds’ are planted very early on? And, by the most influential figure in a child’s life—a parent? You get something close to a Barkha Dutt. Some hate her, some adore her. Whichever camp you might belong to, it is hard to ignore Barkha Dutt, the NDTV Group Editor and President of its Editorial Board. For most of us, she has been the face of hard-hitting war reportage ever since she burst into the scene—the tall, young woman armed with a mike and determination. From Kargil, she went on to cover nearly all major news of conflict and violence in India. She opened the doors for young women who dared to dream differently. We saw her from the safety of our homes, and wondered how it was to be her, in her place. This month we received the rare opportunity to ask her personally about her Kargil experiences, and of course, other media matter—corporatisation of the media space, role of women and the reinvention of a journalist, in the social media world. Some of her answers made us think, too, about the future of this industry. Armed with a camera and an opinion every one can be a journalist; or can they? Who is a journalist? What are the character traits of this creature? More importantly what makes an all right reporting different from an excellent one? Barkha also spoke of her influence, her mother, Prabha Dutt, a pioneer in her own right. There are several similarities between mother and daughter; the former was India’s first war correspondent and the latter was the first one to cover war reporting on television. A special mention of our Good Karma section. We have all heard of how charity begins at home. Kuku Arora has taken the adage a bit further, to work a small miracle. His model is worth mentioning because of its simplicity and sustainability—you and me can follow to make a big difference. For this month our favourite travel columnist has taken her much-deserved break. And we coaxed Chef Jerome Cousin of Rara Avis take us through his favourite French dishes. I await your responses on this issue, impatiently. Watch out for your health in this especially sizzling summer.

Barkha Dutt is perhaps the best known face of NDTV, as its Group Editor she attained iconic status as a reporter and became a role model for the limits of journalism. The intrepid journalist talks to us about her

Days before Day 1 I was forewarned that this assignment was going to be a toughie! I was to interview one of the busiest, most prominent women on Indian television—getting an appointment would be tough, getting to make her talk, tougher. The appointment happened easily (surprise-surprise skeptics) and I found an accommodating subject, a patient listener and a seasoned media expert who brought in her journalistic prowess to make my job easy peasy. I watched and learnt. The toughest task turned out to be writing about her. That, however, is no fault of Barkha Dutt. It’s just that too many words have been spent in trying to put together and unravel this iconic journalist but Barkha Dutt is used to being vilified and glorified, in equal measures. Especially by youngsters who have found in her a much-needed icon as youth leaders are in such short supply in India. A spoiler right at the onset; there’s nothing in this article which will either establish or rock any “truths” (a tricky word) which you might seek. What this article will do, I do hope, is hold a mirror to the formative ideas—ethos—of a person who has shaped Indian television media as we know of it today and someone who made it all right to dream big. Day 1 The Interview I was not prepared for the discipline of a television news office. It was too quiet, too organised and well, too tame. It was in that quiet NDTV office that we spoke—the NDTV group editor and president of its editorial board and I—and started the conversation right at the beginning. “One of my earliest memories is being shown covers of the Time (magazine). In those days, Time was a novelty. You did not get the magazine that easily. It would arrive weeks after it was published. My parents would take them and ask me to identify the global leaders. I must have been five at that time!” So was she any good? “I don’t remember being very good. But the exposure (to journalism) was pretty early on. So I think that helped along the way.” And what an exposure it was. Dutt’s mother, Prabha Dutt, was a trailblazing newspaper reporter who worked for Hindustan Times. When her editor refused to let her cover the 1965 Pakistan War, she took leave and went to “meet” her parents. What she really did was to get to the front-line and start despatching news of the war which were so good that they had to be taken. Prabha Dutt became the first woman war reporter in India. When she died at an early age, Prabha Dutt left a footprint both on her readers’s minds and in her daughter’s. “When I was covering the Kargil War, people went like here’s the first Indian woman covering a war. I was like, hang on, that was on television, but my mother was the first woman on the war front. I do carry her voice in my head. It is a concrete and overwhelming influence. How can you not? I always think if she would have been here, would she approve of this story? Would she have done it differently? From what I remember, I know that she was a better journalist.” “I wrote this piece once in which I had mentioned that news was a part of the menu at the dining table. It was as mandatory as the glass of milk or the portion of vegetable of the day. Growing up as the daughter of a journalist, I think it meant not only an exposure to news from early childhood but also some sense of how it difficult it was for women to get into journalism at that time.” No, Dutt didn’t realise the problems of being a woman in a man’s world as early on as five, but as a teenager she knew well enough just how tough it was for her mother to get her first job, her first assignment and how women reporters were expected to cover flower shows. Because those were the stories Dutt grew up hearing. Add to that the extra bits about phone threats and strangers arriving with “warnings” at the doorstop, led Dutt realise that if and when you did something right, there were always consequences. “My father worked for Air India and stayed in New York for a brief period. My mother was working for Hindustan Times, so my sister and I moved all over India with her. I can’t say there wasn’t an element of fear when phone calls would come. But she was a very tough and strong person and one grew up in such an environment and tried to be worthy daughters.” The pedigree was there. But that didn’t mean Dutt wished to follow her mother’s footsteps right away. “Even though I loved the news and was surrounded by it, I didn’t grow up thinking I wanted to be a part of her world. But of course, there were subconscious influences of which I was aware of later. But growing up, I loved languages and law. Part of me wanted to be a lawyer. In fact I still wish to be one. My mass communication examination at Jamia Milia Islamia and my law entrance test fell on the same day. That was when I had to make a quick call. who knows I might be a qualified lawyer too one day. I am in my forties—is it too late for me to learn law?” she says laughing. What she did enjoy were words, public speaking and communicating—being the “precocious” child she was. Like several of us, she would develop headaches and cramps before mathematics examinations and was more than happy to embrace a liberal arts education when the choice presented itself. She read and wrote for school and college magazines, went on to be a part of the Shakespeare Society at St Stephen’s and performed in theatre productions. Then there was basketball. “For a long time, as a youth, I wanted to make documentaries or be a filmmaker. Then when I applied for this job here (NDTV), I wanted to be a producer. I didn’t think I would necessarily be on camera, you know?” So, how did she come to be on the other side? “At that period, there were no private news channels. There was Doordarshan. NDTV and, if I remember correctly, Aaj Tak, were commissioned to do one half-an-hour privately produced new bulletin; one in English and one in Hindi. NDTV was commissioned for the English news. When I applied for the job, I said can I be a producer? People said why can’t you be both? That seemed like a logical question. Of course, once I started to report news I loved it!” As a young woman she loved the adrenalin rush. But it wasn’t just the so-called rush which sealed the deal. “My first major story was the gang rape of a Dalit woman in Rajasthan (Bhanwaria Devi rape case as you and I know of it). Travelling out of my city, going to a village, and having all my conventional assumptions of life being questioned was quite the experience. I had grown up without paying attention to my caste, mine was an upbringing of privileged liberal tradition. Then I travelled a bit and understood that caste was irrelevant to me because I was a person of privilege. That there were people who were and are victimised, traumatised and discriminated against because of it. Suddenly this whole new world opened up and made me comprehend just how protected I was in a middle-class upbringing. I knew journalism will continue to surprise me and open up a avenues of education and understanding.” She admits that there were so many things that she was not prepared for; crowds turning violent, hostility or even deep emotionality like she felt in Kargil. “I had the whole pressure of being a girl and going into a war zone. The Army officials didn’t wish to see me there. People asked me what would I do when I needed to use the restroom. I said I would go behind the rocks like the boys did. I couldn’t show emotions even when my male counterparts could.” Thus, even when she bade goodbye to the soldiers after 10 days of reporting in Kargil, she did not shed a tear. “These young men gave us shelter and protected us, naturally we had emotionally bonded. While we were leaving, a male reporter got all misty eyed. I kept my emotions in check because I thought crying was a girly thing to do. And I cry easily.” While talking to Dutt, it is clear that she had little idea that her life was going to be under as much scrutiny as the news that she reported. So, did it scare her to put so much of her true self out there? “I do think through the heart. I will not apologise for it. I’ve gone into violent places and situations, covered riots and war zones, and I don’t see anybody accusing me of being fragile. I don’t see myself as a soft person. At the same time I don’t see a contradiction in bearing empathy and compassion and being capable of covering hard news. I became a journalist because I liked going to difficult places and narrate history as it happened. I like telling a good story. I do intersometimes worry that people (nowadays) come to this job for all the wrong reasons.” Like what? “Girls have come up to me and said they would like to be me. I tell them that they should not be anybody else but themselves. It is important to find who you are. I’ve been asked what should one do if he or she wanted to be a journalist? I can tell you why you shouldn’t be a journalist. Don’t become a journalist to be on TV. That’s a functional part of the job. Take the job seriously. And don’t take yourself too seriously. That can be the death of you.” It is this belief which makes her reluctant to wear the mantle of being a role model—you might have to take yourself too seriously. “When you become a role model, every word that comes out of your mouth is judged and commented upon. When I was less experienced, I used to hurt when people called me names. Think how could people call me this. I am not this. As I have grown older, I care less and less. I have reached a combination of self confidence and peace. I know I am a public person and people who don’t know me will have an opinion as well. It is alright. It is actually fine. I engage with strangers every day on Twitter. Some hate me and some love me. You can say love is as irrational as hate.” It all comes with the turf—the emotional bit. “People are emotional beings. Journalists are people, too, unprepared for all the emotions they face when they go to a field to report. Or when they get emotionally attached to a story. Or when a person is a story. None of us are clinical robots. We get scared, we speak louder than usual, we sound shrill. So, I never watch myself if I can help it. Because when I do, I think s***, I should have used a better word or spoken softly.” “Every story, till date, has thrown up something I was not prepared for. Whether life threatening, volatile or hostile, as journalist one has to make sense of every situation. There might be a bomb going off or a building burning, but a journalist has a job to do.” And how does a journalist do the most important thing—just report. “There are stories where there are multiple opinions. Then, there are stories which don’t. You asked me about rape, there can be multiple opinions about the best law, but none, when it comes to the fact that it is a crime. There can be two opinions about capital punishment, but none on how unequivocally disgusting crime on the vulnerable is. As a journalist my task is to give equal space to all aspects. Having said that I don’t believe journalists are mechanical people. When I hear stupid things being said (say a woman was ‘asking for it’) I feel absolute horror. I don’t need to be objective about such a statement.” “The other day someone said that you can’t think with your heart. I apologised but I do. You don’t have to pretend to be somebody you are not. At the same time, I would hate being labelled as one who thinks like such and such—or being considered as ‘owned’ by any ideological camp, though people who give themselves up to being owned by ideological camps often have it easier. If you take a more centrist view then you will always upset someone or the other. It’s alright. I am fine with upsetting people.” But doesn’t that open more avenues for criticism? As a woman journalist, is she not already under maximum scrutiny? “I don’t subscribe to the victimhood narrative. Having said that women have to be better than their male colleagues even if they wish to occupy the same space. Everything you do will be scrutinised differently. You will be analysed differently, the negativity that will come to you will come differently if you are a public person. When I intersometimes viewed Hilary Clinton recently, she admitted that people say Hilary Clinton and then within brackets wearing a pink suit today. It is not a parenthesis that people do when they look at, say an Obama. Misogyny is perhaps subconscious today, but it exists. That doesn’t mean it is insurmountable. It doesn’t mean that you won’t make it even if you are talented. It just means that you will have to work harder to get at it.” Despite the hardships Dutt believes that television media is the future. “If I had to assess myself I would think I am better on television. I enjoy writing, I also like going up on a stage for a talk. Television gives an opportunity to bring multiple skills together. One has to write, cover stories, visually. In print you write differently. You have to recreate a picture differently. I chose television because it was a new medium. There was an immediacy to it which attracted me.” For a person who has been bang in the middle of the growing Indian television media, where does she see it heading? “I know there’s a comparison done between old or new schools of journalism. I don’t know which is which. I became a journalist due to a set of reasons, which I find are being increasingly challenged. I became a journalist because I liked telling a story, being in an adventure, getting dirt under my nails, being out there, meeting new people whom my protected upbringing never gave me a chance to meet. I never cared about how my hair was. For me there were no glamour to this job. To me my job was to bring multiple perspectives together, challenge viewers perspective and challenge your own. These are new times for TV journalism today. The space is in a churn. Today, I find there journalists who try to reconfirm biases of their viewers. They are more popular. I am not interested in being popular or unpopular. (Laughs) I find three very dangerous trends in journalism today; one, the glamour trend. Two, the need to be popular, and therefore tailoring your opinion into what your viewers want to hear. And three, the kangaroo court element in the profession, where you are seating in your studio and adjudicating someone. Yes, if you have any hard hitting story by all means tell it, but don’t make it theatrical.” These are concerns which Dutt doesn’t know a way out. Then, there’s the whole question of social media. Albeit it has democratised the news space, but it has also made anyone who holds a phone, a camera and an opinion into a journalist. “It is not just India, I see the rest of the world going through a similar crisis. How do you survive when anyone with a camera, phone and a computer can do what you do? Well, there will always be good stories. And there will always be relevant stories. What is great about the social media space is that it gives more people a chance to tell a story. Perhaps it will lead to us to reinvent ourselves as well,” Dutt says. So who is a journalist today? “Everyone can be. Today, we live in an age of hyper-information. I believe it is all right to have an opinion, in fact everyone should. What is not right is to act as a gatekeeper on it. And it lack of accountability is bothersome. For example in the internet space, any body can be accused of anything without proof. Television, print media or even a website is liable to defamation if there is false information provided. Right? But on the internet, we are getting into a world where there are no rules anymore. We will have to establish codes of practise as we proceed. But I don’t see Section 66A being an answer, it is a Draconian law.” And the growing corporatisation of the media space —does that not curb media freedom? “Look at the world over and there are only two models of ownership—I haven’t seen a third—which is either the corporates own you or the state owns you. Whether you are talking of a PBS or a BBC (subsidised by the state) or Al Jazeera owned by the state or the CNBC owned by General Electronics. I believe the problem is of disclosure. My position has always been that the viewers, consumers always have the right to know who owns you. When you cover stories or interested parties, it should always go with a disclaimer and stating the ownership. The way media is, whether television or print, it is an expensive affair and there will always be someone who will have to provide that money. Even private equity is corporate money, it is not noncorporate right?” And with that she disappeared for the day. Day 2 Acting the Hound The second day we met, was to be a day to observe and absorb and perhaps get a few bytes.Alas, she has a show to do. People are late. Guests are grumbling. Someone important has not turned up and young men and women are making several calls to this person. The show’s on miracle and magic—there’s P.C. Sorcar in it, I am told. True enough he walks in with his wife, daughter and an entourage of guards in tow soon. An hour left for the show, after relentlessly pestering a hapless young producer, we get the chance to meet Dutt. She’s in middle of her make up, and incidentally in middle of a lot of controversies. But that has been a part of her life since her twenties. Dutt’s used to going in with her guns blazing. She’s used to brickbats as much as she is used to bouquets. Despite all, she’s not nearly done. “At this moment I haven’t reached that point—the tipping point if you will—which would lead me to the next course of my career. Twenty years in this industry is like 40 years in any other, and I know I will reach that point when I will wish to re-invent myself. Although news is in my blood, one day I might not do it 24X7. Perhaps, I will be working for think tanks or writing more or making documentaries—connected to the news space but not identical.” As she gets into the studio, I watch her wield her mic (and magic) around healers, faithfuls and rationalists. Right when she makes her job look so, so easy, I realise just how difficult it is to stand with dignity under the harsh lights of the media world.

28 New Ministers Appointed

WIN\\ Former Leader of Opposition, K. Siddaramaiah, was sworn in as the Karnataka Chief Minister on May 13, 2013. Other aspirants for the post included Mallikarjun Kharge and G. Parameshwar—Siddaramaiah was the unanimous choice. After assuming office, Siddaramaiah inducted 28 new ministers into his Cabinet, including younger leaders Dinesh Gundu Rao and Krishna Byre Gowda. Familiar faces such as R.V. Deshpande and actor-turned-politician, Ambareesh, are also a part of the new Cabinet. Mining baron and Rajya Sabha member Anil Lad, former working President of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, D.K. Shivakumar, and R. Roshan Baig, however, did not find a place in the freshly-appointed Cabinet. In the recently-concluded polls, Congress won a majority of 121 seats out of the 223. While the incumbent BJP won a total of 40 seats. The Janta Dal (Secular) and Karnataka Janata Paksha won 40 and six seats respectively. Speaking at a press conference conducted after the results, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, “Despite the campaign against the UPA, the people of Karnataka have spoken strongly. It’s a defeat of an ideology.” The Congress came into power in Karnataka after a gap of seven years.

Polls Hailed as Victory for Democracy

POLL\\ Pakistan’s former leader in exile Nawaz Sharif emerged as the clear winner in the recently-held Pakistan elections to become the Prime Minister-elect for the record third time. He beat former cricketer Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehrike- Insaf, and Bilawal Bhutto’s (son of Late Benazir Bhutto) People’s Party of Pakistan. Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) won 123 seats out of the 272—short of a majority. He will be forming a government with support of Independents and smaller parties. The PML-N’s two closest rivals—PPP and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf—won 32 and 27 seats, respectively. Though the polls were mostly peaceful, 22 people were reported dead in poll-related conflicts. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh congratulated Nawaz Sharif on his “emphatic victory” along with J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. On May 12, 2013, Manmohan Singh’s special envoy, Satinder K. Lambah, met Sharif in Lahore. According to an official release, the special envoy conveyed Dr Singh’s greetings and good wishes to Sharif for his tenure as Prime Minister of Pakistan. Nawaz Sharif conveyed his deep appreciation for the Indian Prime Minister’s message.

May; It Rained Scams

SCAMS// In May it rained scams, as the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre grappled with the resignation of Railways Minister Pawan Bansal following allegations of corrupt practices by his close relatives and aides. Another minister to follow suit, was Ashwani Kumar, Law and Parliamentary Affairs, who came under CBI scanner for allegedly allocating mining rights inappropriately to private companies. Pawan Bansal’s nephew Vijay Singhla was also accused of accepting monetary aide from a suspended Railways Board member, Mahesh Kumar. According to sources, the decision to ask Bansal to resign came after the CBI received evidence of a meeting between Mahesh Kumar and Bansal on April 21, 2013. Also, allegedly, Kumar was made a Member (Electrical) in the Indian Railways Board though he was already a Signals Member. Bansal put in his papers on May 10, 2013. His resignation was welcomed by all political parties. He has been replaced by the Minister for Road Transport and Highways, C.P. Joshi. Ashwani Kumar, who had received the support of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh till the end, resigned minutes after Bansal. Kumar’s departure came after Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi met Manmohan Singh over the coal scam report. Earlier, Kumar had denied all allegations, stating, “My conscience remains clear. I believe I will stand vindicated.” Union Minister of Communications and IT, Kapil Sibal, has been given the charge of the Law Ministry. Yet another scam to rock the country was of the Saradha Chit Fund in West Bengal. Thanks to the scam, thousands took to the streets in the capital of West Bengal agitating against the Saradha Group Chit Fund Institution, after the virtual collapse of the company. Thousands had invested their lives’ savings in the company. The Saradha Group financial scandal was caused by the collapse of a Ponzi scheme run by the Saradha Group, a consortium of Indian companies believed to be running a wide variety of collective investment schemes known as chit funds. The group collapsed on April 2013, causing an estimated loss of nearly `200 billion. In the aftermath, the state government of West Bengal set up an inquiry commission to investigate the collapse. It also set up a fund of `5 billion to ensure that low income investors are not bankrupted as the collapse also led to a series of suicides among the investors. The main accused—Sudipto Sen, Chairman and MD of the group; and Debjani Mukopadhyay; Executive Director—were arrested in Kashmir on April 23, 2013. Mukhopadhyay’s sister claimed that Debjani was framed. “(Saradha chief) Sudipta Sen has framed her. She wanted to surrender before the police, but she was prevented from doing so. My sister is innocent,” said Mukherjee’s cousin Arpita, also an employee of the chit fund-funded group that has gone bust. Sen and Mukhopadhyay were arrested along with another company official. Political parties including the ruling Trinamool Congress were also allegedly involved in the scam. Following the collapse, more than a dozen agents and depositors of the Group, and related chit fund companies, took their lives.

Cremated with State Honours

POLITICS// Sarabjit Singh, the 49-year-old Indian prisoner jailed in Pakistan for decades, breathed his last on May 2, 2013, in Lahore. He was attacked in Kot Lakhpat Jail allegedly by six co-inmates. He was rushed to a hospital where he died of a cardiac arrest. Sarabjit Singh a.k.a. Manjit Singh was arrested in 1990 by the Pakistan Army. He was accused of being an Indian spy, and was charged of plotting a series of blasts at Lahore and Multan in 1989. Singh’s family has maintained that he was a farmer whose land ran along the Indo-Pak border. They also maintain that Singh had crossed the zero line in an inebriated state. Recent reports published by Indian newspapers, it has been alleged that Sarabjit Singh was indeed a spy. However, no official statement has been made to confirm the news. In what is being called a reaction to Sarabjit Singh’s death, Pakistani prisoner Sanaullah Haq, serving term in Kot Bhalwal Jail, J&K, was beaten up by his co-inmates. Haq was admitted to PGIMER, Chandigarh, where he died of multiple organ failure. Haq, a resident of Dallowali near Sialkot, Pakistan, was convicted of 1994 J&K bombings which killed 10 people. He was serving a life sentence. He died on May 9, 2013.

IT’S BEEN MORE than a century since business education began as a discipline. Where does it stand today? Where do you think it is headed? These are some of the questions that I have been trying to question in the past few years and the answers lead me to one idea, that management education is going to become more important than what it is today. If you look at the past 100 years, management institutions have been working with (broadly) three visions: i) knowledge creation or research ii) knowledge dissemination, which means teaching programmes, and iii) knowledge certification, which means awarding MBAs, BBAs or PhD degrees. In the coming decades, there will be a fourth vision—knowledge monetisation. Right now, management education deals more with entrepreneurs, but in the future it will deal with institutions as its demand will grow. Business is about people. The more you learn about people, the better you will become. Knowledge creation will also become a big deal, especially in the west, because the west wishes to know how to do business in emerging markets. So, new research will emerge. While in India we will be doing more work on knowledge dissemination and creation, in the western world, where these two areas are at an advanced stage, people will be talking about how we can look at converting this knowledge into streams of business opportunities. This means a large part of management education will involve experiential learning—applying things that have been learnt to practice. Just like in medical schools where a student goes into medical residency after receiving his or her degree, then spends three years specialising, B-schools, too, will focus on ‘business residencies’. Students will have to do ‘real projects’ with companies or involve themselves in actual business opportunities. Today, we have progressed in areas of science and technology—a lot of students, thereby, are attracted to these fields. However, not every student joins the academia after graduation. Some join biotech firms, others work for venture capitalist or private equity companies. Which means that in addition to the knowledge of life sciences, science students will need to have a grasp of business fundamentals. And what will be those major trends in management education? According to me, the first trend will be that students at prestigious universities (read: Caltech and Johns Hopkins) will also require an additional degree in management education. Most students will be sent to B-schools to study business basics. Science, technology and medicinal universities will tie-up with world-class management institutions or start their own schools. We will also be seeing new clients, such as officials from the government, join B-schools. The biggest trend will be that business schools will go ‘beyond business’. The focus will change from merely success to ‘significance’. Today, business students concentrate on their own success and on getting a job. However, as time passes, every individual, especially those pursuing business education, will have to involve themselves in ‘social responsibility’. Just like we think of corporate social responsibility today, the next wave of business will see us looking at ‘individual’ social responsibility. Till date, business school curriculum involved questions related to share-holders’ value, upon how to improve a company’s responsibility and increase share-holders’ value and profits. That is what I call ‘Standard Capitalism’. But now, Bill Gates has arrived on the scene with his concept of ‘Created Capitalism’. He has started talking about why we should not only think about our profits, but also about the welfare of others—he is not talking of money, but social recognition. I believe more than social recognition, we should think of social responsibility. As far as I am concerned, the next wave will be about developing an attitude of environment protection and preservation of the planet: Prosperity=Profit + People+Planet. If we don’t worry about our planet, then we make our lives miserable. That brings me to my next point: focus on the environment. And since we will be widening our scope in terms of issues that we address and the clients we bring in, B-schools will soon be called ‘schools of management and leadership’. The importance of management education will continue to grow. It will be regarded as a ‘fundamental’ discipline. It will be treated as ‘core’ and basic as science. Simple equation: you cannot be happy if the people around you aren’t. Inequality is not a sign of a healthy society. It’s our individual responsibility to change the quality of life, especially of those who have not benefitted from the so called economic growth. Otherwise, we fail as individuals. Second, as the gap between classes widens, the possibility of social unrest rises. Our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh used the term inclusive growth. I don’t know to what extent growth may be economically inclusive, but it has to be inclusive as far as social wellbeing is concerned. B-schools should be making social consciousness a part of the curriculum. The syllabi should not be just about courses in finance. We need to teach students the impact of decisions and projects on our environment. Second, business schools have to promote responsible consumption. We need to focus more on long-term results than just us and our immediate surroundings. New age business curriculum will see new pedagogical innovations. Today, we take a global tour to show how business is done in countries. The next big change will be taking a tour to the Antarctic or the Amazon, to see the impact of our activity on those environments. B-schools have begun to take stock of their role in present society. A year ago, Harvard launched a debate on how to fix such courses. Do I believe B-schools need fixing? I don’t think anything is broken per se, so the term ‘fixing’ is probably not the right one. Things are not worse, but yes, we have to go beyond the normal conventional boundaries of education. The point about B-schools is that they teach business concepts, but forget to inform students about risk assessment or risk associated with these concepts. Management education needs to be more holistic and balanced. Till now, all the focus has been on knowledge. Knowledge comes from analysis. But, wisdom comes from synthesis, which is basically connecting the dots. There’s a saying that learned people can see the picture that you and I cannot see. Business schools should structure themselves to keep innovating constantly. The most important thing is to maintain an entrepreneurial culture. You should have the flexibility to perform tasks. If you have a bureaucratic structure, while it may not stop innovation, it will ensure that innovation takes time to happen. Institutions should involve stakeholders (read: alumni, students, faculty, corporate partners and the government) and align them with the school’s vision. US-based B-schools have revamped their curricula, the most recent being Wharton. For Indian schools curriculum design should be a continuous process. It’s time for a review or an update whenever there is enough body of knowledge and whenever complexity rises. A school should keep on looking for feedback, and modification should be an ongoing process. If someone wanted to set up a world-class business school in India today then one would only need to look at the model adopted by the Indian School of Business. Look at what it has become in 10 years. If a business school was to be set-up today, its social responsibility has to be greater. For instance, at the upcoming ISB, Mohali, we have made additions such as public sector, infrastructure and healthcare management, to the curriculum. New programmes have come up in the past 10 years: especially in sectors where we believe a social need exists. ISB Mohali has entered into interesting tie-ups with other top business schools—such as the one in public policy with Fletcher School and the one in urban infrastructure with MIT. ISB also offers a unique course in public health management. For someone mulling to set up a new institution, there are a lot of interesting evolutions that are happening. Keep a lookout!

Bring it on loud and clear, and see the difference...

“Podcasting is in vogue and when it’s done right, it can make a big difference to your brand!” No, this is not some headline from the biztech pages of a newspaper from 2005-2006, right around the time when Apple iTunes support for the new media format helped propel podcasting into the mainstream. This is very much the here and now— podcasting is fast seeing resurgence as a vehicle for personal and professional brand outreach on the social web in 2013. What’s changed, you may ask? Why is podcasting seeing so many folks lavish so much attention on the subject now, when podcasting made it big almost seven years back? To answer this, I will need to take a few steps back in time. You see, podcasting came about when folks figured out they could use the vast iPod and iTunes user base to distribute custom audio content—akin to a downloadable radio broadcast. Think of podcasts as 21st Century radio channels that you can listen to in your car, on the ride to work or at the gym, with individually chosen content that each person wants to hear. Cut to the iTunes Music Store-dominated present, and the distribution channel (iTunes) is as popular as it gets. What’s changed over the past few years is that unlike the days of yore when you had to download a podcast and transfer it onto your iPod for consumption, today each one of us is sporting smartphones capable of downloading and listening to a podcast directly (without a PC) when the publisher posts it online. Combine this with the increasing amounts of time we spend commuting to and from work, and what you get is an entertainment and information medium that is more easily available and consumable than ever. A medium that brands, marketers and social media experts are fast realizing represents an incredible opportunity to reach out to their target audiences, in particular those that are ‘actively engaged’ with the brand. This way, your audience is able to take your brand and messaging wherever they go, rather than being tied down to a schedule where they are in front of a computer. Not to forget the bonus—an article or white paper that you write requires at least one hand and both eyes—a podcast can be consumed in a hands free fashion. In fact, studies published in the “Social Media Marketing Industry Report 2013” suggest that interest in podcasting grew eight times in the past year alone, with 24 per cent of marketers actively looking to increase their usage of podcasts in the coming year. Consider the benefits. For one, podcasting is a very cost effective way of getting your brand noticed and opening up lines of communications with new and existing customers. The cost of hosting the podcast is virtually free, and you really only need to figure out how to pay for the person who generates the content and records the podcast. The smart marketer can even leverage podcasts to answer questions regarding your service or marketing offers and contests, or use it as a route to though leadership by educating customers about how to be more Nanda productive or keep in touch with the latest developments in the space in which you operate. Yet, getting that first podcast done right and keeping the momentum going requires marketers and even individual brands to meticulously plan each podcast episode and keep some key dos and don’ts in mind. You should, for instance, play around with different tools and programs to arrive at a setup and workflow that works not only with your budget but your work environment and style of working. You could use something as easily available a basic computer microphone and free programs like as Audacity (for Windows) or Garageband (for Mac) to record and edit your audio. It helps if you’re podcasting about a subject you are passionate about—the enthusiasm (or lack of it) inevitably comes across to the listener. Of course, it goes without saying that your content should be the star and offer advice or information so that it serves as a resource they can use, and not just a prop to push your products and services—show the listener how you can help them rather than just what your business does for them. Bear in mind—pushing a podcast out takes a lot of preparation—right from writing out an engaging script to identifying interview subjects, not to forget a ton of practice! So aim for a schedule that you can stick to, rather than aiming to broadcasting once a week with nothing to say! And finally, keep it short, tight, simple and fun—you reduce the risk of testing your audience’s patience!

A list of things left undone

AS THE SECOND UPA government limped towards its fourth anniversary in the fourth week of May, 2013, there was a sense of tiredness and ennui that seemed to prevail. A senior official made the pithy observation that the UPA administration was remarkable in that it seemed to take nothing to resolution. Things lingered, discussions and debates continued, points and counter-points were raised, the National Advisory Council and the Planning Commission sniped at each other—but somewhere along the line, a state of paralysis became permanent. Gradually, this government’s default position became the Mexican stand-off. Arguments and contestations are of course welcome within a democratic system and in the chambers of government. However, a politician’s obligation is to resolve such arguments, pick one choice over the other(s) and promote a political goal that is best met by making that selection. Too many people in this government, starting with the prime minister, have not exercised that authority and not done the job expected of a political leadership. Nothing substantive has ever reached a resolution, irrespective of whether the contending parties are the government and the ruling party, the ruling alliance and the opposition, or the Union government and the federalist impulses of state governments. The same issues, the same pitfalls have come up again and again. There a sense of fatigue and tiredness to not just the government but the broader political environment around it. This jaded, ‘been there, done that’ mood is so evident even after the Hyderabad terror tragedy. The home minister makes a template, insipid speech. His party colleagues and opponents react as they have to previous such incidents. One Member of Parliament accuses the home minister of “copy-pasting” his predecessor’s statement following the Hyderabad terror bombings of 2007. The former home minister writes to the prime minister on lack of urgency towards setting up the National Counterterrorism Centre. Murmurs are heard of how law and order is a state subject and the inherent problems this causes in the building of a seamless, all-India anti-terror mechanism. Gaps in intelligence assessment and sharing are lamented upon. These themes have been around for years. These themes have been particularly salient since 2007-2008, when there were a series of bombings across India, culminating in the horrific Mumbai tragedy of November 26, 2008. There is still no resolution. A non-technocratic home minister, who prefers to see his job as oldstyle political management and not a mandate with internal security at its core, doesn’t help matters. Fellow politicians describe him as “happy go lucky” and “jovial” on public platforms, and—bizarrely—mean these as words of praise. Given this one does wonder if problem solving is the goal of Indian politics in general and the UPA government in particular— or problem persistence is. The manner in which the same debates, the same disputes, the same arguments keep coming back is equally apparent outside the realms of so-called hard subjects like security and terrorism. In his recent book Accidental India: A History of the Nation’s Passage through Crisis and Change, columnist Shankkar Aiyar recounts the beginnings of the Green Revolution in the India of the mid-1960s, and the remarkable role of the then agriculture minister, C Subramaniam. “Subramaniam,” Aiyar writes, “Drew up his blueprint for the revival of the agricultural sector like he would for a profitable public sector steel plant. He assessed the need for inputs, investment in infrastructure and a pricing policy that would define viability. Subramaniam’s formula factored in the import of seeds, the import of fertilisers, investment in public infrastructure… Most importantly, the blueprint guaranteed remunerative pricing and procurement policies.” What was the response: “Within the government, Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari shot down the idea of price guarantees … The adoption of price incentives, he said, would result in higher prices and lower savings, hurting the investment plans of industry. The attack by the Planning Commission was led by VKRV Rao who pointed out that the import of seeds, fertilisers and pesticides would entail a huge outflow of foreign exchange—he labelled the Subramaniam formula as being inflationary and anti-plan.” There was more: “Outside government, the leftists … protested. Their contention was that the whole idea was sponsored by the US-based Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. The Communists felt that this would make India increasingly dependent on imports from the US and Western economies. Within government, TTK [Krishnamachari] rejected proposals from foreign investors willing to set up five large fertiliser factories in collaboration with the government of India, arguing that this would dent the nation’s quest for self-sufficiency.” Eventually, Subramaniam, backed by two successive prime ministers— Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi— cut the Gordian’s knot, overrode the technicalities and the petty opposition, and delivered the Green Revolution. It was what strong-willed politicians were expected to do. Consider, however, that the ecosystem of roadblocks remains unchanged. The number one political challenge in contemporary India is food inflation. The UPA government has sought to fight it by fiscal measures, by raising interest rates for instance, but has paid astonishingly scant attention to supply-side strengthening and simply increasing food, especially milk and cereal, productivity. Old shibboleths have reigned supreme. New technologies, including but not limited to geneticallymodified technologies, have been mocked and thwarted. A perfect gridlock has emerged; there is no one to take a big-picture political call as Subramaniam and his prime ministers did. Over the past nine years, the UPA has learnt this to its peril. Alas, so has India.

Journey through an Indian startup’s roadmap to build itself a global business across five continents, 578 million mobile customers in 165 countries, and a reported valuation of $1 billion

With annual revenues of more than $100 million, InMobi reaches nearly 578 million mobile consumers in 165 countries through 93.4 billion impressions (number of times internet ads are displayed on website pages readers log on to using their mobiles) every month. Basically, InMobi does on the mobile what Google Ads do on the internet. The company claims it is already the largest mobile ad network in Asia, and is second only to Google’s AdMod globally. Recently, it left behind Millennial Media, an NYSE listed company, and a leading mobile ad network in the US. Largest or not, Naveen Tewari, InMobi’s 35-year-old founder and CEO, has undoubtedly journeyed through an almost-unreal entrepreneurial itinerary, considering he founded InMobi (called mKhoj then) as a mobile search business (an idea which was soon abandoned because it didn’t find traction) out of a small Mumbai flat in July 2006. Since Tewari’s Plan-B approach to build a mobile ad network, and his start-up’s re-branding to InMobi in July 2009, growth and change have both been frenetic. Three and a half years isn’t a long journey, but in Tewari’s case, it’s been one packed to the very brim with milestones, and an enviable ability to grow—across locations—rapidly. Soon after InMobi changed tracks to becoming a mobile ad network, Tewari realised that the scale and ambitions he had for his company, could never be met by merely being an India player. As it is, his Bengaluru office had began to notice that several advertisers from South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East would land up on InMobi’s technology platform— to see if the company could help them reach out to mobile consumers in these regions. “We might have a global technology platform but we could only penetrate these markets upto a certain level from Bengaluru,” says Tewari, who is an IIT Kanpur, Harvard Business School alumni. “We knew to scale up, we needed to go deeper, to understand each of these regions. That meant establishing a local presence in each of these geographies.” Mobile advertising was still at a nascent stage in India then. Gartner, in fact, estimated the global mobile ad market to be $3.3 billion in December 2011. India has just a `0.1 billion contribution to that pie, found a recent CII-PwC report. Clearly, Tewari spotted that the opportunities were elsewhere. Going global was a need for him. Fortunately, Tewari had managed to rope in $8 million from marquee investors such as Sherpalo Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (early investors in Amazon, Google and Netscape) in January 2008. In July 2009, InMobi went international with its office in Jakarta, Indonesia. That set the pace for its global expansion. Within a year, the company successfully expanded to five other countries. And, by the end of 2011, they had offices in these countries. This situation posed a unique management challenge because most companies usually have the advantage of their home markets doubling up as their core markets. It is easier to play in a familiar battleground when trying to establish a stronghold. As unusual the situation was, Tewari found an unusual solution to the problem, instead of being lured to the most advanced mobile markets, InMobi decided to tap emerging markets like Asia and Africa, where they had already witnessed interest from advertisers. Setting shop in emerging markets had the benefits a young start-up needed; limited competition, low customer expectation, and a market size that might be small in context to bigger giants, but was big enough to build a strong base. Also, attacking these regions first gave the company enough time to get its business processes and systems into place before it ventured into more advanced western geographies with confidence. “If we’d started or ventured into the US right at the beginning, we would have 17-18 networks to compete with. Our probability of being successful there would have been very low and we would have fizzled out like most of the networks at the time there did,” says Tewari. Today, having savoured the wins of his approach, Tewari recommends totting up the miles for entrepreneurs. Indian start-ups that don’t find India a big enough market for their products or services should try out South-East Asia, the Middle East and Africa as “companies based in the US don’t necessarily look at these, companies based in China are very happy being within China since it’s a very large market itself and companies based in India can relate to these regions culturally on some level”. For their first few international offices, Tewari, or other senior leaders from the Bengaluru office would go visit the new geography, whether it was Indonesia, Singapore or South Africa, do a recce of the place, explore the market and set up the local office. It would take at least two to three trips to the locales to understand the needs of the market. But soon Tewari realised that despite their best efforts, these “study” tours could only result in a superficial knowledge of the market. The best way to set up offices in unknown markets and scale up fast was to hire a local leader and let her/him lead the charge, he says. “However hard you might try, you can never understand a market like a local person would.” InMobi’s young and international culture was the perfect hook to bring the right people on board. Sample this: the average age of InMobi’s senior leadership team across the globe is around 36 years. The average age of its total workforce is lower still at around 28. Other cultural requisites to be a global, product start-up destined for a bright future, are embedded in the young company. “Everything is based on merit here,” says Tewari. “We have people in their late 20s leading the same initiatives as those in their 40s in different locations.” All of this helped InMobi’s core need to hire exceptionally talented people locally as it went global. And, to be able to do so without needing to tap head hunters. In every geography it entered, InMobi relied on referrals from industry contacts and networks of classmates from the founding teams. Today, the company is proud to have demonstrated an impressive ability to hire the best people. “We have people who are real leaders in what they do. Rob Jonas, the guy who heads our Europe division used to run a very large component of the business for Google. When you hire people like that, you don’t need to teach them how it’s done,” says Tewari. Not just Jonas, the team has been able to bring Crid Yu and Atul Satija, two other ex- Googlers to head its North America and Asia-Pacific operations respectively. The on-boarding process has been well thought out as well. Each new local leader spends the first four to six weeks with the leadership team in Bangalore, sometimes through long, extended Skype conversations, or by flying in to the headquarters to get to know the InMobi culture. They spend the next weeks laying down the foundations of setting up an office, and strategising on how to enter the new geography. Over these past couple of years, InMobi has evolved a scalable approach to get the business up and running in a new geography. Instead of approaching local partners in a new market, the company gains access to local users in new markets through international partners who are already operating in those regions. This ensures they get access to more than 1,000 publishers in the local market even before they set up shop. With a number of publishers on board, the company begins pitching advertisers for ads. It’s only when they are well-entrenched in a new market that they start to think about targetting local suppliers. “You can’t do it the other way round because local players have specific needs in terms of language or the kind of content, which you can’t scale up. You can provide customised services and satisfy the local market only once you have a standard framework,” says Tewari. Of course, things weren’t silky smooth everywhere. Setting up business in Africa, he says, is easier than one would imagine, mainly because African countries are determinedly trying to promote business. But, in markets as underdeveloped as these, finding the right people, especially in a new industry like digital marketing, was a challenge much bigger. China took the cake on that, he says. Scaling up and starting offices in multiple locations is challenging but being able to maintain a unified culture across each of these is harder still. Tewari says there isn’t a single silver bullet that helps him manage that but a host of little practices that ensure people feel a part of a cohesive workforce. “Our offices across the globe may not very similar in terms of the way they look, but they are very similar culturally,” says Tewari.