IIPM and its armtwisting ways
The Indian Institute of Planning and Management sucks. A personal account.
Being the misguided graduate I was a few years back, I had attended IIPM’s seminar on Management Education and the Egg & Chicken charade. At the end of which, I signed up for the entrance test for their 2 year shit certificate that they try to pass off as an MBA.
Now, contrary to their misleading claims in newspapers, IIPM’s Madras campus is a blue and purple glass building, all of 6 floors, in a 60×80 plot in Egmore. Definitely low-key. But their advertisements claim a mix of “Old-English architecture in verdant, landscaped gardens combined with modern high-rise buildings”
That alone should have put me off, but due to parental pressure, I conceded to write the test. The result/rankings of the test was not divulged, but a month or so later, I was called to attend GD and PI.
This GD was conducted in a sparse room in this eye-sore of a building. Some 8 of us discussed the all important issue of Pakistan and India cricket matches. At the end of which was my personal interview.
The questions, if I recall correctly, were mostly on what I should be doing 5 years from then, will I have difficulty if I were to relocate to Delhi and continue my course from the Delhi campus and more of similar vein, rather than focus on my abilities and my aptitude for a management education.
A week after this said GD&PI session, I was asked to join the institute in a week’s time. An ultimatum if ever there was one. I was not asked if I would be willing to take it up, nor was I informed if I did badly or passably well or extremely well. I was just asked to report in a week’s time.
I refused. Next day, somebody calls me up and gives me a lecture on how IIPM education is valid world-wide and why I should quit my current job (I was a trainee writer in an agency) and improve myself. Of course, they would also be willing to let me pay my fees in two installments.
Reason prevailed and I continued being a trainee writer, going on to become a respected member of that organisation.
Now, I say this for two reasons. One. IIPM is as much interested in transparency as the Playboy reader is in the stories.
Second is that that incident told me that IIPM is not worried about their student’s academic merit and talent. They just want him/her in. I say this for I know I was never MBA material. One, my CAT score that year wasn’t encouraging. (My Quant score was to blame – I ain’t an expert in math). SO I am not sure how well I would have performed in the IIPM test.
Two, my contribution to that GD was zilch. I remember this well. For I am not a follower of cricket and wouldn’t know what globe changing effects a match between India and Pakistan would have.
I say this without hesitation. I would have sucked big time in an MBA course. I don’t have the ruthlessness that I see in friends who are at IIMA and ISB. I do know I am clever and creative. But that doesn’t translate to being a good MBA student. And I am sure, IIPM would have known it. Yet, they wanted me to join their course.
Why? Simply put. Rs. 7 lakhs or whatever their course fee is.
I have been viewing everything IIPM does since that day with a suspicious eye. And my doubts have been proved.
An Institute that stoops to leave vile comments on somebody’s blog, an institute that tries arm-twisting to get someone to detract his opinions, an institute that spends more on advertising than bringing their campus to a level they claim in their ads deserves a serious ass-kicking.
IIPM, Beware.
A quick round-up of all posts about the stupid move of IIPM, their fake blogs and lewd comments and Gaurav’s stunning but right move. Just to keep the topic alive and ensure that prospective students aren’t hoodwinked by IIPM’s false advertising and arm-twisting. – Firstly, IIPM reacts badly to an expose of IIPM’s false claims and misleading advertisements – Gaurav is threatened with a lawsuit for the sole reason that he linked to the Jam article. – Fake blogs crop up overnight and attack/libel Rashmi Bansal – Bad move #1 by IIPM/its misguided supporters – The Blogosphere wakes up, takes up the issue. Bewarned folks. You don’t get away easily when you resort to cheap and foolhardy tricks – IIPM decided to arm-twist IBM/Lenovo, Gaurav’s Employer – Stupid Move #1 IIPM – IBM doesn’t give in to the Arm twisting, lets Gaurav decide to do what he wants. – Gaurav resigns voluntarily from his job. Bravo! Here’s a guy who can stand his point. – The issue explodes across the web. Michael Higgins, Instapundit, Global Voices and Om Malik take it up. Needless to say, Desipundit, the Acorn, Amit Varma, Ravikiran and other Indian bloggers are behind Gaurav all the way.
For the benefit of folks who might be considering IIPM for a Management Education. Please think twice. This is an Institute that believes that full page ads are substitutes for quality education. This is an institute that believes in burning laptops and threatening people. This is an institute run by an aspiring model whose educational qualifications are suspicious. This is an institute that has scant regard for its students, letting them get away with libellous comments and vulgarity. This is an institute that is so involved in promoting itself more than its students. This is an institute whose degrees and diplomas don’t have any recognition, anywhere. In short, this is an institute that will do more harm than good. Whose certificates are not worth the paper they are printed on!
IIPM (technorati tag)
Folks. Let’s keep this topic burning. One way or the other, Bloggers need to show that they matter. Be it in the way Pradyuman Maheshwari was forced to shut down his blog, or Gaurav indirectly arm-twisted to resign, we bloggers are taken lightly. It is time we stood up for our freedom. For what is ours.
IIPM and its bunch of fake, lewd bloggers
Rashmi Bansal is a long time blogger, a respected voice in the Blogosphere and is also editor of the magazine JAM. Jam is devoted to student issues and has a regular feature that analyses and reviews B-Schools. As part of that series, JAM published an expose on the Indian Institute of Planning and Management.
Now, anybody with half a brain can see through the fraud that is IIPM. Their sickeningly cluttered ads (too much text in an ad will ensure it doesn’t get read, which is a good thing really) claim campuses with a mix of old-english architecture and modern skyscrapers. Fucking lies. I was offered a seat in their Chennai campus, a blue and purple monstrosity that doesn’t have enough parking space for three bikes.
Needless to say, the dimwits at IIPM took to JAM Mag’s expose badly. They first threatened Gaurav Sabnis with a law-suit. And how! A e-mail that’s “judicially notarized and has been tagged to validate receipt and response” claiming damages to the tune of 125 crores. They didn’t stop at that. Being the dimwits they are, resorted to cheap name-calling and derogative commenting on Rashmi’s Blog. From fake blogs that didn’t exist y’day.
If it were any less serious, I would have had a hearty laugh at IIPM’s response. But dude! Leaving obscene and lewd comments on somebody’s blog is not cool! Definitely off-limits. Don’t they teach you that at school?
The blog-o-sphere is rankled. And pretty bad. Understandably so! Bloggers Charu, Kaps, Patrix, Harini and others have taken up the cudgels. And we will fight. Fight hard. And fair, which is not something IIPM understands.
A boast of a post
Day 3 of riding a bike in Hyderabad, and I’ve already discovered 3 different routes to my office and back, one of which reduces the distance by about 2.5 kilometres. Do I rock or what?
On that note, let me tell you that Hyderabad’s roads are infinitely better than that of Bangalore, traffic sense about as pathetic as Bangalore and buses as bad and as crowded as Madras’ are. But the autorickshaws in Hyderabad make any Madrasi auto guy sound like a saint. 90 odd rupees for a distance of 13 kilometres, which works out to 7 rupees per kilometre, which is about 2 rupees more than the bargaining rate for autos in Madras. This number should also be taken in the context of fuel prices. Autos in Madras predominantly run on Petrol, which retails at Rs. 46-47 to the litre. Autos in Hyderabad run on LNG which sells for Rs 25 a litre. In essence, autos in Hyderabad charge you double that in Madras, and 3-4 times of Bangalore.
The Hyderabadi Traffic police and the people who lay the roads need some training on traffic management and road construction quick. A steep slope, about 40 degrees, is built on a curve. If that wasn’t bad enough, the road has no median. Which is only half as bad as the speeds at which the corporate shuttles drive at – roughly 60 kms an hour on a up-slope.
Being used to the flat plains of Madras and its relatively better traffic sense, (relatively, and excluding the MTC Buses) I can tell you it’s a nightmare tackling this particular road. And I have no other option. This is the only road to the city from my house.
The city though is beautiful. Cooler, much cooler. Lots of retail. Better food (so far) but the coffee scene here needs improving. I miss my Saravana Bhavan coffee.
The search ends here
If you are looking for a virus called Ammani, the road to Chidambaram, dogs in Chennai you know whom to ask.
If you missed the memo and are still looking for Silk Smitha doing a rain dance, it’s time you wake up bro.
I also am a fraudster, and plagiarise Sudish Kamath’s post, for how else do you explain this?
Public Gyan
Folks, friends, stray visitors and the occasional martian, please welcome to the net, a brand new concept – Public Gyan – an online predictions trading exchange.
Public Gyan is an online prediction futures market. It uses the power of markets to predict real-life outcomes.
Have an opinion on the Ganguly and Greg debacle? Think you know who should lead India next year? Feel so strongly on the stock exchange growth? Have opinions and hunches but didn’t know what to do with it? You can trade in your predictions and help shape events
All this and much more on the Public Gyan exchange.
How does this work? And does this work even? It does, and has, and will. From the Wikipedia
Also known as information markets, decision markets, idea futures, and virtual markets, prediction markets are speculative (i.e., betting) markets created for the purpose of making predictions. Assets are created whose final cash value is tied to a particular event (e.g., will the next US president be a Republican) or parameter (e.g., total sales next quarter). The current market prices can then be interpreted as predictions of the probability of the event or the expected value of the parameter.People who buy low and sell high are rewarded for improving the market prediction, while those who buy high and sell low are punished for degrading the market prediction. Evidence so far suggests that prediction markets are at least as accurate as other institutions predicting the same events with a similar pool of participants.
Public examples include the Iowa Electronic Markets, NewsFutures, and the Hollywood Stock Exchange. One of the oldest and most famous is the University of Iowa’s Iowa Electronic Market. It has been predicting the results of American presidential elections since 1988 with greater accuracy than polling companies. The Hollywood Stock Exchange, a virtual market game in which players buy and sell prediction shares of movies, actors, directors, and film-related options, correctly predicted 35 of 2002’s 40 big-category Oscar nominees.
These market actually have a long annd colorful lineage. Betting on elections was common in the U.S. until at least the 1940s, with formal markets existing on Wall Street in the months leadng up to the race. Newspapers reported market conditions to give a sense of the closeness of the contest in this period prior to scientific polling. The markets involved thousands of participants, had millions of dolars in volume in current terms, and had remarkable predictive accuracy.
More information and a list of existing Predictions Market in this article
What are you waiting for? Log on to Public Gyan and start raking the moolers in!
About
Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan is a copywriter, photographer and goofball from Chennai. He is also an archaeologist, historian and a city lover. He is currently a documentary film-maker and desk-monkey for a film production house.
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