Nitin Nohria, alumunus of IIT-Mumbai, has been named as the 10th dean of Harvard Business School.

Remember the latest world sensation, Susan Boyle, the singer who completely knocked the judges out of their seats in "Britain's Got Talent" and everyone else in the room and on internet by hitting square on the cynicism that plain looks evoke. No one gave her a chance. And yet she did not care about any of those things and did what she wanted and dreamed of.

In my personal view, her performance, has evoked such interest because it demo-ed the victory of an underdog with a "confirmed" ZERO possibility of any chance to even show up on any main stage! The only other victory which in my view rivalled this scenario was the Indian team's victory in the Cricket World Cup in 1983. That was a time when the Indian team members were planning honeymoon and jaunts with their loved ones in Caribbean because they knew they would be playing a couple of matches and then would be knocked out. If it hadn't been for Kapil Dev's defiant dream, the other team members may well have been sitting on a Caribbean island... sans the World Cup.

Here are some pictures from the Academy Awards tonight and the win by Slumdog Millionaire.

Another story from India wins at Oscars - Smile Pinki! For the best short documentary.

It is the story of a Uttar Pradesh village girl born with cleft lip, is the winner! Megan Mylan, the director, is very gracious in her acceptance speech. Pinki was there with her parents. What a trip! From rural UP to the red carpet in LA; the world truly is shrinking.

AR Rehman wins the Music Direction Oscar.. and also for the best song - Gulzar and AR Rehman get the Oscar for Jai Ho!!

KUDOS!

A truly inspiring story of a little kid who used to polish shoes, live in a slum and whose father is a rickshaw puller. The kid, Ramu is now studying in Kolkatta Medical College to become a doctor!

He is arguably the most educated and well qualified subzi-waala that India may have produced. He is an IIM-A graduate and has taken to selling subzi using special carts.

His light pushcart is made of fibre, can carry 200kg and keeps vegetables fresh for six days, for it is ice cool.
It has computerised weighing machine that "guarantees a proper calculation." Even the customers are impressed.
"Computerwaala taraaju dandi nahin mar sakta (A computerised machine is not exposed to manipulation) ," a woman told this reporter. He has a dream - worth a lot.. that pushes him forward on a track not taken by many from that MBA school:

I have a dream to build Bihar into the vegetable hub of the country. I want vegetables grown in Bihar on dining tables everywhere -- from Srinagar to Salem and from Shillong to Surat, says Kaushalendra.

The going seems to have been good so far as he has grown from 1 to 50 carts within a year. That's quite a growth!

The private-public partnership venture, launched about a couple of months ago with assistance from Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) with just one pushcart, has now placed an order for 50 more carts, thanks to a collateral-free loan of Rs 50 lakh from Punjab National Bank. Nearly 300 farmers have associated themselves with Samriddhi. ATMA, a government undertaking, is training these farmers in matters relating to high-yield seeds and crop protection.

But he is not the only guy to have taken this route. R. Subramanian, another IIM-A grad was hired by Citibank, but left that job within 15 days because he was itching to do "something more". Well, most in India know that something as "Subhiksha".

"I plan to buy more (carts) to spread the business. This is just the beginning. My venture will spread in the entire country in the years to follow," Kaushalendra said with enthusiasm so infectious that one would want to believe him.

We all want our kids to be intelligent - actually super intelligent - right? But does that help? I just came across a story of a super intelligent girl, Sufiah Yusof, a child prodigy who got admission into Oxford University at the age of 13. In fact two of her siblings also got admitted in teen age as well. Their father Farooq used to drive them by keeping the house cold for more concentration in studies and psychologically abusing them.

Recently, it came out that Sufiah, divorced already, was hiring herself out from an internet site as a prostitute and Asian escort at £130 and hour, using the alias Shilpa Lee! Meanwhile her father Farooq has been booked for physically groping and assaulting two 15 years old girls whom he taught as a tutor. So his wife, Halimahton, a devout Muslim lady, divorced him.

Telegraph gives some history on other child prodigies. I am afraid their stories are not very inspiring either.

Ruth Lawrence: Graduated aged 13 from St Hugh's College, Oxford, with a first-class degree in 1985. Now lives with husband and two children - whom she is determined to allow to "develop in a natural way" - in Jerusalem and teaches maths full-time at the Hebrew University.

John Nunn: Went to Oriel College, Oxford, in 1970 aged 15. Got a first in maths at 18, a doctorate at 20 and became a chess Grandmaster three years later. Lives with his wife in Surrey and makes a living writing books about chess.

Lauren Jones

Studying and specially "nerdy" subjects like Mathematics, Science, and Computers is supposed to be non-chic. Geeky and hot females ostensibly don't go together. But there is a bunch of girls who are out to prove that wrong.

They are travelling the US and trying to spread the message that its fine to be chic and to be intelligent and geeky. This will help dispel the un-necessary myth that beauty and brains do not mix!

In addition to Vardaro, Panetta was accompanied by three other female engineers, any of whom could find work as a model. Cristina Sanchez is pursuing her master’s in biological engineering at Tufts. Lauren Jones is a computer engineer working on reducing the size of microprocessors. Reshma Taufiq is helping Nike build a digital presence in India.

The women are also talented in music and the arts, are physically active, and love dressing up and shopping. But they’re also delighted to get a soldering gun for a birthday present.

Image via Wikipedia

How can you motivate kids and people to work? I was reading this morning in this book "Confidence" of how ABC network has been losing against NBC because of the different ways in which the managements of these two companies work. ABC has a very micromanaging top management - specially with the coming of Disney - while NBC's GE management basically simply wanted the results to be right.. meaning the GE companies should be #1 or #2 in their industry. Beyond that, it was upto the company on how to do that. So, it has done far better!

In my life, I have seen that when I was told on what to do and how to do, I would not perform as well as when I was motivated to work because of certain results I had to achieve! So, what is the best strategy to lead? Is it by micromanaging or by giving people enough space?

In my experience as a leader, I have seen that when I gave enough space to people to do their thing - while mentioning the goals I expected of them, the results were spectacular! I never missed on timelines or the deliverables! One of the reasons why this may happen is because when the locus of responsibility is kept within the performer then there is a personal accountability. But when the manager intends to tell his subordinate on exactly how to do things and not do, then the sense of responsibility is far less. The results of anyone are directly related to focus which comes from this sense of responsibility. That is where the rub is.

What has been your experience with leadership and level of management of people?

There are many stories of personal triumph as is this. It is of a autistic kid who could not talk properly but through enthusiasm was helping the coach of a basketball team.. and then one day he played the game. It was down to the last second, with the ball in his hand to shoot for the game... look on.

This is the story of a 7 year old boy surgeon who is now in his teens. He was featured in the Extraordinary People's show. The 1st part is embedded below (links to other parts are given below that). Watch the show carefully. It is unmistakeable that this kid knew more than the medical students in the Imperial College, by their own admission. He wanted to work in the Cancer Research at Imperial College to find a cure for cancer. He may not have the maturity of a 40 year old, but his level of maturity was far above his age.

The top guys there at the Imperial College talk to him and work with him and then suggest that he go back and go through the college curriculum and "take it easy" lest he burns out. It sounds like good Psychology mumbo-jumbo.. but honestly, I got off at the end of the program with a rather bad feeling. In full view, this guy beat the shit out of all these folks, and still he had to go back. Yes, he is young. Yes, he needs time to develop. But his enthusiasm does not need time. It needs facilities. When I watched the program, I saw one generation of smart but certainly not great people evaluating a great mind while using their own measurement standards! What if the time in the B. Sc. in India blunts his desire and focus? One almost feels like asking the politically incorrect but obvious question - were they terrified to be pitted against this self-taught cancer researcher with not even a fraction of facilities and opportunities that these guys had and still stumping them? Imagine if he had the entire power of machinery behind him?

The attitude and the mess that the Indian education system is not even comment worthy. I think the Indian system is just retarded anyways, but the attitude of these two Imperial College researchers was almost sickening. What are your views?

When there isn't enough money, people become innovative! In Punjab, people created Maruta - a small vehicle - out of bullock cart trailer.

Assembled in the sugarcane fields of UP and Punjab, this bare bones transport is put together using a pump, a wooden plank and old tyres. It has a 20-seater bullock cart trailer attached to its rear. A steering is jacked into the shaft and the 12-horsepower pump engine is hand cranked to give speeds crossing 20km/hour.

Now, this kid in Nigeria has created a helicopter in his backyard out of a car and a motor cyle. Here are the details of how he built.. go ahead and try one out:

"It took me eight months to build this one," he said, sweat pouring from his forehead as he filled the radiator of the banana yellow four-seater which he now parks in the grounds of his university.

The chopper, which has flown briefly on six occasions, is made from scrap aluminium that Abdullahi bought with the money he makes from computer and mobile phone repairs, and a donation from his father, who teaches at Kano's Bayero university.

Forbes has announced the top 100 most powerful women in the world! Here are the top 10:

1. Angela Merkel: Chancellor, Germany
2. Wu Yi: Vice Premier, China
3. Ho Ching: Chief executive, Temasek Holdings (Singapore)
4. Condoleezza Rice: US Secretary of State
5. Indra K. Nooyi: Chairman, chief executive, PepsiCo
6. Sonia Gandhi: President of Congress Party (India)
7. Cynthia Carroll: Chief executive, Anglo American (UK)
8. Patricia A. Woertz: Chairman, Archer Daniels Midland
9. Irene Rosenfeld: Chairman, chief executive, Kraft Foods
10. Patricia Russo: Chief executive, Alcatel-Lucent

The rest are given here.

This article is being published with consent of the publisher. Enjoy the Guest article.

By Stephen H. Baum

What allows a leader to take the steps needed to solve a problem or master a difficult situation? What keeps the desire to act from being impetuous and uninformed, as in "ready, fire, aim" behavior? The answer is that the capacity to act effectively and decisively is a complex mixture of brain and gut, a combination I call threads in thinking. It includes these qualities:

• An ability to distill a situation to its simplest dynamics; to understand the issues and the consequences of doing nothing; and to formulate a specific plan.
• Being extro-spective: seeing the business in the larger context of the industry and in the marketplace; seeing a situation from a high-altitude view and making sense of it on the ground.
• For opportunities, an ability to see the true benefits and risks, which are not always obvious.
• Possession of a mental library of truly relevant analogies and other mental models that can be applied to characterize the situation in a way helpful for making a choice.
• An ability to identify valuable sources of advice, experience, and wisdom (inside the company and out); to elicit information and know when to do so.
  An instinct for calibrating the value of and motive for facts and information people are giving you, the subtext of real agendas.
• An ability to discern both financial and nonfinancial impacts and include them in the calculus (company reputation, morale, future business options), then weigh the risks.
• An ability to anticipate issues and define a point of view so you don't have to do it for the first time under crisis.
• Being able to think a couple of moves ahead, as in chess, or as Steve Kaufman put it: "the ability to look around the corner and see what's coming." This ability and most of the others can be tested and developed.
  

Shahrukh Khan - the Indian movie super-star - is obviously a great star and a good actor. But that is not all to him. According to HT's tidbit, he also draws well!

Shah Rukh Khan can draw with amazing draughtsmanship and could give some of the best sketch artists of the country a run for their money.

He was also excellent at his studies in school and college. According to this fan site - he was excellent in electronics and biology. He also represented school and college in zonals and nationals in hockey, cricket and football! He actually captained his school in all three!

Another email from Richa.. and another interesting post!

WaterBridge in Germany . What a feat!

Six years, 500 million euros, 918 meters long.......now this is engineering!
This is a channel-bridge over the River Elbe and joins the former East and West Germany ,
as part of the unification project. It is located in the city of Magdeburg, near Berlin.
The photo was taken on the day of inauguration.

To those who appreciate engineering projects, here's a puzzle for you armchair engineers and physicists.
Did that bridge have to be designed to withstand the additional weight of ship and barge traffic, or just the weight of the water?

Sent by a friend.. it is amazing that the best investor in history who is going strong even now .. is so simple and basic an individual! The greatest gem from him that I like is - the quote is by Alan Simpson which he likes a lot and has used it too:

If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters. --Alan Simpson

There was a one hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffet, the second
richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity. Here are some very
interesting aspects of his life:

1) He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he
started too late!

2) He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering
newspapers.

3) He still lives in the same small 3 bedroom house in mid-town Omaha,
that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has
everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a
fence.

4) He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or
security people around him.

5) He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's
largest private jet company.

6) His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only
one letter each year to the CEOs of these companies, giving them goals for
the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis.

7) He has given his CEO's only two rules.
Rule number 1: do not lose any of your share holder's money.
Rule number 2:do not forget rule number 1.

8) He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His past time
after he gets home is to make himself some pop corn and watch
television.

9) Bill Gates, the world's richest man met him for the first time
only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common
with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour.But when Gates met
him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of
Warren Buffet.

10) Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his
desk.

11) His advice to young people: Stay away from credit cards and invest
in yourself.

American parents are wont to keep praising the kids even at the smallest of efforts. In fact it is deemed bad to reprimand a kid for ineffective performance. So, does this - often false - praise helpful for kids? Perhaps no.. in fact it might be leading them to underperformance!

According to a survey conducted by Columbia University, 85 percent of American parents think it’s important to tell their kids that they’re smart. In and around the New York area, according to my own (admittedly nonscientific) poll, the number is more like 100 percent. Everyone does it, habitually. The constant praise is meant to be an angel on the shoulder, ensuring that children do not sell their talents short.

Ratan Tata - after his Corus deal - is going to flirt with heights of the other sort! He will be flying F-16 at the Bangalore Air Show. He flies his company's Falcon 200. The other celebrities who have flown military jets are: President Kalam flew Sukhoi M-30 last year and the then Defence Minister George Fernandes flew Sukhoi & the Mig-21 in 2003.

I have read a lot of Inspirational stories... but this one - a real one - one of the greatest one that I have read. It shows how a group of teenagers defied all odds and won with a robot made of PVC, blue, garish paints.. ."Most Best Tampons" .. and lot of grit!!

The competition required students to build a robot that could survey a sunken mock-up of a submarine

The story should actuall be made into a movie.. seriously. It also shows how important focus and motivation is. These two triumph against the best of brains! I have always held that to succeed three things are important in life -

1. Focus
2. Hard-work
3. Intelligence

.. in that order.. and "Intelligence" is the least important of all! This is a MUST READ!!!

The winter rain makes a mess of West Phoenix. It turns dirt yards into mud and forms reefs of garbage in the streets. Junk food wrappers, diapers, and Spanish-language porn are swept into the gutters. On West Roosevelt Avenue, security guards, two squad cars, and a handful of cops watch teenagers file into the local high school. A sign reads: Carl Hayden Community High School: The Pride's Inside.

There certainly isn't a lot of pride on the outside. The school buildings are mostly drab, late '50s-era boxes. The front lawn is nothing but brown scrub and patches of dirt. The class photos beside the principal's office tell the story of the past four decades. In 1965, the students were nearly all white, wearing blazers, ties, and long skirts. Now the school is 92 percent Hispanic. Drooping, baggy jeans and XXXL hoodies are the norm.

The school PA system crackles, and an upbeat female voice fills the bustling linoleum-lined hallways. "Anger management class will begin in five minutes," says the voice from the administration building. "All referrals must report immediately."

FInd below great 10 points on how to be an inspiration in life to others from ManagementCraft.

I believe that to be a good person, truthful and humane are important part of being an inspiration to others. People at work life visionary people who have the courage to stand by their thoughts and words. Every manager ought to be able to see the world from other's standpoint without the noise of his/he own thoughts muddling the view!

1. Be a role model of courage. When our managers demonstrate courage, this will inspire us to do the same and we will respect them all the more.

There have been many unlikely successes in the world of sports but for India the 1983 Cricket World Cup triumph will count as the best ever. First, India was NOWHERE near any ranking of a One-Day team. If we could win even a single game - even against Sri Lanka, we could rejoice. West Indies, on the other hand, had a side that was simply invincible in one-day games. No one could even think of beating them - least of all India!! But as the championship unfolded India beat West Indies not once but twice in that championship - second time in the finals!! Many games were memorable.. but the Zimbabwe game and the Finals were the most remembered!

Quite a few news on Railway Minister Lalu Yadav recently addressing group of students from the elite Harvard and Wharton Business Schools of the US. I feel he deserves credit though not as acclaimed by him as he has proved that people can really do great things once they really aspire for it. It was really surprising from Lalu who was only known for corruption and had never done anything good to anyone other than himself.

Lalu himself acknowledged the role of officers who helped make the railways a Rs 13,000-crore (Rs 130 billion) surplus organisation within 30 months by saying, "IAS officers are not good here. They are good for law and order."................"I gave them a bonus. I took the traders into confidence. I also took the employees into confidence," he said........................."I wish he hadn't taken all credit for the success. I wish he'd given some credit to the railway board," a student from Harvard told PTI.................Another student felt the handing over of power to the middle management of the railway ministry was the key to Lalu's success story. more

Liked the cartoon a lot!!

Some blog posts carry a lot of message and meaning for all of us! Here is one blog post from Ms. Anouradha Bakshi from one of her many efforts at bringing peace and end suffering for the world. In this anecdote you will see the spirit of the kids that can prevail anything that nature has to throw at them - from physical ailments to lack of resources. Mind is a beautiful thing and thank God it can rule the brain - so we still have an option!

The world celebrated Xmas. In a tiny lane of an urban slum in Delhi a bunch of very special kids did too. Just like children all over the world they wanted a Xmas tree and nothing could stop them.

Nothing to write home about, some would say, but what if I told you that each and every child in this little group is different: some have remarkable minds locked away in useless bodies while others try to make sense of the world with limited means. Some are condemned to a world of silence while others live in immobility. Oops I forgot to tell you that all of them have never known the thrill of opening a present and have only survived on hand me downs!

But somehow the Xmas spirit is such that it breaks down all barriers so we were not surprised when we saw them storming to the terrace in search of a potted plant, any one would do. In the most remarkable example of cooperative effort and armed with bits of papers, cloth and heavens knows what else, they set out to create the most beautiful tree I have ever seen. True it broke all conventions, but while doing so it set its very own and these seemed closer to the Xmas spirit.

An old post from my earlier blog that just came online - (Thanks again to Raj!!).. I think it is fairly interesting and informative post.. read and enjoy!

this is what the millionaires do

In fact, the financially fabulous -- real-life millionaires -- are a pretty low-key bunch. They don't have drawbridges for driveways or drive Hummers to the gourmet grocery store. You've probably crossed paths with one of the fabs today already without even realizing it.

This is the height of concentration of wealth in the world!  Poor have no way to forge ahead is it?  Well.. if you look at yesterday's post of mine on India and China you will realize that it is all temporary and can change.. heck where was Japan on Jan 1, 1900?

The richest two per cent of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth, according to a study released on Tuesday.

In 2000 the richest one per cent of adults owned 40 per cent of global wealth, a report by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University said.

Indra Nooyi has been chosen as the next Pepsi CEO. She will one of the few women chiefs of a world-wide corporation. Pepsi will probably be the largest - by market cap - organization to be run by a woman exec!

Who is Indra Nooyi? She is as unlikely a candidate as it possibly comes to be leading a worldwide corp. Here is her resume in brief:

Education:

• Master of Public and Private Management; Yale University
• MBA, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) - Calcutta; India
• BS, Madras Christian College

Experience