Cover Story
- A, B and C are the cream. Can the new IIMs, like Shillong and the seven in the pipeline, ever be able to hold a candle to their illustrious peers?
- By carving a niche for themselves, the IITs are beginning to make a mark in management education too.
- This internationally ranked Hyderabad school has all the makings of a blue-chip institution. Why didn’t respondents of our survey think so?
- The BT-Nielsen study refines the focus on its most important constituent — the customers. Here’s why.
- A few middle-rung B-schools have started to make their presence felt, which is only good news for the teeming MBA aspirants.
- As B-school applicants and recruiters hunt for bargains, a new crop of schools makes its way into the top ten as well as the overall list. See rankings
- Is it worthwhile to explore a career in the government after B-school? A sampling of B-school bureaucrats answer an emphatic yes.
- Not everybody in the MBA-brandishing club is keen to keep scrambling up the corporate pecking order. A few land up in places that won’t figure on most placement calendars.
- A primer on the new avatar of one of India’s toughest exams.
- Gone are sky-high salaries and plush I-banking careers. The B-schoolers are content with stability for now.
From the Editor
Rankings fascinate, just as they discriminate. They encourage some, just as they disappoint others. But the anticipation of a ranking excites everybody, no matter how the outcome is eventually perceived. Making sense of Bordeaux
It’s hard to explain why Medoc produces a fermented grape juice that is different from, say, Pauillac or St Julien, when they all use three grapes in different combinations. The Chivas Regal Master Blender on fine whiskies and more... We’ve come a long way. This time last year, we were looking around nervously as the world we knew was crashing around us. Everybody's had a hard year. But don't worry, the year's almost over and we're bang in the middle of the festive season. Now is the time to shed your old, tired skin and get a gleaming one. Italian Bespoke behemoth Canali wants to give you a royal treatment with its latest line. Make sure you take good care of your skin in the transitional season with the best products you can get. Following SS’09’s Cool Effect blazer, Zegna’s out with another tech-fuelled breakthrough. Prepare for a long meal at the Puro Bar & Kitchen. Their menu is a gastronomical delight. V.N. Dalmia, Chairman, Leonardo Olive Oil, is inspired by The Godfather. Oct 4-Nov 1 - What’s new and what’s happening this month.Launchpad - The Executive Consumer
Ace photographer Atul Kasbekar lives life, king-size. When films focus on the spectacle at the cost of any emotional content, the result is a mess. India’s underground rock scene comes of age with a great debut album by The Supersonics. Photographer Gregory Crewdson’s surreal portrayals of American life are coming to Mumbai. You can’t escape a glowing screen anywhere, not even on a plane. So you might as well enjoy the show. This Diwali... light up your life with these bright new buys. Take your pick from our selection of the best spas in your region. Don’t fancy heading to the spa for your monthly rituals of facials and pedicures? Here’s what you need for the pampering at home. Still going to a spa for aromatherapy? Look out for a whole host of other options. Each month, we ask a beautiful woman about men, sex and relationships. This month, supermodel Nina Manuel reveals that she likes Spanish Daniel Craig lookalikes who don’t belch. Dreamt of watching a tiger bathe? Or walking in the jungle after the sun goes down? It’s easier than you think. Stuttgart may not be on anyone’s travel plans, but the city has two of the world’s finest collection of historic automobiles and should be on the route-map for anyone who claims to love cars. Promising the benefits of outdoors with a whole lot of fun, these intelligent new systems can change the way we work out. People, places and products
Here's a look at the people, places and products doing the rounds these days.Leaderspeak: S. 'Kris' Gopalakrishnan
Here are excerpts of a small Q&A with S. 'Kris' Gopalakrishnan, MD & CEO Infosys. Motivation works best when it is customised to the situation and the individual. The buck stops (and starts) at business school
Unless America’s business schools make radical changes, society will become convinced that MBAs work to serve only their own selfish interests.Goodbye to greed (but not to good)
Wall Street may be coming back from the brink a year after it collapsed, but a clutch of one-time hotshot investment bankers has few regrets about bidding adieu to the greed-is-good culture to plough a new furrow. R. Mukundan, who took over at the helm of Tata Chemicals when the global credit crisis was peaking, has been able to pull off something many CEOs have been unable to: Manage global acquisitions made in boom times. Recession-hit global chip makers are targeting the Indian hinterland as their next big market.'We need to move from saying 'no,no' to 'yes, but''
The minister’s office in the Ministry of Environment and Forests has new doors — glass doors. Message: Transparency. The minister, Jairam Ramesh, works on his ultra portable laptop and often prints documents with a printer on his table. Message: Hands-on approach and speed. Colors ups the stakes in general entertainment by getting Amitabh Bachchan onto a reality show in a bid to establish a decisive lead. Excerpts from an exclusive interview with Amitabh Bachchan. The man from Chile had no magic, just some adroit footwork to help Bata shake off losses, get back its shine — and keep it. iGATE has shown the world that LED lighting can be used to illuminate office space. Others are beginning to follow suit. Fight over Oktatabyebye.com
What’s in a name? Everything — especially if it is a brand fighting for its domain, as happened to be the case with Tata Sons that had raised objection to a Gurgaon-based travel portal MakeMyTrip creating a site called oktatabyebye.com. The teaser advertisements with the huge X that have come up across India have whetted popular curiosity about the identity of the advertiser.Rebooting education, Infosys style
While everyone may be talking about the mammoth size of Infosys’ new Global Education Centre in Mysore, what’s truly remarkable is: how Infy is using this centre to train and prepare several thousand graduates each year, to become future stars at Infosys. Imagine an electric car that can be recharged instantly by calling or SMSing a 24/7 call centre!This minister wants less power
It’s not often that a minister in India willingly gives up some of his powers. Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh rather enthusiastically hopes to do just that. EMC, the $15-billion vendor of IT storage solutions and software, has been somewhat of a laggard in the Indian market. Here are some of the quotes that made the headlines over the past fortnight. At a time when India is tracking gross domestic product (GDP) growth and all that can influence it even minutely with near-compulsive obsession, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has asked world leaders to junk the fascination for the indicator.Most watched ads in August 2009
Finally, an old favourite has come on top in the BT-TAM most watched ads list.'Our agriculture business in India will double in five years'
DuPont Group Vice President James Borel, Global Head of all DuPont’s Agriculture & Nutrition businesses spoke to E. Kumar Sharma on what agriculture and nutrition mean for the company and where India fits in its overall growth strategy.'We're looking to buy in India'
Michael A. DiGregorio, CFO of executive search company Korn/Ferry International, was in India recently. He spoke to Saumya Bhattacharya on opportunities in India. The government and the Congress party’s recent “austerity” drive has created much debate. BT looks at a few practical steps that the government can adopt to actually save money. Interest rate hike not before next year
The hikes will be more an attempt to cycle back to normalisation. We, thus, expect 75 BPS increase in both the repo and reverse repo rates in FY11.The problem with management education in India
Schools are evaluated based on how quickly students get placed and how big their pay packets are. Thus, greed is inculcated at an age when idealism should be. Deciding on the tax rates is the most simple conceptually, but probably the most contentious, with all the states on one side and the Centre on the other.Picking the right MBA programme
This is a good time to get an MBA degree. It would be easy to say this on the basis of exploiting the economic recovery that is just getting underway.
Lessons in Twittering
We carried a list of 'twitting rules' a few months ago. Maybe it is time for another one in the light of recent events. Investing via social networks
Investors are increasingly using tips and ideas from social networking sites and specialised online groups for making investment decisions. MF transactions online are turning cheaper and investor-friendly. 
