Ustad Bismillah Khan

The shehnai will never sound same again. It lost its greatest living master, Ustad Bismillah Khan. The person who has become as part of varanasi as its ghats and temples is no more. his preference was shehnai and its sadhana, not money...he preferred to stay back in a decrepit lane of Varanasi and play in the ghats of ganga rather than searching fortunes near Thames or Mississippi...unlike many of his contemporaries. He became one with his music.

Demise of Hrishikesh Mukherji

Demise of Hrishikesh Mukherji. Grandmaster of common man movies. with his demise ends an era of movies with which common Indians can identify. Creators of masterpieces like Anand, Chupke-chupke, Mili, Golmal...i can keep watching them again and again.
Not sure if the same will happen to current bollywood hits like 'Krrish' or 'Fanaa' or the like. The mastery of a film maker lies in the endurance factor. generations after the movie was made make u feel like watching them again and again. With family, friends...generations...i was not even born when he made mos of his masterpieces. still cant resist 'Chupke-Chupke' or 'Golmaal' whenever it comes in TV. or 'Babumoshay' pieces of anand....

What MBA recruiters want

Sign of things to come...personally waiting for this to happen from long time.

What do recruiters want? Every year, the Graduate Management Admissions Council surveys employers to find out. A sign of the times: "Ethical conduct" is ranked No. 1 this year on a list of attributes recruiters care about. Last year, it didn't even show up on the radar screen. Notes Christopher Morris at Wharton: "Recruiters are asking how ethics is being taught, not just in ethics class on Tuesdays from 11 to noon but in all the courses we offer." Another change: "Employers are more concerned with critical-thinking skills-not so much 'What's the right solution to this problem?' but 'How did you arrive at this solution?' " observes Julie Morton at Chicago. "To be a leader, you need to be able to connect the dots and see how A will affect B. The days of the pure 'quant jock' are over."

Source: Ask Annie, Fortune Blog

Cadbury: Chocolate-to-Gum

Good ol' cadbury is changing its future business focus from chocolates to chew(gum). New CEO Todd Stitzer is looking at chewing gum and sugar candies for growth. with the chocolate market getting saturated (at least in devleoped world) and with hi-reach in developing world (cadbury has 75% market share in India) the future growth is from gums and candies.
Cadbury has launched 'Bilkul' in India--a pan (betel leaf) flovored chew candy, an oldtime Indian favorite past time/post meal chew. globally sugar free gum/chews are growing at 8%+ Year-on-year compared to less than 5% of of chocolates its natural for cadbury to look at this segment.
already no. 3 in US bottled soft-drinks market it is trying to consolidate and gain share. analysts predict cadbury to come out of bottled fizz market and focus on its confectionery business.

Source: Summary of Fortune article

Indian Education

Indian politicians have ganged up to screw up Indian education system. they are in process of introducing reservations up to 49% of total seats in all central government (federally funded) educational institutions for backward castes(OBC). akin to affirmative action in US, it is purely motivated towards votes by manipulating castes. worst is people with all economic status falling within the caste scheme will be under this reservation.
as usual the real needy and underprivileged will not be able to get the benefits as sons/daughters of the politicians and rich will corner the seats. it can be understood that without proper elementary and seconary eduvcation the real needy people will never be able to clear the required admission process. the govt instead of focussing on the root cause and elementary education is trying to appease political parties with nefarious agendas of duping Indian youth.
at any rate reservation/affirmative action should be based on economuc criteria nad not caste/creed.

del.icio.us

Tried del.icio.us today. a tool owned by yahoo used for saving and sharing links to favorite sites. importing my favorites failed. need to know more about imports. icio installs tagging icons in the explorer bar for click and save procedure.
got a link to a new cartoon strip 'Newton and Copernicus'. entire strip is free about lab rats who got intelligence. great way to fill in between work. anyway cartoons being my favorite. discovered a link to free collection of dilbert.

Incarnation of KnowLog

First post of KnowLog, my blog. complementing my website. my raves and rants will follow on regular basis. kept away from blogging all these days more de to laziness and lack of interest. now there are suggestions from friends and well wishers for starting a blog.
Tried to integrate and host blogger on my personal domains. was able to link blogger with my domain. decided not to host as space is premiumand i am paying for it. will try with my alternate site in googlepages. will keep experimenting with google tools and frontpage. Trying to give the same look and feel as my website once i customize the html and skins. requires some more tweaking with the html code. will keep working on blog search optimization.
My raves and rants will focus on

• Business, Management practice and education
• My work, with sufficient amount of confidentiality due to public view
• My views on country, society and general
• Technology
• General gyan to junta, for those who choose to take
• Personal

Comments and deliberations most welcome.