Visitors from Albany, New York

 We had the Dean of the Business School and two professors from State Univ. of New York at Albany visit us. We have been partners at the University level, for a few years, and have a 2yrs. + 2 yrs. Bachelor's program with a dual degree arrangement with them. It was a pleasure catching up in person and discussing collaboration opportunities of different kinds, including research, conferences..

International Conference at NMIMS Mumbai

 Our Mumbai head office hosted an international conference for encouraging collaborations between Asian and European Universities. We had participants from Vietnam and Coventry online, and Bangla Desh, Spain and Bulgaria offline.

VIT and University of Hyderabad, who have internationalised themselves significantly were invited to share best practices too. MoUs were signed between various universities present. Some pics- 

The News

 This is based on a survey of around 5 English news channels- three international, and two national.

Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Nigeria are the major countries in the world. Myanmar comes fourth, when there are protests. Kidnappings or protests that turn violent pushes your country up a notch. Palestine and Israel replace Myanmar, when they have fireworks.

The only news is bad news, with very rare exceptions. Fear-mongering is a part, about Mucor..whatever, the Third Wave, and impending doom, in general. Businesses closing down are news, but not those that are booming in the pandemic.

Travel shows and cookery shows are most popular, but they are not on news channels.

Political violence or killings are very important news, because they never happened before in the history of mankind.

Who took oath as what is news. What they did after that is not. Every word spoken by a small time politician is more important than what an artist, a scientist or a common man speaks, if you go by time allocations. 

Brands That Surprise Me

 Either with good product quality, or with service, I mean.

Dabur Red toothpaste. It looks good, tastes good, and I have the same kind of loyalty to it (my wife discovered it, to be fair) that I once had for Colgate. But Colgate was in a monopolistic situation, with not much of competition. Dabur is also a home-grown brand.

Polo. I have grown fond of the mint with a hole since the pandemic began, and I usually have it around me in office and at home. It's comfort food, and doesn't do much harm.

Airtel has improved its service over the years. Now, it's pretty good. Pre-sales and after-sales, particularly. 

Wion, among TV channels that I watch for news, is pretty decent. Also, I am now a regular watcher of some films and serials 3 days a week on TV 5 Monde (Asie), which has no ads, and decent evening content with English subtitles. 

Branded clothes, I was never a great fan of, I care more about fit and comfort, which no brand seems consistent with. So I am a switcher, and stick to a budget.

The deliverers and their back-end have improved a lot. The food deliverers are a deliverance for many during the pandemic times.

Bookstores. I am now a fan of Blossoms and Bookworm, both on Church Street, Bangalore. I recently found a few Nero Wolfe (by Rex Stout) books at Blossoms, so doubly a fan. 

Sayaji at Indore used to be consistently good with food. Barbeque Nation is their brand, though I haven't seen much of that.

Park hotel in Belapur was pretty good with its service, and I spent a lot of time there. The breakfast buffet was very good, better than a lot of others. In Kolkata, I liked the Peerless Inn. The Adamas Hotel in Hanoi was a good international one I stayed at. 

ANA, the Japanese airline, and Sri Lankan were two that surprised me pleasantly. Almost everything about Sri Lanka as a destination, actually. 

International Colleagues

When I worked at Lander in the U.S., I had colleagues from various countries- I remember at least two- a Venezuelan and a South Korean. Of course, we had American colleagues as well. Got along with one particularly-Leslie Price, who was (is) a fun-loving person, and her husband Bob, and mom Joyce. We are still in touch virtually, though we haven't been able to meet after I left South Carolina.

This is a pic of Leslie (above) from those days.

Ron Green had been a colleague at the Clemson Ph. D., and went to teach at Johnson City in Tennessee later. We visited him regularly, and the drive was spectacular in the Fall season. He had been close for three years, and his wife Carmon and daughter Sara made us feel at home.

A lot of visiting faculty from Europe and the U.S. came for short visits when I was at IMT Ghaziabad, and here at IIM Indore too, some of them Indians working abroad. We are likely to internationalise a  bit more as we are getting accredited by global bodies.

Samren Singh was an Indian in the US who taught at Lander like me,

and we became friends with him and Annie, his Canadian wife. Still in touch virtually.

Airline Brands

Once upon a time, there were these brands of airlines-

Pan Am- an example of a failed American enterprise.
TWA- Another example.
Modiluft- one of the Modis and Lufthansa collaborated on this one.
East West- Came from the Middle East, and went nowhere.
Sahara- later besahara, and sold to Jet, it had a nice tagline, "Emotionally yours" . Its erstwhile promoter is now in jail.
Kingfisher- flashy and stylish while it lasted.
Kingfisher Red- was always in the red.
Jet Konnect- it was 'jettisoned' coz it had lost its connect with passengers.
Paramount- it's of paramount importance to find out what went wrong with it.
Sabena- despite its Arabian-sounding name, it was a Belgian carrier. Hercule Poirot would know.
Indian Airlines- My first flight ever was on this airline, from Dibrugarh to Calcutta (it was still that in 1983). Merged with Air India.



Other airlines I have flown (and did not necessarily cause to stop flying, except a couple) are Indigo, Go, Spicejet, Trujet, Thai, Malaysian, Singapore, Swiss, Eastern (US, domestic), US Air, Delta, Air Asia, Tiger, Air France, Lufthansa. I remember Air France had a good selection of wines.