Continued from here . Though Bhopal's claim to fame in bollywood remains the character of Soorma Bhopali potrayed by Jagdeep in Sholay, recently Bhopal has been the shoot location for a few bollywood movies . Prakash Jha who is shooting Rajneeti in Bhopal , said : "... he had come to Bhopal for the first time in 1997 for the promotion of his film Mrityudand which featured Madhuri Dixit, Om Puri and Ayub Khan [and] was impressed by the beauty of the city even then and decided to return to the city to shoot his next film.  Jha said Bhopal now has big hotels and good approach roads and that in the coming days, he may shoot at other locations in Madhya Pradesh." The point here was not to highlight the bollywood connection (of which there are many ... ), but to highlight that praise for Bhopal's infrastructure is not limited to commited Bhopalites like me :-). A quick peek at Bhopal's Wikipedia page would tell you that Bhopal is a promising city - for example the I...

Living in Mumbai, its not difficult to find people who have no idea even about neighbouring cities like Nasik, leave alone cities like Bhopal. It pains even more when people are all praises for cities like Chandigarh (which is a good city, but to be frank a little hyped) and treat Bhopal akin to a village.  Being born and brought up in Bhopal, one knows that this is a city with many positives; to enumerate a few: A beautiful landscape dotted with parks, ponds and lakes. The hilly terrain on which the city is built gives it a unique ambience - roads rising up and down the slopes, formations of row houses on ascending tracts, long winding roads along the lakes and parks ...  Superb infrastructure compared to the size of population it supports. Unlike most old cities in India, Bhopal has very good amenities - whether it is underground drainage or roads and traffic signals. Smooth roads in most arterial tracks Cleanliness in most of the new Bhopal areas is a lot better than other citi...

On the chain of thoughts on Entreprenuership, Ujjwal Banerjee - one of my seniors from NITIE also posted his thought. Ujjwal as some of you may recognize is one of the finalists of the Lead India contest held by Times of India.  Ujjwal, true to his iconoclast image strikes a completely different perspective on Entreprenuership - that of the Individual's choice. Read on ...   "I belief in Libertarian school of thought where the individual is given complete autonomy to decide what he/she chooses to do in life. The government and society should faciliate that ideal and allow people to flourish and ensure that they abide by the rule of law. "The role of education is to help them become rounded individuals where they not only acquire certain skills, but also understand the responsibility they have towards their fellow beings, nation, environment and the world at large. Today the education is more focussed on skill building that too for the section of society above a certain...

Continued from previous posts [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] While my point on the US culture and subsequent responses, has anyway addressed a lot, Prof Prasad's take on Indian society is worth mentioning.  I feel - what is there in USA we cannot (in economic terms) provide in India. And even if you provide all those things which are in USA to the Indian audience, we cannot achieve the results what US achieved with their method, because we are different on many other things. We are culturally and socially different compared to USA. There people work, People tell and do the same things, there is no inheritance of wealth, youth are made to work. In such a system the VC system works.  Let me now come to what India is when compared to USA on enterprising front. In India, the social system is [built on] spoon feeding. 45 year olds are controlled and mentored by their elders. Till 30 years [of age] there is complete dependence on the parents. Parents want to continue the dependence syndrome even furt...

Continued from previous posts [ 1 ], [ 2 ] I feel that entrepreneurs are born with it and they can only be provided the right opportunities. Such opportunities are available to a lot of people in the US - opportunities like  Universities which will allow you to stay in the hostel, not attend classes, but work on your ideas People who are ready to give you a pocket money to run your life while you are busy burning midnight oil in a garage working on your startup Proper funding when you see a business rise beyond the curve Unfortunately, we don't have such things in India.  Note that even in the US, its is not specific courses - definitely not MBA courses - which have churned out entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs have come out of regular courses on software engineering or energy research or aviation technology or plain accounting or commerce (Steve Jobbs & Bill Gates).  But what has differentiated such courses from similar ones in India is the prevailing culture of the institutions th...

Continued from previous post Conversely, I realize that entrepreneurship requires skills which come in very cheap and are not exactly "business related". Business skills (imparted in MBA courses) are required in entrepreneurship way down the curve when your business idea/company has already survived a couple of winters. For example if you want to start something in software - you need to basically know coding and stuff like that; if you want to start something in energy - you need to know the technical details behind that. One doesn't need to know accounting methods or Investment management or Supply Chain principles when one is in startup mode. So here is the dilemma which needs to be dealt with when it comes to "education for entrepreneurship". The basic skills for entrepreneurship are not difficult to learn - and the soft skills for entrepreneurs are more intrinsic than those which can be taught. So, how can education make or break an entrepreneur?  In my opi...

One of my NITIE professors, Prof. T Prasad has been working on promoting student enterprise in the country. Work done by Prof Prasad [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ video ] is really commendable - especially given the lack of support such initiatives receive in this country, from student and faculty alike.  I and another alumnus,  Rohit Tripathy , recently had an email discussion with him on the subject of Entrepreneurship education - here's what came out of it.  Apathy in B-schools towards Entrepreneurship It is absolutely true that there are few jobs at this in time. Still, MBAs are waiting for recruiters to reject them rather than try their luck in their own ventures. Prof Prasad recently met 2 students from a B-school who won B-plan at another B-school with intent of commercializing innovations. However, when asked, students said that purpose of this b-plan participation was to win it; they were not concerned with entrepreneurship at all. B-Plan Competitions and other "networking" eve...

The three of them had met after 3 years; reminiscing the days when they used to stay together. It used to be exciting - newly found jobs, a new city to struggle through/survive in and new stuff to learn at the workplace. Bachelor’s life had been exciting. Sitting there in the restaurant, sipping on their drinks they all were brooding at the starter in front of them; forks and spoons in their hands playing with the vegetables. Sheon was thinking about the strife his life had become, torn between the girl he loved and his parents who would not agree to their relationship. Samit was lost in thoughts of saving his job endangered by the recession, his two year old marriage and how he would retain the comfort and balance of his life in these turbulent times. Naveen was pondering over his failed startup, contemplating on what he would do next to get out of his 9-5 routine job. In 2 years since they had gone separate ways, life had presented different set of challenges to each of them and ea...

This is the last post in this 3-post series ; read the previous one . Sidenote: I argued in the previous post how urban slums arose as a result of "cultural pollution" by the imperial powers who attempted reengineering the socio-demographics of Indian cities and villages. I must clarify that I do not blame the continuance of these slums on imperialism - I am merely trying to identify the root causes in an attempt to better understand these phenomena and hence lead a way towards solving them.  Presented next is another example of how cultural pollution has created a problem for the modern world. Most political systems in the world which developed without any interference from outside developed through a natural cycle of tribal / feudal set ups to monarchial / semi-monarchial setups to parliamentary or councilor (community based) democratic systems. This is true of ancient democracies as well as modern. After the end of imperialism / colonialism, most of the world underwent dem...

... continued from here . Taking India as the case in point - how did slums in Indian cities come about?  When the British marched into India they were unaware to the way villages functioned in India. This was because by the 18th century Industrialization had kicked in Britain and the city was the center of development - unlike India where villages played a big role in polity and economy - especially due to a strong self regulation and governance system.  In Britian due to the fast industrializing society, the city was where the seat of the kingdom lay and which controlled governing structures. In contrast, cities in India were mere 'centres of trade' meant to facilitate trade between the several villages which surrounded it. In absence of this understanding – the British  assumed  (mistakenly) that India lacked cities and so it lacked development. So what did they do – they killed the village’s internal economy by forcing cash crops like Indigo and Cotton which were completel...