Arbit Scratchpad

Both flowers wilted before they could bloom! One 27, another 28 - too soon ... One a close friend, One an international celebrity! One suffering from pain, Another's pain self-inflicted! The spreading affliction out of control for one, The over-powering addiction out of control for the other! Gutsy, Vibrant, Spirited, Friendly she was! And Gifted, Talented, Inspiring was she ... Words I dedicate for both of them! We can only remember and feel for them. Through their words, memories or music; The void they have created in this world, Irreplaceable all the same! May their souls rest in eternal peace.

Had a great week having joined IBM India Pvt Ltd (Global Marketing Center) as a Competitive Marketing Manager, a role that will involve product marketing and competitive marketing. A great company to be a part of - feels good. Also it was quite a pleasant surprise to get questions, comments and queries from students on the case handed out to the 'Consumer Behavior' electives class at IIMB. The Application exercise has the Ivey ' Dhonuk case ' assigned to a few folks!! Looking forward to some good analysis 2009 and 2010 IIMB PGSEM students!! Analyze well ... :) And totally loved the energy and talent and the atmosphere at Pehel 2011 (new PGSEM batch cultural program). Some very spontaneous/talented performers - actors and musicians in the new batch!!

'AGNT22643001-AGNT22643200 - FLYBACK. 19:56 HRS. MOSQ06052025-ASSAULT-OP-OVERANDOUT. STAT: TRGT ELIM' flashed on the screen. It was June 2025. An unusually humid evening among the shrubs in an arid, parched land. The Al Quaeda mastermind Bin Saleh sat holed in, in his well hidden balcony. The walls in front of him were 12 feet tall, he was hidden from anybody's view from the outside. He heard a few buzzing mosquitoes. One or two landed on his neck. Before he could squash them he collapsed on the floor and lay there motionless! That evening news spread on all major news channels that Saleh had been terminated. The year was 2025, 2001 seemed like the distant past. The scale of the attack in 2021 had been much larger. It was called Flame Down - actually The Statue of Liberty had been hit. The new mastermind was being hunted for, like the olden days. In 2011 when Osama had been at Abottabad there had been a radar evading Apache helicopter based operation. With a few dozen Na...

Our research paper (which I wrote along with Prof B Shekar of IIM Bangalore) has been accepted in the 'Autonomy' track of the Third International Conference on Advanced Cognitive Technologies and Applications - COGNITIVE 2011, Rome, Italy! COGNITIVE 2011 www.iaria.org The research paper submission being accepted itself comes as a great positive feedback. Now it is the rest of the processes that are quite complex!

Imagine a scenario where,  as most often is the case, the entire team of India Against Corruption is in one place - Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan, Shanti Bhushan, Santosh Hegde, Kiran Bedi, Swami Agnivesh and others.  My fear is the initiative he has launched is going to threaten many high profile people not only in politics but also in the underworld and the corporate world with substantial clout and the will to stoop to any level - overt or covert. And seeing what happened to one of the people who spoke against A Raja - Mr Bachha who's suicide note was not very convincing! Imagine now one of the parties (not political) threatened by the IAC movement plots a very unique way of eliminating the members in one stroke!  Or in the garb of a terrorist strike.  From what I observed this entire IAC group moves around without too much security cover. And to reiterate they (the IAC team) are all mostly together ... and they do not have the necessary...

Signing the INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR ASSIGNMENT with Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation, at Richard Ivey School of Business, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario for the www.dhonuk.com business case study and related teaching notes!!

EPILOGUE: Uttarakhand Diary Have you ever felt that eruption of a crush? As if someone has just squeezed your heart and all the blood has reached your head! You start floating around in space even though you are standing right there on the ground. It is nothing but an anticipatory chemical surge. You got to blame the chemical dopamine. So what? I say! It feels real and it is – we can define real later on! The bus for Rishikesh had started moving when there were voices heard, someone was yelling from outside. The conductor asked the driver to stop for a minute. Two women came into the bus and seated themselves and the bus started off again with a lurch - the dusty landscape soon giving way to narrow, congested roads. She was now sitting in the bus with her mother. She would have been around twenty five or so, well endowed and taller than her mother; as she sat there she wiped the sweat beads off her dusky forehead with her dupatta ! Princess is what her mother called her (the t...