CAREER


The apartment assigned to me in Calcutta was No 12A, 10 Judges Court Road, located in the posh area of Calcutta – Alipore. Why 12A, you may ask. Actually, it should have been flat 13, but 13 was an unlucky number, you see.   The building had come up in the 1930s to house high-ranking...

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IANS 07 December 2021
With more than six million paying users, and a 85% renewal rate, edtech unicorn BYJU's has had a glorious run in India, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic began. However, behind this meteoric rise lie customer disputes related to refunds and deficiency of services, parents being pushed...

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Recently, there was a report on how rules are set after long and detailed thinking while framing a nation’s constitution, setting up a small or large institution; or for an organisation of professionals—all enterprises expected to last for generations.    However, over time, one finds...

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The chairman was coming!   It was a great occasion. Detailed preparations were made for this great visit.   In Mumbai (earlier called Bombay), for example, an intense search was done to identify a car that was worthy of transporting the chairman. Nothing less than a Mercedes...

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Managing corporations needs THC- something that has been talked about in other articles in this series. The H is the human skills, which is not secondary in importance because it appears second. It is as important as technical skills. In course of time, human skills will prove more important...

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The Teflon Boss was transferred a few months later.   My new Boss walked into my cabin at 10am on his first day and said, “No late returns (to head office) and no smell of piss. Make sure of these, and you will do fine by me.”            His next instruction was, “This carpet...

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In the years gone by, in a more leisurely world, we all took time to find out. It was from the grapevine - from friends, from colleagues, from some published information. Generally it was over a period of time. We also had the luxury of making some assumptions - and we were generally not too...

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I had been bumped a grade higher and posted as the operations manager in a large branch in Bombay.   Almost immediately the monsoon arrived.   Sitting in my cabin I heard a rattling noise, a bit like the sound of a machine gun firing. I went out to investigate.   I...

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Cezary Podkul (ProPublica) 28 October 2021
This story was originally published by ProPublica.   Phony job advertisements are proliferating on the internet, often as part of identity-theft schemes. Here’s how to avoid falling victim to them.   As ProPublica has reported, cybercriminals are flooding the internet with...

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TruthInAdvertising.org 26 October 2021
A disproportionate number of students that have defaulted on their students' loans attended for-profit colleges.   WHAT’S UP   The FTC has put dozens of for-profit higher education institutions on notice that engaging in practices it has previously found to be unfair or...

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In a changing world, exits from personal and commercial relationships need to be pleasant. Or, as pleasant as can be, in the given circumstances. Fifty years ago, there were not as many exits as they are now. Also, the possibility of the two parties crossing paths with each other were remote....

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While in corporate banking, my Boss was the assistant manager, whom I shall refer to as AM.   Initially, I was distinctly annoyed with the AM’s style of functioning. Gopal, from whom I was taking over, was clearly delighted to escape from AM’s clutches. He encouraged me to learn the...

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We have talked earlier about how times have changed over the last 50 years. Our parents joined a commercial enterprise and generally retired there itself. Others joined a government service or the Railways or the Post and Telegraph or the Armed Forces and also retired there. But this is not...

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IANS 01 October 2021
As Delhi University (DU) released the first cut-off list on Friday for students seeking admission in undergraduate (UG) courses, several colleges such as Ramjas College and the Sri Ram College of Commerce set cut-off marks of 100 per cent in three and two UG courses,...

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Why would a dour, taciturn and, apparently, emotionless Scotsman grow red in the face when handing over a shiny cup to the owner of the winning horse in a prestigious race?   And why would he stomp away from the dais immediately afterwards?   And why was the owner of the horse...

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Moneylife Digital Team 27 September 2021
The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday pulled up the Union government, National Board of Examinations (NBE) and National Medical Commission (NMC) for making the last-minute change in the examination pattern of post-graduate National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Super Specialty (NEET-SS)...

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Over these many decades in India, corruption has set in, and firmly, in most activities in the country. The progress has been gradual—first hardly noticed; then reluctantly accepted; and still later, fully accepted, and just short of being legitimised!   Many years ago, I started a small...

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At long last, Diego Alphonso Dias, known in our bank as DAD, bought our case for a third man in the dealing room, based on the logic that two dealers were needed to do forex trading, one at the Reuters monitor to track the rates and the other at the telex doing the deals. Two months of the...

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In the days gone by, companies died slowly. It took a long time. It also took a long time to establish companies, especially those that would create a global impact. Thus, you have companies that have been around for a hundred years. There is a company in Japan, which is a thousand years...

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Diego Alphonso Dias, known in the bank as DAD, was truly paternal.    He was a veteran in the bank and the head of finance, having risen from the lowly rank of OBC (office slang meaning ‘ordinary bloody clerk’ – no offense intended to anyone) to this elevated position by dint of sheer...

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