Fortune article on business and politics in India.

I find this article interesting

https://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article ... nvest/2369

and in particular impressed with the statement "Furthermore the Indian Institute of Management recently had 200,000 applications for only 250 seats at its top Ahmedabad campus, a ratio that puts the Ivy League' selectivity to shame"

Change doesn't happen overnight. Everything takes time. Let the market forces reign. I would suggest reading about the capitalistic ideas from U of Chicago. Prosperity starts at to top and trickles down. This will take care of things on its own accord. A country which has been independent for less than 60 years and truly capitalist for only a decade cannot solve all its problems in a few years.
BTW, it is not the case that only Indian or Indian politicians are touting India's horn....here is an article from Goldman Sachs.

https://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusiness ... 8824.shtml

The biggest advantage India has over China is a stable democracy. I predict that China will experience a revolution in the next few decades as people become more and more "independent" and tired of communism.

To me, this seems very similar to a type of vanity project such as putting someone on the moon when there are more pressing needs to take care of.

I agree that anyone that anyone who can survive the application process at a place like that must be extremely impressive. I wonder how many qualified applicants there actually are in the pool of 200,000, given the apparent problems with lower levels of education. I also wouldn't compare the application/admit rates with any US schools. The availability of alternatives is vastly different. This seems to be exactly the type of misdirection that is alluded to in the Fortune article.

I appreciate the genuine comments jaynayak and studebake7. I look forward to learning more from fellow students next year. Without a doubt, India is strong on many fronts. As a future professional looking to do business in emerging economies, it will be interested to find out whether India can overcome its problems through growth at the top, or whether there will be a price to pay for not dealing with them now.

200,000 applicants is a bunch of bull crap. Only several thousand are actually good enough to stand any chance. However, having known a lot of graduates from IIMs, I can safely state that the people who eventually get "in" are incredibly well-rounded and intelligent.

Dude, I would avoid generalizing on behalf of everyone. If you talk like this in b-school or the corporate world, you will get your ass kicked.


JayNayak ...
We, Indians are like that ostrich.[/quote]

While i respect your opinion on quality of the 200,000 students in terms of level of education. let us say 90 % (which is an unusual figure) are not serious/well qualified that leaves us with 20,000 students even then the acceptance/selectivity is 1.25 % proving to be far more selective than 10% figures for stanford,HBS. Not to mention the fact that atleast 20% of the applicants to stanford,HBS must be in the same boat of unqualified as indian students

I agree with the fact that progress is not going to happen at the pace at which the media has hyped it. its going to be much slower

I agree. I expect changes to take a few decades to become really visible.

It's not really my opinion. I'm just trying to understand what the landscape is really like there. Now, is that a graduate school of business, or undergrad? I thought it was an undergraduate school.

In any case, I appreciate all your insights. Very interesting.

and here is mine



but homeless are not the only people who inhabit this great land...i mean i do sometimes feel that we are leaving them behind but this is a story of all the millions of middle class people who are seeing a new dawn of optimism and hope (hope to do better in life)


i wouldn't go that far...i would call it more of an optimism than ostrich-ism...after having been ruled by foreigners for over 800 years (200 if you count only British), another 50 years of poverty and socialism...we have always been negative about that things around us...finally we have an ongoing era which is providing us an opportunity to make a mark in the world...maybe it's good that for once we are being an "ostrich" and not fretting with all that is wrong with us...



as lhotseface mentioned...changes don't happen overnight...the real question is that as we make changes at the top, are we doing enough at the grass root level...personally i think we are not doing enough...sure, things are changing....but given the progress at the top, we should have a similar growth at the lower levels...and that's the challange we face



I have heard this argument time and again...but please try and put that in perspective with the total population...we have 1/6 th total population of the world...even if 0.5% of the population is infected with AIDS, we still have 5.5 million people with AIDS...there is no denying the fact that the situation is bad but "most HIV people than any other countery" has a more depressing tone to it



so that we can use that money to warm the pockets of our great politicians ...

i personaly think education and politicians are the reasons for our current problems...it's a catch 22 situation....poor education leads to bad govenrance and bad governance leads to poor education...it's a cycle which a dictator can break

and that is why i dream of dictatorship in India...if only we could find some capable, educated, knowledgable, firm, resolute person...i know there is no such thing as a "good dictator" but hey...as long as i am dreaming of dictatorship in India, why not also dream of a good dictator



true...as getting an MBA is in fashion and a ticket to the stratosphere, everybody is trying to get one...just the number 200,000 has no significance (except for the IIM-A, which probably earns an enormous amout of revenue though application fees )

If ur refering to IIM it is a Postgrad school.

I am talking of quality and interest of students (when i say well qualified I mean whose intelligence level and performance in thier undergrad is quite good and competetive) which say would be roughly 10% of the 200,000.

These are the students who would if they take GMAt have say an average of 700+ in GMAT and 3.5+ GPA. Just imagine competing with such a pool of applicatns and having a selectivity of 1.25 %

While India Rising is not puffery there is some element of truth. Being a poverty stricken nation in the past (expoited during british rule. bLah blah)
any achievement is bound to be over hyped in media. Example IT industry is successfull but still has a long long way to go. We are still in services arena and our product based ventures suck big time as compared to US counterparts. We have Infy,wipro,tcs but not Microsoft,oracle,Intel, dell.

This Hype has made us complacent and ignorant of our weaknesses and blind to the good things happenings

True that rural part which is the realIndia is not making all that progress but this will change but will take decades. Why??

Indian laws (as compared to china) are more entrepreurial friendly. china is more of a FDI bubble which is agrgressive on growth at present but may not last long. All bubbles will eventually burst.

A recent article on rediff indicates a trend of IIM grads not opting for the plush overseas jobs and instead seeking careers in Non profit and rural maangement. This indicates a slow snail paaced trend in mindset of people.

The average Indian is not as enterprising as the average american is probably is (the trait that made US what it is now) but is slowly evolving.

Oneday there would be bright people (all it takes a couple of them like NRN and aziz premji) who would come up with an Innovative idea to utilize the untapped intellectual capacity of the nation. Note that bulk of the children dont have access to basic education let alone engineering and medicine.

What I mean to say is when we read articles like India is on fire/Superpower we should take it with a grain of salt and read it as stage is set and it is upto the yound and bright lads to come up with ideas and take our nation forward

I would say these students are capable of a 750+ GMAT. Keep in mind that many of the Indian students who end up going to the ultra elites in the US, and are in the age range of 24-26, are those who were not able to get into the IIM's in the previous year. Considering the fact that one can do an MBA in India without significant work experience at an extremely low price, means that almost everyone interested to do an MBA takes a shot at the IIMS(Except those who plan very early to pursue education abroad). And i am not talking about IIMA only.( There are IIMB and IIMC also both of which require something like 99.x th percentile in the test).
I know 3 people this year with GMAT range in 750 to 780. 2 of them went to Chicago, one to TUCK. And none of these three people were able to qualify for any one of the IIMs last year.
Draw the inference yourself.

While I get your point and do not mean to be disrespectful to IIM, ask yourself the following question: If admitted to IIM-A and an Ultra Elite US school or Top European school, which would you choose and why? I'd say you'd choose the US or European school every time, but could be wrong. Please enlighten us.

Thanks. L.

Ultra-elite US - YES.
Ultra-elite Europe - NO.
Elite US - Maybe.

Thanks for the reply. So based on your answer I could argue that there's no point in comparing HBS and Stfd's 10% selectivity with IIM's 1 in a million and draw any conclusion about school quality from doing so.

Any opposing views? (I enjoy debates).

Cheers. L.