Consulting Club of NSIT

UNDERCURRENTS

Highlight: Interview with TATA Nano spokesperson

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By Trenz Pruca

Insights into the world of Nano 2

Member Speak

14

The United Kingdom in the 1970s: A General Perspective

18

Under the spotlight (The smart 4 Cube) - Interviews

ISRO: A role model for frugal engineering

14

The Ghost Rat

19

PG Avenues (Masters in Engineering Management @ Dartmouth) Guest Article (CCS)

Fashion - onomics

15

Warren Buffett and his Investment Philosophy

20

12

Metre se chalo ya boli lagao

16

Recruitment trendz @ NSIT (Special article)

13

Dummies guide to auctions

17

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Insights into the world of Nano

Little needs to be or rather much has been said about the peoples car which had its commercial launch on March 23, 2009. In early 2008, the news magazine Newsweek identied the Nano as a part of a "new breed of 21st-century cars" that embody "a contrarian philosophy of smaller, lighter, cheaper" and portend a new era in inexpensive personal transportationand potentially, "global gridlock". Following is a tte--tte with the Tata Nano Spokesperson.
What was the inspiration behind the making of the Tata Nano? The thought behind the making of the Tata Nano was to give the Indian customer an affordable, safe and all-weather form of personal mobility. A large gap exists between the average-priced two-wheeler and the existing low-priced car. That is why lakhs of families ride two-wheelers in potentially dangerous congurations, most often in potentially dangerous situations. It is this economic and social condition that led our Chairman, Mr. Ratan N. Tata, to conceive the Nano. As he said at the unveiling of the Nano on January 10, 2008, I observed families riding on two-wheelers the father driving the scooter, his young kid standing in front of him, his wife seated behind him holding a baby. It led me to wonder whether one could conceive of a safe, affordable, all-weather form of transport for such a family. What are the main features that set the Nano apart from a conventional car? The Tata Nano offers an incredibly spacious passenger compartment which can comfortably seat four adults. With a length of just 3.1 metres, width of 1.5 metres and height of 1.6 metres, the Tata Nano has the smallest exterior footprint for a car in India but is 21% more spacious than the smallest car available today. A high seating position makes ingress and egress easy. Its small size coupled with a turning radius of just 4 metres, makes it extremely maneuverable in the smallest of parking slots. The 2-cylinder engine delivering 35 PS @ 5250 rpm and a torque of 48 Nm @ 3000 rpm enables the car to have a top speed of 105 km/h and negotiate inclines with a gradeability of 30%. It offers fuel efciency of 23.6 km/litre, certied by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) under mandated test conditions, which is the highest for any petrol car in India. The high fuel efciency, coupled with a low kerb weight of 600 kg, ensures that the Tata Nano at 101 gm/km has the lowest CO2 emission amongst the cars in India. What was the most interesting challenge faced during the development of the Tata Nano? By far the greatest challenge has been to produce a car within the cost goals we set. technology transfers taking place between the Tata Nano and the luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover? No, there are no technology transfers between Tata Motors and Jaguar Land Rover. What was the total investment on the project and by when is the project expected to break even? The project cost is a little over Rs 2000 crores. The Tata Nano is a protable project. What are the production targets for the current and next nancial year? The capacity at our Pantnagar facility is 50,000 cars per annum. The capacity at our upcoming Sanand plant is 350,000 per annum. As expected for a car with such a small price-tag, the customers are a bit apprehensive about the safety of the Nano. What safety standards have been incorporated in the Nano? The Tata Nanos safety performance exceeds current regulatory requirements it passes the roll-over test and offset impact, which are not regulated in India. It has an all sheet-metal body, reinforced passenger compartment, crumple zones, intrusion-resistant doors, besides mandatory seat belts and complies fully with existing Indian safety standards. Tubeless tyres among which the rear ones are wider endowing extra stability enhance safety. Are you looking at the commercial vehicle segment as a target market for the Nano? No. There are already talks of Bajaj-Renault-Nissan launching their ultra-low cost car in 2011. How do you see this new market segment shaping up in the next 3-5 years? Worldwide there is a shift towards smaller, fuel-efcient, environment-friendly cars, which the Tata Nano is.

What are the potential export markets envisaged by the company? Tata Motors displayed the Tata Nano Europa, which is meant for Europe, at the Geneva Motor Show this year. The company has said that plans are that the Tata Nano Europa will be ready for launch in 2011. The company has also said Tata Motors has reportedly led 34 patents related to the that it will develop a version for the US market, which is innovations in the Nano. Is there any scope of expected to take about three years.

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The Tata Nano, as launched in India, can itself be exported to other countries. Tata Motors is nalizing specic countries and timelines. Will rst time car buyers be given preference for the Nano? All the booking applications will be treated at par and will be subjected to a computerized random selection procedure.

The front and rear tyres of the Tata Nano are of different sizes. How is the customer expected to manage with only one stepney? The spare tyre in the Tata Nano is same as the front tyre i.e. 135/70R12. However there is absolutely no concern in case the rear tyre gets punctured since the spare tyre can also be tted at the rear.

UC Recommends:
Part 1: Blogs
Marketing Practice (marketingpractice.blogspot.com) This blog truly lives up to its tagline the worlds largest online resource on Indian brands. Over a span of three years, Harish B, a professor of marketing has analyzed over 400 Indian brands ranging from the Bajaj Chetak (Hamara Bajaj) to Center Shock (Hilake Rakh De) on this blog. Updated daily, the blog is well archived with categories such as Marketing Fundamentals, Why Brands Fail? and Great Marketing Stories. Highly recommended for all marketing enthusiasts! Freakonomics Blog (freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com) This one comes from the authors of Freakonomics. Just like in the book, Dubner & Levitt along with a few of their friends sneak a peek at the hidden side of everything. The blog is highly interactive with the bloggers often posing questions asking for advice or looking for the correct answer for which they give away Freakonomics schwag. Posts titled How Marriage Helps You Get Your Drinks Faster and Could Women Have Prevented a Financial Crisis should certainly kindle your interest in this blog if nothing else does. Seth Godins Blog (sethgodin.typepad.com) Seth Godin is a world-famous Marketing guru well known for his concept of Permissions Marketing. His book 'The Purple Cow' , which dealt with the concept of a remarkable product or service was widely popular. On the blog, Seth disses out no-frills, no-nonsense marketing advice. Most posts are restricted to 3-4 lines, but convey a world of meaning. Khan Academy (khanacademy.org) Salman Khan is, unlike his eponymous Bollywood counterpart, more about brain than brawn. After an MS in Electrical Engg and an MBA from Harvard. Khan started uploading videos on a wide variety of topics from mathematics to sciences to nance to computers onto the Internet, particularly Youtube. His nance related videos are simple to understand and convey the concepts with great clarity.

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Under The Spotlight

The Smart Cube is an international professional services rm that specializes i n d e l i v e r i n g H i g h Va l u e a n d Customized Business and Investment Research and Analysis. Following are the conversations of the students from NSIT who were selected in the rm. They share their experiences of the work as well as the selection process.

Nishank Sethi graduated from NSIT in 2008 with a B.E. in Instrumentation and Control Engg. He is presently working with The Smart Cube as an Analyst. In this interview, Nishank speaks to Aurora about the work and work environment at TSC and his future plans and lends some sound advice to NSITians.

Please tell us a bit about your prole. In my current role as an Analyst Im required to undertake exhaustive research, exploit secondary (scanning the information and data points available in public sphere and proprietary databases) and primary (establishing contact and conducting interviews with industry experts) domains. Then on, all the relevant information is pieced together and analyzed, to crystallize the key themes for which the client has sought answers. How has been your experience so far at The Smart Cube? To be honest, it has been nothing short of brilliant; very capable set of people, thoroughly professional in conduct, and at the same time all knowing how to have their fair share of fun. I guess, what Im trying to say is, just how many companies would run a river expedition right on the international border or send you out to some obscure, harsh, and hence gorgeous, location in the Himalayas, and all of this subconsciously making you a better t for the organization. How do you nd the work and work environment at TSC? Work has been good, environment has been excellent. Work being extended to your plate, both in terms of quality and quantity, is a pure reection of the capabilities you demonstrate; and rest assured, if you have performed well, it

The Smart Cube (TSC) is

an international professional services rm that specializes in providing high-value research and analysis services to clients globally by tapping a highly qualied and yet economically preferable pool of analysts. With three distinct service lines Strategic Research, Financial Research and Data Analytics the company is at the top end of the Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) value chain. This year was the second time when TSC recruited NSITians on campus. From the class of 2008, only 3 students were able to make it through while in the class of 2009 a total of 10 students have been selected. Its been one of the most sought after recruiter in the Non-Technical domain.

will be duly acknowledged, you wont need to go and market it for yourself. To answer this in an anti-clich, Yes, I do look forward to head to my desk on a Monday Please describe for our readers a typical day or week at work. We will stick here to description of a day, wont bore with that of a week. - You land up in the morning; settle in after grabbing a quick cup of coffee. - Squeeze in a couple of hours of work. - A brief team meeting to make sure everything is in place, and if not corrective measures to make it fall in place. - Another hour and half hour of work before your belly starts to plead. - Lunch, this is something many people look forward to, spending some quality time with your friends, this half hour or forty minutes timeout surely freshens you up for the second half of the day. - Post lunch its again work, of course this time interspersed with more (or less) coffee breaks, depending on how close you are to dozing off or how much more is left to accomplish in the day. - Catch up with teammates for an informal discussion. - Done for the day, you wind up your stuff and bravely dive in to the chaotic trafc to head back home.

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I s t h e c o m p e n s a t i o n a t T S C Please give us a brief introduction to satisfactory? your prole. Pretty much so. Well, I hailed from the pariah section of NSIT - I didnt boast a good percentage; What are your plans for the future? neither had I done signicant projects Well, say two-three years down the line, I during my tenure at this institution. What do see myself still having a wonderful I had achieved, though, was a better time here at TSC (that is unless the understanding of myself - who I was, company chucks me out or a masters where I came from and where I intended opportunity comes along!). to go. Throughout my college days at NSIT, Id tried to engage myself with Any piece of advice that you would different activities and always strived for like to give to the juniors? a greater source of learning. It was the Read a lot. There is no such enabler as experiences which Id picked up in information, and dont just read for the working for various societies in college, sake of stufng it in your head (you can laying down contribution for our always rely on Google to archive it for symposiums, and undertaking varied you), question it, look for reasons. Given internships during our gap months which any subject, form a hypothesis by came in handy for me. Add to that, a yourself, then go ahead and discover whole new diverse level of interaction whether the reality conrms to your with a number of people in and out of hypothesis or is contrary to it, unearth college. Im not quite a stier for books. I the reasons why it is so, hopefully you rather prefer sharing experiences in the will end up tuning your logical thought esh. process for the better. Combined, these factors were instrumental in making me who I am and ultimately helping me strike a chord with the management at TSC. Now, my job should be in the Strategic services domain where we are required to research, collate and analyse data for our clients and add value to their respective organizations. Did you set any targets for yourself before the start of the placements season? What attracted you towards The Smart Cube? To be honest, I didnt even know that a rm by the name of The Smart Cube even existed. One could perhaps relate that to a few reasons. Once the placement session rolls in, students start off by securing a C grade job. Post a sufcient number of students being placed in such rms, the hunt for prime A grade rms kicks on. TSC isnt a big name on campus, say like a Deloitte, and hence fewer people sat for it. Its only after you research their prole, body of work, and respectable pay packet, that you say to yourself, Hmm, its not too bad dude; in fact, it might just open up avenues like few other would. Also, I had a very meagre aggregate percentage to go with. So, as it was, I had few options. I took whatever came my way, and hey, I got lucky. Please tell us about the selection procedure followed by TSC at NSIT. In all, there were four different rounds of selection. The details of each round are as follows:

Karan Sehgal is a Class of 2009 student of B.E. (Electronics & Communication Engineering). A gregarious student, he is an integral part of Crosslinks and the Debating Society, while contributing regularly to college festivals and other extracurricular activities. We spoke to Karan about the recruitment procedure of The Smart Cube and his reections on the placement season.

(a) Written test: Now, the rst round itself took us by surprise. After breezing through the presentation comfortably, students were quite at ease awaiting their respective written test sheets, only to be left dumbfounded. The written exam was based on business awareness. It was quite different, for us NSITians, for the usual bracket of a management rm. Generally, under such heads you expect an aptitudeoriented test, but TSC was different, and so was the outcome - I made it! It shows that one must be prepared to face any type of written test for any company in any domain. (b) Group discussion: This was the stage that changed my perception for TSC. I have always been wary of group discussions. Somehow, I dont like them. One of the reasons for my dislike is that one normally doesnt get sufcient time to share his / her views on a topic. You are not given that space. TSC selected a reasonable strength (about 50-60) of students for group discussion from an earlier cohort of more than hundred odd competitors. We were organised in groups of ten (approximately) and sent in for group discussion to various panels. I had the Managing Director (for operations in India), Mr. Sameer Walia sitting on my panel. The group discussion lasted for about ten-fteen minutes. I neither initiated nor concluded the group discussion. I had just one entry, for less than fteen seconds, to my name. Our panel of students never allowed the discussion to creep into a sh market, but our discussion was inconclusive. I had, therefore, spoken for the least amount of time and hence lost hope. The decision took me by surprise. Completely! I was the only student from my panel to make it to the next round. This really pumped me up and I thought to myself - its now or never. Mr. Sameer Walia had clearly gone for the basics and stressed upon the requirements of a group discussion. I have been reasonably familiar with group discussions. I fell back on the inimitable KISS principle - keep it simple and straight. You speak when you know that you have something to share; else you just listen attentively and take in the information. The decision sent a degree of reassurance and I ceased to look back. My scheme of things seemed to resonate with those of TSC.

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(c) Data crunching: This, again, was something new. In a way, TSC was successfully carving a niche for itself. Few companies would test its candidates on data crunching. However, this would be an integral part of what an analyst at TSC shall be expected to do. Hence, the data crunching program. Youre given a few paragraphs on a sheet of paper and you got to edit the same in about fty words in approximately fteen minutes. This was a real test for me since I am known to be big on words. Somehow, I managed to come through. (d) Personal interview: It was getting real close. The anxiety was obvious. However, I tried to remain condent. I knew this might be my last chance. The interview went ne. Not too good. Not too bad. It was a mixed bag of questions. I was asked a few guess estimates, points on my resume, and experiences from college life. The average length of an interview was perhaps 20-25 minutes. Please elaborate on the interview round for the benet of our readers. As I have already mentioned, I was hurled a variety of questions to contend with. Its something which you expect from an interview with a nancial rm. The guess estimates were quite interesting and logical. The reason I say they were logical is because they were based on my background to a large extent. My dad works for the Indian Foreign Services, and hence Ive been to quite a number of countries around the world and had myriad experiences of the same. Consequently, my guess estimates were quite international in their outlook and focussed more on globalisation, world economy, etc. Also, I was asked to explain my role in the various societies that I had been a part of at NSIT and my responsibility in each of them. Furthermore, some details on college symposiums and their agenda wrapped up the non-technical discussion. After this, a few technical questions were put up to me, but they were quite basic. Im sure each one of you would have been able to answer them. It ended on a happy note with me elaborating upon my future goals and career aspirations and, obviously, hoping to make it through. We shared a good laugh; I shook hands with each of the panellists, and headed for the door.

Any advice general or specic in terms of reference material and writing a rsum - that you would like to give to your juniors? As clichd as it may sound, your resume should be a reection of your personality. Its a piece of document which should give your evaluator the rst signs of you being interested and capable. For a non-technical rm, its advisable to document well a portion of

phrase which my mother says to me Do your best and let God do the rest. I can be reached at karansehgal19@gmail.com and I would be happy to help. All the best to all of you!

GUESSTIMATES
Guesstimates are the evergreen set of problems that anyone will frequently come across in ones selection process with any Non-Technical recruiter. Usually one has to come to conclusive answer to the problem given by assuming basic data such as population of the state and then narrow down your approach. The answer (guess) should be quite close in line with the actual answer, only then it is considered to be a good guesstimate. Some typical examples: 1. Number of planes in the Indian sky at this moment. 2. Estimate the number of cars in Delhi/ NCR. Lookout for more tips in our next edition.

your intuitive side. You should look to be a bit different, and have it documented on your resume - be it extra-curricular or otherwise. Your technical projects are important, but your X factor is equally necessary. Also, a lot depends on the type of company youre sending your resume across to. The domain of its work, its functional details, is as important as your own. In that regard, one must be able to link his/her resume details to the requirements for a strong candidature. You should know who you are and where you come from, and I dont know if there is any book/magazine/ newsweekly which can take you there. Of course, one must be updated on news and general affairs; however, its not the end of it all. Ideally, you should have a fair idea of what you wish to do post graduation and try to avail opportunities in that eld. I never really prepare for interviews. Its not because I dont feel the need to; but because I feel what I have and what I can be should be known to me and should be told by me in a manner to be understood by not only me. I did get lucky, but even if I didnt, I knew I wanted a job in this eld. That is what I am trying to explain. Identify your strengths; and work out your weaknesses, to tread along the path you wish to travel. Off the rack, I would advise my fellow students to study a companys web site before appearing for it. Its the best way to seek acquaintance, unless of course, you have someone you know who works for that rm. I would like to end with a

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Jahnavi Kundu is a Class of 2009 student of B.E. (IT). She has maintained an impeccable academic record throughout her life in addition to being involved in technical projects and cocurricular activities. Here, Jahnavi shares her thoughts with us on the placement season in general and The Smart Cube in particular.

Please give us a brief introduction to your prole. My academic prole is as follows: - CBSE AISSE(2003) 95% - CBSE AISSCE (2005) 91% - NSIT-IT (2005-09) 73.4% Did you set any targets for yourself before the start of the placements season? Having decided to make a switch from a technical work-prole to one which was more nance-related, to gain the necessary work-experience that would help me later in a B-school interview, I planned to apply to all the non-technical companies that visited campus. Not to put too ne a point on it, but I was fortunate enough to be recruited in a year when non-technical companies were still actively hiring. Some of the companies I was interested in are Evalueserve, Dunnhumby, Grail Research, The Smart Cube, RA Net,

McKinsey Knowledge Centre and the non-technical line. For instance, if the Bain Capability Centre. person sitting across the table isnt convinced that you will join the company Please tell us about the selection and not choose to do an MBA, they procedure followed by TSC at NSIT. might not recruit you. Some of these There were 4 rounds and each was an questions could be: elimination round. - Why XYZ Company? More specically, First Round - This round required one why an analyst? to complete a written test/questionnaire. - Why not an MBA? The test had about 25 multiple choice - What has engineering taught you that questions on Business Knowledge/ will help you as an analyst at The Smart Awareness and could be completed Cube? comfortably within the stipulated time. - Do you read the newspaper? (It might Some examples of the questions asked also be helpful to know the headlines, were: currency exchange rates, SENSEX - What are the functions performed by value, gold prices and crude oil prices the World Bank? on the day of the interview. I was asked - What are The Brettonwood Sisters? 2-3 things from this list.) - What was Indias GDP last year? One could also be asked to analyze a - What is depreciation? trend. For instance, after asking me the - What is Freddie Mac? price of crude oil, the interviewer asked -Conversion from INR to USD (at me to discuss where it might be heading current exchange rate, which wasnt and the impact it would have on oil mentioned in the question) production by the OPEC countries. Also, - Walmarts revenue in the last nancial I would recommend that students year prepare some guesstimates for nontechnical companies. I was asked to Second Round - The second round estimate the number of customers who was the Group Discussion round. Each visit the Costa Coffee in Dwarka in one group had about 10-12 students but day. the moderators did not let the There could also be questions related to discussion become a sh-market. Business Analytics. I was asked to Everyone was given a chance to name the 2 candidates in the fray for the speak. This round was meant to check US Presidential Elections (this interview the oral-communication skills of an was in August 2008). Further, I was applicant. asked to discuss the impact of Obamas The topics were fairly general. Some win on Infosys. (I could assume topics that I can recall are: whatever I wanted about his policies. At - BRT- boon or bane? that time, I didnt know about his stand - Is the Republic Day Parade an on outsourcing. So I explained how unnecessary expense? Infosys would be affected in both cases - Should gay marriages/prostitution be that is if he were for or against it. legalized? Another point I mentioned was the limit on H1B visas.) Third Round - This one was Precise There were other Business Analytics Writing. An article on the automobile questions that were put to the other industry in China was given to each candidates. Some of them that I heard student and he/she had to capture the later in the auditorium: gist of the article in 50-60 words. This - How would you invest 1 million USD in round was meant to judge the written a business? communication skills of the student. - The interviewer gave the name of a company and the candidate had to Final Round - This was the Interview give as many of its competitors as round. I was interviewed by a panel of possible in all verticals. So if the three, comprising the MD of the interviewer said ITC, one would have company and two others from the HR to mention all of ITCs competitors in Department. However, it was the MD product lines where ITC had a market who asked all the questions. segment. So it could be stationery It would be advisable to prepare (Classmate products), Fast Moving answers to some questions beforehand. Consumer Goods or FMCG (Sunfeast These questions are mostly HR-related Biscuits etc.), apparel (Wills Lifestyle), and need to be convincing; even more tobacco products, hospitality (Maurya so because they concern ones decision Sheraton and others) and so on. to take the CAT, or make a switch to a

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Any advice general or specic in terms of reference material and writing a rsum - that you would like to give to your juniors? Most other companies would have had an aptitude test in lieu of the one on General Awareness. To that end, one could practice basic DI and Quant. Questions for these two sections are available in the preparation material of any CAT coaching institute. The newspapers / columns that I follow regularly are: - The Hindu (particularly the Editorial and op-Ed pages) - Mint - Paul Krugmans column in the Hindu Ive now converted my calls for FMSMBA and XLRI-PM & IR. I shall be joining the former. You can send me any queries you might have at kundu.jahnavi@gmail.com. All the best!

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Part 2: Books
The Undercover Economist Written by Financial Times columnist and Bastiat Prize winner Tim Harford, this book is Microeconomics 101 applied to the real world. Harford elegantly explains why your coffee is priced as expensive as it is and why sweatshops arent as bad as Naomi Klein would have us believe. Economics minus the boring graphs and statistics, reading this book is like spending an ordinary day in the market wearing X-ray goggles. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life In times of crisis such as this, it might do us some good to turn to the philosophy of one of the richest people in the world. This tome provides a wellrounded account of the rise and rise of Buffett, an investor nonpareil who has used a strategic GrahamDodds approach of Value Investing to invest in successful rms such as Coke and GEICO. Beautifully researched and written by Alice Schroeder, this book also gives us a brief glance into the philosophy of Buffett, his belief in the internal scorecard and the ovarian lottery which has led him to donate huge chunks of his wealth to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Dilbert Principle - Scott Adams - Originally referring to companies' tendency to systematically promote their leastcompetent employees to management in order to limit the amount of damage they're capable of doing, The Dilbert Principle is a book that full of Adams' trademark biting humor. Full of out of the world suggestions ( like how abusive women make good leaders ), Adams puts forward an extremely irreverential way of looking at corporate life. The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb - is a refreshing new look at the world of nance. Taleb discusses literary, scientic and mathematical examples to show how uncertainty is an essential part of markets, and how an understanding of uncertainty can help us approach it better.

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PG Avenues Masters of Engineering management

Parul Batra graduated from NSIT in 2007 and completed her MEM degree from Dartmouth College in December 2008. Presently she is working with McKinsey & Co, Los Angeles. Here, Parul shares her views on the course and the culture at the university and outlines avenues available to students after MEM. My prole I graduated from NSIT with a B.E. in Computer Engineering in 2007. I had always been interested in business, specically in the technology industry, because of its dynamic and ever changing nature. While in college, we developed software to track lost mobile phones and remotely access any information on your cell phone. We also created a business plan around this software which was selected in Worldwide Top 8 in SIMagine06 (an international Java Card applet competition). After graduation, I moved to Dartmouth for the Master of Engineering Management (MEM) program which seemed ideal because of my prior experience and future interest in the eld of technology and business. My academic performance at the university was very strong and I graduated with the highest GPA in the batch. My non-academic performance was strong too, comprising of - leading the MEM council, working for the MEMPC and being the brand ambassador for India. I graduated in December 2008 and am now working with McKinsey & Company as a Business Analyst in their core consulting group in Los Angeles. About the course The MEM program is very exible and offers a great variety of both engineering and business courses. There are some mandatory courses of each kind, but electives can be chosen by an individual according to their interest. These can be at the Business school, Engineering school, Medical school, Law school or any other department (say Economics). Essentially, you dene the course for yourself by choosing the kind of courses you want to take, and the MEM provides you with the opportunity to

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10

delve into the eld of your choice (elds as diverse as nance Karyl Singh is a Class of 2009 student of Biotechnology or marketing or environmental engineering). The curriculum is at NSIT. She has received admits from Dartmouth very interesting, updated, and relevant to the market and the College and Duke University for the MEM program. In this essay, Karyl professors are highly qualied and shares her amazing instructors. The Master of Engineering prole and takes us The Dartmouth Culture Management (MEM) program through the Dartmouth is a very tight-knit school combines professional engineering application and has a strong community. There practice with core business and procedure for are many social events to management subjects typically found MEM followed encourage students to get together in an MBA program. Offered by by some excellent advice for and get a diverse cultural members of the Master of Engineering future MEM aspirants. experience. A whole bunch of Management Programs Consortium extracurricular activities are offered I rst heard about this program that include dance classes, sports, (MEMPC) that includes Dartmouth when our senior, Parul Batra, from outdoor activities and state-of-theC o l l e g e , D u k e U n i v e r s i t y, the batch of 07 went to Dartmouth art gym. During my time there, I Northwestern University, Stanford College to pursue her Masters in took a whole bunch of dance University and Cornell University, the Engineering Management. A couple classes and participated in outdoor degree allows new graduates and of months later when I made up my activities like hiking, camping and working professionals to acquire the mind to follow up my B.E. with a skiing. There are ofcial parties management skills necessary to masters degree from the US, I almost every other week and found MEM to be the most unofcial parties every other night advance in today's technical world. attractive option. I was looking for a (Dartmouth is a big party school!). Aurora presents a special insight to program that would provide me with the MEM program as a career option an understanding of the essential Avenues after MEM for NSITians after graduation. We principles of business and law while You can go wherever you want to invite Parul Batra (Computer honing my technological knowledge after graduation. Both the kind of Engineering, Class of 2007) and Karyl and analytical skills. The MEM courses you take, and where you Singh (Biotechnology, Class of 2009) program t the bill exactly and I decide to go after graduation are to share their perspectives on the found it to be the best suited to my decisions made by you depending requirements. It is the right course on your personal interest. Most program. for anyone with the ultimate career people tend to pursue MEM goal of being a leader at the because of their interest in the interface of business and business side, and hence most technology. students take a techno-business (or core business) job. There are a lot of At Dartmouth, the applications are research opportunities too, but few opt invited September onwards with the earliest deadline being for those, because most MEM students by denition want to get into the industry with business oriented roles. For someone January 15th. There are two other application periods with hoping to enter the teaching line, I will not recommend the the deadlines being March 15th and March 15th onwards MEM as it is designed more from an industry perspective than respectively. In the other MEMPC universities the deadlines an academic perspective. However, there have been students are around the same time in January. The chances of in the past who went ahead to do their PhD after MEM, and receiving nancial aid are higher in case of early applications. The application procedure is fairly simple and then got into academia. the application requirements consist of the usual- Statement of Purpose, Letters of Recommendation, transcripts etc. Prospective Students MEM students come from very diverse backgrounds and have Like all good universities, while selecting students from a varying proles. The core requirements are huge pool of applicants, they look for good GRE, TOEFL 1. Strong background in engineering. 2. Keen interest in business (must be demonstrated by some scores, academics etc. However, a greater emphasis is laid on the activities the student has been involved in during his initiative taken during college or in the past). 3. Strong extra-curricular and leadership skills (demonstrated years at undergrad, the various internships/trainings and by leadership roles in college or other community activities). projects he/she has been a part of and most importantly his/ 4. A clear idea about future career goal and an understanding her inclination towards pursuing MEM, all of which reect in of how MEM will help you achieve that. Anyone who enjoys the SOP. I had scored 1400 in the GRE and 116 in TOEFL the business of technology, is interested in making a and had an overall score of 70% in college. But, in my complete or partial transition to that side, and is looking for opinion, it was the various internships and projects that I had exposure, should apply for MEM. There is no xed set of been involved in that made my application stand out. I had students who should look to apply. It depends on you future worked on a project in a defense software rm in the rst interest if MEM ts in with your future plan and will help year followed by an internship in the biotechnology lab at Yuan Ze University, Taiwan in the second year. In the third you get where you want to be then you should apply! year of my B.E. program, I did laboratory training at AIIMS. I got an opportunity to carry out research-based analysis

UNDERCURRENTS Volume 1 Issue 1

during my internship at Standard Chartered Bank, also during For all those students who wish to apply to this program in the the third year. future, I would just like to stress on the fact that it is important to maintain decent academics and to get good GRE and I had applied to Dartmouth, Duke and Cornell for MEM and to TOEFL scores. But since they would be competing with a Carnegie Mellon for Masters of Science in Biotech highly meritorious and skilled set of applicants, which would Management. I had been planning to apply to Columbia and even include people with a couple of years of job experience, USC, when I got an admit from Dartmouth, followed by Duke it is extremely important that they build their resume by being and Carnegie Mellon. Since Dartmouth had been my most a part of good projects, internships and trainings and also ambitious application, I decided not to apply any further. I involve themselves in college activities. This would also make chose Dartmouth over other places for various reasons. The it easier for them to get letters of recommendation from the small size of the classes as compared to the other professors they would have worked under. And the universities which offer MEM and the high faculty-to-student importance of letters of recommendation and the statement of ratio were some of the factors that made me opt for purpose is not to be underestimated. As we all have realized, Dartmouth. Also, an opportunity to be taught by an eminent NSIT offers us plenty of time not only during our summer and faculty from the Tuck School of Business and the availability winter breaks, but also during the semesters and we must of nancial aid attracted me to Dartmouth. The job make sure we utilize this time well. Heres wishing all MEM opportunities available after graduating with an MEM degree aspirants loads of luck! from Dartmouth are tremendous. Some of the jobs that MEM graduates have pursued have been those of Application Engineers, Business Analysts, Economics Consultants, Entrepreneurs, Financial Analysts, Forensic Analysts, Global Markets Analyst, IT Managers, New Product Strategy Analysts, Operations Leadership Program Associates, Plant Managers and Systems Managers.

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UNDERCURRENTS Volume 1 Issue 1

School Choice
Fund Students, Not Schools!
Over the years, India has tried varied approaches to improve student enrollment and the overall quality of education. As Prathams Annual Status of Education Report (1008) shows, there is a huge gap between our policy aspirations and on the-ground achievements. In the process of realizing our education goals, a two tier system of school education has been created. In this system, those who can afford fees choose private schools and those who cannot, are conned to state-run schools. The gross inequality of schooling opportunities is the result of our current approach to education. The school voucher is a tool to change the way governments nance the education of the poor. School choice for the poor through education vouchers is one of the most radical and original ideas of Milton Friedman, whose reasoned case for unfettered free markets has transformed the minds of leaders, entrepreneurs and students across the world. A voucher is a coupon offered by the government that covers the full or partial cost of education at the school of the students choice. The schools collect vouchers from the students, deposit them in their bank accounts and the banks then credit the school accounts by equivalent money while debiting the account of the government. No money actually changes hands, only the voucher moves from the student to the school, and back to the government. In the present system, the schools are accountable to the government. The voucher system makes them accountable directly to the students since they pay for their education through vouchers. If the student does not like the school, she can take the voucher to another school. Under the voucher system, the money follows the student. In the present system, the money follows the school. $ Centre for Civil Societys agship project, the School Choice Campaign (SCC) was launched in 2007 and is a campaign to bring about the much-needed reforms in the system of school education in India today using the three pronged approach of E d u c a t i o n Vo u c h e r s , R e g u l a t o r y R e f o r m s a n d Encouraging Entrepreneurs. School Choice Campaign seeks to achieve the Right to Education of Choice for all. SCC believes that while the Government has a constitutional mandate to educate every child, it cannot accomplish this task by building more government schools. It has to remain a sponsor and facilitator, and let entrepreneurs execute the task of delivering the service. This will bring choice of schools even to the poor while increasing the quality of education delivered through competition. Thus the slogan Fund Students, Not Schools! SCC launched Indias rst School Voucher Project, the Delhi School Voucher Project, on 28 March 2007. To understand the effect of School Choice, school vouchers worth up to Rs. 3,600 per year per child were awarded to 408 students from 68 wards in Delhi. The vouchers will be provided for a minimum of three years. After the completion of the rst year of the Delhi Voucher Project, an independent assessment study of the project was conducted by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS). Some of the main ndings of the study were as follows: - Overall, the voucher students have performed better than those studying in Government schools and at par with the students in private schools in English, Mathematics and Hindi in all grades. The study found that the majority (63.1 percent) of the voucher beneciaries exercised the freedom of choice after receiving the school voucher and switched over from a government to a private school. - A high majority (94 percent) of the voucher parents mentioned that their children were happy with their present school. 61 percent of the voucher parents felt that their children had also become more regular with school work. More than fty percent of the voucher parents noticed that their children had become more disciplined and studied more in their new school. - A high majority (nearly 90 percent) of the voucher students and those attending private schools perceived that being educated in their present schools would provide them with opportunities for a better future. In comparison, a lesser percentage (61 percent) of children attending Government schools had the same opinion. The Delhi Voucher Project is an experiment which is testing how school choice can help poor children attending government schools to improve their learning levels. This study has provided evidence that choice when exercised can assist students from weaker economic backgrounds to learn better.

For more information on the School Choice Campaign, write to SCC at joinus@schoolchoice.in, or visit www.schoolchoice.in. Centre for Civil Society is an independent, non-prot organization working for the outreach, research and advocacy of innovative community and market based ideas for critical public policy issues facing India today, particularly in areas of education, livelihood, governance and environment.

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UNDERCURRENTS Volume 1 Issue 1

Recruitment Trendz @ NSIT: A Non-Technical Perspective

By Ankur Gupta

Where have NSITians been going all these years?

Anindus Dunnhumby Futures First Bain & Co. EMB Consulting Grail Research Deloitte Evalueserve ICF International RA Net Inforte Inductis The Smart Cube

McKinsey & Co. Watson Wyatt

Are you aiming for the so called non-technical rms that have been visiting the campus? If the answer is yes, then its the right time for you to do some soul-searching and get in familiar with the recruitment trends of non-technical rms at NSIT. We have tried to do some homework for you. Heres a glance at the analysis of the placements with respect to nontechnical rms over the past three years. If you are trying to nd a regular pattern to your particular branch, its of no use at all. One thing is for sure that recruitment done by non-technical recruiters does not follow a particular trend. Its the ability of students in a particular batch that makes them t for the job. Those who can think out of the box go home carrying a golden axe that day and others have to wait for their day to come. The big word beginning with R has surely impacted the placements in every domain, be it software, electronics, mechanical or our very own nontechnical domain. By now you must be saying how is that possible? We have seen the average package being quoted as INR 5.45 LPA. The impact, though, has been in the form of a sharp decline in the number of recruiters from overall 83 companies in 2007-08 down to 72 in the year 2008-09 (till February 2009). The number of non-technical rms coming to NSIT for recruitment has fallen down from 14 in 2008 to merely 9 in 2009. However the number of students recruited have to be taken into account as well. In the Class of 2008, 83 offers were made by the top notch rms in this domain as

compared to 72 offers made to the Class of 2009. Statistically the average number of offers made per rm has risen from 9.65 to 9.96 for overall recruitments. This can be attributed to two facts altogether. First, companies have hired way too aggressively than previous years because the recruitment calendar kicked off on 19th July, way before Lehman Brothers shattered everyones dreams and second, the awareness quotient or knowledgeability of students has increased considerably. The challenge for the Class of 2010 lies in the fact that they will have to prove their worth to the recruiters by letting them know that its not NSIT that makes them talented but its the students that make NSIT full of talent. Also, at the same time they need to be careful by not taking everything for granted and not being over-condent. Ankur Gupta is a pass-out of B.E. (Electronics & Communication Engineering) from NSIT. He was the Executive Head of the Student Placement Committee for the Class of 2009.

Discipline wise break-up of the offers made to students

Non-technical recruitment as a percentage of overall recruitment

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UNDERCURRENTS Volume 1 Issue 1

Members Speak
Following are the contributions from our members.

ISRO: A Role Model for Frugal Engineering

By Abhishek Bhardwaj
Control Center and the Indian Space Science Data Center, all located at Byalalu near Bangalore. A Madras School of Economics study ve years ago revealed how India gets a 200% return for every rupee invested in its space program. It is also interesting to see that average salary of ISRO scientists is one-eighth that of the scientists in US and Europe. The low salaries add to the frugal engineering costs and are a major reason for India's comparative advantage in satellite production and launch costs. More credit is due to Indian scientists as lower pay has not induced them to leave for higher-paying jobs abroad, or compromise on quality in producing advanced technology. In the ofng is a set of biological experiments in space, followed by the ambitious plan of the manned space mission slated for 2015. Surely with an efcient organisation such as ISRO the world has found itself an ideal model to sustain space programs even in these recession-hit days. Abhishek Bhardwaj is a 3 rd year student of B.E. (Instrumentation & Control Engineering) at NSIT. For an organisation that has a budget just one-tenth of that of NASA, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) seems to have come a long way with the launch of Chandrayaan-1, Indias rst mission to the moon. Not only was Chandrayaan-1 technically sound (with some instruments from NASA as well) but what was refreshing was the cost effectiveness of the satellite. Chandrayaan-1 cost a total of $74 million, almost four times cheaper than SELENE, Japans lunar orbiter launched in 2007, which cost $279 million. A perusal of the expenditure reveals further an excellent allocation of funds. $20 million of the total cost went into valuable reusable infrastructure, such as building a trio of Earth-stationed trackers of moonmission data - the Deep Space Network, the Spacecraft

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UNDERCURRENTS Volume 1 Issue 1

Fashion-onomics
By Neha Chawla
The story of the Fashion weeks goes way back to 1943 to World War II. After the rst fashion week in NYC, Fashion Capitals soon emerged. Many of us assume that the word fashion strictly translates to ramps, models, elaborate designs and glamour. The moolah associated with the fashion weeks is the ip side that we rarely see. The fashion industry rolls in the dollars faster than any Neha Chawla is a 4th year student of B.E. (Computer Engineering) at NSIT.

corporate big-wig and creates waves more than a merger of two mammoth multinationals. Each show takes months of meticulous planning and investment of resources. That their revenue manages to more than supersede the breakeven mark is no surprise! This multi-million dollar worth of industry leaves everyone in scal delight! Fashion-onomics is surely protable! In times of crisis like today, it would seem natural to turn to this booming industry for a bail-out package! And it does not let you down! Where pundits predict an upswing from 2010, the fashionistas have another story to tell. No nancial indicators or complex analysis. They predict the stock markets performance just by looking at womens hemlines. The Hemline Theory states that the stock markets move in the same direction as the hemlines of womens skirts! Short skirts are considered bullish, take the roaring 20s and the swinging 60s for instance. Longer dresses in the 30s and 40s were considered bearish. With most economic theories not managing to rescue us anyway, perhaps we can rely on this fashion analogy to prove to be prophetic once again. Women can do as directed and come to the rescue with shorter skirts! Even if the stock marketsdont rise, the temperatures will soar for sure!

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UNDERCURRENTS Volume 1 Issue 1

Meter se chalo ya boli lagao

By Roshan Shankar
The rst image that comes to my mind when you say auto rickshaw is James Bond in both Octopussy and the Visa advertisement. Now that might just be popular culture acting up on us, but it also might be that we are trying to run away from our present and the demonic reality that is the problem of auto rickshaws. Poor service and minimum respect for customer safety and comfort are problems that plague this particular mode of public transport. The biggest and quite possibly the main problem that is faced is based on the fare-meter - its application or rather the refusal of auto rickshaw drivers to go by the meter. In this short essay we take a look at this specic problem within the ambit of Delhi and with comparisons to other cities and countries. To put matters into perspective, there are problems in the system that auto rickshaws function under. In an investigative paper titled Auto rickshaws in Delhi: Murder by Regulation, Danish Faruqui and Raghav Sud at Centre for Civil Society indicate that the problem begins at the governmental level itself. There is an elaborate limited number license raj that prevails at the local levels. There are nine types of certicates that auto rickshaw drivers are supposed to carry when they ply. There is red-tapism at every possible imaginable level. The same process has to be repeated at the end of eight years. These activities cost both time and money to the auto rickshaw drivers. Also, at the base level, fare revision has generally been delayed while banking and nancial loans for buying an auto rickshaw are rather difcult to obtain and realistically speaking non-existent. Those are the problems with public policy. Now on to the not so governmental or noble ones. Auto rickshaw drivers are overcharging the customers by putting the customer who is harried and needs fast transport on the spot for a quick decision. The customer either goes into the rather quick out-of-meter settlement or is left hanging. With an unwritten code being followed among auto rickshaw drivers, this is becoming a menace to civil society. Other than this there is tampering of the meter, poor implementation of the law which stipulates Delhi auto rickshaw drivers to follow and charge the meter calculated fare; unfair, poor and corrupt policing and improper grievance redressal systems. But there have to be problems other than those just of ethics. There are those harrowing experiences which tourists and even locals go through with respect to poor service, horrid behavior, high level of eecing for money and leching at female customers. The incentive to circumvent the system has to have an economic reason. The predominant problem is that there is a time cost added to the resource cost of fuel and auto rickshaw. An auto rickshaw driver is compensated in proportion to the fuel cost only. So if he drives more, he makes more money. So during heavy trafc he loses out on making money and therefore tries to charge more. Short distance commutes are avoided for the same purpose that there is no incentive to make money, and if there is a community line he might end up losing money. This is despite the fact that a customer cannot be refused by law. Also in Delhi, there is a lot of choice in public transport methods which means that anyone who is taking an auto does it invariably out of choice of single travel or because other modes are unavailable or due to paucity of time. Ergo, auto rickshaw driver can also make them dance to his or her tune. The dynamics at the heart of it is different than those maybe in Sri Lanka where probably an almost perfect market is at work with respect to auto rickshaws. Also there is a cap on the number of autos - so we know a limited resource garners more weight due to its scarcity unlike Bombay or Bangalore where that isnt so. Assuming similar demographics in India at least with respect to people cheating out of habit - a similar percentage of rotten apples among auto rickshaw drivers and policemen and even customers, it is safe to say that a couple of probable solutions may go a long way in redressing this problem. One must also remember that this is a problem that promotes bad economics, is the propelling force behind the falling value of money, leads to poor ethics and also incentives to other transport modes to do the same too, and so such a problem should be nipped in the bud itself. A couple of possible ways to make it better is that there is a component of time in the algorithm to calculate the fare of an auto rickshaw. This refers to both peak hours and waiting time. This means that a person taking an auto in peak hour pays more to the auto rickshaw driver, which gives him incentive to take a customer. Also the cap on the number of autos should be removed as the market will be closer to a perfect competition and rotten apples of the lot will be pushed out of the market. Apart from differential rates, better and cheaper technology has to be put in place for the meters. Tamper proof meters will go a long way in saving the cause of both the buyer and seller in the auto rickshaw market. At the government level, there should be faster grievance redressal for auto rickshaw drivers and less number of steps in the process of procuring, renewing and upgradation of licenses. Apart from positive solutions to solve this quandary, civil society must also be sure not to give in to varied demands of rogue auto-drivers. Only then can we expect a smiling Vijay Amritaj - like driver in case of emergency or otherwise. Only then can we be James Bond? Roshan Shankar is a 3rd year student of B.E. (Computer Engineering) at NSIT.

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UNDERCURRENTS Volume 1 Issue 1

Dummies Guide to Auctions

By Abhimanyu Sanghi
Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff made headlines recently as the two were each auctioned for an astounding USD 1.55 million (Rs. 7.35 crore) before the start of this years edition of the Indian Premier League. More recently, Mahatma Gandhis personal items, including his iconic round eye glasses, went under the hammer for USD 1.8 million (Rs. 8.54 crore), six times the reserve price or the value of items as estimated by the auction house Antiquorum. To modify one of Oscar Wildes famous quotations, we usually know the price of everything but the value of nothing. A well designed auction is an excellent method to nd the actual value of a good or a service to its buyer. The IPL player auctions and the auction of Mahatma Gandhis items are examples of the English auction. This is the most popular form of auction, where participants try to outbid each other with subsequent higher bids. If no competing bidder challenges the standing bid within a given time frame, the item is sold to this highest bidder. This form of auctioning is commonly used by auction houses such as Christies and Sothebys to sell antiques and artworks. At times, the auctioneers might indulge in chandelier bidding by xing their gaze at a point in the room and calling out nonexistent bids, thereby creating the appearance of greater demand or extending the bidding momentum. Vickrey, is identical to the sealed-bid rst-price auction except that the winning bidder pays the second highest bid rather than their own. This may seem odd at rst glance, but then even in the English auction the price is set by the secondhighest bidder because bidding stops when the secondhighest bidder drops out. As economist Tim Harford puts it in The Undercover Economist, the problem with the Vickrey auction is not substantive but stylistic: in a traditional auction nobody ever nds out the maximum price the highest bidder would have been willing to pay, but in a Vickrey auction that fact is made public. The New Zealand government used the Vickrey method to auction radio spectrum in 1990 with dreadful results. New Zealanders wanted to know why a bidder who had offered NZ$100,000 for a license only had to pay NZ$6 or why one who had offered NZ$7 million was only coughing up NZ$5,000.

A carefully crafted auction provides an excellent pricediscovery mechanism, especially for scarcely available goods and extremely precious items. The seller and the bidders have incomplete information about the payoffs and strategies available to other players. Every bidder has their own estimate of the value of the good, but they do not know the value as anticipated by other bidders in the room. In auctions such as those of IPL players, the seller (the BCCI in this case) has the challenge of estimating the reserve price of A specic form of the English auction is the candle auction, a each player by gauging the worth of the player to prospective timed auction that originated in the 15th century. In this form, bidders. There is a risk that the reserve price may be too high the auctioneer lights a candle and accepts bids only as long and the good may remain unsold. as the candle is burning. Successful bidders observed that just before expiring, a candle-wick ares up slightly and they At times, the winning bid may exceed the intrinsic value of the hollered out their nal bid at this opportune moment. Some of auctioned asset, or the value of the asset may be less than the ingenious online bidders have taken a leaf out of the the value anticipated by the bidder thereby making the successful candle auction bidders book and they place their bidder worse off on absolute terms. This is known as the bids on auction sites such as eBay at the very last moment winners curse. The winners curse seems to have struck the giving other bidders very little time to respond, thus winning Kolkata Knight Riders both literally and metaphorically, who the bid. This method is known as auction sniping, and such acquired Mashrafe Mortaza, the Bangladesh pacer for USD snipers are often aided by software such as BidNinja and 600,000 twelve times his reserve price of USD 50,000 - in a StealthBid. erce bidding battle with Kings XI Punjab. The Dutch auction is the polar opposite of the English auction. The auctioneer begins with a high asking price which is lowered until some bidder is willing to accept the auctioneers price. It nds its roots in the famous Tulip mania of the 1600s the rst recorded speculative bubble, when ordinary tulip bulbs sold for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. More recently, a modied version of the Dutch auction known as OpenIPO has been used for distributing stock in an initial public offering of some companies including that of Google in 2004. The sealed-bid rst-price auction is the method commonly used for government contracts. In this, all bidders simultaneously submit sealed bids and the highest bidder wins the contract and pays the price submitted as the highest bid. The bidders can only submit one bid each and the bidding process is condential, as opposed to English and Dutch auctions. The sealed-bid second-price auction, also known as the Vickrey auction after its inventor, Nobel laureate William From the sellers perspective, the importance of a good design that imposes high stakes cannot be overemphasized. Also, a successful auction needs plenty of serious bidders. Auction theory continues to evolve as game-theorists and economists continue to experiment with auction designs. Abhimanyu Sanghi is a pass out of B.E. (Electronics & Communication Engineering) from NSIT.

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UNDERCURRENTS Volume 1 Issue 1

The United Kingdom in the 1970s: A General Perspective

By Udit Anand
honour, and the Queen met with millions of her subjects on a tour throughout the Commonwealth. The 1974 elections propelled the Labour Party into power, with Harold Wilson as the Prime Minister. He was succeeded by James Callaghan in 1976, also from the Labour Party. They struggled for years against rising ination, which peaked at 26.9% in the August of 1975, but wished to avoid large increases in unemployment. In order to try and bring it down, in 1978-79 the government sought to introduce limits on wage hikes, by agreeing to a 'social contract' with the Trades Union Congress. Subsequently, the talks broke down, and widespread strikes followed, which was described in the British media as the Winter of Discontent. The elections of 1979 were held in May, and are regarded as the pivotal point in 20th century British politics. The Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher defeated James Callaghan's incumbent Labour government in what would prove to be the rst of four consecutive general election victories for the Conservative Party, and extended Thatchers role as Prime Minister till 1990. Thatcher's political and economic philosophy which came to be known as Thatcherism - emphasised reduced state intervention, free markets, and entrepreneurialism. She began her economic reforms by increasing interest rates to slow the growth of the money supply and thus lower ination. She introduced budget cuts and reduced expenditures on social services such as education and housing, and placed limits on the printing of money and legal restrictions on trade unions. When some Conservatives expressed doubt over Thatcher's policies and British media started discussing the need for a policy U-turn, at the 1980 Conservative Party conference, Thatcher addressed the issue directly, saying, "You turn if you want to. The ladys not for turning!" Such was the Iron Lady of Great Britain, and she is still remembered as a revolutionary gure that revitalised Britain's economy, impacted the trade unions, and re-established the nation as a world power.

In many ways, the transition to the 1970s was like an inevitable hangover to the exuberance, counter culture and social revolution that were witnessed in the 1960s. This came to the fore in the form of decline and distortion of the ideals of the hippie movement, the economic gloom of massive ination the world over, the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War. However, coming to the United Kingdom, the 70s could very well be described as the decade of strikes, blackouts and good music. Heres what happened.

In 1970, when Edward Heath took over as Leader of the Conservative Party, his term as Prime Minister was plagued by industrial unrest in the form of strikes. The strikes were allpervasive, with as many as sixteen strikes taking place simultaneously at one time. In addition, to curb rising ination, Udit Anand is a 3rd year student of B.E. (Electronics & which was also resulting in increasing wages every other Communication Engineering) at NSIT. week, the government introduced the "Three-Day Work Order", which was to come into force at midnight on 31 December, 1973. According to it, commercial consumption of electricity would be limited to three consecutive days each week. The three day week only lasted for three months, till the rst week of March, but owing to its unpopularity among the masses, Heath lost the elections in October of the same year. The loss of the Conservative Party in the 1974 elections led to Margaret Thatcher challenging and unexpectedly defeating Edward Heath, and she in turn became the rst female leader of the opposition. She went on to stay on as the Leader of the Conservative Party till 1990. During the Seventies, it was believed that support for the British monarchy had reduced, but the Silver Jubilee year of 1977 laid to rest the family's fears of being irrelevant in a more modern Britain. Elaborate parades and street parties were thrown in the Queen's

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UNDERCURRENTS Volume 1 Issue 1

The Ghost Rat

By Abhishek Khatri
A Trojan horse that apparently originated in China infected close to 1300 websites in 103 countries including India and tapped into condential data over the past two years. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) of the Department of Information Technology under Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, India was affected by the Chinese trojan which rst struck the computers at the ofce of the Tibetan Government in Exile (TGIE) and the Ofce of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (OHHDL), both based in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh. The malicious software could monitor the text les in the infected computer and also supposedly log keystrokes and turn on webcams and microphones of the infected terminal to capture and record audio and video. Ghost RAT trojan that enabled the attackers to gain control over the computer. The Dangerous Consequences The amount of damage that a group of hackers can cause to a government network that is heavily networked is innite. A hacker attack can paralyze airport operations, trafc control, banking services and transactions in a country that is networked, just as we saw in the movie Die Hard 4.0 (We always thought that just because it is being shown in the movies, it cannot be true, isnt it?). Terrorism is evolving from guns and grenades to the internet. The doomsday scenario of hackers is to get control of missiles or even satellites. Just think of Indias Chandrayaan-1 being controlled by the hackers! Abhishek Khatri is a 4th year student of B.E. (Information Technology) at NSIT.

Why and how did it start? As intelligence reports suggest, it was started to keep an eye on the movements of Dalai Lama and other exiled leaders of Tibet, and also to extract information as to what the countries lending their support to these exiled leaders were contemplating. Thus, this malware was passing back information back to the four servers in China. Governments around the world are increasingly getting dependent on computer networks to make life easier for citizens, their operations and to work more efciently. This inter-connection of networks between the governments has led to a danger of hackers and phishers getting hold of condential documents and misusing it with dangerous consequences. The infection spread out via email and executable DOC, JPEG, PDF les etc. Tracking GhostNet: Investigating A Cyber Espionage Network - a report released by Canada based Information Warfare Monitor (IWM) after a 10-month long research states that the infected computers include those of diplomats, military personnel, secretaries to ministers and journalists. Ghost RAT created a remote access tool (hence the name RAT) to extract information from infected computers by forming a GhostNet, a network of inter-related computers. It directed the infected computers to download the

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UNDERCURRENTS Volume 1 Issue 1

Warren Buffett and his Investment Philosophy

By Sharat Nambissan K.P.
The world of investment has had its share of heroes but none of them have had as long and as successful a time as Warren Buffett. For the past fty years or so, Warren Buffett has proven that one can give good returns on investment consistently if one invests wisely. Much of what Warren Buffett is is due to his simplistic, yet extremely powerful approach to investment called focus investing. This article intends to introduce you to a brief history of Warren Buffetts life, the main concepts behind focus investing and lastly, qualities of Warren Buffett that have made him such an endearing gure in the world of business. History Warren Buffett was born in Omaha to Howard Buffett, a local stockbroker. Having a good acumen for mathematics, he began reading his fathers books on the stock market at the early age of 8. In his adolescent and teenage years, he had a string of entrepreneurial successes. Buffett attended the business school at the University of Nebraska and went on to Columbia Business School where his investment philosophy was largely shaped under the tutelage of noted security analysts Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. Buffett worked at Buffett-Falk Co. and Graham-Newman Corp. as an investment salesman before starting his own rm, Buffett Partnership Ltd. In 1969, he discontinued the partnership and went on to buy Berkshire Hathaway. He has been its chairman ever since. The interesting part is of course, how did he become so efng rich? Buffett has some basic tenets when it comes to investing. Broadly, they can be stated as: considering stocks as businesses, managing a focused, low-turnover portfolio and nally, understanding the vital difference between investment and speculation. These are also the tenets of Focus Investing. Considering Stocks as Businesses When one treats a stock as a business, ones approach to the markets is of a businessman more than an investor. When Buffett invests in a business, he looks at all aspects of the business i.e. how the business functions, the kind of attitude the upper management has and whether the business has enough scope to expand reasonably in the long term. Judging a business solely on the basis of its market price is something that Buffett believes to be very shallow, and fraught with danger. Managing a focused, low-turnover portfolio Buffett believes that when you hold a small number of stocks which have gone through the process of scrutiny mentioned above, you are likely to make a greater return on investment than when you hold a large number of stocks. Holding a small number of stocks can be risky, but if proper research has gone into the selection of these stocks, Buffett maintains, the risk of loss is very low. Understanding the difference between Investment and Speculation Buffett recognizes investment as an aid to ideas that will eventually create value in society. This can be contrasted with mere speculation, which is undertaken to make short term prots from the price swings in the market. Understandably, Buffett holds the stocks in his portfolio for long durations like 15-20 years and does not believe in short term buying and selling. Examples of Buffetts Success Though Buffett consistently gave returns that beat the Dow Jones Industrial Average by more than 10 points, some of his investments deserve a special mention. These are given below: 1) GEICO The Government Employees Insurance Company was a rm with simple concepts that worked give insurance to people with good track records and sell directly without intermediate agents. GEICO, however, was on the verge of bankruptcy in the 70s. Buffett, seeing that the original business fundamentals were strong and the price on offer was remarkably low, invested an amount of 45.7 million dollars to gain a 48% stake in it. Subsequently, GEICO gave impressive results, leading to Buffett buying out GEICO and making it a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary. 2) General Re This was a company dealing in reinsurance. A reinsurance company insures other insurance companies for a premium and takes on some part of the insurance rms risk. In 1998, General Re had a majority of its capital in bonds (nearly $19 billion). Buffett bought out General Re using Berkshire Hathaway stock. This allowed Berkshire Hathaway to sidestep much of the price volatility that came about in late 1998. Another important management decision taken by Buffett was the elimination of the companys investment unit that consisted of 150 people. This was replaced by one man Buffett himself! 3) Coca Cola Buffetts signicant investment in The Coca Cola Company came around 1988. As a business, Coca Cola had strong fundamentals its chemical composition has remained unchanged over the last century and yet there is tremendous growth in demand. By Buffetts estimates, even a conservative estimate wouldve yielded a 25% margin. By 1999, Buffetts investment in Coca Cola of $1.023 billion was worth $11.6 billion. Apart from these, Warren Buffett added a number of enterprises to Berkshire Hathaway including Sees Candy shops, Nebraska Furniture Mart, Borsheims, The Scott and Fetzer Company and Executive Jet Aviation. All these purchases went through a good deal of scrutiny and were carried out only because Buffett had strong belief in the vision of the owners of these businesses and saw strong valuecreation potential in the future. The obvious question that comes to mind is: If that is all there is, why do most investors not follow Buffetts strategy? There are a number of reasons that Buffett comes up with, the biggest one being that people make irrational decisions all the time. Buffett has been a prominent advocate against the Efcient Market Hypothesis, which states, in very simplistic terms, that no one can perform better than the market in the long run and that the prices in the market represent the complete information required by an investor to make investing decisions. In his famous lecture The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville, Buffett mentions 9 different people who have used the fundamental tenet of realising value in business and weighing it against the price offered to make investment decisions that have consistently outperformed the stock market. Also, corporate structure is such that there is considerable pressure to show short-term prots, even if they turn out to be sub-optimal in the long run.

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Despite being one of the richest men in the world for a long time, Buffett leads a remarkably simple and frugal life. He still lives in the house he bought in 1958, and does not keep a cell phone or a desk computer. He has also pledged to donate 85 % of his fortune to various charities, including a major part to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In this sense, he embodies the belief that money is only as useful as the value it creates. His investing decisions continue to bring handsome prots to his companys shareholders and his attitude towards life has inspired millions of people. In a way, it would not be completely wrong to say that Warren Buffett is a modern day yogi.

References: 1. The Essential Buffett Robert G.Hagstrom, John Wiley and Sons,2001. 2. The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville Hermes, the Columbia School of Business Magazine. 3. Warren Buffett Wikipedia. 4. Warren Buffett: Investment Genius or Statistical Anomaly - John Price, Edward Kelly,2004. 5. Various other internet resources, mostly online articles have been referred.

Sharat Nambissan K.P. Is a 4th year student of B.E. (Computer Engineering) at NSIT.

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