India’s showpiece six Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are very much in the news these days for all the wrong reasons. Union HRD minister Arjun Singh is hell-bent upon ensuring that 27 percent of the annual intake of each IIM is reserved for OBC (other backward classes/castes) from this academic year starting July, and his ministry has been badgering the Supreme Court whose learned justices entertain some doubts about the intent behind ministerial enthusiasm, about exactly who are OBCs, and why ‘creamy layer’ OBCs (forward among backwards) should be given preferential access into the much prized IIMs. Yet in all this excitement which is fodder for the sensation-hungry media, one tiny inconvenient detail has been overlooked — the heavily subsidised tuition fees that the lucky few (less than 1,500 in all IIMs put together) will pay after their admission into these privileged enclaves. Although some IIMs have belatedly raised their annual tuition-cum-residence fees from the previous Rs.2 lakh to Rs.2.50-2.75 lakh this year, business management education is provided to the fortunate few who top the annual CAT entrance exam at way below actual cost, which ranges between Rs.4-4.5 lakh per student per annum. According to information provided by the placement cells of IIMs, the average annual remuneration package of IIM graduates in 2007 increased by 30-46 percent over last year, ranging between Rs.12-20 lakh per annum. Some IIM-Ahmedabad graduates were signed up for Rs.60 lakh-Rs.1 crore and some snapped up by foreign corporates take home even fatter pay packets. Natural justice and equity demand that subsidisation of IIM students is ended forthwith. Instead student loans should be easily available to all IIM students with the obligation to pay back the full cost of their privileged education. It should be borne in mind that students admitted into the private sector Indian School of Business, Hyderabad uncomplainingly pay Rs.13.5 lakh per year as tuition-cum-residential fee. Why shouldn’t students admitted into the IIMs likewise pay the full cost of their B-school education? The answer my friend, is blowin’ in the wind. Capitalism gone haywire Does Indian capitalism have a death wish? Objective assessment of evidence available in abundance seems to indicate as much. Less than two decades after Indian industry was set free from the chains of Soviet-style licence-permit-quota regimen by the historic liberalisation and deregulation Union budget of July 1991, captains and leaders of liberated corporate India seem hell-bent upon giving liberalisation a bad name by indulging in an orgy of conspicuous consumption. Virtually every super-luxury product and brand from countries around the world is being heavily advertised — and presumably purchased — in markets countrywide. This burst of indignation about capitalism gone haywire is prompted by news that ITC Hotels is all set to launch a Luxury Collection of hotels in India in collaboration with the US-based Starwood Hotels & Resorts. One wonders why corporate strategists in a poor but proud country need to bow and scrape to satisfy every whim and fancy of foreign visitors? By all global standards ITC hotels are already…
