C.K.PRAHALAD

Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad, Padma Bushan, (August 8, 1941 – April 16, 2010)^[1] was a globally known figure who was consulted by the top management of many of the world's foremost companies. His research specialized in corporate strategy and the role of top management in large, diversified, multinational corporations. C.K. Prahalad is famous as the father of the concepts of " core competency" and "the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid".

Early life in India

Prahalad was one of nine children born in 1941 in Coimbatore,Tamil nadu. His father was a well-known sanskrit scholar and judge in chennai. At 19, he joined Union Carbide, he was recruited by the manager of the local Union Carbide battery plant after completing his B.Sc degree in Physics from Loyola college,Chennai , part of the University of Madras. He worked there for four years. Prahalad called his Union Carbide experience a major inflection point in his life. Four years later, he did his post graduate work in management at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. He met his wife, Gayatri during this time; they married five years later, and subsequently had two children.

Doctorate studies at Harvard

At Harvard Business School, Prahalad wrote a doctoral thesis on multinational management in just two and a half years, graduating with a D.B.A. degree in 1975.

Teacher and professor

After graduating from Harvard, Prahalad returned to India. He taught at his alma-mater the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, but soon returned to the United States. He was appointed to position of the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor of Corporate Strategy at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business in the University of Michigan.

On April 16, 2010, Prahalad died of a previously undiagnosed lung illness in San Diego.

Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell (born September 3, 1963) is a British-born Canadian journalist, author, and pop sociologist, based in New York city . He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. He is best known as the author of the books The Tipping Point (2000), Blink (2005), and Outliers (2008). professor at the University of Waterloo; his mother, Joyce, is a Jamaican-born psychotherapist. Gladwell has said that his mother, who published a book titled Brown Face, Big Master in 1969, is his role model as a writer.Though born in the United Kingdom, Gladwell was raised in Elmira ,Ontario, Canada and graduated with a degree in history from the University of Toronto's Trinity College in 1984. During his high school years, Gladwell was an outstanding middle distance runner and won the 1500m Midget Boys title at the 1978 Ontario High School championships in Kingston, Ontario, in a duel with eventual Canadian Open record holder David Reid.
Courtesy:Wikipedia

NANDAN NILAKENI-THE GREAT ENTREPRENEUR

Nandan Nilekani is the second-youngest son of Durga and Mohan Rao Nilekani.He was born in Sirsi a small town in Karnataka, he did his graduation in IIT Bombay .
In 1978, Nilekani joined Patni Computer Systems where his colleague was N. R. Narayana Murthy. Three years later in 1981, Nilekani and six other enthusiasts, led by Murthy, decided to start their own company, InfoSys (later renamed Infosys).
Nilekani became the CEO of Infosys in March 2002, taking over from Murthy. Nilekani served as CEO and MD of the company from March 2002 to April 2007, when he relinquished his position to his colleague Kris Gopalakrishnan, becoming Co-Chairman. Nilekani has an estimated net worth of US$1.3billion.

In 2004, Nilekani was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest Indian civilian decoration. In January 2006, he became one of the youngest entrepreneurs to join 20 global leaders on the World Economic Forum (WEF) Foundation Board.

Nilekani was named one of "Asia's Power 25 – The Most Powerful People in Business in Asia" by Fortune magazine, 2004. He was regarded by TIME magazine as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World" in May 2006, and by Forbes Asia as "Business Leader of the Year" 2006.
Nilekani is a co-founder of India's National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM). He is also the chairperson of the Bangalore Agenda Task Forc (BATF). His book,

Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century
In this book, Nandan discusses on topics such as the future of India,its recent history,the ideas and attitudes that evolved with the times and contributed to the country’s progress,India’s early socialist policies,its young population,Information Technology, caste politics, labour reform, infrastructure, higher education, the English language in India among others.

PROFESSOR RAGHURAM RAJAN NAMED PM's ECONOMIC ADVISOR

Raghuram Rajan, professor of economics at the University of Chicago, was on Monday named honorary economic advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Rajan, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will hold the rank of secretary, Government of India. He was earlier the chairman of a high-powered committee the Prime Minister set up on financial reforms, that was tasked to frame a series of recommendations to make India a financial powerhouse over the next five years. Rajan secured a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1991 after a master's in business administration from the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad and a bachellor's degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. He was also a visiting professor of finance at the Kellogg School, Northwestern University, and Fischer Black visiting professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management.
Courtesy:ET

The White Tiger wins the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

The thirty-three year old novelist was presented the prize at an awards ceremony at Guildhall, London. Adiga becomes the fourth debut novelist, and the second Indian debut novelist, to win the award in the forty year history of the prize. The three other debut novelists to have won the prize are Keri Hulme for her novel The Bone People in 1985, DBC Pierre in 2003 for his novel Vernon God Little and Arundhati Roy in 1997 for The God of Small Things.

GLOBAL SLOWDOWN IMPACT ON B-SCHOOLS PLACEMENTS

Business schools anticipate a reduction in recruitment this coming placement season.Students especially in tier 2 and 3 B-schools campuses ,are likely to witness far fewer companies seeking them out,primarily as a fallout of the turmoil in the US markets that brings with it layoffs and a freeze in recruitments.
With supply of fresh MBAs far exceeding the demand ,recruiters are likely to eye only in the top rung institutes .HR personel believe there will a 50 per cent decline in the number ofcompanies.
Courtesy : Business Line .

INFLATION FALLS TO 11.99 %

After staying over 12% for 12 weeks, inflation for the week ended September 20 moved down to 11.99%, following a drop in prices of primary articles. In the week before, the year-on-year inflation was 15 basis points higher at 12.14%.While the wholesale price index (WPI)-based inflation has moved below the 12% mark, it still remains way above 3.5% for the corresponding week last year. Inflation has touched a high of 12.64% on August 9.