Should the IIM's go abroad ????

It was reported that IIM-B had obtained permission from the Singapore Authorities to establish an IIM campus in Singapore. The HRD ministry refused permission saying that the IIM's should first expand the number of seats in India. Is that a valid argument ?

The reality is that these two issues have to be considered separate from one another. If IIM-B sets up a campus in Singapore, it will not be at the cost of another one in India. IIM is already a global brand. By setting up a campus in Singapore, "IIM" will become a even bigger brand. It will benefit all IIM students, past, present and future.

Having said that, it is certainly true that the IIM's urgently need to increase the number of students that they admit into their courses. India will need more MBA graduates in the years to come. India will also need more Engineers, Doctors, Lawyers, Charter Accountants.

As a country, we urgently need to reform the Education Sector. Primary education has to be improved if the goal of 100% literacy has to be achieved.

The real cost of Gold

One ounce gold is currently worth $505. In Indian rupees one "tola" or ten grams of gold will cost you Rs 7485. But have you ever thought about the environmental cost of gold?

Consider a ring. For that one ounce of gold, miners dig up and haul away 30 tons of rock and sprinkle it with diluted cyanide, which separates the gold from the rock. Before they are through, miners at some of the largest mines move a half million tons of earth a day, pile it in mounds that can rival the Great Pyramids, and drizzle the ore with the poisonous solution for years.

The world's biggest mining company, Australia-based BHP Billiton, destroyed more than 2,400 acres of rainforest in Papua New Guinea .

Freeport, a mining company has generated six billion tons of waste in Papua, Indonesia. Much of that waste has already been dumped in the mountains surrounding the mine or down a system of rivers near a pristine rain forest that has been granted special status by the United Nations.

So the next time you buy a gold ornament think very, very carefully.
Does it cost too much ???