Akbar is our strategy professor, not the mughal emperor. Do you know how strategy cases work? We study a case; discuss it in the class while he acts a facilitator and then discloses what actually happened later. Tell you what; what happened later will be exactly what we had predicted. Oh boy, are we budding Nostradamuses!
Just the other day, Spanish reporters quoted a Nostradamus prediction that Spain will win the world cup. Alas, they were kicked out of the tournament (This is my best pun yet!!!!) the same day by zidane and his men. So Spaniards brought a heapful of embarrassment not only for themselves but for the otherwise successful prophet as well.
So what’s the connection? The reason why we get our predictions right and Nostradamus his is because we know the outcome. Nostradamus cannot predict things which haven’t happened already. Ably led by Akbar, we would always zero in on the right alternative although other two looks equally good on case-sheet.
That brings me to the question. How did Nostradamus predict a lot of things that did happen already? I could think of only one answer. He simply wrote too much. And more importantly, he was cryptic. So it’s easier to retroactively re-engineer his prophecies. (Beat that for jargon!)
May be I’m a pessimist. May be this is the best way of teaching. Or, perhaps we should discuss a case whose outcome is not known presently and see what happens after a few months. Would that be more interesting?
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Who cares about bacteria anyway?
Just the other day, BBC showed an expose of the counterfeit drugs in India and its operations. India is the world’s fourth largest pharmaceutical industry and the leads the counterfeit market. The footage shows interviews by two such manufacturers on how they work, bribe and network. (Tehelka could use a better video for secret filming. The BBC footage would’ve passed off as a normal interview but for the status message at the bottom).
One manufacturer even shows his unit and 40 qualified technicians skillfully preparing the potions. They are as good as the best in the industry, he avers(Which industry?). Other manufacturer, a woman, says she can prepare any combination and deliver it anywhere- Professional service guaranteed!
It’s unfortunate and disheartening that (at the risk of sounding immodest) a supposedly well informed urban educated ‘elite’ like myself have little clue of how big a problem it really is. (What does an elite do anyway other than blog it and discuss it endlessly?) Tuberculosis kills more Indians every year than any other infectious disease known. Why? The counterfeit drug with half to quarter the content of active ingredients in a genuine tablet (it translates to 200-400% increase in margins for manufacturers) increases the resistance of the pathogen stains for real drugs. In some cases, the active ingredients are substituted with paracetamol for cost cutting (aren’t we good at this?) One cannot but feel outraged that the woman says all this with such impunity.
The law awards death sentence for counterfeit manufacturers, but not one manufacturer has been caught so far. Perhaps it’s because of the difficulty to treat them at par with mass murderers (which they are), the system is happy to accept the bribes and leave them off the hook.
One would imagine exposes and the TRP it brings would make it a commercially viable option, if not a media’s responsibility to the society’s well being. But it’s bewildering that exposes are practically absent. Indian media gives more airtime to AIIMs and IITs strike against reservation or Finance Minister’s rhetoric to sooth the market (Is there any other country whose FM worries about stock market more than wasteful spending on education?). Which suits us fine- bright young students hitting the streets against the government looks better on TV than some unknown manufacturers increasing the resistance of pathogens and responsible for the deaths of poor sick patients in some corner of the country.
Who cares about bacteria anyway?
One manufacturer even shows his unit and 40 qualified technicians skillfully preparing the potions. They are as good as the best in the industry, he avers(Which industry?). Other manufacturer, a woman, says she can prepare any combination and deliver it anywhere- Professional service guaranteed!
It’s unfortunate and disheartening that (at the risk of sounding immodest) a supposedly well informed urban educated ‘elite’ like myself have little clue of how big a problem it really is. (What does an elite do anyway other than blog it and discuss it endlessly?) Tuberculosis kills more Indians every year than any other infectious disease known. Why? The counterfeit drug with half to quarter the content of active ingredients in a genuine tablet (it translates to 200-400% increase in margins for manufacturers) increases the resistance of the pathogen stains for real drugs. In some cases, the active ingredients are substituted with paracetamol for cost cutting (aren’t we good at this?) One cannot but feel outraged that the woman says all this with such impunity.
The law awards death sentence for counterfeit manufacturers, but not one manufacturer has been caught so far. Perhaps it’s because of the difficulty to treat them at par with mass murderers (which they are), the system is happy to accept the bribes and leave them off the hook.
One would imagine exposes and the TRP it brings would make it a commercially viable option, if not a media’s responsibility to the society’s well being. But it’s bewildering that exposes are practically absent. Indian media gives more airtime to AIIMs and IITs strike against reservation or Finance Minister’s rhetoric to sooth the market (Is there any other country whose FM worries about stock market more than wasteful spending on education?). Which suits us fine- bright young students hitting the streets against the government looks better on TV than some unknown manufacturers increasing the resistance of pathogens and responsible for the deaths of poor sick patients in some corner of the country.
Who cares about bacteria anyway?
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