Report Card - The year of BLOSSOMING

Just like every year i shall be putting up a report card out for everyone to see. Like every year (for the past 5 years) this year had a theme - it was the year of BLOSSOMING. At the start of the year i expected to complete my Doctoral Studies, get married and start my professional life as a management teacher and researcher. The expectations were definitely not modest but were loaded with many events of the past few and many years.

The PhD got over and i graduated in March. see here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=221357&id=723865049. The happy go lucky soul was ready to start searching for happiness in the real world moving out of the cocooned environment of being a student. I was trying to be a little experimental. The PhD Left me feeling satisfied as i have mentioned in the opening blog for the year with the appreciation i received in Australia followed by Indore , Lucknow and back again at Ahmedabad. So some dissemination has happened and lots more is waiting to happen and focus must be on that in the first half of the coming year.

I also got married this year. see here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=247130&id=723865049. Finally me and Mridul are one family. She has brought a lot of luck and focus to life and it has been giving rich dividends so far. Marriage starts with benefits of so much more love from new relatives and friends.. it also makes your old relatives look at you in new light and shower more love, especially if you have been a little rebel younger kid in the family. Marriage also delivers at times, like it did for me, benefits of home cooked food, a loving wife to look forward to when u leave office and more goodies like hot tea and snacks served to you with a round up for the day.. and no office gossip !!!

I also started my new job . see here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=222840&id=723865049. I joined the Economics Area of IIM Indore and found myself in between a group of lovely people. We were able to expand the area from 3 to 6 people ,i,e, double the strength this year. We also launched some 3-4 new electives from the area in this year. We hopefully continue to be one of the highest rated areas in the institutes.

Professionally at IIM Indore i had a rewarding stay. I launched a new elective called the "Economics of Rural-Urban divide"(ERUD) that was well received by a bunch of very enthusiastic students who show a lot of promise of doing new and different things in the near future. I was also able to complete teaching in almost all programs of the institute - the MBA (PGP as we call it) first year, second year, The Doctoral Programme (FPM) and the one year Executive programme (EPGP) as well. I was also able to revise and rehash the "History of Management Thoughts" course for the doctoral students. The end of the year was exciting as i collaborated with other faculty to launch a new stream called the "Role of New Media in Management" which aims to look at communications , IT and Strategy aspects of new media and take it one notch higher to Management levels. ERUD looks at Rural and Urban areas with a theortical base , URP or Unlocking Rural Potential took a look at the same with a practical in-situ approach and saw the students visit DRI in chitrakoot ( http://www.chitrakoot.org). What could not be done was the development of UCRM or Understanding Culture for Rural Management and a connectivity conference fro the PURA work. We did a one day workshop on PURA in June (http://www.iimidr.ac.in/iimi/pages/posts/working-conference-on-pura-conceptualization-impact-assessment-and-implementation-issues162.php?p=10) which was graced by none less than Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam and Shri Arvind Mayaram of GOI. A research Proposal on Wastewater irrigation has firmed up and one case is set for publication while one more is in the pipeline. There was one paper at an international conference too http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/agsaare10/58885.htm

The year was marked with a short visits to Australia and Portugal overseas and to the rural areas of Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. There was a fair bit of travelling and obviously with travelling comes learning. So there was a lot of learning this year too.

So the year did see a lot of blossoming and a lot of other things that i keep doing either kept on in reduced measure or were put on the backburner for a while...sure to return in the future..

The not so good patches of the year were - not enough time with parents and family .. not able to visit Dubai ...

And as we must move one.. we must enter the new year .. a new year.. a happy new year :) that leaves us happier and healthier.