Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Bakul Dholakia steps down from IIM-A directorship


Which HRD minister was worse — [Murli Manohar] Joshi [of BJP/NDA] or Arjun Singh [of Congress/UPA]?

(Grins sheepishly) All good questions need not be answered.

That's from the DNA interview with Bakul Dholakia who has just stepped down after completing five years as the director of IIM-A. Here are two reports, and another interview.

In the DNA interview, here's how he saw his tenure at IIM-A:

Availability of faculty is one of the main concerns. During 2001-2002 a whopping 50 faculty members had resigned from the institute for corporate careers. During my tenure of five years, only three left for better opportunities in corporate sector.

I realised that as an academic institution we were not on a level playing field to retain the kind of talent we required. We liberalised consulting norms and fee sharing with the institute for faculty members.

Norms were further eased for publication of international papers, which requires extensive research but pays equally well. We are recruiting faculty at the rate of seven to eight per year.

If this rate can be sustained, I do not anticipate too many problems.

In the ToI report, there's this totally silly stuff:

Bakul Dholakia, who steps down as director of IIM-Ahmedabad on Tuesday after a stormy term taking on successive governments, plans to pen his memoirs. And those are bad signs for those who crossed his path. And, when Dholakia — who’s crossed swords with heavyweights like Murli Manohar Joshi and Arjun Singh and come out unscathed — says it’s going to be a "tell-all," it’s time to fasten seat belts.

"If you are going to write your memoirs, you have to be candid," Dholakia told TOI.

To see the silliness behind this bombast -- and to see Dholakia's political savviness -- go back to the beginning of this post.

0 Comments: