The long and short of it
While reading the blogs on the IIPM – JAM controversy, the name of Arindam Choudhuri, the dean of IIPM, would constantly come up.
I knew I had heard this name before and just now it dawned on me that he is the guy behind the disaster Hindi flick, Rok Sake To Rok Lo, starring Sunny Deol. The movie’s written, produced and directed by Choudhuri. I remember when before the movie’s pre release publicity, Choudhuri was hailed in the press as a management guru who was stepping into the entertainment industry. Visiting Choudhuri’s site now confirms his association with the movie. Check the footnote on his homepage. Also if you remember something called “Planman†in a few movies you’ve watched, it belongs to Choudhuri too.
Who is right and who is wrong in this “I said, You said†event, that only time will tell or may not. Everyone’s going by what everyone’s saying. But if IIPM’s people did visit Rashmi Bansal’s office and threaten her and later used blogs and online comments to assault her, then it was a huge mistake they made. The Sabnis incident, again if true, is another nail in IIPM’s reputation.
What is boggling is how could someone who claims to be a management guru forget the impact of such actions? Surely he and the associates involved in this controversy, who are inviting people to attend management schools, management seminars etc. must have planned and developed a strategy to tackle the situation created by JAM’s exposure on IIPM and this article.
Didn’t anyone at IIPM realize that attacking JAM would do nothing but give more free publicity to the magazine and on the other hand create widespread reputation of ill repute towards themselves. How foolish can it get? You don’t need to be a management guru to realize the impact of the crash you are heading for. This whole deal is blowing up and away right in IIPM’s face.
JAM in the article does mention, they contacted Choudhuri to tell his side of the story, which I presume would then have been included in the original article. So if JAM covered all the ethical bases by asking the other party (Choudhuri) for his side of the story before going to press, there doesn’t seem to be any errors on their part. Choudhuri’s biggest chance to nip the controversy in the bud was at that time, but now he’s made a mess of it. Ofcourse the fact remains that IIPM made false claims to promote their institutes and that should be severely punished for they ended up messing with careers and lives of students who enrolled in their universities.
But will IIPM be forced to shut down? Will its involved executives be taken to task? Will that start a chain reaction to clamp down on other private institutes who make similar tall claims to fool parents and their children? Or will a year from now, IIPM will still be making similar claims with an overbooked register for admissions? Your guess is as good as mine….
September 20th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
[...] For those who came in late, the man in the picture was at the epicenter of the great Blogger-IIPM’s bosses war last year. Articles about what happened are here, here and here. [...]