Can Government regulation eliminate the plastic bag troubles

There has been a significant increase in the usage of plastic bags over the last 10 to 15 years. While most of us are aware about the future problems associated with usage of plastic bags, we don't care much to do something about it. Couple of days back I found a very interesting news in TOI - Tax deterrent makes Irish spurn plastic bags (NYT article). It talks about the 33 percent tax that customers will have to pay and how this reduced the usage by 94%.

I don't know if I would be correct in saying that while free market is supposed to take everything into consideration, most of us who make up the market don't account long-term effects into our behavior. This could be due to lack of knowledge and information,sometimes due to "out of sight, out of mind" syndrome and mostly beacuse we are not paying full price.

I hope Indian Government also implement such measure to reduce plastic bag usage. It will cause some trouble initially but would definitely benefit everyone in the long run.

A pilot implementation to start with would be a good idea; based on the results a nation-wide launch can be done.

Meanwhile placement week is nearing and there is a definite change in the weather and environment. Application counters are ringing continuously things are getting warmed up. I'm expecting to see a war-like situation but the soldiers would be donning formal clothing instead of steel armor here.

The recent ranking has definitely got lots of attention, particularly from those who are planning to do their MBA in 2009 and I'm sure the competition would be much more this time. Fortunately the batch size for Class of 2009 would be larger and that should take care of any additional competition from foreign students.

ISB makes it to the Top 20 - FT Global MBA Rankings

It's official and it's global - ISB is ranked 20 in the FT Global MBA Rankings.

ISB has been creating buzz since it started but people tried to brush it off as just hype. But as time went by ISB grads proved themselves and more and more companies came back to the school for campus placements. ISB has carefully and successfully rode the positive spiral of better placements-better admissions-best placements by backing it up with maintaining and improving everything in the school. ISB students proved themselves by reaching the top slots in every B-school competition they participated.

Participating in a B-school ranking survey that too FT's, I thought was a careful gamble ISB has taken. It would've been easy to stay happy in the special attention it has been getting from the media and recruiters but by participating in the rankings they have decided to send a strong signal.There were concerns about what would be the reaction if the rank is not in the top 100 but I think the ISB management believed completely in what they created. This was the best way to communicate their belief. This achievement also brings along with it lots of exposure and expectations.

I believe that if ISB continues its efforts to become stronger in areas other than placements, it can break into the Top within next two years. Congratulations everyone.

Check out the buzz on campus