Indian graduate school as good as American's best

Singaporeans not good enough: Temasek offered 110k – 130k USD per annum to fresh Indian IIM-B graduates All 270 students from the 2010 batch of the post-graduate programme (PGP) of the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) have been placed in just five days since the opening of the process. IIM-B also claims to have completed the final placements ahead of all other IIMs.As many as 120 reputable firms from and outside the country – from both the traditional and emerging sectors like healthcare and energy – visited the institute during the placement period.Fifteen new companies took part in the placements this year, recording a 41 per cent increase from last year.Prominent among the new entrants were: AT Kearney, Alvarez & Marsal, Bain & Co, Booz & Co, Diamond Consulting, Nomura and Temasek Holdings.Nomura is reported to have made the highest offer of Rs80 lakh per annum for the role of vice president finance in an international location. Temasek Holdings offered Rs50-60 lakh per annum. The students have accepted as many as 15 international offers from companies including Nomura, Temasek, P&G, Enzen, Arvin Meritor and UAE Exchange. About 45 women in the batch accepted offers in sectors, like investment banking, consulting and PE. In the lateral placements held for students with two years of work experience, 30 companies made recruitments. A total of 66 offers were received by the students in lateral placement as compared to 50 offers last year. The above article was copied from Transitioning.org. I am pleasantly surprised to see an Asian graduate school commanding such high respect from around the world. Good for India. Singaporean post grad students should enrol in the school instead of American Univ or our local Univ. Then they can be courted and be paid better salaries than our local post grads. I just hope it is not another case of unthinking blind followers following the crowd like queueing for MacDonald toys.

Meet Yotaro, the hottest baby in town

Yotaro has blue eyes, cute cheeks, cuddly, can smile, cry, throw tantrums, everything a baby can do. It is going to be the latest craze and will be selling like hot cakes. The Japanese has developed this Robobaby to train parents in parenting and how to take care of babies. The best part about this toy is that it can be switched off when the owners got tired of it. This is the greatest advantage over a real baby. And it will never grow up and does not have the problems, sickness and troubles that real babies will bring. I think this product will be a must have, just like internet baby craze where two young parents neglected their own baby to feed and look after an internet baby. Move aside, real babies. You are not needed nor wanted any more. What is this world turning into? Real babies nobody wants. Instead they will buy cute Robobabies, toys, dogs and pets as subsitutes to be showered with love and tender loving care.

To talk or not to talk

Following the revelation of Pastor Rony Tan in his Youtube testimony I posted this thread in redbeanforum.com and mysingaporenews. A hearty discussion followed but subsequently stopped when the defenders of Rony heeded his call and disengaged. The sensitive issue of race and religion was raised by Vivian Balakrishnan in Parliament and the question is always about drawing the line to prevent any discussion from getting overheated. Two articles in the ST Editorial today continued with this debate calling for more public discussion instead of just leaving everything to the religious council to deal with behind closed doors. Could the public handle such discussion sensibly and rationally? Did we? There was some heat as many were emotionally and spiritually attached and empowered to defend their positions against those who would also have very strong feelings about the subject. I think we had done well to keep the discussion under control. Maybe if Rony had not restrained his followers, things may get more heady. This brings us back to the same question, are we mature enough, sensible enough, to talk about such issues publicly? Or we should pretend that there is no problem or just sweep the problems under the carpet and forever live in blind ignorance, or never grow up? This is the 21st Century of enlightenment or are we still in the Dark Ages?

Faces of Chingay 2010

These are a few of the photos I took with my friends at the Chingay 2010.

Day of reckoning

In 50 years or 30 years time, if you are still alive, many Singaporeans will start to cry. Because in that time frame, many of the HDB properties will have less than 50 years of lease left. And some may have lesser. And the million dollar properties will not be worth a million anymore, and may not even be worth half of it. That is the reality when the day of reckoning comes. There is no running away from it. Today, many are trying to make hay while the sun shines. Profit can be made by short term flipping. In the long term, the HDB properties are going to worth nothing. Yes, $0! Don’t be mad to plough in your millions. At $500k, with interest of 30 years, it is going to cost $1m for nothing at the end of the story. And this applies to all 99 year leasehold properties. The $1m condo is going to cost $2m and will come to nothing too. It cannot keep going up. It must come down to ground zero! Only freehold or 999 years properties will retain their values.