Education, Business and Blogs

This week as I was browsing the blogsphere, I realized that a revolution of sorts was happening amongst the Indian bloggers. The issue in question was that of the nature and authenticity of the claims made by IIPM, whose flag bearer Arindam Choudhari is often listed amongst the top Indian management gurus.

Jammag, a little known publication tried to delve into the high claims made by the IIPM ads, and came out with an unflattering article regarding the veracity of these claims. Another blogger Gaurav Sabnis links to this article and expresses his own views . IIPM serves legal notice to Sabnis, which to me sounded more like the eternal Bollywood riff-raff "agar tumne hamara kaam nahin kiya to …". The issue heats up in the blogsphere with some apparently disillusioned souls coming out strongly in support of IIPM, by personally attacking Rashmi Bansal (the author of the Jammag article) and Gaurav. To have some fun type IIPM in Blogger search and follow the links.

The whole issue can at extremes be stated as a new direction of social movement by responsible people or a cheap smear campaign to generate some thrills in normally placid arena. Truth however is the fact that, IIPM over the last few years has invested heavily in advertising, especially in newspapers. Arindam Choudhuri has written best-selling (and in my opinion crap) books and has even directed a movie. On the face of such heavy media bombardment it is perfectly normal for an individual or an organization to look into the truthfullness of the tall claims. And that is exactly what has happened and IIPM has not come out of it looking too good. And like a truant child who has been discovered of his misdemeanors, it is creating a ruckus.