Economic Times - June 27, 2007
What sets Corporate India apart from its western counterparts is to do with their differing responses to chance. We will experience such differences more intensely as India gets further globalised. It isn’t fashionable to say so in these days of globalisation, but my last few encounters with global corporate America have been tough. The difference in cultural wiring is becoming obvious by the day and cope strategies that enable me to be myself, and not a poor imitation of them, must be devised. Of course, there is no difference on all the big stuff like how to calculate ROCE and what the best practices of corporate governance are. But it’s the small stuff that tends to stress one out. Like, for instance, the repeated requests to rehearse a presentation from the podium at the venue of the big meeting, even after we have agreed on the content, the format, the […]
Read on
The Mint Newspaper - June 2, 2007
Why every working woman should give pleated power dressing a shot The other day, I was reading an article in the British press, where the author said she was very surprised that some young women in Britain said that they actually wanted to wear the hijab. It occurred to me that people must be equally surprised when young women in India say that they want to wear a sari. Who in their right mind would want to be bundled into 18ft of fabric(Yes, that is the standard sari length). Surely, it is one more form of cultural gender oppression? I can understand women of my age, cohort and background wearing saris, because when I started working, there was no question of wearing anything else. It was just NOT DONE. But what about those who are now in a global India, free of such unwritten rules? Yes, I can see more […]
Read on
The Economic Times - May 28, 2007
The poor do not have the mind space to be concerned with how much the ‘haves’ have, or how they spend it; they are totally occupied with whether their own quality of life and amenities are improving or not, says Rama Bijapurkar. The newspapers have commented sharply on the prime minister’s CII speech urging a ceiling on exorbitant corporate salaries and curbing of conspicuous consumption. He says that the ‘haves’ showing that they have too much will upset the have-nots and sow the seeds of resentment in them, and ignite social tension. While his motives for saying so are beyond question, because he is an honorable man and an intellectual worthy of the utmost respect, he does seem to be totally out of sync with how the very constituency that he seeks to speak on behalf of, is thinking. Over the past five years, ever since the India story started […]
Read on
Business World - March 19, 2007
I recently heard a point of view from a society watcher on Indian women that had me scrambling for my research boots. Had I got it wrong? Had the women’s liberation and empowerment revolution happened in the few moments when I was not paying attention? The point of view was that the mainstream urban Indian women never had it so good before. She has truly become the all powerful ghar ki rani, a long way from her naukrani status of not so long ago, and has a career to boot. Apparently, thanks to burgeoning economic independence, she is now ‘confident’ and ‘discerning’ and ‘demanding’, and her backward sisters who aren’t quite there yet find her very ‘aspirational’ and want to emulate her. All of these words, of course, are the marketing folk’s mumbo jumbo for justifying the kind of women that look great in advertising. Who wants a beleaguered wife […]
Read on
The Economic Times - March 8, 2007
The new buzz in the conference circuit is the arithmetic argument that there could be a big GDP boost if more Indian women became economically active (77% of urban housewives, 60% of rural do not work outside the home). To me, a more compelling pay off of women earning is the resultant increase in their self esteem and negotiating power with family and society and the resultant social and human development benefits. More importantly, if we could get the poor and the ill educated women to earn their own money, we would have more warriors in the fight against poverty, and more champions of the girl child. The only problem, as always in India, is HOW do we make this happen? Conventional job creation will not happen as fast as we need it to, and poor and less educated women will find it increasingly tough to have a shot at […]
Read on
