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Contributors Dr Suresh Srinivasan, Soumen Dutta, Sujit Kumar
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” This was the belief that the great J.R.R. Tolkien had, and while it may appear somewhat morbid, it certainly isn’t so. Let me clarify. I’m sure you’ve come across people who complain a bit more than others, who keep parroting the same line over and over, “Why did this have to happen to me?” This thoughtmay have occurred to all of us at one point or another. Why did I get that particulartest window? Why did my test have more questions from Quant when Verbal is my strength? Why did someone get a higher percentile than me when my academic performance has been better? I think you get the drift. What Tolkien meant was that there is no point in complaining and wallowing in self pity. What we can do is to put in our best effort, push that extra mile, stretch that tiny bit further. That is all we have to decide to do with our life, with our time, the time that is given us. Now that you’re just over a couple of months away from the CAT, steer your mind consciously away from the negative thoughts, and focus on pushing yourself that little bit more. The rewards, I assure you, will follow. This month’s issue of Advanc’edge MBA focuses on two important things. The first is to find the right business school for you. Now is the time when you’ll have to apply to the various institutes, but how should you do it? Which school should you select, the one that’s best, or the one that fits you the best? Which institute would be the best fit for you? The steps to finding out the answer lie within these pages.
The second is more of an overview of an advisory. As the first of two articles, we’re going to delve into the finer points of preparation for both Quant and Verbal, as we enter the last few months to the CAT. On popular demand, we have started with the Verbal section in this issue, followed by Quant in the next. As always, keep your nose to grindstone and your brain sharp. Keep taking mock tests, evaluating yourself and improving your skills, so that you’re prepared for pretty much anything when you step into that exam hall in November. There’s plenty of time left still, so make the best of it.
Write to the editor at: editor@advancedge.com All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole and in part without written permission is prohibited. Printed and published by Kamlesh Sajnani, on behalf of, IMS Learning Resources Pvt. Ltd., (CIN:U80220MH1999PTC121823) E Block, 6th Floor, NCL Bandra Premises, Bandra-Kurla Complex, Bandra (E), Mumbai - 400 051. Printed at Uchitha Graphic Printers Pvt. Ltd., 65, Ideal Ind. Est., Mathuradas Mill Compound, Lower Parel, Mumbai - 13 and published at Mumbai.
Aditya Prakash Iengar Editor
CONTENTS
September 2018
06
COVER STORY The B-school that’s just perfect for you
22
CORPORATE WORLD Air Asia governance & Tatas’ involvement
09
MBA BUZZ
25
The rise and rise of food delivery
28
All you need to know about direct tax code
The best prep strategy for CAT Verbal
14
STUDENT SPEAK KARAN BIR SINGH First year, MBA, IIM Calcutta
31
YOGA TALK Plant Yourself Like a Tree
17
CORPORATE INTERVIEW
32
STUDY HOUR Test Q&As
34
Word Dose: Bertie Wooster and Madeline Bassett
36
Globescan
38
SuDoKu
20
DIVYA GUPTA Founder, Aliame
NEWS SNIPPETS News in brief
Disclaimer : The views expressed in the articles by contributors and others are not necessarily those of the Publishers, unless specifically stated therein. While no effort is spared in ensuring the accuracy of the information published herein, readers are advised to reconfirm the current facts before acting upon any such information. The Publishers regret their inability to accept responsibility for any inadvertent errors of commission or omission in this issue. Readers are recommended to make appropriate inquiries before incurring expenses or entering into commitments in relation to any advertisement appearing in this publication. The publishers do not vouch for any claims made by the advertisers of any products or services. The Publisher, Printers or Editor shall not be held liable for any consequences in the event of such claims not being honoured by the advertisers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in any form or means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without prior permission from the publisher.
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COVER STORY
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
COVER STORY
The B-school that’s just perfect for you You need not apply to numerous B-schools just because they are top-ranked. You have to keep in mind certain parameters and then narrow down your choice as per your requirements and interests. In this article, we showcase the factors that you need to consider. The Advanc’edge Team
F
inally! CAT 2018 is just two months away and you are almost at the end of your exam preparations. You have registered for the CAT because almost all top schools accept it and everyone’s preparing for it. But there are a handful of B-schools which conduct their own tests. Now is the time to pause and ponder upon a few critical questions—which is the right B-school for me? What are the tests that I should take? In this article, we provide you a list of parameters, which you can use as a filter to find the schools that will fit you perfectly. This will help you to register for their tests accordingly. So, let’s get started.
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Why MBA? Before anything else, you need to revisit the reason why you are doing an MBA in the first place— for a particular career track, a definite position in the corporate hierarchy, big bucks or just what everyone else is doing. Once you figure that out, ask yourself the following questions • Are the B-schools you are planning to apply to, provide the specialisation you are interested in?
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• Is the institute known for placements in your chosen career field? • Will the MBA from a particular B-school facilitate you to enter your chosen career or take up a completely new field, be it as an entrepreneur or expanding an existing business? So, it is important to define your objectives clearly, according to your background and motivation and then choose the b-schools that will help you achieve your goals. Always keep this firmly lodged in your mind, as it will help you make the best choice for yourself.
Profile and Ability This is the second most important filter. The list that you have just created needs to be filtered by checking the eligibility and selection procedure
of the institutes. Do you meet the basic requirements? Then you need to work towards the required test score. Take SimCATs to get a measure of your abilities. Analyse your tests and work out the average score that you could end up with. This will provide you with a basic level or grade of schools that you should be looking at since test scores are the first selection criteria for most schools. Previous work experience, if relevant, will also help in getting you a good placement. Most recruiters would prefer employing students who have some work experience, especially if it is in the same sector that they eventually want to be in. Extracurricular activities go a long way in portraying a balanced persona. Be it in school, college or classes, make sure you have cultivated other interests besides academics. Though extracurricular activities are
COVER STORY
Specialisation There are some institutes in India that offer a highly specialised MBA programme, apart from the smaller degree of specialisations offered in general management programme. A school that does not enlist the specialisation you want will not suit your purpose. Interest in a particular field or subject is a vital ingredient in the choice of a B-school. Some B-schools have become tantamount to the specialisation they offer. For instance, XLRI and TISS are well known for Human Resources, MICA for Advertising, IRMA for Rural Management and NITIE for Industrial Management. But there are other MBA programmes that are known for general management with a focus on finance or have excellent placements in consulting, etc. Nearly all general management programmes offer far more than the core management skills. Therefore, it is important to know what field you want to be in. Once you know which skills you want to focus on, you are in a better position to consider which MBA is right for you. Be sure to research each school thoroughly by going through their curriculum and their placement data. The return on investment is only going to
pay off if your school is known for being one of the best in your desired field.
Placements After picking a specialisation, consider placements. What most students look at is just the average salary for the passing out batch. But there’s much more that you need to figure out. 1. Keeping your specialisation in mind, make a list of companies you would like to work for. 2. Check the placement records of the schools in your list and see whether these companies recruit from them
MBA Rankings from top publications like Business Today, Economic Times, or from NIRF are great tools to compare business schools. 3. If possible, talk to current students to find out the kind of roles offered by these companies and the salaries that are offered. It’s more important to find out the salary range in the sector that you want to work in rather than being happy about the average salary of the overall batch 4. Also, check the number of offers per student. This signifies the amount of choice that a student has in terms of companies and the jobs they offer at the top B-schools. Placement details, which are
generally available on the school’s website, provide placement information about the last batch in a comprehensive manner. You get to know how many students were placed, which companies came to recruit, how many offers were made per student, what was the highest and average salary offered, etc. Additionally, you will be able to see how many graduates obtain a position in your own field of choice in a given year, and thus adequately assess if that institute is the right fit for you. But to get the real picture, it is necessary to check placement reports of the last 3 years at least. Read the names of the companies that regularly recruit from them to see if any of these interests you. A key point to keep in mind here is that an MBA is worth doing if it at least doubles your current worth. So, check the post-MBA salary under this light.
Check the rankings Since rankings take into account many parameters like faculty, salary, placement, alumni feedback, etc, it is important to read a few ranking charts before making a list of your desired schools. MBA Rankings from top publications like Business Today, Economic Times, etc or from NIRF are great tools to compare business schools for placements, alumni satisfaction and value for money. Rankings in India differ largely from those for international institutes, wherein the programmes are also given a lot of importance in their ranking. However, apart from a few institutes that offer a high degree of specialisation in their programmes (which we shall discuss later in this article), most MBA programmes in India are generally management focused.
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not taken into account during the first round of the admission process, they can play a crucial role in your personal interview. But that doesn’t mean that in the next couple of months you start a hobby or interest just for acing your PI. Check the institutes’ batch profiles and honestly see whether you will be the correct match for these schools. If yes, then continue to the next filter. If not, then go back and get a new list of schools.
COVER STORY
The practice of ranking the programmes is, therefore, not too prevalent in India. Hence, the first stop on your way to selecting which B-school you would like to study in, is the rankings. However, do not base your decision completely on rankings, as the methodologies used in each of the rankings might be completely different and the percentage of responses might also differ. In some surveys, only 60-65% of the alumni will respond. It is incorrect, therefore, to gauge the quality of an MBA programme only by their ranking but it is a great tool to get an overview of the top MBA programmes. A factor that need not specially be emphasised is the reputation a given management institute commands and its brand image in the industry. While it is natural for older established institutes to have a better reputation, it is not always the case. Many students opt for the newer IIMs for their brand name even though they might not be highly ranked. Ultimately, what matters is the impact the institute has over one’s entire life and career and not just one particular job.
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Location This is important only if you have reservations about studying in a city or if you need to study in a particular city. The location of an institute is not important for the premier institutes. Employers seek out the best institute irrespective of its location. However, for the others, it would be better if the location is near a commercial hub, so that even if employers do not visit the campus, the student has an opportunity to come in close contact with potential employers. If possible, talk to
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people who live in the cities that house your selected B-schools and ask about the things that matter to you—safety, transport, culture, etc.
Fee and ROI Some of you are thinking that this filter should take precedence over the others, especially if you feel the fee is beyond your current means. However, what you need to understand is that costs for your Post Graduate Studies should no longer be borne by your parents or guardians. Most MBA education can easily be funded by loans and scholarships, especially if you are getting into a top notch school. One of the most overrated factors
If you graduate from a top B-school, your salary post placement can take care of the loan amount easily. that many consider is the return on your investment. If you graduate from a top B-school, your salary post placement can take care of the loan amount easily. And, it is not just the salary that you get immediately post your graduation that matters, the professional network you build and the push that your B-school’s name can give you are vital factors to be considered. Even after this, if you are looking at just the ROI then there are some top schools that do not charge an exorbitant amount of fee. In this case, the loan can be paid off in half the time frame than it usually does. So, an FMS-
Delhi or a JBIMS-Mumbai or any of the IITs are your best bets. So, if you are going to take an education loan, researching on ROI might be helpful but do not decide only on the basis of ROI.
Faculty and Infrastructure A judicious mix of full-time and visiting faculty is crucial for any good institute. The fulltime faculty is required to teach students the fundamentals of management and oversee development of their skills. The visiting faculty gives students the much needed industry exposure and valuable insights into the corporate world. The best way to know about an institute’s faculty is to get in touch with the students currently studying there. Infrastructure also plays a crucial part in this process. The presence of adequate and state-of-the-art infrastructure is an important determinant to judge whether the school offers qualitative environment conducive to learning. A fully residential programme fosters all-round development as peer group and faculty interaction is not just restricted to the class hours but is a 24x7 process where the scope to learn is multiplied. We know that everyone’s list features the IIMs at the top, but it’s always prudent to know your strengths and weaknesses and have other choices as well. More importantly, it’s about finding the right B-school to catapult your career. For that, you need to shortlist the B-schools, choose the tests to take, get the right scores in the tests and build the correct profile that includes your previous academic scores, your extracurricular activities and relevant work experience, if any. A
MBA BUZZ
The best prep strategy for CAT Verbal As the CAT approaches, find out the best way to prepare for the Verbal section of the CAT, which is one of the most frequently asked questions. You’ll see it is certainly not rocket science!
T
he limits of my language mean the limits of my world — Ludwig Wittgenstein. The famous quote from the Austrian-born British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein can be interpreted in myriad ways. Briefly, language is the medium of our thought—we think in a language. So our thinking skills are decided by our proficiency in the language we think in. The understandable components of this proficiency are: vocabulary, grammar, and logic or reasoning. On the one hand, our thinking is limited to the number of words that we know—or our vocabulary. On the other hand, the complexity of our thought and expression are decided by the complexity of the linguistic structures that we have mastered—or our awareness of grammar. And finally, our reasoning skills will decide the clarity of our thought and expression. In short, these are the deciding elements of “communication skills”. Thus, our intellectual horizons — what we comprehend and think about—are limited by the limits of our language! Management and management education place far less
importance on technical skills than on what we generally call soft skills. And, among the soft skills, Communication Skills occupy the prime position. And in today’s interconnected global village, English is the lingua franca of the business world, both nationally and internationally —it has acquired the status of a global language. Therefore, in the present context, the corporate world requires leaders who can communicate with ease to global audiences. And so, it is no wonder that the CAT tests your proficiency in English!
CAT and VA -RC In recent years, especially since the CAT went online in 2009, we have seen a limited variety of questions in the Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VA-RC) section of the CAT. Question types are limited to Reading Comprehension,Summary Questions,Out-of-context sentence questions, and (the alltime-favourite of the test writers) Paragraph Jumbles. VA-RC has remained a 34-question section for quite a few years now. At the time of going to press, the IIMs haven’t declared any change in
the pattern of CAT2018. RC questions dominate the VARC Section, with 24 questions in the MCQ format, with negative marks. It is interesting to note that the share of RC questions in the Verbal section of the CAT has never fallen below 50% of the total, barring just one year in the last four decades or so. In the past few years, there have usually been five passages with 6 or 3 questions each. The 10 VA questions—summary, odd sentence, and paragraph jumbles —are TITA or Type In The Answer questions. Summary questions and odd sentence questions pose no special problems in the TITA format. Paragraph Jumbles, however, provide no options. You have to first form the correct sequence of the sentences and then enter it in the space provided for the answer. The process becomes timeconsuming and risky. However, the plus point is that TITA questions bear no negative marks. Grammar and Vocabulary questions were conspicuously absent in the recent CATs. However, they may come back anytime, as they form an integral part of the MCQ format of competitive aptitude tests.
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Sujit Kumar Head, Academic Development, PG India, Verbal
MBA BUZZ
How do I prepare for the Verbal Section? This is one of the most frequently asked questions about competitive examinations including the CAT, and perhaps the least explained too. Largely, students are adequately clear about how they should study or prepare for the Quantitative, Data Interpretation, Logical Reasoning, and General Awareness sections of competitive examinations. But they seem to be at sea when it comes to the VA-RC section! This lack of clarity leads them to merely solving more and more questions and taking more and more tests, and hoping for the best. However, preparing for VARC needs to be as structured as it is for other sections.
Lack of concepts The confusion about choosing a preparation strategy stems mainly from the fact there seem to be no clear-cut concepts or principles to follow! In search of concepts, students turn to Wren and Martin for Grammar, Norman Lewis or others for Vocabulary, and literature on question types and techniques for Reading Comprehension. But these seem to be of little help in the simulated tests; they clearly don’t help in scoring. This article will now take you through a step-by-step guide on how to prepare for Verbal, rather than just plunge headlong into solving hundreds of questions of each type, and then hoping for the best in the exam!
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What is tested? Only when you know what is tested in each section and each question type will you know how to prepare for it. But it doesn’t mean that this clarity is all that
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is needed. Practice is essential. Sometimes, our practice is limited to making more and more errors, repeatedly, question after question! But this is not practice! The right kind of practice is getting something right, and repeating that process carefully and persistently. So first, let us understand the test. The broad areas tested in the VA-RC section of competitive exams are: • Reading Comprehension • Verbal Reasoning • Grammar • Vocabulary It is essential to solve enough number of questions from each of
Since RC is meant to test your comprehension skills, make sure that you practise the art or skill of comprehension. these areas during your practice. However, it is far more important to realise that these areas are not watertight compartments or different topics. Verbal Ability is essentially a single domain. It is only to make training and practising easier that VA has been divided into these question types. The underlying test in all these areas is your general proficiency in the language. Hence, it is futile to try to improve your verbal aptitude by concentrating on one area while ignoring or underplaying the others. But don’t lose heart; we will bring in a ‘method to this madness’. So, you can spend enough
time to solve questions in each of these areas to improve your underlying aptitude to solve these questions, but verbal needs to be approached in its totality as well. Hence, it is also necessary to pay attention to vocabulary items that you encounter while solving a reading comprehension passage, to the complex grammatical structures in a reasoning passage, or work out the line of reasoning that helps you arrive at a particular answer in a comprehension passage, etc, as you solve questions of these types. At least part of the preparation must be undertaken this way.
Result oriented approach to RC Reading Comprehension tests just what it says: Your reading skills and comprehension. To develop reading skills and to improve comprehension of what you read, you have to READ! Good readers—those who have the reading habit—are always more comfortable with RC. So you must devote some time to reading regularly. Remember the acronym “DEAR”—Drop Everything And Read! Earmark 15 minutes or so every day before going to sleep,and read a few pages from a good book, and watch how the habit develops! If you are not a good reader, is the game lost? Certainly not. Since RC is meant to test your comprehension skills, make sure that you practise the art or skill of comprehension. First, make sure that you have understood the passage. Next, make sure that you have understood the question (stem).Then, make sure that you have understood each option. Now you are equipped to answer the question. Factors like passive reading,
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Analytical approach Reasoning questions
to
There are three question types that have been part of CAT for the past 3 years. Paragraph Jumbles They test your reading skills and comprehension skills first, and then your ability to logically combine the sentences into a coherent paragraph. In other words,this is your ability to think in a structured way and organise according to that structure. Putting five sentences together to form a paragraph isn’t rocket science. But why do we go wrong? As mature graduate students, why do we fail to put five sentences together in a meaningful way? Time-constraint is a factor, yes, but that is for tests. Do we go wrong during
practice? If we do, what is the reason? I’m sure that none of you have ever experienced vocabulary or other constraints in these questions. You make mistakes only because you do not read carefully enough. The Parajumble question type is inherently time-consuming. You may work fast, but it still demands a certain amount of time. Be ready to spend that time and read carefully many times—as many times as required to see the connection between sentences. You will be surprised to discover how easy these questions are! Try it out. Take one Parajumble question and spend time on it—read the sentences several times. Try to discover a mandatory pair of sentences and build the paragraph around it. Spend a reasonable amount of time on the question. I can guarantee that you will be surprised by the consistency of your success. Experience the process and repeat. That will be the correct way to practice. The question thenis: How much do you practice? Paragraph jumbles are low IQ, low practice questions. They demand a reasonable amount of time, active reading, and intense application of the mind while solving. By solving innumerable jumbled paragraphs during practice, you will become an expert in Parajumbles. There is no expertise required, other than native intelligence (which you don’t possess anyway). Anyone who applies their mind to the given sentences and spends sufficient time arranging the sentences can get the sequence right. Practice will enhance your confidence in dealing with these questions, rather than accuracy. The moment you lose attention, you make a mistake.
Directions: The five sentences (labeled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) given in this question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper order for the sentences and key in this sequence of five numbers as your answer. 1. For example, amongst the latter, the oldest non-clonal organism is a Bristlecone Pine in the White Mountains of California, which germinated around 3049 BC, several centuries before the earliest Egyptian pyramids, but a mere blip in geological time. 2. The biosphere can do this because it processes vast amounts of material with rapid turnover. 3. Microbes typically reproduce in tens of minutes to days, while large multicellular organisms last only a few thousand years at most before they become dead fodder for microbial degradation. 4. In doing so, individual organisms live and die almost instantly on geological timescales. 5. The biosphere is less than a billionth of the mass of the Earth and yet manages to greatly influence the chemistry of the surface environment. Answer & Explanation: These sentences can be organized into two sets: 5-2 and 4-3-1. 5 and 2 are linked by the use of the word ‘biosphere’ in both, and ‘this’ in 2, which can be inferred to refer to ‘greatly influence the chemistry …’ in 5. 4 brings up the issue about the time scale of individual organisms’ lives and deaths. 3 mentions some examples of this, ranging over a large time scale. ‘The latter’ in 1 clearly refers to the organisms
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vocabulary constraints, and lack of awareness of linguistic structures may affect your comprehension. In that case, in the practice mode, you must try to overcome each of the constraints there and then. Read again, or several times. Refer to the dictionary and learn the unfamiliar words in the context, analyse the sentence by breaking complex structures into understandable components. Only when your comprehension is adequate at all levels are you really equipped to analyse (reason) and answer the questions. This is the right process. It may take longer than you want it to,but it is essential that you spend that time. This is the right kind of Practice. And speed is a result of practice and skill. Otherwise, it’s meaningless. Solve one passage per day for complete comprehension. Accuracy will naturally follow. Repeat every day till the CAT. Your speed will improve over time.
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that live a few thousand years mentioned in 3; 1 also links back to 4 by bringing up geological time scales again. 4 is not a standalone sentence, so only 5 can begin the sequence. Hence, the correct answer is 5-2-4-3-1. Odd Sentence These questions take the familiar Parajumbles questions a step further. The question consists of five sentences. Four out of these five sentences form part of a paragraph, and one sentence is out-of-context or does not belong to that paragraph. You need to identify the out–of-context sentence. The question type is similar to the odd-man-out questions. Earlier, in the odd-man-out questions, aptitude tests gave a set of words or short phrases. Sentences, instead of words or phrases, made the question appear as if it was a completely new type of question. Hence, it became baffling and difficult for some students. In order to solve these questions correctly, use the same methodology as in the odd-manout questions. The key lies in discovering what is common about the other words (in this case, sentences), and thus, the word that is the odd man. Odd sentence questions are comparatively far easier than the odd-man-out questions, because there are various reasons that bind single words together in the odd man out questions — from sound and spelling to classifications, limited only by the test-writer’s imagination. But, when one is given four sentences, analysing and discovering what is common need not be a nerve-wracking exercise. You only have to understand the theme that is pursued in the sentences. The odd sentence will not relate to this theme. And that
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becomes your answer. It definitely takes some analysis to discover this theme as the sentences are jumbled. That makes the question type time-consuming rather than difficult. So be patient and read carefully to identify the theme. The answer choice, then, is not very difficult to identify. First, read all the sentences very carefully for familiarity. In Verbal, it is always a good idea to make the text familiar before trying to actually solve the question. Once you are familiar with the sentences, try to identify a ‘dangler’ sentence. A dangler sentence is one which needs some other sentence for it to make sense. For example, consider a sentence like, “The bill for this big thinking, though, is enormous.” This sentence depends on another sentence to derive its meaning, in which ‘this big thinking’ will be clearly defined. So, begin with a dangler sentence and discover its pair – we call this a ‘mandatory pair’. Pause and think what these two sentences are talking about, and you will get an idea about the theme of the paragraph. Try to relate the other sentences to this theme. The odd sentence will be obvious. The questions sometimes appear difficult only because, generally all the sentences are on the same topic; hence, they appear related. But once you identify the specific theme of the paragraph, you can easily identify the sentence that is not related to this theme. Try it out. Directions: Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out. Choose its number as your
answer and key it in. 1. The electron is a basic particle of all matter: the lightest particle with electric charge, stable and ubiquitous. 2. When atoms are close to one another, the positively charged nucleus of one can attract the negatively charged electrons of a neighbor, causing the two atoms to move a little closer. 3. The well-known rule about electric charges is that opposites attract and like charges repel. 4. As a result, groups of atoms are mutually ensnared and clump together forming molecules and ultimately bulk matter. 5. There are both types within atoms: the negatively charged electrons are at the periphery and the positive nuclear core is in the center. Answer & Explanation: Three of the sentences talk about electrons, so it may initially seem as if the paragraph is about them. However, on reading all five sentences, we can see that the topic of the paragraph is in fact how electric charges within the atom lead to the formation of matter. 3 is the first sentence, as it introduces a basic point about electric charges. ‘Both types’ in 5 links it to 3. 2 talks about how the electric charges cause atoms to move closer together, and 4 concludes this point. Thus, it can be seen that 3-5-2-4 form a logical sequence, while 1, which is just a general statement about electrons, does not fit into the sequence. Hence 1. Summary Questions Précis writing is an art. Précis
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Directions: The passage given below is followed by four alternative summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. Key in the number of the option you choose as your
answer. Children’s literature is sometimes referred to as a genre on the grounds that it is a distinct category of publishing with recognized conventions that set up certain expectations in its readers. One problem with this view is that children’s literature also contains all the genres and subgenres used to classify writing, from ancient and broadly based terms such as tragedy, comedy, epic, poetry and drama, to recent and much more specific labels such as chick-lit. 1. Children’s literature can be considered as both a genre in itself, as well as a means of classifying other genres of writing. 2. Children’s literature is sometimes considered a genre of writing, but there is a problem with this classification. 3. Children’s literature is considered as a genre; but the problem is that it also contains all other genres of writing. 4. Children’s literature cannot be considered a genre, given that it actually consists of all the genres of writing. Answer & Explanation: 1 is only a partial summary, as it fails to mention the problem with considering children’s literature as a genre. On the other hand, 2 merely states that there is a problem, but does not say what the problem actually is, so it too can be ruled out. 4 is not a summary, but a possible conclusion based on the points mentioned in the passage. Only 3 is a correct and comprehensive summary. Hence 3.
Verbal is for always! In conclusion, prioritise your preparation in the following order, in terms of the time spent, practice, and finally the marks scored: • Reading Comprehension • Reasoning Questions • Grammar • Vocabulary The first two areas are the most reliable for scoring. So practice enough to become good in them before the CAT. Solve as many questions as possible in grammar and vocab, and learn the principles of grammar and vocabulary items backwards. But remember, however good you are in both these areas, they do not guarantee scores the way RC and Reasoning questions do. Finally, do everything possible to improve your language proficiency — whether by working on your reading, grammar, or vocabulary. The geometry that you learn for CAT, unless you are engaged in academic or related careers, may one day become useless in your daily life. But the verbal skills — reading, vocabulary or communication skills — that you acquire now will never cease to be useful in your daily life; they project your image and personality to the world. We, at Advanc’edge MBA, wish you the very best for your success in the CAT and beyond! A The author is a management graduate and holds a Masters degree In English literature. He has decades of experience in the corporate as well as the entrance test preparation industry, and is the author of books like, ‘The Pearson Guide to Verbal Ability for the CAT and other MBA Examinations’ and ‘English Usage for the CAT’.
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writing is difficult too. You must have in-depth comprehension of the text to be able to condense text without compromising on the content. So, summary questions test your reading and comprehension skills, and your ability to separate wheat from chaff. If you have not already identified the key elements in the paragraph before going to the options (luckily, we have options in the CAT), it becomes difficult to identify the scoring option from the nearly correct choices. Here are two things to bear in mind while solving summary questions: • Read quickly, and familiarise yourself with the text — don’t work with unfamiliar text. • Read again actively and identify the key elements in the paragraph — note them mentally. Scoring in summary questions is a game of comparison. Compare the options carefully. Note the difference between two options. Remember, however similar two options may appear on the surface, they are never the same. So, don’t be fooled or confused by the similarity. Ignore the similarities. Discover that element, however minor, which makes it different from the other option. After you have identified the difference, ask whether this or that is essential to the précis. Eliminate accordingly. Compare the other options. Eliminate and choose! The writer guarantees that you will make fewer mistakes.
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
STUDENT SPEAK
‘Find your motivation and keep it in front of you’ ...says KARAN BIR SINGH, first year MBA student at IIM Calcutta. In conversation with Advanc’edge MBA, Karan talks about how having a consistent drive and motivation is imperative to crack the CAT and find success in MBA. Q. Was doing MBA always on your mind? Doing an MBA had not always been on my mind. After I graduated from K.J. Somaiya COE, Mumbai University, in Mechanical Engineering, I worked with Larsen & Turbo in Marketing and Sales for about two years. There, I realised that an MBA was necessary to take that extra leap ahead. My job and team were wonderful, but there is always something that can pull you back if you don’t have an MBA degree. So, getting an MBA was always an added advantage.
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Q. Tell us about your preparation for the CAT. I started preparing for the CAT around 3 or 4 months before taking the test. Since I had a full time job, I had to put in a little extra effort and manage my time diligently. After work, I would head directly to a library to study. My work entailed a lot of travelling, so when I was in Mumbai I followed a strict routine. Whenever I was travelling I had my books with me. It was a gruelling 3 or 4 months, but my efforts paid off. I had joined a classroom coaching for a while, but it didn’t help me much; I did, however, take a lot of mock tests, as I wanted to familiarise myself with the pattern. Hence, my focus was completely on the online mock test series.
Q. Do you think sitting for mock tests really helped you?
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
Mock tests really worked for me. Basically, a mock test is a complete simulation of the CAT. So, if you are taking a mock test, you get the hang of how the actual test would be. You are totally in that zone! Also, when you take a mock test you tend to cover everything. So, once I finished taking a mock test, I would go back and analyse the particular sections in which I didn’t do well and work on them. I took more than 60 mock tests during my CAT preparation!
Q. Did your work experience help you in your personal interview rounds? Work experience definitely helped me in my PI as you can always throw in the experiences. Once you are in a customer-facing role, you have to interact with a lot with people, and that always helps in handling GDs and PIs. Most of the time, the questions would be regarding your work, and if you enjoy your work, it’s a great topic to speak on.
Q. Did you follow any strategy to crack the CAT? My core strengths were DILR and Quant, and not Verbal. So I used to put in special effort on Verbal, consulted extra books on Verbal and practised reading comprehension. My whole aim in getting a good score in Verbal was to push my percentile up. For Verbal, I used to study an extra hour. I took a few extra mock tests only for the Verbal reading comprehension!
STUDENT SPEAK
Q. What are your strengths and weaknesses? I was in a customer-facing role at L&T and I think my strength is that I am easy to interact with. I am also great at mingling with a new group of people. I don’t hesitate to speak for a cause and speak for myself, and this has been appreciated at my workplace too. I come from a family with a defence background, and so, I have travelled a lot; this helps me to easily acclimatise to a new place. My biggest weakness that I can think of (with respect to the CAT at least) is that I need to read something a few times to get it into my head. I am not the sort of person who can read something once and remember it. So for exam preparation, I had to put in more time and effort.
Q. How did you prepare yourself on the day of the CAT?
a room with around 15 people. After that, we had to go for our PIs, where there was a three-member panel — a professor, an IIM alumnus and another panellist who was a moderator, probably also from IIM-C. The professor had a finance background, and the IIM alumnus was from marketing. My PI lasted around 35 minutes, and frankly, I found it extremely stimulating. They asked me about my job, the products I’d handled, including the study of heavy equipment in Indian mines. They also grilled me on the ban of mining in Goa in 2012, and I told them everything from scratch. They gave me a few Quant questions as well. Also, since I’d done a financial analyst course, it grabbed their attention, especially the professor from Finance. He asked a few basic questions, as he knew I was from engineering background. Finally, they also asked me to pitch a product to them.
My core strengths were DILR and Quant, and not Verbal. I took a few extra mock tests only for reading comprehension!
My exam center was in Pune, so I had taken a hotel close to the center. My exam was in the second slot. I didn’t revise or study anything on the day of the test. Once the reviews of the exams are out, it can ruin a student’s test, and we all know that news travel fast! Since everyone around me was tense, I had to remain calm. I started with the Verbal section. Then came to the DILR section, which was tough. Usually most students would start to panic at this time, especially after going through the questions and finding them tough. I started somewhere in between, where there was an easy question. That really helped me remain calm. And so, Quant went very well for me!
Q. What is your take on group study? To be honest, I feel group study is a waste of time. It is not for a CAT aspirant. Personally, I don’t like it because if you are preparing for yourself anyway, what’s the point of sitting with 10 other people? It is distracting! Group study works in colleges. For the CAT though, with the kind of dedication it demands, you cannot have people around you.
Q. How was your PI? We had a WAT session for around 15 minutes at IIM Calcutta. We were given a topic and made to sit in
Q. According to you, what are the important points one must remember before going for a personal interview?
Dressing right, which gives the first impression, is very important. Let me tell you why it is important. You see, the panellists have been around students for a long time and are extremely sharp. They will immediately spot a candidate who has not ironed his shirt or does not know how to knot a tie, and that is a strict turn off. If you want to impress the panellists from the get go, you should might as well spend some time in dressing well! Get a good suit, although it’s not compulsory, but definitely an add-on. And of course, always keep smiling, no poker face. The whole point of you being there is to sell yourself. Another very important factor is to keep calm. To anyone facing an interview, I would recommend that you chalk out your plan beforehand. Divide up your work experience. Prepare beforehand for the general HR questions such as your strengths and weaknesses, your ambitions, and of course, one of the most important questions: “Tell me about yourself.” So every word you say should have a story behind it, with sound reasoning and logical thought. You need to be well acquainted with all your answers. You must think ahead for every possible question that your answer may bring your way. Another advice I can give is to phrase your answers in such a manner that you give out keywords for the
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I was also very active on social networks where other CAT aspirants would post questions and you would help solve them.
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
STUDENT SPEAK
panel to notice, and hence swerve the interview in the direction you want to take it. So actually, mock PIs can really help you! During the interview, it is critical to maintain eye contact. Don’t look up or down, and don’t fiddle with your hand, in fact, don’t make big gestures with your hands either. Look at all the panellists while answering. You always take cues from the person who is taking the interview. If you see the person is receptive, that’s good! But if they look bored, you need to increase your own enthusiasm level and make your answers interesting to reel them in.
are lot of competitions such as debates and other cultural activities that they encourage students to participate in. These give you ample opportunity to explore yourself. You can get into dramatics, dance, music and other classes. Bonding between seniors and juniors is quite open here at IIM-C. There’s actually no hierarchy, and the senior is a friend. Also, IIM-C has a CEMS MIM programme, which no other B-school in India has, not even the other IIMs. It is actually a second degree and only 25 students from a batch get the opportunity to be part of this programme.
Q. What is your plan after MBA?
Q. What are your personal learnings after joining IIM-C?
Well, I have just started my journey, but my aim is to work for a consultancy. I don’t have an absolute process thought out completely, but yes, I do have an idea that this is where I would like to go.
Q. Do you have any suggestions on how to prepare for CAT?
IIM-C has a CEMS MIM programme, which no other B-school in India has, not even the other IIMs. It is a second degree.
Focus on your mocks. Get back to your books if you are not performing well in a particular section. Take the mock on Monday, and then spend Tuesday and Wednesday to analyse the mock. Then on Thursday take another mock test again. This will really help you get familiar with the tests, and you will be more confident. Mock tests and mock percentiles are a really good reflection of your improvement. Also, never make a judgment of how many questions you will attempt before entering the exam hall. Because then, you will tend to set a benchmark for yourself, and the moment you reach that benchmark, you tend to become complacent, which is a strict no-no.
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Q. How is life at IIM-C? As part of the campus life, what should one look forward to at IIM-C? IIM-C is a beautiful campus, designed back in 1961. We have seven lakes! The culture is fantastic at IIM-C, with some of the best minds here. One thing that stands out about IIM-C is that they treat you as adults. They give you a deadline and you are on your own. They don’t micromanage you, and that’s a great thing. They don’t treat you as students and burden you with work. You are given the opportunity to do other activities too, which helps in developing other aspects of your personality. There
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
You are with a bunch of elite people, so you need to respect that and live up to the expectations of that group. And that is why you need to work extra hard. Networking, of course, is very important. You cannot live in isolation. Also, you evolve because of the people around you, so if the people around you are evolved themselves, then the discussions you have with them are on a wholly different level. You learn to see things from a different perspective. Earlier, you were an employee and now you are a manager. At IIM-C, nobody is merely average or not doing well. Everyone is brilliant. So the entire group is at another level. And as part of that group, your own aim and target gets realigned. You are more motivated as everyone around you is motivated.
Q. Anything you would like to share with future MBA aspirants? People have a very rosy image of a B-school. But you need to work really hard once you get into a B-school. If you are up for that and are really looking to boost your career with an MBA, only then sit for CAT and get an MBA. Don’t do it just because everyone else is doing it, you need to have the drive yourself. And if you do, then your CAT preparation becomes easy, and the MBA-process gets easy as well. That drive is what will keep you going. Find out what motivates you. Motivation is the key and it is something you will need all the time. The day you get de-motivated, you will waste time and lose focus. Find your motivation and keep that in front of you, so that you are always on the go and keep working towards your future. A
CORPORATE INTERVIEW
‘Don’t be disheartened by failures’ ...says DIVYA GUPTA, founder of Aliame and an alumnus of NMIMS, as she shares her life’s trajectory that led to her true calling— designing jewellery. In an interview with Kalyani Majumdar, Divya talks about her experience, from being a corporate professional for more than a decade to a life as an entrepreneur.
Actually, since I’d always wanted to be financially independent, I studied and worked simultaneously ever since I was 19. As far as the MBA is concerned, let’s be honest, when you do an MBA after working for a few years, you get a whole new perspective about what’s being taught. You can connect to the course material, and it does not seem like mere theory. And it really helped me, as I didn’t learn for the sake of learning. I learned the principles and the concepts that I’d already applied in my job, but to give them formal shape and form helped me improve my skill-sets. For me, that was the learning.
Q. How did jewellery design come about? I’ve always been a creative person, and knew that I wanted to be in a creative field. I was also good at accounts. But I could never visualise myself sitting at a desk, auditing people for the rest of my life. I wanted to do something different, something that was different from the herd. And this was the time when fashion designing was at its peak. So I started exploring jewellery design as an avenue. I studied design, computer aided design
(CAD) manufacturing from Jewellery Product Development Centre, Delhi, and I became a certified diamond grader and gemologist from the Gemological Institute of India, Mumbai.
Q. You have worked more than a decade in different industries. What was the job function that you enjoyed the most? I enjoyed Marketing as a function and I knew I wanted to do that role and it didn’t matter which industry I did it for. From the beginning, I was industry agnostic. I worked with a high-end home decor company, then with a hospitality company, and so on. I feel understanding an industry and how it works is not really rocket science. I may not know much about hospitality, but it took me a month or two to get the hang of it. And once you understand the industry, you can apply the principles of Marketing for that industry.
Q. Tell us about Aliame. How did it come about? As an entrepreneur, you need to try different things till you find your fit. I was constantly asking myself: What do I really want? What is my true calling? That is when it occurred to me that it could be jewellery. My family and friends supported that decision as I also had professional training in the field.
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Q. You did your MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies while you were working. What was that experience like?
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
CORPORATE INTERVIEW
Back when I was 19, my mother and I had started a small jewellery-making venture. I used to design jewellery and show it to people, and once a design was selected, I would make that piece for the buyer. It was made to order. During that time, I faced a few setbacks and I couldn’t really recover from them. I felt let down, and the result was that I got really scared of setting up a business and being on my own. That was perhaps why for more than a decade, I just studied and worked. I had to get over that initial phobia before getting back to jewellery making. Eventually, the idea of getting back to my jewellery venture excited me enough for me to dive back in, and since then I have not looked back.
Q. You worked in corporate firms and now you are an entrepreneur. What are the major differences you feel in your approach to both?
Q. What were the initial hurdles that you faced while launching Aliame? You know, when you’ve just begun to work on your project, the entire picture looks rosy. You are excited that you are starting something. But then you actually get down to it, and you see the reality. And for an entrepreneur, the struggle starts from the first day. You don’t start making money immediately! I don’t come from a moneyed background, and worked for many years to save enough money to start my own business. I had a limited budget, and had to be extremely cautious about spends. Also, when yours is a product company, you have to spend a lot of your time, effort and money, and you won’t really see any return for a very long time. That’s when the struggle gets very real. In my case, getting the jewellery produced was the biggest challenge. When you get into a new business or a new industry, you want to do something different from the others. That’s how you plan it out. I wanted to stand out. I wanted to design something that people haven’t seen before. I could not offer my product cheaply because I don’t produce mass volume. It’s all handmade. Also, for my designs, the biggest challenge was to find the right karigars (craftsmen). I have spent months travelling to every nook and cranny of different cities to find the right karigars. This is a constant struggle in my business. It is a hurdle I was crossing when I started out, and it is still a hurdle I face today. Ultimately, you’re going through a process, and you keep evolving and improving.
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When you do an MBA after working for a few years, you can connect to the course material, and it does not seem like mere theory.
A corporate job has a very structured routine. Your boss defines the structure of your work day, giving you deadlines, and you have set timelines to meet. When you are running your own business, you get to decide your own routine. So yes, there are times when you can be extremely hard on yourself. It is a very different journey! For instance, when I was in a job, I was never unduly stressed if something took longer than expected. I would follow up on the delay, of course, but the delay itself would never bother me. But when the same thing happens to me now in my business, I react in an entirely different manner. Things impact you at a very different level when you run your own business. You take everything very seriously and you have to constantly remind yourself to not do that. This is a downside of being an entrepreneur. On the plus side, you get do what you want, how you want it done, and at the pace you want to be in. The satisfaction that you get is very different, and at a totally different level. For instance, when a design is translated from paper to an actual piece of jewellery, it is an excellent feeling. After that, when somebody buys that jewellery, the satisfaction is beyond compare. No job can give that kind of satisfaction.
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
Q. How did you approach the business at the beginning? Since it had been a long time that I had designed jewellery, my first thought was one of doubt, about whether I could even design anymore. So my first step was to put stencil on paper and see if I could still design. I designed a lot of things and asked my friends and family for their views. The fact that it was all positive showed me I could still create good designs. So for me, the beginning was to start from designing and see if people liked my designs.
CORPORATE INTERVIEW
Q. Did you face any challenge as a woman entrepreneur? I sometimes think the challenge is more in our head. Personally speaking, I never felt that being a woman was a stumbling block. I travelled to different cities and sat with karigars, but was never treated differently. Besides, there is so much happening for woman entrepreneurship and the Indian government is trying to promote women entrepreneurs. Of course, at times one’s family does not provide support. The lack of such a support system makes taking up the challenge of a new venture very difficult for a lot of women. This lack can easily lead to giving up. But I have been very fortunate to have that support system in place. You need constant support and encouragement, and if you get it, nothing and no one can stop you!
that I could discuss things with someone and look up to someone. It was a conscious effort on my part. So yes, I really think a mentor can help.
Q. What is your take on management education in general? A good management programme can actually help you put structure to your thought. Firstly, if you’re planning on pursuing management education, you should get some work experience, because until or unless you have dealt with some real life issues at work, you won’t be able to connect to a lot of stuff taught in an MBA programme. A good course helps you structure everything you’ve learned and then apply that knowledge in a structured format later. Personally, without an MBA, the knowledge that I had gathered was probably rather ad hoc, but the MBA programme gave that ad hoc-knowledge a structure, shape and form. If I had to quibble, I’d say that more courses related to digital marketing should be added to the present MBA curriculum.
You have to keep a hold over your emotions. If something doesn’t work one way, try another, but don’t give up, keep at it.
Q. As an entrepreneur, what is your take on the concept of work-life balance? Honestly speaking, it is very difficult, as the line between work and life gets really blurred when you are running your own business. Your work is your life. I am constantly thinking about it. An advantage I have is that my husband has a fulltime job, so when he wants to switch off, it helps me switch off too, which helps me remain sane!
Q. How important do you think it is to have a mentor? To be honest, I wish I had a mentor. If as an entrepreneur you find one, please hold on to them; I say this from personal experience. In fact, I even joined a mentorship programme so
Q. What advice you give to entrepreneurs?
would future
Irrespective of whether you are an MBA grad or not, you should keep a few things in mind if you want to become an entrepreneur. First, you need to build structure and discipline otherwise things can go awry very fast. You will watch as days, weeks and months fly past without you having ostensibly achieved anything, and that happens. So create and stick to your routine, because since you’re your own boss, there is no one guiding you! Secondly, don’t be disheartened by failures. It is always going to be a challenging journey. Step into it thinking that the first few years are going to be terrible. Don’t expect to start getting clients tomorrow, along with the money flowing in. The next two to three years will be a lot of struggle and a lot of hard work. Finally comes emotional stability. You have to keep a hold over your emotions. You have to be strong, and keep learning. If something doesn’t work one way, try another, but don’t give up, keep at it. You have to keep working, and gradually, things will fall in place. A
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Secondly, I had to design packages. I wanted to build a brand, not something run of the mill. I had to find someone who would be willing to produce it in smaller quantities. Then I had to find the platform on which to build my website. I had to decide on the payment gateways, I needed a photographer to click photos of the product, tie up with a shipping firm and so on. When you are running a business, you start to see the chain, the lifecycle.
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
NEWS SNIPPETS
News in brief
Here are some interesting titbits from over the last month CAT 2018 registration CAT 2018 registration has started and will go on till 19 September, 2018. MBA aspirants who are dreaming of getting into the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and other top B-schools in India, should check details on eligibility criteria, schedule, exam dates, test centres, admit card and results on the website. The broad pattern of CAT exam remains the same this year, there will be more subtle changes in the type of questions being asked. CAT exam will be conducted on 25 November in two sessions across 147 centres in India.
Kerala flood continue!
woes
An incessant downpour since the first week of August has taken the death toll to at least 370 people and has left more than 800,000 people displaced in Kerala. The torrential monsoon rains have triggered landslides and flash floods that have swept away entire villages. Thousands of army, air force and navy troops, along with the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), are undertaking the search and rescue operations. Local fishermen from across Kerala have come together to help in relief efforts. Losses to infrastructure pegged at almost 3 billion dollars.
Tribute by the Indian Industry to Late Atal Bihari Vajpayee Indian industry paid rich tributes to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee following his demise on 16th August 2018. The iconic leader and statesman ushered in the second generation of economic reforms that promoted India’s rapid growth and he is remembered for various policy actions that led to rapid growth in telecom, power, financial sector, insurance, agriculture, education and national highways that contributed hugely to unlocking the nation’s economic potential.
NASA’s mission to the Sun The Parker Solar Probe is all set to take off as NASA gears up for mankind’s first mission to the Sun. The spacecraft will study the dynamic and magnetically active star up close as it will be placed in orbit within four million miles of the sun’s surface. It will face heat and radiation unlike any spacecraft in history. This venture will help us to understand the physics of how the Sun works.
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Indian space mission: Gaganyaan ISRO is all set for an Indian space odyssey set to take place in or before 2022. A man or a woman will be sent into the space on board the spacecraft known as the Gaganyaan. ISRO scientists cited that the biggest challenges would be the need for a bigger rocket and training of astronauts. With this space mission, India will become the fourth nation in the world after United States, Russia and China to undertake a manned space mission.
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
Harley affordable?
becomes
US-based motorcyclemanufacturing giants, Harley Davidson is planning to expand their consumer base by launching motorcycles in the small and mid-sized segment as it aims on targeting young buyers in emerging Asian countries, such as India and China. Harley-Davidson’s entry might intensify the competition for Eicher Motors Ltd’s Royal Enfield, which continues to have a strong hold in the Indian domestic market.
NEWS SNIPPETS
Hyundai to launch first electric SUV in India South Korean auto major, Hyundai is planning to launch its first electric SUV in India. The e-SUV will be launched in limited cities in the second-half of 2019. The carmaker is confident that the after sales team will be able to take care of the after-sales servicing of the e-SUV. However, Hyundai is anticipating some anxiety among firsttime electric car owners. But they are also very optimistic that they are bringing one of the most relevant technologies to India. Initially, the sales and service channel for the electric vehicle might be limited.
RIL the most valued firm in India Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has surpassed India’s biggest software services firm Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) to become the country’s most valued firm in terms of market capitalisation—a first since April. Data from the BSE showed RIL has a market cap of ` 7.46 trillion, after its shares rose 2.4% on the BSE to record high of ` 1177.80. TCS, at ` 1930 per share, was valued at ` 7.39 trillion.
Kanchenjunga Biosphere Reserve has been added in the UNESCO’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves The World Network of Biosphere Reserves has included Kanchenjunga Biosphere Reserve located in Sikkim in their list making it the 11th such entry from India in the list of 686 biosphere reserves from 122 countries. The Kanchenjunga Biosphere Reserve is one of the highest ecosystems in the world and is a biodiversity hotspot. The listing aims as an unique tool for international co-operation through sharing knowledge, exchanging experiences, building capacity and promoting best practices for conserving the biosphere reserves which are areas comprising territorial, marine and coastal ecosystems. The decision to include Kanchenjunga Biosphere Reserve, located in Sikkim, was taken in the International Coordination Council meeting of the UNESCO in Indonesia late last month. The other Indian biosphere reserves in the list include Nilgiri, Gulf of Mannar, Sunderban, Nanda Devi, Nokrek, Pachmarhi, Simlipal, Achanakmar-Amarkantak, Great Nicobar and Agasthyamala.
Three bidders for Complan
J.P Morgan join hands with IIM-A
Kraft Heinz India’s popular nutritional drink brand, Complan gets three bidders as Heinz plans to sell it. ITC Ltd, Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting Ltd and Cadila Healthcare Ltd are readying to submit binding offers to buy. Malt drinks have been seeing a steady loss in the market share, but Complan is measured in a separate category of supplement nutrition drinks, which includes products such as Ensure. This segment’s growth is higher than that of malt-based drinks. However, even this segment has seen slowing of growth from 21.3% in 2014 to 11.5% in 2017.
J.P. Morgan, the Global financial services player recently joined hands with the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) to start a financial inclusion lab to help early stage fin-tech start ups to achieve scale. The $9.5 million dollar initiative will be part of the IIM-A’s incubation and entrepreneurship centre and aims at identifying and bringing to scale early-stage fin-tech startups that are focused on helping people in the lower and middle income (LMI) segment.
Users of Amazon’s digital assistant, Alexa can now teach the app local Indian languages such as, Hindi, Bengali and Marathi. The e-commerce giant announced this new skill aimed at improving Alexa’s speech recognition. At present, Alexa engages with users in English like its competitors such as Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant. Amazon said the process of creating new languages for Alexa benefits from advances in data availability, computing power, and a subset of artificial intelligence called machine learning. Cleo has been built by a team of linguists and data scientists and has already helped improve Alexa’s understanding of languages such as French.
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Alexa gets smarter
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CORPORATE WORLD
Air Asia governance & Tatas’ involvement The controversy surrounding Air Asia India and the Tatas presents a thorny problem, with allegations of corruption and monetary fraud. While it does give the Tatas’ reputation a beating, more importantly, it has thrown up the requirements and responsibilities that a board, and independent directors, must have.
Dr Suresh Srinivasan
T
here are a number of issues that have recently come to light that questions the responsibility of directors on boards of companies. Directors, including independent directors on the boards of companies, are becoming more responsible for the governance of said companies.
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Allegations and bad press The airline Air Asia India, for example, has recently been in the news for all the wrong reasons. More importantly, Tata Sons, a business group considered to be one of the most ethical in India Inc, was linked to Air Asia India and were plagued by allegations of corruption. These allegations included bribing government officials to gain faster approvals to fly international destinations, circumventing the government’s required norm of the airline possessing a minimum of 20 aircrafts, and having a history of 5 years in experience; popularly known as the ‘5/20 Rule’.
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The charges that were leveled at the CEO of the AirAsia group, Tony Fernandes, were severe and included criminal conspiracy under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The scope of charges also covered the board of Air Asia India, and resulted in the Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing allegations of money laundering as well. One would recall that similar allegations
were made by Cyrus Mistry against Ratan Tata and the other members of the board of Tata Sons, before Mistry was dismissed as the chairman of Tata Sons. Mistry was reportedly sacked as he raised the issue of fraudulent transactions of `22 crore that were highlighted in the Air Asia India operations; this was exposed by the consulting company Deloitte during an investigation and forensic audit. The charges also included the Indian airline’s flouting of the regulations of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) and violation of the foreign direct investment (FDI) norms. In simple terms, the regulators alleged that while the airline was supposed to be controlled by Indian residents, in actuality, it was being controlled by the Malaysian group.
About Air Asia India Air Asia India is a joint venture between the Malaysian low cost airline Air Asia Berhad Group and the Tatas. The joint venture
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company is structured unaware of the with a shareholding of actions of the former Air Aisa holding 49% and CEO of Air Asia India Tata Sons holding 49%. R. Mittu Chandilya, Venkataramanan holds which involved 1.5% and S. Ramadorai, misappropriation former CEO of Tata of funds worth Consultancy Services `22 crore, the (TCS) and a senior Tata transaction that Mittu Chandilya Tony Fernandes executive who used to Former CEO, AirAsia group CEO, AirAsia group seemed to have be on the board of many been alleged for Tata group companies, bribing government holds 0.5%. India, for questioning in this officials. On such an inference, R Venkataramanan is a connection. the board of Air Asia India filed nominee on the board of Air an FIR against Mittu Chandilya, Asia India. He is the managing The concerns claiming that they had been trustee of the Sir Dorabji Tata Venkat’s involvement in this ignorant of such a transaction Trust, and is responsible for episode has become a major and thereby shifting the management and oversight of cause for concern, especially responsibility. Chandilya, all the Tata Trusts. The Tata with him being at the helm. however, has alleged that he Trusts are public charities and Venkat holds the position of was falsely implicated in the are the principal shareholder trustee of one of the largest report at the behest of the of Tata Sons, the parent trusts in India, and is also AirAsia chief. company of the Tata group, known for bringing in the name In a recent order, the India’s largest conglomerate. of Tatas that is considered to National Company Law Close to two thirds of Tata be ‘gold standard’ in corporate Tribunal (NCLT) dismissed all Sons is owned by these trusts. ethics. allegations against Ratan Tata The Central Bureau of The board of Air Asia India and Tata Sons Ltd, saying that Investigation has summoned investigated the matter and it did not find merit in any of Venkat, the director of Air Asia concluded that they were the issues raised. It clarified
INDIA INC: AT A GLANCE PVR to buy majority stake in Chennai’s SPI Cinemas India’s biggest multiplex chain PVR Ltd has agreed to purchase a majority stake in SPI Cinemas Pvt. Ltd. This is in continuation of PVR’s efforts to expand its operations through mergers and acquisitions. The Gurugram-based PVR will acquire a 71.7% stake in the Chennai-headquartered SPI Cinemas for `633 crore, in an all-cash deal.
Paytm company acquires fintech app One97 Communications Ltd, the parent company of mobile wallet firm Paytm, has acquired the operator of fintech application Balance Technologies. With the explosion in its popularity especially since demonetisation, Paytm has been looking to grow its financial services business. Balances’ six-member team has joined the Paytm product and design team to enhance Paytm’s user and merchant interfaces.
OYO Hotels has announced that it will acquire India’s largest wedding banquet company Weddingz.in, which is an online marketplace for wedding venues and vendors. The deal value has not been disclosed, but the transaction is reportedly a cash and stock deal. Weddingz.in manages more than 1,500 wedding events per quarter across Mumbai and Delhi, and is a three-year old Mumbai-based start-up. The company will not be rebranded under the OYO banner.
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OYO acquires India’s biggest online wedding firm
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that the board of Tata Sons Ltd had nothing to do with the fraudulent transaction of `22 crore in Air Asia India, as alleged by Tata Sons ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry.
A worrying precedent? These events raise some very important issues that we need to understand. The very initial charges leveled by the CBI, linking the board of Air Asia and Tata Sons in some form to such a charge, is very serious, and we need to understand how the board of directors of Indian companies in general are responsible for frauds and legal misconducts perpetrated at the operational level of the company. Or is it that the board get away just by saying that they had been ignorant of such operational transactions? It is critical for the board of directors, especially the full-time directors who hold executive roles in running the company, to remain vigilant; these directors simply cannot argue that they were not responsible for the actions of managers and executives within the company. In recent court rulings, it has been
Board of directors, especially the fulltime directors who hold executive roles in running the company should remain vigilant. shown that individual directors can be held responsible for an offence by a company if there is enough evidence of the individual’s active role coupled with criminal intent. For independent and non-executive directors, the Companies Act of 2013 stipulates that they are liable only in cases where their knowledge and involvement can be established, or where they, despite having knowledge, failed to act diligently. However, the Prevention and Money Laundering Act of 2002 can be more aggressive, and may still hold independent directors responsible to an appropriate extent in case of fraud at the operating level of the company. Hence, for independent directors to get away with such charges becomes challenging in today’s context, especially given the magnitude of responsibility they have in terms of protecting shareholder’s monies.
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The role of the directors
Tata Trust’s Ramachandran Venkataramanan is also the director of AirAsia India Ltd
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Hence, all of this brings us to a very important point. In order to be effective and live up to the expectations of the shareholders in terms of preserving their interests, independent directors need to
be truly ‘independent’ of the management of the company, and have an eye to look at sometimes even smaller transactions if there is even a grain of suspicion. Therefore, such an independent director will have to move beyond being a yes man to the CEO of the company, and don the hat of the shareholders to ensure that the company and its executive directors are acting in the best interests of the shareholders at all points in time. The independent directors should not hesitate to engage external experts if they smell something fishy to investigate potential fraud or misconduct. All of this means that the role of independent directors is moving beyond traditional realms and is becoming a focal point in preserving the interests of the shareholders. Independent directors are being looked upon as those who, at all points in time, will have an eye of a shareholder. Gone are the days when independent directors are appointed by the managing director (MD) simply to be positioned as a yes man and to support decisions that the MD will benefit from, and not the shareholders at large. Current regulations also ensure that the independent directors are no more considered as a mere pawn in the hands of executive directors and managers of the company in furthering their own personal interests. In effect, this is good for the overall investor community, as this will foster more trust for the public to invest in shares of companies! A
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The rise and rise of food delivery The near-ubiquitous presence of food delivery aggregators like Zomato and Swiggy shows that these companies have struck gold of a sort in their business model. This helps the restaurants focus on their core business of creating inviting food as well. A study of how this segment is functioning. Dr Suresh Srinivasan
Sheer burgeoning scale Swiggy is now valued at close to US$2.5 billion, translating to around `18,000 crore. The company is now entering its third round of funding; with expansion and market share comes ‘cash-burn’, which necessitates further funding. Swiggy is currently shopping around for funds from global investors like SoftBank, General Atlantic and other Chinese hedge funds. Similarly, Zomato, valued at close to US$1.3 billion and backed by investors like Ant Financial and other Singaporebased investment firms, is also growing at a breathtaking pace. So what’s happening in the food delivery aggregator
business? What has now fired up so much interest in this segment, both from customers and investors? With the emergence of the e-commerce aggregator model, the restaurants business per se is now getting disrupted, and restaurant chains have realised that if they are not part of such a disruption, they
will perish. The same mantra that is visible across the world today holds true here as well: Innovate or perish.
Why the model works Food aggregators have figured out that the emergence of a new segment of consumers requiring to be served differently is a source of profitability. This segment prefers the convenience of ordering from the home or office, and expects rapid delivery of a range of food items, generally not served by any single restaurant. Obviously, one single restaurant cannot satisfy the needs of a customer (who may be a family of four, placing the order), as their requirement of such a consumer could encompass much more than what a single restaurant can offer. The aggregators have hence figured out that it is not necessary to build all the required capabilities to deliver value to such customers entirely by one party; this is where the aggregators are primarily adding value. They give the customer a complete
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S
wiggy and Zomato, two of India’s largest food delivery aggregators, are having a dream run. They seem to have perfected their execution model with every passing day. For both companies, customer acquisition rate has exponentially increased over the last 12 months, and so have their valuations.
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range of food items for order, much more than what a single restaurant can ever offer! Secondly, the aggregators add value in helping the restaurants better utilise their resources! How?
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The right restaurants
partner
for
Even for a single large restaurant, the back end kitchen operations and the front end marketing and customer service can be carved out, with two independent parties performing the two functions that can then be seamlessly integrated through technology. Today, restaurants spend on fixed costs, create food processing capacity and ensure the utilisation of the capacity is maximised, i.e., they also take charge of bringing customers into the restaurant, which is a very different capability as compared to preparing food at an optimal cost. With the emergence of the food aggregators, however, traditional restaurants that run their own home delivery operations (which may or may not be operating sub-scale) can now find a partner who can seamlessly pitch into that part of the value chain. These latter firms not only run the delivery service more efficiently, but they also give the restaurants a larger growth to the top line and a better capacity utilisation, thereby becoming a win-win for both the parties as well as to the customer. Restaurants can now completely do away with recruiting delivery staff, digital marketing campaigns, investment in logistics and transportation assets like motorcycles and delivery vans, most of which anyway remained
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highly underutilised. Resources that get released due to the presence of these aggregators can now be spent more meaningfully in enhancing the backend capacity of food production, ensuring the food specifications meet and exceed the targeted customer’s expectations, and ensuring that this is done better than the best practices of the industry. With such aggregators, restaurants can now deepen their focus to create the most appealing food to their target customers without diluting their efforts by getting into marketing, selling and capacity utilisation issues,
The core business of the food delivery aggregator lies in customer focus and the use of apps that is integrated with the restaurants. leaving such headaches to the food aggregator.
The aggregator advantage As compared to restaurants, the food delivery aggregator is generally more technology and customer savvy, and is able to take care of the front end by establishing an efficient app that is easy and enjoyable for the customer in terms of simplicity of use. This simplicity and intuitiveness is built by offering to the customer various search parameters, ease in navigating through the ordering process with minimal hassles, as well as tracking and paying
for the delivered food. Clarity in pickup and drop locations has vastly improved with the enhanced location mapping technologies that are currently available. The core business of the food delivery aggregator lies in customer focus and the use of technology, which blends into apps that is also well integrated with the restaurants. Seamless order confirmation, pickup by delivery personnel and payment integration systems enhance the customer experience. Over and above the technology aspect, the aggregator also focuses on the people, i.e., the motivational levels and incentivisation of the delivery personnel that will differentiate themselves in the market. Another key difference an aggregator can bring in is the careful choice of restaurants that would be listed on its app, ensuring that these are offerings that would appeal to the targeted customers, both in terms of value delivered and the price point offered. Over a period, this would become a ‘self-selection process’, where restaurants will carve a niche for themselves for specific food items. Both Zomato and Swiggy have also started to venture into what’s called a ‘cloud-kitchen’ model as one of their services, in order to help their partner restaurants with backend infrastructure supply. They provide real estate and kitchen equipment support, and help them scale their order volumes in new localities without the restaurants having to invest in infrastructure for expansions.
The thorn amidst the rose Although this is an opportunity
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for the restaurant, there is a downside to partnering with such firms. The aggregator is not exclusive to the restaurant. Many competitors of the restaurant are also featured in the food aggregator’s app, which means that this provides a seamless platform for the customers to evaluate the ‘value deliveredprice’ of different restaurants within a cluster, and choose the one that offers them the best deal. Hence, the restaurant’s products must stand the close scrutiny of such high level of transparency brought about by the app and the aggregator. This effectively means that any dilution in ’food product quality-value-price’ dimensions could seriously impact the restaurant’s sales proportion on the aggregator app for the respective target customer group.
Other innovations There are further disruptions being witnessed in this industry. The distinction between food delivery and grocery delivery is blurring and converging. Meal-kit delivery is emerging and becoming popular. These e-commerce service providers provide ready to cook complete box of all ingredients you need, in exact quantities, for you to ‘freshly’ cook any particular dish for the entire family. One can cook and have the final dish in 15 to 30 minutes. Dishes like Paneer Butter Masala and Hara Bhara Kabab are extremely popular. Meal-kit products come at a substantially cheaper price as compared to cooked food items ordered through the aggregators. Happy Chef Gourmet, a part of Bigbasket.com, is offering mealkits starting at a mere `200 for two people. Of late, many other players are emerging in this space
too. The Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, along with Ant Financial, has invested not only in Zomato, but also in Happy Chef. Hence the food aggregation model and the meal-kit models are fast emerging entities, with leading players in this space already boasting billion dollar valuations. Investors pouring funds into these segments are enabling the players to scale up rapidly, and the customer base is rising exponentially. The next 12 months will see most of the players perfecting their business models and sharpening their capabilities, and the customer will stand to benefit the most. Yes you can order anything anywhere in the smallest of the quantities you want, and all of these come at an affordable price. Yes, consumers are for sure reaping the benefits of technology and entrepreneurial zeal of innovators! A
INDIA INC: AT A GLANCE Future group co ties up with NZ-based diary firm Future Consumer Ltd, led by retail entrepreneur Kishore Biyani, will form an equal joint venture with New Zealand’s Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd. The deal will enable Fonterra, the world’s largest dairy exporter, to set up a presence in India, the world’s largest and fastest growing dairy market covering milk products. The first consumer products in India will be launched by the middle of 2019, using both locally sourced milk and dairy products from New Zealand. It is to be noted that consumer demand for dairy in India over the next seven years is set to increase by 82 billion litres, which is seven times the forecasted growth for China.
Ebix acquires India-based tech firm Ebix, Inc., a leading international supplier of on-demand software and e-commerce services to insurance, financial, healthcare and e-learning industries, recently acquired India-based Indus Software Technologies Pvt. Ltd for around `200 crore.
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Amazon pushed into healthcare space with latest acquisition Online retailer Amazon recently announced that it would buy online pharmacy PillPack. Through this acquisition, Amazon has shown clear intent to enter the healthcare system. The news has caused a shakeup in the prescription-drug industry, and the retail giant’s foray will pose challenges to existing players like Walgreens and CVS Health Corp. PillPack packages, organises and delivers drugs, sending packages with the specific number of medications consumers are supposed to take at specific times.
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All you need to know about direct tax code The entire income of a country depends on its direct taxes, which, in India’s case, is quite outdated. A committee has been set up to come up with an entirely new direct tax code, which will purportedly benefit the common man. In this article, we explore how this can be brought about. Dr Suresh Srinivasan
W
ith the introduction of the Goods and Services tax (GST), the indirect tax code in the country was restructured and converged into a single window ‘indirect’ taxation across the country. The Government of India is now at an advanced stage of introducing a new direct tax code, and is preparing this direct tax code with an objective to replacing the Income Tax Act of 1961. Direct tax, which generally deals with personal income tax, corporate tax and other levies such as the capital gains tax, has undergone numerous changes over the years.
India’s tax receipts
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The size of India’s annual gross revenue receipts is around `23 lakh crore. Out of this, corporate
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tax and income tax together constitute around `12 lakh crore, translating to more than 50% of the total gross revenue receipts. Taxing companies and individuals is the main source of income for the country. Corporate tax is the tax that is levied on the profits of companies. This constitutes around 27% of India’s gross revenue receipts. Income tax, being the tax levied on the personal income of individuals, amounts to around 23% of the total gross revenue receipts. Direct taxation, in general, and corporate taxation in specific is, therefore, a key source of national income. It is natural that the economy needs more investments to flow into the country with an objective to boost corporate revenue and profits. This will, in turn, help the economy end up with higher corporate tax receipts.
Lower tax equals higher FDI One of the key drivers for the investments to flow into the country is the
effective corporate taxation rate. The lower the corporate tax rate in comparison to other countries in the region, the more the long term foreign direct investments (FDI) are likely to flow into the country. Institutional investors look at the capital gains tax regime and the profits on their financial investments. Investors also look for ease of understanding the taxation code and systems.
The evasion issue Another problem we face today is the taxpayer base. There are a number of assessees, both small sized corporates and individuals, who have managed to keep themselves out of the tax net; evading tax by assessees is one of the main sources of leakage in the tax revenue. This is due to the fact that the taxation rates are high, and the process of tax filing is complicated. The government also spends large sums of monies in the process of collection of taxes, which can be reduced if the taxation laws are simplified, taxation rates reduced and the filing of income tax made much simpler.
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Out with the old? Direct taxation in the country is governed by the Income Tax Act of 1961, and the amendments to the original enactment that happens on a periodic basis. Naturally, it is clear that this legislation is old, quite outdated and in need of a compelling revamp. In 2017, one of India’s top taxmen Arbind Modi was asked to come up with a new direct taxation code that would effectively revamp the existing, outdated enactment. Other members of the task force, bestowed with the responsibility to come up with a new direct taxation code include Girish Ahuja, a chartered accountant, Rajiv Memani, chairman and regional managing partner of EY, Mukesh Patel, a practising tax advocate, Mansi Kedia, a consultant, and G.C. Srivastava, a retired IRS officer and advocate. The Chief Economic Advisor is also part of the committee. The primary objective of the committee is to enhance the taxpayer base, reduce tax rate over the longer term, and remove disparities among taxpayers.
Committee mandate One of the areas that the committee will look into more closely will be the exemptions included under the current tax legislation. Tax exemptions have always been a problem and have made the direct tax regime quite complicated, leading to large volumes of litigation. Exemptions under Section 10 of the Income Tax are intended to provide relief to the assessees, exempting certain streams of income from the purview of taxation. Over a period of time, there have been a number of amendments adding many sources of incomes that are exempted under section 10 of the Income Tax Act 1961. These include income from interest earned from bank accounts (with a cap), certain allowances received from the employer part of the salary income including leave encashment and gratuity income received, proceeds from life insurance policy, agricultural income, long term capital gains, etc. These make the tax computations very complicated. There is a strong view that the government can improve the overall
collections by minimising or totally eliminating exemptions, and in parallel, reducing the tax rate. This in effect will not compromise on the tax collection, but would simplify the process in terms of tax administration and improving transparency.
The global scenario We all know that globally, countries attempt to steadily decrease the tax rate, increase the net and base of taxpayers and thereby reduce the effective tax rate. The new direct tax code will target a 5% drop in the short to medium term from the existing tax rate of 30%, with the introduction of the proposed new tax code. Already small companies are eligible for the 25% direct tax rate. The US recently reduced its direct tax rate by almost 40% from its 35% to close to 20%. This has now encouraged many domestic companies to bring back investments and jobs into the US, including companies like Apple Inc. The proposed taxation code is expected to be in line with international and peer group nation benchmarks,
INDIA INC: AT A GLANCE HUL to acquire Adityaa Milk
Cadila will acquire Windlas Drugmaker Cadila Healthcare Ltd, which operates under the Zydus Cadila brand, has agreed to acquire a 51% stake in pharmaceuticals company Windlas Healthcare Pvt. Ltd for `155.5 crore. The acquisition will help the company expand its pharmaceutical manufacturing footprint.
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FMCG major Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) has signed an agreement to acquire the ice cream and frozen desserts business of Karnataka-based Vijaykant Dairy and Food Products Ltd. HUL will acquire the company’s flagship brand Adityaa Milk and its front-end distribution network across Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala. The acquisition is aimed at complementing HUL’s existing frozen desserts brand Kwality Wall’s, and is an attempt to bridge the gap between HUL and market leader Amul. It is interesting to note that an April 2015 study estimated India’s ice cream market to grow to `6,198 crore in 2019 from `4,160 crore in 2014.
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and in line with tax laws prevalent in other countries, incorporating international best practices, and keeping in mind the economic needs of the country. New business models that are emerging, including e-commerce, have become complicated in terms of transactions and have conclusively established the place accrual of effective taxation. A certain lack of clarity and transparency in this respect has opened up a floodgate of litigations between the tax authorities and the assessees. This is likely to be conclusively addressed in the new direct taxation code.
What next? Once the recommendations of the committee and the new taxation code is tabled, the Indian Parliament needs to eventually approve the legislation, and an amendment to the Finance Bill will also be required for the draft legislation to become effective as law.
The new direct tax code will target a 5% drop in the short to medium term from the existing tax rate of 30% with the proposed new tax. This is not the first time this exercise is being attempted. In 2009, former finance minister P. Chidambaram had proposed the original direct taxe code to replace the cumbersome IT law with a clean new law and to embody the principle of keeping taxes low and removing exemptions. The current taskforce leader Arbind Modi had earlier assisted the former finance minister in preparing the code. However, the Bill, which underwent many changes subsequently, was not passed by Parliament. The Direct Taxes Code (DTC) Bill, 2010, which was introduced in Parliament in 2010,
lapsed with the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha. Personal taxation is a very sensitive subject and impacts millions of the salaried class in the country. In all probability, the government may not table such a sensitive subject in Parliament, given that we are getting closer to the general elections slated to be held in 2019. Although the committee would have completed with their task of coming up with the new direct tax code, the probability of this being put up in Parliament for approval, especially in the election year, is quite low. We may have to wait for some more time for such an important regulation to see the light of day! A Dr Suresh Srinivasan is a Chartered Accountant, has an MBA (Bradford UK) and a Doctorate in Strategy. He is the Director of the 2-year PGDM at Great Lakes Institute of Management, as well as a Professor (Strategy & Accounting). He is also a management consultant.
INDIA INC: AT A GLANCE IL&FS, Ramky swap stakes IL&FS Transportation Networks Ltd and Ramky Infrastructure Ltd have agreed to swap their stakes in two road joint ventures. IL&FS Transportation will sell its entire 50% stake in NAM Expressway Ltd to Ramky and acquire the partner’s 50% stake in Jorabat Shillong Expressway.
Girnar software takes over YouTube motor channel PowerDrift Jaipur-based Girnar Software Pvt. Ltd, which owns auto portals CarDekho.com, BikeDekho.com and Gaadi.com, has acquired automotive content YouTube channel PowerDrift, which uploads videos reviews of cars and motorcycles. The acquisition is in line with Girnar’s efforts to expand its play in the content space. The PowerDrift channel was launched in 2012, and currently has nearly 10 lakh subscribers.
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Nazara gaming co acquires VR firm Mobile games developer Nazara Technologies Ltd has acquired a minority stake in InstaSportz Consultancy Pvt Ltd, a virtual reality gaming company. The acquisition marks Nazara’s entry into the offline gaming space, offering virtual interactive sports entertainment via VR lounges. With more powerful hardware complementing smoother gaming experiences, gaming companies are gearing up for the next wave of gaming, which they claim will be VR based.
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STUDY YOGAHOUR TALK
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STUDY HOUR
Are you a Brainiac? In this section, we shall explore several different types of questions from the various areas of entrance exams like the CAT, CET, GMAT, etc, and how to best solve them.
Quant DIRECTIONS for questions 1 to 3: Answer the questions independently of each other. 1. Find the sum upto infinity. 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Exp:
Let S=
Thus, the given series is the difference of two infinite geometric series with their respective sums S1 and S2 given by
= 1 and
. Hence, [3].
2. Find the sum of the first 100 terms of the following series. log
1] –4950 log(2)
2]
3]
4] –5050 log(2)
5]
Exp:
Required sum
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Hence, [2].
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STUDY HOUR
Verbal [3], though it mentions bismuth crystals just as in [2], does not have any relevance to the rest of the sentences, as it talks about the melting point of bismuth. Hence, [3].
DIRECTIONS for questions 1 and 2: Each of the following questions has four sentences pertaining to a subject, which may or may not be in sequence. One of the sentences is contextually/logically incorrect. Choose the option corresponding to the sentence that is
DIRECTIONS for question 3: The following question has a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the sentence that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.
incorrect or inappropriate.
Why is it so hard to find words for smells? That’s because smell, unlike our other senses, isn’t consciously processed: the input goes straight to the emotion and memory centres. Our first impression of a scent may be a flash of colour, an image, a sensation, rather than a word. Humans are better equipped for sight than for smell – we process visual input ten times faster than olfactory.
Statement [1] asks a question regarding smell. Both [2] and [3] answer that question: [2] answers it directly, and [3] elaborates on the point made in [2], by providing examples of the impressionistic (as opposed to the conscious) sensations of smell. The correct sequence of the sentences is as given: [1]-[2]-[3]. Statement [4] does not fit into the sequence, as it begins a different point, i.e. the difference between humans’ visual and olfactory abilities. Hence, [4].
Q.2. 1. Of the nearly infinite number of possible chemicals in the world, bismuth is one of the very few that expands when it freezes. 2. A theoretical lake of bismuth would behave the same way – so unattached solid bismuth crystals would float in their denser liquid surroundings. 3. Bismuth has a low melting point – just above 271°C – so bismuth crystals may be grown even on a household stove. 4. We don’t appreciate how bizarre this is because of common ice, which does the same thing, so that it floats on lakes while fish swim around in the water below it.
Statement [1] introduces the topic of the paragraph, i.e. that bismuth is one of the few substances that expands when it freezes. Statements [4] and [2] are connected: [4] mentions the behaviour of lakes of water, and [2] states that ‘a theoretical lake of bismuth would behave the same way’. Both these flow directly from the point mentioned in [1], that bismuth expands when it freezes. So they can be arranged in the sequence [1]-[4]-[2]. But
Q.3. Our brains and ears add up sounds in an unusual way in order to help us stay alive. From the times of the earliest cavemen to the present day, we have used our ears to help us avoid danger. This is one of the main reasons we have ears in the first place (although they are also useful for supporting our sunglasses). To be effective, your ears have to be able to hear very quiet noises (like the sound of someone creeping up on you), but also they must not get damaged by loud noises (such as thunder). It wouldn’t be any good if you had excellent hearing for quiet noises but your ears stopped working after the first loud noise you heard.
1. 2. 3. 4.
So our ears are organized in such a way that loud noises can be heard clearly but any decrease in the volume of the noise has progressively less and less impact. So our ears are organized in such a way that loud noises can be heard clearly but any increase in the volume of the noise has progressively more and more impact. So our ears are organized in such a way that quiet noises can be heard clearly but any increase in the volume of the noise has progressively more and more impact. So our ears are organized in such a way that quiet noises can be heard clearly but any increase in the volume of the noise has progressively less and less impact.
Based on the options, the final sentence of this paragraph is essentially the conclusion of the argument presented in the paragraph, so it should logically summarize the argument in the paragraph. According to this argument, our ears should be sensitive enough to effectively hear quiet noises, but not so sensitive such that they get damaged by loud noises. So the impact of noises should be full-fledged in case of quiet noises, and get less and less as the sound gets louder. This is what is stated in option [4]. The rest of the options either state the opposite ([1] and [3]) or make no sense at all ([2]). Hence, [4].
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Q.1. 1. 2. 3. 4.
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WORD DOSE
STUDY HOUR
Bertie Wooster and Madeline Bassett This Bassett, I must explain, had been a fellow visitor of ours at Cannes; and as she and Angela had struck up one of those effervescent friendships which girls do strike up, I had seen quite a bit of her. Indeed, in my moodier moments it sometimes seemed to me that I could not move a step without stubbing my toe on the woman. And what made it all so painful and distressing was that the more we met, the less did I seem able to find to say to her. You know how it is with some girls. They seem to take the stuffing right out of you. I mean to say, there is something about their personality that paralyses the vocal cords and reduces the contents of the brain to cauliflower. It was like that with this Bassett and me; so much so that I have known occasions when for minutes at a stretch Bertram Wooster might have been observed fumbling with the tie, shuffling the feet, and behaving in all other respects in her presence like the complete dumb brick. When, therefore, she took her departure some two weeks before we did, you may readily imagine that, in Bertram’s opinion, it was not a day too soon. It was not her beauty, mark you, that thus numbed me. She was a pretty enough girl in a droopy, blonde, saucer-eyed way, but not the sort of breath-taker that takes the breath. Excerpt from P. G. Wodehouse’s Right Ho, Jeeves
MATCH THE WORDS WITH THEIR MEANINGS 1. Struck up (idiom) 2. Effervescent (ef-er-ves-uh nt) (adj)
13. Dumb brick (duhm brik) (simile)
8. Paralyses (par-uh-lahyz-s) (v)
15. Numbed (nuhm) (v)
3. Moodier (moo-dee-er) (adj)
9. Vocal cords (n)
4. Stubbing (stuhb-ing) (v)
10. Stretch (stretch) (n)
5. Distressing (dih-stres-ing) (adj)
11. Fumbling (fuhm-buh l-ing) (v)
6. Take the stuffing out of you (idiom)
12. Shuffling (shuhf-ling) (v)
a. An extremely stupid (Also, Dumb as a brick)
person
b. (Of a woman or girl) having fair hair and usually fair skin and light eyes; can also signify stupid behaviour c. To do any work clumsily or inefficiently
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7. Personality (pur-suh-nal-i-tee) (n)
d. Shift one’s position or move one’s feet while standing, typically because of boredom, nervousness, or embarrassment e. To start something, typically a relationship; to start playing an instrument f. Without hesitation or reluc-
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
tance, willingly g. Merry, vivacious, enthusiastic h. Causing anxiety, sorrow or pain; upsetting i. To bring to a condition of helpless stoppage, inactivity, or inability to act j. A continuous period of time k. The combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character l. Sudden bouts of gloominess or sullenness m. Having large round wide-open eyes, usually signifying wonder
14. Readily (red-i-lee) (adv) 16. Droopy (droo-pee) (adj) 17. Blonde (blond) (adj) 18. Saucer-eyed (adj) 19. Breath-taker (n)
n. Someone who is so astonishing, exciting and astounding, so as to be almost breathtaking o. Accidentally strike (one’s toe) against something p. Folds of membranous tissue inside the throat that vibrate to produce the voice q. To make someone or something very weak (Also, Knock the stuffing out of …) r. Unable to think, feel, or respond normally s. Lacking in strength or spirit
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STUDY HOUR
Sept 2018 2018 only. April
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
STUDY HOUR
A quiz to boost your General Knowledge 1. At the Asian Games 2018, Rani Sarnobat created history by becoming the first Indian woman to win a gold medal at this event, after tying with and then defeating Thailand’s NaphaswanYangpaiboon in the tie breaker. In which event did Sarnobat win the gold? a. Badminton b. 100 m sprint c. Shooting (rifle) d. Shooting (pistol)
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2. Satya Pal Malik has been appointed the new Governor of this state, replacing N.N. Vohra. Prior to this post, Malik had been the Governor of Bihar. Name the state. a. Haryana b. Uttarakhand c. Jammu & Kashmir d. Tripura 3. The theme of the 10th edition of the BRICS Summit 2018 is “BRICS in Africa – collaboration for inclusive growth and shared prosperity in the 4th industrial revolution”. The five BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — account for 26% of the world’s landmass and house 43% of the world’s population. In which country will this BRICS Summit 2018 be held? a. Brazil b. South Africa c. China d. Russia
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
4. Which of the former chiefs of the Indian Army was recently awarded Legion of Merit honourby the United States his for exceptionally meritorious service as Chief of Army Staff? a. General Dalbir Singh Suhag b. General Bikram Singh c. General Deepak Kapoor d. General Sundararajan Padmanabhan 5. India’s first state-run hotel run fully by women employees has been christened “Hostess”, and will have both rooms and dormitories, along with all state-of-the-art facilities. In which state will this flagship project come up? a. Tamil Nadu b. Meghalaya c. Kerala d. Odisha 6. Which of the following Bollywood personalities was recently conferred the degree of D Litt(Honoris Causa) by the West Bengal governor KeshariNathTripathi? a. BipashaBasu b. Sharmila Tagore c. Konkona Sen Sharma d. Jaya Bachchan 7. An international team of scientists recently cracked the genetic code of the world’s most widely cultivated crop, which will help the cultivation of
climate-resilient varieties to address global food shortage.Name the crop. a. Wheat b. Rice c. Maize d. Barley
8. The National Traders Conclave 2018 was recently organised by Confederation of All India Traders to address various grievances of the trading community and focus on effective solutions. One of the main points of contention at the conclave was FDI in retail and the Walmart-Flipkart deal. Where was the conclave held? a. Mumbai b. New Delhi c. Ahmedabad d. Bangalore 9. Data from ISRO’s Chandrayaan-I spacecraft was recently used to confirm the presence of frozen water deposits on the dark side of the moon. Which space agency came up with the definitive findings? a. China National Space Administration (CNSA) b. European Space Agency (ESA) c. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) d. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
STUDY HOUR
11. A museum for all former Prime Ministers of India is set to come up at a cost of `270 crore in which of the following cities? a. Udaipur b. Hyderabad c. New Delhi d. Lucknow 12. Veteran journalist,human rights activist, former High Indian Commissioner to the UK and former Rajya Sabha member KuldipNayar passed away recently at the age of 95. He was arrested at the height of the Emergency for his stand against the Indira Gandhi government. At the time, he was the editor of which of the following newspapers? a. The India Express b. The Times of India c. The Express Tribune d. The Statesman 13. Recently, President Rodrigo Duterte spoke about against the US’s warning against his country’s purchasing submarines from Russia, stating that the US had no right to threaten an ally. Name the country. a. Philippines b. Mexico c. Brazil d. Spain
14. World Mosquito Day is observed every year to raise awareness about the causes of malaria and preventative measures, and marks British doctor Sir Ronald Ross’s landmark discovery in 1897 that female mosquitoes ‘Anopheles’ transmit the malaria virus to humans. When is the World Mosquito Day held? a. August 20 b. July 31 c. September14 d. February23 15. The Global Disability Summit of 2018 was co-hosted by the UK government along with the International Disability Alliance and the Government of Kenya. The aim of the summit galvanise efforts across the world towards disability inclusion. In which of the following cities was the summit held? a. New York b. Nairobi c. London d. Abu Dhabi 16. Which of the following IITs has decided to set up the Re-Water Research Center to replenish water resources in the country to resolve sewage disposal and provide access to potable water, with the pilot plant expected to be ready by March 2019? a. IIT Kanpur b. IIT Kharagpur c. IIT Delhi d. IIT Madras 17. The World Meteorological Organization has designated which of the following countries as the nodal centre to prepare flash
flood forecasts to Asian nations, by developing a customised weather model using satellite mapping and ground-based observation? a. Vietnam b. Sri Lanka c. Japan d. India
18. A national control programme has been launched by the Government of India in collaboration with the World Health Organization to combat which disease by 2030? a. Malaria b. Hepatitis c. Polio d. Diabetes 19. World Rangers Day is celebrated every year to commemorate and acknowledge the efforts of rangers who protect, conserve and preserve the biodiversity of our forests at the cost of their lives. On which date is this day celebrated? a. July 14 b. August 14 c. July 31 d. August 31 20. The tiger population in the reputed Mudumalai Tiger Reserve has reportedly doubled to 60 from 30, due to intensive conservation efforts. In which state is the tiger reserve located? a. Tamil Nadu b. Kerala c. Karnataka d. Telangana 21. In its Mid-Year FY 2019 Outlook report, the India Ratings and Research has revised India’s GDP growth
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10. Kane Tanaka, a Japanese super centenarian, has become the world’s oldest verified living person following the death of ChiyoMiyako. Tanaka credits her age to family, sleep and hope. How old is she? a. 114 b. 115 c. 116 d. 117
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
STUDY HOUR
1.d 2.c
3.b
4.a 5.c
6.b 7.a
8.b
9.d 10.b
11.c 12.d
13.a 14.a 15.c
16.b 17.d
18.b
19.c 20.a
21.b 22.d
23.c
24-d
For more similar puzzles, visit: www.sudoku.com
7.k
6.q
2.g
1.e
13.a 8.i 3.l
14.f 9.p 4.o
15.r 10.j 5.h
WORD DOSE
12.d
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SUDOKU
11.c
Advanc’edge MBA September 2018
GLOBESCAN
19.n
24. Which of the following countries was recently granted Strategic Trade Authorization-1 (STA-1) by the United States to ease the export of high tech items? a. Sri Lanka b. China c. Pakistan d. India
ANSWERS
18. M
23. Recently, a judicial audit was ordered of all religious places and charitable institutions with regard to hygiene, assets, access and accounts, which will cover over 20 lakh major temples and 3 lakh major mosques across India. Which of the following entities passed this order? a. Ministry of Minority Affairs b. Ministry of Religious Affairs c. Supreme Court d. Bombay High Court
How to Play Fill in the grid so that every horizontal row, every vertical column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1-9, without repeating the numbers in the same row, column or box. You can’t change the digits already given in the grid. Every puzzle has one solution. Hint: Don’t fill in numbers at random. While filling a particular square, write numbers 1-9 on a pad and start eliminating those numbers that already appear in the same row, column or 3x3 box.
17.b
22. Started in 1975, the World Hindi Conference aims to expand the reach of the Hindi language, the third most spoken language in the world. In which country was the 11th edition of the World Hindi Conference held in 2018? a. Suriname b. Netherlands c. South Africa d. Mauritius
16.s
down to 7.2% from the earlier 7.4%, due to the upward revision of inflation estimates. India Ratings and Research belongs to which of the following groups? a. Moody’s b. Fitch c. S&P d. CRISIL