Between Mr fair and Ms fairly

Ecowas observers described the Nigerian polls as 'fairly acceptable'(!) rather than 'free and fair'!!!

For more reports by election monitors in the country, see the BBC link

Pocketfulls of pay packets

Even in my extremely busy work day, early last month, this news item just caught my eye, - and refused to let go. Glutton to punishment (oui, se moi) I read and re-read it, while musing over the wrong choice...;-(..maybe there is 'some' method to every other Indian going, lemming-like (!!), for medicine, management or engineering. Anyway, here is the story in question:

Fattest ever pay pack for IIM grad

Two students of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C) have bagged the highest-paying placement offer in IIM history, worth $250,000 - or Rs 1,12,50,000 per annum. An investment bank has offered them the money for a job in its New York unit. The bank, in fact, has offered two other IIM-C students annual salaries in crores. They are going to be paid 120,000 pounds, or Rs 18,00,000, a year for posts in the London office of the company The highest salary offered in 2006 was $152,000. "This year, we have four students with a pay package of over Rs 1 crore per annum. Two of them have got the highest offer made to any IIM student till date. IIMC specialises in finance, which is why in- vestment banks have made all the top salary offers," said Sarfaraz Khimani, a first-year student and external relations secretary of the institute. But if the highest foreign salaries offered this year have seen a growth of 70 per cent, the domestic salaries have had a 100 per cent jump. While last year's highest salary was Rs 23 lakh per annum, this year's - offered by an investment bank again - is Rs 43 lakh. IIM-C also recorded another first in Indian business school history - all the four students in the crore club have been offered the post of associates. This brings them on a par with graduates from American business schools, such as Harvard, not just in terms of salaries, but positions too. Joining as an associate will give them at least a two-year head start over others, apart from a significant bulge in their pockets. "Indian B-School pass-outs had never been associates before. Instead, the position always went to students from Harvard, Stanford and Wharton. This year, however, we have proved that IIM-C students now get global-level placements," said Khimani. There were 21 slot Zero companies this year compared to 17 companies last year Among them, IIM-C regulars included Mckinsey, Boston Consulting Group, AT Kearney, Merill Lynch, Barclays Capital, UBS and Deutsche Bank. Companies recruiting from the institute for the first time included Barclays Capital, ING (Netherlands), Bain Consulting, Trikona (Real Estate and Private Equity), CIC (Real Estate and Private Equity), Value Partners (Strategy Consulting) and Optiver (Market Maker). Among the exclusive recruiters at IIMC, there were JP Morgan Chase, BNP Paribas, Sun Group (Private Equity) and Optiver The slot-one company placements start from Monday and are expected to get over by Thursday Students will have to join their respective companies by mid May.

The only good thing in this whole depressing episode is that, it seems the HT website has gotten (at least) some of its bearings, seeing that I could access almost a month old article. A few weeks ago I was deeply disappointed to learn that the numerous D,C,T articles I had come across over the past few months, and which I had diligently emailed myself, for future use in my RP analysis, opened up to 'page does not exist' links. Now, with the current story, it seems HT has rectified the long-lasting problem. Or, wait a minute, is it just the money talking?