Smart leaders tend to look at the world through coloured lenses that skew or limit their perspective, which affects their decisions and actions. It is only when they remove those lenses that they can gain a broader perspective. Dr Prasad Kaipa, founding Executive Director of Centre for Learning, Innovation and Change (CLIC) and a visiting professor at the ISB was speaking to a rapt audience on how smart leaders must widen their perspectives and cultivate wisdom to be more effective. Dr Kaipa is the co-author of From Smart to Wise: Acting and Leading with Wisdom in which he explains how by changing their “smart” perspective and cultivating practical wisdom instead, leaders can lay the foundation for a wise leadership style that's more effective.
With mobile connectivity and computing facility becoming cheaper and easily accessible even in rural India, Varad Pande, Officer on Special Duty to the Minister of Rural Development believes that the government initiative, Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT), has arrived at the right time. Pande’s talk was organised by the Bharti Institute of Public Policy (BIPP) and the Emerging Markets Club as part of the "Slice of Policy" talk series. Pande explained that through DBT, disbursements will be made directly to the beneficiaries through the dense network of business correspondents (BCs) using biometric micro-ATM machines. This would enable transfer of entitlements and benefits to the Aadhar-enabled bank accounts, thus, bypassing ‘duplicates and ghosts.’ Currently, the payments made by the government pass through multiple intermediaries before reaching beneficiaries. This results in the benefits getting diminished in value over the chain and also reaching late. Pande noted that DBT would not only reduce fiscal bill but also help in achieving transparency and accuracy in enabling financial inclusion in India, in addition to saving the government a whopping 20% annually. In his talk, Pande also elaborated on how the DBT system would function with the help of a seven-component model beginning with the Aadhar enrolment and followed by bank account for all its beneficiaries.
Start-up first, an initiative by the Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (WCED) at the ISB and The Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital Club, brought over two dozen start-ups and companies interested in recruiting management graduates to the campus. The main objective of this initiative is to nurture entrepreneurship by connecting students with companies, where they can have an entrepreneurial role. The companies also benefit from having talented management professionals in their teams.
Each year the ISB community felicitates its service providers by organising Sahayak Diwas, an event that comprises games and cultural activities specially organised for the Sahayaks. The first Sahayak Diwas in the Mohali campus was organised recently. The week-long event featured athletics, volleyball and table tennis games amongst the teams of Sarovar, G4S and IT helpdesk. The teams participated in the events with great enthusiasm and displayed exemplary sportsmanship. The grand finale was a colourful cultural performance, where the participants sang, and performed Punjabi and Himachali folk dances. The ISB community expressed its gratitude to the staff and appreciated their performance. Finally, prizes were awarded to the best performers and workers.