After Modi, who?

If the Gujarat Chief Minister moves to Delhi after 2014, there are a number of contenders for his job in the state but for the moment, they are quiet. Arnold Christie draws up a list

In the throes of his victorious Long March more than six decades ago, China’s great helmsman Mao Tse Dung was richly aphoristic “a great revolution requires a great party and many first rate cadres to guide it… we must purposefully train lakhs of cadres and hundreds of first rate mass leaders…….,” he said.

What he said about revolutionary principles applies to political parties in a parliamentary democracy – a well organised cadre is a sine qua non for a party seeking to broaden its base and stay afloat.

But trust Narendra Modi to turn things on their head. Such has been his dominance in Gujarat in the course of his decade-long rule there that there has been virtually no need for an organised cadre or second-in-command. No leader can claim proximity to the BJP strongman, who is tipped as one of the strong contenders for being Prime Minister when the country goes to elections in 2014. The main question on every Gujarati lip is this: who will succeed Modi in the state in the eventuality of his elevation to Delhi? While there are several claimants to his legacy, no one is willing to hedge their bets – as yet – as most of them are too fragile to get into Modi’s bad books.

Political analysts say that in 2001, when Modi took over the reins of Gujarat BJP, his overall attempt was to cut down to size any opposition from the BJP ranks. Slowly, but steadily, powerful Gujarat BJP leaders were defanged: Keshubhai Patel and Suresh Mehta were left rudderless, Haren Pandya was mysteriously murdered while powerful backward leader Kashiram Rana passed away, leaving the field open for Modi. Today, former chief ministers Keshubhai Patel and Suresh Mehta are not even part of BJP. After demolishing the first line of BJP leadership, there is only the second line of BJP cadres left in the state who are quite willing to do Modi's bidding.
While there are a youthful bunch of BJP leaders in the fray like Nitin Patel, Amit Shah, Purushottam Rupala, R C Faldu and Saurabh Patel, they lack Narendra Modi’s charisma and gumption.

While there is a lot of gossip on who could succeed Modi, the Gujarat Chief Minister has everyone, including members of his kitchen cabinet, guessing. None of the leaders mentioned wants a mass base of his or hers own - they would rather be close to Modi.

Such a situation suits the Gujarat Chief Minister who has deliberately created this confusion so that his iron grip on the state remains even if the NDA loses. In three consecutive assembly elections, he has proved that without him the Gujarat BJP cannot win the state. The deliberate posturing of being a one-man army has proved beneficial; it is not the BJP but Modi who is a box-office hit. So far, all speculation has centred on Anandiben Patel, said to be the unofficial second-in-command of Gujarat BJP and also Modi’s successor if he moves to the centre. Insiders in the state BJP say that Modi has been grooming Anandiben to take over from him.


An indication of that has come in the way she has conducted meetings and even presided over portfolios which are not under her jurisdiction. For instance, unofficially, Anandiben has guided the destinies of the party over the significant poll issue of the Narmada Dam project in a drought-stricken Gujarat.

But health may not be on side of 71-year-old Anandiben. In which case, Modi favourite Saurabh Patel – a MBA from US - can consider himself in the run. Saurabh’s ministerial responsibilities of energy, finance, industries, petrochemicals and minerals and civil aviation give him a direct line to the country’s biggest corporate houses.

With both Patels as his closest lieutenants, Modi has in a sense, secured both his past and the future. With key aide Amit Shah entangled in encounter cases,  Modi has been keen to promote 54-year-old Saurabh Patel. He was reportedly instrumental in getting Saurabh a `safe’ seat during the 2012 assembly elections.

Another possible contender is former Finance Minister Vajubhai Vala, the man who holds the record of presenting the state budget 14 times and his successor Nitin Patel. Nitin, a Patel leader from Mehsana, is also in Modi’s good books and holds important portfolios like health, medical education, family welfare and transport. These days, he is the unofficial representative of the Gujarat government on places where Modi cannot make it.

Member of Parliament Purushottam Rupala too is said to be in the race but recent developments in BJP’s internal politics indicate that Rupala is out because of differences with Modi on allotting seats during the assembly elections. They say that Rupala’s non-inclusion in the new Team Rajnath in Delhi is a sign of this changing equation.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

Book Review: Land of The Seven Rivers

Geography as history

History can be very dangerous because our interpretations are invariably coloured by our ideological worldview. So let me state right at the outset that the JNU school of historians are not going to like this book. The Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India’s Geography by Sanjeev Sanyal is an audacious attempt that tries to bust many beliefs held strongly in traditional (read Marxist) interpretations of Indian history. For example, the author tries to argue that the Aryans were not invaders but people who originated in India and that the ancient Rig Veda is coterminous with the Harappan civilization. Believe me, hackles will be raised at this!

In any case, I have failed to understand the animosity and hostility between the JNU school of history and the, for want of a better term, the ‘Internet Hindu’ school of history. At their worst, both reveal closed minds and prejudices winning over curiosity. Frankly, I tend to laugh when exponents of Hindutva fashion Indian history though their blinkered eyes, invoking a great culture and civilization of yore when much of the world was hunting and gathering. I think that is taking jingoism a bit too far. For that matter, I also laugh when the more committed members of the JNU tribe dismiss everything to do with Hinduism or Indian civilization as hogwash. I think that is carrying Marxism a bit too far. The truth, as always, must surely lie somewhere in between these extreme positions. I had always thought that keeping an open mind should be the most important qualification for a social scientist! I mean, if theories held sacred even in pure sciences can be found to be untrue by subsequent flashes of genius and discoveries, why can’t the same be true of social sciences?

Take the case of economics. Till 1929, classical economics had unwavering faith in the ability of markets to produce the best possible outcomes. Advocates of this school of passionately believed that free markets lead to fill employment. Then came the Great Crash of 1929 and the subsequent depression when Capitalism faced a crisis of survival. John Maynard Keynes upended the whole structure of classical economics by arguing that markets can fail and government intervention is necessary when economies stagnate. The Keynes school of thought held away till the Reagan and Thatcher revolution of the 1980s when the markets and the pursuit of self interest once again became the reigning deities. Greed is Good became the new mantra till 2008 when Capitalism once again imploded and free market prophets were once again exposed as charlatans.

Surely something similar must happen with interpretations of Indian history? What Sanyal argues in his book about the amazing continuity of the Indian civilization is something that is accepted even by the less strident votaries of the JNU school. Of course, only the ideological hard balls would suggest that India even in ancient times was a political entity in terms of geographical boundaries and systems of governance. Like now, India then too was probably a cacophony of ideas, languages, ethnic backgrounds and a sense of belonging. And continuity is something which we cannot ignore. For example, Sanyal points out how the ox or the bullock cart has been continually visible in India right from the Harappan times to the 21st century. He also points out how the Gayatri Mantra could well be something many Indians have been chanting unchanged for about 4000 years or so. He spends considerable time trying to make sense of the still prevalent myth about the mighty river Saraswati. Sanyal tentatively concludes his quest for Saraswati by arguing that the nondescript river Ghaggar that runs through Haryana was once the mighty Saraswati till geography changed its destiny, and that of the Indian civilization. Not convinced? Even I am not and would wait for more credible evidence.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

Book Review: Sunshine Lanes

Words worth the weight

A poetic journey indeed! There aren’t too many contemporary Hindi film lyricists who can legitimately lay claims to being a poet to boot. Prasoon Joshi’s Gulzar-like portrait on the cover of this book, the right temple of a pair of spectacles dangling from a corner of the mouth completes the pensive image of a man who has successfully steered clear of the crassly commercial aspects of his calling and survived to tell the tale.

Sunshine Lanes – A Poetic Journey, which was formally launched at the Jaipur Literature Festival earlier this year, is a collection of some of Joshi’s best songs, printed here in the Devanagari script with the English translations alongside. Each lyric has a story behind it, which explicated in the writer’s own words.

The book, which also includes some non-film compositions and poems, provides an insight into the overall creative process of lyric-writing, besides specific anecdotal details about Joshi’s professional interactions with frequent collaborators like AR Rahman and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy.

In a preface, Joshi provides a brief overview of his formative years, the influence of which still lives on in his lyrics and poems. It, however, only whets the appetite – does not quite satiate it. Both the ‘writer’s comments’ at the end of each song and the aforementioned preface seem all too pithy to do complete justice to the storehouse of stories that Joshi must be privy to.

Yet, Sunshine Lanes throws just about enough light on the man and his craft to be regarded as an important addition to books about Hindi film music. Lyric writing is central to the evolution of a song and the lyricist has a unique vantage point from where he can view the creation of a film song in its entirety, both subjectively and dispassionately.

Joshi brings his acumen as a writer to bear upon the ruminations. Not only does his book elucidate the elements that constitute a film song, it also explains, if regrettably only in passing, the significance of each of the songs included in this selection, in terms of specific words and lines, or as a whole.

“I am often asked what makes for a beautiful song,” he writes. “What came first, the tunes or the words? For me, a soulful song is one that makes it impossible to decipher this, where there is no overt competition between the music and the lyrics – one that is just a beautiful blend.”              

Joshi does not work in a vacuum. He is conscious of the history of the film song and his own place within its evolutionary continuum. He knows that the quality of lyric writing is currently at low ebb in Mumbai, with the emphasis being firmly on ‘entertaining music’, but he is not willing to write off his fraternity.

He, however, believes that “if this trend continues and the staple and ‘instantly understandable’ songs are demanded and settled for most of the time, the space for experimentation will continue to diminish progressively.”
 
Joshi has been chipping away relentlessly at the shibboleths. As the lyricist of some of the finest film songs of our times, he knows exactly what it takes to make instant connect with the masses without undermining the creative essence
of a lyric.

“Writing lyrics hasn’t been and is not my profession. It’s a passion,” writes Joshi in the preface. It is passion that shields him from the detrimental pressures that less creatively fortified lyricists are vulnerable to in the Mumbai movie industry.

Joshi has a day job. He makes a living as an adman of repute and stature – he is the executive chairman and chief executive of McCann World Group, India and president, South Asia. So he does not have to write Hindi film songs to pay his bills. He can afford to cherry pick his assignments and work only with those with whom he can relate as a writer. He can afford to be an outsider while being an integral part of the industry.

Joshi is acutely aware of the constraints and challenges of his craft. “Writing lyrics for films is like walking a tightrope – one cannot be vague and excessively symbolic like in poetry, but at the same time, the mystique and beauty should not be compromised. Striking the right balance is critical.”

He has been doing just that ever since he wrote his first film lyrics for Rajkumar Santoshi’s Lajja at the turn of the millennium.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

When Snakes Bite...

“Maar diya sahib! Bada zehrila naag tha!”, said the gardener as he stood in front of me, flanked by four others. At the end of a long wooden stick that he held out like a bayonet hung a snake, about six feet long. Its head, once a beautiful greenish black seemed to have been crumpled out of shape and was dripping thick sticky blood.

I shook my head and picked up the now lifeless form of the serpent and pried its mouth open with a twig. I displayed the snake’s dentition for the men. Row upon row of saw-like teeth looked formidable, but then I made the point I was trying to make as I stuck the twig under the rat snake’s teeth and said, “See? no fangs! Iss saanp mein zeher nahin hota! No venom! These snakes just catch rats and bandicoots. They just give you guys a helping hand.”

The men didn’t know how to react to that. What I had just said had collided with their understanding of their world, that all snakes were dangerous, venomous and almost evil beings and the only possible outcomes of an encounter with one were either an agonizing fatal bite for man or a lethal blow from a stick for the snake. On the other hand I could see why a non venomous rat snake could so easily be mistaken for a venomous cobra or krait. So, what should one do when one encounters a snake?


For an answer to that question I had to go looking for a man who knows his snakes like the back of his hand… also because he often has one wrapped around the back of his hand.

Meet Debanik Mukherjee, a herpetologist by trade and an evolutionary biologist by passion, and a man who his friends described to me as “this crazy guy, he catches venomous with his bare hands..”. Warm, unassuming and extremely passionate about his subject, he reminded me I was late for our appointment when I showed up half an hour later than the agreed hour. But instead of making me feel awkward about it he immediately apologized for the state of his field station, dusted an old chair in the corner before offering me a seat and then politely requested an attendant to get us some tea.

A few sips of sweet tea later, I asked the question that had been bothering me. How does one differentiate between a venomous snake and a non venomous one? Debanik Mukherjee rolled his eyes and smiled. “That’s a tough one. Those with an experience of handling snakes can easily tell the differences in coloration and subtle changes in shape. For instance two of India’s relatively more common venomous snakes, the saw-scaled viper and the Russell’s viper, like most vipers, have slightly triangular heads. But it is tough for a layperson to tell the difference between a krait and a rat snake for instance, or a cobra for that matter, unless it has raised its hood.”

Then what is one to do if one encounters a snake inside one’s garden or room? Just wait for it to leave? Mukherjee laughed a wry good natured laugh and said “Carbolic acid! Keep that handy if snakes like visiting you. Carbolic acid or phenol is known to ward snakes off. I think its fumes interfere with the snake’s ability to interpret its environment through its senses. That, or a flame wrapped around a long stick should be enough to drive the snake off in a safe direction and distance. Remember this, that except for an aggressive species like the African black mamba, most snakes will want to avoid conflict with humans, and given an opportunity, would be happy to retreat.”

But what if one does get bitten? What are our options then? Doctor Mukherjee looked into my eyes, leaned across his table and said, “Then there is a problem. Snake venom acts fast. It gives you only hours, often only minutes, about 30 or so, if bitten by a krait for instance. So if you know nothing about snakes and are bitten by one, you must rush to the nearest hospital. Most large hospitals would have access to antivenin. In the old days, people would have to kill and carry the snake to the doctor so he could identify the snake and administer the antivenin accordingly. But today, while carrying a picture on your phone might help, you needn’t fret too much about it for modern polyvalent antivenins would cover the bases for a wide variety of snake bites.

Stay calm – More often than not, even if the victim has been bitten by a cobra or a krait, the bite would be a ‘dry bite’. This means that even though the snake did bite, it did not pump any venom into the blood stream. Venom is precious and snakes would rather not waste venom on humans who are too big to be eaten.  (Unlike cobras and kraits, vipers however cannot control or restrict the amount of venom they inject in their victims)

In the rare event that one does get bitten, you must try and relax and control your breathing. Getting excited and anxious would only make the heart beat faster and this would lead to the venom reaching the organs sooner than later.
Check for fangs – Look out for deep punctures made by the venom squirting fangs at the site of the injury. If you can locate distinct puncture wounds that stand out from the rest of the bite marks, this would usually be a sign that the snake was venomous.

Tourniquets – Though rather popular in the past, tourniquets aren’t a very good idea, especially if tied too tight. Tourniquets would do more harm than good in such cases and could even trigger gangrene.

Then Debanik revealed an interesting bit of trivia. “Mithridatization is the process of building immunity from snake bites by injecting small doses of snake venom into the human body. And crazy as it might sound, there are people all over the world who are experimenting with the idea. It works, but one small mistake could be the last one for these modern day Mithridates. So take my advice, mind your feet and stay away from snakes and snake venom if you haven’t been trained to handle them”, added Debanik.

Read more.......

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education

Nature under siege

Murali Nagapuzha is one of Kerala’s most exciting new generation painters. His latest work was on show in an exhibition in the national Capital recently. In a conversation with the artist, KS Narayanan delves into the impulses that imbue his canvases photos by sujan singh

Protests over pollution, seminars on environmental degradation and global summits on climate change have become a daily routine. We may dismiss these events as part of public posturing of a world on the edge of destruction. But for those who silently suffer due to the onslaught of the development-at-all-cost model, these campaigns are a necessity, as it is for those who constantly hammer at the need to revive an “almost lost world”. Murali Nagapuzha, a self-taught painter like the French post-Impressionist Henri Rousseau, is one such man. With his vibrant colour palette and his magic brush, he seeks to put enchantment back into a world of reality. He creates poetry on the canvas with his lyrical, other worldly imagination.

Nagapuzha demonstrated his innate qualities in a series of 50 paintings, titled An Almost Lost World, which was exhibited in the Visual Arts Gallery of the Capital’s India Habitat Centre last week. Nagapuzha’s paintings narrate tales from memory, are steeped in nostalgia and reflect the wonders of the everyday, all of which are fast diminishing in the world around him.

Flowers, plants, birds and beasts are metamorphosed from ordinary to extraordinary in Nagapuzha’s work. K Satchidanandan, a well-known poet and critic, in the curatorial note on Nagapuzha’s An Almost Lost World Series, echoed a similar point of view. “Here the real stretches its arms towards the surreal, everyday things turn into objects of desire, we once again reach that childhood world of wonder and fantasy where everything looks new, everything brings pleasure to the senses.”

Murali Nagapuzha’s paintings remind us of the picturesque locations and beautiful scenery of Kerala. Through the artworks that showcase the rich flora and fauna of the region, the artist inspires people to conserve our natural wealth.

On his paintings, Murali says, “We all know that Kerala is one of the most beautiful places on this earth. But the natural beauty is fast being eroded.  The natural wealth of Kerala is getting affected by the commercialisation of the place and an increase of waste and pollution. Just imagine a scenario when we will get to know about flowers and plants only in the books, or about the animals only on the Internet. People are not realising the importance of nature. They are just treating it as a commodity and are taking the natural wealth for granted.”

Most of his paintings are set in his birthplace of Muvattupuzha, a village in Kerala. Strongly influenced by colours of nature, Nagapuzha bring the scenic beauty of Kerala alive on the canvas. Declining any special fondness for the colour green, Murali says he is depicting life as it is. “Kerala is all lush green. It is all vanishing. There is pollution, deforestation and what not?” he fumes and quickly adds, “It is the same story elsewhere”.

Hear what Anita Nair, another well known writer from God’s Own Country, says about the style of Nagapuzha’s art? “As with the cadences of a new dialect that builds itself on the solid syntax of a much-used language, Murali Nagapuzha’s work has the resonance of familiarity. We think we know and that we recognize it. Only at first, Nagapuzha uses the familiar to entice the eye. Then it is Nagapuzha’s world we are privy to”.

A second later, the self-taught painter who studies the works of Bhupen Kakkar and Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh confesses his paintings are all about the Kerala he grew up in and not the one in which he ‘resides’. “In a highly polluted and contaminated environment where even a lung-full of air is a rarity, I try to depict the innocence typical of a bygone village in Kerala.”

“I am not able to see any Palamaram trees or other flowering trees that I grew up with as a child. It is all lost due to increasing urbanization and environment pollution,” Nagapuzha laments. You feel his sense of loss.
Asked what it is like to be a self-taught? “I don't belong to any school. I am self-taught and self-made. So, I follow only my inner voice. I need not rebel and or adopt a particular style.” As the contemporary art scene is vulgarised by facile repetition, Nagapuzha holds the secrets of life between his brush strokes opening up the new frontiers of adventure, nature, fantasy and facts of life to art lovers.

Unable to come to terms with a personal tragedy during the Emergency when he lost many friends and comrades, Nagapuzha forced himself into the interior villages of Kerala. He took solace in books, rural folks and their rich folk arts. The custodial death of Rajan continues to stir the conscious of the nation. Similarly, the young Nagapuzha, who was then in college, endured many personal sufferings. And he continues to be pained by those events till today.

“I protested and demanded fundamental rights. On several occasions, the police raided our house, threatened my parents, brothers, sisters and relatives. They arrested my friend, Aziz, who used to help me design and put up posters. He died a week after his release from unofficial police custody,” narrates Nagapuzha. In the same breath, the painter lashes out at the rising sexual assault on innocent children across the country.

Former editor of a popular children's magazine in Malayalam, promoted by the Desabhimani daily, Nagapuzha is at present a freelance painter. He has also been bestowed with several honours, including the first Raja Ravi Varma award, instituted in 1998 and the Kerala Lalit Kala Akademi honoured him with the State award in 1993 and 1997.

“Flowers and animals teach us a lot of things. They sacrifice for each other and protect their community. I want to tell people that we should learn from them and try to bring some change in our attitude,” says the painter, who during graduation in Zoology did hundreds of drawings on the flora and fauna of his land.

All the artistic motifs in his paintings are drawn from a landscape that is now part of every tourist brochure. Without being banal or kitschy, Nagapuzha’s artistic terrain marvels at the Kerala colours and makes it his own.

But to understand Murali Nagapuzha we need to fist look at Kerala, where every day is a painting. Waiting to be absorbed, distilled and captured.

Read more.......

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

El comandante departs

Chavez's death has created a void but the movement will thrive on the impetus provided by him, says Saurabh Kumar Shahi 

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez finally lost the battle against cancer that he fought so bravely for over two years. Vice-president Nicolas Maduro, who is also pegged as his successor, made the announcement on public television shortly after emerging from the Military Hospital in Caracas, where Chavez was being treated. “Those who die for life can’t be called dead,” a tearyeyed Maduro said.

On February 18 this year, the 58-year-old President returned to Caracas from Cuba, where he was operated upon for cancer. Chavez travelled to Havana on December 10 last year for the fourth surgery after his cancer resurfaced, in spite of close to a year-and-a-half of treatment that included chemotherapy. The second round of treatment had begun in late March 2012, when Chavez started receiving radiation treatment in Cuba after an operation in February 2012 that removed a second cancerous tumour from his pelvic region. His first tumour was removed in June 2011.

His death has come as a blow to progressive leadership all over the world. Indeed, Chavez's impact on world politics was much more than any world leader of his time. A curious mix of personal charisma, pro-people policies and anti-imperial stand made Chavez a darling of the millions.

Chavez came from a very humble background. Born in a poor family on July 28, 1954 in Sabaneta, he struggled his way up and graduated from the Venezuelan Academy of Military Sciences in 1975. It was sometime in the late 70s that Chavez started participating in the revolutionary movements inside the Venezuelan armed forces that was seen by the masses as the protector of capitalist and imperialist interests.

His first chance towards redemption came in 1992 when he spearheaded a military coup to topple the regime of Carlos Perez that was close to the US administration. However, the attempt did not succeed and he was arrested and jailed for 25 months. This failed attempt brought him to the attention of the masses who were desperately looking for a leader from among themselves to lead them. It gave a kick-start to Chavez's political career.
 
Chavez started touring Venezuela and soon garnered a solid following for himself. His oratory, especially his no-holds-barred style, stuck with the masses and catapulted him to his first presidential election victory in 1998. He never lost the elections after that. However, in 2002, a lobby of pro-American politicians, along with some soldiers and officials backed by the United States, staged a coup against Chavez. He was briefly arrested and sent to an undisclosed location. However, merely 48 hours after the coup, a counter manoeuvre by common Venezuelans and officers loyal to him swept him back to office. Over the last 14 years, Chavez put himself and his agenda to the test on 14 separate occasions, and won thirteen of them by huge margins.

Chavez was a street fighter who fought his way up the ladder but unlike many in the past, he never severed his connection with the common masses and made it a habit to listen to their problems. The idea behind his successful Bolivarian revolution was to provide economic and political independence to the masses of Latin America who had suffered from their geographical proximity to the United States all these years. Venezuela under Chavez put its oil revenue to proper use and funded the massive social projects that returned social statistics that stunned even the United Nations. He extended the revolution in the neighbouring countries too and utilized their expertise in lieu of the cheap oil that was sold to them.
 
It was his ascent to power that revitalized the leftist, anti-imperialist movement in Latin America and saw similar socio-political experiments in neighbouring Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. With Cuba at the ideological helm, Latin America for the first time in decades started exerting its economic and political rights in the region. Mercosur, as an economic body, not only challenged the American dominance in the regional market but also put it on the back foot by forcing it to accept the economic positions that it wouldn't have even considered a decade or so ago.

Read more....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year

BBA Management Education