Rahul Malik | September 12, 2008

Given all the hype and hoopla surrounding India in recent days, it is always interesting to listen to people questioning the view that India has arrived. Some people I came across concluded that despite progress, the current euphoria over the economy and stock markets is unjustified and there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that economic growth in India has entered a ‘take-off’ stage.

They prepared a report which specifically compares the growth record of India with China and points out the following:

·         Since 1990 China has been growing at 9.0 per cent per annum, while India has delivered 6.2 per cent.

·         Till 1985, India on a per capita basis was actually wealthier than China, but today China is double India’s level.

·         In the area of trade, India and China were at roughly the same level of exports/GDP till the mid 1980s, but today China has an export share of nearly 40 per cent compared to 20 per cent for India and accounts for nearly 8 per cent of world trade compared to less than 3 percent for India.

·         Using urbanization as a proxy for industrial development they point out that in the 1960s, both India and China had over 80 per cent of their population living in rural areas while today in China this is below 55 per cent(despite no improvement till 1978) compared to 70 per cent in India.

 

It basically pins the blame for the poor relative record of India, to its economy being the most regulated, protected and subsidized in Asia.

Highlighting valid concerns on the effective tariff rate, fiscal deficit and low domestic savings rate, it makes the case that not enough has been done to fundamentally change India’s growth trajectory. It questions how significant is the relocation of service sector jobs to India by multinational corporations.

It is almost as if having made money in China, investors feel compelled to look for the next big thing, similar to equity investors moving down the quality curve once established stocks have had a big move.

While I do not fully agree with this report, it throws up some interesting questions.

Can India really grow at 8 percent over the next decade? This is the critical issue in my mind.

We don’t have to match China’s 10 per cent, even near 8 per cent if sustained for a decade and more will be sufficient to transform the economic landscape and deliver 30 per cent per annum corporate earnings growth.

But the question on every sceptic’s mind will be why is this not like 1994-97, when the economy delivered three years of 7.5 per cent per annum growth only to stumble thereafter, or 1988-91 when we had three years of 7.6 per cent growth ending in a FX crisis.

There was great hope then also about India having entered a new growth trajectory, but it was not to be. What makes things different this time?

I would like to highlight some differences which I think make this growth phase more sustainable (I hope so J)

1.  First, unlike the previous boom periods, the significance of software and IT services is far greater today and they alone add more than 1 per cent to GDP growth. Their importance will only increase, and we have other sectors like pharmaceuticals, textiles and possibly autos/components poised to replicate the software wave.
2. The mindset of Indian industry is vastly different today, compared to 1994-97, manufacturing is far more competitive and many companies have the desire, skills and cost structure to go global. In earlier periods, industry was by and large totally India centric in thought and ambition and had really no idea of their global competitiveness. Today exports is a viable growth alternative/strategy for many companies effectively multiplying their addressable markets many fold.
3. The financial health of corporate India is far better today, leverage is down, industry is free cash flow positive and interest costs have collapsed. Companies are a lot more disciplined about capital budgeting and capex.
4. The degree of economic freedom (strongly correlated with economic growth) in the country has improved significantly. In almost every sector, the extent of government regulation has declined and intensity of competition increased.Even in the fast growing services arena, be it telecom, banking, insurance or even tourism/aviation the extent of competition, efficiency and private sector participation has increased dramatically.
5. The network effects of inter-linking India, be it through the mobile revolution and rising telecom density or through the national highways program, will it be a big boost to economic growth with significant multiplier effects.
6. Entrepreneurial spirit is far more vibrant today, venture capital/private equity is actually available and start-up activity is being provided a fillip with the wealth creation demonstrated by first generation entrepreneurs in IT/pharma.
7. There is today far greater accountability in the financial system, banks have cleaned up their books, are more disciplined in lending and have legal recourse. The drag on the system through willful corporate default and large NPA accretion will reduce.
8. There is a clear trend of a reverse brain drain beginning to manifest itself. While still early this could be hugely positive were it to continue gaining momentum. Do not underestimate the impact this phenomena had on accelerating growth in Korea/Taiwan and now China.
9. While the current state of infrastructure is still abysmal and a clear constraint on growth, a clear template is now available in most sectors (roads/ports/ power/airports) on how to proceed with private sector participation, very different from the mid-90ss. Massive infrastructure investments in these areas should be around the corner.
10. While the issues crowding out and rising interest rates may reappear with strong economic growth, the country today has far greater access to foreign capital be it through FDI or portfolio flows (debt and equity).

Undoubtedly the poor fiscal situation and lack of progress on health and education are areas of concern and need to be addressed on a war footing, but that is why 8 per cent is the best we can hope for.  BOOYAH

Word of the terrible hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, on Sept. 8, 1900, reached Minneapolis Tribune readers on Sunday, Sept. 9. The scale of the disaster was made clear to readers two days later in this eyewitness account on page one. The word “hurricane” is used just once; “tempest” and “storm” were evidently the preferred terms for the nameless killer:

CITY IS WIPED OUT

Waters of the Gulf of Mexico Submerge and Tor-
nado Levels Galveston, Tex., and Sweep Over
Mainland as Far as Houston.

DEATH INSIDE; DEATH OUTSIDE

Whole Families Are Either Killed Like Rats in a
Trap or Are Swept Away by the
Angry Waves.

SOLDIERS DIE AT POST OF DUTY

Nearly a Whole Command of United States Soldiers
Meet Death – Five Thousand Persons May
Have Been Lost.

By Wire from Houston, Tex., Sept. 11

Richard Spillane, a well known Galveston newspaper man and day correspondent of the Associated Press in that city, who reached Houston yesterday after a terrible experience, gave the following account yesterday of the disaster at Galveston:

“One of the most awful tragedies of modern times has visited Galveston. The city is in ruins and the dead will number probably 1,000. I am just from the city, having been commissioned by the mayor and citizens’ committee to get in touch with the outside world and appeal for help. Houston was the nearest point at which working telegraph instruments could be found, the wires, as well as nearly all the buildings between here and the Gulf of Mexico, being wrecked.

“When I left Galveston, shortly before noon yesterday, the people were organizing for the prompt burial of the dead, distribution of food and all necessary work after a period of disaster.

“The wreck of Galveston was brought about by the tempest so terrible that no words can adequately describe its intensity and by a flood which turned the city into a raging sea. The weather bureau records show that the wind attained a velocity of 84 miles an hour, when the measuring instrument blew away, so it is impossible to tell what was the maximum.

 

The storm surge of the nameless hurricane reduced much of Galveston to rubble – and left thousands dead. (AP photo)

 

“The storm began at 2 o’clock Saturday morning. Previous to that a great storm had been raging in the gulf and the tide was very high. The wind at first came from the north, and was in direct opposition to the force from the gulf. While the storm in the gulf piled the water upon the beach-side of the city, the north wind piled the water from the bay on the bay part of the city.

“About noon it became evident that the city was going to be visited with disaster. Hundreds of residences along the beach front were hurriedly abandoned, the families fleeing to dwellings in higher portions of the city. Every home was opened to the refugees, black or white. The winds were rising constantly and it rained in torrents. The wind was so fierce that the rain cut like a knife.

ENTIRE CITY SUBMERGED.

“By 3 o’clock the waters of the gulf and bay met, and by dark the entire city was submerged. The flooding of the electric light plant and the gas plant left the city in darkness. To go upon the streets was to court death. The winds were then at cyclonic velocity, roofs, cisterns, portions of buildings, telegraph poles were falling and the noise of the winds and the crashing of buildings were terrifying in the extreme.

The wind and water rose steadily from dark until 1:45 o’clock Sunday morning. During all this time the people of Galveston were like rats in traps. The highest portion of the city was four to five feet under water, while in the great majority of cases the streets were submerged to a depth of 16 feet. To leave a house was to drown. To remain was to court death in the wreckage.

“Such a night of agony has seldom been equaled. Without apparent reason the waters suddenly began to subside at 1:45 a.m. Within 20 minutes, they had gone down two feet, and before daylight the streets were practically freed of the dark waters.

“In the meantime the wind had moved to the southwest. Very few if any buildings escaped injury. There is hardly a habitable dry house in the city. When the people who had escaped death went out at daylight to view the work of the tempest and the floods they saw the most horrible sights imaginable. In the three blocks from Avenue N to Avenue P, in Tremont street, I saw eight bodies. Four corpses were in one yard.

“The whole of the business front for three blocks in from the gulf was stripped of every vestige of habitation, the dwellings, the great bathing establishments, the Olympia and every structure were either carried out to sea or its ruins made into a pyramid in the center of the town, according to the vagaries of the storm.

GREAT STRUCTURES SUFFER.

“The first hurried glance over the city showed that the largest structures, supposed to be the most substantially built, suffered the greatest. The Orphans’ Home, Twenty-first street and Avenue M, fell like a house of cards. How many dead children and refugees are in the ruins could not be ascertained.

“Of the sick in St. Mary’s Infirmity, together with attendants, only eight are understood to have been saved. The Old Woman’s Home, on Rosenberg avenue, collapsed; the Rosenberg school house is a mass of wreckage. The Ball high school is but an empty shell, crushed and broken. Every church in the city, with possibly one or two exceptions, is in ruins.

“At the forts nearly all the soldiers are reported dead, they having been in temporary quarters which gave them no protection against the tempest or the flood. No report has been received from the Catholic orphan asylum, down the island, but it seems impossible that it could have withstood the hurricane. If it fell, all the inmates were no doubt lost, for there was no aid within a mile.

“The bay front from end to end is in ruins. Nothing but piling and the wreck of great warehouses remain. The elevators are damaged by the water. The life saving station at Fort Point was carried away, the crew being swept across the bay, 14 miles to Texas City.

 

The Gresham House, center, now known as Bishop’s Palace, was relatively unscathed amid the debris. Sacred Heart Catholic Church, at right, was heavily damaged. (AP photo)

 

“I saw Capt. Haines yesterday and he told me that his wife and one of his crew were drowned. The shore at Texas City contains enough wreckage to rebuild a city. Eight persons were picked up there alive. Five corpses were also picked up. There were three fatalities in Texas City. In addition to the living and the dead, which the storm cast up at Texas City, caskets and coffins from one of the cemeteries at Galveston were being fished out of the water there yesterday.

…

How many more corpses are there will not be known until the search is finished. The cotton mills, the bagging factory, the gas works, the electric light works and nearly all the industrial establishments of the city are either wrecked or crippled. The flood left a slime about one inch deep over the whole city and unless fast progress is made in burying corpses and carcasses of animals there is danger of pestilence.

“Some of the stories of escapes are miraculous. William Nisbett, a cotton man, was buried in the ruins of the cotton exchange saloon, and when dug out in the morning had no further injury than a few bruised fingers.

…

“It will take a week to tabulate the dead and the missing, and to get anything near an approximate idea of the monetary loss. It is safe to assume that one-half of the property of the city is wiped out and that one-half of the residents have to face absolute poverty.”

Embedded software often runs on processors with limited computation power, thus optimizing the code becomes a necessity. In this article we will explore the following optimization techniques for C and C++ code developed for Real-time and Embedded Systems.

1. Adjust structure sizes to power of two
2. Place case labels in narrow range
3. Place frequent case labels first
4. Break big switch statements into nested switches
5. Minimize local variables
6. Declare local variables in the inner most scope
7. Reduce the number of parameters
8. Use references for parameter passing and return value for types bigger than 4 bytes
9. Don’t define a return value if not used
10. Consider locality of reference for code and data
11. Prefer int over char and short
12. Define lightweight constructors
13. Prefer initialization over assignment
14. Use constructor initialization lists
15. Do not declare “just in case” virtual functions
16. In-line 1 to 3 line functions

Adjust structure sizes to power of two

When arrays of structures are involved, the compiler performs a multiply by the structure size to perform the array indexing. If the structure size is a power of 2, an expensive multiply operation will be replaced by an inexpensive shift operation. Thus keeping structure sizes aligned to a power of 2 will improve performance in array indexing.

Place case labels in narrow range

If the case labels are in a narrow range, the compiler does not generate a if-else-if cascade for the switch statement. Instead, it generates a jump table of case labels along with manipulating the value of the switch to index the table. This code generated is faster than if-else-if cascade code that is generated in cases where the case labels are far apart. Also, performance of a jump table based switch statement is independent of the number of case entries in switch statement.

Place frequent case labels first

If the case labels are placed far apart, the compiler will generate if-else-if cascaded code with comparing for each case label and jumping to the action for leg on hitting a label match. By placing the frequent case labels first, you can reduce the number of comparisons that will be performed for frequently occurring scenarios. Typically this means that cases corresponding to the success of an operation should be placed before cases of failure handling.

Break big switch statements into nested switches

The previous technique does not work for some compilers as they do not generate the cascade of if-else-if in the order specified in the switch statement. In such cases nested switch statements can be used to get the same effect.
To reduce the number of comparisons being performed, judiciously break big switch statements into nested switches. Put frequently occurring case labels into one switch and keep the rest of case labels into another switch which is the default leg of the first switch.
Splitting a Switch Statement

//This switch statement performs a switch on frequent 
//messages and handles the infrequent messages 
//with another switch statement in the default 
//leg of the outer 
// switch statement 
pMsg = ReceiveMessage();
switch (pMsg->type)
{ 
  case FREQUENT_MSG1: 
    handleFrequentMsg1();
    break;
  case FREQUENT_MSG2:
    handleFrequentMsg2();
    break;
  . . .
  case FREQUENT_MSGn:
    handleFrequentMsgn();
    break;
  default:
    // Nested switch statement for 
    //handling infrequent messages. 
    switch (pMsg->type)
    {
      case INFREQUENT_MSG1:
        handleInfrequentMsg1();
        break;
      case INFREQUENT_MSG2:
        handleInfrequentMsg2();
        break;
       . . .
      case INFREQUENT_MSGm:
        handleInfrequentMsgm();
        break;
    }
}

Minimize local variables

If the number of local variables in a function is less, the compiler will be able to fit them into registers. Hence, it will be avoiding frame pointer operations on local variables that are kept on stack. This can result in considerable improvement due to two reasons:

	All local variables are in registers so this improves performance over accessing them from memory.
?	If no local variables need to be saved on the stack, the compiler will not incur the overhead of setting up and restoring the frame pointer.

Declare local variables in the inner most scope

Do not declare all the local variables in the outermost function scope. You will get better performance if local variables are declared in the inner most scope. Consider the example below; here object a is needed only in the error case, so it should be invoked only inside the error check. If this parameter was declared in the outermost scope, all function calls would have incurred the overhead of object a’s creation (i.e. invoking the default constructor for a).
Local varialble scope

int foo(char *pName)
{
  if (pName == NULL)
  {
    A a;
    ...
    return ERROR;
  }
  ...
  return SUCCESS;
}

Reduce the number of parameters

Function calls with large number of parameters may be expensive due to large number of parameter pushes on stack on each call. For the same reason, avoid passing complete structures as parameters. Use pointers and references in such cases.

Use references for parameter passing and return value for types bigger than 4 bytes

Passing parameters by value results in the complete parameter being copied on to the stack. This is fine for regular types like integer, pointer etc. These types are generally restricted to four bytes. When passing bigger types, the cost of copying the object on the stack can be prohibitive. In case of classes there will be an additional overhead of invoking the constructor for the temporary copy that is created on the stack. When the function exits the destructor will also be invoked.

Thus it is efficient to pass references as parameters. This way you save on the overhead of a temporary object creation, copying and destruction. This optimization can be performed easily without a major impact to the code by replacing pass by value parameters by const references. (It is important to pass const references so that a bug in the called function does not change the actual value of the parameter.

Passing bigger objects as return values also has the same performance issues. A temporary return object is created in this case too.

Don’t define a return value if not used

The called function does not “know” if the return value is being used. So, it will always pass the return value. This return value passing may be avoided by not defining a return value which is not being used.

Consider locality of reference for code and data

The processor keeps data or code that is referenced in cache so that on its next reference if gets it from cache. These cache references are faster. Hence it is recommended that code and data that are being used together should actually be placed together physically. This is actually enforced into the language in C++. In C++, all the object’s data is in one place and so is code. When coding is C, the declaration order of related code and functions can be arranged so that closely coupled code and data are declared together.

Prefer int over char and short

With C and C++ prefer use of int over char and short. The main reason behind this is that C and C++ perform arithmetic operations and parameter passing at integer level, If you have an integer value that can fit in a byte, you should still consider using an int to hold the number. If you use a char, the compiler will first convert the values into integer, perform the operations and then convert back the result to char.

 

Lets consider the following code which presents two functions that perform the same operation with char and int.
Compaing char and int operations

char sum_char(char a, char b)
{
  char c;
  c = a + b;
  return c;
}
 
int sum_int(int a, int b)
{
  int c;
  c = a + b;
  return c;
}

A call to sum_char involves the following operations:

1. Convert the second parameter into an int by sign extension (C and C++ push parameters in reverse)
2. Push the sign extended parameter on the stack as b.
3. Convert the first parameter into an int by sign extension.
4. Push the sign extended parameter on to the stack as a.
5. The called function adds a and b
6. The result is cast to a char.
7. The result is stored in char c.
8. c is again sign extended
9. Sign extended c is copied into the return value register and function returns to caller.
10. The caller now converts again from int to char.
11. The result is stored.

A call to sum_int involves the following operations:

1. Push int b on stack
2. Push int a on stack
3. Called function adds a and b
4. Result is stored in int c
5. c is copied into the return value register and function returns to caller.
6. The called function stores the returned value.

Thus we can conclude that int should be used for all interger variables unless storage requirements force us to use a char or short. When char and short have to be used, consider the impact of byte alignment and ordering to see if you would really save space. (Many processors align structure elements at 16 byte boundaries)?

Define lightweight constructors

As far as possible, keep the constructor light weight. The constructor will be invoked for every object creation. Keep in mind that many times the compiler might be creating temporary object over and above the explicit object creations in your program. Thus optimizing the constructor might give you a big boost in performance. If you have an array of objects, the default constructor for the object should be optimized first as the constructor gets invoked for every object in the array.

Prefer initialization over assignment

Consider the following example of a complex number::

Initialization and assignment

void foo()
{
  Complex c;
  c = (Complex)5;
}
 
void foo_optimized()
{
  Complex c = 5;
}

In the function foo, the complex number c is being initialized first by the instantiation and then by the assignment. In foo_optimized, c is being initialized directly to the final value, thus saving a call to the default constructor of Complex.

Use constructor initialization lists

Use constructor initialization lists to initialize the embedded variables to the final initialization values. Assignments within the constructor body will result in lower performance as the default constructor for the embedded objects would have been invoked anyway. Using constructor initialization lists will directly result in invoking the right constructor, thus saving the overhead of default constructor invocation.? br /> In the example given below, the optimized version of the Employee constructor saves the default constructor calls for m_name and m_designation strings.
Constructor initialization lists

Employee::Employee(String name, String designation)
{
  m_name = name;
  m_designation = designation;
}
/* === Optimized Version === */
Employee::Employee(String name, String designation): m_name(name), m_destignation (designation)
{
}

Do not declare “just in case” virtual functions

Virtual function calls are more expensive than regular function calls so do not make functions virtual “just in case” somebody needs to override the default behavior. If the need arises, the developer can just as well edit the additional base class header file to change the declaration to virtual.

In-line 1 to 3 line functions

Converting small functions (1 to 3 lines) into in-line will give you big improvements in throughput. In-lining will remove the overhead of a function call and associated parameter passing. But using this technique for bigger functions can have negative impact on performance due to the associated code bloat. Also keep in mind that making a method inline should not increase the dependencies by requiring a explicit header file inclusion when you could have managed by just using a forward reference in the non-inline version.

 

I was challenged to provide 10 facts about learning that are scientifically proven and interesting for teachers. The problem I had was whittling it down to ten!

 

So here goes:

1. Spaced practice
Perhaps the most significant fact we know about learning, yet it is almost completely ignored by the 'curse of the course and classroom'. We learn through practice, little and often. Ebbinghaus proved it in 1885, and almost everyone in the learning profession has studiously ignored it for well over a century. Demster reported this sad state of affairs in American Psychologist (The Spacing Effect: A Case Study in the Failure to Apply the Results of Psychological Research, 1988). We forget things quickly and that the most effective way to prevent this forgetting is to practice at spaced intervals over time. Knowledge is easy to learn but hard to retain. Forget this and you condemn yourself to, at best to unnecessary effort in learning, at worst failing to learn much at all – the true story behind most learning effort.

2. Cognitive overload
This well know phenomenon is extremely common in teaching and training. A lack of understanding about how memory works leads to a lack of preparation of material in terms of size, order and engagement, leading to weak encoding, a lack of deep processing then poor retention and recall. Almost all courses are too long, present material in the wrong way and lead to unnecessary forgetting. Simplify to prevent cognitive overload.

3. Chunking
Perhaps the easiest and simplest piece of learning theory to put into practice. Chunking means being sensitive to the limitation of working memory. Less is more in learning and distilling, rather than enhancing, elaborating and creating lots of distracting noise, is a virtue in teaching. Unfortunately the ‘song and dance’ act in the classroom is often cacophonous.

4. Order
The order you learn things is critical to how they will be stored and recalled, yet education and training continues to jumble and confuse content. This is critical in language learning, science, maths and indeed, every subject. Learn things in the wrong order and you’ll end up having to unlearn.

5. Episodic and semantic memory
Once you understand that the things we learn are stored differently, i.e. we have different types of memory, then you’ll be more sensitive to the necessary differences in teaching. We still have far too much reliance on text (semantic) for subjects that need a visual (episodic) approach. You see this everywhere, from text heavy PowerPoints to whiteboards, manuals and hand-outs.

6. Psychological attention
Learning does not take place without psychological attention, so setting up classrooms and scenarios that inhibit attention, or distract from learning, is massively counter-productive. I fear that much so called ‘collaborative learning’ falls into this trap. Cramming 30 plus teenagers into a small, airless classroom is no way to encourage attention. There are at least 30 other human distractions, the windows and daydreaming to content with. The bottom line is that most learning is best done on your own or one-to-one.

7. Context
We know that recall is enhanced by learning in the physical context in which one is expected to perform. Yet most teaching is done in alien environments – classrooms ad training centres. We have plenty of proof that work-placed learning needs to be massively increased and non-contextual classroom teaching decreased.

8. Learn by doing
From William James and John Dewy through to Kolb and Schank, we’ve had a torrent of theory showing that we learn lots by doing, yet much teaching and training is locked into a over-theoretical, knowledge and not skills, model. There is a barely a subject around in schools ad training that wouldn’t benefit from a boost in experiential learning.

9. Understand ‘peer’ groups
The work of Judith Harris (The Nurture Assumption) will change the whole way you look at parenting and teaching. Her revolutioary scientific work showed that most books on parenting and teaching overestimate the influence of parents and teachers, and under-estimate the role of genetics and peer pressure. There are some real and practical steps one can take to avoid the obvious traps. These are largely ignored in education and training. Read the book.

10. Murder the myths
This is perhaps the most useful piece of scientific advice for teachers and trainers – dump the snakeoil techniques. These include learning styles, playing music while you learn, Brain Gym, left-right brain theories, NLP, stating the objectives at the start of a course…the list goes on.

Conclusion
Many teaching practices are in direct opposition to the psychology of learning. When it comes to education and training, the professions have doggedly chosen unproven pedagogy over prove psychology. This is why so little progress has been made, and why huge amounts of extra funding leads to such razor thin, marginal improvement. There are literally dozes of proven findings in the science of experimental psychology that are largely ignored. This is what the Bristol study I referred to in my Paxman piece is so worrying.

Awesome video featuring Michael and Daler in Britain's got talent....

 

Neeraj Trivedi is an unlikely role model for the thousands of young teenagers who're preparing to take their Indian Institute of Management exams.

Search for "fresh management graduates + entrepreneurs" on Google and an Indian website for start-ups is likely to pop up as the first result.

The site, www.startups.in, profiles the likes of Trivedi, true, but it's unlikely to set the hearts of a few hundreds who've set their sights on corporate jobs, beating for him. Trivedi, an alumni of IIM-Lucknow, works for the non-government organisation Pratham.

Yet, Trivedi is no longer the exception among IIM graduates. Every year, as over 1,800 students pass out of the hallowed walls of India's premier management institutes, at least a few are choosing to stay away from the big bucks placement offers that their peers take for granted.

A few of those, as is evident from www.startups.in, are turning entrepreneurs, some like Trivedi are turning to NGOs because "desh ke liye kuch karna hain  (I have to do something for the country)", as he says.

When Trivedi passed out of his alma mater in 2007, his deliberate career choice - he says he is probably earning just 30 per cent of what his fellow-grads make - couldn't have left his family unhappier. "Sitamarhi [a small district on the Bihar-Nepal border]," he admits, "may not be the most exciting location, but at least it provides me with inner satisfaction."

Like him, Deepak Dhamija, a graduate from IIM-Calcutta, opted to stay away from summer placements to work for Basics, an organisation in Vidarbha engaged in providing micro-finance to farmers. In B-school parlance, they now call this phenomenon OOPS (out of placement season).

Once, a placement dropout might have been considered maverick, but today their number is swelling as Ankur Gattani and Aditya Kumar, both from IIM-Calcutta, Hemant Bansal from IIM-Lucknow, Ankit Mathur, Satvik Upadhyaya and Nirmal Kumar from IIM-Ahmedabad, Dhruv Bhushan and Anubhav Jain from IIM-Indore set their own course to go chasing their dreams.

What's egging these youngsters on? What's causing the burst of entrepreneurial spurt in the campuses of these red-bricked management schools as they've turned to alternate options within the social sector, on online portals, in manufacturing units, or in consulting arms?

Why have these youngsters spurned tempting offers from the corporate world (and earned parental disapproval) to either start their own ventures, or listen to the drumbeats of their hearts?

Inspired by the likes of Trivedi and Dhamija, Aditya Kumar, a first-year-student at IIM-Calcutta, will intern this summer at an NGO called Solace in Assam's Kamrup district. His motivation? "In Assam and other North-eastern states, insurgency, terrorism and violence are major problems, as a result of which other burning issues are neglected."

The consequence has been a lack of development in the region. "Solace is an initiative to look at neglected aspects such as rural distress, lack of education and child labour," Kumar explains.

While a few are committed to ironing out social disparities, several more are testing the unchartered waters of start-ups and entrepreneurship. "It makes more sense to start my own venture and apply the B-school management techniques I've learnt in my own company rather than follow someone else's orders," says Hemant Bansal. Bansal is planning a manufacturing unit in the national capital region that will employ 50-100 workers to begin with.

If entrepreneurship was once a dirty word that conjured up images of personal greed, for IIM-Ahmedabad's Nirmal Kumar it represents a personal opportunity. He could have been one among those young bright graduates to bag stunning offers from major corporate houses.

Instead, he chose to start his own outdoor advertising company. The idea struck when he observed the thousands of passengers who were forced to spend time at railway stations where such hoardings had the best chance of catching their attention.

"There is a lack of innovation in the outdoor media and most people are losing out on customers' attention because they are not willing to move away from traditional media," he explains. "By setting up innovative advertisement boards and devices, an advertiser can get the best reinforcement for his product."

It wasn't innovation but numbers that inspired Ankit Mathur and Satvik Upadhyaya of IIM-Ahmedabad, Neha Juneja of the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi, and a fourth partner to launch an online portal, www.aisapaisa.com, to provide simple access to credible and relevant information to retail investors on futures trading.

Elsewhere, Dhruv Bhushan and Anubhav Jain of IIM-Indore have already launched their online venture - a book building website called www.ourownbook.com. It's quite incredible, actually. The site provides its readers with a storyline that needs to be developed. Once the plot is complete, the story will be considered for print.

The site has already had 50,000 hits and 200 members have registered. Says Bhushan, "From completing a story, we plan to move into writing short stories, biographies and even films." So far, Bhushan and Jain have funded the venture through their own savings, but a massive expansion plan will require a fresh flow of funds.

Ankur Gattani, the only student from IIM-Calcutta's 2006-08 batch to opt out of the final placements, has initiated a portal called www.lifeinlines.com, and is the founder and CEO of Onelife Knowledge Services.

Currently in the test-run phase, the portal is being managed by Apex Division, an offshore software outsourcing company specialising in web design and development.

Is the money easy to find? Hardly. Even the confident Nirmal Kumar did not have it easy when it came to launching his outdoor advertising idea at Ahmedabad. Finance was his biggest constraint, and his humble background meant there was nothing to fall back on should he fail to find the initial capital.

Fortunately for him, an angel investor provided the push with Rs 20 lakh. "The response has been phenomenal and the venture will now be taken forward to four more stations in Gujarat, for which I am in talks with the Western Railways. I am also looking for a similar tie-up with the Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation," he says.

For the promoters of aisapaisa.com, money was never a concern. They knew the venture did not require a huge amount of capital since the information would be sourced and analysed by them.  Pooling in the money earned from their summer internships and collecting some from their families, the four decided on a unique model.

"We do not want to confuse the visitor on our website so we will not be accepting advertisements, and are confident of earning revenues through the services we provide," says Juneja. The venture has already procured a tie-up with a news channel and the National Stock Exchange for information.

"Other than live news that trickles in from the news channel, we will also provide market forecasts, market data, analysis of the day's stock movements and other self-analysed data on a minute-to minute basis every day," she says.

Upadhyaya insists that opting out of the placements wasn't a big deal considering they now have a chance to do what they love doing - trade on futures and help other retail investors do the same. The entrepreneurs are looking to emulate the Facebook social networking model of functioning where equity is offered at the right time. On the anvil are new modules to help the retail investor and a website in Hindi.

At the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Sanjana Rao and Pradeep Machieni have collected investments worth $150,000 for their nanotechnology company and are looking at raising another $10 million over the next couple of years.

On the other hand, thanks to a booming family business, Hemant Bansal of IIM-Lucknow does not feel threatened by a lack of funds. "I am looking for a private/equity investor while I plan to put in 20-30 per cent of the money. Even if I don't, I am sure I can manage the initial investment," he hazards.

These stories aren't entirely new to India's premium management institutes. In previous years too, students have displayed their appetite for taking business risks. Last year, Sreeram Vaidya-nathan decided to set up an entertainment lounge in Bangalore called Brewhaha. And even as he battles attrition, the quintessential manager is already planning six more Brewhahas across Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Four IIM-A students last year started their own online venture, tenaday.co.in, to provide coaching for the CAT examination, which is the gateway to the IIMs and other, similar institutions.

"Management lessons help you take risks and build confidence levels," says another student at IIM-Kozhikode whose breakaway career includes making a directorial debut and launching his own film company.

Brave words, especially when ma and pa back home fail to understand the compulsions that egg these placement dropouts on. The result is a lonely life, especially when one's peers seem to rise effortlessly up the corporate ladder. "Sometimes I am filled with doubts," confesses Nirmal Kumar.

"But when I think about the future, I'm sure no other job will match my professional growth." Perhaps he should paint these words like a slogan on his outdoor hoardings - for he's hoping that when it comes to summer internships for the next batch of students, they'll turn to him rather than the multinationals to catch some of his contagious entrepreneurial spirit.

The man who wants to create a McDonald's-style chain of Indian-Chinese food insists there's a subtle difference between improvising and massacring a cuisine.

A little over four years ago, when Ashish Kapur quit his job as an engineer with GE, packed his bags and came back home from America, his parents were appalled. "No one in my family had been an entrepreneur till then, not even working in the private sector, everyone had been in government service," he says.

Worse, Kapur was to meet his prospective in-laws, out-of-work, sans even the economic security that family money can provide. "My wife married me when I was jobless," he chuckles, clearly savouring his tale as much as the crispy pork spring rolls on our table. Within three months of that eventful day, however, Kapur was in business, quite literally.

The first Yo! China outlet was on its feet in Delhi, all bright and shiny and dare we say plastic-y (in a McDonald's sort of way, clearly an inspiration). And Kapur was well on his way to creating a pan-Indian brand that would aspire to parallel the Big Mac - only it would serve up the "aspirational" Indian-Chinese to the aam janta; manchurian, chilli chicken, cliches and cornflour, (but also the relatively unheard of dim sums, of which the company has gone on to sell more than 10 million pieces in its four years, I am told ) packaged as contemporary fast food for everyone from the average Joe at the BPO to the multiplex-goer to a small-towner in Patna, where a Yo! China "store" has just opened, making it the only branded food outlet in that city.

Spice Route, the superb restaurant at the Imperial, New Delhi, has not been the first choice for this lunch. Ashish Kapur has, as expected, suggested, that we meet at his flagship Yo! China store. He tells me (later) that he eats there four times a week, takes his wife and kid out to the same and conducts business such as this out of its premises, and that he "honestly" does not feel the need to go anywhere else for Chinese food.

The cuisine is clearly his favourite but when he asks, "What is the difference between Yo! China and this (Spice Route)?" quite rhetorically, as if the answer could be nothing but "no difference", I almost choke on the water I am sipping.

Then, he adds, "If you say, 'ambience', I would have no issue. But if you say, 'food', I don't buy that." I try to gently point out that there is a (huge) difference between what we'll be eating here and the Yo! China fare I've sampled earlier (and only once not regretted) and jump into a huge discussion on cuisines, their migration, authenticity, organised food retail in India ("350 million people multiplied by three meals a day equals an opportunity of a billion meals") and so on.

This is a discussion that will finally end in Kapur conceding that yes, consistency can be a problem in a chain operation the size of Yo! China, that yes, he's actively tackling it, and that yes, his menu needs revision "very soon" since Indians have developed more sophistication in these four years than chilli chicken dunked in huge amounts of "gravy" would suggest. He invites me to future food tastings and it is a conciliatory note that we manage to strike. But first, the order.

"Let's order chilli chicken?" Kapur says, quite dead-pan. And then seeing my grin says, "You'd be surprised at how many people would still order that even in restaurants such as these." I acknowledge the truth of the matter but the Spice Route, which does a fine act of balancing the creativity of its chef (the redoubtable Veena Arora) with populism, does not have declasse dishes such as the above.

Not to be outdone, Kapur asks the waiter, "So, what do you have that's closest to chilli chicken?" The waiter must have heard that one before because he's quick to point out Kai Phirk Thai Dum, Thai-style, stir-fried chicken that turns out to be quite excellent.

Digging into it, I ask Kapur whether he gets upset at all when people deride Indian-Chinese that he's so successfully peddling (40 outlets, 12 cities, ambitious plans of taking Yo! China global in a McDonald's like fashion since there are no truly "global Chinese food chains").

He philosophises, "There's a difference between improvising and massacring a cuisine." By his complicated logic, massacring would involve the likes of sending ketchup sachets with, say, take-away pizza (or spring rolls?).

"Some Indian chains did that in the beginning. But you would notice Pizza Hut never does that," he says. "We also have a responsibility of educating customers, after all." Improvising, on the other hand, could mean a "sambhar cooked in a north Indian home" that may taste nothing like the original but would still find takers.

That's the equivalent of manchurian, invented in India and American chopsuey as we know it, neither American nor Chinese. It's a thin divide and Kapur clearly sees himself on the right side.

Our main course has arrived - in a break from Chinese, this is minced chicken with basil (Thai) and coconut-flavoured fish (south Indian). Kapur, still in a ponderous mood, says "Coconut is one of those difficult flavours." The other is garlic. What he means is that there is less mass acceptance for such flavours in his line of work (local sensitivities mean that there is a Jain-Chinese Yo! China outlet in Ahmedabad) and thus dishes obviously need to be tailored accordingly.

He admits that Chinese chefs whom he hires from the Mainland or centres such as Hong Kong are shocked by such tailoring required to suit Indian palates. "On the other hand, the world of food is increasingly getting globalised," he points out, "I was at a restaurant in Hong Kong, for instance, where they were serving naan with authentic Chinese food!"

Besides, Indian-Chinese is clearly the flavour of the moment. "We may deride it but the world over, people are consciously looking for its flavours." His dream of growing a McDonald's style chain in the next few years clearly has potential.

What's more, with Matrix India having recently invested in the company, the growth plan to take the brand "everywhere, anytime"- to airports, leisure complexes, home delivery (the fastest growing segment in food retail) - is well underway.

But such ambition can be punishing. Kapur sighs at the 14-18 hour days he needs to put in, says that his wife has banned all newspapers from his house on Sundays, and he certainly misses his days in America when his time was indeed his own.

"I didn't even have my boss' mobile phone number. People respected your leisure time and if something was to be discussed, it would be in office." In India, obviously, things don't work the same way and the biggest myth, Kapur says, is the fact that labour is cheap here because "for every one person who is supposed to work, you need to hire two more to ensure that!"

Our lunch is almost at an end now. The forks have been pushed away. Kapur, ever the gentleman, offers to pay. When I decline, he says, "Oh! But would you mind if I packed (the leftovers) and took this?" That's to give to the beggars on Delhi's roads and traffic stops. I nod.

As we step out, our guest touchingly confides a stray thought. "Once I gave some Thai red curry to a man on the street but wonder later whether he liked the flavour." We don't know if he did. On the other hand, the promised new flavours at Yo! China may find larger approval.