Edition IV: 26th January 2008

Hail, mother of religions, lotus, scenic

beauty, and sages!
Thy wide doors are open,
Welcoming God's true sons through all
ages.
Where Ganges, woods, Himalayan caves,
and men dream God -
I am hallowed; my body touched that sod.
Team Pundit - Swami Yogananda Paramhansa
 Foreword
We have always talked in terms of
Ideas… as to how interesting and
inspiring an idea can be… how much it
takes and gives back… the challenge is
not just to think but to act!
We now know that passion and drive
are the two key ingredients that make
the foundations of any attempt. As a
team, we realize the importance and
contribution of every person who has
written for us, or given us feedback.
The Pundit is what it is because of its
writers and ever-increasing readers.
2
We are coming out with this edition on
the 26th of January 2008 to mark
India’s Republic Day. As we march
ahead on the road to greater success
we have to ensure that it does not
come at the cost of our identity. We
cannot forget who we are.
This is dedicated to all those citizens
and soldiers of the country who have
served with pride, devotion and
dignity… Jai Hind!
Long Live the Republic…
Arun, Naman, Sakshi
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Millennium Development Goals, Human Resource
Development and the need for Investments in Human
Capital (4)
Swasti writes about MDG’s, and their influence the world
over as a framework for global development. She looks in-
depth into the impact that so far has been registered and
then carries it on with an eye on the need for developing
and nurturing Human Capital.
What Lies Ahead – A Perspective on Possible Trends
for 2008 for HRM (21)
Our in-house expert on Human Resource management,
Ruby, takes the argument from a welfare scale of global
human capital development to an arena of business, and
looks into the future for the coming trends…
Prudential Norms (23)
In our continuing focus on the Financial sector, our expert
Bhagyashree, writes about Prudential norms that essentially
are about Asset Classification, Income Recognition and
provisioning, and Capital adequacy. In simple terms, these
are measures that help the government implement their
development plans.
3
PACE- The 5th P of Marketing (26)
The 4 P’s of Marketing are something that become a part of
the vocabulary of any MBA. Naman explains Pace – the 5th
P of Marketing.
Mercedes Benz (29)
We continue our coverage of the automotive sector with
our Automobile enthusiast, Manan, writing this time about
the Merc and the proud lineage it has…
Retail as a Career of Choice (32)
The retail sector seems to be in focus everywhere. Sakshi
Diwan writes about the various Career opportunities that lie
in this sector, and where it seems to head. In a market as
large as India, the career opportunities in this sector are as
phenomenal.
Dyslexia (35)
When was the last time you saw a movie that moved you to
tears, or provoked you to think. Our young writer, Aditya,
saw one such movie, and he presents his thoughts, and the
many realities of Dyslexia…
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Millennium Development Goals, Human Resource
Development and the need for Investments in
Human Capital
I. Millennium Declaration and Understanding Human
Resource Development
The Millennium Declaration and the Millennium
Development Goals (MDG’s) since their adoption by all
United Nations Member States in 2000 had become a
universal framework for development. The Millennium
Declaration, which was a result of the Millennium Summit
(September 2000) and the intnernational conferences of the
1990s, especially the International Conference on
Population and Development (ICPD), marked a strong
recommitment to the right to development, to the
eradication of extreme poverty, gender equality and the
empowerment of women.
The MDG’s basically resulted from the increasing
realization around that time that economic growth and
social development need to go hand in hand. It was almost
around this time that debates referring to human
development index and human capital theories were
gaining importance.
4
Looking at Global population, in 2003 it was 6.3 billion, of
whom 19 per cent lived in developed countries and 81
percent in developing countries. According to the United
Nations World Population Prospects, (the 2002 Revision),
global population will reach 8.9 billion persons in 2050,
compared with 6.3 billion in 2003. This goes into show that
growth rates are slowing and the 2050 figure is 0.4 billion
lower than projected in The 2000 Revision.
Such slowing of population growth has been due to the
effects of recognition of HIV/AIDS pandemic and also the
awareness related to it, population programmes and also
improvements in reproductive health programmes and
empowerment of women. However as projections suggest,
till 2015,there will be almost one billion more people added
to the world’s less developed countries from 5.1 billion in
2003 to 6.0 billion in 2015.
In many of these countries, the number of people living in
poverty is rising and inequalities are widening. And many
people are still unable to enjoy basic human rights and
human security. The normative framework for human
development is today reflected in the broad vision set out in
the Millennium Development Goals, the internationally
agreed set of time bound goals for reducing extreme
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poverty, extending gender equality and advancing
opportunities for health and education.
To understand the relationship between human
development and millennium development goals, it is
important to understand human capital strategies and
policies which basically aim at improving the living
standards of people and improving the quality of life.
However, let’s first understand the link between the
Millennium Development Goals and human resource
development.
II. The Millennium Development Goals
The Declaration mainstreams into the global development
agenda eight mutually reinforcing goals, to be achieved by
2015, that are driving national development and
international cooperation. The following are the eight
Millennium Development Goals and each of them focuses
on the larger issue of sustainable human and economic
development. These eight MDG’s are centered on the fact
that population growth needs to be such that the
development policies and strategies all achieve sustainable
human and economic development.
Let us understand how each of these Millennium
Development Goals is linked directly to population issues
5
and problems and how they necessitate population policies
conducive to development:
MDG-1: Eradicate poverty and extreme hunger
The main targets of this goal were to halve the proportion
of people whose income is less than $1 a day between 1990
and 2015 and also to halve the proportion of people
suffering from extreme hunger.
These strategies basically deal with the improvement of
reproductive health including adolescent reproductive
health, HIV/AIDS prevention and empowerment of
women. Human development tends to be the highest where
fertility levels are lowest. In such a situation saving rates
are high and therefore more investments take place in
health and education and hence investments in human
capital go up.
MDG-2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
The target of this goal was to ensure that by 2015, children
everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a
full course of primary schooling. According to statistics,
currently the highest proportions of young adults unable to
read and write are located in sub Saharan Africa (23 per
cent) and Asia (approximately 87 million). Reducing
illiteracy further requires increasing access to education as
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well as overcoming barriers that constrain demand.
Children living in conditions of poverty, particularly girls,
have the lowest education participation rates. Education of
girls positively impacts on population and health outcomes,
and is strongly associated with lower levels of fertility.
MDG-3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower
Women
This goal aims at eliminating gender disparity in primary
and secondary education and in all levels of education by
2015. Empowering women contributes to human well-
being and is an important end in itself as a basic human
right. Gender equality, equity and women’s empowerment
are essential to achieve economic, political and social
development. Literacy among females enables them to
marry and have childbearing later which results in smaller
and healthier families.
Among other ways that poverty affects gender relations is
in intensified inter-generational violence, including rape
and incest within families, as well as in increases in
prostitution and trafficking of girls. Girl’s access to
education is more limited than for boys because of
traditional and cultural attitudes and practices, lack of
adequate school facilities, and gender discrimination.
Because of such factors the gender gap in schooling still
6
persists. Closing this gender gap is an important challenge
to policymakers, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and
South Asia where gender differentials in primary enrolment
are largest.
MDG-4: Reduction of child mortality
Child mortality is highest among families with large
numbers of children and accounts for some 11 million
deaths annually. The target here is to reduce by two-thirds
the under- five mortality rate. Reductions in child mortality
require a great deal of attention to be given to, to neonatal
health including nutrition and immunization, as well as
avoidance of high-risk pregnancy and attention to the care
and well-being of mothers during pregnancy, delivery and
the post-partum period. Other challenges to be overcome
include unsafe water and poor sanitation. Also, child
mortality is higher in the poorest countries where primary
health care systems tend to be inaccessible or unavailable.
MDG-5: Improve Maternal Health
The target of this goal is to reduce the maternal mortality
ratio by three quarters 1990-2015. Reducing maternal
mortality depends on many factors, including the
availability of contraception and quality health care.
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Adolescent motherhood presents a high pregnancy risk as
does closely- spaced numerous pregnancies. Adolescent
girls often lack decision-making power and access to
reproductive health services. And adolescents are also at
high risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases
(STDs) including HIV/AIDS. There has been progress
towards the ICPD goal of providing access for all who need
reproductive health services by 2015. However, countries
like sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia still lack in these
aspects. Globally, there are 80 million unplanned
pregnancies annually, and 120 million women wanting to
use contraception for spacing and limiting births but not
doing so. Much remains to be done to improve reproductive
health and realize reproductive rights.
MDG-6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other
diseases
This goal aims at halting the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015
and also to put a halt to the spread of malaria and other
diseases by 2015. HIV/AIDS has led to major declines in
life expectancy and population. Effective responses to
HIV/AIDS require multi- sectoral strategies that will
increase knowledge of the causes of the infection at all
levels of society. In countries like sub-Saharan Africa, rates
of infection among the population are greater than 20 per
7
cent. The impact of this pandemic is catastrophic,
undermining development progress in all sectors.
MDG-7: Ensure Environmental sustainability
The main aim of this goal was to integrate the principles of
sustainable development into country policies and
programmes and reverse the loss of environmental
resources. Also it aims at halving the proportion of people
without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic
sanitation by 2015. It also aims at improving the lives of
100 million slum dwellers by 2020.
The long- term growth of global population which currently
adds almost 80 million to the World’s population annually
and is heavily concentrated in developing countries, affects
the world’s consumption growth. Combined with increased
economic activity, it leads to exponential growth in the use
of scarce natural resources. The global consumption of
water doubles within a generation and it is estimated that in
2025, if present rates of water consumption continue, 5
billion of the world’s 8 billion will be living in areas where
it will be difficult to meet basic water requirements.
MDG-8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
The 2002 Monterrey Consensus called for a new
partnership for development and outlined an agenda for
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resource mobilization, technology transfer and capacity
building. But trade barriers and agricultural subsidies
persist, as do debt burdens, while ODA flows are below
target. This goal will be successfully achieved only when
the rest of the seven objectives are achieved as it essentially
focuses on capacity development and sustainable
development. It aims at developing a further non
discriminatory trading and financial system and addressing
the special needs of the LDC’s such as tariff and quota free
access for LDC’s exports, debt relief programmes and
ODA for countries committed to poverty reduction. Also in
cooperation with developing countries, it aims at
developing and implementing strategies for decent and
productive work for youth.
All of the above Millennium Development Goals have
direct implications on population growth and the conditions
which determine the well being of people. This is because
almost all of these goals if met with would reduce poverty
levels, enhance the living standards of people and therefore
would contribute to a more sustainable world. This aspect
can be well understood after understanding population
issues like maternal and reproductive health, conditions of
women, sanitation, nutrition, population ageing and need
for investments in health and education.
8
It is clear that each of these millennium goals aim at
improving the living standards and conditions of people
and thereby eradicate elements like poverty, HIV/AIDS,
malaria etc which hinder the development of society. Even
for objectives like achieving universal primary education
huge amounts of investments in human capital need to be
done. Therefore, targeted investments in education,
reproductive health sectors, economic and political rights of
women can pace up the progress on poverty reduction,
sustainable development and lasting peace.
III. Evaluation of Millennium Development Goals: The
Current situation
According to UN report on Millennium Development
Goals 2007, the following has been achieved:
The proportion of people living in extreme poverty fell
from nearly a third to less than one fifth between 1990 and
2004. If such a trend is sustained, the MDG poverty
reduction target will be met for the world as a whole and
for most regions. The number of extremely poor people in
sub-Saharan Africa has leveled off, and the poverty rate has
declined by nearly six percentage points since 2000.
Progress has been made in getting more children into
school in the developing world. Enrolment in primary
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education grew from 80 per cent in 1991 to 88 per cent in
2005.
Women’s political participation has been slowly growing.
Even in countries where previously only men were allowed
to stand for political election, women now have a seat in
parliament. This directly addresses the concern for
achieving gender equality. Child mortality has declined
globally, and it is becoming clear that the right life-saving
interventions are proving effective in reducing the number
of deaths due to the main child killers such as measles. Key
interventions to control malaria have been expanded. The
tuberculosis epidemic, finally, appears on the verge of
decline, although progress is not fast enough to halve
prevalence and death rates by 2015. However, after
understanding as to what all has been done, these results
also highlight the loopholes still remaining and what all
needs to be done. Regions such as Sub Saharan Africa,
many parts of Asia still face challenges in areas like health,
gender inequalities and environmental sustainability, HIV
etc.
Referring to the UN report on MDG’s (2007) there are
some of the key challenges to population, environment and
development that need to be still addressed:
9
Over half a million women still die each year from treatable
and preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth.
The odds that a woman will die from these causes in sub-
Saharan Africa are 1 in 16 over the course of her lifetime,
compared to 1 in 3,800 in the developed world. If current
trends continue, the target of halving the proportion of
underweight children will be missed by 30 million children,
largely because of slow progress in Southern Asia and sub-
Saharan Africa. The number of people dying from AIDS
worldwide increased to 2.9 million in 2006, and prevention
measures are failing to keep pace with the growth of the
epidemic. In 2005, more than 15 million children had lost
one or both parents to AIDS.
Half the population of the developing world lack basic
sanitation. In order to meet the MDG target, an additional
1.6 billion people will need access to improved sanitation
over the period 2005-2015. If trends since 1990 continue,
the world is likely to miss the target by almost 600 million
people. To some extent, these situations reflect the fact that
the benefits of economic growth in the developing world
have been unequally shared. Widening income inequality is
of particular concern in Eastern Asia, where the share of
consumption of the poorest people declined dramatically
between 1990 and 2004. Most economies have failed to
provide employment opportunities to their youth, with
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young people more than three times as likely as adults to be
unemployed.
Warming of the climate is now unequivocal. Emissions of
carbon dioxide, the primary contributor to global climate
change, rose from 23 billion metric tons in 1990 to 29
billion metric tons in 2004. Climate change is projected to
have serious economic and social impacts, which will
impede progress towards the MDG’s.
Let us understand the achievements made so far in
achieving the MDG targets:
MDG-1:
Halving of the poverty levels and proportion of population
living in extreme hunger.
Looking at statistics, worldwide, the number of people in
developing countries living on less than $1 a day fell to 980
million in 2004 down from 1.25 billion in 1990. The
proportion of people living in extreme poverty fell from
nearly a third to 19 per cent over this period. If progress
continues, the MDG target of halving the poverty levels
would be met. However, success in meeting these targets
has been quite uneven since the decline in global poverty is
mostly due to rapid economic growth in Asia. Eastern and
10
South-Eastern Asia, in particular, experienced large
reductions in poverty, and accelerating growth rates in
India has led Southern Asia on track of achieving the goal.
However, poverty rates in Western Asia more than doubled
between 1990 and 2005. Extreme poverty rose sharply in
the early 1990s in the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS) and the transition countries of South-Eastern
Europe. Poverty rates in those regions are now dropping,
however, and approaching the levels of the 1980s.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the proportion of people living in
extreme poverty fell from 46.8 per cent in 1990 to 41.1 per
cent in 2004. The number of people living on less than $1 a
day is also beginning to level off, despite rapid population
growth. The per capita income of seven sub- Saharan
countries grew by more than 3.5 per cent a year between
2000 and 2005; another 23 had growth rates of more than 2
per cent a year over this period, providing a degree of
optimism for the future.
However, poverty reduction has also lead to rising
inequality; this is because benefits of economic growth
have been unequally shared. According to statistics,
between 1990 and 2004, the share of national consumption
by the poorest fifth of the population in developing regions
decreased from 4.6 to 3.9 per. Widening income inequality
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is of particular concern in Eastern Asia, where the share of
consumption among the poorest people declined
dramatically during this period.
MDG-2:
Ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls
alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary
schooling.
Evaluating the second MDG, the net enrolment ratio in
primary education in the developing regions increased to 88
per cent in the year 2004-2005, up from 80 per cent in
1990-1991. Out of these two thirds of the increase occurred
since 1999. Although sub-Saharan Africa has made
significant progress over the last few years, it still trails
behind other regions, with 30 per cent of its children of
primary school age out of school. Although, progress has
been made in reducing the number of children out of school
still estimates remain bleak. According to enrollment data,
about 72 million children of primary school age were not in
school in 2005 out of which 57 per cent of them were girls.
It has been concluded that children most likely to drop out
of school or to not attend at all are those from poorer or
rural households. For example, nearly a third of children of
primary school age in rural areas of the developing world
11
are out of school, compared with 18 per cent of children in
the same age group living in cities. Girls are still excluded
from education more often than boys. Surveys indicate that
attendance by over-age children is very common, especially
in some regions. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, more
children of secondary school age are attending primary
school than secondary school.
MDG-3
Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary
education by 2005 and in all levels of education no later
than 2015.
After the Millennium Declaration, women’s participation in
paid, non-agricultural employment increased. In addition,
women’s political participation is also growing.
A number of factors are at play in determining women’s
political representation including political will, the strength
of national women’s movements and continued emphasis
by the international community on gender equality and
women’s empowerment. Also in 2006, countries with
gender quotas nearly doubled the number of women
elected, compared to countries without any form of gender
quota system. Other countries have supported women’s
election bids through training and funding. This clearly
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shows considerable efforts have been made as far as
addressing gender inequality is concerned.
MDG -4
Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-
five mortality rate.
According to estimates, in 2005 10.1 million children under
the age of five could not survive. Though infant and child
mortality rates have declined globally, the pace of progress
has been uneven across regions and countries. Accelerated
improvements are needed most urgently in sub-Saharan
Africa, Southern Asia, Common wealth Independent States
and countries in Asia and in Oceania. Levels of child
mortality also differ according to socio-economic status. It
was found that, countries that have witnessed substantial
reductions in child mortality in recent years, the largest
changes were observed among children living in the richest
40 per cent of households, or in urban areas, or whose
mothers have some education. Also, in countries where
progress is lagging or where child mortality has increased,
AIDS along with diseases like malaria are likely to be
major contributing factors. In addition to these, measles is
one of the leading causes of child death among diseases
that can be prevented by vaccines. Globally, deaths from
measles fell by over 60 per cent between 2000 and 2005.
12
According to the latest data available, the number of these
deaths dropped from 873,000 in 1999 to 345,000 in 2005.
The most striking gains were found in Africa, where
measles deaths decreased by nearly 75 per cent over the
same period from an estimated 506,000 to 126,000. While
coverage stagnated between 1990 and 1999, immunization
has rapidly gained ground since 2000. In sub-Saharan
Africa, coverage dipped to 49 per cent in 1999 and
increased again to 64 per cent by the end of 2005.
MDG-5
Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the
maternal mortality ratio.
A number of middle-income countries have made rapid
progress in reducing maternal deaths. However, maternal
mortality levels remain unacceptably high across the
developing world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and
Southern Asia. As note above, every year, more than
500,000 women die from treatable or preventable
complications of pregnancy and childbirth. In sub-Saharan
Africa, a woman’s risk of dying from such complications
over the course of her lifetime is 1 in 16, compared to 1 in
3,800 in the developed world. This is also because these
regions have the lowest proportions of skilled health
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attendants at birth and hence have the highest numbers of
maternal deaths.
Also, disparities in the support available to women during
pregnancy and childbirth are evident. According to surveys
conducted between 1996 and 2005 in 57 developing
countries, 81 per cent of urban women deliver with the help
of a skilled attendant, versus only 49 per cent of their rural
counterparts. Similarly, 84 per cent of women who have
completed secondary or higher education is attended by
skilled personnel during childbirth, more than twice the rate
of mothers with no formal education.
Another major reason of maternal deaths is unplanned
pregnancies as they account for around one quarter of
maternal deaths, including those that result from unsafe
abortion. Also it has been an estimated that around 137
million women have an unmet need for family planning.
An additional 64 million women are using traditional
methods of contraception with high failure rates. Usage of
modern contraceptive practices have increased slowly from
55 per cent in 1990 to 64 per cent in 2005, but remains very
low in sub- Saharan Africa, at 21 per cent. In addition, in
regions where the adolescent birth rate remains high, a
large number of young women, particularly very young
women, and their children face increased risk of death and
13
disability. In sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia and Latin
America and the Caribbean, the high adolescent birth rates
prevailing in 1990 have not declined significantly, despite
continued reductions in total fertility in those regions.
MDG-6
Have begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, and to
reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
According to the UNAIDS report, at the end of 2006, 39.5
million people worldwide were living with HIV which
increased from 32.9 million in 2001, and 42 million in2
2002. Out of the 39.5 million people infected with
HIV/AIDS number of adults was 37.2 million and women
was 17.7 million. Also children less than 15 years affected
with HIV were around 2.3 million in 2006. According to
the same estimates, globally; 4.3 million people were newly
infected with the virus in 2006, with Eastern Asia and the
Common wealth Independent States showing the fastest
rates of infection. The number of people dying from AIDS
has also increased from 2.2 million in 2001 to 2.9 million
in 2006. Looking at the number of deaths which occurred
during 2006 because of AIDS were around 2.9 million out
of which the number of adults who died were around 2.6
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million and children under 15 years who died were around
380,000.
The main cause and mode of transmission of the virus in
most of the countries like Common wealth states, sub
Saharan Africa, Kenya, Nigeria Tanzania etc. Also,
unprotected sex with sex workers account for the second
most common way of getting infected by the virus. For
instance, in Southern and South-Eastern Asia, people are
most often infected through unprotected sex. In addition to
this, recently over the past two years, HIV outbreaks
among men who have sex with men have also become
evident in Asia in Cambodia, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan,
Thailand and Vietnam. Looking at statistics, increasing
numbers of married women are becoming infected, along
with girls and young women. In 2006, women comprised
48 per cent of people around the world living with HIV. In
addition to women, a larger majority of youngsters
especially in the age group of 15-24 have become
vulnerable to HIV. For instance, in 2006, 40 per cent of
new infections among people aged 15 and older were in the
15 to 24-year age group.
Because of such a pandemic, efforts have been made to
control and hence achieve the MDG target. For example, in
December 2006, an estimated 2 million people were
14
receiving antiretroviral therapy in developing regions. This
represents 28 per cent of the estimated 7.1 million people in
need. Though sub-Saharan Africa is home to the vast
majority of people worldwide living with HIV (63 per
cent), only about one in four of the estimated 4.8 million
people there who could benefit from antiretroviral therapy
are receiving it.
The Sixth goal also aims at reducing the incidence of
diseases like Malaria and Tuberculosis. International
funding for malaria control has risen more than tenfold
over the past decade, but the amount available in 2004 was
still only around $600 million. Around $3 billion are
needed worldwide $2 billion for Africa alone – to fight
malaria in countries hardest hit by the disease. The
incidence of tuberculosis as measured by the number of
new cases per 100,000 people has stabilized or begun to
fall in most regions, following the decline in its prevalence
and mortality. However, still the total number of TB cases
has still been rising. An estimated 8.8 million new
tuberculosis cases were reported in 2005, 7.3 million of
which were in sub-Saharan Africa and the four Asian
regions. A total of 1.6 million people died of tuberculosis in
2005, including 195,000 people infected with HIV.
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IV. Need for Investments in Human Capital: Human
Resource Development
From the above discussion we can conclude that even
though a lot has been done in achieving the MDG targets,
still a lot more needs to be done. For this investment in all
the target sectors is required. A number of issues
concerning population have been raised in regard to the
MDG’s; here I would like to talk about the issue related to
the Ageing of population of many developing countries.
(a) Population Aging and Investments required in
Younger and Older Population
The current debate is how the population of developing
nations is aging due to lower fertility rates and how
countries like India will have a larger proportion of young
people by 2025. It has been time and again argued that
large and large investments need to be done in young
people. Population ageing is one of the fundamental
neglected problems which many countries like India are
facing. This is because usually the policies concerning
population are centered on women and children and other
marginalized groups. However, issues like needs and
requirements of older people are ignored. Even the MDG’s
don’t address this directly as they mainly focus on the
development of productive human capital and therefore
15
schemes like social security benefits have been kept out of
the ambit of MDG’s. Population aging is an inevitable
consequence of the rapid fertility decline and sustained
improvement in mortality levels. For instance, many
countries in the ESCAP region are facing a challenge in
terms of the unprecedented numbers and proportions of
older persons (defined as those aged 60 years and older). In
the year 2000, roughly 1 in 11 persons in this region was in
the age group 60 years and older. This number will
continue to rise; by 2050, one out of four people will be 60
years and older.
According to statistics, the Asian and Pacific region has
experienced a rapid decline in fertility over the past several
decades. The total fertility rate of around 6 children per
woman in the period 1950-1955 has dropped by more than
half to 2.7 children per woman in the period 1995-2000.
Since the region is inhabited by over 60 per cent of the
global population and has witnessed a rapid decline in
fertility, the absolute size of the older population is a major
concern. Broad estimates by the United Nations indicate
that the Asian and Pacific region will contain an estimated
703 million older persons by 2025 and the figure is
expected to exceed 1.2 billion by the year 2050. (United
Nations report on Population Aging, 2002).
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High and increasing elderly ‘Dependency Ratios’ are thus a
feature of developed countries, and also some developing
countries where the demographic transition has gone
furthest. Population ageing is pervasive, a global
phenomenon affecting every man, woman and child, but all
countries are at very different stages of the process, and the
pace of change differs for each country. It is believed that
women live longer than men on average and therefore
ageing Asian societies are predominated by females,
particularly those over 80, many of whom are widows and
are more likely than men to be poor or illiterate. The
median age of the population, is currently 39 years in
developed countries, 25 years in less developed countries
and just 18 in the least developed countries.
With increasing longevity, the countries are beginning to
recognize the socio-economic implications of population
ageing and develop suitable pension schemes, social
security and healthcare systems, create economic
opportunities for the elderly and strengthen support systems
to eliminate violence and discrimination against older
persons, particularly women.
In several Asian countries, efforts are under way to develop
and implement policies and programme to improve the
living conditions and the quality of life of older persons.
16
These include policies to promote income security and care
during old age. The United Nations Department of
Economic and Social Affairs, ESCAP and other regional
commissions, the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA), United Nations specialized agencies as well as
Help Age International and many other NGOs have
launched programmes addressing the needs of older
persons and efforts to collect and document best practices.
Initiatives like promoting community participation of the
elderly, promoting social security schemes and old age
pension schemes, health care and family support
programmes become imperative and form a part of human
capital investing strategies.
Investing in adolescents and youth is also a matter of
human rights. Investing wisely in young people now will
contribute to the transition to educated and healthy adults-
agents of change prepared to take the vision of equitable
and sustainable development forward. This will demand
stepped up efforts by policymakers and donors. It will
require granting young people access to a fair share of
resources for education, reproductive health, skills
development, and work and life opportunities. And it will
require doing so in ways that break down gender
stereotypes and expand the prospects of young women.
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(b) Human capital investment: Health
Goals four, five and six deal directly with health and
therefore more and more investments in the health sector
should be done so as to achieve the primary target of the
Millennium Declaration, i.e. to halve the poverty levels of
the world, eradicate extreme hunger, disease, illiteracy and
ensure sustainable development. The success of these goals
however depends on the fact if investments in health
systems can be extended to marginalized and excluded
groups especially in rural and urban slums. Both the ICPD
and the UN Millennium Project call for an approach that
focuses on prevention and primary health care.
Strengthening Reproductive Health Systems
Even though there is no formal MDG outlining targets for
sexual and reproductive health, the MDG’s cannot be
achieved in low-income countries without giving attention
to population issues and access to Sexual Reproductive
Health services.
Strengthening reproductive health systems is directly linked
to combating of HIV/AIDS as a pandemic. The UN
Millennium Project recognizes the fact that reproductive
health is a central and cost-effective strategy for meeting
the MDG’s. Reproductive health is a human right, affirmed
and reaffirmed as a development priority in international
17
agreements since 1994, including at the ICPD and Beijing
10 year anniversary commemorations. Reproductive health
rights are the most important aspect of poverty reduction,
gender equality and women's empowerment and of efforts
to lower maternal and infant mortality and combat
HIV/AIDS. Better reproductive health improves quality of
life. Programmes like family planning, prevention and
management of sexually transmitted infections, including
HIV, and maternal and child health care. They also cover
nutritional education, vitamin supplementation,
immunization and malaria prevention. Also, reproductive
health services provide information about other
programmes, for instance, such as those that address female
literacy, gender-based violence, legal rights, access to
micro-credit etc.
Studies undertaken by the International Planned Parenthood
Federation (IPPF) and UNFPA showed considerable
savings and increased demand for services when voluntary
HIV testing and counseling was integrated into existing
sexual and reproductive health services. However, the costs
of health care services continue to be a significant barrier to
service access and use. Most countries have undertaken
reforms to improve the quality, efficiency and equity of
their health care systems.
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World Health Organization has also recommended
interventions to improve maternal and child health care.
Their recommendations include steps to be followed for
women during pregnancy care, child birth care including
labour, delivery and postpartum maternal and child birth
care, new born care and post natal new born care. These
come under routine, additional care and obstetrical and neo
natal care. However, most of the times, the beneficiaries
such programmes and services like fee exemptions are
unable to take advantage of these health services because
sometimes people are not aware of such services and
sometimes health systems are under funded. For this, the
UN Millennium Project ‘Quick Win’ has called for the
elimination of user fees for basic health services that can
diminish health inequities related to poverty and gender
discrimination. As the UN Millennium Project Task Force
on Maternal and Child Health emphasizes, health systems
are an integral part of the social fabric.
The vast majority of maternal deaths and disabilities could
be prevented through appropriate reproductive health
services before, during and after pregnancy, and through
life-saving interventions. Attendance at delivery by skilled
health personnel (doctors, nurses, midwives) who are
trained to detect problems early and can effectively provide
18
or refer women to emergency obstetric care when needed is
essential.
Antenatal care has long been recognized as a core
component of maternal health services. It can help women
identify potential risks and plan for a safe delivery. It also
can serve as an entry point into the wider health-care
system. Since 1990, every region has made progress in
ensuring that women receive antenatal care at least once
during their pregnancy.
(c) Women, Gender Inequality and MDG’s
The third Millennium Development Goal essentially aims
at empowering women and establish gender equality. It is
important to note here that gender discrimination is
prevalent even today in most parts of the world. For
instance, even today in some of the backward states in
India, preference is given to male child in place of a female
child, which therefore means lesser amount of investment
in girl child which would then result in nutritional
deficiencies, poor access to education for girls etc. this can
have serious implications.
For instance, poor nutrition of girls and women due to
gender discrimination can increase the chances of life-
threatening complications at the time of pregnancy. Also
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women's education is strongly correlated with positive
maternal health outcomes. High rates of illiteracy/low rates
of school attendance among women and girls, which are
common in some parts of the world, are likely to contribute
to maternal mortality.
It is important to understand how the component of gender
disparity is addressed implicitly in almost of all the
MDG’s. Because of this the Department of Gender and
Women's Health of the World Health Organization has
examined six health related MDG’s: first, fourth, fifth,
sixth, seventh and eighth, with a view to identify areas
where gender considerations would lead to conducive
development and attainment of each of these goals.
Quick win, the UN millennium project calls for
empowering women to play a central role in formulating
and monitoring MDG based poverty reduction strategies
and other critical policy reform processes, particularly at
the level of local governments. The International
Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and
the 1995 Fourth World Conference on women held in
Beijing, aimed at freeing people from poverty, abridging
gender gaps and also at improving the maternal health and
reproductive health facilities. The main aim was to
establish gender equality and hence empowering women.
19
Investing in gender equality and women’s empowerment
can bring about results conducive to a nation’s
development. According to statistics, more than 1.7 billion
women worldwide are in their productive and reproductive
years, between the ages of 15 and 49. They already
contribute enormously to their families, communities and
countries. In most families, women are either primary or
contributory breadwinners. They are the guardians of their
countries' precious human capital- their children. (Source:
UN Millennium Project Reports, Population, Reproductive
health and Millennium Development Goals, 2005)
Gender equality benefits families, communities and
countries as well as women themselves. Stronger
partnerships between women and men, and shared rights
and responsibilities, hold the answer for many of the
challenges that hinder human development. However,
realizing such goals, will require concerted political and
community leadership at all levels and resources to
promote gender equality through policies and budgets.
Taking the example of Sub-Saharan Africa, where the
AIDS epidemic is widespread, 63 per cent of women have
an unmet need for effective contraception and,
consequently, a high proportion of unintended pregnancies.
Many women do not know their HIV status and risk
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passing the virus to their children. Under these
circumstances, access to even a minimal integrated package
of family planning, HIV, and maternal health services can
enable women to protect themselves from both unintended
pregnancies and HIV and also prevent HIV transmission to
their children.
V. Conclusion
Thus, we see that even though some of the targets have
been achieved still a lot needs to be done as far as
investments in human capital are concerned. Investing in
health and education sectors and understanding the needs of
population
BIBLIOGRAPHY
UNFPA report achieving the Millennium development
Goals: Population and Reproductive Health as critical
determinants, 2003): UN Millennium Project Reports,
Population, Reproductive health and Millennium
Development Goals, 2005
HDR report, Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis,
2006
Source: UN Millennium Project Reports, Population,
Reproductive health and Millennium Development Goals,
2005, United Nations report on Population Aging, 2002.

Swasti is pursuing her Post-Graduation in Social

Sciences. An exceptionally brilliant student, she is a
double barrel scholar in economics and music. And,
among the many other things that she has done, her stint
as an RJ is much cherished. In this exhaustive work, she
showcases an inquisitive mind and approach to a critical
issue facing the world…

20
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What Lies Ahead – A Perspective on Possible
Trends for 2008 for HRM
2007 has been a good year for the Indian economy.
Business grew tremendously, there were a lot of mergers
and acquisitions, the markets boomed, the Indian rupee
rose, and India was generally touted as the hot market for
the future. Yes, it was a good year indeed.
When a business grows, its human capital grows along with
it. And this happened in 2007 as well. The more you
diversify, expand, enlarge your business, the more people
you need and honestly, the more difficult it becomes to
manage your employees. The people who work for you are
aware of the countless opportunities that await them out
there and keeping them happy and making them stay with
you is a difficult task. So it can be safely said that 2007
brought along with it a sharper rise in the need of efficient
HR professionals.
Predicting trends is never easy and I do not claim to be an
expert in it. But I think, based on past evidence, we can
make some safe assumptions about what the year 2008 will
bring with it, in terms of managing human resources.
21
2007 saw a more prominent change in organizations’
perspective towards HRM, and HRM is now more integral
to the organizational setups. It is rapidly shifting from the
“auxiliary” position to the mainstream. In 2008, one of the
most obvious issues, which is going to haunt the HR
professionals, is going to be an increased level of difficulty
in attracting and retaining the right sort of talent. This isn’t
a pleasant prospect because the current levels of difficulty
in these areas are quite enough already. Enough literature
has been devoted to this, but we will need lots more. Looks
like this spells good news for me at least.
But in my opinion, it is also possible and somewhat likely
that this attrition might either stabilize or reduce as a long-
term effect of all the employee engagement and retention
practices that organizations have lately been adopting. This
might not happen immediately in this year, but within the
next couple of years.
Moving away from the obvious, we come to the more
subtly obvious. I feel that compensation management is
going to become even more important than it already is, but
more importantly, we need more experts in this area. This
spells good fortune for all those opting for compensation as
their area of expertise. We need them not only to design the
compensation packages in the most attractive way, but also
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in the most optimum way in order to be able to keep the
employees satisfied and derive value.
Where there is compensation, benefits cannot be far away.
Employees are increasingly looking for more than just a
good pay package with a high degree of disposable income.
They are looking for security and safety and long-term
advantages too, not just for themselves, but also for their
families. Employee benefits like healthcare and insurance
will, therefore, become a priority this year and the ones
coming ahead. Employees want to know that their
organizations don’t treat them as mere numbers or entries
in a database; that their well-being is protected and their
contributions matter.
Continuing from the above point, it is also noteworthy that
organizations need to ensure that they are letting their
employees know how they are contributing to the
organization. I don’t think this is the first time that I have
claimed this, and the necessity of this is going to make it
more obvious in the coming years. It is only when we are
able to satisfy the need of the employees to feel valued and
respected, and most importantly, needed, that they will
consider holding the value of the job over the value of the
compensation package. This is also something that HR
managers need to consider while designing retention
22
strategies. If people realize that they are assets and not
simply “hands”, their loyalty will be higher, as will be their
job satisfaction.
Organizations will need to ensure that more and more fast-
track career programmes are in place for the deserving
employees. As it is, the trend of paying premium for talent
is going to continue. So the talent that they hire at a
premium needs to be given ample opportunities to grow
and be rewarded for the same. This will have a twofold
advantage – the employee will stay longer and he will also
be able to contribute highly to the organization.
One important aspect I cannot afford to leave out is that of
global human resource practices. For multi national
companies, it will be a good idea to promote a global
practice of quality of employment and life in their
organizational culture. This will also help in strategic
placing of the right talent at the right place. The employees
will also be exposed to the variations due to working in
various locations, which in turn will enhance productivity.
The world is becoming more compact with time and
therefore it will be better to develop adaptability to others’
cultures and practices.
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Global human resource practices are also relevant in the Prudential Norms
light of the plethora of mergers and acquisitions that we
have been seeing lately. We need to appreciate that many
After independence, the Indian Government needed an
of them are also inter-country and inter-culture. So, we
intermediary which would help in implementing the
need to make sure that we have unifying sound practices in
developmental plans formulated by it. For that purpose, it
place for ease of transition into a new phase and continuity
brought 14 major banks under its control by nationalising
in the same.
them in 1969. Six more banks followed in 1980. Once
nationalised, the banks were required to undertake major
I am not going to attempt to drag this further; the idea was
branch expansion in the rural areas in order to bring the
merely to introduce the changes for the coming year(s) in a
rural masses under the banking industry and develop their
more comprehensive perspective. But I will say this –
banking habits, without thinking about the crucial factor of
organizations will definitely need to change their age-old
profitability. The banks were not allowed to fix their own
practices and realize that archaic practices will not work
interest rates, as it was felt that high interest rates would act
anymore in the stiff competition and rat race for talent.
as a deterrent to borrowing and lending. Many other such
Remember, employees don’t leave organizations. They
restrictions were also placed on the banks, which resulted
leave the little things that they come to dread bearing day
in the banks becoming inefficient and loss making. They
after day like lousy policies and lousier bosses.
began suffering from problems such as high NPAs, lack of
capital, etc.
There are no short cuts to that route and no escaping or
shirking the responsibility we owe to those who work with
During the process of LPG in 1991-92, it was felt that the
and for us. The dearth is that of good talent, not particularly
time was right to reform the banking industry as well.
that of organizations that are ready to pay for it.
Financial sector reforms were initiated as part of overall
economic reforms in the country.
Ruby in this freewheeling article looks at the upcoming
Banking Reforms
HR trends in the industry…

23
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Interest rate deregulation: The interest rates which were
previously decided by a number of governing bodies were
deregulated and more freedom was given to the banks to
determine them.
Branch expansion policy reforms: The banks were now
permitted to start branches based on the need and viability.
Only RBI permission was required before one could open a
branch.
Directed Credit Policy which required a bank to
compulsorily lend 40% of its total loans to the priority
sector was to be gradually phased out. Also the credit
decisions were to be based on project appraisal.
Directed Investment policy contained provisions under
which a bank had to invest in government securities (as
SLR). The rates were reduced from 38.5% to 25%. The
CRR rates were also reduced.
Adoption of global standards: It was felt that the
accounting practices need to be transparent for the benefit
of the stakeholders. RBI introduced Risk Based
Supervision of banks (against the traditional transaction
based approach). Best international practices in accounting
24
systems, corporate governance, payment and settlement
systems etc. were adopted and prudential norms introduced.
The prudential norms, recommended in India by the
Narsimham committee, contained the following provisions:
1) Asset Classification
2) Income Recognition and provisioning
3) Capital adequacy
Asset classification:
Assets for a bank are the loans and advances that it extends
to the public. This norm required a bank to classify its
assets into Performing and Non Performing assets. The
loans extended which earn the interest in time are called as
the standard or performing assets. The loans which do not
receive the interest payment in time are called Non
Performing assets or NPA. A particular time period has
been fixed for classifying the assets as Performing or Non-
Performing. For example, if any asset is not paid within 90
days it becomes an NPA. The NPAs were further classified
as
a) Sub standard
b) Doubtful
c) Loss making
Income recognition:
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The income of a bank is the interest that it earns on its
loans and advances. When the income is earned, it is shown
in the profit and loss account, on the credit side. According
to the normal accounting rules even accrued income is
shown. But the committee recommended that this rule
should not be followed by the banks as this will give a false
picture to the stakeholders (the accrued income may or may
not be received). Thus only the income which is received is
recorded and shown.
Provisioning:
The banks having classified the assets as performing and
non-performing should make adequate provisions against
the non performing assets. Even the performing assets
should carry a provision of 1% and the prudential norms
should also be made applicable to government guaranteed
advances.
Capital Adequacy Ratio:
This refers to a ratio of capital to risk weighted assets. For
the purpose, two types of capital are measured;
Tier one capital, which can absorb losses without a bank
being required to cease trading. Examples: Paid up share
capital, Statutory reserves etc. (this is also called as the core
capital of the bank) and
25
Tier two capital, which can absorb losses in the event of a
winding-up and so provides a lesser degree of protection to
depositors. This includes subordinated debt, revaluation
reserves etc.
The assets are also weighed according to the risks they
carry. For example less risky assets will carry lower
weights and cash will carry 0% risk weighing.
Capital Adequacy Ratio determines the capacity of the
bank in terms of meeting the time liabilities and other risks.
This capital shows the amount of capital which should be
maintained by a bank to save it from any risk. According to
the RBI the Indian banks are to maintain 9% CAR as
against 8% the world over.
Conclusion
The most significant achievement of the financial sector
reforms has been the marked improvement in the financial
health of commercial banks in terms of capital adequacy,
profitability and asset quality. Also risk management
techniques of Indian banks will help them compete better to
world standards. Further, deregulation has opened up new
opportunities for banks to increase revenues by diversifying
into investment banking, depository services, mortgage
financing, securitization etc. With the opening up of the
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financial sector and setting up of private banks, competition PACE- The 5th P of Marketing
in the industry has increased tremendously. Competition
isn’t only among banks but also from mutual funds, NBFCs
We all are aware of the 4P’s of marketing. They serve as
etc. This is squeezing profitability and forcing banks to
guiding lights to marketing managers and come in handy
work efficiently on shrinking spreads. As banks benchmark
while taking crucial marketing decisions. However, these
themselves against global standards, there has been a
four P’s may not be sufficient, especially in case of
marked increase in disclosures and transparency in bank
launching a new product. In addition to the 4 P’s,
balance sheet. All this only makes the scenario better for
Management Guru, Peter Drucker has suggested another
the consumer as he is exposed to greater choice and better
‘P’ of marketing, namely: PACE. In a competitive business
service.
environment, a firm has to be fast in all its activities right
from procurement of the product, to its production,
distribution and generation of revenues and redeployment
Bhagyashree is our maven of the financial world. In her
of those revenues into business again. Firms have
continuing series on the intricacies of this domain, she
developed sophisticated management models like CAD,
writes about Prudential Norms.
CAM, TQM and JIT to achieve the 5th P.

Drucker suggests that every corporation must try to

minimize the preparation time that it takes to launch a
product. This would yield several benefits for the firm. The
longer a firm takes to launch its product the higher are the
costs, and the longer it takes for the firm to start earning its
revenues. As a result the pay back period increases and it
takes very long to break even.

There is another important reason why a firm should

minimize its preparation time. As a firm takes time to

26
The PUNdiT
launch its product, the competition from other firms begins
to increase. As a result, when the product is finally
launched there is a possibility that another player would
have already launched the same product. Thus in turn all
the effort, time and resources that the company has put in
may go waste.
A live example here would be the Rs 1 lakh car that TATA
Motors had been planning to launch for a long time. Ratan
Tata, chairman of India's second-largest and longest-
established conglomerate, said, he was pressing ahead with
a project to bring to market a $2,000 car (Rs 1 lakh), which
he believed could revolutionize personal transport in India
and some other Asian countries. He had conceived the idea
several years ago: to use components from the region's
large scooter and motorcycle industries to create a basic
four-seater, four-door car to which the region's millions of
scooter and motorcycle riders, plus 3-wheeler users could
aspire.
"It is my dream to make the car a reality within the five
years I remain as Tata chairman," said Ratan Tata. The
project has become more ambitious as it has entered trial
engineering phases — most notably with the cutting of the
target retail price by one-third from the originally
envisaged $3,000. Total material costs for the vehicle are
27
claimed to have already been pared down towards the $
1,200 mark.
Despite the projected price being less than half that of the
cheapest car on the Indian market, a basic Suzuki model,
Tata said it was not unrealistic and would not need to be
subsidised. The vehicles would be produced primarily in kit
form for assembly at several places around India, basically
to generate local employment. “They have a potential
market in other Asian countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia
and Indonesia, in addition to bridging the gap for 2 million
to 3 million Indians between powered two-wheelers and
cars”, said Tata.
The idea sounds really great and has the potential to
revolutionize the car market. However, it seems TATA had
released this idea long back and has been working on the
concept for a very long time. This has attracted other
players into the market.
In a recent press conference, Bajaj Auto MD designate
Rajiv Bajaj, said that even Bajaj plans to produce such a
car. When Bajaj takes to four wheels, Tata’s better watch
their back! Bajaj Auto, the largest three-wheeler maker in
the country, said it is planning to enter the four-wheeler
market with small cars.
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Bajaj has taken on the challenge of Ratan Tata's ambitious
Rs 1 lakh car (which was recently introduced at the 9th
Auto Expo in Delhi). Bajaj believes that a two and three-
wheeler maker will be better positioned to manufacture a
low-cost car than a conventional carmaker. As a matter of
fact there is little difference between a 1 litre engine used in
a motorcycle and the 800 cc engine of a Maruti.
Nissan- Renault may learn from Tata’s 1 lakh car and make
a superior product for the same price.
Naman is an ardent admirer of the Marketing and
Branding community of managers. He takes a leaf out of
their book in this work on Pace…

According to Mr. Bajaj, it won’t be tough to make a car for Sources:

Rs 1 lakh and he also dismissed any chances of Bajaj tying
up with Tata to make this car. This clearly indicates that the 1. The Upper India Motorist, Vol No. 58, Issue No. 1,
Tata’s have given adequate time to Bajaj to come up with a January 1008
similar product for the same market segment and thus take 2. http://globalautoindex.com
away the advantage Tata enjoyed. 3. http://carindia.com
4. http://marketingprofs/peterdrucker.com
There are other players like Renault- Nissan which have 5. http://hindubusinessline.archives.com
also shown interest in entering this newly created entry
segment for passenger cars.

The fate of Tata’s 1 lakh car is yet to be seen. But what is

certain is that Tata would have been in a more comfortable
position had it not disclosed the idea of making the 1 lakh
car so early that it gave enough time to other players to start
developing similar products. Tata has surely shortened its
lead time. And now, for all you know, Bajaj, Suzuki or

28
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Mercedes Benz Benz became the brand name applied to the models of the
new firm.
In the last edition I talked about the Porsche 911. And
The famous logo combined the 3-pointed star (designed by
frankly speaking I think the article did not justify the
Gottlieb Daimler to show the ability of his motors for land,
greatness of the legend. Many found it too complicated and
air and water) from DMG and the laurel wreath used by
technical. So this time I attempt to keep things simple. And
Benz & Cie. The wreath was replaced by the ring in 1937.
this time I write about a car brand that we all are more
familiar with.
Over the years, Mercedes Benz has offered many models
that have been path breaking as far as automobile
So what is it that comes to your mind when we talk about
engineering is concerned. Be it the legendary SSK racing
luxury cars.. yes.. Mercedes-Benz. It is the most definitive
car (which was the fastest car of its day) or Mercedes Benz
name as far as luxury cars are concerned. So let us try to
260 D – first diesel engine production car or the latest E
understand what is it that has made it one of the leading
class models with Bluetec 1 technology that greatly reduces
brands in the world.
emissions from diesel engines. The company has strived to
be the first in any new development in technology and be
History:
the best at it. And this is what has earned it the reputation
It all began in Germany in 1926 when two companies
of producing one of the most luxurious and technologically
“Benz & Cie” and “DMG” merged to form Daimler – Benz
advanced cars.
(Today known as Daimler AG). Benz & Cie was founded
in 1871 by Karl Benz, who is generally regarded as the
Innovation:
inventor of the gasoline powered automobile. And DMG
was founded by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in
1
1890. Since the name Daimler had been licensed for use on Mercedes-Benz has modified specific aspects of the economical,
other automobiles in France and the UK, it was not powerful and robust 320 CDI en-gine, adding state-of-the-art emission-
control technology to make it the cleanest diesel in the world.
available to Daimler-Benz. So, the name Mercedes was Mercedes-Benz has thus transformed the diesel engine into a clean and
used for the DMG part of the new brand. Thus, Mercedes- future-compatible system. This system is called BLUETEC.

29
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There are many innovations that have been given to the
global automotive industry by Mercedes Benz. Be it new
features that have made passengers feel safe inside their
cars or technology that has improved vehicle performance
and made driving easy. Mercedes-Benz has been the
pioneer in all such innovations. For example, in 1951, it
developed the first safety car body in the world and in
1980, it was the first manufacturer in the world to introduce
driver airbag in the steering wheel and the belt tensioner for
the front passenger. In 1985, Mercedes-Benz was the first
to offer the electronic traction control system. In fact, the
company has 2,500 patents on crash technology and 4,000
patents on accident avoidance technology. Mercedes-Benz
has constantly been at the forefront of automotive
innovation. In fact, the company spends an astonishing 10
million pounds everyday on research and development!
Luxury and Comfort:
Surely, Mercedes-Benz is known the world over for the
luxury it offers to its owners. Mercedes has earned a
reputation for giving immense attention to detail when it
comes to luxury and comfort for its customers. Did you
know that all leather upholstery fabrics in a Mercedes –
Benz car is put through a blindfold touch test to ensure
utmost quality and luxury. The company offers a charcoal
filtered air conditioning on every model range. This
30
charcoal filter removes pollen and other unwanted particles
to ensure cleaner and purer air inside the car. This attention
to detail is exemplified by the fact that the company owns
an ostrich farm in South Africa which ensures every
Mercedes-Benz has a smooth finish. Cannot find the
connection? Well, the feathers from the bird are used in a
rotating ‘Emu’ machine. This machine works like a car
wash machine and the ostrich feathers remove all tiny stray
particles from every single body panel prior to painting.
The interiors of Mercedes-Benz offer unmatched comfort
and gives a sense of pride and prestige. And this sets it
apart from its competitors.
Safety:
Mercedes-Benz has always given prime importance to
passenger safety. After all, no matter how comfortable and
luxurious the car may be, no one would buy it if it was not
safe. So committed has Mercedes-Benz been to its safety
programme that it has become a pioneer in providing
innovative safety features to the automotive world.
Mercedes-Benz patented the safety door lock in 1949. The
company also introduced Electronic Stability Programme
or ESP. The ESP consists of sensors and a control unit that
constantly monitor for any imminent risk of skidding, and
when required, react instantly to hold the vehicle safely on
course by electronically applying brakes to the front and
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rear axles while adjusting engine torque. According to an
NHSTA (Sept 2004) report, vehicles with ESP reduced
accidents by 35%. And for the people at Mercedes-Benz
safety is not a luxury. As a result it is standard feature on
all its cars.
Attention to detail has been the philosophy at Mercedes-
Benz. The dashboard in a Mercedes (some models) has a
wooden finish. But what if, in case of a crash the airbag
gets popped by a splinter? Well, the wood finish that is
used is bonded to an aluminium backing. In the event of a
crash, the aluminium absorbs the impact so that the wood
doesn’t shatter or splinter.
Social Responsibility:
The company has been sensitive towards the environment
as well. It has taken some initiatives that create a mutually
beneficial situation for both the company as well as the
environment. For example, it has started POEMA (Poverty
and Environment in the Amazons), through which the
company encourages small farmer communities to farm
their lands in a sustainable manner. The husk (a by-
product) from the farm produce is used in the seats of the
car.
31
The company uses water based paints on its cars. This not
only gives the cars a brilliant shine but the paint is
environment friendly as well! Moreover, Mercedes-Benz
guarantees that up to 80% of the materials used in its cars
are recyclable.
I think from a marketing perspective it is a great idea.
When a person buys a Mercedes-Benz, not only does he
buy luxury, comfort, status and prestige, but he also gets to
show to his peers that he is sensitive towards the
environment. By giving something back to the society, the
company creates a win - win situation for itself and the
society.
Mercedes-Benz Lifestyle Collection:
Over the years, the brand of Mercedes-Benz has become
synonymous to class and prestige. So, Mercedes-Benz has
made the most of its strong brand positioning by
introducing a lifestyle collection which includes elegant
range of gift items and collectibles like pens, wrist watches,
apparel, handbags, leather goods, eyewear etc.
Today, Mercedes-Benz is one of the most prestigious
luxury brands in the world. It is rivaled by BMW, Lexus,
Audi and others. However, the Mercedes-Benz badge
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arguably carries more status than any of its competitors. It Retail as a Career of Choice
has achieved all this with truckloads of efforts towards
attention to every minute detail to ensure that the
From a boring ‘Oh! No,’ routine to a fun filled “Of course,
Mercedes-Benz customer gets the best quality. Luxury and
Yes!’ outing for the entire family, shopping for the typical
comfort defines a Mercedes-Benz. It is the maker of one of
Indian household has come a long way indeed. Modern
the safest cars in the world. Having said that, it does not
retail has most definitely made an impact- sprawling
mean, in any way that its cars are boring. In fact, Mercedes-
shopping centers, multi-storied malls and huge complexes
Benz cars are very thrilling and fun to drive.
offer shopping, entertainment and food, all under one
comfortable roof. Today’s consumers are not only more
At the end, everything mentioned above is just a sliver of
aware of the developments around them but also more
the iceberg of what has gone in to make Mercedes-Benz the
demanding. They want superior quality at an affordable
brand that it is today. I have not even touched its other
price and they want it instantly. While this poses a
accomplishments in motorsports, its trucks or buses
challenging task for retailers who have to ensure that they
division or its robot cars. I’ll save that for another day.
have a smoothly working network of people and processes
in place to offer consumer what they want. It basically
represents a tremendous business opportunity.
Manan’s craze for cars continues. His passion comes out
in this work on a brand that he literally worships…
Retailing is gradually inching its way towards becoming
the next sunrise or boom industry. Retailing is the world’s
Bibliography:
largest private industry with annual sales of US $6.6trillion,
http://www2.mercedes-benz.co.uk
with Indian retail industry being the world’s largest
http://www.mind-advertising.com/de/mercedes_de.htm
industry. Retailing in India is the biggest employer after
http://www.wikipedia.org
agriculture sector and contributes major chunk (52%) to the
services sector and thereby to the Gross National Income.

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India has got the most favorable demographics- it has the
highest outlet density in the world. Increasing disposable
incomes have led to a substantial change in the profile of
Indian Consumer. There are more nuclear families today
especially in the urban areas. Many of these are double
income households with high aspiration levels fuelled
largely by increasing awareness of western lifestyles
through the media. Today consumer is not willing to settle
for anything less than the best. Women are increasingly
becoming decision makers of purchase being independent
and confident. With growing economic independence,
especially in the urban households, consumers have sharply
defined products demanded, preference patterns and service
requirements.
The much obvious reason for prehistoric retail to flourish
into current 24 formats is primarily because of the booming
Indian Economy (8-10% GDP). Also with the emergence
of plastic money, mobile money and variable finance
options, today’s Indian consumer predominantly of a
median age of 25 years, has no guilt of consumption and is
more secured, confident and adventurous because of higher
brand profusion and increased education levels. Migration
from rural areas to the urban civic life has also led to
proactive consumerism (urban India accounts 28% of the
Indian population and 42% of the consumer spending, per
33
capita spending 90% higher than rural India). The current
mantra is convenience and style statement rather than need
based requirement. Employment shifting from agri-based to
service industry makes retail industry more dynamic.
There is increasing penetration in the retail industry, with
newer players entering the broadcasting distribution
process, process of granting licenses for FM radio, funds
allocation for Micro irrigation and large corporates entering
the agri-space. SEZ’s have become a lucrative idea for
retailing as a venture and airport privatization as separate
channel for retailing.
100% FDI was allowed only in single brands and cash and
carry formats, but the ideology has not restricted to these
and indigenous brands like Reliance Fresh, Subhiksha,
Pantaloons, Westside, Shopper’s Stop and innumerable
more have developed. With the government also bullish
over this sector, joint ventures between two giants like
Bharti and Walmart, and Woolworth and Tata have spurred
only the beginning of the expansion phase of the retail
sector.
There are more categories to bet on and innovation based
on existing gaps can only bring about the excitement of
customer service and reveal the secrets of organized
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retailing. The advent of organized retailing will not only
boost the growth in employment but also growth in alliance
sectors such as real estate, banking, tourism, transport,
manufacturing industry and agriculture (ITC’s E-choupal
and HLL’s Shakti), thus leading to a holistic growth of the
economy. Online retailing is the latest development in
retailing and M-commerce is about to fuel this growth.
Retail is mainly a customer centric sector and is all about
leveraging the experience of the consumer.
1. For professionals considering a career change, retail
should be the first place to look. The opportunities
in retail surpass what's available in many other
sectors.
2. Retail pays well because there is a constant and
unsatisfied need for highly skilled professionals. In
addition to store staff, retail employs people in the
areas of financial services, marketing and
advertising, human resources, distribution and
logistics, store design, resources protection etc.
3. There is prestige in managing major retail
operations. High network and constant touch with
leaders helps you learn and advance in your career
along with the pleasure of working with them.
34
4. Interest in the desired field of work cannot be lost
easily because of the dynamic nature of the
industry.
5. Various institutions like IIM’s, KJ Somaiyya have
brought about specializations like retail
management to encourage students with employee
involvement and an opportunity for self
development and entrepreneurship.
6. Retail has a reputation for internal promotions.
7. Retail is built for career professionals. If you're not
working directly with store personnel to fulfill the
company objectives, you're working with suppliers,
the wider business community, and executive
management to improve the workflow. The other
great thing about a career in retail is that you are
exposed to so many skills and disciplines while still
pursuing what you want to do. Start in store
operations, transfer into buying, work a stint in
marketing, and finish as a senior manager of
merchandising. This kind of lateral movement helps
leaders acquire a broader understanding of the retail
business. And it keeps your career fresh.
8. Retail is not meant for those who look for hierarchy
status and a corporate existence, but for those who
enjoy being at the centre of customer action and
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 would like to feel the sense of running their own Dyslexia: The Silent Predator Among Students
business.

If AT Kearney’s Global Retail Index report ranks India

Aamir Khan’s latest cinematic offering Taare Zameen Par
as the best retail development country, then retailing in
brings to the fore a malady that is prevalent in our society
India is the safest bet. Stalwarts like RPG’s Foodworld,
but is often suppressed, Dyslexia. The story in a firm, but
and now India Bulls’ Pyramids etc., which are
sensitive manner deals with the subject of the trials and
corporatized to the point of complete customer
tribulations of a dyslexic child in our competitive society.
satisfaction, driven in turn by cut-throat competition,
Let’s take a look in detail at Dyslexia and what exactly it is.
has meant that these ventures need MBAs to run the
show for them.
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that manifests
In the end, it can be said that retail is a common sense
primarily as a difficulty with written language, particularly
run business offering the best practical business
with reading and spelling. It is separate and distinct from
experience with an opportunity for potential
reading difficulties resulting from other causes, such as
advancement.
deficiencies in intelligence, a non-neurological deficiency
with vision or hearing, or from poor or inadequate reading
instruction.
If there is a difficult or exhaustive assignment to
be done who is the first person to put her hand
up… Sakshi Diwan! We’ve seen her do some The word dyslexia comes from the Greek words δυσ- dys-
incredible research on the retail sector and she’s ("impaired") and λέξις lexis ("word"). People with dyslexia
used that experience here… are called dyslexic or dyslectic.

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Symptoms of Dyslexic Patients:
Taare… shows how the parents & teachers of 9 year old
Ishaan Awasthi label his difficulty in reading &
comprehending as laziness. Such an attitude is prevalent in
most societies as parents refute blatantly that their wards
are dyslexic. Thus, comes the question as to how to identify
individuals with dyslexia????
• May be bright, intelligent and articulate, however
their reading, writing and spelling level is below
their average age group.
• Have the same intelligence range as people without
dyslexia.
• May have poor academic achievement due to their
problems with reading and writing.
• May have good oral language abilities but will
perform much more poorly on similar written-
language tests.
• Because dyslexia primarily affects reading while
sparing other intellectual abilities, affected
individuals might be categorized as not "behind
enough" or "bad enough" to receive additional help
in a school setting.
36
• Might feel unintelligent and have poor self-esteem,
and might be easily frustrated and emotional about
school reading or testing.
• Might try to hide their reading weaknesses with
ingenious compensatory "strategies".
• Might learn best through hands-on experience,
demonstrations, experimentation, observation, and
visual aids.
• Can show talents in other areas such as art, drama,
music, sports, mechanics, story-telling, sales,
business, designing, building, or engineering.
• Have related problems with attention in a school
setting; for instance they might seem to "zone out"
or daydream often; get lost easily or lose track of
time; and have difficulty sustaining attention.
Types of Dyslexia:
Dyslexia is further typified into different categories, they
are as under:
Surface Dyslexia
Surface dyslexia is characterized by subjects who can read
non words but who have trouble reading words that are
irregular. Surface dyslexia is the outcome of an individual
who cannot function using the lexical procedure for reading
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out loud. The lexical procedure includes sounding out a
word though the use of a past word already known. In
Castles and Colt heart’s study, the researchers matched 30
regular words with 30 irregular words and asked their
surface dyslexic subjects to read the word out loud. As
hypothesized in their research, the difference between the
surface dyslexic subjects and control subjects was about 4.6
words which, was 2.55 words higher than the difference
between the phonological dyslexics to the control group. In
Castles and Colt heart’s study, both control and dyslexic
subjects were shown a card with a word that is irregular or
that isn’t pronounced as it looks. Fifteen of the 51 dyslexics
were below the confidence limit set by the control subjects
on ability to read irregular words. These subjects were then
called surface dyslexics.
Phonological Dyslexia
Phonological dyslexia is characterized by subjects who can
read aloud both regular and irregular words but have
difficulties with non words and with connecting sounds to
symbols, or with sounding out words. Phonological
processing tasks predict reading accuracy and
comprehension. This subtype is the most predominant form
of dyslexia. In Castles and Colt heart’s study, they had 56
dyslexic boys and 56 non dyslexic boys read words and non
words given to them. The majority of the boys, 55%,
37
showed a phonological dyslexic pattern. In Castles and Colt
heart’s study, dyslexic subjects and control subjects were
asked to read non words listed on a card, 17 out of 51 cases
of dyslexics were below the confidence limit in non word
reading, which was derived by the control group of subjects
their own age. These phonological dyslexics have a lower
non word reading level than expected by reviewing their
irregular word reading level. Phonological dyslexia is the
outcome of a subject who cannot function using the sub
lexical (pronunciations are constructed from smaller
orthographic components) procedure for reading out loud.
In Castles and Colt heart’s study, dyslexic and control
subjects read words off a note card; the researchers found
that while reading irregular words, the dyslexic subjects
scored comparable to the control subjects because sub
lexical skills weren’t involved in this test.
Double Deficit Dyslexia
Other researchers have identified a deficit related to
“naming speed”, which relates to the ability of students to
rapidly verbalize the names of symbols such as letters and
numbers when tested. In their study, Wolf and Bowers
tested out naming speed by having their subjects name a
symbol as quickly as possible when shown on a flash card.
Difficulties in naming speed exist in conjunction with a
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phonological deficit, is characterized as double deficit
dyslexia.
Medical Science & Dyslexia:
Several scientists tried to explain the phenomena, but were
not quite conclusive as to the basic cause, as in different
cases the causes differ. But as medical science comes to
terms with this appalling reality various theories have
cropped up:
The evolutionary hypothesis
This theory posits that reading is an unnatural act, and
carried out by humans for an exceedingly brief period in
our evolutionary history (Dalby, 1986). It has been less
than a hundred years that most western societies promoted
reading by the mass population and therefore the forces that
shape our behavior have been weak. Many areas of the
world still do not have access to reading for the majority of
the population. There is no evidence that "pathology"
underlies dyslexia but much evidence for cerebral variation
or differences. It is these essential differences that are taxed
with the artificial task of reading.
38
The phonological hypothesis
The phonological hypothesis postulates that dyslexics have
a specific impairment in the representation, storage and/or
retrieval of speech sounds. It explains dyslexics' reading
impairment on the basis that learning to read an alphabetic
system requires learning the grapheme/phoneme
correspondence, i.e. the correspondence between letters and
constituent sounds of speech. If these sounds are poorly
represented, stored or retrieved, the learning of
grapheme/phoneme correspondences, the foundation of
reading by phonic methods for alphabetic systems, will be
affected accordingly.
The rapid auditory processing theory
The rapid auditory processing theory is an alternative to the
phonological deficit theory, which specifies that the
primary deficit lies in the perception of short or rapidly
varying sounds? Support for this theory arises from
evidence that dyslexics show poor performance on a
number of auditory tasks, including frequency
discrimination and temporal order judgment. Backward
masking tasks, in particular, demonstrate a 100-fold (40
dB) difference in sensitivity between normal and dyslexics.
Abnormal neurophysiologic responses to various auditory
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stimuli have also been demonstrated. The failure to
correctly represent short sounds and fast transitions would
cause further difficulties in particular when such acoustic
events are the cues to phonemic contrasts, as in /ba/ versus
/da/. There is also evidence that dyslexics may have poorer
categorical perception of certain contrasts.
The visual theory
The visual theory (Love grove et al., 1980; Livingstone et
al., 1991; Stein and Walsh, 1997) reflects another
longstanding tradition in the study of dyslexia, that of
considering it as a visual impairment giving rise to
difficulties with the processing of letters and words on a
page of text. This may take the form of unstable binocular
fixations, poor vergence, or increased visual crowding. The
visual theory does not exclude a phonological deficit, but
emphasizes a visual contribution to reading problems, at
least in some dyslexic individuals. At the biological level,
the proposed a etiology of the visual dysfunction is based
on the division of the visual system into two distinct
pathways that have different roles and properties: the
magnocellular and parvocellular pathways. The theory
postulates that the magnocellular pathway is selectively
disrupted in certain dyslexic individuals, leading to
deficiencies in visual processing, and, via the posterior
39
parietal cortex, to abnormal binocular control and
visuospatial attention. Evidence for magnocellular
dysfunction comes from anatomical studies showing
abnormalities of the magnocellular layers of the lateral
geniculate nucleus (Livingstone et al., 1991),
psychophysical studies showing decreased sensitivity in the
magnocellular range, i.e. low spatial frequencies and high
temporal frequencies in dyslexics, and brain imaging
studies.
The cerebellar theory
Yet another view is represented by the automat city/
cerebellar theory of dyslexia. Here the biological claim is
that the dyslexic's cerebellum is mildly dysfunctional and
that a number of cognitive difficulties ensue. First, the
cerebellum plays a role in motor control and therefore in
speech articulation. It is postulated that retarded or
dysfunctional articulation would lead to deficient
phonological representations. Secondly, the cerebellum
plays a role in the automatization of over learned tasks,
such as driving, typing and reading. A weak capacity to
automatize would affect, among other things, the learning
of grapheme±phoneme correspondences. Support for the
cerebellar theory comes from evidence of poor
performance of dyslexics in a large number of motor tasks,
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in dual tasks demonstrating impaired automatization of
balance, and in time estimation, a non-motor cerebellar
task. Brain imaging studies have also shown anatomical,
metabolic and activation differences in the cerebellum of
dyslexics.
The magnocellular theory
There is a unifying theory that attempts to integrate all the
findings mentioned above. A generalization of the visual
theory, the magnocellular theory postulates that the
magnocellular dysfunction is not restricted to the visual
pathways but is generalized to all modalities (visual and
auditory as well as tactile). Furthermore, as the cerebellum
receives massive input from various magnocellular systems
in the brain, it is also predicted to be affected by the general
magnocellular defect (Stein et al., 2001). Through a single
biological cause, this theory therefore manages to account
for all known manifestations of dyslexia: visual, auditory,
tactile, motor and, consequently, phonological. Beyond the
evidence pertaining to each of the theories described
previously, evidence specifically relevant to the
magnocellular theory includes magnocellular abnormalities
in the medial as well as the lateral geniculate nucleus of
dyslexics' brains, poor performance of dyslexics in the
40
tactile domain, and the co-occurrence of visual and
auditory problems in certain dyslexics.
Perceptual visual-noise exclusion hypothesis
The concept of a perceptual noise exclusion (Visual-Noise)
deficit is an emerging hypothesis, supported by research
showing that dyslexic subjects experience difficulty in
performing visual tasks such as motion detection in the
presence of perceptual distractions, but do not show the
same impairment when the distracting factors are removed
in an experimental setting. The researchers have analogized
their findings concerning visual discrimination tasks to
findings in other research related to auditory discrimination
tasks. They assert that dyslexic symptoms arise because of
an impaired ability to filter out both visual and auditory
distractions, and to categorize information so as to
distinguish the important sensory data from the irrelevant
Dyslexia in India:
Like other parts of the world even India has also not been
spared by the phenomena. But Organisations have stepped
forward & taken an initiative for our competitive society to
accept dyslexia. The Maharashtra Dyslexia Association is
one such organization. A small reference library at the
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Resource Centre at Deonar is open to all. The MDA
promotes a holistic approach, recognising that affected
students can benefit from speech and occupational therapy,
counseling as well as remedial teaching, all of which can
help them cope better with their academic difficulties. Each
Resource Room is managed by a psychologist, a speech
and language developmental therapist and remedial
teachers.
“I put up a huge wall of denial. It was years before I was
able to break through it... accepting that your child has a
disability, especially one like LD that cannot be seen or
easily diagnosed, is one of the hardest things to come to
terms with”.
- Anne Ford

Other such organisations have come up in New Delhi,

Chandigarh, Bangalore & other major cities of India &
have been successful in doing a fantastic job.

Overview:

Dyslexia is a lifelong condition for which there is no cure,

but appropriate remedial instruction and compensatory
strategies can help the dyslexic individual mitigate or
overcome their difficulties with written language. A large
body of evidence shows which types of instruction
dyslexics need to be successful. Many dyslexics overcome
early problems with literacy and go on to earn advanced
degrees and pursue successful careers; a high level of Aditya is our youngest writer and proves all those people
motivation coupled with strong encouragement and wrong who take age as the benchmark of wisdom. His
mentorship have been identified as factors leading to their understanding and maturity give this very critical issue
success. the importance it deserves. He has a great future ahead…

41
The PUNdiT
 Pundit’s view
This photograph of the Rising Sun was taken by Naman,
our in-house photographer.
The rising Sun and the silhouette of the hand perfectly
capture the spirit of India. Like the Sun, India is rising!
And, all that we need to do is to stretch our hands and reach
out to the stars…
42
Voice of the Pundit
There was a time when battles were fought at the front, a
time when the fate of a nation and its people was decided
by the valour and strength of arms and its soldiers.
However, the times are now changing…
The battlefield has moved closer to home. The new
enemies don’t care whether they kill children or elders.
They don’t even care that their reckless and senseless
campaign of hate hurts not just the victims but many more.
Terror thrives on the virtue of the cowards in the society.
Their attempt is to drive fear into the psyche of the people
so that the way of life is altered. If this happens a day will
come when the children will forget to laugh, and the songs
will become a memory of the past.
As citizens of this country, it is in our hands as to how we
tackle this menace of violence and sectarianism. Please do
not let politics mislead us, or the terror chain us.
It is time to act! Our future will not ask us what we did.
Rather, it will ask us what we didn’t and why? Never let
the spirit die down…Ever vigilant, ever prepared….
Jai Hind!
The PUNdiT
 Team Pundit
Arun, the Dreamer, leads this initiative with instinct and
ideas…
Naman, the Anchor Man, keeps the Team ticking with
finesse and charm…
Sakshi, the Editor, brings creativity and colour, and most
important of all, sense…
We’d also like to thank Nitin and Sandeep for their
encouragement and unstinted support…
If you’d like to write for us, then please get back to us with
your ideas and suggestions at: editor@punditsonline.com
If you have an opinion or a reservation on any of the
articles published here, then please write to us at:
feedback@punditsonline.com
43
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