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Distance Learning /Online/Correspondence MBA Program from UTS Pune. uts has now transformed Distance Education to 100% Online Distance Education in alliance with renowned universities like MIT School of Distance Education, Assam Down Town University, Annamalai University of Distance Education and more. For admission contact – 9049002620 or write on – shivdass@utsglobal.edu.in

Management students are always in a high demand by the various sectors of the economy. As management department is one of the key departments of any organization that handles various types of issues related to clients projects, usage of different resources, healthy communication between employees and employers, marketing related issues, company’s goodwill and reputation. These are some of the key roles played by the management personnel of the company. Now day’s their job areas are becoming very broad that gives them a turn of complexity and challenging. For this company should posses a systematic organizational structure. That helps one in understanding his or her responsibilities. With the ever changing trends of the international market it is very important for management co-workers to get keep in touch with the management policies of the world leading corporate firm. All this helps one in getting new ideas about how best one can perform his or her job.

entrance exams

From the previous few decades there is huge demand of management students by the corporate sector. Top b schools, mba colleges and universities play an important role in meeting this demand. As these provides top class management education to their students. Management education includes how best one can tackle management issues, international clients, business related problems, resources utilization, international business policies and how best one can handle international client pressure and competition efficiently. As with the changing trends of the international market management schools have become the need of the corporate world that offers wide variety of mba courses and programs at international standard. Students from A grade business school can go for high scale job packages to the world leading companies where he or she will get a great exposure of handling international clients and other types of management issues of international standard.

mba education

MBA students who are seeking their way to top business schools of the world, then USA, UK, India, Singapore are some of the destinations where they can apply for their higher management education. Most of the top b schools have their own selection criteria and admission process, therefore go through that before applying and also read their MBA accreditation that depicts how best they can offer education to their students for their bright future and career aspects.

I am in the first year of my Engineering and want to inquire if there is any top business school in US,UK or anywhere else in the world which gives admission to its MBA program without any work experience. Institutes like London Business School,Harvard Business School demand minimum two years work experience for getting into their MBA courses.Isn’t there any way or relaxation in this rule whereby one can directly get into these B-Schools without any work experience.I mean good grades and internship at college.does it help?

The National University of Singapore (NUS), founded in 1980 by a merger of the University of Singapore (founded in 1962) and Nanyang University (founded in 1956),  offers the best environment and training to all its undergraduate and postgraduate students. Every year the university invites applications to its graduate programs and offers attractive research scholarships to graduate program candidates.

 

Today NUS is the largest university in Singapore. It has a student population of over 32,000 students, of which over 9,000 are graduate students.

 

The university offers a variety of undergraduate courses such as Law, Engineering, Bioengineering, Architecture, Business Administration, Computing, Dentistry, Industrial Design, Medicine, Nursing, Music, Science and so on. Students may opt for a double degree program such as Business Administration and Law, Economics and Law, Law and life Sciences, Computer Science and Mathematics, Law and Politics.

 

University Ranking Information:

 

National University of Singapore (NUS) is ranked 33 in the Times Higher Education Supplement’s World University Rankings 2007.

According to the Financial Times (FT) 2006 EMBA ranking of the Top 85 EMBA programs, NUS Business School rises in rankings for Executive MBA programs to be among world’s Top 29.

NUS Business School did extremely well in two of the sub-categories - it came out Top 5 for the categories of ‘International Attendees’, and ‘Top Salaries in IT/ Telecommunications’.

According to the THES 2006 World Ranking in the field of technology, NUS Faculty of Engineering ranked Number 8 in the World’s top 100 in Technology

According to the Newsweek Ranking of Global University, NUS is ranked 36th in the top 100 universities.

For more information on the latest university rankings (Australia, Canada, UK, USA and the world), please visit the Good University Ranking Guide and World Ranking Guide.

There are many lists out there that rank colleges and universities. It is important to know the source of this information and what the criteria of the survey. In this article we will list some of the top colleges located in the Midwest region of the US. They are listed alphabetically. We have also listed some of the rankings that they have earned and why they are considered one of the top colleges in the Midwest. This list has been compiled based on information obtained from the Princeton Review.

Top Colleges in the Midwest

These are some of top Midwest schools out of a total of 224 that were reviewed by the Princeton Review.

1. Albion College in Albion, MI

#7 More to do on Campus

2. Cornell College in Mount Vernon, IA

#19 Class Discussions Encouraged

#18 Professors Make Themselves Accessible

#9 Students Happy with Financial Aid

3. Gustavus Adolphus University in Saint Peter, MN

#16 Best campus Food

4. Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, IL

#8 Best College Library

5. Knox College in Galesburg, IL

#8 Best College Radio Station

#3 Students happy with Financial Aid

#12 Professors Get High marks

#20 Class Discussions Encouraged

6. Lawrence University in Appleton, WI

#16 Professors Make Themselves Accessible

#8 Gay Community Accepted

#20 Best College Theatre

7. Northwestern University in Evanston, IL

#7 Town-Student Relations Are Great

#16 Best College Theatre

#12 Best College Newspaper

8. Saint Olaf College in Northfield, MN

#11 Class Discussions Encouraged

#11 Professors make Themselves Available

#14 Dorms Like Palaces

#3 Most Beautiful Campus

#20 Town-Students Relations Are Great

9. Washington University in St. Louis, MO

#16 School Runs Like Butter

#11 Toughest to Get Into

#8 Best Campus Food

#6 Best Quality of Life

#13 Dorms Like Palaces

As you can see there are many different ways to rate and rank colleges. You have to choose the criteria that are most important to you when you are choosing a school. What makes a college or university the best choice for you does not make it the best choice for your friend, cousin, or another student. This is why it is important to research schools that fit into the criteria that you have set for yourself, for your educational goals, and for your career goals.

Once you are able to narrow down your choices based on your own criteria, you will find yourself with a much shorter list of college options to make a more educated decision on which one is best for you, your personal goals, and your professional goals. After you narrow down your choices based on your criteria it is very important to visit the campus for each of your choices. How you feel being on the campus and interacting with the students and faculty is probably one of the most important criteria on your list. Remember, you have to spend the next few years of your life living in this town and attending classes on this campus.

Good luck and happy hunting!

Getting an MBA or Masters of Business Administration has become a popular way of attaining this graduate degree without the time or cost of going through the full time school experience.  The types of online programs typically fall into one of two categories.  There are ‘virtual’ schools that are strictly existing in the online realm and that don’t have a physical presence or location and there are those established, brick and mortar universities that offer an ‘online’ version of their standard MBA programs.  So just how much does an Online MBA cost?  I will walk through some of the top programs of both types in this article.

 ONLINE ONLY

The most cost effective way to attain the Masters of Business Administration is with a degree program from a ‘virtual school.  While these programs are not as well known as the nationally recognized ‘famous’ brick and mortar university programs, their cost/return is unparalleled with per credit fees that often half or less than those of traditional schools.  Some of the more popular programs of this type are administered by The University of Phoenix,  Kaplan University and Devry’s Keller School of Management.

As an example, The University of Phoenix MBA program requires a minimum of 36 credits at $625/credit for a total of $22,500 for the required classes.  Additional credits, up to a total of 54 with the required courses, may be taken to achieve a ‘concentration’ in a particular area for additional fees.  Thus a complete MBA with a concentration in Marketing for instance could cost between $25-$30,000 depending on what courses are selected and the concentration.

Devry’s Keller School’s MBA charges a ‘per course’ charge instead of per credit.  Depending on state the per course charge is approximately $2,100 per course for a total of 10 ‘required’ core courses plus an additional 18 credits from elective courses.  These elective courses differ in cost but if using the same $2,100 average on a 4 credit course you’d have the complete MBA for somewhere around $30,000.  This does not count additional courses for a concentration however which could up the total cost substantially.

WELL KNOWN ‘FAMOUS NAME’ ONLINE MBA PROGRAMS

Several well respected famous brick and mortar universities offer iMBA programs.  If one wishes to have a nationally recognized and respected pedigree on their resume, the additional cost of getting your degree from one of these schools might be worth it.  They often are not entirely online and require some limited time on campus, but if you’re willing to make the time to do this and pay the higher fees you can obtain an MBA from such schools as Syracuse University, Babson College or what perhaps is considered presently the ‘gold standard’ of Online programs, Duke University’s Global Executive MBA.

The fees for these programs are considerably more and range from $53,024 for Babson’s Fast Track MBA Program which requires in-person classes about every six weeks and the rest online, to $3207 per course for 54 courses required at Syracuse for a total cost of the MBA of $173, 178 for this nationally known university.  The Duke Fuqua Program runs a total of $135,500 for this illustrious degree.

 MANY CHOICES

There are dozens of great Distance Learning MBA Programs available today running the gamut from the utilitarian to the prestigious nationally recognized Online iMBAs.  For more great articles as well as links to top Online MBA Programs please visit <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”http://www.MBAonline.me”>MBAonline.me</a>.

Business school in a box is one of the latest convenient and practical ways for a person to earn a degree and start earning as soon as possible. Business school in a box can be accessed through the internet or any local available institution offering this short course. Business school in a box is designed to provide people with the best and most complete comprehensive knowledge of the chosen business course at the least possible time. Every authority, administrators and professors who are part of the business school assures of quality education without compromise for convenience and time compromise. There are hundreds of online business schools and institutions throughout different states which offer short but complete business courses for people in search of a career development and additional knowledge. Business schools that give this short course is accredited and screened by the educational authorities for it to yield good results.

Business school in a box has a very comprehensive and practical system of learning which allows the students to be informed of all the latest knowledge relevant to their development and survival in the world of business. Basically, the curriculum is divided into quarters which are actually modules that covers a specific topic and idea in knowledge. Each module has a practical and academic point of view of the business process being discussed. Each business school in a box is directed to a specific field of business environment to give users specificity and specialty when it comes to learning and practicing their knowledge. Through the short amount of time, the students are subjected to practicals, on the job trainings and other developmental strategies that would add and test their possessed knowledge. The learning process from this short course have been proven and given credit by the authorities to assure the students value for their tuition money.

Business establishments such as accounting firms, government institutions and banking companies have recommended that their employees and people undergo a short but comprehensive business course from any Business school in a box. Career progression and development could be easily achieved by any one through post graduate education achieved by studying during work or week ends. Increase in pay and salary is given to those who have acquired additional degrees and educational certification from these institutions. In fact, most companies promote mostly the people who have received education from such institutions. CEO, chairmen and chairpersons who have been set in place for the last decades almost all received doctoral and master’s degrees through reputable business schools offering short time courses but contains all the relevant educational materials needed by students.

Business school in a box is a very innovative way of giving students the opportunity to have better education amidst the growing country the United States experiences to day. Majority of jobs and opportunities given by companies require additional specialties for workers and employees to be hired. The demand for additional expertise helps not only the employees but also the employers. Nowadays, quality is better than quantity requiring people to develop intellectually.

Nuclear energy and its discontents

                               By  SUNIL  KEWALRAMANI

                                      CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER,  GLOBAL MONEY INVESTOR

                                                                                                                                  September 11, 2009

 Chart : First electricity production by nuclear energy
Experimental Breeder Reactor EBR-I, 20 Dec.1951, Arco, Idaho, USA

 At the outset, the Indo-US nuclear deal appears path-breaking and allows India to regain its techno-commercial independence and sovereignty that we lost in 1978. The deal is supposed to contribute to sustainable development, energy sustainability and fight against climate change.  Unlike solar and wind energy, nuclear technology is the only one that can meet power demand 24 hours a day, although disruptive innovations in solar and wind energy can change that.  It is believed that a stable, prosperous, ecologically balanced India is good for the sustainability of the world.  However, it takes time to buy and set up new nuclear reactors.  Cases in mind are French reactors in China and Russian reactors in Koodankulam India.  The Olkiluto 3 reactor being built in Finland is more than two and a half years behind schedule, and cost overruns exceed Euros 2.5 Billion.

  Nuclear power provides 77 per cent of France’s and 19.4 per cent of United State’s electricity today.  According to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, each EPR (European Pressurized Reactor) that replaces a natural gas-fired electricity plant saves two billion cubic metres, or 70.6 billion cubic feet, of natural gas each year, and that each EPR that replaces a coal-fired plant reduces CO 2 emissions by 11 million tons.

   On June 26, 1954, at Obninsk, Russia, the nuclear power plant APS-1 with a net electrical output of 5 MW was connected to the power grid, the world’s first nuclear power plant that generated electricity for commercial use. On August 27, 1956 the first commercial nuclear power plant, Calder Hall 1, Eng-land, with a net electrical output of 50 MW was connected to the national grid.

As of 30 June 2009 in 31 countries 436 nuclear power plant units with an installed electric net capacity of about 370 GW are in operation and 48 plants with an installed capacity of 42 GW are in 15 countries under construction.

As of end 2007 the total electricity production since 1951 amounts to 59,450 billion kWh. The cumulative operating experience amounted to 12,750 years by the end of 2007.

Charts :

Nuclear power plants under construction, June 2009 (IAEA 2009, modified)

Nuclear share in electricity generation, 2008 (IAEA 2009, modified)

Number of nuclear reactors worldwide by age as of March 2009 (IAEA 2009)

Nuclear Power Plants, energy availability factor 1991 – 2008 (IAEA 2009)

Nuclear energy provides about 15 per cent of the world’s electricity. Some 30 nations generate nuclear power; 10 to 20 are expected to join them in the next 10 years. At present there are 370 reactors in operation. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations watchdog, reckons that 1,400 new reactors may be built between now and 2050.

  This expansion is creating a conundrum for western policymakers, one with which the US administration is now urgently grappling. Nuclear power may be necessary to help the world meet climate change goals and guarantee energy supply. But it also brings with it considerable security concerns. Detaching peaceful nuclear energy from devastating weaponry is sooner said than done. The fuel for most modern nuclear power stations – enriched uranium – in more potent forms is used for nuclear arms. Washington and its allies do not want the expansion in civil nuclear power to allow any more nations to diversify into atomic weapons.

MIDDLE EASTERN MARKETS :  The lucrative fusion of politics and business

In a few weeks Abu Dhabi will write nuclear history when it unveils the winner of a multibillion dollar tender, writes Peggy Hollinger. With the initial reactors set to launch around 2016, the Emirate will be the first Arab state to have nuclear power. Where Abu Dhabi goes, others will follow: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan have all voiced desire for nuclear power.

The budding new market has drawn considerable political and commercial interest. Political concerns may be of the highest order; how lucrative the nuclear business opportunities really are remains unclear.

The international interest in the Middle Eastern market far outstrips its commercial value, says Steve Kidd, of the World Nuclear Association. According to WNA estimates, outside of Iran only two nuclear reactors will be operating in the region by 2020 and just four by 2030. “It is not a lot compared to China where you could win contracts for up to 40.”

One of the main reasons is clearly political. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in France, home to some of the world’s leading nuclear companies such as EDF, GdF-Suez and Areva. These firms – all among the bidders in Abu Dhabi – are key tools in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s nuclear diplomacy in the Middle East: tough on Iranian enrichment ambitions, but open to selling know-how to those countries willing to abide by international rules. “It is the best way to show Iran that we are not against the Middle East having nuclear technology,” says one French government official.

France also believes that there could be huge wider commercial gains to be had from nuclear deals, especially in defence and infrastructure. The Elysée has sent Philippe Marini, a senator, to the region to explore ways of bolstering French interests. The recent decision to open the share capital of state-owned Areva to sovereign wealth funds was one early result. “Civil nuclear power is clearly closely tied to political strategy,” notes Mr Marini. Meanwhile, several Middle Eastern funds have struck deals with French companies.

The 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania and the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine, as well as the anti-nuclear movie “The China Syndrome” paint a rather grim scenario of what a nuclear accident could entail.  The new generation of nuclear plants is designed to be safer, using fewer pumps and piping and relying more on gravity to move water for cooling the hot nuclear core.  Nuclear reactors are contained inside a huge structure of reinforced concrete with walls as much as five feet thick to make sure that even if a serious accident does occur, radiation is not released into the environment. The Chernobyl reactor did not have such a structure.  Even with these advances;  in July 2008;  at a nuclear plant in Provence, France; 163 pounds, or 74 kgs, of untreated uranium leaked from a faulty tank during a draining operation, seeping into the ground and then into rivers that flow into the Rhone.  After this incident, a burst underground pipe at another site north of Tricastin,  which leaked a tiny amount of uranium inside plant grounds, and another accident at Tricastin itself, when 100 employees were contaminated by radioactive particles that escaped from a pipe. 

    The US nuclear industry has itself suffered from decades of stagnation, with an ageing labour force and little entrepreneurial motivation.  USEC, a company that had a monopoly on producing the electric utilities’ fuel of the future, is itself facing a brownout.  It’s stock price has plummeted from $ 11 two years back to $ 5 today. It has alienated its utility industry customers and spent vast resources on construction of a complex new plant that has not met its original projections. The US Energy Policy of 2005 provides loan guarantees up to 80 per cent of the project cost, production tax credits of $ 18 per MWe for new nuclear capacity through 2021 and insurance protection up to $ 500 million against delays during construction. It is surprising that despite the industry being in existence for over 50 years, it has still not been able to stand on its own legs.

 According to the Department of Atomic Energy, India has enough indigenous uranium for 10,000 MW of nuclear power for 30 years. Present mismatch in uranium availability is a consequence of poor foresight and inadequate prospecting and mining.  Besides, the planned 40,000 MW of nuclear power will cost no less than $ 100 Billion or Rs 4 lakh crores.

   Nuclear power plants emit virtually no carbon dioxide, no sulfur, no mercury. Even when taking into account “full life-cycle emissions”—including mining of uranium, shipping fuel, constructing plants and managing waste—nuclear’s carbon-dioxide discharges are identical to the full life-cycle emissions of wind and hydropower and less than solar power.  However, one study has determined that to make a significant contribution towards stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide; about 21 new 1,000-megawatt nuclear plants will have to be built each year over the next 50 years, including those needed to replace existing reactors, all of which are expected to be retired by 2050.  This indeed calls for a tall order.

 For two AP-1000 nuclear plants designed by Westinghouse for Florida utility Progress Energy, the estimated cost is $ 14 Billion (over $ 6000/kW). MidAmerican Energy Holdings, a power utility owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, shelved its own nuke plan earlier this year, saying it no longer made economic sense.

   There are only two vendors (Japan Steel Works and France’s Creusot Forge, part of Areva) who are able to supply critical reactor components. The biggest bottleneck is in the huge reactor vessels that contain a plant’s radioactive core.  At present, only one plant in the world is capable of forging the huge vessels in a single piece, and it can produce only a handful of forgings a year.  Besides, there is a severe shortage of nuclear engineers.

    Of concern in any nuclear deal is the how the disposal of waste products can be handled safely and economically.  When you produce enriched uranium, you also produce depleted uranium, which is less radioactive than the original ore, or natural uranium.  This comes in the form of uranium hexafluoride, which is a solid at room temperature.  The villain of the piece in depleted UF6 is the fluorine, which, when it disassociates from uranium, becomes a corrosive gas. Most UF6 in the US is being stored in slowly rusting metal containers in the open air, not a preferred solution for what becomes a corrosive gas if exposed to the atmosphere. The US government is building two facilities just to deal with the government’s own inventories of depleted UF6.  Those are over 700m kgs.  The drawback is that the government’s process produces uranium oxide and hydrogen fluoride, which is not as pure as that required for industrial application.

    Reprocessing is a problem because it can produce separated plutonium which is easier to divert for weapons production than plutonium contained in highly radioactive fuel. Case in mind is North Korea. Besides, commercial reprocessing plants produce so much plutonium that keeping track of it all is rather cumbersome and next to impossible. This makes it easier to divert plutonium enough for weapons without the loss being detected.

   The progress of the global industry is by no means guaranteed. Several factors may impede it. Public opinion may harden against nuclear power. Private sector investors may refuse to commit the vast sums that will be needed. A worldwide shortage of skilled engineers and manufacturing facilities for essential components is likely to be the greatest obstacle to delivering reactors fast enough to meet demand. Practical solutions for the long-term storage of radioactive waste remain elusive.

  Yet the most serious concern of all over the nuclear renaissance remains the link to proliferation. Power stations are not, in themselves, much of a risk – the problems lie in the uranium enrichment process, which can be employed to develop both civil and military versions of nuclear power.

To understand why this issue is at the centre of the US administration’s international programme, it is important to focus on the three key factors inspiring the nuclear renaissance.

First, there is security of supply. Driven by the development of emerging economies such as China and India, global energy demand could rise by as much as 45 per cent by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency, which represents rich energy-consuming countries. As concerns have grown about the future availability of fossil fuels, which will be increasingly provided by a small number of large suppliers, energy consumers have come to see the virtue in diversifying their sources of supply.

Second, there is economics. The economics of nuclear power are fiercely contested, and highly sensitive to changes in variables such as construction costs. What is unarguable, however, is that it provides an energy source not linked to the oil price.

Even for oil- and gas-rich countries, such as Iran and the UAE, another Middle Eastern country keen to build civil reactors, nuclear generation makes sense because it frees up more of their hydrocarbon resources for export. The earnings from those exports “would easily pay for investment in nuclear energy”, says Hans-Holger Rogner of the IAEA. Given likely long-term oil and gas prices, “It makes economic sense.”

Finally, there is the growing pressure to meet climate change goals. The US and its allies accept that the global struggle to cap greenhouse gas emissions means nuclear energy options must be available. Nuclear energy is almost free of emissions and, if growing energy consumption is not to lead to soaring concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it is likely to play an increasingly important role.

 New processing technologies are being developed to limit the amount and accessibility of weapons-grade materials.  At an international level, governments need to strengthen current international anti-proliferation efforts to give the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) more information about a country’s nuclear-related activities and IAEA inspectors greater access to locations. Plants that enrich uranium for power plants can also be used to enrich for bombs; this is the path Iran is suspected of taking in developing a weapons program.  An ambitious expansion of nuclear power would require a lot more facilities for enriching uranium, thus enhancing the potential risk.  A nuclear renaissance is expected to be led by countries in Middle East and Africa—where a nuclear-energy programme could lead to development of surreptitious weapons. 

    To safeguard its monopoly, USEC (United States Enrichment Corporation) and affiliates in the US government imposed trade barriers on foreign, principally European producers of uranium enrichment services.  This, in turn motivated Europeans to build competing uranium enrichment plants in the US.  Since the Europeans are using proven centrifuge enrichment technology, which has substantially lower energy requirements than USEC’s ancient gaseous diffusion plants; in an era of conservation of precious energy, the European technology deserves careful attention should the government feel going nuclear is indeed the way to go. Urenco, the Dutch uranium enrichment company is building its new plant in New Mexico. Areva, the French nuclear engineering group, is setting up shop in Idaho. Each of the new facilities will produce initially, 3m Separative Work Units, or SWUs per year. 

  The IEA has estimated that to keep the increase in global temperatures to acceptable levels, the world’s nuclear capacity might have to increase more than five-fold by 2050.

Growing international moves to put a price on carbon dioxide emissions, likely to be given fresh impetus at the forthcoming UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December, also make nuclear power look more attractive.

Opponents counter that even a large expansion of nuclear power would have only a small impact on the overall global level of emissions. Pro-nuclear experts acknowledge that, while it may not be a crisis-solving “silver bullet”, it can be one of several “silver buckshot” that, combined, can make a difference.

India, a nation of 1.1 billion people—and one beset both by crushing poverty and a tumultuously expanding economy—has 15 nuclear power reactors already at work. Eight more are under construction, more than in any other nation. The Department of Atomic Energy lauds the greenhouse benefits of nukes, but the main impetus is sheer gigawatt lust. That would include building reactors such as those at Kaiga Generating Station in a clearing in the jungled Western Ghats mountains about 20 miles inland from southwest India’s seacoast. Coming upon the two 220-megawatt, pressurized heavy-water reactors is like stumbling into a thumping big factory in the middle of Yellowstone National Park. The region gets more than 15 feet of rain yearly, and its forest is home to increasingly threatened species.

Back near the Indira Gandhi center a 500-megawatt breeder reactor is under construction and set to start up in 2010. Four more are to follow by 2020. India is very efficient at manufacturing plutonium fuel from their original uranium fuel load, which greatly increases the amount of energy they produce. But critics worry that the plutonium could possibly get in the wrong hands.

In part because of proliferation concerns, the U.S. has sworn off such breeder reactors for the time being. But outside powers have little leverage over India’s nukes. With few exceptions they are entirely homegrown. India gave itself little choice about going it alone. In 1974, it set off an underground nuclear explosion using plutonium surreptitiously diverted from a test reactor that Canada helped it build in the 1950s.

India became a nuclear pariah. Other countries suspended technical assistance, and Canadian engineers walked off a job in Rajasthan. The Indians finished the plant themselves.

India is now enthusiastic masters of all things nuclear. The uranium fuel in Kaiga’s reactors comes from mines west of Calcutta; workshops in the south provide the plant with gleaming, 65-foot-high, 110-ton steam generators that drive electric dynamos. Control systems, zircaloy fuel tubes, and 22-ton reactor components arrive from Hyderabad.

The Obama administration and its main allies, believe they must strengthen the rules of the game before the next wave of reactors is built. The focus of their attention is a conference next May in New York, which will review the 40-year-old nuclear non-proliferation treaty. More than 160 countries will attempt to broker stronger rules that widen the use of civil nuclear power, while penalising those states that try to diversify their programmes into weapons production. However, suspicions and resentments between the members of the nuclear club and those aspiring to join it mean reaching an agreement will not be easy.

Securing tougher rules is only one part of US strategy. Other ideas being considered include an IAEA proposal to create a small number of huge nuclear fuel banks that will supply a large number of reactors. The merit of this idea is that it will mean most countries have no justifiable reason to enrich their own uranium in the way Iran is currently seeking to do.

Separately, other ideas are being promoted to ensure the safety of nuclear materials. In particular, the US wants to promote a nuclear security conference in Washington next March, one that aims to ensure nuclear materials do not fall into the hands of terrorists.

 There are signs that some countries are prepared to stay out of uranium enrichment. The UAE, for example, has said it has no interest in acquiring fuel cycle capability, and is open to the idea of importing fuel from an international supplier.

But there is also resistance. Some states that may want to develop nuclear power, such as developing countries belonging to the Group of 77 and the Nonaligned Movement, say they need the confidence that a reliable supply of nuclear fuel will be available. A small number of fuel banks, they say, cannot provide that.

Others, including such leading emerging economies as Brazil and Egypt, have refused to sign the NPT’s “additional protocol” that gives the IAEA the power to conduct unfettered inspections of a nation’s nuclear facilities. Almost every country in the world, including Iran, has signed the NPT – except India, Pakistan and Israel. However, only 123 have signed the additional protocol and only 91 have brought it into effect.

There is some scepticism about the chances of a deal being reached at the NPT review conference in May. Suspicion that the US and other nuclear powers are setting the rules to suit their own ends remains high. The last NPT review attempt in 2005 ended in a flop. Four years on, the stakes have been raised. If the 2010 conference goes the same way, the consequences will be grim – for the world’s security, prosperity and climate.

 

Note : Mr Sunil Kewalramani is a WHARTON BUSINESS SCHOOL MBA and Chief Investment Officer, Global Money Investor.  

I remember looking for a job just before I finished graduate school. I poured over lists of companies that were located where I wanted to live, and I dreamed a lot about what it might be like to work in different industries.

I was reminded of when several my friends graduated with MBA degrees the preceding year and the goals they had.

One handsome, tall fellow wanted to become a vice president of an airline. I asked him why, and he told me that you could become a vice president of an airline at an earlier age than in other industries. Smiling, he also mentioned that as a single man he liked that there more unmarried young women working for airlines than could be met in most other industries.

A married couple had more modest ambitions: to get jobs in the same city that would provide opportunities for challenging careers. If the city was a nice place to live, that was an extra benefit. When both gained jobs in Seattle, Washington, they were thrilled.

Another man had spent a lot of time as a sailor on a nuclear submarine before graduate school: Any job that didn’t involve working underwater was welcome to him.

All of that career planning sounds pretty reasonable, doesn’t it? Little did I know that we were aiming very low.

A recent MBA graduate helped me see that much higher goals can be set. It was quite an eye opener. Let me tell you his story.

Ramesh Venkatraman was born in a beautiful village in a part of southern India that is well known for entrepreneurship in exporting products around the world. Accompanying his father on professional trips expanded his geographic horizons at a young age. His early schooling, college, and graduate studies were undertaken in a semi-urban setting renowned for its textile exports. Having absorbed so many influences, you might think that he entered a career that connected back to those origins, but that was not the case.

After completing a master’s degree in science, Mr. Venkatraman was preparing to join a Ph.D. program; however, he joined the Indian space program instead, expanding his perspective on what can be accomplished. You are probably expecting to read that Mr. Venkatraman then became an astronaut . . . but that’s not what happened.

Instead, his focus turned earthward and outward: He entered the information technology (IT) industry and began work in the United States, gaining important skills in IT at firms like KPMG, FedEx, Compaq, BvOI, and ABN AMRO Bank. Supremely talented, his quickly rose through the ranks from project manager to program manager to vice president.

In the corporate world, he came across many talented individuals who caused him to raise the bar on his dreams and aspirations, directly and indirectly tapping into his hidden talents.

One fine day, he learned that a highly respected colleague was an MBA and a Ph.D. student at Rushmore University. The colleague shared that he would soon be moving into a strategic management function from a technology management position, and the colleague became head of strategy and planning for a leading financial institution.

Encouraged by that example and wanting to build on his IT success, Mr. Venkatraman decided to earn an MBA degree. He hoped his studies would add the skills and knowledge he would need to become a generous entrepreneur, one who would share any wealth gained with employees and other stakeholders.

He also selected Rushmore, primarily because he would have more freedom there to tailor his studies and courses to meet his personal objectives. The freedom he gained provided lots of motivation to learn, and Mr. Venkatraman graduated a little more than a year later.

Asked just before his graduation what his goals for using his MBA degree were, he reported that he now wanted to found a billion-dollar business in a short amount of time. Wow! What a contrast that goal was with what my friends and I had thought about at the same stage in our business training.

Curious about the shift, I asked Mr. Venkatraman to tell me more about how he decided on this new direction. He responded that the course work at Rushmore made him realize that greater things were possible than he had considered before. Wanting to help others, he also began to appreciate that the more successful he was as an entrepreneur, the more people he could help as a philanthropist, a role he hadn’t thought about playing before.

He now feels confident that he can accomplish that aggressive goal and is working hard to achieve it. He is also considering earning a Ph.D. from Rushmore.

Naturally, few people accomplish the full scale of what they hope to achieve. Often, they accomplish quite a bit less.

Even if Mr. Venkatraman falls far short of his new goals, he will probably accomplish more than he would have by merely fulfilling his pre-MBA goals. By learning the power of thinking carefully about what he wants to accomplish, his education served him better than mine did.

What are the lessons for you?

Are you insisting on the best from your career? If not, why not?

Ask yourself what the best could be for your career if you shoot for the top. Then get busy!

“We don’t need no education”, sang pop-star Pink Floyd way back in the 70’s in the famous super hit album, “The Wall”. While this may sound all right for idealistic rebels, it certainly does not apply to the current education scenario.

According to the estimation, the combined market capitalization of listed private education companies in India is about US$ 40 bn market with a potential of 16% five-year CAGR. Other meaningful and fast-growing areas include vocational training at US$ 1.4 bn.

With respect to the research topic “ Innovative pedagogy in education”, I now explore the same in the B-school context.

Definitions of ‘innovative pedagogy’ and ‘curriculum’

The term ‘curriculum’ has various meanings. In relation to the term ‘qualification’, the best definition is: a document that relates to the desired implementation of an entire educational programme, leading to a diploma. The document always contains descriptions of the following: objectives – contents – educational structure – assessment/evaluation. The extent of detail can vary. The development of a curriculum is a matter for the individual B-schools within the legal frameworks as laid down in the constitution.

The term ‘innovation’ is also ambiguous: innovation as something totally new (never experienced before); because it is new to the users. Since the beginning of the decade a distinction has been made within B-school education between three renewal strategies linked to the method of financing and the character of ‘an alternative approach’:

(1) Basic strategy: involves the changes that are made to keep management education up to date and to make it attractive and more effective; ‘daily’ innovation is financed from the normal budget.

(2) Breadth strategy: implementing new working methods that have already been tested elsewhere; make locally applicable and specialist rather than just adopting innovations. Extra means have been earmarked for every institute of B-school education.

(3) Depth strategy: involves two different innovations: (a) something completely new and/or (b) something new for which the regulations can/may be set aside, and which will involve temporary additional project financing over several years, for which a critical assessment of the innovative idea will take place in advance. Only those ideas with truly innovative potential can be elaborated on in the project proposal that will be submitted for further approval.

NIIT initiatives:

NIIT has already implemented some new innovative pedagogy for educating professionals. Some of them are following:

Institute of finance, banking and insurance (IFBI):

IFBI addresses the manpower needs of financial-services space in India, where at least two million new jobs are likely to be created between now and 2012. IFBI started in september2006 and offers a postgraduate diploma in banking operations to all graduates which includes an internship and placement alliance with ICICI bank and other private and PSBs.

Evolv:

NIIT acquired English-training Company Evolv in January 2008. Evolv has a repository of 50 courses to improve soft-skills. Evolv is a communication and service delivery-based consulting, auditing and training company. The training methodology goes far beyond the classroom – it includes rigorous on-the-job monitoring, mentoring, refreshing knowledge and periodic assessments. Evolv as a Human Resource consultant is increasingly gaining involvement in their clients recruitment/selection drive as well as in the curriculum design phase.

Imperia:

Imperia provide management education for organizations and working professionals. Some of India’s leading B-schools such as IIM A and IIM C are partners and these conduct live classroom sessions for Imperia students. NIIT Imperia Centre for Advanced Learning has been specially created to provide quality management education and customized learning solutions for organizations and working professionals. Today’s professionals need to continuously build their domain-specific and managerial credentials to perform better at work and move up the growth curve. To help meet these needs, NIIT Imperia offers Executive Management Programs from the most prestigious institutions in the country.

Business school students may need training in ethics and moral reasoning more than most other students. Research found that students in business school ranked lower in moral reasoning than students in philosophy and medicine. A study of top business schools in the United States that found business school education not only fails to improve the moral character of students, but potentially weakens it. Business ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability have arguably become more important to both the business world and business schools in recent years. The Masters of Business Administration program is regarded as the premier business qualification for practicing managers with career aspirations. It would seem logical that MBA programs would address the topics of Business ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability in a clear and strategic fashion.