Crummy Writing

A recent edition of India Today, India's most widely circulated news magazine has a survey of Indian colleges – a survey that the Editor in Chief claims is “the barometer of academic excellence” in India. So, how does the barometer start its “prestigious” ranking of the top 10 business schools in India?

If you don't read MBA as MBA but as Master of Business Administration, it sounds more lofty than CEO, chief executive officer, notwithstanding the fact that the two belong to different ends of corporate hierarchy.

‘cuse me?

And, hard as it may sound, the write-up manages to better(!) the incredibly bad start. It's constructed almost entirely from inane cliches (“India Inc”, “there are MBAs and there are MBAs”), more inane cliches (“customer-driven”, “an institute is only as good as its users think it to be” ) and ill-formed cliches (“feel-great-sentiments”?). The author has a lot of trouble with articles, so he takes the safe route and just throws a few around to make sure – (“In the times as good as these, why bother with a ranking of B-schools?”).

Here's another gem:

B-school aspirants have been looking beyond Indian shores for many years now, of late, not just to the US but also to schools in Europe, Canada and Australia.

If that's the leader from the most circulated issue of the most circulated news magazine in India, then no wonder the Finance Minister thinks foreign papers will hurt Indian newspapers. . I hope they let at least the foreign magazines in soon. All of them, that is, except this one. Hmm.. maybe that one too, the author knew his articles, and I'll forgive the word play on Surender and surrender as a one time thing.