Professor Jaswant Singh

Professor Jaswant Singh was there in Oxford yesterday giving a talk on India's current affairs and what he foresees as potential challenges. If you are wondering who he is, he is none other than India's ex-Defense Minister, ex-Finance Minister and ex-Foreign affairs minister. He is currently a visiting professor at Oxford and it was good to listen to his experiences when he was sitting at the office. He certainly dont want to be called as Prof. and wanted to be called as an ex-Army guy. There were questions ranging from "why their party have not won elections" to "India-China relations" and he answered them very patiently. One good thing I extracted from the whole thing is him mentioning about how powerful an idea can make a person. He mentioned that a good idea is more powerful than someone sitting in the PM office. And he was very honest to mention that "When I was 28, I resigned from Army (meaning I wont get even pension now) in an illusion that I have all the answers for all problems facing India". This is certainly true and I see a lot of resemblances in the thinking pattern of youth now as well.

On other hand, we had Citigroup and Roland Berger presentations in last couple of days. Citigroup sounds very ambitious of their plans to ramp up EMEA operations and it sounds very promising. I have come in contact with Mark who is one of the Oxford alumni and in one of the prominent positions in the IT industry. He sounds very intellectual in advising me on my career front. Good to see things happening in a positive way. Next week will all be busy with Ox-Cam fair in Cambridge. Looking forward to explore Cambridge a bit and see the difference what it makes from Oxford!!