OUR PHILOSOPHY The Institute is in search of excellence in the field of management education. Its range of academic activities includes teaching, research,training consultancy so as to continuously create intellectual capital.   Criticism One of the major criticisms of ‘BRIC Thesis’ is the understatement of GDP growth in China over the next 45 years; which predicts growth to be falling far below normal development. There are many uncertainties and assumptions in the BRIC thesis that could mean that any or all of these four countries will not live up to their promise. The preeminence of China and India as major manufacturing countries with unrealized potential has been widely recognized, but some commentators state that China’s and Russia’s disregard for human rights and democracy could be a problem in the future, as is the possibility of confiict over Taiwan in the case of China. Likewise, the population of Russia is steadily declining, and this may have implications for its future.One of the biggest challenges for marketers is the sheer scale of the BRIC countries and the difficulty in reaching far-fiung consumers with different cultures, languages and traditions. The marketing infrastructure in countries like China, India and Russia is still under development. If Goldman Sachs’ forecasts are believed to be accurate, the BRIC economies could be half the size of the G-6 by 2025, and surpass them by 2045. Yet, this growing infiuence is not refiected in the leadership structure of the IMF or The World Bank, and while Russia is now part of the G-8, it is under constant pressure of being thrown out. Russia formally joined with the G-7 nations in 1997 to form the G-8, a privilege still denied to China, even though its economy may have already surpassed Germany to become the third largest in the world. Flip-side of BRIC’s Success story: Lessons Learned The BRICs boosted the share of global exports from emerging markets from 20 percent in 1970 to 42 percent in 2006. Their growth, furthermore, is not being driven solely by commodities exports and low-cost manufacturing. Instead, India and other emerging Asian economies are home to 26 percent of the global information technology services market, and this share is growing quicker than IT services in developed countries. Each of the BRIC nations has pushed for reforms on its own, with varying degrees of success. Brazil challenged U.S. cotton subsidies at the WTO and won its case, but Russia’s political disputes have prevented it from being accepted into the WTO. Brazil, India, and China each saw an increase in their voting shares at the IMF in April, 2008 but the U.S. and European nations will still be able to use their combined vote to ensure the organization is headed by a European. Napoleon is attributed to have once said that, “forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.” How true. If we have to go on by what happened in the past, countries like Saudi Arabia should not be creating new BRIC alliances. But foresight is rare, for who would have dreamt of China’s economic growth taking place, if the Chinese had listened to “expert” advice in 1997 during the Asian currency crises that they must devalue their currency otherwise they too faced a meltdown? They did nothing and the results are evident today. China is now being pressed to revalue its currency or face dire consequences. The truth is that they will do what is best for them and sometimes it is better to ignore the best of advice. The BRIC economies are here to stay and shape the future of both the developing economies and the developed markets.     Editor's Note     The country was shaken up by the blasts in the past three months but the undeterred attitude of we Indians made the attempt of the separatists futile. Our countrymen are lending their helping hand wherever and whenever the needs arise, be it the Bihar floods, Orissa fioods, the bomb blast sites…..Well, that should be the spirit and we hope it would continue to be in future. Our campus was busy with a lot of activities during this quarter of the year too. We are looking forward to hearing from you. If there’s something you’d like to see in a future issue or a topic that you’d like to have covered, please drop a note in our mailbox. Yours truly, Tulika Chandra     Next >>