Another B-school calls on Lalu

The ministry pats itself on the back and basks in the glory. This is precisely what unfolded at Rail Bhavan as a four-member delegation led by Frank Brown, Dean of INSEAD, a leading International business school, came to meet Lalu on Thursday.

As the Railways Ministry gave the impression that this school had come to study the Railways8217; turnaround, it also acknowledged that around 200 Railways officers had already attended pilot programmes at INSEAD and the ministry had signed a contract with the school to conduct 30 more programmes 35 officers in each programme, called the Advanced Management Programme modules, during the next five years.

Further, it was not as if INSEAD was visiting India with only Railways on their agenda. Brown was anyway supposed to be in New Delhi on November 29 to host

INSEAD8217;s Global India Council, which includes the likes of Narayana Murthy, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Deepak Parekh and Sunil Bharti Mittal.

Sources in the Railways Ministry told The Indian Express that the official request from INSEAD had only sought a 8220;courtesy call8221; with Lalu and Railway Board Chairman K C Jena. That the courtesy call turned into a full-blown media briefing even took the visitors by surprise, said sources.

What came to the ministry8217;s relief, however, was the fact that Brown did say his school had heard about many similar turnarounds across the world but found Indian Railways turnaround to be the best ever. Considering that INSEAD is part of a business deal with Railways, not many expected him to say anything different.