IIM-L seethes with anger, shock

This is an article from Times of India , Bangalore Edition, dated today, 24th Nov '05. Sums up the mood in the IIMs on the death of one of their own.

By Prashant Srivastava/TNN

Lucknow: On the surface there is bereavement and condolences, but below it a storm of anger and dismay is brewing. Not just in IIM Lucknow, which lost an alumnus to the gun-weilding goons of the oil mafia, but also across the IIM fraternity—faculty and alumni included. And the anger is triggering the question of whether IIM graduates should opt for the public sector or government jobs.
To them S Manjunathan’s death doesn’t make sense. He was the happygo-lucky kind. A do-gooder with a song on his lips and honesty to live by. And above all, he was only doing his job. “Is it actually worth it for our students to work in an environment like this?’’ asks a shocked IIM Lucknow director, Dr Devi Singh. He says it is instances like these that will make the student community think twice before taking up assignments in Uttar Pradesh.
If hatred for the “system’’ is another fallout, it does not seem an overreaction, for the sales officer in Indian Oil Corporation was trying to check rampant malpractice of selling adulterated oil in the state. Manjunathan’s mentor Prof Debashis Chatterjee says, “politicians don’t have a right to stand on podiums and give long speeches on brain drain.’’ He adds that the student community and the academia has starting debating whether we are so feeble as to let this pass.
Second year student Satish Pulekar says the incident incited the students enough to stand in unison for the cause supported by Manjunathan. “We are taught to strictly adhere to the value system and not to compromise on any account. Such incidents, though highly traumatising, only firm our resolve to fight it all out,’’ he says. The sentiments are shared by batchmates Garima Dixit and Pooja Sikka.
The sole point of discussion among the students on Wednesday revolved around the huge difference between working in Manhattan and Uttar Pradesh. “Should we work at the expense of our lives?’’ they asked. “People say IIM graduates never do anything for the country, never join PSUs. Look what happened to one who did,’’ said a student bitterly.

IOC field staff have to face oil mafia alone By Sanjay Dutta/TNN

New Delhi: S Manjunathan may have sealed his fate the day he decided to join a state-owned oil company. As a sales officer of IOC, the government also made him police the adulteration mafia, worth Rs 10,000 crore a year. But unlike the mob, he had no protection for doing his job.
About 1,000 sales officers working throughout the country for the four state-owned oil marketing firms are living under the shadow of death for over a year now. This is when the government abolished the anti-adulteration cell in the oil ministry and asked the companies to check such malpractices under its marketing discipline guidelines.
Under this, a sales officer is supposed to take the prescribed action on the spot against a petrol pump owner or gas agency dealer when any malpractice.