MDI International Business - OctNov 2010 - Project Submissions

MDI International Business - OctNov 2010 - Project Submissions.

Please make your submissions in comments to this post. Put your name and Roll No. and Submission No. (1 or 2 or 3) at top of each comment. Give a title to your comment. This is an academic exercise and your comment should be your won work.

A sample comment taken from Economist, by Jeff Moyer, can be as follows:

Tej Singh - Roll No. xxxxx

Does Biotechnology has a role in Sustainable Agriculture?
Agriculture can only be sustainable when the primary resources used in the system (soil and water) are regenerated from within the system.

Biotechnology is a band-aid approach to "fix" long-term problems with short-term solutions. Much has been written on agricultural sustainability, leaving us with a word that now has tremendous baggage. Many have rushed to claim a piece of this term since there is not only great marketing potential in the concept of sustainability, but great political leverage as well. But agriculture can only be sustainable when the primary resources used in the system (soil and water) are regenerated from within the system.

Sustainability needs to consider more than simply yield in tonnes. By concentrating our efforts solely on yield and not on building and improving the health of our soils we have missed the main opportunity to be sustainable. Biotechnology has focused our attention on the wrong goal—merely yields alone—and has convinced many that sustainability can be achieved through large-scale monoculture production systems of GM crops that deplete the nutritional value of our soils and our food.

A truly sustainable agriculture can both deliver strong yields and improve soil quality and fertility over time, offering a solid network of roots for a thriving agricultural community. The Rodale Institute's Farming Systems Trial—a 30-year research project comparing organic and conventional practices, side by side—has shown that organic yields can match those from conventional systems. And organically managed soil is healthier, more biologically active, drought resistant and more resilient.

Even a poor or damaging system can be sustained for a short time, relative to the history of modern agriculture. Within roughly 70 years, our current chemical-based agricultural system is already showing its weaknesses: depleted soil, poisoned water, negative impacts on human and environmental health, and broken rural communities. Sustainable production should look out 100 years or more to determine whether a production system is really on the right road.

Sustainable agriculture should not just feed the world's growing population today, or tomorrow, but far into the foreseeable future. Biotechnology and the associated methods often have a negative effect on soil and water health, minimising their potential to serve us over time. By building and improving soil health, utilising organic practices to fix nutrients in the soil, encouraging biodiversity and greatly minimising synthetic inputs, organic producers are ensuring the sustainability of the system indefinitely.

Today we produce food within a system that is broken. While the points of breakage can be defined within the context of sustainability, they cannot be fixed with biotech solutions. They can be repaired only by addressing the fundamentals that restore and regenerate the resources of soil and water. By artificially sustaining a poor system we have created a model that divorces biology from the system and replaces it with costly and damaging external inputs.

Conventional biotech methods could be forgiven if they were improving the quality of the food, improving the health of our soils and water, improving the biodiversity of our rural areas, building truly sustainable communities or improving the lives of farmers.

In every category we continue to fall short of our goals of feeding the world indefinitely, yet we continue to move down this road holding onto the false promises proffered by the biotech community claiming cheap food—which is not really cheap—as the primary reason to accept all those negative consequences. All the while we squander valuable time and resources that could be better spent working towards a truly sustainable food-production system based on sound biological principles. To repair it, we must focus on the basics—soil health and water quality—and how we can improve upon these natural resources so that we return as much as we take, thus ensuring our future.

If farmers are challenged to continuously improve the resources they depend on, and look beyond the farm gate at the impacts their decisions have on the total supply chain, sustainability moves far beyond the need for biotechnology.

You can get ideas from http://www.economist.com/debate/archive.

EMP Apr 2008. Meet 1.

Leave your impressions here. It wud be gr8 if u hv smthng interesting to share with others. Happy learning

Glossary - International Business

To post 5 chosen terms relevant to study/ practice of International Business.

e.g.
Absolute Advantage
An absolute advantage exists when a nation or economic region is able to produce a good or service more efficiently (using the same amount of resources) than a second nation or region.

Anti-dumping Laws
Laws that are enacted to prevent dumping - offering prices in the overseas market that is lower than that at which a product is sold in its home domestic market.

Arab Maghreb Union (AMU)
A regional alliance seeking economic and political unity in Northern Africa. Members are Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia.

Autarky
In models of international trade, a situation in which there is no cross-border trade.

Cross-rate
An exchange rate between two non-US dollar currencies.

Letters of credit
Documents issued by a bank stating its commitment to pay someone (supplier/exporter/seller) a stated amount of money on behalf of a buyer (importer) so long as the seller meets very specific terms and conditions. Many suppliers (exporters) require letters of credit from their buyers (importers). See also Import letters of Credit and Export letters of Credit.

The Discussion Topics

To make 2-3 comments/ distinctice inputs on any 2 topics not allotted to your group latest by midnight 03-12-2008.

Group AA three topics:

- How democratic is WTO : Power and Politics in WTO
http://www.aftinet.org.au/papers/kwa1.html
http://focusweb.org/publications/Books/power-politics-in-the-WTO.pdf
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Allow_Kamal_Nath_to_negotiate_at_WTO/articleshow/3300374.cms

- Analyse India’s foreign Trade
refer Reading in booklet India on the Move

- What should be done about Citi Bank?
http://onthescene.blogs.foxnews.com/category/money/


Group BB three topics:

- Reforms needed in WTO
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-altman/whos-afraid-of-the-big-b_b_47951.html
refer Reading in booklet China and WTO

- Implications of a country’s dwindling Forex Reserves
http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/nov/22indias-forex-reserves-dip-by-5-billion-dollars.htm

- The Politics in allotment of World Sports Events to various bidding cities


Group CC three topics:

- Analysing end of cotton subsidy proposal at WTO

- Looking at Kenya 2030 Vision, assess long-term potential of doing business in Kenya
http://www.investmentkenya.com/Documents/Publications/Vision_2030_BROCHURE%20_July_2007.pdf

- What Steps can World Governments collectively take to counter the current crisis?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-11-23-apec-bush_N.htm


Group DD three topics:

- What Cultural Fitment advice would you give to a New Zealand company towards doing business in India?
http://www.cyborlink.com/besite/india.htm

- How about doing business in Philippines – analyse all dimensions
http://focusweb.org/

- Should US government bail-out auto giants?
http://specials.rediff.com/money/2008/nov/20sl1.htm
http://specials.rediff.com/money/2008/nov/20sd01.htm

the book summary

pls take a book not taken by anyone else in your class.

it should preferably be related to global canvas; it can also be a 15-25 page HBR type write-up.

post your own words summary in ~50-100 words, any juicy sentence/ phrase/ approach. also write you recommend that one to be read many times or once over a fortnight or browsed over a few hours.

Eight Giant Steps To Global Domination by Kenn Viselman is already allotted to Arvind Chaodhary.

to be done before mid-term Nov 9th.

the natural resources dump

the natural resources dump:

take a single item from natural resources/ raw resource domain like mica, copper, wheat, cashewnut et al, something not taken by anyone else in your class.

list largest 3-5 producers, consumers, exporters, importers.

specifically for largest 2 exporters, list major three importing partners.

specifically for largest 2 importers, list major three exporting partners.

try listing numbers as to quantity/ $ worth alongwith ranks.

aditya has the exclusive right to post on Oil.

to be posted before mid-term Nov 9th

Oct 5

This is a pool, a common dump, of whatever MDI Executive MBA team is going to do.

Here are the allocations.