Ajit Balakrishnan, Founder and CEO of Rediff.com, has come a long way from his early days at Kannur (Kerala). At one time, he was an ardent football fan and dreamt of nothing lese but football. His father, who was a doctor by a profession, introduced him to a footballer who had nothing else except a thatched roof over his head. The stark reality forced the young Balakrishnan to take to his books.
Neither interested in turning out to become a doctor or an engineer, Balakrishnan tread the management path and took admission into IIM, Calcutta. Presently, he heads the board of governors, where he was once a student.
Balakrishnan is upset at the education scenario in the country. He is unhappy with the IIM and IIT selection system. The students, mostly urbane, have been polished to reach the prestigious institutions after spending a large sum of money at tutorial colleges, he said.
The IIMC chairman said that tests are one way of testing the students merit and its absence would mean that bribery would settle in admissions. Today 95% of them who get admission into IITs and IIMs are from tutorial colleges.
Recalling his entry into IIM, Balakrishnan said that his uncle suggested it to him and he appeared for it in Thiruvananthapuram. He got the results three months later, and had passed with flying colours. His parents left the decision to him.
Clarifying on the comparisons between business schools in India and US, the Rediff.com founder and CEO said that IIMs had done lot of work. But US business schools had dismissed Indian research as empirical data. However, things have changed as of now, he said, adding that Indian research has a global appeal now. Till sometime, the annual budget for IIM Calcutta was Rs. 5 lakh and today it is a whooping Rs 2 crore, Balakrishnan said.
Speaking about the rankings being accorded to management institutes, Balakrishnan said that they raised the fortunes of the magazine. But, the plus point is that it is some kind of an eye opener for the parents and students. He said that it hardly mattered if the student got admission into a premium institute at Ahmedabad or Calcutta. The thoughts are in the minds of some, while some choose a college based on its distance near home.
On lack of facilities at some IITs, Balakrishnan said that Rome was not built in a day. When India got its independence, the literacy rate was 12% and today it is 70%. There are different education needs for every state and it takes time to achieve things, he said.
Talking about setting up of Rediff, Balakrishnan said that the idea struck after a course at Harvard Business School. During the course in the year 1989-90, professors had asked the students to observe Compuserve, an information services company before the era of the Internet. At that time, it boasted off news, chat and all features of an internet and worked on networking protocol. He said that the user had to use black screen with blue text and today it works on Windows.
At the age of 22, Balakrishnan co-founded Rediffusion-Dentsu, Young & Rubicam, one of India’s largest advertising agencies. In 1995, at the age of 42, he set up Rediff.com with an investment of Rs two crores and had no returns from it for three years. He left the advertising agency to his friend Arun Nanda.