Is everyone and his brother an MBA or in Page 3?

This is something that one notices in India - any city, and I used to wonder about it. There's a load of MBAs around, and schools on every corner that offer them. People that work the phones are 'MBA's, customer support rookies, telesales folks, door-to-door salesmen - everyone seems to have an 'MBA'. Now an article today in the Times made me recall the vast management pool that this country has.

Subroto Bagchi of Mindtree had a column in the business section that was right on the mark. He spoke of management institutes on every street, and the suckers that paid a ton of money to get in and acquire an MBA. It's a money making racket. He mentioned the eagerness of parents and wards that knew of these no-name schools' records, but still pretended that in time they'd be labels. There are third tier corner institutes with 'US affiliations', and poorly equipped degree shops where students had not a hope in hell of employment once they graduated.

It's incredulous that these MBAs that I've encountered usually can't hold a conversation in passable English, have little or no analytical skills, but use a fair amount of marketing or finance jargon when they speak. They're all unanimous in wanting 'MBA kind of jobs' at the recruiting table. In time they submit, and end up at hotel reception desks, call centers, water purifier salesmen and the like. Nothing wrong in these professions, but they are certainly not why you acquire an management degree.

Why bother? The degree is cheapened when hundreds of incompetent shops churn out thousands of graduates. There are full page ads by several of the larger institutes in the papers. If you gotta invite prospects in, you can't be much of a business school.There's got to be more scrutiny by student prospects of such institutes, and they should look to either get into a recognized good school, or not get an MBA.

Page 3 'celebs'

Plenty of unknowns being passed off as celebrities in the Times' page 3 section. Names dropped like we should know who they are already! LOL. Plus unknown regulars that show up repeatedly in these pages, like they had photographer on call for a fee. Too many names, too many onboard. Comical.