My Last IIPM Post

The IIPM story have all but died down, and for everyone Life goes on. I wrote an I support You post on the Monday after the weekend of that incident and forgot about the incident and only read a few post like Arjan's and Kautilya's and Varna's. The story had dragged on for too long, but then I kept thinking about it. Like I said in the earlier post that I am always thinking about something or the other. I was just wandering in the markets, shopping for small Knick Knacks, small nothings for my house and I was just thinking, my silly mind never rests anyway, Why did IIPM threaten to sue Gaurav and Rashmi and Varna? Why?

Lawsuits are only common in the USA, where millions are lawsuits are filed each day. But even in the USA, lawsuits are only good if one wins. And not everyone in a Lawsuit win a Suit. Winning a lawsuit is a far cry in india. Union Carbide would have been long gone of bankruptcy, had Bhopal happened in the US. But we are in India, and A guy in Kolkata won a lawsuit against a Shoe manufacturer in India for giving him false promises after 15 years and he was awarded a princely opps measely sum of 50000 Rupees. Millions dollar lawsuits happen mostly in Novels Written by American Writers. So why did IIPM sued Gaurav and the ilk.

I believe it stems from the fact, "any publicity is good publicity."Well not so with Education institutes and not at all if the institute spends crores in building a good Image. Gaurav's Blog was pretty up in the popularity chart amongs indian
Bloggers, in fact it ranks no.2 In Blogstreet. And so any search query for IIPM sure would have thrown up the post by Gaurav. how else would the guys at IIPM come to know of the Post. They certainly are no Bloggers, that was clear from all the IIPM blog-clones that came up. Not a single old Blog. Well, since a search query for IIPM threw up gaurav's blog, it would have caused a great deal of bad publicity for IIPM and that too at a highly targetted Audience. I won't be searching for IIPM in google for sure. It would have been prospective IIPM students. Now, bad publicity is not good publicity for IIPM. We are not talking about rok Sako to Rok Lo here. Each ticket here cost 4-5 lakhs unlike the 100 Bucks Rok Sako Tickets.. Well well, if only Gaurav would remove the post from the Blog??

Lets all be frank. If you were in Gaurav's shoes what would you have done. Few aggresive People might have filed a countersuit. I would have immediately contacted a lawyer. What would any other guy/gal do. The Email, asked Gaurav to remove the post. Kaput! End of the Story. And there will be no IIPM related Bad post/article when a prospective student types the search query IIPM. Any other person, well most of us would have quitely deleted the post. That is Human nature. Nobody likes anything to do with the law. Courts, Police Stations, lawsuits, all things are not things that a common Men, which many of us Bloggers are, would want to be a part with. The IIPM legal cell( if indeed the mail was sent by the IIPM legal cell as mentioned in the email ) knew this basic human nature very well. How could they ever suspected that gaurav would be different? Someone who contacted a lawyer would have contacted her/him to just delete the post and forget about it. There are more to do in life than getting in unnecessary legal hassles. If you really wants to fight, go fight against Child marraige, child labour, dowry, corruption, rape and what not. A sound lawyer would have advised the person like that.

IIPM Legal cell never thought someone could have Gaurav's sense of humour. Cheers to you Gaurav! You got a Legal notice, real or not, genuine or not, but you didn't know it then, if it was genuine or not, But did you get a legal notice and you had the blogger's sense of humour to name the topic as I am disconnectting my cable connection. Never in their dreams must the IIPM lawyers(or whoever) have dreamt that Gaurav would make the legal notice a Topic for a Blog. We Bloggers are a Topic starved community, if only IIPM knew. Gaurav by not quitely removing the articles stirred quite a huge hornets' nest.I don't know why gaurav posted the mail on the blog but he sure did a thing, that we all might now think, "we would have done the same" but most of us might seriously have had second thoughts before carrying on. The Email clearly mentioned that nio further action would be taken if the posts were removed. It was well thought of and well composed mail. Gaurav has shown his strength twice since the event. The second being his tactful resignation from IBM. You are quite a man Gaurav. I salute you. I don't know if you have always been like that, or that the event brought out the real Man in you, but what you did could have been done only by a man of character or someone with a seriously Black sense of Humour which i doubt you are. What you have done, consciously or not have started a
battle of sorts and it might not end here, but I am sure your strenghts will make you a very hard contender. Where I come from, honour and courage is something highly regarded and taken for granted that each Men have. You are one of us Brother!!


IIPM's ploy to kill bad publicity only back fired and it back fired real bad. Gaurav's post might have come at page 3 or 4 when u search for IIPM on Google but now the story comes right at page one and its the number 1 search query in technorati. So much for their hatred for bad Publicity. No wonder why they keep so quite.But K of presstalk mentions the official statement by IIPM about taking legal actions. I doubt if they will. There is something in Battle Strategy called tactical retreat. The best ploy IIPM could follow would to be to just let it pass. Till now they have denied having sent any legal notices and since the legal notice caused much more bad publicity than it had intended to kill, any further action will only drag them deeper into the mud. I doubt if they haven't fired the legal cell yet, for causing so much damage. They have done much more damage than Rashmi and Gaurav would have caused.
Consider that they continue with the lawsuit. It must be remembered that all the bloggers who have written about the same has commited as much libel( which ever is the legal terminology) as gaurav ever did and IIPM has to sue everyone. Now, IIPM might have the financial muscle and resources to sue a 100 bloggers but it must be remembered that when they sue a blogger, they are suing a Global community and tommorrow if a million Bloggers write the same or worse about IIPM they could not sue everyone and will make it worse for IIPM. In attle strategy, a wise general would have gone for a tactful retreat or face the MudSlings.


Like somebody wrote( i forgot who,), it would do very good for IIPM, if they were to take it as a lesson and start trying to improve on what they have to deliver. If all this episode makes IIPM a better institute, it would have been worth all the effort and lost time. Because bad or worse, india does need more institutes since the govt. doesn't do much about it. IIPM might be good, but they can be a lot better and if they try to compete with the IIMs by really becoming world class educationists, what more can a Men ask for. Even the Alumni would be much happier. Taking a book out of Marketing, Customers Always flock to good products. Google never advertised like Indya.com or Hometrade.com of the early 2000s did. If the product is really Good, word of mouth is enough to sell enough, if the product is bad, you need advertising to sell enough and if the product is worse you need salesmen to push the product. There are worse institutes to does roadshows in small towns and sends out agents to seek admissions.. Provide a good education, a better education and nobody will dare raise a finger againts you.

To sum it up it was just a matter of A good strategy gone awry from the side of IIPM. And Gaurav Hearing his Inner Voice. Hope the matter is well rested.

Read the whole story here on desipundit