Volume XXXIX • Number  3 • March 2009

Emerging Trends of Aggressive Movie Marketing: Lessons Learned from Ghajini

Over the last few years film makers in India had felt the strategic need of gearing up their distribution and promotional drives in order to make a mark in the box office charts. Trends in the Indian film industry since the year 2005 had shown that the shelf life of films had gone down drastically. Along with this issue, the film industry like any other business organization had faced the ill effects of economic meltdown and terror threats that have significantly affected business opportunities across the nation. In this context, the success of the recent Bollywood movie Ghajini and way it had been promoted to the heart of the audience can be considered as quite an exceptional turnaround case and a management lesson for several business organizations struggling in the recessive business environment. This paper makes an attempt to analyze Ghajini’s success in the light of its aggressive marketing and promotional strategies.

Indranil Mutsuddi
Faculty,MBA Department
Acharya Institute of Management
& Sciences,Bangalore

indranilmutsuddi@yahooo.com

Residential Mortgage Backed Securitization: The Market Oriented Alternative for Funding Housing in India

The housing sector in India has assumed importance in recent years on account of investment demand and housing shortage in the country. While there has been significant improvement in housing situation, the housing shortage has been estimated at 22.40 million and the capacity of the institutional sources to meet the demand is limited. With the advent of financial sector reforms, the capital market has emerged as the central source of funds for sectoral economies. In this context, the need for tapping capital markets through securitization, assumes critical significance.

Securitization is a tested market oriented resource raising mechanism with enormous potential to integrate sectoral markets with the capital market. As an off-balance sheet financing technique, it has the capacity to enhance the ability of banking sector for not only channelising long term funds to housing sector but also in increasing competitive strengths in terms of improved efficiencies in both resource raising and deployment. The development of secondary mortgage markets is linked to the development of the housing finance system in particular and the overall economy in general. It is therefore important to take into account the systemic and sectoral factors having an impact on the mortgage activities. While the development of the secondary market for mortgages will in turn be largely determined by the appetite and capacity of the market for such instruments, a strategy to develop and systematically promote residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) on the lines of those operating in the developed nations is now critically important for India.

The present day ‘global village’ concept calls for sustained improvement in every sphere – productivity, quality, technology, creativity’ etc. Every organization big small, public or private should curb rigidity of structures. To start with, an opening case is given from a government organization where the ethos of revolutionary thinking was cultivated by direct contacts of the top management with innovative front-line workers. Afterwards some determinants of ‘revolutionary change’ are discussed. Every entity must be included in the magnetic aura of change; this can be achieved for instance by building lateral relations through human values. Decentralization is fundamental for unleashing imaginative approaches by all strata of employees since every individual is unique. It is imperative that process cycle time is minimized in every venture. Concurrently process capability has to be improved by vigorously implementing TQM. A sense of optimism that ‘failures are building blocks to future triumphant success’ must pervade the human effort. Full-fledged empowerment needs practice by all leaders through ‘self – efficacy, self-determination and impact’ culminating in self-empowerment by all people. The applications of reengineering are also discussed. Finally the yogic vision of seeing radiant light even in darkness is emphasized for achieving revolutionary improvements.

A Study on Job Satisfaction of Woman Workers in Fireworks Industries in Tamil Nadu

The development of any nation primarily depends upon its industrial development which makes rich contribution to the growth of a nation. The economic role played by women cannot be isolated from the framework of development. Women workers remain significantly poor and are far less legally protected.The role of women in socio-economic development has undergone a marked change over the years. The world of women is no longer confined to household activities. Today, they actively contribute to the promotion of economic development in different capacities..

The aim of this research is to identify the awareness of HIV/AIDS message and its impact on the youngsters. This paper tries to explore whether they practically adopt the message. A sample of 400 students from grade 9 to 12 is selected at random for the study. The analysis shows that 47% of the students are influenced by HIV/AIDS message. 59% of the students are involved in sex with one person. It is proved that students aged above 19 years are involved in sexual relationship with one or more partners than the teenagers. 53% of the students do not know the status of HIV since they haven’t tested so far or unable to recall the status. The HIV status of 5% of the sample is positive. It is concluded that HIV is positive more for males than females. Students aged 13-15 are HIV positive more than other age group students.

Socio-Economic Conditions of Workers of Fireworks Industry in Viridhunagar District

Socioeconomics is the study of the relationship between economic activity and social life. In many cases, however, socioeconomists focus on the social impact of some sort of economic change. These may affect patterns of consumption, the distribution of incomes and wealth, the way in which people behave (both in terms of purchase decisions and the way in which they choose to spend their time), and the overall quality of life. The goal of socioeconomic study is generally to bring about socioeconomic development, usually in terms of improvements in metrics such as GDP, life expectancy, literacy, levels of employment, etc. The socio-economic condition of the people indicates the overall status of the country. Basically India is an agriculture-based country, where majority of the people are living in rural areas and doing agricultural work for their livelihood. The study area namely Virudhunagar district, is also primarily an agricultural area. Apart from agricultural activities, the people pursue doing match works, fireworks, printing works and the like. Virudhunagar district provides employment opportunity to the fireworks workers throughout the year, the economic status of the people engaged in fireworks activities is not encouraging due to the reason that workers are cheaply available and therefore paid comparatively little wages. In this connection, an attempt has been made to study the socio-economic background of the workers of fireworks industry in Virudhunagar district.

Agriculture becomes more luring if the returns reaped are higher as compared to the costs involved. Vanilla crop has become a plant of promising returns to the farmers of Coimbatore region, who cultivate Vanilla as an intercrop in their fields with a hope to realise high profit. Since many farmers have taken Vanilla crop cultivation and as many financial agencies are willing to finance Vanilla cultivation, a study on returns through Vanilla cultivation becomes all the more important as the result would be an eye-opener to many concerned – Government, Banks, NGOs, and farmers.