(October leaves by Jim Crotty)

Nothing beats an October sunrise flowers in full bloom and trees looking refreshed after the monsoon season. And the impending Diwali festive cheer to add to it.

But Diwali is not going to be ‘cheerful’ for everyone this year. The Common Admission Test (CAT) dates are now clashing with a series of other exams which have all been pushed down to the third week of November (from the original fist week). Some of these include routine exams for degrees such as Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS), Bachelor of Accounting and Finance (BAF), Bachelor in Banking and Insurance (BBI) and Bachelor in Financial Markets (BFM) at the Mumbai University. Students from the above streams who had planned to take CAT in the last few days of the test window are now in a fix. Read more – http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Exams-clash-again-varsity-may-not-budge/articleshow/10348737.cms

But there are glad tidings for engineering aspirants. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has decided to lower the eligibility marks for engineering courses to 45% for open category and 40% in the reserved categories. An IBNLive article debates whether the move is a good one or not and who exactly stands to benefit from it.

On the international front, there is news that the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, is gearing to find a place under the Indian sun. A report in the Business Standard states that the school wants to set up a base in Mumbai which will be used not only to conduct executive education, but for alumni to converge and faculty to convene for research.

Though more than a week has passed since Steve Jobs’ death, anybody and everybody who admires him has penned lines on him. While his legacy lives on in Apple products and now particularly in the iCloud service, iOS 5 and the new iPhone 4S. A Harvard Business Review blog calls the iPhone 4S’ news features almost magical. This article discusses Steve jobs as a manager and gives a critical glance at him as a decision maker. Read — http://blogs.hbr.org/davenport/2011/10/was_steve_jobs_a_good_decision.html

On the jobs front, a Gallup poll discovers that American workers are feeling worse than ever about their jobs. According to research at the Harvard Business School, Its not low (or no) raises, limited benefits or even longer work days that are making employees unhappy, its the work theyre doing. The research adds that Doing meaningful work and making progress in it make people the happiest on the job. If you believe in that, read — http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/10/13/5-steps-to-achieving-happiness-at-work

And if you like the man-versus-woman gender stories, this one is for you from the Huffington Post. A new study from the non-profit group Catalyst surveyed over 3,000 MBA graduates and found that even when women employed the strategies of the so-called “ideal worker” — requesting high-profile assignments, hobnobbing with the bosses, and clearly communicating their goals — they still didn’t see the same career advancement men did, and their salaries increased at a slower rate. More at — http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/why-womens-careers-mens_n_1009764.html

While still on job talk, can bosses be left behind? Another Harvard Business Review blog talks about bosses and employees and office situations. How in a corporate set-up, it is essential for an employee to feel valued and valuable.Also how being in-charge of other people rarely brings out the best in us.

If it’s Harvard on the agenda, dean Nitin Nohria must have a mention. An article discusses Nohria’s views on the MBA curriculum and how after taking over as dean at Harvard Business School, the subject of ethics has become the mainstay at the school. Interesting read — http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2011/10/humble-leadership.html

An interesting article in The Economist asks What is a green job? Traditional sense says that it is a job which is supposed to help the environment, save the flora and fauna and also all the animals but The Bureau of Labour Statistics provides two definitions — one based on output and one based on process. Having two definitions may seem confusing, but it it’s good to acknowledge ambiguity where it is known to exist,” says the article. For those who’d like to have a ‘green job’ and know what a green job really is, read — http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/10/job-creation?fsrc=nlw|newe|10-10-2011|new_on_the_economist

To conclude on a lighter note, The Economist has a sweet read about words and how everything in the world has a word to match in some language or the other.

You know how some people are always cold? There’s a word for that in Spanish that is, there’s a word, rather than the small string of words used in English. A woman who is always cold is a friolera (or if she’s Catalan: a fredolica). Most languages have words like this, little charmers without one-word analogues in other languages…

For the whole article, log on to http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/10/vocabulary?fsrc=nlw|newe|10-14-2011|new_on_the_economist