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The Master of Business Administration degree has been a holy grail for decades. If you wanted a career that mattered and didn't have the aptitude for medical school, an MBA was a good ticket to prestige and riches. But things aren't so clear anymore. If the MBA used to be the entrance fee to climb the corporate ladder, there are few corporate ladders to climb anymore -- and people are increasingly experimenting with ways to speed up that climb anyway. One way is to skip the MBA altogether. So if you're thinking of getting an MBA, you should probably think...

From the slums of Chennai and selling idlis on the street, to an MBA degree from IIM-Ahmedabad, Sarath Babu's journey has been remarkable. He had a dream. Like millions of other Indian kids who grow up in abject poverty, he dreamt of earning enough some day to take his mother away from the one room hut they stayed in, to a life of comfort. For most, such dreams remain stillborn. But Sarath Babu took life in both hands and looked fate in the eye. Last week, he emerged victorious. From the slums of Chennai to the hallowed portals of IIM,...

PUNE: The mother of all business schools will soon be in India. Well, almost. The world's most sought-after business school has decided to open a new research centre in India, to help develop case studies to train the global managers of tomorrow. While a final decision is yet to be reached, it is learnt that the centre will be located either in the country's business capital Mumbai, or IT capital Bangalore. When the centre opens, it will be Harvard Business School's (HBS) fourth international research centre. The first was opened in Hongkong, the second in Buenes Aires. The third was...