New dean of ISB
The executive board of the Indian School of Business (ISB) confirmed the appointment of Ajit Rangnekar as the Dean of the ISB for a term of five years, with immediate effect. Several candidates were reviewed for the position of the dean ever since it fell vacant in January 2009. The executive board, based on the recommendations of the Dean Search committee, and extensive discussions with the faculty, students, alumni, partner schools, and other key stakeholders, found Ajit Rangnekar to be the best suited for the job.

Making the announcement on behalf of the Board, Rajat Gupta, chairman, ISB, said: “We could not have asked for a better outcome. Ever since Ajit joined the ISB nearly seven years ago, he has become indispensable to the school. He has played a crucial role in the school’s growth over the years, and embodies the ISB’s vision and values in everything he does. We are excited and privileged that he has accepted this responsibility, and extend to him our full support in strengthening the ISB’s position as a top ranked global B School.”

The former Dean of the Kellogg School of Management, and a member of the search committee for the selection of the ISB Dean, Professor Dipak Jain said, “The ISB, in the present stage of its evolution, has the opportunity of becoming a pivotal school in the emerging region. In Ajit Rangnekar, we have found someone with a keen understanding of the business of B School education, rich experience in the Asian region, and above all, a zealous conviction in making business schools relevant to the communities that they operate in.”

Speaking on his appointment, Ajit Rangnekar, dean, ISB, said, “I have always been passionate about the ISB and its vision, and am proud to have been a part of its growth over the years. It is indeed an honour to be entrusted with the responsibility of leading the school in the next phase of its growth. In the coming years, we will continue to strengthen our faculty pool, enhance our research capabilities, and focus extensively on making ISB the best in the world on issues of fast emerging economies. In this journey, I am grateful to have the continued support of the entire ISB community.”

Rangnekar has a background spanning over 30 years in consulting and industry, across different countries in Asia. Prior to being formally appointed the Dean, he was the Deputy Dean of the school from March 2003 to January 2009. Before joining the ISB, he was the country head, first for Price Waterhouse Consulting and then for PwC Consulting, in Hong Kong and the Philippines. He was head of the Telecom and Entertainment Industry Consulting practice for PwC in East Asia (China to Indonesia). Rangnekar completed his undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and Post Graduation in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

ISB's launches PG programme
The Indian School of Business (ISB) announced the launch of PGPMAX - a postgraduate programme in management for senior executives. It will be offered part time over a period of 15 months and is specifically designed for senior industry executives with an average work experience of 15 years. The programme is intended for senior executives who have excelled in functional domains such as finance, marketing, sales, operations, healthcare, information technology, customer service and are now aspiring to move into general management positions. The part time model of the programme supports these senior executives to pursue a postgraduate programme in management equivalent in rigour and content to an EMBA without having to leave their jobs. They will participate in classroom sessions of six days every six weeks, over the 15-month duration. During the immersion, participants will attend classes at Kellogg School of Management and The Wharton School, visit companies abroad and meet international industry leaders. Executives aspiring to apply to the PGPMAX need to possess a bachelor’s degree and minimum of 10 years of full time work experience.

IIM-l's 'Treatise'
IIM Lucknow’s Manfest 2010 in association with the British Council, has launched ‘Treatise: The International Thought Challenge’. Treatise is an international debate challenge which is conducted online which allows participating teams to contest from their homes. International participants from Stanford and University of Michigan have also been part of the event. Business Standard is the associate title partner for the event which carries a prize money of Rs 75,000. Treatise will be set on the Manfest 2010 theme – ‘India: Expect, Explore, Experience’. This is the fourth edition of Treatise and is expected to be a huge success, going by past records. Manfest 2010 also launched ‘Prerna – The Social Entrepreneurship Awards’. It is a CSR initiative aimed at recognising social entrepreneurs who have successfully led transformational social change. Other than that Manfest 2010 will feature Hell Raiser, the rock fest, Professional night, a Lucknow city run to raise AIDS awareness, online games, informals and much more.

IIM Marketing Digest
IIM Lucknow’s Manfest 2010 in association with the British Council, has launched ‘Treatise: The International Thought Challenge’. Treatise is an international debate challenge which is conducted online which allows participating teams to contest from their homes. International participants from Stanford and University of Michigan have also been part of the event. Business Standard is the associate title partner for the event which carries a prize money of Rs 75,000. Treatise will be set on the Manfest 2010 theme – ‘India: Expect, Explore, Experience’. This is the fourth edition of Treatise and is expected to be a huge success, going by past records. Manfest 2010 also launched ‘Prerna – The Social Entrepreneurship Awards’. It is a CSR initiative aimed at recognising social entrepreneurs who have successfully led transformational social change. Other than that Manfest 2010 will feature Hell Raiser, the rock fest, Professional night, a Lucknow city run to raise AIDS awareness, online games, informals and much more.

Manfest 2010
IIM Lucknow, in association with Citi announced the launch of the institute’s much awaited Annual International Business Conclave, Manfest 2010 with the opening of the Manfest 2010 website – www.iimlmanfest.com. This edition of Manfest is centered around the theme ‘India: Expect, Explore, Experience’ and intends to firmly put the focus on India. Manfest 2010 aims to celebrate India’s success in weathering the recent economic crisis and draw inspiration from the strong fundamentals of our economy to move forward.

Incidentally, 2009 marks 25 years of IIM Lucknow’s growth .This is a momentous year for the institute. Dhruv Vishrani, Manfest core-committee member, says, “It is a reflection of our long lasting relationship with the industry that one of our oldest recruiters, Citibank, is the title sponsor of Manfest 2010”.

The Launch of Manfest was followed by the launch of ‘The Next CEO’ – a flagship event that is a big draw amongst the best B-school students in the country for the high stakes that it offers. ‘The Next CEO’ at Manfest 2010 boasts of PPI offers for the winners along with cash prizes worth INR 1 Lakh. The event has always had the reputation of being a gruelling test of business acumen, but with a difference. Innovative stages such as the Manfest ‘live’ round test participants in a non- traditional way, pulling them out of their comfort zones, putting them into the deep end of the pool and evaluating how they cope. Where last year the ‘live’ round featured participants selling vegetables at a Lucknow Subzi Mandi, this year it promises to throw new challenges. Deepak Venkatramani, Manfest core-committee member, says, “The Next CEO is recognised across campus as one of the most innovative and challenging competitions and we are confident of living up to that expectation.”

And that’s not all. Manfest 2010 will feature a host of other exciting events touching upon diverse areas of management, path breaking discussions at the high profile conclaves; an adrenaline filled online Manfest, unabashed entertainment in the form of Hell Raiser, the rock fest and Pronites the professional musical night, fun filled informals and much more.

Manfest 2010 will be held from Jan 22-24, 2010 at the IIM Lucknow campus.

For further details about Manfest 2010, please visit www.iimlmanfest.com.

Marketing fundas and sports
IIFT, Delhi held a weeklong event called UW — ‘United Warriors League’. The event served as an innovative platform for students to learn concepts of marketing in a ‘hands on’ manner while enjoying sports. Sports celebrities like Vijay Dahiya, ODI player and Badrinath Pathri, physiologist to Sania Mirza inaugurated the sporting and branding event at IIFT’s Delhi campus.

UWL, a sports and marketing event, was based on the lines of IPL where the participating teams comprised MBA students who were not only competing in ten disciplines but were also being judged on their branding. Each team had its own brand manager and owner. A team not only had to win on the field but also the attention of the ‘junta’ to win branding points. The teams were vying for the attention with innovative marketing activities like sending promotional SMSes, running ‘enthusiastic fan’ contests, launching blogs and websites, releasing promotional videos on YouTube, hiding chocolates in classrooms, launching campus cleaning drive to outright crazy ideas like running dating contests. “Marketing is a very practical art, books alone can’t teach you that. UWL is both fun and learning marketing in a very simulated and hands on environment”, said Satvinder Kumar, IIFT student and an UWL organiser. “The environment is very real and simulated like what actual market could be. It’s an interesting and engrossing learning experience”, opined Harihar Adarsh, owner of one of the teams.

The event earlier also involved the owners bidding for the players of their choice with each team allotted Rs 1,000 to buy their favourite players bringing some real action to the event with teams strategising and scheming to buy players of their choice.

Dow Jones MD at XLRI
Christopher Mitya, managing director, Dow Jones India, delivered a talk on the much discussed and sought after topic “Corporate turnaround in times of economy turnaround” at XLRI School of Business and Human Resources.

The event, organised by the general management programme of XLRI, staged an intellectual feast with lively interaction among the speaker, faculty and the students. Mitya provided invaluable insights by citing real business scenarios for each of the questions, ranging from ‘restructuring industry and competitive forces’ to ‘potential corporate strategies during down turn and recovery’ to ‘short term and long term growth plans for Dow Jones in India’.

“Tough times never last but innovative and nimble companies such as Dow Jones do”, Mitya said.

Manipal’s new courses
Manipal University’s Bangalore campus has launched India’s first and only MBA in media & entertainment (ME) and MBA in advertising & marketing communications (AMC). MBA (ME) is offered in association with Whistling Woods International. The two year MBA programme in media & entertainment has specialisations in film, broadcasting, new and interactive media and event management. The two year MBA programme in advertising and marketing communications has specialisations in account planning and media planning.

This first year of the MBA (ME) would be conducted at MU Bangalore campus covering all general management subjects and media case studies. The second year of the programme will consist of one year of internship/industrial training at WWIL premises located at the Film City in Mumbai. This will include actual production and post production techniques, the process of film making, understanding TV, Radio and other sectors of the entertainment industry, hands-on exposure at the WWIL and Film City. WWIL, on behalf of MU shall also provide to the students with industry interface and internship with media companies.

MBA (AMC) programme covers integrated marketing communication, strategic media planning, and advertising strategy with general management subjects.

The programmes are open to those who have completed any undergraduate degree, with a combination of creativity and business rigour and aspire to be media and marketing professionals. n

MeritTrac unveils ‘Pariksha’
MeritTrac, an investee company of Manipal Education and a testing company unveiled its next-generation service offering, ‘Pariksha’ for delivering high-stakes, large-scale exams across the country in a secure environment. Continuing on its journey of innovation after winning the NASSCOM Innovation Award in 2008, MeritTrac unveiled Pariksha as a service offering built on an innovative technology platform that comprehensively covers the entire spectrum of examination delivery processes, supported by a huge network of 50,000 testing terminals in 185 cities across India. This offering is backed by ISO 9001:2008 quality standards that MeritTrac has recently got certified.

As a pre-cursor to a national roll out, MeritTrac had partnered with Gujarat Technological University, government of Gujarat, to conduct the Gujarat Common Entrance Test (GCET 2009) online in July this year. Over a period of four days, 23,000 candidates successfully appeared for this online test, which was conducted in 37 centers across 11 cities in Gujarat, deployed over a network of 2100 terminals.

The security and control process puts the controller of exams firmly in charge of the exam process, while significantly reducing the workload. MeritTrac R&D team, headed by Dr Natarajan has created a scientific, legally-defensible process of equating test papers for multiple batches.

In order to create future-ready solutions and innovative offerings for the education sector, MeritTrac has constituted a Education Vision Panel which has leading luminaries of the education sector in India.

Students pledge to fight corruption
Students and faculty across 25 colleges nationwide came together for candle light prayer meets to commemorate Manjunath’s fourth death anniversary and to take an integrity pledge to remind the nation of what Manjunath died for.

At IIM Ahmedabad, one of the institutions where the candle light prayer meets were held, students of all years and from different programmes came together and observed silence to pay respect to Manjunath and to pledge to fight corruption in every form.

Prof Abraham Koshy, PGP chairperson of IIMA said, “If we want to move from being one of the most corrupt countries to a corruption-free one, the onus for the move will lie on the youth of the nation. They need to raise their voices against corrupt practices and strive hard to make a change. The youth need to sow the seeds of integrity right in the beginning to ensure a corruption-free development.”

Manjunath Shanmugam was a respected alumnus of IIM Lucknow, batch of 2003. His was an unwavering voice that spoke out fearlessly against the oil adulteration practices that he observed in his area, as a Marketing Manager of IOCL in Lakhimpur, Uttar Pradesh. On November 19, 2005, the light was blown out and the voice silenced forever when he was brutally urdered, his body riddled by six bullets.

Manjunath’s death shook the world and once again brought the corruption rampant in our society onto the surface. What happened was not something out of place. Several people in PSUs and several other organizations faced menacing threats to prevent them from speaking out against malpractices.

To ensure that Manjunath was delivered quick justice and that his killers were appropriately punished, the Manjunath Shanmugam Trust (MST) was formed on 23 February 2006, Manjunath’s 28th birth anniversary, by members of the international IIM alumni network. The broader vision of the trust is to build on the network, skills and resources of the professional corporate community, to help improve governance in Indian public life.

MST also set up India’s first national RTI Act helpline in association with noted NGO Parivartan on Nov 19, 2006, to mark Manjunath's first death anniversary. This was discontinued after a year to opt for a more decentralised approach, by funding local initiatives across the country.

Cultural evening at Lotus Valley International School
Evening was pleasant and the environment was filled with joy and exuberance when the students of Lotus Valley International School stepped out in a glamorous dazzling avatar to act, sing, and dance to celebrate “Indradhanush” - the annual cultural festival of the school. The two-day event was held at Sirifort auditorium in Delhi.

The festival was an amalgamation of traditional and modern dance performances with play enactments, guitar and piano recital and coordination of wind chimes put together in a medley by the school children. The event started with the frolic performances by the young pupil on Bharatnatyam dance followed by Kathak and music performances. Students exhibited outstanding performances during the lokutsav dances such as Bhangra, Dandiya, Ghoomar, Bihu and Lavani.

Gracing the occasion as the Chief Guest was Dr Ashwani Kumar, a member of Parliament - Rajya Sabha. Moved by the performances, he expressed, “The variety of colours that these young kids have presented symbolizes their vivid mind full of zeal and enthusiasm. I congratulate Lotus Valley School who have identified the hidden artists and brought out the talent of these wonder kids by giving them a platform to showcase their passion.”

All the classes from II to XII were part of the event. While first day of the annual cultural event displayed tiny tots from primary wing, the second day was out-flooded with the performances by senior students and an exhilarating performance by the school rock band “Excalibur”. The event also saw dramatisation of English play “Merchant of Venice” and Hindi dance drama performed by the School theater group.

Madhu Chandra, principal, Lotus Valley School, said: “We believe that every child carries within him, a distinguished talent. At Lotus Valley school, we recognize every student's potential and nurture them through the natural way of learning - do, feel, learn, reflect and be... where they explore, experiment and experience while learning. We instill the values of honesty and integrity, so that they can contribute towards moral, spiritual and ethical development of the community. With our world-class infrastructure and international curriculum, we not only prepare our students for a promising career, but also groom them to be responsible citizen.”

‘School of Tomorrow’
iDiscoveri Education, a social enterprise with the vision to revive the education system in India, will be organising ‘School of Tomorrow’, a conference that would focus on making learning better in schools. Dr Howard Gardner, renowned psychologist from Harvard Graduate School of Education, who is also known as the father of the multiple intelligences theory, will be the keynote speaker at the conference. The conference is scheduled in Chennai on November 25.

‘School of Tomorrow’ is conceptualised to challenge the way traditional education methods and schools have been working so far. The conference aims at making a concentrated effort to understand closely the role and responsibility of three critical groups in our society, government and public institutions, private corporate sector and the education domain.

Renowned personalities from these domains like Dr M Anandakrishnan, chairman, Board of governors, IIT Kanpur; Vineet Joshi, chairman, CBSE, Dr N Vijayan, chairman, Matriculation Schools Association of Tamil Nadu,, Vinita Bali, CEO, Britannia; Arun Jain, CEO, Polaris, Rajendra Pawar, chairman, NIIT and Prof James Tooley of University of Newcastle will be addressing the seminar and sharing their views at the forum.

Announcing the conference, Ashish Rajpal, managing director, iDiscoveri Education, said, “We believe that to upgrade India, we first need to upgrade our school education system. While there is much talk about what is wrong with our schools, there are few ideas on how to actually make them work better. The conference will bring together the best minds in the country to lay out these possibilities.”

More than 300 school leaders, educationists, researchers, socio-political personalities and corporate leaders from across India, will attend the conference. It will feature panel discussions, live case studies and a call to action.

Tata Jagriti Yatra 2009
Based on the tremendous response to the ‘Tata Jagriti Yatra 2008’, the Tata group and Jagriti Sewa Sansthan have announced the launch of the second edition of ‘Tata Jagriti Yatra (TJY)’.

This national odyssey introduces the youth to the real heroes of India, enterprising individuals who have brought about social or economic change. The aim of the yatra is to awaken the spirit of entrepreneurship – both social and economic – within the youth by exposing them to individuals and institutions that are developing unique solutions to India’s challenges. TJY aims to encourage and inspire young people to lead and develop institutions within their own communities first and subsequently on the nation level. For ‘yatris’ from foreign countries, Tata Jagriti Yatra will provide an unmatchable window to India, its small towns and villages.

To be a part of this unique journey, young people, from India and overseas, in the age group of 20-25 years, can apply online on www.jagritiyatra.com. Four hundred ‘yatris’ will be selected by a panel of judges on the basis of the demonstration of their entrepreneurial spirit. This year there is a special emphasis ‘on increasing participation from women yatris and role models’.

Covering 8000 kms across India, the 2009 yatra will halt at Thiruvananthapuram, Kanyakumari, Madurai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, Jamshedpur, Deoria, Delhi, Meethapur and Tiloniya, giving an opportunity to the ‘yatris’ to interact with and visit inspiring and enterprising role models and institutions situated in these geographies.

Six televised panel discussions will be held at key stops of the journey to discuss social and economic enterprise topics of national relevance these will further help to stimulate ideas and thinking, and give the ‘yatris’ indications of new directions. The TJY 2008 had discussions on topics such as “Yes we can!”, “From poverty to self-help”, “Making healthcare affordable to every Indian”, “India’s civic challenges”, “The power of one” and “Unleashing India’s entrepreneurs”. Panelists included eminent thought leaders like Dr RA Mashelkar, Kishor Chaukar, R Gopalakrishnan, Rajdeep Sardesai, Bindeshwar Pathak etc.

XIMB’s annual fest
Xpressions ‘09, the annual B-school event of Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB), drew hundreds of music lovers to the campus on Monday night, with Mohit Chauhan’s scintillating live performance. The delay of the event by a day due to inclement weather wasn’t enough to dampen the spirits of students and fans, who were treated to all of his popular numbers, from ‘Dooba Dooba’ and ‘Boondein’ from his first album with ‘Silk Route’, to Bollywood tracks from the latest films, including ‘Mohabbat Ki Hain Pehli Baar’ from ‘Kaminey’, ‘Tune Jo Naa Kahaan’ from New York and the effervescent ‘Masakali’ from ‘Delhi 6’, which got the crowd to its feet.

The fest was launched on Thursday evening with ‘Conclave’, a panel discussion on ‘Power India – Power Leveraged from all its Diversities’, which saw eminent speakers like ‘Rashmi Bhansal, author of ‘Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish’, and Sandeep Pandey, Ramon Magsaysay award winner and leading social activist share their thoughts, views and opinions on the topic from their own different fields and perspectives.

The five flagship games of Xpressions were held over the course of two days. Kurukshetra, the biggest and most prestigious business simulation game, was won by MDI Gurgaon, while Gladiator, the game which tests a manager’s cross functional abilities under pressure, was won by Anand Goyal from IIM-Calcutta. XIMB’s very own team ‘Balle Balle’ took home the honours in Skill City, a test of soft skills, while Helios, the only nationwide event for undergraduates, which aims to introduce them to the world of management, was won by team ‘Empty Thoughts’ from KIIT, Bhubaneswar. Spardha, the social entrepreneurship competition organised by the Rural Managers’ Association of XIM, was won by team ‘Shristi’ of XIMB.

Xpressions also saw the hosting of the annual alumni meet known on November 14, 2009 in its campus. This event was attended by many alumni currently in several senior positions in the industry and social sector.

‘Carnival de Vogue’ came to XIMB on Saturday night, which saw students from colleges of national repute scorch the ramp in the fashion show event. The show was split into three rounds, the first showcasing Indian culture in traditional and ethnic wear, the second being an on-the-spot theme round and the third testing the teams’ innovation.

Team ‘Vetements de Creaturer’ from NIFT-Kolkata was the cynosure of all eyes, with creations designed by in house budding fashion designers Abhishek Debnath and Shonit Dasgupta. They sealed victory with their theme of drapes, in the final round, the clothes being merely draped around the models and not stitched in any way.

Exploring Singapore
The United States and United Kingdom has so far been the favored destination for students seeking higher education abroad. However, Singapore is fast emerging as a premier educational hub in Asia.

In a bid to attract more students to Singapore and explore the various options, Raffles Millennium International, (RMI) a collaboration of the Singapore based Raffles Education Corp and Educomp Solutions recently organised Singapore Hi-Ed Conclave, a seminar for exploring higher education in Singapore in the field of Arts and Design.

Raffles Millennium international (RMI) is a premier creative arts, design, lifestyle and business management education group in India & Asia-Pacific region. It operates three universities and 29 colleges in 11 countries and has been providing design and management education for 20 years.

Over 200 students participated in the seminar where RMI counseled students regarding their options of pursuing opportunities to study abroad with Raffles Millennium International, India. Presentation concerning the various courses offered in the institute was made and information regarding the career options was also provided. Participants also had the opportunity to learn more about the Singapore Education System, focusing on the advantages of choosing Singapore as a study destination.

Mr. Thomas Yip, Director, Raffles Millennium International, New Delhi said “We at Raffles organised this seminar to apprise the students about various art and design programmes that may be pursued abroad. We initiate such activities for young aspiring designers to give them a platform and encourage them to understand their own potential. Keeping in mind the opportunities, we offer courses like fashion marketing and management in our institute with an aim to create awareness, excite and engage aspirants”.

HDFC winners of ‘Meritus’ scholarship programme
HDFC Bank recently announced the winners of “HDFC Bank Meritus scholarship” a first –of-its-kind education. ‘Meritus’ is one of India’s largest nationwide scholarship programme, which covered students from class IV to IX.

This ambitious programme was launched in January 2009 to reward all-round excellence among students and help contribute to their overall development.

The programme saw a tremendous response and registrations were received from over 4.2 lakh students from more than 2,000 schools pan India. After four rounds of tests, 3,330 students finally emerged as winners. The winners received the scholarship ranging from Rs 2,500 to Rs 10 lakh, amounting to Rs 1.5 crore.

The final written examination and evaluation process was supervised and audited by an external audit agency, Ernst & Young.

Hyderabad’s Srikrishna Vadlamani topped the scholarship programme and won Rs 10 lac, followed by Ahmedabad’s Siddhant Bhambri and Kanpur’s Siddharth Majumdar who won Rs five lakhs each. Neel Karia from Mumbai, Spoorthi S from Malur and Suvansh Nirula & Vaibhav Gupta from Delhi received the scholarship amount of Rs three lakh each.

Announcing the winners of the scholarship programme, Rohit Mull, EVP & head, marketing, HDFC Bank said, "This initiative emphasises the values our bank stands for. It is a contribution we are making towards the nation by facilitating young India in its quest for excellence. We are confident that these bright children will take India forward to a more prosperous future."

Admissions open for Manipal University’s MBA programmes
Admissions to one-of-its-kind MBA in media and entertainment (ME) and MBA in advertising and marketing communications (AMC) are now open for the January 2010 batch. Manipal University will offer MBA (ME) in association with Whistling Woods International.

The programmes will be offered from the Manipal University Bangalore campus.  

The first year of the MBA (ME) would be conducted at MU Bangalore campus covering all general management subjects and media case studies. The second year of the programme will consists of one year of internship/industrial training at WWIL premises located at Film City. This will include actual production and post production techniques, the process of film making, understanding TV, radio and other sectors of the entertainment industry, hands-on exposure.

Admissions to the two year MBA programmes January 2010 in (ME and AMC) at Manipal University are currently open. The last date for submitting applications is 30th November 2009. The programmes are open to those who have completed any undergraduate degree, with a combination of creativity & business rigour and aspire to be media and marketing professionals.  

Corporate turnaround in times of economy turnaround
Christopher Mitya New, managing director, Dow Jones India, last week, delivered a talk on the much discussed and sought after topic “Corporate Turnaround in Times of Economy Turnaround” at XLRI School of Business and Human Resources.

The event, organised by the general management programme of XLRI, staged an intellectual feast with lively interaction among New, faculty and the students. New provided invaluable insights by citing real business scenarios for each of the questions, ranging from ‘restructuring industry and competitive forces’ to ‘potential corporate strategies during down turn and recovery’ to ‘short term and long term growth plans for  Dow Jones in India’.

“Tough times never last but innovative and nimble companies such as Dow Jones do,” said New.

New stressed on value of information and challenges of information overload. He said,“Information must be aggregated, relevant and current”.

According to Fr E Abraham, director XLRI,  “The discussion topic remains to be significant in today’s scenario, with the countries around the world getting glimpses of economic recovery, with market bulls slowly getting out of their long hibernation and with business and consumer confidence improving day by day XLRI, being one of the country’s top notch Business Schools, has imparted effectual corporate leadership amongst its students through its frequent and periodic interactions with industry experts as part of CEO Forums and  New’s visit has once again exemplified this culture.”
While speaking on recessionary environment, New attracted audience attention to need for focused strategy. He said, “Now is the time when companies would benefit most from our services as we can help increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their resources. We believe in the value of our investments and will not sacrifice that value by cutting corners.”

While answering a question on localisation, he talked about content aggregation and generation in vernacular languages. He said, “It’s not possible to roll out everything at once, so our first goal is to penetrate with our existing services and then we will build upon that to offer the services in vernacular languages also.”

Summer placements on
The summer placement process for the first year PGP and PGP-ABM students has started at the Indian institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Students who will be placed in companies across various sectors during this process will get a chance to apply the learnings from class in practice and experience business management first hand in their preferred domain. Summer Internships are a mandatory requirement of the course and students will spend 8-10 weeks in these companies in the months of April-May next year.
“Day Zero of the summer placement process for the batch of 2009-11 saw enthusiastic response from our regular partners from the fields of investment banking and consulting,” said Himanshu Nema, secretary, placement cell.

In line with expectations, Investment Banks made their presence felt. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Barclays each saw over five acceptances.

A senior manager at Royal Bank of Scotland, which hired more than 10 summer interns in investment banking profiles in Hong Kong, Singapore, New Delhi and London said, “I was really happy to be here at the IIM Ahmedabad campus. The students were well prepared and looked excited about the opportunity to work at the Royal Bank of Scotland. We hope the international experience provided by an internship at RBS helps them ahead in their careers.”

Some of the other Investment Banks include JP Morgan, Nomura, HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup.
Top consulting firms, our long-time recruitment partners were back on campus to participate in the summer placement process. McKinsey and Co, The Boston Consulting Group and Bain and Co each will have 3-5 students joining them for summer internships in April next year. Among other top consulting companies that recruited were AT Kearney, Booz and Co and Arthur D Little.

Strategic Role of HR
Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management organised a National HR Conference on “Strategic Role of HR in Global Business Environment”. The aim of the conference was to provide a forum to experts from the corporate, academia, and government, to share their expert opinion and insights on the role that HR can play at the international level.

The session was inaugurated with a film on the life and times of Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri. The chief guest for the occasion was Dr P Nandagopal, CEO & MD, Baroda L&G Life Insurance Co Ltd, Mumbai. He, along with Anil Shastri, former Union minister and chairman, board of governors, LBSIM, Delhi, Dr KC Mishra, director, LBSIM, Dr GL Sharma, corporate advisor & convener, LBSIM, Delhi and Vikas Verma, president, management grid, LBSIM, inaugurated the conference by lamp lighting and by offering floral tributes to the late Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.

Delivering the welcome address, Mishra welcomed the chief guest, speakers, delegates, media persons, faculty and the students for the HR conference. He stated categorically that India’s forte is its human resources and if deployed adequately, it can reap rich dividends since the youth represent a major part of the population.

Dr Bindu Chhabra, conference convener, LBSIM, briefed the audience about the theme of the different technical sessions to be dealt by the speakers throughout the proceedings of the conference. She emphasised that comprehensive success can be achieved only through confluence of business strategy with people strategy.

In his inaugural address, Nandagopal dwelled on the evolution of HR as a discipline, expanding its ambit from conflict resolution to conflict avoidance. The role of HR behind the scene in strategy implementation is gaining importance and human resources are being increasingly valued as assets to organisations across the board. He, thereby, called upon HR managers to appreciate the virtues of humility and modesty as propounded by Lal Bahadur Shastri.

The event was presided by Anil Shastri. He highlighted the compelling need to tap opportunities and tackle challenges creatively during the current recessionary trends and laid stress on having vision, clarity of goals and exercising perseverance towards achieving those goals.

Delivering the vote of thanks, Dr GL Sharma greeted speakers from different parts of the country and expressed his gratitude to them. He also thanked Nandagopal for sharing his valuable insights of the influence of behavioural changes on decision making and Anil Shastri for his words of purpose and encouragement.

Finance conference at IIM-C
The first International Finance Conference by IIM Calcutta will be held from December 03-05, 2009, at Kolkata, India. Featuring distinguished speakers from around the world, the conference holds significance at this time when financial markets all over the globe are going through unprecedented stress.

The current global crisis in financial markets makes it very clear that they are out of control. Just a few years ago it would have been rare that a crisis in a sector of one country's economy, like the sub-prime crisis in the USA, would quickly harm the global economy. The globalisation of a financial system based on the short-term interests of investors jeopardises even hitherto stable and efficient financial markets.
But crisis always throws up new challenges and opportunities. The impact of financial crisis on the markets and economy depends on the level of preparedness of the markets. Preparedness is a function of maturity and efficiency of markets. We need new regulations at national and international level to make sure that problems in single sectors are spotted in good time and their adverse consequences kept under control.

Financial institutions in emerging markets have also been much affected by the sub-prime crisis. The financial markets in emerging economies are now integrated with markets of other countries in terms of asset price returns, volatility and product variety. The market participants need to equip themselves with sophisticated risk management tools to absorb shocks. A proactive approach in policy making will help financial markets become more efficient and hence withstand crisis.

Financial market distress has affected demand and it’s financing. Offloading debt from the balance sheet and conserving cash for operating capital will affect international sources of capital. Increasing de-leveraging, domestic funding and aversion to risk could have its impact on asset pricing as well.

It is in this background, that the IIM-C invites research papers from academicians and PhD scholars on all areas in finance. Some of the areas that can be worked upon are asset pricing, market volatility, financial innovation, financial risk management, operational risk and regulations, investment management, high frequency finance, financial regulation and corporate governance.

Essay competition to save water
In a bid to address the pressing issue of depleting water resources Henkel India Ltd. announced the ‘Henkel Eco-petition’, a national level paper presentation competition for schools on environmental issues. Titled “Proper channelisation of water resources”, the competition aims to encourage students to come up with ideas that could bring about solutions to maintain and replenish the available water resources.

As we all are aware, the water resource available on earth is becoming increasingly scarce and now we have to make a conscious effort to conserve and preserve these resources in order to sustain life on earth. “Henkel eco-petition aims to get young minds to bring solutions on how best we can channelise, maintain and replenish the available water resources. Henkel’s research and development teams worldwide are continuously working towards developing advanced technologies for resource-conserving use of water through constantly improved processes and product performance” says Mr. Jayant Singh, managing director, Henkel India Limited.

The competition is open to school students of class IX to XII and will have students participating from across cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Kochi, Lucknow, Ahmedabad and Kolkata. Participants in Henkel Eco-Petition 2009 will need to write a paper in not more than 2,500 words on the topic. The selected students will be invited to take part in the finals which will be held over video conferencing with a live discussion in the presence of judges. The award carries a gift prize of Rs 10,000 for the first place, Rs 7,500 for the second place and Rs 5,000 for the third place. The last date for the submission of entries is November, 12 and the entries will have to be sent to Henkel.Ecopetition@in.henkel.com.

As Henkel’s contribution towards preservation of valuable water resources its mandate is to use as little water as possible, and also to re-use existing supplies. “Every step is taken by our company to reduce the amount of water used to produce our products, recycling water used for manufacturing processes so it can be returned safely to the environment, and replenishing water in communities and nature through locally relevant projects." added Mr. Jayant Singh, managing director, Henkel India Limited.

New competitor for TOEFL
Pearson Educations recently announced the launch of the Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic). It is a new computer-based academic test of English language proficiency that measures the English language skills of non-native English speakers who are seeking admission to institutions where English is the language of instruction. This is the third company proposing such a test, the other two being TOEFL and IELTS.

The PTE is being endorsed by Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), owner of the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT).The unique feature of PTE, according to Joseph Rospars, vice president, business development of Pearson Language Test (PLT), is that the test takers’ verbal and written responses are marked using Pearson’s automated scoring technologies which ensures impartiality. The test was painstakingly developed by conducting field tests worldwide which involved more than 10,400 international students.

The test has already been recognised, or is in the process of being recognised, by more than 800 programmes around the globe. Some prominent institutions that has recognised and are accepting PTE Academic scores are the London Business School, University of British Columbia, University if Edinburgh, Yale University’s Yale college.

The advantage that Pearson is offering to students is that they get their results after maximum of five days; students can assess their results and send their results directly to institutions of their preference. The scores can even be sent to government departments such as immigration agencies and to any other organisation that requires academic English.

The test will be available to test takers in India from November 2009. The test will be delivered through nine Pearson centres in India this year. Pearson is in the process of expanding the number of test taking centres in India over the next year. Those interested in taking the test will be able to register and schedule their test online at a date and time that suits them. The fee for the test in India has been set at US$160. 

Pearson is planning to provide a lot of learning resources in terms of training, online resource library available for students. Their  website www.pearsonpte.com provides practice tests for self studies, as well as the list of institutions worldwide that is accepting PTE scores.  

Stoking Entrepreneurial Spirit
SRIJAN — the business incubation centre at IWSB provides plan-to-startup support services for a venture. The center has a corpus of US $ 1 million that provides initial investment for promising ventures.

Business incubation centre conceived Srijan as a yearly activity to realise the dream to foster an entrepreneurial society in our country. The event is open to all Indian nationals who have a serious business idea which they are hungry to pursue. Srijan 2010 is round the corner. Those who are keen should watch out for the announcement in October or visit www.iwsb.in.

Srijan’09 was the first edition to provide a springboard to numerous entrepreneurial ideas across the whole country. The six winning start-up ideas of the day began their entrepreneurial journey after the competition and traveled the distance from generation of an idea to becoming enterprise in reality.

Srijan says “Hatch an idea that seizes on a business opportunity. Create a business plan with methodical analysis, planning and mobilising of resources. Cobble a team. Convince the panel about your idea. You may be on your way to be mentored by star entrepreneurs who have built successful enterprises — Sanjeev Bikhchandani (Naukri.com), Shantanu Prakash (Educomp), Gopal Jain (Gaja Capital), Mahesh Murthy (Pinstorm), Vishwadeep Bajaj (ValueFirst) or Satya (career launcher).”

The panel for Srijan’09 comprised people like Prof Anil K Gupta, EVC & KL chair professor of entrepreneurship, IIM-A, chairman, Srijan’09, Sanjeev Agarwal, MD, Helion Ventures, Mahesh Murthy, founder, Pinstorm and Seedfund, Hitesh Oberoi, COO, Naukri.com, Vishwadeep Bajaj, founder and CEO, ValueFirst, Abizer Diwanji, head, financial services, KPMG, Adrian Williams, sr VP-HR, Reliance Money, Vishnu Swaminathan, CIO, NIF, Kumar Apoorv, COO, ValueFirst, Manish Saxena, head, knowledge management, HSBC and Jayaram Krishnan, CEO, Kestone Integrated Marketing Services.

Spic Macay at MDI Gurgaon
Music was in the air at Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon as the artists of Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth (SPIC MACAY) enthralled the audience with their unique renditions of classic western music. The event, organised by joint effort of Sanskriti (the cultural club of MDI) and Samaritans (the societal welfare club), marked a fresh beginning in the MDI chapter of SPIC MACAY. MDI has traditionally been an active participant in SPIC MACAY’s activities and this event was organised in its endeavour to revive the relationship between the two. The event was sponsored by Canada Council of Art, Quebec.

Julie-Ann Derome and Gabriel Prynn mesmerised the audience with a flawless performance. The institute auditorium came alive to the tunes of classical western music blended with the contemporary masterpieces brilliantly created and performed by the musicians.

The first performance of the day was a composition by Beethoven followed by a French composition that heightened the emotional aspect of western music. Romanticism in the western music rose into the crescendo with renditions of Sonata, a classical music form. The performance soon transitioned into the trance-rhythmic patterns and was finally concluded with an 18th century composition.

Meanwhile, MDI has partnered with leading organisations like Basix, Access Development Services, Gap Inc, Fair Trade Forum India, Team Computers, Livelihood Schools and Centre for Environment Conservation (CEC) to further the work on sustainable development. The 3rd and final roundtable to seek inputs was hosted at MDI recently. Professor NCB Nath, chairman of Partners in Change and a leading persona with laudable practitioner and academic experience, was the chief guest on the occasion. Addressing the audience, Prof Nath emphasised on the ‘need to define the values that the centre would stand for, to get like minded people together, to put processes in place and then humbly expect to contribute marginally’.

Joy of Giving Week
XLRI School of Business and Human Resources announced the Joy of Giving Week, to be conducted from September 27th to October 3, 2009. It ’s an initiative conceptualised by Mumbai-based NGO, Give India. This aims to celebrate “the act of giving” every year and inculcate it in our ethos. It aims to get people from all walks of life together to engage in simple acts of giving, from hotels hosting fund-raising dinners to common folks donating a few old clothes. This initiative is supported by a wide range of prominent personalities such as Azim Premji, Sachin Tendulkar, Adi Godrej, Sheila Dikshit, Sachin Pilot , Rahul Dravid and AR Rahman among many others. The event was unveiled on August 21, 2009 at Xavier Labour

Relations Institute, Jamshedpur. Every sphere of society was represented at the unveiling ceremony — corporates, entertainers, academicians, social workers etc. AD Baijal, group director (global minerals) of TATA Steel, presided over as the chief guest of the ceremony. Renowned film director Imtiaz Ali; managing director of Telcon Rana Sinha and director of Goonj Anshu Gupta, graced the event with their presence.

Anshu Gupta, a recipient of CNN Real Hero award, in his insightful speech urged the audience to lend whole-hearted participation to the initiative. He stressed that the event was not only about donating clothes but about being active participants in the movement by spreading the message to as many people as possible.

IIT Kharagpur’s Kshitij 2010 head on
To help release the potential of some of the very insightful young dreams, realise and rise with them, IIT Kharagpur is organising Kshitij, which claims to be one of the largest techno-management symposium in Asia.

With each passing year, the fest has shown that the combination of technology and management is the future of development. Year after year, organisers have made an effort to provide a platform for deserving students from across the country to exhibit their scientific dexterity and managerial acumen via the array of events organised, which continue to be the mainstay of the fest.

To promote the core disciplines of engineering, Kshitij has joined hands with associations like ACM, ASHRAE, ASME and IMechE. These associations, by providing their certifications for the events of Kshitij, shall give international recognition to the outstanding entries in the various categories.

With over forty events in the fields of technology and management covering the diverse fields like coding events, case studies, B-Plan competition, paper presentation contests, mechanical events, industrial design problems, aero modelling events, robotics and on spot events with participation exceeding thirty thousand, nationwide and abroad, thefour-day fest starts creating waves months prior to its official date. The fest boasts of prizes worth over 45 lakhs and its association with corporate giants like GE, Adobe, TATA and many more.

While the competitions at Kshitij prove to be the ultimate test of grit, knowledge and skill, the guest lectures and workshops provide an enriching experience for the avid learners. The fest has been graced by the presence of such luminaries who are looked up to for their distinguished contribution in their respective fields.

Earlier editions of Kshitij has had illustrious guest lectures by Nobel laureates like Dr Klaus von Klitzing and Dr Paul Crutzen, first Indian cosmonaut in space Rakesh Sharma, co-founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Donal Wales, founder of GNU Dr Richard Stallman, Ad-Guru Prahlad Kakkar and other such stalwarts. Kshitij organises a plethora of workshops relating both to the technology and managerial fields for students to meet and learn from the experts themselves. The mega shows by famed international troupes leave the audience spellbound and craving for more.

Kshitij 2010 is going to be held from January 28 to January 31, 2010. Participants are invited from across cities. To reach students throughout India, external workshops shall be organised in the cities of Jaipur, Chandigarh, Delhi, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Chennai and Nagpur during the last week of September and the first week of October.

The workshops will be conducted on robotics, finance and cryptography.

Peep into some of the events:

• Kryotech – the ASHRAE student design competition.
• Overnite ACM/ICPC 2010 multi provincial programming contest.
• PetroCrat with an industrial design problem from IOCL (Indian Oil Corporation Ltd).
• EmbeTronix with a problem statement on designing a circuit for simulation of automated car parking system.
• Laws of motion- remote controlled propelled glider designing event.

For further details on the event and various contests log on to www.ktj.in

XLRI’s new programme
XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, Jamshedpur has launched a certificate programme in agri-business management in Hyderabad at the Loyola Academy in association with Ikisan (a comprehensive agri-portal promoted by Nagarjuna group). The programme is essentially prepared to impart agriculture management and would help students understand marketing and sales jobs in the agri-business industry.

The six-month certificate programme is an online self learning course designed for students who wish to supplement their basic agricultural knowledge with business skills and enhance their career opportunities.
There is a comprehensive selection procedure. The students who have completed or are in the final year of BSc/MSc (agri or allied programmers) and other graduates with at least two years experience in agri-business would be eligible. The aspiring students must possess the following:

• School leaving exam: more than 60 per cent
  
• GPA at the end of second year: more than 60 per cent
  
• One reference letter
  
• A statement of purpose
  
• Experience certificate (in case of non-agricultural graduates)

The programme would be open for registration twice during an academic year, starting in August and January. The course content developed by XLRI and Ikisan would be available on www.Ikisan.com. The registered students would be able to download the material from the site. However the students would be free to interact with the XLRI faculty through email or other means as suggested by the faculty of XLRI. The students can also avail of the online tests available on the site for practice.

IIM-L’s outbound
As part of the strategic business negotiation and team building courses, students of IIM-Lucknow underwent a rigorous and exciting outbound programme. The programme was conceptualised by Prof Himanshu Rai and Prof Archana Shukla as part of the course.

The basic essence of this outdoor workshop was to teach management students the concepts of conflict management and conflict resolution. It was akin to what happens in corporate training workshops.
Some activities that were conducted as part of the outbound programme are as follows:

• Rappelling – climbing down a 30 foot wall using ropes and harnesses
  
• River crossing – crossing a distance of more than 40 feet using ropes
  
• Trust your team – an activity aimed at building trust among team members
  
• Web – a team strategy and time game to help members across a web
  
• Carpentry – involved making a wooden item using limited
  resources
  
• Bomb defuse – again a team strategy and resource allocation game

The students were taught how the real life lessons learnt in the exercises could be applied to the corporate context. As a manager, handling conflict, negotiation, decision making and thinking on the feet are very essential qualities. These activities aimed at inculcating these skills.

Joy of Giving Week- Festival of Philanthropy at XLRI School of Business and Human Resources
XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, one of the premier B-Schools of the country, brought the Joy of Giving Week , by announcing the JoyFest to be conducted by the institute from Sept 27th to Oct 3rd. 2009

The Joy of Giving Week, an initiative conceptualised by a Mumbai-based NGO GiveIndia, is the beginning of a national movement which aims to celebrate “the act of giving” every year and inculcate it in our ethos. The Joy of Giving Week, to be celebrated nationally from Sept 27th to Oct 3rd this year, aims to get people from all walks of life together to engage in simple acts of giving from hotels hosting fundraising dinners to common folks donating a few old clothes. This initiative is supported by a wide range of prominent personalities such as Azim Premji , Sachin Tendulkar , Adi Godrej , Sheila Dixit , Sachin Pilot , Rahul Dravid and AR Rahman among many others.

The event was unveiled on August 21, 2009 at XLRI. Every sphere of society was represented at the unveiling ceremony – corporates, entertainers, academicians, social workers etc. Mr. AD Baijal, Group Director (Global Minerals) of TATA Steel, presided over as the chief guest of the ceremony. Renowned film director, Mr. Imtiaz Ali, Managing Director of Telcon Mr. Rana Sinha and Director of Goonj, Mr. Anshu Gupta, graced the event with their presence.

Anshu Gupta, a recipient of CNN Real Hero award, in his insightful speech urged the audience to lend whole-hearted participation to the initiative. He raised important, yet ignored issues of women health which can be addressed by donating clothes. He stressed that the event was not only about donating clothes but about being active participants in the movement by spreading the message to as many people as possible.

“Anything you do can outlast your life. The greatest contribution you can make is that of your time.” said Mr. A.D. Baijal, the chief guest of the occasion. Mr. Baijal, who is also an XLRI alumnus, stressed on the importance of not only giving, but doing so without expecting rewards or recognition.

Jamshedpur boy Imitiaz Ali urged the audience to take social responsibility and stop living narrow lives. He said, “Charity is perceived as something distinctly un-cool. We need to understand that charity is not something boring. It can be pretty entertaining”

The other speakers, Sister Flavian , Amitava Ghosh , Rana Sinha and Father Abraham too shared their views on the subject and reiterated the importance of Giving.

The Marwari Mahila community promised to donate 2000 clothes. Representatives from TATA Motors, NTPC, Press Club, also pledged their support.

As part of the week, XLRI has planned to mobilise donation and distribution of four lakh wearable clothes to support its “Power of Reuse” initiative, which is being carried out in collaboration with the award-winning NGO ‘Goonj’. The Dramatics and Cultural Association of XLRI and the institute’s band Bodhi Tree have both pledged their support in the form of plays and concerts to raise awareness about this initiative.
The evening ended with Father James Santhanam’s poignant words: Nobody can say I have nothing to give. We all have something to give. We only need to develop the heart to give.

JKPS focus on Training for employability
JK Padampat Singhania Institute of Management & Technology (JKPS) is the business education service provider founded to groom and develop efficient managers and business leaders. JKPS is backed by JK Organization, which is one of India's largest industrial groups, founded more than a century ago with activities in different sectors ranging from manufacture of fibres & yarns, paper, cement, automobile tyres & tubes, engineering files, pharmaceuticals, sugar, dairy products, agro chemicals, as also being engaged in the field of computer software and education.

Being a part of the JK Group, JKPS is already a part of an industrial mindset. The well-known JK brands may act as a learning experience as well as platforms where the student participants can test their skills. Thus, JKPS provides to its students a rich corporate umbrella and a wide learning platform.

JKPS focus on Training for employability. Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has partnered with JKPS for Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) Project which will give students the opportunity to work with industries to identify strategic CSR opportunities.

JKPS offers Chinese as compulsory foreign language. JKPS has a unique program ie the Banyan Tree a special programme that is designed to bring out the passion in students to guide them to perform to their fullest potential and make payoffs with their learnings.

IIM-L’s outbound
As part of the Strategic Business Negotiation and Team Building courses, students of IIM Lucknow underwent a rigorous and exciting outbound program. The program was conceptualised by Prof. Himanshu Rai and Prof. Archana Shukla as part of the course.

The basic essence of this outdoor workshop is to teach management students the concepts of conflict management and conflict resolution. This is akin to what happens in corporate training workshops and will be held for the first time in a leading B school.

Some of the following activities were conducted as part of the outbound program:
• Rappelling – climbing down a 30 foot wall using ropes and harnesses
• River crossing – crossing a distance of more than 40 feet using ropes
• Trust your team – an activity aimed at building trust among team members
• Web – a team strategy and time game to help members across a web
• Carpentry – involved making a wooden item using limited resources
• Bomb defuse – again a team strategy and resource allocation game

The students were taught how the real life lessons learnt in the exercises could be applied to the corporate context. As a manager, handling conflict, negotiation, decision making and thinking on the feet are very essential qualities. These activities aimed at inculcating these skills.

As a departure from class room learning, this was a unique experience for all students. Despite the heat and humidity, students keenly participated in teams in all the activities. There was a sense of accomplishment following each activity and it helped build a strong bond among the team members.

‘The activities actually helped you overcome your fears, realise the importance of trusting your teammates in all situations, learning to respect authority in times of crisis, making the best use of the abilities and skills of all the members of your team. These are skills which are essential for success in corporate life and we got a chance to experience all of them in one day today’, said Pankaj Bhatt one of the participants.

Such trainings are used extensively in the corporate scenario to motivate teams and to help nurture newly formed teams. However, the students of IIM Lucknow got a glimpse of this well before stepping into the corporate world. In summation, this was a unique learning initiative from the Professors and a truly exciting time for the students of IIM Lucknow.

XLRI’s agri-business programme
XLRI School of Business and Human Resources Jamshedpur, a premier B-school today launched a Certificate programme in Agri-Business Management in Hyderabad at the Loyola Academy in association with Ikisan (a comprehensive agri portal promoted by leading Nagarjuna group). The programme is essentially prepared to impart agriculture management and would help students understand marketing and sales jobs in the agri-business industry.

The six-month certificate programme is an online self learning course designed for students who wish to supplement their basic agricultural knowledge with business skills and enhance their career opportunities. The course will prepare agricultural graduates/post graduates and experienced candidates from other science streams for marketing and sales jobs in the agri-business industry.

While addressing the students Prof. P. Venugopal (Dean, XLRI) said, “We have been instrumental in developing such programmes earlier as well. Seeing the scope and demand for trained manpower in agricultural sector, we have launched this programme for the aspiring students. We are sure of our effort that it would certainly help students to carve their career in the agri business field. All the more, the information and knowledge portal Ikisan which have been known for giving comprehensive info on agricultural is associated with us in this move in our pursuit of imparting management education.”

We have formulated this selection procedure to ensure quality.
The students who have completed or are in the final year of B.SE/ M.SC (Ag or Allied programmers) and other graduates with at least 2 years experience in agri business would be eligible to enroll for this specialized course. The school has laid down strict selection criteria for the intake of serious and quality students. The aspiring students must possess the following, to pursue entrance exam:
• School leaving exam > 60%
• GPA at the end of second year > 60% equivalent
• 1 reference letter
• A statement of purpose
• Experience certificate (in case of non Agricultural graduates)

The programme would be open for registration twice during an academic year, starting in August and January. The course content developed by XLRI and Ikisan would be available on www.Ikisan.com. The registered students would be able to download the material from the site. However the students would be free to interact with the XLRI faculty through email or other means as suggested by the faculty of XLRI. The students can also avail of the "Online tests" available on the site for practice.

Educating girls
IIFT’s Social Responsibility Club — Koshish — has initiated a girl child education programme which aims to benefit meritorious girls from poor background. Under the scheme 100 meritorious girl students from Delhi schools were given books and stationary as a token of appreciation and encouragement. The girl students were felicitated along with their teachers for the ceremony. The funds for the scheme came from voluntary donations from the IIFT alumnus, students and staff.

Also present at the function were delegates from NGOs and corporate world. The programme is an example of the increased emphasis that is placed on CSR activities as a part of business education which helps in grooming of more balanced managers. The distinguished speakers shared their experiences on CSR with the audiences. Educational videos on rain water harvesting and electricity saving were also aired.

KT Chacko, director, IIFT said “Regions with higher female literacy rate like North-East India and Kerala also do well in the Human Development Index (HDI) while regions like rural MP which trail behind in HDI also do not do well in girl education”. Saroj Sagar, president, Rotary Club said, “Women empowerment and hence girl education is at the root of solution to all problems in India.” She also told that Rotary Club has social commitments and it plans to continue its association with IIFT in the field of social responsibility like organising the annual blood donation camps. Kumud Bhargava, president, Innerwheel, expressed how it was important for women at homes to stop using plastic bags and instead use cloth bags.

Speaking at the speaker series Deepak Dobriyal from Cognizant shared Cognizant’s CSR initiatives. He emphasised how small steps at informal level go a long way in addressing the society’s problems than the heavily publicised CSR efforts mainly focused on gaining attention. He also discussed with students how Cognizant has a ‘go green team’ that specifically looks to address environmental and climate change issues.

Matthew Cherian, CEO, Helpage India in his presentation highlighted the fact that corporate world should move away from glossy and hollow CSR activities to the real agenda. He said, “As individuals have responsibilities, in the same manner companies also have responsibilities. Therefore corporate responsibility or CR should replace CSR ie corporate social responsibility”. Also he emphasised the need to put in efforts on saving our planet from climate change effects. People, profit and planet must be the combined focus of today’s corporate world, he said.

International conference in MDI
MDI Gurgaon held an international conference on ‘Business Process Outsourcing-Cross Continent Perspective’. The event was organised in partnership with ESCP-EAP (Paris, France) and McCombs School of Business (Austin, US). The key speakers were Raju Bhatnagar, vice president, NASSCOM; Shankar Narayan, vice president, Ramtech Software; Jean Paul Binot, representative, European Outsourcing Association; Eric Dunn, sr software development manager, IBM-US, among others.

The two hour video conference was divided into two parts, initiated by discussion among speakers at India, France and the USA, and followed by an offline discussion. The topics covered ranged from the kinds of business processes that are currently outsourced, the main benefits of outsourcing, current trends, the impact of the crisis etc. Also discussed were the phenomena of re-localisation, Indian BPO vendors moving up the value chain on capability sourcing, global risk and emerging business models.
While Narayan talked about the change from a time when the word BPO was equated to risk to its dramatic growth into a $52 mn industry involving 2.2 mn people, Bhatnagar spoke about how BPOs are reorienting to mitigate the effect the economic crisis had on the demand environment, since IT is often viewed as a discretionary spend. n

Marketing Continuum 2009
Attended by stalwarts from the Marketing and communications domain and abuzz with media attention, the students of Shailesh J.Mehta School of Management successfully conducted their Annual Marketing Conclave – The Marketing Continuum 2009. The Continuum is a rolling seminar series that is organized every year, by the students of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay. Each Continuum brings together eminent speakers from the industry as well as academia. These seminars focus on issues and challenges faced by the Indian Industry. The students benefit from the valuable insights gathered during the interactions with the speakers. The seminars are well attended by delegates from prominent organizations, distinguished alumni, students from other B-schools and the various departments of IIT Bombay.

The Event
The Marketing Continuum is hosted by Marktrix, the marketing club of SJMSOM. The theme for the Marketing Continuum 2009 was “New Age Marketing - Challenges and Strategies” The event was inaugurated by Dr Karuna Jain, Head of the Dept, Shailesh J.Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay. The event included discussions, lectures and business games covering a wide range of topics like relationship marketing, rural marketing, interactive marketing, experiential marketing & technology marketing.

The honourable guests at the Marketing Continuum were -
• Mr. Paritosh Joshi, President, Star India Pvt. Ltd.
• Dr. (Mrs) Pragnya Ram - Group Executive President, Corporate Communication, Aditya Birla Group
• Mr. Sudhanshu Vats - Vice President, Hindustan Unilever Ltd
• Ms. Darshana Bhatt, Marketing Head, Loop Telecom
• Mr. K V Sridhar - National Creative Director, Leo Burnett India
• Mr. Niteen Bhagwat, Executive Director and CEO, Cogito Consulting

Finance Continuum 2009
Saturday July 18, 2009, SJMSOM, IIT Bombay: Attended by stalwarts from the finance domain and abuzz with media attention, the students of Shailesh J.Mehta School of Management successfully conducted their Annual Finance Conclave – The Finance Continuum 2009. The Continuum is a rolling seminar series that is organized every year, by the students of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay. Each Continuum brings together eminent speakers from the industry as well as academia. These seminars focus on issues and challenges faced by the Indian Industry. The students benefit from the valuable insights gathered during the interactions with the speakers. The seminars are well attended by delegates from prominent organizations, distinguished alumni, students from other B-schools and the various departments of IIT Bombay.

The Event
The Finance Continuum is hosted by Finesse, the finance club of SJMSOM. The theme for Finance Continuum 2009 was “Changing Global Financial Landscape: Opportunities and challenges for India” The event was inaugurated by Dr Karuna Jain, Head of the Dept, Shailesh J.Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay. In her opening speech she spoke about how the School has been instrumental in nurturing technologically equipped future mangers. The event was graced by eminent speakers from all segments of the financial industry, culminating in a day of wholesome knowledge for the finance enthusiast. In all nine trend setters from the finance domain shared their views and insights with the students of SJMSOM, IITB through talks and a panel discussion. The honourable guests at the Continuum were:-

• Mr. Anup Bagchi, Executive Director, ICICI Securities
• Mr. Somak Ghosh, Group President-Corporate Finance and Development Banking, Yes Bank
• Mr. Ajay Garg, Managing Director and CEO, Equirus Capital
• Mr. Nirakar Pradhan, Chief Investment Officer, Future Generali
• Mr. Prachetas Raikar, Head, Global Banking Risk, HSBC

MDI concludes international conference
MDI Gurgaon concluded the International Conference on ‘Business Process Outsourcing-Cross Continent Perspective’ on Thursday, 2nd July 2009. The event was organised in partnership with ESCP-EAP (Paris) and McCombs School of Business (Austin-US). The key speakers were Mr. Raju Bhatnagar, Vice President, NASSCOM; Mr. Shankar Narayan, Vice President, Ramtech Software; Mr. Jean Paul Binot, Représentative, European Outsourcing Association; Mr. Eric Dunn, Sr. Software Development Manager, IBM-US, Prof. Britt Freund, Director, Project Management Consortium, McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin, USA; Mr. VVNSC Murthy, IBM Research Labs and Mr. Vikas Kapoor, EXL Services India.

The two hour video conference was divided into two parts, initiated by discussion among speakers at India, France and USA, and followed by an offline discussion. The topics covered ranged from the kinds of business processes that are currently outsourced, the main benefits of outsourcing, current trends: the ones on the rise and the ones in the drain, the impact of the crisis etc. also discussed were the phenomena of re-localisation, Indian BPO vendors moving up the value chain on capability sourcing, global risk and emerging business models.

While Mr. Shankar Narayan talked about the change from a time when the word BPO was equated to risk to its dramatic growth into a $52 mn industry involving 2.2 mn people, Mr. Bhatnagar spoke about how BPOs are reorienting to mitigate the effect the economic crisis had on the demand environment, since IT is often viewed as a discretionary spend. He further dwelt on length about new business models emerging as a part of the concerted effort from key stakeholders to ensure domestic market success.

Coordinated by Dr. Sangeeta Shah Bharadwaj, Associate Professor, Information Management, MDI in tandem with ThinC (IT Consulting Club of MDI) and the MDI Web Committee, the conference witnessed a highly interactive discussion about the current scenario in Business Process Outsourcing and the audience gained valuable insights regarding the industry.

XLRI on global map
The three-day international event of the 15th World Forum of the International Association of Jesuit Business Schools took place in XLRI, Jamshedpur. The event witnessed a blend of speakers from both the academia as well as industry, who shared their expertise and concerns on what needs immediate attention for sustainable development the world over. Delegates including deans, directors and senior professors from business schools in USA, Europe, Asia Pacific and India delved on alleviating poverty through social ventures and global sustainability during the forum.

The Keynote Address, delivered by YC Deveshwar, chairman and CEO, ITC Ltd, emphasised the invaluable contribution that can be made by Jesuit b-schools by spreading awareness and education in the area of sustainability, and the need to build sustainable societies for all its stakeholders. “The b-schools could engage in meaningful research, in collaboration with business and industry, to find innovative solutions that address the sustainability challenges of economies like ours."

After a three-day intensive discussion on the theme of “Taking the lead towards sustainable development”, the IAJBS 15th World Forum, the many deliberations were agreed upon. Some of them are:

1. IAJBS recommends that sustainability be included in the institutions’ strategic plan.
   
2. Make socio-environmental
   concerns and ethical fibre a non-negotiable part of
   admissions filter.
   
3. One of the reasons, perhaps, why students fail to appreciate the socio-environmental issues as impacting businesses, is because there are very few academic social science inputs in the course-work. While economics is taught, there is no social science dept, which provides a grounding in subjects like sociology, anthropology, political science, etc (this is more important in India, where increasingly most students come with a science/engineering degrees).
   
4. Institutes can themselves become example of “inclusive development” by promoting positive discrimination in their internal practices.

New book on IB
Prof Rakesh Mohan Joshi, faculty, IIFT, has published a book named International Business. The author brings in his rich experience to write a highly comprehensive and authentic textbook with a global orientation, especially designed to meet the requirements of MBA students and global managers. The book assumes high significance in the present era of globalisation, which opens up new opportunities for business enterprises while offering numerous challenges. Developing a thorough conceptual understanding of international business has become crucial to success not only for the managers who operate internationally, but also for those who operate domestically.

The book contains 20 chapters, beginning with an overview of globalisation and international business. The book discusses in detail theories of international trade, international trade patterns, institutional framework, the World Trade Organization, and international economic integration. The book is published by Oxford University Press and priced at Rs 425

New course at Manipal
Manipal University has started MBA in media & entertainment in association with Whistling Woods International. The two-year MBA programme in media & entertainment has specialisations in film, broadcasting, new and interactive media and event management. The new batch will start from August 2009. The programme commencing January 2009 is open to those who have completed any undergraduate degree, are excited about acquiring a combination of creativity and business rigour and aspire to be media professionals. To download the information on brochure/application kit, one can log onto www.manipal.edu/me or call 099020 25870 or write to mbame@manipalu.com for further queries.
The first year of the programme will be conducted at the Manipal University off campus in Bangalore covering all general management subjects and media case studies. The second year of the programme will consist of hands on training at the Whistling Woods premises in Mumbai.

The Indian media and entertainment industry is expected to grow at a 19 per cent compound annual growth rate. A course like this has a lot to offer to the industry.

IIM-K launches dual specialisation Exec PGP
New Delhi, June 9, 2009: Indian Institute of Management, Khozikode (IIMK) has launched Executive Post Graduate Programme (ePGP), as part of its management programmes in partnership with Hughes Communications. ePGP is the first of its kind to be offered in India, designed exclusively for working professionals.

The two-year Post Graduate Diploma programme will entail a combination of interactive distance learning and on-campus learning sessions with the faculty from IIM-K and other visiting faculty from reputed academic institutions and industry. The first year will cover 27 courses in general management spread over two terms with 450 hours of instruction of which 75 hours on campus and the remaining 375 hours on interactive learning platform. In the second year, students have to choose two specialization modules from among Operations Management, Strategic Management, Marketing and Finance. Each specialization will be for 180 hours each.

Interested candidates will undergo a selection based on Executive Management Aptitude Test (eMAT) conducted by IIM-K every year and the interviews, through IOL platform, of the short-listed candidates based on the eMAT. Entry to ePGP is restricted to Graduates/CA/ICWA having at least five years of work experience. A fee of Rs 4, 97,000 would be charged for the complete course. www.iimk.ac.in / www.hnge.in

The ‘DU dream’
Outstation students throng the city to apply for Delhi University, braving the summer heat.
June 3, 2009: Thousandsof students from across the country have started flocking various colleges of the Delhi University (DU) to get the forms for the new academic session. The OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) forms are available from June 1-15 at a nominal cost of Rs 50. Besides the forms being available at various counters, colleges like St Stephens, which bring out their own forms for the admissions, are being flooded with students and anxious parents.

“My son secured 64 per cent. It has been my wish to see him study in DU though the competition is really tough.  We have come from Meerut and my son wants to pursue a course in either BA or BCom. But we will have to see for now till the results come out,” says Seema Srivastava.

Srivastava is one among many parents who have the ‘DU dream’. She traveled from Meerut to Delhi early in the morning so that her son could fill and submit the forms on time.   

Thousands of students throng the DU campuses every year at this time in a hope to secure admissions in colleges known as the premier colleges in the country. What attracts them is more than the college name, faculty or the peers. For some, it’s a heartfelt desire, others take it as a challenge, and still others see it as the first steps towards a bright future.

Mona from Sonipat convinced her friends and family to apply for the university. All she wants is to study in DU.

“She is a friend of mine and we have all come from Sonipat. I am a DU student of commerce and even she wants to do her graduation from DU. She has no college in mind as of now, all she desires is to be a part of DU,” says Radhika.

“I have secured 82 per cent and it’s my dream to study in DU,” added Mona.

Students from places like Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Meerut, Haryana and even from down South, could be seen walking from one college to another, braving the excruciating Delhi heat.

“I have come from Hyderabad and am staying with my guardians in Ghaziabad. But I have come for the forms on my own. It’s very tedious, especially in this scorching heat to find out about colleges and courses,” says Munal Goel who secured 94.25 per cent in his boards.

The fate of these youngsters, who are on the threshold of their college life, will depend on the cut-off list which would be a reality check for them as the competition is extremely strong. There are around 49,000 seats in 61 colleges, for which the forms are being sold for the admissions.

The first admission list is scheduled to come out on June 25. top

DU admission: Help’s at hand
June 2, 2009: Delhi University admissions are closely watched by everybody in India. And why not? Every year some previous cut-off record is broken, many hopes dashed and a lot of students fight their way through hostels. The university has produced a number of civil servants, political leaders, academics and business tycoons. The students are seen as future leaders of the country.

In this mayhem, there are some faceless students who ensure that these future leaders have a smooth sail through the admission process. They do not ask for anything in return, at the most they ask for a smile when they answer your query. These students are the student volunteers and union members of the respective colleges.

As you enter Gargi College in South Delhi, two young girls will be standing with badges of student volunteer. They will be more than happy to guide you through a number of rooms, which otherwise will open up a box of troubles for you. “Our union members announced that they will need volunteers during admission process as 12-13 of them can’t handle it all themselves. I gave my name. I cut short my summer holidays at home and came back early for this work,” says Kanika, a Chemistry (Hons) student at Gargi.

Once you are settled in a hall with the OMR sheet to be filled, there is a group of union members who will help you fill it. Krutika Bopanna, vice-president, Gargi says: “We have two levels of volunteers. One is of the union members who are on the move all the time and other is of the student volunteers who are stationed at key positions.” That’s some management and efficient working!

In addition to this, many colleges provide help of student counsellors. Senior students of respective courses help the new comers choose a subject of preference. This facility is provided in most of the colleges. It is needed as a Std XII pass-out would not know nitty-gritty of specialised courses.

But the scene at main South Campus was different. University administration is allowing only DU Students’ Union members, or those who come through it, to volunteer. This has restricted many other student groups who would independently mobilise other students to help the juniors. At South Campus there were no volunteers to be found and every newcomer was left on one’s own. This simply means going to different places to fill forms for the same university. Top

Final placement at FMS
Against the backdrop of the global economic slowdown, Faculty of Management Studies, New Delhi, "provided 100 per cent placements to all entitled students of the graduating batch," according to the institute sources.

With 89 students in the MBA course and 42 students in MBA-MS to place, FMS ended the process with a domestic average of Rs 11.47 lakhs per annum for MBA and Rs 11.15 lakhs per annum for MBA-MS. Although the average saw a significant drop (around 20 per cent for both batches combined) as compared to the previous year, it was very respectable considering the current economic situation.

• The average domestic salary for accepted offers was Rs 11.47 lakhs per annum for MBA and Rs 11.15 lakhs per annum for MBA-MS.
  
  
• The highest domestic package was Rs 19 lakhs per annum offered by Microsoft India to a student of the MBA course.
  
  
• Nearly half of the students (49 per cent) in MBA and one third (34 per cent) in MBA-MS opted for a career in finance, a decrease of 3 per cent and 12 per cent respectively as compared to last year, rightfully reflecting the prevailing uncertainty in the financial sector.
  
  
• The top recruiters of the process included Standard Chartered Bank, Citibank, Microsoft India, Hindustan Unilever Limited and TAS.
  
• FMS managed to call several new recruiters this year which included firms as diverse as Barings PE, Wrigley's, Larsen & Toubro Ltd. and E&Y Dubai.
  
• A total of 31 new companies visited the campus from all the major domains. This included a good number of Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs). Top

IIFT students pen a book
For years Kevin Keller's books on marketing have been the Bible of marketing & part of all b-School's curricula. 'Marketing management' from Kotler & Keller has redefined marketing for generations globally. However four students from Indian Institute of Foreign Trade — Nishant Gupta, Apramey Dube, Vividha Kaul and Esha Mehra — have gone a level up from being mere readers. They have gone back to the original guru to take inputs from Kevin Keller himself for their latest book on branding.
The book, called The Titans of Branding, is based on a set of interviews of nine stalwarts in the world of branding. The students realised that the all these international voices had never been brought under one roof as a book.
The nine branding stalwarts interviewed for the book were:

1. Kevin Lane Keller, E B Osborn Professor of Marketing at The Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College
2. David Aaker, ET Grether Professor of Marketing and Public Policy, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
   
3. Jagdish Sheth, Charles H Kellstadt Professor of Marketing, Goizueta Business School, Emory University
   
4. Don E Schultz, Professor Emeritus, Integrated Marketing Communications, Northwestern University
   
5. Rod Brodie- Associate Dean, University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand
   
6. Rajendra Srivastava, Roberto Goizueta Chair in e-commerce and marketing, Goizueta Business School, US
   
7. Leslie de Chernatony, Professor of brand marketing, Birmingham School of Business, Birmingham
   
8. Leo Berry, Oklahoma State University
   
9. Bernd Schmitt, Robert D Calkins Professor of International Business, Columbia Business School, New York

Anusmaran 2009: IIM-B’s alumni meet
The IIM-B alumni association conducted its annual alumni meet ‘Anusmaran 2009’ in New Delhi on 17th May ’09 at the India Habitat Centre. It was truly an event that rekindled old memories as different batches caught up, re-calling their days at IIM-B by bringing the IIM-B community of alumni, students and faculty together.

This year the event is being held in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, New York, Hong Kong, London, Dubai and Singapore. In India, the meet kicked off from New Delhi and Hyderabad.

“IIM-B is very proud of that fact that their alumni spans across various programs since last 33 years. ‘Anusmaran 2009’ will bring together more than 1000 alums this year,” said Sankarshan Basu, associate professor, finance and chairperson of alumni affairs at IIM Bangalore.

"Anusmaran is a platform to acknowledge the contributions and achievements of all alumni. Moreover, it's a great opportunity for IIM-B alumni to meet old buddies, make new ones, rekindle relationship with the campus, engage with students, meet faculty, industry champions and last, but not least, have a great time together. We celebrated in high spirits, making the meet a huge success ", said Rakesh Godhwani, an alum from PGSM’04 and head of IIM-B alumni association.

The alumni discussed the roadmap of the alumni activities planned for the coming year and reviewed the activities undertaken during the past year followed by entertainment and interactive fun sessions. Finally, the event concluded with cocktail and dinner party. The alumni took home memorable souvenirs like IIM-B t-shirts and mugs. Top

B-schools hike fees
The Indian Institutes of Management have reworked their fees structure. IIM A, B, C and L have increased their fees by one to 1.5 lakh. After making an increase of Rs 1 lakh, the IIM-A is offering its flagship programme, postgraduate programme in management (PGPM) at Rs 12.5 lakh. Last year, the IIM-A raised the fees from Rs 4.5 lakh to Rs 11.5 lakh. The reason given by institute’s management is that the cost of teaching has gone up.

IIM-L increased the fees by Rs 1.5 lakh taking the total cost to Rs 4 lakh per annum. Following the suit of the best b-schools of the country many other institutes also went for a fee hike this time. Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB), ranked 15th in the Financial Times list of top b-schools in the world, has increased its academic fee by about 10 per cent to Rs 16.5 lakh for the batch joining in 2009-10 for its flagship one-year postgraduate programme (PGP). XLRI Jamshedpur has hiked its two-year postgraduate programme (PGP) fee by around 18 per cent for the 2009 batch onwards. XLRI’s fee hike this year is about 17.95 per cent for the 2009 batch onwards. The 2008-2010 batch pays Rs 7.5 lakh.

Fee hike has increased students’ troubles manifold. As the financial crisis looms, the students are not feeling confident enough to make big investments in education. The student loans are also given at more stringent conditions. At such a time, instead of standing by the students and providing them some respite, the fees hike seems to be working against the very community b-schools are meant for. Top

IIFT Convocation
Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), established by the ministry of commerce, government of India in 1963, celebrated it’s 43rd convocation where 641 elated students were awarded their degrees, diplomas and certificates. Dr C Rangarajan, chairman, prime minister’s Economic Advisory Council and former governor, RBI, graced the occasion as the chief guest and addressed the students at the convocation. On the occasion, KT Chacko, director, IIFT, congratulated the graduating students and encouraged them “to work for the betterment of the society and to reap their dreams of being young entrepreneurs as they are the future of the country.”

Addressing the audience, Rangarajan said that IIFT has emerged as a leading management institution with a focus on external sector which is of great importance in today’s time of turmoil. Export and import goods and services taken together constitute more than 35 per cent of the GDP. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the external sector in terms of research and training, and IIFT is filling this gap. He added “The world is passing through a difficult time. More so the developed world. The industrially advanced countries are now officially in recession. It is not known at this stage how long will this recession last and how deep it will be. India’s growth rates will be below 7 per cent as compared to 9 per cent in the previous year. Prospects do not appear to be better. While in 2008-09 the first half escaped the impact of global recession, in the current year the impact will be felt throughout.”

He further mentioned that “What stands out in the current episode is the regulatory failure. First, some parts of the financial system were either loosely regulated or not regulated at all. The second failure lies in the imperfect understanding of the implications of various derivative products… The Indian financial system is not directly exposed to the “toxic” or “distressed” assets of the developed world. This is not surprising since the Indian banks have very few branches abroad. However the indirect impact on the economy because of recession is very much there.”

At the convocation ceremony 641 students graduated. It included 168 students from the 2007-2009 batch of the two-year full time MBA in International Business. Prestigious Dun & Bradstreet award for best student was awarded to Ruchita Mishra, MBA-IB batch 2007-09. The Sunita Chisti awards were given to Ruchita Mishra from IIFT Delhi and Rishabh Chandra from IIFT Kolkata for best performance in ‘Economics & Trade Policy’. Gold medal was again awarded to Ruchita Mishra. Mohit Lohia & Nipun Gupta bagged the silver medal while Shruti Mehrotra was awarded the bronze medal. Top

LBS spreads knowledge
According to the official website of London Business School, LBS, Google and Telegraph.co.uk have announced a partnership to provide unique bite-sized insights from some of the UK’s leading organisations via a new YouTube channel called Survival of The Fastest.

Turbulent times offer an opportunity for the most nimble businesses to get ahead. Decision-makers must act without delay and drawing inspiration from successful leaders becomes critical. Survival of The Fastest, hosted on the YouTube platform, has been designed as an online thought leadership community for business leaders, offering credible insights into management areas ranging from finance and marketing to eCommerce. Telegraph.co.uk will also host a selection of the videos on its Your Business channel Telegraph.co.uk/yourbusiness.

Commenting on the partnership, Renaud Besnard, head of ads product launches EMEA, Google said: “We are delighted to be working with London Business School and Telegraph.co.uk. Both organisations have brought their own expertise to this project, the result being a content-rich channel harnessing the vast reach of YouTube, which we hope will be a useful resource for leaders looking for those windows of opportunity in the downturn.”

As the academic partner, London Business School has made available a number of its world-class faculty who have each provided concise video contributions discussing different ways of ‘speeding up’ in the slowdown. For example, how can medium to large businesses remain nimble and maintain competitive advantage in a downturn? Should marketers focus on gaining share in today’s climate? What is the value of online strategy?

Andrew Gowers, head of external relations at LBS added: “The launch of this channel represents a fantastic opportunity for us to disseminate business insights from our global faculty to as wide an audience as possible. We want London Business School to be universally recognised for what it is: one of the world’s most authoritative sources of commentary and analysis on the big issues in business, from finance and economics to management and leadership.” Top

India at NUS
The team from SJMSOM, IIT Bombay created history by being the first ever team from India to reach finals of the National University of Singapore Cerebrations Global Business Challenge, the annual flagship event of NUS held at Singapore. The event saw participation from more than 200 colleges from across 30 countries. This is the second time in the last five years that a team from SJMSOM has reached the semi finals (the only Indian college that holds this distinction) and the first one to reach the finals. In the fiercely fought competition the team of first year students from SJMSOM beat ISB, Hyderabad in the semis to reach the finals where they achieved the runners-up position. The third team to reach the finals was from NYU - Stern. The team won several accolades for the country and the college in an international event of such scale. The team from Duke University won the event.

The event saw participation of more than 500 teams from the many that applied. After five elimination rounds, six teams qualified for the semi finals and after the semi finals three teams made it to the finals of the event where the CEO’s, CFO’s and the who’s who of the Singaporean business community were present as judges. The two-day long battle culminated with a corporate dinner. Top

International loans
Harvard University and the Harvard University Employees Credit Union have announced a partnership that will make Credit Union loans available to international graduate and professional students. This is the second time in two months that the University has secured a new source of funding after major lenders withdrew from the market for international student loans late last year.

In February, Harvard signed an agreement with JPMorgan Chase to provide its approximately 3,300 international graduate and professional students access to private education loans without requiring a co-signer. International students at Harvard College are eligible for the college’s separate financial aid programme.

“Our overall objective is to ensure that a Harvard graduate education remains accessible to talented students regardless of where they live,” said Dan Shore, Harvard’s chief financial officer. “The agreement with the Harvard Credit Union, combined with the recently completed agreement with JPMorgan Chase, creates multiple lending options for our international graduate and professional students at a time of significant uncertainty in the global credit markets.”

In the past, only a handful of lenders provided loans to students from abroad without requiring them to find a US resident who was willing to co-sign the loan. When the financial markets began to fall last year, even those lenders declined to provide such loans, casting uncertainty on the plans of anyone from abroad interested in pursuing an advanced degree on a US campus. The agreement with the Credit Union expands the pool of available funds and similarly does not require a co-signer. The Credit Union also will offer private loans to domestic students enrolled in graduate and professional programmes at Harvard.

“We are pleased to be able to offer assistance to Harvard students from abroad,” said Eugene Foley, president and chief executive officer of the Credit Union. “We also welcome the opportunity to begin providing loans to the broader population of graduate and professional students who study at Harvard.” Top

Animation course at Manipal
As part of the programme, students will be exposed to traditional and digital arts, advanced tools and soft-skills training.

Number of seats: 75

Eligibility: Students who have cleared (or expecting results) 10+2 or equivalent examinations with a creative bent of mind and good at visual arts can apply to the program. Students who have also done a basic course in Animation, and are looking at building a career in the industry, can apply directly to the 2nd year of the programme through lateral entry.

Admission procedure: Eligible candidates will be invited for a personal interview. Admissions will be based on the performance in the interview.

Last date: June 30, 2009

Course commences on: August 2009

Tel: 080-2521 0001
Email: animation@manipalu.com
Website: www.manipal.edu/animation. Top

SJMSOM creates history at NUS Cerebrations
The team from SJMSOM, IIT Bombay created history by being the first ever team from India to reach finals of the NUS Cerebrations Global Business Challenge, the annual flagship event of NUS held at Singapore. The event saw participation from more than 200 colleges from across 30 countries. This is the second time in the last five years that a team from SJMSOM has reached the semi finals (the only Indian college that holds this distinction) and the first one to reach the Finals.

In the fiercely fought competition the team of first year students from SJMSOM beat ISB, Hyderabad in the Semis to reach the finals where they achieved the runners – up position. The third team to reach the finals was from NYU – Stern. The team won several accolades for the country and the college in an international event of such scale. The team from Duke University won the event.

The event saw participation of more than 500 teams from the many that applied. After five elimination rounds, 6 teams qualified for the semi finals and after the semi finals three teams made it to the finals of the event where the CEO’s, CFO’s and the who’s who of the Singaporean business community were present as judges. The two day long battle culminated with a corporate dinner. Top

GEMS education announces expansion plans for India
Global Education Management Systems (GEMS), one of the largest global providers of private education in the K-12 segment, currently managing over 100 schools in various countries spread over four continents, is all set to expand extensively in India through a network of owned and managed private K-12 schools.

At present, GEMS manages around 10 schools in India spread over multiple locations in the country and has announced plans for expanding in the next three years to 50 Schools which will be fully equipped to provide world-class education to Indian children.

The Educational Group’s ambitious plans for India are being spearheaded by its recently appointed Country Head, Mr. Ajey Kumar. Backed by rich experience of working across leading Multinational and Indian companies in various top level capacities, Kumar brings in apt business acumen on board. ‘’Over the years, GEMS has carved a niche for itself globally, enabling the children to develop to their full potential within a dynamic, innovative and collaborative learning environment. Going forward, not only will we grow the GEMS network in India extensively, but will also play a leadership role in growing and expanding the organized K12 education sector in India so as to enable Indian parents to have access to high quality international standards in education”, shared Mr. Kumar, Country Head, GEMS Education.

Mr. Sunny Varkey, the Global Educationist, is the Founder Chairman of the GEMS group which has an experience of over 5 decades in providing total school management solutions worldwide. Mr Varkey mentioned, “With more players willing to invest in the education sector in India, GEMS will not only be establishing its own schools, but will also be partnering other investors for establishing new schools or for taking over existing schools.” Recently, Mr. Varkey was honoured with Padmashree and Rajiv Gandhi award for his exemplary contribution to the education sector.

About GEMS Education Worldwide:
GEMS manages a growing network of over 100 high quality international schools around the world. GEMS network of schools provide a unique brand of holistic education to 85,000 students from over 124 countries, employing over 6,200 education professionals, specialists and staff from over 50 nationalities. Supported by a network of eminent international advisors in the field of education, GEMS global network of multi-skilled specialists and in-house experts provide invaluable support and guidance in all areas related to schools, delivering world class standards of education. ‘GEMS Education’ offers total school management solutions. From project inception and planning to ongoing operations of schools, GEMS offers a total solutions approach to the management of new school projects and existing schools.

About GEMS Education India:
GEMS India has a network of around ten schools in India spread over multiple locations and occupies a leading space in the Indian private K-12 education sector. It also advises various State Governments and Governmental entities on new initiatives and reforms in the Education sector in India. GEMS also provides Audit and Consulting services to various private sector players in the Indian Education sector. GEMS India is expanding aggressively and is in the process of adding many more new schools to its network in the Indian Sub - Continent.

Further information on the company can be found at www.gemseducation.com Top

IIM-A’s Leverage 2009
Leverage 2009, the first edition of IIM-Ahmedabad’s Venture Capital and Private Equity Conference was held on February this year. The event meant a confluence of industry experts, practitioners, advisors, academicians and students who would together identify and address the key issues and trends relevant to venture capitalists, private equity investors and entrepreneurs. The conference featured several illustrious speakers such as M Damodaran (ex SEBI chairman), Kanwal Rekhi (CEO, Inventus), Sandeep Singhal (co-Founder, Nexus Capital), Mahesh Murthy (Partner, Seedfund).

The inaugural session kicked off with the opening address by Prof BH Jajoo, dean, IIM-Ahmedabad. Jajoo applauded the efforts put in by students to organise the event and underlined the importance of entrepreneurship in the current economic turmoil. The event with theme “Venture Capital and Private Equity: Investing and Managing Portfolios in Distressed Times” consisted of a business plan showcase event and high profile speaker series. The inaugural session marked the release of the first magazine on Venture Capital and Private Equity, Leverage.

Address by M Damodaran focussed on some of the key issues in private equity given the current economic slowdown. According to him, the increasing leverage in investments can’t be handled by smaller companies, and this leads to instability.

Private equity as an investment opportunity is available only to some players in the market, and this information asymmetry is bound to lead to destabilisation of the markets. While there is a widespread belief that private equity brings in better corporate governance, Damodaran differed from that view by stating that there is ample evidence that disclosure levels do not always increase with private equity. When asked about whether audit reforms are needed, in the light of the Satyam fiasco, he responded by stating that what is needed is rotation of auditors in a phased manner, similar to public sector banks to avoid familiarity with the management. Top

FMS on Indo-US ties
The 44th President of the United States has managed to engage the interest of the world and India is no exception. To understand more about this phenomenon, the US embassy in India organised a talk on “Barack Obama and Indo- US relations” at the Faculty of Management Studies, New Delhi. John Davison, economic minister counsellor at the US embassy came to the FMS campus to share his insights on the topic and took questions on the expected impact of the new administration on relations with India.

Davison started off by speaking at length on the importance that Americans attach to the Presidential elections as it is the closest thing to royalty that they have known. The swearing-in ceremony has always been an event to look forward to for most Americans. However, this year even non-Americans took keen interest in the event making it a truly international event.

The youth especially have taken to natural liking for President Obama , him being the youngest US President since the days of the legendary John F Kennedy. It is interesting that it’s not only Obama but also his young family that has infused a fresh dimension to the image of the Presidency. Davison then went on to talk of Obama’s inaugural address, discussing the major points that were made. A good part of the address was devoted to the present financial crisis making it the single most important task ahead of the new President. Obama stressed on the need to find solutions from within rather than looking outward for quick fixes. Top