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Dr Kondap, an M.Tech, Masters in Marketing Management and Ph.D, commended his career as a Sales Engineer at ABB and rose to become Sr. Vice President, entered into academics by being a Visiting Faculty at JBIMS, Sydenham, Chetna, Somaiyya and NMIMS. Later, he joined NMIMS as Professor of Marketing, where he held responsibilities like Dean, Director (in-charge), Pro-Vice Chancellor and Vice Chancellor.

During Dr. Kondap's tenure as Vice Chancellor, NMIMS declared as Deemed University by the Ministry of HRD and received many awards for excellence in management education like Golden Peacock Award, Dr. J J Irani Award, Gurukul Jyothi Award and BMA's Outstanding Management Institute Award for Five Years. NAAC has also accredited NMIMS with A Grade during his tenure.

The Prof Dharni Sinha Memorial Award for Excellence in Management Education was sponsored by Grid Consultants P Ltd., and has been conferred with six other Leadership Awards by Dr PN Singh, Prof YK Bhushan and Prof G Nanayakkara.

In response to the conferment of the Award, Dr Kondap acknowledged the guidance and support given by Amrish Patel, Hon'ble Chancellor and President, Vile Parle Kelavani Mandal, BP Sheth, Vice President, SVKM and Prof YK Bhushan, Sr. Advisor & Campus Head, IBS, Mumbai, Vice Chancellor, ICFAI University, Meghalaya and Chairman, Federation of Universities and Faculty Colleagues and Staff.
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The Delhi meet held at the India Habitat Centre witnessed over 400 alumni including Mr Rajeev Karwal (CEO & Founder, Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions), Mr Subhinder Singh Prem (Managing Director - Reebok India) and Mr Prabhat Unmat (Vice President a Marketing, Vodaphone). The Mumbai meet was attended by 130 alumni including TV personality and show host Mini Mathur. Bangalore witnessed 75 guests, while the Kolkata meet was attended by 30 guests and Chennai meet was attended by 25 guests. The alumni meet, organized for the first time in Hyderabad was attended by 60 alumni, including Mr Bhasker Reddy, Promoter, Marriott hotels.

Expressing his happiness, Mr Debashis Das (Category Manager, Henkel and President of Alumni Association) said, aCongratulations to all student managers of Alcom on a very well organised eventa. Mr. Rajeev Karwal (CEO a Founder, Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions) added, aThe Alumni meet provides an opportunity to the Institute to acknowledge the contributions and achievements of its alumni.

Mr Rajesh Kumar (VP, South Chapter), Dr Jayanthi Ranjan, Chairperson, International Relations and Dr Rashmi Agarwal, Chairperson, Media Committee too congratulated the alumni and expressed their happiness to see students adapting to the professional world.
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He discussed the subprime crisis and gave insights as to what managers and leaders should do in this constantly changing and uncertain environment. His speech included two important concepts. First, the Chaos theory in which he described how an initial small change may have a huge impact at the end. Second, the psychological effect called the ripple effect, which is clearly evident in todayas financial turmoil. He talked about how different disciplines impinge on each other and the importance of the need to be interconnected cross disciplinary rather than being cocooned in one discipline. He said that managers typically look at the resources and optimization of those resources. Leadership on the other hand looks at how differently these resources can be used, how to change the constraints and get more of these resources. Leaders distinctively change the rules of the game and the business model itself. Leaders are visionaries and innovators. They do not compete with anybody and donat outrun but they sure outsmart others in the game.
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The events were then kicked off with the first competition, 'Concept 2 Creative', organized by MAXI, Marketing Association of XLRI, featured five teams from MDI, MICA, XLRI, S.P. Jain and IIM Ahmedabad. Team Moninjas from XLRI and Team Mastikhor Kids from MDI came first and second respectively, winning a total prize money of Rs. 75, 000. 'Prometheus', was organized by the Finance Association of XLRI, FINAX, in partnership with L&T; and was judged by Mr. Sivaraman. Prometheus saw participants from S.P. Jain, IIMC, IIMK, MDI, IIT Bombay, as well as XLRI. The event was won by the team from S. P. Jain which walked away with Rs. 70,000. There was a tie for the second place between the teams from IIT Bombay and IIM-K each winning INR 15,000. Informal events such as were also scheduled, for both visiting participants as well as students of XLRI.

The two-day long event War of Wits saw participation from six teams a two from XLRI and one each from MDI Gurgaon, TISS, SP Jain and VGSOM. The flagship event of Ensemble, Olympians, was also concluded on the second day. The team from MDI Gurgaon, consisting of Abhilash Mohapatra, Akash Bhatia and Vipul Goyal, walked away with the first place and a cash prize of one lakh rupees. The teams from XLRI and IIM Lucknow shared second place. The social event, Ashraya, in which participants had to come up with suggestions on what Self Help Groups of Rajnagar and Gamahria blocks near Jamshedpur could do with the idle funds that they had accumulated over the years. Team Shreyas from XLRI came in first, with the teams from IIM-L and MANAGE tying at second place. XLRIas flagship quiz El Dorado, was hosted by Barry OaBrien. The XLRI team featuring Akhil Mathew and Akshay Rajagopal finished first, winning INR 15,000 while the team finishing second, consisting of Krishnan S and Reju Mathew walked away with INR 10,000.

ABG Boardroom, with a prize of INR 2,50,000 featured one team each from IIMA, IIMB, IIMC, IIML, ISB Hyderabad and XLRI, and tested participants on their business and strategic acumen as well as their knowledge of all business functions. Each of the teams was expected to present their plans on ABGas future growth to a panel of ABG officials. The team from ISB, Hyderabad was adjudged the overall winners. The Entrepreneurship Summit saw Mr Rakesh Mahajan, CEO, Maspar, and Mr Rahul Butalia, CEO, ISEO Chemdis, sharing their knowledge and experiences with students. Mr Amitava Ghosh, Founder and Chairman, Kala Mandir was also present. 'Samarpan 08', a Baplan contest was organized by Crescent, the Committee for Research, Strategy, Consulting and Entrepreneurship and featured teams from IIFT Delhi, IIM B, XLRI, XIM Bhubaneshwar, SPJIMR Mumbai and FMS, Delhi. Quest Adventura, organized by the XLRI Nature Club, XLANC, tested participants on parameters including general awareness, analytical skills, endurance, team spirit, and strategy building.

The three day fest saw many informal events such as Sudoku, Pot a pourri, Nukkad, a street play competition and JamMax, an event organized in partnership with Nokia. The festival concluded with the Rock Night, a concert by band Bandish.
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I can remember the first time I got involved in working with a distance-learning MBA course, many years ago. At the time, each student received the usual weighty pack of books and teaching notes. Assignments had to be completed and attached to a cover note made of four sheets of carbon paper (remember that?) and sent out in the post. How times have changed. Now that the Internet has made communication faster and more reliable, this has opened up a vast array of opportunities for students to communicate more effectively with faculty and, perhaps more importantly, with each other.


No matter how good the content of the course you intend to embark upon, one of the most significant aspects of completing the MBA is the opportunity to develop team-working skills and networking opportunities with your peers. Full-time students benefit immediately from making new friendships and business acquaintances when they are studying. However, many distance-learning students report to us that their own part-time study has allowed existing work relationships and networks to be maintained. The importance of networking does depend on individual needs, such as whether or not you are using the MBA to switch careers. The ability to maintain existing social networks also provides the opportunity to help the learning process, such as teaming up with people you work with who may be studying a different MBA at the same time.

If networking and team-working are important elements of an MBA, can they be achieved when you are a distance-learning student? When you are considering a distance-learning MBA there are a number of questions that you might want to ask of each course on your short-list:

1. What opportunities are there to meet up with fellow students?

Distance-learning students are usually allocated into study groups of typically 10-12 people. If you live in a major city, it is possible that your group will comprise of people nearest to you, opening the possibility of meeting up fairly regularly. Distance-learning programs can have a more diverse range of students. Good team-building creates team diversity and distance-learning study can exploit this advantage easily.

Most courses will offer some opportunity to meet your peers at weekend seminars or, in some cases, longer asummer schoolsa. These seminars are your best opportunity to network and develop your own less formal study groups with people you really want to work with. Some universities provide classes in locations away from their own campus, in places that are more convenient for the student population.
Along with meeting fellow distance-learning students, you might want to ask whether you can network with students from other learning delivery modes. Check whether or not you will be allowed to study some courses with full-time students or on intensive modular weeks. Courses vary tremendously in how flexible they are when allowing students to mix together and network.

2. If I live remotely, can I still work with other students?

The obvious advantage of full time study is the scheduled time for formal learning in lectures and syndicate groups. However, we must add that full-time students often emphasize the value of their additional akitchen conversationsa, where they informally discuss the work they are doing. Their close proximity facilitates a deeper understanding of the course materials through ad hoc help. Distance-learning courses need to replicate these situations as much as possible.

All distance-learning courses should offer some opportunity for group based self-help when studying. These days the most effective way to achieve this is via an Internet-based study group. For example, at Warwick we have message boards and discussion boards for every subject and assignment. This allows students to work with each other when trying to understand the more complex aspects of say, financial accounting or when finishing one of their assignments. We encourage students to post questions on topics they are struggling with: aI donat understand figure 3.2 in the textbook. Can a non-academic explain it to me?a This allows the informal learning to occur.

In most cases there will also be acafA and sociala areas of the websites, where students can arrange meetings, develop business relationships or just talk about sport.

3. Will there be team-based activity?

One of the highlights of a full-time course is the intensive syndicate team work, working on games and case study presentations. From personal experience, I know how valuable the dynamic, competitive syndicate team environment can be. Increasingly, technology is allowing team-based activity on distance-learning courses, often in real time. Many universities have developed web-based games and business simulations that are managed in teams. Similarly, courses can often require students who are located in different parts of the world to compile joint reports, mainly using message boards and email as primary means of communication.

My experience of observing this process and marking the resulting assignments shows that such exercises provide extremely valuable practice in team-working and team-building. These sorts of exercises rely on each person accepting responsibility for specific parts of the overall task and delivering on-time, to the quality demanded by their peers. Despite the restrictions of the technology, the same team dynamics issues and tensions occur as in the normal classroom environment. One downside of such real time working is the need to match everyoneas timing. If you are in a different time zone to everyone else, you may find yourself having to rise at 3am for a marketing simulation!

4. Are there further developments to the team-based learning experience forthcoming?

In the future, software will allow students to participate in lectures in real time as if they were present in class. Your computer screen, in the future, will show both the teaching faculty and all the participants who have logged in for the same session. This will further enhance the learning experience and allow students to network with their classmates as they learn. We are currently trialing such software and hope to have it available as soon as it is robust enough.

Final comments

It should be no surprise that study via distance-learning is the real growth area for MBA courses at present. Increasing awareness of the benefits of MBA study in high-growth economies has meant that demand remains very robust Students are fortunate that approaches to delivery have kept pace with technology to a good extent and team-based working and networking are now easier on courses than they ever have been. If you like to work with others as you study, you will find plenty of opportunity to do so if you carefully examine each provider to see which ones offer the right options. You should also remember that the networking continues once you graduate through alumni networks. In most cases, all students share the same networking opportunities and often continue to be part of the extended MBA community.

Source: topmba.com

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The theme of the competition was environment friendly businesses with the focus on topics related to air, solid and liquid waste treatment and management, water management, recycling, reuse, environment management systems, greening of supply chain, green marketing, developing a green product or service etc. The competition had three stages and started with the submission of the entire Business Plan. At the second stage held at NITIE, 15 teams were asked to present their plans in front of various judges from the industry. Five teams from these made it to the finals held at Bhaidas Auditiorium, Mumbai. Team EABS presented a plan on Integerated dairy farming, providing value & quality to the customer.

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Visitors were greeted to an array of stalls and colourful costumes put up by the students. People ran into avatars of Ganesh and Shivji, policemen and prisoners, magicians and aliens and more. The themes of the games ranged from cricket to mythology. The visitors took part in competitions like Antakshari, Mr and Mrs Index and a kidsa dance competition. Apart from the 'Ek Minute' events, there was a Salsa performance by Planet Salsa.

Through this yearas fair, IIM Lucknow strengthened its ties with various NGOs. The puppet show organised by the NGO, Prithvi Innovations, was enjoyed by the kids & adults alike. Another NGO, Mahila Samkhya, also utilized the opportunity by putting up stalls at the 'Index' ground. Index 2008 concluded with a rock show by IIM Lucknowas own rock band '3.4'.
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The World Entrepreneurship Forum bought together 96 selected personalities representing 35 nationalities. Four profiles that each have an entrepreneurial role in society: entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, politicians, and experts, met and discussed the topic of 'The entrepreneur as a creator of economic wealth and social justice'. 12 recommendations were made by the think-tank members. Based on these recommendations, further research will be carried out at the business schools and application will be advised to entrepreneurs.

Dr Nikhil Agarwal, Director of Europe-Asia Business School (EABS), has been invited along with two other Indians to be part of the think-tank. Dr Agarwal said "The troubled times has brought the focus back on entrepreneurship. Developing nations like India should build up the enterprises which can provide not only employment to the people but help in eradicating the poverty from the countrya.
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What would be a brief overview of operations management?

Operations management as a stream nowadays has a specific focus. It has taken off very well this year, particularly so after 2005 because every company needs a manager who will understand the overall enterprise process. Operations management highlights the process, technology and people aspects. Whether the person works in the domain of retail, materials, supply chain logistics, IT or consulting, he will have a comprehensive view of the enterprise. He will have himself trained in particular skills and competencies in order to make the processes efficient. That is as far as operations are concerned. Operations management means optimizing your costs and making the process more and more efficient. These are the tools which are taught to students here.

When a person goes for a course in operations management, is he in a sense restricting his scope of work to operations?

No, no. In fact because he is an operations manager all the other domains are open to him. The only thing is that he does not go into is the core of marketing. He may not for instance straightaway be picked up in brand management, sales management or something on those lines. However, he will be picked up by a consultancy where they are improvising a marketing process. He has the domain knowledge and he can work there. As in the case of banks, most of the banks select students and so do most of the consultancies and insurance companies. It is not limited to the manufacturing setup now. The very traditional view that was there pre 1995 was that operations management meant production management or an enhanced version of it. It's not like that.

Let us consider a general MBA and an MBA in operations management who are in the same job profile. What would be the principle difference between them?

Let us compare two people; MBA in marketing and MBA in operations from SIOM. The MBA in marketing learns a lot of subjects like sales and distribution. His department or domain is related to only the marketing function of the enterprise. An MBA in operations management from SIOM learns many things. He studies the total organization, in short; particularly the supply chain management and productivity techniques. We teach them productivity technology, not only in manufacturing department but also other departments. The cases through which they learn are across many issues such as productivity of safe people on job. When we teach them quality management it is quality management at services like banks, insurance and so on. Thus they get an overview of all the departments and in addition to this they also gain specialized knowledge in process improvement and systems improvement. This is why they are called operations specialists and they know the details of all operations within an enterprise. That is where they can contribute and with an MBA from SIOM they will pass out with a green belt certification in six sigma and an additional knowledge of CPIM (Certified in Production and Inventory Management), certified professional in supply chain management and they will also have specialized instructions in logistics in the workshop. There is about 100 hours of actual training on SAP at a user level. In this way IT, supply chain and quality are integrated.

Some faculty at B-schools feel that students eventually opt for specialized course such as those of operations and retail management because of lack of options at the general MBA level. What are your thoughts about that?

No, I don't think that is a fact. Students do not opt for these courses because there are no options available. They do so because the industry is responding to institutes with such courses in a very healthy manner. Retail is getting hampered because of the lack of manpower and people with a holistic view of the whole retail process. Forget about the fact that even counter boys with good skills are difficult to find these days! Operation specialists are welcomed very well in retail because they have a holistic view, the industry is responding very well and that is why students wish to opt for retail. These are what we call evolving fields and the industry has realized that there is space for specialists here.

The IIMs are currently not offering operations management as a course. They do have subjects related to operations as a part of their general MBA course. Considering there is a demand from the industry for operations management MBAs, why is that these institutes are not offering a specialized operations management course?

Probably their hands are full! (Laughs) I have interacted with good IIM faculty such as teachers who teach operations and they have come to SIOM for logistics, supply chain and operations related case studies. They have a fair amount of intellectual capital for these courses. I was under the assumption that they do have a specialized course. Generally any good B-school would have four-five specialized courses catering to marketing, finance, HR, IT and operations.

Let us consider a graduate from SIOM who wishes to make a switch and work in the marketing or finance sector. What are the opportunities for him or her?

There are opportunities for such a student. Normally freshers join as management trainees and after a gap of two-three years they go to a particular department. After doing so, they are open to go into any line. From the 2005 batch, people are now involved in the manufacturing sector, supply chain and consultancy where they are senior consultants and handling various clients.

How are operations specialists placed as far as the degree restricting their career choices is concerned?

The degree gives a very open view to them. Students here can be placed in marketing, supply chain or in retail. A simple comparison can be that probably a marketing MBA goes to retail in a frontend job and an operations specialist who wants to make it to retail as his domain would join because he knows the processes from the backend of the supply chain till the frontend and which quality initiatives will help make it more efficient. His track of growth is fast and his understanding about the overall functioning is quite vast and comprehensive.

What has been the average Symbiosis National Aptitude Test (SNAP) cut-off for SIOM?

A single number as a cutoff cannot be specified because in the past, a student with a SNAP score of 65-70 marks has been admitted as has a student with a SNAP score of 30. Consider that the weightage for the SNAP score is only 20 percent. In this case, a person having a very good academic record, work experience and extracurricular record but a low SNAP score would also be selected. It is not the case that the top 40 or all students above a SNAP score of say 50 will be selected. The marks are entered and the total out of 100 is calculated. Students are shortlisted on the basis of this total.

If there are not any specific weights allotted then the admissions process would be quite discretionary, wouldnat it?

Weights are allotted in the admissions process. Consider that the total marks are 100. A weight of 20 may be allotted for the SNAP score, work experience would probably be allotted 30 points, academic average which is career average (maybe 10th, 12th and B.E.) would have around 30 marks and the remaining 20 marks would be for the extracurricular record.

Is this breakup relatively fixed?

Yes, relatively fixed. But if it is seen that the year's SNAP scores are on the higher side then it is reworked. This is done so that only people who have scored very well in SNAP are not admitted. The institute requires students to have a very balanced personality and the whole objective in the assessment process is to get a very confident person; someone who is aware of issues such as developments in the business community. Evidence of this may be in present in the studentas general awareness score in SNAP or work-experience. The person should be aware about business and the nature of industry sectors. The institute needs students with very good communication skills and an extremely confident personality.

In most schools, if a student doesn't meet a certain cut-off then he is simply not considered. What would you like to say about that?

From my understanding of admission processes, in some cases people such as Chartered Accountants (CAs) do get additional weightage. Some people would accept all top scorers in SNAP. For example, maybe 20 percentage of the seats would be reserved for top scorers in SNAP similar to the way it is for AIEEE in engineering. So in this manner, every institute has different criteria.

Which institutes would you consider to be SIOMas peer institutes?

(Smiles) Thatas a nice word youare using a apeer institutesa. Actually if you compare the syllabi, I really feel that the instituteas course content is very different from that offered by other institutes. If you talk of MBA in operations as such, our sister institutes have many courses. Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM) has MBA in operations and so does Symbiosis Centre for Human Resources and Development (SCMHRD). National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE) is akin to a big brother for all the institutes offering MBA in operations management but it is looked at more from a perspective of industrial engineering or production management. The combination of IT, HR and the other domains such as retail and supply chain which is offered here is quite unique.

Why is it that only engineers are eligible for this course?

Umm, so that we can start at a higher platform. It is a skill building program and involves a lot of competencies where we give them a lot of specialized software. We can start at a higher platform as engineers have passed through the rigour of logical thinking, analysis and handling quantitative analysis.

Could you elaborate on the term atechno-business managersa which you use for students here?

There are reasons for us using this term of atechno-business managersa. Firstly, students here are people with a technical background. They have technical qualifications by virtue of being graduates in engineering disciplines such as computers, mechanical engineering and so on. They are provided with an MBA program which has a set of general management subjects. As a manager they must know the principles of management, leadership, corporate governance and business laws. In addition to this, there are a lot of subjects in finance, marketing and HR which helps give them a commercial outlook. Finance for instance is dealt quite in depth here. The course begins with debit-credit because they are non-commerce students and then they are taken up to the level of capital markets, investment banking, and wealth management and so on. By atechno-businessa we mean that they have the strategic view of making a commercial enterprise profitable and also the technical skills.

Of the students who write SNAP, what percentage applies to SIOM?

That's quite less. The institute started in 2005 and it is also a very niche course. In addition to this, only engineers are eligible to apply. Of the 90,000 people who appeared for SNAP last year, there were 35,000 engineers and some 3,000 odd of them applied to SIOM.

Coming to student life, how would you describe a typical day in the life of a student at SIOM in brief?

Oh my, you should ask them! What I feel is and what we plan is that their days start at 6 AM with non-academic rigour in terms of yoga, workout, gym and aerobics. This is compulsory. Students have to engage in this for an hour and this is so for both the years. There are 15 day shifts in which they switch between yoga, workout and gym. The gym is open for students to visit any time. After this there is breakfast and the classroom session starts at 9:00 or 9:30 AM depending on the batch they belong to. In the afternoon the students are given a short break from 12:30 to 3:00 PM and after this there are three more hours of classes. In all we have six hours devoted to classroom sessions, one or one and half hours for non-academics and generally about four-five hours of assignments per day.

Has any student ever wished to opt out of the morning routine?

Err, they do grumble because they have to get up early. It's very natural for them to do so but they cannot opt out of it. We don't give them a choice because we call it a 360 degree approach towards delivering the curriculum. When I say 360 degrees, classroom sessions are just a part or slice of it. We have lot of thrust on on-the-job training and projects. Then we have a lot of soft skills and community development which is another part and non-academics is another part.

Is there a dress code for attending classroom sessions?

Yes, in the building which houses classrooms we have a formal dress code but I wouldnat call it a uniform. Uniform is restricted to formal functions like guest lectures, seminars and placements. Elsewhere, regular formals like those which are permitted in offices.

What kind of room occupancy is there in the hostels?

The hostels operate on the principle of triple occupancy. As a rule they are told that instead of two people, there should be three people in a room. There are separate hostels for boys and girls.

What would be the overall hostel and mess expenses?

These amount to approximately Rs 42,000 per annum.

What are the negatives of being located in Nashik?

I think generally speaking it is perceived to be small, cool place; in the sense that Nashik is not like a metropolitan city where there is great infrastructure in terms of the things that the youth looks for, such as great malls and discotheques. Nashik does not have those but of course, malls are there. Nashik is a very happening place nowadays because it in a sense serves as a satellite city to Bombay and Pune and they are all crowded now.



Discuss this article in the Forum!
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Dr Irani, who is also the Chairman of the Board of Governors at IIM-Lucknow, presented an overview of the values and belief systems that have built and sustained the Tata image and philosophy till today. He identified Trust, Vision, Integrity & Credibility, Relevance and Compatibility as values ingrained in the Tata's philosophy of conducting their business. Dr Irani also highlighted the difficulty in sustaining peaceful co-existence of different value systems. The class had a discussion on the co-existence and importance of these value systems, how organizations generate their wealth and how they distribute it.

Talking about the distribution of wealth, he emphasized that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) should be built on a sustainable model. He illustrated the point through certain failed businesses that had generated consistent losses despite government backing and yet chose to be philanthropic, in effect using tax-payers' money and not self-generated profits to promote public causes. Dr. Irani was, however, of the view that what comes from the people should go back to the people.

IPMX participants, who possess substantial work experience, shared their experiences of situations where they were faced with ethical dilemmas. The interaction ended with a question and answer session based on business decisions, labour disputes and politics presented by Dr Irani.
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The convention aimed at learning leadership models from various successful organizations. It was addressed by leaders from the field of education and industry from India and abroad, including Professor Bhushan who spoke on aWhat makes a young professional ticka. The Leaders of Tomorrow project has been conducting one year leadership course for slum children studying in schools in Mumbai.
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Fortune Institute began its campaign with participation in the Delhi Half Marathon, wherein students carried the message aTake Pride, Do Vote - Make a Differencea for the masses. Management Institutes under Delhi University and IP University have joined hands in this campaign and have come forward to lend support through signature campaign on Election oath pledging to cast vote.

Prof AK. Puri, Director General of the Institute stated low polling as the primary reason for candidates with low percentage of votes getting elected, as per a research conducted by them on past Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. The elected candidates do not truly represent majority of the voters a the essential spirit of democracy, Prof. Puri stated further.

The Institute has also launched a signature campaign through an appeal to vote signed by personalities like Shahnaz Hussain, Satbir Silas Bedi, Arvind Kejrival, Prof. KK Agarwal, Vice Chancellor, IP University and Meeta Pandit, Vocalist. A signature campaign towards an Election Oath, pledging to take an oath to cast vote for life is also doing rounds. An electronic oath-taking through e-mail is in place at the website www.fortune.edu.in.
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Businesses, all across the globe, have started facing a business environment, which comprises not only traditional stakeholders, but also large numbers of non-traditional stakeholders a institutionalized community groups, environmental NGOs, minority groups, media and the society at large. Businesses, in order to perform in a sustainable manner, have to be responsive to the needs, demands and expectations of all these stakeholders. Countless social and ethical issues frame relationship between business and various stakeholders including government and society. As corporate India struggles to finds its social and ethical identity in national and global business environment that grows increasingly complex, managers are confronted with exceedingly difficult challenges in balancing their economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities to the variety of stakeholder groups with which they interact.

The programme will include the following modules to ensure that the participants will be exposed to the current international and domestic CSR initiatives:

1) Institutional environment and business
2) Concept of sustainability: the new broad agenda
3) Dimensions of sustainability
a) Social dimension
b) Environmental dimension
c) Economic dimension
4) Concept of corporate social responsibility
5) Performance: Efficiency and effectiveness
6) Inclusive organizations
7) Engaging with stakeholders
IIM-L: Business ethics
9) Public private partnership
10) Business success models, measurement and reporting
11) Indexing/ranking of businesses
12) Global level initiatives in CSR

"In India, till very recently the focus was on charity, which is not really CSR. Sustainable CSR programmes mean a cohesive mix of economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic tenets. In today's changed business scenario, there is an increased focus on giving back to society and creating a model which works long term and is sustainable and it is imperative that the best practices for inclusive growth are shared with the stakeholders", said Prof Sushil Kumar, Programme Director.
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Contestants for the Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition need to prepare a business plan that can meet traditional profitability and return-on-investment standards while also demonstrating eco-friendliness and eco-sensitivity by increasing sustainability. The students will highlight the specific sustainability benefits resulting from the project, such as climate change mitigation, energy efficiency, toxicity reduction, renewability, water security, etc while also spelling out the metrics by which these benefits could be quantified. Many entries have been received from Engineering and Management Institutes across India. Shortlisted teams will present their business plans to a panel of judges including industrialists and venture capitalists on December 04, 2008 at IIFT, New Delhi.

The finalists and semifinalists from India will earn a chance to participate in the March 2009 Sustainable Track Global Competition hosted at the Tepper School, Carnegie Mellon University and get cash awards of Rs 1, 00, 000 and Rs. 70, 000 respectively, towards roundtrip airfare travel to USA. The finalists will also get an opportunity to interact directly with top-tier venture capitalists and entrepreneurs who can help turn their plans into reality.
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Firms like Inkfruit, Rupeetalk, Redbus,LifeBlob and Netprice
represented the IT/ITES sector. Also, Printo from the printing sector;
MeritTrac from the personal training and evaluation business; Great
Place To Work Institute from the management consulting vertical;
Elements Akademia from the upcoming professional training sphere;
Healthizen, Vaatsalya, and HMRI from the healthcare domain;
Classteacher Learning Systems and ThinkLabs from the
Education/Educational Services domain; and SITG recruited during the
Entrepreneurship Day.
Speaking about the Entrepreneurship Day, Prof Sushil Kumar, Chairman-Placements at IIM Lucknow said, aThis initiative is IIM Lucknowas way of celebrating the entrepreneurial talent present within our community. In line with its motto, IIM Lucknow will continue to take such steps in its endeavor to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit.a Continuing in the same vein, Prof. Sushil Kumar added, aWhile IIM Lucknow has been the breeding ground for many a great entrepreneur in the past, this year the batch has several entrepreneurs as students. This confluence of Alumni and current students gave us the confidence to kick start this great initiative.a
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Speed is the most crucial aspect, with an average of just 45 seconds per question and the visual reasoning section should be given special attention. The CET tests the students further on verbal communication, general awareness and past performance through a GD-PI routine.

Samyak Pandya, a second year student at JBIMS, said that, aEveryone knows what their weaknesses are and work on them, but what students forget is that it is sharpening their strengths and using them astutely that is going to catapult their scores and give them the competitive edge needed to secure a good enough rank.a
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In the fair, products of companies like Mahindra & Mahindra, Paradeep Phosphates Ltd. (PPL), ICICI Lombard and Piaggio were showcased. Care was taken to ensure that all the showcased products were ones that were specifically targeted at the rural consumer. At the same time, social concepts like public health and hygiene, sanitation and education were promoted by the volunteers of RMAX through various games that were conceptualised by them. An educational video provided by UNICEF was also shown during this event.

Mr Sachin, the local sarpanch of Tangi praised the students of XIMB for undertaking such an initiative. Mr Raj Kishore, an ex-MLA from the area, proclaimed the event as 'a re-emergence of social responsibility among the current youtha.
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ITM has invited managers of various firms to address the importance and virtues of an efficient and effective command & control in all spheres of life. Managerial aspects would become inherent in the process. Interactive workshops/sessions with leaders of financial firms are also being organized to educate the young audiences regarding varied aspects of prevailing circumstances and future options. FRISSON 8.0 encompasses various interesting events from aBIG BOSSa (managerial event) to war of the DJs. There are over 1.5 lakh worth of prizes to be won in this fest.
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The workshops will be organized between December 1 and 5 at some institutes in the city like Vaishnav Institute of Management, Gujarati College, Medicaps, IIPS, IMS, Maharaja Ranjit Singh College, Daly College Business School, Vaishnav Bal Mandir Girls School, Sanghvi Institut along with one at IIM Indore. These workshops will be conducted by Mr Saurav Sharma from Joint Operation for Social Help (JOSH) and Mr Santosh Jha from Parivartan who have been working actively for the cause in New Delhi. Selected volunteers from among the participants of these workshops will camp at various venues across the city on December 7 and help the citizens of Indore understand the nuances of the act and draft RTI applications to various departments and government offices. All the participants of the workshops and the volunteers for the Direct Action Day will be receiving certificates for the same. The venues for the workshop on Dec 7 are:
1) Motherland Convent H.S. School (Narayan Bagh)
2) Shri Vaishnav Bal Mandir Girls' HS School (Raj Mohalla)
3) St. Giri School (Venkatesh nagar, Airport Road)
4) Shri Maheshwari Vidyalay (Chattri Bagh)
5) St. Paul's School (Navratan Bagh)
6) Jagannath Uccha Madhyamik Vidyalay (Chhavni)
7) Sadhu Vaswani Garden (Sindhi Colony)
IIM-I: Cerebral Heights (Geeta Bhavan Square)
9) Rajendra Nagar Bal Vihar (Rajendra Nagar)
10) Annie Besant School (Annapurna Road)

The eventas details are also available on the website www.indorertiweek.com
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Mr Rajive Kaul was the first speaker. He narrated small anecdotes about various incidents in his life that went on to make him the person that he is today. He advised the students to avoid making a tough decision based on just one opinion. The next speaker was Mr GNS Reddy. Mr Reddy spoke about his organisation, BAIF, which aims to create gainful self-employment for the underprivileged. He said that due to neglect of the countryas bio-resources, India is facing problems today.

Mr Reddy was followed by Mr BJ Panda. Mr. Panda explained the process of bringing about a change and making a difference in the context of Indian politics. He said that in a system like ours, it is natural that there are a hundred different conflicting opinions. The final speaker was Mr Rengachary. He spoke about success and how one must aim really high in order to achieve it. He said that success is simply a condition where one enjoys what one is doing. He also advised the students to divide their big and ambitious goals into smaller ones so that they could be surmounted slowly but surely.

After all four sessions were completed, the vote of thanks was proposed by Prof Gopal K. Nayak a Exec. VP, BMMA. All the four student panelists and a few members of the audience were given the opportunity to gather information from the speaker through their questions.