Well, grades are in - and almost everyone's done reasonably okay 😃 ( well, not everyone had their noses in their books, you see 😉 )....but life is just as busy as ever. With b-school events coming and going , every club's busy with their own initiatives all day long - it really is a crazy sort of experience to live through, can you believe it ;)
Besides that, the cold has set in - and we have our very own MPL here! - The MDI Premier League is on in full swing, and we have the most imaginatively named teams participating in matched in floodlit grounds ( in cold conditions, moreever 😉 ) - it is to be seen to be believed!
I would see it far more often, if it hadn't been for the truckload of pending work my incessant video/movie/tv show watching habits have gifted me 
Cheers, better get back to work!
Hey guys....till date havent really had any info on the MDI summers.Wud be nice if one of the Mandevians posted a report or sumthing.
selection for 1st round of exchange programs are over and 53 students from our batch r ready to fly to their dream destinations...for one term next year... along with 30 other PGPIM guyz...tht takes our count to 83...n wait still second round of allotments are left...
have heard this is one of the best thing that mdi can offer u...so far just seen 100's of foreigners on campus now witnessing 100 our batch mates going in for exchange programs...
thankfully i got my dream college as well....
The War Room finals venue was literally a war room with the campus winners of all the top b-schools campuses across the nation pitted against each other. In the end it was a close call between MDI and FMS who eventually emerged as the champrions.
"The Om Arrows" strategy for Mahindra's foray into the two wheeler segment was appreciated by none other than the group chairman Mr. Anand Mahindra himself. Their presentation got rave reviews from the Mahindra & Mahindra top brass.
In a spectacular setting the team from MDI was awarded the runners up prize which included Rs.50000/- plus Club Mahindra vouchers for the team members.
In the end "The War Room" contest proved to be a once in a life time opportunity fo Saurabh Jain and Team who got the rare chance to present their ideas to Mr. Anand Mahindra himself and all the top brass of an organisation like Mahindra & Mahindra. And for MDI, "The War Room" was yet another ocassion where ManDevIans proved their mettle to the world.
As a part of this members of Infosys Quiz circle hosted quizzes at each B-school to identify the Top team at each campus and then 6 Top teams moved to the 'In-Quest Grand Finale' at Infosys Bangalore campus.
MDI was represented at "In-Quest Grand Finale" by Team "Thakur ke do haath" comprising of Tanmay Sharma (PGPM Class of 2010) and Abhilash Mohapatra (PGPM Class of 2009). They had qualified for the grand finale by the virtue of being second highest scorer in the North Zone.
Of the six teams that qualified for the finale their score was the fourth best, but they unleashed their true potential in the Finale which was held at the picturesque Infy Bangalore Campus on 6th October 2008. The quiz was hosted by Arul Mani one of the most respected quizzers in India and a 3 time finalist at the World Quizzing Championships. True to the reputation they have acquired on MDI campus thanks to their unblemished and at times awe inspiring performances they managed to come up trumps in the Grand Finale event. Needless to say, "Thakur k do haath"s proved to be quite a handful for the competition.:)
They gave a performance of great elan in a field which had teams from other top b-schools like FMS, TISS, JBIM etc. Thanks to their splendid effort MDI won The Infosys Business Schools Challenge.
Besides this Tanmay and Abhilash won cool prizes along the way too. For emerging as the campus champions they won cool I-pod Nanos. While for winning the Grand Finale they won Sony Handycams besides an impressive Trophy for the college.
More importantly they have done MDI proud and shown yet again to the world ,stuff ManDevIans are made of.
Congratulations to Tanmay and Abhilash for their superb effort. We ManDevIans are proud of you!
P.S: Tanmay and Abhilash are both avid quizzers and member of W5H - the Quizzing Club of MDI . Tanmay releases an EndGame every sunday on behalf of W5H which enjoys a huge fan following among the ManDevIans. Not to mention they easily win almost all the quizzes that are held on MDI Campus.
Continuing the MDI tradition of winning the big inter b-school competitions especially the ones conducted by Corporates the terrific trio of Vaibhav Mehta, Piyush Somalingam and Yuvraj Singh Shekhawat (All PGPM07 students) have won the North Zone finals of the "StratEdge" contest conducted by GlaxoSmithKline i.e GSK.
They emerged winners in a field which had teams from IIM-L and FMS. Team MDI got richer by 35000/- rupees but more importantly they now get the chance to present their ideas to the GSK top management in the National Finals as the North Zone Champions.
MDI had two teams in the North Zone finals with the team comprising of Himanshu, Viraj Mehta and Arnab Datta (All PGPM07 students) winning the hearts of the audience with their terrific presentation.
"Ensemble" is the annual inter b-school fest of XLRI, one of the premier b-schools in the country and ManDevIans have created waves at its 2008 edition held on XLRIs Jamshedpur campus between 21st-23rd Nov'08.
The terrific trio of Akash Bhatia (Bhatia saab), Abhilash Mohapatra (Mohaas) and Vipul Goyal (All PGPM07 students) have emerged as the overall winners of "OLYMPIANS" the flagship event of "Ensemble 2008" . For their heroics they are richer by cool Rs.1,00,000/- They swept aside competing teams from almost all the top b-schools of the country. "Cognizant OLYMPIANS", the flagship event of Ensemble 2008 was the platform for graduate students from top Business schools in India to compete against each other to attain the position of the OLYMPIANS and ManDevIans did exactly what was required of Olympians.
The "Mastikhor Kids" Sandeep Karwa (Sandy), Charuta Ambardekar (4uta) and Supreet Kaur (All PGPM07 students) have emerged as the runners up in "Concept 2 Creative" the Marketing contest at "Ensemble 2008". They proved the marketing prowess of ManDevIans in a field which had teams from IIMA, XLRI, MICA and SPJIMR in the final round. For their brilliant effort the trio has won Rs.25,000/-. The Event Concept-2-Creative was aimed to test the participants in the role of a marketing manager. It was a quick and grueling run through their expertise in all facets of marketing.
The HR wizards - Vaibhav Shrivatava, Abhishek Jha, Divya Chandrashekhar and Swapnil Gupta (All PGPHR07 students) emerged as the runners up in "War of the Wits" the HR game at "Ensemble 2008" and won Rs.12,500/- for their efforts. "War of the Wits" was a stimulating assortment of challenging situations that tested the HR/IR acumen, planning, decision making and negotiation skills. They overcame stiff competition from TISS, XLRI, SPJIMT and VGSOM-IIT Kgp.
And this is not the end of the story...
The "FARZI" team of Anuj Gupta, Akash Gehani and Sharad emerged as the champions in "Quest Adventura" at "Ensemble 2008" winning Rs.35,000/- along the way. Screened through a quiz on Nature and Adventure, the final game was spread over two days and included activities such as Obstacles, Improvised Rafting, Wall Climbing, Puzzles, Treasure Hunt, Rifle Shooting, etc They emerged as champions in a field comprising of teams from XLRI, MICA, IIM-I and IIT-B.
With Rs.1,72,500/- and lots of goodies in their kitty needless to say the MDI contingent was the toast of "Ensemble 2008".
PS: ManDevIans surely know how to tackle recession and liquidity crunch 😉
As a part of the very popular and unique course Leadership and Managerial Effectiveness (LME) conducted by Prof. Asha Bhandarker, Mr. Balvinder Singh Kalsi, President & CEO DuPont India addressed the MDI students.
The vision of MDI is to "Create global leaders who can create, manage and lead effective change across diverse organisations" and who better than Mr. Kalsi to enlighten ManDevIans on this as he himself has been a change master in a diverse organisation like DuPont.
Mr. Kalsi began his talk by outlining the two things fundamental for a leader according to him:
- Leaders should have followers
- Leaders should be able to influence followers
He went on to add that leadership mainly entails influencing people, the basis of which can be all/any of the following reasons:
- Position (they have to)
- Relationship (they want to)
- Results (for what you have done for the organisation)
- Development (for what you have done for them)
- Personhood (for what you are and what you represent)
He then outlined his basic definition of "Leadership". According to him a "Leader":
- is one who leads by "inspiring others in a shared vision"
- has a clear vision
- can communicate the vision to his employees/sub ordinates
- fosters an environment that "encourages risk taking"
- believes in recognition and rewards
- "empowers" allowing other leaders to emerge
Mr. Kalsi then shared some of the operating traits of Great Leaders many of which were based on his personal experiences too:
- Dare to Dream (for the organisation, family and self)
- Have a broader social vision
- Relentless discomfort with status quo
- Capacity to anticipate and see around corners (anticipate challenges & competition)
- 70/30 rule - once the information is in the 70% range go with their "gut feel"
- Ability to take risk
- Accountability in action (not just for his/her own but on behalf of the team as well)
- Uncompromising straight talk
- Powerfully engage people
- Perpetual optimism
- Surround themselves with the best people (e.g. hire someone who you feel is better than you)
- Never compromise on their fundamental values
- Never lose zest and curiosity
- Persevere
- Work hard & Play hard (leader play to win)
- Never let success go to their head (leadership is coincidental & the success is your teams success and not your individual self)
He cited several personal examples to further elaborate on these operating traits and how they have played an important role in his leadership journey.
He ended his talk by stating that "leadership is a matter of continuous learning as no one will get it right under all circumstances". Post this there was a question answer session during which Mr. Kalsi cleared the doubts that students had in their minds regarding certain aspects of leadership. Prof. Bhandarker too pitched in with her views to supplement Mr. Kalsi and foster a better understanding among the students.
In the end it proved to be a thoroughly engrossing and inspirational session. A session which has "empowered" all ManDevIans who attended the session with wisdom which will definitely hold them good in their individual leadership journeys.
The Annual National Management Convention at MDI, Gurgaon, 'Delphique' was held on November 8-9, 2008. The convention concluded with Mr. Manoj Kohli, President & CEO, Bharti Airtel giving a speech on the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for India to progress as a country.
Mr. Manoj Kohli shared his optimism about India being a country with high potential to grow and become a giant economy in the near future.
The event was inaugurated by Dr. Chandan Mitra, Member of the Rajya Sabha. Discussions were held on six disciplines of management namely Human Resources, Finance, Marketing, Operations, Strategy and Information Management. Corporates like Procter and Gamble, Deloitte, Computer Sciences Corporation, Mercer and Indian Association of Investment Professionals were the knowledge partners for the different discussion panels. In each of the panels, a healthy discussion by the industry veterans was followed after a presentation by the student research team.
Some of the industry veterans who spoke during the panel discussions were Mr. Davinder Singh, Director, New Product Commercialization, Coca Cola India Inc., Mr. Manoj Bhalla, Head of Treasury, GE Capital India, Mr. P.V.Ramanmurthy, Vice President HR, Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd, Mr. Venkata M Reddy, Vice President, Supply Chain, Spencer's Retail Limited, and Mr. Baba Varanasi, Head, Office of Innovation, Computer Sciences Corporation India Pvt Ltd.
For details of the event visit : www.mdi-delphique.com
On Saturday, 22nd November 2008, the long awaited industrial visit to Spencer's distribution centre (DC), at Basai village near Gurgaon, took place.
A group of 15 ManDevIans reached the DC at 3:45 PM. Once there, the DC manager explained us the DC management processes in detail. This was followed by a briefing from Mr. K Reji Thomas, Spencer's Regional Logistics Manager for Haryana who gave us a view from the management perspective and what it takes to run a DC for a retail giant.
Some facts about the DC: - Total floor space of 25,000 sq ft
- Stock worth Rs 2.43 crores being held at any given time
- Daily transaction of Rs 22 lakhs worth of material
- Supplies goods to all Spencer's Retail outlets in South Haryana
- Planning to expand to 50,000 sq ft soon and will supply whole of Haryana
- Take over of repackaging operations from Delhi DC soon
Of course, this was not the only thing we learnt. We came to know about the operations and supply chain management at the DC right from the procurement stage, stacking, handling damages to the final delivery to the retailers apart from the various retail terminologies.
To sum it up it was a fun filled learning experience for all the participants.
PS: Details also availabe @ "Verve" - the Opsession blog .
MDI is positioned as the school for "Change Masters and Thought Leaders" with we ManDevIans as the "Change Masters" and our Gurus as the "Thought Leaders". But couple of ManDevIans have emerged as CRISILs Young Thought Leaders for the year 2008.
The CRISIL Young Thought Leader Awards is a nationwide competition open to second year students of business schools as well as fresh chartered accountants in the post graduate category. Launched in 2001, the CYTL Awards have been a huge success. In 2007 alone, over 213 final year B-school students submitted disse
rtations on topics covering areas like Credit Default Swaps, Hedge Funds, Basel II and the Sub Prime Crisis. Many of these winning dissertations have influenced analytical opinions on the various themes. Some institutions have sought permission of CRISIL to publish key dissertations and showcase them to an external audience, which is primarily what CRISIL seeks to encourage and achieve through this unique competition. CRISIL also provides a platform to the winning dissertations on its website: www.crisil.com. Vaibhav Mohan (PGPM Class of 2009) has emerged as one of the CRISIL Young Thought Leaders for the Year 2008 for his dissertation on the topic "Combating global commodity and food inflation: What should India's strategy be?".
Neha Gupta (PGPHR Class of 2009) has bagged the runners up spot for her dissertation on "Is India still the preferred offshore location in the KPO space?".
Special mention has been made by CRISIL for Soumik Majumdar (PGPM Class of 2009).
Vaibhav and Neha have bagged PPIs from CRISIL. Besides Vaibhav will soon be getting the CRISIL YTL trophy in a special function which will be announced soon by CRISIL.
And what more their brilliant efforts have helped MDI win the "Special CRISIL Young Thought Leader Trophy for the Business School with the highest number of winners" for the first time in the history of this competition.
Once again we ManDevIans have shown our mettle in a coporate run competition. 😃
Dawn of 12th Dec 2008 will kick off 72 hours of frenzy, fun, frolic, masti, passion and pulsating action... yes we ManDevIans are ready to host the participants from across the top b-schools in the country @ our annual management fest "IMPERIUM".
IMPERIUM'08 is bigger and better than ever before with a whole plethora of events that will test the b-schoolers in all facets of management on the theme of "Aurea Mediocritas" (the golden mean) i.e. the art of balancing everything in life.
New additions like The Imperial Dinner and Phalanx - a gruelling event where only the best would survive being organised by all the Academic Clubs of MDI in partnership, has ensured that Imperium'08 will be hailed as an important milestone in the history of Imperium.
The second year of NAUTICA - the flagship event of Imperium, an unique online management game designed by ManDevIans has already got the top 800 brains across b-schools in the country thinking since the past 3 days.
Besides the events and games by all the Academic Clubs - Monetrix, MarQuity, HR Direction, Opsession, Thinc & Strategist promise to set new benchmarks in the b-school circuit.
Its not going to be all serious stuff though... there is an interesting interaction lined up with Mr. Joginder Singh Ex-director of CBI especially relevant in the current context.
Informal events have
- Sufi & Classical Music evening by Smt. Vidya Shah an acclaimed Hindustani Vocalist
- Rock night featuring Half Step Down and Indigo Children
- Performance by noted Bollywood singer Javed Ali who has melodious chartbusters like Guzarish from Ghajini and Kehne ko Jashn-e-Bahaara from Jodha-Akbar to his credit
-Performance by the winner of Sunsilk Gang of Girls reality contest Abhinanda Sarkar
- Nukkad nataks by groups from DU
Besides these Sanskriti the Cultural club of MDI will be organising other fun events like Salsa Workshop, Paper Dance, Musical Tambola, Dumb Charades, TShirt Painting, Face Painting competitions to name a few of the fun events.
All in all next 72 hours promise to another memorable chapter in the lives of ManDevIans as well as all the participants!!
Rock On!!
Check out Imperium 2008 for further details!! :)
PS: Our beloved PG is one of the media sponsors of IMPERIUM'08.
..and well, we do get vacations too ;)
Term 2's just ended for us fellows, and I am ecstatic while stating that I am posting this from home It has been a high-strung, tough but fun 6 months at our very own Dream Institute, and we're looking forward to Term 3 and more of the rigour and joy that keeps life going for us at MDI!
Imperium went off pretty well, with enthusiastic participation from lots of students from across the country. I was lucky enough to meet up with a few puys on campus ( amitnsitian was in attendance, but ran off before I could cajole a treat from him 😐 )
Besides that, life goes on, with the badminton matches, (newly acquired interests in) gaming tournaments, business plans, winning competitions ( a regular habit now, this is 😉 ), (trying hard to) pass exams, keeping schedules, late nights, Jhaji's paranthas, Arcus's extremely tasty ( and fattening 😉 )food - all this keeps us going at MDI!
As a part of MDIs Business Thought Leaders (BTL) talk series MDI had the privilege of hosting the Chairman and Managing Director of Punjab National Bank (PNB) Dr. K. C. Chakrabarty for an enlightening and entertaining talk on 27th Dec 2008.
PNB as we all know is one of the top public sector banks in the country. As for Dr. Chakrabarty, he is a very well known and respected figure in the banking sector in India.
Dr. Chakrabarty, a Gold Medalist in M.Sc. (Statistics), did his Ph.D. in Statistics from BHU, Varanasi. He joined Bank of Baroda as Planning Officer in 1978 and progressed to the post of General Manager in a short span. He held important positions in Bank of Baroda. He was in charge of the bank's corporate planning, MIS, Economic research and IT departments. He also headed resource management function at corporate office, Mumbai and Integrated treasury function and Bank's corporate risk management function. In 2004, Dr. Chakrabarty was elevated to the post of Executive Director in Punjab National Bank and assumed charge as Chairman & Managing Director of the Bank on 9th June 2005. Presently, he is also director of United India Insurance Company Limited and member of Management Committee of Indian Bank Association.Dr. Chakrabarty has also held key positions in various government committees and other government bodies.
He began his talk by sharing his experiences in the Banking sector focussing on how the sector has evolved over the years. On request by the ManDevIans present he provided insights on the current financial crisis - its cause, impact and how he sees it affecting the banking sector especially in the time to come.
(FYI.. Dr.Chakrabarty is tipped to be the front runner in the race for the RBIs Deputy Governor post! )
All good things come to an end and so has the tenure of Class of 2009 at the helm of the Student Activities at MDI. But this end heralds the beginning of an eventful year in the lives of ManDevIans of Class of 2010.
With the completion of the Students Council election process the Class of 2009 has now formally handed over the responsibilities of all Student Council activities at MDI to the Class of 2010. The details of the new Council team can be viewed here.
We take this opportunity to Thank the entire ManDevIan community for their support & encouragement towards various activities that we undertook in the past year. We are sure the same would be extended to the new Council team headed by Kunal Khaitan (PGPM Class of 2010) too.
A brief report containing the Key Performance Highlights of the tenure of outgoing Students Council can be viewed here. We are sure that the Class of 2010 will take Student Activities at MDI to even greater heights in the year ahead.
Thank You everyone! :)
On behalf of the Outgoing Students Council & Class of 2009
Ram Sharma
Hello, is there for full net facility at mdi hostel rooms?
and lan facilities? 
Hello, is there for full net facility at mdi hostel rooms?
and lan facilities?
v ve lan facilities in rooms @MDI...
n wifi @ rooms in IDPL(the second hostel outside MDI)
Hi Seniors
1)Something about the Bulk Laptop deal in MDI.Do we have that facility thr?
2)Do we have single seated or double seated rooms? Air-conditioned or not?
Hi Seniors
1)Something about the Bulk Laptop deal in MDI.Do we have that facility thr?
2)Do we have single seated or double seated rooms? Air-conditioned or not?
v ve the bulk laptop deal .......for us it was from HP n for our seniors from DELL.....i would advice if u can ..ten get ur own laptop.....it gets quite delayed here....
rooms r twin sharin.....no ac
Abhay can u suggest a decent config that wud b required for the lappy