The Times of India:

A US-based software consultancy firm has approached the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L) to be a nodal centre for introducing to the market its new software product which essentially happens to be an operating system providing networking platform.

US Tech Solutions, the New Jersey-based company, announced the venture officially much to the cheers of management students who look it as an opportunity to be a part of business enterprise much before they graduate from the coveted institute.

Ian Tomlin, sales director of the product, said that the platform was an improved version of various social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut. The system brings together business entities together while at the same time maintaining the much needed security to the date. In the initial stages, the platform would be opened to business houses, institutes and entrepreneurs.

Vice-president (corporate strategy), Dhiraj Adya said that it would be like an operating system by which one can have a webpage where one can post information — from products to suggestions to e-mails to SMS.

Himself an alumnus of IIM-L, Adya claimed that this is for the first time that a global consultancy is officially launching the software product suite at a B-school. He said that the company also planned to conduct a case study competition and let the winners of the contest be involved in the marketing charter for the product.

Adya said that the company would work with the incubation cell at IIM-L to bring the software at the doorsteps of the educational institutes in India.

An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad has outlined his concerns about the evaluation process for the CAT 2009 tests.

In his letter to the convener of CAT 2009, the directors of the eight IIMs and the Managing Director of Prometric – India on Friday, Vivek Tuteja has asked for an explanation of the “Psychometric Equivalence” – a method employed in the evaluation process to equate different difficulty levels.

Tuteja is a 2004 IIM-A graduate and is presently working with Endeavor, a firm offering coaching for MBA entrance exams.

He said in his letter that the CAT tests were conducted in more than 20 slots and the questions in each slot differed from another, implying difference in the difficulty levels. He added that the scores were scaled, and this scaling was done after the tests were concluded, and seemed to have not been thought of while the tests were being designed.
Under this, candidates in one slot could receive only a certain amount of marks. But the maximum attainable marks, candidates have alleged, seem to differ from slot to slot, he said.

Besides, the CAT test papers had three sections, and candidates have alleged that the “Maximum Possible Scaled Score” in a particular section for one slot differed from that of the same section in another slot.

“This does not provide a level playing ground, as irrespective of the performance of a student, he/she will not be able to match a student wherein the maximum scaled score is higher,” Tuteja said in his letter. He added: “Then how do you equate them? This basically means that your results could depend on the day you took the test, or on luck. If you get an easy slot, it seems you are being judged more harshly,” Tuteja added.

A male candidate of CAT 2009, who attended the press conference called by Tuteja, questioned how the slots could be defined as easy or difficult. “What is difficult for someone may not be difficult for me. So how does that argument (Psychometric Equivalence) stand?” he asked.

Tuteja also asked for the distribution of test takers, slot-wise and section-wise in percentile terms.

The letter also requested that certain information be disclosed to the public. These included the “maximum scaled score possible for all the three sections in all the slots and the maximum achievable overall scaled score for all slots”.

The other thing was an explanation of how quantifiable the concept of Psychometric Equivalence could be. He said this was important not just for those who had scored the highest marks and attained eligibility for admission to the IIMs, but for the “thousands of students who were targeting the other top B-schools affiliated to CAT”.

Details of the erroneous questions and how these have been factored for calculating the results was also requested.

Asked why he did not file an RTI application instead of writing a letter, Tuteja said he was confident the IIMs will advocate transparency because that was what he was taught while he was a student at IIM-A. He said that if the IIMs replied and offered explanations of the various methods, then many students, who are discontent with the results, would be able to ascertain if their woes are justified or not.

He further said that a reply should take no more than two days from the day the letter is received. All the details would be easily accessible as CAT 2009 was computerised, he said.

Click here for Letter sent to CAT Convenor

The Telegraph:

The big daddies with the mega-bucks have begun shopping for the best and the brightest at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM-B) here, but the B-school itself has popped an offer which none has taken so far.

The institute is offering a refund of fees to those shunning high pay packets to work in not-for-profit entities such as NGOs for at least three years.

P.D. Jose, chairperson-placements at IIM-B, said the refund offer has been in place for the past two months, the move aimed at encouraging graduates to look at socially relevant sectors.

But there are no takers, yet, at the institute where annual placements began today. “No applications have come to me,” Jose said.

The placement season goes on for about two weeks, he pointed out, which means that the students still have time to consider the offer.

The institute currently allows students wanting to start entrepreneurial ventures to defer placements by two years.

The refund offer, however, comes with a rider: the salary offered by the NGO should be a certain percentage of the lowest CTC package bagged by a graduate at IIM-B.

This clause ensures that a job with some high paying international NGOs such as the Clinton Foundation won’t qualify for the offer, a fear expressed by some at IIM-Ahmedabad.

The Bangalore school proposes to refund about 30 per cent of the fees every year in each of the three years the graduate works in the NGO. Currently, the fee for a two-year postgraduate course at IIM-B is around Rs 11 lakh.

“Nothing is written in stone really,” said Jose, explaining that the initiative was more an experiment open to changes. The refund at the moment is not a very big figure, he pointed out. “We don’t really have to worry about it,” Jose said.

The defence could come in handy to deflect criticism from some quarters that the institutes should not waste taxpayers’ money invested in training would-be managers.

The IIMs at Ahmedabad and Calcutta, part of the revered trinity of B-schools, said they were so far not considering any such proposal.

IIM-A director Sameer Barua said it was “too early to respond” on the merits of the decision, but the matter was open to discussion. “But there are too many grey areas which need clarity,” he added.

Some faculty members at IIM-A described the Bangalore decision as “bold and laudable”. “At the moment I can only tell you that we are discussing it and a number of professors support this idea,” said Anil Gupta, a professor.

A source in IIM-C said the institute does not have any established rule to refund the course fee to those students who take up an NGO job. “We do not have any such plans right now,” the official said.

“Last year we invited some NGOs for placements as some students showed interest in working in that sector. Similarly we are inviting some film making and film production companies for the final placement this year,” said Prafulla Agnihotri, chairman, career development and placement, at the Calcutta institute.

An NGO insider, however, didn’t find much merit in such a proposal.

“If the student opts out of the NGO job after a couple of years and joins a fat-salaried job, this course fee will become a bonus for him,” he said.

An IIM-B alumnus said there was a rising trend among his peers to opt for NGOs and the voluntary sectors, though their number was still small.

“The social sector is not different from any other. It needs professional skills,” said Rakesh Godhwani, head of IIM-B’s alumni association who left his corporate job to work for the institute.

Management gurus said fresh graduates who wish to work in the development sector should look at it as a career, rather than as a three-year stint.

“Very few opt for such careers because most youngsters join IIMs with a corporate career in mind,” said Samuel Paul, who runs Public Affairs Centre, an NGO, in Bangalore and is a former IIM-A professor. “They want to move up in life. The vast majority still stick to corporate ambition.”

It is more “conviction than the money part” that drives those who opt for a career in the social sector, he said. “Whether by exemption you will encourage, we have to wait and see. It has not been tried out in a big way anyway,” Paul said.

Students echoed Paul. “Apart from the students who have an interest in this sector, the best ones do not usually go for the NGO sector. And they do not care about the refund as the salary they bag is high enough,” said a student at IIM-C.

LiveMint:

About a dozen potential recruiters, including global consulting and financial services firms, turned up at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) on Day Zero, the first day of final placements for the 260-strong class of 2010.

The school expects to close placements in a week’s time against the 10 days taken last year, when the recruiting season at India’s B-schools was stretched and salary offers dropped in the aftermath of the global financial crisis that forced many companies to freeze or slow hiring.

India’s accelerating economic growth and the emergence of the US from recession is seen to have brightened the outlook for placements this year.

“Students have had a much better year this year,” said Jai Sinha, partner at consultancy Booz and Co., who made one offer at IIM-B on Thursday. “Last year placements happened when people were most pessimistic.”

Consultancies including Bain and Co., McKinsey and Co., and AT Kearney Inc., banks such as Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and brokerage houses Nomura Securities and Kotak Securities visited IIM-B on Thursday.

Still, the number of banks visiting the campus on Thursday was much like last year and fewer than previous years, said Ravi Srivastava, partner at Boston Consulting Group, who made five offers on Day Zero, apart from four pre-placement offers.

Students and faculty at IIM-B declined to talk to the media until the end of the placement process.

At IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A), India’s most prestigious B-school, three clusters of recruiters have visited the campus as part of a spread-out placement process that started on 13 February.

In the first cluster, three banks, six consultancies and a couple of private equity firms recruited students. The school has not released any consolidated numbers so far—of offers made or the direction in which salaries are moving. In the second cluster, TAS, formerly known as the Tata Administrative Service, made offers to six students.

“Last year we hired 40, which include in-house applicants. That was the largest ever TAS batch recruited,” said Rahul Krishna, head of TAS, which grooms managers for the Tata group.

TAS said it already has 22 hires from schools, including Delhi’s Faculty of Management Studies and Mumbai’s S.P. Jain Institute of Management, and might hit the same number as last year.

IIM Calcutta (IIM-C), which will start its placement process on 6 March, has confirmed participation by over 100 companies, up 20% from last year. “As such, I am confident that placements would be much better than last year,” said Prafulla Agnihotri, chairman of placements at IIM-C.

As the world battled the financial crisis last year, IIMs reached out to several first-time recruiters, including startups and public sector undertakings (PSUs).

Business Standard:

At the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B), where post-graduate programme (PGP) placement starts on March 4, a sense of anticipation and optimism is in the air. Over 70 pre-placement offers have been received by the students. The B-school expects over 100 companies to visit its campus in the next one week. The batch has 266 students.

“The outlook for placements looks good. We expect consultancies and investment banks to come for slot one recruitment. Companies from other verticals like FMCG, manufacturing and retail are also expected to come to the campus,” says Sapna Agarwal, head of career development services at IIM-B.

The institute’s executive management programme (ePGP) is learnt to have completed nearly 70 per cent of its placement, which happens in a rolling process. The batch has 70 participants who have received offers for roles like CXOs, VPs, GMs and AGMs for companies in India and abroad. Nearly 50 companies have already visited the campus and 20-25 more are expected till the end of March. Companies from verticals like IT, pharma, infrastructure, power, manufacturing and banking are the major recruiters.

At IIM-Calcutta, while the final placements for 280 students would start on March 6, its ongoing lateral placements for 170 students have already seen more than 100 offers. The recruiters who have made offers include Cognizant Business Consulting, Deloitte, Hinduja Group, Aditya Birla Group, Accenture Business Consulting, Mahindra & Mahindra, Virtusa, Essar and Bristlecone. From consulting to general management, there has been a greater variety of roles on offer this year as compared to last year. IIM-C also witnessed an increase in the packages offered to the students for lateral placement this year, with some offers above Rs 20 lakh per annum being made. For PGP placements, the highest pre-placement offer (PPO) has been Rs 60 lakh.

Says Prafulla Agnihotri, chairman-placements of IIM-C, “Close to 120 companies have confirmed participation this year. For lateral placements, 30-35 companies have turned up.” He adds that like all years, finance would be the dominant sector during placements. “While this is a significant improvement compared to last year and we look forward to a better placement season ahead, the mood on campus is one of guarded optimism, as the numbers are still not as good as the pre-recession 2007-08 levels,” he says.

IIM Ahmedabad, which is running for the first time a cohort-based placement process this year, has seen an increase in the number of offers. It has reportedly been offered a record Rs 1.44 crore-plus package from Deutsche Bank, while IIM Lucknow has bagged the highest offer of Rs 75 lakh from Olam International.

Companies participating in placements at IIM-A this year include HSBC, Citibank, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and McKinsey & Co, with BCG and McKinsey making eight offers each, including pre-placement offers during Cluster 1. Deloitte has made 10 offers (including lateral offers) for consulting roles during Cluster 2. Other regular recruiters like TAS and Feedback Ventures have offered general management and consulting roles and each has hired six students. The campus has also seen HUL, P&G, American Express, Standard Chartered and Nestle making several placement offers.

The Economic Times:

AHMEDABAD: Landed 99 percentile marks in CAT, yet still no call from the ace-of-the-ace Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A)? Well, maybe it’s time to dig up your school transcripts.

The IIM-A this year has eased its CAT cutoff points to 99 percentile from last year’s 99.3 percentile largely due to the number of seats that has gone up from 315 to 417 this year. But the institute has also introduced a new benchmark: those who couldn’t manage 70% or more marks in their senior school certificate (SSC) or higher secondary school certificate (HSSC) would not be allowed into its hallowed portals regardless of their CAT scores.

IIM-A admissions chairperson Diptesh Ghosh told ET that until last year, the B-school had used the point-based system in shortlisting candidates for the second round. The academic record would be divided into bands, with each band given weightage while shortlisting a candidate. “This year, we have removed the complexity of the calculation and set a clear cutoff percentage of 70% for the two boards while shortlisting candidates,” he said.

So far, Ahmedabad seems to be the only one among the six IIMs to come up with this benchmark. The criterion applies only to general stream candidates.

In fact, IIM-A had introduced the criterion of academic brilliance for shortlisting a candidate last year, but had not specified the calculation clearly to the candidates. This year, for the first time, the institute spelt out a clear cutoff percentage in secondary and higher secondary marks for shortlisting candidates. There would not be any change in other selection processes that include essay writing and personal interview.

Different criteria at various IIMs

IIM-Bangalore has always put emphasis on academic record while selecting candidates for the flagship PGP, but it has never spelt out any cutoff marks.

The IIM-A move, that comes post the CAT results, could come in for criticism. At the reputed Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara, vice-chancellor Ramesh Goyal said merit should be judged cumulatively.

“From an administrative point of view, academic criterion remains important in establishing the merit of a candidate. However, it is not necessary that a candidate who did not score good marks in class 10th or 12th should be excluded from competition considered for admission to a particular institute,” he told ET.

Different IIMs put different criteria for shortlisting candidates for the second round of admission, which include CAT percentile, work experience and extra-curricular activities. Until last year, IIM-Kozhikode put special emphasis on CAT scores for admission, giving it 90% weightage. This year, however, it has reduced the CAT weightage. IIM-Lucknow, on the other hand, has counted work experience as one of the major factors for shortlisting candidates.

CAT, which went online this year, was conducted over 10 days on the lines of the GRE and GMAT exams. This was meant to ensure uniform difficulty across the test span. However, candidates claimed that those appearing in the later phases got an unfair advantage over those taking the exam in the earlier slots. The IIMs, however, said uniformity was maintained with the use of psychometric analysis technique used elsewhere in the world.

The Economic Times:

KOLKATA: The country’s premier management institutes, the IIMs, may have planned to take on students from varied educational backgrounds (ET,
February 12) but for now, those with engineering or technical degrees have won hands down. All 11 students who were within the 100th percentile this year are from engineering or tech backgrounds, with six of them from the elite Indian Institutes of Technology.

Over 2.5 lakh students took this year’s CAT. Topping the charts is Varun Mangamoori of IIT Madras, who has scored 299 out of 450.

CAT aspirants with similar backgrounds have regularly been making it to the 100 percentile club. Last year, for instance, of the nine students who stood within the 100th percentile, a majority were from the IITs, and one each from the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad and NIT, Trichy.

Last year’s 100th percentilers Gourav Bhattacharya was from IIT Bombay and K Ravi from IIT Madras, while Sayan Sarkar and Ankit Anand were both from IIT Kharagpur. Ranjai Banerji was from IIIT Hyderabad, Rahul Jalan from NIT Trichy while Sankalp Mittal was a student of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Institute of Technology.

While a 100th percentile is not necessarily a guarantee for a spot in one of the IIMs — last year, one person in the percentile was rejected at the group discussion/personal interview (GD/PI) at IIM Calcutta for not making the sectional cut-off in one of the three sections — it’s considered a big achievement in B-school circles. Besides helping in bagging scholarships, it’s a valuable addition to bio-datas and a perk during placements as well.

This year, however, the students may make it through to the IIM GD/PIs. “All those in the 100th percentile have scored above 99.9% in the individual sections as well,” said a CAT group member who did not wish to be named.

He added that CAT toppers usually come from engineering or technical backgrounds since they are strong in the quantitative and data interpretation sections. “It’s not something that a student with a regular maths/commerce/arts background will find easy to emulate,” said the CAT group member.

 The IIMs have finally announced the date of declaration of the much awaited CAT results. The results will be available on the internet by tomorrow, 28th February.

The Hindu:

The results of Common Admission Test (CAT)-2009 have been deferred to February end, an official statement from convenor of CAT-2009 at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) said here on Saturday.

Earlier, as per the convenor of CAT, the results of admission test were supposed to be declared by this week.

However, the convenor of CAT has not specified any reasons for delay, causing large scale inconvenience to the B-School aspirants across the country.

The students are already late in seeking admissions due to delayed conduction of CAT-2009, which was marred by technical glitches in first phase, and subsequently had to be re-conducted for candidates who faced problems in exam.

Out of the 2.41 lakh students who applied for CAT-2009 over 2.15 lakh students appeared for the admission test that concluded on January 31 last.

Pan-India besides eight IIMs, there are over 120 non-member IIM, management schools registered with CAT, which use the CAT score as criteria for granting admissions.

Express News Service:

A B-school ranking by an MBA website, which took into account what Indian students feel about institutes rather than analysis of courses, programs and faculty members, has ranked the IIM-Ahmedabad as the most preferred B-school in the country.

The ranking was done by pagalguy.com — a website for MBA students and aspirants, which has 2.5 lakh registered users according to a 2008 IIM-Bangalore case study — with a total of 9,576 respondents.

The respondents were categorised into various groups — freshers, experienced, women, alumni, aspirants and students, plus an overall ranking. The second and third slots were occupied by IIM-Bangalore and IIM-Calcutta, respectively. The three IIMs had also been the top three choices for respondents in the last ranking in 2009.

‘The Pagalguy B-school Rankings are perception rankings that measure the preferences of the population polled. We believe it is logically impossible to rank abstract entities such as B-schools by quality and be accurate too," wrote editor Apurv Pandit.

The rankings included 184 B-schools from across the country, with regional and national rankings done separately by making a list of "nationally-aspired" and "regionally-aspired" B-schools.

The survey was carried out in such a way that a respondent, upon submitting his location, would get a list of national B-schools and another list of B-schools that are doing well in the region.

Among the IIT schools of management, IIT Bombay was the most preferred by occupying 19th position in the national ranking.

Among those B-schools that accept XAT scores, XLRI, Jamshedpur was the most preferred. The institute also secured the fourth slot in national ranking. And of the B-schools that accept SNAP scores, SIBM Pune led the rest with 16th slot in national ranking.

Business Standard:

The desire to become entrepreneurs is taking roots with a vengeance this year at B-schools. Many students have shown eagerness to stay out of the placements process and start their own ventures instead.

For instance, Chaitanya Jha — a second-year post-graduate programme in management (PGPM) student at the Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon — has come up with an interesting concept like Choco-Mishtham and is already planning for another educational venture this year.

“While Delhi-based Choco-Mishtham is a young company, with expertise in making and supplying hand-made chocolates in retail outlets, and corporate in Delhi NCR, I have signed out of placements and am planning another venture now in the field of education. The venture basically will focus on changing the mindset associated with education and imparting training based on life skills. The pressures of education have pushed a lot of students towards committing suicide recently and with this venture, I want to provide a platform to them and become an associate of strength for them. We want to modify the counselling methodology, which is very formal today. We will discuss our module with schools and let them modify it according to their needs,” says Jha, who is also looking forward to approach the government schools with his module.

Jha will take the help of alumni from Indian Institutes of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) and Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) to design the module.

Around 20 per cent of the current PGIM students from MDI have signed out of placements and have planned setting up their ventures in Strategic sourcing in auto ancillaries, Digital marketing in Hospitality sectors to name a few.

Jha is only a case in point. There are numerous students like him that are opting out of placements to pursue their dreams. Another example is that of Arun Shenoy — a student of the Indian School of Business (ISB) — is planning the implementation level of his entrepreneurial venture — Green India Building Systems and Services, which aims to help reduce energy cost, carbon emissions and raise productivity. “I am working with the Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development at ISB to get support for the implementation of my plans,” says Shenoy.

At least 30 students at ISB may opt out of the ongoing placement drive this year. They want to be entrepreneurs, and are eyeing opportunities in areas like travel, education and use of clean technologies, according to Krishna Tanuku, Director of Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development at the ISB. All the business proposals are service-oriented and therefore the funding requirement for each will not exceed Rs 4 crore.

Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies has students planning ventures from boutique financial services to social enterprises this year. “We have about 5 per cent of students opting out of placement to start their own ventures. Some of them have their business plan ready and others are in the midst of preparing them. The ventures range from boutique financial services to social enterprises,” says Anupam Rastogi, senior faculty at NMIMS.

Mumbai-based Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS) has seen a trend, where students who have taken up offers during placements start their ventures over a period of time. “This year, the entire batch of 120 students will be sitting for the placements as we have a provision where even the students who are planning to start their ventures can sit for placements and consider various offers coming their way. We cannot give out more details at this point of time as the placements are about to begin but are hopeful we will see many of them starting their own ventures a few years down the line,” said a member of the placement committee at JBIMS.

Business Standard:

They may lose anywhere between Rs 1,000 and Rs 60,000 if they get through an IIM and choose to quit the B-school they initially opted for.

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) aspirants have only won half the battle by attempting the online Common Admission Test (CAT) this year.

Around 1,700 students joined IIMs last year while this year around 1,900 students are expected to join, thanks to the increase in the number of seats as well as new IIMs coming up. The CAT results, however, are scheduled to be announced only by the third week of February. Hence, admissions will be delayed by over a month. This means the final list of selected candidates at various IIMs would be out only in April. By then, admissions at all the other B-schools would already be over.

The students would invariably have to opt for other B-schools. If they eventually get admissions in any of the IIMs, and quit their current B-school to join an IIM, they stand to forfeit large sums of money. Students, on an average, would lose anywhere between Rs 1,000 and Rs 60,000, depending on which B-school they choose to join, while the rest of the fees would be refunded. The admission process for non-IIMs closes by March.

AICTE-affiliated B-schools refund nearly 99 per cent of the fees, deducting only the processing charges. This works out to around Rs 1,000. Other B-schools structure their own processing fees.

Sumit Agarwal, a student at Career Launcher, who took the computer-based CAT this year, says: “Students cannot wait till IIMs declare the final admission list in April. So we will obviously seek admissions in non-IIMs in case we do not make it to an IIM this year as there is already a lot of uncertainty with the CAT fiasco.”

ARKS Srinivas, director of TIME Mumbai, a coaching institute, says: “Many students this year will join XLRI, FMS, and even state-run management institutes because they would not know whether or not they would make it to an IIM this year due to the delay in admissions. But the moment they get through an IIM, they would leave the B-school they have been admitted into, which means they stand to lose a large amount that they would have paid to the B-schools they initially got admitted into.”

Madhur Naneria, director, PT Education, Indore, another coaching institute, concurs: “A few of the management institutes like SIBM, have already declared final list of candidates. So, students would obviously join other B-schools due to the uncertainty with the IIM admissions.”

There are more seats for management aspirants in state universities too this year. For instance, the number of seats for MBA or MMS and other allied courses in Maharashtra will be increased by at least 3,000 from the next academic session starting in June. Currently, there are 17,000 seats in 298 colleges in Maharashtra alone which are expected to go up to 20,000 after new colleges are sanctioned by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

Notably, the fees charged by colleges offering management programmes through Directorate of Technical Education are Rs 200,000. Madhukar Shukla, faculty and spokesperson for XLRI Jamshedpur, says: “Our interviews start from February 25 this year and by end of March our final lists would be out. So, if IIMs are delaying the final list this year, a few students may opt out of XLRI if they get into an IIM later on.” XLRI follows the AICTE norm and refunds around 99 per cent of the fees paid, retaining only the processing fee of around Rs 1,000.

IIMs look beyond CAT scores

To combat CAT fiasco this year and the overall uncertainty, IIMs are looking beyond CAT scores. Students too are hoping their academic records will play a significant role. At IIM Bangalore, essay writing will replace group discussions (GDs) during admissions this year. Candidates will have to write an essay in 30 minutes on any topic related to the current political, economic and business scenario or on topics such as sports and those that require more creative thinking.

IIM Ahmedabad had also eliminated the GD from its admission process in 2007. IIM Kozhikode (IIM-K), on its part, will use a ‘profile based’ selection procedure starting this year and will decrease the weightage given to the CAT scores.

The exact decrease, however, has not been specified. IIM-K will lay more stress on criteria such as consistent academic record and work experience of a candidate from this year. The other IIMs have not made any significant changes to the admissions process this year.

There is good news for all MBA aspirants who have taken the CAT 2009 entrance test. IIM Calcutta, the mentor institute for the soon to be launched IIM Ranchi, has announced that the process for admissions to IIM Ranchi’s first batch of two-year Post Graduate Programme in Management for the Academic Session 2010-2011 will start by February end. This announcement brings cheers to thousands of MBA aspirants who are expecting the CAT 2009 results by the third or fourth week of February.

The Press release issued by the IIM Calcutta states, “The fees for the two-year programme will be Rs. 3 lakh per year. The advertisement seeking applications from eligible candidates will be published in leading dailies and the downloadable application form will be available on the IIM Calcutta website (www.iimcal.ac.in) by the end of February, 2010.”

The Economic Times:

Nishant Singh, an IIM-A alumnus, spent three sleepless nights waiting for his turn with the recruiters at IIM-A during the final placements two years ago. For some of his batchmates, the wait was even longer. When D-Day came, all they could get with the recruiter was 45 minutes. Worse, they did not get a chance to explore other companies on campus.

Now, as the career-defining placement season begins from February 13 at the IIM-A, the first among the IIMs to hold placements, Nishant wishes he was in this batch, which will get at least one week to mull over a job offer.

The premier B-School has decided to change its placement process from this year to a cohort-based system, wherein companies from similar sectors will be clubbed together. Cohorts from diverse sectors, offering similar roles and opportunities will then come under one cluster in the new system that has signalled an end to the day-based process. Under the the day system, students decided which company came on Day Zero, Day One and the subsequent days of the placement.

While IIM-A says, it will receive feedback from recruiters before institutionalising the cohort system, other IIMs are yet to adopt this.

To begin with, each cluster will have as many as 30 firms who will select students. The first cluster companies that will make offers on February 13 & 14 will have all major Day Zero recruiters — global banks, consulting firms, and private equity players — like Bain & Co, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group. Goldman Sachs. There will also be a mix of companies from sectors like marketing, IT, and pharmaceuticals.

Terming the cohort system as ideal for both students and recruiters, Singh says: “In our batch, people would have to wait outside the interview venue expecting a call. At the end of the day, many would even return empty handed. This looked unmanageable as the number of students went up. Many of my batchmates also regretted not getting to appear for interview with the company they liked to join. Others were tapped with an offer even before they could appear for an interview with the company of their choice.’’

IBEF:
 

New Delhi: Foreign direct investment (FDI) grew to US$ 1.54 billion in December 2009, an increase of 13.2 per cent over the December 2008 level of US$ 1.36 billion, according to the latest bulletin issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). This makes it the third consecutive month of year-on-year increases in FDI inflows.

The February bulletin of the RBI showed that FDI equity inflows for the period between April and December of the current fiscal, stood at US$ 21.5 billion, higher than the US$ 21.15 billion posted in the same period in the preceding fiscal.

The services sector followed by the telecommunications, real estate and housing sector are seen as preferred destinations for foreign investors. The government has issued a compendium of 177 Press Notes relating to FDI and has stated that from the next fiscal, FDI rules would be reviewed twice a year.

Business Standard:
 

Mumbai: Outstanding bank credit in the 15 days up to January 29 rose by Rs 20,000 crore, pointing to a revival in credit growth.

The year-on-year growth in credit as of January 29 was 14.83 per cent over the same fortnight last year.

On a year-on-year basis, this is the highest growth recorded since August 14, 2009. In October, the growth rate had plummeted to a 12-year low of 9.75 per cent.

Typically, outstanding bank credit swells during the last fortnight of a quarter and contracts in subsequent weeks.

In the last fortnight, total bank credit grew by a whopping Rs 79,515 crore — the highest fortnightly rise in the financial year so far.

In the following fortnight up to January 15, outstanding credit shrank by Rs 11,898 crore, but bankers were expecting further reversals after the unusually high quarter-end numbers.

“There is good demand for home and auto loans on the retail side. On the corporate side, a lot of sanctions for power projects are getting disbursed now,” said a senior executive of a large public sector bank. He added banks might actually exceed the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) forecast of 16 per cent credit growth for the year.

RBI had earlier estimated that bank credit would grow by 20 per cent in 2009-10. However, in the wake of dismal credit growth, it had revised its estimates downwards to 16 per cent in two successive monetary policy reviews.

In the financial year so far, banks have disbursed an additional Rs 291,680 crore, which translates into a growth of 9.35 per cent. To reach the target of 16 per cent for the year, banks will have to disburse an additional Rs 184,134 crore in the next two months.

Deposits expanded by Rs 52,817 crore to a total outstanding of Rs 42,95,391 crore in the two weeks up to January 29. In the previous fortnight, outstanding deposits contracted by Rs 21,966 crore. On a year-on-year basis, the growth in deposits was 17.09 per cent over the same period last year.

DH News Service:

Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal appears to have developed a new management-leadership theory: Send some of India’s top B-school pass-outs to head village schools.

It may be left to management experts to figure out whether Sibal’s theory rests on sound principles, but the HRD minister believes that making principals out of some willing pass-outs from the Indian Institutes of Management is a workable proposition.
Interacting with a group of women entrepreneurs here on Wednesday, Sibal focused on the need of leaders in education, including capable principals in large numbers, especially in the model schools to be set up across the country.

“I have interacted with students in the prestigious B-schools and many of them want to opt for teaching. Why can’t we have graduates from the Indian Institutes of Management as principals in these schools?” he asked.

“A number of IIM and IIT students come from rural background and they want to give back something to their villages. We should explore this opportunity,” he said.
The HRD Ministry had asked the universities to design a course on leadership skills, which would include leadership in education sector.

Having it easy
“On a normal course, it takes about nine years for a teacher to become principal in a school. But if an IIM or IIT graduate undertakes the Leadership Development programme in a university, he can be recruited as a principal within two years,” the minister said.
However, after serving a certain period he would be free to go back to the industry if he wants to.

The minister admitted that the issue of compensation of the school teachers would have to be considered with utmost importance.
Sibal also asserted that Government would never allow profiteering in education that would go as dividends to the share holders.

Even though the educational institutions were allowed to make profit, it should be ploughed back to the institutions for their development.
Citing the example of Harvard and Yale Universities, which were set up as trusts, the minister said no country could allow profiteering in education.
Maintaining that implementation of the Right to Education Act would be a challenge Sibal said without active participation and monitoring by the states it would be difficult to maintain quality in school education.

The Centre could lay down rules, provide guidelines for core curriculum and qualification of teachers, but the actual implementation including building of infrastructure and recruitment of teachers should be done by the states.

He also pointed out that the states would have to keep a watch on whether the private schools were setting aside 25 per cent seats for poor children in the locality.
Stating that all institutes of higher education should have to get certificates from the proposed National Accreditation Authority the minister said even the existing institutions would have to streamline their system to get accreditation.
He also maintained that the government had no plans of scrapping the class XII Board examinations.

The Economic Times:

The coveted IIMs may be the best place to get an MBA. However, B-School professors, including those from the IIMs, increasingly feel that the “teaching quality” at these premier institutes is on the wane. The IIMs are growing in stature, but unfortunately, also in size. With class strengths increasing by 40% in the last four years, the student to teacher ratio has dropped, thus making it difficult for the institutes to sustain the teaching standards.

“The increasing batch size at IIMs has led to a decrease in teaching quality. When the batch size (of classes) were small, there used to be greater interaction. Now (when classes have become larger) the interaction between students and faculty has reduced. The faculty is unable to ensure that, what’s being taught has been absorbed by all the concerned students,” said Biju Paul Abraham, chairman, post-graduate programme for executives at Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C).

“Large batch size put pressure on pedagogy. In the last few years, there has been a 20-30% rise in batch size at IIMs. The ratio of student and faculty has increased to 1:10 from the earlier 1:6. This has led to a decrease in teaching quality,” Mr Abraham told ET on the sidelines of the ‘Connexion’, an event organised by the students of PGPX batch.

“The challenge is two-fold. One is to effectively manage the expansion (in IIMs) and second, to recruit additional faculty (to cater to increasing number of students),” the professor said adding increase in number of seats in IIMs has been sudden and “was not properly planned”.

However, the quest for quality manpower has been plaguing most of the IIMs who during the recent past have lost quite a number of faculty members to private B-schools who have been offering better perks and working environment. The IIMs have also been unable to attract foreign faculty due to restrictive salary structure set by the Union HRD minister, a sentiment expressed by the IIM-A’s director Samir Barua himself on several occasions.

Over the last three years, at least 10% of senior faculty members of IIM-Ahmedabad alone have either left the institute for better pastures or have not resumed duties after a long leave without pay, say insiders at IIMA. They have been replaced by new faculty members who are not standing up to the quality set by their predecessors, with the IIMA students themselves showing displeasure over the quality of new faculty recruits on public discussion forums on the internet.

“The increase size of classes is definitely a cause of concern. It’s not just theory that we learn at IIMs. MBA programmes are more discussion-oriented, where interacting with the faculty, is of paramount importance. Moreover, in all MBA colleges, which includes IIMs, academic performance of a student also depends on class participation, where about 5-10% of the total marks are allotted to a student for participating in class discussions,” says Rahul Roushan, an IIM-A alumnus. “Large class size can either pose as a hurdle for constructive discussions or can lead to cacophony,” he added.

According to Professor Abraham, one possible way to tackle the problem is to “rapidly increase the size/strength of the doctoral programme”. “The present structure of the doctoral programmes were meant to cater to IIMs having smaller batch sizes,” he added.

Poor quality of education is also affecting the brand positioning of these premier B-schools, feel insiders. Immediate factors like poor management of the prestigious Common Admission Test (CAT) and closing down of two important courses (including the management education programme (MEP) and public management and policy (PGP-PMP), in 2010 and 2009 respectively) at IIM-A, have also added to the deteriorating brand value of the premier B-school.

“Looking at the way the IIM-A as well as other IIMs have fared over the last few years, one can clearly see non-IIM business-schools emerging as strong contenders for top talents. All this is happening when the government is paving way for foreign institutes to set up shop in India, giving direct fight to our IIMs,’’ said a senior IIM-A faculty member, preferring anonymity.

Business Standard:

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are gearing up to meet the increasing demand for student and faculty exchanges — besides joint programmes in research and training — with more international collaborations and dual-degree programmes.

IIM Calcutta (IIM-C), for instance, is planning to start a dual-degree programme with its foreign institutions. Saibal Chattopadhyay, dean, IIM-C, says: “We have collaborations with around 50 institutions in over 26 countries for our two-year post-graduate programme students and another 10 collaborations are in the pipeline, for student exchange programmes. We are currently looking at course similarity or equivalence in our partner institutions so that we can start offering dual degrees to our students, in addition to the exchange programmes that we have.” The institute is also looking at dual-degree programmes for its executive education programmes.

At IIM-C, too, around 50-60 students go on foreign exchange programmes every year and this year the number will touch 100.

Under the dual-degree programme, students get to study for one year in a foreign B-school after completing a year in India. Exchange programmes, on the other hand, provide students with exposure to other cultures and business practices. Around 700 students annually take part in the student exchange programme from India. Of these, about 400 students go from India to other foreign universities.

IIMs need to get more foreign collaborations since their numbers are also increasing with the schedule castes (SCs), schedule tribes (STs) and other backward classes (OBCs) quota implementation. Each foreign partner institute takes not more than five students. So, IIMs need more foreign partnerships with educational institutes to send all its students overseas on various programmes.

IIM-C, meanwhile, is exploring partnerships in countries where it does not have any collaboration yet. Universities in China and Australia are a case in point. The institute has collaborations with institutes in Germany, the UK, France and Belgium.

IIM-Kozhikode (IIM-K), on its part, is eyeing multi-purpose collaborations with foreign universities. Debashis Chatterjee, director, IIM-K, notes: “We have collaborations with around 20 foreign institutions right now and another 10 collaborations are in the pipeline. We are looking at multi-purpose collaborations for student exchange, faculty exchange and even exchange programmes for executives.”

IIM-K has signed an MoU with Leipzig University in Germany for similar exchange programmes, especially for executive education. Among other initiatives, IIM-K has tied-up with Global Indian International School (GIIS) and will start a ‘Leading School’ programme soon which is expected to be held six times a year. It will have school principals, faculty and CEOs from Singapore, Europe and North America visit its campus for the same.

IIM-K is also looking at similar programmes for its faculty abroad. IIM-K’s faculty goes to Harvard University to participate in its ‘Interactive Learning’ programmes. “We send around 30-40 per cent of our students on exchange programmes abroad and the number is only expected to increase with the quota implementation,” says Chatterjee.

IIM Lucknow, on the other hand, has collaborations with around 23 institutions overseas for student and faculty exchange programmes. Sailendra Singh, faculty for international linkages and financial aids at IIM Lucknow, said, “We are exploring more such collaborations to provide value-additions to our students. This would depend on synergy in academic calendars of both the institutions. The number of students going on student exchange programmes would also increase from the current 50.”

IIM Bangalore (IIM-B) does not have a dual-degree programme, but it has a student exchange programme. Some students (on an average 80-90) from IIM-B spend their fifth term at a university of their choice abroad. IIM-B has collaborations with more than 70 universities — 40 of which are in Europe. Students from 41 universities around the world, according to an IIM-B spokesperson, visit the campus in their second year and spend one term (around three months) on campus.

The Economic Times:

It all started within a Facebook community of six bright young men. One of them will definitely forego lucrative offers which may come
in his way at IIM-Ahmedabad during the current placement season. The group plans to electrify rural areas using solar power and will even get a central subsidy.

Dhruv Dhanda, a final year student of IIM-A’s flagship post-graduate management programme (PGMP), along with his six friends (one of them is still pursuing his management from Wharton B-School!) has developed a device that uses solar power to light bulbs, charge mobile phones and run fan at a competitive price. The company, Energized Solutions, started commercial production in villages in Uttar Pradesh only a few days ago.

The idea of social venture set rolling when Dhruv, an electrical engineer from the US, floated a Facebook community ‘Donate A Light’, seeking small donations from members to install solar lights in five villages of Rajasthan.

“The idea was germinated in the US itself when I ventured to install solar lamps in a parking lot while pursuing electrical engineering,” recalls Dhruv. But when he came back to India, he realised the renewable solar energy can find better use and that too with social purpose to change lives.

Now with the project taking off, Dhruv has decided not to appear for the placements and take the entrepreneurial route. However, the project is not entirely a profit-driven venture. “Our main aim is to provide light in rural areas of the country. We have decided to contribute a part of the profit to social cause and the remaining for the business to survive,” he said.

“Electricity is a major problem in rural India. While enough is happening in urban India in terms of renewable energy, rural India is left out despite the populace having enough purchasing power,” he added.

With the idea and the device ready, the next step was a pilot run. The team set out for villages in Bhilwara in Rajasthan for the pilot project. A majority of villages chosen for the purpose did not have access to electricity. The team provided 200 lighting devices, funded through Rs 75,000 that came as donations from the Facebook community.

“For the pilot, we approached an immensely underserved zone. However, the pilot was not free from trouble. A few households provided with the device sold them off while others were hesitant to use them. We had to set up monitoring of the device with the help of village people. We also had to explain them about the use of the device. But things sorted out, and we extended our pilot project to villages in Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand, supplying at least 400 such devices,” he said.

DNA:

Bangalore: Taking a cue from the Copenhagen climate summit, the Indian Institute of Management- Bangalore (IIM-B), went green for Vista 2010, the three-day annual business summit of the institute that started on Friday.

The dignitaries invited for the summit were seen sipping tender coconut water instead of soft drinks and canned juice. They were ferried in Reva electric cars within the campus,and the organisers used recycled paper for making posters.

The B-school also took several measures to reduce power, water and paper consumption during the summit in an attempt to establish “green consciousness” on the campus.

The ‘Environment and Sustainable Society’ of the institute collaborated with Reva Electric and NextGen, an energy and environment management company, for this purpose. Moving away from the traditional method, the society members made 1,000 posters as invites for Vista 2010. “About 600 were created using recycled papers. Last year, we had printed over 2,100 invitation cards.Instead of sticking the posters everywhere, we used LCD monitors to inform students about the programme schedule and other related information. This further reduced the usage of paper,” said Vernon Fernandez, a member of the organising team.

In December 2009, IIM-B students created a group to work towards developing innovative ideas and measures for sustainable growth using environment-friendly methods. “This is an organised group formed to discuss green ideas for sustainable growth. It is one of its kind in the state, I believe,” said Dawn Thomas, a member of the group. “It is the first step towards our goal of attaining green self-sufficiency within 10 years,” he said.“We have also kept three types of garbage bins across the campus for wet, dry and paper wastes that will be generated during the summit. The waste collected will be sent for decomposition and recycling.”

These steps will help reduce emission by 30% during the summit.

“That means we have helped save 40 trees this year. By using electrical cars, we will be cutting down as much emission as generated by 10 flights between Bangalore and Mumbai. We will also save electricity by having every fifth event of the Vista in the open air,” said Abhishek Humbad, a founder member of NextGen, the brain behind the green initiatives.

Business Standard:

Admissions for the academic year 2010 at over 150 business-schools will be delayed.

This, the B-schools say, is due to the delay in Common Admission Test (CAT) results. The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), however, say that only personal interviews could be delayed by a few weeks.

CAT scores are mandatory for students to study at the seven Indian Institutes of Management and over 150 other B-schools in India.

Results for the computer-based CAT will now be announced around the third week of February instead of January 22, as Phase-II of the computer-based CAT will be conducted on January 30-31, 2010.

“Due to the new changes in the CAT schedule, the vacation period of the admission staff at IMI would have to be compromised with. However, we would begin the new academic year on schedule,” said C S Venkata Ratnam, director, International Management Institute (IMI). IMI accepts only CAT scores for admissions. The New Delhi-based institute has postponed its admission process from March to April.

Similarly, at the Bangalore-based Institute of Finance and International Management (IFIM), admissions could be delayed by around three weeks. “Around 25-30 per cent of our candidates come through CAT. We will look at releasing the final list of accepted candidates in mid-April and starting our orientation programme in second week of June,” says Swami Krishnan, CEO and Director of IFIM. The institute is offering 240 seats for its two-year management programme and accepts the Managemnet Aptitude Test of the All India Management Association scores as well.

The admission process for these institutes include processing of applications based on cut-offs, organising group discussions and personal interviews between the months of January and April.

The final list of accepted candidates is released in April-May. The academic year starts in June for most of these institutes. With the delay in admission, announcement of the final list could be delayed by a few weeks but most institutes are confident about starting their terms in June.

Khandala-based Kohinoor Business School (KBS) says it will have to hurry up its admission process by a month. “We spread our admission process to around three months but this year we will have to hurry it up. We will conduct the group discussions and personal interview by March, so that we begin admissions in April. The academic year will, however, begin as per schedule in June-July,” says Bigyan Verma, director, Kohinoor Business School, which admits around 300 students for its two-year management programme. KBS accepts CAT and XAT (Xavier Admission Test) scores. The cut-off ranges around the 70th percentile for CAT scores.

The computer-based CAT, plagued by technical errors this year, has left many students confused on their possible scores. This has prompted many to apply to more institutes than usual. “Since the last date for applying to many institutes closes before the CAT results are announced, students are confused about their target approximation. They would probably not want to take a risk and will look at various options,” says G R Nair, deputy registrar at Institute of Management, Nirma University.

The institute has postponed its last date of application from December 30 till January 15. The institute generally sends details of the applicants to the IIMs, who attach the CAT score of the applications after the results are out. More confusion has also come students’ way as CAT this year, for the first time, was conducted in a window of eight days in the first phase and two days in the second phase.

“Although the level of difficulty was kept alike for all the days, there is still doubt in students’ minds as to what they may have scored as compared to others, leaving them in a dilemma on which institute to apply. Institutes that have a later submission date may benefit, since this gives more time to candidates to take a decision,” says the director of a top institute.

Originally scheduled between November 28 and December 7, 2009, the first computer-based CAT had to be extended by an extra day as technical errors marred the test.

Around 20,000 students were not able to take the exam in the first three days. At the end of the testing period, it was estimated that around 8,000 students had difficulties taking the test. Nearly 241,000 applicants registered for the CAT this year, which saw turmoil in the first few days, with centres facing technical issues. The IIMs blamed the computer virus ‘Conficker’.

The first phase of CAT 2009 was from November 28th to December 8th, 2009. The second phase of CAT 2009 will be on January 30th and 31st, 2010.

Equity and fairness requires that candidates who faced disruptions during the test be given an opportunity to complete the test while not requiring those who completed the test successfully to take the test again.

The following candidates would be scheduled for a test in the second phase of CAT 2009:

   1. those who could not take the test due to planned or unplanned closure of their test lab and were not rescheduled later in the first phase. (This does not include voluntary no-shows.)
   2. those who were rescheduled but could not appear for the test because of notice period of less than 48 hours.
   3. those who were rescheduled but could not appear for the test as they were rescheduled in a city different from their original choice.
   4. those who pressed the End/Quit button within the first 120 minutes during the first three days of the testing window and have not been rescheduled yet. (If a candidate in this category chooses not to take the rescheduled test, then his/her score from the first phase of testing will be retained.)
   5. those who completed the test in more than 140 minutes of clock-time* due to computer disruptions. (If a candidate in this category does not appear for the rescheduled test, then his/her score from the first phase of testing will be considered null and void.)
   6. those who completed the test in 136 minutes to 140 minutes of clock-time* due to computer disruptions would have an option to take the rescheduled test. (If a candidate in this category does not appear for the rescheduled test, then his/her score from the first phase of testing will be retained.)
   7. those who experienced difficulties due to various kinds of disruptions such as frozen computer screen, blank screen, and data/graphic elements not displaying properly; identified through site reports recorded at the test labs and have not been rescheduled yet.

(* Clock-time refers to actual elapsed time from the start of the test to the end of the test for a candidate. This is different from the time indicated by the count-down timer which was displayed on the computer screen.)

The above criteria have been arrived at based on the analysis of calls and emails received from the candidates; site reports filed by the site managers; computer logs; and information gathered from websites and blogs. The rescheduling (based on the above criteria) and the psychometric equivalences that will be established across the tests address all issues of equity and fairness raised in various forums (including those pertaining to candidates getting additional clock-time).

The candidates identified for the re-test in phase two would receive communication from Prometric by January 10, 2010. The results of CAT 2009 are likely to be declared by the third week of February 2010.

The Economic Times:

NEW DELHI: The 2,000-odd candidates, who could not take the Common Admissions Test (CAT) in time because of software glitches in the exam system, can now appear on January 30 & 31, 2010, according to a posting at the exam’s website on Friday, which said that the final results are likely to be out by the third week of next months.

Candidates identified for the re-test in phase II would receive communication from the exam conductor, Prometric, by January 10, 2010. The first phase of CAT was held from November 28 to December 8, 2009.

The website has also given detailed information on those who are eligible to take the test. This includes — students who could not take the test due closure of their test labs and were not given a rescheduled date, those who were rescheduled but could not appear for the test because of notice period of less than 48 hours and those who could not take the test as it was rescheduled in a different city from their earlier choice.

Besides these, students who faced disruptions such as pressing the end/quit button within the first 120 minutes during the first three days of the testing window and were not rescheduled, can also sit for the exam. The website further added that if a candidate in this category chooses not to take the rescheduled test, then his/her score from the first phase of testing will be retained.

CAT takers, who experienced technical glitches like frozen computer screen, blank screen, and improper display of data or graphic elements and were not given a second chance, will also be eligible to complete their test.
The website also pointed that in case of students faced disruptions and could complete the test in more than 140 minutes of clock-time (actual test-taking time), should also get their tests re-scheduled.

In case such a candidate does not appear for the rescheduled test, then his/her score from the first phase of testing will be not considered. Students, who completed the test in 136-140 minutes of clock-time, would also have this option, but in case they do not opt, their scores from the first phase will be retained.

The CAT 2009 exam was conducted for in the computer-based format for the first time this year, but was marred by a series of software glitches. Around 2.40 lakh students applied for the exam this year, out of which 2.16 lakh have already appeared.

The Economic Times

NEW DELHI: Results of the glitch-ridden computerised edition of the Common Admission Test 2009, for admissions to the elite B-schools in the country, may be delayed.

While the convenor of the exam told ET that the results could be delayed by a few days from the originally-scheduled January 22, another person close to the developments said it could stretch to February 2010.

The exam was conducted online for the first time this year in tandem with US firm Prometric, but was marred by a series of software glitches. The Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), which administer the test, had earlier announced that they would give out a fresh date for those who could not appear for the test due to the technical problems.

“We have not yet decided on the new date. IIMs, Promeric and NIIT are working on co-ordinating labs and test centres for the final test date. Hopefully, we will announce something by Monday,” CAT convenor Prof Satish Deodhar said.

Around 2.40 lakh students applied for the exam this year, of which around 2,000 could not take the test as servers came crashing following a virus attack. The faux pas prompted the ministry of human resource development to ask for a report from the IIMs on CAT 2009, which was submitted on December 16.

“If it were a pen-paper format, we could tell. But, in the case of computer based test (CBT), it is difficult to say anything at this point,” Prof Deodhar said about a possible delay in the results.

Prof Devi Singh, director of IIM Lucknow, said that the focus now is on completing the testing process. “It could be January 24 or January 31, but the final decision is yet to be made,” he said.

The uncertainty has pushed candidates to the edge, most of whom had spent a year preparing for the coveted exam. Neha Khullar, a 21-year-old commerce student from Delhi, said she has got a rescheduled date, but the delay in results is agonising.

“The first thing that comes to my mind now is whether the results will be fair. There is so much that has gone wrong with CAT in the past couple of months that the trust factor is now hard to maintain,” she said.

‘The Looking Glass’: PAN- IIM Marketing Digest

The IIMs A, B, C and L have joined hands to come up with the first ever PAN- IIM marketing Digest, ‘The Looking Glass’. The digest was launched online on December 2 with the aim of connecting marketing enthusiasts and providing some useful insights into the world of marketing. It will be made available to the industry and various B-schools across the country and abroad.

The 49-page digest covers a wide variety of interesting topics ranging from humor in Indian advertising to valuation of TV Advertising to the impact of the Fake IPL Player on brand Kolkata Knight Riders. The articles include contributions from students of the four IIMs besides the industry. The first issue includes an article by Prakash Bagri, Director of Marketing, Intel South Asia.

Mayank Jain, one of the digest editors from IIM Calcutta says, The initial co-ordination was tough no doubt, given the tight schedules at IIMs, but then as things picked up, it became quite smooth. We intend to continue this on a regular basis, rolling out the digest semi-annually with greater contributions from industry in the coming issues.

The Economic Times

BANGALORE: The leading IIMs, still smarting under the recent fiasco over the online CAT debut, are creating their own firewall against similar disasters in future. After an elaborate post-mortem of the recent disaster, many IIM officials are exploring the idea of using free and open source software (Foss), rather than going in for proprietary software, to prevent online common admission test disasters in future.

“Online exams can be easily conducted using Foss as it can not only reduce costs by over 50%, but it is also safe against virus and malware attacks,” said one of the IIM officials. Infact, US-based Prometric — which bagged the high-profile $40-million contract to organise the online CAT using proprietary software like Microsoft Windows, along with NIIT — has pinned the main reason for this year’s disaster on the virus attacks.

Despite installing several security measures, they were unable to circumvent the virus attacks, which impacted over 20,000 candidates. Unlike the open source software, proprietary software is not for free and has to be bought.

Experts like T Vignesh Prabhu, a hacker at ‘deeprootlinux’, which is dedicated to developing and supporting Foss, said virus attacks form the major concern of IIMs. “The only solution is to discard the virus-prone operating system you have been using and install Foss, such as GNU (a free software) and Linux-based operating systems,” he said.

Foss software, which grants users the right to study, change, and improve its design through its source code, is the most preferred option. He said, there is enough statistics to prove that GNU/Linux-based operating systems are less prone to virus attacks. The only other way is to keep fighting the viruses by installing the latest updates of various anti-virus softwares.“And, you have to keep your fingers crossed hoping that developers of anti-virus companies are just as fast as the virus-writers,” he added.

Officials at Prometric, which had used proprietary software this time, said many centres were affected by mainly two viruses — Conflicker and W32.NIMDA. IIM officials said this happened despite the fire-walls systems installed. They said the CAT computers were sourced and leased from local colleges in the cities where the examinations were held. They said most of the CAT computers got infected through the servers and other computers in various colleges through the local area network (which is a computer network covering a small physical area like a group of buildings). Also, the existing data on some of the 17,000-20,000 CAT work stations has not been deleted.

IIM officials said many of these 17,000-20,000 computers were prone to virus attacks as they may not have used the genuine proprietary software.

“I doubt whether Prometric really checked this. Many colleges may have used pirated software,” said one of the IIM officials. The Foss model is already working successfully in states like Kerala, where the state government’s IT@School provides IT-enabled education to 1.6 million students a year in the state using Foss. “We will use Foss to handle over four lakh admission application forms in a period of 10-15 days for two lakh 11th standard seats in government and government-aided institutions,” said IT@ School executive director K Anvar Sadath. He said the CAT exam can be run successfully on Foss without any virus threats.

Despite all these advantages, some IIM officials also said it will be difficult to conduct exams like CAT on Foss as it is not user-friendly and there is very less awareness about it.

Meanwhile, top IIM officials said they are determined to continue to hold the CAT exam according to the online format, and not go back to traditional paper-pencil one. “Online tests take place globally on a large scale. IT-enabled education is the way ahead,” IIMB director Pankaj Chandra told ET on Wednesday. He said they are reviewing student grievances and are coming up with new guidelines to screen those who deserve to be given a retest to ensure that only genuine candidates enter IIMs.

IIM officials said they were reviewing thousands of hours of video recording of the entire CAT 2009 exam to screen such candidates. Infact, European Union is one of the biggest supporters of Foss at present, having shifted all its public administration details to the Foss format.

Japan aims to switch some of its government computers to the free Linux operating system and reduce its dependence on Microsoft Windows. Japan saw the use of Linux as a way of lowering procurement costs and bolstering its defence against cyber-attacks. Like Germany, France and other European countries, Japan, South Korea and China long have been wary of leaving too many government computers and networks dependent on Windows. Many experts view Windows as too prone to computer viruses and hacking.

The Economic Times

NEW DELHI: Emboldened by their success in snaring management graduates from top business schools, such as the Indian Institutes of Management, in the last placement season, public sector banks (PSBs) plan to hit the campuses aggressively this time too.

“We have had a fantastic experience last time when we recruited from the top management schools in the country. The quality of talent was extremely good,” said Bank of Baroda chairman and managing director MD Mallya.

The bank hired about 200 students from various B-schools, including the IIMs earlier this year in the placement season in March and plans to ramp up the number to 350 this time. “We are looking to add talent to facilitate our expansion plans and plan to hit the campuses soon,” he added.

However, for the PSBs, the move to target IIMs and other B-schools is borne out of necessity, and not a passing fad. With an estimated 40 per cent of their workforce, of some 8 lakh people, slated to retire in the next two years, PSBs are set for a large-scale recruitment drive. Banks are looking to hire at all levels and for that they are planning to visit B-schools as well.

“We will hire in sizeable numbers and will visit management schools during the upcoming placement season. But not all the positions that fall vacant will get filled up as some jobs get eliminated as a result of improved technology over the years,” said Bank of Maharashtra CMD Allen Pereira.

In the last placement season, the bank had recruited from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, Symbiosis Institute of Business Management and Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, among others.

United Bank of India CMD SC Gupta said his bank will look to recruit nearly 1,700 people in the next one year at all levels and will target management schools such as XLRI. UCO Bank is also planning to visit IIMs and other B-schools this year to recruit about 100 MBA graduates.

Campus recruitment by PSBs picked up last placement season primarily as several foreign banks, bruised by the global credit crisis and the recession in the West, stayed away from Indian B-school campuses. Things were no better with private banks in India either.

Call it the challenge of working in a public sector company or the lure of a job safety in an uncertain world, many job seekers had shown preference for PSBs over private banks.

As per government data, the number of students recruited by MNCs from IIMs declined last year by as much as 45 per cent. MNCs hired 497 students in 2009 placements from the six IIMs compared with 920 a year before.

Salaries, too, saw a major correction, with most of the IIMs seeing a decline of up to 30 per cent in average salary offers.

“Last placement season, the decision to join PSBs may have been guided due to lack of opportunities from MNCs. But this year too, many students are interested in joining PSBs and other such enterprises. This is even as the economic situation has improved,” said IIM Calcutta external relations secretary Paul Savio.

The Economic Times:

When Vishnu Muthanna came to Bangalore on a salary of Rs 15,000 a month, he realised he couldn’t afford an apartment close to office. And even if
he lived farther away, the rent and other costs were enough to deter him from buying a washing machine. Washing clothes proved to be a hassle.

“I used to be tired by the time I got home. And in the morning I had to leave early,” he says. It was then that he heard of Chamak Laundry Service and since then has been a loyal customer.

It is for young people like Vishnu that Village Laundry Services (VLS) has become a success story in such a short time. The company, just a year old, has grown from three stores nine months ago, to 20 stores now.

“The idea is to change the way washing is done, and perceived,” says Akshay Mehra, CEO, VLS. A graduate of IIM-Calcutta, Mehra was brand manager with P&G, Singapore where he handled the Tide and Pantene brands for India and ASEAN countries for seven years.

It was a tough call at that time to leave all of that and return to India. “I was in a good job with great pay, and in a fine place. But it was too set, too structured,” says Mehra.

He discussed the idea with friends and family and finally pitched it to Innosight Ventures and Calvert Investments, who decided to invest $1 million. Today, VLS offers affordable and high quality washing, drying, and ironing services under the Chamak brand. Chamak booths, measuring 6x6 ft, use modern washing methods such as good quality detergents and high-efficiency, front-loading washing machines. This service is especially useful for students, young adults or lower income families.

It’s a classic case of disruptive innovation as proposed by Clayton Christensen, the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He is also the founder of Innosight Ventures which funded VLS.

“The Chamak booths are operated by an entrepreneur who is trained and mentored by VLS. This allows lower-income individuals to generate additional income to be self-sufficient and improve their lives,” says Scott Anthony, CEO, Innosight.

Compared with standalone laundry services or high-end laundry shops that charge by the garment, washing, drying and ironing at VLS comes at Rs 50 for a kg, making it widely affordable. By growing through kiosks of size 6x6 ft, Mehra has been able to start shop literally anywhere, just like the neighbourhood dhobi.

At Sarjapur Road, his kiosk is just outside the Total Mall, where many of his prospective customers—young students or new corporate employees—are regulars. From 20 stores currently, the plan is to expand to Mysore and Mumbai within the next couple of months, and go up to 100 locations by July 2010.

In the next three years, Mehra plans to have 1,000 kiosks in place. Revenues are now at Rs 3 lakh a month, and the target in the next three years is to be a $7 million company by revenue, says Mehra.

As Vishnu Muthanna takes his clothes freshly washed and ironed, he speaks for the new generation. “The fact that I am helping someone move forward in life by using Chamak is quite fulfilling.” For Mehra, it’s good business.

The Economic Times:

Emboldened by their success in snaring management graduates from top business schools, such as the Indian Institutes of Management, in
the last placement season, public sector banks (PSBs) plan to hit the campuses aggressively this time too.

“We have had a fantastic experience last time when we recruited from the top management schools in the country. The quality of talent was extremely good,” said Bank of Baroda chairman and managing director MD Mallya.

The bank hired about 200 students from various B-schools, including the IIMs earlier this year in the placement season in March and plans to ramp up the number to 350 this time. “We are looking to add talent to facilitate our expansion plans and plan to hit the campuses soon,” he added.

However, for the PSBs, the move to target IIMs and other B-schools is borne out of necessity, and not a passing fad. With an estimated 40 per cent of their workforce, of some 8 lakh people, slated to retire in the next two years, PSBs are set for a large-scale recruitment drive. Banks are looking to hire at all levels and for that they are planning to visit B-schools as well.

“We will hire in sizeable numbers and will visit management schools during the upcoming placement season. But not all the positions that fall vacant will get filled up as some jobs get eliminated as a result of improved technology over the years,” said Bank of Maharashtra CMD Allen Pereira.

In the last placement season, the bank had recruited from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, Symbiosis Institute of Business Management and Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, among others.

United Bank of India CMD SC Gupta said his bank will look to recruit nearly 1,700 people in the next one year at all levels and will target management schools such as XLRI. UCO Bank is also planning to visit IIMs and other B-schools this year to recruit about 100 MBA graduates.

Campus recruitment by PSBs picked up last placement season primarily as several foreign banks, bruised by the global credit crisis and the recession in the West, stayed away from Indian B-school campuses. Things were no better with private banks in India either.

Call it the challenge of working in a public sector company or the lure of a job safety in an uncertain world, many job seekers had shown preference for PSBs over private banks.

As per government data, the number of students recruited by MNCs from IIMs declined last year by as much as 45 per cent. MNCs hired 497 students in 2009 placements from the six IIMs compared with 920 a year before.

Salaries, too, saw a major correction, with most of the IIMs seeing a decline of up to 30 per cent in average salary offers.

“Last placement season, the decision to join PSBs may have been guided due to lack of opportunities from MNCs. But this year too, many students are interested in joining PSBs and other such enterprises. This is even as the economic situation has improved,” said IIM Calcutta external relations secretary Paul Savio.

Economic Times

KOLKATA/NEW DELHI: WHEN officials from Philips India walked into the IIM-Calcutta campus in November last year for pre-placement talks, gratitude was in the air. The global financial meltdown and consequent economic slowdown in India that had set in two months ago had dampened placement hopes in this elite institution. Investment banks, the most coveted at B-school campuses, had all but disappeared from the placement scene, and the gap was being filled by state-run companies, start-ups and assorted manufacturing firms.

Philips had no trouble recruiting the brightest minds in the country. After that first trip across IIM campuses, including Calcutta, for final placements, the company took in 10 students. As for salaries, they were surely less than what i-banks and management consultancies would’ve paid.

But this year, the tables appear to have turned. The scales are tilting once again in the students’ favour.
Before he could spot his first candidate, Philips HR chief S Nagarajan was bombarded by students at IIM-C when he arrived with his team for pre-placement talks last month. They wanted to know about Philips in-depth and its future growth areas, but straight from the CEO’s mouth.

Mr Nagarajan had to finally call in his CEO & MD Murali Sivaraman, who flew down from their Gurgaon headquarters to Kolkata to answer the students’ queries. “Now that i-banks and consultants are recruiting in a bigger way, we had to relook our campus recruitment strategy. With the business outlook improving, students are negotiating harder,” he says.

But this year, the tables appeared to have turned. The scales are tilting once again in students’ favour. Before he could spot his first candidate, Philips HR chief S Nagarajan was bombarded by students at IIM-C when he arrived with his team for pre-placement talks at the Joka campus last month.

They wanted to know about Philips in depth and its growth areas of tomorrow, but straight from the CEO’s mouth.
Mr Nagarajan had to finally call in his CEO & MD Murali Sivaraman, who flew down from his Gurgaon headquarters to Kolkata, to answer students’ queries.

“Now that I-banks and consultants are recruiting in a bigger way, we had to relook our campus recruitment strategy. With the business outlook improving, students are negotiating harder,” says Mr Nagarajan.

Philips, which again plans to recruit 10 students this year, is eyeing a Slot One place at the upcoming IIM final placements. The way things are going, the company might have to offer international exposure to students from the premier B-schools, says Mr Nagarajan.

People like Mr Nagarajan and Mr Sivaraman are up against significant competitors this year at elite B-school campuses of the Indian Institutes of Management, the Indian School of Business, XLRI and IIFT.

Among them is Goldman Sachs, the tallest investment bank in the global financial universe today. Goldman intends to hire 24 students for summer placement for their centres in London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangalore and Mumbai. “As always, we are extremely impressed by the high standards of candidates at IIM campuses,” says a Goldman Sachs (Asia) spokesperson from Hong Kong.

Goldman will be joined by Morgan Stanley, McKinsey & Co, Credit Suisse, Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Co, Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank. No surprise then that the state-owned Indian Oil Corporation, one of the country’s largest companies, is yet to get a call from any of the IIMs to join the placement drive. Last year, IOC had picked up 25 students across the IIM campuses.

“We are ready to go if we are invited. But this year it may prove to be a tougher proposition to attract IIM grads with government salaries,” says IOC’s HR director VC Agarwal.

Maruti Suzuki reviewed the market condition and decided not to hike salary levels for fresh recruits. “However, we feel the top ones like IIMs, XLRI & ISB are more likely to regain their premium status, and hence can get better offers,” says the company’s managing executive officer SY Siddiqui. Maruti is planning to make 25 offers this year.

IIFT’s corporate and placements advisor Munish Bhargava believes the salary gap could be made up with foreign placements and more inclusive roles that companies are lining up for students.

IIFT and IIM-C so far have seen a growing interest from companies in Singapore and West Asia. ISB Hyderabad’s senior director for career advancement services, MVK Menon, says that international job postings have been made for attractive roles in energy, hospitality, and healthcare sectors apart from the regular consulting, finance, marketing and technology roles.

Institutions such as IIM-B are also planning to invite more companies. But the bottom line this year is clear. Students are negotiating this year from a position of strength, thanks to a strengthening economy.
However, Dabur India HR head A Sudhakar says the scales remain tilted in favour of recruiters. “But in a year or so, it might once again completely shift back to students,” he adds.

India Today

Business standard: October 26, 2009

IIM-Ahmedabad has around 75 tie-ups while IIM-Calcutta has around 50 partnerships with B-schools abroad Encouraged by the positive response they received from the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) on opening up campuses on foreign shores, some of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have also started scouting for foreign collaborations.

The IIMs reason that foreign tie-ups are important given the increasing demand for student and faculty exchange programmes and joint programmes in research and training.

The IIMs are also exploring increased international accreditation to help them gain better global access and aid them in forming alliances with international institutes. Global accreditation assists in attracting more foreign students and opening up opportunites for tie-ups with foreign universities.

IIM-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), for instance, is evaluating collaborations with three top international schools — the University of Virginia, Ohio State University and Duke University. The faculty from each of the three business schools are expected to visit IIM-A for discussions during the next several weeks. This is in addition to nearly 75 tie-ups that the IIM-A already has with different renowned business schools. Sources at IIM-A say more foreign collaborations is expected to help the institute become a globally acknowledged management school.

Likewise, IIM-Calcutta (IIM-C) is exploring more partnerships with foreign universities. Shekhar Choudhuri, director, IIM-C, says: “We are looking at increasing our international collaborations. Currently, we have 50 collaborations with foreign universities. More foreign collaboration is important for student exchange programmes because at IIM Calcutta, student intake is increasing and each foreign partner institute takes only two-three students. So, this year, we have 408 students, next year we would have 460 students. We need more foreign partnerships with educational institutes so that we can send all our students overseas on various programmes.”

IIM-C is also exploring partnerships in countries where it does not have any collaboration yet. For instance, IIM-C is looking at universities in China and Australia. The institute already has collaborations with institutes in Germany, UK, France and Belgium. “We are looking at a few joint research papers in order to boost collaboration as well as improve overall quality of research. So, currently we are carrying out joint faculty research with MIT, US. Some of our faculty is also into joint research with Harvard Business School,” adds Choudhuri.

Both IIM-C and IIM-A are also concentrating on global accreditations in order to help them gain better global access and aid them in forming alliances with international institutes.

IIM-A took the first step towards global recognition by becoming the first management school in the country to have been accorded EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System) accreditation. EQUIS is a leading international system of quality assessment, improvement and accreditation of higher education institutions of management and business administration.

IIM-C has sought certificates from the Association of Advanced Collegiate School of Business (AASCB). The institute is also seeking the European Quality Improvement System label from the European Foundation of Management Development (EFDM).

Till April 2008, nearly 550 institutions had been accredited by the AASCB, of which 96 are outside the US. Over 110 institutes had been accredited by EFMD in 33 countries till June 2008.

Simultaneously, the MHRD has expressed interest to tie up with the world’s leading universities to ensure that its “innovation universities” are a class apart from the pack. Among the American universities that are being approached are Yale, Standford and MIT. The government plans to set up 14 innovation universities over the next few years.

The government proposes to set up these universities as “global centres of innovation” and would like to draw on the talent and expertise of leading universities. Among other things, MHRD is reportedly keen on chartered schools, vocational education options and twinning programmes at the higher education level.

TNN 24 October 2009

AHMEDABAD: Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad is all set to add another feather in its cap. The premier B-school will enter into tie-ups with three top international schools — University of Virginia, Ohio State University and Duke University.

The tie-ups are being planned in three separate spheres — student exchange programme, faculty exchange programme and joint programme in research and training. “This is in addition to nearly 75 tie-ups that the IIM-A already has with different renowned business schools,” said IIM-A director Samir Barua.

Interestingly, various alumni associations are driving the latest spurt of tie-ups. The Darden India Alumni Chapter in Delhi has taken special interest in fixing the tie-up of Darden School of Business, University of Virginia, with IIM-A. “It is a unique thing that alumni association of a foreign university has been involved,” said Barua.
Faculty from each of the three business schools are expected to be in Ahmedabad to hold talks with IIM-A faculty during the next several weeks. The affiliation is taking place against the backdrop of IIM-A’s aspiration to become a globally acknowledged management school that functions in a manner consistent with the needs of a developing society, he said.

IIM-A took the first step towards global recognition by becoming the first and the only management school in the country to have been accorded EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System) accreditation. EQUIS
is a leading international system of quality assessment, improvement and accreditation of higher education institutions of management and business administration.

Telegraph, Oct. 23:

The IITs are preparing to gradually hike their fees to levels closer to the amounts charged by the IIMs over the coming few years to meet rising costs and reduce dependence on government subsidies.

In a departure from their traditional fee-setting strategy, the IITs are preparing a roadmap for gradual fee hikes just a year after they last raised fees, top sources on the IIT council told The Telegraph.

A panel set up by the council — the highest decision making body of the IITs — headed by atomic energy chief Anil Kakodkar has been asked to draft the roadmap for gradual fee hikes, the sources said.

Drafting the fee hike roadmap is one of the components of the mandate of the Kakodkar panel, set up at the council meeting on October 19 to prepare a blueprint for the future development of the IITs. The Kakodkar panel has been asked to submit its report in six months.

The strategy of employing gradual hikes — possibly on an annual basis — represents a change from the current practice of a sudden jump after several years of an unchanged fee structure.

The new strategy aims at following the IIM practice of a gradual but regular fee hike supported by an increase in financial assistance for those students who cannot afford the new fee structure.

The Kakodkar panel will recommend how the IITs can increase the number of scholarships, fellowships and other financial aid to ensure that deserving but economically weak students do not suffer from the hike, sources said.

“The strategy of gradual fee hikes will allow us, for the first time, an opportunity to hike fees commensurate with rising costs,” an IIT director said.

The IITs had a fixed tuition fee of Rs 25,000 a year for undergraduate and postgraduate science students for 10 years before the fees were doubled last year — to Rs 50,000 a year.

But even with the new fee structure, the IITs earn only Rs 2 lakh for four years of undergraduate teaching or Rs 1 lakh for two years of the masters in science programme from each student.

The top IIMs — which typically raise their fees each year — in contrast earn around 10 times as much through tuition fees from each student over comparable course lengths.

IIM Ahmedabad, for instance raised the fees for its two-year post-graduate diploma in management to Rs 12.5 lakh this year, from Rs 11.5 lakh last year.

The IIMs in Bangalore and Calcutta charge Rs 9.5 lakh and Rs 9 lakh for their two year postgraduate diploma courses respectively.

The IITs have over recent years frequently complained about an increasing financial deficit — the gap between funds allocated to them by the government on one hand and their expenditure on the other.

The institutes have met the deficit by dipping into reserve funds drawn from alumni donations and money earned through consultancy projects with industry. But these funds, the IITs have argued, are dwindling.

The IITs argue that their students — like those at the IIMs — earn starting salaries adequate to allow them to pay back any education loan within a few years.

BANGALORE: With the world increasingly shifting its focus to emerging markets, especially South and South East Asia for business, IIMs here are  also rejigging their strategies to help students better understand these regions. Premier B-schools from India now expect a good part of their campus placements from companies in Singapore, China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, necessitating an Occidental slant in their teaching procedures.

Dr Chris W Chan, associate professor and director of MBA programme, at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), said that they have observed a 20-30% rise in the number of MBA applications this year from Indian students. “A majority of them happen to be women, who are keen to work in South East Asia.

Indian students know where business is. But they also need to know how Asian business works,” he said. Sources said IIMs were in talks with companies like P&G, City Bank, Standard Chartered, Barclay’s and niche companies such as Huawei and Intel for campus placement.

“We are bullish on these markets and expect up to 10% of our campus placements to be from these regions,” said Rohan Jaikishen, an IIM-K student. Some IIM students who undertook an educational trip to Singapore, said that there was rising scope for employment in the finance, banking, healthcare, sales and operations verticals. “We expect 10% of our international placement to be from companies in South East Asia. Even companies like Shell and BP are doing well there”, said Nikhil Luktuke, an IIM-Lucknow student.

Another student from IIMAhmedabad (IIMA) said that the Singapore government has expressed its desire to hire more hands from IIMs and opportunities are not only in the finance sector, but also for marketing and operations. “A lot of networking is happening with companies in these regions. We expect more companies from these places to come for our summer placements and final campus recruitment,” he said.

“The US and UK have been most hit by the global meltdown. Hence, focus has shifted to the SEA regions, which have been least impacted. The presence of Indian entrepreneurs is also growing there,” an IIM-Bangalore student said. IMD has said that their executive MBA students are taking discovery expeditions to Shanghai and other SouthEast Asian markets to gain a deeper understanding of the emerging markets.

“China has already become the world’s global economic locomotive, the underwriter of America’s massive debt, the mover and shaker in markets in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America”, says experts like Jean-Pierre Lehmann, professor of International Political Economy and Prof Bill Fischer, Professor of Technology Management at Swiss business school — The International Institute for Management Development (IMD).

Many B-schools like IIM-Shillong, are conducting a course in the Chinese language. They also have a Japanese government official teaching Asian business on their campus. IIMKozhikode (IIMK) which has started teaching Chinese informally is planning to include a course in tourism as the Singapore Tourism department has shown interest in hiring their students. Invest Hong Kong director-general of investment promotion Simon Galpin told ET that over 3,000 MNCs are already present in the special administrative region of China, which will open newer opportunities.

“Besides popular names like China’s Haier and Huawei, there are many more appearing, including ZTE, Alibaba, and Shanghai-based Focus Media. This is in addition to the Toyotas, Sonys, Samsungs and Nintendos”, says Mr Fischer and Mr Lehmann of IMD. Tushar Bohra, a IIM-Calcutta student said that he would prefer to work in a place like Singapore as it has a vibrant economy, is cosmopolitan and is strategically located, giving access to other growing SEA regions.

Live Mint: 20th October

The number of candidates who registered for the test fell to 241,582, a 1.8% decline from the 246,000 candidates who took the test last year to win a seat at the premier business schools
For the first time in 12 years, the number of applicants for the common admission test (CAT) of the elite Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) has dropped, reflecting lingering economic insecurity in the aftermath of a placement season marked by conservative job offers and smaller pay packages.

Many candidates with jobs are possibly fearful of giving them up to apply for a high-stakes seat in IIMs, and succeed, only to re-enter an uncertain job market after two years, said Satish Deodhar, faculty member of IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A), convenor of a panel of the seven IIMs that’s overseeing the launch of a computer-based CAT for the first time.

Slowdown effect: A file photo of IIM Ahmedabad. Average salaries for domestic jobs offered to IIM-A graduates dropped 32% in 2009. Amit Dave / Mint
Candidates’ attitude is “I have my job, let me keep my job,” said Deodhar.
The number of candidates who registered for the test fell to 241,582, a 1.8% decline from the 246,000 candidates who took the test last year to win a seat at the premier business schools.

The number of registrations has fallen for the first time since 1997, according to Gautam Puri, a 1993 graduate of IIM Bangalore and vice-chairman of test prep firm Career Launcher India Ltd.

“This year candidates had probably noticed the effect on salaries and employment due to (the) economic slowdown,” said Deodhar.

Average salaries for domestic jobs offered to the graduating batch of IIM-A, the country’s best known B-school, dropped 32% in 2009 amid the economic downturn. The placement process lasted nine days, the longest in the school’s recent history.

CAT will be administered online for the first time this year between 28 November and 7 December. Prometric Testing Pvt. Ltd, the India unit of US-based testing company Prometric Inc., has been tasked to conduct the test for five years.

Deodhar said that asking candidates to carefully choose their programmes might have also led to the fall in applications. “Also, we went paperless and requested candidates to visit IIM websites, check eligibilities, decide which programmes they are interested in, and then choose to buy CAT vouchers,” he said.

6th October: The Economic Times

BANGALORE: TOP business schools are once again witnessing increased funding and a rise in the number of sponsors for their campus festivals after a year of slowdown and low budgets. Some of these sponsors are also making pre-placement offers and providing internships rather than giving out cash prizes.

IIM Ahmedabad’s (IIM-A) business event Confluence, which starts in November and its campus fest Chaos — which will be hosted in January 2010 — is going to see full support from sponsors like Tata Sons, Qualcomm, Reliance’s Vimal, SBI, Nestle and Cognizant. This premier B-school expects to double its spending on major events to Rs 1 crore and increase the number of participants to 8,000 over previous year’s levels, sources said.

However, the institutes are doing most of the work in-house to improve cost efficiency. “We are doing most of the work in-house as the objective is to learn. However, some part of the work which need high level of creativity, like building websites, will be outsourced”, said Rohan Desai, media secretary at IIMA. The institute may bring in singers such as KK, Mohit Chauhan and Pakistani rock band Fuzon to perform at the fests.

IIM Calcutta (IIM-C) too is increasing its festival budget to Rs 1 crore from Rs 55 lakh in 2008. The prize money is likely to be between Rs 12 lakh and Rs 16 lakh, sources said.

“We are getting signals that sponsors will increase their spending this year. Though it is convenient to outsource work, we are also doing work for the event in-house which has resulted in good amount of savings”, said Paul Savio, the IIM-C external relations secretary.

Though slowdown had played spoilsport in getting sponsors for IIM Shillong, it is still inviting the top 30 B-Schools and expects 1,000-1,500 participants for its corporate golf tournament and cultural-cum-management event called Lattice to be held for the first time in November.

“We are also doing lots of work in-house like making teaser videos and website creation, which will bring cost efficiency”, said Tripurari Prasad, public relations cell coordinator at IIM Shillong. The institute is expecting to spend Rs 35 lakh on its major fests and is pitching to get Indian rock bands such as Euphoria.

From major companies to medium enterprises, everyone pitched their brand at IIM Bangalore’s Unmaad festival — held on Saturday and Sunday — attracting 4,000 participants across India.

The event, which was brought forward to October, so that exchange students could also be part of this cultural festival, had been supported by sponsors like Nokia, Jet Airways, Union Bank, Lawrence & Mayo, Sundaram Motors and even smaller companies such as Max Bean Bag and Little Italy restaurant, said Sunny Somani, a first year student and media cell member at IIM-B.

“Jet Airways is even providing discounts for the participants who are coming from other parts of India”, said one of the students at IIM-B.

Some enterprising students are also generating revenue by selling various products at a retail shop that they have opened at the campus. Besides rock shows and theatre plays at Unmaad, this year IIMB invited Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, a trio of music composers to entertain the participants.

IIM Kozhikode (IIM-K) is also expecting to see increase in number of sponsors for its cultural and management fests such as Backwaters, Horizons, finance summit Arthanomics, Nihilanth and others, said Sharath Babu L, member IIM-K media cell. IIM-K is expecting the budget for all these events to touch Rs 1 crore, a twofold jump over the previous year.

IIM Indore (IIM-I) is expecting an increase of 40-50% increase in its budget for campus fests as it will be conducting new events this year. It expects to spend around Rs 80 lakh compared to Rs 33 lakh last year.

“We are conducting business fest Ahvan for the first time in November followed by other major event in January 2010. In a fest called Utsaha, we will go to village fairs to do rural marketing among 40,000 people and sell products
for companies such as Airtel, Phillips, Sony, Cavinkare”, said Shashank Jha, coordinator Ahvan at IIM-I.

New Delhi: One day before faculty at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) turn out to teach on an empty stomach to push for a pay raise, the head of another elite institution turned emotional on Wednesday about the way the salary debate has eclipsed what he considers is a bigger issue.

To Pankaj Chandra, director of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, (IIM-B), the more important issue is the government’s inability to make the IITs and IIMs truly world-class institutions and to let go of control over these elite schools. “If the government of Singapore can make NUS (National University of Singapore) fantastic, if the Chinese government can make its institutions the best, should Indian government not do the same for its institutions?” asked Chandra.

“There are some tremendous barriers (to being world-class) such as faculty compensation and autonomy,” added Chandra, a PhD from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, who taught for 10 years at IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A) before moving to IIM-B. “These institutions need autonomy to make independent decisions. Who should decide pay? What is the role of the board? Where can they set up an institution?”

IIM faculty have reason to empathize with their counterparts at the IITs, where 3,000 teachers across the country are to observe a hunger strike on Thursday.

Both the IIMs and IITs have struggled with almost every government and human resource development (HRD) minister, who oversees education, over turf. The saga began in 2004 when then HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi ordered the IIMs to slash their Rs3 lakh fee for the two-year course by 80%, a move that was successfully challenged in court by students.

In 2007, then HRD minister Arjun Singh asked the IIMs to delay admission notices as the government fought a Supreme Court order on reservations; eventually admissions were allowed 16 days, several press conferences and cabinet meetings later.

Through Singh’s tenure in office, there was speculation that a Bill that will govern the IIMs more tightly might be put to Parliament. The IIMs snubbed Singh over any interference in their fee hikes in subsequent years.

With the present HRD minister Kapil Sibal committed to education reform, “we are very hopeful of what can happen,” said Chandra.

The IIMs, especially the older ones in Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Kolkata, have achieved absolute financial autonomy for their operational expenses. IIM-A, for instance, has not sought any grant from the government starting in 2003-04, according to people familiar with the situation.

“We created our new campus all on our own. For the last seven years, we have not sought any money from the government,’’ said a faculty member from IIM Ahmedabad, who did not want to be identified.

Similar to the IIMs, the IITs have also struggled for greater autonomy with the government in recent years over the issue of caste-based reservations in admissions and faculty positions.

“This comes at a time all the IITs are trying aggressively to attract quality faculty from all over the world. With the kind of salaries given and barriers on faculty hiring, how is excellence in education possible?” said an IIT director who didn’t want to be named.

The All India IIT Faculty Federation that’s leading the agitation for higher pay is seeking a 45% raise in the entry-level salary and performance-linked pay to the extent of 20-40% of the basic salary.

The main debate between these elite schools and the Union government boils down to one of finances and governance. The government wants to continue to ratify fees and hires and decide their pay and promotions. The schools maintain that they can manage their money and their people.

Across IIMs, the revenues generated from various sources, including the sale of application forms and management programmes for working executives, have been increasing over the years. IIM-A earned around Rs45 crore from its executive education programmes last year. The IIMs in 2007 earned around Rs24.2 crore from the sale of application forms alone.

The continuing stir at IITs, too, centres around their freedom to recruit faculty, a discretion diluted by the government notification of 16 September, which stipulates minimum teaching experience at the IITs or IIMs for professors.

The IITs argue that the order interferes with the institutes’ autonomy in hiring and promoting their own teachers based on merit. The IIT Faculty Federation is also against any restriction on the number of teachers in the categories of assistant professors, associate professors and professors, as envisaged by the government.

Moreover, the hiring policy at these institutes allowed for lateral entry, so Indian professors at international institutes could join. Ananth Krishnan, chairman, Board of Governors (IIT-Kanpur), however, doesn’t see the government order as “problematic”.

“The government salaries can never match those in the corporate sector. Whatever can be done is, I believe, being worked out by the ministry already. So there is no need to panic,” he said.

The IIMs say government control has come in the way of their growth. For instance, the government has dragged its feet over IIM-Bangalore’s plan to open a campus in Singapore, taken way back in 2006.

Sibal defends his ministry, saying the government is open to dialogue if these institutes agree to go beyond the debate on salaries.“If they get beyond pay scales and talk about vision for the excellence in education and research, I will give them autonomy incrementally. Instead of talking about Pay Band 4, let us talk about vision 2024,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.

The minister, however, stressed that the institutes could not expect to be regulation-free since they were funded by the government. Sibal, who took over as the HRD minister in June, has so far followed his predecessors in not backing down from a skirmish with faculty. Sibal said his ministry is planning a meeting with the IIMs and the IITs to resolve the issue, but did not specify a date.

Experts from other countries who work in education agree with critics such as Chandra that the government might be exercising tighter controls than necessary.

Jason Howard, an Australian and chief executive of Studylink.com, which provides an online link between universities and students, said colleges will find it difficult to be globally recognized and attract international students if controls are tight. He said other countries are marketing their strengths as education destinations, such as Malaysia for Muslim students or Singapore as an Asia hub.

“They (IITs/IIMs) will have a difficult time doing that if they restrict the compensation and conditions in which people are working,” he says.

24th September Economic Times:

BANGALORE: Premier B-schools in the country have taken cost-cutting measures to the digital level, leveraging the use of technology in course administration, improving student services and collaborating with foreign institutions.

IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has created a blueprint to complete an enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation integrating proprietary as well as open-source software at campuses, said dean Prof BH Jajoo. “We have roped in a few companies to do information technology (IT) implementation and in return, we will help them in their e-governance projects,” he said.

Similarly, IIM Calcutta is upgrading its ERP implementation through HCL and extending it beyond its flagship courses. “Everything from attendance and grading to faculty-student feedback has been put on these solutions,” Rahul Dasgupta, head of internet solutions group at IIM-C, said.

IIM Lucknow is digitising its Learning Resource Centre, which has a stock of thousands of documents, using Greenstone Digital Library, an open source software. “We are trying to go paperless and improve student services,” said Sanjay S Degloorkar, a library faculty member at IIM-L.

IIM Shillong recently did ERP implementation using solutions from IT company Citagus India and Oracle. IIM-Indore plans to do IT implementation at its campus in 2010. “As the workload is increasing, we have the option to use open source and proprietary software,” said Prabin Panigrahi, a faculty of information systems at IIM-Indore.

India’s education sector will step up its IT spend from an estimated $356 million in 2008 to $704 million in 2012, reflecting a CAGR of 19% during 2007-2012, according to Springboard Research. Several companies, such as SunGard, HCL, Oracle and SAP, are engaged in these cost-cutting exercises.

Going one step ahead, IIM Bangalore said that it is now working to fulfil its ambitious project of becoming an online university, making every course available online by integrating proprietary software like that of SunGard and free and open source software (Foss) platforms, such as Linux and Moodle.

“We are already using open source called Moodle to teach, to put course material and for grading. Even some of our servers run on open source,” said Rahul De, professor in information and communication at IIM-B.

SunGard higher education chief executive Ron M Lang said that they will be playing a key role for IIM-B in this ambitious project, as they have already done such work at The Western Governors University in US which is connected to 19 states. “There is no campus, all of the training for 100,000 students, including lawyers, doctors, nurses, takes place online,” Mr Lang said.

“We will help IIM-B cut costs by 75%,” he said. “Half our employees used to work in colleges and universities themselves, so we know the best practices.” SunGard, a $5.6-billion education software and services provider, which started to implement unified digital solution (UDC) at IIM-B campus has plans to take the solution to other institutes, such as IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow and IIM Kozhikode.

SunGard, whose solutions serve 1,600 higher education institutions and 10 million students, aims to have 10% of its customers and revenue from India in the next five year, which currently is almost zero. “We will target the institutes across the spectrum from kindergarten to universities,” said Mr Lang.
 

Business Standard: 

Plan to increase public sector recruitment from 10% to 20%

They may not offer pay packages that in any way rival the pay packets of multinationals, but public sector units (PSUs) are increasingly gaining favour with management institutes.

Last year, many B-schools students opted for PSU placements on the back of the global slowdown. Stability was the key factor that drove this decision since financial institutions were collapsing and were being perceived as frail bodies. Experts believed that once the economy stabilised, the lure of PSUs would die down.

But the trend continues. The faculty and students of management institutes reason that with PSUs being allowed to recruit on contract too, students are being offered work profiles that are more challenging that that of MNCs. And buoyed by an increased interest among students towards PSUs since last year, these B-schools are making sure they see more number of such enterprises at their campuses for the placements this year.

On an average, last year B-schools saw 5-10 per cent of the batch being recruited by PSUs. This year, the institutes are aiming to increase this to 15-20 per cent by inviting more PSUs. For instance, PSUs were well received by IIM Lucknow students with 65 offers -- highest across all IIMs, being accepted during the previous placement season.

"PSUs are very much on the cards for IIM Lucknow students this year as well. And we plan to invite more than just the top notch companies, which will not restrict the pool of talent here to just the organised sector and will give them more opportunities to explore. The incoming batch at IIM-L has relevant work experience and some are already showing interest in working with, for example, the oil sector and other PSUs," R L Raina, Chairman, placements at IIM Lucknow (IIM-L), told Business Standard.

KJ Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research (SIMSR), too— which saw around 2-3 students getting recruited by PSUs last year — is looking to invite more companies including the likes of HPCL, BPCL, NTPC and IOC this year. "Last year, after some students were recruited by PSUs, more students have shown interest towards these enterprises. Now that the PSUs can recruit on a contract basis wherein students can be offered some challenging tasks, we will be inviting more of them for the placements this year," says N D Sharma, placement coordinator of SIMSR. Close to 300 students from SIMSR will be participating in placements this year.

Ahmedabad-based Nirma Institute of Management (NIM) is also mulling inviting more PSUs. "We will have to broadbase our company list to include more PSUs. Efforts will be on in NIM to see that more PSUs make it to the campus for placements this year. While pay packages may be lower than that of MNCs, the work profiles are equally challenging," said Sushil Bahl, chairperson - placements, Nirma Institute of Management.

As compared to last year when about 17 per cent of students at NIM were recruited by PSUs during placements, this year the institute is aiming at a higher share. "We had witnessed around 20 students out of a batch strength of 116 being recruited by PSUs last year. This year, however, we hope to see some more offers from PSUs being accepted," added Bahl.

Last year, even the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) saw Union Bank of India making the highest number of offers of 18, apart from six offers by Bank of Baroda (BoB) and five offers by IOC.

Similarly, 17 per cent of the batch of 112 students at Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS) were placed with PSUs last year. "The profile offered and relationship that JBIMS shares with PSUs via various endeavors encourage us to invite them at JBIMS. Companies like Bank of Baroda, GAIL,ONGC, HPCL, SEBI, NISM, Union Bank of India had participated last year. The talks with various companies are on and we expect many PSUs to be a part of the placement process this year as well," says Siddhesh Jayakar, member, Placement Committee at JBIMS.

AHMEDABAD: It’s testing times for IIMs that will hold the computer-based Common Admission Test (CAT) in November this year. The CAT committee, responsible for conducting the test for admission to IIMs and 150 other B-Schools, is using trial and error method to remove glitches as and when they happen.

Candidates are required to take a bank voucher worth Rs 1,400 for the CAT registration that began on Wednesday. However, with instances of candidates failing to register themselves correctly in the first attempt and then re-registering by buying the voucher again, the CAT committee has decided to reimburse candidates who bought the voucher for the second time. The committee has also allowed candidates to edit their profiles, if they suspect errors, within 20 days beginning September 18.

There was a flood of complaints from worried candidates who submitted incomplete forms and realised later that they goofed up. This is the first time the test for admission to the country’s B-Schools, that gets around 3 lakh candidates, is becoming computer based. The test will be held for 10 days starting November 28.

“What we did not take into account while formulating the registration process for the CAT was that students will get anxious and make inadvertent mistakes, something that may happen while moving the cursor. Considering this, we have decided to give candidates the option to edit their profile. Those who have bought an additional voucher due to registration errors will be refunded for the second voucher,” said Satish Deodhar, CAT convenor and faculty at IIM-A.

The steps were taken after the institute received emails from aggrieved candidates, complaining about mistakes during registration. The CAT committee has asked the candidates who want to avail of the reimbursement to write to Prometric, the company that takes care of the technical part, by filling an online form at www.prometric.com/IIM-CAT/contactus, and writing the subject “I have a problem with my voucher number”. Prometric’s Candidate Care will then get back to candidates.

“From the evening of September 18, candidates will be able to log on to https://iim.prometric.com to update profile, including personal details and application data,” Prometric and IIMs said in a joint statement. According to Prometric, the international agency offering technology-enabled testing services, as many as 30,000 candidates registered themselves for the test in the first 24 hours.

Candidates who have made an error will be able to access this facility until October 8 to make any amendments to their candidate profile,” said the joint statement.

Last year, as many as 7,637 applications were rejected by the CAT committee, as they did not fill in their forms properly.

AHMEDABAD: This was surely not the race for the top slot. Thousands of B-school aspirants who on Wednesday registered themselves on the first day for the coveted Common Admission Test (CAT) 2009, set to go online from this year, avoided taking the initial slots.

The online test gives options to students to choose the date and venue for the entrance exam that grants admissions to the IIMs and other 150 affiliated B-schools in the country. The registration will be open till October 1 for the test that will be held across 32 centres over 10 days starting November 28. Last year, 2.7 lakh candidates appeared for the test, a number which is likely to shoot up this time.

Candidates, who had to acquire a bank voucher before applying on the CAT site, were hesitant to choose the first slots as they want to get feedback on the question patterns from others who would take the test earlier. With the exam being spread over 10 days, experts feel, the number of proxy candidates too would go up significantly this time. There is a likelihood of candidates sending in their friends to appear for the exam during the early slots and know the trend before taking the test themselves.

The first day of online registration led to confusion among candidates. Unlike ISB, where a candidate can revisit his online registration form by logging in and making changes until the last day of the form submission, CAT registration is a one-time process and the acceptance notice is generated after 48 hours of submission.

Economic Times:

 NIIT, a global leader in computer education, will take care of the infrastructure

and administration of the entrance test to Indian Institutes of Management , the country’s premium business schools, which is being taken on computers for the first time this year.

The test will be held in some 200 private colleges across the country, said a person familiar with the development. An NIIT spokesman confirmed that the company has bagged a deal from US-based Prometric, the world’s largest computer-based testing service provider that is conducting the Common Admission Test (CAT) of IIMs, for providing test centres across the country.

He refused to give any detail, financial or otherwise. A company executive said NIIT will get Rs 50-55 crore from Prometric, which bagged a $40-million deal from IIMs to conduct what will the largest computerbased test in India so far with more than 3 lakh expected to take part. CAT will be held in two sessions each day for 10 days, between November 28 and December 7. Online registration for the test begins on September 9. NIIT last month started tying up with private colleges having at least 100-computers each for conducting the test.

The colleges are paid an average rent of Rs 60 per student , depending on the infrastructure they provide.
This is important because of the tight security check that will include close-circuit television (CCTV) cameras to record all the movements of every applicant, matching fingerprints , metal detectors and photo identification check.

NIIT has already roped in at least three private colleges in Chandigarh, including Indo-Global College, which has the largest computer centre in Punjab. While colleges will take care of computers, internet, image capture cameras, generators and UPS, NIIT will provide identity cards, biometric equipment and stationery.

Every room at the testing centre will have a maximum of 50 computers . There will be monitor separators to ensure no candidate can view anybody else’s computer screen. Personnel deployed by the college during the test would be pre-verified by NIIT. A 512-kbps internet speed per testing room of 50 computers for servers and administration machines would be provided by the college. IIMs are scheduled to release the official list of test centres by September 9.

Times of India:

Quality comes at a cost and the faculty of Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad has made that very clear in a memorandum sent to ministry of human resource development (MHRD) on Friday.

This is in response to a notification sent by MHRD on August 20 detailing their salary structure as per the Sixth
Pay Commission which took the wind out of their sails.

The four-member committee that framed the memorandum has quoted Harvard salaries to justify their demand.

Designed on lines of Harvard Business School, IIM-A is upset that the Sixth Pay Commission has wrested this ‘special status’ from it, so they are demanding bigger pay packets.

The memorandum says an assistant professor (AP) at Harvard gets $140,000 as annual starting pay, equivalent to Rs 23 lakh and Indian School of Business (ISB) pays over Rs 20 lakh to its APs. Against this, an IIM-A AP gets only Rs 5.5 lakh as starting pay annually.

A major concern of the faculty council of IIM-A is that if institutes of excellence are not given special status, the faculty-student ratio in these institutes could suffer. To retain the ‘top notch’ faculty in the institute they have to be given enough reason to stay.

“Till the sixth Pay Commission, even though we did not have salaries, we were given the status of being premier.
But now there is neither,” said a faculty of the institute. One of the recommendations is that the faculties, should also get a scholastic pay of Rs 15,000 per month over and above their pay band and grade pay. Faculty councils of Indian Institute of Technology and IIM-Calcutta have already sent a memorandum to MHRD.

IIM-A is self sustaining and has not been taking any government grants for its functioning or even expansion. In the memorandum, the faculty has said that present notification is much below what is required and has requested MHRD to reconsider.

The memorandum sent to MHRD on Friday was prepared in the backdrop of a draft memorandum framed by IIM-Calcutta (IIM-C) on pay structure disparities. It was the first to submit a draft highlighting disparities in pay structure to the ministry.

IIM-C is going to have another meeting on Monday and IIM-Bangalore has shown its support too.

Economic Times:

In the backdrop of the global slowdown, some business schools in the country are redesigning their syllabus to groom students to cope up with a withering employment market and help in rebuilding the economy.

"Our curriculum structure is built in a way that the students would be better equipped to face the ground realities of the market, thereby being of true value in rebuilding the economy," B K Murty, Dean International Academy of Management & Entrepreneurship (IAME) Bangalore, said.

The institute claims to have adopted a syllabus conducive to the Indian environment instead of "blindly copying American system".

"India being the emerging economic powerhouse, adapting management principles known to the Indian scenario and to develop our own systems would be more effective in helping India to better cope with the recession as well as ensure growth," Dr Murty said.

Similarly, Goa's premier business school, Goa Institute of Management has also fine-tuned its syllabus in the wake of global downturn to increase the future managers resilience towards it.

The impact of recession on the managerial job market in India was discussed and taken into account while updating the syllabus this year, its director P F X D'Lima said.

Mumbai Business School CEO Sunil Rai said his institute was emphasising in providing industry experience to the students during their course period so that they could better suit to their future job.

"We first identify what exact skills corporate needs in coming year and groom those students who are willing to take up the assignments and co-train them in partnership with the corporate concerned," Rai said.

Murty said, "We should realise that India needs to be managed the Indian way, not the western way. The futility of the western way has been exposed by the Sub Prime crisis as well as the Satyam fiasco. Japanese, after the war, and China grew because of their own management systems rather than being clones of the west".

The government on Wednesday (August 26) has decided to set up 7 more IIMs -- currently existing are 7 IIMs in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Lucknow, Indore, Kozhikode and Shillong but due to reforms and changes in the industrial policies, there is a greater requirement for MBA's. 

They are in Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, Ranchi in Jharkhand, Raipur in Chhatisgarh, Rohtak in Haryana, Uttarkhand has not decided on the location and neither has Jammu and Kashmir, and the same goes for Rajasthan. 

4 IIMs -- Chatisgarh, haryana, Jharkhand and Tamil nadu will begin in 2009 and the rest will brgin in 2010. The total cost is Rs 451 crore. Initially there would be 140 students a year but finally 560 students will be admitted -- it is a 2 year course, hence, the total students would be over 1000.

Pune Mirror: August 27, 2009

Learning to manage themselves before they manage others: That seems to be the funda behind IIM-B students decision to create a Code of Ethics.

Instead of the faculty deciding on what is right or wrong for them and then enforcing it, the students here will henceforth act as their own arbiters.

From personal etiquette and classroom behaviour to plagiarism and exam guidelines, a whole range of activities will be sorted out by the students themselves. 

Like any statute, the Code has different sections and sub-sections, dealing with attendance, academic matters, group behaviour, exams, library , hostels and other topics. 

Anybody who violates a rule or indulges in malpractice will be liable for punishment. Punishments can range from deducting marks to fines and even expulsion.

All decisions will be taken by the administration after the Student Affairs Committee debates on the misdemeanour and gives out its recommendations. 

Explaining the process, a first-year PGP student said, “It is somewhat akin to a council of ministers: everybody is collectively and individually responsible. 

For example in attendance, the mistakes identified are forging of records, proxy attendance, leaving the class without permission of the faculty, signing the attendance sheet after the faculty has left the class and so on. The punishment varies from a warning to expulsion.” 

COMPREHENSIVE CODE 
Apart from obvious malpractices like impersonation and copying, the Code also brings issues like use of the institutions name for private gain, discrimination of any sort - including gender, caste or race - and any form of abusive language within its ambit, and will prescribe punishment as decided by the Student Affairs Committee. 

The Student Committee is a 12-member panel. The Code has also come out with guidelines as to how a student should conduct herself or himself in the hostel, mess, and garden area. 

“Being students of IIM-B, it is our individual and collective responsibility to ensure that the highest standards of academic integrity are maintained.

Students are also expected not to indulge in any activity that can impede or negatively impact the academic performance of fellow students,” a student said.

The Indian Institute of Management, (IIML) will host around 30 foreign students and send 45 of its own abroad as part of a student exchange programme.

President, Student Exchange Cell, Prof Shailendra Singh said today that the 45 students going abroad will not only act as brand ambassadors of IIM Lucknow but also promote India's culture, ethos and values.

"The international exposure will broaden understanding of students on various issues related to management and help them handle ambiguity better," Singh said adding the institute will also play host to 30 students from different countries.

The programme started in 2001 has grown to be one of the biggest student exchange programs in the country, the IIML authorities claimed adding the institute's alliance with top business schools across the globe spreads across four continents and 22 universities.

The smiles are back at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). After a dry 2008, pre-placement offers have been pouring in this year. Some see clear signs of an economic recovery in this.

Most IIMs expect more offers this year; and a few are even confident that the numbers will touch the boom-time levels of 2007.

In that year, the IIMs together had received over 500 offers. Last year the number was halved.

In 2007-08 IIM-Calcutta students got an unprecedented 90 pre-placement offers. “With the market improving, we hope to reach that level this year too,” said Paul Savio, external relations secretary at IIM-C.

Many companies are waiting for their quarterly results in September before heading for the IIMs with offers. “The situation looks positive, and we expect a lot of offers in September,” Savio added.

The offers already made have come from all kinds of industries and include finance, marketing and consulting. Savio, however, revealed neither the names of the companies nor the exact number of offers received.

At IIM Bangalore only a few offers have come in but Vineet Sharma, its placement representative, said more would arrive in September. Among the companies that have handed offers to IIM-B students are McKinsey & Co, Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Co. Besides consulting firms, there are a few finance and FMCG companies also.

Last year IIM-B got 40 pre-placement offers, way below the 110 a year before, a level, Sharma hoped, would be reached this year again.

IIM-Ahmedabad exudes the same optimism. Its student placement coordinator, Vivek Jain, spoke of encouraging initial trends. Offers have come in from consulting, finance, marketing and even entrepreneurship firms. “The trend reaffirms the faith that recruiters have always had in IIM-A and its students. We expect more offers soon.”

He did not venture into comparing this year with the last as “different firms choose to give offers at different time points”.

Last year IIM-A received 52 pre-placement offers. The institute is “pleased” at the way “internships have panned out this year”, raising hope that eventually this would mean the offers would “match or even top last year’s”.

Rohan Jaikishen of the student placement committee at IIM-Kozhikode said “the scenario was much brighter than last year” and that the institute hoped to reach the 2007 number, if not top it. Companies include Edelweiss and Futures First.

IIM-Lucknow too claimed its students had been receiving offers and more students had been called for pre-placement interviews by top consulting, finance, marketing and general management firms, both domestic and foreign.

A recruitment cell official at IIM-L said such interviews took place throughout the year and “we expect the offers to be much more than last year’s”. The institute sees a “significant improvement in the hiring sentiment of companies this year”.

At IIM-Indore it is the same hopeful story. Most offers its students have got this time are from marketing and finance companies. The trend will pick up, said an official of the institute.

Great Lakes Institute of Management, an initiative of Kellogg’s Bala Balachandran, has been touted as Chennai’s answer to the IIMs or
ISB for long. It boasts of an industry backing and academic support that can match up to both. But, the only missing link was a campus as vast as the IIMs or as ostentatious as the ISB.

However, Great Lakes now wants to conquer that final frontier with a 14-acre campus in the outskirts of Chennai. On Friday, the B-school opened facilities at its new green campus at Manamai, near Mamallapuram.

The new facilities include Bajaj Bistro, Bajaj Piazza and India Cements Amphitheatre.Rahul Bajaj of Chairman Bajaj Auto, Madhur Bajaj, VP of Bajaj Auto as well as Dr. Donald P Jacobs, (Dean Emeritus, Kellogg School of Management) and Dipak Jain, Dean Kellogg School of Management were present for the inauguration.

"At Great lakes we want to breed the best of minds that can be showcased as the hallmark of corporate excellence. These facilities provided by the leading business houses (Bajaj and India Cements) will create the right environment to create professionals," said Professor Bala V Balachandran.

IIM-Bangalore will hold the second edition of its entrepreneurship summit Eximius ‘09 on the 15th this month. The two-day event, which aims at providing the budding entrepreneurs a platform to showcase their ideas, will have venture capital workshops, speaker series and panel discussion centering around entrepreneurship.

The summit this year will have two flagship events, Genesis and Ingen. Genesis will provide first time entrepreneurs a platform to pitch their business ideas to venture capitalists, in a one-on-one session. The theme of Ingen, the business plan contest this year will be 'small is big’. The selected finalists will be allotted mentors to fine-tune their business plans which will be presented to a panel of judges, the B-school said in a statement.

In addition to the flagship events, Eximius ’09 is introducing a ‘start-up fair’ where the selected start-ups will be given a chance to showcase their venture. This fair gives an exposure to students about the start-up culture and also gives start-ups an access to the managerial talent thus bridging the gap between B-schools and start-ups. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, CMD of Biocon, and Sudhir Sethi, founder and CMD of IDG Ventures India, will be keynote speakers on the occasion.

Business Standard: August 05, 2009

New Delhi: The Lok Sabha hailed it as a 'historic effort' to make free education a fundamental right for children. The Lok Sabha today passed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2008, hailed as a “historic effort” to make free education a fundamental right for children. The Bill to provide free and compulsory education to children aged between 6 to 14 years also aims to reserve 25 per cent seats to weaker sections in private schools. Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who had keen interest to see that the Bill was passed at the first opportunity, was present when the Bill was approved in the Lok Sabha. The Rajya Sabha has already okayed the Bill last week. Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal described it as “harbinger of a new era” for children “to meet the challenges of the 21st century”. “This will be a historic opportunity for providing better future to children of the country as there was never such a landmark legislation in the last 62 years since independence,” Sibal added. “We as a nation cannot afford our children not going to schools,” the minister said. The UPA government will also put an end to the practice of schools taking capitation fees before admission and subjecting the child or parents to any screening procedure, through this Bill. The states will be implementing the policy of reservation in admissions. The Bill also aims at achieving 10 broad objectives, including free and compulsory education, obligation on the part of states to provide education, nature of curriculum consistent with the Constitution, quality, focus on social responsibility and obligation of teachers and de-bureaucratisation in admissions. According to Sibal, minority education institutions should also focus on giving education to those disadvantaged within the community

Economic Times:

Students appearing for the Common Admission Test (CAT) this year need not worry much as the examination pattern is unlikely to change
even though the mode will shift from paper to a computer-based one.

The candidates will be divided into 20 batches with two batches sitting for the test everyday over a period of 10 days.

Prometric, the firm entrusted with the task of conducting this year's test, has said that CAT will be held in 20 possible sittings across 23 cities.

However, irrespective of the delivery mechanism, the pattern of the exam for admission to MBAs in the prestigious IIMs will remain more or less the same.

"It is only that instead of a pencil and paper, the students appearing for the exam will be given computers to mark the correct answers. There will be no major change in the pattern of exam," Ramesh Nava, Vice-President and General Manager, Asia Pacific, Japan and Africa of Prometric India, told PTI.

While the infrastructure needed to undertake this task will be determined only after the actual number of aspirants is known, the mammoth task might require about 15,000 computers. More PTI

"Assuming that three lakh students register for the CAT in 2009 there would be a need for a minimum of 15,000 computers," Nava said.

Given the enormity of the task, Prometric, which has conducted computer-based examinations like GMAT and TOEFL, hopes to leverage their experience at the international level for the CAT exam and is working closely with the IIMs in this regard.

"Prometric has converted hundreds of testing programmes from paper and pencil to computer-based test delivery and we are applying the lessons learnt from that experience to the implementation of the CAT exam," he said.

The IIMs announced in April that the CAT would be held through computers.

While a computer-based system is expected to speed up the process of evaluation, it will enable IIMs and more than a hundred other Indian B-schools that rely on its scores to quickly take a decision on admissions.

It will also provide greater flexibility to candidates in selecting the date, time and location of the test to suit their needs.

LUCKNOW: The Indian Institute of Management-Lucknow celebrated the 25th year of its inception on July 26, 2009.

The silver jubilee address was delivered by the President of JK Organisation, Padma Bhushan, Hari Shankar Singhania who has been the Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIM-L in the past.

Director IIM-L, Dr Devi Singh who has had a long association with the institute and is serving as its Director for the second consecutive term delivered the welcome address and also presented awards to meritorious students.

Large number of present and past students, faculty and leading lights from various walks of life were present at the function which included an exhibition tracing the 25 year long journey of the premier management institute.

Within a shot span of 25 years IIM-L which initially started out from rented premises in 1984 has emerged as a global management school

increase its student intake by 28% starting next year.

The institute also plans to increase its faculty strength and bring about changes in curricula. “There has been an increase in the number of applicants from the US and Europe who want to be part of the faculty. Some of them are teachers from foreign universities,” said IIM-A dean Prof BH Jajoo. “We hope to have over 120 faculty members, up from 90, over the next few years,” he said. “We hope the Sixth Pay Commission will enhance their salaries,” he added.

IIM-A, which had asked for Rs 50 crore for its expansion, has been sanctioned Rs 32 crore by the government. It will raise the rest of the amount through internal accruals and alumni network.

Introduction of a computer-based test (CBT) for admission to the class of 2010 at the elite Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and other B-schools will come at a price.

Harvard is to increase the size of its MBA class from this autumn from 900 to around 930 or 940. So far 942 students have enrolled on the programme, according to The Harvard Crimson, the university newspaper. It cites Deirdre Leopold, managing director of MBA admissions and financial aid at the business school, as saying that she expects enrolment to settle between 930 to 940 by the time classes begin in the autumn.

The move will make Harvard the largest of the highly-ranked full-time MBA programmes - the Wharton school at the University of Pennsylvania and Insead, in France and Singapore, both have around 900 students.

As the class size goes up, so the average student age goes down. Nearly half - 47 per cent of the entering students - earned their undergraduate degrees within the past three years, with one member of the current incoming class coming directly from college, reports the Crimson.

Some of those younger students will have taken advantage of the Harvard 2+2 scheme, in which those graduating from college are enlisted for the Harvard MBA programme with deferred entry so they can complete two years of work experience.

www.hbs.edu

The Telegraph: 9th July 2009

The XLRI is planning workshops to hone its students’ consultancy and entrepreneurial skills.

The B-school is set to launch Crescent Consulting Club (C3) to help students gather all skills and resources necessary to be successful in the consultancy industry. Crescent is also the Committee for Research, Strategy, Consulting and Entrepreneurship at XLRI.

Joe Simon, chief information officer of Viacom International, New York, and an alumnus of the 1983 batch of XLRI, joined students via a teleconference today. He shared his experiences while working at Booz Allen Hamilton, a consultancy firm.

“Ideas are always there but this is a more specific approach towards consulting activities. Students will get a lot of help from the activities of the club,” said P. Venugopal, the dean (academics) of XLRI.

As part of this initiative, the club will be holding weekly meetings on several issues related to the consulting industry and will also organise quizzes, case competitions and other events for its members. Major activities will include the Speaker Series and Company Breakouts, which will focus on increased collaboration with consulting firms and experience sharing by consultants from various firms.

The club will also maintain a central repository of the latest research in strategic areas and will carry out regular case and interview sessions to help students prepare for placements. Sessions will be held to track the latest developments across different industries as well.

The club is also planning to launch its own journal comprising latest research articles written by academia and industry and provide opportunities to the students to work on live consulting assignments.

Crescent has been involved in conducting B-plan competitions, strategic games, organising live consulting projects and guest lecture series before. It also publishes a monthly magazine Crest.

It also launched the Initiative for Social and Entrepreneurial Leadership last year in association with Social Initiative Group for Managerial Assistance.

The Telegraph: July 6th 2009

The upcoming Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ranchi, will initially offer 140 seats in post-graduate diploma in management studies that may well be extended to 500 in the next five years or so. IIM, Calcutta, will act as a mentor for its Ranchi counterpart. The courses will be offered from 2010 from the temporary campus at the National Games village in Hotwar. Chairman of the site selection team for IIM, Ranchi, and additional secretary in the Union ministry of human resource development Ashok Kumar Thakur told The Telegraph that the Hotwar site met all requirements as a temporary accommodation. A team, comprising ministry undersecretary Pushkar Negi and professor Bodhibrata Nag of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta, and director professor Sekhar Choudhury, today visited Brambey on the city outskirts to see the facilities at the panchayati raj building. State HRD secretary Mridula Sinha and director (higher education) Anjani Kumar Shrivastava assisted the central team. The members left today afternoon with the site selection report for the perusal of high-ups in the ministry. “We zeroed in on the Games village to temporarily start things. The administrative complex and VVIP guesthouses will serve as classrooms and accommodation for guest faculties, respectively. Adjoining apartments may serve as students’ hostels till a permanent campus comes up,” said Nag. Nag said IIM, Calcutta, would offer its faculty and course design, and guide them on how to build facilities, among other things. The fee for a two-year full-time PGDBM programme will be Rs 6 lakh. However, the fee will be much less for other certificate and short-term courses. After the ministry accepts the temporary site proposal, the appointment process of a director will start. “The IIM, Ranchi, society will be formed wherein partners from the Centre, state and industry among others will be drawn up. The director will serve as a member secretary of the society that will decide on policy matters,” said officials. Thakur raised apprehension about the other option for the IIM — a site in Nagri under Kanke block. “We want the state to hand us the land (over 200 acres) free from all encumbrances,” he said. The Nagri land is the government’s. It was acquired from villagers in the late 50s by the then Bihar government for BAU. Villagers, who have been using the land for agriculture for the past five decades, are protesting the state’s move to allocate the land to IIM.

Economic Times: 7th July 2009

The proposed seven IIMs will be set up in a phased manner with four of them being planned inthe first go

These are IIMs at Raipur, Ranchi, Rohtak in Haryana and Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, Minister of State for HRD D Purandeswari told the Rajya Sabha today in a written reply.

The government would set up the rest IIMs in Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan later. The IIM in Shillon has been set up in 2007-08, she said.

Business Standard: 9th July 2009

India’s premier educational institutions — the IITs and IIMs — have welcomed the government move to increase the Budget Plan outlay for higher education by Rs 2,000 crore —from Rs 7,593.50 crore in the Interim Budget (presented this February) to Rs 9,600 crore. The move is aimed at increasing the gross enrollment ratio (GER) in higher education from the current rate of 12.4 per cent.

“This is a good Budget for the education sector. The allocations made for new IITs should help us gear up. We can invest in necessary infrastructure and should be able to join the race soon,” Madhusudan Chakraborty, director, IIT-Bhubaneswar, told Business Standard.

IIT-Kharagpur, too, thinks the funds set aside for higher education will help the institute expand further. IIT-Kharagpur has already announced investment of Rs 400 crore in phases to double its student and faculty intake and to scale up its academic programmes. According to IIT-Kharagpur placements chairman B K Mathur, “Now we will have more money for further expansion.”

IIT-Bombay director Devang Khakkar felt most of the funds might go to expanding facilities meant for other backward classes (OBC) and other reserved categories. IIT-Madras head M D Ananth pointed out that most IITs had inadequate infrastructure and this money would help them speed up work.

With access continuing to be a concern, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee also announced a scheme for full interest subsidy on education loans for technical and professional courses for the weaker sections during the moratorium period. The Budget focuses on physical access as well, with special attention given to higher education for minorities. Welcoming the move, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) director Samir Barua said, “Not just students of IIMs and IITs, the new move of providing full interest subsidy will be helpful in every discipline. It is no longer restricted to people who can afford such loans. While it is a good move, the government should now set up a finance corporation for higher education on the lines of IIFCL. This way, there will be a more integrated approach, thereby providing concessional interest on loans and other incentives.”

For Pankaj Chandra, director of IIM-Bangalore (IIM-B), however, the provision is not sufficient. “Providing full interest subsidy on loans during the period of moratorium is not enough. There should be low interest guaranteed loans for students irrespective of they being below poverty line or above,” said Chandra.

“Giving the subsidy to students is important. There has to be greater focus on primary education and primary health. Also, more IITs and NITs are required but they should be able to fill the gaps in core areas. Besides, polytechnics also need to be more practically oriented so that they produce employable students suited to the industry’s needs,” said Prof Rameshan of IIM-Khozikode.

“The government had already made commitments and has now only made the budgetary allocations for them. So, though this was a good Budget, all these changes were expected and there is nothing new. Money is the first phase for all developments to take place,” said Devi Singh, Director of IIM-Lucknow.

Indian School of Business (ISB) Dean Ajit Rangnekar concurred that “the allocations were expected as the government has been talking about all these initiatives but they also have to look at public-private partnership (PPP)”. “Liberal arts is one area where the government must focus because this is where the private players may be less interested. The Budget has recognised the fact that the youth must be productive and the next 6-8 months will clear its path,” he added.

However, another professor from an IIM felt there was no philosophical policy guideline in the Budget and it only had one-off measures like those for the Panjab University and the Aligarh Muslim University. “There is nothing significant from the past Budgets and higher education has been highlighted more may be because it is important for the elite. The HRD ministry spoke about revamping the entire education space but not much is evident in the Budget.”