It was a moment of pride for hundreds of students at the 43rd annual convocation of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, on Saturday. Despite rain threatening to play spoilsport, the convocation ceremony took place amidst much cheer with as many as 593 new graduates tossing their caps in the air.
Although it began raining mid-way through the event, Ajay Piramal, chairman, Piramal Group and Shriram Group, and Chief Guest on the occasion continued his address. The students demanded that the convocation continue in the open-air theatre although alternative arrangements were in place.
Mr. Piramal urged the students to take risks. He stressed upon the need for graduates students to develop a sense of gratitude for the privileges they enjoyed.
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Two women clinched gold medals, as opposed to none last year. It was a special moment for the eight gold medallists who are now looking to make their mark in fields ranging from public policy and finance to general management and analytics.
Richa Valechha, gold medallist for best academic performance in the PG programme in public policy and management, said her IIMB experience was fulfilling in every way. “The case study-based approach of teaching at IIMB helped me relate to real world problems and provided a deeper insight into overcoming failures at corporate and policy levels,” she said. Studying with an experienced cohort, she added, helped her develop a holistic perspective on contemporary policy challenges. Richa hopes to take up consulting positions in the government and private sector with a focus on implementation of public policies for socio-economic development of underprivileged segments.
Another gold medallist, Pragya Dalmia, first rank holder in the Executive Post Graduate Programme (EPGP) in Management worked as a technology consultant at a private company prior to her stint at IIMB. She said the teaching methodology involved solving real life business problems which ensured that every practical example was backed by strong theory. She described the experience as fun.
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Back to the classroom
Many candidates pursuing the Post Graduate Programme in Enterprise Management (PGPEM) said they had to juggle between their corporate jobs during the week and classrooms over the weekends.
Gaurav Kumar, 39, a mechanical engineer who won the gold medal for being the first rank holder in the PGPEM programme had 15 years of experience in sales and marketing before returning to the classroom. Exchange programmes with world class universities helped expand his horizons.
Sunil Kumar Vaya, 45, who won the gold medal for the best all-round performance in PGPEM had 22 years of experience in the finance and commercial sector. He currently is the head of finance at a multinational company but said he enrolled in the course to get a bird’s eye view on the overall business strategy of the company.
Certificates in English only
The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, on Saturday issued the diploma/ degree certificates in English alone. In February, a section of postgraduate students of the institute had expressed displeasure over a proposal to issue graduation certificates in Hindi as well. Students had demanded that the certificate be issued in their mother tongue or regional language, besides English.
Following this, the Kannada Development Authority had written a strong letter to Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar as well as G. Raghuram, director, IIMB, terming the proposal ‘needless’.
Differently-abled students laud inclusive space
Among the graduating students of IIMB, the 12 differently-abled students received the loudest applauses.
Speaking to The Hindu, some of them spoke of the measures taken by the institute to make the campus an inclusive space, setting an example for others. The institute has an Office of Disability Services.
Rohith John Phillip, 30, who suffers from low vision, said that a three-member panel sat with him to understand his challenges and the interventions he required as soon as he joined the institute. “The faculty members made a conscious effort to make sure my seat was close to the board and ensured that my question paper had bigger fonts,” he said, and added that the institute also installed extra lights around his room.
Shoeb, another student who graduated, is hearing-impaired and uses the lip reading technique to follow speech. He has been involved in a campaign to make all spaces more accessible and has been trying to make taxi applications more user-friendly for the differently-abled. Shoeb aims to crack the civil services.
Jaskaran Singh, who is a civil engineering student, had worked in a real estate developer firm before he joined IIMB. Jaskaran moves around the campus in a motorised wheelchair provided by IIMB. He had spinal injury in 2011 after a car accident which resulted in paralysis from neck down. As he lost his family members in the accident, he also requested the institute for financial help towards his tuition fees, which he received.
In a first, IIMB grants degrees for PG course
For the first time since its inception, the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) has awarded degrees for its two-year post-graduate programme in management.
As many as 406 students, who graduated from this course, were given degrees.
G. Raghuram, director, IIMB, said the institute has taken the lead in moving towards granting degrees.
“Last month was quite intense with faculty involvement, MHRD clarifications and Board inputs, until we arrived today, where we can grant degrees to the Post-Graduate Programme in Management students,” said Prof. Raghuram in his speech. He said the institute has to go through the exercise of seeing how best other programmes offered by IIMB will fit into the degree-granting mode. “It is our commitment that we will do our best to work towards this,” he added.
The director also mentioned that the institute got a “new avatar” on January 31, when the IIM Act came into force. Under the Act, IIMB is now an Institution of National Importance. The board could now govern the institute independently.