The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) hopes to add a Japanese touch at its second campus at Jigani, on the city's outskirts. The government of Karnataka has allocated 110 acres for the new campus.
Speaking at the 44th Foundation Day ceremony on Saturday, during which three persons received the distinguished alumni award, IIMB Director G. Raghuram said that he is looking forward to Japanese involvement. "We are looking for help to construct a building that will symbolise our collaboration," he said.
An India-Japan Study Centre was established at IIMB in September this year, and an Israel centre is expected to be set up in November. Japan's Ambassador to India H.E. Kenji Hiramatsu, who was the chief guest, spoke of how he wanted to do more to support the institution.
Tracing the history of IIMB
The institute has set up a committee to trace its history. "We want to document the history closer to the 50th year. A committee comprises members of the faculty, former faculty and the IIMB management," an IIMB official said.
Past directors shared their experiences and challenges in nurturing the institute. K.R. Murthy, who was director between 1991-1997, spoke of how the institute was set up to help youth work in the public sector and how the institute had refused to adapt even though the public sector was not willing to recruit its students. He spoke of the challenge in raising funds when budgetary support was cut mid-way through the financial year.
M.R. Rao who was director of the institute between 1997- 2002 faced the challenge of getting the faculty to do more research as well as raise money for the corpus fund. He recalled how ₹12 crore from the shares of Infosys co-founder N. S. Raghavan was used for research, entrepreneurship and faculty development initiatives.
P.G. Apte, who was director from 2002 to 2007, recollected that a cabinet minister of Meghalaya had put pressure on him to admit the daughter of his PA without an entrance exam.
