IIM changing the very definition of student fests

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) appear to be changing the very definition of student fests. From being merely an interaction among the students six years back, the event has now turned into a most professionally managed occasion.

Updated on: Jan 13, 2006, 11:59:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) appear to be changing the very definition of student fests. From being merely an interaction among the students six years back, the event has now turned into a most professionally managed occasion, having acquired a ‘corporate’ tinge and with a budget that ranges between Rs 12 lakh to almost Rs 1 crore.

The IIM fest is now an event for top company officials from around the globe to deliver lectures on managing companies and also spotting talent. And it is a win-win situation for both the companies and the students.

SMART BOX

Blue chip touch

• Aditya Birla group sponsoring IIM Lucknow fest,

‘Complete CEO Workout’

• IIM Bangalore fest, held in November 2005, sponsored by American Express & Tatas

• At IIM Lucknow, National Knowledge Commission chairperson Sam Pitroda and ONGC chairperson Subhir Raha, will be present

• IIM-A & IIM Bangalore had Planning Commission vice-chairperson Montek Singh Aluwalia and Finance Minister P Chidambaram as guests

While the companies have a chance to interact with the best talent, the students will get to learn from the experience of the head honchos of the corporate world. The positive effect of this is reflected in the salaries being offered to IIM pass-outs.

Last year, a student of IIM Bangalore got a placement for an annual salary of Rs 16 lakh. “The average salary offered to the batch was Rs 8.25 lakh, a jump of about 34 per cent from the previous year,” said an official of the HRD Ministry. Similar salary was offered to students of IIM Calcutta and IIM Lucknow.

“It is an event where top executives come, interact with students and spot talent. It is a unique opportunity as in each fest, students from top B-schools from the country participate,” said Devi Singh, Director, IIM Lucknow.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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