Daandiya Raas @ SP!

Dandiya being the traditional Gujarati Folk dance, Dandiya Night, organized by CoLosSeuM and Cultcom was the most eagerly awaited event of the term. The event was a grand success with party-holic people, rocking music and prizes in different categories. Above all it was the 'dance' or rather 'daandiya raas' which had participation from one and all.

Not to forget the fashion meter at this do was quite high. Girls were spotted in Ghaghra Choli and Chanya Choli. The guys on the other hand were wearing Kurta Pyjamas and some in Pathani style.

The live band kept the pace of the evening high! It renderied popular Dandiya numbers which kept people glued to the dance floor till the end. Shilpa Kendre and Niloy Chandra of PGDM won the Mr and Ms Dandiya Night respectively. Ravindra Goel and Taru Gupta won the Mr and Ms Well- Dressed prizes. The best Dandiya group prize went to Aparna and group from PGDSM-MIT. Aditi Ma’am, Vanita Ma’am, Shailaja Ma’am and Lata Ma’am won the prizes for the best faculty group.

All in all, the event was a welcome break from regular classes and would linger on for a very long time to come :)

Cheers!

Vikas

Rock on....!

Team ‘High Spirits’ in high spirits!! :)

Ayush Kumar and Arunav Roy of team ‘High Spirits’ from qualified for the finals for Jantar Mantar, The Systems Game conducted by IIT B. Their paper was on Prospects of IT product start-ups in India.

Finals: 27th October 2007

Venue: IIT Mumbai

Other teams in the fray: Alpha, IIM A; Synergy13, DoMS IIT Madras; Team Perception, SPJIMR; The Bulls, IMT Ghaziabad

Pragati path pe ‘Team Pragati!’ !!

Lakshmi and Maneesha qualified for the ‘Markshastra’ event, which was part of Kurukshetra, Gurukul conducted by XIMB.

For the preliminary round, the team had presented Paper on ‘Marketing for the Bottom of the Pyramid’.

Finals: 2nd November 2007-10-27

Venue: XIMB

For more info on the same, check http://www.ximbxpressions.com/

Cheers!!

Virginia Tech Contact Session - Dr. Tarun K Sen

It is indeed a great pleasure for us to extend a warm welcome to Dr. Tarun K Sen.

Dr. Sen is the Associate Dean of "Graduate and International Programs" Program at Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech and he will be here along with us from October 22 nd to October 26th 2007. He would be teaching "Information Systems Design and Data Modelling" to the participants of PGDSM-MIT04.

His presence will indeed be a great opportunity for all participants of SPJIMR to interact and gain insight into his areas of expertise.

Vista at IIMB Conquered! Congrats Team Pratham :)

Team ‘Pratham’ consisting of Nishant Pradhan, Rajat Chowdhary and Ganesh Sheshadri won the third place at Milestones, Vista ’07 at IIMB!

About Milestones

Milestones was a case-based test that sought answers to a detailed practical and real-time problem provided by John Deere. Participants were expected to identify the requirements and analyze the needs of rural Indians for a rural automobile.

http://www.iimb-vista.com/milestones.html

About John Deere

John Deere is a world-class producer of North America's broadest line of lawn and garden tractors, mowers, and other outdoor power products.

About the Event

John Deere, now in India, invited Indian B-school students to find a key to exploring the rural four-wheeler market based on the special needs of Indian villages and towns.

The teams were supposed to recommend top 3 vehicle segments or products that Deere should introduce or develop. For the product suggested, an entry strategy was to be devised (consumer special needs, infrastructure issues, competitor analysis, need gap and detailed entry strategy), in line with Deere’s expertise areas and the challenges/practical considerations faced by automobile players in rural India.

In all 57 teams participated in the competition and 9 best teams were selected to make a presentation to the judges. The 9 teams that made it were the ones from IIM B, SPJIMR (PGDSM-MIT), IIM I, IIM K, MDI, XIMB, 2 teams from SPJIMR (PGDM) and IMT Ghaziabad.

IIM-B won the case study competition. The team from IMT Ghaziabad stood second. Team Pratham was adjudged third and walked away with a cash prize of Rs 15,000.

About Team Pratham's Strategy

Team Pratham had suggested an innovative way of marketing and a unique entry strategy (as guided by Prof Atish Chattopadhyay). The judges were quite impressed with not only the marketing strategy but also the unique combination of products suggested to be launched in the Indian rural market.

Cheers,

Aparna and Manisha

PGDSM-MIghTians Rock!

PGDSM-MIghTy participants find their place in the league of Extraordinary Titans, in B-School events held across the country. With the best brains at work it sure must be quite a kick to be right at the top!!

Team Titans in the finals of Annual Paper Presentation Contest, IIT Delhi

Vikash Choudhary and Sumit Gandhi of Team 'Titans' have qualified for the finals of the ‘Annual Paper Presentation Contest’ of IIT, Delhi.

The topic for the paper was ‘Building Organisational Resilience’. The paper required participants to analyze individual and organizational resilience, an issue that has gained special urgency in today’s unstable world environment.

Vikash and Sumit’s paper described an effective way of mitigating and monitoring risks by using 5X5 Matrix approach. The paper goes ahead to explore the avenues that may help Wipro Technologies to improvise rapid responses to unforeseen crisis.

Finals: 27th October

Time: 10 AM

Venue: IIT, Delhi

Other teams in the fray: IIMC, FMS, NITIE, MDI, IMI, SBI Capital, Knowledge Management Centre

Event Details: http://www.iitdmba.com/giftresult.php

Team ChakDe in the finals of Abhyutthan, AVENUES.07 conducted by SJMSOM, IIT Bombay

Team 'ChakDe' comprising Manish Mrinal, Harsha Rao, Somit Basak and Karthick Raghavan has qualified for the finals of ‘Abhyutthan’ - the championship games at AVENUES.07 conducted by SJMSOM, IIT Bombay.

In the prelims, participants were tested across 7 verticals of management namely: Leadership, Strategy, Marketing, Systems, Finance, Operations and Negotiation.

After the preliminary round, 12 teams were selected to fight it out in the mega finals.

In the mega finals, the teams will be tested across all the management disciplines through a mix of online and case-based competitions.

Finals: 27^th and 28^th October

Venue: SJMSOM, IIT Bombay

Other teams in the fray: NITIE, IIM A, ISB, XIMB, MDI, XLRI, DMS IITD, IIMC, NUS Business School, Singapore

Event Details: http://www.sjmsom-avenues.org/

Team Kiran in the finals of Elevator Pitch, Empresario conducted by NITIE, Mumbai

Arjun S and Arun CR of team ‘Kiran’ qualified for the finals of ‘Elevator Pitch’ conducted by NITIE, Mumbai as a part of their annual fest Empresario, wherein one had to sell an idea in just two minutes to Venture Capitalists. It was a compressed version of a regular B-Plan competition. A Q&A session followed the 2 minute presentation.

Other teams in the fray: ISB, FMS, IIT Kharagpur and NITIE

Event Details: http://www.nitie.in/empresario/elevator_pitch.htm

Team Saksham in the finals of Battle of second Naxos, Milestone 35 conducted by IMT Nagpur

Shubham Arora and Aditya Singh of team ‘Saksham’ have qualified for the finals of ‘The Battle of Second Naxos - E-Business Model’ at Milestone 35, conducted by IMT Nagpur. The event revolves around the Information Technology domain and requires planning and a well-crafted strategy to prepare an army for all contingencies.

Finals: 20th October 2007

Venue: IMT, Nagpur

Other teams in the fray: VGSOM, IIT Kharagpur, IMT Ghaziabad, IMT Nagpur,K.G Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and IMI Delhi

Event Details: http://www.milestone35-imtn.com/Event.html

Cheers,

Manisha and Aparna

Shailesh, the quizzing champ!

This time its’ quizzing!!

The students of PGDSM-MIT04 are back again with a winning spree. Shailesh bagged the first prize in Chanakya – Day 6 ( A theme Quiz) organized by IIMK as a part of Event – Horizons 2007.

Horizons 2007 is an event organized by IIM-K every year. This year the theme of event is Bharat Ek Khoj. Chanakya is a daily quiz revolving around this theme. The quiz on day 6 was based on Brand India.

Other B-schools in the league were IIM-K, IIM-C, IIM-B and NMIMS. Further details can be found on http://horizons.iimk.ac.in/event_the_bharat_ek.htm

Congratulations to Shailesh! We’re waiting for you to sweep away all the quizzing events!

- Prathibha

Saurabh wins grand finale at IMI, Delhi!!

Saurabh Shukla, participant of PGDSM MIT 04 has won the grand finale at Spandan’ 07 organised by the International Management Institute (IMI), New Delhi. Spandan is a foundation for Human Values for Management and Society at IMI. The topic for the presentation was ‘If I were to teach Human Values. The aim of the contest was to sensitize aspirant professionals about balancing their professional goals with organizational needs.

After a gruelling preliminary round, 6 finalists across India were chosen to battle it out at the finals held at IMI, Delhi. The other finalists were from TISS, IMI Delhi and Delhi School of Economics. The distinguished jury panel comprised of Prof. G.P. Rao, Founder of Spandan, Prof. C.S Venkata Ratnam, Director IMI and Prof. K Sankaran, Dean, Student welfare.

The presentation round was followed by an exacting Q&A session where the finalists were grilled on their views on the topic. Questions ranging from ‘Role of management in encouraging value system in an organisation’, ‘The learning cycle of values’ and ‘Relationship between value dimension and power dimension’ ensured that the best was brought out in the finalists. They were also asked to cite real life examples from corporate where these principles hold good.



Saurabh says he is thankful to Prof. Lata Dhir, Prof. Mona Nanavati and Prof. Prem Chandrani whose guidance helped him during his preparatory phase. He walked away with a certificate, memento and a cash prize of INR 5000.

Congrats Saurabh :)

- Manisha

Gandhian principles are about choices we make...

Here is the essay by Prathibh Ryali from PGDSM-MIT which won the first prize in the Essay competition conducted on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanthi by CoLosSeuM.

Non-violence. Is it a term in itself or a truth of the higher magnitude which when pondered over would bolster the very shards of our perceived laws of existence? Is it the compassion and empathy which distinguishes our race from the wilder species or is it a mute passivity of an acceptance of imminent fate harboured by the inability to fight back? Worse still, is it another one of those be-laboured ideals which stand unperturbed, confined to the sheets of moral science textbooks and goes down as a farcical ridicule obsolete in present scenario and thus, just another one of those numerous holidays?

And this very same term was momentous enough to have generated undercurrents in one of the strongest colonial empires of the world. The same principle which the world genuflects to; a principal which has been reduced to cliché of a national holiday for us and has been adopted as an international peace campaign by others.

A sweeping glance at the situation around the world would be a more relevant questioning exercise. Men have lost all sense of honour and discretion of when to go for war. The decisions of whether or not to strike is direct function of an individual’s greed; an individual man, an individual state, an individual vengeance. If one government can dispense away all its security systems for just one hour and not be scared I would say we are not at war. We are a war and we have been in that condition for past one century. Bloodshed to retaliate, bloodshed to protect, bloodshed for revenge, bloodshed for weapons, bloodshed to civilize, bloodshed as an ally, bloodshed for survival; there isn’t one higher end goal which one would achieve by just not retaliating which resounding brutality or so we have come to believe.

It is here that I bring to your notice the recurrent debate of what exactly then, would a non-violent approach. More importantly the agitation with respect to India’s going nuclear for the first time in the aftermath of disarmament campaigns world-wide. We, as a country were the strongest proponents of non-violence historically. India has known to never have invaded a country at its own accord in the 5000 years. The famous non-violence movement launched in our freedom struggle was but a comprehension of an age old principle. Then what was it that inspired us to go against the supposed theories and support nuclear weapons? The necessity to reaffirm the fact that non-violence doesn’t mean non-competence!

This one example speaks volumes for all the questions we have been addressing in this passage.
Let us now understand the rationale behind this strife if at all there is one. The need for an overt attack is a sign of insecurity within oneself. It is but a natural instinct to react in such fashion when a being is being threatened. However, there is another kind of insecurity and fear that we people have been building up within our own accord. It is not nature driven but mankind perpetrated. Man was inherently not created to destroy. We have the ability to think along with the ability to love. More importantly we have the ability to protect. Thus, we ought not to strike unless either of these is challenged love or protection. Unfortunately, we have savagely inverted the laws of creation and turned ourselves into brutal war creatures who strike for love but love of material things. Now that we understand that the basic cause of violence stems from the fear and insecurity clouded in the minds. It is but a battle which starts and ends in the mind. Weapons are a means to prove that mental prowess. If the war has to be stopped, it is but in the minds of the perpetrators. Striking back would help in the short term but it is the change in psyche which would bear results in the long run.

Now that we understand the significance of combating the destructive forces prevalent in the world, we would be able to appreciate the relevance on non-violence in the present scenario. It is not text-book ideology. Nor is it a salvation sought after wherein one denounces all weapons. It simply means we choose not to strike outside the dimensions of necessity. We are smarter and tougher warriors. We choose to influence the mind of the opponent. And our actions speak for themselves. Non-violence thus, is not just a combative force; it is a way of life. It is slow and effective struggle for a long drawn cause, a cause to change the way men behave with each other, a cause to address and eliminate the roots of artificially induced insecurity outside our natural habitat so that man may once again love and live.

And this kind of non-violence is not a historic or a Gandhian principle. It si something you and I practise everyday in the lesser dimensions of life. A little child strikes you after he or she thinks that you broke his toy. Wouldn’t you laugh away his moves to harm you? Better still, a teacher handling the outburst of a student who fails to score well in an examination is expected to be wise and mature towards one who knows lesser than he does. In effect in the situations, it is incumbent upon the more learned to endure and teach with love. Then what is it stops us and blinds us from reacting in a similar fashion when it gets to higher-end situations in which societies on a whole are involved? A pure mental block. No, non-violence is something that we are born with, have nurtured and lived with. Nothing should stop us from practising it. And then does one holiday really matter? Let us remind ourselves of this innate ability we posses to combat and heal on this international non-violence day; no more a holiday!

Unlimited Managerial Learning!

One of the wonderful prospects of coming to a business school is the inundating plethora of the biggies one gets to meet and interact with. CEOs, Directors, Deans and industry stalwarts! It was one of those special days for PGDSM-MIT 04 when the director of the MIT program in Virginia Tech flew down for his scheduled contact sessions. It was a wonderful fun-filled interaction for five days during which Dr. Tom Sheehan shared his experience on Unified Modelling Language using Rational Rose. It was but an innovative learning exercise wherein business analysis, estimation techniques, design principles were explored amidst heated debates and budding classroom discussions.

The last day saw the ritual interview session with the whole class and faculty members. Dr. Tom shared with us his views on the eminence of exchange programs and how different the students of MIT India were from those of the students on US. He appreciated the class diversity and profound knowledge of the students in the nitty-gritty of technological implementation which according to him would be the cutting edge we would have as business analysts and business development managers. When questioned about the present PGDSM-MIT04 batch, he remarked that, it gets more and more inquisitive a batch every year and more and more challenging for us to handle all the doubts! The session was followed by sumptuous tea.

Dr. Tom spoke to us about the relevance of the techno-managerial perspective in the US industry and its bent for such qualified professionals to take up the positions of business mangers in the challenging scenario. It was particularly endearing when he invited everyone of us to attend our convocation in the Virginia Tech. Alas, budgets are never concordantly generous! :) What followed was a brief discussion on the activities of the Virginia Tech alumni association and our responsibilities as HOKIEs (the students of Virginia Tech are known as Hokies) followed by an insight into his Indian experience. Five full days of enriching cross-cultural interface! You bet!

- Prathibha

Of Gandhi, Non-violence and Gen Y

“Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.”

The decision of the United Nations General Assembly to declare the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi as ‘International Day of Non-Violence’, almost six decades after the legend breathed his last, is testimony to the aptness of the beautiful lines quoted above from Thomas Gray’s “Elegy written in a country churchyard”. The lines bring out the irony of the fact that the life of Gandhi and his noble ideals have faded into oblivion with passing years, and it takes a ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ (whose male protagonist himself has been convicted for his involvement in the Mumbai serial blasts), to reinforce the ideology of ‘non-violence’ that Gandhi gave up his life for.

The euphoria in the Indian politics following this inconsequential declaration by the UN can be termed at best, illogical, and at worst, hypocritical. In a country where politics has been reduced to just another dirty word for intolerance and religious fundamentalism, I find it ridiculously funny that morally corrupt netas are celebrating the UN declaration on one hand and thwarting Gandhi’s ideals on the other. For those who believe this declaration would massage the ego of the nationalist, I can only say that any carnival would be as naïve as celebrating the rise of the Indian rupee against the US dollar, without understanding the repercussions of the same.

There seems to be much ado about nothing. What seems to have been unfortunately forgotten amongst all the hype is the very idea of non-violence that Gandhi stood for.

The sad truth about Gen Y is that it is so emotionally vulnerable that it can neither practice non-violence nor appreciate it. To the youth, Gandhi is an epitome of passive resistance. No more, no less. The fact that 2^nd October is a dry day is of more concern to them than it being declared as ‘International Day of Non-Violence’ by the UN. The fact that it is a national holiday is more pertinent to them than practising non-violence even for a day. Somewhere down the line, the very same youth and politicians who are lauding UN’s declaration on the eve of something as sacrosanct as Gandhi Jayanti have relegated Gandhi to an inanimate picture in shabby court rooms and government offices.

The fact that someone has to write an article to instil a sense of national pride and reinforce Gandhi’s ideals of non-violence, is testimony to the aptness of the famous line from The Fountainhead-“A quest for self respect is proof of it’s lack.”, in the Indian context. But Ayn Rand’s philosophy and objectivism be damned, on the eve of the ‘International Day of Non-Violence’, let us not just celebrate Gandhi’s recognition for his role in promoting peace, but also the concept of non-violence itself. Let us sing ‘Sabarmati ke sant’ one last time in the memory of the great man who has made us proud and will always make us feel proud of being an Indian. Let us watch ‘Lage Raho..’ once again not for the antics of Cirkit or the shenanigans of Munna but for the indomitable spirit of non-violence and active Gandhigiri beautifully portrayed in the movie.

To sum it up, let me evoke all the readers with something that conveys the essence of ‘Gandhigiri’, which has unfortunately been misunderstood as something passive and weak by Gen Y:-

“Once to every man or nation,
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
For the good or evil side,

It is then that the brave man chooses,
While the coward steps aside
Doubting in his abject spirit,
Till his lord is crucified!”

Rather than naming posh, rickety and sundry roads as the Mahatma Gandhi Road, let us walk, at least for a day, on the road shown by the selfless Bapu, so that our posterity does not have to see another ‘Babri Masjid’, another ‘Godhra’, another ‘Kashmir’…. That, I believe, will ensure that Gandhi does not become merely the Atticus Finch of modern times. That, I believe, will ensure that we don’t wait for Lage Raho’s and the United Nation’s declarations to practice Gandhi’s school of thought. That, I believe, will be the true tribute to our beloved Bapu!

Cheers,
Tushar Kumar
PGDSM MIT 04