How to cope with the difficult Quant section? How to maximize my score? What should be my average attempt in all the sections? These are some of the questions which aspirants asked CAT expert Mr Arks Srinivas on MBAUniverse.com Expert Chat on Thursday, 26th September 2013. The topic of the chat was 20 Days to CAT 2013: How to Finalize your Preparations?

President of India will give away the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award to Dr Rajendra Achyut Badwe, Director of Tata Memorial Centre on October 1, 2013 at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi. The Award, instituted by the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management (LBSIM), honors each year an Indian who has made exceptional contributions in areas like business, management practitioner, public administrator, or education. The honor carries a cash award of Rupees Five Lakhs. Past Awardees include Dr CK Prahalad, Mr Narayana Murthy and Sunil Bharti Mittal.

As per the tradition, while students rush for the applications of core PGDM Programmes in top B schools, they tend to ignore applying to many reputed MBA programs in functions and sectors like HR, International Business, Agri Business Management and Media. For those who are clear about their vocation, these programs offer a great opportunity to specialize early and excel in their chose field. MBAUniverse.com tells you which of these specialized MBA programs to apply where application process for Admission 2014 is currently open.

Nearly 1.20 lakh CAT aspirants have already bought CAT vouchers and we expect the CAT numbers to grow well above 2.50 lakh this year, said Dr Rohit Kapoor, Convenor, CAT 2013 on September 11 in an interview with MBAUniverse.com.

But the expectations were shattered on September 26, the last day of the online registration for CAT 2013 as this year only about 2 lakh aspirants purchased registration vouchers to appear for CAT exam, which will be held in a 20 day window beginning October 16.

All India Management Association (AIMA) inaugurated its 40th National Management Convention on the theme Courage in Uncertainty on September 26. Policy makers and business leaders offered their opinion on how the current economic uncertainly can be mitigated, leading to more prosperity and stability.

Young Management students of IRMA get an opportunity to work with Amul, Jeevika, srijan, The Timbaktu Collective, Sahaj, Unicef, Vrutti, Tata etc. during their Summer Internship Programme. Out of 254 recruiter companies only 89 were selected. The process was filtered further with 56 recruiters who offered 141 projects.

How important is to identify the tone of the author in the passage, can be well understood by the fact that CAT- 2012 had at least two questions in every session on tone of the passage in Reading Comprehension section of Verbal Ability. What are the key words and sentences that would help you to detect the tone of the author? Are you aware getting these questions answered correct, could give you an edge of 12-14 percentile? So get some tips and guidelines to detect the Tone or attitude of the Author in the passage.

Since 2007, candidates aspiring to join MBA programs offered by 13 B-schools like SIBM, SICSR and SCMHRD, which are part of Symbiosis International University (SIU), have had to take the mandatory SNAP Test. Starting this year, SIU has changed the SNAP process, making it more student friendly.

MBAUniverse.com spoke to Dr. Vidya Yeravdekar, the Principal Director of Symbiosis Society, on the background of this change, and her views on the current status on Indian MBA education. Edited excerpts:

Q: What are the highlights of the new SNAP Process?

Mr. Ashok Thakur, IAS, Secretary (HE), Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India inaugurated the first HR Conclave-2013 organized by IIM- Tiruchirappalli on the 20th September 2013. The Director of IIM-T, Dr. Prafulla Agnihotri and Dean of Academics IIM-T, Prof. V. Gopal addressed the inaugural session. The conclave was a great success with the active participation of Corporate and academic world.

Mr Saumil Shah scored 99.54 percentile in CAT and accepted an admission offer from NITIE, Mumbai. Mr Saumil who had a working experience of 23 months in Ernst & Young , received final admission offer from multiple B-schools including MDI, SJSOM and NITIE.

In this Toppers Mantra session with MBAUniverse.com, Mr Saumil shares his CAT prep strategy and talks on the challenges he faced during his preparation while being a working executive. He also speaks on his GD/PI strategy and suggests MBA aspirants to prepare the same along with their preparation of CAT.