A National Conference on Promoting Excellence in Government will be organized by All India Management Association (AIMA) on July 21 and 22, 2009, at New Delhi. The Chairman of the conference will be Mr. N R Narayana Murthy, Chairman and Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies. Mr. Kamal Nath , Minister for Road Transport and Highways; Dr. Montek S. Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission and Mr. Praful Patel, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Civil Aviation will be the key speakers of the conference.

X-Fin, the Finance Association of Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar (XIMB), will hold a discussion on the key elements of the Union Budget 2009-2010 on Saturday July 11. The event is titled Arthashastra The Union Budget Analysis 2009-10.

Quite often, getting a good MBA job isnt just about the right certificates and adequate domain knowledge. It is about communication, presentation and observing basic professional etiquettes in a job interview scenario. Thats particularly true for MBAs, who are expected to be team players, and future leaders. If effective business communication is your worry, help is at hand. Nasha Fitter, Harvard Business School graduate and communication expert who has trained thousands of executives for companies like Wipro, ICICI and HUL, authored a new book titled YOURE HIRED!

MBA programs are known by different names in India. While Indian Universities grant an MBA degree, AICTE recognized private MBA institutes offer Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM). Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and other top MBA institutes provide MBA programs which are named as PGDM, Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management (PGDBM) and Post Graduate Program in Management (PGPM). While the full-time two-year MBA is the most popular MBA program, one-year MBA offered by leading MBA institutes like ISB or Great Lakes, too, has found many takers.

It has launched C3 - Crescent Consulting Club with an aim to develop and increase the understanding of consulting profession. The inauguration of the club will be held on July 9 with a session by Mr. Joe Simon, CIO Viacom International (New York) on Life as a Consultant. XLRI alumnus Simon will share his experiences as a consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton.

United we stand, divided we fall! Thats what a group is all about. When you start preparations to crack the hardest nut named CAT exam in order to get through a top management school, it is better to combine all your forces together. Study Groups, where like-minded MBA aspirants come together, can come handy. In fact this is one of the secret mantras of most CAT exam toppers, who are now students of premium management schools like IIMs and FMS, MBAUniverse.com spoke with. Know more on how to create a strong Study Group and boost your CAT exam preparations in this MBAUniverse.com report.

Howard Thomas, dean of Warwick Business School and Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Warwick (United Kingdom), began his term July 1, 2009 as chairman of the board of directors of AACSB InternationalThe Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

Submitted to the Government of India on June 23, the report by the Yash Pal Committee to advice on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education has evoked a positive response amongst educationists in India. The report calls for an end to license-raj in higher education sector with setting up of a single regulatory body and several other far-reaching reforms. To quote from the report (a copy of which is with MBAUniverse.com), We have suggested that the present regulating bodies should all be subsumed within a National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER).

In his former avatar, Prof. Cedric Serpes was the Creative Chief for ad agencies like Grey and Lintas, in India and abroad. The Ad Guru-turned-academician shifted to Goa about 15 years back, and subsequently joined GIM to teach Integrated Marketing Communication.