The convocation witnessed around 35 officers of Central and State Government who completed their PGDBM programme from NIFM institute, being conferred their diplomas by Pawan Kumar Bansal, Minister of State for Finance, Government of India.

The Ignite Boot Camp, being delivered by Cambridge faculty, successful serial entrepreneurs and Indian innovators is a unique workshop. It brings in the experience of Cambridges journey to becoming Europes top technology cluster from being a small English town. It also brings in the experience of the Judge Business School in enabling Ignite participants to turning their ideas into successful commercial enterprises.

To help our readers, the MBA aspirants, to excel in this final frontier, MBAUniverse.com presents a special series of articles covering the What, Why and How of personal assessment round. For this first part, MBAUniverse.com spoke to leading MBA test prep companies on how they see Group Discussions and how should aspirants prepare. Next up will be the guide to facing the Personal Interview boards.

We started by asking what is the purpose behind the Group Discussion round.

The Purpose of GD

The IIMs have published the answers of Common Admission Test (CAT) 08, held on November 16, 2008 on CAT official website - www.CATIIM.in. IIMs official answers list states that there is one question, answer to which was not taken in consideration while drawing out CAT percentiles. The official CAT website CATIIM.in says, The key for item 39 of form 111, item 47 of form 222, item 32 of form 333 and item 46 of form 444 has not been provided because of an anomaly in the test item and therefore dropped from consideration.

Backwaters has a plethora of interesting events lined up for all the business school students in the country. MBAUniverse.com is the official media partner of this initiative.
IIMK Backwaters and TiE will hold White Knight, the flagship event of the fest. It is a socially relevant Business Plan Competition based on the theme of agriculture. It provides a platform for existing and budding entrepreneurs to connect, network, collaborate and bring about a positive change in society.

Management guru Dr. C.K Prahalad and Prof. Anoop Madhok from the York University, among others, will be part of this initiative.

As part of the initiative, Dr. Prahalad will be travelling to Goa in the second week of January to speak at an event hosted by GIM on the theme Global Restructuring of Industries. Is there an India Advantage? Top notch industrialists, the corporate community, bureaucrats and students are expected to attend the event.

Dr. Kasturirangan, the chief guest on the occasion, while addressing the gathering, cautioned India not to surrender its hard earned knowledge and experience in Space to the dictums of developed world.
Dr. Kasturirangan also released a case study titled Life Line: A Social Initiative Led by B-School Students on this occasion.

On face of the recent economic turmoil and Satyam debacle, ICWAI will launch new programmes and courses during the year to promote stronger enterprise governance and accounting procedures.

During his lecture Prof. Kalam congratulated ICWAI and said, ICWAI has played a crucial role in nurturing the accounting talent and practices in India. It gives me pleasure to be a part of this proud occasion for entire nation. I must congratulate everyone present here on providing the industry with skilled management accountants over the years.

The rate of interest charged on such loans is varies between 11% and 14%, and these loans are payable only after your studies are over and you begin to earn.

Q: What is your percentile in CAT 08 and how does it feel getting call from prestigious IIMs!
A: My percentile in CAT is 97.67 and I am really excited about the opportunity it has given me to be a part of prestigious B-Schools. I have received interview calls from IIM Bangalore and IIM Lucknow.?

Q: In your view, what are the key factors that helped you in doing so well in CAT?
A: I focused on three points: