Delivering his convocation address at IIFT, Mr K T Chacko, Director of IIFT said, Indias esteem and repute in the field of business has reached all time high. In the four decades of IIFTs existence, the institute contributes to policy making, which hones human resources and is a hub of research.

Research is one of the major focus areas at IIFT. IIFT has strived towards keeping pace with the expanding domain of knowledge through its research. In line with this objective we have substantially increased the intake for the institutes PhD programme from the year 2007, he said.

Union Minister of Commerce Mr Kamal Nath was the guest of honour on the occasion. Commerce secretary and chairman of IIFT Mr G K Pillai and Director, IIFT Delhi Mr K T Chacko presided over the function. This was also the first convocation for IIFT Kolkatta Campus students.

In total, 424 students passed out of Institute on the day.

Giving credit to the past director, Dr PG Apte, Dr Pankaj Chandra said, I took charge as Director of the Institute from Professor P.G. Apte on December 3, 2007.Over the last five years, Professor Apte has provided able leadership to the IIMB community. A number of new programmes and activities have been initiated during his tenure.

In a recent meeting in London between Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and CII delegation led by Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal on March 26, Indian industry sought Britains help in the areas of skill development, education, innovation management, amongst others.

The CII delegation was calling on the British Prime Minister as a follow-up to his visit to India in January 2008, accompanied by some of Britains leading CEOs.

Delhi University, the largest Indian University, is the first Indian university to be part of U 21 Global network. Some of the other universities that are part of this consortium include National University of Singapore, McGill University and University of Melbourne.

The National final will be held in Mumbai on March 27, 2008. Twelve teams who have made it to finals include teams from several top B-schools including IIM-A, IIM-L, NMIMS, SP Jain and IMT Ghaziabad.
This year the Tata Crucible Campus Quiz was extended to 4 new cities- Lucknow, Indore, Kochi and Chandigarh in addition to the earlier 8 cities. Since its inception, participation in the Tata Crucible Campus Quiz has increased five times, from 388 teams in the first edition to approximately 2000 in the current edition of the quiz.

Thats the message emerging from the convocation address delivered by tech-innovator Dr Gururaj Deshpande at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B) on March 25. Dr Despandes address was titled An Opportunity to Lead and provoked graduating class at IIM-B to take risks and innovate.

The School is in the process of developing its programmes that will fit into the evolving industry needs. A group of senior academicians, led by Dr Lalit Johri and Gay Haskins, Dean of Executive Education, surveyed and researched the Indian market this March, where they met with senior executives to fine tune their offerings. MBAUniverse.com spoke to Dr Lalit Johri for details.

The conference theme aptly captured as India Imagine brought together an eminent set of Indian leaders including Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, GE India CEO Tejpeet Chopra, Tech pioneer Vinod Dham from across the spectrum. Students, faculty, guests and speakers came together in stimulating discussion about different aspects of the Indian growth story.

According to the information shared by IIM-B with MBAUniverse.com, for the PGP batch being taken in 2008, the fee for the first year will be Rs 4 lakh, while fee for the second year will be Rs 5 lakh. For the batch of 2009, the fee will be Rs 5 lakh per year. The current fee of PGP at IIM-B is Rs 2.5 lakh per year.

This announcement was made by Dr Pankaj Chandra, Director, IIM-B after the meeting of the Board of Governors on March 25, 2008.