Sharing information with MBAUniverse.com, IMS Learning said that its first Financial Planning programme under the IMS Proschool banner is already in operation and will be taken to 40 cities. More programmes in sectors like retail, marketing analytics are in the offing.

The scholarship programme has been set up exclusively for Indian students to read for Ph D & M Phil degrees at St Johns College in areas such as science, technology and social sciences. St Johns College, where Prime Minister Dr Singh studied for a First in economics in the late 1950s, is seeking to award 35,000 scholarships per annum to each PhD student for up to three years, with three scholarships already planned for the year 2008-09. The scholarship would be based on merit through a special test, in order to ensure maximum effectiveness.

Several big names like consultancy firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) and banking and agri-consulting firm YES Bank have hired Agri-business Management program students for summer placements. A total of 17 companies participated in the summer placement process of Post Graduate Programme in Agribusiness Management (PGP-ABM) program for a batch of 25 students. The students had on an average about 2 offers to choose from.

The convention will be part of FMS annual festival Fiesta 2007, which will be held on December 8 and 9, 2007. The convention will draw the inspiring thoughts from leaders like Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Mr Gunit Chada, CEO & MD, Deutsche Bank, Mr Arun Maira, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group and Mr. Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM.

Companies from various sectors are visiting more and more business schools and offering varied profiles with good offer to get the best talent early on through the summer internships.

The summer internships provide an opportunity to students to undertake projects with an organisation and thereby get exposure to the work culture and structure for their future growth. If companies find the employees performance and attitude during internship period best suited then there will be chance of pre-placement offers from those companies.

The talk concentrated on the strength and weaknesses of the success model of India. While comparing with other nations, Mr. Das said that historically India has been on a success path led by young entrepreneurs, which is unique to Indians and quite viable and sustainable.

The institute is eyeing to forge academic alliances with premier management institutes, offer executive education to Indian corporates and attract Indian students for its course.

Speaking to MBAUniverse.com, newly appointed Director for International Affairs at Grenoble Ecole de Management, Mr Mark Thomas said, In India we are keen to develop more partnerships with Indian institutions to continue delivering its programs and expertise in India, notably in the Executive Education arena.

Manipal Education had recently acquired Singapore based U21 Global, and also invested $2.5 million in Tutorvista.com. Speaking to MBAUniverse.com, Anand Sudarshan, MD and CEO of Manipal Education, said, We believe that blended education and management training that leverages technology-based-learning is the way forward. This is our very strong belief.

The process involved the participation of over 60 companies and the total number of offers made was 1.6 times the total number of offers accepted. This year saw leading organizations like Lehman Brothers and J.P. Morgan Chase participating in the summer placement process.

The first in the series of Meets was held at Mumbai on 21 November 2007 at NMIMS University Campus.

The meet was attended by management professionals from academia, corporate, rating agencies etc. The meet was inaugrated by Mr Kewal Handa, President AIMA and addressed by Prof N M Kondap, Vice Chancellor, NMIMS University.