India Business Forum of London Business School is the knowledge partner and Aditya Birla Group will be the title partners of this initiative.

Columbia Business School is hosting IIM-As studentsfor one week of dedicated classes and industry visits. The IIM-A students arrived on Columbia campus on November 5 and will depart on November 9.

At Columbia Business Schools, courses for IIM-A students include Introduction to Business Negotiations with Professor Elke Weber, a Marketing Module with Professor Gita Johar and Credit Risk & Fixed Income Markets with Professor Suresh Sundaresan.

He chose SMU Cox because it offered the best of both worlds, he says.

Prahalad has been named as worlds most influential thinker by UK based Thinkers 50, a respected global ranking of business gurus (www.thinkers50.com).
According to Thinkers 50, Prahalad has surged ahead of icons like Bill Gates, Michael Porter, Jack Welch, Gary Hamel and other venerated gurus to claim the no 1 spot. This is the first time since Thinkers 50 was first published in 2001 that an Indian has topped the list.

The magazine was launched by Prof. Jayanth R. Varma at IIM-A on November 8. The conceptualization and design of the inaugural issue has been done by the students and faculty of IIM Ahmedabad.

The magazine attempts to raise and discuss issues pertaining to Finance, as diverse as Private Equity, Capital Markets, Insurance, and Investment Management. It will draw on insights of students, finance professionals and academicians.

Mr Westerbeck will write thiscolumn only on Indias leading management portal -- MBAUniverse.com. Mr Westerbeck has advised hundreds of leading global corporations and nonprofit organizations, including the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Stanford Law School, the American Medical Association, Yale School of Management and the Graduate Management Admission Council. The first column is on Indian B-schools as potential global brands.
Global B-school Pulse

MBA India: The Next Global Brand?
By Tim Westerbeck

This is the 6th consecutive year that India has sent the most students to the United States. China remains in second place, with numbers up 8% to 67,723; and the Republic of Korea, in third place, increased 6% to 62,392.

The contesthas drawn a good response with 175 entries coming from 38 B-schools. Empezar team has selected 33 teams from the executive summaries of Business Plans to move to the second round where teams will have to submit details business plans.

The final round of Empezar will be held on November 24 where selected teams will make final presentations to a panel of bankers, VC and industry experts. The winning business plan will receive a prize of Rs 40,000 while the runners up will get a prize of Rs 25,000.

The total participants in summer placements were 193 students, including participants of the Fellow Program in Management (FPM).

IIM-K informed MBAUniverse.com that summer placements saw participation from 66 top recruiters from India and abroad. There were 22 new recruiting partners at IIM-K this year. Some of the new recruiters include Google, Freudenberg, Accenture Business Consulting, Citibank, Bank of America, KPMG, Coca Cola, PepsiCo and Hewitt Associates, amongst others.

According to the MoU, faculty and academicians from both institutions will partner on joint research projects and publish their research in internationally reputed academic journals.

The collaboration was jointly signed by Professor M Rammohan Rao, Dean ISB and Professor M S Ananth, Director, IIT Madras, at a ceremony in IIT.