The beauty about CAT 2007 is in its balance. I am yet to see a more balanced CAT in the last 10 years. Mr Lahiri was responding to a student query on MBAUniverse.com Live expert chat.

IIM-C got its batch of almost 300 students, which is the largest batch amongst all the IIMs, placed in a record 4.5 days. And IIM-C says its elite placements rank ahead of even IIM-A and IIM-B.
The Slot 0 saw companies such as Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, McKinsey, Macquarie, Credit Suisse, A T Kearney, Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, HSBC Global, JP Morgan Chase, Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and Lehman Brothers amongst many others.

To take the debate on skill development towards action, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission India, in his address at Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) 2nd Employment Summit on Employment Generation and Skills Development, said that government plans to launch a Skill Development Mission. The summit was held at CII on November 22.

How do they plan their careers -- are they so charmed by international postings and packages, as the perception goes? Is salary-package the most important parameter? How do they look at working and creating wealth (read entrepreneurship) in the so called New India? Who inspires them a super successful CEO or a self-made entrepreneur? And which are the most coveted sector and companies?

Noted IT entrepreneur Subroto Bagchi and co-founder of MindTree will explore these issues and provide insight into the meaning of corporate social responsibility to Indian business as part of the Oxford-Achilles lecture series at Sad Business School.

He will be delivering the address The Meaning of CSR: Perspectives of an Indian Entrepreneur on November 22, at Said Business School.

The keynote speaker on the occasion, Mr. Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder and CEO, BharatMatrimony.com talked about the Indian online industry and his brainchild Bharatmatrimony.com. He also highlighted the growth potential of the industry and possible future challenges in the same.

XIM-B reports that there is a 30 per cent rise in stipends. According to XIM-B, The Marketing stream saw an rise in offers, with the influx of FMCG bigwigs Coke, PepsiCo, Cadburys, Britannia, HT and ICI Paints, to add to the earlier portfolio of Marico, Godrej, SAB Miller and Cavin Care. JPMC, BNP Paribas and Citibank joined the list of Finance recruiters, alongside ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HSBC Global Resourcing, TATA AIG and Futures First, comprising majority of the total offers.

The contest was keenly fought with teams from leading management institute like IIM-A, IIM-C, XLRI participating. The Awards consisted of cash prizes and a special memento.

Tarun Arora of FMS-Delhi won the Gold Award with a cash prize of Rs 25,000. IMT Ghaziabads Deepak Kapoor and Rahul Saini shared the Silver Award, winning cash prize of Rs 15,000 each. IIM-As Kritisundar Paul won the Bronze award and cash prize of Rs.10,000.

FMS informs that highlight of summer placements was a 400% increase in the number of international offers made by companies.

Responding to MBAUniverse.com reader query, Gejo Srinivasan, MBA product head at IMS Mumbai, said, On a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the toughest, I will rate quantitative section as 8/10. Verbal section was 7/10 while Data interpretation was 6/10.

Gejo Srinivasan added, The Quant section was tougher than last year, as some of the questions not only demanded a higher level of reasoning but also were based on tougher concepts. Conceptual clarity and a strong reasoning ability were a must to clear the cut-offs in this section.|