While the average salary is around Rs 11 lakh (although all offer letters are not in, this is the ballpark estimated by SPJIMR), the highest domestic salary offered is over Rs 19 lakh (by GE Commercial Finance). ICICI Bank, First Gulf Bank and many others offered international postings. The highest international offer was for 43,000 by ICICI for a treasury position in the UK.

One trend this time has been the shooting up of the average domestic salary offered for the management trainee profiles: it has touched Rs 12 lakh!

Placements 2007 at IIT Bombays Shailesh J Mehta School of Management (SJMSOM) ended with the institutes best-ever performance! The average salary increased by 24% (compared to last year), and touched Rs 9.71 lakh. Nearly 10% students were offered international profiles -- with Olam International offering the highest international salary of $ 85,000. The highest domestic salary touched Rs 13.2 lakh (offered by a leading international SCM and retail consultancy firm). And 41 companies made 141 offers -- averaging 2.43 offers per student.

The subject of discussion, GLOBALISATION: Issues & Challenges for Indian B-Schools, will be debated by thought leaders like Dr Bakul Dholakia, director, IIM Ahmedabad; Dr Pritam Singh, Professor of Eminence, MDI Gurgaon; Dr MR Rao, Dean, ISB Hyderabad; and Dr Prakash Apte, director, IIM Bangalore, among others.

Presenting the Railway Budget for 2007-08, the minister announced the setting up of a Railway Chair at the prestigious B-school for research in railway infrastructure and management. Credited with the turnaround of Indian Railways, Lalu was invited to the IIM A campus in September last year; back then, he had promised setting up of a railways chair at IIM A. And hes walked the talk: the Chair is expected to start functioning in April 2007 itself.

A cash surplus of Rs.20, 000 crore before dividend and a record-breaking performance in the first nine months of the current year. With this spectacular feat, Yadav is sure to continue his whistling tour of management institutes where he is a man in great demand. Several prestigious B-schools including the IIMs have invited Yadav for some rustic management lessons.

According to a RBS press release, the Executive-MBA program will offer professionals with three years of work experience an opportunity to pursue a management degree. Students will pursue part of their studies on the RBS campus and part of it on the IIM France campus. For the MIM program, after completing one year of studies at RBS, validated by CNAM-IIM, students would move to France for rest of the program.

This initiative, to be called the Impetus Chair of Information Technology and Systems, will undertake a series of collaborative activities and applied research work.

According to IIM Indore director Dr S.P. Parashar, such initiatives help bridge the industry-academia gap: We work with reputed corporate houses to bring in an industry outlook into our learnings, and also to give a practical perspective to our research initiatives, he says.

According to TiE, this session will provide inspiration, skills and mentoring that one needs to be successful as an entrepreneur.

Dr. Srivastava, who co-founded and chaired NASSCOM, also co-founded TiE in India will inspire B-school students to be an entrepreneur. Dr Srivastava is the chairman of the Indian Venture Capital Association and the Asia-Pacific Venture Capital Association, and is also on the advisory board of the Imperial College Business School, London. He is also an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at IIT Mumbai.

The admission process for postgraduate program (PGP) in management will be in line with the other IIMs, and applicants will have to take the CAT entrance exam.

For starters, the institute will have a batch of 60 students only, but it is expected that by the third year, the capacity should go up to 120; by the sixth year, it should be able to accommodate 180 students.

The theme of the discussion will be Special Economic Zones: Fuelling India Inc.s Growth, and the event will be held on Saturday, 24 February 2007 at NITIE auditorium, between 2 pm and 5 pm.