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* Issue of CAT Bulletins by Axis Bank STARTS :
JULY 14, 2008 (Monday)
* Issue of CAT Bulletins by Axis Bank ENDS :
AUGUST 8, 2008 (Friday)
* Issue of CAT Bulletins by IIMs ENDS :
AUGUST 13, 2008 (Wednesday)
* Last date for receipt of completed CAT Applications by the IIMs : SEPTEMBER 5, 2008 (Friday)
* COMMON ADMISSION TEST :
NOVEMBER 16, 2008 (Sunday)
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Thursday, July 17, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
IIM-A ropes in MIT hand to promote innovation
An innovation expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will be visiting the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), in November to promote the importance of user-based innovations in creating successful companies.
"India and Indians residing worldwide have a wonderful record as innovators and entrepreneurs. I believe users tend to be the real developers of many important products. Recently, research by my colleagues has shown that many new companies are started by users who become entrepreneurs. Learning about how user innovations foster the creation of successful new companies will be very useful information for IIM students and others in India," says Eric von Hippel, professor and head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management and professor of Engineering Systems at MIT.
It will be his first trip to India, which he also intends to use "to forge closer contacts with my colleagues at IIM-A, who have very similar research interests".
The lecture is part of a two-week long 'Inventors of India' workshop by the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM-A. About 70 inventors and innovators of all ages and technical background are expected to be present at the event. Premier institutes could also be called to participate at the workshop.
"Eric will participate and may give the inaugural address at the workshop. In addition, he will interact with the faculty and students and explore possibilities of collaborative research. Apart from visiting some grassroot innovators, he will interact with our incubatee companies as well. Several things are being planned and we are quite excited about his visit. Also, we may ask institutes like National Institute of Design (NID) and Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA), to pitch in," says Rakesh Basant, chairman of CIIE and a professor at IIM-A.
An expert in Principle of Developing Economics, Eric has made two of his books available openly on his website at no cost to the reader: Democratising Innovation, published in 2005 by the MIT Press, and Sources of Innovation, published in 1988 by Oxford University Press. Leading companies in the world have used practical methods based on his research.
Hippel is also expected to meet grassroot innovators at SRISTI, an NGO founded by Anil Gupta, a professor at IIM-A. Incidentally, Gupta too would be lecturing at MIT as part of the Amy Smith's International design and development course on July 16-17.
"India and Indians residing worldwide have a wonderful record as innovators and entrepreneurs. I believe users tend to be the real developers of many important products. Recently, research by my colleagues has shown that many new companies are started by users who become entrepreneurs. Learning about how user innovations foster the creation of successful new companies will be very useful information for IIM students and others in India," says Eric von Hippel, professor and head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management and professor of Engineering Systems at MIT.
It will be his first trip to India, which he also intends to use "to forge closer contacts with my colleagues at IIM-A, who have very similar research interests".
The lecture is part of a two-week long 'Inventors of India' workshop by the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM-A. About 70 inventors and innovators of all ages and technical background are expected to be present at the event. Premier institutes could also be called to participate at the workshop.
"Eric will participate and may give the inaugural address at the workshop. In addition, he will interact with the faculty and students and explore possibilities of collaborative research. Apart from visiting some grassroot innovators, he will interact with our incubatee companies as well. Several things are being planned and we are quite excited about his visit. Also, we may ask institutes like National Institute of Design (NID) and Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA), to pitch in," says Rakesh Basant, chairman of CIIE and a professor at IIM-A.
An expert in Principle of Developing Economics, Eric has made two of his books available openly on his website at no cost to the reader: Democratising Innovation, published in 2005 by the MIT Press, and Sources of Innovation, published in 1988 by Oxford University Press. Leading companies in the world have used practical methods based on his research.
Hippel is also expected to meet grassroot innovators at SRISTI, an NGO founded by Anil Gupta, a professor at IIM-A. Incidentally, Gupta too would be lecturing at MIT as part of the Amy Smith's International design and development course on July 16-17.
IIM-A to get 4 new subjects
In a regular course committee meeting held at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) for Post Graduate Programme for Agricultural Business Management (PGP-ABM), the members approved at least four subjects for the fifth term beginning from end of September.
Students of PGP-ABM will now get to learn subjects like negotiations in agriculture, information technology (IT) for agriculture development, inclusive agriculture business, and agriculture and rural policy design, said a senior faculty member at the institute.
"The subjects are a result of several recommendations that the institute received around the year from faculty members, subject experts and students at the institute. While the committee has approved these subjects for the fifth term, the implementation will depend upon the instructors as well as students," he said.
Implementation of the subjects approved by the committee depends upon the number of registrations received from the students.
"There is an upper and a lower limit for registration of these subjects. If the registration doesn't fall in the limit, they are taken up as projects instead of subjects," added the faculty member.
Students of PGP-ABM will now get to learn subjects like negotiations in agriculture, information technology (IT) for agriculture development, inclusive agriculture business, and agriculture and rural policy design, said a senior faculty member at the institute.
"The subjects are a result of several recommendations that the institute received around the year from faculty members, subject experts and students at the institute. While the committee has approved these subjects for the fifth term, the implementation will depend upon the instructors as well as students," he said.
Implementation of the subjects approved by the committee depends upon the number of registrations received from the students.
"There is an upper and a lower limit for registration of these subjects. If the registration doesn't fall in the limit, they are taken up as projects instead of subjects," added the faculty member.
IITs set to implement quotas for faculty positions
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) — for the first time since their inception — have begun drafting plans to implement the quota for faculty members from this year onwards, despite protests from the IIT student community and opposition from some professors.
A few IITs are calling a board meeting next week to discuss the issue and chalk out a plan to this effect.
The HRD ministry has, meanwhile, assured the country's premier technical institutes that they can de-reserve the posts after a year if vacant till then.
IITs, according to a Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) directive, are expected to reserve 15 per cent quota for SCs, 7.5 per cent for STs and 27 per cent for OBCs in faculty positions.
However, till date, they only have had reservations for backward category candidates in administrative posts. They had not implemented quotas in faculty positions till date for "lack of a written directive", and neither had the HRD ministry clamped on them so far. Sources in the HRD ministry, however, allege that the IITs "skirted the issue till date".
The ministry has now written to the IITs asking them to furnish faculty data of the past three years. "We have given the details to the MHRD. We did try recruiting SC/ST faculty but could not do so as we could not find anyone with the required qualification," explains an IIT Guwahati professor.
"IITs always had quota for faculty. We, however, did not have a written directive from the MHRD on this issue. Besides, the clause that IITs can de-reserve the posts after a year, helps us put the quota in place," says an IIT director who did not wish to be named.
However, the severe faculty shortage issue at IITs may not get solved since "there being a dearth of quality faculty, the faculty seats anyway go vacant at the IITs. By reserving the seats for quota, it will not be much of a difference," said another IIT director. IIT Guwahati, for instance, had invited applications from candidates for the SC/ST faculty seats earlier.
It shortlisted four candidates, but could not recruit any as they did not match the qualification criteria.
Incidentally, last week, the IIT directors met in New Delhi at the meeting of the standing committee of the IIT council and requested that they should be exempted from making reservations for faculty like the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Centre and the University Grants Commission (UGC) on a petition challenging the policy of extending reservation for the OBCs to faculty posts in the IITs, the Indian Institutes of Management, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences.
A few IITs are calling a board meeting next week to discuss the issue and chalk out a plan to this effect.
The HRD ministry has, meanwhile, assured the country's premier technical institutes that they can de-reserve the posts after a year if vacant till then.
IITs, according to a Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) directive, are expected to reserve 15 per cent quota for SCs, 7.5 per cent for STs and 27 per cent for OBCs in faculty positions.
However, till date, they only have had reservations for backward category candidates in administrative posts. They had not implemented quotas in faculty positions till date for "lack of a written directive", and neither had the HRD ministry clamped on them so far. Sources in the HRD ministry, however, allege that the IITs "skirted the issue till date".
The ministry has now written to the IITs asking them to furnish faculty data of the past three years. "We have given the details to the MHRD. We did try recruiting SC/ST faculty but could not do so as we could not find anyone with the required qualification," explains an IIT Guwahati professor.
"IITs always had quota for faculty. We, however, did not have a written directive from the MHRD on this issue. Besides, the clause that IITs can de-reserve the posts after a year, helps us put the quota in place," says an IIT director who did not wish to be named.
However, the severe faculty shortage issue at IITs may not get solved since "there being a dearth of quality faculty, the faculty seats anyway go vacant at the IITs. By reserving the seats for quota, it will not be much of a difference," said another IIT director. IIT Guwahati, for instance, had invited applications from candidates for the SC/ST faculty seats earlier.
It shortlisted four candidates, but could not recruit any as they did not match the qualification criteria.
Incidentally, last week, the IIT directors met in New Delhi at the meeting of the standing committee of the IIT council and requested that they should be exempted from making reservations for faculty like the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Centre and the University Grants Commission (UGC) on a petition challenging the policy of extending reservation for the OBCs to faculty posts in the IITs, the Indian Institutes of Management, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences.
How to build teams, groom individuals
The two years I spent at IIM-Calcutta were arguably the most important and formative years of my life. From engineering to management is perhaps more than mere education or a simple branching out, as some of us wrongly assume.
It can be, and in my case, certainly was, a transformation that prepared me for the challenges that life in the corporate world throws up. While acknowledging the rigour, discipline, and breadth and width of academic knowledge that one was subjected to at this premier management school, I must also talk of what work teaches us, or more aptly, has taught me.
Starting out in office equipment sales and moving on to IT services, I have a few observations, which are worth considering, about the value of practical experience that no classroom, however well-equipped, can ever hope to offer.
You are only as good as your team: Management education and theory emphasise on execution and attention to detail. Successful managers, we were taught, are those who are able to get things done. But there is a small and yet vital difference when it comes to the practice of this theory.
How do managers achieve results at the work place? Managers and leaders get things done through others or more simply get their team members to deliver. So a leader's most critical job is to build a team comprising individuals who have their strengths and also the capability and competence to combine to work strategically and synergistically as team members to further the organisation's gains. This skill is built through live experiences at the work place.
Building a successful team: We have read about teamwork in successful global companies. The challenge here is to create our own success story. It starts with identifying the right talent. Often, the best of talent may not want to join your company and herein lies the first practical challenge for managers.
How do you motivate the prospective employee to be part of your dream? While the value of money as a motivator is often overemphasised, I think the greatest challenge is to sell the job. Can you get your people to share your dream of success?
It is also important that we don't oversell the job, the environment and the opportunities and ensure that we set the right expectations. So it probably makes sense to under-promise and over-deliver on employee engagement, just as much as we do with customer service.
It is important to remember that successful managers know that the individuals they recruit come with skills that are different from their own. Look for skill sets that are diverse and complementary to yours while recruiting subordinates. If you are a strategist, find someone who is strong on execution and so on.
Having a team in place is the first important step but there are miles to go before we deliver as a team and as an organisation. Teams that are motivated, charged and empowered will deliver even against odds and superior competition. It is the job of the leader to tell the team that each one of the team member has a role to play in the success of the company.
Often, the individual's role in the success of the company as a whole has to be reiterated and reinforced. They also need to realise that their tasks and goals, however mundane, have a larger implication in the context of the company's growth plans.
Creativity matters: Individuals have an innate capability to be creative. Organisations often do not provide an opportunity for individuals to continue to be creative, think out of the box, or offer innovative solutions. It is the duty of the manager to provide an environment where every individual can contribute with ideas.
It can be, and in my case, certainly was, a transformation that prepared me for the challenges that life in the corporate world throws up. While acknowledging the rigour, discipline, and breadth and width of academic knowledge that one was subjected to at this premier management school, I must also talk of what work teaches us, or more aptly, has taught me.
Starting out in office equipment sales and moving on to IT services, I have a few observations, which are worth considering, about the value of practical experience that no classroom, however well-equipped, can ever hope to offer.
You are only as good as your team: Management education and theory emphasise on execution and attention to detail. Successful managers, we were taught, are those who are able to get things done. But there is a small and yet vital difference when it comes to the practice of this theory.
How do managers achieve results at the work place? Managers and leaders get things done through others or more simply get their team members to deliver. So a leader's most critical job is to build a team comprising individuals who have their strengths and also the capability and competence to combine to work strategically and synergistically as team members to further the organisation's gains. This skill is built through live experiences at the work place.
Building a successful team: We have read about teamwork in successful global companies. The challenge here is to create our own success story. It starts with identifying the right talent. Often, the best of talent may not want to join your company and herein lies the first practical challenge for managers.
How do you motivate the prospective employee to be part of your dream? While the value of money as a motivator is often overemphasised, I think the greatest challenge is to sell the job. Can you get your people to share your dream of success?
It is also important that we don't oversell the job, the environment and the opportunities and ensure that we set the right expectations. So it probably makes sense to under-promise and over-deliver on employee engagement, just as much as we do with customer service.
It is important to remember that successful managers know that the individuals they recruit come with skills that are different from their own. Look for skill sets that are diverse and complementary to yours while recruiting subordinates. If you are a strategist, find someone who is strong on execution and so on.
Having a team in place is the first important step but there are miles to go before we deliver as a team and as an organisation. Teams that are motivated, charged and empowered will deliver even against odds and superior competition. It is the job of the leader to tell the team that each one of the team member has a role to play in the success of the company.
Often, the individual's role in the success of the company as a whole has to be reiterated and reinforced. They also need to realise that their tasks and goals, however mundane, have a larger implication in the context of the company's growth plans.
Creativity matters: Individuals have an innate capability to be creative. Organisations often do not provide an opportunity for individuals to continue to be creative, think out of the box, or offer innovative solutions. It is the duty of the manager to provide an environment where every individual can contribute with ideas.
EDI plans Rs 16 crore expansion
Taking a cue from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Gandhinagar-based Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDI) is all set to introduce two year Post Graduate Programmes (PGPs) into its curriculum.
The move is a part of the institute's expansion plans for the upcoming academic year at an investment of Rs 16 crore.
While two of these programmes including PGP for Executives (PGPX) and PGP for Corporate Entrepreneurship will be introduced for the first time at the campus, the institute has sought an All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approval to convert its one-year Post Graduate Diploma in NGO Management and Post Graduate Diploma in Business Entrepreneurship into two-year full-fledged courses.
"We are planning for an expansion at our Gandhinagar campus and will soon be inviting applications for these courses. While we have a faculty strength of 35, the institute is inducting 15 additional faculty members this year," said Dinesh Awasthi, director of EDI.
The move is a part of the institute's expansion plans for the upcoming academic year at an investment of Rs 16 crore.
While two of these programmes including PGP for Executives (PGPX) and PGP for Corporate Entrepreneurship will be introduced for the first time at the campus, the institute has sought an All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approval to convert its one-year Post Graduate Diploma in NGO Management and Post Graduate Diploma in Business Entrepreneurship into two-year full-fledged courses.
"We are planning for an expansion at our Gandhinagar campus and will soon be inviting applications for these courses. While we have a faculty strength of 35, the institute is inducting 15 additional faculty members this year," said Dinesh Awasthi, director of EDI.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
OBC quota for faculty posts in IITs challenged
The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Centre and the University Grant Commission on a petition challenging the policy of extending reservation for the Other Backward Classes to faculty posts in the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management, the Jawaharlal Nehru University and the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences. A Bench consisting of Chief Justice K. G. Balakrishnan and Justices P. Sathasivam and J.M. Panchal issued the notice on the petition from Citizens for Equality contending that implementation of reservation in posts at the level of associate professor and professors would amount to diluting teaching standards to accommodate the political mandate.
“State onus ignored”
Senior counsel K. K. Venugopal, appearing for the petitioner, said these measures were sought to be substantiated solely on the principle of amelioration of the backward classes while ignoring the onus on the state to develop centres of research excellence and merit.
The petitioner said the measures adopted by the government as well as the Central grant-in-aid institutions to introduce and further reservation in the faculty posts up to and including the professorial level were reprehensible. The JNU, which was an institution based purely on merit and excellence, should now dilute its high standards to accommodate the political mandate.
The petitioner questioned the UGC direction to implement 27 per cent reservation for the OBCs in all grant-in-aid-institutions, except minority institutions, funded by the Centre.
There could be no quota in institutions of excellence in research and super-specialisation, where the sole criterion was merit.
“State onus ignored”
Senior counsel K. K. Venugopal, appearing for the petitioner, said these measures were sought to be substantiated solely on the principle of amelioration of the backward classes while ignoring the onus on the state to develop centres of research excellence and merit.
The petitioner said the measures adopted by the government as well as the Central grant-in-aid institutions to introduce and further reservation in the faculty posts up to and including the professorial level were reprehensible. The JNU, which was an institution based purely on merit and excellence, should now dilute its high standards to accommodate the political mandate.
The petitioner questioned the UGC direction to implement 27 per cent reservation for the OBCs in all grant-in-aid-institutions, except minority institutions, funded by the Centre.
There could be no quota in institutions of excellence in research and super-specialisation, where the sole criterion was merit.
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