Mumbai-based SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) and Ahmedabad-based Nirma University of Science & Technology’s Institute of Management have confirmed that they will be using the CAT score for admission to the 2008-10 batch of their MBA programs.

The names of these two institutes were missing from the CAT Bulletin published by the IIMs. But according to latest reports their names will be added in through a forthcoming update.

Source: MBAUniverse.com

Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania have extended their association for another 5 years. Faculty from Wharton will continue to teach and contribute to the curriculum at ISB. Wharton faculty will also assist ISB in the development of course reading and case materials to be used in the post graduate curriculum; and help initiate a faculty development program for ISB faculty.

Similarly, ISB will support Wharton on Asian business issues, as well as help with the development of course material relevant to the region. The two institutes will also collaborate on research.

Along with renewing the existing association, ISB has also joined Wharton as one of the founding sponsors and an academic sponsor of Wharton’s India Knowledge@Wharton.

Source: Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

The Birla Institute of Management Technology, in collaboration with Philadelphia University has launched an 11-month Executive Program for Retailing Management. The course content has been jointly developed by the two institutes, and covers topics such as Retail Store Management, Visual Merchandising, Merchandising Management, Supply Chain Management, Customer Relations Management, and Theft Prevention.

The 300-hour course will be delivered through the Reliance World videoconferencing based virtual class room platform. Faculty from the university will also visit India for contact sessions with the students.

Source: Moneycontrol.com

Source: MDI, Gurgaon

The Karnataka Private Post-Graduate Colleges' Association will conduct a common entrance test for admission to more than 85 private management colleges in the state on July 8, 2007. The KMAT score will be used for admission to both MBA and MCA programs in the state.

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India’s top B-school has announced plan to revise its flagship program for the first time in a decade. A committee of professors has been formed to revise the curriculum and bring it more in line with the changing market scenario.

The course revision will be done keeping in mind the expectations of students and the institutes goals. Other issues such as teaching methodology, program content, exchange programs, faculty exchange and appointment, course curriculum, choosing electives will also be taken into consideration.

Source: The Economic Times

The HRD Ministry led by Arjun Singh is working on a law to curb the financial independence of the six IIMs. Through the Institutes of Management Act the ministry has proposed to limit the funds received by B-schools to only the annual grants from the government.

If this law is passed, the IIMs will also have to submit their financial records for review to the Parliament, making them answerable to the Government. The IITs have been governed by a similar law, Institutes of Technology Act, since 1961.

Source: Economic Times

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore has decided to put its plans of opening a new campus in singapore on hold. The institute is now exploring tie-ups with other Singapore-based institutes to offer Executive MBA programs. These programs will be offered partly in a distance learning mode.

Currently, the institutes Memorandum of Association (MoA) does not allow it to open a campus abroad. However, the institute has started the process of modifying the MoA.

Source: Business Standard

Chennai-based Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Banyan Academy of Leadership and Management (BALM) develop special management programs that focus on development.

The focus of this program will be to train managers who have a sensitivity of social issues. The program would specifically train managers for roles with not-for-profit organizations. This MBA program will also include modules on mental health, social development and research, organisation and management and entrepreneurship/leadership.

Source: The Hindu

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore has decided to increase the fee for its flagship PGP program to Rs. 2.5 lakhs. The change would be effective for all 2007 enrollments.

Explaining the hike from the current Rs. 1.75 lakhs, IIMB director Prakash Apte said the kind of salaries offered to students placed via campus selection justify the increase. He also pointed out that while the cost of the program is Rs. 4 lakhs, students are still charged a subsidized amount.

Along with the fee hike, IIM-B is also increasing the student intake to 270, from the current batch size of 240.

Source: Economic Times

The Distance Education Council has allowed the country’s premier educational institutes, including the IITs and IIMs to offer their courses online. The decision will benefit thousands of students who are otherwise unable to get admission to these institutes.

The DEC will also suggest that institutes that have the infrastructure and the technology to support virtual campuses be allowed to do so. The institutes were so far restricted by geographical jurisdiction and were not allowed to set up study centers or offer programs beyond their state.

Source: Economic Times

ISB has joined the league of India’s top B-schools once again, with its students receiving very lucrative offers for overseas placement. Though final data for 418 members of the class of 2007is yet to be released, sources within the institute have confirmed that students have once again received offers of more than 1 crore.

For the second year running, ISB has matched the best offers received by students at the prestigious IIMs. However, it must be remembered that ISB only accepts students with prior experience. But analysts say the offers received at the institute are inline with global standards for these profiles.

Source: Economic Times

A graduate of IIM-A’s first batch of PGPX received an international offer of $300,000. PGPX is IIM-A’s specialized MBA program for people with work experience. The average work experience of students of this program is nine years.

This particular offer is the highest ever offer received by graduates at any B-school. It beats last year’s record 1 crore offer made to a student of ISB, and is 62% higher than IIM-A’s own PGP placements.

Source: Economic Times

The 2007 placement season at Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS) has seen an increase of 22% in the average salary offered to students. The highest salary offered on campus was Rs. 15 lakhs.

81 companies participated in the placement process this year, an increase of 27 from 2006. All 124 students of the batch were placed on the first day itself. 20% of the batch was also placed through lateral placements.

Some of the big names that visited campus this year were PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Tata Strategic Management Group, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers, Citibank, HSBC, and Standard Chartered Bank.

Source: Economic Times

Source: IBN Live

Source: Business Standard

After signing-up multi-million dollar contracts, acquiring partners and setting the plans in place, retail giants such as Wal-Mart, Tesco, Reliance Retail, Essar and RPG are now heading to India’s top B-schools for the all important final ingredient – talented manpower. Offers by retails and real-estate companies are threatening to break the IT-banking stronghold over campus placements.

Experts predict that the increased demanded for trained managers will average salaries offered on campus still higher. These companies are also expected to recruit a large number of candidates from each campus.

Source: Economic Times

Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has announced an increase in the placement fee charged to corporates recruiting students from the institute’s flagship PGP program. The move follows IIM-A’s decision to charge equal fees from all participating companies, as there is no difference in the services offered to these companies.

Starting from this year, all companies participating in the final placement process will pay a standard fee of Rs. One lakh. The change in fee will affect companies participating in slots one and two, who will now have to pay a little more to recruit the country’s top managerial talent. There will be no change in the fee charged for slot zero participants.

Source: Economic Times

Students of the graduating batch of IIFT have raised the placement bar this year. IIFT has joined the ranks of Cluster 1 B-schools, with a member of the graduating batch of MBAs bagging a $100,000 international offer. The highest domestic salary offered on campus this year is Rs. 16 lakhs. Overall, the batch has seen an increase of 20% in the average salary offered on campus.

Source: Economic Times

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B), has announced an increase of Rs. 25,000 in the annual fee for its PGP program. Starting with the 2007-09 batch students will now have to pay Rs. 2 lakhs as fee. The institute, however, has stressed that no student who gets admission to their program will be turned away for financial reasons.

The institute also announced an increase in the number of seats offered for the program. Student intake will go up by 30 this year.

Source: Economic Times

Congratulations to our students Adithya M R and Rahul Luthra for scoring 100 percentile in the Common Admission Test (CAT) held on November 19, 2006. Adithya is a student of Career Launcher in Bangalore, while Rahul is a student of CL Mumbai.

The final placements of the 2005-07 batch of Goa Institute of Management concluded on December 16, 2006. 116 students were placed across 31 companies from diverse sectors such as IT & ITeS, telecom, financial services, retail, management consulting, as well as banking.

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CAT 2006 was marked by a number of printing mistakes. However, the IIMs have announced that the printing mistakes in the paper will not harm the students. Though members of the IIMs have not announced any specific measures to counter the mistakes, they have categorically stated that students will not have to suffer because of any mistakes in the paper.

As per own academic experts, in Set 111 and Set 333 ‘September 8’ has been printed instead of ‘September 28’. Although the same question in Set 222, 444 printed it correctly.

Placement offers at India’s top three b-schools – IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and Kolkata, are now at par with the best offers at any of the top US B-schools. These offers are comparable to the global standards in terms of both the job profile as well as the actual remunerations.

With investment banks leading the way, even freshers at the IIMs are commanding offers of Rs. 1 crore plus. Matching the offers received by graduates at any of the US-based B-schools.

CAT 2006 was marked by a number of printing mistakes. However, the IIMs have announced that the printing mistakes in the paper will not harm the students. Though members of the IIMs have not announced any specific measures to counter the mistakes, they have categorically stated that students will not have to suffer because of any mistakes in the paper.

As per own academic experts, in Set 111 and Set 333 ‘September 8’ has been printed instead of ‘September 28’. Although the same question in Set 222, 444 printed it correctly.

The esteemed Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) has appointed Mr. Vivek Bhandari as Director of the institute. He is currently Associate Professor of History and South Asian Studies in the School of Social Science at Hampshire College, USA. He will take over as Director of IRMA from May 2007.

The institute had been without a Director since Mr. LK Vaswani’s departure. In the interim period, the institute saw a spew of resignations from faculty. With the new Director’s appointment, some order will be restored at the institute. While, Mr. YK Alagh will continue as Chairman and Ms. Neelima Khetan as acting director, the institute is also expected to announce more faculty announcements till May 2006.

Summer placement for the class of 2008 at IIM-C promise to live up to the star billing of this B-school. Global majors such as ABN Amro, UBS, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan are expected to recruit first year students for prestigious summer projects.

The presence of investment majors such as Morgan Stanley and Barclays Capital serves to reconfirm the status of IIM-C as a finance stronghold. Other regulars already confirmed for the November process are McKinsey & Co, AT Kearney, McKinsey, SAP, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and Hewitt Associates

The Xavier Institute of Labour Relations (XLRI), Jamshedpur has begun talks with Victoria University, Australia and Shanghai University, China for academic partnerships. XLRI already has such tie-ups with Asian Institute of Management, Manila; Malarden University, Sweden and the Asian University, Bangkok.

The tie-ups are expected to facilitate faculty and student exchanges, field trips, overseas internships, and provide the much in demand international experience. The partnerships will provide first-hand global experience to the students.

The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) has ordered Mumbai-based SP Jain Institute of Management to refund Rs. 1.4 lakhs to a student. The decision was taken in a case where an applicant was told to forfeit the fees paid because he later shifted to IIM Lucknow.

MRTPC found that SPJIMR’s refund policies restricted the student’s choice, and was an unfair trade practice. The commission also compared the fee refund policies of the IIMs and MDI with SPJIMR and reached this decision.

Top B-schools in India have joined hands with three of the world’s best B-schools to conduct short term publick management programs for government officials. IIM Ahmedabad has teamed up with Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, IIM Bangalore with Maxwell University, while TERI School of Advanced Studies has joined hands with Duke University for this venture.

IIM-A and TERI will be launching these programs on their campuses shortly, while IIM-B has been running such programs successfully for four years.

The Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Kolkata is to offer faculty and other resources to the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BNCCI) supported Enterprise Development Institute (EDI).

Currently, EDI conducts programs for entrepreneurship development, small business management and travel and tourism. EDI also conducts several entrepreneurship development programs for women, rural entrepreneurs, and ex-servicemen among others.

The Board of Governors at IIM-B is rolling out plans for a massive upscaling of infrastructure at the institute. The plan is expecsed to be completed by 2007, in time for the proposed new reservation policy to be implemented.

The institute plans to invest Rs. 50 crore in upgrading the facilities. This includes construction of a new 240-room hostel block, two faculty quarters, computer center, sports complex and a 1000-seater auditorium.

MDI Gurgaon is starting two new post-graduate programs from next year. The institute is starting an Executive Global MBA program and a Program for Family-Owned Business Houses.

The Executive Global MBA will be a one-year program targeted at people with 5 – 12 years of experience. The program will be in association with Robert H Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and ESCP-EAP: European School of Management.

The two-year Program for Family-Owned Business Houses will be targeted at graduates involved in family-run businesses. MDI is in talks with Robert H Smith School of Business and other B-schools to partner with in the program.

In a first partnership of its kind, the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta has teamed up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Yale University for two research projects. One of the two projects is a collaboration between all three institutes, while the second is just between IIM-C and MIT.

One of the projects will study the impact of women’s leadership in panchayats and the other is a study of good governance.

In a unique initiative, IIM Ahmedabad has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Duke Corporate Education (Duke CE) to provide customized corporate education programs in India and West Asia. The programs will be designed for a very specific target audience in each county.

US-based Duke CE is the world leader in customized corporate education. IIM-A plans to develop short duration courses of 15 days to a few months in collaboration with Duke CE.

The Indian Institute of Social Work and Business Management (IISWBM), Kolkata has become the first Indian B-school to be accredited by the Foundation for International Business Administration (FIBAA). The accreditation will help IISWBM while collaborating with foreign universities and in getting its courses certified and registered abroad.

A delegation from FIBAA has made an assessment visit to evaluate the IISWBM on 120 criteria, which include curriculum, faculty, infrastructure and administrative support. An immediate outcome of the accreditation is the part-time International Management Consulting MBA to be offered by IISWBM from January 2007, in collaboration with Germany-based Ludwingshafen University for Applied Sciences.