Sunday, June 29, 2008

7th Annual XL Canada Summer Picnic July 6th (with family)

Ok the Picnic is nearly upon us 1 week to go ....
Look forward to see most the XLers in Toronto and KNV(from New York) there. Please note this time it is on a Sunday...
Have had 4 dropouts so for for various reasons.

The location and format is the same but still putting it below :

Where : "Sunnybrook Park",North York,Toronto

Date : July 6, 2008 (SUNDAY)

Time : From 11.30 am onwards (RAIN OR SHINE EVENT)

Location : Sunnybrook Park is on Leslie South of Eglington Avenue.

Directions: Take 401 and exist Leslie South You will see the sign for Sunnybrook Park on your right just before Eglington Avenue.
Turn into Sunnybrook Park, and then turn left at the fork (Sign for Earnest Thompson Seton Park) PLEASE NOTE THE TURNOFF IS WITHIN 200 m of ENTERING THE PARK FROM LESLIE ST.
After you turn left, park on the right at the 2nd picnic area.
In case of any confusion please call (Siddharth)

If any one needs a ride please do let me know and we arrange for it

Format : Xlers and their families

Pot Luck Lunch - Each family brings a dish/snack to share in a pot luck format Please bring our own soft drinks, styrofoam plates / cups/ napkins/spoons/ forks etc. Please bring lawn chairs, Duree/sheets.
If you have a Stove, pls bring that along to to heat up the food if required.

Do check the weather forecast and dress accordingly. The picnic will be held rain or shine.

Those whose parents/in-laws/relatives are in Toronto, please bring them too and am sure they will have a good time. They are all invited as part of our families.
We could also have games for the kids and play some cricket - and Fred has a cricket set so we can play some tennis ball cricket. Those who have Frisbees/Balls, or any other sport items, please bring them along too.Fred will be bringing a small stove and will make 'Chai' for all of us.

PS: if you are aware of any new Xlers that have moved to Toronto, please circulate to them.

Once again looking forward to see you all there,

Regards,
Siddharth & Bala

Diro and Dr Singh visiting the USA

Fr E. Abraham, the current Director of XLRI (also the previous director 1989-94) and Prof Jittu Singh (who taught at XLRI till 1984, and is now back at XLRI) will be traveling to the US in July.

Some Alumni Meets are being planned around the country to coincide with their visit. their itinerary is as follows.

a) Chicago (July 13 to 16)
b) Detroit (July 17 & 18)
c) New York (July 19 to 23)
d) Cleveland (July 24 & 25)
e) Philadelphia (July 26 & 27)
f) Charlottesville (July 28)
g) Houston (July 29 & 30)
h) New Orleans (July 31)

Avijit Ghosh(BMD 74) has offered to host a get-together on 16th July at the University club in downtown Chicago.

The others are still being finalised.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

5th Annual Alumni Homecoming (Nov 15-16, 2008) - 1st Invite

Hello Folks!

The 3rd Weekend of November is approaching - and so, time to start planning your trip back to XL for the 5th Annual XLRI Alumni Homecoming
This year we also plan to kick-off the XLRI's Diamond Jubilee Celebrations with the Homecoming

Am pasting the preliminary invite below so that you can start planning your trip for the Nov 15-16, 2008...
.... More details will be forthcoming

Friday, June 27, 2008

3rd Batch of Defence Batch Graduates

From The Telegraph


Jamshedpur, June 26: The third defence officers’ batch of the executive management programme at XLRI graduated today at a function held on the B-school campus.

XLRI launched the certificate programme in business management for the defence personnel on January 14, 2007, and 59 officers graduated from the present batch.

The programme for defence officers was launched on the request of central ministry of human resource development, which perceived the need for resettlement of officers.

The batch comprises engineers, doctors and air traffic controllers, mountaineers, naval aviators and submariners with experience ranging from five to 30 years of service.

Professor Pranabesh Ray, the course in-charge, said: “The executive management programme has been designed keeping in mind the needs of the business world with the aspirations of the service officers. This programme has been structured to focus on the theoretical formulation and is designed to augment and adapt the officers’ varied experience to disciplines and functional areas relevant to management of business.”

The programme equipped the students with basic skills of all functional areas of management thereby enabling them to find a second career in the corporate world.

Bhushan Raina, the managing director of the Tinplate Company of India Limited, was the chief guest at the graduation ceremony.

Addressing students he said: “From defence officers to management personnel — it’s a huge transition. All the officers are already efficient managers as in their previous career they always had some uncertainty to deal with.”

Based on their academic excellence Captain Kavita M., Colonel Krishna Dev Singh and Captain Esha were awarded the first, second and third ranks, respectively.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

New XLRI curriculum on the cards

From The Financial Express

Jamshedpur, Jun 23
XLRI is gearing up to introduce a new curriculum for its two flagship courses from the next academic year (2009).

The B-School faculty has already discussed the new curriculum, which has a more "hands on" element to it than the existing one. Prof Sharad Sarin, professor (marketing area) has been responsible for the changes suggested in the business management (BM) course.

Speaking to FE on Monday, XLRI director Father E Abraham said, "We have a faculty council meeting coming up next month where we may finalise the report."

The committee on curriculum revamping spent several months studying contemporary managerial needs, interacting with several B-Schools, understanding industry needs and has even entertained feedback from several of its alumni in trying to assess the gaps in its present course format.

In the process, while some electives have been updated, some new ones have been added to both the PM&IR and the BM courses.

Citing an example, prof Madhukar Shukla, who teaches OB & strategic management, said while 'personnel management' has been revised, a new elective on 'socio-political change' has been introduced.

XLRI feels understanding the political power shifts and the implications of developments like Companies in the Middle East buying properties in the US will help the students. According to Shukla, "There should be some kind of integration across the board, from concept to practice."

Citing an example again, he said a student will be taking up an elective subject, which integrates other subjects and has to be studied over three terms.

Though XLRI had originally desired to introduce the new curriculum strictly in the academic year beginning 2009, some subjects will be some more time to be introduced.

The B-School had last carried out a major curriculum review exercise in 2002.

Anu Lal - PMIR 2000 in Economic Times

Anu Lal of PMIR 2000 talks about what ails Womens Entrepreneurship in India.

From The Economic Times

...The 29-year-old Anu Lall attributes her success to relationship skills, an asset her gender demonstrates with much more ease. Her nearly Rs 1-crore ERP firm Snartak IT Solutions was started two years back with a mere Rs 12,000. “I contacted people from my own MBA network and the various social networking websites like LinkdIn, from where I got business,” she claims, hinting at the still unexploited nature of social networking sites. With her range of contacts, today Lall has an office in New Zealand and another at Oslo, besides being headquartered in Delhi. “I have to work 15 hours a day traversing three time-zones, and that’s not easy,” she points out. ...

Read the entire article here.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

XLRI Alumni Meet - Bay Area - a Report

This account of our alumni picnic on June 1st was a long time in coming, so without further ado:

The third day of May
My alma mater said to me
Call all my faithful
And come they will to me

Emails went & messages flew
Stones were turned & calls were made
And one by one our numbers grew
As our cyber stalking awoke the dead

And so on the first day of June
We gathered at the Park Ed Levin
In full flow by high noon
In nostalgia & networking heaven

Thusly on this warm summers day
Ye Olde XL smiled as its alumni
Gathered from far & away

20 XLers an-excelling
15 spouses an-espousing
11 children a-chilling
6 ‘Uncle Sam’ pizzas an-appeasing
4 packs of beer a-frothing

And with that rhymes & pun-ishment, I will crawl back to prose.

All photos taken (inexpertly) by me on Vivek’s camera. Many thanks to him for uploading them. I have since transferred them to an online photo album on Snapfish so that it is easier to get prints & see them all together on slideshow mode. You need a Snapfish account to view these photos. If you don’t have one, they are also available (but without thumbnails & slideshows) at Vivek’s site -http://www.marketfeat.com/services/xl_pics/. If there are any volunteers for uploading the photos to a free open site, I will be happy to send jpeg’s of the photos.

The picnic on June 1st was the biggest in Bay Area in my 8 years here. Our numbers are growing, & by my estimate at the picnic we got approximately 40% of XLers who are here now. 60% of the attendees were at an XL alumni event for the first time. XLers from 4 decades were present. After a quite few years these are very encouraging statistics.

This email is cc-ed to many of you who I contacted via LinkedIn etc. If you aren’t a member of the XL California Yahoo Group, please sign up so that we can keep you abreast of what’s happening in our XL community. KP Naidu moderates this group. I have also created a short (12 question) survey for some feedback on the kind of interactions everyone would prefer. Please complete this when you have 10-15 minutes. Your help will be much appreciated. Some of you who attended the picnic have already completed a version of this. You don’t need to do it again.

Finally, here is the complete list of attendees on June 1st:

Name

Stream

Year

Pal Luthra

BME

1972

Anil J. Deora

BMD

1979

KP Naidu

PM & IR

1981

Sunil Erraballi

BMD

1982

Dinesh Bahal

BMD

1983

Vivek

BMD

1986

Sandra Mahadwar

PM & IR

1986

Meghna Virick

PM & IR

1989

Sandeep Harpalani

BMD

1992

Ranu Gupta

PM & IR

1996

Tipu Purkayastha

PM & IR

1996

Reema Vijay

PM & IR

1997

Asmita Katdare

PM & IR

1998

Karthik Sarma

PM & IR

1998

Guneet Paintal

BMD

1999

Herambh Athavale

BMD

2000

Charu Madan

PM & IR

2000

Vinod K Gupta

BMD

2003

Elizabeth Aries

PM & IR

2005

Sarath Gonugunta

PGCBM

2006

A big round of thanks is due to all of them for making the time to attend the picnic, & in many cases getting their spouses & children with them. A collage of faces is linked for easy identification. We all left with fond memories & new friends. Watch this space for the announcement of the next event.

Regards,

Tipu Purkayastha

PS: If you know of an XL alumni lurker in the Bay Area, please send the message to them.



Sunday, June 15, 2008

XLRI trains specialised batch for ICICI Pru, looks for more

From The Financial Express

Jamshedpur, Jun 14
XLRI, the premier business school, on Saturday produced its first batch of students trained specifically for ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co in coordination with the insurance major.

Following the successful training of 56 students in the one-year management programme, XLRI said it is now looking for more such company/industry-specific tie-ups for meeting their human resource (HR) needs.

While the initial MoU had been only for two batches, it is expected that the two institutions would, after a review, agree to continue with the programme.

"According to Prof TAS Vijaya Raghavan, XLRI's associate dean for international & corporate programmes, the next course for around 55-60 students, which takes off in mid-August, would be catering to an insurance company's "higher managerial grade needs".

Eligible candidates for the course are screened by talent acquisition Companies hired by ICICI Prudential, short-listed, and sent to XLRI for the final selection to be done by the B-School.

With the insurance industry in India witnessing unprecedented growth, both XLRI and ICICI Prudential perceived the need for such a programme.

XLRI is in talks with the HCL group as well as with Sterlite Industries for running a one-year programme on human capital management.

"We are looking at our internal resources and have still not committed; subject to the director's and the Companies' approval we may consider that," added Raghavan.

The emphasis of the ICICI Prudential programme is both on general management concepts as well as on intensive training in the insurance and finance domain.

The module in general management covers marketing, statistics and economics, organizational behaviour and personality development, business communication, business strategy as well as legal aspects in business and information technology.

A two-month internship at the end of the course came in as a good "hands-on" experience for the 56 students who received the post-graduate certificate in management and insurance here today.

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company has assured the students employment as executive trainees in the company offering MBA-equivalent compensation.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

XLBang!!! : What a Party!

A big thanks to everyone who came for the party. We had a great time!

Despite the rain and the IPL semis, we still had 250 people including alumni, our families and a few friends.

Congrats to Satish & Sonali for winning the HolidayIQ trip to Goa!

Here's a quick note to thank everyone who made it a success. First our sponsors:

Principal Sponsor
- Deutsche Bank

Diamond Sponsors
- Upside Learning
- Dell

Gold Sponsors
- 3M India
- SAP
- Airtel
- Wockhardt

Holiday sponsor:
- Holiday IQ www.holidayiq.com

Beverage Sponsors:
- Seagram's India - Pernod Ricard (Blender's Pride)
- SAB Miller (Fosters and Castle Lager)

The awesome tireless Summer Interns who put the show together:
Sharath N, Dhruv Suri, Sugandha Agnani & Akhil Mathew.

Big thanks to the DJ, Hari Menon (BM-96) who never left the console.
He had us rocking all evening.

Committee members Apprameya Ravi, Bijou Kurien, David D'Costa, George Ollapally, and John Idicula. Also thanks to the XL kids Krshna, Swati, Shreya, Madhulika, Kavya and who ran the
registration desk.

Yours,
Kuru
(BM-96)

I haven't seen any pictures yet, was waiting for those before I published Kuru's report. Any kind souls who have taken pics and can send me links to online albums?
Kim

Monday, June 9, 2008

Ashish Chand & his wife in an article in IHT

From http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/09/asia/09gated.php

GURGAON, India: When the scorch of summer hit this north Indian boomtown, and the municipal water supply worked only a few hours each day, inside a high-rise tower called Hamilton Court, Jaya Chand could turn on her kitchen tap around the clock, and water would gush out.

The same was true when the electricity went out in the city, which it did on average for 12 hours a day, something that once prompted residents elsewhere in Gurgaon to storm the local power office. All the while, the Chands' flat screen television glowed, the air-conditioners hummed and the elevators cruised up and down Hamilton Court's 25 floors.

Hamilton Court — complete with a private school within its gates, groomed lawns and security guards — is just one of the exclusive gated communities that have blossomed across India in recent years. At least for the newly moneyed upper middle class, they offer at high prices what the government cannot, at least not to the liking of their residents.

Read the rest of the story at http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/09/asia/09gated.php

London Alumni Meet - Saturday 19 July @ the Exchange, Soho

Hello all

Pleased to report that we now have a venue for our get together, which I trust will be easy for everyone to get to as it's as central as it gets.

Venue: The Exchange Bar
Address: Gerard St (Soho / Chinatown) London W1D 6JA
Date:
Saturday, 19 July
Time:
6:45PM onwards
Dress code: Relaxed urban chic (OK seriously, wear whatever you want)
Closest tube: Piccadilly Circus / Leicester Square
Entry: FREE! (look for the reserved area at the back)
Ambience:
Industrial / Shoreditch vibe with live DJs and lots of space inhabited by smart people of all ages
Map: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=529784&y=180836&z=0&sv=W1D+6JA&st=2&pc=W1D+6JA&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf
rsvp: Shariq (contact details below)

Please confirm attendance to ME (i.e. not to the entire group) ASAP (PLEASE!), and mention the following:

Name
Email
Mobile
Batch
Name of spouse (if attending), along with batch (if from XL)

I'll circulate details later of any special deals we manage to get at the bar, but expect an affordable array of cocktails and gourmet pizzas in a rare relaxed West End venue with a Shoreditch vibe in the heart of Chinatown!

Here are my contact details.

Shariq Siddiqui (BMD 2001)

Questions / brickbats welcome. Please spread the word to any alumni that aren't already on XLEurope.

See you all there!

Shariq

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Vijay Shukla - 98 PMIR

From Business Standard

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) plans to become the world's most automated party in the next 3 years by adding IP capabilities in its Unified Messaging Platform. For this, it has selected ValueFirst, a provider of Mobile Data Services to develop an extensive SMS based communications network for registered members of the party across their district/state office network in the country which will be launcehed next week when an MoU will be signed. It is also coming up with a 10 digit Party Membership ID Number to double up as members' Unified Communication Number.

Said Vijay Shukla (PMIR ’98), co-founder and country head, India, Value First, "Any technlogy's success can only be measured when it helps simplify a task and is used extensively. In terms of IT, no other political party will come closer to BJP in the next few years."

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Photos - Xlri Alumni Meet @ Pune on 31st May 2008

Take a look at the pictures uploaded by Deepesh of the Pune Alumni meet.

It's time 2 share the glimpse of yet another most SPECIAL & MEMORABLE XL-Nite..
I am sure that xlers would cherish the moments & continue with the XL Alumni "SPIRIT"..

3 cheers for one & all .. Hip Hip Hurray ! with many many thanks to Pradipji-Madhuji & GANG !


With Best Wishes & Regards,
Deepesh Goyal (GMP 06-07)
Manager - ITPO, Volkswagen

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

June 7th-Meet in Minneapolis

Hi everyone,
Xlers in Minneapolis are meeting at Baker Park on June 7th. In case you happen to be in this area, you are most welcome to join us. Will be helpful, if you could RSVP, in case you are able to make it. Once you drive towards Baker Park, head for Independence Lake's General Picnic Area at about 11 AM.
Cheers!
Niti

XL Alumni Meet 2008 - Switzerland

Photos of the XL Alumni Meet 2008 in Switzerland @

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/amit711/XLRIAlumniMeet2008Switzerland

Cheers,
Amit Bhave
BMD 99

Tanuj K of IR 2000 batch

Tanuj Kapilashrami (IR 2000) gets featured in Business Standard with a quote on how organizations are using social networks for hiring:

http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=6&subLeft=3&chklogin=Y&autono=322703&tab=r

"The traditional channels are still effective. However, they need to be augmented with some innovation," says Tanuj Kapilashrami, the India head of HR at HSBC. Social networking sites provide access to profiles that often consultants fail to get hold of. "We are exploring these channels proactively," she says. The company faces a talent shortage in wealth management, credit & risk, corporate banking relationship and legal & compliance.