Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Felicitating Fr. McGrath

Fr McGrath - one of the founding fathers of XLRI (and the only one who still walks the planet) was honoured for his contribution to the instititute and to the field of education during XLRI's Diamond Jubilee Annual Alumni Homecoming (Nov 21st, '09)... and he still continues with his work in his Human Life Center @ Bhubneswar... Salute to the man!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Radhika Sood Nayak (94PMIR)

Veteran vocalist Sushila Rani Patel believes Radhika Sood Nayak is the only singer who can carry on her legacy. “She’s hardworking, and picks up difficult things easily,” said the 90-year-old Jaipur-Atrauli gharana exponent about her student. “Recently, I taught her a tarana in raga Sohini that she grasped within no time. She has that inner drive.” Like Patel, 38-year-old Sood Nayak has been blessed with a powerful voice and she’s not afraid to use it. “My teacher insists that the voice should be projected without any inhibition,” said Sood Nayak. At her recital this fortnight, which has been organised by the Bhavan’s Cultural Centre, she will sing khayals in Bageshri and Bhoop and a thumri in Des.

From Time Out Mumbai

Aggressive Growth Plan on XLRI Radar

From The Telegraph

Jamshedpur, Nov. 21: XLRI is planning to go big in the next few years.

Along with developing academic strength and infrastructure, alumni members of the 1983 batch have decided to set up an endowment fund for the growth of the institute.

These and other plans were shared at one of the sessions of XLRI Homecoming 2009, the annual alumni meet on campus that began today, organised by XLRI Alumni Association.

On the spare eight acres behind the existing campus, the B-school has decided to set up a learning centre, a hostel for 300 students, a 100-seater International Centre, about 15 guest houses and 100 faculty offices — all within five years at a budget of Rs 50 crore.

“We are giving it some time, at least five years. We are first giving preference to classrooms as we feel that is the priority. Things will be bigger and better. We aim to become an institute of global standards as we already have tie-ups with a score of international B-schools from all over the world and many more are in the pipeline. So, development is necessary,” said XLRI director Father E. Abraham, while addressing alumni members at the annual homecoming.

The alumni members have set up an endowment fund of Rs 6 crore. A sum of Rs 10 lakh has already been deposited with the fund to enhance the brand value of XLRI. Alumni members are looking at more research work, management development programmes, support for student activities, faculty strengthening and improved infrastructure with the funds.

The XLRI Endowment Fund (XEF) will be used with the consent of the XLRI board of governors but it will have a secretariat, a fund utilisation committee and a sub-fund utilisation committee to decide on the ventures. A presentation was also given on the workings of XEF, though things are yet to be finalised.

Plans are already afoot to set up new campuses in Calcutta, Hyderabad and Bhubaneswar as these places are more feasible than Jamshedpur.

Accessibility, along with visibility, is one of the guiding reasons now.

“Land acquisition is the major problem, so things need to be chalked out. Nothing is finalised because of accessibility problems. Also there is a lot of work we do here but that is not noticed outside,” said Father Abraham.

Low visibility is a problem for many. While most B-school rankings put XLRI in the top five positions, the board of governors is still not happy with the current rankings and is working out a strategy to compete with other B-schools, especially Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) in Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta.

“The competition is mainly with the three IIMs. Otherwise, we are the best private B-school. Also we are managing well as compared to the funding that IIMs receive from the central government. We would try to chalk out ways and strategise to see how we can develop,” added Father Abraham.

Friday, November 20, 2009

XLRI alumni to raise endowment fund for B-school's infrastructure

From The Financial Express

Jamshedpur: Alumni of the XLRI School of Business & Human Resources will be here soon to attend the Homecoming 2009, a re-union the B-School has been hosting for the last five years. They are raising an endowment fund to improve the B-School’s infrastructure.

The fund was initiated in 2008 by the 1983 batch. They will be contributing Rs 1 crore, which would subsequently go up to Rs 5 crore.

“The whole idea is to make the fund bigger, as XLRI really didn’t have much of an endowment as we always have lived from hand to mouth,” said XLRI director Father E Abraham, adding that it was only now that the institute has some money to build the infrastructure.

Members of all the alumni batches who have been visiting the B-School over the last few years to attend the Homecoming reunion have been expressing their own ideas in improving things at the institute.

The B-School has chalked out a two-day (November 21-22) programme that would make the alumni members aware of the different initiatives undertaken by XLRI including its expansion and diversification plans in the academic field.

“This forum is going to channelise all the different ideas as we have now set up an endowment fund; and through the fund we are going to channelise whatever ideas come from the alumni towards the growth of the institution”, said Rana Sinha, managing director of Telcon and president of the local XLRI Alumni Association.

XLRI’s alumni members have been behind the setting up of a unique “entrepreneurship trust” which has helped some of the B-School’s two-year management students in starting social entrepreneurship ventures like “Parichay”, “Swavalamban”, “Dream4Others”, “Brandtadka.com”, etc by way of giving seed money.

“The entrepreneurship trust is set to grow because every batch would be reinforcing it with fund and we would have more and more examples of success stories”, said Sinha.

Homecoming 2009 also proposes to confer lifetime achievement awards as well as “distinguished alumnus awards” to those of its alumni who have not only excelled in industry but also in academia. The B-School will also be honouring Father E H McGrath.

“Considering this is the 60th year of XLRI, Homecoming this year is of special importance”, said Bushen Raina, the national president of the XLRI Alumni Association, adding the response from over 150 alumni members so far has been “very positive”.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

XLRI student appeals to conscience of the nation

Current Student from XLRI appeals for help to find his brother, who most possibly has been kidnapped because he was planning to reveal a corruption scandal in his PWD department at Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand.



For providing any assistance, please contact
Vidyasagar - 09718908837
email - avpm123@gmail.com

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

XLRI to host the Management Festival -"Ensemble 2009" (Nov 13-15)

http://www.xlri-ensemble.com/


New Delhi, 2009: XLRI School of Business and Human Resources is hosting its management festival Ensemble 2009, from November 13th to November 15th 2009. This 3 day long festival entails exciting events and activities.

Ensemble 2009, now ISO 9001 certified, is poised to become even bigger. "In keeping with the sweeping change in the world of management, where the need for accountable & ethical managers is being felt more than the need for over-ambitious & aggressive managers, the theme for Ensemble 2009 is 'Integrity & Initiative'. The theme also resonates with the principles and ideals of XLRI as it celebrate its 60th anniversary this year", said Meesam, the General Secretary of the Students Council.

In keeping with XLRI's image as a b-school run by students, the events of Ensemble 2009 have all been organized by the numerous committees on campus. The games vary across all business verticals, and enthusiasts of Finance, Marketing, Operations, Information Systems and Human Resources will find something of interest at Ensemble 2009. Apart from the management events, there will be events for adventure-lovers, budding entrepreneurs quizzing enthusiasts & even aspiring actors. The latest updates about Ensemble 2009 can be obtained at http://www.xlri-ensemble.com

A major event of Ensemble 2009 is the Idea Summit - which is expected to draw experts from different walks of life to share their experiences with the students. Prominent personalities from the world of academia, business, media, sports and politics will be coming for the series of sessions based on the theme "Integrity & Initiative". Idea Summit will include speaker session by eminent personalities spread across three days of Ensemble. The speakers are Mr. N Sivaraman, Executive Vice President (Financial Services), L&T, Mr. Tapan Mitra,Chief HR - Apollo Tyres, Mr. Micheal Ferreira, four time winner of world billiards Championship, Mr. U.P.Agarwal, President, ICAI.

The previous edition of Ensemble had the theme of "Magis: Delivering Excellence". The Aditya Birla Group was the principal partner. Other notable Corporates associated with Ensemble'08 were Cognizant, Nokia, L&T, Nestle, and Human Capital. Ensemble '08 had prize money aggregating over INR 1 million. The principle sponsor event, ABG Board-Room gave the single largest prize money ever in any B school festival of INR 250,000 and created a buzz in the B-School circle. In all, close to 200 students from 21 top Indian B-Schools institutes including the IIMs and ISB Hyderabad participated in the annual event. The online events saw as many as 1000students participating from almost all B Schools in India.

Beginning in 2000, Ensemble has grown to become one of the most awaited showpiece events in the B-School circuit. Over the years, students from across the elite B-Schools of India have participated in a wide spectrum of business plan contests, case studies, online simulation games, across all business functions like Consulting, Marketing, Finance, HR, Systems and Operations. In terms of corporate partnerships and finances, the event has grown over 14 times since its inception.

Posted By The Theme to XLRI Jamshedpur - News and Latest Updates at 11/10/2009 02:35:00 PM

XLRI conducts Simulated Bond Auction

JAMSHEDPUR (Nov 6,'09, Times of India): XLRI School of Business and Human Resources simulated a simultaneous auction along with the Rs 90-billion government securities auction by the RBI on Friday.

The bond auction game was conceptualised and designed by professor of finance H K Pradhan as a part of the fixed income securities course conducted by him. The idea was to give the students a practical feel of the bond market to help them better imbibe the concepts in the course.

"In trying to do this, we created an exact market situation that they would have to handle in their professional careers tomorrow. It is important to have some sort of experience along with theory classes," said H K Pradhan, the instructor of fixed income securities course.

The game comprised two teams with 20 teams acting as primary dealers in the market that bid for the Rs 90-billion government debt auction held the same day by the RBI, though in a simulated environment.

Pradhan was assisted by students Amit Kumar and Kartik Bakshi and senior executive members of the Finance Association at XLRI (FINAX), who were mock representatives of the Reserve Bank of India and conducted the whole process.

In real situations, the RBI carries out this process to check liquidity adjustment, known as inflation in layman's term.

The whole game was conducted within a three-hour span and the winning bids were to be determined at the closing time of market, i.e. 5 pm. The auction consisted of 2 types of bids uniform pricing and discriminatory pricing in the 3 government securities that were up for auction on Friday 7.32 percent bonds maturing in 2014 for 30 billion rupees, 6.35 percent 2020 bonds for 40 billion rupees and 7.5 percent 2034 bonds for 20 billion rupees. There were simultaneous trades at the "when-issued" market and the auction market of these bonds.

"Such events are important to us so that we get the real picture' of the present market trends. It helps understand the market functioning and we learn to effectively and expeditiously handle the problems," Vivek Seshadri, one of the participating students at the auction, said.

The results of the market are yet to be decided as there were 60 bids with 240 transactions involving some serious calculations. Though it was a hypothetical market, quotes were real ones made by the RBI in the real market auction.

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Posted By The Theme to XLRI Jamshedpur - News and Latest Updates at 11/07/2009 03:01:00 PM

XLRI gets SAQS Accreditation

XLRI became the 5th Instt in India, and 6th in South Asia, to receive the SAQS Accreditation.... the whole process took around 4 years!! SAQS is among the 4 global accreditations (EQUIS, AACSB and AMBA). Last year, XLRI was given membership to AACSB, which is but a first step in its goal of AACSB Accreditation....