The Hindu : A moment of pride for IIM-K

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 28, 2004

Kerala

Kerala - Kozhikode

A moment of pride for IIM-K

By Our Staff Reporter

KOZHIKODE, MARCH 27. The sixth convocation of the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode (IIM-K) was held on the campus at Kunnamangalam, near here, today.

As many as 59 students of the sixth batch of IIM-K were conferred the Post Graduate Diploma in Management by the IIM-K chairman, A. C. Muthiah. The gold medal for best scholastic performance was awarded to Sunil Kumar Sinha and the medal for best all-round performance to Rohit Banerjee by the chief guest and editor and publisher of Business Standard, T.N. Ninan.

Addressing the gathering, Dr. Muthiah said that e-learning was a way of the future. He said that the institute would continue to explore the field of e-learning in which it had made pioneering efforts. It would

also venture into research projects. He reminded the students that they should have a mission to perform even when faced with unpleasant situations.

Mr. Ninan said that the though the country was unlikely to achieve 8 per cent annual GDP growth in the immediate future, a sustainable rate of growth of around 6.5 to 7 per cent was possible.

"It could be better, of course, but even this will be enough to transform the economy in the next 10 or 15 years. ...the growth story after that is likely to get even better", he said.

Mr. Ninan asked the students to always strive for global excellence. "You must have a goal that is larger than yourself so that along with success, there comes achievement'', he said.

He asked them to be honest in doing their business.

"Today as business gets cleaner, I think it is possible to insist on running completely clean operations", he said.

Mr. Ninan said that with low inflation, a good monsoon, agriculture revival, strong export growth and strong demand, not to speak of a buoyant stock market and a stack of dollars in the Reserve Bank of India's coffers, there was every reason to believe that this would be the best year for India since 1996-97.

Over the last quarter century, India was among the 10 fastest growing economies in the world, averaging over 5.5 per cent of GDP growth a year.

India's share of world trade had started growing and the country moved from trade deficit to trade surplus, he said.

"For half-a-century, we were heavily in debt to the rest of the world, but our reserves of foreign currency now equal our debt, thus effectively making us debt-free and this has been achieved in just three years," he said.

According to Mr. Ninan, transformation in the country is taking place at a slow pace.

"Only one per cent of the population crosses the poverty line every year and literacy percentage improves at the rate of only one per cen point every year.

Thus, it will take another decade for the country, which has been categorised by World Bank among the low-income countries, to move into a middle-income country.

China has already attained this status," he said.

Krishna Kumar, Director of IIM-K, said that efforts were on to have linkages with international management institutes and student exchange with these institutions.

The students of 2002-04 who graduated today had got their placements.

The institute had bagged 13 research projects, out of which 6 projects were being funded by the Ministry of Human Resources Development.

The IIM-K was also undertaking web-based research activities, he added.

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