Volume 3, Issue 2, June 2013

Introduction to Sandesh

An Internal Newsletter for IIMC CommunityAn Internal Newsletter for IIMC Community

In the recent past one of themost important things tohave happened at IIMC isthe appointment of a newDirector. After the end ofProf. Shekhar Chaudhuri’ssecond term as Director,Prof. Saibal Chattopadhyayof the OM Group hasassumed charge as the new

Director of IIMC. We begin by wishing him all successin his endeavor to continue the process of transformingthe institute into an internationally recognized centerof learning. The smooth transition to a new Directoragain testifies to the inherent strength of the transparentand democratic processes followed by our institute’sstakeholders.

Noted Environmentalist, Dr Rajendra K Pachauri,Director-General of TERI (The Energy and ResourcesInstitute) was the Chief Guest at IIM Calcutta’s 48thAnnual Convocation held on Saturday, the April 6,2013 at the Institute’s auditorium. Dr Pachauri hasalso been the Chancellor, IPCC (IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change) since August 1998. TheIPCC under his leadership was awarded the NobelPeace Prize in 2007. In his speech, Dr. Pachauripointed out that management science today has toextend its concerns and its overall objectives in decisionmaking beyond the corporate boardroom and beyondprofits targeted in the next quarter. In this context hefelt that the one subject needing attention of allstakeholders, and most importantly of the leaders ofbusiness, is the protection of the vital global commonsrelated to the earth’s climate. He ended his speechwith the hope that both faculty and students of IIMCwould contribute to finding solutions to such vital globalissues.

The summer vacations are over and the campus isteeming with new faces. The PGPEX students startedtheir classes earlier; they are already into their second

term. They had been welcomed warmly by the newDirector and other faculty members in a small butsolemn ceremony. The PGP and the FP students arenow midway through their first term. There are severalnoteworthy features about the new batches. For theFellowship Programme, the batch size of 28 is a recordof sorts. The 50th/20th PGP students are quite differentfrom their predecessors in two respects – the proportionof women has more than doubled and the proportionof non-engineering graduates has also gone upsignificantly. The faculty wanted a more diverse studentbody and had decided to award some extra points forgender and academic diversity in the admissionsprocess. It is heartening to note that this measureimmediately bore fruit.

Sandesh provides a detailed profile of the new FPstudents and batch profiles for the PGP, PGPEX and

C o n t e n t sExclusive 3

Convocation 4-12

Speech by Chief Guest

Chairman’s speech

List of Awardees

New Publications 13-15

Academics 16-18

FPM Saminars 19-20

Events 21-24

Students’ Batch Profile 25-28

Cultural Events 29-30

Miscellaneous 31-32

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the PGPEX-VLM students. Formal inauguration ofthis batch of PGPEX-VLM students was held onApril 4, 2013 and was graced by His ExcellencyMitsuo Kawaguchi, Consul General of Japan, Kolkata,along with Mr. Shinya Ejima, Chief Representative,Japan International Cooperation Agency, Delhi.

The new PGP and FP students were greeted witha week-long orientation process that also differedsignificantly from the traditional process. The eventswere jumpstarted with a presentation entitled KYC– KNOW YOUR CITY. Prof. Partha Ray took greatpains to put together a presentation incorporatingPPT slides and video clips to introduce students tothe city in which they would spend the next twoyears. The presentation was attended by not onlystudents but by their parents too, and all indicationsare that everyone hugely enjoyed this 360 degreeview of Kolkata. On subsequent days, students whowere not registering on a particular day played anumber of games in the morning sessions. In theafternoon there were inspiring lectures by MalliMastan Babu, our own “mountain man” and Dr. AjitRanade, Chief Economist of the Aditya Birla Group,and a screening of Kurosawa’s Rashomon anchoredby Prof. Amitava Bose of the Economics Group.After each event there were lively interactionsbetween the speaker and the students. On the lasttwo days the students were engaged in murdermystery games.

The students were formally welcomed in a rivetingceremony in which the Chief Guest was Vini Mahajan,an alumna of 1987 who is now Principal Secretary(Health & Family Welfare) for the Punjab Government.Vini gave a wonderful speech in which she urgedthe students to listen to the urgings of their heart.Prof. Saibal Chattopadhyay presented acomprehensive picture of the institute’s workings tothe students. Other office-bearers took pains toemphasize the need to balance curricular and co-curricular activities.

The whole programme was designed by theChairperson PGP and put into action by membersof the PGP office. Prof. Subir Bhattacharya’s statedaim was to break the “algorithmic mindset” ofstudents; to make them aware of the complicationsof real life situations, the virtues (and fun) ofteamwork, the need to come up with solutions underpressure, and above all, to develop fellowship andcamaraderie with a disparate group of people fromall across this great country. We can only hope thatthis orientation week will contribute in some small

measure to the creation of a new identity for thefresh IIMCians.

IIMC played a leading role in two “mega-events” –the World Management Conference which took placein Goa during May 30-June 1 and SPIC MACAY’sfirst international convention that took place in thecampus during May 20-26. The World ManagementConference was a Pan-IIM event, in which IIMCplayed the role of lead coordinator. The Conferencewas notable for the presence of the Hon’ble UnionMinister of HRD, Dr. M Mangapati Pallam Raju aswell as the Hon’ble Minister of State, Ministry ofHRD, Dr. Shashi Tharoor. Both the Hon’ble ministersspent a significant time mingling with the participantsat the Conference. The participants included anumber of Chairmen of IIM Boards of Governors,Directors and Deans, as well as senior academiciansof other reputed Business Schools. The Ambassadorof France to India, Francois Richier, was the specialguest and other prominent keynote speakers includedDr. Shashi Tharoor, Shri Geet Sethi, WorldProfessional Billiards Champion, Prof. Srikant MDatar, professor of Harvard Business School andShri Rafiq Gangjee, Vice President, Marketing &Communication, Yash Raj Films. There were twenty-nine paper presentations by leading research scholarsfrom India and abroad and 12 poster sessions byPhD scholars. The conference also hosted two paneldiscussions - one on Innovation and Inclusive Growth,moderated by Prof. Rishikesh T. Krishnan of IIMBangalore and the other on Government andBusiness, moderated by Prof. Anup K. Sinha of IIMCalcutta.

The other mega event was in a different fieldaltogether. The week-long SPIC MACAY Conventionattracted 1500 children from India and the world whotook part in workshops organized by our nationaltreasures - artists, artisans and craftspersons of thehighest caliber. Evenings were graced byperformances by Birju Maharaj, Abdul Rashid Khan,Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Rajan & Sajan Mishra, T NKrishnan, Waseem Ahmed Khan, Shahid PervezKhan, Kalamandalam Gopi, and Ulhas Kashalkar,Pt. Shivkumar Sharma, Pt. Ajoy Chakraborty, UstadBaha’ud’din Dagar, Vidwan T V Shankaranarayanan,Vidwan M Venkatesh Kumar and several others.One wonders whether any event in India in recenttimes has witnessed such a gathering of culturalicons all in one auditorium!

Professor Anindya Sen

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Professor Saibal Chattopadhyay becamethe 14th Director of IIM Calcutta on April 8,2013. Dr Chattopadhyay took charge of theDirector’s office from the outgoing directorDr Shekhar Chaudhuri who led the institutefor over 10 years beginning November 2002.

Dr Saibal Chattopadhyay has done his Ph.Din Statistics from University of Connecticut,Storrs, U.S.A and MS (Statistics) from thesame institution after his M Sc (Statistics)f rom Univers i ty o f Ca lcut ta . DrChattopadhyay has more than 30 years ofacademic experience in India and abroadincluding over 15 years with IIM Calcutta.Since 2001, he has been working as

Professor in the Operations ManagementGroup at the institute.

He joined the IIMC as Associate Professor,Operations Management Group in the year1997. Prior to this, he was AssistantProfessor in the Department of Statistics,Presidency College, Kolkata where hestarted his career as Lecturer in 1983. Hehas also been visiting Professor atDepartment of Mathematics and Statistics,University of Nebraska-Lincoln, U.S.A;Department of Statistics, University ofConnecticut at Stamford, U.S.A.; andDepartment of Statistics, University ofConnecticut, Storrs, U.S.A.

His research interests include sequentialmethods in estimation and in selection andranking problems, multistage samplingmethods in environmental health and inclinical studies; and quantitative techniquesin advanced marketing research. DrChattopadhyay has also providedconsultancy to various projects acrossdifferent sectors in public and private domain.

IIM Calcutta’s 14th Director takes charge on April 8

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Noted Environmentalist, Dr Rajendra K Pachauri,Director-General of TERI (The Energy and ResourcesInstitute) was the Chief Guest at IIM Calcutta’s 48thAnnual Convocation held on Saturday, the April 6,2013 at the Institute’s auditorium at Joka. Dr Pachaurihas a lso been the Chance l lo r, IPCC(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) sinceAugust 1998. The IPCC under his leadership wasawarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Shri AjitBalakrishnan, CEO – Rediff.com and the Chairmanof IIM Calcutta’s Board of Governors, presided overthe ceremony. Director, Professor Shekhar Chaudhuripresented the annual Report of the institute outliningvarious activities and achievements of the Institute,faculty, students and staff for the year 2012-2013.Nine students received Fellowships while Diplomawas awarded to successful PGP students whichincluded 407 in PGDM and 43 in PGDCM. Diploma

was also awarded to 42 students in PGPEX. AllPGPEX VLM students will be convocating at IITKanpur during their convocation to be held later thisyear.

In PGDM, Avinash K Krishnakumar secured 1st rank,Mamtesh Ashok Sugla and Dushyant Agarwalsecured 2nd rank and 3rd rank respectively. InPGDCM Sagar Sambrani secured 1st rank, VarunAgarwal secured 2nd rank and SivaramanRamanathan secured the 3rd rank. Avinash receivedAditya Kashyap Memorial Scholarship for receivinghighest CGPA in Compulsory & Elective Coursesand Late Sumantra Ghoshal Award for AcademicExcellence. Penta Namrata Shankar was awardedIIMC Alumni Association, Calcutta Chapter GoldMedal and Cash Award for outstanding AcademicPerformance in PGDM by a Female Student. In non-academic/Extra-curricular Prizes/Awards, SumedhSen qualified for B.S. Dua Memorial Prize forOrganizational Ability, Rahul Kishore Singh wasawarded Bharat Chamber of Commerce Medal forthe most balanced and progressive outlook tomanagement problems, Ankur Dalal was awardedPawan Tyagi Prize for the best sportsperson of theyear 2012, Vivek Jain was awarded Dr. B.C. RoyMemorial Prize for the most outstanding contributionto campus life in the year 2012 and Arnab Ganguliwas awarded Srinath Damarla Award for OutstandingAbility. In PGPEX, Subrata Dass, Disha Chhabra,Anindya Bhattacharjee and Rajarshi Sen secured1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th rank respectively.

48th Annual Convocation

Convocation 2013

Mr. Ajit Balakrishnan, Chairman, Board of Governors,Prof. Shekhar Chaudhuri, Director of IIM Calcutta,Members of the Board, Faculty and staff of IIMCalcutta, students present here who are the leadersof tomorrow’s global enterprises, members of themedia, distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen!

I am deeply privileged to be invited to this citadel ofmanagement education and research. I have knownseveral members of the faculty from this institution,and have the highest respect for them. Over threedecades ago I was at the Administrative Staff Collegeof India at Hyderabad. At that stage I got to know

48th Convocation Address by Chief Guest Dr. R K PachauriDirector General, TERI and Chairman, IPCC

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Professor S K Chakraborty, who later took IIMCalcutta into teaching and research in the field ofethics and human values in management science.I believe his work has now taken the form of aManagement Centre for Human Values at theInstitute, which draws from the wealth of knowledgeavailable to us on the subjects of philosophy andethics. I believe this is IIM Calcutta’s uniquecontribution to the evolution of management sciencenot only in this country but worldwide. I have alwaysfelt that after independence, this country never reallysaw a dialogue on the type of economic structurewe should create, and much less the kind ofmanagement ethos we should pursue. We werefascinated to start with by the example of the thenSoviet Union and its emphasis on heavy industryand government control of the industrial process, sothat we saw government assume control of thecommanding heights of the economy in this country.But very soon the lure of the US model of freeenterprise emerged before us as a model embodyingmore and more consumption by the individual andhousehold. This soon became the driving force ofeconomic decisions and personal values. With theadoption of free enterprise also came themanagement practices associated with it as we seein countries which are regarded as the bastions ofcapitalism. Not much thought and certainly noresearch was focused on what might constitute asocially responsible form of management for thesecond half of the twentieth century, particularly fora country like India and for the twenty-first century.It is in this context that I find the many contributionsof this Institute as particularly outstanding, and amongthem the incorporation of human values inmanagement science is truly noteworthy.

The Wall Street Journal published an article in early2012 with the title “CEOs rake in huge sums whentheir companies go bankrupt”. It found that CEOs of21 companies that filed for bankruptcy had receiveda median compensation of $ 8.7 million, just $400,000 less than the median compensation earnedby CEOs of healthy companies. The article alsomentioned that when companies go bankrupt themisery is shared among many: bondholders arewiped out, retirees see their pensions and benefitsvanish and employees lose their jobs. It goes on tosay that some feel no pain at all: CEOs and othertop executives of companies that go through chapter

11 receive robust compensation in the form ofsalaries, stock grants and other benefits.

On the one hand we are told that the reward systemin the corporate world compensates their seniorpersons, and, in fact, everybody down the line basedon performance. And yet, the fact brought out in thisarticle clearly reveals that CEOs in companies thatfailed in the U.S. did not face any disincentives forpoor performance. There are also large issue ofethics which have come to the fore in recent years,with some people even going to the extent of statingthat the current economic downturn beingexperienced worldwide was to a large extent theresult of unethical decision making on the part of theleadership of several corporate organisations ingeneral and financial institutions in particular. I amraising this issue only because those who graduatefrom this remarkable institution are certainly goingto cover themselves with glory in their performancemeasured in conventional ways, but more importantlythey must strive to set high standards of ethics indecision making which earn them the respect ofsociety at large. Gandhi ji had an idealistic view ofthe manner in which the owners of capital mustfunction. He regarded them as trustees on behalf ofsociety, because in the ultimate analysis, capital andother resources are really owned by society, andcorporate leaders are essentially functioning onbehalf of society. The view that I would like to putforward is that in this world of today even the financialperformance of a company is far more dependenton societal factors than has been the case in thepast. One reason for this is the fact that through ourcumulative actions for many decades human societyhas impacted on the global commons and the naturalresources of this planet to an extent where ourcumulative actions are now causing negative effectson business activities as well. And, we seldomacknowledge the vital service that the globalcommons provide as an input for all economicactivities on this planet.

A good friend of mine who was President of theWorld Business Council on Sustainable Developmentwould very rightly repeat the adage: “business cannotsucceed in a society which fails.” Much of the world’sprogress, and in our own country, success in creatinga dent on poverty are clearly the results of economicgrowth and the success of business. But in our focus

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on maximizing profits we have perhaps not lookedat some of the negative externalities that a numberof economic activities have imposed on the earth’snatural resources and the global commons, eventhough they may not be explicitly accounted for. Forinstance, it was only after Rachel Carson publishedher book entitled Silent Spring in 1962 that the worldgot to know about the harmful impacts of severalpesticides and chemicals which were being used ona large scale in the 1960s. In our own country, andcertainly the city where I live, New Delhi, we haveseen vultures vanish completely. Their decimationwent almost unnoticed till the mid-1990s when itwas found that they were stumbling and falling deadfrom tree branches essentially because diclofenac,a painkiller which is provided to cows was leadingto kidney failure in these birds which were scavengersfor dead animals. Excessive use of chemicalfertilizers, pesticides and other inputs commonlyemployed as part of the green revolution in someregions of this country are leading to massive healthproblems which take a heavy toll of those humanbeings who are affected. In truth, business decisionshave not taken into account the value of the globalcommons. The term global commons refers to theearth’s unowned natural resources. These includethe earth’s atmosphere, the floor of the oceans,areas like Antarctica and of course outer space.These resources are today a vital part of all oureconomic activities and human life in all countries.It was a distinguished biologist Garrett Hardin whoin 1968 published a seminal article called the“Tragedy of the Commons”. Hardin’s assessmentwas that since there were no defined property rightsover the global commons and hence no responsibilityfor their usage, the world would overexploit thesetill they get degraded or damaged in an irreversiblemanner. In economics, the tragedy of the commonsis the depletion of a shared resource by individuals,acting independently and rationally according toeach one's self-interest, despite their understandingthat depleting the common resource is contrary totheir long-term best interests.

Unfortunately, the world has not yet found amethodology by which the value of services that theglobal commons provide can be internalized andpaid for in some innovative way by those responsiblefor economic activities. The adverse effects of arange of human activities can be seen in the

widespread and cumulative loss of biodiversity. Thisrepresents the one form of loss which is irreversible,because any species once completely lost to thisplanet may be extinct forever. And yet we know thatmuch of our agriculture, and a large part of themedicines we use, are initially drawn from the earth’sbiodiversity. In fact, any imbalance in that regardcould adversely affect the health of human beings.Recently there was a news report of the batpopulation in the north-east of the U.S. havingvanished. A concern was raised that this could leadto some unknown health impacts for human beingsbecause bats are known to consume more than theirbody weight of insects. Consequently, the extinctionof bats in any region would lead to an unbalancedgrowth of insects which would otherwise have beenconsumed.

Based on what I have stated, I would like to putforward the view that management science todayhas to extend its concerns and its overall objectivesin decision making beyond the corporate boardroomand beyond profits targeted in the next quarter. Someof the most successful business organisations in theworld have been those which pursued a vision whichextended far beyond the immediate. If this were notthe case then a number of innovations and the fruitsof research and development would never havebeen realized. Today what we need is a clearunderstanding of the way the earth’s global commonsare likely to change, and how these might impactbusiness in particular but all human activities ingeneral.

The one subject that I believe needs the attentionof all stakeholders, and most importantly of theleaders of business, is the protection of the vitalglobal commons related to the earth’s climate. Canany of our economic activities and enterprises functioneffectively if our rainfall deviates from establishedpatterns, temperatures frequently exceed past trendsand sea level rises threatens our coasts and megadeltas like Kolkata? Yet human actions are nowchanging the earth’s climate before our very eyes.As the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),which I have the privilege of chairing, has statedclearly: “Warming of the climate system isunequivocal, as is now evident from observationsof increases in global average air and oceantemperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice,

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and rising global average sea level.” It also stated“Most of the observed increase in global averagetemperature since the mid-20th century is very likelydue to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHGconcentrations.”

At continental, regional and ocean basin scales,numerous long-term changes in climate have beenobserved. These include changes in Arctictemperatures and ice, widespread changes inprecipitation amounts, ocean salinity, wind patternsand aspects of extreme weather including droughts,heavy precipitation, heat waves and the intensity oftropical cyclones.

Several abrupt and irreversible impacts were alsohighlighted in the AR4. Partial loss of ice sheets onpolar land could imply metres of sea level rise, majorchanges in coastlines, and inundation of low lyingareas, with greatest effects in river deltas and low-lying islands. Such changes are projected to occurover millennial timescales, but more rapid sea levelrise on century timescales cannot be excluded.

Approximately 20 to 30 per cent of species assessedso far are likely to be at increased risk of extinctionif increases in global average warming exceed 1.5to 2.5°C above the 1980-1999 temperature. As globalaverage temperature increase exceeds 3.5°C, modelprojections suggest significant extinctions rangingfrom 40 to 70 per cent of species assessed aroundthe globe.

In another report of the IPCC entitled “Special Reporton Managing the Risks of Extreme Events andDisasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation(SREX),” further assessments of observed impactswere provided. During the period from 1970 to 2008,over 95% of deaths from natural disasters occurredin developing countries. Middle-income countrieswith rapidly expanding asset bases have borne thelargest burden. In small exposed countries,particularly small island developing states, lossesexpressed as a percentage of GDP have beenparticularly high, exceeding 1% in many cases and8% in the most extreme cases, averaged over bothdisaster and non-disaster years for the period from1970 to 2010.

Based on established IPCC emissions scenarioswithout additional mitigation measures, a 1-in-20year hottest day is likely to become a 1-in-2 year

event by the end of the 21st century in most regions,except in the high latitudes of the NorthernHemisphere, where it is likely to become a 1-in-5year event.

It is likely that the frequency of heavy precipitationor the proportion of total rainfall from heavy falls willincrease in the 21st century over many areas of theglobe. This is particularly the case in the high latitudesand tropical regions and in winter in the northernmid-latitudes. Heavy rainfalls associated with tropicalcyclones are likely to increase with continuedwarming.

The management of every enterprise across theglobe will have to adapt to these impacts of climatechange, because with the inertia in the system,climate change and its impacts will continue forseveral years even if we were to reduce the emissionsof greenhouse gases on a stringent basis. But limitsto adaptation and resilience will be faced whenthresholds or tipping points associated with socialand/or natural systems are exceeded. Hence, theworld would need to mitigate the emissions ofgreenhouse gases as part of the overall solution.Neither adaptation nor mitigation alone can avoidall climate change impacts; however, they cancomplement each other and together can significantlyreduce the risks of climate change. Many impactscan be reduced, delayed or avoided with mitigation,as we stated in the AR4.

It should also be considered that if the world wouldmove towards mitigation measures there would bea large range of business opportunities which wouldarise as a result.

In the Special Report on Renewable Energy Sourcesand Climate Change Mitigation, we have found, forinstance, that deployment of renewable energy (RE)has been increasing rapidly in recent years. Varioustypes of government policies, the declining cost ofmany RE technologies, changes in the prices offossil fuels, an increase of energy demand and otherfactors have encouraged the continuing increase inthe use of RE. The levelized cost of energy for manyRE technologies is currently higher than existingenergy prices, though in various settings RE isalready economically competitive. Monetizing theexternal costs of energy supply would improve therelative competitiveness of RE. The provision of RE

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based products can help accelerate access to energy,particularly for the 1.4 billion people without accessto electricity and the additional 1.3 billion usingtraditional biomass.

A significant increase in the deployment of RE by2030, 2050 and beyond is indicated in the majorityof the 164 scenarios reviewed in this Special Report.The global primary energy supply share of RE differssubstantially among the scenarios. More than halfof the scenarios show a contribution from RE inexcess of a 17% share of primary energy supply in2030 rising to more than 27% in 2050. The scenarioswith the highest RE shares reach approximately43% in 2030 and 77% in 2050.

Additionally, it has to be borne in mind that mitigationmeasures carry a range of several co-benefits, suchas higher energy security, lower levels of air pollution,and therefore substantial health benefits, andprotection of ecosystems, etc. India has an ethicallyvalid and logically sound case for not accepting anybinding commitments for reducing emissions ofgreenhouse gases. This has inevitably affected ourown actions domestically to deal with the challengeof climate change. This, however, does not meanthat India should pursue a path of resource intensivedevelopment, because that would clearly not be asustainable path in the country’s future. It might berelevant to recall an anecdote about Mahatma Gandhiwhen he was asked whether he would not want Indiato reach the same level of prosperity as Britain. Hisresponse was “It took Britain half the resources ofthe planet to achieve this prosperity. How manyplanets will a country like India require!?” If we pursuean economic pattern and, therefore, relatedmanagement styles that have been established inseveral developed countries, we would be goingagainst Mahatma Gandhi’s wisdom, and this certainlywill lead to a large number of complexities andproblems that I shall not go into at this point of time.India needs to consider seriously embarking on apath of resource efficient development.

I believe a number of graduates from IIM Calcuttado seek employment opportunities in the socialsector, preferring civil society organisations tocorporate employment. This has to be appreciated,because high level management skills are requiredin sectors other than business and government. Yetwhat is in my mind an equally, if not more, important

need is to transform management in businessorganisations and even in the government takinginto account some of the externalities that establishedmodels of development have been imposing onsociety since the beginning of industrialization. Wenow have knowledge of the scientific link betweenour actions and the impacts that are being created,both those that are negative as well as those whichhave favourable implications for society. We needto transform management in the corporate sector toreflect knowledge that is available to us in this regardand we also need to bring into decision making asocial conscience by which we minimize some ofthe negative externalities. In the case of climatechange, adaptation is inevitable, and will have to beaccepted and implemented by businessorganisations, governments at every level, civilsociety as well as research and academia, whichwould evaluate choices before us. But business willalso need to look beyond the immediate future andevaluate the business case for mitigation of emissionsof greenhouse gases, which as I explained earlier,would carry substantial co-benefits.

In addressing some of these issues, managementscience would have to blend western experiencewith eastern wisdom and provide the philosophicalunderpinnings of enlightened management. IIMCalcutta has been a leader in this regard, and I hopeits preeminent position in integrating human valueswith management decision making will be part ofthe culture of this institution in the years ahead.Human values and ethics have become a casualtyin several parts of the world and its absence in Indiais all the more significant, because traditionally wehave been a society that respected human valuesin public life and in private behavior. We need torestore the balance that existed earlier, and I hopeinstitutions such as this would take the lead ininfluencing thought not only in this country but acrossthe world. India is not isolated from globaldevelopments, and as we grow and develop, ourlinkages with the rest of the world will inevitablyexpand and intensify. When I had the privilege ofaccepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of theIPCC, in my acceptance address I invoked the oldIndian belief of “VasudhaivaKutumbakam” – theuniverse is one family.

Thank you.

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For the past few years I have taken the ConvocationAddress as an occasion to take a look at thecontribution of our faculty to Thought Leadership inthe field of management. I normally do this by usingthe week-end before the convocation to read throughthe research papers published by our faculty thatyear, picking a few to showcase at the Convocation.When I first started this practice there was a fewdozen papers and my task was easy. Last year thatnumber jumped to nearly a hundred. This year, Iensconced myself in Kotagiri, a remote hamlet inthe Nilgiri mountains and opened my laptop andpanicked! My task this year was to read 66 researchpapers and chapters in journals and books, 68 papersin international conferences, 14 papers in nationalconferences and 29 Working Papers- adding up tomore than 2000 pages in all!

So, if you find me a little bleary eyed, you mustforgive me. As I staggered my way through thistremendous intellectual outpouring, I noticed severaldistinct patterns.

First, I could see that the big bet that we had placedfour years ago that by expanding our doctoralprogramme we could step up our research output,was starting to pay off. This year, there are six paperspresented by our doctoral students in prestigiousconferences in Venice in Italy, Beijing, Odense inDenmark, Hong Kong, Hawaii, Rome and Chicago.

Second, you can see that some of our facultymembers are starting to address research questionsthat go beyond the Industrial Age and relate to theInformation Age. Prof Ram Babu and Prof UttamSarkar, for instance, have taken a social network

approach to study the interdependent structure ofglobal stock markets. Prof Rahul Roy and team usea social network analysis techniques to assesscontent quality in Wikipedia, Prof Megha Sharmaon how to price Cloud Services and Prof SumantaBasu on pricing Infrastructure-as-a-service offeringsand Divya Sharma, a doctoral student on a rankingalgorithm for Online Social Network Search. Thesepapers show that IIM Calcutta faculty are in the thickof the most exciting development of our era- themove to the Information Age.

IIMs are sometimes criticized for not spending enoughtime and effort in addressing the developmentproblems of our country. Several research papersthis year show that this view is not true. ProfRaghabendra Chattopadhyay and his co-workersask the question, “Can Institutions be Reformed fromWithin?” and proved through their work that evenhigh inertia organizations like the Rajasthan Policecan be improved by incremental administrativeinterventions. Then there are two studies by BijuPaul Abraham, Bhaskar Chakrabarti and co-workerswhich take a close look at the workings of theMNREGA scheme and provide some insights intowhat works and what doesn’t. Avantika took a lookat human resource management in service deliveryin healthcare organizations; Prof SomaprakashBandopadhyay has a paper on architecting a lowcost peer-to-peer mobile phone network which canbe deployed in disaster relief operations; BhaskarChakrabarti studies why there is a low level ofparticipation by local farmers on decision-makingregarding the allocation of a critical resource likewater. All of these studies provide vital insights thatwill help to improve the delivery of public services.

Working co-operatively on research projects withother academic institutions in India and abroad force-multiplies the creativity of both sides. I am happy tosee many examples of this kind of co-operation thisyear. Prof Raghabendra Chattopadhay’s work onthe Rajasthan Police that I referred to earlier wasdone in co-operation with scholars from theMassachusetts Institute of Technology and YaleUniversity; Somprakash Bandyopadhyay’s work onpeer-to-peer networks for disaster relief was donewith scholars from B. P. Poddar Institute ofManagement. There are many more such examples:

Thought Leadership at IIM Calcutta 2012-13Convocation Address by Shri Ajit Balakrishnan, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIM Calcutta

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Parthasarathi Dasgupta' with scholars from Academyof Technology & APC College, West Bengal; ProfPeeyush Mehta with scholars from the Indian Schoolof Mines, Prof Debashis Saha with KalyaniGovernment Engineering College, Rohit Varmanwith Suffolk University & University of Rhode,Somprakash Bandyopadhyay with Dept. ofEconomics, Lady Brabourne College, BalramAvittathur with the University of South Carolina,Ramendra Singh with IIM Ranchi and DebashisSaha with Jadavpur University, Neotia Institute ofTechnology Management, and Prof Asim Pal withthe Haldia Government College. We also haveexamples of faculty collaborating with businessorganizations to produce research papers: SumantaBasu with HCL Technologies, Ashok Banerjee withthe Thought Arbitrage Research Institute are twoexamples. I am particularly glad to see our facultywork with other Indian institutions- we are a publicinstitution and we have a duty to stimulate creativework in these institutions.

All of this is very exciting, no doubt, but what excitesme the most is when we see work which questionscurrent deeply held beliefs in management theory.It is only then that the frontiers of knowledge arepushed back. And we have many different examplesof this type of work this year. Here are someexamples.

Prof Amit Dhiman examines that staple of corporatelife, the Annual Performance Appraisal to understandits underlying political dimensions. Prof Ritu Mehtaexamines the unstated assumption in this era ofglobalization- are Indian consumers that identical toconsumers elsewhere in the world? Prof Rajiv Kumarexamines what exactly goes into making that oft-used concept “tacit knowledge”. Prof NimrujiJammulamadaka studies the SKS Microfinance

episode and asks whether the classic Private Equityculture can work in contexts like microfinance. Inanother paper she takes a critical look at the worldof NGOs. Prof Ramendra Singh delves deep intothe notion of “Jugad” and demonstrates that it is notonly a way of ‘making do’ but also a way of survivalfor consumers at the bottom of the pyramid. ProfRohit Varman asks whether the Marketing discipline,which is usually seen as operating in the technocraticrealm, is also used to advance ideas and ideologiesof many kinds.

For those who think that our faculty researchers arelone voices in the wilderness with scant attentionbeing paid to it by policy makers we have the exampleof Prof Sudip Chaudhuri’s work. His book, The WTOand India’s Pharmaceuticals Industry, was extensivelyquoted in the Supreme Court’s historic judgementearlier this week on the Novartis cancer drug patentcase. Sudip’s long standing work on the dynamicsof pharma patents has no doubt shaped policythinking on this matter at the highest levels in India.He is now turning his attention to the problems ofIndian manufacturing and I have no doubt that hiswork there will shape policy thinking on that as well.

And, finally, to give you a sense of the internationalreach of our thought leadership, here is a list of citiesin the world where our faculty were invited to presentresearch papers at conferences: Atlanta, Auckland,Bali, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Dubai, Florida,Hannover, Honolulu, Istanbul, Kyoto, Lausanne,Lisbon, Lyon, Melbourne, New York, Osaka, Paris,Pattaya, Phoenix, Porto- Portugal, Pretoria-SouthAfrica, Queenstown- New Zealand, Rio de Janiero,San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Seoul, Shanghai,Singapore, Sussex, Umea-Sweden, Venice, Vitnius-Luthuania, Washington DC, and York, UK…all in thelast 12 months!

11

List of AwardeesName Prizes/Awards

Avinash K Krishnakumar 1. Dr. B.C. Roy Gold Medal for 1st rank holder2. Chairman’s Prize3. John Wynne Prize4. Calcutta Management Association Trophy5. P.C. Chandra Silver Medal6. IIMC Alumni Association, Calcutta Chapter Prize7. Name on the Institute’s Honour Roll

Mamtesh Ashok Sugla 1. Dr. B.C. Roy Silver Medal for 2nd rank holder2. Dr. Amiya Barat Prize for 2nd rank holder3. Dr. B.S. Dua Memorial Prize4. P.C. Chandra Silver Medal5. IIMC Alumni Association, Calcutta Chapter Prize6. Name on the Institute’s Honour Roll

Dushyant Agarwal 1. Dr. B.C. Roy Silver Medal for 2nd rank holder2. Dr. Amiya Barat Prize for 2nd rank holder3. Dr. B.S. Dua Memorial Prize4. P.C. Chandra Silver Medal5. IIMC Alumni Association, Calcutta Chapter Prize6. Name on the Institute’s Honour Roll

Akash Singh 1. TIL Scholarship for 4th rank holder2. IIMC Alumni Association, Calcutta Chapter Prize3. Name on the Institute’s Honour Roll

Alok Agrawal 1. TIL Scholarship for 4th rank holder2. IIMC Alumni Association, Calcutta Chapter Prize3. Name on the Institute’s Honour Roll

Anuj Agarwal 1. Duncan Award for 6th rank holder2. IIMC Alumni Association, Calcutta Chapter Prize

Yagnish Rathi 1. Balmer Lawrie Award for 7th rank holder2. IIMC Alumni Association, Calcutta Chapter Prize

Happy Saini Balmer Lawrie Award for 8th rank holder

Piyush Maheshwari Balmer Lawrie Award for 8th rank holder

Swagato Sourya Ghosh Balmer Lawrie Award for 10th rank holder

Kumar Shubham ABC India Award for 11th rank holder

Fasil Sagir ABC India Award for 13th rank holder

Arpit Kumar CPT Award for 14th rank holder

Himanshu Tiwari CPT Award for 14th rank holder

T S Shailesh CPT Award for 16th rank holder

Vishal Sharma CPT Award for 16th rank holder

Anand R Magunta Subbarama Reddy Award for 18th rank holder

Anurag Mantry Magunta Subbarama Reddy Award for 18th rank holder

Maruti Srinivas T Magunta Subbarama Reddy Award for 20th rank holder

Tripathy Shakti Prasad Magunta Subbarama Reddy Award for 20th rank holder

Convocation 2013

12

B. Academic Performance in PGDM by Female Student

Name Prizes/Awards

Penta Namrata Shankar IIMC Alumni Association, Calcutta Chapter Gold Medal and CashAward for outstanding Academic Performance in PGDM by FemaleStudent.

C. Academic Prizes/Awards for PGDCM Students

Name Prizes/Awards

Sagar Sambrani 1. Institute’s Gold Medal for 1st rank holder2. Dr. Jogendra Kumar Chowdhury Gold Medal3. ACC Award4. IIMC Alumni Association, Calcutta Chapter Prize5. Name on the Institute’s Honour Roll

Varun Agarwal 1. Smt. Indira Chowdhury Gold Medal for 2nd rank holder2. ACC Award3. IIMC Alumni Association, Calcutta Chapter Prize4. Name on the Institute’s Honour Roll

Sivaraman Ramanathan 1. ACC Award for 3rd rank holder2. IIMC Alumni Association, Calcutta Chapter Prize3. Name on the Institute’s Honour Roll

D. Academic Prizes/Awards for outstanding performance for PGDM & PGDCM Students combined

Name Prizes/Awards

Avinash K Krishnakumar Aditya Kashyap Memorial Scholarship for receiving highest CGPA inCompulsory & Elective Courses.

Avinash K Krishnakumar Late Sumantra Ghoshal Award for Academic Excellence for receivinghighest CGPA at the end of the two-year programme including all sixterms.

E. Non-academic/Extra-curricular Prizes/Awards for PGDM & PGDCM Students combined (given onthe basis of nominations from the Student’s Council)

Name Prizes/Awards

Sumedh Sen B.S. Dua Memorial Prize for Organizational Ability.

Rahul Kishore Singh Bharat Chamber of Commerce Medal for the most balanced andprogressive outlook to management problems.

Ankur Dalal Pawan Tyagi Prize for the best sportsperson of the year 2012.

Vivek Jain Dr. B.C. Roy Memorial Prize for the most outstanding contribution tocampus life in the year 2012.

Arnab Ganguli Srinath Damarla Award for Outstanding Ability.

Convocation 2013

List of Awardees

13New Publications

l “Financial Development and Monetary PolicyTransmission across Financial Markets: What DoDaily Data tell for India?” published under the RBIWorking Paper Series has been co-authored byProfessor Partha Ray of IIM Calcutta and Shri EdwinPrabu.

l A joint research paper by Srivastava, B.N.,Joshi, Chetan & Sett, R. titled "Role of RegulatoryFocus, Uncertainty and Past Relationship Experiencein Buyer-Supplier Negotiation", has been acceptedfor presentation at the Academy of Managementmeeting in Florida, USA during August 2013.

l Harvard Business Review's fictionalized casestudies present dilemmas faced by leaders in realcompanies and offer solutions from experts. The

Unmanageable Star Performer is based on the casestudy "Superstar leaders," by Professor AbhishekGoel of IIM Calcutta and Neharika Vohra. It has beenpublished in the May 2013 issue of Harvard BusinessReview.

l Professor Preetam Basu and ProfessorBodhibrata Nag have co-authored the Special IndianEdition of the book "Introduction to OperationsResearch" with Prof. Hillier and Prof. Lieberman ofStanford University. The book has been publishedby Tata McGraw Hill.

l A case study volume edited by ProfessorRamendra Singh with the title of *Case Studies inMarketing Management" has recently been publishedby Pearson Education.

Working Papers authored by faculty members

WPS 724 A Ranking Algorithm for Online Social Network Search Divya SharmaFebruary 2013 Prof. P. S. Dasgupta

Prof. Debashis Saha

WPS 723 A Survey of Sustainable Supply Chain Management Practices in Indian Manufacturing Firms Prof. Subrata MitraFebruary 2013 Prof. Partha Priya Datta

WPS 722 An Empirical Investigation into Enterprise Risk Management in India Prof. Arpita GhoshFebruary 2013

WPS 721 Corporate Sustainability and Corporate Financial Performance: The Indian Context Prof. Arpita GhoshJanuary 2013

WPS 720 Manufacturing Trade Deficit and Industrial Policy in India Prof. Sudip ChaudhuriJanuary 2013

WPS 719 Pricing Strategies for Gaming-on-Demand Prof. Sumanta BasuDecember 2013 Prof. S. Chakraborty

Prof. Megha Sharma

WPS 718 The IIM Calcutta Data Centre: A Retrospective, Programming Tutorial and Future Directions P. SrikantDecember 2013 Prof. B. B. Chakrabarti

WPS 717 Private Equity Trends and Exits in the Indian Market Prof. Rama SethNovember 2013 Rohan Chinchwadkar

WPS 716 From Market Separation to Market Development at Bottom of Pyramid: Case Studies on Prof. Ramendra SinghNovember 2013 Two Non-Profit Organizations Pratik Modi

WPS 715 Choosing the appropriate project management structure, project financing, Prof. Bodhibrata NagOctober 2013 land acquisition and contractual process for Indian railway mega-projects-a case study Prof. Jeetendra Singh

of the Dedicated Freight Corridor Project Prof. Ved Mani Tiwari

WPS 714 Arithmetic Algorithms for Ternary Number System Prof. P. S. DasguptaSeptember 2013 Prof. Subrata Das

Prof. Samar Sensama

Working Paper Title of the Working Paper Name of the Author

14New Publications

WPS 713 Algorithms for Rotation Symmetric Boolean Functions Prof. P. S. DasguptaSeptember 2013 Prof. Subrata Das

Prof. Samar SensamaProf. Satrajit Ghosh

WPS 712 Unconditional Efficient Rational Secret Sharing Prof. Asim K. PalAugust 2012 Sourya Joyee De

WPS 711 Psychological Capital as a Mediator of the Relationship between Leadership and Creative Prof. Vishal GuptaAugust 2012 Performance Behaviors: Empirical Evidence from the Indian R & D Sector

WPS 710 Leadership and Creativity in Research and Development Laboratories: Prof. Vishal GuptaAugust 2012 A New Scale for Leader Behaviours

WPS 709 Heavy Haul Corridor Selection and Service Design Models Prof. Bodhibrata NagAugust 2012

WPS 708 Public Policies of Tobacco Control: The Process of Evolution of a Social Contract Prof. Nisigandha BhuyanAugust 2012

WPS 707 Buyer-Supplier Negotiations Following Reported Delivery Failure: A Conceptual Framework Prof. B. N. SrivastavaAugust 2012 Prof. Chetan Joshi

Prof. Rahul Sett

WPS 706 Corporate Governance Norms in State Owned Enterprises: Can Apples Prof. Manju JaiswallJuly 2012 be used to assess Oranges? Prof. Nimruji P. J.

WPS 705 Energy Utility Fuel Allocation Model for Non-Linear Revenue and Regulatory Tariff Implications Prof. Balram AvittathurJuly 2012

WPS 704 Exploring the relationship between Earning Management and Corporate Prof. Manju JaiswalJuly 2012 Governance characteristics in the Indian context Prof. Ashok Banerjee

WPS 703 Are Family firms in India managing their Earnings – An exploratory study Prof. Manju JaiswalJuly 2012 Prof. Ashok Banerjee

WPS 702 July A multi-criteria approach for railway project portfolio fund allocation Prof. Bodhibrata NagJuly 2012 Prof. Jeetendra Singh

WPS 701 Dual-homing of RNCs in UMTS Networks Mr. Samir K. SadhukhanJuly 2012 Prof. Debashis Saha

Swarup Mandal

WPS 700 Static vs. Dynamic Policies for Vehicle Routing Problems with Backhauling Prof. Subrata MitraMay 2012 and Dynamically Arising Customer Demands

WPS 699 The US Railroads-their evolution, structure and operations Prof. Bodhibrata NagMay 2012

WPS 698 Public Procurement – a case study of the Indian Railways Prof. Bodhibrata NagMay 2012

WPS 697 A MIP model for scheduling India’s General Elections and police movement Prof. Bodhibrata NagMay 2012

WPS 697 An Enhanced NEMO Protocol for Efficiently Managing both Handoff Performance Prof. Debashis SahaApril 2012 and Route Optimization in Mobile Networks Bhaskar Sardar

Avik Mitra

Working Paper Title of the Working Paper Name of the Author

15New Publications

Professor Bodhibrata Nag's multi-disciplinary research working paper"COMBATING CORRUPTION IN

PUBLIC PROCUREMENT - ACASE STUDY OF THE INDIANRAILWAYS" posted on the Social

S c i e n c e R e s e a r c h N e t w o r k ( S S R N )(URL:http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2270030;) has made it to the top ten listof the following SSRN sections:

l Journal of Economics Research Network(ERN):Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public

Organizations; Corruption (Topic), Procurement(Topic),

l Journal of Innovation Research & PolicyNetwork(IRPN): Innovation & Public Economics(Topic),

l Journal of Political Science Network(PSN):Public Spending (Development) (Topic),

l Journal of Sustainability Research & PolicyNetwork(SRPN): Rail (Topic)

l Journal of Sustainable Transport eJournal.

MONETARY POLICY

Partha Ray

Publ ished by OxfordUniversity Press

Professor Partha Ray'sbook Monetary Policy has been broughtout by Oxford University Press under thenew Oxford Indian Short Introduction(OISI) series.

The aim of this series is to publish concise,stimulating, and accessible guides todifferent aspects of India. In the backdrop

of a brief discussion ofthe major theoreticaldevelopments, ProfRay’s book gives asynoptic yet nuancedaccount of the evolutionof monetary policy inI n d i a s i n c e t h e

establishment of the Reserve Bank ofIndia in 1934. Different chapters of thebook try to capture different regimes ofmonetary policy implementation in India.

CAPITAL FLOWS ANDEXCHANGE RATEMANAGEMENT

Soumyen Sikdar

Published by Oxford UniversityPress

With greater financial integration with the globaleconomy movement of investible funds (alsoknown as international capital flows) into and outof the Indian capital markethas assumed g r e a timportance over the past quartercentury. Such flows provides u b s t a n t i a l p o t e n t i a lbenefits, but their instabilitycontinues to be a mat ter o fs e r i o u s concern. Howhave Indian policymakers managed to avoidfinancial crisis? Should our capital controls beeliminated? What are the links between capitalflows, the exchange rate, foreign reserves anddomestic money supply? This short book providesanswers to these questions,among others, inlanguage understandable to non-specialist readers.

(These books belong to a cluster of nine titles around the theme ‘Economics andDevelopment’. Anindya Sen, Professor of Economics, Indian Institute of ManagementCalcutta, is General Editor for this cluster).

Academics16

Decision becoming bigger & bolderIIM Calcutta's prestigious peer-reviewed journal,Decision will be published with Springer fromJune this year and the journal will becomequaterly from next year. It is likely that interviewsection will resume for all issues and a newsection on ‘Roundtable’ for one issue a year willbe introduced.

New Research Policy and PostDoctoral Research Fellowship

A new research policy has been approved bythe Board of Governors. The new researchpolicy aims to enable faculty members toundertake larger field based research studiesthat are likely to impact the practice ofmanagement significantly. Another objective ofthe new research policy is to strengthenmultidisciplinary research involving more thanone academic group. As we know, managerialproblems in real life cut across severaldepartments in organizations; therefore,management researchers need to tackle suchcomplex problems in their research. The newresearch policy is aimed at focusing on suchcomplex rea l l i fe problems throughmultidisciplinary research.

The Board of Governors has approved a proposalto launch a Post Doctoral Research Fellowshipscheme to (a) strengthen research at the Instituteand (b) to enable researchers at other institutionsto work with faculty members of IIMC, therebycontributing to their fields of interest and tobecome better researchers and teachers whoin turn would be able to strengthen research andteaching wherever they decide to work later on.

Review of PGPEX VLMThe Visionary Leaders for Manufacturingprogramme, jointly offered by IIM Calcutta, IITKanpur and IIT Madras under the aegis of theNational Manufacturing Competitiveness Council

of the Government of India, has been supportedby the Government of Japan through the JapanInternational Cooperation Agency (JICA). It wasfelt that for the programme to become sustainablein the long run it would be beneficial if it couldbe supported by JICA for a few more years.The NMCC therefore proposed that theprogramme be reviewed to examine in what wayit could be supported for a few more years byJICA.

A JICA Terminal Evaluation Team consisting ofMr. Masaaki Doi and Mr. Izumi Sakaya, JICAConsultant Researcher visited IIMC for apreliminary assessment during December 6-7,2012 for evaluation of the current three yearsupport to VLFM programme which comes toan end on March 31, 2013.

Their visit was followed by the visit of JICAMission Team from Japan headed by Mr. MikiyaSaito, Ms. Yuka Sonoyama, Mr. Izumi Sakaya,Prof. Shoji Shiba, Mr. Kondo Sei, and Mr. MasakiDoi on December 12, 2012. The team haddetailed discussions with the concerned facultymembers and academic leaders. Director, IIMCalcutta, Dr. Sanjay Dhande, Ex-Director, IITKanpur, Prof. Ashok Mittal, Coordinator, VLFMProgram, IIT Kanpur, Prof. Vidyanand Jha,Chairman, PGPEX-VLM, IIM Calcutta, Dean(Academic) of IIM Calcutta and a number offaculty members of IIMC represented theacademia during the meeting.

On the basis of the review of the programmethe JICA Review Mission felt that the programmehad achieved its objectives and thereforerecommended the continuation of JICA’s supportfor three (3) more years. An agreement for anew Project on Champions for SocietalManufacturing to run for three years from April1, 2013 was signed on March 15, 2013 byNMCC, MHRD and JICA at NMCC, Delhi.

Academics

Supreme Court cites IIMC faculty’sfindings in a landmark judgement

On the 1st of April 2013 the IndianSupreme Court delivered a historicjudgment dealing with pharmaceuticalproduct patents. While doing so theSupreme Court denied patent to a

pharmaceutical compound invented by Novartis whichis used for the treatment of certain types of cancer.It is a matter of great pride and honour for the Institutethat the Supreme Court of India while arriving at thisdecision has greatly relied upon the book written byProf. Sudip Chaudhuri of Economics group titled "TheWTO and India’s Pharmaceuticals Industry PatentProtection, TRIPS, and Developing Countries”published by OUP in 2005.

Our Faculty in TEQIP WorkshopThe Eastern RegionalWorkshop for Academia-Industry Collaboration washeld on 21 and 22 June 2013in the BESU Campus at

Howrah. The primary purpose of the workshop wasto gain insights in existing models of collaboration,learning from past experiences and developingrelationships with local industry. The workshop washeld under the aegis of the World Bank fundedTechnical Education Quality Improvement Programme(TEQIP) Phase-II covering 200 engineering institutionsacross the country.

Prof. Sougata Ray and Prof.Bodhibrata Nagparticipated in the workshop deliberations. Prof.Sougata Ray presented a strategic roadmap foracademia-industry collaboration, keeping in view thechallenges of the Eastern Region. Prof.BodhibrataNag presented the best practices of academia-industrycollaboration in the USA, along with an exposition onits evolution, contextual dimensions and challenges.

Special assignmentsProfessor B B Chakraborty of

Finance & Control grouphas been appointed as amember o f new l yc o n s t i t u t e d " R B ICommittee on FinancialBenchmarks" to study

various issues relating to financialbenchmarks. He has also beenappointed as a member of the AdvisoryCommittee for Higher Education inWest Bengal, constituted by theGovernor of West Bengal.

Professor Rahul Mukerjee ofOperations Managementg r o u p h a s b e e nnominated as a part-timemember of the NationalStatistical Commission(NSC) set up by the

Government of India to serve as anodal and empowered body for allcore statistical activities of the country.The three other part-time members ofthe Commission are Prof. BiswanathGoldar, IEG, Prof. S. Mahendra Dev,IGIDR and Shri Ramesh Kolli, Retd.Additional Director General, CSO.

Professor Biju Paul Abraham ofP u b l i c P o l i c y &Management group hasbeen elected as the Vice-President (during 2013-14) and President Elect(during 2014-15) of the

Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute. Weare hopeful that collaborative researchbetween India and Canada will attaina new height under his leadership.

17

18Academics

National Conferences attended by Fellow Programme Students

Sankalpa Satapathy(FP/08/10) 1st World CBR Congress, Agra Nov 25-28, 2012 Impact of CBR on Physically disabledwomanin India

Debarati Basu (FP/07/10) 6th ISB Accounting Research Conference at Indian Dec 21-22, 2012 "Financial Decisions by Business Groups inSchool Of Business (ISB) Campus, Hyderabad India: Is it "Fair and Square"?

Abhishek Chakraborty (FP/08/08) 16th Annual International Conference of the Society Dec 21-23, 2012 "A Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)of Operations Management 2012, at IIT, Delhi Approach to study the impact of Student-

Classroom ratio on the Efficiency ofElementary Education in India

Ambuj B Anand (FP/23/10) International Symposium of Information Systems - Jan 04-06, 2013 "Defining Sustainability for e-governmentISIS 2013, at Goa projects"

Radha Ladkani (FP/11/08) 6th Doctoral Colloquium 2013, at IIM Ahmedabad Jan 08-09, 2013 "Promoter Ownership and Principal-PrincipalConflicts: Evidence from Indian M&A"

Neerav Nagar (FP/09/08) 6th Doctoral Colloquium 2013, at IIM Ahmedabad Jan 08-09, 2013 "Classification Shifting: A ComprehensiveModel to Estimate Unexpected Core Earnings"

Surya Sarathi Majumdar International Symposium on Applied Optimization Jan 09-11, 2013 "Efficiency improvement strategy under(FP/05/09) and Game-Theoretic Models at ISI, Delhi constant sumof inputs with restricted weights"

Student Name & Reg. No. Name of the Conference Period of Conference Title of the Paper

International Conferences attended by Fellow Programme Students

Sourav Saha (FP/06/08), International Conference ‘COLLA 2012’, Venice, Italy June 24–29, 2012 “Collaborative Preference elicitation based ondynamic peer recommendations”.

Surya Sarathi Majumdar 2012 INFORMS International Meeting, Jun 24-27, 2012 "Efficiency Improvement Strategy under(FP/05/09) Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Constant Sum of Inputs"

Nirali Shah (FP/05/07) The Doctoral Seminar-Canon of Classics, Dec 2-8, 2012 Rejection Mutation, and Revelry: UnderstandingOdense, Denmark Consumer Response to forced Anti-Consumption

Debarati Basu (FP/07/10) JCAE Doctoral Consortium & Symposium 2013, Jan 04-05,2013 "Financial Decisions by Business Groups inHong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong India: Is it "Fair and Square"?

Partha Saha (FP/05/10) Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science Jan 07-10, 2013 “A Formal Analysis of Fraud in Banking Sector”(HICSS-46), Grand Wailea, Maui, Hawaii, USA

Rohan Chinchwadkar 4th International Conference on Financial Theory and Feb 24-25, 2013 "Theory of exit choice: IPOs versus acquisitions(FP/09/09) Engineering-ICFTE 2013, Rome, Italy with differential bargaining"

Rohan Chinchwadkar 2013 Midwest Finance Association Annual Mar 13-16,2013 "Information Leakage, Foreign Certification and(FP/09/09) Meeting, Chicago, USA Business Groups: Evidence from PIPE Deals"

Radha Ladkani 2013 Midwest Finance Association Annual Mar 13-16,2013 "Emerging Market Bidder Returns and the Choice(FP/11/08) Meeting, Chicago, USA of Payment Method in M&A: Evidence from India

Student Name & Reg. No. Name of the Conference Period of Conference Title of the Paper

19FPM Seminars

11-May-12 Hidden Costs of Offshore Outsourcing Deeparghya Mukherjee Prof. Soumyendranath Sikdar, Economics Group

29-May-12 Data Interpolation by Optimal Cubic Splines with Free Prof. Lakshman S Thakur Prof. Preetam Basu, OM GroupKnots Using Branch-and-Cut Method

11-Jun-12 Asleep at the Wheel (Again)? Bank Audits during the Prof. Rajib Doogar Prof. Anindya Sen, Economics Grouplead-up to the financial crisis

18-Jun-12 Robust and Reliable Portfolio Optimization Formulation Prof. R.N. Sengupta Prof. Sumanta Basu, OM Groupof Chance Constrained Problem

20-Jun-12 Increasing Demand for School Education and Scope Prof. Pulak Das, Prof. Pulak Das, HRM Groupof Private Management in School level Learning in India International Conference

25-Jun-12 Fair and Group strategy-proof Good Allocations Conan Mukherjee, Doctoral Prof. Soumyendranath Sikdar,student, ISI Kolkata Economics Group

2-Jul-12 Health Infrastructure and Sustainable Dr. Rudra Pradhan, VGSOM Prof. Soumyendranath Sikdar, Economics GroupDevelopment in India

4-Jul-12 Understanding Diverse User Reactions to Information Prof. Anol Bhattachaerjee, Prof. Indranil Bose, MIS GroupTechnology: An Coping-Theoretic Model of IT Professor of InformationAcceptance and Resistance Systems at the University

of South Florida

10-Jul-12 Entry of Profit-motivated Microfinance Institutions Prof. Ratul Lahkar, Associate Prof. Soumyen Sikdar,and Borrower Welfare Professor, IFMR Chennai Economic Group

30-Jul-12 Completion, Duplication and Learning in R&D Shri Kaustav Das, Doctoral Prof. Soumyendranath Sikdar,student, Pennsylvania State Economics GroupUniversity, USA

16-Aug-12 The Incumbency Protection Power of Network Prof. Anitesh Barua, William F. Prof.Indranil Bose, MIS GroupEffects: Hype or Reality? Wright Centennial Professor of

Information Technology, StevensPiper Foundation Professor,Distinguished Teaching Professor,and Associate Director of theCenter for Research in ElectronicCommerce at the McCombsSchool of Business, theUniversity of Texas at Austin.

10-Oct-12 Fiscal Federalism, State Lobbying and Dr. Rongili Biswas Assistant Prof. Soumyendranath Sikdar,Discretionary Finance Professor of Economics at Economics Group

Maulana Azad College.

30-Oct-12 Business Group Affiliation and Earnings Quality: Prof. Sandip Dhole, Assistant Prof. Manju Jaiswall, F & C GroupEvidence from Indian Business Groups Professor in the accounting &

finance area at ISB, Hyderabad.

03-Nov-12 Society, Markets and the striving economic democracy Ms. Rajni Bakshi, Free lanceJournalist, Author, Speakerand Gandhi Peace Fellow atIndian Council on Global Prof. Ramendra Singh, Marketing GroupRelations.

27-Nov-12 Current Challenges in Indian Monetary Policy Michael Debabrata Patra, Prof. Soumyendranath Sikdar, Economics GroupAdvisor in charge,MonetaryPolicy Department RBI

28-Nov-12 Diffusion or Polarization in Industrial location Prof. Baldev Raj Nayar, Prof. Anindya Sen, Economics Groupafter Economic Liberalization Prof. Emeritus of Political Science,

McGill University, Montreal, Canada

05-Dec-12 Class Structure in Pakistan Dr. Taimur Rahman, Assistant Prof. Anindya Sen, Economics GroupProfessor at Lahore University ofManagement Sciences (LUMS),Pakistan

12-Dec-12 An Empirical Investigation into the Determinants of Dr. Sarbapriya Ray, Prof. Manju Jaiswall, F & C GroupCapital Structure of Aluminum Industry in India Assistant Professor at Shyampur

Siddheswari Mahavidyalaya,under University of Calcutta, Howrah

Date Title of the Paper Speaker Faculty Host

20FPM Seminars

Date Title of the Paper Speaker Faculty Host

03-Jan-13 Transforming Drinking Water Crisis in Prof. Arup K. SenGupta, Prof. V. K Unni, PPM GroupIndia into an Opportunity for Economic P.C. Rossin ProfessorGrowth: Role of Science of Technology Department of Civil & Environmental

Engineering Department of ChemicalEngineering, Lehigh University

07-Jan-13 The financial crisis and lessons for regulation Dr. Arupratan Daripa, faculty Prof. Uttam Kr. Sarkar, MIS Groupmember in Economics, Mathematicsand Statistics in BirkbeckUniversity of London, UK

08-Jan-13 Business Format Franchising - A Brief Introduction Prof Kabir C Sen, Prof. Ramendra Singh, Marketing Groupto its existence as on organizational format and its Professor of Marketing at Lamarlink with retail growth University, USA

09-Jan-13 The economic impact of investment treaties Prof. Julien Chaisse Associate Prof. R Rajesh Babu, PPM GroupProfessor of Law, ChineseUniversity of Hong Kong andProf. Bellak, AssociateProfessor of Economics,Vienna University of Economics

16-Jan-13 Finanzkapital, Marketing and Consumers Prof. Nikhilesh Dholakia, Professor Prof. Rohit Varman, Marketing Groupof Marketing and InternationalBusiness in the College ofBusiness Administration at theUniversity of Rhode Island(URI) in USA

16-Jan-13 Employment,Growth and Inequality in India: a Dr Subhanil Chowdhury, Assistant Prof. Soumyendranath Sikdar, Economics GroupCritical Analysis Professor, IDSK Calcutta

(INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENTSTUDIES KOLKATA)

21-Jan-13 Trends in the Use of Technology: Changing Prof. Ruby Roy Dholakia, Prof. Rohit Varman, Marketing GroupInfluence of Gender and Location Professor of Marketing and

Electronic Commerce Collegeof Business Administration,Kingston

29-Jan-13 Effect of Feedback on the Dynamics and Dr. Pallab Sanyal,Assistant Prof. Indranil Bose, MIS GroupOutcomes of Continuous Combinatorial Auctions Professor, George Mason

University

30-Jan-13 Sharing News Articles Using 140 Characters: McClelland Professor of Prof. Indranil Bose, MIS GroupA Propagation Analysis on Twitter Management Information

Systemsin the Eller Collegeof Management at theUniversity of Arizona

18-Feb-13 Economic & Political Weekly: Social Science Rammanohar Reddy, EPW Editor Prof. Biswatosh Saha, Strategy GroupJournal Par Excellence and An Institution ofPost-Independence India

28-Mar-13 Starving (or Fattening) the Golden Goose?: Prof. Chirantan Chatterjee , Prof. Sougata Ray, Strategy GroupGeneric Entry and the Incentives for Assistant Professor in Corporate Early-Stage Pharmaceutical Innovation Strategy and Policy at the Indian

Institute of Management, Bangalore

28-Mar-13 History on India's Geography Dr. Sanjeev Sanyal, author of ' Prof. V. K Unni, PPM GroupLand of Seven Rivers: A BriefHistory of India's Geography'(Penguin)

21Events

The pan IIM fraternity united for the first time inorganizing world class management conferenceon Emerging Issues in Management at Goa duringMay 30 to June 1, 2013. IIM Calcutta was the leadcoordinator of this conference. The Hon’ble UnionMinister of HRD, Dr. M Mangapati Pallam Rajuinaugurated the conference in presence of S SMantha, Chairman, AICTE, Shri Ajit Balakrishnan,Chairman, BoG, IIM Calcutta, Shri Ashok Thakur,Secretary, MHRD, Directors of IIM Calcutta, Prof.Saibal Chattopadhyay, Kozhikode, ProfessorDebashish Chatterjee and Indore, Prof NRavichandran on May 31, 2013. The Hon’bleMinister of State, Ministry of Human ResourceDevelopment, Dr. Shashi Tharoor, also graced theoccasion as Guest of Honour.

The Ambassador of France to India, FrancoisRichier, was the special guest and other prominentkeynote speakers included Dr. Shashi Tharoor,Minister of State for Human ResourcesDevelopment, Shri Geet Sethi, World Professional

Billiards Champion, Prof. Srikant M Datar, leadingprofessor of Harvard Business School and ShriRafiq Gangjee, Vice President, Marketing &Communication, Yash Raj Films. The conferencefocused on the following themes: The Firm of theFuture, Looking beyond Profits, Inclusive Growth,Managing People and Future of ManagementEducation.

The conference was attended by around 250individuals, including professors, researchers,doctoral students, industry professionals andalumni of various IIMs. The occasion also offeredthem a forum for open-ended discussions on thetopics of their respective domains. There weretwenty-nine paper presentations by leadingresearch scholars from India and abroad and 12poster sessions by PhD scholars.

The conference also hosted two panel discussions.The first one was on Innovation and InclusiveGrowth, moderated by Prof. Rishikesh T. Krishnanof IIM Bangalore and the members of the panelincluded Mr. Anil K. Gupta, IIM Ahmedabad, Mr.D. Shivkumar, Head - Operations, Nokia India andDr. Suerie Moon, Harvard Kennedy School. Theother panel discussion was on Government andBusiness, moderated by Prof. Anup K. Sinha ofIIM Calcutta; the members of the panel includedMr. Ravi Kant, Chairman-BoG, IIM Rohtak, Mr. M.Damodaran, Chairman- BoG, IIM Trichy, Mr.Hemant M. Nerurkar, MD, Tata Steel and Mr.Jawhar Sircar, CEO, Prasar Bharati, Govt. of India.

First Pan IIM World Conference on "Emerging Issues in Management"

IIM Calcutta hosted the sixth edition of thedistinguished E-Summit on February 24, 2013 atits campus in Joka. Budding and energeticentrepreneurs discussed ideas related to socialentrepreneurship and professionalization ofunorganized sector in the one day event, organisedby the IIM Calcutta’s Centre for Entrepreneurshipand Innovation - (CEI) in association with the

Student Entrepreneurship Club of IIM Calcutta. E-Summit also marked the finals of the first editionof the annual “Tata Social Enterprise Challenge”.

The event was graced by stalwarts in the field ofSocial Entrepreneurship. A team from YunusBusiness Fund has participated for the event. Thespeakers list included names such as PadmaBhushan Shri Devender Raj Mehta, founder ofBMVSS which has received international acclaimfor its low cost prosthetic leg, the Jaipur Foot, andShri Arunachalam Muruganantham, winner of bestinnovation award given by the honourable presidentof India, who developed low-cost sanitary napkinsolution for rural population. Arunachalam has avery inspiring story about his entrepreneurshipjourney that he shared with the audience. Otherspeakers included Shri Joe Madith, winner of

Leading Social Entrepreneurs at IIMC’s E-Summit

22Events

Schwab Foundation's Outstanding SocialEntrepreneur award and Kyoto World Water GrandPrize, who runs social program related toEducation, Health and Sanitation in through GramVikas. An interesting name on the list of speakerswas Shrimati Radha Basu, co-founder of Anudip

Foundation, the largest social enterprise in EastIndia and an invited lecturer at MIT Sloan Schoolof Management. The organisers appeared to haveleft no stone unturned to bring together an inspiringline up of speakers for the event.

First edition of Tata Social Enterprise Challenge held in style

IIM Calcutta, in association with Tata Groupconducted the first ever Tata Social EnterpriseChallenge (TSEC), which was held at IIM Calcuttaduring February 20 – 24, 2013. Tata SocialEnterprise Challenge, organized jointly by IIMCalcutta and the TATA Group, aims to establishitself as a major event in the Indian socialentrepreneurship space by bringing together socialentrepreneurs, venture capitalists and membersfrom the academia, industry and business and thewhole bunch of social entrepreneurs to identifyand promote sustainable ideas that impact thesocial sector.

Greenway Grameen Infra (Mumbai) and Ottoclave(MIT, Boston) were the winners of this year’s event,winning prize money of Rs1.5 and Rs1 lakhrespectively. The other eight teams that made itto the finals were Utopia, Vi-Care, Onergy, Doctorsfor You, Project Kayakalp, Sudiksha, SMV Wheelsand MediAngels. Along with Prof. Ashok Banerjee,Dean (NI&ER), IIM Calcutta, the other jury in theFinal included Mr. Joe Madiath, Founder, GramVikas, Dr. Amit Jain, Founder, E-Health Point, Mr.Murli Vullaganti, Co-Founder & CEO, Rural Shores,Mrs. Radha Basu, Co-Founder, Anudip Foundation,Mr. R. Ramaraj, Member of, Board of Governors,IIM Calcutta, Mr. Shubro Sen, Director, TATAManagement Training Centre, Mr. P.R. Ganapathy,Chief Operating Officer, Villgro, Ms. Ritu Verma,Partner, Ankur Capital, Dr. Kulkarni, Director, YunusBusiness Fund, Mr. Saurabh Lahoti, InvestmentManager, Ennovent and Mr. Jonathan Mazumdar,Portfolio Associate, Acumen Fund. A brief profileof these projects is given below for a betterunderstanding.

The Tata Social Enterprise Challenge saw morethan 160 business plans being submitted fromacross the world including the US and Netherlands

in areas such as education, healthcare, agriculture,environment and micro-finance. Of these, 20business plans were shortlisted for the semi-finalswherein the teams received mentorship in twophases, first over the phone/email from expertsin the social sector and subsequently, at IIMC fromfaculty, social entrepreneurs and social VC’s. Atthe end of the mentorship phase, all teams hadthe opportunity to pitch to social VCs, socialentrepreneurs and faculty. The top 10 teams thenmade it into the finals in which Grameen GreenwayInfra and Ottoclave emerged as the winners. Allsemi-finalists were also given the opportunity toreceive mentorship and other support services atIIMCs upcoming incubation center. This year’sTata Social Enterprise Challenge event culminatedwith a closing symposium which saw talks byeminent speakers in the social sector includingPadma Bhusan Shri Devendra Mehta (Founder,Jaipur Foot) and Mr. Arunachalam Muruganantham(Founder Jayshree Industries) amongst others.According to Professor Ashok Banerjee, theprincipal mentor of this event and the Dean ofNew Initiatives and External Relations of IIMCalcutta, " IIM Calcutta has always demonstratedits commitment for social cause. We are thankfulto Tata Group for agreeing to collaborate with usin launching this event. Budding socialentrepreneurs can contribute significantly in India'sattempt for inclusive growth and IIM Calcutta alongwith the Tata Group are proud to be part of suchendeavour. I strongly believe that the Tata SocialEnterprise challenge will in near future becomethe biggest event in this space".

NDTV Profit was the media partnerfor the event and they aired the eventexclusively on NDTV Profit channel as per the following schedules:

Saturday 16th March' 2013 @ 12pmand Sunday 17th March' 2013 @ 8pm

23Events

The Eastern Regional Workshop of the 14thFinance Commission was held first time in IIMCalcutta campus during May 2-3, 2013.

To put the Workshop in perspective, it is useful torecall that in terms of Article 280 of the Constitutionof India, the Finance Commission is mandated tomake recommendations relating to financialrelations between the Union and the States. The14th Finance Commission has been constitutedby the President of India with Dr. Y.V. Reddy,former Governor, Reserve Bank of India, as theChairman. The terms of reference of thisCommission require it to consider and makerecommendat ions on severa l aspectsrelevant to the subject. The recommendations willcover the period of five years from April 1, 2015to March 31, 2020.

As part of its mandate, it has been the practicefor the Commission to hold one day regionalworkshop in each of the five broad regions of thecountry, with Economists and EconomicAdministrators. This time, however, in view ofsome new and unprecedented terms of referencerequiring fresh and original work, the Commissionwanted to broaden the discussions to includesome eminent scholars/persons of the region whoare involved with policy from the fields of science,engineering, social sciences, management andlaw.

The Commission felt that IIMC, “with its exceptionaltrack record”, would be ideally suited to host theconference for the Eastern region. Accordingly,Sri A.N. Jha, Secretary to the Commission, hadrequested IIMC to host a zonal conference for theCommission.

All the members of the Commission attended theConference. They were: Dr. Y. V. Reddy, FormerGovernor Reserve Bank of India, Prof Abhijit Sen,Member, Planning Commission, Ms. SushamaNath, Former Union Finance Secretary, Dr.

M.Govinda Rao, Director, National Institute forPublic Finance and Policy, New Delhi, Dr. SudiptoMundle, Former Acting Chairman, NationalStatistical Commission and Shri Ajay Narayan Jha,Secretary to the Commission.

The discussion in the workshop touched uponvarious changes in the Indian economic situationincluding fiscal norms, union-state relation,particularly in social, political and administrativespheres. On traditional grounds distribution ofresources, challenges to fiscal management andapproaches of mitigating impact of shocks, thedebt stress faced by the states and introductionof special packages for the states are some of theleading issues of concern. With respect to this,the Finance Commission wanted to focus on whatis going to happen in the next 5 years withreference to the current global environment and

the inter government relationships. Dr. Y.V. Reddystressed the need to insulate economic policiesfrom political compulsions and dealing withdiscretionary transfer in a harmonious manner.Apart from traditional reference, discussion onnon-traditional norms starting from pricing,environment, macroeconomic policies, fiscalstabilization, as well as special concerns aboutthe Eastern Zone were put forward in theConference.

Dr. Y.V. Reddy also stressed theÊefficient deliveryof services, cost effectiveness and improvementof quality of services. The panel requested in-depth studies in the aforementioned areas.

The Conference was well attended on both days,with faculty members from both IIM Calcutta andother management institutions as well as eminenteconomists and economic administrators from inthe Eastern region voicing their concerns andengaging in lively debates about the issueshighlighted by the Commission Chairman andmembers. To paraphrase Director, IIMC, thediscussion generated, “more light than heat”.

Finance Commission at IIM Calcutta

24Events

International Conference on ContemporaryDebates in Public Policy and ManagementThe Conference was organized by the PPM Groupin February 2013 with the focus on theoreticalissues in public policy and management and dealtwith issues like Politics and Policy, Public SectorReform, PPP and Law and Public PolicyRegulations. There was sectoral focus on health,education, infrastructure, urban and ruraldevelopment, microfinance, and energy andenvironment. The keynote speakers included Dr.Aivita Putnina, Executive Director of the PublicPolicy Institute, Latvia, a Faculty Member in theDepartment of Anthropology, University of Latvia,Riga; Dr. Chiranjib Sen, Former Professor of PublicPolicy, IIM Bangalore and Dr. Pulapre Balakrishnan,Director of CDS, Trivandram.

Workshop on “Inculcating RightValues in Children”The workshop conducted by Professor C.Panduranga Bhatta of IIMC, on 28.02.13 on‘Inculcating Right Values in Children’ was attendedby a group of 40 teachers of St. Xavier’s Institution,Panihati. The workshop conducted at MCHV inthe sprawling campus of the IIM Calcutta, wasindeed very enriching in its content, presentation,and significance.

The workshop emphasized the importance of amyriad of core values like honesty, non-violence,selflessness, sincerity, punctuality etc in our lives.The discussions were interactive where theparticipating teachers also got an opportunity toshare their views on topics earlier allotted to theirclassified groups.

The Fellow Programmes and Research Committeearranged a workshop on Econometrics from June7th to June 10th, 2013 at Computer Centre Labclassroom.FPR Chairperson Prof Biswatosh Sahainitiated the process with the help of Dean(Acad)Prof Anindya Sen & Prof Partha Ray. TheWorkshop was designed to train the students inquantitative research methods keeping studentsinterest and their specific needs in mind. Thedesign of the workshop and choice of topics to becovered was decided in close consultation withFP students. Over 20 FP students attended theworkshop along with two faculty members.

The faculty members who taught in the workshopwere Prof Subrata Sarkar and Prof R Krishnanfrom IGIDR, Mumbai and Prof Smarajit Bose andProf S Purkayastha from ISI Kolkata.

Both Theory and Practical Classes were conductedon the following topics:

● Regression Diagnostics: Basics

● Principal Component Analysis

● Hierarchical Regression

● Time Series Analysis

● Binary Choice Models, Probit and Logit

● Multinomial Choice Models, Ordered andSequential Models

Feedback from FP Students

“ The workshop on econometric techniques thatwas organised this weekend was a great learningexperience for us with almost no econometricsbackground. Special mention must be made ofthe way faculties approached the topics i.e. theytried to develop interest and intuition of econometricmethods and how to approach problems with data.They also gave a lot of resources and referencesto further pursue the topics for those who wantedto do the same. Prof. Purkayastha from ISI andProf. Krishnan were specially fabulous in theirapproach. Introduction to univariate cross sectionalanalysis by Prof. Purkayastha and Time seriesanalysis by Prof. Krishnan which covered areasfrom univariate time series analysis to grangercausality, co-integration and Arch/Garch analysiswith economic/financial examples were superb.”

“ The faculties have brought a number of importantissues to our notice, which we should keep in mindwhile using these tools. I should make specialmention of Prof Krishnan. He was quick tounderstand our knowledge level and customisedthe class as per our requirements. Prof

Sarkar also went out of his way to include a topic(dynamic panel data) for which he was notprepared. Yet he gave a remarkably crisp andinsightful overview of the topic. This workshop hasonly whetted our appetite and I look forward tomany more sessions like this.”

Econometrics Workshop for FP Students

25Students’ Batch Profile

Amit JainGroup – BehaviouralScienceGraduation – B Com- C.C.S.University MeerutPost Graduation – PGDM-IIM AhmedabadWork Experience 85 Months

Sushrut RisbudGroup – EconomicsGraduation – H. R. College of commerce andEconomics, University of Mumbai.Post Graduation – University of Mumbai. Departmentof Economics (Autonomous).Work Experience- As a fulltime research assistant (InUniversity of Mumbai) -13 months, as an article assistant(Under a chartered accountant) – 34 months

Kamran QuddusGroup – Finance & ControlGraduation – BSc. Economics, IIT KharagpurPost Graduation – MSc. Economics, IIT KharagpurWork Experience - 11 months

Pavni KaushivaGroup – Behavioral SciencesGraduation – B.TechWork Experience - 24 months

Soumyabrato BagchiGroup –Public Policy And ManagementGraduation –B.Sc in Anthropology (C.U)Post Graduation –M.Sc in AnthropologyWork Experience - Fresher

Bobbur Abhilash ChowdaryGroup – Finance and ControlGraduation – B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IITGandhinagarWork Experience – Fresher

Ankur MehraGroup – Finance and ControlGraduation –BBA(International Business) from LucknowUniversityPost Graduation – Master of Finance and Conrol (MFC)from Delhi UniversityWork Experience – 29 months

Subhankar MukherjeeGroup –EconomicsGraduation – Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical)Post Graduation – NA (Post Graduate Diploma inManagement for Executives from IIM Lucknow)Work Experience – 118 Months

FPM Batch Profile 2013Vinay SuhalkaGroup – BehavioralSciencesGraduation – B.A. (H.)EconomicsPost Graduation – M.A. in

Social WorkWork Experience - 4 months

Vallurupalli VamsiGroup – MISGraduation – B.TechWork Experience – 23 months

Gaurav GuptaGroup – MISGraduation – B.TechWork Experience – 30 months

Rajkamal Singh MannGroup – EconomicsGraduation – BSc Agriculture Hons.Post Graduation – MSc (Agriculture) AgronomyWork Experience – 23 months

Nivedita BhanjaGroup – MarketingGraduation – BA (Hons.), Economics (Utkal University)Post-Graduation –PGDM (Xavier Institute ofManagement, Bhubaneswar)Work Experience – 62 months

Anirban BanerjeeGroup –Finance & ControlGraduation –B.E. (Electrical Engineering), JadavpurUniversityWork Experience -40 months

Kushal SahaGroup – MISGraduation – BE (Instrumentation and Electronics),Jadavpur UniversityPost Graduation – PGDM, IIM BangaloreWork Experience (in months) – 42 months

Shromona GangulyGroup –EconomicsGraduation –Ecomomics, University of CalcuttaPost Graduation –Economics (Econometrics andFinance), University of CalcuttaWork Experience-48 months

Jasveen KaurGroup – EconomicsGraduation –B.Sc (Economics Honours), LadyBrabourne College

26Students’ Batch Profile

Post Graduation – M.A. in Economics, JadavpurUniversityWork Experience- 46 months

Adrija MajumdarGroup –MISGraduation –B.Tech in Information TechnologyWork Experience - 20 months

Ahana BoseGroup – Finance and ControlGraduation – BSc(Economics)Post Graduation – Masters in MSQE (Master of Sciencein Quantitative Economics)Work Experience – 17 months with ICICI Bank, 6months with IIMC as Research Assistant

Ansari SalamahGroup – PPMGraduation – BSC- Biochemistry, LLBPost Graduation – Master of Social Work (MSW)Work Experience- 58 months

K.V.RavishankarGroup – HRMPost Graduation – Integrated M.A. (English Studies)from IIT MadrasWork Experience - 12 months

Prabhat RanjanGroup – Operations ManagementGraduation – B Sc (Maths Hons), Magadh UniversityPost Graduation – PGDM, IIM RanchiWork Experience – 119 months

VandanaGroup – Public Policy And Management

Graduation – Bachelors In Business AdministrationPost Graduation – Masters In Social WorkWork Experience- 34 Months

Chandramohan KarthikeyanGroup – MarketingGraduation – B.Tech (Civil)Post Graduation – PGDMWork Experience – 103 months

Santanu BhadraGroup - Strategic ManagementGraduation – BE in IT from Jadavpur University in 2004Work Experience – 104 months

Khushboo AgrawalGroup – Management Information SystemGraduation – Jaypee University of Engineering andTechnology, Bachelor of TechnologyWork Experience- 21 months

Shikha KhuranaGroup – Finance and ControlGraduation – Bachelors in CommercePost Graduation – Masters in Business AdministrationWork Experience – 49 months in academics

Mithu Rani KuitiGroup – Operations ManagementGraduation – B. Sc. In Mathematics from VidyasagarUniversity.Post Graduation – M.Sc. In Mathematics fromVidyasagar University.Other – M. Tech in Operations Research from N. I. T.DurgapurWork Experience – Nil.

The overall strength of IIMCalcutta’s incoming PGPbatch of 50/20 is 462. Thisyear has seen a dynamicimprovement in thenumber of women whohave secured admission tothe coveted institute for thebatch of 2013-2015.Women constitute a totalof 109, i.e. 23.6% of the batch strength. Last year,this figure was around 40, i.e. less than 10% of theoverall batch strength for the batch of 2012-2014.While engineers continue to dominate the numbers

as always, it is notable thata total of 44 students, i.e.9.5% of the students arefrom a non-engineeringbackground such as CA,Commerce, Medical andHumanitarian studiesamongst others. Theoverseas candidates whohave secured admission

through the GMAT route account for 14-15 of theoverall strength.

The following chart sums up the distribution of work-experience among the students

PGP Batch Profile – 50/20, Class of 2013 - 2015

27Students’ Batch Profile

The students of theseventh batch ofPGPEX have beenselected through av e r y r i g o r o u sprocess fo r aprogram that wasdesigned to select

people with exceptional intellectual and leadershippotential to meet today’s globally challengingbusiness environment. PGPEX candidates comewith a rich and diverse domain experience. Theaverage work experience over the past 7 batchesis about 9 years, across various domains andfunctions. This makes classroom learning moreeffective in terms of sharing experiences andpersonal reflections through discussions. Thestrength of the 7th batch has increased to 50, withfunctional areas as varied as Oil and Gas, renewableenergy, pharmaceutical, chemical manufacturing,management consulting, investment banking, ITand IT services. The average GMAT score is 705,average experience 8 years. There are 7 femalestudents in the batch, 7 post graduates, 45 engineers,2 sciences, 3 commerce and 1 law graduate in thebatch. For the first time last year, PGPEX found arepresentation in the Students’ Union Council. Thestudents now have their own annual BusinessSymposium called Lattice. IIMC also became

member of Graduate Management AdmissionCouncil, GMAC, the owner and administrator of theGMAT® exam. IIMC has applied for InternationalAccreditation and as part of addressing the AACSBobjectives, learning objectives will be implementedin the current PGPEX curriculum right from Term 1.During this year, the recommendations of a PGPEXProgramme review committee, which was set uplast year, will be implemented after due approvalfrom the Faculty Council.

The PGPEX Batch 7 admissions cycle began from29th June 2012. This year an online applicationprocess was implemented for the PGPEX. A totalof 255 candidates were shortlisted for personali n t e r v i e w swhich wereh e l d i nCalcutta, Delhi,Mumbai andBangalore on13th and 14thOctober 2012. For the first time for admission to PGPEX videointerviews were conducted on the skype platformfor overseas applicants on 13th, 14th and 20thOctober 2012. This year the Institute introduced thedeferred admission policy keeping in mind genuineexigencies that prospective applicants may face.

PGPEX 7th Batch

The average age of the seventh batch of PGPEXVLM is 28 years with an average work experienceof 6 years approximately spanning a number ofindustries including automobiles, metal and mining,

heavy engineering, consumerdurables and health careequipment, power, etc. Sixtypercent of the candidates havean academic background inmechanical engineering andfifteen percent in electricalengineering, and the remainingtwenty-f ive percent have

backgrounds in several other branches ofengineering. The average incoming compensationof the batch stands as 7.71 Lacs per annum. Thisbatch includes three women which is a significant

PGPEX-VLM 7th Batch

Work Experience

Work Diversity

28Students’ Batch Profile

The induction programme for the batch of 50/20was initiated on Monday, 17th June 2013. Theactivities for the day included an introduction to theregistration and orientation programme, a talk bythe President of the Students’ Council and a newinitiative – a session on KYC (Know your City) byProfessor Partha Ray. The incoming batch was alsogiven a special viewing of the IIM Calcuttadocumentary by Professor Ray. Day 2 of theorientation was a combination of talks in theauditorium as well as other activities such as “Keepthe Spirit Flowing”, which were conducted in batches.Such activities gave the incoming students a flavorof B-School life and got them interacting with eachother better. The talks for the day included a brilliantsession by IIMC Alumnus, Mr. Malli Mastan Babu,the fastest 7-summiteer in the world. The topic was

“Dare to Dream Big” and Malli did full justice to thesame and encouraged the students to live theirdreams and not just follow a tried-and-tested safepath in making life’s decisions. The eveningconcluded with another talk on “India and the World”by Dr. Ajit Ranade. Day 3 of the orientation includedanother intellectual, fun and adventure activity“Lost@C” for the students. Also, there was aninteraction session for the students with the AcademicGroups and Chairpersons of CDM and SAC. Day4 of the orientation included a Film Show anchoredby Prof. Amitava Bose. It was a nice session witha lot of learning for the students and was muchappreciated by all.

The concluding session of the orientation programmewas held at auditorium on June 21 where ChiefGuest, Ms Vini Mahajan, an illustrious alum of IIMCalcutta of the 22nd batch and the PrincipalSecretary, Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of Punjabgave a mind-blowing speech to warm up the sessionfor the newcomers in a befitting manner in presenceof and with the respective talks by Director, ProfSaibal Chattopadhyay, Dean (Academic), Prof.Anindya Sen, Chairperson – Admission, Prof. SanjeetSingh, Chairperson - PGP, Prof. Subir Bhattacharyaand Chairperson – FP, Prof Biswatosh Saha, Thevote of thanks was given by President – Students’Council, Alosies George.

IIMC Induction for the PGP Batch of 50/20 & FP Students

change from theprevious years andt h e b a t c hcomprises of 37students in all.

F o r m a linauguration of this

batch was held on April 4, 2013 and was graced byHis Excellency Mitsuo Kawaguchi, Consul Generalof Japan, Kolkata, along with Mr. Shinya Ejima,Chief Representative, Japan InternationalCooperation Agency, Delhi. IIMC Director, Prof.Shekhar Chaudhuri, Director Designate, Prof. Saibal

Chattopadhyay,Dean (NIER)P r o f . A s h o kBanerjee, Dean(Academic) Prof.Anindya Sen,C h a i r p e r s o n ,PGPEX VLM,Prof. Vidyanand Jha along with Padma Shree Prof.Shoji Shiba were also present. Partner Instituteswere represented by Prof. A K Mittal and Prof.Kripashankar of IIT Kanpur while Prof. T.T. Narendranand Prof. Venkatesh of IIT Madras.

29Cultural Events

Sunday early morning, the first rays of sunshine,Indian classical music of the highest order by the

greatest performers of ourtime, a sleepless yet raptaudience of over a thousandat IIM Calcutta’s tranquilcampus. This was the settingfor the conclusion of theweeklong annual convention

of the Society for Promotion of Indian ClassicalMusic & Culture Amongst Youth (SPIC MACAY).What has traditionally been a national conventionturned into its first international one. SPIC MACAYu s e s i t s a n n u a lconvention as a meansto summarize its tirelessactivities of the year, asalso to refocus andrenew its energies forthe next one, whileencouraging the general public to come observefirst hand its practical initiatives and to participatein them. The IIM Calcutta campus was the perfecthost to complement Dr. Seth's vision of theConvention: "youth immersion in the beauty anddepth of the clasical arts that are a medium toconnect with your inner self... intensified by creatingan ashram like lifestyle."

Highlights

To expose the youth of India and the world totraditional Indian culture is part of SPIC MACAY’sVision 2020. A sampling of activities leading to thiswas on display during the week of 20-25th May,where over 1500 children from India and the world

took part in workshopsorganized by ournational treasures -artists, artisans andcraftspersons of thehighest calibre. Theyoungsters started offat 3:30am with Yoga

and meditation each morning. This was followedby Shramdaan to inculcate in our children theimportance of the social responsibility of keepingour surroundings clean.

Afternoons consisted of folk performances includingBaul by Parvathy Baul and Pandawani by TeejanBai, a screening of Bhuvan Shome by Mrinal Sen,and talks about art by Jogen Chowdhury andAnjolie Ela Menon. Successive evenings were

graced by performances by Birju Maharaj, AbdulRashid Khan, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Rajan &Sajan Mishra, T N Krishnan,Waseem Ahmed Khan, ShahidPervez Khan, KalamandalamGopi, and Ulhas Kashalkar. Theconvention concluded withovernight performances from8pm Saturday 24th to 6amSunday 25th with variousconcerts by Pt. ShivkumarSharma, Pt. Ajoy Chakraborty,Ustad Baha’ud’din Dagar, Vidwan T VShankaranarayanan, Vidwan M Venkatesh Kumarand several others. This convention also saw theforeign delegates see the cultural best our countryhas on offer. Students from Hungary, Poland,and Pakistan were among the countries representedat this traditional extravaganza.

Seeds were also sown during the convention forNaad Bhed, a national level contest for budding

Carnatic and Hindustaniclassical musicians thatwil l culminate in anationally televisedreality show to be judgedb y I n d i a ’ s b e s texponents of classical

music. Details on how to enter the contest can befound at http://spicmacay.com/news/naad-bhed.The show is set forth to provide a platform to theyoung talent attached to our roots and look forwardto keep the torch of our heritage alive. Please dofollow the activities of SPIC MACAY, which numberover 5000 events spread across India andinternationally throughout the year, always free ofcharge, at educational institutions, and uniformlyconsisting of the highest order of performers andpractitioners, all focused atcreating a cultural and spiritualplatform for the future leadersof our society, hopefully an evenwiser, more balanced andthoughtful society than today.You can help. With your time,your advice, by attending a localevent, or a national one, byinvolvement in the selflessvolunteering work done by SPIC MACAY, or indeedin any other way you can imagine, to make thebest of Indian traditions accessible to every childin this country.

SPIC MACAY’s first International Convention at IIM Calcutta

30Cultural Events

IIM Calcutta’s student-run annual culturalextravaganza, Carpe Diem 2013 officially kick-started on February 1 and scheduled till February3, 2013 had some extravagant events, which livedto its reputation. Inaugurating the event to anenthusiastic audience were the UBI Chairman andnone other than the remarkable actor SaswataChatterjee, widely known for his role as a simple-looking but lethal contract killer "Bob Biswas" inthe recent hit film, Kahaani. Saswata was greetedby a cheering mass of students and visitors alikeat the auditorium as he had them all in splits,laughing over his witty one-liners and sharppresence of mind.

Following the inauguration ceremony, the audiencewas dazzled by the geniusof sand-animation and talentof Raja Gopen Biswas, whomade scenes appear anddisappear, merged shapesand characters almosteffortlessly, traversing thehistory of Kolkata from theancient temples to the eraof the British rule, followedby seamless transitions tothe modern era and finallycampus life at IIM Calcutta

and all this finally culminated in the Carpe Diem

symbol accompanied by a thunderous round of

applause. The much-awaited play "Liar in the

Dark" was next, and as the theater bell rang,announcing the start of the play, the auditorium'smurmuring was replaced by whispers and finallypin-drop silence. The next one hour was a grippingexperience for one and all, as the live musicblended perfectly with the situations on stage andthe characters showcased their remarkable talent.Also noteworthy was the fact that over 90% of thestory took place in a darkroom and the actorsmade the scenesmemorable with theiracting of confusion andstruggle to cope with thed a r k n e s s . H i g h l ycreditable was the workdone by Rahul Gupta,who was in-charge of lights, ensuring that all thescenes had the perfect ambience to suit the story.

Later in the evening, the Violin Brothers playedsome mesmerizing music with tones of everynature galore. They went from soft and melodiousthrough somber mood to music that depictsaggression and restlessness. And finally, theevening took everyone to the next level with athought-provoking yet rib-tickling session by KumarVishwas, in his unforgettable "Hasya KaviSammelan". What started off as poetry that washumorous and light-hearted, gradually took a few

pokes at terrorism andserious business andfinally plunged into thedepth, solidarity andbrotherhood of theHindus and Muslims inIndia. Mr. Vishwas andh i s l y r i c s w e r ereceived with severalstanding ovations andthe students sangalong patriotic poetry.I t was the bes t

possible way to end the first day of Carpe Diem,

and the session left everyone with several laughs

and hard-hitting thoughts at the back of their minds.

Carpe Diem 2013

31Miscellaneous

IIM Calcutta has startedits journey in incubationwith the signing ofagreements with foursocial entrepreneurs.These social enterpriseshave been chosen by at e a m o f e x p e r t s ,

comprising of faculty members, venture capitalists,entrepreneurs and alumni. Incidentally, theseventures had qualified in the final rounds of the TataSocial Enterprise Challenge which was held jointlywith IIM Calcutta in February, 2013. They are Doctorsfor You, SwitchON-ONergy, Utopia and Edwell

S o l u t i o n s .Doctors ForYo u i s aSAARC awardw i n n i n ghumanitarianNGO in thehealth-care sector, while SwitchON-ONergy is ahybrid social enterprise start-up creating anecosystem for the uptake of complete energysolutions to rural India. Edwell Solutions is a networkof tuition centers spread across small towns andvillages in Uttarakhand.

IIM Calcutta launches Incubation centre

Both in terms of numbers and variety of activities,2012 was a year of growth and expansion at INCA.

We had a record number of 140 students takingpart in 31 projects for 19 organizations. An interestingaddition to our list of projects was three projectsdone for Government of West Bengal. The projectsranged from rural power systems to eco tourismones. Two projects related to helping an organizationIshwar Sankalp which works with homeless mentallyill people, one of the most marginalized sections ofthe contemporary society. There was a healthy mixof organizations from rural and urban domains.

This year was also big in terms of events organized

by INCA. Apart from the many lectures related tosocial sector organized on campus, a number ofspecial events were organized. A marathon wasorganized as a part of the Joy of Giving Week.Collection of old clothes, books, stationary etc. wasdone for the NGO Goonj. With EntrepreneurshipCell, INCA organized the event Tata Social EnterpriseChallenge. A blood donation camp was alsoorganized by INCA. Stalls were put up in othercampus events to sell merchandise related to NGOslike CRY. Another highlight was a thanksgiving dinnerfor all the hotel and casual staff working on thecampus.

Annual Report: INCA

The Limca Book of Records has recognizedthe 50 hour marathon conducted by thestudents of IIM Calcutta during its GoldenJubilee Celebrations as a National Record.Deciding not to be left behind, the studentsof the 47/17th and 48/18th batch took it uponthemselves to contribute to the celebrationsby organizing a 50 hour marathon of IIMCalcutta's very own, footer. From 10:00 PMAugust 12, 2011 to 12:00 midnight August

14, 2011 students engaged in over150 games of footer over the 50hour period. Over 200 studentsparticipated in the marathon whichwas conducted inside the campuspremises. Recognizing this event,the Limca Book of Records hasadjudged the 50-hour FooterMarathon as a National Record2013.

IIM Calcutta features in Limca Book of Records

32Miscellaneous

Librarians’ Day Celebrated

Annual Social held on May 10In the presence of Professor Saibal Chattopadhyay,the Director of IIM Calcutta and Chief Guest of thefunction, IIMCEU organised the Annual Social onMay 10 at the institute’s auditorium. The occasionsaw the felicitation of IIMC employees’ wards havingpassed Madhyamik and Higher Secondaryexaminitaion last year, followeed by a brief butencouraghing speech by the chief guest. The functionconcluded with a mind-blowing performance byleading Bengali band, Bhoomi and an entertainingsession of Indrajal by G & S Kumar Mukherjee.

Manav Seva AwardThe VivekanandSports Academya w a r d e d t h eM a n a v S e v aA w a r d 2 0 1 3t o S h r iS h y a m a l e n d uDas , a s ta f f

member of the Institute, for his dedicated contributiontowards the underprivileged children.

MANLIBNET 2012Shri Biswajit Saha, Sr Asstt Librarian, presented a paper and acted as resource person in MANLIBNET2012 International Conference on Creating Wisdom and Knowledge through Shared Learning: Role ofLibrarians and Information Managers, held at IIM Indore, during Oct.11-13, 2012.

One-day Hindi Workshop heldA one day Hindi Workshop was inaugurated by our Director, Prof. Saibal Chattopadhyay on 13.05.2013in CAM centre. Sri Ramnarayan Saroj, Dy. Director and Sri Anupkumar, Assitant Director (Technical), HindiTeaching Scheme, ER, Kolkata had graced the occasion.

Our staff were trained by the guest faculty in Hindi Noting and Drafting and downloading and activatingUnicode fonts (Hindi / Bengali and other Indian languages).

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT CALCUTTAJoka, Diamond Harbour Road, Kolkata 700104,

Phone: 91-33-2467 8300 – 8304, Email: newsletter@iimcal.ac.in

Reporting/Editing support from: Jay Puranik, Siddharth Malhotra, PGP Students

Newsletter Editorial Team:Professor Anindya Sen, Dean (Academic) and Aloke Guin, Public Relations Officer

In order to pay homage toDr S R Ranganathan, theFather of Library Sciencein India, B C Roy MemorialLibrary of Indian Instituteof Management Calcuttaorganized Librarians’ Day

on August 12, 2012 at IIMC Auditorium in associationwith Indian Association of Special Libraries andInformation Centre (IASLIC), Bengal LibraryAssociation (BLA) and Raja Rammohun Roy LibraryFoundation (RRRLF). The theme of the panel

discussion was “Modernization of Libraries throughOpen Source Software”. Dr. Barun Mukherjee, MPRajya Sabha; Prof. Shekhar Chaudhuri, Director,IIMC; Dr. K.K. Banerjee, Director General RRRLF;Dr. Kallol Mukherjee, Director, Directorate of LibraryServices, West Bengal and Prof. SiddharthaMajumder, Chairman, West Bengal College ServiceCommission, were present. More than 600 Libraryprofessionals participated in this event. Ms. SwatiBhattacharyya, Librarian, IIM Calcutta delivered aspeech on “Modernization of Libraries through OpenSource Software”.