When I was a student at IIM-Calcutta in the early ’90s, we often had to deal with unfavourable comparisons to IIM-Ahmedabad. IIM-A had the higher reputation, its students got more prestigious placements, the faculty was more esteemed, being in Western India allowed for closer interaction with industry than the corporate desert of the East and their case study method was widely regarded as being superior to our lectures. Even their campus buildings were better designed than IIM-C’s concrete blocks at Joka, at the very end of the tramlines from the city.

To all of which allegations the appropriate response was to roll one’s eyes, shrug one’s shoulders, take a deeper drag on your cigarette (or whatever else you were smoking) and say, while making an all-encompassing gesture with one hand: “yeeeessss, but they don’t have all this….” By ‘this’ was meant the green and lovely campus, around which at that time there were still rice fields over which you could watch the mist rolling. The main campus buildings were surrounded by lakes which gave them a calm and pleasing air, compensating for their indifferent design.

‘This’ was Calcutta, as it was then, which we were just far away from to be spared the worst chaos (the campus also had its own generators, so we didn’t suffer blackouts), but to which we could easily go for the best sweets in the world and the most fun quizzing – who cared if the city had hardly any large corporate other than ITC. If we couldn’t interact with companies in the way one could in Mumbai and Ahmedabad, well the rest of one’s careers would be spent in companies, so one might as well enjoy campus life for now.

‘This’ was our faculty who, while admittedly sometimes odd for a management institute (all the economics staff were rumoured to be Marxists, except for one, who was a Maoist), also tended to be on friendly terms with students. They were, after all, as isolated as we were, so interaction was easy, and they seemed to be split between mellow older professors, who were happy taking tutorials over chai and cigarettes at the canteen, and much younger ones, usually there to do their own academic research rather than teach, who weren’t much older than most of the students, so again could get on with them well.

‘This’ was our computer facilities, which were probably unmatched for any educational institute in eastern India at that time. ‘This’ was the outstanding library, which had books in all sorts of academic areas, not just management, so you could pursue interests in history or sociology or psychology. ‘This’ was the hostels, which while hardly palaces of comfort, were admirably unsupervised, so there was nothing stopping any of the girls moving in with the boyfriends. ‘This’, above all, was the student body which, while certainly containing many swots and over-achievers, refused to let itself be defined by them. Other management institutes might resemble the insanely stressed and competitive places pictured in books with titles like Snapshots from Hell, but not, it was made clear, IIM-C.

This doesn’t mean it was a slackers’ school, though undoubtedly some liked that idea. The fact is that at the end of the two years we knew there was an excellent job waiting for us, and at placement time, people went nuts in the usual way. But you did have the choice during those two years of taking time to do things that interested you, form relationships, take Organisational Behaviour courses where you could reflect on your own life – some students could get alarmingly confessional – play bridge and drink a lot of rum (a lot of IIM-A’s advantages were neatly negated by its location in a prohibition state). It was an ideal balance: two years of unsupervised student life, to discover yourself as an adult, with the restraining effect of a good job at the end to stop you going off the rails.

In the way of alumni, one always imagines things have gone down since you left, and I had heard of changes at IIM-C (not least to the name, with the C now a K, confusingly shared with another IIM in Kozhikode, so I’m sticking to C). And the city has crept up to it now, swallowing those rice fields and negating some of the advantages of its campus. Yet it came as a pleasant surprise to read, in this IMRB survey, that in an essential way things don’t seem to have changed. Because in the section where students have been asked to score their institute, IIM-C easily tops – the only institute to cross 90 points, while IIM-A at 85 ties for third with MDI Gurgaon, after NITIE at 87.

The first of its kind two-day conference in the country will discuss various issues and challenges of emerging and developing economies like India and China at the IIM-C’s campus in January 2013.

Prof Ashok Banerjee, Dean (External Relations) of the institute told PTI that the project would be funded by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development which had requested them to take the lead in organising an international-level management conference.

All the other 12 IIMs are also taking part in organising the conference, “which will do for IIMs and Indian management schools what the Literature Festival at Jaipur has done for Indian writing,” said the institute’s chairman of Board of Governors, Ajit Balakrishnan.
Situated at Joka, on the outskirts of Kolkata, IIM-C is ranked as one of the top ten B-schools of the country.

The list of the speakers are yet to be finalised,  Banerjee said adding a large number of people, including 3-4 Nobel laureates and other dignitaries, are expected to participate in the conference.

“We are inviting people from varied backgrounds for this conference. The issues of emerging and developing economics like India, China and Brazil will be discussed. Our issues are similar but the standard and conventional management practises may not apply here,” he said.

Experts will re-look at the market model, issues, challenges, the way we are tackling it, and the solutions which can improve the lives of the people in the emerging economies, he added.

http://zeenews.india.com/news/west-bengal/nobel-winners-to-attend-iim-s-global-conference_768329.html

Kapil Sibal, minister of HRD, Communication & IT was the chief guest. The ceremony was also graced by the presence of Ajit Balakrishnan, CEO of Rediff.com and chairman of IIM Calcutta’s Board of Governors. Professor Shekhar Chaudhuri, director of IIMC, spoke on the Annual Report of the institute for the year 2011-2012.

Ten students received Fellowships while Diplomas were awarded to successful PGP students, which include 298 in PGDM and 52 in PGDCM. The successful ten Fellowship students were Vivek Rajvanshi and Titas Rudra of Finance & Control group, Soumyajit Kumar of Operations Management group, Soumya Sarkar and Vikas Goyal of Marketing group, Ram Babu Roy of MIS group, Apalak Khatua and Anshuman Tripathy of Behavioural Science group, Indrajit Mukherjee of Strategic Management group and Roohi Gupta of Sociology.

“The country is in need of leaders. We have an incredible dearth of leadership in polity, governance and major financial institutions,” said Sibal, addressing the 2012-graduating batch of IIM-C.

“The Ministry of Human Resources has requested IIM-C to take the lead in organising a world management conference,” said Balakrishnan. He added, “To be held later this year or early next year at the institute’s campus; this conference will do for IIMs and Indian management schools what the Literature Festival at Jaipur has done for Indian writing.”

Chaudhuri said they were in the process of collaborating with some top-ranking institutions such as US-based Fox School of Business of Temple University and Heinz School of Carnegie Mellon University.

“We have also started dialogues with some of our existing partners to explore opportunities for expanding our relationships from student exchange to include faculty exchange, joint research, joint conferences/workshops and other collaborative efforts,” shared Chaudhuri.

Ranked as one of the top ten B-schools of the country, IIM-C has partnerships with 48 leading B-Schools of the world with whom they conduct regular student exchange programmes.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-04-11/news/31324155_1_iim-c-iim-calcutta-s-board-ajit-balakrishnan

“Kahan jaa rahe ho?”
“France.” “Kyun?” A beaming me replied, “Student Exchange Programme!”

As I entered the orientation hall, I was overwhelmed by the cultural diversity of Continental Europe. While I observed the contrast between the French a la mode fashion and the traditional German lederhosen, I also appreciated the common elements that bind them together. The warm greetings, along with the appetizing delicacies prepared with the expertise of many a chef-year, made me feel that everything was impeccably carved in my welcome. My mind jolted back into reality when I saw a fellow IIM student, very unlike himself, talk to a European guy with a slight droop in the shoulders, in an overtly polite tone. This observation led to some serious self-questioning – does that droop stand for respect for other cultures or is it just  ”Age old sunk inferiority”? The feeling resurfaced a few weeks later when two beautiful Austrian ladies tiptoed into a party and my excited friend
jumped forward to greet them, “How come you are late? I thought it was an ‘Indian thing’!”
I kept pondering over these instances and many more, each buttressed the other causing uneasiness. I was perturbed not because I felt that I belong to an inferior race but because I could not validate this form of over-fascination with  the west, especially in the crème de la crème of the country.

My conviction was reinstated by two particular incidents.

Enjoying a luncheon at an Italian restaurant in Rome, I happened to have an interesting conversation with the manager who said, “You Indians, very lucky. You have jobs and opportunities. Here, no jobs, everything so expensive. Even a public toilet costs a euro and a half.” He further added, “India, China, both progressing but Chinese – work, work, work and Indians – brain and work!”

The other time was when a friend from IIM was printing his CV at the library. His good-humoured Finance professor, waiting at the printer, said at a single glance of that one-pager, “Impressive! My young friend, it‟ll be pretty easy for you to hit it off on a Saturday night.”

Having so much in our armoury, do we really need to over-dignify other races? When your childhood friend calls do you ever say “Hi, I am hanging out with a Pakistani, Nigerian or Indonesian friend.”? But many of us would consciously mention “Hi, I am hanging out with a Dutch, Spanish or Austrian friend.” Undoubtedly, one of the main motives of exchange is to meet people from a spate of different cultures. But befriending them is one thing and putting them on a pedestal, another! Needless to say, all of us must have experienced this at a conscious or subconscious level. The dream is to uproot such inferiority complex induced by a mental connect between the power wielded by the British with the western life and culture. To make this dream go further the only resort is a conscious effort to project Indian culture with the caution of disgrace and the prudence of a nationalist. In that tête-à-tête with outlanders, why make the reverence visible, knowing its unjustified? Why not derive strength from the awareness of our own cultural heritage and brand India in positive light? For this levelheadedness to sink into every Indian, the mission needs to be bolstered by the smartest 500 odd who visit the foreign land every year from the most elite B-schools in the country. We, the flag-bearers of our nation‟s educated class, need to break-free these cultural shackles and be completely uninhibited in self-tuning ourselves to believe in the superiority of our own state because ultimately we will have to ham it up to awaken the youth of the entire nation.

This past year, our 50^th, was a banner year for IIM Calcutta. Our PGP class was placed in 4 days flat, in the All India Management Association survey we were ranked as No 1 among management schools and we added a quarter- million square feet to our class-rooms and hostel infrastructure.

But, while all that is gratifying, the real measure of an academic institution lies in the extent it contributes to thought leadership. I want to share with you today how we have fared in that area.

The journey of an intellectual idea often starts as a working paper or a case, evolves into a journal article then as a conference presentation, finally as  a book chapter or even  a book. In a vibrant thought leadership system each leg of this journey is important. During this past year our faculty produced nearly a hundred research papers. These were published as working papers, cases, or presented as conference papers, as articles in peer reviewed journals,  or as  book chapters.

You will find the full list of papers published by IIM Calcutta faculty in the folder that is with you (download the list here)  but please allow me to whet your appetite by summarizing a few of these . I freely admit that the ones I have chosen to summarize are an idiosyncratic choice.

Let me start with a paper that deals with an issue that is  life and death for modern businesses- the  Supply Chain challenge.  How  do you as a business respond fast enough to the sudden increase or decrease in customer demand that is a feature of modern business life. If you respond too slowly you pay for the lost sales opportunity, if you respond too fast you may end up with excess inventory. Prof Rahul Roy of our MIS Group has mathematically modelled a Supply Chain as a management game for use as a teaching tool. The originality of this paper lies in the fact  he has done this for items of inventory that are perishable. . His paper, The Cake Game- comprehending perishability, was written together with a person from JDA, the leading supply chain platform provider which makes it doubly interesting. It was presented at the 15th Annual International Conference of the Society of Operations Management.

The  second  paper that I want to draw your attention to  deals with a topic that dominates media headlines in India, the battle over telecom spectrum. Little thought has gone into the true underlying cause of this- the narrow definition of a slice of spectrum as being  ”owned” by each operator leaving some portions of spectrum idle and other portions hotly contested and every allocation decision being greeted by accusations of corruption.  Professor Debasis Saha  of our MIS group and Sadukhan of our Computer Centre  have a paper that may bring some rationality to this world of smoke and mirrors. They  devised  an algorithm that dynamically allocates a common pool of spectrum using concepts from game theory. What is gratifying for me is that their paper, A Meta-heuristic based Fair Dynamic Spectrum Allocation Policy is written jointly with executives  from BSNL and Wipro and scholars from  Jadavpur University. Such cross-sector creative work is very exciting. It was presented at the IEEE 5th International Conference on Advanced Networks and Telecommunication Systems in December 2011.

The third paper that I’d like to draw your attention  to today  tackles the paradox of giant glitzy shopping malls in which  our citizens window shop but only occasionally make a purchase.  This phenomena  has led  this year to a crisis in the organized retail industry. Prof Rohit Varman paper could possibly explain why this happens. He it says that t for Indians, shopping  malls are much more than places to efficiently buy things; they are, his words,  ”spectacles of Western-ness and…symbols of progress and development….a masquerade through which young consumers attempt to transform themselves and to disguise or temporarily transcend their Third World realities”. His paper, Consuming Postcolonial Shopping Malls, was published in the  international Journal of Marketing Management in February 2012.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers in New York and the cascading global financial crisis brought home the inter-connectedness of the world financial system. The  worlds’ financial markets seem to be part of a giant international social network where a problem in one centre cascades into a world-wide financial crisis.  Ram Roy a Fellowship  student  and Prof Utttam Sarkar used the mathematical techniques normally used in modelling social networks to  to determine which international stock indices matter. Their paper      was presented at the 2nd International Conference on Ambient Systems, Networks and Technologies, in Ontario, Canada, September 2011.

We all appreciate in a general way that news events can make stock market prices respond in a volatile manner and many researchers have attempted to mathematically model these fluctuations. Prof Ashok Banerjee of our Finance and Control Group used high frequency firm-specific news as proxy for information flow and mathematically modelled the impact of news on volatility of stock returns in his paper, “Impact of information arrival on volatility of intraday stock returns”.   This paper is an early example of work from our Finance Lab, which as many of you know was singled out for mention by the Finance Minister in last year’s Union Budget with a grant of Rs 20 crores. The other aspect is that this work was done in collaboration with students at IIT Khargpur and people at The Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Optimisation Modelling, Brunel University, UK. Such inter-institutional collaborative work force-multiplies the quality and impact of academic research.

At this point I’d like to pause and demonstrate to you that IIM Calcutta faculty are not  entirely preoccupied with esoteric mathematical models.  Professors Bhaskar Chakrabarti and Raghabendra Chattapadhyay paper focuses on the high stakes endeavour of improving the management of our panchayats. Their study of what management systems work achieving  co-ordination between panchayats and the line departments of government should be of interest to government administrators. This paper was published in The Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, Nov 2011.

In another policy oriented paper , Professor Sudip Chaudhr looks at the impact  of India switching from a process patent regime to a product patent regime in pharmaceuticals.  You will recall that our Product Patent regime,  that we had adopted in 1970 what what had given birth to the a large and vibrant pharma industry in India and also made drugs in India available at some of the cheapest prices in the world. Prof Sudip Chaudhri’s study  points out that the switch back to the product patent regime  has made  large Indian pharmaceutical companies, who are the major R&D spenders in the country,  focus on the larger and the more lucrative markets of the developed world. His work appears as a chapter,   The Pharmaceutical Industry in India after TRIPS in the forthcoming book  The New political Economy of Pharmaceuticals in the Global South  by Palgrave Macmillan.

Many of our faculty members had engaged with the challenges and dilemmas of economic growth. Prof Mritiunjoy Mohanty examines why high rates of per capita income growth co-exists in India with rising unemployment as well as democratic contestation ( presented at the University of Massachusetts Amherst  May, 2011) ; Prof Amitava Bose examines the inflation- growth relationship in India  in one paper and  the reasons for intersectoral  disparities in growth in another;  Prof Manisha Chakrabarty examines what policies will enhance individuals’ capability to succeed in the labor market and improve their earnings;  Sasanka Chanda and Prof Sougata Ray examine whether developmental programs, microcredit and Gandhian innovation  can be pillars of a bottom of pyramid strategy, Nimruji Jammulamadaka examines the adhocism in microfinance policy formulation and in another paper the conflict between tribals and mining interests in Orissa; Bhaskar Chakrabarti studies the contested identity of Junglemahal Maoists; Suman Nath and Bhaskar Chakrabarti provide a fascinating account of the Political Economy of Potato Cold Storages in West Bengal; Annapurna Shaw studies the differential effect of the repeal in 1999 of the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act and published her paper in the Journal of Eurasian Geography and Economics,

As you know, we have a giant software services industry but not enough academic work on management issues in that industry. This past year saw  a number of studies across different faculty groups at IIM Calcutta  on this topic: what makes for optimal outsourcing contracts (Preetam Basu), what determines user involvement in software projects  and another paper on the use of  simulation to judge software requirements volatility ( both by Rahul Roy), what makes for Agile software companies ( Subir Bhattacharya), HR practices that possess option value in software companies (Prodip Seth); Explaining Sophistication in Collaborative Technology Use (Sanjiv Vaidya and Priya Seetharaman),

Our  Finance and Control  contributed a number of papers: three papers from Prof Rama Seth: the first on what  determines bank risk exposure, the second on how Central Bank Target Rates  affect Term Structure of Interest Rates and the third on foreign bank’s lending behaviour during recessions. There are also papers on how earnings management affects  corporate governance ( Manju Jaiswal), , the use of  neural networks to forecast one day stock volatility ( BB Chakrabarty), using the real options method for investment decisions in the oil industry ( Ashok Banerjee) and a paper on how to price  telecom infrastructure in a monopolistic market ( Ashok Banerjee)

The papers that I have recounted so far are just a few examples  of the good work being done here at IIM Calcutta during this past year; please dip into the folder before you for the full list of nearly a hundred papers. .

There is another aspect of our work at IIMC we are proud o and that relates  to scholarly  conferences that we host. The India Finance Conference  in December, 2011,  done jointly with IIM Bangalore,  the 15th Annual International Conference of the Society of Operations Management, in December , 2011and the conference on  Management Education for A Sustainable Tomorrow, November, 2011 are some examples.

These conferences attract scholars from the leading management schools from around the world and we are justifiably proud of that.

But even more importantly these conferences provide a platform to stimulate scholarly work in the 3000+ management schools we have in India.. As I remarked last year, when our nation’s leaders founded IIM Calcutta 50 years ago India was a very poor country that had problems in even feeding its population.  Through those difficult early years government funded us in the hope that such public investments would trigger a qualitative change in the whole of management education in this country. Thus, I am glad that through our conferences we were able to trigger research papers from institutions as  diverse  as, Ramjas College, Delhi University, the  Institute for Financial Management and Research Chennai, , the  Institute of Information Management & Technology, Aligarh, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, J&K, and even the North‐Eastern Hill University, Shillong, to name a few of the many dozens who have benefited. We take seriously our responsibility to help bring all these institutions to a world class level.

Finally, I am glad to report that the Ministry of Human Resources, Government of India, has requested IIM Calcutta to take the lead on organizing a world management conference. This conference, planned for later this year  will hopefully do  for IIMs and Indian management schools what the Literature Festival at Jaipur has done for Indian writing- put it on the  map of must attend conferences in the world  . We are grateful for being given this opportunity and are hard at work on it.  I also hope that we will see many of you at that important event.

Thank you

IIM Calcutta’s final placement process for the batch of 2010-2012, kicked off on 20^th February 2012 and concluded by 23^rd February 2012. The process was conducted in slots, with each slot lasting two days. Slot-0 took place on the 20^th and 21^st of February and Slot-1 on the 22^nd and 23^rd of February 2012. The process concluded by the end of slot 1, with all of the 352 students who sat for the placement process receiving job offers by the end of the fourth day. Also, the lateral placement process began in the first week of January and continued till the third week of February.

Sector-wise Information

Even in these tough economic conditions, IIM Calcutta re-affirms its status as the “Finance Campus” of the country with Finance contributing the largest number of offers (28.53%). Also, Consulting companies made a significant portion of the pie with 26.80% of the offers. This was closely followed by Sales and Marketing (22.48%) and General Management (8.93%).

To give a sense of the offers made to the students at IIM Calcutta, the Slot 0 finance firms’ compensation generally comprised of a fixed component ranging from INR 30-40 Lakhs for Indian locations and INR 40-60 Lakhs for foreign locations; and a bonus component ranging from 100% to 200%. Slot 0 consulting firms offered around INR 20-25 Lakhs as base package plus bonus component for Indian locations. Slot 0 marketing companies offered in the range INR 15-20 Lakhs for Indian locations. Students at IIM Calcutta were also recruited for senior positions directly owing to relevant prior work experience and are offered commensurate packages.

Lateral Placements

The lateral placement process is for students with considerable work-experience, where candidates are offered roles depending upon the nature and duration of their work-ex. During the laterals process, candidates are allowed to negotiate the nature of their roles and their packages with the firm, as opposed to final placements where firms hire for specific positions. In this way, the laterals process allows candidates to design their own roles and responsibilities, and ensures a perfect fit between the candidate and the job.

This year, the laterals process began in the first week of January and continued till the third week of February. The minimum amount of work-ex required to be eligible for the laterals process was set at 10 months and 208 out of the 352-strong batch were eligible for the process. More than 55 firms visited the campus during the laterals process and 130 offers were made at the end of the laterals process. Regular recruiters like Accenture Management Consulting, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Shell among others made offers across diverse profiles. The highlight of the Lateral Placements was participation from 15 new recruiters, including a Sovereign Wealth Fund which recruited exclusively from IIM Calcutta.

Infosys made 5 international offers (US and London offices) for its Global Sales team. Microsoft has made the largest number of offers to candidates at IIM-C. The company recruited nine people, across three different profiles- Microsoft IT, India Development Centre (IDC) and Microsoft Finance.

Internet and e-commerce companies like Snapdeal, Zynga, Jabong, Flipkart and Amazon have also recruited candidates in large numbers. General Management roles were offered by corporate houses such as Aditya Birla Group, Hinduja, Adani Group, Punj Lloyd, Bosch, and Ericsson among others for their leadership roles. Offers were made in the consulting domain by firms such as Deloitte, Accenture, Capgemini, CTS, PwC, and BMGI among others which recruited students for senior positions such as Consultant/Senior Consultant.

Google offered diverse profiles like industry manager, account manager and account strategist at IIM-C this year. Amazon offered 10 profiles at IIM-C, which includes job profiles such as business development manager, operations manager, Pathways and BOLD programmes.

Apart from this, some of the most unique roles were offered to the students of IIM Calcutta. One of the students would be joining as the Head of India Retail Operations for a luxury apparel brand. Another student would be joining as the Assistant Vice President of Sales with Genpact.

The laterals process this year at IIM Calcutta was extremely successful and enabled us to start the final placement process with 130 laterals offers and 95 PPOs, which amounted to a total of 225 offers already in hand.

Final Placements

IIM Calcutta had already received 95 pre-placement offers which the students had received due to their performance during their summer internships. This, along with 130 lateral offers, gave a big cushion before going into the final placements.

Although the final placements were set to happen over five days (February 20 to February 23), the entire batch got placed by 4th day evening in an unprecedented development. The diversity of roles at offer this year is a unique feature of the placement process at IIM Calcutta. Given the wide array of choices, students could pick the exact roles they were interested in, thus moving out of the process with the ideal jobs in hand. This, we consider to be the most important aspect of this year’s placement process, and our greatest success.

Despite the slowdown in the finance sector, IIM Calcutta maintained its position as the finance campus of the country. Offers were made across the major financial hubs of the world including New York, Zurich, Hong Kong, London, and Singapore among others.

Students had already received PPOs from firms like UBS, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC Global Markets, Rothschild, Credit Suisse, and Nomura among others. Also, PPOs were given by Private Equity firms like Jacob Ballas and Clearwater Capital.

Zurich Financial Services, a major financial services group, recruited exclusively from IIM Calcutta (first time from any B-school in Asia) for its Zurich and New York offices. Bank of America Merrill Lynch hired exclusively for an international finance profile based out of Hong Kong. Capital One made an international offer for its Dallas (Texas) office.

Other major recruiters in the finance domain included Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. Among Indian investment banks, Edelweiss recruited from IIM Calcutta for its trading role. Banks like Development Bank of Singapore, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Yes Bank recruited for their corporate banking and treasury divisions. Diverse roles were offered in the finance domain by companies like Ocwen Financial Corporation, JM Financial, RBI, CRISIL, UAE Exchange, American Express and IFMR Capital.

In line with expectations, all the major consulting companies were on campus recruiting in big numbers. BCG, McKinsey, Bain, A.T. Kearney, Accenture among others made significant number of offers at IIM Calcutta. IBM Consulting participated in the final placements for the first time. Other recruiters in this sector included Opera Solutions and KPMG.

The sales and marketing sector saw participation from all the major sectors like FMCG, Media, Telecom, Pharmaceuticals among others. All the major recruiters in the FMCG domain like P&G, HUL, ITC, Kraft Cadbury, Nestle, Johnson & Johnson CP among others recruited in big numbers. ITC alone made 6 offers for sales and marketing roles. Renowned media houses like HT Media and Times Group recruited students for their Sales & Marketing divisions. Telecom companies like Airtel and Vodafone recruited in big numbers. Students opted for sales and marketing roles in pharmaceutical companies like Biocon, GSK Pharma and Novartis as well. Lenovo recruited for the first time from IIM Calcutta for its sales and marketing profile.

Coveted roles in general management firms like TAS, Cairn, Mahindra and Mahindra were offered to students of IIM Calcutta. Ingersoll Rand, a first-time recruiter at IIM C, offered a unique opportunity in their Entrepreneur Creation Program which aims at grooming Entrepreneurs who will become channel partners of Ingersoll Rand.

IIM Calcutta also provided opportunities to its students in unique sectors such as Internet, e-commerce, gaming among others. Microsoft recruited for its Redmond head office exclusively from IIM Calcutta. Plinga, a German gaming company, recruited exclusively from IIM Calcutta for its Berlin office. Also, e-commerce companies such as Amazon, Flipkart, Naaptol, and Smile Group recruited in large numbers from IIM Calcutta.

Batch Profile

The batch of 2012 comprised of 34% freshers and 66% students with prior work-experience. Among them, 15 % of the students had work-experience of more than 36 months.

Conclusion

By placing one of the largest batches of the IIMs in less than 4 days, we have reaffirmed the faith of our recruiters-cum-partners in our process. Be it the worst of times or the best of times, IIM Calcutta has always been the preferred destination for recruiters. This we establish by producing the best placement figures across the country for the fourth consecutive year.

 PDF version of the report can be downloaded here

Written by Vaishakh Venugopal Nair

Click here to download a copy of Inquest March ’12 Edition

Eleven years ago, I thought that I had seen the inside of a classroom for the last time; that there were no more exams to be answered. And here I was – driving into the gates of a campus renowned as the “finance campus of the country” – woefully ill-equipped. April is undoubtedly the most boring month in “Joka Management” (as the taxi drivers call it) when the vast majority of its residents have left it in search of their future calling. It is at this time that we came into the institute with just the professors and a few students for company – and, how can I forget, a large pile of books. Books that you wished you had read rather than kept as a showpiece on the table – reinforced after surprise quizzes, complex assignments or even more complex examinations. Imagine your feelings when the multiple choice question paper in front of you has 8 options for each question or when the “Information Technology” paper has a Discounted Cash Flow problem.

I look back and try to find things that I would miss once I leave this place. A stream of thoughts comes through in seemingly random fashion. I’ll miss riding a cycle through the “Howrah Bridge” in a valiant effort to reach class on time. What about reaching class “just in time” – though the wall clock in the classroom says otherwise – to stares from the professors? How can the nightly “chai” sessions with the heated discussions and animated leg-pulling be replaced? The same goes for sleeping at unearthly hours and waking up at times that you are even ashamed of telling anybody. And should I even mention about religiously following the local tradition of an afternoon siesta whenever classes permit? Well, I’m just getting started.

Another thing that I will remember Joka is for the environment that it gave me with which I finally got the urge to start writing. It is ironical that I started writing when the pressure on me was even greater than what it was in the corporate life and time at hand was even lesser than what I had earlier. This blew away the theory that it was lack of time that prevented me from writing. Starting out with posts on our group blog, joining Persona and Jokatimes, seeing my work in print and then moving on to short stories – there is something in the air here that gives an impetus to creativity. Hopefully, the desire to write continues after I leave the campus too.

I continue flipping back the thoughts of the past year. How can I forget the very first haircut I had at the “saloon” outside the campus? After all, it led to a nickname that stuck through the year so much so that the nickname is more popular than the name itself -and to a much more expensive hair cut at Jawed Habib’s the next time around (but to no avail – the nickname stuck). Can I even describe the feeling of cycling halfway around the campus with friends in tow and having parathas and coffee (and playing a couple of games of table tennis while the parathas are being made) well past the midnight hour?

And the flashbacks keep coming. Organizing the first ever cricket match of the PGPEX team with the faculty (well, the result was not memorable but I console myself with the lofty Olympic goals of “participation counts”); listening to Indian Ocean live (recording Kandisa and half crashing my poor mobile phone); being a part of the Golden Jubilee batch (never before and never after); partying all night at the Fresher’s Party (and ouch, getting up the morning after); playing badminton – albeit not so well (and almost ending up with a broken wrist).

Memories of birthdays celebrated together with awesome preludes written by our Messi; a Diwali where most of the rockets travelled horizontally than vertically; a Holi that related in a “vastraharan” that would put Duhshasana to shame – What a difference a year makes! People who were total strangers a year back are now best of buddies – bonds strengthened through the good and bad times shared together. And as I wind this down, I can’t help but think that while the story is mine, the state of mind would be something that each of us passing out from here share.

63 professors, 47 courses, 44 students, 7 terms, 1 year.  PGPEX Class of 2012 – What a year this has been! We might not realize it, but there is a little bit of Joka that we take with us wherever we go next.

Growing up in Pune and among a friend circle that supported – no, idolized – one person, openly supporting another Indian cricketer was as close as it could get to blasphemy. And yet, going against the established convention, I cheered for Rahul. Perhaps, it was because he was always so modest and humble. Or, was it because of his textbook technique and that graceful batting? It could also be for the intensity he brought to the crease with every ball being a battle that needed to be won. In addition to these, I think it is the fact that he has overachieved that has led me to cheer for him. Unlike his other illustrious peers like Sachin, Sourav and Laxman – Rahul has not been blessed with that great talent. It has been sheer hard work and an incredible work ethic that has seen him through this journey.

Today, he will step into his 344th match – no mean feat for a person who nobody thought could play limited over cricket. 10820 runs have come from his bat – the 7th highest in the history of ODIs. 94 innings of those have yielded 50+ runs. Add to that a 196 catches and 14 stumpings and you have one of the truly laudable careers – by any standards. Always the bridesmaid – never the bride. In most of his epic ODI innings, he has always been overshadowed by one of his teammates. However, the team man that he is, he does not let it affect him. Few would realize that in the history of ODIs till date, there have only been 2 partnerships that have crossed 300 runs – and Rahul was a party to both those partnerships.

And, these are just cold, impersonal numbers which don’t fully reflect the contributions made by Rahul to the Indian ODI team. When the team did not have a bowling all-rounder and was struggling to balance the squad, Rahul stepped up and donned the wicket-keeping gloves – thereby allowing the team to play an extra batsman. At times, when the team lacked a person to finish an innings by batting with the tail and maximizing the slog overs, the team again turned to Rahul and he did not disappoint – he scored the second fastest 50 by an India in 22 balls. At times, I feel that his willingness to sacrifice for the team’s cause has many a times been taken advantage of by the powers-that-be in Indian cricket.

He has always been the go-to man that India has leaned on in times of trouble. After being discarded from the ODI scheme of things in 2007, he was called in for the Champions Trophy in 2009 since the selectors felt that the other batsmen would not be able to come to terms with the bounce of the South African pitches. After a decent outing, one would have thought that the selectors would have realized their mistake. Unfortunately, they dropped him again once the action shifted to the flat tracks of the sub-continent. And now, in an English Summer where no batsman has been able to even survive, the selectors fell back on Rahul to lend them the stability again. Hardly a way to treat one of your all-time greats. Fittingly, Rahul announced his retirement on the same day that he was selected to the ODI squad. A rebuke in his usual, diplomatic way.

Even a day before his last ODI, Rahul is still the first man to arrive at practice. Still eager to learn – always the willing student. Honing his skills in a format of the game that he knows that he would never again participate in. But, that is what he has always done – last game or first.
September 17, 2011:
I watched the match with a couple of my friends at a lounge in Pune. Last ball of the 42nd over. Going for quick runs, Rahul – on 69 – tried to hit the ball over the infield and missed. The ball crashed into his stumps. And, that was the end of the ODI innings for one of India’s greatest batsmen. The response to his dismissal on and off the field was something to watch. In the lounge, most of the people – in varying degrees of sobriety – stood up and clapped all the way while Rahul reached the dressing room. On the field, all the English players gathered to shake his hand.

A team man to the last. Rahul Dravid – Thanks for all the pleasant memories from your various knocks and I will miss seeing you in the Indian blues.
March 08, 2012:
After a wonderful Holi at IIM Calcutta followed by an afternoon siesta, I was watching the TV when I saw the news of the press conference for Rahul’s impending test retirement. I was shocked since I always thought that he had a couple of years of cricket left in him. After all, this man was the leading run getter of 2011. But then, he is also a perfectionist and with no overseas tours in the coming year, he would have thought it to be the best time to blood a new number 3 on the flatbeds of the Indian sub-continent.

13200+ runs, 200+ catches, average of 50+ over 15 years, 36 centuries, 63 fifties – the record itself is unbelievable. And, I have not even started describing the circumstances in which he made these. One of the few Indian batsmen who are as comfortable on foreign soil as in Indian conditions, Rahul was the person on whom India relied on to bail the team out of trouble. How many times have we seen the infamous Indian batting collapse with number 3 being the only person to grit it till the end? The tour last summer to England pretty much summed it up for me. In conditions where everyone else failed, there was a lone hand fighting it out, trying to salvage some pride. He looked like a man among boys.

Who can forget his epic innings of 180 at the Eden with VVS to dig India out of a massive hole? Or, the 148 at Headingley where the ball was swinging a mile? Or, the 270 against Pakistan coming in to face the very second ball with India at 0/1? Why to forget the 233 at Adelaide to get India’s first win in Australia in years? As innings go, the 81 and 68 at Kingston where no other batsman had a clue of what the pitch was doing was also worth its weight in gold. And, these are just the epic innings. There have been so many other invaluable innings that I have just lost count.
March 09, 2012:
With no classes scheduled, I switched on the TV at 12.30 pm to watch the press conference. The emotion in the earlier part of the statement, the modesty with which he conducted himself, the well-articulated reasons for retiring when he did and the grace of answering all the questions – all stood out. I was particularly impressed with his statement that he has failed at times but he never stopped trying. Hearing the press conference and then reading the various pieces on him by writers of repute, I would be lying if I said that I am not emotional today. And, I am sure that the feeling is echoed among the legion of RD supporters and Indian cricket fans.

In 1999, even with my engineering end-terms on, I remember getting up at 2 am in the morning to watch Rahul bat in New Zealand. I can safely say there is no one else in Indian cricket for whom I would do the same. There have been many stroke-makers – but no one who behaves like the guy next door with no superstar pretensions. As I think back, there will no more be the familiar strides of Rahul coming out to bat when India loses one of its openers again in the first over of an overseas test where the pitch has a bit of spice. Can the stroke-makers adjust to life where they do not have that opportunity of an indiscreet shot now that No. 3 is no longer there to see them through? Life goes on – Indian cricket must adjust.

Rahul Dravid – Thank you for the good times and wish you the best in your life ahead. We hope that you will continue to serve Indian cricket in some capacity.

P.S: Now that IPL 5 would be the last time we see him on the field, I hope that Rajasthan Royals have a dream run and we can see Rahul holding the trophy aloft on May 27, 2012.

The idea of an all faculty play was­­ conceived by us in August, several months before it was staged. And then began the hunt for faculty who considered the idea of acting on stage interesting. After a month and a half of convincing, we were able to put together a cast which had an equal mix of veterans and newbies. But that was just the beginning, what followed was a constant struggle to transform what was just an idea in our minds to an actuality. There always remained a constant tussle between the schedules of the six professors with us as well as among themselves. A running joke amongst us was whether we would be able to get all the six professors together on stage even on the day of the performance. But with each passing day, the divisions between us blurred and we all began to bond as a cast.

While the last one week before the play was the most gruelling, it was really what brought us all together as a team. We went out of our ways to help each other in every way possible. And above all that, it was the most fun we’ve ever had. Stealing each other’s lines and acting out another cast member’s stage character showed us that we all have a creative side in us that needs to be expressed. If we were to recount all the memorable experiences that we had during the practice sessions, it would much exceed the bounds of this column. There were numerous instances of Prof. Abhishek Goel stealing Prof. Manju Jasiwall’s dialogues, Prof. Megha Sharma telling us to stop smiling so that she could say her lines without laughing and then there was Prof. Prashant Mishra who brought us to tears laughing because he would always forget his cues. Prof. Anup Sinha would do a Charlie Chaplin pose and would leave us giggling and Prof. Runa Sarkar would literally move us to tears with her heart-warming dialogues.

For Guha and me, it was an exercise that completely altered the way we perceive our professors. All in all, it has been an experience that is incomparable to anything else in the two years of campus life Something that truly epitomizes the culture of IIM Calcutta. The glass of camaraderie and oneness was certainly full that night.

Written by :Tania Sarah Benjamin (Batch of 2012)

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