Day 1 @ IFMR

We had the batch inauguration of PGDM Batch10 at IFMR at the Bhagirathi Hall. The eminent persons present were Mr N Vaghul, Ex Chairman ICICI Bank, and Dr Nachiket Mor, President, Sustainable Finance Division of ICICI and the front-runner in the list of persons sought after to replace K V Kamath as the head of ICICI. In addition D Balasubramanium, Dean, IFMR and Bobby Srinivasan, President, IFMR, were also present to grace the occasion.
I must say Dr Nachiket Mor is an extraordinary speaker who is able to put across relevant things concerning the current generation in a pretty forceful way. Considering his age, I would consider myself blessed enough if I am able to maintain even a fraction of his enthusiasm and forceful persona. And then there was Mr Vaghul who was not prepared to give a speech but ended up giving the longest talk that I had ever come across. The discourse which lasted for more than an hour came straight out of his wisdom and his years of experience, in which he focused on the importance of integrity and being transparent which are the primary reasons for keeping India in shackles, and stopping us from achieving double digit GDP growth rates.

I always had a notion that it is pretty hard to get to hear the wisdom of corporate honchos, live, first hand, which is a fact if you are in the lower echelons of the industry. I had experienced this in the software industry where any person above the rank of VP does not even care to meet the developers. But then this is the day I was waiting for, my chance to be recognized, to be noticed. In the coming days, I would realize that the number of big shots with whom I get to interact, both from the industry and academia, would be pretty overwhelming.

Next we proceeded to the Narmada Hall in an adjacent complex just above the cafeteria. We would be addressed by key resource persons from IT department, Library etc. Another first-time experience for me – the ownership of a laptop. It is a DELL Latitude E5400. Although I am not happy with the configuration, it is pretty decent for the use of business grads. It is a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo machine with 2 GB of RAM, although the 160 GB hard drive leaves a lot to be desired, needless to say I would be filled up within a few days. Also the wider screen makes it more suitable for movie viewing which I am least interested in, as I watch more of documentaries and TV series ;)

The next good piece of news came from the librarian who said that the IFMR library called the H T Parekh Library is the largest in south India not in terms of space but in terms of the number of books it houses. Founded in the early 70s, it is also the only library in South Asia to be a World Bank repository i.e World Bank is bound by contract to send a copy of all their publications to the IFMR library. This single factor makes it irresistible to research scholars from IIM Bangalore, ISB Hyderabad, Loyola and other colleges around who flock to the library for its resources. In addition, the full text searchable databases of journals from EBSCO etc and financial data from corporate databases like Prowess and Capital Line make sure that the library spends at least 1 crore rupees annually(yes you got it right a 1 with 7 zeroes, even I was shocked!). A first hand reality check of the library convinced my skepticism. It reminded me of the old OUAT library, the largest one in Bhubaneswar which used to cater to an entire university of agriculture, veterinary, engineering and science colleges. It was also nice to know that we could issue 10 books at a time.

After getting our course material we had some more socializing between our batch-mates, had dinner and went back to the hostel. End of Day 1 at IFMR.