VOLUME1 SEPTEMBER 2011 ISSUE 15

Scuzzy October2011

VI NOD GUPTA SCHOOL O F MANAGEMENT, I I T KHARAGPUR

Warm greetings from Alumni Relations Committee, VGSOM! Welcome to the fall edition of Scuzzy, the biannual newsletter of VGSOM. The placement season, Vantage 2011, yet again finished with a high! The placement process saw some top-notch recruiters hiring our versatile talents; something that VGSOM has become synonymous with. Recruiters offered some of the most sought-after profiles. As many as 45 companies from all sectors of the industry partic-ipated for grabbing the best of the students and were offering the best of compensation packages. The highest annual compensation offered was 18 LPA and average annual compensa-tion stood at 12.02 LPA. A total of 117 offers were made for 94 students . VGSOM attracted 15 new companies this year which constitute 33% of the total companies that visited the cam-pus. The season began with 20% of the batch getting PPOs from reputed companies like ITC, Reckitt Benckiser, Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages, TATA Motors, Deloitte India, Deloitte USI, Nomura, Wipro and IMRB and ended on a high note of 1.25 offers made per student from top recruiters. We also feel proud to let you know that VGSOM has bagged some of the most prestigious awards this year. The first one being Asias Best B-School Leadership Award by CMO Council in July 2010. The second success came with DNA and Stars of the In-dustry Group awarding VGSOM as one of The most innovative B-School of the year 2010. VGSOM was also recently awarded the Outstanding B-School award at the National B-School awards 2011. The students of VGSOM brought ever greater laurels to the college by win-ning contests all across the country. The institute witnessed joining of four

new professors with versatile corporate experiences and vast academic credentials this year: Prof. Anand Teltumbde Prof. Devlina Chatterjee. Prof. Siddharth Chattopadhay And Prof. Barnali Nag. With July, started the new aca-demic year and the new batch of students were infused into the college. With almost 85% of students having prior work-experience, the batch is a perfect blend of freshers and students with work experience. The batch also saw a surge in the number of students hav-ing more than 36 months of work-experience (almost 38% of the class of 2013). The class of 2013 also boasts of people from varied backgrounds of work such as - heavy engineering, operations, marketing, IT and finance. Various Interest Groups and Clubs were also dynamic throughout the year. The Marketing and Advertising Club (MAD) and the Finance Club (Finterest) successfully completed their quiz competitions: VENALICIUM and FinQ Men on a

high note. On the other hand Saamanjasya conducted a B plan Competition Power to Empower in collabora-tion with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and

National Skill Development Corpora-tion (NSDC). We are also featuring contributions from students, faculty and research scholars at VGSOM and we are sure that youll like all of them. Scuzzy will take you through all the nostalgic emotions that you may have in a while! So what are you waiting for? Turn on your nostalgia and start sift-ing through your dose of college news! Happy Reading!

Final Placements 2011 2

Summer Placements 2011 3

Learning Approaches 4

Connect 2011 5

Class of 2013 6

Faculty Lounge 7

Sweet @ Sixty 8

CMI Activities 9

creative creativity 10

MAD Club Activities 11

Finterest Activities 12

Jump from 1,2(to) 3 13

Different Strokes 14

Answers: KGP Trivia 16

Inside this issue:

TO KNOW MORE

ABOUT OUR NEW

PROFESSORS,

TURN TO PAGE 7

1

From the desk of team Scuzzy SCUZZY has evolved over the years from being a simple alumni newsletter to a mouthpiece of all VGSOM activities.

Final Placements 2011 Vantage 2011 was a stupendous success with 100% batch being placed.

With Batch of 2009-2011 secur-

ing some of the best job offers in

the country, Vantage 2011 culmi-

nated in VGSOM, IIT Kharagpur

and yet again established its reck-

oning as among the top B-School

s on the offering. With the 100%

batch getting placed with an aver-

age salary of INR 12.02 Lakhs per

annum and profiles worthy of the

remuneration magnitude, Vantage

2011 was a resounding success.

Apart from the regular recruiters,

many new companies joined the

bandwagon and reposed their faith

in the coveted B-School .

VGSOM attracted 15 new compa-

nies this year which constitute

33% of the total companies that

visited the campus.

The season began with 20% batch

getting PPOs from reputed com-

panies like ITC, Reckitt Benck-

iser, Hindustan Coca Cola Bev-

erages, TATA Motors, Deloitte

India, Deloitte USI, Nomura,

Wipro and IMRB and ended on

a high note of 1.25 offers made

per student from top recruiters.

The recruiting companies spanned

across sectors like BFSI, Consult-

ing, FMCG, Telecom, Manufac-

turing, Technology and Analytics

with diverse roles like Investment

Banking, Banking & Operations,

Risk Advisory, Project Finance,

Strategy and Technology Consult-

ing, Sales and Marketing, Supply

Chain Management, Procurement,

Business Development and many

more. Evika Green, an Energy

Subsidiary of Evika Group, a first

time recruiter offered coveted

position of Assistant Vice Presi-

dent to the selected student.

Medall, a leading medical diag-

nostic firm were the first time

visitors. offering challenging roles

in Market Research and Business

Development. Technology and

Consulting firms were the biggest

recruiters this year giving consid-

erable weightage to the pre-MBA

experience of candidates asserting

the quality of students VGSOM

attracts. 30% of the students opted

for careers in each. BFSI, Manu-

facturing and FMCG followed next

with plethora of new companies

participating for the first time in

campus placements attracting top

talent from the coveted B-School .

FMCG & TELECOM:

VGSOM has grown over the years

to be the favourite destination of

sought-after FMCG sector. Procter

& Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser and

Coca Cola were the first time re-

cruiters at VGSOM. Regular re-

cruiters like

ITC, Heinz and UB group also

made their presence felt and of-

fered diverse roles like Corporate

Planning, Operations, Supply

Chain Management, Procurement,

Sales and Marketing. Vodafone,

our regular recruiter

offered profiles in Marketing, Sys-

tems & IT.

TECHNOLOGY &

CONSULTING:

This sector attracted the largest

talent pool from VGSOM. This

year, the Big 4- Ernst & Young,

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte

(India and USI) and KPMG-

participated in Vantage 2011 and

offered roles in Business Advisory,

SCM Consulting, Strategy & Tech-

nology Consulting and many more.

Crme de la crme of the consult-

ing sphere like PWCs Government

Reforms and Infrastructure Devel-

opment Advisory (GRID), Accen-

ture Management Consulting, i-

Maritime, HCL and Cognizant

were the first time recruiters along

with regular recruiters like In-

fosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and

HP reaffirming the brand value

enjoyed by VGSOM in the con-

sulting world.

BANKING, FINANCE &

ANALYTICS:

VGSOM carried forward the

legacy of being a preferred cam-

pus for companies in Banking

and Financial Services domain.

Diverse profiles were offered

including Credit, Risk Assess-

ment, Forex, Equity & Fixed

income and Banking Operations.

The gamut of interested Compa-

nies included participants like

Citibank, ANZ, Nomura, CRI-

SIL, Cognizant and Union Bank

of India among others. With a

booming market, analytics sector

offered attractive opportunities to

the students at VGSOM this year.

Behemoths like Goldman Sachs,

HSBC, ANZ, IMRB and Citi Ana-

lytics made their presence felt with

related profiles in offering

MANUFACTURING:

This sector, along with regular

recruiters like TATA Motors,

TATA Telecon, TATA Metaliks

and Welspun, witnessed participa-

tion from large number of PSUs

like Shipping Corporation of In-

dia, Bharat Heavy Electricals Lim-

ited, Balmer Lawrie, MMTC India

Ltd and Rural Electrification Cor-

poration. Students were offered

diverse and challenging roles in

Sales and Marketing, Operations,

HR, Business Development and

Infrastructure Project Manage-

ment. Titan, a TATA group com-

pany, was a first time recruiter

offering roles in Operations and

Marketing.

Placement Statistics for 2011

Number of students participating in placements

94

No. of companies visiting campus 45

No. of offers made 117

Highest salary offered (INR) 18 lakhs p.a

Average salary offered (INR) 12.02 lakhs p.a

Median salary offered (INR) 10.15 lakhs p.a

Chairman of Placements message:

From the perspective of most

students, the raison-d'etre of

any college, particularly a B-

School , is a satisfactory corpo-

rate placement. I am delighted

to know that our 2009-2011

Placement Committee has

lived up to the expectations of

every student who had walked

into VGSOM, IIT Kharagpur two

years ago in search of an MBA

and a career.

-Prof. Prithwis Mukerjee,

Chairman Placements,

2

Summer Placements 2011 Summer Placements for the batch of 2010-12 once again reaffirmed Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur

as one of the finest B-School s in the country.

A total of 60 companies took

part in the placement process

which was an increase of over

10% compared to last year.

Companies vied with each

other to select management

interns from a batch of 91 stu-

dents and offered challenging

roles across varied industries

such as FMCG, Telecom,

Consulting, Banking & Fi-

nance, Media, Automobile,

Infrastructure etc. The aver-

age stipend crossed Rs.

40,000, which was an increase

of 8.1% over last year. The

highest stipend offered was

Rs.1,00,000.

Consulting:

Consulting was one of the

most sought-after domains

amongst the students with al-

most one fifth of the batch

opting for Consulting profiles.

Consulting firms like Deloitte

India, Price Waterhouse

Coopers, Ernst & Young,

Wipro, Frost & Sullivan,

Synovate Consulting, Syner-

gy Consulting offered profiles

such as Strategy and Opera-

tions, Enterprise Applications,

Technology Integration, Gov-

ernment Reform & Infrastruc-

ture Consulting, Business Ad-

visory. CTRAN offered an

exciting new profile of Cli-

mate and Infrastructure Con-

sulting. Voltas offered a niche

profile of Corporate Strategy

and Planning.

FMCG & Telecom:

Some of the largest FMCG

and Telecom companies in the

country took part in the sum-

mer placements process this

year. Recruiters like Hindu-

stan Coca Cola Beverages,

Reckitt Benckiser, Heinz,

Danone and Emami recruited

students in large numbers of-

fering profiles such as Supply

Chain Management, Procure-

ment, Marketing, Operations

etc. Telecom majors Idea and

Aircel also offered students

roles in Supply Chain Manage-

ment and Marketing.

Manufacturing & Automo-

bile:

Manufacturing and Automo-

bile was the most popular sec-

tor among the students this

year with more than 20% stu-

dents opting for it. Majors like

Tata Motors, TVS Motors,

NTPC, Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Limited, Tega

Industries, Tata Telcon etc

offered profiles in Operations,

Marketing and Supply Chain

Management.

Banking & Finance:

Banking and other financial

firms recruited students in

large numbers with majors like

Citibank, Nomura, ING Vy-

sya, CRISIL, Reserve Bank

of India, CLSA, Bank of

India, Venture East, NAB-

ARD among the companies

offering profiles such as Eq-

uity Research, Derivatives,

Retail Banking, Wholesale

Banking, Rural Banking,

Analytics, Operations and

Technology etc.

IT & ITES:

Heavyweights like IBM,

Hewlett-Packard, JDA,

Siemens Corporate Tech-

nologies, Omnitech, TCS

were some of the leading IT

companies that took part in

the Summer Placements.

Human Resource:

Firms like NTPC and Syn-

ergy Consultancy offered

comprehensive and strategic

roles in the Human Re-

sources domain to some of

the students.

Startups:

This year, we also saw the

participation of several start-

ups like Hover, Batoi, OOH

Media, Sequoia, Verbatim

Medall etc. They offered the

students crucial roles including

Marketing Strategy, Strategy &

Consulting, Sales & Marketing

which gave our students inval-

uable opportunity to get a lot

of rigorous and hands-on learn-

ing during their internships.

Internships at Kolkata Po-

lice:

In a unique initiative Kolkata

Police hired interns from

VGSOM to undertake projects

as a part of winter internships.

The projects allocated were

live projects which included

the study of traffic manage-

ment system and optimization

of routes etc. giving interns the

opportunity to understand the

nitty-gritties of managing one

of the most populous cities in

the country.

The large number of recruiters

including many first time visi-

tors, diversity in the profiles on

offer and all the students get-

ting summer internships in the

organizations and profiles of

their choice were the high

points of this years summer

placements. This reaffirms the

consistent faith that recruiters

have had for VGSOM Students

and reflects on the quality of

the management education and

values imparted to the students

in line with the corporate re-

quirements.

3

Q1. What is the significance of 2.2 in IIT Kharagpur's context? Q2. Which eatery is famed to have invented the 'Tinku' (Burger)? Q3. Which faculty Of VGSOM has been the Chairman of B.C. Roy Hospital?

To find out the answers, turn to the last page.

KGP Trivia!

Learning approaches Post MBA: A Journey of Four and a Half Decades By Prof. Arabinda Tripathy

I really feel happy to write in Scuzzy the newsletter of VGSOM. I under-stand that the newslet-ter will also

be made available to the alumni of VGSOM. I am taking this opportunity to share some of my learning approaches over four and a half decade of professional life as I have perceived, more specifi-cally post MBA. It is needless to stress that the alumni can significantly and effectively con-tribute to the growth and development of their alma mater. VGSOM itself is an example of the same. VGSOM, the formation of which was facilitated by an alumnus, set the trend of incorpo-ration of B-School in IITs and in tech-nology institutes in general. To a large extent, my association with VGSOM was driven by a desire to contribute to my alma mater; IIT Kha-ragpur from where I graduated in 1966.

Early in my working life I had an op-portunity to study for a MBA equiva-lent programme. At that time I had a job with responsibility for critical de-liverables. Further, my job being on the shop floor, I had the responsibility for looking after the work of various employees including their on the job performance, deliverables and such other things. That left little time for preparation for classes, test and the like. The programme was substantially case based and required commitment of time. However, having joined I walked the extra miles to derive full benefit. I did not have any specific aim

to improve my career prospect but to learn about business management related areas. I did achieve that and developed an interest for Operation-al Research. I pursued this interest by doing M.Sc. in Operational Re-search at the London School of Eco-nomics few years later. This further enhanced my interest in Operation-al Research. I followed it up with Doctoral work in Operational Re-search, more specifically in Mathe-matical Programming, also at Lon-don School of Economics.

All these years, my primary aim was to pursue my interest rather than looking for any financial reward. In fact the job that I took up in India on my return immediately after my doctoral work abroad offered me a salary that was less than half of my salary in India prior to joining the doctoral work. This in no way de-terred my interest in Operational Research. I went on to become Pres-ident of Operational Research Soci-ety of India (ORSI) in 1989 and Edi-tor in Chief of OPSEARCH journal. I also organised the first Interna-tional Conference on Operational Research for Development (ICORD) in 1992 at Ahmedabad. The confer-ence resulted in a document Ahmedabad Declaration. The document became the reference point for action by International Federation of Operational Re-search Societies (IFORS) for activi-ties to be carried out towards Oper-ational Research for Development. There were two other major out-comes of the conference: a book titled Operational Research for De-velopment edited by Jonathan Rosenhead (London School of Eco-nomics) and Arabinda Tripathy (Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad) and ICORD becoming

a regular activity of IFORS. ICORD was subsequently organized in Bra-zil, Philippines, South Africa, India (second time) and Brazil (second time). Through the first ICORD con-ference, I developed interest in the areas of Operational Research for Development, Problem Structuring Methods, Soft System Methodology, and the like; which I continue to pursue even now. Subsequently, I took up assignments in many devel-oping countries like Kazakhstan, Vietnam, South Africa etc. These assignments helped me to under-stand better the field of Operational Research for Development. Along with Prof. Theodre Stewart, I also started the only M.Sc. Course on Operational Research for Develop-ment at the University of Cape Town, South Arfrica.

To sum up, in all this four and a half decade of my professional life I was guided by: There is no age for learning A clock which is not working is

also right twice in a day; ac-cordingly one can learn from all sources with proper attitude

Pursue your interest. Some other basic understandings helped me in my Professional life; one of them being Organisational Position may entrust the authority, but it does not ensure that the per-son is the only one to have the ex-pertise and the knowledge to dis-charge it there may be others who may score higher on these counts. Wish all of you the very best.

4

Connect 2011VGSoM Annual Alumni Meet By Shashidhar Shenoy (MBA, Batch of 2012)

5

On 18th June 2011, a pleasant Saturday evening, the MBA students of Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kha-ragpur organized Connect 11 the annual alumni reunion in four different metros. By continuing with the tradition of successfully conducting the alumni meet simultaneously at four different locations, the Alumni Committee yet again brought together VGSoM alumni from varied backgrounds and work ex-periences on a common platform.

The alumni of VGSoM from Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata were treat-ed to an evening of fun and memories of their fun days at college. The alums started arriving early in the evening and were enthusiastically looking forward to meet their batch mates. The meet started with a video of campus life in IIT Kha-ragpur which made all the alumni emo-tional and nostalgic about the hostels, the VGSoM building, the eating joints in campus and all the other things which made their life memorable in campus. Then there were video messages by the professors of VGSoM to the alums. There were loud cheers by the alums when their favorite professors appeared on screen.

The joy of finding their old friends, the long-forgotten nicknames being called again, the happiness of finding out that their friends and had classmates had made it big in the corporate world was

all to be seen in the meets. At Bangalore, two senior-most Alums from the class of 2001, Mr. Satya Mishra and Mr. Gangesh Thakur, were presented with a bouquet and were asked to nar-rate their experiences at IIT. They spoke about how the school had grown to what it is right now, the lower batch strength during those days and the school not being rec-ognized among the top tier schools. They also praised all the alumni, professors and current students for their constant efforts in making the school one among the top tier B-Schools in India. The mood then changed from a formal ceremony to a dinner party with all alumni, their spouses and students socializing over food and drinks. Friends exchanged numbers and promised to stay in touch, sen-iors offered advice for their juniors, people enquired about work in dif-ferent management streams and the chattering had reached its peak to-wards the close of the night. The concept of conducting the meet at four locations simultaneously

was greatly appreciated and all the alums praised the efforts of Alumni Committee for the wonderful time they had.

The alums didnt want the night to end and were keen on hanging around reliving the wonderful mem-ories of the college days. However, like all good things, time had finally come to say goodbye to everyone and call it a day. This parting note of the night was echoed by all the people present over there:

Goodbyes are not forever. Goodbyes are not the end. They simply mean I'll miss you Until we meet again!

Class of 2013 The incoming batch of 2013 reaffirms VGSOMs ability to attract the best minds among the B-School fraternity year after

year. The bright young VGSOMites are already in the groove and they are ready take the bandwagon of VGSOM ahead.

Vinod Gupta School of Management believes that peer knowledge will help students in developing team skills and also helps one to apply their experiences at work in classroom studies for making managerial decisions. VGSOM encour-ages diversity of students in terms of aca-demic backgrounds and work experience. Even through the batch consist of stu-dents with engineering backgrounds, the diversity of streams and specialization backgrounds are really diversified. The adjacent chart indicates the diverse stream-wise break-up of the class of 2013. This year VGSOM has laid emphasis on the quality and quantity of to work expe-rience while selecting the class of 2013. Having given due importance to work experience, a healthy mix of freshers and students with prior work experience has also been maintained. The details of the batch according to the work experiences is shown in the pie chart:

TOTAL STRENGTH

OF THE BATCH OF

2013 IS 105

Q4. Name the district of West Bengal in which Kharagpur is located ? Q5. In which year was VGSOM established? And who laid the foundation stone of VGSOM? Q6. A new hall of residence is coming up exclusively for the students of VGSOM. Name this hall. Q7. What is CORALS in purview of IIT Kharagpur ?

To find out the answers, turn to the last page.

KGP Trivia!

6

Faculty Lounge: Our New Faculty Members Meet our new faculty members who have enriched the VGSOM fraternity with their varied corporate experience and

academic excellence.

Prof. Anand Teltumbde Specialization areas: Business strategy, Production and Operations manage-ment, information systems strategy, sup-ply chain and lo-gistics. Prof. Anand holds a Bachelors de-gree in Mechanical Engineering (National Institute of Technolgy, Nag-pur), an MBA (PGDM) (Indian Institute of Man-agement, Ahmeda-bad) and a Doctoral degree in manage-ment from University of Mumbai. He has published more than 25 research papers in reputed international journals and served on editorial Board of a few of them. Prof. Anand has over 38 years of man-agement experience. He was recognized among top 20 people who shaped IT in India by DataQuest consecutively for three years. He has also won Star imple-mentation award from SAP. Before com-ing to VGSOM, he was Managing Direc-tor and CEO of Petronet India Limited, a holding company promoted by all oil companies for creating a pipeline net-work. He has been also been a Ph D ex-aminer and adjunct faculty of University of Mumbai. Prof. Devlina Chatterjee

Specialization areas: Applied Econom-ics, Statistical Modeling, Finan-cial Modeling

Dr. Devlina Chat-terjee earned a B.Tech in Agricul-tural Engineering from IIT, Kharag-pur in 1989. After completing her PGDM from IIM Ahmedabad in 1991,

she worked for two years in project finance at the Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI). She continued her studies in the US at Penn State University and earned two masters degrees one in Agri-cultural Engineering and one in Agricultural Economics. She earned her doctoral degree in management in the Indian Institute of Science in 2010. Dr. Chatterjee has spent eight years in industry, with IFCI (New Delhi), GE Capital (Bangalore) and Antrix Corporation (Bangalore).

Dr. Chatterjees research interests lie in applied economics, in particu-lar trying to decode the underlying factors that influence behaviors of individuals, households, businesses and other economic agents. Prof. Barnali Nag

Dr. Barnali Nag is an M.A. in Eco-nomics from JNU, New Delhi and PG Diploma (Development Policy) and PhD (Economics) from IGIDR, Mumbai, an advanced Research Institute by Reserve Bank of India. She has been a faculty at RIS, New Delhi (a think tank of the Ministry of External Af-fairs, GoI). Lat-er she joined the Indian School of Busi-ness, Hydera-bad as Business Research Fel-low, from where she went to Wharton Busi-ness School, University of Pennsyl-vania as Visiting Scholar.

Dr. Barnali has been the Associate Editor of South Asia Economic Journal, which is a peer reviewed international journal, published by

SAGE, for around four years. She is also a reviewer for reputed interna-tional journals like Energy-The In-ternational Journal, Energy Policy, International Journal of Environ-mental Technology and Manage-ment and International Journal of Environment and Waste Manage-ment.

Dr. Barnalis current research in-terest includes economics and busi-ness implications of climate change, policy imperatives for carbon base-line determination and quantitative modeling and research on produc-tivity and efficiency in the Indian manufacturing sector. Prof. Siddhartha Chattopadhyay Prof. Siddhartha Chattopadhyay is an M.A. in economics from Delhi School of Economics and a Ph.D. in economics from University at Alba-ny, SUNY with speciali-zation in mac-roeconomics and econo-metrics. He has received a graduate fel-lowship for completing his doctoral studies from University at Albany, SUNY. He has also received an excellence in teaching award and an excellence in research award from university at Albany, SUNY in 2010. Moreo-ver, he was also awarded a special fellowship for his doctoral disserta-tion in 2010 from University at Al-bany, SUNY. Before pursuing his graduate studies abroad, he was a research assistant in Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC).

7

Sweet @ Sixty Diamond Jubilee celebrations at IIT Kharagpur Rohit Sharma (1st Year, MBA)

As IIT KGP enters into 60th year of exist-ence, there was celebration mood all around, the campus started undergoing

facelift months advance. Halls of Resi-dences, Complexes, Sports Courts and Activities Centres got new lease of life with the overhaul. Students sported the Diamond Jubilee Badges showing the pride that they take in being associated with this long standing prestigious insti-tute.

The Diamond jubilee curtain raiser on August 21st at Tata Sports Complex was an event to reckon with, it started with the allocutions from the eminent profes-sors, whove long served the institute. They shared their thoughts invoking fond nostalgia. Right after this, started a joint concert by ETMS & WTMS who per-formed to the tunes of soulful melodies like Tu Bin Bataye, foot tapping song

Mera Naam Chin Chin Choo as well as the classic rock number November Rain. The musical performance was fol-lowed by the laser show documen-tary on IIT KGP which left the audi-ences awe-struck. One thing that made this event special was a large calendar showcasing dates and im-ages of KGPians which forayed into the Guinness Book of World Rec-ords for its monster size.

August 22, the date when the 57th annual convocation of IIT Kharag-pur took place at the newly renovat-ed TOAT (Tagore Open Space Thea-tre), will be always alive in a KGPian's heart. Many of the Ex- VGSOMites also treasured this splendid moment. Nitish Wadhwa of 2010 batch was conferred with the Gold Medal for his extraordinary academic achievement.

The ceremony was also marked by the esteemed presence of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh as a chief guest. Other dignitaries in-cluded the Governor of West Ben-gal Mr M K Narayanan and the

Union Finance Minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee. The Chairman of Board Of governors, Mr Shiv Nadar pre-sided over the course of actions. The Gold Medallists were presented with

the awards by the Prime Minister himself. Mr. Sunil Bharti Mit-tal,Telephone mogul and founder of Bharti Enterprises, received an hon-orary degree. Celebrations continued in the even-ing at Kalidas auditorium with a mesmerizing performance from san-toor legend Pandit Shivkumar Shar-ma and Pandit Anindo Chatterjee on the tabla.Music requires the con-centration of not just the musician, but the audience as well, said san-toor legend Pandit Shivkumar Sharma. The concert included ren-dition of Raag Jhinjhoti, another compostion of Pahadi as base Raag and number of other melodious mo-tifs. The Splendid evening paved way for the year long Diamond Ju-bilee Celebrations.

Read The IIT Kharagpur Alumni Newsletter at :

http://bit.ly/piCJ8E

Find The Jubilee Celebration

Photographs at:

http://bit.ly/oORkVh

8

Corporate & Media Interaction Cell (CMI) In the last few months, VGSOM saw a plethora of guests from various fields and domains coming for Guest Lectures

under the banner of Vaarta The Guest Lecture series. A Marketing Continuum was also organised where distin-

guished personalities from the marketing domain of the industry visited VGSOM and shared their experiences.

How Microsoft built the gaming category in India with

XBOX!!! - Guest Lecture by Mr.Jaspreet Bindra, Regional

Director, Microsoft

The lecture or rather the sto-ry as cited by Mr. Bindra started with emphasis on the importance of online media as a marketing tool. He stressed upon the fact that Internet has to be the first marketing medium and not the 4th or 5th. He took us through the days when Xbox was launched in India, to the

time when it struggled to find its feet, till the time when it captured 64% market share of next generation consoles in India. Mr.Bindra explained that any product launch is a 3 step procedure: Super brand building, Super business building and Market creation & expansion. He talked about how the product suffered from the marketing myopia and how they changed the game by promoting Xbox as not just a gaming console but an entertainment powerhouse.

Managing IT as a Business By Mr. Subrata Dutta, CIO at

SREI

The nitty-grittys of the world of a CIO were nicely spun together by a very eminent mem-ber of the fraternity itself, Mr. Subrata Dut-ta, CIO of SREI Infra-structure Finance Lim-ited. The session com-menced with Mr. Dutta

highlighting the stark differences between how IT was per-ceived apart of the Business a few decades back and how it has become an inseparable part of the Business in re-cent times. He spoke on how a CIO creates his organiza-tion along the three pillars of Plan, Build and Run along-with discussing an interesting Case study (SunGard case study) with the students to which the response was really encouraging.

Light as a marketing tool - Guest Lecture by Ms.Sudeshna

Mukhopadhyay, Director, Philips Electronics

Let there be light and then, there was light! A ride through the rise of the lighting industry was started on this note by Ms.Sudeshna Mukhopadhyay, Director, Philips

Electronics at a lecture in VGSOM, IIT kharagpur. Ms.Mukhopadhyay emphasized on the fact that the lighting industry is undergoing a rad-ical transformation and the future is in the lighting solu-tions which would reach into new uncharted territo-ries like weather forecasting. Ms. Mukhopadyay was quick to add that light, not only triggers vision but also influences our moods and feelings as she briefed through an introduction to Philips Electronics. She added that light is an effective marketing tool and plays a pivotal role in various sectors including hospitals and health care, tourism and stated the im-portance of lighting in todays world citing examples from the Formula1 Race track of Singapore and the ever-so-successful FIFA World Cup 2002 in Asia. She spoke on the effects of light pollution and energy wastes. She con-cluded by simply asking students to be conscious users of light!

Vaarta'11: Marketing Continuum Creative Ideation Process and Branding By Mr. Sanjeev

Dassani, Creative Director (Copy) at RK Swamy BBDO

There is no denying to the fact that the whole process of creative ideation seems to be a scintillating one! The VGSOM students will vouch for the fact, more so after their ren-dezvous with Mr. San-jeev Dassani, Creative

Director (Copy) at RK Swamy BBDO. It scored highly both in terms of tit-bits of insight into how a creative agen-cy works and also audio-visual treats. He endorsed the viewpoint that Creativity, by definition, is an uncharted territory. He was also of the view that the ideas are all around us, we just need to look at things with a hint of inquisitiveness in our eyes. He also treated the audiences with a good dosage of very aesthetically dramatized advertisements. The junta got all the more excited and asked a lot many questions which were answered very gracefully by Mr. Dassani.

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'Marketing Strategy - The Indian Telecom Story By

Mr.Joydeep Ganguly, CMO Kolkata Hub, Uninor

The answer to life, the universe and everything is probably 42, however the answer to many a marketing dilemmas of the Indian Telecom Sec-tor is Mr. Joydeep Gan-guly, CMO of Uninor, Kolkata hub. A gist of more than 16 years of marketing experience

compressed into a 2 hour Highly Interactive Guest Lec-ture' is what the students at VGSOM experienced. Mr. Joydeep took the students on a journey beginning with India of the 90's to the India of today where Telecom has revolutionized everything and how "Life is now dependent on the 6 inches of a handset". He also sensitized the stu-dents about the challenges faced by the telecom sector to-day in the form of Multi-Sim Markets, Document Mainte-nance and Dwindling Margins. He opined that given these

challenges and the fierce competition in the industry, the number of telecom players in the Indian market would eventually come down.

Apart from the talks and Guest Lectures, an official

YouTube channel was launched for VGSOM - http://

www.youtube.com/user/VGSOMIITKharagpur.

The channel strives to cover all the major happenings

and events taking place at VGSOM.

Yesterday while commuting back from office, I saw a man aged around 55 to 60 years selling toys made of bamboo sticks. The old man wasnt employed anywhere and the toy did not boast of a brand name yet the creativi-ty reflected by the showed that the old man has a knack of constructing toys.. This started the chain of thoughts and I thought Yes there is some creativeness everywhere and in everything we do. Even trivial actions like cleaning a floor, washing a cloth can manifest creativeness Creativity has nothing to do with any particular work. Creativity has something to do with quality of our consciousness. Whatever we do can become creative if we redefine creativity. :) Creativity is not doing only something new and achieving an unachieved feat. Creativity is doing anything different-ly to achieve the same feat. Creativity comes by enjoying the work you do , by loving what we do. Will you feel creative when you are sketching? If the answer is yes then ponder on the fact that a two year kid is also doing the same thing. He too is just drawing some lines here and there. What is the difference?? It is just the attitude which makes all the difference. Talking to somebody, you feel time is being wasted. You would like to write a great book, and then you will be cre-ative. But a friend has come a little gossiping is a perfect-

ly beautiful. Be creative. All the great scriptures are noth-ing but conversations of people who were creative. If you really love doing something it is creative.

A man of constant self-introspection, want of happiness and understanding is continuously creative. Not that he is trying to be creative. The way he talks is a creative act. Watch him talking , walking , laughing , anything. You will find certain dignity, decency and creativity in every-thing he does.

Life is not one big thing it is a million tiny things and due attention to these carve your profile. Let go off the ego which goes on saying these are small things. It is our ego who creates trouble, drop the ego and everything is crea-tive. Once you get creative you become confident and hence efficient. Try it out !!!

Everyone wants to do some great things, but keep waiting for the right time and the life takes a toll over their dream. So if you want to write something great or want to do great poetry or and want to do a great painting etc etc Now is the time to don your creative hat and show the world a new you , a dynamic you , a creative you

creative creativity By Lokendra Gayakwad (MBA, Batch of 2013)

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Following our passion precisely that is what we do in the Marketing and Advertising (MAD) Club of the Vinod Gup-ta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur. Entrusted with the moral responsibility of exposing young minds to the fascinating world of Marketing and Advertising, MAD Club has a host of events and activities lined up to help the bud-ding marketers this year.

Over the years the Club is known for three major activities, namely, MADison Avenue Our Flagship event MADazine Our annual magazine MAD Quiz Our annual Marketing & Advertising quiz We are proud to announce that, in addition to these, our Bi-monthly newsletter MADjick is all set to join our portfolio.

The Marketing and Advertising Club inducted its new coor-dinators from the 2013 batch in early August, 2010 and since then MAD club has been in a frenzy of activities. The annual intra-VGSOM MAD Quiz is held for the students of VGSOM every year. This year Venalicium, the intra VGSOM Marketing Quiz, was held on the 27th of August, 2011. And as usual Venalicium generated a huge response from both the batches and to everyones surprise all the 3 prizes were grabbed by students of first year unlike last year where seniors outplayed juniors. Overall it was a well orga-nized and well contested event and MAD Club Quiz Team takes the credit for that.

MAD Club will also come up with another Marketing Quiz in January early next year, Jade. This time we are planning to make it a pan-IIT Kharagpur event. MADison Avenue is the flagship event of the Marketing and Advertising Club. During the initial days, the club has been conducting online Marketing events for B-School s and undergraduates. But 2009-2010 saw MADison Avenue shed its online tag and evolve into a more complete market-ing and advertising event with its firm roots on IIT Kharag-pur soil . That was indeed a significant step in making MADison Avenue what it is today a premier marketing and advertising fest expected, encouraged and sponsored by a number of corporate-houses.

The hugely successful last edition of MADison Avenue was sponsored by SAIL, the title sponsors and co-sponsored by a number of other corporates like Tata bear-ings, Steris, Spykar and Big FM among others. Interesting

and innovative events mix, active participation by industry personnel, live case studies and high-on-content workshops marked this edition of Madison Avenue.

MADison Avenue11, the 2-day event, is scheduled to be held on 29th and 30th of October, 2011 and this year the focus is to concentrate on events that reflect futuristic con-cepts that are growing trends in the field of business in gen-eral and marketing in particular. Getting the industry partic-ipation to the next level and challenging the participants with the real life problems faced by the industry are the key focus areas of Madison Avenue11. With a range of chal-lenging events that can test the best in the business, this fest promises to stand out amongst the crowd. The MAD club has also started work on MADazine, the annual magazine released by the club every April. This magazine contains a collection of intellectual discussions on different aspects of mar-keting by the academia as well as the corporate world. It also compiles some of the most prominent real-time issues going on in the Marketing and Advertising worlds and their solutions. Apart from this, the magazine will also contain a collection of articles from the students of VGSOM and a set of interviews of some of the czars of the Industry.

We are happy to announce that MAD club is proposing to launch a website of its own. The idea behind this is to serve as one stop shop for everything relating to MAD Club. It will also serve as a forum for engaging discussions, an ar-chive for newsletters and as a way to reach the club.

With more than 30 dedicated Marketing and Advertising loyalists and with passion as big as a marketers, MAD Club will continue its journey and hopes to make 2011-2012 a very busy and interesting year. Keep waiting to hear more on this!

MAD Club activities MAD club activities in VGSOM. Follow your passion, and

success will follow you Terii Guillemets

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Finterest Activities

The Finance club of VGSOM - Finterest, is dedicated to nurturing and enhancing the fin-quotient of students and also to increase industry interaction with our college. The club keeps its members updated on the latest trends and developments in corporate finance, capital markets, investment banking and other related areas. The motto is to give a new dimension to the way VGSOM is perceived for finance in the industry. Finterest was rejuvenated in early 2011 with finance enthusiasts from the Batch of 2011 coming together and forming a strong 15 members team. Since then, Finterest has not looked back. Finterest has selected 4 coordinators and 3 editors from the batch of 2013. A new logo has been launched recently. Heres a snapshot of the activities which have taken place till now:

Fin-o-Menal: Fin-O-Menal, the fortnightly financial newsletter of VGSOM covers all happenings in the field of Finance. The structure of the newsletter has been designed to help students in developing different facets of personality. Budding Finance writers hone their skills towards writing research papers, Cover Stories on Budget, Scams brings in depth analysis of events. Articles cover Market Updates, Indian News, Finance Updates , Industry Updates etc. aims to keep student briefed about the happenings in the field of Finance. Fin Quotes and Cartoon sections maintain general interest level of non finance enthusiasts promotes basic awareness about financial happenings. Detailed and informative articles from Academia act as an important media for peer learning. This facilitates Summer Internship and Final placement process by building essential knowledge base in finance domain.

KSS (Knowledge Sharing Sessions): Finterest has organized knowledge sharing sessions so as to simulate the learning process, more so apart from the text books. The sessions have been conducted on varied subjects, viz. on latest happenings in Industry & Market, analysis of deals etc. Furthermore, there have been primers on important macroeconomic happenings like Budget Analysis. The senior batch students have had shared their internship experiences (those with Finance profiles) with the juniors in interactive sessions prior to the Summer Placements. An online session was also arranged through Skype on Careers in Banking by Anjali Mullatti, CEO & M.D., Finitiatives Learning India Pvt. Ltd. The students have also been sensitized about the various Certifications of International repute in the Finance domain, viz. CFA, FRM, PRM, CAIA etc.

FinQMen-The Finance Quiz:

Intra IIT quiz FINQMEN brought the B.Tech and MBA students of IIT Kharagpur to a common platform. The aim was to promote interdisciplinary interaction and peer learning. The quiz had was divided in two stages. First round was an online round for screening purpose. Second round constituted top 5 teams which competed in a four stages. The quiz had questions from business and finance. The event was conducted in collaboration with the quiz club.

Finterests Facebook

Page:

http://

www.facebook.

com/Finterest

Activities in store: 1. Magazine The confidence gathered after the successful issues of the newsletter, FinOMenal, has prompted Finterest with the idea of publishing a Finance magazine of VGSOM. This is expected to scale up what all we are currently achieving with the fortnight newsletter. There will be articles and various useful pieces of information contributed by Industry honchos, Faculty and the student community. 2. Virtual Trading and Simulation Game Finterest is planning to organise virtual trading game which will emulate real time experience of stock market trading. It will be held at an All India Level which will bring management student from all over India to a common platform. Students will be given virtual money and made to invest in actual stocks. 3. Finterest Blog and Discussion thread Finterest also plans to publish its articles and newsletter through blog., It aims to connect with large chunk of blogging fraternity and section of MBA aspirants who generally have lots of queries re-garding finance during their preparation. This medium will be made interactive through its discus-sion sections where people can ask generic questions about finance. The questions will be answered promptly by Finterest and in long run will be helpful in building brand VGSOM.

Activities of all Finance enthusiasts of VGSOM.

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Sounds more like an oxymoron isnt it? These six syllables can actually make sense if one keeps in mind the shoddy performance of the Indian Cricket Team in the recently concluded Test Series in England. With a series win in both the ODIs and the Test matches in the non-glamorous Carib-bean (in terms of TRP and revenue generated), the Indian team landed in England with the tag of world champions and a NUMERO UNO Test ranking. India being a cricket crazy nation, opinions have gone through the roof; some blame it on the players and some on the administration. To be pre-cisely precise it has been a combined ef-fect of both the actors. There has been a problem, a problem that has persisted through years, but we kept our heads buried in the sand and refused to acknowledge it. Moreover the success of the team in the World Cup and the emer-gence of the cash rich IPL has coaxed us to turn a deaf ear. The BCCI could have imagined that the number one tag, possi-bly a magic wand, is enough to claim the series in England, but sadly, it wasnt to be. The tired and over confident Indians were up against a prepared England. Good teams do not tire, if they do, more often than not they end up as the losing side. Taking a look at the number of matches they play in a year, it is childs play to conclude that it is easier for India to be on the top as compared to the other

international teams. They also have all the money but if not adminis-tered well, there is no meaning to it. Preparation cannot happen overnight, it is a long drawn pro-

cess, starting with identify-ing the right personnel and then taking it forward. You have to improve as a team with every match, if you are not, you become stagnant. Indians have always been admirers of skill and gave

attitude a cold shoulder, not paying heed to the fact that it is the amal-gamation that creates magic on the turf. It is actually the mentality of the subcontinent, Pakistan has pro-duced some of the finest bowlers to have played the game, India is ar-guably the best batting side on paper in the world but both the teams are known to be highly in-consistent. Why cannot a sub conti-nent team be tagged The Invinci-bles? It is because we are compla-cent; we do not care about the rou-tine things that are an integral part of the game. Top teams like Aus-tralia and England were also in-fected with injuries, but they always had reserves. Imagine the plight of the Indian team had Zaheer pulled out during the World Cup. Eng-lands Stuart Broad was immedi-ately packed off home after a dis-mal performance in Sri Lanka to play for his county. The result is

there for us to see. It is time the BCCI put its head down and devise ways of utilising the monetary re-sources for better preparation back home. Creating a pool of reserve players in close coordination with N.C.A. should be the primary ob-jective of the management. The de-mographics of the country give lev-erage to the administration to un-earth talent and groom it for the future. Success speaks a lot more than failure but failure teaches you a lot more than success. India has the resources to bring about the change but it is not possible with the lousy attitude it carries. The cricket administration has some tough questions to answer in order to expedite Indias ascend and make their perch there, permanent.

Sketch by Mallika Nawal (Ph.D. Scholar, 2006):

The JUMP from 1 2(to) 3!! By Balajee Rao, MBA, Class of 2011-2013

Q8. The 'Grand Old Man' of IIT Kharagpur Prof. Gitindra Saran Sanyal passed away recently. He was associated with VGSOM in an advisory role as well. One of his student had established GS Sanyal School of telecommunication (GSST) in his honour. Name this Student.

Q9. Motto of IIT Kharagpur is a sanskrit shloka Yogah Karmasu Kaushalam. What does this means in English?

Q10. Which is the only theatre (movie hall) in Kharagpur which is equipped with digital projection and surround sound system?

To find out the answers, turn to the last page.

KGP Trivia!

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Different Strokes Showcasing the versatile talents of VGSOM students.

- Prabhat Agarwal (2nd Year, MBA)

!

,

!

!

!

!

Sketch by Mallika Nawal (Ph.D. Scholar, 2006):

- Mohit Rastogi (2nd Year, MBA)

Sketch by Deepika Ahuja (1st Year, MBA):

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Different Strokes continued Showcasing the versatile talents of VGSOM students.

Lose or Cruise A Binary Choice

- Avijit Pal (1st Year, MBA)

Being at a loss is a feeling you shouldnt feel If you are keen enough to make it a zeal.

Lessons are what you take away from a loss, Opportunity is what you get to cover the flaws.

Remember, even evolution stems from losing in the present

Only to add new skills and starting from the nascent. It is darkness which provides you a sense of light,

Its the losers who make the victor seem bright. Life is a sojourn with experiences galore, Get off the worries and come to the fore. Where chance is a risk and risk a choice, Capture the melody or become a noise! Victor has the might, being hard to beat, You have the sight of what not to repeat.

Fight to the hilt, when battles arise, Loss is not the end, but an option to rise.

Sketch by Ranjeet Kumar Singh (1st Year, MBA):

Everything For You

- N.M Leepsa (Research Scholar, VGSOM)

When joy comes like breeze wind When smile stays in gate of mind

All feeling flows like the river kind Love of your my heart remind

My soul sings many wishes

Peace appear like god blesses Happiness touch you like angels kisses

All for you and your success

Life too short and so long my desire To do everything for you with care

A cheerful face in Life Empire Lively sunrise everyday to acquire

My wishes so pure and my feelings so true That comes from heart like morning dew

Everything you dream be it for you Sorrow and suffering if ever come be few

No friends leave you new or old

They be with you in days of hot and cold A praying hand be there to hold

Stay forever with or without gold

You stay as winner in hearts of million God stay with you for truthful vision

No egos or pride pull legs when you risen Each day each moment bliss be woven

All these smiles I want to return

From thought of your which are born Those have dwelt in my lips in times of thorn

Let those smiles your lips now adorn

Q11. Which alumnus of IIT Kharagpur is a recipient of CBE and Padma Bhushan ?

Q12. On 16 September 1931, freedom fighters imprisoned in this jail celebrated the killing of sessions Judge Mr. Gar-ley, who had passed death penalty to the famous freedom fighter Shri Dinesh Gupta. The Jail authorities could not toler-ate this misbehavior and killed the freedom fighters in their cells. Name the Jail.

To find out the answers, turn to the last page.

KGP Trivia!

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Ans1. It is the exact length of the Scholar's Avenue (2.2 kms). Ans2. Chedis. Ans3. Prof. Gautam Sinha. Ans4. Midnapore West. Ans5. VGSOM inception1993. President of India, late Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma. Ans6. Chanakya Hall of Residence. Ans7. CORALS stands for: Centre for Ocean, River, Atmosphere and Land Science. Ans8. Arjun Malhotra (Co-founder Of HCL). Ans9. Strive for Yoga which is art of all actions. Ans10. Bombay Talkies. Ans11. Baron Bhattacharyya. Ans12. Hijli jail (Now a part of the IIT campus).

Answers to KGP Trivia!

Contact Us:

Mail Us @

alumni.vgsom.iitkgp@gmail.com

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http://linkd.in/qAZ6cH

Follow Us On Twitter:

http://twitter.com/#!/AlumComm_vgsom

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ALUMNI COMMITTEE: Faculty in-charge:

Dr. Prithwis Mukherjee

Student Coordinators:

Aashish Doshi

Amol Khadikar

Ishaan Awadhesh

Prabhat Agarwal

Sachin Choudhary

Jishnu Roychaudhuri

Lokendra Gayakwad

Madhvi Agarwal

Shilpa Taneja

Sovan Nayak

Rahul Bajaj

Rohit Sharma

Rucha Pundle

Copyright. Alumni Committee - VGSOM, IIT Kharagpur Kharagpur - 721302, India