Dear Alumni,

Greetings!

The iconic architecture of IIMA leaves an indelible mark in the minds of all those who study, work, live and even visit the campus. The majesty of the Louis Kahn Plaza (LKP) is well known. Every visitor to the Institute carries back the warmth of the red bricks, mystery of the arches and tentative ideas about the life ‘within the circles’. For those who live on campus, several nooks and corners carry meanings that go beyond the physical manifestations of the architecture. Memories of fun parties on the Stanford ramp, ‘gully cricket’ in the dorms and ‘chai pe charcha’ during wee hours remain embedded in the hearts of participants of long duration programmes throughout their lives. The Harvard Steps is yet another part of IIMA persona that people relate to in various ways. This issue carries a few pieces in which alumni share memories of these steps that mark the ‘entrance’ to this distinguished institution of higher education.

IIMA alumni continue to excel in their chosen fields and get recognized for their achievements. This year two of our distinguished alumni – Professor SP Kothari (PGP 1982) and Sanjeev Bhikchandani (PGP 1989) – were awarded Padma Shri by the Government of India. Kartika Mittal (PGP 2014), Aayush Juneja (PGP 2018) and Vishnu Kaant Pitty (PGP 2015) received Economic Times Young Leaders Awards, 2019. Just when I started to write this editorial note, we got the good news that four alumni – Falguni Nayar (PGP 1985), Om Prakash Manchanda (PGP 1990), Tuhin Parikh (PGP 1995) and Yashish Dahiya (PGP 1996) – have been felicitated by Ernst and Young as distinguished entrepreneurs of the year! We are proud of the achievements of all these alumni and congratulate them heartily for the recognition. We have no doubt whatsoever that they will continue to excel in the future and keep the flag of their alma mater flying high.

As always, re-unions provided wonderful opportunities to interact with the alumni of different batches. In all, three reunions were organized this time, all of which were held on campus. The number of reunions was low this year as we corrected the years of reunions for a few batches. In some cases, batches were calculating their year of reunion on the basis of the year of entry into IIMA instead of using the year of passing out. In all, about 235 alumni participated in these reunions with their families. The issue provides a peep into these reunions. We look forward to welcoming the 1970 batch in March 2020. Apart from participating in the convocation, the batch has planned an event filled reunion.

With the setting up Misra Centre for Financial Markets and Economy (MCFME) and the NSE Centre for Behavioral Science in Finance, Economics and Marketing, your alma mater will receive a great boost to its research activities. This will add significantly to growing research profile of IIMA which has seen significant improvement in its publication record in recent years.

The Institute is launching a new PG programme in Advanced Business Analytics (PGP-ABA). This is a blended learning programme of 16-month duration. The High Performance Computing (HPC) lab set up recently will not only support this offering in a significant way but also aid initiatives to enhance the research footprint of the Institute.

Warm regards,

Rakesh Basant

Professor of Economics

Dean, Alumni and External Relations