New dean at ISB

B-SCHOOL BEAT

The new dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad, M Rammohan Rao, took over last week.

Rao has taught as the professor of operations research at the Stern School of Business, and has served as the dean and director of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

He has a PhD in industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and dual masters' degrees from CMU and Cornell University.

Rao succeeds Vijay Mahajan, who served as dean from June 2002. Mahajan held a dual responsibility over the past two years""dean of ISB and the John P Harbin Centennial Chair in business at the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin. He will now return to Austin to continue his role as professor of marketing.

At 276 students, this year's class at ISB is the largest so far, and makes the management institution the biggest B-school in India.

The power of five

The Gurgaon-based Management Development Institute (MDI) has started a new post-graduate programme in human resource development in partnership with the National HRD Network (NHRDN), a nation-wide association of HR professionals across industries.

The association has helped design the course curriculum. In addition, it will also help in developing case studies in five organisations for the students. Apart from that, 10 mentors from the NHRDN will interact with five students on a monthly basis; it will also be involved in the placement process.

The first batch of 52 for this course rolled out on July 1, 2004. The selection procedure for the HRD course will be based on CAT scores followed by a three-stage process""assessment centre, group discussion and personal interview.

Contact: Asha Bhandarkar, Tel: 95124-5013050

BMA awards ceremony

The Bombay Management Association (BMA) has announced two of its prestigious awards for academic year 2003-04.

The Mumbai-based Welingkar Institute of Management has been declared the "best management institute", while the award for the "best teacher and best student of management" has been conferred on the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies.

The selection criteria for the awards include physical infrastructure, academic details of the faculty, performance of the students and so on. Both awards will be presented by Wockhardt Chairman Habil Khorakiwala at a function at Mumbai's Taj Mahal Hotel tomorrow.