Business Standard

Campus diary

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Our Bureau New Delhi
BITS, PILANI
Birds of a fan feather
 
Alumni meets are alumni meets. Former campusmates get together and pull each others' leg while catching up on life since the good ol' days of carefree togetherness.
 
Well, lots of this was in evidence at Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences (BITS), located in Pilani, Rajasthan. Solemn and not-so-solemn pledges were made about mutual trust and help. And there was much general goodwill to go around.
 
Among the solemn resolutions: an Alumni Trust formed by the Class of 1980. Funds in this pool are to be used for the welfare of campus mess workers (who do not enjoy the benefits of permanent employment). Wonder what the alumni were given to eat.
 
NITIE, MUMBAI
Emergence effort

 
National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai, is now also a B-school. One that doesn't sound like one (in the acronymn neither). But all it takes is some effort "" and a good curtain raiser to some relevant razzle-dazzle.

 
Starting October 21, NITIE is holding a three-day jamboree for B-school students called Prerna 2005. The theme: "Brand India: From Emergence towards Leadership."
 
The Business Quiz, which pits corporates against students, will be part of the show, as always. Srijan and Red Herrings are the other business games that participants could try their hand at.
 
Last year, NITIE launched MastishK, an online version of Prerna featuring assorted strategy and finance games. It got response from as many as 20 countries around the globe.
 
HBS, BOSTON
Ties of crimson
 
The venerable old Harvard Business School, just three years away from its centenary, has always regarded its former students as assets, and its strong bond with past associations has rarely let it down.
 
This year, the school's recipient list of its Alumni Achievement Awards include Rahul Bajaj, the industrialist who put Indian nationalism on two wheels, and Louis Gerstner, the "cookie salesman" who taught the "Big Blue elephant" IBM how to dance.
 
Meanwhile, HBS swells its chest for competitive strategy guru Michael Porter, who has just won 2005's John Kenneth Galbraith Medal "" named after a person who both India and Harvard have intimate reason to regard highly.
 
WARWICK, READING
Ballad of de profundis goal
 
Professors at Warwick University in the UK have voted against a proposal to set up a branch campus in Singapore. They voted against the alliance, it seems, under fears of a loss of academic freedom in a city-state that, despite its desire to become an Asian education hub through global link-ups, seems to suffocate free speech and other forms of behavioral spontaneity.
 
In Singapore, as reported, freedom of "speech is permissible as long as it does not threaten real political change or to alter the status quo".
 
The profound poignance of the standoff would be complete with a saddened Singapore speaking of "clowns whose hearts are broken". These are global aches. In need of global help.

 
 

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First Published: Oct 19 2005 | 12:00 AM IST

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