07/11/2014

04/11/2014; 16:08:

And, there are a couple of pending things to write about- our experience at Spardha, the fun at BITS-Goa and the on-campus happenings in the last few days.

Let’s begin at home i.e. at IIM-Indore. Our term 7 Grades greeted us on the evening of 30th October, much to our terrible delight. 31st of October saw the launch of a Seed fund competition on campus – the event is an initiative of certain IIM-Indore alumni along with Hiranandani Group and promises up to 25 lakh seed funding to well-thought start-up ideas. The music club is all set to organize a Guitar Workshop for all the interested participants, starting somewhere in early December. They’ve also put a Guitar Bulk deal up on offer.
31st October also saw the celebration of Sardar Patel’s 139th Birth Anniversary as Rashtriya Ekta Divas, as part of which, there was an oath-taking ceremony in the afternoon and a movie-screening along with drama & music performances in the evening.
Planning for a Children’s Day event has begun, courtesy i-Help. The tentative plan includes fun events for the students of IIM-Indore’s adopted schools, both on our campus and in their classrooms!
The Sports Committee circulated the third edition of SportsPulse- the monthly Sports Newsletter on the 2nd of November. This edition encompasses the details of the Asian Games, EPL 2014 and the Women’s Volleyball World Championship 2014.
3rd of November saw a guest lecture by Miss Debolina Dutta, Head of Human Resource, VF Corporation, organization courtesy our E-Cell.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, we reached Banaras station at around 11 a.m., on the 30th of October. We were then whisked away to the IIT-BHU campus in a couple of SUV’s. We were on campus close to lunch-time. The BHU campus is beautiful; it’s no wonder it is talked about! We strolled around, discovering campus. A replica of the famous Kashi Vishwanath Mandir has been built on campus by Maviyaji, the founder. The campus is actually like a city in itself, buzzing with tourists even!
We sat around, watching a couple of matches that had started; the boys won a Badminton match. A couple of people went shopping / mandir-hopping. We went off to see the sunrise, early the next morning, at Ravidas Ghat. The sun simmering gently, rapidly where it hit the water kept us staring in silence. Two Girls’ Volleyball matches and a Basketball one followed. There was also a Boys’ Cricket Match, 2 Volleyball matches and the Power-lifting event. A kid from the 2014 batch had taken part in the Under 60 kg category and he won gold, lifting an impressive 270 kg. There was an opening ceremony at 4:00 p.m., where we participated in a march-past, dressed in jerseys, carrying the IIM-Indore flag and all.
Night was spent discovering the IIT-BHU canteen. Saturday was spent playing one match each of Volleyball & Basketball. We went out in the evening, hoping to get some Banarasi pan and chaat too! Sunday morning saw the Girls’ Basketball semi-final which we unfortunately lost to the home team. The Badmintno boys narrowly missed a shot at Gold while the Squash team won Silver.
The rest of the day was spent sight-seeing- the Ghats, the temples and the markets! Some people even went to Sarnath, which is about 10 km. away. Monday morning was spent trying to get a little more sight-seeing in, before we made our way to the railway station, to catch an 11:20 train to Jabalpur; we changed trains at Jabalpur and reached Indore at 10:45 a.m., on the 4th i.e. earlier today.

The team at BITS-Goa definitely had a better time roaming around the place than at the actual fest. The dance team made it to the finale- the top six! And the Drama team finished fourth. A couple of people picked up prizes in individual and pair events- Press Corps, Finance and the like. Bikes, beaches and a well-maintained new campus kept people happy over the weekend. My batch chose to travel by train, while the juniors preferred to book a bus. Sun, sand and sight-seeing pretty much summed their trip up!

07/11/2014; 01:15:

The team from BITS-Goa was back to campus, in two installments- on the night of the 4th and on the morning of the 5th. 4th was an Institute Holiday and we ended up going out for dinner- we also ended up going out for dinner on the 5th and the 6th, but, that's a different story!

5th & 6th of November was Utsaha-the Annual Rural Market Research Festival, the 'Kartik Purnima' mela of Janav Kutti Village, attended by the PGP batches of IIM-Indore. It was the 7th edition of an event which spans two days, reaches out to over 50,000 rural people and involves engaging the rural audience by designing games, events and shows structured around the research objectives, thus lending the whole experience an element of fun along with learning.
It was rather successfully organized, with Unilever, ITC, Pepsi, Mondelez (Formerly known as Cadbury), Vodafone and Pidilite on board as the market research partners.

An industrial visit to Signet Industries was organized by the E-Cell for students of all three IPM batches, on the 6th of November. Interested students went in two batches and had a wonderful learning experience. We got to see the manafacturing process that goes into making various agricultural implements, from micro irrigation pipes to those used in bore-wells.

There's a Mathematical Modelling Quiz, scheduled to happen at 10 a.m., in a few hours. Also, the Newspaper Bulk deal is to be renewed and new subscriptions taken, for all the IPM students.

The 2014 batch is all back from a relaxing first term break and they appear all geared up to take on the world! Most of us, the 2012 batch, are looking forward to the month-long break in December- the break is planned, in order for us to be able to write our IGNOU end-year exams well!

There's a report to be submitted as part of the course on Social Entrepreneurship, by the end of today. The report ought to document each of the three guest lectures that we've attended as part of the course- each guest lecture was delivered by the founder of a well-established social enterprise.
There's a lot of good learning to happen! A site-visit to an organization in Dewas has also been planned, on the 13th of the month.

The Principles of Management classes just get better and better! There have been videos and engaging discussions galore! Last class, sir handed out blank sheets, paired us up and asked each of us to sketch our partners! This was then followed by a test of creativity, where we were given 30 blank circles to convert into meaningful objects, in the least possible time! It was great to see imaginations soar!

The most important thing to remember during a brain-storming session is that one ought not to reject ideas outright, but, one is only to collect all ideas that are being suggested at the moment; criticism and the feasibility of ideas is to be taken up only at a later stage- this allows ideas to flow freely and ensures that the best ideas surface!