Thursday 30 April 2015

30/04/2015



30/04/2015; 20:41:

29th began with a shock- the front page of the national edition of Hindustan Times’ weekly education supplement had an article that spoke badly of the IPM programme- the article had been driven by a distraught student who had left the programme, after our 1st year. Such negative press had to be dealt with, as soon as possible- also, it had to be ensured that none of us go around making any remarks that may be misinterpreted. An e-mail from the Director followed; that helped cool things down for we were then aware that it was being dealt with at an appropriate level.
29th was the last day when we had actual classes, for the 9th term- the last term of the 3rd year! We had a Development Economics Quiz that was rather difficult and only 30 minutes long. Lunch was followed by PR classes. We had an assignment to present- an organization that’s facing a scandal or one that’s looking to launch something new was to be picked and a PR campaign prepared to help them combat the situation / reach stakeholders effectively. We picked up the currently hot issue of #BlackLivesMatter, following killings of unarmed black men at the hands of the police, in the USA. The police needs to win back public faith and rebuild lost trust. That’s exactly what our solution aimed to do- now that I think about it, we should probably see if we can actually get our ideas implemented! Other scandals picked up included the FlipKart Big Billion Day fiasco, KFC’s problems in China, Malaysia Airlines and their missing aircrafts, the idea of Car-Pooling and the recent LensKart goof-up in wake of the Nepal Earthquake.
We had a class at 5 p.m. which was our last exclusive ‘IPM’ class. The next time we’ll find ourselves attending a lecture on campus, it’ll be with the new PGP guys, not all our IPM batch anymore.
A group photograph was thus clicked at the end of class followed by some nominal celebration.

Later in the evening, I spent some time with the newly selected Media Comm. team. At around 10 p.m., I sat down to hold interviews for the Utkarsha team. Since Utkarsha wasn’t very big last year, there wasn’t really a specific team organizing it; this year, however, a team will be selected. I held interviews for the Head of the Media & PR team as well as the Head of the Logistics Team. Two coordinators for Utkarsha were chosen, earlier in the week.

I got the hostel a little after 2 a.m.; we talked for a while, since it was kind of our last few days as just our IPM batch.

I got up early this morning (surprisingly) and made my way to F-104 to have a look at the PR Quiz papers. We spent some time talking to the PR professor, before retreating to the hostel. The IPM SAC Treasurer is in the process of wrapping up the accounts for this year; he’s been making phone calls, confirming expenses and matching what the club/committee coordinators have to say with his records.

Post this, I wrapped up some pending interviews from the night before. This was followed by a trip to the Pi-Shop; we spoke to the newly selected vertical heads of Atharv, sharing with them all what could have been better; we also discussed ideas for expansion.

Some food later, I was back here, typing this!



30/04/2015


Saturday 25 April 2015

25/04/2015



25/04/15; 03:35:

The 24th, as we were prepared to expect was rather busy. The day began with a PR Quiz- the nice part was that the Quiz had 20 fairly simple Multiple Choice Questions. Right after, we had a World Politics class where a couple of groups put up presentations on topics ranging from relations between Kenya and China to the Non-Proliferation Treatment. The Introduction to Business History class was spent on a group presentation that dealt with Crompton Greaves, Kiloskar Industries and United Breweries.
Post lunch, we had a Game Theory class where an assignment submission was due. We spent some time discussing the ‘nucleolus’ solution to cooperative games. Post this, there was an Introduction to Medicine Quiz- this again was a Multiple Choice Questions only Quiz. A short Introduction to Medicine class followed where we spoke about HIV/AIDS. This term has had an emphasis on group assignments; only 2 courses of the 8 this term had mid-term exams!

Later in the evening, we headed to Mess 2 to get ourselves some cold coffee; there was a Music Club event that was to begin at 8 p.m. The event titled ‘Students’ Choice Awards’ was slated to be a platform for faculty-student interaction. There were songs to be sung, by the faculty and the students- solos, duets and group performances. It was a democratic platform; based on mutual consensus arrived at via a yelling match, two 1st prizes were given to the faculty members- for a solo performance and for a duet performance! It was amazing to see our faculty taking to the stage and joining us in singing our loud to a beautiful evening! Everyone appreciated the idea of the event and there was again a mutual consensus to hold a second edition of the event- even more participation from the faculty members has been promised!

The event ended only by 11 p.m.; right after there were interviews to be taken for the Industry Interaction Cell! The interviews ended only by 3:30 a.m. and now, I ought to be off to sleep!

Thursday 23 April 2015

23/04/2015



23/04/15; 19:30:

And, I’m currently settled in the library, attempting to work on the multiple assignments and quizzes that for some unbeknownst reason are all on the 24th & 25th of April. After a whole 12-week long term, everything happens tomorrow!
The Development Economics assignment was finally compiled, late in the night and presented in the class on the 20th. Our choice of topic was excellent (we picked an easily explicable topic) and sir did not ask us more than 2-3 questions at the end of the presentation.
The evening of 20th April was spent on the last Media Comm pre-process before the interviews; it entailed Content Creation- content was to be created for the soon to-be updated IIM-Indore website. Short write-ups about each club/committee were prepared and then edited.
We made it to the final round of #Adster- the pan-India hunt for the most creative minds that is being organized by the Activity Club. However, the poster must be submitted by midnight today and, we haven’t really gotten working.
On 21st morning, we had a Game Theory quiz which was surprisingly simple. Right after, we had a session as part of an ongoing workshop on ‘Team-Building & Time Management’. We did a few simple exercises that made us realise that each and every one of us has inherent biases, some driven by stereotypes and our interaction with the world around us. We’ve been learning about Corporate Branding in our PR course and the concept is rather interesting; we were talking and concurred that a lot of us actually really enjoy watching advertisements, more so if they are well-made!
Later in the evening, elections were held, in order to appoint the Vertical Heads for the various verticals for Atharv ’15. That evening, we managed to take out some time to head out to O2 café- O2 has a Lebanese food festival going on and we got some delectable food to enjoy.
At around 11:30 p.m., we held interviews for the Media Committee hopefuls. The interviews ran till 2 a.m., with everyone having a lot of rather interesting things to say. All the pre-processes sent in were also very interesting- the freedom given also lead to a large variety of responses- including a Listicle on why Listicles are awesome, a take on the management lessons that the Media Comm. can draw from the big screen, opinion-pieces, a proposal for a Quiz Club, reflections and even a magazine titled ‘Media Committee Insider’ that had gossip, inside stories and more!

We had a solitary early morning class on the 22nd; post-lunch, we sat down to watch ’12 Angry Men’ as part of the ‘Team-Building & Time-Management Workshop’- this movie built on the ideas that we’d earlier discussed in class.
There was a pre-dinner i-Help meeting, perhaps the last meeting of the whole team, before we handover the reins to the junior Batch! Interviews for selection shall be held, probably on the 24th & 25th.
Post-dinner, there was a conference call with the Media Team of the upcoming I-Summit- a 2-day entrepreneurship carnival that’s the brainchild of the E-Cell. It shall entail guest lectures, a panel discussion and will culminate in a competition where 15 teams get 15 minutes each to pitch their start-up, for a shot at a 15 lakh investment in their business. The event hopes to bring together venture capitalists and young start-ups.
Later, we got working on our Social Media Project; we collected a fairly large amount of respondent data. We’re analyzing YouTube stars in India- what makes them popular, what makes them click, whether people enjoy adverts and more! Hopefully, the information that we gather will be useful to the incoming Media Comm. Team, for a lot of the 2013 batch kids seem rather interested in using YouTube in a big way, to let the world know about IPM.
The highlight of today was by far the 2-hour long meeting that the SAC-EC and the newly selected SAC-C and SAC-T had with the new Hostel & Student Affairs Chair. A couple of issues were discussed including the hostel In-time for the IPM students, the new hostel blocks, installation of WiFi, revamping of the sound system in the Old Auditorium and coaches for various sports. The highlight of course was that the registration process for the IPM SAC has been initiated!

Mirage- the Creative Club began a rather interesting initiative- Mirage ka Taaj- awards for the IPM batch moving from the 3rd to the 4th year (to be with the PGP). Nominations were called for, under various categories; all IPM participants were free to nominate their seniors, juniors, friends and foes! There were almost 20 different award titles thought of by Mirage and a few others added on by enthusiastic others! The most nominated people in each category (4-6) were put on the final list- and the 2012 batch then got to vote for the most apt candidate in each category! The Award Ceremony will be held on the evening of 26th! A lot of the titles are very interesting- I think I’ll put in the details, after the ceremony.

There is a Public Relations Quiz, in the morning; there is also an Introduction to Medicine quiz; our SM assignment must be completed as must the Game Theory assignment. To end on a happy note, Photon, the Photography Club has agreed to hold a photo-shoot on the evening of 26th April! Group pictures of different clubs/committees and more shall be clicked! We shall also work on a YearBook, soon- these pictures shall come handy.

Monday 20 April 2015

19/04/2015




19/04/15; 20:45:

And, the Industrial Visit to Pune was rather awesome. It all began with us getting ourselves on the bus- 3 AC Sleeper buses had been arranged. All the girls were on one bus- this bus was brand new and out on its first ever journey!
We got to Pune at around 10:30, on the morning of 14th April. Some breakfast later, we were en route to the IT Park of Pune- in three groups- one each heading to Infosys, Wipro & TCS. We were given a short talk and shown a video of how the organization grew from its inception to today. We were then shown around the campus- the IT companies all had large, college-like campuses, replete with living quarters and a recreation centre. The Infosys campus houses the largest gym in all of Pune. An excellent lunch later, we made our way to Forbes Marshall. A second group visited Thermax. We were shown a short video and then taken around the manufacturing area- boilers et al. We got off the bus, en route to the hotel and set off to explore Pune. We got onto a local transport bus, and got off at Shivaji Nagar- rather close to Ferguson College. The whole F.C road is a rather student-friendly place, what with street shopping and good food that’s not too hard on the bank. We walked along the road, eating and looking (and shopping a little!). We got kairi off a tapri, got excellent dosas and finally settled for dinner at Good Luck Café which is known for its non-vegetarian food. Since it was Ambedkar Jayanti, there was a host of celebration in full swing at the Shaniwarwada Fort, a little distance away!
We got back to the hotel a little before 10 p.m., which was the stipulated deadline. This was followed by attempts to attend the Karaoke Night happening in the hotel. (We had put up at VITS/ Orchid) – of course, our attempts failed, since the hotel had decided to keep the venue shut, on account of Ambedkar Jayanti.
Early the next morning, one group set out to visit the manufacturing plant of JCB- which makes earth-moving machinery- and were awed by the large machinery. Two other groups set out to visit Polyplastics and Kalyani Forge. Polyplastics makes a large range of plastic parts for automobile companies. Both groups then headed to FIAT, where we saw cylinder valves, cylinder blocks and crank shafts being made. We also saw cut-sections of different diesel and petrol engines. After this, it was an almost two-hour ride back to Pune city. All of the bus got off at Koregaon Park- the ‘happening’ area of Pune. Three of us rode on, and got off only close to Ferguson College where I met some old friends, Shruti caught up with her sister and Angaee visited her relatives. We also ate excellent Pav Bhaji before getting back to the hotel. We also managed to squeeze in a bike ride- it had rained earlier in the day and the weather was nice!
Early the next morning, one group visited Finolex cables while another set out for Steelcase. This trip ended a little after mid-day, leaving us with a few hours to take in as much of Pune as we could. We headed out to treat ourselves to some excellent Malwani Food- Surmai Fry, Paplet (Pomfret) Curry and Bombil (Bombay Duck), Sol Kadhi (traditional Marathi drink made of coconut milk & kokum berries) and Kombdi (Chicken) Wade. Post this, we headed to the famous Kayani Bakery and picked up a couple of boxes of their excellent Shrewsbury biscuits. We also ate some mulberries on the way, before parking ourselves at German Bakery.
Some food later, we walked towards the famous Osho Garden, passing shops selling Osho chappals and more. The place was rather serene; we even saw peacocks. We then ate excellent risotto at Dario’s before catching a cab to head back to the hotel. We stopped at Satguru’s- the art gallery- en route; we also picked up Vada Pav.
We’d already packed our stuff before heading out. We picked up our luggage and got on the buses, all ready to head back to Indore after an interesting, well-enjoyed vacation.
We reached Indore around 10:30, the next morning i.e. 17th April to a breakfast of Aloo Parathas and Poha. We then attempted to get some studying done since there was a World Politics Mid-Term at 3 p.m.
After the paper, we began the pre-process for the selection of the Media & PR Committee team for next year. The nominations had come in on the 16th. We met the applicants at 6:30 p.m., conducted a surprise general awareness quiz and then proceeded to tell them exactly what the Media Committee does. There was a press release to be done, that evening which we then did right in front of them, for they need to have an idea of what exactly they’ve signed up for! We then ran a series of group discussions, on topics suggested by the applicants themselves.
We then explained the written pre-process to them- they had 700 words, to send in anything that they liked –an SoP, a résumé, an article, a letter, the media comm. budget i.e. just about anything was welcome, only the word limit had to be stuck to. Right after this, the Acad Comm. Interviews began at 9:30 p.m.
We went to watch the semi-final of the ICL – the Cricket League; Round 1 of the Creative Club’s Ad-Making event Adster began at 11 p.m.- it was an online quiz based on brands, advertising, taglines and more. We then worked on our Social media project before falling asleep.

Most of 18th was spent in class. On the evening of 19th, we held the practical task as part of the Media Comm. Pre-process- all the applicants were given information about an upcoming Film-Making event being organized by Adaa- the IPM Drama Club. Each one then spoke to a journalist from a different newspaper, composed the e-mail that was to be sent out and even did the follow-up.

Right after this, the voting for the Acad Comm. Coordinator was held. I sat around, watching, writing this!

There’s now a Development Economics assignment to be done! The Game Theory assignment is rather interesting- we were asked to find a real life problem and apply game theory to it. We’ve chosen to apply Game Theory to the Greek Credit Crisis, the internet.org issue and the relations that Russia & USA have with Cuba.

Monday 13 April 2015

13/04/2015



13/04/2015; 18:26:

We had two Social Media classes on Saturday, until 6:15 p.m.; right after, we met in the library to do some sort of research for our debate.
The debate began a little after 8 p.m.; there were two judges, one faculty from our institute and another Literature professor from IIT-Indore. It was a 4-person team, with each speaker speaking for 5 minutes. The topic for the debate was ‘This House Believes that the United Nations as an institution has failed in its role’. We got to be the proposition. The back-and-forth of arguments was followed by a 20-miunte open house session where the other team, the audience as well as the judges threw questions. At the end of the rather closely-contested debate, we spent several terse moments waiting for the judges to come up with the results. We did win! The best speaker was from the IIT-Indore team.
Meanwhile, the Group dance event began in the New Auditorium. Performances included Classical dance forms as well as Contemporary and Salsa. A Photography Exhibition, old-school style was held right at the entrance of the Sports Complex. There were 7 pictures a side, on display. The art of viewing photographs is one that is rather big in the west; this is an art form that never really took off in India, what with all the Social media that abounds. It is indeed an art form to be embraced and celebrated; giving people food for thought while sparking off something new was the motive behind holding the Exhibition. Later, a little after 10 p.m., the Finals of the Quiz began. There were 6 teams- three from IIM and three from IIT. The Quiz was won by team Delta, from IIT-Indore; Team Bravo from IIM came a close second.

IIM-Indore won the overall trophy; there was grand celebration at winning the face-off. Pleasantries were exchanged and the IIT-Indore students left campus, with both sides promising a bigger, better challenge the next time around.

A little after 11 p.m., the interviews for the Atharv Media and Participation teams took off, as scheduled. The Pi-Quiz interviews had been held a little earlier; the Participation interviews were also held. The junior batch is very enthusiastic!

Most of 12th was spent trying to begin working on the Project for the Social Media course, without too much success. Later in the night, we held interviews (a group discussion to be precise) to select the Control Centre team for Atharv. This shall be a small 4-5 member team which will do exactly what the name suggests!

Some vertical interviews are done; some others shall happen after the 17th. Meanwhile, interviews for the 2014 batch shall be conducted by the already short-listed members of the 2013 Batch.

The 2012 Batch is off to Pune. We’re off on a 4-day Industrial Visit! All my packing is done; the bus is at the Acad Block reception; I’ll just be off!

Saturday 11 April 2015

11/04/2015



11/04/2015; 01:53:

Day 1 of the IIT v/s IIM face-off just got to a close.

So, let’s catch where we left off and get to today. Wednesday was pretty uneventful, through the day. We almost caught ourselves heading out to Indore city to pick up some items needed for the Face-Off, but, that was put on hold. Right after class, a few of us (including the entire Photon team) assembled in NLT9, looking through photographs- those clicked by the Photon team members themselves as well as those sent in by members of the IIM community. 7 best clicks of the many wonderful ones that we had were to be picked. We did narrow down to about 20 that day- the final shortlist was curated the next day. Right from there, I headed down to JAM- some students from IIT-Indore- their Cultural Secretary, their Dance/Drama/Music/Debate heads were all on campus to finalise the details of the Face-Off. Most events would see 2 judges- one courtesy IIM and the other courtesy IIT. The final schedule was worked out- all events were made to fit in perfectly.
Post this, an IPM aspirant was on campus with his friends; I proceeded to show them around campus, telling them stories and attempting to dole out advice at the same time. This tour ended in ice-cream at Mess2; life’s good! Post this, there was a SAC-CC meeting- one with the SAC-C, the SAC-T and the coordinators of all clubs and committees. The newly appointed SAC-C and SAC-T were also present. A couple of things came out of this meeting- the Infrastructure Committee will henceforth have one additional member each from the 1st year & 2nd year- sending their total to 8- up from the existing 6; further, an Industry Interaction Cell will be setup- they shall deal with Live Projects, connecting IPM students to the industry, start-ups and more!
This meeting was immediately followed by the Academic Committee pre-process. The Coordinator of the Academic Committee shall be the student representative in the IPM EC; hence, this coordinator will be chose before the coordinator of any other club/committee is chosen. The pre-process involved a few questions that called for out of the box thinking and a role-play in which the SAC EC played the role of the IPM Office.

9th April was a Thursday and a very welcome holiday at that too! A Marketing Challenge, organized by the E-Cell in association with eChai began at 9 a.m. and ran through the day, ending only after 7 p.m. Internships, and over Rs.10, 000 worth of prizes were given out to the winners. Various start-ups pitched their ideas to the students, post which 3 teams of 3 members each worked on designing a marketing strategy for their assigned start-ups. The start-ups were all Indore based- including Flap App, Engineer Babu and Pulpy Papaya. The event was a huge success!

After an eventful Friday, where our World Politics midterm was shifted from being on the 11th to being on the 17th, evening was even better! Afternoon saw a Team Building and Time Management Workshop for Section B- various team games and an analysis of the movie ‘Chak de India’ formed the crux of the course. At 6:15 p.m., the prelim for the Quiz to be held as part of the Face-Off was held.

At 7:00 p.m., the Music event took off in the New Audi. The Music events included one Vocal-Solo event and one Acoustics event. Both events were won by IIT-Indore, with participants from IIM being the runners-up in both.
This was followed by the Dance Event- both the Solo and the Duet events were won by IIM-Indore participants! This went on till almost mid-night, in the New Auditorium. At the same time, the Nukkad Natak event was held on the Events Court. This was won by IIM-Indore.

Meanwhile, ‘Tranquil’- the Creative Writing event was conducted in the Acad Block at 8 p.m. This was followed by the prelims for the Debate. The prelim was a group discussion- the top 4 members from IIT as well as IIM were selected, to form the team that would represent their institute in the final debate. The topic for the final debate is ‘This House believes that the UN as an Institution has failed in its role’. We shall be the proposition! The debate is 20 minutes long, plus a closing speech followed by a 20-minute open-house session where the judges, opposition and audience alike can throw questions.
I hope we do a good job of the debate! The Group Dance event, the Photography Exhibition and more Literary events shall happen on 11th evening!

Wednesday 8 April 2015

08/04/2015



08/04/15; 02:49:

Monday was rather eventful. The day began with classes and ended with the SAC-Coordinator and Treasurer for next year being successfully selected.
The final short-list (with the scores) was sent out to everyone, at 3 p.m. As per the IPM SAC Constitution, there must be a minimum 4-hour gap between the declaration of the short-list and the actual election. The election was accordingly held at 7 p.m. Both the candidates with the highest scores also received the highest number of votes; it was good to know that our opinion matched that of the 2014 & 2013 batch kids! Gowtham is now SAC-T and Tirtham is SAC-C; they’ll take over responsibilities only in July, next academic year, though. All other club-committee coordinators will now be selected.
At the same time, Elixir, organized by the Academic Committee was in progress. GLU, a fashion brand plans to expand in a big way and was down in IIM-Indore, getting ideas. I believe that the winners get themselves cash, internships and more. The winning team (of 2) was composed of media committee members, just like at so many other events.
Meanwhile, the ICL- Indore Cricket League is in progress again- I believe that a second edition is being conducted due to popular demand. Later in the night, we met to discuss the selection of the Vertical Heads for Atharv ’15. The teams ought to be ready and working by the 15th of this month.
As for the Student Body selections, the coordinator of the Academic Committee will be selected first, since it has been decided that this person will be the student representative in the IPM EC. After this, all other club/committee coordinators will be selected.
The E-Cell is holding a Marketing Challenge in association with eChai Ventures on Thursday morning. The event looks rather interesting. Meanwhile, Mirage, our Creative Club has just launched a pan-India contest called Adster- it deals with advertising, poster designing and more!
Preparations for the IIT-IIM Face-Off are in full swing! Photon- the Photography club has decided to hold an exhibition of photographs, in old-school style!

Monday 6 April 2015

06/04/2015





06/04/2015; 01:15:

It’s been a happy week.
So, the evening of 30th saw the prelim rounds of D’Battle’s British Parliamentary Debate. The MUN went on at the same time. We had two debates as part of the prelim- ‘This House believes that divorce and harassment laws should be gender-neutral’ and ‘ This House believes that it would not prosecute battered women for killing their husbands’ We got to be the Oppostion, in both cases. While this was underway, I was also at attempting to successfully do a press release for the event. A couple of phone calls and good pictures later, that was sorted.
At 10 p.m., Pre-Process Number 4 for the SAC-C nominees was to begin. They had earlier sent in proposals, for an event/change/suggestion of their choice. They were now required to prepare a 4-slide PowerPoint presentation about the same, which was to be presented and cross-questioned. Their ideas included a pan-India B-Plan Competition, a whole induction week for the incoming batch, a 3-day intra-IPM event, an IPM-PGP event, a new 4-credit academic course which would deal with a model town as an example to be understood and replicated and a new food-joint on campus.
I had to disappear in the middle, for a short while, for we’d made it to the quarter-finals of D’Battle. Instead of carrying on with listening to the presentations, the other members of the SAC EC decided to get themselves food from the night mess and wait on me instead. So, I didn’t miss anything; fortunately, we at least won that quarter-final- ‘This House believes that developing and developed countries should not be held to the same environmental standards’. The presentations went on till around 2 a.m.
31st saw a few Public Relations classes, through the day. After class, I spent some time with Sir, trying to understand what PR as a career option entails. I have to admit that it does sound very attractive, especially at the moment. At 6:30 p.m., Pre-Process Number 5 for the SAC-C hopefuls was held in NLT-9. It was, as pegged by the hopefuls themselves, a ‘pseudo-batch meet’- all 2013 batch students were invited to be present and throw questions and more at their to-be representatives. Unfortunately, I had to miss this, since the semi-final of D’Battle was to be held at the exact same time. Rastogi Sir and Ms. Bishakha Majumdar were to be the judges for the evening. The MUN was being judged by Dr. Shweta Kushal. When I got to the venue of the semi-final, one other team was already there – another two were yet to arrive. Our clash with this team was thus fixed- or so I thought. My teammate decided that it was a perfect time to begin throwing up. Once he was done, he still felt up to participate and, we did. The topic was rather interesting – ‘This House will, if the technology exists revive people who have committed suicide.’ Our opponents were rather good, even spending time in their closing speech to point out that I had, just as the media does, quoted things out of context right where it was perfect for me! Well, my rebuttal speech did have a lot of ‘The Opposition said & I quote...’ post which I proceeded to state why said comment could be logically invalidated. This victory was soon followed by a final with the preparation time cut short since the judges were short on time. We lost a well-fought debate, where we spoke against ‘The House believes that the value of premier institutions will dilute if these are in every state, making them political constructs’. There was also an informal event held- ShipWreck- where the ship is sinking and you ought to convince the captain of the ship to give you the last life-jacket. Chandra, who did a Sunny Leone and yours truly, who pulled off a Biometric Attendance Machine managed to win that one!
Later in the night, a series of Group Discussions were conducted for the SAC-Coordinator hopefuls- they discussed the role of the SAC-C in the IPM fests, the level of interference that the SAC-C can have in the working of a club/committee, they even did a strength-weakness analysis of each other. This ended only by 2 a.m.
1st April aka Wednesday saw the SAC-T shortlist being declared. From the initial 22 applicants, the number had been narrowed down to 9 after a series of 3-4 pre-processes which included the usual SoP, Résumé, questions about how the SAC can be registered, documents needed during an audit and more. Some kids from IIT-Indore decided that I was the President of IIM-Indore and landed up on campus at around 10:30 a.m. I had class and could only meet them an hour later. IIT-Indore had its annual tech/cultural fest, Fluxus, on the 3rd-4th & 5th of April; these kids were going to spend some time on our campus to encourage participation in their fest and also sell some passes for their pro-nights- the SunBurn on 4th night and the Farhan Akhtar concert on the 5th. I got them hooked up with a table and a couple of chairs; they parked themselves outside the Mess, where they remained until 5 p.m.
A meeting with the new IPM chair, Prof.Ranjeet Nambudri was to be held on the 1st. It got shifted from 12:30, to 1:10 and was finally held at 6:30 p.m. He spent about an hour, hearing out what the SAC EC had to say- we discussed everything from the social internships to the visiting faculty and the necessary PR to let everyone know about our course. Sir seems very positive about all the suggestions and ideas that we have and will have- looking to a positive push-ahead for the course!
At around 7 p.m., the Music Club held auditions in the C-Block common room. There’s an upcoming IIT v/s IIM face-of, which shall be held on 10th & 11th April. This shall include events in the fields of Dance, Drama, Debate, Quizzing, Writing and more!
The Boys’ Basketball team went to play their first match at MediCaps’ Sports fest, MoonStone 2k15! Unfortunately, they lost, 21-19.
2nd April was a holiday, since it was a Thursday. We were all geared up for our Basketball and Volleyball Matches later in the day. We were at the venue by 11 a.m. Our day began with a victory over the Sanghvi Girls’ Basketball team, 19-9. Our Volleyball Boys team then won their first match; however, the lost their next match, the quarter final, later in the day. The Girls’ Volleyball team put up a strong fight but lost to the home team.
Once we were back on campus, by around 4 p.m., there was a Zephyr session to attend. I volunteered and was hypnotized by our campus counsellor who moderates the sessions. Hypnosis is very different from what I’d thought- you’re still conscious, you only shed the inhibitions/control that you wish to shed and it’s actually a nice feeling! The only thing that was perhaps a little off was how long the process felt to me- it was almost 13 minutes long but that felt like just 7, to me!

Some rather spicy maggi later, we were back in the hostel. An industrial visit to Pune which had been in the pipeline for a while finally saw an official announcement. We shall be visiting 5 industries, over 3 days.

3rd morning began in anticipation of the Basketball Final that we had in the afternoon. We were at the venue by mid-day; a boys’ semi-final game was in progress- this one was the match that everyone had been waiting for- both sides were very strong; at the end of 40 minutes, the score was 50-all; the game went into overtime and was only then finally decided! It was a thriller of a game to watch!
Our final was right after; we got off to a good start- the game got pretty close, a couple of times; but, we were having a good day! We beat the home team, 21-16 to emerge victorious! Happy but exhausted, everyone got back to campus. I then managed to sleep for over 16 hours, getting up in the middle to get the World Politics assignment done. There was a Finance Quiz that was held at 7p.m., that evening; we’d meant to participate, but, well. The quiz, of course, was rather well-received.
Chiraag, the IPM e-Magazine sent out its issue- the theme for this time was Spring!

4th April
The highlight of the day was our visit to the mela which is currently up at the ground opposite the Collectorate in Indore city! We were on our way to go watch Fast & Furious 7 which was screened on campus, on Saturday evening, when we thought of the mela. An immediate change of plans resulted; we were soon on the 7 p.m. bus to the city. We sat on the Giant Wheel, Colombus (the boat thing) and Break-Dance; we also managed to get some good food eaten. We were back on campus by 10 p.m., after a very successful visit to the mela.
Later in the night, we held interviews for all the SAC-C hopefuls- this was to be the last thing before the elections.
5th evening was spent interviewing the last 6 SAC-T candidates standing! A rather unanimous decision on the best candidate was reached, unlike the SAC-C process.
Elections shall be held late on Monday evening! Preparations for the IIT v/s IIM Face-Off are in full progress! Trophies are being selected, the Photography Club is planning an exhibition and the Dance Club just added an additional event! Then, there’s the Industrial Visit- we will be leaving on the evening of 13th April. Also, the coordinators and members of the other clubs and committees shall be selected soon!