25/01/2014

25/01/2015; 00:24:
And, Term 8 is now at a close. It was a pretty eventful term; I’ll just come to that in a bit, once I wrap up the happenings of the past few days. This is the problem with long intervals between posts, you miss the little things that make each day special, and all you do is sum up the larger happenings.

To pick up where I left off, we did win the final of the Basketball League; it was a good game, we finally won by a single point. The boys’ final too was won by a single point. Later in the week, we won the Volleyball League too; the boys’ games are still underway.
In more academic news, the process of résumé iterations was in process and is now complete. A few of our seniors volunteered to help us modify/prepare our CV’s for the social internship placements that shall start soon. A long list has been prepared by the IPM Office- it lists a large number of NGO’s and CSR wings. Shortlists, interviews and offers shall follow in the term to come.

The week gone by saw all our end-term exams, one after the other. The Principles of Management End term was very enjoyable; it had a couple of case-studies to be interpreted as one felt like; the Geography end term was on the same day- the papers have been corrected and shown to us today, all in a matter of 2 days!. 4 other end-term exams followed- the Econometrics end term was a lab exam on R which went by without any technical glitches. And, I think we must’ve had cold coffee, each evening, courtesy Mess2.

Now, the important part is that the term is over. The highlight of the term was definitely the sports events and getting official permission to organize our very first Sports Fest- Ranbhoomi; we’re inviting participation from all across the country! And, I’m now off on a fortnight-long break. The juniors shall have end term exams soon; they get to go home only at the end of the month, for a fortnight too. Happy Holidays!

19/01/2015

19/01/2015; 20:17:
Haha, 2017 is also the year that we shall graduate, after spending five fruitful years here at IIM-Indore.
18th morning saw the last few sessions of our course on Social Entrepreneurship; it felt less like an academic course and more like a series of life-lessons, life lessons that are more necessary to be happy, than anything else.
18th afternoon saw the concluding sessions of our course on Mathematical Modelling. We learnt quite a bit about the professor too; he indulges in poetry and languages, apart from being in love with his subject. There was a Volleyball match, in the evening. We lost the first set, but, won the next two, thus winning the game; another match is scheduled, possibly day after tomorrow. Meanwhile, The Men’s IIM-Indore Basketball League (IBL) final was won by one of the IPM2013 Batch teams. Later in the evening, we ‘volunteered’ to help out the PGP-I guys with their market research project since it dealt with food. We got to give our expert commentary about Food in Indore as well as dissect the marketing strategies of some food joints.

We’ve been working with R and feel confident enough to do a pretty useful analysis of a large amount of data. There’s the IBL Final, in another few minutes now; here’s hoping that we win!

17/01/2015

17/01/2015; 23:34:

15th aka Thursday aka holiday (yay!) was spent mostly sleeping (like all other holidays). Meanwhile, campus roadies made good progress, holding a task early on a holiday morning. All the roadies hopefuls gathered at the Sports Complex at 7 a.m. They were then divided into 4 teams- a task was in order. It mostly involved running; from the Sports Complex to Gate 1, back to the Sports Complex, to Gate 3 and then all the way up the Sports Complex stairs. Another round was held on the next night i.e. 16th. This was aimed at testing muscle strength and had a version of 'Push-the-Opponent-Out-of-the-Circle' for the male participants and Arm-Wrestling for the female participants.
I was out roaming on the 15th, and then again on the 16th. The 2012 Batch guys won Clan Raid – the Inter-Batch Counter-Strike Tournament, the first of its kind, organized by ReSpawn (the IPM Gaming Self-Interest Group). Meanwhile, our team is now in the final of the Basketball League.
There was a CSI Quiz on 16th morning; the junior batch had a Money, Banking & Finance End Term. We’re making good progress with ‘R’, in the Econometrics classes. In the evening, we decided that we should try our hand at baking brownies. And of course, it had to be in a big way. We set out, on impulse, to buy ingredients worth over 2k, with the intention of doling out many brownies.
All of 17th morning and afternoon were spent waiting for it to be evening. Adaa- the Drama Club had an event, ‘Spotlight, that began at 7 p.m. We took over JAM (Juices And More) and began working on our brownies. Each plate was deemed complete only with 2 scoops of ice-cream, chocolate sauce and nuts on top. The chocolate sauce was prepared from scratch and was delicious. I was all set to lick the pan, but, someone beat me to it while I was washing the other vessels. Adaa’s event was very enjoyable- they hosted events ranging from Stand-Up Comedy to Dumb Charades with a Twist. Meximus was on campus; nachos and brownies complement each other perfectly. The brownies were well appreciated; we actually ran out of brownies and had to turn people away before we shut shop!

In other news, registrations for Ranbhoomi are open; we’re looking for a possible pro-night as well.

15/01/2015

15/01/2015; 00:25:

Apart from one late-morning class, most of 13th was spent sleeping. There was a bonfire and dancing, on the football field, as part of Lohri celebrations on campus. Later that night, we tried getting some studying done for the Mathematical Modelling Quiz on the 14th. Of course, we were pretty unsuccessful. We sat around listening to music instead. I was then up, watching a movie.

I was woken up at noon, on the 14th- Makar Sankranti/Pongal! We then tried our hand at reading through some notes; we then had a CSI class post-lunch. This class involved only presentations- on different scams that have taken place since India has been a free country. The scams included the Black Money holed up in Swiss banks, the CoalGate scam, the Andhra Pradesh Land scam and the 2G scam. The professor managed to find enough topics for the whole batch! (The presentation was in pairs.)
Soon after, was the quiz i.e. at 4 p.m. We wandered off to the Medical Centre after, and ate chocolate cake and ice-cream at the PiShop later. This was followed by dosa and tea at the mess, post which we made our way to the basketball court for the match. It was our team v/s Team Monika (also of the 2012 Batch). The score, surprisingly, was 3-2. We won, though! The Basketball League began on 13th evening with a Boy’s Match. It shall continue for the next few days, now.
Soon after the match, Mr. Upendra Singh, who’s recently written a book titled ‘A Perennial Stream’ was on campus. He’s having a book launch in Indore, in the second week of February and, we’ll be working with him on that. Got to have dinner with him and Director Sir; life’s good.
The junior batches have been having exams/quizzes; there’s a Money, Banking & Finance End Term for the 2013 Batch, on the 16th. Post the dinner, there was a meeting at 10:15 p.m. The meeting dealt with the Media/PR vertical of our upcoming Sports Fest, Ranbhoomi. Some ideas were discussed; new ideas were generated; everyone’s looking forward to working on the fest.

13/01/2015

13/01/2015; 01:48:

Impulse, the newly christened IPM Dance Club held its first event for the year. ‘Footloose’- a crazy evening of fun, games and of course, dancing was held on the evening of 12th January, 2015. The games ranged from the usual party-dancing games- Paper Dancing & Balloon Dancing to the rather difficult PropMaster and Mis-Connect.

Meximus- the new Mexican place in Indore was on campus, offering free food as prizes all while making brisk sales; JAM meanwhile dished out Spaghetti courtesy their new guest chef. A beautiful stage had been erected on the lawn opposite JAM, with dancing space on all sides.
The first game for the evening was Paper Dance- the rules were simple- get a partner and a sheet of newspaper and join in the dancing! Both partners must remain on the paper at all times- music is played, partners attempt to dance on the limited space; at the end of each round, the newspaper must be folded in half and the fun continues. The event began with partners dancing next to each other and ended with people in each other’s arms, on each other’s toes and on piggyback.
The next event was called DanceBasanti- the objective was simple, a popular song was played and the participant had to dance out the signature step of the song, correctly and with enthusiasm!

The next event was called CopyCat- a dance video was played and the participants had to copy the video as well as possible- where B-schools are all out against plagiarism, we have this!
This was followed by another round of Paper Dance. BumbumBole- I don’t know who named that one!- came after. A box was tied around the participant’s waist- the box was filled with paper balls. A booty shake was the key to get all the balls out of the box in the shortest possible time. A rather difficult, ‘PropMaster’ was up next. A chit was to be picked, each chit had a prop mentioned on it; each prop had a song assigned to it; the assigned song was played and the participant danced to the song, using the prop accordingly.
This was followed by ‘Mis-Connect’ where one partner did the other expressions and the other was the hands, standing right behind the guy who was to be the face. The Dance Face-Off was next. This was the Grand Event of the evening- it was nice to see a lot of participation for all the events, through the evening. The concluding event for the evening was ‘Close Up- Do jism, ek Balloon’- it was the classic Balloon Dancing party game- the event worked in pairs- each pair had a balloon that had to be balanced between them while they moved to the beat of the music.

The event that began at 7 p.m. finally came to a close around 10 p.m. Everyone danced; everyone was happy! I got to be the M.C for the evening- the stage was all mine! (since the dancing all happened on the ground for the stage was not designed to take on all the Bollywood jhatkas that the evening saw).

Lined up for tomorrow evening i.e. 13th evening is a bonfire as part of Lohri celebrations at 8 p.m. 14th has a Mathematical Modelling Quiz during the day, Kite Flying at 2 p.m.(Makar Sankranti!), and Pongal-celebration related games being at 3 p.m. The day ends with a Pongal feast later in the night.
In other news, the group discussion round of Campus Roadies was held yesterday i.e. 11th Jan and the interviews were held earlier this evening. We’re waiting for the event to proceed to the ‘task’ stage, where we can follow the action, live! Our Sports Fest, Ranbhoomi is all set to happen; our FaceBook page is now live! Meetings are in full swing, of different verticals and related to different sports.

There's a Basketball as well as a Volleyball league happening on campus- the best part is that there is a sufficient number of women participants for both games! An auction was held on the night of 11th January, in the girls' hostel. Each captain was given 2000 points to bid for players. I got to build a team for both Basketball and Volleyball; life's good! Looking forward to when the matches begin!
In happier news, we got media coverage for various events, day before, yesterday as well as today! And, there was also this meeting with the Chair, HS&A, this evening. It was more of an 'introduction' session where he wished to meet the SAC EC members. Looking forward to flying kites on Makar Sankranti!!

11/01/2014

11/01/2015; 00:39:

It's been a long day! And, an enjoyable one at that too! We had morning classes and a few classes after lunch too- we had 5 classes today, after a long time- what with revised credit requirements and all - there are 360 credits to be completed in 3 years i.e. 40 credits a term, over 9 terms.

Right after class ended at 6:15 p.m., the Creativity Club's event took off. The event, 'Idea-thon': the marathon for idea structured like a pentathlon had five events- and each of them willed the participants to exploit their creative bent to the maximum. The event had over 100 participants! The first event ‘Survival of the fittest' was an elimination quiz on ad-marketing. Only 25 teams made it to the next round, ‘Spot the Place’ where unusual photographs of the IIM-Indore campus were shown & the teams were supposed to identify the location in question.
15 teas then made it to the final 3 rounds- the first of which was called ‘Sell your Brand’ where each team was handed an ordinary looking item- say a pair of pants or a tube of toothpaste. One special property was to be added to the item, such that your product and advertisement would be most appealing. Imagine a tablecloth that doubles up as a Superman cape. This round saw toothpastes that double as fairness creams, a kurti that vests in the lady super self-defence powers, 'Easy-Fly Slippers' and a basketball that turns into a furry friend at night! The second event was called 'Popcorn Wars’, which, unfortunately was not a food fight, but, involved instead creating art out of a limited popcorn supply. ‘Doodle it Out’ saw each team have a product/theme and a pen and paper for props- a mind-map of everything that the product made them feel was to be sketched
out, in circles, designs and imaginary characters. I'm definitely going to upload pictures of our creations- the Doodle and the Popcorn!

As soon as the event ended, just like yesterday, I took off running, to get the event report and pictures to the media. A hurried dinner later, there was a meeting to attend. IIM-Indore's first-ever sports fest is set to be organized in February-from 27th Feb to the 1st of March. Operations for the same were to be discussed in a meeting attended by students from all three batches. The website and FaceBook page will be live soon; 11 sports are scheduled to happen; there are also plans to hold a pro-night on the last day.

Looking forward to tomorrow! And, the results of the Idea-thon which should be here sometime soon!

09/01/2015

09/01/2015:

We spent the night of 6th January, celebrating birthdays that went by, in the December vacation. The most important thing that came out of this was a 'selfie' of most of the girls of the hostel. Lights, cake, confetti and the selfie.

Econometrics classes have been spent working on R- we're working with large amounts of Financial Date, courtesy the Stock Exchange and Nifty. It's rather interesting; and is less difficult than it sounds. Team i-Help got a group picture clicked on the afternoon of 7th January. There is a new idea, I'm not sure who the ideator is, that involves putting up framed pictures of various student activities all around the Academic Block. That's a fine idea- there are pictures from the Social Committee's work at Khargone, from Dance Events and the latest addition shall be one that captures the i-Help journey. Also, the faculty mess on the ground floor has been rebuilt; it's all metallic and swanky, now! The Dahi Kachori is still the same, though!

ReSpawn- the IPM Gaming SIG is organizing 'Clan Raid'- the mega CounterStrike 1.6 tournament.
The Creativity Club is planning to conduct an Idea-thon on 10th evening; they've got exactly a 100 registrations for this marathon of ideas. The Dance Club intends organizing an evening of song & dance, on the 12th; the Activity Club is planning a campus edition of 'Roadies'; the Sports Club shall hold a Volleyball & a Basketball League.
The final of the Football League was held, on the evening of 8th January. We walked around campus, eating Pani Puri and burgers, courtesy Poha Point and Burger Planet.

There was a 'Human Rights' End Term, earlier this afternoon.

9th January i.e earlier this evening saw 'Heart-i-culate'- organized by the Literary Club in association with the PGP DebSoc. On the evening of 9th January, the Literary Club of IIM-Indore organized an event titled 'Heart-i-culate' - speak, but, strictly from your heart. Maya Angelou once said, 'There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.... but what is even more agonizing is holding inside you, an opinion on something that you really loved.' And, the theme for the evening was set.It was a marketing event teamed with stage presence and creativity. Each participant had three minutes and a book/movie of their choice to sell. The event was judged by Dr. Rishikesha T. Krishnan, Director, IIM-Indore. A stage was set-up bang in the middle of the hostel blocks, with chairs and enthusiastic audience all around. And, keeping with the chill in the air, there was a bonfire and snacks- courtesy JAM- the student-run food point!People sold books from 'The Ascent of Money' to Chetan Bhagat's 'Half Girlfriend'. Movies ranged from Bollywod classics, 'Sholay', to happening Hollywood, 'V for Vendetta'. The sales techniques included mock book launches, impersonations of authors, drama, speech, a rendition of grandma's story-time and history lessons.

Looking forward to Idea-thon, tomorrow!

5/01/2015

4/01/2015; 09:30:

It's a new year; a 'new year ' post on the 1st was very called for , but, I was too busy celebrating and travelling back to Indore.
Starting from around Christmas, I missed a little and a lot on campus, while I was away. Here, I'm going to take the liberty and borrow the Christmas Celebration report written by one of the juniors:
The denizens of Planet-i soaked in Christmas cheer on Wednesday by celebrating a Christmas eve night full of music and enjoyment.
The celebrations started with a Christmas play organized by the IPM drama club. The play showed how the witch Practikaal kidnaped Santa Claus and how a brave group of friends along with the snowman Olaf rescued him. The play brought out the message of the supremacy of joy and goodwill over evil, leaving the audience mesmerized by its beautiful rhyming dialogue and the skill of the performers.
This was followed by the screening of the film 'Nightmare at Christmas' which was thoroughly enjoyed by all.
The celebrations reached the peak as midnight approached. The IPM community gathered on the library lawns to celebrate the joyous occasion together. A bonfire added warmth to the occasion as everyone enjoyed the festive air. The Music Club organized a Carol Singing event and everyone sang heartily and melodiously to add to the glory of the occasion. When midnight approached, a delicious cake was cut and enjoyed by all to commemorate the occasion. Later as the music played on everyone danced late into the beautiful night.
Thus the festival of joy became all the more special as everyone everyone celebrated in harmony together making it an altogether festive occasion.

After the Christmas Celebration (the essence of which has been beautifully captured by Utsav), a lot of the junior batch made their way to attend Mood Indigo at IIT-Bombay, where they understandably had a gala time. One thing I found most fascinating (apart from the fact that their title sponsor was a chocolate brand!) was the use of RFID's for each person.

On the night of 27th December, all the lights of and around the Academic Block were turned off for the night. This was to facilitate the latest fascination of Photon- the IPM Photography SIG- Star Trails- the 'trail' left by a star, as captured by multiple long exposure photographs super-imposed one over the other. The final result was spectacular. Perhaps, I'll get permission and upload one of the picture; of course, they are available on the Official IPM FaceBook page.

A party was held on campus to usher in the New Year. Despite unexpected showers, the party went on! And, happily!
I was back on campus on the morning of the 2nd- post which there was a lot of catching up on the gossip and the winter.

The Batch boys have moved to the new hostel, aka SR-17, which is close to the Sports Complex; the shortest way from there to the Acad Block is via the 'Great Wall of IIM' stairs- which is at least a hundred stairs! The girls shall be moved there once all the construction work is over i.e. when all 4 hostels are painted and furnished. Classes have been in full swing since the 4th.

23/12/2014

23/12/2014; 00:00:

Christmas preparation is in full swing, on campus. A beautifully decked-up Christmas tree sits right outside the main mess and decorations adorn parts of the campus.
Also in order for Christmas are a play and Christmas carols. The IPM Drama Club has been working hard, for almost a month now, on a Christmas-themed play- it features Wonderland in all its glory- with elves, Noddy and Santa Claus! Dances and dialogues are being painstakingly gone over, multiple times.
Props and costumes are being arranged to make everything feel magical.
Meanwhile, the Music Club has been planning to get everyone to learn and practice Christmas Carols in under a week.

A Special Christmas dinner has been arranged for, for the night of 24th December. Of course, there shall also be cake!
The call for presents, as part of the Secret Santa game, has been sent out; the deadline to ‘submit’ your gifts to the representatives is end of day, 23rd December.
i-Help has been planning to hold a Christmas Celebration for the kids of the schools that we are engaged in teaching.

In other news, the 2013 Batch went on a ‘Happy Trip’, on the 18th of December, as part of their course on Positive Psychology.
The 2014 Batch, meanwhile, is busy with exams till the 23rd, post which a large number of them are heading to Mumbai, to participate in IIT-Bombay’s Cultural Fest, Mood-Indigo.

I intend to give my secret ‘santee’ some food for Christmas, just like last time, when my gift to both (we had a separate ‘girls only’ Secret Santa too!) my ‘santees’ was a buffet lunch at Sayaji, with me for company, of course!

21/12/2014

21/12/2014; 00:47:

And, after a week at home, thanks to a long break between two IGNOU papers, it was good to be back on campus!
The place is buzzing with activity, what with the PGP Placement season having begun and Christmas just around the corner!
I tried and abandoned a blog post, on the 15th, right after I was back on campus; it sure was a busy few days!
10th Evening saw a guest lecture by Dr. A Sivathanu Pillai, Founder-CEO-cum-Managing Director of BrahMos Aerospace; he spoke on ‘India’s Global Leadership’. Later in the evening, the Activity Club arranged a screening of the 1952 movie, ’12 Angry Men’.
On 11th December, a third visit ,since the Social Committee has undertaken various projects this year, to Aastha Vridha Ashram was arranged. The arrangement was expanded to include the orphanage, the juvenile home and the home for victims of abuse; IPM students guided by the in-house counsellor Dr.Prarthana Sharma spent time with the inmates, spreading positivity and learning outside of their sheltered environments.
12th December – Rajnikath’s Birthday was celebrated, with a mass movie screening!
Saturday (13th) evening saw the prelims of ‘In-Quiz-itive’ being conducted, by our very own Literary Committee. 6 teams made it to the finale that was held a week later.
I was back on campus on 14th morning and spent a busy day talking! A part of the afternoon was spent trying to study for the next day’s paper; there was a SAC-EC meeting in the evening, where a proposal for a seminar on ‘Innovation in Management Education’ along with the Music Club’s proposal for a campus radio were discussed. Also certain ideas dealing with increased student safety in the light of the recent Uber-Delhi incident were chalked out.
This meeting was followed by a team-bonding exercise organized by the interim I-Help team. A treasure hunt which had a series of interesting clues to be solved with the team in tow went on for a good two hours. The interim team business, which has been set-up to help finalize the team for next year is a rather useful idea. Practical experience at running the operations is a better judge than any interview or essay can ever hope to be.
Later in the evening, a Chiraag meeting was held where the idea for the year’s ‘Secret Santa’ was discussed. ‘Secret Santa’ as the name suggests entails a random draw being made from the entire set of people participating. Each participant receives a name- of his to-be ‘Santee’, for whom he must act as a ‘secret’ Santa, leaving a trail of clues, leading up to a grand gift on Christmas Day! Apart from being great fun, the Christmas spirit is felt in all its glory.

It was a rather mundane paper, on the afternoon of the 15th- mostly because I sat all alone in a classroom meant for 60 students, writing a paper on ‘Introduction to HIV/AIDS’; so much for opting for random papers when everyone’s pursuing either a BA(Economics) or B.Comm.

16th was one crazy day, most of which was spent planning for the first Media Comm. ‘Event’ of the year, the ‘Journalist Face-Off’. From preparing questions for the Quiz round, to picking the best set of pictures for the finale, everyone worked hard at what they do best. One of the members who was looking after the visual round of the quiz managed to turn up with an entire series of impossible-to-answer questions. It was heart-breaking to explain to him that most of us have absolutely no knowledge of the topics that are so dear to him and that he ought to pick simpler (well, more mainstream) questions that dealt with the Russian Economy and Hollywood instead.
We spoke to IIM-Indore’s PRO, Dr. Akhtar Parvez and our cool English faculty, Dr. Shweta Kushal, both of whom consented to be the judges for the event.
Some volleyball later, we’d also spoken to the media, arranging to send them a report and pictures as soon as the event was over. We were excited; a Media Comm. Event definitely called for media coverage! Plus, it was going to be the best event, ever; the happy moment was when one newspaper we’d left out actually called us – ‘There’s an event happening, right?’. ‘ Yes sir, there is’. ‘Do give me the details’. !!

After a frantic morning of trying to get through at least half the syllabus and a rather decent ‘Drug Abuse and Counselling’ paper, I got working on the event that was to begin in under an hour! Round 1 entries were marked, final run-throughs of the Round 2 questions were done, Wildcard entries were watched and the lucky winner decided and soon enough , the event began.
The event had three rounds and culminated in a charged finale. The first round had the contestants write out an op-ed, an opinion piece, on a topic of their choice- writing a coherent editorial piece is the mark of a good journalist. The second round was a quiz that tested how up to date the contestants were with the currents news, for every journalist ought to have all the current happenings at the tip of his tongue.
The Quiz happened in three parts- one with visual clues, one set of MCQ questions and one Audio-Visual round where news clippings were shown and the news piece in question was to be identified.
There was also a wild-card entry round, where the students had to cover an event on campus, make a video and send it across. The winner of the wild-card round received a direct spot in the finale! 8 teams qualified for the finale, on the basis of the scores of Rounds one and two. The finale was a Face-Off, a show-down of sorts, where one team was pitted directly against the other, in a live-TV presentation round. A series of pictures that depicted the story in question were put up on screen and the teams and to run a live coverage of the incident. The final show-down saw one team impersonate the perpetrator of the crime in question, all with a funny accent and everything; other fun bits included a reporter reporting live from a comet, dazed by the diamonds that she found there; a reporter who became part of a zombie apocalypse and one team who had their very own ‘Snow White News’ channel.
The event made the students aware of the hectic schedule and the crazy demands that every journalist has to meet- it’s not all glamour and glitz, but a lot of hard-work.
The event had large participation and was successful- prizes were given out to winners, runners-up; there were also two consolation prizes and two separate prizes for the winners of Round 2; audience prizes were handed out too!

We left for Khargone on the chilly morning of 18th December. After the successful workshop on job applications, résumés and job interviews, a second edition of the workshop was held for a different set of students. It saw much larger participation than the first and it even had a small entry fee for the participants! The Digital Literacy campaign was also kick-started in a big way, with two schools being reached out to, on the very first day! The first topic that’s being covered is PowerPoint Presentations, mainly for their wide scope of use and the fact that the pictures and everything make them very attractive.
I left campus that night, getting on the late-night train home, courtesy tickets booked by my parents. I’d surprised them earlier in the month, by showing up at home, unannounced; they surprised me by informing me one night before that my tickets were ready and waiting.

Around this, the Secret Santa process began; ‘santees’ were matched with Santas by 19th night and the game is in full swing. I’ve been sending clues to my ‘Santee’ too! I haven’t received anything from my Santa, yet, though.

In other news, Canara bank has agreed to offer loans to IPM students, without a collateral, unlike the mandatory ‘with collateral’ loan offered by SBI till date.

On 19th evening, the finale of ‘In-Quiz-itive’ was held; the event was won by a team which goes by the name ‘Victorious Secrets’!
On 20th evening, a panel discussion on ‘Innovation Challenges’ was held on campus, for both faculty and students to benefit from; the discussion was moderated by our director, Dr. Rishikesha T. Krishnan.
Also, keeping with the directive on ‘Good Governance Day’, a solo speech event was organized for all IPM students, at 6:30 in the evening; the topic for the same was ‘Use of Technology and Innovations in Promoting Good Governance’.


Also, Christmas preparations are in full-swing; that ought to be another post!

10/12/2014

10/12/2014; 00:50:

An IPM 2013 v/s 2014 Football League began, on Friday. The highlight of course was the girls' game which the 2013 batch won, 4-1.
On the evening of 7th December, a guest lecture was organized courtesy the IPM E-cell. The founder of Housing.com. Mr. Advitiya Sharma delivered an inspiring talk, speaking of his journey as an entrepreneur and the obstacles he encountered.

In other news, Religare securities shall be on campus on the 10th, 11th and 13th of December to offer a special scheme on Demat accounts for IIM-I students, courtesy the Finance & Investment club. They also organized the first round of Bazinga- the online Finance quiz, on the 9th. Another two rounds are scheduled, later this Wednesday & Friday.
Karwan- the Poetry Club of IIM-Indore, mentored and run by our Economics professor, Dr.Rastogi held its first session of the season on 9th evening! It's a perfect platform for budding poets- language no bar- to come, express themselves and share their poetry with like-minded, enthusiastic participants.

As a close to the day, the IPM Constitution that the SAC-C has lovingly drafted and the SAC-EC has pored over was shared with all the participants. Wow, we have a constitution now. Way to feel important!

A trip to NM's fest, Vaayu - on the 17th to 20th of this month- had to be cancelled, courtesy upcoming mid-term exams for both the junior batches. Plans to attend Mood Indigo in the last week of December are still in place, even though they are rather shaky.

05/12/2014

05/12/2014; 00:13:

Right before people left to go home, on the 30th, there were meetings held, to come up with parameters to evaluate the SAC-C and the SAC-T. Each club coordinator had to come up with a set of parameters according to which the members would be evaluated in the future. The club members had to come up with a similar set for the evaluation of the coordinator. All this is being done as part of the efforts to draft the IPM Constitution. It feels good to be in the Drafting Assembly!
The selection process for selecting next year’s Atharv team was discussed in another of the series of meetings that evening. The final meeting of the evening detailed the recently approved Sports Fest proposal. Ranbhoomi- the IPM Sports Fest is set to happen in the last week of February, tentatively from the 27th to the 1st of March. We hope to draw in participation from across the country! Almost all of December shall be spent planning!

It’s been a leisurely four days, with the December vacation in full swing. Some people (like my room-mate) had a paper on the 1st; I didn’t. I spent most of Monday (1st) sleeping; evening was spent playing volleyball and then having dinner at Pishori – we ate mostly Tandoori Chicken. An institute-wide initiative has been undertaken, in the form of Oscar Wilde’s play ‘The Importance of being Earnest. Auditions were called for, at 7 p.m. on the 2nd of December. Practice is now in full swing!
At 8:00 p.m., the Activity Club had arranged for the screening of the movie ‘Inglorious Bastards’. I have no clue why they suddenly did so; people did, however enjoy the movie.


After sleeping in excess on Monday, I was up in time to get some breakfast, on Tuesday. The FST- Foundation in Science & Technology paper is on the 6th- it’s the only compulsory paper as part of the BDP (Bachelor’s Degree Programme) 2nd year curriculum. I pulled out the books on Tuesday, mainly to ascertain their number. There are a total of 8 books; hopefully, we’ll read through them all, before the paper. We did read them in bits and pieces to solve the assignments, but never once through.
After the All-IPM meet, where the Khargone project was discussed, a volunteer form was sent across to everyone. Later in the evening, the music club sent out a mail detailing its newest idea- practice groups- to hone different talents including singing and playing different musical instruments.

On Wednesday, we put together a 3-member team to conduct the skill-building workshop in Khargone. Another set of volunteers was organized to interact with the children at Aasthagram.
By mid-night, we also received a good number of entries for the Journalist Face-Off event that Media Comm. is planning to hold.
i-Help has been in the process of picking out the team that shall call the shots, next year. Basically, we’re getting old and it’s time to hand over the reins to the junior batch! As part of this, every week, a different set of interested juniors are appointed to interim coordinator roles – 2 coordinators and one vertical head each for the HR, Media & PR and Academic verticals. Everyone is thus being given a chance to actually put their skills to a practical test, because that’s what is finally needed! Everyone is taking their roles seriously and working really hard; the Academic vertical has been meticulously preparing worksheets, Media & PR has been preparing weekly reports and HR has been working and re-working the time-table to get the perfect fit!

We left for Khargone at 7:30 on Thursday (4th) morning in a white ‘traveller’. The traveller was also unique- the last row of seats had been replaced by a bed! Of course, since it was early morning, to people immediately settled in to sleep! We stopped en route for poha-jalebi and once to click photographs. Once at Khargone, we split into the two assigned teams. We headed to open the registration desk for the workshop while the other team headed straight for the kids! The workshop covered the whole job application process – finding the right job, filling out an application, preparing a résumé and facing the interview. The participants included students of the Government P.G. College at Khargone. Their feedback (after an almost 5 hour long workshop!) suggested that we did manage to do a fairly okay job of making them aware and guiding them.
Meanwhile elsewhere, our other team visited the Sports & Cultural Competition that was being organized for the differently abled children, on the occasion of World Disability day which was on the 3rd of December. They also spent time with the other children, playing games like Fire on the Mountain and Dog & the Bone.
The whole Khargone experience just makes everyone who goes there so happy; by the end of the day, you’re tired and yet unwilling to leave, promising to come back; of course, on the way back everyone falls asleep (except my room-mate!). We were back on campus by around 9 p.m. post which dinner was had. A large amount of vanilla ice-cream followed! We took good advantage of the newly launched sachets of Hershey’s chocolate syrup while we were at eating the ice-cream!

While we’ve been having a gala time, what with the vacations and everything, both the junior batches have been writing an assortment of quizzes and mid-term exams! And, a play is being prepared for Christmas Eve, by the junior batches! Christmas Eve is fun time, with mid-night carol singing, cake-cutting, movie screenings and even a theme-based play, this time around!
In other news, Chiraag, our very own IPM E-magazine has sent out its monthly call for articles. They seem to have this thing for all the unusual themes that one could possibly come up with! The theme this time is ‘Hard to get’. It’s been rather hard to get what exactly this latest theme could mean; I’ll probably figure something out and write out a piece!