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Students of Maharishi Vidya Mandir Public School participate in their annual sports day at Chandmari in Guwahati on Tuesday. Picture by Eastern Projections

IIM Shillong — the youngest of the lot — has done itself proud by winning two flagship events, Ashwamedha and Kalpavriksha at Ahvan ’09 — IIM Indore’s annual business summit.
Over 500 participants from the top 30 business schools participated in the event held from November 19 to 21.
While Ashutosh Dikshit from IIM Shillong won the solo Ashwamedha event, the Kalpavriksha, a team event, was won by a team of Prof. Swapan Kumar Majumdar, Neeraj Sharma and Hari Krishnan.
The top three in the Ashwamedha event comprised Dikshit, Raghav Sehgal (IIM Ahmedabad alumnus) and Vivek Menon from IIM Indore.
The spotlight round followed in which there was a personality/stress interview conducted by the eminent jury of Prof. Chandrashekhar from IIM Indore, Prof. Vijay Menon (HR consultant and pioneer of the concept of Ashwamedha) and Arvind Sharma, chairman and CEO of Leo Burnett.
One of the highlights of this round was Dikshit’s response to the question on whether IIM Shillong would live up to the standards set by brand IIM, to which Ashutosh replied: “Completeness and Nothingness are two sides of the same coin. In the same vein, standards are defined by perceptions that people have. As far as IIM Shillong is concerned, we have been first in a lot of initiatives — being the first centrally-funded institute to have implemented Enterprise Resource Planning; taking sustainability from concept to execution and the first B-school in the country to host inter-corporate golf tournament”.
Dikshit won the Ashwamedha crystal trophy and prize money of Rs 150,000.

Kamlesh Dutt Tripathi delivers the lecture at Tezpur University

Eminent Sanskrit scholar, theatre personality and professor emeritus of Banaras Hindu University Kamlesh Dutt Tripathi delivered the first Srimanta Sankardeva Lecture at Tezpur University on November 25.
Speaking on the important characteristics of ankiya bhaona, Tripathi said various elements like purvaranga, sutradhara, entry and exit songs (dhruva) and many other such features were a continuum of Sanskrit theatre.
Tripathi, however, said ankiya bhaona is not a repetitive exercise of the earlier tradition. It is an expression of the creative genius of the great saint and composer Srimanta Sankardev.
Mihir Kanti Chaudhuri, the vice-chancellor of Tezpur University, underlined the need for extensive research on diverse facets of Srimanta Sankaradev’s contributions and ways to relate its relevance to the present day crisis in society.
CHIT CHAT
The National Education Foundation Law College, affiliated to Gauhati University, has set up a legal aid clinic on its premises, the first in the Northeast to do so.
Chief Justice J. Chelameswar of Gauhati High Court, who inaugurated it on November 26, congratulated the college for taking up such an initiative.

New Delhi: Shifting from its earlier stand, the government on Tuesday indicated that it may allow the IITs and IIMs to open campuses in foreign countries.

Minister of State for Human Resource Development D Purandeswari told the Rajya Sabha that government would be open to idea of allowing the IITs and IIMs to set up campuses in foreign countries once they improve their faculty positions.

The government had earlier turned down a proposal of IIM Bangalore to open a campus in Singapore. The HRD Ministry did not agree to the proposal saying that the Memorandum of Association of IIM, Bangalore, does not empower the institute to open campuses abroad.

The minister today said it may not be immediately feasible for the IITs and IIMs to open campuses abroad as they are facing faculty shortages and have to undertake 54 per cent expansion in their intake to implement OBC quota.

Setting of campuses abroad may further strain the IITs' limited manpower and other resources, Purandeswari said in a written reply.

She said various MOAs of the IIMs will need to be amended because these MOAs do not empower them to open campuses abroad.

Replying to a separate question, the minister said the government has received suggestions that while increasing the overall number of seats by 54 per cent in IITs, increase in number of seats in individual disciplines may not be insisted upon.

It may be decided by taking into account the popularity, demand and importance of the disciplines.

The suggestions are under consideration of Ministry of Law and Justice, Purandeswari said.