BENGALURU: Eight post-graduate students from various academic programmes were awarded gold medals during the 42nd annual convocation of IIM-Bangalore on Monday.
The students were from diverse backgrounds, ranging from a 25-year-old who broke records with his academic score to a 45-year-old IAS officer who will be posted to Bhutan.
Udit Jalan achieved the first rank in the post-graduate programme, and in the process, broke the record of the highest CGPA ever scored with 3.9 out of 4.0. Another awardee, Dharmendra Hiranandani, said about his future plans, “I have dreamt of achieving a leadership position where I am not only guiding the P&L (profit and loss) but am able to influence the shape and direction of the industry too.”
Pranav Kumar Mallick was awarded in the Post-graduate Programme in Public Policy and Management (PGPPM). An IAS officer who has worked with the Ministry of Railways, Mallick will immediately helm an important project — a hydroelectric project in Bhutan which will supply electricity to many parts of the north-east.
Suresh Ganesan, who was awarded the Best All Round Performance in Post-graduate Programme in Enterprise Management (PGPEM), believes that the Indian IT and tech industry haven’t catered to the requirements of the domestic market. But, he said the trend is certainly changing now, and he too intends to contribute with his own start-up in the future.
Kushal Nitin Dalal of the Executive Post-graduate Programme (EPGP) wanted to contribute to the development of healthcare in India.
He said, “With a growing number of start-ups in this domain, the industry has gained a lot of traction and is surely going to be in focus over the next 5-7 years. On a sad note, none of the medallists were women, a statistic which reflects the low number of girls who get through into IIMs.”
Prof G Raghuram, IIMB director; Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson, IIMB Board of Governors, and Chief Guest Uday Kotak, managing director, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd led the convocation procession.