104 awarded diploma certificates at IIM

Neha Saini

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, April 16

The second convocation of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Amritsar, was held on its campus on Monday. As many as 104 management graduates were awarded diploma certificates.

Vishesh Chandiok, the India CEO of Grant Thornton LLP, was the chief guest as Dr Satya Pal Singh, Minister of State for Human Resources Development (Higher Education), could not make it.

Prof Kulbhushan Balooni, Mentor-Director, IIM, Amritsar, said, “The friends you value will walk with you to an extent, but the real test is when you take the first step alone. Speak the truth and do what is right and you shall receive enough courage to defeat any kind of might.”

Meanwhile, Akhil Kumar Vinta received the gold medal for scholastic performance and Abduludir Dula received the gold medal for all round performance.

Encouraging the young corporates to practice ethical professionalism, Vishesh Chandiok, stressed on balancing success with humility. “One should always embrace humility and never act egoistically. Even if faced with setbacks, one should know that nothing is the end of this world,” he said.

Sanjay Gupta, chairperson, Board of Governors, IIM, Amritsar, encouraged the graduating students to establish agriculture-based start-ups. “There lie enormous opportunities of entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector. Because of their presence in metros like Bangalore, Mumbai and NCR, so far, most of Indian start-ups have been biased towards technology and today around 45% of Indian start-ups are focused on providing technology based solutions. Having been exposed to the vast opportunities in Punjab, you may wish to work in the direction of promoting agricultural entrepreneurship in Punjab,” he added.

Success stories

From the quaint hill town of Shimla, Akhil Vinta took a big risk when he left his job as a software engineer in Bangalore in 2014 to pursue his thirst for something more important.

“Leaving a well paying job was a risky move but it was essential for further growth. The biggest challenge at college was to adjust in an entirely new entrepreneurial setup; furthermore the change in my financial status from self-dependent to parent-dependent was a really big transition. The first semester was real pain, the heat and academic work load on top of it was too much to handle,” he shared. But his hard work seems to have paid off with a high paying corporate job as a business analyst at Thomas Cook India Ltd.

His fellow achiever Abdulqadir Dula, who hails from entrepreneurial community called the Dawoodi Bohras, too shared that he was ready to take the big leap in the corporate world. “While there were a plethora of opportunities when I was working, I took a leap of faith and ventured into the unknown waters. To me the greatest challenge was to pick a few where I could focus and excel,” he said. The message he passed on to his juniors and other MBA aspirants was, “Dream big, be audacious to take risks and work hard so that the risk transcends into reward.”

Another achiever, Sai Kiran, wanted to bust the myth around challenges being faced by married students. “It isn’t as tough as everyone thinks to manage both marriage and studies at once. The key is to have the right partner and a family that understands,” he says, adding, “Being an artist from childhood, I tried to implement my creative and calculative abilities to the best.”