Vinod Gupta School of Management

Purvodaya 2021 – Excellence Through Resilience

Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur, is proud to host the first-ever online adaptation of the institute’s Annual Business School fest Purvodaya, an amalgamation of different events where budding managers from top business Schools test their mettle against one another. The central theme – “Excellence through Resilience” – is especially relevant in contemporary times because of the pandemic’s devastating effects. The role of resilience is all the more critical regarding the shifting geopolitical, economic landscape as building adaptable businesses has been the mantra of the corporate world steering across these unprecedented times.

The three-day affair is a prodigious mix of competitions spanning across multiple domains like consulting, analytics, finance, supply chain management, and social entrepreneurship and is all set to launch on 5th February 2021. The event will be graced by the esteemed presence of our Chief Guest, Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal’ Nishank’, Hon’ble Minister of Education, our Guest of Honour, Mr Ronojoy Dutta, CEO at IndiGo and Mr Vinod Gupta, philanthropist, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and founder of the Vinod Gupta School of Management. The event will also be graced by Mr Ramesh Ramadurai, Managing Director of 3M India Limited, Dr Raghunath Anant Maashelkar, a Padma Vibhushan Awardee who has served as Ex-Director General of CSIR and Mr Sanjeev Sharma, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, ABB India & South Asia.

This festival provides an ideal platform for aspiring leaders to sharpen their skills as top B-school talent across the country come together to test their prowess against their peers. The enthusiasm surrounding the preliminary rounds has given us a glimpse of the intense competition that we are to witness in the finals. Deliberations with renowned industry stalwarts are also spaced throughout the event to inspire the budding managers in their corporate journeys ahead.

The event attracts CXOs, strategists, technology evangelists, thought leaders, entrepreneurs and professionals pioneering change to come together to analyze real-world business scenarios and bring to life theoretical concepts in a practical framework. It is a platform for the industry and academia to come together to engage in discourse and the students to draw lessons from this. The Leadership Summit is all set to go live on 6th February 2021 will witness the fusion of enriching insights put forth by renowned corporate leaders from different realms of industry on the topic – “Reimagining Leadership: Building resilient and sustainable businesses.” Additionally, the fest will also play host to Reminiscence, the annual alumni interaction session that is a testament to the institute’s legacy.

For more details please visit: https://www.purvodaya.in/

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Higher Risk in Concentrated Business Control – VGSOM Researchers

Award-Winning Research from IIT Kharagpur’s Vinod Gupta School of Management Indicate Higher Risks with Family-controlled Firms

In an award-winning research study conducted by faculty and alumni at IIT Kharagpur’s Vinod Gupta School of Management, the researchers have found that family and family control ownership is negatively related to firms’ profitability due to lags in management.

The study is based on decadal data from 2007 to 2017 of 421 listed firms in emerging markets which have at least 5%-20% of the equity capital is owned by a family group including concert promoters. The results show that family-owned firms dominant with concentrated ownership pay lower dividends leading to lower valuation and higher idiosyncratic risk.

“While the firms undertake significant trading in the stock market, high-risk tendencies and lower dividend payouts are the outcomes of ineffectiveness in managerial decision-making and policies. Our study points to the concentration of ownership as the primary reason rather than to the information asymmetry,” explained Prof. Arun Kumar Misra.

The researchers used three measures of firm profitability, namely, return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and earnings per share (EPS).

“The results on the relationship of firm profitability with ownership structure (family and non-family firms) are consistent across all three measures in the context of the list of Indian firms in our sample,” said Prof. Abhijeet Chandra.

“Our findings are in line with the uncertainty and signaling theory, suggesting that (a) dividend is preferred over uncertain capital gains by investors, and (b) higher dividends signal superior health (lower risk) of a firm. The payment of low dividends negatively influences the firm-specific risk,” he further added.

The study has been named for the ‘Emerald Literati Award 2020 for Highly Commended Paper’. The paper titled ‘Impact of ownership structure and dividend on firm performance and firm risk’, has been published in the international journal of Managerial Finance by Emerald Publishing Ltd. UK. The authors included Dr. Abhinav Kumar Rajverma, Former PhD Scholar, VGSoM (2015-2018), currently Faculty (IRMA, Anand, Guj.), Dr. Arun Kumar Misra, Associate Professor, VGSoM, Dr. Sabyasachi Mohapatra, Former PhD Scholar, VGSoM (2011-2015), currently Faculty (IIM Bodh Gaya) and Dr. Abhijeet Chandra, Assistant Professor, VGSoM. The editorial team said that it is one of the most exceptional pieces of work they saw throughout 2019.

Citation: Rajverma, A.K., Misra, A.K., Mohapatra, S. and Chandra, A. (2019), “Impact of ownership structure and dividend on firm performance and firm risk”, Managerial Finance, Vol. 45 No. 8, pp. 1041-1061. https://doi.org/10.1108/MF-09-2018-0443

VGSOM Assigns COVID Case Study

IIT Kharagpur’s Vinod Gupta School of Management assigns Pandemic Case Study for Organizational Leadership education

It has been almost 2 weeks since the teaching and learning at IIT Kharagpur has gone virtual. The Center for Educational Technology at the Institute has been using the online interface Webex for conducting classes across all levels of study. Shorter sessions are also being conducted through Zoom.

Several research groups are also conducting studies on people’s perception and behaviour towards COVID-19 through progression of time. In one such initiative, the Vinod Gupta School of Management, business school in India of IIT Kharagpur ranked among the top ten in India, has launched a project based on COVID-19 pandemic. The project titled “Invisible Leadership and the CoronaVirus Pandemic” is being assigned 126 students in the second year MBA class at the School as part of the Organisational Leadership course.

Speaking about the project Prof. Susmita Mukhopadhyay said, “Pandemic or any other wide spread disease such as COVID-19 demand exemplary leadership and decision-making capabilities to manage finances, human resources, supply chain and overall business operations. Managers if prepared for desperate times may even plan and improvise the desperate measures. The project aims to teach the students to see the power of invisible leadership in the fight against a pandemic.”

“Leadership is more about taking tough decisions now while keeping the greater good in mind than appeasing your countrymen with misleading information. Covid-19 has turned every one of us into soldiers fighting for the very survival of our species and the real leader here is invisible. So when we miss the leader micromanaging things, we look inward for leadership,” said Pinak Samui, student at VGSOM.

The students will be studying the facts from diverse shades of leadership and understand the ethical issues connected to such situations as COVID-19 pandemic. They will also explore whether the Pandemic itself has acted as an invisible leader in enhancing work-life balance of people, cohabitation of species and environmental sustainability.

“We have given the topic to the students to have a free flow of thought and explore the topic from various perspectives, frame the case based on archival news and keep track of day to day developments and strategies undertaken by governments and other related stakeholders. We plan to develop business case studies based on the project output,” remarked Prof Biplab Datta.

Student Feedback:

“This assignment has helped us to keep track of the COVID-19 situation and all related happenings as they are happening around the world. It also helped us to dive deep into the invisible leadership principle and apply the same, in order to add a new perspective to the current situation, just like looking through a different lens,” said a student Pritam Sharma.

Sharing about his learning, another student Aniket Sanyal said, “Leaders, who can take quick actions, who are flexible in adapting their bold decisions to suit the needs of a situation, will have more success in a crisis environment.”

Round India Winners

IIT Kharagpur Students among the Winners of India Finals of CFA Institute Research Challenge 2019-2020

A five-member student team from IIT Kharagpur has qualified for the Asia Pacific round of the CFA Institute Research Challenge 2019-2020. Along with IIM Ahmedabad and IIFT Delhi, the team from IIT Kharagpur have been won the India Finals of this Global level competition held on February 8, 2020. The Asia Pacific round is scheduled to be held on March 18-19 2020 in Seoul, South Korea. The AP Challenge will consist of one winner from each Member Society of the Asia Pacific Region, typically about 16-18 countries.

The final year students Shubham Maheshwari (Dual Degree, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering), Satwik Bansal (Dual Degree, Agricultural and Food Engineering), Daksh Thakkur (Dual Degree, Aerospace Engineering), Ritika Agarwal (Dual Degree, Agricultural and Food Engineering) and Tanay Jagani (Dual Degree, Agricultural and Food Engineering) who are all currently pursuing M.Tech. in Financial Engineering were mentored by Prof. Abhijeet Chandra from Vinod Gupta School of Management, the business school of IIT Kharagpur.

“A rigorous multi-disciplinary academic curriculum along with industry-ready skill-training has helped our students achieve this success at CFA Research Challenge India leg, along with other top b-schools of the country. IIT KGP’s team being only an undergraduate team has stood out in the competition mostly participated by MBA students. Financial Engineering, our unique interdisciplinary program run by the departments of Mathematics, Humanities & Social Sciences and Vinod Gupta School of Management, has always been appreciated by the industry. With our students competing with the best teams of Asia-Pacific region, we will mark our global footprints in financial research and valuation as well,” said Prof. Chandra.

The other finalists for India round included IIM Udaipur, IIM Calcutta, IIM Trichy, IIM Kozhikode, NMIMS. The teams qualified through the respective zonal rounds which witnessed participation from 59 leading business schools from across the country. The finalists presented their equity research on Reliance Nippon, HDFC Life, BATA and Oberoi Realty. The judges panel consisted of industry luminaries viz., Mr. Pankaj Tibrewal, Sr. Vice President & Equity Fund Manager, Kotak AMC, Mr. Varun Gupta, MD, Duff & Phelps (Asia Pacific Leader, Valuation Advisory Services and Country Leader, India) and Mr. Namit Arora, CFA, Managing Partner, IndGrowth Capital.

“It has been a thorough learning experience for us to participate in the CFA Institue Research Challenge. The competition has provided us with a platform to perform equity research under the able guidance of industry leaders of the investment management industry. We are looking forward to the Asia Pacific Regional round in Seoul, South Korea ,” opined partcipants Daksh Thakkur and Shubham Maheshwari.

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. Students work in teams to research and analyze a publicly-traded company — sometimes even meeting face-to-face with company management. Each team writes a research report on their assigned company with a buy, sell, or hold recommendation and may be asked to present and defend their analysis to a panel of industry professionals.

With content contributions from CFA Society India, CFA Institute Research Challenge in India

VGSOM’s Placement Record

IIT Kharagpur’s Vinod Gupta School of Management Completes Final Placements in Record Time with 31% PPOs

India Today NDTV

With the onset of 2020 IIT Kharagpur’s Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSoM) has set a new record with close to one-third of its placement offers being PPOs. It has also become one of the first management schools to conclude its final placements for the 2019-2020 academic year.

The MBA Class of 2020 have mostly opted for Consulting as their preferred domain with a dominant share of 26%. Among the other key domains are Operations, Sales & Marketing, Analytics and Finance with 19%, 17%, 15% and 12% of the offers respectively.

Among the top recruiters were ITC, Accenture Digital, Amazon, PwC, Deloitte, Blackbuck, ZS Associates, Titan, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Oxane Partners, Vedanta, ICICI Bank, Axtria, Tiger Analytics, Wipro, IBM, IDFC First and Tata Power. In a first several new corporations participated in the campus placement drive. These included McKinsey, Crompton, EPIKInDiFi, Facebook, Cogoport, Media.net, Loadshare and Mahindra & Mahindra.

Top 25% of the students have secured an average compensation of ₹ 23.2 LPA and top 50% and ₹ 20.8 LPA. The highest offer also rose up to ₹ 29 LPA.

The Dean of Vinod Gupta School of Management, Prof. Prabina Rajib, remarked, “VGSOM was able to defy the current economic slowdown due to the School’s unique pedagogy, calibre of students and focus on learning outside classroom. I would also like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to our cherished corporate partners and alumni whose trust and unreserved support ensured a successful placement drive at the campus.”

The School is constantly upgrading its teaching and learning experience as well though collaborative and new academic programmes. It has recently tied up with Singapore Management University (SMU) to develop a broader view of management studies with constant upskilling through projects with companies like Lendingkart, GSK, Citibank, and DBS. As part of this experiential learning program, a group of participating students also secured runner up position in a portfolio simulation competition organized jointly by SMU and Stocktrak.

About VGSoM (IIT Kharagpur)

The Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSoM) is a premier MBA institute of India which was established in 1993 under the aegis of IIT Kharagpur and is the first management school that was set up within the IIT ecosystem. The institute is ranked as one among the top B-Schools of India that is equipped

International Outreach Programme @ VGSOM

Economic Times Jagran Josh India Today Times of India

IIT Kharagpur’s Vinod Gupta School of Management has signed an MoU with Singapore Management University for ‘SMU-IITKGP Inclusive and Immersive Experiential Learning (I2XL) Programme’. The programme is aimed at providing a managerial education and business school experience like no other – one that encourages students to apply classroom concepts in a global business environment. The scope of the MoU will include student projects and immersion programmes, reciprocal exchange of research and teaching staff, research and other collaborations.

The programme is focused on enriching the students with managerial concepts through classroom lectures on portfolio management, alternative investments, innovation and entrepreneurship, and technological adaptation. Another feature of the programme was industry interactions regarding practical challenges in financial markets. The programme has been designed with a two-fold objective – expose students to the dynamics of functioning on an international platform and complement classroom learning with a global business perspective.

Twenty-five students from MBA and Executive MBA of VGSOM participated in this collaborative programme who were selected based on their prior work experience in diverse sectors.

Eminent academicians from Singapore Management University and industry leaders offered experiential learning experience at the first edition of the programme. Another remarkable aspect of this programme was the live industry projects undertaken by the students under the aegis of corporate giants like DBS Bank, Citibank, GSK and niche players like Lendingkart and BondEValue.

Prof. Prabina Rajib, Dean, Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur, on the success of the programme remarked, “We are very proud to include the International Immersion Programme in our curriculum. Its right emphasis on theoretical and practical learning coupled with the unique international exposure it offers the participant makes it a priceless experience. We plan on increasing the number of participants in the years to come to extend this opportunity to all our students, making this a yearly event. We are confident that this collaboration between two institutes of global repute will promote excellence in managerial education globally.”

Students were allowed to showcase their business acumen through a live simulation exercise on Portfolio Management which was both engaging and challenging. The field trip included a visit to the Singapore Stock Exchange with a focus on the global economy and technological adaptation in an exchange. Students further got the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion with Asia’s leading business leaders which gave exposure to the students to understand the Indian business scenario from a global perspective and consider international career opportunities.

Students further worked on challenging business problems requiring leading-edge technological solutions based on a strong understanding of fundamental business concepts. These projects which form a part of the MBA curriculum are currently afoot with mentors from both institutes and respective companies being assigned to guide the students.

“This practical approach based on real-life projects is the singular feature that makes this international immersion programme unique among other such programmes by B-schools in the country,” said one of the participants.

Recounting his SMU-IITKGP I2XL experience, Swastik Paul, a final year MBA student, says, “It was the best part of my MBA journey and gave me an edge over my peers. The interactions with industry experts were extremely insightful which provided me with invaluable professional experience. I highly recommend this programme to all who would like to explore and shape their careers on a global stage.”

VGSoM HR Conclave

Times of India

In the age of Artificial Intelligence and Industry 4.0, while many business functions are undergoing momentous changes, the human resource is emerging as the most critical area of management functions considering the not-so-futuristic alarming trends. The Vinod Gupta School of Management organized an HR Conclave this weekend addressing new avenues in Human Resource Management through HR Innovation and Upskilling.

A panel of India’s top HR experts who attended the Conclave at the IIT Kharagpur campus debated on the impact of technological innovation on HRM. Satyajit Mohanty, CHRO, Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals opined that despite the improvement in technology through offline management and the automation of HR Processes, there hasn’t been a proportionate improvement in employee experience. Sonia Sahgal, Director of University Recruiting, Microsoft India, furthered the point with an emphasis on the human element being fundamental to organizational success. She substantiated her claim by providing the example of decreased synergy in the workplace despite the provisions afforded by modern technology. The panel deliberated further on the importance of upskilling to increase employee engagement with Sonali Misra, Head-HR, Bain & Company (India) speaking about the holistic aspect of upskilling and how it can be leveraged to value addition of industry professionals.

Vivek Vyas, Country Head, Employee Relations, Royal Bank of Scotland focused on the point of employee-driven organizational growth which was further elaborated by Yamini Krishnan, Director – HR, IQVIA who advocated upskilling as the only method in case organizations want more innovative solutions. The panel on Rethinking people management to propel organizational growth was moderated by Hetal Sonpal, a TEDx speaker, Angel Investor and a Mentor of Change at Atal Innovation Mission.

Prof. Sriman Kumar Bhattacharyya, Officiating Director of IIT Kharagpur, keeping in mind the ever-changing market demands said, “In this day and age, the dynamic paradigm of Industry 4.0 demands constant upskilling by employees who wish to stay relevant.”

In the recent years, Vinod Gupta School of Management has emerged among India’s top-ranking management schools within 25 years of its establishment by QS and MHRD’s NIRF rankings. With its unique mix of management programmes backed by the interdisciplinary engineering, science and mathematics platforms of IIT Kharagpur, the School presents a unique opportunity to its students to pursue electives in various subjects other than Management.

The School, which was seed funded by IIT Kharagpur alumnus Vinod Gupta, focuses in several multidisciplinary areas of research and development in the Institute as well as collaborative projects.

Getting together

In the course of just one week, first year MBA students of the 2019-21 batch at IIT Kharagpur’s iconic management school, Vinod Gupta School of Management, not only interacted with industry experts, but also picked up cues from business areas – such as the print industry – and made field visits. For example, a visit to the Kharagpur railway workshop, the largest maintenance workshop of the Indian Railways, to understand the production processes.

The thrust of the orientation process was to make students aware of the uniqueness of the management school. As Prof. Prabina Rajib, Dean, VGSoM, put it, “At VGSoM, which is not a stand-alone Business School, students are part of a bigger system. The purpose of the program is to get the students acclimatized to the greater IIT Kharagpur community.”

Not surprisingly, faculty from the different Schools and Centers of IIT Kharagpur were part of the orientation process. Unlike many other management schools, VGSoM, given that it is part of the IIT Kharagpur ecosystem, has the option of giving its students exposure to various emerging fields of study.

Prof. Surojit Mookherjee of VGSoM explained, “The future is very uncertain in terms of technological changes, advent of AI, ubiquitousness of social media, disruptions in technical, social and political ecosystems and it is in this scenario that today’s youth will have to struggle, fight and take this country forward.”

Prof. Prabina Rajib with Mr. Indranil Das (extreme left) and Dean PG, Prof. P.K. Das

VGSoM offers students the unique opportunity to have an integrated approach to technology and various other challenging fields of study under one roof. Students can choose electives in topics such as Artificial Intelligence, which they learn from top experts in the field associated with IIT Kharagpur Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence. Again, since IIT Kharagpur has its own law school –Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law – students of VGSoM have the option of picking IPR as their elective and have the course work taught by IPR experts.

Besides, VGSoM has emerged a top option for students in new electives such as Business Analytics, Internet of Things, Cyber Security and so on. Shubham Paul, a new entrant, put things in perspective when he said, “I was always interested in techno-management and given that VGSoM has made quite a name for its Business Analytics, I opted to be here.”

VGSOM, which has moved to the 6th position in the 2019 QS World University Rankings of Indian Business & Management Studies universities, and was also adjudged the 6th best management institute in India under the 2019 NIRF Rankings, has admitted a total of 114 students this year. Students from SAARC nations have also been admitted in the MBA program this year.

The number of female students – 21 this year – has seen a significant rise from the previous academic year. Most of the students have good exposure to the corporate world, as their average work experience is 20 months. Asked why she had opted for VGSoM, Devanshi Ahuja, an electrical engineering student, said, “I am from the engineering background and VGSoM offered the best environment for engineers. Besides, I had always wanted to come to IIT Kharagpur and had missed coming here for my BTech.

Prof. Rudra Prakash Pradhan of VGSoM said, “The orientation programme seeks to create a collegial environment among students coming from different socio-economic, regional and academic backgrounds. One of the key agenda is to instil a managerial education orientation among students, promote interpersonal interaction and sow the seed of holistic self- development.”

The sessions on Team Building and Academic Integrity were aimed at nurturing a positive attitude among students, and those on business etiquette were meant to orient students to rethink business manners, dress code, verbal and non-verbal cues – all necessary for future managers in the corporate world. Similarly, the sessions on banking essentials, learning business from cases and learning business from newspapers were the key sessions which will provide a platform for students to understand different business situations and help them comprehend and make constructive managerial decisions.

The program kicked off on July 12 with a lecture by Mr. Indranil Das, Head-Middle East, Ericsson, who shared with students his deep insight into what the future holds for them and how they will gain from the technology revolution awaiting us.

Risk Perceptions Challenging Green Lighting

India Today

Are perceived risks making Indians shy away from eco-friendly LED lighting? – Researchers at IIT Kharagpur’s Vinod Gupta School of Management find concurrence in a study pointing out at consumer psychology and perceived high-cost factor which might be slowing down the growth of the Indian LED lighting market.

The UJALA scheme by Govt. of India had been aiming to make a transition to LED for all lighting needs by 2019. This could have helped the nation save over ₹ 40,000 crore a year. But looking at the sales figures in 2018, the market share of incandescent bulbs, CFLs, and traditional tube lights still exceeded LED lamps and TLEDs by 116 million pieces. Domestic consumers, who account for about 24% of the total electricity demand in the country, are skeptical and perceive a high level of risk when it comes to purchasing and usage of green products.

What is holding them back? Prof. Sangeeta Sahney and research scholar Sujit Kumar Ray from Vinod Gupta School of Management conducted a PAN India study which suggests financial, psychological, physical, and performance risks perceived by consumers as among the potential reasons behind such conservative buying behaviour, the financial and psychological risks being the key among them. (Access Full Paper)

An LED bulb costs almost 4 times of traditional tube light and close to 15 times of incandescent bulbs. Does the extra cost incurred in purchasing an LED light bulb match the benefits of energy efficiency as claimed? This is a question which a consumer often ponders on while making the buying decision at a retail shop and finally settles with traditional lighting systems, opines Prof. Sahney, based on the study. But LED bulbs are proven power savers with energy efficiency as 9 watts for light output requiring 15 watts and 28 watts in case of CFL and traditional tube lights. This leads to a reduction in electricity usage for an estimated period of 6 hours per day for 5 years to ₹ 493/- for LED bulbs as against the cost of ₹821/- and ₹1533/- for CFL and traditional lighting (assuming average unit cost ₹ 5) thus reducing total cost by 52% and the energy cost by 68%.

Another critical factor observed in the study was the Indian consumers’ psychological barrier in this transition to energy efficient lighting system. Since the technology is still new in the minds of the Indian consumers, they may not be fully aware of the effectiveness of the products available in the market.

“Consumers’ faith on green products get compromised when it comes to their purchase behavior due to their perception that green products have lower value, may not deliver performance as per expectation, and in no case are consumers likely to compromise on value, performance, and price,” says researcher Sujit Kumar Ray in his paper “Indian consumers’ risk perception in buying green products: the case of LED light bulbs” published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics recently.

Sujit and Prof. Sahney recommend nationwide campaign to increase consumer awareness regarding benefits of LED bulbs such as warranty available for LED bulbs or if rebates on electricity bills and promotional discounts can be offered to first time users.

Author of the paper may be contacted at sujitkumar@iitkgp.ac.in

Feathers in the Cap

Careers 360 India Education Diary

IIT Kharagpur has emerged among the country’s best and as the only IIT to qualify and excel in four disciplines – Architecture (1st), Engineering (4th), Law (4th) and Management (6th), taking on specialized schools in their domains.

Speaking about the feat of excelling in non-engineering categories, Director Prof. P P Chakrabarti emphasised on the uniqueness of each of these specialized disciplines within the IIT system.

“While there are specialized institutions in these subject areas, being part of IIT Kharagpur has catapulted the growth of these disciplines in a matter of a few decades due to the convergence culture of IIT Kharagpur typically focusing on research, multidisciplinary academics and overall career development of students enabling a unique symbiotic approach to excellence.”

IIT Kharagpur is leading in ‘Research and Professional Practice’ and ‘Graduate Outcome’ in the categories of Architecture, Law and Management while holding a competitive rank in Engineering.

“Our research publications and citations are extremely high domestically as evident from Scopus and SCI. However, there is a need for transforming research into industrial and consumer applications. In recent times we have undertaken several initiatives in the forms of Centres of Excellence which are focused towards technology development for industry and giving a thrust to the startup culture,” he said.

The Institute has launched centres of excellence and undertaken projects of national importance in six thrust areas which include Advanced Manufacturing, Intelligent and Smart Transportation, Affordable Healthcare, Digital Convergence, Innovative Infrastructure and Geoscience for Future of Earth with support from the government and industry. The research collaboration and impact thereof can be witnessed across various engineering and other disciplines such as management, law, social sciences, architecture etc.

Also, the multidisciplinary approach has led to specialized thrust areas in academics which is flexible and unique. The course design and curricula of the programs above deliver the country’s crème graduates leading to the best-in-class graduate outcomes.

“Focus on the integrated and growth-oriented strategy adopted by IIT Kharagpur has enabled us to sustain our top position while keeping the societal and industrial needs in mind in launching new courses and also massively using our alumni resources,” says Dean, Planning & Coordination Prof. M K Tiwari.

The Department of Architecture and Regional Planning clearly exhibits this trait with its key area of regional planning addressing the diverse regional planning needs of a country like India which are more in the lines of a subcontinent with intermittent regions within her cities, townships and villages, opines Prof. Joy Sen, Head of the department, who himself is a well-known Regional Planner.

“We focus on regional sciences, regional econometrics and regional programming which enable us to develop inclusive and innovative regional planning models,” remarks Prof. Joy Sen.

Similar is the case with the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law at IIT Kharagpur which has carved its excellence in the domain of Intellectual Property law while successfully running LLB with specialization in IP, LLM and Doctoral programs.

“I do see a lot of interest in students to take up courses like AI and Law, Energy Law, IP Management, IP and Competition Law, Law of the Sea, Information Technology Law to name a few,” says Prof. Padmavati Manchikanti, Dean of the School. “In fact, some of the thrust areas of the School, AI and Law, Biodiversity Law, Energy Law, Energy Policy and Governance, are unique in the country,” she adds.

Prof. Prabina Rajib, Dean of Vinod Gupta School of Management which has been ranked 6th following the top 5 IIMs, emphasized at the interdisciplinary elective courses in engineering, science and mathematics offered by other departments, centres and schools at IIT Kharagpur. This sharpens their interdisciplinary knowledge and capability as efficient managers.

“Our students are mostly from engineering background and their career path follows a direction more oriented towards technology management. Keeping in line with the industry needs, we have introduced many new electives in Business Analytics area and also offer electives in emerging topics like Artificial Intelligence and Business Law, Internet of Things Cyber Security, Intellectual Property Rights ,” says Prof. Prabina.

The teaching, learning and resources parameter has been affected in this year’s NIRF rank as well, acknowledges the Director. However, he indicated this has more to do with the high number of students at IIT Kharagpur which has the largest number of academic disciplines with 19 departments, 12 schools and 17 centres of excellence.

“We are further working on recruiting more faculty which will also accelerate up our research initiatives. In the past three years, more than a hundred faculty members have been inducted in the system,” he added.