No more running around - to find the campus doctor - after missing a class

No more breaking my mind - to find a new disease - after preferring to sleep in the cozy bed in the room rather than the cushion chairs in the classroom.

No more restriction for PGP 1 - from attending other B-School events and national competitions.

And a host of other No mores…

Yeah! Finally a little bit more freedom in Planet-I

"100% attendance rule has been cancelled…"

Printing the Excerpt from IIM – Indore 2007-2008 PGP Manual

"To accommodate absence on account of exigencies like sickness of self or close family members, participation in management festivals, co-curricular, placement and SWAC-related activities, a percentage of up to 20% in a course is treated as permissible absence not attracting any penal consequences"

Hurrah!

Robin (finally a PGP 2)
http://robinsamuel.blogspot.com

The time has finally come!!!

The PGP 06-08 batch has officically resurrected the IIM Indore blog - I Life

In its new avatar, The blog will feature whats hot and happening at IIM I, written by a whole new set of talented and enthusiastic bloggers....

Watch this space for more details....

I always like competitions at international level since I guess it's a real indicator of where one stands in terms of potential and competition.

L'Oreal's e-Strat Business Challenge is exactly that: A strategy competition at an international level.

The top teams from each zones (there are 8 zones in all) get a full-expenses paid trip to Paris. I guess more important than that is the chance to 'prove a point' in the international scene among some 1500 contenders who started step 2.

India comes under Zone 8, along with numerous chotu countries. Incidentally, the first two slots in the zone go to two Indonesian teams and we have one team from IIM Indore standing at the 3rd, which is international rank 15, of the 31,000 teams registered from 2190 B-schools spanning 125 countries. Great! There is just one more level to go the finals. Here's wishing them all luck since they are pretty much the only chance for any Indian team to make it.

I came to know of this through my own neighbor who is a part of that team. My other neighbor's team stands 68 in the international ranking.

Govar (PGP2)
http://govar.blogspot.com

The blogging contest is open to all Indian bloggers. IRISing is a set of events that is open to... well, all Indians - not just B-school folks. You might have to do a 1 minute registration [IRIS website link] to check out the various events.

Following are some of the details of the blogging contest. [Mirrored from IRIS website]

About Bloggers Park

Blogging as a phenomenon is picking up slowly but surely. While blogs neither have the reach nor the say as that of the mainstream media, it surely has a definitive impact among the internet savvy population in India. In the light of the growth of this medium, Indian Institute of Management Indore (IIM-I) brings you a unique contest to lend your thoughts on blogging as a phenomenon.

Topics:

Bloggers could choose to write as many articles on any of the following topics.

1) Are blogs an alternative for conventional media?
2) Blogging and viral marketing.

Contest rules:

* The contest is open to all Indian bloggers residing in India and abroad, including, but not limited to, B-school students, other post graduate and under graduate students and corporates.
* The posts have to be dated between October 24, 2005 and November 5, 2005


Prizes:

The winners would be judged by the top-Indian bloggers: Thanks a lot to Kaps and Kiruba for agreeing to be the judges for the event.

Check out the website for more details.

It's an implicit promise that this blog is about the non-academic part of the life in Planet-I, isn't it. We certainly don't want to bore the readers with what we read and what we have to read. True to these statements, here's the report on the CS tournament that was conducted here.

A lot can happen over Counter-Strike

No one has probably said this ever before, but it looked true in every sense. If there is one game that evokes the spirit with style in Planet-I, it's undoubtedly CS. Unfettered by the lack of the ‘cult’ish enthusiasm that was characteristic of the yesteryears, and the urgent placom meeting that added to the delay, the game started in style at 12ish. Frenzy was in air as players were struggling to get the mouse 'sensitivity' and keyboard settings right. Roongta-ish-style of bringing his own Keyboard to be connected to the laptop was a highpoint in the gearing up to the challenge. Also noticeable was Parminder shouting "This isn't a mouse. It's a &*$#% mice".

4 teams from PGP2 and a disappointingly lone PGP1 team registered for the challenge. The PGP1 team comprising of Mars, Siby, Rohan, Aswin and Abhijeet was defeated (score 18-0) in the very first round without even a fight, as Kida cornered most of the glory by virtue of his position in the maps. It proved to be a decent warm up for the team that eventually won the challenge, even as the PGP1 team had a hard time convincing one of their team mates to stop firing on them instead of the opponents.

The 2nd team comprising of Amit Sharma, Kindra, Mayank, Jhaski and Rishav showed signs of hope but failed to live up to the massive challenge in the form of the eventual runners-up. Thanks to the toss, the eventual runners-up had to face one other team if they had to make it to the finals. And as expected of them, they defeated the 3^rd team comprising of Maiti, Parminder, Anshuman, Manish Saini and Sumanta in style. Typical of the match was Maiti shouting multiple expletives when his terminal hung when bullets were fired.

The final was between the much expected teams comprising some of the polished players Planet-I has ever known. It was destined to be a good fight right from the outset. The challenge comprised of 3 maps of 10 games in all, where the teams had to play half as Ts and the rest as CTs. The runners-up team crushed through in the first map (Aztec, Score 1-6) even as the eventual champions had a hard time getting a grip on things. Through a brilliant double-bluff strategy, as Nayyar would put it later, of going to the same side of the map and some remarkable shots, the winners had a complete comeback in Dust2 with scores 6-2. The last map (Airstrip) sealed the chances of runners-up, with scores 6-1 favoring the winners.

Winners (PGP2): Anubhav Nayyar, Govar, Jasdeep, Kidakaka and Pankaj Kapur
Runners (PGP2): Abhijeet , Ashwin Kumar, Jitu, Roongta and Prashant Goyal

Scores: Aztec 1-6, Dust2 6-2, Airstip 6-1.

In the end, CS won.

The time of B-school fests has arrived. Being in the second year is a bit strange. Partly because you get time to do what you want to do, and partly because there is so much to do. B-school events are one such thing. With so many B-schools sending invites - sometimes multiple, along with extension dates later, I've personally lost track of the dates.

Anyway, the frenzy is no less in IIM-I where IRIS is around the corner - with a little more than a month to go. It is, quite obviously (obvious considering the growth of the institute), the largest IRIS we've ever conducted. Hope its a lot of fun.

Registrations for Ashwamedha, the largest event of IRIS 2005 has already started and would be on for 3 more days. Up for grabs is a prize money of Rs. 1,00,000 for the winner.

Check out the IRIS website for more details regarding registration: http://www.iimi-iris.com/iris/index.asp

Govar, PGP2,
http://govar.blogspot.com

...when lov... err... workaholism is in the air... When all of us spend nights working and sleeping in class (for the fortunate ones amongst us who have classes), when we for a change start studying formulae of demand predictions, market movements, HR's fundamentals, jargons of marketing, and start digging out, making, or solving cases, business plans and presentation slides. Yes sir, it's Iris time again. Iris is going to be held on November 10-13, 2005 this time around. Link: http://www.iimi-iris.com/

And yours truly has managed to steal some time out of the busy schedule - of working on the Iris website, working on our game Entrepid, doing ITCOM work, trying to study, practicing for LiveWire (the Iris rock-show) and sleeping... - to write this blog. Be a bit thankful guys ;-)

Till sometime later,
Amit, the Hypnos kind

I m sure Lord Krishna would never have had so many enthusiastic friends helping him to steal all that tasty curd and butter from the earthen pot.

I m referring to the MATKA PHOD competition that was held as part of IIM Indore's premature Janmashtami celebrations on August 26th. CulCom as usual rocks when it comes to organising pujas and related competitions of all the religious festivals of note. Today being Janmashtami, we had the usual puja of Lord Krishna and all the volunteers/competitors armed with the blessings of the lord gathered at the intersection of B Block and D Block (near the parking lot) where CulCom had strung up two ropes with earthen pots full of curd suspended around 20 odd feet from the ground. The concept itself is quite simple really. A human pyramid is formed with the single intention to shatter the pot to get to the curd and butter which is kept inside, a-la, the naughty young Krishna who used to love stealing curds and butter.

My batch, ie, PGP2 had quite a clear idea as to what needed to be done and how it had to be done, considering that we had floundered quite a bit last year. But PGP1 had probably just seen this event happening back home at Mumbai or somewhere on TV, but they weren't short of enthu for this amazing exercise. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. What transpired is that while both sections of PGP1 were fumbling around trying to get a stable human pyramid in place, our guys from PGP2 just walked in, formed a pyramid, and even before the base could stabilise, shattered the earthen pot, in a matter of two odd minutes. PGP1 was just left looking at the sheer speed and perfection in the execution.

As if that wasn't enough, after giving the PGP1 guys 4 or 5 more unsuccessful attempts at the pots, the PGP2 crew went below the PGP1 pots, formed the pyramid in ultra-quick time and shattered that one also. Now CulCom was in a quandry as to how to get PGP1 actually involved in the event, considering that they sucked at it big time. In any case, another pot was strung up and finally after a lot of screaming, floundering around in the wet mud, being dunked with endless buckets of water from above, collapsing 'n' number of times, the PGP1 human pyramid finally succeeded in shattering one pot. Full points for their enthusiasm and efforts though.

Jam - PGP2

Lets keep this post small. Let keep this post simple. Lets allow pictures to speak. Lets not delve into the details. Lets not ask why. Lets instead observe and wonder why not. Why was this not done till now? Why did it have to be?

Lets not contradict ourselves. Lets derive pride in the little things. Lets ponder why we have so much time to take pictures like this one. Lets be happy that we are this wela. Lets put our hands together for the batch of 2007. Lets shout our three cheers in unison.

58th Independence Day, 2005. 108 students. 6 co-ordinators. 2 lensmen. 4 letters. 1 Institute. 1 purpose.

We are Class of 2007. We are IIM-I.

Please find below what all this jabber alludes to.

Peace.

Joseph Radhik

PS : The dots for the i's are the French Connection.

The new MT - Interactive Studying and the like!


The day started of as any other since I've been here, I was bubbling with lack of sleep and purpose. The rain as a reminder of the perils of man kept falling from grace unto me. I looked up, clouded vision; looked down, crowded feet. Yelps of my peers and country men sounded in unison in my inner ear the words, ‘Mac Exam’ were all that could be heard or understood, audible but only vaguely coherent, as they were uttered with tears in the eyes and a choke in the throat. Not very becoming, might I add. I cried of joy at the plight of the unenlightened ones.


The normality and mundanity of the day took over then, making them forget their pain and me forget pretty much everything (all two or three things that I did know and the one or two things that I’ve learnt in my stint here, one of them actually involves a fly and a pen cap leading to almost an hour of unsolicited, sadistic fun). Then it ended the daily dose of higher learning, higher in terms of lack of our ability to grasp it only, and we started back to our place of rest. But restless and unrelenting I went back to where I did not belong, to find more souls to prey on, as a vulture I swooped and poked fun at them, treating them like those flies that I had forgotten to trap in transparent pen caps, what joy, what joy!


Then began the downward spiral, I should have guessed it when I saw the rain fall harder. My own destruction, I sowed the seed and it grew faster than the population of rabbits in season. I write this in pain and agony and fear of the future, amongst other things that I don’t remember now (one of the two or three things that I did know, once!), for I do not know what I have done, and repeated in the many exams that came after, my life and existence has been a constant blur. But in the hazy horizon I find solace in Celine Dion’s poetry, she once said, "Its all coming back to me now". That has never made sense to me any more than it has post our mid terms, those few extra hours of sleep, that lack of focus group preparation, the plain disdain for academia, oh woe is me, woe is me, I say. I hereby solemnly swear to constantly grow as a human being and give up all my vices to aim at a better brighter future, also to firmly click the pen cap once I’m done with it, onto the pen as I have observed that the ink otherwise dries, rendering the pen useless.


On the bright side though, I hopefully am on the way to understand Celine’s other masterpiece, 'My heart will go on', but I digress, getting back to the point, I entered the hall of examination on ‘Mac Exam’ day with an all knowing smirk on my face, shot glances at all the free flying flies, and maybe razed a mosquito or two, unintentionally of course, I had no quarrel with them, my vengeance and was reserved for the fair feathered ones. Excited and fully loaded I pulled out my arsenal of 15 pen caps, arranged them in order of size, after segregating them according to color. “START!” they shouted, that sound has been imbedded in my memory, as I remember very little of what transpired after, what I do remember is that I made piece with many of my enemies, they fed on my drool while I slept (or attempted to), they played with my hair when I scratched my head, they patted my back on the verge of nervous breakdowns, I realized that they were the best friend any man could ever ask for (apart from the obvious lady friends that a guy might ask for). I exited the room a changed man, more conscious of my environment, kinder to my fellow man, intrigued by my fellow fly, self aware, almost actualized with nothing but the look that men get when they things stuck in places that are better left unmentioned (don’t you dare… this has nothing to do with my fly friends..)


So to all and sundry (thats the one, thats the one, damn I didn't remember the damn word in the exam, so easily I could have clubbed my debtors), I humbly request to see the beauty and the learning that you can derive from your environment. Be it the mammoth figure of a paper in Managerial Income Accounting – I, or Quantitative Techniques – I, or Managerial Microeconomics or other much easier subjects, or the true teacher of man, the only creature that offers more companionship than a dog, for those hard to reach places and those hard to do things… For a better and more interactive exam environment, let’s all unite and give power to the fly!




....N


(for those of you who don't know the look that I mentioned last, you are welcome to observe specimen in D block, I have a feeling both the specimen and the look are going to stay a while, don't try and approach it


Nikhil Malhotra - PGP 1B