Thiru. Prabhu Chawla, Executive Editor, India Today, Thiru. Pawan Varshney, Publishing Director, Business India, Dr. Santrupt Misra, Director, Aditya Birla Management Corporation, Thiru. Jayant Pindarkar, Vice President, Tata Consultancy Limited, representatives of the corporate entities, Business School Students, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am glad to be here at this event of “Business Today Acumen Finals, 2004”. I find that the top 100 Business Schools of India have come together for a match of “knowledge” and “wit”. This is a rare opportunity to see the best of the samples being presented by the Business Schools. Business quiz, debate and case studies are the three challenging disciplines in which the contestants have displayed their excellence. While the students must be aspiring to be on top of the world, I can well imagine the pressure of this competition on the Alumni as well, who must be finding themselves quite quizzy for the contest. They must have been trying to update on almost all possible areas to display their knowledge and brilliance. But now, I see them much relieved.

Many of the Indian B-Schools are ranked among the best and the most respected top Business Schools in the Asia-Pacific region. I am told that their entire batches get placements from the campus itself. The pay packages offered are handsome and some of these brilliant graduates have been offered a sum as high as Rs.42 lakh per annum. These schools attract the crème de la crème among firms in India and abroad for the most coveted jobs on offer. More than the buying potential of the Indian burgeoning middle class, what attracts the multi-national companies most in our country is the potential of India’s youth. I understand that to achieve excellence, they collaborate with reputed foreign Business Schools for their student exchange programmes. A strong network of the Alumni spread all over the Globe, holding leading positions in industry and academia alike, is the testimony to our excellence.

While we may feel proud of our achievements, we need not be contented and our vision, all of you will agree, should be to emerge as top ranking management schools in the world. Our success should make India as the most attractive destination for acquiring management education. Let us initiate change, before the change overtakes us.

My father late Murasoli Maran used to tell me, business institutions should create and have excellent ambience for development of top class human resources in the world. The ambience itself should motivate the students to be the best in the world. I hope, our management institutions are striving hard to provide it.

The world-renowned B-Schools boast of more than 80% students from abroad of diverse countries and more than 2/3rd of the faculty from other countries. We must aspire to be in the category of IMD (Switzerland), London Business School, MIT (Sloan), or Queen’s. Let us create, re-define, build cutting edge products, services, markets and organizations, and collaborate to capitalize our distinctive intellectual excellence and entrepreneurial culture. We must attract and retain outstanding faculty who lead the world in management education. Let us enroll students with integrity, leadership potential, high aspirations and exceptional intellectual ability. Last, but not the least, we must foster a co-operative and adventurous learning community of alumni and business partners based on mutual respect, rigorous analysis and high ethical standards.

The ongoing process of globalization of capital is soon to be followed, I believe, by the globalization of manpower. Therefore, our goal should be to excel in a multi-cultural environment with the required confidence. We have to benchmark ourselves on a global scale to become the institution of choice. This, of course, is a big challenge.

How do we achieve this? The fee controversy is fresh in our memory. So long as we make adequate provision for scholarships and sponsorships for the meritorious needy students, I feel, such a debate is meaningless. We need to see the long term health of the Business Schools.

In the backdrop of increasing globalization of all our economic activities, we have a sparkling path of progress. But we need to re-affirm our commitment to the diversity of students and faculty, take due care of the under-represented and disadvantaged socio-economic groups by offering financial and academic support to them. We cannot afford to lose even one talented student if only the barrier is financial aid. Let us show the “Management Difference” in our approach in the larger interest of the society. The winners of the BT Acumen Finals 2004 and all the participants present here are the decision makers of India’s future. While the ranks and awards for B-Schools and individuals do matter to display their excellence, we, as managers, need to deal with much large socio-economic issues facing the country.

The Telecom, Information Technology and Bio-Technology are the Sun-rise Sectors of the Indian economy. You have a great responsibility of taking IT and Telecom to the masses. The wireless technologies are off the shelf technologies today. India can be developed as a hub for supporting wireless technologies. The critical things need to be done are (i) develop wireless products (ii) develop standards that are relevant for Indian conditions and relevant for other similar countries and (iii) develop variety of packages of services relevant to the rural areas.

To translate all these into action, we should create an appropriate institutional mechanism for developing and sustaining wireless products and technologies. IIT, Chennai’s Small Centre has been able to set an example in this regard. In a vast country like India, we can think of developing hundreds of such centres.

I am happy to see that Business Today is not only India’s leading business magazine, but it has taken a pivotal role in promoting competition amongst India’s top Business Schools. I congratulate them and the winners with the hope that you all would take pro-active measures to serve a greater cause.

Thank you.