IIM Lucknow Convocation: 613 Students Awarded Diplomas

Indian Institute of Management (IIM Lucknow) recently organized its 32^nd convocation ceremony on a large scale on March 17, 2018. A total of 613 students were awarded diplomas during the event. The convocation address was delivered by Director of IIM Lucknow, Mr. Arjit Prasad.

While addressing the students, Mr. Arjit Prasad pointed that IIM Lucknow would strive to improve its “on-campus happiness quotient”. Over the years, a lot of students failed to meet the academic standards and were deeply depressed. They often feel that the curriculum and the examination process of IIM Lucknow are rigorous and rigid. Last year, a student also committed suicide due to stress. The Director added that over the years, both students and teachers have been under immense pressure to meet the premier institute’s tall academic standards.

Permanent Chairperson of IIM Lucknow’s BoG and Chairperson of Tata Sons Limited, Mr. N. Chandrasekaran pointed that it is time for the graduating students to enter a world where everything is changing at a rapid pace and similar problems related to stress are emerging. The world is facing significant challenges like increasing population, global terrorism, climate change, lack of jobs and failure to cope up with massive disruption in technology. As a result, the world has been reacting with ‘a degree of protectionism’, he highlighted.

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Last year, over 20 students were unable to meet the academic standards of their respective courses. Unable to cope up with pressure, one student committed suicide on the campus. Due to these incidents, the happiness quotient on the campus has seen a downward trend. IIM Lucknow plans to come up with several initiatives to address the problem from the upcoming next session. No details about the process or the ways on how these reforms/ initiatives will be implemented.

Mr. Chandrasekaran stated that India is bestowed with the highest number of professional graduates in the pipeline. In India, there is a huge demand for judges, teachers, doctors and nation builders, he expressed.

Mr. Chandrasekaran concluded that the problems and challenges have to be sorted out in a non-traditional way and in a short period of time. He hoped that the graduating students of IIM Lucknow would play a significant role in creating a better India.

After his address, Mr. Chandrasekaran felicitated IPS Officer, Mr. Amitabh Takur with a Fellow title for his significant research work on ‘Impact of Leadership’, ‘HR Practices’ and ‘Stress on Police Outcome’.

Founder of Info Edge (India) Limited, Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani was supposed to be the Chief Guest of the 32^nd convocation ceremony. However, he could not make it to the institute and sent a video message instead. He motivated the students by highlighting the fact that real happiness could be achieved through the joy of creation.

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During the award ceremony, a student named Vivek Choudhary bagged the Chairman’s Gold Medal for excellence in academics. In 2016, Vivek secured the first rank at the all-India level in ICSI Executive and Professional programme as well. The following is the list of some of the students who received medals for their outstanding academic performance: -

• Bharti Gupta bagged Budhiraja Medal for best overall performance
• Pranay Bhabhera secured Hari Shankar Singhania Medal for best overall performance
• Bhoomika Gupta secured Bizkool Medal for being the best student in Information Technology (IT)
• Kumari Ankita secured PGP Chairman’s Medal for getting the third rank in academics
• Joydeep Chakraborty also bagged Director’s Medal for securing the second rank in academics