With a view to giving a fillip to accelerated industrial development of the state of Kerala through private entrepreneurship, the Govt of Kerala, Dept. of Industries and Commerce, has decided to set up a Proficiency Interface Cell (PIC) in each of the fourteen District Industries Centers in the state.

The PIC is the brainchild of the Secretary, Commerce and Industries, Govt. of Kerala Mr. P.H.Kurian and the Addl. Director Mr. N. K. Mohanan. Thirty executives from all the DICs were deputed to the Faculty of Management, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, (Deemed University) Coimbatore, to go through a Management Development Programme from July 12 to July 28th, 2004. Dr. V. Sivaraman, Principal KIED and Mr. Ranjith Domnic Senior Consultant KITCO coordinated the programme on behalf of the Govt. of Kerala.

The basic thrust of the programme was on entrepreneurial and managerial capabilities, accompanied by a needed change in the roles played by the PIC officials. The objective is that with a better understanding of all managerial and entrepreneurial aspects of setting up of SSIs, these executives will be able to attract entrepreneurs to invest in Kerala and to provide the necessary ‘hand holding’ and ‘escorting’ services that would facilitate financing as well as obtaining clearances from diverse regulatory agencies.

The Amrita School of Business (ASB), which is ranked among the Top 30 B-Schools in India ("Outlook" 27th Sept. 2004) has been joined by two visiting faculty -- from USA and Australia who have started teaching our MBA students starting 24 Nov.2004

Jay Misra,MBA,Harvard
Mr. Jay Misra, an MBA from the Harvard Business School who has taught at Stanford Business School and guest lectured at Harvard for 10 years is taking a course on "Business Process Management" . He did his BS ,MS Engg. from Pittsburgh,USA. He has held senior management positions in leading Corporates in the USA like Intel, 3.Com, Capital Group and George Soros Technology Investments, where he was the Managing Director. He has published 2 books: "BusinessTelecommunications" and "Business Telematics". He was a finalist for Distinguished Teaching Award at Stanford and has interacted with business leaders like Bill Gates, Michael Dell and Gordon Moore.

Dr Renu Burr,University of Western Australia
Dr. Renu Burr, Senior Lecturer-Leadership, from the University of Western Australia, Graduate School of Management has started taking a course on "Employee Performance and Appraisal" at ASB. After completing her undergraduate studies in Bangalore, Dr. Burr spent 12 years as a HRM Consultant in Australia before becoming an academic. She did her PG Diploma in Business at Curtin University and has a Ph.D. in Human Resources Management,University of Western Australia (UWA). She has been profiled as an Outstanding Teacher by the UWA,which is among the leading Universities in Australia

An article by Dr Biresh Sahoo,Associate Professor, Amrita School of Business, in the journal, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences (Dec.2005),Netherlands ,has been listed among the Top 25 Articles by ScienceDirect.

An article by Dr Biresh Sahoo, Associate Professor, Amrita School of Business, in the journal, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences (Dec.2005),Netherlands ,has topped the list of hottest 25 Articles ranked by Science Direct. The article is titled "Evaluating Cost-Efficiency and Returns to Scale in the Life Insurance Corporation of India using Data Envelopment Analysis". More »

The article has been listed on the top among the Top 25 Hottest Articles by ScienceDirect in the Subject Area, "Business Management and Accounting" .ScienceDirect lists the most frequently downloaded journal articles,from any selected journal among more than 2000 titles in its database,or from any of 24 subject areas.

Amrita School of Business professor Dr. Deepak Gupta , was featured in the National Science Foundation publication "Science and Engineering Indicators-2004". A study of U.S. doctoral degree recipients from foreign countries explored the factors affecting the decision to stay in the United States (Gupta, Nerad, and Cerny 2003). The study cited numerous factors, stressing the strength of preexisting ties to the recipients' home countries. Among the doctorate holders studied, the principal source of funding was related to their likelihood of staying in the United States: those who stayed were more likely to have been funded primarily by RAs and TAs, and those who returned to their home countries were more likely to have relied on funding from their national government or their employer. More »

Mr. Sameek Ghosh of PGDM 2001 batch (Amrita School of Business) is the winner of the Staffordshire University Bizcom Prize for Best Business Idea 2004 organised and sponsored by Mercia Institute of Enterprise.

Sameek on his education and life at Amrita-Impressions:

Appreciation comes after realisation, realising through achievement in a foreign land increases appreciation manyfold and I repent of what I am missing every day from the happenings in my alma mater. Yes! given a chance and if situation permits I will come back to this holy place which has moulded me to accept and adapt changes with ease, work with people, embrace diversity, tackle exceptions and become globally effective. After working in India and UK I value my learning at ASB more than before.

The teaching was truely best in its class, with a global perspective using cutting edge methodologies, information technologies and comparable with top ranked global institutions. I am sure, ASB will become one of the top 10 management school in India within next 5 years. I wish, all the best to my faculty and juniors. Hope to learn more from you in the coming days.

Mr. Sameek Ghosh , Stoke-on-Trent City Council, UK

Mr. Arun Malhotra, General Manager, Marketing Strategy and Development, Maruti Udyog Ltd, launched the Marketing Forum – GEN-M – in the B-school on 5th August. His address to the students, illustrated with several real-life examples, was very well-received and stimulated a lot of interest and debate. Some of the lessons that the students carried away with them included:

• Taking their Summer Placement very seriously. Never opting for a Summer project in a location within a 500 km range from their homes.
• Selecting projects which have a real-time experiential knowledge component, rather than those based on the Internet, library references and theoretical knowledge.
• Realizing that marketing is all about understanding the real India by interacting with people in the market across the country.

He remarked that the Amrita School of Business had a very fine faculty line-up –even better than most IIMs. Moreover, the campus environment was unique and extremely conducive to learning creativity and innovative thinking.