July 6, 2009
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore
 
MBA programs were inaugurated on three of the Amrita campuses, welcoming students from places as far as Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal as well as the nearer states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Br. Abhayamrita Chaitanya, Pro-Chancellor of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and Dr. S. Krishnamoorthy, Registrar were joined by Dr. Sanjay Banerji, Dean of Business, in welcoming these students to Amrita.
 
“We have always emphasized value-based education,” reiterated the Pro-Chancellor at the inauguration programs. “After two years, we expect you to graduate as good, smart managers. At the same time, here, at Amrita, we also expect that you will be good human beings, endowed with a deep sense of values. It is this combination that we try to instill in every student.” The Dean of Business underlined the same message. “By selecting Amrita, you have gained an opportunity that is very difficult to find anywhere in the globe today,” he told the assembled students and their parents.
 
The incoming classes at Amritapuri, Bangalore and Kochi will have 67, 65 and 70 students respectively. The students in Bangalore will earn dual degrees; in addition to an MBA from Amrita, they will also earn an MS in Management of Information Services from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. In addition, at Bangalore there is an incoming class of 45 students enrolled in the Executive MBA program, also leading to a dual degree. This executive program was instituted two years ago, its first batch of students graduated earlier this year, in February 2009.
 
The chief guest at the Bangalore inauguration, Mr. Augustine V. D., VP (Human Resources), Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Ltd., quoted from a recent Harvard Business Review article, The Buck Stops (and Starts) at Business School, to further emphasize the importance of Amrita’s value-based education. “Many people believe that management education has contributed to the systemic failure of leadership that led to the current financial crisis,” he stated. “Unless American’s business schools make radical changes, society will become convinced that MBAs work to serve only their own personal selfish interests.” Similar sentiments were expressed by the chief guest at the Kochi inauguration also, Mr. H. Jayaram, Executive Director and CEO of GMMCO Ltd.
 
In addition to these inaugurations, the Amrita School of Business at Coimbatore also welcomed its 14th batch of students during this time. The Dean of this School will now serve as Dean of all four Schools; he will be assisted by Chairs Prof. E. Meera (Amritapuri), Prof. Sekhar Babu (Bangalore) and Prof. Sunanda Muralidharan (Kochi). All three have been associated with Amrita for many years. For instance, Prof. Sunanda Muralidharan has taught at the flagship Coimbatore school. “When the Amrita School of Business was started in 1996, it was conceived as a harmonious blend of Indian spiritual ethos and advances in modern management sciences,” she stated at the Kochi inauguration. “It has always been considered as among the top 25 B-schools in India.”
 
We welcome the new students to Amrita in the firm conviction that the new schools will also earn their spot among the top B-schools of India.