(THE NEWSMAN OF INDIA.COM)
All faculty members, staff members of IIM Calcutta, distinguished Guests, and my young friends. It is a great honour and a privilege to be speaking at the convocation ceremony of the Institute where I studied. I have fond memories of my time here like all my classmates as well as students who studied here before me and after me. I must say that IIMC had a great role in shaping me as an individual and also instilled in me a sense of responsibility to my country and my society for which I will remain eternally grateful. Thank you IIMC for making me what I am today.

Indian Institute of Management – Calcutta is the oldest management institution of higher learning to be set up in the country. Its pioneering and enterprising spirit continues even after IIM-C has transformed itself into a world class institution over the years.

My congratulations to the families of all the graduating students also, who, through exemplary hard work, encouragement, and sacrifice, motivated the graduates to first join IIM Calcutta and then supported them through their journey here.

You are lucky to have studied in such a wonderful surrounding. We need to make the facilities even better. World class. My stay over last 12 hours in the campus suggests that a lot is required to make the IIMC campus world class. It needs to keep pace with time. I take this opportunity to appeal to our alumni, from all batches, spread far and wide, across the world to contribute generously towards reviving the infrastructure at IIMC in the way they can. This is our mother institution. We must contribute in what ever we can including bringing donations from corporates, friends and anyone else who is socially minded.

Over the last two years, some of the best professors in the world have been teaching you. Many of these professors studied at IIM Calcutta as well as similar institutions, worked in various industries for decades, became world class professionals themselves and came back to teach you. My salute to them and their zeal to give back to the society. I am sure going forward, some of the students who are passing out today will also come back and join this noble profession to guide the next generations.

As you may have studied from history books, our civilization is an old one. In ancient India, we had universities like Nalanda and Takshashila which had established themselves as international centres of educational excellence where students from all over the world came and studied.

Generations after generations, the Indian people have accumulated a rich heritage of traditional knowledge. We have also learnt from other cultures over these Millenniums. I would encourage the graduating students to use both modern and traditional knowledge to arrive at innovative solutions to some of our pressing societal challenges.

Our country can only achieve development through the outstanding contributions of intelligent, well qualified and professionally committed work force, one which looks for opportunities in the face of challenges within a resource limited environment.

As we all know, the world is passing through a great pandemic of covid, which has created issues across the spectrum in most societies. The last couple of years have taught us that certainty is fleeting in a world beset by uncertainty. I am sure when your batch joined the program, many thought Covid-19 would be temporary and we would all be back to the classrooms soon to the familiar in-class interactions. Instead, we experienced different variants of the virus, lockdowns, stiff travel rules, curfews, masks, social distancing, and many other things. Work was at a place called home, interactions were virtual in a place called Zoom or WebEx or a video conference and masks plus vaccinations are what we require to move around.

India with its very low per capita GDP of US dollar 2,000 per person was not supposed to do well. Despite all the dire predictions by experts from abroad and from within, India has done well as compared to many many other countries including countries with ten or twenty- or thirty-times per capita income. That is not to say that all of us have not suffered troubles. If you look at the number of infections per million or number of deaths per million, India is ranking somewhere close to 120 out of 224 territories being monitored by worldometers.org for covid. Some of the better managed countries or some of the richer countries like US or UK are in the top 20 or top 25 ranks in in number of infections per million and number of fatalities per million. India is in the bottom half and that tells you as a society, we have done well compared to the rest of the world.