Latest revision as of 20:29, 3 October 2023

[edit] Gender ratio

[edit] 2017-19: Women: 31% of new students

With 30% of new students women, IIM-C hits record, June 11, 2017: The Times of India

KOLKATA: The Indian Institute of Management's Calcutta branch has registered a two-fold rise over 2016-18 in the number of women admitted for the 2017-19 batch.

With women accounting for 31% of the new students, this batch boasts of the highest female representation at IIM-C to date. Officials say this is also the strongest girl squad among the top three IIMs - Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta - in recent memory.

"The girls performed incredibly well in the interview and got through on their own steam," IIM-C admission chairperson Pritam Basu said. The only push that they got, Basu added, was at the pre-interview stage, where women were marked up "a little" after the CAT scores. Previous years saw women getting three extra points (out of 100) at the pre-interview stage. "This year girls were given two extra marks out of a total 50 marks (or 4%). This mark-up was part of a deliberate policy change to bring more gender diversity on the campus," Basu said.

IIM -C has been able to get an average representation of 20%-22% for women in each batch over the past few years, but the one admitted in 2016 saw a sharp drop, falling to 16.4%, and this set the alarm ringing, IIM-C officials said, explaining the "slight mark-up" this year. "There has been no official mandate but the institute has always aimed at having a more diverse classroom," economics professor and former IIM-C dean Anindya Sen said.

[edit] Leadership issues

[edit] 2022,23: Two directors resign

Ritika Chopra, Sep 6, 2023: The Times of India

Sarkar is learnt to have resigned on August 23, and his resignation letter was circulated among all members of the Board of Governors (BoG) last week. Sources told The Indian Express that the resignation hasn’t been accepted yet and is likely to be discussed at the next Board meeting scheduled for this week, on September 8.

Sarkar was appointed director on August 18, 2021, and still had almost three years left of his term.

Although Sarkar, in his resignation letter, cited personal reasons for his decision, sources in the institute pointed to Sarkar’s unhappiness with Chairman Srikrishna Kulkarni’s “interference” in the institute’s affairs and in the implementation of key projects.

“There are projects that are stalled, and it can be frustrating for an institution head (to see them making no headway). For instance, the hostel expansion (project) has been stalled, which has come in the way of increasing the institute’s student capacity,” a source said.

It’s not clear what the exact points of differences were between the two. When reached for a comment, Kulkarni said he was currently “out of the country” and did not wish to say anything more. Sarkar did not respond to calls or text messages.

Incidentally, Sarkar’s predecessor, Anju Seth, who was the first woman director of IIM-C, quit in March 2021, citing a “breakdown of confidence” between her and Kulkarni. She had more than a year left of her term.

In her resignation letter, Seth had accused Kulkarni of running a smear campaign against her and of “maligning and denigrating” her publicly with the support of the board. She also wrote that he had assumed executive powers to “diminish the role of the director and of the faculty by persistent intervention, although the post of the chairman is a non-executive part-time role”.

At that time, many in the IIM community had seen the confrontation between Seth and the Board as stemming from the shift in power dynamics brought by the new IIM Act of 2018. The 2018 law granted unbridled powers and autonomy to the Board of Governors of all 20 IIMs, and the government relinquished complete control.

Recently, during the monsoon session of Parliament, the education ministry introduced an amendment to the IIM Act, which takes back many of the powers from the Board, giving the government a greater say in auditing the functioning of IIMs, ordering probes, and appointing as well as removing directors.

Although the amendment was passed in both Houses during the monsoon session, and the changes have been notified in a gazette notification, the education ministry hasn’t framed new rules (under the amended Act) to make the changes effective. Until then, for practical purposes, the Board still remains powerful.

Sarkar, who specialises in information management systems, is an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur. He did his B.Tech (1987), M.Tech (1989), and PhD (1994) from IIT-Kharagpur’s computer science and engineering department. He’s been teaching at IIM-C since 1997 and also served as dean of new initiatives and external relations, from April 2015 to April 2018, at the institute.

Kulkarni has been the IIM-C Chairman since 2017. Although his term finished in November last year, he’s currently on a one-year extension approved by the Board of Governors, on the instruction of the education ministry. The latter’s instruction had come amidst deliberations within the government on changes in the IIM Act, mainly on how the director and chairperson of IIMs should be appointed. He earlier served as a director at Cybernetic Research Labs Pvt Ltd in Bengaluru.

[edit] YEAR-WISE DEVELOPMENTS

[edit] 2021

[edit] Director quits after clash with board

Jhimli Mukherjeepandey, March 23, 2021: The Times of India

Anju Seth, who broke the glass ceiling to become IIM-Calcutta’s first woman director, resigned from her position late on Sunday after locking horns with the institute’s board of governors over several months. Matters came to a head in February-end, when the board adopted a resolution against her at a special meeting and started an inquiry into her “conduct”.

Seth’s term was to end in February 2022, when she would turn 65.

Disappointed to leave a dream partly fulfilled, says Anju Seth

Seth went on sick leave on Friday, leaving the institute in the hands of Prashant Mishra, the dean of external affairs. Besides sending her resignation letter to the board of governors, Seth mailed a copy to the PMO, sources said. An emergency meeting convened by the board on Monday was rescheduled to Tuesday.

Seth, an alumnus of the institute’s 1978 batch, told TOI, “I’m disappointed I’m leaving a dream only partially fulfilled; it is not what I had sought. Yet I’m proud that I tried my best and that I’ve disrupted the conventional barriers that were holding back the opportunity for IIM-Calcutta to emerge a world-class institution. I hope that in the future, the institute will continue to build on a culture of transparency and accountability as core values.”

In her resignation letter, Seth referred to the breakdown of confidence between her and the board after the latter chose to level allegations of wrongdoing against her without giving her a chance to defend herself, a source said.

She also alleged lack of transparency and accountability, misuse of funds, instances of abdication of responsibility, weak financial health and governance issues that invited investigation by the Union education ministry and agencies like the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and the Central Vigilance Commission.