Ahmedabad: The 46th edition of Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad (IIM-A) annual convocation is scheduled to be held today i.e. on March 26, 2011. Prime Minister Minister Manmohan Singh will be presiding over the function. IIM-A's 46th annual convocation during its golden jubilee year will be the second convocation that Singh will preside over at the premier B-school.
As per sources, in 1994, Singh was the chief guest at the 29th annual convocation of IIM-A. He was then the Union finance minister. And Professor Pradip N Khandwalla was the director of IIM-A. Singh will be the third prime minister to chair IIM-A's annual convocation function. In 1968, when Professor Ravi J Matthai was director of IIM-A, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi presided over the institute's third annual convocation function. P V Narsimha Rao became the second prime minister to preside over IIM-A's annual convocations in 1993.
Besides, many other political leaders have also chaired IIM-A's convocations. The list of chief guests includes former President A P J Abdul Kalam who presided over the 38th annual convocation of IIM, Ahmedabad in 2003. Though IIM-A was founded after registering as a society on December 11 in 1961, it started its flagship course, the two-year Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) in July 1964. The first PGP batch of 1964-66 had 46 students. In 1963-64, before the launch of the PGP, IIM-A used to offer only executive development programmes.
Retired executive director of Shree Rajasthan Syntex Narendra Nath Agrawala a graduate from the batch of 1968 at IIM-A, recollected Indira Gandhi's visit to the campus. He said that denizens of Ahmedabad were as excited as were they to have the then prime minister visit their campus. They were also very worried about what to show the PM or how to show her around the campus. He mentioned that after the convocation they walked up to meet her in groups, shake hands and talk to her. Some of them also got autographs from her. He said he is afraid the students will not be able to get such opportunities now because of the high security. In those days, there were only a few policemen as part of prime minister's security.
