FROM THE DESK OF NLT*

Dear Fellow Learners,

We hope you enjoyed the festival of lights in its brightest shade and celebrated a wonderfuland safe Deepawali. We wish the festive spirit continues to guide you to a better health,happiness, success and prosperity. On the auspicious occasion of Deepawali, IMT CDL familycelebrated the spirit of this festival of radiance and pledged to ignite the lamp of wisdom inevery household of India and make the society more prosperous and happier.

We are thankful to all of you for your continuous contribution, support and engagement in thejourney of creating this Newsletter. As a medium of regular communication with all ourlearners, alumni and stakeholders, we hereby, are glad to share the third issue of ourNewsletter, ‘SAMVAAD’.

This issue comprises of recent campus buzz, important developments, achievements of ourdistinguished faculty members and learners. Infocentre@IMT CDL section provides therelevant information while New Academic Initiatives are featured as a separate section. Wehope, like our previous editions, this edition too generates interest and elicits more responsefrom our learners.

We encourage you all to share your valuable contribution in the form of creative content, briefwrite-ups on current topics and achievements. These will be highlighted in the upcomingissues of our Newsletter. We welcome your valuable inputs, comments and feedback whichmay always be shared at: connect@imtcdl.ac.in

Happy Reading!

*NLT - Newsletter Team

S A M V A A DIMT CDL Newsletter, Issue 03: December 2020

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow; Learn as if you were to live forever”

- Mahatma Gandhi

Deepawali Celebration at IMT CDL Campus

What is New @IMT CDL

Infocentre @IMT CDL

New Academic Inititatives

Our Faculty-Our Pride

Alumni Connect

Learner’s Column

Initiatives under the Education Ministry

Snippets

Inauguration of UN GCNI – IMT CDL Joint CertiKcate programme in CSR and BusinessSustainability

We are happy to share that the CSR and Business Sustainability programme was inaugurated on 8thNovember 2020 by some of the renowned leaders in the CSR world. This virtual event fetched excellentparticipation. It began with Ms. Shabnam Siddiqui, OVciating Executive Director and Director at Centreof Excellence for Governance, Ethics and Transparency, UN GCNI welcoming the participants. Dr. SapnaNarula, Professor & Dean at School of Business Studies, Nalanda University took over from there andshared her thoughts on this programme. It was our privilege that Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, FormerDirector General, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Govt. of India, Member Governing Council andChairperson APRC Committee at UNGCNI, addressed the participants. Dr. Chatterjee is widelyacclaimed as the Father of Corporate Social Responsibility in India.

The session concluded with a Vote of Thanks by Dr. Asif Zameer, Dean Academics, IMT CDL.

In the forthcoming sessions Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee has graciously accepted to share his views onevolution, development, and implementation of CSR legislation in India.

Online Learning Session (OLS)

The sessions for PGDM, PGCM and PGDM-Executive batches for Semester 1, 2 and 3 areprogressing smoothly. Sessions for electivecourses commenced from November 1, 2020.

Open Sessions

Open sessions have been successfully conductedover MS teams in ‘meeting mode’ for PGDM,PGCM and PGDM-Executive batches for thecourses in which 12 hours of regular sessions arecompleted. Learners have shared their concernsand queries in these sessions. The learners weresatis`ed with this kind of interaction as theirqueries were resolved on one to one basis.

Marksheet & Diploma

E-Marksheets of students who quali`ed forvarious programmes in End-Term ExaminationJune - 2020 have been uploaded on SIS.

Projects

Online Sessions on Project Guidance wereconducted on 1st November 2020 at 2:30 PM forall specializations as per the details given below:

HR Prof. Nidhi MathurOperations and Business Analytics Prof. NM Mishra

Finance Prof. Priti SharmaMarketing Prof. Vivek S. Tomar

Project result of PGDM Executive (15 Months)programme for July 2020 cycle was declared inthe second week of November 2020.

The link for submission of Project Report forPGDM (2 Years programme) is active from 1stNovember 2020 till 30th December 2020. Theresults will be announced by last week ofFebruary 2021.

The next Project cycle will commence in themonth of January 2021 and the link for Synopsissubmission for PGDM and PGDM-Executive willbe activated from 1st week of January 2021.

Faculty Research Seminar (FRS) Series

To promote research and publication activitiesamong academic fraternity of IMT CDL a series ofFaculty Research Seminar was started in themonth of October 2020. Subsequent to FRS01/2020 held on 8th October 2020, the second inseries FRS 02/2020 was organized on 5thNovember 2020 between 2:30 pm to 3:30 pm,which was attended by all faculty members, Deanand CEO. During FRS 02/2020, Prof. Asif Zameerpresented a concept paper on “Understanding theEvolution in the Concepts of Organized Retail inIndia” where he systematically explored thehistoric evolution of organized retailing in Indiaand also explained the conceptual developmentthrough a chronological review of various studiesconducted in India in the `eld of organized retail.The presentation was followed by discussion andreiections by the faculty members of differentdomains. CEO, Dr. Ravindra Kumar appreciatedand encouraged the cross functional discussionon various functional aspects of the paperpresented by Dr. Asif Zameer. He alsoemphasized that such discussion shouldculminate into the cross functional studiesthrough mutual collaboration among facultymembers. The FRS 02/2020 concluded with thenomination for next FRS in series and Dr.Ravindra Kumar voluntarily nominated forpresentation in next FRS 03/2020 to be held on3rd December 2020.

Workshop on Technology drivenenhancements in OLS

A workshop was convened by Dean-Academicsfor all the faculty members on 10th November2020 with the primary motive to enhanceteaching learning experience using thetechnology in OLS. The workshop was conductedby Dr. NM Mishra. The workshop highlighted onthe following aspects of learning:a. Lean Learning: Padlet b. Test, Evaluate and Analytical Tools c. Digital Notebook: One Note

FDP Participation

Dr. Vivek Singh Tomar was invited for an expertsession at Faculty Development programme(FDP) organized by Jagannath InternationalManagement School (JIMS), Kalkaji on,‘Leveraging Data Analysis Tools for EffectiveResearch paper Writing', between 2nd to 12thNovember, 2020. Dr. Tomar delivered a two-hoursession on 2nd November 2020, from 2:30 to4:30 pm where he covered following topics:

Research paper writing styles and referencemanagementAPA 6 & 7 guidelines for citations and crossreferencingLive demo on reference management withMendeley and MS Word research features

The FDP was attended online by faculty membersof JIMS and other prominent business schools.

International Conference by Amity BusinessSchool, Gwalior

Dr. Vivek Singh Tomar Chaired the technicalsession at International Conference organized byAmity Business School, Gwalior, Amity University,Madhya Pradesh on the theme, “The ‘NewNormal’ in Management, Social Sciences &Economic Development”. The session wasorganized on 6th November 2020 between 2:00pm to 5:00 pm, where 24 research papers werepresented by faculty members, research scholarsand management students of various businessschools from India and abroad. As chairperson ofthe technical session Dr. Vivek Singh Tomarmoderated the session and judged best paper forthe award.

Webinar on Cloud Computing

A webinar was conducted by our alumni Mr. AnilVerma on the topic, “Cloud Computing” on 10thNovember 2020 from 2:30 pm to 3:30 pmfollowed by Q&A round. The webinar wasattended by more than 50 participants. Mr. AnilVerma completed PGDM from IMT CDL in theyear 2006 and he has more than 25 years ofindustry experience. He has expertise in ITOperations, CRM, e-Waste Management andQuality Management. To view the recording ofsession, please click on following link:

Webinar on Cloud Computing

Alumni Corner

Managing People Successfully during PandemicThoughts expressed by our alumni, Mr Naseer Hussain,Project Manager-Valient Business Media, (PGDM, January2013 Batch)

At the outset, I would like to thank IMT for thisopportunity and the platform to share my views. Iam very grateful to the entire team involved in thisinitiative.

My career has seen a remarkable growth aftercompleting my PG course from IMT and the kindof con`dence and knowledge it has equipped mewith is praiseworthy. I have been able to workwith some `ne corporates like The Adecco Groupright after the course. My current job role isfocused on international business developmentand project management. Today I am leadingseveral Business Development Teams for Oil andGas sector, EV sector, Mining and Healthcare.What IMT has done, it has boosted my career andhelped me develop apt managerial skills to leadseveral teams.

At this stage I lead the discussion with theministries, government oVcials, Fortune 500listed companies and industry experts. Workingand collaborating with the stakeholders is a keyfocus area in my current job role and having aclear market insight is a prerequisite. I have beeninvolved in several projects organized by theministries of Morocco, Guyana, Sudan, Portugal,Egypt and more regions and my dealings havebeen with renowned names in their respectiveindustries like ExxonMobil, Hess, Shell, BHP,Worley, Schlumberger, Wood Plc, OCP, Boliden,Metso, Caterpillar, Accenture, Nokia, DassaultSystemés, Abbott and many more.

In the current scenario the Covid-19 pandemichas forced many organizations to operate in adifferent manner and for the line managers it hasbeen a testing time to lead their teams and drivethe output. I have been able to drive the outputfrom my team almost at par with what it wasbefore the pandemic. My entire team has beenworking remotely till date from different locationsand with internet outages in many places, yet wehave been able to deliver. Managing people is notan easy task especially when you have severalteams or a larger team size as each individualcomes with his own set of traits be it thebehavior, culture, skillset or any other thing butthe key is the human touch and leading themrather than managing them. Synergy plays a keypart and doing tasks together yields higher outputinstead of ordering your subordinates to do thetasks. Assigning tasks is important, at the sametime a plan to achieve them is equally importantespecially when the interaction has been reducedto minimum during the current pandemic. As aleader your objective is to lead everyone andachieve the set goals. It is during the testingtimes where the impetus should come from youto boost the morale of the whole team.

Things that I follow –

Appreciating team members for even smallerachievements.Keeping team members at ease and lettingthem have enough space to perform.Acting like a leader and not micromanagingthings.Listening to all of them and not shuttinganyone out. Many of the inputs from myteam members have been instrumental.Addressing their grievances immediately sothat their focus is on the set goals.Sharing the credit of success with the teammembers.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this articleare those of the writer. They do not purport to reLect theopinions or views of the Institute or its employees.

AI - A New FrontierAn article by our learner, Mr. T L Kantha Rao, (PGDM Executive,July 2020 Batch)

From Apple’s Siri to driverless cars, AI (Arti`cialIntelligence) is disrupting most of the industries.While many believe that AI means robots withhuman-like features, AI actually encompassesright from your voice search on Google topredicting the possibility of con`rmation of yourwaitlisted train ticket, immigration checks atborder security gates at airports with the use offacial recognition technology.

Photo Courtesy: Unsplash (https://unsplash.com)

Many of us would think that conventional codingand AI are one and the same thing, however, theyare fundamentally different. The former needshard-coded logic to respond to any of yourqueries and the latter utilizes data to capture theinherent logic to serve any future requests.Indirectly, the machine is learning from the data.We learn so many things just by observing them;for example, we do not teach our child about thedimensions and physical characteristics of treesfor them to recognize them as trees. It is onlythrough observation that the child startsrecognizing trees. This is exactly what we do tothe machines. Machines learn using advancedalgorithms such as support vector machines(SVM) or random forests and come up withlogical inputs.

The potential of AI is humongous. Just imagine,how easy our life in retail stores will be if we canskip long queues at billing? Getting suggestionson movies we like to see without asking usdirectly or helping companies to predict apossible failure of an aeroengine well in advanceto avoid any catastrophes. When driverlesstechnology becomes widespread, we willexperience a whole new world, which offersexciting opportunities that we would otherwisenever have imagined. In our exam preparation,how fantastic it would be if we have an ‘AI tutor’that just clarify doubts in the Accounting subjectwithout running through the ocean of useless andoutdated web pages on the internet before `ndingthe right page!

Like a coin, AI also has a iip side that may affectthe community at large, and is not really in ourbest interest. High use of AI automation, may leadto job losses in some industries and will put thelivelihoods of some less-skilled workers at risk. AIhas the ability to spread inappropriate news soquickly which can in turn disrupt the stockmarkets or erode the trust between twopeople/entities.

It is also possible that if it is in the wrong hands,AI arms race could inadvertently lead to an AI warthat will also result in mass killings. The AItechnology that has been developed so far isdesigned to perform small or narrow tasks suchas driverless cars, facial recognition, `nding arotten tomato, etc. This ‘narrow AI’ mayoutperform humans in small tasks but, underrighteous usage, it will help improving eVciency,productivity and eliminate errors. Manyresearchers worry about the ‘General AI’, whichcan do anything that humans can do and more. Itcan also cry when reading a sad novel just likehumans but it seems a distant reality with thecurrent pace of technology growth. However, wealso need some safeguards in approving andbuilding AI technology to protect the ill interestsof bad actors. Some of the well-knownentrepreneurs are also insisting on the safetyaspects of AI. We are indebted to technology as ithas helped us to reach this level today andchanged the face of our civilization forever.Despite the cyber security issues, the internet hasprevailed in the last two decades and I believe anygood invention will withstand tough weather withits strong fundamentals.

In my opinion, I will invite the AI with open handsand embrace the change, experience new things,and lend a supporting hand in doing ourselvesand the next generation proud. We built housesmade of brick walls to protect us from badweather and invented umbrellas to manage rain.In the same way, we need to come up with noveltechnologies to protect/safeguard us fromthreats of AI. Let us encourage the AI teams tosolve the challenging problems of ourgenerations. Like many other supporters of AI, Iwish to see the positive impact of AI on theplanet. (Purely personal views.)

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this articleare those of the writer. They do not purport to reLect theopinions or views of the Institute or its employees.

National Education Day

Every year since 2008, 11th November iscelebrated as education day to commemorate thebirth anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.Azad was independent India's `rst educationminister.

UGC

On 5th of November 2020, UGC issued theguidelines for Re-opening the Universities andcolleges post lockdown due to COVID 19Pandemic. The guidelines can be referred frombelow link: https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/4423963_UGC-Guidelines-for-Re-Opening-Universities-Colleges.pdf

Make in India

Considering teachers as COVID-warriors, variousonline platforms are offering their services to thefraternity for seamless conduct of online classesand interaction with students during thepandemic. https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/4423963_UGC-Guidelines-for-Re-Opening-Universities-Colleges.pdf

Vidioh, an Indian video conferencing platform,has announced free usage of its services forteachers for a year.

Click here to read more

Rashtriya Ekta Diwas (National Unity Day)

On the birth anniversary of Late SardarVallabhbhai Patel on 31st October, the day wasobserved as “Rashtriya Ekta Diwas or NationalUnity Day". The observance of the day serves toreinforce our commitment to strengthen thesecurity, unity, and integrity of our country.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a famous personalityfor uniting India observed on October 31. From2014, the Central Government of India introducedthe practice to observe the birth anniversary ofPatel every year as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas tocommemorate the great efforts of Iron Man ofIndia.

He was the `rst Home Minister and Deputy PrimeMinister of India and played a most important rolein uniting many Indian princely states to make anIndian federation.

The Govt. of India, Ministry of Education,Department of Higher Education issued a circularfor the same. The circular can be accessedthrough below link: https://www.aicte-india.org/sites/default/`les/1603879193_oVce_orderr.pdf#overlay-context=users/admin

Deepawali Celebration at our Campus

On the occasion of Deepawali – IMT CDLorganized a get together for all the employees on11th Nov 2020 to celebrate the festival of light,wealth, and happiness. The ceremonycommenced by lighting of diyas by Prof. RavindraKumar, CEO & Sr Dean and Prof Asif Zameer,Dean Academics followed by the IMT CDL family.

The message of the CEO highlighted that IMTCDL endeavors to make a difference in everyone’slife and light of our knowledge and educationshould be accessible to every corner and strata ofthe society and the world. He emphasized theimportance of “Education for All” through hismessage.

His message encouraged everyone and boostedthe enthusiasm among the employees towardsachieving the new milestones.

The creativity shown in the form of beautifulrangoli by Ms. Garima Sehgal & Mr. Prakash Roywas a treat to everyone’s eyes. The ambience wasenhanced further by recitation of melodiouspoetry, bhajans & shlokas by some of our hiddentalents.

Editorial Team:Dr. Asif Zameer - Dean Academics, Dr. Priti Sharma - Associate Professor, Rasika Mathur - Sr. Manager Corporate Affairs, Rakesh Kumar - Sr. Manager (Marketingand Sales), Ms. Sheetal Gill - Manager(Academics), Gaurav Rastogi - Academic CoordinatorDesign Team:Mr. Anupam Kumar Singh - GM (IT), Mr. Rajeev Sharma - System Analyst (IT)

Institute of Management TechnologyCentre for Distance Learning

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IN THIS ISSUE

What is new @ IMT CDL

Infocentre @ IMT CDL

New Academic Initiatives

Our Faculty - Our Pride

Alumni Connect

Learner’s Column

Initiatives under the EducationMinistry

Snippets