SCMS NEWS- MARCH

Budget analysis

More efforts needed to boost agriculture
– Shri Venugopal C. Govind

More efforts would be needed to make agriculture a sustainable economic activity in the country, said Shri Venugopal C. Govind, noted Chartered Accountant, while speaking on the Union Budget at SCMS-COCHIN on March 5. He also suggested public-private partnership and better government-people partnership in this field in order to strengthen the agricultural sector in line with other segments of economy like industry, services and infrastructure.
Agriculture, according to him, has always become a matter of concern even though it has tremendous potential for growth. A strong political will would be required to revive the agriculture sector and to enhance its productivity, which remains very low compared to global standards, Shri Venugopal added. The panel discussion on Union Budget was organized by SCMS-COCHIN in association with The Hindu Business Line.

Earlier, Shri Venugopal began his speech complimenting the students of SCMS-COCHIN who presented a brilliant analysis of the Budget, at the beginning of the programme.

Shri Babu A. Kallivayalil, Member of the South India Regional Council of ICAI, the other panelist, strongly defended the waiver of agricultural loans in the Budget. He said it would ensure relief to nearly 30 million small and marginal farmers and also would push up production.

According to him, the immediate beneficiaries of the loan waiver schemes is the banking companies because of the reason that most of the loans are non-performing assets as on December 31, 2007 and have been provided for the loss as per RBI norms. These loans, even otherwise, would have been unrecoverable and therefore the banks would have been forced to write off a larger part of it, he reasoned.

Since loss on account of these small agriculture loans are already absorbed in the bank account, the amount that will be granted by the government, is going to be taken to the profits of the banking companies, Shri Babu explained.
Photo: Shri Babu A.Kallivayalil, Chartered Accountant speaking on the Union Budget. Shri Venugopal C.Govind, Chartered Accountant is sitting beside.

Management quiz competition

The inter-business school management quiz programme for the Ghanashyam Das Binani Rolling Trophy organized jointly by SCMS Group of Educational Institutions and National Institute of Personnel Management (NIPM) Kerala Chapter was held at SCMS-COCHIN on March 8. Ten teams representing various business schools in Kerala participated in the competition. Dr.Anandakuttan B.Unnithan was the quizmaster. The team consisting of Rashmi M. and Diana S. from Rajagiri School of Management emerged as the winner. Shri.K.K.Roy Kurian, President, Binani Industries, gave away the trophy.
Photo: Shri K.K.Roy Kurian, President, Binani Industries, presenting the Ghanashyam Das Binani Trophy.

Represented SCMS-COCHIN in Brainstorming meeting

Prof. (Dr.)V.Rajagopalan Nair and Prof. (Dr.) Mercia Selva Malar participated in the brainstorming session organized by Competition Commission of India, Government of India at New Delhi on March 17.

Competition commission of India was established by the Government to prevent practices having adverse effect on competition, to promote competition in the market and to protect consumer interests. The CCI commissioned several studies on the competition in different sectors of the economy to get to know the various prevailing business policies in such sectors. CCI has recently identified other new areas where studies are to be initiated. It was in this connection that SCMS was invited, as a reputed academic and research organization, to attend the brainstorming session. It was decided at the meeting to entrust a study on the ‘Competition issues existing in banking sector’ to SCMS.

Pre-induction programme

Keane, the multinational IT services provider, conducted a two-day pre-induction programme for their newly recruited B.Tech. and MCA students from SSET and SSTM at the Prathap Nagar campus of SCMS-COCHIN on March 14 and 15. 50 newly recruited B.Tech. students from SSET and 8 MCA students from SSTM participated in the training.

Paper presented

Caption: Dr.V.Raman Nair, Additional Director presenting a paper on Technology for service quality enhancement at the International Conference on ‘Process and Technology: Key drivers for customer-focused service management’ at TAPMI, Manipal on February 15.

Paper published
An article titled ‘Consumer generated media: Can you ignore it?’ by Shri Harish.B., Assistant Professor, was published in the magazine Effective Executive, April, 2008 edition.
Industry Institution Interaction
Shri Satheshwara Bala, Keane, Chennai addressed the students on ‘Work culture in IT industry,’ on March 15.

Monsoon cine fest

Monsoon cine fest is a new concept to promote film culture in campuses. Mohanlal film “Photographer ” was screened at SCMS campus on March 11 under the auspices of The Elias Foundation, Cochin to introduce this concept at SCMS. After the screening, there was an interaction with Shri Ranjan Pramod, Director of the film and Shri Ravindhar, Actor.