Bhubaneswar, March 30: The Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB), conducted its 20th annual convocation ceremony on its campus this evening. Degrees were conferred on 270 graduating students.

Out of these, while 175 students completed the postgraduate diploma programme in management (PGDM) course, 58 students graduated from the PGDM (rural management) programme.

In addition to this, there were 37 students who graduated from the PGDM (part-time) programme.

Among the graduates from the PGDM batch of 2011, the top ten were awarded. Tuktuk Bansal and Mukul Sachdeva were presented with the C.M. Kandoi gold medal, instituted by Aditya Steel Industries, for securing the first and second positions respectively. The next eight rank holders were awarded the Faculty Council gold medal.

Topper Bansal also received the Leeta Misra-Ankalkoti gold medal as well as the NTPC Gold Medal, while Gurbani Kaur Sohi won the Orissa Jesuit Society Medal for Social and Ethical Perspective in Management. The Ravi Sharma Memorial gold medal for best all-rounder was given to Gladson John Vinod.

From the PGDM (rural management) class of 2011, Satyajit Kumar won the Orissa Jesuit Society Medal for securing the first rank, while the Faculty Council gold medal for PGDM (RM) went to Ratnabhargavi A.R. and Sonal Agarwal. For the PGDM (part time) course, Umesh Kumar Singh, Biswajeet Mahapatra and Dhiraj Kumar Srivastava secured first, second and third ranks respectively. They were awarded the Faculty Council gold medal.

On this occasion, Adi Godrej, chairman of the Godrej Group, was the chief guest. He gave away the awards to the winners. He spoke about the transformation of Indian economy from “a largely stagnant, inward looking, over regulated economy to a thriving, market-driven one”.

He also touched upon the uncertain world economy and competing in an era of discontinuity.

“Raising money at a time of adversity is infinitely more difficult than in times of prosperity. So raise money when you can, not when you need to. For every business, irrespective of the sector it operates in, ‘Cash is King’. I often tell my colleagues at Godrej, ‘Sales is vanity, profit is sanity, cash is reality’,” he said. Addressing the students as “leaders of tomorrow”, Godrej gave them a thumb rule for success: “Go for leadership, do not listen to those who say ‘It’s not done that way’, play to win but don’t play dirty, dare mighty things and make your vocation your vacation.”

The Godrej Group also runs a summer internship programme, Gurukul, in which two students of XIMB participate every year. Also present at the convocation meeting were XIMB’s chairman, Rajive Kaul, director Father P.T. Joseph and dean (Academics) Subhajyoti Ray.