Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala: Das Kapital and capital markets

Capital markets and communist ideals will converge on the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta this winter.

Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will bat for the ideals emanating from Das Kapital on January 7, the last day of Intaglio, an annual feature on the Joka campus.

The three-day meet will also see Rakesh Jhunjhunwala — one of the biggest individual investors at the bourses — address the 600-odd participants, and that, too, just three-hours after the chief minister’s session.

“The list of speakers is, indeed, an eclectic mix, symbolic of the crossroads that Bengal is at now. Communists are here to stay, still capital is flowing in and that’s an interesting phenomenon for management students,” said IIM Calcutta student Vijay Anand Menon.

He, along with his friends, is eagerly awaiting Bhattacharjee’s session, billed as a top draw at Intaglio 2007.

From management games to expositions on various functional areas of management, Intaglio is planned in a way to attract the best B-brains from local and global B-schools.

The chief minister, invited as a speaker in the Reverberations lecture series, will dwell on ‘Resurgence of West Bengal and Lessons for the Future’ and then take questions from the floor.

Sarthak Behuria, chairman, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, and Leo Puri, senior director, McKinsey & Co, will also address the students during the lecture series.

“The spectrum of speakers at Intaglio is reflective of the sort of convergence that Bengal is pioneering,” said Anindya Sen, dean, programme initiatives, IIM Calcutta.

This January, the theme of Intaglio is transforming potential to performance. “It is about transforming yesterday’s dreams to tomorrow’s realities,” said Karn Saini, a second-year student of IIM Calcutta, explaining the decision to invite Bhattacharjee.

At yet another end of the learning curve is Jhunjhunwala’s success story in the stock market. The smart investor is expected to shed light on his rise and rise.

Though the focus will be on Bengal on Day Three of the meet, the 2007 version of Intaglio is aimed to make it appealing to participants from across the globe.

“We have got confirmations from Ivy League institutes like the Harvard Business School and Tuck School of Business. We are also getting participants from National University of Singapore,” said Saini.

Besides five expositions on different functional areas of management, like marketing, finance, operations, strategy and systems, Intaglio will have a number of new attractions, like ‘Wizards of Biz’, a business simulation challenge.

The other new event is Blueprint, which invites participants to analyse the strength of the special economic zone (SEZ) route in Bengal and develop a business plan to take advantage.

“Though we have retained some of the old games, the rules have been tweaked to raise interest,” said Saini.