NT Business Desk

Panaji, Sept 17 A two-day national level finance conference ‘Cognizant Samriddhi 2007’, organised by Goa Institute of Management in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) was recently organised at Majorda Beach Resort.

The conference wash aimed at exploring new ways and opportunities to meet developmental challenges of the economic reforms effectively.

Mr. Rajnikant Patel, MD and CEO Bombay Stock Exchange Ltd; Dr S Subramanian, head-IB, Enam Securities: Dr N D Madan-VP of India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd; Ajay Shah, former advisor to the ministry of finance; Mr. C J George, MD Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services Ltd; Ms Lalita Gupte, former joint MD, ICICI were the resource persons at the conference. They spoke on important and diverse topics like “the tremendous growth potential of our economy and how the financial sector is going to support it”, “takeovers of exchanges around the world & their implications for India in terms of opportunities and threats” and “role played by Micro-finance in empowering the rural population”.

Two unique features of this conference were the paper presentation contest and the finance career workshop, which was held on day 1. The paper presentation contest acted as a platform for top B-school students across India to voice their views.

The topics included “Public-private partnership for furthering infrastructural growth- is it the best model” , “Funding of leveraged take-overs overseas by Indians – problems and issues”, “Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid – myth or reality for Indian banks”, “Emergence of Hedge funds in India- its implications on the Indian Capital market” and “How big is big for the Indian banks- assess within the context of opening of the banking sector in 2009.”

The aim of the ‘career workshop’ was to provide an interactive platform wherein students were exposed to new / alternative career opportunities in the financial sector. An eminent three-member panel from the financial sector took questions from students.