Five post-graduate programme (PGP) students of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) have set up a Private Equity (PE) and Venture Capital (VC) club to help students get hands-on experience by involving PE/VC players from India and abroad. Unlike finance clubs run by most B-schools in the country, this club exclusively focuses on PE and VC funding.

The lack of opportunities and experience in the PE and VC space led five students to set up the club called ‘Leverage’. With around 50 students interested in being members, the club will be a forum for students interested in all aspects of private equity and venture capital.

“We came up with an initial skeletal structure of the PE club by looking at institutes like Harvard and others from the Ivy League. But the end product has been entirely our idea of how a PE club should be. Although we prefer to call it an interest group for the time being, we plan to run a full-fledged club with more activities soon,” says Anirudh Singh, a member of the club.

“PE as an industry has boomed in India and we plan to invite speakers to the campus, hold conclaves, workshops and other events to provide a platform for the students and corporates to interact. Also, we are looking forward to hold intra-institute events, where the students can write an investment proposal and a panel of faculty members can judge them.

We have no restrictions when it comes to corporates as we would be involving both top- and middle-level players to encourage more and more activities in the field of PE and VC,” says Gagandeep Singh, another member of the club.

As part of formalising the club, the students are holding the first intra-institute event called the ‘Zen of Investing’, where the club plans to invite alumni working in the area of private equity, besides involving the faculty and students for the activity.

The club also has plans to tie-up with Post-Graduate Programme in Management for Executives (PGPX) students to getter a better perspective of private equity. “The PGPX students would be able to share their experiences about private equity and with their support, we plan to involve ourselves with the corporates in a deeper way through various activities, including projects and case workshops,” adds Anirudh Singh.

The club is in talks with a few corporates, who have shown interest in sponsoring the club.

“We are considering more options for funding besides the institute and the corporates we are in talks with. Currently, we are in the stage of gauging the responses from the people about the club,” says Anirudh Singh, before adding, “Although we have started out PE and VC, we may consider branching out to other areas like micro finance later.”

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Information Technology (IT) holds the key to kick-starting a revolution in banking, said Radha Unni, chief general manager, State Bank of India, here.

She was inaugurating a national conference on `Braving new frontiers in banking,’ organised by the ICFAI Business School, here.

She called for standardisation across banks and appealed to them to take the services to the doorsteps of the customers for financial inclusion.

Anoop Narayanan, security consultant, First Legion Consulting, said human fraud, incompetence and errors made the implementation of new technologies difficult. He also spoke on information leaks and the cultural factors involved.

Punjab National Bank senior manager Guru Murthy spoke on the implementation of core banking solution. He provided an overview of the technologies used in mid-level interactions, in the back offices and in internal monitoring and reports.

K.A. Joseph, managing director, Kerala Venture Capital, summarised the session on IT in banking by providing an overview of mobile Internet banking. He said that IT should equip bankers to convert future threats into opportunities.

A.K. Basu, general manager, State Bank of Travancore, spoke on private banking. He highlighted the various challenges faced in private banking.

Ommen Jacob, regional sales manager, ICICI Bank, said the challenge before private bankers was to provide their customers with the best service in the industry. He spoke about the four R’s of private banking: reach, relationship, research and resource. It was only by investing in them in favour of customer needs could the banks achieve their goals.

A.V. Anil, branch manager, Kotak Mahindra Bank, focussed on the services provided by private banking and also gave a brief picture of the challenges faced such as high client expectations, higher fixed costs and so on. Padma Kumar, former chairman and managing director of Federal Bank, stressed the need for private banking. He said that as the interest rates had reduced, people did not just invest in banks; they had more options.

Private banking should aim at providing products for wealth management to all sections of society for financial inclusion.

Cherian Varghese, former chairman and managing director, Union Bank of India, spoke on retail banking and the various norms issued by RBI regarding it.

V.P. Roshan, branch head, IDBI Bank, gave an overview of how banks operated, the importance of retail banking.

Chennai: Chicago headquarters of the consultancy firm developing CGN & Associates Inc (CGN) and the symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development (SCMHRD), Pune, have announced a strategic partnership.

The agreement is align CGN know-how with over the Supply Chain Management and management of the overall project vertical Symbiosis Centre. CGN of excellence in the conduct of curricula the USA plan TPI (Pacific Institute) for the CGN has exclusive rights in India. CGN all their activities in India by its subsidiary to 100 percent CGN IT Services. The company is testing a case based on a workshop with the real world, application of concepts and theory. “We are very curious about this venture in partnership with CGN, because this it is a dynamic interface for pupils and students with experts from industry,” said Prakash Waknis, Chief Learning Officer, Symbiosis Centre.

THE Kerala Government proposes to start a pilot tele-medicine project in the State as part of its efforts to utilise the immense possibilities of information technology in healthcare and education areas.

Replying to a calling attention motion in the State Assembly on Wednesday, the Health Minister, Mr P. Sankaran, said that the project would be a collective venture of Thiruvananthapuram Medical College, Sri Chitra Institute of Medical Sciences and Technology, Regional Cancer Centre and Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Kerala (IIITM-K).

The Government would shortly submit a proposal in this regard to the Centre, the Minister said.

Under the project, the Medical College will function as a tele referral centre and a few public health centres in the district as remote tele consultation centres.

The project is expected to cost Rs 58 lakh.

The Minister said that the tele-medicine practice had already been implemented in States such as Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat and at Apollo Hospitals.

It is expected to be successfully introduced in Kerala considering its size and the progress it has achieved in the area of healthcare.

As a first step towards realising the goal, the healthcare and education areas need to be modernised by extensive application of information technology.

For this purpose, the Health Services Directorate would be converted into a Planning and Monitoring Cell.

Besides, for creating the necessary infrastructure, the Government has earmarked Rs 40 lakh in the current year, the Minister said.

The Electricity Minister, Mr Kadavoor Sivadasan, said that the Kerala State Electricity Board would reduce the power tariff of fishermen using Chinese net from Rs 7.25 to Rs 2.75 per unit.

In reply to a submission, the Minister said that such fishermen would be brought under Category Four from the current Seven-A category.

Replying to a question, the Minister for Welfare of Backward and Scheduled Communities, said that a centre of excellence for encouraging SC/ST students for higher studies and research would be established at the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode.

He added that preliminary work of the centre had started and admission of students would commence soon.

Of the Rs 5 crore earmarked for the centre, Rs 75 lakh had already been allocated, he informed the House.