A noble step towards Humanity !

XIMB celebrates World Humanitarian Day
August 19th, 2012

 

The fifth International World Humanitarian Day was observed on 19th August at Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB), in collaboration with Concern Worldwide India, for paying tribute to the men and women who work to save the lives and protect the health of people affected by emergencies caused by conflict or natural disasters. XIMB has long been associated with humanitarian work in Orissa and has championed the cause of the community by providing institutional solutions to societal issues. The Social Responsibility Cell (SRC) of the institute, which organized the event, also conducts other social initiatives all year round, including a Blood Donation Camp in association with Rotary Club, Bhubaneswar and the Red Cross Society, a Baal Mela for local school dropouts and tree plantation drives around Bhubaneswar.

                               

The event started with a street play organized by the students of SRC “Manavta ki pukaar” (meaning the ‘call of humanity’). The evening was initiated by the ceremonial lightning of the lamp and welcome note by Fr. P.T. Joseph, S.J., Director XIMB. It also witnessed dignitaries from the length and breadth of the country who gave their insights on the Humanitarian Day, including Mr. Mihir Bhatt, All India Institute of Disaster Mitigation; Mr. Ambika Nanda, of the United Nations Development Program; Dr. Mangala Prasad Mohanty, Honorary Secretary Indian Red Cross Society, Orissa State; Mr Chiranjeet Das, Concern Worldwide India; Dr Asha Hans, EVP, Shanta Memorial Rehabilitation Centre; and Mr. Deepankar Dutta, Country Director Concern International.

 

 

 

 

 Following the lighting of the lamp, Mr Dipankar Dutta spoke about the significance of the World Humanitarian Day, bringing to notice the facts and figures related to disaster mitigation. Dr Mangala Prasad Mohanty contextualized the International events and movements that have gained momentum in the present scenario. Mr Ambika Nanda from UNDP also shared his thoughts from his volunteering experiences that brought tears to the eyes of the audience. He and Dr Asha Hans spoke about the voices of the sub-altern or the marginalized. This re-emphasized the need to develop basic facilities and equipment so that the physically disabled are able to deal and survive calamities, as they are generally the worst hit victims. Mr Mihir Bhatt spoke of the need to systemize the humanitarian space in India. The fact that we have no fact-based report about a single disaster management program was shocking.

 

 

These thoughts lingered in our minds and made us truly realize the gravity of the situation. Many of us want to help the cause, but hardly any of us know the correct measures that should be followed to provide effective relief. Hence, it is the need of the hour to promote disaster management education on an international level. Mr Nanda rightly said, “when you are old, you can afford to work for the people; but when you are young, you have to work with them.” It shall be also be our initiative from now on to make our thought process more inclusive and keep in mind the problems faced by weaker sections of community.

                                             

 

It is a wonder how this day was blessed with bright sunshine though Bhubaneswar is in the midst of its monsoons. Perhaps this was symbolic of the ray of hope and energy this day brought not just in our campus but throughout the world…throughout humanity !

Candle March and Independence Day Celebrations

“At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life
and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out
from the old to the new...India discovers herself again”.
By Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru

             

               It was on 15th August 1947, when India won freedom from the British Raj

and this was the beginning of a new era where India arose as a free nation. The

Independence Day commemorates the birth of the world's largest democracy, India and this day holds a very unique significance in the Indian history. This was the day when India woke up to inhale the air of freedom.

However this independence did not materialize in one day. Many had to sacrifice their lives with a smile on their face as proud Indians. They were giving their lives for the sake of the freedom of their beloved motherland.

Every year India's Independence Day is celebrated by all proud Indians. The day is observed as a national holiday in the country. Though, local governments conduct the ceremony of flag hoisting all over India, the venue of main celebration is the Red Fort in New Delhi. The celebration starts every year with the unfurling of the tri-colored national flag by the Prime Minister of the nation followed by a televised speech.

India celebrated 66 years of Independence on the 15^th of august 2012. However celebrations at XIMB began on the night of 14^th itself.

The celebrations were organized by the Social Responsibility Cell of XIMB.  Speeches were delivered by the students, talking of India’s progress since independence.  Popular patriotic songs “Yeh jo des hai mera” and “Roobaroo” were sung by Mishti and she was accompanied by Ganapati on the guitar. SRC has undertaken an initiative called “Young Adult’s Education” to educate the mess bhainas. They also participated by singing the national anthem.  Further the students had put up a dance performance which was a flash mob on popular songs like “Jai Ho , Vande Mataram , Rang De Basanti”

Courtesy:Anirban De

The night ended with a candle march where all the students took up candles and walked around the premises singing various patriotic songs. This was in the memory of all the freedom fighters who pledged their life for their country as well as those unnamed soldiers without whose support independent India would still be a distant dream. The map of India drawn on the stage was illuminated by candles, signifying the independent unified India. The students sat around till the candles went out, creating a surreal atmosphere.

            On the morning of Independence Day , celebrations commenced at 9 a.m. with hoisting of the Indian flag.  Speeches were delivered by the Dean Admin as well as the faculty members.  Further speeches were delivered by the student community represented by Anand Agarwal and Shipreeta Verma.  Abodh bhaina who works in the mess delivered a speech in Oriya about the Independence Day.

This was followed by a play performed by the members of X-Stage. They portrayed the various freedom fighters and showed how despite independence there has been an erosion of the Indian value system.  They showed that Gandhiji himself came to see society as it is today and was extremely disheartened by the present state of affairs. However the play ended on a positive note saying that there is good in this world and by working together we can achieve the dream of a brighter tomorrow.

Finally we ended the program by singing the national anthem.

JAI HIND

 Courtesy:Anirban De

HR Summit

XIMAHR- the HR Association of XIMB in collaboration with the Placement Committee organized an HR Summit on ‘Emerging Trends in Talent Acquisition’ on 11th August 2012.

The Summit aimed to start a dialogue among Senior HR professionals, Industry Leaders and Stakeholders of today’s dynamic organizations on current HR issues and also provided an opportunity to understand the relatively new concept of talent acquisition and various issues related to it.Here is a summary of the speakers and their views.

Kanchana Manyam

AdditionalGeneral Manager - Human Resources at Shapoorji Pallonji & Co. Ltd. 

Ms. Kanchana underlined the four trends in talent acquisition namely employment trends, recruitment trends, selection challenge and role of recruitment. She mentioned that apart from IT and ITeS sector, sectors like Pharma (17%), Real Estate and Construction (13%) etc are experiencing double digit growth. As a result, there is a pressing need for redefining the source of talent pool and employability.

She also touched up on the fact that with the advent of technology, recruitment process has become a scalable process

Dilep Misra

President & Head Group HR at JK Group

Mr. Dilep, Head, Group Human resource has worked as HR Head of various companies and has exposure to HR practices of most business verticals. He is an XIMB (PGDM (HR)) alumnus of batch of 1993-1995.

He during his course of discussion highlighted the fact that his organization paid due emphasis on retaining employees and that is the reason; the attrition rate of their company is in single digit. He further said that his organization adopted CCl model and practiced job rotation of employees to improve their efficiency.

On further elaborating about the recruitment policies of his company he said that they hire people at top level through social media like twitter and LinkedIn whereas for the frontline job they go for direct recruitment.

Saurabh Nigam

Vice President — HR, IT & Admin

Mr. Saurabh Nigam spoke on attracting and retaining the Gen Y – The new age employee.The Gen Y is characterized by their self direction and put more weight age on non-financial incentives than financial incentives.He emphasized on nurturing a corporate culture, creating challenging work environment, provide job flexibility and building recognition and intrapreneurship programs. Gen Y being ambitious and outgoing, look for freedom, explicit career path and clear roadmap to success.

Bijay Sahoo

President - H R, Retail & 4G Infotel at Reliance Industries ltd

Mr. Bijay Sahoo gave valuable insights on the strategies and challenges faced by him during his 23 years of work experience in HR strategies, processes, technology, change management and leadership development across sectors.

He opined that colleges provide the pool of talent that can be groomed for taking future leadership role. He pointed that the importance of recruiting through employee referral, social media et al and how the technology has changed over time, starting from the job portals in 1990’s to social media in 2006-07 and now the mobile platform applications. He talked about HR Kalpavriksha that entails all aspects of Talent management like Planning, Recruiting, Training, Retaining, Sustaining etc.

“Intelligence + Humility=Successful Individual”  

Anish Singh HR Director,

Reckitt Benckiser

Mr. Anish Singh has over 13 years of experience in HR and has worked in reputed organizations like HUL, ITC, ICICI Prudential, Essar.

He emphasized that there is no war for talent; talent has already won this war. He observed that in today’s scenario employer branding is very important and it plays a very vital role in attracting the right talent. He highlighted some facts about his company mainly that his company is in touch with Gen Y and is a global company with global mindset.

He also observed that poaching of talent does not help any organization in the long run. In his organization they put a lot of importance on ‘diversity’, in terms of gender, nationality, and region.

Conclusion

Talent acquisition takes a long term view of not only filling positions of today, but also identifying talent for future openings. Talent acquisition professionals need to be skilled not only in sourcing tactics, candidate assessment, compliance and hiring standards, but also in employment branding practices. Also, talent retention (an important aspect of talent acquisition) assumes importance to build a succession model in place.

In an emerging market like ours, where labor capital is fast moving, talent acquisition and retention seems to be one of the biggest problems that plague the country today so talent acquisition is not just a fancy term, it is here to stay in this 21st century.