Kalam to teach at IIM-Shillong

Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam will be lecturing students of Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Shillong for three days on ways to make India an economically developed nation, the institute said.

"The students and faculty of IIM-Shillong are elated that Dr Kalam is coming to teach at the institute. I am sure his lectures would benefit not only our students but also faculty members," IIM-Shillong director Kaya Sengupta told IANS.

The lecture 'Economically Developed Nation - How to Realise' will go on from Sunday to Tuesday.

"The institute has arranged all the materials required for the lecture. He (Kalam) will be lecturing second year students on 'Economically Developed Nation - How to Realise' from Sunday (June 23) to Tuesday (June 25)," Sengupta said.

While visiting the institute earlier on March 6, the former president had agreed to teach at the B-school.

"I am a teacher. As a professor, wherever knowledge takes me, I go. I like meeting young people and I would like to contribute to their knowledge," Kalam told IANS.

Kalam, who is also a visiting faculty at IIM-Ahmedabad, will guide the students individually as well as in groups.

After the lecture, students will be required to submit project proposals for creating scenarios based on multiple options for specific policy or institutional changes.

The faculty would comment on these proposals, and project teams would be able to consult subject matter specialists through invited lectures and interactions. The students could even visit the experts.

The IIM in the Meghalaya capital is named after former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. It was started in 2008 and functions from a makeshift campus at the Mayurbhanj complex, the erstwhile summer palace of the kings of Mayurbhanj in Odisha.

The Meghalaya government has allotted a 120-acre plot on which work is under way for a state-of-the-art academic-cum-residential campus.

(Raymond Kharmujai can be contacted at rrkharmujai@gmail.com)