SHILLONG, April 20: As many as 268 students were on Wednesday conferred with degrees during a convocation ceremony of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM).
The 13th convocation ceremony was held after a two-year COVID-19-induced gap at its new campus at Umsawli, Shillong, during which degrees were conferred upon 252 PGP students and 16 PGPEx students.
Founder and Chairman of Narayana Health, Dr Devi Prasad Shetty was scheduled to attend the convocation as the chief guest but had to cancel his visit at the last minute. In a virtual message, he told the graduating students that the world has turned upside down due to COVID-19.
“100 years from now if a historian is going to write the history of the world, there would be two distinct periods, one is BC, that is, before COVID, and the second is AC, that is, after COVID. To be successful in life, to make a difference, to make this world a better place to live in, you have to think different,” he said.
Chairman of the Board of Governors, Shishir Kumar Bajoria, congratulated the students and the faculty members in his address.
“Although the crisis brought several human-institutional challenges, we, as a community, grew stronger. India, as a country, faced the pandemic in one of the best ways in the world; our leadership ensured that our heads were held high,” he said.
Director of IIM Shillong, Prof DP Goyal, said that the institute has made significant all-round progress and pointed out that the most-awaited moment for IIM Shillong was to be housed in its own campus.
He informed that the work on the second and third phase is expected to be complete soon.
