New Delhi, November 21, 2011- Religare Quo Vadis 2011, the annual management and cultural fest of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade-a premier B-school in International Business presented in association with Religare concluded successfully on Sunday at the IIFT campus in Qutab Institutional area with the soulful performance of Shafqat Amanat Ali. Participants from all the IIM’s, ISB, XLRI, FMS, SP Jain, and other leading Institutes are expected to attend the 3-day event.
The festival kick-started with the strategy competition Religare SHODH, which saw teams from the best B-schools fight it out not just for prizes but for pride with IIFT Delhi winning the event and grabbed Pre-placement Interviews and a cash prizes. Shodh which was a hunt for the grandmasters of strategy to get rural India on board for health insurance was the Flagship Event, under the aegis of the Title Sponsor Religare.
Another Flagship event Religare Consigliere - the annual I-Banking competition was held under the aegis of Cashonova- the Finance Club of IIFT and in association with Religare. The feat achieved was in actual I-Banking fashion, an event to mirror the dynamics of the corporate world, involve developing pitch books for M&A deals worth millions.
Mitu Seth – EVP HR, Religare said, “Participation in campus events is not only an effective campus engagement/Employer branding practice but is also a proactive way to identify talent across target premier B-Schools. It provides the organization an opportunity to holistically assess potential employees in various formal /informal situations. It also provides the students an exposure to the company's businesses and practices more closely.”
The other major sponsors are Mahindra and Mahindra, Indian Bank, SAIL, Nokia, Hero MotoCorp, HP, Treks n Rapids, Cognizant, Spykar, Vedanta Resources, Sri City.
The major highlight of this festival was the total prize money worth Rs 15 lakhs, one of the largest stakes among B-school Festivals in the country. “Apart from the prize money, the quality of events and the prestige associated with them helped IIFT capture the attention of participants to attract the record number of entries”, said Puneet Goyal, Cultural Secretary at IIFT Delhi.
This year the festival also scaled International Heights with its flagship International Paper writing contest inviting entries from the leading universities across the globe with prize money of US $ 2000. IIFT is the only institute in the North Zone to have an International Festival.
The social welfare and CSR club of IIFT-Koshish which has affiliations with over 25 NGOs of national repute, distributed blankets to the poor and underprivileged people of the Govindpuri Slum in association with Help Age India and Delhi Metro.
The full program of Bajao-the War of Bands, recorded a total of 47 entries from across the country through the IIFT Annual Management Fest, Quo Vadis 2010. The performances included the ones by Jehovah, Dementia, the Early Urban Men, and the Mangals. These five bands were selected after a grueling audition round with Dementia finally emerging as the winners.
The event also saw participation from the Delhi University colleges in Aahvaan-The Street Play Competition. Social messages were embedded within each of the performances and they ranged from the menace of drugs to the evil of communalism. The dialogues were witty and the performances riveting. The two and a half hour long event entertained the audience and at the same time opened their eyes to some of the issues that plague our society. Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce stood 1st. Their theme revolved around the discrimination towards people from the north-east and the decades of injustice faced by the region.
The celebrity quotient of the festival was also high with Prahlad Kakkar visiting the campus and interacted with the IIFT students. Later on in the evening, ex lead singer of famed Pakistani band ‘Jal’, Farhan Saeed performed some magical songs to set the stage on fire.
The final day of Religare Quo Vadis saw IIFT play host to one of the most popular and well-recognized faces of the music industry- Shafqat Amanat Ali. The event witnessed a huge footfall of both media as well as music-lovers, eager to catch a glimpse of Shafqat and listen to his lilting music. He held a large audience spellbound with his vast repertoire of mesmerizing songs like Dildaara, Tere Naina, Kyun Main Jaagoon, Yeh Honsla and many others. With Shafqat acceding to the demand of the audience to sing some of his most popular songs multiple times, the excitement of the crowd reached a crescendo. The curtains fell on the show with one of Shafqat’s most popular song-Mitwa which provided a fitting finale for Quo Vadis 2011.
About Quo Vadis:
Held annually in the month of November, Quo Vadis is the flagship management and cultural festival that the B-school fraternity eagerly awaits. This year the title sponsor for the event is Religare and also offered PPI’s to winners in the flagship event Religare-Shodh. The other major sponsors are Mahindra and Mahindra, Indian Bank, SAIL, Nokia, Hero MotoCorp, HP, Treks n Rapids, Cognizant, Spykar, Vedanta Resources, Sri City. From a humble beginning, Quo Vadis has today transformed itself into a management spectacle, one that befits the fest of the premier school for International Business in the country and draws footfalls of over 5000 members of the B-school cadre across the country.
About IIFT:
IIFT, established by the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India in 1963, is a leading research and training institute in International Business. Over the years it has evolved into one of the country’s premier B-schools and has consistently been amongst the top 10 B-schools India.
The institute is today a deemed university and its MBA programme has been consistently attracting attention from both B-school aspirants as well as corporate over the years.
Apart from MBA (International Business) which is the institute’s flagship programme, the institute’s portfolio of long-term programmes is diverse, catering to the requirements of both freshers and mid-career professionals alike. Continuous research has been the backbone for updating IIFT curriculum in order to reflect the fast changing global business dynamics. It is in this context that IIFT has set up a number of Research Centers like the Centre for WTO Studies,Center for International Trade and Technology and Centre for Small and Medium Enterprises.