Professor Madhuri Saripalle, Professor, Economics and Chairperson – MBA Programme, IFMR GSB, participated in the International Conference on Enabling Sustained Growth in Emerging Asia, held on 7-8 February at the School of Economics, University of Hyderabad. She presented her paper titled Agricultural Transformation in Telangana: A Case Study of Paddy Cultivation, which is part of an ongoing project supported by the IFMR Fund for research in Humanities and Social Sciences.
Ananya Manikandan, MBA Cohort of 2025, IFMR GSB secured first placein CRE-AI-TIVE Writing at Chrysalis 2024–25, a national-level inter-collegiate competition organised by the Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA), Chennai, on 12 February 2025.
The contest featured two rounds: Round 1 involved creating a 10–25-line poem using AI text-generation tools, a 100-word AI usage note, and five prompts; round 2 challenged participants to write a 1000 – 1200-word story from two given lines, testing creativity and critical thinking.
Additionally, Ananya’s article, India’s Fintech Revolution: How Startups Are Reshaping the Financial Landscape, was recognised as the “Article of the Quarter” in the inaugural edition of Management Manuscripts, a quarterly magazine by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee School of Management & Entrepreneurship (ABVSME), JNU, Delhi. The magazine, launched in collaboration with Gyanmancha – The Literary Society and Hariyali – The Sustainability Club, features 12 articles per issue on diverse management and interdisciplinary topics.
Kashish Ramesh, Cohort of 2023 – 2027, SIAS has been nominated for the Entrepreneurial Excellence Award at the Founders Conference in Marina Bay, Singapore (2026), becoming the youngest nominee in the event’s history.
The nomination highlights her entrepreneurial initiatives, Quope and Cadet & Blu. Kashish founded Quope in 2021, a non-profit inspired by organisations like the Social Media Safety Organization in California, dedicated to combating social media addiction and promoting safer digital spaces. She also launched Cadet & Blu, an inbound consulting agency focused on writing-led strategies and supporting small and women-led businesses.
Pursuing a double major in Economics and Data Science, Kashish leads the Business Club, where she encourages students to pursue their ideas and fosters entrepreneurial spirit within the campus community.
For more details about the conference: https://www.founders2conf.com/
Kashish has also authored a book that can be purchased here:
Dr Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Assistant Professor, Physics, SIAS, gave an oral presentation about his research work at the International Conference on Magnetic Materials and Applications (ICMAGMA2025) organised by the Magnetics Society of India (MSI) in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. The conference was held from February 12-14, 2025, at the IISc campus in Bengaluru, India. The title of Dr Chakrabarty’s talk was , ‘31P NMR studies of the 1/3 depleted 2D kagomé lattice system’.
Abstract of the talk
Subtle interactions in low-D magnets often result in novel states in matter. In this work the team has carried on the bulk and 31P NMR measurements and (DFT+U) electronic structure calculations on the single crystals of Cu-based S=1/2 compound BaCu2(PO4)2(H2O). Based on the hopping parameters calculated from DFT, they find the spin network of the titled compound to be a 2D layer of 1/3-depleted anisotropic kagomé lattice with the magnetic couplings J1, J2, J3, and J4. They observe a broad maximum in the magnetic susceptibility however, the 31P NMR local probe measurements feature an additional sharp magnetic anomaly which confirms the presence of a magnetic transition at TN = 10.5 K. While 1/T1 falls very steeply with temperature below TN, it follows a sublinear power-law behaviour above TN, indicating the presence of dynamic short-range correlations. All these features confirm the complex 2D spin network in this compound.
Dr Sambaiah Gundimeda, Associate Professor, Politics, SIAS was invited as a resource person for the Faculty Development Programme at GITAM University, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. The programme, held from 12 to 14 February 2025, featured Dr Gundimeda delivering two insightful lectures. His sessions focused on effective publication strategies and research proposal writing for securing funding.
The titles of his lectures were, ‘Unlocking the Secrets of Successful Publishing’ and ‘Crafting Comprehensive Budget Strategies’.
Professor Lakshmi Kumar, Dean, IFMR GSB led the seminar on ‘Global Business Transformation for a Resilient Future’ organised by the Commerce Department of Stella Maris College, Chennai.
A blog titled Transgender People in Indian Science Institutions: Identity, Community & Belonging by Purnaa Muthu, a third-year SIAS student majoring in Psychology and a former peer tutor at the Centre for Writing and Pedagogy (Krea-CWP), has been published on CDJ Plus, the blog of the Community Development Journal (Oxford University Press).
In this piece, Purnaa explores the work of Sayantan Datta, Assistant Professor of Practice, Krea-CWP, focusing on the lived experiences of transgender, gender non-conforming and nonbinary individuals in Indian science institutions. Along with a comprehensive summary of Sayantan’s previous research, published in the Community Development Journal, she offers new insights from her interview with them.
Professor Jayaram Ramakrishnan, Professor of Practice, Finance, IFMR GSB, presented a webinar on ‘Cost Optimisation for MSMEs’ to members of ICAI on behalf of the MSME & Startup Promotion Board (MSPB) of The Institute of Cost Accountants of India on 7 February 2025. The session was attended by over 450 ICAI professionals and was presided over by the Chairman of the MSME Board and a Central Council member of ICAI.
Dr R S Sathya Saminadan, Associate Professor of Practice, Marketing, IFMR GSB participated in a panel discussion on ‘Data-Driven Decision Making: Real-World Applications & Best Practices’ at Guru Nanak College, on 7 February 2025.
Dr Lakshmi Narayanan, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, SIAS has co-authored an article titled ‘Resolving the generation mechanisms and electrodynamical effects of Medium Scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances (MSTIDs)’ which has been published in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences. The work is a perspective article resulting from detailed deliberations of an international team of researchers for 2-3 years led by a NASA scientist. The team has gathered twice at Bern to discuss outstanding problems regarding an ionospheric phenomenon called Medium Scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances (MSTIDs). MSTIDs are perturbations propagating in the ionosphere of earth, and they are caused by different mechanisms that are not well understood/characterized. MSTIDs affect satellite based communication, navigation and radio astronomical observations. In this article, they discuss the most important issues in their characterisation and point to some of the inconsistencies that exist in the literature. They also provide some recommendations to the community to address these issues.
