Krea University’s Convocation 2026 witnessed the graduation of 477 students from across undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programmes. Dr Justice D Y Chandrachud, Former Chief Justice of India, was the Chief Guest at the ceremony.
On 13 June, Krea University hosted its fifth Convocation ceremony at The Music Academy, Chennai. The event witnessed the graduation of the BA, BSc, BA (Honours) and BSc (Honours) Cohorts of the School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences (SIAS), and the BBA, 2-year MBA, 3-year L&T MBA and PhD Cohorts of IFMR Graduate School of Business (GSB).
Two honorary doctorates were also conferred during the ceremony. Professor Satya Chakravarthy, Professor, IIT Madras and Co-Founder & Technical Lead, The ePlane Company was awarded Doctor of Science, honoris causa (D Sc), and Professor Kaushik Basu, Professor of Economics and Carl Marks Professor of International Studies at the Department of Economics and SC Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University was awarded the the Doctor of Letters, honoris causa (D Litt).
The graduating students were conferred with degrees in the presence of Vice-Chancellor Professor Nirmala Rao, Chancellor Lakshmi Narayanan along with members from the Governing Council and Board of Management at Krea such as S Mahalingam, Roxana Daver, Rajeev Mecheri, Kapil Viswanathan, Vidya Vencatesan, Soumya Swaminathan, Amitava Saha, Ravindra Sannareddy and Dean of IFMR GSB, Professor Lakshmi Kumar, Dean of SIAS, Dr Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi, Dean of Research, Professor Sivakumar Srinivasan and other faculty members were also present.
In her address to the graduates, Professor Nirmala Rao said, “Our students talk across academic boundaries all the time, learning from one another as well as from a multitude of extra-curricular activities. I’d say they live in hothouses for unstructured learning. Krea’s education is already known for its breadth, choice, and inter-disciplinarity. It’s special, and this difference matters, if society is in need of more broadly educated leaders and citizens. The case for breadth centres on the proposition that the greatest challenges facing the world today are of huge complexity and global scope, best tackled by people whose education enables them to integrate different fields of knowledge and work across conventional academic boundaries”
Three graduates from the cohorts of BBA, BA/BSc (Honours) and MBA also spoke on the occasion.
Addressing the audience virtually, Chief Guest Dr Justice D Y Chandrachud said, “The years ahead will present questions for which there will be no answer key. Some will concern technology and others will concern the environment. Many will concern your own personal existence. Many will concern the kind of society we wish to build together. When those moments arrive, I hope you will remember that progress and patience are not adversaries. Conviction and generosity can coexist. Serious purpose is entirely compatible with a sense of humor. The world rarely needs more noise, but it almost always benefits from greater judgment. In judgment, we ought not to be judgmental. If there is one habit worth carrying from your years at Krea into the decades ahead, it is the habit of resisting easy certainties and thinking carefully before deciding what to believe.”
