Centre For Excellence?

The fact that Universities need to remain focussed on rendering quality education, and thereby, work towards becoming centres of excellence is quintessential. While the above remain as the guiding principles for the Founders when setting up an educational Institution, student requirements with respect to placement, industry demand for quality talent, and, the aspirations of the local community try to steer them away from the thought of setting up a centre of excellence.

- Mrinmoy Majumder

The growth of MNCs in India extrapolated the developments in the educational sphere in the 90s. And, as a result, the need for specialized business management programmes gained prominence. Though there were a few institutes in the country which were running such programmes along the lines of leading global universities such as Harvard and Stanford, such institutes were not very accessible to a large chunk of MBA aspirants. In the past two decades, many business schools came into being to fulfil the demand for qualified professionals. India being a highly populated country, and getting into a top league institute is simply arduous, considering the level of competition. According to experts in the academic sphere, it is more difficult to secure a seat in the IITs or the IIMs as compared to any top university abroad. After spending nearly 23 years in the US, Dr. P. S. Rao returned back to his native place in rural Karnataka. Being an economist, he had been predicting high growth in India. Thus, taking this into the ambit, and, the consequent rise in demand for business management professionals, he felt he must create a learning centre, where he can develop future business professionals. In the year 1994, he established Radiant Management Studies Institute, a management institute in Bangalore and offered a two years full-time course in business management. He initially utilized his own personal financial corpus that he had managed to earn while in the US. Within a few years, the institute moved from a two classroom facility to a multi-storied building around Central Bangalore. Eventually, a trust was created through which funds were raised through bank loans and government initiatives. The multi-storied building was named Palaash, and housed 12 classrooms, faculty cabins, staff rooms, information technology infrastructure, library, and, the offices of the Registrar and the Director. Initially, on the basis of a consensus from the trust and board members, Dr. Rao was