IIMB does its bit to fight graft

In an attempt to fight corruption rampant in public life, Bangalore’s premier B-school Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) has devised a unique project titled ‘Integrity Decoded’ to train future managers to fight corruption.

The project aims at engaging youngsters, mostly B-school students of Bangalore, to fight corruption and maintain transparency and ethics in their personal lives.

Centre for Corporate Governance and Citizenship (CCGC) at IIMB Nandita Lakshmanan are the brains behind the project.
As a part of it, Nandita has donated $5000 to CCGC to start the project.

In fact, she had received the amount as a part of a grant for global mentorship programme, given by Fortune magazine. The objective of this project fight corruption by engaging B-school students, who are going to lead tomorrow’s corporate world. “We face corruption in our everyday lives. Corruption has taken the form of a cancerous cell and has made deep inroads into our society,” said Vasanthi Srinivasan, chairperson of CCGC at IIMB.

Nandita said it was during her three-week mentorship programme at New York last year when she thought of starting a project in Bangalore, on the lines of ‘Honour Code’. Honour Code is a project run by all reputed US academic institutes to maintain ethics in public life.

“I have seen that in several US institutes, maintaining ethics and morality in public life is held in high esteem. After coming back to Bangalore, my home, I thought of approaching a prestigious institute to start my work against corruption. I am glad IIMB’s CCGC supported my idea,” said Nandita.

As a part of anti-corruption project, IIMB on Tuesday started a series of lectures on LeaderSpeak, targeting various B-schools students in the city. “LeaderSpeak series will feature prominent citizens and eminent thought leaders discussing their experiences and presenting their views on the overarching subject of ‘Business, Ethics and Society’,” said Srinivasan, chairperson of CCGC at IIMB. The CCGC was formed in 2003 at IIMB. Besides working for globally accepted norms for functioning of corporate bodies, CCGC also brings research, teaching and policy support work under one umbrella.

It also provides various courses, including elective subjects for students of post graduate programme (PGP) at IIMB.