The reduced focus on communication and language skills in the Common Admissions Test (CAT) of the last three years is a sign that the IIMs want to fill the pipeline with people who will fit in finance jobs. While this takes a toll on the diversity of the batch at the IIMs, it's also not a great idea in times of bad economy, argues R Shiva Kumar, an alumnus of IIM Calcutta and the Director - R&D and Academics at Career Launcher.

Just about two months ago, an MBA from a top b-school held promise of gold class jobs on the Wall Street. All that became history when Lehman Brothers and Merill Lynch crashed. How are MBA alumni from three years ago dealing with it? What have they learned from it? Suhas Anand, IIM Ahmedabad alumnus from the class of 2006 writes

By placing restrictions on consultancy projects and removing incentives to teach more diverse courses, the IIM Review Committee might end up eliminating the very reason that drives quality faculty to teach at the IIMs, says IIM Bangalore's Prof Ganesh Prabhu.

AICTE's humiliating certification rules and regulations lack integrity and reflect all that is wrong with India's government-funded system of professional training, says SP Jain Institute of Management and Research's Dean and DBA from Harvard Business School, Prof ML Shrikant.

From seeking to merely fill seats by advertising en masse, b-schools will start focusing on targeting quality students and this will reflect in the way they market themselves, says our guest columnist Prasanna Singh, COO and Publisher of Agencyfaqs.com and The Brand Reporter and an alumnus of FMS, Delhi University from the batch of 1996.

IIM Indore's Chairperson of placements,Prashant Salwan examines domain focused MBAs and concludes that the focus is often at the cost of a more holistic training of students in general management principles.

As a direct result of the global financial crisis, banks are reconsidering loans given to students at top business schools in the US. The unaffordability of education in these Ivy League schools could divert students to consider IIMs and ISB back home, says Allwin Agnel, PaGaLGuY.com Founder and Wharton alumnus.