‘Prof’ Smriti Irani takes classes at IIM Udaipur

Jaipur : Union Minister Smriti Irani donned the hat of a ‘Visiting Professor’ as she engaged in two academic activities central to an IIM Professor’s life — Research and Training. She was invited to IIM Udaipur as a guest faculty by Prof Kunal Kumar, a full-time faculty member at IIM Udaipur in HR Area. Irani presented a Research on ‘The Necessity and Pitfalls of Ranking Management Institutions: The NIRF Experience’.

The research has Smriti Irani as the lead author, Prof Kunal Kumar (IIM Udaipur) & Prof Sushanta Mishra (IIM Bangalore) as co-authors.

In their research, they explore the importance of having a National Ranking framework that takes care of India’s huge diversity (ex: regional and linguistic diversity) and rewards institutions for doing their bit of ‘care’ for those who are socio-economically disadvantaged.

The presentation clarified the necessity of the framework, what it tries to achieve, and its current challenges. The Research Seminar was engaging, insightful, and nuanced. On March 1, the Union Minister taught a session on ‘Job Analysis’ for the HR class for students of the MBA Program. She also took three back-to-back sessions (of 75 minutes each) in the Core Course ‘Human Resource Management’ of IIM Udaipur’s flagship MBA program.

Smriti Irani engaged the MBA class through Case Method wherein she discussed the Harvard Business School’s case ‘ClubMed’. She based the class on four Ds — Do, Discuss, Debate, and Deliberate.

The class ended with the students doing the Job Analysis of a Minister. Prof Kunal and Prof Soorjith, who attended the sessions, were all praise for the teaching style of ‘Prof’ Smriti Irani. According to them, the classes were insightful, inspirational, and very well received by the students.