A business school mourns the passing away of Baroness Margaret Thatcher

The passing away of Baroness Thatcher on 7th April 2013 and will be laid to rest on 17th April 2013 is significant to SP Jain Institute of Management and Research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher

http://www.spjimr.org/discover_spjimr/discover_spjimr.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahu_Shanti_Prasad_Jain

Baroness Thatcher laid the foundation stone for SP Jain Institute of Management and Research. on April 17th  1981. The speech at this function can be found at http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104629

It was the culmination of the efforts of  S. Ramakrishnan, the then Director General of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan,(http://www.lifepositive.com/Mind/culture/indology/vidya-bhavan.asp )  and his team in garnering support from  Bennet Coleman and the UK Prime Minister's office for its inauguration in founding the SP Jain Institute of Management and Research in the Bhavans campus in Andheri.

In the old SP Jain campus we used to have this foundation at the entrance of the building and would see it every day when we trudged our way to our classroom above the chemistry laboratory, today I am sure it is enshrined somewhere in the new campus.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS was a British Conservative Party politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and the Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. Wikipedia

The growth of the SP Jain Institute has been phenomenal but the institute  & students owed credit for its National & International recognition without much history & credibility to Ms. Thatcher.

Thirty two years one cannot  recollect any other Management Institute in India that was inaugurated by a head of State, much less from a head of state of a leading advanced country like UK at that time or even in recent times.

My alumnus Akhil Chaturvedi remembers as a Management Trainee meeting the Swedish expatriate MD of Wimco who had no idea of SPJIMR, when he told him this is the Institute Mrs Thatcher inaugurated and he was from the  6th Batch his reaction was  "WHO?? Mrs Thatcher, REALLY in India??" That set the tone amongst the rest of the corporate hierarchy to look at us as students beyond Bombay University MMS.

SP Jain has grown global today but one should not forget its origins and its connection with Baroness Margaret Thatcher in a era when there All India Radio was the only means of connecting the country and most roads were bullock cart worthy.