One of the most-awaited events will be a `CEO Panel Discussion', with someof the top CEOs on the panel, on Saturday morning. `Mock Class' and `BatchClass', grouping alumni into different batches, will follow the sameafternoon.

Panelists invited include KV Kamath (ICICI), Som Mittal (Compaq), TK Balagi(Lucas), T Shankar (CBSI), Raghuram Rajan (University of Chicago), UdayBhansali (Andersen Consulting), Rama Bijapurkar, Sushil Handa (CoreHealthcare), Kiran Karnik (Discovery Channel), among others.

There will also be a dash of campfire on the inaugural midnight, besidesflute recital by Hariprasad Chaurasia and Jagjit Singh's concert.

This premier institute, recalls Saha, designed by Louis Kahn as anarchitectural masterpiece and founded by space scientist Vikram A Sarabhaiin 1961, had produced the first batch of 120-odd PGP (post-graduateprogramme) students in 1966. Subsequently, the number of students in eachbatch in PGP was raised to 200.

The actual number of students passing out of IIM-A might have crossed eventhe 20,000-mark as several short-term MDP (management developmentprogrammes) courses of two-week to six-month duration were introduced on theresidential campus.

Over the years, IIM-A set the trend for what a B-School should be and waseventually rated as one of the best B-Schools of Asia and the world.The Millennium Reunion, explains professor in-charge Manikutty, will bedifferent from annual IIM-A Alumni meetings held in each chapter in almostevery big city in the country and even abroad. The alumni meet hosted at theinstitute every year never attracted more than 80 to 100.

The other agenda is to help IIM-A become financially self-sufficient,furthering a process initiated in 1989 after the government had frozen thegrants to national institutions and universities at the 1991 level.

Those students, who had paid a meagre tutition fees of Rs 500 per yearhardly 10 to 15 years back, feel they owe much more to the alma mater andthe nation. The IIMAges will provide a forum to help them contribute theirmite, as visiting faculties or as sponsors for case studies in future.Another objective of the reunion, says alumni secretary Pushkaraj Shenai, isto update the alumni data, numbering only 8,000.

The IIM-A alumni association propose to construct on the occasion a website:www.iimaalumni.org. For, at present, they converse on e-mail address:alumni@pglan. iimahd.ernet.in