NEW DELHI: A year after the Wharton Business School's India Economic Forum unceremoniously cancelled the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's keynote address, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) Sloan School of Management is planning to roll out the red carpet to India's new Prime Minister, potentially becoming the first among the top-ranked American business schools to do so.
"The process is under way to invite the prime minister this year or the first half of 2015. Ultimately, it will depend on the mutual convenience of the Prime Minister and the MIT president. So, a firm date is hard to forecast right now," said S P Kothari, deputy dean at Sloan School of Management.
In response to an e-mail query from ET, "SIPA frequently welcomes world leaders and heads of state for policy discussions with our international student body."
Akshay Bhushan, co-chair of last year's Wharton India Economic Forum, said the educational value in hearing about Modi's development model for India as well as the support of the organising team comprising 90 students had given him the confidence to extend the invite. Wharton did not respond to e-mails seeking comments.
Bhushan said the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton dean had overruled the forum's members last year. "While there was a signature campaign with 134 signatures started by three irate professors in the UPenn campus, there was no Wharton faculty or current student who actually signed the petition,"
Bhushan said, adding that the former forum members believe that the university and Wharton administration should offer an apology as well as offer another invitation to Modi. "We hope they learn from this experience and not sacrifice free speech and basic manners and propriety. We are proud that as a student team, we invited future pioneers in India's democracy well before the mainstream media accepted them," said Bhushan.
Sloan School of Management's Kothari said the reaction to Modi was far more strident than it had been to many others who had visited US campuses. "Many with serious allegations of blood on their hands and many who use blasphemous words against certain religions and cultures seem to visit the US or the UK rather blithely. I do not witness a visceral negative reaction to such individuals," said Kothari. Similarly, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) said
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