AHMEDABAD: It was a subdued Verghese Kurien who addressed the gathering at the 25th convocation of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (Irma) on Sunday.

The chairman steered clear of making any controversial remarks against anybody, including his bete noire Amrita Patel, chairperson of National Dairy Development Board.

However, Mr Kurien, while lashing out at liberalisation and globalisation, wondered “if we are not inviting a new form of colonialism”.

RA Mashelkar, director general, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research said the country needed more Irmas. “In many ways, Irma is more important than IIMs and IITs.

I see good prospects for agri-business and Irma has a role to play,” he said. He stressed for greater co-ordination between institutes like Irma and National Innovation Foundation (NIF).

“Is it possible to think of new enterprises set up by the graduates of Irma in which NIF may invest its capital?”

Acting director of the institute LK Vaswani informed the gathering, that 89 students of this batch have been placed in 21 organisations consisting of co-operatives, NGOs, and variety of organisations working in agri-sector including banking, micro-finance and commodity trade.

“The batch received 320 offers from Irma’s 64 organisations,” he said. Most big names from the Irma board were not to be seen at the function.