Annual Convocation Ceremony of the Development Management Institute (DMI)

The Development Management Institute (DMI) held its Annual Convocation on 18th April 2024, where Dr. Rajesh Tandon, Founder-President of PRIA and UNESCO Co-Chair in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, was the Chief Guest for the ceremony.

DMI celebrates its Convocation each year on April 18 to honour a historic moment in India’s freedom struggle—Mahatma Gandhi’s profound statement made in 1917 before the Magistrate in Motihari, Bihar: "Obedience to the higher law of our being, the voice of conscience."

Founded in 2014 as an autonomous institute of the Government of Bihar, DMI was the first institute in India with an explicit focus on development management. While institutions like the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) initially emphasised rural management to support the dairy cooperative movement, and the Indian School of Development Management (ISDM) in Delhi later emerged with a similar focus, DMI carved a unique niche by directly addressing the management needs of the development sector.

In his address, Dr. Tandon shared his own journey of applying engineering and management education towards inclusive and sustainable development. He reflected on how mainstream management theories, largely developed for large for-profit corporations in Western contexts, often need reinterpretation and innovation when applied to underdeveloped regions.

He elaborated on how small group development was used to strengthen learning and training methodologies, how organisational strategy and planning tools such as PERT/CPM needed participatory approaches, and how leadership in civil society demanded new frameworks and thinking. He emphasised the critical role of social capital, alongside financial capital, in creating sustainable change.

Dr. Tandon encouraged the new graduates to appreciate the distinctiveness of their DMI education—a blend of domain expertise in development with management skills adapted to real-world contexts. He noted that while the full depth of this unique learning might only be fully realized after years of practice, their foundation was strong.

Click here for the schedule.