Welingkar Institute of Management held its Annual Alumni Meet 'CaraWAN 2005' on 12th November, Saturday at Matunga Gymkhana, opposite Welingkar Institute. It began at 6:30 in the evening. Like every year, this year too CaraWAN gave an opportunity for our alumni to catch up with the new initiatives of the institute and to cherish old memories. The light mood of the event was supported by music, DJ's and a few surprises; however there was a sense of nostalgia in the air.

The theme was 'Going Places', taking forward the recent milestone that the institute has received of having secured 12th position in the country in the category of Best B-Schools in India and 6th position in the category of 'Global Linkages' as per the latest rankings by Outlook magazine. Adding to that, the institute has launched various new programmes like Professional Program in Family Managed Business, PGP in Retail Management jointly presented by Welingkar and Pantaloon Retail India Pvt. Ltd., M.Sc. in Bioinformatics in collaboration with Nottingham Trent University, UK and Diploma in Commodity Trading in association with MCX.

The turnout for the evening was around 600 alumni from various parts of the country beginning from the 1982 batch. Some of the prominent alumni who attended the function were - Mr. Hardik Debhar - (GM - Group Treasury, Morarjee Realties), Mr. Hiren Merchant - (Director - Sales, Whirlpool India), Mr. A. R. Vishwanathan - (Head - Operations, ABN AMRO), Mr. Jiggy George - (Director, Cartoon Network), Mr. Girish Bapat - (VP - Marketing & Sales, LG India), Mr. Ranganath Thota - (Business Head, Hindustan Times) among others.

The highlight of the evening was 'Hall of Fame', a new initiative taken by the institute to recognize and felicitate prominent alumni who have made a distinguished mark in their respective fields. An attempt to salute and celebrate their success, this year the institute honoured 11 key alumni for par excellence.