My Dear Fellow Niveshaks,

As we are at the doorstep of a fresh new year which is supposed to provide a break from all the downward slopes, let us take a look over our shoulders at what this year has been and try to find out how the next year is going to be like. We woke up to the morning of 2009 with the nightmares of Sub-Prime still afresh in our minds only to find an Indian parallel to Enron & WorldCom. An Indian company Satyam had hogged the limelight for all wrong reasons. Then there have been several ups and downs in the stock markets across the globe but steadily all of them started on an upturn since March. Indian stock markets showed sudden spikes on the day of declaration of general election results in May but showed negative response to a much awaited budget in August. Corporate houses started showing profits and commodity prices spiralled up as positive sentiments about sovereign economies prevailed. Most of the worst affected financial institutions were among big bucks, clearing their TARP debts and again jumping back to the dirty business of paying hefty bonuses. When it seemed All izz well, stock markets around the world suffered a minor jolt by the so called bankruptcy declaration of Dubai World in November. Towards the fag end of an eventful year, we had a fizzed-out Copenhagen conference on climate change in December. There were numerous other interesting stories among several terrorist attacks. It has been quite an eventful year. But we will try to drag your attention to an altogether different story – the old Team Niveshak has chosen to make way for a new energetic team.

We started Niveshak in August of 2008 just as a Finance Club magazine of IIM Shillong. A very humble beginning indeed. Since then, 15 monthly issues have come out successfully, more than 400 articles have been written for us from 39 institutes and our 15 issues have been circulated in more than 50 top B-Schools of India. Niveshak today has achieved the feat of being the only monthly B-School finance magazine with the largest circulation base. A feat we had never dreamt of when we started. We had just assembled a few articles amongst ourselves and shared in our batch as Niveshak, a platform to share our knowledge. For a few months we preferred to stay indoors in terms of articles and circulation. We were pampered a lot by our fellow students and faculty members during our infancy. Niveshak will always remain indebted to some faculty members who encouraged and appreciated us for feats we were yet to achieve. Soon, we realised it is high time to live up to the expectations of the institute and test ourselves in the hostile (we felt at that time) territories of other B-Schools. A few members joined and Niveshak gained momentum in terms of content, quality & presentation. Amidst lots of apprehensions and scepticism, we sent our November 2008 edition to all B-Schools and invited them to write articles for us. The rest, as has been said several times, is history.

We got numerous appreciation mails, articles and Fin-Q entries from other B-Schools. We were overwhelmed by your response and there has been no looking back since then. We again felt we dint deserve the support and encouragement that other B-Schoolers had showered on us. Every moment we felt we needed to improve. Soon we came up with our own website and current affairs stories among many other improvements. On each of our baby steps, we got huge appreciations and response in terms of articles from our readers in esteemed B-Schools of India. Today, if someone asks me on the reason for success (you may question this) of Niveshak, undoubtedly it is the Finance Fraternity of all the 50 top Indian B-Schools who have supported us throughout the journey. When we asked for your articles for your magazine, you flooded our mail box. We salute your generosity.

It is because of the contributions of yours and your seniors that today Niveshak can be referred to as the Finance magazine of all B-Schools of India. We are extremely thankful to all our article contributors across all B-Schools and to all our subscribers who en¬couraged us through their appreciation mails and by increasing the count of our subscription. We are also thankful to Public Relations committees of all B-Schools of India who have circulated Niveshak among their participants. We are thankful to all our faculty members who inspired us during difficult times and whose support and encourage¬ment made us see this day. Most of all, we thank all the participants of IIM Shillong, without whom Niveshak would not have completed 15 glorious issues. On a more personal note, I was privileged enough to get an opportunity to work with some of the brightest brains like Amit, Nilesh, Sareet, Sarvesh, Sujal & Tripurari as a part of Team Niveshak. They filled the journey with passion, fun and learning. Niveshak would never have been the same without them.

But as time passes by, we choose to pass the baton to more deserving people who can match your expectations better. We have selected a team comprising of Bhavit, Bhavya, Durgesh Nandini, Hitesh, Sumit, Tanvi, Swarnabha & Upasna who we think can serve you better than we did. I just wish that this new team is fortunate enough to get the same love and support from you. Let us wake up to 2010 with the fresh new team, a fresh commitment and a hope to see the bull running on the streets of world finance markets.

This is your editor Biswadeep signing off for the last time. Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.