Interview Toolkit

Contents

Commonly Asked Questions .....................................................................................................4

Hobbies ....................................................................................................................................8
Fresher Specific Questions .......................................................................................................9
Work Experience Specific Questions ........................................................................................9
General questions related to Academics ................................................................................10
Common HR Questions ..........................................................................................................10
Interview Experience 1: ..........................................................................................................12
Interview Experience 2: ..........................................................................................................12
Interview Experience 3: ..........................................................................................................13
Interview Experience 4: ..........................................................................................................14
Interview Experience 5: ..........................................................................................................14
Interview Experience 6: ..........................................................................................................15
Interview Experience 7: ..........................................................................................................15
Interview Experience 8: ..........................................................................................................16
Interview Experience 9: ..........................................................................................................17
Interview Experience 10: ........................................................................................................17
Interview Experience 11: ........................................................................................................18
Interview Experience 12: ........................................................................................................18
Interview Experience 13: ........................................................................................................19
Interview Experience 14: ........................................................................................................19
Interview Experience 15: ........................................................................................................20
Interview Experience 16: ........................................................................................................20
Interview Experience 17: ........................................................................................................20
Interview Experience 18: ........................................................................................................21
INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

INTERVIEW TOOLKIT

Commonly Asked Questions:

1. Introduce yourself:
Approach –
This question is a great way for you to lead the interview in the direction that you want
to, by showcasing your qualities as part of various activities you have undertaken in
your college or part of your organization, your background, education, hobbies.
Tips:
 Start chronologically.
 A normal sequence is:
Name – where are you from – undergraduate education – any achievements
during UG – work experience if any – a brief introduction about your role in the
organization – learnings – hobbies – any achievements related to those hobbies.
 Try to ensure that the points you want to discuss further are delivered at the
endof your introduction and emphasized subtly.

2. As you aspire to pursue an MBA, define what is Management and

Administration.
Approach -
 It is always better to add your understanding of those words and not give a
definition directly from the internet.

3. Try to elaborate by using incidences from your personal experiences.

4. What is that one unique feature about you that differentiate you from all the others?
Approach –
This is a chance for you to highlight your strengths and unique skills, what is it that makes
you stand out from the other candidates. While answering this question, make sure to
support your statements by giving examples of situations where you have displayed said
qualities

5. How can you contribute to this MBA batch and to our institute as well?
Approach –
 In an MBA class, there would be students from diverse backgrounds. It is an

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INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

opportunity for the students to interact and for mutual learning and knowledge
transfer. Hence, your answer should highlight how your expertise or knowledge
would be beneficial for your batch.
6. Tell me your 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses?
Approach –
 First thing to keep in mind is that you should start with strengths unless
mentioned otherwise. Starting with weaknesses would give bad impression.
 Be prepared with at least 4 strengths and weaknesses for each so that the
question does not catch you off-guard in middle of the interview.
 Try to put your strengths in a way of show casing your skills that help to consider
you as a best fit for MBA and while saying your weaknesses align them with the
points of how you are working to tackle your weaknesses. Be cautious that your
weaknesses points should not build negative impression in the panelists.

7. What is the biggest challenge that you faced in your entire life?
Approach –
 Try to answer this question as truthfully as possible. It is also required to mention
how did you cope up in such kind of challenging times and try to highlight your
situation handling capabilities and pressure handling capabilities.

 These kind of questions gives you an opportunity to put your interpersonal

skillsbefore the panelists.
 Some panelists might ask this kind of questions suddenly. Thus, it is important
tothink on this question lines and analyze any other questions and be prepared.
 Use STAR approach to answer.
The STAR format stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result:
 Situation: An event, project, or challenge faced
 Task: Your responsibilities and assignments for the situation
 Action: Steps or procedure taken to relieve or rectify situation
 Result: Results of actions taken.

8. Have you faced criticism anytime in your life? How did you respond?
Approach –
 This kind of questions will be asked to test your mental stability. How you
control your emotions in such situations and respond accordingly.

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 Try to maintain a calm demeanor and positive mindset while answering this
INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

kind of questions, use STAR approach.

Example: I analyzed their comments and considered it objectively if there are any
lacuna from my side and rectified myself afterwards.
Questions on similar lines: What is the biggest failure in life? How did u cope up withit?

9. What are your biggest achievements and failures (What went wrong and what
would you have done differently)?
Approach –
 While answering to your biggest failure, make sure you don’t portray yourself as
weak and incapable. Also, try to bring what you learned from your failure and how
did you overcome it.
 An interviewer knows that no one is perfect and the biggest failure can lead to
thebiggest success. This also tells them how you view risk, failure, and success in
general.
 While answering: 1) Smartly choose your failure 2) Share the story 3) Tell what
you learnt from it.
Through such question, interviewer wants to know how you can be an asset and bring
contribution to the institution. While speaking about your achievements, try to mention
how you achieved it, what were your learnings throughout the journey.

10.What are your short-term, mid-term and long-term goals?

Approach –
 Through this question, the interviewer wants to know how much you are
ambitious, to better understand your career direction and where you see yourself
shortly
 Your goal should seem realistic, it needs to be attainable and have some
correlation with your skillset and abilities.

11.How do you handle disagreements when working as part of a team? Provide an

example.
Approach –
When working on a team, conflict may arise between different people at any time. Your
response to this question can demonstrate your ability to collaborate effectively with a
variety of working styles. Explain how you work to resolve them to accomplish the team

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goals.
INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

12.You have done your graduation in XYZ specialization. So why do you want to do
MBA now? How will you apply your learnings from UG during and post MBA?
Approach –
During graduation in any specialization the student would gain technical and industrial
knowledge. An MBA teaches managerial skills in addition to the particular domain
knowledge. So, if a manager has technical knowledge, and working for any industry or
a technology company or where ever it can be, he/she can better understand the
situation and can take better decisions when any critical situation arises.
So, this is how you have to put your positive attitude for any this kind of questions.
A negative perspective would give bad impressions to the panelists who are observing
your responses.

13.Which specialization of MBA are you interested in?

Approach –
There are 2 ways to answer this question:
 Say that the main reason for choosing general MBA is to gain holistic knowledge
about all domains and say that you believe this would better helps to analyze a
situation more efficiently and make decisions in any critical situations.
 Be very cautious with this answer: You can say any specialization that you are
interested in, but be ready to face typical connecting questions.
Example: Finance
Be ready to face basic questions related to Finance subjects or any current affairs related
to this branch such as budget or any monetary policies.

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INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

Hobbies:

Hobbies is a section where we get a chance to showcase our talent apart from our
academics and link it with our strengths and how it has shaped our personalities as well
as our idols and their qualities which we admire.
- Who is the best player in the sport (as chosen by the candidate) and give
reasons for your answer?
- You could have pursued a career in the sport or activity yet why you
moved towards academics?
The common and popular hobbies and questions surrounding those are:
Sports:
- What are the popular players? Why?
- Do you currently play?
- Any recent news?
- Dimensions of the ground/court as well as the popular rules?
Music:
- Do you play any musical instrument? How do they work?
- Why this particular instrument? Any maestro in this area that you follow?
- Do you have any achievements in this field?
- What have you learned from them?
Reading:
- Genre of reading
- Last book that you read
- What were the learnings or anything particular you enjoyed about
thisbook?
- Favorite author, books, why this particular author?
Art:
- What kind of art do you do?
- What all stuff is required for this?
- Do you post this anywhere?

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INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

Fresher Specific Questions:

1. As a fresher don’t you think if you had work experience, it would be beneficial for
you and make your MBA more fruitful?
Approach -
It is important to know that being a fresher there would be some disadvantage when it
comes to MBA is 100 % wrong.
There would be advantages and disadvantages in every step that everyone makes. Here
it is important to know how you are going to use your advantages to nullify your
disadvantages and use that for your positive gains.
So, your answer should highlight the positives that you are going to gain with MBA

Work Experience Specific Questions:

1. Explain a situation in which you disagreed with your manager and how you handled
it.
Approach –
 This question could determine how you respond to disagreements when it is with
an authority figure and how it could impact your ability to perform assigned
tasks. Your response can show your ability to follow instructions and how you
approach a disagreement with your manager or supervisor.
 When answering this question, provide an honest example of when you disagreed
with a supervisor and how you were able to resolve that conflict.
 If you do not have any disagreements, you can tell how you responded to
criticism from the manager.
Frequently Asked Questions to candidates with Work Experience:
 What was your role/responsibility in your job?
 How did you contribute?
 What are your learnings? How can you use it in your MBA?
 How can MBA help you after what you have learnt from your job?
 Questions specific to the technology/domain you worked in?
 Questions on technology/domain competing to technology/domain in which
youworked
 Few questions about your client
 Questions on firms which are competitors of the firm in which you have worked

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INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

 Biggest challenge that you faced during your Work experience at your
organization
 What motivated you to be associated with your previous organization? Why did
you leave the company? Describe one change you’d like to bring in this
organization, given the chance and power.
 If I call up your current or previous reporting manager now, what will be their
opinion about you? What will they say that you need to work on?

Some common general questions that every aspirant should be preparedfor:

 What is the meaning of your name?

 Names of MLAs and MPs of your constituency?
 Names of Central ministers and your state ministers and chief ministers?
 Current trending topics of your State?
 Rivers that are flowing in India?
 Some simple Guesstimates?
 Questions on Statistics basics?
 Current trending issues in India and main issues globally?

General questions related to Academics

 Revise the basics of few of your favorite subjects in college

 If there is no consistency in maintaining percentages or have bad grades in
anysemester, prepare a valid reason for that
 Regardless of fresher or experienced candidates, everyone should be well
prepared with the questions related to your specialization in your UG or PG

Common HR Questions

 Describe two situations when you have demonstrated leadership and inspired
people towards achieving certain goals. What kind of leader do you think you
are?
 Tell us about a time when you were swamped with tasks. How did you prioritize?
 When was the last time you got into a major argument with your

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friends/colleagues? What was the issue, and how did your point of views differ?
INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

How did you resolve the issue?

 What is the most difficult thing that you’ve ever accomplished?
 What are your hobbies or what are you passionate about?
 Can you describe your time management skills with an example?

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INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

Interview Experiences
Interview Experience 1:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: B.Tech, NIT Trichy
Branch: Computer Science and Engineering
CAT Percentile: 99.15
Work Ex (Company, Months): Flipkart, T.I.M.E (55 Months)

Interview Questions:

1. Why are you interested in pursuing an MBA despite having a good amount
ofwork experience?
2. What are your short-term & long-term goals?
3. Can you describe how your academic history and work experience play into
yourcurrent choice of pursuing an MBA?
4. Which newspaper do you read?
5. Tell us some recent Business Happening or something you read in the last 3-
5days in the newspaper
6. What is Fiscal deficit?
7. Tell us your 3 strengths & Weaknesses.
8. What are you doing to overcome your weaknesses?
9. Why should we select you over other candidates that have received the call
forDMS PI interviews?
10.Guesstimate - How many red cars are there in your city?
11.Home state related static or current affairs questions

Interview Experience 2:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: B.Tech, Manipal Institute of Technology
Branch: Electronics and Communication Engineering
CAT Percentile: 96.75
Work Ex (Company, Months): Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solution
Private Limited (36 Months)

Interview Questions:
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INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

1. Why do you want to pursue an MBA degree?

2. What do you understand by economies of scale?
3. What do you think about the privatization of banks?
4. What is your take on Section 370?
5. What do you understand by direct and indirect taxed? Please explain with
examples.
6. What should be the power of the antenna covering the entire earth?
7. What are autonomous vehicles?
8. Compare Toyota and Volvo trucks
9. How is the President of India selected?
10.What would you do if you were not
selected?
11. If you would prepare again, what changes would you like to incorporate to
getadmission the next time?
12. How has the Covid year been for you?

Interview Experience 3:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: B.Tech, NIT Durgapur
Branch: Chemical Engineering
Work Ex (Company, Months): HPL (47 Months)

Interview Experience:

1. Tell me about yourself

2. Having almost 4 years of work experience, why do you want to pursue MBA?
3. Since you have a good amount of experience, down the line in your
organization,you will get a good position then what do you expect after MBA?
4. Please tell us about your work-experience. What roles and duties did you
havethere?
5. Where are you from?

6. West Bengal is situated in which direction of India? It’s placed in the East, so why
it’s called West Bengal? For what it is famous for? What are the neighboring
states?
7. What is GDP?
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INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

8. What is the current GDP of India?

9. What is R square?
10. Few questions related to past achievements
11.You have already published a paper in Chemical engineering field and had 4
years of work ex in that area only. Then why do you want to shift your domain?

Interview Experience 4:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: B.Tech, VNIT Nagpur
Branch: Mechanical Engineering
Work Ex (Company, Months): Fresher

Interview Experience:

1. Tell me about yourself

2. Who is your role model? Please tell us more about him/her and their
achievements. Do you think you would be able to achieve the same?
3. Your academics are good but your marks seem to be dipping throughout your
career. Going by this trend, you may score low here. How would you handle your
academics along with other activities?
4. What are your strengths? (Answered - fairness) Then, I was provided with a
situation where I had to select 1 professor out of 3 professors with equal talent
and equal caliber. How would you make this choice to be fair with them? On
what parameters will you make that choice?
5. What are your hobbies? (Answered - Cricket) What is the length of stumps?
6. What is your priority list of colleges for pursuing your MBA?

Interview Experience 5:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: Shri Ram College of Commerce
Branch: Commerce
Work Ex (Company, Months): Jaypee Commodities, Intelenet Pvt. Ltd., MetLife (84
months)

Interview Questions:

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INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

1. Please introduce yourself.

2. What is the meaning of your name?
3. What are your views about Amitabh Bachchan as a brand?
4. What are your hobbies? (Answered - Football) Which is your favourite club?
(Answered - Chelsea)
5. Who is the current coach of Chelsea? Can you analyze the coaching styles of
thecurrent coach and the previous one?
6. Do you follow news and current affairs regularly? Choose any one topic that
youare comfortable with.
7. What is your opinion regarding the Farm Laws and the ongoing farmers’ protest?
8. Why do you want to pursue an MBA from DMS, IIT Delhi?
9. What according to you is the unique selling proposition of DMS?

Interview Experience 6:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: B.I.T Sindri
Branch: Electrical Engineering
Work Ex (Company, Months): Fresher

Interview Questions:

1. Please introduce yourself.

2. What are the key differences between Management and Administration?
3. How do you think an MBA degree will help you?
4. Tell us more about the start-up that you have been involved in?
5. How does a transformer work? What are the losses associated with it?
6. What is the difference between a transformer and a generator?
7. What is your opinion about TikTok ban in India?
8. If selected, what value addition will you bring to the DMS batch?

Interview Experience 7:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: NIT Kurukshetra
Branch: Electronics and Communication Engineering

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CAT Percentile: 95.87
INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

Work Ex (Company, Months): Fresher

Interview Questions:

1. Give a brief introduction about yourself.

2. What does your name mean? Does it mean abstinence?
3. So, you have studied in the holy city of Kurukshetra, tell us what do you know
about your Alma mater's city.
4. Recently there has been a transformation in the Indian Defence Forces, are
youaware of that? (Referred towards the appointment of CDS Bipin Rawat)
5. What are greenfield and brownfield projects?
6. How do you explain sustainability in business with continuous profitability?
7. Illustrate with reason - Who do you like the most - Jeff Besos or Elon Musk?
8. Tell us one moment of success or failure from your work experience that you will
cherish for your life.
9. What is more important to you - constant learning with mediocre growth or
minimal learning with a hefty paycheque?

Interview Experience 8:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: IIT ISM Dhanbad
Branch: Mining Engineering
CAT Percentile: 96.39
Work Ex (Company, Months): Hindalco Industries Ltd & Adani Enterprises Ltd. (38
months)

Interview Questions:

1. Interview started with "How are you and what is going on with you today".
Thediscussion then went on how was I attending a marriage online.
2. Allocation of Delhi's budget in healthcare sector. Whether is it justified or not.
3. Should the government be allocating money in some other healthcare facilities
orinstitutions apart from the ones they are already investing in?

4. Why were you awarded Spot Recognition Award in the last company you have
worked in?

5. What are your suggestions to resolve the issues faced by the company in
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INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

theproject you were working in?

Interview Experience 9:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: IIT Roorkee
Branch: Electrical and Electronics
CAT Percentile: 98.22
Work Ex (Company, Months): Mahindra and Mahindra (47 months)

Interview Questions:

1. Introduce yourself apart from what is filled in the form.

2. Why MBA after so much work experience?
3. Biggest Challenge for EVs in India?
4. Future of EVs in India?
5. Why DMS IIT Delhi?
6. What process you would like to change in your organisation?

Interview Experience 10:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: B.Tech, VIT
Branch: Computer Science Engineering
CAT Percentile: 98.28
Work Ex (Company, Months): Amadeus Software Labs (25 months)

Interview Questions:

1. What is the revenue model of your company?

2. Tell us about yourself and why MBA?
3. Why would you want to be in DMS?
4. Rank in order of preference - Placements, Curriculum, Pedagogy
5. Which is your preferred field of interest in MBA? Can you name one DMS
professor from that field?
6. Do you follow news?
7. Tell us about your opinion on Farm Laws.
8. Which newspaper do you read?

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9. Tell us about your work experience and how did you make a difference
INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

there?
10.You are a person with 9/9/9, anything else that you did or only studies?
11.Tell us about your research paper
12.What is your biggest achievement and why?
13.Can you recollect one of your biggest failures and how did you overcome it?

Interview Experience 11:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: Birla Institute of Technology, MESRA
Branch: Electronics and Communication Engineering
CAT Percentile: 98.9
Work Ex (Company, Months): Qualcomm (38 months)

Interview Questions:

1. Interview started with Introduction.

2. Questions on work ex and what motivated me to MBA.
3. Questions on UG Branch:
4. PN junction, Diode
5. Working of Capacitor, what are supercapacitor, recent application of
supercapacitor
6. Questions on inflation, relation between interest rates and inflation, Repo
rate,reverse repo rates and their impact on inflation and deflation

Interview Experience 12:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: NSUT East Campus
Branch: Electronics and Communication
CAT Percentile: 96.74
Work Ex (Company, Months): Fresher

Interview Questions:

1. About the changes in my college recently, as was mentioned in my intro

2. What are my preferred areas of Study?

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3. Why Marketing? And Why Telecom? (As I was interviewing for MBA Telecom)
INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

4. Which book have I read about Marketing?

5. Difference in Sales and Marketing.
6. About my hobby and interest as mentioned in my intro.

Interview Experience 13:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: NIT Kurukshetra
Branch: Mechanical Engineering
CAT Percentile: 97.96
Work Ex (Company, Months): Hero Motocorp Ltd. (24 months)

Interview Questions:

1. What is Six Sigma?

2. Tell us something about Atmanirbhar bharat.
3. Favourite Movie and why?
4. What is open source?
5. How does Linux earn?

Interview Experience 14:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh
Branch: Civil Engineering
CAT Percentile: 99.29
Work Ex (Company, Months): Atkins India Pvt. Ltd (47 months)

Interview Questions:

1. Can you mention few things that your city/state is known for?
2. How many types of bridges are there? Give an example of each bridge
typewithin India.
3. How would you design a public utility building keeping in mind the access
requirements for disabled people?
4. What do you understand by the term sustainability? Mention some instances
ofhow it is being incorporated into the construction industry?
5. What are the standout differences of rail infrastructure in the UK as compared
toIndia? (Given the candidate’s experience in UK rail sector)
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INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

Interview Experience 15:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal
Branch: Mechanical
CAT Percentile: 98.41
Work Ex (Company, Months): Fresher

Interview Questions:
1. Tell us something about yourself.
2. What is Predictive Analysis?
3. What are some applications and scenarios where we may use Predictive
Analysis?
4. Difference between pandemic and epidemic?
5. Mention some alumni of your college and what position they currently hold?
6. Why do you want to do MBA?

Interview Experience 16:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: NIT DURGAPUR
Branch: Mechanical Engineering
CAT Percentile: 99.34
Work Ex (Company, Months): Fresher

Interview Questions:

1. Kindly introduce Yourself

2. Tell us about your role in your undergrad committee
3. Can you explain the Carnot Cycle?
4. Can you state the laws of thermodynamics?
5. In a refrigerator, why is the freezer placed at the top?
6. Do you have any questions for us?

Interview Experience 17:

Profile:

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Graduation Stream, College: NIT DURGAPUR
INTERVIEW TOOLKIT COMPENDIUM DMS, IIT Delhi

Branch: BIO TECHNOLOGY

Work Ex (Company, Months): Infosys (33 months)
Interview Questions:
1. Tell us something about yourself.
2. Tell us about your roles and responsibilities at the job.
3. What do you think will happen if the earth stops rotating about its axis?
4. What will happen if the earth reverses its direction of rotation about its axis?
5. What according to you is the difference between vaccine efficacy and
vaccineeffectiveness?
6. Tell us the difference between AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine
Learning)
7. Why do you want to do MBA?

Interview Experience 18:

Profile:
Graduation Stream, College: B.Tech, NIT Calicut
Branch: Production Engineering
CAT Percentile: 95.36
Work Ex (Company, Months): MRF Ltd (24 months)

Interview Questions:

1. Tell us about yourself.

2. What do you understand by Six Sigma?
3. Describe your final year project.
4. You have mentioned about the research paper, tell us about it.
5. Describe briefly about your job role and how you are contributing to the
organization.
6. Who is the governor of Kerala?
7. Who is agriculture minister?
8. Who is the governor of RBI?

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