West Asia conflict: IIM shifts Dubai campus students to Ahmedabad

Amid rising turbulence in West Asia, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad has taken swift steps to safeguard its students, relocating all 35 participants from its Dubai campus to the main campus in Ahmedabad.

The students — enrolled in the institute’s one-year MBA programme launched last September — were in Spain for internships when the conflict erupted. In a decisive move shaped by caution and continuity, the institute chose to bring them directly to India, bypassing their Dubai base as tensions intensified across the region.

At the Ahmedabad campus, the cohort will now resume their academic journey through in-person classes, ensuring that their learning remains uninterrupted even as uncertainty clouds the Gulf.

The Dubai campus itself, inaugurated in September 2025 by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in the presence of Dharmendra Pradhan, marked a significant milestone in IIMA’s global expansion — envisioned as a hub for world-class management education and cross-cultural exchange across the Middle East.

For now, however, the shifting geopolitical winds have redrawn academic pathways, with the institute placing student safety above all, even as it keeps the flame of learning steady and undimmed.

With PTI inputs