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Published on July 20, 2007 The Chronicle July, 2007 issue. Vol.2007 : Issue 0007 Send news to : chronicle [AT] itbhu.org, news [AT] itbhu.org [Click here to start reading] |
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This has a record number of articles (15) about news on alumni success including alumni publication. One of our most successful alumni is Nikesh Arora (Electrical 1989), who is now promoted to President of Google's Europe, Middle East, and Asia operations
We have also covered news from our institute about Ministry of Steel establishing a Chair at our institute. The campus news includes the orientation program for freshers and success story of our 3rd year students starting their own successful business.
There is also some progress on IIEST front, as the West Bengal govt. has come to an agreement with central govt. for handing over its institute. The picture is still incomplete and we shall post the news as we receive the confirmation.
We are pleased to announce that Puneet Agrawal (Ceramics 2006) and Dishank Gupta (2nd year Biomedical) have joined the chronicle team.
We need more news. Please send us news, events, articles, information, etc, at: chronicle [AT] itbhu.org. Please indicate your branch/year.
Thanking you,
The Chronicle Team
It seems that central govt. is close to reaching its goal to convert five engineering institutes to IIESTs as recommended by the Anandakrishnan Committee. According to the recently published news in Calcutta, the conversion is moving forward due to the compromise reached between the West Bengal and Central Governments with respect to the governance and admission at Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU).
The centre has agreed to the two demands, of providing reservation for the in-state students and State Govt. representation to the institution's governing body, put forward by West Bengal Govt. (WBG). WBG has probably sent the letter to the Central Government (CG) already agreeing to hand over BESU to them. The centre has agreed to two of the demands put forward by West Bengal govt.
The centre has agreed to keep 50% seats reserved for in-state students for BESU. It has also agreed to take 1 or 2 State-nominated representatives to the governing body of IIEST-Shibpur.
For handing over CUSAT, Kerala govt. had made similar demands, but it is not known whether any agreement has been reached with the centre. However, it is expected that Kerala Govt. may agree for CUSAT's conversion if the CG proposes the conditions as agreed between WBG and CG. Nothing is known about the stand taken by Andhra Pradesh Govt., although it is likely to take the similar path for two of its colleges for IIEST conversion.
The situation is still unclear, and we shall wait for any confirmed news before making any judgment. There are efforts to introduce IIEST Bill in the monsoon season of the parliament, i.e. from 31st July to 30th August.
BESU Alumni Association is faithfully collecting all articles and discussion related to IIEST issue on its website. More news can be found at: http://www.becollege.org/news/news_item.asp?NewsID=344
Half the seats at BESU for state students: Centre
Kolkata, July 13: The Centre has agreed to the state’s proposal to reserve 50 per cent seats for students from West Bengal in the Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), which is set to come up at Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) at Shibpur, Howrah.
The institute will be upgraded to an Institute of National Importance after the Centre confers the status, Minister of Higher Education Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury told the Assembly today.
The consensus on the state’s quota comes after weeks of discussion between the state and the Centre.
“The Ananda Krishnan Committee had submitted a proposal to the Centre, where it had stated the upgrade of premier institutes on the lines of the Indian Institutes of Technology. The BESU was one of the five chosen institutes,” the minister said.
Earlier, the state had reservations about the system of admission and the model of governance that the institute would follow, post-upgrade. It had sought “protection of admission” for students from Bengal and the ISI mode of governance.
Chowdhury said that as per the proposal, the IIESTs would enroll students from across the country. The states would have to hand over their institutes to the Centre. The admissions to these institutes would be through All-India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) or All-India Joint Entrance Examination.
The state, however, was not happy with the suggestions put forward by the committee. After negotiations and meeting held with the Union ministry of Human Resources Development, it agreed to some of the demands.
“We wanted 70-75 per cent reservations for our students. The Centre has given a nod for 50 per cent seat reservation. The Centre has also agreed to the state’s role in the institute’s activities,” he said.
The other four institutes which will be upgraded to the status of IIEST are — Cochin University of Science and Technology in Kerala, Andhra University College of Engineering and Osmania University College of Engineering and Technology in Andhra Pradesh and BHU Institute of Technology in Uttar Pradesh.
This would be effective only after legislation in Parliament is passed, indicating the type of governance, rules and regulation, modus operandi for selection of students for admission through competitive entrance examinations.
The model proposed in the NIT Bill — passed in the Rajya Sabha and awaiting passage in the Lok Sabha — envisages a board comprising a chairperson, an ex-officio director, two persons to be nominated by the Centre (not below the rank of joint secretary), two persons to be nominated by the state (technologist or industrialist) and two professors.
The chronicle will request all alumni whose books have been published, to send a copy to library for reference. The library has received a copy of Introduction to Biomedical Engineering from Dr. S. N. Sarbadhikari, whose book is highlighted in this issue.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Excerpts from the article:
“Living it up in lovely Lahore! Santosh Ojha soaks in the sights and sounds of Lahore, Pakistan, and can't wait for his next visit to the place with its scrumptuous street food and friendly people.
The 55-minute PIA flight to Lahore from Delhi is short and uneventful. Perhaps aided by the recital of a selection from the Quran just before take-off. What I was not prepared for was the organised and neat airport and immigration.
For a resident of Bangalore (and a frequent flyer) Lahore airport came as a pleasant surprise! To start with, the airport is named after a poet and not, as one would expect in the sub-continent, after a politician. (For those who may not remember, Allama Iqbal is the poet who wrote the famous Saare jahaan sey achha).
The immigration is staffed by smartly-clad women with their heads covered. No fuss, no delay and we are out of the terminal building quickly. The drive into the city is smooth, largely due to the holiday that day in Lahore for their local festival Basant.
And the Bangalorean in me can not help but wonder about the quality of the roads! Six lane roads, well maintained. The trees are bedecked with lights, again for Basant.”
Dr. Suptendra Nath Sarbadhikari did his PhD in biomedical engineering from IT-BHU in 1995. Currently he is Associate Professor of biomedical engineering at Amrita University, India.
His textbook on biomedical engineering is published by Universities Press (India) Limited, Hyderabad.
http://www.universitiespress.com/display.asp?categoryID=12&isbn=978-81-7371-558-7
An international edition of the same textbook is published by CRC Press, UK. http://www.crcpress.com/shopping_cart/products/product_detail.asp?sku=UN6011&isbn=9781420060119&parent_id=1129&pc=
Displays of both the editions are shown below.
The author has gifted a copy of the Indian edition to our Library.
Dr. S N Sarbadhikari, MBBS, PhD
Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering
TIFAC-CORE in Biomedical Technology,
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri,
And, Centre for Digital Health,
Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi –682 026
Homepage: (1) http://www.amrita.edu/biotech/people.htm#supten
(2) http://www.amrita.edu/cdh/sarba.htm
(3) http://medicineonearth.com/display.php?id=1642
(4) http://myprofile.cos.com/supten
(5) http://www.geocities.com/drsupten
A Short Introduction to Biomedical Engineering
S.N. Sarbadhikari Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham; AIMS; Kochi, India
List Price: $39.95
Web Price: $35.96
You Save: $3.99
Cat. #: UN6011
ISBN: 9781420060119
ISBN 10: 1420060112
Publication Date: 7/15/2007
Number of Pages: 276
Availability: Not Yet Published
CRC Press
Presenting a bird's eye view of the important components in biomedical engineering, this book explores how bioengineering has emerged as an important aid to diagnosis, therapy, and rehabilitation. The author discusses the application of electrical, mechanical, chemical, optical and other engineering principles to understand, modify or control biological systems. He covers the design and manufacture of products for monitoring physiological functions, assisting in diagnoses, assessing prognoses, and helping in treatment of patients. It also provides a glimpse of emerging trends in biomedical engineering like telemedicine and the wider use of computers in health care.
Prof. Samir K. Srivastava is currently working as Associate Professor at Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. He published an article in March 2007 issue of International Journal of Management Reviews, a respectable Journal in the field of management studies. It was among the top 20 most popular articles for this journal on Blackwell Synergy, based on the number of full text downloads in the last 12 months.
The bio-data of Prof. Srivastava can be found in: http://ganga.iiml.ac.in/~samir/
He can be reached at Email: samir [AT] iiml [DOT] ac [DOT] in
URL: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1460-8545
International Journal of Management Reviews
An official journal of the British Academy of Management
Edited by:
Steve Armstrong and Adrian Wilkinson
ISI Journal Citation Reports® Ranking: 2006: 30/78 (Management)
Impact Factor: 1.095
As the first reviews journal in the field of business management, the International Journal of Management Reviews is an essential reference tool for business academics and MBA students alike, covering all the main management sub disciplines from accounting and entrepreneurship to strategy and technology management.
The IJMR complements the other publications produced by the British Academy of Management and is deliberately targeted at a wide readership interested in business and management. It publishes literature surveys and reviews that are authoritative in their content, form and balance, addressing the intellectual and academic needs of the broad academic management community both in the UK and on a wider global scale.
For more information on IJMR developments and editorial mission, read the editorial from the June 2007 issue
BAM Annual Conference
Every year BAM holds a conference that acts as a confluence of leading management academics and researchers from around the world. Visit www.bam.ac.uk for further information.
Highly accessed papers
View the 20 most read articles in International Journal of Management Reviews
Highly cited papers
View the 20 most highly cited articles in International Journal of Management Reviews
Abstract from the article:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/action/showMostReadArticles?journalCode=ijmr&cookieSet=1
International Journal of Management Reviews
Volume 9 Issue 1 Page 53-80, March 2007
To cite this article: Samir K. Srivastava (2007)
Green supply-chain management: A state-of-the-art literature review
International Journal of Management Reviews 9 (1), 53–80.
doi:10.1111/j.1468-2370.2007.00202.x
Green supply-chain management: A state-of-the-art literature review
- Samir K. Srivastava
Abstract
There is a growing need for integrating environmentally sound choices into supply-chain management research and practice. Perusal of the literature shows that a broad frame of reference for green supply-chain management (GrSCM) is not adequately developed. Regulatory bodies that formulate regulations to meet societal and ecological concerns to facilitate growth of business and economy also suffer from its absence. A succinct classification to help academicians, researchers and practitioners in understanding integrated GrSCM from a wider perspective is needed. Further, sufficient literature is available to warrant such classification. This paper takes an integrated and fresh look into the area of GrSCM. The literature on GrSCM is covered exhaustively from its conceptualization, primarily taking a ‘reverse logistics angle’. Using the rich body of available literature, including earlier reviews that had relatively limited perspectives, the literature on GrSCM is classified on the basis of the problem context in supply chain's major influential areas. It is also classified on the basis of methodology and approach adopted. Various mathematical tools/techniques used in literature vis-à-vis the contexts of GrSCM are mapped. A timeline indicating relevant papers is also provided as a ready reference. Finally, the findings and interpretations are summarized, and the main research issues and opportunities are highlighted.
This Article
Being published by Srishti
Release date: Aug/Sept 2007
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The author states
The word Glian is a word coined by me, meaning the one who rises from ignorance to the perfect blend of creation and awareness; in other words, man as he was supposed to be. The book is about Dev, who lives with an itching that urges him to get back to the wild, time and again. He and his mates, take on a journey through the wild. What is regular life for animals is fear for these travelers. The animals are always watching the trespassers. There are moments when these trespassers are joyous and sanguine and aren’t even aware of the danger lurking so close. And there are moments too when danger reveals itself, and the troupe loses all its sense of wisdom. For Dev, however, it is a gradual awakening, on a journey that does not end at a destination, but is the beginning of yet another journey. Glian in true sense is an offspring of such an awakening. |
About Author
 |
Shubham Basu lives in Delhi, and the Garhwali mountains. He takes to traveling, sports and adventure. His early education started in Lucknow, moving on to IT-BHU, for his undergraduate education. Following the explorations at Banaras, he went on to join the graduate school at Vanderbilt University, USA. He worked at Wall Street, NYC, before he decided that he wanted to move back to India. |
He has been actively involved in outdoor sports since the last six years including: Downhill mountain biking (bicycling), skiing, white water kayaking (boating), etc. He received gold medal for Basic Mountaineering from Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling in June 2007.
A few days back he joined an organization in outdoor sports and adventure, based in Gurgaon. His journeys to the mountains however are never ending.
Personal Page of Shubham Basu
It also contains some excerpts from the book and author’s views. http://basushubham.googlepages.com/
Education:
B. Tech in Ceramics Engineering from IT-BHU (2002).
MS in Materials Science from Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, US (2005)
An appeal from Shubham Basu
I am looking for a sponsor to fund my public relations effort for media presence to promote my book. I would like to talk with any corporate house and small firms that want get the mileage by reaching out to my prospective readers.
Right now I am located in Delhi and can call me at +91 9911913640 or email me at
basushubham [AT] gmail [COT] com
His address “Diversity Management for Organizational Excellence” is published in a Mosaic Blueprint e-Newsletter (June 27, 2007), which is shown below.
http://www.mosaicblueprint.typepad.com/mosaicmix/
Mosaic Blue print (www.mosaicblueprint.com) is a high-level executive search firm specializing in recruiting executives from minorities and ethnically diverse background.
‘Mosaic Mix’ represents diverse mix of thoughts and ideas. Manu Vora’s article stresses the need to recruit employees from the diverse background for the benefit of the company as well as for the society.
| Mosaic Mix
Diverse Mix of Thoughts and Ideas www.mosaicblueprint.com |
Diversity Management for Organizational Excellence
 |
Manu K. Vora, Ph.D., MBA
"Diversity Management for Organizational Excellence". |
Diversity management requires harnessing the energy of individuals from different social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds in order to achieve organizational excellence. In the 21st Century, managing diversity has become a strategic imperative. Let us explore some key points supporting this imperative:
- Let me share a few quotes about diversity from famous people. Rene Dubos – "Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival". Jimmy Carter – "We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic of different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes and different dreams".
- Diversity fosters a safe environment of inclusiveness where everyone in the organization feels welcome, valued, and part of the whole. Thus diversity is a competitive advantage.
- Diversity management allows an organization to attract and retain top talents, which is essential in order to survive and thrive in the competitive workplace.
- Organizational excellence demands a diverse group of employees serving their equally diverse customers by managing various processes. This leads to a superior operation and better financial performance.
- A Gallup study found that successful organizations hire diverse talent, manage their expectations, motivate them using their strengths and find the best fit in the organization for them.
- To achieve organizational excellence, the leadership team must create an environment where employees are fully engaged. Engagement comes from involvement, motivation and development.
- Employee involvement requires effectively working in teams, thus offering diverse talents to solve problems. Attending meetings and offering diverse viewpoints fosters effective decision making.
- Motivation requires on-going, non-monetary recognition for diverse group of employees who serve their customers well and help in achieving organizational goals. It is also important to listen to broad range of employee ideas and suggestions through a simple employee suggestion system.
- Employee development requires performance management with timely feedback to strengthen employee contributions and help them on their development path. This may require special needs that can be addressed by education and training to improve their skills.
- There are several role model examples of diversity management such as: Avon Products, Inc., Goldman Sachs Group, Hewlett-Packard Co., New York Life Insurance, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Prudential, Ryder System, Inc. and Toyota. These organizations manage diversity as a long-term process.
- There are several role model examples of diversity management such as: Avon Products, Inc., Goldman Sachs Group, Hewlett-Packard Co., New York Life Insurance, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Prudential, Ryder System, Inc. and Toyota. They manage diversity as a long-term process.
- We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty, and all are of different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.
In summary, it is the responsibility of the senior leadership team to ensure that the work environment is open and trusting. By doing so, employees will excel in serving their customers by working collaboratively in diverse and effective teams. Let me end with a few quotes. Helen Keller – "Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much" and Mikhail Gorbachev – "Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences". Let us celebrate our differences as working assets to achieve organizational excellence.
About the Author:
Dr. Manu Vora is Chairman and President of Business Excellence, Inc., a global quality management consulting firm. He has over 30 years of leadership experience guiding Fortune 500 companies (AT&T Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies) with Malcolm Baldrige assessment in the areas of leadership development, customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and continuous process improvement. As an Adjunct Professor, he teaches "Quality Management" and "Supply Chain Management" at Stuart School of Business at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago. He is a Past Vice President of American Society for Quality (ASQ), ASQ Fellow, and Certified Quality Engineer. Dr. Vora served on Affirmative Action Advisory Committee of Switching Systems Business Unit at AT&T Bell Laboratories for number of years in Naperville, Illinois.
Dr. Vora has B.S., M.S. & Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and an MBA with Marketing Management. He served as a Chief Judge at Illinois Team Excellence Award Program from 1993-1999 and as a Judge on the Board of Examiners of the Asia Pacific Quality Award since 2004. He has published a chapter on "Managing Human Capital" in the book "Six Sigma for Transactions and Service" by McGraw-Hill in 2005. He has delivered over 170 presentations on business excellence and Total Quality Management (TQM) topics around the world. Dr. Vora has been recognized with numerous awards from ASQ including ASQ Grant Medal, Lancaster Medal, Testimonial Awards, and ASQ Chicago Section's Joe Lisy & Founder's Award. He received Professional Achievement Award from IIT, Paul Harris Fellow Medal from Rotary International and Distinguished Service Award from Save The Children Federation. He is the Founding Director and President of Blind Foundation for India which has raised over $3.0 million for visually impaired people in India.
Manu K. Vora, Ph.D., MBA, ASQ CQE, ASQ Fellow
ASQ Grant Medalist (2001), Lancaster Medalist (2005)
Adjunct Professor, Stuart School of Business, IIT
Chairman and President, Business Excellence, Inc.
P. O. Box 5585, Naperville, IL 60567-5585, USA
Tel: (630) 548-5531; Fax: (630) 548-5532
Cell: (630) 660-3869 6
E-mail: manuvora [AT] b-einc [DOT] com
Web Site: http://www.b-einc.com/
Web Site: http://www.linkedin.com/in/manuvora
Click here to view his profile.
Anil Chakravarthy (CSE 1989) is the Vice President of India Technical Operations, Symantec Corporation, based in Pune. Prior to this role, he led Symantec's Business Critical and Education Services businesses. He joined Symantec from VeriSign where he served as director of product management and managed the entire product life cycle for VeriSign's application and network security services. Earlier, he was the Vice President of Marketing at Logictier, a managed service provider funded by leading venture capital firms. He has also worked at McKinsey & Co., where he specialized in developing e-business and IT transformation strategies.
Anil received doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and B. Tech. in computer science from the Institute of Technology, BHU, Varanasi. He is also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional.
For Chronicle, Rajat Harlalka (Electrical 2005) took the opportunity to speak with Anil Chakravarthy to learn about his highly successful career and gain an insight into the security industry.
Q 1 – Welcome, sir. For the benefit of our readers, can you tell us a little bit about your background?
Currently I am working as the Vice President of India Technical Operations, Symantec Corporation, Pune,
Previously, I led Symantec’s Business Critical and Education Services businesses, dedicated to helping customers maximize the value of their mission-critical deployments of Symantec solutions.
I joined Symantec from VeriSign where I worked as director of product management. I also served as vice president of marketing at Logictier, a managed services provider.
Prior to that I worked at McKinsey & Company where I specialized in developing e-business and IT transformation strategies.
After graduating from IT-BHU, I got accepted for doctorate program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Q 2 – What is the future of anti-virus software? Will virus signatures continue to be the best tool in the arsenal? Are we about to deal with a new level of viruses -- more sophisticated, more dangerous?
Let me give some context about the security threat landscape – this will help to understand the future of the anti-virus (AV) software market. The threat landscape is continuously changing and getting more complex. Today, in addition to viruses and worms, we have a host of other threats such as malware, Trojans, phishing, rootkits, bots, spyware etc. These threats and their effects are more visible to the end-user now than ever before. Attackers are also moving away from large, multipurpose attacks on network perimeters and towards smaller, more focused attacks on client-side targets. The new threat landscape is dominated by emerging threats such as bot networks, customizable modular malicious code, and targeted attacks on Web applications and Web browsers. Whereas traditional attack activity has been motivated by curiosity and a desire to show off technical virtuosity, many current threats are motivated by profit. They often attempt to perpetrate criminal acts, such as identity theft, extortion, and fraud endangering the business infrastructure, putting a lot of user data, like personal ids, passwords, finances, confidential data, etc at stake.
Anti-virus software is evolving very rapidly to address these threats. Symantec’s recently released Endpoint Protection 11.0 software is a good example of the breakthrough changes we are seeing in the AV world. First of all, a single agent protects the endpoint (be it a laptop, desktop or mobile device) from all these different threats. Second, AV software now relies on a blend of technologies ranging from anti-virus signatures to behavior blocking to protect against these threats. Behavior blocking, for instance, can protect a system from “zero-day” vulnerabilities, which are security holes that are discovered and exploited by attackers before the vendor has had the opportunity to fix them.
Endpoint protection software will continue to grow more complex and sophisticated. For instance, mobile security will become a bigger issue, as more people connect to open networks with their mobile devices, thus exposing them to security threats. Data leakage prevention is another area where endpoint protection software will play a major role.
Q 3 – How security conscious are Indian companies?
Indian companies and consumers are increasingly conscious about security. This is particularly true of financial institutions, IT / ITES / BPO companies, telecoms, and manufacturing companies that are part of global supply chains, but generally true across the board both for enterprises and consumers. Still, there is a long way to go.
Here is a data point about the increasing security consciousness in India. Dataquest Top 20, India – 2006 has pegged the overall secure content management market at Rs. 121 crore, up from Rs. 88 crore in FY 2004-2005, registering a growth of 37.5%. Secure content management covers antivirus protection, messaging security/email filtering and web content management/web content filtering components. Antivirus is estimated to contribute 75 % of this segment. In the past, the Indian security market has been driven by the enterprise segment. The last two years have also been growing investment from SMEs in security solutions.
This increased security consciousness among enterprises in India has also made security professionals much sought-after. The software body NASSCOM too pegs vacancies in this field at as high as over 188,000 by 2008.
Q 4 – Why do Indian companies not venturing into the anti-virus software security market?
Anti-virus software is extremely complex and sophisticated. In addition to deep security expertise, companies that develop anti-virus software need to have expertise in operating systems, networks, platforms and applications.
Also, it is important to have 24x7 response capability. Security experts such as Symantec have multiple centers around the world that are constantly on the lookout for new vulnerabilities and threats. For instance, Symantec collects data from over 40,000 sensors. Once they collect and analyze the data, AV companies need to quickly develop the response (e.g., signatures, definitions, etc) and ensure that they have a broad distribution capability to deliver the Response to all their users around the world.
Finally, as discussed above, anti-virus is rapidly evolving to become the core platform for delivering protection against a wide variety of threats (e.g. spyware, malware, Trojans, phishing, rootkits etc).
Q 5 – Worldwide, why are anti-virus companies more reactive rather than preemptive in their work? Discovery usually follows activation rather than vice versa
I don’t agree that a company such as Symantec is reactive. If you look at the data from independent organizations such as CERT, there are literally thousands of vulnerability and security threats. Symantec experts proactively research these threats and deliver the Response (as discussed above).
Most Symantec users (be they consumers or enterprises) are not even aware of all the threats they are being protected against, because the updates happen automatically. For instance, Symantec has a system called LiveUpdate which is the core distribution mechanism for delivering updates to end-users. Several hundred thousand LiveUpdate sessions happen daily, which gives you a sense of the scale of the automatic updates!
Occasionally, a threat does surface for which anti-virus companies have not yet developed a response. This is not surprising given the number of threats and vulnerabilities out there, and the complex nature of today’s threats.
Q 6 – Looking back how do you feel about your days at IT-BHU?
I had a great time at IT-BHU. It was the first time I had lived away from home. I grew up in Bangalore and didn’t speak any Hindi when I joined IT-BHU. So it was a huge culture shock initially. But the experience of adjusting to the new environment prepared me for both my future professional and personal life. And I continue to be very good friends with many of my batch-mates.
Q 7 – Please tell us something about your interests outside of your professional life.
I have numerous interests but unfortunately not enough time! Family comes first of course. I also like to read, solve cryptic crosswords and I watch a lot of sports (too much according to my wife :-) ).
(Chronicle would like to extend its thanks to Kerman Kasad, Head-Corporate Communications, Symantec Corporation, India who helped us extensively in getting this interview done.)
Additional Links:
Symantec’s Centre of Innovation
http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20070716/market06.shtml
Mr. Abhay Chawla (ECE 1987) is actively engaged in social works. He is involved in solving the wide ranging issues facing our society, such as education for rural children, preserving our environment and eco-system, caring for the aged, etc. It is remarkable to see such alumni who quit comfortable corporate job to work for the betterment of our society.
For chronicle, Yogesh K Upadhyaya interviews Abhay Chawla about his passion and mission in his life:
Q-1: Welcome Abhay. Please tell us about your background.
After receiving my B. Tech degree I went about doing a regular job (started with Tata Motors) with regular career moves. After I moved into the field of social development about 8 years back I did my PG Diploma in Rural Development. I was also appointed National Consultant by UNDP.
Q-2: Why did you decide to leave the cozy job and plunge into social work?
It was not like Lord Vishnu appeared in my dreams. It was just that by chance I was invited to visit a village in Haryana by a Haryana Government employee. What I saw made me question many things we take for granted. Over time, I decided to devote all my time to rural development. A lot of people ask me the question “how do you survive?” Survival is not an issue for persons like us; survival becomes a big question for the countless illiterate rural masses with no access to resources. Any person born and brought up in a middle class family with a professional degree will never go through a survival crisis. When we talk of ‘survival’, we mean ‘plenty’ as most of us have, and crave for. In my case, I first decided to dump the plenty and settle for the basics. I am able to generate the basics by teaching in Delhi University and a couple of other institutions as well as doing consultations in the field of social development with Haryana/Govt. of India.
Q-3: What are your views about problem of education for rural children in India? What should the govt. do about it?
Education is still not considered as a serious topic by a large majority. We feel education is a Government sponsored scheme and we have no role to play in it. Our job is to only ensure that somehow our children get into a good school and then go into a good professional college so that he/she is able to make a good career. Education is still not considered by the society as their responsibility and hence they should drive the Government to do what is contemporary, forward looking and for the betterment of all.
Rural education is a whole new ball game. A lot of material generated for educating the rural children is done by the urban elite who have no clue about rural and rural-related issues. There is a general notion that ‘rural’ is synonymous with Hindi. I have seen a lot of educational and social material being generated by the government and international agencies in Hindi (and therefore appropriate for the rural masses) but having absolutely no link with the rural sensibilities.
We are short of resources, in terms of both men and material, and our key focus and allocations need to be re-looked at. We lose hope quickly and are generally critical of new initiatives.
We are still floundering on universal primary enrollment. After 60 years of Independence, if as a nation, we have no clear-cut strategy on enrolling rural children in primary school, how can we hope to keep them from dropping out after a few years? How can we actually spread education among the masses, and then ensure that more rural students have access to centers of higher and technical education? It is a thought worth spending a few minutes on.
Maybe this is the reason NGOs have taken an active role in education and literacy. I believe however, that a lot of NGOs are committing the same mistake as the government i.e. linking education with inducements. Education should not be ‘induced’ in this fashion; indeed, no inducements are necessary. On the other hand, such a strategy sends out the message that bags, food and other goodies are more important than education itself – it is confusing.
The government is doing a lot already, what is required is, more individuals and organizations to augment that effort with money, material and ideas. Government is not some magician who has a magic wand. We, as empowered members of the society, have a duty towards this society and that duty is not just to make ourselves comfortable, criticize the system and get on with our lives. Even if each one takes one, a lot of change can be brought about.
Q-4: You are also active in environmental issues. Please elaborate.
Environment is everything around us. If we can’t educate the young about environment then our very existence is at stake. Education and environment go hand in hand. While my organization goes about working on education in the rural areas I still live in an urban setup. Most urban setups face a series of environment issues; the 2 biggest issues threatening us are solid waste and water. We are producing far most waste than we can manage, and are consuming and wasting far more fresh water than is available.
These two main issues and a host of other issues need a lot of work. To compound the problem we are urbanizing very quickly to become a consumer society. So villages are decaying at a faster rate today, and they neither have the capacity nor the resources to handle the urban issues which are encroaching upon them.
Here again individuals and organizations need to step in to augment the government effort.
Q-5: What are the challenges faced by your organization?
The biggest challenge faced is the constant flow of funds for the work. Four years back we took a decision that we would not take any grant from the government. The reason is that government grants are ‘head based’, are completely inflexible and come with a lot of overhead. For example, if Rs 100 is earmarked as a teacher’s salary, I cannot pay Rs 150 even if I get a better qualified or senior teacher. On top of it, permissions and any amount of cumbersome paperwork are required if you decide to do a mid-course correction or anything out of the usual course. Social development is a not a stationary pond. When you work with people, issues are dynamic, requirements are dynamic and the responses have to be tailored to the situation at hand; one has to be flexible. The govt. approach is strait-jacketed as it works on procedures.
So we decided we would work on our own. The problem here was getting donations – it is a major issue. People give donations easily if you SELL them the concept of poverty, illiteracy, hunger etc. But the very same people don’t want to part with money if you TELL them about the work being done in education – education does not seem like an ‘attractive’ target for donation somehow.
Asking for donations is also a very difficult task. One part of you who knows that you are well-qualified, you are capable of earning money on your own. Yet the cause for which you work, needs full-time involvement and energy and the money. But when you seek out people, their behaviour often causes you to hold back. For example, if I were to take the BHU alumni, a couple of people got back after they read the Chronicle issue describing my work and only one felt he could trust me with his donation. But there are good people also; there has been one - only one -classmate of mine who has backed me, pushed me, cheered me and supported me. I owe it to both these guys for trusting me and letting me spend their well-earned money on children who don’t have the kind of options our children have.
However we have not lost hope and neither has the work stopped. Somehow we are able to collect and utilize as much (often, more) as we collect. We still are hand to mouth but our work does not stop, and that’s the best part, the most encouraging bit.
We don’t look at volunteers as education is an intense subject and the target area is far from urban areas with special needs and features. We use full time teachers, most from areas close to the target area – that way we have their full commitment and we are able to give employment opportunity to the more educated among them.
Q-6: How does your family support your activities?
My wife is also a computer engineer. She quit her job when our son was born because the software industry is extremely demanding and we had decided that we would be ‘hands-on’ parents. She decided not to return to the IT industry. She is a published author of children stories by publishing houses like CBT and NBT. Her stories are aired on All India Radio also. She used to edit and publish a magazine for ageing called NAVTIKA till last year. Last year we wrapped up the magazine as running a magazine is a different ball game. We ran it as a labour of love for 4 ½ years.
Q-7: Please share your memories about IT-BHU days with us.
I have amazing memories of IT-BHU. This was the time when I grew from a boy to a man. I grew from an introvert to an extrovert. I enjoyed every second I spent at the institute. I remember the first day I reached the institute with a racing bicycle wearing a kurta. I was told I was on the top of the list of my seniors. I remember the closure of the institute both the year when I joined and the year I passed out. I remember Kashi Yatra as though it happened yesterday. Each day was like a year for me. Sitting on the banks of Ganga was like being teleported to heaven.
Q-8: Abhay, it was nice to hear about your social activities and we hope that others will follow your example.
Thanks.
Contact info:
Mr. Abhay Chawla
Secretary, Gurgaonharyana.com Society
365/9, Shivpuri Gurgaon-122001
Haryana
Ph: 9811930015
Email: gurgaonharyana [AT] vsnl [DOT] net
Additional links:
1) Gurgaon Haryana com. pdf [PDF File]
2) http://literacymewat.tripod.com/index.htm
Shukla Receives International Meteorological Prize
June 4, 2007
| The Executive Council of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) awarded Jagadish Shukla, Distinguished Professor of Climate Dynamics, with the 52nd International Meteorological Organization (IMO) Prize at its annual meeting held recently in Geneva.
The IMO prize is awarded annually for outstanding work in the field of meteorology and is considered the highest international award in the field. Previous winners have included well-known scientists from around the globe. The prize winner is selected from nominations of ministers of foreign affairs of WMO members. The prize includes a gold medal and a monetary award. |
Jagdish Shukla |
Shukla is no stranger to national and international recognition at the highest levels. In 2005, he received the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal from the American Meteorological Society, and in 2001 he received the first international Sir Gilbert Walker Gold Medal from the Indian Meteorological Society.
Shukla is the author or co-author of more than 150 scientific papers and has made significant contributions to the understanding of the predictability of short-term climate fluctuations. His scientific contributions include research on monsoon dynamics, deforestation, desertification, tropical predictability and climate variability.
Chair of the Climate Dynamics Program in the College of Science at Mason, Shukla is also president of the Institute of Global Environment and Society and founder of the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA), a premier research center devoted to an improved understanding of climate variability and predictability.
He has served on numerous national and international scientific committees.
Shukla was born in Mirdha, India. He earned his PhD from Banaras Hindu University, India, and his ScD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Profile of Jagadish Shukla
http://www.iges.org/people/shukla.html
PERSONAL
 | Jagadish Shukla
Titles: President, Institute of Global Environment and Society Distinguished Professor, Climate Dynamics, George Mason University Phone: (301) 595-7000 Fax: (301) 595-9793 |
Shukla Awarded 52nd IMO Prize by World Meteorological Organization
A Brief Biography:
J. Shukla was born in 1944 in a small village (Mirdha) in the Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh, India. This village had no electricity, no roads or transportation, and no primary school building. Most of his primary school education was received under a large banyan tree. He passed from the S.R.S. High School, Sheopur, in the first class with distinction in Mathematics and Sanskrit. He was unable to study science in high school because none of the schools near his village included science education. His father, the late Shri Chandra Shekhar Shukla, asked him to read all the science books for classes 6 through 10 during the summer before he was admitted to the S.C. College, Ballia, to study science. After passing the twelfth grade from S.C. College, he went to Banaras Hindu University (B.H.U.) where, at the age of 18, he passed BS (honors) with Physics, Mathematics, and Geology in the first class and then earned the MS in Geophysics in the first class in 1964. He received PhD in Geophysics from BHU in 1971 and ScD in Meteorology from MIT in 1976.
Summary of Professional Activities:
Dr. Shukla has made significant contributions to the understanding of the predictability of weather and climate including the Asian monsoon dynamics, deforestation and desertification. His research has established that there is predictability in the midst of chaos and that there is a scientific basis for short-term climate prediction.
Dr. Shukla has been instrumental in creating weather and climate research centers in India. When India received the first supercomputer from the USA under special agreement for monsoon forecasting, he was invited by India to be the scientific leader in establishing the National Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) in New Delhi. He helped recruit and train the scientific staff, and implemented a global model to make weather forecasts for India. He has close collaboration with the Indian researchers in the India Meteorological Department, New Delhi; IIT, New Delhi; IISc., Bangalore; Allahabad Univ.; IITM, Poona; and Goa University. Dr. Shukla has also established research institutions in Brazil, Italy, and the USA.
Dr. Shukla is the author or co-author of over 150 scientific papers and has served as chairman or member of numerous national and international panels and committees. For the past 34 years, he has visited his village every year. He has established Gandhi College in his village for education of rural students especially women.
More Information:
Selected Honors and Awards, including the International Meteorological Organization Prize and the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Medal
Dr. Shukla's Curriculum Vitae (short version): (HTML format) (PDF file) (MS Word doc)
WMO Bulletin Interview (MS word doc)
New York Times Profile (PDF file)
Dr. Shukla's Curriculum Vitae (complete): (PDF file) (MS Word doc)
Dr. Shukla's Publication List
Photo Gallery
About webVastra.in
webVastra.in is an IIT Kharagpur, India based E-commerce retail store, which focuses on providing customized t-shirts to its users. Customers can log on to the website and choose from various designs available on the site and get them printed on t-shirt of their choice. We also support bulk order requirement of corporates and institutes. We focus on speedy delivery of quality customized t-shirts.
About Us
webVastra.in is the brainchild of five management students from Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSoM), IIT Kharagpur.
His info is included in the list of VGSoM batch of 2006-2208 students:
http://www.som.iitkgp.ernet.in/public/batch08.html
http://www.som.iitkgp.ernet.in/
The Vinod Gupta School of Management at IIT Kharagpur was established in 1993, and was the first management school to be setup within the IIT system. VGSOM was initiated by a distinguished alumnus and a Life Time Fellow of the Institute, Mr. Vinod Gupta, whose generous endowment was matched by liberal support from the Government of India.
The admission to this school is through JMET (Joint management Entrance Test) exam:
Chronicle note; Veer Bhadra Mishra is former head, Civil Engineering Department, IT-BHU. He is an internationally acclaimed specialist on prevention and treatment of pollution of Ganges river and other environmental issues.
Rs 5,000-crore river conservation plan to be revamped
16 Jul 2007, 0222 hrs IST , Nitin Sethi , TNN
NEW DELHI: The government has decided to revamp the Rs 5,000-crore National River Conservation Plan.
This was decided at a meeting held at the PMO to initiate discussions on the strategy. During the meeting, cursory mention was also made of the government's decision to set up a Yamuna board to look after the cleaning-up of the river and the government's plan to spend more than Rs 1,000 crore by 2009.
This preliminary meeting, to which representatives of several non-governmental and technical institutions from across the country were also been invited, was the first effort at the highest level to rework the river cleaning programme, which has been in place since 1995. By 2006, the National River Conservation Plan had funded 20 states to clean up 42 polluted stretches of 34 rivers passing through 160 towns. The total outlay for river cleaning in the country now exceeds Rs 5,000 crore.
The meeting was timed just before the official body that oversees the plan — the National River Conservation Directorate under the environment and forests ministry, which the Prime Minister now heads — meets this month to take stock. Sources revealed that points were raised about the programme facing a tough situation with the water-levels in many rivers falling even as the quality remained an issue to be tackled. The point was also made that unlike developed countries, the Indian programme could not take on capital intensive methods to clean up the waters even as the demand for water from growing urban areas increases.
At the same time, the representatives also talked about the lack of coordination between different departments and states working on the programmes. The meeting was chaired by the principal secretary to the Prime Minister, T K A Nair, and attended by the secretaries for water resources and environment ministries besides heads of institutions like the National Institute of Hydrology, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and the Central Pollution Control Board. Besides the officials, several eminent people from outside the government attended the meeting. They included Vir Bhadra Mishra from BHU, Varanasi, and Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment.
Sources in the government explained, "We have environmental institutions and individual experts who look at issues of pollution and hydrologists and other experts who look at water supply in the same rivers. They do not work in tandem and there is a general institutional failure in managing our rivers holistically."
The agenda of the meeting also included finding an independent oversight mechanism for the river-cleaning plan. In other words, the government is keen to find a way to separate the agencies that spend the money from the agency that monitor the implementation to bring in greater answerability.
nitin [DOT] sethi [AT] timesgroup [DOT] com
Interview of Sunil Bhalla is published in VON magazine June 2007 issue. VON is a magazine devoted to technology of creation and transmission of Voice, Video and Vision.
Website for the magazine: www.vonmag.com
Website for digitally enhanced magazine: www.vonmag-digital.com
For the article with Bhalla (on cover page):
http://www.vonmag-digital.com/vonmag/200706/?pg=19
Note: The contents of the digital magazine are difficult to copy and hence the contents are not properly displayed in chronicle.
Mr. Sunil Bhalla is the executive at Polycom (www.polycom.com) located at Pleasanton, California.
According to the website of the company “Polycom is the only company today delivering end-to-end, rich media collaborative applications for voice, video, data and the Web from desktop and mobile personal systems to room systems to the network core.”
Mr. Bhalla is
Sunil K. Bhalla
Senior Vice President and General Manager, Voice Communications
http://www.polycom.com/usa/en/company/about_us/executive_team/executive_team.html
NRI scientist wins top award in glass science
9 Jul 2007, 0947 hrs IST , PTI
NEW YORK: The Indian-American scientist, who first compared the movements of atoms in glass to the wiggling of jellyfish in water, has won the top award in the field of glass science.
Himanshu Jain, director of the International Materials Institute for New Functionalities in Glass (IMI) at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, received the Otto Schott Research Award on July 2, at the International Congress on Glass in Strasbourg, France.
The biennial award, which carries a cash prize of $34,055 (25,000 Euros), is the most prestigious prize for glass research. Jain, a professor of materials science and engineering at Lehigh, shares the award with Walter Kob of the University of Montpellier in France.
The citation described Jain's research as "outstanding work towards advancing fundamental understanding of the movements of atoms inside glass".
The Donors' Association for the Promotion of Science in Germany, which administers the Schott award, also noted with appreciation Jain's research into unique light-induced phenomena in glass, his studies of the corrosion of glass in nuclear environments, and his work with sensors, infrared optics, waveguides, photolithography, nanolithography and other photonic applications of glass.
Jain says he was taking a boat ride to the Isle of Skye off Scotland's west coast 20 years ago when he first conceived the idea of the connection between jellyfish and atoms in glass.
Watching the hundreds of jellyfish in the Sea of the Hebrides, Jain says he couldn't help noticing what many before had observed that the invertebrates were not swimming but wiggling as they drifted in the water.
The fluctuations of the jellyfish caused him to wonder the movements of atoms in glass. When the temperature of glass is lowered to 4 degrees Kelvin, or near absolute zero, these atomic movements slow from a lively hop to a virtual standstill.
When he returned from Scotland, he thought more deeply about the nuclear-spin relaxation studies he conducted with colleagues in Germany and the dielectric measurements of super-cold glass that his former adviser had reported.
"What we saw at this extremely low temperature was clearly something different," says Jain. "We proposed that a group of atoms was sitting in one place but wiggling like a jellyfish, which does not swim but instead has small fluctuations of movement."
Jain initially called the phenomenon the "jellyfish" fluctuations for the AC (alternating current) conductivity of ionic solids at low frequency and low temperature. He later coined the term "jellyfish fluctuations of atoms in solids."
Jain and his colleagues first measured the AC conductivity of atoms in super-cold glass over a long period of time, one second, an eon in the life of an atom.
The group then took the same measurements at room temperature over a much shorter period of time, about one one-billionth of a second, a snapshot of too short a duration for the atoms to begin their typical hopping movements.
In both instances under the low frequencies prevailing at low temperatures over a long duration and under the high microwave frequencies prevailing at room temperature over a short duration, Jain and his group at Lehigh discovered the same type of fluctuation of atoms.
"We noticed a ubiquitous phenomenon and came up with the idea that the fluctuation, or wiggling behaviour, was the work of a group of atoms and not just that of one atom.
"For one atom to hop requires a lot of energy that is not available at 4 degrees K. On the other hand, for a group of atoms to wiggle does not require much energy. That small amount of movement is sufficient to generate easily observable electrical conductivity," such as the occasional electric signal from super-cold glass.
Jain's jellyfish model, which has been validated in computer simulations, represents a fundamentally new perspective. It also has important applications, Jain says, to cell phones, satellites and other devices that contain glass and rely on microwave frequencies.
The Donors' Association also commended Jain for the breadth of his international collaborations. Jain has worked with engineers and scientists and even dentists in Germany, France, the Czech Republic, India, Ukraine, Japan, Greece, Portugal, Egypt, China, the UK and the US.
The Otto Schott Research Award has been presented since 1991, biennially and alternating with the Carl Zeiss Research Award, to recognize excellent scientific research and to encourage cooperation between science and industry. Both awards are administered by the Donors' Association for the Promotion of Science in Germany.
Prior to joining the faculty of Lehigh University in 1985, Jain worked as a researcher for six years at the Materials Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory and the Nuclear Waste Management Division of Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Himanshu Jain is an alumnus of Physics Dept, BHU.
http://www.lehigh.edu/~inprv/MentorHimanshuJain.html
EDUCATION
- B.Sc. Christ Church College, Kanpur, India (1970)
- M.Sc. in Physics, Banaras Hindu University, India (1972)
- M. Tech. in Materials Science, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India (1974)
- Eng. Sc. D. in Materials Science, Columbia University, New York (1979)
BIOGRAPHY
Himanshu Jain received the degree of Doctor of Engineering Science in Materials Science from Columbia University in 1979. Before joining the faculty of Lehigh University he conducted research at two National Laboratories for several years on various glasses and the problems of corrosion under nuclear repository conditions. He has developed and taught both graduate and undergraduate courses in materials science specializing in glasses and ceramics. He has received the Zachariasen international award for outstanding contribution to glass research, Doan award by his Department’s Senior class for the most influential teacher, a Fulbright Fellowship for lecturing and research at Cambridge and Aberdeen in UK, and a Humboldt Fellowship for research in Germany. He is a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society.
Himanshu lives in Bethlehem with his wife, Sweety, who is a faculty within the Family Practice Residency Program at Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown, and two daughters who attend Freedom High School and East Hills Middle School.
CONTACT INFORMATION
P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Whitaker Lab. Room 264
PHONE: (610)-758-4217
EMAIL: h [DOT] jain [AT] lehigh [DOT] edu
Evergrid Management Team
Evergrid is funded by Acartha partners and led by a seasoned management team with a track record of business triumphs and technological breakthroughs. Founded in 2004, Evergrid is based in Fremont, California.
| Management Team | Board of Directors |
| B.J. Arun | B.J. Arun |
| Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan | Ameet Patel |
| Alan Hubbard | Fred van den Bosch |
| Radha Shelat | Jagadish Bandhole |
| Mitchell Ratner | John W. Jarve |
| David Lai |
Radha Shelat, VP Engineering (PhD Statistics, IT-BHU)
Radha brings 20 years of experience in high performance software engineering to Evergrid. Prior to joining Evergrid, Radha was Chief Technology Officer for Symantec India. Radha spent a total of 13 years at Symantec India spearheading the growth of Symantec's India operations from a team of 4 engineers to over 1,000. Radha worked in various capacities for Symantec, including heading Symantec''s Research Lab in India and has done extensive work with high volume and distributed storage technologies.
Radha has a Ph.D from the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University and has taught, consulted, and worked at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
http://india-inc.in/Radha-Shelat.html
Jagadish Bandhole (CSE 1995)
Jagadish Bandhole is currently the Founder, CEO and Chairman of Fonemine, Inc. Prior to founding Fonemine, Inc., he served as the Vice President at VERITAS Software. At VERITAS, he was responsible for development and sales of emerging products that represented convergence of server, storage and application management solutions. Prior to VERITAS, he was the Founder and CEO of Jareva Technologies, a venture-funded software company, where he successfully pioneered emerging technologies such as server and application provisioning shaping the requirements of the on-demand and utility computing ecosystem.
Jagadish has a Masters in Computer Science from Indiana University with a strong background in computer architecture, compilers and programming languages. He graduated from IT-BHU with a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science in 1995.
http://www.itbhu.org/org/bod.html
 |
Dr. T. K. Bhattacharya
Professor of Finance Ph.D., University of Oklahoma, CFA Phone: (580) 581-2533 FAX: (580) 581-2954 Web: http://www.cameron.edu/~tbhatt/ E-mail: topanb [AT] cameron [DOT] edu |
School of Business, Cameron University, 2800 West Gore Boulevard, Lawton, Oklahoma 73505-6377, 580-581-2200
Dr. T. K. Bhattacharya is Professor of Finance and Funds Manager of the Cameron Foundation Inc. He has a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering (Banaras Hindu University, India), a Ph.D. in Finance (University of Oklahoma ), and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. He was the Director of the Business Research Center (1991-1995) and Editor of the Southwest Business and Economics Journal (1992-1995). He was awarded the Lawton Independent Insurance Agents Chair in 1993-94, the SWOTA Distinguished Research Award in 2002, the Hackler Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2003, and was inducted in the CUAA Faculty Hall of Fame in 2005
Dr. Bhattacharya's research has been published in a number of refereed journals including Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, The Journal of Accounting and Finance Research, Financial Practice and Education, Journal of Financial Management and Analysis, Journal of Financial and Economic Practice, Southwestern Economic Review, Midwestern Business and Economic Review, Southwest Business and Economics Journal, Oklahoma Business Bulletin, National Social Science Association Journal, International Journal of Technology Management, and Indian Management.
Office Location: School of Business Main Office
Home > More Events > Telecom2.0: The Collision of Content & Communications
Keynotes & Speakers
Keynotes & Speakers
Speakers
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Indranil Chatterjee, Director, Wireless Solutions, Alcatel-Lucent
Mr. Chatterjee leads a team responsible for development and marketing of Alcatel-Lucent's wireless solutions. In this role, he has had extensive interactions with customers in Europe, Asia, and North America and has played a significant role in establishing Alcatel-Lucent as a leader in wireless solutions. Prior to joining Alcatel-Lucent in June 2003, Indranil worked five years in the IT industry for Infosys Technologies, spending the majority of that time in global project management, client management, and business development activities. He holds a B. Tech degree from the Institute of Technology - BHU, India, and an MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. |
| Investing in China & India -- a Panel Discussion
written by JaredStuckey (jared [DOT] stuckey [AT] libertymutual [DOT] com), 4/26/07 9:19am edited by JaredStuckey, 5/29/07 9:43am
Join your fellow Wharton alums and our expert panel in a discussion of the investment climate in China and India. |
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Location: Goodwin Proctor
Event Date: Thursday, June 14th, 2007 at 6:00pm
Join your fellow Wharton alums and our distinguished panel of China and India experts to learn about investing in the two most populous countries in the world. Rich Lane from the Wharton Club of Boston will moderate a panel discussion including Stan Fung, Managing Director, FarSight Ventures and Vikram Deswal, Highfields Capital Management.
Topics will include:
- Current investment climate in China and India
- What's unique about investing in China and India
- Common misconceptions about investing in China and India
- Panelists will also share some of their experiences
Panelist bio's:
Vikram Deswal, Highfields Capital Management - Mr. Deswal works with Highfields Capital Management, a Boston based investment firm with around $10 bn in assets. Prior to moving to US in 2004, Mr. Deswal was vice president in Investment banking at JM Morgan Stanley in India. He has over 7 years of experience working in Project Finance and Investment Banking. Mr. Deswal graduated from the Institute of Technology, BHU with a B. Tech. in Mechanical Engineering. He obtained his post graduate diploma in management with concentration in finance from the Indian Institute of Management, and was elected Palmer Scholar at The Wharton Business School where he obtained his M.B.A. He was also awarded the Ford Fellowship for highest academic performance.
‘Never keep money as the objective in the foreground’
…says LC Singh to the newer generations getting into the business of consultancy. Anamika Butalia spoke to LC Singh, President & CEO, Nihilent Technologies Pvt Ltd about the IT-BHU Alumni Award of Excellence 2007- 08 presented to him and his journey that has got him all this way
Posted On Thursday, June 21, 2007
| Tell us what brings a Harvard graduate all this way? Is it just the degree?
Well. I never keep a destination in mind but choose and enjoy walking on a path I choose. I worked at SBI for a short while and did my stint abroad. Joined TCS in the middle management and did a n umber of things which gave a lot of satisfaction. I began the products division at TCS. I was involved in some unconventional marketing including expanding the UK, South African and Middle East operations and a lot of other creative things. At Harvard, I put forward the case of the Indian way of looking at things and was chosen valedictorian on the graduation.... I was lucky to have worked with the doyen of the IT industry Mr FC Kohli, which was the single biggest contributor to shape my professional career. |
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Do you have a mentor?
I still am guided by a lot of learning from being around Mr FC Kohli, who was very judicious always. He would look and treat people only on their performance, ability and focus. He would give tremendous freedom if you could win his trust. He never cared for where you came from, what your mother tongue was or what religion you followed. Another highlight was that he inculcated in you a thirst for learning. He single-handedly built the entire software industry of and I was privileged to play my part in his schema.
Does the Indian industry have inspirational heads of companies?
No one particularly of the present generation, still FC Kolhi remains the ideal. I am sure there are heads of companies, who have done well and are an inspiration. Some time back I met Mukesh Ambani and I was amazed with his ability to think big. There are also others like Narayan Murthy, who has been able to built a huge brand even though his company came much later than TCS. However the position I am in, I still follow FC Kohli's vision of building a service company by building capability and referencibility and keeping the costs to bare minimum; and also for applying a systems approach to solve problems.
What qualities are basic to handling your role and responsibilities?
Being fair to people is the key. One must dispassionately look only at one's "performance" while judging people. And make sure that relentless hard work and focussed effort on their own part is what the hallmark of a good CEO really is.
Has risk ever bothered you?
Risk has never bothered me because you never achieve anything without taking one. However, risks have to be "managed" continuously. Any advice for the youth entering the field?
Keep money as the objective in the background, and never to the fore.
Anywhere beyond the work that you’re currently assigned to?
Never has it been my aim to be CEO. But leading is what comes naturally! What I love about my work is to create things out of nothing. This means to create values in things other people may not see. I love building multi-layered relationships, which may begin professionally but end up as becoming deeply respectful and personal. My wish is to make the company I work with one of the most high value brands in the consulting/executional arena.
Will we hear more from your company?
We will not remain the background for long. We will be known as the leading company of our generation. It’s just the question of time. We are presently in change management using our patented framework MC3, which looks at approaching change management in a systemic manner by looking at the roles of people, process and technology.
Nikesh Arora is now President of Google's Europe, Middle East, and Asia operations.
Nikesh Arora on Google’s growth
Google says this is the first press day in Europe, and that they prepared a lab upstairs to look at some of their products. Nikesh Arora (Google President for Europe, Middle-East & Africa operations) is speaking now. Products are growing, as the slide illustrates.
Nikesh explains how Arabic users interact with their products in right-to-left, explaining how his job is to look over all this. The number of local employees went from 598 in 2005 to 2,500 now, and there are 20,000 bottles of water drunk by Googler employees in Europre in 2007! (They look after their employees.)
Watch Nikesh Arora’s speech on YouTube