Sweeper swept hurdles to become college prinicpal

Posted on July 25, 2008 by admin

Nirjharani Chakraborty, principal of Rishi Bankim Chandra College for Women, never hesitates to pick up a broom and sweep a dusty classroom or verandah. After all, she started her career that way.

Nirjharani began as a Group D employee in a school where she washed cups, dusted benches, swept floors and rang the bell. Today, she not only heads a women’s college but is also the area’s MLA.

This extraordinary story of struggle and perseverance started when she was a slip of a girl at 15, and was given the job of cleaning the very school she had passed out from. Her teachers at the Kanchrapara Girls’ School had been kind to her, she says. They realised that if she wasn’t given the job she would have to quit studies and become a housemaid.

“The job saved my family and helped me study,” recalls the 54-year-old, whose name means a free-flowing spirit like a waterfall. “I was just 15, so it was an unofficial arrangement. For three years I worked as a Group D employee and when I turned 18, the post was regularised.”

Her problems had started when her father, a railway clerk, retired. She was still in school and there were four younger siblings to feed. His pension was simply not enough to keep her in school but she was so bright and so unwilling to drop out that her teachers waived her fees, fed her, and even bought her books. After she passed out in 1968, they pleaded with the school managing committee to give her a sweeper’s job which had a monthly salary of Rs 60.

“Soon there was a vacancy for a clerk and the teachers recommended that I be promoted, so I started handling the school accounts, the attendance registers and correspondence. My salary was raised to Rs 115. By that time I had also started studying for my BSc at Bankim Chandra College for Women at Naihati,” she says.

Today, she is principal of this very college. Diminutive and wiry, and dressed always in a starched cotton saree, Madam
Principal rarely screams, preferring to assert herself in a quiet but no-nonsense way. She lives in a comfortable house owned by her husband but it is still a humble dwelling and not ostentatious in any way. Nirjharani hasn’t forgotten the help that friends and teachers gave her along the way. Her morning job didn’t allow her to attend the first two classes in college, but her lecturers and mates were only too willing to pitch in with notes and extra classes.

When she graduated in 1973, with a first class degree, her old school offered her a science teacher’s post. She enrolled for a teacher’s training degree and got a first class here too. It was considered on par with a BEd honours degree and with this she went on to enroll for and complete her MEd. “It was then that I applied for a lecturer’s position through the West Bengal College Service Commission. I was allotted a post in the Nahata Women’s College near Bongaon in 1986 and taught there for 16 years. I used to travel eight hours a day, she says.

Even this was not enough. Soon she was researching her PhD and was awarded a doctorate in 1991. “By then Rishi Bankim Chandra College had trifurcated and a morning women’s college had started. The College Service Commission advertised for the principal’s post. I sat for the exam and qualified,” she says.

In 2002, she took over as principal. The new job honed her leadership skills. She took the lead in organisational politics for college teachers and became vice-president of the CPM-backed West Bengal Principals’ Council. But even the twists and turns of her life had not prepared her for the surprise that lay ahead. Her astounding success had not gone unnoticed. The CPM chose her to contest the assembly elections from Bijpur that covers Kanchrapara and Halisahar. “It came as a big surprise, honestly. But I accepted the challenge and won by over 17,000 votes against Trinamool Congress’s Kalyani Biswas,” says the MLA. She is perhaps the only college principal-cum-MLA of the state, and wears both hats with ease.

“Since mine is a morning college, I can also attend Assembly,” she explains. “Also, I get the whole day to move about my constituency.” She is now busy clearing the decks to build a flyover and dredge a canal in Kanchrapara, a district town that is seeing rapid growth. And in the middle of all this, she still finds time to wipe blackboards after class hours.

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Teach_India_She_swept_hurdles_aside/articleshow/3277081.cms

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Disabled student all set to graduate from IIT Madras

Posted on July 24, 2008 by admin

“I have always been lucky,” beams 21-year-old Naga Naresh Karuturi who will get his B. Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras on July 25. One look at this engineering graduate, however, will tell you that the boy has been anything but lucky.


   Naresh’s legs were amputated at the age of seven after he met with a freak accident. After the incident his sister, Sirisha, carried him around in school. In class III, Naresh got his wheelchair. After that his sister began pushing his wheelchair to the school and his friends carried him wherever he wanted to go. It was only much later that Naresh resolved to move around without any assistance.

   Born to unlettered parents and into a family where no one had completed higher studies, this IIT graduate first heard of the premier institution when he was in class VII. The news was that a senior at school had joined the reputed Gowtham Junior College in Vijayawada that was popular for producing state ranks and also IIT entrants. Naresh won an entry into the same college.

 

 

 


   “It was an expensive residential school and cost Rs 50,000 per student per year. My father could have never afforded that, but for the scholarships. I was lucky again there,” he says with modesty.


   From class VII to XII, Naresh’s fees at the residential college were met through scholarships. Later, Naresh was glad for having earned a seat at Gowtham Junior College. “The college segregated students into those who would be trained for the IITs, AIEEE, and other exams. I was lucky to have studied in such an atmosphere,” he adds.


   Looking back at all those hours of hard work that went into cracking the IIT entrance, Naresh says he couldn’t have carried on without the help of his friends. “I was blessed in having helpful roommates like Sitarama Raju with whom I used to do study.”


   The 21-year-old’s stay in halls and rooms of the Gowtham Junior College was his first outside home. “At home, I was very dependent on my folks. They even moved to Vijayawada to be near me all the time,” says Naresh. Soon, his father, Prasad taught him the importance of being independent. “Since then, I began to push the wheelchair myself and crawled my way to the classroom,” he says.


   But sending him to a new place and letting him be on his own was difficult for his family. Naresh’s father, a lorry driver, says: “We were a bit scared for him but never let that fear show. We always knew he could do it.”


   “We also visited him often enough at Vijayawada to make sure that he never gave up,” adds his mother, Kumari, a homemaker.


   Naresh strongly feels that fate has been kind to him. “Look at it this way. Just a year before I joined, IIT Madras turned wheelchairfriendly. Moreover, the institution donated this electric wheelchair when I was in the II year. This is the best thing to have happened to me. I have Prof Idichandy, dean, students at IIT Madras, and the student general secretary Prasad to thank for this,” he says, breaking into a smile.


   Professor Pandurangan, under whose guidance Naresh works, says the latter never expects special care and is always pleasant. “He is the gem of our lab,” says the professor, who heads the theoretical science laboratory.


   Naresh, who has always been interested in algorithms and graph theory, will join Google R&D in Bangalore as a software engineer on July 28. “It (the selection process) was an elaborate one, but I got through. I told you, I am always lucky,” he sums up.

 

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/TOI/navigator.asp?Daily=TOICH&login=default&AW=1216913340656

 ===========================================

God has always been planning things for me’


Shobha Warrier


Naga Naresh Karutura has just passed out of IIT Madras in Computer Science and has joined Google in Bangalore.
You may ask, what’s so special about this 21-year-old when there are hundreds of students passing out from various IITs and joining big companies like Google?


Naresh is special. His parents are illiterate. He has no legs and moves around in his powered wheel chair. (In fact, when I could not locate his lab, he told me over the mobile phone, ‘I will come and pick you up’. And in no time, he was there to guide me)


Ever smiling, optimistic and full of spirit; that is Naresh. He says, ‘God has always been planning things for me. That is why I feel I am lucky.’


Read why Naresh feels he is lucky.

 
Childhood in a village


I spent the first seven years of my life in Teeparru, a small village in Andhra Pradesh, on the banks of the river Godavari. My father Prasad was a lorry driver and my mother Kumari, a house wife. Though they were illiterate, my parents instilled in me and my elder sister (Sirisha) the importance of studying.


Looking back, one thing that surprises me now is the way my father taught me when I was in the 1st and 2nd standards. My father would ask me questions from the text book, and I would answer them. At that time, I didn’t know he could not read or write but to make me happy, he helped me in my studies!


Another memory that doesn’t go away is the floods in the village and how I was carried on top of a buffalo by my uncle. I also remember plucking fruits from a tree that was full of thorns.

 
I used to be very naughty, running around and playing all the time with my friends. I used to get a lot of scolding for disturbing the elders who slept in the afternoon. The moment they started scolding, I would run away to the fields!


I also remember finishing my school work fast in class and sleeping on the teacher’s lap!


January 11, 1993, the fateful day


On the January 11, 1993 when we had the sankranti holidays, my mother took my sister and me to a nearby village for a family function. From there we were to go with our grandmother to our native place. But my grandmother did not come there. As there were no buses that day, my mother took a lift in my father’s friend’s lorry. As there were many people in the lorry, he made me sit next to him, close to the door.


It was my fault; I fiddled with the door latch and it opened wide throwing me out. As I fell, my legs got cut by the iron rods protruding from the lorry. Nothing happened to me except scratches on my legs.
The accident had happened just in front of a big private hospital but they refused to treat me saying it was an accident case. Then a police constable who was passing by took us to a government hospital.


First I underwent an operation as my small intestine got twisted. The doctors also bandaged my legs. I was there for a week. When the doctors found that gangrene had developed and it had reached up to my knees, they asked my father to take me to a district hospital. There, the doctors scolded my parents a lot for neglecting the wounds and allowing the gangrene to develop. But what could my ignorant parents do?


In no time, both my legs were amputated up to the hips.
I remember waking up and asking my mother, where are my legs? I also remember that my mother cried when I asked the question. I was in the hospital for three months.


Life without legs


I don’t think my life changed dramatically after I lost both my legs. Because all at home were doting on me, I was enjoying all the attention rather than pitying myself. I was happy that I got a lot of fruits and biscuits.

‘I never wallowed in self-pity’

The day I reached my village, my house was flooded with curious people; all of them wanted to know how a boy without legs looked. But I was not bothered; I was happy to see so many of them coming to see me, especially my friends!


All my friends saw to it that I was part of all the games they played; they carried me everywhere.


God’s hand


I believe in God. I believe in destiny. I feel he plans everything for you. If not for the accident, we would not have moved from the village to Tanuku, a town. There I joined a missionary school, and my father built a house next to the school. Till the tenth standard, I studied in that school.


If I had continued in Teeparu, I may not have studied after the 10th. I may have started working as a farmer or someone like that after my studies. I am sure God had other plans for me.


My sister, my friend


When the school was about to reopen, my parents moved from Teeparu to Tanuku, a town, and admitted both of us in a Missionary school. They decided to put my sister also in the same class though she is two years older. They thought she could take care of me if both of us were in the same class. My sister never complained.


She would be there for everything. Many of my friends used to tell me, you are so lucky to have such a loving sister. There are many who do not care for their siblings.


She carried me in the school for a few years and after a while, my friends took over the task. When I got the tricycle, my sister used to push me around in the school.


My life, I would say, was normal, as everyone treated me like a normal kid. I never wallowed in self-pity. I was a happy boy and competed with others to be on top and the others also looked at me as a competitor.


Inspiration


I was inspired by two people when in school; my Maths teacher Pramod Lal who encouraged me to participate in various local talent tests, and a brilliant boy called Chowdhary, who was my senior.
When I came to know that he had joined Gowtham Junior College to prepare for IIT-JEE, it became my dream too. I was school first in 10th scoring 542/600.

 
Because I topped in the state exams, Gowtham Junior College waived the fee for me. Pramod Sir’s recommendation also helped. The fee was around Rs 50,000 per year, which my parents could never afford.


Moving to a residential school


Living in a residential school was a big change for me because till then my life centred around home and school and I had my parents and sister to take care of all my needs. It was the first time that I was interacting with society. It took one year for me to adjust to the new life.


There, my inspiration was a boy called K K S Bhaskar who was in the top 10 in IIT-JEE exams. He used to come to our school to encourage us. Though my parents didn’t know anything about Gowtham Junior School or IIT, they always saw to it that I was encouraged in whatever I wanted to do. If the results were good, they would praise me to the skies and if bad, they would try to see something good in that. They did not want me to feel bad.
They are such wonderful supportive parents.


Life at IIT- Madras


Though my overall rank in the IIT-JEE was not that great (992), I was 4th in the physically handicapped category. So, I joined IIT, Madras to study Computer Science.


Here, my role model was Karthik who was also my senior in school. I looked up to him during my years at IIT- Madras.
He had asked for attached bathrooms for those with special needs before I came here itself. So, when I came here, the room had attached bath. He used to help me and guide me a lot when I was here.


I evolved as a person in these four years, both academically and personally. It has been a great experience studying here. The people I was interacting with were so brilliant that I felt privileged to sit along with them in the class. Just by speaking to my lab mates, I gained a lot.

‘There are more good people in society than bad ones’

Words are inadequate to express my gratitude to Prof Pandurangan and all my lab mates; all were simply great. I was sent to Boston along with four others for our internship by Prof Pandurangan. It was a great experience.


Joining Google R&D


I did not want to pursue PhD as I wanted my parents to take rest now.
Morgan Stanley selected me first but I preferred Google because I wanted to work in pure computer science, algorithms and game theory.


I am lucky


Do you know why I say I am lucky?


I get help from total strangers without me asking for it. Once after my second year at IIT, I with some of my friends was travelling in a train for a conference. We met a kind gentleman called Sundar in the train, and he has been taking care of my hostel fees from then on.
I have to mention about Jaipur foot. I had Jaipur foot when I was in 3rd standard. After two years, I stopped using them. As I had almost no stems on my legs, it was very tough to tie them to the body. I found walking with Jaipur foot very, very slow. Sitting also was a problem. I found my tricycle faster because I am one guy who wants to do things faster.


One great thing about the hospital is, they don’t think their role ends by just fixing the Jaipur foot; they arrange for livelihood for all. They asked me what help I needed from them. I told them at that time, if I got into an IIT, I needed financial help from them. So, from the day I joined IIT, Madras, my fees were taken care of by them. So, my education at the IIT was never a burden on my parents and they could take care of my sister’s Nursing studies.


Surprise awaited me at IIT


After my first year, when I went home, two things happened here at the Institute without my knowledge.


I got a letter from my department that they had arranged a lift and ramps at the department for me. It also said that if I came a bit early and checked whether it met with my requirements, it would be good.
Second surprise was, the Dean, Prof Idichandy and the Students General Secretary, Prasad had located a place that sold powered wheel chairs. The cost was Rs 55,000. What they did was, they did not buy the wheel chair; they gave me the money so that the wheel chair belonged to me and not the institute

.
My life changed after that. I felt free and independent.
That’s why I say I am lucky. God has planned things for me and takes care of me at every step.


The world is full of good people

I also feel if you are motivated and show some initiative, people around you will always help you. I also feel there are more good people in society than bad ones. I want all those who read this to feel that if Naresh can achieve something in life, you can too.

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Chandrasekar, 17, is youngest to ace MTech from IIT

Posted on July 24, 2008 by admin

 

Two years ago, at 15, S Chandrasekar was the youngest engineering graduate in the country. On July 25, he will be the youngest postgraduate from IIT Madras when he receives his degree at the convocation. The teenager has also topped his class.


   Born on September 25, 1990, Chandrasekar was a precocious child, according to his parents. “His teachers used to complain that he would finish his work quickly and disturb other children, so we asked them to give him some books to read after he finishes work so he doesn’t trouble the other children,” says Chandrasekar’s father R Subramanian, an auditor.

   A family friend, who noticed that the boy was inquisitive and picking up things very quickly, thought it would be interesting to put him in an international certificate programme.That is how Chandrasekar became the youngest Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and Cisco Certified Network Associate at 11 years.

 

 
   Chandrasekar was appointed an honorary director of the Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council – Center of Relevance and Excellence in network engineering in August 2002.


   In 2002, an Anna University committee, headed by the then vice-chancellor Dr Balaguruswamy, assessed the boy’s capabilities and decided to admit him into the BE programme, which he cleared when he was 15.


   He then took the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering and scored 99.32 percentile, which left no room for academics at IIT-M to have second thoughts about admitting him into the MTech course.

   “The best thing about him is his consistent performance. When he is interested in something, he pursues it with great commitment and purpose,” says Subramanian. 


   “BE was academically not very hard. In the first semester the environment was new, so I had a little difficulty both academically and psychologically. But Dr Thangaraj, now vice-chancellor of Kalasalingam University, gave me a nice home-like atmosphere, and after the first four or five months there was never a problem,” says Sekar, as his close acquaintances call him.

 


   Prof Pandurangan of IIT, under whose guidance Sekar works, says, “It’s a pleasure to teach and do research with  him. He has showed mastery and mathematical maturity ahead of his age.”


   Sekar attributes his success to Bell’s Matriculation School in Tirunelveli, which never put any academic pressure on him and allowed him to grow in his own time, Covansys, Dr Thangaraj of Kalasalingam University, Anna University, which bent rules to accommodate his genius, and TCS for extending its resources for his development.


   “I want to continue as a researcher in TCS RMD in Chennai for some more time. I would also like to get a management degree at some point in my career so I won’t just have theoretical knowledge. Best of both worlds, you know,” Chandrasekar says.

 

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/TOI/navigator.asp?Daily=TOICH&login=default&AW=1216913340656

 

 

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From Rs 50 to a Forbes billionaire!

Posted on July 12, 2008 by admin

P N C Menon, chairman of the Rs 1,500-crore Sobha Developers Ltd, is one of the few dollar-billionaires in India. For the last two years, he has been listed in the Forbes list of billionaires (he is listed at number 754 in the last Forbes list of world’s billionaires).

Menon set up his empire in the Sultanate of Oman with just Rs 50 in hand. Through sheer hard work and some wise decisions, he has become one of the most successful businessmen from India. Today, his company has a presence in India, Dubai, and Oman.

Sobha Developers went public in November 2006. Today, more than 4,000 people are directly employed by Menon, in addition to the thousands more involved in the construction of his buildings.

As he diversifies his activities as a businessman, he is also in the process of developing the village he belongs to by adopting the 3,000-odd families which are below the poverty line.

At Vadakkancherry in Kerala, he has built a hermitage for old people and young widows, a school for children, and also a hospital for the villagers. He also runs the Sobha Tradesman Academy in Bangalore that trains people from economically backward villages in trades related to the construction industry.

In this interview taken at the Sobha Hermitage at Vadakkancherry, Menon speaks of how important it is for him to take care of his fellow beings.

Childhood in Kerala

I am from an agricultural family in Palghat in Kerala. As my father was into small business in Thrissur, I grew up there. I lost my father when I was 10 years old, and my grandparents were not educated enough to take care of his business. My mother also was ill. So, everything disappeared in a short period of time.

You can say I became an adult at the age of 10 or 12, and started taking decisions on my own from that age. It was a very unfortunate childhood; not a happy one at all.

I did not complete my graduation; I dropped out. If you ask me why, I don’t know. Probably I was in a hurry to be on my own. Like many children who come from a business background, working for somebody else was not there in my mind.

I started my own interior decoration business; small scale contract work of the interiors of houses and offices. It was nothing to write home about.

Chance meeting with an Arab

In 1976, I met this gentleman — Brig Gen Suleiman Al Adawy — in a hotel lobby in Kochi, quite accidentally. He had come to Kochi to buy a fishing boat. I had gone to the hotel for some other work. We happened to talk to each other, and after that, he said, “Ours is a new country. There are a lot of opportunities. Why don’t you come over to my place? We will do something together. Till then, I had not even heard of a place called Sultanate of Oman. (I went back home, took an atlas and located the place!)

In Oman, with Rs 50 in hand

I decided to accept his invitation. I took my passport and within two months, I was ready to fly to the Sultanate of Oman. I had only Rs 50 in my hand as, at that time, you were permitted to take only that much money with you.

But I was excited. There was no fear of uncertainty in my mind. I had always been sure of myself. I knew I would be able to do something there. I don’t know whether it is the right attitude, but I had that confidence in me. I may sound arrogant but I was confident because I had no role model.

Starting a business in Oman

We had many pre-conceived notions about the Arabs, like they are swimming in money, etc. But this man was only an officer in the army. He had no money to put in as capital to start a business. So, both of us went and borrowed 3,000 riyals from a bank as the initial capital and started our business.

We decided to do the interiors of buildings, a continuation of what I was doing in Kerala. It was an international market but I was only a street-side contractor. Street-side contractor means you had only a briefcase with you; not even a great office. I was like a fisherman, going to the sea to fish, going to the market to sell the catch and make a living. The beginning was very, very small.

Working hard and with confidence

It was tough initially, but I worked hard, really hard. Five things were against me: I was not professionally qualified. I did not have sufficient capital. I was in a new geographical location. I didn’t have sufficient contacts. And my communication skills were poor as I had studied in a Malayalam medium school.

So amidst all the negatives, it was like chasing dreams! Yet, even though I, my feet were firmly on the ground.

And although I had all the negatives stacked against me, my confidence level was very high. The ability to understand too was very high. I never settled for anything less than perfect.

Now I feel I had divine blessings.

Leader in the industry in Oman

I entered Oman in 1976, and in 1984, I was in the top 4. By 1986-87, my company, The Services and Trade Group of Companies, became a leader in the industry. Even now, I am the market leader there.

Remember, I was competing with European companies. Initially they looked at me as if I were a joker. But as I began to succeed, they started looking at me seriously.

Why, or how, I became the market leader was because I never transferred the money I made back to India. I invested all that in the expansion of the business.

I slowly built my enterprise in Oman. It was not easy building an enterprise; it was very, very difficult. It was like building it brick by brick, step by step. I was learning on the job with each passing day. Each step, you perfect it and go on to the next level.

‘Competing with myself’

I always compete with myself and in that competition I am a failure. There are two personalities here; the man with the requirement and the man who delivers. The man with the requirement demands a lot which the other man cannot deliver. That is why he is a failure.

I will be sixty this year-end (2008-end). Probably I may die without achieving what one part of me yearns for. There is always a gap in what you have achieved and what you plan to achieve.

From interiors to full structure

In 1986, I decided to be a full time builder. What I did was backward integration: from architecture to structural engineering to designs. We are probably the only backward integrated company of this size and type in the whole world.

From factory-building, we went to construct houses, and then to large commercial buildings. We also did private palaces in the Middle East.

I became a citizen of Oman a decade ago. From Oman, I moved to the United Arab Emirates.

Doing business in India

When I came to India to do business 14 years ago, it was to diversify the geographical spread. I chose Bangalore as our destination in India. I started Sobha Developers in my wife’s name. Because I had done even the palaces in the Middle East, I came with top-end knowledge. That was why we succeeded here too.

We have completed more than ten commercial projects on turnkey bases, covering 1.85 million sq ft. Forty residential projects have been completed and about 32 are in the process of completion.

Under contractual projects, we have built office buildings for Infosys, Timken, Taj, Mico, HP and Dell.

We went public in 2006. Now we are a Rs 1,500-crore company.

went to Oman to start a business with Rs 50 in my hand. Today, I am in the Forbes list of billionaires. In 2007, I was listed in the Forbes list. In the 2008 list also, I am there.

If you ask me how I felt, I would say, it was a very satisfying experience. Internationally, the tag has its advantages. If you do not have acceptance in the market place, you will not be able to continue as a businessman.

One has to admit that there are only 1,200 people in the world who are listed. So, it was a nice feeling.

The life of a billionaire

I live a good life and I don’t feel guilty about it. I have beautiful houses, beautiful cars and I have also ordered a private jet now.

However, after a point, money cannot be the motivating factor. Money is only a byproduct of success. Success for me is. . . well, if I am at step 10, then I see success at step 20. So, success is infinity for me; it never ends.

I come from a middle class family and I still have those middle class values.

Dreams of a billionaire

My first ambition is I want to prove that in India, we have a global Indian company in the real estate and construction industry. I want people from anywhere in the world to look at my buildings and say, what a building! What construction!

My target for this global Indian company is 2011. My dream volume: 10million sq ft of buildings, and 10 million sq ft of infrastructure. I am confident we will achieve that dream..

http://specials.rediff.com/money/2008/jul/01slid01.htm

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Mercy Killing petitioner beats death, hugs life

Posted on July 12, 2008 by admin

Two years back Seema Sood longed for death and had even petitioned the President of India for euthanasia. But hope triumphed over despair and today, walking with difficulty, but walking nonetheless, after a total knee replacement surgery, the Bits Pilani gold medalist is ready to take on life once again.

   The turnaround has been both spectacular and miraculous for the 37-year-old who lost all movement of her limbs for 15 harrowing years after a crippling attack of rheumatoid arthritis. The disillusionment was so intense that she wanted permission for mercy killing. But that was then.

 


   “I regret the letter to the President,” she said, still frail and moving in tiny steps with the help of a walker. “Everything was so dark for me earlier, but I am excited about my mobility now and I am confident I will improve.”


   Walking for the first time after 1993 on Thursday, Seema, a resident of Palampur in Himachal Pradesh, has another regret: that she spent the most productive years of her life in bed struggling with deep dejection when her twin masters degree from Pilani in engineering sciences and information technology could have taken her places.


   Amazingly, when she won the gold medal from her institute, she had already been attacked by the dreadful disease and was on heavy steroids.
   Fortunately for her both the Himachal government and her alumni association have come forward to help her out. She has been granted funds from her native state for replacement of all her joints. “This includes the knees, the hips, the shoulders and the elbows. The delayed treatment had made her case complicated and tough,” said Manoj Wadhwa, orthopaedic surgeon in the private Mohali hospital that is treating her.


   The doctor said there will be a 15-day gap between the other surgeries of hips, shoulders and elbows and Seema would take another six months to recover. But back from the brink, Seema, who teaches math and chemistry to children of her village back home, is ready for the big leap ahead. “Don’t give up on life. That’s what I say,” she says feebly, but determined as doctors usher her to the hospital room which will be her house for the next six months.

 

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/TOI/navigator.asp?Daily=TOICH&login=default&AW=1211818982078

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Software Engineer-to-be at 16!

Posted on July 12, 2008 by admin

Imagine this: a sixteen-year-old schoolboy, with a plum job offer at hand? Hard to believe? It was for us too – till we met Arvind Thiagarajan, an unassuming standard XII lad from DAV Chennai with an impressive title – Bell Labs Scholar 2000. This Chennai lad is one of the 655 Indian students who took the exams conducted by The Lucent Technologies India. Of these only 8 students were selected and all of them were from the South.

Three of these students are from Bangalore, three from Hyderabad and two, from Chennai! (The other lucky chap is Sundeep Venkataraman from PSBB). Arvind has been provisionally offered a post at the Indian offices of Lucent Technologies, where he’ll don the garb of a Software Engineer. He has also been awarded a scholarship of Rs.25,000.

Arvind’s biggest ambition in his life at present is to get inside the IIT. Easy to understand, especially as both his father and uncle have IIT-IIM background. He is the only child and his mother is a homemaker. What attracted Arvind to computers and software at this young age is, in his words, his love for solving problems. And surprisingly, he is no avid web surfer! Anyway, here’s wishing you the very best of luck for a fantastic future, Arvind.

http://chennaionline.com/chennaicitizen/2000/achieve.asp

 

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Inspiring speeches of the 20th century

Posted on July 4, 2008 by admin

Dear Friends,

Click the link below to listen to inspiring speeches by great world leaders.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONhWgq_vqOQ

A.Hari.

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Life after near-death

Posted on June 29, 2008 by admin

Times Review profiles extraordinary people who refused to let life-altering mishaps get them down

MUMBAI    

Earlier this month, a 20-yearold girl showed Mumbai an act of incredible courage. Sneha Kale, on her way home after giving an exam, fell off an overcrowded local train; her right leg, which was crushed under the wheels, had to be amputated immediately. The very next day, the spunky girl went to write her next paper. “And why not?’’ she asks, “I had prepared, and I was confident of doing well.’’

 

Sneha is casual about her decision to not wallow in self-pity. “My parents are the emotional kind,’’ she says. “If I am not brave, they’ll break down. In any case, I need to live and to work. And in order to work, I need to get on with life. It as simple as that.’’
   —Ketan Tanna 

Joginder Singh Saluja, aka Bittoo, has won the Mr India national title in body-building and power-lifting pageants for three consecutive years. The fact that his powerful biceps completely obscure his lifeless lower limbs comes as a reassurance to many that nothing is impossible. 

When he was barely ten months old, Bittoo contracted polio which left both his legs damaged. “I underwent 10 operations till the age of 14, after which I hit the gym,’’ he says. “People made fun of me when I held the dumbbells for the first time. The more they laughed, the more motivated I felt. I can now lift about 150 kg bench-press. Assi ta cheetein haan, kise toh nahi darde (I am as tough as a cheetah. I fear nothing). Just try really hard, and you can get what you want in life,’’ says Bittoo who now wants to set up a gym for the physically handicapped.
   —Neha Pushkarna

 

 

BANGALORE    

Rathi’s spinal cord was ruptured when the wheels of the train ran over her right arm, severing it from her shoulder. And as she lay there unable to move, she saw another train approaching on the same track. “Unable to move, I couldn’t do a thing even as I saw it running over my leg,’’ she says. After the train passed, another train driver shunting an engine spotted her and shifted her to hospital.

“I had just finished writing my income-tax exams then. The doctors had given up hope, and said I would remain bedridden all my life. I don’t know if you can call it a miracle, but a few months after the surgery I actually recovered and began to live like everybody else.’’

   Menon acquired an artificial leg, and switched to using her left hand. Initially it was difficult, but she overcame every difficulty with her sheer grit—she wrote three exams after the accident, topped in all and went on to become inspector of income-tax.
   —Prashant G N

BANGALORE    

 

The day is still etched vividly in the 22-year-old’s memory. “It happened on August 12, 2002,’’ she says. “Rajesh was my neighbour and I had rejected his advances. I was on my way to school when he threw acid on me. It burnt my face, head and chest. I lost my eye and ear in the attack.’’ The expense of Shruti’s surgeries almost crippled her father, a tailor, but they got by with funds from NGOs. She then worked with a bank as a telemarketer for a while but is now looking for a job.

 

Shruthi discontinued her studies because of her medical problems but managed to pass her tenth-standard exam with the help of her parents. “Initially I found it tough and used to be very upset but thanks to my family I have managed to deal with whatever came my way. Now I feel I am normal. All I can say is one should live in the present,’’ she says.
   —Ketan Tanna

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‘You Can Do it Too’ – Secret of Sabeer Bhatiya’s Success

Posted on June 28, 2008 by admin

 

 

Sabeer Bhatiya an ordinary guy from banglore came to Los Angeles eleven years ago, in September 1988. He was 19 at that time and had only $250 in his pocket and knew nobody in America.

Sabeer intended to complete his degrees and go back to India to work with some Large Indian Company as an engineer. Sabeer did his MS in 1993. Sabeer thought that one should be superhuman to start a company and it was an impossible task for him.

But during his graduation in Stanford, he used to spend his lunch hours in the basement of Terman Auditorium. He listened to enterpreneurs like Scott Mc Nealy MBA’80, Steve Wozniak and Marc Andreesen, they all had a common message – “You can do it too.” Sabeer knew that famous people always says so to inspire others.

After completing his graduation Sabeer dropped the idea of going home. He took up a job with Apple Computers and so did Jack Smith, his friend and co-worker.

Sabeer and Jack had a dream to start a company and they were really working hard on it. They wanted to email notes to each other, but they were afraid of being accused by their bosses of spending their working hours on personal projects. They had personal American Online account, but they could not access it from office network. Jack was frustrated by all this problem. And this gave birth to an idea of free e-mail accounts that can be accessed anonymously over the web – HOTMAIL.

In mid-1995, Sabeer began his business plan for a netbased personal database called Javasoft. Javasoft became the front for Hotmail for Jack and Sabeer in December.

Sabeer knew Hotmail was an explosive concept. Sabeer convinced Imperial Bank to loan him $100,00. Then he convinced McLean Public Relations to represent Hotmail in exchange of stock.

In June the product was ready to launch, at that time they had 15 employees working for them. They launched it on July 4, 1996 – Independence Day – as Sabeer and jack thought free email was a great Independent idea and populist tool. Every body who owned a computer had their own email accounts, but with webmail, they could log on from anywhere in the world. The first users found it all by themselves and then it spread like a forest fire. there were 100 in first hour, 200 in second hour and 250 in third hour. the idea was so intuitively powerful that 80% of those who signed up for Hotmail; learned about it from a friend.

In just 2 1/2 years, Sabeer built Hotmail’s user base faster than any media company in history- Faster than CNN, faster than America Online. By summer 1998, with 25 million active e-mail accounts, the company was signing up new users at the rate of 125,000 a day.

On the New year eve,1997 the negotiations with Microsoft was finalised and the ownership of Hotmail was exchanged for 2,769,148 shares of Microsoft worth $400 million. Everbody in the valley was shocked with the dealing. but 8 months after the New Years announcement, microsoft ‘s $400 million price tag looked like a bargain, considering Hotmail had more than tripled in size since it was purchased. Nobody thinks the price was unjust anymore. Sabeer had a 3year commitment (through 200) to head Hotmail for microsoft.

Being the head of the world’s fastest-growing media company, backed with Microsoft’s financial muscles Hotmail’s Juggernaut appears unstoppable. He feels absurd when people call him ‘Powerful Man’ he is just ordinary flesh and blood like anyother man.

He say – “If something is success, it is wildly successful.

http://www.4to40.com/legends/index.asp?id=131

 

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Dreaming big is the key to success

Posted on June 27, 2008 by admin

On June 15, 2008, a fledgling Ahmedabad-based garments and fashion accessories company, Liverpool Retail India Ltd (LRIL) made a splash in the retail space by launching 151 outlets of a new brand ‘Barcelona’ across the country covering 15 states in one day..

Its chairman, 50-year-old Vijaysingh Rathore may well be another retail czar in the making to take on the likes of Future group chairman Kishore Biyani. That’s largely because, like Biyani, Rathore is a man who has unerringly got his finger on the pulse of the consumer.

Recounting his days as a struggling entrepreneur, Rathore recounts how the idea of launching affordable but value-for-money readymade garment stores for the fashion-conscious aam aadmi came to him while visiting a sale in a small town. “I saw how poor quality garments were selling like hot cakes largely because they were at discounted prices. For the rate-conscious lower and lower middle-class consumer, price is a major factor while buying a product. That’s what gave me the idea of trying my hand at selling good quality, readymade garments which would offer value for money at really affordable prices,” he confesses.

What he has also factored in while giving a final shape to his retail dream is the fact that the Indian consumer, apart from being extremely price-conscious, is also a sucker for discounts. “That’s the reason that ours are essentially discount stores which offer hefty discounts for eight to nine months in a year,” reveals Rathore.

An unassuming man from a humble background, Rathore did not learn the fundamentals of launching a business from any fancy B-school. A Masters in Economics from Agra College, Agra, his first job was that of a lowly-paid milk supervisor for Hindustan Lever Ltd in the moffusil town of Etah in Uttar Pradesh way back in 1988. “Even then though I dreamt big. I always wanted to make a name for myself,” reminisces Rathore.

And since Etah was too small and insignificant to accommodate his burgeoning ambitions, Rathore soon left for the country’s entrepreneurial paradise, Ahmedabad, in search of his dreams. But it is not as if he struck gold the minute he landed. The first decade in Ahmedabad too saw him flitting from one insignificant venture to another. “In Ahmedabad,” recalls Rathore, “My first job was again that of a salesman for a stationery marketing company following which I switched over to a small-yarn trading company where I had my first exposure at handling finances as well.”

The job did not last long but what Rathore took with him when he left the company was a friend and partner, Kailash Gupta, who shared his dreams of making it big and with whom he finally created LRIL.

However, Rathore’s first few faltering steps towards carving his own business were doomed for disaster. “Initially, Gupta and I did consultancy work advising small companies on financial activities. Then, in 1995 we started trading and export of medical products and opened offices in Russia and Nigeria.”

The venture folded up shortly leaving Rathore saddled with huge losses. “I learnt a lot from my failure. First, never to get into a business without sufficient knowledge and second, never to base a business model on hearsay, by supposed experts. My venture failed because I had no knowledge of the medical business and the products with which I was dealing—which is why I was misguided,” he confesses candidly.

In 2001, LRIL was incorporated and initially Rathore and Gupta started the garment business by supplying fabric and garments to multi-level marketing companies. Thereafter in 2004, they started working for other branded companies in the areas of networking, location identification and arranging franchises.

The exposure proved invaluable when in 2006, LRIL winged out as an independent retail venture. “By then we had figured out that there was a huge potential in the unorganised garment retail sector. In the country’s Rs 40,000 crore-apparel market, the organised market is just Rs 18,000 crore. Our aim was to tap the remaining Rs 22,000 crore in the unorganised sector,” reveals the LRIL chairman..

The LRIL model is so staggeringly simple that it’s a win-win formula for all concerned. “We saw that the small mom-and- pop apparel shops have limited stocks and a small range of products. That’s largely because they function on small margins and are dependent for supplies on wholesalers and mediators.” LRIL targeted these retailers making them an integral part of its franchise-business model. “We decided to rope in these small retailers as our franchises, outsourced our manufacturing to various locations across the country and evolved the Liverpool brand for the fashion and price conscious customers,” Rathore elaborates.

The franchise model also ensured that overheads required for setting up these outlets were kept down to bare a bare minimum as it did not involve space acquisition by the company itself. But how does he keep a check on the hrs quality of his products with manufacturing being outsourced. “Firstly, we provide the materials used ourselves. Second, we have a central warehouse where everything is scrupulously checked for quality,” Rathore discloses.

In just two years of its existence, LRIL today has a staff strength of 60 employees, 150 labour staff at its godowns and provides indirect employment to about 1,200 people across the country. The company, so far, has 142 Liverpool outlets in many cities and has just launched another 151 outlets under the Barcelona brand catering to the middle and lower-middle segment and also covering the semi-urban population. “That’s because the craze for branded products among the rural population is also huge and this brand will provide them with an easily available and affordable brand.”

On the drawing board are plans for boutique stores for the high-end market of discerning high net-worth customers as are plans of setting up an ultra modern manufacturing unit with a built up area of one lakh square feet at Ahmedabad and also taking the Liverpool brand abroad, all at an estimated cost of over Rs 500 crore. He also plans to foray into other segments of the fashion industry equipping his shops with googles, belts and other fashion accessories. Plans have also been drawn up to to enter the lingerie business. Like the man, his office in a bylane of Ahmedabad is remarkably Spartan. His mantra for success? “Meticulous future planning and anticipating public demand carefully as also studying the market closely,” he says. The company’s turnover has jumped from Rs 35 crore in 2006-07 to Rs 60 crore in 2007-08.

 http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Dreaming-big-is-the-key-to-success/327895/0

 

 

 

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