Volume2 issue 22 for website by Corporate Citizen

CRADLE OF LEADERSHIP Sr. Prof. Ashoke Kumar Sarkar, Director, BITS Pilani Volume 2, Issue No. 22 / Pages 68 / www.corporatecitizen.in

Interview

Rupinder Singh Sodhi, MD, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Federation, on unbeatable Amul

February 1-15, 2017 / `50

Loved & married too

Shehnaz Husein and Anmol Chawla on their journey of mutual belief in spirituality, maturity and love

Dubai Work Culture

Aanchal Rohilla, a noted interior designer on Dubai, her city of dreams

Dynamic Duo: 46 Shivani and Parag Satpute

Life is an Adventure

2 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 67

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Guest Editorial / SK JHA

How ‘pink’ became the new ‘black’

Although demonetisation was brought in with the best of intentions to curb black money, unscrupulous operators and conniving bank officials have succeeded in converting it into a conduit to turn black money into white. Thus, while the common man sweated it in queues before banks, the big fish got away with the loot. Only strong action against the bigger fish will restore confidence and faith

It is quite sometime now since the demonetisation of high value currencies was announced, but the aftershocks have not died down as yet. The long queues at banks are still there. Bank customers either do not, or only get small rationed amounts of cash. The RBI has announced that about six lakh crore worth currencies have already been pumped into the market after demonetisation. But then, where has the released money, which is about 45 per cent of the total demonetised money, gone?

Cornered by a few

The answer is not too far to seek. We see every day that new currencies are being seized in crores of rupees by the Income Tax department and other enforcement agencies since demonetisation. When, with the rationed release of cash, a person could not have more than a lakh of rupees, how is it that some people are in possession of crores of rupees? There are cases of seizure of more than `10 crores in some individual cases. The Income Tax department, Pune, discovered more than `10 crores from the lockers of an American company at a nationalised bank. Most new currencies seized are the pink currencies of `2000 denomination. It is apparent that the newly released money, particularly new `2000 currencies have gone into the black market. The ‘pink’ has become ‘black’ on its very arrival. This much admired pink currency has taken a shortcut to reach the wealthy hoarders instead of following the legal route of bank counters. Demonetisation, in principal, was a good move to eradicate black money, then why is this

happening? Who is to be blamed? This issue has become newspaper headlines and topics of TV debates. The winter session of Parliament remained largely non-functional due to shouts and counter shouts in the well of the two Houses on this issue. Even the honourable Supreme Court has been seized with the matter and now the legality of demonetisation will be decided by the Constitutional Bench of the court. Common men and women from villages to cities are discussing the good and bad aspects of the decision. Some opposition political parties have said that this decision is bad for the country and that it should be revoked immediately, while others have said that its implementation has been too bad though it may be good in principle. On the other hand, the government has repeatedly said that the decision was for the good of the country as it will work to halt increased counterfeit notes and black money in our economy, while also putting a brake on corruption. The government accepted that it will cause short term inconvenience to the people as the proposed change was mammoth, affecting 86 per cent of the existing currency notes. Despite all the inconveniences, people at large had more or less accepted this big change, hoping for a better tomorrow. They believed in the old saying that there is no gain without pain. But our people are now getting angry when they see the big bundles of new currencies being found in the hands of big tax evaders while they are standing in queues for small cash from banks. The anger is genuine, as since demonetisation, cash of `300 crores have been seized

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 3

Guest Editorial / SK JHA

by the Income Tax department, which includes cash of more than `100 crores in new currencies.

accounts in the names of non existing entities or in the names of shell companies for a peaceful travel of dead black money to being reborn.

Sabotaged by racketeers

We see innovative methods adopted by the hoarders of old demonetised, and now, new high value currencies. We also see some corrupt market operators and bank officers involved in the racket of taking out the money from the system for a commission. The money unscrupulously going out of the system becomes black money instantly. The old black money is getting replaced by the new black money. Before I go to elaborate, I must say that a very good move by the government is being sabotaged by some black sheep amongst us. Let us see this with some of the search and seizure instances, which have surfaced in the media after demonetisation.

Surrogate accounts

The country is witnessing many of our citizens pulling out rabbits from their hats. It is said that innovation distinguishes leaders from followers. But sadly, the innovations seen these days are for giving life to dead money by big tax evaders and hoarders of back money. The commonly followed technique is to hunt for surrogate bank accounts like surrogate wombs hunted by couples when they cannot give birth to babies on their own. The magic here lies in discovering large number of poor cousins, poor abandoned friends and even their employees. Some go to poor villagers and urban slum dwellers, who recently got their Jan Dhan Yojana bank accounts and had not, used their accounts, to deposit their ill gotten money. People who hesitated earlier to even give a coin to our poor brethren now have full trust in them, as they want them to deposit lakhs of rupees in their accounts. The more the merrier, as lakhs deposited in this manner in many accounts gave birth or is likely to give birth to crores of new money. To illustrate this technique, I cite the case of a recent Income Tax raid against an engineering college where it was detected that the owner of the college had deposited `2 lakhs each in the bank accounts of its 400 employees. This was how he had tried to get back his `8 crores of dead money, as the government had announced the policy that moderate deposits up to 2.50 lakhs would not be questioned by the tax department. Instances have surfaced where big deposits of crores of rupees have been made in bank accounts of poor people.

Rebirth through shell companies

In a similar manner, huge amounts of dead currency have been seen being deposited in the accounts of shell companies with the connivance of some of our banker friends, and immediately after such deposits, these amounts have been transferred to multiple accounts and finally to the real owner. This way, the dead money, through multiple banking transactions, has become available once again to the real owner. One leading private bank was seen as opening many fictitious bank 4 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

Gold biscuits at a premium

Another gimmick being used is hunting big value item traders who have big cash turnovers like bullion traders and jewellers. These traders did huge business during the night of demonetisation and in the initial few days by selling gold biscuits at a high premium against the demonetised currencies. The cash thus generated was deposited in their current accounts and thereafter the money was transferred to various other bank accounts so as to avoid the action of possible seizure of such money by the department. For illustration, the case of big bullion traders of Mumbai has come to light where they are said to have kept trading for the whole of the demonetisation night and cash deposited in Mumbai bank accounts was transferred to some bank account in Noida. The amount so far detected is about `60 crores. For some time after the demonetisation announcement, people were allowed to change their old currencies up to `4,000 and `2,000 by going to any bank. It has come to notice that mules were used in large numbers who visited different banks and made black money white for their masters. The good policy to help common people was misused by some cash hoarders this way.

‘Whitened’ via air tickets

In a similar mode, the policy of buying air tickets for some period against demonetised currency was misutilised. Some people bought costly business-class air tickets against dead currency and sought new currency against cancellation of their purchased tickets. This was a deliberate attempt to transform old notes into new notes, as at the very outset, travel was never intended.

Bankmen’s collusion

corruption and also to eradicate black money from the system, but we see that both the evils continue to exist.

Catch the culprits

Many tricks were seen but the thing which really hurts is the transfer of new currency in banks with the collusion of some corrupt bank officials. Income tax raids against a mining baron who is also a trustee of a famous religious trust has resulted in the seizure of `134 crores of cash and 77 kg of gold, which included new currencies worth `34 crores. How he got the new currencies of `34 crores is being investigated by the ED, CBI and Income Tax department as normally be could not have got more than `1 lakh officially from the normal banking route. In this connection a top civil servant has been raided along with his relatives and new currency of `30 lakhs and also five kg of gold was seized. In pure and simple words, the new currencies found and seized amount to theft from banks, facilitated by some insiders, for rich and powerful people. Similar seizures have been made from Bengaluru, where seizure of new currencies valuing `6 crores was made from a government engineer connected with road construction work. In one case in Bengaluru, new currency notes of more than `5 crores was found from behind bathroom tiles. There was another piece of news again from Bengaluru, wherein the driver of a state government department officer who committed suicide stated in his suicide note that his employer had indulged in money laundering for a mining baron. This goes to indicate that there are some market operators who work as money launderers in collusion with bank officers and even RBI officers. The officers who have come in the news for their wrong doings have been arrested. Such cases are many and multiplying every day. It appears that the government and RBI failed to visualise such large scale swindling of new currency. This defeats the purpose of demonetisation to a large extent. Demonetisation was done to stem the cancer of

Ruthless and exemplary punishment should be given to the culprits in a short span of time. People should see that the culprits are caught and punished. One very big precaution which needs to be taken is that common people are not harassed. It should be our effort to catch the big fish, as that will give us back good tax and penaltyâ&#x20AC;?

The demonetisation battle can still be won by the government by taking some more measures. With the help of intelligence gathering departments and supported by Income Tax, ED and CBI, it must identify those bank accounts where substantial old notes were deposited after November 8, 2016 till December 30, 2016 and immediately act to prohibit the withdrawal of money from these accounts. There is a provision in the Income Tax Act U/S 132 (3) for doing that for which warrants u/s 132 (1) have to be issued to begin with. The money can be seized from the bank accounts if the same is not explained in a brief time frame, of say one month. The investigation wing of the Income Tax department will be the designated authority for doing that. There are also provisions in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by which cash credited to the bank accounts can be prohibited and seized. The accused person doing illegal deposits under PMLA can be arrested as well. The provision of the Prohibition of Benami Property Act which is now effective from November 1, 2016 may also be considered, where money has been deposited in the bank accounts of others. The provision of arrest is also there under this Act along with the seizure and confiscation of deposited amount. In the case of transfer of money to the ultimate beneficiary through banking transactions, both the transferor and the transferee should be identified and booked. Tax and penalty together will eat away 85 per cent of the fund deposited, and the concerned persons should be arrested under provisions of different Acts, whichever are applicable on the facts of the case. Ruthless and exemplary punishment should be given to the culprits in a short span of time. People should see that the culprits are caught and punished. One very big precaution which needs to be taken is that small mistakes should be ignored and common people are not harassed. It should be our effort to catch the big fish, as that will give us back good tax and penalty. Big cash illegally taken away from banks will come back. There should be a message that illegality has zero tolerance but at the same time care should be taken that there is no emergence of inspector raj for common citizens. Market operators and corrupt bank officials should be taken to task to the logical end. Harsh measures against the culprits in a short span of time will work as the catalytic agent for the success of the new amnesty scheme in the form of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana. Our carrot will be more juicy when our stick is real hard. Our common citizens will be happier seeing the people who had stolen their share of money from the banks and making them stand in queues for a longer duration, going to jails. (S K Jha, IRS (retd) is former Chief Commissioner of Income Tax) February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 5

Contents 34

Cover story

Dynamic Duo 46

Life is an Adventure In conversation with Parag Satpute, Managing Director and Country Manager at Sandvik Asia Pvt Ltd and his wife, Shivani on his corporate success, their love story and the secret of their remarkably successful marriage

09 COLLYWOOD

Chatpata Chatter from the corporate world 14 WAX ELOQUENT What our corporate leaders say about recent trends and their experiences in the business world 16 TOP POSITION Rupinder Singh Sodhi, MD, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Federation, on unbeatable Amul 6 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

Volume 2 Issue No. 22 February 1-15, 2017 www.corporatecitizen.in

22 All aboard abroad! Aanchal Rohilla, a noted interior designer on Dubai, the city of dreams 24 Cradle of Leadership Prof. Ashoke Kumar Sarkar Senior Professor & Director, Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani, Rajasthan on what makes BITS Pilani the renowned deemed university that it is today

33 MANAGE MONEY

Evaluating the financial health of an organisation by reading the Funds-Flow Statement 42 Celebrations Brig (retd) M L Bhambani, Advisor, Sri Balaji Society and his charming wife, Madhu, celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in style

44 Interview Deepak Chawla, Head, HR, Reliance says qualities like innovation, adaptability, agility, trustworthiness and consistency in delivering are timeless 47 mobile apps Corporate Citizen brings the most innovative products at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2017, held in Las Vegas 48 CAMPUS PLACEMENT Harshika Phatak shares her experience of campus placement with Corporate Citizen 50 LOVED & MARRIED TOO Software engineer Anmol Chawla and journalist Shehnaz Husein on their remarkable journey together

56 February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 7

Editor-In-Chief Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian Consulting Editor Vinita Deshmukh

58 PEARLS OF WISDOM Dada J P Vaswani on how we waste time blindly as a cheap commodity without realising the value of human life

Writers Delhi Bureau Pradeep Mathur / Sharmila Chand Bengaluru Bureau Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar Pune Bureau Suchismita Pai / Kalyani Sardesai / Namrata Gulati Sapra

Manager Circulation Mansha Viradia +91 9765387072 North : Hemant Gupta +91 9582210930 South : Asaithambi G +91 9941555389 Circulation Officer Jaywant Patil +91 9923202560

60 BOLLYWOOD BIZ Corporate Citizen brings you Bollywood actors who became successful authors 62 LAST WORD Ganesh Natarajan analyses the life and work of Mahinder Singh Dhoni, a legend of our times

Senior Business Writer Rajesh Rao Senior Sub-Editors Neeraj Varty

52 SURVEY Survey by Boston Global Consulting (BCG) chronicling the progress of Indian industry over the turn of the century and forward 56 health Fashion designer Sheetu Gochwal Digani in conversation about her extraordinary will and determination to be fit

Assistant Editor Prasannakumar Keskar

Creative Direction Kiyan Gupta, The Purple Stroke Graphic Designer Shantanu Relekar

Be A Corporate Citizen

How do you like this issue of Corporate Citizen - The Cool Side of Business? Send in your views, news, suggestions and contributions to corporatecitizenwriters@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you! 8 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

On Cover Page Shivani and Parag Satpute Cover Page Pic Ahmed Sheikh Photographers Yusuf Khan Website / Online Subscription www.corporatecitizen.in For Advertising, Marketing & Subscription queries Email: circulations@corporatecitizen.in (Corporate Citizen does not accept responsibility for returning unsolicited manuscripts and photographs. All unsolicited material should be accompanied by self-addressed envelopes and sufficient postage) Tel. (020) 69000677 / 69000672

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People in the news Jio brings Pokemon GO

Qimpro award for Baba Kalyani

he prestigious Qimpro Platinum Standard 2016 Business Award was bagged by Baba N Kalyani, Chairman & Managing Director, Bharat Forge. This prestigious award is in recognition of being an inspiration for the business community in India and overseas, and for being a National Statesperson for Excellence for Quality in Business. The award was conferred on Baba Kalyani at the hands of N Chandrasekaran, CEO & Managing Director, Tata Consultancy Services, at a function held in Mumbai recently. The recipients of the awards are selected by three eminent panels of judges, each chaired by the Qimpro Platinum Standards winners of the previous year. Recognised as the country’s premier quality citation, the Qimpro Award

was conceptualised in 1989 by J M Juran, the Quality guru, to recognise individual excellence in quality management. Notable winners of this prestigious award from the past include Ratan Tata, Kumarmangalam Birla, Milind V Kirtane, Anand Ma-

RBI elevates Surekha Marandi as executive director In yet another reshuffling in the apex bank of the country, the Reserve Bank appointed Surekha Marandi as executive director and will look after financial inclusion along with other departments. The holder of master’s degree from Jadavpur University will replace U S Paliwal, who retired. Marandi will look after consumer education and protection de-

hindra, Azim Premji, Narayana Murthy, Dr S S Badrinath, R A Mashelkar, J J Irani, Devi Prasad Shetty, Adi Godrej, Prof Mukti Mishra, Deepak Parekh, E Sreedharan, F C Kohli, Abhay & Rani Bang and Prof Aditya Shastri, to name a few. partment, financial inclusion and development department and secretary’s department, according to the statement issued by the RBI. Prior to being promoted as ED, Marandi was principal chief general manager and chief vigilance officer in the Reserve Bank. Marandi has over a span of three decades served in regulatory and supervisory, financial inclusion and development and human resource management areas in the RBI.

Indian gamers are delighted by Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (“Jio”) bringing the sought-after, first-of-itskind, Augmented Reality game ‘Pokémon GO’ to India in a partnership with Niantic, Inc., publisher and developer of Pokémon GO in association with The Pokémon Company. With this partnership, thousands of Reliance Digital Stores and select partner premises in India will appear as ‘PokéStops’ or ‘Gyms’ in the Pokémon GO game. This launch is in line with Jio’s mission to empower Indians with opportunities that are fuelled by the power of data and a Digital Life and to delight them on an ongoing basis with entertainmentbased apps, such as ‘Pokémon GO,’ the leading app in the gaming category. The Pokémon Go Channel will enable Pokémon Go players to collaborate and be part of an exciting community of players with daily tips, contests, clues, and special events. The Pokémon Go Channel on JioChat is a fun way to socialise with other players and level-up faster.

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 9

collywood IBM India names Karan Bajwa as MD

Karan Bajwa of IBM of its India operations has been appointed as the Managing Director of the technology giant. He succeeds Vanitha Narayana, who has been elevated as chairman of IBM India. Bajwa joined IBM last year as executive for strategy and transformation in the Asia—Pacific region. Previously, he was Microsoft India’s managing director. He was associated with IBM’s networking business and was based in Singapore from 2001-05. Reacting to the elevation in the company for which he has been associated for over a decade, he said that it was a great opportunity ahead for IBM in this market. “I look forward to partnering with the industry, our ecosystem and the IBM team to further strengthen our business in the region,” he said of the company’s foresight in the years to come. He will be responsible for all strategic and operational matters related to IBM’s sales, marketing, services and delivery operations in the India/South Asia region, including Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

GST roll-out likely in June Goods and Service Tax roll-out is likely to be delayed by two or three months, according to reliable sources. The government is yet to lock down a date, but is likely to settle for either 1 June or 1 July 2017. Expectations are that the GST legislation will be introduced in the first half of the budget session and the government will seek to get it passed after the recess. While the new dates would delay the roll-out, they are also well within the mandatory deadline of September, 2017 after which the central and state governments will lose powers to levy any indirect taxes other than GST. Differences between the centre and the states, especially over the sharing of powers, has delayed the final approval for supporting legislations for GST, a tax reform which will for the first time bind the country into a common market. States like Kerala and West Bengal had sought a delay in the implementation of the tax, arguing that state finances cannot withstand the double whammy of demonetisation and GST.

TCS tops healthcare payer IT Services list again Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organisation, is the leader and star performer for Healthcare Payer IT Services for the second year running, according to research conducted by the Everest Group. TCS is recognised for its market success, scale and strong technology capability characterised by a broad range of domain solutions in the Payer space. Everest Group also cited TCS’ big strides in weaving credible integrated operations into the Payer landscape over the last year to further strengthen its position as a leader. The research was done among the 22 service

10 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

providers on the Everest Group’s Performance, Experience, Ability, Knowledge (PEAK) matrix in the Global Healthcare Payer sector. “Health plan fundamental business models are under increasing pressure due to value-dilutive new/existing lines of business, evolving regulations, and a broader consumerisation of healthcare,” said Abhishek Singh, Practice Director, Everest Group. TCS has emerged as a credible partner for buyers looking to inject operational efficiency and aid cost takeout through an integrated services approach that combines aspects of technology and business processes.

Acharya, new young honcho at RBI Pichai’s initiatives for Indian SMEs

India-born Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced initiatives for Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as part of the tech giant’s efforts to bring more businesses online in the country. “Small and medium businesses are the backbone of the Indian economy and are powering the next wave of the country’s growth. At Google, we are excited about partnering with businesses to help them unlock exponential growth through the power of the digital,” Pichai said at his alma mater, IIT Kharagpur, recently. Google has been aggressively focusing on the Indian market over the last few years. With products like Google for Business and a new Cloud region, the company is betting big on tapping into the multi-million dollar opportunity in India. Its products compete with those from the stables of global giants like Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.

Viral Acharya, known as a cricketer, singer and poet with a music album to his credit, takes over as the new deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in charge of monetary policy. ‘Poor man’s Rajan’, Acharya, has seen the newfound stardom and fanfare accompanying the days of Raghuram Rajan, former RBI governor, who was often called the ‘rock star’ governor of Mint Street. However, this youngest deputy governor of RBI, Acharya (42) has the task cut out for him as many are of the opinion that there is a trial by fire awaiting him. Acharya is entering the RBI at a time when the economy is fighting a self-imposed demonetisation crisis and the central bank itself is fighting a major trust deficit and credibility crisis, due to the way it handled the Modi government’s demonetisation decision. He needs to hit the ground running, making the RBI’s voice heard in the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) on the course of interest rates in a challenging economic scenario. But since there is already an MPC with experts in place, his task wouldn’t be too tough as in the old days when the monetary policy was solely the central bank’s responsibility. However, there is likely to be pressure from the ruling political dispensation for steeper rate cuts in the backdrop of a sharp decline in economic growth due to the demonetisation-induced cash crunch.

Anshu Jain joins Cantor Fitzgerald

Anshu Jain is making a comeback in the world of finance as an investment banker, as Cantor Fitzgerald LP, the New

York-based financial services company has appointed Jain as president—a newly created role. The former Deutsche Bank bigwig, Jain will be the second-in-command. Chairman and CEO Howard Lutnick said Jain will help expand Cantor Fitzgerald’s business in Asia, among other markets. Jain’s appointment came even as he faced flak from global media who saw him as a force behind Deutsche Bank’s appetite for risk. Cantor Fitzgerald was struck by tragedy when it lost 658 of its 960 employees in the 9/11 attack.

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 11

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Abraaj frontrunner to buy Medall Healthcare

M3M India ropes in Surajit Banerjee as president-HR NCR (National Capital Region)-based real estate company M3M India has brought in Surajit Banerjee as president HR. Earlier he was senior V-P HR at DLF. Banerjee worked with SpiceJet, Max Healthcare, Hindustan Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser and Airtel before that. After passing out from XLRI, Banerjee joined Hindustan Unilever (then Hindustan Lever) as factory personnel manager and led the HR function in several operating units. He was with the Oberoi group as director HR between 1995 and 1998. Later, he moved to the FMCG company Reckitt Benckiser as GM employee relations. After serving a stint as VP-HR at Bharti Airtel, he joined the aviation

industry as V-P, HR at SpiceJet. Banerjee’s role at M3M includes encouraging progressive ‘people practices’ and creating a ‘hi-performing’ talent pool. He also plans to initiate organisational development through strategic people practices, build organisational capability around a competency framework, performance management and functional job analysis to serve business goals. Banerjee says in an official communique, “With expanding footprints across the realty sector and a workplace brimming with young and dynamic talent, the organisation presents newer and challenging opportunities almost

every day. It is an invigorating experience managing such an energetic workforce and developing organisational practices through relentless pursuit of business excellence.” M3M India has 11 residential and seven commercial projects at different stages of development. It recently awarded `350 crore contracts to three construction firms, including Tata Projects, for development of four residential and commercial projects in Gurgaon.

Anil Jalali, new CHRO of Capgemini India Capgemini has roped in Anil Jalali, former executive director-HR of IBM India, as its head-HR for India operations. He will be named chief human resource officer, Capgemini India. Jalani had quit IBM, where he was heading HR for India and South Asia operations in November 2016. Jalali’s predecessor, BL Narayan, has been given a business role as head of solutions & sales support in Capgemini’s Business Services strategic business unit. Capgemini employs more than 180,000 professionals across 40 countries, of which, 100,000 people are out of India. Jalali brings in experience of more than two decades of handling a diverse portfolio including talent management, leadership development, employee engagement, compensation & benefits (C&B), careers and recruitment. He has successfully led various companies during transformational changes. A ’95-batch pass out from XLRI, 12 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

Jalani began his career with the RPG group, where he played a key role in setting up the HR function for a telecom JV of RPG-Vodafone, in addition to other assignments. Five years later, he moved to Wipro, where he spent around seven years with growth path from manager-HR to the level of head–compensation & benefits. He joined IBM as director - total compensation, India and South Asia, in 2007, and had a decade-long stint there.

Chennai-based Medall Healthcare is all set to go abroad if reports are to be believed, as a Dubai investor Abraaj has emerged frontrunner to acquire this India’s diagnostics chain and radiology services provider. The deal is valued at about `1,600 crore, according to reliable sources. Global long-term risk investors have revved up action in the rapidly evolving diagnostics industry in Asia’s third largest economy buoyed by health insurance and improving healthcare facilities. Medall has presence in over 70 centres across southern cities besides operating a slew of public-private healthcare partnerships, including a hugely successful outsourcing deal from the Andhra Pradesh government. Abraaj is holding advanced discussions to acquire the principal shareholder Peepul Capital, an Indian private equity investor that owns 80% in Medall. In 2009, Peepul partnered with serial entrepreneur Raju Venkatraman to acquire Medall, which was earlier known as Precision Diagnostics. This is not the first time Abraaj is making its presence in India, as last year they acquired Hyderabad-based Care Hospitals for around `2,000 crore marking the first acquisition of an Indian business by a Middle East investor. However, people concerned in Abraaj are silent about the whole development. Compiled by Joe Williams joe78662@gmail.com

feedback

Lovely read and apt content for target segment

Eye opening editorial

Each issue of Corporate Citizen always conveys inspiring news to a regular reader like me. When I read it, I find the world is full of resourcefulness and motivates us to live in this world with confidence. The Guest Editorial by Anil Bokil is an eye-opener about how the disease of black money can be wiped out. However, I am not sure how there can be cashless transactions all over the country particularly in rural areas and also where 40% of our population is still illiterate. Even in the USA, cashless transactions are over 50% and yet I will support the scheme launched by Anil Bokil. My best wishes to the Corporate Citizen team. —Dr. P. C. Shejwalkar

There is room for surprise

I never knew that corporate people have experiences to share and knowledge to give. Most of the business magazines are drab compared with the more exciting glossy and filmy magazines. But truly Corporate Citizen is miles away from what is usually hanging on the news stands. My insatiable curiosity made me pick and explore the magazine and found that there is room for surprise. I see momentum while reading the pages and it satisfies my need for logic and order. Boredom is easy to recognise in business or the beat magazines, though it’s a perception, but it seems your magazine refuses to acknowledge it and has come out with most effective tactic—pepping up the dull. —Aarti Dutt, Sales Executive

Corporate guidance with a spiritual boost

Being a spiritual person, I happen to like

Refreshingly different and unique

CRADLE OF LEADERSHIP MEGHNA GHAI PURI, PRESIDENT, WHISTLING WOODS INTERNATIONAL

In its issue dated November 1630, 2016, Corporate Citizen has Loved and CII Conference Married too encapsulated ninety five combined (hu)man years of the working life Interview of Vijaya Mohanram and me, not any easy task! My wife and I are very different. She is measured, I am impulsive. She is calm, I am impatient. She is careful, I enjoy risk taking. We could manage our challenging careers, bring up the children and maintain a happy DYNAMIC DUO: 41 household, mainly due to our mutual respect for each other. The key has been conflict management, rather than conflict avoidance! We were blessed with the services of two wonderful lady housekeepers (a luxury not available to today’s couples) during the crucial 20 years from 1969 to 1989. They took total care of the kitchen and ran our household. We owe them an immeasurable debt of gratitude. I have read with pleasure the accounts of many wonderful couples in your magazine. I appreciate your focus on the personal lives and challenges faced at the home front faced by executives instead of just concentrating on workspace and office challenges. Corporate Citizen is refreshingly different and unique. Keep up the great work. I would like to make a clarification though. On page 30, it was mentioned, “I then joined TVS Suzuki Limited (now TVS Motor Company Limited) in 1989 which was under the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR).” The line should be, “I then joined TVS Suzuki Limited (now TVS Motor Company Limited) in 1989 which was on the verge of being declared as potentially sick, by Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR)”. No company of the respected TVS group has ever faced the indignity of being under BIFR. —Captain N S Mohan Ram (retd) Volume 2, Issue No. 17 / Pages 68 / www.corporatecitizen.in

Experts speak on the future of automotive design and the designs empowering the future

Burzeen Vakil, Marketing Head, Red Hat (India) on how every employee ought to strive

CAP TN

For Santosh and Khushboo, the passion for engineering social change keeps them going

November 16-30, 2016 / `50

HAN RA MO M

D) ET (R

This was the first time that I have actually known about the Corporate Citizen magazine and I must say it is a lovely read. There is nice coverage of many aspects of life mostly led by a corporate individual. The name of the magazine and content are very apt considering the target segment. I was also very pleased with the article presented in Star Campus Placement on my placement journey and thanks a lot for covering it. This feature is something, which the students in various B-schools will be looking forward to. Your magazine has something for everyone and that is what I loved about it. —Sayantan Banerjee, Corporate Trainee, ABP Pvt Ltd

Golden Partnership Vijaya and Capt N S Mohan Ram (retd)

articles under the title ‘Pearls of Wisdom’, which are written by various spiritual gurus. It helps me to understand myself and the world better. It always gives a positive boost and increases positive energy in me. Also, to add to it, will it be possible for an article on the teachings of Swami Vivekananda for ‘Pearls of Wisdom’? I also admire `Dynamic Duo’ articles, as they share their journey on how they overcame difficulties and became renowned and respected corporate leaders. I am a businessman, so I read them indepth and always look forward to learning something new from every story. I admire the efforts taken by the CC team in writing the stories, which are always indepth. —Unmesh Sardesai, Export consultant

We look forward to your feedback We, at Corporate Citizen, believe that information should not be a one way street. Your opinion and views about this issue are most welcome. Your ideas and some new thoughts you may have, to enhance the content quality of our magazine, is most welcome. We rely on you to keep Corporate Citizen, on the positive and cool note, through your interaction on this page—just as you trust us with the content that we bring you, every fortnight. Mail us your views on: corporatecitizenwriters@gmail.com

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 13

wax eloquent

Change to stay relevant

Take a look at what our corporate leaders have to say about recent trends and their experiences in the business world

Surviving the uncertain future

India’s internet story is inspiring

“India’s internet story is inspiring. We’ve learnt that when we solve for a place like India, we solve for everyone around the world.” Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google

Courtesy: http://www.business-standard. com/

“At a time when the world around us seems ever more influenced by the baser instincts and tendencies, we must bring the best of our imagination, our knowledge and our conviction, to all that we do.” Vishal Sikka, CEO, Infosys, Courtesy: Mint

India can quickly accelerate to 5G “India can quickly accelerate to 5G, and the capabilities of 5G is so eloquently aligned with the Prime Minister’s Digital India vision in that it’s going to be the fabric that drives concepts such as Smart Cities, autonomous navigation, and the ability to distribute data in a manner which allows new use cases and applications to be performed.”

Venkata Murthy Renduchintala, president of client and internet of things (IoT) businesses and systems architecture, Intel Courtesy: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Formalisation of the economy

Change Leaders

“Some brands are change leaders, some are change followers, some are change laggards and some don’t change and die. I see Paytm continue to change and be relevant for a long time.”

“Demonetisation has triggered the process of greater formalisation of the economy. For the first time since independence, those who profit from black-economy transactions are on the run. This is already doing wonders to boost the morale of the vast majority of the nation’s citizens who transacted honestly but got the raw end of the deal till now.” Arvind Panagariya, vice-chairman, NITI Aayog Courtesy: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Women are heroic and incredible

Vijay Shekhar Sharma,

“All working mothers struggle, regardless of whether in entertainment or not, to manage keeping afloat at work, while also making sure their children’s needs are fulfilled. Women are heroic and incredible.”

Courtesy: Economic Times

Courtesy: http://www.newindianexpress.com/

CEO, Paytm

14 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

Anoushka Shankar, sitar player and composer

True move to digital

“Whether it is a true move to digital or whether it will come back to cash again that is something that we will be able to understand only in six month time or only a few months after all restrictions go.” Arundhati Bhattacharya,

chairman, State Bank of India Courtesy: Indian Express

Jugaad unacceptable in 2017

“Now that India has moved to a less-cash society, digital payments are playing a very important role. And the whole concept of “let’s launch, figure out and roll back” or jugaad is going to be unacceptable in 2017. It’s about how we solve a national agenda like a less-cash society, by working in sync with others rather than disrupting everybody else.”

Will local money overtake FII money

Measures to facilitate ease of doing business

“Everything should be done electronically. We have to move towards a system where no individuals should be involved in the process of giving permissions. If you have met all the regulations, you should get it automatically.”

“I always had the feeling that the local money will overtake the Foreign Institutional Investor (FII) money and that is slowly starting now. So, I am sure that local money will come.” Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, partner, Rare Enterprise Courtesy: Economic Times

Jamshyd Godrej, chairman, Godrej & Boyce Courtesy: Economic Times

Anish Williams,

co-founder and CEO, Transerve Courtesy: Business Standard

Focus on research-backed startups “If you want a research idea to benefit the society, you have to wrap it around a business. It has to go through a chain: research, which creates a new technology, which is converted into a product and taken to the common man. But not every business will go through this process because not every startup begins with a research idea.” Senapathy Gopalakrishnan, former CEO, Infosys Courtesy: Economic Times

Demonetisation a major change if it works

Money and wealth has not vanished

“While cash may no longer be the King, it doesn’t mean that money and wealth has vanished. It is only the channels money goes through that will change: wallets will turn into e-wallets; cards will take over currency notes.” Abhijit Bhave,

CEO, Karvy Private Wealth

Courtesy:http://www.business-standard. com/

“Demonetisation is perhaps the most radical policy I have ever seen being put to practice. It is interesting and inspiring to see how the Indian government is dealing with it, continuously incorporating feedback and public responses. I am watching the entire process with great fascination and it would be a major change for the Indian system if it works.” Harinder Sidhu,

Australia’s High Commissioner to India Courtesy: https://www.thequint.com

Data centre opportunity in India “In the long term, there would be a need for global players to partner with local players to deliver data centre and cloud services to local customers. We would see the interest and presence of major players as a validation of the data centre opportunity in India.” Mahesh Vaidya,

general partner and head of India, Epsilon Ventures Partners Courtesy: Business Standard

Universe is like the IT Department

“It’s my money whether it comes from films, my clothing lines, jewellery range, whatever. And I’d rather see it goes into healthcare and education than my pocket. I’m paying rent for my time on earth. The universe is like the IT Department. It can raid you anytime. Before that happens, I’m paying my taxes.” Salman Khan, actor

Courtesy: http://www.hindustantimes.com/

Compiled by Rajesh Rao rajeshrao.rao@gmail.com

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 15

TOP POSITION

Debonair

Doodhwala

We all know Amul is India’s best food brand that stands for quality, but not many know what it takes to be the best. Rupinder Singh Sodhi, Managing Director of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Federation, which sells dairy products under the Amul brand reveals why, in spite of all odds, Amul is a leader of India’s dairy industry. Corporate Citizen brings you excerpts from his recent talk in Delhi that offers valuable marketing lessons and insights into India’s journey from a milk-deficit nation to the world’s largest milk producer By Pradeep Mathur

man with a mission, Rupinder Singh Sodhi loves to call himself a doodhwala (milkman). He is a very humble product of the first batch of Gujarat’s prestigious Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) and is still in his first job! Beginning his career as Senior Executive (Sales) at Amul’s corporate headquarters at Anand, he hasn’t moved anywhere in the last 35 years. He heads India’s largest food products marketing organisation with an annual (2014-15) turnover of over $3.4 billion. Soaring through the ranks of Amul, he went up the ladder by working on various positions in the Sales, Marketing, Commercial, Purchase and such other departments. He is one of the few who have had the opportunity to work directly under the Late Dr Verghese Kurien who established the Amul cooperative and is better known as the Father of the

16 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

White Revolution in India for his Operation Flood, which made India world’s largest milk producer. Having learnt how to run the world’s greatest agricultural dairy development programme from the Master himself, Sodhi continues with the DNA instilled within Amul cooperative movement that believes in giving millions of dairy farmers of Gujarat the best price for their milk, while also ensuring the value for money to its committed consumers. Till 2010, Sodhi was procuring milk only from Gujarat’s farmers and selling products all over India. But his operations have lately extended to many other states including Rajasthan, Haryana, UP, West Bengal, Maharashtra, MP and most recently, Punjab. Now almost 20% milk comes from outside Gujarat. No wonder, his love, passion and drive to constantly improve these operations reflect in abundance when he talks about the basic ideas and beliefs that propelled this cooperative movement, wherein three fourths of the price you pay for Amul’s products goes directly to the farmers who own it.

On the other side of the supply-chain are the consumers who also have trusted this brand because weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been giving them pure and tasty products for the last 70 years. Food products have to be tasty and made from best technology and unarguably, Amul has, the most scientificallyadvanced technology" February February1-15, 1-15,2017 2017/ / Corporate CorporateCitizen Citizen / / 17 17

TOP POSITION Two faces of Amul

No doubt, Amul is an iconic and ageless brand but you’re aware of only one face of Amul and if I’ve to describe it in today’s business language, it’s what you call C to C which means Cow to Consumer. So, its second face is that of our 3.6 million farmers, Amul brand is their only source of livelihood and women’s empowerment because 82% of them are landless or small and marginal farmers. So, if we’re growing and recognised as the most popular food brand today, it’s all because, their trust and faith in this brand is intact for the last nearly 70 years. On the other side of the supply-chain are the consumers who also have trusted this brand because we’ve been giving them pure and tasty products for the last 70 years. Food products have to be tasty and made from best technology and unarguably, Amul has, the most scientifically-advanced technology that helps it deliver value for money to its consumers.

of milk. Angered by this extremely unfair trade practice, the dairy farmers of Kaira village in Gujarat approached Sardar Vallabhai Patel and he clearly told them: “If you want the best price for your milk, you should form cooperatives and not only produce milk but also process and market it. If you could market it yourself, then only you can get maximum share of the consumer market.” So, the original inspiration for Amul came from none else but Sardar Patel who also gave

markets. In 1949, Patel sent Dr Kurien to look after its affairs. Seeing Patel’s efforts and the farmer’s trust in him, Dr Kurien felt inspired and dedicated himself to establishing the Amul Co-operative Dairy. Soon, we started using western technology and gradually began introducing more and more products as the times and needs demanded.

them the business strategy - supply milk directly to the Bombay Milk Supply Scheme instead of giving it to Polson who did the same but gave very low prices to the Gujarat farmers.

brand having a worth of around `33,000 crores. From just 250 litres in 1946, we’re now collecting 220 lakh litres of milk per day from 3.6 million farmers and 82% of them live below the poverty line. Mind you, it’s not owned by any individual or government. It’s owned by these 3.6 million farmers of Gujarat and their hard work is what really works for this brand. And, that’s an inspiring tale for everyone.

Present status

Today, 68 years later, Amul is India’s biggest

Kurien’s marketing mantra

Dr Verghese Kurien, our founder-chairman used to say: “Marketing is not for business but for the development of the most under privileged of our society.” So, our marketing strategy is not aimed at business only but Amul is a tool for empowering the poorest of the poor farmers. Kurien also advised us not to underestimate the intelligence of our consumers. So, you’ve to see the positioning of brand Amul in that context.

India’s rank in milk production

Many people know that with 150 million tonnes annually, India is world’s largest producer of milk today and accounts for 18.5% of world production, but not many know that we’re also the world’s largest consumers! Fortunately, the world’s biggest market of milk and milk products exists in India only and it’s growing at a much faster pace than the world market. So, we’re very fortunate that we’ve a product which will keep growing and will be there for as long as there are human beings who have got stomachs. There is some more data: World’s milk production is around 800 million tonnes, and the organised sector accounts for only 20%, thus the remaining 80% of milk is still used in the unorganised sector. So, there is enough scope for everybody to grow in this market. But India’s situation was not so, about 60 years back. We were importing dairy products like other countries around us—Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the rest. While we’ve become the largest producer of milk, they’re still milk-deficit and importing.

Amul’s original inspiration

In fact, during mid-1940s, there used to be huge exploitation of marginal milk farmers by the British agents of the only existing dairy, the Polson Dairy, who would arbitrarily decide the price

Formation of cooperative

So, from that day in 1946, with just 250 litres of milk and two small village cooperative societies, operations started. Milk collection was decentralised and cooperatives were formed for each village. The biggest triumph was that we could get access to the Bombay’s milk-deficit market. We got the contract from the British Army in 1946 and continued with that. Milk was transported through railways to Bombay and then for other

18 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

Happy contradictions

Now, if you look closely into this strategy, it’s diagonally opposite to the business strategy of any other corporate house in India

and the world. CEO of any corporate house will like to buy the raw material at as low price as possible but would like to sell the finished products at as high price as possible in order to earn maximum profit. But in Amul, the mandate given to me by the Board is totally opposite. They want me to buy raw material (80% of our cost is milk) at the highest price possible because I’m buying it from our owners. And, sell the finished products at the lowest and most reasonable rate so that

or demand has dropped because of demonetisation. Whatever price is offered, I’ve to buy it, convert it to value-added products, and sell at such a price that millions of consumers happily buy it and feel happy after consuming it because then only they’ll come back.

Amul’s philosophy

So, milk procurement is a 365-day job. Milk supplies cannot be stopped. Whether it’s Eid or Di-

ethics. You just can’t make promises claiming I’m this and that or I’ll do this for you. You’ve to show the evidence. To give you just an example, there has been an average increase of 11% in the milk procurement prices in the last 10-11 years and Amul’s prices reflect just that. No wonder, we’ve delivered whatever we promised with the best of products made through the best of technology and with quality delivery.

Maintenance of quality

When I say we give best quality product, it doesn’t mean what it was 50 years back. Most of the times, what happens is that if your brand is successful, you get the major market share like we’ve got more than 90% of the market share in butter. So, the next job of any CEO would be: how to reduce the cost of production? Now, in food products, you can do it by replacing the expensive food ingredients with cheap synthetic ingredients or chemicals and, in fact, many companies are doing this. Those who want to make a quick buck in dairy business compromise their quality by replacing dairy fat with the vegetable fat which is 1/4th of the total cost because ultimately their business objective is to reduce the cost of ingredients and increase the profit margin. But, at Amul, composition of our products is exactly the same. For example, what our butter was 60 years back, it’s still the same. Not a single change has taken place in its recipe. Same is true for our milk powder or cheese or ice-cream or chocolate or any other product. This is in spite of tough competition that we face in the market and because Kurien used to tell us: Never think you’re smarter than the customer. Always think, he’s smarter and you cannot outsmart him. Today I’m selling one kg of baby milk powder at a certain price but because of advertising costs,

our consumer base keeps expanding. Whatever milk we sell, 86% of the sale price goes to milk farmers. For other value-added products, where packaging and other duties come in, it may be as high as 80% which means if we sell any product at `50, `43 goes to the farmer. In the US, milk farmers get only 38% of what the consumer pays and in UK, it’s even less. Another contradiction is, we cannot refuse to purchase milk from our farmers. In fact, we encourage them to improve productivity. In any other company, they procure and produce as per market demand. But in our case, it works the other way round. I cannot say, Bhai, I won’t buy your milk because today there is slackness in market

wali or strike or demonetisation, we’re working because cows and buffaloes cannot stop giving milk and we also cannot stop consuming morning tea or milk. No Amul factory is ever closed. They’re all in continuous operation because our basic philosophy is value for many (which means 3.6 million farmers or Amul’s owners) and value for money (for millions of Amul’s consumers). So, if we’re Number One in dairy business today, it’s because of this business philosophy, which is based on faith and trust.

Amul’s religion

Faith and trust in the brand is like religion for us. We believe that you’ve to show it in your business

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 19

top position if tomorrow, I’ve to increase the price, what will I do? In this situation, most of my competitors will reduce the weight by 50/100 gms so that their milk powder continues to sells at the same price, though with a little less weight. But Kurien has taught us: If you try to cheat customers by employing short-term marketing strategies, the day they’ll come to know of it, they’ll certainly lose their faith in your company.

Brand building

In dairy business, setting up plant and machinery is the easiest thing but building a brand is very difficult because brands are different from products in a way that brands are what the consumers buy while products are what companies make. Moreover, brands cannot be created only by marketing or advertising. Everyone knows how to make butter, cheese and ice-cream but brand building requires winning the confidence and trust of your consumers. Brand is a promise that the product will always stand true to consumer’s expectations and that’s a tall promise. Second is operational difficulty of building a distribution network for fresh, chilled and frozen dairy products. It requires setting up cold storages and other infrastructures. There, you need volumes. If you don’t have volumes, your overheads will go very high. So, you won’t be able to compete with a brand like Amul. Butter manufacturing is not difficult. Anyone can do it. But nobody can produce the kind of butter that Amul produces and sells at our cost because of our volume game. Third and the most difficult thing is milk procurement. Procuring quality milk in consistent quality on a daily basis is quite difficult. Amul is growing year after year because our competitors are not able to catch up with us. I don’t think any other company in India is having a network as efficient as ours for fresh product distribution line which helps us reach all the markets within three to four hours. No short-cuts, no freebies, no gimmicks, only consistency The other very, very important thing for brand building is Consistency in your Communication over a long period of time. If you see the snapshots of our print advertisements from the sixties and seventies, you’ll realise that there is consistency in its advertising. Amul takes brand positioning quite seriously. Any product, whether it’s butter or ice-cream or milk, if any positioning has been taken, such as that of utterly butterly butter,

Dr Kurien cutting the cake at his birthday celebration

we’ve never tried or allowed to change it. Actually, the brand building of Amul started when none of the Indian brands used to advertise. If you see our black & white ads of the 1960s, there is a consistency in Amul’s strategy which started in the 1950s. Colour ads came in the seventies. However, with changing times, we’ve also exhibited dynamism by experimenting with new forms and ways of storytelling. For instance, in 1976, we also produced a film called Manthan which was directed by Shyam Benegal. It was financed by five lakh rural farmers of Amul who contributed two rupees each to finance its budget. It won critical acclaim. It also won the National Award for best feature film in 1977 and was a commercial success also because through Manthan, we sincerely told the people what is behind the brand Amul.

With the changing times, we’ve also exhibited dynamism by experimenting with new forms and ways of storytelling. For instance, in 1976, we also produced a film called Manthan which was directed by Shyam Benegal"

20 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

Amul is the umbrella

The other strategy which has worked very well for Amul is its Umbrella Branding Strategy which

means all our products are sold under one single brand, Amul. Many times ad gurus recommended us to develop some sub-brands or new brands but our thinking has been, if you’ve more brands, you’ll naturally like to nurture them and so you’ll have to invest and investment will come out of consumer’s pocket only. So, more brands would mean more investment, and we didn’t want that. So, we rejected their recommendation.

Amul’s advertising strategy

Though our target is to achieve $10 billion of revenue by 2020, we spend negligible amount of money on our advertisements as compared to other companies. In fact, our budget for any advertising campaign—whether it’s “Amul, The Taste of India” or “Utterly Butterly Delicious” or such other high-pitched ones—has never been more than 1 per cent. In the last five to six seasons, we’ve spent not more than 0.8% of our turnover on advertising or marketing whereas most of our FMCG competitors spend eight to 14% on advertising. Dr Kurien has taught us: You definitely need brand building and advertising but you need only that much which is just enough to inform the consumer.

Amul girl

Our advertising icon has been the noseless girl who has been nosing around in her red polka dotted frock now for 50 years. She has com-

mented on anything happening anywhere. We’ve all grown up with her. She’s the spokesperson of our times. And, let me tell you, she has not spared anyone in the last 50 years including all our prime ministers, top politicians, film celebrities, and sportspersons. Her comments are sometimes positive, sometimes negative. But nobody gets angry because nobody minds bachhe ka kaha. For, Amul girl is like their daughter. They know what she is saying is correct. So, people take her sportingly. Once or twice, problems did arise but we handled them.

Same team continues

All our campaigns are created by the same ad agency (daCunha Communications) for the last 50 years and they don’t show us the creative. We see it when you see it. They just put it because our chairman, Dr Kurien, used to say: When we’ve hired a professional agency, we’ve got to respect it because of its professional competence. So, let’s give them full creative freedom and then try to get the best out of them.” Hence we’ve remained consistent and never changed our ad agency. They know what they are doing. We’ve faith in their work and mostly we don’t even look at the drafts before they go up on hoardings. In fact, this consistency in advertising strategy is paying us the dividends with minimum of budget. And this has happened mainly because of the stability in their core team. Like I’m in my first job for last 35 years, same is the case with them. The team that produces up to six ads per week comprises just three people: Rahul daCunha (son of Sylvester daCunha who won the Amul account in 1966), creative head of ad agency daCunha Communications who is there from day one with copy writer Manish Jhavery and Jayant Rane, the artist who has been sketching Amul cartoons for a quarter century now. So, there is stability in the team and most of us have worked with Dr Kurien, so we know what is our value system and what’s there in the DNA of our organisation. And, later, people like us, who join, inculcate the same DNA. But things go haywire if people in an organisation, especially at the policy-making level, come from different cultures

and with different value systems. You can understand what type of DNA it’ll have and how long will it survive.

Amul India 3.0

While we’ve made huge presence on social media with our twitter account crossing the limit of 50,000 followers, we’ve recently also come out with the third edition of our book titled Amul India 3.0. It’s a unique take on India’s history, it’s highs and lows, through the eyes of our adorable little Amul girl. It has a compilation of write ups by the likes of Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Tharoor, Arnab Goswami, Karan Johar and colourful Amul advertisements on India’s current history.

Digital Amul

Since the younger generation prefers online and mobile transactions, we’ve recently launched an ecommerce platform offering entire range of products under the Amul brand. So, now customers can buy our products online also. Since digital is the way to reach out to the Gen X and millennials, we’re trying to use it the best way, asking them to send selfies while drinking or eating our products. We’re having competitions for them to post their films and pictures. These are some activities on the digital media.

Secret of success

If you want to know what works for Amul, you’ve to accept that we deliver what we promise. In fact, we’ve delivered much more than that what you expected or consumers pay for it. In building an ageless brand, we’ve been consistent with our communication, strategising and execution and made sure that all our stakeholders including suppliers, distributors, employees and consumers enjoy the fruits. Our success is also because our suppliers, consumers and distributors enjoy the journey. They feel happy by using our products and that’s something that keeps us going.

Advice for start-ups

With start-ups coming up in big numbers, everybody thinks, anything which you can do within a room on a laptop, you can repeat it outside. But if you want to have an ageless organisation, you’ve to interact with your suppliers and consumers. Coming to the food sector, let me tell you, there is immense potential for investing or building brands in the food sector. Amul brand is there for more than 60 years; still we’ve got only 5% of the 20% market in organised sector. So, there is enough room for others and also for existing players to grow. But then challenges are also there, especially in food business. I’ve seen that despite coming up with some very good food brands, they fail. The reason is, they want to go national overnight. But they forget that food is

a very, very regional and a local thing. So I always tell my young friends, if you want to build a food brand, make a good product, use latest packaging technology or logistics. First establish your brand in your city, then your district, then adjoining districts. Unless you get double figure market share in your own local market, don’t expand to the next city. Once you have built a market for your brand in a state, add three or four states and then think about going to the national level. But unfortunately what happens is that those who fund your start up want you to move fast and go quickly for national presence and when that doesn’t happen, you feel frustrated because you are not able to pass any value either to the supplier or to the consumer. So, my advice is, go step by step to achieve durable success.

Demonetisation’s impact on Amul

Demonetisation certainly affected both sides of our C to C business because both our farmers and consumers suffered in the beginning. But let me tell you, demonetisation came as a shot in the arm for Amul because for nearly a decade, we’ve been trying to go cashless, asking each of the 18,000 village level milk societies to get bank accounts opened for nearly 35 lakh farmers who are registered milk producers in the state. But despite our best efforts, only 61% of the total farmers got their bank accounts opened. Demonetisation came as a blessing as most of them have now opened their bank accounts. Every week, we used to disburse `450 crore in cash to the farmers but that was a problem. But now we’re transferring money directly to their accounts. Suddenly they’ve realised that they won’t get the money unless they open an account. So, they’ve started opening accounts. In fact, after 8th November, we’ve ourselves opened more than 3.5 lakh accounts for our farmers. mathurpradeep1@gmail.com

tadka

Youth believe in ‘Superman’ to save India The HT-MaRS Youth Survey 2016 states that half of India’s population is below the age of 26 and that more than half of them will be happy to live elsewhere. Most rate India poor on gender equality, employment opportunity, educational opportunity and freedom for youth. Most believe India needs ‘Superman’ to set things right. 41% men and 39% women think they can set things right if made prime minister.

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 21

All aboard abroad!

Home is where Dubai is A true blue Punjabi who is always well spruced up, Aanchal Rohilla has an extraordinary sense of aesthetics. No wonder then, that she chose interior designing for her profession. She started off her career with an extremely popular brand in India and went on to work with some of the most internationally acclaimed brands in Dubai. She always speaks of Dubai with a twinkle in her eye and given a choice, she would never want to come back from this city of dreams. Here’s why... By Namrata Gulati Sapra Six years of career high in Dubai Currently on a break from a highly satisfying career in Dubai, Aanchal is capitalising on this time by equipping herself well, “I am pursuing a challenging course on software that will help me build an even better career!” She suddenly becomes philosophical as she reflects on her career graph in Dubai (which has mostly gone upward, barring a few exceptions, “Honestly, career phases do fluctuate. But on the upside of it all, you always end up learning tremendously from your organisation and have immense scope to grow in another!” “It has been six years in Dubai and am not complaining. I have worked for design companies wherein I got a more than a few opportunities to work right from scratch: from building up a concept to delivering the site. I have been really fortunate to have worked for the best of luxury Italian brands in furniture, such as Natuzzi, Porada, Opera, Cattelan Italia, Calia Italia, Galotti & Radicce, Leolux to name a few.” At this point, she also reminisces her work projects in Delhi,

“In Delhi, I have worked on one of the most prestigious projects GMR T3 Delhi International Airport for Natco and HomeTown, where I undertook more than 25 residential turnkey projects and 35 design projects.” An impeccable work culture One of the primary reasons she doesn’t want to come back to India from Dubai is the work culture. Punctuality: “Punctuality is the keyword here. A rather strict discipline is followed here and adhered to. You are required to report in time.” Workload: “Frankly, the workload is not too much and is planned in such a way that employees can complete the task assigned within the working hours itself.” Competition: The bundle of talent, who is also outgoing and friendly, is in love with Dubai for the fact that it is a melting pot of culture, diversities and ethnicities, yet everyone is warm towards each other, but also competitive in a

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healthy way, “Being a country of various cultures, one learns to co-exist. Yes, there is a lot of healthy competition and you get to learn so much from it. It is amazing!” She adds, “There is emphasis on greeting everyone with a smile.” Dress culture: “It varies from one work culture to the other. There is complete independence to wear what you want. I enjoy dressing up, so I have a wardrobe full of dresses that I wear to work. These dresses, however, are mostly in black or grey. So, one has the freedom to wear dresses or formal attire. But if you want to dress up modestly, feel free to do so!” Work timings: “As per the Labour Laws of Dubai, one needs to work a minimum of eight and a half hours, but usually it varies from eight

“Frankly, the workload is not too much and is planned in such a way that employees can complete the task assigned within the working hours itself.” to nine hours. People here are hardworking and professionalism defines them.” Appreciation: “People are open to ideas and conversations and they make it a point to appreciate your effort in different ways.” Relationship with boss: “You will learn limitlessly from your mentor. So, the relationship between the boss and the employee as often looked upon as the relationship between a teacher and a student.” Holidays and weekends: “Dubai gives you the luxury of many holidays. Ramadan is the best festive time. You will feel blessed to be a part of this culture during this holy month when the working hours are reduced to just five hours in a day. As for the weekends, most organisations have Fridays and Saturdays off. Besides, this being the opulent country, there is never a dull moment! You can shop till you drop,” she exclaims. Wooed by Dubai That she adores

Dubai and wants to settle down here after marriage isn’t too hard to guess. In her own words, “I would love to stay and work here forever. It goes without saying that in Dubai, I have learned phenomenally and earned well not only in terms of money, but have enjoyed a great amount of respect too. If I ever happen to go back to India for work, I know working in Dubai will make my resume rather impactful and being attached to the best of luxury brands around the world will earn me more than just brownie points. I am sure that my work will be acknowledged in India!” 3 reasons to work in Dubai The young interior designer cites three reasons why you should work in Dubai at least in your life: “Dubai will give you an exposure to a world class work culture and ethics, wherein you will be given many opp or tunities to grown and learn. In

this day and age of globalisation when the world is becoming one big family, you wouldn’t want to miss the chance to work with people from diverse cultures.” “It’s all about money, honey!” “The city is always buzzing and there is much to do here. Living in Dubai is one fun ride that you will always cherish.” She concludes, “Once you come to Dubai, you sure wouldn’t want to go back ever!” namratagulati8@gmail.com

tadka

India does, venezuela copies Venezuela is plagued by the world’s highest inflation rate. On December 11th President Nicolas Maduro, announced that the 100-bolívar note would cease to be legal tender within 72 hours. Maduro was reportedly inspired by Indian PM Modi’s demonetisation experiment. Due to public pressure,however, he later halted the move.

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 23

Cradle of Leadership Prof. Ashoke Kumar Sarkar Senior Professor & Director, BITS Pilani

BITS Pilani:

Oasis of Engineering Excellence Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani, Rajasthan, is a premier engineering institute at par with any IITs of the country. It has produced leading luminaries in diverse fields, like Baba Kalyani, Chairman, Kalyani Group (1970 batch), and Prithiviraj Chavan, former Chief Minister of Maharashtra (1967 batch), to name just a few. Quietly nestled in the small town of Pilani, about 250 kms from Jaipur, getting there makes for an arduous road journey. With Pilani bereft of the glitter of malls and most other modern social life distractions, makes BITS, a star rated educational institution, an oasis for the pursuit of academics with single-minded devotion. The vast and varied infrastructure available on the campus for extra-curricular activities and creative clubs helps students gain new dimensions in personality development. It boasts of its own, very transparent entrance test popularly known as BITSAT, through the effective use of technology. Teaching methods have metamorphosed into two-way interactions that keep abreast of the digital era where the student can procure knowledge and information from both cyber space and state of art classrooms. BITS Pilani is a stellar example of a place of serious learning. Added to this, is the strong industry exposure students get during the course, which makes its students much sought after during campus placements. BITS Pilani now has three more campuses-in Hyderabad, Goa and Dubai. Prof. Ashoke Kumar Sarkar, Senior Professor & Director of Pilani campus sheds light on what makes BITS Pilani the renowned deemed university that it is today...

By Vinita Deshmukh

he tradition of your institution dates back to pre-independence days. Could you encapsulate the history of BITS from that time onwards?

BITS began as a nursery school in 1901. GD Birlaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s father established a Pathshala and there were two students then, GD Birla being one. Ultimately, GD Birla left. They went to Kolkata but the school remained. It was made a secondary school in 1922 and then a degree college in 1943. Thereafter, Birla College of Engineering came up in 1946. During the Second World War, the government developed training facilities here for training defence

personnel. Once they left, GD Birla decided to have an engineering college here. This was followed by the Birla Colleges of Science, Commerce and Pharmacy which came up between 1943 and 1950 respectively. Our Pharmacy Department is one of the oldest schools in India. Finally, on the occasion of centenary in business of Birla family in 1964, it was declared a deemed university. So, BITS Pilani is working as a University since 1964.

What makes BITS an equivalent of IIT?

Following the decade of the 1960s, GD Birlaji

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February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 25

wanted a modern university in India. He used to go to USA quite often and wanted to develop a university at par with those in the US -- with all the modules and positive aspects of USA’s educational system. So we signed an MoU with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and fortunately got some funding from the Ford Foundation, which lasted up to 1970. They came here and helped us in developing the academic model and our faculty too visited them in the US for better understanding of the model. In fact, IIT Kanpur and BITS Pilani are the two institutions which started the concept of semester system, continuous evaluation and relative grading in India. In those days, most of the universities used to have marks (in percentage) system for the evaluation of performance of a student in the country, so the grading system was unheard of in India. Another trendsetter which was adopted from MIT is the concept of sending students to the industry for six months. In MIT this facility was available only for chemical engineering

after the second year, we send our students to the industry for eight weeks. It helps them to get the feel of what it is like working in an industry, what are the different departments, how they operate and in general, to understand how the industry should be run and what are the expectations of industries from their employees!

Please tell us more about internship in the industry…

Again, after the third year, when they have completed their discipline courses, they go for their second internship in the industry for five and half months. They are given real-life projects for assignments which are identified by the industry. Our students are required to work on them and try to arrive at solutions. Of course, it is not that it is always possible to find a solution, but quite often they succeed. We divide the final year students in two groups. Say if we have 850 students in the 4th year, we have two groups of 425 each. So, 425 go for this

students. However, we introduced it for all the students across disciplines be it engineering, sciences, pharmacy or management. We always talk about industry-academy relationship but BITS Pilani took the lead in that aspect. BITS has always given emphasis on teaching and also to create an environment for the overall development of young minds of the country. Besides these two, the unique model of industry engagement makes BITS Pilani apart from other institutions.

training in the first semester. After they return, the second group will go in the second semester and in the process continuity is ensured. The allotment of semester and various centres are done based on the preference of students their interest, industries requirement and students overall academic performance. Industry offers a stipend to the students and many a time it is quite high and more than what one earns in a regular job. It has been very successful and we are very proud of that!

So, you continue to be the pioneer in sending students for internships in the industry, mid-course.

What are the kinds of industries the students largely go to, for their internships?

Definitely. Even now, I do not think anybody has been able to emulate us. What we do is that

They go to all kinds of industries. It depends on the job scenario and interest and discipline of the

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students. Students these days mostly prefer to go to the IT industry. That is their first preference and many a times, students of Civil Engineering too want to work in the software industry and hence it is based on the market situation. We send them to research laboratories as well, to do some real research. They go to all sorts of industries for exposure but there is a system of allotting. To be frank, it is a very tedious system. It looks into the student’s background as well as academic performance to check if the project sent to us by the industries matches with the academic performance and interest of the student. Most importantly, both the internships are part of the course curriculum and the students are graded on their performance as we do for on-campus courses.

Please describe your sprawling campus.

BITS Pilani has an area of about 311 acres and the adjacent area is owned by Birla Education Trust, which runs a number of well-known schools in Pilani and other places. We have residential facilities for all the 320 permanent faculty members who live here. In fact, there are 381 residential quarters in all. There are 14 hostels and the present capacity is 2784 for boys and 683 for girls. One hostel is for the girls, having 12 blocks altogether. For two adjacent hostels there is a large mess. Recently we have come up with a state-of-the–art new mess after demolishing the old one. There are the student activity centres inside the campus. We encourage students to go to these centres for all kinds of activities like sports and other creative clubs. We have tennis courts, basketball courts, football, hockey fields and a swimming pool. Besides having music, drama, debate, and photographic clubs, the students are also having an exclusive club called Raga Malika for classical music and dance and we are very proud of that! Getting into this club is not easy. They are interviewed by the senior student members and they need to give a good performance to qualify for this club. Thereafter, they are tutored by the seniors. This tradition has been followed for the last 35-40 years. If you see their performance, I can tell you that you will be very proud of them, we are too! Besides cultural and sports activities, our students take active interest in design and entrepreneurial activities. At present a group of students is working on the design of nanosatellite and has already applied to ISRO with detailed design for evaluation and sanction. It is in the preliminary stage and the recruitment of students is highly competitive, as the aspiring student has to go through a tough interview by the senior students. Our students have bagged many prizes in designing racing cars too. This campus is very vibrant and three large events, BOSM (sports), APOGEE (academic) and

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;After the third year, when they have completed the basic course, they go for their second internship in the industry for six months. They are given real projects for assignments which are identified by the industry. Our students are required to work on them and try to arrive at solutionsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Oasis (cultural) are organised every year and get participants from all over the country. Recently we had a few international participants also.

Could you tell us about the graduate and post graduate courses?

We give degrees in science as well as engineering. The engineering streams include Computer Science, Chemical, Civil, Mechanical, Electrical & Electronics and Electronics & Instrumentation. In Science, we have Pharmacy, Bio-Sciences, Chemistry, Economics and Finance, Mathematics and Physics. Also, we have a programme called General Studies offered by Humanities and Social Sciences Department which is an integrated M Sc This programme is flexible, where the students may take up some basic courses and after that we

offer two areas of specialisation-development studies and media & communication. We also offer MBA programme.

Are Pure Sciences popular with students these days?

For those who opt for Pure Sciences-based on their performance after the first year-we give them an opportunity to get another degree in engineering. So, those who get into Pure Sciences have an option of getting an additional degree in engineering as well-we call it dual

degree. They have to stay for one or one and a half years extra, and in the process they get a BE degree along with M Sc degree. That is a unique system again which we have been following for some 40 years now. Another USP of BITS Pilani is the BITS entrance examination (BITSAT) which is completely online since 2005 and is fully transparent. A large Question Bank of each requisite subject is being developed by updating it every year. A student can book a date and time slot in any one of about 60 centres from all over India of her or his choice for appearing in BITSAT. The test is conducted for a specified period of time depending on the enrolment in a centre. The student gets her score immediately after the test. Admission to BITS depends on the score in BITSAT. Almost two lakh students apply for admission every year for about 2200 seats available at the undergraduate level at the three Indian campuses.

Do you have a quota system here? No, admissions are purely based on merit.

British experts, as stated in Wikipedia, have said that BITS helped educate industrialists in India along with engineers who remain in India, in contrast to many other engineering colleges in India most of whose graduates leave the country after obtaining February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 27

Cradle of Leadership

‘We encourage for overall development of the students during their stay in the campus and thus students get involved in different extra-curricular activities. These extra-curricular activities give them a lot of confidence. Overall development here, I feel, is better than any other institute’ their engineering education. Please comment…

I feel one of the reasons was that students, even then, were exposed to industry right from their curriculum days. They understand the industry better than their peers elsewhere, because they get comprehensive industry training for nearly seven and half months during their programme of study. So, that is why the percentage of students getting into Indian industry is much more as compared to other institutions. However, many of our students opt to go for higher studies after gaining some industry experience. We encourage for overall development of the students during their stay in the campus and thus students get involved in different extracurricular activities. These extra-curricular activities give them a lot of confidence. Overall development here, I feel, is better than any other institute. In fact, our students will amaze you with their abilities in these activities. We have got certificates for blood donation from the ministry many times. It has become a matter of pride, and we donate 800900 units of blood in a day or two! They even go to villages and teach the ones from weaker sections-they are really very socially sensitive and conscious.

What is the percentage of placement from BITS?

It is 93%, while the 7% are not those who did not get a job, but who did not apply since they were going abroad for higher studies. So, we can say it is 100% placement, but not on paper, since the 7% did not apply for the position in the placement cell.

Do you have any figures for those

going abroad after finishing their course as compared to the IITs?

I do not have the numbers but I have worked in IIT for 10 years. I think that tendency is slightly higher there. But here what happens is that students may not go immediately after their course. They go after one or two years. But in IITs, many go immediately after graduation. Here, the ones with excellent records also go immediately as they get into very good institutions. Another aspect of our training is our focus on entrepreneurship these days. We run courses for them and our alumni from abroad too come as guest faculty to teach entrepreneurship. The students also organise a competition for startups and get about 1200 applications every year. Out of these, 50 of them are shortlisted and then they are mentored by the entrepreneurs. The final function is held in Delhi to identify the best concept and award is given to the team. A kind of culture has now been created in the campus for start-ups and entrepreneurship.

Is entrepreneurship an extra-curricular activity for students?

Yes, it is done by the students. They organise and in-

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vite people, educate other students regarding startups. That has become a culture here from the last four to five years. Many of our students are interested in initiating start-ups. In these programmes, alumni play a major role and they help us.

Tell us the vision, mission and role of the Birla Foundation in nurturing this prestigious educational institute?

They take personal interest. I have seen Dr KK Birla who was the chancellor earlier, coming at least twice a year even when he was in his 80s. He was very meticulous about finding out how the institution was working. He would ask us how we are doing in comparison to IITs; whether we are changing courses with the time or not; what kind of books we follow, and so on… After his death, Kumar Mangalam Birla has taken over. He also has evinced a lot of interest. They always say that BITS is the jewel in the crown of the Birlas. In fact, after he took over, several expansion plans got executed. It is because of his vision that we worked on a vision document. What will we like to achieve in the future? Earlier, we used to have short term plans and visions but then in

About three years back, we have owned it fully and now, the Dubai campus is solely owned by BITS Pilani. Now, we can say that we have four full-fledged campuses. The Goa campus came up in 2004 and Hyderabad came up in 2008. Even now, there is demand to establish BITS campuses in other states.

So, do the respective governments help you, or is it all private effort?

It is fully private, but the concerned state governments always have helped us and are very co-operative. We have got huge support from the government of all the states where we have campuses.

Are you happy with the quality of faculty which is always a concern even for prestigious institutions like IIT?

2009, we decided to go for a vision document. A research-focused institution with an active industry relationship is the plan for the future. Dr KK Birla was also keen that we increased our student capacity. We had 2500 students then. We have added students in a systematic way and our target is over 5400 students by 2025.

Regarding quality, no issue as such, but quantity is! That is the issue that IITs too face -- getting enough good faculty is a challenge. We have a robust recruitment process. When an application comes, we check to see if it meets the ground requirement in the respective department, and the department scrutinises it. Then there is an audio-visual interview. Then it comes to the campus level and then it goes to the university level. There again, a proper screening is conducted. Once that is done, we call them for the final interview. We get at least two experts from our end and two external experts who interview them. We select the faculty based on that and hence there is no issue of compromising with the quality of the faculty.

How do you ensure that the faculty delivers?

It is an open system where the students can

come and complain to me or the concerned Dean in case of negligence. It does not happen, but I am telling you the process. We have a 24x7 feedback system where the students can give their feedback on the course. We also collect a structured feedback at the end of the semester regarding the course and the quality of teaching. We have been organising intensive teaching workshops for the newly recruited faculty members for the last 35 years. Recently we have established teaching-learning centre in each campus through which we expect to expose our faculty members on the new methods of teaching- learning. We also provide research initiation grants for the newly recruited faculty members to initiate research just after joining. Moreover we provide competitive research grants to them in the initial stages before they start applying for research funding from outside.

Do you get NRIs as well? Is there any NRI quota?

There is no quota for NRIs. However, we have started admitting limited number of international students through competition based on SAT scores. We initiated the process in 2015 by admitting 25 students in Hyderabad campus. We have started in Goa in 2016 and going to start in Pilani campus in 2017 as well.

Kumar Mangalam Birla is the chancellor and Shobhana Bharti is the pro chancellor, so what have been their vision and contribution?

The institute under their leadership has developed a vision document and we all are working step-by step on a mission mode to achieve defined goals. Special attention has been given in the development of infrastructure. A `

Why did you expand beyond Pilani and establish BITS Pilani branches elsewhere?

We have certain constraints to develop the institute in Pilani beyond a certain capacity. Moreover, it was thought that quality education needs to be offered in other parts of the country as well. Keeping in view the demand for quality education in institutions like BITS it was thus decided to expand in other places. Moreover, we used to get many requests from India and abroad. We got a request from an industrial house in Dubai which wanted to set up an education institution there. Initially, they said that they would provide the infrastructure and we should take care of the academics. We started Dubai campus in 2000. We sent the faculty members and even the director from here. February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 29

Cradle of Leadership 651 crore project has been taken up to renovate the old buildings and construction of new hostels, faculty housing and class rooms keeping in view that we will have to accommodate about 5400 students by year 2025.

How research oriented is BITS Pilani?

We had a research profile earlier too, but for the last six to seven years, we have become research focused. Our profile is improving every year. In this financial year till October end we have been awarded research projects worth Rs.20 crores by various national and international funding agencies. Many of our faculty members are well recognized nationally and internationally for their research work.

IITs have been getting a lot, right?

All the centrally funded institutions get liberal funding from the government and other agencies. As an institution we have been performing at the highest national level consistently for more than fifty years. Thus our plea to the government and other funding agencies is to treat us based on our merit and performance and not on the fact that we are a privately funded institution.

How would you assess students of today as compared to those of yesteryears?

I have been at BITS Pilani for the last 18 years and have the experience of teaching in IIT and universities in Canada, South Africa and a few more. As the society is changing, the attitude of student population is also changing with time. We cannot expect to have the same kind of students we had 30 or 40 years ago. When

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;When we were students, whatever the teacher taught used to be sacrosanct. There were not many books available in certain subjects. Now-a-days they have access to so much of information and learning materials on the net. They have all the support systems from outsideâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

we were students, whatever the teacher taught used to be sacrosanct. There were not many books available in certain subjects. Now-a-days they have access to so much of information and learning materials on the net. They have all the support systems from outside and thus the role of teachers has been changing continuously. So, to keep in tune with the changing times, we have developed a centre called teaching-learning centre. We are constantly in touch with many universities who have done pioneering research in teaching-learning. This centre facilitates us to do research on how to make teaching more attractive to the students. This is because the same method is not going to work anymore. A lot of research is going on all over the world and India is lagging behind in that. We have taken the initiative and this will definitely help the students. This is one area we are going to focus because the role of the teacher has changed over

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the years. Earlier, the emphasis was on one-way teaching and now it has shifted to learning. So it is not teaching-centric. Output oriented studies are what we are trying to achieve!

How about changes in personality and attitude?

That too has changed. Earlier, they used to be much more disciplined and obedient. Now, you do not expect that! They do not take anything for granted and like to challenge teachers. And we, honestly, like to be challenged-teachers always like to be challenged. That makes us more knowledgeable and mature.

Do you have student counsellors like in other institutes?

We do not have any permanent counsellor, but we have two counsellors who visit the institute for a few days in a month. The students who

were under pressure cooker like situation in the last three-four years in school, suddenly find them independent after joining university. Once they reach a good institution like ours, they feel that they have achieved their goals and in the process lose motivation. Sometimes they find it very difficult to adjust, and most of the times they do not know how to use the freedom they have and they get carried away. So, we have an academic counselling cell where dedicated faculty members are available and I, myself, was heading it. We have a wide list of problems from emotional to academics, for which the students can approach us any time. In fact, our faculty members go to the hostels of first year students, dine with them and have interactions with them. We also invite our alumni, especially those who have just graduated, on the first Sunday immediately after the registration of the fresher students to interact with them and guide them

on how to grow in the BITS system. You know, at times, gaps are automatically c re ate d by t h e students when they do not listen to us. We give them the same advice, but they listen more to the seniors or students who have been there already. Hence, we use that channel and make the seniors go to them and share their experiences to let them decide what is good for them. From our side, we can say ours is one institution where the kind of care we take of our students is unparalleled. Well, one of the reasons for that is our isolated location, and our dedication to develop the tradition over a period of time. Although we agree that our medical facility is not up to the standard because we are in a very secluded place, but in case of any problem, our entire community is there behind us to help. I too liked this when I came here, the entire community is behind us, and this is not just for the students but for the faculty members as well.

Sir, tell us about yourself and your career path.

I was born and brought up in Assam. I graduated from Guwahati University with a gold medal. Then I did my MAS in transportation engineering from British Columbia in Canada. Then I joined as a lecturer at IIT, Kharagpur and did my PhD there while being a lecturer. I always wanted to be in academics and never tried for anything else. After Kharagpur, I got a very prestigious opportunity at the University of Durban in South Africa where I occupied the chair created by the government, in transportation. I was there for two years then I went to a CSIR lab which is again a prestigious lab in South Africa. After two years, I came here

to BITS Pilani in 1999. I am quite involved in the PMGSY which connects the villages by roads; I am helping the government in this endeavour for the last 15 years.

What is your philosophy of life?

I believe in hard work and honesty and try to help people as much as I can within the setup of our own constraints.

What is the message you would like to give aspiring students of BITS?

My message to any young fellow and not just a BITS student would be, not to go along with the mass. Everybody tends to go towards a particular discipline which may not be good for all. At times, our students land up here without knowing what their discipline is all about, under the influence of external forces. I would say, do research at your end and find out what is your interest while picking up a discipline for specialisation, and not because others are doing it too. You know your interest best and if you pursue that, you will definitely achieve success. I know it is difficult because there is pressure from parents who want tried and tested methods for their children. Another problem which we are facing is that parents look for the financial package their wards would get after completing their education here. Even students also look for package only. Belonging to the middle class, I agree that the package is important, but that is just one aspect of it. But say, I give you a package and ask you only to count notes. How long will you enjoy doing it? So, it is better to do a lower paying job where you can have exposure to different areas. If you are learning designing, planning, marketing, finance, etc., after a span, your growth will be much faster than the person who gets a high salary today. I tell our students that the first three years in their professional life should be considered as training period. Search for your interest and take up a job which will give you the most exposure. Do look for the kind of job along with the package. If you practice this, after five years, you will be getting a higher salary than all those who got higher packages initially because after that exposure, you can win over any competitor. I would request to the parents also to be patient and they should allow their wards to grow in the areas of their own choice. You just need to be good in your subject and you will definitely success. I will give you an example: even after retirement a faculty member of IIT, I know him very well, gets an annual package of over `40 lakhs at the age of 74, which is huge. If you are good, you will definitely succeed. It can be achieved only by hard work and honesty. vinitapune@gmail.com

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 31

Claps & Slaps Corporate Citizen Claps for the game of chess and the logical paradise it leads its’ players whether on or off the 64 chequered squares. And, it is the same in Marottichal village, 20kms from Trichur in Kerala

Corporate Citizen Slaps the spate of insensitive ragging phenomenon that continues under the guise of ‘friendly interactions’ but often leads to damaging consequences

The impact of chess on social life in Marottichal quite echoes real life story of a young impoverished girl prodigy, Phiona Mutesi, a chess champion from the Kampala slum of Katwe, in Uganda. Her story, heralded in Mira Nair’s recent Disney flick-‘Queen of Katwe’, follows Coach Robert Katende who led Phiona from the brink of poverty to Uganda’s junior girls champion. Marottichal has similar story but with a twist that reckons the positive impact that chess has on entire community. The villagers of this small hamlet have found their life coach in C Unnikrishnan. Unnikrishnan gave up his job as a supervisor in a factory in Bangaluru some 25 years ago and started a tea-shop in the village. He gave a new life to his village by conducting free chess classes at home. Unnikrishnan decided to wean the village youngsters away from boot-legging with chess and they too developed a deep passion for it. The village with population of 6,000 that was labeled as a bastion of liquor production in the 1970s has now transformed into an institution promoting chess. Chess boards have replaced the liquor bottles and glasses on the tables in the village motels. The change has brought hope amongst the women folk. Thanks to Unnikrishnan, chess has changed the meaning of after-work fun for the villagers. Unnikrishnan has trained more than 600 people, many of whom win chess tournaments statewide. “I was surprised as many who initially did not even know how to play the game have today become masters of the game, and take part in different championships,” said Unikrishnan. “We started with one board but today have over 200 chess boards. Everyone likes this game and speaks about chess tactics. They are aware of the legendary American Bobby Fischer, and off course our own worlds champ, Vishwanathan Anand. Things have changed a lot and women in the village are happy as men have given up alcohol,” said Savitri, Unikrishnana’s wife. Sreenivasan, the Gram Panchayat President, said the achievements of this tiny village have been acknowledged by Viswanathan Anand. Unnikrishnan, whose hotel is open all the time for anyone wanting to play a game has also developed a dedicated area near his house for chess enthusiasts to gather and play. All age groups from eight to eighty are encouraged and as a result, alcohol addiction has been replaced by chess. Sports are definitely a great leveller-be it in the destiny of Phiona Mutesi that is linked to Robert Katende, or the transformation of the villagers of Marottichal because of Unnikrishnan.

Ragging as a ritual is quite common in almost all Indian colleges and used as mode to bring in some camaraderie between senior and junior students. But, as the recent ragging cases in Kerala show; the new generation has been callously resorting to brutality to intimidate juniors. Despite the anti-ragging Act, what happened in two separate incidents in Kerala is a wake up call for college administrators and parents. They need to advocate and legislate on rules offering security to youngsters from emotional, mental and physical abuse by senior students. On December 2, 2016, first-year students at the Government Polytechnic College (GPC), Nattakom in Kottayam, Kerala were ragged by a gang of seniors led by a former student in the hostel. Two students-Avinash from Iringalakkuda, Thrissur and Shaiju D Gopi from Cheranallur, Ernakulam-were seriously injured and admitted in private hospitals. The students were allegedly forced to drink undiluted alcohol, rumoured to have been spiked by harmful chemical components leaving Avinash with serious kidney damages. “They would rag us in the hostel till 3 am. I had to stand naked on one leg for hours and forced to frog jump for hour ,” he said. Avinash requested for water, but was forced to drink alcohol. Blood samples showed traces of poisonous chemicals that is said to have caused kidney damage. Later, his father filed a complaint. While five of the nine seniors have been arrested, search is on for other four. “Apart from the Kerala Prohibition of Ragging Act, they have been slapped with Indian Penal Code section 307 and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act,” said Binu Varghese, inspector at the local police station. The second unrelated incident was reported from Kochi where a first-year student of Marine engineering at Cochin University of Science and Technology attempted suicide after a brutal physical and mental assault by his seniors. These incidents occurring within two weeks have shaken up the Kerala human rights commission that has sought explanation from the institutions and the police. Alarmingly, Kerala emerged second in India in ragging-related complaints in 2016. The Lok Sabha was informed in July 2016 that the University Grants Commission received the second highest number of ragging complaints from Kerala -31 out of 198. Uttar Pradesh, with even times more population than Kerala, had 33 complaints. This shows that it is high time the polity, governance and parenting spruce up their acts lest, the young ones remain scarred for life! (Compiled by Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar)

32 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

manage money Dr Anil Lamba

Evaluating the financial health by reading a Funds-Flow Statement Continuing the discussion on evaluating the financial health of an organisation by reading the Funds-Flow Statement Let us continue the discussion on evaluating the financial health of an organisation by reading a Funds-Flow Statement.

Funds-Flow Statement Sales

Uses

Profit 400,000

Redemption of bonds @5% premium

210,000

Decrease in Working Capital

700,000

Plant purchased

900,000

Sales proceeds of investments

250,000

Dividends paid

240,000

1350,000

Statement showing in Work Capital Year 1

Year 2

(A)

1200,000 500,000 240,000 1940,000

800,000 560,00 80,000 1440,000

(B) (A)-(B)

1000,000 1000,000 940,000

50,000 1150,000 1200,000 240,000 700,000

Current Assets Inventories Debtors Bank Balance Current liabilities Short-Term Creditors Net Working Capital Decrease in Working Capital

The next question must pertain to the wisdom of redeeming bonds. This organisation’s liquidity is already in such bad shape, due to its inability to increase the sales or to make timely collection from its debtors, that it is unable to even pay its creditors on time. Yet, it seems to be paying off its bond holders. Now the management may point out that this amount was due to be paid, since the bonds had matured. However, the amount to the creditors was also due and should have been paid. Ideally, organisations must make timely payment to all whom they owe. And if it is not possible to pay everybody, an order of priority has to be followed. You must have noticed, throughout, whenever I showed you a Balance Sheet, the items on the Liabilities’ side always appeared in the same order.

Balance Sheet Liabilities Share Captial

Assets Fixed Assets

Reserves Long-Term Loans Creditors (Current Liabilities)

Current Assets

There is a reason for this. This also represents the order of payment, which is from the bottom up. If you don’t have sufficient money to pay everybody and can pay only one, then pay your creditors, the vendors or suppliers. They are your lifeline. If you don’t pay them and they stop the supply of materials, your entire functioning can come to a standstill. Having paid creditors, if you have money left, you now pay other longterm lenders. And after paying all outsiders, the last to be paid will be the owners. Now here is an organisation that is not paying creditors-but it has gone and repaid the bondholders, and that too at a premium!

Why should any company pay a premium?

Premium is a sign of excessively good health. This organisation is floundering. The bond redemption could have been delayed and the premium should certainly not have been paid. But what really takes the cake is that the management has the audacity to distribute 60 per cent of the profits among owners as dividends, even though the creditors are daily being denied their due payment! All said and done, this organisation is in dire straits. Unless the management takes immediate steps on a war footing to set the things right, it may not be long before the entire organisation goes under. Through this funds-flow statement, I wanted to illustrate how, when you know how to read numbers, they can come to life. (to be continued) Dr Anil Lamba is a practising chartered accountant, financial literacy activist and an international corporate trainer. He is the author of the bestselling book ‘Romancing the Balance Sheet’. He can be contacted at anil@lamconschool.com February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 33

Cover Story

View from

Dynamic Duo: 46

Shivani and Parag Satpute

the top

Parag Satpute is a man with a clear focus. A man with a steely resolve and an unwavering dedication towards his goals, Parag has carved his way to the top with unflinching commitment to his work. As the Managing Director and Country Manager at Sandvik Asia Pvt Ltd, he comes across as extremely down to earth and approachable. Corporate Citizen chats with Parag Satpute about being at the helm of one of the most respected companies around the globe, his journey to the top and his philosophy of life...

By Neeraj Varty

ell us about your journey starting from higher education to becoming the MD of Sandvik Asia.

I was one of the first expats from India to be inducted into the Global Sandvik Organisation. I moved along with my family to the UK and I took over as a global marketing manager for one of the product lines

34 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

I came to Pune for my engineering in 1991 and graduated from Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT). My first job was in Grindwell Norton, in Mumbai and Bengaluru and eventually I was posted in Pune. This is when my association with Sandvik began as a customer to Grindwell. I developed a great respect for the company while dealing with their representatives as they were highly professional and Sandvik had a great work culture. I was keen to be a part of the company. Soon, I came across an opportunity and eventually joined Sandvik in 1997 as a Sales Engineer. My career took a great start since then and I managed to move up the ranks consistently while gaining a global exposure as well as opportunity to work with my colleagues in Sweden, headquarters of Sandvik. Due to the progressive journey within Sandvik, I never felt the need to seek opportunities elsewhere. It has now been 20 years that I have been with Sandvik. I was one of the first expats from India to be inducted into the Global Sandvik Organisation. I moved along with my family to the UK and I took over as a global marketing manager for one of the product lines.

Where were you based in UK?

I was based in a place near Birmingham called Rugby, the place where the eponymous game originated. Sandvik had a small facility there.

I believe that the first overseas arm was in Birmingham at one point.

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s true, yes. Sandvik is a Swedish company, established globally in 1862, and their first international arm was in UK.

Source: Sandvik

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 35

Cover Story In the role of MD, tell us about your responsibilities and areas that you oversee.

Sandvik is now quite a big company in India. We have six production sites which house around 3000 employees and we have multiple product verticals or business units as we call them. As the MD, my responsibility is to make sure that they are performing to the best. We have several senior people leading these verticals. I would say my main role is to ensure that these team leaders have all the tools, all facilities to be able to their job in a good way, and to act as a mentor and coach.

When you are a part of such a legacy empire, a company which is known for well over a century, how is the functioning different from so many start-ups that you see today, take Uber for example?

Our context and heritage is quite different; as a global company, we have thrived for over 150 years. In India we have had a presence for 56 years. Further, we also have a strong foundation in the Swedish culture, which is often seen as a consensus driven culture.

With this, the functioning is bound to be different that a small company started off a few months ago.

To continue the growth trajectory we need to be agile and adapt quickly to market conditions. We need to be ahead of times, be it innovation, sustainability or technology. Our decisions need to be structured, risks need to be mitigated to ensure minimum chances of failure and as a company Sandvik has proved to be just that. Over the years we have succeeded in understanding the market developments

stability and support of being in a successful group like Sandvik combined with entrepreneurial culture that one normally associates with startups. This, in essence, is the magic formula we are trying to make in the company.

In your opinion how is automation affecting jobs in the present, especially in a hard-core engineering business and how will it impact employees in the future?

We are living in a world where change is the only constant. Hence the kind of jobs that people are doing today will change from what they were a decade ago. I am strongly in favour of automation as any other progressive organisation would be today. We have seen already a lot of automation into our industry. We have productions plants where automation has replaced labour intensive jobs and are yielding better productivity and profitability. Speaking of jobs, my opinion is that automation will change the nature of jobs. The skills required for jobs will see a paradigm shift. Automation raises our competitiveness as well as the economy. Due to that, the total number of jobs should increase. Rather than fearing automation, we should prepare ourselves to leverage it for our growth.

Do you think perhaps the education system isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t adapting fast enough to the changes that are happening, especially in the manufacturing or the engineering space?

I am really not an expert on the education system. However I feel there is always room for improvement. Taking a cue from my college days, I feel our curriculum should incorporate more of industry interface and practical exposure. This ensures that the graduates enter the corporate world more prepared to take on real life challenges. This is beneficial to both the professionals and well as the organisation.

What is the strength of Sandvik Asia?

We have 3000 employees. In terms of business, the external market sales in India is around 2000 crores and we export significantly through our state-of-the art manufacturing facilities across India.

Do you think women are adequately represented at the moment? What can be done to attract more women to manufacturing sectors?

Automation will change the nature of jobs . The skills required for jobs will see a paradigm shift. Due to that, the total number of jobs should increase. Rather than fearing automation, we should prepare ourselves to leverage it for our growth and have periodically developed new products and forayed into new market segments. That is one of the reasons that Sandvik continues to be successful even after 154 years of existence. There are very few companies in the world which can claim that. So I would say that we aim to have the best of both worlds â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the 36 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

No, women are not adequately represented yet. Manufacturing has been traditionally seen as a male dominated industry At Sandvik , we have been encouraging diversity through initiatives such as the Diversity Award, women development programs, facilities such as the day care centre to help women achieve a work life balance. Some reforms by the government such as allowing women to work on shop floors in all shifts, is helping our cause We are also working with organisations such as Lila Poonawala foundation where we sponsor a number of girl students for higher education. However we have great room for improvement and my target is to double the representation in our company in the coming years.

I have read about you introducing the diversity award, which also got a lot of coverage in the mainstream media. Can you tell us more about this initiative?

To act as a role model, we have instituted an award called Sandvik India Diversity Award, where we will recognise outstanding people who make contributions to increase the diversity. Every year we will ask for nominations from people or organisations which have done exemplary work in the field of gender diversity. This is the first year and we expect to get in excess of 100 nominations. These will be evaluated and the winners will be recognised and felicitated. The idea is to give them and their projects visibility so as to

Many companies are realising the potential of India as a manufacturing base. Sandvik has a great foundation in India with history and a strong image. India represents an important manufacturing base for the Sandvik Group focus on these areas and I firmly believe that the next 10 years will see a big boost for the manufacturing sector in India.

encourage people who are stepping out and taking a lead in this very important area.

You mentioned a couple of times about the difference in work culture in Sweden and in India. How does it primarily differ and what is it that we can learn from Scandinavian work culture?

When you compare Scandinavian culture or broadly European culture with Indian culture, there is no difference in intellects or education levels, we are all equally well educated or intellectually capable. One major difference I see is the ability to work in teams in a highly structured manner. In the European culture, especially in the Swedish culture, people work mostly in teams, follow systems and processes and as a group deliver results. The other thing which is a double edged sword is the jugaad mentality that we have sometimes. On the positive side, we Indians are more flexible in taking on tough challenges and will generally make a valiant effort.

In sectors such as IT, India as a country has grown leaps and bounds. Do you think we will be able to catch up to China in manufacturing?

I think we are catching up and will continue to do so. In the last 5-7 years China has started to become less competitive; inflation has driven wages up and the currency has become stronger. So companies are looking for more competitive locations. Within Sandvik we have a great foundation in India with our history and a strong image. India therefore, represents an important manufacturing base for the Sandvik group. I believe many companies are realising the potential of India as a manufacturing base. With the support and focus from the government through initiatives such as Make in India, this can only improve. The other area of improvement to make Indian manufacturing more competitive would be to improve the infrastructure and regulations as captured under the ease of doing business index. It is heartening to see

Do you think there is a lack of interest in the engineering sector now as compared to its heyday in the 90â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, is the interest waning off or has the return on investment reduced a lot considering the cost of an engineering education and subsequent lack of availability of well paid jobs?

The world has changed a lot today. During my days of career aspirations, I was told that you could either be an engineer or a doctor in order to be successful. Today however, there are multiple career options and avenues. This does not in any way mean that the value of engineering has reduced. We still have more engineers graduating every year and carving success all over the world. With the manufacturing industry raising bars of culture and competitiveness to be at par with other lucrative sectors as an employer, we see more talent being attracted to this sector. Take the example of Germany, where vocational courses are much more popular. They provide a good opportunity for young people to try out what they like and are good at; later they can of course opt to go for engineering fields if that is what they are good at. It takes away the pressure to make a choice at a very young age. In India sometimes children were constrained to make that choice at age 16. That is why the availability of options is great help.

For someone of your status, what does money mean to you?

That is a very deep question, what does money mean to me? It is an enabler. In the world we live in, you need money, but beyond a certain point it does not have any use, because after a point you look for satisfaction in your job, you look for happiness in your family, you look for meaningful relationships. All these things do not come with money. But of course if you struggle with your day to day food to eat or to send your kids to the right college money becomes an issue. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why I believe money is an enabler.

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your motto or philosophy in life?

My motto or philosophy with life is to Live life King Size, to experience all that we can and not regret anything. February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 37

Life is an Adventure Shivani and Parag Satpute make the perfect couple. He is ambitious, dedicated and at the zenith of corporate success, and she is pragmatic, adventurous and full of zest. From humble beginnings to lofty highs, they have seen it all together, and grown as individuals in the process. They tell their heart warming story of how they met, fell in love and share the secret of their remarkably successful marriage By Neeraj Varty

Pics: Ahmed Sheikh

38 38 // Corporate Corporate Citizen Citizen // February February 1-15, 1-15, 2017 2017

Cover Story Dynamic Duo: 46

Shivani and Parag Satpute

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 39

ne look at Shivani and Parag Satpute and you realise that they were meant for each other. She is demure and sophisticated; he is suave and composed, and they perfectly complement each other. The story of how they came together is equally enthralling. Shivani and Parag knew each other from quite an early age, but they didn’t meet much growing up. They realised that they were made for each other, much later when Shivani was studying homeopathy in Ahmednagar and rooming with Parag’s sister. Parag, studying in Pune at that time, used to visit often and that’s when sparks flew. “We got along really well and eventually came to the realisation that we were meant for each other” says Parag. “We got married in 1996, and it will be our 21st anniversary this year,” adds Shivani. In the beginning, their lives were very hectic. Their work timings were just not compatible. Parag came home from work around 5 pm, and Shivani’s shift at the hospital was from 5 pm to 9 pm. A doctor and an engineer’s timings are most often at odds with each other, and it was very apparent in the Satpute’s case. Around that time, Shivani and Parag were expecting their first child. It soon became clear to them that they would have to find a way to devote more time at home. Shivani decided that she would leave her job at the hospital and instead started working with Medical transcription. Shivani was perfectly suited for this task, and it gave her the flexibility with work timings and therefore she could take care of their son. Parag credits Shivani for being able to advance in his career. “She

I couldn’t have achieved what I did without her. She took great care of our kids, took the full responsibility and supported our family through the relocations every few years - Parag never complained. She did everything with a smile. Any other person would have said this isn’t working and you need to slow down on your job. She never did that. That allowed me to continue giving my best towards my career”. He says with affection visible in his eyes. Around that time, Parag got an opportunity to work in the UK, and it was a big career move. “We were expecting our second child at that time. Shivani reminisces. “I encouraged Parag to go to the UK alone and I followed once our second son was born.” Once she got there, Shivani realised it would be difficult to practice medicine again-in a foreign land with a two month old baby and a three year old son at home, it just wasn’t feasible. Parag’s work made him travel two to three weeks in a month, and Shivani felt she just couldn’t leave the kids with someone and work. She decided not to continue working but rather to devote her time to bringing up their kids. But she never gave up on her love for learning. Shivani quips, “I was interested in my children’s education and so I began working as a teaching assistant just to go into the education field and have a schedule similar to my kids. I also learnt and soon began teaching yoga in the UK. I really love yoga and have continued to practice and teach it since.” Shivani continued to teach yoga even when they moved from the UK to Germany and then onto Sweden. Apart from yoga she also spent quite some time in the kids’ school helping to spread awareness about Indian culture through the international days and school events. Parag can’t stop gushing about Shivani. “I couldn’t have achieved what I did without her. She took great care of our kids, took the full responsibility and supported the family through the relocations every few years. I have been used to moving since I was a kid, but this was a new lifestyle for her. Now she has really adapted to this and has helped the family integrate

Parag and Shivani with sons Akash and Anish

40 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

into the new environments with her enthusiasm and outgoing nature.” Shivani, too, is full of admiration for Parag. “If he decides something he will follow through on it. I remember, even when we used to go around on a motorbike in the early days after marriage, he was very ambitious. He had told me that his aim was to head up Sandvik one day. At that time he was a just a sales engineer. And he has worked really hard, and made that dream come true. I love his dedication and his attitude towards life.” Parag is full of praise for Shivani. “Shivani is very positive and she is

a daredevil. She wants to try many adventure activities and is not afraid of anything. She constantly encourages our kids to do the same, which I really admire.” He feels that their children Akash (17 years) and Anish (14 years) have turned well thanks to her upbringing. “Our kids are very enthusiastic, they never complain about our moving, they take it very positively. They both love sport and are good at football. Through our various relocations, they have indulged in the sports of the host countries. Their adventurous streak comes from Shivani, at least that’s what I feel.” He says with a smile. When it comes to parenting, Parag believes he and Shivani are more friends than parents to Akash and Anish. He elaborates “We are friends because they take quite some liberties with us. But then we want them to be open and talk to us without hesitations about everything. We off course do have some ground rules. In that way we are traditional parents, we have held on to our culture even though we have lived in many countries. We continue to speak in our mother tongue, Marathi. We have also tried to instill our family’s values of spiritualism and respect into them. For example, our kids regularly join us in praying and the credit for that goes to Shivani. We have wanted to instill grounding in our culture and values, and empower them so that they will be able to make their own decisions”. Shivani completes his thoughts by adding that kids nowadays need their freedom and will not accept if you try to control them too much.” In the corporate world, especially as you climb higher in stature, it

You need to respect each other, even though it is very hard to show it to them all the time. And of course love is there, you cannot express it every time but it is definitely there. It is the bedrock of every successful relationship - Shivani On a Skiing vacation

Chilling out on a Shikara in Kashmir

becomes difficult to strike a balance a between work and home. Parag agrees to this. He recalls a time when he was extremely busy when they were in the UK. He used to spend more time in the office and travelling than at home. But still on the weekends the family used go for trekking or hiking or for the boys’ football matches. Shivani adds to Parag’s point, “We always used to do some activities as the family together on the weekends. That’s why we enjoyed our stay where ever we were. I finished household work and shopping during the week so that I could spend quality time with the family on weekends. Even now, we play sports together, badminton, trekking, going for a walk in the hills, or any activity that the four of us enjoy together. Our boys are like us and they are very much into adventurous activities, and they have even gone bungee jumping.” That their marriage is successful is obvious for everyone to see, but what is their secret to a happy marriage in an age of nuclear relationships? Parag believes that there will be ups and downs in a marriage. That is inevitable. The key is to carry on and not give up. If couples gave up every time they fought, they wouldn’t last the first year of the marriage, he feels. Shivani echoes Parag’s thoughts, and adds, “You need to respect each other, even though it is very hard to show all the time. But at least in your mind you respect the person and also admire what he or she is doing. And of course love is there, you cannot express it every time but it is definitely there. It is the bedrock of every successful relationship.” neeraj.varty07@gmail.com February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 41

Celebrations

Bride Power! Madhu Bhambani overpowers her bridegroom, Brig Bhambani to find the genuine ring amongst several fake rings in the water bowl. Dimple Saini, Jai Mala: Bride and Bridegroom exchange garlands to connote the beginning of Director, Corporate Relations, Sri Balaji Society ecstatically shows it wedlock. Dr. Archana Srivastava, Director, BIMM, smiles in admiration

Golden Smilestone It takes 50 years to turn marriage into gold… and that’s the reason why the golden wedding anniversary of Brig (retd) M L Bhambani, Advisor, Sri Balaji Society and his charming wife, Madhu was celebrated with such fun, gaiety and laughter by his colleagues and friends Fifty years is quite a while For most good things to last; But you’re still together and still in love; You must share a wonderful past. We celebrate you this wonderful day, And hope that your bond keeps on growing; You’re a pair we should study and do what you say, 'Cause your secret is well worth the knowing! (By Joanna Fuchs (and Karl) from poemsource.com). In these days of unstable relationships, 50 years of togetherness in marriage is a golden moment, meant to be celebrated and cherished. Keeping in mind, the value of this golden milestone, Dr (Col) A Balasubramanian, President, Sri Balaji Society and Editor-in-Chief, Corporate Citizen, recently hosted a grand party for Brig M L Bhambani, Advisor, Sri Balaji Society and his charming wife Madhu. It was a nostalgic trip down the lane for the Bhambani couple, as memories of their day of being young bride and bridegroom was majestically revived. They were ushered in with a spray of myriad flower petals and were escorted to the ‘wedding reception’ stage. Amidst chanting of mantras by the 42 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

Cake to Cherish: The delicious wedding cake and the fizz from the champagne bottle (below) mark the celebrations followed by sumptuous dinner

Roaring Reception: Dr (Col) A Balasubramanian, President of Sri Balaji Society and Editor-In-Chief of Corporate Citizen, welcomes the bride and bridegroom to the venue, to solemnise the wedding

priest, both of them exchanged garlands to connote the nuptial union, with Brig Bhambani cheekily trying to be out of reach for his bride, while she was garlanding him. He was also made to kneel down and propose to the to-be-bride, before that. To further add to the charm and fun, a few artificial finger rings and a real diamond ring were immersed in a bowl of water and both were asked to pick the `genuine’ ring. And lo and behold, woman power won as Ms Bhambani rightly picked up the real ring, in a jiffy! That was followed by the guests queuing up to greet them and wish them good luck, happiness and longevity. What’s a party without the fizz of the champagne? So, Brig Bhambani adroitly opened the bottle and sprinkled fizz across the stage. With an elaborate food menu including an array of deserts, the party also included some fun party games. States Col Balasubramanian, “we must cherish such beautiful moments of life. We must laugh and enjoy together. Life should not be so serious that we have no time to spare for such precious moments.’’ Corporate Citizen wishes Brig Bhambani and his wife, wonderful years ahead of togetherness and love.

50 years back you held each other’s hand, And till date together you stand! February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 43

HR Talk

“In

the latter half of the 19th century or early quarter of the 20th, if you were to suggest that typewriters would one day be obsolete, chances are the main beneficiary of the technical innovation, would stare at you in disbelief. Well, of course, typewriters have been almost extinct for some-time now. The point I am making is that change is a given...but some qualities never go out of vogue...” Opening with this analogy, Deepak Chawla, Head, HR Reliance spelt out valuable pointers for corporate hopefuls to negotiate the oftengladiatorial arena of business. “VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Changing and Ambiguous) world, Digitisation and Globalisation may be the buzz-words for today, but if you are equipped with a certain attitude and approach, you will make your way through all of it,” he said.

The learning curve—simplified.

Business environments and eco-systems will always be dynamic and evolving, but it is for you to learn, unlearn and re-learn, he stressed. “If you stop learning, you are dead. Equally pertinent—unlearn and re-learn. Business environments and culture vary in different organisations; sometimes the change is implicitly demanded by the profile you happen to be in at that point. While learning and re-learning different skills, attitudes and processes is important and challenging, the toughest part, if you ask me, is to unlearn what you have internalized and carried forward for sometime as something that works for you. But one has to be flexible. The past is just that—the past—however glorious. We all have preferred notions of what we like, and are good at. It is natural for human beings to stick to comfort zones. However, the way forward for an intelligent professional is not to be bound by one’s own self,” he said. “It is easy to be trapped by PPTs and research made available to you. But scratch the surface— and you often realise you are on shaky ground,” he said. “Learning happens by doing it. So roll up your sleeves, and don’t ask why you have been chosen to do the ‘dirty job’ so to speak. Consider yourself fortunate and singular to have received the exposure.” Illustrating this point with an episode that took place decades ago, when he was a young engineer at the start of his career, Deepak Chawla narrated how he, along with three other batch mates were posted to a site in Bhutan. “We were extremely elated to be chosen to do something so prestigious and hands-on. We reached Bhutan after a long journey by train and road to the liaison office that coordinated between the many company

Learn to Re-learn Waxing eloquent on the challenges of a dynamic business environment at a recently concluded seminar on ‘Business challenges in the current world’, Deepak Chawla, Head, HR, Reliance pointed out certain qualities are timeless. This includes innovation, adaptability, agility, trustworthiness and consistency in delivering the goods By Kalyani Sardesai

and the site. To my chagrin and annoyance, I was told that I would be retained in the office for ‘clerical’ work while the others would be put on site. My first thought was: why me for this kachra work? Maintaining a register of all the workers coming—and going on site (since this was a border area), making challans and checking out passports—all of this was not a professional engineer’s task! I should have been on site with the rest of my batch mates, supervising the proceedings first-hand and contributing to the process. I felt very let-down, but I was told that it was only for a few weeks. Slightly mollified, I said to myself that I would pull on for that duration, until a replacement arrived from the head office.” As things rolled out—the replacement took much longer than that to come—but in the time span—something else had happened. “I learnt so much that went much beyond the purview of my technical training. I learnt about customs

44 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

laws, immigration, human behaviour, sales tax immaculate paperwork and so much work. In retrospect, none of this learning would have happened had the so-called kachra work not fallen into my lap,” he smiled. “When I finally made it to the project site, my colleagues envied me.” The bottom line, he stressed, was that learning often came from things one did not like to do.

Jack of all trades versus Master of One?

“The above question is asked several times and relevantly at that. To my mind, it is crucial to be an all-rounder with a working knowledge of how systems and processes work—until you be-

“Learning happens by doing it. So roll up your sleeves, and don’t ask why you have been chosen to do the dirty job, so to speak”

come a super-specialist in one particular arena. Even then, it is possible to be a successful allrounder. For instance, I have degrees in marketing and journalism—but none at all in Human Resources, which happens to be my mainstay today. Sure, I never learnt HR but my learnings and experiences with people and situations brought me to this point today. I guess that’s life and the beauty of it.”

Be trustworthy—someone they can rely upon at all times

“Quite frankly what does trust mean? It means the ability and will to deliver quality consistently. It also means keeping one’s word. If you

have said, for instance, you will finish a task by a particular day, do so, even if it does not seem crucial right them. Little things add up,” he said. “In a changing, insecure environment, it is you trustworthiness ultimately that will make you stand out.”

Accept disappointments as a part of life

“However severe a disappointment, have faith in your ability and inner resilience to sustain it— and overcome. This is true of both individuals and organisations. Events often don’t happen as per plan. But when you learn from them, and continue walking, things fall into place.”

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 45

HR Talk Work-life balance

“There is much talk about this crucial balance but it’s as simple and logical as you choose to make it. Have to go to work on a Sunday because no one else is available? Do so! You want to pursue your singing hobby? Do so! But then, don’t put it on the back-burner because you had a wedding or party to attend. Quite often we have the time and opportunity—but we need to be careful about utilising them wisely. As long as you can pursue the things you life, you are in a fine space.

Take care of your body—it serves you 24 x 7

“We all hear of call centres that work 24 x 7. But are they really? No! Employees come and go in eight hour shifts, take different weekly offs—and the cycle of work continues. The human body, on the other hand, is indeed 24 x 7—through all your work stresses, killer schedules and demanding work profiles. Take care of both your emotional and physical well-being. Can you make your body capable enough to take the ravages of time and

tide in its stride? That’s a big one, for sure.”

To sum up..

“Rest assured, however much the world may change, some aspects are classical and timeless— the ability to learn, unlearn and re-learn. Keep trust—and stay true to a set of ethics. Human relationships—if you can take credit, learn to give credit too, where it is due. So be it the era of typewriters, computers or mobile phones, you will succeed if you manage to retain them.”

Look to the future Deepak Chawla Head, HR, Reliance underlines that what sets the wheat apart from the chaff is honesty of purpose. In Conversation...

What are the qualities that you look for in the aspirants when you recruit the new talent?

Qualifications apart—we are looking for an attitude that is able to give it all. We want youngsters to take ownership of the work on hand, not just participate. In other words, roll up your sleeves and get your hands full. We like confidence, and the ability to hold a meaningful, informed conversation is hugely important too.

Statistics have it that only about seven per cent of the graduates from professional colleges are employable. Would is your take on this?

I don't know about the statistics, but it is true to an extent. That said, it is our job as employers to make the students employable—by providing them both the exposure and safety net to learn. Yes, the education system needs a revamp but that's altogether a different point. In any organisation, whether it's a commercial or voluntary set up, there will be a mix of people: the volunteers, the observers, the partial volunteers—the point is, industry has to recognise this mix and make the most of it.

What sort of changes would you want to see in our education system?

Well, at the conceptual level, the education system always makes you think of the past. Whatever the subject, students generally learn about how things were. This, to my mind, does not prepare you for the future. The natural concept, instead, is to think in the past tense. The whole value system, honestly, has to be oriented and geared to the future--one's role and responsibilities in the days to come,

towards oneself and the societal ecosystem as a whole. On a personal note, I try to incorporate this in my daily life. I mean, alright, I have 30 years of experience, but if I keep thinking of that, keep getting defined by it, it's a trap. I consciously avoid it. For the past always tells you what couldn't be done. But the future is all about what can be done.

What are the challenges of managing young talent?

Truth be told, it's not so much the millennials I am worried about as the older lot--the one that has put in 15 and 20 years of work. They are the ones who make the generation gap. The challenge is to make them stay relevant, update their skill-sets, technological know-how and wake up to the changing paradigms. As for youngsters, our attitude is simple: throw them into the deep end of the pool, at the same time, provide them with a strong enough safety net. We give them both the opportunities and support to showcase their mettle. For instance, it's not uncommon for a young person to make a presentation to our CEO himself, and answer his questions.

There's a saying that people don't really leave organisations, they leave bosses. Your take on the subject?

That's true, but not always. At times, despite a great boss, people leave, because their career plans are headed in another direction altogether. That said, we do believe in manager counselling with a view to making them understand the talent they are dealing with. On the other hand, there are those who may not necessarily possess great business skills but who bring in

46 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

the business. It's a tight line to walk really.

Tell us about the work culture that you maintain at Reliance.

A very open one for sure! My cabin, for instance, is open for anyone who has their queries. Anybody can express what they wish, and we are not bound by a high level of processes or bureaucracy—processes are fine and good-but not to the extent that they hamper decision making. We are gender-neutral and both hirings and promotions are merit based.

Despite the pressures of your schedule, how do you keep the crucial work-life balance?

I write. I am a published author—have published both fiction and poetry. I am also a great Hindi film music buff, and have all the trivia on who sang which song—the music director, producer and director.

What is your credo?

Honesty of purpose in everything that you do. Whatever you undertake has to be largely carried out for the overall good—the focus can't be you. When you consciously do that, good things come right back to you. kalyanisardesai@gmail.com

Mobile apps

Sleep Number 360 Smart Bed

Gadgets aimed at helping people get more restful sleep each night are a dime a dozen. Millions of people suffer from sleep disorders of varying degrees, but gadgets and gizmos rarely offer long-term solutions. The Sleep Number 360 Smart Bed, however, looks like the exception to the rule. Sleep Number’s latest “smart bed” isn’t just another connected mattress that lets owners make adjustments here and there on a remote or a smartphone. This is an entirely new sleep solution that monitors each partner individually and makes adjustments on its own to keep people sleeping soundly. This way, as sleeping positions change throughout the night, the bed self-adjusts to optimise the sleep surface and ensure comfort.

The Most Innovative Products at CES The Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2017, held in Las Vegas, is the biggest consumer electronics show in the world, and it is the most used platform by electronic companies to launch groundbreaking concepts. This year too, the show didn’t disappoint, and we were introduced to some of the most innovative products. Corporate Citizen presents some notable ones. By Neeraj Varty

Kingston DataTraveler 2TB flash drive

At CES, Kingston announced its new DataTraveler Ultimate GT flash drive. With 2TB of storage, it is the world's largest capacity flash drive. Despite looking a bit bloated, you will now have plenty of storage for all of your kid videos and cat photos. It looks like we are heading towards a future where external hard drives will soon be redundant, as flash drives are becoming capable of carrying more memory than traditional hard drives.

Xiaomi Mi Mix

Mi Mix was first announced three months ago, and comes with a bezel-less edge-to-edge display and ceramic body. Xiaomi calls it a concept phone and it has been jointly developed with designer Philippe Starck. In case of the Mi Mix, the phone has a 92 per cent screen-to-body ratio and the company has done away with the physical earpiece speaker and proximity sensor in this device, making it the slimmest phone in the world.

Samsung Chromebook Plus

Samsung’s just-announced Chromebook Plus has all the features a person could want from a laptop in 2017. The 12.3-inch touchscreen display comes with a very high Quad HD resolution and support for a built-in S Pen stylus. The 2.0GHz hexa-core processor adds plenty of raw power. The nifty hinge design allows the screen to rotate all the way open so the device can be used as a tablet. And it ships with the Google Play store pre-installed, giving users access to millions of Android apps in addition to apps made for Chrome OS. February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 47

Campus Placement

‘Look at

setbacks as challenges’ Harshika, a telecom course pass out, makes it to Evalueserve in Gurgaon. Her throughly focussed attitude of looking at the setbacks as challenges helped her sail through with flying colours By Joe Williams

arshika Phatak-better known as fauji ki beti-now is Evalueserve’s fauji as this telecom pass out girl from a city college got the nod from the Gurgaon-based company in the final round. A graduate from SRES College of Engineering , Savitribai Phule Pune University, Harshika’s mantra to success was adaptability, punctuality and discipline which she inculcated from her own family. There have been many hurdles, especially during her college campaign, and there were always those who criticised her, but Harshika did not take them as setbacks but challenges, which attitude was her main weapon and led her in her path to success. “I pursued my bachelor degree of engineering from SRES College of Engineering, Savitribai Phule Pune University. Yes, it was a real dream come true for me as I am now placed in Evalueserve, Gurgaon. Many of us say ‘it is my dream to be with this company or that’, but for me it was a reality. I had a dream that I got a placement in Gurgaon, but did not know which company. I even told my friends that I was going to Gurgaon three days before the battery test, the interview. And that dream of mine came true after the final round of my interview when my name was called out first in the last round. To begin one’s career close to the capital city was a sought after placement for me. It’s a beginning, I have a long way to go, and for me the sky is the limit. 48 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

Harshika enjoying with her friends

When Evalueserve came into the scene, I was both hopeful and apprehensive. It was a placement anyone from the field of technology would love to start their career with. There was a fear factor too. The fear was initial, but as I had already been through a few such processes I could be spontaneous. I look forward for a good beginning with my tenure with the firm, my work there should speak louder than my words. Yes, it is a learning process, I will take each step forward in learning more things. When one asks me what tested my mettle, it was my perseverance, dedication, concentration, sincerity, and above all the hunger to know more, gain knowledge. I am sure anybody with these qualities will be successful in their life and become someone to acknowledge by all. Challenge is what makes someone stronger, taking setback as the challenge. There have been instances where my own friends did speak ill of me. In the beginning I would be upset, but after some thought, I said to myself, why not prove that what they were saying about me was wrong? And it was this that took a U-turn in my life and since then I have taken all criticism as challenges. And today, I thank all those people who talked ill about me, as I have been able to meet their challenge. I come from a fauji (defence) family, and as it is often said, I belong to India and India belongs to me-that's what an Indian Air Force brat can say. Yes, it was my family that helped me move head in the right direction, and I am sure will keep me moving. There were no setbacks during my school days, filled with happy memories of attendance, homework, class teachers, and many more, I am proud to say that I was one of the toppers, and later in the college I was the first lady vice president with distinction in graduation. Being from a defence background family, the sense of adaptability, punctuality and discipline helped me in a big way. Above all it helped me face problems with my head held high. ‘Fauji ki beti ho’ wala dialogue always brings miracles. This was the mantra my mother, (Sheela) and father (PR Pathak) drilled me with, not forgetting my younger brother (Nikunj) who has been my best critique.

The six secrets of success:  Hard work pays off  Problems are opportunity (experience it)  The No Sunday rule lets you value time (think about it)  Learn from everywhere (analyse it)  Knowledge never goes in vain  Trust your parents, elders and teachers

When one asks me what tested my mettle, it was my perseverance, dedication, concentration, sincerity, and above all the hunger to know more, gain knowledge. I am sure anybody with these qualities will be successful in life

He corrected me whenever I was wrong, despite being younger than me. Nikunj never took things what his didi (me) said, for granted. He has been and will be the greatest support on earth for me. ‘Leaving the child to do what he/ she feels good about will do wonders’ has been the motto of my parents, I would say they are the best examples of selfless love. Everything I did, whatever I wanted, they gave me freedom all through. Their blind trust never allowed me to do anything which would hurt them, and their being proud of me takes me to cloud nine. Joe78662@gmail.com

tadka India Ranks 7th among ‘Most Hit’ Terror Countries India has been ranked 7th amongst countries most impacted by terrorism in 2015 in the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), 2016 of Sydney-based Institute for Economics & Peace. The report says India is one of six Asian countries among top ten nations, most impacted by terrorism. India saw seven per cent of terrorist attacks around the world-4th highest after Iraq (20 per cent), Afghanistan (14 per cent) and Pakistan (8 per cent).

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 49

Loved & Married too It is not often these days that a college romance fructifies into a wedlock. Corporate Citizen unlocks the story of love that has culminated into marriage, for we believe in the stability of a relationship and family unit. We bring to you real-life romances that got sealed in marriage

Of simplicity and strength

Sixteen years post their inter-religious wedding, Shehnaz Husein and Anmol Chawla’s relationship is testimony to the sheer strength of mutual trust and faith in keeping it smooth sailing. “Honestly, life is as simple as you make it,” says Shehnaz on their diverse cultural backgrounds. (She’s a Bohri and he a Punjabi.) While conventional gyaan might have predicted a stormy journey, theirs has not been a dramatic or difficult journey, thanks to a shared belief in maturity and love. This is how they tell their story...

By Kalyani Sardesai

They had an Arya Samaj wedding: short, sweet and dignified. While there was revelry and fun, it was far from a big fat wedding. No discord or nervousness between the families either. And definitely no theatrics. If weddings stood for the personalities of the couple concerned, Shehnaz Husein and Anmol Chawla's nuptials would have spoken volumes for the people they are: assured, straightforward and completely focused on what they believe is important. "If you love and take care of each other-that's all you need, " says Shehnaz. Yes, she admits, there were parental concerns over religious differences. "But at 24 and 26 respectively, we were settled in careers and knew what we wanted. I was a journalist working with The Indian Express, he was a software engineer in a reputed company. We were educated and independent. Still, we wanted to marry with our parents' blessings. We convinced them. They saw it our way, and agreed, whole-heartedly." Both knew each other from the very beginning, as they'd grown up with a common friend circle. But, it wasn't until much later that they began seeing each other. "Dating someone in your mid-twenties, even if it's an old friend, is very different from college. You see them more clearly for the people they are. As Anmol and I 50 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

pics: yusuf khan

The perfect match on wedding day

Shehnaz and Anmol having quality time

In fact, it was mom who once casually dropped a hint that perhaps I could consider Anmol as he was such a ‘great guy’ —Shehnaz began talking, I realised we could have a future together," says Shehnaz. They are different; she is outgoing, bubblywhile he's quiet. He likes Hollywood, and it's Bollywood for her. He chooses his words carefully, and she is spontaneous and impulsive. Such differences add value to the equation, instead of taking away from it. "In fact, it was mom who once casually dropped a hint that perhaps I could consider Anmol as he was a 'great guy'," smiles Shehnaz. Sixteen years and two children (Sahil-14; Ruhaan-12) later, there are no regrets. Only memories. Mostly happy ones. "The loss of her father and the birth of our children are unforgettable memories, leaving a deep impact on our lives. For Shehnaz, dad was everything, and his passing away left a void in her life. ``God put me in her life just three months before this, as if to say clearly to her that he was taking away someone who had brought her into this world and held her hand till that moment-but he was also completing the circle of life by replacing him with someone, who would hold her hand for the rest of her life," shares Anmol. "When we became parents, holding your newborn child is an indescribable feeling and an unforgettable memory."

Decoding the dynamic

"I did not feel the pressure of adjustment post marriage," says Shehnaz. "Both of us are spiritually inclined as opposed to being religious. So religion was never an issue. Coming from cosmopolitan backgrounds, we were celebrating all festivals together. So our life together progressed harmoniously. Both of us believe in caring for each other's families. My mother-inlaw lives with us from the very beginning and has been a huge support." Both are vegetarians too, but they were so, out of choice, well before

marriage. "Both of us are foodies and love trying out different dishes," she smiles. What helped, was the way Anmol had been raised by his mom-dad and two elShehnaz and Anmol with their sons Sahil and Ruhaan der sisters. "They did not make a big deal of the fact that he was a boy. Therefore, he is grounded, mature, evolved and more than home. Be it driving them to different classes, or willing to help with household doing little things for them, he's chores," she says. Anmol is equalalways there. He's also encourThe pillars aged me to restart my writing asly appreciative of his spouse. Ask him to describe her, and words signments," she says. Anmol feels of a just flow. "She is the most loving, parenting is a process of continumarriage positive, caring and sharing perous learning. "Kids teach us more l Focusing on ‘us’-son. I can depend on her. She is a than we teach them. We try to be not ‘you’ and ‘me’ complete woman in every sense. perfect parents but there is no Independent and fearless, she can such thing as perfect parenting. l Spending time take on anyone, but she is also, We make it a point to give them a together; doing little humble and unassuming, never peaceful and loving atmosphere," things as a family taking credit for the things she he says. l Sharing does. She is a wonderful mother, What, according to them, responsibilities, living the values that she wants makes a relationship work ? "Simboth personal and her children to inculcate. I cherplicity; keeping things uncompliprofessional ish her for the better person that cated," says Shehnaz. "The more she makes me want to become." you complicate things, the toughl Striving to keep a er they become. Instead focus on peaceful and loving certain intangibles-like love, care, Strength to strength atmosphere at home communication and laughter. Their professional lives have Everything then falls into place." undergone a sea-change since Anmol would add constant communication, Anmol started his own company, Boomerang spending time with each other and mutual trust. Software Pvt Ltd, which specialisesd in medSo who makes up in case of a fight "It is always ical billings and transcriptions."I used to help I who make up. She just switches off and goes him in the beginning, taking on whatever was about doing her own thing. But I hate it when within my understanding, considering that I we don't talk so I try to end the fight as soon as came from a non-technical background," smiles possible." Importantly, they keep up the commuShehnaz. Despite the rough and tumble of startnication. " We usually sit down and discuss issues ing their own company, Shehnaz points out on the same day. We both have very strong opinthat bringing up two young children has been a ions on many issues and so we have a lot more shared responsibility. "As a father, he's involved. discussion than most couples," he says. I have never felt that I am doing the lion's share kalyanisardesai@gmail.com of the parenting. It helps that he can work from February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 51

Survey

Indian manufacturing through the last 25 years

Manufacturing is the backbone of an industrial economy, and it is one of the largest job creators in a country. Indian manufacturing has been a source of pride for the country, and its contribution to the economy cannot be understated. With a view to track the progress of the Indian manufacturing sector over the years as well as to ascertain its future, leading global business consulting firm Boston Global Consulting (BGC) has conducted a detailed survey chronicling the progress of Indian industry over the turn of the century and going forward. Corporate Citizen presents the results

The Indian Manufacturing Industry has always been a great driver of economic growth. According to the Boston Consulting Group, the sector is performing exceedingly well. During the last three decades, the sector has grown at a steady annual rate of 13% (nominal), surpassed by just one other country over this timeâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;China. However, considering its potential and the country's promise in terms of job creation, India still has a long way to goâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;both the government's target of 25% contribution to

52 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

economy and 100 million new jobs are still a far cry from where we are. However, progress is being done. The manufacturing sector has been showing consistent growth over the last 25 years, and the recent Make in India initiative by the government has shown stellar dividends. With the exception of the last quarter of the year, 2016 has been an excellent year for Indian manufacturing. October was the best month with production output increased by 10% compared to last year. The

The Indian Manufacturing sector has performed extremely well over the long term The Indian manufacturing sector has shown steady results with a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 13% (in nominal terms) over 25+ years. In the process, it has grown faster than most other economies, with 1 rupee of output in 1990 increasing to 21 rupees today. The only notable exceptions are the Chinese manufacturing and Indian service sectors, which have grown at a faster rate.

China Manufacturing

India Service

India South Korea Thailand Manufacturing Manufacturing Manufacturing

One rupee output in 1990 has today grown too... India Agriculture

Mexico USA Germany South Africa Manufacturing Manufacturing Manufacturing Manufacturing

The untapped potential for Indian Manufacturing sector would have capped an excellent year with a fabulous last quarter, if it hadn’t been due to demonetization, which has overall impacted all the sectors for the short term. Hopefully, 2017 will see the industry bounce back with renewed vigour. Internationally, India’s reputation as a manufacturing destination is growing steadily. India’s ranking on the ease of doing business scale has increased from 142 in 2014 to 130 in 2016. FDI has increased from $25 Billion from 2014 to $40 Billion in 2016. Infrastructure building has also shown tremendous increase in the last two years. The overall industry growth has increased from 8.1% in 2014 to 8.8% in 2016. Let us consider each of these metrics in detail.

India’s manufacturing contribution to GDP is 16%. Many government initiatives have targeted a 25% GDP share in the near future; China's manufacturing sector is already at 27%. Indian manufacturing covers only 2% of global trade and 10% of formal employment, but it holds enough potential to significantly increase global share and domestic employment. GDP Share

India

Global Trade Share

16% 20%

Mexico

22% 25% 27% China South Korea

Mexico

Germany GoI Target

India

28%

South Korea Germany USA China

Employement Share

India

10% 17%

Mexico

South Korea

Germany

12%

18% 20% 20%

GoI Target China

29%

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 53

Survey

India's recent manufacturing performance has been below par

The last 12 months have been quite poor for the Indian manufacturing sector. After starting off well in the first half of FY16 and peaking in October 2015 with an output growth of 10%, the sector has seen a decline. The maximum growth since October last year has been only 2% with 7 out of 11 months showing a negative y-o-y growth. The fallout of demonetisation is likely to slow down the manufacturing sector in the first half of 2017 as well. 12

Aug' 16

Jun' 16

Apr' 16

Feb' 16

Dec' 15

Oct' 15

Aug' 15

Jun' 15

Apr' 15

Feb' 15

Dec' 14

Oct' 14

Aug' 14

Jun' 14

-6

Apr' 14

Slowdown in the capital goods has been most concerning

While the overall performance has been poor, what could hurt manufacturing most overtime is the decline in capital goods. Capital goods, an indicator of economic investment has fallen by over 20% so far this year.

Basic

Consumer

Intermediate

Capital

Goods

Petroleum fuel, Cement, Basic metals etc.

Electronic products, Passenger cars, Two wheelers, Apparel, Processed food products etc.

Metal products, Cotton yarn, Plywood etc.

Commercial vehicles, Light and heavy machineries etc.

FY 12-15

FY 16

FY 17 (Apr-Aug)

21%

54 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

"Make in India": Government initiatives to boost manufacturing growth

Although the recent rate of growth has been a concern, the long term business environment is improving. Make in India has been more than just a buzzword. The government has made good on its commitments to drive the manufacturing sector by introducing a set of initiatives to improve manufacturing performance. Infrastructure, policy and taxation efforts across have resulted in landmark reforms.

Apr' 16

Apr' 15 Passed in Lok Sabha

GST FDI

Passed in Rajya Sabha

FDI Norms relaxed for 15 sectors

Slated to be implemented

FDI Norms relaxed for 9sectors

UDAY Scheme Passed

Power

Tarrif PolicyElectricity for all

Solar power increase by 66% anticipated

Sagar Mala project initiatedâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; Construction of 15,000 km of ports led development new roads by 2017

Transport Industry Specific

Package launched for textile industry Bankruptcy code passed

Finance Labour Reform

Apr' 16

Shram Suvidha Portal launched

Apprentices rules amended

Repo rates lowered to 6.25%

Labour reforms; easy hiring & retrenchment, flexible female participation

Industry very optimistic about the future

The results are very promising. Ease of doing business rankings, power availability, infrastructure, and FDI inflows have all seen significant improvement over the past 2 years. The impact is also evident on the mood and optimism of the industry with key industrial leaders today having higher growth expectations.

Power 2014

Ease of Rank Doing Business 120

FDI

$25Bn

2016 Rank

130

$40Bn

2014

2016

2017

2014

Estimate

Energy Gap -4.2%

-2.1%

1.1%

Roads

Peak Power -4.5% Gap

-3.2%

2.6%

Ports

Getting Electricity Rank

Industry view: Expected growth in manufacturing in the next 5 years

111

actual

8.1%

Capacity

Rail

built

Tracks

800

965

km/day

8.8%

8.6% 2014

2016

2015

2016 neeraj.varty07@gmail.com

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 55

Health

Bitten by

the fitness bug Fashion designer Sheetu Gochwal Digani loves to party and enjoys shopping, like any ordinary girl. But what sets apart this mommy from others is extraordinary will and determination to be fit. She is a gym enthusiast who has also inspired many other mommies to take fitness seriously. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more, she has even participated in a fitness pageant... By Namrata Gulati Sapra

56 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

My Fitness Journal

Sheetu begins by sharing with us her weekly fitness regime at the gym and otherwise... Early morning: My fitness regime starts early morning with one litre of warm lemon water followed by green tea. I prefer to workout on an empty stomach as I want to utilise my stored fat into energy. I am dead against using supplements and steroids. It’s a big no no for me. So, a cup of strong black coffee is my pre-workout miracle drink. Monday- the leg day: The first day of the week is dedicated to working out my legs. Tuesday- upper body day: This is followed by working out my entire upper body the next day Wednesday- functional: The mid day of the week is all about working on bodily functions such as endurance and balance Thursday- Cardio day: I spend an hour everyday on cardio training Friday- the whole body day: I workout my entire body on Fridays. Weekend- Test days Alternate Days- Abs: I workout my abs every other day. Abs is something I love doing!

Eating right & training go hand in hand

Many of us train like a beast at the gym but fail to moderate our diet accordingly. Sheetu emphasises the significance of eating and of course, drinking right, “Always be true to your body. It’s like a temple that you will always worship, so listen to what it is trying to tell you. Never over eat nor over train yourself. If you are too tired in the middle of the week, take a day off and relax.” “Needless to say, we are what we eat. Always be hydrated enough.Try different juices, salads and try to experiment with your own meals. treat yourself to your favourites at regular intervals.” And what about her own diet chart? She answers the question, “I don’t believe in cheat days. I eat what I love, be it pizza, pasta or brownies, but I make sure I indulge myself in small quantities that too before 6 pm.” She adds, making a lot of sense, “Well, I won’t lie by saying that I eat proteins, salads, fruits. I am a normal human being and have cravings.

However, for me, it is the quantity that makes all he difference, such as a slice of pizza works well enough for me when it comes to satisfying my taste buds. But remember, it’s all in the mind. Train your mind and it will train your body.”

A pageant of a different kind

Being the fitness enthusiast that she is, Sheetu decided to give a go at a fitness pageant for ladies, “There are zillions of bodybuilding and/or physique contests happening but the sheer format of this contest was enough for me to consider it seriously!” Wait till she tells you about the qualification criteria, “seven gruelling rounds testing an amateur woman on strength (upper and lower body), endurance, flexibility, confidence, stage presence, core strength and over and above everything else, her grit and determination! For me this was a challenge in itself.” But the real challenge was yet to come, “The preparation was built around ‘periodisation’. I broke all my training cycles into short training cycles of one month each, giving.priority to each component of fitness as planned during that time. This was planned keeping in mind the final goal. Weight training formed the foundation while cardio and SLRT (Special Light Resistance Training) assisted it.”

Fitness has changed the way I look at people and the way people look at me. It has brought about a huge confidence in me, helping my selfesteem

Take backs from the women’s pageant

Sheetu says, “Through the pageant, I learnt that essentially each one of us female, paricipating in the competition is a winner already. And why not, imagine all of these women, including me, were both

parents and home makers or working professionally. To juggle our family life and to participate at a national level requires not only physical strength but also immense mental perseverance. Thank God for the competition, which has served us, a springboard for me, giving me more confidence and making me more focussed than ever before.” She goes on to give out invaluable fitness tips to women.” All women must (the word ‘must’ in capital letters!) strength train regardless of their age; Never substitute a

good diet with supplements. Instead supplement your diet with such aids. Be patient, keep focussing on small improvements and one day, you will get there. Stay fit!”

Strength is attractive!

Sheetu signs off by telling us how she perceives fitness, “Fitness has changed the way I look at people and the way people look at me. It has brought about a huge confidence in me, helping my self-esteem. Once you dedicate yourself to fitness, your mirror image improves. Needless to say, I am strong and as they say, strong is the new sexy.” namratagulati8@gmail.com

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 57

Pearls of Wisdom

By Dada J P Vaswani

What kind of story are you Living? We stride through life as if we will live forever. We treat time as a cheap commodity that we blindly waste. And before we know it, the sands of our hourglass run out, and we face the end of our brief existence on this planet unfulfilled and regretful

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Man is a combination us, have identified you would immediately

58 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

There's a book called 'A Million Miles in a Thousand Years' about an author who is being interviewed to make a movie about his life. And he realises his life is boring. There is almost nothing worth talking about. In writing the screen play and editing the book events into interesting movie dialogue, Miller learns a little more about the elements of a good story and through those things learns more about the story that he is living as well as the story he wants to be living. “Good stories don't happen by accident, I learned. They are planned,” he says in the book. My friends, let us ask ourselves, "What kind of story am I living? What kind of story do I want to be living?" An Iranian king summoned a philosopher and said to him, "I would like you to sum up human life in a few simple words." "Just give me a week's time," requested the philosopher. The week passed by quickly. The philosopher returned to the king's court, “I have thought over your question carefully," he said "I believe I have the answer now.” “Give it to me at once” pleaded the king eagerly. “The lives of most people can be summed up in these few words, O king,” said the philosopher. “He was born, he grew up in years, he married, he begot children, he died!” Is this going to be my story? Is this all there is to human life? These words also sum up the life of every animal. Is not a human being's life meant for higher things? Have you ever asked yourself, "What is the purpose of my life?" Have you ever thought, "I race and I chase, all so that I can make more money, have more success, become more powerful, acquire more and more. All this chasing for what?” We stride through life as if we will live forever. We treat time as a cheap commodity that we blindly waste. And before we know it, the sands of our hourglass run out, and we face the end of our brief existence on this planet unfulfilled and regretful. Little do we realise that the human birth has been given to us for a specific purpose. We are like the astronaut on a Space Shuttle Mission sent to explore life on Mars. We are given vital supplies and are equipped with the latest hi-

tech gadgetry. However, we are so fascinated by the beauty and splendour around that we forget our real purpose, which was to report our findings back to earth. Similarly in life, we are busy doing so many things, we are so wrapped up in worldly pursuits that we have forgotten our true purpose. We have forgotten why we are here because we have forgotten who we are. Man is a combination of three things, the physical body, the mind and the soul. Most of us, have identified ourselves as the body that we wear. If I were to ask you who are you, you would immediately point to your body. We think we are the bodies that we wear. But the body, as has been told us in the great scripture of India, the Bhagwad Gita, is only a garment which we have worn during our present incarnation. We have worn many such bodies. We have put away many such bodies. We are not the bodies which we wear. Neither are we the body-mind complex. Man is essentially a soul who has worn the garment of the body and who has brought with himself the instrument of the mind to be able to do his work on the physical plain. Each one of us is an immortal spirit. My friend, this priceless human birth has been bestowed upon each one of us for a specific purpose – that we may realise what we are, whence we came, and whither we are to return. We are not the bodies that we wear. We are immortal spirits. We are not this; we are that! Weapons cannot cleave us and fires cannot burn us, and winds cannot dry us and the waters cannot drench us. We are that, we are not this. We have received the golden opportunity of the human birth, let us not leave the world with empty hearts. While all of us need to work and earn our livelihood, we must not forget our true purpose, we must not neglect the Treasure Imperishable, the treasure of true love. Let us fill our hearts with Love - love for the Lord and love for his suffering children. It is to gather this treasure that we have come to this earth. Alas, how few of us realise the value of human life! How many of us fritter away this precious gift in trivial pursuits

of three things, the physical body, the mind and the soul. Most of ourselves as the body that we wear. If I were to ask you who are you, point to your body. We think we are the bodies that we wear”

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 59

Bollywood Biz

Bollywood

Stars who

became Authors Bollywood has been a topic that has fascinated authors for decades, and countless books have been written about Bollywood Stars. However, it is rare to witness the opposite-Bollywood stars who decided to become authors. Rare or not, they do exist, and some of them have become credible authors with legitimate bestsellers on their hands. This edition, Corporate Citizen brings you Bollywood actors who became successful authors By Neeraj Varty

Twinkle Khanna

Mrs funnybones, The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad Aishwarya Dhanush

Standing on an Apple box Despite being the daughter of Superstar Rajnikant and the wife of actor Dhanush, Aishwarya is the one who shines through in this thoughtfully penned memoir. The book contains Aishwarya’s memories from her childhood, as well as her own

tryst with direction, being a mother, and balancing a normal life in the midst of a celebrity spotlight. Don’t miss it for the world.

60 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

Twinkle Khannna has been trending through all of 2016, but not for her body of work in films (which wasn’t all that much to speak of anyway), but for her writing. Twinkle began writing a weekly column for the Times of India and Daily News & Analysis, which quickly gathered acclaim for her poignant and humorous style of writing. In 2015, she released a compilation of her writings titled Mrs Funnybones, which became an instant hit, selling over 1 lakh copies within weeks of its release. She became the highest selling Indian female writer of 2015. This year, she has released a new book called The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad, again to stellar reviews. Sometimes it takes time to find your calling. It seems Twinkle has finally found hers.

Anupam Kher

The best thing about You is You Anupam Kher is one of India’s most respected actors, but his versatility extends to things other than acting. He indulges in theatre, TV, runs an acting academy and has even worn the director’s hat. Now, Anupam has turned author with this book that aims to guide you through life with tips that he has picked up from his own experiences. The book shares insightful advice to guide people on the path to self-realisation. According to Anupam, The idea behind the book is to inculcate positive thinking in daily life.

Shilpa Shetty

Emraan

The Great Indian Diet

Hashmi

The Kiss of life The Bollywood SerialKisser, Emraan Hashmi is a caring father and a devoted family person. What most people don’t know is that Emraan’s newborn son Ayaan suffered from a rare form of cancer, and it was after a harrowing process of treatment that he was finally cured. Recently, Emraan released his book on the struggles of his son’s cancer. The book is said to have Hashmi’s personal and emotional journey of life, along with information to help anyone whose loved ones are battling cancer. It’s a heart wringing

tale of tears, love grit and determination, which everyone can draw from.

Shilpa Shetty may be away from the silver screen, but she was back in the news due to her debut book ‘The Great Indian Diet’ which focusses on eating healthy on an Indian food diet. According to Shilpa, everybody is so weight-obsessed that they forget about focusing on health. It also shares anecdotes about the time she put on weight after the birth of her son Viaan, which led to depression, until she decided to eat healthy and managed to shed 32 kg in four and a half months.

neeraj.varty07@gmail.com

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 61

Musings

Ganesh Natarajan

Goodbye Captain Dhoni Unlike the larger city of Patna, Ranchi boasts of great weather, an environment of entrepreneurship-it is no surprise that the Dhoni persona embodied and continues to show the ambition, warmth and willingness to let go, that characterises many folks from that city

his New Year’s Eve gave me the unexpected privilege of shaking hands with a legend of our times Mahinder Singh Dhoni. He was in Pune as the guest of a friend at his party and in my brief chat with the great man, it never appeared as though he was going to make a momentous announcement in the following week. For a man at the top of his game to hand over the reins of captaincy to his successor, first in Test Cricket and now in all formats of the game, it takes guts and the courage of his conviction that he needs to do whatever it takes that will benefit the game and the country he so dearly loves! As the legendary Sunil Merchant once told Sunil Gavaskar on his radio show “Cricket with Vijay Merchant”, it is important to go when the world asks why, not when people begin to say why not! For many of us who spent our childhood and youth in Ranchi, Mahi comes across as a kindred soul and the wonderful biopic and role essayed so well by young movie actor Rajput emphasised the nostalgia factor for our town and its people. I had the privilege to spend 16 years in that city, liv-

ing initially in the little village of Tatisilwai near Ranchi and later in the campus of the Birla Institute of Technology where I did my first degree in Mechanical Engineering. Unlike the larger city of Patna, Ranchi boasted of great weather, an environment of entrepreneurship and very enterprising people and it is no surprise that the Dhoni persona embodied and continues to show the ambition, warmth and willingness to let go that characterises many folks from that city. For us, going to college in the ’70s saw enough of the dreaded “R” word as our seniors chose to first harass us and then befriend us to build lifelong friendships. One such example was Deven Sharma, a Dhoni of the financial word, who actually dared to take on the US establishment by downgrading America’s credit ratings, an act that would put his career in personal jeopardy but showed the chutzpah that so often emanates from graduates of BIT Mesra and residents of that city and state. In this context, if one analyses that life and work of Mahi, many of the man’s actions become easy to understand. His ability to keep a cool head in the most intense pressure cooker situations shows the

62 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

instinct of a man who would have faced many a street fight while growing up and come through unscathed or at least given much more than he got. His ability to toss the ball to a most unexpected bowler to bowl the last over in a “do or die” one day game situation is the manifestation of an entrepreneurial risk, taking ability that many of us Ranchiites relish. And the ability to pick up a perfect good length ball early and smack it over the ropes with a trademark helicopter shot demonstrates the instinct of a man who is ever willing to break the rules written by the purists and improvise to cap-

italise on a given situation. When the history of Indian cricket is written, Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar would surely have their names etched in gold, but the people who capture the imagination of future generations would be a man who dared to tear his shirt off at Lords and two World Cup winners, Kapil Dev and Dhoni, both small town, relatively unsophisticated young men who would not take No for an answer, dreamed the impossible dream and dared to achieve it! When viewed through the Ranchi lens, even some of the actions for which Dhoni is faulted, sticking on

“Mahi is too strong and individualistic a leader to be just another member of the team and the years spent as the much worshipped and watched Captain of India would make it agonising for him to be just another cog in the India wheel” with Raina and many “favourites” even during under-performing phases and acts of omission and commission in his captaincy that incurred the wrath of some commentator pundits, will be understood as just the acts of a man who would tilt at the windmills of convention and back himself without any great concern for reprimand or criticism. Do I think he will be a success-

ful player under the captaincy of Virat Kohli and play on with winning performances up to the next World Cup? Personally, I do not think so! Mahi is too strong and individualistic a leader to be just another member of the team and the years spent as the much worshipped and watched Captain of India would make it agonising for him to be just another cog in the India wheel, however wonderful

that when may become under Virat in the years to come. Dhoni has much to contribute to the country and hopefully to the people of Ranchi and having made enough money to last him and his family many life times, one can only hope that he will use his considerable wealth, brand value and charisma to motivate many young folks to do great service to the game of cricket, to all forms of sport and to

the ascent of India in the firmament of world leading nations in the future. A salute to captain Dhoni—such a magnificent man rarely walks on Planet Earth and we are proud to have seen him lead and serve the nation! Dr Ganesh Natarajan is Chairman of 5F World, Pune City Connect & Social Venture Partners, Pune.

February 1-15, 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 63

Corporate Grin

By all means

marry, but... Sometimes forwards in social media can be fun. So, we captured some of them to share with you; to make you smile and know some things that you may not have known earlier

Global opinions on marriages After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together. —Al Gore By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. —Socrates Woman inspires us to do great things, and prevents us from achieving them. —Mike Tyson I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me. —Bill Clinton Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays. — George W Bush There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage. —Michael Jordan Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming: 1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it. 2. Whenever you're right, shut up. —Shaquille O'Neal The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once. —Kobe Bryant You know what I did before I married?? Anything I wanted to. —David Hasselhoff My wife and I were happy for 20 years. Then we met. —Alec Baldwin A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong. —Barack Obama 64 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

Rarely used English words Did you know these things had names? Glabella: The space between your eyebrows. Petrichor: The way it smells after the rain Aglet: The plastic or metallic coating at the end of your shoelaces Vagitus: The cry of a new born baby Tines: The prongs on a fork Phosphenes: The sheen or light that you see when you close your eyes and press your hands on them Box Tent: The tiny plastic table placed in the middle of a pizza box is called a box tent Overmorrow: The day after tomorrow Minimus: Your tiny toe or finger Agraffe: The wired cage that

holds the cork in a bottle of champagne Vocables: The 'na na na' and 'la la la', which don't really have any meaning in the lyrics of any song Wamble: The rumbling of stomach Columella Nasi: The space between your nostrils Dysania: The condition of finding it difficult to get out of the bed in the morning is called dysania. Griffonage: Unreadable handwriting Crapulence: That utterly sick feeling you get after eating or drinking too much Brannock Device: The metallic device used to measure your feet at the shoe store

What is Diwali Bonus? Initially there was a concept of salary to be paid on a weekly basis to the workers in India, particularly the textile and flour mill workers in Bombay. So you received 52 salaries in a year. But when British started ruling India they came up with concept of monthly salary which meant you were getting paid for 48 weeks only. So if we have 4 weeks in a month, 13 salaries should have been distributed but as per a monthly structure they were giving only 12 salaries in a year. When people realised that this was a loss to them in terms of one salary, many protest rallies were organised in Maharashtra during 1930-1940. The British then came up with a solution to this problem. After discussion with labour leaders about how to distribute this 13th salary and they decided Diwali being the biggest festival of India, they would distribute this 13th salary during Diwali. Today this is called the Diwali Bonus. This was implemented from 30th June 1940.

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astroturf Aries

Mar 21- April 20 You may excel in any kind of outdoor sports and activities. You will be able to finish your projects in much lesser time than anticipated. Progress happens swiftly. Try to keep children from harm’s way. Be more patient with everyone around you. Attend to repairs at home. Parents’ health needs to be monitored.

TAURUS

April 21 - May 20 You need to pay more attention to your health and energy, though overall your health will remain good. You could expect to hear news about pay rise. You may witness dramas in the lives of your loved ones. Children and parent figures need to be taken care of. Your house, cars or equipment may require repairs or replacements.

GEMINI

May 21 - June 21 Your career needs your focus and concentration. Health remains good. Pay attention to your career or business than finance. Increased status in profession or business will lead to better money. You need to make sure you are doing the correct investments. You may have to spend money on repairs or replacement of technical equipment.

CANCER

Jun 22 - July 23 There will be renewed confidence, self-esteem and energy. Career will be busy, hectic but successful. Investments need to be looked into. Events in foreign lands impact your finances. Children or parent figures need proper attention.

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Fortune favours the bold and the lucky

Your attitude is your altitude, says Dolly Manghat, our renowned Astrological Expert and believes she helps people create their own prophecies rather than live predictions

LEO

July 24 - Aug 23 Pay attention to the needs of your health. You will undergo a change in your thought process values and beliefs. Be careful of elderly or sick. Your partner or spouse needs to deal with financial issues, and be forced to make changes. You need to be realistic of your finances and plan accordingly. Health remains good if you pay adequate attention.

VIRGO

Aug 24 - Sept 23 The organisations you believe in or working for will undergo major shake ups though you will remain relatively unaffected. Make sure your important files are backed up and anti-hacking software up to date. Relationships will undergo severe tests. Your spouse or partner will face some health issues.

LIBRA

Sept 24 - Oct 22 Dramatic changes in your company or industry are indicated. There can be health scares or job changes. There will be disruptions at work place,

66 / Corporate Citizen / February 1-15, 2017

employee turnover and unrest in the organisations. Your health regime needs a change.

SCORPIO

Oct 23 - Nov 22 A good period to start new projects launching new ventures or products. There might be career changes, shake ups in your company or industry. Students could be changing their streams. You need to maintain your calm. Make sure children remain out of harm’s way. Finances are good. Try to wrap up important purchases or investments before the 6th. side effect.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov 23 - Dec 22 You may find romance with people involved in your finances. There will be dramatic change of educational plans. Foreign travel is best avoided. Your partner or spouse needs to make certain important course corrections in your financial life. Care of elders should be of paramount importance.

CAPRICORN

Dec 23 - Jan 20 This is a great time to attract outside investors for your

projects. Your partner or spouse will be supportive. Money comes from various sources. Your spouse or partner will make important financial changes. Be more patient with your loved ones. Take care of your electrical equipment. Some will need replacement or repairs.

AQUARIUS

Jan 21 - Feb19 Enjoy life as it comes and make the most of this socially engaging period. Your physical appearance will shine through and you will attract a lot of attention. There could be a life changing experience. Take care of your health and monitor yourself if you feel any kind of sickness. You will change your financial thinking and strategy. Health will remain good if you pay proper attention towards it. .

PISCES

Feb 20 - Mar 20 Health is excellent but you need to reduce your schedule and take small breaks for rejuvenation. Job changes or changes in the conditions of work may happen. You could witness dramatic changes at work place or the business you are involved in. There will be dramas in the lives of people around you. Change how you want to see yourself or how you want others to perceive you. Singles will find love and those in a relationship find the bonds strengthening. But this also brings in fickleness in love as love changes rapidly. Your networking may improve and life will become happy and enjoyable. Address: 143, St Patrick’s Town, Gate# 3, Hadapsar IE, Pune-411 013. Tel.: 020-26872677 / 020-32905748 Email: connect@dollymanghat.com/ info.dollymanghat@gmail.com

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