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18

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VOLUME 18 ISSUE 10 OCTOBER 2020

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Seasonal www.seasonalmagazine.com

Managing Editor Jason D Pavorattikaran Editor John Antony Director (Finance) Ceena Associate Editor Carl Jaison Senior Editorial Coordinator Jacob Deva Senior Correspondent Bina Menon Creative Visualizer Bijohns Varghese Photographer Anish Aloysious Office Assistant Alby CG Correspondents Bombay: Rashmi Prakash Delhi: Anurag Dixit Director (Technical) John Antony Publisher Jason D Pavorattikaran

EDITORIAL

MAY NOT SCIENCE OVERCOME COMMON SENSE More than eight months into the pandemic, there are no indications of it abating in most parts of the world including in India. Yet, humanity has finally decided to start living in as much normalcy as possible. But the working world that they have returned to, is nothing similar to what it has been in early March. Across industrial sectors and countries, the world economy lies shattered.

While there is no point in putting the blame on anyone for this debacle of colossal proportions, it is essential to realize how the whole world could be so misguided in tackling this crisis. At first looks, it might seem that the political leaders have to be blamed. But then, they were never the experts. Who were the experts advising them to lock down the entire world?

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Clearly the buck stops at the World Health Organization and the global medical establishment. The blunders that WHO and the national health bodies suggested to the governments cannot be brushed under the carpet so easily. For a rapidly spreading infection in China that captured the world’s attention as far back as December 2019, it took WHO more than three months to declare it a pandemic.

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And instead of advising the whole world to impose a travel ban to and from China, WHO kept on misguiding the whole world that there is no need for such a ban, which enabled Chinese tourists – the largest outbound tourist contingent in the world – to spread the disease across Europe and North America. But thankfully, much of Africa and Asia, including India, was spared in this phase, as the Chinese tourists are not much drawn to these destinations.

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But the worldwide inbound tourists to China – which is also one of the world’s largest tourist destinations – is what finally trapped India and the rest of the world. While India was one of the first nations to impose a travel ban from China, it alone wasn’t enough, as China is a favourite and frequent destination for Non Resident Indians across the world, especially in the Middle East for business travel. And besides that, by the time our travel ban from China came, the disease had spread in much of the Western world, from where there was no ban for several subsequent weeks.

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The pandemic could have been contained in this initial phase itself, had the WHO and the apex medical bodies in various countries, acted on some common sense. Instead, they kept on adding more fuel to the fire, the most infamous of them being their advice that masks are necessary for only medical professionals and not the general public.

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And then came the blunder of blunders – advising all governments to lock down their

All health related articles are for first information purposes only. Always consult your doctor before taking any decison affecting your health.

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whole countries. Shutting down schools and things like movie theatres surely made sense, but whole economies? And without resorting to their own common sense, politicians across the world panicked and shut down their countries, upon this ‘expert’ opinion that keeping everything locked down would somehow make this virus disappear.

And what would have only been a serious health crisis, ballooned into a grave economic crisis that would now take the world ages to come out of. And when their failing economies started to bite, governments across the world were forced to reopen, and to their utter dismay found that the virus had not magically disappeared, but was continuing to spread wherever it could.

WHO’s recommendation for masks for the general public came much late, and even then this world’s apex medical body, as well as USA’s Centres for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), continued to maintain that Covid-19 is only spread by large droplets coming out through coughing and sneezing, and not by aerosols of tiny particles coming out through normal talking and breathing. This stance continued to discourage people from wearing masks.

Finally, it took an international coalition of engineers and scientists – mainly outside of the medical profession – to call out that the king is naked. They proved with numerous cases and dynamic models that aerosols from infected persons coming out through talking and breathing, gets suspended in air for much longer, and potentially infect people in indoor settings. But for medical experts in WHO and CDC it took several more weeks to concede it!

There was also utter confusion in the medical world about the bizarre way in which Covid-19 escalated to complications and death in many patients and proved to be harmless in the majority of the infected populations. In fact, this virus doesn’t cause a serious infection in the majority of people, but causes the silent development of preventive antibodies, and most of such cases are not even counted in the Covid positive tallies.

At first, the complications were attributed to age, and then it was attributed to lifestyle diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, high cholesterol & cardiovascular disease which came to be called as co-morbidities of Covid-19.

affects different people, and now medical researchers have unravelled around five markers in blood including high levels of C-Reactive Protein (CRP) and Ferritin as potential indicators whether a patient would develop complications or even death from Covid-19.

Basically, all these five markers are signals of metabolic disorder and chronic inflammation in the body, which may often be silent. And this exposes the superficial way in which modern medicine often treats diseases without looking at an individual’s physiology. For every lifestyle disease, there is a pill, which manages the issue daily but never cures it. And lifestyle modifications that can effectively cure these lifestyle diseases, and thus cut the reliance on medicines, are never promoted.

Covid-19 has exposed the acute danger of this medical approach. Such purely symptomatic management of lifestyle diseases never addresses this underlying metabolic disorder and chronic inflammation in the body. While Covid-19 has helped to expose the hollowness of this treatment protocol, more should have been done much earlier, as even without a pandemic, all these lifestyle diseases kill more people annually than Covid-19 could ever do in a year.

What the situation calls for is nothing short of a revolution in medical practice, where preventive medicine, based on lifestyle modifications in diet and exercise, is more stressed upon. And from a wider perspective, the governments need to take a more measured approach based on common sense, whenever radical measures like a complete lockdown is advised by medical bodies like WHO. Time has now proved that WHO’s strategy of calling for countrywide lockdowns for months altogether was totally unwarranted, untimely and ineffective. This is evident from the fact that, when the Covid cases were in the hundreds, most nations locked themselves up, destroying their economies, and when the cases grew into thousands, most nations unlocked themselves, sending the cases to lakhs and complicating the economic recovery further.

All these theories proved to be only approximations as many patients in their young age and with apparently no co-morbidities succumbed to the disease, whereas many seniors with one or more of these lifestyle diseases survived Covid-19 after basic treatments.

The correct response to Covid-19 would have been to lockdown only schools, theatres and the like for a while, and to allow all other businesses, organizations and colleges to continue working, with compulsory usage of masks. And only Covid19 patients and their close contacts needed to be quarantined and not whole nations! But such wisdom comes from common sense and not medical science.

Clearly, there is more than what meets the eye in how Covid-19

John Antony SEASONAL MAGAZINE

CONTENTS

BIG BASKET’S BIG QUARTERS OF BIG CHANGE Seasonal Magazine recently caught up with Hari Menon, Co-Founder & CEO of Big Basket, India’s largest online grocery & supermarket for this exclusive interview. The company has made a remarkable turnaround during the pandemic from the verge of collapse to 100% growth with monthly gross sales touching $1billion or Rs. 7500 crore.

MENTORING MSMEs, PROFESSIONALS & SELF-EMPLOYED TO RESTART

MISSION KARMAYOGI: WILL IT WORK? As the Centre launches Mission Karmayogi, it is worth taking the time and effort to engage with the history and evolution of administrative reforms in India and an extensive body of literature on human resource development to understand why and how certain interventions..

THE ‘SHIP BUILDER TO THE NATION’ NOW ALL SET TO FLOAT ITS IPO

Life can’t wait for Covid-19 to end, and India has realized this stark truth. Businesses and organizations are slowly getting back to their feet. Larger business houses obviously have better resilience, and the ones who have been left in the lurch due to the pandemic and the lockdown..

With belligerent neighbours like China and Pakistan, and one of the longest coastlines in this part of the world to defend, Indian Navy can only grow and grow.

5 CORE WAYS NEP 2020 WILL CHANGE INDIAN HIGHER EDUCATION The National Education Policy (2020) has perhaps been the only shining light in an otherwise insufferable year. Calling for radical changes to the Indian education system, the NEP is both an aspirational and realistic policy document. It is aspirational because it envisages the pressing revamp of many institutional behemoths that..

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MANAPPURAM’S GOLD LOANS TO REBOUND POST LOCKDOWN? Non Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs), together with banks, tend to do well during economic booms when credit growth is high.

But NBFCs focusing on gold loans, like Manappuram Finance, have historically done even better during difficult periods for the...

CAN INDIA BECOME A DIGITAL HUB? The government has a crucial role to play in positioning India as the Tech Garage of the World. It should act as a catalyst, and bring together the synergies of the private sector with the aim of innovating for India and the world...

FUTURE OF US-INDIA RELATIONS: COVID-19, CHINA AND DIASPORA FACTOR The Indian American community has become one of the most significant ethnic groups that is likely to witness high political turnout in the upcoming U.S. elections.

ACHIEVING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Financial products, customer touchpoints and channels are being digitized with AI powered automation to improve existing processes, create new business models, manage risks, improve regulatory compliance and transform customer experience.

However, they need scale and nimbleness to stay resilient and..

HEALTH AND DIGITAL: TOO SOON OR MUCH NEEDED? In July 2018, the Niti Aayog released a proposal for what it called the National Health Stack – a digital system which allowed both public and private entities to access personal health records of citizens with their consent.

FOUR REASONS TO CHOOSE IBS HYDERABAD As the admission season goes into full swing, ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE), Hyderabad is bracing itself for the new normal in higher education.

Having to make forced adjustments due to the COVID-19 pandemic and gearing up to the more encouraging news of NEP 2020, the current landscape of higher education throws both...

4 REASONS TO CHOOSE SCSVMV With the long-running admission season soon to conclude, the incoming batch of students increasingly need to adjust to the new COVID-19 reality. The hope is that university campuses would be allowed to open by the end of September, although these students are likely to undergo a new experience of classroom learning in the era of social..

ATMANIRBHAR AGRICULTURE: WHAT IS IN IT FOR THE STAKEHOLDERS? In the Indian public discourse, the agriculture sector is often talked about like an abla naari (damsel in distress) that needs to be rescued constantly. The rescue, however, does not involve dismantling the

PANDEMIC MAKES JSSAHER FLY HIGHER THE MAKING OF A WORLD CLASS UNIVERSITY Seasonal Magazine in conversation with Prof. VS Rao, Vice-Chancellor, SRM University, Andhra Pradesh.

It is only when a crisis hits, the resilience of universities is really known. JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research (JSSAHER), the Mysuru based leading deemed-to-be university has come out in flying colours in this regard during the pandemic..

WHY COCHIN SHIPYARD IS SET TO EMERGE STRONGER A crisis exposes the fundamental strengths or weaknesses of an organization like nothing else.

Cochin Shipyard, where India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier..

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TECHNOLOGY Banking leaders who have adopted digital strategies are

ACHIEVING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FINANCIAL PRODUCTS, CUSTOMER TOUCHPOINTS AND CHANNELS ARE BEING DIGITIZED WITH AI POWERED AUTOMATION TO IMPROVE EXISTING PROCESSES, CREATE NEW BUSINESS MODELS, MANAGE RISKS, IMPROVE REGULATORY COMPLIANCE AND TRANSFORM CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE. HOWEVER, THEY NEED SCALE AND NIMBLENESS TO STAY RESILIENT AND DELIVER SUSTAINABLE BENEFITS.

THE CASE FOR ENTERPRISE-WIDE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION The new normal of social distancing are creating roadblocks in the banking growth story. Customers are now expecting banks to connect the gaps of offline and online financial convenience. Indian banking industry needs to deliver a radical transformation of customer experience and respond to swiftly changing customer and community needs and demands.

A great starting point is digital account opening, onboarding and lending.

Traditionally, there is heavy involvement of operations starting from application to closing. The whole journey involves operational teams of loan officers, processors, underwriters, quality assurance and control, and sanctioner who took 20 days process on one account.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF INSTANT GRATIFICATION For customers: Digital transformation is empowering customers to seamlessly engage with their banks through integrated digital channels anytime anywhere. These platforms coupled with AI driven process are enabling mass personalization and extreme self SEASONAL MAGAZINE

service contributing significantly in delivering instant response, fulfilment and delightful experience for customers.

For instance, a customer today can open a full service account or get a loan instantly from the convenience of his home 24x7 powered with video eKYC, fraud detection and even instant cross sell offers. There is zero human intervention needed.

For bankers: Digital is eliminating operational siloes by unifying the functions of loan officers, underwriters, processors and compliance on a single platform. Automated decisioning backed by intelligent algorithms and robotic underwriting based on predefined parameters along with integration with rating agencies gives an accurate portrait of a borrower’s credibility and reduce manual errors and reviews. Only deviations are escalated for manual review, thus reducing time, costs and efforts.

The rapid adoption of digital first approach is delivering significant improvement in customer experience, operational efficiency and process visibility that aids in transparency.

A GREAT STARTING POINT IS DIGITAL ACCOUNT OPENING, ONBOARDING AND LENDING. TRADITIONALLY, THERE IS HEAVY INVOLVEMENT OF OPERATIONS STARTING FROM APPLICATION TO CLOSING.

EXPERIENCING: 40% increase in profit from a combination of increase revenues and lower operational costs.

15% reduction in loan origination costs.

40% reduction in manual interventions.

Reduction in loan processing time from days to mere minutes.

Deeper integration of banking in customer lives and mass customization with growing focus on partner ecosystem Banking industry is spectacularly embedding itself deeper into customer lives through vertical integration with Partner APIs. Thanks to smarter use of third party partner APIs, Indian banks

are increasingly differentiating their offerings by targeting very specific customer journeys and segments.

Bankers can analyze customer's transactional data to determine which available financial product offerings are most relevant and personalized to that particular customer, such as a higher benefit credit card, customized loan products or high interest savings account. Customers can also get better control over their finances with customer specific APIs can deliver individually tailored information like account alerts, bills due and payments and pocket fund transfers. Seamless integration and analytics power the core of this banking partner API revolution.

With the right strategic approach, banks can significantly boost business and grow customer acquisition. However, the industry also needs to take precautions in case of failed services.

THE NEED TO DEMOCRATIZE AI ADOPTION The rapid ascend of AI and machine learning have divided the banking technology experts. There are those who argue that machine learning brings limited benefits to banks on the table and the existing trove of individual customer and credit data, analytical models is more than enough to derive maximum intelligence.

AI advocates, on the other hand, are convinced that there are still undiscovered characteristics of customers that can be profitably mined with the right machine learning models. Every bank has done some kind of AI experiment.

However s transforming into an AIpowered organization would involve

Indian banks to fundamentally change their banking operating model to embrace data and becoming digitally native at the core. They’ll need to develop tailored analytics and redesign processes, and revamp their technology architecture to make sure that they have the capabilities to support resource and data-hungry AI systems.

Bankers can exist businessintelligence from their treasure trove of customer data, from dashboards to visualization; to set in motion AI enhanced product offerings and customer service.

Such kind of leverage not only drives excitement for digital adoption but also delights customers to innovative new personalized financial products.

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INNOVATION

CAN INDIA BECOME A DIGITAL HUB? The government has a crucial role to play in positioning India as the Tech Garage of the World. It should act as a catalyst, and bring together the synergies of the private sector with the aim of innovating for India and the world ven as the world continues to grapple with the covid-19 pandemic, the remarkable resilience of India’s tech industry has been on display, with investments soaring to a mammoth $38 billion. A significant portion of these investments went to software as a service (SaaS)-based companies, which witnessed a major growth brought about by an increasing demand for digital tools and automation amid the current crisis.

Unsurprisingly, eight of the world’s 10 richest companies grew and expanded because they are tech companies. The fastest-growing jobs on LinkedIn’s list of emerging jobs globally are artificial intelligence specialist and data scientist.

During the covid period itself, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Google enhanced their market capitalization by over $1 trillion.

India is the youngest country in the world with a vibrant startup ecosystem.

In 2019 alone, over 1,300 startups were added, thereby solidifying India’s position as the third largest startup ecosystem in the world. This opportunity did not go unnoticed with private equity investments hitting a 10year-high in 2019, attracting $17.3 billion and registering a yearly growth SEASONAL MAGAZINE

of 60.5%. Investor confidence in India has never been higher; India has, in fact, been able to turn the covid-19 crisis into an opportunity by positioning itself as the preferred investment destination.

The strong and sustained growth and innovation in the technology space presents a unique opportunity for India to position itself as the ‘Tech Garage of the World’. Through the development of innovative digital and technology solutions, India can successfully find solutions to the massive and intractable challenges across sectors such as healthcare, education, financial inclusion, modernisation of agriculture and others. The role of government in crafting such tech solutions at scale to tackle these challenges is critical but must be augmented through the nimbleness and creativity of the private entrepreneur. As John Maynard Keynes said in 1926, “the important thing for the government to do is not to do what individuals are doing already and to do them a little better, but to do things that are at present not being done at all". To rephrase Keynes—the government and the private sector can together do what has not yet been conceived let, alone done, devise solutions that cannot occur in silos and to execute to perfection.

India’s IT/ITeS industry is a global

powerhouse, but there is a noticeable dearth of world-class platform companies. The massive $167 billion IT industry mostly comprises companies that provide software services and backend IT support. While there is a plethora of new-age product startups in the consumer internet and enterprise space, the shortcoming lies in the absence of platform companies that can compete with global players. The templates for platform-based models do exist in India, which could serve as the blueprint for the emergence of future platform companies. In fact, National Health Stack and Aarogya Setu were developed envisioning a cohesive future for a healthtech ecosystem in India with public and private participation. The development of Health Stack is an excellent example of the government laying down the building blocks, essential in implementing digital health initiatives, to successfully achieve

THE STRONG AND SUSTAINED GROWTH AND INNOVATION IN THE TECHNOLOGY SPACE PRESENTS A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY FOR INDIA TO POSITION ITSELF AS THE ‘TECH GARAGE OF THE WORLD’. convergence that can be deployed by both public and private health providers.

Perhaps one of the most powerful examples of the potential that India has is the success of the UPI platform in the digital financial inclusion space. UPI, which is just 4 years old, reports 10 times the number of transactions as compared to the decades-old Amex. Our ability to scale up UPI as a global platform could well make it surpass the number of transactions of both Visa and MasterCard in the next few years.

Silicon Valley faces a glass ceiling on innovation. Its innovations like driverless cars are for the developed world. India’s problems are far more complex and provide an opportunity to use tech and innovate at scale.

Templates for this already exist and are being developed as we speak. The Prime Minister recently entrusted NITI Aayog with the task of developing technological products in partnership with the private sector, which would enable India to leapfrog in the post-covid era. As a result, seven technological solutions were developed that addressed themes ranging from financial inclusion to healthcare to telemedicine to a digital higher education university; these products are currently in different stages of evolution. The Prime Minister also launched the Aatma Nirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge to encourage the creation of world-class made in India Apps. The response was overwhelming.

The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) is driving Atal Tinkering Labs with AI, and robotics and 3D printing are being taught from class VI onwards. AIM also supports incubators and has catalysed a creative and innovative culture.

My belief is that the development of these world-class products requires skilful application of artificial intelligence. This necessitates five critical inputs: flow of data-hungry young entrepreneurs, AI algorithm engineers, computing powers, and AI-

enabling policy environment. While India has humongous data, thanks to mobiles and low data costs and top-class start-up entrepreneurs, it severely lacks in product managers, AI scientists, product designers and software engineers. Our IIITs and IITs must be reoriented to produce AI engineers who can partner tech entrepreneurs to launch cutting-edge global tech companies.

The government has a crucial role to play in positioning India as the Tech Garage of the World. It should act as a catalyst, and bring together the synergies of the private sector with the aim of innovating for India and the world. It has the potential to provide an enabling environment and a favourable regulatory ecosystem for the development of technology products and provide the size and scale necessary for their rollout. The product development should ideally be undertaken through private entrepreneurship, with the government acting as a facilitator. The key principles of product design should incorporate transparency, security and ease of access. The products must have open

THE GOVERNMENT HAS A CRUCIAL ROLE TO PLAY IN POSITIONING INDIA AS THE TECH GARAGE OF THE WORLD. IT SHOULD ACT AS A CATALYST, AND BRING TOGETHER THE SYNERGIES OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR WITH THE AIM OF INNOVATING FOR INDIA AND THE WORLD.

architecture, should be portable to any hosting environment and should be available in official and regional languages.

The irrevocable shift brought about by covid-19 presents opportunities to develop new technology platforms. In this process, data integrity, authenticity and privacy should be embedded into the design of a product. A balance needs to be struck between regulation and product design through a dynamic collaboration between the government and technology entrepreneurs. Going forward, the government should strive to envision a direction for technological change and invest in that direction by creating markets and opportunities that can be seized by willing private sector companies. The collective synergies of the private (creativity, inventiveness and product design) and public (scale, size last mile connectivity) have immense potential to maximize the impact of techdriven development.

India as a Tech Garage also encapsulates the principles of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat— not just confident, outward-looking and non-insular, but also one that develops indigenous technology solutions at super scale for complex problems. As the world’s Tech Garage, our ability to develop technological solutions for a country as vast and diverse as India will also provide us with the unique opportunity to present a roadmap for addressing the needs of the next 7.5 billion people of the world who will move from poverty to middle class in the next decade.

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IPO

MAZAGON DOCK SHIPBUILDERS

THE ‘SHIP BUILDER TO THE NATION’ NOW ALL SET TO FLOAT ITS IPO

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WITH BELLIGERENT NEIGHBOURS LIKE CHINA AND PAKISTAN, AND ONE OF THE LONGEST COASTLINES IN THIS PART OF THE WORLD TO DEFEND, INDIAN NAVY CAN ONLY GROW AND GROW. AND SINCE INVESTORS CAN’T INVEST IN INDIAN NAVY OR COAST GUARD, THERE ARE PSU DEFENCE COMPANIES LIKE MAZAGON DOCK SHIPBUILDERS AS THE PERFECT PROXY STOCKS. LED BY RETIRED INDIAN NAVY VETERAN, VICE ADMIRAL NARAYAN PRASAD, A RECIPIENT OF ATI VISHISHT SEVA MEDAL AND NAUSENA MEDAL FOR HIS DISTINGUISHED SERVICES, THE SHIP BUILDER IS ALREADY THE LEADER IN LARGE PROJECTS LIKE INDIA’S MULTIBILLION DOLLAR SUBMARINE PROGRAM, AND A LEADING CONTENDER IN THE UPCOMING LARGER SUBMARINE DEALS.

o marks for guessing which is India’s largest defence ship builder. It is Mumbai based Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd, a public sector unit fully owned by Government of India and coming under the administrative control of Ministry of Defence and Department of Defence Production. It has a maximum shipbuilding and submarine building capacity of 40,000 DWT. After a long wait, the company is now going for its IPO and has set a price band of Rs 135-145 per share for its IPO that opens on September 29th and closes on October 1st. Bids can be made for a minimum of 103 equity shares and in multiples of 103 thereafter.

The issue is unique in that all of the Rs. 444 crore issue or nearly Rs. 3.06 crore shares is an Offer for Sale (OFS) by the Government, which means there will be no equity dilution which is a positive for prospective investors. It also shows the cash rich status of Mazagon Dock.

Nearly 3.46 lakh shares of the IPO have been reserved for eligible employees.

The total offer will constitute 15.17% of the post-issue paid-up equity.

The company is engaged in the construction and repair of warships and submarines for the Defence Ministry and other vessels for commercial clients. The company was conferred with the 'MiniRatna-I' status in 2006.

Starting its life as a private sector shipbuilder during British Raj and after getting nationalized in 1960, Mazagon Dock has many firsts and achievements to its credit. However, the pinnacle of its achievements is undoubtedly the successful manufacturing of the three Scorpene class submarines, Kalvari, Khanderi and Karanj for the Indian Navy.

The Scorpène-class submarines are a class of diesel-electric attack submarines jointly developed by French and Spanish companies, and now sold by Naval Group of France. It features diesel propulsion and optional air-independent propulsion (AIP). Since its inception, these high-tech monsters have been a hit with various countries including Brazil, Chile and India.

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In India, it was in 2005 that Scorpene design was chosen and manufacturing was outsourced to Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders, under the Transfer of Technology (ToT) program, with the deal size pegged at $3.75 billion. The last two of these six submarines have the Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) module that has been developed independently by India’s Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO).

Altogether, the manufacturing of these submarines have proven the impressive capabilities and system integration skills of Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders which worked with Naval Group and DRDO effectively. Moreover, the project required indigenisation of parts which Mazagon Dock and Naval Group did painstakingly by identifying and visiting 500 parts suppliers in India, and selecting just 22 of them after stringent screening for quality.

However, when India has been planning to procure six more Scorpene class submarines from Naval Group at a cost of $8 billion, it came under the newer Strategic Partnership (SP) program of the government and it was widely expected that private shipbuilders like L&T would be the frontrunners to partner with a foreign technology provider like Naval Group.

But, at the last moment, Government had decided to take the project out from the SP Program, and award it on a nomination basis to Naval Group for which Mazagon Dock was the natural partner. This had come as a shot in the arm for the company, as it provided clear and enhanced revenue visibility for many years to come.

Moreover, the Ministry of Defence had later made it known that it is enlarging the framework of the SP program, to include PSU units too into its ambit to provide a level playing ground. This has enabled Mazagon Dock to compete more effectively in bagging orders even under the SP program.

Despite being a defence sector PSU, Mazagon Dock does diversified products in all segments of ship building.

The company's current portfolio of designs spans a wide range of products for both domestic and overseas clients.

Since 1960, Mazagon Dock has built over 800 vessels including 25 warships, including submarines, advanced destroyers and missile boats. The company had also delivered cargo ships, passenger ships, supply vessels,

multipurpose support vessels, water tankers, tugs, dredgers, fishing trawlers, barges & border outposts for various customers in India as well as abroad.

Mazagon Dock has also fabricated and delivered jackets, main decks of wellhead platforms, process platforms, jack-up rigs etc in its decades long existence, proving its tagline true, ‘Ship Builder to the Nation’. It is competing effectively with private sector shipbuilders and now all set to grow its overseas business substantially.

On the domestic front, with belligerent neighbours like China and Pakistan, and one of the longest coastlines in this part of the world to defend, Indian Navy can only grow and grow. And since investors can’t invest in Indian Navy or Coast Guard, there are defence PSU companies like Mazagon Dock as the perfect proxies, and because of this, the IPO is likely to be well received by the investor community.

The company's core investment metrics are quite robust for a public sector undertaking in the defence sector, with its Return on Equity or RoE at around 20%. While it needs to stabilize its revenue and profit growth, it also enjoys a healthy net profit margin of nearly 14%. Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders' order book stands at over Rs. 52,000 crores, which provides enough revenue visibility for the next few years.

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COVID-19 DRUG GIVEN TO TRUMP DEVELOPED USING CELLS FROM ABORTED FOETUS A cocktail of monoclonal antibodies taken by US President Donald Trump during COVID-19 treatment at hospital was developed using human cells derived from an aborted foetus. The drug developed by Regeneron has not been approved. Trump's administration had in 2019 suspended federal funding for most new scientific research projects involving foetal tissue derived from abortions.

13 ARRESTED FOR PLOTTING TO KIDNAP MICHIGAN GOVERNOR WHITMER FBI has arrested 13 people over alleged plots to kidnap Michigan's Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and attack the state capitol. The men plotted to kidnap her ahead of the presidential election, said FBI. Describing the accused as "depraved", Whitmer said, "When our leaders meet with, encourage and fraternize with domestic terrorists they legitimize their actions, and they are complicit."

INDIA'S GDP TO CONTRACT BY 9.5% IN FY21, SAYS RBI GOVERNOR India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to contract 9.5% in 2020-21, with risks tilted to the downside, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Friday. "If, however, the current momentum of upturn gains ground, a faster and stronger rebound is eminently feasible," he added. Das further said that GDP growth may turn positive by the fourth quarter.

BANGALORE UNIVERSITY TO NOT CONFER HONORARY DOCTORATE THIS YEAR Bangalore University has decided to not confer the honorary doctorate during this year's annual convocation owing to shortage of time for the selection process.

The institute will hold its 55th convocation virtually after it was delayed by six months due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

"The selection process for the honorary doctorate is lengthy," Vice-Chancellor KR Venugopal said.

RARE BIRD THAT IS HALF MALE AND HALF FEMALE FOUND IN US

SINGAPORE ANNOUNCES 'CRUISES TO NOWHERE' AMID COVID-19

A rose-breasted grosbeak bird that's half male and half female was found at a nature reserve in Pennsylvania, US. Male grosbeaks have black wing feathers and pink wing pits, while females have brown wings and yellow wing pits. The grosbeak spotted at the reserve was split right down the middle pink on the right side, yellow on the left.

Amid COVID-19 pandemic, Singapore will in November 2020 launch 'cruises to nowhere'. The round-trips won't have any stopovers, and the cruises will operate at 50% capacity and be open only to Singapore residents. The ships will depart from and return to the same spot, and passengers will be tested for COVID-19 prior to boarding.

RUSSIAN SEA POLLUTION FORMS MOVING SLICK STRETCHING 40 KM; PIC SURFACES Suspected toxic waste pollution off Russia's Kamchatka peninsula that caused mass deaths of marine animals has formed a moving slick stretching 40 kilometres along Pacific coastline, researchers from Far Eastern Federal University said. The waste was previously thought to be stationary and confined to one beach. However, researchers said it is gradually moving south without diminishing in size.

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NATION

HEALTH AND DIGITAL: TOO SOON OR MUCH NEEDED? IN JULY 2018, THE NITI AAYOG RELEASED A PROPOSAL FOR WHAT IT CALLED THE NATIONAL HEALTH STACK – A DIGITAL SYSTEM WHICH ALLOWED BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ENTITIES TO ACCESS PERSONAL HEALTH RECORDS OF CITIZENS WITH THEIR CONSENT. n his Independence Day speech on August 15, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that every Indian would get a health ID under the National Digital Health Mission. He said this would revolutionise healthcare in the country.

“Your every test, every illness, what doctors prescribed and when, your reports will be on a single health ID,” Modi said.

How exactly will digital health records help Indians access affordable healthcare? And how can the government ensure the privacy of citizens’ health data? While the government has not offered any clear answers to the first question, it has released a draft Health Data Management Policy, which it claims would protect citizens’ health data by regulating its collection and storage.

The draft policy was announced on August 26 in a press statement by the National Health Authority, an agency that functions under the health ministry.

It invited public comments on the draft till September 3. Facing criticism for providing a narrow window for public comments, the National Health Authority extended the deadline till September 10.

But a doctor and disability rights activist in the Delhi High Court filed a petition pointing out that the time period was inadequate: “healthcare workers are fully engrossed in management of the Covid-19 pandemic, and it is unreasonable to expect them to analyse and evaluate such a complex policy document within 15 days during such an extraordinary crisis.” Besides, India’s SEASONAL MAGAZINE

pre-legislative consultation policy mandates at least a 30-day window for public feedback, stated the petition, drafted by lawyers associated with the non-profit group, Internet Freedom Foundation.

The court on September 3 directed the Centre to deal with the grievances raised in the petition according to the law, rules and government policy applicable to the case. The next day, the National Health Authority extended the deadline for public comments till September 21, Dr Indu Bhushan, chief executive officer of the National Health Authority said.

The petition stated that the draft policy raises “complex issues which require expertise in multiple disciplines of computer science, law, public health and medical ethics.” What are some of these complex issues? Here is what we know, based on conversations with privacy lawyers and health experts.

What is the National Digital Health Mission?

In July 2018, the Niti Aayog released a proposal for what it called the National Health Stack – a digital system which allowed both public and private entities to access personal health records of citizens with their consent. To digitise the personal health records of Indians, it suggested the creation of individual health IDs, using the biometrics-based Aadhaar as one of the foundational IDs. A committee formed by the health ministry followed up with the National Digital Health Blueprint in October 2019, outlining plans to create “a system of Electronic Health Records, based on international standards, which are easily accessible to the citizens and service

providers based on citizen-consent.”

It spoke of creating a “digital health ecosystem” which would allow the “seamless exchange” of these records.

It recommended that a special organisation be set up to implement these plans. This organisation is the National Digital Health Mission. It comes under the supervision of the National Health Authority, which was established to implement the Ayushman Bharat programme of the Modi government.

What is the Health Data Management Policy?

On August 26, the National Health Authority released a press statement to announce that it had drafted the Health Data Management Policy. The objectives of the draft policy have been laid down as creating a system of digital personal and medical health records,

which is voluntary and based on the consent of individuals, and which allows for the secure exchange of health data with enough privacy safeguards.

The document identifies individuals as “data principals” who would voluntarily acquire unique health IDs, which would be used to electronically store their personal health records.

The records would be generated by “health information providers” – hospitals, diagnostic centres, public health programs. “Health information users” – for instance, insurance companies – will have to place requests to access these records. Access would require the consent of individuals through “consent managers”.

The draft policy outlines a framework for obtaining individuals’ consent – both for the collection of personal health records, as well as for accessing them.

What is the need for a health data policy?

India does not yet have a data protection law. A bill is still pending in Parliament.

But privacy lawyers say leapfrogging over a law is a bad idea. The health data policy would create a parallel mechanism even before the data protection bill was enacted. “Not only is it bad for health data but the danger of this approach is that it will make the data protection bill and its overarching rules on general privacy, including health data, stillborn,” said Raman Chima, senior international counsel at Access Now, a digital rights non-profit, and chair of the Internet Freedom Foundation.

Besides, he pointed out a policy cannot create civil or criminal liabilities for those who violate it. “When it comes to health information, you want to be able to send a signalling effect because it is serious,” said Chima. “A policy document does not do that.”

Bhushan said it was incorrect to state that the policy did not have enough safeguards. “Numerous laws and relevant rules, and judgments of Hon’ble Supreme Court provide an adequate legal framework to ensure security and privacy and take action as per civil and/or criminal law,” he said.

“Adequate safeguards have also been provided by way of the draft Health Data Management Policy. The provisions in the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 are also being implemented.”

state, district is being asked for [generating health IDs],” he said. “No sensitive personal information, as has been portrayed in some media reports, is being asked for this purpose.”

What kind of data does the policy cover?

“Since the sharing of health data between patients and doctors is a regular feature of the health ecosystem, the definition of sensitive personal data has been incorporated so that the highest level of protection applicable to sensitive personal data is provided to such data/information,” he said. “The same should not be construed as an intent to collect any such data on the part of the NHA. It is for doctors to decide what information is to be sought and recorded.”

The draft policy defines electronic health records as “data in digital form, relevant to the wellness, health and healthcare of an individual...a collection of various medical records that get generated during any clinical encounter or events”.

The draft policy also extends to “sensitive personal data” which is defined as sex life, sexual orientation, transgender status, intersex status, caste, mental health, genetic and biometric data, religion and political affiliation, among others. In a statement, the National Health Authority clarified: “The definition of term ‘sensitive personal data’ in the draft policy draws from Information Technology (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules, 2011 and Personal Data Protection(PDP) bill... However, nowhere in the operative section of the draft policy it is laid down that the said information will be called for.”

But privacy lawyers say the draft policy itself does not make this clear. “It doesn’t say there are going to be any prohibitions at all,” said Prasanna S, a lawyer who was among those who challenged the use of Aadhaar.

However, Bhushan claimed that the issue was being “misunderstood” and “misrepresented”. “Only limited information like name, year of birth,

What is the role of Aadhaar in the policy?

The chief executive officer of the National Health Authority said in a recent interview that Aadhaar could not have served as a health ID since the Supreme Court’s judgement has limited its use. But as the draft policy states, “Aadhaar number or any other document of identification as may be specified by the NHA” would be required to authenticate an individual’s identity at the time of creation of their health ID. Even though the draft clarifies that lack of an Aadhaar number would not prevent an individual from acquiring a health ID, Aadhaar is likely to be the primary document used by most people.

This means the health ID would be linked to an individual’s Aadhaar number, which creates a roundabout way for health records to be linked to Aadhaar, experts said.

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MISSION KARMAYOGI

MISSION KARMAYOGI: WILL IT WORK?

AS THE CENTRE LAUNCHES MISSION KARMAYOGI, IT IS WORTH TAKING THE TIME AND EFFORT TO ENGAGE WITH THE HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS IN INDIA AND AN EXTENSIVE BODY OF LITERATURE ON HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT TO UNDERSTAND WHY AND HOW CERTAIN INTERVENTIONS IMPROVE INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANISATIONAL CAPACITY.

he Narendra Modi government recently approved the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building, or Mission Karmayogi. The Mission sets ambitious targets for itself which are to achieve a transformed bureaucratic work culture, enhanced competency and improved state capacity. Its core offering is a new digital platform, called iGOT Karmayogi, for the delivery of training to civil servants, and a centralised institutional architecture for planning and coordination.

At the outset, there are at least three critical tensions that this reform will have to negotiate.

First, linking training to career progression and performance is complex in practice and needs careful planning, systemic ownership and a high degree of transparency and credibility. Second, while a centralised architecture may offer coordination and standardisation, a diverse public sector workforce needs a decentralised training and learning ecosystem. And third, good training is an important facet of state capacity but is unlikely to improve service delivery or get absorbed by organisations without a concomitant effort to change organisational norms and learning culture.

FIRST, WHILE THE EMPHASIS ON INCENTIVES AND MOTIVATION IS IMPORTANT, PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS TO LINK TRAINING TO PERFORMANCE REVEAL IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

The challenges of incentives linked training The palpable lack of interest in existing civil services training programmes has troubled administrative reform committees over the decades. Thus far, the response has been to recommend that incentives and penalties be linked to performance in training. The Yugandhar Committee made this recommendation in 2003 and the MidCareer Training Programme (MCTP), introduced in 2007, linked career progression to the completion of training programmes. On similar lines, the current reform aims to link training with career milestones and department performance through “continuous performance analysis, data driven goal-

setting and real time monitoring”, including the use of annual scorecards and rankings.

First, while the emphasis on incentives and motivation is important, previous attempts to link training to performance reveal implementation challenges. Civil servants must allocate time and get clearance to attend training, especially at locations away from their posting.

Systems that don’t value training can make attendance difficult as demonstrated in practice with the MCTP. Eventually, this leads to incentive-linked training becoming a burden rather than an opportunity to learn. Here, the proposed digital ecosystem and self-learning model offered by the iGOT platform could help

overcome some of these challenges through flexibility in terms of location and the availability of time. However, if adequate time for online coursework is not prioritised by the department but transferred to often already overloaded individuals, one might end up with another version of the same problem.

Second, the methodology for performance assessment must be consistent, credible and transparent. As seen in the case of other initiatives to rank and induce competition in public programmes, frequent changes in the scoring methodology provide unclear signals on whether improvement in ranks reflects better performance or the re-weighting of score components. If poorly conceived and executed, incentive-linked training runs the risk of becoming a source of demotivation in the system. Getting assessments right will become particularly important and challenging in the context of a large and diverse public service workforce.

Need a diverse and decentralised learning ecosystem Mission Karmayogi departs from previous administrative reform initiatives by going beyond Group A and B officers to include in its ambit the 89 per cent of public service workers in Group C many of whom serve frontline functions. This is a much-needed prioritisation. However, it is for precisely this reason that the emphasis on digital content and training, and the centralised institutional architecture of the proposed reform must be balanced by an understanding of the contexts and needs of diverse workers and learners.

While digital learning undoubtedly offers numerous possibilities, we must also consider which aspect of learning it is best suited to address. The iGOT pilot has already trained a large number of frontline medical workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. The skills imparted here are specific to a problem and moment in the careers of workers with existing fundamental knowledge of medicine and public health. Distance self-learning can build supplementary skills and update knowledge at the

frontlines but may not be well suited for core knowledge development. This is a salient issue today as universities across the world grapple with blended learning during the pandemic. Feedback, a space to clarify doubts, mentorship and peerlearning are all essential for the fieldbased work our civil servants perform and must be prioritised.

For instance, our experience shows that rural women community health workers preferred residential training because they were empowered in the presence of their peers and were able to focus on learning while being away from their homes. While self-driven online training can work very well in some contexts, in others it may be disempowering and require further sacrifice, especially from our most constrained and vulnerable grassroots workers and volunteers.

Further, training assessment occurs most effectively at the local, organisational level.

This requires precise estimation of existing knowledge, skilling requirements, and an understanding of the needs of the population being served. The new system must find ways in which departments proactively strengthen investments in training their own employees, beyond goal setting, annual plans and financial contributions, as envisioned in the current proposal. But diversity isn’t limited to departments, it is spread across states and districts. State responses to Covid-19 have taught us how decentralisation enables responsiveness, adaptability and improves outcomes. A new plan and architecture for capacity building must reflect, support and strengthen the diversity of public institutions and public service providers.

The importance of organisational culture Finally and most importantly extensive research shows that individual-level technical, behavioural and professional training alone offer limited gains to performance in complex systems. Civil servants must contend with deeply embedded norms of governance, complex tasks and outcomes, overload, extensive networks of partners, and exogenous socio-political factors.

Norms of hierarchy and bureaucratic processes can stifle innovation even among highly skilled workers. In short, the culture in which competence is deployed is as important as competence itself.

Shifting organisational culture towards better performance is no simple task and requires reformers to think beyond competence from the outset. While training might increase awareness, behavioural change requires that information is supported by existing organisational practices and norms. Here, organisations that foster problem-solving, participation, trust, shared professional norms, and a strong sense of mission are likely to perform much better in delivering public services. This learning culture is not created and sustained by providing better training alone or linking it to incentives and penalties, but vitally through practices of shared vision development, a commitment to learning across all levels of the organisation, purposeful work and the empowerment of employees. The collective values that Mission Karmayogi highlights require systemic engagement and change.

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By Carl Jaison and Mrinmoy Deori Borah

INTERNATIONAL

FUTURE OF US-INDIA RELATIONS: COVID-19, CHINA AND DIASPORA FACTOR

THE INDIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY HAS BECOME ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT ETHNIC GROUPS THAT IS LIKELY TO WITNESS HIGH POLITICAL TURNOUT IN THE UPCOMING U.S. ELECTIONS. ith the U.S. Presidential election just round the corner, The Bridge Project recently hosted a podcast on ‘Future of U.S.- India Relations’ that featured a panel comprising Arun M. Kumar, Chairman and CEO, KPMG India; Sanjeev Joshipura, Executive Director, Indiaspora and Rajesh Mehta, International Consultant and Columnist.

The burgeoning U.S.-India relations is certainly one to watch out for in the coming years. Over the past decade or so, the U.S.-India partnership has withstood the impact of contemporary geopolitical currents like the antiglobalisation wave and witnessed increased convergence of mutual interests primarily through the QUAD initiative as a bulwark against Chinese aggression. On the cultural front, the largely successful Indian-American diaspora has been acknowledged as being one of the driving forces behind the current bi-partisan support for IndiaU.S. ties in Washington D.C. Given the strong India-U.S. alignment on many issues, Rajesh Mehta highlighted the framework of three T’s – “Technology, Trust and Talent” – of eminent scientist R.A. Maselkar and argued that the relations between the two countries is similarly rooted in these three pillars. But, as with most promising partnerships, the proof of the pudding lies in eating it. Specifically, the trade pudding could help to sweeten the overall upswing in relations. In the context of the upcoming U.S. Presidential elections, it will be interesting to read the tea leaves with regard to the factors that are likely to SEASONAL MAGAZINE

feature prominently in the U.S.-India bilateral engagement.

THE INDIAN-AMERICAN DIASPORA The Indian American community has become one of the most significant ethnic groups that is likely to witness high political turnout in the upcoming U.S. elections. Data reveals that a significant growth in the population of this community – increasing from 1.9 million in 2000 to nearly 4 million in 2020 – has contributed to this.

Sanjeev Joshipura argued that the relatively high contribution of this community to American public life is one of the reasons behind their outsized political influence. “Even in the past, Indians in the U.S. have been very successful in areas such as science and technology, medicine, entrepreneurship, etc. but in the context of political power or clout, Indians had almost no say,” he said. In recent years, however there has been a sea change.

In 2018, over 100 candidates of Indian origin ran for government office at all levels. In the current race, the most prominent example is the candidature of Kamala Harris as the presumptive Vice Presidential nominee for the Democratic Party. Several campaigns from both the camps included outreach activities like social media campaigns, video releases, engagement of Presidential candidates with the Indian diaspora, etc., all tailored to win the support of the Indian diaspora community that could prove crucial in some of the key battleground states.

According to their political preferences,

Indian Americans have traditionally tended to vote for Democrats in large numbers but a recent shift towards the Republican party is likely underway in the upcoming election. This is clear in the context of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic as during the Presidential election campaigns, Indian Americans from both camps have used it as a tool to either praise or criticise the Trump administration.

THE CHINA FACTOR One of the Trump administration’s focus areas vis-a-vis New Delhi has been to keep the fire burning on the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or ‘Quad’ initiative. “Arguably, the biggest success of the Trump administration has been its vocal support for India against China” which, according to Mehta, finds resonance in the recent elevation of the Quad. The grouping consisting of India, U.S., Australia and Japan was formed as a strategy to keep China in check in the Indo-Pacific and is set to hold its first foreign minister-level meeting in Tokyo next month. This meeting assumes greater significance in the backdrop of the India-China border dispute. The China factor is likely to further boost India’s economic engagement with other like-minded countries. Mehta states that ‘the revival of the Quad offers great potential to become an economic bloc that facilitates investment, innovation, infrastructure development etc in the Indo-Pacific region’.

TRADE ISSUES While the strategic objectives of the Indo-U.S partnership have been evident

for a while now, there is still a lot left to be desired on the trade front. Despite the two way trade between both countries standing at $150 billion (even as the U.S for the second year running has eclipsed China to become India’s largest trade partner), the failure to conclude the much touted trade deal had raised concerns among the business communities.

According to Mehta, ‘stalled negotiations have needlessly created bottlenecks for U.S companies in India’ while he predicted that a Biden administration would be in a better position to finalise the deal. In recent weeks, there has been a renewed push for a ‘limited’ trade deal with India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal expressing hope that a ‘very balanced offer is on the table’.

Despite the setbacks in terms of the withdrawal of export incentives by the US under GSP (Generalised System of Preferences), India continues to record high export figures to the U.S. As reported in the Financial Express, the hope is that the larger issues such as high duties and tariffs especially on steel and aluminium products, GSP privileges for certain products and market access are addressed to the mutual satisfaction of both sides. Arun Kumar argued that the palpable delay sometimes arises out of domestic political considerations. “If you want to take care of the indigenous agriculture sector and dairy practices, it is important to bring on board the concerns of the various domestic stakeholders”, said Kumar.

However, the contention on the U.S. side seems to be that Indian negotiators

have been slow to factor in American domestic concerns even at a time when New Delhi is in need of reducing its reliance on China. Just like it represented the final nail in the coffin vis-a-vis India’s pull out from RCEP last year, India’s domestic political incentives continue to serve as a roadblock to market competitiveness. It is therefore in the interests of both sides to find room for concessions, regardless of who comes to power in the U.S., to tackle some of these long-standing issues. With the trade deal notwithstanding, it is still worth noting that the structural incentives for improved trade ties is increasingly becoming clear: the U.S. is India’s biggest export destination, accounting for about 17% of Indian exports while India is its eighth largest trading partner.

SHIFT OF SUPPLY CHAIN FROM CHINA TO INDIA According to Mehta, as China modernises and its economy expands, the words of French military leader Napoleon ring true. ‘China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes

she will shake the world!’ In the wake of COVID-19, U.S. President Donald Trump has been continuously putting the blame on China for the spread of the virus. This threatens to upend China’s long-held policy of “hide your strength and bide your time” with countries having realised their overdependence on Beijing with regard to supply chains. Companies with their bases in China are exploring other regions in order to shift their units with one potential destination being India.

Joseph Semsar, Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, urged the Government of India to create an environment that will enhance India’s position in the global supply chain.

Semsar while speaking at the third IndiaUS Leadership summit, organised by USISPF, cautioned India that its Atmanirbhar Programme might bring isolationist policies that can cause a decrease in exchange between businesses and economies.

On the other hand, Mehta was of the view that India’s partnership with the U.S to realise its objective of selfreliance is very important. “This is because to build an Atmanirbhar Bharat India needs foreign investments in the areas of defence production, energy infrastructure, agriculture technology, etc., in which case the U.S can play a prominent role”.

Exploring the pillars of politics, trade and diaspora, it is clear to see why the potential of the U.S.-India partnership is likely to remain. Regardless of the occasional turbulences in the relationship, the areas of cooperation and commonalities cannot be ignored.

As the U.S. Presidential elections are just round the corner, it will be interesting to keep a close watch on developments in the U.S.- India relationship.

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COVER STORY

BIG BASKET’S BIG QUARTERS OF BIG CHANGE SEASONAL MAGAZINE RECENTLY CAUGHT UP WITH HARI MENON, CO-FOUNDER & CEO OF BIG BASKET, INDIA’S LARGEST ONLINE GROCERY & SUPERMARKET FOR THIS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW. THE COMPANY HAS MADE A REMARKABLE TURNAROUND DURING THE PANDEMIC FROM THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE TO 100% GROWTH WITH MONTHLY GROSS SALES TOUCHING $1BILLION OR RS. 7500 CRORE.

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etween the Janata Curfew of 22nd March and the full lockdown of 25th March, BigBasket lost 80% of its delivery staff. Could anything have been worse? Well, plunging from 2 lakh delivered orders daily to just 28,000 delivered orders, for one.

And during that last week of March and the first week of April, Co-Founder and CEO Hari Menon and his team worked frantically with numerous authorities, right from the Central Government, to all the State Governments, to all the Local Administrations, and to even the Police Departments in numerous cities, to open up the clogged supply chains.

Then they went in for one of their largest recruitment drives ever, to fill up nearly 80% of their delivery posts, by forging over 50 partnerships with government and private companies as well as industry associations to temporarily hire their jobless staff. Within 18 days, over 12,000 new employees were recruited and trained.

The desperate attempt was to claw back what they had swiftly lost in a fortnight, what they had painstakingly built up since 2011. But such hard work never ever goes without its full reward. By May, BigBasket was doing record sales, clocking 3.5 lakh orders daily and hitting the coveted $1 billion Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) for the first time in its history.

And this was not by any kind of price increase but rather by automatic cost efficiency as the company had to do more with less resources.

This has also enabled India’s biggest e-grocer to turn Contribution Margin Positive for the first time ever, which is a first step in the long road to become breakeven.

In the months of June and July, BigBasket has not only maintained its gross sales above $1 billion, but has moved further ahead on the profitability path, with the firm expected to be EBITDA positive soon. Hari Menon credits his co-founders, the entire BigBasket team, the various Central and State Government agencies, and above all Big Basket’s rapidly growing customer

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base for this turnaround. The dramatic change in fortune was next to impossible without the sudden crisis, says Hari.

An alumnus of BITS-Pilani and Carnegie Mellon, Hari Menon has both been a CEO and a serial entrepreneur of several companies, including India’s first online-plusoffline e-commerce chain Fabmall / Fabmart – much before Flipkart & Amazon started in the country – and their offline stores were later sold to Aditya Birla’s More chain of supermarkets.

Interestingly, all the other co-founders of BigBasket - VS Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Choudhari & VS Ramesh - have been partners of Hari at Fabmart. They sold out Fabmart in 2006, parted ways to become angel investors on their own, but regrouped in 2011 to start BigBasket. After initial years of struggle, these co-founders moved into the big league after choosing Alibaba as a major investor and strategic partner, whom they chose above Amazon and Walmart after much deliberation.

Born and brought up in a middleclass family in Mumbai, Hari Menon is thankful for the grounded upbringing by his parents as well as the inspiration from his wife Shanthi Menon who founded Bengaluru’s Deens Academy. An avid fan of music and cricket, Hari’s role models include his father-in-law E Sreedharan, India’s renowned ‘Metro Man’ and Rahul Dravid on whose cricketing and personality traits he says he is modelling BigBasket’s services.

Though facing increasing competition from BigBazaar, Amazon, Flipkart, and now JioMart in the grocery space, Hari Menon is unfazed as he banks on the sheer size of the grocery market in India which is now at $500 billion as well as the gross underpenetration of online stores which even now controls only 1% of this enormous business. According to him, with superior service levels like quality, punctuality, hygiene, and contactless delivery – which BigBasket pioneered – the company hopes to stay ahead as the leader it is now. The company is also investing Rs. 200 crore into building its own private label as it is a significant growth avenue.

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Seasonal Magazine’s John Antony in conversation with Hari Menon, Co-Founder & CEO of Big Basket.

We heard this remarkable story of BigBasket losing almost its entire delivery staff just before lockdown, and rebuilding it entirely within weeks.

What kept you going in those days?

HM: See, what kept me going is just making sure that I tell myself I have a lot of resilience and making sure that I tell my teams to build a lot of resilience amongst all of us. That's all we can ask for. It was extremely tough, those few days, starting from March 22.

When the first janta lockdown was announced, on that particular day, we were already on the ground doing deliveries although the information hadn't reached our various cities from the Centre. Hence, there was a lot of confusion. Following this, we had to actually shut down operations within two hours. In the next two days, life was normal but due to the fear of COVID19 spread we lost 80% of our workforce.

All of them migrated back to their respective homes. Then, the lockdown was announced on the 25th. So we were left with about 20% of our workforce while at the same time orders were surging as everybody just wanted to shift to online groceries. The stores were also shut and people were worried.

Therefore, the huge surge in orders was accompanied by limited workforce.

This was indeed a tough situation and we had to respond quickly.

The single biggest thing that we had to do was to hire more people. Most of our workforce came from places outside of Bangalore as within cities, the supply of labour had dried up some years ago.

People were migrating from smaller towns and coming in for work to the main cities. We had to now go back and and basically just get people from the cities. We didn't know how easy or difficult it was going to be because the workforce had depleted. At that point of time, we had about 55-56 partnerships created and hats off to my entire operations team led by HR who created this. For example, we went to the National Restaurant Association and told them that since restaurants were SEASONAL MAGAZINE

shut, their people are looking for jobs.

We told them that we could hire whoever were left in the cities. We even had contracts saying that they can be absorbed back once restaurants were to open. By then, we knew that our original workforce would make it back. Then we went to the Retailers Association as well and told them that we can offer employment to all those who are nonessential retailers. We went to garment factories, which were shut or closing and offered to employ their workforce. We tied up with Uber for their drivers, with other taxi drivers, auto rickshaw drivers etc.

Basically, anyone who could help us deliver orders and help our people get to the warehouse was hired. We were willing to make these arrangements. In about 18-20 days, we had hired around 12,300 people, something that we had ever done before. This was only because the team knew this was a big opportunity to get huge surge of orders. We knew it would really be a shame if we couldn't deliver so our people took it upon themselves and considered it a national duty to deliver food items to people's homes. Within about a week to 10 days, we were kind of up and running.

Another aspect I want to touch upon is the support that we got from the government. At that point in time, when the lockdown got announced, the government realized that essential services are critical for homes. It was also important to remove all the bottlenecks.

I remember we had constant meetings with government agencies, sometimes around 3-4 in a single day. They were pivotal in helping with local level issues for instance if our trucks would get stuck somewhere etc. The support from local authorities was very important. In about 10-15 days, we got our people back and we were once again up and running. But those 15 days were really demanding.

You had remarked once that whenever BigBasket was supposed to do more with less resources, many breakthroughs happen. Can you explain it?

HM: Yeah, I must explain this to you.

This is something that is quite dear to me and geared towards the organization. There are two things that we took out of this whole experience.

One of the learnings was that organisations must build resilience in situations like this. Only a resilient organisation would be able to deliver.

All credit must go to our people who stood up and did what they had to.

Secondly, we learnt this other very interesting concept. I wish I could write about this someday and that is on the idea of 'doing more with less'. It's something that we internalized completely in our organization. And what that meant was, in times like this, you're constrained on everything in life.

You're constrained in terms of people, resources, space and other things.

Therefore, your ability to work under those constraints and deliver more with less is something that will make you work. What that means is that we were able to actually tweak our processes and technologies, bring in a lot of changes quickly and to deliver more with less in very quick time. We were able to devise

methods that could improve people's productivity. I even started to apply this in my own personal life. Since our lives had become simpler, we were learning how to do more with less and being happy about it. Earlier, we never thought we could be satisfied by doing only the bare minimum things. This is why it was so critical to learn how to 'do more with less'.

I think in May or June, you had crossed $1 billion in Gross Merchandising Value. How has the demand been since then?

HM: Demand is sustaining. We believe that this is not just a COVID-induced moment. People keep asking me this that when people return back to their normal lives, would they resume old behaviours? I think it is not momentary as some might argue. We are now convinced and it is only going to get better. I have three good reasons to tell you why that is the case. Firstly, the demand continues to be very strong and the surge continues. The tailwinds are really strong. People are starting to realise that buying online is safer.

Secondly, our retention cohorts have been excellent which means we have acquired a lot of new customers during this period. Our new customer acquisition actually doubled while 'new customer orders' and 'new customers by value' tripled. It was very important for us to retain customers so that once they are on the platform, they find no reason to go back to old ways of shopping. We were, in fact, able to retain customers really well and we feel this is likely to continue.

Thirdly, we believe that there is still a lot of pent up demand in many of our cities because of the extended lockdowns. For example, Chennai is shut on Sundays and even we can't operate on Sundays. There are many things on the ground, which doesn't give you the full potential of the city. And as we go along, Chennai and other cities will start opening up and getting better.

So we see a lot of pent up potential that we still haven't captured in the cities. It's been going on for about four months now. Now the fifth month looks good.

Even September is expected to look good for sales so we are poised to witness a lot of movement in the online space Last month or so you, had also turned Contribution Margin Positive? Was it due to the cost-cutting measures?

Have you moved even more towards the breakeven point?

HM: We haven't done any cost-cutting during these times. In fact, as I said earlier, we were actively hiring people.

We have become absolutely more cost efficient. That's what helped us get to

Contribution Margin Profitability. Doing more with less resources really helped us. Also, our average order values went up, Initially people were only stocking up but eventually we have been seeing more orders as a segment shifts completely from offline to online shopping. And so that trend will continue.

We've also seen improvements in our gross margins.

There were a lot of categories that were not selling as much earlier, such as gourmet baking products, nutritional & health products etc, have started to sell more. We think these are the three reasons that got us Contribution Margin Positive. We are also very close to being EBITDA positive, which is being profitable company-wide. It's just a matter of a month or two for us to actually get to that stage also. We have been able to advance this whole thing back almost about 15 to 18 months.

Technically, this would have happened 15 months later so it's all about advance.

So we are almost there as far as company wide profitability is concerned, which is EBITDA. BigBasket's IPO would be an eagerly anticipated one. When are you tentatively planning for it?

HM: Well, we haven't planned as yet but we will put our minds into it. Otherwise, we don't have a set date as yet.

You and other co-founders come from a background of entrepreneurship right from the time of the dotcom era. How did all of SEASONAL MAGAZINE

those experiences help you in planning a better strategy for BigBasket?

HM: Well, I think a lot of learnings have come from our previous avatars. We had done Fab Mart first and then Fab Mall, which was the physical store. It was acquired by the Aditya Birla Group that goes under the brand name of More supermarkets now. So we've gone through that whole journey. Lots of learnings in terms of what are the important things to look at, and it just made us wiser by the end of 2011 to start BigBasket. So we've had tremendous amount of learnings as to when we should start, what should the environment look like, how capital raise has to be done, how to ensure that you have enough capital available all the time, how to build large teams, how to take care of execution etc. We've actually become a lot more mature after our first venture. More importantly, we learned the grocery supply chain very well in the first day. It is a very complex supply chain, especially the perishables and the fresh produce. So our whole farmer-connect piece that we have today where we sell their fruits and vegetables online, which are one of our most strategic pieces, happened because of what we have done in the past.

Apart from groceries, what are your immediate plans to broaden your product portfolio?

HM: We are not going beyond groceries. We are sharply focused on this segment and we don't want to distract ourselves by doing anything else other than groceries.

No plans to be like an Amazon or Flipkart even though they are getting into your turf?

HM: Yeah, but we remain focused on groceries because we still think that there's so much to do in this space. If you look at just the retail grocery market in India, it's the single largest in India, which is $800 billion. Now around 65% of that is grocery. Now in a market size like that, which is like $500-600 billion, I think we're still just scratching the SEASONAL MAGAZINE

surface today. So we want to continue to remain focused on grocery.

groceries, what do you think are the core advantages enjoyed by BigBasket?

Contact-less delivery has been a high point of your strategies ever since the pandemic emerged. How is this implemented?

HM: Well, I think this market is too large. So I think worrying about this competition, and I keep telling everybody who asks me this, is pointless. In such large markets, you cannot have only one player and therefore you need multiple players to come in for the online market to grow.

Online is today 1% of the whole retail business. From 1%, it will grow to 5%, 8%, 10% and so on. This can only happen when more players come in and the market expands with more noise in the market and more people available.

I think what will differentiate players in the grocery business is only going to be service quality. Let me stress on that: only service quality. It's a complex business as it's important for customers to get their groceries on time, get them fresh, get them without having any problems, get them without having any quality issues. To solve for all this, it is not that easy. More importantly, it is necessary to get customers their 100% fill-rate. So if I order 10 items, I must get

HM: So contactless delivery essentially means that the customer doesn't have to meet or see the delivery boy at all.

So what happens is that, first of all, we made all payments digital so we don't take cash on delivery. We stopped this as soon as COVID-19 hit because that's the first point of contact. Also, the customer leaves a bag outside the door, our delivery executives just drop things into the bag and then leaves. So it's a very simple, contactless process. We don't even ring the doorbell unless the customer doesn't leave a bag outside, as we wouldn't like to leave food items on the floor. I think there's a certain amount of credibility and trust built around BigBasket so it's working very well for us.

With formidable competitors like Jio, Amazon and Flipkart emerging in

all 10 items. I should not have to go back to the store. So, it is clear to us that it will be service quality that will define players in the space.

But do you think disruptions like what Jio did in the mobile market, such as discounting measures, will happen in grocery?

HM: It's not easy to do that for food items, as people do not get too carried away with discounts. You can do it for some time but normally people won't expect deep discounts on food items.

More so, I think FMCG companies are also very careful about this because they don't want their larger markets to get disrupted. As I told you earlier, the online grocery is just 1% while what we call as 'modern retail' in grocery such as Reliance, More, Future, DMart, Spencer's put together is around 4%.

The remaining 95% is kirana stores. The FMCG companies cannot afford to disrupt that by differentiating price advantages to the 5% of the market. It rarely happens globally and that's where grocery is a little different.

What is the percentage growth of customers switching to online grocery space?

HM: We have grown a little over 100% ie; from pre COVID to COVID. So I would think that the online business would have grown about 60-70%.

Anything else that you'd like to add about BigBasket's growth, unique offerings, upcoming plans etc?

HM: Last year, we launched two new formats, which is BB Daily and BB Instant. The former is our subscription business where it is led by milk and a lot of fresh produce that gets delivered early in the morning. It's only there in Tier-1 cities and towns now. One can subscribe for what they need every day till about 10 o'clock in the night. Next morning, we deliver it between 5 and 7.30 am in one slot. So, along with milk, you can order fruits & vegetables, dairy, bread, eggs etc. This is again contactless so it gets left in a bag outside like how the milk person usually does. This business is scaling a lot for us. In this business, customers buy like 17-18 times a month because it is essentials like milk, bread etc.

The second format that we have is BB Instant, which is our vending machines business that gets installed in apartment

complexes and corporate offices. It uses a technology called load cell. All you need to do is use your app to choose what you want, then you head to the vending machine where it opens up on its own and you pick up things that you want. Then, it automatically debits your wallet. If you don't like something, you put it back and your wallet gets credited.

This is basically meant for 'top up' items.

Let's say you want to quickly pick up snacks or biscuits, this enables you to do that.

We have also set up a new business which is in the beauty, cosmetics & make-up category last year and that has started doing well. The last thing that we're doing is we are deepening and strengthening our meats supply chain and becoming stronger in the meats category.

This vending machine business has already been launched in some markets?

HM: Yes, we launched it in Bangalore, Hyderabad and in NCR. We are now slowly expanding to other cities.

In how many cities is BigBasket available?

HM: 26 cities with same day delivery.

It's either same day or next day. It mostly depends on how much capacity we have, the status of orders, attrition, absenteeism etc. So there are a lot of things that come into play. But otherwise, it is usually on the same day or, worst-case scenario, next day morning.

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ATMANIRBHAR

ATMANIRBHAR AGRICULTURE:

WHAT IS IN IT FOR THE STAKEHOLDERS? SEASONAL MAGAZINE

By: Angira Shukla

In the Indian public discourse, the agriculture sector is often talked about like an abla naari (damsel in distress) that needs to be rescued constantly. The rescue, however, does not involve dismantling the structures that cripple her, but through mere tokenism of bailouts around the time of elections. The frustrations of the farmers are not heeded to and most of the farmers protesting feel they haven’t been heard (which echoes the sentiments of farmers across the nation). This article comes in the light of the recent uproar in the upper house of the parliament where several MLAs of the opposition allegedly stormed the well leading to the adjournment of the parliament for 15 minutes after which the bill was passed by a voice vote and the 8 MLAs have since been suspended. The arguments of the respective MLAs, most of whom belong to state parties, include asking for a committee to be set up to discuss the bills and asking for a division vote which they claim has been ignored. This debate relates to the fundamentals of a Federal Parliamentary Democracy that India is and not the contents of the bills themselves. This article aims to give an economic assessment of the reforms and the economic impact on the stakeholders of agriculture and allied-services.

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he story of Indian agriculture is riddled with instability (53% on account of monsoon-based farming), un-scientific cropping methods, deep inequalities in land holdings, disguised unemployment with a complicated relation with rising nominal wages for labour, poor agri-marketing framework, and debt structures. Largely speaking, the agricultural sector has been in dire need for a comprehensive set of policies for the most part in liberalized India. The wave of agricultural reforms announced recently seems to target the long due agrimarketing reforms and infrastructural investments.

The Atmanirbhar Initiative in India is a systematic move to reform India into a more market-friendly, independent economy by boosting private participation in certain reform-needy sectors of the economy. The Atmanirbhar package for the primary sector has been introduced by the Finance Minister NirmalaSitharamanin the third tranche of economic stimulus package through investment of Rs1.5 lakh crore in strengthening infrastructure (cold storage, supply chain), micro food enterprises, marine activities, fisheries, cattle vaccination, along with agri-marketing reforms for selling produce. This comes with the clearances of three ordinances lifting restrictions on key commodities such as cereals, pulses, onion and potato, and giving farmers the freedom to sell their produce directly or through e-trading platforms to entities of their choice instead of being confined to state mandis.

WHY IS THE AGRICULTURE SECTOR IN DISTRESS? Agriculture has largely been at the backseat in the Indian economic policy except during the late 60s and 70s when the Fourth Five Year Plan introduced the Green Revolution which has been hailed as a worldwide miracle for agriculture that transformed India from a food importer to a food exporter, something only very few poor countries were able to do at that point of time, and even now. Due to the lack of other kind of reforms agriculture that had accounted for just over half of GDP in 1950 is less than 15 percent in 2016, according to a research paper authored by Professors Rahul Wagh and Anil P Dongre. Post the economic reforms of 1991 Indian Agriculture saw heavy investments in fertilizer SEASONAL MAGAZINE

subsidy, protectionism from global prices, rising public stock of grains, and occasional import bans and duties to protect from the global fluctuations.

While overall India is a net exporter of agricultural goods most of the benefits are not reaped by the small farmers, who make up the majority of the farmers in the country. When it comes to food security i.e. using the yardstick of achieving selfsufficiency of food production India has been successful. But there has been a rising trend of government procurement with variations at state levels. This variation in procurement has substantial consequences on the price farmers receive. Further, there exist inefficiencies in the functioning of mandis (Agriculture Produce Market) that suffer from major operational weaknesses ranging from poor transparency in auctions to high and multiple market charges, from rigged weighing and inefficient operations to poor treatment toward farmers by mandi employees at the market yards. Based on the Second Report of the National Commission on Farmers, it has been known for a while that the APMCs had become large cartels of governmentlicensed traders leading to high deviations in the price that the consumers pay and the price that farmers receive. When the pandemic-induced government mandated lockdown hit the country, we saw a large exodus of migrant labourers back to their villages, since there was no work and barely any social safety nets for them to rely on. The agriculture sector was the only sector that witnessed some

Central Government will also provide a guarantee to banks for loans up to Rs. 2 crore in case of defaults by borrowers. It is meant to expand the support available to the farmers through better-allied services like warehousing, grading & sorting, etc.

growth because it was exempted from the lockdown.

MGNREGA became the only work guarantee and PDS allowed sustenance in the rural sector.

WHAT ARE THE REFORMS? When we address the reforms we need to look separately at the Atmanirbhar bailout package that mainly tackles the infrastructural investments (including the Agri Infrastructure Fund) and the ordinances focused at marketing reforms. An ordinance is an extraordinary provision that can only be passed in an emergency when the parliament is not in session.

The Agriculture Investment Fund is one scheme that, simply said, aims to give long term credit facility on post-harvesting activities. Rs. 1 lakh crore is allocated to various agencies giving out these loans at 3% interest rates to agriculture and allied service providers. The

Amendments to Essential Commodities Act (1955) would deregulate the commodities such as cereals, edible oils, oilseeds, pulses, onions and potatoes. It is said to help to lessen the fears of private investors of excessive regulatory interference in business operations. The freedom to produce, hold, move, distribute and supply that comes with these amendments is meant to attract more private players to enter agriculture and agricultureallied production and services through harnessing economies of scale. It may also lead to foreign direct investment into the agriculture sector.

Farming Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance,2020 Ordinance,2020is to ensure farmers enjoy freedom of choice of sale and purchase of agri-produce.

It also promotes barrier-free inter-state and intra-state trade and commerce outside the physical premises of APMC structures of the State legislations. It will supplement the existing Minimum Support Price (MSP) procurement system and both will help to provide stable income to farmers.

Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020 2020is aimed to empower farmers for engaging with processors, wholesalers, aggregators, wholesalers, large retailers, exporters etc. and thus eliminating intermediaries resulting in full realization of price. It will increase the competition between buyers and provide better prices to the farmers. This is giving way to the farmers to collaborate with restaurants; retailers etc. that will help them receive better prices for produce.

IMPACT ON: Farmers and Agricultural Laborers Indian Agriculture has a comparative edge in the country over other sectors on a global level, if not for the protective policies adopted to protect it from global price fluctuations. However, the major problem in the sector is the small size of the holdings by farmers farmers. The reforms do not reach these small holders of land that are usually net buyers of food. They do not have access to warehousing and are known to rely on monsoonal rains for irrigation and prefer to grow cereals as they are relatively safer because of government procurement.

There are key areas that need to be looked at a more

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micro level; water management, agricultural innovation, technology incorporation in Indian agriculture to reform the sector in a sustainable fashion. With the increase in private mandis and warehousing facilities becoming available for smaller farmers, their cost of transportation will fall.

The ordinances will help farmers reap benefits of greater opportunities to them but the long term implications are yet to be known owing to multiple opposing forces. There is the fact that since agriculture is a state subject; the acceptance of the reforms by states may lead to variations. There is also a digital divide that holds these small farmers with limited exposure way behind the huge farm owners. Another major factor is the power imbalance in negotiation that comes with the private sector. The smaller, dispersed farmers will not have the same bargaining powers than that of his larger counterpart.

A stakeholder that the reforms leave out of the picture is that of the agricultural laborers. Certain sections of scholars argue that the ordinances will have little to no impact on debt structures and landless laborers. They argue that the FAPAFS could lead to disruption in this ongoing practice of

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contract farming. The absentee landlord would now prefer to deal with written contracts of a company over the hassle of dealing with local tenants.

CONSUMERS But does the agri-marketing reform bear fruit for the consumers? There is the troubling income-calorie puzzle of India according to which there has been an observed rise in obesity and fall in consumption of calories (meaning lower nutrition) across all income levels despite the rising levels of outputs in farming. This is because the consumption patterns of the consumers are moving in the favor of “high-value� commodities like meat and dairy products, horticultural crops, fish, medicinal products. As a result, these high-value agricultural products drive the rises in food prices. In simpler terms, regular people like us are now consuming lesser calories than required, at ever-increasing prices. In this regard, the decision to provide stimulus to animal husbandry (through vaccination programmes), fisheries, herbal cultivation and bee-keeping are appreciable but fall short in the larger scheme of things. This is because it acts as a stimulator on the supply side. It allows greater participation on the supply front leading to greater

competition in the sector and reducing prices but the reforms are ill-timed due to two factors; contraction in demand and stress on land as millions of migrant workers returned to their villages. Even if these workers return to work places, the reforms will take time to reach the small scale farmers and even longer on the average consumer.

PRIVATE PARTICIPANTS India’s economy is expected to contract by 4.5% in 2020-21 while the world economy is expected to contract by 4.9%, as per International Monetary Fund estimates. Given the situation, it is extremely difficult to forecast if these particular reforms will be helpful for the new entrants as the market players project the overall demand to be low leading to low animal spirits.

The reforms have been long due and are designed to stimulate the private investment in agriculture and agriculture-allied services. Some have claimed that corporatization of farming is the way to ensure that farming can be modernized. However, the timing of these reforms may be put into question, as policies do not take place in a vacuum. With the massive shocks that the world is facing along with the slowdown in demand, there is a possibility that the reforms may fall short in revitalizing the animal spirits.

Consequently, the only sector that is sure to reap the benefits would be the private sector with its availability of easy credit and market value supporting their entries in the agricultural markets. The direct impact on the big farmers will be debatable as the increased competition will act as a deterrent (a large part of the opposition to these reforms also come from the big farming states like Punjab and Haryana), or a lesser probability they can benefit from the better options

available from the private sector. The impact on small farmers will reap benefits for them in the medium-to-long term as the private players enter the market and they get better prices but the short-term impact is questionable because of the Covid-shock as well as slowdown of demand. The landless laborers will have a hard time to reconcile with the reforms. The consumers may also reap the benefits of the reforms in the long run because of increased supply-side players. How well this fares out on welfare levels (especially on nutrition in the country and income levels for farmers), remains to be seen.

The economic package and the ordinances, therefore, allow more leg-space for farmers to move around with increased opportunities but for the longest time they have been sheltered by the APMC in terms of knowing where to sell. The increased competition argument works as long as we assume perfect knowledge and most farmers would not have the knowledge or the means to receive better prices in the market and this is the major issue raised by the farmers who believe that they will be disadvantaged against the “corporate babus� and the worries are not without cause. There is also a greater need for social protection, not just for the rural poor but also urban poor.

Most small farmers are not aware of the social protections and even if they are, they find it extremely difficult to receive benefits from government protection, due to lags in the system and hefty amounts or paperwork. The reforms would make more impact if this was deliberated upon with the stakeholders (especially, the state parties like Akali Dal whose major vote bank include farming families). The functioning of democracies lie on the basis of deliberation and accounting for opinions of disagreeing parties to reach more refined laws. The impact of the reforms may be positive in the long term but there will be dissatisfaction amongst a lot of sects in the Indian society that feels unheard and frustrated SEASONAL MAGAZINE

EDUCATION

NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY 2020

5 CORE WAYS NEP 2020 WILL CHANGE INDIAN HIGHER EDUCATION

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he National Education Policy (2020) has perhaps been the only shining light in an otherwise insufferable year. Calling for radical changes to the Indian education system, the NEP is both an aspirational and realistic policy document. It is aspirational because it envisages the pressing revamp of many institutional behemoths that have pegged back progress over the years while its realism lies in the broad achievable goals across a 15-year timeline. While no one predicted that the announcement would be imminent so soon, especially as draft policies in general take its own ‘sweet’ time to come to the attention of policy makers,

the context of these times warrant quick action and implementation. As the pandemic has disrupted every level of the Indian education system, the recommendations made by the K. Kasturirangan Committeee are noteworthy for its post-COVID reality checks.

It has been over 50 years since India formulated its first National Policy on Education, under then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1968. However, most pillars of this Education Policy preceded the Policy itself, as under the leadership of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru itself, institutions like UGC and IITs came into being, and even NCERT came into being before the first policy by Indira Gandhi. Eighteen years later, in 1986, India had its second National Policy on Education under then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Both these policies, especially the second one had revolutionary changes that impacted the quality of educational institutions for decades to come. Just 6 years later, in 1992, under Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao’s leadership, this second policy was significantly modified and improved without going in for a new policy. Further modifications were introduced by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in 2005, again without creating a new policy. Now, in 2020, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, India’s National Education Policy (NEP 2020) has proposed sweeping and far-reaching changes that will shake the foundations of the sector. While the policy is for everything from pre-primary to research, here is a look at five of the most profound ways in which NEP 2020 will impact Higher Education and Higher Education Institutions in the country.

Who Will Regulate the Higher Education Sector?

For decades now, the higher education sector in the country have been regulated by eminent independent bodies like University Grants Commission (UGC), All India Council

for Technical Education (AICTE), National Assessment & Accreditation Council (NAAC) and various professional councils like Medical Council of India, Bar Council of India etc, as well as Ministry for Human Resource Development of the Government of India. While there was always room for improvement in the output of these bodies, they served their purpose well and good as is evidenced by the worldwide good reception our graduates, postgraduates and research scholars used to get. The New Education Policy 2020 however proposes a sweeping change in this governance and regulatory structure. Education governance is to be headed from now on by a new body, Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) or Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog, which will be an apex body for education, to be headed by the Prime Minister. This umbrella body would also comprise of four independent verticals - National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC) for regulation, General Education Council (GEC) for standard-setting, Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC) for funding, and National Accreditation Council (NAC) for accreditation. This body will be responsible for developing, implementing, evaluating, and revising the vision of education in the country on a continuous and sustained basis, except for medical and legal education.

What Will Happen to UGC, AICTE, NAAC, & Professional Councils?

Sweeping changes are awaiting most of these apex bodies if and when all the proposals in National Education Policy (2020) are implemented. University Grants Commission (UGC), the most venerable body controlling Indian higher education for decades, had already seen much erosion in its powers during the past few years. This erosion in its powers will accelerate now under NEP 2020 as National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is being demerged from it, and the only major SEASONAL MAGAZINE

role remaining for the University Grants Commission (UGC) will be providing grants to higher educational institutions.

Similarly, the NHERC will be the independent regulatory authority that will facilitate in limiting the functions of all professional councils like AICTE and Bar Council of India. NEP 2020 has proposed this as the current higher education system has multiple regulators with overlapping mandates. While this reduces the autonomy of higher educational institutions, it remains to be seen whether a new single regulator like NHERC will cause too much centralization of power. National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is perhaps the only old body that will get a new lease of life albeit without ‘Assessment’ anymore (NAC).

In its new role, NAC will function as the top level accreditor, and will issue licenses to different accreditation institutions, who will assess higher educational institutions once every five to seven years. All existing higher education institutions should be accredited by 2030. Even the Ministry for Human Resource Development (MHRD), is going to witness major changes. NEP 2020 has suggested that the Ministry of Human Resources and Development must be renamed as the Ministry of Education in order to bring focus back on education.

Who Can Approve Creation of New Universities?

Until now, approval for new universities – both public and private - came under the powers of either Parliament or State Legislatures as a new law or act specifically drafted for each public, deemed-to-be or state private university was necessary for creating them. But not anymore. One of the most fundamental and sweeping changes in the new National Education Policy 2020 is that when it is implemented, the power to set up new universities will be vested in the new apex body, National Higher Education Regulatory Council (NHERC).

All such newly constituted higher educational institutions must receive SEASONAL MAGAZINE

accreditation as mandated by NHERC within five years of being established.

However, for all practical purposes it seems that private edupreneurs would make a beeline at NHERA as from now on it bypasses the checks and controls possible by Parliament and State Legislatures. While this measure has been taken to make it easier to set up new universities, if it is not properly implemented, this can end up in acute centralization of powers in NHERC with regard to who can start new universities, with no regard for the opinion of legislators at central and state levels.

Same goes with the objective of transparency, as usually transparency suffers when legislators are kept outside of such core nation building activities.

What is the New Restructuring of Higher Educational Institutions?

Until now higher education institutions have been classified as numerous entities like colleges, institutes, universities, deemed-to-be universities, private universities, as well as by the domains they focus on, like engineering colleges, medical colleges, B-schools, law academies etc. While the current varied structure has largely aided in conveying the specific role of each entity, it can be argued that this varied structure has been confusing to many.

NEP 2020 has suggested that the Ministry of Human Resources and Development must be renamed as the Ministry of Education in order to bring focus back on education.

National Education Policy 2020 has proposed a new restructuring of all higher education institutions, not by the domain they occupy or their aspirations, but by the primary role they play in education and research. As per this new formula, higher education institutions will be restructured into three types: (1) research universities focusing equally on research and teaching; (2) teaching universities focusing primarily on teaching; and (3) colleges focusing only on teaching at undergraduate levels. A sweeping change seen in NEP 2020 in this connection is that all such institutions will gradually move towards full autonomy academic, administrative, and financial. Apart from freeing up research universities to focus more on research, NEP 2020 also proposes establishing a National Research Foundation. As the total investment on research and innovation in India has been declining, with the country lagging behind many nations in

number of researchers (per lakh population), patents and publications, this National Research Foundation, will be set up as an autonomous body, for funding, mentoring and building the capacity for quality research in India.

The Foundation will consist of four major divisions: sciences, technology, social sciences, and arts and humanities, with the provision to add additional divisions. The Foundation will be provided with an annual grant of Rs 20,000 crore (0.1% of GDP).

What are the New Academic Directions in Higher Education?

Moving with the rapid strides in technology and the growing need for interdisciplinary professionals wellversed in different domains, National Education Policy 2020 proposes sweeping changes on two academic fronts – technology in education and interdisciplinary education through a liberal arts approach. On the technology front, NEP 2020 proposes to set up two Technology Missions. The first one will be the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology. This Mission will encompass virtual laboratories that provide remote access to laboratories in various disciplines. A National Education Technology Forum will also be setup under the Mission, as

an autonomous body, to facilitate decision-making on the induction, deployment and use of technology. This Forum will provide evidence-based advice to central and state-governments on technology-based interventions. The second Technology Mission proposed

by NEP 2020 is the National Repository on Educational Data. Under this, a National Repository will be set up to maintain all records related to institutions, teachers, and students in digital form. Further, a single online digital repository will be created where copyright-free educational resources will be made available in multiple languages. Introduction of a single

Four-year undergraduate programmes in Liberal Arts will be introduced and multiple entry & exit options with appropriate certification will be made available to students. university entrance exam conducted by the National Testing Agency will standardize the admission process.

Coming to the interdisciplinary front, NEP 2020 is moving higher education to a liberal arts approach, which has been gaining ground in developed nations too. The policy recommends making undergraduate programmes interdisciplinary by redesigning their curriculum to include: (a) a common core curriculum and (b) one/two area(s) of specialisation. Students will be required to choose an area of specialisation as ‘major’, and an optional area as ‘minor’. Four-year undergraduate programmes in Liberal Arts will be introduced and multiple entry & exit options with appropriate certification will be made available to students.

Further, within the next five years, five Indian Institute of Liberal Arts must be setup as model multidisciplinary liberal arts institutions. Further, the policy also sets the stage for foreign universities to setup offshore campuses in India thereby improving competition with Indian counterparts and later offer competitive and affordable tuition fees for higher education.

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HIGHER EDUCATION

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SRM UNIVERSITY, AMARAVATI, AP

THE MAKING OF A WORLD CLASS UNIVERSITY Seasonal Magazine in conversation with Prof. VS Rao, Vice-Chancellor, SRM University, Andhra Pradesh.

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THE MAKING OF A WORLD CLASS UNIVERSITY SRM, founded by educationalist and Member of Parliament Dr. TR Paarivendhar in 1969, is one of the most accomplished educational groups in India. SRM’s flagship institution, SRM Institute of Science & Technology (SRMIST), a deemed university near Chennai, is one of the largest and most renowned universities in the private sector with over 50,000 students and over 3200 faculty, with one of the broadest por tfolio of subjects including a medical college and hospital, which has attracted international eyeballs for their contribution in the testing of India’s Covid-19 vaccine. By 2015, SRM Group has also been home to two more private universities, SRM University Haryana and SRM University Sikkim. When such a Group ventured out into building its fourth university at Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh, what could be expected? It would be anyway difficult to surpass the achievements of the massive SRMIST. Yet, the visionary he is, Dr. P Sathyanarayanan, Founder, Chairman & President of SRM University, AP, decided to build not one of India’s finest universities, but one of the world’s

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finest. Every policy taken and every stone laid at SRM AP is as per worldclass standards, nothing less. In a move unheard of in India, SRM AP commissioned UK & US based global executive search firms Perrett Laver and Society Search to recruit faculty for the new university. This was in Dr. Sathyanarayanan’s firm belief that, above all, faculty makes a university.

The result speaks for itself. SRM AP is perhaps the only university in India with 100% of the faculty having international exposure. It also resulted in SRM AP attracting one of the finest academicians in India, in the missioncritical executive post of Vice Chancellor, Prof. Vajja Sambasiva Rao, who studied at BITS-Pilani and University of Bielefeld, Germany, and who has served as the President of NIIT University and Acting ViceChancellor and Director at BITS-Pilani.

The university also has two worldrenowned academicians as Honorary Pro Chancellors – Dr. Nicholas B Dirks, for mer Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley and Prof. Bertil Andersson, President Emeritus of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and a former

Chair of Nobel Foundation’s Chemistry Committee. SRM AP also made a world-class move in infrastructure when it recruited Perkins + Will, world renowned American architectural firm, which has designed some of the leading universities in the world, including Cornell University, Duke University, Tufts University, University of Illinois, University of Pennsylvania, Texas A&M University, besides global corporate landmarks like Boeing International Headquarters. The grand result is a 200 acre custom designed campus well-built for luxuries like 10:1 students to faculty ratio. The vision of Dr. Sathyanarayanan is to scale up SRM AP to 20,000 students and 1500 faculty within its first 10 years, and above all to make a mark as the finest world-class university from India.

SRM University AP's faculty have been at the forefront of research and innovation since the university's inception in 2017. Recently, Dr Sutharsan Gonvindrajan, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology secured a research grant of Rs. 1.1 crore for a period of five years,

Dr. P Sathyanarayanan, Founder, Chairman & President, SRM University, AP

as part of the prestigious Early Career Fellowship grant by DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance. Another Professor, Dr Panchagunula Jayaprakash has used 3D printing to design face shields of different kinds for frontline workers.

Given his illustrious academic background, Vice-Chancellor Prof VS Rao wants to promote SRM AP as a world class research-intensive university. He has also rightly recognized the need for industry-ready graduates who can employ their knowledge & skills for 21st century jobs. This area is already being addressed by the university through its international collaborations with reputed institutions like MIT & UC Berkeley. The IDEA center established in collaboration with UC Berkeley has suppor ted multiple student entrepreneurs and incubated their ideas. Students at SRM-AP also benefit from study abroad programs, research internships and placements.

On the placements front, the inaugural batch has recently been landing top notch job offers that received personal praise from Chief Minister YS Jagan

Mohan Reddy and State Education Minister Adimulapu Suresh. Seasonal Magazine's John Antony and Carl Jaison recently caught up with SRM University AP's Vice Chancellor, Prof VS Rao for this interview.

You come from a long background of academic, research and managerial experience as both a former student and senior faculty at BITS-Pilani as well as experience as a scholar from University of Bielefeld, Germany. What are your first impressions of SRM AP? My association with BITS Pilani started as a student and then went on to become its Vice-Chancellor. I held various administrative positions, including Deputy Director, Off-campus programme & Dean, Practice School Division, amongst others. My responsibilities included many, to name a few - student care and mentoring, managing Practice Schools in India and abroad, and Work Integrated Learning Programmes at BITS.

I have played a crucial role in the establishment of BITS Pilani, Hyderabad campus in terms of strategy and conception. I have worked very closely with Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, the then Chief Minister, in realising his vision of establishing BITS Pilani campus in Hyderabad, state-of-the-art campus with innovative ideas. I was credited with building a green campus within eighteen months replicating all the notable features of BITS Pilani with the help of the faculty, staff, alumni & students.

As SRM University-AP embarks on an exciting period of development in an immensely challenging and competitive environment with an ambitious strategy that builds on the well-established reputation for groundbreaking research, innovation and cross-disciplinary academic activity, I feel SRM AP has demonstrated the capability to make a difference and provide quality education and will definitely evolve as a world-class institution.

I consider myself fortunate to have this SEASONAL MAGAZINE

opportunity to be part of such a worldclass institution in the sphere of higher education, that has been delivering quality teaching and learning, and research relevant to the societal and national needs. We are creating an academic revolution led by SRM University-AP and striving to make better citizens for our country irrespective of the cultural and financial background who will contribute to the welfare of society and country’s development.

I would like to emphasise on our faculty members having PhDs from institutions of national and international repute.

With their international experience/ exposure, they are able to give the best learning experience to students. The infrastructure is of international standards, with many research labs and state of the art facilities for academic and research activities.

The unique collaboration with UC Berkeley provides an extraordinary opportunity for our students to study a semester there. Students also join the SCET (Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology) Bootcamp. Students are involved in research projects, and during the last three years, 23 best-talented students were sponsored to study one semester at UCB. Students are given the opportunity to contribute to research and publish the papers.

As the Vice-Chancellor of the University, I am looking forward to contributing to the internationally acclaimed SRM Group, through my best efforts. We at SRMAP would like to see that every student graduating from here

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would be industry-ready and get numerous opportunities during their career career.

What are your thoughts on the National Education Policy and its impact on higher education since the implementation directions are less clear as compared to the K-12 schooling system?

The National Education Policy 2020 is full of provisions that may place India on the global map for the sought-after educational haven of the world. The National Education Policy 2020 supersedes the old education policy, framed in 1986 and ushering in an era of new educational reforms. As the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi said, “The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 laid the foundation for a ‘New India’. We can see that the new education policy is designed with several important factors to address the current challenges in the higher education sector.

One of the main objectives of NEP is to create vibrant multidisciplinary institutions of high quality that increase the capacity of Higher Education in India and ensure equitable access. A significant objective of NEP is the move towards a more imaginative and broadbased liberal education as a foundation for the holistic development of all students with a rigorous specialisation in chosen disciplines and fields. NEP2020 allows the institutions and faculty with the autonomy to innovate curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment within a broad framework of higher education qualifications which will ensure consistency across institutions

and programmes. Institutions can now integrate its academic plans into its Institutional comprehensive Development Plan (IDP), committing to the holistic development of students and create robust internal systems for supporting diversity among students in academic and social domains.

NEP-2020 also strives to utilise Open and Distance Learning and online education to its full potential. ODL is being renewed through concerted, evidence-based efforts towards expansion while ensuring adherence to clearly articulated standards of quality.

The Open and Distance Learning (ODL) programmes will aim to be equivaent to the highest quality in-class programmes available. Under the new policy regulations, better norms, standards, and guidelines for systemic development and accreditation of ODL will be prepared, and a framework for ensuring the quality of ODL will be recommendatory for all HEIs will be developed. MERUs (Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities) is another essential aspect of the new pedagogical policy. With an aim to attain the highest global standards in quality education, MERU will also help the education sector to set the highest standards for multidisciplinary education across India. I am glad to mention here that we have established SRM University – AP as a multidisciplinary research-intensive University. I am also glad that in the year 2020, we have established the School of Management (SOM) at SRM –AP. Starting out in 2017, the first batch of SRM AP BTech students will be

graduating in 2021. We hear that the initial round of placements has started and that it has been good for a first batch. Can you shed more light on this?

The campus recruitment drive has just begun for the inaugural batch of 2017 or Class 2021 with 13 toppers landing top-notch job offers. Our students are already being placed in top companies with the highest pay package of 39.5 lakhs so far far. The students undergo sufficient and different training sessions/ programmes to help them receive jobs of their dreams. Career counselling is also done on a regular basis.

Anheuser-Busch InBev offered sixmonths internship, followed by job offers to outstanding candidates.

Anheuser -Busch InBev SA/NV, commonly known as AB InBev is a Belgian multinational drink and brewing company. The company has offered an internship stipend of 30 thousand per month and a CTC of 1217 LPA to the candidates who will join the company after successful completion of their internship. Also, another student got placed at Sabre Corporation in the position of an Associate Software Engineer. In this revered company operating in the travel technology sector, the student will be receiving a CTC of 10 LPA. Another renowned company Health Rx, which innovates and develops secure web-based and mobile solutions to streamline information flow in the clinical and research environments, has offered Technical Internship with a stipend of 35 thousand per month, and post that a confirmed job offer with CTC of 12 LPA. Further, VIRTUSA

Corporation, an American IT service provider, offered a position in the company with a CTC of 4.5-6.5. The other renowned company which conducted the recruitment drive at SRM AP, Amazon, selected a student for an internship with a stipend of 45 thousand per monthleading to a job offer with a CTC of 39.5 LPA. Further, one student received another offer from Sahaj Soft with a CTC of 10 LPA. Sahaj Soft is a software services and consulting firm which provides simple solutions backed by their time-tested methodology and engineering practices.

As the recruiters shortlist the best young talent who are enthusiastic, devoted to learning and brimming with fresh and creative ideas, SRM AP placement team have thoroughly trained the students both in terms of technical expertise and soft skills. The rigorous training that the students underwent since the beginning of their B. Tech course, coupled with their talent and motivation, has enabled them to succeed in recruitment drive with flying colours.

SRM AP believes that this is merely the beginning of the placement season, and many more brilliant students are waiting to showcase their mettle to land up with excellent job offers in top-notch companies.

I am confident that our B.Tech students will find their place of choice in reputed Software and Hardware Companies, Aerospace, Automotive, Robotic, CAD, Control and Instrumentation, Automobile, Electrical Companies, EPC Contractors, Petro Chemical Construction, Public Health, Transportation, and Urban Planning companies of both India and abroad.

Massive job opportunities are awaiting BBA and MBA graduates in the domains

of Marketing, Finance and Human Resource Management, Banks, Financial Institutions and Insurance, ECommerce Companies. A management degree along-with some years of work experience will surely take them to theleadership position in any organisation.

Liberal Arts and Basic Sciences graduates will have the option to choose from various opportunities for employment in Government, Education Sectors, Research Laboratories, Industry, Hospitals, Banks, Insurance Companies, and Non-Profit Organisations. They can work as a Scientist, Teacher, Zoologist or Wildlife Biologist. Ample career options exist in the fields of Social Media Manager, Technical Writer, Public Relations Specialist, Counsellor, Librarian, Editor andContent Manager, Human Resources Specialist and the Civil Services.

A stated goal of the NEP is to impart vocational education in order to increase Gross Enrolment Ratio in HEIs. What are the steps being taken

by SRM University towards this end, and can you provide details on the curriculum and its alignment with industry requirements?

SRM University-AP is very much aware of today’s industry requirements. SRM University strives to provide students with such kind of education which not only enlightens them and make them knowledgeable in their subjects but also helps them to secure a job of their preferences.

SRMAP has already inked an exclusive liaison with Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation (APSSDC) to provide the students with quality training. APSSDC has provided a unique opportunity for our students at SRM University-AP, Andhra Pradesh SEASONAL MAGAZINE

with the Online Internship Programme of one Month to forty-five days. The programme exposes, engages and educates students through real-world experience and live projects by utilising the latest industry tools such as Android, web development usingReact JS & Django, Python, embedded printed circuit board, AWS Cloud etc. Around 1140 students of B.Tech first, second and third year of SRM University-AP have registered for the Online Internship Programme in different areas as per their choice. Furthermore, out of the total 1140 registered students, 821 students are doing Online Internship in Phase-I, and the remaining others will get a chance at the Phase-II of the programme. It is an amazingly great opportunity that APSSDC hasprovided for the students. The Online Internship Programme is carved out to play a pivotal role for our SRM University-AP students with the experience needed to bridge the gap between academia and industry. Simultaneously, it will help students to enhance their ability and confidence to secure their dream job in IT and core sectors. SRM UniversityAP profoundly appreciates the motivating initiative by APSSDC for our students and other technical institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Being a very young university of merely three years, SRM University is yet to introduce vocational courses of its own.

But we certainly hope to announce such courses it in the near future with standout qualities as we have already done with mainstream academic courses.

Our future plans include skill development and vocational courses for the communities around as a part of our Corporate Social Responsibilities. We have plans to promote the art and craft and handloom works that are produced in nearby villages by providing them with courses on basic computer knowledge, language and soft skill training along with many other courses on skill development and entrepreneurship.

Despite its young age, SRM AP has taken some significant strides on the research front. Can you walk us through some of the highlights of the research achievements?

The world-class faculty of SRM SEASONAL MAGAZINE

University-AP are widely engaged in research. Since its inception in 2017, the University has published 216 research papers in reputed journals with 51 as the highest impact factor factor.

The number of funded projects at present in the University is 24 with an outlay of 13 crores of rupees. rupees The total number of patents filed and published by the University is 13, of which one is a student patent. Quite recently, Dr Sutharsan Govindarajan, from the Department of Biology, has been awarded the prestigious ‘Early Career Fellowship’ grant by DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance Alliance, funded by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Wellcome Trust, United Kingdom. The fellowship supports outstanding young scientists to pursue high-quality research in the field of biomedical science and establish

themselves as independent researchers in India. Dr Sutharsan sought a total research grant of 1.1 crores for a period of 5 years as a DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance Early career fellow.

Further, our Research Council haswellreputed academicians and scientists, industry leaders and is headed by Dr V K Saraswat, Hon’ble Member of Niti Ayog.

The URC (University Research Council) provides directions to research activities of the University from time to time.

Our industrial research collaboration with Indian Railways, Amara Raja Batteries Ltd, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tanishq and Titan speak for the University’s hunger for quality research. SRMAP’s Meteorological Centre, another Centre of Excellence, is one of a kind.

The consortium of SRM IST, SRM University AP and Integral Coach

T. R. Paarivendhar, MP Founder, SRM Group

Factory, of the Ministry of Railways Railways, Chennai is developing a prototype of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) coupled with Lithium-ion batteries driven switcher for locomotive applications. The weight of the coaches with passengers would be approximately 135 tonnes, with PEM FC operating at a maximum power output of 200kWh and continuous power of 150kWh as a prime mover and transient power in excess will be stored in the 150kWh lithium-ion batteries to cater to the needs of electrical coach requirements. Six compressedhydrogen storage tanks of dimensions 0.4m outer diameter and 4m long with 60 kg of hydrogen each and operating at 350 bars will be located on the roof of the train whereas Lithium-ion batteries will be loaded in the space below the coach, PEMFC will be stacked in one of the coaches to avoid electrical wiring and mechanical design complications. Several technological challenges will arise when designing and developing such a large fuel cell vehicle which will be mitigated by continuous efforts of ICF Engineers and SRM faculties. It is proposed to demonstrate this ambitious and challenging Fuel Cell-based train in the next three years. So far, only Germany has demonstrated the hydrogenpowered fuel cell-based train. Needless to say, we are strongly emerging as a well-recognised research University in India and overseas.

There are clear indications that multidisciplinary education is going to be the way forward for India’s educational institutes. Does SRM University already have interdepartment collaboration and research in place? Can you explain initiatives on this front?

Through their research, our faculty members incessantly work together to accomplish the goal of contributing to the requirement of the society for holistic development. Faculty from varied departments such as Electronics and Communication Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Physics and Chemistry work on the development of Li-ion batteries for the industrial collaborative project with Amara Raja Batteries Ltd to develop batteries of the

future and achieve a leap forward in sustainable energy technologies to reduce India’s carbon footprint. Further, the Department of Physics, Biology and Chemistry are researching collaboratively on Molecular Electronics. In addition to that, faculty members from the Department of Physics, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineers are tirelessly working on the prototype of ‘Jal Janak Rail’ or ‘Hydrogen Train’ which a kind of rail vehicle that uses onboard hydrogen fuel as a source of energy to power the traction motors and/or auxiliaries. Apart from these, our faculty members shoulder innumerable multidisciplinary and inter-department collaborative research projects.

Recently, an SRM AP faculty had landed a Rs. 1.1 crore research grant from DBT & Wellcome Trust of UK, which will be used for setting up a niche lab for his research. Do you think more faculty and research scholars are capable of such achievements?

As I have mentioned earlier, Dr Sutharsan Govindarajan has been awarded ‘Early Career Fellowship’ grant

by DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance, funded by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Wellcome Trust, United Kingdom. He received a total research grant of 1.1 crores for a period of 5 years. As we are aware, the India Alliance grants are highly competitive and are based on the profile of the applicant and the novelty and the importance of the proposed research.

Nationwide only less than 10 Early Career grants are awarded every year.

Through this fellowship, Dr Sutharsan will establish an independent research laboratory at SRM University – AP with the support of Prof. Jayaseelan, Head, Department of Biology, and the fellowship supervisor of the project.

In this project, Dr Sutharsan plans to venture and explore the biology of a novel class of bacteriophages called Jumbo-phages. Studying how such cellular structures are formed by jumbophages will provide a unique opportunity for him to investigate the origin of complex life. His proposed research has several biotechnological

applications such as phage therapy and synthetic biology. In the next five years, he anticipates major fundamental discoveries in the field of bacteriophage biology and evolution.

SRM AP had made some impressive academic tie-ups with some of USA’s top universities. How are these tieups helping SRM AP students in bettering their vision and prospects?

We have academic collaborations with world’s highly renowned universities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT); The University of California, Berkeley; Illinois Institute of Technology; EFREI, Engineering School of Information and Digital Technology, Paris, France; The University of Wisconsin-Madison Wisconsin-Madison. MIT provides us with licensed MITx courses to design our curriculum in a modernised and pragmatic way. They also support us in choosing ideal course contents and conducting design camps, learning activities, assessing particular degree objectives and accreditation standards.

The MOUs with Illinois Institute of Technology, EFREI, Engineering School of Information and Digital Technology, Paris, France and the University of Wisconsin-Madison encourage visits by faculty from one University to the other for the purpose of engaging in research or other educational activities; facilitate the admission of qualified students from one University to the other for the purpose of enrolling in undergraduate and graduate programmes, and in thecase of advanced graduate students, participating in research; foster the exchange of academic publications and scholarly information, and promote any other academic activities which enhance the above-mentioned goals.

The higher education regulatory bodies are set to undergo a major revamp with the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) as the apex body headed by the Prime Minister. In your opinion, is this a case of old wine in a new bottle and will it solve the decades-old problem of regulatory overreach on the part of these institutions?

No, it is certainly not. It is a pathbreaking education policy in several aspects which is going to change the SEASONAL MAGAZINE

landscape of higher education of our country as we have known it. The pedagogical policy needs to be revamped with time to meet the requirements of the new age. There is no doubt that the changes in policy structure, regulatory bodies and education pattern are all part of that. It does not really matter what regulatory bodies are there or what are they called as long as they do their work properly.

However, as we can see, this time, the government has undertaken a significant change in our existing education policy, entirely abandoning the old one and introducing a revamped one. In this scenario, it can be proved to be a wise decision to have a new regulatory body with a well-defined set of rules, regulations and directions in compliance with the new pedagogical policy. In this way, conflicts can be avoided. I am sure the government will issue new circulars informing more on how to implement the new policy. The new body will know better its duties and responsibilities and will not be confused about what to do and what not to. Whether the new body will be able to solve all the problems in the education sector, only time can tell.

Nevertheless, this is a much-awaited and expected step. We were so accustomed to our previous system that this reformation will bound to take some time for people to get adjusted with. But surely we had advanced a long way from 1986 when the previous education policy came into force. It need not be debated that the current generation and future generation’s needs are quite different as it was threefour decades ago. The new policy is much welcomed.

The Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) is a novel idea that has been introduced in the NEP where credits can be accumulated by a student across multiple HEIs to go with the multiple exit and entry options.

However, do you think it is a case of putting the cart before the horse as the industry needs to be appraised and prepared for the eventuality of this new job market dynamic?

A degree is not synonymous with education. Especially, in this era, it will be highly unwise to share an opinion like that. Academic Bank of Credit is SEASONAL MAGAZINE

indeed a novel and great idea that recognises and protects a student’s struggles and endeavours. In my long career as an academician, I have seen many students who could not pursue their passion due to the difficulty of changing courses or personal problems and lost precious academic years. The credit bank is very much student-centric and certainly bears an important message that every bit of education is essential. Education can not be contained within a specific time.

Internationalisation is another thread of the NEP that deserves attention.

While partnerships and tie-ups have been carried out in recent years, do you think India’s HEIs is capable of matching up with its global counterparts if they decide to set their campuses here?

I see no reason why it should not be.

Our IITs, NITs, ISIs, IISERs along with many private universities already carry out impactful education and research.

In the age of globalisation, we can not livesegregated. Shared knowledge and shared wisdom are the keys to make progress quickly and effectively. We have an abundance of talent on our land. A little help in terms of technology and infrastructure, along with modernised and pragmatic views, can go a long way.

The student exchange programme, faculty abroad programme, shared endeavours towards curriculum designing development, jointly founded entrepreneurship academy etc and all have proven to be extremely beneficial for the students. But, I must speak my mind that we do not need another

Harvard or Stanford or Oxford here.

India’s culture and environment are different from the West. We must never forget that. What we need is to develop ourselves and our institutions in such a way that the world bows to us. The world is yet to conceive India’s true potential and capability.

SRM AP has plans to set up Centres of Excellence in some superspecialised areas of manufacturing and information technology. Can you explain these projects?

In the next three to five years, we also have plans to establish Centres of Excellence – Centre for Additive Manufacturing, Centre for Cloud Computing, Centre for Internet of Things (IoTs), Centre for 5G Technologies, Centre for Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning (AI & ML), Centre for Satellite Technology, Centre for Renewable Energy – Offshore Wind Farms, Centre for Blue Economy, Centre for Gene Editing – CRISPR, Centre for Materials Genome.

We wish to establish Industrial Research Park at SRM University AP, to provide opportunities for the faculty members, research scholars and students to carry out research in front line, emerging technologies and also to cater to the future needs of the Industries. Students of SRM University AP, will have industrial exposure and industrial experience by working as interns in the research park. SRM AP plans to set up 20 such Laboratories in the next 5 years in association with some of the industries. In addition to these, we also have a plan to establish Space Work Center.

PRIVATE UNIVERSITY

4 Reasons to Choose SCSVMV ith the long-running admission season soon to conclude, the incoming batch of students increasingly need to adjust to the new COVID-19 reality. The hope is that university campuses would be allowed to open by the end of September, although these students are likely to undergo a new experience of classroom learning in the era of social distancing. However, universities like Sri

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Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi Viswa Mahavidyalaya (SCSVMV) are leaving no stone unturned in its quest to be fully prepared to meet the challenges of the prevailing situation. The SCSVMV community thrived even under the exceptional circumstances of the pandemic that led to the shutting down of campuses across the country. Even before the full brunt of the lockdown impacted higher education institutions, the Chennai and Kanchipuram-based varsity made a seamless

shift to online learning through the adoption of Google Classroom, TCS iON, M-Tutor to name a few, thereby becoming one of the handful of universities well-equipped to deal with the disruption. Additionally, throughout the lockdown period, SCSVMV continued to impart its cuttingedge knowledge & exper tise in its core disciplines like Engineering and Management via webinar sessions for the benefit of its prospective students. As a mark of their commitment to social service, the SCSVMV Kanchipuram alumni distributed essential groceries that include rice, dal, oil and vegetables to the needy community. They even collected more than two lakh rupees from the SCSVMV community and distributed these packages to more than 225 families. Further, volunteers and representatives from the university raised awareness on COVID-19 as part of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (a flagship scheme of MHRD, Govt. of India).

Offering a wide variety of courses from Engineering & Technology; Management, HR, Commerce; Arts & Humanities; Science; Education; Health Science; Sanskrit and Indian Culture, SCSVMV is more than prepared to rise up to the challenge and provide its students with

the appropriate skill-set through new and innovative methods of teaching. Being a state-ofthe-art university teaching modern disciplines, even while it is committed to transmit India’s ancient heritage and values to its students, SCSVMV is fully focused on its future trajectory.

With the NEP 2020 giving a huge fillip to HEIs, universities like SCSVMV is sure to grab these growth opportunities and provide the best outcomes to its students, faculty and wider community. The deemed university with its two campuses at Kanchipuram and Chennai, has invested heavily in physical infrastructure as well as facilities like network backbone and digitization and is home to a large contingent of scholarly professors. Its researchers are doing groundbreaking research work funded by central government agencies, some of which are now in the marketing stage. The departments here compete with each other in staying industry connected through consultancy works and internships. The university is also steadily moving up in placements with many major recruiters in IT, Banking, Financial Services, Pharma etc, recruiting SCSVMV students. The university is led by its Chancellor, Prof. Dr. S Jayarama Reddy, its Vice-Chancellor Prof. Dr. SV Raghavan and its Registrar Prof. Dr. G Srinivasu.

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4 Reasons to Choose SCSVMV SCSVMV’s EDGE IN BETTER INFRASTRUCTURE AND FACILITIES Everything about Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam speaks volumes about the ancient wisdom of India. Yet, the deemed university started by its venerable seers, Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi Viswa Mahavidyalaya (SCSVMV), even while dispensing the fundamental values of India, has taken immense care to offer state-of-the-art infrastructure and facilities. This is as per its unique focus on integrating traditional knowledge with modern and global scientific practices. Its main campus is located in a sprawling complex of 50 acres at Enathur, just 4 kilometers from Kanchipuram.

SCSVMV also has a campus in the Chennai suburb of Poonamalle, housing its Ayurveda College, Research Centre and Hospital. The custom-designed and well-appointed main campus is a self-sufficient educational township with everything the students will need like gym, bank, medical centre, WiFi, transport facilities etc, as well as extensive hostels. The academic facilities too are top-notch at SCSVMV. For instance, the university’s IT Infrastructure & Solutions are comprehensive with 1 GB Internet connectivity through the National Knowledge Network, a campus-wide Optical Fibre Network, and WiFi access throughout. Apart from the Central Computing Facility, all academic labs and centres of the university are provided with ample computer hardware, software and services that enable teaching-learning, research and development. Long before the pandemic disrupted classroom teaching and lectures, SCSVMV had already entered into extensive arrangements with global software majors like Microsoft, Oracle & Amazon to ensure that there is seamless access to all professional software, both desktop and cloud based. Apart from such campus-wide agreements, each department of SCVMV has its own software tie-ups with various niche partners for providing the latest development tools and software. There are multiple e-learning facilities available including NPTEL lecture videos, Spoken Tutorial initiative, SWAYAM, Virtual Labs and other elearning platforms. The university Library is comprehensive with an Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) and access to over 1000 journals from the world over. There is a high degree of digitization in academics at the university, with the best examples being an automated tool for question bank preparation & a just-in-time question-paper generation system called “Prashna Manjusha”. There is also the digital valuation software, “Yantrankani”, which facilitates on-

screen evaluation of answer scripts. Such innovations by SCSVMV make it amply clear that online teaching in the time of COVID-19 requires not just investment, but imagination.

The foresight shown by the university management to equip the campus with the latest digital technologies would help SCSVMV achieve its long-term goals.

SCSVMV’s EDGE IN UPDATED & INTERDISCIPLINARY EDUCATION Next to its edge in infrastructure and facilities, come SCSVMV’s initiatives in promoting updated and interdisciplinary education. An updated curriculum is never possible without industry interactions, and there are several ways in which the university achieves this for its students and faculty.

The university hosts national and international level conferences and workshops that are well attended by industry experts. It didn’t matter that a pandemic put a stop to these enriching exercises. Throughout the lockdown phase, SCSVMV conducted wellattended seminars and webinars to keep itself and the industry abreast with the latest innovations and trends.

Faculty Development Programs and

Prof.Dr.S.Jayarama Reddy, Chancellor SEASONAL MAGAZINE

active in the university and is often sponsored and monitored by industries like in the case of Cognizant Student Club.

Whenever needed, the various departments of SCSVMV collaborate with each other to bring out interdisciplinary work. At the doctoral level, interdisciplinary PhD programs are encouraged with the availability of supervisors for both major and minor courses to guide the research scholars. Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Ayurveda College and Hospital (SJSACH), a constituent of the university, also conducts workshops and camps for outreach.

SCSVMV’s EDGE IN MEANINGFUL RESEARCH

Workshops are frequently conducted for the faculty to be updated in fledgling fields like Open Source and Big Data Analytics. Each department of the university, which has a scope for industry interaction, is forging ahead on their own in ensuring industry interactions, promoting internships, and doing consultancy work. Department of Computer Science & Engineering is, for instance, has been conducting events on contemporary topics like Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing, R Programming, and lots more. It has impressive ongoing projects like in Image Processing and Android Customization for Sensors. The CSE Department is also quite active in promoting internships for its students in various industries. Its Department of Management Studies has done consultancy work for Indian and overseas companies, in both public and private sectors. It has a pool of Visiting Faculty members who are drawn from the industry, and from whom management students obtain a real understanding of what is happening in the management practice across various industries. SCSVMV’s Department of Physics is known for its consultancy work for industries using its good collection of scientific equipment. Its collection include Thin Film Coater, Brookfield Viscometer, Ultrasonic Interferometers for both liquids and solids, Sieve Shaker, Gaussian software etc. The Department of Chemistry also undertakes various consultancy projects for industries, as it is fully equipped to do so by way of equipment as well as experienced faculty. The student clubs are also very

SCSVMV offers part-time and full-time PhD programs in almost all its academic disciplines including Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Computer Science / Applications, Ayurveda, Mathematics, Management Studies, Education, Library & Information Science, Sanskrit, Tamil, Hindi and English. In recent years, SCSVMV has been moving up steadily in the field of research, both fundamental and applied.

This is no accident due to various initiatives by the management. The university has established four Centres of Research, which are Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Centre For Advanced Research (SJCAR), Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Centre For Advanced Computing (SJCAC), Advanced Management Research Centre (AMRC), and Centre For Advanced Manufacturing and Material Processing (CAMMP). Based on such infrastructure, the university’s researchers have been able to take up formidable projects funded by various central government agencies, which are cutting-edge research organizations in their own right. These include Government of India’s Department of Science & Technology (DST) and Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO).

One project SCSVMV did with DST funding even resulted in impressive import substitution. Many universities need scientific equipment called Differential Thermal Analyzer (DTA) for use by PG students, which was usually imported from developed nations until SCSVMV researchers developed an indigenous version. Based on the success of this project, an additional equipment to accompany DTA, called Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) is also being developed by the university’s researchers. And under a DRDO funded program, researchers at SCSVMV are developing the electronics for the operation of a customized oxygen gas sensor. Apart from such externally funded projects, the university also funds many key projects. One such project that has been used by higher education labs is called Absorption Spectro-photometer.

A student version of this equipment was successfully developed. An innovative design and fabrication method was used for this resulting in much easier and

Prof. Dr. S.V. Raghavan, Vice Chancellor SEASONAL MAGAZINE

cheaper mass production of this vital equipment. The product is now being launched in the market. Another universityfunded project has been the development of a low-cost yet automated pH meter. The automatic operation of this product does away with the difficult manual operations of temperature correction and pH calibration. Other technologies developed by the university’s researchers include a multi-zone ventilation system for radiological facilities, and an automated precleaning system for used plates in industrial canteens and restaurants.

SCSVMV’s EDGE IN BETTER PLACEMENTS Campus placement is another domain where SCSVMV has been improving steadily over the years. The university has a dedicated Training & Placement Division that not only enhances institute-to-industry linkages, but equips students to be recruited by blue-chip organizations, both of Indian and overseas origin. Major recruiters including TCS, Infosys, Cognizant, Tech Mahindra, HCL, Amazon, Mphasis, CSS Corporation, NTT Data, Zoho, Bank of America, General Electric, Royal Bank of Scotland, Robert Bosch, IDBI Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC Ergo, ICICI Bank, ICICI Prudential, Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, Airtel, Godrej, Sutherland Global, Sify, Dr. Reddy’s, Syngene, Bata, City Union Bank, Exide Insurance, Indian Navy, Steel Authority of India, and lots more have recruited SCSVMV students through both on-campus and offcampus modes. The Training & Placement Division arranges for the campus visits as well as coordinates for off-campus drives. It has signed MoUs with several leading companies so that they visit the campus every placement season. These

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tie-ups have been possible, as SCSVMV has emerged as a mature player in placements, with these companies confident of the quality of the candidates coming from this deemed university. Quality in placements is a long drawn out affair as it starts from the quality of input students. This is an area where SCSVMV has carved out an edge for itself. The university operates in a geography where many engineering colleges and b-schools are finding it difficult to fill admissions, let alone induct quality students. How the university has achieved this is unique and impressive. Instead of the usual process of giving statutory advertisements for admissions and waiting for the students to come in, SCSVMV conducts an Admission Yatra that spanned 45 days last year. A high-level team of administrators and faculty members from the university visited 54 schools across Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, addressing approximately 10,000 students directly, and interacting with over 4000 students who were about to take their plus-two examination, and returned with expressions of interest from over 3800 students. Such proactive measures ensure that the input student quality is maintained. The rest is very well handled by the highly qualified and experienced faculty of SCSVMV, many of who are renowned research guides. And completing this process is the overall grooming of the students by this university in values based education, which is not something lost on the recruiters who are looking not just for academic brilliance but well-rounded personalities.

PRIVATE UNIVERSITY

NITTE (DEEMED TO BE) UNIVERSITY

NOW ON THE FRONT FOOT AND NO LOOKING BACK

At a time when universities struggle to conduct online classes and resume the new academic session smoothly, Nitte (deemed to be) university has gone one step ahead. Being one of the handful of universities to have completed their admission process well ahead of the scheduled resumption of classes from end September, Nitte (deemed to be) University once again witnessed a strong showing in the number of applicants for their premier courses. In spite of the COVID crisis hitting the education sector, for the likes of Nitte University, it was business as usual. After much preparation, Nitte university will now conduct its 10th annual convocation ceremony albeit on a virtual platform next month.

primarily health sciences university, it has also diversified impressively into science education, architecture and communication studies in recent years. Nitte (deemed to be) University is a group of eight premier institutes - K.S. Hegde Medical Academy, A.B. Shetty Memorial Institute of Dental Sciences, Nitte Usha Institute of Nursing Sciences, Nitte Gulabi Shetty Memorial Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nitte Institute of Physiotherapy, Nitte University Centre for Science Education and Research, Nitte Institute of Architecture, and Nitte Institute of Communication.

For the fourth successive year, Nitte (Deemed to be) University has been ranked among the top 100 universities ( 74th spot) in the country by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), an initiative of the Ministry for Human Resources Development, Government of India.

The National Institutional Ranking Framework was launched in 2015 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development to rank higher educational institutions based on objective criteria. The rankings consider parameters like teaching-learning resources, research productivity, student outcomes, outreach, inclusivity and peer perception.

Three of the constituent colleges of the university also feature amongst the top SEASONAL MAGAZINE

50 institutions in their respective disciplines— AB Shetty Memorial Institute of Dental Sciences has been ranked 5th among the dental colleges; KS Hegde Medical Academy has been ranked 36th in the country among medical colleges and Nitte Gulabi Shetty Memorial Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (NGMIPS) is ranked 49th among Pharmacy colleges.

Based on the QS Asia University Rankings 2020, Nitte (deemed to be) University was ranked in the band of 451-500 in its very first year of participation. It finished within the 5560 band in the QS India University Rankings 2020 with a Diamond rating

K S Hegde Medical Academy

in the QS I-Gauge Indian Universities Rating.

The varsity was also awarded the ‘ELEAD’ (E-Learning Excellence for Academic Digitisation) certification by QS I-GAUGE in recognition of its technological capabilities in support of online learning. Awarded by Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank in an online event, Nitte is only one among the 12 institutions in the country to receive this recognition. In the times of COVID-19, Nitte (deemed to be) University has taken a proactive approach to develop e-learning capacity and also scale up its online reach.

Students are sent e-learning modules both

for self-study and live online classes with regular teacher training sessions as well.

Nitte (Deemed to be) University also did their bit to alleviate the suffering of those hit by the COVID-19 outbreak. In addition to the daily support provided to the underprivileged communities, the NITTE group contributed Rs. 1.25 crore out of which Rs. 75 lakhs was offered to Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) while the remaining 50 lakhs went to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund in the state.

The institute also made significant contributions in the field of COVID-19 research with The Nitte University Centre for Science Education and Research (NUCSER) endowed with a grant to develop a test kit that would work equally well for nasal swab and saliva samples. The centre hopes to present the prototype to ICMR for validation in 6 months. Further, the Justice KS Hegde Charitable Hospital of Nitte (deemed-to-be) university at Deralakatte has started the Covid-19 RTPCR testing facility with NABLaccreditation and ICMR approval. The same hospital also obtained approval to open coastal Karnataka’s first plasma therapy unit with single donor platelet facilities. There were also two healthscience related patents recently published as the university looks to promote technology transfer. Towards this, the Department of Science and

Vinaya Hegde, Chancellor

Technology, Government of India, has sanctioned a Technology Enabling Centre at Nitte (deemed to be) University's Center for Science Education and Research.

In addition to this, the Ministry of Science and Technology, Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India has approved Nitte University Centre for Science Education and Research (NUCSER) to offer MSc in Marine Biotechnology. The DBT will award 10 students with a national fellowship of Rs. 5000 per month. The K S Hegde Medical Academy has also introduced a new 2-year Master of Hospital Administration & Health Systems Management (MHAHSM) programme. The objective of the course is to prepare job-ready graduates for the burgeoning hospital industry that is in

Vishal Hegde, Pro Chancellor

dire need of professionals in its management and administration functions. The medical college has been ranked 36th by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2020, government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).

Few years ago, the varsity had introduced the following Master of Science programs: MSc in Anaesthesia & Operation Theatre Technology, MSc in Medical Imaging Technology and MSc in Medical Laboratory Technology (Haematology & Blood Transfusion).

The results have been encouraging.

These two-year master’s degrees equip candidates to work in teaching and technician posts in allied health sciences institutions and hospitals in the country and abroad. At hospitals, they will work as the assistants of surgeons and A B Shetty Memorial Institute of Dental Sciences

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NITTE Usha Institute of Nursing Science

physicians and Nitte has carefully chosen these specializations so that these are in rising demand in the hospital sector. This is no surprise as Nitte (deemed to be) University continues to be a leader in introducing rare courses in emerging areas of high demand.

Throughout the lockdown period, Nitte (Deemed-to-be) University was setting new benchmarks in the space of higher education through innovative tie-ups and industry partnerships. For instance, the AIC NITTE Incubation Centre, supported by NITI Aayog under the Atal Innovation Mission, was officially launched with the aim to promote entrepreneurship in the rural areas.

Eleven promising startups and five mentors have already been onboarded as part of the initiative. Keeping true to their social service commitment, Vinaya Hegde, Chancellor, NITTE (deemed-tobe) University said that "it is important to provide these young students and budding innovators with an opportunity".

NITTE has also been making giant strides as far as international partnerships are concerned. The institute entered into a MoU with Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of the United Kingdom for scientific cooperation with the Center for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), an EU Reference Laboratory for Biotoxins and FAO Reference Centre for Bivalve Molluscs.

The Mangalore-based university also signed a MoU with the National Institute for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (NI-MSME) for the promotion of the sector through collaborative efforts such as conduct of executive education programmes, research, Nitte College of Pharmaceutical Science

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Nitte Institute of Physiotherapy

training etc. Its other international and national MoUs continue to be with the best institutions in their fields like Gothenburg University, Sweden and Bangalore Bioinnovation Council.

On the academic side, NITTE deemedto-be university signed a MoU with i6TG, a leading human resource company headquartered in Japan for the benefit of its students who will be provided with training, internship and placement opportunities, soft-skill development programmes with a Japanese language component. The

varsity also inked an agreement with the St Marianna University School of Medicine for mutual cooperation on student and faculty exchanges and collaborative research. Earlier this year, one of its constituent colleges - Nitte Usha Institute of Nursing Sciences, jointly with International Skill Development Corporation, UK announced the roll-out of a 4-year integrated program on International Certification in Healthcare Practice to promote the career advancement and placement of the students in European countries.

PRIVATE UNIVERSITY

PANDEMIC MAKES JSSAHER FLY HIGHER It is only when a crisis hits, the resilience of universities is really known. JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research (JSSAHER), the Mysuru based leading deemed-to-be university has come out in flying colours in this regard during the pandemic, by an outpouring of new initiatives that has fur ther increased its leadership gap with peers. JSS Hospital has been one of the 17 prestigious institutions in India which has been selected by ICMR for undertaking Oxford University's Covishield clinical trial. Despite the pandemic, the university continued its focus on Faculty Development Programs, Entrepreneurship Development Programs, creation and upgradation of specialized infrastructure, and creation of new sunrise sector courses. The university emerged on the forefront of combating Covid-19 by developing five innovative biomedical equipments that are vital in the fight against the pandemic. It also continued its focus on academics and research activities without much disruption and emerged as a national leader in this regard by conducting over 16,427 virtual classes. JSSAHER is breaking new ground in attracting high-quality students for graduate, postgraduate and research programs due to its distinct edges in updated and interdisciplinary curricula, meaningful research, better studentto-faculty ratio, global mobility of its students, and better infrastructure & facilities. No wonder then that JSSAHER has moved up one more notch in this year’s NIRF rankings, and is now the 33rd top-ranked university from 1667

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universities in India. The primarily health sciences oriented university is led by accomplished academicians like Dr. B Suresh as Pro Chancellor, Dr. Surinder Singh as Vice Chancellor and Dr. Manjunatha B as Registrar.

Dr.B.Suresh, M.Pharm., Ph.D., D.Sc., is a renowned leader in medical and pharmacy education, and has been the President of Pharmacy Council of India for multiple terms.

An internationally acknowledged expert in this field, Dr. Suresh is also the Chairman, Scientific Body, of Indian Pharmacopoeial Commission.

Dr. Surinder Singh, MBBS, MD Microbiology, a renowned expert in biopharmaceuticals and vaccines, has been formerly Drugs Control General (India), Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), New Delhi, and Director, National Institute of Biologicals (NIB), Government of India.

JSSAHER’s Edge in Covid-19 Management Apart from its pivotal role as one of the 17 hospitals for testing the Oxford University vaccine for Covid-19, JSSAHER has achieved unparalleled success in innovating and implementing several pandemic-management projects. These include advanced biomedical devices for combating Covid-19. DentiSafe Dental Chair Sanitizer, Multimode Air Sanitizer, Isolation-ICU (I-ICU) on Wheels, Low Cost Ventilator, and Handheld UV Surface Sanitizer. JSSAHER achieved this through its own innovators in the faculty as well as through partnership with Mysuru based firm Ideas Unlimited. Dr. Balasubramaian S, Director (Research) of JSSAHER; Dr. Srinivasa Murthy, Professor, Department of Paediatrics, JSS Medical College; and Dr. B Nandlal, Professor, Department of Paediatric & Preventive Dentistry, JSS Dental College, were the main innovators from the university’s side in developing these path-breaking biomedical devices that are so essential for resuming the functioning of hospitals, dental clinics, colleges and companies, and for them to combat the pandemic effectively. Apart from these special achievements, a most noteworthy point about JSSAHER during the pandemic is that it made sure that its regular activities of teaching and research were least affected. The university conducted 16,427 virtual classes, 2820 internal assessments, and 61 webinars. Almost all examinations including PG, Fellowship, & PhD exams including viva voce were conducted either online or in regular mode with adequate protections. No wonder then that JSSAHER bagged the QS I-Gauge’s ‘E-Learning Excellence for Academic Digitization’ certification. On the research side, projects worth Rs. 2 crore were submitted including the 5 biomedical devices developed, and JSSAHER scholars published 50 research papers during this period.

Dr. B Suresh as Pro Chancellor

JSSAHER’s Edge in Meaningful Research The selection of each of the 17 institutions in India for the clinical trial of Covishield vaccine was after a detailed inspection of the infrastructure and clinical research facilities.

The vaccine has been developed by Oxford University, manufactured by India’s Serum Institute and marketed by MNC pharma major AstraZeneca. Being an issue of national and international importance, Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) is directly supervising the trials, and when ICMR selected JSSAHER for this crucial trial, it became one among 17 handpicked institutions including AIIMS, New Delhi and PGIMER, Chandigarh. While many leading private and

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deemed universities in the country are now warming up to research, JSSAHER has already covered long distance in the field. This stems from the university’s vision that teaching and research should go hand in hand, and that research should be encouraged in every student and faculty.

Apart from this, JSSAHER offers PhD programs under various faculties, mainly oriented towards health Sciences.

Over 300 research students conduct their research work in the constituent colleges and JSSAHER Departments. They get opportunities to interact with faculty from Medicine, Dental, Pharmacy, Life Sciences, Biomedical Sciences, Natural Sciences and Management Sciences and work on interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary research projects.

JSSAHER has been in the field of research from the 80’s onward and accounts for 7,225 publications by authors affiliated to the university, with more than half of it coming in during the last five years, signalling gathering momentum on research. To strengthen the research infrastructure of the university, Centers of Excellence were established in the constituent colleges which were also subsequently recognized by Government Agencies and international

Dr. Surinder Singh, Vice Chancellor

bodies. These centres include, Center Of Excellence In Molecular Biology And Regenerative Medicine (CEMR), Center For Clinical Research Excellence, Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring And Regional Training Center, Center For Training On Pharmacovigilance, TIFAC Center Of Relevance And Excellence (CORE), Center Of Excellence In Nano Science & Technology, Molecular Diagnostic Lab For Infectious Diseases, and Center Of Excellence In HIV/AIDS Medicine.

JSSAHER’s Edge in Better Infrastructure and Facilities JSSAHER had recently renovated the Anatomy Museum of JSS Medical College. The university has also launched HIDI, a mobile application for medical students in learning Histology and Bar Codes of Museum specimens. The Museum exhibits a wide collection of specimens ranging from dissected human parts, foetuses showing different stages of development and rare congenital anomaly specimen, skeletons, embryology models, charts and plastinated specimens. Bar Coding provides details about the specimens through audiovisual modes. The JSS Anatomy Museum is not only for medical students but also for the public, especially school children, and it is accessible free of cost by all. Earlier, the university had also launched a new state-of-the-art Skill & Simulation Center for providing hands-on training for medical and para-medical students, which is also open for students from other medical universities if needed. Indeed, when it comes to infrastructure and facilities, JSSAHER has been one of India’s leading deemed universities. This has been made possible primarily by having

separate and sprawling facilities for its various constituent colleges like JSS Medical College, JSS Dental College & Hospital and JSS College of Pharmacy at the main campus in Mysuru as well as another pharmacy college in Ootacamund, Tamil Nadu. Similarly, when new departments like Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Faculty of Management Studies were added to the deemed university, these too got their own ample facilities. Now, JSSAHER is in the process of taking this edge in infrastructure and facilities to new levels by developing the new JSSAHER Global Campus on over 100 acres of land out of which 30 percent will be utilised for construction and the rest will be covered with greenery giving importance to rain water harvesting, pollution-free and noise-free campus, zero wastage, bio-conservation and recycling process. The campus will have state-of-the-art buildings for academics, research, residential and recreation centre with an auditorium of 2,000 seating capacity. When the new campus is completed, initially, out of the 148 courses offered by JSSAHER, 48 courses, mostly Life Sciences and Natural Science, will be moved to the new facility.

Dr. Manjunatha B, Registrar

JSSAHER’s Edge in Updated & Interdisciplinary Education

Isolation - ICU on Wheels

On the transdisciplinary front, JSSAHER is starting a twoyear Master’s Degree programme in Sports Nutrition and Management from this academic year. The course will cover subjects like Sports Physiology, Sports Specific Diets, Nutritional Biochemistry, Human Nutrition, and Basic Management subjects, among others. JSSAHER has been a leader in updated and interdisciplinary education with nearly 60 collaborations with nationally and internationally acclaimed academic institutions, industry partners, health service providers and research centres. It has signed a Collaborative Research Agreement to establish a “Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Health Sciences” at JSSAHER with iMERA.ai Limited, a London (UK) based health care company focused on developing clinical decision-making tools using Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The deemed university has a partnership with GlaxoSmithKline for collaboration in training and research in Pharmaceutical Sciences, and with Seragen Biotherapeutics for technology advancement in stem cell research, stem cell banking and novel therapeutics for regenerative medicine. JSSAHER is also working with SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Low - Coast Ventilator

Testigng Lab

Accreate Additive Labs for innovative 3D printing and design services, model making for use in academics and healthcare, bioprinting for tissue 3D printing, drug transportation studies and developing contemporary smarter devices and solutions.

Triphase Pharmaceuticals Pvt Ltd, Mysuru is another partner with whom JSSAHER is collaborating for R&D in biotechnology and probiotics, and development of new methods and technologies in prebiotic and probiotic research.

Other such industry collaborations include with Philips India for medical devices and data analytics, with Scitus Pharma for clinical research and development in generic drugs, and with Juggat Pharma for consultancy, training and research in pharmaceutical sciences and formulation development for drugs. Such collaborations ensure that JSSAHER’s curriculum and training is updated and interdisciplinary in tune with industry needs.

JSSAHER’s Edge in Student-to-Faculty Ratio From its ground up, JSSAHER’s focus in education has been on quality rather than quantity. This has been especially so as JSSAHER has been primarily a health sciences university where quality is paramount to emerge as a leading university in India and the world. With this lofty aim in mind, JSSAHER has one of the best student-to-faculty ratio in the country. Today, more than 600 faculty members instruct approximately 2000 undergraduate and graduate students and 300 research scholars.

Even though JSSAHER now has ambitious plans to scale up its student intake, this focus on superior student-to-faculty ratio will be maintained. With its new campus getting ready, JSSAHER plans to grow up to 20,000 students within the next five years, but will then have an impressive faculty count of 2000 members.

JSSAHER’s Edge in Global Mobility of Students While most private and deemed universities have made several tie-ups with international universities of repute, very few universities have progressed it to meaningful student exchange programs. JSSAHER is one such exceptional university that has been running student-exchange programs with multiple international universities for several years now. This ensures global mobility of students both outbound from India and inbound to the country. Some of the universities with which JSSAHER has signed MoUs in recent years include Edge Hill University, United Kingdom, Pacific University, Oregon, USA, Texas Southern University, USA, UCSI University, Malaysia and The University of Bolton, United Kingdom.

ADVISORY

MENTORING MSMEs, PROFESSIONALS & SELF-EMPLOYED TO RESTART Life can’t wait for Covid-19 to end, and India has realized this stark truth. Businesses and organizations are slowly getting back to their feet. Larger business houses obviously have better resilience, and the ones who have been left in the lurch due to the pandemic and the lockdown have been India’s MSME (Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises).. #RestartIndia, a new initiative by the leading NBFC and MSME sector specialist Muthoot Fincorp and the noted platform for exchange of innovative ideas, INK, has been set up to address what is perhaps the most vexing problem facing India today – how to restart India’s nearly 6.34 crore MSMEs. #RestartIndia which is available from the web portal restartindia.in was launched by Union Minister for MSMEs, Nitin Gadkari in late July and has since then found good traction among entrepreneurs and professionals.

Lakshmi Pratury, Founder and CEO - INK SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Thomas John Muthoot, Chairman, Muthoot Pappachan Group.

ndian economy is a unique beast in that around 90% of its population is working in the informal sector. During its earlier decades as an independent nation, agriculture dominated more than two-thirds of this 90%, but as the prospects of agriculture waned, the informal sector has come to be dominated by the fastgrowing segment of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises.

Unfortunately, the who-is-who of India and who-is-who of Indian Inc have not much representation from this crucial segment of the economy. This is despite the MSME segment contributing more than 30% of India’s GDP, and having its huge presence in all the sectors of Indian economy like services, manufacturing, trade and exports. MSMEs underrepresentation is attributable to the fragmented nature of the segment.

Even inside the MSME segment, there is an issue of underrepresentation of the majority. There are nearly 6.34 crore MSMEs in India as of FY’20, but the vast majority of them – nearly 6.31 crore units or 99.5% - are of the tiniest kind called Micro Enterprises. These are the businesses that employ only a

Thomas George Muthoot, Director, Muthoot Pappachan Group.

handful of people, or are even run by only self-employed entities - persons, families or small partnerships.

Needless to say, they have been the most drastically hit by the current economic crisis and most in need of some sage advice.

Above them in business size are the Small Enterprises that are 3.31 lakh in number or 0.52% of the MSME segment and even above them are the 5000 Medium Enterprises that make up only 0.008% of the segment. These relatively larger units – Medium & Small Enterprises – tend to be registered with the Government, giving them better representation, as against Micro Enterprises, the majority of whom go unregistered. As of FY’20, only around 4% of all MSMEs operating in India are registered with the Government.

MSMEs play a vital role in the economy for several reasons. Apart from being one of the two largest employers, the other being agriculture, MSMEs are often critical parts of the supply chains of large manufacturing companies. The segment also drives India’s rural economy as the urban-rural ratio among India’s MSMEs is nearly 50:50.

Thomas Muthoot, Director, Muthoot Pappachan Group.

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Without lakhs of MSMEs operating in full swing, manufacturing and exports of India would be seriously hit. And with rural economy being the basic demand driver of everything else in India, resurrecting MSME sector is of paramount importance to the whole country.

While the Government has announced a few measures to support the MSME sector post the lockdown, with only 4% of them being even registered officially, it would take much more concerted efforts from all involved to clear the doubts and confusions of MSMEs and to get their businesses restarted effectively.

This is where the specialized expertise of an organization like Muthoot Pappachan Group (MPG), popularly known as #MuthootBlue, can deliver big. Led by their flagship enterprise, Muthoot FinCorp, which is a leading MSME financier in India, the Group has come out with the path-breaking concept of #RestartIndia, a web portal where seasoned experts will answer all your queries on getting restarted. #RestartIndia has the active participation of Muthoot FinCorp Directors including Thomas John Muthoot, Managing Director; Thomas George Muthoot, Director; and Thomas Muthoot, Executive

Director. Thomas John Muthoot is also the Chairman of CII Kerala State Council.

Muthoot FinCorp has found the perfect partner for this venture in INK, a noted platform for exchange of innovative ideas, founded by Lakshmi Pratury.

Renowned for conducting the annual INKTalks, a series of global professional conferences, Lakshmi who returned to India after a highflying career in USA, is a noted consultant, public speaker & storyteller on innovation who is also credited with bringing TEDTalk to India for the first time.

Putting their money where their mouth is, Muthoot FinCorp, the title sponsor

of Royal Challengers Bangalore, is also offering a never-before offer for their customers to restart. The leading NBFC is offering gold loans with an interest-free period so that customers can get a big restart in their own games.

While restartindia.in from where you can access the #RestartIndia advisory service is open to all – startups, small entrepreneurs, self-employed persons, professionals, students, teachers, homemakers, budding entrepreneurs, employees etc, the maximum benefit is likely to be obtained by businesses in the MSME sector and by professionals in their career advancement.

In a neat and clean interface,

Mr. KM Abraham Former Chief Secretary, Government of Kerala SEASONAL MAGAZINE

TS Vijayan Former Chairman, IRDA

Anusha Ravi CEO, Park Group of Institutions

C Balagopal Founder - Terumo Penpol Ltd. Mentor to startups and Investor

Gloria Benny COO, Guardians of Dreams

#RestartIndia, makes its value proposition clear without beating around the bush. In a set of clearly worded questions and statements, everything is clear for a first-time visitor - “Do you have a question?

A challenge? A problem? We can guide you. We’re here to help you.

Ask a question.”

Now the vexing question is who answers your questions over here.

This is no Quora where any subject matter aspirant can answer your question. At #RestartIndia, only seasoned professionals with decades of experience will answer your questions, and that too in only their area of expertise. #RestartIndia calls them your Mentors.

The Mentor Network that #RestartIndia has roped in is pretty formidable. They include KM Abraham, Former Chief Secretary,

Poornima Kumar Managing Director Hemex Health (India)

Veerappan Swaminathan Founder and Director - Sustainable Living Lab

Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

Government of Kerala; TS Vijayan, Former Chairman of LIC & IRDA; Anuj Khanna Sohum, Founder, Chairman and CEO - Affle; Anusha Ravi, CEO, Park Group of Institutions, C Balagopal, Founder - Terumo Penpol Ltd.; Dileep Narayanan, Founder and Brand Mentor, Organic BPS Pvt. Ltd., and lots more of such luminaries.

You will find CEOs, CFOs, startup founders, doctors, surgeons, psychiatrists, engineers, technologists, educationalists and experts in hospitality, agriculture and more in the Mentor Network of #RestartIndia.

And overseeing the whole activities of the portal is the Core Advisory Team consisting of Lakshmi Praturi and the Muthoot FinCorp Directors.

Anuj Khanna Sohum Founder, Chairman and CEO - Affle

Once a user submits a question, it is validated by a team of reviewers, and is submitted to one or more appropriate mentors in the network.

Once their answer is ready, it is published in the Question & Answer Segment of the web portal and the user is notified via email that #RestartIndia’s professional answer is ready.

The Q&A segment has been made very effective with tools like Google Search and segment tags, so that users can also browse the already answered questions to find whether similar queries have been answered already, before posting a question of their own.

Within just a few months of its launch, the portal has experienced huge traffic, and a good number of relevant questions and high quality answers.

Apart from English, the questions and answers can also be read in seven Indian languages – Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada & Telugu, thereby increasing #RestartIndia’s reach among native language speakers exponentially. Over time, this publicly accessible database of professional answers is sure to become a quality repository of professional advice that will help in restarting India.

SEASONAL MAGAZINE

NBFC-IN-FOCUS

MANAPPURAM FINANCE

MANAPPURAM’S GOLD LOANS TO REBOUND POST LOCKDOWN? Non Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs), together with banks, tend to do well during economic booms when credit growth is high. But NBFCs focusing on gold loans, like Manappuram Finance, have historically done even better during difficult periods for the economy. This is a peculiar strength of the gold loan business that is putting the focus back on players like Manappuram, even in this most difficult period for lenders, due to Covid-19, the extended lockdown and moratorium on loans.

he first reason why gold loan NBFCs like Manappuram performs well during economic stagnation, is about the product itself. Periods of economic difficulties are marked with poor income growth for both individuals and small businesses, but at the same time they have to keep meeting their essential requirements. The normal way out for individuals and small businesses then is to take a personal loan or small business loan to stay afloat. However, this is the same time when reluctance to lend is maximum from most banks and NBFCs. This is understandable, as by the time individuals and small businesses apply for fresh or add-on loans, banks and NBFCs would be stressed out the maximum as repayments from their larger accounts like corporate, MSME and home loans would be getting defaulted. They would have no risk appetite to take on further unsecured credit like personal loans or small business loans.

This is where a secured loan product like loan-against-gold, commonly called as gold loan, excels. Most households and small business SEASONAL MAGAZINE

owners in India have some personal gold holding as jewellery and they resort to monetize it through gold loans. Even stressed banks and NBFCs have no issue in offering gold loans, as it is fully secured with a pledge of the customer’s gold. That is why even some public sector banks have started dedicated gold loan verticals during this lockdown period.

In other words, gold loan is a unique and preferred product in stressed times by both borrowers and lenders. But if many entities offer gold loan, won’t this be a crowded market?

Theoretically yes, but there are other considerations. Dedicated gold loan companies like Manappuram have a distinct edge in this business due to various reasons.

Gold loans are offered by everyone from local moneylenders to large private and public sector banks. Gold loans from local moneylenders tend to be the costliest and least secure for borrowers, as these lenders in the unorganized sector are basically loan sharks. At the other end of the spectrum, gold loans from PSU banks tend to be the cheapest for borrowers, but come with many hassles. For instance, many public and private banks prefer to give gold loans only to their depositors, and even for such customers it is a time-consuming process as most banks don’t have dedicated staff to handle gold loans at the branches.

Between these two extremes, dedicated gold loan companies like

Manappuram Finance offer the optimum experience. As organized players regulated by Reserve Bank of India (RBI), they offer competitive interest rates, high security and above all, lightning fast disbursals for customers. This explains the high growth experienced by gold loan companies, especially during the last two decades.

A pressing question , however, is whether the current crisis due to Covid-19 and the extended lockdown is similar in impact with earlier crises like demonetization and the global financial crisis of last decade. While Covid-19 is definitely more serious than earlier crises, it has also unleashed one of the most favorable conditions for the growth of gold loan companies, which is the soaring gold price. As most other asset classes fell due to the crisis, global funds kept on buying gold as the only secure investment option.

Obviously, better gold prices translate to higher loans, and it has always been one of the clearest markers for the growth of gold loan companies. For dedicated players like Manappuram, it offers an added advantage as they have open credit lines with most of their small business customers, who can avail additional loans from the existing gold pledges due to the higher prices now.

A second question with regard to the uniqueness of the Covid-19 crisis is how the government ordered moratorium on loan repayments would affect Manappuram. But here

too, the firm has witnessed a huge strength with over 90% of its gold loan customers not opting for moratorium.

One reason for this is that the pledged gold is almost 100% made up of personal jewellery of the household, and most customers care deeply about it and would like to conclude the loan as planned to redeem the jewellery which has high sentimental value, and now more real value too as gold price is appreciating.

The foresight of Manappuram’s MD & CEO, VP Nandakumar during the good times has also come to the rescue of the firm during these difficult times for NBFCs. The firm has been an early mover and leader in offering online gold loans that disburse and collect EMIs digitally. During the ongoing lockdown, the firm could disburse over Rs. 300 crore digitally.

Manappuram's profit after tax grew 43% year-on-year (YoY) at Rs. 392.7 crore in the quarter ended March, compared to Rs. 274.6 crore in same period last fiscal. Total income rose 38.7% to Rs. 1618.2 crore in Q4, against Rs. 1,166.5 crore in the yearago period.

The business is quite secure too for gold loan companies like Manappuram which have followed a prudent Loan-to-Value (LTV) ratio.

LTV denotes what percentage of the pledged gold’s value is offered as loan.

While RBI allows an LTV of 75% on gold loans, Manappuram’s average LTV is only around 60% or lesser, which provides enough security in case gold prices correct.

SEASONAL MAGAZINE

DR AMANPURI LAUNCHES A

GLITTERING SUCCESS STORY, A COLLECTOR’S EDITION FROM JOYALUKKAS

BEYOND DESIGNS HOME’S NEW COLLECTION OF FESTIVE DINNERWARE WILL EXALT THE CELEBRATORY MOOD Beyond Designs, renowned for their bespoke furniture, home decor accessories and luxurious interior designs, has launched their new festive dinnerware collection, showcasing the brand’s unmistakable luxury and timelessness. The vast collection comprises Fuchsia charger plate (purple); Octagon Luzia dinner and salad plate; French Crown dinner plate in two sizes; Linium blue dessert plate; Lisboa tumbler; Mikasa dinner plate, salad plate, quarter plate and pasta bowl; Astain dinner plate and salad plate; and some more with charming floral designs and pretty colours.

left to right: Mr Mustafa Mohammed Ahmed Al Shareef, DrAmanPuri, Consul General of India, Dubai, Mr Joy Alukkas, Chairman and Managing Director, Joyalukkas Group, Mr Jassim Mohamed Ibrahim Al Hasawi Al Tamimi, Mr John Paul Alukkas, Executive Director, Joyalukkas Group

Dr AmanPuri, Consul General of India in Dubai launched A Glittering Success Story, a coffee table bookchronicling the history of Joyalukkas group. Dr Puri received the first copy from Mr Joy Alukkas, Chairman and Managing Director of Joyalukkas Group, at the Indian Consulate in Dubai. The bookpays homage to Mr Alukka Joseph Varghese,father of Mr Joy Alukkas, who was the founder and inspiration behind the success of Mr JoyAlukkas and the visionary who started it all in 1956. Also present at the occasion were Mr John Paul Alukkas, Executive Director of Joyalukkas Group; Mr Jassim Mohamed Ibrahim Al Hasawi AlTamimi; and Mr Mustafa Mohammed Ahmed Al Shareef.

“We are celebrating our journey and our success through a coffee table book, which captures all the memorable moments of brand Joyalukkas since its inception,” said Mr Joy Alukkasat the launch. “Our journey started in the middle east as a single jeweller store in the UAE in 1987. Today we have grown to become an international brand SEASONAL MAGAZINE

spread across 11 countries worldwide.

It goes without saying that we are very proud of our accomplishments to date but at the same time we realise that these are part of our broader vision to ornament the world. Recording our achievements in this coffee table book has further energised us and strengthened our resolve to chase our dreams with renewed vigour and confidence.

“I am extremely happy that Dr Puri agreed to receive the first copy. He is a diplomat with a vision who is willing to go the extra mile for the welfare of Indians living here. I am also pleased to say that today we have become a brand that is close to the heartsof more than two million customers across the world. With a strong presence spread over India, GCC, USA, UK, Singapore and Malaysia we are known for our legacy of trust, value and heritage. Joyalukkas is the preferred choice of jewellery lovers and this collectors’ edition is a celebration of that.”

INTERNATIONAL HEALTH RESORT CHIVA-SOM LAUNCHES ONLINE INTENSIVE WELLNESS SERIES Following the successful launch of Chiva-Som Online Wellness Services, the pioneering resort, Chiva-Som in Hua Hin, Thailand, has introduced their Online Intensive Wellness Series. The new service offers interactive sessions, designed to gradually enhance participants’ knowledge, strengthen abilities, and most importantly, promote maximum benefit for health and wellbeing. The virtual health consultation with Chiva-Som’s expert wellness advisors caters perfectly to individual wellness goals and needs.

CHITKARA UNIVERSITY

TAKING GIANT STRIDES, DESPITE THE PANDEMIC

W

hile many comparable private and deemed universities are struggling to adapt to the pandemic realities, Chancellor Dr Ashok K. Chitkara and Pro-Chancellor Dr Madhu Chitkara are leading Chitkara University to unbelievable heights in every domain that matters for a university, including co-branded degrees with leading national and international industries, globally competitive startup incubation, international academic tie-ups with leading universities and funded research projects by even European agencies. Chitkara University’s Covid-19 innovations attracted national eyeballs as it started the world’s first 24x7 dedicated community radio channel and telecast for the pandemic and developed an advanced face shield for Covid-19 through state-of-the-art 3D Printing technology. Chitkara always encourages its students to compete with Asia’s and the world’s best students. In student competitions in India and abroad, Chitkara is often seen emerging as the only non-IIT and non-NIT institution leading the fray. With such 360 degree momentum, it is no wonder that Chitkara University is bettering its position in all renowned rankings including India’s NIRF and the UK based ranking of global universities, the Times Higher Education Rankings.

espite the struggles of the education sector in India due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Chitkara University is leaving no stone unturned. The Punjab-based varsity made no excuses, as a result of the pandemic, in its march to become one of India’s top private universities. The signs are encouraging to say the least.

The University made a mark in the technology space when it became shortlisted as one of the top 8 finalists for ‘Technological Innovation of the Year’ for the world-famous “Times Higher Education Asia Awards 2020” and that too as the only Indian university. Pro-Chancellor Dr Madhu Chitkara credits the university’s cuttingedge AVR lab that is a pioneer in affordable and accessible technologies.

In the startup ecosystem, Chitkara University was among the select group of finalists in the 10th Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition, which is widely regarded as Asia’s most exciting startup competition. Chitkara University students won the Gandhian Young Technological Innovation (GYTI) Award 2020 in the field of Agricultural Innovation, becoming the only non IIT, NIT, and IISc institution to make it to the award list while a team of its Bachelors students featured in the global top 50 in the famed 11 Second Club global animation contest.

Like many of its peers, Chitkara University made noteworthy contributions in the country’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The entire Chitkara family – administration, faculty and support staff – pledged their one-day’s salary to the PM Cares Fund, the Punjab CM Relief Fund and Himachal Pradesh CM Relief Fund. The gesture was complemented with the world’s first 24x7 Community Radio Broadcasting on COVID-19 – Radio Chitkara FM 107.8 - that provided community awareness including through web telecast. Chancellor Dr Ashok K. Chitkara and Pro-Chancellor Dr Madhu Chitkara, under whose leadership the varsity provided funding support of Rs. 1 Crore through the Chitkara University Research and

Innovation – Centre of Excellence, made this possible. In a move that firmly established its research credentials, the university also developed a lightweight, robust, and uniquely designed face shield using 3D printing technology that can be very effective in preventing the spread of viruses.

It is perhaps in the area of industry collaborations where Chitkara University is a class apart from the rest.

The recent collaborations with Lenskart to offer high-quality Bachelors in Optometry, with Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) to offer Masters in Automotive Engineering, with Virtusa to offer a two-year MTech in computer science & engineering with specialization in Full Stack Web Development, with Paraxel International to offer a two-year MSc program in pharmacovigilance & clinical research, with Wizcraft to launch an MBA in events, media and

DR ASHOK K CHITKARA, CHANCELLOR

entertainment, with KONE Elevator to offer a diploma program in mechanical engineering with specialization in Vertical Transportation and with Coding Ninjas to provide coding classes to its first year B.Tech students are a testament to its high quality research output. These initiatives not only provide its students and graduates with information on the latest trends in the industry but also prepare them for jobs due to components like research internships, skill development etc.

Chitkara University has also inked academia-centred partnerships with Bow Valley College based in Alberta, Canada and Deakin University in Australia. With the former, the pathway programme offers students the opportunity to transfer to the health and human services management postdiploma certificate program while the latter developed a four-year bachelors course on software engineering that will

permit Chitkara’s students to study in its campus for two years. The university also leads the illustrious international project “Risk Management and Prevention of Antibiotic Resistance – PREVENT IT”, which is a three-year Erasmus+ innovative project but crucially Chitkara’s fourth such project with the EU’s famed agency.

Along with regular interactions with industry and academia leaders for its students, the varsity also organized exclusive webinars and conferences with various other thought leaders.

Some of the notable speakers were Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh who spoke on the necessity of virtual education platforms to prepare them

Chitkara University has also inked academiacentred partnerships with Bow Valley College based in Alberta, Canada and Deakin University in Australia. for future jobs and WNS Global Services group CEO & former NASSCOM chairperson Keshav R Murugesh who delivered a masterclass on career building and up skilling. Another gamechanging initiative was The Global Week, a platform that is a one-of-its-kind global engagement for professors from around 40 top international universities that cultivates cross-cultural exchanges, knowledge transfer, industry linkages and phenomenal networking opportunities.

Chitkara University shone admirably in the recent NIRF ranking, the government’s annual higher education ranking framework. The Chitkara Business School was ranked among the Top 75 Business Schools in the country while a similar feat was achieved by Chitkara College of Pharmacy in the pharma category. Keeping with its multi sectoral presence, the varsity’s engineering programs also ranked highly, featuring in the top 200 out of 1600 institutions in the country.

DR MADHU CHITKARA, PRO-CHANCELLOR

In a separate ranking, Competition Success Review – GHRDC Engineering

College Survey 2020, the university was placed in the 2nd position in the ‘Top Engineering Colleges of Eminence’ in All India category and in the ‘Top Engineering Colleges’ in the state of Punjab as well.

In addition to this, the university ranked 14th in the placements, USP and social responsibility categories and also in the faculty, research categories. The university also made history in the Times Higher Education University Impact Rankings 2020 when it became the only university from Punjab to feature in the list. The ranking is based on assessments of universities against the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The most notable ranking was its 59th position globally in the SDG-07 ‘Affordable and Clean Energy’ segment.

With the emphasis on online education gathering steam, Chitkara University wasted no time in gaining first-mover advantage. In recognition of its efforts to impart not just timely but quality online education, QS IGAUGE (the Indian arm of the global rankings agency Quacquarelli Symonds) awarded the ELEAD certification. Thus, it became only one of 12 institutions in the country to receive the honours in a felicitation ceremony done by the Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal. With an eye to provide relevant skillsets to cloud professionals and further industryacademia connect, the university has adopted Amazon Web Services (AWS) Educate cloud computing curricula in BE CSE specialisation in cloud computing and virtualization.

In spite of its thrust for online education, Chitkara University’s Vice Chancellor Dr Varinder S. Kanwar believes that it cannot fully replace traditional learning methods and instead suggests a blended learning model that benefits all stakeholders.

However, he wants Chitkara University to compete with the Western world. “The pandemic has taught us to think out of the box and bring more innovations to classroom. We need to change ourselves as this is the need of the hour.” Chitkara University looks grounded and clear-eyed on their vision and is not content with resting on their laurels. One can make this assessment only about a handful of Indian universities in the current climate and that is a validation of the giant strides taken by the Punjab-based varsity.