Seasonal Magazine Latest Issue 2017 by John Antony

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VOLUME 16 ISSUE 3 MARCH 2017

EDITORIAL

MAGAZINE

Seasonal www.seasonalmagazine.com

Managing Editor Jason D Pavorattikaran Editor John Antony Director (Finance) Ceena Senior Editorial Coordinator Jacob Deva Senior Correspondent Bina Menon Creative Visualizer Bijohns Varghese Photographer Anish Aloysious Correspondents Bombay: Rashmi Prakash Hyderabad: Iqbal Siddiqui Delhi: Anurag Dixit Director (Technical) John Antony Publisher Jason D Pavorattikaran

INDIA GROWS WHILE ITS POLITICIANS SLEEP There is a saying in the country that ‘India grows while its governments sleep’, and India Inc has once again proved this adage right. Nothing had hit business sentiment more than government’s sudden demonetization drive, and despite it affecting growth across the sectors, the resilience shown by Indian companies have been appreciated by global investors, and that is why stock markets are back to buzz.

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Whoever coined that wise saying, he or she wasn’t just being clever like in Twitter; rather this seems to have emerged from either personal entrepreneurship or strong observational skills. There is a view that the saying was coined by noted author and former CEO of Procter & Gamble India, Gurcharan Das, who wrote a book titled ‘India Grows at Night’; but there are other views that the saying precedes Das. There are also variants to this old proverb, and the most interesting one seems to be this – ‘India grows while its politicians sleep’. Whichever one you prefer, the insight behind the observation is nothing but marvellous. Because, the implication is not just that India grows whether its politicians and bureaucrats do something or not; rather the funny suggestion is that India grows better when these administrators sleep, the obvious inference being that when they are awake they are busy hindering growth, on one pretext or the other. Take the Uttar Pradesh elections, for

instance. Can Narendra Modi or Akhilesh Yadav place their right hand on their heart, and declare that whatever they have said and done during the past few months were in the best growth interests of UP, let alone India? No, they can’t, as all their scheming and moves – including the Union Budget - were blatantly populist, with the potential to affect future growth. Forget the crucial issue of wasting the precious time of their respective offices – of PM & CM – in order to wrest this crucial state for their parties, which is a connected but different issue at the same time. This is not to criticize Modi or Yadav personally; in fact almost all Prime Ministers and Chief Ministers that India has seen so far would have done the same. The only difference is that with each iteration, the premium placed on winning an election at any cost has shot up, and so has the populist appeasing. What is the principal duty of a Chief Minister? Akhilesh Yadav and his peer CMs across the country now have brought things to such a stage that, it now seems that winning for a second term is a CM’s principal duty! And what is the principal duty of a PM? With Modi, it now seems that an Indian Prime Minister’s principal duty is campaigning for one state election after the other. And by the time all the state elections are over, it would be time to start the campaign for a second term as PM!

like Investment Meets conducted by various state governments, as well as new national programs like Startup India, Standup India.

Wave after wave of elections, that result in wave after wave of not only populist moves, but of polarizing the people along religion and caste, and most importantly, of institutionalizing corruption, as it is during elections that political parties raise and spend the most illegitimate funds. Or take the case of Tamilnadu. It is anybody’s guess how much its politicians and bureaucrats have worked for the welfare of people during the past few months, as one drama after another was playing out. As though clinging on to power or usurping power is the principal aim, even if it means nothing else will done for months altogether. All in all, there are no limits to which India’s secular growth is continually set back by politicians of every hue. In contrast, observe the way Indian Inc works. They innovate on their own, work harder to survive even experiments-gone-wrong like demonetization, and hardly waste their time or energy on anything but growth, which has the pleasant side-effect of generating jobs and improving salaries of the professionals and employees, which in turn boost sentiments in the consumer markets, and this virtuous

cycle is continued. Almost all the wins of India Inc since the last few decades have emerged on identifying opportunities and innovating to capitalize on them. For instance, no government either in Bangalore or New Delhi did anything spectacular to usher in the mammoth IT services industry that spawned some of the largest Indian companies in existence today. Similarly, no Union Government or State Governments did anything of specific help to kick-start either the ecommerce revolution or the bigger startup culture. Indian adaptability is readily seen in the emergence of many start-ups that adjusted Silicon Valley success models to perfection, be it Flipkart or Ola Cabs. Ironically, the e-commerce and startup revolutions happened in India, when India was undergoing the so-called ‘policy paralysis’ under UPA-II. Yes, India grows when its governments sleep! The funny thing is that there have been later day attempts by politicians and bureaucrats to piggyback on such successful waves of entrepreneurship, and even worse, attempting to take credit for such industry successes. This is best exemplified by publicity exercises

By now it is a well-known fact that not even 5% of the MoUs signed at such Investment Meets are ever followed through, while programs like Startup India are woefully inadequate to address the real startup ecosystem as it is driven by next-generation hyper-efficient processes and super-specialist investments, both of which the government babus are unable to comprehend, let alone handle. The defenders of government intervention in ensuring growth might cite the landmark liberalization of 1991. But let us not fail to comprehend what exactly was this liberalization move. It was nothing but the Indian Government proposing that they would meddle less in business, and sleep more! Today, India Inc is facing its next big challenge. Its exports, including the crucial IT exports, stand to be trumped by the protectionist policies of a new US President. But expect the likes of TCS, Infosys, and even smaller peers to survive and emerge stronger from this challenge too. Let us also not assume for a moment that this culture of living up to challenges is exclusive to the big boys of business. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Just like how the death of the kirana store was hugely exaggerated, so will be the fortunes of the country’s thriving MSME sector. Already this vast unorganized sector accounts for more than 50% of Indian jobs. It will not die down, as it is tied to that Indian spirit of survival, of growing while the politicians and bureaucrats sleep. John Antony

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CONTENTS DRAVID: 'WINNING ISN’T EVERYTHING, BUILDING CAREER MOST IMPORTANT'

NOKIA IS BACK IN BUSINESS, IN SUPREME STYLE

PM MODI ROPES IN TECH TYCOON NANDAN NILEKANI TO HELP WITH CASH CLEAN UP

While the Indian colts may have coasted through the series against their English counterparts, their respective coaches Rahul Dravid and Mark Ramprakash believe there is something more than just ..

Faced with chaos after eliminating India's highest value rupee notes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has roped in a billionaire from the ranks of his adversaries to help..

NOTEBANDI: MAYBE THE BJP WASN’T SHIFTING GOALPOSTS AFTER ALL There is a near consensus even among right-wing commentators that the post-demonetisation operational roll-out left a lot to be desired. From chaotic scenes in banks to dysfunctional ATMs,..

YOU DON’T NEED TO HAVE BEEN CASH-DEPENDANT TO SUFFER FROM DEMONETIZATION MOVE, NARRATES AN INDIAN CEO

In an interview to columnist Ajaz Ashraf, a CEO of a multi-national company narrates the difficulties experienced by his company..

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HYDERABAD'S HUSSAIN SAGAR LAKELOSES ABILITY TO SELF PURIFY?

INDIAN TECH CO’S AREN’T PANICKY ABOUT US VISA RULES, HERE’S WHY

ARVIND SUBRAMANIAN CRIES FOUL PLAY BY CREDIT RATING AGENCIES, SAYS INDIAN FUNDAMENTALS STRONG

SHOULD PREGNANT WOMEN STOP DRINKING WATER FROM PLASTIC BOTTLES?

THE BOND THAT SUSTAINS NATURE AND HUMANS

In a damning reference to credit rating agencies for their continued ignorance of India’s “growth” story, CEA Arvind Subramanian echoed..

According to a recent study conducted by The Endocrine Society based in Washington DC, pregnant women drinking from plastic water bottles could be..

“WE DON’T NEED LEADERS, WE JUST NEED SOMEONE AT THE TOP WHO DOESN’T MESS UP THE SYSTEM”: NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB

‘THE 2017-18 BUDGET SIMPLY PRESERVES THE EXISTING BALANCE OF POWER AGAINST FARMER’ INTERESTS’: YOGENDRA YADAV

THE BOOK EVERY CEO & ENTREPRENEUR MUST READ TO STAY AHEAD OF THE TIMES

Yogendra Yadav isn’t just like any other ‘political analyst’. From leaving the AAP over Kejriwal’ authoritative nature and debunking Congress..

he oft-clichéd phrase 'connecting the dots' cannot find a more meaningful ally than Joshua Cooper Ramo's groundbreaking new book The Seventh Sense. A policy expert who has advised..

DAMAGED HEART TISSUES COULD BE RECTIFIED BY JOGGING AND WALKING

MEET AUDI'S NEW A3 CABRIOLET

IS TRADITIONAL MEDIA DYING UNDER MODI AND TRUMP?

Nokia’s brand and its popularity is on display in China, where the company’s recently unveiled android smartphone, the Nokia 6 has now reached 1.4 million registrations – ahead of its second flash sale...

After predicting the 2008 economic crisis, the Brexit vote, the U.S. presidential election and other events correctly, Nassim..

According to a study done by researchers at the University of Maryland in the US, exercise could be just as important for heart health as controlled cholesterol and a healthy diet.

The pollution is due to heavy metals that have seeped into the lake bed, and declining oxygen levels in the water.

The model comes with a 1.4 litre petrol engine with average fuel consumption of 19.2 km/lt. The hood can be raised or lowered even at speeds up to 50kmph.

The buzz over proposals to tighten US visa rules caused a furore , with the move being interpreted as the death knell for India’s $150-billion IT outsourcing industry. However..

‘Goddess Saraswati symbolises a rare, holistic and multicultural stream of tradition that has created and recreated India’, says noted columnist Mrinal Pande, former chief editor of Hindu daily Hindustan and..

Modi has had an uneasy relation ship with the media even during his CM days. Although his ire was reserved for those in the mainstream media, who he felt were being dishonest in their..

CONTENTS SABU’S SUCCESS KIT A team from Seasonal Magazine recently visited Kitex Garments' factory at Kizhakkambalam, Kochi, Kerala, for this exclusive interview with Sabu M Jacob, its Chairman & Managing Director. The garments exporter has announced a board meeting on January 30th 2017 to to take on record the un-audited financial results of the Company for Q3. Kitex has also announced fresh investments for a design studio in USA.

EVERYONE CAN BECOME AN OUTLIER WITH THE RIGHT SUPPORT SYSTEM

As Malcolm Gladwell illustrated in his bestselling non-fiction Outliers: The Story of Success, innate talent and high IQ levels may prove insufficient to guarantee professional success. Among the many factors that contribute to high levels of

APPLE BEATS 'APPLE OF CHINA' XIAOMI IN CHINA!

Apple has finally halted the dream run of Xiaomi in China, the largest smartphone market in the world, edging the Chinese phone giant from the fourth slot by shipping nearly 45 million iPhones to the Communist

CHINESE APP MEITU GOES VIRAL, PRIVACY ISSUES REMAIN

The company listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange at a valuation of around 4.9bn Hong Kong dollars (£500m). Primarily targeting women and (those with long hair!), the app is also becoming an instant hit amongst those wishing to publicly degrade

INVESTORS WANT ZUCKERBERG OUSTED FROM FB?

The contribution of Mark Zuckerberg for taking the social media site Facebook to the crown position is truly beyond description. But it seems, Facebook is going to miss its logically sorted and extremely practical-thinking Chief soon as some of the shareholders of the company

INDIAN GOVT HOPEFUL OF MEETING RURAL ROADS TARGET FOR FY17

Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), a flagship scheme of the Ministry of Rural Development, is hopeful of achieving the annual targeted length of 48,812 kilometers of rural roads by March 31, 2017, as the

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CONTENTS Proactive Universities

There are few alternative names to describe private universities today, other than proactive universities. It is a wonder that a university of size Amity is still agile. Amity is not just one university, but a group of 8 private universities, 13 B-Schools, and 11 international campuses, to name just the three largest entities within the Group. Even the faculty strength of Amity institutions – at over 4500 – is more than the student strength of many private universities in the country! Still, Amity is remarkably agile. Seasonal Magazine’s frequent visits to the Noida campus to meet Amity’s top brass have always been eye-openers to this agility.

AGILITY AT AMITY Vision, demographics, and time are on Amity's side, as Chauhans take decisive steps in overseas expansion.

THE LNM INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

SRM UNIVERSITY

SASTRA UNIVERSITY

JSS UNIVERSITY

The Jaipur-based The LNM Institute of Information Technology (LNMIIT) has too many unique values to claim, just due to its pedigree. For one, it is the first Deemed University under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model in..

With an unwavering visionary approach, SRM University is readying itself for another big splash in the private university circuit. This time around, SRM university, one of the largest selffinancing private universities in..

Tamilnadu based SASTRA University, traditionally known for its flagship engineering programs and excellent placements, is now forging ahead with new initiatives in BEd programs, Law programs, and other domains.

JSS University today attracts research scientists from overseas countries, while its faculty and students often get international travel grants. JSS has hosted several national level conferences,..

NITTE UNIVERSITY

INTEGRAL UNIVERSITY

MODY UNIVERSITY

Even if "Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety nine percent perspiration," as the world's greatest inventor Thomas Alva Edison put it, from where do the students get inspired? At Integral University, we have..

Not many private universities are enthusiastic about wanting to invest in sports and recreational facilities owing to a deeply academic-focused education system in India. Undoubtedly, academic excellence is what..

INDIA INC LOOKS UP TO LNM'S UNIQUE TALENT

GROWING FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH ON ALL COUNTS Nitte University, a Mangalore based private varsity claims to be an emerging leader in research. The university carries out its research activities..

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CHURNING OUT THE BEST AS PROMISED

HOW INTEGRAL UNIVERSITY INSPIRES ITS STUDENTS

HOW SASTRA GROOMS ALL-ROUNDERS

ENABLING SYNERGY BETWEEN ACADEMICS, INDUSTRY & SPORTS

PROVIDING THE HEALING TOUCH TO INDIA'S HEALTH SECTOR WOES

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY

FORGING AHEAD ON TIE-UPS, INCUBATION, & SCHOLARSHIPS LPU campus in Punjab is buzzing with strategic activities across 360 degrees. A tie-up with Google, a start-up incubator, and global promotion of Ayurveda are only a few among the noted..

LUXURY BREITLING CRAFTS A NEW WATCH TO CELEBRATE BENTLEY CONTINENTAL SUPERSPORTS

The new Bentley Continental Supersports, the fastest Continental ever built with a top speed of 211 mph (340 km/h), a 0-60 mph (0 to 100 km/h) acceleration time of 3.5 seconds, as well as an entirely revisited design, commands respect and style. And so, issued in a 500-piece worldwide edition, Breitling’s new dedication to Bentley, Bentley Supersports B55 demands attention with its sporty appearance, with a sturdy and light titanium case framing a dial in carbon fibre. For the first time in the history of Breitling for Bentley, Breitling has equipped a chronograph with an electronic movement.

UBER LUXURY, PRIVATE MEMBERS' THE INDUS CLUB TO OPEN IN MUMBAI

The Indus Club, an uber luxury private members’ business club for the country’s ultra-high net worth individuals, is set to open at One BKC, a commercial tower at the heart of Mumbai’s bustling business district. The brainchild of Mr. Harish Thawani (founder of Nimbus Communications and NEO Sports) the club will open in April 2017. A “By Invitation Only” club, membership is open for promoters and CXO’s of respected companies, creative leaders from advertising, TV, motion pictures, and other eminent and acclaimed professionals.

BMW ANNOUNCES NEW ADDITIONS TO ITS LINEUP FOR 2017 Car manufacturer BMW has announced the latest addition to its iPerformance line-up, the first ever BMW 530e iPerformance. This sport sedan will serve as a dynamic driving experience, combined with the option of electric driving. The BMW 530e iPerformance offers the full breath of BMW 5 Series Advanced Driver Assistance systems and the latest technology just premiered in the all-new BMW 5 Series, now with eDrive plug-in hybrid powertrain technology. BMW eDrive technology teams up with a BMW TwinPower Turbo gasoline engine to create an exceptionally efficient and powerful plug-in hybrid drive system that fits perfectly with the dynamic, smooth and luxurious character profile of the new BMW 5 Series.

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HERMES LAUNCHES A NEW VERSION OF SLIM D'HERMES IN PLATINUM As is true with every Hermes creation, the maison ensures beauty with functionality. The new version of Slim d’Hermès is no exception. The simplicity of the all-blue Slim d’Hermès Quantième Perpétuel Platine immediately draws an appreciative gaze. The numerals stand out with light and airy grace. While the date, month, dual-time and leap-year indications are displayed on various counters, a mother-of-pearl moon phase graces an aventurine sky backdrop at 3 o’clock.

PANERAI'S LUMINOR 1950 SEALAND 3 DAYS AUTOMATIC ACCIAIO 44MM SPORTS A ROOSTER Dedicating another model to China’s time honoured zodiac signs, Officine Panerai’s Luminor 1950 Sealand 3 Days Automatic Acciaio now has a Rooster on the dial to tribute the Year of the Rooster, which begins on January 28, 2017. The Rooster, one of the most energetic and determined signs of the Chinese Zodiac, symbolises the virtue of perseverance. Those born under this sign are convincing persuaders, courageous and creative, determined not to depend on the decisions of others, and at the same time they love to be the centre of attention.

ENVIRONMENT

Hyderabad's

HUSSAIN SAGAR LAKE Loses Ability to Self Purify?

THE POLLUTION IS DUE TO HEAVY METALS THAT HAVE SEEPED INTO THE LAKE BED, AND DECLINING OXYGEN LEVELS IN THE WATER.

veryone in Hyderabad is aware of the pollution in its Hussain Sagar lake, but things are going downhill at an alarming rate, as a recent research has reportedly revealed that the lake has lost its natural ability to 'self-purify' itself due to heavy load of contaminants.

activist V Satyanarayana said.

Expert Syed Akbar reported that the lake's 'Putrefaction', which is the process of decay of organic matter, begins around April with stench rising in the summer. However, the lake is already stinking this year by February.

According to researchers, the pollution had reached such alarming levels, that heavy metals had seeped up to three metres into the lake bed.

The report suggests that this is due to chemical laden sediments at the bottom of the lake, and a reduction in oxygen content in the water. "This is a major environmental problem. Early stench reveals the lake is dead even before onset of summer. It shows a heavy pollution load in the lake. Hussainsagar can no longer take contaminants. Early stench is also a warning that the lake needs immediate conservation to protect it for future generations," environmental and RTI

In December last year, researchers from the National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Warangal in collaboration with others, took samples of the water and soil of the Lake before and after the immersion of Ganesh idols and published their findings.

The water sample had a Total dissolved solids (TDS) level of 1,126, while anything above 150 TDS is considered unfit for human consumption. The lake, originally built in 1563, is a sorry sight today, with the stench of industrial effluents strong in the air. It was built over 1,600 hectares, now stands at a pitiful 4.4 sq km. At present, the lake currently has four nalas through which effluents are released into the water body - the Kukatpally nala, Balkapur nala, Banjara nala and the Picket nala.

Damaged Heart Tissues Could Be Rectified by Jogging and Walking ACCORDING TO A STUDY DONE BY RESEARCHERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND IN THE US, EXERCISE COULD BE JUST AS IMPORTANT FOR HEART HEALTH AS CONTROLLED CHOLESTEROL AND A HEALTHY DIET. JUST 30 MINUTES OF RUNNING ON A TREADMILL CAN RESHAPE YOUR DAMAGED HEART TISSUE. he findings showed that just a single session of endurance exercise - activities that increase breathing and heart rate such as walking, jogging, swimming - increased the expression of genes that are used to repair damaged DNA and help remodel heart

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tissue. "The genes that are important for genome stability are unregulated in the heart tissue after a single bout of endurance exercise. This may contribute to the protective effects of exercise on cardiovascular health," said Stephen Roth, Professor at the University of Maryland. The study was published in the journal Experimental Physiology. The scientists observed the hearts of mice, which ran for half an hour on a treadmill. The results are also applicable to humans since these genes are regulated in a similar way in humans, the researchers noted. The study may be important for understanding how exercise provides a protective effect on the heart. By understanding this process and basic heart biology, future research may lead to increased life expectancy and drugfree cures for chronic heart problems, including high blood pressure. This study might prove to be a table turner for the patients of chronic heart diseases, hence increasing their life expectancy and physical fitness. Endurance workout and cardiovascular activities may become a drug-free and needle-less cure for cardio patients.

Go Nuts to Cut Cancer Risk HAZELNUTS, WALNUTS, ALMONDS AND PISTACHIOS SLOW DOWN THE GROWTH OF CANCER CELLS AND REDUCE THE RISK OF COLON CANCER.

onsuming nuts such as hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds and pistachios may not only contribute to a healthy diet, but also slow down the growth of cancer cells and reduce the risk of colon cancer, researchers have found. The findings, led by researchers from University of Jena in Germany, showed that nuts have a positive effect on health because they are involved in activating the body’s own defences for detoxifying reactive oxygen species. These reactive oxygen species are created by ultraviolet radiation, various chemicals or distinct food metabolites and can cause DNA

damage, leading to the development of cancer. However, nuts and the substances they contain, stimulate a series of protective mechanisms in the human body to render these reactive oxygen species as harmless, said Wiebke Schlormann from the University of Jena. “For a long time now we have known that nuts are full of substances that are good for the heart and the cardiovascular system, or that protect against becoming overweight or developing diabetes,” Schlormann added. Some studies have indicated a protective effect against colon cancer, he maintained, in the paper appearing in the journal Molecular Carcinogenesis. For the study, the team investigated the effect of five different types of nuts: macadamia nuts, hazelnuts and walnuts, as well as almonds and pistachios. The nuts were artificially “digested” in test tubes and the effects of the resulting digestion products on cell lines were then analysed. The researchers established that the activity of the protective enzymes catalase and superoxide dismutase increases in the cells that are treated. In addition, the digestion products induce what is called programmed cell death in the cancer cells thus treated, the researchers noted.

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HEALTH

Should Pregnant Pregnant Should Women Stop Stop Drinking Drinking Women Water from from Plastic Plastic Water Bottles? Bottles? According to a recent study conducted by The Endocrine Society based in Washington DC, pregnant women drinking from plastic water bottles could be driving up their risk of having obese babies. The researchers found that the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), a hormone disruptor, is linked to an unborn child's increased risk of obesity. When the child is exposed to BPA, they become less sensitive to a hormone responsible for controlling appetite.

mice by altering the hypothalamic circuits in the brain that regulate feeding behavior and energy balance." "Low level prenatal exposure to BPA delays a surge of leptin after birth that allows mice to develop the proper response to the hormone. BPA exposure permanently alters the neurobiology in the affected mice, making them prone to obesity as adults." To examine how BPA can encourage the development of obesity, the researchers fed pregnant mice BPA in their food. The mice were exposed to doses of BPA that are lower than levels deemed safe by the US Food and Drug Administration and Health Canada. Once the mice gave birth, the researchers gave their offspring injections of leptin at various intervals and then examined their brain tissue and analyzed their blood to gauge the response to the hormone. Other pregnant mice were not exposed to any chemicals or were exposed to an estrogen chemical called diethylstilbestrol (DES), so their young could be compared to those born to mice that were exposed to BPA. "This study improves our understanding of how BPA can disrupt the endocrine system in a manner that raises the risk of obesity in animals," said Dr. Abizaid.

xperts admit they are not surprised by the results, and warned of the need to be aware of environmental factors that can lead to increased susceptibility of obesity.

Research indicates BPA exposure is nearly universal. More than 90 percent of people tested in population studies had detectable levels of BPA, and compounds produced when it is metabolised by the body, in their urine.

Bisphenol A is an organic synthetic chemical compound that is commonly used in making certain types of plastic. As such it is found in a variety of food containers, including polycarbonate plastic water bottles and can linings. It is a colourless solid which is soluble in organic solvents, and to some extent is soluble in water as well. This chemical can interfere with the endocrine system (a collection of glands that produce several hormones) by mimicking estrogen, one of the main sex hormones found in women.

Researchers of the study found that mice born to mothers exposed to BPA were less responsive to the hormone leptin, which is sometimes called the satiety hormone. Leptin helps inhibit the appetite by reducing hunger pangs when the body does not need energy. The hormone sends signals to the hypothalamus region of the brain to suppress appetite. Senior author Dr Alfonso Abizaid, of the Department of Neuroscience at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada said, "Our findings show that bisphenol A can promote obesity in

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"Since BPA has also been linked to obesity in humans, people need to be aware that environmental factors can lead to increased susceptibility to obesity and cardio-metabolic disorders," said Dr. Abizaid. A report released in October 2016 claimed that plastic bottles contain hormone-disrupting chemicals that can cause cancer, diabetes, ADHD and autism. Yet they are found in thousands of everyday products, ranging from plastic and metal food containers, to detergents, flame retardants, toys and cosmetics. These chemicals are responsible for scores of illnesses costing the US an astonishing $340 billion in health-related costs each year, the NYU Langone report read. The most common illness due to endocrine disrupting chemicals is neurological - including attentionADHD, autism and loss of IQ.

NEWS IN BRIEF

STARTUP ALLOWS COMPANIES TO RENT INVENTORS A US-based startup called Xinova allows companies like PepsiCo to rent inventors and technical experts to help with their need for innovation. Xinova has a global network of over 10,000 inventors which are picked for specific request for invention placed by the companies. The startup also takes care of inventors' patent application expenses and making lab work possible.

INDIA WORLD'S FASTEST GROWING E-COMMERCE MARKET: STUDY India is world's fastest growing e-commerce market expected to reach $64 billion by 2021 with a compound annual growth rate of 31.2%, according to a Forrester Research study. India will take over 10 years to reach the level of the US and China markets, the report said. China remains the largest market for e-commerce globally, it added.

ANOTHER TOP-LEVEL EXECUTIVE QUITS OLA AFTER CFO, CMO'S EXIT

Apart from recent exits of CFO Rajiv Bansal and CMO Raghuvesh Sarup, Ola's Chief Operating Officer of offline initiatives, Anuj Bhargava, has also quit from the ride-hailing startup. Bhargava was one of the company's key architects behind recent initiatives such as in-car entertainment service Ola Play. Several other senior directors have also quit Ola recently.

JOB LISTING OFFERS RS. 25L TO RUN QUEEN'S SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS Buckingham Palace has published a job posting that offers Rs. 25 lakh (ÂŁ30,000) annually to run Queen Elizabeth's social media accounts. According to the royal family's official website, the job is about "finding new ways to maintain The Queen's presence in the public eye and on the world stage." The candidate must also know how to "minimise risks" of social media.

$1,900 PEN WITH UNIVERSAL PHONE CHARGER, 16 GB MEMORY MADE

FORD PUTS $1 BILLION IN STARTUP BY EX-UBER, GOOGLE ENGINEERS

MAN MAKES DATING APP IN WHICH HE IS THE ONLY MALE AVAILABLE

A Canadian startup has created a $1,900 ballpoint pen called 'ChargeWrite' which comes with a universal phone charging tip and 1,000 mAh battery enough to provide up to five hours of talk time. The pen also comes with 16 GB inbuilt memory and a smartphone cleaner to remove dirt from the screen. It also acts a stylus for smartphones.

American automaker Ford has announced an investment of $1 billion in tech startup Argo AI, founded by former Google and Uber engineers. Ford will acquire a majority stake in the startup, which will focus on developing software platform for Ford's self-driving car. Earlier, Ford said it will mass-produce fully self-driving cars without brake pedals and steering wheels by 2021.

British author Shed Simove has created a dating app called 'Shinder' in which he is the only male suitor. The app, which has the tagline, "Quality, not quantity" lets users only swipe left or right on Simove's pictures. Simove is the creator of the book 'What Every Man Thinks about Apart from Sex', which has 196 blank pages.

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NEWS IN BRIEF US HAS SPENT NEARLY RS 73,000 CRORE FIGHTING ISIS

The United States has spent around $10.7 billion (72,865 crore) on fighting the Islamic state under 'Operation Inherent Resolve', according to data released by the Pentagon. This amounts to about $12.5 million (85 crore) on average every day since the operation began in 2014. Interestingly, 22% of the total was spent on dropping bombs on Syria and Iraq.

APPLE WOULDN'T EXIST WITHOUT IMMIGRATION: CEO ON TRUMP ORDER

Reacting to US President Donald Trump's order limiting immigration from seven nations, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, "Apple would not exist without immigration, let alone thrive and innovate the way we do". He added, "Apple is open. Open to everyone, no matter where they come from, which language they speak, who they love or how they worship"

ARTIST CREATES 'ANGEL' SCULPTURE OUT OF 1 LAKH KNIVES

Artist Alfie Bradley has unveiled a 27foot-high 'angel' sculpture made out of 1 lakh knives that have been surrendered or collected by police forces across the UK. The collection was part of a national drive called 'Save a Life, Surrender Your Knife', to raise awareness on the tragedy of knife crime. It took Bradley 18 months to build the sculpture.

UAE ANNOUNCES PLAN TO BUILD FIRST CITY ON MARS BY 2117 Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid on Tuesday announced the 'Mars 2117' plan to build the first city on Mars in 100 years. "We aspire to great things, so...I today decided the UAE will...send humans to Mars," Rashid said. The city, reportedly the size of Chicago, will have a population of 6 lakh.

WE'LL SHIFT TO JAN DHAN, AADHAAR, MOBILE IN 2-3 YRS: NAIDU

Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said the present BJP-led Centre aims to shift all government schemerelated financial transactions to Jan Dhan, Aadhar and Mobile (JAM) platforms across India in the next 2-3 years. Adding that corruption in government schemes will be reduced, Naidu said that JAM would bring a big financial revolution in the country.

SEASONAL MAGAZINE

SAUDI PRINCE BUYS 80 PLANE TICKETS FOR HIS BIRDS

A picture of a Saudi prince who bought 80 plane tickets for his hawks has gone viral. Reddit user lensoo posted the image, "My captain friend sent me this photo." Interestingly, transporting birds on flights is common in the Middle East. The UAE issues falcons special forest green passports, while airlines like Etihad Airways have special policies for falcon-related travel.

DESIGNER ONCE MADE A HOTEL ROOM ENTIRELY OUT OF CHOCOLATE Karl Lagerfeld, designer of fashion house Chanel, created an edible hotel room made entirely out of chocolate in a hotel in Paris in 2011. The special room, built using ten tons of chocolate, was constructed as a promotion for Magnum ice cream. The suite, comprising chocolate-made decor, also featured a chocolate statue of Lagerfeld's muse.

NEWS IN BRIEF HOW IS THE RS 17 CRORE WORTH BUGATTI CHIRON SUPERCAR MADE? One of the fastest production supercars in the world, French luxury carmaker Bugatti's Rs 17 crore worth Chiron supercar is assembled at the company's factory in Molsheim, France. Each Chiron takes about six months, 20 people, and 1,800 parts for production, and no robot is involved in the process. Chiron can accelerate from 0-100 kmph in under 2.5 seconds.

US APPEALS COURT REFUSES TO RESTORE TRUMP'S IMMIGRATION BAN

A US federal appeals court refused to reinstate a temporary travel ban President Donald Trump had ordered on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. The court ruled that the Trump administration failed to offer "any evidence" that justified the ban. Shortly after the ruling, Trump tweeted: "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!"

FAN TOLD ME HIS SON EATS ONLY ON WATCHING HERA PHERI: AKSHAY

Akshay Kumar revealed that a fan once told him that his son eats only when he watches Akshay's comedy film 'Hera Pheri' (2000). "...if my film is helping people to digest their food, then where is the problem?", Akshay added. He further said that it's most difficult to make people laugh, and the film industry doesn't give priority to it.

JHARKHAND MINISTER 1ST TO BE CONVICTED FOR MONEY LAUNDERING

In a first under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, a special court in Ranchi has convicted former Jharkhand minister Hari Narayan Rai, sentencing him to 7 years of rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 5 lakh. Further, the court ordered that Rai will have to serve 18 months of additional rigorous imprisonment if he fails to deposit the fine.

ISLAMIC STATE POSTERS SURFACE NEAR HIMACHALâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ARMY CANTT

Posters and a flag of the Islamic State surfaced near Subathu Army cantonment in Himachal Pradesh's Solan district, police have stated. The posters and the flag carried the message "ISIS coming soon" in English, Hindi and Urdu. A poster also warned of triggering three bomb blasts from Subathu to Nepal. The police have begun probe into the matter.

MAN CITY FINED RS 29 LAKH FOR BREACHING ANTI-DOPING RULE Manchester City have been fined ?29 lakh and warned about future conduct after the club admitted to having breached anti-doping rules, according to Football Association's statement. The Manchester club failed to ensure the accuracy of their anti-doping "club whereabouts" information. FA requires all clubs to provide, on request, training dates, training venues and players' overnight addresses. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

NEWS IN BRIEF OAKLAND AIRPORT GETS ROBOT TO SELL BEER AND BURGERS

An eatery at the Oakland International Airport has employed SoftBank's 4foot tall humanoid robot 'Pepper' to greet the travellers and sell beer and burgers to them. It also offers directions to any traveller looking for help in finding their way around the airport. The robot also has speechrecognition abilities and chestmounted touchscreen to provide more information.

EBAY FOUNDER GIVES RS 3CR TO EXPERIMENT UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME

American e-commerce company Ebay's Founder Pierre Omidyar's philanthropic investment firm, the Omidyar Network, gave over Rs 3 crore ($4,93,000) to a group testing universal basic income in Kenya. The group, GiveDirectly, has launched a 12-year program where it plans to give 26,000 Kenyans some money regularly.

CENTRE PLANS TO RENAME AIRPORTS AFTER CITIES, NOT PEOPLE

The Centre is considering a proposal to rename existing and future airports after cities instead of personalities, Union Minister Jayant Sinha said. State governments have reportedly suggested that airport terminals can be named after eminent personalities. Notably, there are around 75 operational airports in India and many are named after personalities, including political leaders.

FORD MAKES CAR PARTS FROM TOMATOES AND COCA-COLA BOTTLES

As a part of its biomaterials research, American automaker Ford is making car parts from shredded cash, leftover tomato parts and Coca-Cola bottles. Ford is also using plants like bamboo, wheat, rice hulls and coconut skins to make reliable car parts. Soybean-based foam developed by Ford is being used in every seat cushion of its cars.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM VIOLATIONS GREW UNDER MODI GOVT: US REPORT A report by an independent bipartisan American body, sponsored by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), has alleged that under Modi regime, religious minority communities have been subject to derogatory comments. "Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and Jains generally are fearful of what the future portends. Dalits also are increasingly being attacked," the report added. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

MAN SEEKS NGT NOD TO PLY 20YR-OLD ROLLS-ROYCE CAR IN DELHI

The owner of a 20-year-old RollsRoyce car, Delhi resident Ashok Kumar Jain has approached the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for its approval to let him ply his car in the city. The NGT banned plying of 15year-old petrol vehicles in 2014. Jain says that he bought the car in 1995 for 1 crore and has the requisite pollution test certificate.

SNAPDEAL-OWNED SHOPO SHUTS AFTER OVER A YEAR OF OPERATIONS Snapdeal-owned online marketplace Shopo shut down after a year and a half of operations. Acquired by Snapdeal in 2013, Shopo allowed small and medium-sized businesses to chat, buy and sell on the platform on a zero-commission model. Snapdeal has absorbed all the employees of Shopo.

NEWS IN BRIEF FIFA WANTS 2026 WORLD CUP TO BE CO-HOSTED BY FOUR COUNTRIES

Announcing FIFA would encourage applications to co-host 2026 World Cup, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said the event could be split between up to four countries. "We will encourage co-hosting...we need...to show we are reasonable and we have to think about sustainability long-term," said Infantino. The only time FIFA allowed co-hosting was in 2002 when Japan and South Korea played hosts.

EIFFEL TOWER TO GET BULLETPROOF WALLS AMID TERRORISM FEARS

CHINA STARTS FINGERPRINTING ALL FOREIGN VISITORS

HAFIZ SAEED SHOULD BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE SOON: INDIA

INDIA BURDENED BY SYSTEM THAT THWARTS PROGRESS: BUFFETT AIDE

The Eiffel Tower will be protected by 2.5-metre-high bulletproof glass walls at its northern and southern ends to protect it from terror attacks, Paris Deputy Mayor Jean-Francois Martins announced. The walls, to be built later this year at the cost of •20 million (nearly Rs 142.6 crore), will prevent visitors from accessing the tower without undergoing security checks.

India on Thursday said Jamaat-udDawah (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed is an internationally proscribed terrorist and should be brought to justice soon. "Saeed is engaged in numerous terror acts of terrorism not just at India but also at India’s neighbour," said Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup. The JuD was declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014.

China has started taking fingerprints of all foreign visitors, aged between 14 to 70, at the Shenzhen International Airport to improve border checks, according to China's Ministry of Public Security. Foreigners with diplomatic passports will not have to provide their fingerprints and Chinese citizens from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan will not be considered foreigners, it added.

Billionaire and Warren Buffett’s business partner at Berkshire Hathaway, Charles Munger has said India is a country where people are burdened by a system that thwarts progress. His comments were in response to questions about the prospects for the nation’s economy. When asked about China, Munger said, “Too many people believe in luck and gamble, and that’s a national defect."

INDIA BUILDING SECRET NUCLEAR CITY, CLAIMS PAKISTAN

Pakistan on Thursday claimed that India is building a "secret nuclear city" and has accumulated a stockpile of nuclear weapons which threatens to undermine the strategic balance of power in the region. Foreign Office (FO) spokesman Nafees Zakaria made the remarks at press briefing while expressing concern over the "Indian defence buildup". However, India has rubbished Pakistan's claims.

BABA RAMDEV'S PATANJALI TO EMPLOY 8,000 YOUTH

Baba Ramdev-promoted consumer goods manufacturer Patanjali Ayurved is planning to employ as many as 8,000 people for various positions, reports have revealed. Those who cleared 10th standard, graduates, and post-graduates can apply for these positions. Further, the expected salary is said to be around Rs 40,000, depending on the qualification, the reports added.

SEASONAL MAGAZINE

INTERNATIONAL

“WE DON’T NEED LEADERS, WE JUST NEED SOMEONE AT THE TOP WHO DOESN’T MESS UP THE SYSTEM” Nassim Nicholas Taleb

AFTER PREDICTING THE 2008 ECONOMIC CRISIS, THE BREXIT VOTE, THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND OTHER EVENTS CORRECTLY, NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB, AUTHOR OF THE INCERTO SERIES ON GLOBAL UNCERTAINTIES, WHICH INCLUDES THE BLACK SWAN: THE IMPACT OF THE HIGHLY IMPROBABLE, IS SEEN AS SOMETHING OF A MAVERICK AND AN ORACLE. AN OPEN ADMIRER OF PM NARENDRA MODI, THE ECONOMIST-MATHEMATICIAN, IN A RECENT INTERVIEW, EXPLAINS WHY HE THINKS THE WORLD IS SEEING A “GLOBAL RIOT AGAINST PSEUDO-EXPERTS”.

’d like to start by asking about your next book, Skin in the Game, the fifth of the Incerto series. You do something unusual with your books: before you launch, you put chapters out on your website. Why is that? Putting my work online motivates me to go deeper into a subject. I put it online and it gives some structure to my thought. The only way to judge a book is by something called the Lindy effect, and that is its survival. My books have survived. I noticed that The Black Swan did well because it was picked up early online, long before the launch. I also prefer social media to interviews in the mainstream media as many journalists don’t do their research, and ‘zeitgeist’ updates pass for journalism. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

The media is not one organisation or a monolithic entity. Well, I’m talking about the United States where I get more credible news from the social media than the mainstream media. But I am very impressed with the Indian media that seems to present both sides of the story. In the U.S., you only get either the official, bureaucratic or the academic side of the story. In Skin in the Game, you seem to build on theories from The Black Swan that give a sense of foreboding about the world economy. Do you see another crisis coming? Oh, absolutely! The last crisis [2008] hasn’t ended yet because they just delayed it. [Barack] Obama is an actor. He looks good, he raises good children, he is respectable. But he didn’t fix the

economic system, he put novocaine [local anaesthetic] in the system. He delayed the problem by working with the bankers whom he should have prosecuted. And now we have double the deficit, adjusted for GDP, to create six million jobs, with a massive debt and the system isn’t cured. We retained zero interest rates, and that hasn’t helped. Basically we shifted the problem from the private corporates to the government in the U.S. So, the system remains very fragile. You say Obama put novocaine in the system. How will the Trump administration be able to address this? Of course. The whole mandate he got was because he understood the economic problems. People don’t realise that Obama created inequalities when he

distorted the system. You can only get rich if you have assets. What Trump is doing is put some kind of business sense in the system. You don’t have to be a genius to see what’s wrong. Instead of Trump being elected, if you went to the local souk [bazaar] in Aleppo and brought one of the retail shop owners, he would do the same thing Trump is doing. Like making a call to Boeing and asking why are we paying so much.

to be worried about Trump too.

You’re seen as something of an oracle, given that you saw the 2008 economic crash coming, you predicted the Brexit vote, the outcome of the Syrian crisis. You said the Islamic State would benefit if Bashar al-Assad was pushed out and you predicted Trump’s win. How do you explain it?

Is the election of Trump part of a global phenomena? You have commented on the similarity to the election of Narendra Modi in India.

Not the Islamic State, but al-Qaeda at the time, and I said the U.S. administration was helping fund them. See, you have to have courage to say things others don’t. I was lucky financially in life, that I didn’t need to work for a living and can spend all my time thinking. When Trump was running for election, I said what he says makes sense to a grocery store owner. Because the grocery guy can say Trump is wrong because he can see where he is wrong. But with Obama, he can’t understand what he’s saying, so the grocery man doesn’t know where he is wrong. Is it a choice between dumbing down versus over-intellectualisation, then? Exactly. Trump never ran for archbishop, so you never saw anything in his behaviour that was saintly, and that was fine. Whereas Obama behaved like the Archbishop of Canterbury, and was going to do good but people didn’t feel their lives were better. As I said, if it was a shopkeeper from Aleppo, or a grocery store owner in Mumbai, people would have liked them as much as Trump. What he says makes common sense, asking why are we paying so much for this rubbish or why do we need these complex taxes, or why do we want lobbyists. You can call Trump’s plainspeaking what you like. But the way intellectuals treat people who don’t agree with them isn’t good either. I remember I had an academic friend who supported Brexit, and he said he knew what it meant to be a leper in the U.K. It was the same with supporting Trump in the U.S. But there were valid reasons for people

Well, if you’re a businessman, for example, what Trump said didn’t bother you. The intellectual class of no more than 2,00,000 people in the U.S. don’t represent everyone upset with Trump. The real problem is the ‘faux-expert problem’, one who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, and assumes he knows what people think. An electrician doesn’t have that problem.

Well, with Trump, Modi, Brexit, and now France, there are some similar problems in those countries. What you are hearing is people getting fed up with the ruling class. This is not fascism. It has nothing to do with fascism. It has to do with the faux-experts problem and a world with

I OFTEN SAY THAT A MATHEMATICIAN THINKS IN NUMBERS, A LAWYER IN LAWS, AND AN IDIOT THINKS IN WORDS.

too many experts. If we had a different elite, we may not see the same problem. There are other similarities, to quote from studies of populist movements worldwide: these leaders are majoritarian, they build on resentment, they use social media for direct access to their voters, and they can take radical decisions. I often say that a mathematician thinks in numbers, a lawyer in laws, and an idiot thinks in words. These words don’t amount to anything. I think you have to draw the conclusion that there is a global riot against pseudo-experts. I saw it with Brexit, and Nigel Farage [leader of the U.K. Independence Party], who was a trader for 15 years, said the problem with the government was that none of them had ever had a proper job. Being a bureaucrat is not a proper job. As a businessperson, you have a point about experts and pseudo-experts who you say are ‘left-wing’. How do you explain the other parts to the phenomenon that aren’t economic: the

xenophobia, Islamophobia, misogyny, etc.? I don’t understand how a left-wing person can defend Salafism, or religious extremism. In a democracy, you can allow people to have any view, but they can’t come with a message to destroy democracy. Why should people who come to the West come with a message to finish the West? This is where the discourse goes haywire. So in Yemen, the [Saudi] intervention is good, but the intervention [by Russia] in Aleppo shouldn’t be allowed. I don’t think Trump was racist when he said Mexican criminals shouldn’t be allowed into the U.S.; he was targeting criminals. If you are Naziphobic, you are not against Germans. If I oppose Salafism, I am not an Islamophobe. Obama also deported Mexicans and refused to accept immigrants. Is anti-globalisation a part of this sentiment? I am not anti-globalisation, but I am against big global corporations. One of the reasons is what they cost. Today, every project sees cost overruns because these projects have to factor in global risks as well. In nature there is an ‘island effect’. The number of species on an island drops significantly when you go to the mainland. Similarly, when you open up your small economies, you lose some of your ethnicity or diversity. Artisans are being killed by globalisation. Think of the effect on so many artists who have been put out of work while people are buying wrinkle-free shirts and cheap mobile phones. I’m a localist. The problem is globalisation comes through large global corporates that are predatory, and so we want to counter its ill-effects. Where do you see the world moving now? Further right, or will it revert to the centre? I don’t think it will go left or right, and I don’t know about the short term. But I think in the long term, the world can only survive if it lives like nature does. Many smaller units of governance, and a collection of super islands with some separation, quick decision-making, and visible implementation. Lots of Switzerlands, that’s what we need. What we need is not leaders, we don’t need them. We just need someone at the top who doesn’t mess the system up. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

FINANCE

PM Modi Ropes In Tech Tycoon

Nandan Nilekani

To Help With Cash

Clean Up

Faced with chaos after eliminating India's highest value rupee notes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has roped in a billionaire from the ranks of his adversaries to help.

andan Nilekani, a high-profile member of the opposition Indian National Congress party, has joined a committee to map a path to digital payments. India is trying to end its reliance on cash, especially in rural areas where almost every transaction is done in hard currency. It's not the first time the former head of outsourcing giant Infosys Ltd. has tackled a national project -- he spearheaded the country's biometrics-based Aadhaar unique identity program. Designed to eliminate corruption, Modi outlawed existing 500 rupee ($7.40) and 1,000 rupee notes on Nov. 8, which wiped out more than four-fifths of the nation's currency and caused pain for millions, from street hawkers in the south to diamond cutters in the west. The government is trying a Plan B to salvage a situation that Credit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG estimate will slow expansion by about 1 percentage point in the year through March. Nilekani and his 13-person committee are meeting to work out how to get more Indians to adopt digital payments, via everything from their own smartphones to point-of-sale machines in local villages. While the nation has already rolled out its United Payments Interface, with hundreds of millions lacking phones or web access, a multipronged approach is needed to wean the nation of its dependence on cash. "India has the underlying digital financial architecture in place to get this going," Nilekani said in an interview after the committee's first meeting. "How quickly the government can reach everyone is a question of execution and speed." SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Digital Wallets As presses run all day to crank out new 500 and 2,000 rupee notes, the committee featuring chief ministers of prominent Indian states as well as the India head of Boston Consulting Group met for the first time last week. As startups like Paytm, MobiKwik and Freecharge push their digital wallets to a slice of smartphone users, the committee is focusing on two key avenues: getting more merchants to accept the United Payments Interface and procuring more point-of-sale devices. The interface, rolled out by major banks in April, makes transferring money as

Google and Boston Consulting Group projected India's digital payments industry to grow to $500 billion and cover half the population only by 2020. easy as sending a text message. With the system already in place, Nilekani says boosting acceptance of the payments interface is achievable in weeks. Getting the estimated one million new POS devices, which would almost double the number in use as of August, would take longer because of the need for a tender.

again this week to look at how to approach those with limited access to technology. While India has 250 million smartphone users, there are about 350 million who only have feature phones while another 350 million don't have a phone at all, Nilekani said. For feature phone users, the committee recommends India's existing retail epayments app be adapted to technology that could be rolled out within weeks. That will be helped by lower charges, with the telecommuni cations regulator slashing the charges for transactions from 1.50 rupees to 0.50 rupees. "Each category has to have a different strategy" said Nilekani.

Rural Impact "Breaking down the problem into digestible chunks is the first step to solving it," said Nilekani, who lost a battle for a parliamentary seat in the 2014 election to a key member of Modi's cabinet. India has also made it easier to make digital payments, with the central bank this week doing away with the two-step authentication process for transactions of less than 2,000 rupees. The impact of the money ban, known as demonetization, has been felt the most in the countryside, where cash is preferred for everything from buying clothes and selling produce to paying for weddings. The lack of cash notes has slammed the brakes on business in some areas. "There is no economic activity, transactions are at a standstill," said Srikanth Nadhamuni, chief executive officer of incubator Khosla Labs which has funded electronic payments startup Novopay. The startup has 40,000 microATMs - no more than a smartphone with a fingerprint scanner attached and sometimes a printer - at small street-corner retail outlets called kirana stores.

Adapting Technology The committee is expected to meet

'Big Target' Before demonetization, digital payments had already been projected to surge. Google and Boston Consulting Group projected India's digital payments industry to grow to $500 billion and cover half the population only by 2020. A financial inclusion panel hosted earlier this year by the country's software products think tank, iSpirt laid out a four-year plan to go cashless. "It is a big target for four years but government support can shorten the time," said Sharad Sharma, co-founder of iSpirt and a member of the government-appointed committee. "While it cannot happen in the next few months, it will happen within this decade." The real challenge is the 350 million people without phones, many of whom are economically-challenged. The plan is to draw those enrolled in Aadhaar, and quickly enlist the remaining, toward microATMs promoted by large Indian lenders such as IDFC Bank and startups like Novopay which already have a presence in 130,000 village retail outlets or kirana stores. "There is a sense of urgency," said Nilekani. "All the strategies have to be deployed at the same time to aim for universal coverage." SEASONAL MAGAZINE

BUSINESS

Indian Tech Co’s Aren’t Panicky About US Visa Rules, Here’s Why THE BUZZ OVER PROPOSALS TO TIGHTEN US VISA RULES CAUSED A FURORE , WITH THE MOVE BEING INTERPRETED AS THE DEATH KNELL FOR INDIA’S $150-BILLION IT OUTSOURCING INDUSTRY. HOWEVER, FOR MANY INDIAN TECH MAJORS, THIS ISN’T REALLY BREAKING NEWS BECAUSE THEY’VE KNOWN FOR A WHILE THAT US VISA LAWS ARE A GAME OF POLITICAL ROULETTE. or nearly a decade, companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, and Wipro, which get over 60% of their revenue from the US, have been bracing themselves for such tightening of H1-B laws. And in recent years, these efforts have intensified significantly. In 2016, TCS, India’s largest IT outsourcing company, applied for only 4,000 new US visas, as against 14,000 in 2015, N Chandrasekaran, the SEASONAL MAGAZINE

company’s outgoing CEO and Tata Sons’ chairman-designate said. TCS was granted only around 1,300 visas that year. “There is a lot of commentary (recently) about the increase in the visa fee…(and) the number of visas one will get. We are addressing both very proactively. In terms of the number of visas that we will get, we decided more than a year ago that we have to operate in a visaconstraint regime,” Chandrasekaran said. “We are able to successfully execute (our orders) by making changes

to our business model. So we believe that we are preparing ourselves well to handle the headwind should it arise.” Bills to tighten H-1B visa rules have been floated in the US Congress for years. The H-1B allows foreign workers to work in the US for up to six years. The programme has often been criticised for opening up a pipeline of cheap labor at the cost of US-bred engineers. India’s IT outsourcing industry, which accounts for around 9.5% of the country’s GDP and employs nearly 3.7

million professionals, has in the past faced federal fines and investigations over its use of US visas. In 2013, Infosys paid a hefty $34 million to settle one such case. This was the largest payout by any company for an alleged civil fraud over visas. The issue picked up steam again when a bipartisan bill, first introduced in 2007 and aimed at revamping the visa programme, was reintroduced. In addition, Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren submitted her own bill, called the High-Skilled Integrity and Fairness Act of 2017, which, among other restrictions, called to significantly raise the minimum wage that applicants of such visas must earn in order to qualify. On Jan. 30, reports of a draft executive order to revamp US immigration laws for foreign workers also surfaced. The order instructs the secretary of homeland security to consider changes to the H1B visa programme to “ensure that the beneficiaries of the programme are the best and the brightest.” Restricting the visa programme is a blow to Indian IT companies, for long the main beneficiaries of H-1B visas. While there is so far no official word on any changes to the visa programme by the US government, these firms are already beginning to feel the heat with their shares taking a beating. However, immigration experts say the number of H-1B applications filed does not necessarily reflect the real story. The US grants only 85,000 such visas a year. Authorities receive almost three times as many applications and a random computerised lottery picks from the applicant pool. This means that less than 30% applicants actually secure H1B visas. “Even in recent years, it appears that IT companies did not really need all the H-1B visas that they were filing petitions for. Companies were prone to apply for more than what they needed in order to increase their chances of getting their petitions selected in the lottery system,” said Poorvi Chothani, managing partner at Mumbai-based LawQuest, a global immigration law firm.

At the same time, Chothani, who works with several Indian IT firms on immigration-related issues, notes that these firms have also been preparing for an alternative future. To gradually reduce the impact of a change in US visa norms on their business, Indian companies have begun investing in “near-shore centers”— facilities close to the US—and also increasing local hiring in America. By 2007, TCS had set up offices in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, and a “global delivery center” in

Indian IT companies have also been spending on acquisitions in the US to increase local manpower. In November 2016, Wipro’s chief financial officer, Jatin Dalal, and Tech Mahindra’s chief executive, CP Gurnani, both said they are on the lookout for possible acquisitions. Mexico. Rival Wipro, too, opened a software development facility in Mexico that year. In 2013, Infosys said it will deploy fewer non-citizens in North America and, instead, put workers from near-shore centers on its projects. In 2009, Wipro began ramping up hiring in the US. “We have already started to react (to proposed changes in visa norms). We anticipated this. We started ramping up our Atlanta center with local hires, fresh from campus. We’re doing the same thing in Troy, Michigan,” Wipro chairman Azim Premji said in a 2009 interview with BusinessWeek. Fearing immigration reforms, TCS followed suit in 2013, saying it would make more efforts to hire American graduates. In recent years, Infosys has gone all out to attract American talent. In fact, its current CEO, Vishal Sikka, is a Stanford-educated American national. In all, 100 Indian companies in the US—

40% belonging to the IT industry—had created more than 91,000 jobs there, a 2015 survey by the Confederation of Indian Industry shows. Indian IT companies have also been spending on acquisitions in the US to increase local manpower. In November 2016, Wipro’s chief financial officer, Jatin Dalal, and Tech Mahindra’s chief executive, CP Gurnani, both said they are on the lookout for possible acquisitions. But one key challenge in this strategy is the shortage of skilled Americans. In December 2016, a survey of over 1,000 hiring managers and recruiters by jobs site Indeed revealed that almost nine in 10 respondents found it hard to discover and hire technical talent in the US. Another approach is to work virtually, which is becoming easier with the wider adoption of cloud services and greater digitisation, meaning fewer employees are required in the US. Indian IT companies have been pushing American clients to adopt more virtual services and that’s making a big difference. “(Our) AI (artificial intelligence) platform is 5-6% of our revenues,” said Infosys’s Sikka. “Three years ago, it was zero.” Over the last few years, Indian IT companies have also increasingly veered away from labour-intensive projects to more hi-tech virtual needs, such as cloud computing, automation, and artificial intelligence. “The ‘Plan B’ would be to accelerate the trend…to reduce their reliance on people and increase their focus on delivering automation, leveraging the cloud for their clients,” said Partha Iyengar, Gartner’s head of research in India. After all, Donald Trump could regulate the number of people allowed into the US, but legislating against bots in the cloud will be much tougher. “You can only punish the legacy business for ripping out cost, but not the emerging business for building their global support infrastructure, “said Phil Fersht, chief analyst at research firm HfS Research. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

CORPORATE

INVESTORS WANT ZUCKERBERG OUSTED FROM FB? The contribution of Mark Zuckerberg for taking the social media site Facebook to the crown position is truly beyond description. But it seems, Facebook is going to miss its logically sorted and extremely practical-thinking Chief soon as some of the shareholders of the company are demanding him to walk out from the post of CEO. Alongside some of Facebook’s shareholders, Consumer Watchdog Group is also forcing Mark Zuckerberg to resign from the head position of Facebook.

n this context, consumer watchdog group and four shareholders also have submitted a new proposal, suggesting Mark Zuckerberg to relinquish his all control over Facebook by leaving his current position as chairman of the Facebook’s Board of Directors. According to the report published by The Washington Post, the proposal led by SumOfUs, alleges that Facebook, for its future development needs a director who is independent of the company. A perfect equilibrium of control between the CEO and the board will pave new developmental paths for Facebook, which the current CEO is unable to do.” The advanced proposal also claims that, only a CEO, who is independent of the company, can take actions against the ongoing issues of the company and commence new movements for advancing Facebook, without harming the shareholders and investors, which Mark Zuckerberg is not. The application for the forceful resignation of current CEO of Facebook is extremely influenced by the ongoing problems associated with the company including the promotion of fake news, odium and hate speech, so-called discrepancies in the application of company’s public standards guidelines and content procedures, and much more. SumOfUs’s preceding petitions regarding Facebook’s management and decisions was signed and endorsed by 1,500 shareholders. Of those 1,500 involved shareholders, SumOfUs asked 1,300 to conclude their concerns in filing a suit for the shareholder proposal SEASONAL MAGAZINE

of outing Mark Zuckerberg from the post and four of them agreed to support the proposal. As per the allegations brought up by the shareholders and activist groups, “Having Mark Zuckerberg as the chairman, CEO, and highest shareholder in Facebook is creating a disagreement of interest among other divisions and investors of the company, which is deferring the company from allowing for the best interests of smaller investors. As claimed by the activist group, value of shareholder is improved by a self-

As claimed by the activist group, value of shareholder is improved by a self-governing chairperson who can maintain a flawless and neutral balance of power between the Chief Executive Officer and the board of the company and promote strong and influential leadership.

governing chairperson who can maintain a flawless and neutral balance of power between the Chief Executive Officer and the board of the company and promote strong and influential leadership. But Mark Zuckerberg’s current status is creating conflict in the panel of company regarding the shareholder value, which eventually leaves the best interests of small investors overlooked. The proposal also argued that the employment of an independent president will also help Facebook enhancing the awareness and credibility of Facebook in front of people and users throughout its continual efforts to onslaught on fake news promotions, counterfeit content postings and application of its service policies as well. However, thus far, Facebook has been maintaining a tight-lip on this proposal and no comments have yet been given by any officials of the company.

KITEX GARMENTS

SABUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SUCCESS KIT

A team from Seasonal Magazine recently visited Kitex Garments' factor y at Kizhakkambalam, Kochi, Kerala, for this exclusive interview with Sabu M Jacob, its Chairman & Managing Director. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

STORY & INTERVIEW BY: JAISON D, JOHN ANTONY, CARL J

SEASONAL MAGAZINE

ur one-hour drive to Kitex Garments factory from the city was peppered with talks about how a few analysts and brokers were surprised at the scale and efficiency of this textile unit. One of them had even termed it as the “best garments factory” they have visited in India. But nothing prepared us for the real feeling we had when we obtained the security passes, and drove into the Kitex Garments campus. But before that, a word or two about the actual 23 km drive itself. We took the shorter route via Kakkanad the IT hub of Kochi, and Pallikkara which is home to a prime asset of another listed company of Keralite origin – Wonderla Holidays Ltd. The drive to Kitex was nothing spectacular; where the roads are good the traffic was bad, and later when the traffic became better, the roads were in bad shape, and that explains why it takes nearly one hour to traverse just 23 kms. But then this is India, and it is against such adverse conditions that entrepreneurs like Sabu M Jacob survive and thrive, that too with a 100% export oriented business. If you are new to the Kitex story, well, there is much more that Sabu has survived, but we will come back to that shortly. Kitex Garments and its group concerns are arguably the best known industrial entities in these regions of Ernakulam District, but the company would do good if they can post some sign-posts along the last five kilometres. If you are planning a visit, don’t attempt without Google navigation, and even with navigation we had to pause and enquire more than a few times with local residents to be doubly sure. Most of them seemed friendly with the company, giving us detailed directions, even though a politically sponsored poster at a neighbouring junction questioned the pollution from the factory, a point the company has hotly and successfully contested so far. While Kitex Garments is known for its cutting edge efficiency, the same can’t be said about the security team manning the main entrance. Nobody asked us for anything, nobody even bothered to halt SEASONAL MAGAZINE

us, and we parked in the visitors’ area deep inside the campus. But then somebody was sent to us, asking us to return to the gate, and take the security passes! But apart from this hitch, everything went smooth, and Chairman Sabu’s office was especially helpful. As noted earlier, nothing really prepares you to assess the Kitex Garments campus other than a visit. While it is not the most sophisticated campus we have seen, the scale is simply stunning. It radiates the feeling of a small Special Economic Zone rather than an individual company, complete with more than a few imposing buildings and extensive green lawns to compensate. But then, this very point is perhaps the most crucial one when it comes to assessing the performance of Kitex so far, as well as its future potential. Because, it comes across as a campus of not a Rs. 550 crore turnover company which Kitex Garments is, but a much bigger firm multi-times that size. However, if by any wild chance you had been a long-term investor in Kitex Garments, you will understand why this campus is so huge. Because, 1 lakh investment you put in Kitex would have transformed into 1 crore 33 lakhs – yes, 133 times - within a specific six year period. And yes, this is the campus that did it. Kitex grew at an astounding pace during this six year period, which was ironically one of the most difficult phases for most companies, especially export oriented textile firms that were hit badly by the world financial crisis and its lingering aftermath of drastically lower demand from developed markets. But at Kitex Garments, sales tripled and profit went over the roof, surging 11 times during this period! The fundamental performance as well as the promise the campus held took expectations from the stock higher and higher, until it became too high as it usually happens with all fast growing companies. When the stock hit its lifetime high around one and a half years back, it was trading at almost 14 times its book-value which was clearly unsustainable for any textile exporter

operating at this scale. Since then, owing to various factors, growth has moderated sharply at Kitex. The stock has followed suit, and is now available at around six times its bookvalue. While market reactions were that swift, Sabu M Jacob remain unfazed, and why that is so has been our prime exploration in this interview. Dominating a niche is the latest success mantra, but Sabu had figured it out long back. The name Kitex Garments might even be a misnomer as the company doesn’t produce all kinds of garments; rather it is super-specialized in the domain of children’s wear, more specifically infant wear. A question during our interview regarding any plans to extend the brand into any other garment segments was met with a point-blank no. Many other entrepreneurs would have played to the gallery of investors, by replying “May be in the future”, but not Sabu. Similar was the fate of a question aimed at knowing about any probable expansion plans into EU & UK. Apart from another quick no, he shot back a question at us, “What are the birth rates, over there?” Yes, being an infant wear company, Kitex is not interested in such developed markets, where both marriage and birth rates have been falling steadily. “What I sell in US in one month would take one year to sell in EU,” he adds. He has figured it all out long back, and has no

While it is not the most sophisticated campus we have seen, the scale of Kitex Garments is simply stunning. It radiates the feeling of a small Special Economic Zone, complete with expansive buildings and extensive green lawns to compensate. It comes across as a campus of not a Rs. 550 crore turnover company which Kitex Garments is, but a much bigger firm multi-times this size.

plans to waste either his energy or his company’s resources. Instead, during the last couple of years, Sabu has done extensive homework to improve his company’s strategic edge in the infant wear business in USA. While until now Kitex was a one-trick pony of supplying garments to noted brands according to their designs, he has recently diversified into two more businesses – of exclusively supplying to a leading private label in USA on a licensing basis, and of having Kitex’s own brand there. Speaking about resources, that has been another uniqueness that has made investors look at Kitex Garments keenly, since the last few years. More specifically, it is the utilization of resources that has been the real attraction. Even after last year’s stock fall, Kitex is a Rs. 2000 crore company by market cap, and guess from where this value has been built up? From just a Rs. 4.75 crore equity. Speak about capital efficiency! Neither has been this valuation or annual sales of Rs. 550 crore, built upon on massive debt. Kitex Garments has negligible debt compared with what it could have safely taken against its Networth, and even that negligible debt is being retired so as to be a zero debt company with just small working capital loans remaining. Sabu comes across as a business leader who is years, if not decades, ahead of

his time. There are numerous instances where it becomes evident, and one of the most striking is the labour advantage that Kitex enjoys. In an industry where he himself admits that labour is the biggest risk factor, Sabu had taken revolutionary steps almost a decade back to ensure that labour won’t be an issue for Kitex. When he pioneered the concept of excellent hostels with good food and extra-clean bathrooms for workers, many in the industry laughed behind his back thinking that Sabu was making a waste of investments. But today there is no doubt on who is having the last laugh, as unattended labour problems have finally caught up with most textile units elsewhere in the country – even in metro cities like Bangalore – forcing managements to implement hostels and food on an emergency basis. However, there is more to labour welfare at Kitex than good hostels and food. When we sought to interview him, we had suggested for a 5-to-6 PM slot, which on his suggestion was made to a 4-to-5 PM appointment. Why he did that became evident only after the interview started, and the question came upon labour relations. Everyone stops work at 5 PM at Kitex Garments. By 5:05 PM the garment machines are programmed to stop via a sophisticated Siemens control panel. By 5:10 PM the buses leave, carrying all

local workers back to their homes. By 5:15 PM all managers and Sabu himself leave, leaving the huge facility in the hands of the security team. This work culture is something Sabu takes immense pride in, and having visited so many corporates in every industry we too couldn’t resist appreciating this. Sabu specifically contrasted this punctuality with the work culture in India’s textile hubs like Tiruppur and Bangalore, where late hours, overtimes, and overnight shifts are the norm. If anyone thought these ‘restricted’ hours of work is hampering productivity at Kitex Garments, nothing could be more wrong. Despite this 9 to 5 schedule, Kitex produces 5.5 lakhs of finished garments and ships them daily in containers. Not only that, despite not squeezing the workers for more and more hours, Kitex is more profitable – at around 30% EBITDA level – while many of its peers are producing single digit profit percentages or none at all. There are many factors that contribute to the company’s superior operational performance. Kitex is a heavy investor in updated machinery, and in a world where textile units aim to run their machines for 15 or 20 or even 25 years, Sabu has taken a boldly contrarian view, and changes his machines to the most modern versions, every five years. He has forged special contracts with SEASONAL MAGAZINE

European machinery suppliers, who take back his old machines every five years at reasonable prices. Sabu says that apart from financial benefits like depreciation, this has made Kitex workers super-efficient in producing an amazing number of infant wear daily. Secondly, Sabu is a stickler for time both inside and outside the company. While keeping the 9 AM meeting times are sacrosanct, so are enforcing deadlines with clients. This one factor, Sabu says, is tough to master for most companies who deal with clients hundreds or thousand times their size. But at Kitex, if a client delays a deadline, say a design deadline, by two days, Kitex extends its production deadline by two days, and there is no compromise. It takes courage to stand up to big firms, Sabu admits, but it comes naturally to him. While this has given rise to an image that Kitex is a tough company to do business with, Sabu says in the long run all genuine clients are satisfied with his approach, as deadlines are kept sacred. This boldness extends to all facets of Kitex and it is perhaps most evident locally in a unique CSR program that the company has pioneered during the last couple of years. Despite being a compliance-led organization, some local political groups were opposed to Kitex citing alleged pollution norms violations, and how Kitex battled it would one day end up in management text books.

Rs. 1 lakh investment anyone put in Kitex in 2009 would have transformed into 1 crore 33 lakhs – yes, 133 times - within the next six years. Kitex grew at an astounding pace during this six year period, with sales tripling and profit going over the roof, surging by 11 times during this period. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Sabu floated a social service organization Twenty20 as Kitex’s CSR arm. They recruited thousands of paid workers as well as volunteers to do social service including running fair price shops across the neighbouring towns and villages, and made a name for themselves. The Twenty20 candidates also succeeded in winning governance of the local panchayat – a first ever in India! Today Sabu’s efforts in this domain are paying rich dividends as, many of Kitex’s large US based clients have been expressing their interest in part-funding these social programs in India.

Seasonal Magazine interviews Sabu M Jacob, Chairman & Managing Director of Kitex Garments Ltd: Kitex Board has approved additional investments into Kitex USA. What will this be used for? We had opened our own office in the US earlier itself. There are companies which have offices, but these are only sales offices. Ours is a full-fledged office and our approach has been very different. Now, we are taking this to the next level by starting our own design studio. The proposed investment would be worth one million dollars. We are basically investing this for this new design studio. Normally, Indian companies are solely in the business of getting garment orders and then executing it. Now, our normal business is from brands like Gerber, Carters, Mothercare, Toys R Us, Jockey etc. They outsource their designs. Sometimes, they use freelancers in order to design their products. And their respective design departments would approve the designs. Then they place orders with companies like Kitex Garments. Here

we will develop, while the other one is on the CAD. It’s like you can see the design. After placing the order, we print it into the fabric and we make the actual garments. When they see that, sometimes they may not like it fully. But there are not many options before them so they will have to proceed with that. Firstly the time-frame, and secondly the cost involved. If they reject that, we charge back the design cost (around 2000-3000 dollars). Another scenario is that, they might need a different design but there is a natural time constraint involved. So they are forced to accept that. That is what’s happening in this business. We want to change that model with this design studio in US. How will it add more value to your offerings? What we have decided is that we would carry out the designs on our own since we know the pulse of this business. Since we develop for all the major players, we are fully aware of the trend. So, we will make creative designs and we will develop them. Finally, we produce the output too, which are the actual garments. Then we will go to the companies requiring our garments. Some of them may like, say 5 out of 10 designs. So they place orders for those designs. Some others would purchase another set of designs. So the balance designs will also find takers more often than not. The advantage here is that for them there is no risk and they are actually seeing the end product. If they like it, they can go ahead and place an order. If they don’t like it, no commitments and more importantly, they don’t incur any costs. They save a lot on time and they also have satisfactory products that they can sell. Therefore their sales may be much better.

How all will Kitex Garments be benefited from this move? As far as we are concerned, firstly, we’ll anyway have to develop for Lamaze brand as well as our own brand. When we are developing on our own, it would naturally involve increased time and effort. When we do this, what we can gauge from the customers is that, there is a lot of value addition done. When we submit the actual garment samples as designs, they aren’t bothered about a few cents more as we do all the work. So there is chance for getting better prices, better margin and yes, more business. USA is the key market for you, and can you explain the different strategies there like supplying to the best labels, tie-up with a private label, and promoting your own brand? We have three types of businesses in US. One, our private label business which has been the ongoing business in the last 20 years or so. They place the order, we execute it and on that basis we get the prices. This is essentially Gerber, Carters, Mothercare, Toys R Us, Jockey etc. Last year when we started our office there we got a licensed brand called Lamaze. This is our licensed label business. We are the exclusive license

holder of Lamaze brand. So, nobody else can manufacture that. Lamaze is essentially a company that advocates better parenting, breastfeeding etc. So, we see this as a mutually beneficial deal in a common area of business. They are basically into brand promotion while we deal with infant wear. Their headquarters is in Washington DC. They have been in the market for the past 7-8 years but Gerber was the licensee. However, since many years now, we are the ones who produced the Lamaze brand garments for Gerber. Now, we are doing it directly with Lamaze. Thirdly, we have our own label, Little Star. The first one is our primary business, while the licensed label and Little Star we are only accelerating now. Will having your own lower cost brand antagonize your prime client brands? When we decided to enter into the US markets on our own, lots of people asked me whether this would affect our existing business relations with our customers. For the last 3 years, we’ve been working on that. We in fact have formally informed our existing customers. Actually, Lamaze which is the brand that we have licensed only promotes organic products and garments. None of our existing customers are having organic products. So in that itself we are different from all our existing customers. Therefore, we are not competing with them in the same category. Secondly, our own Little Star business is in a different sector altogether. We are not going to be at par with Carters or Gerber. The price levels and design levels are different. We are focusing only on small and midcap chain-stores and malls. Carters and similar brands are selling to Walmart and the likes. They own almost 4000 stores

Everyone stops work at 5 PM at Kitex Garments. By 5:05 PM the garment machines are programmed to stop via a sophisticated Siemens control panel. By 5:10 PM the buses leave, carrying all local workers back to their homes. By 5:15 PM all managers and Sabu himself leave, leaving the huge facility in the hands of the security team. worldwide. Also, our business is mainly targeted at those stores with presence only in a single area or at most with 10 centres overall. There are also certain chains likes Roses Stores, which have only like 200 stores. Therefore, we aren’t encroaching the catchment area of our main customers like Gerber, Carters etc. What is your marketing arrangement with Sam’s Club? Once we started our office and designed something, we designed for Lamaze and we wanted to sell Lamaze products with Sam’s Club. They are actually a subsidiary of Walmart. We therefore approached them to sell Lamaze. They said that they would try their own private label business with us. So we are selling non-organic versions of the same design to Sam’s Club. This has worked out to our advantage. So today, when we approach a customer, we offer them three options - either our private label business, or the Lamaze business, or the Little Star business. They may try out their private label business with our designs and we may also sell the Lamaze products through them, and therefore SEASONAL MAGAZINE

we are getting bigger orders from them. And we hope to leverage more in this fashion. Kitex Garments has been long mulling for merging your listed arm with the Group’s unlisted firm Kitex Childrenswear. You even had a report by Ernst & Young on this. Where does this proposal stand now? See, Kitex Childrenswear is too young in this space. It’s not even working in its full capacity. So, it is too early to merge or list together. The E&Y report talked about the different scenarios possible. One is the two companies merging together. The second proposal was to list Kitex Childrenswear separately. And the third option is to list that company now and merge it with this in the second phase. They gave us the advantages and disadvantages of all the options. But we think that the next 3 years would be very crucial for us on a growth perspective. Therefore we think calendar year 2019 is the time when a direct merger or a post-listing merger can be considered realistically. Kitex stock had a massive correction last year, when the company couldn’t keep up with the growth guidance or expectations. What all contributed to this? The stock market crash had nothing to do with the performance actually. There are various reasons at play here. We had expected a 15% growth last year.

However we could reach only 8%. But we had a good growth in profit. From 27% PBT, we had another 3% increase. Basically, this is what we think: we had invested considerably in our foundation work for example the design studio, the US office, Lamaze, and Little Star brand. The textile industry mainly works in seasons spanning a period of 6 months. When a new brand is launched, the initial buy won’t be in millions. But in that respect, we got like $50,000 orders from such new ventures. We are also pushing all conventional and new channels be it Toys R Us, Sam’s Club, Roses Stores etc. This week is the market week in New York where all the buyers would come. We would be participating in that. We are entering into deals with at least 10 new customers. But here, the stock market expectations were that you would have a 20% or 30% revenue and profit growth rate on a continuous basis.. See, that is impossible on a continuous basis. It does take time during some phases. We are however hopeful of achieving a similar growth period in the near future. Our goal is in fact to achieve double or triple of that. We are very confident about that. We still have to grow production-wise, capacity wise every level it has to be working. So unless we have a strong foundation, you can’t expand furthermore. We do strongly believe that we are moving in

Even after last year’s stock fall, Kitex is a Rs. 2000 crore company by market cap, and guess from where this value has been built up? From just a Rs. 4.75 crore equity. Speak about capital efficiency! Neither has been this Rs. 2000 crore valuation or annual sales of Rs. 550 crore, built upon on massive debt. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

the right direction. Which is why, the next 4 years would be a golden period for us. US economy is going to be very strong. Indian economy is also getting strong. I think during the next 4 years both countries can work miracles in trade, and companies like Kitex would stand to benefit. Some investors had concerns that you were keeping the US deposits in dollars.. See, that is a misunderstanding. People think that US dollars means it is in US. According to RBI guidelines, after a shipment is made, within 180 days the money has to come in. Therefore we aren’t keeping the deposits in US. All our documents are available with SBI and all our receivables are routed through the accounts there. There is no point in hasty conversions as and when the collections come in. Sometimes, the rates are very low. Therefore instead of keeping in rupee, we maintain in US dollars, and we convert it at the right time. Wherever there is forward booking, there is much better rate. This is in fact good for the company. There was a plan to make Kitex Garments into a zero-debt company.. It is already zero-debt. Technically, there are about 5 crores in terms of long-term debt remaining. This is basically for the machinery and all that which had been procured initially. Within another six months, all the repayment would be

While until now Kitex was a one-trick pony of supplying garments to noted brands according to their designs, Sabu has recently diversified into two more businesses – of exclusively supplying to a leading private label in USA on a licensing basis, and of having Kitex’s own brand there.

over. The short-term debt or the working capital, which we cleared in Q2 itself. This Q3, it is actually zero. So the company debt is only 5 crore. Do you have any labour challenges in the factory area that is preventing you from scaling up? See, the major threat in this industry is labour. Globally, every country faces this. Even the factories in Tirupur and Bangalore are also facing the same problem. When we invested here, we made it a point to have hostels for ladies. So in 1995 itself we were the first people to invest in dormitory. At that point of time, everybody was blaming me. Now everybody is constructing the same. The women workers come here as the dormitories are high class. Now, 60% of my labour is from outside state. For another 10 years, we don’t expect to see any kind of labour problems. Actually, my question was whether

there is under-utilization of the capacity of the factory. Any plans to introduce shifts? No, not at all. Every day we are adding capacity and we are utilizing that capacity too. Shifts are not possible here. That’s because the efficiency will drop, safety issues will come up, product safety will be questioned. In this business it is a very high risk if something goes wrong, the product being the sensitive infant wear. Kitex has earlier in the year been a major beneficiary of some new subsidy programs. Have they been effective as your expectations? Yes, earlier it was 7%, now it is 10%. This is actually a draw back as now whatever you export they have increased from 7% to 10%. So 3% you are getting draw back. In addition to that, for additional labour you will get subsidy on PF for initial remit and reimbursement. So these subsidies have been beneficial to us. What is your take on the business environment in the country and the recent global developments vis-à-vis business? Indian economy is getting strong, and the new US President has underlined a very positive approach to business. I compare Modi and Trump on the same level and they have a similar wavelength. I am certain that it is going to be a strong partnership which will bring a lot of benefits to India. Trump has a certain disdain for China and scepticism for Pakistan. These are huge advantages to India’s business prospects. So, his realistic option would be to work with India and promote business relations. You know the recently held US election was a bit different from

previous ones. Everyone was uncertain about how things would turn out. Most of the media and opinion polls predicted a Hillary Clinton Presidency, but they were proven wrong. However, I had a hunch that Trump would emerge victorious. In fact, on taking a quick poll in our own office in US, 7 out of 10 people felt Hillary would win but that they will vote for Trump (laughs). Media created such a scene that Hillary seemed destined to win. But the Americans have given their verdict. I personally feel it is a very good thing for America. I think he can go on to become one of the best Presidents of USA. The last two quarter results have been flattish for Kitex, due to lower demand at customers like Jockey. Have they been back to normal? That is honestly a story of the past. It doesn’t affect our current business. This has been converted to some other customers. Are you planning to enter new segments apart from kids wear? No, we would like to remain in this business alone. Are there plans to develop currently smaller markets for you like UK and European Union? No, and honestly UK and EU are very small markets. We don’t deem it necessary for our growth plans. We are into mass production. By 2018, we believe that we can produce close to 1.1 to 1.2 million pieces per day. If I want to sell this quantity to Europe, maybe I can sell it by taking a whole year (laughs). The issue is the birthrate is very low. Not many are getting married and even if they get married, they decide not to have children. The American market is quite different. These 1.1 million SEASONAL MAGAZINE

pieces I can sell to a single customer in the US. That’s the difference. We already have 5-6 customers and we are looking to add another 10 more.

Despite this 9 to 5 schedule, Kitex produces 5.5 lakhs of finished garments and ships them daily in containers. Not only that, despite not squeezing the workers for more and more hours, Kitex is more profitable – at around 30% EBITDA level – while many of its peers are producing single digit profit percentages or none at all.

Some critics have alleged that when you got into politics, the business suffered. Is there any truth in these views? I don’t think it is right to call it politics. We believe this is a kind of CSR activity. It is a kind of community governance model. Of course, politicians would oppose our initiatives. But when you do a lot of good activities within the village, it is a model to the world. Secondly, you get the support of the people for your business because they are also benefited. We offer concessional benefits in provisions, roadworks etc. There is also potential to get more business. We are currently in talks with a new customer who is willing to contribute 1% towards CSR activities. They are also thinking of the community. Globally many companies wants to do something for the community. These activities are beneficial to the company’s future growth. What we are doing is offering a sustainable model of community development. We ensure that every paisa is spent on the really deserving people. Most of the new customers we are adding are thrilled to see this and are quite eager to work with us. Even they feel that this is the right way of doing business.

Sabu comes across as a business leader who is years, if not decades, ahead of his time. There are numerous instances where it becomes evident, and one of the most striking is the labour advantage that Kitex enjoys, thanks to its modern hostels and facilities.

How can you juggle so many roles, especially in political governance? See, our current PM, Shri Narendra Modi, was a tea-seller. And now he is ruling the country. Therefore, there is no capacity limitation for any individual. If you have the will, you can do it. For me, looking after a panchayat is not a big deal. Besides, there is an elected body managing affairs so I am not directly involved. Does your bold stand on local issues upset some of the leaders and politicians? Since politics is their domain, they would naturally feel threatened when new players come into the picture. That’s quite understandable. However, the only resistance seems to be coming from the local leaders who may have felt intimidated by our involvement. Otherwise, the state and national level leaders have no issues whatsoever and have welcomed such initiatives on many occasions. They know very well that our business is solely to look after the development of this panchayat. What are your plans for bettering investor returns in the foreseeable future? It has only been in the last 4-5 years that big investors have been focusing on

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Kitex. But if you look back, from 1995 onward, Kitex has been a very stable company. From long back, every year it has offered a certain growth. Both profit and sales have gone up. It has never gone down. We are a company with 100% compliance, with very strong ethics, very strong policies, strong foundation. Even our customers think we are a little tough. Because we go with the Bible. Let’s say somebody wanted to place an order. There is a calendar we adhere to. They have to submit the CAD to us on a given date. By a subsequent date, we have to develop the requirements. And so, we have a detailed plan of action that is communicated with the customer. We have a calendar for every buyer. However, it may so happen that they may encounter some delays in their end and so they may request for a compromise on dates at our end. We however decline any such requests politely. In fact, we respond saying that we too would extend the delivery depending on the number of days delayed. Without such principles and diligence we can’t keep deadlines. And if we don’t keep deadlines, we have to airlift the products at the last moment and the profits suffer. It is by avoiding such pitfalls that we remain one of the most profitable textile companies in India.

Indian govt hopeful of meeting rural roads target for FY17 Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), a flagship scheme of the Ministry of Rural Development, is hopeful of achieving the annual targeted length of 48,812 kilometers of rural roads by March 31, 2017, as the construction work picks up from January to May every year.

n a press statement, it has been announced that as on January 27, 2017, a total of 32,963 kilometers has been completed which is 67.53 percent of the annual target. This translates to 111 kilometers of roads getting constructed every day. According to the annual target (48,812 kilometers), the average per day construction should be 133 kilometeres per day. The statement also mentioned that another major achievement has been the focus of using “green” technologies and non-conventional materials (waste plastic, cold mix, geo-textiles, fly ash, Year (s)

2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 Total

In India’s decidedly mediocre education system, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have been celebrated for many things. For decades, they produced a legion of top-notch engineers that scrambled up the corporate ladder in the US, with some even rising to the very top. Lately, though, it’s the horde of entrepreneurs coming out of these elite engineering schools that’s caught everyone’s fancy. And some are incredibly successful. In fact, according to an analysis by British software firm Sage, the IITs are among the best in the world at churning out founders of unicorns—i.e. privately-held startups valued at $1 billion or more.

copper and iron slag etc.) in construction of PMGSY roads because these are locally available, low cost, nonpolluting, labour friendly and fast construction technologies / materials. In the first 14 years of PMGSY (from 2000 to 2014), only 806.93 kilometers of roads were constructed using these technologies / materials. In the last 2 years (2014-2016), 2,634.02 kilometers of PMGSY roads have been constructed using these technologies /materials. In the present year (2016-17) till date (January 27, 2017), 3,000 kilometers have been constructed using these technologies / materials.

Length completed (in kms) up to January

021750 018080 016914 026650 025709 032963 142067

MOST UNICORN FOUNDERS IN THE WORLD ARE GRADUATES OF STANFORD, HARVARD…AND THE IITS

Habitations connected (in nos) up to January

04142 05491 04670 08368 05903 06473 35047

Of course, unlike Stanford or Harvard, the IITs are now a collection of 23 autonomous institutions, having grown from the original five established between 1951 and 1963. So, combining the number of unicorn founders from individual IITs into a single head is somewhat misleading. Still, the statistical oversight doesn’t entirely overshadow the entrepreneurial achievements of IIT alumni who, among other things, must also clear one of toughest entrance exams in the world to find a seat at India’s elite engineering schools. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

FREEDOM OF PRESS

Is traditional media dying under Modi and Trump? Modi has had an uneasy relationship with the media even during his CM days. Although his ire was reserved for those in the mainstream media, who he felt were being dishonest in their portrayal of him, Modi has mostly preferred to engage directly with his cohort of supporters through social media and radio talks like Mann Ki Baat. Trump’s affection for Twitter is no secret as well. So, what explains their contempt and distrust for traditional media sources? n Donald Trump’s first few days in office, American journalists have been surprised at how rapidly the new US presidential administration began to curb their access to government. For Indian journalists, the Trump White House’s efforts to control how members of the media can engage with government sources is eerily familiar. In the weeks after the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi was elected in 2014, his administration took similar steps to reduce access to ministers and bureaucrats of various departments for members of the press and centralize communications through the office of the prime minister. “In the early stages, there is a highly centralized color to the Trump administration that echoes, in some respects, the modus operandi of the Modi regime,” says Milan Vaishnav, senior associate in the South Asia program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Not only has the White House put several agencies on notice when it comes to issuing public statements without prior approval, it has also tightly managed the transition process.” Like Trump, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a larger-than-life politician who harnessed social media to speak directly to supporters, tweeting SEASONAL MAGAZINE

regularly and building a large following. Both leaders were criticized heavily by the media during their campaigns and had a somewhat adversarial relationship with members of the press when they assumed office. In power, both have chosen to bypass traditional media in order to control the message sent to the public. “Donald Trump’s relationship with the press has many parallels to Narendra Modi’s approach to the media in India,” says Sumit Galhotra, former senior researcher at Committee to Protect Journalist’s Asia program. “Both leaders have exhibited an uneasiness with the media and are uncomfortable with the press playing the role of watchdog adversary.” As early as Trump’s inauguration day, there were signs that reporters would be given limited access to this

“

Both Trump and Modi have attempted to create a onedirectional relationship with the press: journalists should amplify their message but should not be given the space to challenge it.

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administration. Breaking with a longestablished precedent, Trump restricted access to the two official inaugural balls to pool press coverage only. Previously, official inaugural balls were “open press” events, which meant that any reporter could cover them, as long as they were cleared by security. The US Environmental Protection Agency staff was told to stop communicating with the press or the public “effective immediately.” Employees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Interior Department have also seen directives limiting how they communicate with the public. In the months following Modi’s election in 2014, his administration took similar steps. Doordarshan News and All India Radio (AIR), both state-backed broadcasters, were immediately made the administration’s favored choice for disseminating information to the public, and journalists from other outlets complained that they were kept out of the loop. AIR and Doordarshan’s lesscombative questioning style allowed Modi’s government to carefully curate

coverage and avoid tough questions. Reporters in India complained that information on the new administration was hard to come by, and that government staff had stopped responding to phone calls and text messages. Throughout Modi’s term, journalists have been directed to the prime minister’s speeches, press statements, and Twitter feed. Ministers and bureaucrats are told to avoid the media and speak only when Modi offers an “official line.” Some ministers are even told to refrain from speaking to journalists at all and leave it to their department’s official spokesperson. “What this means is, to paraphrase an old adage, that ‘those who know do not speak, and those who speak do not know,’” says Vaishnav. “There has been a lot of communication from the government, but it’s been very top-down,” N Ravi, editor of the Hindu newspaper and president of the Editors Guild of India, told Reuters. “It’s been a

one-way street.” Each month Modi records a radio show titled “Mann ki Baat” (“Talking from the Heart”) on AIR, often using his address to the nation to promote some government policy. While India’s previous prime minister was accompanied by 30 or more journalists when he travelled outside the country, Modi chose to take only nine journalists on his 2014 trip to the US—most of which were from state-funded media.

“Several journalists I met with in India shared the belief that Modi was tightening the screws on the flow of information and found newsgathering was becoming more difficult. I think the same can be said of Trump’s early moves in office,” says Galhotra. “Both Trump and Modi have attempted to create a one-directional relationship with the press: journalists should amplify their message but should not be given the space to challenge it.” One reason this tactic has been effective in both countries is that public trust in the media has eroded. In September 2016 a Gallup survey found that American’s trust in the mass media had sunk to an all-time low, with only 32% saying they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the media. Likewise, according to a 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, the media is the least trusted institution in India. “In India, the rightwing has succeeded at denigrating the media, by labelling them “presstitutes” and painting them as corrupt,” says Galhotra. “I see Trump and his supporters making similar attempts here at home to undermine the public’s trust in the media.” In Modi’s India, the press has often found it hard to effectively do its job and hold govern ment accountable. The Editors Guild of India issued a statement saying, “Diminishing access to informa tion to journalists and the media runs against the grain of democratic functioning in an age of openness, transparency, and right to information.” Without access to government officials, the prime minister’s Twitter feed has become a primary news source. “One news source that is fast acquiring a monopoly over the dissemination of the government news—apart from the Press Information Bureau, which is

churning out press statements at an unprecedented pace—is the prime minister himself,” wrote journalist Dhirendra K Jha. “Modi’s tweets, in fact, are fast becoming the main source of news for the mediapersons in Delhi.” And on Twitter and radio addresses, journalists have no opportunity to question Modi. Several Indian journalists say they increasingly face backlash for producing journalism that questions or criticizes the Modi administration or the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is at the helm of the government currently. The environment is one in which “you can’t say anything against Modi,” says Swati Chaturvedi, a print and TV journalist who filed a police report after receiving hundreds of threats a day. “It’s a systematic sort of harassment and bullying which will eventually silence a lot of people who don’t have the confidence to fight back.” “We might be looking at one of the most illiberal periods for the media operating in India, with the government indulging in a form of unilateral messaging and many media outlets surrendering their irreverence in favor of adulatory reporting,” according to journalist Nidhi Dutt. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Modi plans to set up a new journalism university, modelled on Beijing’s massive government-run Communication University of China, to train thousands of journalists in government propaganda. It remains to be seen if Trump’s administration will change course in the coming months; it has already backtracked on some of its mediarelated directives. For example, vicepresident Mike Pence had said that the administration was considering getting rid of the press briefing room in the White House and moving reporters to “a larger venue” elsewhere on the complex. Though Pence framed this as a way to make room for more journalists, it has raised alarm bells in the media. Last week, in an interview with Fox and Friends, Trump said, “The press went crazy, so I said, ‘Let’s not move it.’” SEASONAL MAGAZINE

A U T O

HONDA CITY 2017: FIRST LOOK The current Honda is three years old in India, indicating that there will be an update later this year. This updated model has been launched in Thailand and is mostly cosmetic updates while remaining the same mechanically.

NEW TOYOTA ETIOS LIVA IS ALL ABOUT BETTER SAFETY Toyota Kirloskar Motor is getting into a pitched battle with fellow auto makers to lure prospe ctive buyers this year by launching the dual-tone of its hatchback Etios Liva. The new Liva comes with a revamped exterior and is equipped with dual front SRS Airbags, ABS with EBD and ISOFIX child seat Locks. The refreshed Etios Liva comes in two models, V and VX models, and is attractively priced in the range of Rs 5,94,535 to 6,44,861 for petrol and Rs 7,24,361 to Rs 7,61,403.

n the outside, the revised Honda City gets a new fascia which matches the latest design philosophy of the Japanese automaker. The bumpers too are new and give the car a sporty appeal. Move over to the side and it is familiar City fare with the exception of a new design for the alloy wheels. This new design is the diamond cut variety and for the Indian market is likely to be optional alongside the current design. The rear bumper has become bigger and the tail lamps in the newly revived ZX variant will be the LED units that were optional extras for the current model. The Thai market gets the option of a black and grey cabin with silver inserts which we believe will be the shade in the top spec VX and ZX variants. However, the rest are expected to continue with the more popular beige and black trim level. The feature list will continue as is but with an updated infotainment system. On the engine front, this facelifted City will continue with the 1.5-litre petrol and 1.5-litre diesel. The former produces 119bhp/145Nm while the diesel produces 98bhp/200Nm. A six-speed manual will be standard for both while the petrol will also get the option of a CVT. In terms of safety, the City is expected to get dual airbags and ABS as standard across the range. This is an important car for Honda as it one of the models that helps them gain volumes. It will take on the likes of the Hyundai Verna, Maruti Suzuki Ciaz, Nissan Sunny and the Renault Scala. It is also their competitor for vehicles like the Renault Duster, Nissan Terrano and the Hyundai Creta. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

The Etios Liva's exterior has new front grille with black finish, chrome fog lamp bezel, electrically-foldable ORVMs and a new roof spoiler. New list of features on the inside include piano black instrument panel and rear removable headrests, among others. The Liva has been designed with better safety measures which include dual airbags for both driver and passenger on the front, Anti-Lock Breaking (ABS) and Electronic Brakeforce Distribution (EBD) across all models and all grades, all five seats with three-point ELR (Emergency Locking Retractor) seatbelts, etc. N. Raja, director and senior vice president (Sales and Marketing) said the focus of the new car is on improved safety. "The new Etios Liva sets a benchmark in safety with

standardized dual airbags and AntiLock Braking System (ABS) with Electronic Brake-force Distribution (EBD) across all grades which is the first in the industry. New ISOFIX child seat locks for all models and all grades has been added to ensure safety of children." "It is with this underlying philosophy that Toyota has come a long way with the Etios series. We had introduced our first dual tone Etios during the festive season in the year 2015 which had received overwhelming response. Later during September 2016, we had introduced the Platinum Etios and Liva catering to the changing taste of Indian customers, setting new standards of safety, dependability, quality and performance." “The new generation Dual-Tone Etios Liva” is a whole package with the best in class safety features, fuel efficiency, space, stylish looks, quality and performance. It sets a benchmark in safety with standardized dual air bags and AntiLock Braking System (ABS) with Electronic Brake-force Distribution (EBD) across all grades which is the first in the industry. New ISOFIX child seat locks for all models and all grades has been added to ensure safety of children. We are confident that Indian customers will appreciate the most trendiest hatchback in town”. He further added.

SELF-HELP

HERE'S A NEW YEAR RESOLUTION - LEARN HOW TO SAY "NO" WHEN IT MATTERS

We have all confronted situations when we have had to turn down a request from an office colleague or a friend. But do we say no instinctively or is it pragmatic to learn it like an art? Turns out that it may not be such a bad idea to treat each request on its merit rather than the person in question, especially when it involves someone close to you and while the clock is ticking fast before your next deadline is due.

ike many professionals, I used the first month of the New Year – January - to reflect on what I wanted to accomplish in 2017. I tried to keep my list of goals short and focused, but I went into the year with a lot on my plate. How am I going to make room to take on these new things? That’s where an important skill comes in: saying no. Most people have way more to do than they can possibly fit into their workweek. The smartest ones are constantly reprioritizing their to-do lists. We constantly face this predicament while deciding which goals and tasks to prioritize, elevate, delegate, or tolerate. To stop more things, or the wrong things, from creeping onto your list, you have to start saying no. Which strategies work? I looked back at several compelling opinions on the topic of saying no, and here’s what I found. First, avoid a knee-jerk reaction to being asked to do something. If you’re already working at maximum capacity, you might be tempted to flat-out reject any requests that come in. But for your own sake, it’s helpful if you think through each request. Carefully weigh the costs — not just your time and effort, but the opportunity cost as well. Compare the request with your priorities for the year to help you make a sound decision and to develop a rationale for why you’re saying no. Remember that you’ll probably have to say no to things you actually want to do, whether it’s write an article, lead a project, or go to a conference. Just because you want to do something doesn’t mean it’s worth the costs. Keep in mind that you’re saying no to the request, not the person. Make this clear by expressing your respect for your SEASONAL MAGAZINE

colleague or simply by being polite. Sure, your colleague may not be happy with you pushing back, but it doesn’t have to be a personal affront, especially if you have a good reason. Acknowledge the impact your “no” has - it might mean that your colleague has to do the task herself or find someone else to take it on. Have empathy for the situation she’s in. The “no” will be much easier to swallow (and harder to object to) if you provide a clear but short explanation for why you can’t do what you’ve been asked to. You might already have too much on your plate or feel that you can’t do the task well. Whatever the reason, be honest and straightforward. If you want to maintain a positive relationship with the person, you can also offer a lifeline, a small way that you can be helpful without taking on the full project. Can you help her think through who else would be up to the task or how to get it started? Might you serve as a sounding board if she takes on the project herself? If it’s possible that your availability will change, you might offer to keep the person updated on whether you’re able to take on the task at a later date. But, as in any situation, only say this if you mean it. Throughout the conversation, watch your body language. Your aim is to convey a “neutral no,” like a referee in a game who doesn’t have a stake in either side but calls it like it is. Try to keep your voice even and steady and don’t fidget, which conveys discomfort. If you’re overly apologetic or wishy-washy, you risk giving your colleague false hopes that she can change your mind and further prolonging the conversation. Be firm, but kind. Almost every article on this topic

in the HBR archive suggests practicing ahead of time. Whether there’s a specific request you need to build up the courage to reject or you’ve simply fallen into the trap of saying yes too often, it helps to rehearse what you will say. Think through how you’ll express empathy, explain your rationale, and stay firm if your colleague gets pushy. You can write down what you’re going to say and practice it a few times. Consider preparing for different scenarios: What if the person pushes back or asks for a different version of the request? How will you react? Peter Bregman suggests you go into a room by yourself and say “no” out loud 10 times. He says that while it “sounds crazy…building your no muscle helps.” This can be more complicated if the person you have to say no to is your boss. Sometimes you’ll have to educate your manager on what saying yes would mean. Will another task be delayed? Will you have to hire a contractor to handle another project? It helps to sit down with your manager to go over your priorities and talk about how this new request fits in. Ideally, your boss will be able to help you make the necessary trade-offs. As Karen Dillon says in one of the episodes of the HBR IdeaCast, “A good manager shouldn’t want you to feel overwhelmed. A good manager should want you to be able to find ways to say yes to things that are important enough that they’re asking you to add it to your plate.” This is easier for some people than for others. If you tend to be conflict avoidant, it’s possible that saying no terrifies you. It’s certainly not my favorite thing to do, but I think about it this way: Saying no now is far easier than explaining later why you dropped the ball.

TRADITION

The Bond That Sustains Nature and Humans ‘GODDESS SARASWATI SYMBOLISES A RARE, HOLISTIC AND MULTICULTURAL STREAM OF TRADITION THAT HAS CREATED AND RECREATED INDIA’, SAYS NOTED COLUMNIST MRINAL PANDE, FORMER CHIEF EDITOR OF HINDI DAILY ‘HINDUSTAN’ AND AUTHOR OF THE HIGHLY ACCLAIMED NOVEL DEVI: TALES OF THE GODDESS OF OUR TIME

ach year in the month of Magha (the 11th month in the Hindu calendar), the fifth day of the new moon, or Vasant Panchami, marks the day for Saraswati pooja. This year, it falls on February 12. As the faithful offer flowers, vermilion, incense and prayers to their mighty goddess and her symbols – musical instruments, pen, paper and ink – it is worth realizing that she is one of the rare Vedic deities to have survived through the centuries with her name and mystical powers intact. It is especially remarkable because according to Hindu mythology, Saraswati, has found a prominent place alongside the post-Vedic male trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh/Shiva. Saraswati, like Goddess Lakshmi (Sri, the Vedic goddess of wealth) has an important place in the divine pantheon and within Hindu homes. The source of Saraswati Let us start Saraswati’s tale at the very beginning. Once upon a time, migrant tribes crossing the Sindhu river from the West settled next to a river by the name of Saraswati. This mighty river flowed westwards from the Himalayas between the Satluj and Yamuna, into the Arabian sea. The settlers worshipped her as their mother goddess. As they created a magnificent triad of Vedic literature, Saraswati, to them, became the supreme goddess of learning. The French writer Colette once advised fellow writers to follow the generic verb to locate the real heart of a word. The verb behind the name Saraswati is the

Saraswati, like Goddess Lakshmi (Sri, the Vedic goddess of wealth) has an important place in the divine pantheon and within Hindu homes. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

MRINAL PANDE

Sanskrit sru, signifying a constant and self-renewing flow of both pure water and also gyan or knowledge. A river with a name such as this was bound to merge and mutate with the Vedic goddess Vac, the creator of multiple streams of fluid thought. Thus Saraswati was born as a constantly purifying, fertilising force that lent fluidity to languages and sustained all art forms. After the merger of Vac with Saraswati, even after the original river had petered out in the deserts of Rajasthan, Saraswati continued to signify a sustaining bond between humans and nature, a creator of the sense of nationhood. In the famous Vac Sutra, the goddess says: “I move among the Gods, I hold them, sustain them… whosoever breathes, sees, hears or eats does so because of me… I create powerful creators and embed them with wisdom and sight… my powers overflow the universe..” Free soul Like all beautiful, eloquent and cerebral women, Saraswati’s life is a turbulent saga of a million mutinies. Unlike the charming Lakshmi, the goddess of big things and big money, Saraswati is a haughty and disputatious loner, fond of roaming with her veena, her books and a string of rudraksha beads. She is also, like most free souls, fearless, quick of tongue, and ever ready to give back as good as she gets. One myth describes her as the cerebral progeny of Brahma. The powerful Vedic god, the creator of all things, like many creative artists, fell in love with his own creation and chased Saraswati. But his mercurial daughter escaped his advances. Still, wifehood followed her. Myths describe her as having become Vishnu’s wilful wife, constantly quarrelling with his other wives, Ganga and Lakshmi. Like many men, Vishnu sorted out his domestic squabbles by presenting Ganga to Shiva and Saraswati to Brahma while retaining the domesticated Lakshmi with her considerable bounty. Saraswati seethed within. She deliberately arrived late to participate in

Mrinal Pande

a vital yagna being performed by her father-cum-consort Brahma that could not be performed without his wife being present. But Saraswati was furious to find that Brahma had, in the meanwhile, married Gayatri to complete the ritual. She then cursed Brahma before stomping off: there would be no temples built to Brahma and even within ones that existed, he would be worshipped only once a year. What is more, it seems Saraswati’s ire did not end there. In Pushkar, Rajasthan, in 1984, Mahant Laharpuri, priest of the rare temple to Brahma, moved court asking that he also be allowed to access the temple of Brahma’s alienated wife Savitri (Saraswati) for five days every year and collect the offerings made there. The counsel of Saraswati, represented by the priest of the Savitri temple, challenged this saying that Saraswati as Savitri was an alienated wife and the Brahma temple must pay her alimony instead. The court, referring to Hindu law, rejected the demand made by the priest of the Brahma temple as deities are perpetual minors. Essence of art It is interesting that the lives of many famous women writers and musicians follow a trajectory similar to that of Saraswati’s. Take for example the famed

To this day Saraswati as the goddess Vac refuses to be a domesticated goddess with a temple roof over her head.

14th-century poet Laldyad of Kashmir, who was starved and tortured by her husband’s family for lapsing into mystical silences and sudden bouts of singing till she could take it no more. She is said to have taken to wandering naked as Mahadevi Akka, her 12th century soul sister in South India, composing her immortal lyrics sung as vakh, the earliest form of Kashmiri poetry: “My womb never carried a child, I never gave breast to a baby, Never tasted the milk with turmeric and ginger...” To this day Saraswati as the goddess Vac refuses to be a domesticated goddess with a temple roof over her head. She prefers, it seems, to remain an abstraction, as the supreme power of rasa, the essential communication the arts create between minds through poetry, literature, sacred rituals and occasionally defiant thoughts. The Vac Sukta in the Rigveda says the Sangamani or unifier, Saraswati, creates nations, (aham rashtri, Sangamani). As Chikitushi she constantly raises questions about linkages between people and nature. As Bhuryaveshayanti she brings into an intellectual fold all that seems disconnected but is actually not. This is no ordinary goddess. She is a feminine force that creates intimate partnerships of the mind not through a macho display of power or feminine wiles, but through gender, creed and caste neutral sakhyatva or friendship. Once a bond is formed between the artist and the rasika or connoisseur, like a beautiful woman, Vac shall uninhibitedly reveal her all to a goodhearted partner, says the Brihaspati Sukta (10/79). It is a pity that the study of Saraswati as Vac – and as a mighty river of tradition accepting and carrying all streams of thought – remains mostly limited to a study of a certain aspect of the Hindu tradition. Saraswati symbolises a rare, holistic and multicultural stream of tradition that has created and recreated India. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

WISDOM

Dravid: 'Winning Isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Everything, Building Career Most Important' While the Indian colts may have coasted through the series against their English counterparts, their respective coaches Rahul Dravid and Mark Ramprakash believe there is something more than just winning at this level. Dravid, who also coaches the India A team, argues that while senior cricket involves discussions around tactics, junior cricketers have to concentrate on finetuning their technical aspect. Even if at the cost of ending up on the losing side.

n a practice pitch at the Wankhede Stadium, two leftarm spinners are being put through their paces. Liam Patterson-White and Louis Shaw, both 18, have played second-eleven cricket for Nottinghamshire and Surrey respectively. In a little over an hour, they bowl close to 10 overs each - some deliveries are too full, some short, some are either too slow or too quick, and some even land perfectly at the right pace. On an adjacent pitch, an England batsman is facing throw-downs from a member of the support staff. He is informed of the field set for him: "a midoff, cover, point, a sweeper cover, third man, mid-on, deep square leg and fine leg." A slip is belatedly added. A few crisp drives into the net and a couple of false strokes ensue, including a badly-timed pull that finds the imaginary mid-on fielder. There is plenty of talent in these nets, but a lot of it is raw talent. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

DRAVID IS INSISTENT THAT PLAYERS LEARN, IMBIBE AND REFLECT AT THIS LEVEL, RATHER THAN FOCUS ON RESULTS OR CREATING A WINNING HABIT. What goes into turning these bright teenagers into consistent, successful players at a higher level? "It's important for me not to forget how young they are and how little cricket they've played," England's batting coach Mark Ramprakash, who is in India with the Under-19s squad, says. "The simple things that we take for granted, you have to remember that they may not know that. Coaching is a balance of supporting them, telling them what they've done well, but also asking the right questions to where they can improve. "As soon as the batsmen come in, they're talking about their dismissal, which I don't like. I want to know what they've done well." Ramprakash, who has never coached at this level before, says there isn't too much of a difference between coaching the senior team and the Under-19s. "It's a similar task and a similar style. With the senior team, I don't give my opinion too much unless I'm invited. If they say 'what do you think', then I'll give my opinion but otherwise I'm trying help them think about their game and how they want to play in different situations. "A lot of the players now are mature in the way they carry themselves. They are open-minded, level-headed, and that impressed me because the youngsters weren't like this 15-20 years ago. There's a lot of support, almost parenting in a way because they are young. "The emphasis is to meet halfway - the player must give and the coach must give. I try to build a friendly relationship between the players where they can feel open and confident in talking to the coach. As a player, that two-way relationship was never established with any coach in my England career." As the series wears on, you begin to see the players improve subtly. In the first two ODIs, the India Under-19s opener Shubman Gill is dismissed as a result of hard hands through the line of the ball. In the third ODI, he plays the ball a lot later and strikes a match-winning 138.

Gill's coach Rahul Dravid is in charge of the Under-19s as well as the India A side. The two roles, Dravid says, are slightly different.

Gill's coach Rahul Dravid is in charge of the Under-19s as well as the India A side. The two roles, Dravid says, are slightly different. "You're looking at skills and temperament. To identify the pitfalls for them at a higher level," he says. "For example, if one of the boys looks good here, but you tell him, "if you don't improve in these areas, you will have a problem in the Ranji Trophy", making them aware of that. They don't play fast bowling, short bowling as much, we try to give them exposure of that here. It's a little more technical here compared with India A. Here you intervene. Here you have time. I tell them it doesn't matter where you are now, it matters where you are at the end of the cycle." In the England Under-19s' camp, both coach Andy Hurry and Ramprakash stress on the importance of inculcating the basics at this level, since the players' instincts aren't as developed as at more senior levels. "If people have good technique, they have a method of play that repeats," Ramprakash says. "Some of the Indian top-order players, technically, they're very good, they have a good stance, balanced, orthodox, good grip, pick the

Dravid is insistent that players learn, imbibe and reflect at this level, rather than focus on results or creating a winning habit.

bat up. It looks in sync and so it repeats. So you're more likely to be successful. That technical input is important at an early age to find that technique. With the first team, I find myself talking little about technique, more tactical. "If you have good basics, you can succeed at any level. In trying to produce an international cricketer, you have to have the basics that work at first-class level. You still need to be able to score at the first-class level, where there may be less pace, otherwise you may not get to the international level. In training, we want to expose the boys to challenging practice, pushing them in terms of pace, the method of playing accurate spin bowling." Dravid is insistent that players learn, imbibe and reflect at this level, rather than focus on results or creating a winning habit. He has also broadened India's pool of Under-19s, creating an environment for studying the game and taking those lessons to whichever level the players go on to next. "As long as they learn, I don't care about much else," Dravid says. "Even if you fail, if you go back with the right feedback, you're better off than having succeeded and not reflected on it. I was at an Under-17 camp and Hanumant Singh used to tell me, "don't focus on results at this stage, focus on developing your career". I feel so similarly about this. "The more they fail, as long as they reflect upon it and recognise these are the shortcomings and this is what you need to improve on. That's our job, to make them aware of the things they need to work on and become better players. No magic pill; I can't give them a formula that will make them successful. It's up to them to go back and put in the work. "Even if some of them don't make it to the [Under-19] World Cup, I want them to feel they've had an opportunity in and around the group. And they've got some level of feedback, exposure at this level so that it can only benefit them when they go back to play." SEASONAL MAGAZINE

AS US TIGHTENS, JAPAN EASES he relaxation of the Green Card system and of visa requirement was part of the country’s three-pronged strategy to improve the environment for foreign companies. India’s skilled workforce employed in Japan will now find it easier to obtain permanent residency there as the country is planning to ease its rules for issuing ‘green cards’ from April this year.

part of the country’s three-pronged strategy to improve the environment for foreign companies. The Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan is also getting Japanese laws and regulations translated into foreign languages to attract investors. The third part of the strategy involves putting in place an investment

To bridge the information gap between Japan and partner countries such as India, JETRO has an Invest Japan Business Support Centre (IBSC) which has six temporary offices in six major Japanese cities. Specialists at the IBSC give advice on how to start a business in Japan including legal advice and information on business cost, market regulations, real estate, human resources as well as business culture.

“It will now take just one-two years for skilled foreigners to get permanent residency in Japan as opposed to five years,” said Kazuya Nakajo, Chief Director General, Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO), at a press conference co-organised with industry body CII, recently. Nakajo said the relaxation of the Green Card system and of visa requirement was

MEET AUDI'S NEW A3 CABRIOLET THE MODEL COMES WITH A 1.4 LITRE PETROL ENGINE WITH AVERAGE FUEL CONSUMPTION OF 19.2 KM/LT. THE HOOD CAN BE RAISED OR LOWERED EVEN AT SPEEDS UP TO 50KMPH.

erman luxury car manufacturer Audi has announced launched of its convertible Audi A3 Cabriolet priced at Rs 47.98 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). The model comes with a 1.4 litre petrol engine with on average fuel consumption of 19.2 km/lt. The hood can be raised or lowered even at speeds up to 50kmph, the company said in a statement. Commenting on the launch, Audi India Head Rahil Ansari said: "It is just the beginning of a very exciting line up of new and improved vehicles that we plan to unveil in 2017. The new Audi A3 Cabriolet perfectly truly reflects 'luxury without compromise'." He said the Audi A3 Cabriolet was first showcased in India in 2014 and had received an overwhelming response from young and SEASONAL MAGAZINE

advisor assignment system. “We will try to play go-between to bring Indian and Japanese businesses together,” Nakajo said. The Japanese official pointed out that there was an investment imbalance between Japan and India. The total inflow of FDI from India to Japan till 2015 was only $0.074 billion while Japanese investment into India was $14.1 billion.

young-at-heart customers. Among the new features, the A3 Cabriolet also has newly redesigned rear lights with a distinctive tail light configuration and dynamic turn signals are installed in the LED rear lights, it added.

GADGETS

APPLE BEATS 'APPLE OF CHINA' XIAOMI IN CHINA! APPLE HAS FINALLY HALTED THE DREAM RUN OF XIAOMI IN CHINA, THE LARGEST SMARTPHONE MARKET IN THE WORLD, EDGING THE CHINESE PHONE GIANT FROM THE FOURTH SLOT BY SHIPPING NEARLY 45 MILLION IPHONES TO THE COMMUNIST NATION, A REPORT BY MARKET RESEARCH FIRM IDC SAID. PPO, Huawei, and Vivo lead other smartphone brands in China in 2016, latest International Data Corpora tion (IDC) Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report said. "Xiaomi was China's hottest phone brand in 2014 and 2015, but it couldn't maintain the momentum in 2016," IDC report said. Shipping 41.5 million smartphones, Xiaomi once known as 'the Apple of China' was the No. 5 brand in China last year. Apple, which took the fourth slot shipped 44.9 million iPhones to China (vs.58.4 million in 2015), the world's largest phone market, it said. "The big winner was Oppo, which shipped 78.4 million phones - more than double the 35.4 million it shipped in 2015. Huawei came in at second, shipping 76 million phones, while Vivo managed to almost double its shipments, going from 35 million in 2015 to 69 million last year," it said. "2016 was the first time ever that Apple

saw a YoY decline in the Chinese market. Even though the new black coloured iPhones caught the attention of consumers, overall, the new launches did not create as much of a frenzy compared to the past," the IDC report said. "Despite the decline, IDC does not believe Chinese vendors have actually eaten away Apple's market share. Most Apple users are expected to be holding out for the new iPhone that will be launched this year, and that will help the brand to see a growth in 2017." "Apple's 10-year anniversary iPhone will also likely attract some of the highend Android users in China to convert to an iPhone," it said. "Most brands are now using a combination of channels to increase their shipments. Xiaomi, previously focused on online channels, has opened more Mi Home stores to drive offline growth. Apple has also been aggressive in increasing its offline retail presence," it said.

The top three Chinese brands grabbed a total of 48 per cent of the Chinese market last year. Jin Di, a research manager with IDC China, said another reason behind the success of Chinese brands was their willingness to share profits with distribution partners. Apple dropped from third in 2015 to fourth in 2016, as shipments to China plunged 23.2 per cent to 44.9 million units. Xiaomi was top in 2015, but fell to the bottom of the top-five vendors, with a 36 per cent plunge in sales in China. Total smartphone shipment volume in China rose 8.7 per cent to 467.3 million handsets last year. The IDC forecast that the volume in 2017 will continue to grow as consumers replace old phones, but that the growth will be slower than 2016. Worldwide, the top five smartphone vendors in terms of shipments last year were Samsung, Apple, Huawei, OPPO and Vivo.

"Apple's 10-year anniversary iPhone will also likely attract some of the high-end Android users in China to convert to an iPhone,"

SEASONAL MAGAZINE

GADGETS HMD IS MADE UP OF VETERAN NOKIA STAFF, AND DEVELOPS BASIC FEATURE PHONES, AS WELL AS SMARTPHONES AND TABLETS RUNNING ON THE ANDROID PLATFORM. smartphone Nokia 6, the company is expected to announce two new smartphones at the Mobile World Congress later this month. One of these, the Nokia P1, has had many leaks over the past few weeks, so here’s everything we know. The Nokia P1 is rumoured to feature a metal and glass combination design, possibly with a ceramic back similar to the Xiaomi Mi Mix. Concept videos indicate dual hybrid SIM slots on the left edge, with the volume rockers and power button on the opposite side.

NOKIA IS BACK IN BUSINESS, IN SUPREME STYLE NOKIA ’S BR AND AND IT ARIT AY IN CHINA, NOKIA’S BRAND ITSS POPUL POPULARIT ARITYY IS ON DISPL DISPLA W H E R E T H E C O M PPA A N Y ’ S R E C E N T LLYY U N V E I L E D A N D R O I D SMAR TPHONE, THE NOKIA 6 HA W RE A CHED 1.4 MILLION SMARTPHONE, HASS NO NOW REA R EEG G I SSTT RRA ATIONS – AHE A D O F I TTSS S EEC C O N D F LLA A S H SSALE. ALE. THE AHEA PHONE HAD G A R N E R E D 2 , 5 0 , 0 0 0 R EEG G I SSTT RRA AT I O N S J U S T 2 4 GA .C OM, RE A CHING THE ONE THEYY OPENED ON JD JD.C .COM, REA HOURS AFTER THE AYS . THE FIRS A SH SSALE ALE MILLION NUMBER IN JU W DDA JUSS T A FE FEW FIRSTT FL FLA S A W THE PHONE GOING OUT OF SSTT OCK WITHIN 60 SE C OND SEC ONDSS . he phone is brought to the market by HMD Global, a Finnish company that develops mobile devices under the "Nokia" brand name. It was formed in May 2016 announcing its purchase of part of Microsoft Mobile's feature phone business, the successor of Nokia's mobile phone business, and a licensing agreement. The sale was completed in December 2016. It is headed by CEO Arto Nummela and is headquartered in Espoo near Helsinki, SEASONAL MAGAZINE

in front of Nokia's headquarters. HMD is made up of veteran Nokia staff, and develops basic feature phones, as well as smartphones and tablets running on the Android platform. Manufacturing and distribution is performed by Foxconn's FIH Mobile division. Nokia itself does not directly invest in HMD but has a board member representative, sets mandatory requirements, and receives royalty payments for patents. After the roaring success of its mid-range

The camera is centrally placed near the top of the rear, with the LED flash and logo underneath. The bottom edge houses the UCB Type-C port and 3.5mm audio jack while the Home button, which doubles as a fingerprint scanner, sits below the display. Leaks hint at the device being available in Silver, Black, and Rose Gold variants. The P1 is tipped to feature a 5.3-inch IGZO display with full HD or possibly QHD resolution, and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on top. It will have the latest Snapdragon 835 SoC with 6GB RAM. Although Samsung is first in line to launch a device with the Snapdragon 835, when the Galaxy S8 comes out, it’s still possible Nokia could announce the device at MWC and then only release it in April. The P1 is also expected to have 128GB and 256GB storage variants, and be IP57 certified. Other rumours indicate the Nokia P1 will place focus on the camera, featuring a 22.6MP rear shooter from Carl Zeiss and a dedicated shutter button. It’s also rumoured to run the Z-Launcher UI on top of Android 7.0 Nougat, and powered by a 3500mAh battery. Leaks suggest the P1 will be priced at US $800 (approximately Rs 54,500) for the 128GB version and $950 (approximately Rs 64,700)for the 256GB variant, in a prime spot to compete with the likes of the upcoming Galaxy S8, the Google PIxel XL, and the iPhone 7. We’ll know more when Nokia takes the stage for its keynote at MWC 2017 later this month.

CRICKET

WHEN AN INDIAN BECOMES CHINAMAN

Kuldeep Yadav became the first Indian men's chinaman bowler to earn a call-up to the Test side as Amit Mishra was ruled out of the one-off Test versus Bangladesh in Hyderabad.

India were forced to make a change to their one-off Test squad against Bangladesh as Amit Mishra, who injured himself was replaced by Uttar Pradesh and Kolkata Knight Riders' left-arm chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav. Although he is not the first ever Indian chinaman blower as that tag belongs to Preeti Dimri, he became the first ever chinaman bowler to earn a call-up in the Indian Test team.

have originated with the former West Indian spinner Ellis Achong. Back in 1933, England hosted West Indies in a Test match in Old Trafford. Achong, said to be a left-arm orthodox spinner or slow left-arm as it is popularly said bowled an unexpected delivery from his wrist which got a sharp turn after pitching outside off and got the English batsman Walter Robins stumped. Achong was the first Test cricketer of Chinese origin and

Not only that, he is only the second bowler in Indian cricket currently who belongs to a rare breed. The other one is Shivil Kaushik, who took people by surprise with his Paul Adams-esque "frog in a blender" bowling action when he played for the Gujarat Lions last year in the Indian Premier League.

WHO MADE IT BIG?

WHAT IS CHINAMAN? So what is Chinaman bowling? In layman's term it's basically left-arm legspin - the same as right-arm leg-spin. While a leg spinner turns the ball away from the right hander, a chinaman bowler brings it back into him, which can sometimes make life difficult. As a right-handed batsman, your natural instinct is to expect the ball to turn away from you . It's also called left-arm unorthodox spin. This a rare type and is actually considered to be more dangerous because of the sharp turn it generates into a right hander or away from the left hander.

VARIATIONS OF A CHINAMAN BOWLER Well, it is traditionally wrist spin. A chinaman bowler has the normal variations of a normal wrist spin bowler. The stock ball comes into the right hander and leaves a left handed batsman. If he possesses ' a 'Googly', the ball is supposed to leave the right hander and come into the left hander.

WHY CHINAMAN? The term is traditionally believed to

Mohammed, Michael Rippon and Lakshan Sandakan are the ones who made the teams solely due to their bowling. Now one might wonder that what is the legendary Garry Sobers doing in the list? He was a left-arm fast bowler - well, he used to turn his wrist once in a while as well, to add one more dimension to his game. Even Achong, Tribe, Wardle and Martin were not specialised chinaman bowlers as they used to bowl finger spin as well.

it is believed that a perplexed and angry Robins commented while walking towards the pavilion - "Fancy being done by a bloody Chinaman." From then, left-arm wrist spinners have been referred to as chinaman bowlers.

HISTORY OF CHINAMAN BOWLING Well, this is a rare breed all together. So much so that there have been only around 30 of them in international cricket. Out of these only 16 - Achong, Chuck Fleetwood-Smith, George Tribe, Johnny Wardle, Garfield Sobers, Lindsay Kline, Johnny Martin, David Sincock, Inshan Ali, Bernard Julien, Paul Adams, Brad Hogg, Beau Casson, Dave

Not many have mastered the art really. But two people who really made it big are Australia's Hogg and South Africa's Adams. Hogg was always under the shadow of Shane Warne but whenever he got a chance, he performed admirably and slowly became an integral part of two World Cup-winning squads in 2003 and 2007. He has played 123 one-day internationals and picked up 156 wickets. He has also represented the Aussies in seven Tests and 15 T20Is picking up 17 and seven wickets in the process. However, Hoggy has enjoyed a renaissance of sorts since T20 leagues around the world started. The 45-yearold has enjoyed tremendous success in the Big Bash League and the IPL to be specific and is still going strong. Adams on the other hand has played 45 Tests and picked up 134 wickets for South Africa. He also played 24 ODIs, picking up 29 wickets in them. Recently, Sri Lanka's Sandakan made his mark in international cricket as he picked nine wickets in three Tests for Sri Lanka. He has also played five ODIs and two T20Is for the island nation and has four and five wickets to his name respectively. Other notable mentions will include Dave Mohammed, Michael Bevan and Simon Katich. Well, chances of Kuldeep getting a game against Bangladesh in Hyderabad are slim but with age on his side and having a sense of mystery with him, he is well on the road to create history and become India's first ever chinaman bowler. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

OPINION

‘The 2017-18 Budget Simply Preserves The Existing Balance of Power Against Farmer’ Interests’: Yogendra Yadav Yogendra Yadav isn’t just like any other ‘political analyst’. From leaving the AAP over Kejriwal’ authoritative nature and debunking Congress’ and BJP’ myths about their “pro-poor policies”, Yadav is widely regarded as offering a refreshingly new perspective on the Indian political scenario. An enemy of the status quo, Professor Yadav laments the agenda of Jaitley’s much-vaunted budget speech and argues that it is far from being an inclusive budget.

t was a replay of last year. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley read out his budget speech, paying special attention to agriculture and rural areas. He highlighted a few figures. The media caught on to his words and figures and declared the budget to be pro-farmer, pro-rural and pro-poor.

Just when the farmers were about to celebrate the first good harvest after two years, they were hit by demonetisation. Prices crashed for some perishable crops. Farmers scrambled for cash to pay for seeds, fertilisers and labour for sowing the new crop. They badly needed, and hoped for, some big relief in this budget.

We analysed the FM speech in our KisanSansad, held this year at Jantar Mantar, to coincide with the budget presentation. We were disappointed and angry. Some of us went to TV studios, tried to expose the truth behind the finance minister’s words and selective figures. Anchors wore an incredulous look. We appeared like habitual complainers, if not professional regimehaters. Politics and TV moved on.

That’s not what they got. Let us review four key dimensions of farm economy: amad (income), kharch (cost and expenditure), apad (disaster protection) and karj (debt).

As I read newspaper headlines, editorials and commentaries this morning, I notice positivity all over: fine balance, no populism, tight-rope walk. I began to wonder if we are the ones who have lost our sense of balance. I went over our expectations and the budget once again. The farming sector had reasons to expect something big this year. We are living through an era of agrarian crisis and rural distress. Let me not bore you with numbers. Enough to remind that while the share of population dependent on agriculture is going down very slowly, the share of agriculture in the country’s income is coming down rapidly. Two successive droughts brought down growth in agriculture production. We even had negative growth in agriculture. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

On farmers’ income, the finance minister repeated last year’s solemn assurance: “The government is committed to doubling farmers’ income in the next six years (now five years)”. Lovely. Except that he has not clarified, despite repeatedly queries from economists, whether he is talking of nominal income, that keeps increasing with inflation, or real income. Nor did he spell out any blue print for how this is to be achieved. Not even a para. Farmers’ movements have been demanding a legislation on minimum assured income for the farmers. The “krishi budget” speech in our KisanSansad had made a concrete proposal in this regard. Minimally, the finance minister could have announced a Farmers’ Income Commission. He did not. He did not find it necessary to even report the progress made towards increasing farm income in the last one year. Not even one figure. Just imagine the outrage in the business media if the FM had made a similar casual announcement about, say, doubling the income of IT industry. I did not notice

any such outrage yesterday. On agriculture inputs – seeds, fertilisers, water, electricity – there was no mention in the finance minister’s speech. Experts noted with satisfaction that the huge bill of fertilizer subsidy was not hiked. Fair enough. Fertiliser subsidy is poorly targeted and benefits big companies more than farmers. In any case it is a perverse incentive to put more fertilisers that damage the soil. Could the FM not

have done something to ensure better targeting and utilisation of this amount? There was a lot of talk about ‘reforms’ but I did not hear anything on this reform. There was a lot of expectation on relieving farmers of some part of the huge debt burden. Instead the finance minister repeated the routine announcement about credit target for the farm sector. This year the target is Rs 10 lakh crore. The media presented it as big bonanza, without mentioning that it was routine increment from Rs 9 lakh

of farmers caught in debt-trap do need such a relief. For most of them, a relief in the interest part of their outstanding dues would have been a great help. They also needed a scheme to shift loan taken from money-lenders, who charge exorbitant rates, to banking institutions. None of this came up for even a mention. Finally, the issue of protecting farmers against the vagaries of weather, worsening due to climate change. The finance minister waxed eloquently about the Prime Ministers Fasal BimaYojna. He drew applause by

new scheme has so far provided insurance cover to additional 5 percent of the farmers while the cost for the government has gone up more than fourfold. The question that begs an answer is: did this additional money go to the farmers or to private insurance companies? There was also an irony that no one noticed. The government has spent more than Rs 13,000 crore this year in covering less than 30 percent farmers. Next year it proposes to cover 40 percent farmers under the same scheme with just Rs 9,000 crores. Would the finance minister play this joke with any other sector? What about crop loss compensation? Currently the government pays the farmers a princely sum of Rs 2,700 for complete crop loss in one acre of unirrigated land. Every year we hear reports of farmers getting compensation check of Rs 27 or something like that. There was no mention of revision of this cruel joke. Forget natural disasters. The finance minister did not provide a paisa for compensating the farmers for the disaster inflicted by the government’s own policy of demonetisation. The pain of urban middle class standing in queues to withdraw their money from ATM was evident in TV studios. The trauma of farmers and daily wageearners who lost their income due to demonetisation was not. As I reviewed the budget speech, I came to see the ‘balance’ in a different light. Budget is not merely an accounting exercise. It is an exercise in political will. Budgetary allocation is where you see the real political priorities of a government. Is the government willing to put its money where its mouth is? Which way does it wish to tilt the existing balance of power?

crores last year. It overlooked the fact that the government was not paying for this. It was merely asking the banks to extend this loan. In any case, no one remarked on the small detail that an overwhelming majority of this loan does not go to any farmer. Agri-business companies corner much of this loan. Farmers needed something else. They were not asking for a blanket farm-loan waiver. A section

showing how the government has spent more than double the amount budgeted for this scheme. He glossed over some crucial details, and so did the media. The PMFBY replaced a range of preexisting crop-insurance schemes which covered only about 21 percent of the farmers, at a cost of little less than Rs. 3,000 crore. Those schemes were rightly criticised and replaced by PMFBY. The

Seen in this light, Arun Jaitley’s budget is indeed a very ‘balanced’ budget. It preserves the existing balance of power. If you view this exercise from the top of the pyramid, maintaining balance is a virtue. But if you happen to view the budget from the bottom of the pyramid, a balancing act is nothing short of a curse, for it perpetuates the existing imbalance. That is what my colleagues in KisanSansad wanted to say to the TV anchors. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

OPINION

“It’s normal to fail as a President, but Trump is a failed role model too”: Cohen Richard Cohen, an American conservative commentator, often waded into controversial issues including his strong backing of Bush’ Iraq War and Israel’s military invasion of Gaza. Liberals despise him for his conservative view on a host of other issues like race relations, economy etc. But his scathing criticism of US President Donald Trump has won him quite a lot of hearts. y friend has a teenage son. He’s a good kid, well-beha ved, impeccably mannered and exasperatingly unpredic table, as many teenagers are — a man one minute, a boy the next. My friend has schooled his son in the verities of life — be truthful, be reliable, be civil, be patient and, above all, be humble. Now, though, my friend does not know what to say. Donald Trump has left him silent. There are many reasons to loathe Trump. His policies are mostly wrong, and even those that are right have been chaotically announced or implemented. He prescribes barroom oaths for an economy that needs thought and creativity. He would let the Earth bake rather than take the most rudimentary of steps to moderate global warming. He alienates allies and friends, embraces enemies and indulges in a noxious moral relativism in which, somehow, Russia and America are on the same level. But it is my friend’s dilemma that best evokes what is so repellent about Trump. He is the winner who was supposed to lose. He is the bully in the fourth grade who never meets his match. He is the liar whose lies somehow don’t matter. He is the braggart who is never humbled. He refutes what Johnny Tremain was told and every child once instructed: “Pride goeth before a fall.” No, with Trump pride goeth before everything . Donald Trump is the most un-American of presidents. Think of Abraham Lincoln — “Honest Abe.” Will anyone ever call Trump “Honest Don”? Will he be known for his humility or for his lust for knowledge? Will tales be told about his industrious work habits or, as with Lyndon Johnson, his furious desire to end racial discrimination? What will Trump overcome? Or George Washington. Could there ever be an equivalent of the Parson Weems tale about Trump’s honesty: SEASONAL MAGAZINE

“Father, I cannot tell a lie”? No, it would have to be “Father, some Mexican cut down the cherry tree.” Or Dwight Eisenhower and his chain-smoking determination on the eve of D-Day, or Ronald Reagan and his affable demeanor with a bullet in him, or George H.W. Bush, who left his cushy country club life and volunteered for war at the age of 18, or Franklin D. Roosevelt, standing on atrophied legs, the braces digging into his flesh, or Barack Obama, whose dignity in the face of Trump’s revolting “birther” taunts is now so sorely missed. Trump repudiates them all. He will leave no myth, just an odor.

As a kid, I was a paperboy, and the walls of the place where we picked up our papers were plastered with pictures of former paperboys — some sports figures, some presidents, some military officers. Ike was one. Roy Campanella, the Brooklyn Dodgers catcher, was another and so was the “G.I.’s General,” Omar Bradley, the last of the five-stars. I used to study that wall, wonder about those men and whether I could ever be like them. I envision it now. There is no room for Trump there. He does not qualify. Never mind that he was never a paperboy. More important, he is no role model.

Myths have a certain staying power because, really, they are aspirational — not always who we are, but always who we want to be. We see ourselves as good and generous. We believe we are a virtuous nation. There is no monarchy or dictatorship in our past. We have always been a democracy, and even our presidential palace is sometimes called “the people’s house.” I am aware, of course, of slavery and Jim Crow and enduring racism. I am aware, too, of the near-extirpation of the American Indians and the raw anti-Semitism that doomed many Jews fleeing Hitler. All of this is unforgivable, unforgettable too.

A father instructs. He raises a child to be good, to be honest, to tell the truth, to be humble, to be fair, not to be petty, to respect women, to accept fair criticism, to protect the weak and not to injure the injured, such as the bereaved parents of a son who died heroically in Iraq and a reporter with a physical disability. Trump teaches otherwise. He shows a boy that the manly virtues are for suckers, that the narcissism of youth should be cherished and that angry impulses have to be honored. Lots of men have failed as presidents, as Trump surely will, but few fail so dismally as role models. He’s a boy’s idea of a man. He’s a man’s idea of a boy.

HEALTH

YOUR KIDNEYS ARE MOST SUSCEPTIBLE TO UNHEALTHY LIFESTYLES In a recent webinar hosted by Dr. Devi Shetty, 3 leading nephrologists in the country Dr. Rammohan Bhat, Dr. Deepak Shankar Ray, Dr. Sunil Dharmani spoke at length about kidney disease and its health implications. All of them agreed that, while lifethreatening, kidney diseases often does not show symptoms till its later stages by which time it can take an immense toll on the quality of life. How does kidney failure occur? Kidney failure occurs when your kidneys lose the ability to filter waste from your blood sufficiently. Many factors can interfere with your kidney health and function, such as: a) Toxic exposure to environmental pollutants b) Certain acute and chronic diseases c) Severe dehydration d) Kidney trauma Your body becomes overloaded with toxins if your kidneys canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do their regular job. This can lead to kidney failure and can even be life-threatening if left untreated. What are the symptoms of kidney failure? According to Dr. Dharmani, many different symptoms can be signs of kidney failure. No symptoms are present sometimes, but usually someone with kidney failure will see a few signs of the disease. Possible symptoms include: 1. A reduced amount of urine 2. Swelling of your legs, ankles and feet from retention of fluids caused by the failure of your kidneys to eliminate water waste 3. Unexplained shortness of breath 4. Excessive drowsiness or fatigue 5. Persistent nausea 6. Confusion 7. Pain or pressure in your chest 8. Itching 9. Seizures How can one prevent kidney problems? According to Dr. Bhat, there are eight golden rules one should follow to keep kidney problems at bay. Exercise regularly, monitor and control blood sugar level, monitor your blood pressure, eat healthy and stay fit, have sufficient fluid intake, if not advised otherwise by your doctor. Smoking causes more kidney trouble, give it up and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take over-the-counter pills like

up, leading to coma and death. It is in these situations that a transplant is suggested. Post the initial few months of the transplant, says Dr. Ray, the life of a kidney transplant patient goes back to being almost normal supported by some regular medication and exercising. Any time is good time for a kidney transplant, thanks to the advancement in technology. If you are fit, you are ready for transplant. What are the advancements in kidney care & transplant?

painkillers if not prescribed- they have ill effects on kidney functioning too. Regular check-up of urine, blood sugar and blood pressure are the keys to steer clear of Kidney issues, said the doctors unanimously. What is Dialysis and what are the kinds of dialysis? Dialysis is the artificial process of eliminating waste (diffusion) and unwanted water (ultrafiltration) from the blood. Our kidneys do this naturally. Some people, however, may have failed or damaged kidneys which cannot carry out the function properly - they may need dialysis. In other words, dialysis is the artificial replacement for lost kidney function (renal replacement therapy). They are of two kinds -Peritoneal and Haemodialysis. For Haemodialysis, the blood circulates outside the body of the patient - it goes through a machine that has special filters. The blood comes out of the patient through a catheter (a flexible tube) that is inserted into the vein, gets cleansed and is put back in. In Peritoneal however, a sterile (dialysate) solution rich in minerals and glucose is run through a tube into the peritoneal cavity, the abdominal body cavity around the intestine, where the peritoneal membrane acts as a semi-permeable membrane. In other words, peritoneal dialysis uses the lining of the abdomen as a filter of waste products from the blood. When is kidney transplant suggested? An end stage kidney disease needs treatment to prevent life threatening consequences of the waste product build

About one-third of people who offer to donate a kidney will either be blood-type incompatible or human leukocyte antigen (HLA) incompatible with their intended recipient. Kidney paired donation (KPD), or kidney exchange, circumvents the incompatibility between donor and intended recipient by redistributing organs among two or more donors before the transplants. In the simplest type of KPD, two donors exchange kidneys so that their two candidates can each receive a compatible transplant. This along with ABO incompatible transplant protocol, in which now transplants can now be possible between previously incompatible blood groups makes transplant way easier, saving lives. How will it be to survive with one kidney? Dr. Dharmani commented that a person could happily function almost like a regular individual on just one kidney. So whether one is born with one kidney, has one functioning kidney or has lost a kidney owing to failure, a little medical help and regular exercising along with a healthy lifestyle is enough to sail one through. What are the kinds of kidney problems that will occur in children? According to Dr. Bhat, kidney problems in children usually are congenital in kind, where the children either have small kidney, are born with joint kidneys, have extra kidney valves, etc. They might have a case of excessive protein leakage known as nephrotic syndrome, however, all of which can be controlled, treated and revived through medicinal intervention owing to advancement in the field of paediatric nephrology. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

had approached the doctors complaining of minor ailments like stomach ache or pelvic pain or white discharge.

2,200 Karnataka Women Lose Uterus to Doctors' Greed

A major racket involving removal of uteruses of nearly 2,200 women belonging to the Lambani and dalit communities has come to light, with four hospitals involved continuing to function despite losing their licences.

omen and activist groups are criticizing the governme nt for not shutting down the hospitals. Though the racket was busted in August 2015 and the health department's enquiry committee report in October 2015 cancelled the licences of four hospitals, they are functioning even today. Recently, thousands of affected women and activists protested in front of the office of the Kalaburagi deputy commissioner, and raised their voice through NGOs like Alternate Law Forum, Vimochana and Swaraj Abhiyan in Bengaluru. Vinay Sreenivasa, advocate and member of ALF said, "The hospitals used these

women to make a quick buck. It is gross violation of human rights and should be a noncognizable offence under the IPC, and Karnataka Medical Council Act. The government must book doctors in the four hospitals, and the hospital managements under the IPC and close them permanently. It also calls for stricter regulation of the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments Act, 2007." The Women's Commission took up a suo motu case against the hospitals, and filed its report the same year. According to the report filed by the health department, hysterectomies (surgery to remove the uterus) were unnecessarily done. Most of the women

Most of the women had vague lower abdominal pain and low backache, for which they approached doctors in the hospitals. They were subjected to ultrasound examination and were given some medication for a short period. During subsequent visits, without subjecting the women to further evaluation, women who failed to get any relief were told that they would develop cancer of the uterus if they do not undergo a hysterectomy. This particular sequence of events was the same in most cases. These women were not given any other treatment options. For fear of developing cancer, these women underwent hysterectomy operations. The team also came to know about agencies working for hospitals which would offer monetary incentives for frontline workers like ASHA Anganwadi workers to get patients to their hospitals for surgeries. However, they refused to give us a written statement to substantiate this...After the enquiry, the committee felt that many hysterectomies were done with no proper indications. The women who could have conservative management have been subjected to hysterectomies," the report reads. The report says the women who were targeted were not just poor but 40% 50% of them were below the age of 40 years. Basava Hospital, is registered in the name of a doctor who is a government servant, which is a violation of 'conduct rules', it reveals. Vinay added, "One reason why the hospitals even function till today is because of the connivance of local health officials. And that Kalaburagi is far from sight for the government. If it was Bengaluru, they may have taken stern steps." SEASONAL MAGAZINE

KARNATAKA: Malleshwaram 23441738, 737 & 637 I Jayanagar 26538140, 26536899 I Bommanahalli 25733020 I K R Puram 25615151 I Yelahanka 28460443 I Whitefield 22716595 I Kengeri 28488155 I Nelamangala 27722020 I Mysuru 2500797, 2512482 I Hubballi 2358564, 2257029 I TELANGANA Abids 24753183, 7784, 63777 I Kukkatapally 23057163, 23057263 I Secundrabad, 27712993, 27712994 I Warangal 2448787, 2458787 I ANDHRA PRADESH Vijayawada 2482587, 72587 & 88 Vizag 2525259, 2737629 I Tirupathi 2244601, 2240950 I Kurnool 278180, 228180 I Nellore 2335855, 2335856 I Rajamundry 2430717, 2475717 I Anantapuram 244173 I Guntur 2222587 I Kakinada 2342555 I TAMIL NADU Chennai 24349364, 24354453 I Coimbatore 2470438, 2470017 I Kumbakonam 2402280, 2423480 I Trichy 2760208, 2760209 I Madurai 2530229 2530299 I Nagercoil 276900, 277111 I Dindigul 2441445, 9025511445 I Erode 2255664, 2255661 I Chidambaram 222202 I Villupuram 229666, 229667 I Karaikudi 230229 I KERALA Cochin 2375051 I Calicut 4044033 I Palghat I UTTAR PRADESH Noida 2455203, 2455201-2 I MAHARASHTRA Malad 28803278, 28803273 I Pune 24430535, 24430536 I Chinchwad 20275539, 65112393 I Nasik 2469629, 2469639 I

SMART APPS

CHINESE APP MEITU GOES VIRAL, PRIVACY ISSUES REMAIN The company listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange at a valuation of around 4.9bn Hong Kong dollars (£500m). Primarily targeting women and (those with long hair!), the app is also becoming an instant hit amongst those wishing to publicly degrade the rich and famous, including the likes of US President Donald Trump. However, privacy issues have held some users back.

If you've suddenly seen glamorous selfies popping up everywhere on social media, you can thank Meitu, a Chinese photo-editing app that has suddenly become an overnight hit in the West.

The app has been a hit in Asia for years but was only recently released in the UK and elsewhere in January. As well as offering the typical features of photo apps such as borders and red-eye removal, the real magic of the app is a bizarre "hand-drawn" mode that turns photos into portrait-like images. Users first upload a photo and apply one of several beauty filters to touch their pictures up. When it goes into the drawing mode, the app will change its subject's eye colour and add make-up, whiten teeth and introduce other effects. Users choose one of seven filters Angelic, Blossoms, Fairy Tale, New Year, Petals, Mermaid and Baroness each slightly more disturbing than the last. Photo filtering and editing apps are always top pick among users, and when it hands out an option to beautify selfies or portraits of celebrities to such an extent that they appear like anime characters, it certainly is bound to be the instant hit. That’s what Meitu is all about; beautifying portrait images with a touch that essentially can transform the weirdest into the coolest. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Once Meitu’s popularity spread like wildfire, some information-security skeptics took to Twitter to warn of the extent of access users were giving up to make themselves look like anime characters. According to infosec expert Will Strafach, the iOS version of Meitu isn't as intrusive. "Overall, the information collected by this app would appear to be on par with analytics information collected within most iOS apps which are currently live in the App Store," he wrote after conducting a quick assessment of the app.

While adding a discreet Instagram filter to a selfie to cover up a blemish is a well-worn trick, Meitu goes several steps further by turning headshots almost into cartoons. Meitu isn’t totally a new entry. The app was introduced way back in 2008, but remained exclusive to China until January 2017. Ever since it reached out its arm to the global market, people have been going frenzy with the new app, and there’s a reason for it.

The Android version of the app requires a particularly long list of permissions. Along with the typical photo and camera access you'd expect, Meitu asks Android users for access to: full network access, the phone's status and ID, USB storage, contacts, messages, IMEI number. To make matters worse, that info gets sent to multiple servers in China.

As well as its photo-editing software, the company sells phones specially designed for taking selfies and a livestreaming video service.

However, security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski

Two things to keep in mind about Meitu: First, it has better uses than making Trump adorable. Second, while it does offer many useful features, no single app can meet all the needs of die-hard selfie enthusiasts. China is known for its obsession with selfie apps that make it look as if you’ve just had plastic surgery. Meitu is just one of them. There are so many others used in China, including ones made in Japan and South Korea, that it can quickly become bewildering. Though criticized for its handling of user data, the app has enjoyed a surge in popularity in the West since the feature’s introduction. That’s good news for the company behind it, Xiamen Meitu Technology, which went public in Hong Kong last month and hopes it has a global hit on its hands, having already enjoyed major success in China. Meitu is loaded with quite a strong list of editing features, and there’s nothing that turns the users down as with its editing capabilities. Even reviewers are showering down big praises for the app. But there’s one thing which users must be aware of before trying out the Meitu magic: privacy concerns.

spotted that Meitu’s iOS version is able to even uniquely identify the device using the hardware Mac address of iPhones. Speculations are that Meitu is selling the data to companies with advertising interests. In an official statement, Meitu denies that the data collection is excessive or nefarious in any way. Instead, the information is collected to "optimize app performance," nothing more. "Meitu DOES NOT sell user data in any form," it reads. Instead, the statement claims that the app uses so many tracking systems because the company is based in China, where "many of the services provided provided by app stores are blocked." In order to keep the tracking consistent, the multiple layers are necessary.

BUSINESS GYAN

The Book Every CEO & Entrepreneur Must Read To Stay Ahead Of The Times

HE OFT-CLICHÉD PHRASE 'CONNECTING THE DOTS' CANNOT FIND A MORE MEANINGFUL ALLY THAN JOSHUA COOPER RAMO'S GROUNDBREAKING NEW BOOK THE SEVENTH SENSE. A POLICY EXPERT WHO HAS ADVISED THE MOST POWERFUL NATIONS AND CORPORATIONS, RAMO DRAWS ON EXAMPLES FROM BUSINESS, SCIENCE, AND POLITICS TO ILLUMINATE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE DIGITAL AGE AND OFFERS PRESCRIPTIONS ON HOW TO SURVIVE IT.

ooking through a list of the books that global CEOs read in 2016, I discovered an interesting fact: the CEOs evidently read an eclectic range of fiction and non-fiction, from Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom to Dealing SEASONAL MAGAZINE

With China: An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower by Henry Paulson. But one book that figured on the list of nearly one quarter of the CEOs was The Seventh Sense by Joshua Cooper Ramo, sub-titled Power, Fortune and Survival in the Age of Networks. It intrigued me. What were the esoteric

insights this book contained, that made all these CEOs want to read it? What the book does, essentially, is to examine various disturbing global phenomena today – like the financial crisis, terrorism, the inequalities of wealth, the breakdown of our ecosystem, the rise of political

extremism, the refugee crisis. And then it proceeds to decode a single historical pattern that connects all of these seemingly random dots. In that sense, this book is a kind of successor to influential works like Alvin Toffler’s The Third Wave, John Naisbitt’s Megatrends and Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. The credentials of the author, Joshua Cooper Ramo, are interesting. He is the 48-year old Co-CEO and Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates, the advisory firm set up by Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State, which advises some of the world’s largest corporates on heavy-duty geopolitical issues. Ramo has also been a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Leaders for Tomorrow, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the youngest ever Foreign Editor of Time magazine. So, presumably, he knows what he’s talking about. The networks all around us Ramo’s thesis is that all of these seemingly unsolvable global problems, whether the unending financial crisis or terrorism, ultimately have one common cause – and that is the networks that define our age. It’s not just the internet but the whole world of networks that surrounds us: financial webs, trade networks, terror networks, artificial intelligence matrixes, DNA databases, the ecosystem of global epidemics etc. In fact, we are living in a tumultuous new Network Age, which is triggering a fundamental shift in the world order, as profound as that caused by the Industrial Revolution 150 years ago. And unless we can makes sense of how these networks function, we are in deep trouble. Those who can figure out the networks can control the system; those who can’t will end up becoming its servants. This is true at the individual, organisational, as well as societal level. During the turmoil of the Industrial Age, when the new-fangled factories and transport systems were disrupting the world, and leaving people bewildered by the magnitude of change, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche proposed that our five senses weren’t enough to cope with what was happening, and that human beings

needed to develop a “Sixth Sense” to make sense of it all. In other words, a feel for the patterns of history. Likewise, Ramo says that what we need today is to develop a “Seventh Sense” in order to make sense of our baffling, ever-faster, always-on, networked world. If we can acquire this Seventh Sense, it can help us get past the esoteric technology (and warp speed) that usually obscure the true nature of today’s world from us, and help us to see the world as it really is.

Ramo’s thesis is that all of these seemingly unsolvable global problems, whether the unending financial crisis or terrorism, ultimately have one common cause and that is the networks that define our age.

The world is, in fact, divided into two groups, Ramo says: On the one hand, there are our leaders and policy makers, typically people over fifty, who are completely blind to the way the networks operate. And, on the other hand, there is a whole new generation of power-holders who, typically, grew up in a digital world, and who instinctively understand how networks function. They are the kind of people who can, for example, see a car seat and think “Uber”, or see a spare bedroom and think “Airbnb”. Or, indeed, those who can see Twitter and think “political movement”. (Donald Trump, with his 5 million Twitter followers, is an interesting example of an old generation leader with an innate instinct for networks.) These two groups live in two completely different realities, and between them they are tearing our world apart. The challenge, therefore, is to equip a new breed of visionaries with a sense of how the networks really, truly operate – and how to channel them creatively, in spheres from business to politics, from security matters to our everyday human life. The Seventh Sense is a scary book, yes. But it has an underlying theme of hope. Because it tells us that once we penetrate the opacities of Network Effect – once we understand that all networks are essentially the same, whether Facebook or the human brain, that understanding can help us locate where the power resides within those systems. And once we get that that, we are equipped to turn “unfixable” problems into opportunities. Also, equally importantly, we are equipped to create new ways to regulate those networks, which are spinning out of control, because the old ways have become totally irrelevant.

Ramo goes on to explain that any institution not specifically created for this new network age – whether a political, economic, military, educational, or any other kind of institution – is unequipped to tackle today’s problems, and can indeed lead to outcomes that are the opposite of what we intend. And, in any case, such a system is ultimately doomed to disintegrate under the upheavals of the age.

This book is an interesting starting point towards making all that happen. But it is only a starting point. I have a sneaky feeling many of the global CEOs who read the book have now engaged Joshua Cooper Ramo and Kissinger Associates (at multi-million dollar consulting fees) for a more detailed understanding that will move their organisations higher up the Network learning curve – and, thereby, higher up the global food chain. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

A U T O

VOLKSWAGEN AND BOSCH AGREE TO COMPENSATE IN THE DIESEL EMISSIONS SCANDAL THAT ROCKED THE CAR-MAKER INDUSTRY Bosch has agreed to pay $327.5m to resolve allegations in the US that it played a significant role in Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal. Company made component used by carmaker to enable vehicles to cheat emissions tests. Also, Volkswagen has agreed to compensate or fix the nearly 80,000 units considered to have “defeat devices” fitted to them so they could beat emissions tests. olkswagen AG has agreed to pay at least $1.22 billion to fix or buy back nearly 80,000 polluting U.S. 3.0 liter diesel-engine vehicles to settle claims it fitted illegal emissions-cheating software to the cars, court documents showed. German auto supplier Robert Bosch GmbH also agreed to pay $327.5 million to U.S. diesel VW owners, according to the documents filed. Volkswagen could be forced to pay up to $4.04 billion if regulators don't approve fixes for all vehicles. In December, VW said it had agreed to buy back 20,000 vehicles and expected to win approval to fix another 60,000. The settlement is the last major hurdle to Volkswagen moving beyond the scandal over its installation of secret software in hundreds of thousands of U.S. diesel cars to cheat exhaust emissions tests, although it still faces suits from some U.S. states and investors. Volkswagen has already announced 18.2 billion euros ($19.63 billion) of provisions to cover the costs of "Dieselgate" and a source familiar with the matter said that its total bill was likely to remain below 20 billion euros. Volkswagen's luxury car unit Audi said it was reviewing whether it needed to put aside more provisions to cover the costs of a U.S. settlement of the scandal, on top of the 980 million euros it already set aside. "We are using the court documents to review what we still need to set aside for the annual accounts," an Audi spokesman said in Germany. Under the VW settlement that must be approved by a U.S. judge, owners of 3.0 liter vehicles who opt for fixes will get compensation of between $7,000 and SEASONAL MAGAZINE

$16,000 from Volkswagen if emissions fixes are approved in a timely fashion -and the automaker will pay another $500 if the fix affects a vehicle's performance. Owners who opt for a buyback will get $7,500 on top of the value of the vehicle. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which had sued VW, voted unanimously to back the deal. Volkswagen Group of America chief executive Hinrich Woebcken said, with the agreement, all owners of polluting diesels "will have a resolution available to them. We will continue to work to earn back the trust of all our stakeholders." VW has been barred from selling diesel vehicles in the United States since late 2015. VW has agreed to repurchase the 2009-2012 Volkswagen and Audi 3.0 liter vehicles, but believes it will be able to fix the 2013-2016 Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche 3.0 liter vehicles. BOSCH AGREEMENT VW previously agreed to spend up to $10.03 billion to buy back up to 475,000 polluting 2.0 liter vehicles after it admitted it installed secret software to evade emissions controls. The settlement marked the largest ever automotive buyback offer in U.S. history and costliest auto industry scandal. Diesel car owners sued Bosch in 2015 claiming the company helped design secret "defeat device" software that allowed VW to evade emissions rules and alleged Bosch was a "knowing and active participant" in Volkswagen's decade-long scheme. Under its settlement, Bosch will pay $163.3 million to address 2.0 liter VW vehicle claims, with most owners getting $350 each, while 3.0 liter owners will

split $113.3 million. Most 3.0 liter owners will receive $1,500 from Bosch. Bosch said in a statement it didn't admit wrongdoing or accept liability but had decided to settle so it could focus on an extensive "transformation process" the company has embarked on. A federal judge in San Francisco will hold a hearing on whether to grant preliminary approval for the settlements. The lead lawyer for the vehicle owners, Elizabeth Cabraser, said in statement the settlement provides "substantial benefits to both consumers and the environment." VW earlier agreed to pay $225 million to offset the excess pollution from the 3.0 liter vehicles, on top of $2.7 billion it agreed to pay to offset 2.0 liter pollution. The automaker is set to plead guilty soon in Detroit to three felony counts as part of a plea agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve charges it installed secret software in U.S. vehicles to allow them to emit up to 40 times the amount of legally permitted pollution. As part of a $4.3 billion settlement with U.S. regulators, the German automaker has agreed to sweeping reforms, new audits and oversight by an independent monitor for three years to resolve diesel emissions-cheating investigations. The United States has also charged seven current and former VW executives with wrongdoing. In total, VW has now agreed to spend up to $25 billion in the United States to address claims from owners, environmental regulators, U.S. states and dealers, and offered to buy back about 500,000 polluting vehicles. Volkswagen topped Toyota Motor Corp as the world's largest automaker by sales.

ISRO TO LAUNCH RECORD 104 SATELLITES ON A DAY The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will try to create, yet another, history in space by launching 104 satellites at one go using its workhorse PSLV-C37 next week. arlier, the Indian space agency had planned to launch 83 satellites in the last week of January. But the launch had been postponed to February with the addition of 20 more foreign satellites. As we eagerly await to witness ISRO's much laudable task of launching record-breaking satellites in a single flight, here are a few things to know: ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C37) - a 320tonne rocket - will launch all 104 satellites at one go around 9am into the sun-synchronous orbit, about 500km above the earth, on February 15, 2017, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. Of the total earth-observation 104 satellites - three are Indian, 88 are from the US and the remaining are from Israel, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. The three Indian satellites are Cartosat-2 series (weighing 650 kg as primary payload) and two nano-satellites called INS-IA and INS-1B (weighing 15 kg each). ISRO says the payloads will totally weigh around 1,500kg. If successful, ISRO will be the first space agency to launch such a large number of satellites, surpassing the 37 satellites launch record set in June 2014 by Russia and 29 satellites launched by NASA in 2013. Last year in June, ISROâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s PSLV set national record by launching 20 satellites in a single mission. As of December 2016, ISRO's PSLV has made 39 launches, with 37 successfully reaching their planned orbits, one outright failure and one partial failure, yielding a success rate of 95% (or 97% including the partial failure). Some notable payloads launched by PSLV include India's first lunar probe Chandrayaan-1, Mangalyaan (Mars orbiter) - India's first interplanetary mission,- Astrosat, which is country's first space observatory.

For Ponting, Kohli is World's Best FORMER AUSTRALIAN SKIPPER RICKY PONTING, WHO IS ONE OF THE MOST PROLIFIC RUN-SCORERS IN THE HISTORY OF CRICKET, HAS LABELLED INDIAN SKIPPER VIRAT KOHLI AS THE BEST BATSMAN IN THE WORLD AT THE MOMENT AND `PROBABLY` THE GREATEST ONE-DAY INTERNATIONAL CRICKETER EVER.

"Is he the best batsman in the world? Yeah, he probably

is. Is it too premature to call him the best ever? You can probably say that right now as far as his one-day cricket is concerned. His one-day record is outstanding and probably better than anybody that's ever played the game given how many hundreds he's made," Ponting was quoted as saying. Ponting further went on to say that Kohli would now continue to improve, especially after taking reins as captain of the Indian side in all formats of the game. The 42-year-old batting legend, however, insisted that Kohli still has a way to go in Test cricket before admitting that it is too early to compare the latter with the likes of master blaster Sachin Tendulkar, former South Africa allrounder Jacques Kallis and stylish West Indies legend Brian Lara in the longest form of the game. "Let's give him a few years yet in the Test series side of things. It's too early yet to be taking about him being one of the greats," he said. "I think the great players we always talk about, the Tendulkars, the Laras, the Kallises, those guys played 120, 130-200 Test matches. Virat's not even halfway along that path," Ponting added. Kohli's international record is astonishing; his batting averages in all three formats are currently more than 50, the only person ever to achieve the feat. The 28-year-old also sits fourth on ODI cricket's all-time century-makers list, with 27 centuries in only 179 matches. Only Tendulkar (49 hundreds), Ponting (30) and Sri Lanka great Sanath Jayasuriya (27) have more ODI tons than the India skipper, and all three of them had played more than double the amount of games than Kohli has. In 2016, Kohli also became the first Indian Test captain to score three double hundreds in a year. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

SUCCESS MANTRA

Everyone Can Become An Outlier With The Right Support System As Malcolm Gladwell illustrated in his bestselling non-fiction Outliers: The Story of Success, innate talent and high IQ levels may prove insufficient to guarantee professional success. Among the many factors that contribute to high levels of success, it is becoming increasingly clear that having the right support system may ultimately distinguish the many ‘whiz kids’ from the few ‘Einsteins’.

y son’s karate teacher recently asked his young students, “What’s the one thing you really want to improve on in the new year?” Hands shot up immediately, with responses like “Watch less TV!” and “Improve my karate form!” and “Work on my time management!” He asked each student to get more specific, write down the goal, and bring it to the next class. With a wide grin, he told the kids to expect that he would periodically stop class throughout the year to engage everyone around how they were doing. As I watched the class, I reflected on how these kids were likely to meet their goals because they had the additional support from their teacher and each other. Whether it’s kids in a karate class or adults in a Weight Watchers meeting SEASONAL MAGAZINE

or Toastmasters group, most of us intuitively know the value of having a support group for changing our habits, learning new things, or achieving a New Year’s goal. It is easy, however, to take others’ support for granted. We may have friends or colleagues we vent to about work when we’ve had a bad week. Or perhaps we network when engaged in a formal job search. But in the day-to-day busyness of work, how do we more intentionally bring others “under the tent” in our quest to grow as people and leaders? And how can we take the bull by the horns rather than waiting for our managers or organizations to do it for us? Below is the story of two leaders who built stronger networks of support and discovered the benefits for themselves and others along the way.

The first leader is Todd, the president of a company, who was increasingly feeling the age-old adage that it’s lonely at the top. A self-aware and seasoned leader, he recognized that he needed to rethink his support system, as he was really feeling the pressures of continued bottom-line performance in the context of slowing revenue growth. The second leader is Jennifer, a leader in operations with a team that had recently doubled in size after an acquisition. Someone was always stopping by her office to ask a question or seek advice. Feeling exhausted, she found herself wondering who she could turn to for advice and how she was going to address recent feedback from her manager to build a stronger executive voice and more confidence with her peers. Though in different situations,

Todd and Jennifer both found value in consciously cultivating and realigning their networks of support. They each had to get into the right mindset, define what they needed, and align the right people. Here’s how: 1. Get into the right mindset. As a starting point, both leaders had to address their resistance to moving forward. Todd was concerned about others’ perceptions. He valued the expertise, drive, and competence he brought to the role. Would he appear weak and vulnerable if he was more proactive in seeking the support of others? Would he create doubt or a negative perception regarding his capability to lead the organization? Jennifer relished her identity as a caring leader and strong developer of talent. She wasn’t sure that she could really “let go” of the reins and allow herself to receive others’ support. She was great at giving to others but did not do as well with receiving support. Each leader reframed their vision for themselves. Todd decided he wanted to be not only an expert, competent leader, but also a strategic, agile learner. Jennifer decided she wanted to be not just a caring leader, but also a thriving, healthy, and more decisive leader. 2. Define what you need. As Todd and Jennifer became more receptive to the idea of a “network of support,” they considered what kind of specific support they needed. What were the roles that others could play, and which ones were especially critical for each leader’s goals and objectives for the year? While not exhaustive, below is an illustrative list of the types of support roles a leader might consider having: The Expert: Even when we are experts ourselves, there is always a learning curve. We need to continually seek out those who have the pattern recognition, experience, or best practices around the issues we’re facing. We need the courage and confidence to demonstrate a “beginner’s mind” a term from Zen Buddhism, referring to having an openness to learning, even at an advanced level. The Sausage Maker: Leaders must be able to clearly articulate their conviction and vision to others. Some of us reach this clarity of conviction after hearing

ourselves talk out loud or by hashing through data with others. Honor your cognitive process by having someone you can “white board” and brainstorm with on the nitty-gritty details. This person is notably different from the audiences you ultimately need to communicate with in a clear and succinct way. The Role Player: With so many different stakeholders, we all need someone we can role-play with in advance of a highstakes interaction. It’s better to understand what rolls off the tip of the tongue naturally or how something comes across in a pre-game warm-up than to find out when the stakes are high on the field. The role player is an invaluable resource for finding the right framing or key messages of any communication. The Mirror: We all need that one person who can give it to us straight. These are folks who hold up the mirror, hold us accountable, offer valuable feedback, and help us see our blind spots before they become derailers. The Cheerleader: When we are feeling less steady, a word of acknowledgement that we are doing well and moving the needle can go a long way toward keeping our motivation alive. Know who you can count on to really notice, see, hear, and affirm your value.

our support network incorrectly and that it’s time to reshuffle the decks. In doing this exercise, Todd began to see two of his direct reports in a new light. There was Steve, who was more low-maintenance and had less of an ego than the others on the executive team. He was a safe harbor by nature and, given his integrity and candor, someone who could be a great mirror. He also saw how Sheila, his CFO, was going to be a critical expert for the group in a year where costs and budgets were coming to the forefront. He wanted to more purposely draw on that expertise now. Finally, he felt motivated to seek out other company presidents who were leading mature companies Jennifer realized she needed more support in the way of sausage maker, role player, and cheerleader. They would be critical support as she worked on building a stronger executive voice and presence over the year. The big “aha moment” for Jennifer was that she had sought this support previously only to realize that the people she’d gone to for guidance fundamentally lacked the patience or empathy to provide it.

3. Determine who fits the bill. We don’t need to find multiple people to match each support role. Sometimes it may be one or two people who fit the bill in many ways. The good news is the person may be right under your nose. In other cases, we may realize that we’ve aligned

As both leaders raised their awareness of how others could support them, they also increased their awareness of how they supported others. Understanding the value of safe harbor support, Todd now wanted to add more of this role to his own leadership style, and to encourage his managers to do the same. He connected a dot to recent employee engagement data, which showed that employees didn’t always feel safe sharing their ideas with managers, and he wondered if this was the missing type of support. Jennifer knew that with a growing team she would have to flex more muscles in terms of being an expert and a mirror, setting direction and holding others more accountable, rather than just relying on her go-to role of being the cheerleader.

Even when we are experts ourselves, there is always a learning curve. We need to continually seek out those who have the pattern recognition, experience, or best practices around the issues we’re facing.

Ultimately, as we become more conscious and appreciative of the support of others, we also become more conscious of how well we offer our support. In doing so, we help ourselves and others tap more deeply into the beauty of positive, healthy, and authentic human connections.

The Safe Harbor: Who are the people with whom you can just let your guard down, knowing you can share your ideas, thoughts, and observations without judgment or retribution? As your ideas percolate, who can you count on to listen and consider the possibilities without raining on your parade or trying to one-up you?

SEASONAL MAGAZINE

C R I S I S

You Don’t Need To Have Been Cash-Dependant To Suffer From Demonetization Move, Narrates An Indian CEO In an interview to columnist Ajaz Ashraf, a CEO of a multi-national company narrates the difficulties experienced by his company following the big demonetization announcement by PM Modi and how company growth plans have been hit although the nation and industry have been requested to patiently wait for 6 months before the situation becomes normal. am the Chief Executive Officer of a multi-national corporation, and I am still reeling under the demonetisation policy annou nced on November 8, 2016. I will neither disclose my name nor my company’s, lest there is a blowback. But the figures and facts that I will cite are all from our books or mentioned in our in-house discussions. It will give the reader a sense of the disruptive consequences of demone tisation. The business I head is engaged in transporting containers packed with finished goods or raw material for export and import. Readers must have seen these containers, in colours of blue, violet, grey and white, loaded on trailer trucks groaning down the highway. Containers arrive at seaports, and my company loads them onto trains to transport them to dry ports. Here, after custom formalities are completed, containers are unpacked and goods are dispatched on trucks to importers. At times, we undertake this last-mile delivery as well. Obviously, we also take containers from exporters and move them by rail wagons to seaports, from where these are shipped out. The trains we use are our own, each of which has 45 wagons. We handle 10,000 containers a month, or 2,500 a week, to and fro from the hinterland to seaports. We pay a haulage charge to Indian Railways for using its facilities to run the wagons on its rail-tracks. This charge constitutes a substantial chunk of our operations cost. Our rates, therefore, comprise operations costs plus our margin. Our profit before tax SEASONAL MAGAZINE

hovered around 2.5% of our revenue, obviously, before demonetisation took the fizz out of the business. Expectations betrayed We receive or make payments through RTGS [Real Time Gross Settlement] or cheque or demand draft. Cash is a nono. This is precisely why when Prime Minister Narendra Modi invalidated Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 in old currency notes, business analysts said that companies such as ours had nothing to worry about. And besides, engaged as we are in transporting goods for export and import, it was assumed we would be insulated from depressed demands in the domestic market because of demonetisation. Be merry, analysts told us. It seems, in hindsight, such a cruel joke. Or perhaps we have been oblivious of how our economy works and its dependence on cash. We have learnt our lesson, and we hope the prime

minister has too. But this lesson has come at a stiff price – our profit before tax has contracted to 1.2%. Worse, it won’t rise for at least another six months. Initially, even after the nation went into a tizzy at the prime minister’s demonetisation policy, we moved 9,500 containers in November. It was a slump by 500 containers from our average number, but, really, it was too minor a dip for us to grow nervous. In December, however, it was down to 7,500 containers. That meant 25% of our usual business wasn’t coming to us. January has shown a rise, as slow as a cake being baked with inferior yeast. We moved 8,000 containers in January, give or take 200. We have had conversations with our customers to make our projections for the future. They all say they don’t expect any significant increase in the volumes imported or exported for the next six months. Surprise, surprise, cash crunch hit us

Obviously, readers may wonder why a business not dependent on cash has taken a hit because of demonetisation. To this, I cite the cliché: “A [business] chain is as strong as the weakest link in it.” In the chain of our business, there are links which are dependent on cash – and, therefore, susceptible to any cash crunch. Take the business of metal scrap, imported in high volumes by traders in India. They sell the scrap to foundries,

up their rates, not least because their payments were to come in invalidated currency notes that would need to be converted into new ones at a discount.

continues to cast his gloomy shadow on the American economy. Also, Indian exports have been depressed for over 18 months, and continue to stagnate.

Since the rate for transportation zoomed up, the cost of goods inclusive of freight charges increased. To keep intact their profit margins, the importer-exporter took to harrying us for a discount. After all, in popular imagination, multinational companies can absorb lower rates. On many occasions, we gave in. It is better to keep your clients than to have them run to your competitors.

Imports have also been hobbled because of the adverse foreign exchange rate, which means importers have to pay more Indian rupees than before to buy a dollar. This is a disincentive for importers who will have to fork out a higher amount of Indian rupees to source the same amount of goods from abroad. Exporters could have worked the exchange rate to their advantage, but the global demand, as already pointed out, has put paid to that.

Credit cycle begins Or take the refrigerated containers of buffalo meat. Abattoirs, or meat factories, don’t make payments to us in cash. But they purchase cattle in cash. Because of the cash crunch, a consequence of imposing a withdrawal limit of Rs 50,000 on current accounts in banks, buffaloes couldn’t be purchased in the same numbers as before from villagers who bring them to meat factories. An inadequate supply of meat meant a dip of 50% in volumes of refrigerated containers we were moving. where it is melted and the metal extracted. A percentage of the imported metal scrap is pre-booked at a fixed price. The rest is retained for speculative purposes, and sold at a higher price to make a killing. This portion of scrap metal is bought and sold in cash. With no cash around, the demand for scrap metal contracted sharply, prompting traders to cut down on their imports. Since the volumes of imported scrap metal dipped, we had fewer containers to handle. Demonetisation did not slash us in November because containers were already at different points of transportation. But the cash-crunch of November affected us severely in December. Then again, as I have already mentioned, the last-mile transportation is by trucks. Few in India have large fleets of trucks. It is only they who are engaged in cashless transactions. All others insist on cash payments. Because of the cash crunch the truckers jacked

The factories, boasting of a good image, bought meat on credit from villagers. Good for them! But it isn’t good for my company – it has set a credit cycle in motion. Thus, my company has to move the containers of these factories on credit. There are some who owe us more than a crore of rupees and more. Money in the bank is better than what is owed to you. Paper mills in India, because of stringent environmental regulations, depend on waste paper as raw material, which traders import primarily from the United States. They sell waste paper and insist on cash payments. That’s yet another weak link in the chain of my business. Dismal global context Readers may ask, why can’t mills export the recycled paper that they are unable to sell in India? But remember, the global economy is witnessing a slowdown – Europe and China for sure, and the whimsical US President-elect, Donald Trump,

So, the adverse impact of the demonetisation policy has been magnified because it has been executed in the global context of a slowing economy. For sure, Modi has put the skids under the Indian economy for six months. Just six months? The cascading effect I can’t be sure. Every company, mine included, has a growth plan. For instance, we had planned to buy more wagons based on our projection that business would grow. That will certainly be put on hold. I told my international bosses, “Let us try to save ourselves from drowning in the swirling black waters of demonetisation before we start building boats for the future.” Our decision not to buy wagons means that the wagon industry will require less labour and steel. Expect retrenchment. Expect people to turn cautious while spending. Therefore, expect depressed demands for goods. The wagon industry’s lower demand for steel would mean that the steel industry won’t need coal and steel as it would have ordinarily. This is what is called a cascading effect. I guess that is why former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that the worst of demonetisation is yet to come. He is wise, that old man. His remark now haunts me. To overcome my blues, I have taken to singing the song the opening line of which is, “Cash baby, cash.” SEASONAL MAGAZINE

V I E W

Notebandi: Maybe The BJP Wasn’t Shifting Goalposts After All here is a near consensus even among right-wing commentators that the post-demonetisation operational roll-out left a lot to be desired. From chaotic scenes in banks to dysfunctional ATMs, government critics lashed out at the abysmal preparedness and even mocked the narrow and inadequate strategy of targeting black-money holders. However, Jaitley’s budget speech numbers suggests a different story and arguably may limit the factual criticism of the government’s move.

as the time come for critics of demonetisation to qualify their criticism of the decision, and limit it mostly to its operational mishandling? Such a stance is prompted by the numbers in the finance minister’s Budget speech, which suggest that an astonishing 40 per cent of the high-value notes deposited with banks may have represented unaccounted wealth. Such a figure is much larger than almost all the initial assessments made in the wake of Mr Modi’s televised announcement three months ago. What Mr Jaitley has disclosed is that Rs. 4.9 lakh crore (148,000 bank accou nts, with an average deposit size of Rs. 3.31 crore) were accounted for by deposits of a minimum value of Rs. 80 lakh. I can’t think of too many people who would need Rs. 80 lakh in cash for their routine, legitimate transactions. So it is all but certain that this represents cash stashed away or cash used in black economy transactions. Either way, this is black money unearthed by notebandi

giving Rs. 6 lakh crore as the total figure of black cash that has surfaced. This is 39 per cent of the Rs. 15.4 lakh crore high-value notes demonetised. If anything remotely near this order of black cash has indeed been unearthed, most observers would say that it validates the idea of notebandi .If its execution had not been botched up on the monumental scale that it was causing enormous hardship to millions, many of whom lost their livelihood while some even lost their lives — this

On top of this, some of the high-value notes deposited with banks in smaller quantities would also have been black money. As Mr Jaitley has disclosed, there were 10.9 million accounts which got deposits ranging from Rs. 2 lakh to Rs. 80 lakh, with an average deposit of Rs. 5.03 lakh, making for a further sum of Rs. 5.48 lakh crore. If we assume that 20 per cent of this could have been black money, that adds Rs. 1.1 lakh crore to our earlier figure of Rs. 4.9 lakh crore

To be sure, the economy has paid a price for the disruption, with mainstream assessments of the loss converging around one per cent of GDP, or Rs. 1.5 lakh crore, in 2016-17 and perhaps a smaller number next year. What should one set off against this loss? One answer may lie in the figures for income tax collection. The finance minister has disclosed a 34.8 per cent surge in advance income tax collections till the end of December. For next year he has

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would have been seen by most people as a gamble worth taking.

assumed a 24.9 per cent surge in income tax revenue. Over the two years combined, income tax collections are expected to grow by 53 per cent. Since these numbers are larger than in most years, and much larger also than the growth rates for revenue from other forms of taxation, it is safe to assume that some of the additional revenue of Rs. 1.53 lakh crore (almost exactly equal to one per cent of this year’s GDP) would be a fallout of notebandi .But even if we make generous assump tions, the additionality of revenue out of this total increase will fall well short of the economic loss suffered. In other words, this particular benefit is less than the cost. However, there are other benefits to account for, over and above general cleaning up. Since a large part of the money that has come back to banks may not have been money in circulation but cash stored away, there will be no need to print notes to the full extent of demonetised notes. This would reduce the ratio of cash to GDP, and act as a drag (for a while at least) on fresh black transactions. The digitisation drive that the government has launched will make the system more transparent, and less prone to tax evasion, while facilitating greater financial inclusion. These and other benefits will depend on the quality of the government’s follow-up measures. In short, while people have paid the price for the disruption caused by demonetisation, now is the time to ensure its benefits.

OPINION

ARVIND SUBRAMANIAN CRIES FOUL PLAY BY CREDIT RATING AGENCIES, SAYS INDIAN FUNDAMENTALS STRONG In a damning reference to credit rating agencies for their continued ignorance of India’s “growth” story, CEA Arvind Subramanian echoed disapproval, in what is now fast becoming a familiar sentiment, in the Economic Survey 2016-17. The agencies point towards low per capita GDP & high fiscal deficit for India’s abysmal rating, but is there more to it than meets the eye? ndia’s criticism of global credit rating firms is getting louder. The government’s longstan ding grievance over not getting a credit-rating upgrade was reiterated by the country’s chief economic advisor, Arvind Subramanian. Ratings firms have “inconsistent and poor standards,” Subramanian told reporters during a media briefing on the Economic Survey 2016-17, an annual document that gives a glimpse of the state of the economy. Standard & Poor’s (S&P) and Moody’s, for instance, have not upgraded their ratings of India—from ‘BBB-‘ and ‘Baa3’ respectively—despite its economy being one of the fastest growing globally. The firms indicated two main reasons for this: low per capita GDP and a high fiscal deficit. Both these ratings are the lowest category of the investment grade. Subramanian finds their methodology faulty, and the reasons for this are detailed in a chapter titled “Poor Standards? The Ratings Agencies, India and China” in the Economic Survey. It is unfair, it says, to hold a country’s rating due to lack of improvement in per capita GDP—economic output per person—as it is a slow-moving variable. It typically takes a while for such an indicator to show an uptick. Here’s what the survey had to say: Lower middle income countries experienced an average growth of 2.45% of GDP per capita (constant 2010 dollars) between 1970 and 2015. At this rate, the poorest of the lower middle income countries would take about 57 years to reach upper middle income

status. So if this variable is really key to ratings, poorer countries might be provoked into saying, “Please don’t bother this year, come back to assess us after half a century. It also says that while the country has a high fiscal deficit (3.9% of the GDP in fiscal 2016), the comparison with other countries isn’t fair. “India might still be able to carry much more debt than other countries because it has an exceptionally high ‘willingness to pay’, as demonstrated by its history of not defaulting on its obligations,” it explained. Subramanian also compared India’s economic health with that of China, which was upgraded by S&P to ‘AA-‘ in 2010. China’s high and increasing credit-to-GDP ratio, which is the ratio of national debt to GDP, along with its weak economic growth, has been considered as a threat. India’s credit-toGDP ratio has remained relatively stable while its economy has expanded.

How did Standard and Poor’s react to this ominous scissors pattern, which has universally been acknowledged as posing serious risks to China and indeed the world? In December 2010, it increased China’s rating from ‘A+’ to ‘AA-‘ and it has never adjusted it since, even as the credit boom has unfolded and growth has experienced a secular decline. “These contrasting experiences raise a question: can they really be explained by an economically sound methodology?” the survey adds. Experts have said in the past that it is fair for India to expect a higher rating. “At a moment when India’s economy is growing at very high rates, the country expects agencies to improve its ratings. Rating agencies move at a slow pace and it is understandable that India wants to have its voice heard,” says Lourdes Casanova, a senior lecturer at Cornell University’s S C Johnson School of Management. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

IN-FOCUS

SIX REASONS TO DESIRE TRITVAM

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ritvam by Tata, the premium luxury apartment project launched in 2012, is racing to completion and get the ready-to-occupy status. Conceived at a larger than life size, Tritvam is nowadays attracting many NRI and HNI customers. Designed by internationally renowned architects, and built by an Indo-Australian construction firm, Tata Tritvam is naturally projecting several compelling reasons for prospective buyers to decide in its favour. Seasonal Magazine takes a look at some of the best selling points of Tritvam.

Tritvam is by Tata Business houses emerge and die in India, every few decades. There are only a few enterprises that have lasted for more than a century in the country. In contrast Tata Group is getting 150 years old, next year. Even while growing from strength to strength, the venerable Tata Group has stuck to its ethics. While this has meant other newer enterprises overtaking Tatas in size, almost none can rival the group when it comes to quality of offerings, across the widest spectrum of industries. Tata’s brands include some of the world’s best including Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Taj / Vivanta / Gateway Hotels, Tata Steel, Tata Power, Tetley, Voltas, Titan, Tanishq, and hundreds of such industry leaders. The housing project Tritvam is by the group company, Tata Realty & Infrastructure Ltd (TRIL).

Ratan Tata

Natarajan Chandrasekaran

Sanjay Ganesh Ubale

TRIL is Uniquely Capable Normally, an issue with most real estate developers is that they develop projects that they themselves can’t handle. But at Tata Realty & Infrastructure Ltd, the company has done and is always in the process of doing diverse projects in almost all facets of realty and infrastructure. TRIL has six divisions – Mixed Use, IT/ITES, Retail, Residential, Hospitality, & Redevelopment. Its impressive projects include Tata Center at Gurgaon, TRIL Commercial Centre at Bangalore, Capitol Heights at Nagpur, Ramanujan IT SEZ at Chennai, TRIL IT4 Park, Trilium Mall at Amritsar, Vivanta / Gateway Hotels, Vivanta Serviced Apartments at Gurgaon, Convention Centre & Serviced Apartments at Ramanujan IT City , and Chembur SRA Project. Tata Tritvam has benefited from such unique capabilities of TRIL. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

TRIL is More Than Realty Rarely is a project the size of Tata Tritvam executed on realty capabilities alone. It requires complex interfacing with various government agencies and community representatives, as well as unique project / program management capabilities. Here too, TRIL comes off with flying colours as realty is only one broad vertical of the firm. As its name signifies, Tata Realty & Infrastructure Ltd has impressive presence in two more sectors – infrastructure and services. TRIL’s portfolio of infrastructure projects for the country include airports, metros, special economic zones, highways, bridges, ropeways etc. Its Services vertical has an impressive program management portfolio that includes Tata group company, TCS’s four newer IT Parks. These include TCS’ mega Parks at Pune, Gandhinagar, Kolkata, and Nagpur.

Locale & Design of Tritvam Beautiful Kerala, known for its long coastline, captivating monsoon, and lush natural greenery has only one city of international repute and amenities like international airport, metro rail, and India’s largest mall. Tata Tritvam is right there at Kochi, forever hailed as the Queen of Arabian Sea. Tata Tritvam is a premium luxury residential apartment development on Marine Drive, Kochi, nestled between the peaceful Arabian Sea and the soothing greens of the Mangalavanam Bird Sanctuary. With internationally renowned architect Woods Bagot of Australia, construction partner Leighton Welspun Contractors Pvt. Ltd., and globally acclaimed landscape designer Made Wijaya, Tritvam promises the most exquisite and international living experience. Tritvam has been awarded a 7 star rating by rating agency CARE.

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Unique Luxury of Tritvam When Tata Tritvam was launched in 2012, it set new benchmarks for not only Kerala realty, but for the sector across India. Every comfort of urban life has been thought of and provided at Tritvam - a choice of 3 & 4 BHK and Duplex Apartments, the finest Infinity pool in Kochi, a grand club House for social gatherings and banquets, a wellequipped gymnasium, jogging track & yoga centre, stateof-the-art recreational facilities & children’s play areas, thoughtful features such as dedicated pavilions & sit-outs for senior citizens, retail space – Convenience Store, Salon, Pharmacy, ATM etc, adequate parking facility & 3-tier security system, eco-sensitive design with verdant landscapes, rainwater harvesting, CFC-free air-conditioning, green roofs & solar power for common areas.

Tritvam is Soon Ready to Occupy There are no two opinions that ready-to-occupy projects are the most sought after category in today’s uncertain real estate sector. This is especially so when it comes to luxury real estate development. Even some of the biggest national level developers are often behind schedule. Tata Tritvam from its launch on has taken special care to avoid this pitfall to the maximum. In fact, this is the project that introduced 24-hours construction and next generation automated machinery in the state. Tritvam still has this momentum when it is currently in the final stages of its finishing works. TRIL has taken special care to ensure that customers and prospective customers can track the development through its website, with updates including project photos regularly posted. No wonder, then that Tritvam is often visited by NRIs and HNIs from across India.

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CONTROVERSY

RSS-AFFILIATED VIJNANA BHARATI CHIEF NEW VC OF NALANDA UNIVERSITYY Bhatkar spoke at a session called ‘Ancient Indian Sciences through Sanskrit’ at the 2015 Indian Science Congress, where a paper claiming that ancient Indians built airplanes was presented. The architect of India’s first super computer, Vijay Bhatkar’s appointment was confirmed two months after George Yeo, former Singapore foreign minister, resigned from the post in protest, claiming that the Indian government had not consulted him before making a series of decisions. oted scientist Vijay Bhatkar, known for his work in developing India’s first super computer – Param, has been named as the new vice-chancellor of Nalanda University. A Padma Shri awardee, Bhatkar will succeed George Yeo as the third Chancellor of the varsity and will hold the position for three years term effective January 25, 2017. The Computer scientist is an Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi alumni, and the founder executive director of India’s

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national initiative in supercomputing – C-DAC.

and National President of Vijnan Bharati.

Bhatkar has been a Member of Scientific Advisory Committee to Cabinet of Govt of India, Governing Council Member of CSIR, India and eGovernace Committee Chairman of Governments of Maharashtra and Goa. Bhatkar currently serves as the chief of Vigyan Bharati, a science body of Rashtriya Sawayam Sewak Sangh. In his other affliations, Bhatkar is Chancellor of India International Multiversity, Chairman of ETH Research Lab, Chief Mentor of I2IT,

Bhatkar’s appointment comes after a suprize resignation of Yeo put-on his papers citing a a “lack of autonomy” and “surprise” top administrative reshuffle in the Nalanda University. President Pranab Mukherjee, on November last year had dissvolved NU’s founding governing body comprising Nobel laureate Amartya Sen (also the Founder Chancellor), and revoked extension of Founder Vice Chancellor Gopa Sabharwal’s term.

PROACTIVE UNIVERSITIES

THERE ARE FEW ALTERNATIVE NAMES TO DESCRIBE PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES TODAY, OTHER THAN PROACTIVE UNIVERSITIES. tarting their lives a few years back, or in some case a couple of decades back, they had to face formidable challenges as what they were up against were the state funded and subsidized universities, institutes, & colleges that naturally attracted the cream of both student as well as faculty quality. But private universities being founded on the entrepreneurial spirit, soon figured out the Achilles heel of public institutions – lack of a proactive culture. That is how private universities came to focus on proactivity in the various spheres of their operations. The first wave of proactivity was in ensuring placements for their students. After winning big in this realm – coming only second to the IITs, IIMs, & NITs in placements – private universities started focusing on research programs. Here also they have made rapid progress, given their relatively shorter history. Thirdly, they have moved proactively and fast into the domain of international academic tie-ups. And this has ended up as one of their biggest success fronts till date as government funded universities are often caught in red tape if at all they are attempting such tie-ups. More recently, private universities have displayed speed and agility in fostering the start-up culture by building up entrepreneurship development programs or even business incubators. This culture of proactivity will continue as the public institutions still remain strong, and more importantly because, competition has heated up among private universities themselves. Seasonal Magazine, which closely tracks and assesses the developments at India’s private universities, brings out in this issue the proactive initiatives undertaken at some of the best private universities. Amity University is globalizing itself, while Lovely Professional University is bettering its scholarship as well as placement programs. LNM Institute of Information Technology is building upon its base in IT by facilitating specialist programs, while at SRM University the employability of graduates are maintained despite the huge scale of operations. SASTRA University is working hard to repeat its success in engineering programs in other domains like Law & Education, while Manav Rachna International University has been focusing on business incubation. JSS University is rapidly evolving as one of the top research-driven universities in the health sciences domain, while Assam Don Bosco University is breaking new ground in nano technologies. Integral University is attracting national and international eyeballs by organizing scientific conferences, Mody University of Science & Technology is laying stress on all-round development that will sustain success in its graduates, and Nitte University is combining its research and community outreach programs in an admirable way.

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AMITY UNIVERSITY

AGILITY AT AMITY

VISION, DEMOGRAPHICS, AND TIME ARE ON AMITY'S SIDE, AS CHAUHANS TAKE DECISIVE STEPS IN OVERSEAS EXPANSION.

t is a wonder that a university of size Amity is still agile. Amity is not just one university, but a group of 8 private universities, 13 B-Schools, and 11 international campuses, to name just the three largest entities within the Group. Even the faculty strength of Amity institutions – at over 4500 – is more than the student strength of many private universities in the country! Still, Amity is remarkably agile. Seasonal Magazine’s frequent visits to the Noida campus to meet Amity’s top brass have always been eye-openers to this agility. Amity is different each time you visit. While the Noida campus waiting lounge has always featured a few VIPs visiting for admissions; in recent quarters, the visitors’ profile has changed dramatically. While waiting to meet Dr. Ashok K Chauhan, you now get to see top officials from international universities too waiting to see the Amity FounderPresident. This is no surprise as when it comes to tie-ups with overseas

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Proactive UNIVERSITIES academic institutions, Amity is the de facto leader in India, with effective tie-ups with over 80 world-class universities and institutions of repute. The waiting lounge is a buzzing place as scholars from abroad are also seen interacting with HoDs of Amity’s numerous departments. This is no wonder as Amity professors are known for their knowledge, having authored over 500 scholarly books! It is also quite rare for anyone to meet Dr. Chauhan alone, as this former NRI technopreneur and industrialist from the European Union is always with pressing engagements, mainly by visiting delegations from abroad. Chancellors of Amity University, Dr. Atul Chauhan and Dr. Aseem Chauhan are even more difficult to meet as these younger generation leaders are often globe-trotting, to lead from the frontline Amity University’s expansion into USA, UK, Middle East, and elsewhere. The biggest beneficiaries of this continued agility, which starts from the top rung, are of course the students. While a few Amity students have attracted bad press in recent months due to a couple of unfortunate incidents, it is only natural considering Amity’s size – over 1,25,000 has been the student strength. Students are indeed the greatest beneficiaries of the

Amity has been unequivocal in its support for investments in setting up private universities, start-up and research institutes, skill development and knowledge centres. Ashok Chauhan SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Amity culture of agility, and there are several incidents to prove this fact. In January, Amity students were motivated to aim for nothing less than a Nobel Prize, by no one less than a Nobel laureate. Sir Richard John Roberts who had shared the Nobel Prize for physiology / medicine had visited Amity not only to motivate students by words, but for starting ‘Sir Richard John Roberts Centre for Genetically Modified Organism’ at Amity University. Such steps reveal the thrust Amity University has on research. Amity faculty members have 701 filed patents, which should easily be a record in the private higher education space in India. Between them and Amity’s research scholars, the university has published over 6000 papers in national and international research journals. Students are also spoilt for choices at all levels – from undergraduate to PhD – as there are over 300 programs to choose from. And many of these course are simple to offer, as is evident from the over 300 labs Amity has established for mature course delivery. Amity B-Schools on the other hand thrive on case studies, and is home to over 1300 case studies, like how the best B-Schools in the developed world deliver management intelligence. Even the Indian government and various state governments of India are taking

Amity is not just one university, but a group of 8 private universities, 13 BSchools, and 11 international campuses, to name just the three largest entities within the Group. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Amity’s thrust on research seriously. Amity scholars are now undertaking around 300 Government funded research programs. Corporates have been favouring Amity campuses for some years now, and last year Amity could place around 27,000 students with companies in different sectors. There are critics who feel that Amity is a huge money-making education machine, but Founder Dr. Chauhan has systematically demolished this view by providing for one of the largest scholarship programs in the private space. Amity estimates that over 25,000 students have benefited from this fair practice, as is followed in the West. Now, Amity University is at an inflection point, having acquired a noted campus of St. John’s University in USA, and accelerating its international expansion. Seasonal Magazine takes a detailed look into this higher education phenomenon that is Amity. Since starting full scale operations in 2003, the Amity University chain has opened campuses in major higher education destinations like England, China, South Africa and five other countries. Their recent foray into the United States underlines their commitment to produce a global network of schools, still a precarious territory for Indian institutions. However, it must be said that it has been nothing short of a roller-coaster ride ever since Amity paid $22 million to buy a Long Island branch of St. John’s University in New York City. Following their interest in buying the New England Institute of Art, a for-profit college near Boston, and one of its sister schools, the Art Institute of New York City, local education authorities have been wide-eyed and unconvinced. Make no mistake. The US private education market has been on Amity' radar and their leaders have been eyeing an expansion for quite some time now. In 2011, Amity was one of seven colleges that entered a competition to build an engineering campus in New York City. In 2014, Amity filed paperwork to open a nonprofit school in California, tax records show, but

never opened a campus. While the response from US authorities isn't justified in legal terms, Amity hopes that a US campus will attract students from abroad who want to gain the prestige that comes with studying in the United States. It also hopes to forge research partnerships with other colleges, and to connect foreign scholars with their counterparts in its Indian campuses. However, amidst mounting skepticism, Amity has been sure-footed in putting out the fire. “We have a global vision for education, a model of education which allows for student mobility, faculty collaboration and research collaboration,” said Aseem Chauhan, Amity’s chancellor. “We believe that the leaders of tomorrow will be those who have perspectives from different parts of the world.” While the US dream may have to wait a little more before it fully takes wings, Mr Chauhan is confident that the group is ready to rise up to the challenge. “We continuously benchmark our quality with the best quality standards and the best accreditation standards globally,” he said. The Amity chain offers bachelor’s and graduate degrees in a range of fields, from art to engineering. It enrolls 125,000 students at more than a dozen campuses, and has grown rapidly amid

Aseem Chauhan

Atul chauhan

rising demand for higher education in India. With a penchant for setting up worldclass campuses at home and attracting talent cutting across national boundaries, it is a no-brainer as to why the Amity network wishes to leave a footprint on the global stage. Back home, Amity has been unequivocal in its support for investments in setting up private universities, start-up and research institutes, skill development and knowledge centres. At the recently concluded Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2017, among the big ticket investments were the Rs 1,000 crore pledged by

The biggest beneficiaries of this continued agility, which starts from the top rung, are of course the students.

Ritnand Baldev Education Foundation (The Foundation of Amity Institutions and the sponsoring body of Amity Universities) for setting up a campus in the state. The intention is to help with job generation in Gujarat. In yet another forward-looking initiative, Amity University (Ranchi) had called out to all the first generation entrepreneurs and the startup enthusiasts in the city to discuss new and innovative ideas with one another at a startup summit named 'The Next Big Thing'. The summit, organized by The Startech and Cyber Peace Foundation with the support of Amity University saw young business enthusiasts across sectors sharing the platform with expert and distinguished corporate leaders.

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But what really propelled Amity to revolutionize the private education space was its prioritization of academic learning in a hassle-free manner. The university's competitive and rewarding scholarship program offers over Rs. 60 crores worth of financial aid to students on need and merit basis. In the merit category, students would need to have secured a threshold score at their matriculation level to be eligible for wide-ranging scholarship segments. The sports scholarship and grants program have also gone a long way in supporting budding sporting talent and it is a further testimony to the university's quest for all-round excellence. The university has also organized numerous conferences and seminars over the past year. These events have ensured the convergence of the leading practitioners in a particular field, much to the benefit of the student community at Amity. Seminar topics have ranged from cyber-security, big data, cloud computing, IoT, intellectual property rights to climate change, biodiversity, sustainable development, agriculture, best HR practices to physical education, legal systems, art and sculpture, just to mention a few. Through such initiatives, Amity has attained prime standing in India's and the world's most relevant fields of inquiry and research. In another first, Amity university played host to a 2-day ‘North Zone Vice Chancellors’ Meet’ to deliberate on

At the recently concluded Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2017, among the big ticket investments were the Rs 1,000 crore pledged by Ritnand Baldev Education Foundation (The Foundation of Amity Institutions and the sponsoring body of Amity Universities) for setting up a campus in the state. The intention is to help with job generation in Gujarat. “Celebrating Success in Higher Education- Best Practices" organized by The Association of Indian Universities (AIU). Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Balvinder Shukla, Pro- Vice Chancellor of Amity School of Engineering & Technology outlined certain areas for Indian higher educational institutions such as the need to develop collaborations, have sufficient funds for expansion, overcome faculty crunch, work in close sync with the industry and ensure meaningful employment for students.

Amity had paid $22 million to buy a Long Island branch of St. John’s University in New York City.

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Dr. Ashok K Chauhan, Founder President, Amity Group also shared his thoughts about the Indian ethos in higher education. "Indians are unparalleled and they have the requisite capabilities and capacities to be successful across the globe, provided they realize their potential and pursue their aspirations with self-confidence", he said. During the course of the year, Amity University signed a MoU with the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute & Research Centre (RGCI & RC) to foster close academic and research collaborations between the two institutions in the field of cancer and allied areas. The collaboration was indeed a feather in the cap for its outcome-based R&D efforts. Dr. Ashok Chauhan said that Amity had filed over 800 patents in various fields and many

In January, Amity students were motivated to aim for nothing less than a Nobel Prize, by no one less than a Nobel laureate.

of them have been commercialized for the benefit of humanity. Amity University also featured in the exclusive club of Indian universities invited to participate in the “Israel-India Academic Summit” organized in New Delhi during the State visit of the President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin to India. The opportunity was utilized for the signing of MoUs with 3 reputed Israeli universities namely, The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya; The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI); TECHNION-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel. During the summit, it was proposed that a research conference will be organized in 2017 jointly by Amity and Israel. Subsequently, the Presidents of the leading colleges of Israel - Prof. CohenEliya, President, College of Law & Business (CLB) and Dr. Yoseph

Even the faculty strength of Amity institutions – at over 4500 – is more than the student strength of many private universities in the country!

A.Mekori, Professor of Medicine & President, Tel-Hai College visited Amity University to discuss potential areas of mutual collaboration. Close on the heels of the successful MoU signings with Israeli universities, delegations from Kabul University in Afghanistan and Ball State University based in Indiana state of the U.S were convinced enough to explore mutually benefiting collaborative options. The MoU signed with Kabul University aimed at initiating faculty exchange, MBA student exchange, faculty professional development, access to digital library resources, research collaboration and facilitating Indian trade and investment in Afghanistan.

After a commendable showing in the private education space and a string of foreign university tie-ups, the year ended on a good note for Amity as it broke into the top 300 Universities in the prestigious Times Higher Education BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings 2017. It is worth noting that only 26 Indian universities made the cut this year. Amity has been ranked owing to its high-end research and innovation, increasing number of PhD faculty members, innovative teaching methodologies, international outlook and industry outcome in terms of knowledge transfer - all markers of an excellence-driven university that sets its bar high each time. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Proactive UNIVERSITIES LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY

FORGING AHEAD ON TIE-UPS, INCUBATION, & SCHOLARSHIPS

LPU campus in Punjab is buzzing with strategic activities across 360 degrees. A tie-up with Google, a start-up incubator, and global promotion of Ayurveda are only a few among the noted steps. The campus is an enabler with full cashless facility, least expensive medical care, and not to mention one of the largest scholarship programs in the private space. No wonder then that discerning students are rushing in, and impressive companies are favouring LPU for placements.

ith the admission season just round the corner, universities have their task cut out. While a university like LPU may have very few reasons to worry about attracting reasonable students, it is still not a stretch to rule out the stiff competition that the Jalandhar-based University has been experiencing of late. However, LPU isn’t betting its money only on filling up its seats. The university has made some quick and innovative strides in the last one year while maintaining its competitiveness in the higher education space. From opening a startup school to collaborating with tech giant Google Inc, LPU has charted its future course in becoming a oneof-its-kind global university in India. As another stellar placement season for the university saw the likes of Qatar Airways, Air India and Hyatt Hotel USA offer lucrative packages, LPU would hope that the ongoing year would help stake their claim as a leading private university in India. Lovely Professional University (LPU) has been hogging the limelight recently for more reasons than one. After becoming one of the largest recruiters of faculty talent from India’s various IITs, the private university based in Phagwara, near Jalandhar in India’s Punjab State had set a high placement record in 2015-16. Students of LPU have bagged plum placements with top companies both in India and abroad. The remarkableness of this record was even more evident with the selection SEASONAL MAGAZINE

of 550 students in just a day by Cognizant! Among global placements, Qatar Airways offered highest salary package of Rs 20 lakh and Hyatt Hotel USA at Rs 15 lakh. Other top salary offering companies were Air India (Rs 8.5 lakh), Practo Technologies (Rs 7 lakh), etc. Cognizant once again remained the top recruiter across all the sectors and clusters. It was followed by TechM’s selection of 249 students. While LPU’s strong showing in the placement front is no surprise, the University has truly gone a step ahead to make its presence felt globally. The year began with The School of Ayurvedic Pharmaceutical Sciences of Lovely Professional University and one of the leading ayurvedic pharma

companies, Shree Dhanwantri Herbals, collaborating to produce and promote ayurvedic products not only in India, but across the globe. The said pharma company is already producing and exporting dozens of herbal and ayurvedic medicines in many countries. For collaborative approach, LPU researchers will frame out a literature for the promotion of ayurvedic products, as it has been greatly realized that ayurvedic medicines are reliable alternatives to modern day medicines in their efficacy. This tie-up is also to strengthen academia industry relations for production and promotion of clinically-safe Ayurvedic medicines. Weighing in on the strategic deal, LPU Chancellor Ashok Mittal said, “Under

this collaboration, LPU students will pursue important research projects to further enhance acceptability of herbal, ayurvedic and nutraceutical products. LPU students will also create a literature in this regard for awakening and awareness among people around the world for the great utility of age-old ayurvedic implementations of India in the health sector. On these lines, a lot of achievements have been made at LPU Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, and our students have researched hard for producing alternative medicines to cure and curb diabetes and even cancer.” Mr Mittal added, “As per the needs of global society and Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC), LPU students and faculty members have already researched together to get many patents applied and published.” The attempt at global reach didn’t end there. Earlier in the year, LPU made headlines when it announced a landmark tie-up with the technology giant Google Inc. Google and Lovely Professional University signed an MoU to offer courses with specialization in Android programming. For this, LPU is going to establish ‘Center of Excellence’ at its campus, and this center will be counted among very few centers across the world. LPU students will get Android certifications as a part of their syllabus and that too at no additional cost. Mittal made it clear that under this collaboration, the students will be

Ashok Mittal, Chancellor trained through Google expertise and that for the best training results, the University would set up the state-of-theart Google Center of Excellence with ultra-modern facilities and Google Chromebooks. The university was also an early adopter of digital technology and wholeheartedly embraced the idea of a cashless solution at academic campuses through a strategic partnership with Paytm. History was created when Paytm created the first cashless campus at LPU. Mind you, this was months before the demonetization move and subsequent promotion of online transactions by the government. Mr Mittal felt that for a state-of-the-art university like LPU, it was imperative to bring the cash transaction in the campus to a minimum. “After talking to Paytm and implementing their system, all our fees are coming online and even all our vendors such as the hostel canteen etc are also accepting money through Paytm solution. This has really helped parents and students to understand their spending pattern.” Upbeat about the

“cashless campuses concept”, the institute is implementing wallet-based payments in different styles by bringing out various offers for its students. There are cashbacks, contests and discounts in association with various brands in the campus. At a time when the digital wave had gripped the nation and the entrepreneurship fever among the youth reached a crescendo, LPU went forward with the inauguration of its startup school in early September. On the occasion, Union Minister for Finance Arun Jaitley spoke about the need to emulate the tech hubs like California in the US and countries like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and about how each one of these countries were advanced in technology and research and have grown rapidly by targeting global market. His clarion call was to the LPU students to become ‘disrupter’ entrepreneurs. Mittal said that their primary mission was to ensure that no startup idea stayed just an idea. “While working for LPU students, LPU will also be building a community for the larger Punjab by working closely with the local entrepreneurs. Our goal is that SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Rashmi Mittal, Pro-Chancellor every year, at least, 500 startups are launched, 100 are funded and make 10 of it to the series ‘A’ level. For this, LPU startup school will be providing mentorship through industry experts and academicians related to the fields,” he added. Recognizing the rising cost of healthcare due to the complication of varied medical products and intricate processes, the institute has tied up with 18 top hospitals from across the city to ensure the best and cost effective healthcare services to LPU students, faculty, staff and their family members. Mittal believes that this effort will indeed touch thousands of precious lives by bringing better and more scientific cost control in providing healthcare service. The participating hospitals include BBC Heart Care Pruthi Hospital, Capitol Hospital, Cardinova Hospital, Johal Multi-Speciality Hospital, Chhabra Neuro Care &Trauma Centre, Nasa Brain and Spine Centre, Sikka Hospital, Thind Eye Hospital, Bhatia Mann Scan Centre, Dr

Dr. Ramesh Kanwar, Vice-Chancellor Ruby’s Path Lab, Apex Hospital, Ghai Hospital, Kamal Hospital, Satyam Hospital, Sacred Heart Hospital, Doaba Hospital, Pasricha Hospital etc. Besides the significant gains made in fields ranging from the startup ecosystem to healthcare, LPU is renowned for its comprehensive financial aid and incentive program for its economically under-privileged students. By offering India’s largest private scholarship program, LPU has been continuously endeavoring to provide quality higher education to all meritorious students regardless of economic condition. Scholarships are applicable to almost all the 200+ programs offered by the university. The benefits of this program has already been reached to 30,000+ meritorious students over the last 6 years. A student can avail up to Rs 7 lakh depending upon the program opted and the performance of the student in the last examination as the base of admission. In the last couple of years, LPU has been

recognizing not only academically strong students but also candidates who have performed at state, national or international level sports, cultural, cocurricular activities, social services, bravery acts or research & development works. This culminated in instituting a cricket scholarship in the name of India’s former skipper M.S Dhoni for international level cricket players, Ranji Trophy probables and inter-university finalists. The duration of the five prestigious MS Dhoni-LPU scholarships is for three years. The scholarship includes tuition fee, residential accommodation and food charges. In effect, a student with exceptional cricket can take up a subject of his choice and study at this prestigious private university free of charge and avail all the facilities there is on its state of the arts campus. “Our academics are valued everywhere in the world, we need to bring the same excellence to sports and one way to do this is to institute scholarships and chairs for sportspersons.” said Mittal.

convocation

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THE LNM INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Proactive UNIVERSITIES

INDIA INC LOOKS UP TO LNM'S UNIQUE TALENT

he Jaipur-based The LNM Institute of Information Technology (LNMIIT) has too many unique values to claim, just due to its pedigree. For one, it is the first Deemed University under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model in Rajasthan, and one among only a handful of such institutions across India. Promoted by Government of Rajasthan and Lakshmi & Usha Mittal (LUM) Foundation, it started life in 2002-03 as an IT focused premier engineering college, and was converted to a Deemed University in 2006. Its Founder and Governing Council Chairman is Lakshmi N Mittal, President & CEO of ArcelorMittal, world’s largest steel producer with annual sales of over $63 billion and annual profits of nearly $8 billion. A legendary entrepreneur and largely self-made billionaire, Lakshmi N Mittal has soared to this height within a lifetime dedicated to professional excellence and dreaming dramatically big. Spanning over 100 acres, on the outskirts of the Pink City, his educational dream, LNM Institute of Information Technology (LNMIIT), too is nothing less than impressive. While that is about the pedigree and infrastructure, LNMIIT would rather place its stress on its own real world achievements, which is even more compelling. In its relatively brief history spanning less than one-and-a-half decades, LNMIIT has emerged as a leading engineering university in the country, not may be in quantity, but in the quality of its outgoing students. The institute was recently accredited by

NAAC at A Grade and continues to invest in creating opportunities for excellence. LNMIIT has been ranked 85 in the HRD Ministry’s top 100 list of best universities for the year 2016 and was also awarded the “Best Accredited Student Branch Award” by the Computer Society of India. It recently inked a MoU with the National Ilan University, Taiwan for two programs - faculty exchange and student exchange between two the universities. While BTech or MTech graduates bagging campus placements in private universities is no more a news these days, what differentiates LNMIIT is its sheer success in grooming leaders who have went on to call the shots in numerous domains. While many private and public universities in the country pay lip service to next generation values like creating not jobseekers, but job-creators, LNMIIT is one institution that has created more startup entrepreneurs than most other institutions in the private sector. Noted startup founders and co-founders who are LNMIIT alumni include Vishal Jhalani and AnkitSinghavi (The ELITE Express), ViditPaliwal (Bigstep Technologies), Manu Yadav (Eunike Software), Saurabh Gupta (Nutrino IT Technologies), Utkarsh Jain (CodescapeCunsultant), and Sanket Modi (Lucideous). And don’t ever think that this is a static list. Every quarter or year, another LNMIIT alumnus is likely to be added to this list, as the university is a topper when it comes to new student startups currently looking for

investors in Rajasthan, and even in the whole of India. When it comes to professional careers too, LNMIIT students have come on top, and are found handling interesting jobs at giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Royal Bank of Scotland, ST Microelectronics, Flipkart, Sapient, Adobe, Samsung, and many more such companies across the globe. Academic placements or higher education is another domain where LNMIITians have left their mark worldwide. Universities where they have undertaken postgraduation or research after studying at LNMIIT include, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Technical University of Munich, University of Minnesota, Aston University, MS University of Calgary, Technical University Darmstadt, MS Simon Fraser University, University of Illinois, University of Southampton, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, University of California, University of Colorado, and many more such elite institutions across USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, & New Zealand. The fact that all these premier universities of the world have accepted LNMIIT graduates speak volumes about the educational standards followed here. It starts from a transparent admission process based purely on merit, and that too the JEE-MAIN score, with no management quota or capitation fees. Thus quality of input is assured, and they are then groomed by one of the best engineering faculty in the country, led by its Director Prof. SS Gokhale. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Proactive UNIVERSITIES SASTRA UNIVERSITY

HOW SASTRA GROOMS ALL-ROUNDERS Tamilnadu based SASTRA University, traditionally known for its flagship engineering programs and excellent placements, is now forging ahead with new initiatives in BEd programs, Law programs, and other domains. SASTRA students also continue to win in academic as well as cultural events across South India. By engaging rightly and intensively with the community, industries, and governments, SASTRA University led by Prof. R Sethuraman is showing their students how to emerge as all-round winners. By partnering with TCS in multiple domains, and being selected as a hub university by GoI for entrepreneurship and innovation development, this culture is sure to take SASTRA students to the zenith of achievements.

rof. R Sethuraman is the type of Vice-Chancellor who is not content with minding the affairs of his own university. The brain behind by SASTRA University, he is known to regularly engage with governments, regulators, industries, and the community around for causes ranging from his students' welfare to nation building. Recently, Prof. Sethuraman bagged national eyeballs when he proposed before the Union Government a bold scholarship program for BEd students. The veteran scholar was encouraged to do this, as Union HRD Minister Prakash Javdekar has announced a fresh impetus SEASONAL MAGAZINE

to improve teacher training standards in the country, by way of introducing new measures like a national entrance for BEd, exit test for BEd graduates, as well as an induction program. The SASTRA VC is urging the government to also provide 1000 scholarships of Rs. 3000 per month to the top students in the entrance test. Prof. Sethuraman has put his efforts behind his words by undertaking to provide scholarships to 100 such students. What is even more remarkable is that out of the 100 scholarships, 50 would be to students pursuing BEd in other universities and colleges. This culture of proactive leadership

extends to other leaders at SASTRA too. S. Vaidhyasubramaniam, Dean at Sastra University, recently expressed his dismay at the Union Budget in a frank manner. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As an academic, I am disappointed that the much needed service tax exemptions on annual maintenance contract expenses and subscription to digital online resources have been denied,â&#x20AC;? he observed. SASTRA University is already known for its high quality BEd program. Earlier, IT major Tata Consultancy Services had partnered with Thanjavur-based SASTRA university to train over 2,000 teachers from Tamil Nadu on digital teaching methods, and had also set up a teacher's training centre at the varsity

campus. The training programme is offered predominantly to school teachers across primary, secondary, higher secondary and to professional college teachers. Each six-day training programme is organised in batches of 45 teachers. Another area of emerging focus for the university has been its Law programs. SASTRA law students regularly win at moot court competitions, and recently it won the competition held at Madras High Court Auditorium, besting formidable challenge from School of Excellence in Law. School of Law, SASTRA University is also an emerging leader in conducting moot court competitions. SASTRA has recently announced the 13th Nani Palkhivala Memorial National Tax Moot Court Competition scheduled to be held from 7th â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 9th April, 2017. SASTRA's School of Law is hosting the Nani Palkhivala Memorial National Tax Moot Court Competition for the third time now.

Prof. R Sethuraman, Vice-Chancellor Traditionally, the private university based at Thanjavur has been most famous for its engineering programs. This traditional advantage is now growing from strength to strength. The Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI), Government of India, has been working closely with education and research institutions to train faculty under the Innovation Entrepreneurship Development Program. Over 170 colleges have been selected as part of the program. Adopting a hub and spoke model, 6 universities including SASTRA University have been identified as the core hubs. These hub universities will work with other colleges in the neighbourhood to train faculty in

various aspects of entrepreneurship. Sastra University continues its success spree in cultural events too. At the recently concluded international sports and cultural carnival, 'Riviera 2017' at VIT campus, the overall trophy for culturals was bagged by SASTRA University. The achievement was impressive as from the 486 participating colleges, there were 5,873 external students and 17,868 internal students. The win was sweeter for SASTRA students as celebrities including film actor Ayushmann Khurrana, singer-composer Shankar Mahadevan, singer Armaan Malik, and Bollywood actor, director, and singer Farhan Akhtar had graced the event with their presence.

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Proactive UNIVERSITIES JSS UNIVERSITY

PROVIDING THE HEALING TOUCH TO INDIA'S HEALTH SECTOR WOES JSS University today attracts research scientists from overseas countries, while its faculty and students often get international travel grants. JSS has hosted several national level conferences, and its students are often coming first in attracting noted scholarships. Many of its research papers have garnered the achievement of being the best paper in conferences. JSS University is surely growing along the fine international tradition of being much more than a university that just grants degrees. A deemed university in Karnataka from the private or self-financed sector, it is accredited by NAAC at A Grade and comes at leading positions in the NIRF ranking by MHRD. JSS stands for Jagadguru Sri Shivarathreeshwara, and is promoted by JSS Mahavidyapeetha, one of Asia’s largest educational groups. Sri Shivarathri Deshikendra Mahaswamiji serves as the Chancellor of the University, while BN Betkerur is Pro Chancellor, and Dr. B Suresh is the Vice Chancellor.

JSS University headquartered at Mysuru continues to push the limits of innovations and achievements to emerge as a leader in its core areas of competence. During the recently held international medical conference, ASICON 2016 at Mysuru, the highlight was the telecast of live surgeries. While six hospitals participated for the 60 live surgeries including high-profile ones like Mumbai's Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, the star of the conference was Mysuru-based JSS Hospital, which in its five operation theatres, performed nearly 30 surgeries including those to treat breast cancer and thyroid. The feat was impressive as on attendance at the conference were over 5,000 experts and post graduate students, with presentation of around 1,100 scientific papers. JSS University is also a leading institution in India when it comes to meaningful academic tie-ups with prestigious overseas institutions. The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville's (SIUE) School of SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Pharmacy has partnered with JSS College of Pharmacy since 2014 to offer a student exchange program. Two students in their final year of pharmacy education have the opportunity to complete an elective rotation at each respective institution. SIUE students spend five weeks in India, while JSS students spend eight weeks in USA. Two students from the JSS College of Pharmacy, Nickita Benny and Bhagya Sree, are currently shadowing SIUE’s Kelly Gable, PharmD, BCPP, in the department of psychiatry in a St. Louis family healthcare center. Now, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville is exploring the expansion of this already successful pharmacy exchange program to include the University’s breadth of health sciences. This was the main topic of discussion when JSS VC B Suresh, visited the SIUE campus in US recently. The university or its constituent colleges have tie-ups with La Trobe University, Australia; Khon Kaen University, Thailand; University of Southern

Nevada, USA; Long Island University, USA; AIMST University, Malaysia; Howard University, USA; University of Illinois, USA; National Institutes of Health, USA; and Oman Medical College, Oman. In 2015-16 alone, two lecturers and four interns from JSS have undergone specialized training in USA and Australia by utilizing these kind of tieups, whereas many overseas institutes have send their faculty, research scholars, and students to JSS University for training. When it comes to academic performance too, JSS Pharmacy College is a national leader. The new initiative by Central Government, NIRF, has ranked JSS College of Pharmacy, Ooty, at 9th nationally, under pharmacy colleges. The top performance and focus of JSS on pharmacy courses is also thanks to the expertise of Dr B Suresh, who is a noted authority in the pharmacy field. Dr Suresh holds distinguished degrees in pharmacy like MPharm, PhD, &

Sc.D., and is currently President, Pharmacy Council of India (PCI).

care programs inadequate.

JSS Hospital in Mysuru has been providing quality healthcare at affordable prices in the vicinity and has been enhancing its medical facilities for the benefit of patients. Their hard work at negligible costs to patients have not gone unnoticed by even the corporate sector.

In academic year 2015-16 alone, faculty and research students of the university have done 307 research publications, which is a feat in in itself.

State Bank of Mysore has recently donated new dialysis machines to JSS Hospital. Five new dialysis machines worth Rs 20 lakh to help patients in need were donated to JSS Hospital by the bank under its corporate social responsibility (CSR) program. Presently JSS Hospital has 22 dialysis machines functioning 24X7 providing treatment to average 50-60 patients per day. With the recent CSR aid from SBM, the hospital has purchased five new machines to facilitate additional patients to avail this facility. When it comes to social service too, the university undertakes meaningful work. JSS University recently collaborated with NSS to organize a seven day National Integration Camp. Attendees were from across the country and various activities including planting of saplings, cleanliness projects, flag hosting, yoga, meditation, and other cultural programmes as well as talks by experts on a wide range of topics were the highlights of the event. It was organized at the JSS College of Pharmacy campus at Mysuru. JSS Hospital has tied up with USA’s famed Mayo Clinic to deploy a software program to reduce human errors in its Intensive Care Units (ICUs). Titled as ‘CERTAIN’, this software takes varied inputs like a critically ill patient's physical findings, history, lab studies, imaging inputs etc and suggests optimum treatments that reduce complications in the ICU. To begin with, this software has been first deployed in the paediatric ICU of JSS Hospital, Mysuru. When it comes to research initiatives, it is hard to find another health sciences university in the private sector that is as hardworking as JSS. Recently, Prof. Himanshu Patel, a clinical pharmacist from JSS attracted international attention for a paper he presented in a conference at Singapore which found that India's public cancer

were

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Of these, 51 were noted research articles in various national and international journals with the impact factor range of 0.74 - 3.34 by Thomson Reuters. JSS scholars also made 35 presentations, both oral and posters, in various national and international pharmacy conferences and seminars. The quality of the research output was also impressive. Three among the JSS fraternity of faculty and research scholars succeeded in filing patents. JSS University’s ambition and diligence in this regard is evident from the formation of a Patent Cell that oversees the dimension of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), and a Patent Review Committee that includes external experts from such leading public organizations like CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, and National Research Development Corporation, DSIR, Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India. JSS University's industry interaction initiatives also shine with MoUs signed with leading international and national firms like AlfaGene Biosciences, Colgate Palmolive, Alveus Pharmace uticals, Apex Laborites, Etica Clinpharm, Tablets India, Fourttts India, Waters India etc. Going beyond just MoUs, JSS University has already undertaken research, pre-clinical studies, consultancy, or employee training for these organizations. Leading experts also came in as guest lecturers from reputed organizations including Novartis, Biocon, and Himalaya, to JSS during the year. Going beyond industry, JSS University has also worked with cutting-edge

JSS University offers programs ranging from Undergraduate Diploma to PhD level in various fields including medicine, dental, pharmacy, water & health, health systems management, life sciences etc.

frontline research organizations like World Health Organization (WHO), Eurasian Federation of Oncology (EAFO), Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC) etc, and renowned scientists from these institutes have graced JSS campus as guest lecturers. JSS postgraduate students have also undertaken their project works in leading corporations like Aurobindo, Biocon, Himalaya, Hindustan Unilever, Lupin, Micro Labs, Mylan Labs, Novo Nordisk, Orchid Healthcare, Philips etc. JSS University is home to a Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology and Natural Products Research, which is spearheading the university’s efforts in knowledge creation and dissemination of the same to the society around. JSS University, based on its success in research, is today in a position to attract research funding from various national and international bodies, and is also funding research projects on its own. JSS students have also excelled in career placements during the past year with students from its various streams getting absorbed by numerous organizations including Dr. Reddys Lab, Micro Labs, Himalaya Drugs, Mylan, Biocon, Cipla, Novartis, Unilever, Pfizer, Astra Zeneca Pharma, Narayana Hrudayalaya, Columbia Asia Hospital, and many more. JSS University offers programs ranging from Undergraduate Diploma to PhD level in various fields including medicine, dental, pharmacy, water & health, health systems management, life sciences etc. The constituent colleges include JSS Medical College, JSS Dental College, and JSS College of Pharmacy, all at Mysore, and JSS College of Pharmacy at Ooty. Courses offered include diploma, graduate, post graduate, post graduate diploma, MPhil and PhD programs. JSS is always innovating by launching new courses that are in demand by the industry and society around it. New courses launched recently include PG Diploma in Medical Devices; BPharm (Pharmacy Practice) and Residency Program in Oncology; Oral Health Care Certificate Programme for Nurses; Certificate Course in Maxillofacial Trauma; and Certificate Course in Dental Implantology. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

ASSAM DON BOSCO UNIVERSITY

BETTING ON NANO, BUT DREAMING EVEN BIGGER ASSAM DON BOSCO UNIVERSITY IS MUCH LIKE THE NORTH EASTERN STATE’S MOST FAMOUS TREE, THE HOLLONG, THE ICONIC VEGETATION IN THE REGION. PERCHED ATOP THE HILLS OF ASSAM, THE UNIVERSITY NOT ONLY STANDS OUT FOR BEING THE FIRST PRIVATELY-RUN STATE UNIVERSITY HERE BUT IS NOW INCREASINGLY STAKING ITS CLAIM AS AN EMERGING EDUCATION AMBASSADOR OF THE STATE. IN ITS RELATIVELY SHORT TENURE, ADBU HAS GONE FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH WHILE NOTABLY IMPROVING ITS PLACEMENT RECORD. ALTHOUGH BRANCHING OUT TO MORE NICHE DISCIPLINES LIKE TEA TECHNOLOGY, ADBU HAS PERHAPS EXCELLED UNQUESTIONABLY IN THE AREA OF NANOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH. THIS IS SURE TO MAKE THE SCIENTIFIC AND STUDENT COMMUNITY LOOK UP AND TAKE NOTICE.

ADBU, sponsored by the Salesians of Don Bosco (started by St. John Bosco), is today the largest Catholic congregation in the world. Assam Don Bosco University is their 16th global university and the first in the English-speaking world. They operate a total of three campuses namely at Azara, Kharguli, and the picturesque 500-acres campus on the undulating hills, the Tapesia Gardens catering to the educational needs of the ethnically and culturally rich diversity of India. Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB) is arguably one of the most experienced higher education promoters in the world, running 15 universities worldwide. Assam Don Bosco University’s “Whole Institution” approach is intended to promote a higher education community that is improving efficiency, conserving resources and enhancing environmental quality for sustainability and creating healthy living and learning environments. Apart from the life cycle of buildings, grounds and infrastructure, the commitment to a “Whole Institution” approach encourages research, promotes advocacy efforts, develops curriculum and supports academic and mission-based goals which further sustainability on campus. The University campus is considered as a living SEASONAL MAGAZINE

laboratory and the endeavor includes students, academic staff, administrative staff as well as visitors to extend learning beyond the class room to develop responsible attitudes and commitment to continuous improvement on sustainability issues. The initiatives of agro forestry and conservation of biodiversity, alternate energy through solar and water and eco friendly waste disposal are critical in the University's plan of reducing environmental risk and impact and achieving financial savings Though ADBU has almost all core departments and in-demand courses, its flagship is the undergraduate engineering program with almost half of the on-campus students pursuing their BTech. Although ADBU comes across as the archetypal private self-financing university, it is unique in that its offcampus or distance-learning division Don Bosco Global - is larger in student strength than its on-campus wing and attracts students from all over the world. Offering a variety of courses with a vibrant thrust on research and abundance of extension activities, ADBU currently has around 2000 students on campus and another 6000 pursuing its online courses. Led by Fr.(Dr) Stephen Mavely, a leading educationalist with around 40 years of experience in the North East, ADBU is

guided by a two-pronged principle that runs through its veins: the employability of their graduates in a knowledge based economy and a globalized world, and the formation of their graduates to become life-long learners capable of adapting to the changing demands of the world of work. “In the highly competitive world of today, it is talent and adaptability that matter, not one's background”, aptly summarized by the VC Fr. (Dr) Stephen Mavely. Notably, Fr. (Dr) Stephen Mavely was recently awarded with the coveted ‘100 Most Influential Vice-Chancellors’ award in Asia-Pacific region by World Education Congress. In honoring its research commitments, ADBU signed an MoU with Centre of Fr.(Dr) Stephen Mavely

Plasma Physics – Institute for Plasma Research (CPP-IPR), Nazirakhat, Sonapur. CPP-IPR is a research center of Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, which is an autonomous body under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Government of India. Both the institutions agreed to collaborate in scientific research, lend hands in setting up of laboratories, mechanical/electronics workshops and sharing of infrastructure. The immediate areas that open up for collaboration are in the areas of scientific research in nano-materials, thermal engineering, numerical simulation etc. In addition, the university students of science and technology will also be able to do their project works with CPP-IPR facilities under the guidance of CPP-IPR faculty. This year, ADBU played host to The International Conference on Advances in Nanotechnology, iCAN 2017 in partnership with the School of Technology and Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization, USA. The main objective of the conference was to motivate young researchers from academic and research institutes in the north eastern part of India to explore the possibilities of using nanotechnology and to provide a platform to interact and exchange new ideas and also to explore possible collaborations with the researchers from across the globe working in diverse areas of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. ADBU further solidified its growing contribution in the field of

nanotechnology research by opening a Center of Excellence in Nanotechnology (CoEN). Widely touted to be the trending technological breakthrough of the 21st century, Nanotechnology has made a horizontal impact traversing across all types of vertical industrial sectors like computers, telecommunication, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, defense, construction, energy, to name a few. The CoEN will focus on research in Nano-sciences and Nanotechnology leading to industry-ready technology/ products, development of human resources for implementing nanotechnology through interdisciplinary research, initiate strong interactions leading to collaborations with leading academic institutions and industry for innovations, setting up of a state of the art nanotechnology characterization lab. The CoEN will also advocate the concept of ‘Poor Man’s Nanotechnology’ and assist other institutions in setting up basic Nanotechnology research labs. The CoEN plans to set up a library (both printed and electronic) of nanotechnology related books and research publications, organize International and National Conferences, Symposiums, Workshops, etc. and support researchers in submitting research projects to funding agencies. In another progressive development aimed at promotion of scientific

reasearch, a workshop on ‘Open Source Software for Library Automation’ was held at ADBU. The workshop was jointly organized by collaboration of DRTC, Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Bangalore and Assam Don Bosco University and was sponsored by ISI in Bangalore. The workshop aimed at developing an expertise on Open Source Software known as KOHA by providing a thorough training, tutorial, demonstration and hands-on practice, It also aimed at updating the professionals and academic community about content management. Its vast global network has also enabled the university to go in for several meaningful international tie ups with Salesian and non-Salesian Universities worldwide. Frequent academic and research exchanges between ‘Salesian Institutions of Higher Education (IUS)’ have also helped in ADBU’s adoption of best practices from all around the world. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

INTEGRAL UNIVERSITY

HOW INTEGRAL UNIVERSITY INSPIRES ITS STUDENTS Even if "Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety nine percent perspiration," as the world's greatest inventor Thomas Alva Edison put it, from where do the students get inspired? At Integral University, we have clear answer to this riddle, as the university itself is that vital source of inspiration. Acknowledged by the Indian Government as a Scientific & Industrial Research Organization (SIRO), Integral University outperforms when it comes to organizing international conferences that combine the best of research and community outreach. Needless to say, such events benefit Integral students the most. The Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh based private university offers students and their parents several other inspirations too to focus on their studies and research. These include entrepreneurship development programs, ragging-free campus, best-in-class security for girl students, and campus placements from the biggest names in IT, banking, manufacturing, and other buzzing fields. Already a leader in delivering BTech and Polytechnic courses in its geography, Integral is fast emerging as a leader in health sciences, agriculture, and other dynamic fields too. Founded in 2004, Integral University has grown to a remarkable size, with even full-fledged medical and paramedical courses. Run by Islamic Council of Productive Education, this private university is professionally led by Chancellor Dr. SR Azmi Nadvi and Vice-Chancellor Prof. SW Akhtar.

Integral University has come a long way during the last few years, and is today a mature institution which shows in its research and outreach initiatives. The private university has already bagged national, and even international, eyeballs by hosting high-profile conferences and seminars. Integral University has already been recognized as a Scientific & Industrial Research Organization (SIRO) by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), under Ministry of Science & Technology. As a SIRO, Integral University scholars get to work on Government funded research programs. Being a university having an extensive health sciences department that conducts courses including MBBS, one recent conference was on the super-specialist area of free radicals. Recent medical advances have improved the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of various diseases associated with free radicals. Integral University opened the new year of 2017 with a bang, by hosting the second 'International Conference on Biotechnological Advancements in Free Radical Biology and Medicine' (ICBAFM â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2017), during January end. The prestigious conference brought together experts from the academic, industry and medical communities to share insights and best practices, and to report on findings and

Proactive UNIVERSITIES

contribute towards the goal of elimination of dog mediated rabies by 2030.

generate discussion. Tremendous developments continue to be made around the world in the field of free radical biology and ICBAFM2017 provided an excellent opportunity to share such ideas and developments. The three-day conference provided the premier interdisciplinary forum for researchers, practitioners and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, concerns, practical challenges encountered, and the solutions adopted in the field of free radical biology and medicine. It provided the stage for researchers and decision makers in scientific advancement in health and diseases to get their latest discoveries acknowledged. The conference lived up to its lofty aim of shedding light on the translational nature of medical science research, with emphasis on both the basic science as well as its applications in industry and academia. ICBAFM, which was hosted by Integral University earlier in 2015, helped participants foster collaborations and learn about the biosciences and biomedical advancements taking place in different diseases in the international academic and corporate medical and biotechnology communities. The event was noted for international participants, and another highlight was the first IndoRussian Meet organized at the same venue by Integral University. While Integral University is home to most academic disciplines, one highperformance area for the university has been Agricultural Science & Technology. The Integral Institute of Agricultural Science & Technology had earlier, in late 2016, conducted the International Congress on Post-Harvest Technology of Agricultural Produce for Sustainable Food and Nutritional Security. This was organized under the cosponsorship of Uttar Pradesh Council of Agriculture Research (UPCAR), at the Integral University campus in Lucknow. The Congress brought together researchers from around the globe to discuss the new trends on post harvest technologies in agriculture and link them with sustainable food and nutritional security.

Dr. S. R. Azmi Nadvi Chancellor The Congress contributed effectively to one of humanity's principal goals i.e. to have the best quality of agricultural produce to meet the nutritional demand of the rising global population. The wellattended Congress featured a number of presentations on the newest developments in post harvest technologies of agricultural produce and nutritional food security. This conference was yet another way in which Integral University made its research activities live, as well as contributed to the betterment of the community around it. When it comes to such events that combine research and community outreach effectively, Integral University remains a leader in its geography, and has no plans to lose its headstart among peers. Come March first week, and Integral Institute of Medical Sciences & Research is organizing the 5th National Conference of Consortium Against Rabies. Led by the institute's Department of Community Medicine, the theme of this year’s conference is “Educate, Vaccinate & Eliminate”, that highlights two crucial actions that communities need to undertake to prevent rabies. The conference comes at a right time, as the new global target to eliminate all human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030 has already been announced. Human mortality due to Rabies is highest in Asia, with highest incidence and deaths reported from India. Deaths are scattered and never get the focus deserving a crisis which it really is. There is a need for all stakeholders like Physicians, Veterinarians, Pet owners, and Pharmaceutical companies to join hands to increase awareness and

The conference is expected to have around 300 delegates which include Faculty members & Post Graduate medical students, Researchers, Government officials, NGOs, public health experts, consultants, and private practitioners from across India. The conference will also witness some eminent personalities in public health from different parts of the country. Apart from this focus on international conferences, Integral University continues to inspire students and parents through its impressive array of initiatives. Better discipline is a strength that naturally attract students to Integral University. From its inception onward, Integral has been known for its antiragging initiatives. It has made impressive headway on this front, with not just a comprehensive policy of zerotolerance to ragging, but has ensured an actual track-record of zero ragging in its long history. Providing a safe and disciplined campus for girls has been something Integral has always aimed at. Separate residential facilities are available for boys and girls. Even while being a university that believes in strict campus discipline, Integral also cater to the students’ need for an open environment that encourages dialogue, debates, and disagreements, that fosters creativity in the campus. Integral University offers a variety of streams to choose from, and for it largest undergraduate engineering stream of BTech, admission is through Integral University Admission Test (IUET). Campus recruiters include biggies like TCS, Bosch, & HDFC Bank to name just a few. Integral has significant polytechnic operations too, unlike most private universities. As a leader in in delivering BTech course, the changing job scenario for engineering graduates as well as the start-up momentum in the country and across the world have encouraged Integral University to pursue entrepreneurship development programs too.

MODY UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

ENABLING SYNERGY BETWEEN ACADEMICS, INDUSTRY & SPORTS Not many private universities are enthusiastic about wanting to invest in sports and recreational facilities owing to a deeply academic-focused education system in India. Undoubtedly, academic excellence is what ultimately separates the wheat from the chaff. However, at Mody University of Science & Technology, one can experience the best of both worlds. ocated in a serene environm ent at Lakshmangarh, Sikar district, the Mody University of Science and Technology was established in the year 1998 by R.P.Mody, who serves as its Chancellor. It has been set up exclusively for girl students offering a wide variety of courses ranging from undergraduate level to doctoral level across all major disciplines including architecture, fashion design and law. The university made headlines when its College of Law and Governance was conferred with the ‘Best Institution Award’ for maintaining ‘Excellent Standards in Academic and Extension Activities’ for the year 2016. The selection has been made out of more

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than 1400 law colleges and universities including National Law Universities in India. The jury for the selection was headed by the former Chief Justice of India, Jasti Chelameswar. Led by its President Dr. Vishwanath Prasad, an internationally-acclaimed academician, the institute follows public entrances like JEE for admission and has managed to attract top recruiters like IBM, Deutsche Bank and many other MNC firms. While Mody University continues to collaborate with renowned universities world over and offer international internships, one aspect about the institute that merits special attention is its sworn commitment to imbibing a sports culture among

students. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the campus area includes 17.5 acres dedicated for extensive sporting facilities including equestrian with 55 horses and an Olympian trainer and flood-lit tennis courts, despite being a girls-only varsity. Apart from creating a safe and secure campus spanning 265 acres, Mody university has modern hostels with 24 hours WiFi connectivity that ensures not only knowledge access but always-on connectivity with parents. It also prides in having a state-of-the-art clinic with 2 residential lady doctors and female nursing staff. If planning a visit to the campus, a landmark attraction is the state-of-the-art

Proactive UNIVERSITIES

meditation centre aimed at enhancing the internal strength of the students. Inspirational films are screened every Saturday to impact social sensitivity and environment consciousness amongst students and faculty members. Recently in a noble gesture, the Mody University offered a lifetime of free education for the daughters of the Uri martyrs citing its undying cause of girl education and empowerment.

the College of Fashion Design and Merchandising have received a large number of students in their new programs. Mody University has also introduced the Choice Based Credit System under which students can take courses of their choice from any college such as an interdisciplinary program like renewable energy and IBM data analytics as part of a computer science program.

In the wake of India emerging as a promising alternative education destination for the students across the world, Mody University has cemented its position as a school that offers topnotch, quality education deeply-seated in Indian culture. On this front, the university has already been enrolling students from the Indian diaspora in South East Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States. In the last academic year, the university is said to have admitted 50 students from the U.S.

In a sign of its growing contribution in nurturing the business-ready talent in the tech arena, Mody University welcomed Oracle, the second largest softwaremaker behind Microsoft, for the latter's exclusive recruitment drive for identifying the best fits for their technical profile. Oracle visited Mody University for the third consecutive year in a row to recruit its engineering graduates and the aspirants didn't disappoint yet again. Bagging offers ranging between 9 to 12 LPA, the students are a testimony of the university's commitment to bridging the gap between academic excellence and industry requirements.

University officials are confident that a curriculum that encompass multidiscipline courses blended with interdisciplinary options, first-rate amenities and a grand campus, will succeed in roping Indian Americans and students from other Indian diaspora communities across the globe. Citing Mody University's favorable

Rajendra Prasad Mody Chairman student facility ratio of 12:1, its aweinspiring academic infrastructure and leading-edge laboratories, a safe surrounding, and focus on tradition and spirituality, Dr. Luthra, Dean of Mody University's College of Arts, Science and Humanities is confident that US-based and students from other western countries would find it the perfect place to go in for higher education. The two recent additions, namely the College of Architecture and Design and

Attracting global corporations seem to be a walk in the park for Mody university. The institute recently signed a MoU with Ericsson (I) Global Services, the leader in the field of Communication. Gauging the current trend in this rapidly emerging field, the College of Engineering & Technology, Mody University will offer Elective Course on Advance Radio Access Network (ARAN) for pre-final year and final year students in association with Ericsson (I) Global Services. The course will be delivered by the subject matter experts from Ericsson and accordingly Faculty Development Programme will also take place. The students at Mody University are also regularly sent to conferences and case study competitions to expose them to the dynamic functioning of the world beyond class room lectures. Notably, two of its students bagged the first position after presenting a research paper entitled â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Study on Indian Corporate Consciousness Towards Business Responsibility Reportingâ&#x20AC;? in National Conference on Strengthening Indian Economy and Business : Nurturing the Present, Innovating the Future at Swami Keshvanand Institute of Technology, Management and Gramothan, Jaipur. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

SRM UNIVERSITY

CHURNING OUT THE BEST AS PROMISED With an unwavering visionary approach, SRM University is readying itself for another big splash in the private university circuit. This time around, SRM university, one of the largest self-financing private universities in the country, is set to make its presence felt at Amravati after Andhra Pradhesh CM Chandrababu Naidu laid the foundation stone of its most talked about project. SRM is poised to set up a university campus with 17,000 students by the end of first phase in five years and 52,000 students by the end of second phase in 10 years. According to local sources, the campus would double up as a medical college as well. Last year, the government had allotted 200 acres of land to SRM University at an economical rate to boost private investment in the higher education segment in the state's planned capital city.

ts main Kattankulathur Campus in Kancheepuram near Chennai is a 250 acres affair. A Central Library with vast resources, airconditioned auditorium that can accommodate over 4,000 people, IT and Knowledge Management system supporting over 5,000 computer systems and IT applications of the University, 32 megabytes per second Internet Connection, modern Lecture Halls & "Smart Classrooms", wireless-enabled lab and campus, language lab - specializing in English, German, Japanese, French & Chinese, are only some of the academic facilities.

offering state-of-the-art amenities. With SRM University's long-term goal of achieving a pan-India presence picking up steam, the future of selffinancing private institutions in India seems promising. Having been placed in the highest "A" category by the Ministry of Human Resource & Development, SRM University finds itself regularly featured in India's most reputed ranking lists and acquiring accreditation from official bodies. With accreditations from both

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Self-financing universities like SRM are not likely to be the first choice of students, but if they are unable to get into any mainstream college or university that offers high-quality subsidized education, institutions like SRM comes into their focus, provided they can afford it. However, SRM students wouldn't bother much, as they hail from 48 different countries, and they very well know that their parents can afford SRM. And what you get in return for the high fees compensates the pain, if any. SRM also has extensive and modern hostel facilities, complete with not only South Indian and North Indian cuisine, but with Chinese, Thai, & Continental cuisines for catering to the tastes of its international students.

Support facilities include around 40 Buses - AC & non-AC - that ply regularly between the college and the city, 15 Canteens - from fast-food to full-fledged cafeterias spread throughout the campus, retail outlets - Higginbothams book store, Airtel phone booths, Reynolds teller machines, Super Markets, Reliance Webworld with Java Cafe - all within the campus, a 3-Star SRM Hotel, and prayer halls for all major religions, are only some of the outstanding features of this 42-block masterpiece design. Though the other campuses at Ramapuram & Vadapalani (both at Chennai), and at NCR are relatively smaller, they too are not behind in

the Engineering and Computing Accreditation Commission of ABET and 'A' grade by NAAC, it is only natural that SRM's engineering and IT programs are a major attraction to its prospective students.

Ravi Pachamoothoo, Chairman

Nevertheless, nothing can be a better marker of an institution than its academic excellence and quality of faculty. This was perhaps well reflected in SRM's case when it became one amongst the 31 Indian universities that made it to the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Ranking.

Proactive UNIVERSITIES

In the Times of India Engineering Institutes Ranking Survey, SRM University is ranked no.1 among the top 75 private engineering institutes in the country. It achieved a stellar no. 5 ranking in the top 150 engineering institutes list and the no. 1 position in the region-wise (South) ranking in the same survey. The university also came 7th in The India Today-Nielsen Survey 2016 in the top 10 engineering institutes category. SRM university is also renowned for its semester abroad, dual-degree and twining program with major universities in the world. Under the semester abroad program, the students are allowed to take-up a few courses and /or a Major project in reputed foreign universities for ONE semester. For its dual-degree programs, SRM has partnered with some of the leading engineering and MBA colleges from across the world including, University of Dayton, University of Warwick, Missouri State University, University of New South Wales etc. SRM's flagship collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the USA is a 16-month professional master's degree program - The Master of Science in Information Technology Embedded Software Engineering (MSITESE) - that draws from the combined

resources and strengths of Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science (SCS), the Institute for Software Research (ISR) and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). The overarching goal of the partnership is to create leaders with the essential skills and competencies to guide the field of embedded software engineering. Students completing the course can expect to save over 25 % of costs compared to the cost of the full time programme at CMU. The future for embedded software engineers is bright commanding attractive salaries as chief strategy officer, project manager and chief technology officer and software architect, senior manager of software development, risk management officer and security analyst. The students are also eligible to apply for funding support at CMU. Upon successful completion

P. Sathyanarayanan, President

of the degree requirements, graduates may elect to remain in the US to pursue professional opportunities. Besides their highly acclaimed core engineering courses, the university made it into the record books in the field of space research and technology. Ever since the successful launch of SRMSAT, a nano-satellite designed and created by a group of 50 students from the SRM University under the guidance of ISRO, the university has actively embraced the development of science and astronomy. In light of this, SRM University hosted the DST INSPIRE camp for class 12 students in Chennai and neighbouring districts of the State in association with SPACE, an organisation working for space research. Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) is an innovative programme initiated by the Department of Science and Technology to attract young talents to the excitement and study of science at an early age. About 450 students participated in the camp that saw air rocketry and comet kitchen workshops organized. Earlier in the year, students from SRM University won ITC's major flagship 'iTech 2016' competition, an annual technology innovation and co-creation platform aimed at promoting entrepreneurship. The team from SRM University, created a mixed reality smartphone app, 'NOMI', a short form for 'Know Me!'. It was surely history in the making as it was the first time a student team had won the prestigious hackathon beating professional teams from across the country. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Proactive UNIVERSITIES MANAV RACHNA EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

INSPIRING TOMORROW'S EDUCATION & INNOVATION aridabad based Manav Rachna Educational Institutions (MREI) have been focusing on the applied knowledge of its students, right from its inception. The Group rapidly garnered a name for itself in many academic streams, but most notably in engineering. Since then, many changes have taken place across industry sectors, and even in the nation’s economy. But this focus on applied or practical knowledge, as well as the soft skills required to work in groups, are today helping Manav Rachna graduates and postgraduates to excel in not only high-paying careers, but to chalk out start-ups of their own. A team of students from Manav Rachna International University (MRIU) was recently in the limelight for their automated and non-invasive screening tool for cervical cancer, ‘Griwaditi’, when they won an award at the AccentureYahoo #Innovation Jockeys awards. President of MREI Prashant Bhalla says such a feat was possible only because the university management and the faculty were fully behind these students, even facilitating the necessary funding. MRIU won the presitigious National Education Excellence Award 2017 for being the ‘Best University in Innovation & Research’ making its mark for its research-driven focus at the 2nd National Education Summit & Awards 2017. The passionate focus on research has been made possible by the institute’s collaborative ventures with the industry and sound knowledge partnerships with world class institutions across the globe in creating professionals who are industryready and technology-driven. “We are very focused on research in terms of what our students and faculty have achieved. In fact, our students are well guided by the faculty members in terms of getting the desired research results”, says Prashant Bhalla. Recently, the group partnered with Paytm, India’s largest mobile payments and commerce platform to enable cashless transactions at all major payment points within its campus. Welcoming the partnership with Paytm, Dr Prashant Bhalla,, said, “We are proud to associate SEASONAL MAGAZINE

with Paytm to enable cashless transactions for our students. As a progressive and technology-driven institution, we feel such a tie-up will benefit students immensely for both fee payment and for small spends inside the campus. The initiative would no doubt help save their time and effort while averting the tedium of long queues. This Initiative would no doubt go a long way in supporting the cause of a digital economy as the whole of the country goes cashless in a big way. “ Already a leader in overseas academic tieups, MRIU has signed recent agreements with two overseas institutions - College Sevigne of France and President University of Indonesia. President Prashant Bhalla says these generic MoUs would slowly evolve into concrete projects once the faculties on either side start and deepen their interactions. MREI is also utilizing its locational advantage of being in an industrialized state like Haryana, as well as of being in Delhi-NCR. Dr G.L. Khanna, Dean, Faculty of Applied Science, MRIU along with ace sportsmen Abhinav Bindra and Pulella Gopichand were roped in the Government’s Task Force for next three Olympics. This has reinforced the institute’s sports-centric philosophy in its efforts to impart quality education and knowledge expertise in the areas of high performance, sports science, sports medicine, sports injuries and sports coaching. The Committee would be preparing a comprehensive action plan for the next three Olympic Games to be held in 2020, 2024 and 2028. Besides

that, the task force will suggest ways to achieve synergy in the efforts of key stakeholders within Government of India and across State Governments, IOA, National Sports Federations, NGOs. The Committee would also provide significant inputs towards improving the standards of coaching and sports scientists within the country and look at ways to create and upgrade sports infrastructure needed to train top-level athletes in the country. Recently, Manav Rachna Educational Institutions organized a seminar on soft skills development with a Japanese organization, for its employees. Haryana is well-known for hosting the maximum number of Japanese multinationals in India. MREI students had also attracted great attention due to their innovative products & projects in display at the IITF 2016 Fair at Delhi’s Pragati Maidan. The university is closely working with concerned student teams to help them commercialize their suitable projects. Already, a few thriving start-ups have been incubated at the Manav Rachna campuses, and these have been doing well on both the revenue and profitability fronts. The private university is also providing great thrust on research activities, by partnering with various multinationals including majors like IBM, Maruti Suzuki, Mitsubishi, NDTV and several others. The Group has also successfully changed its focus on engineering courses to a wider variety of courses that satisfy the services sector like finance. Due to these factors, campus placements continue to be robust at MREI.

Proactive UNIVERSITIES NITTE UNIVERSITY

GROWING FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH ON ALL COUNTS Nitte University, a Mangalore based private varsity claims to be an emerging leader in research. The university carries out its research activities beyond laboratories, libraries, and research papers. Also, its community interactions reach beyond the customary interactions with industries. Nitteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;sresearch outlook is loftier, of engaging with the community around it using possible opportunities. Nitte University is led by N VinayaHegde as Chancellor and Vishal Hegde as Pro-Chancellor (Admin). Seasonal Magazine takes a look at how effective has been this novel approach by Nitte University in extending and improving its research activities.

hen you look at the rural landscape of India, standard of school education is definitely a matter of grave concern. Even for the handful of schools following better practices, there is no recognition or incentive to carry their good works forward. Nitte Education Trust which runs Nitte University In order to recognise such excellence in rural schools, has instituted an award from this year onward. The award is given exclusively to rural schools that excel both in academic as well as nonacademic parameters. The first prize will carry Rs 15 lakh, and the second price is of Rs 10 lakhs, which are clearly sums that can make a difference for the further betterment of these schools. To ensure transparency, The jury panel is

headed by Justice N SantoshHegde, former Lokayukta. Nitte University, being primarily a health sciences university, has also embarked on even more ambitious programs in community outreach, especially in its primary domain of healthcare. Recently it conducted a month-long Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) training program with the objective of training 5000 interested members among the huge pool of staff and students across its 35 institutions in Mangalore and Bangalore. On the first day of this camp itself, around 1000 students were trained in CPR, which is a life-saving first-aid when heart attack strikes. In India, more than 7,500 people die every year due to lack of CPR given at

the right time. CPR involves repeated chest compression and mouth to mouth breathing. To give further publicity and effectiveness to this campaign so that more and more Indians from all walks of life are trained in CPR, Nitte University is now trying for a Guiness World Record in this critical domain. Nitte Institute of Communication (NICO), in association with Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) and the Green Brigade an NGO, has been working on an awareness campaign about waste management in the city. Towards this NICO Brigade has been set up which is a team comprising of students, established for the purpose of creating awareness about environmentalism and waste management in Mangalore. The team will be actively going around SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Mangalore city promoting waste segregation and thus furthering their vision of making Mangalore a cleaner and smarter city. Nitte University had earlier launched the Nitte Institute of Communication (NICO), which has started several innovative UG and PG programs in media and communication. With its fresh approach at designing programs that blend theory and practice, Nitte University’s NICO has fast gained a reputation for itself in the domain of media studies. NICO students have access to a stateof-the-art Broadcast Studio, Print Design, TV Editing, and Web Design labs, updated library, Wi-Fi campus, modern ambience with aesthetically designed infrastructure and fully-digital facilities for professional education in media. The University also offers separate hostel facility for men and women, cafeteria, 24×7 access to health care, commercial bank with ATM, a post office, sports arena and university bus facility for daily travelling. Short films, documentaries, promotional videos, interviews with experts, and various fests organised by the media students of NICO not only speaks about their skills but also highlights how well Nitte has been focusing on this niche. The passed out Under Graduate and Post Graduate students have been placed in various sectors of media across India. The community outreach activities of Nitte University is spearheaded by some of the top-most academic leaders of Nitte University’s various constituent institutes. They are often invited as chief guests at noted events and utilize such opportunities to inform and educate the public as well as the government about the pressing needs of our times. Recently, Dr M ShantharamShetty, prochancellor of Nitte University, shared his invaluable opinions on the all important domain of rising road accidents in India. Dr Shetty said that every day 250 individuals die due to road accidents and twice these are rendered disabled. But unfortunately the country is not at all disabled friendly despite court’s directives. He said that as a matter of right every person should SEASONAL MAGAZINE

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The University also offers separate hostel facility for men and women, cafeteria, 24×7 access to health care, commercial bank with ATM, a post office, sports arena and university bus facility for daily travelling.

management principles was undertaken by Justice KS Hegde Institute of Management. Games such as cricket, volley ball, throw ball, kabaddi, and tug of war matches were held for men and women simultaneously as part of the event. An additional objective of the event was to imbibe professionalism in all walks of life. More than 300 management students participated in the event, and demonstrated their management skills through the games and sports..

be insured to make treatment accessible to them. He knows this domain insideout as he is a former president of Indian Orthopaedic Association (IOA).

Speaking about sports, the private university is one of the better equipped ones to handle different sports. Its basket-ball facilities are quite famous and even the national men’s basketball team of India has recently trained at Nitte’s basketball facilities, before going abroad for an international tournament.

Similarly, Prof. K Sankaran, who heads Nitte’s Justice KS Hegde Institute of Management, as its Director had pearls of wisdom for parents in bringing up children. He exhorted parents to encourage their children to choose five things namely, curiosity over clarity, diversity over uniformity, passion over discipline, honour over success, and humanity over technology.

Nitte Educational Institutes has also recently built a modern sports complex that is suitable for cricket, hockey, football, basketball, khokho, kabaddi and all other types of sports. The complex has been named after the late cricketer BellipadiChandrahasa Alva (B C Alva), and was inaugurated by former Indian cricketer and ICC match referee JavagalSrinath.

Prof. Sankaran further said that children should be taught that technology cannot replace love and compassion. He also urged students to realize that discipline and freedom are the two faces of the same coin. The more discipline they have, the more freedom they will receive.

The sports complex is a brainchild of Nitte Educational Institute’s Chancellor N VinayHegde who has fond memories with BC Alva. Family scion and key leader at Nitte, Vishal Hegde has also been instrumental in the construction of the complex.

The university also conducts seminars and workshops where eminent educationalists are invited to share their invaluable views. Nitte Education Trust, that runs the university, recently conducted a workshop for Principals of PU Colleges, which was well attended and led by eminent educationalists like HS Nagaraj, H MadhavaBhat, CS Shastry, and Saraswati B. The workshop articulated well on how the PU colleges should smoothen the shocking transition students undergo while getting promoted from Class 10 to plus-two. Nitte University also undertakes novel initiatives to make its graduate and postgraduate students understand the principles they study in class. Recently a unique sports meet incorporating core

The sixth annual convocation of Nitte University was held in September. Governor of Nagaland, PB Acharya, was the Chief Guest. Degrees were conferred on 636 students on the occasion. The split figures are 18 PhDs, 161 medical graduates, 140 dental, 10 pharmacy, 28 physiotherapy, 38 allied health sciences, 16 journalism and mass communications, and 17 biological sciences. Apart from Nitte University chancellor, N VinayaHegde, who presided over the programme, other dignitaries were Pro chancellor Dr M ShantaramShetty, Vice chancellor S RamanandaShetty, Senior neurologist Dr KR Shetty, Registrar Dr MS Moodithaya, and Director of curriculum Dr Rajashekhar, among others.

Proactive UNIVERSITIES AISECT UNIVERSITY

AIMING FOR A SKILLED AND DIGITALLY LITERATE WORKFORCE eeping up with the times" is a motivating principle for many in the education space. However, very few like AISECT University, compliment the need for swift execution. In the course of this year, AISECT University seems to have fully encapsulated the benefits of a digitally-driven future coupled with skills development programmes. In this regard, the University has recently embraced the digital wave in consonance with the State Govt's efforts and has continued to promote skillbased education through the opening of their latest campus in Jharkhand. The university's founding principle has been towards reducing overall skills deficit and to address this requirement at two levels. Firstly, AISECT has revived the practical part of the curriculum through collaboration with local industries so as to enable a hands-on learning experience. Secondly, the setting up of Skill Academies in each academic department in collaboration with the NSDC has provided the required impetus to address the longterm concerns relating to a skilled workforce. According to AISECT University's Vice Chancellor Prof Vijay Kant Verma, this vision is being nurtured with an emphasis on skills and research-based higher education. "AISECT University has been a progressive institution ever since its launch and I am happy that our vision has been commended at such a prestigious platform. Unfortunately, not much emphasis is given to hands-on experience and skills in the formal higher education space in India.We believe that progression is not just heading forward in the right direction, but taking all with you" AISECT University got a shot in the arm after winning the acclaimed World Education Award (2016). The university has won the award for the 'Progressive Higher Education Institution Operating in the Private Space' category.

In early September, the University welcomed its second campus, this one in Jharkhand at Matwani in Hazaribagh district. The new campus set up by the university has all the basic amenities like that of the digital library, training and placement cell, computer laboratories, multi-skill centre and it also offers a lot of entrepreneurial opportunities to the students. The campus is spread across an area of 25,000 square feet. This is also the first private university in the district. As of now, the university offers under graduate and post graduate programmes. The programmes are offered under different verticals like management, commerce, agriculture, art and vocational, computer science and IT. The university is also in the process of offering programmes in M.Phil and Ph.D. The university has also made one skill compulsory for the students. This will benefit the under graduate student because they leave the university with 3 to 4 skills and also with a good experience, according to Mr. Santosh Kumar Choubey, Chancellor, AISECT University. AISECT is also not far behind in the MOOC domain. Earlier this year, AISECT launched ‘Aisectmoocs.com’, a free online Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform, in partnership with Ireland-based Alison Group, reportedly to support the Indian

government’s Skill India and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan schemes. The MOOC platform will offer 750 diploma and certificate level courses in English and Hindi, and the company plans to add other Indian regional languages in the coming months. Being a partner under the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has enabled AISECT to reach for newer frontiers in the education space. The university also made rapid efforts to transform itself into a cashless campus by promoting digital payments. Siddhartha Chaturvedi, director of AISECT University said, “We are planning to conduct a two- or three-day training in which we will educate students how to do cashless transactions and why it is important. We will acquire a POS machine and e-wallet of SBI. Till now, we have been taking payments by DDs and in cash. Now, cash is not an option.” The University has also been a staunch backer of the Central Govt's efforts at promoting yoga by offering courses and curriculum development. To this extent, AISECT University and Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana (S-VYASA) based in Bengaluru, Karnataka have entered into a five year MoU that focuses on bringing up the status and importance of Yoga by promoting it as an employable skill rather than just a practice of well-being. The MoU also includes Yoga training of AISECT University’s faculty at S–VYASA and technical training of S-VYASA Faculty on computer and electronics at AU at discounted fees. As envisaged in their vision and mission statement, the University strives to create a world-class centre for knowledge application and not just knowledge creation. The University has put itself at the globalised forefront of a progressive India and is well positioned to impart dedicated service towards the social and economic development of the nation. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

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BENGAL GLOBAL BUSINESS SUMMIT 2017

How Mamata Won Investments Against All Odds THE RESOUNDING SUCCESS OF BENGAL GLOBAL BUSINESS SUMMIT 2017 IS A SWEET WIN FOR WEST BENGAL AS WELL AS CHIEF MINISTER MAMATA BANERJEE AS IT WAS DESPITE NON-COOPERATION BY INDIAN GOVERNMENT, AND WON WITHOUT DILUTING HER COURAGEOUS STANDS AGAINST DEMONETISATION AND CRONY CAPITALISM. engal Global Business Summit 2017 was attended by business delegates from more than 27 countries, and was inaugurated by President of India Pranab Mukherjee.

'janmabhoomi', but 'karmabhoomi' for us. It is here we started our business. The state has enabled us to do business much better than other places in India. Whenever we launch new business, we start from West Bengal."

Major companies that committed new investments into West Bengal during the summit include Future Group, Hero Motors, RP Sanjiv Goenka Group, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, and GAIL, to name just a few.

RP Sanjiv Goenka Group committed an investment of Rs 10,000 crore in the FMCG sector in the state over the next few years. Chairman Sanjiv Goenka said at the occassion that, "West Bengal is an investor-friendly state. There is transparency in deals. There is no hitch, no delay. West Bengal means business."

Top honchos from these firms with global operations were also all praise for West Bengal and its leader Mamata Banerjee. Future Group MD Kishore Biyani announced the setting up of a 2 lakh sq feet apparel hub near Kolkata, a Rs 60crore garment factory, a Biswa Bangla mall at Rajarhat and its second logistics hub in the country at Burdwan. Said

Biyani,

"Bengal

not

Investors should come forward and invest in the state as the government "makes things happen without any fuss", Goenka added. Pankaj Munjal, CMD, Hero Motors, announced the setting up of a 3 million unit per year bicycle manufacturing unit eying Bengal governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flagship Sabuj Sathi programme.

Bharti Enterprises Vice-Chairman Rakesh Bharti Mittal said the Bharti Group has pumped in about Rs 30,000 crore in the state so far for its Airtel operations. "We want to partner with the state government further. The Bharti Group will invest about Rs 3,000-4,000 crore in the state in the next 2-3 years," Mittal said. Bharti Airtel's competitor and the country's second largest mobile operator Vodafone also plans to invest Rs 3,000 crore over the next three years in capacity augmentation and new business initiatives in West Bengal. "At Vodafone, we are enthused with government's vision of creating Bengal a business hub and keen to be a partner in its delivery. We remain deeply invested in and committed to West Bengal and are pleased to announce our investment plans in the state," said Arvinder Singh Sachdev, Business Head - Kolkata and West Bengal Circle, Vodafone. PSU major GAIL has proposed renewing its plan of setting up the HaldiaJagadishpur pipeline at a cost of Rs 6,500 crore, while Great Eastern Energy Corporation Ltd proposed expansion of its natural gas production at an investment of Rs 7,000 crore. Cricketer Sourav Ganguly, hailing from the state, also batted for West Bengal

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and urged investors to invest in the state. "In the last two years, we have seen a lot of support for investment in this part of the country. Please come to West Bengal and invest. You will receive enormous support from the chief minister," he said. The third edition of Bengal Global Business Summit held in Kolkata also witnessed a unique congress of Russian food sector companies looking at new business frontiers in India and celebrating an event they called the Russian Gastro Week. From producers of classic alcoholic beverages to confectioneries, icecreams, healthy snacks, wines, caviar and more, the event showcased the intent and interest of the Russian food sector in the Indian market. Even amidst a challenging investment backdrop, Mamata Banerjee has put up a strong show in BGBS 2017. She has used all the aces up her sleeve, many of them from hard learned lessons since becoming the Chief Minister.

Kishore Biyani

First among these strengths is her focus on Micro, Small, & Medium Industries. While an investor meet at the scale of BGBS is never intended to attract such small investors, it is a fact that most of the large industrial projects require a thriving MSME environment around it as feeder or ancillary units. Didi has been shrewd enough to realize that MSME sector that creates more grassroots level jobs is more likely to be acceptable to the socialist minded citizens of West Bengal. Secondly, despite many investors shunning the state in recent years, there have been notable exceptions too to this trend, when courageous companies have forged ahead and made the best possible of what West Bengal has to offer. One of the recent examples has been the mammoth biscuit factory commissioned in the state by Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foods major, ITC. Such actions by domestic giants were highlighted by the Mamata government and have succeeded in attracting international

Rakesh Bharti Mittal

Pankaj Munjal

majors during BGBS 2017. Thirdly, West Bengal has been cosying up lately to USA, arguably the biggest investing nation in the world, and this has expectedly produced some results in BGBS 2017. Mamata Banerjee also had a strong ally in Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, who being from the state, is strongly committed to see it developing, and his presence at the summit conveyed the message that India is committed to West Bengal's growth. Lastly, Didi has a winner in Dr. Amit Mitra who handles core portfolios like Finance, Excise, Commerce, & Industries. A noted economist and professor abroad, Dr. Mitra was also the Secretary General of the influential apex trade body, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI). Dr. Mitraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unparalleled experience spanning both sides of the table has helped West Bengal for attracting game-changing investments during BGBS 2017.

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Karnataka Bank

LAUNCH OF “NATIONAL PENSION SYSTEM Karnataka Bank has launched “National Pension System” popularly known as NPS at its Corporate Office, Mangaluru NPS is introduced by Government of India with an intention to provide old age financial security by way of regular income in the form of Pension. At the earning age, one can contribute to the NPS and start receiving Pension on his attaining the age of 60years to meet his financial needs. Any individual between the age 18 years - 60 years can register his name with the Bank branch to contribute and to get the pension benefit under this scheme. The Investor can avail of the exemption to the extent of Rs.50,000 under Section 80 CCD 1[b] even though he is contributing towards any other pension schemes. Because of the flexibility and tax exemption feature, it is most suitable to the earning unorganized sector employees. Speaking on the occasion, Shri P Jayarama Bhat, Managing Director and CEO of the Bank expressed his happiness that Bank is providing another tool to the common public for improving their financial security along with other social security schemes viz. PMJBY, PMSBY, APY. “Karnataka Bank is always in the forefront in

serving the customers with social welfare cause. Launching of the National Pension System is one such step towards improving the welfare of the society” he said. He also expressed confidence that this product will be well accepted by the public because of its flexibility in investment and tax exemption feature. Bank has introduced this scheme at select branches initially and plans to introduce it in a phased manner at all of its branches.

Karur Vysya Bank

posts 9-month Net Profit of Rs. 388.42 crore Karur Vysya Bank has released its third quarter results for the FY 2017 at Karur. Aggregate business stood at Rs. 93525 crore up from Rs. 85208 crore a year ago. Deposits were at Rs. 55066 crore up from Rs. 47336 crore, while gross advances moved to Rs. 38459 crore from Rs. 37872 crore. Net Interest Income moved up by 15.49% from Rs. 448.20 crore to Rs. 517.63 crore during the third quarter and by 14.14% from Rs. 1308.72 crore to Rs. 1493.71 crore during the nine month period. Net Interest Margin (NIM) rose to 3.68% from 3.47% in Q 3 of FY 2017. Net Profit for the nine month period ending December, 2016, decreased by 9.59% from Rs.

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429.63 crore to Rs. 388.42 crore.. For Q 3 the Net Profit decreased by 24.26% to Rs. 115.76 crore down from Rs. 152.83 crore a year ago Operating Profit for the nine month period the decrease was by 10.47% from Rs. 976.54 crore to Rs. 874.34 crore. For Q 3 of FY 2017 it decreased by 16.51% from Rs. 325.57 crore to Rs. 271.82 crore. For Capital to Risk Weighted Assets Ratio (Basel III) stood at 11.79% as against the regulatory minimum of 9%. During the third quarter of FY 2017, Ratio of Gross NPA to Gross Advances increasedto 2.66% from 1.91%, while the ratio of Net NPA to Net Advances increasedto 1.68%from 0.96%, when compared with December of FY 2016. During this quarter, the performance of the Bank was recognized with two awards – one as the Best Small Bank, 2015-16 by Business Today – KPMG; the second as the Best Bank at the National Level under Private Sector Category, 2015-16 by the State Forum of Bankers’ Club, Kerala. In addition, the bank was awarded the 1st Prize under Solar irrigation pump scheme from Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Government. of India for having achieved highest disbursement under the category Solar irrigation pumps – Off grid & decentralized solar applications programme for the FY 2015-16. Our Belgaum branch has been selected for 2nd prize under branch wise performance. As on date, the bank has 707 branches, 1727 ATMs and 401Recycler / Cash Deposit Machines.

Swarna Pragati Wins Government's Social Innovation Award 2017 Swarna Pragati Housing Microfinance led by veteran banker A Ramesh Kumar has won the Social Innovation Award for 2017 given by Government of India. A. Ramesh Kumar is creating a system to enable rural populations to access housing finance, leveraging the existing network of self-help groups, NGOs and micro finance institutions (MFIs). The formal banking sector has denied access to finance for housing to rural populations primarily because existing Housing Finance Products and mortgage structures are not built to serve rural populations, due to their long term nature, collateral required, difficulty in the absence of credit histories and high cost of outreach into the Rural heartland. Ramesh, a former banker, is rethinking the entire housing finance model to address these gaps. His organization, Swarna Pragati Housing Microfinance Pvt Ltd, seeks to finance the construction of a home through a series of modules â&#x20AC;&#x201C; with a series of shorter term loans(Incremental Housing Finance) that would enable different parts of the house to be built over a period of time. To make these loans Ramesh is working with an alternate approach to assess collateral and credit history of rural populations by creating a Paralegal Mortgage backed up by the self-help group members the recipient is part of, and approved/acknowledged by the Village Panchayat (Local Self Government). To identify suitable recipients and scale his work he partners, after an extensive vetting process, with Grass roots institutions, who already have a deep and ongoing relationship with a community. Ramesh Kumar has opened up a new sector of Housing Microfinance by proving the financial viability of his model, so that other public and private finance institutions can also build housing microfinance loan products for this segment. Ramesh is opening up the sector of housing

Ramesh Kumar at client house microfinance by proving the financial viability of his model, so that other public and private finance institutions also build housing microfinance loan products for this segment. For the efforts he led he was awarded the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Excellence in Micro Creditâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Award from Government of Maharashtra in 2005 and from National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in 2004, 2005 and 2006. In 2005, NABARD invited him to be the Chairman of the National Committee on Rural Habitat, whose focus was to address the deficiencies in the rural housing finance. He contributed to the development of a report which suggested a new approach to Rural Housing finance and contributed to the development of the Draft National Rural Habitat Policy for India. When Ramesh looked back at this Sector a few years down, he was anguished to see no change in approach of Banks and mainstream institutions to Rural Housing Finance and that the crying need remained. In 2009, Ramesh started Swarna Pragati to personally initiate efforts to address the market gap he was consistently seeing around access to housing finance in rural communities. Having developed a revolutionary new approach to Rural Housing finance and proven the concept and Financial Model, he received assistance from Social Impact Investors to scale up his operations.

Ramesh Kumar attending SHG meeting

Having provided Housing finance access to 15000 deprived families to help them achieve their shelter, Ramesh is looking to provide similar access to hundreds of thousands of families over the next 5 years to achieve their Dream Homes. SEASONAL MAGAZINE

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130 showrooms. 14 countries. Inspiring milestones in a short span of 30 years by Joyalukkas, Joyalukkas, the the world’s world’s favourite favourite jeweller. jeweller. by From its humble beginning of a single

showroom in the UAE in 1987, Joyalukkas has changed the landscape and widened the horizon of the jewellery retail industry. Today the Joyalukkas Group has grown into a multibillion-dollar corporation with diversified interests, spanning retail, fashion, money exchange, realty and aviation industries. The Joyalukkas brand has become a household name and the Group today enjoys the loyal patronage of over 10 million customers in the UAE, India, UK, Singapore, Malaysia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the USA. Joyalukkas, dubbed the world’s favourite jeweller, has enjoyed much acclaim since inception. Some of the first and biggest accomplishments include the first retail chain to be awarded both ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification, 7 years of Superbrand status in a row, the world’s largest showroom recognition from Limca Book of World records and more. Joyalukkas Jewellery is renowned worldwide for quality, designs, best value offerings, convenience and setting new benchmarks in customer service.

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“When I opened the doors of the first Joyalukkas showroom 30 years ago, I had a simple goal: to offer the very best. Every new showroom and location brings us closer to our goal of being where our customers are. Each achievement affirms our goal and motivates us to aim even higher moving forward,” says Joy Alukkas, Chairman

& MD, Joyalukkas Group. “But all of this would not have been possible without the loyalty and support of our dear patrons. They are the driving force behind our efforts and constant pursuit of excellence. They have made the past 3 decades highly rewarding for us and our gratitude knows no bounds. It is my pledge to tirelessly work towards delighting our customers every time they visit a Joyalukkas showroom”. Joyalukkas Group has been on an aggressive expansion drive since 2000, growing the jewellery division to its current 130 across the globe. Work is now underway currently to open showrooms in new territories, such as Canada, Australia and Sri Lanka by the close of the second quarter of 2017 which spreads Joyalukkas presence across 14 countries. Many exciting initiatives, new product lines and innovative services are also in the works. The vision of Joyalukkas Jewellery is to ‘Ornament the world’ and the world’s favourite and the world’s favourite and largest jewellery retail chain is doing everything possible to accomplish this.