Seasonal Magazine - Union Bank - Cover Story

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John Antony

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WHILE MARKETS SOAR, A PIECE OF MUNGER’S WISDOM THAT HAS BEATEN THE MARKET FOR 45 YEARS!

Finally it happened. Jerome Powell backed off from destroying the American economy and the world economy further by not only pausing from an interest hike yet again, but by hinting that 2024 might witness up to three rate cuts.

It was the perfect excuse that the Indian markets needed to move even further up. Our nation already had structural strengths due to the ongoing economic reforms and infra push, plus the booming mutual fund inflows, and this move by the US Fed is surely a long-term positive.

Did someone mention long-term just now? Yes, and it was intentional, as there is now a chorus that the market will only go up and up. A little more conscientious souls are saying that only the large-caps may move up now, and not the mid or small caps, which are way too heated up already.

But this too has become a chorus now, and everytime such a chorus is emerging, beware, a correction might just be around the corner. A 10-15% correction is a healthy norm in a bull market, but it can catch most traders and investors on the wrong foot, as this time around it may involve Nifty diving down by over 3000 points and Sensex by over 10k.

In Warren Buffet’s words, yes, it is a time to be fearful. As the Oracle of Omaha said in near perfect words - “To be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.” But such a dip too is sure to be bought in rapidly, giving you a fruitful opportunity to be greedy.

So, this kind of rapid buys against sharp falls is what the long-term qualifier is all about. And not that the markets will go only up and up. Of course, long-term has much more positive implications in the capital markets. Charlie Munger who passed away on November 28 was one of the best practitioners of it.

It is said that many of the quotes and wisdom that people attribute to Warren Buffett were actually from his long-term business partner Munger. One such quote where Munger likely had a great role was this - “Our favorite holding period is forever.” Such was his conviction about a unique advantage that only comes from the long-term holding of stocks - the power of compounding.

Compounding is no rocket science. At its heart, it is only middle school arithmetic. But 99% of investors in stocks and mutual funds do not get to reap its benefits. In fact, Munger excelled in it precisely because it was only basic math. Despite his towering intellectual capabilities - lawyer, architect, analyst, investment strategist, business head & thinker - he was careful to choose only simple generalized knowledge from the various domains.

Munger had a well-known disdain for specialists and their too specialized knowledge. His argument

was that specialists tend to focus too much on their specialized knowledge, while ignoring what a multidisciplinary approach could have easily solved, by bringing together basic knowledge from all connected domains.

Anyway, compounding was one such basic skill that Buffett and Munger excelled in, that it won’t be an exaggeration to state that this strategy had more than a 50% role in their astounding success at Berkshire Hathaway which they together grew into the world’s largest holding company worth nearly $800 billion.

Munger’s appreciation for the power of compounding is evident from one of his best known quotes - “The big money is not in the buying and the selling, but in the waiting.” Indeed, what he achieved for Berkshire Hathaway by way of compounding can never be overstated.

In fact, Munger’s strategies including his reliance on long-term compounding was central to Berkshire Hathaway shifting away from Buffett’s philosophy of investing in fair companies at wonderful prices (which he learned at Columbia University from his professor Benjamin Graham, the Father of Value Investing).

Instead, Munger - who never attended any b-school unlike Buffettconvinced Buffett that what they should be doing is investing in wonderful companies at fair prices. Since this involved buying at higher prices than in value investing, it invariably required the power of compounding to work, and it proved to be so, as most of these companies proved to be really wonderful in the long-term!

Buffett himself has gone to great lengths to credit Munger for this complete strategy shift and for creating a new blueprint for Berkshire, often saying that “it was Charlie who straightened me out” and that “listening to Charlie has paid off.”

Between 1978 and 2023, that is, for 45 long years, Berkshire Hathaway grew investors’ wealth at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20%. Most people don’t readily realize what this achieved for their public shareholders - it multiplied their wealth by 3700 times within these 45 years!

It is a feat never done before and never likely to be done again in the future. This is especially so as despite this intervening period being witness to America’s largest ever economic growth, that sent its

benchmark S&P 500 index over the roof at 163 times wealth creation, Berkshire Hathaway’s performance beat even this superlative returns by nearly 23 times!

So, what exactly is this power of compounding in layman terms? It would be best to describe it with an example. Suppose you have Rs.10 lakhs to invest in 2023. And you invest all that in a stock priced at Rs.50, after a careful study. So you get 20,000 shares.

For this stock to double your wealth, it has to go to Rs. 100 or go up by 100%. Suppose it does that within a year or two. So now you have doubled your wealth to Rs. 20 lakhs. Now, to triple your wealth you know the stock has to triple in value, that is, become Rs. 150 per share. But do you know how much it has to grow now in percentage terms to reach Rs. 150 from Rs. 100? It has to grow only 50%, and it will triple your investment to Rs. 30 lakhs!

If it is an excellent stock in an excellent market, it will achieve that within the next year. So now you have tripled your wealth. You know that if it adds another Rs. 50 to its value, it will quadruple your wealth to Rs. 40 lakhs, that is increase it fourfold. But do you know how much that growth is in percentage terms - from Rs. 150 to Rs. 200? It is merely 33.33%! And similarly for your investment to grow fivefold - from Rs. 200 to Rs. 250 and from Rs. 40 lakhs to Rs. 50 lakhs - all it takes is a 25% up move, which can sometimes happen within a week!

Now suppose you were really fortunate that your chosen stock was one of the best growth stocks in the market, maybe within the top 1% of the best small caps, that becomes a 100X multibagger by 10 years, that is, by 2033. So now your Rs. 50 stock is trading at around Rs. 5000, and your Rs. 10 lakh investment is now worth Rs. 10 crore. What happens now is the real magic.

Do you realize how much your stock has to move up now for it to add one more times in return, that is to add one more 10 lakhs (your original investment), or in other words to move from 100X to 101X?

If you are quick at arithmetic, yes, you guessed it right, it should just rise by 1%. Imagine, a stock moving up by merely 1%, and you adding one more times of your original investment to your wealth!

This is what the magic of compounding is all about. Do you think this is a far fetched idea? Absolutely not. Even in the Indian market, there are dozens of stocks that have done this within the last 10 to 20 years, and now with the kind of better quality companies and startups hitting the IPO street, there will be hundreds of companies achieving such feats in the 2023-33 period.

This is why Buffett and Munger always held seemingly boring stocks like Coca Cola and American Express in Berkshire’s long-term portfolio without ever divesting them. These stocks continue to be incredible wealth compounding machines for early investors like them, who have also used their high dividends to reinvest!

And this magic of compounding is what drove this remarkable duo to state counterintuitive stuff like, “Our favorite holding period is forever” and that “The big money is not in the buying and the selling, but in the waiting.” It is a wisdom that runs diametrically opposite to the current trend of dangerous practices like only microseconds long algorithmic overtrading, futures & options and heavily leveraged bets.

John Antony

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Union Bank of India, the fourth largest public sector bank in India has continued its stellar performance on most counts in Q4 including a 14% rise in its core net interest income, a 19% jump in its net profit, better asset quality and a sharp decline in loan loss provisions. The results are in-line with MD & CEO A. Manimekhalai’s vision to elevate Union Bank to be the third largest public sector bank by 2025.

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OUR RESPONSE BEGAN TODAY: PRESIDENT BIDEN AS US BOMBS IRAQ, SYRIA AFTER 3 SOLDIERS DIE

Following strikes in Iraq and Syria, US President Joe Biden in a statement said the US doesn’t seek a conflict in the Middle East but if any American is harmed, the country will respond. “Our response began today. It will continue,” Biden added. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 13 proIran fighters were killed in the attack.

MARK ZUCKERBERG GETS RICHER BY ¹ 2.33 LAKH CRORE IN A DAY

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META ADDS $197 BILLION IN MARKET VALUE, BIGGEST ONE-DAY GAIN IN MARKET HISTORY

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UNION BANK OF INDIA’S Q4 MD’S VISION TO BREAK INT

UNION BANK OF INDIA’S Q4 MD’S VISION TO BREAK INT

Union Bank of India, the fourth largest public sector bank in India has continued its stellar performance on most counts in Q4 including a 14% rise in its core net interest income, a 19% jump in its net profit, better asset quality and a sharp decline in loan loss provisions. The results are in-line with MD & CEO

A. Manimekhalai’s vision to elevate Union Bank to be the third largest public sector bank by 2025.

Union Bank of India is at a sweet spot when it comes to its relative positioning among the Top 10 public sector banks of the country. Now at the fourth position by size, the Mumbai headquartered lender is not too small to compete effectively with the Top 3 PSU Banks, and not too big to be agile like the smaller banks.

While the earnings recovery cycle post the easing of the NPA crisis in PSU banks is still ongoing since the last couple of years, in larger banks like State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank, it has largely peaked. But in mid-sized lenders like Union Bank, the earnings recovery cycle is still expected to go on for the next two fiscals at least, which can generate surprisingly strong results in FY’25 and FY’26.

There are other factors too that make Union Bank’s positioning very dynamic among its peers. Despite the promoter stake in the bank - held by Government of India - coming down by around 10% during the last fiscal, Union Bank still enjoys one of the largest promoter holdings among large sized PSU banks at nearly 75%.

This leaves much room for large sized investors like Foreign

4 CONTINUES TO TOP-3 PSBS

4 CONTINUES TO TOP-3 PSBS

Margin (NIM) has been on a steady rise during the past two fiscals with it now standing at a healthy 2.63%.

Similarly, its core return ratios of Return on Assets (RoA) and Return on Equity (RoE) have been surging ahead during this period with RoA now at 0.98% and RoE at 14.15% at the end of FY’24.

Institutional Investors to invest further in the stock, as and when the Government divests, or new shares are issued as part of a fund raise. This flexibility is increasingly missing from bigger peers like State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda.

And wonder of wonders, despite the bank and its promoter GoI opting to reduce the promoter stake by as much as 10% during the past fiscal, the market has not only absorbed the massive amount of new shares that came into the market without a price fall, but even sent the Union Bank shares soaring, with its value doubling over the past year.

There are several fundamental reasons for this strong performance of Union Bank at the bourses. During the past two fiscals, the bank’s total income has grown by over 47%, while its net profit has zoomed by over 2.63 times. This is a far cry from a bank which was in the red just four years back, with its FY’20 bottomline posting an over Rs 3000 crore loss.

This emphatic turnaround performance under MD & CEO A Manimekhalai was not just in the headline numbers or quantity, but in quality too. The bank’s core profitability ratio of Net Interest

This is despite the bank, as a responsible PSU lender, has continued to fulfil all its responsibilities in socioeconomic upliftment. It is highly proactive in lending to priority sectors including agriculture, MSME and educational segments and experiencing robust growth in these verticals. Union Bank is one of the largest educational loan providers to students, and is famed for offering the most affordable interest rates for educational loans up to Rs 50 lakhs.

At the same time, Union Bank is witnessing a sustained momentum in the most lucrative verticals including retail, corporate and overseas lending segments. In the corporate segment, which was the bank’s mainstay in the past decades, the bank is seeing a resurgence. Currently, the bank has sanctioned around Rs 40,000 crore in corporate loans which are ready for disbursement, while it has a robust pipeline of corporate loans worth Rs 30,000 crore under discussions.

Union Bank has been highly selective in choosing projects in risky segments like real estate development, with it preferring mostly signature projects. A case in

point is its recent funding of Rs 250 crore to Hyderabad based real estate major Navanaami Group for their flagship super luxury housing project, Megaleio.

A one of its kind project in the country, the 150 super luxury apartments in Megaleio at Hyderabad will each have areas ranging between 8,888 sq ft to 11,111 sq ft with prices starting at Rs 8 crore per home. Targeted at Ultra HNIs, HNIs and NRIs, the total project cost for the twin tower, 50storeyed, 4.1 acre project is expected to be Rs 800 to Rs 900 crore with sale value at Rs 1200 crore.

Apart from the loan of Rs 250 crore that Union Bank has extended, the rest of the investment will come from the promoter company’s internal accruals. From a banking perspective, the project symbolises Union Bank’s emerging ambition to be a part of high-ticket projects that are usually taken up by the likes of

At the same time, Union Bank of India is carefully monitoring the impact from RBI’s new project finance draft as and when it is implemented. The bank’s MD & CEO A Manimekhalai has recently expressed confidence that it can very well manage the impact from RBI’s new move.

While the newly proposed norms are quite stringent when compared to

the current scenario, UBI’s MD is confident of this challenge as only 28% of its corporate loan book is made up by project finance, out of which around 68% are already completed projects with very visible cashflows.

The bank had significant challenges in Q4 including an impact from wage revision and higher tax expenses. However, Union Bank could tide over it with support coming from higher interest income, sharply high treasury income and reversal of loan loss provisions.

Union Bank could achieve a 19% year-on-year growth in its net profit to Rs 3,311 crore in the fourth quarter, with the support of better asset quality and increase in interest income which grew 19.75% year-onyear to Rs 26,350 crore. Also contributing to Q4 profit growth were steady margins, strong noninterest income and modest provisions.

The bank’s asset quality continued its improvement drive, with gross non-performing asset (GNPA) ratio of the bank improving to 4.76%, from the 4.83% it was a quarter ago, and 7.53% it was in the corresponding year ago period. Similarly its Net NPA ratio improved to 1.03% in the fourth

HDFC Bank or SBI.

Nitesh Ranjan, EDRamasubramanian S, ED

Sanjay

quarter, from the 1.08% it was during the third quarter, and 1.70% it was during last fiscal’s Q4.

While fresh slippages were slightly higher in Q4, going forward the slippages are likely to be modest as most of the stress has already been recognised, including from the legacy corporate loan book, which frees the bank to pursue higher profitability.

Overall, Union Bank is guiding for a credit growth of 10-12% in FY25, supported by strong credit demand. It has room by way of funds to power this growth as the bank has also guided for its deposit base to grow healthily at a rate of 9-11%, especially by way of retail deposits including CASA and retail fixed deposits.

In fact, with a credit deposit (CD) ratio of just 71%, the bank has definitive plans to further improve loan growth, aiming for a CD ratio between 75-77%. Thanks to its high promoter stake, the bank is also ahead of the curve in periodically raising funds, with Q4 witnessing a successful Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) that raised Rs 3000 crore with less than 2.25% dilution in promoter stake.

Such periodic measures have helped

the bank to keep holding an excess reserve of Rs 70,000 crore over and above the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR), which can meet any suddenly emerging opportunity in credit demand.

Union Bank, which has a significant and growing overseas business, is also raising funds successfully for the same. Recently it raised its maiden syndicated term loan at an overseas centre. The Dubai Branch of Union Bank at Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) successfully raised $500 million (about Rs 4,200 crore), of which it has already drawn $100 million to fund the emerging overseas credit opportunities.

On the technology front, Union Bank of India continued to move up to higher orbits, with it recently modernising its risk management systems in association with global leader SAS Institute of USA, which is a leader in AI based data analytics. With this move, Union Bank has joined an elite league of international majors, as SAS Institute is renowned for serving most of the Fortune 500 companies with data analytics based risk management systems.

SAS solutions that have been implemented at Union Bank will help the lender to enhance and streamline its risk operations and

reporting through advanced model risk management solutions. The new system also meets RBI’s regulatory requirements for credit and operational risk while obtaining an enterprise view of the bank’s risk exposure throughout the risk management life cycle.

This modernisation resulted in significant credit risk RWA (Risk Weighted Assets) and capital savings with a single integrated system for RWA computation. This standardised system enabled rapid RWA generation for large volumes of data within just a few hours. In addition to RBI compliance across reporting, risk computing, and audit functionality, the project also provided a 360-degree view of operational risk with automated Key Risk Indicator (KRI) monitoring and trend analysis.

On the bricks-and-mortar front too, Union Bank continued its modernisation drive. Already the fourth largest public sector bank in the country, with a network of over 8,400 domestic branches, over 8,900 ATMs, over 75,800 employees and over 18,900 business correspondent touch points, the bank under the visionary leadership of its MD & CEO A Manimekhalai is leaving no stone unturned in its quest to be the third largest PSU bank which is also thoroughly modernised. As part of this drive, Union Bank has recently inaugurated its new Zonal Office at Malleswaram, Bengaluru, started its first branch in tourist hotspot Lakshadweep and several of its branches across the country are getting a renovated face lift this year.

Rudra, ED

Pankaj Dwivedi, ED

GARDEN REACH TRIPLES IN VALUE, STILL MARKET CAP ONLY 70% OF ORDER BOOK

Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers’ (GRSE) recent achievements, financial performance, and strategic partnerships demonstrate its commitment to innovation and growth in the shipbuilding industry. Under the visionary leadership of its Chairman & Managing Director, Cmde PR Hari, IN (Retd.), the GRSE stock has more than tripled in value, but still has a long way to go with its market cap only Rs 15,686 crore, which is only 70% of its current order book of Rs 22,653 crores.

Kolkata based defence sector shipbuilder, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE), has crossed the crucial Rs 1000 crore quarterly revenue run rate for the first time in Q4, while its EBITDA has tripled and its net profit has doubled to reach Rs 112 crore on a year-onyear basis. Investors had cheered GRSE’s Q4 results announcement with the stock price soaring over 18% after the results were published, and taking the stock to a new all time high. The GRSE stock has had a stellar run in the bourses during Q4, rising over 70% during the past three months. On a yearly basis too, the stock has seen remarkable growth, having more than tripled in value from its 52-week low which was recorded in May 2023. But going forward, the PSU firm should achieve major order wins for this momentum to continue, which the company is confident of, at this stage. Reflecting

GRSE’s commitment to excellence in shipbuilding and engineering, major manufacturing orders and maintenance works have been pouring in from its main two clients, Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard. Apart from in-house designed warships, such orders have so far included in-house designed AntiSubmarine Warfare Shallow Water Crafts (ASWSWCs), Survey Vessels and Patrol Vessels for the Indian Navy and Coast Guard. However, in recent quarters, GRSE has also been proactively signing MoUs with foreign companies to develop hydrogen fuel cell ferries as well as to provide sales and service of medium-speed engines. As on March 31, 2024, GRSE’s order book stood at Rs 22,653 crores. This order book primarily comprises orders from the shipbuilding sector, including key projects like P-17 Alpha, Survey Vessel Large Project, ASWSWCs, and

Ocean Going Patrol Vessels. The P17 Alpha Project involves the construction of three warships. While all three ships have been launched, the first ship is currently at 70% physical progress, the second ship at 60% progress, and the third ship at 47%. GRSE aims to deliver the first ship by mid-2025 and complete the entire P-17 Alpha Project by August 2026. GRSE’s Survey Vessel Large Project on the other hand is a fourship project, with the first ship already delivered to the Indian Navy. The ship was commissioned during Q4 on February 21, 2024, and is now fully operational. The Anti-Submarine Shallow Water Craft Project has been a key one for GRSE since the past few years and is valued at Rs 4,886 crores. Similarly, the Next Generation Ocean Going Patrol Vessel Project that GRSE is executing is valued at Rs 3,359 crores. The current fiscal of FY’25 is key for GRSE as the firm is expected to complete as many as five major vessels in this year. While the GRSE stock is now richly valued at nearly 44 P/E and 10 P/BV, this is a reflection of the high growth trajectory the company is in. But what most investors may miss is the crucial fact that GRSE has a long way to go with its market cap still in small cap territory at just Rs 15,686 crore, which is only 70% of its current order book of Rs 22,653 crores. The stock also has a reasonable dividend yield of 1.30% which may remain steady or even go up in the future due to its PSU nature.

WHY BANK OF BARODA MIGHT OUTPERFORM GOING FORWARD

Debadatta Chand Managing Director & CEO

DBANK OF BARODA’S PERFORMANCE IN Q4 MAY SEEM MODEST WITH BOTH NET INTEREST INCOME AND NET PROFIT GROWING BY ONLY 2.3%, BUT THIS WAS DESPITE SIGNIFICANT WAGE REVISION. GIVEN ITS STRONG PERFORMANCE IN GROWTH AND ASSET QUALITY UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF ITS MD & CEO DEBADATTA CHAND, THE BANK’S ATTRACTIVE VALUATIONS AT JUST 7.5 TIMES TTM P/E AND JUST 1.15 TIMES P/BV MAKE THE PSU BANKING STOCK ATTRACTIVE, ESPECIALLY IF THE BANK CAN LOWER ITS LOANDEPOSIT RATIO (LDR) AND KEEP THE QOQ MARGIN UPTICK STABLE

Though Bank of Baroda’s stock had a recent sharp fall of over 17% from its 52 Week and All Time Highs, owing to the market fear of a fractured mandate in the elections, this was much in line with its banking sector peers as well as large cap PSU stocks. Things are back to normal even more swiftly, with BoB stock now just over 9% away from its All Time High that was set recently. The reason for this kind of market outperformance reflects its fundamentally strong performance. In the fourth quarter of FY24, the state-run lender has achieved a standalone net profit of Rs. 4,886.5 crore and Net Interest Income of Rs. 11,793 crore. While both of these figures mark only 2.3% year-onyear rise, there have been specific reasons for the same. The second largest public sector bank had to accommodate the impact of a significant wage revision in Q4. Going forward, BoB is expected to perform much better fundamentally and on the bourses, under the visionary leadership of its MD &

CEO Debadatta Chand, for several reasons. A hint of this was visible during the run up to the election results, when the Indian stock market and especially the Bank Nifty outperformed. Bank of Baroda stood out among the gainers during this period, and contributed the most to Bank Nifty crossing the historic 50,000 mark. The fourth quarter also witnessed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), allowing Bank of Baroda to resume onboarding new customers through its mobile app, BoB World. The restriction was lifted after just six months, based on Bank of Baroda’s swift action in correcting and allaying the banking sector regulator’s concerns. This has come as a shot in the arm for BoB as more and more retail deposits and loans are digitally originated these days. On the asset quality front, the Vadodara, Gujarat headquartered lender is expected to achieve significant improvement in the current fiscal year. As cautionary provisions get reversed and retail loans continue to expand, BoB stands to gain by way of both topline and bottomline growth. A specific case in point was the recent debt settlement of the Ludhiana Toll Road project, which had faced significant delays and had become a major non-

performing asset (NPA) for a group of banks led by Bank of Baroda. Now with these lenders recently approving the National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited’s (NARCL) offer of Rs 270 crore to settle the debt, this long-standing issue stands resolved and the ground is now set to revive the project, which may even end up as a major performing asset for BoB in the years to come. The bank has guided for 14-16% credit growth, with over 1% Return on Assets (RoA), and around 3.15% Net Interest Margin (NIM). Personal Loans are expected to grow at a more brisk pace, with 30-35% growth possible in the ongoing fiscal. Most analysts concur with this view with their consensus estimates on BoB’s revenue growth being 8.2%, on profit growth being 4.7%, on EPS being 4.4%, and with Return on Equity staying around 14.6%. BoB has plans to introduce floating rate deposits linked to MIBOR for High Networth Individuals HNIs, Ultra HNIs and institutional investors, as well as to issue green bonds. The bank has exhibited remarkable resilience and growth from its humble beginnings in 1908, to its nationalisation in 1969, to its merger with smaller PSU banking peers Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank

in 2019, to the Covid pandemic, and to its newfound resurgence which is symbolised aptly by its state-of-the-art, high-rise and iconic Baroda Corporate Centre in Mumbai. Bank of Baroda has also been India’s premier presence in international banking. The second largest PSU lender’s branch count is nearing 10,000, while its ATM count has already crossed this mark, and its employee count is over 80,000 and growing.This banking giant offers a full gamut of banking services including commercial, personal, and corporate banking solutions, along with appraisal, merchant, and correspondent banking, cash management, and treasury services to meet diverse financial needs. The bank is in a friendly yet neck-to-neck competition with the third largest PSU lender Punjab National Bank (PNB). While in revenues they are almost similar, when it comes to profitability and dividend yield, BoB is way ahead. At the same time, almost like an anomaly, BoB’s valuations are much lower than PNB by way of both P/E & P/BV, which has rendered their market capitalisations to be similar, which is one additional reason why the market is most bullish on BoB from the PSU pack.

Lalit Tyagi Executive Director

Sanjay Vinayak Mudaliar Executive Director

Lal Singh Executive Director

11 INNOVATIVE TRENDS IN UNIVERSITIES ACROSS INDIA 11 INNOVATIVE TRENDS IN UNIVERSITIES ACROSS INDIA

Higher education campuses across India are innovating creatively for the benefit of their students, even as they wait patiently for the campus placements momentum to return.

INDIA’S MOST INNOVATIVE UNIVERSITIES IN COURSES, RESEARCH, STARTUPS & TIEUPS

It is a worldwide phenomenon that when growth goes on unabated in any sector or geography, innovation suffers. This is normal as when business-as-usual is enough, where is the incentive to innovate radically?

Soon into the academic year 2023-24, disaster had struck in the form of an impending recession in Europe and the US, which sent shockwaves across the world including in India, with mass layoffs especially in technology, the top employment generator.

This has drastically reduced the campus placements across India, making not only the students and their parents, but their universities nervous.

The tech majors also have a double excuse this year, as sector-specific Generative AI tools are making their presence felt in various industrial sectors.

Startups, on the other hand, are facing a funding winter which has forced them to curtail expansion plans and with it employment generation. Startups had been a significant contributor to the boom in campus placements in India, during the past few years.

While the US Federal Reserve has since then hinted at making a much needed course correction in interest rates, it will be more than a year or two before its positive impact trickles down from the banks and institutional investors, to the economy first, to the corporates and startups next, and then to the campuses worldwide including in India.

But one thing is for sure - this temporary lull in campus placements is sure to drive up innovation across universities, institutions and colleges across India. Already there are several such trends appearing across the higher education sector in the country. Here are 10 such innovative trends in universities across India:

1) AI & BIG DATA ENTER INTO MORE COURSES

The most evident emerging trend is of course the launch of courses with specialization in Artificial Intelligence, Data Science & Robotics. But an even greater trend is the inclusion of these subjects on a smaller scale in non-tech majors like business, law, medicine and more. For instance, Data Science is

fast emerging as a core course in most professional streams, as its applications are across the spectrum of all services, manufacturing and R&D sectors.

2) NON TECHIES WOULD NEED SOME TECH TRAINING

IBM’s Global Managing Partner for Generative AI, Matthew Candy recently remarked that thanks to AI, a computer science degree may no longer be necessary to get a job in the technology sector. Candy attributes it to AI enabling those without technical skills to develop, test and deploy products fast, on their own. But what is unsaid here is the fact that these non tech people would now need a basic to intermediate level of knowledge about how the Generative AI tools work their magic.

3) INTEGRATED PROGRAMS ARE BACK IN FAVOUR

Another emerging trend in the campuses is the slow but steady rise in popularity of integrated programs that go all the way up to PhD or at least

an MTech or MSc. With campus placements for undergraduate degree holders expected to face a continuing lull, more students may opt for integrated programs that guarantee their promotion to postgraduate and doctoral courses without undergoing competitive entrance examinations at each level.

4) FOUR YEAR DEGREES FACE UPHILL TASK

Efforts to expand India’s traditional arts, science & commerce degrees to four years with multiple entry & exit options have run into rough weather in higher education bastions like Karnataka. Most universities and colleges in the state opposed such a move recently, citing that it will only encourage more students to drop out from even basic degrees, thereby hitting the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) negatively.

5) PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES MAY ADOPT 4-YEAR DEGREES

Another reason cited against the four year degree by most institutions, especially the publicly funded ones, is the lack of extra resources by way of faculty and infrastructural facilities to accommodate one more year of education at the undergraduate level. But well performing private and deemed universities are not likely to face this problem, as they have both generous faculty

strength as well as extra built-up space and facilities to be used, if such a one-year extension is made mandatory for all institutions.

6) PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES ARE WAY AHEAD IN RESEARCH

Private and deemed universities are also making their leadership felt in another domain - researchas public universities except for some notable exceptions are lagging far behind here. Private universities achieved this by investing heavily into recruiting research guides, and in building up specialized science labs and technical

infrastructure like 3D printers and high performance computers and networks. Based on such capabilities, some of the leading private & deemed universities have been able to attract significant numbers of funded projects given out by CSIR and other government agencies.

7) TWINNING PROGRAMS ARE BACK WITH A DIFFERENCE

Several noted private universities have also launched twinning programs with renowned universities in developed nations. Despite false starts by multiple universities multiple times, authentic twinning programs are likely to thrive, and a big difference in recent years is that the twinning is often bi-directional with overseas students equally eager to study in India.

8) IT IS CURTAINS FOR DESI FOREIGN DEGREES

UGC has recently come down heavily on some universities and edtech brands for promoting ‘study in India and get a foreign degree’ programs. The regulator has warned that such new age degrees won’t be recognized in India.

9) DEGREES ARE GOING TAMPER PROOF

To combat the unregulated online degree menace, reputed institutions like Delhi University are bringing currency kind of authenticity to degree certificates, along with including mothers’ names in the degree records, as is the practice in tax and bank records.

10) WORLD IS COMING TO LEARN AYURVEDA

Apart from mutual twinning programs, several private universities in the health sciences sector are now experiencing heightened interest from foreign students to enrol for ayurvedic degree programs like BAMS in India.

11) YOU CAN STUDY ENGINEERING PART TIME

On the technical education front, AICTE has recently allowed its affiliated institutes to offer BTech/BE degree programs like evening courses to working professionals. This will go a long way in a scenario where students need to take up smaller jobs initially to support themselves and their families, after their degrees or diplomas, even while they are enabled to complete their graduate degrees in engineering to pursue better jobs.

JSSAHER’S INNOVATIVE STRIDES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Mysuru headquartered leading deemed-to-be university, JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research (JSSAHER) is taking giant strides to push innovation in everything it does. From nationally recognized research labs to world renowned faculty members to playing host to coveted international scientific conferences to startup incubation to constant upgradation of infrastructure and facilities, JSSAHER is not leaving a stone unturned in its quest to stay ahead of the curve among health and life science universities in the country. JSSAHER’s visionary leadership includes JSS Mahavidyapeetha’s Head Sri Shivarathri Deshikendra Swamiji of Suttur Mutt, JSS Mahavidyapeetha’s Executive Secretary C.G. Betsurmath, JSSAHER’s Pro-Chancellor Dr. B. Suresh and its Vice-chancellor Dr. Surinder Singh.

With over 1,61,000 members, the American College of Physicians (ACP) is undoubtedly the largest medical-specialty organization in the United States. In other words, it is the largest and the most esteemed professional group of doctors who are internists or physicians who are practitioners of internal medicine or general medicine as it is commonly called today. Research students even in India, even if they have not heard of ACP, must have surely heard of the weekly research publication, ‘Annals of Internal Medicine’, which is ACP’s core research journal, the highest ranked & cited journal for internal medicine, and regarded as one of the top five medical journals worldwide.

ACP selects and awards internal medicine specialists for a few key achievements in their work annually. In 2023 too ACP announced these annual awards, and the American College of Physicians Distinguished Mentor Award in 2023 was bagged by Dr. M Suresh Babu, who serves as Professor of Medicine, JSS Medical College & Hospital, JSSAHER, Mysuru. While giving away the award, the American College of Physicians noted that this award is in recognition of his outstanding mentorship

Jagadguru Sri Shivarathri Deshikendra Mahaswamiji Chancellor

in the field of clinical medicine. Dr. Suresh Babu is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, UK. With such distinguished practitioners and researchers in its fold, it is no wonder that both JSSAHER’s medical college and hospital have been thriving as leaders in research and clinical practice.

Recently, the JSS Medical College also received a special recognition from the Government of India’s Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). This happened when JSS Medical College’s Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine (CEMR)

at the Department of Biochemistry was recently recognised by ICMR as an ICMR-Collaborating Centre of Excellence (CCoE). While bestowing this recognition on CEMR for a period of five years, ICMR noted that this is in consideration of its scientific accomplishments.

Dr. Prashanth Vishwanath, JSSAHER’s Dean of Research and Dr. Akila Prashanth, Professor and Head of the Department of Biochemistry, received the recognition from Dr. Rajiv Bahlat, the Director General of ICMR, at the ICMR headquarters in New Delhi recently. As an ICMR-CCoE, this JSSAHER unit will engage in extensive

cooperation with ICMR to develop guidelines, undertake multi-centric projects, and enhance capacity building efforts in the country. The available resources in such centers will be shared with other centers for the purpose of student training, R&D, and capacity development for enhancing the national research talent pool for advancing medical research in India.

A prime advantage of studying at JSSAHER is the unique exposure students get from the depth and breadth of the international conferences it hosts. A recent example was the HEAL-BioTec 2023 hosted by the JSS School Of Life Sciences. This three-day International Conference on ‘One

Health: Biotechnology as a Catalyst for Sustainable Development was organized by the Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, JSSAHER. This conference was funded by three Indian Government bodies including the Department of Science and Technology (DST), the Science and Engineering Research Board (DST-SERB) and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), and it achieved its objective to discuss and further the new concept of ‘One Health’ which serves as a catalyst for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Also included in the G20 agenda, the ‘One Health’ approach aims to improve disease management by bringing together health, food and environmental scientists as well as policy specialists from different parts of the globe, to help in achieving SDGs by this decade’s end. It was a never before opportunity for JSSAHER students, faculty members, and researchers to interact with world renowned experts in these contributing domains and gain integrated knowledge about the One Health approach. Sanjay Kumar Varshney, Advisor & Head, International Collaborations, Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt. of India, was the chief guest and delivered the keynote address that described how Artificial Intelligence is speeding up clinical trials among other aspects.

Dr. Hans Jorgensen, Professor, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, who was the guest of honor, delivered a plenary lecture, with another plenary lecture by Dr. Anil Kaul from Oklahoma, USA. Other eminent scientists who delivered invited lectures

C.G. Betsurmath, Executive Secretary

include Dr. Jung-Hyun Kim (South Korea), Dr. Raj Kumar (Boston, USA), Dr. Claus Bang-Berthelsen (Denmark), Dr. S. Pradeep Kumar of Google and Dr. Manju Bansal from IISc. Apart from research scholars, faculty members and students, the attendees included leading industrialists from concerned sectors. Hosted both physically and in

online mode, the mega conference benefitted at least 500 students directly, apart from the thousands of viewers who tuned into it from the world over.

During the last two quarters itself, the students, faculty and researchers of JSSAHER have been blessed with the university hosting several such events. These included an international conference on the genetics & epigenetics of cancer, a two day fair on forensic and investigative science, a live hysteroscopy workshop for gynecologists & postgraduate students, an international conclave on the occurrence and prevention of tuberculosis, and a rally to educate people on the importance of adult immunization especially for the elderly and high risk patients, conducted by JSSAHER’s Adult Immunization and Travel Medicine Center.

JSSAHER also continued to fortify its already impressive facilities and infrastructure in its core School of Life Sciences at Mysuru. During the last quarter, the deemed university launched the School’s

Dr.B.Suresh, Pro Chancellor JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research

new Lecture Hall Complex with the inauguration done by Karnataka’s Minister for Medical Education, Sharan Prakash Patil. The School of Life Sciences offers 14 post graduate programs, 6 undergraduate programs and 2 diploma courses

in the regular stream, as well as several courses in the Open & Distance Learning (ODL) mode.

During the occasion, Minister Sharan Prakash Patil also inaugurated the University’s incubation facility named ‘Sparkle Cine’ for boosting the start-up initiatives by students, faculty and interested entrepreneurs. Sparkle Cine has been active for some quarters now, but now it gets its own infrastructure and facilities, towards fulfilling its stated aim of furthering the start-up culture in the university by translating educational excellence into actionable ideas for entrepreneurship and innovations. Also launched during the event was a new pharmaceutical chemistry lab.

Over the almost one and a half decade of its existence, JSSAHER has steadily improved not only on the quality front, but on the volume of graduates and postgraduates it grooms in each batch. Last quarter was witness to this phenomenon once again, during the fourteenth convocation of JSSAHER. All together, 2,546 graduands were awarded their undergraduate, postgraduate & diplomas this year, apart from 49 candidates who were awarded PhD degrees. Chairman of UGC Prof. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar was the chief guest who delivered the convocation address and gave away medals to 55 academic toppers.

Dr. Surinder Singh, Vice Chancellor JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research

Dr. Manjunatha B, Registrar JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research

NITTE DEEMED UNIVERSITY

OVER FOUR DECADES OF CONSISTENT PROGRESS IN ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

Under the visionary leadership of its Founder Chancellor N Vinaya Hegde, Pro Chancellors Vishal Hegde and Prof. Dr. Shantharam Shetty, and Vice Chancellor Dr MS Moodithaya, Nitte Deemed-tobe University has been ranked among India’s Top 100 universities for the 5th consecutive year in the NIRF rankings, and it has also jumped 10 ranks this year to the 65th position. Two of Nitte’s eminent scientists Dr Indrani Karunasagar and Dr Iddya Karunasagar have also bagged top ranks of 11 and 13 respectively in the field of microbiology by Research.com. Nitte alumni like Vidya Kamath Pailodi and Dr. Saritha Arunkumar have brought global accolades to the university recently, while on the national stage two of Nitte students have won the 1st and 6th rank in the Joint CSIR-UGC NET Examination under the Life Sciences category.

iebel Scholars program needs no introduction among cutting-edge universities in the world and their graduate students and startup entrepreneurs. Established by the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation in 2000, the Siebel Scholars program selects around 90 graduate students each year from some of the finest universities in the world to be a Siebel Scholar. So far only 1800 Siebel Scholars have been selected and they form an elite club of researchers, entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists and top rung of managers.

There are only 16 universities from which Siebel Scholars have so far been selected and they include prestigious names like Harvard, Stanford, John Hopkins, MIT, Princeton, UC Berkeley, University of Chicago, Wharton, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which is also incidentally the alma mater of billionaire businessman Thomas Siebel, one of the world’s most successful tech entrepreneurs who founded Siebel Systems which was later acquired by Oracle.

Recently, the Siebel Scholars Foundation announced its 2024 Class of Siebel Scholars, honouring 83 exceptional graduate students from top universities around the world in the fields of bioengineering, business, energy science, and computer science. Five Computer Science students from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were named to this year’s class, and among them is Vidya Kamath Pailodi, a second-year graduate student working with Professor George Chacko to explore the field of Computational Scientometrics.

Before arriving at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Vidya worked as a software engineer in the thermotechnology department at Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions in Bengaluru, India. This was shortly after Vidya graduated as a Gold Medalist in ECE from the NMAM Institute of Technology in Nitte, India where she earned an undergraduate degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering.

Vidya’s achievement is something about

which Nitte Deemed University can be proud of as Nitte Mahalinga Adyanthaya Memorial Institute of Technology (NMAMIT) is a constituent engineering college of Nitte Deemed University. This achievement is all the more impressive as 4 out of the 5 students from University of Illinois who won this prestigious scholarship are from India, from prestigious institutions including IIT Indore, IIIT Hyderabad & Manipal Institute of Technology.

Vidya’s and Nitte Group’s achievement in this regard is by no means a one-off phenomenon on the world stage. Recently, Dr. Saritha Arunkumar who holds the position of IBM’s Public Cloud World Wide Technical Leader in Security, in the United Kingdom, won the prestigious award, The Princess Royal Silver Medal, often called the

N Vinaya Hegde Chancellor

Oscars of Engineering.

Bestowed by the United Kingdom’s Royal Academy of Engineering, the award was presented to Dr. Saritha by none other than HRH Princess Anne, Sister of King Charles, in London. The award was in recognition of this leading cyber-security expert’s invaluable and critical contributions to shaping security in emerging areas such as the cloud, blockchain, and biometrics.

Earlier, Dr. Saritha has been recognised as an IBM Master Inventor, an IBM Super Hero, Financial Times' Top 100 BAME Technology Leaders Award, and The Inc Magazine’s Top 10 Business Women to Follow in 2022. Her achievement of winning the The Princess Royal Silver Medal is regarded as an achievement for India, and of course for Nitte Group as

Dr. Saritha had graduated from the NMAM Institute of Technology in 2000 as an Electronics & Communication Engineer, and was also the topper of her batch.

Vidya’s and Dr. Saritha’s education and grooming at NMAM Institute of Technology happened much before it became a constituent college of Nitte University. But this only goes on to add further sheen to the farsighted vision and care accorded by Nitte Educational Trust led by its Chancellor N Vinaya Hegde, years or even decades before it became a formal university.

Nitte Deemed University is a part of Nitte Group run by Nitte Education Trust, which was founded in 1979 by Justice Kowdoor Sadananda Hegde, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and former Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Offering education in diverse areas of learning, Nitte today offers a total of 130+ programs including medicine, engineering, management, hospitality, allied health sciences, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, physiotherapy, speech and audiology, media & communication and architecture. The Trust has established 40+ institutions spread across three campuses at Nitte, Mangalore and Bangalore and has over 20,000+ students and 4500+ faculty in its campuses.

Equipping its students for outperformance continues even to this day at Nitte University. In the national level Joint CSIR-UGC National Eligibility

Test (NET) exam conducted a few months back, a total of 78,168 students had appeared under the Life Sciences category. NET exam is conducted to determine the eligibility for Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and Lectureship (LS) / Assistant Professor post in Indian universities and colleges.

Among these over 78,000 students who appeared under the life sciences category, there were students from the Nitte University Centre for Science Education & Research (NUCSER) too.

And guess who won the national level top ranks? Twin sisters, Rhea Kishore and Reena Kishore, MSc Biomedical Science students at NUCSER, achieved the 1st

and the 6th Rank nationally! It was an incredible performance by these Nitte students as Rhea scored a total percentile of 99.94 whereas Reena scored 99.66. Both of them were mentored at the university by Dr. Akshath US, Scientist G-II, and Dr. Anirban Chakraborty, Professor & Director of NUCSER, and the achievement of these twin sisters has become another proud moment in these recent times for Nitte University.

Such mentoring in both the academic and leadership aspects is a culture that permeates the entire university starting from the very top rungs. Vice Chancellor

Vishal Hegde Pro Chancellor

Prof. Dr. Shantharam Shetty Pro Chancellor

N Vinaya Hegde and Pro Chancellor Vishal Hegde have been known to intervene for the student community at every appropriate forum. Such an instance happened during the university’s 2022 convocation, when Vinaya Hegde requested UGC Chairman and Chief Guest Prof. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar to upgrade the Mechanical, Civil and Electrical Engineering courses with components from computing and electronics to make them relevant at the changing workplace.

NMAMIT that produced winners like Vidya and Dr. Saritha today offers both conventional and advanced engineering branches like Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Robotics & AI, Biotechnology, Civil, Computer & Communication, Electrical & Electronics, Electronics & Communication, Information Science, Mechanical Engineering etc.

Pursuit of values is another dimension where the Nitte University leaders excel, starting right from the Chancellor. Recently, pioneering orthopaedic

Dr MS Moodithaya Vice Chancellor

surgeon and Pro Chancellor of Nitte University, Prof. Dr. Shantharam Shetty, who was the Chief Guest of OASISCON 2023, a 3-day Conference Of Orthopaedic Associations Of Six South Indian States Hosted By Karnataka Orthopaedic Association, delivered such a value based lesson for fellow orthopaedic surgeons.

Said the Nitte Pro Chancellor, “During those years (when I started my practice),

there were only three to four orthopaedics, including myself, in Mangaluru, while at present, there are over 200 orthopaedics in the city, which is a tremendous growth in this field. Yes, we all want to earn money but always remember to serve your patient first and then think of money. Practice for need and not for greed,” added Dr Shantharam Shetty.

Startup incubation is another domain where Nitte University is starting to make impressive gains. Recently, an innovative betel leaf tea bag product was developed by young startup entrepreneur Sandeep Eshanya with the support of Nitte University’s DST Technology Enabling Center and Dr Mamatha BS, an expert in food technology and faculty at Nitte University Center for Science Education and Research.

While the nutritional value of betel leaf is noteworthy, being rich in fibre, vitamins A, B, C and minerals like calcium, iron and potassium, it was an arduous and time-consuming process that took several iterations of laboratory studies and consumer acceptance trials to ready a process for preparing tea bags from betel leaves without losing nutrients, medicinal properties and in the original flavour as well as incorporating additional flavours as per user preference.

Entrepreneur Sandeep Eshanya was all praise for Nitte University’s support, when he said, “NITTE University boosted my confidence when I pitched my idea. They have been a constant support to convert my dream into reality. I have now sent samples to 10 countries such as Sri Lanka, United States, UK and many more.”

There is more to Nitte University’s support for such startup entrepreneurs than in product development. Under the guidance of Prof. Dr Iddya Karunasagar, Advisor - Research and Patents, at Nitte University, the process of producing the betel leaf tea bags has been protected by a shared patent, and Nitte University has authorised Eshanya Beverages, the concerned start-up to commercialise the technology through an agreement, so that the product is effectively made available in the Indian and overseas markets.

SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Nitte Deemed University also has a robust research program that offers Fulltime and Part time Ph.D Course in the faculties of Medicine (including PreClinical, Para-Clinical & Clinical), Dentistry, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, Allied Health Science, Nursing, Biological Sciences, Speech & Hearing, Engineering, Commerce & Management, Applied Sciences, Business Administration and Humanities.

Meritorious Full Time candidates receive Nitte PhD Fellowships of Rs. 20,000/- per month as per the University’s guidelines. Nitte takes the quality element of its PhD program quite seriously, and there is an impressive lineup of Research Guides, and the selection of candidates is based on a national-level entrance test, statement of purpose and personal interview.

Nitte University organises various workshops and seminars to bring industry experts right into the campus.

A similar workshop to mark the World Food Safety Day was organised by Nitte DST Technology Enabling Center in association with CII, FSSAI & KCCI, and was moderated by Nitte faculty Dr. Indrani Karunasagar. She emphasised the need to understand the basis for food safety standards and the best practices that food business operators from farm to plate need to follow to comply with the standards. The discussions covered improving food hygiene and food safety in all segments of the food industry including street vendors, quality control, certifications and accreditations required by food

testing laboratories.

Nitte is also forever forging meaningful tie-ups with select industry majors in training and certification for the employability of its students. A few months back it forged such a tie-up with upGrad Campus, the higher education arm of upGrad, one of Asia’s largest integrated career skilling, workforce development & placement companies.Under this collaboration, UpGrad Campus will support Nitte BTech students with one of the hottest coding skills today - Full Stack Development (FSD) - so that they are adept with the tech requirements of the modern day workplace.

Spread over a period of 4 years, the FSD specialisation begins in the first year integrated within the university

curriculum and has been designed for engineering aspirants who aim to build a career in the Information Technology domain. It will cover around 1400 hours of learning content with over 300 live sessions, 11 projects and case studies, in sync with the B.Tech syllabus to ensure learners get higher experiential learning.

It will also encourage live & interactive faculty engagements, alumni networking, and industry-specific sessions/simulations to enhance the overall subject understanding to further enable them with the expertise required to succeed in the said industry. The tieup is aimed at making Nitte students stand out from the lakhs of Engineering students in India.

Management education is another domain where Nitte Deemed University is a force to reckon with, thanks to its longstanding experience through its Justice KS Hegde Institute of Management (JKSHIM). This highly ranked MBA institute recently welcomed its 26th batch of MBA students, with a unique value-add. A guest of honour at the event was former alumni Sajan Murali, who is now the CEO of Turtle Wax Media Ltd. Sajan belongs to the 1999-2001 batch of MBA at JKSHIM, and called upon the current batch of MBA aspirants to focus on imbibing the soft skills.

JKSHIM which recently celebrated its Silver Jubilee, had Dr. Debashis Chatterjee, Director, IIM Kozhikode, delivering the Silver Jubilee lecture on the theme of ‘Leadership Challenges'. Noting that Nitte Founder Justice KS Hegde was a visionary with values, Dr. Chatterjee said, “Principle and value centred leadership is the need of the hour. Life has no meaning without values and principles. Integrity is the hallmark of life. These virtues need to be imbibed during schooling and college days.”

Bengaluru based Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology (NMIT), which is promoted by Nitte Education Trust, but which is not technically part of Nitte Deemed University yet, recently hosted its 1st International IEEE conference on ‘Networks, Multimedia and Information Technology’, NMITCON 2023.

Sponsored by the AICTE, the conference brought together experts and enthusiasts from across the domain of information technology, including AICTE Chairman Dr. T. G. Sitharaman, Dr. David Camacho from the Technical University Of Madrid, Spain, and Ms. Namrata Dutta, Senior IT Auditor, from Mumbai, whose keynote addresses at the event was a great source of inspiration to the participants. Authors from countries including the USA, the UK, and Germany, and also from premier Institutions like IISc., IITs, IIITs,

and NITs presented their papers at this Conference.

Also marking the occasion was the inauguration of the AICTE-IDEA Lab by Dr. T. G. Sitharaman. The focus of the lab is to encourage students to apply Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fundamentals on ideas for enhanced hands-on experience and even product development. The AICTE has also sanctioned Rs.15 lakh to NMIT to help establish the lab.

Nitte Institute of Communication (NICO), another constituent college of Nitte Deemed University, is also acing its game above peers with international industry certifications. Recently, it received the prestigious Godox Certification under which Godox, a world leader in professional and studio

quality lighting, will conduct workshops on lighting for students, where they will learn from the Godox Team about latest lighting techniques and practices. With this tie-up, NICO has become India’s Only Godox Certified Training Centre.

Besides the Godox partnership, NICO also hosts workshops by experts in photography, feature writing, video editing, VFX, and short filmmaking. These workshops give students exposure to real-world challenges and opportunities in the media industry.

Besides offering five comprehensive programs in media and communication, the institution also organises the Nitte International Film Festival (NIFF), which is one among the few student-managed film festivals in the country. Nitte communication students thus get an opportunity to interact with filmmakers, technicians, actors, cinematographers, scriptwriters who participate in the festival, which is so characteristic of the way Nitte Deemed University grooms all its students.

With such initiatives across the campus and all its constituent colleges, it is no wonder really that MNCs and large Indian corporates have been placing students from Nitte Campus. These include renowned names like Mercedes Benz, Toyota Kirloskar Motors, Hitachi, ABB Power Grids, Juniper Networks, Intel, Novo Nordisk, L&T Technology Services, Syngene International, JSW Group, Prestige Construction, JK Cement etc.

SEASONAL MAGAZINE

NURTURING ITS STUDENTS & FACULTY TO BE GLOBAL WINNERS LIKE NO OTHER

ICFAI Group, especially its flagships IFHE & IBS Hyderabad, stand a notch above its peers when it comes to nurturing its students and faculty to be global winners. This has been so even when the faculty and students have been from non-IIT & non-IIM backgrounds, with the best example of this phenomenon being the global case study legend, the Late Prof. Debapratim Purkayastha, who not only rubbed shoulders with his peers from renowned institutions including Harvard, INSEAD & IMD, but edged past them to be the top ranked business case study writer in the world for 8 years running. Death could snatch him

tragically by age 44, but not before IFHE & Prof. Debapratim ensured that a formidable team of six business case writers have emerged in the Global Top 50 list of case writers. The distinct advantage for IBS Hyderabad students is that these globally award winning cases are taught by their own authors who are their own teachers! This nurturing attitude at IFHE traces its roots to its founder Late NJ Yasaswy, who was a national first rank holder for five national level exams including his CA & ICWA intermediates and finals! Even more importantly, Yasaswy was an edupreneur par excellence who fought indomitable challenges from both India and abroad to establish the ICFAI Group. This flame is today carried on by leaders including its Chancellor and renowned economist Dr. C Rangarajan, Vice Chancellor Prof. (Dr.) LS Ganesh, IBS Hyderabad’s Director Prof. Venu Gopal Rao KS, its Dean Prof. (Dr.) Sindhuja PN, and other top ranking academic leaders of IFHE.

N. J. Yasaswy

One of the most often raised concerns regarding college graduates and post graduates, be it in India or abroad, is the huge disconnect between what they master in the classroom and what is actually happening in the real world companies where they hope to be employed as soon as they pass out.

Different professions tackle this in different ways, like how hospitals manage it through house surgency for fresh doctors, or how engineering industries tackle it through training and probation periods. But there are certain professions where this disconnect is too great to be bridged easily.

The best example for such a challenging career is business management, where textbook level knowledge is woefully inadequate to equip MBA aspirants for what really awaits them at their dynamic workplaces driven by rapid innovation and tech led paradigm shifts.

Perhaps the only way this academicindustry disconnect can be bridged in B-schools is by including ample real world case studies in the curriculum. And that is what the best B-schools, right from Harvard and Stanford, to our own IIMs and other leading institutions do.

To cite some dynamic examples with buzzing or turnaround companies across the world like IKEA or Fitbit or X/Twitter or Blackberry, there are numerous challenges faced by them currently that have evolved into top ranking business case studies.

IKEA is in an ethical dilemma while expanding in Russia, Fitbit is leveraging its X/Twitter data for business insights, and Blackberry has been plotting a turnaround plan to regain relevance in the smartphone market which it once ruled.

All these dynamic case studies are

current bestsellers and taught across leading B-schools across the world including in Hyderabad based ICFAI Business School (IBS), a constituent of the ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education, a leading deemed-to-be university.

But IBS students have a distinct advantage while these case studies are being taught, as they have been written by their own teacher, V Namratha Prasad, Assistant Professor, ICFAI Business School, who also teaches them the same! These case studies won for Prof. Namratha, the 34th rank last year in the case study ranking by UK based The Case Centre, arguably the biggest repository of global business case studies.

Prof. Namratha is not an exception

at IBS, nor are her students. In fact, IBS Bangalore Director Prof. GV Muralidhara is a prolific and award winning business case study author, who won the 16th rank in last year’s rankings by The Case Centre, for his case studies on post-Brexit Britain’s prospects, on the Chinese fintech major CreditEase’s financial inclusion strategies, as well as for his contributions for the IKEA-Russia case study from IBS itself.

Another stalwart from the ICFAI Business School stable who made his mark in last year’s Case Centre rankings was Prof. Sanjib Dutta, Associate Dean in charge of the Case Research Centre at IBS. Prof. Dutta bagged last year’s 12th bestselling rank from The Case Centre, UK, for his case studies including those on

Prof. (Dr.) L. S. Ganesh, VC

the digital transformation underway at Starbucks, Motorola’s China leadership strategies and Nokia’s fall from leadership and how it is fighting back for a market share.

The IBS case writers in last year’s Top 50 authors rubbed shoulders with research scholars from prestigious global B-schools including Harvard Business School, INSEAD, Columbia Business School, IMD, Newcastle University, Penn State Harrisburg, Georgetown University, University of

Virginia, University of Bath, London Business School, HEC Paris and many others.

In fact, apart from Harvard that produced maximum winners, followed by INSEAD and IMD, the maximum number of top ranked case writers last year were from IBS, Hyderabad. Apart from the names already discussed, the IBS Scholars included the 11th rank winner Prof. Jitesh Nair whose case studies were on Microsoft & Automattic, the 7th rank winner Prof. Syeda Maseeha Qumer whose case studies were on HBO’s Game of Thrones, Body Shop & ZTE Corporation, and the 2nd rank winner Prof. Indu Perepu whose case studies were on Airbnb’s Design Thinking, and on international clothing brands Under Armour and Zara.

While these case studies by IBS scholars will greatly enrich the global case study approach at thousands of B-schools across the world, IBS students are greatly fortunate to learn these case studies from their own authors, who happen to be their teachers too!

But they will greatly miss that one case study author who began this revolution at IBS, and elevated IBS’ stature globally among all B-schools.

He is none other than the one and only Prof. Debapratim Purkayastha, the former Director of ICFAI Business School. But the legend lives on, as despite his unfortunate and untimely passing away due to Covid in May 2021, the UK based Case Centre selected Prof. Debapratim himself as last year’s No. 1 rank holder among all best selling case study authors!

And it couldn’t be otherwise, as before his untimely death at age 44, Prof. Debapratim had proven himself as one of the most prolific case writers, with The Case Centre, UK, database itself holding 531 cases authored or co-authored by him. By the time of his death, his cases had been used at 1,595 B-schools across

Prof. Venu Gopal Rao K S Director, ICFAI Business School

Prof. (Dr.) Sindhuja P N Dean, ICFAI Business School

95 countries to teach over 2,33,900 students. And ever since The Case Centre began publishing its Top Bestselling Case Authors list in 2016, the first rank has been won by this IBS scholar, year after year.

But two other factors truly differentiate the success of Prof. Debapratim and IBS. One is that both this unique professor and this unique university made sure that his skill in

Debapratim Purkayastha

Indu Perepu

case writing doesn’t end with him, but is taught to other emerging scholars too. That is how IBS dominated last year’s list too, just behind global giants Harvard, INSEAD & IMD, with 6 top ranking scholars apart from Prof. Debapratim in the global Top 50 authors.

Secondly, this whole success story of ICFAI Group with regard to its ICFAI Business School (IBS), was narrated

to illustrate a unique trait displayed by this higher education group from its day one to until now, and is designed so as to perpetuate endlessly. This unique trait - of talent identification and development - in both faculty and students permeates across ICFAI Group’s 11 Universities, 9 B-Schools, 7 Tech Schools and 9 Law Schools across the country.

And this talent nurturing trait that originated from ICFAI Founder, Late NJ Yasaswy, has grown from strength to strength over the past 35+ years, and continues across the Group and in its flagship deemed university IFHE Hyderabad under its Chancellor and renowned economist Dr. C Rangarajan, Vice Chancellor Prof. (Dr.) LS Ganesh, IBS Hyderabad’s Director Prof. Venu Gopal Rao KS, its Dean Prof. (Dr.) Sindhuja PN, and other top ranking academic leaders of IFHE. Apart from ICFAI Business School, IFHE is home to its engineering and technology school, IcfaiTech School, ICFAI School of Architecture and ICFAI Law School.

In a higher education system where educational labels like IITs, IIMs, IISc, ISB etc are deemed more important than their actual achievements, ICFAI Group and especially the ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE) has excelled in its own, by attracting and nurturing non-IIT / nonIIM talents too to global levels of

Syeda Maseeha Qumer

Jitesh NairSanjib Dutta

GV Muralidhara

V Namratha Prasad

excellence. Forget IITs/IIMs, this deemed university and its businessschool have made global academic winners out of people coming from non-academic or industrial background.

The best example for this phenomenon is Late Prof. Debapratim Purkayastha himself. Coming from a non-IIT / non-IIM background, with his degree from Gauhati University, MBA from Utkal University & PhD from KITS, Debapratim was basically from an industries background, especially in sales, sales force management and product management at pharma companies including Torrent, Zydus Cadila, Themis & Hetero, before switching over to academia at IBS Hyderabad.

And there was no looking back, as his new home - IBS - instantly recognized his innate talents and assigned him to the then fledgling initiative of case study creation. It was a perfect match between a talented human being and a nurturing organisation, and that is how Debapratim Purkayastha from an industries background became Prof. Debapratim Purkayastha, a globally renowned thinker and case study author.

Under IFHE’s nurturing culture, Prof. Debapratim could also train and inculcate other leaders who carry on this IBS flame in industry interactions and case studies to greater heights. Prof. Debapratim led over 70 inspirational case method workshops for research scholars, faculty members, and business executives; and he worked in various leadership roles for renowned case study journals including Case Folio, Case Focus, Case Research Journal and Case Journal. Even the week before his unfortunate demise, he was leading a case workshop at Jaipuria Institute of Management, Jaipur.

This unique trait of IFHE & IBS, which Prof. Debapratim imbibed perfectly, speaks for itself today in the achievements of leaders like

Professors GV Muralidhara, Sanjib Dutta, Indu Perepu, Syeda Maseeha Qumer, Jitesh Nair, V Namratha Prasad and many others. It couldn’t have been otherwise as they have great role models in ICFAI’s all past and present leaders including its Founder, Chancellor & Vice Chancellor.

ICFAI Group Founder Late NJ Yasaswy was the first rank holder for five exams - BCom, CA Inter, CA Final, ICWA Inter & ICWA Final, apart from being the recipient of the Basu Foundation Award for the Best Student of the Year from both The Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India and The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Also a legendary edupreneur, Yasaswy fought seemingly indomitable challenges from both India and abroad to establish this sprawling higher education empire.

IFHE Chancellor Dr. C. Rangarajan needs no introduction in India, as this renowned economist and thought leader has served as the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, as the Governor of Andhra Pradesh State, as the Chairman of Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, as Chairman of the Twelfth Finance Commission and as Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha.

Though IFHE has nurtured great winners out of non-IIT & non-IIM faculty and students, this nurturing attitude has invariably resulted in attracting top talent from these premier engineering and management institutes of India that are globally renowned. The topmost leader that exemplifies this phenomenon now at IFHE is none other than its current Vice Chancellor, the one and only Prof. (Dr.) LS Ganesh, endearingly known as Prof. LSG wherever he has led the academics.

Before assuming the role of VC at IFHE on September 1 2022, Prof. LSG was Professor, Department of Management Studies, and Dean, of IIT Madras. With over three decades of experience spanning teaching, research, and intellectual services, Prof. LSG has also been a Visiting Professor at University of Passau in Germany, IIM Bangalore, IIM Kozhikode, ISB Hyderabad and NIT Trichy, among others. Prof. LSG has over the years also lent his expertise to international organisations including World Bank and UNDP, and national organisations including ISRO, MHRD, AICTE, NBA, CII, FICCI, and MMA.

With such leaders with deep industry connect at the helm, there is no wonder IFHE has been bettering its standing in academics, research and placements year after year.

GALGOTIAS UNIVERSITY IS SOARING AHEAD ON SUPERIOR INFRASTRUCTURE AND INITIATIVES

Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, based Galgotias University is widening its lead with peer universities despite its young age, under the visionary leadership of its dynamic young leader Dr. Dhruv Galgotia. Achieving NAAC A+ accreditation in its first cycle, the university offers a wide array of over 200 programs across 20 Schools, spanning Polytechnic, Undergraduate, Postgraduate, and PhD courses. Since its founding in 2011-12, Galgotias University has grown as a home to over 30,000 students, providing a world-class education and producing graduates poised for success in their chosen careers via industryleading placements and startup incubation. Consistently ranked among India’s top universities, Galgotias University is also recognized for its innovative approach, achieving and maintaining the Highest 4-Star Rating by Central Government’s Ministry of Education Innovation Cell (MIC), for promoting Innovation and Start-ups in Campus, for the last four years. The GU campus has incubated over 200 startups till now, thereby encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit among its students. Also a research powerhouse, Galgotias University has recently secured 3rd rank among the top 10 Indian applicants for patents from academic institutions and universities, and it has also secured a place in the top 5 Indian applicants for patents in the field of information technology. The university’s research contributions include over 14,000+ publications and 2000+ patents, and GU is also a leader in funded research. Recently, in tune with the global healthcare field’s momentous move towards preventive medicine, the

university strengthened its health sciences foray by inaugurating its Diet Out Patient Department (OPD). GU also continues to be a leader in meaningful industry tie-ups with recent examples being its tie-up with Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) and Huawei to establish a Telecom Centre of Excellence, and its tie-up with Delta IT Networks & HP for an AI Learning Lab. However, the most momentous among such recent moves have been the setting up of an iOS Development Centre at Galgotias University in partnership with tech leviathan Apple. Galgotias Group too is forging ahead under Dr. Dhruv Galgotia’s leadership, as an inspiration to its students and faculty, with a mega development plan in Ayodhya that includes a a 5-star hotel, a well-equipped hospital, a sprawling mall, and a mega housing project.

Greg Joswiak was in India earlier this year and was amazed at the app development abilities of students at Galgotias University. As Senior VicePresident for Worldwide Marketing at Apple, Greg had come visiting to inaugurate the iOS Development Centre at Galgotias University.

A cutting-edge facility, the iOS Development Centre at Galgotias University is established in collaboration with Apple and is primarily designed to foster innovation and nurture the next generation of iOS developers from India. The Centre is equipped with unique and formidable infrastructure including 100 iMacs, providing Galgotias students with the opportunity to engage in hands-on learning and practical applications of iOS development principles.

During the inauguration, Greg engaged with the students of Galgotias University, discussing their startup journeys and exchanging ideas on entrepreneurship. The iOS Development Centre at GU has hit the ground running as Galgotias students are already working on a variety of innovative apps that leverage the capabilities of the iOS ecosystem including their first two apps, Sakhi and VibroPlay.

While Sakhi is an app designed to aid women in tracking their menstrual cycles and addressing the related health concerns, VibroPlay is a music learning app specifically created for individuals

At just 32 years of age, Dr. Dhruv Galgotia is the youngest CEO in the Indian formal education sector.

with hearing impairments, allowing them to experience music through vibrations.

The iOS Development Centre at Galgotias University represents a significant milestone in the university’s journey, under the visionary leadership of its CEO Dr. Dhruv Galgotia, towards

providing world-class education and fostering innovation in technology education.

While the Centre is seen as a hub for cutting-edge innovation, by encouraging a learning environment that integrates the latest advancements in iOS technology, the university also decided on establishing this Centre as the learnings from the iOS Development Centre are expected to have a farreaching impact beyond the boundaries of the Centre, specifically in the teaching-learning pedagogy of the entire university.

Going even beyond, the Centre is expected to make significant societal contributions too. For instance, the Sakhi and VibroPlay apps reflect the Centre’s focus on creating practical applications that can have a positive impact on society. The iOS Development Centre provides students with the resources and guidance needed to turn their innovative ideas into socially relevant applications.

Some of the key features of the Sakhi

app include Menstrual Cycle Tracking, Health Tips, Reminders and Safety Features. It allows women to track their menstrual cycles, predict ovulation, and monitor related health patterns, even while offering health tips and reminders for important health check-ups and medication. Its safety features include alerting contacts in case of emergencies.

Sakhi aims to address the various concerns related to women’s health and empowerment, contributing to the fulfilment of UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) which calls for gender equality and the elimination of violence against women. The development of Sakhi reflects Galgotias University’s commitment to social responsibility and the practical applications of technology for societal benefit.

The iOS Development Centre is by no way a singular achievement at Galgotias University. This leading private university based at Greater Noida in UP is already noted for its superior academic, research and industry-ready

facilities. The university has already established several Centres of Excellence that focus on interdisciplinary research, providing state-of-the-art equipment and resources.

These Centres of Excellence include the School of Computing Science & Engineering Labs, the Central Instrumentation Facility (CIF), the 3D Printing and Fabrication Lab, Healthcare Research Facilities, Applied Sciences and Humanities Labs and Animal Research Facility Centre, to name just a few.

The School of Computing Science & Engineering Labs at Galgotias University includes over 30 state-of-the-art general

and domain-specific labs, with many of them sponsored by industry leaders including IBM, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, and Microsoft. These labs support research in areas like computer networks, software engineering, digital image processing, wireless sensor networks, cloud computing, big data, machine learning, deep learning, robotic process automation, and edge computing. In tune with the times, Galgotias University has also tied up with Delta IT Networks & IT giant HP to commission its AI Learning Lab by investing Rs 10 Crore in acquiring specialised AI Machines from HP.

GU has also recently partnered with the

Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) and the global telecom giant Huawei to establish a Telecom Centre of Excellence which will bring the latest telecom technologies and international standard skilling programs in the telecom sector to the Galgotias campus. In the field of healthcare research, Galgotias University has three state-ofthe-art laboratories for student training in optometry, and for providing advanced instrumentation and equipment for practical exercises. The University which already has a noted foray into healthcare and medical research is expected to go full steam ahead in medical education and public healthcare facilities in the years to come.

Recently, in tune with the global healthcare field’s momentous move towards preventive medicine, the university strengthened its health sciences foray by inaugurating its Diet Out Patient Department (OPD), while it

Dr. Dhruv Galgotia appreciates PM Narendra Modi for encouraging young CEOs under the 'Champions of Change' program of NITI Ayog, which he feels will take India on the path to development.

is already home to a Physiotherapy OPD.

A Centre of Excellence at Galgotias University that deserves a special mention is its Central Instrumentation Facility. The CIF is a state-of-the-art facility designed to support multidisciplinary research in emerging domains such as material sciences, biosensors, organic photovoltaics, medical & drug research and other such sunrise fields.

The CIF houses many sophisticated and general instruments essential for research in basic and applied sciences including Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) used for chemical analysis, quality control, quantifications, and verification of raw materials; and High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) with Manual Injector that is used to analyse advanced traditional small molecule drugs and supports various research areas like medicinal chemistry, bioanalysis, drug metabolism, and pharmacokinetics.

The Central Instrumentation Facility at Galgotias University also has a UVVisible Spectrophotometer with UVProbe which is used for measuring the intensity of light as a function of the colour of light and is usually seen only in clinical laboratories for quantitative analyses, kinetics, spectrum scanning, and multiple components of DNA/ protein testing.

The CIF is an integral part of Galgotias

University’s commitment to excellence in teaching and research, providing faculty, research scholars, and students with the necessary tools to carry out globally competitive research. It was established under the visionary leadership of CEO Dhruv Galgotia with a mission to enrich resources on a shared basis to promote research and development across various science disciplines.

The CIF aims to strengthen the technical infrastructure for advanced research, organise short-term courses and workshops on the use and applications of various spectroscopic and analytical techniques, develop new measurements & analytical methods, and also allows outside users to utilise its high-tech equipment for their research and testing purposes on a nominal payment basis. Such extensive Centres of Excellence and other such matching infrastructure forms the bedrock for Galgotias University’s significant achievements in the research and development field within a short span of time. Also a leader in funded research, it has received funding for over 1,135 projects, which facilitates advanced research and development across various disciplines. Galgotias University has recently secured 3rd rank among the top 10 Indian applicants for patents from academic institutions and universities, with a notable 1089 patent applications being filed as reported by the Office of the Controller General of Patents for the year 2022-23. Additionally, Galgotias

University stands out for its leadership in academic innovation too, with 209 applications filed, and it has secured a place in the top 5 Indian applicants for patents in the field of information technology, highlighting its role as a leader in academic innovation. The university has so far delivered a strong research output with over 14,000 publications and significant citation numbers, reflecting the impactful research conducted by its faculty and students. The university’s research scholars have won over 2000 intellectual property rights, including patents, and the university also takes care to protect the intellectual contributions of its community.

Galgotias University offers a wide range of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programs across various disciplines including in most streams of Engineering, most of the Basic Sciences, Mathematics, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Health Sciences like Optometry, Pharmacy & Physiotherapy, Clinical Research, Medical Biotechnology, Clinical Nutrition & Dietetics, Psychology, and Humanities & Social Sciences including English, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, Law, Management, Mass Communication, Education, Computer Applications, and Agriculture.

The eligibility criteria for admission to

the Ph.D. programs generally include a Master’s degree or a professional degree equivalent to a Master’s degree with at least 55% marks in aggregate or a CGPA of 6.0. Candidates with a valid score in NET/JRF/SLET/GATE/Teacher Fellowship Holder or those who have passed M.Phil are exempted from the Ph.D. Entrance Test (PET).

Due to its leadership in industry-ready infrastructure and research capabilities, the university continues to set new records in nationally benchmarked admissions. This year, Galgotias University set a new record by receiving 7.26 lakh applications through the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for its undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

This is a formidable achievement for Galgotias University considering its youngness and size. The university has been rapidly growing in student intake too with the last Convocation Ceremony for the Class of 2023, witnessing a total of 3,906 students graduating.

Under CEO Dhruv Galgotia’s vision, the university has gone to extraordinary lengths to create one of the most impressive faculty among comparable peer institutions. Thanks to it, GU today boasts of a diverse and accomplished faculty, with members hailing from prestigious institutions across the USA, Europe, and Asia.

This impressive panel of accomplished

Galgotias University Student Saurav Gurjar Secures Silver In AIU Wushu Games 2023-24

teachers includes both seasoned academics and experienced industry professionals who are committed to providing high-quality education and fostering research excellence. They are actively involved in research and scholarly publications, contributing to thought leadership in their respective fields.

In its undergraduate and postgraduate departments Galgotias University offers a wide range of courses across various disciplines. The university is structured as 20 distinct schools offering undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

Galgotias University’s School of Computing Science & Engineering offers programs like B.Tech and M.Tech in various specialisations, whereas its School of Computer Applications & Technology offers courses like BCA and MCA.

Its School of Engineering offers B.Tech and M.Tech, in all conventional and innovative engineering branches, while Galgotias’ School of Business provides

BBA, MBA, and other business-related programs.

GU’s School of Law offers LLB, LLM, and integrated law programs and its School of Liberal Education includes a variety of arts and humanities courses. Other GU Schools include School of Media & Communication Studies, School of Hospitality & Tourism and the School of Biological & Life Sciences.

Galgotias University also offers several other programs including in architecture, design, commerce, pharmacy and more, with degrees including B.Sc (Hons), B.Des, B.A (Hons), B.Pharm, BPT, and more.

Galgotias University has taken care to balance rigorous admission standards with flexibility for students coming from various backgrounds.Towards this, GU accepts a variety of entrance exams for admission into its various programs. These include Galgotias’ own department specific tests as well as nationally benchmarked tests.

GU’s own entrances are heavily attended and includes Galgotias Engineering Entrance Exam (GEEE) for B.Tech admissions, Galgotias University Management Aptitude Test (GUMAT) for MBA admissions, Galgotias University Law School Admission Test (GULSAT) for admission to Integrated BA LLB (Hons.) and BBA LLB (Hons.) and the Ph.D. Entrance Test (PET).

Additionally, Galgotias University accepts students who have scored high in national entrance tests like Common Universities Entrance Test (CUET), Joint Entrance Examination (JEE Main), Common Management Admission Test (CMAT), Management Aptitude Test (MAT), Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), NMAT by GMAC, National Aptitude Test in Architecture (NATA), Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) and Law School Admission Test (LSAT) for LLB (Hons.) and LLM.

SATHYABAMA IS GOING STRONG EVEN AMID A TOUGH SCENARIO

Chancellor Dr. Mariazeena Johnson has made the performance of Sathyabama Institute of Science & Technology (SIST) a tour-de-force in India’s higher education sector on all counts that matter. The Chennai based Category1 deemed-to-be university is second to none whether it is futuristic courses, scholarships for the meritorious underprivileged students, campus placements, basic & applied research, patents, technology transfers, startup incubation, international tie-ups, centres of excellence and lots more. Also a philanthropist with a heart of gold, Dr. Mariazeena is using her Anbu Foundation and her friendship with top-notch social influencers including actresses Nayanthara and Samantha Ruth Prabhu to bring about societal change and women’s empowerment.

SATHYABAMA'S CAMPUS RECRUITERS THIS YEAR INCLUDE HEAVYWEIGHTS LIKE ACCENTURE, TCS, COGNIZANT, DELOITTE, HITACHI, HCL, NATWEST, BNY MELLON AND MORE SUCH MNCS AND DOMESTIC MAJORS.

Dr. MARIAZEENA JOHNSON, Chancellor

Even while most universities are facing a lull in placements, Chennai based deemed to be university, Sathyabama Institute of Science & Technology (SIST) has recently achieved 2,545 job offers from 312 companies for over 93% of its students who had applied for campus placements.

Among the recruiters are heavyweights like Accenture, Cognizant, Deloitte, Hitachi, HCL, TCS, Natwest, DevRev, Tredence Analytics, Virtusa , Tejas Network, Athena Health, JSW Steels, Sona Comstar, UnoMinda, Genpact, BNY Mellon, Godrej and Zoho. Also, among this year’s recruiters are 72 new companies, proving that Sathyabama continues to enlarge its footprint in India Inc, even in this tough year for placements.

Sathyabama’s success in placements was directly due to this deemed university’s various Centres of Excellence working in close collaboration with several global majors including ServiceNow and PwC that resulted in bridging the industryacademia gap effectively.

Demonstrating its mindshare across India and the world, this year’s recruited students from Sathyabama hail from 32 states & union territories of India and 15 countries across the globe. The highest salary package this year also remained strong at nearly Rs 50 lakhs, while average package was Rs 5.40 lakhs.

The power of Sathyabama’s sectorleading full scholarship program was also on display, as 115 students who had studied on full scholarship were among those successfully placed this

Dr. MARIE JOHNSON, President

year. In academic placements too, Sathyabama students proved their mettle with 15 final-year students getting qualified for MTech through the national level Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE).

Sathyabama is a powerhouse in research with the output of its research scholars attracting over 13,0000 citations in Scopus, and over 6,500 in Web of Science.

Around 300 students also obtained admissions in various prestigious national and international universities for their higher studies. Proving that the Sathyabama campus is also among the best for physically challenged students, five visually challenged students from Sathyabama have been admitted to programmes in the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).

Unknown to many in the public, one factor that has been helping this university’s students in garnering top placements year after year has been the contributions of its vibrant Sathyabama Alumni Association (SAA). Sathyabama was established as Sathyabama Engineering College in 1988, and had

achieved deemed university status in 2001 as Sathyabama Institute of Science & Technology.

During these nearly four decades of existence, Sathyabama has produced global leaders, scientists, entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, artists, writers, and managers, across India and the world. The Sathyabama Alumni Association (SAA) brings all these outstanding people and their collective wealth of knowledge and experience together on a single platform.

While the Sathyabama Alumni Association has been contributing to the university and the community around it in diverse ways, one of the most effective means has been how the Sathyabama Alumni have been helping the university get connected with their employers. Most such companies have ended up as regular recruiters from Sathyabama, as they realise the efforts that the university and SAA have been

taking in grooming the newer batches of students.

For instance, there are specific and formal programs that Sathyabama has created in collaboration with SAA like Alumni Lecture Series, Alumni Mentorship Program and Mock Interviews by Alumni, that directly help the current batches of students by guiding them to placement and career success.

Alumni with proven expertise and indepth knowledge in specific domains have been made part of Sathyabama’s Board of Studies, so that they have a voice in including futuristic subjects in Sathyabama’s frequently updated and contemporary curriculum.

Sathyabama openly acknowledges and celebrates its Alumni for not only their contribution to the university, but to their domain and society at large. Such Alumni who have made prominent contributions in the fields of academics, research, corporate careers, entrepreneurship, and social development are honoured with the ‘Distinguished Alumni Award’ every year.

Earlier in the last academic year, Sathyabama got a shot in its arm when the higher education regulator of India, the University Grants Commission (UGC) elevated the institution to the status of a Category 1 Deemed to Be University with greater autonomy to start departments, courses and off campus centres without prior approval.

To put this achievement in perspective, the venerable public sector institution Madras University that was established way back in 1857 also obtained Category 1 status in the same year as Sathyabama, that is, in 2023. The Category 1 status is usually bestowed on institutions that have achieved a 3.51 or above score by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).

Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology can be proud that it could attain the coveted Category 1 status within 23 years of it getting recognised

Sathyabama excels in applied research, technology transfers and startup incubation with 850+ patents filed, 525+ patents published, 300+ patents granted, and 22+ technology transfers.

as a deemed to be university. The institution has also been ranked in the 51st position by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2023 and this has been the eighth consecutive year that Sathyabama has been ranked among the Top 100 Universities of India.

Sathyabama is a powerhouse in research with the output of its research scholars attracting over 13,0000 citations in the leading citation database Scopus, and over 6,500 in the other leading database, Web of Science, which is a great achievement for a university in the private sector that is yet to celebrate its 25th anniversary as a university.

This deemed university’s researchers

also excel in applied research as well as development of intellectual property, with over 850 patents filed, over 525 patents published and 300 plus patents granted to the institution and its researchers. Also a leader in startup incubation, Sathyabama has so far made 22 plus technology transfers to entrepreneurs, startups and companies.

Sathyabama is increasingly strengthening its health science courses, and this initiative is backed by the Sathyabama Hospital that provides healthcare services across multiple departments including general medicine, general surgery, cardiology, endocrinology, diabetology, obstetrics & gynaecology, paediatrics, dental sciences, dermatology, ENT, orthopaedics, ophthalmology, urology, and nephrology.

Recently, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology launched a new initiative on women empowerment titled Anbu with an aim to safeguard women’s health. The launch event, which saw actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu as the guest of honour, also saw Chancellor Dr. Mariazeena Johnson distributing Sathyabama’s Anbu health cards to women staff, girl students and women in public life.

Women and girl students can use the

Anbu health card to access various health examinations typically needed by women such as mammograms, blood tests, screenings for diabetes, eye care, oral health, abdominal scans, and haemoglobin counts at Sathyabama Hospital.

Sathyabama’s health science courses are spread across seven of its departments which includes its School of Pharmacy, School of Nursing, School of Paramedical Sciences, School of Dental Sciences, School of Allied Health Sciences, School of Science & Humanities that houses its BSc and PhD in Psychology, and its School of Bio & Chemical Engineering that houses its BSc, BTech, MTech & PhD courses in biotechnology among other courses in Biochemistry, Biomedical, Microbiology, Bioinformatics etc.

However, Sathyabama’s largest student

Sathyabama

offers 7 BE

Degrees

in Computer Science & Engineering with 7 futuristic specialisationsAI, IoT, Data Science, AI & Robotics, AI & ML, Blockchain, and Cybersecurity.

contingents continue to be in its earliest engineering departments, including its School of Computing, School of Electrical & Electronics, School of Mechanical, and School of Building & Environment. Sathyabama’s School of Management Studies, School of Law and School of Science & Humanities are also noted for their long-standing excellence and relatively large number of courses and student intakes.

Among all these departments, Sathyabama’s School of Computing deserves a special mention as it offers seven Bachelor of Engineering (BE) Degrees in Computer Science & Engineering with seven futuristic specialisations - Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Data Science (DS), AI & Robotics, AI & Machine Language (ML), Blockchain Technology and Cybersecurity.

During last year’s Convocation, which was also its 32nd, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology had awarded over 4,000 degrees. It was AICTE Chairman TG Sitharam who awarded degrees to 3,504 graduates, 551 postgraduates, and 104 PhD scholars. 7 students also received their Diploma in Pharmacy, while 47 students from all streams also received gold medals for their performance in academics and in various fields.

Chancellor Dr. Mariazeena Johnson is not only a towering edupreneur but a noted philanthropist with a heart of gold. She is the moving force behind Anbu Foundation which is also affiliated with Sathyabama Institute of Science & technology (SIST). The Foundation extends additional support to scholarship recipients by providing food and hostel accommodations.

Under her guidance, SIST has also introduced the Anbu Scholarship Scheme to support underprivileged students in pursuing their higher education. The scheme grants scholarships to students identified by NGOs, as well as children of Indian defence personnel, destitute women and war widows, children of prison inmates, and meritorious wards of Sathyabama’s non-teaching staff. The screening process evaluates factors such as family background,

performance in qualifying exams, and a test conducted by the institution before awarding the scholarship.

Earlier in the year, Sathyabama launched the ‘Madugai’ scheme for girl students in government run schools, under which health & hygiene kits are distributed to them. Madugai means strength in Tamil language and the scheme has won the heart of leading actress and entrepreneur Nayanthara who has since then been acting as the institution’s brand ambassador.

A champion of women’s empowerment, Dr. Mariazeena Johnson feels that it is more difficult for women to come up in life, but that they can surely come up on the strength of their resolve and society’s support. As someone who walks her talk, she has made sure that

Sathyabama is strengthening its health science courses, and this initiative is backed by the Sathyabama Hospital that provides healthcare services across multiple departments.

85% of administrative posts and 70% of faculty positions in Sathyabama are occupied by women. Under her guidance, Sathyabama has also adopted several village schools in the suburbs of Chennai, in a concerted effort to bring them up on all counts.

SOA’S EDGE IN PLACEMENTS AND STARTUP INCUBATION SOA’S EDGE IN PLACEMENTS AND STARTUP INCUBATION

THE ODISHA BASED SOA DEEMED-TO-BE-UNIVERSITY HAS BEEN EXCELLING IN PLACEMENTS YEAR AFTER YEAR, MOVING UP THE RUNGS BY WAY OF BOTH QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF JOB OFFERS FROM LEADING CORPORATES, AS WELL AS ACHIEVING BIG IN INCUBATING ADMIRABLE STUDENT STARTUPS.

magine students impressing dignitaries like Dharmendra Pradhan, India’s Minister for Education, Subhas Sarkar, Minister of State for Education, and Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, with their startup projects. That is what four student groups of Odisha’s Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (SOA) deemed-to-be university achieved recently. These teams belonging to SOA’s faculty of engineering, the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), had created four startups - Wedmist Technology, Twinverse Technology, Let’s Drive & Extrava Study Tours - that won the appreciation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The event was an elite one, the recent sixday Future of Work Exhibition held on the sidelines of the G20 Education Working Group meeting which was held at the CSIR Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology in Bhubaneswar. The first startup Wedmist Technology’s flagship product serves hyper-local service providers through Artificial Intelligence

(AI) while Twinverse Technology focuses on diverse areas including archaeology, tourism etc that are among Odisha’s strengths as well as in novel product designing. The third startup Let’s Drive is working on creating unique employment opportunities in the use of electric vehicles, while the fourth one Extrava Study Tours focuses on enhancing the workplace skills of people seeking employment using innovative means. Apart from the Union Ministers, other

top dignitaries who visited the SOA startups stall included Prof TG Sitharam, Chairman of AICTE, K Sanjaya Murthy, Secretary, Higher Education in the Ministry of Education, Prof Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, EC, NAAC and Dr Nirmaljeet Singh Kalsi, Chairman, National Council for Vocational Education and Training. While student startups are inspiring for all, they directly empower and enable only a fewer number of students, and SOA has bigger initiatives that enable almost all of its 15,000 strong student community. One such recent event was an industrial interactive workshop conducted by SOA in Bhubaneswar on the topic ‘Recent Developments and Challenges in Core Industries’. The workshop focused on subjects like emerging areas of renewable energy, future challenges of work, workforce and workplace in manufacturing industries, challenges which obstruct the improvement of core industries, and opportunities for smart manufacturing and application of data science, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in Industries. The workshop was organised by the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the SOA’s Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), and featured industry

Prof. Pradipta Kumar Nanda. Vice Chancellor

experts from Brahmani River Pellets Ltd, CTTC, Sunstone Solar Solutions, Sree Metaliks, and GMR Power Plant as the resource persons who discussed the dynamically changing career prospects of engineering students. The experts detailed the need for preparing graduates in the field of science and technology by inculcating various emerging skill sets required by the industry. With such empowering programs it is no wonder really that SOA has not only ended the need for Odisha based students to go outside the state for higher education, but is also attracting students from all over India and some pockets of the world. This deemed university has been excelling

in placements year after year, moving up the rungs by way of both quantity and quality of job offers from leading corporates. SOA is accredited by NAAC with ‘A++’ grade and is in its 3rd cycle, and is ranked Internationally by QS and THE World University Rankings. In MHRD’s NIRF India Rankings 2022, it is 16th in the University Category, 27th in the Engineering Category, 18th in the Medical Category, 10th in the Dental Category, 9th in the Law Category and

45th in the Research Category. SOA has also been granted the Category-I Graded Autonomy Status by UGC, Government of India. The sprawling SOA campus in the capital city of Odisha is ranked 3rd nationally for being most clean under the Government’s Swachh Campus initiative. The brainchild of Prof. (Dr.) Manojranjan Nayak, who serves as the President of SOA, this deemed university follows national and international standards in pedagogy and the quality of its teaching learning systems and processes. For instance, SOA follows the Outcome Based Education (OBE) framework and has several NBA and ICAR accredited programs. SOA is also home to the NABH accredited SUM Hospital and an NABL accredited Diagnostics Laboratory. SOA is professionally led by a team of academicians led by Prof. (Dr) Amit Banerjee as Chancellor; Prof. (Dr.) Pradipta Kumar Nanda as Vice Chancellor; Prof. (Dr.) Bibhuti Bhusan Pradhan as Pro Vice-Chancellor; and Prof. (Dr.) Sitikantha Mishra also as Pro Vice-Chancellor.

Prof. Amit Banerjee - Chancellor

HOW JGU STAYS AHEAD OF THE CURVE HOW JGU STAYS AHEAD OF THE CURVE

Imagine a higher education institution in India that brings together faculty from over 50 countries. No, not visiting or part-time faculty, but full-time faculty. A campus where students themselves come from 70+ countries. This deemed university in the National Capital Region - Delhi (NCR-Delhi) has also forged collaborations with leading institutions in 70+ countries so far to enable a truly international learning experience. With multiple

engagements spanning over the world, this university based in Sonipat, Haryana, has collaborations with 400+ leading institutions worldwide. No wonder then that when the Government of India’s Ministry of Education chose a creamy layer of universities to be ‘Institutions of Eminence’ in 2020, O.P. Jindal Global (JGU) was a natural choice. Today, JGU offers a variety of programmes to cater to the diverse needs of Indian and overseas students.

With over 45+ programmes available, including 30+ undergraduate programmes, 15+ postgraduate programmes, and doctoral programmes, JGU with its 12 Schools, 3 Research Institutes, 2 major Research Initiatives and 60+ Interdisciplinary Research Centres, is a force to reckon with in most domains, even on a global stage. JGU has unique institutions like the Jindal Institute of Leadership Development and Executive Education (JILDEE) under its fold.

JILDEE has had unparalleled success in providing quality training and education to student officers of India’s public and private sectors. Since its inception, JILDEE has trained over 6,000 student officers and conducted 250 programmes in collaboration with 12 universities across the country. Eminent educational

institutions like JGU will invariably have eminent leaders and academicians behind them, and JGU is no exception with its Founder & Chancellor, Mr. Naveen Jindal, former Member of Parliament, billionaire industrialist and philanthropist, and its Founding Vice Chancellor, Prof. (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar, a Rhodes Scholar, trained at both Oxford & Harvard and an accomplished legal scholar with nine books and over 200 publications to his credit. JGU's 12th Convocation Ceremony and Founder's Day was held recently, for which the Presidential Address was by Hon. Mrs. Justice BV Nagarathna, Judge, Supreme Court of India, and the Convocation Address was by Dr. Joanna Newman, MBE FRSA, Chief Executive & Secretary General, Association of Commonwealth Universities, UK.

uality is never an accident, and the emergence of O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) proves it yet again. A non-profit, multidisciplinary and research oriented university founded in 2009, JGU was established as a philanthropic initiative of its Founding Chancellor, Mr. Naveen Jindal in memory of his father, Shri. OP Jindal, who was one of India’s pioneering industrialists. JGU maintains a 1:9 faculty-student ratio and appoints faculty members from India and different parts of the world with outstanding academic qualifications and experience.

Mr. Naveen Jindal, who was only 39 years old, when he decided to start a university, entrusted the job to an even younger scholar of eminence. The Founding Vice Chancellor of JGU, Prof. (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar, was appointed as VC at just 34 years, and conceived the idea of establishing India’s first Global University. With the visionary leadership and philanthropic support of Mr. Naveen Jindal, JGU was established in Sonipat, Haryana in 2009. Under this duo’s tireless leadership, within 10 years, JGU became one of the only 20 universities in India and the only nonSTEM university, to be declared as an ‘Institution of Eminence’ by the Government of India.

When it comes to global rankings, Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) is one of the world leaders and it has rightly recognized JGU under several categories. JGU is ranked as India’s Number 1 Private University in QS World University Rankings 2023, for the third year in a row. JGU has also

been recognised among the Top 150 universities globally under the age of 50 years by the QS Young University Rankings 2022 and among the Top 500 Universities as per the QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2022.

JGU has steadily grown in its 14 years of existence, to claim some impressive stats now. With 10,000+ students and 1100+ full time faculty members, studying and living on a fully residential campus, JGU has 12 renowned Schools, and a unique institute for Executive Education, the Jindal Institute of

Mr. Naveen Jindal Founder Chancellor

Leadership Development and Executive Education (JILDEE).

The two other institutes at JGU are the International Institute for Higher Education Research & Capacity Building (IIHEd) and the Jindal Institute of Behavioural Sciences (JIBS). The two research initiatives in the campus are Jindal Initiative on Research in IP and Competition, and the Jindal Centre for Social Innovation + Entrepreneurship.

JINDAL GLOBAL LAW SCHOOL

Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) has been the flagship Global School of JGU. In April 2023, JGLS retained its position as the No. 1 Law School in India as per the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023. JGLS is committed to provide global legal education to its students. To fulfil this objective, the curriculum and pedagogy are designed to give extensive exposure to domestic, international and comparative law courses. JGLS has also entered into collaborations, exchange programmes,

research partnerships and other forms of engagements and interactions with leading law schools, such as Harvard, Yale, NYU, Sydney, Keio and many others. Prof. (Dr) C. Raj Kumar is the Dean of JGLS, and it delivers undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level programmes.

JINDAL GLOBAL BUSINESS SCHOOL

Jindal Global Business School (JGBS) is a leading private business school in the country renowned for its premier education in business management, with research and industry partnerships as high priority areas. JGBS offers a multidisciplinary global business education to foster academic excellence through industry partnerships and global collaborations, and seeks to make an impact through its various undergraduate, postgraduate, integrated and doctoral level programmes, as well as executive education, research and consulting. A globally focused faculty deliver globally relevant courses and curriculum, strengthened with global research and collaborations. Prof. (Dr) Mayank Dhaundiyal is the Dean of JGBS.

JINDAL SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Jindal School of International Affairs (JSIA), founded in 2011, is India’s first global policy school, and has remained as its foremost international affairs institution. JGU established this pioneering institute, as India’s rising economic and military strength must be complemented with a world class

international affairs and social sciences base that will generate and test theories and present a customised Indian variant of global studies. JSIA is enriched by its diverse faculty – comprising academics, scholars, researchers, social scientists, authors, practitioner lawyers and diplomats and other such eminent experts – drawn from both India and abroad. It is a matter of satisfaction that for many years running now, JSIA

students are regularly finding placement in reputed think tanks, MNCs, Media and PR groups, UN and multilateral bodies, diplomatic missions, NGOs, and other such organisations. Dr. Sreeram Sundar Chaulia is the Dean of JSIA, which offers undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level programmes.

JINDAL SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT & PUBLIC POLICY

Jindal School of Government and Public Policy (JSGP) is India's first public policy school and strives to keep that lead. JSGP equips its students to become public policy practitioners, capable of constructively shaping public policies that contribute to overall human development, empower marginalised and disadvantaged groups, and eliminate poverty. JSGP faculty use their theoretical knowledge and practical expertise to deliver a multidisciplinary

Prof. (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar, Vice Chancellor

Prof. (Dr.) Sreeram S. Chaulia Dean, JSIA

Prof. (Dr.) Mayank Dhaundiyal Dean, JGBS

pedagogy, whereas JSGP students will create, expand and assimilate this knowledge to become future leaders, pursuing interdisciplinary practice. Prof. Sudarshan Ramaswamy is the Dean of JSGP, which delivers undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level programmes in public policy.

JINDAL SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS & HUMANITIES

Founded in 2013, Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities (JSLH), is India’s first transnational humanities school. The school provides an interdisciplinary liberal arts education of a global

standard. The aim is to educate young adults to become informed citizens of the world who are best equipped to solve the complex problems of our times, approaching them from multiple perspectives and with creativity. Faculty chosen from some of the best institutions across the world facilitate rigorous classroom study combined with experiential learning. Prof. Kathleen Modrowski is the Dean of JSLH, which delivers four different undergraduate programmes and a postgraduate diploma programme. One of the undergraduate programmes is a unique four-year dual degree programme with Rollins College, one of the top liberal arts colleges in the United States.

JINDAL SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM & COMMUNICATION

Jindal School of Journalism & Communication (JSJC) is the country's first global media school, with hands-on multimedia training, a rigorous writing programme in the interdisciplinary social sciences, making its students compatible with international media

schools or global media organisations or MNC communication departments, after the three BA (Hons.) programmes. JSJC provides a vibrant and scholarly setting for the study of journalism, film and new media studies. The JSJC studio with its extensive infrastructure including editing bays and sound labs enable the learning of practicals as well as theory making the students great storytellers in any global setting like radio, film, or TV production. Prof. Kishalay Bhattacharjee is the Dean of JSJC.

JINDAL SCHOOL OF BANKING & FINANCE

Jindal School of Banking & Finance (JSBF) is a research-led, future oriented and interdisciplinary global school focused on developing a new generation of leaders for the financial services industry. With the increased sophistication of corporations and demand for competitive, complex, fast and reliable financial services and solutions on a national and global scale, there is a need for highly trained recruits in the areas of technology, innovation, analytics, finance, accounting and banking. The fundamental strength of

Prof. (Dr.) Dayanand Pandey Dean, JSBF

Prof. Kathleen A. Modrowski Dean, JSLH

Prof. Kishalay Bhattacharjee Dean, JSJC

Prof. Sudarshan Ramaswamy Dean, JSGP

JSBF is its cutting edge curriculum and interdisciplinary education with global exposure. Prof. (Dr) Dayanand Pandey is the Dean of JSBF, which delivers undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level programmes in banking and finance related areas.

JINDAL SCHOOL OF ART & ARCHITECTURE

The Jindal School of Art and Architecture (JSAA) has a vision and strategy to emerge as one of the foremost schools of learning of the visual, material and the built environments. The school follows internationally accepted best practices of the academia and is supported by an acclaimed faculty. JSAA pursues research and innovative excellence that fosters interdisciplinary research initiatives cutting across academic programmes, thereby allowing students and faculty to actively engage in addressing the most pressing issues facing our world today. JSAA has ample facilities including a fabrication lab, a construction yard & lab, an environment research lab and a digital centre. JSAA is headed by its Dean, Prof. (Dr) Jaideep Chatterjee, and offers undergraduate and

doctoral programmes as well as the unique Jindal Adelaide Architectural Pathway programme.

JINDAL SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY

The Jindal School of Environment & Sustainability (JSES) is India’s first environment and sustainability school for undergraduates. JSES fosters curriculum, research, and collaborations of the highest standards, and with a global

perspective, through faculty drawn from around the world. The school provides interdisciplinary environment and sustainable development education through innovative teaching, impactdriven research, and practice-based engagement. The aim is to allow students to widen their horizon and develop skills required for solving the complex environment and sustainability challenges of our times. Interestingly, JSES offers two undergraduate programmes in Environment & Sustainable Development, as BA (Hons.) and BSc (Hons.) programmes. Prof. (Dr) Maharaj K. Pandit is the Dean of JSES.

JINDAL SCHOOL OF PSYCHOLOGY & COUNSELLING

Jindal School of Psychology & Counselling (JSPC) has been developing a new generation of thought leaders in the fields of psychology and counselling thanks to the world-class interdisciplinary education delivered here, that enhances the students' prospects for employment and higher

Prof. (Dr.) Jaideep Chatterjee Dean, JSAA

Prof. Dr. Maharaj K. Pandit Dean, JSES.

Prof. (Dr.) Derick Hall Lindquist Dean, JSPC

education. Students are encouraged to select from a large and customizable set of courses based on their specific interests. The research oriented faculty employs experiential and goal- based learning strategies based on a course curriculum structured along the latest theory and practice from the frontiers of psychology. Prof. (Dr) Derick Hall Lindquist is the Dean of JSPC.

JINDAL SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES & LITERATURE

The Jindal School of Language and Literature (JSLL) provides an environment for holistic study of languages, literature and culture with organic connections to other JGU schools and centres. JSLL gives attention to not only multiple languages and their literatures but to comparative literature, world literature and cultural studies. Students in JSLL programmes will encounter not only languages and texts but other cultural forms such as performing arts and cinema. JSLL is devoted to the proposition that language and literature matter today more than ever for human fulfilment and a safe

collective future. JSLL currently offers two undergraduate programmes - BA Honours English and BA Honours Spanish. Prof. (Dr) Denys P. Leighton is the Dean of JSLL .

JINDAL SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH & HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

The Jindal School of Public Health and Human Development (JSPH) was founded in 2020, right amidst the pandemic, and aspires to be a worldclass public health institution, that meets the constantly-evolving and dynamic needs of public health in India, and across the world. JSPH with its research driven approach and interdisciplinary studies aims to create leaders who can bring thought leadership to create a constantly-evolving, adaptable and sustainable public health ecosystem for India and the world. Prof. (Dr) Stephen P. Marks is the Dean of JSPH, which currently offers as its flagship programme, the Masters in Public Health (MPH), which is a highly innovative and specialised programme of study that leverages JGU’s extensive engagement in the field of public health in India.

JINDAL INSTITUTE OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCES

Established in 2014, the Jindal Institute of Behavioural Sciences (JIBS) stands as a cornerstone of value-driven research within JGU. This institute also proudly bears affiliation with the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS), as a testament to its international academic standing. Dedicated to the intricate realm of behavioural sciences, JIBS is committed to the pursuit of empirical research that interweaves various disciplines. With an unwavering emphasis on applied and

Professor (Dr.) Stephen P. Marks Dean, JSPH

Prof. (Dr.) Denys P. Leighton Dean, JSLL.

experimental methodologies, JIBS’ primary spheres of exploration encompass a diverse array of subjects: mental health, competency mapping, neurosciences, neural decision sciences, psychobiology, management sciences, forensic studies, social psychology, and the complexities of criminal behaviour.

Collaborating with leading scholars across an array of fields and working in concert with both domestic and international researchers, the JIBS’ mission is to understand the complexity of human behaviour. Through this multifaceted lens, JIBS addresses the pressing issues with a keen awareness of their interdisciplinary nature.

Prof. (Dr.) Sanjeev P. Sahni is the Principal Director of JIBS. He is also the Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor of JGU and the Member of the Governing Body of the university. As a founding member of the management team, he was instrumental in establishing the university in the year 2009 along with the Vice Chancellor. Dr. Sahni fosters collaboration across the university and manages changes in policies and practices that affect the academic and administrative life of the university as a whole. He also serves as a Professor in the university and as the Director of the Centre for Victimology and Psychological Studies, Centre for Leadership and Change, and Centre for Community Mental Health.

Dr. Sahni is a distinguished scholar in the field of Psychology and his research interests span in the areas of Criminal Psychology, Cognitive and Neuropsychology, Competency Mapping,

Organizational Development, and Leadership. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Organizational Behaviour. He possesses an extensive and rich experience of 32 years in Academia, Industry and Governmental Sector. His industrial expertise and extensive research allow for a more pragmatic approach in teaching, thus narrowing the industryacademia gap.

JINDAL INSTITUTE OF LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

From its very outset, JGU’s motto has been ‘A Private University Promoting Public Service’, and this reflects in the university’s ethos to foster academic excellence, intellectual engagement and social responsibility, across all its schools, institutes and research initiatives. But nowhere is it more seen than in its executive education initiative, the Jindal Institute of Leadership Development and Executive Education (JILDEE).

In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing business landscape, the need for effective leaders has become more crucial than ever. With a vision to promote leadership development and executive education within various sectors, JILDEE collaborates with its 12 schools and national and international academic partners to provide topnotch programmes tailored to mid and senior- level career officers.

These programmes cater to professionals in areas such as Financial Management, Law and Corporate Governance, Leadership and

Professional Development, Project and Process Management, Economics, Marketing and Sales, Technology, Innovation, Strategy, Government and Public Policy, Taxation, Diplomacy, and International Affairs.

One of the main strengths of the executive education at JGU is its globally focused faculty. The faculty members are highly qualified and trained, with expertise drawn from leading institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, and more. Their diverse backgrounds and experiences bring a global perspective to the programmes, enriching the learning experience for all participants.

Some of the domains where JGU offers unparalleled expertise for executive education include Strategic Management, Technology Based Programmes, Quantitative Research Methods, IS and Analytics, Digital Transformation, Data Visualization, Machine Learning, AI, Leadership, Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Management and Supply Chain Management.

A recent instance of JILDEE’s success was the first Online Certificate Executive Education Programme with CAG for 25 officers of a Maharatna Public Sector Undertaking, the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited. This programme was a resounding success and received positive feedback from all participants.

In June 2023, JILDEE collaborated with Jindal School of Government and Public Policy (JSGP) to conduct an on-campus training programme for officers of the Indian Forest Service. The programme aimed to provide specialised training to officers in various areas such as forest conservation, wildlife management, and sustainable development. The programme was well-received by all participants and helped enhance their skills and knowledge in their respective fields.

JILDEE’s commitment to providing quality education and training to student officers across India is

Prof. (Dr.) Sanjeev P Sahni, Principal Director, JIBS

Lt Gen Dr Rajesh Kochhar, Senior Director, JILDEE

commendable, as its efforts have helped bridge the gap between academia and industry, thereby creating a skilled workforce that is well-equipped to tackle the challenges of the future. The Chief Administrative Officer of JGU, Lt Gen Dr Rajesh Kochhar, also heads JILDEE as its Senior Director .

The Office of Executive education in Jindal Global Business School (JGBS), provides programmes that are designed to tackle real-world business problems and enable executives to generate the best return on investment. JGU collaborates with industry practitioners, experts, and organisations to resolve real world business issues, build diverse capabilities, and prepare for a dynamic future.

THE OUTSTANDING SUPPORT FROM THE FOUNDER CHANCELLOR

The outstanding DNA of a high-flying institution like JGU can definitely be traced back to its Founding Chancellor and Founding Vice Chancellor. JGU’s Founding Chancellor Mr. Naveen Jindal also serves as the Chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Limited, and has been an active campaigner for population stabilisation, women’s empowerment, environmental conservation, healthcare and education. After graduating in Commerce from Hans Raj College, Delhi University, in 1990, Mr. Jindal completed his MBA at the University of Texas at Dallas in 1992.

He was the President of the Student Government and recipient of the Student Leader of the Year Award at the University of Texas. Later on, as an

acknowledgement of Jindal’s donations to his alma mater, the University of Texas at Dallas renamed its School of Management to Naveen Jindal School of Management in 2011. Mr. Naveen Jindal is most famous in India as the leader who won the right to display the National Flag on all days of the year for all Indians, after a protracted legal battle with state and central governments, that he finally won at the Supreme Court.

THE EMINENT VISION & SCHOLARSHIP OF THE FOUNDING VICE CHANCELLOR

Founding Vice Chancellor of JGU, Prof. (Dr) C. Raj Kumar, was awarded the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship at the University of Oxford, UK, where he obtained his Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) degree; a Landon Gammon Fellowship at the Harvard Law School, USA, where he obtained his

Master of Laws (LLM) degree and a James Souverine Gallo Memorial Scholarship at Harvard University.

Later on, he received his Doctor of Legal Science (SJD) from the University of Hong Kong. He has also obtained a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from the University of Delhi, India; and a Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) degree from the Loyola College, University of Madras, India. He served as a faculty member at the School of Law of City University of Hong Kong, where he taught for many years.

Professor Kumar has held consultancy assignments in the field of human rights and governance. He has been a Consultant to the United Nations University (UNU), Tokyo; United Nations Development Program (UNDP); UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, Geneva; and the International Council for Human Rights Policy (ICHRP), Geneva. He has advised the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) in Sri Lanka and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in India on issues relating to corruption and good governance. Professor Kumar is also an Attorney at Law and is admitted to the Bar Council of Delhi, India, and the Bar of the State of New York, USA.

THE CASE FOR BEING LAZY AND PROCRASTINATING

WHAT IF LAZINESS AND PROCRASTINATION COULD ACTUALLY HELP YOU GO FURTHER IN LIFE, AND MAKE YOU WILDLY SUCCESSFUL?

s children we were told that we would never amount to anything if we were lazy and that hard work was the key to success. But what if laziness and procrastination could actually help you go further in life? There are a few reasons why being an eager beaver isn't always a good idea. Some problems may end up getting solved without any effort from you. And is a first-mover advantage all it's cracked up to be? It's the second mouse that gets the cheese. The hapless first mouse could end up getting trapped in its efforts to get ahead. Bill Gates once said that he would always "hire a lazy person to do a difficult job" at Microsoft. Why? "Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it." Here are some of the ways you can use your laziness to your advantage and turn procrastination into an asset.

1) USING LAZINESS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

Sometimes, laziness can be used to protect you from yourself. According to Karthick Venkatesh, who posts advice on question-and-answer network Quora, he has a 29-character password for Facebook and Twitter. "When I have to work, I just log off from these," he says. "So, whenever I feel like taking a break and using Facebook, I am just too lazy to type my password. "Eventually, owing to my laziness, I go back to work and have a really productive day."

Bill Gates once said that he would always "hire a lazy person to do a difficult job" at Microsoft. Why? "Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it."

2) WHY PROCRASTINATION WORKS

If you wait until the last minute to complete a task, you are forced to focus on the project at hand. According to Quora poster Caroline Sin: "There’s nothing like not having enough time to complete a project to make you realise what’s critical, and what isn’t." "If I start early on a project and stick faithfully to my schedule, I almost always do more work than I need to," she explains. "A lot of that work I simply throw away. But if I wait until the last minute to work on something, the stress of it automatically narrows my focus to what’s important, and I quickly jettison the rest. I throw no work away, I work quickly and efficiently, and I get it done." Work will always swell to fill the amount of time allotted to it, argues another Quora user, so limit the space into which it can expand.

3) MAKE THE MACHINE DO IT

Phones, lifts, cars, all these things were invented to avoid or minimise work. Lazy people automate as much as possible. Rather than tweeting throughout the day, for example, they will use a service like TweetDeck to schedule tweets for the whole day in one go. Job done; time for a cup of tea. Human beings were supposed to work less, not more, following the rise of the machines. In his 1930 work Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren, legendary British economist John Maynard Keynes who lived in the last century wrote that by 2030 he expected a system of almost total "technological unemployment" in which we'd need to work as few as 15 hours a week. Working less doesn't mean being less effective. Devotees of the "Pareto Principle" believe in the 80-20 rule: basically, just 20pc of your efforts deliver 80pc of the results - there is the "vital few and the trivial many". The idea was originally conceived in 1906 by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who created the formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country (20pc of people owned 80pc of the wealth). However, it is now a muchvaunted time-management technique. Of the things you do during your day, only 20 pc really matter - in theory. Lazy people can cut down on 80 pc of their workload by identifying and focusing only on those things.

4) ARE YOU LAZY? OR JUST REALLY GOOD?

You may be lazy because you’re good at your job. Really efficient people will naturally have more downtime than their peers. If you finish a task, and find yourself watching cat videos or liking endless pictures on Facebook, is it because you've finished your work early? Are you twiddling your thumbs because you have nothing else left to do? Take Tobi Lütke, the CEO of the e-commerce platform Shopify, couldn't be bothered to work with difficult customers anymore, so he got rid of them. Lazy? Perhaps. But the result was that he could spend more time focusing on valuable

LAZY ENTREPRENEURS BUILD BUSINESSES THAT GENERATE REVENUE, EVEN WHEN THEY AREN'T ANYWHERE NEAR THEIR DESK. ONLINE PRODUCTS SUCH AS TRAINING VIDEOS, E-BOOKS OR SUBSCRIPTIONS TO ONLINE

CONTENT OR SERVICES COULD ALL MAKE MONEY WHILE YOU SLEEP, AND REQUIRE MINIMAL INPUT FROM THE BUSINESS OWNER.

customers. "If you go into business school and suggest firing a customer, they'll kick you out of the building," he says. "But it's so true in my experience. It allows you to identify the customers you really want to work with." In 2007, Tim Ferriss published his book, The 4Hour Workweek, in which he extolled the virtues of the Pareto Principle and of working as little as possible. The self-help book was a worldwide success, selling 1.35m copies in 35 languages. According to Ferriss, to be truly productive, we must check our email just once a day and outsource every small daily task to virtual assistants, focusing only on those tasks that generate the largest return.

5) YOU CAN ONLY BE LAZY IF YOU'RE CLEVER

Kurt Gebhard Adolf Philipp Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord was Germany’s chief of the army before the Second World War. He said that all his officers were two of the following: clever, diligent, stupid or lazy. According to the general, the most dangerous officer was one who was stupid and diligent. He couldn't be trusted with any responsibility because he would always make mischief. However, officers who were both clever and lazy were qualified for the highest leadership duties, because they possessed the intellectual clarity and the "composure" necessary for difficult decisions. They are masters at avoiding “busywork” such as pointless meetings, he claimed, they delegate to others to get things done efficiently, and they focus

on the essentials rather than being distracted by unnecessary extras.

6) MAKE MONEY WHILE YOU SLEEP

Lazy entrepreneurs build businesses that generate revenue, even when they aren't anywhere near their desk. Online products such as training videos, e-books or subscriptions to online content or services could all make money while you sleep, and require minimal input from the business owner. The explosion in peer-to-peer lenders has also offered lazy people the opportunity to make money by effectively doing nothing - just collecting the interest. Caveat: there is always risk involved in issuing loans. But there are even ways of making traditional business models successful while being lazy. If you are selling a product, for example, create a range that is like a McDonald's menu. Produce five things - burgers, fries, chicken, salad and soft drinks - and just package it all differently and sell them in different combinations to cut down on time and effort.

7) HOW TO BUILD A LAZIER SOCIETY

Working just four hours a week might seem ridiculous to many, but how about a four-hour workday? A shorter working week would have interesting theoretical benefits. If everyone worked fewer hours, more people would be required to get the job done, reducing unemployment. Less work would produce slower economic growth but it would also reduce the consequences of that growth, such as pollution. Work, as a commodity, would increase in valuesweat equity is frequently dismissed these days because everyone puts in such long hours. It would also solve the eternal question: how to achieve a work/ life balance. A four-hour workday would leave plenty of time for family and child care. There could also be resulting health benefits. Burn-outs, stress and inactivity would be reduced, which would reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's. So should you be more lazy? We think so.

(Credit:RebeccaBurn-CallanderforThe Telegraph)

HOW TO SPOT RED FLAGS IN ANY COMPANY'S ACCOUNTS?

HOW TO SPOT RED FLAGS IN ANY COMPANY'S ACCOUNTS?

The current bull market is causing many new stock market investors to think that they have become experts at spotting multi baggers. What they don’t realise, and probably will, much later, is that rising stock prices are not always a reflection of sound fundamentals. And what you see in the balance sheet is not always what you get. Ashwini Damani, Senior Analyst at Manyavar Family Office, and a chartered accountant by training, specialises in forensic auditing. In an interview with Moneycontrol's Santosh Nair, Damani spoke about the accounting red flags that investors should keep an eye out for.

How did you get interested in How you get in How did you get interested in How you get in How forensic accounting? forensic accounting? forensic accounting? forensic accounting?

Initially that was not my area of interest. Because I spent around 10-12 years in financial reporting and audit, and had gone through hundreds of financial statements, I was able to quickly spot when some balance ratios didn’t make sense.

What was the incident that got What the incident that got What was the incident that got What the incident that got you started? you started? you started? you started? you

One of the firms that I was auditing had to pay a bribe to a politician. Since an expense of this nature cannot be officially disclosed, it would have to be hidden somewhere in the balance sheet. The basic principle of accounting is that for every debit, there is a credit. If you try to hide a profit or an expense, another part of the balance sheet will automatically bloat. It struck me that many companies would be doing similar things, and by focussing on ratios that did not make sense, one could get an idea if the account books were being cooked.

Which was the first stock where Which was the first you sensed that something was you that something wrong with the numbers? wrong with the

Opto Circuits. Firstly, the ratios were not making sense. As a chartered accountant, I was trained to observe the cash flows and not merely the profit and loss (P&L) statement. Making an entry into the P&L doesn't finish the loop, you need to tie it up to the cash flow statement I noticed the absence of cash flow from operating activities and the tax payments seemed bogus. It soon became evident that the management was just shuffling money around. Focussing on the tax actually paid and not provisions for tax, these are simple things, but most investors overlook it.

How did you apply some of the How did you of How did you apply some of the How did you of of lessons that you learnt as a lessons that you learnt as a you financial auditor? financial

For my own investments. I got a kick being able to spot issues in balance sheets and observing how they unfolded over the following years. I then joined Value Picker, a forum for value investors where people discussed investment ideas. The principles of financial statement analysis that I had developed for my personal investments came in handy for evaluating potential investments

discussed on the forum. The more financial statements I looked at, the better was my ability at being able to spot patterns.

retail store chain, I could see that the amount spent on air conditioners was inflated when comparted with the number of stores in operation.

What was the experience like?

What was the experience like?

Generally good, but there was this company, which I cannot name, where the promoter was running a privately held firm of a similar nature as the listed entity. Every time he wanted to get the market cap up, he would transfer sales from the private entity to the listed one. I was so convinced of being right in my assessment of the company that I could not spot the fraud when it was happening right in front of my eyes. I lost a packet in that stock.

What are the key numbers that are the numbers that you seek out as soon as you dive seek out dive you seek out as soon as you dive seek out dive into a balance sheet? into a balance a

Return on Equity (RoE), cash flow conversion (ability of a company to convert operating profits into ree cash flow), and balance sheet size. If the total on the asset side adds up to say Rs 50,000 crore, you need to check the number against each of the line items like plant and machinery, working capital etc and see if they make sense. For instance, in the case of a mid-sized

Then there are some obvious red flags. Like a jewellery company should not have debtor days, because they don’t sell on credit. A media and entertainment company should not have receivables of more than 60-70 days.

Why so? so? so?

If you are an exhibitor, then the industry works on a weekly payment cycle. Check with peer group companies and see what their receivables are like. In fact, the thumb rule is to compare with peers and see the variation. If it is too much, you need to ask: why?

Can you elaborate on the cash elaborate on the the flow conversion?

I believe that on a long on a five to seven year basis if you just add up the operating profits of the company 60 to 70 percent at least should translate into cash flow from operations. I say 60-70 percent because you need to put some more money into debtors and inventory as you keep growing. There is always a timing gap, you may sell something in March

and it may get recovered in April. I don’t look at individual years, because things can go wrong once in a while. Also, it will vary across industries. For an EPC (engineering, procurement, construction) firm it could be closer to 60 percent and for an IT company it could be closer to 90 percent. Check how peer group companies are doing. If enough of the operating profits are not getting converting into cash flows, then you need to doubt the operating profits.

Which are common ways in Which are ways Which which managements try to which try to which managements try to which try to try mislead shareholders? mislead mislead shareholders? mislead

The most common method is to inflate profits, and when you do that, you also have to inflate reserves and surpluses, which is the liability side. That means you have to inflate the asset side as well. Overpaid acquisition is a good way to do that, as it bloats up your goodwill. Check if the company being acquired is in any way a related firm.

WHEN I WHEN I LOOK AT THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS IT IS NOT ALWAYS WITH THE INTENTION OF FINDING A FRAUD. I JUST NEED TO BE AWARE THAT THERE IS A PROBLEM IN THE BALANCE SHEET.

inventory, which can get a bit tricky. Sometimes it is obvious that the company is fudging numbers. Like a diary company having an inventory of 200-300 days. But how do you know if the diamonds held by a jewellery company is actually worth the crores that the management claims it is. Capex bills can be inflated. There is no way an auditor can check each and every bill.

company does that often, it means you can’t take the numbers at face value.

Do you always go for the perfect you go the perfect

Do you always go for the perfect you go the perfect the balance sheet? Or do you say I sheet? Or do you say balance sheet? Or do you say I sheet? Or do you say balance sheet? Or do you say I am fine with the imperfections in am with the in am fine with the imperfections in am with the in the balance sheet up to a certain the sheet to a certain the balance sheet up to a certain the sheet to a certain threshold? threshold?

From a retail investors' a retail investors'

From a retail investors' a retail investors'

From a retail investors' perspective which are the easier which are the easier red flags to spot? red to

When I when I look at the financial statements it is not always with the intention of finding a fraud. I just need to be aware that there is a problem in the balance sheet. Sometimes managements try to delay recognition of certain accounting items because they are under pressure from the investing community, or just trying to save their jobs. When the actual event happens, the market punishes the stock and that may actually be a buying opportunity because you know this was coming.

We are a massive up

We are seeing a massive run up in

We are seeing a massive run up in

How does one do that?

How one do that?

How does one do that?

How one do that? that?

The company must mention that, and if they fail to do that, there are sites like Zauba and Tofler that allow you to make a family tree and check if there are any common links. Sometimes there are obvious telltale signs. Like the company that was acquired for a hefty sum may not even have a functional website.

Earlier, fake receivables was a common place for inflating profits, but because of GST (good and services tax) that has become difficult. Auditors can easily corelate GST data with the receivables and check for genuineness.

Which are the other areas?

Which are other areas? are other

Loans and advances to group companies or third parties. Then there is

THE MOST COMMON METHOD IS TO INFLATE PROFITS, AND WHEN YOU DO THAT, YOU ALSO HAVE TO INFLATE RESERVES AND SURPLUSES, WHICH IS THE LIABILITY SIDE. THAT MEANS YOU HAVE TO INFLATE THE ASSET SIDE AS WELL.

Watch RoE. A low RoE could be a sign that the asset side is bloated. When I see a supressed RoE, I try to figure out if it is due to an industry downcycle or an inflated balance sheet. Using the Dupont formula—margin multiplied by leverage multiplied by return on assets—gives an idea. Comparing margins across the industry is crucial. If an industry leader earns, say a 7 percent margin, a similar business should aim for 7-10 percent. Examining leverage over a 5-7 year period reveals notable differences from industry peers. If RoE significantly varies, particularly in fixed assets, it points to an inflated balance sheet. A prolonged CWIP (capital work in progress) is another warning sign. That could mean either the company is not getting the requisite approvals for the plant or that the capex has been overstated. A company where CWIP keeps going up regularly without getting translated into fixed assets or without getting translated into higher sales, then you should ask the management why they are spending money on building an asset which a) is not getting completed or b) is not translating into higher sales. If the management is unable to adhere to a deadline repeatedly, it means the numbers are being faked. Thirdly, watch for write-offs and write-downs. They are usually the result of aggressive accounting practices in the past. If a

We are a massive up shares of small and micro-cap shares of and micro-cap shares of small and micro-cap shares of and micro-cap companies which are announcing are announcing companies which are announcing are announcing huge order wins. On paper, it On paper, it huge order wins. On paper, it On paper, it appears the companies’ earnings companies’ earnings appears the companies’ earnings companies’ earnings appears the companies’ earnings will soar in the days ahead. What soar in days What will soar in the days ahead. What soar in days What will soar in the days ahead. What should investors be keeping an should be an should investors be keeping an should be an be eye out for? out for? for?

These are companies that typically work on percentage of completion accounting. You get paid for the quantum of work you have completed. Watch for the unbilled revenues as a percentage of sales. (Unbilled revenue is revenue a business hasn’t billed its customers for, though it has delivered the promised goods or services). If this number keeps going up, then there is a problem.

Lay investors won’t be able to won’t able able spot the red flags as well as spot the as qualified professionals like you. professionals you. professionals So what is your advice to them? So what is your to So what is your advice to them? So what is your to is to

If you are putting your hard-earned money, you better learn the basic rules of the game. Today, there is plenty of free tools to compare the key ratios and also enough content available on the net to be able to understand the concepts. If you cannot take the trouble to do that, you are better off entrusting your money to professional fund managers.

(Credit: Santosh Nair for Monecontrol)

CAN BEING PREGNANT CHANGE YOUR DNA?

Pregnancy changes so much about your body, from your hairline to what you dream about each night. When it comes to who you are as a person, motherhood is definitely going to make some changes there, too. But can being pregnant change your DNA — as in the blueprint in your literal cells? You may have heard this little fun fact floating around before — that being pregnant changes your fundamental biology — but it’s not exactly true, according to experts. What really happens is even cooler.

o, can being pregnant change your DNA? In short, no. Your genome - your unique genetic information we all know as DNA - isn’t going to change when you get pregnant. “I think it’s a huge overstatement to say that one’s genome is altered forever after having a baby,” says Dr. Jeffrey Kuller, M.D., a maternalfetal medicine specialist at Duke Health. “After delivery, there’s a small amount of fetal DNA that remains in the mother’s circulation that may have some immunologic effects long-term, maybe decreasing risk of preeclampsia, maybe having some modulation of autoimmune diseases. But I think largely it’s not all that well understood and certainly not changing one’s overall DNA pattern.”

So if being pregnant doesn’t change your actual DNA, where’d this idea come from? It may have sprouted, Kuller theorizes, from that knowledge that your baby’s DNA actually circulates in your bloodstream while you’re pregnant (it’s called cell-free DNA). This DNA is what’s tested, when they take your blood for prenatal screenings, to assess your baby’s risk of having conditions like trisomy 18 or Down syndrome.

A “large proportion” of pregnant patients receive this screening, Kuller says, which may be why some people become curious or confused about the relationship between pregnancy and DNA. The idea that pregnancy can somehow change your DNA has spread on social media, especially in miscarriage and infant loss communities, and rightfully so. The notion that your child has altered you permanently and will always be with you on a biological level is pretty profound. While pregnancy may not alter your actual genome, some researchers believe fetal DNA lingers in the mother’s body for

years after her child is born. For all parents, including those who have miscarried or experienced loss, that means some part of your baby could very well still be part of you.

Does your child’s DNA stay behind after you give birth?

It actually does. It’s called fetal microchimerism (FMc) — when low amounts of fetal cells linger in a mother’s body during and after pregnancy, presumably so Mom’s immune system recognizes the fetus as part of her, and not an outside organism to attack. Researchers have found FMc cells in women’s blood, brains, skin, heart, lungs, lymph nodes, and other organs. Other studies concluded that fetal DNA circulates in mothers’ bodies for up to 27 years after the birth of her baby. Scientists are still learning what these fetal

SO IF BEING PREGNANT DOESN’T CHANGE YOUR ACTUAL DNA, WHERE’D THIS IDEA COME FROM? IT MAY HAVE SPROUTED, KULLER THEORIZES, FROM THAT KNOWLEDGE THAT YOUR BABY’S DNA ACTUALLY CIRCULATES IN YOUR BLOODSTREAM WHILE YOU’RE PREGNANT

remnants do in that time, but some have found evidence that FMc can benefit a mother’s health, helping regenerate tissues and replace cells.

“Perhaps there is this small microchimerism effect that there is maybe a little bit of DNA left behind after a delivery, which isn’t so crazy, and maybe in some years we’ll find that it does have some effect on all kinds of immunology and biology that we don’t understand now,” Kuller says. “But I think that basic premise of is one’s DNA changed forever after a delivery seems like a big overstatement to me.”

Research into microchimerism isn’t far along enough for Kuller to use the concept to comfort his own patients. But he also said it hasn’t been proven false. “This I don't think is far-fetched. My takeaway is that there may be something to this. I just feel like we need further evidence, and I think we really don’t know what it means long term,” he says.

But if you take comfort in the idea that your baby is still part of you long after they leave your body - maybe even healing you on some cellular level - don’t stop believing.

(Credit: Katie McPherson for Romper)

SHOULD YOU MANAGE YOUR TIME OR YOUR ATTENTION?

n today's digital work environment, traditional time management is an inadequate metric for productivity and a path to personal burnout. The blending of work and personal life in our constantly connected world demands more than just managing time. It's in this complex scenario, filled with endless information and distractions, that the ability to focus attention emerges as a vital skill for individuals and organizations.

This need heralds a significant shift: from time management to attention management.

Six Time Management Challenges

1. Time Management Gives An Illusion Of Control

In a productivity obsessed world, time management has been viewed as the golden key to efficiency. We've been conditioned to believe that meticulously organizing every hour will lead to greater output and success. However, this conventional wisdom is fundamentally flawed. Time management, as traditionally practiced, is an outdated concept that fails to address the

SEASONAL MAGAZINE

Curt Steinhorst, the bestselling author of "Can I Have Your Attention?" is the founder and CEO of Focuswise, with a proven track record of success working with industry leaders such as Deloitte, JPMorgan Chase, Nike, and AT&T, among others. Apart from being a highly regarded thought leader, author and keynote speaker, he works as the Head of People & Culture at Venus Aerospace, where he is spearheading the development of a forward-thinking workplace that emphasizes focus, accountability, and productivity, drawing from his extensive experience and proven strategies. Here, he outlines why time management is not the key but attention management.

complexities of the modern world. It's time we recognize its pitfalls and move towards a more realistic approach to productivity.

2. Multitasking Is A Myth

One of the most significant fallacies promoted by time management is the effectiveness of multitasking. The truth is, multitasking is a myth. Studies have repeatedly shown that our brains are not wired to handle multiple tasks simultaneously. What we perceive as multitasking is actually task-switching, which can reduce productivity by as much as 40%. This constant switching between tasks not only diminishes focus and efficiency but also increases stress and the potential for error.

3. Overscheduling Is A Chronic Trap

Time management often leads to overscheduling — packing every

moment of our day with tasks. This approach overlooks the need for mental breaks and the value of downtime and white space. When every minute is accounted for, there’s no room for creative thinking or problem-solving. This relentless scheduling can lead to burnout and lower overall job satisfaction and personal well-being.

4. Choice Overload Causes Fatigue

With an array of time management tools and techniques at our disposal, from digital calendars to productivity apps, we face the paradox of choice. Having too many options can lead to decision fatigue, making it difficult to make any choice at all. This often results in a counterproductive cycle where more time is spent planning and organizing than actually doing the work.

5. Busy Does Not Equal Productive

Time management creates an illusion of productivity — just because you're busy doesn't mean you're productive. This false sense of achievement can be misleading. Focusing solely on checking off items from a to-do list may lead to neglecting more meaningful, highimpact work that requires deeper thought and creativity.

6. Mental Health Is Neglected

In the pursuit of squeezing productivity out of every second, time management often neglects mental health. Constant pressure to be productive can lead to anxiety and stress. Moreover, the lack of flexibility in traditional time management does not accommodate the natural ebbs and flows of human energy and motivation.

Rethinking Productivity: Rethinking Productivity: Rethinking Productivity: Rethinking Productivity: The Shift To Attention Management The Shift To Attention The Shift To Attention Management The Shift To Attention The Shift To Attention Management

Recognizing the limitations of traditional time management in the real world, the paradigm shift towards attention management offers a more effective, sustainable, and healthier approach to productivity. Amidst constant distractions, the ability to focus on what truly matters is what sets the productive apart from the busy. Attention management acknowledges that time is a limited resource, but how we direct our focus within that time is where true productivity lies.

Attention Management Strategies Attention Management For Boosting Productivity For

1) Prioritize quality over quantity: Instead of trying to do more in less time, focus on doing the right things that add value and meaning to your work. 2) Embrace downtime: Understand that breaks are not a waste of time but a

necessary part of maintaining a high level of cognitive functioning. 3) Cultivate mindfulness: Being present and fully engaged in the current task is more effective than scattered attention across multiple tasks. 4) Set boundaries for technology: Use technology as a tool, not a distraction. Designate times to check emails and social media to avoid constant interruptions. 5) Listen to your body: Pay attention to your natural rhythms. Work on demanding tasks when you feel most alert and take breaks when you need to recharge.

Work Smarter, Not Harder Work Not Harder

Unlike time, attention management isn't just about task completion; it's about managing focus amidst potential disruptions, and valuing engagement and meaningful work over mere hours spent. This shift underscores the importance of directing cognitive resources strategically, aligning efforts with goals, well-being, and professional fulfillment in our modern, multifaceted work landscape.It's time to break free from the outdated shackles of traditional time management and embrace a more holistic, flexible approach to productivity. By shifting our focus from managing time to managing attention, we can work smarter, not harder. This shift is not just about improving efficiency; it's about enhancing our overall quality of life both in and out of the workplace.

(Credit: Curt Steinhorst for Forbes)

Singapore's biggest bank DBS Group has cut its India-born CEO Piyush Gupta's compensation by S$4.1 million (over ?25 crore) after the lender suffered a series of digital banking outages last year. The outages stalled payment and ATM transactions across Singapore. The pay cut represents a 30% reduction in variable pay for Gupta, who earned S$15.4 million in total in 2022.

RINKU SINGH MEETS IPS OFFICER MANOJ SHARMA WHO INSPIRED '12TH FAIL', SHARES PIC

Team India cricketer Rinku Singh met IPS officer Manoj Sharma who inspired Vikrant Massey-starrer '12th Fail'. Rinku took to his Instagram Stories to share a picture, writing, "Massive respect Manoj sir...Lovely meeting you. Look who I bumped into, @vikrantmassey." Rinku had recently represented India A in their matches against England Lions.

DBS CUTS CEO PIYUSH GUPTA'S PAY BY RS 25 CRORE AFTER BANKING OUTAGES

WORK NEEDS REST, AND REST TAKES WORK

MODERN LIFE CAN BE EXHAUSTING. PSYCHOLOGIST, AUTHOR AND FATIGUE EXPERT VINCENT DEARY SAYS THE ANSWER IS TO LEARN HOW TO REST.

incent Deary, psychologist, fatigue specialist and author, has been telling me what an “anxious creature” he is. He barely slept last night. The hotel room was unfamiliar and noisy. Worse, the prospect of an interview and of meeting someone new made his arrhythmic heart race.

It’s racing now as we sit together in a London hotel. We’re here to discuss his new book, How We Break: Navigating the Wear and Tear of Living, an exploration of our varying responses to the corrosive pressures of daily life, especially work, and an assertion of the vital necessity of rest, recovery and the lost art of convalescence. The book is the second in a trilogy by Deary, a professor of psychology at Northumbria University and a clinical fatigue specialist at the Cresta Fatigue Clinic, a role from which he has just retired. The NHS clinic, which is closing later this year was unique in the UK for its trans-diagnostic multi-disciplinary approach to disabling fatigue in patients with various diagnoses such as auto-immune conditions, liver disease or post-cancer fatigue. It excluded people with a primary diagnosis of CFS/ME as there were existing clinics for them. Deary goes on to share something else with me: he dreads the intimacy of dinner parties and hates surprises, before adding that his partner of 10 years recently threw a surprise party for his 60th birthday – and he loved it. Proof, it seems, that people can change.

Well yes and no. Deary believes we can make changes, if circumstances allow, and we can adapt, but we can’t

fundamentally change the self we were born with. First, there’s our genetic makeup. Then, he says, there’s our constitution, which is encoded with memories of previous generations and sometimes by intergenerational trauma; the body remembers, it keeps score. Deary offers himself up as a good example of this, and there are three other case histories in the book, including that of his late mother.

When he hit 40, long since amicably divorced, Deary left his job as an NHS therapist, sold up in London, moved back to Scotland, and corralled material for the first book. Five years later, he

became a single parent when his 16year-old daughter came to live with him. The finished book cowered in a drawer, Deary lacking the confidence to seek publication. How to Live, the first book in the trilogy, was finally published when he was 50. Now he was an author, too, an acclaimed one. Lots of changes there then.

But who he is, fundamentally, has not changed, he says. “I still have social anxiety.” What he has managed to change is his relationship with this anxiety: “I recognise that it is part of me, that it’s going to show up, so I now literally bring it along with me as a

companion. And that’s OK. It might mean I am hyper and talk a lot, but that can be quite useful.”

For Deary, arriving at this place of selfacceptance and self-love has been a project, it’s been work and that’s also OK, because we each have to work on the self we are born with in order to survive, or thrive. Some, like Deary, won’t be a good fit for their environment, which means “some of us are harder work for ourselves than others”. We “tremble” as we encounter the turbulence of life, including the changes we have to navigate but, again, some of us tremble more than others. In turn, holding steady in the face of change, what’s known as the allostatic load, becomes too much, “There’s no wriggle room and we break,” as Deary himself did while writing his new book.

As part of his work on himself, Deary has traced the reach and roots of his anxiety, as he does for his patients in the fatigue clinic. Early on, he “meets” an effeminate child growing up in a working-class culture on the west coast of Scotland and sees what “a misfit” he was. He ran with the “rejects and the freaks”.

“I was visibly different from my peers,” he tells me, “very gentle, soft-spoken. I was little and timorous by nature. That’s not necessarily great in a working-class comprehensive in the 70s in Scotland. There was bullying. I was called either snobby or poofy. I was neither.” He had a big nose and was called Concorde. “My body remembers the early threats; I am still easily frightened.”

So was his mother. Gentle and openminded, she had a punitive upbringing and, like her son, had an “anxious constitution”. Deary was an “unexpected pregnancy,” he writes, his mother already dealing with a large family and the wear and tear of poverty and a difficult marriage. “I was born alarmed,” he writes. But home was good. “I had quite an exceptional mother,” he says, “and an exceptional home life. We were enculturated into art, literature, theatre very early on and so that marked us out as different. I did not come from a typical west coast Scottish family.”

He shares his story in the book, not “to say I had a really difficult time, but because I wanted people to find resonance – I wanted them to see that when you don’t fit in, you’re given back to yourself as work because you need to learn to manage that not fitting. You need to learn to manage the difficult feelings coming out of that and you need to learn to manage yourself.”

Key to that self-management is not only understanding and self-love, but rest. Deary has a mantra: work needs rest and rest takes work. We need to take time out to rest in order to heal from extreme exhaustion, chronic illness, or unexpected life events, what Deary terms “biographical disruption”. We also need to take a rest from work and free ourselves from an “audit culture” that pushes us, sometimes to breaking point. But first, we need to learn how to rest. “It’s a skill,” he says, one that nowadays has to be acquired.

“One of the things I noticed in the fatigue clinic is that tired people can often do the things they need to do, but a lot of them really struggle with switching off. We often associate our worth and our value in terms of productivity and output. Both within academia and the NHS there are whole mini-industries dedicated to evaluating your productivity and your output, often telling you that you could do better and, actually, could you do better with less, please. It’s very easy to buy into that narrative that your work equals your productivity. So, for people who are exhausted and can’t be productive, it’s very easy to go, I don’t deserve to rest, I am worthless, I have done nothing to earn this. skip past newsletter promotion

“But we need to allow ourselves to rest, to nap, to enjoy, to deliberately switch on to joy and nourishment and the stuff that actually fills the tank. I wrote this book to understand myself, but also because, in the last few years, I saw friends, family, colleagues, society, to an extent, just become overwhelmed, or exhausted, or hopeless or joyless. Ordinary people going through ordinary suffering. Some of them crossed the clinical line into physical or mental

health systems, but most of them were just struggling to get on with life. Often the first casualty of stress is joy. Deliberately leaning into that joy and finding out the stuff that restores you is really key to recovery.”

Some GPs have started handing out joy as a “social prescription”. But how do we identify what brings us joy? “The clue is in our everyday language: ‘That really lifted my spirits,’ or ‘I got a lot out of that.’ It’s the stuff that cheers us up or energises us.” A meal with loved ones is often high up on the list. Deary’s academic research looks at the challenges faced by head and neck cancer survivors. “It’s not the food they miss,” he says, “it’s the sharing. They were mourning the connection. It’s what we call commensality: that social magic which comes when you’re sharing food. Our research with food and head and neck cancer and other conditions highlighted that pleasure is a necessity; being deprived of it is literally depressing and demoralising.”

One day, halfway through writing How We Break, Deary discovered this for himself. He woke up “in a state of exhaustion. I had no real ability to get out of bed. When I finally took myself for a walk, I was wiped out the next day. I was in a state of hopeless exhaustion. My mood went down as well. I was completely disengaged from life. It was a very difficult time.”

To recover he did “what I help people in the fatigue clinic do, which is, gradually get back into things at my own pace and do a combination of physical and emotional rehab. Incremental engagement with life. I think that is what true convalescence is. It’s not just rest and it’s not just activity, it’s that mixture of both: it’s acknowledging that there is a deep need for rest and recovery. It’s like Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain where they are all sitting about in the sanatorium: there’s the beauty, there’s the connection, there’s the food. There’s the joy” – even in an interview. “A joyful encounter!” was Deary’s verdict, glad that he came, proud of himself and proof that a little self-love goes a long way to ease the wear and tear of life.

(Genevieve Fox for The Guardian)

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SEVEN GAME-CHANGING TECHNOLOGIES TO WATCH IN 2024

ADVANCES IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ARE AT THE HEART OF MANY OF THIS YEAR’S MOST EXCITING AREAS OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS. FROM PROTEIN ENGINEERING AND 3D PRINTING TO DETECTION OF DEEPFAKE MEDIA, HERE ARE SEVEN AREAS OF TECHNOLOGY THAT WILL BE WATCHED MOST EXCITEDLY IN THE YEAR AHEAD.

1) Deep learning for protein design

Two decades ago, David Baker at the University of Washington in Seattle and his colleagues achieved a landmark feat: they used computational tools to design an entirely new protein from scratch. ‘Top7’ folded as predicted, but it was inert: it performed no meaningful biological functions. Today, de novo protein design has matured into a practical tool for generating made-toorder enzymes and other proteins. “It’s hugely empowering,” says Neil King, a biochemist at the University of Washington who collaborates with

Baker’s team to design protein-based vaccines and vehicles for drug delivery. “Things that were impossible a year and a half ago — now you just do it.”

Much of that progress comes down to increasingly massive data sets that link protein sequence to structure. But

sophisticated methods of deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence (AI), have also been essential. ‘Sequence based’ strategies use the large language models (LLMs) that power tools such as the chatbot ChatGPT (see ‘ChatGPT? Maybe next year’). By treating protein sequences like documents comprising polypeptide ‘words’, these algorithms can discern the patterns that underlie the architectural playbook of real-world proteins. “They really learn the hidden grammar,” says Noelia Ferruz, a protein biochemist at the Molecular Biology Institute of Barcelona, Spain. In 2022, her team developed an algorithm called

ProtGPT2 that consistently comes up with synthetic proteins that fold stably when produced in the laboratory. Another tool co-developed by Ferruz, called ZymCTRL, draws on sequence and functional data to design members of naturally occurring enzyme families.

Sequence-based approaches can build on and adapt existing protein features to form new frameworks, but they’re less effective for the bespoke design of structural elements or features, such as the ability to bind specific targets in a predictable fashion. ‘Structure based’ approaches are better for this, and 2023 saw notable progress in this type of protein-design algorithm, too. Some of the most sophisticated of these use ‘diffusion’ models, which also underlie image-generating tools such as DALL-E. These algorithms are initially trained to remove computer-generated noise from

large numbers of real structures; by learning to discriminate realistic structural elements from noise, they gain the ability to form biologically plausible, user-defined structures.

RFdiffusion software developed by Baker’s lab and the Chroma tool by Generate Biomedicines in Somerville, Massachusetts4, exploit this strategy to remarkable effect. For example, Baker’s team is using RFdiffusion to engineer novel proteins that can form snug interfaces with targets of interest, yielding designs that “just conform perfectly to the surface,” Baker says. A newer ‘all atom’ iteration of RFdiffusion allows designers to computationally shape proteins around non-protein targets such as DNA, small molecules and even metal ions. The resulting versatility opens new horizons for engineered enzymes, transcriptional regulators, functional biomaterials and more.

2) Deepfake Detection

The explosion of publicly available generative AI algorithms has made it simple to synthesize convincing, but entirely artificial images, audio and video. The results can offer amusing distractions, but with multiple ongoing geopolitical conflicts and a US presidential election on the horizon, opportunities for weaponized media manipulation are rife.

Siwei Lyu, a computer scientist at the University at Buffalo in New York, says he’s seen numerous AI-generated ‘deepfake’ images and audio related to the Israel–Hamas conflict, for instance. This is just the latest round in a highstakes game of cat-and-mouse in which AI users produce deceptive content and Lyu and other media-forensics specialists work to detect and intercept it.

One solution is for generative-AI developers to embed hidden signals in the models’ output, producing watermarks of AI-generated content. Other strategies focus on the content itself. Some manipulated videos, for instance, replace the facial features of one public figure with those of another, and new algorithms can recognize artefacts at the boundaries of the substituted features, says Lyu. The distinctive folds of a person’s outer ear can also reveal mismatches between a face and a head, whereas irregularities in the teeth can reveal edited lip-sync videos in which a person’s mouth was digitally manipulated to say something that the subject didn’t say. AI-generated photos also present a thorny challenge — and a moving target. In 2019, Luisa Verdoliva, a media-forensics specialist at University Federico II of Naples, Italy, helped to develop FaceForensics++, a tool for spotting faces manipulated by several widely used software packages6. But image-forensic methods are subjectand software-specific, and generalization is a challenge. “You cannot have one single universal detector — it’s very difficult,” she says.

And then there’s the challenge of implementation. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Semantic Forensics (SemaFor) programme has developed a useful toolbox for deepfake analysis, but, as reported in Nature (see Nature 621, 676–679; 2023) major social-media sites are not routinely employing it. Broadening the access to such tools could help to fuel uptake, and to this end Lyu’s team has developed the DeepFake-O-Meter7, a centralized public repository of algorithms that can analyse video content from different angles to sniff out deepfake content. Such resources will be helpful, but it is likely that the battle against AI-generated misinformation will persist for years to come.

3) Large-fragment DNA insertion

In late 2023, US and UK regulators approved the first-ever CRISPR-based gene-editing therapy for sickle-cell disease and transfusion-dependent ßthalassaemia — a major win for genome

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editing as a clinical tool.

CRISPR and its derivatives use a short programmable RNA to direct a DNAcutting enzyme such as Cas9 to a specific genomic site. They are routinely used in the lab to disable defective genes and introduce small sequence changes. The precise and programmable insertion of larger DNA sequences spanning thousands of nucleotides is difficult, but emerging solutions could allow scientists to replace crucial segments of defective genes or insert fully functional gene sequences. Le Cong, a molecular geneticist at Stanford University in California and his colleagues are exploring single-stranded annealing proteins (SSAPs) — virus-derived molecules that mediate DNA recombination. When combined with a CRISPR–Cas system in which the DNAslicing function of Cas9 has been disabled, these SSAPs allow precisely targeted insertion of up to 2 kilobases of DNA into the human genome.

Other methods exploit a CRISPR-based method called prime editing to introduce short ‘landing pad’ sequences that selectively recruit enzymes that in turn can precisely splice large DNA fragments into the genome. In 2022, for instance, genome engineers Omar Abudayyeh and Jonathan Gootenberg at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge and their colleagues first described programmable addition through site-specific targeting elements (PASTE), a method that can precisely insert up to 36 kilobases of DNA8. PASTE is especially promising for ex vivo modification of cultured, patient-derived cells, says Cong, and the underlying prime-editing technology is already on track for clinical studies. But for in vivo modification of human cells, SSAP might offer a more compact solution: the bulkier PASTE machinery requires three separate viral vectors for delivery, which could undermine editing efficiency relative to the two-component SSAP system. That said, even relatively inefficient gene-replacement strategies could be sufficient to mitigate the effects of many genetic diseases.

And such methods are not just relevant

to human health. Researchers led by Caixia Gao at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing developed PrimeRoot, a method that uses prime editing to introduce specific target sites that enzymes can use to insert up to 20 kilobases of DNA in both rice and maize9. Gao thinks that the technique could be broadly useful for endowing crops with disease and pathogen resistance, continuing a wave of innovation in CRISPR-based plant genome engineering. “I believe that this technology can be applied in any plant species,” she says.

4) Brain–Computer Interfaces

Pat Bennett has slower than average speech, and can sometimes use the wrong word. But given that motor neuron disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, had previously left her unable to express herself verbally, that is a remarkable achievement.

Bennett’s recovery comes courtesy of a sophisticated brain–computer interface (BCI) device developed by Stanford University neuroscientist Francis Willett and his colleagues at the US-based BrainGate consortium10. Willett and his colleagues implanted electrodes in Bennett’s brain to track neuronal activity and then trained deep-learning algorithms to translate those signals into speech. After a few weeks of training, Bennett was able to say as many as 62 words per minute from a vocabulary of 125,000 words — more than twice the vocabulary of the average English speaker. “It’s really truly impressive, the rates at which they’re communicating,” says bioengineer Jennifer Collinger, who develops BCI technologies at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

Researchers help Pat Bennett translate attempts at speech into words on a screen using a brain-computer interface

BrainGate’s trial is just one of several studies from the past few years demonstrating how BCI technology can help people with severe neurological damage to regain lost skills and achieve greater independence. Some of that progress stems from the steady accumulation of knowledge about functional neuroanatomy in the brains of individuals with various neurological conditions, says Leigh Hochberg, a neurologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and director of the BrainGate consortium. But that knowledge has been greatly amplified, he adds, by machine-learning-driven analytical methods that are revealing how to better place electrodes and decrypt the signals that they pick up.

Researchers are also applying AI-based language models to speed up the interpretation of what patients are trying to communicate — essentially, ‘autocomplete’ for the brain. This was a core component of Willett’s study, as well as another11 from a team led by neurosurgeon Edward Chang at the University of California, San Francisco. In that work, a BCI neuroprosthesis allowed a woman who was unable to speak as a result of a stroke to communicate at 78 words per minute — roughly half the average speed of English, but more than five times faster than the woman’s previous speechassistance device. The field is seeing progress in other areas as well. In 2021, Collinger and biomedical engineer Robert Gaunt at the University of Pittsburgh implanted electrodes into the motor and somatosensory cortex of an

individual who was paralysed in all four limbs to provide rapid and precise control over a robotic arm along with tactile sensory feedback12. Also under way are independent clinical studies from BrainGate and researchers at UMC Utrecht in the Netherlands, as well as a trial from BCI firm Synchron in Brooklyn, New York, to test a system that allows people who are paralysed to control a computer — the first industry-sponsored trial of a BCI apparatus.

As an intensive-care specialist, Hochberg is eager to deliver these technologies to his patients with the most severe disabilities. But as BCI capabilities evolve, he sees potential to treat moremoderate cognitive impairments as well as mental-health conditions, such as mood disorders. “Closed-loop neuromodulation systems informed by brain–computer interfaces could be of tremendous help to a lot of people,” he says.

5) Super-duper resolution

Stefan Hell, Eric Betzig and William Moerner were awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for shattering the ‘diffraction limit’ that constrained the spatial resolution of light microscopy. The resulting level of detail — in the order of tens of nanometres — opened a wide range of molecular-scale imaging experiments. Still, some researchers yearn for better — and they are making swift progress. “We’re really trying to close the gap from super-resolution microscopy to structural-biology techniques like cryo-electron microscopy,” says Ralf Jungmann, a nanotechnology researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Planegg, Germany, referring to a method that can reconstruct protein structures with atomic-scale resolution.

Researchers led by Hell and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen made an initial foray into this realm in late 2022 with a method called MINSTED that can resolve individual fluorescent labels with 2.3-ångström precision — roughly one-quarter of a nanometre — using a specialized optical microscope13.

Newer methods provide comparable resolution using conventional microscopes. Jungmann and his team, for instance, described a strategy in 2023 in which individual molecules are labelled with distinct DNA strands14. These molecules are then detected with dye-tagged complementary DNA strands that bind to their corresponding targets transiently but repeatedly, making it possible to discriminate individual fluorescent ‘blinking’ points that would blur into a single blob if imaged simultaneously. This resolution enhancement by sequential imaging (RESI) approach could resolve individual base pairs on a DNA strand, demonstrating ångström-scale resolution with a standard fluorescence microscope.

The one-step nanoscale expansion (ONE) microscopy method, developed by a team led by neuroscientists Ali Shaib and Silvio Rizzoli at University Medical Center Göttingen, Germany, doesn’t quite achieve this level of resolution. However, ONE microscopy offers an unprecedented opportunity to directly image fine structural details of individual proteins and multiprotein complexes, both in isolation and in cells.

ONE is an expansion-microscopy-based approach that involves chemically coupling proteins in the sample to a hydrogel matrix, breaking the proteins apart, and then allowing the hydrogel to expand 1,000-fold in volume. The fragments expand evenly in all directions, preserving the protein structure and enabling users to resolve features separated by a few nanometres with a standard confocal microscope. “We took antibodies, put them in the gel, labelled them after expansion, and were like, “Oh — we see Y shapes!” says Rizzoli, referring to the characteristic shape of the proteins.

ONE microscopy could provide insights into conformationally dynamic biomolecules or enable visual diagnosis of protein-misfolding disorders such as Parkinson’s disease from blood samples, says Rizzoli. Jungmann is similarly enthusiastic about the potential for RESI to document reorganization of individual proteins in disease or in

response to drug treatments. It might even be possible to zoom in more tightly. “Maybe it’s not the end for the spatial resolution limits,” Jungmann says. “It might get better.”

6) Cell Atlases

If you’re looking for a convenient cafe, Google Maps can find nearby options and tell you how to get there. There’s no equivalent for navigating the much more complex landscape of the human body, but ongoing progress from various cellatlas initiatives — powered by advances in single-cell analysis and ‘spatial omics’ methods — could soon deliver the tissuewide cellular maps that biologists crave.

The largest — and perhaps the most ambitious — of these initiatives is the Human Cell Atlas (HCA). The consortium was launched in 2016 by cell biologist Sarah Teichmann at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, and Aviv Regev, now head of research and early development at biotechnology firm Genentech in South San Francisco, California. It encompasses some 3,000 scientists in nearly 100 countries, working with tissues from 10,000 donors. But HCA is also part of a broader ecosystem of intersecting cellular and molecular atlas efforts. These include the Human BioMolecular Atlas Program (HuBMAP) and the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN), both funded by the US National Institutes of Health, as well as the Allen Brain Cell Atlas, funded by the Allen Institute in Seattle, Washington.

According to Michael Snyder, a genomicist at Stanford University and former co-chair of the HuBMAP steering committee, these efforts have been driven in part by the development and rapid commercialization of analytical tools that can decode molecular contents at the single-cell level. For example, Snyder’s team routinely uses the Xenium platform from 10X Genomics in Pleasanton, California, for its spatial transcriptomics analyses. The platform makes it possible to survey the expression of roughly 400 genes at once in 4 tissue samples every week.

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Multiplexed antibody-based methods such as the PhenoCycler platform by Akoya Biosciences in Marlborough, Massachusetts, allow the team to track large numbers of proteins with single-cell resolution in a format that enables 3D tissue reconstruction. Other ‘multiomics’ methods allow scientists to profile multiple molecular classes in the same cell at once, including the expression of RNA, the structure of chromatin and the distribution of protein.

Last year saw dozens of studies showcasing progress in the generation of organ-specific atlases using these techniques. In June, for example, the HCA released an integrated analysis of 49 data sets from the human lung16. “Having that very clear map of the lung informs the changes that happen in diseases like lung fibrosis, different tumours, even for COVID-19,” says Teichmann. And in 2023, Nature released an article collection (see go.nature.com/3vbznk7) highlighting progress from HuBMAP and Science produced a collection detailing the work of the BICCN (see go.nature.com/ 3nsf4ys).

Considerable work remains — Teichmann estimates that it will be at least five years before the HCA reaches completion. But the resulting maps will be invaluable when they arrive. Teichmann, for example, predicts using atlas data to guide tissue- and cellspecific drug targeting, while Snyder is eager to learn how cellular

microenvironments inform the risk and aetiology of complex disorders such as cancer and irritable bowel syndrome. “Will we solve that in 2024? I don’t think so — it’s a multiyear problem,” Snyder says. “But it’s a big driver for this whole field.”

7) Nanomaterials printed in 3D

Weird and interesting things can happen at the nanometre scale. This can make materials-science predictions difficult, but it also means that nanoscale architects can manufacture lightweight materials with distinctive characteristics such as increased strength, tailored interactions with light or sound, and enhanced capacity for catalysis or energy storage.

Several strategies exist for precisely crafting such nanomaterials, most of which use lasers to induce patterned ‘photopolymerization’ of light-sensitive materials, and over the past few years, scientists have made considerable headway in overcoming the limitations that have impeded broader adoption of these methods.

One is speed. Sourabh Saha, an engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, says that the assembly of nanostructures using photopolymerization is roughly three orders of magnitude faster than other nanoscale 3D-printing methods. That might be good enough for lab use, but

it’s too slow for large-scale production or industrial processes. In 2019, Saha and mechanical engineer Shih-Chi Chen at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and their colleagues showed that they could accelerate polymerization by using a patterned 2D light-sheet rather than a conventional pulsed laser17. “That increases the rate by a thousand times, and you can still maintain those 100-nanometre features,” says Saha. Subsequent work from researchers including Chen has identified other avenues for faster nanofabrication.

Another challenge is that not all materials can be printed directly through photopolymerization — such as metals. But Julia Greer, a materials scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, has developed a clever workaround. In 2022, she and her colleagues described a method in which photopolymerized hydrogels serve as a microscale template; these are then infused with metal salts and processed in a way that induces the metal to assume the structure of the template while also shrinking19. Although the technique was initially developed for microscale structures, Greer’s team has also used this strategy for nanofabrication, and the researchers are enthusiastic about the potential to craft functional nanostructures from rugged, highmelting-point metals and alloys.

The final barrier — economics — could be the toughest to break. According to Saha, the pulsed-laser-based systems used in many photopolymerization methods cost upwards of US$500,000. But cheaper alternatives are emerging. For example, physicist Martin Wegener and his colleagues at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany have explored continuous lasers that are cheaper, more compact, and consume less power than standard pulsed lasers20. And Greer has launched a startup company to commercialize a process for fabricating nanoarchitected metal sheets that could be suitable for applications such as next-generation body armour or ultra-durable and impact-resistant outer layers for aircraft and other vehicles.

(Credit: Michael Eisenstein for Nature)

THE OLDEST SURVIVING BUSINESSES IN THE WORLD SHARE THEIR SECRETS

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO STAY OPEN FOR THE LONG HAUL - AND NOT JUST FOR A FEW GENERATIONS, BUT HUNDREDS IF NOT THOUSANDS OF YEARS?

The average modern business closes shop after about 21 years. Some businesses, though, last longer - a lot longer. Take Kongo Gumi, a Japanese construction company founded in 578 A.D., or Santa Maria Novella, an Italian pharmacy that’s been perfuming the elite since Michelangelo was decorating ceilings. Here are some longevity lessons from businesses with more than ample experience.

1) KONGO GUMI CO., EST. 578

The Lesson: Find a niche and don’t let go

Until it became a subsidiary of Takamatsu Construction Group in 2006, Kongo Gumi was the world’s oldest continuously operating company. Even as a subsidiary, it still does things the really, really old-fashioned way. Its specialty is the restoration of Buddhist temples and other historic buildings. Workers could train for as long as 10 years, during which time they were sometimes set against one another, competing to see which craftsperson demonstrated the most skill working with the timber and clay traditionally used to build temples. “I think that’s where things have slipped through the cracks in a lot of other traditions or professions, because people either weren’t interested or there was actually a devaluing of some of that workmanship,” says Danielle Willkens, an architecture professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. By keeping these techniques alive, Kongo Gumi has made itself indispensable to the preservation of Japanese architecture.

2) ST. PETER STIFTSKULINARIUM, EST. C. 803

The Lesson: Don’t be afraid to mix it up

Noted by a courtier of Charlemagne’s as having one of Europe’s best wine collections, St. Peter Stiftskulinarium has

been delighting diners in Salzburg, Austria, for more than 1,200 years. If it’s not the world’s oldest restaurant, it’s one of them. The wine cellar, built to store the treasures of the monks in the attached monastery, was the genesis of the restaurant, says Nora Wunderwald, a publicity representative for St. Peter. After all, she says, patrons, who over the centuries have included Mozart, Faust and Karl Lagerfeld (who was feted at the restaurant by Chanel), needed some food to pair with their wine. The restaurant’s current operators, Veronika Kirchmair and Claus Haslauer, have made it a point to diversify the menu beyond schnitzel and strudel. This month’s offerings include confit fillet of char, artichoke Wellington and an innovation Charlemagne and his compatriots would surely have marveled at: brunch.

3) THE OLDE BELL, EST. 1135

The Lesson: Furniture can change, but service shouldn’t

Once upon a time, perhaps during the reign of King Stephen (he spent most of his reign warring with his cousin Matilda, the Holy Roman Empress), you might pull into the Olde Bell hotel, about 35 miles outside London, expecting to get a pint of ale and a hunk of bread to dip in your stew before you fell asleep on a mattress stuffed with horsehair and, in the morning,

continued on your way across medieval England. Since then, the Olde Bell has expanded to include more guest quarters and a nuclear fallout shelter-turned-wine cellar, but the idea that every weary and thirsty traveler deserves a place to rest and a pint of ale remains the same, says sales manager Debi Hayes—“except we’ve got comfier mattresses now!” History, of course, begets more history, with Winston Churchill, Boris Karloff, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Elizabeth Taylor all having spent time in the hotel’s cozy rooms and cozier bar, where sections of the original walls are covered with glass to keep them stable.

4) SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, EST. 1612

(pharmacy from 1542)

The Lesson: Signature products are signature products for a reason

For Gian Luca Perris, chief executive officer and “nose” of Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, the brand’s most enduring fragrance is inextricably linked to its most famous patron, Catherine de’ Medici. Acqua della Regina, with top notes of petitgrain and a base of musk, is still one of Santa Maria Novella’s bestselling products, a chance for today’s shoppers to capture a little bit of long-ago glamor and romance. In Perris’ telling, in 1533 the princess, as part of her wedding entourage, brought a perfume maker who was rumored to have been raised by Santa Maria Novella’s friars. The friars, who called the monastery of the Church of Santa Maria Novella home, had long dabbled in fragrant waters, often thought to keep the plague away. Catherine, possibly the 16th century’s most famous “it” girl, was both a patron and something of a muse to the pharmacy; for her marriage scent, her perfumier was ready to create his greatest perfume yet. “For their upcoming marriage,” Perris says, “he created a bridal gift for Catherine’s future husband: a perfume that enchanted the courts of France by embodying Florence’s elegance and grace.”

5) BROOKS BROTHERS, EST. 1818

The Lesson: Focus on your core customer

Founded as a small clothing manufacturer and shop in Lower Manhattan, Brooks Brothers has been supplying prep school students and Wall Street bankers with starched shirts and blue blazers for 200 years, pioneering the ready-to-wear suit and blanketing downtown office cores with retail locations stocked with in-case-of-emergency ties and pocket squares. When Ken Ohashi took over the company in late 2020, it was a strange moment for a brand that depends on people needing to dress up. For Ohashi, the key to outlasting Covid quarantines was to figure out what his die-hard customers might want more of. The answer, he says, was casual wear. Items such as oversize striped rugby shirts and corduroy pants embroidered with jaunty hunting dogs now account for 40% of the company’s business, up from 20% before the pandemic. Ohasi stresses, however, that Brooks Brothers sportswear is done the Brooks Brothers way. “Our core customer loves our sweatpants,” he says, “because you can get them monogrammed.”

6) CONSOLIDATED EDISON, EST. 1823

(as New York Gas Light Co.)

The Lesson: Location, location, location

ConEd, energy provider to New York City and many of its surrounding counties, is the oldest continuously operating company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It even predates Thomas Edison himself—when he was born in 1847, the company that would someday bear his name was known as the New York Gas Light Co. Having dominated the market for gas lights across Manhattan (thanks, in part, to a little help from the bosses of Tammany Hall), the company—renamed the New York Steam Co. in the early 1880s—was primed to become a major player in the newly electrified NYC of the late 19th century. But it wasn’t the only business with designs on (literal) power. By the 1890s no fewer than 30 companies sought to provide electricity to the homes and businesses of New York and Westchester County. According to Dan Taft, a chief engineer in central operations at ConEd, “when laying the original electric feeder cables in the streets of Lower Manhattan in 1882, Edison was so impressed with the quality of the pipe-laying work being done simultaneously by the New York Steam Co. that he made arrangements to send surplus steam from his Pearl Street Station into the steam system, thereby becoming the very first co-generator.” By the mid-1920s the competition had been mostly wiped out, leaving ConEd (the name became official in 1936) the sole source of electric light in a city that uses a lot of it.

(Credit: Angela Serratore for Bloomberg Businessweek)