Towards a Digital India

Date: 19^th April 2016

To,
Shri Narendra Modi,
Hon’ble Prime Minister of India,

New Delhi

Dear Sir,

Greetings.

I hope that this letter finds you in best of health and spirit.

First of all, a hearty congratulations to you and your entire team for doing a wonderful work for the country. I follow each of your agenda and I feel proud in sharing that your actions and efforts inspire me every day.

I am writing this email to share a suggestion with you. I am highly ambitious about the fact that you have shown us a dream of ‘Digital India’. With the action plans and strategies which you have planned, I am certain that in future, Digitization will become an integral part of our lives. The drive for automation and other advancements such as artificial intelligence in each sector will transform the country and at the same time drive our economy to a greater level.

I would like to bring to your notice that Companies Act 2013 and SEBI regulations state that any Company shall maintain all records as per the Companies Act, 2013 and SEBI Regulations for not less than 8 (Eight) Years and all these documents to be preserved at the Registered Office of the Organization. While in the age of Digitization, I believe that preserving these documents in physical form should not be a mandatory clause as per the Companies Act and SEBI guidelines. I would request you and your team to propose an amendment in the Companies Act 2013 and SEBI Guidelines by passing an amendment in the upcoming session of Parliament or through Cabinet approval that these documents can be acceptable in digital form (soft copy stored on company server/cloud) as well.

Sir, you will agree with me that as a digitized country, it will be very heartening to see that no matter which whichever branch or office of any company that you visit, you will be able to access these documents and audit as per government guidelines if we store those documents in soft form rather than maintaining it at physical form. 

I hope my suggestion will be looked upon and implemented.

Jai Hind..!

Cc:       

1. Mr. Ravishankar Prasad, Hon'ble Minister Department of Telecom

2. Mr. Arun Jaitley, Hon’ble Finance Minister, Minister of Corporate Affairs and Minister of Information and Broadcasting

3. Mr. Jayant Sinha, Hon’ble Minister of State for Finance

4. Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon’ble Minister of Commerce and Industry

Regards,

Varinder Singh

A proud citizen of India

Mumbai

Book Review: Beyond the Last Blue Mountain by R.M.Lala

Russi M. Lala, the author of the book – Beyond the last blue mountain who was also known for his books on the house of Tata also happened to be a good friend of an aviator, an entrepreneur, an industrialist, a visionary, a reformer, a leader and a patriot – Shri J R D Tata. Beyond the Last Blue Mountain is a biography of J R D which is divided into 4 sections,. The first section of the book talks about J R D's family heritage and the circumstances of his birth and his childhood days along with his growth as the assistant to one of the directors at Tata Steel as well as his courtship with Thelma Vicaji.  J R D was born at Paris on 29th July 1904.

The second section shares the stories of rise of Tata Airlines as J R D’s brainchild and then, its nationalization into Air India and subsequently to Air India International. The book also mentions that J R D was the first Indian to have flown from Karachi to Bombay, when he founded the Tata Airlines in 1932, the forerunner of Air India which is today the national airliner. The book also showcases a copy of his driving license which has the No. 1 printed on it.

The third section talks about the how J R D has made a conglomerate grow, which takes a credit of providing the services and products to the world ranging from salt to software. Under his chairmanship, ‘M’ was replaced by ‘B’ (The Tata Group grew from 100 Million dollar company to 5Billion dollar company). J R D started with 14 enterprises under his leadership and half a century later on July 26, 1988, when he left, Tata & Sons was a conglomerate of 95 enterprises which they either started or in which they had controlling interest.

The final section of the book throws light on J R D as a loving patriarch, a bobel citizen and an inspiring leader of men. The book also proves that one need not be a politician or activist or civil servant to serve the nation. J R D lived a life full of inspiring stories for the world and proved to this world as how a business man can serve the nation for which the Government of India conferred him with the highest award of the country – The Bharat Ratna in 1992. The book has also been successful in bringing on the table the details about the industrial, social and political history of 20th century India.

Ever since, he landed at India, he kept on adding new dimensions to this nation. Creating employments for lakhs of people in the world and working with a motive which aimed only at nation development, talks about the magnanimity and the generosity of the spirit named ‘Jehangir Ratanji DadabhoyTata.’ The Indian Air Force conferred the rank of Air Commodore on J R D Tata and later promoted him to the rank of Air Vice-Marshal. 

The book inspires me and makes me feel proud to be a part of his legacy and I pledge to sustain this legacy.           

Letter to Minister of Human Resource Development – Govt. of India,

To,

Ms. Smriti Zubin Irani,
Hon’ble Member of Parliament – Rajya Sabha &
Minister of Human Resource Development – Govt. of India,
New Delhi
India

Subject: Feedback - All India College Rankings

Honourable Madam,

I hope that this letter finds you in best of health and spirit. Please accept my compliments and appreciation for the efforts being put by you and your team to arrive at All India Rankings for Colleges in Engineering, Medical and Pharmacy Category and also the All India University Rankings. More than anybody else, the parents of the kids seeking admission for their children will get benefited and relaxed to decide upon the future of their wards. As a citizen of India, I am very proud of the way the present government is taking up steps to bring ‘Ache din.’ It is a fact that development cannot happen in a day or two but it is essential that any step which is taken should be aimed at it. Your ministry like many other colleagues of your party are not leaving any stone unturned. Whether it’s Railways, External Affairs, Finance or Defence for that matter, each of the team members of Team NaMo are consistently raising the bar to redefine their own performance. I wish each one of your luck and best wishes for the tough challenges ahead. You will continue to receive brickbats from the opposition but as a citizen of India, I have accepted this Government with open arms. These days, the opposition team doesn’t even bother us because we know that the government is working for this country’s development.

Madam, I would like to share few suggestions which I think may help you and your team in the next All India College Rankings. I am certain that rankings will certainly close the shop of some sold media houses which have shown few colleges (after charging them lakhs of rupees) as the best in the country which didn’t even exist 10 year ago or nor do this exist today. I would also like to share that while your team has evaluated all the colleges in the country but there are some good one’s which got missed out in the list. Some of them include: TISS – Mumbai, IIFT – Delhi, FMS – Delhi, XIM – Bhubaneswar, IRMA – Gujarat, NMIMS – Mumbai to name a few. There could be several reasons that these colleges doesn’t feature in your list. The list published by you also contains few names which do not deserve to be there at this point of time. May be they will require some more years to reach there. May be, you would be interested in personally examining these in the rankings next year. Also, while the rankings have been considered, I would also request you to consider NAAC Certification and NBA Ratings in the evaluation criteria.

I am certain that you will not settle at anything less than bringing at least 25 Indian Universities or Colleges in the top 500 colleges of the world. I am also sure that the day is not far when we will achieve this milestone and then whole Indian Political History would remember you for your efforts.

Once again, my compliments and appreciation to you and your entire team for starting such an initiative from the Government side which could have been done by previous governments much earlier.

Jai Hind..!

Regards,
Varinder Singh         
A Proud Citizen of India