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           

    

    

Misconceptions regarding Alumni's of IIM A

Being a alumni of IIM A has great perks. But, just like Peter Parker's Uncle Ben would say, with great perks - come even greater misconceptions.

• You get access to an enormous number of opportunities around the world - so people think that everyone on your campus gets a 1.2 Cr job
• You get a lot of respect from people just because you're from IIM A - so people think you should have an answer to every business question
• You can be with your girlfriend all through the day (and the night) - so people think all you do is what those two did in 2 States
• You have access to a fantastic alumni base - so people think you've hung out with and are surely going to be Raghuram Rajan
• You know a lot about IIM A and the CAT - so people think you know the answer to every question which goes like "I have X% in 10th, Y% in 12th and Z% in UG, will I get into IIM A?"
• You have fantastic internet access - so people think that it's your obligation to download movies and get it for them
• You have lot of Guest Lectures being organized in the campus - so people that you would have met all the big celebrities in the world and would soon going to be the next Ajay Banga of Master Card

Hope we all will clear these misconceptions soon.

Why we can never have FRIENDSHIP with Pakistan

• 28^th May, 1999: IAF MI-17 shot down by Pakistan; four air crew dead, leading to Kargil War
• 26^th November 2008: 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic militant organisation based in Pakistan, carried out a series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai.
• 2^nd January 2016: In a pre-dawn attack, a group of heavily-armed Pakistani terrorists, suspected to belong to Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit, struck at an Air Force base in Pathankot in Punjab, leading to a fierce gunbattle

All the above attacks were started by Pakistan but ended by India. The irony is that on 20^th February 1999, Hon’ble Prime Minister of India – Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, accompanied by 22 eminent Indians, visited Pakistan with a message of friendship through the Wagah Border and in the same year, Pakistan attacked India which led to Kargil War. This didn’t stop here. The same message was further carried by Hon’ble Prime Minister of India – Shri Narendra Modi while he was returning from Kabul visited Lahore on the Pakistan’s Prime Minister’s invitation on 25^th December 2015 to wish him (Nawaz Sharif) on his birthday. Pakistan accepted the visit but backstabbed by attacking at Pathankot at pre-dawn time on 2^nd January 2016.

Such heinous incidents lead to a situation where people are forced to believe that Pakistan has become a habitual backstabber. Every time there are talks and Pakistan agrees that terrorist attacks will be stopped from their side but what India sees is every time there is a breach of trust from their end. It was sad to know that in October 2010, former Pakistan President and former head of the Pakistan Army, Pervez Musharraf revealed that Pakistani armed forces trained militant groups to fight Indian forces in Kashmir. He confessed that the government ‘turned a blind eye’ because it wanted to force India to enter negotiations besides raising the issue internationally.

The facts are even more astonishing. The US Secretary of State included Pakistan on the 1993 list of countries which repeatedly provide support for acts of international terrorism. It would not be incorrect in saying that that Pakistan has been playing both sides in the fight against terror, on the one hand, pretending to help curtail terrorist activities while on the other, stoking it.

We have given many chances to our neighbour but now their intentions are loud and clear. Enough has been said on friendship, peace and trust. These words do not feature anywhere in their dictionary. The country has lost many sons and daughters who became a victim to their heinous crimes – some were the innocent lives while others got martyred while defending the country. It’s time to arise, awake and stop not, to understand and send them a message that India is not ready for any FRIENSHIP. First mistake from their side can be forgiven, second mistake can be ignored but if they repeat mistakes, they need to be punished.

Jai Hind..!

 

The CSR Journey

With an intent to uplift the society and the community at large, Tata Power has always been instrumental in driving activities which impacts the community and other stake holders and help them develop themselves. As a part of my ACE development progress, I got an opportunity to contribute in this field in the form of CSR Projects at Jojobera and Kalinganagar.

The journey of CSR started with Jojobera where the target was to complete 2 Projects – To revisit the Community Engagement Index (CEI) and test it by implementing it on one of the intiative; and to implement the ‘Swachh Bharat – The Tata Power Way’ initiative at Jojobera. After the CEI was finalized in consultation with Prof. Madhukar Shukra, Professor – XLRI, Jamshedpur, the task was to test the Index on one of the initiative. Under one of the thrust areas of CR – VIDYA which aims at augmenting rural primary education system with emphasis on girl child education, the CR Team at Jojobera have undertaken several initiatives to improve the quality of life of people through education. The CEI was calculated on the basis of 3 factors – the feedback from the community, the feedback from the volunteers of Tata Power and the Outcome of the initiative. The CEI score obtained at the end of the initiative was 90.2%. The second part of the project was on implementing the Swachh Bharat initiative at Jojobera. A competition was rolled out among all the departments of Jojobera where each department nominated one ‘Swachhta Sutradhar’ from their department for whom a training was conducted on ‘5S’ by Mr. Supratik Mukherjee. Each department engaged themselves for a period of 3 days to clean their workstations in line with 5S principle. A jury comprising of external and internal members audited each of the department and Safety Department was crowned as ‘The Most Swachh Department’ of Jojobera.

After completing these two projects at Jojobera, the destination shifted to Kalinganagar to complete the third and the final project of CR Stint. This time the project was on ‘Community Need Assessment’ for IEL – Kalinganagar. There are 12 villages identified as the scope of the community at Kalinganagar which comprises of approximately 2,918 households and 11,273 people. The objective was to meet these people and study their current situation and understand their immediate and long term needs and also prioritize the needs of the community and recommend the key initiatives to be undertaken to improve the overall scenario. After conducting a detailed community need exercise some of the key needs which emerged were to ensure clean drinking water for the community members as the water at Kalinganagar has very high iron content; to sensitize people to develop Rural Toilets at their homes which will help in making the community Open Defecation Free; To sensitizing the Parents on Importance of Education (primary as well as higher education) and at the same time improve Functional Literacy of Parents and improving involvement of students through Summer Camps, Competitions, etc.; Training the youth on Skill Development and Re-starting the SHG’s and arranging work for them such as Papad making, mushroom cultivation, Agarbatti, etc and Integrating the services in IEL Premises for Market Linkage

The overall experience has been full of learning and the exposure of having spending time with the community members has made an important impact on my approach to look at any situation in life. I feel each and every employee must undergo a CSR stint in their life. This would help each one of us to become a complete professional.   

Letter to the Chief Minister of Delhi

Dear Chief Minister Ji,

I hope that this email finds you in best of health.

I am writing this email to congratulate you on nearing the completion of 6 months in office by your government. The last 160 days of journey has been through thick and thin. Many commoners (including me) believed that your government has taken some crucial steps which have helped the people of Delhi. However, then there are also people (who admire you) who have said that the Government of Delhi could have lived up to their expectation in a far better way.

Almost, all of us have gone through the TV Ad's, Newspaper Ad's, Hoardings in the city and other forms of advertisement made by your government. While the advertisement is informative on the actions and steps taken by your government in the last 160 days, but I believe that it at the same time a costly affair. With the increase in frequency of ad's it has started ringing bells in my mind that is it still the 'Aam Aadmi Ki Sarkar' which the people voted for. I am certain that the amount spend on these TV ad's could have been better utilized (May be in paying the amount due to the 3 Discoms in Delhi; or May be to install some roof top solar panels on Government Building; or May be in deputing some female commandos in Delhi as a step towards security). I have always believed that Success of any Government is measured by which people living under the government say and not what the TV Ad's or the News paper Ad's say.

I am not writing this mail to highlight to you your short-comings. I also intend to share with you some of the suggestions (mentioned below) which I feel that the government would like to act up on to make Delhi a harmonious place to stay:

1. The Government plans to launch Wi-Fi in all Rural Areas. There is an interesting data which I would like to share with you: 56% Children living in Slums and un-authorized colonies defecate in the open due to lack of Community Toilets (Source: Hindustan Times). In my opinion, these Rural Areas need Toilets more than Wi-Fi.
   
2. The launch of E-District Service deserves a round of applause. At Home Ministry of Delhi level, the data coming out of it should be analyzed atleast on a half-yearly level. May be the trend analysis can help us predict and catch-hold of the corrupt to prevent corruption at a faster rate
   
3. The government plans to give subsidy to the owners of newly purchased Battery operated 4 wheelers and 2 wheelers vehicle: I think the government should rather invest in the Automobile Labs of Engineering Colleges in Delhi and let students make and design Battery Run Vehicles which can be used to commute within the offices in Delhi. All the vehicles which the students will make will be procured by Govt. of Delhi.

I feel a good government is one which measures the progress in terms of target achievement rather than monitoring the money spend on any initiative. Going forward, while announcing our Annual Budget for Delhi, if we can also share the target for each line-item, I am certain that the people of Delhi will like you more for that.

With a hope that some of my suggestions and feedback will be acted upon. 

With Best Wishes,

Varinder Singh

Delhi

A big Hi-5 to KIIT Hostel

Is it the 2:00am Maggie? Or the never ending late night parties? Or the hurry to copy the assignment from the ‘Chatur Ramalingham’ of the class? Ask the students staying in the KIIT Hostels and they will say that it includes all of them. They would also say that its little more than this – the walks around the corridors of the hustling bustling building to notice the ‘recently fallen’ love-birds talking whole night over the phone. The four years of my hostel life at KIIT helped me derive a mathematical formula which says that the intensity of the love affair in which a boy is, depends upon the mode of tele-communication he is using while talking to a girl. If someone uses Rs. 399/- Reliance to Reliance free phone, it means the proposal has been accepted and if he is found smiling while reading the text messages which keeps on pinging whole night, it’s an indication that he is trying to get into one. [PS: For the students who are currently staying at Hostel, the formula has been upgraded. SMS has changed to Whats App and Reliance has lost the race while Vodafone is leading it].

Each moment that one spends in the King’s Palace unfolds an interesting story. King’s Place gave the students something which we all are striving for at this age – Independence. It not only provided a space to the KIITians but at the same time filled the rooms of happiness, fun, joy and excitement. Going to bed at 10 at night was a signal that a boarder was sick. One of the moment which helps me recollect a memory was the one I lived during ‘Karmanya’ – The hostel fest of Kings Palace – 5 in the year 2009. I still remember those words of a learned man which are still safe in my memory and conscience. I shall not distort the words otherwise it will take the spirit of the man away. He mentioned, “If a person hasn’t stayed in Hostel in his life, his life is 50% incomplete. And while staying at Hostel, if he hasn’t made a Girl-friend, his life is 100% incomplete.” Today, when I look back to those instants, I feel the words were not false.

The life at KIIT Hostel guaranteed Crazy Incidents and Wild Experiences. The actual fun happened at 12:00am at night when it would be your friend’s birthday and your run fast to ensure that you do not miss out giving him birthday bumps. But the actual pains of these moments were felt while it was your turn to be there on the receiving end. It was never unwise to hit people on 364 days in a year and receive all of it together on that one day.

You would always come across a bunch of students who will knock your door at 1:30 at night to ask, “Bhai kuch khaane ko hai kya? Bahut Bhook Lagi hai..!” and your reply would be, “Kuch hai to nahi par agar kahi se mile to bulana jarur.” Unfortunately you would end up having Kissan jam, Dabur Honey or Jaljeera because it was difficult to hunt food in a jungle where all of them were hungry for years. As the time passes by and you grow from 2^nd to 3^rd year and from 3^rd to 4^th year, the wants get upgraded from ’Khana’ to ‘Cigarette’. If the Reading Room of your hostel falls on the way to the mess, god save them who go there every day to study.

Among all these, there was a desire to share and live, a wish to help others, an aspiration to fuel the friendship with which each one of them lived their life. Hostel Life teaches you not only to live life independently but also to become a human being – something which we all want to be today in the race of life. The entire staff members and wardens at the Hostel may sound rude to you sometimes but they are the actual guardians who are there to water you to grow from a seed to a tree and at the same time hold your hands when you fall.

Today, its been more than 3 and ½ year that I have left back the KIIT Hostel but the memories which I could make them is still alive and green in my brain and shall always be. I wish I could a be student again to live there and this time for a even longer period.