Volume3 issue 24 corporate citizen

INDUSTRY STALWART A. S. Kiran Kumar, chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation Volume 3, Issue No. 24 / Pages 68 / www.corporatecitizen.in

March 1-15, 2018 / `50

SURVEY

Future of Jobs in India CII MANUFACTURING SUMMIT 2017

India-centric technology innovations INTERVIEW

Sandeep Kulkarni, CEO, ACG Worldwide

LOVED & MARRIED TOO

Nilambari and Amit Shirodkar

The Unique Employment Van

Dynamic Duo: 66 Seema Singh Zokarkar & Uday Zokarkar

Spiritual Soulmates

2 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 67

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68 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

Editor-in-Chief’s Choice Editor-In-Chief’s Choice

// The Indian Express Investigation Reports //

Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian

The SJC Institute of Technology in Chikkaballapur, Karnataka, is run by the Sri Adichunchanagiri Mahasamsthana Mutt

Devalued Degree

Least empty seats in Karnataka has lessons for other campuses An Express Investigation - Part IV: As engineering seats go unfilled across the country, as Brand BE/BTech steadily loses its lure, what explains Karnataka’s relative success?

K

arnataka, with the sixth largest number of undergraduate engineering seats (1,00,565) in the country, is the state with the least vacancies among the top 10 states that together account for 80 per cent of the total seats. Of the 153 engineering colleges being monitored by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for poor admissions, only three are in Karnataka.

As engineering seats go unfilled across the country, as desperate colleges lower the bar to get students, as the poor quality of graduates and their lack of employability threaten to undermine India’s demographic dividend, as Brand BE/BTech steadily loses its lure, what explains Karnataka’s relative success?

A set of factors that could hold pointers to the way ahead, say experts.

The right ecosystem

The engineering boom first arrived in Karnataka. In fact, the first private engineering colleges in the country— BMS College of Engineering in Bengaluru and National Institute of Engineering in Mysore—were set up here in 1946. Much before the IT industry came up in 1991, Karnataka had an ecosystem of engineering excellence.

The state had institutions such as the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). Currently, Bengaluru is the fourth largest technology cluster in the world after Silicon Valley, Boston and London. It also has the largest number of R&D centres in the country. In short, a ready market for those who graduated from its engineering colleges.

“Let’s not forget that BTech is a professional degree.

You pursue it with the intention of getting a job. Let’s say, you graduate from some ordinary college in Lucknow, March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 3

Editor-in-Chief’s Choice is there a job on offer? The answer is no. The problem of vacant seats arises because colleges have come up in areas with absolutely no industry to absorb engineers,” says Sanjay Dhande, former director of IIT Kanpur.

Former Infosys director T. V. Mohandas Pai, who is currently Chairman of Manipal Global Education, agrees, saying Karnataka did well to ensure that its colleges were “clustered near urban centres”. “You need to start colleges in urban areas to get good faculty. Why would a teacher want to move his family to a remote area where there aren’t any facilities and good schools?,” he says.

KARNATAKA vs NEIGHBOURING According to state governSTATES (2016-17) ment data, almost 100 of the 3,00,000 state’s 192 engineering colleges are either in or around 2,50,000 Bengaluru.

Despite the early start and 2,00,000 though Karnataka continues to retain its position as 1,50,000 a premier software export hub, the expansion in the 1,00,000 number of engineering institutes in the state hasn’t been 50,000 as unbridled as in the rest 49% 48% 47% 44% 42% 26% of the country, according 0 to experts and stakeholders interviewed by The Indian Express.

“There has been a fairly controlled enhancement of intake (in Karnataka) because the market here re329 527 283 372 184 192 sponds very ably. The numTOTAL INSTITUTES ber of institutes is not as big as in Andhra, Tamil Nadu or GROWTH OF ENGINEERING COLLEGES IN KARNATAKA even UP,” says R Natarajan, 250 who headed AICTE from 1995 to 2001 and who now 200 lives in Bengaluru.

According to AICTE data, 150 the state had 192 institutes in 2016 as opposed to 527 in Tamil Nadu, 372 in Ma100 harashtra, 329 in Andhra Pradesh, 283 in Telangana 0 and 296 in Uttar Pradesh.

Even Kerala, a state one-fifth the size of Karnataka, had 164 colleges, with 42% of its BE/BTech seats vacant in 2016-17.

Old-timers, however, say the expansion wasn’t always this “controlled”.

K. Balaveera Reddy, former vice-chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technology University (VTU), Belgaum, who now lives in Bengaluru, says several new engineering colleges came up in the 1970s and early 1980s. During this time, it attracted students from all over the country, including bordering states such as Andhra Pradesh.

1,00,565 Karnataka

Kerala

Maharashtra

1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18

Telangana

62,458

1,55,277

2,79,397

Tamil Nadu

1,40,318

1,72,746

Andhra Pradesh

VACANT B.TECH SEATS

4 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

If fewer engineering colleges were the only solution to the vacancy crisis, then why did Madhya Pradesh, with roughly the same BTech intake as Karnataka, have almost 60 per cent of its seats vacant last year?

“I remember, even till the late 90s, there used to be special trains from cities such as Delhi and Kolkata to Bangalore to accommodate students travelling to appear for the CET (Common Entrance Test),” says Reddy.

Although this rapid expansion is fairly well-known, not many are aware of a short period of consolidation, says D. K. Subramanian, a retired professor of Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru and the country’s first PhD in Computer Science. He feels Karnataka is better off now because of an “informal moratorium” imposed by the state government in the early 1990s.

“You won’t find anything about this on the internet because (the moratorium) wasn’t a proper policy decision, but during that period, the government did not allow any new engineering colleges to come up. That, in my opinion, went a long way in arresting the unsustainable growth in Karnataka,” he says.

According to data accessed by The Indian Express, only one new engineering college was approved in the state in the six years between 1989-90 and 1994-95.

Between 2000 and 2017, there have been only six years when the number of new colleges touched double digits.

Quality, checks

But if fewer engineering colleges were the only solution to the vacancy crisis, then why did Madhya Pradesh, with roughly the same BTech intake as Karnataka, have almost 60 per cent of its seats vacant last year?

The answer, say experts, lies in better quality of education and employment opportunities. And that’s where Karnataka has an edge, they say.

Drawing from his experience as a member of AICTE’s inspection team for about 10 years, Subramanian says, “I noticed a remarkable difference in faculty (between those in Karnataka colleges and elsewhere). Because the state had a head start in engineering education, it meant they had a much larger pool of qualified faculty to choose from. Quality of education, as a result, has always been better in the state. In fact, when other states went through their respective boom periods, Karnataka even provided them faculty.” He is currently on the research advisory board of Tata Consultancy Services.

The state’s success story has a curious religious angle —the involvement in education of mutts or monasteries

NEW AND CLOSED INSTITUTES OVER LAST 5 YEARS NEW ENGINEERING INSTITUTES CLOSED INSTITUTES 50 40 30 20 10

Andhra Pradesh

Tamil Nadu

Telangana

Kerala

0

Maharashtra

In other states, competition comes before viability,” he explains.

“Before SJC was set up, the local population of Chikkaballapur had to travel 50 km to Bengaluru to study engineering. So there was a demand for an engineering institute here and SJC was established after the followers in Chikkaballapur approached our mutt. One per cent of the funds were donated by the local population and the remaining was invested by the mutt,” he adds.

Karnataka may be better off compared to most states, but it still has a problem. The proportion of unfilled seats has been gradually increasing for the last five years—from 22 per cent in 2012-13 to 26 per cent last year.

According to H. U. Talawar, director of technical education in Karnataka, the state has started work on a perspective plan to ascertain the demand for engineers in future and approve new institutions accordingly.

“We need to have a perspective plan. We try to assess the need for doctors and IAS officers, so why can’t we make a similar assessment for engineers?

Accordingly, we can streamline our education system,” says Karisiddappa.

(This article was originally published in The Indian Express) (http://indianexpress.com/article/education/ devalued-degree-least-empty-seats-in-karnatakahas-lessons-for-other-campuses-4981588/)

Karnataka

that are usually caste-based and wield immense political and social clout. Almost all of the state’s mutts have set up educational institutions as part of their ‘social service’, many of them engineering colleges.

According to Vaman B. Guddu, Special Officer (Academic) at VTU, the university in Belgaum that affiliates all engineering colleges in the state, at least 15 engineering colleges in Karnataka are run by mutts.

Experts say this association has helped put the brakes on the unbridled expansion of engineering education since, unlike in other states, the increase was based on “real and not speculative demand”.

“If you look at the history of education in our state, mutts have played a role and this is unique to Karnataka. A religious organisation usually doesn’t treat education as a business. It sees it as a social obligation,” says Karisiddappa, the incumbent vice-chancellor of VTU, the affiliating university for all engineering colleges in the state.

The SJC Institute of Technology in Chikkaballapur district of Karnataka is one such college. It’s run by the Sri Adichunchanagiri Mahasamsthana Mutt, which is revered by the agrarian Vokkaliga community in the state. Last year, only four per cent of its seats were vacant.

According to college principal K.M. Ravikumar, a mutt’s decision to start an institution is driven by demand as well as viability. “Mutts (before establishing any educational institution) conduct surveys. They ensure that there is a need (for a new institution) before starting one and that the mutt should not suffer financially.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 5

Contents 18

Cover story

Dynamic Duo 66

Spiritual Soulmates Influential professionals, Seema Singh Zokarkar, academician, management professional and Director, Mantra Media and Uday Zokarkar, Founder and CEO, Mantra Media, share their journey together and how they are a force to reckon with

09 9 COLLYWOOD Chatpata Chatter from the Corporate World 14 WAX ELOQUENT Who said what and why 6 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

Volume 3 Issue No. 24 March 1-15, 2018 www.corporatecitizen.in

16 THE TAX MAN COMETH On the proposed legislation on taxation of Long Term Capital Gains (LTCG) 26 CII MANUFACTURING SUMMIT 2017 Panel discuss Industry 4.0 implementation across the value chain and India-centric technology innovations

36 42

16

30 INDUSTRY STALWART A. S. Kiran Kumar, chairman, ISRO, on how is ISRO breaking new grounds, creating new benchmarks and always doing the nation proud 36 INTERVIEW Sandeep Kulkarni, CEO, ACG Worldwide talks about his beginnings, achievements and what it takes to be a success in life

26 30

42 INTERVIEW T. N. Muralidharan, Founder and Chairman, TMI Group, on their social venture reaching out to the unemployed 46 HEALTH Colonel Vijay Bakshi, on the need for a structured fitness programme and how similar regimes can be extended within corporate houses

48

48 CAMPUS PLACEMENT Aparna Jaikumar, on her campus placement experience and more 50 LOVED & MARRIED TOO Techie couple, Nilambari and Amit Shirodkar on what completes their circle of joy 52 SURVEY Future of Jobs in India Survey, on

50

16 March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 7

contents

46 Editor-In-Chief Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian Consulting Editor Vinita Deshmukh vinita.corporatecitizen@gmail.com Senior Business Writer Rajesh Rao rajeshrao.rao@gmail.com Senior Sub-Editor Neeraj Varty neeraj.varty07@gmail.com Sub-Editor Vineet Kapshikar vineetkapshikar@gmail.com Writers Delhi Bureau Pradeep Mathur mathurpradeep1@gmail.com/ Sharmila Chand chand.sharmila@gmail.com

56

Bengaluru Bureau Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar sangeetagd2010@gmail.com

what does the future of jobs hold for young India?

56 BOLLYWOOD BIZ Bollywood star actresses who married tycoons 60 MOBILE APPS Teaching apps to make the job of a teacher simple 61 MY FIRST BOSS Reeti Roy, Founder and CEO, Aglet Ink, on the her first boss, Dr Shashi Tharoor 66 THE LAST WORD On how cyberphysical systems can be the rejuvenation of initiatives like ‘Make in India’, ‘Startup India’ and Smart Cities missions

Pune Bureau Joe Williams / Kalyani Sardesai / Namrata Gulati Sapra

61

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Whether Citizen of India Address

Whether Citizen of India Address

6.Name and address of individuals

who own the newspaper and are

partners or shareholders holding more

than one percent of the total capital

: Balwant Printers Pvt. Ltd., 925/5, Mujumdar Apt., F. C. Road, Dist. Pune – 411004, Pune, Maharashtra : Fortnightly : Dr (Col.) A Balasubramanian : Yes : Svy No. 55/2-7, Tathawade, Near Wakad, Off Mumbai-Bangalore Bypass, Dist. Pune – 411033, Maharashtra : Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian : (a) Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian : Yes : Svy No. 55/2-7, Tathawade, Near Wakad, Off Mumbai-Bangalore Bypass, Dist. Pune – 411033, Maharashtra (b) Editor-In-Chief Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian : Yes : Svy No. 55/2-7, Tathawade, Near Wakad, Off Mumbai-Bangalore Bypass, Dist. Pune – 411033, Maharashtra (c) Consulting Editor Vinita Deshmukh : Yes : Svy No. 55/2-7, Tathawade, Near Wakad, Off Mumbai-Bangalore Bypass, Dist. Pune – 411033,Maharashtra : (a) Sri Balaji Society, S. No 55/2-7, Tathawade, Near Wakad, Off Mumbai-Bangalore Bypass, Dist. Pune – 411033. (b) Sole ownership is with Sri Balaji Society only.

I, Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian, hereby declare that the particulars given above are true, to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Date: 01.03.2018 Sd/ Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian Printer/Publisher

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collywood

People in the news

Murugappan, Mururgappa Chief Sixty-two-year-old M.M. Murugappan, Vice Chairman, Murugappa Group, took charge as the Group’s Executive Chairman, succeeding A Vellayan, who retired at the age of 65. Murugappan has been serving as the Group’s Vice-Chairman since 2009, spearheading technology, innovation and environment, health and safety initiatives. In 2004, Murugappan took over as Chairman of CUMI, and led the integration of Volzhsky Abrasive Works, Russia (world’s second largest manufacturer of silicon carbide) with the company. In April 2006, he was appointed Chairman of Tube Investments of India (TII) where he was involved, together with the team, in developing a strong engineering-focused business to address opportunities in the transportation sector as a critical component supplier. Murugappan, who has a Master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan, is on the board of several companies, including Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd and Cyient Ltd. He had served on the Board of Governors of IIT-Madras for six years till November 2011 and enabled many industry-academic partnerships.

IBM HR chief Singh back to school

Raghavan boards IndiGo as Sr VP-HR Raj Raghavan, Head-HR, APAC, Amazon will join IndiGo Airlines in April, as senior VP-HR. Talking about his stint with Amazon, and his new assignment, he said that he enjoyed every moment with Amazon, and was extremely delighted to explore bigger opportunities that lie ahead.

Raghavan joined Amazon India in 2011 as director and country HR leader and five years later he was elevated as the HR-Head for the Asia-Pacific, which

included India, China and the recent acquisition of Souq in the Middle-East. Amazon has been moving up the ladder since he joined. When he joined, Amazon had only 3,500 employees, and since then the company has grown in size and the workforce strength increased to 50,000. He has played a pivotal role in not just enabling this level of growth, but also in helping launch Amazon. in, where he led HR across the entirety of the business,

including launching its first FC operations in the country.

Earlier, he was head of HR for GE’s Global Research and India Technology Centers. He has also worked at Hindustan Unilever, Ford Motor Company and HSBC.

D.P. Singh, Vice President and HR-Head, India and South Asia, IBM, has joined Chandigarh University as Senior Executive Vice President. He was with IBM since January 2003 and retired recently. “It is time to give back. The education industry needs experienced talent and what could be a better opportunity than to join a university? The sector also provides a great opportunity for continuous learning,” he said about the move. He rose up the ranks to become director-HR, IBM Daksh and area HR leader IBM (North) and HR leader, the Middle East and Africa, before finally donning the hat of VP and HR head, India and South Asia, IBM. He started his career 38 years ago with Eicher.

He has also worked with Montari industries. During his professional journey, he has had the opportunity to work with automobile, chemicals, eyewear and eye care, packaging inks, BPO and IT industries.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 9

collywood Indra cracks open maledominated ICC Pepsi has been a long-time partner of ICC and it has gone a step further with PespiCo Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi taking over as ICC Independent Chairman, and as the governing body’s first independent female director.

Nooyi will join the board in June this year to align with the team, following the unanimous confirmation of her appointment at a meeting held recently, according to an ICC release.

This was approved by the ICC Full Council in June last year as part of a wide-ranging constitutional change aimed at improving the governance of the sport. Indra will be appointed for a two-year term although she may be reappointed for two further terms with a maximum six-year consecutive period of service. She has been consistently ranked by Fortune magazine among the World’s Most Powerful Women. She is responsible for a global food and beverage portfolio that includes 22 brands generating more than $1 billion each in annual retail sales, including Quaker, Tropicana, Gatorade, Frito-Lay and Pepsi-Cola.

Amitabh Kant gets another extension

The tenure of Amitabh Kant, the NITI Aayog Chief Executive Officer (CEO) has been extended for yet another year. Kant, who was appointed the CEO of the government think tank in the year 2016 has been extended a two-year term, according to a release issued by the company after the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved the extension of Kant’s tenure until 30 June 2019. Kant is a 1980-batch IAS officer from the Kerala cadre. Before taking over as the CEO of the National Institution for Transforming India (Niti Aayog), he was Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. Kant’s extension order was issued by the Department of Personnel and Training. It was cleared by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed

by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A former Indian Administrative Service officer, Kant earlier served as the secretary in the Department of Investment Promotion and Publicity. He was also the chief executive officer of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor project and the “Incredible India” campaign was his brainchild.

Hitachi Vantara promotes Kelly A postgraduate in human resources from the University of Strathclyde, Scott Kelly has been promoted by Hitachi Vantara as its chief human resource officer.

Kelly joined the company in the year in 2005 as VP-HR, Hitachi Data Systems for the EMEA and APAC region of the company which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi. In addition to assuming the role of

10 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

COO, Kelly will continue to serve as Hitachi Vantara’s chief transformation officer, leading the company’s enterprise-wide initiatives to drive its global growth strategy. He has been responsible for all aspects of human resources at Hitachi Vantara, including HR information systems, workforce planning and staffing, total compensation, performance management, management development, leadership succession planning, diversity and advocacy, HR legal compliance, organisation development and management support consulting.

Banerjee quits as Tata Housing CEO

Indian on science-tech Oscarwinning team Pune-born Vikas Sathaye, who grew up in the Mumbai suburb of Mulund, was among a scientific and engineering awardwinning team at the Oscars 2018 Scientific and Technical Awards, held at the Beverly Hills recently. The four-member team was honoured for the concept, design, engineering and implementation of the Shotover K1 Camera System, which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences describes as a six-axis stabilised aerial camera mount that has an enhanced ability to frame shots while looking straight down and getting a steady footage.

After school, Sathaye completed a diploma in Instrumentation from VPM’s Polytechnic, Thane, followed by a BE in Electronics from VIT Pune, and an M-Tech in Instrumentation from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He taught at Pune’s

Cummins College of Engineering for Women for seven years, during which he was sent to Italy for a project with Fiat for three months. It was this experience that inspired him to enter the field of embedded software technology. In 1999, he took up a job in Tata Honeywell as an industrial trainee after which he moved to New Zealand where he worked for a series of companies before joining Shotover Camera Systems. In 2012, Sathaye decided to relocate to Adelaide, Australia where he has lived for the last five years. During that time, Shotover K1 has been used in many Hollywood blockbusters and in March 2017, it received a Technical Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Camera Operators after which the company decided to recommend K1 for the Science and Technology Academy Awards.

The youngest CEO in Tata Group’s history, Brotin Banerjee, has called it quits from the company after he took over as the CEO of Tata Housing Development Corporation in the year 2008. He is believed to have taken the step citing personal reasons. The board of directors has accepted his resignation and is in the process of appointing a new CEO. This has been the second blow for the group after Tata Power Co. Ltd CEO and MD Anil Sardana resigned, also citing personal reasons. It has been a long innings for Banerjee with the company who was instrumental in reviving and building Tata Housing, a company that was set up in 1984 and then revived in late 2006. He joined Tata Housing as deputy managing director in 2006 and was promoted to CEO and managing director in 2008. Banerjee will oversee the transition in consultation with Banmali Agrawala, president, infrastructure, defence and aerospace, Tata Sons. This company sells homes from `5 lakh to `14 crore and has around 70 million sq ft of projects under various stages of development.

Late last December, Hines, a global real estate investment and management firm, who were interested in the Tata Housing’s premium wellness-themed project Serein at Thane, Maharashtra said they would invest $23 million. Banerjee has been associated with Tata Group for quite a while. Before joining Tata Housing, Banerjee was CEO of Barista Coffee Co. Ltd (in which Tata Coffee Ltd had bought a stake) and prior to that, was with Tata Chemicals Ltd. It has been over a decade since Banerjee has been associated with the Tata Group, and he is the third Tata CEO to exit in the past 12 months.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 11

collywood Priya 3rd highest eyeball grabber!

Malayalam actress Priya Prakash Varrier has grabbed eyeballs across the country with her ‘one wink at a time’, and is the third celebrity worldwide to gain more than 606 thousand followers on Instagram in a single day. According to a report, she is next only to popular American model and TV personality Kylie Jenner and footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, who have recorded more number of followers on Instagram in a single day. She raises her eyebrows, winks, smiles and steals the hearts of the viewer in the process too. With that, Priya has now set a new record on social media. While Kylie Jenner remains on top with 806 thousand followers in a single day, Ronaldo is at the second spot with 650 thousand followers on the photo-sharing platform. Priya Varrier is at third place, with 606K followers.

KellyOCG elevates Padamadan

Francis Padamadan is now being rewarded for his 15-year stint with KellyOCG. The company has elevated him as senior director, recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) and business process services (BPS) practices for the Asia-Pacific region with an extended role. In his new role, he will be responsible for retention and growth of the RPO and BPS businesses in the ASEAN region, Australia, New Zealand and the India market. Padamadan has been with the talent management solutions company, Kelly, since 12 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

2002 in various roles. In the last 15 years, he has been instrumental in scaling up Kelly’s direct hiring business in India across the financial, IT, scientific, engineering and consumer sectors, including temporary and contract staffing.

“Padamadan brings extensive knowledge in global account management and large business operations to the table,” stated Peter Hamilton, vice-president and regional director APAC, commenting on the elevation. Padamadan shared his thought as he said, “RPO and BPS can be a panacea for the talent woes faced by several key sectors. Hence, our number one priority is to help organisations through our customised talent management offerings. Our focus for RPO and BPS across India and South-East Asia would be mainly with global in-house centres, shared services of banking and financial sectors followed by life science. This is based on our robust delivery capability and the success we have had with many customers”.

Ambasta joins Aon Hewitt Ashish Ambasta moved to Aon Hewitt where he will be leading the business for culture & engagement practice at Aon Hewitt, in India. This is after his stint of over two years at Willis Towers Watson as the director where he was with the employee insights and assessments. Besides this new role, Ambasta will also be responsible for managing the business in terms of driving revenue growth, profitability, and innovation. He is the custodian of Best Employer Study, Customer Acquisition & Retention through delivering value along with leading a strong team of extremely bright consultants.

With a doctorate in Positive Emotions, Happiness and Performance in the Indian work environment, Ambasta has also held strategic roles, at People Business Consulting and Gallup Consulting, in the past. He started his career as a sales and marketing manager with Kotak Life Insurance post his MMS from the University of Mumbai.

He was also a visiting faculty for marketing and entrepreneurship at Sydenham Institute of Management Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship Education, Mumbai, from 2006 to 2012. He is also a founder of the School of Entrepreneurial Exploration (SEE) and has been helping over a million people explore entrepreneurship in India, through this non-profit venture, which he started in the year 2010.

Compiled by Joe Williams joe78662@gmail.com

wax eloquent

India has a lot to offer

Take a look at what our corporate leaders have to say about recent trends and their experiences in the business world

Have the courage to take a leap of faith This budget has pushed the boundaries

“This budget has pushed the boundaries on inclusion and plugged some gaps on social security with the announcement around the national health, which is material. By reducing the corporate tax rate for companies with turnover of up to `250 crore, it covered a very large population and it should be seen a progression towards the next step.”

“The earlier practice of prediction based on extrapolation of data is gone. Nobody understands how the world will change. The only way you can plan for the future is to have scenarios.

You have to have the courage to take a leap of faith on one of them.”

Anand Mahindra, chairman, Mahindra Group Courtesy: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Ashu Suyash, MD and CEO, Crisil

Courtesy: http://indianexpress.com

Role of Forensic Data Analytics and emerging technologies “Emerging markets, especially India, are driving the digital data revolution through rapid innovation and adoption of new technologies. This is an apt time for management to maintain the sanctity of data, and derive the true benefits of Forensic Data Analytics by integrating it within their compliance programmes for increased return on investment.”

Arpinder Singh, Partner and Head - India & Emerging Markets, Fraud Investigation & Dispute Services, EY

Courtesy: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com

What is my ambition

I believe in never giving up

“I took a year off and asked myself -- what is my ambition? Is it to become the biggest superstar in the country or is it to become a better actor? Chasing stardom would’ve made me lose my way. But chasing the idea of becoming a better actor would be beneficial. Stardom would follow.”

“I believe in never giving up, no matter what the odds. My mantra is, “Failure is temporary. Giving up is permanent.”

It is this trait that led me to surmount the “credibility” challenges I faced in my initial days as an entrepreneur due to my age, gender, and innovative business model.”

Sonam Kapoor, actor

Dharmakirti Joshi, chief economist, Crisil

Courtesy: http://www.huffingtonpost.in

14 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman and CEO, Biocon Courtesy: https://work.qz.com

We don’t need more big ideas “We don’t need more big ideas. We need to implement whatever we have committed: ensure that power reforms become successful, bank recapitalisation is done quickly, bankruptcy system works and GST glitches are sorted out.

If you achieve these, it will be enough.”

Courtesy: https://www.deccanchronicle.com

Mention of cryptocurrency in the Budget

“We are extremely happy that something like cryptocurrency found mention in the Budget. It only goes on to say that the impact it has is so widespread, and there is an understanding that it exists in a strong way.

However, on the take of it not being a legal tender, we completely agree with the government on its position.”

Ajeet Khurana, Head,

Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Commitee of India

Courtesy: https://yourstory.com

I don’t see anything that will stop companies from going to India

Normal women can reach the top

“When someone like me is appointed Defence Minister, it underlines the possibilities and prospects of ordinary women in politics. They feel empowered, they feel that if it is possible for me, with no big dynasty or background, it is also possible for them. I am not saying that the glass ceiling has been broken completely, but there is a real feeling that absolutely common, normal women can reach the top.”

Nirmala Sitharaman, Defence Minister, India

Courtesy: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com

India has a golden opportunity

“India has a lot to offer but it got to learn that companies do not have infinite patience and the world is moving very quickly. India has a golden opportunity, every other country gives India the first right of refusal. India produces half a million STEM graduates a year. It’s a starting point. But, it is a case of agility and a system that puts pace above bureaucracy.”

Paul Stein, Chief Technology Officer, Rolls-Royce Courtesy: http://www.moneycontrol.com

Finding a place among the top global players “We are recognised as an IT force, so why don’t we keep a goal to be recognised as a global accounting force as we have 8 lakh active CA students and every year 20,00030,000 CAs coming in. We have about 12 lakh active companies, over the coming one decade, I will not be surprised if this multiplies into three-fold. So, ultimately the canvas, in which will you function, will grow 3-4 times and it will give you lot of opportunities.”

“I don’t see anything that will stop companies from going to India and that will continue— both in terms of Indian companies going global and multinationals investing in the country.

Geopolitics and taxes will affect businesses but somewhere most companies are good at handling these uncertainties. Tax is more important for companies today and it’s on top of most board agendas.

But it’s not a major area of concern when decisions to invest in a country are taken.”

Peter Bodin, Global CEO, Grant Thornton

Courtesy: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com

Injeti Srinivas, Secretary, Corporate Affairs Courtesy: http://www.moneycontrol.com

Be influential enough to be able to create jobs Nothing is going to be given to you on a platter

“As a filmmaker, I’m grateful that I’m not born in Iran or North Korea, which is worse than us. I’m still in a better place. As long as I’m constitutionally given space to stand up for myself, fight for myself, I’m not complaining. Nothing is going to be given to you on a platter.”

“For me the responsibility of being able to do something that drives an economy, whether the economy panders to us or whether it panders to somebody else’s wallet, it doesn’t matter, but we have to be influential enough to be able to create jobs in this country. My biggest challenge is to make sure that I’m proud of the work that I do and I also create enough business for art and craft to survive.”

Sabyasachi Mukherjee, designer and couturier

Courtesy: https://www.newkerala.com/news/fullnews-325006.html

It is all about speed of accommodating changes

Anurag Kashyap,

“If you’re a company working on a global scale, you will face different challenges in different markets every year. It’s very normal to face situations changing in the markets. I think the question for a company is how fast and quickly can it manage a new situation? Can it adapt? Can it reorganise things that are necessary in order to compete in the market?

It is all about the speed of accommodating changes.”

Courtesy: https://www.filmfare.com

Courtesy: http://www.business-standard.com

filmmaker

Britta Seeger, Member of the board of management, Daimler AG

Lesson life has taught you

“Something my mother always said to me as a young girl: you can’t control the things life throws at you, but you can control the way you deal with things.”

Archie Panjabi, actor

Courtesy: https://www.theguardian.com/ lifeandstyle/2018/feb/03/archie-panjabiactor-q-and-a-interview

Compiled by Rajesh Rao rajeshrao.rao@gmail.com

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 15

The Tax Man Cometh

No need to sweat over LTCG tax

by S K Jha

(IRS (retd) and former Chief Commissioner of Income Tax)

Prior to 2004, long-term capital gains on the sale of shares were taxable. It was made taxable in the 2018 Budget with the objective of bringing more money into the tax net, bringing uniformity among tax-paying citizens and making the capital market healthier

Unlike the regular tax desk which is manned by a tax officer whose job is to levy tax on you, this desk is manned by a non-serving tax officer who wishes to share his experience of 35 years in the tax department, while, discussing tax provisions. It is advantageous to know how the tax department thinks and acts when, as said by Benjamin Franklin, “In this world nothing is certain except death and taxes�

T

he presentation of the Budget every year gives rise to various comments and analysis. This year too is no exception. The Budget had some good points, but it also had issues which created turmoil in the capital market. The stock market plunged by more than 800 points on the day following the Budget, which was the second biggest fall in the stock exchange on a single day.

What was the reason for such a big fall? The answer is, the proposed legislation on taxation of Long Term Capital Gains (LTCG) on the transfer of shares. Earlier, such long-term capital gains were free from tax. The share market was booming prior to the presentation of the Budget. The sentiment of investors really got hit, but the subject matter of taxation on capital gains has to be understood before reaching any conclusion.

The objective of the Income Tax Act is to levy tax on the total income of a person. Income can be from salary, business, property, capital gains and from income from other sources. Tax is levied on income from assets which may be human asset, or asset in the form of property, and accordingly various heads of income have been created under the Income Tax Act (1961). Under the head 'Capital Gains', a distinction has been made on the transfer of properties other than shares and capital gain on the sale of shares. There is further subdivision under Capital Gains between long-term assets and short-term assets. Assets held for two years or more, other than shares, is a longterm capital asset. In the case of shares, if they are held for one year or more, they become 16 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

long-term capital assets. Assets held for less than the threshold limit are short-term assets.

There is a further distinction between the rate of tax charged on the sale of long-term capital gains and short-term capital gains. The rate on short-term capital gains is 15% which remains the same as in the past, while the rate for longterm capital gains proposed in the Budget is 10% as against NIL earlier. However, one relief provided in the proposed legislation is that long-term capital gains on the sale of shares will remain exempt up to `1 lakh of such income.

The honourable Finance Minister said that there was a sale to the extent of `3,60,000 crore of long-term shares as per the Income Tax re-

turns filed last year. No tax had been levied on this big amount. Investors, particularly highnet-worth persons, companies and FIIs gained maximum from this income. Prior to 2004, long-term capital gains on sale of shares were taxable. The same was made taxable again with the sole objective of attracting money into the capital market while making it healthier.

It was seen that many investors were using the Mauritius route to invest in the capital market to avoid tax liability as there was no tax on capital gains on the sale of shares in Mauritius. Many domestic investors were seen doing round-tripping to avail tax break through the Mauritius route. Recently, there has been an amendment in the Double Taxation Avoid-

ance Agreement (DTAA) between India and Mauritius as per which the Mauritius route no longer remains attractive. This, along with the booming of the stock market, triggered the new proposal in the Budget.

The negative reaction of the market is not in the right perspective. The market has overlooked the attached new proposal of grandfathering of the cost of the shares, leading to long-term capital gains. The cost of the shares will be the market price of the shares as on January 31, 2018 which will help old investors reduce their tax liability. The capital market has also overlooked the fact that only five coun-

Beyond morality or logic

The exemption of tax on LTCG on the sale of shares was beyond morality or logic. A salaried person pays tax on his meagre income, while big people and big companies earn tax free income without doing any actual work. Their money beget more money without any sweat.

Legislation should be fair on all sources of income; it cannot be discriminatory. The other issue was that the money was being used for earning tax-free income, and was not going into the expansion of business which would have created more jobs. The big private investors’ choice was for an easier method to earn income without any tax liability, than to ∕∕∕ start new factories and giving jobs to The objective our youth. of the Income There is another Tax Act is to new proposal under levy tax on the Section 115-R of the Income Tax Act total income which has attracted of a person. controversy. This is in the context of Income can be Dividends Distribufrom salary, Tax (DDT) on business, prop- tion Mutual Funds. Earlierty, capital er there was no DDT gains and from while declaring dividend against Equity income from Orientated Funds other sources.

(EOF) as against the Tax is levied on proposed new rate of 10%. Normally, the income from mutual fund route assets which is taken by midmay be human dle class investors through SIP, and asset, or asset hence there was a in the form of fear that the middleproperty class would suffer.

The new proposal ∕∕∕ has been brought to bring about parity between income from LTCG and income tries–the Cayman Islands, Mauritius, Cyprus, from dividends. In the absence of the same, Singapore and Hong Kong–do not levy tax on investment could have got skewed while makcapital gains on the sale of shares. Singapore ing investment for earning dividends and and Hong Kong are small city states, while on investment for earning capital gains. This the other countries are only tax havens. India, would definitely hurt some genuine investors, which is a rising power, does not deserve to be but the same was unavoidable when LTCG was lumped with tax havens or with city states. The brought under the tax net.

Budget is an annual financial statement of the There is another area of controversy and country which estimates the needed expendithat is in the context of Security Transaction ture for the country and has to source such exTax (STT). STT was brought in when LTCG penditure from possible income. The tax-free was made tax-free, now STT still remains `3,60,000 crore on long-term capital gains on while LTCG has been made taxable. STT is sale of shares was a low-hanging-fruit which something like TDS against transactions in required to be plucked to meet the ever-inthe share market. The total income earned by creasing genuine expenditure, particularly in the government from this source is roughly social sectors like health and education.

around `7,000 crore which is not a very big amount. Further, STT is deducted while computing income from capital gains, and thus for the investor it is not of much consequence, while for the government it continues to remain an additional source of income.

Some people have expressed the fear that in view of the new legislation on LTCG, foreign investment in the country may suffer. The fear is unfounded. It is well-known that China has been receiving huge foreign investment even when the tax on LTCG in China is 25% as against the proposed 10% in India, under the new Budget proposal. Foreign investors look for profitability while choosing a country to make investments. The economy of China is galloping, and has hence attracted big investment despite the 25% tax on LTCG. So the tax rate is not a constraint, but at best only one out of many parameters considered by investors.

Now, our country too is rising fast economically and we will keep on attracting more foreign investments despite the levy of a modest tax of 10% on LTCG. In America, which is another country attracting big investment, the tax rate on LTCG on shares is 15%. These facts go to indicate that our proposed legislation is not out of context.

While analysing the Budget we must have a holistic view. The country needs more money, as still almost 30% of our population is below the poverty line. To maximise our tax revenue, new sources have to be identified. The new legislation on LTCG is an effort to earn more income and the same cannot be abandoned if it hurts some people, provided the money goes to the poor and to national development. To quote Hillary Clinton: “I believe Capital Gains for the most part should be taxed in the same way that we tax income from hard work, sweat and toil. And, if we do these things, maybe we can be a country that can offer afford debit-free college education again.” Bill Gates similarly said, “If people want Capital Gains taxed more, like the highest rate on income, that’s a good discussion. Maybe that is the way to help close the deficit”.

The turmoil in the share market should not deter us. The leading stock exchanges of the world too plunged immediately after the Budget, just like the fall in our share market. The capital markets have their own reasons to go up and down and the same cannot be correlated with the state of the economy or because of the tax proposals. Direct taxation is a progressive tax, as per which more tax has to be paid by people who can afford it. It is desirable that we increase our income from direct taxes, as it really helps the country without being inflationary. On the contrary, indirect taxation is regressive, which levies tax equally on the rich and the poor, and it also adds to the inflation.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 17

Cover Story Dynamic Duo: 66

soulmates Seema and Uday Zokarkar

S piritua l

Uday Zokarkar, Founder & CEO, Mantra Media Pvt Ltd, a company that helps companies leverage the digital medium to advantage. Dr Seema Singh Zokarkar, noted academician, management professional and also currently the Director, Mantra Media Pvt. Ltd., taking care of Operations and Social Media Management. Influential professionals individually, collectively they are a force to reckon with—especially at a time when both the media and academic world are on the verge of an exciting new digital age. The challenges are many, so are the opportunities—the trick is to know how. Even as professional education and traditional models of business need to evolve well enough to encompass the change and use it advantage, the Zokarkars, amongst other impact-makers are at the helm. Married for 24 years, their careers and lives have an independent as well as joint momentum. Either ways, it has been rewarding and enriching. This is their journey and this is how they see it

T Pics: Yusuf Khan

By Kalyani Sardesai

here is a truism about how true achievement need not shout. Instead, it expresses itself in a myriad different ways—in the bright yet understated optimism of a simple yet tasteful home—in the mischief of a family pet that is amazingly social and participative, in the savor of a freshly prepared home-cooked meal on a Saturday afternoon.

The Zokarkars are more relaxed today, given that they can work from home, chat a bit, spend time with family and ponder over where life has taken them. What makes their journey even more rewarding is that they have largely been together, each step of the way, and have also had the privilege of working and growing together.

Simultaneously, both have enjoyed a bird eye’s view of the latest happenings, trends and demands in the interconnected fields of education, media and industry. A lot has been done, a lot more needs to be that is a given. Interestingly, in their time abroad both worked for BharatMatrimony. While he co-founded a magazine called Mantram and consulted BharatMatrimony, she was Chief Operating Officer, North America, a matrimonial forum that sought to introduce singles in the Indian diaspora together—all the better to consider holy matrimony.

Jab we met That’s not how the two of them met though. Instead, their love story was first envisaged by Seema’s father, a retired

18 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

Central Intelligence Bureau officer, who used to visit the Times of India building, Indore, all the better to read the Delhi edition of the Times of India. It was the early nineties; both Seema and Uday were working with the TOI at that point in time. While she was with Response, he was heading the department. She found him brilliant and driven, a man of integrity, someone who looked out for others--and sought to develop others in his team to reach their utmost potential. “He was also someone with a very modern outlook on women, a man ahead of his times,” she shares.

On his part, Uday was impressed by her patience and sheer dignity. “She is someone who is respectful to everyone, irrespective of their status and stature in life. That’s a beautiful quality,” he expresses. Seema’s father, a wise old gentleman, was convinced they would be good for each other given their common intellect, talent, ambition and love of learning. And so, despite the differences in cultural backgrounds (he’s a Maharashtrian; she a Rajput), he approached Uday with a proposal. He agreed.

And that’s how it all began. Post-marriage, the couple lived and worked in Indore for a while, then moved to the US, and has been in Pune for over a decade now.

Love’s like that “It helps that we both enjoy similar things in life. For

If one has the potential to run 70 miles an hour one must perform to that level—even exceed it. It is a crime, however, to do less than that. The competition ought to be with one’s own self and better one’s own best in the process —Uday Zokarkar

March 1-15, 2018 August 2017 / Corporate Citizen / 19

Cover Story

My mother, for instance, taught me to make chappatis when I was in grade VI. That helped do away with the notion that kitchen work is a woman’s department.

After all, if women can work outside the home, why can’t men work inside it? The present generation is lot more open-minded —Uday Zokarkar

instance, we both have a yen for Hindustani classical and light music. Our daughter Kadambari, who inherits this love of music from us, is a fine singer as well. It is she who has introduced us to the nuances of Western music,” says Uday.

“Similarly, we also love good books, good movies, good food and travel. Besides which, we are keen pet lovers and bond over little moments with Oscar, our Spaniel.”

Meanwhile, Seema believes a family who dines together, stays together and insists on everyone sharing at least one meal a day. Quality time also consists of post-dinner walks, and outdoorsy activities they all enjoy.

How do the two of them resolve conflict?

“Honestly, Seema is such a patient, selfless and cool-headed person that matters rarely escalate,” says Uday. “The important thing is for at least one person to stay calm and step back from the heat of the moment.”

While both would advocate “respect, trust and communication” as the mainstay of a relationship, Uday is a firm believer in not letting gender stereotypes get in the way of helping one’s partner around the house. “My mother, for instance, taught me to make chappatis when I was in grade VI. That helped do away with the notion that kitchen work is a woman’s department. After all, if women can work outside the home, why can’t men work inside it?”

Both enjoy taking off on vacations that offer them the chance to do outdoorsy things like trekking and cycling. Adventure games are another hot favorite. “One of our best family vacations was at Disney World Florida, when Kadambari was in school. We really had a fine time trying out all the crazy, scary rides.

Women’s empowerment: working their way around and beyond the male mindset As someone who has always challenged stereo20 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

Seema and Uday Zokarkar with daughter Kadambari on vacation

types in her quietly determined way, Seema believes that it’s better days today for the ambitious and independent woman. “We sure have come a long way, despite the fact that men to an extent, continue to be intimidated by strong and competent women who know their job. My advice to women professionals is simple: keep calm and carry on.”

Recounting the interview she had done for Dainik Bhaskar almost two decades ago, Seema talks of the time she had been interviewed along with two other women, who like her had taken up unusual professions.

“They found it rather strange that a woman would voluntarily take up something like marketing—a career choice traditionally considered a male bastion considering it involves constant interface with the client, frequent travel and long hours,” she reminisces.

So do they believe the Indian man is ready for a wife with dreams of her own?

“Well, today, he is a lot more receptive for sure.

This wasn’t the case 25 years ago,” says Uday. “The present generation is a lot more open-minded thankfully and women are breaking the glass ceiling ever day. Speaking for myself, I have had seen strong women bosses in the past, inspiring people who have broken glass ceilings.

No child’s play this “Child care is largely situational, and differs in assorted contexts. However, if there is something I have learnt over time, it’s this: don’t be overprotective,” she says.

Uday chips in: “When your child is in the boxing ring, what you need to do is watch from the sidelines. Offer advice and support them by all means--but essentially let them play the game.

Interfering and stepping in to resolve situations will not help.”

As parents, both are encouraging of 19-yearold Kadambari’s musical leanings, keen interest

in cinema and media aspirations. At the moment, Kadamabari is pursuing her Hons in Mass Communication from the Symbiosis Centre for Media & Communications. A finalist in the Horlicks Wizkid South Asian Finals 2014 and Voice of Viva 2013, she is a keen and accomplished singer. What’s more, she recently made her debut in the film as an actor with the 13-minute-long.

‘A Christmas Miracle.’

While Seema makes it a point to know what is happening in her young life—offering her relevant, mommy advice from time to time, Uday’s advice is simple enough: just do your best and don’t worry about the outcome.

“That said, if one has the potential to run 70 miles an hour one must perform to that level—even exceed it. It is a crime, however, to do less than that,” he expresses. “I don’t mean to say that she is a contestant in a race—if at all, the competition ought to be with one’s own self and better one’s own best in the process,” he points out.

Spiritually yours Despite the interest in technology and Gen-Next media, both have a spiritual bent of mind, nurtured by their respective upbringings. For his part, Uday studied in Ramakrishna Ashram run for the most part by learned Swamijis. “As students, we got opportunity to listen to them and stories of Swami Vivekananda. It is inspiring to read Swami Vivekananda. The philosophy ‘Have faith in your faith and doubt your doubts,’ makes sense to me”.

Seema’s family, on the other hand, were ardent Brahmo Samajists with an expansive and progressive outlook on religion, God, faith and acceptance. “My dad used to take us children along to listen to men of great wisdom and it helped broaden our thought processes. While he never forced anything on us, allowing us to think for ourselves, he introduced us to Swami Sivanand of Divine Life Society,” she shares.

“Listening to men of great wisdom is something that brings peace and perspective and adds value to one’s life. Apart from Swami Chinmayanand and Sadhguru we also practise the Sudarshan Kriya propagated by Sri Sri Ravishankar,” she says. “Sadhguru, for instance, has a very evolved and rational way of explaining things,” she says. “His words are logical, fair and soothing.”

organisation

“It is people in any

that make all the difference”

Fascinated by the media and its characteristics, Uday Zokarkar has worked on the business side of media for 25-plus years. He founded Mantra Media Pvt. Ltd. in December of 2008 and within a short span of time, the company has successfully worked on interesting and challenging assignments. Mantra Media has to its credit, conceptualising and implementing India’s first virtual property fair for CREDAI (Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India, formerly PBAP) Pune. Mantra Media has been set up to help companies leverage from digital medium (primarily internet & mobile). The company works with its clients to reach out to their relevant target audiences and help them to monetise by way of designing and implementing effective and sustainable web strategies and online business models. In the past, he has worked with The Times of India Group (India’s largest media conglomerate) in M.P. market as Response Head.

He was associated with Hindu’s Business Line Club, a forum that facilitates Industry-Institute interactions. He enjoys interacting with management students and used to visit various campuses like IIMA, MICA, BIMM, to name a few. In Pune, he has been involved in Google Weekend Startups initiative to mentor startups and help them grow to the next level. Greatly influenced by the teachings of Chanakya, Swami Vivekananda and Mirza Ghalib, his core belief has been that it’s the ‘people’ in any organisation that make all the difference. “Competition can catch up with you in any area of business but the only differentiating factor is going to be the people, as competition cannot have same set of people,” he says.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 21

Cover Story Corporate Citizen: Sir, do tell us about yourself—from the very beginning.

Uday Zokarkar: Like Seema, I describe myself as an accidental professional. Till my graduation, I prepared myself with the singular focus of taking up a career in naval aviation. I faced SSB Bangalore. I did well throughout and reached up to last round. However, I could not get in. Period.

My father told once ‘Not failure, but low aim is a crime.’ So, despite the initial disappointment, there was no looking back.

Your career in a nutshell...

Beginning my career with the Times of India, Sales, I have always been fascinated by multiple facets of the media. The last 25 years have been testimony to that. I worked in the US market for about six years before joining BharatMatrimony. At this point in time, I co-founded Mantram magazine, a business, technology and lifestyle magazine targeting the South Asians in the Americas. Mantram was eventually acquired by SGA Media Inc. (a subsidiary of CNBC India, Network 18 Group of India.) I also had the privilege of working with the late Mr Gopal Raju (founder of India Abroad, Indian American Center for Political Awareness, IACPA) as COO of News India-Times Group. Around this time, I also took on the challenge of reviving America's first and only (at that point in time), 24x7 Indian American FM station WCNJ 89.3 FM branded as Dhoom FM 89.3.

Just before founding my dream project Mantra Media in December 2008, I worked with Consim Info Pvt. Ltd. (which owned brands like BharatMatrimony.com and Clickjobs. com) for three and a half years. During my stint with the company and as a part of the senior management team, Consim went through two rounds of VC funding and secured almost USD 20 million from Yahoo! Inc. Canaan Partners and Mayfield Inc. of USA. As a Business Head of BharatMatrimony.com, the revenues grew at the rate of 100 per cent-plus on a year-onyear basis. Similarly, as far as Bharat Matrimony went, we set up 110 brick and mortar centres within a period of a year. Consim itself grew from less than 75 employees to a 1,000 plus.

What drives you or motivates you every day?

Challenging situations while working with clients or colleagues excites me to overcome these challenges and finding solutions drive me every day.

Launching Mantram magazine in record time in USA while designing it in India and printing it in USA was one such instance. Turning ‘Dhoom FM – WCNJ 89.3’ cash-positive in three months, working with Founder and CEO of BharatMatrimony and raising the first round of VC funding of about 9 million USD, con22 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

ceptualising, the virtual property fair for CREDAI-Pune Metro have been some of the most memorable moments for me.

What I’d like to point out is, there is a problem statement or a challenge and there is a technological solution that exists. When people around you say ‘it may not work’, that’s when your job starts, as a professional, to make it happen.

What about Mantra Media and its core area of work?

Within a decade of our existence, Mantra Media

The internet is going to be all-pervasive to the extent that there is seemingly going to be no internet. It will be a non-issue, in the same way oxygen is! We don’t discuss oxygen simply because it is omnipresent. With artificial intelligence and machine learning there is no end to the possibilities

has worked on several interesting and challenging assignments. Mantra Media, has to its credit, conceptualising and implementing India’s first virtual property fair for CREDAI (Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India), Pune. Mantra Media’s basic focus is to help companies leverage digital media (primarily the internet and mobile) to the optimum. Simply put, the company works with its clients to reach out to their target audiences and help them to monetise by way of designing and implementing effective and sustainable web strategies and online business models. In short, the mantra is to ‘co-create value for its constituents on a sustainable basis and make a positive difference’.

Your philosophy Put in your best efforts to give your best at all times, and don’t expect anything in return. Raise the level of awareness of people around you and learn from each other. Learning never stops and learning may come from anywhere, it may come from 7-year-old child, it comes from your office boy, from security guards, in the classroom while interacting with the students.

Your advice to young professionals...

The good thing is that by the level of PG, they have already gained some clarity on what they want to do. In the beginning, what you learn is even more important than what you earn. My

has a culture and a context that needs to be understood in entirety and that may only happen when you apply yourself.

Sir, you've always been very interested in technology. But the world over, there is this scare that technology is increasingly being used for nefarious purposes. Your take?

Coincidentally technology and terrorism was the cover story for one of the first issues of Mantram, soon after 9/11, wherein experts talked of how the World Trade Center was destroyed. Bin Laden was a structural engineer and he figured out a way to melt the steel using aviation fuel. It is an irony that creators of the technology are destroyed using the same technology.

However, that is a very dark take on it, for there is a tremendous amount of good coming from it too. The flow of information between countries, the leveraging of technology for a solid socio-medical-humanitarian cause. The examples are many, and with digital technology in the picture, everything is going to change exponentially. It is already changing as we speak. While technology is an enabler, it is a great leveller. Like John Naisbitt said: “We are living in a technologically intoxicated zone. And one such symptom is we fear and worship technology.” suggestion is simple: don’t wait for the job/internship of your dreams. If you find it, great. If not, go out there and help someone conduct their business. It could be a vegetable vendor looking to expand his base or a farmer trying to get a good price on his produce... study what their problems are, and offer them a workable solution. I assure you the lessons you learn will hold you in good stead. The good thing about working in the ‘real world’ is that you get to understand the all important contexts of how theories work.

Let me cite an example. Years ago, American ad honcho David Ogilvy addressed a group of ad professionals in Mumbai. He was discussing the difference what he thought was a good ad and a bad one. As an example of the latter, he talked about the use of Reverse. (Reverse is an ad that uses white lettering on an all black background.)

He thought it was terrible and stuck out like a sore thumb, until a desi professional pointed out that in Indian schools, students grew up reading white chalk lettering on a black surface, and thus, an ad like that was simply taking the customers back to basics. On his part, David Ogilvy had subconsciously internalised the black lettering on white boards that is typical of American schools as normal and so to him, the Reverse did not work.

Ogilvy had the grace and largesse to admit: ‘I stand corrected’.

The point I am making is that each business

Speaking of which, where do you see digital technology 10 years hence?

The internet is going to be all-pervasive to the extent that there is seemingly going to be no internet. It will be a non-issue, in the same way oxygen is! We don’t discuss oxygen simply because it is omnipresent.

With artificial intelligence and machine learning there is no end to the possibilities. Robots will be well-versed in the standard procedures of law, and will offer you legal advice using their data bank of court judgments and legal know-how.

Simple medical procedures will have robots too, instead of people.

Technology is already telling you how to reach from Point A to Point B; soon, it will park your car for you as well. In education, digital technology is already breaking down barriers, democratising education by bringing lectures and courses from Harvard to you at the click of a mouse. For instance, a technologist called Salman Khan from US, born to parents of Bangaldeshi origin, has launched Khanacademy.org to bring the most coveted courses to students online. This academy has delivered more than a billion lectures worldwide.

Your company is focusing on digital media. Will conventional media exist or die out?

While both print and TV are under tremendous pressure to bring in the revenues, they sure are

Raise the level of awareness of people around you and learn from each other. Learning never stops and learning may come from anywhere, it may come from 7-year-old child, it comes from your office boy, from security guards, in the classroom while interacting with the students

not going to die out. Instead, I see them leveraging the opportunities brought in by digital media to maximum advantage. For example, The New York Times was not doing too well, until it decided to go online. Major print and media houses are launching their own apps, for they have realised the difference between giving news and merely printing it.

There are increasing concerns that social media is going to set the agenda for mainstream media in the days to come.

What would you say to that?

Setting the agenda is too strong a term; however, what social media has done is changing the classical model of news dissemination. What was the classical model honestly? The editor and his team would decide what the readers would read the next day. This used to annoy a senior media baron no end, and he would ask his editors, much to their annoyance: “Who are you to decide the news?” He did not like anyone preaching to the readers.

Bringing this argument to social media, I would say that what social media has done is, to throw open the debate far and wide, and bring in different voices, which is a good thing in a democracy. Yes, the concerns about the polarising effects of social media are not unfounded, for there is a difference between the objectivity of trained media people and regular citizens. But that’s just one aspect of it. In recent times, there have been a great many positive instances of spreading the good word—be it finding donors for a rare blood group in record time, for even rallying for rivers.

What do you want to do next?

I love and enjoy interacting with the students.

This is learning both ways and keep you on your toes. I enjoy working with startups. There is a challenge every day, and you need to keep pushing envelop every time. One day, I will go back to academics. My heart or passion lies there.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 23

Cover Story

“You are responsible for your own ”

happiness

Noted academician and accomplished marketing professional, Dr Seema Singh Zokarkar, is one of those unique people, who for the last 26 years has held leadership positions, in both education and business. While the academic role call is impressive enough: Approved Director & Professor (full-time) of Savitribai Phule Pune University; Approved Ph.D. Guide in the faculty of Management (Marketing) of Savitribai Phule Pune University, she has also been nominated for the prestigious Commonwealth Scholarship by Ministry of HRD to study in UK. Besides this, she is the recipient of ‘Recognition Award’ from Rotary International for successfully representing them in Germany during May 1995 as a Group Study Exchange (GSE) team member. She has also served as director of the Balaji Institute of Telecom and Management and Balaji Institute of Modern Management. Currently, she is Director, Mantra Media Pvt. Ltd, a Google Partner badge organisation which is into digital consulting with expertise in SEO management, SEO Marketing and Social Media Management, etc, serving national as well as international clients

By Kalyani Sardesai Corporate Citizen: You have moved from industry to academics—and then, most unusually so—from academics to industry. How did that come to be?

Dr Seema Singh Zokarkar: The shift from industry to academics happened quite accidently.

I used to work with ToI and was on a sales call to a management institute. The director of the institute insisted I be visiting faculty and take up their executive class. I was quite surprised; to begin with, I had no previous teaching experience, plus, the class consisted of students way

24 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

older than me. However, he was insistent, and with him being a client, I could not refuse. So I decided to give it a shot.

I still remember that first lecture vividly—numerous eyes closing in on me, judging me for what I could deliver. However, it was fun sharing all that I knew of industry on-ground with the class and getting its views as well. The to and fro of information was rewarding and engaging.

I realised I enjoyed teaching—very much. Soon another director insisted I do the same for his students and so it continued.

Teaching is a two way process. There’s a lot you can learn from your students especially in management class, when your students have used a particular project and service and have a useful insight to offer.

As for moving from academics to industry—again it happened quite by chance, as we had moved to the US and I had an offer from BharatMatrimony.com.

Do tell us more...

It was early 2000, creating brand equity for BharatMatrimony.com and its two publications was my task as Chief Operating Officer, North America. As the brand was relatively new in the US market, people wondered if we were marriage brokers and we had to put in much effort in positioning the brand to the opinion leaders, corporate leaders, community leaders and the media. Gradually, the Indian diaspora accepted us and North America became an important market for us.

Apart from this, we worked on engaging the target audience offline as well and our Singles’ Meet became synonymous with the brand.

Various Indian language communities as well as professional organisations like Network of Indian Professionals (NetIP) and American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) made good use of the same. We successfully replicated the model in Australia while I was heading International Markets.

One of my achievements has been being nominated for my Ministry of HRD for Commonwealth Scholarship and the other one was being selected by Rotary International to represent them in Germany as a Group Study Exchange team member.

Currently, I am Director, Mantra Media Pvt. Ltd. taking care of Operations and Social Media management, and that’s an exciting role to play as the digital media has its own scope and potential.

Could you share your experience as director, BITM? The Balaji Institute of Telecom Management is ranked amongst the top-3 telecom management institutes by Outlook magazine and it has been a privilege to be director, especially at a time

From the start of time, there has been teachers who work very hard on their lesson plans, and others who go unprepared to class. For those who bring preparation and positivity to the table, the respect is immense and the entire process of knowledge dissemination very enriching

when the sector is growing at such a rapid pace and contributing so significantly to the GDP. Working with Bala Sir was wonderful as well.

He is quite the genius with a golden heart. A man of great vision and generosity, he really goes all out to make a difference to the youngster’s outlook and personality in the two years that he or she is at the institute.

Do you believe the teaching profession is undervalued?

I would not say that, no. It all depends on your own contribution and outlook. From the start of time, there has been teachers who work very hard on their lesson plans, and others who go unprepared to class. For those who bring preparation and positivity to the table, the respect is immense and the entire process of knowledge dissemination very enriching.

With the sixth and seventh pay commission, payments have improved vastly. Plus, apart from the salary, you can always be a consultant to industries.

There is this critique by industry leaders that most graduates from prominent B-schools are unemployable. What would you say to that?

Well, I started teaching in 1994, a time when management institutes were mushrooming by the dozen. There was this perception that if you had an MBA degree, a job was assured; that is no longer the case. However, what did happen at that point in time is that several people, even the unprepared, disinterested and inexperienced ones jumped on to the teaching bandwagon. Naturally, their perspective was limited-for they were the ones who developed the curricula.

That has changed today. Leading management institutes, including Balaji, find it worth their while to bring in professionals to close the gap between academia and industry—and not a moment too soon. The corporate world is hugely demanding and competitive; in fact companies don't want to spend time training you; they expect you to start performing from day one itself.

What advice would you give to young professionals?

Stay updated with all that’s happening around you, be it technology or trends. Keep an open mind at all times and never be averse to learning. At the same time, take care of your health.

Get into meditation to maintain a healthy worklife balance and keep stress in check.

What is it that motivates you?

Helping others. It is valuable only if it helps the other person.

Your philosophy in life?

You are responsible for your own happiness, don’t put that burden onto someone else’s shoulders! kalyanisardesai@gmail.com

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 25

CII Manufacturing Summit

— Startups 4.0 —

Indiacentric technology innovations Founders from various leading technology companies had a riveting discussion on India-centric technology innovations at 16th CII Manufacturing Summit, which was held recently at Mumbai. The panellists at the session exchanged views and ideas on—Is industry 4.0 being implemented across the value chain, and the how important it is for the policymakers in supporting the industry by setting up prototype centres in each state of the country?

The Panellists: Session Moderator Govind Raj Ethiraj, Founder, Ping Digital Broadcast; Dhananjay Pande, CMD, Gurlife Agro-Tech LLP; Jashish Kambli, Executive Partner, Future Factory; Rahul Garg, Founder & CEO, Moglix; Kapil Shelke, Director, Tork Motorcycle and Vikas Banga, Associate Director, BCG India

By Vineet Kapshikar Govind Raj Ethiraj: Tell us about your busi-

ness. What are the problems you were trying to solve, and what is the status now?

Rahul Garg: I am a founder of a company called Moglix. Moglix was started in April 2015 and was formed for one mission—can we re-imagine B2B commerce with technology?

I have worked for five years with Google before starting this venture. However, I realised that the use of technology today, which is used in some of the traditional verticals is very less. We are solving the challenges associated with manufacturing organisations. We have worked with two sets of manufacturing organisations. First set consists of manufacturing organisations whose annual turnover was about 100 crore and who were classified as SMEs. Second set consists of manufacturing organisations which may have turnover from 100 crore to 60,000 crore. In each of these organisations, we have realised that the fundamental digitalisation of processes is broken.

26 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

We have continuously strived over the last two and a half years bringing in the best-in-breed technology that is happening in manufacturing world, non-manufacturing world, consumer world and financial world.

To summarise, digitise everything. Firstly, if you are operating any part of your business manually, we think it is not right. Secondly, this is the crucial time in India because of GST, you can rethink what you do on a domestic manufacturing basis, what you want to do in export, what you want to do in import.

Dhananjay Pande: We are an environmental research organisation and we have developed several carbon dioxide reduction technologies, which reduce air pollution. While we were discussing these technologies with the clean technology head in a meeting, they said that they had received an order from National Green Tribunal (NGT) of closure of jaggery manufacturing units

in Uttar Pradesh, because the jaggery manufacturing units contributed 33% of air pollution. The topic of discussion was how our carbon dioxide reduction technology can be implemented and how the government can help us. They asked whether we could help them in implementing carbon dioxide reduction technology in jaggery manufacturing units in order to reduce air pollution. While analysing this area, we realised that this is the most neglected sector—jaggery manufacturing. The conditions are very tragic, technology is outdated, there are hazardous and unhygienic manufacturing processes. Ninety per cent of jaggery manufactured in India is about 30 million tons, which is manufactured by unorganised sectors. This situation needs to be improved upon from every angle so we suggested MoU that probably you have to design the entire manufacturing process, right from the crushing devices. However, MoU funded us. We have now completely redesigned the entire manufacturing

Pics: Yusuf Khan

process. The final design was related to the carbon dioxide reduction, which is about the gas that goes out from the chimney. Since we can capture the carbon dioxide, the problem is what you do with the captured carbon dioxide and how do you make by-products of captured carbon dioxide. So we thought it would be helpful for farmers if we are able to come out with a by-product which will help them. Ours is the first plant where we have improvised the working of jaggery manufacturing plants in India, where carbon dioxide is converted into biopesticide.

Jashish Kambli: I work for Future Factory, where I head design and development department. There are a couple of things we do at Future Factory. First, we help our manufacturing companies to be customer-centric. What we have found and what is prevalent today is that most manufacturing companies believe in getting a good technology product in the market but they

forget what exactly the customer is looking for. So we did two things, make companies understand their customers better, and make entire offers more customer-centric. The second thing we do at Future Factory is we help in innovation.

We work on security division of Godrej. Back in 2013, we had penetration in the market by one per cent. We are not a very safe society, so why

security products are not selling as much as they should be? We went to understand the problem as to why people are averse to security products and in return understood the Indian psyche. We want to believe that the government will take care of us. For example, we did some research during the Karva Chauth festival, in the North. We went to their homes, we asked the

“What we have found and what is prevalent today is that most manufacturing companies believe in getting a good technology product in the market but they forget what exactly the customer is looking for” —Jashish Kambli

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 27

CII Manufacturing Summit women, “Where do keep your jewellery?” They replied, “It is with my mother-in-law. My motherin-law stays just two buildings away”. We asked, “Why is the jewellery with her?” They said, “I cannot take the responsibility”. Mother-in-law is a 65-year-old single woman; she is dumped with the responsibility to take care of jewellery.

“If you are operating any part of your business manually, we think it is not right. And this is the crucial time in India because of GST, you can rethink what you do on a domestic manufacturing basis, what you want to do in export, what you want to do in import” —Rahul Garg

What was the conclusion that resulted from all this research?

Jashish: We drew a graph in terms of convenience vs. the security and found that we, as a company, were producing more and more secure safes, which puts the onus on the person who bought that safe. We get security for a certain level of convenience and we played with that idea, so we have a wide range of products and one of those products, that we have designed is called Goldilocks. We launched Goldilocks about two years ago and it is a small safe, which is very easy to use.

It supplements digital technology with electronic security and it is meant for more everyday things and allows people who don’t want to interact or who have never interacted psychologically with security products.

“We have developed a reactor, which gets charged with the waste from plants. Also, we are going to try the same with solar energy. Energy can be stored; energy can be transferred without electricity” —Dhananjay Pande

Tell us about your journey and why did you want to build a motorcycle and what’s gone into it so far?

Kapil Shelke: I founded a motorcycle company called Tork Motorcycles. I started working on it in 2007. Earlier, I used to build electric motorcycles for racing. I didn’t have any validation platform in India, so we went to a country called Isle of Man where some of the world’s famous motorcycle racing events are held. We were the only Indians to participate in such a race and to win the podium. I kept on participating in electric motorcycle championship for 3-4 years. I worked with a Chinese startup as a CTO, coming back to India, this time, I thought somebody in India will manufacture. I didn’t see anyone manufacture it so I thought I should manufacture such bikes.

From 2015 onwards, we started as Tork Motorcycles. We are building India’s first electric motorcycle, with a top speed of 100km/hr, which will can run 100 kilometres on a single charge and which takes about one hour to charge or about 30 minutes with fast chargers.

Will you be launching it next year? What is the kind of scale that you are looking at, and where do you plan to launch?

Yes, we will be launching next year. In terms of scale, we will find the cities who will adapt electric vehicles faster. We announced this motorcycle last year and there are thousands of people who have booked saying that we are going to buy it. They come from Pune, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, and Chennai and we will launch in these cities. We think about 5,000 motorcycles will be sold in the first year and by then we will get to know about 28 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

“We are building India’s first electric motorcycle, with a top speed of 100km/ hr, which will can run 100 kilometres on a single charge and which takes about one hour to charge or about 30 minutes with fast chargers” —Kapil Shelke

“There are model factories being setup in universities in Germany, where a manufacturer can get a taste of how the segment of one manufacturing is possible, or how can I use the same line to make a washing machine as well as an electric motorcycle” —Vikas Banga

our customer base and how they will be using it.

We want to get to other cities and the idea is to focus on cities where people are ready to go for.

What might be the cost of it?

The promotional price is `1.25 lakh. Think of it as a motorcycle with a tablet on it. It will navigate to your office, it can charge in one hour and will let you know who is calling you.

Are you making the batteries as well?

No, we are not making the battery but the battery box. India still does not have efficient lithium-ion battery manufacturing setup.

Vikas Banga: I have worked with BCG as a director. BCG is helping industries in India and Asia-Pacific. Nowadays everybody says we should be digital but what we try to do is

helping them by reimagining or rethinking the fundamentals of manufacturing that are happening right now in your companies. Be it sales, be it manufacturing, engineering or R&D or be it supply chain or logistics. For example, we are working with the leading steel manufacturers in India. We help them to re-optimise their shipping algorithms and logistics. Since steel is the raw material, transportation is a big cost; due to optimised shipping algorithms and logistics, yuo can save on transportation. Another example is, helping the leading auto manufacturer to rethink how the car should sell in India in future. We actually implement in today’s world where Indian customer is shifting from offline to online buying.

sations, conversations about protectiveness and industry 4.0. In my view, it boils down to simply three things. One is how you digitise and continuously strive for better efficiency. Secondly, there is a coming together of a virtual world and a physical world. The third thing is how you reach that stage where physical product being developed is also going to be continuously automated. It would use more data orientation towards achieving that objective. And that’s the key thing and I think the timing is perfect for India, because there is enough political push around it, enough policy changes that are around it. The next 10 years can redefine whether India can be a relevant manufacturing nation, in a global context and not in domestic context.

Rahul, you come from a world where you are pushing the envelope on digitisation.

You have worked with Google before that—how is the transition in India, where you were working with a large organisation and cutting-edge technology company to some of the challenges that you have talked about. Tell us more about it.

You are also saying that if we use the digital transformation effectively, then probably we can start a legacy. Let me use the example that was quoted earlier, ‘we were leaders in textiles at one time, but now even Bangladesh exports more’.

Apart from the bilateral and the treaty issues, how does one combine, the physical and digital and win back some of the losses there?

Rahul: I think there are two aspects to it. One aspect is sectorial aspect, which means how the technology has penetrated the advertising industry, financial exchanges, banks and all of those types of industries. There are lot of discussions happening regarding the industry 4.0 and how should India prepare to compete globally. If you consider manufacturing sector, it has remained aloof in terms of digitising each of its functions.

In manufacturing organisations, you have data sitting around about your supply chain, your customers, your logistics service provider and machine efficiency. How are you going to work on each of these data? If you don’t have digital way of looking at this data, then you cannot unlock the value of this data. So it is very critical that as a sector, if you want to become efficient, if you want to compete in the global economy, you should digitise your functions.

On the other hand, US is looking at automation, robotics and artificial intelligence and people in India are saying, ‘should I do this work manually or should I do it the digitally’. People say that this has been my way of doing things for the last 40 years and who are you with no manufacturing background per se to talk about digital and or how I should run my business. What we want to say to them is let us come and present you what are the opportunities you are missing out, because, everyone wants to grow your business.

If digital is going to enable you to do this, then there is no reason you should shy away from digitisation. Earlier, maybe you did not have access to people who can talk digital and manufacturing together in the same sentence but there is a growing breed of startups like us.

The second aspect is about geopolitical conver-

Rahul: I think it is coming together of all, because if you are constrained because of certain export and bilateral policies, yes, you need to unlock that. Fundamentally, my question is, are you preparing for what you can do on your side, about becoming efficient, ready for faster scale and for faster product development with the best quality of supply chain? Supply chain is very important, both on your distribution and procurement side, because that is what makes it efficient, in terms of discovering customers, in terms of discovering markets and efficient products for you, which will make you make a cost competitor, like the example Kapil talked about lithium-ion batteries which he is importing from China. We all always say that government is doing this and that and that’s why I am not doing this. That’s a very lazy approach.

Dhananjay, we talk about India-centric innovations, when we solve a problem. In your case, the jaggery industry was disrupted by an NGT order due to which the disorganised sector was thrown out and somehow you saw an opportunity. That is one kind of opportunity. If you look at opportunities, which are going to be in India, which are India-centric, or we actually could be creating something global to solve a global problem?

Dhananjay: We have developed a reactor, which gets charged with the waste from plants; also, we are going to try the same with solar energy. Energy can be stored; energy can be transferred without electricity so that’s what the point is. It will have an application especially in the rural areas where farmers don’t have the cold

storage facilities, and government cannot provide such facilities.

Jashish: I think many of our innovations in India come from bottom-up, from practical problems like lack of infrastructure. Having said that when you actually develop something, which can go great. For example, energy is a problem throughout the world. Some people might have a lot of it and some people can’t have enough of it, is a problem. Taking these innovations to countries abroad, is not about the innovation, it is about the infrastructure which enables us to get there, it is about the quality, it is about the design, it is about the idea, it is about being able to protect and patent this and that is why as a country we suffer.

We don’t seem to have global aspirations, I think one thing we can do as a manufacturing sector, as India, is to have aspirations of the globe, we tend to satisfy with being happy with what we have, we tell ourselves we have 1.3 billion people and that is a good enough market.

So when we say Indian-centric technology innovation, how do you look at the term? Is it a transient term, is it an objective or an endpoint?

Vikas: Let us take industry 4.0. There are model factories being set up in universities in Germany, where a manufacturer can get a taste of how the segment of one manufacturing is possible, or how can I use the same line to make a washing machine as well as an electric motorcycle. There are examples out there for manufacturers to go and see. Do we have something in India? No, maybe it is time for us to create something like that with the help of our government. Well, at the same time, you cannot copy and paste what is happening in the West, and use the same robot, that was working well in Germany, and bring it to India and hope that it will give you the efficiency, which you need. The processes, which one needs, are to be customised. vineetkapshikar@gmail.com

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tadka Modi is world’s 3rd most popular leader Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pipped the likes of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and United States President Donald Trump to emerge as the third most popular leader in the prestigious Gallup International’s annual survey ‘Opinion of Global Leaders’.

The only two heads of state who are above PM Modi in the ranking are German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the new French President Emmanuel Macron.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 29

INDUSTRY STALWART

Dreaming Big, The Indian Space Research Organisation is among the few government organisations that have had a series of successes in their missions. The civilian focus of its programmes, together with its use of spartan resources, has helped it achieve path-breaking space strides at lowest cost, recognised globally. Currently it is looking to get the industry engaged at an accelerated pace in its space programmes, and give them a global footprint. Hence, if 2017 proved to be good for space enthusiasts, 2018 can prove to be even better with the many exciting projects in the pipeline from India’s premier space agency.

By Pradeep Mathur hanks to their chalta hai attitude, the general impression about our government departments is that nothing works there. But there is an exception where everything seems to work. So much so that whenever we hear its name, we feel happy because it immediately lifts our spirits. Sometimes it’s for a launch into space from its 30 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

launch site. Sometimes it’s about PSLV, sometimes GSLV, sometimes a Chandrayan, sometimes a Mars Mission and sometimes about how it launched a whopping 104 satellites, the biggest such launch, in a single mission anywhere in the world!

Any guesses? Yes, you’re right. We’re talking about the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) which functions from Bengaluru as an agency of Government of India’s Department of Space, answerable directly to none else than the Prime Minister himself.

How does it keep breaking new ground, creating new benchmarks and always doing the nation proud?

The man who sits in the hot seat of ISRO, A. S. Kiran Kumar, was recently in the capital to attend a two-day international seminar jointly organised by FICCI, ISRO and ISRO’s commercial arm Antrix, on ‘Indian Space Programme—Trends & Opportunities for Industry’. The modest and completely down-to-

Delivering Big

Today almost 80% of the work related to launch vehicles is being done by them, which allows us to focus on core areas of vehicle engineering, vehicle integration, mission systems and quality assurance. But now we’re going to increase manifold the pace of our activities because we’ve reached a state where more number of launches are going to be done very soon” March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 31

INDUSTRY STALWART earth Chairman of ISRO spoke at length and answered many an uncomfortable question.

Exclusive excerpts:

How does ISRO keep doing so brilliantly despite being a government organisation?

For this, we need to give credit to the forefathers of our space programme—Dr Vikram Sarabhai and Prof. Satish Dhawan—who put the entire system and mechanism in place.

They made sure that this organisation works with the prime objective of bringing the benefits of space technology for the socioeconomic development of India. They were the architects of a system which focused on advanced space research that led to making the common man of India the principal beneficiary of space applications in various areas like agriculture, weather forecasting, disaster management, communication, navigation, education and health care, to name a few. If ISRO is doing well today, full credit goes to those visionaries.

Army generals often complain that Delhi’s bureaucracy doesn’t listen or understand their business which often slows down things. What has been your experience with the bureaucracy and the political class?

It has been nice because the way the whole programme started, being the technology of space, much of it was not known. Nobody knew how it’ll operate. So, it gave a kind of freedom to us because the technology was very different and not much of ground intervention was required.

All the governments have given us enough freedom to concentrate on our work and deliver.

So, to that extent, we’ve had the benefit of keeping at a distance from whatever you’re talking about.

The Department of Space has mostly been kept under the wing of prime ministers.

What questions are you asked by the top political leadership?

Having realised that space as a technology has

tremendous potential and having seen ISRO’s capabilities, they want to know how best we can help them address issues of governance they face on land. That is because in space, our satellites in an orbit are not bound by any state or national boundaries. We can see across things. So, as a result, we can get them a lot of information which is relevant, useful and helps them produce systems which can link the entire country.

What are the specific areas you’re working on?

We are currently looking at how we can make better communication systems and provide better and effective information for disaster management, planning and monitoring communication services, especially in rural areas, management of natural resources, monitoring of environment and healthcare services, among many others. As technology keeps evolving— whether it is in navigation, location-based services or even mobile applications—we’re trying to bring in all of this to address governance

The era of just the government working in the space sector is over. Today the global space market is highly competitive, and must be capitalised with industry partnerships and international cooperation”

32 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

issues. What’s really helping us is the encouraging response of the current government which is very keen to bring in new technologies to provide better services, particularly to rural India.

What’s the response of our bureaucrats?

Well, when we go to somebody and tell him that you can do your job better by following this method rather than how you’ve been doing it, his first reaction is: “Who are you to tell me? I know my job better.” And, that’s natural, but when we keep persisting, they realise, okay, there’s merit in what’s being suggested. Earlier, it used to take us a lot of time to convince people but the current government actually actively supports making use of space technology in very many ways because it’s more aware. So today we’re working with almost 60 central government departments and almost all state governments on various developmental projects including one on crop insurance for farmers.

How do you rate the Indian private sector?

We’ve been trying to associate our domestic industry in our developmental as well as operational activities from the beginning. In the initial days itself, when we were establishing a space system, they started taking an interest in the Indian Space Programme. At that time we were focusing more on indigenous development of space technology. But we also knew that soon there would be a need to establish the capacity and capability to carry forward the entire gamut of space system activities. We told them that the space business was very risky and the work we were doing wasn’t going to be commercially remunerative to them. For, we didn’t have large number of launches per year and they were few and far between, yet they were ready to take up the work. They took up the task, did the work and did it really well. So, I rate them very highly.

But the thing is that the world of space is rapidly changing with technological advancements and disruptive innovations. The key to success is to significantly reduce the cost of access to space in what will prove to be an immense opportunity for the Indian space industry. Though they’re doing good, players in our space industry are significantly short of capacity for our intended goals. ISRO would soon be doubling its launch frequency from about 10 to 20 in a year and therefore they need to really pull themselves up.

You’ve been handholding the industry for long, but can they really meet the challenge of global space majors? What is your experience with private players of the Indian space industry?

We had to work very hard with them and do a lot of quality control, but by its very nature, we knew that we had to work with the industry,

make sure that they understood the intricacies of the activity and support them. So, it has been a guru-shishya kind of relationship between ISRO and the industry, and if you talk to any of the industry people who’ve worked with ISRO, you’ll find that they’ve benefitted in capability and delivery. Today almost 80% of the work related to launch vehicles is being done by them, which allows us to focus on core areas of vehicle engineering, vehicle integration, mission systems and quality assurance. But now we’re going to increase manifold the pace of our activities because we’ve reached a state where more number of launches are going to be done very soon. The industry can now actually make use of this opportunity and start profiting by scaling up their involvement in our space programme.

What’s our status in terms of launches now?

The primary objective of ISRO’s activities is to address specific issues. Today, we have 42 satellites in operation, but what we need for the country is probably more than double this number in terms of its earth observation activities, remote sensing, communication and navigation requirements. This is important if we have to provide effective solutions to the country, its government and monitoring requirements. One of the key requirements for us is to not only increase the number of launches but also make them cost-effective. With this prime objective, we’re trying to engage the industry in a bigger way. Following the success of our complex scientific missions such as Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan, we’ve established ISRO in terms of its credibility. We have built robust partnerships with top international players and therefore the industry has an opportunity to capture even a portion of the global space market which is

actually a very significant market. While we ourselves as a government institution will not be looking at this, we want our industry to take this opportunity and move ahead in the larger global space showground.

Having worked hard to establish its credibility, why should ISRO voluntarily give up its claims on such a lucrative global market?

Being a government body, ISRO has some limitations. We have to work with limited resources and manpower, and therefore we have to rely on our industry and academia to be able to compete with the rest of the world. Please understand that the era of just the government working in the space sector is over. Today the global space market is highly competitive, and must be capitalised with industry partnerships and international cooperation. Over the years,

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tadka

India records highest number of domestic flyers India recorded highest number of domestic flyers in year 2017 carrying 11.71 crore passengers, registering a growth of 17.31% from the previous year. The record growth is attributed to low airfares aided by lower jet fuel price, growing disposable income of people, capacity addition and flying to new destinations under UDAN scheme.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 33

INDUSTRY STALWART

Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the great visionary, thought of how Sputnik’s new space technology could be brought to the benefit of all countries, when the Americans and Russians were really looking at who was more powerful and mightier in the military domain!” we’ve toiled hard to build our industry by handholding them to a level where they can proudly showcase their strengths, products and services to the world. Now the time has come when they must unleash their instinctive spirits towards acquiring a global footprint.

mercial arm, and FICCI, we’d like to help build a strong space ecosystem in India for such partnerships and investments.

What is roughly the numerical strength of the Indian space industry?

Many projects are in the pipeline, and there are plans for Chandrayaan-II as well, which is on track. We’re looking to launch it sometime in the first half of 2018, and it’ll mark India’s first landing on the moon. The objective will be to observe the lunar surface and send data to help analyse lunar soil by taking detailed 3-D maps of the moon’s surface. We’re working towards putting an orbiter, lander and the whole system in the lunar orbit in the first quarter of the New Year. The orbiter is getting ready and integrated. The lander and rover are also undergoing various tests. Besides this, discussions are also underway between India and Japan on making use of the space segment to provide inputs on weather monitoring parameters. But that’s not

Today, we have around 500 Indian companies— large, medium and small—from both the public and private sectors, who are contributing actively to space activities in the country. They serve us even with our flagship satellite launch vehicle, the PSLV, but we now want to elevate them from being a vendor to a partner who can be entrusted with assembling, testing and integrating satellites and launch vehicles, either individually or through consortiums. They’re already working on many ISRO projects, but they can also meet the demands of the global supply chain. There is lot of scope for investment in this sector and with the help of Antrix Corporation, our com34 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

What do you see as the next ISRO landmark that we can expect, going ahead?

all. A joint lunar mission with Japan is also on the cards, though currently it’s at the initial stage because clear objectives of the mission have not been decided yet. We also plan to carry out a mission to the Sun by 2019, to be named Aditya-1, and a manned space flight programme two years later. But let’s see how things pan out from here.

You often talk about the growing competition in the space market. We have a lot of competition from our neighbour China which has mastered the art of using space for both scientific and military purposes. Where do we stand vis-à-vis China?

Currently, we’re still engrossed with the issue of bringing our capabilities to a certain level.

But please remember: ours is a strictly civilian programme. We have not really looked at using space for other kinds of purposes. The resources that have been made available to us for our activities are peanuts, and you cannot compare

us with what’s happening in China. If you put together all the money that we’ve spent right from our inception till today, it’ll probably be less than a fraction of what they spend in a year!

So, we cannot be compared in that fashion because we restrict ourselves to meet our basic requirements only and don’t have resources for looking at such trajectories. We’re known for being the leader in low-cost satellite launches.

We’re now busy with building capacity within the organisation so that we can double the number of launches; we’re also exploring a joint venture entity to build launch vehicles so that we can further cut our costs.

What’s the response of global space agencies to ISRO’s achievements?

As we keep improving our capabilities, other players in the field also want to come and join us or leverage our global relationship so that the cost of doing things together for the global community also comes down. After our Mars and Chandrayaan missions, even the US space agency NASA wanted to work with us and we’re now doing a NISAR Mission in 2021, though it’s also true that earlier they were not willing to even consider any mission discussions with us. We’ve shown that we’re willing to work with global agencies, be it from Europe, America, Russia or China or the rest, for bringing in solutions that are relevant to global activities and for that we’re also continuously working hard to build our capacity in the required numbers. Keeping the mantra of PM Modi’s ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’, in May this year, we launched the South Asian satellite for the benefit of our South Asian neighbours. Earlier in February 2017, we successfully launched 104 satellites belonging to seven countries in the biggest such launch in a single mission anywhere. It created a sort of world record and made us proud. Of the 100-odd nano satellites, as many as 96 were from the United States and one each from Israel, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. So, you can see how even world agencies are increasingly showing confidence in our capability.

Looking back, how would you describe the saga and journey of ISRO to this date?

With over 155 missions including 60 launch vehicles and 90 satellites, we can proudly say that ISRO has now come of age since its inception in 1969 and in the last 48 years of our existence, we’ve toiled to develop and launch satellites for remote sensing, telecommunication, meteorology, navigation and space science and ensured their utilisation for the larger benefit of our people. But going back, in 1957, just about 10 years after independence, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik and opened up pos-

sibilities for the rest of the world to conduct a space launch, within six years of that big event, we launched our first sounding rocket from Thumba on November 21, 1963, to carry out some upper atmospheric research. That shows how serious we were about space research, all because of Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the great visionary, who thought of how Sputnik’s new space technology could be brought to the benefit of all countries, when the Americans and Russians were really looking at who was more powerful and mightier in the military domain!

He was also aware of what the British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke had said that if you put an object into space orbit at about 36,000 kms from the earth, it takes exactly 24 hours to go around the earth and the object remains ‘stationary’. Dr Sarabhai was keen that this technology of space be brought here to link the vast expanse of our country. In 1975, he was the man responsible for coming up with a programme called Satellite Instructional Television Experiment [SITE] where again by virtue of his friendship with American, Russian, French and German scientists, he could borrow from NASA an advanced ATS-6 technology satellite and conducted informational TV programmes for rural India the likes of which had not been done by anyone in the world! It was called the largest socio-technological broadcasting experiment which reached 2004 remote villages of 20 districts of six states [Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Rajasthan] of our country, using a technology which is very familiar today, Direct To Home, which at that time was called Direct to Community Centre. You can imagine its impact in 1975 when many of our villages had not even an electricity pole, and he used space technol-

ogy at that time to bring the latest farming and health practices and even entertainment programmes to the doorsteps of our rural farming community! This experiment of one year was enough to convince the government that space technology was the answer to the developmental needs of the country. Today if we’re harnessing space technology for national development, it’s all because of visionaries like Dr Vikram Sarabhai, Prof. Satish Dhawan, Prof. U. R. Rao and such other stalwarts who served ISRO with distinction. After watching how space technology can help them reach and be heard across the country, our politicians also understood its importance and now we don’t need much justification and convincing to make them understand the importance of space technology for achieving national developmental goals. mathurpradeep1@gmail.com

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tadka Indian girl’s world record singing in 102 different languages A 12-year-old Indian girl managed to break two world records after singing in 102 different languages during a concert that went on for 6 hours and 15 minutes in Dubai. Suchetha Satish is a seventh grade student at the Indian High School in Dubai. As per Guinness World Records, she holds the current record for singing in 76 languages at the Gandhi Hills, Andhra Pradesh, India on June 2-3, 2008.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 35

Interview

Be an

Eternal Optimist It is rare to find a corporate leader as humble as Sandeep Kulkarni. The CEO of ACG Worldwide has climbed every rung of the corporate ladder to reach the top. From negotiating with notorious trade unions to turning loss-making organisations profitable in record time, his journey to the top is as challenging as it is fascinating, and the lessons he learnt are lighthouses for anyone looking to steer the vast corporate ocean. On the sidelines of a convocation event at a leading B-school in Pune, Corporate Citizen chats with Sandeep about his beginnings, achievements and what it takes to be a success in life

By Neeraj Varty

Could you take us a little bit through your journey, from your education onwards to your first job?

I studied in Pune. In fact, I was in the first batch of Bharti Vidyapeeth, which today has become a very big institute. After graduating in production engineering, I started my career as a trainee engineer. I began first as a line supervisor in Bajaj Auto in 1986. It was an amazing training experience. I have also done my MBA from the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), which is in the city.

What was your takeaway from the stint at Bajaj Auto?

Around that time, Bajaj had gained infamy for its notorious union, and producing 200 vehicles under such difficult circumstances was an uphill task. Not only did I have to manage my work, I also had the task of getting work done while navigating the slippery slope of union relations. It was a challenging experience. I worked in the chassis shop and fabrication shop in the motorcycle division. At that time, Kawasaki had entered into a partnership with Bajaj. I was looking after the M80 chassis shop, which 36 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

was a bestselling vehicle at that time. Only the bare minimum resources and machinery were given, so we had to be very resourceful. Out of sheer necessity, I learned welding and even today I can do excellent welding due to that experience. The golden part of the Bajaj tenure was that I was able to turn around the manufacturing technology and motivate my team to ramp up the production four times in two months.

The most important thing I learned there was how to get maximum output from minimum input. The second thing I learned was to challenge myself continuously. V. M. Rao, who was our plant head at that time, was very appreciative of the fact that we scaled to that level. I feel that only when you start off on the shop floor can you truly understand the nitty-gritty of manufacturing. Unless you cut your teeth with the workers, you won’t learn how complex the industry is.

So what followed your tenure at Bajaj Auto?

After Bajaj, I applied for the position of a Quality Control Engineer at Thermax. Mrs Deshpande was the HR head then. She said my experience

wasn’t up to the mark. I assured her that I am a quick learner. My soon to be reporting manager then asked me what my confidence level about learning fabrication technology was? I told him it was 8/10. I guaranteed it in writing, that if I didn’t learn within the stipulated time, I would resign. He pondered over my answer and after 15 minutes, I got my appointment letter. Within 3 months, I was confirmed by the company.

Thermax was a completely new experience as I got an opportunity to interact with customers directly. I dealt with project teams and sales teams. I found their jobs to be very interesting.

After a while, I decided to change my career to sales. I realised it wouldn’t be easy, though.

I had observed that sales people were more flamboyant, well versed with English and much more confident. I had studied in a Marathi-medium school. I wasn’t that confident. However, I wanted to learn. Sales also involved having indepth knowledge about the domain. In water treatment, there was a lot of chemical processing involved. It is a complex job, so I began to learn as much as I could after completing my regular work. One of the managers I interacted with introduced me to his team. I tried to

Pics: Yusuf Khan

One of the things that I find lacking in millennials is not really the fault of the students but of the nature of upbringing today. We teach our children all the necessary skills to be successful but we don’t teach them to be good human beings. I think we should look to build our students not just academically, but also holistically

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 37

Interview pick up as much as I could through interactions with them.

That evening, after coming back from inspection, I was confronted by my existing manager.

By that time, my mind was made up. I told him about my ambition to change my career. First he declined, but after three months, he noticed that I was really serious and determined to change my career path, so he changed his mind and transferred me to the water treatment project with the condition that I work both for QA and the new role till they find my replacement. I readily agreed. However, I realized I may have bitten off more than I could chew. Doing nearly two different jobs one after the other was no walk in the park. It was very hectic for the next eight months. I used to do a shift of 13-14 hours daily. However, nobody forced me to do it. It was my initiative and it is one which has paid me back manifold in my career. Thermax is an outstanding place to learn and grow. A lot of what I am today, I owe it to Thermax.

What, in your opinion, has been the effect of ‘Make in India’ on the manufacturing sector?

I have been associated with the pharmaceutical industry in the past, and the effect of ‘Make in India’ initiative has made a huge impact there, as the majority of the medicines imported by countries like the USA come from India. In fact, there is not a single drug in the world that is not manufactured in India. I feel the defence sector too will benefit a lot from ‘Make in India’. If you ask me about the manufacturing sector specifically, any initiative on this scale takes some time to actually show effects. It would take a minimum of five years for the effects to actually show. I think the results in manufacturing sector will start to become more visible only by

38 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

2019-20. I applaud PM Modi’s initiative, and I have no doubt it will show yields. But one must be patient.

Do you think there is a gap between what is taught in MBA schools and what is required in the field?

Yes, there is. The challenges students face are really different. Failures teach you a lot more than successes. Learnings from failures make an everlasting impact. I have been recruiting trainees for a while now, but what I observe is that more often than not, freshers lack the training to last in the field. A fresh graduate has bookish knowledge, but not much practical experience, so they struggle in the real world. It is the industry’s fault as well. They should be

If you ask me about the effect of ‘Make In India’ on the manufacturing sector specifically, any initiative on this scale takes some time to actually show effects. It would take a minimum of five years for the effects to actually show. I think the results in manufacturing sector will start to become more visible only by 2019-20

contributing to the grooming of students. This is mutually beneficial—both to the students as they get to learn a lot more practical knowledge, and to industries, as the quality of trainees will inevitably rise. It’s a win-win situation.

However, The onus also lies on individuals to upskill themselves. I believe that a smart individual will always shine through in an interview. A good degree opens many doors, but eventually it depends on the individual on how they perform. There is a difference between qualification and knowledge, and application of knowledge. Knowledge is acquired every day in the life. Take Dhirubani Ambani for example, he wasn’t academically well qualified but he was extremely knowledgeable. Successful people are those who are able to apply their intrinsic skill-sets optimally in any situation.

As a CEO, what are the initiatives that you have taken?

For the last 15 years, I have been coaching and mentoring my teams and building bonds with my colleagues and customers. We use each other as sounding boards. The more you discuss with people, the better ideas you have. I am a transparent person. I encourage multiple viewpoints from my employees. This has brought synergy to all the organisations or even teams that I have led.

In 2000-2006, I was the country head of another company called Tranter, which is US based. They had entered India, but they weren’t able to get a foothold in the manufacturing sector here. The company was bleeding money from 1998 to 2000, and due to sustained losses they planned to shut down and exit India. Had that happened, I could have moved to another job quite easily, but several employees might have lost their jobs and I felt that should not be allowed to happen until every effort has been made to salvage the situation. One of the higher-ups from the company had come to India to tell us that we would be shut down. I met him in the evening. He said nothing could be done.

I asked him to give me till the morning to change his mind. He was extremely skeptical, thinking that there was nothing that I could say that would convince him to change his mind, but he indulged me anyway. I sat up all night thinking of a solution. The next morning, I met him and requested for a year's time to turn around the company. At that time, the annual losses were of around 2 lakh rupees. I told him that `2 lakh is a drop in the bucket for such a large company, and they would not be risking a lot by giving me a year to try to make the company profitable. On the other hand, if they did shut down, so many employees would be without a job. After a lot of convincing, he agreed, but on a few conditions. I was given a year to reverse losses or the company would

be shut down, but I would be given no extra funds, and we would have to manage with the revenue we managed to generate on our own, even for salaries. For three and a half months, I couldn’t pay salary to my staff, nor did I take a penny myself. But we persevered. At the end of the year, we made a net profit of 25 lakh, which was a remarkable turnaround by any stretch of imagination. People stood by me, and I in turn stood by them.

The second thing I am proud about is ACG Compaq, which I have been running for past 10 years, this was a part of the ACG Group that wasn’t doing that well earlier. There were challenges in customer engagement, working capital management, and product development.

There used to be a lot of customer complaints, untimely deliveries—basically a lot of issues. In a span of two years, we broke those barriers and turned the company around. We found that it was the lack of communication that was hampering the operations. There was no transparency. I ensured that the organisational culture of the company is changed from the grassroots to the top. That did the trick. In four years we has tripled the turnover and achieved five times the bottom line.

You worked 13-14 hours a day at Thermax, and even now. How do you balance work with personal life?

Work-life balance is not the amount of time you spend at either work or home, but the quality of time that is spent at both places. I believe in doing things that I enjoy the most, and I enjoy work as well as spending time with my family. I don’t try to differentiate between work and personal life. I let it blend.

There was a recent report in Forbes magazine, which claimed that there is a huge disparity between the CEO’s pay and the salary of employees down the chain. What is your opinion on that?

In my organisation, it’s not the case. People are well paid. We ensure that everyone is sufficiently compensated for their hard work, irrespective of designation. If the report is accurate, then it definitely a cause for worry. Everyone from the CEO to the shop floor worker is responsible for the success of a company, so there shouldn’t be a big disparity in pay in any industry.

What is your idea of relaxation?

I am a workaholic. So most of the time I find relaxation in work. If, however, I find I am not able to make any headway in an assignment, I stop working on it for the time being. But I also like to cook and clean my home. I am an avid movie buff as well. I like to switch off my cell and enjoy a movie with no distraction.

I would advise students to never give up learning.

They should always read newspapers, magazines, and management books, but their focus should be more on learning through actual experience, as well as the application of what they have learnt. Context and perspective are very important...

What advice would you give to students starting their career?

I would advise students to never give up learning. They should always read newspapers, magazines, and management books, but their focus should be more on learning through actual experience, as well as the application of what they have learnt. Context and perspective are very important to everything that someone learns.

What are the things lacking in millennials?

One of the things that I find is lacking is not really the fault of the students but of the nature of upbringing today. We teach our children all the necessary skills to be successful but we don’t teach them to be good human beings.

That includes me too. We get so engrossed in teaching our children the tools to make a career that we forget to shape their character.

In life, success also means the amount of humanity a person has. I think we should look to build our students not just academically, but also holistically. However, there comes an age when youngsters have to shape their own lives and take responsibility for their own actions.

Parents can only guide them till a certain age, not beyond that.

What is the philosophy you live by?

I am an eternal optimist. I always see the glass half full. As a leader, that is the most important quality. I would not have been able to turn around Tranter had I not been an optimist. Secondly, I believe in making mistakes, and learning from them. And finally, I feel asking for help is not a weakness, but strength. neeraj.varty07@gmail.com

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tadka

Rise in mobile phone addiction among Indians In India, 51% mobile users glance at their phones at least every 10 minutes without any notification prompts, according to a KPMG survey report ‘Me, My Life, My Wallet: A New Customer Engagement Framework’. Over 72% Indian respondents said they open their phones to relieve boredom and 88% use WhatsApp. While 41% in India trust online reviews, 80% enjoy technology and apps to automatically filter information.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 39

Sikkim is home to Mt. Khangchendzonga,

UNESCO WORLD MIXED HERITAGE SITE Khangchendzonga National Park

The first 100% Organic farming State in India

R.O. No. : 227/IPR/Pub/Dis/17-18

the third highest mountain peak in the world.

Pilgrimage Tourism

Adventure Tourism

Corporate Social Responsibility

The Unique Empl Police is normally connected with crime but Hyderabad’s dynamic Police Commissioner Mahender Reddy is very focused on changing the imagery of police. Historically, people have been avoiding police unless forced by circumstances —T. N. Muralidharan

The TMI Group and Hyderabad Police’s joint initiative which comprises an employment van that goes around neighbourhoods and commercial areas of Hyderabad, employs hundreds of unemployed youth—six days a week. It has become a successful CSR model jointly with a law enforcement authority. Excerpts of the interview with T. N. Muralidharan, founder and chairman of TMI Group 42 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

oyment Van

T

By Vinita Deshmukh

N Muralidharan is the founder and Chairman of the 26-year-old TMI Group, a 1000+ employee HR consulting & services firm with a pan-India presence. A first-generation entrepreneur, he has built the firm into one of India’s big-five firms for IT, BFSI, manufacturing and services sector. TMI Group has placed over 1, 00,000 managers in the Indian corporate sector over the last 26 years in IT, manufacturing and services sector. TMI Group with seven offices in India, works with over 4,000 of India’s leading companies in India and the Middle East.

Muralidharan is also the founder of TMI e2E Academy Pvt. Ltd. which is an NSDC (National Skills Development Corporation) Partner company, involved in graduate employability and employment and is tasked to provide employment and training to 0.5 million young Indians in the next seven years. He is a B.Tech from IIT-Madras and a postgraduate from IIM-Ahmedabad.

He speaks to Corporate Citizen on TMI’s social venture with Hyderabad Police’s unique reach out to the unemployed. E-van is an employment-vehicle equipped with state-of-theart technology necessary to build a database of information of jobseekers. It is equipped with all facilities as well as technology infrastructure

that is able to collect candidate data and also employer requirements and match them. The van moves to different neighbourhoods of Hyderabad where the density of youth population is the highest and further connects the appropriate candidate to the employer. TMI has successfully partnered with Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation, The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation as well as the Hyderabad City Police to implement multiple E-vans in the state of Telangana as well as Andhra Pradesh.

Tell us a bit about how TMI has partnered with the Hyderabad Police to further its initiative of providing employment through the novel concept of E-van.

Police is normally connected with crime but Hyderabad’s dynamic Police Commissioner Mahender Reddy is very focused on changing the imagery of police. Historically, people have been avoiding police unless forced by circumstances. Reddy started a variety of initiatives including the very comprehensive Hyderabad Police App. The idea is not to fear the police but to make you, the citizen a partner. So he launched a programme for employment. He decided to have a job fair and invited me to it. That was the first time when I saw how the police manage an event, which was admirable.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 43

Corporate Social Responsibility

Hyderabad Polics Commissioner Mahender Reddy with T. N. Muralidharan flagging off the Job Connect initiative with the unique e-van

Reddy asked me whether we could do it jointly. I told him I am ready to partner with anybody, as long as that party is ready to participate actively, not only with money but also with the mind.

So what is it that the police would contribute?

Reddy said that they would supply the bus, the bus driver and one attendant. The rest of it— like doing up the interiors and exteriors of the bus, any additional manpower and technology that would be required, would be our responsibility. Over and above, we would have to care for additional manpower required for the front end and back end of the software and the entire management of it. We agreed upon this model.

In the other two cities that is, Vizag and Vijaywada, where we also have a similar programme, there are three stakeholders. The first stakeholder is the one who supplies the van which is the Vijaywada MP. As for the operating cost of the van, which includes the diesel, almost 75-80% is paid by AP government while 20-25% is paid by KMI Group. However, in the Hyderabad model, there are only two stakeholders, Hyderabad Police and us. My actual contribution has gone up a little bit more.

But you said that the police supply only the van, driver and one more person.

Yes, but we jointly decide on the route plan. We 44 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

conduct employment-related events jointly and also together have the job fair around the van. The financial contribution is 40% from their side. However, their physical involvement is 50%—it includes the inspector and his team, working with the community and interacting with potential candidates—unlike the other two cities where 100% work is done by me only.

For six days a week, the van starts at 9:30-10 am, goes around various bus stations, railway station, and various places which has a sizeable youth population. The van, as it moves around, identifies jobless people and registers them

So this van operates every day?

Yes, for six days a week. It starts at 9:30-10 am, goes around various bus stations, railway station, and various places which has a sizeable youth population. The van, as it moves around, identifies jobless people and registers them. Also, the representative of the police and TMI come out of the van to talk to every small industry, be it a manufacturing unit, small restaurants around that area and so on, to check if they have any vacancy. They have an iPad where they register all the vacancies. Based on the requirement, the computer shortlists candidates who then get a notification through

their mobiles regarding the name of the company and its contact people and phone numbers. Employers get a list of 10 potential candidates.

It is like a dream…

That’s why it is called a job connect programme. You are connecting a jobseeker, shortlisting them on some selected criteria and giving them to the employees free of cost.

We realised that if you look at the employment market, there are four big segments; one is the government employment, second is the large corporates, third is the small and medium enterprises and fourth is the micro or tiny enterprises. The largest number of employment is happening only in the micro segment.

Do you think this will be perpetual campaign?

We want to scale up to the national level. In fact, Chandrababu Naidu wants it in every district.

As soon as we get the CSR partner, we will expand further. The Maharashtra government is

also interested in the van—we are negotiating and discussing with them.

There is no money involved for applying for job?

No, everything is free, the van is completely free.

Are you in competition with other online job portals?

The segment we are addressing, will not get jobs in those portals. There is a bulk of unemployment. I will give you some statistics. There are 12 million people who pass out every year and come into the job market. Out of 12 million, 6 million are graduates and 6 million are school dropouts. We are creating not more than 1-2 million jobs a year and those jobs are largely meant for graduates in the organised sector and in unorganised sector for Std X and Std XII pass outs. For anybody who gets a first job in this segment, the lifestyle changes. Hence, this is a very classic initiative .

All the skill development models, which you see in India, have one major flaw—every skill is acquired in the classroom; not in the training centre. In reality, skill is acquired in the first job because you do it in real time, with real expectations, with real outcomes.

How do you find the quality of the applicants that come in? What is the mettle that they are made of?

There are very fundamental challenges as they are from very poor families; they don’t have parental support system and their peer group is not very educated. Our first-level engagement is to provide them jobs. Many people don’t get jobs even through this system. The second part is to engage them in skill development programmes. For this, we want to identify such youths who have the cal-

ibre and send them to skill development. Third part is that after skill development, they come back to the same van and register for the job.

What is the age group of these people?

Majority of people who come in are between 20 and 30 years of age. The idea is to go into every small town and register every unemployed youth and connect real-time through a mobile phone, because the van communicates through a mobile phone. Nowadays everyone has got a feature phone; smartphones are not as common. Soon, many would be able to buy smartphones as and when Wi-fi becomes free.

Communication is through mobile phones?

Yes, either he gets a phone call or an SMS or you download an App and they can do the communication through it. They don’t have email IDs, and if they have, they don’t check.

What is the major segment where jobs are available?

I guess 75-85% are coming from the service industry. Manufacturing would be about 10%.

Today, there is a big market for Uber, the noted cab service as well as for the food delivery company, Swiggy, which wants to bring in more delivery boys for food. The selected candidates get

Vizag and Visakhapatnam are two other cities where Job Connect has become a popular initiative

paid around 15,000 per month. For a man who comes from a village, migrating to Hyderabad city is itself a transformation as he would have to shed off his rustic lifestyle and get used to time management, driving skills, be it the two-wheeler or the car, get used to the processes of work, be punctual and work hard for 14 hours a day. This is transformation at the micro level.

Is the credibility of a candidate also your responsibility? . Is there any background check or is it left to the employer?

Well, how much free service can you give? The only thing we can see is the Aadhar card number and probably we will ensure that everybody has an Aadhar card so that employers can check their background information.

With GST confusion, there are many small industries that are literally having some crisis. Has that had an adverse effect on this type of employment?

Yes, employment is a direct fallout of anything that happens in the cash economy. The majority of so-called tiny enterprises operate in cash. Anything which involves converting black economy to white economy is expensive; it takes some time. But at the same time, organisations need to run the facility means X number of people need to be there month after month. A restaurant, for example, has to run means it just has to run. There are challenges; a lot of micro enterprises are affected by cash economy. There is enough data to show that employment that has been affected significantly in small and medium sector more than large companies due to Demonetisation and GST. GST actually level plays for big players, so the small guys will be at the recieving end, for example a retailer, who never had paid GST now has to pay. vinitapune@gmail.com

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tadka

India’s Largest Movers of Household Goods Agarwal Packers and Movers Limited of Delhi (India) has been awarded the title of Largest Movers of Household Goods of India by World Book of Records (WBR), UK. Agarwal Packers and Movers Ltd. (APML) is a globally recognised logistics company, operating since 1987.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 45

Health

Workouts

Army Style

Physical fitness and rigorous workouts are but second nature to the army way of life, but, bringing in the same fitness rigours to students or corporate houses is nothing short of a battle. Braving such an odd is a National Defence Academy (NDA) alumnus, Colonel Vijay Bakshi, Associate Professor and the Head of the Department of the Personality Enhancement Programme (PEP) at the Institute of Finance and International Management, Bengaluru (IFIM-B). He spoke on the need for a structured fitness programme that he runs at IFIM-B and on the possibility of extending similar regimes within corporate houses. At 61 years, Col. Bakshi does not feel any older than 40 or 45 years and continues his fitness regime to look smart and fit, while inspiring others too By Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar “We all say that healthy body has a healthy mind! This is the philosophy that we too follow in the army and I have tried to bring in the same to the institute (IFIM-B) where we run a wellness programme called the Personality Enhancement Programme (PEP).”

The PEP comprises dual aspects of learning life skills and combining it with lifestyle habits to impact overall fitness. The uniqueness of the PEP is that it is mandatory and no student has the option to opt out of the group fitness activities at IFIM-B. “We are the only B-school in the country that encompasses a structured physical activity training component as part of our curriculum”, said Col. Bakshi.

“The structured fitness programme has been running for the last five years and is getting better; even so in the last two years since I joined the institute. We have refined and improved upon this programme. We have physical trainers and yoga instructors who make the students undergo these activities. We also engage 46 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

our faculty in supervising these activities. We normally have two batches running concurrently, so, while one batch does the first cycle, the second batch is engaged in the other cycle of activities.”

Earning Fitness Credits

“It does not matter whether you are a boarder or a day scholar. Ninety per cent students are residential, the balance 10% of the day scholars who despite staying in far-flung areas around Bengaluru, have to report for their morning physical fitness practice. It is a mandatory-assessed course and every student is allocated two credits for engaging in these activities. The PEP incorporates 40% ‘life’ skills and 60% of ‘lifestyle’ skills,” says Col. Bakshi The IFIM-B ‘Life Skills’ relate to the academic and curriculum part on aspects of improving one’s personality including oral and written communication, interpersonal skills, leadership traits etal. “Here, we also include re-

sume writing, how to participate in group discussions, personal interview, how to develop a good attitude, etiquettes and corporate social responsibility.”

The ‘Lifestyle Skills’ component includes physical training that is conducted for an hour in the mornings from 6:30 am. “We make our students go through four different activities as part of the curriculum in an academic year. The rota is prepared in such a way that students are required to perform and cover all of the four activities during their academic term. These are aerobic/zumba, gym, yoga and other sports and games. The students are free to choose any of the four activities per term with the proviso that at the end of the four years he/she has undergone all the stipulated activities. Girls too have to undertake all these activities, barring the frequent ‘army-style’ activities,” he added.

Aligning to Corporate Fitness

While Col. Bakshi has been an avid sportsperson all his life, his training at the NDA instilled more rigour and discipline and as current faculty member at IFIM-B, his ability to superimpose the same on campus is laudable.

“We divide our students into four houses – ‘Apache’, ‘Braveheart’, ‘Coronation’ and ‘Daredevil’ and conduct inter-house sports competitions. When you do that, you automatically can sense leadership traits emerging in some of them and this one guy becomes the team captain, leading to teamwork wherein everyone works around their own strategy and competes to emerge victorious. Similarly, even in corporate houses, if you have some kind of fitness and team building activities, it adds to leadership qualities. Some also endorse teams that partici-

“It does not matter whether you are a boarder or a day scholar. Ninety per cent students are residential, the balance 10% of the day scholars who despite staying in farflung areas around Bengaluru, have to report for their morning physical fitness practice.

It is a mandatoryassessed course and every student is allocated two credits for engaging in these activities. The PEP incorporates 40% ‘life’ skills and 60% of ‘lifestyle’ skills”

pate at national-level championships and some who support professional players, but these are an exception and not the rule!”

While a fitness regime in the 24x7 work schedule for corporate employees is an undying battle, Bakshi’s remedy for it is to go beyond mere providing of sports-related infrastructure and actually set in a structured and timed fitness regime.

“If not all, some corporate houses have started preventive health care and fitness workshops for their employees, while most of the infrastructure is made available, they fail to organise these activities in a structured manner. You would find youngsters and trainees availing of these facilities or maybe even participate in some form of sports and games; but those in the 35+ age category normally are happy to sit around their desk, are complacent or resigned to their sedentary habits.”

He suggests that companies should reserve lunch hours or other specified time period, akin to countries like Japan where each and every employee has to go through some kind of fitness activity.

“I know many executives who join the runners club; or engage in group activities that make one feel good and helps to enhance zeal to work. It will lead to better efficiency and productivity; you will have a good family life, no stress at all and this cumulatively will add to the overall well-being”. sangeetagd2010@gmail.com

CC

tadka India has maximum number of women pilots in the world India is the country with the maximum number of women pilots in the world, be it in Air India or Indian Air Force. Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha on Tuesday said that India recently recorded the maximum number of women pilots in the world.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 47

Campus Placement

Placement is only a milestone...

Aparna Jaikumar, who successfully got placed with Deloitte, believes that life is full of surprises, many of them unpleasant. But she is of the view that you can find the strength to overcome them with help from friends and family, from whom you also derive your value systems

By Joe Williams

F

or Aparna Jaikumar, placement was a minor hurdle that had already become a thing of the past. Her sights were now set on the future, with so many different types of people to meet that she could not wait to get out there and experience it all. Aparna was born in Kerala and brought up in Pune, the city she calls home. A postgraduate (PM and HRD) from one of the well-known colleges in the city, she’s all set to enter the corporate world with Deloitte. She was the head girl in school, and a cultural events and sports enthusiast. She is a trained Bharatnatyam dancer who performed her Arangetram in the 8th grade.

She did her schooling from Vidya Bhavan High School and Junior College, Pune, followed by a B.Sc in Computer Science and a double graduation from Nowrosjee Wadia College. Only daughter of P. Jaikumar and Rema Jaikumar, she was a favourite of all her teachers. For Aparna, Elston 48 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

Sir and Mridul Kanthinath Sir were more of a friend than teacher who made studies fun due to their emphasis on pure learning rather than rules. Now, entering the workforce, she would like nothing more from her employers than the opportunity to learn further.

entire process of aptitude tests was “disturbing”, but she set aside the negative thoughts and came out shining through. “After placement, it’s like a huge burden has fallen off your shoulders. Everything seems a little lightweight after that. Yes, the environment during placements is intense and competitive but at the end of it, it’s like you can look back and say to yourself the first milestone has been achieved and there’s a long way to go,” said Aparna while adding, “Aptitude was my greatest fear, more so because of Quants.”

Roller coaster placement…

Credit for her success

The placement process has been a roller coaster ride. She got placed in the first company she applied for. Although the result was good, the thought of getting rejected had worried her. The

She attributes her success to her family which includes her grandparents, and of course, her friends. “They’ve dealt with all my tantrums and mood swings during the two years and I am glad they’re all a major part of my life”.

Aparna with friends

Aparna with parents

strength to overcome them which come from friends and family.

Tricks for success…

Practise aptitude, learn the art of public speaking. Say no when you disagree. Don’t be afraid to voice your opinion irrespective of how it will be received. Never lie during the interview which is like committing suicide, and never forget to have fun and enjoy.

Pics: Shantanu Relekar

The biggest inspiration…

“My biggest inspiration has been my family. They taught me the art of patience. They taught me that in a crowd full of competition it’s okay to take a pause and reflect on your actions… They taught me to be accountable for my actions and not to blame anyone else for whatever good or bad that is happening” Values of life…

Values make a big difference. They are the building blocks of a successful life. For Aparna, school and college is where she cultivated hers.

“I think the values that you learn at home first, and school and college next, like respect for yourself and others, love, care and friendship, competing with yourself rather than the world

and keeping in constant touch with technology and other changes taking place around you, will take me a long way in this journey.” She is yet to figure out the happiest day of her life. “Every day spent with your loved ones is worth cherishing. Still, I’m looking forward to the happiest day of my life. Life is all about surprises, there will be hindrances but there is also hope and

My biggest inspiration has been my family.

They taught me the art of patience. They taught me that in a crowd full of competition it’s okay to take a pause and reflect on your actions.

Go ahead only if you feel what you’re doing is right. Do not do it because people are doing it, or because it’s the trend. They taught me to be accountable for my actions and not to blame anyone else for whatever good or bad that is happening.

Yes, during my school and college days, getting a decent job was always in the back of my mind, and the two years have only moulded and made me a much stronger personality.

Joe78662@gmail.com

CC

tadka

India tops Big Data and Analytics adoption in APAC When it comes to Big Data and Analytics, Indian enterprises are adopting the technologies to improve operations and enhance customer experience at a greater pace than the rest of the Asia-Pacific (APAC) countries, as per Oracle.

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 49

Loved & Married too

Of shared priorities and singular vision

It is not often these days that a college romance fructifies into a wedlock. Corporate Citizen unlocks the story of love that has culminated into marriage, for we believe in the stability of a relationship and family unit.

We bring to you real-life romances that got sealed in marriage

They cut short their stay in Silicon Valley, USA, the ultimate techie dream, for the warmth of home, family and togetherness—which happened to be Pune. Several years hence, neither Nilambari Shirodkar (senior engineering manager, system verification, IBM) nor her significant half Amit Shirodkar (senior principal engineer, Western Digital), have any regrets. That, they say, is the legacy and beauty of clear-cut priorities. Eight-year-old Ananya completes their circle of joy By Kalyani Sardesai

T

his love story wasn’t scripted in college but on the competitive yet friendly campus of Frontier Computers Pvt. Ltd. It was the year 2000—an exciting and promising turn-of-the-century moment with great tidings for careers in software, computers and technology.

Freshers both, Nilambari Masurkar and Amit Shirodkar shared not just the initial days of adjustment, but also hung out together. Little by little, they got to know each other. He loved her honesty, her utter lack of pretence. As for her, she was intrigued by the fact that despite being this

50 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

gold medallist from MIT college, Pune, he wore his scholarship lightly. “There were no airs about him; he was easy to talk to, did not show off at all,” reminisces Nilambari. “Sure, we are different personalities altogether, but there is a core area that is common. Honesty, integrity, transparency and family are important to us,” shares Amit.

The differences were likeable too. He is a man of few words, reserved and analytical. She is fun-loving, social, the life of the party.

from Pune. The families didn’t know each other; besides they felt, they were just too young to take such a big step. “However, he was very positive and very sure about our relationship and pushed for it,” she says. Nevertheless, both were young, studious and ambitious. “There was a lot to be done; GRE, TOEFL, the works. So we gave those exams together.”

They both found jobs in the Bay Area of California, Silicon valley, to be precise.

Love blossomed, slowly but steadily

The building blocks of a relationship

His family wasn’t too pleased, despite the common Marathi roots. She was from Baroda, they

At 24, when most people still have to figure out what they’d like to do, the Shirodkars were mar-

ried and settled in Silicon Valley with all the highs that their new life had to offer—and just each other to share the lows. “Those early days of marriage were a godsend, because there we were, only the two of us, in a foreign country, doing the best we could, with each other’s help,” says Nilambari.

Both discovered not just their inner reservoirs of strength, but also each other in the process.

The commuting time was immense, the rents were high and so were the pressures at work.

Besides, in the US, you’ve got to do the housework yourself.

“There were no maids or protective elders telling us what to do. This was especially difficult when most of our peers were enjoying the carefree single life,” she says.

Growing up was hard to do—but it sure brought them closer.

“I would cook. He would help with the laundry, dishes and grocery shopping. It was a hectic life, but it taught us a lot,” they say.

Around this time, 9/11 happened and several techies, including Amit, lost their jobs in the aftermath of the horror. “I worked long hours, while he was home. But he was hugely positive and broad-minded about it, and did not complain much,” says Nilambari. He did find a new job in a couple of months though. But like every low, this too, brought important learnings in its wake.

Three and a half years later, in spite of all the glamour and colour of a life in the US, including their favorite part, travelling long distances by car exploring the country—the couple decided that it was India calling for them.

“His parents were ageing, similarly my brother was shifting abroad. We carefully weighed the

There were no maids or protective elders telling us what to do. This was especially difficult when most of our peers were enjoying the carefree single life — Nilambari Shirodkar pros and cons and decided we would rather be home, close to friends and family. It was not a tough call to make, because we were both clear as to what was important to both of us,” they say.

Sure, corporate careers are demanding and stressful, but if you know what your end goal is, decision making is easy. “For us, family bonds matter over all else,” says Nilambari.

From strength to strength

As of today, the couple (now 42) lives in Baner, Pune with their eight-year-old daughter Ananya.

Life is busy with both of them working never-

theless, they are firm about balancing work and family. Quality time consists of watching movies together, outings with the extended family that gives Ananya the chance to meet her cousins and travelling to different, exotic places, during vacations.

Both agree that it’s the little things in life that are actually matter. “Anything that you do together with complete dedication, being sure to be present in the moment, qualifies as quality time,” says Amit. “It could be something as small as frying fish together, with Ananya and me helping out,” he says.

Conflict management is an important zone in any relationship, smiles Nilambari, “We conflict over managing conflict. I like to talk things out there and then, but he avoids confrontation of any kind,” she says.

On a serious note, Amit says the trick of ensuring fights don’t get out of hand is for one person to step back at just the right time. “Whatever you do, don’t go to bed angry or carry fights forward to the next day,” he say.

give her the time she needs,” says Nilambari.

Both parents bring different things to the table; she is firm about her nutrition, while he wants her to take her hobbies more seriously. “Nowadays he is the more worrying parent, whereas I am the calmer one,” she says.

At the end of the day, both simply want her to do her best, and grow into a respectful, well-balanced person who is able to gellwell with others around her.

Both have simple advice to offer young corporate couples. “Giving each other the space to grow, and being broad-minded enough to accept the other person’s ambiRespecting each other’s tions and dreams definitely helps,” strengths and working says Nilambari. “Talk to each othas a team er, communicate. Most problems have a solution.”

Doing little things Amit believes that a martogether riage, like any other successful Discussing what exactly relationship, is all about one is important to the two of another’s strengths. “For examyou. Is it family? Or is it ple, Nilambari is a multi-tasker making enough money and very organised. This works to retire at 45? Decide very well for us an unit. Similarand work towards the ly, if your spouse is good at one Bringing up baby goal accordingly area of your lives, by all means, Having Ananya definitedon’t begrudge them that. Look ly changed the tempo of Looking beyond gender beyond stereotypical gender their lives and ensured they roles roles to see what works for you. worked things around her.

Giving each other both If she is great at investments, by “Our day begins with us time and space all means, let her look after the sitting at the breakfast table finances. Besides, there is no rule with Ananya. We are able to that says that men can’t help out talk to her; it’s important to at home,” smiles Amit. “At the end of the day, know all that is happening in her little world, be teamwork rules.” it at school or with her friends. By the time she is kalyani.sardesai@gmail.com home from school, I am back too, and am able to

Mantras of Marriage

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 51

Survey

What will Jobs in India be by 2022?

The nature of jobs in India is changing exponentially. Jobs which existed a decade back are now obsolete, whereas new categories of jobs are being created each year. In such a volatile scenario, what does the future of jobs hold for young India? With a view to provide answers, NASSCOM, along with FICCI and EY have prepared the Future of Jobs in India Survey.

Corporate Citizen brings you the results Compiled by Neeraj Varty 52 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

The

two key factors that challenge the nation today are, the 17 million new entrants into the workforce year-on-year against the 5.5 million jobs created; and the speed and scale at which the disruptions are occurring. The impact of technology on jobs in India has been evident for some time in the financial services and IT area. The fourth industrial revolution that we are currently witnessing is being defined as the new age of automation, driven by unprecedented technological advances. The pace of automation and its scope continues to grow exponentially. As entire families of work activities get increasingly automated, the implications on the global economy are manifold – changing nature of work, job roles being redefined, a certain class of job roles becoming redundant leading to growth in new occupations and new roles. These changes are ushering in a new age of learning—continuous, agile and on-the-go, both urgent and imperative for the current workforce and the emerging pipeline of talent. It also raises a whole host of questions—What jobs are getting automated? What are the implications for the organisation and the workforce? What new skills are needed in the future? How should individuals shape themselves for this future to remain relevant?

Over the next few years, many other factors such as the levels of FDI flow, impact of exponential technologies on offshoring, increase/decrease in overseas job opportunities for the Indian labor force, speed of adaption of emerging technologies, demands resulting from environmental sustainability, rising middle class and a high proportion of young population, would be some of the other key determinants of future of jobs in 2022.

Impact of primary forces on jobs - 2022 The future of jobs in 2022 in India will be determined by the country’s response to the inevitable impact created by the interplay of three primary forces—globalisation, demographic changes and the adoption of Industry 4.0 exponential technologies by Indian industries. The impact of these three primary forces is expected to be disruptive on sectors such as IT-BPM and BFSI and relatively lower on core manufacturing sectors such as apparel and leather.

Globalisation

Impact on jobs in 2022 Demographic changes

=

High Next 5 years

Adoption of Industry 4.0/exponential technologies

Medium Low

=

IT and BFSI Auto and retail Apparel and leather

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 53

Survey Workforce mix – 2022

9%

37%

would be deployed in new jobs that do not exist today

54%

would be deployed= in jobs that have = radically changed skill sets

will fall under unchanged job category

The adoption of exponential technologies is disrupting industries by creating new markets. The rapid embracing of these exponential technologies by Indian companies has the potential to transform highly unorganised sectors, such as transportation, maintenance, food catering, and software development services, into organised ones. Its impact will be dual—the share of the organised sector will increase in the economy, and new jobs will be created. With their perceived inefficiencies, sectors such as education, healthcare and the farm and allied sectors also present enormous opportunities for deployment of exponential technologies.

The changing job landscape in the country

Number of jobs (nos)

Over the last five years, with the Indian economy recording an average 6% GDP growth, per capita incomes have been rising and poverty levels' dropping GDP growth rate and incremental jobs created in nine key sectors

4,50,000 4,00,000 3,50,000 3,00,000 2,50,000 2,00,000 1,50,000 1,00,000 50,000 0 2012

2013

Incremental jobs created The positive developments in the context of the slowdown in employment in core organised sectors, can be best explained by the three trends driving transition in the job landscape.

• Decoupling of growth and incremental job creation in core sectors.

• Increasing absorption of excess labour from farms into sectors other S. No. 1.

Sectors/sub-sectors

Employment elasticity (%)

Overall manufacturing

0.29 to 0.33

• Apparel

0.79

• Leather and leather products

0.64

• Motor vehicles and trailers

0.58

2.

Mining and quarrying

0.52

3.

Construction

1.13

4.

Utilities

0.04

5.

Trade and transport

0.19

6.

Finance and real estate

0.66

7.

Other services

0.08

54 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

2014

2015

`

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

2016

GDP growth rate than organised ones (in contractual employment) and into self-employment/micro entrepreneurship opportunities.

• Emergence of new employment opportunities enabled by Internet and exponential technologies.

Employment elasticity for various sectors Companies are squeezing out inefficiencies in their supply chains through redesign of business processes and their enablement by optimisation technologies. During 1993-2012, for the aggregate employment estimates for India, the elasticity of labour to output was around 0.2 (point elasticity). This meant that for every 10% change in real GDP there was a 2.0% change in employment. This marked a significant decline from the 1980s (point 4 elasticity 0.41 ). The employment elasticity to output is further expected to decline in the coming years with the gradual adoption of exponential technologies by Indian companies.

The top 20 countries with online workers India is the country with the largest number of online workers. India today has the three largest startup ecosystem with 4,750+ tech startups as of December 2016. Of these, 1,400+ new tech startups were set up in 2016. The start-up sector

has been able to attract around US $4 billion. Investors are looking at e-commerce, fintech, healthtech, edutech and agritech models. Cloud and big data/ analytics were the key focus areas for new startups in 2016.

India Bangladesh United States Pakistan Philippines United Kingdom Ukraine Canada Romania Egypt Germany Russia Kenya Nigeria Italy Spain Sri Lanka Serbia Ireland Macedonia 0% 2.5% 5% 7.5% 10% 12.5% 15% 17.5% 20% 22.5% 25% Software development and technology Sales and marketing support

Creative and multimedia Writing and translation

Clerical and data entry Professional services

The top online occupations – demand

Software development and technology Creative and multimedia

An analysis of online occupations measured by the online labour index projects reveals that software development and technology have the highest share, followed by the creative and media sector.

Writing and translation Clerical and data entry Sales and marketing support Professional services 0 United States Australia

Canada India

5

10

15

20

Other Americas Other Asia and Oceania

25

30

United Kingdom All Africa

35

40 Other Europe neeraj.varty07@gmail.com

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 55

Bollywood Biz

Bollywood Actresses who

Married Tycoons

When one thinks of Bollywood actresses, one presumes they would eventually get hitched to a Bollywood star or at least someone from the film fraternity. While many actresses do marry film stars there are a few divas who marry someone from the corporate world. Corporate Citizen lists some Bollywood star actresses who married tycoons

By Neeraj Varty

Mumtaz Spouse – Mayur Madhvani Veteran actress, Mumtaz married millionaire, Mayur Madhvani in 1974, when she was holidaying in London. The couple got to know each other for two years before getting hitched on May 29, 1974.

After marriage, the actress bid adieu to the industry to stay with her husband in Mombasa and London. The actress said she never regretted her decision of marrying at the time when she was at the peak of her career.

56 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

Shilpa Shetty Spouse – Raj Kundra Shilpa Shetty, and the London-based businessman, Raj Kundra, first met during a business meeting for the promotion of Shilpa’s perfume brand, S2. They immediately became fast friends, and eventually fell for each other, and the two got married on November 22, 2009.

Tina Munim Spouse – Anil Ambani The love story of the yesteryear actress, Tina Munim, and the Chairman of Reliance Group, Anil Ambani, is no less than a romantic Bollywood movie’s script. The business tycoon first spotted Tina at a wedding, and it was love at first sight for him. They met sometime later in Philadelphia where he asked her hand in marriage, but she turned him down. They met again in 1986, and it was at that time, when Tina also fell in love with Anil. But, the Ambani family did not approve of this match. Family pressure separated the couple for four long years. But eventually, love conquered all the obstacles and the two finally tied the knot in February 1991.

Asin Thottumkal Spouse – Rahul Sharma Bollywood diva Asin Thottumkal married her longtime boyfriend, Rahul Sharma on January 19, 2016, in an intimate ceremony in Delhi. Rahul is the cofounder and CEO of Indian consumer electronics company, Micromax. The two were introduced to each other by the Bollywood couple, Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna.

The two had a Christian as well as a Punjabi wedding on the same day, so as to respect each other’s religions.

neeraj.varty07@gmail.com March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 57

Mobile apps

The Best Teaching Apps As education becomes more dynamic, teachers too have their work cut out for them. Not only do they have to stay ahead of the curve to ensure that students get the best learning experience, they also have to evaluate the progress of each individual student. To make their work easier, Corporate Citizen brings the handiest teaching apps which will make the job of a teacher way simpler

By Neeraj Varty

ClassDojo

Edmodo

Remind

Tapucate

ClassDojo is a virtual classroom environment. It allows teachers, students, and parents to interact with one another. Teachers can use the platform to send alerts to parents, send feedback to students, and even accept assignments. It’s a way to help keep everybody communicating with one another. The best part of the platform is that it’s free for everybody. It’s easy enough to use. You set up the classroom on the platform. From there, get the parents to download the app. Then you're ready to go. It’s one of those teacher apps that is a must-try.

Remind is a communication app. It’s designed for educational communication purposes. Teachers can schedule reminders that go out to every student and parent. This can help you remind students and parents to get report cards signed, get assignments turned in, and other activities and events. You can also directly contact students or parents if needed. It has support for 70 languages. Remind is also very easy to use. This is a great alternative for teachers who want to communicate, but don’t want to commit to a virtual classroom. It’s one of the essential teacher apps.

58 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

Edmodo is another virtual classroom app but this one goes the whole nine yards. Using it, you can create a virtual classroom where students can post and turn in assignments, collaborate with teachers (and parents can be included too), track progress, and everyone can upload files, photos, and videos. There is also a built-in grade book. There are also features to help parents, teachers, and students communicate better. Like ClassDojo, it’s entirely free to use. It’s definitely one of the best teacher apps.

Tapucate is one of the more powerful teacher apps. It’s a classroom management app with a lot of features. It comes with a gradebook, support for multiple classes, an attendance tracker, and more. There is a slight learning curve at the beginning. However, it’s quite easy to use once you get used to it. You can also store info like parent phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses and more. That’s handy just in case you need to get a hold of their parents. neeraj.varty07@gmail.com

Claps & Slaps Corporate Citizen claps for AI (Air India) Flight Commander - Captain Anupama Kohli who averted a mid-air collision, saving the lives of around 261 passengers aboard the respective flights Her presence of mind saved not only Air India’s AI 631 flight for Bhopal with its 109 passengers but also those of Vistara’s UK 997 Pune-bound aircraft from Delhi, carrying 152 passengers.

Interestingly, at the time of the incident, the Vistara flight too was being flown by a lady co-pilot as the male commander in charge of the Vistara had taken a restroom break. A major tragedy was averted over the airspace in Mumbai on February 7, 2018 after an AI flight averted a mid-air collision with a Vistara plane flying in from the opposite direction. The two planes reportedly came as close to a mere 100-feet distance between them. Captain Anupama thwarted a likely collision by a margin of just a few seconds.

An experienced pilot, she has been flying passenger planes for over 20 years remained calm and took the muchneeded sensible action. As per official reports, “She saw the Vistara aircraft approaching in her direction and could hear the ATC asking UK 997 “why are you on this level?” The Vistara lady pilot then told ATC that “no, you told me to come to this level’.” During this mid-air verbal confusion between the ATC and Vistara lady pilot, AI Captain Anupama was monitoring all this. When she saw the Vistara plane closing in from her left side right towards her, the red sign went up in her cockpit and she got to know that the Vistara plane was crossing her level ‘then’. Taking cue of the automatic resolution advisory (RA) ‘climb, climb, climb’. Captain Anupama immediately and very swiftly maneuvered the aircraft to climb and turned right to steer clear of the Vistara plane.” “…The Vistara aircraft continued descending. so, finally, when our pilot saw the warning (the Vistara aircraft breaching the mandatory separation) on board, she just took the corrective action and turned the aircraft from the collision point.” While the ATCs handling both the flights remain suspended, this episode flags in a positive note to gender biases in an industry dominated by male bastion.

60 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

Corporate Citizen slaps the archaic and discriminatory attitudes prevailing in society even today Where one survey data indicates that close to two-thirds of the population in rural Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Rajasthan continue to practise the brazen thought process on ‘untouchability’ and almost half the population in the same area is also opposed to Dalit and non-Dalit Hindu intermarriages. A new survey on social attitudes indicates that “despite decades-old laws criminalising untouchability, it appears to be practised more by women as close to two-thirds of women respondents confessed to “self or family member” practising untouchability in rural Rajasthan (66%) and rural UP (64%).”

Conducted by the University of Texas, the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, the survey sheds light on “explicit prejudice” and reveals attitudes that have been hard to come to terms with. The survey – ‘ Social Attitude Research, India (SARI)’, was conducted through representative phone surveys in Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and UP, focuses on discrimination against Dalits and women and a paper based on the survey has been published in the January 6th edition of the Economic and Political Weekly. A team of national and international surveyors made a comparative assessment on surveys that indicated deeply personal but important social attitudes, also those between blacks and whites in the U.S., on the basis of research some 45 years ago and have drawn some parallels. They point out that, “fewer White adults in the U.S. supported laws against marriages between Blacks and Whites between 1972 and 2002 than Indians who supported laws against inter-caste marriages now.” According to India’s Special Marriage Act of 1954, inter-caste and interfaith marriages were made legal, so that civil marriage would be recognised by the state allowing intercaste unions, and was meant to abolish the caste system. On Dalits and non-Dalit Hindus and inter-marriages, the range of responses, according to the survey, vary between 60% in rural Rajasthan and 40% in UP, being opposed to inter-caste marriages. The respondents also favoured a law which would prohibit inter-caste marriages. Diane Coffey, at the University of Texas in Austin, finds this surprising and the range “narrow”, as on an average Delhi respondents has had five years of ‘more’ education and education is seen as a “liberalising force”.

While the survey establishes some of the reasons for social inequality, Coffey has concluded that “what stands out about these numbers is that they are representative. Representative surveys tell us what is true on an average about a population”.

(Compiled by Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar)

My First Boss

He had time for everyone!

Dr Tharoor is truly someone who cares about people.

Why do people think the way they do? What drives them? Perhaps it is this side to him that makes him a writer and good listener says Reeti Roy, Founder and CEO at Aglet Ink, who had him as her first boss

By Reeti Roy

“I

worked with Dr Shashi Tharoor as his Legislative Assistant in the year 2012-2013. A Legislative Assistant to a Member of Parliament (a more commonly used acronym would be LAMP) is typically a young Indian with a keen interest in Public Policy and Government Legislation. An initiative of PRS Legislative Research, the LAMP Fellowship places fellows with Members of Parliament across different parties. A fellow’s individual political ideology or preference is not taken into account when they are placed with Members of Parliament.

I first met Dr Tharoor at his office in Lodhi Estate. Priya Thachadi Soman, who was Manager of the LAMP fellows last year, accompanied me there. I remember Dr Tharoor looking at my CV and saying, “My dear, you have excellent credentials.

Keep it up.” I was extremely nervous when I had walked into the office with Priya, and his assuring words assuaged my fears.

But most importantly, I remember walking into his office several times during lunch break to answer a question only to find him asking me, “ Did you see that brilliant six?

Absolutely Spectacular!” Anyone who knows me can vouch for the fact that I have probably not missed watching a cricket match since age nine. I discovered to my delight that my first ever Boss also shared the same love for the game.

Dr Tharoor is truly someone who cares about people—“What are people’s motivations? Why do people think the way they do?” Perhaps it is this side to him that makes him a writer.

He is a good listener, and unlike many people in power who cut off their juniors’ sentences even before they can complete it, Dr Tharoor

listens patiently. He is also extremely forthcoming in his views, even though he is very nice about it.

On my first ever assignment, I made a very major mistake. The mistake I had made was due to a lack of understanding of how the Parliamentary System works, in practice. Dr Tharoor came back from Parliament, sat down with me and explained where exactly I had gone wrong. He was firm with me, but extremely polite. That was true of my entire year of working with him. When I went wrong, he told me where exactly I went wrong, and when I did well, he encouraged me and pushed me to do even better.

Over the course of the year, I helped Dr Tharoor with many assignments including one where I helped him draft a response to someone who wrote to him saying, “Feminists will ruin the country!” I distinctly remember the response: “The only thing feminists are attempting to do is to bring about equality in this country.” It was heartening to see a male politician, not taking potshots at a woman for a change.

I learnt many things from Dr Tharoor during my year as his assistanthow any research conducted must be thorough and how sources must be double-checked; how everything one writes must be backed up by solid research and how to remain cheerful and smiling even after a very tiring day.

When I graduated from the Fellowship, Dr Tharoor handed me my award. The next day, I opened my twitter account to see that Dr Tharoor, with his characteristic wit, had put up a picture of me with him saying, “Thanks Reeti, for all your help to enlighten me as my LAMP!” What I liked most about Dr Tharoor was that he seemed to have time for everyone, even school students who landed up at his doorstep without prior notice and asked him for an hour of his time to interview him for a school project. I remember someone reaching out to him on twitter, telling him about a new social business that he had started. After a couple of twitter exchanges, the young man asked Dr Tharoor if he was willing to meet. Despite his incredibly busy schedule, Dr Tharoor took out time for the young man, listened to him patiently and gave him valuable advice for his time.

(As told to Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar)

I had made a major mistake due to a lack of understanding of how the Parliamentary system works, in practice. Dr Tharoor came back from the Parliament, sat down with me and explained where exactly I had gone wrong

March 16-31, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 61

DrDr(Col.) (Col)A. A Balasubramanian

From The Mobile

A Blind Man’s Love

A man married a beautiful girl. He loved her very much. One day she developed a skin disease.

Slowly she started to lose her beauty. It so happened that one day her husband left for a tour. While returning he met with an accident and lost his eyesight. However, their married life continued as usual. But as days passed she lost her beauty gradually. Blind husband did not know this and there was not any difference in their married life. He continued to love her and she loved him very much.

One day she died. Her death brought him great sorrow. He finished all her last rites and wanted to leave that town. A man from behind called and said, now how will you be able to walk all alone? All these days your wife used to help you. He replied, ‘‘I am not blind. I was acting, because if she knew l could see her ugliness it would have pained her more than her disease. So I pretended to be blind.

She was a very good wife. I only wanted to keep her happy’’.

Moral: Sometimes it is good for us to act blind and ignore one another’s shortcomings, in order to be happy.

No matter how many times the teeth bite the tongue, they still stay together in one mouth. That is the spirit of FORGIVENESS. Even though the eyes don’t see each other, they see things together, blink simultaneously and cry together. That’s UNITY. Alone I can ‘Say’ but together we can ‘Talk’.

Alone I can ‘Enjoy’ but together we can Celebrate.

Alone I can ‘Smile’ but together we can ‘Laugh’.

That’s the BEAUTY of Human Relations. We are nothing without each other.

62 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

Message from the Vice Chancellor of Mumbai University

Nothing should be wasted A disciple of Buddha, said, “Oh Master! I have a request to make.”

Buddha: What is it, tell me.

Disciple: My robe is worn out. It is no longer decent enough to wear. Please, may I have a new one?

Buddha looked at the disciple’s attire, found that the garment was absolutely in tatters, and really needed replacement. So he asked the storekeeper to give a new robe to this disciple.

The disciple offered obeisance to the great master and left the room.

Buddha kept thinking about the incident and felt that he had perhaps missed an opportunity to teach a valuable lesson to the disciple. So he went to the disciple’s quarters to talk to him.

Buddha: Are you comfortable in your new robe? Do you need anything else?

Disciple: Thank you Master. I am very comfortable and do not need anything else.

Buddha: Now that you have a new one, what have you done with the old one?

Disciple: I have used it to replace my worn out bedspread.

Buddha: What did you do with the old bedspread?

Disciple: Master, I am using it as a curtain

on my window.

Buddha: Did you discard your old window curtain?

Disciple: Master, I tore it into four pieces and am using them as napkins to handle the hot pots and pans in the kitchen.

Buddha: What about the old kitchen napkins?

Disciple: We are using them as mops to wash and wipe the floor.

Buddha: Where is the old mop?

Disciple: Lord, the old mop was so tattered that the best we could do was to take all the threads apart and make wicks for your oil lamp. One of them is presently lit in your room.

Buddha was content. He was happy that His disciples realised that nothing is useless. We can find a use for everything, if only we want to!

If all of us were to practise the habit of thrift, we can preserve the non-renewable resources for our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren as our forefathers so thoughtfully did for us.

Let us vow together to leave at least one monument for our children: The Earth!

The real measure of a man’s wealth is what he has invested in eternity.

One-liners about India those are completely true:  If you want to know how divided we are, just look at matrimonial page of our newspaper  India is running the software of tomorrow on the hardware of yesterday  If the mobile gets spoiled blame the child, if child gets spoiled blame the mobile  If someone is asking for dirty cloth to clean something, then you are in India  The only country where people fight to be termed ‘backward’  In India, you don’t cast your vote, you vote your caste  Sarcasm is like electricity, half of India doesn’t get it  The country where liking a Facebook post and sending messages on WhatsApp gets you arrested, while raping does not

Let’s Laugh!

Husband and his wife went for divorce at a court.

Judge: You have three kids. How will you divide them?

Husband had a long discussion with his wife and said, “Ok sir, we'll come next year with one more kid.

But the joke doesn't end here. Nine months later, they got twins!

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 63

astroturf your personality to turn successful. Meditation and yoga will do you a lot of good around this time. New promises are in front of you. Make the best use of it to succeed in your career and social life.

Aries

Mar 21 - April 20

You have a startling ability to push yourself through the obstacles in life. This month will bring a lot of hurdles to your progress, making you weary of the developments in front of you.

Beware of the communications you make in order not to land on some misunderstandings.

(www.dollymanghat.com)

Fortune favours the bold and the lucky

other.

Your attitude is your altitude, says Dolly Manghat, our renowned Astrological expert and believes she helps people create their own prophecies rather than live predictions

TAURUS

April 21 - May 20

Taurus-born people always seek a comfortable and peaceful life.

March will bring you a lot of dynamic changes in your atmosphere which might create turbulences in your easy-going life.

Exercise care in dealing with your family members. You will need to work with some longterm developments with enough forethought.

GEMINI

May 21 - June 21

The financial front during this month will bring you some frustrations. However, over the course of the month, you can settle things in your favour.

Your easy-going nature and individuality will push you forward with your career growth.

You must be prepared now to slow down a bit and connect with another person’s viewpoints which will show a new direction for both of you.

CANCER

June 22 - July 23

A challenging period is ahead in your life now. Do enough self-introspection and make the right judgment to move forward successfully. Give up the outdated ideas. By the end of the month, the clouds will clear to reveal a bright sun. Go by your intuition and create something new around this time.

LEO

July 24 - Aug 23

This month will bring you enough opportunities to heal and refresh your relationships.

Look deep into the surface of things and learn something valuable for your life. Do not get carried away by the outward appearance. Someone might be acting with hidden motives to seek your downfall. You must pay attention to organise your work-related areas. Prepare well to do well in the task at hand.

VIRGO

Aug 24 - Sept 23

You are now going to enter the limelight with the air around you and bringing people from somewhere to seek your support and help. They will divert your attention to attend to their needs.

This month will be filled with a lot of activity in every front of your life. Meanwhile, remember to rest enough and take care of your health while on the move.

LIBRA

Sept 24 - Oct 22

You will find yourself running about with different kinds of tasks connected to your personal, social and career life. In your

64 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

preoccupation with the mission of making others happy, you must not overlook your personal growth. You will come across a lot of new contacts and relationships this year. You will find your social contacts contributing to the success of your career life. Several exciting developments related to your career are expected.

SCORPIO

Oct 23 - Nov 22

Your domestic front will be highly enjoyable during this month.

You will teach several things related to different subjects and life to your children. Dream well and explore your capacity to create intense bonding with near and dear ones. Stagnation will end and new movements and developments will start. Discover the power of truth and honesty in relationships. This will give way to greater emotional well-being.

SAGITTARIUS Nov 23 - Dec 22

The problems you confronted over the past few months will now end, giving way to new hopes and brightly-lit path in front of you. Do not keep reflecting on the days that went by. Learn some good lessons to plan your future and remake

CAPRICORN

Dec 23 - Jan 20

Every human on the earth needs a break at some point of time in life.

However, you cannot hope to rest during this month as a hectic life is in front of you now. Never permit negativity to overtake you during the start of the month. This is the best time to unleash your creative energies and plan some successful projects.

AQUARIUS

Jan 21 - Feb19

Though you wish to be a conservative most of the time, you will find yourself at the right place during the right time. Believe in your vision and it will point out to a promising future. Your intuitive energies will enhance your global vision. You will find the times highly peaceful. Love yourself genuinely and take interest in helping others too.

PISCES

Feb 20 - Mar 20

Discover your dreams this month and move them in new directions to bag success. Be prepared to come across some pleasant surprises. You are under the guidance of the universal spirit moving you from within.

Be receptive to grab the gifts coming to you from different directions. Stick to the ideals dear to your heart and believe that miracles will happen in life.

Address: 143, St Patrick’s Town, Gate# 3, Hadapsar IE, Pune-411 013.

Tel.: 020-26872677 / 020-32905748 Email: connect@dollymanghat.com/ info.dollymanghat@gmail.com

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CRADLE OF LEADERSHIP

PROF. SUDHIR K SOPORY, VICE CHANCELLOR, JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY (JNU) Volume 1, Issue No. 21 / Pages 68 / www.corporatecitizen.in

January 1-15, 2016 / `50

CORPORATE CULTURE

Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank on women in leadership and gender diversity

INTERVIEW

An in-depth interview with Vishal Parekh, Marketing Director India with Kingston Technology and Rajeev Bhadauria, Director, Group HR, at Jindal Steel & Power

Dynamic Duo 21 MEERA SHANKAR AND AJAY SHANKAR

UNFLINCHING SUPPORT

March 1-15, 2018 / Corporate Citizen / 65

the last word

Ganesh Natarajan

Cyber-Physical Systems for excellence One realisation that found its way into the Finance Minister’s Budget speech was that “combining cyber and physical systems have great potential to transform not only the innovation ecosystem but also our economies and the way we live”

F

ebruary has started with a bang. On the one hand was a budget presented by the FM which was understandably pro-poor, pro-farmer and pro-education and on the other was the news of electoral setbacks for the ruling party in Ajmer and Alwar.

The budget itself has created disappointment in the middle class and the investor community with the slippage in fiscal deficit, the capital gains tax and no significant benefits for the salaried section of society. However, all the sacrifices will be worthwhile if we can see a true transformation in Bharat through robust implementation of the schemes that have been announced. The concern here is that while the problems of health and education have been recognised both in the Economic Survey and the budget speech, the actual allocations are not substantially higher and it will need hawk-like supervision to ensure that the lot of the farmer, the rural citizen and children are truly improved in 2018.

One realisation that found its way into the Finance Minister’s budget speech was that ‘combining cyber and physical systems have great potential to transform not only the innovation ecosystem but also our economies and the way we live.’ The announcement of a mission on cyber-physical systems to support establishment of centres of excellence and the proposed investment in research, training and skilling in robotics, artificial

intelligence, digital manufacturHealthcare is also a major opporing, big data analysis, quantum tunity to use the national network communications, the Internet of of optical fibre cable that is envisthings may seem like a large dose of aged to connect doctors and paalphabet soup but certainly holds tients through telemedicine, store the potential to transform ease of and disseminate electronic medical living for factory workers, farmers, records countrywide. The ‘Modi microfinance employees and even Care’ ambitious plan does indeed education and skills providers and propose a larger coverage than the recipients in the years to come.

UK’s National Health Service but it The biggest push that can happen has to be accompanied by extenthrough digital India and the introsive deployment of technology for duction of thoughtful cyber-physipatient identification, diagnostics cal systems can be the rejuvenation and post-treatment diagnostics of flagging initiatives like ‘Make combined with a balanced investin India’, ‘Startup India’ and the ment in primary, secondary and Smart Cities mission. In manufactertiary healthcare centres if the turing, Industry 4.0 calls for massive performance Cyber-physical systems improvement through can be the rejuvenation judiciously planned and meticulously executed of initiatives like ‘Make in cyber-physical systems India’, ‘Startup India’and addressing four critical Smart Cities mission elements of customer-focused business process re-engineering, data gathering money provided has to be put to from all sources with advanced optimal use. Similarly, the problems real-time analytics, deployment of of education at all levels cannot be technologies from the digital stack, addressed without radical change including mixed reality, 3D Printin the commitment of educators ing and IoT to fit the new process which will not be accomplished by requirements and a relentless focus a simple change of blackboard to on culture transformation to predigital whiteboards in classrooms. pare the employees and value chain In this vast tsunami of ideas and partners for ever-changing expecless-than-optimal implementatations and new opportunities for tion that has plagued many of our maximizing value. The margin of schemes, here is a word of apprecierror is narrowing with competiation for Pune Municipal Commistive pulls and technology pushes sioner Kunal Kumar and the teams enabling every stated and implicit in the Pune Municipal Corporation need of a stakeholder to be met well and the Pune Smart City who have before it is articulated. been working assiduously to deliver

66 / Corporate Citizen / March 1-15, 2018

the promises of a truly digital Pune.

In a recent interview Commissioner Kunal has rightly pointed out that the city is capable of increasing its GDP by `80,000 crores by digital infrastructure creation. The proposal to lay over 2,000 km of optical cable fibre will enable transformation of telecom infrastructure and data centres on the cloud. This, in turn, will enable the launch of next-generation government and smart city services, connected healthcare and education and a host of new entrepreneurial opportunities.

Pune has taken the lead in many areas and we as citizens of the city have a role to play in participating and contributing ideas and capital rather than just criticize from the sidelines. Our experience with Pune City Connect has been excellent. Multiple corporates have contributed crores of operating expense money for municipal schools’ transformation, digital literacy centres and buses and new generation skills lighthouses in every municipal ward of the PMC; individuals have volunteered their time and the PMC has more than played its role.

It is this spirit of Public Private Partnerships where Government works with industry associations, corporates, civil society and individuals to make true change happen that will lead the way to the country of our dreams. Write in and tell us how you can play a role!

Dr Ganesh Natarajan is Chairman of 5F World, Pune City Connect & Social Venture Partners, Pune.

Printed and published by Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian on behalf of Sri Balaji Society. Editor: Dr (Col.) A. Balasubramanian.

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