Mar 2015

Letters Matter

not done!

Thank you very much for sending out this magazine to me, which is very good reading indeed. Every article has a different design in terms of color, shape and size, which attracts us to spend more time on it. Now coming to the matter, I found that you had featured Haldirams in your section on Indian Achievers, which I feel is not too much good because their MD is in Jail. Please do not feature such people in your magazine. All the very best for your future.

Kriti Rastogi, Delhi

add Some more toPIcS

The February 2015 issue was more or less confined to PBD. Although I liked the cover story on the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, but instead of giving two pages to fashion something else like States session could have been covered. Pictures were also so-so. But if you ask me, some things are missing in the magazine, so you should really increase your matter, increase your pages. This time you have added some matter on fashion but that was only related to the PBD. Please add some matter on Sports, Cuisine, Hospitality, Health, and Education. If you add these subjects you will find more people going for your magazine.

Sardana L. K., New York, USA

connect World

nrIs are tH e real amBaSSadorS!

Thanks for sending a copy of the NRI Achievers, Volume 3 Issue 5. This is the most needed subject. NRIs are the real ambassadors of India because they are in touch with the local people at grass root level. India is judged by their actions, thought, life styles, inter mixing and all other facts of life. The colleagues know them by name but every other person refers to the NRI as "Indian". If he is a good colleague/ neighbourer or player, efficient in performance; India is good. If America, and all other countries, have Indian professionals in thousands in high positions, it is because of their performance and being good at work and in life.. Keep it up and our best wishes for you continuing efforts in the contribution made by NRIs

Naresh Bansal, New Delhi

although your magazine has a taste of its own, but many a times it deviate from its goal. as the title suggests, you must start detailed information on investment, education & matrimonial on regular basis, as these are the sectors where most of the NRIs are concernrd with.

Ashish Tiwari, Mumbai

cover Story on uS

You have been bringing out cover stories on verious countries but being a regular reader of your magazine, never found cover story on United States of America where as this country has maximum number of Indians. Think about it.

V.L. Goel, New Jersey, USA

IncomPlete magazI ne

Hi, I am regular reader of your magazine, and I think the magazine is really awesome but yet to be called a complete magazine. The color schemes are always very pleasing, and the articles are all well written and knowledgeable. I for one have found all the content usually is really very interesting. This time you have got your magazine printed on glossy paper instead of the other non-glossy type you usually print it upon, and that I found was really nice and attractive. I felt the magazine in its glossy avatar was more graceful. But why I am saying that it is not complete magazine because it doesn’t have anything on legal matter which is always a matter of concern for more than many NRIs living in different parts of the world. Then there is nothing on marriages & matrimonial which is also one of the most important parts in every Indians life. Other untouched topics are sports, science, cuisines, fashion, youth, etc.

Simran, Canada

World Peace

When wars and conflicts totally cease, In our world, there shall be peace. People must learn to get along, Not blame others, for being wrong. They fight for control, fight for land, Some just need a helping hand. We must rid ourselves of vanity, And embrace peace, through humanity. Wars make children so much tougher, Lose their innocence, while they suffer. We should fight for peace instead, Love not war, we should spread.

OF KINGS & KINGMAKERS, AND THE ECONOMY

Another short but very eventful month, February, is on the eve of passing us by, what with high decibel campaigns by both the BJP and the Aam Admi Party vying for the gaddi in Delhi, the elections themselves, and the big upset win that AAP presented the BJP juggernaut with even as it positioned Kiran bedi as its CM candidate and brought out a whole galaxy of its heavyweights to campaign for it in the capital city. But the electorate's ways are mysterious indeed, and they do tend to have a mind of their own, it seems. The net result was AAP ending up with a comfortable and absolute majority of 67 seats, with the BJP just winning 3, and the congress none at all.

Before the dust settled and the campaigners returned to their customary havens, there came the rail and union budgets, both of which did succeed in bringing in some cheer for most sections, if not all, in the economy. Budgets walking a tightrope between populism and fiscal prudence. Overall sentiment continues to be up, and the central government has the leeway of some six plus months to concentrate on execution on the ground, before another election will loom, this time in Bihar.

The 130 year old Congress party today has literally been left in the sidelines, and needs to take a very serious look indeed at what went wrong, and needs to reinventing itself. Maybe what is needed for the party is more a surgeon's scalpel rather than just some resucitation apparatus. The northernmost state of Jammu & Kashmir now has a government finally, with Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, former union home minister and patriarch of the PDP taking the helm as the chief minister, with support and participation from the BJP, which is the second largest party in the state legislature. Politics can have strange bedfellows no doubt, but this coalition forged out of an alliance of two who take two diametrically opposite ideological stands tends to suggests that it will indeed be interesting times ahead in J&K.

In this issue of ours, the Cover Feature focuses on Germany under the In Focus segment, featuring an infobrief about the leading economy of Europe, and takes a look at both Indogerman friendship over the ages as well as country to country relations. Realpolitik follows, providing vignettes of the Arvind Kejriwal – AAP phenomenon, the Rail and Union Budgets, and a short interview with the Acting High Commissioner of Mauritius on the subject matter of PM Modi's upcoming visit to the island nation this month. Dossier profiles some unusual Indians from the diaspora world, while Indian Achievers zooms in on three enterprising Indians who are quietly transforming the way we do business, and Great Indians is still on a sabbatical. Real Estate advices NRIs to investment into the sector, and looks at the home loan scenario. Heritage talks of the last moghul army commander, and Travelogue takes a breath-taking trek into the Himalayas, to the cold desert lands of Ladakh. Silver Screen interviews Sarovar Banka, while news on milestone happenings and cinema are presented in News Scan & Cineppets. You will find Metaphysical Musings and Vaastu there as well.

We would like to hear more from you, please do continue writing to us, posting on social media, and reach out to us with your own content. We do hope you are finding NRI Achievers enjoyable reading, and we heartily extend our many thanks and appreciation to all those readers who are connecting with us to share their thoughts, views and suggestions. As to those of you who are our silent readers, we would urge you to open up and flood us with your doings, narratives and things/people who inspire you. Our editorial desk is always open to reader inputs, we want to hear from you, your communities and your circles. Do write to us, email us, like us on social media! The NRI Achievers desk is at your service. Welcome Summer & happy 'HOLI' to all our beloved readers!

CAMERON TO UNVEIL BAPU'S STATUE IN UK

the focal point for the commemoration this summer of the 100th anniversary of Gandhi's return to India from South Africa to start the struggle for self-rule. The Gandhi Statue Memorial Trust has successfully raised £1 million through donations for the memorial. Cameron said: "Gandhi is an inspiration". His approach of non-violence will resonate forever as a positive legacy – not just for the UK and India, but the world over. He was a man of great insight and many of his observations remain as fresh and relevant today as when he first made them – that we should be the change we wish to see in the world is a timeless advice, well worth following.“ Cameron said: “The statue at Parliament Square not only marks his huge importance in the history of both our countries, but will enrich the firm bond of friendship between the world's oldest democracy and its largest.“

US SIKHS HIRE OBAMA’S POLL SPIN-DOCTORS FOR BIG IMAGE MAKEOVER

If they could help an obscure politician win a senate seat and then the WhiteHouse twice over, they surely have what it takes to help a beleaguered community find acceptance.

PIOs GET KEY POSTS IN OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

"

Indian Community celebrated Holi festival of colors in Manila, Philippines with all Flora & Fauna."

The White House has named Indian origin DJ Patil for the post of Chief Data Scientist and Deputy CTO for Data Policy, a post created for the first time. “Patil joins the White House following an incredible career as a data scientist - a term he helped coin - in the public and private sectors, and in academia,” the White House said in a statement. Patil’s role includes maintaining supremacy of US’ technology and innovation on the Administration’s Precision Medicine Initiative for providing clinicians new tools, knowledge, and therapies with the help of advanced data and health care services. “President Obama has prioritized bringing top technical talent like DJ into the federal government to harness the power of technology and innovation to help government better serve the American people,” said Megan Smith, CTO in the US Office of Science & Technology Policy. Just a day after, another PIO was picked up by President Obama to head another key post. The President announced the appointment of top Indian-American CEO Ajay Banga, Chairman of the US India Business Council, to a key administration position as member of the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. "The talent and expertise these individuals bring to their roles will serve our nation well. I am grateful for their service, and look forward to working with them," said the US President.

British PM David Cameron will unveil the Mahatma Gandhi statue to be installed at the historic Parliament Square on March 14. Cameron said the bronze statue will be

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GERMANY

CROSSROAD BETWEEN EAST & WEST

Few countries in the world have managed to make as much of an impact on the world and the way we live as Germany, a nation that has given us the printing press, the automobile, aspirin and MP3 technology, to mention just a few. Germany is also the birthplace of Martin Luther, Albert Einstein and Karl Marx, of Goethe, Beethoven, the Brothers Grimm and numerous other greats who have, each in their own way, left indelible marks on human history and endeavour. NRI Achievers brings you a focal set of articles on the country steeped in history and a rich cultural heritage under our 'In Focus' segment in this issue.

Atraveller traversing Germany will have plenty of brushes with genius, though Deutschland's picturesque landscapes are more likely to leave an even deeper imprint on his memories. No gainsaying there is something undeniably artistic in the way the German scenery unfolds – the corrugated, dunefringed coasts of the north, the moody forests, romantic river valleys and vast vineyards of central Germany's backbone, and the off-the-charts splendour of the Alps, carved into rugged glory by glaciers and the elements. All are integral parts of a magical natural matrix that is bound to give your camera batteries quite a workout. As much fun as it may be to rev-up the engines on the autobahn, getting off the highway lets you soak up the epic scenery that makes each delicious, slow, winding mile ever so precious.

History is to be encountered in almost every town where streets were laid out long before Columbus set sail, and in castles that loom above prim, half-timbered villages where flower boxes billow with crimson geraniums. The great cities – Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and Leipzig to mention some – come in more flavours than a jar of jelly beans but each is guaranteed to wow you

with a cultural kaleidoscope that spans the arc from art museums and high-brow opera, to naughty cabaret and underground clubs. And wherever you go, Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque classics will rub rafters with architectural creations from modern masters like Daniel Libeskind, David Chipperfield and Frank Gehry. But hold, before this wends its way into becoming a travelogue, which it is not meant to be, let us bring it back on the rails to what it indeed ought to be, a condensed info-brief on the German nation, its endowments, its people, its economy, its place in the homily of nations, and its special links to India and things Indian. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany in English; and the 'Bundesrepublik Deutschland' in German, is the largest country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by Denmark, to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic, to the south by Austria and Switzerland, and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Germany is a federation of 16 states, roughly corresponding to regions with their own distinct and unique cultures. Germany is one of the most influential European nations culturally, and one of the world's main economic powers. Known around the world for its precision engineering and high-tech products, it is equally admired by visitors for its old-world charm and coziness ("Gemütlichkeit"). If you have perceptions of Germany as simply homogeneous, it will surprise you with its many historical regions and local diversity.

HITLER AND DUETSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES

1933 was a watershed year for Germany. The National Sozialisten (the National So-

cialist German Workers' – or Nazi Party) rose to power, with Adolf Hitler as its Chancellor. Under Hitler's Nazi rule, democratic institutions were subverted and dismantled, with a police state replacing it. Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, handicapped people, socialists, communists, unionists and other groups not found to fit into the Nazis' perceived vision matrix of a Greater Germany faced persecution, and ultimately murder in concentration camps. European Jews and Gypsies were marked for total extermination.

Hitler's militaristic aspirations to create a new German Empire in Central and Eastern Europe led to war, successively with Poland, France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States – but despite initial dazzling successes, Germany was unable to withstand the onslaught of the Allies, first on the Eastern front by the Soviets and later on in the western front by UK and the USA, in addition to a smaller third front to the south of the Alps in Italy.

It was the "Stunde Null" or zero hour. Germany and much of Europe was razed to rubble. By April of 1945, Germany was in ruins with most major cities bombed to the ground. The reputation of Germany as an intellectual land of freedom and high culture (Land der Dichter und Denker) had been decimated and tarnished for decades to come. At the end of the war, by losing 25% of its territory, east of the newly Allies-imposed Oder-Neisse frontier with Poland, the occupied country was faced with a major refugee crisis with well over 10 million Germans flooding westward into what remained of Germany. Following the end of the war at the Potsdam conference, the Allies decided the future of Germany's borders and

taking a Soviet lead, stripped her of the traditional eastern Prussian lands, which saw an influx of even more refugees, swelled by the massive numbers of ethnic Germans expelled from their ancient eastern European homelands in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia.

POST-WORLD WAR II

After the devastating defeat in World War II (1939-1945), Germany was divided into four sectors, controlled by the French, British, US and Soviet forces. United Kingdom and the US decided to merge their sectors, followed by the French. Silesia, Pomerania and the southern part of East Prussia came under Polish administration according to the international agreement of the allies. With the beginning of the Cold War, the remaining central and western parts of the country were divided into an eastern part under Soviet control, and a western part which was controlled by the remaining Allies. The western part became the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) with Bonn as the provisional capital city; while the Soviet-controlled zone became the communist and Soviet style German Democratic Republic (GDR). Berlin had a special status, divided as it was among the Soviets and the West, with the eastern part becoming the capital of the GDR. The western sectors of Berlin (West Berlin), were de facto an exclave of the FRG, but formally governed by the Western Allies. On August 13, 1961 the Berlin Wall was erected as part of a heavily guarded frontier system of border fortifications.

Germany was reunited peacefully in 1990, a year after the fall and collapse of the GDR's

Communist regime and the opening of the iron curtain that separated German families by the barrel of a gun for decades. The reestablished eastern states joined the Federal Republic of Germany on the 3rd of October 1990, a day which is since celebrated as a national holiday, the 'German Unification Day (Tag der Deutschen Einheit)'.

POLITICS

Germany is a federal republic, consisting of 16 states or German Federal Lands (Bun-

desländer). The federal parliament (Bundestag) is elected every four years in a fairly complicated system, involving both direct and proportional representation. The parliament elects the Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler, currently Angela Merkel) in its first session, who serves as the head of the government. The 'Bundesländer' are represented at the federal level through the Federal Council (Bundesrat). The formal head of state is the Federal President (Bundespräsident), who is not involved in day-

to-day politics and has mainly ceremonial and representative duties. He can also suspend the parliament, but all executive power is vested with the Chancellor and the Federal Cabinet (Bundesregierung). The President of Germany is elected every 5 years by a specially convened national assembly, and is restricted to serving a maximum of two five year terms.

CULTURE

Being a federal republic, Germany is

very much a decentralised country, which embraces the cultural differences between the regions. Most travellers would perhaps think of beer, Lederhosen and Oktoberfest when Germany comes to mind, but the famous German alpine and beer culture is mostly centred around Bavaria and Munich. Here the beer is traditionally served in 1 litre mugs (normally not in pubs and restaurants, though). The annual Oktoberfest is Europe's most visited festival and the world's largest beer fair. Germany's south-western regions, however, are well known for their wine growing areas (e.g. Rheinhessen and Palatinate) and Bad Dürkheim on the 'German Wine Route' (Deutsche Weinstraße) organises the biggest wine festival worldwide with over 600,000 visitors annually.

ECONOMY

Germany is an economic powerhouse boasting the largest economy of Europe and despite its relatively small population is the second largest country of the world in terms of exports. With a population of 80.2 million according to the May 2011 census, Germany is the most populous country in the European Union, the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and ranks as the 16th most populous country in the world. As Europe's largest economy and second most populous nation, Germany is a key member of the continent's economic, political, financial and defence organizations. Since reunification, Germany has expended considerable funds to bring Eastern productivity and wages up to Western standards. In January 1999, Germany and 10 other EU countries introduced a common

European exchange currency, the euro € . Its monetary policy is set by the European Central Bank, headquartered at Frankfurt-am-main, the financial centre of Germany and continental Europe. Frankfurt is also be considered one of the most important air-traffic hubs in Europe, with Germany's flagship carrier Lufthansa operating from here. Frankfurt's impressive skyline with many high-rise buildings, quite unusual for Central Europe, has led to the veritable pun "Manhattan" becoming its nickname.

Germany has a social market economy with a highly skilled labour force, a large capital stock, a low level of corruption, and a high level of innovation. It has the largest and most powerful national economy in Europe, the fourth largest by nominal GDP in the world, and the fifth largest by PPP. The service sector (including information technology) contributes approximately 71% to the total GDP, industry 28%, and agriculture 1%.

Of the world's 500 largest stock-market-listed companies measured by revenue in 2010, the Fortune Global 500, 37 are headquartered in Germany. 30 Germany-based companies are included in the DAX, the German stock market index. Well-known global brands include Mercedes-Benz, BMW, SAP, Siemens, Volkswagen, Adidas, Audi, Allianz, Porsche, Bayer, Bosch, and Nivea among others. Germany is recognised for its large portion of specialised small and medium enterprises, globally known and followed as the Mittelstand model. Around a 1,000 of these companies are global market leaders in their segment and are labelled hidden champions.

INFRASTRUCTURE

With its central position in Europe, Germany is the transport hub for the continent. Like its neighbours in Western Europe, Germany's road network is amongst the densest in the world. The Autobahn network ranks as the third-largest worldwide in length, and is known for its lack of a general speed limit. Germany also has a polycentric network of high-speed trains – the Inter City Express (ICE) network of the Deutsche Bahn –which serves major German cities as well as destinations in neighbouring countries with speeds of up to 300 kmph. The largest German airports are at Frankfurt and Munich, both hubs of Lufthansa, while Air Berlin has hubs at Berlin Tegel and Düsseldorf.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Germany's achievements in the sciences have been significant, and research and development efforts form an integral part of the economy. The Nobel Prize has been awarded to 104 German laureates so far. For most of the 20th century, German laureates have cornered more awards than those of any other nation, especially in the sciences (physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine).

Germany is also one of the leading countries of the world in developing and using green technologies. Companies specialising in green technology have an estimated turnover of €200 Billion. Key sectors of Germany's green technology industry are power generation, sustainable mobility, material efficiency, energy efficiency, waste management and recycling, and sustainable water management. With Wendelstein 7-X in Greifswald, Germany also hosts a leading facility today in the research of fusion power.

NRI Achievers Bureau

THE LONG ROOTS OF AN INDO-GERMAN FRIENDSHIP

Just as India was divided into several independent kingdoms, so was Germany into numerous independent states, until the formation of the German Empire in 1871 under the Prussian Otto von Bismarck. So, there is not much to record as ancient relationship between Germany and India. In the recent times, from 1945 to 1990, there were East Germany and West Germany and India had close ties with both.

Germans have always been fascinated with Indian writings and Sanskrit. Wilhelm von Humboldt, the Prussian Minister for Education, was studying Sanskrit in 1821 and published an extensive study of the Bhagavad Geeta which he described as ‘the deepest and loftiest thing the world has to show’. The manuscripts of Ludwig van Beethoven, world famous German composer, contain fragments from the Upanishads and the Gita. Georg Hegel, the philosopher, considered India as ‘the starting point of the whole Western World’. Another German Philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, called Upanishads ‘the production of the highest human wisdom’. So famous was the love of Germans for Sanskrit that when various German states unified into German Empire in 1871, Sir Henry James Sumner Maine, a scholar and member of the Council of the Viceroy of India, declared that ‘a nation has been born out of Sanskrit’. Presently, Chairs of Sanskrit are maintained at top universities in Germany and every university offers Sanskrit instruction. Three German universities publish their own magazines on Indology.

FAMOUS GERMANS IN INDIA

The first Germans who arrived in India were Christian missionaries during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and their lives and contributions to the languages and cultural wealth of India, especially South India, are golden chapters in Indo-German ties that will be cherished forever by the people of Tamil Nadu and Kerala and those who love the Dravidian languages of Tamil and Malayalam. The first of these was Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, who was sent by Frederick IV of Denmark. He arrived at Tharangambadi (formerly Tranquebar) in Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu, together with Heinrich Plütschau, as the first Protestant Missionaries to India, on the 9th of July 1706. He died at the age of 36 in 1719, and the thirteen years he spent here were spent laying the foundations of German scholarship in Tamil. Despite opposition, including jail life for 4 months on grounds of encouraging rebellion from militant Hindus and Danish authorities, he worked tirelessly and produced several books of great value. Within two years of his arrival he studied Tamil and wrote the book Bibliothece Malabarke, in which he described the contents of the 161 Tamil books he studied and expanded this Bibliography in his Biblia Tamulica in 1713. He translated from the Bible and several other works, including his own, into Tamil and wrote several books on morals, civil

justice, Hinduism and Islam. He started a press and printed educational material like the first printed Almanac in India, the first guide printed in Asia for studying English, the first book printed in India for studying Portuguese and so on.

The second was Rev. Dr. Hermann Gundert, a German missionary scholar and linguist, as well as the grandfather of German novelist and Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse. He obtained a doctoral degree in philology from Tübingen and in Philosophy from Switzerland before leaving Germany at the age of 22 for Kolkata. While in the ship, he mastered Bengali, Hindi and Telugu and reached Chennai instead of Kolkata in 1836. He learned Tamil and published a book in Tamil while working in Tirunelveli. In 1839, he reached Illikkunnu in North Kerala. He translated the Bible into Malayalam, Old Testament from the Hebrew and New Testament from the Greek, and published 13 books in Malayalam including the first Malayalam grammar book, the first Malayalam English dictionary and the first school text in Malayalam. The first collection of proverbs, the first geography book, two history books and a newspaper and a magazine were also published by him in Malayalam.

He also introduced punctuation marks like full stop, comma, colon, semi colon and question mark into Malayalam. He returned to Germany in 1859 and started four publications there, including a children’s newspaper. He died in 1893 at the age of 79.

The third was Reverend Volbrecht Nagel who came to Kannur (earlier Cannanore) in Kerala in December 1893 and became head of Basel Mission Centre in Vaniamkulam, now in Palakkad District. In 1896 he left the Lutheran Church and Vaniamkulam and lived at Kunnamkulam, studied Malayalam, got married in 1897 and left for the Nilgiris after a few months. He became an English Brethren Missionary after he was baptized at Coimbatore by Handley Bird and started an orphanage in 1906 at Nellikkunnu, near Thrissur, which still stands even today. In 1914, he went to Germany planning to return after six months. But the First World War intervened and prevented his return, and he died in 1921. The last letter written by him to the assembly fellowship in Paravur says “My sweetest treasures are in India. My heart belongs there". He wrote books, songs and hymns in Malayalam and his songs are sung even today by all Christian denominations. His song Samayamam rathathil njaan swargayathra cheyyunnu … (In the chariot of time I am on my heavenward journey ...) is popular as a hymn sung at funeral processions.

Now, German expatriates have a strong presence in India, especially in the mining and heavy engineering sector. The booming Indian economy is offering bright op-

portunities with high salaries for Germans in the IT sector too. Chennai city alone has 8000 Germans working in the IT, automobile and leather industries and as students in the several universities. There are several famous Germans in India, like Sister Mary Prema Pierick, Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity, and Suzanne Bernert and Claudia Ciesla, actresses in Bollywood films and television serials.

INDIANS IN GERMANY & GERMANS IN INDIA

There are about 1.10 lakh people of Indian origin in Germany with 43,175 holding Indian passports and 67,029 holding German passports. The Indian Diaspora mainly comprises technocrats, businessmen/ traders and nurses. There are a number of Indian organizations and associations active on business/cultural front, cementing ties between India and Germany at the peopleto-people level.

In the 1950s and 1960s a large number of Indians arrived in Germany for higher studies. Though some of them returned to India, most of them stayed back for work. Later on, over 5000 Malayali women from Kerala found job as nurses in Germany, most recruited by the German Catholic institutions to work as nurses in German hospitals in the late 1960s and 1970s. Many of them married German men, and never came back home. Until Germany ceased issuing working visas for guest workers in 1973, German companies hired many Indians as engineers. In 2001, Germany issued the German Green Card for IT professionals, primarily men, bringing another 20,000 Indians to Germany. Hundreds of Indian schools have signed up to teach German as their primary foreign language in response to efforts by German colleges to attract Indian students for higher studies.

Some of the prominent Indians in Germany are Sandeep Bhagavati, music composer, Robin Dutt, Football Club Manager, Sebastian Edathy and Raju Sharma, members of German Parliament, Collien Fernandes, Ranga Yogeshwar and Nandini Mitra, media persons, Xavier Naidu, Indira Weis, T.L. Mazumdar and Shweta Shetty, singers, Shanta Ghosh, sprinter, Gujjula Ravindra Reddy, member of State Parliament of Brandenburg and former Mayor of Altlandsberg, Anant Kumar and Mona Sharma, authors, Atul Chitnis, an opensource software developer and Kamala Reddy, a Hindu Guru.

The number of Germans coming to India has also been steadily on the rise. In 2009 it was 191, 616, for 2010 it was 227, 720 and for 2011 it was 240, 235, making Germans the 6th largest contingent of tourists coming to India. The number of Indians staying overnight in Germany in 2011 was 547, 480. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced during the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas that Germany will be one of the countries for which visa-on-arrival is granted. This move is expected to increase inbound tourism from Germany.

The prospects for ties between the two countries are bright on all fronts, including commercial deals, educational interaction and cultural exchanges. As Germany’s ambassador to India, Michael Steiner said, there is a ‘trust bonus’ between us and we have not exploited even a small part of the possibilities in bilateral relationship. According to him the sky is the limit and time is ripe for even closer relationship between the two nations for mutually beneficial and long-lasting friendship and cooperation.

Biju Thomas

The writer is an executive editor of HIF news. He is an expert in international affairs, economic studies & planning

INDO-GERMAN RELATIONS

THE FUTURE IS INDEED BRIGHT

German interest in India and Indian interest in Germany has a long history, but it entered a distinctly fresh phase after the Second World War, when Nehru and Adenauer established diplomatic relations between the newly independent Republic of India and the new West Germany, or the Federal Republic of Germany as it was known. A steel plant at Rourkela, an IIT in Madras and the establishment of the ubiquitous Max Mueller Bhavans in India's metropolices, all marked the beginning of a closer cooperation between the two countries. The opening of the South Asia Institute of the Heidelberg University in the presence of Vijayalakshmi Pandit in 1962 also belongs to these early highlights. PM Indira Gandhi’s restrictive economic policies and the transatlantic preoccupations of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt then marked a period of mutual indifference. After that, the last two decades of the 20th century witnessed a revival of closer cooperation once again. NRI Achievers brings you a narrative timeline of Indo-German engagement that has weathered highs and lows. Read on ...

THE ANTECEDENTS

Before Nehru and Adenauer established Indo-German diplomatic relations some sixty plus years ago, there had been mutual interests for a long time. There had been German adventurers, traders and missionaries who visited India since the 16th century. But we shall skip these early contacts and leapfrog to a time three centuries later, when German intellectual quest for India began manifesting itself in the 19th century. Friedrich Schlegel’s book “On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians,” published in 1808, became the manifesto of a new academic discipline called 'Indology'. Though there had been some Indologists in other European countries, it was only in Germany that this new field of knowledge flow-

ered and developed fully in its manifold aspects. The German Indologists were less interested in contemporary India, and more interested in ancient India as the cradle of human thought, concentrating exclusively on this aspect. Three German universities, Bonn, Tübingen and Berlin pioneered three different lines of Indological studies.

At Bonn, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Friedrich’s elder brother, started teaching Sanskrit in 1818. In Tübingen Indology was connected with Comparative Religion, a discipline the Protestant Theological Faculty of Tübingen University was rather deeply interested in. The third aspect of Indology, which soon became the dominant one, was comparative linguistics which was introduced

by Franz Bopp, who had studied Sanskrit in Paris and then spent some time in London, where he met Wilhelm von Humboldt who was the then Prussian ambassador to Great Britain. Bopp taught Humboldt Sanskrit and Humboldt later recommended him for the chair at Berlin University. Due to Bopp, Indology became the leading discipline for the new field of comparative Indo-european linguistics, to which he made pioneering contributions.

This many-splendoured German Indology gained its fame outside Germany due to the great Friedrich Max Mueller who had left Germany for Great Britain at a young age and was later appointed Regius Professor of Literature at Oxford University in 1868. This was not a chair in Indology, and the German Indologists who were concentrating on comparative philology hardly took note of Mueller’s work in comparative religion. The monumental edition of the “Sacred Books of the East” which he organized, is a permanent testimony to his work in this field. Max Mueller had also established good relations between Germany and India. The Indian nationalists had turned to ancient Indian history in their endeavour to show that India was far superior to Great Britain in its great tradition, and regarded German Indologists as their allies. Max Mueller became an ideal representative of German Indology for them. He published in English, but always stressed his German identity. He was a Liberal in politics and a friend of Prime Minister Gladstone. And Max Mueller did not hesitate to openly support Indian nationalists, defending Tilak when he was accused of fomenting sedition in India. Mueller never did visit India, but many Indian nationalists visited him at his home at Oxford.

Later generations of Indian nationalists retained this interest in Germany. Of course, many of them studied in England, as Jawaharlal Nehru who was sent to the elite school at Harrow as a teenager. But there were also those who came to Germany from England, like A C N Nambiar, the son of a wealthy landlord and well-known writer of Kerala who had initially settled in England with his wife Suhasini, a sister of the Indian poetess Sarojini Naidu. They went together to Germany in the 1920s, but soon after divorced. Suhasini returned to India and became a prominent member of the Communist Party, while Nambiar stayed back, found a German

companion, Eva Geisler, and lived in Germany for a long time as a newspaper correspondent and political activist. This is how he met Subhas Chandra Bose, when Bose visited Germany in his quest of getting an interview with Hitler. Bose was not a fascist, but he believed in the old adage “The enemy of your enemy is your friend“ and hoped that Hitler would help India in its freedom struggle against the British. When he finally did get his interview with the Führer, he took Nambiar along as his interpreter. Hitler disappointed Bose, all he could do for him was to send him with a German U-boat (submarine) to Japan. Nambiar stayed on in Germany as Bose’s representative. He also looked after the Indian Legion recruited from Indian prisoners of war, but finally had to flee Germany for Switzerland.

THE ERA OF NEHRU AND ADENAUER

When Nehru and Adenauer became heads of their respective

governments they had to face similar problems. Nehru had to revive a country which had languished for many a century under foreign rule, and Adenauer had to restore a vanquished nation. Both of them tried hard to find a place for their nations in the post-war world. The industries of both nations were in a bad shape.

The British had almost “reindustrialized“ India and Germany was ravaged by the war. Most German cities and their industrial plants had been bombed to the ground. The British had created an interventionist state in India in order to mobilize it for the war effort. Nehru inherited the interventionist framework and used it for the establishment of a planned economy, while Adenauer opted for a market driven economy. Enough human capital still existed in Germany, it could be utilized so as to generate an impressive recovery. Nehru and Adenauer held rather different opinions about the Soviet Union. To Nehru the Soviet Union provided an example of state-directed economic growth, although he did not like the dictatorial regime of the Soviets and did not want to join their “camp“

Adenauer showed great acumen in selecting the first German ambassador to India, Prof. Ernst Wilhelm Meyer, who held this post from 1952 to 1957. Nehru also made an excellent choice when he sent A C N Nambiar as his first ambassador to Germany.

Diplomatically well prepared by Nambiar and Meyer, Nehru’s first visit of Germany as India’s Prime Minister in July 1956 was a great success. Nehru was impressed with the cordial reception afforded him by the Germans and also by his conversations with Adenauer whom he compared to an old lion in his subsequent report to the Indian Chief Ministers.

INDIA’S ECONOMIC GROWTH AND INDO-GERMAN ECONOMIC RELATIONS

in the incipient Cold War. Adenauer feared the expansion of the Soviet empire and felt that Germany could survive only in a strong alliance with the West. But in contrast with conservative American politicians to whom Nehru’s non-alignment only meant a rebuff of the West, Adenauer was more flexible in his assessment of Nehru’s policy and was eager to establish diplomatic relations with India, all the more so as India had been one of the first nations to recognize the new western Germany.

Adenauer was 73 years old when he became the Chancellor of Germany. He had grown up in the Wilhelminian empire and had then played a political role in the Weimar Republic. He soon played a dominant political role and remained in office from 1949 to 1963. Adenauer had established German diplomatic relations with India soon after he could reopen the German Foreign Office in 1951 with the permission of the Allied powers. The exchange of ambassadors with India was one of the first acts of the revived Foreign Office.

The phenomenal spurt in India’s growth rate in recent years has greatly activated Indo-German economic relations. The Indo-German Chamber of Commerce which was founded in Mumbai in 1956 has flourished in this new atmosphere, now having branch offices in all major Indian cities. It is the largest bilateral Chamber of Commerce in India with 6700 Indian and German members altogether. No other such institution of this size exists elsewhere.

Indo-German trade has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years and so have German investments in India. While the big factories of Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz in Pune are the most visible symbols of such investment, they are but the tip of an iceberg. Indian industrialists also invest in Germany, particularly in the phar-

maceutical industry. In fact, the flow of investment from India to Germany now more or less equals that from Germany to India. This is a very encouraging sign of reciprocity in Indo-German relations.

In earlier years the Joint Venture was the most favoured form of Indo-German cooperation. This was beneficial to both partners when India was still a closed economy. The German partner gained access to a protected market while the Indian partner profited from investment and technology transfer. With liberalization this relationship changed. With Indian companies now free to compete in the global arena, German entrepreneurs today are moving away from JVs and prefer the establishment of fully owned subsidiaries in India, which implies that they will now need to themselves solve the problem of hiring competent Indian staff for their ventures. In order to help them with this, the Indo-German Chamber has set up a cell called “Deinternational,” whose team advises German firms in getting started in India and recruiting qualified personnel.

THE DAWNING MODI MERKEL ERA

In 2014, India saw a Modi-led BJP-NDA combine sweeping the general elections with their promise of a stable government, predictable policy scenario, good governance and all round growth. And even before the new government got installed it exhibited its aggressive approach to foreign policy by inviting all neighbouring heads of government to the swearing in ceremony. Also, the “Look East – Link West” policy of the new government was giving explicit focus through the various actions and overtures of the Modi government, be it at BRICS or other similar fora. India today is seen as a new interest point by major nations of the world, and this portends good for Indo-German relations as well. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to escalate this along with his German counterpart Chancellor Angela Merkel when he goes to the Federal Republic of Germany later in April this year.

THE FUTURE FOR INDO-GERMAN COOPERATION

With all these activities cited above so far, Indo-German cooperation does seem to be destined to grow fast in many fields. One field which may prove to be of special significance is the exploration of alternative and renewable sources of energy. The acquisition of

the German firm Repower by the Indian firm Suzlon shows how the use of wind power can be developed jointly. In recent years several big German companies have sponsored DESERTEC, a bold multinational venture aimed at producing energy by means of collectors of sunlight in the deserts of Africa and elsewhere. A grid of direct current transmission lines of high voltage would transfer part of this energy to Europe. While sceptics have pointed out that the problems of making DESERTEC work and bearing the cost for it may stymie this project, there is no doubt that DESERTEC on a smaller scale constructed within one country could work very well. India with its huge arid zone could utilize this technology.

While huge projects like these tend to fire the imagination of many people, modest small-scale schemes are often overlooked although they could also contribute a great deal to a new type of energy supply. One such is the Competence Network Distributed Energy Technologies which has organized a Cluster Network Germany-India (CNGI) on renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Exploration of geothermal energy is another field. India has great resources that have been barely utilized as yet. There are about 400 hot-springs in India, some of them with a surface discharge of water at 90° C. Experts have estimated that geothermal energy could yield 10,000 Megawatt in India. In Germany several methods of the use of geothermal energy have been introduced. Indian entrepreneurs could profit from German work and knowhow in this field.

Another interesting field holding potential for cooperation is comparative research on demographic transitions. India is at present profiting from a “demographic dividend” which accrues to countries where the working population has fewer dependents to take care of due to a reduced total rate of fertility. South India has plataued at the reproduction rate of 2.1 while North India is still much more “fertile”. Demographers have been puzzled by the rapid drop in the total fertility rate in certain areas, where they have been able to map it but are unable to explain it. The conventional explanations that a rise in income and an improvement of the education of women lead to an acceptance of birth control have not proved to be convincing in areas where poor, illiterate women have been in the vanguard of fertility reduction.

Decisions about birth control may reflect perceptions of the immediate future. An interesting example is provided by the steep and sudden decline of births in East Germany after 1989. It seems that many young women felt insecure about their future prospects at that time and postponed having children. Comparative studies of this phenomenon and the reduction of the fertility rate in South India may shed light on aspects of demographic change which have not been analysed so far.

Given all these positive developments and the multiple opportunities on the ground, hopefully Indo-German relations will never again need to experience a relapse into indifference. The future is indeed bright.

NRI Achievers Bureau

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important dateS to remember

DATE COUNTRY DAY

March 1

Bosnia & Herzegovina National Day

March 3 Bulgaria National Day

March 5 Afro-Asian Rural Development Organization National Day

March 6 Ghana National Day

March 12 Mauritius Republic Day

March 17 Ireland St. Patrick’s Day

March 20 Tunisia Independence Day

March 21 Namibia Independence Day

March 22 League of Arab States Anniversary Day

March 23 Pakistan National Day

March 25 Greece Independence Day

March 26 Bangladesh National Day

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Date: 1 March 2015

UZBEKISTAN GOES TO THE POLLS

Uzbekistan, in the heartlands of Central Asia, the land of Babur and home to Samarkhand and Bhukara, gears up for elections which are just around the corner, to take place during the end of this month. NRI Achievers takes a look at what sort of preparations are underway at Tashkent and elsewhere in the country in the run-up to the elections ...

As the day dawns on March 29, 2015, Uzbeks will elect a new president, who will preside over the affairs of the former soviet Republic of Uzbekistan. The Central Election Commission of Uzbekistan, having considered the documents of political parties of Uzbekistan, adopted a resolution on the registration of candidates for the contest to the post of the President of the Republic. Candidates have registered from the People's Democratic Party of Uzbekistan – Khotamjon Abdurakhmonovich Ketmonov; the Democratic Party of Uzbekistan — "Milly Tiklanish" – Akmal Kholmatovich Saidov, the Movement of Entrepreneurs and Businessmen – LiberalDemocratic Party of Uzbekistan – Islam Abduganievich Karimov, and the Socialdemocratic party "Adolat" – Narimon Madjitovich Umarov.

In line with Article 28 of the Law "On Elections of President of the Republic of Uzbekistan" the election campaign starts from the date of registration by the Central Election Commission of the candidates for President of the Republic. In this regard, the issue on the election campaign was also considered at the meeting and an appropriate resolution was adopted.

The election campaign will conducted in full compliance with the electoral legislation of the country and the programme

of main measures on preparing and conducting of elections of President of the Republic of Uzbekistan was approved by the CEC. During the election campaign the candidates for President of the Republic have an equal right to use the media, in particular to bring the main provisions of their election manifestos to voters on TV and radio channels of the National Television and Radio Company of Uzbekistan "Uzbekistan," and "Yoshlar" for 900 minutes each. It is also being planned to broadcast video and radio material about the candidates.

Candidates can independently determine the types, forms, methods and content of the materials of election campaign in the media. During the election campaign, space in republican periodicals "Khalk Suzi", "Narodnoe Slovo" and "Pravda Vostoka" will be made available free of charge up to 10 pages for each candidate. These materials will also be published in regional periodicals. Creation of equal conditions during the election campaign is not applied to party press. They have the right to publish relevant material in any amount.

The CEC identified specific measures for the election campaign in full compliance with the legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan. For the election of President of the Republic, 9058 polling stations will be

set up, including 44 at the representative offices of the Republic of Uzbekistan in foreign countries. Polling stations are provided with all necessary communication facilities, computers and office equipment, connectivity, and legal literature. In designated areas booths for secret ballot and ballot boxes will also be set up.

District election commissions have formed composition of precinct election commissions to carry out activities to attract about 90,000 people. They are representatives of health care, science, education, culture and sports - 67%, social associations, non-profit organizations22.3%, farmers - 5.3%, the representatives of the production sector - 5.4%, economists - 6.2%. Almost 84% members of the commissions have previously been involved in the preparation and conduct of such elections. Among the members of precinct election commissions, women comprise 42.8%.

Special attention is paid to ensure openness and transparency of the election campaign, apart from the creation of conditions for access to the media for information relating to the preparation and conduct of elections of President of the Republic. With this purpose, the CEC of Uzbekistan has accredited more than 340 domestic and foreign media personnel.

NRI Achievers Bureau

MODI’S MAURITIUS VISIT TO BOOST TIES

India and Mauritius share ethnic bonds and have had close links for half-a-century. Even before the establishment of diplomatic links, trade and investment for mutual benefit between the two has always been a top priority. The new Narendra Modi led-government in India has reiterated its close ties with island nation, with the Mauritius PM the only non-SAARC head of government to be invited for Modi’s swearing-in ceremony. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit to Mauritius in November last highlighted the importance of bilateral ties between the two countries, and now Modi is slated to visit the emerald isle this month as a chief guest at the 47th national day celebrations of Mauritius. The author interacted with the Mauritius acting high-commissioner here in India, Mr. Joyker Nayeck. Excerpts from the conversation:

Both India and Mauritius have new governments. What are your expectations from Mr. Narendra Modi’s upcoming visit to your country?

We are very positive about it. We hope India will always be an active partner not only in the growth and development of Mauritius, but also in its defence and security. India has always been helpful to Mauritius. The then Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee helped us a lot to establish first cyber city in Mauritius. Thousands of people are employed in this sector and we are hopeful Mr. Modi’s visit will further boost our ties.

How has been the investment scenario between the two countries and how can the two strengthen their relations financially?

Mauritius has preferential arrangements with its well developed, modern infrastructure and communication facilities. Our country offers attractive opportunities in a wide range of sectors like education, health, culture, petroleum, capacity building and human resource development, hydrography etc. All our petroleum products come from India, and this trade is worth US$ 1 Billion over three years. In December, the Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. entered into a MoU with STC Mauritius and Indian Oil Corp (IOC) to set up a petroleum terminal at Mauritius. The JV terminal would be constructed at an investment of around US$ 130 Million to facilitate re-export of petroleum products from Mauritius to Indian Ocean Islands and mainland Africa, thereby making Mauritius a petroleum hub.

Why is Mauritius Called “Mini India” or “Chhota Bharat”?

It is because there are a lot of similarities between the two, as they share the same socioeconomic, cultural and strategic space and above all follow the same ideals of democracy. In Mauritius, a lot of streets, roads, buildings are named after Indian Gods, saints and Mahatmas. You know the Indian driving licensee is valid in our country. Mahasivratri and Deepawali are gazetted holidays. And for an Indian, there is no need of any kind of prior visa to visit Mauritius –just get down at the Mauritius airport, show your passport and tickets and you will get the visa for a month. But Indian tourists must have a return ticket. Bhojpuri and Hindi are languages recognized by the government and taught in schools. The Mahatma Gandhi Institute has a Bhojpuri Department and awards degrees in this subject in collaboration with the University of Mauritius. The World Hindi secretariat is based in Mauritius, which is ready to give its full support to India for popularizing Hindi across the world.

What’s your opinion about Indian Media?

Indian Media is very democratic. It has lot of freedom. Media can show cartoons of any ministers including prime minister. Anybody can be grilled by media. This is the beauty of Indian Democracy as well as media.

What do you think about Prime Minister Modi’s “make in India” campaign?

India and Mauritius have been close friends and are important trading partners. Trade and investment between the two has always been a top priority for mutual development and growth. Mauritius has evolved from a sugarcane economy to one that is now defined by manufacturing, textiles, tourism and financial services. Strategic location of both the countries and trade agreements at multilateral and local levels serve as a suitable platform for make in India campaign’s success. Make in India campaign has opened up enormous prospects for Mauritian entrepreneurs to take advantage of the resurgent Indian economy.

Sandip Thakur

writer is a creative head with Kabir Communications

The

The iconoclast Arvind Kejriwal has once again defied all expectations, trumping the BJP with a landslide victory in the recently held Delhi state elections just months after being thrashed in the general elections by PM Modi at the Varanasi constituency. Kejriwal's AAP (the Aam Aadmi Party) managed to sweep the polls, winning 67 of the 70 seats in the Delhi assembly, and got on to the gaddi yet again, taking oath as Chief Minister of NCT Delhi from the Ram Lila Maidan. NRI Achievers brings you a brief storyline of this seemingly unscripted man ...

THE KEJRIWAL'S SUCESS STORY

Kejriwal, an austere 46-year-old former civil servant who once created a furore by describing himself as an anarchist, has had a precipitous rollercoaster ride ever since he chose to make a spectacular political debut in the December of 2013. That time round, his party literally burst onto the Indian political scene, managing to garner 28 seats in Delhi, and even formed a government with outsode support from bete-noire Congress party. Barely 49 days elapsed before kejriwal threw up his towel and resigned, all amid much furore and fuss over the Jan-Lokpal bill.

When general elections were announced last year, with polling to take place over a prolonged multi-phased two months, the Aam Aadmi Party of Kejriwal dreamt big, with Kejriwal not only competing with Narendra Modi, the NDA PM-designate, in the

Varanasi constituency, but also putting up some 400 candidates to contest from constituencies all across the country, vowing to win at least a 100 seats. The entire effort, however, boomeranged and the outcome was a massive disaster. Kejriwal was soundly trounced by Modi in Varanasi, who won the parliamentary seat with a whopping 300,000 plus votes. The AAP ended up winning just four out of the four hundred seats they contested, with 96% of their candidates losing their deposits in the bargain.

Barely nine months on, Arvind kejriwal has once again bounced back in like the proverbial india-rubber ball, taking Delhi by storm grabbling 67 seats, and sweeping an overconfident BJP out of the way, who had not only put up his former colleague from the Anna Hazare fronted anti-corruption campaign, Kiran Bedi, as their CM candi-

date, but also had called in all party heavyweights to campaign for BJP in Delhi. The BJP ended up with a mere three seats.

Kejriwal's election campaign had focused on city-centric needs, and had stuck to the development needs of the national capital. What AAP promised was water, electricity, housing for the poor, security for women, strict action against corruption and the shunning of VIP culture. The citizen would be king in their raj, they averred. Kejriwal also abjectly and fervently apologised to the voters, begging their pardon for abandoning them the last time round after 49 days, promising them that this time round, he will serve a full term if voted back to power, come what may.

With a Ramon Magsasay award for emergent leadership under his belt (an award commonly seen as an Asian Nobel),

for social work and initiatives to fight corruption which he won in 2006, he is one hell of a backroom organiser, and this forte of his was very pronounced during Anna's campaign against corruption. After the campaign ended and Parliament passed a Lokpal bill of sorts, a lull descended on the movement, and Arvind kejriwal broke away from his mentor and veteran campaigner Anna Hazare to formally enter politics in 2012.

While launching his spanking new political party on the 2nd of October 2012, coincidently the day of Gandhiji's birth, he told supporters they would fight against the culture of "bribe-taking". Explaining the rationale and need for a new party on India's already overcrowded political scene, he averred that India was "being sold lock, stock and barrel, and all parties are equally guilty of betraying the people of India, who had put their trust in them".

Kejriwal originally belongs to Haryana state, having been born in Hisar in the year

1968. Born into a middle-class family, Kejriwal managed to graduate from the premier IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) Kharagpur, with a degree in mechanical engineering. Upon graduation, he joined the TATA group, and after a brief stint there working as an engineer, he appeared and cleared India's civil services examination and joined the government in 1992 as a revenue officer. In 2006, he chose to take voluntary retirement from his IRS job, in order to work full-time in the nongovernmental sector, promoting transparency in government and creating awareness about the Right to Information movement. AAP, or the Aam Aadmi Party, was especially formed to spearhead the fight against this all pervasive and all pervading culture of bribe-taking that has seeped into every walk of Indian life. A journalist close to his shares, “What led him to quit his job as a senior bureaucrat and become an activist wasn't anger or bitterness; it was the loss of his own faith in government after a decade in its service..." True to this assessment, his

track record shows that during his altogether brief tenure as an IRS officer, he had unveiled a whole series of initiatives that the media grabbed for their headlines, including the putting in place of an anti-corruption hotline to help people deal with demands for bribes by government workers.

And so, after relinquishing his government job, founding an NGO, activism and advocacy against corruption in public life, becoming the key organiser behind Anna hazare's movement, starting a political party and winning 28 seats in Delhi last year, forming a government with congress support and resigning subsequently, not to mention spending the last year in a political no-man's land, Kejri is now back in the limelight with an unbelievable victory in 2015. A remarkable turnaround indeed for a politician seen as a maverick and an upstart, but one who now has the support of large sections of the electorate, especially the poor and working class.

NRI Achievers Bureau

Photos: Rajeev Tyagi

The day he took charge as Railway Minister in the Modi Cabinet in December last year, Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu told newsmen: “My announcement is that I have no announcement to make. Now, 45 days later, while presenting his first Railway Budget, Prabhu has remained true to his word. As he read out his speech at breathtaking speed like a super-fast train, it became clear and evident that there would be no announcement of any new trains or new railway lines. Read on ...

PRABHU’S INDIAN RAILWAY

In every single Railway Budget speech since Independence, the highlight has always been the suspense over which State would be the recipient of the Rail Mantri’s largesse. Each of the 500-plus Members of the Lok Sabha would sit on the edge of their seats waiting expectantly to see if their home constituency would be gifted with a new train, a gauge conversion project or even a modest track electrification allocation. Last year, for instance, as many as 160 new trains had been announced and was greeted with the usual groans, moans, cheers, thumping of desks and angry protests.

This time, it soon became clear that Suresh Prabhu is of a different breed from the Mamta Banerjees, Lalu Prasads, Ram Vilas Paswans and even Sadananda Gowdas of the past. He is a man with a vision in the Modi mould. He believes in macro-level development, timebound action-plans, value-added hi-tech innovations aimed at enhanced passenger safety and security, corruption-mukt paperless ticket reservation and smooth multi-model freight movement. His goal is to galvanize the entire railway system into an efficient corporate machine, through delegation of authority, responsibility and accountability, and based on innovative ideas for fund generation through private sector participation, direct involvement of PSUs, empowerment of State governments and even leaning on Members of Parliament to part with a generous portion of their MPLADs funds.

Like Modi, and somewhat even like Arvind Kejriwal, the new Railway Minister is a firm believer in harnessing modern technology. His dream is to transform the Great Indian Railways into a veritable

Government on Wheels and a Home Away From Home by enhancing passenger comfort and amenities right from free wi-fi, CCTVs in women’s compartments and solar-powered energy to hygienically prepared and packaged food and drinking water to clean vacuum toilets and biotoilets. Prabhu’s contribution to the Prime Minister’s Swachchh Bharat Abhiyaan is to try to make train travel a truly Swachchh Rail Yatra.

Being a Chartered Accountant by training (and an all-India rank holding CA, at that) and having been a banker himself (as Chairman of the Saraswat Co-operative Bank), as well a distance-education Ph.D student of Climatic Change with a German-based university, if there is one thing that Suresh Prabhu knows all too well, it is that Big Dreams need Big Money. Back in December last year, within hours of resigning from his original party, the Shiv Sena, joining the BJP and being made the Railway Minister, all in one day, he realized with a shock that the one thing that the Railways do not have is spare cash to fund noble schemes.

In the last two and a half months, apparently, he has been looking for ways to raise funds for the Railways from external sources. Now it appears that he has hit upon the contours of a potentially feasible corporate financial model. It involves majorly supplementing the Ministry’s own revenues with substantial financial commitments and contributions from the other big stakeholders who are being sought to be roped in for the gigantic mission to create the most modern, most efficient, most profitable, passenger-friend-

ly railway network in the world, that too in the world’s biggest democracy.

In a nutshell, Railway Budget 2015-16’s runaway success will critically depend on whether the Railways are able to follow through on revamping management practices, systems & processes, setting standards for much-needed governance and transparency, and, above all, building partnerships and leveraging additional resources. Conceptually and theoretically, the game plan envisaged by Suresh Prabhu hinges on the 4 goals, 5 drivers and 11 thrust areas that he has spelt out. Specifically, the acid test that will enable the Minister to walk the talk is whether his investment target of INR 8.5 lakh crore in next five years is: p Whether the required funds can be mobilized from sources such as multilateral development banks and pension funds; p Whether the lowest-in-nine-years Operating Ratio target of 88.5% for 2015-16 as compared with 91.8% in 2014-15, can be actually achieved so as to significantly enhance generation of higher internal resources. p Whether the strategy for leveraging partnership with States, PSUs, private sector and other stakeholders for gaining access to long-term financing and technology bears fruit.

It will only be then that the end objectives of improving last mile connectivity, expanding fleet of rolling stock and building railway infrastructure and modernizing station development will be attainable. Only then will passengers of the Indian Railways will be able to book tickets and travel in ease and comfort...

Raman Swami

The author is a veteran journalist, political commentator & satirist.

BUDGET 2015-16

A BIRD'S EYE VIEW

Finance minister Arun Jaitley was severely constrained and not really well-positioned to present an uncommon landmark budget this year, coming as it were against the adveINRe backdrop of a difficult 2014. Indian manufacturing has been comatose, inflation has remained sticky and we faced a big current account deficit. He had the opportunity to regain fiscal credibility, push the reform agenda further, regain community confidence and secure sustainable long-term growth. All-in-all, he seems to have delivered on all these counts, but the devil is indeed in the details, and it is the execution of these proposals on the ground that will present the main challenge. Here is the Arun Jaitley presented Union Budget 2015-16 at a glance:

KEY HIGHLIGHTS OF THE UNION BUDGET 2015-2016

Estimated GDP (Gross Domestic Product) today stands at 7.4 percent.

Roof for each family in India is a priority, we will try to fulfil targets of “Housing for all by 2022”. Must build two crore houses in rural India, four crore in urban areas. Providing medical facilities to each one in village and city is also a priority.

Increase in agriculture productivity essential for welfare to rural population.

Challenges – Agricultural incomes are under stress, have to increase investment in infrastructure. We propose to create a national agriculture market to increase farmeINR’ income. To support agricultural sector, proposal to allocate 25k cr. in 2015 to rural development fund. To increase income of our farmeINR, proposal to create a national agriculture market.

2/3rd of our population is below 35, to ensure employment we have to aim at making India a manufacturing hub.

Challenges – manufacturing has declined from 18 % to 17 % of the GDP. Government will establish a mechanism of 'self employment' to support all aspects of start up business. And just as we are banking the unbanked, we must also fund the unfunded. Government is committed to utilise vast postal network spread across villages of country.

Government proposes a Mudra Bank of corpus of 20k cr. to refinance MFIs. Tax free Infrastructure bonds for projects in railways and roads. PPP model of infrastructure to be

revitalised and realigned. Setting aside 1k cr. for this purpose.

Government proposes setting up five ultra-mega power projects, each of 4,000 MW, these will be plug and play projects.

Will enhance allocations to MNREGA by 5k cr. This will have two features – will make this year's allocation highest, will also help in increasing rural wages.

ALSO:

Fiscal Deficit targets: FY15-16 – 3.9 %, FY16-17 – 3.5 %, FY 17-18 – 3 %.

Large portion of population without insurance of any kind, proposal to work towards univeINRal social security system for all. Will also launch the 'Atal Pension Yojana', to provide a defined pension. To encourage participation, Government to contribute 50 % of beneficiary premium in its new accounts opened before 31st December 2015.

New scheme of providing physical aids for senior citizens living below poverty line proposed. 'Nayi Manzil' Scheme for the minority youth proposed. In order to support security of women, provided another 1k cr. to Nirbhaya fund.

India is the largest consumer of gold in the world, proposal to introduce a gold monetization scheme. Proposal to work on developing Indian gold coin which carries Ashok Chakra, will help recycle gold available in country.

Government to do away with distinctions between FII and FDI and replace it with Composite Caps. After success of visas on arrival in 43 countries, proposal to increase countries covered under scheme to 150.

Putting scam, scandal and corruption be-

hind, Parliament needs to look into a procurement law and how it will shape. Government proposes to bring in a regulatory reform law.

Proposal to set up All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in J&K, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Himachal and Assam. Keeping in view need to augment medical services in Bihar, proposal to set up another AIIMS like institution in the state. Proposal to set up IIT in Karnataka and IIM in J&K and Andhra Pradesh.

Regime of exemptions has led to loss of revenue, propose to reduce rate of corporate tax from 30 % to 25 %. Measures to curb black money, job creation through revival of growth and investment, benefit to middle class tax payeINR.

Defence allocation for this fiscal is INR 246,727 crores. Unplanned expenditure for 2015-16 is estimated at INR 13,12, 200 crores. Budget Estimates of Expenditure: 17 .77 lakh crore, of which Non Plan is 13.12 lakh crores, and Plan is 4.65 lakh crores. GST is expected to play a transformative role in Indian economy, we're moving on various fronts on GST from next year.

For strengthening information collection from various sources, a new structure has been put in place. Propose to enact a comprehensive new law on black money to bring back black money stashed abroad. This will enable seamless integration of data and effective enforcement. PAN number quoting made compulsory for transactions for more than one lakh.

NRI Achievers Bureau

Indiaspora

TAKING INDO-KOREAN RELATIONS TO ITS ACME

Vishnu Prakash, currently India's Ambassador to South Korea (officially the Republic of Korea), is a career diplomat of the Indian Foreign Services. Our points man in Seoul, Shri Vishnu Prakash has been a flag bearer of india's foreign policy imperatives, serving as a bridge between the governments at Delhi and Seoul. NRI Achievers brings you a brief profile of the external affairs mandarin, who has just been appointed by the Government of India a fortnight ago as the next High Commissioner of India to Canada.

VISHNU PRAKASH

Vishnu Prakash joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1981. After initial postings in Moscow and then on home turn in New Delhi, he was then assigned to New York, where he was responsible for and handled Economic and Commercial matters. In 1992 he was appointed the new Consul General of India in Vladivostok, where within a span of two years he was instrumental in facilitating a dozen Indian companies in setting up offices in the Russian Far Eastern, which went a far way indeed in establishing direct trade links with the vast natural-resource rich region.

While in Delhi, he was given the responsibility of looking after Nepal and Bhutan as a Director in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), between 1994 and 1997, during this period he also took the opportunity to do three-month long sabbatical with the Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Hawaii (USA).

His next assignment was that of a Counsellor (Political) first in Tokyo during the years 1997-2000, and then in Islamabad (2001). In 2002 he was posted as Minister (Economic and Commercial) in Cairo, Egypt, where he was much involved in actively promoting Indian investments into the Egyptian economy. His career graph then turned axes to Shangai, where he assumed office as the Consul General of India in January 2006 and served there till August 2008, when he was appointed a Joint Secretary (XP) and Official Spokesperson of the MEA in New Delhi. He demitted office in January 2012. Ambassador Prakash moved to Seoul on 12 January 2012.

On 22 August 2013, he was conferred an Honorary Doctoral Degree in Business Administration by the Tongmyong University in Busan, and on 22nd January 2015, he was given the 'Ambassador of the Year, 2014' award by the Asia Society (Korea Centre) in Seoul, in recognition for his yeoman service in bringing both countries nearer.

Ambassador Prakash is married with two children. His wife Mrs. Neelam Prakash has a Master’s degree in Economics, and is a keen practitioner of Yoga. His son Abhimanyu Prakash, 32, is with a financial company in New York, and his daughter Katya Prakash,28, is a doctor in San Diego, California.

Ambassador Prakash was one of the key movers behind the “Indian cultural centre,” which was inaugurated after his arrival in the country, where Indian food, literature, music and dances are introduced in the Korean community, and acquaint Koreans with the deeply rich, ancient and diverse culture of India. The cultural centre today is also the hub around which Indian festivals like deepawali, Holi et al., are organised and celebrated in Seoul. Now after the popularity of this Seoul Centre, three more Indian cultural centres are coming up in three different locations in the Republic of Korea.

The ambassador, with his long experience in eastern economies, is also a catalytic agent in the region, promoting not only government to government relations and people to people relations, but also keenly facilitating many business partnerships between Korean and Indian businesses. India's relationship with Koreas in both the political

and business spheres is quite recent, about 4-decades long. Starting from the time of the “Korean war,” when India's humanitarian assistance was given unstintingly to both Koreas, this relationship has grown from strength to strength. Business and trade between two countries today is in the region of US$ 40 Billion as of 2014, with the target for upcoming years triple of that.

Business and technology are the main linkages that connect two countries strongly. Companies like Samsung, Hyundai, and others have become a byword in the Indian economy.

Ambassador Vishnu Prakash was on 19th of February this year, selected to head the Indian High Commission in Canada as it's Charged'Affairs, and will soon be taking up his assignment of the next Indian High Commissioner to Canada.

Gurdeep Rajoria

The writer is a young B-tech graduate, working with Makemytrip.com

HELLO ! SOMEBODY'S GONNA GET HURT REAL BAD ...

We have all heard about Indians abroad who have excelled in their professions, made it big, yada yada yada. Locally born immigrants, NRIs, OCIs and PIOs today hold top-jobs in business, medicine, science, technology, writing and even in politics, where some have gone on to become Presidents and Prime Ministers of their adopted countries. All of them are achievers, and quite deservedly so. But this is not about them. It is more about those who've followed the way of their heart to avenues less explored by the desi diaspora. About those who've not let their roots, their modest upbringing or their skin colour stop them from thinking they're just as good as anyone else. In this piece, we acquaint ourselves with Russell Peters, a Canadian stand-up comedian of Anglo-indian origin.

RUSSELL PETERS

Russell Dominic Peters, born 29th of September 1970, is a Canadian comedian and actor. He began performing in Toronto in 1989 and won a Gemini Award in 2008. He has set records for sales and attendance at a comedian's performance – in 2007 as the first comedian to sell out Toronto's Air Canada Centre, in 2009 setting a sales record in London, and in 2010 performing for the largest audience in Australia for any standup comedy show. Peters was born in Toronto, Ontario to Eric and Maureen Peters. When he was four, the family moved to nearby Brampton. His older brother Clayton now serves as Peters' manager. Peters is Catholic of Anglo-Indian descent. His late father was born in Bombay, and worked as a federal meat inspector, Peters regularly features stories about him in his comedy work. Peters was regularly bullied because of his ethnicity and says he eventually learned boxing to help him resist the bullies. Peters also became a hip hop "junkie" in his youth. By the 1990s, he was a wellconnected DJ on the Toronto scene.

Since Peters began performing, he has gone on to perform in the UK, the USA, Australia & New Zealand, Ireland, Afghanistan, Sweden, South Africa, India, Caribbean countries, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, China, Sri Lanka, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Denmark, Norway, Lebanon, Oman, the Netherlands and Malaysia. In 1992, Peters met comedian George Carlin, one of his biggest influences, who advised him to get on stage whenever and wherever possible. Peters said

he "took that advice to heart, and I think that's the reason I am where I am now." fifteen years later in 2007, he hosted one of Carlin's last shows before his death the following year.

Peters actually got his start in stand-up on the club circuit in and around Toronto, often being paid fifty to seventy-five dollars a night for a set consisting mostly of racebased material and impersonations — notably of his father. In 2006, someone, Peters still doesn’t know who, uploaded a clip of one of his CTV specials on YouTube. “I remember the first time I made thirty thousand dollars in one month. At that time I was like, ‘I made thirty grand this month? That’s ridiculous!’ Now you get to a spoiled level where someone offers you sixty-five, seventy grand for a gig and you’re like, ‘F••k that, I’m not doing that.’ Today he is a millionnaire. According to Forbes, Peters earned an estimated US$ 15 million between June 2009 and June 2010, continuing

his run as one of the highest-paid comedians, after earning an estimated US$ 5 million the prior year. Forbes ranks him as the third-highest-paid comedian.

Peters attributes his 2004 performance on the Canadian TV comedy show ‘Comedy Now’, which was uploaded onto YouTube and became viral, as the turning point in his career. While the initial video upload featured his entire 45-minute performance, YouTube users subsequently uploaded segments of the performance where Peters focused on individual cultural groups. According to Peters, those segments made their way to the "targeted" cultural groups and were well received by them. 18 million hits later, he was suddenly an international sensation. The video and its viral nature was referenced by Peters on the DVD performance of his show Outsourced, when he entered and jokingly addressed the audience with "Look at you, you filthy downloaders!”

His stand-up performances feature obser-

Indiaspora

vational comedy, using humour to highlight racial, ethnic, class and cultural stereotypes. He often refers to his own experiences growing up in an Indian family, and impersonates the accents of various ethnic groups to poke fun at them. As he told an audience in San Francisco, "I don't make the stereotypes, I just see them." In a 2006 interview with 'The National', Peters observed that he didn't intend to put down or offend different races and cultures, but tried to "raise them up through humour". Peters is widely known for his punch line, "Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad." It ends a joke he tells about his childhood with a traditional Indian fa-

ther, who employed corporal punishment to discipline his sons. Another punch line he utilizes is "Be a man! Do the right thing!", which relates to a story of a Chinese man trying to get him to pay more for an item at a shop. When interviewer Larry King asked Peters, "Is there such a thing as too taboo?", Peters replied, "I don't talk about religion because I think people are a little weird about religion, especially nowadays, and I'm more of a science guy than I am a beliefs guy. I'm more into facts than I am beliefs." In an interview with Al Jazeera, Peters said he "refuses" to talk about religion.

The 'Insult-Comedy' legend is on a tour

with his latest show, “Almost Famous,” and includes shows in India as part of the Stage42 Festival, a curated entertainment and culture festival organised by 'Only Much Louder'. Russell Peters performs in Chennai, Bengaluru and in Mumbai. His show boasts all-new material. He is touring the world with this show and has already performed at New York's Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles' Nokia Theatre, before coming to India. A new element to his comic routine this time is the addition of Peters's two official DJs on stage — DJ 'Starting from Scratch' and DJ 'Spinbad', who infuse humour with sound effects....

INDIAN ACHIEVERS

SUCCESSFULLY SURFING THE GULFSTREAM

The GCC nations of the Arabian Gulf, more familiarly known in India as just 'the Gulf', have proven to be a land of opportunity to numerous skilled, semi-skilled and labour class populations from Indian states, notably Kerala, who made a beeline to 'the Gulf' seeking a better livelihood opportunity. While numerous white collar workers also flooded the GCC countries to fill the void created by the booming oil economies and their rapidly expanding economies that needed everything from small industries to social infrastructure like schools, hospitals and malls, shopping centres et al., the majority of diaspora living and working in these countries are predominantly of middle-class, and lowermiddle-class origins. We focus on this region, and profile two very successful Indians from Kerala, who have managed to make it big in 'the Gulf' ....

M A YOUSUF ALI

Yusuf Ali is an India born businessman hailing from Nattika in the Thrissur district of Kerala. He is the MD of Abu Dhabi-headquartered EMKE Lulu Group of companies, that owns the Lulu Hypermarket chain in the Middle East. With an annual turnover of US$ 4.5 billion globally, the Group employs the largest number of Indians outside India. According to a recent Forbes Listing, Yusuf Ali is currently the 39th wealthiest Indian and the 974th richest in the world, with a personal wealth of US$ 2.9 billion. He recently acquired a 4.99 percent stake in the 93-year-old Thrissur-based Catholic Syrian Bank (CSB) and has enhanced his stake in the Kerala based Federal Bank to 4.47 percent as well.

Born in 1955 in Kerala, he underwent his schooling from Nattika, his birthplace, and moved to Gujarat where he did his diploma in Business Management & Administration. After studies he went to Abu Dhabi in 1973, where his paternal uncle, MK Abdullah, the Chairman and the founder of the EMKE Group of companies was doing business. He developed the import and wholesale distribution

of the group and ventured into the supermarket business by launching the first Lulu Hypermarket in the 1990s, a time when the UAE's retail sector witnessed a major change, with the traditional groceries and supermarkets yielding place to large neighbourhood stores and hypermarkets. While the entry of Continent (now Carrefour) in 1995 changed the face of retail business in Dubai, Yusuf took charge of Abu Dhabi's retail sector by rolling out the Lulu Hypermarket in Abu Dhabi.

The EMKE aka Lulu Group International commenced its operations as a family business venture. On joining this business, Yusuf diversified the venture to include import and distribution of frozen products from Europe and the US. The products were available not only in Abu Dhabi but also in the interiors of the Emirates. The business soon expanded to include both food & non-food categories. They also started cold storages, meat and food processing plants, and undertook large-scale import and distribution to hotel groups, catering companies, and shipping services.

By the 1980s, the group had a sizeable share of the whole-

sale and retail food market in the UAE.

The Group has succeeded in growing into an international venture, with operations spread over three continents. The group’s flagship retail chain of LuLu Hypermarkets and Supermarkets is now one of the major players in the Middle East's retail sector with more than 100 stores in the GCC states. Apart from hypermarkets, supermarkets and departmental stores, the group also owns several shopping malls like the Khalidiyah, Al Raha, Al Wahda, Mushriff, Madinat Zayed, Mazyad, Ramli, RAK, Al Foah and the Al Khor Malls, spread all over the GCC states. LuLu Shopping Mall in Kochi, Kerala was opened on 10 March 2013, the group’s first retail venture in India. Another ambitious project in progress is the Riyadh Avenue Mall in Saudi Arabia. The Group has a vast organizational structure of over 30,000 employees representing 29 different

nationalities, out of which more than 23,000 are Indians. Retail Business is the mainstay of the Group with operations in major Middle East and African countries having Retail sourcing and manufacturing bases located in Far East, India, Africa and Guangzhou in China. Indian operations mainly include Food Processing, Export of Food & Nonfood products and a convention centre with bases in Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai, Chennai, Cochin and Trichur. Deloitte has ranked the Group as one of the ten fastest growing retailers in the world. Planet Retail UK has also ranked the Group as the No.1 Hypermarket chain in the region.

Yusuf Ali is married to Shakira and has three daughters. He is also involved in many social, charitable and humanitarian activities, both in India and the Gulf countries. As part of its Global CSR policy, the LuLu Group joined hands with Dubai Cares and

adopted schools in Gaza and Nepal. Yusuf Ali contributed and took initiative to open a multi-faith funeral centre for the Indian community in Sharjah that sprawls across 8.3 acres. He also took the initiative to sell and promote organic products grown by the special needs community in UAE through LuLu Hypermarkets. He has donated generously towards the Gujarat earthquake, Tsunami Relief Fund in Asia, and Typhoon & flood relief in other parts of the world. He is also actively involved in ensuring the social, economic and religious welfare of expatriate Indians in the Gulf. He played a major role in finding land for the Christian community in the region to build churches and secure cremation grounds for the Hindu populace in the Gulf. M.A. Yusuf Ali also extended help to Indians during the amnesty period in the Gulf when hundreds of Indians lost their livelihood.

SUNNY VARKEY

Sunny Varkey, another Malayalee whom we have chosen to feature in this issue, is a Kerala NRI born in 1957, a Dubai-based educationist-entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the founder and chairman of the global advisory and educational management firm GEMS Education, which is the largest operator of private kindergarten-to-grade-12 schools in the world, with a network of over 130 schools in more than a dozen countries. He is also the chairman of the umbrella business organisation the Varkey Group, and the founder and trustee of the philanthropic Varkey GEMS Foundation. As of 2012, Varkey is also a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.

Varkey's father KS and mother Miriamma were Kerala Christians and educators. The family moved to Dubai in 1959, when the Emirate was still much undeveloped. His father worked for the British Bank of the Middle East, and both of his parents taught English to local Arabs, including members of the royal family. At the age of four, Sunny was sent back to Kerala to attend a Catholic boarding school. When he was 11 years old, he sold fruit on the road-side in order to make a little extra money.

The discovery of oil in Dubai in 1966 brought in many foreign workers, including many from the Indian subcontinent. With the increased demand for English-medium education for the children of Indian expatriates, Varkey's parents founded 'Our Own English High School' in Dubai in 1968. Varkey returned to Dubai in 1977, and his workload included employment with the Standard Chartered bank, opening a small trading

company and a maintenance firm, becoming part owner of the Dubai Plaza Hotel, and entering into the healthcare industry.

When in 1980 local authorities insisted that his parents' 'Our Own English High School' be housed in a purpose-built facility, Varkey took over the operation of the school, which had under 400 students at the time. He soon dropped his other businesses, expanded the school, and added new schools as well. The education scenario in Dubai was ripe for expansion, since local schools were only for native Arabs and the children of the ever-increasing number of expats needed education of their own. Varkey opened Indian, Pakistani, and British schools, and offered education under different curricula: Indian (CBSE and ICSE), US, British, and later International Baccalaureate.

After creating a strong network of schools in the Gulf States, Varkey established 'Global Education Management Systems' (GEMS) in 2000, an advisory and educational management firm, in advance of his worldwide overseas expansion. In 2003, he began opening GEMS schools in England, beginning with Sherborne House in Hampshire and Bury Lawn in Milton Keynes. Soon afterwards, he took over the 'Sheffield School' in Hampshire, and purchased another 10 schools in England, mainly in the north. In 2004, Varkey's GEMS group opened its first schools in India. GEMS has subsequently opened schools in Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Singapore, the US, Switzerland, and elsewhere around the globe. It is today by and far the largest operator of private kindergarten-to-grade-12 schools in the

world, and as of 2014 has over 130 schools in more than 12 countries.

GEMS schools aim to offer a holistic education, and to instil students with values of altruism and philanthropy. GEMS Education is geared to shape graduates who are forward-thinking global citizens with universal values and leadership qualities. For GEMS students, Varkey stresses an ideology and atmosphere of multiculturalism, and the importance of giving back to others both locally and globally.

Varkey's strong spiritual values, and the example set by his father, gave him a passion for philanthropy. In December 2010, he consolidated and structured his various donations and charitable initiatives by creating the Varkey GEMS Foundation as a philanthropic arm of GEMS. Bill Clinton launched the foundation and is its honorary chairman.

The Varkey Group is the umbrella organisation covering GEMS Education and Varkey's other businesses, including healthcare and, previously, also construction. Varkey founded the company in 1979, and it is based in Dubai, with additional offices in the UK, US, and India. In 1984 Varkey founded Welcare, a healthcare consultancy and management venture which developed a number of hospitals and clinics. A controlling interest in Emirates Healthcare, the Varkey Group's umbrella company which held Welcare, was purchased by Medicinal International in 2012. The sale of his healthcare sector allowed Varkey to focus on education and his passion, viz., educational philanthropy.

NRI Achievers Bureau

Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of United Kingdom with Founder and Chairman of GEMS Education, Sunny Varkey

ENTERPRISING INDIANS

INDIA TOO IS A LAND OF OPPORTUNITIES

This is the sixth in a series of mini profiles we have been carrying over the past several months to feature Indian ingenuity and enterprise, albeit with a difference. In this issue, we have carefully chosen a bunch of Indian entrepreneurs who have made it a point in proving that India too is a land of opportunities, only you have to be able to recognise the right signals at the right time, and set your chart rolling to succeed. The feature extols their indomitable spirit, their world-vision and their committment to make India a better place to live. One thing though, all these ventures have a strong component of technology built into them, and a business model that is evidently well in tune with the times ... read on !

ings and photography. The idea behind Cupick was nurtured and given expression by Shaishav Todi, an engineer, entrepreneur and internet fanboy from the pre-Google days. Along with friend and co-founder Justin Alva who takes care of marketing and user acquisition, and Rituraj Dowerah, Cupick’s tech guru, the start-up was founded in early 2014 when the three met casually one evening and got to talking about making art more accessible. While Shaishav hails from a business family and had always hoped to start-up, Justin was tired of the drudgery of a cubicle-bound corporate life. Rituraj had already been developing robust and maintainable software for a number of start-ups, and so he too was roped in to build Cupick up from scratch.

CUPICK, BANGALORE

Advertising professional Harsha wanted to buy her friend Varun a gift, but was too confused with the surfeit of choices available. She had already given up on the conventional glazed pottery stuff, stationery, table-ware et al. Thus while surfing the net, she comes across what seemed like an apt gift for her movie-crazy BF – an artistically recreated poster of Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone in The Godfather. Needless to say, her friend was quite thrilled impressed,

thanks to harsha's chance stumble upon cupick.com.

The Bengaluru-based start-up has found a resonance among gen-next, offering them pop-art on a platter in myriad formats like posters, postcards, canvasses and apparel. Everything from movies to music, literature, sitcoms, modern art and even political statements are the subjects of artistic rendition by local and international artists, who specialise in illustrations, digital art, traditional paint-

Cupick’s core-philosophy and mandate is to give up-and-coming artists a truly democratic space to showcase and sell their work. It hosts an eclectic range of artistic and not-soartsy creations on the web with a clean-neat interface. Minimalism in design gives the artworks much needed prominence, says Justin, adding that there isn’t any strict curation policy, with the enterprise seeking to broaden the definition of art itself. Artists have a say in where their work is printed. “Our primary focus was to enable artists and empower them. So it is a conscious decision to give them complete autonomy. And we stop at providing them image protection tools to safeguard their work,” says Justin. Malvika Asher, an Illustrator and Graphic Designer based out of Muscat whose work has been featured on Cupick, says, “For designers looking to be commercially successful, it is a great platform. Moreover, we get to pick our profit margins, and charge based on the amount of work put in. I’ve always felt that Cupick is a classy Indian version

of Society6.com.”

Cupick’s revenue model is very much like its design – simple. “We set a base price for each product which covers our costs and margins. Artists then mark up the base price by whatever percentage they’d like to earn. So, we make money on every sale,” says Justin. Prices on Cupick fall in the highly affordable category, ranging between $ 200 and $ 1,100, depending on size and medium. So far Cupick has raised $ 10 lakh from an HNI businessman for product development and gaining traction. The founders are now in the process

of raising their angel round, keen to get the right investor on board. Interestingly, while Cupick hasn’t seen any frontrunners in terms of sales yet, customers are buying “art” in the stricter sense of the word than pop-art or fanart, which is relatively more easily available in the market, reveals Justin. “This is perhaps because art is inaccessible unless you can shell out a lot of money for originals or are okay with buying mass-produced decorative art,” he says.

With new users signing up every day, Cupick has had to revamp operations at multiple

CRAFTISAN, JAIPUR

in order to highlight the products. And we advocate consci(enti)ous purchases by buyers, rather than encourage mindless shopping,” says Mahesh Subramaniam, founder of Craftisan, a social enterprise that aims to promote traditional Indian art and crafts. Mahesh, who moved to India over five years ago after entrepreneurial successes in the US, says he was ‘charmed’ by the richness, intricacy and uniqueness of crafts in remote Indian villages. He realised that online platforms could offer a great opportunity to reach a wider audience that may be interested in the works of traditional artisans.

He launched his start-up in the year 2013 as a virtual exhibition platform, and premiered with an online feature of the finest masterpieces from 18 award winning master-artisans in Jaipur. Mahesh consciously decided to go slow before starting large-scale operations. “The works of the artisans and craftspersons we want to showcase are very specialised. We visit remote villages to get a feel for the culture behind the creations, interact with artisans to understand their style and background. The products are then hand-picked by the team,” he explains. The site has today expanded well beyond the Jaipur region to include over 60 regions from 15 States representing over 62 art and craft forms.

levels to sustain the platform experience. It now has 800 artists, 2,000 users and 5,500 artworks, and seeing a 50 percent increase in orders month-on-month. The start-up will soon be co-curating the art festival, Emerge 2015, to be held in Bangluru and Gurgaon. It also assisted Titan with its Valentine’s day campaign #giftoflove by choosing artists to illustrate stories sent in by Titan’s customers. “Being able to iterate rapidly while continuing to innovate is our current challenge. We aim to be one of the largest repositories of creative assets by this year-end,” Justin says.

E-markets generally tend to rapidly expand their product portfolios and push their custom to splurge when buying via their sites. But Craftisan, an online artisan marketplace platform, turns all this conventional thinking bottoms-up, paradoxically. Asked about this, the reply is quite askance: “We display only a limited number of items

Buyers get to learn about the unique features of the products showcased, and catch a glimpse of its creator and the rich heritage of the region. The aim is to enable them to view the product in the right context and background. Mahesh, a professional photographer whose works have been widely and exclusively exhibited, is insistent on classic display

online. Also, the company does rustic and hand-crafted packaging that brings out the elegance of the product. Craftisan continues to experiment with form, content and products. For instance, data collected on customer preferences are used to provide feedback to crafts persons. One example was their insight that buyers opted for thematic designs that are keeping with the times as was reflected in a unique Taj Mahal jaali motif inspired apparel and accessories collection from master Ajrakh printers in Bhujodi, Gujarat.

Producers may choose to alter the design, type, and quantity of products they make based on these inputs. Artisans receive fairtrade prices within 30 days after their product is sold. Unsold items are on average returned after 90 days of display. The self-funded company has so far reached over 150 artisans and producer groups and been the market place for over 2,500 products ranging in price from $ 500 to $ 50 lakh. The company clocks healthy user engagement as reflected in a unique visitor spending over six minutes on the site and an average order size of over $ 4,000.

The company plans to include ethnic work from the North-East and recently signed a multi-year agreement with Nabard. Craftisan will power a nationwide online artisan marketplace initiative called “Shilpi Haat – Crafting Livelihoods” to organise an augment a fragmented supply chain using high-impact scalable models and provide new-age market linkages to artisans across India. Mahesh notes that crafts industry is India’s second largest employer and technology can be a great enabler to promote tradition through trade.

The customer at the specialty restaurant is unhappy with the service. He’s asked to give his feedback, not on a sheet of paper but on a tablet where he rates the service at a 2 out of 10. At the back-end, the GM’s smartphone pings as he gets this feedback instantaneously. He rushes out to assuage hurt feelings: the bill is waived, a bottle of wine proffered, and the diner goes away happy. This is the real-life scenario that S Sriram outlines. The founder-director of CloudCherry, an online customer sentiment mapping tool, points out that traditionally the feedback written on paper would be reviewed by the restaurant management by end of day, by which time the diner may have complained to his friends, on social and other media, and the damage is done. “Suppose somebody stepped in and did a superb job of fixing it, there is a chance that you are going to be a much more delighted customer and you are going to talk about it,” he explains. The CloudCherry app is freely downloadable on to a tablet or a smartphone and the data, which is uploaded to the cloud, is managed by the digital company.

CLOUDCHERRY, CHENNAI

“Unlike a conventional feedback mechanism, this system gives instant alerts. This is at the front-end. But its real value-addition is the back-end. The entire data flies to the cloud, which is controlled and managed by us. So having done a free download and captured the information from the customer, the analytics, slicing of data is all done by us,” explains Sriram. The licensing depends on the number of tablets/smartphones a client uses, across stores. It isn’t just the novelty of punching in feedback on a tablet, store staff can also record short videos that may be uploaded for management to see. For Sriram, who gave up his role of executive director with the Chennaibased B-school 'Great Lakes Institute of Management', it’s all about putting years of theory and academics to use in a start-up. Incubated by Bala Balachandran, founder of GLIM, and Sriram along with the founding CEO Vinod Muthukrishnan and friends, the project has so far seen investment of around ₹ 2 crore.

The CloudCherry app had its beginnings as a facility for industrial use when it was conceived by the former CFO of Great Lakes, B Hariharan, originally as a product designed for the shop-floor, to help in distribution and stocking of parts. However, when he spotted an opportunity to leverage this in an FMCG distribution context, he approached Balachandran and Sriram and the app was re-oriented for consumer-facing businesses. CloudCherry has as advisors Seenu Srinivasan, till recently Chairman of Marketing at the Stanford Business School, and Jagdish Sheth, Professor at Emory University and pioneer of learning in consumer behaviour.

CloudCherry, which is close to sealing a deal for venture capital funds for its next stage of growth, has signed on around 10 clients, including one in South Africa. Tata's Titan Company has signed on CloudCherry to track 110 showrooms of its Fastrack and World of Titan brands, where it has distributed tablets. Vipin Nair, Manager, Retail, Titan, says that it wanted to move beyond merely being transactional with a customer, which the company had become over a period of time. “We wanted to get more focussed, see the pain points of a customer and make it a pleasure to shop with us, as today customers have a huge choice of brands and shopping channels,” he explains. Nair cites the example of what happened to a

customer in a Bengaluru store who came with his daughter to buy a watch. There was an event happening at this multi-level store, and the watch they wanted to buy was in the first floor. Most of the staff was downstairs working on the event, and one staffer was attending to 5-6 customers. The shopper complained that staff should have been attending to customers first. This feedback was relayed to the corporate office and Nair had someone call and speak to him the very next day and soothe ruffled feathers. “He was an old Titan customer and he was very happy that somebody had bothered to call him from the corporate office,” adds Nair, who points out that this feedback is not a call centre-driven activity but handled directly by the company. Nor did Titan want to entrust feedback to an external agency where biases could creep in. “We are still working out what kind of service recovery we can do or how to incentivise a dissatisfied customer,” says Nair.

CEO Muthukrishnan says that the company has tied up clients in Colombo (the Cinnamon Grand hotel) and West Asia through re-sellers, and is on the verge of signing on a large retailer in South Africa where it is running a pilot. “The analytics are there in real-time for clients on their dashboard, the data sliced and diced in whatever way they want. We can also offer more focussed, bespoke analytics for clients if they need,” he says. The app also has a ‘delight meter’ on the dashboard, where clients can reassign weights to the metrics, resulting in a value by which they can judge instantly if a business is doing well or not. “In a few clicks one can check what people are appreciating in a store, what has helped push up sales, and that can be replicated in their other outlets,” adds Muthukrishnan.

While Sriram is looking to boost the fledgling company’s monthly recurring revenue, and pilot trials are on with leading Indian companies and a few abroad, the company needs seed funding to scale up the business. “We are looking at up to a million dollars in funding. This money will be used for two purposes: to expand business in existing markets, and second, to come up with a product for e-commerce businesses, because the existing model is for brick and mortar retail, and e-commerce works very differently.”

NRI Achievers Bureau

TOWARDS FAIR DEAL FOR HOME LOAN SEEKERS

In the current home loan scenario,where there is a lot of volatility in interest rates, home loan counselling assumes greater significance. As home loan repayment is a long term commitment, with a large majority of home loan borrowers opting for ten or more than ten years of tenure, they need to be helped with proper financial planning in order to insulate them against the shocks of sudden hikes in EMIs due to cyclic variation in interest rates. NRI Achievers brings its readers thoughts from Vinod Behl, one of the top realty analysts ...

It is oft seen many a time that home buyers do not realise or fail to comprehend that the cheapest home loans may not always be the best for them. Home loan buyers are often lured with schemes with initial low interest rates, but later they find themselves in as big financial mess, as banks hike their floating interest rates. Home loan counselors can really help such borrowers tide over these eventualities through spreading much needed awareness and help tghem with proper financial planning. They also come in handy to prospective borrowers in selecting the right lender, especially as changing the lender later is not only cumbersome but also involves extra cost. With proper advice, loan seekers could easily opt for a bank that allows a higher limit of loan that can be pre-paid. Counselors can also guide borrowers about the right time to prepay home loans.

Home loan seekers today really need this sort of expert advice to decide about the loan tenure, especially in the current volatile environment where job security is

low and inflation is high. Home loan tenures depend on an individual's need and financial commitments. Normally a 10-15 years loan tenure is ideal. But prospective home loan takers need to be aware that banks will not allow loan tenures beyond working years. So if one is taking home loan at a higher age, there is no option but to keep the loan tenure low. Generally it is seen that bank DSAs and HFCs in their aggressiveness to sell home loans, do not properly brief clients about these aspects. It is here that home loan counselors can play a really important role.

Some time ago the National Housing Bank (NHB) had taken a welcome initiative to educate and empower home loan seekers in view of the lack of transparency in the home loan market. The NHB, in association with the Indian Institute of Banking & Finance (IIBF), had prepared a blue-print to introduce trained home loan counselors to inform and advise home loan borrowers about the intricacies of procedures and other related matters pertaining to legal issues and property valuation. The idea behind this

was to help home loan seekers take informed decisions about choosing the right lender and right tenure, and make entire loan process smoother. For that purpose, NHB and IIBF initiated a diploma programme to prepare certified mortgage counselors to provide their services to prospective home loan seekers across the country.

It is also a matter of great satisfaction that Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is making things easier for home loan borrowers by relaxing the norms for prepayment and norms for shifting to a new bank without having to pay penalty. NHB needs to come forward and put a regulatory mechanism in place to provide a fair deal to home loan seekers. This will also help in giving a major boost to the property market, which is still in its nascent stage of recovery after a prolonged slowdown.

Vinod Behl

The author is a senior media professional, with long-standing experience in the real estate sector. He may be reached at; vbehl2008@gmail.com

REALTY – Q&A

We had started this Q&A column on all matters pertaining to the purchase, sale and rental of properties in India by NRIs, the extant laws that govern this, and numerous other related matters several issues ago, but the column writer took a sabbatical of a few months in between, and for the past few issues, our readers have been missing this. The column is now back for your continued benefit, and as ever, readers of NRI Achievers are encouraged to send in their queries, which will be answered by our panel of experts and entrepreneurs in the realm of real estate development.

Why Dubai NRIs should invest in India now ...

Affluent NRIs tend to have surplus funds and Indian market has a plentitude of options for investment at this time. The UAE (United Arab Emirates), which is a very important GCC country, has been one of the best trading partners of India, making adequate quanta of investments in India. You may currently choose from a bunch of investment options (real estate, financial products & commodity markets) in various sectors, among which the real estate sector has emerged as one of the most globally recognized areas for investments today. According to future expectations, it is already being proclaimed that the India real estate sector will see more NRI investments. Property prices in Indian real estate sector have highly appreciated in last five years. For overseas Indians, this is just a minute increase owing to the depreciation of Indian rupee against the foreign currency. Due to this, investments of Indian real estate sector have been more cost-effective and immensely lucrative. NRIs from Dubai can repatriate their surplus savings and investment money by putting them into Indian real estate – the ‘homeland’ – which will give them both sentimental support and security.

Points to be considered at the time of purchasing property ...

Real estate investments are immensely lucrative and an easy option for NRIs to invest in, but carry some snags within as well. So, whenever any NRI is in the process of making a purchase, they have to be so prudent as to ensure that the deal may be secured, and they should be careful about a few other considerations as well, enumerated here:

Property Name – According to the records, seller should have rights to sell the property and name of the property holder should be very clear from issues, especially if it is an inherited or a joint property. A 'No dues certificate' is mandatory, which clarifies to the investor that there are no outstanding public utility (electricity/water supply) bills or any other authority dues pending with the property. Bank release letter: If you are dealing with any mortgaged property, then it is advisable to take bank release letter from the concerned bank, so that you don’t face any problem in purchasing the property. Permits: The property being sold should be approved, and have the entire permit from the civic department as this is the concerned department for construction.

How to make a safe Deal …

Finalizing with a reputed property dealer is the prior selection

procedure as firstly you need to ensure the authenticity of the property, which is free from encumberments and lawsuits. So, whenever an NRI is starting the process of purchasing a property, he should always go through some credible channels as friends, relatives, property expos and seminars and then, you can finalize from the selective developers only. Few developers take care of maintenance after the purchase as well.

What is the right time to invest..

Times when the rupee is weak can be a good time to invest in Indian Real Estate, because of the higher volume to acquire quality real estate and this will be the right time to transmit your funds to India. Making an investment at this time can give you higher exchange rates and better return on investment, so it will provide final customer a privilege investment in customer driven market – Indian Realty Market. Talking about the effect of inflationary pressure on NRI, JMD Atul Gupta - Earth Group of Companies says: “NRI can make huge investments at very lower levels as inflationary pressure affects resident Indians instead of NRIs, while it is a highly favorable situation for Indian expatriates to invest in Indian realty market. Such investments can direct the inflationary trend towards the correction of its pressure. Home loan interest rates are ranging from 10 to 11 percent and have been slightly steady in recent past. Hence, with the rupee depreciating it actually means that an NRI customer who would have required Dh 100,000 to repay a 12 lac rupee loan (Dh-INR rate of 12) couple of years ago would now need only Dh 70,500 (Dh-INR rate of 17) to repay the loan. Also, Indian property rates have been highly revised and the property which was costing INR 40 lacs few years ago has reached the price of INR 60 to 70 lacs. Over a 5-10 year horizon, such investments always look highly favorable till the time you don’t repatriate your rupee back.”

Investors should always concentrate on micro markets where job generation is high, improved infrastructure and connectivity, upcoming new educational facilities and high civil governance standards. Delhi, Noida, Gurgoan, Pune, Bangaluru, Chennai and Ahmedabad are the destinations for such pure investment deals.

Vikas Gupta

The writer is a joint Managing Director of Earth Infrastructure, who is a marketing expert in real estate.

THE LAST MUGHAL COMMANDER

On one fateful night of 1736, a family with royal blood in their veins escapes into the forests to save the remaining members from brutal invasion of Nader Shah. Some of them survive and continued living in the Balochistan province, which now falls in Pakistan. Some say that this family was from the Safvid Dynasty of Persia. God Almighty had a different plan for two siblings from this family. Khadija Sultan Begum Sahiba, the daughter of family born at Isfahan in Persia in 1732, later becomes the third wife of Izzat-udDaula, Nawab Mohd. Muhsin Khan Bahadur, the eldest son of Mirza Ja’afar Khan Beg, the Nawab of Oudh. Nawab Muhsin was deputed as special ambassador to the Shah of Persia. Khadija Sultan Begum Sahiba’s elder brother, Mirza Najaf was a young adventurer, who could not save his family from Nader Shah but the warrior in him never allowed him to rest. He joined the court of Oudh (Awadh) and with time, rose to power as the Deputy Wazir of Oudh. He became popular with the name of Mirza Najaf Khan Korai Baloch, but at the time of death his full name read: “His Excellency, Bakshi ul-Mamlikat, Vakil-i-Mutlaq, Amir ul-Umara, Rustam-i-Hind, Zulfiqar ud-Daula, Nawab Mirza Najaf Khan Bahadur, Ghalib Jang...”

THE MUGHAL GENERAL

Najaf Khan was known as the most powerful Mughal General during the dying days of dynasty. He strengthened the Mughal army by introducing better battle formations and weapons. He is also known for the introduction of the ‘Firelock’ musket into the Mughal Army. He fought under the Mughal flag in the famous Battle of Buxar in 1764, while he

was still part of the Oudh Army. Later in 1772 he was moved to Delhi to take charge as the highest commander of the Mughal Army, serving merely for a decade, which was enough for him to streamline the soldiers and train them with better techniques.

His army had around 90,000 highly trained soldiers and 250 cannons. Soldiers were paid timely premium

salaries to ensure the best out of them. Even during times when the Mughal court was not all that strong, Mirza Najaf Khan managed to keep the loyalty and morale of his soldiers high. It was his vision and expertise that made the Mughal army one of the strongest in the region, with even Frenchmen and other European soldiers finding their way into his army.

NAJAFGARH

Mirza Najaf Khan realized that after British, who were more like allies than enemies now, the biggest threat was from the Rohillas and the Sikhs. He marched several kilometers away from the capital of Shahjahanabad to establish a military outpost, which would guard Delhi against such attacks. He built a strong fort, known as Najafgarh. Today, only one gate of this fort survives. Some say that the Stable and Mosque also survived, but are now being used as some government buildings within the Najafgarh town.

Today, Najafgarh is the most populous constituency in Delhi. Some prominent personalities, other than Najaf Khan, that belong to Najafgarh are:

ü Chaudhry Brahm Prakash Yadav, first Chief Minister of Delhi

ü Sushma Yadav, first woman general secretary of Delhi Pradesh Congress committee and first Secretary of All India Mahila Congress

ü Virender Sehwag, Cricketer

ü Rajbir Yadav, Alderman of South Delhi MCD

ü Jitender Yadav, Mr. India, and

ü Many other noted athletes and army officers

Najafgarh is also known for the battle of Battle of Najafgarh, fought during the siege of Delhi in 1857. After the death of Najaf Khan, the fort of Najafgarh became a stronghold of Zabita Khan, the Rohilla Afghan chief.

DEATH AND AFTERMATH

Mirza Najaf Khan Baloch died in Delhi

on the 26th of April, 1782. He left behind an adopted son named Najaf Quli Khan, not to be confused with the Quli Khan buried in Mehrauli Archaeological Park, behind Qutub Minar. It is said that his son had converted from Hinduism. He was nowhere close to the strength and talent of Najaf Khan Baloch and could not succeed him.

His Tomb is probably the last Charbagh of Delhi, an unfinished structure with only the crypt connected to four corridors, with the platform on top containing a rough cenotaph. A proper building must have been in the works then, but during those dying days of the empire, there was no one to finish the project. This brave soldier rests in a corner opposite the Safdarjung Airport.

Within 12 months of his demise, Delhi was attacked by Baba Baghel Singh Dhaliwal, the Red Fort was captured and the emperor had to flee. Baba Baghel Singh entered Delhi through a hole in the wall near Kashmere Gate, where his 30 thousand soldiers had camped ... we still call that place tees-hazari ... . “Hole” in punjabi is known as “Mori”, and some

claim that Mori Gate is named so because of that hole made by Sikhs. Supported by the armies of Sardar Jassa Singh Ramgharia and Sardar Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, baba baghel Singh stormed the fort. Maharaja Jassa Singh Ahluwalia then reached Delhi and Baba Baghel Singh decided to install him as the Emperor of Delhi, which found objection with S. Jassa Singh Ramgharia and S. Ahluwalia voluntarily stepped down before coronation. The Mughal Emperor then sent Lady Sombre (Begum Samru) to Delhi to strike a deal between the Sikhs and the Mughals. A treaty was signed and Delhi was released by Sikhs. In some future article, I shall detail out the treaty, and how Sikhs Shrines of Delhi were given to Sikhs as a barter.

Over the next 5 years, the Mughal Army seized to exist. Mirza Najaf Khan Korai Baloch was the Last Brave Commander of Mughal Army.

Vikramjit Singh Rooprai

The writer is a self-made IT entrepreneur, who is also a passionate heritage & history buff

VAASTU

You a sk we answer

For quite some time now, we have been running this Q&A column on Vaastu (and Feng Shui) with a view to address queries of our readers related to the subject. While we are happy with the response, we would like you to write back more to us with your thoughts on how we are presenting it. As ever, the author will continue to give you pro-bono advice if you will state your problem lucidly, and send with it your date of birth and a plan of the property in question. Do read ahead ...

l I have seen your videos on 'youtube' related to vaastu and find them very impressive. I have few questions related to my home. Basically, just want to know whether it is built as per vaastu. Sending you the blueprint of the property.

Kumar Bhargava, New Jersey, US

Insofar as your worries go, I find there are no major problems in your house except the kitchen. Your kitchen is in the south-west direction, and it can affect the health of the women in the house and also mar their personal relationships. Even men may be seen to be affected due to the inappropriate direction of the kitchen. My advice to you is that food in your house should be cooked in south-east direction. You could probably convert the existing kitchen into a store or something like that. You will then see results within 49 days. Else, the house is good for money matters.

l I want to renovate a portion of my house located at Chandigarh. Please guide me as to which would be the best direction to add a bathroom?

Samarjeet Sandhu, Saket, New Delhi

If you want to build a bathroom with a bathing place and a toilet seat both then best directions are south, west and North-West, but for a bathroom dedicatedly made for bathing can be in East or North directions.

l We live in an old house, and now we notice some cracks in the walls, especially on the staircase. Is having cracks in the walls considered to be bad according to vaastu? In my opinion the house is not much damaged.

Sujata Chawla, Mahim, Mumbai

According to vaastu, cracks in the wall may cause conflicts among family members residing in the house. The cracks in the wall of your staircase can cause financial and business related loss to the head of the family as well. So, it is always better to mend these cracks as soon as possible.

l I am running a studio in Hong-Kong. There are two entry gates, one in the north direction and one in the west direction. What colour of the paint is best for these gates according to you?

Supriyyaa Shanu, Hong-Kong

According to Feng-Shui you can colour the gate in north direction with black or blue paint, and as for the gate in west direction white, off-white or cream are the best options in that order.

l Two months ago I sent you the layout of my house with some questions, and you sent me some suggestions. I have made all changes suggested by you and have seen improvement. But I find the pyramids you suggested very costly and am unable to afford them. Is there anything else which I can do in place of those pyramids?

Chetan Raj Sharma, Singapore

These solutions or suggestions are like medicines, in my opinion you should try to save some money to do it. Else you can wait for a better fate and better times. Though you can follow few general remedies by using auspicious colour schemes, correct your interiors as per vaastu.

l I have bought a new flat, which is dark even in the day. I would like to renovate and open a new window so that more sunlight enters the house. What is the best direction to open a window in the house? One of my friends says south is not a good direction for a window.

Sumit, New Delhi

It will be best to make a big window in the east, but if you are not getting any options, you can also have window in South East or North West, it will be of no harm. Do hang a picture of a mountain (without water) in the Southern-Western zone.

Naresh Singal

Apart from vaastu, he is also a well known exponent of Feng Shui & Pyramidology. You can contact him at: mail@vaastunaresh.com www.vaastunaresh.com

Author will provide free consultation for readers of NRI Achievers. But do send map of your premises and your date of birth.

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MINE IS NOT A PREACHY FILM SAROVAR BANKA

Sarovar Banka is the director of the film A DECENT ARRANGEMENT. Jyothi Venkatesh buttonholed him in Mumbai to speak about his film and his approach to film-making. NRI Achievers brings you some excerpts from that conversation …

How would you describe your film A DECENT ARRANGEMENT?

It is a small film about Adam, an Indian American who comes to India to seek the guidance of his elder cousin, played by Shabana Azmi, in search of an arranged marriage. The film deals with the dilemma of today’s youth who are unable to decide

whether to opt for an arranged marriage or a love marriage, and the extent to which they are willing to walk the extra mile to get what they want.

How did you zero in on an actress like Shabana Azmi?

“I would say it was pure luck that led me to

Shabana, as I knew someone who knew her. I sent my script to her and I was pleasantly surprised when she called me back to say that she would be happy to be part of the film. And she is such a great actress that while on the sets, you can be 99 percent sure of getting your shot in the first take itself as she is ready with her lines and

fully prepared.

How was your leading man Adam?

Not many in India or abroad know Adam, who is playing the lead in my film. What I like about him is that he is an incredible actor who was not at all in awe of Shabana Azmi when he was casted with her in my film.

In how many days did you shoot your film?

I shot my film over 29 days in Chandigarh. Though it is in English, if it does spectacularly well in India, I may dub it in Hindi and release it all over the country. I made it a point to send my film to various film festivals all over the world because I feel it is necessary to build your own audience by participating in such festivals before you release your film, as they also give your film a lot of momentum by fetching you key contacts at grassroot levels.

How tough was it for you to get a distributor?

Whether in India or abroad, you need a star if you want to sell your film. But times are changing and there are small films which succeed at the box-office even if they are introducing new actors. Of course there are also big films with big stars and small films with big stars which do well in India. Luckily in Manoj Nandwana, I have a distributor who knows exactly how to market a film. He wants to release the film in different pockets at different times, starting with Mumbai first and then gradually releasing it in different parts of the country like Delhi, Kolkatta, Bengaluru and Chennai where there is a big market for films made by NRI’s.

How would you describe yourself as an NRI?

I rather like to call myself an Indian American and not an NRI. While I am an American, my roots are in India, though my parents are themselves NRI’s in the right sense of the term, as they were born and brought up in India before they chose to live in the USA.

What next after A DECENT ARRANGEMENT?

I am planning a serial in English. I’d like to make another film in English, as I am much more comfortable with that language.

The writer is a well-known & established film critic.

KAILASH KHER AWARDED THE YASH BHARTI

Kailash Kher (of Allah Ke Banday and Teri Deewani fame) has been awarded the Yash Bharti award for his singing. At a function held recently in Lucknow, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav handed Kher this accolade. Started in 1994-95 by the government of Uttar Pradesh, Yash Bharti picks out extraordinary contribution in the fields of literature, arts, folk music, classical music, cinema and sports and awards the contributor. Earlier other winners of this award from the film fraternity include Rekha Bharadwaj, Anup Jalota, Rajan and Sajan Mishra, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Ravindra Jain and Sameer among others. Last November, Kailash Kher grabbed a broom to clean the streets of Banaras when he was asked by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to join the Swachchh Bharat Abhiyaan.

DHULIA HONOURED AT INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF PRAYAG

SHANDILYA GETS STANDING OVATION FOR HIS 1ST SYMPHONY PERFORMANCE

Tigmanshu Dhulia was honoured at the much awaited First Edition of International Film Festival of Prayag (IFFP) held in Allahabad from 26th to 28th February. Tigmanshu Dhulia is well known for his movies like Haasil,  Charas, Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster and Bullet Raja. National Award winning Movie Paan Singh Tomar director has his roots in Allahabad as he was born there. Director Tigmanshu Dhulia also shared tips on movies and direction with budding filmmakers. Hasan Haider, founder of the festival and owner of media production house, Z&Z Media

Pvt. Ltd was quoted saying, “Tigmanshu Dhulia is a renowned filmmaker and the best part is that most of his movies have been based in Uttar Pradesh. It’s a proud moment for us to honour Tigmanshu for his contribution towards Hindi Cinema.” Being organised by Z&Z Media Pvt Ltd, IFFP is in one way an encouragement of the film industry as well as the pioneers associated with it. Unlike the common film festivals, IFFP comes with an ambitious agenda. Here, we emphasis on promoting Art in the Cinemas while screening the splendid Independent Films from around the globe. Moreover, our mission is to signify Allahabad as a land rich in art and culture. We want to make it the biggest cine-destination and bring in light the creativity and talent of Northern India.  This is just a way to inspire the film professionals and those students who aspire to become great film makers.

Sandesh Shandilya performed his first symphony composition Search For Buddha at the Funkhaus Wallrafplatz, WDR Cologne, Germany, with the WDR Funkhausorchester and the WDR Rundfunkchor, Conducted by Wayne Marshall. Says Sandesh, “It’s a dream for a composer. My symphony is based on world peace. I have worked out hundred hours of music so far for the symphony; I had to connect with the western music. This began while I was learning the Vipassana course there, three years ago. After a bout of self-discovery, I decided to explore Buddha and his inner journey. Fear, anger and greed need to be controlled. Peace within helps you spread it through your music. I met Markus Stockhaousen — a famous jazz-trumpet player — with my compositions, who then referred me to the organizers of symphony in Cologne. I wish to perform this symphony in India soon.” With this, Sandesh will add his name to a prestigious list of Indian symphony composers like maestros Pandit Ravi Shankar, Pyarelal and Ilayaraja.

QUAIDI NO.210 BASED ON SALMAN’S CHINKARA CASE

Quaidi No 210, producer Ranjeet Sharma’s film that takes its inspiration from the Salman Khan Chinkara case, was launched with the muhurat at Filmistan in the jail sets.  210 was the number allocated to Salman Khan when he was lodged in the Jodhpur prison. The film will be directed by editor- turned- director Prakash Jha and stars newcomer Usmaan Khan in the lead. The film also has the same cellmate of Salman, Mahesh Saini. Interestingly, the same Jodhpur jail and the same cell as well as the same gypsy and driver Harish Dhulani used by Salman are part of the film as well. Says

producer Ranjeet Sharma, “We are looking at authentic locations, authentic people to be part of the film that will be shot in Mumbai and Jodhpur. Neither Salman nor anyone else will have objection to my film as it is not intended to hurt anyone’s sentiments.

mumbai Bureau

TIGMANSHU

THE ROOF OF THE wORld

lAdAKH

Roughly the size of Scotland, Ladakh is part of the northern Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, and has a population of less than 300,000. In the past, Ladakh was at the crossroads of ancient trade routes from South Asia, and until the end of the 19th century, has seen mule trains carrying shawls and spices that made the journey from Amritsar through Ladakh to Yarkand in China. This haven of Tibetan culture – harboured by ladhakis who are a mix of Tibetan and Indo-Aryan – became part of independent India in 1948.

This was to be my first visit to Ladakh and I was to mentor a 'Fashion & Nature' photography workshop there, and it was late June, which is peak summer time in Ladakh. And then, our Ladakh expert gave us a checklist, which included paradoxically oddities like sunglasses and sunscreen lotion, hat and skullcap, Diamox tablets, thermals and earmuffs, oxygen cylinder, et al. Upon checking, I found that one would need stuff like sunglasses, hat, sunscreen lotion, etc., during the daytime since the place is on a high altitude (average approx. 14,500 ft.) and hence would mean higher UV radiation; while evenings would necessitate the other things like thermals, ear-muffs etc., since temperatures drop drastically (its a cold desert, and then, there's the wind-chill fac-

tor). I was still perplexed about Diamox and the oxygen cylinder, and pat came the realization - there is much lesser oxygen in the hills than what we are used to in the plains. So Diamox would thin the blood and help absorb whatever little oxygen is available, and if that wasn't enough, the oxygen cylinder would come in handy.

Frankly, I went there thoroughly scared. We landed in Leh, the regional HQ of Ladakh. At the airport, our first tablet of Diamox was administered. Upon reaching our hotel, we were briefed to try and spend as much time as possible in bed for the first 24 hours. Acclimatization to the high-altitude reaches, characteristic of lesser oxygen, you see! From Day 2, we started our whirlwind tour of Ladakh. We visited Sindhu-Darshan - a place to see the river Indus in full glory. We were told that the annual Ladakh festival is held at the same venue. We visited the Shey and Thikse monasteries, both located in stately and scenic splendor. Our first major outing was to Lamayuru. Like most of Ladakh, the route was fascinatingly scenic. En route, we came across Patthar Sahib, a holy place for Sikhs; Magnetic Hill, where despite the road sloping up, the vehicle auto-

rolls upwards when left in neutral; and Moonscape, a string of hills with textures resembling the cratered surface of moon. Upon reaching lamayuru, we found ourselves in an ancient monastery, one that was as fascinating as the ones we had visited around Leh.

On Day 4, we headed off to Nubra Valley. This journey took us past the highest motorable pass in the world – the Khardung La. As always, it was covered in snow. At a glorious 18,318 ft., this pass is a marvel of civil engineering. Interestingly, we saw sand dunes on the banks of River Shyok. This place also gave us our first glimpse of a Bactrian camel. This strange creature has 2 humps on its back.

On day 6, we pushed off to Pangong Tso (Tso = Lake). It took us past Chang Lathe third highest motorable pass in the world, situated at a height of 17,560 ft. The first glimpse of the lake literally took our breath away. The water was deep blue, and so was the sky. The mountains surrounding the lake were myriad hues of earthcolors. And, the lake had a sizable population of sea gulls ! Upon checking, we realized that Pangong is a salt-water lakehence the sea gulls. That night made us

pull out all our warm clothes. The temperature was down to a low single digit, and the wind chill factor a crazy high. With very little cover between the elements and us, since the vast expanse of the lake, roughly measuring 140 km x 3.5 km (with 40% of the lake lying in Indian territory and the balance 60% in China) offered nothing to mitigate the fury of the wind. Though we were here for a fashion + nature photography workshop, we couldn't resist indulging in some astrophotography, shooting star trails across the silky night-sky. And tell you what, none of us had ever seen so many stars in the skies anywhere else before.

Just a small aside to fill you in on the region and its construct - Ladakh comprises 2 districts - Leh and Kargil. It is an autonomous region administered by a Hill Council. While the whole region is picturesque, most popular tourist spots are in Leh. It is called the roof of the world since it the highest plateau in the world. For us, it was a hectic trip. But the delectable menu offered by nature took away all our tiredness. In fact, on Day 8, when we were to leave Leh, we had made a common resolve and covenant - we will be back in Ladakh soon. This was 2 years ago; and for me, the resolve is getting fulfilled tomorrow as I write this little travelogue sitting here in Kargil, heading towards Leh in the morning...

Ajay Sood

The author is a well known travel photographer, a Canon photo mentor, a director of curated photo tours & a travel writer

announces

INDIASPORA 2015 SHIELD OF HONOUR

A fitting recognition of diaspora's overseas eminence in the country of their origin, this honour is open for entire NRI, PIO and OCI community for achievement in the field of business, commerce, industry, education, politics, finance, arts, culture, entertainment or sports, for the year 2014.

Please log in to file your nomination at nriachievers.in/ShieldOfHonour for a nominal fee of US$300 (fee to be paid by PayPal).