Daily India

Lage Raho Munnabhai & Mahatma Gandhi.

2006-09-17T06:17:00.000-07:00

Three Cheers to Rajkumar Hirani for introducing Gandhi's teachings to the new generation. He has succeeded in making Gandhi more human and more likeable. A large part of the credit should also go to Dilip Prabhavalkar who plays the role of Mahatma Gandhi. The last generation of Indians had put Gandhi on a pedestal and forgotten his teachings. They were content with cleaning and garlanding his photograph every year on his death anniversary. Hirani has brought Gandhi out of the dusty libraries onto the street.

Cheaper Treatment for Neonatal Jaundice by Vijay Anand.

2006-08-24T06:47:00.000-07:00

Cheaper Treatment for Neonatal Jaundice by Vijay Anand.

Vijay Anand from Bangalore has developed a cheaper device to treat Neonatal Jaundice. According to a Times Of India report which follows :

An inexpensive device to treat neonatal jaundice developed by a Bangalore boy could save the lives of millions of poor children across the world.

Vijay Anand, a student of Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, US, has developed a light unit for $ 500. With the standard light to treat neonatal jaundice costing $ 4000 a piece, hospitals, especially in poor and under-developed countries, cannot afford to buy them.

As a result, thousands of babies never get treatment and go on to suffer serious brain damage, deafness and even death. Vijay's discovery has won him a whopping $ 100,000 prize at the Duke Startup Challenge Cure competition.

The affordable medical device will now be an established business model to distribute the lights to Third World countries.

"I realised that the US was ahead of us in the medical device industry for many years and that prompted me to invent this low-cost device. At present, I am incubating the project at the Duke University.

I will use the seed money of $ 100,000 to establish a company called Photogenesis that will commercialise and distribute the lights to the third world countries," Vijay told The Times of India from the US.

Phototherapy is nothing new, except that these devices are expensive and several countries rely on the US for their supply. "All I did was strip the bells and whistles from the device, use the already introduced LEDs to make an affordable device," he added.

After completing his BE in medical electronics at the M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore, Vijay chose to move to health sector management while doing his post-graduation at Duke University.

Anand's initial prototypes are installed in a hospital in Tanzania. The project has the support of both Duke and Stanford universities.

As Vijay's parents Shashikala Anand and Anand Sivappa who live in Bangalore put it: "He has not only brought light into our lives, but to millions of infants suffering from jaundice."

The Duke University-Engineering World Health Cure's competition dispatches engineering students to poor hospitals around the world.

The annually held Duke Startup Challenge Cures competition presents United States' largest award for a business plan competition, which includes $ 100,000 prize and one-year's incubation within the university.

N. R. Narayana Murthy - Sets another Example in Retiring.

2006-08-24T06:35:00.000-07:00

N. R. Narayana Murthy

He has set an exemplary behaviour, to all indians who like to stick to their chairs, by retiring exactly on due date. His biodata according to the official Infosys website follows :

N. R. Narayana Murthy is the Executive Chairman and Chief Mentor of Infosys Technologies Limited. Mr. Murthy served as the Chief Executive Officer of Infosys between 1981 and 2002. Under his leadership, Infosys was listed on NASDAQ (INFY) in 1999. In March 2002, he handed over the reins of the company to co-founder Nandan M. Nilekani.

Mr. Murthy is the chairman of the governing body of the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He is a member of the Board of Overseers of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School; Cornell University Board of Trustees; Singapore Management University Board of Trustees; INSEAD's Board of Directors and the Asian Institute of Management's Board of Governors. He is also a member of the Advisory Boards and Councils of the William F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership at the Tuck School of Business, the Corporate Governance initiative at the Harvard Business School, and the Yale University President's Council on International Activities.

Mr. Murthy has led key corporate governance initiatives in India. He was the Chairman of the Committee on Corporate Governance appointed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in 2003.

Mr. Murthy serves as an independent director on the board of the DBS Bank, Singapore’s largest government-owned bank. He is a member of the Asia Pacific Advisory Board of British Telecommunications Plc., and a member of the Board of New Delhi Television Ltd. (NDTV), India. He serves as a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the United Nations Foundation. He also served as a member of the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India between November 2000 and June 2006. Mr. Murthy is on the board of trustees of TiE Inc. (Global), a worldwide network of entrepreneurs and professionals dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship. He is an IT advisor to several Asian countries.

Mr. Murthy is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. The Economist ranked him eighth on the list of the 15 most admired global leaders (2005). He was ranked 28th among the world's most-respected business leaders by the Financial Times (2005). He topped the Economic Times Corporate Dossier list of India's most powerful CEOs for two consecutive years — 2004 and 2005.

TIME magazine’s ”Global Tech Influentials“ list (August 2004) named Mr. Murthy as one of the ten leaders who are helping shape the future of technology. He was the first recipient of the Indo-French Forum Medal (2003), awarded by the Indo-French Forum in recognition of his role in promoting Indo-French ties. He was voted the World Entrepreneur of the Year - 2003 by Ernst and Young. He was one of two people named as Asia's Businessmen of the Year for 2003 by Fortune magazine. In 2001, he was named by TIME/CNN as one of the 25 most influential global executives, selected for their lasting influence in creating new industries and reshaping markets. He was awarded the Max Schmidheiny Liberty 2001 prize (Switzerland), in recognition of his promotion of individual responsibility and liberty. In 1999, BusinessWeek named him one of their nine Entrepreneurs of the Year, and he was featured in BusinessWeek's 'The Stars of Asia' for three successive years - 1998, 1999 and 2000.

The Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane, Australia) conferred an honorary doctorate on Mr. Murthy in 2005. He has also been conferred honorary doctorates by several well-known universities in India.

Mr. Murthy was born on August 20, 1946. He holds a B.E. from the University of Mysore and a M. Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Bismillah Khan - Shehnai Sensation.

2006-08-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

Birth Date :21st March, 1916
Birth Place : Dumraon (Bihar)

Ustad Bismillah Khan is a legendary shehnai maestro, a man of tenderness, a man who believes in remaining private and who believes that musicians are supposed to be heard and not seen.

He was born on 21 March 1916. The ancestors of Bismillah Khan were court musicians in the princely state of Dumraon in Bihar and he was trained under his uncle, the late Ali Bux 'Vilayatu’. Ali Bux was a shehnai player attached to Varanasi’s Vishwanath Temple.

Ustad Bismillah Khan Sahib poured his heart out into Raga Kafi from Red Fort on the eve of India’s first Republic Day ceremony.

Bismillah Khan sees only a divine unity between his music and his religion. Music, sur, namaaz is the same thing. His namaaz is the seven shuddh and five komal surs. Even as a devout Shia, Khan Sahib is also a staunch devotee of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of music.

His honorary doctorate from the Benares Hindu University and Shantiniketan bespeaks of his fame. He has been bequeathed with the Sangeet Natak Academi Award, the Tansen Award of the Madhya Pradesh government and also the prestigious Padma Vibhushan.

He has played in Afghanistan, Europe, Iran, Iraq, Canada, West Africa, USA, USSR, Japan, Hong Kong and almost every capital city across the world. His music is an ocean and he feels that he has barely reached the shore after 84 years of his life and his search is still incomplete.

The Government of India bestowed on him the title "Padmashri"; later he was further honoured by the title "Padmabhusan", and now the "Padmavibhusan" has been conferred on him. In-spite of being glorified in this manner he remained as modest as ever. When invited for a recording he always came without demur. Ustad Khan sahib has been conferred with "Bharat Ratna" award by the Govt. of India.

New PEPSICO CEO of Indian Origin.

2006-08-16T07:55:00.000-07:00

PEPSICO is the world's fourth largest food and beverages company. On August 14, 2006 Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi was named the next to succeed Steve Reinemund as chief executive officer of the company. Reinemund, 58, will retire on October 1.

Life and Career :

Born in Chennai on October 28 1955.
B.S. from Madras Christian College.
M.B.A. from I.I.M. Calcutta.
Master’s Degree in Public and Private management from the Yale School of Management.
Senior V.P. of Strategy and Strategic Marketing for Asea Brown Boveri.
V.P. and Director of Corporate Strategy and Planning at Motorola.
Joined PEPSICO in1994, became CFO in 2001.
Senior V.P. and CFO, and SVP of Corporate Strategy and Developmentat PEPSICO.
Tricon and Tropicana were her key projects at PEPSICO.
Successor Fellow at Yale Corporation.
Advisory Board of Yale University President's Council of International Activities.
Highest ranking India-born woman in Corporate America.
She will become the 5th CEO of PEPSICO.

Indra Nooyi and husband Raj live with their two daughters in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Youngest Indian to join M.Tech at I.I.T.- Madras.

2006-08-15T08:36:00.000-07:00

From Chennai comes the story of S Chandra Sekar who has become the youngest to join M.Tech course at I.I.T. - Madras. Some milestones he passed along the way :

Initiated to computers at age of four!
Started programming at eight years!
Became a Microsoft Certified Professional at nine years of age.
Completed schooling at twelve years of age.
Did his Bachelors in Computer Applications from Srivilliputtur.
Published a paper on 'Intrusin Detection Systems: A Survey' at fourteen years.
Scored 99.32% inGraduate Aptitude Test for joining M.Tech course.

His area of intrest is information security and cryptography and role model is Infosys chief N R Narayanamurthy. With such a head start there is no doubt that this kid will be going places and taking India along with him.

Introduction

2006-08-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

Introduction

Daily stories full of inspiration from India will be the aim of this blog launched on the 59 th anniversary of India's independence.