Last Man Standing

The huge expectation and burden works as a barrier for any human being when one goes on to succeed  another great man. That’s why it is said that ‘avoid Stepping into a Great Man's Shoes’. However, there are some who like to take it as challenge and stride on to achieve the goal that expected form him or her. When the great man late J. R. D. Tata entrusted the mantle of Tata Empire to Ratan Tata, the situation was the same. But he appeared from the shadow of JRD and surge forward. Ratan Tata, having the lethat combination of as a great human being and as well as is an excellent CEO. Let me put little light on his life while within short period he is going to entrust the mantle of Tata Empire to Cyrus Mistry.

Ratan Naval Tata, born in 28 December 1937, in Mumbai. Ratan is the grandson of Tata group founder Jamsedji Tata.

Tata started his schooling at Campion School and finished at Cathedral and John Connon School both in Bombay. Ratan Tata completed his B.S. in architecture with structural engineering from Cornell University in 1962, and the Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School in 1975.

Tata began his career at the Tata empire in 1962; he initially worked on the shop floor of Tata Steel, shovelling limestone and handling the blast furnace. In 1971, he was appointed the Director of National Radio and Electronics, which was in dire straits when he came on board: with losses of 40% and barely 2% share of the consumer electronics market. However, just when he turned it around from 2% to 25% market share, the Emergency was declared. A weak economy and labour issues compounded the problem and Nelco was quickly near collapse again.

For his next assignment, in 1977 he was asked to turn around the sick Empress Mills, which he did. However, he was refused a Rs 50 lakh investment required to make the textile unit competitive. Empress Mills floundered and was finally closed in 1986.

In 1981, JRD Tata stepped down as Tata Industries chairman, naming Ratan Tata as his successor. He was heavily criticized for lacking experience in running a company of the scale of Tata Industries.

In 1991, he was appointed group chairman of the Tata group. As group chairman, he has been responsible for converting "the corporate commonwealth" of different Tata-affiliated companies into a cohesive company. He has been responsible for the acquisition of Tetley, Jaguar Land Rover and Corus, which have turned Tata from a largely India-centric company into a global business, with 65% revenues coming from abroad. He also pushed the development of Indica and the Nano. He is widely credited for the success of the Tata Group of companies, especially after the liberalization of controls after the 1990s.

In August 2007, Ratan Tata lead Tata Group's acquisition of British steel maker Corus. At that time, this was the largest takeover of a foreign company by an Indian company, and resulted in Tata Group becoming the fifth largest steel producer in the world.

When Mumbai along with Hotel Taj was attacked by the terrorist, he was the man who stood by the victims and many of them were not even belongs to the Tata Groups.

Among many other honours accorded him during his career, Tata received the Padma Bhushan, one of India’s most distinguished civilian awards, in 2000 and Padma Vibhushan in 2008 and Lifetime Achievement Award awarded by prestigious Rockefeller Foundation in 2012. He has also been ranked as India's most powerful CEO. In 2009, Tata was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (K.B.E.).

Ratan Tata is set to retire in December 2012 to be succeeded by Cyrus Mistry.

   

!!!Ratan Tata, is last man standing? Hope Cyrus Mistry going to prove it wrong.!!!

The Ironman & The Father of Indian Civil Aviation!

The tribute for the great man may came too late but it was always in my mind. My father worked in Tisco (Tata Iron & Steel Company) and for obvious reason I was brought up in Jamshedpur under generous hospitality provided by the company.  Jamshedpur the town, I still looked upon as one of the best place to live in. I spend a fair amount of my life in that town which breathes around the company itself. There is no doubt that the brand ‘Tata’ draws more respect than any other corporate house. One of the pioneer who built this empire that founded by Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, was J. R. D. Tata. The name itself draw mammoth admiration. Being a ‘Jammy’ (Jamshedpur) we owe lots to this great man.

Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata

J. R. D. Tata was born in 29 July 1904 in Paris, France, the second child of Parsi father Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata and his French wife, Suzanne. His father was a first cousin of Jamsetji Tata, a pioneer industrialist in India. He spent much of his childhood in France and as a result, French was his first language. Tata also attended the French Foreign Legion. He attended the Cathedral and John Connon School, Bombay.

J. R. D. Tata was inspired early by aviation pioneer Louis Blériot, and took to flying. On February 10, 1929 Tata obtained the first pilot licence issued in India. He later came to be known as the father of Indian civil aviation. He founded India's first commercial airline, Tata Airlines in 1932, which became Air India in 1946, now India's national airline.

He joined Tata & Sons as an unpaid apprentice in 1925. In 1938, at the age of 34, JRD was elected Chairman of Tata & Sons making him the head of the largest industrial group in India. He took over as Chairman of Tata Sons from his uncle Nowroji Saklatwala. For decades, he directed the huge Tata Group of companies, with major interests in Steel, Engineering, Power, Chemicals and Hospitality. He was famous for succeeding in business while maintaining high ethical standards - refusing to bribe politicians or use the black market.

In 1945, he founded Tata Motors. In 1948, JRD Tata launched Air India International as India's first international airline. In 1953, the Indian Government appointed JRD Tata as Chairman of Air India and a director on the Board of Indian Airlines - a position he retained for 25 years. For his crowning achievements in aviation, he was bestowed with the title of Honorary Air Commodore of India.

JRD Tata received a number of awards. He received the Padma Vibhushan in 1957 on the eve of the silver jubilee of Air India. He also received the Guggenheim Medal for aviation in 1988. In 1992, because of his selfless humanitarian endeavors, JRD Tata was awarded India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna. In the same year, JRD Tata was also bestowed with the United Nations Population Award for his crusading endeavors towards initiating and successfully implementing the family planning movement in India, much before it became an official government policy.

The Former chairman of Tata Group Known for Founder of TCS, Founder of Tata Motors, Founder of Titan Industries, Founder of Tata Communications, Founder of Tata Tea, Founder of Voltas. He died 29 November 1993 Geneva, Switzerland.

!!!Greatness of a man lies in his achievements!!!

The Milkman and his Journey towards the Milky way!

Today’s generation is mostly clueless about the contribution of Dr. Verghese Kurien. There was a time when urban population ran from pillar to post to get their daily quota of milk and in rural India the excessive milk used to thrown out like water. The poverty ridden villagers without any source or clue they had no other options to choose from. Things changed when a young man with a Metallurgical  Engineering degree from Michigan University brought a revolution was know as ‘White Revolution’. Here is the story of the man who helped the rural India prosper and is know as

Verghese Kurien

Verghese Kurien was born on 26 November 1921 in Calicut, Madras Presidency, British India. His father was a civil surgeon in Cochin. He graduated in Physics from Loyola College, Madras in 1940 and then obtained his Bachelors in mechanical engineering from the University of Madras. After completing his degree, he joined the Tata Steel Technical Institute, Jamshedpur from where he graduated in 1946. He then went to the United States on a government scholarship to earn his Master of Science in metallurgical engineering from Michigan State University.

Kurien arrived on 13 May 1949 on a Government of India deputation at the Government Research Creamery, Anand. Since then he built the dairy development cooperative model into one of the largest and most successful institutions in India. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru visited Anand to inaugurate Amul "factory" and he embraced Kurien for his groundbreaking work. The Amul pattern of cooperatives became so successful, that in 1965 Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, created the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) to replicate the program on a nationwide basis citing Kurien's "extraordinary and dynamic leadership" upon naming him chairman.

Kurien and his team were pioneers in inventing the process of making milk powder and condensed milk from buffalo's milk instead of cow's milk. This was the reason Amul became so successful and competed well against Nestle who only used cow milk to make powder and condensed milk. In India, buffalo milk is the main raw material unlike Europe where cow milk is abundant.

He is one of the greatest proponents of cooperative movement in the world. His work has alleviated millions out of poverty not only in India but also outside India. NDDB is an exception as it is a govt organisation but set up to replicate success of Dr. Vergese Kurien across India which is called "Anand model".

Film ‘Manthan’ by Shyam Benegal was inspired by on his life

Some major Awards and Recognition

Award	Organization
Life Time Achievement Award	CNN-IBN
Godfrey Phillips National Bravery Award	Godfrey Phillips India Ltd
Padma Vibhushan	Government of India
World Food Prize	World Food Prize USA
Wateler Peace Prize Award	Carnegie Foundation, USA
Krushi Ratna Award	Government of India.
Padma Bhushan	Government of India.
Padma Shri	Government of India.
Ramon Magsaysay Award	Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation.

!!!The Great Indian Milkman  and The Father of white revolution -  Dr. Verghese Kurien- R.I.P. !!!

SinSinati Kids!

This is nothing to do with the Steve McQueen starer classic Cincinnati Kid. It is all about modern days Rana Prataps and Jhansi Ki Ranis. The word terrorism is most ugliest word present in the dictionary. There are many face of it but nothing to do with particular religion. It is true that with the oil exploration in the countries in Persian Gulf there are no dearth for the fund when it comes to kill on your will. However, terrorism is not related to any particular religion. With Babri Masjid demolition India became hotbed for different kind of terrorism. Mumbai bore the burnt more than any other city. I was there in Mumbai during 90’s and experienced all, the riots and the 93 bomb blast. The real culprits were the men behind the demolition of Babri Masjid and should have been punished. As Godhra incident was heinous crime but Gujarat riots and Naroda Patiya massacre was even more grievous. Two persons, who are from so-called saffron brigade planned and executed it. One of them proudly described himself as Rana Pratrap and other may be felt like Jhansi ki Rani, both of them led a mob and goes on to massacre 97 innocent peoples those may be nothing to do with the Godhra incident. It is for the first-time I can say ‘hats of to the judiciary system and  Dr. Joystna Yagnik’. All these years we saw rich and famous getting away while poor languishing behind the bar. Sometime judgment such as Jessica Lal and some such cases were the mockery in the name of  the justice. In this case it took long but justice is not denied. When Peoples from different religions had some problem with some of the states and its dirty foreign policy, instead of taking it to the real culprits they goes on killing spree and the victims are only the innocent citizen.  Some fact file about Naroda Patiya Massacres.

The Victims

28 February, 2002, a mob of approximately 5000 people, allegedly lead by the BJP and the Bajrang Dal, attacked and attempted to burn the entire Muslim community of Naroda Patiya. Cases of hacking, looting, stabbing and sexual assaults, as well as incidents of gang-rape in public in which the victims were eventually burnt, were also reported. During the attacks, many people were burnt alive and their bodies thrown in a dry well. Women and girls were sexually assaulted, raped and killed, their bodies were burned. Many of the killings were done either by hacking or chasing people into a huge pit and setting it on fire.

The Accused

Among 32 convicted, former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi were described as ring leader.

Maya Kodnani, a gynaecologist inducted as minister of state for women and child development by Narendra Modi in 2007, is the first former minister to be found guilty in any case relating to the riots.

Babu Bajrangi was accused of disemboweling a pregnant woman with a sword. He was a leader of Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of a Hindu nationalist organisation affiliated with the BJP. Its extremist activities have sometimes embarrassed the party.

Suresh Dedawala (Richard) alias Langado was caught on camera in a Tehelka sting operation, talking to Bajarangi about slitting the belly of a pregnant Muslim woman, Kauserbanu, extricating her fetus, and then killing it as well with a sword. He was convicted of rape and murder along with his accomplices. Recounting the burning and hacking of Muslims in that sting operation, Bajrangi had gloated: “I felt like Maharana Pratap after killing them. I don’t care if I’m hanged.”

In the violence, "extensive" use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) was reported, which was cited as an evidence that there was involvement of officials because of easy access to LPG.

The Ruler

Dr. Jyotsna Yagnik began her career as faculty member at Gujarat Law Society and later served as principal of I M Nanavati Law College in the city. She began her practice at City Civil and Sessions Court and was selected for judicial services and then she was appointed additional sessions judge.

The first major verdict she gave was in the Bijal Joshi gang rape case in 2008, convicting New Delhi-based businessman Sajal Jain and four others. In 2010, she gave judgment in the ISI conspiracy case under special POTA laws convicting 22.

In 2009, Gujarat High Court assigned Yagnik the Naroda Patia massacre case. Since then, she has been the only judge in SIT cases, not to have been changed or transferred. In fact, when she was transferred from the case, SIT moved the Supreme Court and got orders for her reinstatement.  As the marathon proceedings of Naroda Patia case ended on Friday, the judge scheduled trial in another sensational case - 2008 serial blasts.

It has been noted by the circles, that she spend most of the night of 30th Aug adding the final points to the path-breaking  judgment she gave on Aug 31st. She insisted that judgment be translated in Gujarati, so the accused would understand it. She took 402 days over three years to study and hear the Naroda Patiya case.

The Judgment

Kodani was given 28 years prison term, while Bajrangi to be remain in the jail until death. Kodani received two sentences, first 10 years under Indian Penal Code Section 326 and second life imprisonment of 18 years, under Section 302 and others, however her sentences are set to run consecutively, making it 28 years in all. Out of the rest of 30 convicts, 22 were given a minimum 14 years and 7 were given minimum 21 years prison term.

!!!First time in a judgment, rich or poor served in the same dish. Kudos!!!