Great Lakers won Wipro Earthian Sustainability Competition @ Bangalore

The Akshay Urja team consisting of Bhairaw Kumar, Poonam Kumari, Nikhil Gupta and Sarita Nisha from GLIEMR, Gurgaon emerged as one of the top ten winners in the college category at Wipro-Earthian, 2012. Great Lakes’ winning team presented a research paper on their project Akshay Urja- a solar hydrogen hybrid system which aims to provide uninterrupted power supply 24/7.

Earthian, running in its second year is a sustainability competition organized both for schools and colleges annually. The two day program at Wipro’s Bangalore campus was designed to act as a catalyst for fostering excellence in sustainability thinking among the youth. The first day of the event started with interaction with various winners from top colleges of the nation such as IIM, Shillong, Kozhikode, TERI University, Delhi, IIT, Delhi etc. All the winning teams gave a brief introduction about their research papers or projects. The day ended with a very enriching presentation from Dr. Deepak Malghan, faculty at IIM Bangalore on sustainable development. The Earthian awards were given the next day by Wipro Chairman, Mr.Azim Premji to all the winners. It was followed by an interactive session between Mr.Premji and all the winners. The 2 day event ended with an exhibition by ATREE (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment), robot show and a rock band performance by the Bangalore based band, Swarathma. The annual awards program in its second year aimed at developing a deeper engagement with children and young adults in schools and colleges.

This win also opened the door for three year long engagement of Great Lakes with Wipro. Wipro promises to have a continuous engagement program with all the winning colleges which will include certifications, seminars and workshops along with mentorships, in the field of sustainability.

Blood Donation @ GLIEMR Gurgaon…Every drop counts

Social Welfare club of GLIEMR, Gurgaon organized a blood donation camp in its premises with the support of Rotary club on 12^th of February, 2013. The camp got a very good response from the students of all the three batches of the institute. At the end of the day approximately 55 units (1 unit of blood=350 ml) of blood were collected which showed the enthusiasm of the students towards the noble cause. The doctor present at the camp informed that each unit of blood is used to save two human lives. Even the Rotary club staff was impressed by the huge turnout of students at the camp.

The students before donating blood had to undergo some basic check up like blood pressure and hemoglobin. After the donation each donor was given a memento, a certificate of appreciation and a blood donor card which entitled them to receive blood free of cost for a period of one year.

The event wouldn’t have been successful without the support and co-operation of the faculty and the house-keeping staff. Social Welfare club promises to organize more such noble events regularly at the campus.

Uncle Bala in College

It was an (un)usual Thursday afternoon when Uncle Bala flew down to Gurgaon to meet the students at GLIEMR.  Excitement to see him pervaded the jam packed auditorium while the ‘V-day’ excitement had already taken a back seat. But Uncle Bala was welcomed with applause as he started off by wishing us a Happy Valentine’s Day!

While addressing the two PGPM (Energy) batches, he talked at length about his experience in Abu Dhabi and what got him interested in the field of Energy.  His anecdotes about the King Khalifa, Emirates Palace Hotel and the gloom and doom fate of the black gold in the gulf countries kept us riveted. He also spoke about the lesser known technology of Liquefied Shale and how it can bail out the ‘gas-guzzling’ US, whose 70% of the oil needs is met by imports. And guess what, the country with the largest reserves of shale gas in the world, (only second to the US) is India!

His speech was a great encouragement to the Energy batches.  According to him the world is heralding an “Energy Revolution” and the time is ripe to enter the domain of Energy and transform “Managers into Leaders”.  He also spoke about his associations with the Global Energy Management Institute (GEMI).

Talking about the college, academics and jobs, he persuaded us to learn more on our own (“I can take you to the pond, but it’s you who has to drink”). Uncle Bala laid a lot of emphasis on self learning and exemplified it by hinting on Googling articles on energy and going through the MIT courseware, their amazing guest lectures, class assignments, all of which are available online for free. He said that the “world is changing, and you have to be extraordinary in whatever you do” and gave an example of the girl from Great Lakes, Chennai who skyrocketed in eight months to land up in Microsoft at a very attractive package.

I simply cannot help but quote Uncle Bala before I wrap up.  Some of his words like “Be Distinct or Become Extinct”, “Your Network is your Networth”, “Execute, Execute or be executed” have got etched into our minds. Signing off, he promised to bring more Thought Leaders here and will be back in July/August.

Chairman’s Reconnect 8 – ‘Shaming all Indians’

4 February, 2013

My dear young friends,

On 30-Jan-13, I was thinking that 65 years ago most brutal murder of the most pious soul was executed by a fellow Indian in broad day light in the national capital of India and in the same city 45 days ago on 16-Dec-12 a ghastly act of murdering an innocent soul with inhuman humiliation besides piercing a rusted iron rod and ripping out her intestines with bare hands to shame the humanity by 6-Indians on the flash lighted streets of Delhi in a running Bus, has left such scars on the Indian conscience that we are simply shaken. N. R. Narayana Murthy said that day “I am ashamed to be an Indian today”. A young Delhi girl said “It is not safe to travel on NCR streets even with your brother or husband now. Six criminals can come with an iron rod and can kill either of you”. The “scare” and “hang over” is lit large on the minds of Delhiites and all Indians.

Could this utterly shameful event have been avoided on the fateful evening? The answer is Yes, if:

1.     DTC Bus running on route no. 764 would have come on time.

2.     Any Autorikha would have agreed to carry them to their destination (In Delhi Autorikha’s have birthright to refuse to go to any particular locality).

3.      Traffic policemen would not have allowed the Bus No. DL1PC-0149, on the unauthorized route.

4.     The Delhi Government’s transport department had been alert to its responsibility, the bus would not have been on the road that fateful day. At the time of offence bus had no legal permit to run on city roads, had no fitness certificate for the vehicle as well.

5.     Some duty bound policeman would have objected to the charter bus picking up public passengers (not permitted to do so) or even to operate in Delhi because of its tinted windows.

6.     Black films would have been got removed from the window glasses of the Bus, as per the Court orders.

7.     An RTO official would have cared to check that a person with criminal record had been employed on this Bus as a driver.

8.     The owner of this Bus Dinesh Yadav could not have changed his office without intimating/ seeking permission of the Govt. agency, giving a signal to his staff that he is law onto himself and his office and Bus has no jurisdiction as such even for Joyrides.

9.     Ramadhar-a carpenter who was robbed of Rs. 8,000 and ejected in South Delhi earlier on the same Bus on the same route could have informed the Police.

10.  Informing Police was not such a risky affair in our country, in fact a regretful trauma sometimes.

11.  Delhi Police reporting to Delhi Government would have concentrated on safety and security of Delhi public rather than the VIPs of Central Govt. (A central reserve force could have been deployed for that purpose).

12.  Police Commissioner of Delhi was not Neeraj Kumar who was reprimanded by Delhi High Court and later tendered his unconditional apology though on 24-Dec-12, he suspended two Assistant Commissioners of Police for failing to prevent the incident.

All the above indicate that it was a system failure nay the system collapse… a system rotting to become a nursery of crimes!!!

Lack of sincerity, commitment, time-keeping, law abiding, and more of corruption, arrogance, selfishness, insensitivity and carelessness. Can we imagine where have we landed as a society?

The larger issue of Mindset

The crime committed is not beastly as even a beast does not commit a crime of this nature. He kills but does not humiliate the weaker creature like this. He does not gang up against an innocent one. But, can such crime be eliminated by stricter laws and law enforcing agencies? They may be contained to an extent but not eliminated without changing the mindset of people. Some of our political and religious leaders surprised us lately by their thought leadership! The latest shock is the threat by some fanatics to 3 girls who have initiated “Pragash-from darkness to light” the one and only Rock Band of J&K who started their live performance from the musical festival in Srinagar last December that “if they don’t stop they will meet the same fate as Delhi Bus victim!” What a limitless shame?

What can we do at the Institute Level?

You can think of the following steps at the Institute level.

1.     Declare 16-December as “Nari Samman Divas”, to remember our precious, sweet sister who has awakened an entire country to a different level of consciousness for women’s honour and safety.

2.     Organize some debates & discussions on increasing safety and respect for women.

3.     Make a Committee for safety of women at Institute level.

4.     On “Mindset Issues” discuss, prepare an “idea bank” and formulate some social interventions.

5.     Innovate and introduce some gestures and courtesies for women at Institute level which may become examples for other institutions.

Satyamev Jayate !!!

Best wishes and Regards,

Dr. B.S.K.Naidu

M.Tech., Ph.D., CBI Scholar, D.Engg., FNAE, Hon.D.WRE

Chairman, Great Lakes IEMR, Gurgaon, NCR, Delhi
Co-Chairman, Advisory Council, Great Lakes-Bauer Global Energy Executive MBA program, University of Houston
Former Director General (NPTI & CPRI / REL)

No job is small or big, the way in which you do, makes it small or big (c)