Ramanujam Sridhar, chief executive of the Bangalore-based Integrated Brand-Comm Pvt. Ltd (estb. 1998), a well-known public relations firm, is a multi-skilled missionary of brand management. Apart from overseeing his firm, which has 80 employees on its muster roll and boasts blue-chip corporate clients including Omega Healthcare, Indus League, Manipal Education and Big Bazaar, Sridhar delivers […]
Two months ago, six-year-old Sushma Walimbe, a cherubic girl who carries a broken doll with her wherever she goes, spent her mornings playing on heaps of gravel and sand on the construction site of a huge residential complex in Pune. Now, she has a fixed routine and from 9.30 a.m to 12.30 p.m, does her […]
For Avnita Bir, principal of Mumbais prestigious CBSE-affiliated K-12 RN Podar School (estb. 1998), the purpose of education is to encourage learning to learn and not learning to know. Therefore the schools management prides itself on providing balanced holistic education to its 2,700 students. Its strong focus on academics apart, RN Podar School has […]
A Rome-based singer and composer, Andrea Camerini (42) uses the medium of music to help children express themselves and transcend barriers of race, religion and gender. His first school project was with the Roma (Gypsy) community in 1997, and since then he has journeyed to South Africa and India to jointly write songs for peace […]
Emotions, expressions, faces. these are the dominant themes of Kathrina Wegmann’s portraits of life as she flirts with her camera to produce the perfect picture. A resident of Dehradun for over two years until she relocated to Delhi, Wegmann took to professional photography in 2002. Ever since she has been transforming simple everyday expressions of […]
Unlike most professionals and academics who dread the prospect of retirement, Prof PK Ghanekar, who retired last year as head of the botany department at Pune’s Abasaheb Garware College (estb. 1945), is delighted. Now he is busy doing what he loves most — travelling and writing (in that order) — while continuing to teach part-time […]
The Gurgaon-based Bharti Foundation (regd. 2000) — the philanthropic trust of the Rs.9,000 crore Bharti Enterprises — which promotes K-12 schools countrywide under its Satya Bharti Schools banner, is all set to inaugurate 78 new primaries by end May. The trust (corpus: Rs.200 crore) has already promoted 158 primary schools in the states of Punjab, […]
Arguably the most passionate health journalist in the subcontinent, Lucknow-based Amit Dwivedis despatches on health and development run in more than a dozen publications around the world, even as awards and encomiums are heaped upon him. Among them: a certificate of merit from the San Francisco department of public health, USA (2002) and a youth […]
Since October 2008, Hemant and Sangeeta Chhabra, and Simona Terron, have been on a mission — to collect old bicycles. This mission is not driven by a passion for vintage bicycles or entering the Limca Book of Records, but by the desire to facilitate the access of rural children, many of whom have to walk […]
For all students who dread the prospect of mugging up mathematical formulae and equations, Ravindra Keskar, a former lecturer at the St. Xavier Institute of Engineering, Mumbai, has a simple solution. He propagates use of the Japanese art of origami (folding paper to create diverse three-dimensional shapes) to make squares, cubes, circles, cylindrical and other […]
Six distinguished professors of business management from a disparate mix of American universities, headed by Chennai-based Dr. Sankaran P. Raghunathan, have joined forces to promote the National Management School (NMS) Chennai — the southern port citys newest high-end B-school. Formally inaugurated on February 5, NMS is the precursor of a chain of 25 B-schools proposed […]
Dr VM Bachal, former principal of Pune’s renowned Fergusson College, is all set to release a series of books tracing the history of this premier college in its 125th jubilee year. To be published in Marathi, the books will also trace the socio-economic growth of Pune (aka Poona, pop. 4 million), which has grown from […]
Although India hosts the contemporary world’s largest audio-visual entertainment industry with Bollywood and its regional clones churning out 877 feature films per year, and numerous television companies producing millions of reams of footage, the country’s animation industry surprisingly, is still at a nascent stage. This is primarily because until recently, there were barely any qualitative […]
A natural raconteur and performer, for the past decade Chennai-based Jeeva Raghunath has been enthralling children not only in India, but also in Thailand, Malaysia, USA, UK, Canada, Sweden and Cayman Islands with her rich repertoire of Indian, Asian and western folk tales. In a varied and rewarding career, she has conducted training programmes and […]
Currently relocated in Dehradun, editor and freelance writer/journalist Indrani Talukdar has written and edited thousands of articles for national and international magazines and dailies. So when she sent her first novel When the Lamps were Lit for publication to 4indianwoman.com, a California-based website, they were quick to award her a contract. A global writing platform […]
For Meena Ganesh, one of India’s top women executives, the wheel has come full circle. A graduate of Madras University and IIM-Calcutta, Meena Ganesh’s first work assignment was with the computer education and training pioneer NIIT Ltd (1985-1992), where she initiated computer training programmes for education institutions. After an interregnum of 23 […]
Environmental degradation, disease, ignorance, malnutrition and child abuse, are exacting a heavy toll on the health and well-being of children across the country. Yet, little attention is being paid to educate them on health issues, with the subject usually relegated to the back burner.Determined to reverse this reality and educate students, teachers and the community […]
In 1969, Meera Mahadevan, a Delhi-based housewife was moved by the plight of a child lying by a busy road unattended, as the parents — construction workers — were obliged to neglect their infant even as they built a new India. That was the genesis of Mobile Creches, recalls Devika Mahadevan (31), the energetic chief […]
A dedicated teacher, trainer, education consultant and edupreneur, Chennai-based KR Maalathi is a woman of numerous accomplishments. Though she discharges her multiple roles with equal zest, her prime focus area is helping edupreneurs promote schools, and hand-hold them through the entire institution development process. For this purpose, she promoted KRM Training and Consultancy Services Pvt. […]
The trend of Indian emigres returning home — a phenomenon accelerated by the economic meltdown in the US and the West — is being warmly welcomed, especially if the accompanying baggage includes ideas and concepts to bridge Indias fractured education system. The baggage of Dinesh Mehta and Narender Oruganti of Gurgaon/California-based Catura Broadband Solutions Pvt. […]
One of the major infirmities of education systems the world over is that they tend to accord minimal importance to developing the general or extra-curricular knowledge of students. That’s a glaring lacuna which Mumbai-based education entrepreneurs Gautam and Ami Goradia are determined to address by providing a combination of qualitative content and robust technology. The […]
On August 8 the Dubai-based Global Education Management Systems (GEMS) announced the launch of its biggest project in India to date — the Guruvar Awards for teachers. These awards have been instituted for the teaching profession with the twin aims of not just rewarding excellent teachers who have made an indelible difference, but also those […]
Human capital development has to become the top priority of Indian business and industry. Thousands of schools, colleges and skills development centres need to be promoted immediately in urban and rural India to fulfill industrys growing demand for skilled professionals, says Jaithirth aka Jerry Rao, founder chief executive and chairman of the Bangalore/New York-based software […]
In June 2002 Bangalore-based Prabhu Jahagirdar quit a high-profile job in the IT industry to promote the Pupil Tree primary school in his hometown Bellary (pop.317,000), a small town in northern Karnataka, to fulfill his modest ambition to serve the community. Six years later this class I-XII CISCE/state board affiliated school, promoted by the Pupil […]
The Delhi-based Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University aka IP University (estb. 1998), which has an aggregate enrollment of 40,000 students in its eight schools and 86 affiliated institutions, is perhaps Indias only community varsity offering study programmes in subjects such as disaster management, rehabilitation, real estate etc and providing skills upgradation courses for working professionals […]
The Scripps National Spelling Bee is an eagerly anticipated event in Americas education calendar, attracting thousands of school students across the US every year, particularly those of Indian origin who have displayed an uncanny ability of repeatedly winning the Spelling Bee. Though not yet as high-profile as its American counterpart, India has its own Spelling […]
In Dehradun where more than 25 mld (million litres per day) of waste — often toxic — water is discharged directly into rivers, environ-mental activist Sandeep Singh is an individual committed to a life saving mission. For the past 13 years Singh has been in the forefront of saving the River Suswa, flowing past Doodhli […]
Singapore-based edupreneur R. Sinnakaruppan wears many hats. Currently, he is chairman/CEO of Kip Mcgrath Worldwide Education Centres (KMWEC), Singapore (estb. 2005), chairman of Singapore Education Academy (estb. 2008), managing partner of Indus Age Advisors, a corporate advisory firm, chairman of Vimarks Holding Pvt. Ltd, a Singapore-based software consultancy firm and chairman of Educare Enrichment (S) […]
One of the several beneficial fallouts of the 30 million-strong (excluding Pakistan, Sri Lanka & Bangladesh) Indian diaspora, is the knowledge and learning inflow into the mother country which is assuming impressive proportions. A good example of this ‘reverse brain drain is Singapore-based Global Indian Foundation (estb. 2002), which has promoted the Global Indian International […]
For the past 11 years Lok Mitra, a Rae Bareilly-based NGO promoted in 1997 by the husband- wife team of Rajesh Kumar and Priya, graduates of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (Gujarat) and Patna University respectively, has been working to upgrade primary schools in Uttar Pradesh (literacy: 57.3 percent), and make them more accountable […]
With a national consensus building that English language proficiency is a vital prerequisite of employment and survival in the globalised world — never mind protestations of untrustworthy politi-cians to the contrary — Indias middle class in particular is willing to invest time and money to master this globally endorsed lingua franca. Consequently a host of […]
A silent revolution is transforming school and collegiate education around the world. Social networking, web technology, mobile phones and internet gaming are rendering the time-tabled inflexibility of school education in particular, obsolete. With the convergence of information technology, wireless telephony and the internet, the era of ICT (information communication technologies) is here and its infusion […]
For Bangalore-based thespian Jagdish Raja, popularising drama, extempore debate and elocution in schools is a natural extension of his vocation. A veteran stage director and actor, Raja founded Bangalores first professional English theatre company, Artistes Repertory Theatre (ART), in 1982, which has since staged over 70 productions in India and abroad. ART is also the […]
In the five years he has been principal of Daly College, Indore (estb.1882), Sumer Singh, widely regarded as among the countrys most respected and experienced principals, has helped the CBSE-affiliated co-educational boarding school regain its reputation as a centre of excellence, embrace contemporary pedagogies and benefit from international best practices in school education. Appointed principal […]
Contrary to popular belief, some of the best education is delivered at the family dining table. It is not the sole obligation of schools and class teachers. Life offers the unique joy of parenting a child and helping realise her true potential, says Manoj Lekhi, co-founder of the Infant Siddha Program (ISP-Art of Parenting), one […]
Is it true that your wife writes the books that come out in your name? Why does India not feature in your books?
These were some of the questions lobbed at Jeffery Archer, author of best selling novels such as Kane & Abel, Shall We Tell The President and The Prodigal Daughter, who was in […]
For socio-economically disadvantaged higher secondary school students in Tamil Nadu‚s rural Erode district (pop. 2.5 million) pursuing tertiary education was a distant dream until Ram Duraiswamy, a US-based NRI (non-resident Indian), decided to lend a hand. In December 2003, he promoted the Toplight Educational and Social Trust in Chennai to identify academically bright but economically […]
Sarika Sehrawat (28), acclaimedasIndia’s most famous woman car racer and rallying enthusiast, is poised to make a comeback on the racing/ rallying circuit after a break of nearly two years due to a freak accident. Now happily married to Arush Vohra, an automobile engineer with whom she has promoted a car modification and performance […]
On August 27, the United Education Institute Global (UEI Global) — an education initiative of the New York-based Berggruen Holdings (valuation: $1.5 billion) — formally established its footprint in India by inaugurating the first UEI Global vocational training institute in Delhi. Promoted at a project cost of $10 million (Rs.40 crore), this state-of-the-art institute’s first […]
The winners of the inaugural Motorola Scholar Awards 2005-06 are Dhiren K. Patra, Rakesh J.S., Ritesh N. Phalak, Shulin Todkar (K.K. Wagh Institute of Engineering Education and Research, Nasik); Sourabh Nirmal, Abhinav Khandelwal and Abhishek Sharma (Global Institute of Technology, Jaipur) and Ajay S. Nath and S. Ashwin (Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering, Sriperum-budur). Prof. […]
Food 4 Thought Foundation collaborated with Cyient Foundation, the CSR arm of Cyient Ltd. (a global Intelligent Engineering services company), Monocept Consulting and Emesco Books .....Read More
In a significant move aimed at improving the educational system, the Odisha government has announced that the minimum age for enrolling in Class-1 will be .....Read More
