Coupling Microindustry with Rural Schools: An Interesting Possibility

By Laxman Mohanty (’81 EEE)

Seventy percent of India lives in rural areas. For India to join the legion of developed countries, we need to focus on development that caters to these seven hundred million people. Thankfully, this fact is not going unrecognized at least in some sectors. Many concerned groups and individuals are pushing for better infrastructure for rural India. President, Dr Abdul Kalam is pushing the concept of PURA (providing urban facilities in rural areas) for this purpose. Rajesh Jain of Indiaworld fame, Atanu Dey and Vinod Khosla, the greatest venture capitalist on the plant are propagating the concept of RISC (Rural Infrastructure & Services Common).   

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Bits of Pilani at ISRO

By Sandhya Krishnan (’99)

After four years of teaching at BITS, the young Gopalan had two choices, to leave to the US or to join ISRO. Luckily for us, he chose the latter and never regretted it. We talked to Dr AKS Gopalan, winner of the Bhaskara award and `64 batch alumnus. 

Originally from Tirunelveli, Dr AKS Gopalan joined the Birla College of Science for an M. Tech in Electronics. By the time he passed out in 1966, the Birla College of Science had become BITS Pilani. He then went on to teach in the EEE Department for four years.

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