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bitsaa.org BITS Pilani |
People in the News 2003
To bring our attention to more BITSIANS in the news, please email venu@bitsaa.org
October
27, 2003: Balaji
Krishnamurthy, Planar's 50-year-old Chairman, president and CEO, was
profiled in the Wall Street Journal for exceptional corporate governance.
He discloses to fellow top executives all of the self-evaluation that he
prepares for the board. Mr. Krishnamurthy has overseen his company's
fourfold stock increase during his four-year tenure. In
his self assessment for the year ended
October
7, 2003: Rajesh Hukku, founder of I-Flex Solutions
wins Second Dewang Mehta Award for Innovation, presented by the The
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of
India. Hukku donated the money
to I-Flex’s foundation for underprivileged children.
October
3, 2003:
The BITSian-directed supernatural thriller Rudraksh premiered on October 3. Bollywood's new generation directors are making an arduous effort of breaking away from the song-and-dance movies of the 80's and 90's. BITSian Chemical Engineer Mani Shankar's latest venture, Rudraksh, starring Bipasha Basu, Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty and Isha Koppikar, hovers between science and magic, myth and reality.
October
2, 2003:
The BITS Quiz Team cracks the first round of BBC University Challenge. It was a splended performance by 4 BITSians at the BBC University Challange - BITS scored 110 points versus 55 points scored by Sir M Visvewaraya Insititute of Technology. At the start BITS was 25 points behind, but the team came back with a knock out punch for a COOOOL win !!
Sept
20, 2003:
1960 BITS, Pilani graduate Krishna S. Vavilala, who was featured in the inaugural issue of Sandpaper in May 2003 (interviewed by Pushkala) was elected Chairman for the Mahatma Gandhi Statue Project in Houston.
Sept 15, 2003: BITSian is the editor of a book titled "India in the global software industry" - an examination of India's IT industry. Anthony P. D'Costa, a graduate of BITS, Pilani (1975-80) is an Associate Professor of Comparative International Development at the University of Washington, Tacoma and is affiliated with the University's South Asia and International Studies Programs in Seattle.
Sept 14, 2003: RK Arora, executive director of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), has been appointed as the Convener of the CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Awards 2002-03. Arora is also a recipient of the Ratna Jyoti Award (1999) of the Indian Institute of Economic Entrepreneur Council and Man of the Year (1999) Award of the American Biographical Institute.
Sept 11, 2003: Two years ago, on 9/11, Vamsikrishna "Vamsi" Pendyala of the '88 batch, died when his flight - AA-11, was the first of the two to be hijacked and flown into the WTC. Rediff published a special on the second anniversary of 9/11.
August 15, 2003: Harish Bhat (Class of 1984 and former G-Sec.) is new Tanishq CEO. Commenting on the appointment, outgoing CEO Jacob Kurien said "Harish has successfully led the sales, marketing and retailing efforts of Tanishq over the past two years. He brings strong strategic, operational and leadership skills which will stand Tanishq in good stead."
August 12, 2003: A BITSian founded theater company, Alter Ego, hits New York with Tom Stoppard's Indian Ink. BITSian EDC veteran, Anuraag Agarwal, joined hands with Bhavna Thakur and other theater enthusiasts in New York to launch AlterEgo productions. After successfully presenting Girish Karnad's Hayavadana at the Present Company Theatorium and Anuvab Pal's Chaos Theory at the Here Arts Center, Alter Ego launched its biggest production to date - Tom Stoppard's Indian Ink.
August 10, 2003: BITS selected for Romesh Wadhwani's Indian National Entrepreneurship Network. BITS was chosen by the Wadhwani Foundation to be part of the 5 founding colleges in India's National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN). BITS will receive monetary grants and access to tremendous resources to develop in-house programmes that will encourage entrepreneurship among students and potential entrepreneurs.
August 8, 2003
ML Agarwal, MD of Ankit elected as the “President” of
“Asian Corrugated Case Association” at its AGM held in
August 3, 2003: Baba Kalyani, Bharat Forge and Rajesh Hukku, I-Flex, share the limelight with famous Indian companies such as Geometric Software, Apollo Hospitals, Divi's Labs and HDFC Bank in Business Today's shortlist of Indian companies that could become the next Infosys - a hot global stock. Bharat Forge is a Rs 690 crore Indian automotive components supplier. I-Flex is the world no. 1 financial services software company.
July 3, 2003:
Anurag Jain, Founder of Vision Healthsource
sells company to Perot Systems for $10 million, including $3 million in cash
and $7 million in a structured earnout. Anurag previously founded
Brigade, which raised $100 million in financing from General Atlantic
Partners.
June 27, 2003:
Srinivas Balasubramanian, Founder of Infravio
raises $6.2 million. Infravio, a provider of Web Services integration
and management software, said it has raised $6.2 million in a second round
of venture financing from Walden International and Crystal Ventures.
Infravio will use the funding to broaden its product development, sales and
marketing efforts. The company intends to provide integration solutions
based on Web Services standards. ZapThink, an analyst firm, predicts that
the market for Web Services-based integration will reach $6.2 billion by
2006.
June 10, 2003: Sarvega Inc., a maker of extensible markup language (XML) appliances, announced raised a $10 million second round of funding InterWest Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, ComVentures, and KB Partners. Girish Juneja is Co-Founder and VP of Engineering at Sarvega. More
June 10, 2003: Madan Pillutla, London Business School Professor and visiting professor to ISB is featured in Business Standard. More
June 9, 2003: Rajesh Hukku, founder of I-Flex Solutions, India's No. 1 Software Company, is named amongst 25 Stars of Asia by Businessweek. More
April 24, 2003: Sharad Mehrotra, President & CEO of Fabric7 Systems, Inc. completed a Series A $14 million financing in early April. Fabric7 is focused on delivering innovative system solutions for enterprise data centers. Investors in the Series A Round include New Enterprise Associates, Goldman Sachs and Fidelity Ventures, and other investors. Sharad raised a staggering $300 million in financing for his previous venture, Procket. More
April 23, 2003: Rajiv Maliwal, Managing Director of Sabre Capital, announced the acquisition of Centurion Bank by a group of Investors led by Sabre. Rajiv is the former CEO of ANZ Investment Bank. Sabre was founded by Rana Talwar, former CEO of StanChart.
April 22, 2003: Ramesh Harjani, co-founder of Bermai, has been selected as one of the most influential technical authors over the last 20 years by the International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD).
April 21, 2003: Epicenter Technologies, a leading call center in India promoted by K Vijay Rao, with investments from Infinity Ventures & Gary Wendt Capital announced that it would list within 18 months. Kotak Mahindra is raising $20 million for the company.
April 20, 2003: Pilani's nightingale, Leuna Harkawat ('87) passes away. Everyone who was in BITS between 1987 and 1991 will remember Leuna Harkawat - an amazingly talented singer and a truly wonderful person. Leuna lost the battle to breast cancer on April 19, 2003 in Secaucus, New Jersey. Leuna is survived by her parents, her husband Satish Thamatur, her three year old daughter Anisha, and thousands of BITSIAN fans who remember her songs from the music nites at Pilani. More.... Also Read about ideas on how to commemorate Leuna's memory.
April 10, 2003: Jayan Ramankutty, one of our most successful entrepreneurs, is profiled in Mantram. More from Mantram...
April 9, 2003: BITSian is the key architect of two social movements - Bangalore's Janaagraha movement for Urban Development and Sanghamithra- a pioneering micro-credit institution! Ramesh Ramanathan, MSc Physics from BITS and MBA from Yale, and the former MD and European Head for Structured Products at Citibank now presides over one of India's most successful urban movements and also serves as a Vice Chairman for a trail-blazing organization that strives to improve the lives of the poor by lending them money! Residents of Bangalore appreciate Ramesh's work as the Key Architect of the citizen movement for a Better Bangalore (Janaagraha). But many don't know that a micro-finance company for which he is vice-chairman, is changing the economic landscape of India. Sanghamithra, whose motto is "I shall destroy poverty," delivers credit to the poor who organize themselves as self-help groups. Over the last several years, Sanghamithra, with the help of international aid agencies, has shown that the poor are bankable, that they have credit discipline, and the potential to improve incomes and make a profit. Sanghamithra has disbursed Rs. 460 lakhs so far and 97% of the loan recipients are women. The organization has a loan repayment rate of over 99.9%!
April 8, 2003: BITS wins IBM Great Minds Challenge! A 5-student team from BITS has won the IBM Competition leaving IIT-Delhi in second position in a 100+ entry India-wide contest. This team from BITS-CSD worked on a part of an E-Governance project using IBM's Websphere Application Server, IBM's DB2, Lotus Domino and WebSphere Studio on a Linux platform. The Award Ceremony was organized at the Hyatt Regency in Mumbai on March 27, 2003 where individual students (Anshuman Dhimari, J. Harshwardhan, V. Venkatesan, Sridhar R.and Shaik Shahid) received their Winner's Certificates and Prizes. More...
April 7, 2003: For the first time in its history, commercial and industrial property insurer FM Global has been named to the Fortune 1000 list of America's largest companies. In the April 14, 2003 issue of Fortune magazine, FM Global debuts at No. 697 based on its fiscal year 2002 revenues. FM Global. Shivan S Subramaniam is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
April 4, 2003: BITSAA International Scholarships announced for 3rd year topper. S.S.Seshadri Memorial Scholarship Recipient: Charles Augustine Email: f2000719@bits-pilani.ac.in. CGPA (current): 9.94, From Calicut, Kerala. Receives Rs. 15,000 (2nd semester tuition)
April 4, 2003: BITSAA International Scholarship for 2nd year topper. Pendyala Vamsikrishna Memorial Scholarship Recipient: Bhupendra Singh Manola. Email: f2001262@bits-pilani.ac.in. CGPA : 9.90/10 From Lucknow, UP. Rs. 15,000 (2nd semester tuition)
April 7, 2003: For the first time in its history, commercial and industrial property insurer FM Global has been named to the Fortune 1000 list of America's largest companies. In the April 14, 2003 issue of Fortune magazine, FM Global debuts at No. 697 based on its fiscal year 2002 revenues. FM Global. Shivan S Subramaniam is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
March 15, 2003: Mr. Ram Raghunath Chaudhary was elected from Nagaur in Rajasthan. An alumnus of Birla College, Pilani, before BITS was formed, Mr. Chaudhary is very active in the Indian National Congress. He is a grassroots politician who started off at the panchayat level and gradually climbed up the ranks, first to the zilla parishad level, then served three terms in the Rajasthan legislative assembly and is now serving his second term in the Lok Sabha. More...
March 10, 2003: Mrs. Nisha Amarsinh Chaudhary, a BITS alumnus, was elected for her third Lok Sabha term from Sabarkantha winning convincingly over Mr. Trivedi who played Ravan in Ramayana. However, she was among the unfortunate victims of the tragic Gujarat earthquake. Mrs. Nisha Chaudhary is fondly remembered for her tireless work for the backward classes. More...
March 15, 2003: Who doesn't know Onida? One of India's largest consumer electronics firms that makes and sells upwards of 1 million TV sets each year in the sub-continent. But do you know that this company and brand, which has withstood the onslaught of foreign manufacturers, was founded and is chaired by a BITSian? G.L. "Gulu" Mirchandani set up Mirc Electronics (Onida's parent company) in 1975 and formally launched Onida to assemble TV sets ahead of 1982 Asian Games. Now, Onida is a household name thanks to clever advertising and purposeful marketing. It is also one of the best recognized brands in India that is not only withstanding but competing effectively against the foreign entrants. Read the article below on how it is expanding beyond TV's into washing machines and air conditioners. More...
January 25, 2003: BITSian visits Pilani after 50 years! Harish Jain is visiting BITS Pilani 50 years after he graduated in 1953! Harish, who is actively involved with BITSAA is from the 1950 batch that graduated in 1953. He is also the 1950 batch rep!
January 25, 2003: Investor's Business Daily's public opinion polling partner is a BITSian founded firm: Many in the world of finance rely on the Wall Street Journal and the Investor's Business Daily (IBD) for news, views, and insights. More...
January 25, 2003: Two BITSIANS are named amongst the 11 hottest dealmakers in IT Services/Software by Business Today. The article names Rajesh Hukku of i-flex and Vivek Paul of Wipro
January 16, 2003: Cradle Technologies a next-gen silicon chip company co-founded by Satish Gupta, raised $11.0 million in Series B-1 financing from Charter Ventures & Smart Technology Ventures. Cradle also named Arthur Chang, veteran of two IPOs (Parallan Computer and Solopoint) as the new CEO. Satish assumes the role of VP, Business Development.
January 14, 2003: BITSian puts India in the SuperComputing league: Under the very able leadership of a BITS alumnus, Dr. R.K. Arora (the Executive Director of Pune based Center for Development of Advanced Computing or C-DAC), India is about to launch its fastest supercomputer to date - the PARAM Padma. More...
January 12, 2003: Viewceler, a software startup founded by Diaz Nesamoney, former President & Chief Operating Officer of Informatica, announced it has raised $6.5 million in Series A financing from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Bay Partners.
January 8, 2003: Ganeshram Sreenivasan ('96), known as Gas was on US Airways Express Flight 5481 that crashed in North Carolina on Wednesday, January 8. Gas was a graduate from BITS Pilani with an MSc Tech in Information Sciences. He was enrolled as a student at Clemson University. More...
January 3, 2003: Vivek Paul, Chairman of Wipro Technologies is India's highest paid professional CEO, and No. 8 overall. More..
January 1, 2003: First BITSAA International scholarships announced. SS Seshadri Memorial Scholarship for Rs 30,000 goes to 3rd year, Charles Augustine. The Pendyala Vamsikrishna Memorial Scholarship for Rs 30,000 goes to Krishnachitanya P in second year. More...
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