Cover by: Mrs. Radha Harish, IITK

E-magazine of the Alumni of IIT Kanpur

Issue 5: January 2015

Expand Your Universe Connect with VOICES

Been There Done That

Share Your Creativity and Experience with Alumni and IITK

Everything printable (except politics) is welcome. If you can talk about it, you can also write it for sure. Happenings in halls of residences, mess, lectures, tutorials, play grounds, cultural clubs and festivals, interaction with faculty, issues in senate, outings in Kanpur, vacation, journeys, exams and quizzes, creative explosions, eccentrics vs. genius, and current happenings on the campus, the list is endless, and so must be our collective memories. The E-magazine is in English and Hindi. Please send your original writings, poems, photos, drawings, etc. to: editiitkemag@yahoo.in ; gupta@iitkalumni.org Due credit will be given for each piece to its author. If the matter was published elsewhere previously, the writer should mention it along with a statement that there is no copyright issue if it is published in the AA e-magazine. Sole responsibility for ensuring originality and correctness of information remains with the author. Submissions should be in plain text or an easily editable format. Photographs and sketches should be submitted in the jpg/jpeg format limited to 200 KB.

The previous issues of VOICES can be read at

http://www.iitkalumni.org/DisplayEMagazine.aspx

Voices is grateful to all its contributors for making one more issue

possible, especially batch of 1967-72.

Editor - Arun Srivastava (BT/EE/67XXX)

January 2015.

http://www.iitkalumni.org/DisplayEMagazine.aspx

Contents

Editorial ......................................................................................................................................................... 4

New Year - Arun Srivastava ......................................................................................................................... 5

Conversation Bharat Ratna Prof. CNR Rao with S Kanavi ............................................................................. 6

PARIVESH 1972 - Courtesy: Uday Chitranshi .............................................................................................. 11

True Grit - Umesh Jindal ............................................................................................................................ 12

Buddhist Temples Inspired CreativityIn Japanese Arts ..............................................................................16

Dr. Ramesh Gehani

Tons of Poetry on a Street............................................................................................................................ 19

- ...................................................................................................................... 22 The Eye, the Angle, and the Moment: Photgraphs by Rakesh Bhasin .......................................................... 23

Treatment of Hazardous Waste - Dr. Udai Pratap Singh ............................................................................. 27

- .............................................................................................................................. 32 Walrus and I - Arun Srivastava ................................................................................................................... 33

Vikas Choudhary - theporter.in - Logistics with app ................................................................................. 34

Shubham Deva - passionconnect.in Career counselling ......................................................................... 37

Editorial

Save Your Pumpkins

They may bring deliverance

Traction of honesty is limited. Everyone knows how and why. Everyone wants to remove the impediments. Even then the same types of people keep winning everywhere. Everyone is responsible for this situation yet it matters so little? Inequality is not going to reduce with the same business continued. Who is the killer?

The greatest mystery is not so great, perhaps.

It lies behind the management of reason? No. One step behind. It lies in the management of premises by obfuscation, management of evidence, management of machinery that delivers justice, and management of law ultimately.

Who makes the law? The beneficiaries of course. Public is insulated in the process. That is how modern parliaments work, or work against the public if you like by facilitating tax avoidance legally.

Why is it so? Why is it so that sleaze wins when a majority wants it eliminated?

It is because the majority does not exist. It does not contribute in thinking. It cannot see beyond its nose.

Albert Camus said it in the last century and it holds, We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.

Just you wait. Your pumpkins will turn into chariots and you will be invited to the ball. Until then you have time to decide whether to eat it or save it for that evening.

Let the music play!

- Arun Srivastava (BT/EE/67XXX) January 2015

New Year Arun Srivastava (BT/EE/67XXX) arunsriva@yahoo.co.in

Let it not fool us again

Its not happy

To have planes in

Bottom of the sea

Innocent killed in

Wars of titans

Someone raped in

Darkness of humanity

Crooks getting rich in

Robbing the poor and state

Left out living in

Wishes and prayer

Continued

Living falsehood in ages

Without or with

A redeemer in know

Shining in tears

Answers dont matter

When anger sears

Act before praying

To get things done

It takes too long

After painful deaths

Only by ritual or song

A bit of feeling

A bit of sharing

A bit of time pass

A bit of caring

A bit more

To just keep going

Thats all.

My New-Year wish: A machine to expose economic crimes. Arun Srivastava (BT/EE/67XXX) editiitkemag@yahoo.in

mailto:editiitkemag@yahoo.in

Conversation

Bharat Ratna Prof. CNR Rao Shivanand Kanavi

15 November 2014

Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao is among the most prolific scientists in the world with over 1700 research publications and having guided over 150 PhDs. He has been a pioneer in several areas of material science and is now doing cutting edge work and setting new trends in nanoscience. After having done outstanding work in spectroscopy, High Temperature Super Conductivity, Colossal magneto-resistance, graphenes, inorganic nano tubes and so on. The octogenarian continues to enthusiastically sally forth in photosynthesis and producing Hydrogen through novel routes. He has been the chairman of Scientific Advisory Committee to Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi and later Dr Manmohan Singh and been responsible for a number of science initiatives of those regimes. Shivanand Kanavi conversed with him in the verdant campus of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, about

his science and his experiences as science advisor to Prime Ministers. (Excerpts of this appeared in Prajavani, Business India and Rediff.com) What or who inspired you to go for science?

I was excited by science even when I was very young. I met Prof. CV Raman while in school. I talked to him and visited his laboratory in 1944-45, almost 70 years ago. I was already in high school at that time since I started school very young. When I finished my BSc I wanted to go for research. The idea of research papers published with peoples names on them, fascinated me. I had never seen such a thing. I asked many teachers about research problems but they were not doing anything exciting in the undergraduate college. They were not encouraging either and said you are just a BSc student. That is why I went to BHU. What about your parents?

They allowed me to do whatever I wanted to do. They never interfered with my plans for studies. There was no pressure to do IAS, engineering etc. unlike today. My father was in the education dept and he trusted my choices. When I said I want to go to BHU and not study in Bangalore he said fine. Why did you choose BHU?

BHU had MSc with part course work and part research thesis. Bombay University had MSc by

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IG-zXbqyLZs/VGd1f2gn2xI/AAAAAAAANjg/fFcqxZODw64/s1600/22cnr-rao.jpg

research only. I thought I needed to do some course work along with research. At BHU, I read the book by Linus Pauling, Nature of the Chemical Bond where he had talked about electronic structure of molecules. It made me really excited about chemistry. Why did you choose Chemistry and not Physics?

I was much better in Physics than in Chemistry as an undergraduate. I had 75% average in theory, which was difficult in those days. Especially I liked Physical Chemistry. When I went to US I chose Chemical Physics with Physics as minor and Physical Chemistry as major. Pauling had replied to me that he was not working on molecular structure anymore but one of his students at Purdue was doing it. So I decided to go to Purdue. I got teaching assistantships from MIT and Columbia but I did not understand what TA meant. There was no one to guide me. In 1954 there were very few Indians in the US. I thought what I needed was research assistantship or fellowship. Purdue gave me a research assistantship. However, it turned out that I had to work in the laboratory of a professor who was an organic chemist. The work had nothing to do with my PhD thesis. He was a good person and wanted me to do some spectroscopy and kinetics based on his compounds. This made me learn a lot of spectroscopy and kinetics. I published several papers with him. Did you do any experimental work there?

Yes of course. I am an experimentalist. I have built a very good lab here now. Today we need not go to MIT or Harvard. It was not always like that. I did my PhD on electron diffraction in gases. I also did some X ray crystallography and all kinds of spectroscopy. It was a very busy period of three years. I published around 20-22 papers by the time I had my PhD. About ten of these were in electron diffraction and about 8 were in spectroscopy. My PhD advisor was a nice man. He knew that I was publishing with other Professors as well, but he did not mind it. I published with 5-6 other professors.

Whenever I heard a problem posed in my class or seminar, I would find out if it had been solved earlier. I would do some work on it and publish it after showing it to the persons concerned. I was helping other students of my advisor since he was busy with administration. If you see the third edition of Paulings Nature of the Chemical Bond, you will see two of the structures solved by me cited there. I went to Berkley for my Post-Doctoral work and had a wonderful time. I was getting several offers as an Assistant Professor in the US, but I thought if I accepted a faculty offer there, then I may not come back. In India I got offers from a CSIR laboratory, Indian Institute of Science and Punjab University. Why did you choose to come back to India?

Oh, I belonged to a nationalist family. I used to wear a Khadar cap till my BSc. Even when I was 12-13, I had participated in the independence movement. I decided to come back also to make my parents happy. I joined IISc and worked there for 4 years. Six students got PhDs working with me. How many PhDs have you produced so far?

Around 140-150. When I was 26, I wrote my first book on Ultra Violet and Visible Spectroscopy, which has been translated into 5 or 6 languages. Then, another book of mine on Infrared Spectroscopy came out when I had just joined IIT Kanpur. It was all about how to use spectroscopy in Chemistry. I became a Professor in IIT Kanpur when I was not yet 30. That is when Prof. C V Raman wrote to me and asked me to be a member of the science academy of which he was president. IISc did not have any spectrometers and he had allowed me to do some experiments in his laboratory. All the great names of Indian science, including people like Meghnad Saha and S N Bose, stopped doing research at a relatively young age. Two persons who worked in science till the end were Jagdish Chandra Bose and C V Raman. I admire such people more than those who do one great thing and stop. IIT Kanpur was wonderful. We perhaps had the best chemistry department in India. In 1976, I left

IITK. I almost left India at that time. The level at which I was doing research in Kanpur was not satisfying. There were one or two spectrometers which had to be shared by many people. I had done a lot of research at Oxford using (electron microscopy) and other sophisticated instruments in 1973-1974. I then decided to build a facility second to none in India. At that time Satish Dhawan, who was Director of IISc told me why do you want to leave India, come back to IISc and build a new Chemistry department from scratch. I accepted and I built a new solid state and structural chemistry and material research laboratory at IISc. I was able to build reasonable facilities. I got my first electron microscope then. Eventually, I had the chance to build this centre, which has excellent facilities. How did Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) come into being?

A Nehru centenary committee with R Venkataraman at the head had been set up. Some of us suggested that we should have a small centre in Nehrus name which would do interdisciplinary research. I was then chairman of Science Advisory Council to Rajiv Gandhi at that time. One day, I got a call that this idea had been accepted. People wanted to take it to Pune or UP. I suggested Bangalore. Today, it is one of the best in the India especially after the International Centre for Material Science came up. I had to wait a long time in my life for good facilities for research. Young people cannot complain now that there is no facility in India which is world class in Material Science. How did you raise funds?

We have raised money from various sources besides the modest sum that we get from the central government. For example a Shaikh from the Emirates gave Rs 15 crores as a grant to do whatever we want to do in science! Unfortunately no Indian industrialist has given like that. In the evolution of your scientific interests you have mentioned spectroscopy

Even now I use a lot of spectroscopy but now I am working mainly on the chemistry of advanced materials. I realized long ago that one could not compete with the rest of the world in high resolution spectroscopy etc. So, I chose a subject which would be of global quality but new, and hence, the chemistry of solids. It was a lonely road. Now, of course, I am called the grandfather of the subject. I have worked on various types of research problems in this area. For a lay person how would you explain what is solid state and materials chemistry as opposed to solid state physics?

We make novel materials with interesting properties, like Graphene for example which is a one atom thick sheet of carbon atoms. Molybdenum sulphide nanosheets have now become a bigger attraction than graphene. I have just written a frontier article on it. Why are they interesting?

They have novel electronic and magnetic properties. The topic is spreading like wild fire. I had been to Japan recently to deliver a lecture on this. How did you get interested in transition metal oxides?

Oh that was long back because there are so many interesting things happening in the oxide area because of the d-electrons. I have written many papers and books on oxides. I still work on oxides. Was High Temperature Super Conductivity (HTSC) a byproduct of this?

I had already worked on 2-dimensional oxides. Some people had laughed at me at that time. In fact one referee of an American journal wrote, why is Prof Rao so obsessed with 2-dimensional oxides. Lo and behold, it was a 2-dimentional copper oxide that showed high temperature superconductivity later! I worked on such oxides in IIT Kanpur and later at IISc Bangalore. I have also worked on multiferroic oxides, which combine ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties. Colossal magnetoresistance was found in one of the manganese oxides that I had

worked long ago. I had done considerable work on these oxides. I also work on sulphides. I got into research on fullerenes in 1990. In 1991, within 2 months of the discovery of carbon nanotubes, I had set up a lab here to study them. They can be metallic or semiconducting. Last year I took a US patent on the separation of semiconducting and metallic carbon nanotubes. Graphene and nanotubes have many applications in electronics and other areas. I also work on inorganic nanotubes (e.g. of Boron Nitride, Molybdenum Sulphide). Nanosheets have become a big area. I also work on nanowires and nanoparticles. Do they exhibit different physics?

Size alone is enough to lead to different properties. For example, we made a major discovery 8 years ago here that all nanoparticles are ferromagnetic, no matter of which material! Nanoparticles of even zinc oxide and aluminum oxide with no d electrons exhibit ferromagnetism. I have heard that recently you got interested in photosynthesis.

Yes, I have a few young students doing

wonderful work here on splitting water and to

produce hydrogen by artificial photosynthesis.

This is the best way to make hydrogen.

Can you explain it in simple terms?

Plants take water in the air and then using photosystem-2 (where light is absorbed exciting an electron and creating a hole) decompose water to oxygen and photons. Eventually, in photosystem-1 the protons get reduced. Plants do not produce hydrogen but sugars. In our lab, we use the same mechanism to produce hydrogen and we are able to produce quite a lot of it at highly competitive rates, compared to what is going on globally in this field. We use ordinary sunlight (or a 100 W lamp) for this purpose. I use semiconductor nanostructures or nanosheets of simple inorganic materials for splitting water. For example in one experiment, we have used MoS2 nanosheets. Unlike electrolysis we do not use any electrical energy.

I heard that recently funds have been cut for research at various institutions.

This is not true. What happened last year was that all expenditure was cut by 10% by the previous government. In a small institute like ours, they cut 10 cr in a total budget of 50 cr! Approved funding was cut suddenly and we had already ordered equipment etc. I hope it will be rectified this year by the new government. I keep telling the authorities that for a small institution like this which is producing good work; they should not cut funding even if they cannot increase it. What has been your experience as chairman of PMs scientific advisory council?

I have had good experience. I am not a politician and I cannot give speeches about things, but a lot of good things have been done in science by the previous governments. Five IISERs(Indian Institute of Science Education and Research) were started. Similarly, how do you think the Fast Breeder Reactor is going on line, or new rockets are going up with the cryogenic engine? We even got a Rs 5000 crore grant for building a Peta Flop supercomputer. Elections muddied the scene somewhat. Nobody wanted to hear anything positive. Look at Pune ISER. It is the best among the lot and with excellent undergraduate science education. Have you met the new Prime Minister?

I have met Mr. Modi, our new PM, for half an hour. It was a nice meeting. He asked me to give a note on science and education in the country. I prepared it and sent it to him. I got a nice note from him thanking me. I expect great things to happen under our new PM, Mr. Modi. I have never wanted to work in the government and become a Secretary to Government or a Rajya Sabha MP. I was offered a Rajya Sabha seat two or three times and I declined. Way back in 1975 when I was in IIT Kanpur, Mrs. Indira Gandhi offered to make me a secretary. When I said No she was surprised. I felt that I was too young to be a secretary to Government. I want to do good science, and not become an official.

How was it with VP Singh, P V NarasimhaRao or Vajpayee?

There was no SAC to PM under Mr. Narasimha Rao. Under Dr. Manmohan Singh, we could do a few important things. I used to meet him once in 6-8 weeks. He often said, Prof Rao you assume that you have my approval and carry on. He was shy and decent. He is a real gentleman. I expect great things to happen under our new PM, Mr. Modi.

What are your scientific interests now? Artificial photosynthesis and physics and chemistry based on inorganic nanosheets are two areas. The nanosheets exhibit surprising properties. Then, there are some other new areas that I am working on. Science keeps me going at 80. I feel young.

Shivanand Kanavi (Msc Phy 1974)

Mob: +91 98202 25869 Email: skanavi@yahoo.com; skanavi@gmail.com; Blog: www.reflections-shivanand.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @shivanandkanavi

From his Blog:

http://www.reflections-shivanand.blogspot.in/2014/11/conversation-bharat-ratna-prof-cnr-rao.html

http://www.blogger.com/profile/05961143849860242978mailto:skanavi@yahoo.commailto:skanavi@gmail.comhttp://www.reflections-shivanand.blogspot.com/

PARIVESH 1972 - Courtesy: Uday Chitranshi (BT/CE/66XXX)udaya.chitranshi@gmail.com

mailto:udaya.chitranshi@gmail.com

Real Life

True Grit

Umesh Jindal (BT/EE/67XXX) umesh@uasys.c

It was a muggy monsoon night in Delhi in July, 1975. I and my wife Aruna (age 21 at the time) and the rest of our family had come to Palam airport in New Delhi to see off my younger brother, Dr. Rakesh Jindal, who was on his way to join the residency program at Beekman Downtown Hospital in New York. Accompanying him was his friend and class mate, Dr. Naveen Gupta.

Few years later, we were once again at Palam Airport to see off Arunas youngest brother, Anil Gupta, who was proceeding to USA to pursue higher studies after graduating from IIT, Delhi.

We had no idea at the time about the role they would play in our lives nine years later at City of Hope, a cancer research hospital in USA.

In the summer of 1984 as I was in a meeting with my management team at the office, Aruna called from home. She had noticed an enlarged lymph node on the side of her neck while applying face cream a few days ago and had the good sense to go see her doctor. She told me that her doctor's office had called her to come right away to repeat

her blood tests as they were extremely abnormal. "Don't worry; the lab probably messed up on my test" she said on the phone.

Visit to California and diagnosis at

City of Hope

In the next four days things had moved very fast and our lives had taken an abrupt turn to put it mildly. Doctors had confirmed the diagnosis of an incurable cancer for Aruna after biopsy of the lymph node.

I left my job at a moment's notice with no idea when I would be back.

Aruna (30 then), our younger son Mudit, 4, and I were on our way to Porterville, California to be with our brother Rakesh and his wife Manisha to seek Aruna's treatment at City of Hope, California; thanks to the referral from Dr. Naveen Gupta, who was now a practicing Hematologist and Oncologist in Upland, California. Our elder son, Prateek, 8, who was attending school in New Delhi, stayed back with my youngest brother Atulesh Jindal and his wife, Priti.

The thought of losing my companion and mother of two young sons was just not acceptable, and it was even more devastating to imagine what was going through Aruna's mind about us. It was a time of utter despair and helplessness for all of us. Still she kept a brave front with a big smile to cheer up every one.

A bone marrow test at City of Hope confirmed that Aruna had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) of T cells, an extremely aggressive leukemia with a very short remission period, with an extremely high chance of recurrence. Dr. Fahey at the City of Hope told us that her only chance of a long term survival was to have an experimental treatment with some promise, called Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT). BMT could only be performed when a patient achieved remission and ONLY if one of her siblings was a compatible donor with an HLA match. Chance that a siblings HLA would match a patient is 25%. We were devastated to hear this prognosis! This quashed whatever faint hope we had that doctors in India might have misdiagnosed her cancer. The reality of a grave danger to Arunas life started to sink in for the first time that day as we drove back from the City of Hope to Porterville.

The success rate for Leukemia in adults with BMT treatment was 33% in 1984, we were told. Graft Versus Host Disease (GVHD), Cytomegalovirus (CMV) causing death in immune suppressed patients, and long term effects of Total Body Radiation were some of the

factors affecting the success rate. The City of Hope was one of the few cancer research hospitals in the world who had a reputable BMT program and donations/grants (thanks to donors like you) to undertake this expensive treatment

for eligible and willing patients. Aruna very bravely decided to take this chance even if the odds were against her to fight the disease.

My brother Rakesh and my sister-in-law, Manisha were our first and the strongest pillar of support in USA. Arunas brother, Anil, who was doing PhD at University of Berkeley, took time off from his studies to be with us and was the other big pillar of support. Dr. Naveen Gupta was our third pillar of support. The doctors, nurses, technicians, and support staff at City of Hope were extremely supportive during the entire treatment. Our faith in God further strengthened as only He could have known about Arunas forthcoming illness in advance and had started to lay out all these pillars of support for us years ahead of the diagnosis of leukemia.

Treatment, remission and then, the

scare

Arunas treatment went well and she was in remission after a few rounds of Chemotherapy. With God's grace, Anil turned out to be a total match for her bone marrow. This good news really uplifted her spirits and we all hoped that she would become a successful long term survivor after getting the BMT. But eight weeks later and before she was scheduled to undertake her BMT treatment, she ended up in the hospital with a terrible infection which couldnt be controlled by a battery of antibiotics that were given to her. She couldn't breathe on her own and had to be shifted to ICU and intubated. Dr. John Fahey and the entire team of doctors at City of Hope kept on trying different medicines including various antibiotics, anti-fungal medicines and contemplating an open lung biopsy as a last resort to save her life, if required. It was a life and death moment. After 4 days on the respirator in ICU, an anti-fungal medicine worked; she started to turn around and left the hospital a week later.

Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT)

February 12, 1985, was a new Date of Birth for her, as we call it now. She was admitted to the City of Hope, 3rd floor, BMT wing one week in advance for a massive doze of Chemotherapy to

wipe out diseased Bone Marrow completely. This was followed by a Total Body Radiation to kill any traces of cancer in her body. On the new Date of Birth she was given infusion of new bone marrow extracted from Anil, who had happily agreed to give the most valuable gift to his sister, the gift of life. Arunas parents flew over from India to be with us during this most difficult phase of her life. The first 100 days post-transplant were extremely crucial and we were required to admit her in the City of Hope within 30 minutes if she ever developed fever so that life-saving medicines could be started immediately to control any infection right away. We had rented a town house in the city of Duarte very close to City of Hope to meet this eventuality during the course of this treatment.

My parents, specially my mom, performed a long prayer to ward off death, called "Maha Mrityunjay Yagna" in India to pray for Aruna's life. It was amazing to see how the whole family had come together for us at this critical juncture of our lives.

The treatment was extremely harsh on her body. Her white blood cell count was negligible after a massive dose of Chemo and total body radiation, and she had no ability left to fight any more infection. The new marrow would take anywhere from 10 to 15 days to be effective and start making white blood cells, we were told. She was put in an isolation ward to protect her from infections. The protective lining in her esophagus and stomach had completely eroded and it was all raw inside. She was in a lot of pain and all that she could eat was a frozen popsicle. Ice had a numbing effect on the scars of her stomach.

We would visit City of Hope every morning for the next 40 days hoping that she would be fine but not sure what awaited us there. It was an emotionally tiring time for Arunas parents, Anil, and I. Her grit made us persevere against all odds because one thing I was always sure of, no matter how much pain she were in, she would always greet us with her signature big smile.

As the new marrow took hold, she improved and was able to take some liquid food. Once her calorie intake from food exceeded 1500 calories in

about 40 days post-transplant, she was able to leave the hospital and come back home to our townhouse in Duarte.

While Aruna was still in isolation, we got a letter from INS denying our request for an extension of our non-immigrant Visa beyond the initial 6 months that was granted to us when we had entered USA at Log Angeles International Airport. INS had ordered us to leave USA within 3 days or face deportation proceedings. I was dumb founded to read this letter and was completely at loss. How could we ever think of leaving USA while she was in isolation at the City of Hope? We had to continue somehow, I thought, but had no idea how.

We found our fourth pillar of support in Ms. Barr at the social services department in the City of Hope. Thanks to her help, we received our I-94 forms within two weeks duly stamped with a 6 month extension. City of Hope not only provides treatment, they help patients with their social, emotional, and other support needs, and help them lead a normal life afterwards.

Post BMT, and not yet over

100 days passed and it appeared that Aruna was recovering well. But she needed red blood cell transfusion every 3 weeks. While it was not uncommon for patients to receive these transfusions during the first few months after BMT, almost all BMT patients could stop needing such transfusions in 3 to 6 months. We had to drop our plans of returning to India after her successful BMT treatment due to this unforeseen and rare complication. Moreover, repeated blood transfusions were causing an iron overload and increased ferritin level in her blood which could adversely affect her vital organs. She had to undergo Iron Chelation Therapy to reduce the ferritin level by administering a drug called Desferal overnight on a daily basis using a pump attached to her body with a needle in her stomach area. Doctors at City of Hope told that they did not know why she was the only known BMT patient who needed transfusions years after BMT, and could not tell us when it would be stopped. Since there is no known reason for such a problem perhaps this may go away on its

own one day, they said. They were right. Sure enough this problem did go away suddenly 6 years after BMT.

Long term survivor

Thanks to City of Hope, Aruna is now a long term BMT survivor for almost 30 years. Both of our sons, Prateek and Mudit are married. Prateek is a physician at an Urgent Care in the Riverside area. Mudit is a Manager with global services at IBM. We are a proud grand parent of an 11 year granddaughter, Sneha and a 10-year old grandson, Nikhil.

When she was first diagnosed with cancer in 1984 in India, doctors had given her just a few months to live. In the medical literature at that time, the long term survival rate for BMT patients was considered to be about five years. Seeing the children get married and enjoying life with grandkids seemed impossible and unthinkable to us then. No words can describe our gratitude to the City of Hope and its entire team. Our special thanks to our entire family and everyone for their support during the most difficult time of our lives. I am sharing a photograph of Aruna and I from a family vacation this summer with our sons, daughter-in-laws, and the grand children, a beautiful moment that we could just pray for in 1984

City Of Hope

A Global Leader in Fight Against Cancer

This research required over 100 million dollars in the late 70s and early 80s. The need for funds at City of Hope today is much larger. Their leading-edge research and discoveries have saved millions of lives around the world since 1913. Because fighting cancer and finding a cure is close to our hearts, I hope youll stand with us and help support their work today!

All the funds we raise will go directly to the City of Hope so that they can continue their amazing work in research, treatment and education. And you can trust theyll spend the money wisely they've been awarded the highest rating of 4 stars by Charity Navigator, Americas premier charity watchdog group.

Please visit: https://ourhope.cityofhope.org/fundraise?fcid=352100

Umesh and Aruna at far right.

https://ourhope.cityofhope.org/fundraise?fcid=352100

Culture

Buddhist Temples Inspired Creativity In Japanese Arts

Dr. Ramesh Gehani (BT/Chem/67XXX) rgehani@uakron.edu

Around 1400 years ago, a dwindling nation of nomadic fisherman, confined to a string of islands in the Far East, evolved and became civilized by importing the Buddhist philosophy and arts from South Korea. These mind-expanding Buddhist values and larger-than-life philosophies were innovated in Northern India 2,500 years ago. The Japanese rulers layered these inspiring creative and meta-physical Buddhist practices harmoniously on top of their native nature-based Shinto way of life.

In the 21st century, once again Japan is stagnating with no growth over the past 20 years. Whereas there have been no massive layoffs, the employees salaries and job opportunities have been declining in Japan. Whereas Japanese grew their economy to be #2 in the world, the nation of Japan has been often perceived as a nation of fast-followers rather than creative innovators. Companies such as Toyota, Honda, National, Hitachi, and Toshiba are some examples of fast followers. Sony and Kyocera are some exceptions. Many other nations of the world can learn from how Japan will re-ignite its vigor and economic growth. Nature-Based Shinto

Japanese arts such as Ikebana flower arrangements, tea ceremony, and No and Kabuki theater, are all inspired by Buddhism and are famous for their serene and solemn aesthetics. But, the nation of Japan is dotted with earth-quake prone active volcanoes surrounded by a tsunami churning sea. Since Japanese have been humbled many times by fury of the Mother Nature, their arts and culture are governed by Nature. On a recent return visit to Japan in the summer of 2014, I was once again reminded of the typhoons and active volcanoes such as the ever-present awe-inspiring Mount Fuji in main Honshu Island, Mount Aso and Sakurajima in the Southern island of Kyushu, and the recent tsunami-nuclear reactor disaster in Fukushima north of Tokyo.

Japans native Shinto way of life worships and draws creative inspiration from all forms of nature. Japanese see a kami or a god-spirit in anything awe-inspiring. This includes rocks and mountains, forests and rivers, and flora and fauna. At Japans National Museum in Ueno, Tokyo, I saw some of the early ceramic and intricate pottery artworks of Jomon and Yoyoi periods (200 BC 200AD) depicting people and animals such as monkeys and snakes. Japanese have expanded the god-spirit Kami in inanimate things as well as in living beings as believed by Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains. Deep Roots of Japanese Arts in Indian Buddhism

On my recent trip, documents at temples and museums showed

me that Japans creative arts are deeply rooted in the import and adoption of Buddhism from South Korea in 6th century by Prince Shotoku Taishi (574-622). From this early period, Japanese have been layering their culture by harmoniously weaving layers of new ideas on their prior native ideas.

For 14 centuries Buddhist temples have been the capsulated museums for Japanese people. These

showcased graceful sculptures, vast monasteries, and exquisite calligraphy. The Buddhist temple complex of Horyuji (between Osaka and Nara, built in 607) houses the awe-inspiring gold-plated bronze statues of Shakyamuni Gautam Buddha (who lived in India in 5th century BC) as a kami god-spirit that can alleviate the sufferings of mankind (such as illness, ageing, untimely death), or a failed crop.

In the nearby ancient capital of Nara, a great

docent and a university professor vividly described to me Todai-ji temple, the oldest and largest wooden structure in the world (160 foot high x 190 foot wide). Built in 709 AD, it houses a 50 foot high gold-plated bronze statue of Vairocana Buddha with 50 key characteristics that only a docent can know and show. Mindful Creativity for Growth

Kyoto, the city spared by the American bombers during the World War II, is the cultural heart-center of creativity and innovation in Japan. I was returning to Kyoto 30 years after I had worked nearby at the Pioneering R&D Center for Toray, helping invent and innovate many polymer products. It was exhilarating to revisit Kyotos Zen Rock gardens, Ocha-no-yu tea ceremony, and Geisha quarters. Again, docents explained to me how most of the Japanese arts are rooted in Buddhist Zen mindfulness. Japanese gardens replicate the vastness of nature into tight compact spaces. Stagnation, Creativity and Re-Growth

It was, however, sad for me to note recently how many Japanese enterprises have stagnated for the past 25 years, since 1989. The salaries of many of my Japanese friends and colleagues in Toray Industries and Mitsui Group have declined. This has been primarily attributed to the inability of the Japanese to innovate products and processes, or create new industries (Think Apple) to increase their productivity and prosperity.

Much of this stagnation in Japan can be attributed to their conformance and lack of creative initiative and risk-taking. In a series of lectures I gave in July-August, 2014 at Japans National Universities such as Tokyo Institute of Technology, Chiba University, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, and GLOBIS University, I learned from many young students their challenges for not becoming more innovative. They murmured that they primarily tend to do what they are told to do by their superiors. Whereas many Japanese leaders are highly educated and hard-working, change in Japan takes place very slowly. Many creative new ways often get squashed. There is a historical reason for this. During the Meiji Revolution in 1868, in order to catch up with the West, and during the subsequent rise of militaristic nationalism to help Japans Imperialistic expansion, many Japanese leaders promoted Confucian conformism and discouraged Buddhist openness. This helped Japan to produce legions of disciplined hard-working human machines with high productivity. But this conformance came at the expense of curbing creativity and innovativeness. For many centuries, the Buddhist temples in Japan inspired common people to develop their

islands into a major economy of the world. Their art museums today can similarly play a pivotal role in

boosting the creativity of their adult visitors, and increase their capabilities to innovate and grow.

Lessons in Innovation for India

Many of similar lessons can be applied to the emerging economies such as India, China, South

Korea, and others. Cost-cutting and low wages can generate competitive advantage for Indian enterprises

only for a short period of time. While the wage gap is big, and the going is good, the Indian enterprises

must also nurture and grow their dynamic capabilities for indigenous innovation. Werent we taught 40

years ago that this was the primary purpose for creating the Original Five IITs? I sincerely hope that the

strategic administrators and professors at IITK and other IITs never lose track of that original vision: To be

the world-class Innovative Institutes of Technology.

Ramesh has spent 7 years in Japan on a Government Fellowship, earning a Doctorate in

Engineering degree, and researching on High Performance Polymer and Composite Materials. Currently

he is excited about researching Creativity and Innovation in Japanese Arts and Culture.

Art Meets Life

Tons of Poetry on a Street Arun Srivastava (BT/EE/67XXX) arunsriva@yahoo.co.in

Walking my grandson in a stroller on a side walk of Addison Street in Berkeley, California, last October I noticed a plaque embedded at the curb which looked like some message in jagged

lines. Intrigued by this I stepped closer to find that it was a piece of poetry! Since I was pushing

the stroller I had to keep my gaze on ground occasionally otherwise it could not have been

noticed, perhaps.

A little further on there was another and another And it was on the entire side walk of the

street. This was unique. I photographed a few. After reaching home I looked up the net for

more information on it and found it on Berkeley website. The City of Berkeley Public Art

Program in Cooperation with the Civic Arts Commission, Robert Hass (Poet Laureate of the

United States from 1995 to 1997), and the Berkeley Community had installed it in 2003.

More info: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=25564

Media: Cast-iron plates with porcelain enamel text on 120 individual plates.

Location: The sidewalk on Addison Street between Shattuck Avenue and Milvia Street

For Power Point Video of Poetry Panels Installation in the Downtown Arts

District visit: http://berkeley.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?publish_id=557

Press Releases:

Addison St. Press Release - President's Award

Berkeley Installs Three Tons of Poetry in the Downtown Arts District (October 20, 2003)

mailto:arunsriva@yahoo.co.inhttp://berkeley.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?publish_id=557http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=25566http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=25572

Poetry Panels on Sidewalk

The sidewalk on Addison Street, Berkeley.

(BT/Mech/67XXX)

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The Eye, the Angle, and the Moment

Rakesh Bhasin (BT/CE/1982) r_bhasiniitk82@yahoo.co.in

Rakesh went on to do M Tech (Structures) from IIT Delhi and M Phil (Pub Ad) Punjab Univ. He is working as a Senior Executive under Ministry of Defence and is presently posted at Chief Engineer (Air Force) Shillong Zone.

He is a keen nature photographer who believes that photography is governed by three things the eye, the angle and the moment. Apart from his eye catching photographs he has authored three books. His two volumes of English translation of Selected Stories of Premchand have been well acclaimed in literary circles. He has also made a documentary on socio-economic condition

mailto:r_bhasiniitk82@yahoo.co.in

Pangi Valley, a remote picturesque valley in Chamba district in Himachal Pradesh. The film was showcased in the International Film Festival of short films at Chandigarh.

Environment

Treatment of Hazardous Waste

Preserving the Environment

Dr. Udai Pratap Singh (BT/CE/67XXX) udaipsingh1@gmail.com

Hazardous waste is the dark side of technology. Left to itself it can cripple life on earth, but its treatment with intelligence can save the environment from the ill effects. The following excerpts taken from Udais November 2014 email to his batch show how waste management and remediation works with a few examples from his outstanding career in the field.

Dream to nightmare in Love Canal Modern day work on hazardous waste sites in the US evolved from the tragedy at Love Canal, a dream community on the eastern edge of Niagara Falls, New York in the mid to late 1970s. Hooker Chemical Company used the canal (which was later filled up to build the residential community) as an industrial dump. This eventually resulted in 82 different compounds, 11 of them carcinogens, percolating upward through the soil, their drum containers rotting and leaching into the backyards and basement of homes and a public school built on the banks of the canal. Birth defects and cancer were abnormally very high in this neighborhood. The public outrage over this site and several others being discovered all over the

US resulted in the enactment of CERCLA legislation (also known as Superfund) in the US Congress in December 1980. US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had put a very high priority on finding (listing) and cleaning up such sites, as directed by this bill. CH2M HILL got a contract from EPA in 1981 to work with them in this field. There was a rumor going around that working on such sites would cause deformities in the body and could create green monsters out of humans. I was stupid or bold enough to volunteer, and was picked up immediately for technical work on Superfund projects. We were asked to fully characterize the sites (find the magnitude and extent of contamination), assess the actual risk to human health and environment, perform feasibility studies to evaluate various remedies to the problem, and remediate at these sites.

Volleyball in Moon Suits We had to undergo one week of rigorous health and safety training in simulated conditions in

Denver before working at Superfund sites. It included medical tests and screening for baseline medical conditions and we were checked by a doctor at least annually later on. On one of those days, we had to be clad in Level-A Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), basically moon suits and play volleyball. Most of us made it through about 15 minutes of the game; some passed out earlier and had to be rescued. The health and safety training was later condensed into 8 hours and given as a refresher annually. My first project site was near Miami, Florida. I characterized sites in south Florida contaminated by leaking half buried drums full of different chemicals, solvents from industries, and one PCB contaminated site from illegal disposal of transformers. I never got to wear Level-A PPE in real work. However, I did work in Levels B (supplied air for breathing), C, and D for some time before moving to office as a manager to concentrate on improving practices, quality control, and ensuring legal defensibility of the collected data, as EPA was going to sue the potentially responsible parties (PRPs) to recover the cost of our services and remediation.

Teamwork IIT education came in handy. I was working with a team of hydro-geologists, chemists, toxicologists, and engineers. It also made me regret the little effort I had made in my organic chemistry course. I had retained only the basics and could pick up from discussing with the chemists and toxicologists, as well as some reading on the side. We were sampling for and directing analysis of compounds that I could not even pronounce. Luckily CH2M HILL had their own lab with qualified chemists; they came to my rescue. We couldnt patent those methods (the patents belonged to EPA who was paying for the work), but EPA let us publish papers in Journals. In 1983 my team expanded significantly, and I was soon working as a leader with more people including chemical/process engineers, geotechnical engineers, cost-estimators, construction personnel, and community relations specialists. We figured out new and effective ways of conducting remedial investigations and

performing evaluations of different alternatives/technologies to solve the problem, in a lab, with mathematical and other modeling, and with pilot tests in the field. There were no specified guidelines on conducting such work, even action levels for most contaminants; and we used the internal network of CH2M HILL to brainstorm ideas and make recommendations/decisions on each project. EPA Region 4 (southeast USA) awarded me a letter of commendation in 1985 for successfully remediating several Superfund sites in south Florida, significantly reducing contamination to the Biscayne Aquifer, the sole source of drinking water in south Florida. The vast array of air stripping towers at their treatment plant near Miami did the trick, for the most part. EPA used our work in south Florida as a basis for formulating their policy to address large contaminated groundwater basins in the country.

Stringfellow Acid Pits Site, Southern

California In 1986 EPA Region 9 (western US) called us for their highest priority site, Stringfellow, also called Love Canal of the West. This site was getting bad publicity, especially during a heated political campaign for electing the governor of California. Activists had sued the State and federal government for not doing enough to alleviate the health risks in adjoining town. They thought that since the site was on impermeable bedrock (granite), it was safe and secure to dispose of and store liquid waste from all kinds of industrial facilities in California. Unfortunately the bedrock was fractured, and some of the waste found its way to groundwater underneath, spreading down gradient to the residential area half a mile away and also into a creek next to a public school. We had to close off wells of residents in this area and put them on bottled water supplied by EPA. This was a long term project (decades). We immediately got rid of the liquid wastes and capped the source area (site) so no additional

liquids could reach groundwater. Fractured bedrock gave us the opportunity to try new investigative techniques. We were among the first in the country to use horizontal drilling at such sites. Controlling down gradient migration was achieved through a network of groundwater extraction wells and treatment of the extracted water at plants designed and built for cleaning up the water to appropriate regulatory levels. We had to help the labs find ways to analyze chemicals at low detection levels, and also work with toxicologists to figure out what level of health risk they posed (drinking x liters of water contaminated with each chemical a day for y number of years equates to one in a million risk of contracting cancer; same with other ways of exposure such as bathing in that water, etc.).

Every few years we have detected new and emerging chemicals at this site, the latest one being perchlorate. It is a technical challenge which is still being addressed. Stringfellow sharpened our non-technical skills, such as how to deal with an outraged community, as we interacted with them frequently. In addition, I got involved in court cases on this site. At a deposition for a class action lawsuit a resident was getting irritated with questions from an EPA attorney, which made an interesting story.

The attorney: Mr. Jones, you allege that you got brain damage from contamination from the Stringfellow site. Is that true? Mr. Jones: Yes Sir. It is absolutely true. The attorney rolled his eyes in disbelief and said, Ok Mr. Jones, when did you first find out that you have brain damage? An agitated Mr. Jones retorted: You want to know when I found out I had brain damage? I will tell you. I found out when my lawyer told me I had brain damage, pointing at his lawyer sitting next to him. We could see the reaction on his lawyers face, and the rest of us broke out laughing while Mr. Jones couldnt figure out what the joke was. May be he did have brain damage! In the late 1980s we wrote a detailed remedial investigation/feasibility study guidance document for EPA, and it is still used by the hazardous waste remediation industry all over the US.

Menace of DDT A DDT contaminated site in Los Angeles area was a landmark project in the 1990s. Montrose Chemical Co., the largest manufacturer of DDT in the world, had a large plant there (the company folded after USA declared DDT illegal for use). They had contaminated a large piece of the area, including residential yards, attics in homes, sewers, and even a part of the ocean waters in sediments settled at the bottom adjoining the treatment plant that discharged the DDT through an ocean outfall as the treatment plant was not designed to treat DDT before discharging its effluent. Pets were dying and necropsy found traces of DDT in their body. We sampled lawns of hundreds of homes, and based on results, evacuated an entire neighborhood. We found chunks of DDT in the soil. Topsoil was replaced in many lawns. We also had to manage 100 or so residents by moving them into hotels and rented homes until the end of the project.

So far we were addressing the containment and treatment of dense non-aqueous phase liquids in groundwater under the former DDT plant. However the malaise had gone much deeper into the ocean by now. The DDT-contaminated sediment in the Consolidated Slip under the ocean was being eaten by earthworms, the food for a fish called white croaker, which is a delicacy in Vietnamese and Laotian communities of southern California. On one hand we were doing community relations in trying to convince them not to consume white croaker (it didnt work, and the authorities had to prohibit its sale); and on the other hand we were evaluating remediation techniques such as dredging the sediment without spreading it elsewhere, or doing a pilot cap of the sediments under the ocean with the right slope stability so that the undercurrents would not erode or wash away the cap. Remediation of this site is still going on. We were one of the first to apply in situ bioremediation, and soil vapor extraction techniques on several sites. These were picked up by the remediation industry, and are routine now.

Negative pH at Iron Mountain Mine

Since the mid-1990s to very recently we had 50 to 70 concurrent projects under the EPA program I was managing.

Slickrock Creek Retention Reservoir project at the Iron Mountain Mine site in northern California. This project won the Grand Prize from the American Council of Engineering Companies in 2006.

We built dams and reservoirs to contain acid mine drainage, and used in situ and ex-situ

Spring Creek contaminated sediments cleanup project at Iron Mountain Mine site won the Grand Prize for Industrial Waste Management from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers & Scientists in 2014. treatment technologies that contained or cleaned up the sites (soil, soil vapor, surface water, and groundwater). At the Iron Mountain Mine site in northern California the water was labeled by the media during the 1990s as worlds worst water with pH of minus 3. I did not know that pH could be negative until a US Geological Survey scientist working with us measured it and explained to us. It had killed all the fish and living organism in the river for miles downstream. Over the next couple of decades, we eliminated 98% of the pollutants entering surface waters and fish including salmon have come back now in the Sacramento River downstream of the site.

State of the Art Recently we remediated a site contaminated with pesticides by heating up the soil below ground surface to about 80 feet in depth to above 100 degree Celsius. This mobilized the contaminants caught up in the soil in groundwater and the rest as vapors. We extracted the mobilized

contaminated soil vapor and groundwater, treated them above ground and released them into the environment. More recently we tackled contaminated vapor intrusion (from below ground) into buildings. There is a new sustainable frontier commonly known as green remediation. It requires use of energy efficient techniques including alternative energy sources (solar, wind, etc.), reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reused materials, and making sure that the remedy is optimized to minimize ongoing operation and maintenance costs. The most important part is to have these

sites restored to their usage after the cleanup. There have been 1,500 to 2,000 National Priorities List (Superfund) sites in USA since the early 1980s up to now, and I have had the privilege of working on 250 to 300 of them. Only a small number of them have been fully cleaned up (many have been cleaned up partially and immediate threat to the residents has been eliminated). They should be cleaned up in the next decade or so.

Udai Pratap Singh: Sharing the Knowledge and Recognition

Distinguished Alumnus Award from IITK, 2009

Published 60 technical papers and edited five books

Co-author of book Hazardous Waste Site Remediation Management, published by Water Environment Federation

Numerous prestigious awards from professional societies and peer groups, 1998-2014

Member of Industry Advisory Board, University of Southern California, 2001-2007

President, American Society of Civil Engineers Environmental & Water Resources Institute, 2009-2010

Advisory: Water Caucus of the US Congress (several Congressman from the House of Representatives

interested in water issues) on formulating the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in 2009, commonly known as the Stimulus Bill

Retired at the end of 2014 as Vice President of CH2M HILL after 41 years with the firm

Currently, as a leader of the 13 nation Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council, Udai is facilitating

the sharing of knowledge and advancing the profession among the member societies in key civil engineering areas.

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Walrus and I Arun Srivastava (BT/EE/67XXX) arunsriva@yahoo.co.in

Do you think? I asked. Yes. Said the walrus and he took a pause. I think I am hungry, He continued, lazing in snow covering one eye with a flipper shading it from the sun. What do you think? He asked back without a movement fixing his gaze on me, with the other eye open. I agree, said I, and made off without waiting for another moment. What else was there to think, I thought. Think when hungry, go waste when full. I was neither and could not decide what to think. Why? He moaned from a distance, reading my thoughts as if. Because I decide everything before I do, I hollered. He closed both his eyes. He did not want to see me again. My thoughts upset him, the straight thinker. Walrus is content in his binary states: hungry and not hungry. We slither through a maze of floating states, only to fall in another state. ***

mailto:arunsriva@yahoo.co.in

What is The Porter all about? Thoughts behind launching it. The Porter is a Mumbai based market-place for logistics, connecting customers with commercial vehicles for quick and effortless goods transportation. We are a tech enabled service provider focusing on premium services like transparent pricing, tracking, auto-notification alerts etc. at competitive prices. At present there is a huge mismatch in the market between consumers and truck drivers: drivers are not able to access the large demand around them and at the same time consumers find it difficult to get a reliable and efficient carrier. We at The Porter are trying to organize logistics in India, which is highly fragmented, inefficient and suffers from low capacity utilization, namely poor loyal customer base and high idle time.

What led you to venture into logistics business? We were intrigued by the business model of some taxi services which were aggregating

existing supply and matching it to demand in an efficient and effortless way using technology. We did ground research on logistics in Mumbai and found this huge gap of market inefficiency in the last mile delivery. We did a preliminary research in Bangalore, Delhi, and inter-city logistics (long haul). The results were similar.

In which way The Porter is a better proposition than the usual

logistics players. The Porter features:

1. Transparent Pricing with supporting

legal documentation

Logistics With an app: ThePorter.in

Vikas Choudhary (BT/EE/Y8XXX) vikas@theporter.in

Contact: 022 6538 2222 info@theporter.in

mailto:info@theporter.in

2. Real time tracking and auto notification

3. All trip logs (Km travelled, login and logoff times, route replays etc.) are captured digitally with minimal manual intervention

4. Dedicated call center support

5. A professional company rather than an

unorganized fleet owner

6. Hassle free experience

Elaborate - how this transporter

works for merchants and logistics players. Other merchants and companies would have 2-3 vendors who would be responsible to cater to their vehicle needs. These vendors would further sub-contract vehicle owners or vendors creating a problem of multiple middlemen. As a result of which, end service user ends up paying more and the end service provider ends up getting less. We eliminate this multiple middlemen problem and connect end user with an end service provider directly. Moreover, traditional transporter captures trip logs (like km travelled, reporting and closing time etc) manually whereas all these are captured digitally on our platform, providing a transparent and accountable service to our customers.

Give some sense about infrastructure The Porter has at

present. Do you also use third party infrastructure? We are aggregators of mini-trucks currently operating in Mumbai. We have more than 20 Tata Aces and 5 Tata 407 on our platform. Most of our vehicles are equipped with a smartphone installed with our in-house developed mobile app. The app helps us by providing real time tracking updates and

assists us in scheduling the fleet in the best possible manner based on parameters like distance, SLA, etc. We accept orders through our call center and website. We are working on our customer side mobile app and will launch it shortly.

What is the size of opportunity The Porter is eyeing at? Roadway logistics is a $150 Billion USD industry in India, of which $30 billion is the last mile delivery. If you look at its urban split, the market size is estimated to be around $10-12 billion USD.

How has been the traction so far

in terms of shipment serviced by The Porter on monthly basis? We started with 2 Tata Aces in August and have grown to more than 25 Tata Aces and 5 Tata 407 (higher variant) and processing more than 15 orders on a daily basis. We started with an institutional client in July, providing them with 2 dedicated vehicles and did 82 transactions. We have launched our on-demand service in August and the traction can be seen below:

Is it just in time or customers book

in advance?

We provide a minimum time commitment of

45 minutes as of now. So customers can book

vehicles both just in time (45 minutes) or

schedule a booking for later. We are working

hard to reduce the ETAs (targeting 15

minutes) by increasing our depth in the city.

To give you an idea of the current order

composition: 60% of our orders are on spot

bookings, remaining are booked in advance.

In terms of customer segmentation, SMEs

Parameters August December

Total Orders 149 349

Total Queries 160 553

No. of vehicles 8 23

generally have a tendency to book JIT

whereas a retail customer would generally go

for a advance booking.

What are current problems in

operation and expansion?

Key operational and scaling hurdles:

1.) Building a scalable demand aggregation

solution.

Devising a playbook for supply side

aggregation which can be replicated in

multiple cities.

2.) Reducing ETA to 15 minutes and improve

service reliability.

This can be addressed by building a sufficient

depth in the city which is capital intensive

hence timely fund raising becomes essential.

3.) Frictionless transition on supply side.

Since it is a supply shift problem and since

our vehicles provide a better efficiency, a

smooth transition remains a priority. With the

boom in organised retail which has increased

demand in the intra-city sector, we are

hopeful that this would not be a major

concern.

4.) Minimising dry run and enhancing vendor

profitability.

Better vendor-customer matchmaking

algorithm and getting a return trip on the

current booking will reduce the dry run

drastically.

5.) Improving professionalism on both the

supply and demand side.

Transition in driver attitude and behaviour.

From a chalta-hai attitude to a customer service

first attitude.

Founders: Vikas Choudhary IIT Kanpur, 2012 Batch, previously worked with Juniper Networks as an

ASIC engineer and worked on network architecture and simulations.

Pranav Goel IIT Kharagpur, 2012 batch, previously worked in JP Morgan US Internet Equity team

Uttam Digga IIT Kharagpur, 2012 batch, previously worked in JP Morgan CEEMEA Equity Strategy team

Entrepreneurship

Passionconnect #LiveYourPassion

Shubham Deva (MSc Int/MTH/Y9XXX)

shubham@passionconnect.in

www.passionconnect.in Phone: +918722600400

Only 8.6% of the working population love what they are doing. Many students are confused

with an important question about the choice of career.

We help them decide.

As the world becomes increasingly technological,

the value of skills and education will be

determined by the effectiveness of science,

technology, engineering, and mathematics

(STEM). What NEXT? Deciding what to do and

discovery of ones natural inclination is a very

important step in ones Career. We have to work

anyway so why not take up a career that you

would enjoy and give it your best. Do what you

love. There is one life to live.

We help students in finding the right career

choice which matches their skills and

motivation.

Passionconnect is for people who love what they

do and what they are passionate about. However,

getting it right is not so straight forward. Most of

us end up seeking advice from others in the

family, get influenced by friends or take a

neighbors advice. Often confused and due to

peer pressure we end up taking wrong decisions

and get into a field that is not suited to our

temperament. We provide help with a clear

vision of the future.

The venture has been incubated by Basket

Option, JGI Ventures. It is a profitable business

even though our tests cost just Rs 100 now as

against other tests in the market which run into

thousands of rupees. Also, the career counseling

platform will be priced similarly so that

maximum number of students can derive its

benefit. In terms of results, we have already

conducted 10000 tests in Karnataka and Andhra

Pradesh, a majority of which has been done in

rural areas.

Our target market is Tier II and Tier

III cities. Everyone wants to work in

the metros but we want to target the

other cities.

We cover understanding of the true passion,

options of a zillion creative, COOL careers, how

to earn a living from doing what one loves and

finally training by the experts of each area.

mailto:shubham@passionconnect.inhttp://www.passionconnect.in/

Industry experts from 50+ different careers paths share their thoughts and insights on how they made it

BIG; how can you succeed in the field of your choice and many more things.

The Founders of the movement collectively have more than 30+ years of experience and have addressed

more than 500,000 students and touched many lives.

Personality of each student is assessed and her area of interest is mapped interests in entrepreneurship, joining family business, applying for a job or going for higher studies all are evaluated. Customized Passion Sharing platform to take it further are classified and events are organized to that end; specific interest groups for people interested in android, robotics, graphic designing, dance, singing, music, acting, fitness etc. are setup.

If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far GO TOGETHER!

We are building a platform where passion-driven people will walk together solving their problems,

fulfilling their needs and living their passion.

We are creating a circle of passion through our unique events, knowledge filled forum and culturally rich

online academy.

I jumped without a Parachute into entrepreneurship to become a first generation entrepreneur. In my

family entrepreneurship is unheard of. The inspiration to jump came from the Chairman of Jain Group of

Institutions; Dr Chenraj Jain, and further support was provided by Mr. Abdul Sait, Group CEO of

BasketOption. Mr. Karthik Kittu, ex KPMG, with rich experience in this field is my partner.

==X==