A commerce postgraduate of Bombay University, Jesus S.M. Lall is chairman and chief executive of the Mumbai-based Univer-sal Education Group (UEG) and founder-trustee of the S.M. Lall Foundation, a charitable trust promoted in 2008.Newspeg. The Universal School, Tardeo, Mumbai, is the first K-V primary in India to introduce digital learning devices for nursery school children. […]
Sir Christian John Storey Bonington is a celebrated British mountaineer, who has the distinction of having conquered Mount Everest four times and 15 other Himalayan peaks. An alumnus of University College School, Hampstead (London) and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Bonington was commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment in 1956. In 1961, he resigned his […]
B. Jayashankar and Praveen Krishnaiah are co-founders of Bangalore-based NetCracker Online Services Pvt. Ltd (estb.2010), which offers EduNest, a student information system and school admin-istration software to K-12 schools.Newspeg. EduNest will be launched in Delhi on July 1 with Krishnaiah, the companys chief executive moving base to Delhi. EduNest was launched in Bangalore in May […]
In a country where libraries are neither common nor valued, Santhosh Kumar Subramanian and Parul Sarin, imaginative entrepreneurs based in Chennai and Mumbai respectively, have promoted a library with a difference — the online childrens Bambaram MI Toy Library (a venture of Rultosh Edufun Pvt. Ltd) — to make learning enjoyable for children in the […]
Pune-based Ashok M. Salvi is a filmmaker who is acquiring a (Maharashtra) statewide reputation as friend, philosopher and guide of the stressed out students community. A 30-minute documentary Antim Saans (‘last breath) that he has scripted and directed, exhorting youth to persevere, has not only been screened in more than 30 schools and colleges, but […]
R. Sivaraman (36), assistant professor of mathematics at D.G. Vaishnav College, Chennai is the founder of Pie Mathematics Association (PMA), a not-for-profit trust registered in 2007 with the objective of reducing if not eliminating, maths phobia within the students community and public. An executive council member of the Chennai-based Association of Maths Teachers of India, […]
Neelimkumar Khaire is the founder-director of the Pune-based Katraj Snake Park (estb. 1986), which is home to a wide variety of snakes found in cities, fields, water bodies, forests, and hills, including the dreaded king cobra and viper. In 1999, the snake park was merged with the Rajiv Gandhi Zoological Park, a major tourist attraction […]
A former group director of California-based Synopsys Inc (a leading supplier of software, IP and services used in semiconductor design and manufacturing; annual sales: $1.4 billion or Rs.6,300 crore), Prof. Srikanth Jadcherla is now promoter chairman and chief executive of Hyderabad-based Synopsys Electronics Education and Research (SEER) Akademi Pvt. Ltd (estb. 2009). SEER Akademi currently […]
Dr. D. Udaya Kumar (32), assistant professor in the department of design at IIT-Guwahati, is the designer of the new symbol for the Indian Rupee which has won widespread praise in India and abroad for simplicity and imagination.Newspeg. Udaya Kumars representative symbol for the rupee was adjudged the best in a national contest sponsored by […]
Madan Padaki is the co-founder and chief executive of the Bangalore-based MeritTrac Services Pvt. Ltd (estb. 2000) — a skills assessments company. An engineering graduate of Mysore University, Padaki began his career with Wipro in 1995 and later served with Infosys and BFL Software (now Mphasis). In August 2000, he co-promoted MeritTrac with Murlidhar S. […]
Devika Meghe, managing trustee, Meghe Group of Schools (MGS, promoted by Meghe Group of Institutions — estb. 1987 by Congress party leader and Lok Sabha member Datta Meghe) and president of the Radhikabai Meghe Mahila Shikshan Sanstha which launched MGS’ first school, the Vimaltai Tidke Convent, Nagpur in 1987.
Newspeg. Four new pre-schools under MGS’ School of Scholars […]
Krishna Bhupathi, founder-director of the state-of-the-art Bhupathi Tennis Village, Bangalore and Shirley Madhavan Kutty, founder principal of The Magic Years, Delhi, the national capitals top-ranked pre-school (estb.1978).Newspeg. Bhupathi and Kutty are all set to launch Magical Years, a Montessori pre-school sited on the two-acre Bhupathi Tennis Village campus in Kodigehalli, a suburb of Bangalore. The […]
Prajodh Rajan is the Mumbai-based director of EuroKids International Pvt. Ltd (estb. 1998) which has franchised 780 pre-schools under the brand EuroKids countrywide, apart from owning and directly administering 28 EuroKids pre-schools in eight cities across the country.
Newspeg. On January 12, EuroKids celebrated the 10th anniversary of its first pre-school established in Andheri, Mumbai. Significantly, […]
Vidya Shankar, founder and chairperson of Relief Foundation, Chennai. An engineering alumna of Anna University, Shankar worked in the IT industry for two years before quitting her job after the birth of her daughter in 1990. Subsequently she signed up for a postgrad diploma in child rights law at the National Law School of India […]
D. P. Chandrashekar is the Hyderabad-based chief operating officer of the Bangalore-based Jain Group of Institutions (JGI, estb. 1990) which owns and/or manages 21 education institutions including the Sri Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain University, MATS School of Business and IT and the state-of-the-art Jain International Residential School (JIRS), Bangalore, with an aggregate enrolment of 40,000 students.Newspeg. […]
Pune-based musician Shrirang Umrani, winner of a Maharashtra state award for the background track of the Sunil Sukhtankar and Sumitra Bhave-directed Marathi film Dahavi F (2002), lets his musical talent flow outwards to positively impact other people’s lives. It’s an experiment that has paid him rich dividends because for the past 24 years that Umrani […]
Gurgaon-based music professionals Lorraine Fiona and Aubrey Aloysius are wholly convinced that music education needs to be fully integrated into school education towards holistic development of children. To enable this symphony as also to teach western music, they moved from Mumbai seven years ago to Gurgaon, the new satellite city of Delhi where they promoted […]
UK-based Pearson Group, the global media, education and publishing behemoth (annual revenue $8 billion or Rs.36,000 crore), which inter alia owns the Financial Times, Pearson Education and Penguin Books, is deepening its engagement with Indian education. Fast on the heels of the launch of several products, services and joint ventures including Pearson VUE, Edexcel, Clinical […]
Fresh from its triumph in persuading the Union HRD ministry to amend the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (aka RTE Act) to entitle the country’s estimated 10 million children with disabilities to free and compulsory inclusive education, and for them to be included in the definition of “poor neighbourhood children” whom private […]
When Pune-based Shrinivas Bhats mother gifted him a replica of the first coin issued by independent India in 1947, he was just eight years of age. But it catalysed an enduring passion for coins collection which has now grown into a valuable treasure chest of 5,000 distinct and separate coins from around the world, winning […]
Of late the Indian Institute of Cartoonists (IIC), Bangalore (estb.2001), a first-of-its-kind 2,000 sq.ft gallery sited in the garden citys tony M.G. Road has gone into overdrive, staging exhibitions display-ing the doodles of several of the countrys small but influential community of newspaper and magazine cartoonists. A few months ago it showed the work of […]
For over 25 years, V. Ranganathan (72), a retired automobile engineer, cherished the dream of educating underprivileged young children in rural Tamil Nadu. But it was not until his retirement in 2002 that he could realise his dream, when he established the Vidyarambam Trust, a non-profit organisation which provides basic, free-of-charge education to poor and […]
Since the People’s Republic of Bangladesh was famously written off as a “basket case nation-state” by the former American secretary of state Dr Henry Kissinger in 1971, despite suffering military coups and political instability, and often ravaged by floods and cyclones, this low-lying nation has surprised India and the world by pioneering several innovative socio-economic […]
Once every eagerly anticipated fortnight, children in classes VI-VII from several schools in Pune gather together to watch socially relevant documentaries dealing with issues such as child labour, women’s empowerment, water harvesting, racial bias, communal disharmony and so on. The screening is followed by an intense discussion led by Dr Satish Rajmachikar, the man behind […]
Theres a buzz of excitement in the modest office of YOCee (Youth of Chennai, energetic, enthusiastic) — a Chennai-based proprietary firm which manages YOCee.in, a childrens website in the port city. On Childrens Day (November 14) YOCee plans to launch a video news bulletin on its You Tube channel featuring student-centric news and events reported […]
The globe-girdling Dubai-based Varkey Group-promoted Global Education Management Systems (GEMS), which made a soft launch entry into India in 2004, is aiming to emerge as one of the top five K-12 education providers countrywide in the next three-four years, with at least 100 schools under its management. The Varkey Group, which owns 100 schools worldwide, […]
The first Indian president of the World Crafts Council (WCC), elected for a four-year term in 2008, Usha Krishna has committed her time and influence to the cause of crafts and craftspersons, thus ensuring that governments and policy makers around the world give them due recognition and rewards. WCC is a non-government organisation established in […]
Enthused by the stupendous success of her first book Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish (2008), which recounted the secrets of several first generation business entrepreneurs and has reportedly sold over 150,000 copies in eight languages, Mumbai-based author Rashmi Bansal formally released her second title Connect the Dots (2010) at a crowded press conference in the citys […]
Dr. Kalyan Gangwal has very definite ideas and preferences about healthy nutrition and healthcare. Non-vegetarian fare, tobacco and alcohol are strictly taboo, says this Pune-based activist and medical practitioner who was felicitated by the Pune Municipal Corporation in July for spearheading a drugs de-addiction movement and promoting vegeta-rianism for over 40 years. Also adjudged ‘Vegetarian […]
A heavyweight — and undoubtedly welcome — advertiser on several national 24×7 English language news channels, the Noida-based Sharda University (SU, estb.2009) is riding high on the professional education boom. One of the new genre private universities empowered by state government legislation, SU is the brain child of Pradeep Kumar Gupta (44), a first generation […]
Pune-based Jesuit cleric-cum-academic Cyril Desbruslais believes in popular theatre as a medium of public instruction. For the past 39 years, he has been scripting and producing stage plays to promote the integrated development of young people and sensitise them to the needs of the marginalised and poor through his NGO Searching and Service in Unity […]
Just 16 months after assuming office as president and chief operating officer of the Orlando (USA)-based American Hotel and Lodging Educational Institute (AH&LEI), Robert Steele III visited India to assess the prospects and development needs of this country’s booming hospitality industry. “Currently, India has 100,000 international standard hotel rooms. This number is expected to double […]
Sepp Blatter, president of the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA), describes India as the sleeping giant of world football. Bangalore-based Adhip Bhandary (29) has made it his mission to wake this sleeping giant. To this end in 2007 he re-located from Mumbai to promote the Bangalore Youth Football League Academy (BYFL) which has 50 […]
Residents and visitors to Lonavla, the salubrious township sited midway between Mumbai and Pune, are likely to come across film stars such as Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan and even Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, in typical attitudes. But a fixed stare will be the inevitable response if you attempt any verbal interaction. That’s because […]
In an innovative tri-city partnership with the International Institute of Career Development, Tiruchi and Divya Knowledge Process Management Ltd, Bangalore, the Coimbatore-based Hi-end Software Integrated Ltd has signed an agreement with the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Career Development (IECD) of Bharathidasan University in Coimb-atore, to offer its School University Tie-up Scheme (SUITS) programme to classes […]
An alumna of Lucknows highly-rated La Martiniere Girls School and currently a Houston (Texas, USA)-based correspondent of TV Asia and promoter-chief executive of an online multimedia enterprise titled Lights, Camera, Action, Ruchi Mukherjee has dismal memories of her school years. She grimly recalls experiencing verbal abuse, partiality and extreme lack of patience. Her unhappy school […]
An engineer by profession and Punes ‘railway man by popular reputation, Dr. Ravi Joshi has combined his skills and knowledge of mechanical and electrical engineering to build one of the biggest and most ‘active railway museums in the country. The Joshi Museum of Miniature Railways in Kothrud, suburban Pune, is served by a huge platform […]
Mumbai-based marketing communications consultant, career strategist and author Pushpendra Mehta, has transformed into an online media entrepreneur with the promotion of VCherish.com, an e-publishing website for and by the youth of India. VCherish.com offers a forum and soundboard for creative minds to network globally, get their writing published and get paid for it, says Mehta.VCherish.com, […]
A mix of motivations — hands-on experience of cutting edge information technologies, love of mathematics and dissatisfaction with the way young children are being introduced to the subject — has prompted Vadodara-based Kannan and Bharathy Bharadwaj to opt out of high-flying corporate careers and focus on developing maths learning programmes for class I-VIII children in […]
For seven years, Prakash Thosre worked in the Melghat forests of south-western Maharashtra before he stumbled upon the realisation that for the area to remain green, it would be better to win friends and influence among children, rather than adults. Today, he is doing just that. As director of the social forestry department of Maharashtra, […]
Parents of students from the Delhi Public School (DPS) in Dwarka staged a peaceful protest at Jantar Mantar on Saturday, expressing their concerns over alleged .....Read More
The Jharkhand High Court on Friday directed the state’s director general of police, Anurag Gupta, to formulate a standard operating procedure (SOP) to enhance security .....Read More
