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Leaders in the Making: The Crucibles of Change Makers in HR

Read Time:13 Minute

A discussion on the theme of the book “Leaders in the Making – The Crucibles of Change Makers in HR” authored by Dr Arvind N Agrawal, Managing Partner, Lead Associates & Former President, NHRD and Mr T V Rao, Chairman, T.V. Rao Learning Systems. The discussion with the authors was led by Ms S Vijayalakshmi, MCC MP Master Coach & Mentor.

Vijayalakshmi: What was your vision for the book? As co-authors, did you intuitively share the same vision?

Arvind Agarwal: To be honest, I didn’t have any grand vision. I had just some childlike curiosity. I had rubbed shoulders with many super professionals in HRD forums. I used to always wonder, ‘What are they really like? What has been their life journey?’ I would love to write about it. I also thought that since these are super professionals, their stories would be inspiring for young professionals in their career journey.

T V Rao: For a professor, teaching and learning continuously is the only vision I can think of. So I was looking for learning from the HR leaders and then passing on the knowledge. And that’s what we’re doing through this book—learn and disseminate.

Vijayalakshmi: Can you highlight the essence of this 462 page book?

Arvind: We have been touched in our lives by a lot of people in our journey—parents, friends, teachers, bosses and even professional bodies like MMA. That’s how we have become who we are. The book is all about those experiences in the life journey—like how you have been impacted? By whom? In what moments? What were those points of inflections? What choices did you make?

TV Rao: The first lesson is, leaders make themselves by learning from various other people and experiencing both positive and negative crucible experiences. They convert each crucible moment into an experience, learn not to repeat mistakes or learn from both mistakes and good things. Each one uses other people’s experiences, which include family as a source of learning, which they acknowledge only much later.

One remarkable thing we discovered is that more than what teachers teach in a class, the way they treat students outside the class and connect with them makes a lot of impact. That is a big lesson. The bosses largely have positive impact but you also learn from bad bosses. Nobody designates people as leader. But once you assume leadership position, you start contributing in a big way to the society. Leadership is not really impacting people in your organization but people around you also. There are about 14 different categories of lessons that we have drawn.

Vijayalakshmi: Two words hit you when you go through the book. One is crucible and the other word is baking.

Arvind: I read a work by Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas. They talked about crucibles of leadership and that resonated with me. I thought it would be great to discover what crucibles of experiences HR legends have gone through. So that was our inquiry. Crucible, in the medieval time, was a vessel used by the alchemist to convert metal into gold. That was not an easy process. Likewise, when you go through life experiences, in that moment, it may be violent, unpleasant and sometimes positive. But much later, when you look back, you realize the importance of it and lasting impact it has left in you. That’s the shaping of the personality, the character and the mind of the person. That connected well with both of us. Once we heard the stories from HR leaders, we cherry picked their crucible experiences and analysed them.

Vijayalakshmi: I think even the last three years of the pandemic have seen huge, global crucible experiences for all of us. Hopefully, humanity has emerged better. You have featured 30, impactful, inspiring and heart-warming narratives of HR leaders. Can you share some learning from that process of having deep conversations?

Arvind: It was an overwhelming experience for me personally. I had known most of the people featured in the book. But in the process of talking to them over six hours, I realized how little I actually knew them, perhaps not more than 10 to 20%. The second is, all of them unconditionally responded to my questions and gave me time.

Vijayalakshmi: You have identified the settings of the crucible experiences and presented them in 14 categories, ranging from family to volunteering to social causes. Could you talk to us a little bit through some interesting revelations, as you put together those categories of experiences?

TV Rao: If you go sequentially, first it is dealing with the childhood and parents. We had leaders who were born in a variety of backgrounds. So one lesson is, it doesn’t matter what family you’re born in, but it matters what kind of values, examples and socialization parents have given you, even in difficult times. Second is the impact of teachers, schools and colleges. We have leaders who have come from top institutions like IIM or the XLRI but we also have leaders who have studied in not-so-well known institutions but still made it big. But having said that, I think it is not the institution itself, it is some of the faculty in the institutions who seem to matter. Some of the leaders recall even today, the kind of impact the faculty had on them, both in the school as well as the college. So if the professors gave you an assignment or a project where they asked you to go and work with the poor, or the labourers or study the beggars and things of that nature, it leaves a great impact. So teachers make a phenomenal impact.

Third, one can see the importance of the first job. Sometimes some of them get very routine kind of tasks but they have got the best out of it. Like if you’re asked to maintain attendance of people or you were asked to look at the employee records, the person may treat it merely as a routine job. But understanding that maintaining attendance register and employee records is the best way to know the entire organization, is another way of looking at it. So, how people treat their first job creates an impact. Bosses who mentored and understood you also make an impact. People who handled industrial relations in the early part of their life seem to have learned quite a lot, which we were discounting earlier.

In fact, many times I’ve said HRD is separate from industrial relations. I used to say HRM is equal to industrial relations plus personnel management plus HRD. But today, I have come to the conclusion that all three are integrated. There is no HRD without both IR as well as personnel management. Contribution to professional bodies like National HRD Network, ISTD, NIPM and to social causes has helped people to grow.

Arvind: One additional thread that we picked up, apart from everything that TV Rao has already said is the power of immersive business experience. Out of 30 people we have featured in the book, there were 17 people who had accountable business role, at some phase in their career. Either they would have come from business role into human resource or they would have gone from human resource to business. Listening to their stories, the importance of business experience equally comes out very strongly. So if people want to build their career in the HR profession, they should definitely look for industrial relation experience and equally for some business system, if they can.

Vijayalakshmi: What were the surprises or revelations in what you have narrated as HR Legends’ competencies?

Arvind: Our approach was unique. Mostly around the world, when people do any competency mapping, they will do behavioural interviews and from that, they conclude the other competencies. Our approach was that from the stories of HR legends, we have culled out what their competencies are. To our surprise, the findings resonated well with the popular competency models of human resource. Whether it’s SHRM, CIPD of UK, Bill Wooldridge model or NHRD network’s own model HRSCAPE, the findings align very well. Only one new dimension which came up and which we don’t largely find across other models is the social relationship and its importance. Aspects such as being mindful of larger causes, giving back to the society, making a difference in the lives of other people came very prominently, right through the 30 stories.

TV Rao: I strongly recommend every HR manager to take some time off every year and work with an NGO or work for a social cause. In many conferences, I keep on repeating this. A little bit of a surprise is why is it that except for some leaders, most of them wait till they reach 50s or 60s to become socially more conscious. I wish the future leaders do it much earlier in their life.

The other most interesting competence is the HR eader’s integrating ability. They are not merely HR leaders but leaders in their own right and could have handled any other leadership role with ease because of their HR background or orientation. They have an ability to integrate business with larger causes, put things in a larger perspective and talk of contemporary issues like work and its meaning, life and its meaning and so on.

Vijayalakshmi: Can you list out the top three to five HRM values that stood out for you?

Arvind: Trustworthiness comes on top, followed by integrity, authenticity, respect for people and connecting with others.

TV Rao: I may add openness, collaboration, proactiveness, confrontation and experimentation.

Vijayalakshmi: One of the limitations you have acknowledged is the number of women HRLs who are featured—just two out of 30. Is there a larger issue out there that we need to acknowledge as professional bodies and as industries?

TV Rao: The larger issues are always there. We have moved a great deal, but we still have a long way to go. Recently, we had a reunion of IIMA 1982 batch after 40 years of coming here. Nearly 100 of them came but there were only about seven or eight women. This speaks something about what was happening between 1982 and 2022. Arvind and I have started encouraging some people. A group of them in in Bangalore have volunteered to undertake the task of writing the next part of this book on women leaders.

Dr Arvind N Agrawal also led a conversation with Mr Sridhar Ganesh, Leadership Development Mentor and Executive Coach and Mr S V Nathan, Partner and Chief Talent Officer, Deloitte, South Asia & National President, NHRD.

Arvind Agarwal: Sridhar. You were a Calcutta boy, going through a very prestigious St. Xavier’s college. You mentioned that you were very much influenced by French/Belgian Jesuits. What has been the influence of the people you met in St. Xavier’s?

Sridhar Ganesh: I was very fortunate that I studied in a local, Tamil society school. Then I moved on to St. Xavier’s to do my Physics. What impressed me about the Jesuits was they were very simple, extremely humble, had tons of knowledge and were hugely committed to their cause. They would go to any extent to help a student. For example, in my case, there were some books on subjects like heat and electricity, which were extremely unaffordable for me. They would lend them from their personal library on only one condition—make sure that you return it. They were so supportive.

Arvind: You have also talked about the influence of other teachers as you grow further in your education. You went to IIM Calcutta and chose HR as a profession. What made you choose HR?

Sridhar: I was enamoured by two things. One, the quality of my teachers. They were all stalwarts. In those days, it was not even called HR. It was called Personnel Management. I was enamoured by what they had to offer and the science of psychology and people science. I could relate to it and it sort of touched me and therefore, took it up as my career.

Arvind: Nathan, you studied in The Steel City at XLRI. What are your impressions of XLRI that seems to have produced a large number of HR legends?

Nathan: XLRI is a great place. It teaches you three things. One, service before self. The second thing is, most of the professors we had, built in us a sense of values, without seemingly so. The third one is to be industrious. You have to work very hard.

Arvind: If you were to think about one or two impactful teachers from whom you really learned something, which even today you remember and apply in your profession, what would be that?

Nathan: There was an old lady professor by name Neelima Acharya. She taught industrial relations and we would be bored to death. But I remember she once made a statement: Every management gets the union it deserves. I applied that in many walks of my life. You only get what you deserve because of what you do. That was a very powerful statement for me.

There was another professor—Professor Gangopadhyay. He taught statistics which is not an easy subject. He was a cerebral professor. There was Subbu, a student in our class, who was very brainy and very good in mathematics. One day, as the professor was writing some very complicated mathematics –finding out the inverse of a matrix, I think, Subbu walked to the board and solved that. Immediately the professor stopped him and said, “Subbu. You now get an A. You don’t have to attend any of my classes. But if you want an A plus, you must write the exam.” Subbu never came to the class again. I remember as if it happened yesterday. Sometimes we just overbake things. If there is something which is already done, then don’t do that more.

Arvind: You both are serial authors. Can you share one or two messages that you would like to give to the people here today?

Sridhar: Be driven by a sense of purpose. In HR, we tend to be very insular. Employee connectedness is very important. That’s where everything of a business rests. The third thing is being business aware. Most HR people are not even aware of what the company’s revenues are or what EBITDA means. People should become be more immersive in the business of the company.

Nathan: All of us have a story waiting to be told. It is important for us to say that story. Sometimes we discount ourselves. I don’t think there is any need for us to do that. Second, they say data is oil and all that. Personal data is worth nothing. So share and care. In the eight hours that we spend in office, the fact that somebody listened to me shows that somebody cares for me and my story. The third one is, we do a lot of ground work. But somebody else maybe doing a lot more than what you’re doing. So have respect for that. It doesn’t matter whether you work in a multinational or you work in an Indian company, as HR professionals. Multinationals take extraordinary people. Many times, they falter at the altar and don’t get the best of results. They could do much more. But Indian companies take the so called ordinary people and get extraordinary results out of them. It is all about getting the best out of yourself and others.

Featured

Understanding the Nuances of Deep Tech

Read Time:18 Minute

Deep Tech companies work on technology that addresses problems and are solutions-oriented. We invited a distinguished panel of experts to unravel the nuances of this emerging tech space.

Pravin Shekar, Hon. Secretary, TiE Chennai

We have recently formed a core group in TiE and its objective is to help democratize deep tech; to bring a deeper understanding of its facets to the community and to ensure that we are able to work with the ecosystem of startups and to work with institutions to foster the deep tech growth in the country.

What is deep tech?
Deep Technology (Deep tech) or hard tech is a classification of organisation or more typically a startup company with the expressed objective of providing technology solutions based on substantial scientific or engineering challenges. The key technology areas are: Biotech, Robotics, AI/ML, AR/VR, Blockchain, Advanced material science, Photonics and electronics and Quantum computing.

The key application areas are: Lifesciences and healthtech; Food and agritech, where we are trying to use robotics and drones to increase production; Aerospace; Energy and Cleantech; Industrial technologies; Telecom and Infrastructure. The Covid vaccine itself is one of the deep tech projects.

Deep tech and startups
Of course, all startups have to solve a problem but the deep techs look at solving some fundamental problems. 97% of the startups in deep tech domain address at least one of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the UN which include removal of poverty, hunger, providing clean energy and smart cities.

The second is, there is always a convergence of technologies and 96% of the deep tech startups have a combination of multiple technologies like AI with robotics.

The third is, they produce products and all of them own a certain IP, which is a very valuable component. The last is, they are part of the huge ecosystem. According to NASSCOM, 12% of the new startups use some of the technologies like AI, ML, IOT, Robotics.

Lakshminarayanan, Co-founder & Emeritus Vice Chairman, Cognizant

Defining Deep tech would be limiting its scope. However, there is a good and popular model that is available to understand all that is associated with research- both fundamental and applied- in the areas of science and technology. It is called the ‘Louis Pasteur’s quadrant,’ as shown in the figure. It is a two by two matrix and simple to understand. On the X-axis, we have the intensity of application and on the Y-axis, the intensity of research. In Quadrant 1 (Top Left), the intensity of fundamental research is very high but there are very limited applications. It is called the Niels Bohr’s quadrant. E.g.: Quantum mechanics, quantum sciences, etc. We have still not figured out ways of applying it in the real world. There are people who chase the truth, like, how did the universe come to be or what is driving nature, through fundamental research. We have institutions in India who continue to do that. TIFR initially promoted that. We have the International Centre for Theoretical Science (ICTS) in Bangalore.

There is a significant amount of research that’s available from these institutions but only some of them find applications. ~ Lakshminarayanan

Then we have Quadrant 3 (Bottom Right) where the intensity of research is low but there is high intensity of application. This is called the Edison’s quadrant. He is the person who was known to have never invented anything but he applied whatever research and science that was available at that point in time, to make a significant impact to society, starting from the light bulb to all the other things that he did.

Quadrant 2: The Holy Grail
The Holy Grail, of course, is Quadrant 2 (Top Right), which is called the Pasteur’s quadrant, where both the intensity of research and application are high. It is called Pasteur’s quadrant because Louis Pasteur did research at the high end and also applied it to almost save humanity. He is a great example for everyone who tries to be in the deep science and technology area.

With this one model, we can correlate all the institutions that we have in India. In Bangalore, we have NCBS – The National Centre for Biological Sciences that does a lot of research and then finds many applications like the Pasteur’s quadrant. Institutions like the IITs and IISC are probably somewhere in the Edison’s quadrant, trying to move up. There is a significant amount of research that’s available from these institutions but only some of them find applications. IIT Research Parks or The Society for Innovation and Development are good examples of institutions that take us to the Pasteur’s quadrant. Companies or startups in this quadrant are very high in research. Their applications can impact billions of people. The most recent example is the Moderna vaccine or the BioNTech vaccine, which has come out of fundamental research on Messenger RNA. It did not come up in one year. They were working on this for the past 10 to 15 years.

Deep Tech companies work on technology that addresses problems and are solutions-oriented. As IIT-Madras’ Dean Prof Kamakoti mentioned, there are a plenty of technologies available with us. We are in a situation of the hammer looking for a nail. We always associate products in deep science and technology areas with big companies, as the investment required is high and it has to be sustained over a period of time. You need patient capital.

Chinnu Senthilkumar, Managing Partner, Exfinity

Deep Techs deal with physical products but I would like to add a small nuanced difference. The product must be able to create disruption. I worked in Intel and dealt in transistor for the first 10 years. I was a hardware engineer and I worked in chip design. In those days, I did not have much of an opinion about software people. I thought it was very simple. But after 15 to 20 years, my opinion changed drastically. The reason is, if you look at any product today, you should tie it to the software or platform ecosystem. That is what Steve Jobs did. In the Apple ecosystem, all the individual components come from various parts of the world or various engineers. Industrialised nations like Europe have been fantastic in individual innovations but when it comes to bringing those innovations together, the US excelled. With deep tech, the more you can bring the product to the platform, the more you can scale it.

I grew up in a small village near Namakkal in Tamilnadu. In the late seventies and eighties, the valve radios were getting replaced by transistors in a big way. Then I worked in San Disk which had come up with memory that completely disrupted the storage medium. Innovation should lead to disruption and production on a scale.

The Role of Ph.Ds
Now, in deep tech, we are talking about AI, ML, AR and VR. Ten years down the road, it will be different. We have invested in deep tech companies. Six or seven of them are founded by PhDs. The product usually comes from a PhD thesis. It gets translated into an idea and it gets scaled. We have a company that has come up with a new battery and is founded by a young PhD who converted his PhD thesis. The point is that many deep tech companies are founded by PhDs but it doesn’t mean that only PhDs can come up with it. We have companies founded by dropouts also. Chennai has a very good deep tech ecosystem. In my opinion, what is probably lacking is the commercialisation part. No matter how much you do with the tech, you have to find a way to commercialise it. For example, this particular company that I talked about which was founded by two Stanford PhDs appointed a CEO with MBA with 20 years’ experience in the semiconductor industry and with techno commercial background. If you have to sell it to the customer, you have to understand the customer’s pain point.

If you want to start a deep tech company, look at the top 4 or 5 big companies in your space, look at their roadmap and see what is missing. Can you address that gap? If they were to acquire your company after five to seven years, what are the metrics they will be looking at? Why would Intel or AMD or Infosys buy me?

The big companies are not able to innovate at the speed at which startups operate. So the innovation must come from startups and big companies have understood that. Most of the big companies have started setting up corporate venture funds because they want to come and invest with deep tech entrepreneurs in Chennai, Bangalore or Hyderabad, because they know that it is the way to keep innovating. At one point, they want to acquire the company. Intel had Intel Capital. Many big companies have a venture arm for this reason. Find out your customer. Why would they buy your product? You have to reverse map it and go bottom up from your technology and also work top down.

If you want to start a deep tech company, look at the top 4 or 5 big companies in your space, look at their roadmap and see what is missing. Can you address that gap? ~ Chinnu Senthilkumar

Rohan Ganapathy, CEO & CTO, Bellatrix Aerospace

According to me, deep tech is turning science fiction into reality, as I come from a space background. We attack problems differently. In 2014, India launched the first satellite to Mars and proudly declared that it cost us less than the cost of making the Hollywood movie Gravity. The per kilometre cost of seven rupees was cheaper than an auto. We disrupted this further and ISRO said that we can go to Mars at one paise per kilometre. There is huge untapped potential but there is no market.

We talk about first mover advantage. I would call it ‘first mover risk’ because there’s a lot of weight you have to carry. Being the first space startup in the country, we had to face this. Now, I am happy to say that looking at us, there are 6 to 8 space focussed companies in India. We are not that old. We set up in 2015. The word software itself was coined for Neil Armstrong’s Apollo moon landing. The lunar module couldn’t be remotely controlled from the earth because light takes a few milliseconds to reach the moon and you can’t do automated landing. So the first codes were actually written for a space application. Space is an amalgamation of every subject. ISRO is not made of aerospace engineers but of computer science engineers and mechanical engineers. Disruption for us is taking everything from every department and putting together and coming up with a solution. The potential is big. Gold is available underneath the ocean. Why don’t we mine it? Because, the cost of mining is more than the value of gold.

Disruption for us is taking everything from every department and putting together and coming up with a solution. The potential is big. ~ Rohan Ganapathy

Similarly, now we are talking about climate change. It is real. We are still class zero in the human evolution. That means, we are dependent on the natural resources for our survival. The next option is go to the moon and mine. The moon is rich. It’s a barren land that is rich in titanium, iron, aluminum and even the future nuclear fuel called helium 3, but what stops us from going and getting it is the transportation cost. That is what we are trying to solve. We have an engine which runs on water as the fuel. Water is available on the moon as well, so you don’t carry a return fuel. You get everything in-situ resource utilization. We saw the potential and we also wanted to disrupt. This is a way to look at deep tech. In Indian perspective, the biggest problem is that people don’t believe. We have to do the technical feasibility study. We have to educate investors and gain their confidence to get money, as our gestation period is longer and we need a little higher capital than any other industry.

How did you come up with the idea of electrics? In your journey of the past seven years, can you talk about the challenges that you faced?

Rohan: Thanks to Elon Musk, space went from being B to G to more of B to B. Today, space is 450 Bn $ industry and has potential to cross 1 Tn $, which itself is a pessimistic number. The world is such a small space today and thanks to space technology, we are all so closely connected. But it is still expensive to go to space. To put anything to space, it still costs somewhere around 40,000 $ per kg.

A good satellite would weigh somewhere in the order of one ton. So imagine the cost required to send a satellite to space. Elon Musk answered this question by reusing the rocket. Our rocket is as complex as an airplane. An airplane can’t fail because we are travelling. That level of reliability is also needed for a rocket, because we are putting a very expensive hardware to space. But what we do, we end up throwing all the stages back into the ocean. It is expendable in nature. Elon Musk opened up a Pandora’s Box by reusing.

What else can be done? We came to know that the satellites carry very little payload. Even if they weigh 5 Ton, only 200 kg is the payload and the payload must give a return on investment. Why does it weigh 5 tons? Because, to go from low orbit to 36,000 kilometres, it needs fuel to go there.

We wanted to solve this problem. Just like the EV revolution going on the road, we wanted to electrify space. The electric propulsion doesn’t need so much of fuel. From 2000 Kgs, we only need 180 kgs of water to go from point A to point B. That’s the idea with which we started Bellatrix.

ISRO was not really open to private industry coming up in an area where they are the king. The transition took place in the early 2000 in the US. In India, it was still not the case. But we had a solution which ISRO wanted. That is how, ISRO ended up becoming our first customer.

We wanted to solve this problem. Just like the EV revolution going on the road, we wanted to electrify space. The electric propulsion doesn’t need so much of fuel. From 2000 Kgs, we only need 180 kgs of water to go from point A to point B. That’s the idea with which we started Bellatrix. ~ Rohan Ganapathy

The next problem was with investors. You might have a good technology and deep tech is not just about tech. It is also about regulations. There is no space policy in India. You do anything in space and it is always a dual use. I launch a rocket and it goes to orbit. If I tweak the software, it can land in Pakistan. So, it falls into the dual use category and the government will invoke the National Security class. This scares the investors to invest in space. We had to work with them and literally force the Department of Space to come up with space policy. ISRO had already nurtured industries to do something for space, but that was built to print. We had not reached the maturity of sending our own product to space. That is the shift which we wanted to do.

Now you see the change happening. Our PM proudly announced that in the 450 Bn$ space market, India is a leader because ISRO is very well respected and they are very good. Shouldn’t India have its own piece of the cake?
The US is a very strange country. I don’t know from a software perspective but for space, it is very different. If we want to do anything new, they will readily invite us but we can’t get anything from US because there is ITAR, which doesn’t allow you to import certain things. There is something called The Missile Technology Control Regime. India was not a signatory to that elite body. We had to push and there were other industries also pushing for it. In 2017, India became a signatory to MTCR, through which, you can sell now dual use technologies to US and other friendly countries. This opened up a very big door for people looking at innovation that can happen at a lesser capital. You see a lot of firms like Boeing and others coming in, looking in India to see what solutions in space they can offer. The next challenge was opening up to investors and asking them to add aerospace into one of their deep tech portfolios. For four years, we had turbulent times. We started fundraising in 2015 and completed it in 2019. During this time, we had to tackle the problem differently and make the customers pay. So we made ISRO and DRDO to buy from us. That sustained the team. Now we wanted to expand and we needed venture capital to go out of India. We are the first startup to get a space focused VC investment in the country. Now we have 50 plus people.

You pivoted a couple of years back and had an association with Skyroot. Can you talk about that?

Rohan: Skyroot and Chennai-based Agnikul are launch vehicle companies. Just like Elon Musk, they also want to build rockets. But rockets can put satellite into only one orbit. Space is very big. Point A to point B is a couple of thousands of kilometres. Many of the satellites today, thanks to electronics and miniaturization, are getting smaller and smaller but the rocket is still big. So for you to fly as a secondary passenger, you need to wait for three or four years.

What we said is that we have a good efficient engine. We are building something called space taxi, just like we have Uber. If ten people want to go to 10 different orbits, now we book 10 different dedicated rockets to go to that space. We can take all ten on top of our space taxi, drop them at their location and at the same time after dropping them, we can also do space sweeping. Space debris is a major issue these days. We also go and clean the space and de-orbit. Skyroot has this launch vehicle solution. It is a good collaboration and we are building an ecosystem.

What do you look for in a deep tech if you want to invest?

Lakshminarayanan: We look for people who have crazy ideas. They ask: Why is it that such a thing is not happening? Just like Urbaser Sumeet, why can’t I start a company to clear up the debris in the space? That is the kind of thinking we are looking at it. We look at them even from the concept stage.
One of the companies that we deal with is working on developing an alternative to lithium-ion battery which has reached its maturity point. They are experimenting with molten sodium. Another startup says they can produce 99.99% pure carbon anode material from straw. Straw is burnt in Punjab. After the harvest season, they can take that straw and make pure carbon which is required in so many other industries. In addition, it can be used to make batteries that have a much longer life.

We are looking at such ventures. What we look in the deep science area is essentially something that is going to create a great impact on billions of people. But it is not going to happen tomorrow or day after. It will happen much further down.

Chinnu Senthilkumar: We invest typically in ticket sizes between 2 million and 7 million. Ideally we prefer companies having some product, with or without some customer fit. The product can be in the seed stage or lab stage of development or a mix of both. What do we look for in the founders?
• They must have interdisciplinary skills and financial knowledge. Good founders understand the technical, financial and commercial aspects. They must have some basic understanding of whether it makes commercial sense to launch a product.

• In a multi-fold founder team, they should complement each other in knowledge and skills.
• We also look for a mix of youth and experience, say 15 years in the industry.
• Do they have some unusual characteristics in them?
• Do they have perseverance?
• Have they gone out of the way to do something in their life?
• When I hired scientists some 10 to 15 years ago, I used to hire guys who had come from polytechnic backgrounds. There are many bright kids who might not have got engineering, due to family reasons. Then they study engineering and become successful. How do they work on obstacles in life?
• What kind of competitive game do they play?

Typically for a deep tech, even to get the prototype or the minimum viable product, it is going to take a lot of money and time. Do you release money based on some milestones or is there some other criteria which you adopt?

Chinnu Senthilkumar: It depends on the founding team and their convincing of how they have thought through all the steps. Even if there is a failure, founders must know how to tackle it and to work around it. They are dynamic and have a very good understanding of the ecosystem. We bet a lot on the founders. They have to be innovative on many angles.

Lakshminarayanan: The founders, their quality, passion and desire to succeed are extremely important. Look at Metaverse. In the short span of time after it has been announced, a number of new companies have come in that space, exploiting AI and Blockchain. If you want to build some applications, there is some company that is providing the platform for that. If you want to play games in the metaverse, there are plenty of games that are available there. Once the fundamental technology is understood, applications come out really fast.

Beyond the Boundary: Lessons from Cricket for Leadership Success

Read Time:13 Minute

Mr. V J Raghunath and Mr. S Giridhar, both authors of the book “Mid-Wicket Tales” and representing the Azim Premji Foundation, were engaged in a conversation with Mr. T A Sekhar, Former Indian Cricketer, and Mr. S Ramakrishnan, Sports Analytics & CEO, SportsMechanics.

Mr Giridhar: When it comes to cricket, authentic leadership happens on the field. Cricket has become a phenomenon in India. BCCI is probably the biggest corporate in India. We have 500 million cricket lovers in this country, which is more than the population of most other countries. Besides what’s happening on the field, there is so much action that happens outside too like spotting, developing and nurturing talent and use of technology and data analytics. The line of fast bowlers that we see now is largely due to the efforts of MRF Pace Foundation, which was started a few decades ago. Sekhar has been involved with this foundation since its inception.

Mr T A Sekhar: I joined the MRF Pace Foundation in 1988 as a coach. I had never been a coach before that. The Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee was the head coach and he is an authority on fast bowling. When he took up the challenge of training fast bowlers in India, there was a lot of criticism in the Indian press that Dennis Lillee had never played in India. They wondered how he could coach the Indian fast bowlers in India. The foundation was a great initiative by MRF. In 87, the late Ravi Memmen of MRF thought that Kapil Dev being our lone fast bowler, India needed good fast bowlers to bowl along with Kapil. His ultimate vision was that India should have a bench strength of eight to ten fast bowlers and that India should always tour abroad with four or five fast bowlers, of which minimum three fast bowlers should be from MRF. It became a reality from 95- 96 onwards.

Dennis Lillee is a living Encyclopaedia on fast bowling. He rewrote the fast bowling technique for the English coaching manual in the mid-90s. He was the best fast bowling coach I have seen in my career. The first fast bowler to play for India from MRF was Vivek Razdan who was picked for the Pakistan tour. On his debut series, in his second match, he got five wickets. Unfortunately, he didn’t play much after that due to some reasons. After that, a regular stream of fast bowlers started coming out from MRF- Venkatesh Prasad, Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel, Sreesanth, R P Singh and so on. Srinath was not a regular trainee of the pace foundation. He was doing engineering and he used to come only when there was a break in his college curriculum. India today is more recognized for fast bowling than its spinners and that is largely due to the contribution of the MRF Pace Foundation.

Mr Giridhar: Indian teamhas embraced change very well. It was not just Ganguly in the leadership role, but there was a group of leaders -Kumble, Dravid and Tendulkar. They listened to others. It’s critical to have a leadership team that embraces change. Today, sports analytics plays a very important part of life.

Nowadays, when Indian team goes abroad, they boldly say that every pitch is like home ground and they take the pitch out of the equation. It is because we have an assembly line of many fast bowlers. Sometimes a Kapil Dev comes despite the system and bowlers like Sreesanth come because of the system.

The Perth match of 2007 with Kumble leading India was one of our greatest wins. How Kumble and his team made that happen is a case study in itself. Similarly, Brisbane 2021 is one of our greatest test wins. Rahane displayed great leadership. Another interesting aspect of Indian team is that there has been a smooth transition from one captain to the other – from Ganguly to Dravid to Kumble to Dhoni to Kohli and to Rohit.

Mr Ramakrishnan: Without T A Sekhar, I wouldn’t have been where I am today. In 2009, I was a cricketer, aspiring to play for the country. I played for the junior state team and then, much against my wishes, got into banking. I joined Indian bank in the sports quota and played for Indian Bank for 13 years and then stopped playing. At 34, I was married and had two daughters. My neighbour started a payment gateway and he asked me if I could join them as a marketing manager. I didn’t like the banking environment which is not designed for high performance. So I resigned and joined the IT industry in 2000. After a month, the dot.com bubble burst happened and the payment gateway project was shelved. I was at the crossroads, having left the public sector job and lost my private sector job.

Converging Sports & Tech

Henceforth, I decided to work on integrating sports and technology. In the initial stages, I looked at video motion analysis and then went on to introduce visual based coaching in India. That’s where T A Sekhar gave me an opportunity to work with the MRF Pace Foundation. I worked with Dennis Lillee and Sekhar and showed them what can be done. Initially, Lillee was sceptical of using software and technology in coaching but after I started producing results, he became a big fan of my work, which greatly augmented his coaching.

From 2001 to 2003, I did a lot of analysis. We tried to sell licenses of the software but couldn’t. So I started providing services in sports and that really picked up. The coaches were happy doing their job as we could augment their coaching through feedback. There was an explosion of data. We captured that and provided to the athletes as feedback.

Overcoming Resistance in Indian Team

Whereas in Indian cricket, they didn’t accept us. They made sarcastic remarks and tried to put me down, questioning the level of cricket I played. I told them that I have a great deal of respect for their skills and that I have a skill set which is different from theirs. The confidence of working with Dennis Lillee and Sekhar helped me.

Indian Cricket coach John Wright asked me to make a presentation to the coaches on visual based coaching. Legends like Kirmani, Roger Binny, Kiran More and Prasanna were there. Originally, it was planned as a 45-minute session. But then, everybody liked the session and John Wright asked me to continue for the entire day. At the end of the presentation, he asked me to join the Indian team for a salary of 30K per month. No Indian would refuse the offer-though the money was less, I could rub shoulders with the greats in the dressing room. I was on board straightaway.

French Fries and Samosas

When I joined the team, I asked Rahul Dravid about the kind of team meetings that happened. He said, “We all assemble in the coach’s room. French fries and samosas will be ordered. There will be an informal discussion for 5 minutes. We will say that the next day’s game is an important one and then disperse.” I was surprised because even for the club games, we used to prepare better and here when national team met, the preparation was so informal.

We went to Australia. It was my first tour with the Indian team. Sourav Ganguly was the captain. I asked Sourav how they prepare for the game. He said, “We all have played against each other and we will pass on the knowledge to the youngsters.” “Is there any data collector?” I asked and he said, “Nobody has done it so far.” I asked him if he knows anyone in ESPN and if he can get me the tapes of the Ashes series where Australia was beaten by England. Sourav came to Australia, armed with 25 VHS tapes. I took them and spent my first week in Australia, fully locked in my room. I didn’t see the outside of Australia. I was working inside my room, digitizing those 25 VHS tapes and mining for information. For the first time in the history of Indian cricket, competitive intelligence was provided in a visual manner.

Strategies from Data Analytics

While I was working with Sekhar and Lillee, I learned a lot about the nuances and biomechanics of fast bowling. But at the level of the Indian team, it’s strategy and gameplay, that will help the team to win. Wright told me, “Ramki, if I change somebody’s technique, nobody’s going to extend my contract. It will be extended only if I win the series, for which I must focus on gameplay and strategy.”

To derive strategies from data, I started collecting the data. The only way I could satisfy John Wright was to have a back-end data centre, recording all the videos. We were the first ones to have an exclusive back-end data centre. India is a hub of technology and we make the world follow what we do. The whole world is looking at what we are doing. We get great support from all the people- coaches, selectors and players. We broke the myth that only Indian cricketers who played the game at the highest level can contribute to the team. We came up with a different concept of using data and analytics in coaching.

Mr Raghunath: Besides the action and technique in fast bowling, now they spend a lot of time on players’ fitness and diet and also ensure that fast bowlers don’t get injured.

Mr Sekhar: There was a time when the Indian team warm up used to be just five minutes. On fitness, we have learnt a lot from Australia, England and South Africa. Every player knows the importance of warm up warm, down, what exercises one should do and how to recover from injuries. Diet is a critical part of fitness. Balanced and proper diet helps in reducing muscle injuries. Tennis players like Djokovic or Nadal have personal dieticians and they also have a personal trainer. They spend a part of their earnings on coaching. Modern day sportspersons recover faster from injuries and see to it that their longevity in the field is enhanced. At the same time, they enjoy the performance on the field.

Mr Giridhar: Players must constantly reflect on their performance to improve themselves. Every good school teacher is a reflective practitioner. They help the children to be a better learner today than yesterday. Virat Kohli is a great leader. In 2014, he couldn’t score runs off Anderson. Then he reflected on his game, made infinitely important adjustments and in 2018, he was probably one of the finest batsmen of the seasons. He is very particular about fitness and diet. Thanks to leaders like him, the concept of fitness has percolated to Under-19 level too. A leader inspires when needed- sometimes, being there in the front and sometimes, right at the back.

Former England captain Mike Brearley was a very average batsman but he was one of the greatest ever cricket captains. He was able to make sure that the gestalt happened- that the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. He could differentiate his handling of Willis and Ian Botham. Indian fielding coach R. Sridhar once said that one has to deal with Bumrah differently from the way one deals with Mohammed Shami. You have to wind up Shami, so that he becomes a terror on the ground. With Bumrah, you have to be careful because he’s very sensitive.

Mr Ramakrishnan: Different captains have different leadership styles. For instance, Sourav Ganguly was a fantastic and a very strong leader. He had a command over the players, because he fought for the players’ rights and privileges and got them. John Wright and Ganguly were the chief architects of high performance of the Indian team. They laid down the foundation for the cricket team to turn around. They followed work ethics. There was no north- south divide or senior players -junior players divide. Everybody was equal. The senior players went out of the way to make sure the juniors talked and share their opinions in tam meetings. Players came prepared for team meetings, with questions to be asked. Dhoni follows a very different leadership style. Both strongly believe that nothing is impossible.

In Australia, everybody including the former players and media try to wear down the Indians mentally. They used to put us on the Perth pitch, with the bounciest wicket, beat you in three days’ time and then, orchestrate their win. Normally, it is a 93-day tour. The players are 93 days away from their homes, their food and their culture. On the contrary, when Australians come to India, they play the test series, take a break, go to Singapore, relax and then come back for the T20 ODI series. But these days, India fights every session closely.

Mr Giridhar: Leaders must have innate courage and try innovative approaches.

I recall in the 92 World Cup, Martin Crowe opened the batting with Greatbatch, who had never opened before that. Also, Deepak Patel, the spinner, opened the bowling for them. Ranatunga of Sri Lanka was also a very shrewd captain.

Mr Ramakrishnan: Fear of failure worries most players. When they fail, they come and watch their videos. I tell them, “Everybody analyses failure. Come and see the videos where you have achieved success; when you scored a century.” When they watch them fail, their anxiety levels are very high. Everybody wants to reaffirm that everything is right with them. Learning from success is more important than learning from failures.

I recall that Sehwag scored a triple century in Pakistan and he dedicated it to me. When he was not scoring runs in Test cricket, I analysed his videos and noticed a change in his stance. I just brought it to his awareness. He corrected it and went on to score 300 runs. Though he dedicated it to me, that performance would not have happened without Sachin at the other end. Partnerships change the course of cricket.

Mr Giridhar: Cricket is a game that consists of players with diverse skills and backgrounds. They come from different cultural backgrounds. Particularly, IPL has helped in players adapting to these diversities with foreign players playing in all the teams.

Can there be a comparison between a cricket player’s career and a corporate career? Not really because, in a corporate career, when you fail, only a few people are aware of it. But in a game of cricket, when you fail, lakhs of people watch you. The pressure of playing is far higher than working in a corporate. You may get adulation and money while playing cricket but you can play only till you are 33 or 34. Some of them who are articulate enough, go to the media and some of them get into coaching, but that is a very small population. Imagine that out of 140 crore people, only 20 get to play test cricket for the nation. One failure with the bat or ball, you can be consigned to the reserves. So there can be no comparison, at least for an Indian cricketer, with any other corporate profession. In the corporate, you have annual appraisals whereas Indian cricketers get daily appraisals done by 140 crore Indians.

Chennai Rains: Helpless, Hapless, or Hopeless

Read Time:10 Minute

Mr. S R Ramanan, Former Director of the Cyclone Warning Centre in Chennai; Dr. S Janakarajan, President of the South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies (SaciWATERs) based in Hyderabad; and Mr. T Kanthimathinathan, an expert on Water Resources, shared their insights on the water scenario in Tamilnad.

Mr. N Sathiya Moorthy

Apart from the rains in Chennai, this time we experienced heavy rainfall in the southern districts, which was unexpected. Tuticorin district, in particular, received very heavy rainfall. It is notable that people in Tuticorin typically do not welcome rains due to their reliance on salt and brick kiln industries, as rainfall can adversely affect their business.

Regarding the recurring issue of floods in Chennai, it is regrettable to observe that even after numerous decades of experiencing heavy rains, floods, and cyclones, we as citizens have not adequately learned our lessons. There is a tendency to shift blame onto whichever government is in power and to lament the lack of essential supplies such as milk, provisions, and electricity during periods of heavy rainfall.

Traditionally, every October first, I would stock essential items in my household, including matches and candles, in preparation for the rainy season. Despite knowing the history of floods in certain regions, individuals continue to purchase land and apartments in flood-prone areas. While it is true that the government sanctions such construction, we cannot solely rely on the government to manage all aspects of rescue and relief operations. In hindsight, it may be acknowledged that the government could have handled the recent flood situation slightly better. However, citizens also bear a social responsibility in such situations.

Mr. S R Ramanan:

Let me begin with the northeast monsoon. For rain or low pressure to form, winds from different hemispheres must merge. From the southern hemisphere, the easterlies cross the equator and become westerly, constituting the southwest monsoon. These winds interact with the easterlies of the northern hemisphere, leading to circulation. A single circle denotes low pressure; two, depression; three, deep depression; and four, cyclone. The convergence of air masses from different hemispheres creates low pressure, marked by the Intertropical Convergence Zone.

North of this zone, winds originate from the east, while south of it, winds come from the west. During the northeast monsoon, low pressure typically forms in the South China Sea, crossing the Malay Peninsula into the Bay of Bengal, intensifying into a cyclonic storm or, sometimes, a low-pressure system affecting our region. However, this year, such occurrences were absent. Despite Cyclone Michaung’s presence, no significant low-pressure systems developed. This made the monsoon season unique. The formation of a trough, another source of rainfall, also did not occur this year, unlike in 2007 when it brought widespread rain to Tamil Nadu.

The Upper Air Circulation

So, how did Tamil Nadu receive rainfall? Initially, air masses from various water bodies—Cape Comorin, Gulf of Mannar, and Bay of Bengal—converged over South Tamil Nadu, bringing significant rainfall. Occasionally, upper air troughs bring rain primarily to coastal areas, but this too was absent this year. Instead, easterly and south easterly winds dominated. An upper air circulation over the southwest bay, as mentioned in the official weather bulletins, contributed to rain along the coast. But the interior districts did not get adequate rains.

The formation of Cyclone Michaung, which approached Chennai, resulted in torrential rains. It did not cross Tamil Nadu but passed near Andhra Pradesh, wreaking havoc there. The upper air, steering atmospheric disturbances, came from the southeasterly direction, a rare occurrence.

Following the mid-tropospheric cyclone, characterized by its upper-level nature at a height of 1.5 kilometers, coastal Tamil Nadu experienced strong winds reaching speeds of up to 20 nautical miles per hour in certain areas, equivalent to 36 kilometers per hour. This led to copious rainfall across Tamil Nadu. Convergence of air masses facilitated the influx of moisture into south coastal Tamil Nadu, extending to the southern interior regions.

Cloud formations reached heights of 14 to 15 kilometers, indicative of the mid-tropospheric cyclone, which remains invisible at the surface. It is noteworthy that while the southeast monsoon is typically observed in states like Gujarat, its occurrence in our region is indeed a rarity. While rainfall was abundant in southern and northernmost districts, many regions experienced normal or below-normal rainfall. North interior Tamil Nadu faced particularly adverse conditions, resulting in agricultural challenges, especially in districts like Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri, heavily reliant on southwest monsoon rainfall.

Weather Prediction Models

Our weather forecasts rely on global models, which are typically more reliable in extra-tropical regions than in tropical areas. While forecasting in the tropics remains challenging, significant advancements have been made. Even in advanced countries like the United States, for tornadoes in tropical areas like Florida, they provide only a 40-minute advance notice, highlighting the difficulty of prediction in such regions.

These models excel in forecasting weather phenomena in the northern part of the United States, where weather systems are influenced by fronts—when cold air meets warm air, creating dynamic weather patterns. Winds predominantly blow unidirectionally from west to east in these regions, making predictions relatively straightforward. However, applying such models to forecast weather movements from, for instance, London to Paris is vastly different from forecasting weather across the entirety of India, particularly in tropical regions.

Despite the challenges, significant advancements have been made in global weather modelling. Institutions like the European Center provide forecasts for the entire world, while America utilizes the Global Forecast System (GFS) model for global predictions. India also leverages the GFS model, which is freely accessible and operational in various centers such as New Delhi and Pune. Additionally, both global and regional models are employed to enhance forecasting accuracy.

Reflecting on past events, in 2006, Bombay experienced significant rainfall, with Santa Cruz recording 93.5 centimeters. It underscores the importance of ensuring unhindered water flow to mitigate flooding risks. States like Kerala and cities like Mumbai have made preparedness for heavy rains. So implementing measures to manage water flow effectively and minimising the impact of inundation or flooding is a very important process of flood mitigation.

Dr S Janakarajan

We’ve witnessed numerous floods over the years, and the intensity of their impact appears to be increasing annually. Take, for example, the 2015 flood, widely regarded as one of the worst in 47 years. The increasing severity of floods prompts many to attribute it to climate change.

A crucial factor contributing to this trend is rapid urbanization. Urban expansion occurs at an alarming rate, often without careful planning. It’s important to recognize the intrinsic link between land and water, as they are closely interconnected. With unchecked urban growth, compounded by rapid industrialization, we’re witnessing the loss of land, agricultural areas, and crucial hydrological pathways.

Need for Integrated Planning

The encroachment upon these hydrological pathways worsens the situation. Areas previously unaffected by floods are now experiencing inundation due to this interference. It’s essential for all of us to acknowledge our collective responsibility in this regard. Addressing these issues requires comprehensive planning and concerted efforts to mitigate the adverse effects of urbanization on hydrological systems.

When water flows uncontrollably, we label it as a flood; however, when it stagnates in an area, we term it inundation. Poor urban planning and a narrow focus solely on development can have catastrophic consequences. Such approaches can result in severe floods and ecological degradation, exerting immense pressure on both present and future economies. It’s crucial to prioritize urban land use planning. Mere enactment of laws isn’t sufficient; stringent enforcement is required.

Despite having our first master plan and nearing completion of the second master plan by 2026, with plans for a third, it’s disheartening to note that we haven’t adequately learned from past experiences. We seem to repeat the same mistakes without applying the lessons gathered from previous plans. This lack of progress affects our ability to effectively address the challenges posed by urbanization and mitigate the risks of future floods and environmental degradation.

Every master plan should include the delineation of ecological hotspots such as streams, floodplains, water bodies, and wetlands—both inland and coastal. Developmental activities must be strictly prohibited in these areas to preserve their ecological integrity. Unfortunately, this crucial aspect has often been overlooked in past plans, leading to adverse consequences. It remains uncertain whether this will be addressed in the upcoming third master plan.

Failure to protect critical ecological zones has resulted in dire outcomes, as witnessed in the Ennore region, where extensive encroachment on coastal wetlands has led to flooding, extending even to north Chennai. The Pallikaranai marshland, which historically spanned 54 square kilometers, has been reduced to a mere 10% of its original size due to encroachment. The marshland serves as a vital flood buffer, but its loss has contributed to the worsening flood situation in the area.

An integrated approach is urgently needed, one that considers land management, water management, flood management, and drought management comprehensively. Efforts must focus on conserving water at its source and protecting both upstream and downstream watersheds. Only through such holistic measures can we effectively address the challenges posed by urbanization and mitigate the impacts of flooding and environmental degradation.

Way Forward

Master Plans must undergo thorough review, with a specific focus on declaring ecological hotspots. Furthermore, these plans should be integrated with drainage master plans to ensure effective water management. Ad-hoc construction of stormwater drains must be strictly prohibited, and layout approvals should only be granted after considering the drainage master plan.

Efforts to conserve water at its source are paramount, as they offer numerous benefits including flood mitigation, enhancing climate resilience, and facilitating the development of climate-smart cities. This can be achieved through initiatives such as tank restoration, desilting, deepening, and increasing capacity.

Implementing Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) within urban areas and the Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA) is essential. This includes the creation of water detention ponds, constructed wetlands, temple tanks, green parks, urban forests, green roofs, and mangroves. Additionally, there must be a concerted effort to protect natural wetlands, both inland and coastal, ensuring their preservation for future generations.

Mr T Kanthimathinathan

The focus of urban planners often leans heavily towards development without due consideration for water flow management. Many areas in Chennai, such as Mambalam, Nungambakkam, and Nandambakkam, were once lakes. Most errors happened because of flawed land use policy. Many agricultural lands got converted to other uses. I had personally overseen 20,000 cusecs of water release from Chembarambakkam lake, when I was in office. At that time, there was no flooding, simply because the floodplains were intact.

However, encroachments on floodplains have become increasingly common. Take for example, the Housing Board in Kotturpuram. It is a government construction on the floodplains. Areas like Manapakkam and Nandambakkam were also floodplains. These are expensive areas but when there is flooding, water levels rise up to window lintel levels in these areas.

It is important to implement a master drainage plan before embarking on any urban development initiatives. However, many lands necessary for water flow are owned by private individuals, who have obtained approvals and puttas for development. These floodplains were historically designated as agricultural lands even during British rule, aimed at boosting productivity. Post-independence, importance was given first to green revolution and subsequently to housing drives. However, waterway considerations took a backseat.

Unlike states like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala, which benefit from the Deccan Plateau terrain conducive to reservoir construction, Tamil Nadu predominantly consists of plains, limiting such opportunities. Hence, our ancestors constructed over 45 minor irrigation tanks, which are now neglected and often filled. The development of areas like Lake View Road, Valluvar Kottam, Nungambakkam, Mogappair, and Padi happened in this manner only.

‘Out of the Boat’ Solutions

As we have neglected waterbodies and other flood prevention measures, now we have to defend ourselves against future floods. For this, it’s crucial to have reliable flood alert and early warning system, along with an effective response mechanism. The government has undertaken various mitigation measures, no doubt. But we can place more emphasis on converting water bodies into navigation canals. When there is a flood, our people find it difficult even to get onto a boat as they are not used to boat travel. If we can, for instance, convert Buckingham Canal into a navigation canal, it could offer cheap and eco-friendly travel from Thiruvanmiyur to Mahabalipuram. When we can construct metro rail systems, we can also look at navigation canals. Implementing water-based transportation systems akin to those in Kerala, could offer viable solutions for daily commute from Velachery to Sholinganallur in boats.

In Search of an Ideal MSME

Read Time:10 Minute

Authors Dr Sharad Sarin, Retd Senior Faculty, XLRI, and Mr G M Kapur, Management Consultant, in conversation with Mr Hariharan S Ramamoorthy, Managing Director, Srimukha Group; and Mr S Ravi, Director, Buildcraft Interior Pvt Ltd.,

Dr Sharad Sarin:

Based on our study of several MSMEs over many years, we have categorised them into 5 groups:

We call the first category the stillborn baby. These are babies that need incubation. Unfortunately, incubators were not available in India many years ago. So many MSMEs died.
The second category is born-sick baby. These are the biggest drain on our country. The Hindustan Engineering Corporation in Ranchi was established in 1958 by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. It was his pet project but till date, they have not been able to revive it. HEC is an example of this category.
The third category is healthy babies, remaining small. To grow from small to big companies, a lot of effort is needed. There are many transparency and accountability issues. It’s very difficult to manage a team and then a family.
The fourth category is healthy babies aspiring to become successful. We have many such examples, including companies in Jamshedpur. This is the best of the five.
Then comes the fifth category, which is also something bad: Healthy babies facing failed aspirations and accidental death. They didn’t want to fail, but something happened. Entrepreneurs may have appealing ideas but if there are no takers in the market, they can’t be developed.

We have many role models to succeed in business. JN Tata, for instance. Till date, Tatas are dedicated to the society. Their sole purpose of business is society. Mr. Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji are also role models who guide us. Mr. Narayan Murthy used to teach computers in IIM Ahmedabad. He got admission in IIT, but his father did not have money to support his education there.

Mr Narayan Murthy carried his team and that is one big reason for the success of Infosys. Their camaraderie was clear from day one and they were clear that they would make money only through honest means. Mr Murthy had just 10,000 rupees in his pocket. Now look at his wealth. Sudha Murthy wrote a postcard to JRD Tata that they were not hiring women mechanical engineers. It is a mystery how that post reached him. Tata questioned his team, and she joined Tata Motors. That is history. These are inspiring stories and case studies.

MSMEs must focus on the growth vector, where they can grow and become better. Sustenance and creating sustainable differential advantages are the keys. Every organization requires direction from time to time and ideas to grow. In this, there are two modes: expansion and diversification. Our view is that, as far as possible, stay in your own business. Don’t try to diversify unless your business has run out of steam, where you have no opportunities. Perhaps expansion would be a better route, but otherwise, avoid diversification, especially mindless diversification.

Mr S Ravi: The term MSME originally meant micro, small, and medium enterprises. There have been significant changes in laws, guiding principles, and accounting practices. Recently, the micro and small have been differentiated from the medium category.

When the MSME Act was introduced, in the Samadhaan scheme, we could go online and file a case if there were outstanding dues. Initially, for six to nine months, we were able to recover our money. However, within a year or so, they modified it such that you could only file a case, only if the outstanding value was one crore or more. I understand that this needs constant review and upgrade, but there are certain aspects, where I think, it fails to serve the purpose of the MSMEs. The value of the rupee has been depreciating over the decades. Therefore, those overseeing it need to adopt different perspectives at different points in time.

Mr Hariharan S Ramamoorthy:

MSMEs are the backbone of our economy. However, is the government truly recognising their importance? I believe there are significant gaps. Almost 90% of MSMEs in the country fall within categories 1, 2, 3, and 5 of the babies listed out by Prof Sarin. Rarely, we have companies in category 4, which is, healthy babies aspiring to become successful.

One reason for this is that conglomerates like the Tatas or Ambanis have extensive backup, background, and support systems. While rare exceptions exist like Mr. Narayan Murthy, who started small and grew, most MSMEs in India require substantial support.

Empower the Micros

Over the past decade, with the current government, considerable efforts have been made. I represent an all-India volunteer organization called Laghu Udyog Bharati, which works extensively with MSMEs. Despite these efforts, can we truly compare an MSME in India with one in Korea or Japan? Recently, a Korean company we engaged with for technical discussions, considered themselves an SME, though they have a turnover of about 950 crores. It speaks of the kind of forward-thinking approach of countries like Korea. While we shouldn’t blindly copy and replicate their strategies, we must adapt and innovate in our own Indian way.

With 95% of MSMEs in the micro sector, 3% in the small, and less than 2% in the medium sector, our focus should be on empowering the micro sector. By strengthening this sector, we can drive significant growth across the country.

The Challenges

However, there are challenges, including stringent laws such as the Basel II norms and NPA norms, which make it difficult for businesses to recover from even minor setbacks. If payment to banks is pending for 90 days, it is treated as NPA. Section 43H mandates MSMEs to make payments to vendors within 15 to 45 days, while the current payment cycle often extends to 90-120 days. These issues require careful consideration.

Despite challenges, there is immense growth potential for MSMEs in the country, especially with initiatives like the China plus one policy. The next decade holds promising opportunities, and we must capitalize on them, aiming for substantial growth and development—If not to become Ambanis, but at least trying to move in their direction.

PLA Needed for MSME

Another concerning trend is the decline in manufacturing within MSMEs. Over the past 10 to 15 years, the percentage of manufacturing companies among MSMEs has decreased by more than 30 to 40%. This is alarming, as it may lead to increased reliance on imports from countries like China or Korea. Relying solely on trading rather than manufacturing domestically is not sustainable in the long run. There is a pressing need for government support for the manufacturing sector.

For instance, while the government has been providing incentives through schemes like the PLA scheme, these benefits are primarily directed towards large corporations and not MSMEs. It’s crucial for the government to extend such schemes to MSMEs as well, as it would provide a significant boost to productivity in this sector.

We have suggested to the government for the introduction of a new category called ‘shishu,’ for companies with a turnover of 40 lakhs per annum. 90% of MSMEs fall within this category. Additionally, we have proposed the implementation of ‘Small Factories Act.’ Under this act, companies with fewer than 40 employees should be exempted from ESI and PF obligations, although insurance coverage should still be mandatory. Imposing all draconian laws on small companies is impractical and burdensome. Our laws must suit our current business models. It’s essential to tailor regulations to the needs and capabilities of small businesses to promote growth and sustainability.

Dr Sarin: If we analyse the growth trajectory of Maruti around 1983, we can observe that they cultivated a robust network of sub-suppliers. Such extensive networking will be imperative on a large scale for the growth of MSMEs. Additionally, we are of the firm belief that certain laws are stifling the growth of MSMEs. What we truly need is an enabling environment that fosters growth and innovation.

Mr Hariharan: Our organization Laghu Udyog Bharati welcomed Section 43H and advocated for its implementation. There’s unanimous agreement on this because micro and small industries are severely affected by delays in payments from medium and large corporates. However, the issue lies not with the act itself but with its implementation. Immediate compliance is simply not feasible.

We’ve had discussions with the Honourable Finance Minister, proposing a phased implementation approach. We suggested starting with big corporates and government bodies, then moving to medium enterprises, followed by small ones. Micro-enterprises should be given a grace period, perhaps one year. The government has taken our suggestions seriously.

What we lack in our country today is effective implementation, rather than innovative ideas. Additionally, there’s a significant gap in how micro-enterprises respond to government policies. For instance, initiatives like the ONDC and GeM Portal, designed to be game-changers, are primarily for micro and small industries. Regrettably, not many MSMEs, especially from South India, are utilizing these platforms. This highlights a gap between the North and the South. When the government is making substantial efforts, MSMEs need to step up and take advantage of these opportunities.

Presently, the Ready Made Garment (RMG) segment is being dominated by Bangladesh, causing severe impact for our MSME members in Tirupur. Many of them are experiencing a complete loss of business due to competition from Bangladesh.

Prof. G M Kapur: Prof. Sarin and I pondered on ways to prevent the failure of MSMEs. Hence, we conducted a study on failed industries. It’s crucial for every entrepreneur to not fear failure. You’ve likely heard of Kanwal Rekhi, the founder of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), who prefers to support failed entrepreneurs. According to him, they have valuable experience in running an enterprise and learning from past mistakes. So, don’t fear failure.

Today, micro-industries are benefiting from microfinance, enabling their survival. Previously, banks were reluctant to cater to this category. I recall State Bank of India’s differential interest rate scheme (DIR), offering a 4% rate for microfinance around 50 years ago. However, the government wasn’t actively promoting it then. Additionally, borrowers were less committed to repaying loans. Contrastingly, today’s microfinance recipients are running more efficient businesses, although on a smaller scale, and promptly repay loans.

The Prime Minister once remarked that a business can include even one that makes pakoras. Many viewed his statement facetiously. But the fact is, a company named Wow Momos in Calcutta started from a small shop and they are a 2300 crore company.

Undoubtedly, challenges abound, and no business journey is without hurdles. There are always governmental issues. However, I believe today’s government is more industry-friendly and receptive, rather than merely paying lip service. It’s essential to acknowledge the steps taken by the government to address these challenges.

Talent acquisition, retention, and development within MSMEs pose significant challenges. However, if you have growth plans and are willing to share the benefits with employees, you can attract and retain talent effectively. This is my perspective.

Dr. Sarin: Two driving forces in the world of MSMEs are technology and globalization. Technology, in all its forms, is immensely relevant. Regardless of size, all MSMEs need to excel in both technology and management. I recall Asian Paints, which was among the earliest adopters of technology in India back in 1947. Their early adoption has contributed significantly to their unrivalled position in the market today. The key lesson here is not to shy away from implementing technology.

Mr Ravi: What would you rate as the critical factors for the success of MSMEs?

Mr Hariharan: To thrive as an MSME, having some level of uniqueness in your product is essential. Engaging in a cost war is unsustainable in the long run. Adaptability is another crucial aspect. In the automotive industry, there was initially resistance to the idea of transitioning from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles (EVs). However, EVs now represent a significant opportunity. While we might have earned 50 or 70 rupees per part with IC engines, the potential with EVs could be 300 or 400 rupees. But are we adequately prepared for this shift? MSMEs need to be technology-oriented to seize such opportunities.

Thrive

Read Time:9 Minute

MMA WOMEN MANAGERS’ CONVENTION 2024

At three, Ms Preethi Srinivasan started swimming and at eight, she was playing cricket, with the seniors. She not just excelled in her studies. She became a national level swimmer and a state level cricketer. A spinal cord injury at the age of 18 left her paralysed below her neck. Today, she is an inspiration to many people. In a chat with Ms Mridula Ramesh, in the concluding session of the MMA Women Managers’ Convention 2024, Ms Preethi Srinivasan shared her incredible story of thriving in the toughest of situations…

How important is our body? If you want to realise this, I urge you to stand up and take just one step forward. For this to happen, 200 muscles must work in unison. We all need to be cognizant of our bodies. This great machine—our body—is an amazing gift of God. If we don’t use it properly, we will lose it.

Many women have too many priorities, except themselves. Generations after generations, we are conditioned to put ourselves last. Your body and mind are important to you. We must keep our body flexible and mind sharp. We must make time for ourselves. It doesn’t happen on its own. Dementia is increasing 300% in India every year, because we are so busy running after something that we forget to be in the here and now.

Let me ask you some questions to reflect upon. Are you happy in this moment? Do you even know what will make you happy in this moment? No course in school or college or anywhere teaches you this. Who am I? What are my drivers? If I’m angry at somebody today, is it because I had a fight with my spouse or does that person really deserve my anger? Do we even think about it? Why do we do the things we do? Why do we choose the courses we do? Do I want that promotion just because everybody else wants it? Do I want to be the project head, because something in me wants me to be that project head or just because everybody else wants it?

I feel I have been exceptionally blessed to be given the role in the life that I have been given. Because many of the things that confuse you and challenge you in your life don’t challenge me at all. My path in life has been made crystal clear for me. The mind I have is like a diamond. It’s been cut and cut and cut, until there are no questions in my mind at all. It’s silent and still. I don’t have to question or doubt myself.

Break Out of Comfort Zone

We don’t want to be a beginner for the rest of our life. We want to be having the highest level of difficulty and yet succeed. That’s how we grow up in sports. I started swimming at the age of three and playing cricket at the age of four. At the age of eight, I was already playing in the level of the senior squad. It’s a record that still stands. But when it comes to life, we do not want to leave the comfort zone and choose to fight for something that is bigger than us.

We condition our children also in the same way. At least, let the next generation of kids grow up and do what they love to do. If women want to play cricket, allow them to play. If they want to run, let them run. Let them be themselves, breathing for themselves. What are your goals in life? What is the ultimate purpose of your existence? My heart is brimming with joy, contentment and bliss. I am in the here and now. I have nothing to lose. In my life, I got the chance to fulfill my highest purpose. God gave me the gift to answer my highest dream. Do any of you have this highest dream to say, ‘If I do this in my life, I’m done and there’s nothing more I want.’

Be a Blank Slate

When I was a child, my mother would ask me to go and sit in the prayer room for a few minutes before I went to school. The only recurring prayer I had was to become a blank slate. How could a six-year-old know what it was to become a blank slate, I don’t know. But I wanted to be a blank slate. I would see during the puja that all my debits and credits getting wiped away. That was my dream. If I keep on writing on the slate, then how do I become a blank slate? We all keep on writing on the slate—go to this school, go to that college, marry this guy, have kids, let them go to this school… and it repeats.

What’s the purpose of existence? My purpose was to become a blank slate. Today, in this existence, nothing is written on my slate. I’m not the doer of anything. I’m a slave and a servant of the Divine. I have been given a purpose to be the face and voice of those invisibles, who are physically challenged and who are being left to die. My purpose is to somehow give them a life of dignity and purpose. That’s all. This is not a single thing I want. Not a single ambition do I have on this planet.

Soulfree—One of a Kind Startup

Our organisation ‘Soulfree’ at Tiruvannamalai completed 10 years last year. According to Economic Times, only 11% of startups live beyond five years and 8% beyond 10 years. Ours is a startup which is not profitable, a charitable organization. Added to that, the CEO or the founder is a quadriplegic. Now you can do the math. It is a wonder that our organisation has thrived and supports around 3000 families of people, living below the line of poverty and facing a lifetime of paralysis ahead of them from spinal cord injury, which has no cure. We want to ensure that every person with spinal cord injury gets to live a life of meaning and purpose. It is also my greater purpose to ensure that nobody dies fearing life and that everybody has a chance at a life of dignity. That is why, I request all the women here to at least try to employ one woman with disability.

A Battering Ram

Only 6% of girls with disability go to school. The schools are not accessible and there are no accessible bathrooms for the physically challenged. I was in the top two percentile of the American student population and I could have gone to Princeton or Yale or maybe even Harvard. But when I wanted to join a course and study in India, I was discouraged, because there are no lifts or ramps in our educational institutions. But I kept fighting. Beyond the bachelor’s degree, I also completed a master’s and I became the first woman with a 90% disability to ever gain admission into the Ph.D. program of any of the IITs in their history. So, I feel sometimes I’m like a battering ram. I go and hit my head against closed doors. But now that door is open for others. I want many women to come in.

I think about all the things that I cannot do. I cannot sit, I cannot stand. If you keep my favorite pizza in front of me, I can’t pick it up. My mother takes care of me. When she had to be in hospital, I had to starve for 4 days, because there was nobody else to do the most basic things for me. This is the kind of helplessness and vulnerability that women who are having significant impairments, face. There’s nowhere to go if our family does not support us. When things are so difficult on a day-to-day basis, I realise that life is not about all the things you cannot do, but what you choose to do with what you can do and the impact you can create. I can say that with my broken body, I serve 3000 families. What is the impact that you have?

Honestly speaking, I can sit and watch Netflix or something like that. But it doesn’t drive me at all. I want to go and do well; be more and be everything that I can be in this moment. I always say that the goddess Maya is the hardest working goddess on the planet. She cushions us and lets us live with our illusion.

I literally know that this moment could be my last. So, I don’t have the luxury of procrastinating. Something is driving me every moment to make the most of this living. I keep challenging people. I have lost everything that you might not even think about in your worst nightmare. And yet, sometimes, I feel I’m the happiest person in every room. What do I have to lose? I just want to spread the world with love, laughter and light.

For my parents, I’m the only child. Till the first 18 years of my life, I did not see even the shadow of failure. But after what happened to me (the spinal cord injury), I went through a long phase of feeling sorry for myself. I kept on asking, “Why me?” All my life, I worked so hard, training six to seven hours a day to fine-tune this Olympic level fit body. Now, I can’t even move my little finger. What kind of justice is that?

Then my father comforted me. He said, “We’re all done in just this body. Everybody’s body will go, if not today, five years from today or 20 years from today. So why don’t you see this as a gift that you’ve been given? Try to go within. I think that you’ve been given this great opportunity.” I really believe that my father was my guru. My mother is 72 years old. It is an incarceration for her because at 72 years old, she’s still my primary caregiver and I can’t give her a retirement. I can’t imagine my life without her. She is my best friend. My parents have always been for me.

In the 12 years of my schooling, I went to nine different schools in three different continents. It was tough being the new girl in many schools but my parents were always my grounding factor. They were always there for me- when I was in the US and fighting racism or in the bed fighting myself.

They gave up everything so that I can live with dignity. My father quit his work. We went back to our spiritual roots. The greatest gift they ever gave me was that they never once said, “Look what you’ve done. You’ve not only destroyed your life; you’ve destroyed our lives along with it.” They never blamed me but gave unconditional love, though I had hurt them. When they came to do physiotherapy, I would shout at them and say, ‘Don’t come near me.’ Because of their patience and their love and continued care, I am here in front of you. I would request all of you to spare a day in your life, come and visit our organisation ‘Soulfree’ in Tiruvannamalai. I promise that you will have a very different experience.

The Rules of Leadership

Read Time:15 Minute

MMA WOMEN MANAGERS’ CONVENTION 2024

In the session on the theme, ‘The Rules of Leadership,’ award-winning architect Dr. Ponni M. Concessao and Sqn Ldr Mohana Singh Jitarwal, the IAF’s First Woman Combat Fighter Pilot spoke. Ms Meera Nair, Independent Director at DBS Bank moderated a panel discussion with the speakers.

Things have changed drastically today

Dr. Ponni M. Concessao

I would like to wish each and every woman a very Happy International Women’s Week. Women like you sent Chandrayaan to the moon successfully. You are capable of just about anything and the sky is your limit. Things have changed drastically today, as society has now recognized the greatness of women’s contribution and how it helps in developing our society and making our country great. Yet, much needs to be done. A country’s GDP is dependent on the increasing participation of women in the workforce. Women are roughly 50% of India’s population but only 28% women work in the offices. The real brain power of India still languishes at home. Let me tell my story. I was the first woman undergraduate student of the prestigious National Institute of Technology in Trichy. I was the lone girl among 1000 boys. Just imagine the challenges I would have faced.

In NIT Trichy, I made lifelong friends. My husband was my senior from NIT Trichy. I studied from the best of professors who encouraged me to study abroad. I studied at Cornell University and Harvard University and worked in the best of architectural practices in the United States, where I learned two important lessons. One is the importance of gender equity to increase the GDP of a country and two, the nuances of global business. It is very important to think global, but act local.

After nearly a decade, I returned home to India with my husband Oscar to build an award-winning architectural practice, and more importantly, to be a nation builder. My alma mater, Cornell University USA has given me the title of the woman who shattered glass ceilings in India, especially in the building construction industry. I have had the distinction of being the first woman architect in Asia to build the tallest and largest Secretariat in Hyderabad.

Generate Revenue and Earn Respect

I have continuously taken the challenges head on. Fighting these challenges has made me a stronger and successful person. I believe in demolishing social conditioning, and I encourage every other woman to do so. A few decades from now, the younger generation sitting here, will be successful professionals, business women, industrialists, social workers and homemakers. It will be this powerhouse of women that will make India the next superpower on the world stage. If you are a successful revenue generator, any society will respect you and support you, and so will any man, starting from the men in your family.

As Indian women, we are lucky to have the central and state governments support all our ventures. This is a rare moment in Indian history. If India is where she is right now in the galaxy of successful nations, it’s not because of just intelligent governance, but also the tireless efforts of women workforce that have changed the economic landscape of India. The scale of what you do, doesn’t matter. But sustaining what you do in a continuous timeframe is what makes you a success. My mantra of success is: God and Country. I believe in 3Ds: Discipline, Dedication and Devotion to goals.

We completed last year the Telangana secretariat, which has 12,000 lakh square feet. We finished it in two years. It was built along sustainable lines and rated gold by the IGBC. It is the only Secretariat in India to do so. We also completed the building for the Gaganyaan Space Center which is in ISRO, Sriharikota. I was very lucky to work with the Prime Minister’s Office on this. We have done the Kalaignar Museum in Tiruvarur which has a Convention Center, Library and Museum. Our work on the International Convention Center on ECR is in progress. We are also doing one of the largest office spaces ever in South India with 30 lakh square feet. Our IT parks are all LEED or IGBC rated. I am an eclectic designer and I swing from total neoclassical to modern and I think that it is important for an architect to be so. We also have an international practice. We do all kinds of typologies and I enjoy doing it, shifting gears along the way. We’ve been lucky to win more than 190 awards.

Cracking the IAF selection and beyond

Squadron Leader Mohana Singh:

I’m a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force. I have put in eight years of service in the IAF. I have 850 hours of incident and accident-free flying, which is a big achievement. In my tenure, I have flown different sorts of platforms including Pilatas PC7 which is the training aircraft; Hawk Mark 132 and MiG 21 Bison. Probably, soon I’ll be in the Tejas cockpit as well.

I hail from Rajasthan and I am married to a wonderful man, Mr. Mohit Rajput, who is a businessman. Being the third-generation member of my family to have served in the military, I’m very thrilled to carry on the family legacy. When you hear the word fighter pilot, the image that comes to your mind maybe the Thunderbirds racing on the runway or a Rockstar, like in Top Gun Maverick, flying high performance jets, drinking beer on the weekend and driving for more and more speed. But the truth is, while the life of a fighter pilot might seem very adventurous and full of fun, a lot of planning and preparation gets into being one. Hollywood has certainly not helped us because there is a lot more to being a fighter pilot than just sporting cool sunglasses or wearing jackets full of patches. Being a fighter pilot is an attitude.

Cracking the IAF Selection

In the IAF, we have different selection boards pan India. If you pass a written exam, you will go for a service selection board wherein you have different tests and interviews. Once you clear that, there is medical and then there is a merit list. If you are lucky enough, you will end up where I am today. When I first went to the Dehradun selection board, I got screened out in the very first round. I did not understand the nuances of it. However, my grandfather who had taken me all the way from Delhi to Dehradun was quite disheartened. At that time, I never understood his disappointment. However, that attempt helped me to get a knack of working for this goal.

The day I got screened out, I made a promise to myself that if I ever get selected in the Airforce, it will be from the Dehradun selection board. As luck would have it, after four written attempts, three interviews and two different selection boards, years later, I was standing at the doors of the Air Force Academy to be a pilot.

The training was obviously tough. They train us to be a good soldier first, and then an aviator. For the first initial six months, we have combined training, which includes physical conditioning and general knowledge about the services related subjects Then we start the very first stage of what’s going to be our bread and butter of our life, namely the ‘flying.’

I remember the first time I had gone on leave after the first six months of training at the academy, during which I had lost 16 kgs. As I was standing in front of my house, my mother failed to recognize me because all she could see was my teeth. The first day I was in the aircraft hangar, I came across a quote by Leonardo da Vinci: ‘When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you will always long to return.’ That is the addiction you get to flying.

I understood the meaning of this quote obviously a few weeks later, when I flew my first sortie, which was exhilarating. After those first six months of flying, we undergo trifurcation wherein the board decides on allocating us to the fighter fleet or the transports or the helicopters. To be a fighter pilot, you’re supposed to be in the first 75% of the merit list and you should have the trait wherein you don’t need anybody else to judge your decisions, so you can be put inside a cockpit of a machine worth hundreds of crores. Along came the decision to open the fighter stream to women in 2016. I believe I was at the right time, at the right place and ended up being here.

It seemed difficult initially to consider a non-gender biased environment in this fraternity, wherein no pilot had ever shared a cockpit with a woman counterpart. We had our fair share of skepticism about what we would likely face. But we were totally proved wrong and it was heartening to see how the fleet embraced equality in its true sense. Our colleagues and our seniors, just like our mean machines, did not care about the gender. All that mattered was the flying skill and the competence. We used to have a fair share of being hauled up when we used to make mistakes in flying.

It has been an unstoppable journey. I am living one day at a time, because that is what we can think of. Perseverance and discipline are my two pillars. I owe a lot to these pillars and they have kept me up, even in the toughest of the situations, where I thought, I would not be able to make it.

The job of armed forces personnel is indeed demanding, mostly because there’s a lot of duty and you don’t get time for your family. There are a lot of transfers from one place to another. It requires you to be in the best of physical and mental state to perform the duty. Being a fighter pilot, you have to take decisions in split seconds. You’re all alone in the cockpit and you have to be skilled enough to execute it.

If I have to give credit to someone for what I have achieved till date, it will be to my family, for their faith in me and never-ending support. When I chose to take the road that was less travelled, IAF-the organization to which I belong, made it possible for me to follow my passion.

Panel Discussions:

Meera Nair: Dr. Ponni, how did you manage your social conditioning and break the glass ceiling? What advice do you have for the younger generation?
Dr Ponni: When I was in Church Park, doing eighth standard at 13 or 14 years old, I had a roadmap in my mind. I simply wanted to be a nation builder. I wanted to pick a profession that I would excel in. My dad was a civil engineer in the Indian railways and I had an affinity towards architecture. So I chose architecture.

You may have aspirations; plans and grand ideas of what life has for you. But as you get into them, you may hit roadblocks. For example, in NIT Trichy, I went to pay my fees. But they told me that they don’t take girls. It was such a terrible thing for me, because I rejected all other admissions and went to NIT Trichy. My mom was planning to marry me off when I was just 16 or 17 years old. So this was a do or die situation.

I insisted on meeting the principal and marched into his huge chambers. He was a fabulous guy but an intimidating one. He refused to admit me. I said that a government college is duty bound to give me education and the Constitution talks of equal opportunities for both men and women. That includes education. He didn’t like it at all and shouted me down. I didn’t care. I threatened to take legal action. I was just 16 years old but had a great resolve. At last, he was very kind and took me in. He became my friend and mentor.

There will be roadblocks, but there’s always a way around it. You have to build a resolve to get to where you want to go. I wanted to study abroad because I was going to be a nation builder and I benchmarked the best of democracies and I found that US was the go-to country. Luckily, from NIT Trichy, 90% of the students go abroad. Cornell was also not easy. I was the first Indian woman in my department for a long time.

We have casteism in India. We have similar flaws in international arena also. There is a bit of racism and gender bias. Don’t think that the US is a fabulous place and that you can just about do everything. You have issues there. We are all human beings. We are supposed to fight them out. When somebody in your family tells you that because you’re a girl, you’re only supposed to get married and have a family, just say no. If you have a roadmap in your head, if you have a plan, just go ahead. The world has changed today. People are more pro-women and the men are out there to support us. Do not believe in social conditioning. Never listen to someone who says no. Think positive. I think that’s what helped me.

Meera Nair: Mohana, tell us how your routine day looks like. How do you manage your work life balance? Who supports you?

The starting of my day depends upon the sunrise. We get into the canopy when it’s dark and get out to go back home when it’s dark. We never get to see the sun. Once we cribbed about our routine and the commanding officer said, “Buddy, I can’t change the time the sun rises and sets.” It is tedious. It all depends on the mission, the planning and the schedule. A fighter pilot is not just supposed to do flying. We have to prepare for the missions and do secondary jobs as well. There’ll be a lot of other responsibilities on us and we have to do them. There is no spare time for us. There are no weekends, something that my husband complains a lot about. There are planned leaves; however, they don’t go as planned.

Being a part of IAF, the organization makes sure that we are trained to handle that amount of stress and groomed in a manner where we are nice and able to handle the personal and work life balance ratio. But not withstanding that, an understanding partner and an understanding family is of utmost importance. My husband understands my demands. He is not demanding though. I give a fair share of credit to him and to my family for making my career work out well.

Meera Nair: As a woman architect, how did you handle the Secretariat Project?

Dr Ponni: It was really fantastic experience for me. But I can tell you that the Telangana State Secretariat was only a midsized project for us. The largest project we have done is 40 lakh square feet and this was just 12 lakh square feet. The complexity of the project was in executing it in the middle of COVID and in dealing with a government setup. The government is a very good institution, but not very kind to women, especially in building construction. They’re so used to dealing with men. It helps to have a male partner around.

I was very lucky to have a very understanding chief minister and one who empowered women. He supported me throughout. The department was hostile though. We worked with Shapoorji Pallonji, one of the greatest construction firms, but they were not used to dealing with women. Of course, these things do happen. ISRO is great government institution to deal with. I made it a point to drive that it was my design. If you have a great client, like the former AP Chief Minister, things can fall in place.

During COVID, our labourers ran away. The material was not available as we sourced many materials from China or Europe or elsewhere. That taught me a very important lesson about making in India. You have to think global, but act local. Always depend on local materials and local labour. I found that in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, there is a lot of gender equity that happens in government and local communities. I’m sure things will get a lot better over a period of time.

Meera Nair: Your cockpit is air conditioned but I read that it can get extremely warm. How do you manage your fitness?

Mohana Singh: We do fly in an air-conditioned cockpit. The AC works only once if you’re above two kilometers of height. Till the time you reach two kilometers, you would have already sweated out a bucket.

The health is very important for a fighter pilot. You’re supposed to have a medical category called A1G1- that is the highest category of fitness in air as well as on ground. Even if you have the slightest of cold or broken a nail, or you’re depressed, then you must not enter the cockpit. That is a rule that we abide by. It is important that you need to be in the right state to sit inside the cockpit. Once you are inside that cockpit and close the canopy, the world outside is shut out.

To maintain the fitness level, everyone has their personal preferences. Some do yoga and some go to gym. We generally maintain our weight. Every year, we have our medical examinations, based on which they decide our category and if we are fit to fly or not. While joining IAF, I convinced my parents by saying that in case anything goes wrong, at least, I have an ejection seat. So they agreed to let me join the IAF.

Participation of women in India’s labour force

Read Time:8 Minute

MMA WOMEN MANAGERS’ CONVENTION 2024

The annual MMA Women Managers’ Convention is a celebration of the spirit of women; and the many diverse roles women play. This year, MMA celebrated International Women’s Day with a conference on the theme “Level Up!”

Women bring a unique blend of empathetic leadership and strategic vision

Hon’ble Justice S. Srimathy, Madras High Court

Top of Form

I am a first-generation lawyer. The legal profession is dominated by men. A lawyer’s day typically begins with case preparation in the morning, followed by court appearances, meetings with litigants, and late-night brief preparations. Family life often takes a backseat. This scenario applies to male lawyers as well. Consequently, lawyers may not always be available for their family members. Hence, the family plays a crucial role in the success of a woman lawyer; they are her support system.

Lawyers often immerse themselves deeply in their cases, sometimes to the extent of treating them as personal battles. Consequently, they may become exhausted and mentally drained. It is imperative for their families to help them recharge and maintain mental stability. Therefore, family support serves as the primary foundation for any woman lawyer’s advancement.

Attaining prominence in a male-dominated profession poses challenges for women. They often need to exert double or triple the effort to stand out. There is a prevalent misconception that women lawyers are primarily suited for family law matters. To challenge this stereotype, I avoided family disputes and focused on other legal domains such as municipal law, electricity law, income tax law, and customs and excise. Choosing the right specialization is crucial.

The legal profession is unique in that the outcome of a case is uncertain and largely dependent on the judge. However, lawyers possess a tenacious spirit, leading them to pursue appeals in higher courts until they secure favourable judgments. They are not afraid to challenge judges’ decisions. Because of this courage, boldness and standing for a cause, the lawyers are the first set of people to raise their voice against societal issues. Hence, their role in a democracy is both essential and significant. In our freedom fight, most of the persons who led the fight were lawyers. Hence the collective voice or teamwork is another tool for level up.

As lawyers have limited mobility and devote their time 24×7 to their profession with passion, the impact obviously is on the health. Women, in particular, tend to overlook health symptoms, leading to various issues. Physical well-being is closely intertwined with mental health. Our Bhartiya yoga explains it as Panch Kosh, which means the Five Bodies of Consciousness: Annamaya or the physical body; Pranamaya or the lifeforce; Manonmaya or the emotional force; Vignanamaya or wisdom and Anandha maya or bliss. Therefore, maintaining physical and mental health is paramount for any level up. There is a famous saying in Tamil that means that you can paint only if there is a wall.

While aiming for any higher level, you may come across setbacks, obstacles and challenges. You may be stuck in the middle of the pipeline and your destiny will be out of reach. In such situations, take a break. Tell yourself that silence is an opportunity to learn a lesson and then proceed, like a river that fills pits on the way and flows past small stones but deviates if it faces huge boulders.

While handling cases, I have come across some women who have lost track of their goal. An MCA student had an aspiration to achieve great heights in the computer field but after marriage, she lost track of her goal and wasted 15 years of her prime life. Whenever marriage is not working, take a decision at the earliest. Nowadays, it is sad to see that spouses are fighting to hurt and to take revenge on each other. In that process, both waste their energy. When we are angry, the body temperature increases and we get acidity, ulcer and other complications. Save your energy to bounce back with a bang, rather than wasting it on unnecessary issues. All these are for personal life.

At the societal level, attention must be directed towards three things: bridging rural-urban disparities, promoting eco-friendly practices, and combating issues like drug abuse. Each individual has a role to play, starting from the family unit.

We have a long list of women achievers—from Velu Nachiyar to Vijayalakshmi Pandit; from Indira Gandhi to Draupadi Murmu; from Anandibai Gopalrao Joshi, the first Indian woman allopathic doctor to Roshni Sharma, the first women bike rider from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. The latest on the list is Pragya who has been offered admission in the master’s degree in law by six foreign universities, with scholarship. She comes from a very humble background. Her father is employed as a cook in a residence of a judge.

To sum up, women bring a unique blend of empathetic leadership and strategic vision; fostering inclusive workplaces where diverse voices are heard and valued, ultimately driving innovation and organizational success. However, achieving such success requires several factors: a supportive family, specialized expertise in our respective fields, collective voice, conflict resolution, and preserving our energy. Prioritizing good physical and mental health remains paramount throughout this journey.

Levelling up for women can be harder…

Ms Nirmala Lakshman, Chairperson, The Hindu Group:

I believe that the international women’s day should not be just one day of token celebration of all the wonderful things that women do. Every day should be women’s day. Despite progress in technology and things like AI and global connectivity, it’s quite tragic that there has not been much progress in the participation of our women in the workforce and the appreciation of the value of their work.

We feel that women who are privileged with education and other opportunities have fewer obstacles. But in my case, I had to deal with a host of adversarial situations before I could make any headway in my own professional life. I came through challenging scenarios over many decades because of a certain stubbornness. That stubbornness will take you a long way. Persistence and standing your ground can help you move forward in the work that you do, not just in your houses but also in your offices and wherever you work.

One must have faith in one’s capabilities. Despite overwhelming situations, it’s important to stand your ground to get progress and breakthroughs. You must level up yourself with your own qualifications and standards. Men should also level up to meet your expectations. Don’t be caught in the cliche of breaking the glass ceiling. Look beyond the glass ceiling and reach the sky, rather than being limited by any glass ceiling.

A recent Deloitte survey of 5000 women globally points out some top concerns for women in the workplace. In India, 59% of the women surveyed felt concerned about women’s rights. It means that women are much more aware of their rights than they were earlier. 59% did not feel confident enough that their rights were not impinged upon. 59% of women were afraid of the lack of financial security, and 57% were worried about their mental and physical health. These are not good numbers.

Equality for women has been guaranteed by the Constitution. We also have a fairly robust legal system. But on the whole, the situation is worrying. Leveling up is not just for women, but for organizations too. They have to level up and look out for the well-being of women who work in their offices, eliminating issues like sexual harassment and gender bias that are very much in existence in many corporates and offices across the country. While there is no outward discrimination in HR policies, sexism often exists in subtler ways. We come across gender bias expressed in conversations. There’s a lack of sensitivity in addressing the domestic situation of women such as childcare, the type of work they can do and the hours that they need to spend on their work.

There may also exist a stereotype regarding successful women. They are often subjected to criticism compared to men occupying similar positions. As Margaret Atwood, the writer, aptly observed, while a powerful man is often viewed as a natural leader, a powerful woman is frequently seen as an anomaly. It is imperative to hold people accountable for perpetuating such attitudes. Gender policies and HR departments within organizations must actively address these subtle biases and strive to eliminate them. By doing so, workplaces can create a more inclusive environment where women feel valued and respected.

Levelling up for women also implies a special organizational effort to upskill women in areas like new technology, which will foster productivity for companies. Organizations must proactively address the specific challenges women face, encouraging them to step out of their comfort zones and providing the necessary tools and resources for their advancement.

Men should also level up to see women in a more positive light and change their own attitudes towards gender. Levelling up for women can be harder, given her own and society’s expectations. Having said this, I urge that every woman manager must level up to her own expectations. Challenging gender stereotyping in the workplace enhances belief in yourself and your capabilities. Push back against any resistance to your agenda and your growth—be it at home or in the office. Never be apologetic or timid. Stand your ground. When you see unfair and unjust practices around you, speak out the truth. It’s never easy, but it’s all about recognizing who you are. Make sure that people recognize the sacrifices and hard work that you put into every situation.

Level up with your peers and make sure your peers understand what needs to be done, at the right place, at the right time. It’s also important to see opportunities in the workplace as a chance to continuously learn and enhance your skills and capabilities. Never be afraid to learn new things and don’t be afraid to point out the things which you don’t understand. Women often feel overawed by technology. There is nothing wrong in asking a few questions. Forge ahead by learning new things.

At every micro level, you must be confident that you are levelling up and changing life for yourself and for people around you. Form coalitions and networks among yourselves, so that you can grow to greater heights. No society will be vibrant, unless women are equal partners alongside men.