August 30th, 2008 was clearly a black day in the history of BITS-Pilani, as students, staff and alumni bemoan the sudden demise of Dr. K.K. Birla, Chancellor and founding member, BITS-Pilani at Kolkata after a brief illness.

Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi released a commemorative stamp in memoriam of legendary industrialist and visionary, late Dr K.K. Birla in March 2009.

“His tremendous achievement in industry matched with the scientific development he initiated in education,” says External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee who was present during the function. Other politicians who attended the occasion included Union Ministers P. Chidambaram, Vayalar Ravi, H.R. Bhardwaj, Anand Sharma, former minister Oscar Fernandes, Chief Ministers Sheila Dikshit and Bhupinder Singh Hooda, senior Congress leaders, Jayanthi Natarajan, Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar and Sachin Pilot.

The stamp, released by the Department of Posts, is of 500paise denomination. As many as 0.8 million stamps have been printed at India Security Press in Nasik. The gleaming countenance on this postage stamp sailing across the country is just one way of surviving the unassuming personality of Dr. KK Birla.

Full Story: Link

If any BITSian sitting out there and has a habit of solving the Crossword in Hindu Newspaper published everyday might have observed that clues provided to solve the puzzle alleviated their efforts on 26th March, 2009. The revered motto - “Knowledge is Power Supreme” of BITS Pilani which reverberates when anyone speaks of our university, was used as a hint for part of the puzzle : “Across - 15”.

The Hindu, a leading English-language Indian daily was started in year 1878 and now has a circulation base of more than 1.17 million.

The alumni of BITS Pilani and all torch bearers for Brand BITS across the globe take pride in finding their beloved alma mater getting trapped in the Crossword of the esteemed newspaper The HINDU.

Link : Crossword Puzzle and Hints You can search for BITS in this page !!!

Indian Rupee might be plummeting against US dollor recently, inflation is at 20-yr low and global economy is on a toss!!! But some things constantly get bigger and better with successive years.

Many of us who just remember APOGEE as “A Professions Oriented Gathering over Educational Experience” as a mere annual technical festival at BITS Pilani would find this really interesting. APOGEE has positively bloated getting government, international and industry attention at greater scales. Following are recent achievements of APOGEE –

• ISO 9001:2008 Certified APOGEE is the first Technical Festivals in India which secured this credit for 2008 Standards. The process went for 3 long months and secured the certification just days before the 27th version kicked off this March.
• Government Sponsorships – I still remember the pains the Departments and Discipline associations used to undergo to get private sponsorships, never did we imagine things could be negotiated and deal broken with government organizations at this scale. Hindustan Zinc, Air India, SAIL, ONGC, NTPC and many more were Gold and Silver Sponsors for APOGEE 2009.
• Industry Partners - Technophilia as Robotics partner, National Geographic Channel as Green Partner, UNDP as Knowledge partner, MockInt as Interview partner, ICC as Commerce partner.
• Indian Army and DRDO Exhibits - Tanks and missiles of Indian Army landed up in Pilani as a part of promoting and expanding the knowledge of India’s missile strength. We heard from informal sources that few walls were broken to get the tanks into the campus :)) - Anything for the nation !!!
• Guest Speakers – Lectures from eminent personalities, noble laureates and few of these talks were streamed live too.

Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had offered a proposal five years ago in Johannesburg to connect leading universities in India with those in African Nations using a Satellite and Fiber Optic Network that would provide effective communication and connectivity among the Nations.Current External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated the Pan-African e-network which would primarily provide Tele-education, Telemedicine, Internet, video-conferencing, VOIP services and also support egovernance, e-commerce, infotainment, resource mapping and meteorological services with counterparts from 11 African countries

The project aims to bridge students from India with 53 African countries and thereby leveraging the knowledge pool by erasing the digital divide. Birla Institute of Technology and Science, BITS-Pilani is one of the 7 elite educational institutions in India given the honor to be a part of the “shining South-South cooperation” e-connectivity project.

Full Story: Link

Proud to be BITSian Dr. Ashok Agarwal is offered the position of adjunct professor at BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus. A Gold medalist in Mechanical Engineering from BITS Pilani, Dr.Ashok Agarwal did his Masters and Doctoral Programme from University of Minnesota. He started his career with Bell Telephone Laboratories and then spent time at Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta as a Professor of MIS during 1969 to 1986.

He was visiting professor at Northeastern University, Boston USA for two years, visiting research scholar and Ford Fellow at Sloan School , MIT USA and University of Minnesota. He is the founding Director of Indian Institute of Port Management at Calcutta under Indian Ports Association. He has been a consultant to numerous organizations and member of various academic and parliamentary committees like Railway Reforms Committee, Parliamentary Committee for Chief controller of Imports and Exports etc. From 1986 onwards Dr. Agarwal was involved in setting up various IT organizations such as SQL Star International; Era Software Systems (P) ltd, ACS Technologies Ltd, and Cyber Media India Ltd. in India which proved his talent as an entrepreneur.

Ashok was instrumental in setting up the BITSAA India Trust. Students can leverage from his knowledge and achieve their entrepreneurial ambitions. This was the message he shared with BITSAA Newsletter and BITS fraternity - “BITS Pilani is the place where I have spent 8 years after high school and had the privilege to be of the first batch from BITS in December 1964. Whatever I have achieved is with the foundation at BITS and am glad to get an opportunity to provide some value addition to BITS by being taken as Adjunct Professor.”

The Ashok Agarwal Scholarship has been instituted by Dr. Ashok Agarwal.

BITS Pilani alumnus S R Ramanujam was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of CRISIL Risk & Infrastructure Solutions (CRIS), a subsidiary of CRISIL Ltd which is engaged in providing infrastructure advisory services and risk solutions.

After his education at BITS, Ramanujam completed his PGDM from IIM, Kolkata in 1996 and started his services with CRISIL Ltd.

He has been responsible for developing the Urban Practice of the Infrastructure Advisory business from its inception to its current level of prominence and leadership. BITS fraternity is proud on his achievement.

Full Story: Link

“redBus” founder Phanindra, CEO of redBUS is chosen as one of ‘India’s most promising entrepreneurs’ by Business World. The jury was comprised of members with global exposure and experience to identify the potential big hitters of tomorrow. Phani did his BE(Hons) in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani during 1998-2002.

The seed of redBus was sown during Diwali, four years ago, when he was turned down by every bus agent when he was desperate to buy a bus ticket to his hometown from Bangalore. He figured out the immediate and glaring need to provide consumers the convenience of booking a ticket on the internet. Today a customer has the convenience of buying a bus ticket over SMS, calling the call center, logging on to the web, having a ticket home delivered or at the neighborhood kirana store!

redBus is also the second Indian company chosen by New York-based Endeavour International selection panel as one of the four Endeavour Enterpreneurs whom they call as ‘High Impact Entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs with the biggest ideas, the most ambitious plans and the largest social, economic and environmental impact.

Dr Nilay Yajnik, Professor of Information Systems, School of Business Management, NMIMS University, Mumbai, India and BITSian from 78-83 batch has been invited to be on the Editorial Board of the Palgrave Macmillan Journal of Database Marketing and Customer Strategy Management. He is the only Indian on the Editorial Board of this prestigious International Journal.

Palgrave Macmillan is one of the world's topmost publishers. Part of the world famous Macmillan group, Palgrave Macmillan publishes world renowned books and journals in the field of Management. The Editorial Board of this Journal is constituted by invitation and includes academicians and professionals from some of the leading Universities of the world.

Profile: Link

The BITSAA Global 30 under 30 Awards were instituted towards the end of 2005 in order to recognize and eulogize exceptional BITSians who have exhibited excellence in his/her domain.

With a successful run in 2005-06, the awards are back for grab in 2009 with near to 100 prospective nominations. The garnered panel of judges brings immense evaluation potential during the scrutinizing cycle with -

• Punita Pandey, Entrepreneur
• Dr. LK Maheshwari, Vice Chancellor, BITS Pilani
• Mukesh Chatter, Entrepreneur
• Brij Bhushan, Entrepreneur
• Satish Warrier, Writer
• Madan Pitutila, Professor
• SP Kothari, Economist

The organizing committee comprising of Anupendra Sharma, Ashwin and Uzma are working closely with the judges to roll out the results in near future. BITSAA Newsletter shall keep a track on the program and would feature the winners when announced.

Blogging has caught the attention of people from contemporary world and yesteryears. In a recent search to find the oldest BITSian blogger, we came across Mr S G V Mani, aged 76 and a graduate from Birla Engineering College (1953). He calls the blog – “Mani's Miscellany”.

If you are interested in keeping abreast with world politics, his articles would certainly interest you. He spent over 30 years in electronics industry and then retired. Mani is an ardent devotee of Sri Sri Ravishankar of “Art Of Living”.

Read the blog at this Link

The 3-day cultural extravaganza of BITS Pilani Goa campus, WAVES Summer 2009 was inaugurated by Mani Shankar, the renowned bollywood film director.

He is an alumnus of BITS Pilani and today he runs his own production house called Bhairav Films. The gold Nandi award winner is famous for his feature films 16 December, Rudraksh and Tango Charlie. The audience was enthralled by his enlightening speech that covered almost every aspect in the world ranging from pollution to global warming to the present economic downside.

WAVES Summer 2009 is one of its kind and encompasses events in 36 categories like music, dance, drama, literature and fine arts. A series of workshops were also conducted apart from the host performances. Salsa, Bachata, Hip-hop and Belly Dancing Workshops, a unique Cookery Workshop with special tips for hostel cooking and Pottery workshop were a few among them.