Dr Alaknanda is a single parent and a resident of Pune who has been suffering from paraplegia (paralysis below the waist) since her injury in a road mishap near Nashik in 2010. But the paralysis did not deter her from practising medicine to support her family. Being a single parent, she has been supporting her family (her daughter and mother) all by her own. She applied for a government job to make herself financially stable. In Feb 2015, she was appointed gynaecologist at the Silver Jubilee sub district hospital in Baramati. Although wheel chair-bound, Vaidya, now 39, initially shuttled between Pune and Baramati on a daily basis, travelling 200 kms every day. As it was getting very difficult to balance job and family life, she started writing applications since October 2015 to the concerned government authorities at the public health department seeking transfer on medical grounds, but got no response. After several of her written requests to the authorities went unanswered, she launched an online petition and within a week’s time, around one lakh people have extended support to her by signing this online petition.
Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis took immediate cognizance of Dr Alaknanda Vaidya’s online petition. He promptly ordered his officers at the public health department to look into the matter and do the needful. Dr Alaknanda has been posted to Pune now.
Anoop Kumar Sharma took charge as the chairman and managing director of Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) for a period of three years, SCI informed the BSE. As the country’s premier shipping line, SCI owns and operates around one-third of the Indian tonnage, and has operating interests in practically all areas of the shipping business, servicing both national and international trades. SCI also has substantial interests in various segments of the shipping trade. Its owned fleet includes bulk carriers, crude oil tankers, product tankers, container vessels, passenger-cum-cargo vessels, phosphoric acid/ chemical carriers, LPG/ammonia carriers and offshore supply vessels.
Martijn de Jong, chief digital marketing officer and senior vice president digital channels at Reliance Jio, has left the company after a stint of 19 months, and has joined Aegon India as chief marketing and digital officer. According to a Jio spokesperson, Martijn de Jong’s contract got over. De Jong joined Reliance Jio in 2013 from Deutsche Telekom where he served as vice president and business unit lead for eCompany, Big Data and API’s products. He was directly responsible for digital marketing activities for both Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail’s Lyf handset brand. He built a large digital team for Jio’s digital channels, and had profit and loss (P&L) responsibility for eCommerce, digital recharges and mobile ad revenues. Jong was instrumental in setting up partnerships with leading Indian e-commerce companies like Amazon and Flipkart, along with Fintech companies and payment providers and banks.
Amazon India has roped in Ravi Desai of ITC Foods as its chief marketing officer, creating the position for the first time in the country, as the ecommerce battle intensifies ahead of the festive season. Desai, who is cluster head of marketing and executive committee member at ITC Foods, is based in Bengaluru and has quit, according to sources. At Amazon, Desai will be responsible for product marketing, advertising and brand building. Desai will report to Amit Agarwal, the country manager at Amazon India. In his decade-long career at ITC, Desai has served in positions such as branch head and as marketing manager during the conceptualisation and launch of the Bingo range of snacks. He was responsible for the confectionery portfolio and Candyman brands. An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, 1999 batch, Desai also has a degree in chemical engineering. Seattle-based Amazon is trying to surpass Flipkart and grab the No. 1 position in the Indian ecommerce market.
State Bank of India (SBI) chief Arundhati Bhattacharya, ICICI head Chanda Kochhar and Axis Bank CEO Shikha Sharma are among the 50 most powerful women based outside the US, according to a list by Fortune which is topped by Banco Santanders boss Ana Botín. Bhattacharya, 60, is ranked second on the list, while Kochhar comes in on the fifth spot and Sharma on the 19th position in the Fortunes 50 most powerful women international list. Botín, Group Executive Chairman of Banco Santander, Eurozone’s largest bank by market value, repeats as No. 1. The 2016 list spans 19 countries. “Bhattacharya’s profile has risen during her three-year tenure atop India’s largest bank,” Fortune said. SBI chairperson Bhattacharya, who was widely speculated to succeed Raghuram Rajan as governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has continued her high-profile battle with banks’ bad loans, while courting overseas partners to invest in the stressed assets. ICICI Bank Managing Director and CEO Kochhar, 54, is regarded even by rival bankers as a visionary, Fortune said.
Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari wants high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, the American billionaire’s company SpaceX to test-run its futuristic high speed train, the Hyperloop, in Pune. Gadkari said he spent quality time with the officials of Tesla, which is also founded by Musk, during his recent visit to the US. “I just offered them the westerly bypass of Pune connected to the Express Highway. The idea is they can have an experiment between Mumbai and Pune as a pilot project,” he said, without naming SpaceX. He said the Hyperloop, whose idea was first presented in 2013, runs faster than an aircraft at a speed of 1,120 kmph and can cut the distance between his hometown Nagpur and Mumbai to 35 minutes. Among other things, SpaceX is also working on commercialising space travel. Speaking about the futuristic concept which is yet to be commercialised, the minister said the Hyperloop is a tube which uses air for propulsion. Gadkari said the government has invited Tesla to invest in the country in clean energy like solar and battery storage, areas in which the American company is focused on. He said he also encouraged Musk to set up a manufacturing base in Mumbai. Tesla has been offered land free of cost near some ports.
Priyanka Yoshikawa, Japanese interpreter and beauty pageant titleholder was crowned Miss World Japan 2016. She is the second after Ariana Miyamoto to be Miss Japan who won the Miss Universe Japan title in 2015. Priyanka’s father Arun Ghosh is Bengali and her mother, Naoko is Japanese. Priyanka’s father was born in Dohar Upazila, Dhaka District, Bangladesh but his family later moved to Kolkata, West Bengal. He moved to Japan in 1985. Her great-grandfather Prafulla Chandra Ghosh was the first Chief Minister of West Bengal. Priyanka lived in Sacramento, California. She then lived in Kolkata for one year before returning to Japan, where she was bullied over her mixed-race ethnicity. She speaks fluent Japanese, English and Bengali. She works as a translator and English teacher, and also has a license to train elephants. “We are Japanese. Yes, I’m half Indian and people are asking me about my ‘purity’. Yes, my dad is Indian and I’m proud of it, I’m proud that I have Indian in me. But that does not mean I’m not Japanese.”
R Ramachandran has taken over as Director (Refineries) at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. from B K Datta who superannuated. A chemical engineering graduate, R Ramachandran joined BPCL in 1982 and has 34 years experience in the downstream refining sector. Ramachandran has been responsible for initiation, development and implementation phases of various projects, such as the Refinery Modernisation and Capacity Enhancement Project in Mumbai Refinery, Process Design and detailed Engineering for setting up Numaligarh Refinery, said the company statement. His present responsibilities include the handling of BPCL Refineries at Mumbai and Kochi and also overseeing the performance of the joint venture Bina Refinery and the subsidiary Numaligarh Refinery, Crude and Product pipelines, International Trade and Research and Development Centre at Noida.
India’s Dipa Karmakar who became an overnight sensation, has drawn the attention of Rio’s gold medal winner Simone Biles, who won the gold at the vault finals. The 23-year-old finished 4th in the vault finals at the 2016 Rio Olympics after winning gold in the qualifying event earlier this year. Biles feels that Produnova is extremely life-threatening and it takes courage to execute it. She admits she could never do it the way Dipa does. In fact Biles feels that the Produnova should be renamed Karmakar vault in her honour. Now that is some compliment! The two did get to meet at one point and Dipa had a memorable experience meeting the 19-year-old Biles, who is already regarded as one of the greatest athletes. “She is a champion and I got to meet her in Rio. She is incomparable; I don’t think any gymnast can match her. She told me that my routine on the vault should be called the ‘Karmakar vault’, not Produnova. I was so happy that I told myself I will work very hard and one day, hopefully, there will be a vault in my name too,” said Dipa.
The low-cost international subsidiary of Air India, Air India Express, has turned profitable for the first time since it started operations in 2005. As per the account placed and approved by airline’s Board of Directors, the airline has made net profit of Rs.361.68 crore in the fiscal year 2015-16 against the loss of Rs.61 crore registered in the year 2014-15, as per the Air India Express release. Along with other factors, higher passenger load factor and better utilisation of its assets helped the airline achieve the positive financial result as the its fleet size remained at the same level of 17 aircraft as was the case in the previous fiscal, the release added. The year witnessed passenger load factor of 82.3 per cent against 81.4 per cent the previous year while the average daily aircraft utilisation rose to 11.3 hours from 10.8 hours. The year, the Airline carried 2.80 million passengers as against 2.62 million in the previous year, according to the release. The airline has achieved total revenue of Rs.2,917.96 crore in the last fiscal against Rs.2,622 crore earned in the year 2014-15. “This turnaround is the outcome of the sustained efforts made by every member of Team Air India Express,” said CEO of Air India Express, K Shyam Sundar. Thanking the increased passenger confidence in the airline’s services, he said it augurs well for the fleet expansion plans being implemented by the airline.
Tanuj Garg, the former chief executive of Balaji Motion Pictures has joined hands with photographer and film producer Atul Kasbekar to set up a film company, which they said will focus on creating profitable, high concept films. The new company, Ellipsis Entertainment, has been incorporated as a limited liability partnership (LLP) among Garg, Kasbekar, and three other co-producers of this year’s superhit film Neerja, Shanti Sivaram Maini, Swati Iyer Chawla and Piya Sawhney, Garg said. At Balaji, Garg had worked on content-driven films like The Dirty Picture, Once Upon A Time in Mumbai Dobaraa and Lootera. Garg has close to 15 years of experience working in senior positions across Disney UTV, Viacom18 Motion Pictures and Balaji. “It was time to leverage the experience, relationships and goodwill built over 15 years and turn entrepreneurial,” he said. “There has never been a better time for content power and along with Shanti, Swati and Piya, we are actively building a multi-genre movie slate and are pleased with the progress so far.” The company is working on eight projects at various stages of development. However, the partners have decided to launch not more than three to four projects a year. Garg said Ellipsis will self fund the projects until at least the script is final and the director is in place. “Currently, the industry is in the state of content flux and there could not be a better time,” said Kasbekar.
Ajay Sharma, business head of mobile phone and tablet divisions at Micromax Informatics, has quit just nine months after rejoining the company in January this year. He has now been replaced by Praveen Srivastava, who joined Micromax from Vodafone India, where he was the head of business development for growth circles. Sharma confirmed his exit but didn’t share further details. At Micromax, Sharma was leading a team of 250 people, and was looking after executing channel and retail strategies in the smartphone segment. His exit comes within a few days after Arvind Gulati, head of customer services at Micromax Informatics recently quit the company. Gulati was replaced by Bharat Malik, existing head of customer service for the company’s subsidiary Yu Televentures. Sharma, who headed the smartphone business for the Gurgaon-based company from 2012 to 2014, re-joined Micromax from Panasonic, where he headed their India’s phone division. He also helped Apple CEO John Sculley-backed Obi Mobiles launch India operations and headed the company for almost 11 months.
By Joe Williams
