Great philanthropy from Azim Premji ..

I was really taken aback this morning to read of the great and magnanimous acts of philanthropy shown by one of India's richest persons, in fact, India's second richest person.

It  heartening to read of the huge philanthropic endowment corpus promised by Azim Premji, the Chairman of WIPRO (Western India Palm Refined Oils Ltd or more recently Western India Products Limited) the IT giant from India. Azim Premji committed 67% of his holdings in WIPRO to philanthropy.

I am reminded of the great philanthropy from US John D Rockefeller in the beginning of the 20 th century kickstarting directed philanthropy from the Rockefeller Foundation. (click here for the facts of that kind act..)

The Bangalore headquartered IT Czar has been known for his philanthropic activities  for a long time, and recently to top it all , he promised a $7.5 billion contribution to this corpus increasing his total endowment corpus to the Azim Premji Foundation to $ 21 billion ( or approximately INR 150,000 crores..).

I request the PM of India to come out in the open to acknowledge Azim;s great actions and to felicitate this kind soul for his magnanimous deed to humanity. Azim Premji Foundation funds almost 150 non-profit organisations in India.

Click here for the Hindustan Times report ..

By this great act of humanity and by endowing so much resources to the Azim Premji Trust, Azim Premji is setting an example for the whole of India and the world.

I doubt whether any other business conglomerate in India other than the Tata's have done such great social service in the country. The Birlas, the Ambanis, the Singhanias, the Bajajs have all failed the country in giving a hand of solace to it's citizens. They have throughout history of the past hundred years been sapping the country's resources for their personal benefits.

I know of a bunglow which Aditya Birla purchased for INR 430 crores in Mumbai Malabar Hill in 2018, on the beach, which is unoccupied and unutlised. It fails for our common sense to understand why these people who have sapped the society of resources legitimately or not, fail to give back to society in equal measure for the loot they have sapped.

May the MNCs of the world also start similar Foundations by earmarking a fraction of their profits yearly, the legitimately or illegitimately earned wealth and riches from the developing, less developed and developed nations of the world with the less fortunate in the society.

George..

E-learning effectiveness - beautiful remarks from a colleague ..

Last Saturday 22 February, 2019, IIM Bangalore did a Faculty Development Programme on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). Even though I was a participant at this FDP, could not attend it as my academic commitments at the Alliance University overtook my personal growth and development plans. 

 One of my senior colleagues who attended this IIMB FDP surprised me totally with his very frank observation this morning. He told me , "Professor, your lessons on E-learning were much more effective and covered much more topics like quizzes etc than what was covered at IIMB. Wish you could give us a repeat session on E-Learning.. "

This was the best comments I could get from my colleague in my recent memory. Very very precious !!

This class I had taken almost six years back at Alliance University in Bangalore. When I had given my first presentation on E-learning from Govt. College of Engineering, Goa at Bangalore palace during the FRee and Open Source (FOSS) Conference in 2005, neither IIT Bombay nor IIM Bangalore had embarked on their digital learning initiatives. 

It was indeed a very proud moment for me then as I had overtaken even my alma-mater IIT Bombay at implementing really advanced E-learning initiatives in the Southern and western region of India in 2005. 

Public funding at these public institutions has really given them the fillip. I doubt whether I failed to convince my academic colleagues to take to such modern teaching methodologies .. 

Innovation does not happen overnight.. 

George 

Forbes and Modi's bleak re-election prospects ..

I was reading Forbes magazine December '18 issue when I came across an interesting analysis of whats happening to the Indian corporate sector, banks and loans etc. It was very surprising to find being election year, how the present PM Narendra Modi, with poor knowledge on Indian economy, with his equally ignorant Finance Minister wanted to play around with the RBI funds.  PM was finding it difficult to kickstart the economy with investments. He is interested in tapping the free reserves of cash with India's Central Bank,  Reserve Bank of India.

But the fact is RBI has not given this cache of reserves it has with any body else, right from India; independence in 1947. Now would it like to give this excess amount to the tune of about 9 lakh crores to the Government to squander during this election year and get kicked out after elections for damaging the country and its economy like never before.

Click here for the Forbes Dec '18 issue  article 

The Indian PM Modi would now be painfully recollecting how carelessly he ridiculed, mocked, derided, taunted, made fun of and initiated attacks against the former Economist PM Dr Manmohan Singh. With not even one percent of economic knowledge of Dr MMS, Modi thought he could win by spreading lies.

But now Modi understands ruling a country like India is not just talking, it is not just boasting about your lam ideologies nor building Rs 3000 crore statues, it requires lot of intelligence and knowledge of the economy.

Will the next government coming up, Modi and his vicious gang of fascist ideologues, having already put papers, pull down Sardar Patel's statue or replace it with one of Mahatma Gandhi  is another question making the rounds.

One aspect Modi conveniently forgot, which exposed his extreme communal upbringing and fascist, intolerant ideologies, was that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the greatest son of Gujarat and India and not Sardar Patel. Patel did play a role but not to the extent of Mahatma Gandhi.

Modi, please do not try to rewrite India's history ..

George..

A couple of questions to indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Damodar Modi ..

Two simple questions to the Prime Minister of India, Shri Naredra Damodar Modi.

1. Did you or your party taking the help of outsiders (rich or poor) resort to manipulating the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) put up by the Election Commission of India or their representatives to decide on the election outcomes during the last General Elections to the House of Representatives in India, the Lok Sabha in 2014 ?

2. If your or your party are held guilty by a Court of Law or the public to have influenced malafide the election verdict of the 2014 elections, are you ready to accept the verdict and bow out of office in disgrace, for manipulating the sacred Democratic practices of the Republic of India for the sake of petty religious politics and financial gains ?

Expecting an answer !!

George .

Sustainability Quiz and activities ..

Click here for some fun  facts of sustainability ..

Try to answer this sustainability quiz 2017 ..(click here..)

Try this National Geographic Green Lifestyle quiz (Click here for quiz) 

Try this National Geographic Food quiz (click here for quiz)

Try this Earth Day quiz .. (click here for quiz)

george .

Unsolicited (useful) advice to BJP / RSS ..

Here are some unsolicited advice to BJP before the 2019 Indian General elections to elect the new government .., they may benefit from them ..

1. Forget dividing people

2. Forget building Ayodhya  Ram temple, build temples of love and understanding between people of the country

3. Promote more inner party democracy in BJP / BJP is not two personalities

4. Point fingers inward, not at RG !!

5. Aim developing the country industrially, not downplaying SG !!

6. Dump Modi (lost his gas, appeal and self-confidence), bring Gadkari .. We need learned leaders !!

7. Dump the brainless Amit, bring Venkaiah naidu

8. Respect humans more than cows !!

9.  Treat opposition with respect, motto should be : give and take respect !!

10. Finally, not the least, stop talking and act !! Focus on the economy and job creation ! Bring in huge infrastructure projects to help the country march ahead.

If you are sincere and serious about serving people, the country will bring you back to power, because we do not matter who is ruling, we want the country to develop ..

And please, do not divide the country on caste and religions.. Please !!

george.

Are we ready to go for reconciliation with the Jacobites ??

Yesterday I was surprised to hear of our priest talking about forgiveness and reconciliation at the Sunday evening cottage prayer. He was talking how we all should forgive and go for reconciliation in our daily lives. How we need to be so forgiving that we finally become God-like in our approach ..

It was quite interesting to listen to this call for spiritual exhortation. It is indeed good if all of us are ready to forgive our brethren..

But is the church and the priestly class ready for that ? Are they ready to forgive the Jacobites and give back the churches where they are in majority and go for reconciliation ?

Finally the conclusion we had in the meeting was, we will talk but we will not practice.  We will continue to be hypocrites ! Useless and worthless !!

Preaching is for the people, the smart priests will neither practice their preaching nor show us how to practice it, they will just continue preaching. Preaching and putting it into practice are two totally different things.

Hypocrisy has entered all spheres of our lives.

If the Orthodox Christian church and its leaders are not ready for forgiveness and reconciliation with the Jacobites, peace will never return to the church.

Jesus never told us that reconciliation and forgiveness is conditional, according to the decision by the Supreme Court.

Even to this day, the Orthodox church leadership can extend a hand of peace and brotherhood to the Jacobites and engage with them in talks and reconciliation aiming to resolve the dispute between the Orthodox and Jacobite faction which has been there for decades.

Somewhere I feel the leadership is at fault .. The leadership on both sides have acted irresponsibly ..

All attention and opposition is only for acquiring the wealthy churches ..