New Heros:Lok Paritran (Do gooders as politicians)

Lok Paritran to fight polls in Tamil Nadu, Pondy and Kerala [...the party formed by the technocrats educated in IITs and abroad.]

Ref:http://www.hindu.com/2006/03/03/stories/2006030315510300.htm

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CHENNAI: Three days ago, aerospace engineer Tanmay Rajpurohit, who passed out of IIT Bombay and Georgia Tech, Atlanta, also a postgraduate in Economics from New York University, decided to have his fledgling party Lok Paritran, comprising a bunch of highly educated spirited youth, take the plunge into Assembly elections. "We will contest elections in Tamil Nadu, Pondichery and Kerala,"

Tanmay told The Hindu at a coffee shop, minutes after getting off an autorickshaw, along with party-workers Srikant Chakravarti, a young lawyer and Santhanagopalan Vasudev, a Ph.D in Economics, who studied with Tanmay in NYU. Considering that the party got its registration approved by the Election Commission only on February 24, after it was formed on November 18, 2005, one might think it's a little too late to begin. "It's not," says an emphatic Tanmay. "No time. Does not mean we don't try."

As Srikant adds, "When you want to start working for the country, you have to seize the earliest opportunity." Money and resources? "You don't need money to contest election. You need the intent to do good and the spirit. Of course, we need a minimum amount of money that can be raised by public donations," says Tanmay. "We have started to look for prospective candidates. If we get five, we'll field five. If we get two, we'll field two. If we get 200, we will field 200. But we need the right kind of people," he explains. The party will focus on campaigning in the three southern states in the next two months. "The first step is to identify candidates and based on their experience, we will take a week to consider the constraints and optimise on strategy for the polls," says the 26-year old party president. Lok Paritran will conduct interviews and choose candidates on the basis of "honesty of efforts, education levels, experience in rural areas and spirit," Santhanagopalan, the chief advisor for the party says.

Quiz them on the unique selling proposition in their ideology of fighting corruption and bringing change and Tanmay is quick to retort: "This is not a product to have a USP. It's not a relevant question. What makes a difference is that we mean what we say. We are a party of action. If we say `Let's fight the elections, we fight.' We are putting serious efforts and it is for all to see." What issues would the party stand for? "Issues change over time and place. As a national party, we cannot eliminate any issues and will take them up depending on local parameters. The stand of the party comes from intent. And the intent is betterment of people." "People perceive politics as the domain of the gerontocracy (people over 70), plutocracy (only for the rich) and kleptocracy (those who can scam). So it was not possible for us to join any other party and change the system. You will have to compromise a lot and you will end up diluting your ideology," says the president. How realistic or ambitious is Lok Paritran? "It all depends on the support of the people. Within five days of our website (www.paritrana.org) coming up, we got 5000 people registering and calls from as far as Milan and Korea volunteering to donate money.

We will keep going, no matter how long it takes... five years, 10 years, and 15 years... But I'll quit politics at 45 because I don't want to promote gerontocracy in politics," laughs Tanmay. The party will announce its election plans at a press conference on Friday at the Chartered Accountants Study Circle here. To join the party, call Santhanagopalan at 98312 02545.

Manjunath Shanmugam - A Hero remembered on his Birthday!!

Manjunath Shanmugam- The bright young lad from IIML - 2003 batch who was killed for doing his job honestly & trying to clean up the system last November.We all reacted to the incidence in some way or the other,but our voices surely must have got dissipated somewhere...

"What can I do to change the system ?"

Anjali Mullatti - IIML class of '93 is one of those who decided to do something concrete about it.CAN WE ADD OUR LITTLE EFFORT TOWARDS THIS CAUSE.....??

Her Letter is attached below:

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All,

Feb 23rd is the birthday of Manjunath Shanmugam - an IIM L (2003) alumnus who lost his life for his fight against corruption. He died on November 19th, 2005.

As a Sales Manager with Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOCL), Manju turned down bribes and ignored threats, to do his job – check rampant adulteration of petrol. He was shot dead in Lakhimpur Kheri by a petrol pump owner and his gang.

To most of us, though we never met him, Manju is extremely familiar and is, in part, within every one of us. This is one cause we CANNOT turn away from. We have no excuse. We must ensure that his death does not go in vain.

The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust is now a legal entity with 2 trustees - Anjali Mullatti (IIML '93) and H. Jaishankar (IIMB '91).

The immediate and urgent focus of the trust is to take up the legal battle and ensure quick justice for the murder case. The murderers must not go free.

The broader objectives of the trust are

a . To establish and maintain an award for individuals/institutions working to uphold the values of truth and honesty in the face of danger to themselves.

b. To provide aid to individuals fighting a legal battle to uphold the values of truth, honesty or justice in the Indian corporate, government or public matters.

For updates on what we have done to date and our next steps, please visit the trust website:
www.manjunathshanmugamtrust.org

How can you help?

Firstly – funds are needed to pay lawyers' fees, case costs, build an award corpus.. this will be a long and tedious battle. Please donate just one day's salary for the cause.
Our first donors: Rs. 44,500 ($ 1000) from Sanjay Khanduri, Wharton Class of 2006, and Rs. 30,000 from Akhil Krishna, IIML 2003.

Secondly, if you can commit time and effort, please write in and be part of the team.

Thirdly, if you have close contacts in media, police, legal, judiciary who can help, please let us know.

It is heartwarming that so many people have already reacted immediately and generously – across the spectrum of media, legal, police and the IIM fraternity. Be part of that group.


How do you donate?
Write a cheque favouring 'The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust' , and courier it to:
2909/1, Raghavapriya, 3rd Main, V.V. Mohalla, Mysore 570 002, India

Write a cheque favouring 'The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust' , and deposit it in any HDFC bank drop box, with a deposit slip, account number 0651000091870.

Do an online money transfer , to the HDFC Bank a/c , from your ICICI /HDFC/Citibank a/c. Account number 0651000091870.

Currently FCRA regulations prohibit us from accepting foreign remittances - we're working on getting special permission. For now, please route all overseas donations via your regular Indian rupee accounts.

We have also applied for income tax exemption for donors under Section 80 (G).

Please contact me for any further clarifications - anjali@corporateacademy.com.

Regards,

Anjali Mullatti - IIML class of '93
Catalyst ConsultingDir: +91.821.4288688
Cell: +91.98801 91323
www.corporateacademy.com

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Our First Hero: Anil Bhardwaj,an ITBHU alumni

News Item:

'Saturn reflects X-rays from Sun, discovers ISRO scientist in US '

[-Lalit K Jha (HindustanTimes.com)Minneapolis, May 28, 2005]


A planetary scientist from the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) working at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has found that the planet Saturn acts as a "diffused mirror" for solar X-rays.The revelation by Anil Bhardwaj, who is on the prestigious National Academy of Science Fellowship at the NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre, Huntsville, Albama, has solved another mystery of this ringed planet.

Bhardwaj, who is also actively involved in the ISRO's ambitious Chandrayaan-I mission, told HindustanTimes.com: "These findings imply we could use giant planets like Saturn and Jupiter as remote-sensing tools. By reflecting solar activity back to us, these planets could help us monitor X-ray flaring on portions of the Sun facing away from the Earth's space satellites."
The studies by the team of NASA scientist led by Bhardwaj, which used the prestigious Chandra X-ray Observatory of the space agency, revealed that the ringed planet might act as a mirror reflecting explosive activity from the Sun.

The findings stem from the first observation of an X-ray flare reflected from Saturn's low latitudes, the region that correlates to Earth's equator and tropics.
Stating that the massive solar explosions -- called flares -- often accompany coronal mass ejections, which emit solar material and a magnetic field, he said: "when directed toward Earth, these ejections can wreak havoc on communications' systems from cell phones to satellites."
Bhardwaj said counting photons, particles that carry electromagnetic energy including X-rays, was critical to this discovery. Referring to another important finding of his, which was reported in March this year, he said Jupiter's 'X-ray glow' is due to X-rays from the Sun being reflected back off the planet's atmosphere.

"We found that Jupiter's day-to-day disk x-rays were synchronized with that of the Sun's emissions," he said. The bigger the planet and nearer to the Sun, the more solar photons it will intercept; resulting in more reflected X-rays, he added.

These results, he observed imply that "we could use giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn as remote-sensing tools. By reflecting solar activity back to us, they could help monitor X-ray flaring on portions of the Sun facing away from Earth's space satellites."
Commenting on Solar-flares (the most powerful explosion in the Solar system) he said its study was very important. "These can damage satellites or injure astronauts in space, and on Earth they can disrupt radio signals in the atmosphere, so it is important to understand as much as we can about them," he said.

Even as his research finings appeared to solve one mystery, about the source of Saturn's X-rays, Bhardwaj concede it has fueled the long-standing questions about magnetic fields.Of the three magnetic planets in solar system, Jupiter and Earth emit two general types of X-rays, auroral emissions from Polar Regions and disk emissions from low latitudes. Thus far, no research has observed unambiguous signatures of auroral X-ray emissions on this ringed planet. "

"We were surprised to find no clear evidence of auroral X-ray emissions during our observations. It is interesting to note that even as research solves some mysteries, it confirms there is much more we have to learn," he said.

Bhardwaj, who came to US on this prestigious fellowship, in January 2004, was at the Space Physics Laboratory of the ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, Trivendrum.
He did his B.Sc. (Hons) and M.Sc. in Physics from Lucknow University and the Ph.D. in Physics (Space and Planetary Science) from the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, before joining ISRO in 1993 as a senior research scientist.)