On March 13, 2013, India had to destroy its nuclear-ready cruise missile Nirbhay which was on its first flight trial. The reason: Nirbhay deviated from its intended course, sparking fears. The kind of damage and loss such incidents can cause in the absence of a self-destruct mechanism is grave. Yet India doesn’t completely posses the software and intellectual property for such technology.
As the Prime Minister’s Make-in-India campaign gains pitch in the defence sector, the DRDO has found a reliable partner in Kaynes Technology, a Mysuru firm.
A senior DRDO official said the company has developed an Electronic Safe Arm Fire Systems (ESAFS) ballistic missile actuator unit, which is being evaluated by DRDO’s missile teams for integration into various platforms.
Kaynes’ system consists of two processor cards and one communication/connector card that carries the commands, and facilitates relay control.
“Not only can the missile be self-destructed after launch, it also has a feature wherein it destroys itself upon recognizing unauthorized access,” the official explained. Apart from the self-destruction feature, the system also helps prevent tampering and is able to function in most conditions.
“It’s thermal, humidity, vibration and shock-compliant,” he added.
Kaynes vice-president (business development) Lt Col (retd) Sharath Bhatt said: “I can’t comment on the technology as it’s sensitive and DRDO is evaluating it. Only DRDO can speak about it.”
“What such technologies mean is that India will have its own intellectual property in critical areas and will not have to depend on other countries,” Bhatt added.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Business> India Business / by Chethan Kumar, TNN / March 02nd, 2015
Suttur seer Shivaratri Deshikendra Swami inaugurating the Raitha Mitra FarmersProducer Company Ltd. in Mysuru on Monday.— PHOTO: M.A. SRIRAM
Farmers in the State have turned entrepreneurial.
They have launched a start-up company to market their produce and provide agricultural inputs, including seeds and fertilizer, at less than market price. The Raitha Mitra Farmers Producer Company Ltd. took 8 months in the making and has 1,000 members from across the State.
Inspired by a similar endeavour of turmeric producers in Erode in Tamil Nadu and coconut cultivators in Kerala, the company was inaugurated by Suttur seer Shivaratri Deshikendra Swami on Tuesday.
The membership is open only to genuine land-holding farmers. Membership is restricted to one representative from each farmer family.
Besides proving agricultural implements at lower price, the company intends extend to loan at nominal interest, create warehouse facilities so that farmers can hold on to their produce instead of engaging in distress sale when the market slumps, said Kurubur Shanthakumar, chairman of the company.
Described as the first-of-its-kind initiative in the State, there are members from Belagavi, Vijayapura, Bagalkot, Karwar, Dharwad, Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, Haveri to name a few, he said.
“Each member farmer has to buy 50 company shares at the rate of Rs. 100 each and the capital will be used in part for financing some of its activities and profits shared in accordance with the share held by the members,” he added.
One of the main objectives is to help reduce cultivation cost by procuring agricultural inputs at cost price and selling it to the members at less than market price, which will add to the company’s profit while resulting in helping farmers save.
“The scourge of middlemen in agriculture will be eliminated to a large extent and the sale of spurious seeds and fertilizers will be scorched,” Mr. Shanthakumar said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Karnataka / by R. Krishna Kumar / Musuru – March 03rd, 2015
After a long career rat race that took him across the country and the globe, life has come full circle for Chandrakantha Rao, 53, of Inna Village near Padubidri, about 50km from here.
After being the director & president, Swiss Singapore Overseas Enterprises of Aditya Birla Group and managing operations in nine countries, he retired when he turned 50 and settled down at his Praakruti Fruit Farm – a modern model farm with a 1,250 sqft wood house.
He and his wife, Supriya, moved 14 times all over India in the first 24 years of his career and even all over the world in the last five years. And all the while, one question remained on top of his mind: Where to?
Rao said: “What you see around the fruit farm today is a result of my search for that question. It is a model farm getting developed just to show case possibilities in the fertile land of the coast. It started with a dream of putting our quiet village Inna on the map and to create a world class farm to show case possibilities.”
Rao, who completed his graduation from NIT-K with distinction in 1983, wanted to hang his boots when he turned 50. And he worked towards this end. “That was the plan. As soon as I felt independent I decided it to call a day. Once you decide, then you will work towards reasonable financial independence. I was quite clear that I wanted to retire at 50,” he said and added, “The company thinks I’m on sabbatical.”
He quit in 2012 and returned to his village where did his school.
The farm house – built of Green Teak and designed by his Thai friend Nattapoom Raksakul — was completed in 2011. The house is named “Su Kantha I” – derived from Su-priya and Chandra-Kantha) and `I’ from Inna.
Rao visited several progressive farms in Kochi, Karkala, Naravi, Hiriyadka, Belthangady, Puttur and Kundapur and designed the farm with the help of Amit Soans of West Coast Nursery at Uchila. His farm has an acre each for cultivation of mango, chikoo, rambutan, guava, mangosteen and coconut.
He said that an excellent farm cannot be complete without a farm house. A small team from Thailand (Kanchanpuri) guided a local team of 12 carpenters to complete this project in less than three months.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Mangaluru / by Stanley Pinto, TNN / March 02nd, 2015
Success story: Musthafa believes it was team work all the way that helped.
Musthafa P.C, a school dropout who went on to study at IIMB, quit his software job to start an enterprise that sold idly-dosa batter. His is a success story that has trickled down to his 600 –odd rural employees too
A young techie who could just about make himself daal, rice and papad in his bachelor days now runs a company with a 70 crore turnover that provides almost five lakh idlis a day to hungry Bengalureans. Most young working people in the city in a rush, simply fish out the now-famous “iD Fresh” readymade idly/dosa batter from their refrigerator for their quick breakfast fix.
While Bengaluru is where all this began for techie-turned-entrepreneur Musthafa P.C, his idlis and dosas find a place on the breakfast tables in households in Mysuru, Mangaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, and even Dubai! And it’s not limited to idlys and dosas anymore. Their oeuvre now includes parotas, chapattis and chutneys too, all made without chemicals and preservatives, Musthafa is quick to add.
It started in a small corner of the city’s Thippasandra locality where Musthafa’s cousins ran a grocery store. “This was eight years ago, and a local supplier would sell idly/dosa batter in an unbranded plain plastic bag tied up with a rubberband, on weekends. There was a great demand, but they couldn’t keep up the quality. That’s when I felt there was a gap in the market,” says the 42-year-old Musthafa, CEO of iD Fresh Food, one of the new-age food startups in the city.
And then, one can conclude, the Malayali business instinct kicked in!
The enterprising cousins set up a 50 square foot kitchen — “our so-called factory” laughs Musthafa, and started a trial in 10 stores in and around Indiranagar. “In a year’s time we were selling 100 packets of batter a day.” During that time, Musthafa had quit his plum job to study his MBA at the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B). “I did a proper survey and found that Bangalore then had a production requirement of 5,000 kg of batter a day.” The sales and the survey gave them the confidence to set up a 600 square foot kitchen in Kaggadasapura, where Musthafa pumped in six lakh from his savings. They were still using regular household grinders to make the batter. “I had a high-profile job in Dubai. I had worked with Motorola, Citibank, had lived in the U.K., and then later even worked with Intel. But I wanted to come back to India to pursue higher studies, spend time with my parents, and give something back to society,” says Musthafa of making the proverbial switch.
It is with this intent that Musthafa is very particular that they identify “smart guys from rural areas who are unemployed” and provide them opportunities in their company. Today they employ 650 such people from the eight regions they work in across India. “I come from a life of poverty in Wayanad (Kerala) where my dad was a coolie, and breakfast was a luxury. I was a school dropout after I failed my sixth standard. The teacher persuaded me to repeat the class and continue my studies.”
No one supported his decision to quit the IT industry; it was a job that had brought stability to the family, helped him build a home and marry off siblings. Even his wife’s family was upset that he was becoming a “rice merchant”.
But by 2008, his company had expanded into a proper factory in Hoskote, with the help of the Karnataka State Industrial Development Council (KSIDC). Custom-made grinders were brought in from America. “With Indian grinders, cleaning is the most difficult task. Moreover the small grinders would take an hour to grind a kilo of dal. So we had to import these large, modified grinders that self-sterilise at the touch of a button.” Musthafa swears the actual batter making process is “the same that your mom uses at home, starting with the soaking”. “We are only professional assistants to the homemaker. Our products will always be ready to cook, not ready to eat. So they don’t reach the dining table; they first go into the kitchen. If the idli is good, the homemaker gets the credit; if the idli turns out bad, iD takes the credit!” All the products, he says, are first tested on his children aged 12, nine, and five.
Business is of course growing phenomenally with venture capital (VC) firms wanting to invest in them; 60 companies evinced interest in pumping money; mostly American. Finally Helion Venture invested Rs. 35 crore in their expansion plans. “We are targeting expansion to 10 Middle-Eastern cities over the next five years. As well as expanding into north India, especially Delhi.” While initially a friend named it iD for “idly-dosa”, Musthafa says it now stands for their “identity”.
Every employee in the company is an entrepeneur like he is, believes Musthafa.
Musthafa makes it a point to stress on the fact that it has been team work all along the way; first his cousins came on board, then his engineering classmates and then family friends, to start the operation in various cities. “We don’t work on an employment basis; there is no fixed pay. Every employee is a micro-entrepreneur. For example, each area sales team is given a vehicle and “they have to maintain their own profit and loss account,” explains Musthafa. Whitefield, Jayanagar, Indiranagar and Koramangala is where they do their best business, he says. They have a SAP-based backend platform so that they have a zero inventory model – 90 per cent of the products are sold on the same day; a mobile app keeps track of sales patterns in each store.
Musthafa’s personal favourite from his company is the wheat parota. “We eat our idli and dosa once a week at home, then three days of wheat parota,” he breaks into a boyish grin.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Bhumika .K / February 26th, 2015
Ahalya Saraswathi Bhat J, a class nine student of Vittal Jaycees English Medium School, has developed a working model for preparing medicinal charcoals used in Ayurveda by slow pyrolysis using Masi Maker technology.
Speaking to Bangalore Mirror, she said medicinal charcoals known as Masi Kalpana in Ayurveda, is prepared by partial burning of medicinal herbs and has greater use in preparing medicinal oils, ointments and pastes. They exhibit wound-healing, anti-poison properties apart from working as adsorbents in clinical terms.
Ahalya developed a new working model named as “Masi Maker” using the principle of slow pyrolysis using stainless steel. Pyrolysis is a thermo-chemical decomposition of organic material at elevated temperatures in the absence of oxygen. It involves the simultaneous change of chemical composition and physical phase, and is irreversible. The working model “Masi Maker” consists of three chambers – the heating chamber for creating heat, charring chamber for charring medicinal herbs and the bio-oil outlet, to express any bio-oils produced.
Ahalya’s project that was demonstrated at the regional fair at Belagavi, secured the gold medal. The event was organised by the Science Society of India. At the national-level fair held at Chennai on January 10, 2015, the project secured the silver medal. Five students from the State have been selected to attend the International Environment & Sustainability Project Olympiad (INESPO) in the Netherlands from May 31 to June 4. Ahalya is the daughter of Dr Ganapathi Bhat Jeddu and Dr Manorama B Bhat who are both Ayurveda practitioners.
source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> News> State / by Deepthi Sanjiv, Bangalore Mirror Bureau / February 08th, 2015
Call it green revolution or a new building technique—Chidananda Rai of Puttur shows how to build a dream house which is cooler and at 40 per cent the cost of construction. He has introduced a brick that is not burnt or mined from the laterite plates of the coastal areas. In fact, the brick is produced from your neighbourhood mud. He calls it the mud brick.
Perching on a hillock in Bolwar on the outskirts of Puttur town, Rai’s brick plant has machinery that no conventional brick producer has.
There is no furnace or a big pile of firewood, but just a mechanical sieve, and a pounder which compresses the loose soil into a hard brick.
But will it take the pressure of weight as well as brave the rain and shine?
When asked, Rai explained: “Mud has an extraordinary quality when it is compressed with moisture. This is a simple technique: freshly dug mud is sieved and mixed with a compound of 10 per cent of cement and two chemical additives, directed into a mould and compressed under a 30 tonne pressure. And we have a brick that is as solid as a laterite stone and perhaps stronger than the burnt brick. The bricks will have to be cured under moist conditions for three days and they are ready for taking the load.”
This product can be termed a green housing technique unlike the conventional ones.
In the case of burnt brick, the makers use tonnes of firewood which denude forests and the burning of wood creates environmental pollution. The laterite stones that are generally used in construction in the coastal region are mined from the laterite blocks which leave large voids in the ground. Moreover, laterite stocks don’t last forever, Rai said.
Rai displayed a strength report issued by the National Institute of Technology Karnataka.
He said the certificate has mentioned that the mud brick had 16.8 psi (pressure point) load-bearing capacity which was as good as the laterite stones. People who have used mud bricks have told me that their houses were relatively cooler inside. The bricks have ridges that alleviate the need for using cement between the blocks.
They are placed on each other with the help of the ridges and to make them more stable a thin coat of cement grout is used.
Since there is no need of plastering it, the wall is ready for painting which saves nothing less than 40 per cent of the cost of construction. There is no need for sand too, he added.
He has found a market in Kodagu district where mud bricks are being used for constructing homestays and other buildings. This is because a load of sand costs nothing less than `25,000 against `7,000 per load in the coastal areas and in Mysuru, he said.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Karnataka / by M Raghuram / February 17th, 2015
The Hubballi branch of the Southern India Regional Council of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has been adjudged the best branch for 2014 at an all-India level for its outstanding services.
ICAI Hubballi chairman Hitesh Kumar Modi told reporters here on Sunday that this is the fourth time that the branch has been awarded. “The Hubballi branch achieved its objective of enhancing the value of the profession by organizing various professional programmes last year. An auditorium with a seating capacity for 450 was inaugurated on December 6, 2014, to facilitate various seminars and conferences of different organizations. A library and an information technology laboratory have been opened for students. Coaching classes for CA examinations are being conducted by the branch regularly.”
He said various workshops and seminars were also organized to help members stay up to date on the auditing of banks, cooperative societies, income tax, service tax and value added tax during the year. “Social programmes like blood donation camps, free distribution of books to students, women empowerment programmes and Swachh Bharat campaigns were often conducte.”
The city branch has won the ‘most active branch award’ and the ‘highly commanded performance certificate’ by the parent institute since 1993.
RR Joshi, chairman of Southern India CA Students Association, said the students wing of the Hubballi ICAI has been awarded with a Certificate of Appreciation-2014 at the national-level by ICAI, Delhi.
ICAI office bearers Nandaraj Khatavkar, YM Khatavkar, Prakash Kadur, G Shivakumar and others were present.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Hubballi / TNN / February 16th, 2015
Aerospace components manufacturer Aequs said it is sitting with an order book of $150 million over five year period and investment commitment of five more units at its SEZ facility in Belagavi.
Aequs chairman and chief executive Aravind Melligeri told Deccan Herald the company’s SEZ has 10 units operating. “We have 250 acres of land, of which 25 acres are for the SEZ. We have already made investment of $30 million to the facility,” said Melligeri.
Aequs established an aerospace industrial hub in 2009 at Belagavi. “We have developed 130,000 square metres of facility from the 65,000 square metres in the last two years. This year we are planning to add 120,000 square metres of property,” he said. The company has already developed 40 per cent of the SEZ land and 50 per cent of the land outside.
Aequs, which began its operations in 1997 as an engineering services company called QuEST Global Manufacturing based out of the US, entered into manufacturing of aerospace and defence components in 2006.
“We import 100 per cent of raw materials and 100 per cent of cutting materials. Even though we have a tie-up with HAL, we export 99 per cent of our products,” he said.
He said the company is into the automotive and oil and gas business. “These verticals help us in balancing the business cycle. Aerospace requires long gestation period in getting business returns. Oil and gas are short cycle, and auto medium cycle,” he said.
“Aerospace sector is a $80 billion-$100 billion industry globally and India is only touching at a few hundred million dollars right now,” said Melligeri.
Even though the high cost of capital, weak infrastructure and power support continue to be a challenge in India, the industry is gaining momentum with the growing skill sets of the country.
He said Aequs is the largest player in machining. “We can touch five per cent of the market in this segment. We are competing in a global scale and there is a cost advantage in India,” said Melligeri.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Business / by N.V. Vijayakumar, Bengaluru / DHNS – February 21st, 2015
The stall of organic agriculture tablets developed for the crops as a tonic by the Bengaluru based High Tech Agri Services is something innovative concept that pulling the farmers at the ‘Agrovision South’, South India’s largest agriculture and industry summit in Belagavi.
“Generally we use tablets on the doctors’ prescription when we fell sick or feel unhealthy. The same is the concept behind organic tablets,” said Nagaraj Hegde, founder of the High Tech Agri Services, speaking to the TOI.
Agriculture tablet is the formulation of growth tonic and booster, which helps plants to become more healthier and to get higher yield. These tablets can be applied directly in soil, through drip irrigation or even by foliar spray by diluting the tablet in water.
According to Hegde, organic tablets are very advantageous to plants to fight against biotic and abiotic stress. It increases the assimilation of nutrients and boost up growth besides build immunity against diseases. More advantages of tablets are these are safe to handle and no hassle of measurement.
Hegde told that company sells these tablets at various countries including Dubai, Thailand, Chilli, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia apart from India. Company also has products for the plants for disease management, insect management, soil conditioning and nutrition management.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Bengaluru / TNN / February 21st, 2015
Infosys mentor NR Narayana Murthy on Saturday highlighted the role of competition in corporate entrepreneurship in sparking enthusiasm.
At a panel discussion, titled ‘Scaling by Proving’, at Development Dialogue-2015 here on Saturday, Murthy said such competition will help the sector scale newer heights. “At Infosys, we have a clear policy of disseminating innovations.”
In a lighter vein, he let out a trade secret: that entrepreneurs claim to crave competition, but in private, detest any such practice.
Madhu Pandita Dasa, head of Akshaya Patra Foundation, pointed out that the organization currently has no competitor, but dissemination of knowledge and encouragement will help others join the sector of social entrepreneurship. “Being a non-profit set-up, we are ready to pass on our functioning model.” He said stakeholders in the sector aim at minimizing expenses rather than focusing on profits.
Jeffrey L Bradach, co-founder of The Bridgespan Group, said experimentation, innovation and working in sequence will lead to success. “Support from the information technology sector can give a boost to social entrepreneurship.”
Murthy explained that social entrepreneurs works in% areas where the market is not yet developed, while corporate entrepreneurs function where there is flow of capital. “But, there is a need to focus more %on efficiency and communication among social entrepreneurs as compared to corporate entrepreneurs.” The discussion also focused on career opportunities in social entrepreneurship.
Kasturi Rangan of Harvard Business School, USA, moderated the session.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Hubballi / TNN / February 08th, 2015
