Riding Bajaj Avenger Street 220 and Cruise 220

Tanmay Pangam took the two Avengers for a spin and is mighty impressed

The Bajaj Avenger has been the quintessential cruiser with a wide audience appeal. People who sought an alternative to Royal Enfield's lifestyle offerings either out of choice or lack of funding often veered towards the Avenger.

The Bajaj brand's assurance behind the motorcycle, it's classic small-capacity cruiser styling and easy-riding position were among the key reasons behind its success. Having said that, the looks of the Avenger hadn't changed much over the years. Seeing that they had to look rather jaded, Bajaj decided to give not one but two variants on the same engine platform. Christened the Cruise 220 & the Street 220, each of the variants is targeted at a specific segment of buyers.

We had the opportunity to spend some time with the two Avenger models & here are our first impressions:

Styling

The 220 Cruise is the old Avenger that'll carry on the quintessential cruiser torch proudly. Everywhere you look there's a healthy lashing of chrome. The paint on the tank is new, as are the emblems and the sticker job. The oil-cooler is encased in shiny chrome too, as is the horn -- toot toot! View it in profile and you see that things haven't changed much here and you still have all the strengths of the Avenger platform that have endeared it to buyers over the years.

The 220 Street on the other hand is Bajaj's take on an easy rider that is the ideal tool for the urban prowl. Gone are the heavy doses of chrome, the tall handlebar and its ilk. The entire motorcycle goes matte and there's very little in terms of shiny reflective surfaces here. Viewing it from the front, the only chrome bits remaining are the surrounds for the meter and the headlight, together with the top of the front suspension pipes. The rest is all finished in matte paint, with the under-body in flat black.

There's a flatter handlebar that transforms the riding position and feels just perfect for the cut and thrust conditions of the urban prowl. The wire wheels are traded for snazzy 12-spoke alloy wheels. The tank follows the matte paint language and looks rather fetching in black, with its contrast graphics. The exhaust is all new and sports a rounded look, appearing almost bulbous instead of the chopped-looking one earlier. This is again finished in flat black with satin silver accents, but the latter end up detracting somewhat from the premium look of the motorcycle.

We spent a brief time in the saddle of both Avenger variants. Mechanically speaking, there's not much change. The 220cc DTS-i motor continues as before, though the visual makeup has transformed the way it looks nested within the chassis. The only functional changes are the RE T-Bird inspired foot-pegs and the handle-bars in the two variants. Pull in the clutch on the 220 Cruise, thumb the starter, and the motor smartly comes to life, accompanied by a tell-tale needle sweep across the speedo.

Let out the light clutch and the 220 Cruise darts off the line. If you've ridden the previous-gen Avenger, then you'll feel right at home. It is the same, familiar riding position, the comfort from the well-cushioned street and the fact that your feet can touch the ground. The gearbox feels butter-smooth, with shifts, both up and down the ratios feeling quicker than ever. There's chrome everywhere you look and touch around you, which ought to bring a smile to the faces of the purists. The exhaust note does sound like it has changed, getting slightly gruffy as we briefly took her up the rev range.

Switching to the 220 Street and the difference is immediately apparent. The flatter handle-bar is the first trick. Also, the bike feels better planted riding out of the parking lot. As we headed out on the open road, the 220 Street feels sure-footed and the bike appears to be at ease in the urban cut and thrust routine. The switch to those 12 spoke alloy wheels didn't just up the oomph factor but they also seem to have improved the road behaviour. Braking behaviour too felt a mite better on the Street than the Cruise.

Weighing in

On the road, it was the 220 Street with its matte paint job and minimalist appearance that grabbed the eyeballs. The mini-Harley Street 750 styling creating the stir that Bajaj is expecting. In terms of the initial riding feel too, the 220 Street felt better than its Cruise sibling (the latter should keep the purists happy).

For now, Bajaj Auto must be commended for this move of theirs. They may have taken their own sweet time with the updates to their Cruiser line-up, and even this has no real mechanical changes. But coming out with two, visually distinct variants on the same platform, yet appealing to two markedly different sets of customer needs indeed deserves an applause. The buyers however are expected to offer the last hurrah and it shall be interesting to watch which of the siblings surges ahead.

DISCLAIMER: This isn't a complete review, just a few initial impressions of the Avenger range of bikes.

Shh! Here's why IITians won't reveal their salary figures this time

All those news reports you've been reading about plum placement offers to bright IITians of the country may not be authenticated as yet. Read on to know why!

The country's premier technical institute, the IITs have decided not to reveal any pay package figures from this placement season following complaints of peer and parental pressure on students.

"Disclosing salaries puts unnecessary pressure on students. It kickstarts peer pressure as well as parental and societal pressure. People forget that only very few of them actually get those fat pay packages of over a crore. The minimum and average salaries are much less," Prof Sudhirkumar Barai, chairman, Career Development Centre at IIT Kharagpur, told PTI.

A decision to this effect was taken recently at a meeting of All IITs Placement Committee (AIPC) in Guwahati. 

"We had this rule of non-disclosure earlier also but this time we took a conscious decision to implement it," Barai said.

The first phase of placements began at the IITs from yesterday.

So far the IITs used to reveal packages but kept identity of the students a secret.

"We have noticed that only the highest salary is discussed. But people forget that the average salary which an IITian gets is far less than the fattest one," Barai said.

Another issue lies with the employers as many of them have a confidentiality clause in their job contract which restricts them to publicly disclose their remuneration.

"Some multinationals will complain to us if we disclose the figures and breach the confidentiality clause," the placement in-charge of IIT-Kgp said.

In some cases, security and safety of the passouts and their families could be another cause of concern as they might even get kidnapped for a ransom, he feared. 

"All the figures from any IITs being discussed in the media this season is unauthenticated as none of the premier engineering institute can disclose figures," Barai said.

Recently an IIT-Kgp student had disclosed directly before the media that he bagged an annual package of Rs 2 crore from Google after finishing internship.

"We can't stop students from making any disclosures on their own," the IIT official said. 

There are 16 IITs in the country.  Altogether 177 students have already got pre-placement offers (PPOs) from different companies at IIT-Kgp.

Chennai turns into an island, thousands rendered homeless; more rains predicted

Chennai on Wednesday turned a virtual island and coastal areas of Tamil Nadu were marooned after unprecedented rains in 100 years pounded the city, its suburbs and neighbouring districts destroying road and rail links, shutting the airport and rendering thousands homeless.

Army personnel rescuing people during their flood relief operations in rain-hit areas in Chennai on Wednesday. Photograph: PTI

Late tonight, the Airport Authority of India announced that Chennai airport will remain shut till December 6 in the wake of the battering downpour and predictions of more rains in the next 72 hours.

Chennai, which received 49 cm of rain and Chembarambakkam, where the reservoir surplussed about 25,000 cusecs of water into Adyar river, received 47 cm of rains in the last 24 hours that flooded the city and the suburbs, uprooting people from their homes.

Vehicle moves on the watter lodged road during heavy rains in Chennai on Wednesday. Photograph: PTI

Flood waters reached upto the second floor of the Housing Board colonies on the banks of Adyar river as people reached roof-tops looking for rescue and relief in several parts of the city and suburbs.

The death toll in the rains that have lashed the city and other parts of state has gone up to 197, officials said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who spoke to Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa last night and promised all assistance, held discussions with his cabinet colleagues Rajnath Singh (Home), Arun Jaitley (Finance) and M Venkaiah Naidu (Parliamentary Affairs) in the morning to take stock of the situation.

People being rescued after heavy rains in Chennai on Wednesday. Photograph: PTI

The National Crisis Management Committee headed by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha reviewed the situation and assured the state of all support from the centre.

All modes of transport -- air, road and rail services -- remained suspended due to the unprecedented deluge, leaving thousands of passengers stranded at the airport and various rail terminals.  Suburban rail services also remained suspended.

Trains stand stranded at a railway station near flooded tracks after heavy rains in Chennai on Wednesday. Photograph: PTI 

Adding to the worry of the citizens and administration, the weatherman has forecast rainfall over the next three days with the next 48 being very critical under the influence of a trough of low pressure and upper air circulation over the southwest Bay of Bengal and Sri Lankan coast.

Thereafter, the state will see an anti-cyclone activity which will be associated with "heavy rains" at some places.

People wade through the thick waters. Photograph: PTI 

"The phenomenon will continue for the next seven days, but the next 48 hours are very crucial. Neighbouring states will also see rainfall activity," L S Rathore, Director General of Indian Meteorological Department told reporters in Delhi.

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Related News: Chennai, PTI, Director General of Indian Meteorological Department, National Crisis Management Committee, Arun Jaitley

Amazing story of an IITian who invented a $1 microscope!

Meet Manu Prakash, the IIT Kanpur alumnus who invented the microscope that costs less than a dollar, dreams of a world where everybody has the right to science.

In Africa, they term the problem 'The man with the key is missing.'

It's one of those aggravating situations when a community in a developing country has all kinds of fantastic scientific equipment donated to it, but can't access it when it needs it the most because the man in charge has locked it all up and gone home.

That's because the equipment would probably cost 15 times the annual salary of that guy.

"People are afraid of scientific tools, and that's the wrong model - you need to put research tools out in the field," says Manu Prakash, physicist and assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University.

Travelling through Thailand in 2011, Prakash and his colleagues came across a similar situation, where people in a remote village wanted to run a test for rabies but could not, though they had the equipment.

That was one of the inspirations for the 33-year-old Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur alumnus' remarkable invention: a diagnostic microscope that costs less than a dollar and which can be printed and folded from a single sheet of paper, like in origami.

Announced earlier this year, Foldscope has grabbed the attention of the scientific community around the world. Prakash was the recipient of a $100,000-grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation while it was being developed.

Prakash, who did his masters and doctorate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology after his computer science engineering degree from IIT, is on his way to his lab in Stanford when we catch up on the phone one morning.

He has opted for a phone call rather than a Skype call, where I had hoped to see the Foldscope because it was more convenient.

Fortunately, Prakash has given a TED talk where he explains how the Foldscope works, and it looks quite incredible - it can actually be folded out from a single sheet of paper, needs no external power, fits into your pocket, and can survive being dropped from a multi-storey building or being stamped on vigorously, as the researcher with a mop of unruly curls seems delighted to demonstrate. 

The current version of the Foldscope gives you a 2000x magnification with a sub-micron resolution. A bacteria is around one micron, so if you just want to see whether the bacteria is present or not, the instruments are good enough, he explains. Field trials are being run for diagnosing different diseases in various locations, such as malaria in Ghana.

Most diagnostic field trials take a long time but once the validation is done, distribution and use will be scaled up, he says. PrakashLab is also in talks with an organisation in south India. 

"Sikkim is another area of interest because malaria is a huge deal there, but progress is somewhat hampered by the fact that these field trials have not yet received a grant," he adds. 

The one area where Foldscopes use can be scaled up immediately, and which Prakash says he is very excited about, is in science education, which he feels is crucial because of its link with healthcare.

"If you are not excited about science or if you have never looked under a microscope to see what causes a disease, you are more likely to take up some other profession (than healthcare)," he says.

"The passion for science comes early on, so one of the things we are thinking about is how to get kids excited about scienc

Prakash's own passion for science was kindled when he was growing up in Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. The previous tenant of his half-farm, half-home had been a chemistry teacher who was ignominiously kicked out and his apparatus confiscated and stashed in the garage, which turned out to be a treasure trove for Prakash and his brother.

"We inherited a lab with almost 200 chemicals, and we did all kinds of things. It was fantastic," he says.

He and his friends also assembled a rabbit skeleton out of the bones of three rabbits procured from a butcher's shop.

When he tells you a rabbit has almost as many bones as a human being and that creating what was essentially a 3D jigsaw puzzle was amazing, you get a sense of that little boy's enthusiasm.

Though his interest was in basic science, he opted to study computer science for his undergraduate degree from IIT, which he admits was due to peer pressure.

"I did well and I learnt a lot but my heart was in physical things, in mechanics, so I spent a lot of time in other departments which was encouraged," he says. Nitin Saxena, Prakash's batchmate and now an assistant professor at their alma mater, remembers him as somebody who was always very active, especially in project-based studies, even though he was not one of the toppers.

"The general impression in the batch was that he was someone interested in learning new things, beyond what was in the curriculum," says Saxena. 

Prakash also developed his interest in science education while he was in IIT when he, along with some friends, started a programme called BRICS, short for Build Robots, Create Science.

The group travelled to schools around the country and conducted workshops in robotics.

He was the most dynamic person in that group and was a natural leader.

In the three years that he was involved with BRICS, he visited 40-50 schools for the workshops, says Amitabha Mukherjee, professor of computer science and engineering at IIT Kanpur and one of Prakash's mentors there. 

The philosophy behind his work and its driving force is something Prakash has termed frugal science.

"It's very important to me for science to be frugal because then it becomes scalable and everybody has the right to do science. Now, people think that if you do not have the resources, you cannot do good science, which is not true. And we are thinking about how we could change that," he says.

Mukherjee says this line of thought was evident in his days at IIT.

"Frugal science was also part of the Build Robots, Create Science philosophy. At that time Lego sets used to cost around Rs 16,000 in India and even posh schools were hesitant to buy them; so we started looking at low-cost options, such as building robots from junk. We called that junk science." 

While the Foldscope is not yet available commercially, Prakash says the lab will soon be shipping 10,000 instruments to various corners of the globe.

Called the Ten Thousand Microscope initiative, the lab had invited people to propose an experiment using a microscope, the results of which they would document and upload to a common website.

They got responses from over 130 countries, including some from children too young to type the emails themselves. The beauty of it is that an examination done by a kid in Kenya, for example, could be repeated by someone in Hyderabad.

And it highlights the idea of context, because the types of problems proposed by people from India and Nepal were very different from, say, someone in California. 

The experiments include one from a young girl who wanted to know why we need to wash contact lenses every time, and who plans to see what grows on the lenses when you don't clean them for a day, two days, three days, and so on.

Another proposal came from a farmer in Mongolia, who wanted to detect pathogens in camel milk. PrakashLab was awarded $757,000 by the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation (Moore is a co-founder of Intel) to manufacture 10,000 Foldscopes

"We will do a commercial spin-off right after that, geared towards large-scale deployment, because we already have requests from all over the world," he says. 

Prakash says his dream is for every single child to have a Foldscope in his or her pocket, 30 years from now.

"I don't know what that world would be like. But people would be able to see the world from the components it's made of. And that's the dream we're working towards."

How an IITian is helping villagers to produce electricity

Yogeshwar Kumar is helping villagers build and operate their own micro-hydro-power plants.

They say it takes tiny drops of water to eventually fill an ocean.

At a time when the world is questioning the construction of mega dams in the earthquake-prone and ecologically sensitive Himalayas, Yogeshwar Kumar's micro-hydro projects have the potential to do exactly that.

In the last three decades, Kumar, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, has engaged with rural communities to build over 15 micro-hydro plants. 

Constructed by villagers-turned-barefoot-engineers, these projects are also operated and maintained by them.

"Every mountain stream flowing down a gradient is capable of producing some power - and every village community has it in its hands to tap it. In my estimate, every third village in the Himalayas can harness nearby streams and waterfalls to become self-sufficient in power," says Kumar.

Inspiring as the idea may be, it is certainly not new.

The first mini hydroelectric project in India commenced back in 1897 in Darjeeling.

But what sets Kumar's initiative apart is his emphasis on community involvement and the use of electricity to power rural livelihood projects.

"The idea is to enable rural communities to become self-sufficient," he says. 

"Although it was hard at the outset to train the villagers, who are mostly illiterate, in power generation, the results have been great," says Kumar.

Today, all the plants he has set up in places as diverse as Kargil (Ladakh), Agunda and Budha Kedarnath (Uttarakhand) and Kalahandi (Orissa) are being maintained by locals.

Some of these grassroots engineers are now training other villagers.

So much so that when last year's cloudburst in Uttarakhand damaged the Agunda project, the villagers ingeniously restored power temporarily by connecting the plant to a newly created waterfall. 

In the fortnight that followed, when the state grid remained switched off, villagers would trek 20 km to Agunda to recharge their mobile phones.

The power generated doesn't only light up bulbs in rural homes, but can also be used to set up myriad small-scale industries such as weaving, spinning, cold storages, milling of grains and bakeries - especially as the electricity generated is not always used to its fullest capacity.

Near Phata in Uttarakhand, I visit a multi-use watermill (which generates power in addition to grinding grain) under construction in Rampur village.

Kumar is building this in collaboration with HelpAge India. Dayal Singh and six others have partnered in its construction.

"I used to have a traditional water wheel here, but it was very slow. With this new mill, we'll be able to extract oil and grind masalas and foodgrain more efficiently," says Singh. 

With the electricity generated, Singh plans to set up a reverse osmosis plant and sell purified water.

Plans are also afoot to start a bakery unit. In Phata, where Kumar and HelpAge India trained local women to make felt rugs, the response has been great.

"People here keep sheep but throw away the wool. By putting it through an electric carding machine, it can be felted into beautiful and saleable rugs," says Kumar.

He feels that micro hydro power can be a significant contributor to the main grid and cites the example of Germany, where individuals generate electricity and sell the surplus to the grid.

"Some youngsters in Genwali (Uttarakhand), where we set up a project some years ago, even want to supply power to neighbouring villages," he says. "The potential is enormous."

If these projects have been so successful, why hasn't he built more, I wonder. "It's the lack of funds," says he.

At the very minimum, the cost of setting up a micro hydro project is about Rs 1 lakh per kilowatt.

To be of any significant use, the plant should have an output of at least 50 Kw. "We raise some capital and villagers contribute the rest, around 40 per cent, by way of labour," he adds. Getting collaborators isn't easy either.

Thus far agencies like United Nations Development Programme, Defence Research and Development Organisation, Swiss Development Corporation, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Centre for Environment Education, and, most recently, HelpAge India have pitched in. 

After last year's cloudburst, the Agunda plant requires expensive repairs.

"My NGO, Jansamarth, had dreamed of making Agunda a zero-carbon village independent of the main grid," says Kumar.

"The floods were a grave setback." Kumar is preparing to leave for Agunda again to oversee the repair of the damaged plant. 

He says, "Hopefully, someday policy-makers will understand the significance of gently harnessing the power of water as we do, without disturbing the hill ecology or the course of the river."

His efforts towards restoring power to the people are as yet small, but have the potential to revolutionise rural lives. As he says, "To me, electricity isn't only for lighting; it's the beginning of development of the rural world."  

IM grad Shuvajit Payne gave up a cushy job to work in rural India

India is witnessing a radical transformation where highly qualified youngsters are giving up cushy jobs to make a difference in the lives of poor people in rural areas.

Manu A B/Rediff.com tracks the success stories of some of the remarkable people who are working in remote villages to change the profile of rural India.

Lighting up lives in rural India

• A young man's crusade to light up a remote village in Odisha
  
• Nupur Ghuliani gave up a lucrative career to work in rural India

• Shalini Krishnan quit a high-paying job to teach tribal students

• How 2 young engineers transformed a Bihar village

• Vandana Maurya quit a good job to work in remote villages

• Pratibha Krishnaiah gave up a high-paying job to work in a Uttarakhand village

• A young engineer from BITS is helping farmers in remote villages of MP

• Mumbai to Kolli Hills: Anirudh Prasadh changes the fortune of poor farmers

• From Illinois to Jawhar: Shriya helps tribal women make a living
  

“I dream of rural India where every village will become a self-sufficient entity, every village will have inspiring teachers and are developed in terms of social happiness," says Shuvajit Payne, narrating his life changing experience of working in rural India.

Image: Shuvajit Payne with a villager. 

 

He had a dream job with IBM in London, owned high-tech gadgets, went on foreign trips and had all the luxuries a 27-year-old could possibly imagine.

But after working for four years, Shuvajit Payne decided that this was not what he wanted to live for. He wanted to do something meaningful in life rather than making a multinational company richer!

Though Shuvajit did not have a concrete plan in mind, he was confident of making a difference in the lives of the people in rural India.

Shuvajit Payne graduated in economics from the Presidency College, Kolkata. He then did MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow in finance and marketing and went abroad like many of his peers.

“It was a tough decision to quit the job and leave London. But I was convinced that I should not be wasting my time in the corporate world. I always felt I was born to do good, work for a larger cause,” says Shuvajit.

Image: Waifad village where Shuvajit Payne started work. 

 

Bracing stiff resistance from parents, society and of course friends, Shuvajit moved ahead in his pursuit to build a better India. “My parents were worried how I could live without a stable income and that too in remote villages without any basic facilities. I could not convince them initially. When everyone questioned me, I did not have concrete answers,” says Shuvajit.

He knew he had to work in rural India, helping thousands of people who are talented but can’t join the mainstream due to lack of training and proper resources. Fortunately, a friend suggested that State Bank of India’s Youth for India program would be an ideal platform to take the plunge.

Supported by SBI, the 13-month long programme gives an opportunity to youngsters to work on rural development projects with experienced non-government organisations. They are provided with a stipend and connected with NGOs to work towards building solutions to help people, who don’t even have access to basic facilities.

Presently, 54 fellows are working on a number of projects at 35 villages in 10 states – Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharastra, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Orissa, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.  SBI Fellows can either choose to work on an existing project of a partner NGO or start a new project.

Image: Shuvajit Payne at his modest room in the village. 

 

The fellowship was the right platform and an eye opener for Shuvajit. After the basic training, he was posted to a village called Waifad in Wardha district of Maharashtra.

“My first day at the village was scary. It was a drastic change of lifestyle for me. There was no proper accommodation… I thought I would go back to Wardha and stay there till some arrangement was made but I was told that it was not easy to get a place to stay on a rental basis so soon. But the saving grace was a computer centre that was set up in a broken haveli. I was allowed to stay at this centre. So all I had with me was a bag, a laptop and a chatai (mat). There were so many infrastructural issues in the village, worst being power cuts and no Internet connection at times, which meant I was cut off from the outside world. But despite the initial teething problems, I got adjusted to the new life within a month and I enjoyed every moment of it,” Shuvajit recollects heartily.

Living at the computer centre turned out to be a big advantage for Shuvajit. It was a place frequented by villagers so it helped him build a rapport with them instantly. Though initially they laughed at him and were reluctant to talk and share their woes, the ice melted very soon.

Image: Shuvajit Payne teaches students in the village. 

 

Since the Vidarbha region was prone to farmer suicides, people wanted to move out of villages in search of greener pastures. The worst part in these villages was the bad quality of education and lack of facilities to hone their skills.

“No one wants to become a farmer. The young generation wants to flee from the villages. But this is not a bad move. Agriculture in India requires huge investment. If  2 or 3 children from a family get better jobs, they can plough their income back to farming. So it is very important that they find good jobs,” explains Suvajit.

Shuvajit started off by teaching English to children in the village. He found that there were many students who knew the subjects but language was a huge barrier. He trained about 300 students in interesting ways. Around 50 of them emerged successful after the training.

Image: Dildar Khan Pathan (centre) with Dr S P Untawale, Assistant Prof. S U Balvir, Prof. Bhujade, Prof. Satpute (L to R).
. 

 

Shuvajit spent a lot of time teaching English, computer skills, building confidence and offering career counseling. Among these students, Dildar Khan Pathan’s case is worth mentioning.

“Pathan was very enthusiastic about learning but was struggling with scarce resources. Seeing his eagerness to code, I suggested that he build an app that could be a shared platform for educational material. The application idea was recognised at the India-wide Aakash Software Development competition, organised by IIT Bombay in 2013. It’s such a great feeling to see that he is today a software developer.”

Image: Rasika, one of Shuvajit’s students. 

 

Shuvajit also worked with NGOs for setting up vocational training centres for villagers, where they are trained in activities like carpentry, mobile phone repair etc.

Another success story came from a young girl named Rasika. Despite no support from parents who kept dumping household chores on her and asked her to quit studies, Rasika was determined to study hard and come out victorious.

“One evening during a power cut, she even dared to come to my place as she needed help for her exams. I could see so much determination and perseverance in her. She went to the extent of risking her life to study. It did pay off well. She is today an animator and works with the MS Swaminathan Foundation,” says Shuvajit who still keeps in touch with over 50 students he had trained during his first year of the SBI fellowship.

Shuvajit initiated publication of a local career information book to assist students. He also helped in starting community polytechnic courses in Waifad village resource centre.

Image: Shuvajit Payne with his students. 

 

After the fellowship, he worked as the programme director, Monitoring & Evaluation, Reliance Foundation (Information Services) in the core strategic team that implemented a project to empower the rural masses with critical livelihood-related information. “Incidentally, I continued to work in the same locations as in the fellowship. Although this was an India-wide project, brief visits to the locations resulted in continuing relationships with the people in those villages, he says.

Development is not just about building bridges, flyovers and other facilities. Optimal utilisation of resources will be the key to success, he feels. “There are schools in villages but no teachers. If there are teachers, then they don’t come to work. Instead of doling out freebies, the government should make people accountable for work,” he says.

Shuvajit was called back to the SBI Youth for India to work as its program manager, broadening his scope to work on rural projects.

According to Shuvajit, beside the problems of poverty, a big drawback is that these communities are largely disconnected from the mainstream.

Image: Road to the Waifad village. 

 

“In the villages from the time that I was there and 3 years later, telecom connectivity has increased in leaps and bounds, and smartphone penetration has substantially increased. Information is more accessible, removing unnecessary middlemen and agents, bringing transparency, making civic life easier and leading to larger participation of these communities in governance, thus increasing chances of a more inclusive growth. There are risks - translation of information, capacity building in the area of handling secure information - but largely I foresee a sea change in the rural lifestyle in the coming years, much like how urban lifestyle has changed in India in the last two decades. Education and access to healthcare will see the major impact of this improvement in connectivity, he explains.

But Shuvajit feels on the livelihood side, the picture is grim.

“The big blocker is the high pressure of population on land and the dependency of agriculture on rain makes it a gamble. Now, with labour intensive techniques, only a limited amount of productivity is possible. Technology investment is required to bring in alternate irrigation methods. So, unless the pressure of population on the land reduces, there won’t be much scope of a remarkable rise in productivity. For this, people need to move out to other sectors, make money and plough it back to technological investments on the farms to gradually make them profitable. This has already started happening, but given that 'others jobs' are mostly in cities, it will take years to accommodate a significant chunk of the population in other sectors. So I don't see much improvement in livelihoods happening in the coming two decades. One way out, is to increase jobs in other sectors in a decentralised manner.”

Currently, as program manager of SBI Youth for India, Shuvajit ensures the fellowship program runs smoothly. He works with the SBI Fellows, trying to take his life changing experience to a larger group.

Image: Shuvajit Payne with the family of one of his students. 

 

The first batch of SBI’s Youth for India program had 27 people. The second year saw the number double to 54. This year, the project will be scaled up to add 100 fellows.

“Though more people take up projects, some are forced to drop out due to parental pressure. Parents feel that it’s not safe to let their children work in such remote areas. Financial security is another aspect that worries people who would like to take up fellowships. But earning money does not necessarily give one the happiness and satisfaction that one gets from helping people,” Shuvajit points out.

He takes immense pride in his new role. His parents who questioned his move, are now happy with his work and achievements over the last 4 years.

Image: Shuvajit plans to make education creative and interesting in rural areas.

 

Shuvajit has big ambitions of building up the education infrastructure in rural areas. After his stint at SBI, he plans to work on making education easily accessible across remote villages. He plans to make learning a creative and interesting process thereby attracting more students.

“In the education sector, there has been tremendous initiative in the area of localised curriculum building. With rising Internet connectivity, making education accessible to larger audience has also become much easier. The government has opened schools in almost all villages but the teachers don't inspire students. To move from forced rote learning to real learning, there needs to be a human interface who would motivate students. My effort will be to bring inspiring teachers back into the system,” he says confidently.

Overwhelmed by the affection of villagers, Shuvajit says,“I really love the person I have become. The warmth and love that you get from the villagers is a prized possession. These four years have been a life changing experience for me. I hope many youngsters come forward and sincerely join this mission to make a big difference in the lives of thousands of villagers. The happiness, satisfaction and sense of achievement, this job gives is irreplaceable, explains Shuvajit as he continues to live his dream of building a better India.

A successful entrepreneur who has invested in 20 start-ups

Image: Serial entrepreneur Sashi Reddi. Photograph, courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

 

 

After selling AppLabs, an independent software testing company with 2,500 professionals, to Computer Sciences Corporation in September 2011 for Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion), giving 10 times return on investments to Series-A investors such as Westbridge and Sequoia Capital India, Sashi Reddi returned to his original passion - investing in start-ups. 

A serial entrepreneur, Reddi had started three other companies prior to AppLabs: web content management firm EZPower Systems, which was acquired by DocuCorp and eventually became a part of Oracle; group purchasing dotcom iCoop; and game developing company FXLabs, which was acquired by Foundation 9 Entertainment. 

The founder and managing partner of SRI Capital, a Hyderabad-based seed-stage venture capital fund with an initial corpus of Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion), Reddi has in his portfolio start-ups such as Glassbeam (machine log analytics for technology support), ThinCI (graphics chip design firm), Identropy (identity management services firm), Edutor (tablet-based e-learning player), iMomentous (mobile-based talent engagement platform), Hello Curry (quick service restaurant chain), YuppTV (live Internet TV channel streaming platform), GIBSS (green energy leader), and NumberMall (hyperlocal marketing). 

In Edutor and GIBSS, SRI Capital was the first institutional investor and Reddi is on the board of the two companies. Both firms have successfully raised a Series-A round within two years of SRI's investment. 

"The opportunity in India currently is in the consumer space as start-ups try to build Indian versions of Uber (Ola), Open Table (Zomato), etc. This will be an exciting area to watch over the next five years as some of these Indian players win or lose against their global counterparts," says the technocrat, who is also a member of the investment team at Gabriel Investments. 

"In the US, I focus on enterprise SaaS (software as a service) opportunities since the consumer story has now played out with a lot of very well-funded start-ups in every large category. There is a shortage of capital in the enterprise tech space so it is where I can play a role." 

Known for his business acumen, gentle manners and an unflappable style of functioning, Reddi has so far made 10 investments in the US in his personal capacity, while his SRI Capital has made an equal number of investments in India, which translates into one new investment per quarter. 

"We invested in Applabs, a company founded and managed by Sashi. I served on the board of the company for more than five years. Sashi is a rare combination of being an outstanding businessman and a fine gentleman. We prospered significantly having invested in the company and made fantastic returns. In the past 10 years, we as a group invested in 75-odd companies and I would rate Sashi as one of the top five entrepreneurs we backed. In my five years of being on his board, I never saw him ruffled or agitated. He build a great business that was valued nicely by a global major and all that without much ado," said Sandeep Singhal, founder and managing director of Westbridge Capital. 

The latest investment of SRI Capital is Hyderabad-based NumberMall, which started out as a phone recharge business but is now evolving to using that customer data to provide hyperlocal offers to customers from nearby merchants.

SRI had invested Rs 5 crore (Rs 50 million) in this start-up in January 2015, and Reddi joined the board of NumberMall. 

In this risky world of angel investing, where investors look to exit firms at the earliest, Reddi has not made any major cash exits from his portfolio companies as yet. 

Except for some minor exits such as KonciergeMD, which was acquired by Accolade (both Philadelphia-based healthcare companies), and Shopo (co-invested with Sequoia India), an Indian designer and handcrafted products marketplace, which was acquired by Snapdeal in 2013. 

"The average age of my investments are only two years with only a few being three years. The expectation is that in the next 12 months, we should see two to three exits in the portfolio. In the normal course, barring some exceptions, successful start-ups will move on to raise more funding and grow - just as we saw with Edutor and GIBSS. I am expecting another two-three of my start-ups to raise the next round of funding, like Hello Curry and NumberMall. Most start-ups that exit would be those where there is little upside for investors. Only in a few exceptions will an exit be due to the phenomenal success of a start-up," says Reddi. 

Reddi, who received his BTech in computer science from IIT-Delhi, an MS in computer science from New YorkUniversity, and later a PhD from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, serves on the advisory board of Wharton Entrepreneurship and the board of Ben Franklin Technology Partners. 

FACT BOX

Professional graph: Serial entrepreneur; founded four companies EZPower Systems, iCoop, FXLabs, and AppLabs 

Investment interests: Floated SRI Capital in 2012 and has so far invested in 20 start-ups both in his personal capacity and through SRI Capital 

Major investments: Rs 3 crore in quick service restaurant chain Hello Curry in March 2014, Rs 16 crore in Internet TV provider YuppTV for 10% stake in April 2014, and Rs 5 crore in NumberMall for minority stake in January 2015