How to invent and patent? - Success story of serial inventor Arvind Thiagarajan

PodUniversal Edition 118

Arvind Thiagarajan

Former Indian President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam always says that for sustained economic growth, only innovation and technology can help.  Though, India has been doing an excellent job in the software domain, the Indian professionals are being used only as 'workers' by the Multinational companies.  Unless, Indian professionals come out with hardware and software products, economic growth of India cannot be sustained.

Inspired by Dr Abdul Kalam's words, Arvind Thiagarajan (30), started working on inventions right from his Engineering College days.  When he was studying in Anna University, he was fortunate to meet and interact with Dr Kalam, who was working as a Professor with Anna University  in early 2000, before he became the President of India.  Dr Kalam advised him to innovate and also patent all his inventions.

Today Arvind has got more than 40 patents in his name covering various important domains like bio technology, imaging, etc. .  Recently, he also introduced one device HDfonoDoc, which can detect the murmur in the heart within 10 seconds and give a print out of the sound waves.  This is the first of its kind in the world and will revolutionalise the health care industry in the diagnosis of cardiac problems. He has also obtained approvals from FDA and CE. He is also planning to add and more hardware and software products and dedicate to India.  For him the hobby is 'innovation'. 

This week, we met him and recorded his podcast interview for PodUniversal.  In this podcast, he has explained the interesting success story.  He has also assured to help young inventors with the guidance for patenting.  He can be reached at arvind.thiagy@gmail.com  for any guidance on innovation and patenting.

Please listen to his interview by clicking 'play' button.  (9 m 50 sec).  In this podcast, we have also added a 40 seconds audio clip of Dr Abdul Kalam, giving his views on innovation.

This podcast may also be listened from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UatSAr1YeeA

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Inspiring story of high flying Capt. Bavicca Bharathi, the youngest commercial pilot and commander

PodUniversal Edition 102

Capt. Bavicca Bharathi (21) is the world's youngest commercial licensed pilot and commander. When she was 16 and studying her plus two, she had high ambitions of becoming a medical doctor.  She heard about the 'flying' opportunities from her family friend.  After completion of her plus two, she joined the flying training.  At the age of 18, she got the license to fly.  Now at her 21st age, she has more than 2100 flying hours at her credit. She has now become the youngest commercial pilot and transport pilot and commander.  She holds three records in Limca records book. Within few  years, she will also become the Management Pilot, after completing the required flying hours. 

Bavicca is presently piloting the   flights to many of the stations like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Coimbatore, etc. from Chennai. 

When she wanted to become pilot, her mother (40) (left in the photo) Ms Judith Jeslin Bharathi also joined her daughter Bavicca Bharathi (right in the photo)  in the training.  Both underwent flying training together.  After getting the license, both are working in the same airline company. 

Every aircraft is piloted by two licensed pilots.  The second pilot is known as co-pilot.  Shortly, Bavicca will be handling the flight as the main pilot.  Her mother has the greatest desire to be the co-pilot, when her daughter is the main pilot.

Capt. Bavicca Bharathi is a multi talented person.  She has passed with high grades  from Trinity School of Music.  She is talented in painting, music and dance and has won several awards.

It is quite interesting to know about their surname 'Bharathi'.  Their grand father Mr P Thomas is a great fan and admirer of Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathi, a national Tamizh poet who lived a century back.  Mahakavi Bharathi was known for his inspiring poems with modern thoughts.  His poems were banned during British Rule.  A century back, Mahakavi Bharathi visualised the role of 'new generation women'.  He wanted the women to go for higher studies, be the rulers to make law of the land.  He even wanted the new generation women to take up the professions, dominated by men.  Mr Thomas made 'Bharathi' as surname to all the family members, probably to remind everyone about the dreams of the great poet.

Bavicca Bharathi, hailing from the family of admireres of Mahakavi Bharathi, has proved his dream  of 'new generation woman'.

Please listen to the inspiring interview with Capt. Bavicca Bharathi and her mother Capt. Judith Jeslin Bharathi. Please click play to listen to the interview.  (12 minutes).  The audio streaming will be smooth in broadband connections.  If you encounter any problem, you may download the audio, by right clicking the link and saving to your desktop.

The podcast interview may also be listened from

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US City Birmingham honours S S Rajsekar with the 'city key'.

Mr S.S. Rajsekar, son of former Union Minister C. Subramaniam was gifted a key to the City of Birmingham, Alabama by Mayor William Bell.  Mr Rajsekar has continued tirelessly to carry the torch of the National Agro Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Mr  Subramanain. Mr Rajsekar has travelled far and wide to spread the message of this organization and during his travels developed a penchant for the City of Birmingham. Mr Rajsekar has encouraged Indian businesses and businessmen to visit the City of Birmingham as he believes that it is fertile ground for them to consider the city as venue for their US ventures.

Mayor William Bell who was involved along with Mr Rajsekar in the hosting of  President Abdul Kalams visit to Birmingham last year, thanked Mr Rajsekar for all his efforts on behalf of the city. In recognition of this he was honored by being presented with the key to the City of Birmingham. Mayor Bell has been a tireless economic developer of the City that he now leads and has strongly believed that it was important that his City develop strong economic and cultural ties with the rest of the world particularly India.

Mr Rajsekar is one of the patrons of Action 2020 team of India Vision Group.  

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Dr Abdul Kalam inaugurates various facilities at Thonugal village, under PURA

Former President APJ.Abdul Kalam launching various facilities at Thonugal in Virudhunagar district on 19th May 2010.

Kalam inaugurates various facilities at village

http://www.thehindu.com/2010/05/20/stories/2010052060050300.htm

MADURAI: Former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, on Wednesday, inaugurated a tele-medicine facility, mobile dialysis unit, and a reverse osmosis plant for a school at Thonugal near Aruppukottai in Virudhunagar district.

The facilities had been provided under the Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) scheme by Meenakshi Mission Hospital and Research Centre in association with Mahasemam Trust, Smile Limited and I-Grandee.

Addressing the public, Dr. Kalam stressed that the development of the nation was through providing all urban amenities in rural areas. The project was aimed at providing physical, electronic and knowledge connectivity for economic development of rural people.

Dr. Kalam appreciated the efforts of his senior advisor, V. Ponraj, who gave part of his house at Thonugal for the tele-medicine centre. “It is only here that I see a tele-medicine centre involving various agencies,” he said.

The former President urged the youth to make most of the available time to improve their standard of life and the benefit of the society at large. Dr. Kalam gave 10 commandments to the students — make literate at least five unlettered people during their vacation; plant at least five saplings and take efforts to see them grow into trees; do not show any discrimination in the name of caste, religion and language and to rehabilitate at least five alcoholics, among others.

Among those who addressed the meeting were Mr. Ponraj, Virudhunagar Collector Sigy Thomas Vaidhyan, vice-chairman of Meenakshi Mission Hospital and Research Centre S. Gurushankar, Governor of Lions Club International District 323 B3 T. Veluchamy and actor Vivek.

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S S Ramasubbu, a top performer in 15th Lok Sabha (as at March 2010)

Top performance of MPs

Recently PRS India, a legislature research body released the performance of all the MPs of 15th Lok Sabha.  We have uploaded the data in the following link  They have updated the information till 16th March 2010.

http://www.prpoint.com/loksabha/15thloksabha-performance0310.xls 

The performance of MPs in Lok Sabha is adjudged by their (a) participation in debates, (b) by their introducing private member bills and (c) the number of questions raised.   Attendance is also another parameter to know how the MPs perform in the Lok Sabha.  

With these parameters, Mr Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, a BJP MP from Chandrapur (Maharashtra) stood first in the over all.  His total tally of debates, private bills and questions come to 293 in all the sessions upto 16th March 2010.  We will be carrying an exclusive interview with him in another posting.

Mr S S Ramasubbu MP

Mr S S Ramasubbu, (age 60) a Congress MP from Tirunelveli has captured 8th position in the 15th Lok Sabha.  His total tally of debates, private bills and questions come to 244.  He has attended 97% of the sessions.   He hails from a respected freedom fighter family of that area.  He is a post graduate with a banking deiploma. After serving a commercial bank, he jumped into politics to serve the society.  He has also been a member of Tamilnadu Legislative Assembly for two terms.

Mr Ramasubbu was elected to 15th Lok Sabha in 2009.  He has entered the Lok Sabha for the first time. Even within one year, he has shown his legislative performance by securing the 8th position in the Lok Sabha and the first position in Tamilnadu.  

He also maintains his personal website www.nellaimp.com and anybody can register their complaints through this site.  He has a team of assistants, who process the grievances immediately and take the necessary action. He is one of the easily accessible MPs in our country.  Any common man can reach him without any difficulty.

Exclusive interview with Mr Ramasubbu

We spoke to him today morning over his mobile.  After he was elected to the Lok Sabha, he met Dr Abdul Kalam and sought his blessings.  Dr Kalam advised him to focus on four areas viz (a) reducing illiteracy in his area. (b) reducing infant mortality, (c) increase the per capita income of the people of his constituency and (d)  and improve the water bodies. Mr Ramasubbu has taken this advice as the 'mantra' and has started working in this direction systematically. He has visited many villages and studied their issues, keeping the 4 mantra in his mind. 

He has passion for developing primary and secondary education.  He has so far visited 110 schools and interacted with the children and motivated them. 

Aiming high 

Being the first time MP, he may not get more chances in the Lok Sabha for speaking.  However, he said, that he would secure the No 1 position in the future sessions of 15th Lok Sabha.  

I think Mr Hansraj BJP MP should gear up further to meet the challenge of Mr Ramasubbu Congress MP to retain the No 1 position. 

India Vision Group congratulates the top performers of 15th Lok Sabha and happy that a 'healthy competition' is heating up among the parliamentarians.

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Education Loan Task Force (ELTF) launched at Chennai

India Vision online group and Action 2020 Team have been getting frequent requests from many  meritorious poor students appealing for funds, as they could not get any bank loans for higher education.  All along, partner groups of Action 2020 team have been supporting few of them, collecting funds from the members.  On further examination, Action 2020 team found that all these students hailed from very poor families and the banks did not respect them properly for their demands.

Corporate ezine PR-e-Sense Jan 2010 issue carried the model scheme from IBA for education loans, along with the interview from RBI Deputy Governor.  The core team of Action 2020 team decided to form an "Education Loan Task Force (ELTF)" to take up such cases where highly deserving poor students were harassed.  In the Feb 2010 alone, the Task Force took up 5 genuine cases with the different banks and all the problems were resolved within two days.

This encouraged Core Team to make the ELTF formal and wanted to train volunteers of Action 2020 Team to spread the awareness across the State. The first ELTF meeting was held at Thakkar Bapa Vidayalaya, Chennai (Mahatma Gandhi stayed in this campus and he inaugurated this Vidyalaya in 1945).  

Around 40 volunteers from the partner groups participated in this meeting.  Senior level officials from State Bank of India, Indian Bank, Canara Bank and Inian Overseas Bank participated in this ELTF Meeting.  Many eminent personalities of the City like Mr Desikan (Founder, Consumers Association of India), Mr Maalan (Well known journalist and Editor), Mr Rajasekar (Mg. Trustee, National Agro Foundation), Dr Santhosh Babu IAS (Mg. Director, ELCOT and Director, E-Governance of TN Govt.) and many senior journalists participated.  Com. T K Rangarajan MP sent his representative to observe the proceedings and to brief him back.

The interaction between the volunteers and the Banks were really fruitful in a cordial atmosphere and enable to understand each others problems.

Some of the problems faced by the students from banks:

• Students are asked to go to pillar to post by the Branch officials and they are not given proper response;
• Demanding of collateral security / guarantee even for smaller amount;
• Insisting on payment of interest every month, before completing the studies;
• Branch officials not aware of education loan procedures and giving scant respect to the students with poor background, etc.

Some of the problems faced by the bankers:

• Students from unaunthorised colleges and unauthorised courses demand education loan;
• Students demand loans for courses, which can not provide employment (Eg. teachers training courses);
• Since banks are lending funds, some of the colleges inflate their estimates to get more money, which will ultimately make the students as heavy borrowers.  Even many colleges send the estimates as Rs.3,99,500/- to avoid offering collateral security.  Banks are unable to confirm the genuiness of the proposals.;
• Some of the students, who availed edu loan from banks shift their places without informing the bank and do not even repay the loans.  this causes lot of difficulties for the banks and the officials;
• The colleges do not give estimates on admission.  Without estimates, banks cannot process the loans.  

There were suggestions from the bankers whether the University certificates of the students could be marked with 'Red strip' to indicate the Edu loan.  This would caution the employers to remit the dues to the banks concerned.

Dr Santhosh Babu IAS, Director E Governance, Tamilnadu Government offered to provide a software interfacing between the banks, colleges and the district collectors.  If this is implemented, this will be the first of its kind in India and would remain as model for other states.  Shiva and Ravi, coordinators of Action 2020 Team and ELTF will coordinate this software project.

The Action 2020 finalised the template for supporting the students.  It was also resolved to help minimum of 100 highly deserving, but poor students to avail education loans from banks.  All such students will be allotted with a mentor who would guide him through the studies and also create awareness about the bank rules, prompt repayment etc.

If any information is needed on ELTF, send a mail to action2020eltf@gmail.com 

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Mahatma Gandhi's grandson speaks about Mr C Subramanian

Bharat Ratna Shri C Subramanian's Centenary Celebration was held by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan at Chennai.  Mr Gopalakrishna Gandhi, grand son of Mahatma Gandhi and Rajaji spoke about Mr CS.  Please read the report published by The Hindu (5th Feb 2010).

(From left ) Rajsekar, managing trustee, National Agro Foundation; Gopalkrishna Gandhi, former Governor of West Bengal; K.N. Ramaswamy, director, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and T.S. Krishna Murthy, chairman, Bhavan’s Chennai Kendra, at a lecture in Chennai on Thursday.
Photo and report courtesy:http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/05/stories/2010020553370400.htmConcern over erosion of trust in individuals and institutionsSpecial Correspondent

It is important to rebuild this, says Gopalkrishna Gandhi

CHENNAI: There has been an erosion of trust in individuals and institutions over time and it is important to rebuild this, according to Gopalkrishna Gandhi, former Governor of West Bengal.
Speaking at the birth centenary celebrations of C. Subramaniam organised by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan on Thursday, Mr. Gandhi said legislative enactments, including the Right to Information Act, protection against domestic violence and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act were “millennial legislations” that guaranteed essential rights to citizens. But, without public trust, these would be inadequate.

CS (as he was fondly called) and his generation of politicians had showed the way in public decency and service. He recounted how P. Ramamurthi, the veteran communist leader, CS and Rajaji were always civil and friendly with each other in spite of their political disagreements. “Politics was a cultured affair then.”
While comforts and luxuries had increased, and there was more joy in many individuals, the collective face of society now bore no trace of happiness and there was very little peace.


Globalisation’s benefits were being talked about but there was also the prospect of global terror, global economic meltdown and global warming, which had to be dealt with, Mr. Gandhi said. But, there was much to look forward to with hope and optimism for India and the world.


T.S. Krishna Murthy, chairman, Bhavan’s Chennai Kendra, recalled CS’s close ties with the Bhavan. He talked of CS’s unflagging attention to detail and his concern for accuracy.


S.S. Rajsekar, CS’s son and managing trustee, National Agro Foundation, recounted incidents from CS’s life. He said that once Jawaharlal Nehru had thrown a file at him over a minor disagreement.
When CS responded saying it wouldn’t take too long to throw it back, Nehru apologised and noted that he did not realise CS had as short a temper as he did.

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3rd UnConference of Action 2020 Team - Jan 2010

Action 2020 Team held its 3rd UnConference on Saturday the 23rd Jan 2010 at Sri Ramakrishna Higher Secondary School, T Nagar, Chennai.  Around 50 participants representing 25 partner groups actively participated and shared their views.

The UnConference was held from 9 AM to 5 PM.  The morning session was devoted for the review of 6 existing common projects.  Some of the completed projects like Alathoor and Theynoor were also reviewed.  

Unique feature of one of the common projects is the 'remote class room' project.  From T Nagar, Chennai, Ms Sujatha is teaching the children of Theynoor village (200 km away) through webcam.  Ms Sujatha also shared her experience.  It was also decided to extend the remote class room project to other villages.  Mr Santhosh Babu IAS, Managing Director of ELCOT, who could not be present due to his official tour, promised over phone during the UnConference that ELCOT also can support the remote class room project to other centres.  Action 2020 Team is working on this.

In the second session, 17 new projects were identified to be executed by partner organisations.  Senior officials from Khadi and Village Industries also shared their views.  Partner groups were briefed about the various Government schemes available for village development.  It was decided to hold a training programmes on Khadi and Village Industries Schemes.

It was also decided to hold another one day workshop for teachers on 'Dyslexia and learning disability'.  Ms Lakshmi Radhakrishnan and Ms Sujatha, experts in this field will hold the workshop for the teachers nominated by Action 2020 team.

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