7th Annual General Meeting 23.05.2009
Download Report

Dear Members,

The pace of life is really becoming difficult to believe..... can we imagine a year having gone by when we met at this very venue and had basked in the glory of our great Institution? We had reveled in the company of distinguished and proven leaders who are leading the industry, academia, politics and many other walks of life. We have another year behind us, another year which has strengthened our bonds, another year which has brought us closer, and another when we can pay tribute to our great Institution.

This year we lost one such great father figure for us - Shri Ved Prakash Goyal, ex-Union Minister for Shipping & Transport, who left us for his heavenly abode. We would remember him all through our lives as a patron who was supportive to us in every way possible. We also lost Shri Manoj Gupta who became a victim of our corrupt politico-bureaucratic system. On behalf of all here and those who could not make it today, I would like to pay our sincere heartfelt homage once again to these great souls.

The year behind, as everybody knows, has been tough with new lexicon like 'global meltdown' and 'financial tsunami' getting added to our vocabulary. This year has also seen national elections that has given some unexpected but results. The other day I was in a panel discussion led by Mark Tully, Dr. Avik Mitra and Dr. Rajiv etc. They all seemed to feel that these election results mark the beginning of a future of casteless politics, a mandate for sustainable development, a mandate against anti-incumbancy, and above all a hopeful future for everyone across the social spectrum. I am sure we all hope this comes true. We sincerely hope and wish to work towards ensuring that the new polity takes the conversion of our Institution to the status of an IIT for which your Alumni Association has put in immense effort by lobbying with the HRD Minister as well as large number of politicians and bureacrats.

Coming to our programmes this year - in our continual quest to bring together our esteemed Alumni members and also kindle more interest in the Association we have innovated on the events and their formats.

We started this year with a thought provoking event in a panel discussion titled 'Elephants CAN fly! - Giving India the Wings of Change'. The event was held on Wednesday, 24th September, 2008 at Magnolia Hall, India Habitat Centre followed by Cocktails & Dinner. The panel had some of the best intelligentia viz. Mr. Gurcharan Das (ex-CEO P&G), Prof. Pankaj Chandra (Director, IIM Bangalore), Prof. Shashi Gulati (ex-Dean IIT Delhi), Dr. Anand Kumar (JNU), Dr. Malhotra (Director, Indian Oil) and was moderated by a Dear friend Mark Runacres (Ex-Deputy High Commissioner of Great Britain to India) who was an epitome of wit and wisdom. The event saw some 100 participants and was graciously sponsored by our alumni Mr. Deepak Pahwa (CMD, Bry Air), Mr Arvind Gupta (3i Infotech) & Mr. Supriyo Das Gupta (CMD, M.N. Dastur & Co.). I must say all of them were very forthcoming and generous to help us make the event possible.

The Gala Annual Dinner get-together was held on the 20th of December 2008 at the Community Centre, Pamposh Enclave, GK-I. We had lots of cultural events performed by children of alumni as well the members. Sanjeev Sharma (1982 ) enthralled the audience this year yet again with really melodius rendering of Kishoreda's hits. The event saw near high of about 250 people who attended. It was indeed a big success with very good dinner and cocktails arrangement for all.

In this journey we have added another first this year and possibly a very good one for all - A Holi Milan on 8th march 2009; this replaced our usual picnic event around Jan/Feb. I must thank Mr Arvind Gupta who readily agreed to host it at his residence at Jor Bagh. We had a great time with some of the best Delhi Chaat, Chandan, Flowers and not the least some nostalgic air of BHU around us. The event was attended by about 100 odd alumni members with families. This was a great hit!

As you are aware , we had instituted Annual awards ceremony for bringing to fore the significant contributors from amongst our distinguished alumni. This year also an eminent Jury under the Chairmanship of Mr. M. K. Modi (Modi Group) and consisting of stalwarts like, Mr. Deepak Pahwa (CMD Bry-Air), Prof S.N. Upadhyay (Director, IT BHU), Mr.David Hudson (President European Business Group & CMD Group 4), Mr. Kashi Memani (Ex-Chairman Ernst & Young) and Mr. Vinod Chandiok (Walker Chandiok & Co.) was constituted to do the onerous task of judging the significant contributors. They all readily agreed to spare time from their busy schedules and met on 2nd May 2009 to decide upon the final selection. I would also like to state that our intention is to recognize all our such eminent alumni, but at the same time fortunately the number of such eminent people very high. It would certainly take take a few years to reach to all those who are deserving. I am sure we all will be proud of those who have been recognized and we all will take it in a positive spirit.

Like every year the Souvenir 2009 has several of articles and write-ups; in addition to it carrying the directory of members and messages. We have also tried capturing moments of activities in the form of pictures of various alumni events held across the world. Please do take a look and enjoy it alongwith your families.

Importantly keeping in with the charter of the Association we are also taking up projects for upgrading the infrastructure of the Institute and to this effect we are working closely with the nominated officials of the Institute and the Director.

While we had planned to add our current portfolio of activities, we have been held back for want of organisers and volunteers. Honourable members will appreicate that unless the association is broad based, and we have additional volunteers for taking up these activities, it is not getting possible for a small group of governing body members only to try and expand the scope of our activities and do it further better. I again request all to please come forward and help us in making the association more vibrant.

Another important item is the membership database. To reach out to all of you, we have taken a paid SMS facility. Despite our best efforts, we have found that every time a mailing campaign - whether electronic or otherwise - is carried out, about 40% of the e-mails, and a similar number of couriered letters come back to us, which other than the wasted money, also inhibits our capability to reach out to you, and get complaints from honourable members as to how they were not informed about an event. I would like to repeat that this can be enabled if and only if we keep updated the changes in all contact details. Thanks to Puneet Bindlish we have taken our entire data base to the web and you can log on www.itbhuglobal.org and update your data base.

Please also participate by sharing your ideas on how to the reach and bandwidth of the Association can be improved. Sooner than later we wish to have the association become an important and positive part of our lives, and we would like to see the association moving beyond networking within the alumni group to Institution building and why not Nation building.

With best regards

Rajeev Gupta
Secretary

Download Report

This year sponsors