8th May, 2010
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Respected Senior members of the Association, President, Vice President, other Governing Body members, & my dear friends,

Here we are again .....meeting together, rubbing shoulders with the who's who of the society ...with this overwhelming feeling of being part of this distinguished club ... "THE ASSOCIATION OF IT-BHU ALUMNI". ..... Can you imagine a year having gone by since we had met at this same venue and had reveled in the company of distinguished and proven alumni who are leading the industry, academia, politics and many other walks of life? I stand here humbled and as a student of life, for whom working for the ALUMNI ASSOCIATION has been a great learning experience. I have experienced some exceptional leadership & decision making qualities in our Governing body & many other alumni members, whom I have had the honour and pleasure of interacting with, and this has enriched me in more ways than one. I must thank them at the outset for their immense contribution to the Association in general & for the learning imparted to me in particular.

You would remember that last year we had taken it upon ourselves to pursue the agenda of getting our beloved IT the long overdue and truly deserving status of an IIT. The year just gone by saw lots of efforts being put into this mission by our Alumni across the world, as well as by the Institute's professors. I am happy to let you know that we are now at the verge of this conversion finally happening and can hope to hear the good news anytime now. Some of the people I am aware of, who went and met the Hon. Union Minister & the HRD top brass innumerable times on this subject are the late Prof. B.B. Bansal, Prof S.N. Upadhyay, Prof Mukhopadhyay, Prof K.P. Singh, Arvind Gupta, Puneet Bindlish and yours truly. There must be many others who worked silently behind the scenes to make this happen and I would like to thank them all for their invaluable efforts.

While I am delighted and excited, telling you about this development, I also have a very sad news to share. We lost Prof B.B. Bansal recently to the call of The Almighty, and we all know what a great source of strength he was for all of us. He was a friend and a guide to several students and alumni, and had worked very hard for the conversion if our Institute to an IIT. It is tragic that he is not here to see the final results of all his efforts. I am sure all of you join me in condoling his sudden demise and praying that his soul rest in eternal peace. We shall continue to be inspired and guided by his spirit and attitude for many years to come.

Our association is continuing the relentless journey of broad-basing itself and reaching out to more and more members. We are also helping the institute in more ways than one. Some of our eminent members, Mr. Deepak Pahwa (CMD, Bry-Air), Mr. R.P. Singh (Vice-chairman, Jindal Group) and Mr. L.C. Singh (CMD, Nihilent Technologies) have agreed to work on the advisory committee set up by the institute on Industry-Academia interface. Our Global Chapter, I understand, has raised quite a sizeable amount (nearly a couple of million US dollars) to be given to the Institute for strengthening the general infrastructure, research facilities, etc. I am sure other members too would be more than forthcoming to help in all such initiatives. It has also been suggested that we should set up an Institute - Alumni coordination committee of some sort to facilitate deeper interaction in the years to come. We request members to chip in with ideas, funds, efforts and time for this noble cause.

Coming to our programs this year - The Annual Dinner was held on 19th December 2009 at Lal Ded community Centre, Pamposh Enclave. Like always, our dear Pramod Joshi was the Master of Ceremonies, and he engaged the attendees with various activities. This time also we had a lot of cultural events performed by children and spouses of alumni, and many batches came on stage to perform as a group. Our Sanjeev Sharma (1982) enthralled the audience again this year, by rendering Kishore Kumar hits in his soulful voice. The Cocktails and Dinner went down well with the 250 plus people who attended and as usual the event was a big success.

We held a Holi Milan on 8th March 2010 which was graciously hosted by Mr Arvind Gupta at his residence in Jor Bagh for the second consecutive year. This also was attended by about 100 people and was a resounding success with some mouth watering old Delhi chaat mixed with the famed IT BHU camaraderie at its very best.
We are carrying forward the tradition of awarding significant contributors from amongst our distinguished alumni for the 4th year now .....This year also an eminent Jury under the Chairmanship of Col Wahi (legendary ex-CMD ONGC) and consisting of stalwarts like Mr Kashi Memani ( Chairman emeritus E & Y), Prof SN Upadhayay (ex-Director IT BHU), Prof KP Singh ( Director IT BHU), Mr Onkar Gupta (Director & Board Member, Lurgi), Mr David Hudson (Chairman European Business Group & CMD Group4) & Mr. RP Singh (Vice Chairman, Jindal Group) was constituted to do the onerous task of judging the significant contributors across all spheres of activity....I must acknowledge and thank them for their efforts, time & commitment. We had them gathered for a day to deliberate on the various nominations & all of them took out time from their extremely busy schedules. Not only this, some of them flew in at their own expense from outside Delhi for this task which has left us indebted to them forever.
Our journey as an association is still young & we have an ambitious plan to make the membership swell to at least 5 times its present number & also set up an Endowment to help needy students with scholarships. In fact, I would be delighted to get your views, contributions & preferably leadership to steer some of these noble objectives. Our intent is to raise the bar and make your Association a more vibrant & more coveted body. Needless to add, we would need your continued support in this on-going endeavour.

Let us now raise a toast to the success of our alumni and pay tribute to our great Institute!

Rajeev Gupta
Secretary
(1993 Chem)