An Xler as an Activist

Biju Mathew (86PMIR) is more than just a Jesse H Harper Professor of CIS at Rider University. As this article highlights, his work with immigrant New York cab drivers brought about a change in their lives:



"Immigrant labour interests me, " Mathew says. "Not much has been done in the field... the key pin for social transformation is through mass organisation. The anti-war movement is powered greatly by the radical immigrant. There has been a significant decline in mass movements over the world in the last twenty years."


In 1998, Biju started the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, consisting of 24,000 cab drivers representing 80 ethnicities, and led a strike against the then NY City Mayor Giuliani’s “quality of life” and “zero tolerance” programs.

Biju has also written a book Taxi! Cab and Capitalism in New York City based on his conversations with the taxi drivers...

Read on...

Sujit Baksi joins vCustomer Board

The press release reads: "vCustomer the leading third party Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) provider with India based service delivery, announced the elevation of its India President Sujit Baksi to the Board of Directors..."



Sujit Baksi is an XLer of 72PMIR batch, and before he joined vCustomer last year as its India President & Head of Global Operations, he was the CEO, HCL BPO and HCL Technologies (Northern Ireland).

on Page 7 of Global Knowledge Review

The contributors to the 1st issue of Global Knowledge Review (download pdf copy) are from countries all over the globe - spanning across USA, Brazil, UK, Singapore, South Africa, Brazil... and India.

The article from India is titled A Wake Up Call for HR, and is written by Gautam Ghosh a.k.a. GG (99PMIR)



The author description reads:
Gautam is a HR professional based out of India with interests in the areas of Organization Development, Knowledge Management, Organizational Learning and Corporate Strategy. Gautam has had an overriding interest in Knowledge Management for the last 5 years and has been profoundly impacted by the "knowledge creation" model of Nonaka and by John Seely Brown's concept of "Communities of Practice".

...For many in the XL alumni networks, this other facet of GG (Graxer Gautam?:0) may come as a surprise...
[GG maintains two blogs, which are listed in the column on the right side]

The Eisenhower Fellow

In a couple of days, Raman Madhok, Joint Managing Director and CEO, Jindal Iron and Steel Company Limited - and an XL alumnus from 81PMIR batch, will be leaving for USA for a few month as The Eisenhower Fellow



The Eisenhower Fellowships site profiles him:

Mr. Madhok is responsible for the growth and profitability of the largest iron and steel manufacturing and exporting company in India, with a turnover of approximately US$480 million in the past year. Coming from a background in human resources, Mr. Madhok carefully applies an employee-centric ethos to his corporation, engaging employees in a collaborative manner on a variety of workplace issues. This has led Jindal Iron and Steel to be rated as one of India's "25 Great Places to Work" and earned praise for the quality of Mr. Madhok's leadership. Mr. Madhok sees many parallels between India and the United States, and during his Eisenhower Fellowship he plans to examine the characteristics of American growth and leadership over the past few decades, both within the corporate world and in society as a whole. Among others, he plans to meet with representatives from leading U.S. steel corporations, as well as management schools and institutes.

In 2000-01, Raman was also the Chevening Scholar at Manchester Business School.

Globalisation of Tata Steel

The acquisition of $ 290mn Singapore-based NatSteel by Tata Steel, is India's 2nd largest oversees acquisition. The man driving this global foray, B Muthuraman, Managing Director, Tata Steel [BM Evening, 75batch], explained: ""Every bit of the value chain has a cost attached to it. We have to put the right part of the value chain in its right place in the world and link it up properly. That, for me, is globalisation."




...and more are on his radar: "Brazil, Australia, Bangladesh are countries where steel can be made cheaply because of the availability of iron ore and coal. We have been to Iran, Ukraine, Bangladesh - all during the last year. And we are looking at China for finishing capabilities."

Read the complete story from Business World...

Movements at Franklin Templeton

A small item on executive movements in Business India (Aug 16-29, 2004) - unfortunately not available online - notes that Ravi Mehrotra, President, Franklin Templeton Investments, India, will take over the India responsibilites of the MD (Asia) of the fund.



Ravi Mehrotra is from the 85BMD batch [click for an article], and used to be the Sr VP & CIO of Kothari Pioneer when it was acquired by Franklin Templeton.