People, places and products
Let's take a look at the who, what and where doing the rounds this fortnight.
SONAL VIMAL AMBANI
The other Ambani bahu
She is the lesser-known Ambani bahu, but no less effervescent when it comes to the causes she espouses. SONAL VIMAL AMBANI, whose husband Vimal is the late Dhirubhai Ambani’s nephew, is the founder of Cancer Screening and Research Trust. Recently, Sonal produced two television commercials on cancer awareness among women that have caught many an eyeball. She has also mentored Fathers and Sons, a photographic journal with write-ups on eminent Indian personalities like L.N. Mittal and Narayana Murthy. The book is authored by her two children—Anjali, 17 and Amar, 15. What next? “Project World Peace 2040, a project aimed at achieving 365 days of no-war by 2040,” she says. Taking wing it seems is a convention with this Ambani bahu.
A. VELLAYAN
Top Shot
Turnaround man A. VELLAYAN, 56, currently Vice-chairman and Director-Strategy, Murugappa Corporate board, will be the next Executive Chairman of the group. In October, he will take over the reins of the Rs 15,646-crore group from M.A. Alagappan. Strategy is an ace up his sleeve and Vellayan has to his credit recast of many companies within the Murugappa fold. The tennis buff even mapped out a plan to ensure that the IMG-owned and operated tennis tournament Chennai Open stayed on in the city after 2004, when the Tatas, the sole sponsors of the event, pulled out. A dedicated yoga practitioner, Vellayan says he feels “quite out of sorts if he misses even one day of yoga or morning walk”. At the helm, the onus would be on him to ensure that the company’s new plans insulate it during a downturn, but fuel growth later. Expect a match-winner of a mentoring involvement from Murugappa’s strategyman.
ROSHNI NADAR
Hits and Misses
ROSHNI NADAR, 27, is the CEO and Executive Director of HCL Corporation, yet she’s less-than-ambitious about actively involving herself in the professionally-managed HCL Infosystems and HCL Technologies from father Shiv Nadar. The MBA from Kellogg that her father prodded her into, instead, got her interested in “giving back to society”—not an unworthy cause, but what about returns on capital? “Money-making and education do not go together,” she beams. Roshni plans to spend the next five years building the Vidyagyan chain of schools and the SSN College of Engineering in Chennai. Her first accomplishment, the inaugural residential Vidyagyan school in Bulandshahar in UP, gives completely free education to rural students. Shareholders’ loss could well turn out to be stakeholders’ gain.
PLACE
Bridge on the River Kwai
The Oscar-winning David Lean film gave it an iconic status and the Bridge on the River Kwai lives up to every bit of that mysterious image. Thailand has always been a popular destination for Indians and now that the ASEAN-India free trade agreement has been signed, it will bring a lot more business travellers here. Not many, however, know the bridge along the ‘death railway’ is just three hours drive from Bangkok. More than 100,000 people died building the railway during World War-II, many from Allied bombing. Today, visitors can traverse the bridge on foot after reaching the spot in a quaint boat. And yes, don’t miss the train ride package to the Burma border and back, that includes a free lunch.
PRODUCT
Acer Aspire Revo
One reason why you end up spending a bomb on a PC is because you watch a lot of movies on it. The fact is that current generation Atompowered netbooks just don’t have enough grunt to deliver a ‘smooth’ movie experience. Enter the Revo, which runs Nvidia’s new ‘Ion’ motherboard that has an Intel Atom processor as well as a Nvidia graphics processor. At Rs 23,000 it isn’t cheap, but its ability to handle full high-def 1080p movies makes it a terrific home desktop.
