Category Archives: Amazing Feats

The rise and rise of Sundar Pichai

Amazing Feats, Leaders, Nri's / Pio's, Science & Technologies, World Opinion
Pichai Sundararajan aka Sundar Pichai. / Photo: Kamal Narang / The Hindu
Pichai Sundararajan aka Sundar Pichai. / Photo: Kamal Narang / The Hindu

“Super excited about his progress and dedication to the company,” says Google co-founder Larry Page.

Google’s announcement on Monday that it would be subsumed within a new parent company called Alphabet had a bonus for people of Indian-origin world over: the company’s head of Products and Engineering, Chennai-born Pichai Sundararajan, was anointed the CEO of the new, “slimmed down” Google.

Underscoring his confidence in the man known as Sundar Pichai (43), Google boss Larry Page said of the restructuring in the company he co-founded with Sergey Brin, “A key part of this is Sundar Pichai.”

Mr. Pichai, who is a graduate of IIT Kharagpur and Stanford University, had “really stepped up since October of last year, when he took on product and engineering responsibility for our Internet businesses,” Mr. Page said in a blog post, adding that he and Mr. Brin were “super excited about his progress and dedication to the company.”

They may well have reason to feel fortunate that Mr. Pichai is the man to head their $66-billion revenue, $16-billion profit, company– by most accounts he combines a deep passion for engineering excellence with a rare managerial quality of attracting the best talent into the teams he works with.

Mr. Pichai started at Google in 2004, where he was known as a “low-key manager” who worked on the Google toolbar and then led the launch of the market-beating Chrome browser in 2008.

Following this his rise through the ranks of Google took on an increasingly meteoric tenor, and soon he became Vice President, then Senior Vice President, and ultimately was charged with supervising all Google apps including Gmail and Google Drive and finally given control of Android itself.

His promotion to Product Chief in October 2014 literally made him Mr. Page’s second-in-command with oversight of day-to-day operations for all of Google’s major products including maps, search, and advertising.

Some of Mr. Pichai’s colleagues describe him in the media as a skilled diplomat, including Caesar Sengupta, a Google Vice President who has worked with Mr. Pichai for eight years, and said to Bloomberg News, “I would challenge you to find anyone at Google who doesn’t like Sundar or who thinks Sundar is a jerk.”

Nowhere was Mr. Pichai’s easy blending of techno-diplomatic competence evident than in early 2014, when the fracas between Samsung and Google was reaching fever pitch, at the time over Samsung’s Magazine UX interface for its tablets, which Google felt may have been deliberately underselling Google services such as its Play apps store.

According to reports “Defusing the situation fell to Sundar Pichai, the tactful, tactical new chief of Google’s Android division. Pichai set up a series of meetings with J.K. Shin, CEO of Samsung Mobile Communications, [where] they held ‘frank conversations’ about the companies’ intertwined fates [and a] fragile peace was forged.”

Since then, Samsung has apparently agreed to scale back Magazine UX, and the two corporations have announced a broad patent cross-licensing arrangement to implement which they “now work together more closely on user experience than we ever have before,” according to Mr. Pichai.

Another apparent talent of Google’s new CEO – his thinking seems to be ahead of the curve. Although Mr. Pichai trained in metallurgy and materials science at IIT Kharagpur, and Stanford and did an MBA at Wharton, he was already deeply immersed in the world of electronics.

According to one of his college professors Mr. Pichai “was doing work in the field of electronics at a time when no separate course on electronics existed in our curriculum.”

The Google founders no doubt recognised that Mr. Pichai was a man on an evangelical-type mission for pushing the boundaries of technology.

Mr. Pichai most eloquently outlined this mission when he said, “For me, it matters that we drive technology as an equalising force, as an enabler for everyone around the world. Which is why I do want Google to see, push, and invest more in making sure computing is more accessible, connectivity is more accessible.”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sci-Tech> Technology / by Narayan Lakshman / Washington – August 11th, 2015

Chennai doctors use new technique to implant dentures in teenager

Amazing Feats, Records, All, Science & Technologies
Doctors at Rajan Dental Institute performed a new technique where they grafted bones from the patient's cheekbone.
Doctors at Rajan Dental Institute performed a new technique where they grafted bones from the patient’s cheekbone.

Chennai  :

More than the difficulty she faced while eating and speaking, it was the curious stares of people that upset 17-year-old Manju (name changed). The teenager, who was suffering from a genetic disorder, lost all her teeth by the age of 14, and found it difficult to step into college this year with dentures.

Conventionally doctors would graft the hip bone and give permanent implants in a procedure that spans over a year. But doctors at Rajan Dental Institute here performed a new technique where they grafted bones from her cheekbone and gave her implants – all within a week.

At the age of four, the patient was diagnosed with Papillon Lefevre Syndrome, a rare, genetic autosomal disorder that affects 1 in a million people. “It leads to progressive bone loss around teeth, and subsequent teeth loss. It is often treated by the usage of removable dentures from a very young age,” said Oral and Maxillo Facial surgeon Dr R Gunaseelan.

Two months ago, the doctor and his team performed a procedure called Zygoma Implant technique, in which the cheekbone’s support is used to implant.

“On the fourth day after Zygoma Implant surgery, Manju was given permanent artificial teeth that closely resemble her natural teeth. She is now able to talk without the fear of her dentures falling off and is more confident as an individual,” said the doctor.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Chennai / by Janani Sampath, TNN / August 07th, 2015

Teacher wins Guinness title for recalling 270-digit sequence

Amazing Feats, Education, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Records, All, World Opinion
The 36-year-old can speak Italian, Spanish, French, German and Portuguese. (TOI photo)
The 36-year-old can speak Italian, Spanish, French, German and Portuguese. (TOI photo)

Coimbatore :

For a decade, Aravind P was a tourist guide in Italy. His pursuit to learn European languages introduced him to several memory-developing techniques. That may have got him the job of a foreign language teacher in the city, but the best reward came in the form of his most proud possession now – his Guiness World Record for memorising the longest binary sequence of  270 digits.

Aravind received his certificate from the Guinness authorities last week.

The 36-year-old can speak Italian, Spanish, French, German and Portuguese. “I had to learn the languages as quickly as possible because it would help me guide more tourists. So, to improve my learning abilities, I had to develop my memory,” said Aravind. After returning to India, Aravind started researching about records related to memory. “I then came across this record for memorising the longest binary digit sequence. The record was then held by Jayasimha Ravirala of Hyderabad, who memorised 264 digits in one minute in March 2011,” he said.

Aravind registered with the Guinness World Records in March 2014. In October 2014, Guinness had set the criteria for Aravind’s attempt to break Jayasimha’s record. On April 3, 2015 Arvaind attempted the record and Guinness had appointed Dr D Srinivasan, psychiatrist from Kovai Medical Centre and Hospitals and R Prakasam, principal of PPG College of Technology as jury to witness it. The random binary sequence was generated by 123coimbatore.com. R Prakasam said, “Aravind was given one minute to observe the binary sequence, and was then asked to shut his eyes and recall the sequence. There was no time limit set for recalling the sequence,” he said. It is a great achievement for an Indian.”

Aravind began attempting to break the record at 10.30am in front of 270 people, and failed in four attempts. In his fifth attempt, Aravind broke the record by recalling six more digits than Jayasimha. His memory-enhancing technique is called ‘Journey Method’, where he replaces alphabets or numbers with objects.

Aravind wants to start a memory club and spread his memory-enhancing techniques to students and youth who will be appearing for board exams and competitive exams.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home. City> Coimbatore / by Adarsh Jain, TNN /July 08th, 2015

1st woman to undergo bypass in India enters 40th yr after surgery

Amazing Feats, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Records, All, Science & Technologies

Chennai :

On April 23, 1976, when Daisy D’Costa was wheeled into the operation theatre she didn’t know she would be the first woman in the country to undergo a bypass surgery. “No one told me. I just vaguely recall someone in surgical scrubs telling my husband, ‘She will live’,” said the octogenarian, 39 years later.

While Daisy was being prepared for the surgery, the mood in the operation theatre was equally tense as the team was about to wield the scalpel for a procedure they had done just once before. “The facilities back then were nothing like what we have now. We had no cath lab (examination room with diagnostic imaging equipment), no cardiologist or cardio-anesthetist. No one in the team had done a bypass surgery before,” said Dr K M Cherian, the doctor in the surgical scrubs who assured Daisy’s husband.

Daisy had been brought to the Railway Hospital in Perambur the previous evening with total blockage in an artery. “I had skipped going to the cinema with my husband as I was really tired. All of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe normally and I felt a tightness in my chest. My son, who was at home, rushed me to the nearest hospital,” recalled Daisy. “The doctors managed to resuscitate me. In my haze, I heard someone say, ‘We need to cut her open’, and I blacked out again.”

Daisy needed a coronary artery bypass surgery. The procedure entailed restoring the blood flow to the heart muscle by diverting the blood around the blocked section by using a harvested vein from the leg. Although the first such surgery was performed in the US in the 60’s, the concept was new in India. In June 1975, Kajah Mohideen, a 42-year-old engineer from Integral Coach Factory, became the first in the country to undergo the surgery.

“The procedure on Daisy was no different from Kajah’s, but Daisy’s veins in her legs were thinner and harder to reach because of the fat. Besides that, we followed the same process. I still remember every conversation and the mood in the theatre,” says Dr Cherian, who had also operated on Kajah. “We didn’t even have a process of magnifying the blood vessels, which is mandatory now. I used my eyes to find the vessels that are 1.5 to 2mm. I was young back then,” said Dr Cherian, chuckling. The procedure took a little more than three hours.

Daisy woke up to find shutterbugs queuing to interview her. “That’s when I realised I was the first woman,” she said, smiling and showing a sepia-tinted newspaper showing a younger version of her. Although through the years she has had minor chest problems, she didn’t have to go under the scalpel again.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by Ekatha Ann John, TNN / July 09th, 2015

HIDDEN HISTORIES – The Madras media man

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Leaders, Records, All
During the Emergency, Express Estates, that's now a mall, was a refuge for opposition leaders / The Hindu
During the Emergency, Express Estates, that’s now a mall, was a refuge for opposition leaders / The Hindu

June 25 was the 40th anniversary of the infamous Emergency — the then Indira Gandhi Government’s audacious attempt to stifle democracy. Very few from the South opposed it, and yet, much of the momentum for the resistance came from a feisty press baron of Madras — Ramnath Goenka, the owner of the Indian Express Group of newspapers.

Having come to Madras in the 1920s, with reportedly nothing more than “a lota and a nine-cubit dhoti,” to quote his biographer BG Verghese, Goenka was an all-India figure by the 1940s. Though his papers would later be published from many cities, Madras was always his headquarters, his residence being Hicks Bungalow on Patullos Road. His businesses operated from neighbouring Express Estates, a 23-acre property that he bought from the Madras Club for Rs. 14.85 lakhs in 1946. The quiet thoroughfare connecting the property to Mount Road is still Club House Road.

It is said that when Emergency was declared, Goenka was in the ICU of a Calcutta hospital, recovering from a heart attack. Raring to get into the thick of battle, he disconnected the tubes and “stole out to board a taxi but was detected in time and brought back”. The Indian Express came out on June 25, 1975, with a blank first editorial while the Financial Express published Tagore’s poem, Where the Mind is Without Fear.

A man who loved the good fight, Goenka challenged the Emergency in many ways. He helped in publishing Prajaniti, and its English counterpart, Everyman, vehicles that propagated the thoughts of Jayaprakash Narayan, the doughty opponent to Mrs Gandhi’s regime. The vast Express Estates was also where several leaders of the Opposition, most of them on the run from the police, could find safe haven. One among these was the firebrand George Fernandes. He had come first to the Spur Tank Road residence of tuberculosis specialist and Swatantra Party leader Dr Mathuram Santosham. On coming to know that the police were closing in, he was transferred to Express Estates.

The powers-that-be did their best to stifle Goenka and his publications. There were moves to acquire the business by media houses in sympathy with the ruling party, and when this was resisted, there were, to quote BG Verghese, “raids, court cases, a long series of pre-censorship orders, stoppages of bank advances and advertisements”— in short, all the standard operating procedures of a draconian Government. Goenka, however, stood his ground, despite being in poor health throughout. The stress that he and his family withstood then later resulted in the early demise of his son Bhagwan Das.

The battle against the Emergency gained ground and culminated in the General Elections in March 1977. That saw the landslide victory of the Janata Party and the first national debacle for the Congress. Goenka went on to fight other battles. The Express Estates is now a mall. But we do need a marker to commemorate the Marwari Media Man from Madras who fought the Emergency from there.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Sriram V. / June 26th, 2015

Indian origin scientist to get Russia’s highest tech award

Amazing Feats, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Nri's / Pio's, Records, All, Science & Technologies, World Opinion

St Petersburg :

B Jayant Baliga, a US-based Indian-origin scientist, is being awarded Russia’s top technology award in recognition of his work as a major development in energy management which brought about huge increase in efficiency and major savings.

B Jayant Baliga, a US-based Indian-origin scientist, is being awarded Russia's top technology award. (Representative image)
B Jayant Baliga, a US-based Indian-origin scientist, is being awarded Russia’s top technology award. (Representative image)

The award will presented to Professor Baliga and Shuji Nakamura on Friday by Russian President Vladimir Putin at a ceremony here.

Nakamura, a Nobel Laureate, is being recognised for his work on blue light emitting diodes (LEDs). In Russia, the Global Energy Prize is known as the electronics equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Professor Baliga invented the digital switch or the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) while working at General Electrical research & development centre in New York state in the US in 1983. The IGBT switches energy hundreds of thousands of times a second, raising the efficiency of any equipment manifold.

“Every equipment from your refrigerator to lights to motor vehicles has the need to use energy efficiently. If you take away the IGBT today, almost everything will come to a standstill,” Baliga told a visiting IANS correspondent on the eve of receiving the award.

Scientific American magazine called him among the ‘eight heroes of the semiconductor revolution’, and President Barack Obama awarded him the highest American technology prize last year and he is the 2014 recipient of the IEEE Medal of Honour, a rare distinction.

Professor Baliga, who now teaches to the North Carolina university as ‘distinguished university professor’, said that the IGBT that his invention combines two streams of electronics and electrical engineering and has possibly saved the world around $24 trillion dollars by raising efficiency, according to one detailed calculation.

“I got zero out of it. But then I did it all for humanity.”

Of course, says Prof Baliga, that he did make some money when he started three companies, but these were financed by venture capitalists who exited with enormous profits at the right time.

He says every motor today is at least 40 percent more efficient, the light bulb like the CFL better by almost 75 percent and a motor vehicle saves over 10 percent fuel because of his invention. He has written 19 books and over 500 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Baliga passed out of IIT Madras before going to the US for his MS and PhD after electrical engineering after which he joined GE where he spent over 15 years.

After his ‘switch’ was invented, several of his colleagues told him that it would not work, and many scientists said he would fall “flat on his face”. But he said it stood the test of time.

The chairman of GE at that time, Jack Welch flew down especially to meet him when he heard what it could do. GE used the switch in the several of the equipments it sold, including medical devices.

A US citizen since 2000, he now has very little connection with India and does not travel to his home country much, especially after his parents and parents of his wife passed away. But, says Prof Baliga, an invention like his is unlikely in India, because it needs huge research infrastructure to be in place from universities to industries.

He feels, that India has a potential which has not been fully used, although in software “it has made great strides”.

Could a Nobel be on its way in the future? “I used to say no way,” but with so many recognitions and this “global prize where I am being feted with a Nobel Laureate, who knows”, he says. His regret though is that India does not know much about him.

“Top scientists that I meet always ask me, why has India not recognised your achievement?” And with characteristic modesty, Baliga told IANS, “I tell them that perhaps my country does not know about what I did.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> NRI / IANS / June 18th, 2015

Pat for Visually Impaired IFS Officer

Amazing Feats, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Records, All
MoS, PMO, Jitendra Singh greets Beno Zephine in New Delhi on Thursday | PTI
MoS, PMO, Jitendra Singh greets Beno Zephine in New Delhi on Thursday | PTI

■ Beno Zephine, a visually impaired IFS officer from Tamil Nadu, was felicitated by the Central government in New Delhi on Thursday

■ Union Minister Jitendra Singh said he was impressed by the confidence and determination of the young girl

■ He said, it was Zephine’s unrelenting determination which inspired him to follow up her case and find a way to accommodate her in a befitting slot

■ Zephine (25), who hails from Villivakkam, in Chennai, is the first 100 per cent visually impaired officer to join IFS

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service / June 19th, 2015

Chennai doctors perform novel procedure to fix woman who had trouble swallowing food

Amazing Feats, Science & Technologies

Chennai :

Three decades ago when Ponni, 48, from Kancheepuram had minor discomfort while swallowing her food, she did not take it seriously. When the problem persisted, she checked with several doctors assuming that it was a problem with her throat.

However, panic began to set in when the woman began to lose weight rapidly over the past few years. Luckily, a tricky procedure performed at hospital in Chennai helped the woman eat normally.

When Ponni recently underwent a thorough checkup at Global Hospitals, doctors found that she was suffering from a rare condition called esophegal achalasia which is characterized by incomplete relaxation of the food pipe which was causing trouble while swallowing. As a consequence, the patient had regurgitation, chest pressure and heartburn.

Dr R Ravi, who was part of the treating team, said that conventional treatment options for the disorder included surgery and medication. However, after evaluating her conditions, the team decided to perform Peroral Endoscopic Myotomy (POEM) – a new technique which had a positive outcome.

“POEM is a minimally invasive, scarless technique where precise cutting of muscle is performed through the mouth. It is a virtually non-surgical as no external cut is made on the body and the blood loss is very minimal,” said the doctor.

After the procedure, doctors said that the patient recovered rapidly and was able to talk and walk the following day. “More importantly, after a gap of about four decades, Ponni could finally start eating and swallowing without any difficulty,” said Dr Ravi.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by Janani Sampath, TNN / January 16th, 2015

Beauty is Back, Scalp Torn off by Machine Gets Re-attached

Amazing Feats, Science & Technologies

Coimbatore :

A 26-year old woman, who had her scalp torn off by a machine in a gold jewellery making firm, had a surgery done at Coimbatore Medical College and returned home with her face intact.

Ashwini, wife of Senthilkumar from Selvapuram, walked out of the hospital two days after surgery. She spoke to the media freely thanking the doctors who stitched her scalp back on her head.

“The incident happened on May 8 at 6 pm when I was working in the factory and there was no one else. During my work an ornament fell from my hand and I just bent down to get it. All of a sudden my long hair was caught in the machine and got wrapped round the drill,” said Ashwini.

Ashwini
Ashwini

She said she still remembered everything and she shivered each time she recalled what had happened.

“I was pulled out of the machine. I tried to run but I saw my scalp with hair lying next to me. I screamed and someone came running to the spot. They stopped the machine and took me to hospital,” added Ashwini.

She is all smiles now and she thanks God and the doctors in CMCH. She reached the hospital soon after the accident and the surgery brought her “back to life”.

“With high BP and heavy blood loss the patient was in a critical state and her pulse rate was low. So we immediately resuscitated her with three units of blood and intravenous fluid transfusion. Once her condition was stabilized we took her to the operation theatre for an emergency plastic surgery,” said B Asokan, professor and head of Plastic Surgery Department, who led the surgery with doctors Siva Kumar and Senthil Kumar.

The operation lasted three hours. The doctors said similar cases were increasing. “Necessary safety measures must be taken at the work place to prevent accidents and immediate care must be provided in case of accidents,” added Asokan.

What the doctors called ‘fortunate’ was even though the scalp was torn off there were not much damage to the tissue or vessels and it was easy for the doctors to do the surgery without transplanting tissues from other parts of her body.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service / June 11th, 2015

Once a housemaid, now a proud topper

Amazing Feats, Education, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features

Trichy :

Twelve-year-old V Mahalakshmi was working as a housemaid in Sembattu in 2009 when members of the Child Labour Effective Elimination and Rehabilitation Society (CHEERS) in Trichy found her and rescued her. She was shifted to a special training centre and later got admission into a school in Namakkal which provided her free education for two years.

When the Plus Two results were announced on Thursday, it was a vindicating moment for Mahalakshmi and the people who stood by her. She had scored 1,142 out of 1,200 and a cut-off mark of 192.25. She was one among the seven child labourers rescued by CHEERS who appeared for the Plus Two examination this year.

“After my husband Venkatapathy’s death in 2009 due to health problems, I had to discontinue my daughter’s education due to financial constraints. I never thought my daughter will reach such a good position,” said Mahalakshmi’s mother V Kalaivani, who is a construction worker. “Hard work and the motivation I received from my school teachers helped me realise my dream of scoring good marks in Plus Two examinations. I am confident that I will get admission to pursue MBBS in a government medical college and be able to serve the people. I sincerely thank all the people who acted behind my success,” Mahalakshmi told TOI.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Trichy / TNN /May 28th, 2015