Address and Interaction With the Students of Nathajirao G. Halgekar Institute of Dental Sciences and Research Centre, Belgaum, Karnataka

Creative Leaders
"Technology is a non-linear tool"
         
         
         
I am indeed delighted to interact with the students of the groups of institutions created by Maratha Mandal, Belgaum. My greetings to the office bearers and members of the Maratha Mandal, faculty members, students and other distinguished guests. I am happy to note that during the last seventy five years the Maratha Mandal has made a significant contribution to the people of Belgaum region by creating educational institutions commencing from kindergarten to higher education in professional courses and arts, science and commerce. I was thinking what thoughts I can share with the students and faculty members on this occasion.

Now, I would like to discuss on the topic "Creative Leaders".

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Leadership from operating core of society

I would like to narrate five examples of leadership which provides an insight into how selfless individuals with expert knowledge and determination to succeed contribute to societal development.

The first one is a story of Shri Shanmugappa who started his career as a porter and today he is an entrepreneur employing over 1,200 people. The second one exemplifies how a lady, socially alienated can become a major social reformer. The third example pertains to technology denial management in an important defence programme. Let me highlight the leadership qualities from the operating core of the society.

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Success through Hard work and Entrepreneurship

On 20th August 2005, I met Shri G. R. Shanmugappa who is presently Vice-President, All India Motor Transport Congress and President of Karnataka Lorry Owners Association. I would like to share how he faced life and has grown to the present position. In the year 1971, after failing in the 10th class, he moved over to Bangalore where he worked as a Porter in Bangalore Railway Station. In 1972 he joined Sasikala Transport Company and worked there as a labourer for one year. In 1973 he took up a job as labourer in the Brookebond India factory located in Whitefield. During the period 1975 to 1977, he worked in a transport company called Ramani Rangarao of Vijayawada where he was loading and moving coffee trucks to different places in the country.

During this seven year period, with his hard work with devotion in different places he had created a saving of Rs. 4000. With that money he bought an old Van in 1978 and started running the Van with the help of Sri Basavaraj, his brother who was a Driver and he himself became a cleaner. With the savings generated by running the Van he purchased an old Ashok Leyland truck in 1979. From 1980 to 1986 he kept on purchasing one or two trucks per year. All these days he continued his work in Ramani Rangarao Transport Office. In 1986 Shri Shanmugappa purchased one acre of land in Hosur Board and created a shed. He used this shed for blending tea for which he got a contract from Brooke Bond. By 1993 he was blending almost 100 tonnes of tea employing around two hundred and fifty members. In 1996 he started coffee packaging and sold off all the trucks and constructed a 40,000 square feet building in Basavapura village, Hosur Road land which he had purchased in 1986. By 1998 he was blending and packing ten tonnes per day of coffee employing around six hundred labourers. In 1999 he entered into premix coffee business in small quantities of 100 kg or 200 kg per day. Based on that experience he went into production of 10 tonnes per day premix coffee and eight tonnes per day premix tea employing over seven hundred labourers. In 2003 he bought 100 trucks for hiring to certain mines, coffee transportation and sub contracting to Larsen & Toubro, thus he became a fleet owner. In 2004, he converted the trucks as Milk Transporters for the Milk Dairy. In 2005 he visited Australia with his son who is a MBA student for establishing a milk dairy as a joint venture with an Australian firm for handling 9 lakh liters of milk per day. Simultaneously, he has established a factory which produces 100 tonnes of corrugated boxes per month for packaging premix coffee and premix tea. Today, he is employing around 1200 persons for running the trucks and also running premix coffee and tea business. Through this example, we can see how enthusiasm, hard work with devotion and above all the will to succeed made Sanmugappa, a successful entrepreneur, indeed he is a role model for any level of society. On his invitation, I inaugurated the Motor Transportation Congress, of which he had become the Chairman; I was happy and privileged to sit by his side to understand further about his dreams. India needs many Shanmugappa -like leaders.

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From Social alienation to Social Reformer

Last year, I addressed the members of CII Leadership Conclave at Bangalore. There I asked two questions to be answered by every one of the participants. The two questions were (a) What I have learnt so far? (b) What I will be remembered for? I asked the members to correspond with me through email. One of the members in the Conclave was Smt. Asha Ramaiah.

Smt Asha Ramaiah who is presently working as National Advocacy Officer for Indian Network for people living with HIV/AIDS and herself a HIV/AIDS patient since 1995, gave touching answers to both these questions.

As an answer to the first question "What I have learnt so far in my life?", she said,

The true learning in my life began when I had to face the reality of my situation. First, my husband's family turned me away from their home and later even my father told me to leave our house. I became like any other abandoned woman to face alone my destiny as a fallen leaf would drift with the wind. At the first instance I had to preserve my life and then stand up and face up to the challenges of existence. Thanks to the strength of my womanhood, I could absorb the feeling of shock leading to a realization that my loved ones need support and I am responsible to make efforts to bring change in the lives of other people living with HIV/AIDS in India.

Today with constant efforts that I made, and the support that received from my fellow people living with HIV, I received an acceptance in my community that even people with high positions come to me for an opinion, guidance and counseling on various personal issues. My parents are proud that I have become a role model for others to follow. With a convinced family and a good peer support, I got remarried to another person living with HIV in the year 2000. He has given me ample support to work with my fellow people living with HIV for betterment of our lives.

I learnt when we had to decide upon having a child, how difficult it is for one to make decisions in the face of uncertainties; plunging into the unknown that may have the risk of having a HIV positive child. We decided to follow the medical guidelines to reduce the risk. We came victorious waiting for years when it was confirmed that our child has no infection. We learnt that, dreams do come true but only when you own them and accept the responsibility of any possible risk in pursuing them.

Now we have the responsibility for planning the future of my child for the next 20 years. Our quality life time can be utilized for imparting our parental responsibility by ensuring him education, security and future. I also learnt that I have the responsibility to share the message that all parents living with HIV/AIDS should participate in training programmes and plan their children's healthy future.

For the second question "What I will be remembered for?" She said,

I will be remembered by the People living with HIV/AIDS of many parts of the country and my family, relatives and associates for the courage I showed, to stand up and face life and for my efforts in sharing the light I have acquired in the midst of my struggle.

Friends, the message we get from the above experience of Smt Asha is that as human beings we may get into a problem. But we should not get defeated. We should find out ways of converting this very problem to our advantage and succeed. The courage we see how the lady defeated the disease and most importantly she withstood the onslaught of alienation from her parents, husband and the society. This I call as indomitable spirit of a HIV affected person. Many Asha Ramaiah are needed to make the people suffering from HIV AIDS, leprosy, polio, cancer and TB feel comfortable and lead a normal productive life in our society.

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Leadership in Management of Technology denial

In the year 1992, LCA team decided to go for Digital-Fly-by-Wire Control System (FCS) for the Combat Aircraft as it is an unstable aircraft. At that time, the country did not have the experience in developing FCS. The only two countries who had the experience were France and US. The French company (Dassault System) had expertise in Hybrid systems whereas our need was an all Digital-Fly-by-Wire. Hence, it was thought appropriate to have a US partner who has the capability in design, development and integration of FCS on fighter aircraft. There were three candidates, General Electric Control that later became LMCS (now called BAe systems), Lear Astronics and Bendix. Finally, we chose LMCS for the contract at a costs of $ 40 million since they had the experience in designing FCS for F-16 Aircraft. Joint Team for design and development of the FCS was formed with ADE (DRDO Labs) and LMCS. The work share between Indian team and LMCS team was identified. Evolution of the SRS was the joint effort. The prototype flight control computer was to be done by ADE. Total system integration was the joint responsibility. Flight certification was to be provided by LMCS.

The contract progressed till 1998. Then, as you all are aware, India carried out its nuclear test on 11th May 1998. As soon as this event occurred the American Government imposed technological and economic sanction. Due to the sanction, LMCS broke the contract and retained all the Indian equipment, software and the technical information which were in their premises.

This was definitely a shock for the Indian team. Immediately, I called for a meeting of Directors of ADA, NAL, ADE, CAIR, HAL, National Flight Test Centre, Prof I.G. Sharma, a renowned control system specialist, Prof Goshal, a noted digital control system expert and guidance and control specialists from DRDL and ISRO. The FCS team explained to these members the situation arising out of the unilateral termination of contract by LMCS. We had a full day discussion on the methodology, which now needs to be followed, by which we can successfully complete the development of digital fly wire system and fly the LCA. The team after prolonged deliberations gave a structured method by which the development can be completed and the system can be certified for flight trials. They also mentioned that they will support the programme in whatever capacity they have to work with the ADE and ADA teams.

Based on the recommendations of the specialists we immediately strengthened the ADE software team with additional ten experienced software engineers from ADA. ADA was given the responsibility of verification and validation of software. Integrated flight control system review committee was constituted with Director (ADE) as Chairman and PGD (ADA) as Co-chair to support development and resolve all the conflicts arising between Control Law Team, Iron Bird, Software, Hardware and simulation. This team met once a week and brought out all the issues arising in different work centres and solutions were found. In addition, an Iron Bird review team was formed with Project Director Flight Control System as Chairman with members from HAL, ADA, ADE, certification agency (CEMILAC) and Test Pilots from National Flight Test Centre as Members. This team also met every week and resolved all the problems arising in the development and Test on Iron Bird. We also introduced participation of certification agency (CEMILAC) and inspection agency (CRI) in all these reviews. The aim was to see that any problem in any system is brought into focus at the earliest so that the solution can be found. In addition, we made it a point to have a special agenda in the monthly technical committee meeting on the development of integrated flight control system wherein Director (ADE), Director (NAL), Director (National Flight Test Centre), General Manager (HAL) presented the progress and problems. The confidence building took place by intensifying the tests. For example informal Iron Bird test was carried out over thousand hours and the formal Iron Bird test was conducted over hundred and fifty hours. Similarly, Pilot flew the simulator for more than two thousand hours. Thus, what we missed from the foreign partner, we compensated by enhancing the critical design review and increasing the test time to ensure safe man rated design of the integrated flight control system.

The entire team took the denial as a national challenge. They said if it were going to take three years we would do it in two years. If it is going to take twenty million dollars we will do it in ten million dollars. Our working hours was not eight hours. We will work twenty-four hours a day and complete the task. That is the time I realized the power of Indian Scientific Community, and the power of our country to face the challenge. I realized that no country could dominate us by imposing technological sanction or economic sanction. Power of scientific team will defeat the designs of any nation. Today I can proudly say that our scientists have designed, developed, tested, evaluated, integrated the flight control system in the LCA, which has logged more than 626 trouble free flight sorties in four different aircrafts. The challenge of the development is that the aircraft of this class is being designed for the first time; we introduced the state-of-the-art digital fly by wire technology in the very first prototype, of an aerodynamically unstable aircraft. We on our own developed the final hardware and software required for testing and evaluation of the control system in the aircraft, after the foreign partner leaves the scene and our own certification team which had no experience in certifying fly by wire aircraft, gains confidence and certifies the aircraft as flight worthy. Above all, the pilots who have never flown a prototype, which is unstable with a fly by wire system confidently, flew the aircrafts based on their flying experience in the simulator and the Iron Bird. Honest self-assessment, identification of area of uncertainty and all out effort to solve the problem were an important aspect of this programme. This is an example of Integrating leadership, that combined the strength of industry, R&D Labs, Academic, Air Force (the ultimate user) leading the country to achieve, what was then perceived as an impossible task. This is a demonstration of the Indian will that "We can make the impossible possible."

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Conclusion

One of the very important ingredients for success of the vision of transforming India into a developed nation by 2020 is the evolution of creative leaders. I am giving a connectivity between developed India, economic prosperity, technology, production, productivity, employee role and management quality, all of which linked to the creative leader. Who is that creative leader? What are the qualities of a creative leader? The creative leadership is exercising the task to change the traditional role from commander to coach, manager to mentor, from director to delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitates self-respect. The higher the proportion of creative leaders, leaders with human values, the higher the potential of success of realization of "developed India by 2020."

Now I would like to administer an oath on courage:

COURAGE for Students

Courage to think different,

Courage to travel into an unexplored path,

Courage to discover the impossible,

Courage to combat the problems

And Succeed,

Are the unique qualities of the youth.

As a youth of my nation, I will work and work with courage to achieve success in all missions.

My greetings to all the members of Maratha Mandal and my best wishes to all of you in promoting value based quality education to the youth of this region.

May God bless you.