The first batch of engineering students admitted to BITS Pilani in 1964 that graduated in the year 1969 refers to itself as BITS'69. The 320 graduates from BITS'69 are spread over various parts of India, USA, UK, Canada, Libya, Bahrain, Germany, Kenya, Nepal, Thailand, Philippines, etc. Many of them are top notch executives in State Electricity Boards and Irrigation departments apart from Corporate Giants such as Grasim, Exide in India as well as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Sargent & Lundy, NASA Johnson Space Centre, USA.

In 1985, three musketeers from BITS'69 namely Manohar Baheti, Ashok Sureka and Deepak Khosla prepared a directory by hunting down all their batch mates and started organizing meets sporadically to celebrate friendship. The first meet of BITS'69 happened in 1987 and then in 1991, 1994, 1997 and 2003. The American Chapter of BITS'69 meet took place in Washington D C in August 2004 and there is more togetherness planned in the years to come.

It is for this feat that they have been listed as a World Record for Alumni Meet of a Single Batch by the Limca Book of Records 2005 (pp. 156) released on August 31, 2005 by Coca-Cola, India.

On September 10, 2005, BITSAA organized a function to felicitate the World Record making BITS'69 Batch. An army of over 60 BITS'69 batch mates, with their families, that descended at Pilani was welcomed by Prof R K Mittal President BITSAA in a colourful function in the auditorium of the Institute. Prof S Venkateswaran, the Vice Chancellor, and Prof L K Maheshwari, the Director of BITS, Pilani, applauded their record making efforts. The Vice Chancellor remarked, "What you are in life is a gift of BITS Pilani to you and the world record you have created is your gift to your alma mater."

The day when the BITS alums will enter the coveted Guinness Book of Records is, indeed, not far off!

Dr. Motilal Dash conferred Indira Gandhi NSS Award!

Dr. Motilal Dash, Assistant Professor, Humanistic Studies Group, BITS, Pilani, was conferred the Indira Gandhi National Service Scheme (NSS) Award.

The Awardees for 2003-04 and 2004-05 included 11 NSS Units, 11 Programme Officers and 20 Volunteers. The Awards were presented by Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Prithviraj Chavan at Vigyan Bhawan on September 24.

The Indira Gandhi NSS Awards were constituted in 1993-94 to recognise outstanding and valuable contributions of the NSS Volunteers, Programme Officers, NSS Units, Universities and Institutions in community service and development.

Join us in congratulating Dr. Dash on his tremendous achievement! Dr. Motilal Dash's email is dash@bits-pilani.ac.in.

BITS Pilani takes up Project Desert Bloom, pioneers Social Engineering

BITS Pilani has established a Centre for Desert Development Technologies C-DDT and has joined hands with Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research BIDR Negev Israel in a mission to develop world class desert development technologies, titled Project Desert Bloom

The C-DDT at BITS Pilani aims to develop in the desert world class technologies for water and energy conservation in irrigation systems, rain water harvesting and water distribution systems. In addition, tissue culture and other biotechnology techniques have been proposed for developing low water consuming plants, propagation of various plant species to address the ecology of the desert and environmental conservation.

A high powered team comprising of Prof Avigad Vonshak, Prof Pedro Berliner and Prof Eilon Adar from the world renowned Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Development ( BIDR ) of Ben Gurion University, Negev, Israel are camping for three days at BITS Pilani from August 30, 2005 holding various technical and practical sessions pertaining to desert development technologies for an interdisciplinary team of BITS Faculty members and students.

Deserts and other drylands constitute more than 40% of the global land area, and harsh extremes of weather pose unusual challenges for technology development for making the desert bloom. The pioneering work of BITS Pilani for the society at large goes to prove that the reputation of an educational institution is not merely based on its admission and placement statistics but based on its Social Engineering efforts too.

BITS, Pilani and entrepreneurship culture made for each other

BITS Pilani organised a three-day Seminar on "Entrepreneurship Culture: Issues & Challenges of Small and Intermediate Entrepreneurs at Grassroots Level" starting Sep 2, 2005 sponsored by Oneworld South Asia, UGC, NSTEDB, Union Bank of India, KVIC, CSIR, Hudco, Indianoil, SIDBI, and NABARD.

The inaugural function took off with the ceremonial lamp lighting and Prof Venkateswaran the Vice Chancellor of BITS Pilani highlighted the BITS System of education including details about Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership "CEL" as well as Technology Business Incubation Cell existing at BITS.

The seminar hosted various technical sessions and Open House Discussions and the proceedings will go down as an important milestone for further promoting Entrepreneurial Culture at BITS, Pilani.

Its no wonder that we increasingly find BITSians as the leaders of various corporate organisations. BITS Pilani's work ethic and the entrepreneurship culture certainly go hand in hand.

BITS, Pilani hosts PMGSY workshop

The Birla Institute of Technology and Science - BITS, Pilani hosted the Workshop on "Project Formulation and Quality Monitoring under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY)" on September 8, 2005, at Pilani.

The PMGSY was launched by the Government of India in the year 2000 to provide road connectivity to unconnected rural habitations across the nation. The National Rural Roads Development Agency (NRRDA) was constituted to extend support to the Rs 600 Billion PMGSY project through advice on technical specifications, project appraisal etc as well as to coordinate the efforts of various technical agencies in prescribing the Designs and Specifications of Rural Roads, Bridges and Culverts and assist the Ministry of Rural Development.

BITS, Pilani is one of the 7 Principal Technical Agencies identified by NRRDA to oversee the activities of the regional STAs, which are to advise and assist the Executing Agencies involved.

The proceedings of this workshop will go a long way to ensure that Rural Road Development Projects are well Formulated, Evaluated and Implemented with Total Quality embedded from Concept to Commissioning.

Alumni News

BITSian, first Indian national to secure top Singapore accolade
The head of Asia-Pacific operations of Satyam Computer Services Ltd. (NYSE:SAY), Mr. Virender Aggarwal, today became the first Indian national to receive the prestigious International Management Action Award ("IMAA") from Singapore. Mr. Aggarwal, Director and Senior Vice-President and Head of the Asia-Pacific operations of Satyam share the rare honour with three other business leaders who were presented the award by Mr. Cedric Foo, Singapore's Minister of State for Defence and National Development. "Virender is a model of the new manager with the bold, risk-taking bent of an entrepreneur. His success clearly demonstrates his outstanding management capabilities, especially his skills in managing diversity," the IMAA said in its citation. Mr. Aggarwal was commended for growing the Asia-Pacific operations of Satyam Computer Services from a three-member team in 2000 to eight development centres and eight sales offices across 11 countries - including Japan, China, Australia, India and the Middle East - with over 1,000 employees. To read more, check here.
BITSian produced H1Bees creates history
Geeksta rap is making way for Curry Rock! Srikanth Devarajan, Kartik Venkataramanan, Devesh Satyavolu and Srivatsa Srinivasan, were not unlike many others who have left India over the past decade on the H-1B visa, a guest worker program for highly skilled professionals. They wore glasses and mustaches and collared shirts. They could exterminate Y2K bugs and code Java and link Unix. But as they toiled in cubicles, they dreamed of keyboards of a different sort, of a world where C-sharp is just a musical note, not computer code. And then their worlds became one. Their collaboration resulted in the creation of their first music album, H1Bees. The album, named after the US visa given to foreign workers with high-tech skills and recorded in a suburban basement-turned-studio, was released on September 10. Its music is "a mix of Indian and Western beats with lyrics exploring the high-tech immigrant's experience in the United States." The music is written by Srikanth Devarajan and performed by aspiring Rock-and-Roll musicians who arrived in the United States to work in the computer and software industry. "The album, which will be sold via South Asian Web sites and stores for $6, boasts songs in English, Hindi and Tamil." Producer Vatsa and lyricist Devesh Satyavolu are both BITSian alums. For more curry on H1Bees, see here.

Another BITSian turns director
After BITSian Manishankar, who shot to fame with 16 December, it is now the turn of Sivakumar, another BITSian, to grab the arclights. Sivakumar, who earlier worked with Mani Ratnam as assistant director, is set to direct his first movie Chukkallo Chandrudu. He has already managed to hit the headlines by pulling off a casting coup by bringing together today's A-list stars like Siddharth, Saloni, Charmi to share screen space with veterans like ANR and Waheeda Rehman. In keeping with the string of trendy flicks churned out these days, the movie is supposed to be an energetic youth techno flick. The muhurat of this film was held at State Art Gallery in Madapur on the morning of 24th August. We wish the BITSian director the best as we eagerly wait to see how this film shapes up and performs at the box office. To read more about the film, check here.
BITSian Achievers Dr. Ash Pahwa Dr. Ash Pahwa, the founder, CEO & Chief Technology Officer, DV Studio Inc., is considered an industry pioneer in the technologies which made CD and DVD recording possible. After creating CD-Gen and CD-Arch software for pre-mastering and mastering, he went on to develop the real-time MPEG-1 encoder card products Apollo and MPEG Camera. He led the development team which produced the company's widely-used Apollo Expert MPEG-2 encoder card for the OEM market. Dr. Pahwa is also at the forefront of MPEG-7 commercialisation and is a member of the standards committee. Dr. Pahwa has lectured on MPEG, DVD, and CD technologies at Oxford University, UCLA, and USC. He has been a consultant to various Fortune 500 companies, including Oracle, Xerox, AT&T Bell Laboratories, and General Electric. He is the author of the book, "CD-Recordable Bible" (Pemberton Press, 1994). Dr. Pahwa has been invited to make presentations at various industry conferences including COMDEX, CD-ROM Expo, Microsoft CD-ROM, AIIM, FCC, VideoExpo, Digital Hollywood, Multimedia Expo, FOSE and ONLINE/CD-ROM. He is listed in "Who's Who in the Frontiers of Science and Technology". Dr. Pahwa earned a BE (with Honours) degree from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India (1975), a Post Graduate diploma in Computer Science from the University of Roorkee in Roorkee, India (1976), and a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Kansas (1978). In 1984, he earned his PhD in Computer Science at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. For more about Dr, Pahwa or the company, visit http://www.dv-studio.com Shri Ram Pal Shri Ram Pal obtained ME (Electronics) from BITS, Pilani, in 1969 and joined DRDO at the Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DLRL), Hyderabad, in 1971. At DLRL, he was responsible for the design and development of a large variety of multi-octave frequency band antennas and radomes working in V/UHF to MMW frequency range for communication, and active and passive EW systems for airborne, ship-borne, and ground-based platforms. He has published 16 technical papers in national and international journals. He was awarded with MN Saha Memorial Award by IETE (Delhi) for the best application-oriented technical paper titled, Broadband Tapered Slotline Radiation. He has been nominated as the Programme Manager for CODE-7 (Antennas and Radomes). Jyoti Dasgupta Jyotirmoy Dasgupta heads Specsoft in Mumbai as the Vice President, Software Application. Specsoft is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hexaware Technologies, which was founded in 1996. Head quartered in San Jose California, Specsoft is focused at being a premier technology engineering services company. Specsoft is engaged in the areas of VLSI design and embedded software. For the past several years Specsoft has provided well engineered solutions in the mobile and wireless arena. Jyotirmoy Dasgupta has 28 years of experience in the IT industry. After receiving Bachelors degree in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from IIT Roorkee, he studied Integrated Circuits at IIT Delhi. He later acquired a Masters Degree in software from BITS Pilani. Jyoti, as he is referred to, has very rich and diverse experience in all aspects of IT working with large organizations such as Electronics Corporation of India, Digital Equipment Corporation, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Patni Computers and Calcutta Port Trust. He set up the embedded software division of Hexaware in 1999 and has executed several large projects for many customers. BITSAA News BITSAA Women's Council The BITSAA Women's Council is a newly formed BITSAA organisation that aims to provide a "platform of connections, resources and opportunities for BITSian women." It believes that, with an appropriate support system, the BITSian woman can successfully achieve her family dreams and career goals, and its mission is to empower BITSian women worldwide to achieve their dreams through BITSian networking and leadership. The idea shines stark in relevance today, when women are faced with tough choices and challenges in everyday life in balancing career aspirations, fostering a healthy family and pursuing their personal interests. The motivation for the council is the prospect of creating a pipeline of women to fill leadership positions in corporations The fledgling organisation has already identified a number of activities: Discussions on the e-group on topics ranging from work-life balance to careers for moms to women entrepreneurs. 'Prominent BITSian Women': A campaign to track down and give recognition to BITSian women who have excelled in their respective fields. An Online Resource Library to archive and provide access to some great resources- articles on various issues, inspiring stories, personal experiences, a directory of BITSian women worldwide and so on. Online Mentoring Cells for facilitating general and personal counselling for women. Facilitating business networking To subscribe to BITSAA WoC, please visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bitsaa-woc and submit the following details: Name, BITS Id. No., Field of Work/ Study, Designation, Name of Organization, Hobbies & Interests, Email Address, Contact No. and Location. CEL launches Business Plan Workshop on campus The Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership is organising a Business Plan Workshop in the BITS, Pilani campus. Already a record 250 BITSians have signed up for this workshop that is being conducted by students on campus under guidance of Anupendra Sharma. We are hoping that some start-ups and many entrepreneurs will come out of this. The workshop is scheduled to be completed by the end of this semester. Chennai to witness BITSunami Guinness Record Attempt This is an open invitation for BITSians wishing to come to Nagapattinam to witness the BITSunami Guinness Record Attempt to plant one lakh saplings over a period of 24 hrs by local community. For those who would like to make their own arrangements for travel, here are the options: 1. Rathi Meena Bus Transport Corporation - Bus leaves for Sembodai at 9.00 pm from Koyambedu Bus Stand. The BITSunami folks will arrange for accommodation - location is 2kms from the Sembodai bus stop. 2. Kamban express - leaves for Nagapattinam at 7.45pm from Chennai. Travel arrangements will be made for those who send out an email to the address provided below. Contact: srikanth.krish@gmail.com, mobile: 093823 14403
BITSAA Events
BITSAA, Arizona: Ice Cream Social
Event: Ice Cream Social Where: Cold Stone, Mill Avenue When: October 2, 2005 Time: 3:30 - 5:30pm Contact: shilpa249@yahoo.com Students @ ASU: Please try to make it. It will give all of us a chance to meet the 'freshers' and vice-versa

BITSAA, Delhi Annual Get-together and Musical Evening
Dear Bitsian, We would like to remind you that, once again, it is time for the Annual BITSAA Get-Together & Musical Evening. Let us all get together with family & guests on Saturday, 1st October 2005 at: Time: 7:30PM IST (GMT+05:30) Venue: Lawns of Masonic Lodge, Opposite Macdonald's & Sarvanaa Restaurant, Janpath, New Delhi 110001 Chief Guest: Mr. Prithviraj Chavan Minister of State (PMO), Government of India & our fellow Bitsian, BE (Mech) 1967 The Programme 7.30 - 7.45 PM Registration 8.00 - 8.10 PM: Welcome of Chief Guest. 8.10 - 8.15 PM: Release of Primer on Bhagavad Gita by the Chief Guest 8.15 - 8.30 PM: Address by the Chief Guest 8.30 PM: Musical Extravaganza by Ms. Madhu Pandey & party 9.30 PM: Dinner The Charges: Rs. 350 per head (You can also pay by cheque in the name of BITSAA Delhi Chapter.) Please confirm your attendance in advance to the President, Secretary, and Treasurer or to the following office bearers: EXCOM MEMBER CONTACT PHONES AND EMAIL Mr. Vinod Puri '64 24333793, 24334623, 9811084663 vinodpuri@vsnl.com Gp. Capt. M Gupta '70 23015211(o), 26121079, 9811696559 mgupta007@yahoo.com Mr. Chandra Goyal '72 26388713(o), 0129-2281385(r), 9313293868 rentech@vsnl.com Mr. V K Dhanuka '73 23411268(o), 28742930(r), 9899011700 dhanuka@adityabirla.com Mr. Rajnish Sharma '76 26418637, 26474799, 9313085048 rajnishchem@yahoo.co.in Mr. Pradeep Sethi '77 26272900, 26453821, 9810033819 pradeep@corporateinsight.biz Mr. Rakesh Ralli '82 26425765 (o), 26461819(o), 9811053503 ralli@eth.net Mr. Atul Bhargava '85 0120-2880717, 9810217882 atbhargava@yahoo.comm Mr. I S Sidhu '86 24651243 E109(o)

BITSAA, Mumbai's Jamming cum Dinner session
Announcing BITSAA Jamming cum dinner session at 'Cafe Mocha:' EVENT : Jamming session VENUE : MOCHA, Bandra DATE : 7th, October, 2005 VENUE CAPACITY : 75-100 HOST : BITSians and spouses RSVP: jugal.parekh@hotmail.com We are looking for BITSians to help us organise the event. Watch out this space for ticket distribution.

BITSAA, SVC: UC Berkeley Dean's talk rescheduled
Dean (Engineering) UC Berkeley, Richard Newton's talk had been rescheduled to Sat, Oct 22^nd. The talk is titled 'Revisiting Pilani - Memoirs of Pilani.' This will also include an Update Session after his talk as follows: 'Berkeley-BITS Collaboration - Reflections and Exploration.' The session will cover the activities and proposals in the last 6 months. BITSians are invited to participate and brainstorm or suggest ideas. Prof Newton feels he would love to visit Pilani next year if a workshop is organised at BITS. To confirm your participation, please send an RSVP email to Harsh Verma, hverma@glocol.net. What's in it for you? An opportunity to network with Dean Newton An opportunity to hear about Dean Newton's experiences at Pilani Participation in the planning for a strategy workshop by Berkeley and BITS at Pilani in 2006 A chance to network with other BITS alumni A chance to help in BITS Global Collaboration Location: India Community Center 555 Los Coches St. Milpitas, CA 95035 Date: Oct 22^nd 2005 (Saturday) Time: 10.30am to 12.30pm (followed by lunch) Agenda: 10.30am - Start 30 Mins - Networking 5 Mins - Intro & Welcome - Jayan Ramankutty 5 Mins - About Dean Newton - by Prem Jain 40 Mins - Main Talk - Richard Newton 5 Mins - Berkeley-BITS Cooperation - Harsh Verma 5 Mins - Projects at BITS - Raju Reddy 15 Mins - Workshop Ideas - Open Forum - Please forward ideas to Kalyan Ghatak & Samir Vyas so that they can prepare material 5 Mins - Vote of Thanks - Ashish Garg 15 Mins - Move for Lunch 12.30pm - Lunch till 2pm BITSAA, East Coast: Annual Event The BITSAA East Coast annual event has been planned for October. BITSians in the east coast, get ready to rumble! DATE: October 29th, Saturday TIME: 6:30PM VENUE: Chand Palance Banquet Hall, Parsippany, NJ Details: Watch this space.

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