Unheard in India today 40 Pilani Faculty Honoured by Alumni Initiative INR 10 Million BITS-75 Charitable Trust Guru Dakshina

The Passion Quotient PQ peaking Proud to be BITSians who are the alumni of BITS Pilani 70-75 batch take inspiration from Sanskrit shloka "Na Guror Adhikam Tatwam, Na Guror Adhikam Tapaha, Tatwa Gnyaanaat Param Naasti, Tasmai Sri Gurave Namaha which means there is no greater principle than the Guru; there is no greater penance than the Guru; there is no greater knowledge than meditation on such a Guru. I salute such a Guru." They formed a trust in April 2008 named BITS-75 Charitable Trust which received 80-G status on 20 Aug 2010.

The trust charter in addition to offering Guru Dakshina to the teachers who had taught, cared, inspired, encouraged and challenged them during their student years also included nurturing and supporting entrepreneurship by BITSians apart from offering financial help for medical treatment to faculty and their kin. The key trust members include Hanuman Bengani as Chief Trustee and Jagdish B. Acharya, Distinguished alumnus Vijay Chandru, Suresh K. Sharma as Trustees and Satish Thatte, K N Ravi, Russy Master as Operational Team Members. It is indeed a matter of great pride that funds raised by the trust by end of year 2019 only from alumni of this batch is about INR 10 million.

As a part of Guru Dakshina program, a public function is organized at different locations where Gurus with their spouses (or a companion if the spouse could not accompany) are invited to be felicitated. Sometimes the program has been held at Guru's home if it was not possible for him to undertake journey. The Trust arranges and bears all expenses for travel, boarding and lodging for Guru and spouse. Many alumni of the batch travel from different parts of India as well as abroad to attend the function and pay their respects. As part of the felicitation, a Guru Dakshina of Rs. one lakh along with a citation and our love and gratitude are presented to the Gurus being honored.

The first Guru Dakshina program was held on 25th October 2009 at Pilani in a packed BITS Auditorium where Late Professor BL Deshpande was felicitated. This function was held in conjunction with the Coral Reunion at Pilani attended by over 80 batch mates with their spouses. The second Guru Dakshina program was held on 9th January 2011 at New Delhi in conjunction with the first ever BITS Global meet. During this program Prof S K Sharma (Physics), Prof I J Nagrath (EEE) and Prof Ravindra Roy (Music) were felicitated.

The third Guru Dakshina program was also held on 3rd March 2012 at New Delhi. During this program Prof DP Rao (Chemical), Prof KC Gupta (Mechanical), Prof RS Shekhawat (Physical Training), Prof HM Ghule (Physics) and Prof GR Nagaraj (Chemistry) were honored. The fourth Guru Dakshina program was held at BITS Pilani KK Birla Goa campus on 14th February 2013. During this program, Prof KM Dholakia (Civil), Prof Ravi Shankar (Mathematics) and Prof TNS Mathur (Chemical) were felicitated. A separate special public function was organized at Hotel Radisson, Pune where Prof TSKV Iyer (EEE) was felicitated since he could not undertake travel to Goa. Since Prof MP Kakkad (Mechanical) could not physically attend, a special function was held at his residence.

The fifth Guru Dakshina program was held at Hyderabad on 3rd January 2014 in conjunction with second BITSAA Global meet During this program Prof GP Awasthi (Economics), Prof CS Rao (Chemical), Prof VV Mandke (EEE), Prof K R Chandoke (Biology), Prof RB Saxena (EEE) were felicitated. As Prof RP Jain (EEE) and Prof RR Gulati could not physically attend, special functions were held at their residences. The sixth Guru Dakshina program the first one to be overseas was held at BITS Pilani Dubai campus on 14th March 2015. During this program Prof LK Maheshwari (EEE), Prof V Krishna Murthy (Math) and Prof CK Raghupathy (Mechanical) were felicitated.

The Seventh Guru Dakshina program once again held at the BITS campus Auditorium on 30th January 2016 during their Ruby Reunion. At this program Prof HL Kundu (Zoology), Prof JL Arora (Mathematics), Prof RP Arora (Mechanical) and Prof MS Radhakrishnan (Mathematics) were felicitated. Since Prof PD Chaturvedi (English) and Prof HS Moondra could not attend the function they were felicitated at their respective residences.

The eighth Guru Dakshina program was held at Bengaluru where a record number of gurus (10) were felicitated on 22nd October 2017 at the iconic Hotel Woodlands. At the top of the list was our late indomitable dynamo Director C R Mitra who was felicitated posthumously. The others to be felicitated were Prof Rup Dutta (Chemistry), Prof K Gopalan (Civil), Prof SS Gupta (Chemical), Mr. Kamal Kumar (Chemical), Prof Aditya Mathur (Computer Science), Prof SC Rastogi (Biology), Prof HP Tiwari (Chemistry), Prof JS Verma (Physics) and Prof AN Bhargava (Registrar).

In addition to the above, the trust has supported entrepreneurship ventures of young BITSians which include Phyzok by Lohit Sahu, Sattva MedTech by Vaibhav Joshi and ThinkerBell Labs by Sanskriti Dawle. In addition the trust had extended financial assistance for medical treatment of faculty and kin to the tune of over 5 lakhs for faculty and their kin.

The ninth Guru Dakshina program is scheduled to be held at Pilani in a colourful function on 8th Feb 2020 where again a record number of gurus (10) are proposed to be honored who include Prof NN Sen ( Physics) , Prof G P Srivastava ( Physics ), Prof D P Kothari ( EEE) , Prof K S Subudhi (Physics) Prof DD Santani ( Pharmacy) Prof BK Razdan ( Pharmacy ), Prof Jagdev Singh ( Pharmacy) Prof RS Gupta ( Chemistry) , Shri K M Dheer ( Chem Engg) and Prof Pratap Singh ( Maths). When it comes to alumni initiatives, alumni of institution of eminence Birla Institute of Technology and Science - BITS Pilani always stand a cut above the rest.

For more on BITSAA see https://www.bitsaa.org/

Hanuman Bengani
Chief Trustee BITS 75 Charitable Trust
CEO Airgases Projects Private Limited
Block F P125 3rd Floor, New Alipore, Kolkata 700053
Work: +91-33-24017991
Mobile: +91-98310-98652
Email: info@airgasesprojects.com
Website: https://airgasesprojects.in/

About BITSAA: BITS Alumni Association (BITSAA) has emerged as one of the strongest alumni networks of any university. BITSAA International engages in charitable and educational activities by raising funds for setting up endowments, creating scholarships, rewarding teaching and research and generally promoting the development of resources at Birla Institute of Technology and Science at Pilani, Dubai, Goa & Hyderabad campuses. BITSAA International also aims to strengthen the ties, friendship and communication amongst former students, alumni faculty and friends of the Institute. BITSAA International provides a number of channels for people to stay connected with each other and with Birla Institute of Technology & Science. Notable other alumni initiatives for BITS Pilani include Prof SSR Memorial Teaching Excellence Award, Atma Nirbara multi crore Pilani Resource Centre by 75-80 batch alumni, Prashant Anuradha Palakurthi Research Endowment and many more.
For more on BITSAA see https://www.bitsaa.org/

This release was published on openPR.