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CONNECTED VALUES DISCONNECTED YOUTH The Young Indians Southern Regional Summit

26 - 27 October 2012: Chennai

STANDING TALL

Confederation of Indian Industry

Celebrating 10 Years

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SPECIAL EDITION

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Mr Jay Galla, Chairman, Yi Southern Regional Summit, Past National Chairman, Young Indians &

Managing Director, Amara Raja Batteries Ltd welcomed the members for the Young Indians Southern Regional

Summit on “Standing Tall: Connected Values – Disconnected Youth” during the evening hours on 26th October

2012 at the Ballroom of the Taj Connemara to an audience of around 200 people that included members from

Young Indians, CII, Media and invitees.

He focused on the theme and the basic idea behind the summit being the youth which make up a huge

number in our country. “The youth of India share a certain value system, beliefs, attitudes, culture and values – and

which is shared by not only the youth of India, but also youth around the world” said Mr Galla and continued by

saying that today’s youth in general were rebellious and that they don’t take things lying down and question the

status quo. “It is this rebellious nature that makes for innovators in society” he said. Mr Galla also spoke of curiosity,

aspirations and optimism and how these aspects define youth in toto. He added that the ability to dream was

another important aspect that the youth had to lower inhibitions as a result of not following well-established

systems and that these were the similarities prevalent among the youth that cut across all kinds of barriers, but the

fact remains that these connected values need to be harnessed.

Mr. Galla spoke of trends like globalization and urbanization and talked about the changing demographics

in India. And Mr Galla talked about the agenda for the summit including stand-alone sessions and panel

discussions. From a Southern Region perspective, there are topics such as energy, education, moral leadership,

sports, culture, entrepreneurship, and media that would form part of the focus of this particular summit. He

concluded by presenting some interesting and startling statistics before the audience, and also went on to

introduce the impressive line-up of speakers at the summit. Finally, he remarked that the youth can become the

change agents in every field of society by standing up to connected values.

Inaugural Session “Standing Tall: Connected Values – Disconnected Youth”

Day 1

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Following this, Ms Anupama Arya, National Chairman, Young Indians & Managing Director, Hatch Fund

addressed the gathering and welcomed the guests on the dias. She also welcomed Members of Young Indians

from across the country, Media, Students from the net institutions that Yi worked with. She recollected that when

she took over as the National Chairman of Young Indians in March this year, she had this idea of exploring the

possibilities of organizing “thought leadership forums” on various topics from a youth perspective, involving Yi

members and that has evolved into these regional summits and added to this being the 10th year of Yi – having

been launched in 2002.

She mentioned that as a grass roots organization, Yi had impacted close to around 5 lakh people including

students, farmers, professionals, diplomats, old men and women and through many unique partnerships with

existing weeks like Joy of Giving Week, Global Entrepreneurship Week, Heritage week etc. “And these regional

summits are treated as forums by which we could meet and interact with people and organizations that are doing

some excellent work / setting high standards of global benchmark as individuals and through organizations” she

said.

She thanked Mr Jay Galla and Mr M Sivarmakrishnan, Co Chair of the Young Indians Southern Regional

Summit and Chair, Young Indians (Chennai Chapter) and his team for putting up a great show and for all the Yi

members for having made it to this event. “It is a special occasion, a grand occasion and an occasion to add spirit

to our “We Can, We Will” attitude and to convert that into action”, she conculded.

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Mr Narayan Sethuramon, Vice Chairman,

CII Tamil Nadu State Council, Past National

Chairman, Young Indians & Managing Director &

CEO, W S Industries (India) Ltd addressed the

gathering next. He said that he felt proud to be part of

the wonderful occasion of Young Indians even after a

long time, and that too in his home town, Chennai. He

memorized earlier days when he used to be engaged

with passion and commitment in organizing such

events and he felt that the organization had come in a

long way. He said that he was proud to be able to

contribute his bit during this year and felt that the

theme Standing Tall – Connected Values &

Disconnected Youth truly typifies Yi’s approach in true

sense and is a hard hitting at the same time a thought

proving theme too.

He specified that the two defining

characteristics of the current trend are the weakening

of the welfare status and the transformation of

convergence of liberal economic strategy to

resentment and opposition mainly due to inequitable

distribution of benefits. He also emphasized on giving

much importance on ‘inclusive growth’ and that Yi can

definitely pave Yi for nation building.

Mr B Santhanam, Deputy Chairman, CII (Southern

Region) & Managing Director, Saint Gobain Glass India Ltd

delivered the special address by congratulating Yi for its

remarkable effort and work done for the past 10 years and

also stated that Yi has contributed a lot to the leadership of

CII and he referred Yi and CII as to the twin strands of the

DNA. He specified that Yi can focus on 5 main ‘I’s to

implement and to stand ahead way higher where it stands

now.

It is to ‘I’nvolve - Involve ourselves deeply with no

resource constraint. ‘I’nclude - Strong program equity in the

world, ‘I’nnovate - Energy, Environmental and Educational

Challenges, ‘I’ntegrate - Work, collaborate, connect with

people and for speedy implementation the bureaucracy and

government must be included, ‘I’mplement - In-scale

development. He concluded saying that Yi can play a very

important role in executing these 5 ‘I’s that can shape our

nation not just to a better one but to the best one!

He also believed in young Indians having the right spirit to bring up the nation and that they are no more

burdened with the ideological dogmas of capitalism, socialism and communism. “The fact that so many of us have

gathered is a sign of people who are here to spend time and effort in staying connected and to stand tall – and

Young Indians is precisely about all of you and the impact that we make on the society” he said.

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Mr C R Kesavan, Vice President, Rajiv

Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development

delivered the keynote address during the inaugural

session. He firstly appreciated the pre meeting before

the inaugural session he had with the Yi National

Office Bearers which he considered fruitful and

buoyant and also remarked that Yi and RGNIYD could

go longer way ahead hand in hand.

Mr Kesavan underlined that India that we see

today and what we will see years down the lane will

have a huge gap and that the single link that can fill

this gap is the youth of India. He strongly mentioned

that now was the time we reflect ourselves as true

young Indians – we contribute to democracy. “A strong

relation in terms of engaging Yi with governments and

bureaucracies will mark the efforts we put in and will

reap huge benefits to the society and nation we are

surviving in.

Every individual needs to discover oneself and

identify what values have been gifted to one by the

Almighty”, said Mr Kesavan. He summarized on the

facts that India’s strength truly relies on the priority

groups vested which includes students, rural India, out

of school populace, youth in conflict zones, moral and

social stigmas, prisoners, women and the elderly

population. He concluded by posing a question to the

audience that why India has survived catastrophe?

For which he answered that it was due to pluralism and

democracy. On that note, he ended his speech by

saying ‘let’s ensure that our servant’s children don’t

become our children’s servants and let’s rise as one

nation and one people’.

Mr Kesavan also extended a warm welcome to

the members of Yi to further interact and associate

with Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth

Development which primarily endeavors to facilitate

the nation’s youth with a conducive environment and

tools that will enable them to make the most of their

natural potential to realize their aspirations. The

organization's mandate is to provide the implements,

skills training, knowledge, infrastructure and facilities

needed by its students to graduate as potential nation

builders who can perform in professional capacities,

right from our grassroots communities to our urban

societies.

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Mr R Seshasayee, Executive Vice Chairman, Ashok Leyland and the Chief Guest for the inaugural

session took away the audience with his speech which was very well received. He picked up the statement that Mr

Kesavan had mentioned which he found was brilliant- ‘let’s rise as one nation and one people’. This statement was

very much resonated to the theme according to Mr Seshasayee. He mentioned that the depressing part of our

nation was that we had a lot of dividing factors like religion, demographics, politics, economics that stops people to

stand tall as one. “India seemed to an ever divided society which shouldn’t be the case” he mentioned.

He asked the audience if anyone can identify what that ‘secret sauce’ would be that is relevant today for the

youth to stand tall as one? Simply, he answered that Yi and Yi like youth organizations of today should rediscover

themselves and try to probe within to find out what can be done to get the youth connected and that is nothing but

only on the basis of connecting the youth through the aspiration everyone aspires for and stand for saying that ‘we

need to have a better life, we need to see ourselves climb up the economic ladder’. For this, one goal that articulate

very well can bind this powerful force - youth which should only be an economic goal said Mr Seshsayee.

He said that this goal should be just one, simple, achievable and executed by all regardless of all the

barriers in the society. To implement this, firstly the goal has to be identified and set, then framed on the basis of

three dimensions - to have a framework of democracy, to legalize this framework and seeing if this framework is

moral. He feels that we lack serious global leadership who actually does the walk the talk. And this transformation

of bringing up leaders can be assured by Yi and such youth organizations and he thanked Yi for inviting him as the

chief guest for this summit which he felt will definitely deliver the theme in a positive way!

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Mr M Sivaramakrishnan, Co Chair of the Young

Indians Southern Regional Summit and Chair of Young

Indians (Chennai Chapter) delivered the closing remarks

of the inaugural session thanking all the sponsors,

speakers and those involved in making the summit.

He said it was a honor for Yi Chennai chapter to

get an opportunity to host an event of this large size and

scale. He said the summit certainly lived up to the

expectations set by Yi national and thanked the

leadership team of Yi Chennai in achieving this. He also

thanked the gathering assembled there who have

traveled from long distances across the country. Mr Siva

specially thanked Mr Seshasayee for taking time off his

busy schedule to be present at the summit as the chief

guest which boosted up the summit to a great extent.

'Your contribution to Young Indians during your tenure as

the CII President has been remarkable. Your speech at

the Young Indians National Summit in Mumbai in 2006

still continues to inspire us!' said Mr Sivaramakrishnan.

Mr Harish Hande, Co Founder & Managing Director,

SELCO India began by saying that when he started off in the

domain of sustainable energy he didn’t quite have the

support of the youth early on. He went on to stress on the

importance of witnessing life in rural India and the problems

and challenges that the people there have to endure. Mr

Hande spoke of the HDI (Human Development Index)

statistic in States such as Orissa & Chhattisgarh and

lamented the fact that they are far below that of certain

countries in Africa which indicates a poor quality of life. The

most important point stressed in his speech was that of an

average street vendor who despite the odds not only

manages to survive but is actually a lesson in effective

enterprise and entrepreneurship and moaned the quality of

banking facilities and a conducive business climate as a

major obstacle towards inclusive growth and development

when it comes to rural India.

Mr Hande regretted the pathetic plight of the poor in

this country and how they are being exploited at the expense

of the others and stressed that the poor need to have access

to technology to improve their overall condition. Lastly, he

exhorted the youth to go to the rural areas and the

countryside and explore the lives of the people living there. In

his parting words “Let’s make India a centre of innovation for

the poor” said Mr Hande as he exclaimed that we have the

soft power of creating innovations for the poor and by doing

so India can become the leader of the world.

Plenary Session 1: “Sustainable Energy & Poverty Alleviation”

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Mr Krishnamachari Srikkanth, Former Captain, Indian Cricket Team in his inimitable style emphasized at

the very start of his speech that there is a need to be distinctly different from the others. In his own words, he had

this to say, “Be an Indian, then be a Young Indian” which according to him is a lesson in leadership itself and

exhorted the young leaders to be different if they wanted to do something different. The first quality, according to

him, is that a leader should be ready to take up responsibility. Another important aspect is to be able to shed the ego

and own up for the mistakes committed, and this is where he cited instances from his own career.

One of the qualities of a leader is to accept things as they are, particularly when the going is tough. The next

step in his opinion is to try and set things right, but the important point is to accept criticism in the right spirit. Mr

Srikkanth also emphasized that it’s important to listen to the heart. And, one of the qualities of a good captain is

being able to get the best out of his team members, and also to be able to give confidence to youngsters so that

they perform to the best of their ability.

This is the hallmark of a great leader. Another important quality of a leader is decision-making and listening

to the heart or one’s consciousness where he stated that the greatest decisions are taken in this manner. Lastly, he

summed up saying that one needs to stay positive at all times and also talked about the significance of the youth of

today having life skills and soft skills in particular, and how these opportunities will result in a different Young India.

Mr Srikkant is also the Founder Director of an organization named Career Strokes.com. The main objective

of a Careerstrokes.com is to motivate and inspire an individual or group of participants who will benefit from a

broad gamut of problem-solving behaviours to meet the challenges of everyday life with responsibility.

Plenary Session 2“Leadership Through Cricket”

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Cultural performance by the Mohanam Auroville Cultural Group

Audience in rapt attention!

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Day 2 of the summit started with the panel discussion on

“Education - Accessible, Meaningful and powerful”. Ms Gayathri

Sriram, Managing Director, UCAL Auto Private Ltd set the context for

the first session of the day on the topic, Education – Accessible,

Meaningful and Powerful. She remarked that this discussion would be

an attempt to answer serious questions related to the subject such as

the role of the Government in providing employability skills to the youth

as also the role of the private sector in achieving the said goals in terms

of advocacy and sharing of best practices.

Mr Anantharaman Mani, Chief Executive Officer, Report Bee Edusys

P Ltd started the proceedings of the panel discussion by mentioning on the

project that he was doing with the Government of Tamil Nadu. He said that, on

getting the details of marks from the Government, they did some research and

identified that the set of students who were born in the months of October,

November and December scored more marks that those that were born during

April, May and June. He informed that they were shocked by this trend

continuing for few years together. He mentioned that the reason for this was

that the kids who were born during the end of the year since they were old and

grabbed more opportunities in School in studies and sports and therefore,

grabbed the attention and recognition of the teachers.

He carried on the say that data driven decisions were playing an important role in all fields, especially in the

education sector. “The second observation about our work was that, there was a cluster of good performances

and bad performances in districts across the state of Tamil Nadu and the reason for this is because of sharing of

best practices during the training provided by the State Government happens in clusters and therefore the

scenario is spread out”. He also dwelled that passing in the 12th standard was important and that the percentage

of passage was 77% in Tamil Nadu – kids failing in all subjects was just 1% and that by concentrating on students

who fail in 1-2 subjects will help to make the total pass percentage to 97% from 77%.

Mr C P Viswanath, Managing Director, Karadi Tales Company

mentioned that he was looking for a new perspective and for an interesting

discussion based on his thoughts and ideas on the subject. He said that for

some reason, we have not been seriously considering the aspect of schooling

and also in terms of reinventing and reimagining across the board.

Mr Viswanath strongly stressed on the fact of thinking long and hard on

these lines. He lamented the standard of education being imparted to the

students whether its engineering or grade 8 students, as also the quality of the

teachers concerned. He emphasized that there needs to be a revolution or a

social change that repositions the place of teachers in society. Lastly, he also

narrated the grim picture of the average classroom experience of the student

and spoke against the one-size-fits-all approach in today’s educational

scenario.

Day 2

Panel Discussion“Education - Accessible, Meaningful And Powerful”

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Mr Aravind Balagi Prasad, Fellow, Teach for India, started off by quoting

a few instances in order to explain the concept of educational inequity. He reeled

off statistics obtained from the HRD Ministry which indicated the plight of children

in India who do not go to school or drop out from school, and he said that these

should be a worrying factor for everyone in general. Mr Prasad bemoaned the

quality of education prevalent in the schools which also varies on gender,

mindset, values and most importantly, the socio-economic status. He made an

excellent observation that achieving excellence in education is the key to success

in every sphere of life.

Mr Prasad explained about the concept behind the Teach for India initiative and to be able to understand the

plight of the educational system in the country. From his perspective, it gives them an opportunity to use the

knowledge to be able to make a difference to the rest of the country. He explained the various aspects that need to

be in place to reform the education process. Mr Prasad openly stated that the teaching profession wasn’t easy and

infact it was the most toughest thing that he ever did; being challenging in many ways. Finally, he mentioned that we

need to support individuals and organizations that make children’s education their ultimate priority and goal.

The next session on Moral Leadership was chaired by Mr Shankar Vanavarayar, Immediate Past

National Chairman, He talked about moral leadership - a topic that the present generation is realizing, and in a

larger perspective, we are standing tall to the world, but are quite low by our own standards. Mr Shankar

questioned whether morality or moral standards be deemed internal trait or an external characteristic. “India’s true

leadership standing has been in its wisdom, through its spirituality, knowledge, and through its leadership in other

contexts. Today India has the muscle in the form of the Young Indians and the world looks up to us” he said.

Mr K S Sripathi, Chief Information Commissioner, Tamil Nadu Information Commission remarked that the

topic chosen has been apt considering the present state that we lived in. He urged the Young Indians to take

control of the situation and give India the leadership which will have the moral authority or in other words, moral

leadership. “India as a society has always been the moral leader for the entire globe and people from all over

wanted to descend to this country for this very purpose, but over time we seemed to have lost that reputation” he

said. The youth of the country have not translated their thoughts into action, according to Mr Sripathi and its time

we brought into relevance the teachings of the great spiritual leaders of the past. He urged the spread of

information that would fuel knowledge and if this is available to the young Indians and if that knowledge is

transformed into wisdom, when put into action we can have an effective discussion on public policies and policies

of the Government. He summed up by saying that if we have to regain our lost glory; we have to get back our

morals and values.

Plenary Session 3“Moral Leadership - The Immediate Need”

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The next session was a panel discussion on “Youth & Media – Boon or Bane” context was set and

moderated by Mr David Appasamy, Management Consultant, highlighting that the session promised quite

engaging as the element been discussed is a part of everyone’s daily life, nothing but ‘media’. Followed by which

he introduced the speakers at the dais. He momentarily spoke about media as a tool that feds information about

sports, lifestyles, geographical and economical changes and many more to the general public to the extent that

media is a mirror that reflects what is happening in the society. He coined the word ‘fourth estate’ which media is

referred to as it has the power to affect positive change and reaches many people with a greater influence and also

implied that it’s the fourth pillar of the democracy.

Ms Sanobar Sulthana, Senior Producer, Chennai Live 104.8 FM spoke after the moderator on ’Celebrity

Obsession’ where she had favorable opinions about it. She added that celebrities do inspire their fans and indeed

look forward for their support which plays a major role of their permanency in the industry. “Its important for us to

however to choose between good or bad. The struggles, emotional turmoil, handling of situations can be learnt

from celebrities. The Fan Clubs do a lot of Social Service such as organizing weddings, blood donation camps in

the name of their actor which is in a way good for the society though it doesn’t come in the news papers whereas if

any celebrities act ionize any act on the big screens like smoking or drinking it would be immediately focused on the

newspapers saying that they are influencing the youth in a negative manner” she said. She again emphasized on

saying that celebrity possession was good because today’s young Indians find their heroes in India and no more in

the west and the biggest example she quoted was the music industry. She concluded saying that today’s youth are

strong and smart and that they look upon celebrity obsession as a wisdom opener.

Followed by her, spoke Ms Aruna R Krishnan, Editor & Publisher, Ritz Magazine on responsible serious

journalism. “No media or the involvement of youth in the media can be termed a bane!” she started by saying and

she propelled on the fact that India had experienced almost everything from the staid news presentations to

cautious conservative journalism to completely sensational attention grabbing exposures. Media has made

people bolder, polarized public opinions on matters that were once considered sacristan. She also mentioned that

most movements today depend a lot on the media to reach out th the vast public. She was of the opinion that free

press was the best mode where one can raise his or her opinions freely. On a very strong, remark she concluded

her speech dedicating her statement for those who think media propagates too much of negativism that if one

wants doors of feel good, positivity it is better to comprehend religious texts whereas if one wants doors of reality

one should tune in to a news channel or a news paper!

Panel Discussion“Youth & Media - Boon Or Bane?”

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Ms Andrea Jeremiah, Playback Singer & Actress opened her talk by saying that her perception about

media was very different. She said that ‘lack of integrity in the media’ as a relevant issue for discussion. “Integrity

travels through every layers and peels of the society and is way beyond morals and ethics” she said and referred to

her personal life and spoke against ‘celebrity obsession’ and that it feels annoying being on the other side. She

insisted that celebrities were just doing their job and people shouldn’t intrude too much into their lives. She also

said that the media was more of a medium in carrying the news from one part of the world to another and that

cinema was a small condensed version of a novel, which one see’s and enjoy’s in a short span of time.

The audience were treated to some “gangnam” style dance practice

Ms Puja Gupta, Life Designer was the speaker immediately after

lunch and she spoke on the “Three Questions of Life”. She started her

speech with sharing of her personal experiences in life with incidents that

made her said and that she was married at the age of 18, became a

mother at 19 and then at 21. “Why is it important to design your life?” she

asked…and answered the basic steps in designing one’s life – they were:

taking responsibility of one’s life, changing one’s belief systems, goal

setting (mentioning that only 10% of people in this world set goals and

only 3% write their goals) and affirmation.

She mentioned that designing one’s life was extremely crucial

because change was happening at a very fast pace mentioning that there

was a generational gap every 2-3 years with so much of information flow

and knowledge sharing. She also shared a statistic that by the year 2020,

72 hours is the rate of becoming obsolete as per a study. And she said

that, “We will have to start to re-invent ourselves to make sure that we

become obsolete fast enough than before someone else tells us” – “Did I

truly live my life?, Did I truly love? and Did I truly matter?” and she asked

the audience to urge these questions daily so that when one is able to

answer these questions, one would really feel that he had lived his life.

Plenary Session 4“Three Questions Of Life”

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Mr G K Mahantesh, Founder Managing Trustee,

Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled started his speech by highlighting

a video that he had created to bring the T20 World cup cricket match for

the blind in the month of Decemeber 2012 in Bangalore. The movie

highlighted the role of his association in bringing this tournament to

India. While thanking CII and Yi for having this event and discussion on

sports, he mentioned that India was a cricket crazy nation and therefore

it was natural for people to go behind this sport.

Being a visually impaired person himself, he said that he never missed

any opportunity to play any sport, be it swimming, cricket or kabadi. He

highlighted that sports gave him all the confidence in life to the extent of

starting a trust to give opportunities for the blind to take up their passion

– and shared his story of how he and his friend Nagesh took their

energy in getting this done. He highlighted that the aim of the

foundation was to get young people who are interested to become

cricket players so that they are able to get their mind tuned and get their

physical fitness levels up. He also requested the members present to

come forward and support the T20 world cup for the blind in any means

possible.

His passion and determination towards bringing up the visually

impaired was proven by the very inception of his organization.

Samarthanam has been working to empower the visually impaired,

disabled and underprivileged people in India. It supports the visually

impaired, disabled and underprivileged to keep in pace with the rest of

the society by providing quality education, accommodation, nutritious

food, vocational training, placement based rehabilitation and achieve

personal independence.

Panel Discussion“The Sporting Challenge - Moving Up The Value Chain”

The session on “The Sporting Challenge – Moving up the Value

Chain” started with the opening remarks and context setting by Mr

Prasanna Rajagopalan, Immediate Past Chair, Yi (Chennai Chapter) &

Director, Oceanload Maritime Services (P) Ltd during which he remarked

that “For a country of a billion plus people, our records in sports at the

national and international level can be better. While a start looks to be, it is a

fact that that some sports and games have an edge over the facilities

provided to the others, and therefore creates an imbalance.

The need of the hour is to have sports move up the value chain and start reaping the benefits of such efforts

– from awareness to identifying talent, nurturing talent to provide facilities, financial support and encouragement

and a conducive atmosphere to be inspired to achieve more – in this long chain, there are pieces that are absent or

are not strong and needs to be made strong across the board. With the government of India considering marks for

sports and fitness, a welcome start has been made. But, we would want to make this sustainable and far reaching”

he said. He also remarked that the entire country was behind cricket, both wanting to play the game and watch and

he highlighted that it may be a good idea to look at this successful model and replicate the same for the benefit of

the other games and sports.

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Mr R Natarajan, Former Athlete of India and Director, Indian Sports Promotion Academy spoke next on the

sports at grass root level, starting by mentioning that he had given an interview recently to the BBC News wherein

he was asked about there was a huge defecit in India on the number of people winning the medals at the Olympics,

when it had a population of over 1 billion. He further added that the question kept him embarrassed and that he

honestly could answer that silly, yet tough question.

He further dwelled on the five factors that he thought would help increase the sports at the grass roots level

– the first was to ensure that the summer camps that are conducted by the schools and the private parties need to

be organized; second, the fact that each and every school must have a playground good host to give an opportunity

to host many games and sports, the role of teachers in identifying and nurturing talent in children at a young age

which he does through his academy and the lack of motivation, inspiration and resources to take the child forward

in his of her preferred area of sport. He felt that the recognition for sports at young age is very poor in India and

needs to improve. He further said that physical fitness through sports must be made compulsory at the school level.

Ms Gowri Adappa, International Rower started her speech by explaning her daily routine in carrying

forward her passion, which was rowing mentioning that she would wake up at 4 AM each day to reach the waters

with her team. She lamented that the time given for sports at the school level during which most of them realize their

potential is around one hour a day, in which only the brightest of them get selected to play a certain sport while 80%

of them would be made to sit on a bench and watch them play.

She said that there was a serious imbalance on such matters and called for the attention of the

educationalists and the Young Indians in fixing this issue. She finished her speech by mentioning that world was

changing and the sports was beginning to get its importance – she hoped that it will continue for the benefit of so

many children in the country who want to take up sports.

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The session that followed after lunch was on “The South

India’s Cultural Unity - way forward and the same was moderated by

Mr Paul K Jacob, Learning Chair, Yi (Chennai Chapter) & Director,

Modarchs Consultants Chennai (P) Ltd who set the tone by

mentioning that the culture of India was and as diverse as the country

and unique and that it played a central and definitive role in the life of

many of its people – but as the world becomes connected and

generations continue to evolve, there was a strong feeling and the

need to reach back to our roots; to search to where we started and

keep it alive – in this angle, the culture of India served as the right path.

Ms Hanne M de Bruin, Director, Kuttu Kalai

Kudam was the speaker for this session and she

entertained the audience with some questions to test their

knowledge on the dance forms in India, especially in Tamil

Nadu. She mentioned that the original Tamil culture was

present in villages and the rural areas and that it was time

for the Young Indians to realiase the immense potential

that one can seek in the Tamil Culture and various of its

arts forms to pass it on to the next generation. She

specifically spoke on the “kuthu” form of expression in

which she was involved in and mentioned that it was a

form of performance that necessarily doesn’t use spoken

tamil as part of it, but merely songs, but since it was

performed by people from the lower castes, the

acceptance of this form of art wasn’t great. She said that

the reach of this performance was 12 times more than that

of the film festivals in Chennai, but the media was

mentioning this as a dying art.

Plenary Session 5

“The South India’s Cultural Unity”

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Mr Dhruv Lakra, Founder, Mirakle Couriers ran through a video composed that talks all about his

organization and the life of the people involved with it. He mentioned that the idea behind was not the usual kind of

helping the less privileged but an honorable way of empowering them by means of convenient employment. He

was mainly employing the very low income deaf youth. He also explained about why the deaf are less recognized

in comparison with the blind mainly for the reason that hearing aids are way expensive than spectacles or contact

lens and opened the floor for questions and suggestions. Mr Lakra kept the session very lively by keeping the

session interactive by encouraging members to ask questions. He said that his business will continue to grow and

that he always gets feedback from his customers to develop his efficiency.

Mr Anand Surana, CEO, ICEGEN spoke next at the session. He initiated the session by asking the

audience of what do they think about heaven? He said that he had realized that he had to chase American money

which led him to start his IT company in the US. He threw a gist to the audience by saying that chasing behind one’s

passion has to be the motto of the youth. He specifically spoke that if the present movements are invested

efficiently and intelligently, one can reap a better future. He concluded saying that blind faith is detrimental but faith

based on logical and practical thinking and applicability will pave one to success.

Ms Arundhuti Gupta, Founder Trustee & CEO, Mentor Together was the last speaker for the session

spoke about her life journey that paved her to become an entrepreneur. She focused her speech on three morals

that she learnt from life. Firstly, she insisted that it takes time for one to discover oneself and is better to take up all

petite opportunities that come one’s way instead of tormenting for that one big turning point of life. Then she spoke

from her entrepreneurial perspective by putting across that human beings are good but human interactions turn

out messy. This was one of major hurdle she had faced as a very young entrepreneur initially in the start of her

business. She explained the way how their organization works with destitute girls who have been neglected from

the society. Lastly, for her it was about doing all the hard work and still staying inspiration. She explained about the

mentor – mentee relationships that prevailed among her peers in the organization.

The last session on ‘How I made it?’ was moderated by Mr Deepak Ramasamy, Director, International

Clearing & Shipping Agency (P) Ltd. The session was all about a spurt of young people from India who have come

into the entrepreneurial space and have set high benchmarks of global excellence And in the process, they have

inspired a new generation of young people to take up the path of entrepreneurship, leadership and give their

dreams shape, their aspiration a direction and their thirst to succeed very real. Mr Deepak very briefly opened the

context of the session by saying that the people are generally eager to know about success stories of people who

have made innovative changes to the society, how they made it, the processes involved, the opportunities and

challenges they faced. By these remarks he introduced the panelists.

Panel Discussion“How I Made It?”

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This was followed by the Valedictory session

of the Young Indians Southern Regional Summit.

Opening the session, Mr Jacob Joy, National

Chair, Finance, Young Indians & Managing Director,

JJ Confectionary delivered the opening remarks for

the valedictory session by firstly welcoming the

guests at the dias and the gathering. He remarked the

Southern Regional Summit as a truly inspiring one

mainly for the factor of listening to veteran speakers

for the two days on the theme ‘Standing Tall’;

Connected Values & Disconnected Youth from

various perspectives and experiences they had in

their successful journey of life till date.

He specially mentioned that the unexposed

thought Mr Harish Hande had threw the previous day

by saying the India’s upper hand population lives on

the subsidies they get from the poor. The direction of

subsidies travelling towards the other side was a

never exposed thought. He briefed about the various

sessions that was held throughout the day and said

that all the sessions were very connected with the

theme.

Mr Shankar Vanavarayar addressed the gathering and thanked Mr Jacob for the opening remarks he

delivered. He nostalgically spoke about the journey he had with Yi from its inception and that this year being it’s

10th year, this regional summit added more significance to it as through such summits we get to see the

importance of Indian youth, demographic dividend being forecasted , realized and aspired and today we talk about

the full potential of them! He also mentioned that Yi has come a long way from its birth within the short span. He

acknowledged Mr Jay Galla’s leadership role for the success of the summit being the summit chairman. He also

acknowledged Ms Anupama Arya, Mr Srikant Suryanarayan, Chennai Chapter Team and the Yi National Team

who put in their efforts to shape the summit fine.

Valedictory Session

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Mr C K Ranganathan, Chairman & Managing

Director, CavinKare (P) Ltd and the Chief Guest for the

valedictory session delivered the special address to the

gathering. He said that Yi rightly saved the best for the last.

He started his speech by saying attitude is the most

important factor that can readily make a difference in any

man's life. He added that when the youth are forced out of

their comfort zones, they tend to fly out in bright colors and

to great heights. “And it’s also important for every young

person to realize that their destiny lies in their own hands

and that life is under their control” he said.

He added that man is a product of his own thoughts

and actions and that networking, building contacts and

learning from other people 's lives is the most helpful thing to

becoming successful. He strongly believed in one’s

conviction and that too the youth have to be shaped and

molded the right way. He said that he was sure that there are

so many people like him in the country today and each one

has had an experience that had been worth sharing with

people– but as someone who brought in the sachet concept

with shampoos into the country in the early 1990’s who

made a revolution in the segment at that time, he only feels

that it is never too late to experiment in the Indian market –

“the country is waiting for all and all can stand tall” he said.

Lastly, Mr Anantharaman Mani, Co Chair, Yi

(Chennai Chapter) & CEO, Visual Data Insights concluded

the summit by giving the concluding remarks. He specially

thanked Mr Ranganathan for his valuable time spared for Yi

and also quoted that his life as an inspiration. He also

thanked Mr Shankar, Mr Jay, Mr Sivaramakrishnan, Mr

Deepak and Mr Paul for pulling this summit to a grand

success. He also thanked the support provided by CII

secretariat, Yi secretariat, sponsors and the student

volunteers without which the show would have never ran!

The summit was attended by Yi members from

across the country, students from the net institutions in the

southern region that Yi works with and special invitees. This

summit became an opportunity not only to listen and get

inspired by speakers that have stood tall in various fields,

but also a networking opportunity for them to exchange and

share thoughts on nation building and Yi as an organisation.

On 26th October 2012, the 3rd meeting of the Young

Indians Governing Council was held in Chennai and saw

good participation from the members of the GC. In all,

around 155 members attended the Young Indians Southern

Regional Summit!!!

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Southern Regional Summit in the Media

celebrating 10 years connect - young indians · 2018-05-22 · skills training, knowledge, ... mr r...

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