S Venkitaramanan turning 90 on January 28, 2021

Welcome to Warrier's Daily COLLAGE How to improve concentration https://youtu.be/BGswR0tMqCM (Swami Sarvapriyananda) January 28, 2021 Thursday 🙏 M G Warrier Music 🎶🎵 If the link https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=402937914344163&id=105944937519608&scmts=scwspsdd opens, please watch this performance by Aditya Anandan, 16. Aditya is grandson of Vathsala Jayaraman Ex-RBI Cheñnai who is a regular presence in Collage. Best Wishes 👍🙏 Thought for the day: "Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work.” – A P J Abdul Kalam More quotes at G A Interaction V R Chittanandam Cheñnai "The Collage is becoming increasingly popular with contributions from the expert team led by Shri Babusenan. His narration today is very interesting. But what happened to Balambal? Was she cured of her ailment finally and did she lead a normal life as before? Regards, Chittanandam" 2) E T Rajendran Chennai Babusenan, in his inimitable style, has presented to us yet another story describing in vivid form how ‘eyesight matters’. As in the story on the functioning of ‘corpus callosum’ narrated by him a few days back, here again the villain is the ‘stroke’ suffered by a lady. Like in Puranas and Ithihasas, wherein the stories are narrated to bring home to the readers/listeners the underlying Vedic principles, Shri Babusenan’s story has made us wiser on the functioning of eyes and how eyesight matters. Beyond the eyesight, what I found in the story is the human values like an old student’s reverence/ tribute to a teacher by writing a book on the teacher-poet, a daughter’s undaunted love to a lonely mother, a husband’s readiness to uproot and shift from one place to another in deference to the wish of wife to take care of her ailing mother, sustained deep relationship of two friends who pursued different paths in life, settled in two continents, and a doctor’s voluntary help to mitigate the suffering of an elderly couple. The climax of the story has been left to the imagination of the readers. Hopefully, Smt Balambal is cured of her illness and the couple is leading a healthy and happy life. Also, the manuscript of the book on Shri A.K. Ramanujan will soon meet the printer’s ink and see the light. Babusenan's response: Dear Chittanandam, Your anxiety is natural. Here is the letter I got from the Professor three months after our visit: "Dear Senan- Both of you were messengers of God. Through you He sent us hope and solace. That week itself we went to Bangalore after consulting Dr Kumaresan. Suffice to say that Dr Krishnaswami of Nimhans is an embodiment of compassion. His approach and the medicines worked wonders for us. She is her former self now. After six months, we have to go to Bangalore for a check-up . That is all. What a relief, my dear friend! I cannot tell you how much we are indebted to Dr Sekhar Prasad. He contacted us a couple of times while we were at Nimhans. Bala wants me to tell you that she is angry with you for going away without seeing her and that, as a punishment, she would prepare her special upma when you next visit with the doctor." The visit we will do when we meet next time. Regards Babusenan" B S Venkitaramanan turning 90 V Babusenan Thiruvananthapuram The Indian Administrative Service was constituted in1950 and Anna Rajam George (later known as Anna Malhotra) got the good fortune of becoming the first woman I A S officer in 1951. She was a Malayalee and a product of Malabar Christian College. A couple of years later, Dr.C.S.Venkiteswaran, Principal of University College, Thiruvanantapuram, regretted that his college, despite having been alma mater to very brilliant persons, did not contribute to the IAS or IFS cadres. It was a challenge and the gauntlet was promptly taken up by a young lecturer in the physics faculty who was so brilliant and talented that he could have become a scientist of the eminence of C.V.Raman. He topped that year's list of candidates to the utter delight of all concerned, but he was not allowed to join the service, based on a police report that he was a communist fellow-traveller. Luckily, the Prime Minister intervened. He wrote on his file that the country could not afford to dispense with the services of such brilliant youngsters. He, in fact, wrote: "Even if he is an anarchist, take him". This enabled the youngster to join the elite group of 'brilliant, erudite, wise and understanding' men and women. Nehru remembered him and, on the last day of the training programme, when he was formally introduced to him, whispered into his years: "Young man, don't be in a hurry to hoist the red flag on Fort St.George." (He was allotted to Tamil Nadu and Fort St. George was where the state secretariat was functioning then.) The young man was S Venkitaramanan, who joined the IAS as sub-collector, Coimbatore and, at the end of an illustrious career, retired as Finance Secretary, Govt. of India. He was, for many years, in the Tamil Nadu service and served the State as its Finance Secretary. His penchant for rejuvenating sick and tired industrial ventures, made to perfection through a master's degree in industrial administration from the Carnegie- Mellon University, Pittsburg, USA, helped the State immensely. The shining example of this is how he brought back to life the sinking Southern Petrochemical Industries Corporation (SPIC ) of Tuticorin. After his retirement as Finance Secretary in 1989, Shri.Venkitaramanan served the Karnataka Government as its adviser for some time before he was appointed as the 18th Governor of Reserve Bank of India. When he took over the reins of this august instituition, in December 1990, the financial condition of the country was quite bad.To illustrate: the foreign exchange reserves were just sufficient to support three weeks' imports only and the country was about to default ,for the first time, the repayment of external debts. The reasons therefor and the extra-ordinary manner in which the crisis was tided over are too well-known for a narration here. Yet , it needs to be pointed out that the nation is ever obliged to Shri.Venkitaramanan for saving its honour by the extremely bold initiative of his in the matter.It is beyond doubt that what was a loss to the realm of science was a gain to India's sphere of administration. Suchetha Dalal's exposure of the Harshad Mehta Scam and the JPC findings came as omens of ill-luck for the Reserve Bank as his captaincy of it in an altogether different idiom was limited to a couple of years only. Shri Venkitaramanan will be completing ninety years of his most useful and meaningful life on the 28th of January 2021. It is a sad thing that he has been in the wheel chair for long, owing to some spinal problem, but his mind is said to be as agile as before. Presumably, persons from different walks of life will actually be deriving benefits from his formidable store of knowledge and experience. It is our fervent prayer that this' light house' would continue to shine for many more years in a better physical condition! There exist two segments of his admirers: One segment comprises students and enthusiasts of economics and banking who enjoyed and benefited from the beautiful articles he wrote once in the 'Economic Times' and the 'Business Line' and the other the pensioners of the Reserve Bank for the foresight with which he planned the periodic augmentation of the Pension Fund in RBI. These two segments are specially indebted to him. *** M G Warrier adds: Lest we forget 1991: "Time to take stock of reforms - India Legal" https://www.indialegallive.com/cover-story-articles/il-feature-news/time-to-take-stock-of-reforms/ Excerpts: " TOTAL TEAMWORK The reform story began with Rajiv Gandhi but it was Yashwant Sinha who realized that whoever became his successor, the fact remained that India would have to go to the IMF and World Bank for help. He recalls that the stage had been set and the 1991 budget had already been prepared. Even Singh admits: “What we did was not original. There were ideas which were in the air. Several discussions had taken place but the political system was not responsive to implementing the reforms.” Rao’s first task as prime minister was to find a credible international face to head the finance ministry. His first choice was the then director of the London School of Economics, IG Patel, and when he refused, the choice fell on Manmohan Singh. It was this Rao-Singh duo, which steered the liberalization process for the next five years. Patting Singh, Rao told NDTV: “Behind him I stood like a rock. It was teamwork. There were occasions when I encouraged him. There were many occasions I pulled him back. It was a question of managing people.” The reform team consisted of Singh and Chidambaram. At the official-level, RBI governor S Venkitaramanan, C Rangarajan (deputy governor of RBI), AN Verma (principal secretary), Montek Singh Ahluwalia (commerce secretary), Rakesh Mohan (former deputy governor of RBI) and Ashok Desai (chief consultant to the ministry of finance) helped. Economic diplomacy also began in Indian embassies. As Ahluwalia notes, reforms in industrial and trade policy were a central focus in the early stages. The major thrust was to address the macro-economic and balance of payments crisis. With the new industrial policy, the biggest hurdles to industrial expansion disappeared. Within a month, came a two-step devaluation of rupee. The Indian economy was finally unshackled."