Author Update: Seeing beauty in old structures

The Hindu talks about Meera’s untiring efforts to sensitise to their heritage.

In her eight years with INTACH, she has spearheaded several activities of public interest that have helped in sensitising people to the city’s disappearing heritage. One of her success stories is the Heritage Walks targeted at Bengalureans for familiarising them with aspects unique to the city’s cultural and historical fabric. “Over the years, this has helped build a group of people who gradually became our heritage ambassadors,” says Meera.

Read the complete article on The Hindu.

Author Update: A 10 minute IIT Puzzle

The telegraph extensively quotes Dr. Sanghi’s blog post on the rather lax process of hiring IIT Directors.

Sanghi said the process of selecting an academic leader of an institution should aim at assessing a candidate’s leadership qualities to take the institution to international levels in teaching, research, industry linkage, etc.

The process in American universities is more rigorous, with the board shortlisting three or four candidates after studying their bio-data and references. The candidates then have to spend a day or two with the board’s trustees and other stakeholders and present their vision for the institution.

Sanghi said he had had to go through a similar process before he was selected director of a private institution in Rajasthan in 2008.

He drew a contrast between the rapid selection of directors in six hours and the long-drawn selection of students for BTech courses through a series of tests. A student has to clear the Class XII board exam with 75 per cent marks or has to be in the top 20 percentile in the board.

Read the article on The Telegraph.

Author Update: Traversing a Scenic Silk Trail with Meera

Deccan Herald has an interesting article about the silk trail tour organized by Meera’s company.

As we embarked on a silk trail to unravel the entire process of silk-making in Bengaluru’s backyard, we realised each village has a yarn to spin, waiting to be unravelled in the seemingly innocuous small towns like Vijayapura and Sidlaghatta.

Read the complete article on Deccan Herald.