Latest news with #Tandon
Mint
3 days ago
- General
- Mint
In Pics: India makes history as first batch of 17 women cadets graduates from NDA
In Pics: India makes history as first batch of 17 women cadets graduates from NDA 5 Photos . Updated: 30 May 2025, 10:03 AM IST Share Via The National Defence Academy (NDA) reached a significant milestone with the graduation of the first co-ed batch. For the first time in Indian history, 17 women cadets graduated alongside over 300 male counterparts. 1/5On Thursday, May 29, 2025, the first-ever batch of 17 female cadets graduated from the National Defence Academy in Pune, marking a landmark moment for women in the Indian armed forces. (PTI) 2/5The convocation ceremony of the 148th NDA course, held at the academy that trains cadets for the Army, Navy, and Air Force, conferred degrees to at least 339 cadets. (PTI) 3/5Cadet Shreeti Daksh emerged as the topper of the Arts stream from the first-ever graduating batch of women cadets at the prestigious institution. (X) 4/5Poonam Tandon, Vice-Chancellor of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University, served as the chief guest at the event. (X)
Time of India
3 days ago
- General
- Time of India
Girl cadets torchbearers of change, courage & capability, says NDA convocation chief guest
Pune: Poonam Tandon, the vice-chancellor of Deen Dayal Upadhyay University, Gorakhpur, on Thursday said the passing out girl cadets of the NDA were the torchbearers of change, courage and capability, and their example would inspire generations to come. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Tandon was the chief guest at the convocation of the 148th course of the National Defence Academy (NDA). Addressing the cadets, she said, "Girls, your achievement today is not just your own. It is a breakthrough for thousands of young women across India, who look up to you." She continued, "You have proven that the pursuit of excellence and service knows no gender. Your presence here is historic, and your example will inspire future generations. I salute your grit, grace and determination." A total of 309 cadets were conferred a bachelor's degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University at the convocation. Eighty-four cadets were conferred degrees in the science stream, 85 in the computer science stream and 59 in the arts stream. Seventeen cadets from friendly foreign countries were also awarded degrees. In addition, the B Tech stream comprising 111 Navy and Air Force cadets received a "three-year course completion" certificate. These Naval and Air Force cadets would be conferred with the degree after the completion of one-year training at their respective pre-commissioning training academies — Indian Naval Academy (INA), Ezhimala, and Air Force Academy (AFA), Hyderabad, respectively. Tandon, the chief guest at the convocation, said parents had shown remarkable strength and resolve in offering their children in the service of our motherland. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now "I commend you for nurturing values of patriotism, discipline and courage in them. Your unwavering support is the wing beneath which we need their wings," she said. She said the cadets' degree was not merely a formal academic requirement. "It is a foundation, a launching pad to intellectual and professional excellence. As future leaders of men and women in uniform, you must strive to become not only physically fit and tactically sound but also mentally agile, emotionally intelligent and ethically grounded," she said. "The demand for modern warfare and global geopolitics necessitates the development of intellectual strength. As Thucydides, the Athenian historian and general, said over two millennia ago, the nation that makes a great distinction between the scholar and its warrior will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools," she added. Vice Admiral Gurucharan Singh, the NDA Commandant, addressing the convocation of the course, said, "I am confident that the first graduating batch of female cadets, along with their male counterparts, will carve a name for themselves as exemplary leaders of both men and women. Remember, your decisions will shape lives and your actions will inspire generations." He said, "The nation looks up to you with hope and trust, not just to defend its borders, but to uphold the values that make our society just, compassionate and strong. Serve with honour, lead with courage and remain forever true to the ideals you have sworn to protect. You are the torchbearers of a very proud legacy."
Time of India
4 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Anand Tandon on how to play insurance and power generation themes now
Live Events You Might Also Like: Dipan Mehta flags valuation concerns amid IPO rush and promoter selling (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel , Independent Analyst, says insurance is a long-term business which continues to accumulate capital and therefore the ability to generate money out of it. Tandon considers it to be one of the core areas for growth and investments on a very long-term basis. Power generation companies with new facilities are poised for growth, unlike those with regulated tariffs like NTPC, whose value is tied to predictable cash flows from long-term PPAs. While transmission companies like Power Grid are expanding, their valuations may be overshooting their actual growth of all, this is a very large space and earlier we used to say that India is underinsured. If you look at the number of policies sold, it is not so much underinsured anymore, but in terms of the value of the policies, there is still a long way to go and more importantly people continue to confuse investments and a large amount of the sales of new policies that are happening, continue to be ULIP linked, which is not necessarily the best way to buy insurance. Insurance is a protection product. You should be buying protection. Investments are best done through other structures like mutual funds, etc. But be that as it may, it provides an opportunity for insurance companies to continue to penetrate the market and upscale the size of the policies as well as bring more complexity in terms of the coverage that they are that we are also looking at life insurance companies being allowed to enter into other areas, you will continue to get growth. The biggest of the lot, LIC, for example, is now getting more and more into non-participating policies and there is still some scope for them to increase the retention that they have from even the participating policies. So, overall, the earnings growth can be quite importantly, the company itself is valued almost at a discount to their portfolio. It is not particularly expensive, either. For the others, growth has not been as secular as one should have expected, and that is mostly because of the fact that we had some challenges suddenly when the regulator that kind of indicated that companies which are related to banks should not be selling their entire products through the banks and so on and the bank assurance business went into a bit of a flux. But that is now back and we should continue to see growth importantly, once you bring in a client, the client has to stay with you for years. It is a long-term business which continues to accumulate capital and therefore your ability to generate money out of it. To my mind, it remains one of the core areas for growth and investments on a very long-term basis in the you go back 10 years or 15 years, where you had a situation where everybody thought that it was the pot at the end of the rainbow and everyone set up fairly large capacities and mega plants were set up for power generation, much of which linked to international coal and that became a problem going forward. Then we had the reverse where the growth in the demand was fairly low and for the longest time – almost four or five years – we had a situation where merchant power was trading at below cost perhaps and that had become a companies were not willing to get into the distribution of utilities and were not willing to enter into long-term agreements. That too has turned and we now have a situation where you could have bought capacity at, let us say, two to three crores per megawatt which was costing almost a million dollars to set up and now you have got a situation where the market is trading these at multiples of the cost to set up. Both sides of the market tend to overdo whatever it is supposed the demand for power is quite good and therefore, not much capacity is being added. Things are much more aggressive in the renewable space which is causing problems for the transmission business because until we set up more batteries, transmission is going to be under stress because of the cyclical or because of the non-predictable nature of renewables. So, net-net we have a situation where the power generation companies are putting up new facilities and therefore are going to benefit from that but the ones that are going to get regulatory tariffs like the NTPCs of the world should not be trading as growth sectors because finally a certain amount of value can be attached to the NPV of their future cash flows and that is not going to change very muchThese are all PPAs which often last over a couple of decades at least, so the market is tending to treat them as growth stocks. If one has to look at growth, one of the areas that we continue to need more investment is actually transmission where again the likes of Power Grid, etc, have actually got regulated return on capital. There again, they are perhaps overshooting a bit in terms of the capacity they are putting up and the valuation that they are trading at. But overall, at least the numbers will come is no doubt that as they put up more transmission capacity, that will be fully utilised and therefore, they will get their regulatory return on capital. So, it is a steady business. It is a business which is highly predictable. It is in the growth phase, but the only question is you have to figure out when you are going to be buying them because they are not actually stocks which will show outsized growth beyond what the capacities are.
The Hindu
13-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
When Nizam-era Hyderabad ensured pilgrimage parity
In 1934, the Hyderabad State used to grant six months of paid leave to employees of the Nizam's government to undertake pilgrimages to Islamic holy sites such as Mecca and Medina (in present-day Saudi Arabia), Mashhad (in Iran), and other significant places like Najaf, Karbala, and Baghdad (in present-day Iraq), as well as Jerusalem. This privilege was rooted in the Service Rules, which formally permitted such leave for religious duties. The policy came under review when Ram Swaroop Tandon, a Hindu employee in the Nizam's administration, submitted a petition seeking similar leave for a pilgrimage. His request triggered internal deliberations across departments, raising important questions about the existing rules, the need for equitable treatment of employees from different faiths, the religious diversity of Hyderabad State and the geographical realities of pilgrimage in India. A file preserved at the Telangana State Archives and Research Institute (TSARI) details how the petition was handled. It was first examined by the Law Department and later referred to the Finance Department. The latter noted that, according to the Service Rules, Muslim employees were explicitly permitted to avail leave for pilgrimages to Mecca for Haj, Medina for the Prophet's Mosque, and Shia holy sites such as Najaf, Karbala, and Baghdad, apart from Jerusalem. 'Given that Jerusalem was mentioned, it was noted that Christians and Jews in the Nizam's employ could also make use of this concession. When Tandon's request came, the government took up his case and decided to grant leave to Hindus on similar lines. It was noted that pilgrimage locations within India — Badrinath, Puri Jagannath, Rameshwaram, Dwarkanath, Prayag, Kashi and Gaya, were tough to reach,' Zareena Parveen of TSARI, who studied the file, said. The file shows that Gangotri and Yamunotri were also considered as pilgrimage sites. The deliberations, recorded in the file, dwelt upon modes of transport, and connectivity by means of railways, to reach these pilgrimage sites. For, the railway line took one only up to Haridwar. At best, a person could walk 10 miles a day. This, from a total journey of around 835 miles, the file notes. 'The six-month leave was made available for all personnel of para military forces for a very long time,' says. 'However, the rule was not made available for other government servants in civilian roles. The time taken to walk over the difficult and hilly terrain was also spoken about in detail.' At that time, the Prime Minister was Maharaja Kishen Pershad, a Punjabi Khatri. A council, including Pershad, convened and resolved to bring about the legislation which would allow Hindu employees to make yatras. In July 1934, a firman was issued amending the Service Rules, officially granting Hindu employees six months of leave with advance salary to undertake religious yatras.
The Hindu
07-05-2025
- The Hindu
Mock drill conducted at Rashtriya Raksha University in Shivamogga
The faculty and the students of the Shivamogga campus of Rashtriya Raksha University conducted the civil defence mock drill on Wednesday afternoon. Emergency sirens were sounded to create a scene of hostile attack, and students, who were playing cricket, lay on the ground, covering their faces with their hands. They were told to crawl to safer places, if possible. As part of the drill, rescue workers rushed to the spot and carried them to a safer places for healthcare. The students demonstrated how to handle the situation if there was an attack when they were inside the classroom. The teaching staff, led by Kaveri Tandon, director of the campus, monitored the drill. 'Mock drills are being conducted at the university's headquarters in Ahmedabad. We also did an exercise for the benefit of our students, who are studying security management and defence and strategic studies. They were told what to and what not to do. This exercise will help them understand the difficulties faced in a real situation,' Ms. Tandon said. In the morning class, Ms. Tandon said, the students were eager to discuss Operation Sindoor. 'I entered the classroom to teach community policing. However, the students wanted to discuss Operation Sindoor. I had a fruitful discussion about the latest developments in the aftermath of the terror attack at Pahalgam,' she said. The campus has been set up at Ragi Gudda in Shivamogga. The State government has allocated 23 acres for the campus at Thammadihalli near Ayanur in Shivamogga taluk. At present, 42 students are on campus, which was started in 2023. The university offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Undergraduate courses are offered in Security Management and Defence & Strategic Studies. Postgraduate courses are offered in Criminology and Forensic Science, Clinical Psychology, Defence & Strategic Studies and PG diploma in Political Science and Management. 'We have students from all over the country. There is time till June 30 to apply for undergraduate courses. Interestingly, after the Pahalgam attack, many students have enquired about the course on Defence and Strategic Studies,' the director said.
