BIOGRAPHY OF E. SREEDHARAN

E. SREEDHARAN - THE METRO MAN

E. Sreedharan is an Indian engineer known as the “Metro Man” for his pivotal role in building the Konkan Railway and Delhi metro. He was born in Palakkad district of Kerala on 12 June 1932. His family hailed from Karukaputhoor.He received his early education from Basel Evangelical Mission Higher Secondary School after which he went to the Victoria College in Palghat. He chose to study engineering and completed his Civil Engineering from the Government college, Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh.

After completing his education he was appointed as a lecturer in Civil engineering at the Government Polytechnic, Kozhikode. He worked there only for a short while before joining the Bombay Port Trust as an apprentice. In 1953, he appeared for the Engineering Services Examination (ESE) conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and cleared it. He joined the Indian Engineering Service (IES) and was posted as a Probationary Assistant Engineer in the Southern Railway in December 1954. He faced the first big challenge of his career in December 1964 when a cyclone damaged the Pamban Bridge in Tamil Nadu. The Railways allotted a period of six months for the repair works while Sreedharan’s boss wanted the work done within three. Sreedharan, who was made in-charge of the restoration, executed the work in just 46 days.

In 1970, Sreedharan was assigned the responsibility of implementing, planning and designing the Kolkata metro, the first ever metro in India. He was deputy chief engineer at that time. With his hard work and determination he led the successful completion of the job and set the pace for the further development in infrastructure engineering in India. He was associated with the project till 1975.In October 1979 he joined the Cochin Shipyard Limited, the largest shipbuilding and maintenance facility in India. But at the time of his joining, the agency was not performing well. However, under Sreedharan’s direction, the agency flourished and launched its first ship MV Rani Padmini in 1981.

He became the general manager, Western Railway in July 1987. A couple of year later he was elevated to the post of Member Engineering, Railway Board and ex-officio Secretary to the Government of India. He retired in June 1990 but the government informed him that his services would still be needed and thus he was appointed the CMD of Konkan Railway on contract. The Konkan Railway project, which had 93 tunnels with a total tunnel length of 82 km and involved tunneling through soft soil, was very different from the typical Indian railway projects. The total project covered 760 km and had over 150 bridges. Under his leadership, the work was completed in seven years.He was later made the managing director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation ( DMRC). Again he proved to be an extraordinary leader and all the scheduled sections were completed within their respective budgets, and by their target time.

The phenomenal success of the Delhi Metro made him a national celebrity and the government honored him with many awards for his relentless hard work and dedication. He retired from service in December 2011.The Government of India honored him with the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India, in 2001.The Government of France bestowed upon him The Order of Légion d'Honneur, the highest decoration in France, in 2005.In 2008 he received the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award in the Republic of India, in recognition of his work with the Delhi Metro. He is married to Radha and regards his wife as a great pillar of support. The couple has four children, all of them are now well accomplished in their own chosen fields.

SUCCESS STORIES OF INDIANS FROM THE FIELD OF TECHNOLOGY

BINNY BANSAL AND SACHIN BANSAL – MEN BEHIND FLIPKART

 

Binny Bansal is an Indian technology entrepreneur and the co-founder of Flipkart, India’s favourite shopping website. He was born in 1981 in Chandigarh. He currently resides in Bangalore. His father is a retired chief manager at a bank and his mother is in the government sector. He has no siblings and is married to a homemaker. 

He got a graduation in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi where he met his friend Sachin Bansal. After being rejected by Google twice, Binny had worked with Sarnoff Corporation for a year and a half. Later he worked for Amazon and resigned after nine months along with Sachin Bansal to start their own venture.

 In October 2007, they started Flipkart as an online bookselling website with an initial capital of 400,000 rupees. They launched the website from an apartment in Koramangala, in Bangalore, India. For 10 days, the site did not see even a single sale until a customer from Andhra Pradesh placed the first order for the book, ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World’ by John Wood.  In the early days, Sachin and Binny used to deliver books on their own scooters. They used to give away pamphlets of their company outside bookstores to target their actual customers. Later,they expanded the website into other product categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, and lifestyle products. Gradually Flipkart slowly grew in prominence.

 In 2016, Bansal became the CEO of Flipkart, where he worked on strategic development, direction and business management. In 2018, Walmart acquired a 77% stake in Flipkart group. After the acquisition, Bansal assumed the role of chairman and continued as Group CEO. His 5.5% stake in Flipkart was valued at $1 billion after the acquisition. He resigned from Flipkart in November 2018 on allegations of personal misconduct. He started to invest into new projects like image processing startup Terraview in 2019.

In September 2015 along with Sachin Bansal, he was named the 86th richest person in India with a net worth of $1.3 billion by Forbes India Rich List. India Today ranked them 26th in India's 50 Most powerful people of 2017 list. 

SUCCESS STORIES OF INDIANS FROM THE FIELD OF TECHNOLOGY

SACHIN BANSAL AND BINNY BANSAL – MEN BEHIND FLIPKART

Sachin Bansal is the co-founder of Flipkart that changed India’s shopping style. He is an Indian technology entrepreneur and a passionate gamer.

He was born on 5th August 1981 in Chandigarh. His father was a businessman and mother was a homemaker. He had completed his schooling from Saint Anne’s Convent School. He pursued 49^th rank in All India JEE rankings and got into Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

After graduation, Bansal worked at Techspan for a few months and later in 2006 he joined Amazon Web Services as a Senior Software Engineer. Later, his friend Binny Bansal also started working in Amazon. In 2007, both of them decided to quit their job to start his own venture.

 In October 2007, they started Flipkart as an online bookselling website with an initial capital of 400,000 rupees . They launched the website from an apartment in Koramangala, in Bangalore, India. For 10 days, the site did not see even a single sale until a customer from Andhra Pradesh placed the first order for the book, ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World’ by John Wood.  In the early days, Sachin and Binny used to deliver books on their own scooters. They used to give away pamphlets of their company outside bookstores to target their actual customers. Later,they expanded the website into other product categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, and lifestyle products. Gradually Flipkart slowly grew in prominence.

From inception until 2016, Bansal held the position of Chief Executive Officer and from 2016 until 2018, he held the position of Executive Chairman. In 2018, he exited Flipkart along with the Walmart deal that acquired  77 percent stakes of the company at $16 billion. The non-compete clause restricted Bansal from starting any business that directly or indirectly competed with Flipkart for 18 months and in making any investments in businesses competing with Flipkart for 36 months from his departure.

Bansal wanted focus on his pending personal projects, gaming and brushing up his coding skills. Later , he founded BAC Acquisitions Private Limited, a venture that focused on building and acquiring technology-driven businesses . In 2019, he had investments in Ola, Grey Orange, Ather Energy, SigTuple, Inshorts, Unacademy , CRIDS and TeamIndus.