June 2020 – BhaskarChakravorti

Mera Bharat Mahan-our nation is great. India’s first indigenous vaccine against Covid-19

Bharath Biotech has maintained a rather low profile since its operations in 1996. Low profile but with high productivity, because it has 160 patents to its credit and has introduced vaccines for more than a dozen diseases like Hib , Poliomyelitis, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, H1N1, Rabies, Japanese Encephalitis, Hepatitis B, Rotavirus and Typhoid. With thisContinue reading “Mera Bharat Mahan-our nation is great. India’s first indigenous vaccine against Covid-19”

Why Digital Entrepreneurship?

Thanks to Mr. Pradip Chopra @supersoftian Chairman of iLead Kolkata for giving me an opportunity to talk to the students on Digital Entrepreneurship

Scarfy mask not scary

One must admire our PM’s sartorial taste. ‘Scarforial’ taste if you wish. What is even more appreciable is his creativity in converting his signature accessory to a mask in order to protect himself from Covid-19. Making best use of available resources is one of the fundamentals of good governance.

Covid Cloud

Covid-19 has caused utter chaos and confusion all over the world. Even with the help of emerging technologies, remedy for this coronavirus is few and far between. Every week we discover an old drug repurposed to treat this novel virus. It began with Hydroxychloroquine and now the latest doing the rounds is the steroid Dexamethasone.Continue reading “Covid Cloud”

Forehead Thermometer Syndrome

As soon as you enter the gate, the security guard takes out his gun and aims at your forehead with a beam of infra-red. There exists a ‘white-coat- syndrome’ where the blood pressure of a person goes up seeing the white coat of the doctor, perhaps out of fear. Could there be a similar ‘forehead-thermometer-Continue reading “Forehead Thermometer Syndrome”

Metamorphosis-Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over it became a butterfly.

I had forgotten the stages of metamorphosis which I had learnt in school. I relearnt that the caterpillar is the larva which metamorphoses into a pupa. The chrysalis sheds the pupal shell and emerges into a beautiful butterfly. It doesn’t or rather can’t fly immediately. It does fly away before you return to see theContinue reading “Metamorphosis-Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over it became a butterfly.”

Don’t panic, not scared said Somen Debnath

“I’m not scared. I don’t panic” said Somen Debnath while cycling around the streets in Beijing on 4th February. China was his 154th nation after having cycled around the world since 2004. Somen, our young man from Basanti, Sunderbans, West Bengal, has faced even tougher challenges when Taliban militants kidnapped him for 24 days inContinue reading “Don’t panic, not scared said Somen Debnath”

Humanitarian angle of Pharma Paragon Dr.Yusuf Hamied to save lives

Thanks to Prof. Tarun Khanna of Harvard Business School for this interview with Pharma Paragon Dr.Yusuf Hamied. This interview was held in 2013 and Dr.Hamied had prophesied that in 2020, India will feel the real impact of patent law. In view of that he had said that he would be willing to pay the originatorContinue reading “Humanitarian angle of Pharma Paragon Dr.Yusuf Hamied to save lives”

Youngest Entrepreneur Arjun Deshpande -Poised to scale up with a purpose

Arjun Deshpande two years back, when he was 16, came up with this idea of aggregating pharmacies to source generic drugs directly from WHO GMP approved manufacturing facilities. This would eliminate the wholesaler’s margin plus offer the economies of generic pricing. He started with bootstrapping and today Ratan Tata has personally invested 50% stake inContinue reading “Youngest Entrepreneur Arjun Deshpande -Poised to scale up with a purpose”