KEITH BARRY

2011 has been an exciting year to date for Keith. He shot his new Discovery Channel series "Deception with Keith Barry" in LA and it premiered on Discovery USA on May 31st 2011. New episodes premiered on June 1st, June 8th and June 15th. The shows are now starting to air internationally. Also in July 2011, after the huge success of Keith's Asylum live show which closed in May 2011 having done 83 shows in Ireland, his brand new show "8 DEADLY SINS" set a box office record in the Olympia Theatre in July and August 2011. His new national tour of 8 DEADLY SINS starts on Jan 1st 2012 and runs up to Feb 26th.

Back in 2010, the pilot of Keith's TV show “DECEPTION with KEITH BARRY” aired on July 14th in the US on THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL and did so well in the ratings that it was picked up for a series which began production in Oct. Jan 2010 also saw the launch of Keith’s live show “The Asylum” which went on to sell out 35 shows and along with an unprecedented 20-night run at The Olympia in July. This was his most outrageous, controversial and damn right funniest show ever and has been hailed by the critics as his best live work to date.
In 2009, Keith was awarded the prestigious Merlin Award for "Mentalist of the Year 2009" from the International Magicians Society. The Merlin Award is to magic what the Oscars are to movies with past winners of the Merlin Award being David Copperfield and Siegfreid & Roy. 2009 also saw Keith gaining the title “Best Magician in Las Vegas 2009” as voted for by the Las Vegas Review Journal show critics after he finished up an impressive 5 week residency at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino to rave reviews.

On Dec 29th, 2007 Keith had his first UK Primetime ITV 1 show “Keith Barry – The Escape Live”. Keith has appeared numerous times on The Ellen Show, The Jimmy Kimmel show and Sharon Osbourne and in the US and also on the Paul O’Grady Show in the UK.

Going back to 2006, after just one viewing of his live stageshow in LA, CBS offered Keith his own US TV Special “Keith Barry – Extraordinary”. This was CBS’s first magic special in over 15 years and followed on from the success of Keith’s MTV show “Brainwashed”.

Keith has now starred in over 40 international tv shows and they have been shown in over 110 countries around the world making Keith truly an international name and his star is still rising.

Anandita Dutta Tamuly : chilly girl

Anandita Dutta Tamuly , is an Assamese woman from Titabor Town inJorhat district of Assam. She is married to Pankaj Tamuly and is mother of a son. She is known for eating and rubbing Bhut Jolokia peppers on her bare eyes. The chilli, native to Assam, is the world's hottest chilli pepper as recognized by the Guinness World Records.

On Thursday night, April 9, 2009, Anandita performed her feat at the district library auditorium, Jorhat before hundreds of people for a Channel 4  programme on global food being anchored by celebrity British chef Gordon Ramsay. She ate 51red-hot-chillies in two minutes and smeared seeds of 25 chillies in her eyes without shedding a tear. According to Diganta Saikia, one of the event coordinators, the Guinness authorities had earlier asked them to authenticate this with a supervised recording of the feat. The coordinators accordingly asked Ramsay to be the adjudicator for Guinness and he agreed to pursue Anandita’s claim as the world’s ‘hottest woman’ by submitting video clippings.

Sudarsan Pattnaik

Sudarsan Pattnaik  was  born in Puri , nearly 70 km from Bhubaneswar the capital city of Orissa. He is the inventor of sand art in India and has learned this form of sand art by himself without any guidance by practice and creative ideas. He started sculpting images on sand since the age of seven. Till now he has designed hundreds of sand sculpture. In the recent years people have started focusing on this art form. Now Sudarshan has many students working under his arm. Among them is Manas Kumar Sahoo who was the semifinalist of India's Got Talent Season 2. He has won many national and international awards for his creative designs and has recorded his name in the World records for sculpting the tallest Santa Claus and most Santa Claus image built on sand. Sudarshan Pattnaik won the People's Choice Prize at the 1st Moscow International Sand Sculpture Championship held in Russia.

Pattnaik created a 15 feet high Hindu God Ganesh to create awareness among the people on the potential dangers of global warming at the International Sand Championship.

The top of the sculpture depicted the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas and in the flowing water Lord Ganesh is traveling on a boat with a sign 'Divine Concern on Global Warming'.

This was to educate people through his art about the effects Global Warming.

Sudarsan Patnaik’s ultimate objective is to create awareness and enthusiasm among the people and make it popular professional art form among the people for which he is traveling various places in the country and demonstrating this art form by holding work shops and training. He established "The Golden Sand Art Institute” which is first of it’s nature in India.

Pattnaik has so far participated in more than 35 international sand sculpture championships across the world and won many awards for the country.

His sand sculpture on Black Taj Mahal earned him accolades all over the world.www.sandindia.com

Ganesh Hegde

Choreographer of the movie RA-ONE. Best-known for his work in the Oscar-nominated film Lagaan and for his musical numbers in Company. Ganesh has choreographed many stage shows, namely Temptations 2004, the Bollywood rock concert which toured America with huge stars such as Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Preity Zinta, Saif Ali Khan and Arjun Rampal.

Hegde is also known for choreographing of Michael Jackson's concert in India.

He has been associated with the Zee Cine Awards since conception and has been choreographing the Filmfare Awards for the past decade.

Hegde's famous choreographed sequences include It's Magic from Koi Mil Gaya, Dum from Dum and Main Hoon Don from Don - The Chase Begins Again.

Hegde started a trend for the music video type execution in movies with Kambakht Ishq (Pyar Tune Kya Kiya) and Khallas (Company)
Singing

In October 2005 Ganesh released his debut album "G" with the backing and promotion of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan. He is reported as the first Indian pop act to produce, write, direct and star in his debut music video (for his single Main Deewana). He is also credited with launching the career of Indian model and actress Yana Gupta, for whom he crafted the song Babuji in the film Dum.

Hegde started out performing with Asha Bhonsle on stage shows and she is reported to have convinced him to release his own album. She has sung a duet with him in G.

Hegde has also sung the rap Kaun Banega Crorepati promo song ' Ek Sawaal Ka Sawaal Hai ', for the third season of the show hosted by Shah Rukh Khan .The song is available on a T Series album titled ' Shah Rukh Khan Kar Le Kar Le Koi Dhamaal'.The video was conceptualized and directed by Hegde.
Education

Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra - Artist-Communicators

Former art directors from the advertising world, versatile artists Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra express themselves in painting, sculptures and installations. Among their creations is the "Apocalyptron", a 15ft-high Godzilla-like monster created out of 2,000 pink plastic bottles, symbolic of rampant consumerism, aptly placed in a shopping mall in Delhi. Their work has eight-figure price tags, is frequently auctioned at Sothebys and has been snapped up by art czar Frank Cohen as well as pop star Elton John, strangely making them the very icons of what they parody. Despite criticism for churning out computer-generated art work, they remain unfazed. "Had we been working as individuals, the curve would have been much slower," says Thukral. Among their early projects was the Punjabi-pejorative titled BoseDK designs and the mind-numbingly everyday products of the fictitious BoseDK mega mall. They spend six months a year jetting to exhibitions from Tokyo to Turin but their time in India is spent closeted in their studio in Gurgaon. "No time for parties," says Tagra. Forthcoming projects include four large museum shows in Paris, Beijing, Washington and Lyon, a move into a purpose-built studio and a feature film.
  The Journey: Two small-town boys, Thukral from Jalandhar and Tagra from Ludhiana, went to the big city to learn fine art at the Delhi College of Art. They worked together at Ogilvy & Mather, before debuting with a solo show at Nature Morte in 2005. Since then, the duo has held over a dozen shows in New York, London, Sydney and Berlin where they often field post-Slumdog Millionairequeries like, "do you have plug points in India?"
The Inspiration: They revel in seemingly everyday ordinariness and kitsch which finds expression in all their projects-from paintings lampooning the rootlessness of Punjabi baroque architecture to rubber slippers and underwear with a "put it on" condom message.
The Mentor: The mundane world with dashes of Stephan Sagmeister's shock, Damien Hirst's formaldehyde art, the scale of Anish Kapoor and Subodh Gupta's exuberance. "We can spend hours marvelling at a plastic toy," says Thukral.

Athira Krishna

Athira Krishna is an internationally acclaimed prodigy violinist from India. Athira was born in Trivandrum,Kerala. She has an enviable musical lineage as the grand daughter of the illustrious Vidwan Shri. GopalaPillai, fabulous musician of yesteryears who belonged to the renowned Tanjore tradition of Carnatic Music whose master-disciple lineage traced back to the Sri. Muthuswamy Dikshithar Carnatic trinity of the 18th century, and to Baluswamy Dikshithar, who first introduced the violin to Indian classical music.

D Udaya Kumar: The man who design the rupee symbol

Dharmalingam Udaya Kumar was booked to fly to Guwahati on Thursday morning. On Friday he was to start his new job as assistant professor in the department of design at the Indian Institute of Technology in Guwahati. He was leaving the IIT Mumbai campus where he spent five years earning a PhD in industrial design—the first doctorate to be awarded in the discipline in India.


The calls started pouring in early Thursday morning. He had won a nationwide contest run by the government to design a symbol for the Indian rupee. A symbol he designed, incorporating elements of Devanagari and Roman scripts, had been chosen to represent India's growing economy and its currency. It would be incorporated in Unicode, computer keyboards will have a dedicated key for the symbol and it will come to be seen and recognised around the world. A designer gets to create a currency symbol just once in a nation'




For a man used to painstaking and solitary pursuit of meaning in symbols, typefaces and ancient Tamil manuscripts, the attention must have been unsettling. He didn't take his flight. In the evening, cars came to haul him off to television studios. He would go to Guwahati the next day.


Born in Chennai on 10 October, 1978, Kumar's family hails from Thanjavur. The magnificent temples there must have had something to do with his decision to study architecture, which he pursued at Anna University in Chennai. Subsequently, he did his masters in architecture from IIT, Mumbai. When the industrial design centre in the campus started offering a PhD, Udaya Kumar enrolled, and started work on the evolution of the Tamil script,which dates back to 2nd century AD.


"I want to continue work on Tamil typography. I find our symbols have a very heavy western influence. I will do more work on Indian scripts," he told ET. For the design, he took inspiration from the symbols of such currencies as Korea's won, UK's pound sterling, euro, lira, peso and others. "Thus it has a harmonious identity as far as international currency symbols are concerned and at the same time it has the Indian uniqueness," he said about his winning design. Among the international currencies, he likes the Yen symbol as it best reflects the country. The 31-year-old bachelor worked as a senior designer for two years with speciality magazine publisher Infomedia.

Suresh Ranjan Goduka

With forefathers who migrated to Assam from the erstwhile Rajputana a century ago, this Marwari youth could teach Raj Thackeray a thing or two about cultural assimilation. Among the leading Assamese poets of his generation, he gave up a documentary filmmaking career in Delhi and went back home in 2004 to startJeevan, a monthly Assamese magazine, which seeks to explore the diversity, beauty and infinite possibility of life. "The media here carries only news of oppression, corruption and lack of development," says Goduka, who used own bank balance, his father's savings as well as a loan to fund Jeevan, which now sells 5,000 copies a month. Its perception, awareness and aspiration surveys conducted among the youth, a first in the region, have shattered many myths. This year, he founded the Jeevan Initiative, an NGO, dedicated to youngsters.

Uttam Teron

Seven years before the Right to Education Bill was introduced in Parliament, Uttam Teron, a young man from Pamohi, 20 km from Guwahati, dreamt of 100 per cent literacy for the children of his village. Education was the lowest priority in this Karbi-dominated hamlet and most children, especially girls, helped their parents in the fields. This changed when Teron began the Parijat Academy in 2003 with four students. Today, the school, with a small hostel, provides free education to 502 students of which 256 are girls. "Teron has shown how the efforts of an individual can inspire a big movement," says Shantikam Hazarika, Director, Assam Institute of Management.

The Journey: Born to a train driver father and a homemaker mother who never went to school, Teron invested the Rs. 800 he had earned as a private tutor in constructing a room with a tin roof and bamboo walls. It became his school.

The Mission: Plans to build a hostel which can accommodate 100 students, a full-fledged computer centre, a health clinic, a day-care centre for handicapped children and a weaving centre for girls.

Bhabananda Barbayan (Majuli dancers Monk)

Sri Babananda Barbayan is dancer,choreographer, drummer, teacher and artistic-director. He is also director and research scholar, department of dance, Rabindra Bharati University. The Sattriya, an indian Classical style of drama-drama-music has its origin traced back to the Neo-Vaisnavite movement flourishing in Assam in the 15th-16th century. The great Wise Sri Sankaradeva created it with an evident artistic and futuristic vision, treated the art to supplement the pursuit of Bhakti (love devotion). Bhabananda practice his art since his age of 4, when he is becoming monk. He is actualy recognozed in India as the better artist of Sattriya. His first tour with his group (les moines danseurs de Majuli) in France and Portugal in 2008 has been a succes.

Indrani Medhi

Indrani Medhi is an Associate Researcher in the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research India in Bangalore. Her research interest is in the area of Ethnographic UI Design and Technology for Socio-Economic Development. Her current work has been in User Interfaces for Illiterate and Semi-Literate Users. She has a Masters degree in Design from Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA and Bachelors degree in Architecture from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur, India. Currently, she is also a 3rd year Ph.D. student at the Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, (IIT Bombay), Mumbai, India. Indrani is a native of Guwahati, Assam, in Northeast India, and has been living in Bangalore since 2005.

Recently Indrani was listed in the MIT Technology Review's TR35 list of "outstanding innovators" under the age of 35; featured in the list of "50 Smartest People in Technology" in 2010 by Fortune magazine; was named a "Global Forum Visionary" by Fortune; won the "Young Indian Leader" award for 2010 from CNN IBN; and featured in the list of 35 "Youth Icon" under 35, by India Today magazine.

Devika Mahadevan

"They build our city but our city has no space for them," says Devika Mahadevan, the 31 year old CEO of Mumbai Mobile Creches. Mobile Creches is an organisation that cares for and educates the children of construction site workers.

Millions of men and women in India work in the construction sector. They shuttle from job to job to earn meager wages a day, while their children are uprooted and left unattended. Many of these children suffer from malnutrition tuberculosis, and accidents that occur on the building sites. Mobile Creches (MMC), led by Devika, creates a healthy community for migrant workers on 25 construction sites, reaching 4,000 children. Believing that care and attention during the early years of a child's life are crucial for their overall growth. Mobile Crèches provides early childhood care and development programme in the form of traditional Indian balwadis - nurseries that provide education, daycare, and nutrition for children.

Devika's parents were both journalists from middle class professional backgrounds. Hence she always had an inclination towards literature. She won a scholarship to go the States and major in Sociology and Economics. Her inclination towards languages compelled her to take up Chinese in college. Her thirst to travel and apply what she'd learnt took her to China as an Intern in the UN in Beijing. She worked on womens' issues there. Things fell into place and Devika started her career in Social Service. Following this she acquired a scholarship from her University and chose to work in Zimbabwe, Africa.

Working with slum children here was an eye opening experience for young Devika. She then did her Masters in Social Development from London School of Economics. Longing for her own country brought her back to Bombay and she joined an organization called SPARC which promotes housing and infrastructure rights for the urban poor. After working for 3 years with them she decided she wanted a more significant role in a relatively lesser developed organization. Co-incidentally both her grandmothers worked for Mobile Crèches that was 36 years old. She realized that it lacked proper growth, vision and structure. Hence she joined as the CEO of Mobile crèches with an aim to create a vision, spearhead growth and re-energies the organization.

Devika represents her organisation and manages the funding as well. Extremely passionate about her work, it is a joy to watch her interaction with little children. She has come up with a new mission for Mobile Creches called 'Dus by Dus'. They aim to reach 10,000 children by 2010. Devika doesn't intend stopping until she has covered every child in the country!

Kaushalendra Kumar

From IIM Ahmedabad to selling vegetables in Patna, Kaushalendra has had a rather eventful journey. He launched a project called ‘Samriddhi’ in February 2007. It focuses on mobilizing and organizing the informal and fragmented vegetable sector of Bihar.

He went to IIM Ahmedabad and it is there that he conceptualized and gave shape to this project under the guidance of his teachers. He started the project in 2007 with Rs. 25,000 which was scholarship money that he got for being the best student. Today his business is doing a turnover of Rs. 9 lakhs and he has a 14 staff member office with almost 1000 farmers and 80 vendors associated with him. Samriddhi is a source of employment for over 500 people, thereby feeding as many families.

He has divided the farmers into the “Vegetable Producer Company” and the sellers into the “Vegetable Marketing Company”. The goal of Samriddhi is to create opportunities of profitable and dignified self-employment for the families dependent on Agricultural sector, especially disadvantaged sections (Farmers, farm labourers, agriculture produce vendors and many others), ensuring sustainable livelihoods, enriched environment, improved quality of life and good human values.

Kaushalendra has been working towards professionalizing vegetable street vendors and marginal growers, and empowering them to face the future challenges in the new global economy; thus creating wealth and prosperity from farm gate to food plate. He started off with procurement of only 5 Kgs of vegetables and now dabbles in 800-900 tonnes. The farmers produce the vegetables, then directly send them to Patna after coding and labeling them. Post that they get redistributed at the Patna Centre and sent to various markets , hotels and houses. This ensures that both the producers and the buyers get their due.

Apart from the distribution he has also started Free Home delivery of vegetables. If a client thinks the veggies are not fresh, or are over priced he will take them back. For Kaushalendra gaining the trust of his clients is as important as gaining the trust of farmers and vendors.

Samriddhi has a public private partnership with Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) Patna. Also recently, Punjab National Bank (PNB) has sanctioned Rs. 50 Lakh to the project.

Kaushalendra envisages to make Bihar the vegetable hub of the nation and to develop brand Bihar in the vegetable sector. He is soon going to open two collection centres, namely in Fatuha and Ekangar Sarai block of Bihar. In the future he wants to extend this to cereals and get into Water purification schemes in Bihar. He wishes to see Bihar on the world map because he feels it has a lot to give to the world.

Manish Malhotra

Manish Malhotra is the most famous designer in Indian Fashion Industry as well as Film Industry. Manish turned the concept of fashion designing in the Bollywood when he designed the costumes for the beautiful Juhi Chawla for the film “Swarg” at the age of just 25 years. Since then he has never looked back and earned the distinction as the transformer of looks of the characters. The characters dressed up by Manish are powerful enough to express themselves without uttering a single word. In his short tenure in the Bollywood he has designed the costumes for countless celebrities.
Manish is a very practical and realistic person beside so much fame and success. He is a simple person who envisioned a dream and worked very hard to pursue it. Manish belongs to a middle class Punjabi family. He was born in the year 1965. Father of Manish had a strong desire that Manish should join his father’s business but Manish had some other plans, he wanted to create a niche for himself in the creative field. Manish did not receive any professional training but he was having full confidence on his talent.



Manish put in 15 years of real hard work which made Manish Malhotra we all know today. He was among the first designers who asked for the script before starting the designing work for a particular scene. Manish Malhotra, an ardent fashion savvy has made his distinct position in the Hindi film world and he has been successful in earning both name and fame. He knows his job and he is a master of his trade, beside that he has a complete understanding as to what style would go perfect in a particular situation. He is specialized in women dressing styles.

He is truly a master of fashion and has achieved a tremendous appreciation. His work has been honored with various awards. He is continuously delivering quality work for fashion boutique ‘Reverie’ with which he is associated since 1998. There is much more to be expected from this budding star in the near future.

Abhinav Bindra

Abhinav Bindra, is the current World and Olympic Champion in Air Rifle shooting. He is the first ever Indian to win an individual Gold Medal since 1900 – the year our country participated in the Olympic games for the first time. His unparalleled achievements in the shooting arena have made the nation proud and he has been bestowed with honors from a very young age due to his consummate performances on the international stage. He received the Arjuna Award at the young age of 17 and has been the youngest recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Awards – the highest sporting honor in the country at 18 years. Abhinav has also been decorated with the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honor, in 2009 after his historic Gold Medal win at the Beijing Olympics.

He was the first of many thousands of relay runners who will carry the baton for the New Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games, across the globe. The New Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games Queen’s Baton Relay commenced from Buckingham Palace on October 29 with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II passing the baton in the presence of our Hon’ble President Smt Pratibha Patil.

Recently, he was honored with the two top awards at the first ever SAHARA Indian Sports Awards :
• he was adjudged as “The Sportsman of the Year”
• his gold medal winning feat at the Beijing Olympics was declared as “the Most Memorable Moment of the Year” in Indian Sport


The Government of India has recently invited him to be a part of their initiatives towards national integration, etc.
• He was the first speaker at the event “A Nation In Solidarity”. This was hosted by the Ministry of Home Affairs at the behest of the Hon’ble Home Minister Shri P Chidambaram himself and was held in memory of the victims of terror attacks in India including incidents in Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, …among others. The event was held at India Gate in New Delhi and was dedicated to the cause of the nation coming together in its fight against terror.

Ankit Fadia

Ankit Fadia was born in Coimbatore on May 24th 1985. He starred in MTV What the Hack!. Fadia graduated from Stanford University and Delhi Public School Society. He has worked as a computer scientist. He has lived in India, and he now has a home in Mumbai.
Fadia was educated at Delhi Public School. He started a website called “HackingTruths”, which he claims was judged as the “second best hacking site in the world by the FBI”. He claims that when he was 14, he trashed the front page of an Indian magazine’s website. He then sent an e-mail to the editor confessing to the hack, suggesting counter measures. At 15, his book on Ethical Hacking made him the youngest author to be published by Macmillan India. He claims that in 2001, he discovered links between the Chinese government and the China Eagle Union, a cracker group responsible for defacing many U.S. web sites. He stated that the “long-term goal of the Chinese government is actually to take over the internet and control all parts of the internet”. However none of these claims have been proved by substantial evidence so far.

Ankit Fadia is an independent computer security consultant, and an author of several books on computer security as well as an officially cited Attrition.org Charalatan. In 2001, he became the youngest author for Macmillan India in their 110 years of history, with his book The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking. He runs a program on computer security for corporates in alliance with ReliaceInfo.He has delivered several lectures on computer security.
Ankit Fadia has been honored with numerous awards, including the IT Leader Award 2005 and the Indo-American Society Young Achiever Award 2005. In 2002, the Limca Book of Records declared him among the “People of The Year”. Ankit Fadia has also sponsored the “Ankit Fadia Information Security Award”, which is given annually by The Singapore Management University, to an outstanding student in the Information Security and Trust Course under the Bachelor of Science (Information System Management) degree programme.

Sunita Narain

Sunita Narain is an Indian environmentalist and political activist as well as a major proponent of the Green concept of sustainable development. Narain has been with the India-based Centre for Science and Environment since 1982. She is currently the director of the Centre and the director of the Society for Environmental Communications and publisher of the fortnightly magazine, Down To Earth. In her years at the Centre, she has worked hard at analysing and studying the relationship between environment and development and at creating public consciousness about the need for sustainable development. Over the years, she has also developed the management and financial support systems needed for the institution, which has over 100 staff members and a dynamic program profile. She is currently in charge of the Centre's management and plays an active role in a number of research projects and public campaigns. Her research interests are wide-ranging - from global democracy, with a special focus on climate change, to the need for local democracy, within which she has worked both on forest-related resource management and water-related issues. She began her career by writing and researching for the State of India's Environment reports and then went on to study issues related to forest management. For this project she traveled across the country to understand people's management of natural resources and in 1989 co-authored the publication Towards Green Villages advocating local participatory democracy as the key to sustainable development. In the early 1990s she got involved with global environmental issues and she continues to work on these as researcher and advocate. In 1991 she co-authored the publication Global Warming in an Unequal World: A case of environmental colonialism and in 1992 Towards a Green World: Should environmental management be built on legal conventions or human rights? Since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, she has worked on a number of articles and papers on issues related to flexibility mechanisms and the need for equity and entitlements in climate negotiations. In 2000, she co-edited the publication Green Politics: Global Environmental Negotiations[1], which looks at the emerging ecological globalisation framework and puts forward an agenda for the South on global negotiations. In 1997, pushing the concern for water harvesting, she co-edited the book Dying Wisdom: Rise, Fall and Potential of India's Water Harvesting Systems[2]. Since then, she has worked on a number of articles on the policy interventions needed for ecoregeneration of India’s rural environment and poverty reduction. In 1999, she co-edited the State of India’s Environment, The Citizens' Fifth Report and in 2001, Making Water Everybody’s Business: the practice and policy of water harvesting[3]. Narain remains an active participant, both nationally and internationally, in civil society. She serves on the boards of various organisations and on governmental committees and has spoken at many forums across the world on issues of her concern and expertise. In 2005, she was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India

Gerry Martin

India's first adventurer on National Geographic channel (remember Croc Chronicles or Snake Wranglers?), wildlife expert and herpetologist Gerald ‘Gerry’ Martin has been wild at heart since the time he was a kid. He grew up in a farmhouse, surrounded by animals and nature and at 17 started assisting the legendary Romulus Whitaker at the Madras Crocodile Bank. In fact, he was the bank’s youngest curator. From watching 31 baby cobras hatch in his room during a project to looking for crocodiles on camera, Martin has done it all. Today he shares his love for adventure with children and educates them about nature and animals through camps and workshops. He tells MetroMela how parents can get city kids away from the TV and closer to nature and even shares some of his favorite outdoor destinations.

   Gerry Martin started his career under the guidance of Romulus Whitaker at the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust in 1995. Although not academically qualified, he was eager to assist various scientists in their research and learned on the job! He has, over the last decade and a half, worked in educational reform, television and eco-tourism. Today, he runs The Gerry Martin Project – a company that focuses on enabling environmental and wildlife research and conservation. The Gerry Martin Project works closely with The Agumbe Rainforest research Station, The Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and the Andaman and Nicobar Environmental Team to create platforms for research and conservation.

Ranvijay Singh

Ranvijay Singh was born on 16th March 1983 to a family that has been in the Indian Army. His schooling was spread over nine different schools. He graduated with a degree in Commerce from Hansraj College, New Delhi.

He aspired to be a basketball player as a kid but decided to join the Indian Army like six generations of his family.

A penchant for bikes made him join Roadies, a reality show on MTV. He became the first winner of Roadies and his popularity and appeal prompted MTV to sign him up as a VJ on their channel. He now hosts Roadies and Splitsvilla, among other shows, and has a huge fan following.

He is a columnist for a news daily and is moving towards acting.

Ranvijay was dating MTV VJ Anusha Dandekar.

Ranvijay Loves….

Comics – Wolverine tops the list followed by Batman.

Bikes – He owns a Suzuki GSX 600, a Kawasaki Ninja, a 225 CC modified Hero Honda Karizma, a 50 CC Pocket bike and a Royal Enfield Bullet.

Ranvijay Singh’s Movies
Ranvijay Singh started acting with Mumbai Cutting (2009). He will be appearing in Vipul Shah’s London Dreams (2009) with stars like Asin, Ajay Devgan and Salman Khan. In Ekant, he will share screen space with Mahesh Manjrekar.

Baichung Bhutia

Baichung Bhutia was born on December 15, 1976 in Tinkitam, Sikkim, India.He is an Indian football player. He is considered to be the torchbearer of Indian football in the international arena. He is currently the captain of Indian team and plays for Mohun Bagan Club.

He started his education in St. Xaviers School, Pakyong, East Sikkim and won a eventually Scholarship SAI to attend the Tashi Namgyal Academy in Gangtok. He went on to play for several school and local clubs in his home state of Sikkim. A stellar performance at the 1992 Subroto Cup brought him to the notice of the football establishment. Former India goalkeeper Bhaskar Ganguly spotted his talent and helped him make a move to Calcutta football.

In 1993, at the age of sixteen, he left school to join the professional East Bengal Club in Calcutta. In 1995, he moved to JCT Mills, Phagwara, which went on to win the India National Football League that year. Bhutia was the top scorer in the league, and was chosen to play in the Nehru Cup. He was named "1996 Indian Player of the Year" and has won numerous other awards since then.

In 1997 he returned to East Bengal, and became team captain in the 1998-99 season. Baichung Bhutia has the unique distinction of scoring the only hatrick in the Derby Clashes between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, when he registered the same in East Bengal's 4-1 triumph in 1997 Federation Cup Semi Final. In 1999 he travelled overseas to play for Bury F.C. after unsuccessful trials with both Fulham F.C. [1]and Aston Villa F.C.[2]with the move improving his conditioning and strategy. In 2002 he returned to India and played for the Mohun Bagan AC for a year before returning again to the East Bengal Club, helping them to win the Asean Cup (Association of South East Asian Nations) Club Championship. He signed up to play for Perak, the Malaysian championship club, from August to October 2003 and returning to East Bengal for the regular season. He continued to play for East Bengal till the end of 2005-2006 season. In 2006, he joined Mohun Bagan AC and has remained with them since then. He has recently renewed his contract for a further two years from 2008 to 2010 with the Mohun Bagan. He played in the Goal 4 Africa match held in the Allianz Arena, Munich on 12 July 2008 for the Edu team led by Clarence Seedorf and scored twice.He scored twice in the AFC Challenge Cup against Turkmenistan. He was also selected as the most valuable player of the tournament.