Nimrah Ali receiving Gold Medals and certificates of merit from Shri R.N. Ravi, Governor of Tamil Nadu on February 24, 2024
Chennai :
Nimrah Ali, wife of Hasnain Ahmed, has been honored with two prestigious Gold Medals and certificates of merit, the Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University Gold Medal Award and the Justice Subbiah Ratnavel Pandian Gold Medal Award from Madras Bar Association, for achieving the 1st Rank in the 5-Year B.Com. LL.B. (Hons.) Degree course at the Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University’s 13th Convocation held on February 24.
She was also awarded the P.B. Sanjana Endowment Scholarship cash prize and certificate of merit for her exceptional performance.
The above awards were presented to her by Shri R.N. Ravi, Governor of Tamil Nadu, in the presence of Mr. R. Venkataramani, Attorney General of India, a distinguished Constitutional Lawyer and Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India, Mr. S. Regupathy, Minister of Law, Courts, Prisons, and Prevention of Corruption of Tamil Nadu amongst other distinguished dignitaries.
In addition, she cleared ICSI (Institute of Company Secretary of India) course on the first attempt.
The awards recognize her outstanding accomplishment as the top-ranked law student at the prestigious Law University School of Excellence in Law, The Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University, Chennai.
She belongs to the illustrious Nawab of Arcot family.
source: http://www.radiancenews.com / Radiance News / Home> Pride of the Nation> Awards / by Radiance News Bureau / February 28th, 2024
The President, Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil presenting the Padma Shri Award to Prof. (Dr.) M. Ahmed Ali, at an Investiture Ceremony II, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi on April 01, 2011./ pix: en.wikipedia.org
Dr. Ahmed Ali can perhaps scale Mount Everest to gain knowledge in surgery, and will come back to serve the poor and needy. That is the thirst he has, and the skill gained by his extra ordinary, photographic memory power.
After obtaining the highest degree in surgery such as M.Ch, he was awarded the prestigious Doctor of Science D.Sc.in surgery.
The Padma Shree Awardees, listed on January 31, 2011, Dr. Ahmed Ali, won the nation’s prestigious award.
A dedicated, and most devoted to his profession, he declined an opportunity, assigned in New York soon after post graduation in gastroenterology and proctology. Surgery is an art to him same as a gifted and a born artist plays with his brush and colors. There is no exaggeration that if it is said that his tournament is surgery.
He visits every month to his native town to impart free service, in addition he gives nutrient suppliments and other vitamins and other additives to less fortunates. He does this as a token of gratitude to the school he studied and for the people who mutually loved.
Born in Ambur in 1940, graduated from Madras Medical College, and after retiring from service, he is concentrating his profession in Mehtha Nursing Home,Chetpet in Chennai.
His only son Dr. Mansoor is a surgical specialist in liver, pancreas, and bile duct (Hepato Pancreato Bilary Specialist) working in Kings Hospital, London UK. Dr. Mansoor is as good as his father, and was the student of Dr. Rela, the world renowned liver specialist.
Ambur, a town in Vellore District in Tamil Nadu is famous for leather industry, as well the elite of the society Ambur Muslim Educational Society, and it is fully devoted in concentrating women’s education and the students performance is par excellent.
Mr. Mecca Rafeeque Ahmed, a renowned leather industrialist, from Ambur also awarded Padma Shree for his industrial achievements.
Dr. Ali was felicitated with standing ovation by different groups elites, but he stood humble and modest.
source: http://www.amityindias.blogspot.com / April 05th, 2011
Even though there were pockets of tribal-populated areas in Bulsar district, such as Dharampur and Bansda, the district was, by and large, known to be fertile and well served by the monsoon. The southern part of the district contained large tracts of grasslands, mostly owned by the Desais and Parsis. Most of the districts of peninsular Saurashtra, however, had no irrigation facilities. This was before the Narmada Canal took the river water there and solved the problem of both irrigation and drinking, with the rare exception of Junagadh.
I had served in one of the most arid regions of Saurashtra, Surendranagar – rich in history and political leaders and poor in soil fertility and irrigation facilities. Saurashtra was also poorly fed by the monsoons, and since no perennial rivers pass through the region, no large reservoirs, too, could be built to retain substantial quantities of water.
The year 1972 proved a very difficult year for both Saurashtra and North Gujarat. That year the assessment revealed that almost 12,000 out of the 18,000 villages of Gujarat had a harvest of less than 25 per cent. The government, therefore, declared famine conditions in those 12,000 villages, that is two-thirds of the state, and applied the Bombay Famine Relief Code to provide regulated relief.
Since the state faced a major calamity with two-thirds of its population of humans and cattle facing the threat of death by hunger and thirst, the Cabinet met almost every day since the moment the assessment figures came to be known. They had known what had happened in the tragic historical famines in Bengal, Kashmir and Madras, where thousands had perished – parents sold their children, sons abandoned their parents and there were rumours of cannibalism in some pockets. A major famine in Gujarat was quite a scary prospect for the government.
One fine morning, in September of 1972, I was basking in the cool breeze of the sea blowing from the Indian Ocean in the west. After a great deal of persuasion and bribery, my daughter, Gazala, who was all of four years, had agreed to go to school. Then the telephone rang. It was KN Zutshi, the revenue secretary, on the line.
“There was a Cabinet meeting this morning to review the scarcity situation. It was decided to post you as director of famine relief to take charge of the relief operations. You better pack up and move over to Gandhinagar. The chief minister wants you here yesterday. You have 48 hours to reach here. Handover charge to your resident deputy collector,” he ordered me.
Though I had been in Bulsar for more than three years, the normal tenure of a collector, still the sudden transfer came as a surprise. Bulsar was such a pleasant district to govern – open-minded and reasonable people, able and committed staff, and a flourishing club that I had established. When I announced my transfer to my officers as soon as I reached the collectorate, there was all-round consternation. By noon, the whole district had come to know of the transfer. As I was having lunch in my chamber, the peon announced that a delegation of MLAs from the district wanted to meet me.
“Sir, there are so many development works going on. All surplus land has not yet been taken over from the Desais. You cannot leave the task half-completed. You should not move,” they said.
“I have completed my tenure here. If the government wants me at Gandhinagar, I have to move,” I said. Left to myself, I would have liked to serve another four or five years in Bulsar. I learnt later that all the MLAs of the district, including those from the opposition, had driven to Surat. They had persuaded Zinabhai Darji, the president of the state Congress, to accompany them to Gandhinagar to persuade the CM, Ghanshyambhai Oza, to cancel the transfer. One of the MLAs later told me that the CM had asked them only one question.
“Is Mr Moosa Raza unhappy with this transfer? Does he want to stay back in Bulsar?”
“No, sir, but we want him there in the interest of the district.”
“Don’t you think that the larger interest of the state should override the interests of a single district?” the CM had asked reasonably.
They had no answer. The next day, after handing over charge to the resident deputy collector (RDC), I drove down to Gandhinagar to call on the CM. I had known him during my tenure in Surendranagar, his hometown. Having been a member of the Parliament for two terms, Mr Oza was a suave and polished politician, exuding politeness and bonhomie at every movement. He received me graciously, and as I was taking my seat, he pointed to a large pile of telegrams on his table.
“Do you know what they are?” he asked me with a smile. “No, sir,” I replied truthfully.
“Over 500 telegrams from Bulsar district requesting me to cancel your transfer.”
“I had nothing to do with them, sir,” I said. But I would have been less than human not to feel pleased at this show of appreciation from the people I had served.
“But I had to disappoint your fans in Bulsar. The state is facing a severe challenge, and your work in Surendranagar, Surat, Bulsar, and Dangs has convinced the Cabinet that you are the best officer to shoulder the task.”
“We have done a preliminary survey and made an initial assessment of the various requirements. A budget of Rs 120 crore has been sanctioned. Your mandate is to ensure that not a single human life is lost for want of food and water, all cattle are provided fodder, and all villages supplied with water. The Land Revenue Code mandates that the able-bodied villagers are not given doles. That encourages a dependent mindset. You have to organise relief works through which all those who can work are provided employment. The wages should be paid every week. The revenue department will brief you on the organisational arrangements. So, get cracking.”
The next port of call was Mr Zutshi, the revenue secretary. Mr Zutshi, as his name indicated, hailed from a family of Kashmiri Pandits. An old-style civilian, with impeccable credentials, he believed in management by the book. He would not deviate an iota from the rules, and everything had to be put down in black and white before he would commit himself to a course of action. Though he used the telephone as a necessary evil, he would not trust any conversation carried out on that unreliable machine.
One had to go over to his room to discuss even petty issues.
“Bhai, Deolekar has prepared an organisational chart for you. We think you will need around ninety staff to manage this huge operation. I think you should speak with him, and he will help you to get the necessary staff in place. We will ask the various departments to depute the needed staff. The PWD will provide the furniture and other necessary equipment,” he said.
The PWD would naturally dispose of its rejected furniture – broken, roughly repaired and not required by others. Also, the staff would be from those divisions where they had proved their dispensability. I would, therefore, start with a severe handicap, which would never be overcome during my entire tenure as a director of famine relief. Nor would I be able to successfully meet the challenge of the worst famine Gujarat had seen in its decades-old history with rejected equipment and discarded staff.
Excerpted with permission from Of Giants and Windmills, Moosa Raza, Niyogi Books.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Book Excerpt / by Moosa Rooza / December 05th, 2022
Bridlen, a family owned business from Chennai, on its Indo-Japanese collaboration to craft Goodyear welted shoes
Leather shoes, made to order, that fit like a glove, and look like a dream.
That is a rare luxury in a market dominated by e-commerce, where even designer brands are churning out collections by the season. For the true shoe connoisseur, only a customised product, can fashion a sartorial statement. So following slow food and slow fashion, now there’s a focus on slow manufacturing. At Bridlen, a shoemaking enterprise in Chennai that started in 1986, making Goodyear welted shoes the old-school way is a rich legacy that has continued into the 21st Century.
Started by the late K Mohamed Hasan, who began his career in shoemaking with solely creating uppers , he then turned his eye to create not just custom shoes, but footwear that would please, whom he considered the most discerning customers — the Japanese. As a first-generation shoemaker with clients in the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal, he found a friend in Jose Maria Watanabe, a Japanese shoemaker with four decades of experience in the business. What started as a unique friendship, then turned into a partnership that coalesced the best of Japanese design and Indian craftsmanship.
Founder of Bridlen shoes K Mohamed Hasan
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How its made…
A Goodyear welt is a strip of leather, rubber, or plastic that runs along the perimeter of a shoe outsole. The machinery used for the process was invented in 1869 by Charles Goodyear Jr., the son of Charles Goodyear, American engineering manufacturer and inventor of vulcanised rubber. Charles’s son followed in his father’s footsteps and came up with a manufacturing process that could be used to assemble various parts of a shoe. Using a process called hand welting the upper portion of the shoe would be sewn together with the sole using a boar’s bristle needle and waxed thread.
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The Japanese connect
Following the untimely demise of its founder in 2019, Bridlen is now managed by his son, Mohamed Affan Kolandaiveedu. Affan explains why their Goodyear welt design is a cut above the standard, “ We don’t attach a cotton rib to the insole. We take a channel on a much thicker insole and stitch the welt to that. This is what separates us from most other brands at our price point or even a few brackets above. A search on the authorities of the classic shoe world from Simon Crompton at Permanent Style or Jesper of shoegazing.com have singled out this feature as a point of strength, something that you don’t normally find on factory made shoes,” explains Affan.
The story of Bridlen is fashioned by an Indian team guided by Watanabe. A Goodyear welted shoemaker based in Spain, he worked with a European partner, and was looking for a manufacturing capacity closer to Japan, when he heard about a small factory in India and came to visit. “Watanabe and Hasan really hit it off with their philosophy for quality, ethics in business and demeanour that they decided to do something together even though the original plan to move the Spanish production to India did not work,” states Affan.
Watanabe looked to pass on his skills, to Indian craftsmen who were serious about preserving the trade. “My project with Affan Shoes was the production of a finished shoe, something they had never experienced before, and at the same time it was a quality standard that was accepted worldwide.” Explaining how his mentor acclimatised to the new workspace, he adds, “Watanabe took great pains in the early days to get along with the workforce in our factory. He learnt a bit of Tamil and taught basic Japanese to some of the staff and their children on weekends. He would spend half the year in Chennai, and loved to partake in social gatherings, our festivals, and cultural practices.”
Mohamed Affan Kolandaiveedu at the factory
Pandemic pivot
Watanabe has continued his association with Bridlen, even during the pandemic. Until three days before the first lockdown came into effect in March 2020, Watanabe was in Chennai, and managed to get one of the last scheduled flights out of New Delhi to Tokyo. “We were in touch with him at least once or twice a week through video calls,“ says Affan, adding how the pandemic forced Bridlen to look at doing fittings remotely. The brand took to e-consultations where a potential client could book a video consultation to understand fitting. For clients who ordered a pair of Goodyear welted shoes online, a pair of fit-trial shoes would be shipped to them, to ensure the sizing was right before making it in their preferred style/ colour. “This gave clients a much needed boost in confidence to try a new brand and to speak with someone from the team about the intricacies of wearing them, the break-in period, shoe care etc,” states Affan. Post lockdown, the styling at the brand has pivoted as well, from classic to casual classics, bringing sustainable Goodyear construction to a wider variety of footwear styles: chukka boots, derbies, or semi-formal loafers.
Watanabe, who is currently in Tokyo, says working in India has been a rewarding journey. “Even though we made small batch production runs, it was important for Watanabe that these shoes should be available to a wider audience in terms of affordability.”
While the goodyear welted shoes range between ₹15,000 ($200) and ₹25,000 ($310) depending on specification, the construction remains the same.
A pair by Bridlen
All eyes on India
The craft on display at Bridlen, has kept the shoemakers competitive in the luxury shoe segment in India and Japan, followed by USA, France and Germany, a testament to the foresight of its founder, Affan states. Affan, who calls himself a shoemaker at Bridlen, has carried forward his father’s legacy and is optimistic of his business prospects across the globe, adding, “Our economy and labour market, now, and going into the future, are geared more towards higher value-added manufacturing or services. If you want good quality production, limited batch runs, attention to detail, then India could still prove to be a good place for international brands.”
With international travel picking up steam, Bridlen has been showing its collections at trunk shows in New Delhi in March and London in May. The tour continues with Mumbai in July, Bengaluru and Hyderabad in August, Stockholm and Paris in September and Amsterdam and Kolkata in October.
Japanese shoemaker Jose Maria Watanabe training a staff member
As India’s upwardly mobile middle class looks to buy custom footwear, with wearability, quality, sustainability and longevity guiding purchases, Affan wants his shoes to be the natural choice. “In Australia, you have RM Williams as a rights-of-passage bootmaker. In England, there are Crockett and Jones, Churchs, in the USA, there is Alden; that when you come of age, get to a certain job profile or income level then you aspire to own a few pairs of these shoes. We want to be that brand for Indians!
Box- ALL ABOUT THE LEATHER
Almost all the leathers used at Bridlen are imported from France, Italy or the UK “where strict norms for effluents are followed, source-tracing is available, and all compliance norms are met. Where made locally, like the lining leathers, we use LWG (Leather Working Group) certified, owner- driven micro tanneries where we know they are serious about meeting our local statutory environmental and sustainability laws.
“In Europe, the demand for high quality shoes, by extension for high quality leather has been there for a long time. So tanneries have been catering to this demand for quality for decades. Minimum order quantities are not as high when compared to the good tanneries in India where their expectation is much higher. In India it’s an uphill task to convince a tanner to do smaller quantities of higher quality because the industry is geared towards making more volumes to feed the bulk production shoe factories,” says Affan.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Life & Style> Fashion / by Anisha Menezes / September 17th, 2022
B Abdul Haq at the counter of Connoisseur Collection, originally the Bharath Watch Company, Chennai | Photo Credit: S Aswini Rao
The Connoisseur Collection family has been the guardian of innumerable timepieces in Chennai for the past 64 years. This Madras Week, they share a few memories.
It is easy to lose yourself in the labyrinth that is Spencer Plaza, with its narrow alleys and seemingly identical corridors. But it is worth it, for tucked away between stores selling T-shirts, phone covers and silver jewellery is a quaint space where time has stopped.
Connoisseur Collection, originally the Bharath Watch Company, was launched in 1958 in Pondy Bazaar by R Abdul Bari, then shifted to Spencer Plaza in 1999. It is now run by his son B Abdul Haq who holds aloft the 64 years of legacy single-handedly.
”My father’s work intrigued me, so I entered the field after discontinuing my education,” says Haq, who learned the craft from his father when he was just 12 years, at the shop. Here, dead watches and clocks come alive at the hands of their knowledgeable and skilled owner.
A six-decade-old timepiece at Connoisseur Collection, Chennai | Photo Credit: S Aswini Rao
Haq’s passion is evident in the way he handles the watches, and shows off his collection of rare luxury pieces from brands like Patek Philippe and Rolex. He opens a case to reveal a Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711, made in the mid-1970s by the legendary watch designer Gerald Genta. He moves on to reveal similar vintage watches like Patek Philippe Geneve watches made of 18k gold, and a Patek Phillipe 2583 specially made in 1956.
As he carefully places these prized possessions back in a box and locks them away, he reminisces about the late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, and actress Sowcar Janaki visiting his father’s shop with timepieces of their own.
“The rarest watch I have repaired is a Moon Phase by Patek Philippe,” he says, adding, “Customers bring in mechanical watches, Rolex, Omega, and other expensive Swiss watches for servicing, usually to fix broken glass dialsor button malfunctions.”
The entrepreneur reminisces the earlier times of Spencer’s Mall, saying it used to be an international hub with tourists from all over the world visiting in search of high-end brands. Those brands have since migrated to other malls, and visitors to Spencer’s have dwindled. But this shop stays put, he says, as the cost of running a business in Spencer’s is reasonable, and those in the know can always find their way to him.
As the self-styled “police officer in the field of watches” fastidiously wipes dials, he disapprovingly speaks of those who run businesses motivated only by money, with no technical knowledge. Gently wrapping each watch in velvet-lined covers he states, “Custom-made watches have no value, there is no originality left in them. When a company manufactures a watch you should not change anything.”
He wears a Rolex Deepsea watch and says his one of his favourite pieces is the Nautilus series from Patek Philippe. His father bestowed him a Vulcain cricket solid gold wrist alarm from the 1950s— his most prized possession.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Life & Style / by Shivani Illakiya PT / August 20th, 2022
