11-15 January 2020

The Sri Sathya Sai Educational Institutions held the main event of the Annual Sports & Cultural Meet on 11 January 2020 at Sri Sathya Sai Hill View Stadium, Prasanthi Nilayam, Andhra Pradesh, India.

The event is a culmination of various sports, cultural and fine arts competitions held at all campuses of the University and other Sai educational institutions throughout the academic year. The Sri Sathya Sai educational institutions include all the four campuses of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Sri Sathya Sai Primary and Higher Secondary School, Smt. Eswaramma High School and Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences (SSSIHMS) College of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences.

It showcases an array of physical and cultural presentations by over 3000 students of the institutions spread across two sessions, morning and evening. Preparations, which began a month in advance, involved hundreds of practice hours by all students and teachers at each institution.

Process over outcome
The Annual Sports & Cultural Meet brings to the fore several qualities of human excellence in students. With only a few weeks to perfect their presentations, and with academics and other daily pursuits, students have to make every minute of preparation count. Very quickly, students need to have clarity of their outcomes, work in teams with unity (often with colleagues they have never worked with before), surmount the mental and physical obstacles that may seem impossible, and so on.

All this is accomplished on a shoestring budget that leaves the teams to make their final props and other event items with available and existing resources at the hostel. It not only helps them be thrifty, but forces them to think out of the box and bring in an element of creativity that challenges their current model of the world and pushes their comfort zones.

This process is one of several ways through which the conscious experiment of man-making and character building at Sai educational institutions truly succeeds. It prepares SSSIHL students to navigate the toughest of situations without sacrificing their values. At the same time, it helps build strong inner qualities such as a sense of unity and teamwork, determination, discipline and hard work.

The cherry on the cake, however, is the immense love students have for Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, their Divine Master. For Sai students, the entire gamut of the Annual Sports and Cultural Meet boils down to this singular focus. Bhagawan Baba—with His Divine vision—reciprocates this and makes sure that these pure feelings of Love are translated into the pursuit of excellence in every facet of the students’ evolution.

As He often said, The End of Culture is Perfection

Sports Meet Presentations
11 Jan 2020

Anantapur, Prasanthi Nilayam, Brindavan and Muddenahalli Campuses presentations:
Aerials, Human Pyramids, Graceful Rythmic Drill, Luminous Display, Bike Stunts: Ascenders, Hip-hop Dancers, Roller Skating: 24 Inliners, Drums: Big Bang, Kalari Commandos, Sumos, Hipsters, Impavidos Reborn, Shotokan Warriors, Saibots, Acrophiles, Dynamic Jugglers, Acroyoga, Hidden Hands and Cowboys.

Cultural Meet Presentations
12-15 Jan 2020

• Drama presentation by students of the Brindavan Campus: Sant Ramdev
• Drama presentation by students of the Muddenahalli Campus: Mine to Thine
• Drama presentation by students of the Prasanthi Nilayam Campus: Sarvam Krishnamayam

Prize Distribution Ceremony
15 Jan 2020

The Prize Distribution Ceremony celebrated the excellent performances in sports and cultural events during the Annual Sports and Cultural Meet and during the academic year 2019/20 by students of each Sai educational institution. 

Followed by a series of talks by a teacher and students from each SSSIHL campus highlighting the significance of the event, prizes and cups were awarded to the students of all Sai educational institutions that excelled in individual and team events for sports, cultural and fine arts performances at their respective establishments. The ceremony ended with a Divine Benediction by Bhagawan Baba.

Athletic Champions 2019/20

• Tokalapalli Adireddy Gari Vandana (Postgraduate, Anantapur Campus)
• Kesavani Netheti (Undergraduate, Anantapur Campus)
• Thota Sujendra (Postgraduate, Prasanthi Nilayam Campus)
• Sridhar Sola (Undergraduate, Prasanthi Nilayam Campus)
• Saurabh Suman (Brindavan Campus)
• Samir Kumar Majhi (Muddenahalli Campus)

Cultural Champions 2019/20

• Pokuri Sai Punitha (Postgraduate, Anantapur Campus)
• Ketki Tripathi (Undergraduate, Anantapur Campus)
• Charan Sai Ramireddi (Postgraduate, Prasanthi Nilayam Campus)
• Vedant Monger (Undergraduate, Prasanthi Nilayam Campus)
• S Sai Shriram (Brindavan Campus)
• Bhatt Janak Ashwin (Muddenahalli Campus)

Fine Arts Champions 2019/20

• Sumani Rai (Postgraduate, Anantapur Campus)
• Pragati Gupta (Undergraduate, Anantapur Campus)

Redefine your model of the world!

Students of the M.B.A. programme participated in a self-analytical workshop, Mental Models, conducted by Ms. Shradha S Jaitly, GM (Finance), International Trade & Risk Management, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL).

They participated in two activities, left and right-hand column activity, as well as a debate between union and management, that enabled them to analyze their model of the world — thoughts, feelings, actions and results. The activities helped them identify their preconceived notions and deeply held beliefs and assumptions that come in the way of clarity, effective decision making and actions.

As a result, students gained a deeper understanding of their thoughts and feelings and learned techniques on how to release them. They were empowered to meet personal and professional challenges that come their way by adjusting the view of the problem at hand.

After all, not every dilemma is presented to us in the same way, nor can it be decided from the same vantage point. As a wise man once rightly said, two heads are better than one, and four heads are better than two.

#SSSIHLManagementCommerce #SSSIHL

#GramaSeva
Initiate. Serve. Love. Repeat.

Teams of students, doctoral research scholars and teachers visited all the three villages again to continue their work from the previous academic year.

At the village of Narsimpalli, students and teachers responded to the requests of village folk in providing upgradations to the existing dilapidated government school. They began with essential plumbing work (taps, pipelines, etc.) and worked with the village mason and others to facilitate further work. Later on, in December 2019, students mapped and geotagged major areas of the village (for cartographic reasons and identification of issues). In addition, they undertook the restoration of the Anganwadi (rural child care centre): A complete paint job, installation of new toilets, cleaning the septic tank, installation of an overhead water tank (1000 liters) and new electrical wiring for all the rooms (with energy-conserving LED light fittings).

At Bonthalapalli, students took on the challenge of reducing unemployment of the village youth. They highlighted the need for better skills to get actively employed. After conducting thorough interviews of the twenty unemployed youth of the village and assessing their current educational qualifications, skill sets, etc., they then went back with consolidated data and actively worked with them to teach the required set of soft skills, thus enhancing their employability.

At Marlapalli, under the Education module, students of Std. IV-VI were trained in basic reading skills. Students of Std. VII were involved in a host of Mathematical activities. Other activities include making of Bank books, learning basic music skills and Yoga asanas. Separately, medical data of 78 village elders was collected and students of the M.Tech. in Computer Science programme employed their data mining skills and came up with a follow-up plan (including predictive measures) for the next action steps.

Love All, Serve All, as our Revered Founder Chancellor always taught us.

#SSSIHLService #SSSIHLIntegralEducation

For some years now, on the morning of 25 December, the students of the Muddenahalli Campus visit Muddenahalli village for Christmas celebrations. They begin with nagar sankeertan from the hostel, and make their way to the village. They then offer lighted candles to the children who participate in the bhajan session held at the local Hanuman temple. After the prayers, all the village children are offered chocolates as Christmas gifts, giving a lot of joy and pleasure to both the village kids as well as the students themselves.

#SSSIHLIntegralEducation #SSSIHL

A unique aspect of the SSSIHL MBA programme is to determine how the management concepts learnt in the classroom can be applied to help alleviate some of the problems that the villagers of India face in their daily lives.

On 18 December 2019, the I MBA students (Prasanthi Nilayam Campus) visited villages in the Anekal Taluk of Karnataka adopted by Srinivasan Services Trust (SST), the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) arm of the TVS Group.
The TVS Group has partnered with the Bosch India Foundation to enable the transformation of 5000 rural communities and urban slums by empowering people to achieve sustainable development. To this end, it has committed (at least) 2% of its yearly net profits.

Students were privy to several programmes during their visit. Some of these included the Dress Craft and embroidery design programme (which helps village folks sell their products with decent margins in the marketplace), the Self-Employment Training Programme (a three-month course for women aimed to give them financial independence by becoming entrepreneurs) and the ‘Balwadi’ programme, designed for the upkeep, education and engagement of children.

They experienced firsthand how these villages are growing in stature, the standard of living and confidence. It made them realize how we can make such a big difference in the lives of so many when we believe and take it upon ourselves to serve and give back to society.

Students also visited GE Healthcare, Times of India and TVS Motors in Bangalore, Karnataka & Hosur, Tamil Nadu, 17-18 Sep 2019.

Increasingly, in the current state-of-play, it is difficult for values-based leadership to thrive. In these challenging times, it is therefore crucial that we practise the fundamental principles of leadership.

On 17 August 2019, Mr. Gopal Rao, Managing Director (India) and Operations Manager, Landmark Education, and an alumnus of SSSIHL, conducted a one-day workshop at the Dept. of Management & Commerce, to address this.

His first observation was that whatever others throw at us, it has no impact on us unless we make it impactful. In all undertakings, more than keeping an eye on the content, it is essential to see the context, since context is the background that colours situations.

He then spoke about the importance of relationships and the human connection as a measure of the quality of one’s life. He stressed on the importance of listening as a paramount component of communication. Sadly, he said, we engage with the speaker who talks to us through agreeing or disagreeing, only to confirm our own point of view. This hinders the achievement of meaningful communication.

The most noteworthy issue that Mr. Gopal Rao touched upon was integrity. He described integrity as the state of being whole, complete and unimpaired, which is created in us when we honour our word given to ourselves and others. He said we must be willing to see that an incomplete task — even if it was left unfinished for a good excuse — is still a task not done and we must be willing to take ownership for it being so.

Finally, he encouraged students to follow three fundamental principles:

• First, if they wish to play the game (i.e., make the best of their studies here), they must decide to accept and align with every rule of the Institute.
• Secondly, they must live up to the values that define them as students of SSSIHL and identify themselves with them. They must be willing to be responsible for them.
• Thirdly, students must keep the promises that they make to themselves and others. They need to be true to themselves. “Your word is you” he quipped, “not anything else. So keep it!”

“Mastery” he added, “is being above what is occurring automatically.”

A unique aspect of the SSSIHL M.B.A. programme is to determine how the management concepts learnt in the classroom can be applied to help alleviate some of the problems that the villagers of India face in their daily lives.

Similar to the trip that the M.B.A. men students made, the I M.B.A. women students visited Anekal, Karnataka and Bangalore, 15-16 Dec 2019. The organizations visited included the Sai Vishram Business Hotel and Srinivasan Services Trust (SST). The trip included villages adopted by SST for inclusive development.

On 29 December, 2019, students also visited the Rural development and self-employment Training Institute (RUDSETI), Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh.

#SSSIHL

22 November 2019

Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL) (Deemed to be University) held its 38^th Annual Convocation at Sai Kulwant Hall, Prasanthi Nilayam, Andhra Pradesh in the Divine Presence on 22 November 2019 at 3:20 p.m.

The grand ceremony saw the Honourable Chancellor, Sri K Chakravarthi, IAS (Retd.), admit 470 candidates to their degrees. This included 277 undergraduate, 97 postgraduate, 86 professional and 10 Ph.D. awardees.

SSSIHL was honoured to have Dr. G Satheesh Reddy, Secretary, Department of Defence R&D, Government of India, Chairman, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Director General, Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), as the chief guest for the event.

The ceremonial procession was led by the University brass band, two students carrying the University Standards on either side of the Registrar (who carried the Ceremonial Mace). Other members of the procession included the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Deans and the Heads of Departments along with the Chief Guest, members of the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust and the Board of Management.

Following the invocatory veda chanting, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. K B R Varma prayed to the Revered Founder Chancellor to declare the convocation open. The Convocation was then declared open in the Divine voice of Bhagawan Baba.

The programme included speeches by the Vice-Chancellor, the Chief Guest and the Revered Founder Chancellor (video broadcast of a previous Convocation Address).

Ph.D. Awardees 2019/20

Sri Hari N – Physics
Design and fabrication of low-cost Optical Coherence Tomography instruments with novel features towards aiding in medical diagnostics

Sri Sadhu Sai Pavan Prashanth – Physics
Investigations into the Structural, Dielectric, Piezoelectric, Ferroelectric and Nonlinear Optical Properties of Ba0.85Ca0.15Zr0.1Ti0.9O3 in Different Configurations

Sri Muralikrishna Molli – Physics
Nonlinear Optical Absorption Characteristics of Metal Selenides

Sri Gannavarapu Krishna Prasad – Chemistry
Synthesis of Bio-nanocomposites for Applications in Electrochemical Energy Storage, Sensing and Catalysis

Sri Chelli Sai Manohar – Chemistry
Synthetic and in silico strategies for designing drugs, probing sensing mechanisms and optimizing novel HA-BCZT piezo-materials for bone regeneration

Sri Aiyer Kartik Satyanarayan – Biosciences
Assessing Microbial Electron Transfer Activity and Biofilm Formation for Wastewater Treatment in Microbial Fuel Cells

Sri Girish T N – Biosciences
Thermal and Humidity Stress Adaptations of Select Drosophila Species Endemic to Indian Tropics

Sri Rajabushan Jagadish Nayak – Economics
Fiscal Consolidation and Sustainable Public Debt: A Case Study of India

Miss Nelli Vani Sri – English Literature
Text and Subtext: A Study of Select Plays of Ivan Turgenev and Anton Chekhov

Sri Siddhartha R – English Literature
From the Colonial to the Carnival: A Study of the Trajectory of Indian Cricket from the Post-Colonial and the Bakhtinian Perspectives.

All-Round Gold Medallists 2019/20

• Maddireddy Meghana (Anantapur Campus – Master of Business Administration)
• R Sai Naveen (Prasanthi Nilayam Campus – Master of Business Administration)
• Ramavarapu Sathya Sai Aditya (Brindavan Campus – Bachelor of Commerce (Honours))
• Chikkam Sai Phani Kumar (Muddenahalli Campus – Bachelor of Business Administration)

Gold Medallists 2019/20

• Manasali Sai Kumar (Master of Business Administration)
• Varshaneya V (Master of Technology in Computer Science)
• Shyam Sundar B (Master of Technology in Optoelectronics and Communications)
• Pradyumna M (Master of Science in Mathematics)
• K Karthik Subramaniam (Master of Science in Biosciences)
• Hariharan M (Master of Science in Chemistry)
• J Kaushik (Master of Science in Physics)
• Sai Shravan N (Master of Arts in Economics)
• T R Sai Natarajan (Integrated Master of Computer Applications)
• Sasanpuri Maniram Santosh (Bachelor of Business Administration)
• Boddu Raghu Veera Saikumar (Bachelor of Commerce (Honours))
• Majeti VSSS Durgesh (Bachelor of Computer Applications)
• Debashis Parida (Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Physics)
• Jashobanta Behera (Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Biosciences)
• Palla Juneswari (Bachelor of Education)
• Kavugoli Shraddha Mohan (Master of Science in Food and Nutritional Sciences)
• Gayathri V R (Bachelor of Science in Food and Nutritional Sciences)
• Soumya Yellai (Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Mathematics)
• Haritha Ramann (Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Chemistry)
• Mathumitha R (Bachelor of Arts)

Annual Convocation Drama
Each year on the day of the Annual convocation, students of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning put together a drama presentation in the Divine Presence. This year, the drama, titled Hum Chalein teri Roshani se, explored the grey areas of major decision points all of us face in life. The ones that ask us to choose between what is right and what is wrong.

The drama explored this juxtaposition perfectly through the context of a consulting firm where one person’s principles helped pave the way for right choices of many a fellow journeyman. This person, Roshan Damodar Salve, an investment banker at FinVest Ltd., time and again chose gratitude over gratification by refusing to give in to the expectations of the crowd and pave his own reality, vested in his inner truth.

It highlighted the fact that If our heart knows how to act in a situation and we must choose the right path, we will garner the courage, the right mindset and channelize the inner wisdom that will lead us on the path of dharma or right action.

Perhaps it’s time we truly honour the age-old adage: the only way to lead is by example. If we do that, we never know what pertinent message Roshan’s life might hold for us!