Why Ratan Tatas are important to this country?

Ratan Tata is the chairman of Indian Hotels who own the Taj Mahal Hotel Mumbai, which was the target of the terrorists last year.

Hotel President a 5 star property also belongs to Indian Hotels.

The following is really touching.

What Ratan Tata did for the Mumbai victims.... Don't miss!!!!!!

SALUTE TO SHRI RATAN TATA

A. The Tata Gesture

1. All category of employees including those who had completed even 1 day as casuals were treated on duty during the time the hotel was closed.

2. Relief and assistance to all those who were injured and killed

3. The relief and assistance was extended to all those who died at the railway station, surroundings including the “Pav- Bha ji” vendor and the pan shop owners.

4. During the time the hotel was closed, the salaries were sent by money order.

5. A psychiatric cell was established in collaboration with Tata Institute of Social Sciences to counsel those who needed such help.

6. The thoughts and anxieties going on people’s mind was constantly tracked and where needed psychological help provided.

7. Employee outreach centers were opened where all help, food, water, sanitation, first aid and counseling was provided. 1600 employees were covered by this facility.

8. Every employee was assigned to one mentor and it was that person’s responsibility to act as a “single window” clearance for any help that the person required.

9. Ratan Tata personally visited the families of all the 80 employees who in some manner – either through injury or getting killed – were affected.

10. The dependents of the employees were flown from outside Mumbai to Mumbai and taken care off in terms of ensuring mental assurance and peace. They were all accommodated in Hotel President for 3 weeks.

11. Ratan Tata himself asked the families and dependents – as to what they wanted him to do.

12. In a record time of 20 days, a new trust was created by the Tatas for the purpose of relief of employees.

13. Whatg is unique is that even the other people, the railway employees, the police staff, the pedestrians who had nothing to do with Tatas were covered by compensation. Each one of them was provided subsistence allowance of Rs. 10K per month for all these people for 6 months.

14. A 4 year old granddaughter of a vendor got 4 bullets in her and only one was removed in the Government hospital. She was taken to Bombay hospital and several lacs were spent by the Tatas on her to fully recover her.

15. New hand carts were provided to several vendors who lost their carts.

16. Tata will take responsibility of life education of 46 children of the victims of the terror.

17. This was the most trying period in the life of the organisation. Senior managers including Ratan Tata were visiting funeral to funeral over the 3 days that were most horrible.

18. The settlement for every deceased member ranged from Rs. 36 to 85 lacs [One lakh rupees tranlates to approx 2200 US $ ] in addition to the following benefits:

a. Full last salary for life for the family and dependents;

b. Complete responsibility of education of children and dependents – anywhere in the world.

c. Full Medical facility for the whole family and dependents for rest of their life.

d. All loans and advances were waived off – irrespective of the amount.

e. Counselor for life for each person

B. Epilogue

1. How was such passion created among the employees? How and why did they behave the way they did?

2. The organisation is clear that it is not something that someone can take credit for. It is not some training and development that created such behaviour. If someone suggests that – everyone laughs

3. It has to do with the DNA of the organisation, with the way Tata culture exists and above all with the situation that prevailed that time. The organization has always been telling that customers and guests are #1 priority

4. The hotel business was started by Jamshedji Tata when he was insulted in one of the British hotels and not allowed to stay there.

5. He created several institutions which later became icons of progress, culture and modernity. IISc is one such institute. He was told by the rulers that time that he can acquire land for IISc to the extent he could fence the same. He could afford fencing only 400 acres.

6. When the HR function hesitatingly made a very rich proposal to Ratan – he said – do you think we are doing enough?

7. The whole approach was that the organisation would spend several hundred crore in re-building the property – why not spend equally on the employees who gave their life?

This is NOT COVERED BY Any NEWS CHANNELS 



Mail sent by Ms. Lalitha Narasimhan

some thing to chew

You’re not the only person in the world, so don’t act like it. Instead, enhance your success at work by building a reputation for being a thoughtful, considerate coworker. How? By doing things like…

• Cleaning up after yourself.
  
• Sharing – not monopolizing – equipment and resources.
  
• Filling the copy machine with paper for the next person – even though there were a few sheets left when you finished.
  
• Restocking (or letting the appropriate person know) when you take the last of the supplies.
  
• Keeping your music and your voice down.
  
• Respecting others’ time by not interrupting them – and not expecting them to serve your every need “on the spot.”
  
• Immediately stopping behaviors that coworkers tell you are disturbing.

Myth of cockroach’s immunity to nuclear
irradiation busted

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Cockroaches survived much more than humans

Fruit flies, flour beetles tougher than cockroaches

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Last year, the Myth Buster TV team from the Discovery Channel
announced that they would find out experimentally whether
cockroaches would be the only living
form to survive a nuclear war (The Hindu, November, 1, 2007). On
January 30, this year (Episode number 97), the team busted the
myth which was in their priority list from day one.

The announcement that the myth buster team will conduct an
experiment received wide media coverage; surprisingly, the media
virtually ignored the results of the experiment.

The experiment

The staff of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at Hanford
site (U.S.) assisted the team to expose three groups of German
cockroaches (50 each) to 1,000, 10,000 and 100,000 rads
of gamma radiation using an irradiator located in the basement of a
building at Hanford. The fourth group of 50 cockroaches served as
control... (Rad is a unit of radiation dose; a dose of 450 rads may kill
50 per cent of the persons exposed) They exposed similar groups of
50 flour beetles and 100 fruit flies which represented other living forms
to similar doses. Many bugs initially survived after receiving 1,000 rads
and 10,000 rads . However, only some flour beetles survived after
receiving a dose of 100,000 rads. Fruit flies and flour beetles are found
to be tougher than cockroaches. For instance, on the second day after
receiving 100,000 rads, all the cockroaches died; 40 per cent
of the fruit flies and 90 per cent of the flour beetles survived. The
survivors will be infertile.

“While cockroaches survived much more than the humans would,
the other two test subjects did better than the cockroach,” the TV
channel declared. They concluded that they busted the myth since,
more life forms than cockroaches survived!

The spectators’ reactions to the TV programme, revealed how
differently the common man understands radiation related concepts.
Is it safe to go into the room after cobalt irradiated the bugs? A viewer
wanted to know. The questioner wrongly felt that irradiation with
cobalt will leave the room radioactive!

One viewer objected to the use of cobalt radiation to irradiate
the bug. “Consideringthat the myth was “will cockroaches survive
a nuclear blast” shouldn’t they have used uranium-238?” he
queried. “I believe that this is the substance used in modern day
nuclear weapons,” he argued. (Obviously he did not understand
the difference between radiation from a nuclear weapon and that
from uranium-238).

It was equally wrong on the part of the TV channel to claim that
they are exposing the insects to a nuclear blast when they actually
exposed the bugs to gamma radiation from a cobalt source. The
survivability of cockroaches in a nuclear war has been a topic of
interest for several years.

Based on the work of Hassett and Jenkins (Nucleonics, 1952),
Professor John Moulder, Professor of Radiation Biology, Medical
College of Wisconsin, noted that about900-1,000 Gys are needed
to kill a cockroach (one Gy= 100rads); more dose is
required if the dose is delivered at a slower rate. The claim that
not enough scientific data are available is not true.

Strong evidence

In 1957, Drs Wharton and Wharton found that 1,000 rad can
interfere with the fertility of cockroach. In 1963, Drs Ross and
Cochran found that a low dose of 6,400 rad would kill 93 per cent
of immature German cockroaches.

Inspite of such unimpeachable evidence on its
radiation-vulnerability, the myths about this unlovable creature
may survive, not withstanding the fame and popularity of the
‘Myth Busters.’

K.S. PARTHASARATHY, FORMER SECRETARY, AERB