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150th Issue

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Voice&Data Bureau
New Update

Seamless telecommunications has been both a cause and an effect
of what Tom Friedman calls the flattening of the world. In the flat world,
geographical boundaries are irrelevant; political boundaries are meaningless.

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We Indians, surprising as it may sound, have been very
comfortable with this idea for long. India itself has been a political country
for just about a few hundred years, from the time the British ruled it as a
single nation; before that it was a collection of small little kingdoms. But
even then, citizes of these kingdoms had no doubts whatsoever that they belonged
to Bharat. What was Bharat? It was an idea.

India has always been an idea first. When we started
conceptualizing the 150th issue, we did not want to dilute our Indianness of
which we are so proud; but we never wanted to confine that Indiannness it to a
set of boundaries. So we decided to focus on people-people who have made
contributions to telecom not just within the political boundaries of India but
anywhere in the world. For Indians, Vasudha (the earth) is, anyway, one kutumb
(family).

These personalities belong to various sections of the industry,
society, and government. They range from technologists to bureaucrats to
politicians.

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Together, they will tell you a story of telecom-some of it unveiling in New
Delhi; some in New Jersey; some in Bangalore; and some in Boston. Happy Reading!

Ajai
Chowdhry


Heralded the computer culture in India



AK
Sinha


Launched BSNL's broadband service



Anil
D Ambani


Led RCoVL's march to the market



APJ
Abdul Kalam


Advocate of rural connectivity



Arun
Netravali, (NRI)


Pioneered video compression
technology




Arun
Sarin


The face of Vodafone



Arun
Sobti


Innovated with 3G and broadband



Arvind
Virmani


Pushed for de-licensing in telecom
sector




Ashraf
M Dahod


Pioneer of mobile wireless
infrastructure




Asim
Ghosh


A strategic planner



Atal
Behari Vajpayee


Presided over watershed years of
Indian telecom




AV
Gokak


Freeing tariff barriers



BA
Majmudar


Established CDMA in India



Babu
Mandava


Creator of SIMD/VLIW DSP processors



BD
Khurana


The brain behind Reliance's
telecom venture




Beni
Prasad Verma


Wiring rural India



Bharat
T Doshi


Sustained contributions to networking
technologies




Bimal
Jalan


Paved the way for private ISPs in
India




BK
Zutshi


Fought for QoS



BV
Jagadeesh


Hosting hero



BV
Naidu


Started India's first email
network




C
Sivasankaran


India's first DSL
ISP




Chandrababu
Naidu


Used communications for governance



Dayakar
Puskoor


Wireless warrior



Dayanidhi
Maran


Made India a telecom manufacturing
hub




Debasis
Mitra


Networking Guru



Dev
Gupta


Transforming cable
TV networks




Devendra
Kumar Sangal


Modernized India's switching
network




Dr
Arogyaswami Joseph Paulraj


The father of MIMO Smart Antennas



Dr
DPS Seth


Pioneered the concept of unified
licensing




Dr
Govind P Agrawal


Fiber-optics Guru



Dr
Gururaj Deshpande


Influential technology
entrepreneur and visionary




Dr
Hemant Kanakia


Designed packet and cell switching
architectures




Dr
Inderpal Singh Mumick


The billing specialist



Dr
Narinder Singh Kapany


Invented fiber optics



Dr
Pradeep Sindhu


Challenged Cisco's monopoly



Dr
Rakesh Mohan


Championing telecom reforms in India



Dr
Srinidhi Varadarajan


Architect of System X, a supercomputer



Dr
Srinivasan Ramani


Ushered the Internet age in India



Dr
TH Choudhury


Founding chairman of VSNL



Dr
Vijay Bhatkar


Father of India's first supercomputer — PARAM


GB
Meemansi


The unsung hero of telecom



Gian
Dilawari


Led several telecom MNCs



Giridhar
Gomango


The honest and accessible telecom minister



GS
Grover


Implemented the first PSDN network



Harshvardhan
Singh


The unsung hero of TRAI



HK
Desai


Major influence on storage networking



Jagdeep
Shah


Superman with semiconductors



Jagdeep
Singh


Took on Intel



Jagdish
N Sheth


Telecom thinker



Jagjivan
Ram


Envisioned connectivity to villages



Jai
P Bhagat


Statmart in the wireless industry



Jaswant
Singh


Shaped the NTP 1999



Jayshree
Ullal


LANding Cisco in India



Justice
Santosh Hegde


Championed the cause of consumers



Kanwar
Jit Singh


VLSI veteran



KB
Chandrasekhar


Working toward Internet success



Kewal
Khanna


T&M Man for decades



KR
Naik


Customizations for India



Krish
Prabhu


Investing in telecom's success



Krishan
K Sabnani


Launched several innovations in networking



Kumar
Malavalli


Father of FC SAN



Late
Dewang Mehta


Dreamt of making India an IT superpower



Late
Dhirubhai Ambani


Envisioned affordable telecom for the masses



Late
Narasimha Rao


Early liberalizer



Late
Pramod Mahajan


Introduced Internet telephony and CDMA



Late
Rajiv Gandhi


Liberated telecom before liberalization



Late
Vijay K Gupta


Pioneered customer orientation in telecom



Lt
Gen DP Sehgal


Conceptualized and implemented defense networks



Mahendra
Nahata


Pioneer of indigenous telecom equipment manufacturing



Mahesh
Veerina


Made Internet affordable



Mano
Murthy


Pioneered work in layer 2/3 VLAN switching



Manoj
G Tirodkar


Entrepreneur with zeal to excel



Mohan
Gyani


Drove AT&T's wireless business



Mrityunjay
Athreya


The management Guru



Mukesh
Ambani


Like a storm, shook up Indian telecom



Mukesh
Chatter


Invented the scalable switching fabric technology



N
Seshagiri


Liberated telecom policy



NK
Singh


Championed mobility for WLL



Nripendra
Misra


Pioneered the 3G policy



Padmasree
Warrior


Gunning for seamless mobility



Partha
Mitra


Pioneered human-engineered systems



Patrick
Stewart


Overcame the Suez hurdle



PK
Garg


De-licensed the Wi-Fi frequency in India



Prabhat
K Dubey


Launched the world's fastest data switch



Pradip
Baijal


Spearheaded Phase II reforms



Prakash
Agarwal


Semiconductor Guru



Prakash
Bajpai


Created India's first broadband network



Prakash
Panjwani


CDMA Signaling Standard Developer



Prathima
Agrawal


Invented multiprocessor architecture, MARS



Prithipal
Singh


Making the Behemoth Fly



Prof
Ashok Jhunjhunwala


Developed corDECT



PS
Saran


Opened gateway of Opportunities



R
Ramaraj


India's first private ISP



Raj
Parekh


Improving Networks



Raj
Singh


Behind the scenes entrepreneur



Rajat
Kathuria


Pioneered TRAI's tariff formulation exercise



Rajeev
Chandashekhar


The Southern raja



Rajiv
Kumar


An authority on Bluetooth



Rajiv
Mehrotra


Multipronged strategist



Ram
Vilas Paswan


Connected India with Bharat



Raman
Roy


Catalyzed high-quality telecom services



Ramchand
Kondapalli


Modernized BSNL's billing strategy



Ratan
Tata


Telecom with global ambition



Ravi
Sethi


Co-authored Dragon Book



Ravindra
Nath Goyal


Set up the National Telecom Museum



RL
Dube


Launched PCOs in India



RN
Agarwal


Contributed to spectrum management



Rohit
Sharma


Focused on cross-disciplinary innovations in
networking




Romulus
Pereira


Pioneered development of service-enabling technologies



Roshan
Lal Sharma


Made the first commercial modem



RRN
Prasad


Liberator of Internet in India



RSP
Sinha


Instilled competitive spirit in the PSU

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S
Rajagopalan


Rehauled and modernized MTNL



Sabeer
Bhatia


The poster boy of Internet



Sam
Pitroda


Powered India's PCO revolution



Sanjeev
Aga


Launched Idea Cellular



Sanjiv
Ahuja


Led IBM's entry to telecom management



Santanu
Das


Developed VLSI-based telephone switching systems



SC
Khanna


CDMA's own man in India



SD
Saxena


Drove the development of infrastructure



Shashi
Ullal


The VSAT man



Shib
Chandra Nandy


Prepared the ground



Shyamal
Ghosh


Financed rural telephony



Simon
Beresford Wylie


Started India's first mobile services



Sir
William Brooke O'Shaughnessy


Ushered telegraphy into India



SM
Agarwal


Developed the Hindi teleprinter



SS
Sodhi


Released NTP 1999



Subhas
Chandra


Revolutionized broadcasting in India



Sudhirendra
Kulkarni


Connected the PM with the industry



Suhas
Patil


The erudite technopreneur of Silicon Valley



Sukhram

Opened telecom to private sector



Sunil
Bharti Mittal


Mobile warrior



Suraj
Mal Agarwal


Developed the Hindi teleprinter



Sushma
Swaraj


Oversaw the bidding of telecom licenses



TV
Ramachandran


A fighter for the cellular cause



Venkatesh
Krishnaswamy


Advanced IP telephony



Vijay
Madan


Revived C-DOT



Vinay
L Deshpande


Co-developer of the Simputer



Vinod
Dham


Created Pentium and K6 processors



Vinod
Khosla


Identified the optical networking opportunity



Vinod
Vaish


Steered the corporatizing of DoT



Vishwani
D Agrawal


An authority on electronic testing



VP
Sinha


BSNL's Marketing Genius



Werner
von Siemens


Pionered telegraphy in India



William
Kennard


FCC's chairman and TRAI's friend



YK
Pandey


An architect of C-DOT switching systems



YL
Aggarwal


The man who built India's first Telecom TNC and looked
beyond Indian borders

Contributors:
Ibrahim Ahmad, Shyamanuja Das, Pravin Prashant, Sudesh Prasad, Rahul Gupta,
Malovika Roy, Alok Singh, Sonia Sharma, Gyan Ranjan Swain


vadmail@cybermedia.co.in

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