ASPIRE

Ajaypal Singh Banga, an Indian-born American, currently serves as the President of the World Bank Group. His distinguished career is marked by numerous achievements and leadership roles across global institutions. Notably, he collaborated with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as Co-Chair of the Partnership for Central America and served as a member of the Trilateral Commission. Banga is also a founding trustee of the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum and a former member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Additionally, he holds the title of Chairman Emeritus at the American India Foundation and serves as honorary chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce. His contributions extend to his work with President Barack Obama, where he was a member of the President’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations in  2015 . From the cantonment of Khadki in Pune (where he was born on November 10, 1959) to the helm of the World Bank, Ajaypal Singh Banga'...

The story of Shri Thanedar could well be a story of a Bollywood movie. His rise from poverty in Belgaum to become an entrepreneur in Michigan and then becoming a Congressman in US is nothing short of a fairytale. Shri was born in 1955 in a village called Chikodi near Belgaum (Karnataka). Like any other lower middle-class child, he did some odd jobs to manage his family expenses. He managed to score only  55% marks in his std-10 . After getting a bachelor's degree in chemistry, he went on to do his Masters in the subject from the University of Bombay. He then had a brief stint as a scientist at Mumbai's Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. In 1979, Thanedar left for the US when he was 24. He studied for his PhD from the University of Akron in US. He got a doctorate in polymer chemistry. Additionally, he completed his Masters in Business Administration from Fontbonne University.  After working as a scientist and a scholar for some days, Thanedar decided to pursue entrepreneurship. In ...

Nothing is impossible. You can achieve anything that your mind believes. Many battles are lost outside the battlefield because there is lack of conviction, lack of self belief. Belief, that one can do it. Belief in ones capabilities is ones strength; tried and tested for generations.  Just imagine that you are walking on the road. It's evening time. And you see a snake on which you are about to step in. What happens. It scares a hell out of you. Your heartbeats increase. Your eyes widen. All your energy goes to your leg to prevent you from stepping on the snake. So many changes in a fraction of second. Afterwards you realise it was not a snake; just a piece of rope. Everything jumps back to normal. Simply because you believed it was a snake, so many changes took place in your body. That too in such a short time. That's the power of belief. So believe you can, and you will win. Let's take another example. A baby elephant which is tied with a huge chain. It tries to free ...