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March 24, 2013
Hallmark Group Launches "Divine India" Collection
Photo: Shiva rhythmically synthesizes the principles of both destruction and creation. Hence in Shiva, meaning “the auspicious one”, the finite and infinite meet and all opposites are reconciled. Shiva has many forms through which His different aspects and attributes are worshipped and brought into our lives. This engraved ingot captures one of His most popular manifestations.
Photo: Krishna played a leading role in the epic Mahabharata. As the author of the Bhagvad Gita, He rallied Arjun to take up the battle between the forces of good and evil. In a more romantic vein, the relationship between Krishna and His adored Radha has become immortalized as the ultimate expression of love and devotion. Their passion, recorded in many sagas, symbolizes the soul’s intense longing for unification with God. The intricate details of this celebrated deity are transformed into a 3-dimensional sculpture and engraved onto a solid gold-layered ingot.
• In a first-of-its-kind in the world, Hallmark India, part of London-based Hallmark Group, has launched the ‘Divine India’ collection of 15 pure silver ingots (.999) layered in 24-carat gold of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. To preserve the value for the collectors, the ‘Premium Edition’ with 15 ingots has only 7,500 complete sets each.
The limited ‘Divine India’ collection is inspired by the finest paintings from Yogendra Rastogi, V.V. Sapar and Nirmala, who are considered among India’s leading artists of divine art.
“The ‘Divine India’ Collection is unquestionably one of the finest collections of engraved silver ingots that has ever been produced, unrivaled anywhere in the world. It has taken more than two years of intensive artistic endeavor, fine sculpture and skilled engraving to create the 15 Master Dies ready for minting,” said Mr. R.A. Wainwright, Chairman, Hallmark Group Limited.
The collection spans the diversity of the Hindu Gods and Goddesses in India - Ganesha, Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu, Balaji, Sai Baba, Murugun, Kali, Durga, Hanuman, Saraswati, Ram Durbar, Radha & Krishna, Lakshmi and the Supreme Consciousness represented by Om.
“Honoring India’s most revered deities, the Hallmark team of artists, sculptors and engravers have created the ‘Divine India’ collection. Placed in a handmade, lacquered wood box, each set has a complete 15 fact cards and an album, a jeweler’s cloth, cotton gloves and a mother of pearl tool to lift the ingots and it comes with a numbered Certificate of Authenticity,” the company stated.
Hallmark has operating divisions throughout Europe, America, Asia and the Pacific.
|GlobalGiants.Com|
Edited & Posted by the Editor | 4:57 AM | View the original post
March 22, 2013
IBM's Social Sentiment Index for India Cricket
Photo: IBM CEO Addresses the Council on Foreign Relations. In a speech to senior business leaders at the Council on Foreign Relations on March 7, 2013 in New York City, IBM Chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty outlined a new model for corporate leadership in which data would become the basis for competitive advantage. For public and private sector organizations to thrive, she said, they will need to harness technologies such as big data, social networks and mobile computing to change how they develop and market products and services. (© Jon Simon/Feature Photo Service for IBM.)
Sachin Tendulkar continues to rule the game of cricket even across social networks, followed by captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and opening batsman Murali Vijay. This is as per IBM’s Social Sentiment Index announced on the eve of the last test match in the the ongoing cricket series between India and Australia.
A real time analysis on social sentiment of cricket fans and alike conducted by IBM during the first three matches shows that cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar consistently leads the overall conversation in this period. 50% of the public sentiment revolved around his batting performance followed by his past records, his stature and retirement plans.
For the first time, IBM applied advanced analytics software and natural language processing to cricket to build a social score board for the Indian Players based on the intensity of the sentiment and volume of online conversations. Over 1.2 lakh posts across a variety of platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the blogging community were analysed during the first three matches in the current series.
Speaking about IBM’s Social Sentiment Index, Virginia Sharma, Vice President, Marketing & Communication, IBM India & South Asia, said: “Today, IBM is changing the game - both in business and in sports. By applying the social sentiment lens to cricket that has a multi-screen experience, we demonstrated how analytics can provide real time exciting insights into public preferences. This can be leveraged by organizations across the media, entertainment and sports industries to better understand their audience, determine endorsement values, and deliver effective marketing campaigns for their businesses.”
The IBM Social Sentiment Index uses advanced analytics and natural language processing technologies to analyze large volumes of social media data in order to assess public opinions.
|GlobalGiants.Com|
Edited & Posted by the Editor | 5:46 AM | View the original post
March 18, 2013
Delhi-Born Vijay Sethi Wins $100,000 Business Professor of the Year Award
Delhi-Born Vijay Sethi has been announced as the world’s best business professor and awarded with a USD 100,000 prize - the highest distinction for business teaching.
The EIU Business Professor of the Year Award aims to recognize and reward the professors that have challenged, influenced, and inspired students in business education.
Over 30,000 students and alumni nominated and voted for 222 professors from 31 countries. An expert panel of judges from around the world selected a shortlist of four professors to compete in a live teach-off event in London. Undergraduate and postgraduate international students from over 16 different business schools, studying business related subjects then voted to determine the winner.
For the title, the four finalists had 35 minutes each to deliver a lecture to a live classroom audience of undergraduate and graduate business students. Based on votes by the classroom audience, as well those by an online audience, Sethi emerged the winner.
Professors were judged on their ability to motivate their students, the use of innovative teaching methods and problem solving techniques, and how they engage with a diverse set of students.
The four finalists — Johanne Brunet from HEC Montreal, Darren Dahl from University of British Columbia, Kevin Kaiser from Insead, and Sethi — were picked by a panel comprising William Ridgers, Business Education Editor of The Economist; Peter Felix, President of The Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC); Astrid Tuminez, former Vice-Dean of Executive Education of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore; John Beck, Professor of Strategy and Managing Director of Hult Labs, Hult International Business School; and Adrian Wooldridge, Management Editor of The Economist.
Vijay Sethi has won the title of the world’s best business professor and will also be awarded the USD 100,000 prize for this prestigious award.
Vijay Sethi is Professor in the Department of Information Technology (IT) and Operations Management at Nanyang Business School, NTU, Singapore.
Nominations were received from leading institutions such as Wharton School, Harvard Business School and London Business School.
Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is the world’s foremost provider of country, industry and management analysis and the EIU award is the only global contest to recognise and reward excellence in business teaching.
|GlobalGiants.Com|
Edited & Posted by the Editor | 4:44 AM | View the original post
March 8, 2013
Top Universities By Reputation 2013
The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings employ the world’s largest invitation-only academic opinion survey to provide the definitive list of the top 100 most powerful global university brands. A spin-off of the annual World University Rankings, the reputation league table is based on nothing more than subjective judgement - but it is the considered expert judgement of senior, published academics - the people best placed to know the most about excellence in universities.
India’s Top 10 Higher Education Institutions
The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc) has taken the number one position in a new ranking of the top 10 Indian higher education institutions based on their global academic prestige.
Specialist institutes occupy the top five places in the Times Higher Education India Reputation Rankings, published for the first time this year alongside the full Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings.
IISc - which was conceived by the Indian industrialist J. N. Tata and founded in 1909 - takes first position. Just below it are the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in second, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in third, the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in fourth and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in fifth.
The University of Delhi takes sixth place - the first fully fledged comprehensive university on the list.
India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, told a conference in February: “Too many of our higher education institutions are simply not up to the mark. Too many of them have simply not kept abreast with changes that have taken place in the world around us…[and are] still producing graduates in subjects that the job market no longer requires…”
Referring to global university rankings that use a range of indicators beyond reputation alone, he said: “It is a sobering thought that not one Indian university today figures in the top 200 universities of the world today.”
Philip Altbach, director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College in the US, said: “The IITs and IIMs are the only Indian ‘name brand’ in higher education. For almost half a century, they have maintained high standards of quality and have produced bright graduates who have made their marks worldwide. Their faculty members have produced some excellent research. But these institutions are not really universities - they are small, quite specialised institutions that provide mainly undergraduate education.”
The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings list the world’s top 100 universities based purely on their academic prestige. The 2013 edition, published on 4 March 2013, is based on the results of a survey of more than 16,600 experienced academics from all over the world who were asked to name a small number of the “best” institutions in their field for both teaching and research.
Of the so-called “Bric” countries with rapidly expanding economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China), India is the only nation lacking a single representative in the overall world top 100.
Phil Baty, rankings editor for Times Higher Education, said: “As a country with a rapidly growing economy and a fine tradition of scholarship, it is a cause for concern that India does not have any institutions that are sufficiently highly regarded by international scholars that they feature among the global top 100 of our World Reputation Rankings.
“But it is clear that there is a need to benchmark the country’s performance using recognised global performance indicators such as those employed by Times Higher Education, especially as the country’s higher education system is going through such dramatic development and expansion. So we are glad to release this inaugural India Reputation Ranking, which not only gives a sense of the pecking order within India but also shows how far its top institutions must travel to join the elite top 100.”
“Reputation is subjective, but it does matters and it has material effects - it can help to attract student and academic talent to India, as well as investment and philanthropic donations. It helps institutions stay competitive,” Mr. Baty elaborated.”
|GlobalGiants.Com|
Edited & Posted by the Editor | 10:45 AM | View the original post
