Friends of India Network
The Friends of India Network was established in 2003 to provide a forum for faculty and staff at Texas A&M University to foster awareness within the academic community of a range of issues and concerns relevant to India and Indian-Americans on the TAMU campus. The network also seeks to enhance members’ professional development opportunities through networking and informal mentoring of students, staff and faculty, and to facilitate communication with other interested individuals and organizations in the university and the local community. Membership is free and open to any interested staff or faculty member of Texas A&M University.
History of Friends of India Network (FIN)
FIN was started in 2003 to serve as a forum for the faculty and staff to network, share and disseminate information on India and India-related matters. It was subsequently recognized as one of the official faculty networks by the Office of the Dean of Faculties. Over the past several years, FIN has hosted talks from the Office of the Consul General of India, Houston, and sponsored numerous activities on campus to promote information on India related to science and technology, the political system, and culture. In addition, we have hosted what has now become a tradition, the annual spring picnic for the Indian community in the BCS area.
Since its inception, volunteers have provided leadership by serving as president for a period of 3 years, including N. K. Anand (founding president, Engineering), Manjt Yadav (Business), A. L. N. Reddy (Engineering), Chandrika Rajagopal (Center for Teaching Excellence), Vinod Srinivasan (Architecture), Srividya Ramasubramanian (Liberal Arts), and Jayson Beaster-Jones (Liberal Arts). Bhimu Patil (Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center, Department of Horticultural Sciences) is the current President.
Past committee members have included Jyotsna Vaid (Liberal Arts), Sharada Vadali (TTI) and Ranjita Misra (Education). Recently, the committee was expanded to include representatives from colleges, campus organizations and TAMU System agencies-Executive committee in 2011-2014 include: Vijay Singh and Bhimu Patil (Agriculture), Arvind Mahajan (Business), Kishore Gawande (Bush School), Maltish Joshi (Education), Sunil Chirayath (Engineering), R Saravanan (Geosciences), Srividya Ramasubramanian (Liberal Arts), Bani Mallick (Science), and Chandrika Rajagopal (Center for Teaching Excellence).
2015-2018 Executive Committee Members
- Bhimu Patil, President (Agriculture and Lifescience)
- Binayaka Mohanty (Agriculture and Lifescience)
- Subodha Kumar and Sanjay Jain (Mays Business School)
- Sharat Girimaji, Vikram Kinra, Prasad Enjeti (College of Engineering)
- Samba Reddy and Mariappan Muthuchaman (Medicine)
Awards
July 2015Venky Shankar, Professor of Marketing & Coleman Chair in Marketing and Director of Research, Center for Retailing Studies, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, has been selected as Distinguished Alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT-KGP). IIT-KGP is the oldest of the IITs and is consistently ranked among the Top 3 engineering colleges in India. Prominent Distinguished Alumni of IIT-KGP include Arvind Kejriwal (Chief Minister, Delhi), Dr. Pradeep Khosla (Chancellor-University of California, San Diego), Arun Sarin (Former Chairman and CEO, Vodafone), Vinod Gupta (Founder and Former CEO and Chairman of infoGroup), Dr. Anand Deshpande (Founder and CEO, Persistent Systems), and Dr. Prabhakant Sinha (Founder, ZS Associates).
In 2013, Venky Shankar was conferred the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIMC). IIMC was recently ranked among the Top 3 international business schools by Financial Times. Notable alumni of IIMC include Indra Nooyi (Chairperson and CEO, PepsiCo), Dr. Krishna Palepu (Harvard Business School), Dr. Mohan Sawhney (Kellogg School, Northwestern University), and Ajit Balakrishnan (Founder and CEO, Rediff.com).
Scholarships
Dr. Sheela Anthreya
Liberal Arts, Anthropology
Dr. Nandini Bhattacharya
Liberal Arts, English
Dr. Jayson Beaster-Jones
Liberal Arts, Performance Studies, Music Program
Dr. Kishore Gawande
Bush School of Government
Dr. Julian Gaspar
Mays Business School, Center for International Business Studies
Dr. Vikram Kinra
College of Engineering, Aerospace Engineering
Dr. Arvind Mahajan
Mays Business School, Department of Finance
Dr. Rupak Mahapatra
Science, Department of Physics
Dr. Ranjita Misra
Education and Human Development, Health and Kinesiology
Dr. Kathleen O’Reilly
Geosciences, Geography
Dr. Bhimu Patil
Agriculture and Life Sciences, Texas Agrilife Research
Dr. Srividya Ramasubramanian
Liberal Arts, Communication
Dr. Narasimha Reddy
College of Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Dr. Arun Srinivasa
College of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Rajan Varadarajan
Other, Marketing
Dr. Vijay S. Venkatraj
Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences