Entrepreneurship 
Entrepreneurship - സംരംഭം - സംരംഭകർ

Entrepreneurship is growth from job-seeker to job-provider or job-creator! It's almost like becoming God! Creator! Creation!!

Entrepreneur is a chronic optimist - seeing an opportunity in every crisis! Natural - it involves risk taking - treading the unfamiliar tracks - euphemistically, innovation - thinking out of the box!

I met Kunjumon last week - who has literally found 'wealth' in 'waste'.  Kunjumon manages ten tonnes of waste everyday in his backyard. The plot is 10 cents with a two storey building of around 2000 square feet. Waste is collected from restaurants and tea-shops from Aroor to Cherthala and beyond. He employs around 15 people - five of them for sorting the collected waste being paid Rs. 5000 to 6000 per month, and others involved in collecting waste door to door, are paid between Rs. 13000 to 15000 per month. Isn't that wonderful? He collects a fee from each of the shop-owners, based on the type & quantity of waste to be managed.  His family dwells on the plot, as there is no foul smell, in spite of ten tonnes of waste being dumped in the compound everyday. He makes use of a medium prepared by an agency based in Coimbatore. The product is a marketable manure; and other segregated wastes - generally non-biodegradable and recyclable - are being sold for a price not unattractive! From a series of entrepreneurial failures, Kunjumon appears to have found his niche, and is keen to share his energy and experience with similar situations. He is brimming with confidence.

I hope the year will see the ED Cell rise and grow beyond the boundaries of commerce department as a creative and innovative force. Where even craziest of ideas can be presented, experimented!

An increasingly significant area for innovation and entrepreneurship is that of agriculture.
The collective efforts of Dr. Mathew Jose, faculty team of Commerce and the student leadership with Alwin at the head is really something inspirational!

Aug. 29 Friday, 2014
After more than a year - another meeting with 'Entrepreneurship Club'.  Yes, Beena Kannan was here - can be called an icon among the women entrepreneurs of Keralam, leading an organisation more than a century old - boldly, beautifully and from front. She is someone who can be looked up to by the students - as someone who also maintains diverse interests, and finds time to pursue such areas like 'dance' in spite of being a very busy entrepreneur, and in spite of what normally can be termed 'age'!
It is good that we have E-club! The efforts of Dr. Mathew Jose and some youngsters, mostly, from Commerce department have to be appreciated. To be frank, I am not satisfied with the club! The club is there - but it has not been able to break free into the realm of entrepreneurship. It has the inauguration, one payasam mela, and a couple of sales fete! Sometimes, we call it ED club! Entrepreneurship Development Club! However, that D is yet to be brought to life! 'Develop Entrepreneurship'!
A heartening initiative in this direction, perhaps, is the initiative from the part of the NSS unit, with Abi and team in the lead - a la 'How Old Are You' - a vegetable garden. However, I am not very optimistic - for it's over a month, and not even a single stroke has been made by a spade.
I invite the students to think made and bring out their ideas - innovative, mad, crazy - share them! They may lead to some development.
It is also important that we think of entrepreneurship in terms of 'social good' as well. While every entrepreneurship could have this dimension, there is the new stress on 'social entrepreneurship', entrepreneurship with social good in the focus. Perhaps, plan@earth by former Rajagirian Sooraj is one such. Where waste management is happening while the disposer of waste has a monetary benefits, the collector has entrepreneurial benefits, and above all, the waste is disposed. In the process, there is possibility of a community, and students getting benefitted.

Feb. 12, 2016 Friday
Botany department has really made use of the provisions of autonomy in re-inventing themselves, especially with focus on skill development that can lead to entrepreneurship, in other words a growth from job seekers to job makers. This is very much in tune with our Modiji's campaign of 'make in India'.  The song was about 'ek dil chahiye that's made in India'. Now we need a dil which wants to make in India. So that we can really START UP, and STAND UP.
My request to all the departments and students is to START UP SH, STAND UP SH!

For this the beginning is IDEA - an idea that starts off from your class rooms & labs to your land and your kitchen (where there is no land, your balcony or your terrace - assuming they are there!). Thus we have the terrace productions, the mushroom cropping, the bee-hives etc. The next step would be to SUSTAIN them.  That requires a different set of skill. The third step lies in PACKAGING and PRESENTING in the right time, right manner.  And next you could further extend the IDEA - that we call DIVERSIFYING. Thus from a very ordinary cheap soap powder, NIRMA has gone into other allied products of laundry, and they have clicked.
I appreciate the efforts of Botany department - this is a REVOLUTIONARY STANCE, and I hope this will be an EPOCH making shift.

Physics

Physics Association 2013
This year you have ideally named it FERVESCO - and some of you told me that it is from Latin - Could be! My google search revealed its meaning as 'I grow hot or I begin to boil' - take that in a spiritual sense, it befits Physics Community - especially with its Malayalam translation as ഊർജതന്ത്രം (science of energy)!

In Indian tradition, we had a very spiritual concept suiting this usage - തപസ്സ്! With this (heat being generated by austerity of the devotee/disciple) the gods were made restless, and they could cool themselves down, only by stopping this heating process through granting of the required boons. That is miracle work or hard work!

Being learners, we are called to perform tapas, and thus generate energy that will propel our lives towards goodness.

This is an era of innovation - and innovation is what makes life exciting, and easier! God the source of all energy and inspiration of all good, is a constant innovator, as goes the claim in the Holy Scripture - 'Every day my love is new', and 'I make all things new'.  As potential innovators, I present before you,
Tapas, as the Indian innovation for generating knowledge and producing good. I hope this year, the association activities will focus on innovation through research and projects (individual and/or collective), and there will be much good being wrought on the campus and in the community around.

Remembering your innovative enterprises like IMPETUS, and with the great team of servant leaders as faculty members around, I am sure you will succeed. Have a great year ahead!

AICUF - All India Catholic Universities Federation
SH Unit - Inauguration of Academic Year Activities 2013 - Aug. 3 2013 Sat.

In my younger days, especially as a school boy at Sacred Heart's, I was very much aware of AICUF as a movement - I could notice, even as an outsider, a vibrancy in that group, with some animators from outside gathering them together. Sure, the involvement of my sister and brother would have definitely helped me being sensitive to those vibes.

My college days didn't have any such exposure or involvement. Those were the days I was struggling to grow in detachment as a virtue - with least of 'worldly' involvement. That notwithstanding, I had consciously decided to join NCC, which was something very rare for a seminarian.

Back to AICUF - a sense of being on fire was AICUF. It encouraged youngsters to find the fire within, and let it glow. Perhaps, that was threatening and the religious authorities were not all that comfortable with that. Of late, it seems to have truly liberated itself as movement with the term Catholic being very consciously employed as 'universal' or 'all embracing', rather than being confined to a religious community, termed 'Catholic'. However, it is active only in Catholic institutions of higher education in India.

AICUF generally is all about 'social committment' - being sensitive towards social issues, being concerned about 'social justice'. When AICUF unit is operational in Sacred Heart College, I consider, Sacred Heart of Jesus as its source of inspiration - for the symbolic fact of its being a Heart on Fire - a heart aflame.

I am generally inspired by the social activist's song 'ho gayi hai peer parbat si pighalni chahiye'.  For this year I have two stanzas to sing and share with you:
1. aaj yah deewar pardon ki tarah hilne lagi
shart lekin thi ki yahi buniyaad hilni chaahiye. 
Today this wall has begun to shake as if it were a curtain; however, the condition should be such that the very foundations have to be shaken.
In our desire and efforts for change, from the superficial and superfluous, to the foundational - structural change can happen, only when we perceive that foundation is me, or I am that part of foundation that needs to be changed.
And also becoming critically aware of the fact that 'I can change MYSELF ONLY and I ONLY can change myself'.

2. sirf hangaama khada karna mera maksad nahin
saari koshish kai ki yah soorat badalni chaahiye
My purpose is not just create some hulla-bulla; rather the entire effort is that of 'transform'ation.

From mere 'speakers' to 'actors' - people who translate what they claim into action.

May the efforts of AICUFers of SH be in that direction - being fiery people, and being the change they want to be.

This can be more effectively achieved if we focus on 'inclusive' frameworks - joining hands with like-minded people and forums - e.g., NSS, Nature club, Speakers' Forum etc. Something of that sort is already happening through the joint-operations of AICUF-REDCROSS.
May the Sacred Heart of Jesus, bless us and the efforts of AICUF this year!

Sociology - Association Inauguration 2013 July 29 Monday
Josettan - Mavely Jose - you have aptly chosen for the inaugural of the association activities this year. For he is a great man of action. An arikkacchavatakkaran (അരിക്കച്ചവടക്കാരൻ) by trade; he has not accepted to be confined to the definitions typical, rather has transcended the limits, and has become a rice-merchant plus! He is generally more than that - and is better known for his merchant plus role, than by the trade profile.
He is a sprinter at the age of 63 - establishing himself at the top at his age - running 100 mts in 13 secs. That is the spirit that you could emulate.
I read your English lesson - the poem by K.D. Sebastian - Exciting Views. That is what Josettan presents - the exciting and exhilarating view of a WORLD SANS STREET CHILDREN. Do we have an exciting view about ourselves, about the campus, about our locality, about the country, about our world? It is important that each of us develops that by the turn of our stay on the campus.
As students of Sociology - our roles can be two fold:
1) Of Sociology typical - from objective analysis of the society we live in and with - We employ REASON for that - in a detached fashion - and apply the interrogative words of Why, What, Where, When, How and Who. That is good for a start.
2) Of Sociology applied - from the objective understanding we take a subjective stance - a personal plunge into the society - We INVOLVE - with passion (ചൂട് - താപം. Hence, I politely and honestly disagree with Josettan's compliments for me - ചൂടാകാത്ത അച്ചൻ.  No, I do get angry - angry for a better world; hopefully a creative anger - not destroying, rather  reforming - at least, that is the intent of my anger - ചൂട്)
From the Whys and Whats - that should lead us to Why not and What am I doing about it?
In that process, the society evolves - we may name it DE-VELOPMENT - in the sense of de-enveloping - that is, freeing (courtsey : Prof. Thomas Abraham).

And Sociology gives you that great opportunity - to embrace anything around, with a 'sociological perspective' - evolving a Sociology of Biology and of Mathematics and of Economics and of Education.
I hope, with the kind of pedagogical leadership you get here, you succeed in being that - far from being arm-chair Sociologists, being involved learners and change makers!
May the Sacred Heart of Jesus guide you all!