JSSAHER’s Innovative Strides in Higher Education

Dr B Suresh, Pro Chancellor, JSSAHER

Mysuru headquartered leading deemed-to-be university, JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research (JSSAHER) is taking giant strides to push innovation in everything it does. From nationally recognized research labs to world renowned faculty members to playing host to coveted international scientific conferences to startup incubation to constant upgradation of infrastructure and facilities, JSSAHER is not leaving a stone unturned in its quest to stay ahead of the curve among health and life science universities in the country. JSSAHER’s visionary leadership includes JSS Mahavidyapeetha’s Head Sri Shivarathri Deshikendra Swamiji of Suttur Mutt, JSS Mahavidyapeetha’s Executive Secretary C.G. Betsurmath, JSSAHER’s Pro-Chancellor Dr. B. Suresh and its Vice-chancellor Dr. Surinder Singh.

With over 1,61,000 members, the American College of Physicians (ACP) is undoubtedly the largest medical-specialty organization in the United States. In other words, it is the largest and the most esteemed professional group of doctors who are internists or physicians who are practitioners of internal medicine or general medicine as it is commonly called today. Research students even in India, even if they have not heard of ACP, must have surely heard of the weekly research publication, ‘Annals of Internal Medicine’, which is ACP’s core research journal, the highest ranked & cited journal for internal medicine, and regarded as one of the top five medical journals worldwide.

ACP selects and awards internal medicine specialists for a few key achievements in their work annually. In 2023 too ACP announced these annual awards, and the American College of Physicians Distinguished Mentor Award in 2023 was bagged by Dr. M Suresh Babu, who serves as Professor of Medicine, JSS Medical College & Hospital, JSSAHER, Mysuru. While giving away the award, the American College of Physicians noted that this award is in recognition of his outstanding mentorship in the field of clinical medicine. Dr. Suresh Babu is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, UK. With such distinguished practitioners and researchers in its fold, it is no wonder that both JSSAHER’s medical college and hospital have been thriving as leaders in research and clinical practice.

Recently, the JSS Medical College also received a special recognition from the Government of India’s Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). This happened when JSS Medical College’s Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine (CEMR) at the Department of Biochemistry was recently recognised by ICMR as an ICMR-Collaborating Centre of Excellence (CCoE). While bestowing this recognition on CEMR for a period of five years, ICMR noted that this is in consideration of its scientific accomplishments.

Dr. Prashanth Vishwanath, JSSAHER’s Dean of Research and Dr. Akila Prashanth, Professor and Head of the Department of Biochemistry, received the recognition from Dr. Rajiv Bahlat, the Director General of ICMR, at the ICMR headquarters in New Delhi recently. As an ICMR-CCoE, this JSSAHER unit will engage in extensive cooperation with ICMR to develop guidelines, undertake multi-centric projects, and enhance capacity building efforts in the country. The available resources in such centers will be shared with other centers for the purpose of student training, R&D, and capacity development for enhancing the national research talent pool for advancing medical research in India.

A prime advantage of studying at JSSAHER is the unique exposure students get from the depth and breadth of the international conferences it hosts. A recent example was the HEAL-BioTec 2023 hosted by the JSS School Of Life Sciences. This three-day International Conference on ‘One Health: Biotechnology as a Catalyst for Sustainable Development was organized by the Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, JSSAHER. This conference was funded by three Indian Government bodies including the Department of Science and Technology (DST), the Science and Engineering Research Board (DST-SERB) and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), and it achieved its objective to discuss and further the new concept of ‘One Health’ which serves as a catalyst for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Also included in the G20 agenda, the ‘One Health’ approach aims to improve disease management by bringing together health, food and environmental scientists as well as policy specialists from different parts of the globe, to help in achieving SDGs by this decade’s end. It was a never before opportunity for JSSAHER students, faculty members, and researchers to interact with world renowned experts in these contributing domains and gain integrated knowledge about the One Health approach. Sanjay Kumar Varshney, Advisor & Head, International Collaborations, Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt. of India, was the chief guest and delivered the keynote address that described how Artificial Intelligence is speeding up clinical trials among other aspects.

Dr. Hans Jorgensen, Professor, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, who was the guest of honor, delivered a plenary lecture, with another plenary lecture by Dr. Anil Kaul from Oklahoma, USA. Other eminent scientists who delivered invited lectures include Dr. Jung-Hyun Kim (South Korea), Dr. Raj Kumar (Boston, USA), Dr. Claus Bang-Berthelsen (Denmark), Dr. S. Pradeep Kumar of Google and Dr. Manju Bansal from IISc. Apart from research scholars, faculty members and students, the attendees included leading industrialists from concerned sectors. Hosted both physically and in online mode, the mega conference benefitted at least 500 students directly, apart from the thousands of viewers who tuned into it from the world over.

During the last two quarters itself, the students, faculty and researchers of JSSAHER have been blessed with the university hosting several such events. These included an international conference on the genetics & epigenetics of cancer, a two day fair on forensic and investigative science, a live hysteroscopy workshop for gynecologists & postgraduate students, an international conclave on the occurrence and prevention of tuberculosis, and a rally to educate people on the importance of adult immunization especially for the elderly and high risk patients, conducted by JSSAHER’s Adult Immunization and Travel Medicine Center.

JSSAHER also continued to fortify its already impressive facilities and infrastructure in its core School of Life Sciences at Mysuru. During the last quarter, the deemed university launched the School’s new Lecture Hall Complex with the inauguration done by Karnataka’s Minister for Medical Education, Sharan Prakash Patil. The School of Life Sciences offers 14 post graduate programs, 6 undergraduate programs and 2 diploma courses in the regular stream, as well as several courses in the Open & Distance Learning (ODL) mode.

During the occasion, Minister Sharan Prakash Patil also inaugurated the University’s incubation facility named ‘Sparkle Cine’ for boosting the start-up initiatives by students, faculty and interested entrepreneurs. Sparkle Cine has been active for some quarters now, but now it gets its own infrastructure and facilities, towards fulfilling its stated aim of furthering the start-up culture in the university by translating educational excellence into actionable ideas for entrepreneurship and innovations. Also launched during the event was a new pharmaceutical chemistry lab.

Over the almost one and a half decade of its existence, JSSAHER has steadily improved not only on the quality front, but on the volume of graduates and postgraduates it grooms in each batch. Last quarter was witness to this phenomenon once again, during the fourteenth convocation of JSSAHER. All together, 2,546 graduands were awarded their undergraduate, postgraduate & diplomas this year, apart from 49 candidates who were awarded PhD degrees. Chairman of UGC Prof. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar was the chief guest who delivered the convocation address and gave away medals to 55 academic toppers.

Lessons to Indian Investors From Munger's Market Beating Run for 45 Years

Finally it happened. Jerome Powell backed off from destroying the American economy and the world economy further by not only pausing from an interest hike yet again, but by hinting that 2024 might witness up to three rate cuts.

It was the perfect excuse that the Indian markets needed to move even further up. Our nation already had structural strengths due to the ongoing economic reforms and infra push, plus the booming mutual fund inflows, and this move by the US Fed is surely a long-term positive.

Did someone mention long-term just now? Yes, and it was intentional, as there is now a chorus that the market will only go up and up. A little more conscientious souls are saying that only the large-caps may move up now, and not the mid or small caps, which are way too heated up already.

But this too has become a chorus now, and every time such a chorus is emerging, beware, a correction might just be around the corner. A 10-15% correction is a healthy norm in a bull market, but it can catch most traders and investors on the wrong foot, as this time around it may involve Nifty diving down by over 3000 points and Sensex by over 10k.

In Warren Buffet’s words, yes, it is a time to be fearful. As the Oracle of Omaha said in near perfect words - “To be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.” But such a dip too is sure to be bought in rapidly, giving you a fruitful opportunity to be greedy.

So, this kind of rapid buys against sharp falls is what the long-term qualifier is all about. And not that the markets will go only up and up. Of course, long-term has much more positive implications in the capital markets. Charlie Munger who passed away on November 28 was one of the best practitioners of it.

It is said that many of the quotes and wisdom that people attribute to Warren Buffett were actually from his long-term business partner Munger. One such quote where Munger likely had a great role was this - “Our favorite holding period is forever.” Such was his conviction about a unique advantage that only comes from the long-term holding of stocks - the power of compounding.

Compounding is no rocket science. At its heart, it is only middle school arithmetic. But 99% of investors in stocks and mutual funds do not get to reap its benefits. In fact, Munger excelled in it precisely because it was only basic math. Despite his towering intellectual capabilities - lawyer, architect, analyst, investment strategist, business head & thinker - he was careful to choose only simple generalized knowledge from the various domains.

Munger had a well-known disdain for specialists and their too specialized knowledge. His argument was that specialists tend to focus too much on their specialized knowledge, while ignoring what a multidisciplinary approach could have easily solved, by bringing together basic knowledge from all connected domains.

Anyway, compounding was one such basic skill that Buffett and Munger excelled in, that it won’t be an exaggeration to state that this strategy had more than a 50% role in their astounding success at Berkshire Hathaway which they together grew into the world’s largest holding company worth nearly $800 billion.

Munger’s appreciation for the power of compounding is evident from one of his best known quotes - "The big money is not in the buying and the selling, but in the waiting." Indeed, what he achieved for Berkshire Hathaway by way of compounding can never be overstated.

In fact, Munger’s strategies including his reliance on long-term compounding was central to Berkshire Hathaway shifting away from Buffett’s philosophy of investing in fair companies at wonderful prices (which he learned at Columbia University from his professor Benjamin Graham, the Father of Value Investing). 

Instead, Munger - who never attended any b-school unlike Buffett - convinced Buffett that what they should be doing is investing in wonderful companies at fair prices. Since this involved buying at higher prices than in value investing, it invariably required the power of compounding to work, and it proved to be so, as most of these companies proved to be really wonderful in the long-term! 

Buffett himself has gone to great lengths to credit Munger for this complete strategy shift and for creating a new blueprint for Berkshire, often saying that “it was Charlie who straightened me out” and that “listening to Charlie has paid off.”

Between 1978 and 2023, that is, for 45 long years, Berkshire Hathaway grew investors’ wealth at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20%. Most people don’t readily realize what this achieved for their public shareholders - it multiplied their wealth by 3700 times within these 45 years!  

It is a feat never done before and never likely to be done again in the future. This is especially so as despite this intervening period being witness to America’s largest ever economic growth, that sent its benchmark S&P 500 index over the roof at 163 times wealth creation, Berkshire Hathaway’s performance beat even this superlative returns by nearly 23 times!

So, what exactly is this power of compounding in layman terms? It would be best to describe it with an example. Suppose you have Rs.10 lakhs to invest in 2023. And you invest all that in a stock priced at Rs.50, after a careful study. So you get 20,000 shares.

For this stock to double your wealth, it has to go to Rs. 100 or go up by 100%. Suppose it does that within a year or two. So now you have doubled your wealth to Rs. 20 lakhs. Now, to triple your wealth you know the stock has to triple in value, that is, become Rs. 150 per share. But do you know how much it has to grow now in percentage terms to reach Rs. 150 from Rs. 100? It has to grow only 50%, and it will triple your investment to Rs. 30 lakhs!

If it is an excellent stock in an excellent market, it will achieve that within the next year. So now you have tripled your wealth. You know that if it adds another Rs. 50 to its value, it will quadruple your wealth to Rs. 40 lakhs, that is increase it fourfold. But do you know how much that growth is in percentage terms - from Rs. 150 to Rs. 200? It is merely 33.33%! And similarly for your investment to grow fivefold - from Rs. 200 to Rs. 250 and from Rs. 40 lakhs to Rs. 50 lakhs - all it takes is a 25% up move, which can sometimes happen within a week!

Now suppose you were really fortunate that your chosen stock was one of the best growth stocks in the market, maybe within the top 1% of the best small caps, that becomes a 100X multibagger by 10 years, that is, by 2033. So now your Rs. 50 stock is trading at around Rs. 5000, and your Rs. 10 lakh investment is now worth Rs. 10 crore. What happens now is the real magic.

Do you realize how much your stock has to move up now for it to add one more times in return, that is to add one more 10 lakhs (your original investment), or in other words to move from 100X to 101X? If you are quick at arithmetic, yes, you guessed it right, it should just rise by 1%. Imagine, a stock moving up by merely 1%, and you adding one more times of your original investment to your wealth!

This is what the magic of compounding is all about. Do you think this is a far fetched idea? Absolutely not. Even in the Indian market, there are dozens of stocks that have done this within the last 10 to 20 years, and now with the kind of better quality companies and startups hitting the IPO street, there will be hundreds of companies achieving such feats in the 2023-33 period.

This is why Buffett and Munger always held seemingly boring stocks like Coca Cola and American Express in Berkshire’s long-term portfolio without ever divesting them. These stocks continue to be incredible wealth compounding machines for early investors like them, who have also used their high dividends to reinvest!

And this magic of compounding is what drove this remarkable duo to state counterintuitive stuff like, “Our favorite holding period is forever” and that "The big money is not in the buying and the selling, but in the waiting." It is a wisdom that runs diametrically opposite to the current trend of dangerous practices like only microseconds long algorithmic overtrading, futures & options and heavily leveraged bets.

How to Exit the Polycrisis the World Walked Into

Until now, more often than not, economic crises were all singular and well defined. The world will either have slowing down demand with its side effect of lower inflation, or the world will have high inflation with its side effect of a surge in demand.

But this time around, things are slightly different. Confusing even many economists, the world is witnessing high inflation but with a slowdown in demand. Now, this is something not only pretty strange, but something that leaves not many levers for the governments and central banks to act upon.

This is one reason why many thought leaders are citing that the world is in a polycrisis. To add fuel to this fire, are the various global developments like the unprecedented war by Russia in Ukraine, the equally unprecedented economic slump in China, the very much anticipated but unprepared-for population degrowth in Europe, and the disruptive advent of generative AI like ChatGPT, to cite just a few.

While many factors are behind all these diverse challenges, for the highly observant mind, it can easily be seen that one social trend is behind it all. In fact, it is not just a social trend, but something that runs deeper, with its roots in the human psyche itself. It is nothing but the human tendency to deliver excesses, in both committing an act and in later correcting that act.

For those who know human physiology in some depth, parallels can easily be seen in how the cells and systems of our body react to various stimuli. For instance, the much discussed dopamine cycle. There is a baseline dopamine level, but achievement, rewards or euphoria spikes dopamine, but it cannot stay there forever. 

Soon it will be time for a fall, and when dopamine levels fall, it will not stop at the baseline level, but plummet sharply below it. In fact, higher the rise above baseline, higher will be the fall below it, sending happy and euphoric people to sudden gloom and doom, within a matter of hours. People who don’t realise this mechanism, often go after reward-seeking behaviour again and again, be it partying or drugs, to get a new high, only to fall even more deeper, and thus maintaining this vicious cycle of addiction.

Eerily, almost the same thing is happening in global economics too. The world went through a sudden demand slump due to Covid, and central banks responded with easy liquidity by way of lower and lower interest rates. And the otherwise smart companies like the tech majors started thinking that this will remain the new normal forever, and invested more and more into a digital future and in the engineers needed to run that future.

And tech majors alone were not to blame. Some of the otherwise most prudent investors and lenders, like the PE and VC funds, imagined that profits in their funded startups are not important anymore - in this new normal - but that valuations or marketcaps are enough to sustain operations forever.

But inevitably, like the dopamine slump, everything has to correct deeply for the economy to find itself in a stable ground again. Take the recent failure of Silicon Valley Bank in the US that started the most recent leg of the ongoing contagion. SVB was the lender of choice for startups, and the collateral was often the share pledges by promoters of these startups. 

Even more seriously, these young millionaire and billionaire promoters also parked much of their funds in SVB. But when the inevitable correction in the markets came, and the mass layoffs started, the outlook turned suddenly dark, the value of the pledged stocks became only a fraction of their peak values, and the promoters couldn’t take back their deposits in time, and everything came crashing down like a castle of cards.

The world had seen this coming, yet walked into it, mainly because everyone else was doing it. Yet, there have been notable exceptions to this trend across the world. Quite a few companies stood their ground and focused on growing their bottomline along with their topline, paid generous but prudent dividends, and kept aside much for a challenging phase that they saw coming.

There are quite a few measures that governments and companies can take to avoid such excessive behaviours. Firstly, it is important to realise that valuations can never substitute for profits. Secondly, it is important not to over anticipate the durability of an ongoing trend, especially if it feels too good to be true. Such a timely realisation would have been enough to avoid the kind of mass layoffs being witnessed now.

Last but not least comes an objective called sustainable and inclusive development. Governments should realise that the per capita income of their people is way more important than the GDP. Companies should realise that a mindless hiring and firing culture would gradually result in top talents not willing to work at all in their sectors. It doesn’t make sense for the companies themselves to always aim for aggressive valuation growth or even profit growth, but to always choose inclusive and sustainable growth for all stakeholders.

Invest MP 2023 Starts with Virtual Address by PM Modi

Invest Madhya Pradesh 2023 - Global Investors Summit - has kicked off to a majestic start in Indore with a virtual address by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the presence of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and several international and national dignitaries, including topmost level leaders from the leading industrial houses of India like Aditya Birla, Tata, Bajaj, Piramal, Godrej, Lulu Group, Dalmia Bharat, JK Tyres, Reliance, Adani & JSW.

Invest Madhya Pradesh - Global Investors Summit is the flagship biennial investment promotion event of Madhya Pradesh, the Heart of India. It provides an important platform to engage and connect with potential investors by showcasing and promoting the state's growth potential, investment climate, infrastructure and other advantages of Madhya Pradesh.

7th edition of “Invest Madhya Pradesh - Global Investors Summit” is scheduled on 11th – 12th January 2023 in the commercial capital of the State, Indore. Theme of the event is "MADHYA PRADESH - THE FUTURE READY STATE", the Programme scheduled in the cleanest state and cleanest city of India, will be ‘Carbon Neutral’ and ‘Zero Waste’. 

Over 5000 industrialists, representatives of various industry associations, foreign delegates including more than 500 international delegates from 80+ countries and representatives from all G20 Countries will participate in the event. The event will also witness participation from Central and State Government Ministers/Officials.

The main objective of this two-day event is to showcase the industrial ecosystem of the state, promote state policies, consultation with industrial organizations to Formulate Industry-Friendly Policies, Collaboration Opportunities, Promote Export Potential, Buyer- Seller Meets and Vendor Development. 

The event will be a platform where global leaders, industrialists and experts come together to share their narratives on emerging markets & trends and ways to harness investment potential of Madhya Pradesh.

Summit will have various important segments. On 11th January 2023, Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi virtually addressed the inaugural session. H.E. Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, the President of Cooperative Republic of Guyana, H.E. Mr. Chandrikapersad Santokhi, President of the Republic of Suriname, Shri Piyush Goyal, Hon'ble Minister of Commerce and Industry & Textiles, GoI, Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh & Shri Rajvardhan Singh Dattigaon, Hon'ble Minister, DIPIP will grace the event. 

All Leading industrial houses like Aditya Birla, Tata, Bajaj, Piramal, Godrej, Lulu Group, Dalmia Bharat, JK Tyres, Reliance, Adani, JSW will be on the dais.

Along with the Inaugural session, other key highlights of the summit are Thematic & Sectoral sessions, One-to-One Meetings with CM, Industry Ministers and other State Officials, Exhibition & Cultural Zone. 

Session on various Themes & sectors such as Pharmaceuticals, Medical Devices & Healthcare, IT & ESDM, Automobiles & Auto Components, Textiles & Garments, Agriculture, Food Dairy Processing, Logistics & Warehousing, Natural Gas & Petrochemicals, Tourism, Renewable Energy, Urban Infrastructure & Mobility, Fostering Exports from MP, Social Infrastructure Financing, Access Madhya Pradesh, International Business Opportunities,I2U2 (India, Israel, USA & UAE), MP contribution to 5 Trillion Economy, Aerospace & Defence, PLI- Boosting Manufacturing in India and Role and MP, Education & Skill Development, MP Startup Ecosystem. 

Business to Business meetings have been organized to provide a platform to industries for collaboration, business-related partnerships, product exchange, different services and related information. Through G2B meetings, private sector industries will be able to discuss various opportunities and collaborations with the government.

Buyer Seller Meet and Vendor Development Program is being organized to help the MSMEs of the state to reach the global market and to promote exports from the state. This mainly includes buyers from USA, Canada, England, Japan, Israel, Netherlands, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Bangladesh and African countries. 

More than 1500 exporters of the State from different sectors such as pharmaceutical, textile, engineering, agri and IT services have confirmed their participation.

During the two-day summit, 20 different sector-specific sessions will be organized with industry captains & industrialists from different fields and, senior officials of the concerned ministries of GoI & MP shall be brainstorming in these sessions. 

To protect the environment, Hon’ble Chief Minister, Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan has pledged to plant a tree every day and multiple kiosks have been placed within the Convention Centre and Exhibition to enable the participants plant a tree with Hon’ble Chief Minister. With the contribution of participants through this initiative, plantation of different varieties of trees will be done at Global Park by AQI Warriors.

More than 100 industries will display their products related to various sectors such as Pharma, IT, Automobiles, Textiles, Garments, Chemicals, Cement, Food processing etc. 

In the exhibition, a dedicated Madhya Pradesh Pavilion showcasing the industrial infrastructure, existing and upcoming industrial parks, major investment projects, flagship government schemes which are planned and are under implementation in the State. State’s various aspects such as Heritage, Culture, Wildlife, Natural Resources etc. will be showcased along with Digital Exhibition, Industrial Exhibition and a Cultural Zone in which One District One Product (ODOP) & local arts such as Gond paintings, Bhil paintings, Zari-Zardozi, Jute, Bagh print, Dolls, Bamboo Art, Bell Metal Craft and handlooms such as Chanderi & Maheshwari etc. will be  displayed by the artisans.

The 7th GIS holds significance as it is being organized when India has taken over presidency of G20 and the State is looking forward to a proactive participation from the Investors interested to Invest in Madhya Pradesh – The Future Ready State.

The event will be streamed live through DD news, and Jan Sampark, MP through the following platforms: FB - @jansampark.madhyapradesh, Twitter- @jansamparkMP, Youtube- JansamparkMP.