Page 8 - Lt Gen Arjun Ray

HISTORY

milestones

humanities graduate of Rajasthan University and defence studies postgraduate of Madras Univer-
A sity, Gen. Ray began his career as an officer in the 8th Battalion of the Kumaon Regiment in 1965.
Subsequently he was selected to attend the internationally renowned Staff College, Camberley, UK and
after he was commissioned, served as the deputy military advisor to the Indian High Commission, UK.

In his last assignment as commander of the 14th Corps in Ladakh on the India-China border, before
putting in his papers for voluntary retirement in 2002, Ray conceptualised and implemented Opera-
tion Sadbhavana (Goodwill) of the Indian Army to win the hearts and minds of the people of Ladakh
who were being wooed by the communist regime of mainland China. Under this programme, he es-
tablished 13 schools, 11 centres of women’s empowerment, and 60 adult education centres on the
India-China border and the LoC with POK. In recognition of this signal service to the nation, in 2008,
Gen. Ray was awarded the Param Vishisht Seva Medal, the highest award of the Indian Army for distin-
guished service beyond the call of duty.

Following the nationally acclaimed success of Operation Sadbhavana, Kumar Malavalli, co-founder of
Brocade Communications, USA, Sushil Mantri, promoter-CEO of Mantri Developers, Bangalore, and H.
B. Jairaj, a reputed business leader of Bangalore — co-promoters of the Bangalore-based Indus Trust
— invited Gen. Ray to take charge as founder-chief executive of the trust with the brief to attain its
education objectives.

t e

A master strategist and institution builder, Gen. Ray is a firm believer in the value of formal leadership
training and the power of new digital technologies in education. “Indus International schools are dis-
tinguished by their focus on leadership development through technology and innovation. I believe
every individual has leadership potential and it’s our responsibility to discover and nurture this latent
talent of our students. Second, I believe preparing children for the newly emerged VUCA (volatile, un-
certain, complex and ambiguous) global economy requires continuous innovation in pedagogy and
21st century competencies. That’s why IIS Bangalore is the first school in India to use artificial intelli-
gence and robot teachers in our classrooms,” says Ray.

112 | 21 Great Leaders Transforming Indian Education