Page 35 - EW November 2024

and Glenn Khargonkor of the Manipal Education Group. that Bhavin Shah, business management graduate of
Surprisingly all efforts to persuade captains of industry to Bombay University and former marketing executive with
invest with us proved infructuous. Despite your editor, Gillette, signed up with this publication, as our Mumbai-
the founder-editor of Business India and Businessworld, based Marketing Manager. Since then, Bhavin, currently
India’s pioneer business magazines, having been on first CEO of the holding company, has taken charge of the mar-
name terms with most of them. keting and sales operations of the company with commend-
The turning point came in 2005 when your editor had able success.
a chance encounter with Los Angeles based billionaire On the occasion of the company’s and EducationWorld’s
philanthropist-educationist Lowell Milken (and brother Silver Jubilee anniversary, this is an apposite moment to
Michael). They readily agreed to purchase a 26 percent publicly acknowledge the contribution of all our sharehold-
equity stake — the maximum permitted under laws govern- ers, marketing and editorial teams for having set EW firmly
ing foreign investment in news media — in this floundering on the rails to raise public awareness about the critical im-
publication. It speaks volumes about the hypocrisy of the portance of QEFA (quality education for all) as the essen-
biggest names in Indian industry who pay lip service to high tial precondition of national development.
importance of public education, that this pioneer initiative Although saved by timely divine intervention, this pub-
to nurture and develop India’s huge and high-potential lication has had a hard and rocky road to navigate and has
but wasted human resource, struck a sympathetic chord been obliged to suffer the proud man’s contumely and inso-
in faraway Los Angeles. EW and Indian society owe them lence of office (none of the five Union education ministers
a huge debt. of the NDA/BJP government or high officials have granted
Another fortuitous happenstance in the year 2006 was an interview). Nevertheless, for the past 25 years, your edi-

NOVEMBER 2024 EDUCATIONWORLD 35