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Although IIT BHU having a legacy of a hundred years has a large number of disruptive startup ventures under its hood, we are listing here few of the best startups in no particular order of success.● Zscaler: Founded by Jay Chaudhry of 1980 batch of Electronics IIT BHU. Zscaler is a global cloud-based information security company that provides internet security, web security, firewalls, sandboxing, SSL inspection, antivirus, vulnerability management and granular control of user activity in cloud computing, mobile, and internet of things environments. Its revenue has grown 65% year-over-year to $74.3 million.● Shopclues: Co-founded by IIT BHU alumni Sanjay Sethi ‘93 batch Mechanical Engg. with Ritika and Sandeep Aggarwal in 2011. ShopClues is India's Real Bazaar that brings the essence of local markets across the country, to an online platform at pocket-friendly prices. Now it has a total revenue of 39 million dollars.● Cricbuzz: Co-founded by Piyush Aggarwal and his mate Pankaj Chaparwal (IIT BHU Alumnus) in 2004. CricBuzz is an Indian cricket news website owned by Times Internet. It features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches and also players and team rankings. Now it is owned by Piyush and it stands on total revenue of $24.7 million.● Bansal Classes: VK Bansal, a mechanical engineering graduate from IIT BHU started teaching students, initially with 8 students at his dining-room table. A few of his students managed to clear the IIT JEE, and in 1991, he founded Bansal Classes. Bansal classes has produced many toppers and over 20000+ IITians. One can say that because of Bansal classes, Kota is now a place where every year thousands of IITians are produced. Bansal Classes now withstands on the annual revenue of $10 million.● Motion JEE: Nitin Vijay started Motion IIT-JEE in December 2007 with a seed capital of Rs one lakh, just six months after he finished his B.Tech. He is now the Director at Motion and also an extraordinary teacher famous as NV sir in Kota and worldwide. Its annual revenue is $3.8 million.● ZipLoan: Launched in 2015 by Kshitij Puri and Shalabh Singhal [EEE-2009/IIT(BHU) Varanasi], ZipLoan is a tech-enabled lending platform that provides loans to small businesses. SMEs- focused lending startup ZipLoan has raised Rs 90 crore in its Series B round led by SAIF Partners. Its annual revenue is known to be $1 million.● Travelkhana: Founded by Pushpinder Singh of batch '93 IIT BHU. "Food Delivery in Train" allows railway passengers to order food online. TravelKhana now has 1,200 vendors on its platform. Impressed with TravelKhana's service, IRCTC supports these services in a bid to improve overall passenger satisfaction. Its annual revenue is $1 million.● Qtrove: Founded by Vinamra Pandey of Chemical 2005 batch in 2015. Qtrove brings only the choosiest products for its customers. From fresh bakery goods to hand-made soaps and offers about 5,000 products from 200 sellers across 40 categories. It was recently funded a huge amount of $51 million which is quite an appreciable boost for a startup.● Zestmoney: Co-founded by Priya Sharma, Metallurgy batch 2001 in 2015. ZestMoney creates a real-time transactional credit product. This service is fast gaining popularity across demographic segments. “It is a new way for Indian consumers to pay for online purchases without the need for a credit card. Stands strongly at $3 million of annual revenues.● Biryani by kilo: Founded by Vishal Jindal (Electrical 92 batch) in 2015. BBK has been successful in drawing biryani lovers. It processes close to 1000 orders a day, with an average order size of more than Rs 900. Now it has an annual revenue of $3 million.● Bridgedots: Founded in 2011 by Tanmay Pandya batch of Chemical(2009). In the last four years, the startup has developed various products to deal with waste and effluents, chemicals, advanced coatings, construction chemicals and cosmetics. Over the next three years, Bridgedots plans to commercialise the technology by setting up various plants across India and partnering with companies outside India to set up plants in other rice-producing regions. Annual revenue 60 lac INR.● Tlabs: Co-founded by Abhishek Gupta, Computer Science batch of ‘99 in 2011. TLabs is a startup accelerator and early-stage seed-fund in India for internet and mobile technology startups which runs a structured and highly intensive mentoring plan .Till now it has mentored more than 50 successful startups. Stands on the annual revenue of $1 million.● Et media labs: Founded in 2013 Raghav Kansal of Civil (2011). ET Media labs help diverse businesses in eliminating the need for analytics and technology manpower for executing digital marketing. Its clients including UrbanClap, Edureka, Ketto, Cuemath, Jaypore are delivered results specific to their needs. Annual revenue is ~$1 million.● Husk power system: Established in 2008, Husk pioneered an off-grid power generation and distribution solution to serve rural customers in Bihar, India. Started by Gyanesh Pandey (Electrical 1999) and Manoj Sinha (Electronics 1999), it works towards rural electrification in Bihar, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, generating electricity using rice husks. The startup received the 2011 International Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy. Got $20 million series C funding recently and stands strongly at an annual revenue of $10million.● Jantakhoj: Founded in 2009 Tarun S Bangri '94 batch of Computer Science. JantaKhoj is a people search engine for India. The startup manually collects data from different “publicly” available sources and compiles them into one place to make it searchable over the web. The startup claims to have 500 million data records covering around 450 million Indians. Its annual revenue is $5 million.● Zostel: Founded in 2013 Abhishek Bhutra 2012 batch. Zostel is one of the largest networks of backpackers' hostels founded in India, and one of the country's first. The chain of hostels has a presence across 36 locations in India and Nepal. Towards the end of 2015, ZO Rooms operated more than 750 hostels across 51 cities in India. Revenue - $ 310k.● Indshine: Founded in 2016 by Friends and batchmates at IIT-BHU – Saksham Bhutani, Rohan Sinha, Sonveer Singh, Himanshu Nagrath, Aman Mehta, Manish Sahu, Vipin Singhal, Biswajit Behera, and Prince Diwakar. Indshine offers a cloud-based drone platform and enterprise drone solutions for various industries. The platform is primarily used to visualise drone data and generate geospatial analytics. Today, Indshine has clients in sectors such as railways, mining, construction, and power and transmission. The global market is expected to reach $5.5 billion by 2020. The startup is also looking to raise a Series A round to fund its expansion and reach.● Analytics India Magazine: Founded by Bhaskar Gupta 2003 batch. It is India's leading online platform chronicling advancing in Analytics, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Data Science. It has an annual revenue of $9.8 million.● Edfora: Founded in 2012 by Purnendra Kishore Mechanical batch of '94. Edfora Infotech is a fast-growing company backed by FIITJEE LIMITED, primarily focusing on making world-class Edtech product.● Ice x electronics: Founded in 2011 by Aditya Agrawal (IIT BHU), it’s the only Indian company in its domain which is working on the latest technologies such as wireless charging, 3D printing, 22 language keyboard solutions, personal OS, affordable smartphones etc. The general perception is that the company is importing handsets and tablets from China and selling them here under their own brand names. The startup bagged 50 Cr revenue in the first yearEdits: Adding some more Startups of IIT BHU, which are highly recognized and bringing laurels to the Institute.Special Mentions:● Pearl Therapeutics: Co-founded by Sarvajna Dwivedi of Pharmaceutical Engineering(Batch of 84) in 2006. Pearl Therapeutics develops a combination of products for the treatment of respiratory diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Pearl Therapeutics has raised a total of $247.5M in funding over 7 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Apr 1, 2013. It was acquired by AstraZeneca for $1.2B on Jun 10, 2013 and has $3M in estimated revenue annually.● MoveInSync: Founded by Deepesh Agarwal and Akash Maheshwari both of batch '98. It has been successfully trying to resolve the employee transport issues to a certain extent and has emerged as the India's largest office commute management company. It has annual revenue of over $3.5 million.● Blubirch: Founded by Sapan Jain and Amit Goel of '98 batch. It offers an unmatched end to end reverse logistic solution to maximize recovery from returned, unsold and unused technology assets for retailers, OEMs/ODMs and enterprises. Stands strongly at an annual revenue of $3.6 million.● Aquvio: Founded by Naveen Kumar & Rohit Kumar Mittal in 2015, two civil engineering graduate of '14 batch. Though ordinary purifiers purifies water but they generate waste-water. For every one glass of purified water, these purifiers generate three glasses of waste-water. Hence, it is adding another reason for water-wastage. Aquivo’s purifier generates three glasses of drinking water for every one glass of waste-water. Hence, Aquivo creates a win-win solution where more safe water is generated at the cost of less waste-water. It has saved half a million litres of water in 2016, 10 million litres in 2017 and 50 million litres in 2018. Its revenue has clocked in over Rs 10 million and has sold more than 100 units of the product.● Nihilent: LC Singh founded Nihilent in the year 2000, an extraordinary alumni of IIT(BHU). It is a global consulting and services company using design thinking approach to problem-solving and integrated change management. It focuses these services to Banking, Financial Services, Insurance, Retail, Supply Chain & Manufacturing, Media and Entertainment, and Healthcare organizations. It possesses a huge annual revenue of $53.4 million.

I can’t compare to all states of India with Kerala and its not fair too at this stage to make any comparisons. We are in the middle of a crisis and this is not just applicable to Kerala or South India or India as whole… Rather it's applicable to the entire world.Every government in this world is trying their level best to serve their citizens in the crisis. We can’t claim, ONLY we are doing the best. Everywhere, govts are trying to do best for their people. Maybe in some areas, we might be standing slightly better, some areas we may be lacking too.So I am not into any comparison at all. But since I write about Kerala in Quora, I feel I will write what all Kerala State has done in its fight against Corona Virus. I am talking only in specific to Kerala, not in comparison with any others.And please note, this is an evolving crisis and every day something new is being added to the fight. So sticking to things as of yesterday- 28/03/2020Contact trackingFor me personally, I consider this job done by Kerala’s DHS (Directorate of Health Services) as something the best they could do for us. Learning from Nipah outbreak experience, Kerala has used its resources to track contacts and people who been associated with the index patient (first patient in a cluster) to identify a cluster and isolate from the community. This includes detailed tracking of patient’s route from the moment he/she landed in Kerala until the moment he/she been quarantined into the hospital. Most of the tracking is done thro’ inputs made by the patient which are cross verified by officials of Public Health Inspectorate and Community Medicine Department, apart from using Police’s intelligence sources like Cyber cell to track down the mobile tower locations of the patient, special branch reports, phone records, CCTV camera recordings etc. By this manner, DHS able to identify a cluster comprising of potential secondary and tertiary contacts made by the index patient who will be either home or hospital quarantined and if any symptoms are shown, their blood samples will be tested.The DHS frequently makes regular route maps of patients and publishes in public to let people know about the time and place where the patient was and ask the public to declare to DHS, if they were in at that place at the specified time, to be declared as part of a cluster.Route Map of Patient 1 of Pathanamthitta which resulted in the start of second wave since March 2020This kind of tracking helped Kerala as of now to contain the disease to cluster level, though some have jumped out of quarantine and their actions created more clusters and patients.How Kerala's flowchart model is helping effective coronavirus contact tracingKerala launches contact-tracing programme to neutralise coronavirus threat2. TestingI have written answers before. Kerala’s strategy in combating this disease is by constant testing of samples. Kerala so far is the state that has done the highest number of testing among Indian states and its testing ratio is somewhat at par with many major affected countries like Japan or similar.Arun Mohan (അരുൺ മോഹൻ)'s answer to Why are no COVID-19 deaths reported in Kerala even though the state has the highest number of cases?States That Are Testing More Are Detecting More Cases, Data Show |If Kerala has done anything good in this sector, its solely because of regular testing and able to identify people quickly.As of yesterday (28/02/2020),Kerala tested 6,067 samples5,270 samples were negative165 are currently on treatment (Confirmed cases)1,34,370 are in isolation/surveillance (not yet confirmed)8 have recovered and still kept in observationand 1 death has been reported (the very first death in the state)This massive Pro-testing approach has helped Kerala to have nearly 10 Testing Virology labs in the state, including an NIV unit that helps faster and regular testing. As of now, Kerala has the highest number of blood sample testing facility in IndiaAs yesterday Kerala announced massive rapid testing after getting in-principle approval from ICMR. Kerala is the first state to announce so and was pressing ICMR for rapid testing permission for every single one in isolation/quarantine for last few days.3. Medical preparednessKerala was expecting to have Corona right soon after China declared its condition way back in Jan 2020. Kerala due to its very high non-resident Malayalee population living in many countries of the world was sure, they will soon get this new disease thro’ them and it was so right its judgement when the first Covid Case of India was reported in Kerala way back in Feb 2020. And it fully contained the first wave of Covid entry in Feb when it could isolate all cases and avoid spread etc.In the second wave, which happened thro’ an irresponsible family’s actions that created multiple clusters and later thro’ various foreign imports (some again were of irresponsible actions), the medical teams were so prepared to deal with emergencyDHS by March mid has already completed setting up various contingency plans, which were titled as PLAN A, PLAN B AND PLAN C. These plans were effectively communicated to entire medical and administrative officials of the states and everything has been well defined. This even includes thresh-holds for initiating each plan. Medical infra audits were carried out as part of this medical contingency plansThe Plan A which is currently ongoing has seen mobilization of resources associated with 50 Govt hospitals and 2 private hospitals on standby with total of 974 isolation beds and 22 ICUs readied for Corona carePlan B which has been initiated last day has mobilized resources for an additional 71 govt hospitals and 55 private hospitals for combating this disease which will add another 1408 beds.Plan C is the next stage (once the diseases spread comes to 3rd stage) which will mobilize 81 govt hospitals and 41 private hospitals with another addition of 3028 beds and 218 ICU bedsThese plans were drawn in March 1st week, which shows the extend of planning of Kerala Govt.The new set of plans (unofficially codenamed as PLAN D) will feature nationalization or semi-nationalization of entire Private hospitals of Kerala featuring a total bed of 69,434 beds and 5507 ICU beds. As of the latest decision, the govt decided to take over unused private hospitals and those medical colleges whose operations were suspended by MCI. 3 hospitals facilities and one Hostel complex were taken over in last 48 hours (PVS Hospital in Kochi, Anjarakady Medical College in Kannur, Shanti Jamaath Islami Hospital in Kozhikode and Sree Sankaracharya University Hostel Complex in Kochi)Collector Ernakulam (Kochi) taking over an unused hospital in Kochi city to be converted into a Covid Care Hospital facility.The Plan D features taking over hotels, hostels, lodges and other commercial units to develop into Isolation centres and Temporary Isolation centres, which shall be more than 2 Million rooms.As of now, Kerala Govt has announced opening Exclusive Covid Hospitals in every district of Kerala (14 Covid Hospitals in the level of tertiary care facility) and the first one is opened in Kochi- CMC (Cochin Medical College) which is a government Medical college and others are expected to open by this weekKerala’s first dedicated Covid Care Hospital centre in Kochi with 500 isolation beds and 70 plus ICU bedsGovt has been in talks with various community organizations and they all pledged their support for the fight. The Catholic Hospitals Association which is the second-largest Medical group after Government hospital network has decided to give all their hospitals to DHS along with their medical Staff (2660 Doctors, 10,300 Nurses, 5,500+ Paramedics and 6800 Admin staff). The Nair Service Society has assured Govt to provide its 2 hospitals and 100 plus educational institutions which they can convert into field hospitals if required. The SNDP Trust also assured Govt to provide its 1000 plus schools to be converted as field medical hospitals or treatment centres. It also assured to give its medical college to the state upon demand. So as Muslim Educational Society and Jammat e Hind Islami also assured to provide all its hospitals, madrasas, schools and colleges to the government for its better use.4. Upgrading Covid Hospital facilitiesOne key factor Kerala Govt focused on improving the facilities at all Covid care hospitals to ensure the public do not hide their medical cases to avoid visiting or isolating themselves.All Govt Covid Isolation rooms and treatment rooms are modernized and sanitized as per WHO protocols. Patients were brought to such isolation wards in dedicated Covid care ambulances and the isolation rooms were all modern and neatThe govt took extra care to ensure the food patients get at these hospitals should be as inviting as possible to shed all bias and prejudices against Govt hospitalsCovid patients gets inviting meals with options like Soups, fruits, eggs, Dosa, Appams, Rice-fish curries, chappatis, curd etc while foreign patients gets continental meals like Toasted breads, cheeses, omelettes/scrambled eggs, roasted chicken, biscuits etc. Patients do get daily milk, tea, coffee, fresh fruit juices, packed mineral water and daily newspapers (courtesy from Hindu).Dosa, eggs, oranges, fish fry: Here's the menu at COVID-19 isolation wards in KeralaThe hospital authorities have taken every wish of patients as much as possible, for example an covid affected Kid from Italy in treatment at Kochi were treated with Italian pasta, Ravoli and pizzas as the kid likes only Italian food which were ordered from an Italian restaurant nearby.5. Medical Industrial PreparednessKerala Govt has taken extra note in preparing itself for a major medical emergency. The state’s Medicine production has gone into full swing. The state-run Kerala State Drugs and Pharmaceutical Corporation has been entrusted with bulk mass production of Hand sanitizers which produced more than 1 Lakh bottles of Sanitizers and increased production targets to 1 million (10 lakh) by end of this week.1 lakh bottles of hand sanitizers in a day: Kerala goes all guns blazing against Covid-19KSDP also entrusted with mass production of 8 critical generic drugs and 2 drugs for which it holds patents to ensure no shortage.The state’s Electricity board has ordered to procure 500 new medical ventilators exclusively for Covid operations (Kerala state holds 5000 ventilators in total which is approx 12% of total available ventilators in the country). The state is going to enter talks with various manufactures for portable ventilatorsIn addition, the industry department has been asked to explore the possibility to produce 1 lakh N95 masks with any tech partnership with companies using facilities available to the department. In the meantime, the state will continue the mass production of cloth and surgical masks.As of today’s (28/03/2020) cabinet decision, Kerala Govt decided to form a medical industry cluster to manufacture indigenous medical equipment supplies at the earliest using existing facilities.The Kochi Superfab Lab, India’s only such facility were given the charge to design equipment required for such a major medical emergency. The state will produce its own Respirators, Ventilators, N95 Masks, Oxygen cylinders, Bio-Medical equipment preparing itself for the worst medical emergency.ISRO’s VSSC facility in Trivandrum and Kochi’s Technology Innovation Zone along with Kerala Start Up Mission will be fully utilized to design and develop newer and practical technologies and existing factories in Palakkad’s Kanjikode Industrial Cluster will be fully converted to produce equipment required for the medical sector. For this, a meeting of industrialists will be called tomorrow and setting the plan in motionThe state has opened a new challenge to all its technocrats and tech student entrepreneurs and start up promoters to come up with ideas for effective tech solutions to deal with a major emergency.A website- http://WWW.BREAKCORONA.IN has been started by Kerala Govt to invite newer ideas that can easily be put into action for which Kerala Govt will support financially and these projects will also generate employment and opportunities in the economy.6. Technology Usage and War RoomOne main feature which Kerala’s DHS used to control Covid spread was its Control Room set up at Kerala State Disaster Management Authority complex in Trivandrum and district headquarters. This was something which I feel, gave real-time updates to DHS on the spread and ways to control and contain it.These multiple data recording and analysis units helped to track patient history, procure data from multiple sources, feed in data and help control room unit officials to analyze patterns of travels and contact detailsIn a way, it was a full-fledged health surveillance facility. Patients route maps were made, their contacts were identified and their movements were tracked from this Hitech facility. These 24 hours of data control rooms, helped to give a clearer picture and understand the extent of spread thro’ interactive maps etc.This also includes geo-surveillance, monitoring those in quarantine with geo-fencing, GPS enabled trackers, electronic anklet monitoring systems etcScreenshot of portal that highlights patients under GPS enabled Geo-fencing to track their movements as used by District Administration- PathanamthittaCoronavirus | GPS-based tracking of all those quarantined in PathanamthittaIn addition, Kerala is using multiple data collection methods to track vulnerable people and develop maps to identify potential hot spots and nearest medical facilities. The disease mapping helps to have a strong information flow for various strategic decision making to control community transmission.Kerala uses open source public utility to fight COVID-19 - Geospatial WorldKerala govt to use ration card data for digital map on COVID-19Disease mapping to stem community transmissionApart from this, the centralized health support centre- DISHA (Direct Intervention System for Health Awareness) played a crucial role in tracking and supporting patients and other suspect cases. DISHA is a centralized call centre of DHS with a toll-free number- 1056 which was started to support patients for telemedicine and tele-support like counselling etc. But during this COVID time, it was fully converted into COVID Support and call centre facility. They notified the patient records, their queries and supported back with real-time updates of their medical conditions, moving ambulance support for them and mental counselling etc to alleviate stress.Disha 1056 call center, the nerve point of Anti-Corona operationsCoronavirus: This team at Kerala helpline desk works round the clock in fight against the pandemicNow, the state is coming up with a sophisticated Hitech War Room in the State Secretariat that has senior Bureaucrats as members to control and coordinate entire Covid operations including logistics movements during lockdown etc. A new secured line has been established- 0471-2517225 for the public to call at War Room directly.War room to coordinate effortsWar room in Kerala to supervise COVID-19 containment activities8. Lockdown SupportThe Lockdown as announced by Central Govt has affected every Indians. Kerala is no exception to this grave situation.During lockdown time, the state has focused on maximizing deliveries of essential supplies at home.The state has partnered with Zomato in Kochi, Trivandrum and Kozhikode to supply essentials from state-run Supermarket chain- Supplyco to public. 40 stores of Supplyco will start services of Zomato for home delivering of essentials including the essential kit of basic food items priced at Rs 500 (5 Kg rice, 1 litre coconut oil, 1 kg sugar, half kg of 2 kinds of pulsesSupplyco ties up with Zomato for online delivery of essential items in KochiThe state’s Consumerfed also entered into Online delivery starting from 1st of April and will extend to all districts of Kerala at the earliest. In addition, the state’s milk brand- Milma has aggressively pushed its online delivery- AM Needs more in 2 main cities which shall supply Milk, Milk products and breakfast items like bread, eggs etc. Efforts are made to extend this to other main cities too.Consumerfed’s online delivery from April 1Kerala Govt along with Police Cyberdome and a private company has launched a new Online app- ShopsApp and now asking all shops selling essential goods to mandatorily register in the ShopsApp portal. Once all the shops register, the newly formed volunteer army will be used for home delivery which will be spread across the state, not just cities alone.Shopping from local stores with home deliveryഅവശ്യ സാധനങ്ങളുടെ ലഭ്യത ഉറപ്പാക്കാൻ പൊലീസ് ആപ്The state has assured home-delivery of its essentials kits and ration supplies to the houses of poor (BPL cardholders) across the state, even in rural areas thro’ services of postal personnel as well as its own staff. Right from the day when schools where closed, personnel from Angawadi (kindergarten) and other educational departments were home delivering essentials for kids and children enrolled under each school directly.The state announced ambitious schemes to ensure HUNGER FREE Kerala. The govt clarified, not a single person in the state will starve due to the lockdownEvery family who is currently home quarantined will get Rs 1000 worth Essentials Kit of Food items from the govt for free which shall be home deliveredBPL card holders will get 35 Kg of Rice and APL cardholders will get 15 KG of Rice from Ration shops for free.Covid-19 lockdown: In a first, Kerala to home deliver food kits to the poorIn addition, a mechanism for home-delivering items from nearby shops by volunteers is plannedPolice delivering essentials to houses of elderly people who can’t go out9. Community KitchenThe govt directive is for Hunger-Free Kerala. No one will starve in KeralaFor this, the state has directed every Local Govt bodies to start Community Kitchens to cook food in bulk and provide packed food kits to people who don’t have access to cooked food. This includes homeless people, elderly people, sick people, migrant labour community and those got trapped in hostels or similar facilities overnight. All these shall be delivered to homes for a free or nominal token amount of Rs 20Meals shall be also delivered any needy just thro’ phone calls. The whole scheme has been worked out by Kudumbashree workers and packed meals costs Rs 20 only for veg and extra Rs 30 for a Chicken/Beef/Fish dishhttps://www.thenewsminute.com/article/inside-kerala-community-kitchen-during-coronavirus-lockdown-121325As of now, 748 Community Kitchens have been opened and an additional 300 will be set up soon. This service is available for lunch and dinner.So my parents who are in Kerala tried the community kitchen meal which was home delivered for Rs. 25. Rs. 30 extra if you want fish/beef/chicken. #Kerala #Alappuza @vijayanpinarayi @drthomasisaac @CMOKerala @shailajateacher pic.twitter.com/Ws2snAq5EQ— JF (@Potatodrink) March 27, 2020Kerala's Solution For Food Needs Amid Lockdown: 1,000 Community KitchensAgriculture Minister VS Sunil Kumar inspecting the facilities at Kochi’s Community kitchenKerala’s 43 lakh-strong women self-help network power community kitchens during coronavirus lockdown10. State Volunteer ArmyThe state announced an ambitious idea of forming an army of 2.45 Lakh volunteers to support various volunteering activity under a single command. Ever since the lock-down, multiple organizations are into volunteering activity causing many law & order issues and unauthorized movements. Also, there is a lack of coordination in these activities.To deal with it, the state formed a new directorate- Directorate of Social Service Force under State Youth Commission. The Directorate is to raise an army of trained volunteers to support various activities classified as 18 categories.https://www.quora.com/share/Arun-Mohan-520The key part of Volunteers is to develop emergency Isolation centres as required as movers as well as technicians. Apart from that, they are heavily required for logistics operations across the state, to supply deliveries to home, to work as care-takers and home-sitters for elderly and Covid affected patients etc.The govt announced this day before yesterday and invited online registrations thro’ its new portal- https://sannadham.kerala.gov.in/ (Sannadham in Malayalam means Volunteering) and despite of a technical glitch in registration, by now 30,000 youngsters registered for volunteering. This also includes Kerala Youth Volunteer Action Force- KYVAF (Red Shirts as known locally) designed after 2019 floods to have trained volunteer guards (5000 such trained red shirts are now available). So far only Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have formed such volunteer army.News in Asianet News about huge number of applications and responses to forming Kerala Volunteer ArmyRed Shirts in public sterilization programsKerala to set up Community Volunteer Force to support better deliveryKerala govt to form volunteer army of 2 lakh youngsters for the COVID-19 fightTechies turn volunteers to assist Kerala to contain Covid-1911. Transparency Flow of InformationThe biggest positive thing which Kerala is doing (which some proactive CMs of other states also doing) is effective and transparent flow of information.One of the important lessons learnt after Oockhi crisis of 2017 which Kerala changed since then and effectively used during floods time of 2018 and 2019 and Nipah time, was holding regular press meets and effective passing of all information available and cutting the spread of fake news.The government for the last 56 days were constantly holding daily press briefing both at State Level and district level to pass all information of the day. On the day 1 of first reporting of Covid case, a press conference was held even at an unusual hour of 1:30 AM late night to pass all information to media. Ever since that, media briefing became a mandatory thing at State level which was initially at 8 PM by Health Minister and as the state entered into Stage 2 and probably gearing for Stage 3 where multiple departments need to be involved, the baton moved to CM’s daily press meetings at 6 PM sharp.The daily press meetings of Kerala CM along with Health Minister and Chief Secretary has attracted huge public response, as a clear source of information on Covid situation.Today most of these press meetings are widely watched by entire Malayalee community, where all information of the day, all policies taken by Cabinet, all the government orders and action plan for next day are discussed with mediaPerhaps, one key tool to combat fake news is Transparency. The state issues health bulletins at every 6 hours for all affected people, all collectors are required to hold press meets or press releases on daily basis, district information officers are required to open lines to quell all public queries as well as organize programs to dispel public doubts and help the public in knowing the updates etc.Transparency Has Been Kerala’s Biggest Weapon Against the Coronavirus12. Campaign programs and quick responsesKerala government has realized the importance of massive Public Campaigns and Public relations to be used to the highest level to ensure its desired objectives reach to the public. The most successful campaign done was BREAK-THE-CHAIN campaign which has been adopted by Central Govt too and listed as a National agenda laterArun Mohan (അരുൺ മോഹൻ)'s answer to How many people participate in the campaign "break the chain" in Kerala?Arun Mohan (അരുൺ മോഹൻ)'s answer to What impact will this bring on the public as the introductory video of Kerala Police doing handwashing dance gone viral?Break The Chain Campaign was to have massive ground level sanitization and handwashing program to ensure the virus don’t spread quickly and break the chain of spread. This campaign helped the public to realize the importance of washing hands frequently and using sanitizers. Public washing kiosks came up and hand-sanitizers at the entrance of any facility became a regular thing. Videos of effective hand washes became common and the handwashing awareness video of Kerala Police became viralThe much viral Handwashing Video awareness dance by Kerala PoliceApart from campaigns, the government ensured, they are into heavy public relations. They are listening to every complaint, every grievance and standing with the public. For this govt machinery are focused on addressing public needs based on complaints reporting.For example, initially, the government didn’t give much thought about migrant labours and workers as the entire attention was over the local population. But when reports started coming in that migrant population have started fleeing to their homes and travelling on foot to their places when the lockdown came, the government machinery immediately set its attention to their problem. The govt started opening migrant workers camps across the state where they can stay and the entire cost of their food and other essentials were taken care of by the state Labour department and local MLAs. Kerala Govt even announced, they won’t use the term- Migrant Workers, rather will address them as GUEST WORKERS (Adithi Thozhilali) to honour their contributions to the state and will care themWhen Bihar’s Opposition leader Tejaswani Yadav highlighted the plight of some Bihari workers in Trivandrum over Twitter, the government quickly addressed to it and even reverted to him personally with an action taken reportI have visited the guest workers' labour camp today and spoke with workers and company representatives. The camp operates with all necessities including food and medicine.Kerala government is paying special attention to guest workers in this #COVID19 crisis. pic.twitter.com/uMsdq2NJQS— Kadakampally Surendran (@kadakampalli) March 27, 2020As of now, Kerala opened 4603 Relief camps to accommodate 1 Lakh migrant workers across the state who lost their work and got stuck in the state with no place to go. More numbers are to be expected as no one actually knows an exact number of workers. Many have fled Kerala before the lockdown came in and some haven’t turned up to government facilities too. The facilities do have all the essentials to survive until an alternative mechanism to help these people reach back to their homes is decided upon. This includes free food and sanitary requirements.Kerala opens 4603 relief camps for over one lakh migrant 'guest' workersAround 35 plus camps are opened for destitute and street dwellers across the state to be accommodated during this period.This decision has prevented a massive exodus as seen in many other North Indian states.13. Welfare schemes and supportThe state has announced a huge economic package of Rs 20,000 Crore to support people during this Covid crisis.One key feature announced was providing 2 Month social security pension (March and April) together by yesterday and today to all registered people, by delivering to their homes and via their coop bank accounts.The Govt kept its word by distributing all pensions by nowMore Photos. pic.twitter.com/H5sckkiCrL— Kadakampally Surendran (@kadakampalli) March 26, 2020How the Kerala government is shaping and implementing its Covid-19 responseKerala to disburse welfare pension for two months from next weekIn addition, the government has decided to support Tribal population by asking all tribal promoters and other officials to supply essential kits at their settlements inside the forest and educate them about the deadly virus spreadThe government announced One Month-long supplies kit per family to be supplied directly to their settlement and instructed forest guards and tribal department officials to ensure they remain insulated.Konni MLA comrade Jenish Kumar & District Collector P. B. Nooh IAS along with volunteers taking food materials to a tribal colony.It is important to work in sync during a crisis, as #Kerala has done in the past.With such common goals, we shall overcome. #KeralaFightsCorona pic.twitter.com/3uJLUW3qVR— Kadakampally Surendran (@kadakampalli) March 28, 2020Collector Pathanamthitta himself taking a load to remote forest interior as part of his personal interaction and awareness campaign among tribals of PathanamthittaThis includes conducting radio shows and public awareness videos/audios in tribal languages etc and holding tribal settlement meetings etc to ensure they listen and understand the implication of the diease.Radio shows, videos in tribal languages: How Kerala is spreading COVID-19 awarenessKerala fighting COVID-19: Awareness videos are made in various tribal languages. Local officials and health workers show these videos going to each tribal colonies.This one here is Oorali language. pic.twitter.com/VuilFvJcm5— Neethu Joseph (@neethujoseph_15) March 23, 2020How these Kerala youngsters are ensuring that the Attappadi's tribal folk are safe from COVID-19These are some measures which Kerala is doing at the moment to ensure the disease doesn’t spread much and prevent Kerala from going into a havoc situation.I am not saying, everything is perfect in Kerala. There are any shortcomings here too. But so far, Kerala is trying the best possible within its strengths, some inherent and some developed, for the betterment of community welfare.I don’t know how much of these are exclusive to Kerala. I don’t think, none of them remains and should remain exclusive to any place as we humans always try various ideas to save our fellow folks in times of mass disasters.The reason I highlighted all these, is to make a larger people aware of what we are doing to combat this virus spread and hopefully, these measures can be a guiding model for others to emulate if required, just like we too adopted many gestures from othersIn times of distress, these kind of positive stories are more of beacon of hope that humanity exists and something must be spread to all…..Let's all work together and may our humanity prevail over every disaster!!!

It is tough to stand up for what is right, especially when there is resistance from all sides… We should not feel that nothing is in my hands. If an officer feels like that, what will the common man do?”– IAS Rohini Sindhuri DasariWhether it was locking down the office of A Manju, the Minister-in-charge of the Hassan district, or raising a voice against her untimely and abrupt transfer, firebrand IAS officer, Rohini Sindhuri, isn’t afraid of authority.Time and again, this gutsy officer has made headlines not only for running successful campaigns in the districts she was posted to but also for standing strong as a gritty and determined role model who refuses to bow down under political pressure.Here’s all you need to know about IAS Rohini Sindhuri:The 33-year-old IAS officer was born on 30 May 1984 in Andhra Pradesh.She graduated with a B. Tech in Chemical engineering from the University of Hyderabad.An IAS officer from the batch of 2009, she secured the 43rd rank in the UPSC exam.She first assumed charge as the Assistant Commissioner of Tumakuru from 29 August 2011 to 31 August 2012. She then moved on to become the Commissioner of the Urban Development department in the district for short term from 31 August 2012 to 31 December 2012.Following that, she was appointed the Director of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department, Self Employment Project in Bengaluru for a year.She assumed charge as the CEO of Mandya Zilla Panchayat in May 2014 where she is widely known for her exceptional work under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Her work impressed the Union government enough to select her to train district collectors/deputy commissioners of various states in New Delhi on implementing Swachh Bharat initiatives.She later served as the Managing Director of Karnataka Food and Civil Supplies Corporation Limited in September 2015, in Bengaluru, until she was appointed as the District Collector of Hassan district in July 2017.Work and AccomplishmentsAs the CEO of Mandya Zilla Parishad, Rohini successfully launched a drive to provide individual toilets to over 1.02 lakh households between 2014–15.She managed to construct over 80,000 individual toilets across the district, which helped it clinch the number one position in the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in the state and rank third in the entire country.Rohini was also lauded for successfully utilising the Central government’s grant of Rs 65 crore for drinking water. Alongside her team, she instituted over a 100 pure drinking water units across the district. Her work impressed the Union government yet again and earned the district an additional grant of 6 crores to widen the reach.One of her popular strategies to help people in the Mandya ZP inculcate good sanitation measures was the Munjaane programme, where Rohini would personally meet the villagers early morning and promote the cause of constructing individual toilets.She was also praised by the CM Siddaramaiah at a meeting of Deputy Commissioners and Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive officers for executing a crop survey in connection with farmers’ crop insurance scheme in November 2017.Fighting political bureaucracyHowever, just like many honest IAS officers, her journey to success has been anything, but easy.As the District Election Officer, Rohini recently made headlines, when she locked down A Manju’s office in the PWD Inspection Bungalow. He is the Minister-in-charge of Hassan district and the office was reportedly locked from outside while some staff members continued to clear pending files inside.Rohini issued notices to the minister as well as the PWD Department for using government space for election work which is a violation of the Model Code of Conduct and is effective from the declaration of poll dates.Needless to say, her clashes with political personalities are being termed one of the reasons for her abrupt transfer. That being said and done, the IAS officer isn’t giving up. She is fighting for her right to stay and continue the work she painstakingly started in the district.Fighting against her transferRohini challenged the state government’s decision to transfer her in January merely eight months after she was appointed as the Deputy Commissioner of the Hassan district. She appealed to the Karnataka High Court and the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) for the same.After the Election Commission requested the state government to postpone her transfer until the final publication of electoral rolls, her transfer order was withdrawn on March 5. However, it only took 48 hours for the same transfer order to be re-issued.The HC recently directed the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Bengaluru, to examine the application Rohini filed against her transfer after it was brought to their notice that despite asking her to submit a representation to the chief secretary, the CAT did not take any decision on it. And her battle continues.In an interview with the Bangalore Mirror,Rohini recollected a similar instance in the past where she was abruptly transferred from Mandya, and said—“I was doing very well, and it was just one year, three months and some random guy was complaining about something. When they can’t find anything, they’ll say ‘Gaurava Kotilla’ [did not get respect]. What does it even mean?…We are here to solve people’s issues. We were supposed to declare the district Open Defecation Free, and I had only requested for two to three months so that I could finish the work. But they wanted to know what my interest was in staying.”She expressed the challenges IAS officers face when they get posted to a district and are transferred prematurely saying, “By the time you put an administration in place, form a team and start working, you are asked to leave. I want to work, and I should be given the time and space to do something.”While most officers in her place abide by the rule book and pack their bags to move to another place and start from scratch, Rohini’s is embarking on the road less taken. “When we have the legal backing that says we need to be given a tenure in public interest, then that has to be respected. Nobody is above the law,” she told the Bangalore Mirror.IAS Rohini truly shines as a beacon of light for women who want to establish themselves in the civil services and do not lose focus of their jobs even in the face of political pressure.Source:- Firebrand IAS Officer Locked a Minister's Office For Poll Code Violation!