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I was diagnosed with severe ADD/ADHD combined, along with a few other things, when I was about 10. my mom, a single mother of two girls with one on the way, didn't know Jack about ADHD. she did exactly what the doctors, who said they were helping, told her to do.I was uncontrollable, I acted out constantly, I was lucky if I remembered my name much less that someone had asked me for it. I don't think I sat still for longer than five minutes my entire early childhood. and I never stopped talking.I was a weird kid. I didn't have any friends, and since I couldn't help being a massive distraction in class I was put in an alternative class, where I could disrupt and interrupt and freak out and act out and just be my strange little self all day without irritating the mainstream teachers. I had an IEP, individual education plan, and an IEP team, and regular meetings with my mom in which my IEP team would list everything I had done wrong, non stop, for an hour and a half while I sat and quietly dissociated. they stopped doing that, actually, after my mom finally lost it, screamed and yelled at them about never coming to another bitch-about-Danielle session, and how she didn't want to know what I'd done wrong unless they could tell her what to do about it, and even then they had to have one good thing for every bad thing. it was incredible, actually. they stopped telling her what I got in trouble for after that, and only went over my accomplishments.Turns out I was a straight A student, taking college-level courses in sixth and seventh grade, breezing through standardized and personalized tests like it was nothing, without even trying. That was a huge part of my behavioral issues, actually. I was so damn BORED in school! Other kids wouldn't have anything to do with me, I was to strange, to tall, to skinny, and my flaming orange hair made me the target of every bully and asshole in school. Plus I made weird noises, constantly, was always fidgiting with something, had no sense of boudaries, personal space, ownership, impulse control, or social skills. Just to put the icing on the cake, I was a KNOWITALL, the TEACHERS PET, I would literally fall out of my chair from my hand shooting up so fast, before the teacher even finished the question. I even had one teacher tell me I wasn't allowed to answer questions anymore, because that class caught on real quick and were more than happy letting me answer all the questions.Needless to say, I wasn't easy to raise. Hell, it wasn't easy to grow up. fuck, and I mean, FUUuUUuuck, that was hard. I wouldn't do it again, nu-uh, no way, you couldn't make do that again for anything.ok, back to your question, though. about the meds.By the time I was 11, my mother had been given a choice. Her state provided insurance was ending, and she was given the chance to voluntarily sign over custody. The state had determined that I had “ medical, mental health needs", and I needed to be placed in residential behavioral treatment. This is very expensive medicine, nobody but the richest 1% could afford this kind of medicine for long, much less a single mother working swing shift at the detox center. The state was generously offering to form a placement plan that would see me back in my mother's home if she would sign the paper so they could provide the necessary mental health services. Of course, if my mother did not sign, and could not afford the services the state deemed necessary, they would consider it a failure to meet my medical needs and simply TAKE custody from my mother.Well, gee, I just can't decide!So it was off to behavioral treatment with me. I was given an optimistic 18 month placement prediction. The facility I was placed in was happy to have me. The head psychologist, and owner of the privately owned institute, had a sweet deal worked out with the state. They would recommend children for placement, based on his evaluations, of course, and when he was gaurdian of all these wards of the state he could take in not only the money the state paid for the services, but the extra for caring for state property. And as long as he claimed these children needed his services, the state would continue to pay.By age 11, I was taking 11 pills twice a day. I've asked here on Quora and been informed that such overmedicating might cause the process of emotional development to cease, and it would commence again from where it left off when the medication was halted. That was the optimistic answer.I started self-harming the day I started Prozac, and they gave me another pill for that. The second pill made it hard to wake up in the morning. Like, impossible. So I was given another pill for that. Then I couldn't sleep at night, and it was another pill to help with that. It goes on and on. When I was about 14 I began to have what I believe to be episodes of pill-induced psychosis that always led to injuries among staff and myself strapped down and sedated.I was nothing more than their guinea pig. And the worst part was the way the pills felt. I was empty, I had nothing left inside. My thoughts and feelings were muted, my mind filled with a stiff, cotton buzz-humm. I was slow to react or respond, and had no enthusiasm for anything. I was a shell of the bouncy, hyper, creative, curious, and annoying little redhead I had been. I hated the way they made me. I hate it still, so much the thought of putting my own hyperactive child on medication makes me nauseated.It would be like killing my daughter, starting with her soul. And you suggest terminating my parental rights over this? You suggest that I am unfit to be her mother? Have you ever considered that a doctor could be wrong? Or that a doctor might be feeling a bit stressed and overwhelmed and just pick the easy answer? Do you not realize doctors are human and the nature of humanity is to make mistakes? If not, then you are a fool, and you are the one unfit to raise children. You are too naive, too easily manipulated, too inexperienced, too narrow-minded, and too gullible. Your children are endangered by your ignorance, and you would be doing the greatest thing you could do for them to hand them over to just about any other person and walk away.Medication is not the magical cure for everything. Many, many things just need some hard work, some education, and some tolerance to get better.EDITA comment prompted me to add to my account, and It rounds off this chapter of my life quite nicely. I figured it was appropriate to add it to the original answer. So my answer to the question is above, and the summation of the story is belowI returned home at 15 after I ran away from state’s custody and was found three states away when I went to a mission for some food. I was flown back to the state i’d left and spent a little time in juvy, then they sent me back to my mother. I guess at that point I'd managed to make enough of a bother that I was more trouble than I was worth.Interestingly, only a few months after going home, we had a freak accident. Mom was chasing me around with raw hamburher meat on her hands. We were happy, having fun, and without warning, it ended. When I took the step down from the kitchen to the living room I somehow missed my footing and went down. I lay there, wondering why it hurt so bad, why I couldn't move without excruciating pain from my neck. Mom helped me up, and half carried me to the car, me crying nonstop from the pain. We went to the local emergency room, and the young, new doctor who examined me concluded that I'd pulled a muscle, prescribed some medication, then hesitated. After a moment he decided it was prudent to have some imaging done and ordered x-rays. So we took the pictures and waited a bit longer. My pain was still quite severe but I'd gotten my reaction under control. Mom and I were trying to be calm and unconcerned, chatting lightheartedly about what had happened. The last thing my mother said before the Dr walked into the room with the results from radiology was“ watch, he's gonna come back and say you broke your neck or something".Cue Dr, with bemused expression and images in hand. He says“your not gonna believe this, “ he pauses to put the images up on the light box, “you broke your neck. C2, left and right side. It's what we call a reverse hangman’s break.”Shocked, I painfully eased myself off the bed to look at the pictures. There it was, plain as day, 2 dark lines through the second vertebrae in my neck.“all I did was miss a step!” I exclaim.“see this here?” he points out the brighter color on either side of the dark break in the bone “this is calcium deposits from a previous break. It looks like your neck was broken before and didn’t quite set correctly, thats why it broke so easily again.”“I've never broken my neck!”“well, from this image, I'd say you did. About 6 months ago.”I started asking more questions, and the Dr took me back to the xray room, where there was a full sized skeleton, to explain more about my injury, how fortunate I was that it was a stable break, and what would have happened had it severed my spinal cord. I had just asked another question that he was enthusiastically beggining to answer when he stopped mid word, his eyes grew huge and round, and he exclaimed“you should be on a body board!”I was life flighted to another hospital. The new Dr at the first hospital had decided that, despite his own interest in the injury, he wasn't confident in his ability to treat a broken neck just yet and felt it was appropriate to refer me to another Dr. I'm grateful to him for being able to admit his limitations. I believe he would have done a fine job of treating it, but I'd would much rather he not risk it when I've got everything from my jaw down on the line.I experienced my first and only helicopter ride. It was annoyingly disappointing. The EMTs refused to tilt my body board so I could see out the window, though the pilot tried to make a sharp enough turn so I could catch a glimpse of the ground. Didn't quite work.During that boring flight staring at the grey panel half a foot in front of my face I realized several things. The Dr had said SIX months ago. It was 5 days from my 16th birthday. School had just let out for the summer. I was going to be in a neck brace for several months. And SIX MONTHS PRIOR I HAD BEEN IN STATES CUSTODY, PLACED IN A SECURE MEDICAL FACILITY.I even know exactly when my neck was first broken. I had been placed on suicide watch for self harming again, and on an impulse, when the attending nurse had just begun her rounds, leaving me unsupervised for about 5 minutes, I decided to go back to my room. All I did was sit in my bathtub with the door locked and cry. When staff pounded on the door and demanded I open it I defiantly positioned myself so that my feet would hold the door closed. After a while of listening to them holler at me, threaten me with assignments, loss of priveledges, etc I got bored of my game and moved my feet. The door burst open and two staff fell through. The First one through was Scott, a tall, athletic, bald softie who was terrified of midgets. Scott caught himself on the door, leaving Shannon, a short, bitter, intolerant little man to barely catch himself on the bathtub as he tripped over Scott.Shannon ended up further in the room than Scott. He shouted in my face that I HAD to return to my mat in the den NOW. Well, once more defiance had me kick my own ass and I boldly, bluntly refused. I locked my arms and legs in such a position in the bathtub that it would take an act of God to pry me out. Shannon looked like he was going to explode.Scott attempted to diffuse the situation by calmly and politely asking me to come out of the bathroom and talk with him.That was what made me relax a bit of the force I was using to lodge myself inside the bathtub, and that was when shannon's hand gripped my upper arm and I was suddenly airborne, swinging through the tiny room in an arc. I heard Scott shouting just before agony erupted as my back slammed into the doorjamb. Scott, trying to be helpful, had thrown out his arm in an attempt to halt the impact. But his arm was positioned right at my neck when I hit. And Scott had very large, muscular arms that were very rigid from the appopoleptic rage he turned onto his coworker for putting his hands on a patient. I dont know what he said, though. I was on the floor, my left side from the shoulder down in whitehot agony. I couldnt draw a breath. I couldn't tell them I couldn't breath, there wasn't enough air in me to make a sound. After struggling silently for a few moments, I pulled in a raspy, hard, hot lungful of air and cried out,“my chest, I can't breath!” as loud as I could. Which wasn't very loud. But they heard.A nurse examined me. After hearing a full account of events from all persons involved and an embarasing examination without any shirt on she concluded that I had a bruised sternum, I could have Tylenol and I would be better in the morning. I told her I thought she was wrong. That explanation didn't make sense. Nothing had happened to cause bruising on the front of my body. Which she didnt like hearing. She informed me that i could bring it to the morning nurse’s attention if it was still bothering me, but she wasn't going to authorize me to leave the grounds and see a doctor.I don't know what she wrote on my chart, but when I saw the morning nurse, complaining of difficulty breathing, severe pain in my neck, chest, shoulder, arm and back on the left side accompanied with the inability to lift that arm she barely even glanced at me, told me I'd already been seen and it was a bruised sternum and I could go back to my group. I made a request to be seen by a doctor and was once more, officially, refused medical attention.The pain eventually subsided and the incident was put away in the back of my mind for six months, until the poorly healed and unattended break was jolted by a simple step down taken wrong that was just enough to crack the weak bond the bones had on each other.Now it's over ten years later. I was informed I would have lifelong issues from the injury. For several years I suffered intense muscle spasms in my neck at the slightest wrong movement or twist. I had a 5 pound weight restriction. I was miserable. The muscle spasms gradually became less frequent as I figured out how not to use my damaged neck, and today I only very rarely am laid up with spasms. Only certain things cause them. Like helping my SO dig the foundation for the shed we were building (which made the super bowl a trial to sit though that year), picking up my kids, wearing a backpack, or turning to far. Getting to enthusiastic in bed can trigger spasms. So can simply sleeping in the wrong position. I've got a special pillow that helps keep me from waking up with paralyzing, throbbing pain radiating from the rock hard tissue that used to be my neck.If I try to do anything while my neck spasms it is likely to get much worse, the knotted tension will spread downward from neck, throwing my shoulders into clenched, cramped spasms, and it can continue to travel down my spine. I have no option but to lie in bed and ride the waves of pain, since it takes a lot more than a stupid old broken neck to break me. This can last quite a while. The digging spasms lasted almost three days. Usually I'm good by the evening the spasms first begin.I'm never going to be able to play piggy-back rides with my son. Or show my daughter how to twirl her ponytail like a helicopter. I can't help carry things to camp when we head to our favorite summer campsite, and I can't turn my head far enough to see behind myself if I were driving.So I guess that facility made sure I would never be able to Forget that terrible ordeal.

This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.With due respect to the writers who have written about the ISIS in detail.I would like to start with Prophet Muhammad and end till ISIS. I would tentatively call it as full story from Muhammad to ISIS. Read on.The "scary" part is as a result of the fact that the Khazir camp is outside the borders or somewhat autonomous Kurdish region, one of the only secure parts of the country.The “ish” part comes from the fact that the Khazir camp, though outside of Kurdish borders, is still in an area currently controlled by the Peshmerga—the Kurdish army.Iraq has been a scary place for a while now, for a number of reasons, but it’s currently scary in italics because of the terrorist group we’ve all gotten to know about in the past three months—ISIS.The things start way back in 570 AD.Ingredient 1: An ancient Schism.In 570, a long-named baby was born to a prominent family in Mecca, a city on the west coast of what is currently Saudi Arabia—Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim. Today he’s just known as Muhammad.Muhammad never had a father—his father died six months before his birth—and his mother died when he was six years old.After the death of his mother, Muhammad lived with his grandfather, and when hedied two years later, Muhammad was transferred to his uncle, a merchant. With his uncle as his mentor, Muhammad became a merchant himself. Not too much is known about Muhammad’s young adult years, but one thing we’re pretty sure of is that he married a 40-year-old widow named Khadijah when he was 25 (he’d have multiple more wives later in his life). They would go on to have four daughters and two sons, only one of whom survived into full adulthood—his daughter Fatimah.It wasn’t until Muhammad was 40 that his life started getting strange. He had gotten into the habit of going up to a mountain every year for a couple weeks to be alone, meditate, and pray. It was on one of these solo retreats in 610 AD that Muhammad was for the first time visited by the angel Gabriel. As the story goes, Gabriel recited messages to Muhammad that were directly from God, which Muhammad memorized. Over the years, Gabriel would continue to visit Muhammad with messages, Muhammad continued to commit them to memory, and later, he would recite the memories to his followers, who would then write them down, and that became the Quran.Three years after the first visit from Gabriel, in 613, Muhammad began preaching the messages to the public, in his hometown of Mecca. This did not go well. At the time, Mecca was largely made up of polytheistic tribes who worshipped nature-related gods and goddesses, and one of Muhammad’s main messages was that there was one god and any idols to other gods should be destroyed, which was awkward for everybody. People started reacting violently to Muhammad’s growing influence, killing some of his followers, and they may have killed Muhammad too had he not belonged to a fancy family. But in 622, when Muhammad learned of an assassination plot against him, he and his followers decided to bail on Mecca and head to the nearby city of Medina. This journey is called the Hijra in Muslim tradition and it’s celebrated on the first day of the Muslim year.Muhammad and his followers would spend the next eight years fighting off attempts to destroy them from Mecca and other places, and often being ruthless themselves with those who posed a threat to Islam or refused to convert. The thing a lot of people don’t know is that in addition to being a spiritual leader, Muhammad was, in essence, the general of an army of followers and a tremendously effective strategist in growing and holding on to his leadership position in the face of lots of hostile competition.Things came to a head in 625 when the Meccans, who were increasingly losing prestige and support as Muhammad’s following continued to grow, launched an attack on Medina and defeated the Muslims. But five years later, Muhammad and a 10,000 man army marched into Mecca and conquered it for good. By the time Muhammad died in 632, Islam had spread through the whole Arabian Peninsula.The Muslim World SplitsThe new Muslim world enjoyed 20 years of internal unity until Muhammad died, and then that was the end of that, forever.The problem is that Muhammad didn’t appoint a successor before he died, or if he did, he didn’t get the word out to everyone. And because he had no living sons, there was no obvious answer. Here’s what happened:Group A thought that Muhammad wanted the elite members of the Muslim community to choose a fitting leader, or caliph, and whenever that caliph died, the elite would choose the next leader, and so on. And Group A decided a great first caliph to succeed Muhammad would be the father of one of Muhammad’s wives, Abu Bakr (we’ll call him Abu).Group B disagreed. They thought Muhammad would have told them that only God can choose the successor to lead the Muslim world, and that could only happen by keeping things in the family. To them, all signs pointed to Muhammad’s cousin and the husband of his daughter Fatimah, Ali ibn Abi Talib (Ali).Group A was bigger and it won.So father-in-law Abu took over as Caliph, while son-in-law Ali watched from the sidelines and Group B seethed.When Abu died of illness two years after taking over, another friend of Muhammad’s, Umar, took over, having been appointed by Abu before his death. Umar ruled for ten years before he was assassinated by the Persians he had just conquered. Abu had also appointed Umar’s successor, Uthman, who ruled for 12 years before he was assassinated. All the while, Group B is helpless and frustrated.But then, the elite decided the next and fourth caliph should be Ali—Group B’s original guy—and for two seconds, everyone was happy.Five years later, Ali was assassinated, and when his eldest son Hassan became the fifth caliph, he was quickly overpowered by an aggressive rebel force led by Muawiyah, who coerced Hassan out of power and became the sixth caliph—and Group A and Group B would never reconcile again. While Muawiyah was the first of a long dynasty of caliphs, Group B tells a different story. To them, the leaders are more special than merely elected caliphs—they’re divinely chosen imams, and the way they see it, after an annoying three-caliph delay, their first imam was finally in power when Ali got the job. His eldest son Hassan was their second imam, and when Muawiyah kicked him out, Group B threw their support behind Ali’s younger son, Husayn—their third imam.Husayn, Group B’s third imam, ended up being beheaded by Yazid, Group A’s seventh caliph (Muawiyah’s successor), and so Group B moved onto Husayn’s son as their fourth imam, while Group A continued to ignore Group B and support their caliphs.This was over 1300 years ago, and yet today’s Muslim world is still completely divided over it, and so much of today’s Middle East strife is centered around this ancient split.Group A are Sunnis and Group B are Shias.Today’s Sunni-Shia tensions are about a lot of things, but at their very core is what happened in the 7th century. Sunni Muslims believe in their line of caliphs, and don’t believe them to be chosen by God, and Shia Muslims reject the first three caliphs and instead believe in the line of divinely-chosen imams starting with Ali, revering in particular Ali and his son and the third imam, Husayn. Both sects agree that Muhammad is the final prophet, both follow the Five Pillars of Islam, and both view the Quran as the holy book—but Shia are less unquestionably accepting of the Quran in its entirety, because they believe certain parts were recounted by people other than the imams.Here’s a chart to help clear up all of this confusion:None of this stopped the early caliphs from conquering an insane amount of the world—by 750, just 140 years after Muhammad’s first revelation, the Muslim world had expanded its reach to a large portion of where it exists today.But as Islam swept the Earth, this early schism only deepened—it was here to stay.Ingredient 2: Straight LinesThe land of Iraq has the coolest nickname of any land anywhere—The Cradle of Civilization—and for good reason. Ancient Iraqi history is as impressive as it gets. In particular, the fertile strip of Iraq in between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers known as Mesopotamia is often credited with the birth of writing (cuneiform), the invention of the wheel, some of the earliest sailboats, calendars, maps, schools, and the origin of the 60-minute hour and 60-second minute.7 3,000 years later, when Alexander the Great conquered half the world, he chose that land to be his capital, selecting Babylon in particular for its treasures and its critical location between Europe and Asia. 1,000 years after that, the head of the great Abbasid Muslim dynasty built Baghdad on the same land to be the capital of the vast Muslim world, and for the next 500 years (until the Mongols stomped on it), Baghdad reigned as a world hub of learning and commerce and for a time, was the world’s largest city. There may be nowhere in the world with a history as rich as the land of Iraq.The nation of Iraq, on the other hand, was created by two dicks with a pencil and ruler, and its history is mostly unpleasant.By the beginning of the 20th century, the land of Iraq had been part of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years. There were several ethnic and religious groups on the land, left mostly free to keep to themselves and separate from the others. But when Germany and Co. took on France, Britain, and Russia in World War I, the Ottoman Empire elected to be part of the “and Co.”, which left them ultimately on the losing side. Bye bye Ottoman Empire.During the war, Mark Sykes of Britain and François Georges-Picot of France got together with a pencil, a ruler, and a bottle of whiskey, and took to the map, carving the Ottoman Empire into nations and determining where their two nations and Russia would get to have spheres of influence after the war if they won.Regarding the whole “several ethnic and religious groups” thing and the natural boundaries of separation that had developed between them over centuries, George-Picot famously remarked, “Whatevs,” and with pencil in hand, Sykes is quoted as saying, “I should like to draw a line from the e in Acre to the last k in Kirkuk.”Here’s what they came up with:The thing about creating borders using a map, pencil, and ruler, is that it’s a terrible way to create borders. If you look at organically-created borders around the world—those that were formed over time by the local populations, based usually on ethnic and religious divisions, and often demarcated by mountains, rivers, or other natural barriers—they’re squiggly and messy. What’s a clear and satisfying straight-line-on-a-map border for imperial powers trying to keep things clean and simple for themselves is a complete disaster on the ground across the world where the actual place is.When borders are drawn this way, two bad things happen: 1) Single ethnic or religious groups are sliced apart into separate countries, and 2) Different and often unfriendly groups are shoved into a nation together and told to share resources, get along, and bond together over national pride for a just-made-up nation—which inevitably leads to one group taking power and oppressing the others, resulting in bloody rebellions, coups, and sectarian violence. This isn’t that complicated.But since it wasn’t really their problem, Sykes and George-Picot just went ahead with it, and over the next few years, precise new borders were drawn, giving birth to modern day Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Kuwait. Here was Iraq’s new situation:Can’t see why there’d be any issue here.A Tight LidFor any of you readers considering creating a new, tense nation of ethnic and religious groups who don’t like each other, I’ve been researching this shit all month and I have advice for you:Your new nation is like a bubbling soup inside a pressure cooker and it’s gonna spew itself all over the kitchen unless you have one critical thing that can keep things in order: a tight lid.The nation version of a tight lid can be either a strong western occupying power or an iron fist dictator with a scary military machine at his whim—without one of these, your nation will fall apart.The new nation of Iraq combined Ingredient 1 (Sunni and Shia Arabs living in the same area) with Ingredient 2 (a border that forces them into a nation together, along with a large group of Kurds) to create a tense pressure cooker.Things were hot from the beginning, when the new Iraqis revolted against the British occupation in 1920. The British acted as a lid and crushed the revolt. After Iraq achieved independence and the British lid left, a series of military commanders took over the lid duties, stomping a number of revolts and killing each other in coups from time to time. In 1968, the Sunni Ba’ath Party took over, under the leadership of new president Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and his ambitious vice president and general, Saddam Hussein.By 1979, Saddam’s influence had grown to the point where he was kind of running the show, and finally he went to al-Bakr and was like, “You know what two cool things are? Murder and retirement. Ya know? I thought maybe you’d want one of those? And you could choose?” and al-Bakr stepped down, bringing Saddam Hussein, the tightest lid of them all, to power.A lot of things sucked about the 24 year rule of Saddam. He started off in typical dictator fashion, calling together all the senior ranking members of government, and then reading out the names of those who were thought to be disloyal, 22 of whom were later taken out back and shot. He all but legalized “honor killings”—i.e. the tradition sometimes found in places run by Sharia Law whereby a man may kill a female relative if she dishonors her family, often without facing criminal charges. And he gave the world Uday Hussein.But Saddam’s worst crimes happened during the wars he started and their aftermath.Worried that the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran would inspire rebellion in Iraq’s large Shia majority, Saddam launched into the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, which killed over 100,000 Iraqis. Iraq’s Kurds, who have never wanted to be a part of Iraq, seized the opportunity in the chaos to try to form their own autonomous country, at times receiving support from the Iranians. The attempt failed, and toward the end of the war, Saddam embarked on the al-Anfal Campaign, a systematic genocide of the Kurdish north. One of the worst moments came in 1988, just as the war was winding down, when residents of the city Halabja were overcome by the smell of sweet apples after war planes flew by overhead, and then people and animals started dropping dead all over the city from gas poisoning. The gassing caused more deaths than 9/11. The entire al-Anfal campaign killed between 50,000 and 180,000 Kurds.While we’re here, let’s pause for a second and talk about the Kurds.The Iraqi Kurdistan highlights:This whole post was supposed to be about Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurdish region in northeastern Iraq. But when I decided to go another direction, Kurdistan got left out. As a consolation, Kurdistan is being featured in Wait But Why’s first ever blue “aside” box (if you don’t see a blue box, try clearing your cache). Here are some things about Kurdistan:Let’s start by clearing one thing up: The Kurds are an ethnic group, like the Arabs. Kurds are a number of religions, but most of them are Sunni Muslims. So when people talk about Iraq’s groups and they say “Sunni, Shia, and Kurds,” what they mean is “Arab Sunni, Arab Shia, and Kurdish Sunni.”Kurds speak Kurdish, though many also speak Arabic as a second language.Almost no ethnic group is a bigger victim of imperial ruler-pencil border drawing than the Kurds. Check out this map of the Kurdish population (in red) and how horribly it’s been cut apart by borders.The end result of the artificial borders is that despite being the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East (after Arabs, Persians, and Turks), Kurds are now minority populations in four countries, making up roughly 20% of Turkey and Iraq, 15% of Syria, and 10% of Iran. Kurds are one of the world’s largest ethnic groups without a state.Iraqi Kurds were granted semi-autonomy in 1970, and today, Kurdistan has its own government, army (the Peshmerga), and (highly disputed) borders. But it also plays a role in the Iraq government and is part of Iraq. It’s confusing.If Iraqi Kurdistan were its own nation, it would be about the size of Switzerland.Kurdistan is on the liberal, moderate side of the Islamic world and is generally pro-West.Kurdistan is normally totally safe to visit (right now might be an exception), and its tourism industry was on the rise—in the first half of 2014 alone, they received over one million tourists—but the industry has seen a sharp decline of late, for obvious reasons.Anyway, back to Saddam, who barely had time to take a shit after the Iran-Iraq War before starting the Persian Gulf War by invading Kuwait for its delicious oil reserves. This, as I learned from my third grade teacher, did not go well for Saddam, and again, Iraq’s oppressed groups, the Shia and the Kurds, tried to take advantage of the situation by attempting to overthrow Saddam. Saddam responded by tightening the lid and crushing the uprisings, killing 80,000 – 230,000 people in the process.Saddam was a brutal ruler, but for the most part, under his iron fist, Iraq was a stable country. We all know what happens next.2003: Off Comes the LidSay what you want about the Bush Administration and their decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam, but one thing is for sure: They were very, very wrong when they thought it would be a quick and easy war.They knew they were removing a lid, but they seemed to think it was off a tupperware container of cookies, not a pressure cooker. And their plan to replace the wrought iron lid with a fresh sheet of democracy cellophane would have worked fine if it were a tupperware container of cookies. Just not if it were a pressure cooker.So there’s the US, suddenly mired in hell and chaos for eight years, trying to fix a situation they weren’t prepared to fix, and which would ultimately be the Iraqi people’s problem, not theirs. Speaking of the Iraqi people, it’s time for another blue box.The Life in Baghdad Highlights:The people I got to know the best during my time in Kurdistan were three brothers from Baghdad who were visiting Kurdistan. They were born and raised in Baghdad, had lived there through the whole war, and spoke near-perfect English. I was ecstatic to find them, and spent two consecutive nights talking to them and asking them questions. Here are some things I learned:Living under Saddam was, unsurprisingly, horrible. You never dared say anything bad about Saddam or the government, even in private. You were careful who you crossed—if you insulted a kid in class who turned out to have parents in the Ba’ath party, your parents could end up in jail, or worse. “Voting” meant “vote for Saddam or die.” No one could travel. It sounds a lot like modern day of North Korea.So it makes sense that they told me everyone was happy when the US invaded and ousted the Husseins. People mock the Bush Administration’s claim that they’d be greeted as liberators, but it seems that that was the case, at least for everyone these guys knew.They continued to be happy about the war until about 2006, the peak of the violent civil war, when they said it had been unbearably scary to live there. These days, things are almost as terrible, and when I asked them if they wished that Saddam had never been overthrown, they couldn’t really answer. Two awful options. They don’t feel at all optimistic that things will improve in the future.That said, outsiders imagine that living in Baghdad was a sea of constant death over the last ten years, while in fact, none of the three of them knew anyone who had died. It was a horrific decade to be there, but most people there have lived their lives unharmed.Living in Baghdad, they hear a bomb go off almost every day—it’s gotten so common that when one goes off, people don’t even break in their conversation. They said the bombs are Sunni extremists bombing Shia people, or the other way around, and it’s a constant cycle of action and retaliation. Even though it’s unlikely that they’ll get caught in the line of fire, they never know if a bomb will strike where they are.They’re required to carry around their ID card, which has a bunch of personal information on it, including the name of their religion and the name of their father and grandfather.One thing that’s gotten more extreme since the Saddam era is a prevailing conservative ideology. Homosexuality is often punished by death by stoning, and police, they said, will turn their heads the other way when this happens. People have even been stoned to death for having emo clothes or haircuts. This wasn’t as bad during the Saddam era, they said, and is now a result of the empowerment of ultra-conservative Shia militia.Oddly, given the above point, I noticed a lot of pairs of men holding hands or being cuddly together. Same story in Nigeria, where homosexuality is punishable by 14 years in prison. The reverse of American culture on both sides of things.Here’s how dating works in Iraq: You meet a girl you like, you wait a bunch of years, and then you tell her you love her one day. She will evaluate and either decide to marry you or not. Once you’re married you can be alone together for the first time. Unslutty.I asked about nightlife, and it sounds pretty grim. There are nightclubs, they said, but no one normal can enter them. You have to “know someone,” they said—and apparently, a lot of the people inside are bad men discussing violent plots.For all the hardships in their lives, a lot of things are normal. They have smartphones, fast internet, cars, and they’re all in university or already graduated.A lot of people they know have emigrated to Michigan, which apparently has a sizable Iraqi population. Random.These three brothers, along with a few others, have started something called World Peace Day in Iraq with celebrations every September 21st. They were the first in the country to have the guts to do this (their celebrations are a target), but it’s caught on, and now the annual gatherings, which include people of many faiths and ethnicities, happen in five Iraqi cities and involve hundreds of people. Brave dudes.A Perfect StormInstability is the fertile soil that bad, scary things grow out of, and when the US left, Iraq had a new prime minister, a new government, a new and unfamiliar constitution, and an amateur, recently-trained army—not a stable situation.The power pendulum had also just swung for the first time in decades. Iraq’s population is 55% Arab Shia, 18% Arab Sunni, and 21% Kurd (with others making up 6%). And despite being the smallest group of the three, Iraq’s Arab Sunnis have been in power over the other groups for almost the country’s whole history. For any living Iraqis, a Sunni government and suppressed Shia majority is all they know. Suddenly, in 2006, Iraq had a new government, led by a hard-line Shia, Nouri al-Maliki. A logical observer of history would probably suggest that it would be a wise move for al-Maliki to be inclusive of Sunnis, regardless of the past, since, as noted above, the country was not in a stable situation. Al-Maliki did just the opposite, arresting Sunni leaders, discriminating against Sunni civilians, and targeting Sunnis disproportionately for torture and violence. All of this exacerbated the instability by making the government less unified and competent, creating rage in the Sunni populous, and weakening the loyalty of a military, part of which hates its own government. The anti-al-Maliki feelings are so strong that many normally-peaceful Sunnis find themselves sympathizing or even supporting violent anti-government terrorists.The power switch from Sunni to Shia has broader implications. If you look at the whole world of Islam, it’s clear that Sunni Islam is the vast majority (around 90%) and Shia Islam (around 10%) is just a small side branch:But when you look at the heart of the Middle East more closely, you can see why things are so complicated.Here’s what the Middle East looked like when Saddam was in power versus when al-Maliki took over:Suddenly, Shias are in charge of countries all the way from Iran to the Mediterranean, creating a kind of Shia Axis. This is a great thing for the world’s largest Shia nation, Iran, and it scares the shit out of the region’s most powerful Sunni nation, Saudi Arabia. And what’s been happening is Saudi Arabia and Iran engaging in what is essentially a Cold War, vying for broader power, with conflicts like the Syrian Civil War and the current mess in Iraq serving as proxy wars that can tip the balance in the larger struggle. This is why Iran wants ISIS (a Sunni group) to disappear and why you keep hearing that the US and Iran might actually agree on something (though for different reasons). This is also why the Saudis have been rumored to have funded Sunni resistance movements in both Syria and Iraq, even possibly directing funds to groups like ISIS.Yet another factor playing into the trouble is the simultaneous instability of adjacent Iraq and Syria—this creates an unstable border, as well as a situation where the terrorist-fighting front is disjointed and without a shared national narrative to fight for. It also allows a terrorist group to hide in one country from trouble in the other.Finally, western powers often provide a lid from afar when things erupt somewhere—but in this case, those powers have been gun shy since they just got out of a hideous war in the area and really really want to avoid getting involved. Up until Obama’s Mid-September speech, the US has done everything possible to avoid getting involved.When you add this all together—an unstable and divided new government with an amateur, questionably-loyal army and an angry minority population who feels sympathy for anyone who will resist the government; the interests of a giant neighbor, Saudi Arabia, aligned with a government overthrow; a civil war next door; and a group of western powers who have been determined to stay out—you have the perfect storm for the fiercest of terrorist groups to emerge from the fringe and conquer.ISISThe beginnings of ISIS—a Sunni jihadist group—can be traced back to 1999, when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian jihadist, started the group because he was pissed off about a lot of things. After Zarqawi swore allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2004, this evolved into what became known as “al-Qaeda in Iraq,” and was one of those shadowy insurgent groups you kept reading about the US fighting during the war. When insurgent activity died down after the US troop surge in 2007, ISIS seemed on the decline and disappeared from relevance for a bit.Al-BaghdadiIn 2010, after ISIS’s second leader was assassinated, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—a former scholar of Islamic studies and a US war prisoner back in 2004—took over and got the group back on track. He replenished their partially-killed-off leadership with dozens of Saddam’s old Ba’athist military personnel, who brought key experience to the group. Then in 2011, when the Syrian Civil War broke out, ISIS joined in as a rebel force—which helped to train and battle-harden the group. ISIS’s behavior in Syria was so brutal and severe that they even started creeping out the other bad guy groups, including al-Qaeda, who finally had a tantrum in early 2014 and cut all ties with ISIS.Up until early June 2014, only those who were carefully following the news knew about ISIS. But that’s when everything changed.On June 5th, just hours after I purchased my non-refundable flight to Iraq, ISIS stormed into the country, taking control of the border, and started systematically conquering towns in the western part of the nation. And suddenly, everyone had heard of ISIS.Two things were especially shocking about ISIS’s advance into Iraq. First, the horrifying, Genghis Khan-style way they conducted business—i.e. immediately round up and execute all men of authority, in this case anyone who was ever on the government payroll, and then execute anyone else who resisted their takeover.Second, the fact that in city after city ISIS attacked, the Iraqi military would flee the scene. This was partially because they were horrified of ISIS and partially because, as mentioned above, the Sunni members of the army weren’t that into fighting against a Sunni group to defend a government they hated. So western Iraq was folding quickly to ISIS, and by June 9th, they had captured Mosul, Iraq’s second biggest city.The area of Syria and Iraq they had conquered (and are still in control of) is the size of Belgium. Al-Qaeda never conquered anything—they just killed people. So how did ISIS do it? In addition to the perfect storm of factors discussed above, including far more tacit support from masses of civilians than al-Qaeda ever had, ISIS has three qualities that make them so effective:1) They’re brutal. No regard for human life is a helpful quality when trying to conquer a nation. The Amnesty international report details real accounts of ISIS brutality so scary it doesn’t seem real. An example of an excerpt in the report:A witness to one such mass killing in Solagh, a village south-east of Sinjar city, told Amnesty International that on the morning of 3 August, as he was trying to flee towards Mount Sinjar, he saw vehicles with IS fighters in them approaching, and managed to conceal himself. From his hiding place he saw them take some civilians from a house in the western outskirts of Solagh:“A white Toyota pick-up stopped by the house of my neighbour, Salah Mrad Noura, who raised a white flag to indicate they were peaceful civilians. The pick-up had some 14 IS men on the back. They took out some 30 people from my neighbour’s house: men, women and children. They put the women and children, some 20 of them, on the back of another vehicle which had come, a large white Kia, and marched the men, about nine of them, to the nearby wadi [dry river bed]. There they made them kneel and shot them in the back. They were all killed; I watched from my hiding place for a long time and none of them moved. I know two of those killed: my neighbour Salah Mrad Noura, who was about 80 years old, and his son Kheiro, aged about 45 or 50.”ISIS has officially been the deadliest terrorist group in history. In a tool that maps out the activity of the world’s most prominent terrorist groups, when you filter by “Most Victims,” ISIS comes up first, despite being around for less than a decade (their death count is more than double al-Qaeda’s lifetime total). The below screenshot of the tool shows terrorist groups ranked from most total killings (on the top left) to least (on the bottom right). Each mini-chart shows activity over time, with the red and yellow bars representing deaths and wounded, respectively:2) They’re sophisticated. ISIS functions like a well-run company—it knows how to recruit (ISIS forces are supposed up to 50,000 in Syria and 30,000 in Iraq), it knows how to fundraise, and it’s incredibly organized. ISIS produces a thorough and professional annual report that details its killings and conquests in the same way a company would report on its revenue and gross margin.They’re also pros at social media. Aaron Zelin, an expert on jihadis at the Washington Institute, said that when it comes to social media, ISIS is “probably more sophisticated than most US companies.”3) They’re incredibly rich. According to Iraqi intelligence, ISIS has assets worth $2 billion, making it by far the richest terrorist group in the world. Most of this money was seized after the capture of Mosul, including hundreds of millions of US dollars from Mosul’s central bank. On top of that, they’ve taken oil fields and are reportedly making $3 million per day selling oil on the black market, with even more money coming in through donations, extortions, and ransom. ISIS has also gotten ahold of an upsetting amount of high-caliber, US-made weapons and tanks that were for the use of the Iraqi army but left behind when the army fled. They’ve even gotten their hands on nuclear material that they found at Mosul University.On June 29th, ISIS just fully went for it and proclaimed itself a caliphate—i.e. a global Islamic state—and commanded all the world’s Muslims to obey Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the grand caliph. Those living in ISIS-captured cities are getting a taste of what life in the new caliphate is like:Women have about as many rights as a goldfish, barely allowed to leave the house and forbidden from showing their faces in public.No smoking ever, and also no tampering with or disabling the smoke detector in the airplane lavatory.If they’re not just rounded up and executed on the spot, Christians and other non-Muslims are forced to convert to Islam, pay a hefty non-Muslim tax, become a refugee, or die. The doors of Christian houses are marked with a ن, a symbol that signifies that they’re Christian. Nazi-esque.Some reports say a fatwa (an Islamic law ruling by an authority) was issued declaring that all women between the ages of 11 and 46 would undergo genital mutilation, a tradition meant to suppress a woman’s sexual desire in order to discourage “immoral behavior.”As for future goals, the short term goal is to establish an Islamic nation in the areas it currently controls, with some expansion of the boundaries. In the medium term, al-Baghdadi has declareed that “this blessed advance will not stop until we hit the last nail in the coffin of the Sykes–Picot conspiracy”—i.e. until those pencil and ruler lines drawn after WWI are gone and all the nations are part of the new caliphate. In the long run, ISIS wants to expand its caliphate to the reaches of the first Muslim dynasty in 750 AD, and beyond.Some people have argued that this map wasn’t made by ISIS, but rather by their supporters. Even if that’s so, al-Baghdadi’s ambitions certainly seem to match, and exceed, those on that map. In July, al-Baghdadi put out a message to Muslims that assured them that ISIS “will conquer Rome and own the world.”Over the past three months, as ISIS has marched through Iraq, 1.2 million Iraqis have become refugees. 700,000 of them are hiding under the protection of Kurdistan’s Peshmerga army. One of those 700,000 refugees is eight-year-old and now badly-damaged Mohammad, who was living a normal life in Mosul when ISIS attacked.ISIS made an aggressive push forward into the scary-ish territory and captured the Khazir camp. The Peshmerga army retreated, instantly converting the area into scary-in-italics territory. That night, a black ISIS flag rose up over the camp where the Kurdish flag had been. Luckily, this happened after a few days of ISIS-Peshmerga fighting, and the refugees had time to run before ISIS arrived. But now, where do they go? People like Kamil, a police officer, cannot go back to Mosul—his name was on the government payroll, and he would be executed upon arrival. But without significant money, many refugees are not allowed into Kurdistan either. Some simply camped out on the road in the searing heat.A few days later, with the help of US airstrikes, the Kurds recaptured the Khazir camp and a number of other areas ISIS had taken from them.Since my visit, two new developments offer some hope that things could possibly turn around. The first is that the polarizing Nouri al-Maliki is no longer the Prime Minister. He has been forced out and replaced by another Shia leader, Haider al-Abadi. We’ll see if al-Abadi can cool off some of the Sunni rage al-Maliki’s administration ignited.The second development happened on September 10th, when President Obama announced that the US would engage in a new campaign of airstrikes, both in Syria and Iraq, to try to defeat ISIS. Airstrikes are sure to slow ISIS down, but to take down and dismantle a group as shadowy, relentless, and fearless as ISIS, I doubt airstrikes will suffice. It’s going to be a lot harder than that.Sources: From Muhammad to ISIS: Iraq's Full Story - Wait But WhyNew York Times – Sunni Extremists in Iraq Seize 3 Towns From Kurds and Threaten Major DamThanks for reading!

Mr. Avinash P. GandhiMr. Avinash P. Gandhi received his Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra and he has completed Senior Management programmes at Indian Institute of Management and Administration Staff College of India.Mr. Gandhi served as a Special Advisor to Asia Automotive Acquisition Corp. since June 20, 2005. From 1998 to 2002, Shri. Gandhi had been the President of Hyundai Motors India and from September 1994 to June 1997, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of Bhartia Cutler Hammer (now a part of Eaton Corporation). From June 1997 to June 1998, Mr. Gandhi was Group Chief Executive of a Conglomerate of seven companies having tie-ups with leading global electrical products manufacturers.Mr. Avinash P. Gandhi has rich years of experience in engineering and various managerial positions. He held top leadership positions in prestigious organizations for nearly two decades in a professional career spanning forty years. From 1969 to 1994, he served in a number of positions with Tata Motors and Escorts Limited including that of Director on Board of Escorts Claas, a start up joint venture project with the largest Indian self propelled combine harvester company.Mr. Gandhi’s other positions of eminence include:The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fag Bearings India Ltd.Independent & Non-Executive Director of Havells India Ltd.Director of Uniproducts (India) Ltd.Member of Advisory Board of NuVeda Learning Pvt. Ltd.His other Directorship’s include Independent Lumax Industries Ltd., Fairfield Atlas Ltd., Panalfa Automotive Pvt. Ltd., Continental Engines Ltd., Mahavir Aluminium Limited, Minda HUF Ltd., Indo Alusys Ltd., Avinar Consulting Pvt. Ltd., Avinar Service Pvt. Ltd. and Pan Alfa Auto Ektrie Pvt. Ltd.Mr. S. N. AgarwalMr. S.N. Agarwal, a graduate engineer from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra and an alumnus of Harvard Business School (AMP- 1985) is the Chairman of the BHORUKA Group.He has been a Senior Executive Committee Member of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, (FICCI) since 1985. He has been the Chairman of various National Committees of FICCI on Power, Non-conventional energy, Logistics etc. He is the President of Karnataka State Council of FICCI-New Delhi and he is also the Vice President of SAARC Chamber of Commerce & Industry representing India.Mr. S N Agarwal’s other positions include Member, Governing Board - Indian Institute of Management (Bangalore), Chairman of the Committee on Finance and Campus Development of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B), Member - World Presidents Organization. He was also the Past President of All India Organization of Employers, (AIOE).Dr. Ganesh NatarajanDr. Ganesh Natarajan is Deputy Chairman and Managing Director of Zensar Technologies Limited, a Global firm that transforms Technology and Processes for Fortune 500 companies. Dr. Natarajan has been one of the most successful professionals in the Indian Information Technology Industry, having earlier been part of two major success stories in IT Training and Consulting, NIIT and APTECH. During his ten-year stint as CEO of Aptech he grew the company’s revenues fifty times and listed it on the Indian and London Stock Exchanges.A Gold Medallist in Mechanical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra he has completed his PhD in Knowledge Management at IIT Bombay. He is the author of three McGraw Hill Books on Business Process Reengineering and Knowledge Management and has also authored a book titled “Winds of Change”. He is a regular columnist for India’s premier Business and IT magazines.Dr. Ganesh Natarajan was named “CEO of the Year” by the Asia Pacific HR Conference in 1999 and received the Wisitex Foundation’s CEO of the Decade – Knowledge Award from India’s Minister for Information Technology in 2000. In July 2005, he received the Asia HRD Congress Award for Contributions to the Organisation through HR. He was one of nineteen finalists at the Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of the Year Award 2005 where he was recognized for his exemplary leadership skills and business acumen.Dr. Natarajan chairs the Outsourcing Forum of the Confederation of Indian Industries in Western India and is also a member of the Executive Council of NASSCOM, India’s premier IT and BPO Association. He has been elected Chairman of the NASSCOM Innovation Forum for 2005-07.Mr. Deven SharmaMr. Deven Sharma holds a bachelor's degree from the Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, having graduated in Mechanical Engineering in the year 1977. He holds a Master's degree from the University of Wisconsin and a doctoral degree in Business Management from Ohio State University.Deven Sharma was named president of Standard & Poor's in August 2007. Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, is the world's foremost provider of financial market intelligence, including independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research and data. With approximately 8,500 employees, including wholly owned affiliates located in 21 countries, Standard & Poor's is an essential part of the world's financial infrastructure and has played a leading role for more than 140 years in providing investors with the independent benchmarks they need to feel more confident about their investment and financial decisions.Prior to being named president, Mr. Deven Sharma served as Executive Vice President, Standard & Poor’s, where he was responsible for Investment Services and Global Sales. The businesses include Investment Data & Information, Research and Portfolio services. Prior to this, he spent five years as Executive Vice President, Global Strategy for The McGraw-Hill Companies, where he led the expansion into digital markets, geographies and new growth areas, as well as acquisitions. He also oversaw McGraw-Hill Ventures.Mr. Sharma joined The McGraw-Hill Companies in January 2002 from Booz Allen Hamilton, a global management consulting company, where he was a partner. During his 14 years with that firm, he provided guidance to client companies on business strategy and globalization, as well as on branding and sales management. Much of his experience includes work with global corporations in U.S., Latin America, Europe and parts of Asia. Prior to Booz Allen, he worked with manufacturing companies, Dresser Industries and Anderson Strathclyde.Mr. Sharma has authored several publications on competitive strategy, customer solutions, sales and marketing. He is a Board member of CRISIL, The US-China Business Council and Asia Society Business Council.Mr. Gurdeep Singh PallMr. Gurdeep Singh Pall is the corporate vice president for the Office Communications Group at Microsoft Corp. and part of the Microsoft Business Division's senior leadership team. He is responsible for vision, product strategy and business development, and R&D for Microsoft's Unified Communications offerings, including Microsoft Office Communications Server, Microsoft Office Communicator, Microsoft Office Live Meeting service and Microsoft Office Communications Online.Mr. Pall joined Microsoft in January 1990 as a software design engineer. He has worked on many breakthrough products in his tenure, starting with LAN Manager Remote Access Service. He was part of the Windows NT development team, working on the first version of Windows NT 3.1 in 1993 as a software design engineer, all the way through Windows XP in 2001 as general manager of Windows Networking. During his work on Windows, he led design and implementation of core networking technologies such as PPP, TCP/IP, UPnP, VPNs, routing and Wi-Fi, and parts of the operating system. He co-authored the first VPN protocol in the industry – Point-to-Point Tunnelling Protocol (PPTP) – which received the prestigious Innovation of the Year award from PC Magazine in 1996. He also authored several documents and standards in the networking area in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards body in the mid-1990s. Mr. Pall was appointed general manager of Windows Real-Time Communications efforts in January 2002 and helped develop a broad RTC strategy that led to the formation of the Real Time Collaboration division and acquisition of PlaceWare Inc. (now called Microsoft Office Live Meeting). Since then, Pall has led acquisitions of Page on media-streams.com AG and Parlano and key industry partnerships. Microsoft's Unified Communications efforts have received many technical and design industry awards. He was named one of the 15 Innovators & Influencers Who Will Make A Difference in 2008 by Information Week. Mr. Gurdeep Singh Pall recently co-authored "Institutional Memory Goes Digital," which was published by Harvard Business Review as part of "Breakthrough Ideas for 2009" and was presented at the World Economic Forum 2009 in Davos, Switzerland.Mr. Pall has more than 20 patents (in process or approved) in networking, VoIP and collaboration areas. He holds a master's degree in computer science from the University of Oregon and a graduate degree in computer engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi in India.Mr. Sanjay NayakMr. Sanjay Nayak is the Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer of Tejas Networks, a leading optical networking product company from India. Mr. Nayak is a technologist with over 18 years of industry experience in India as well as the USA. Prior to founding Tejas, he held senior management position in globally leading Electronic Design Automation companies such as Synopsys (where he was the Managing Director of Synopsys-India) and earlier at Cadence Design Systems. Mr. Nayak holds an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University, Raleigh and B.E in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra.Mr. Sukant SrivastavaSukant Srivastava is Managing Director and Country Manager for Convergys Corporation’s Customer Care business in India. He is responsible for overseeing the operations of Convergys’ eight contact centres and 11,000+ Customer Care employees in India, directing relationships with National Government officials and representing Convergys in key industry forums and associations. Additionally, he focuses on driving Convergys’ Relationship Management brand position in India, enabling talent acquisition and continued leadership in the rapidly growing business process outsourcing market. Mr. Srivastava reports to Clint Streit, president of Customer Care, and is located in Gurgaon, India. Prior to joining Convergys, Mr. Srivastava served in a variety of global leadership roles with Keane, Inc. His most recent assignment was as managing director for Keane’s Indian operations. In this position he served as a transformation agent for enterprise-wide change initiatives, including a shift to a globally integrated business model. Previously, he was vice president of Global Services Integration for Keane.Mr. Srivastava holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology in Ranchi, India and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of North Florida.Dr. Shree K. NayarDr. Shree K. Nayar did BE in electrical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, India in the year 1984. He received his PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in 1990. He is currently the T. C. Chang Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. He co-directs the Columbia Vision and Graphics Center. He heads the Columbia Computer Vision Laboratory (CAVE), which is dedicated to the development of advanced computer vision systems. His research is focused on three areas; the creation of novel cameras, the design of physics based models for vision, and the development of algorithms for scene understanding. His work is motivated by applications in the fields of digital imaging, computer graphics, and robotics.Dr. Shree K. Nayar has received best paper awards at ICCV 1990, ICPR 1994, CVPR 1994, ICCV 1995, CVPR 2000 and CVPR 2004. He is the recipient of the David Marr Prize (1990 and 1995), the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship (1992), the National Young Investigator Award (1993), the NTT Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award (1994), the Keck Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching (1995) and the Columbia Great Teacher Award (2006). In February 2008, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.Dr. Arup Roy ChoudhuryDr. Arup Roy Choudhury is a firm believer in achieving team-excellence through transformational shift to proactive, positive and personalized approach. Having experience in private and public sector organizations, Dr. Arup Roy Choudhury has an illustrious career of about 35 years during which he has been holding the position of CEO for over thirteen years. An engineering graduate from BIT-Mesra, he completed his post graduation and doctorate from IIT-Delhi and fol lows the motto “Sankalpa Shuddha Hi Siddha” i.e. if your intentions are pure, you are bound to succeed.Becoming the youngest CEO of a CPSE at the age of 44 years, he scripted a stunning turnaround story as CMD when he transformed NBCC, which was a sick company with negative net-worth and salary backlog in 2001, into a blue-chip enterprise having 'Schedule A’ and ‘Mini Ratna’ status bestowed upon it by the Government of India. The transformational turnaround of the Company brought about by him enabled NBCC’s turnover grow about 10 times and net-worth over 500 times during his tenure of nine-and-a-half years at the helm (Annexure-I). He pulled NBCC out of the abyss and catapulted it into the distinguished league of ‘Top Ten CPSEs’. Under him, NBCC broadened its business horizons and paid its maiden dividend to the Govt. of India for the year 2006-07, after 45 years of its incorporation.Dr. Choudhury now heads NTPC Limited, the 10th largest power producer in the world and ranked as #1 Indepedent Power Producer by Platts (part of the prestigious McGraw Hill Group). NTPC is acknowledged as the best company in the world for capacity utilization. NTPC is also one of the seven largest Central Public Sector Undertakings of India, designated as a ‘Maharatna’.Since taking over as CMD-NTPC in September, 2010, Dr. Choudhary has been positioning the enterprise on course to become the largest and best power producer in the world.In a period of three and a half years of Dr. Choudhury’s leadership, NTPC has already added about 10,800 MW, which is over one fourth of its total installed capacity of over 43,019 MW built in over 38 years. NTPC’s turnover is around Rupees 68,800 crore (about USD 12.5 Billion). NTPC's financial performance in 2012-13 has been exceptionally strong with a Profit After Tax (PAT) of about Rs. 12,600 crore (about USD 2.3 billion), an increase of about 37% over the previous year's PAT.Dr. Choudhury steered the process of ‘Offer for Sale’ for disinvestment of 9.5% stakes of the Government of India in NTPC, garnering over USD 2 billion (About Rs. 11,500 Cr). This was oversubscribed by 1.7 times with 45% coming from foreign investors. NTPC's issue for Tax Free Bond of Rs. 1,000 crore in December, 2013 received overwhelming response from the investors with oversubscription of 3.37 times.Dr. Choudhury, as Chairman of Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE) - the apex forum of over 200 Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) in India - for two consecutive terms of two years each (From April 2009 to March 2013) effectively led policy advocacy for greater empowerment of these enterprises. He led a team of select CEOs to the Prime Minister and still remains the flag-bearer of Central PSUs.Dr. Choudhury figures at # 40 among 'India Inc's 100 Most Powerful CEOs 2013' in the list released by The Economic Times.Dr. Choudhury has received several national and international awards, including the Award for ‘The Best Organizational Turnaround’ from Hon. President of India in 2006, ‘Top Ten PSU and Turnaround Award’ from Hon. Prime Minister of India in 2007 and ‘Best Individual Leader of a Public Sector Enterprise’ from Hon. Prime Minister of India in 2010.Dr. Choudhury has captured his rich experiences and insights into a very well received book titled – 'Management by Idiots'.Mr. Anjan LahiriMr. Anjan Lahiri serves as President and CEO of MindTree’s IT Services business and is stationed in Bangalore. In this role he is responsible for all aspects of MindTree’s IT Services business around the world.Prior to relocating to Bangalore in 2008, Anjan spent five years in London setting up and then growing MindTree’s European Operations. In 1999 when he joined MindTree as a part of the founding team, he helped set up MindTree’s New Jersey office and then led MindTree’s US West Coast Operations from San Jose, California from 2000 to 2003 before relocating to London.Prior to MindTree, Anjan was a Director with Cambridge Technology Partners. He was part of the initial group, which started Cambridge’s internet services consulting practice. Anjan started his professional career with Wipro Infotech in 1987. By 1991 when he left to pursue higher studies in the US, he was a Territory Manager in Wipro’s Kolkata office.Anjan Lahiri received a BE in electronics engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi.Mr. Pawan Bhageria1983 Mechanical Engineering-Gold Medalist and MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur His 26 years of experience in Automotive / IT Industry includes Manufacturing, New Plant Commissioning Projects & all aspects of Information Technology with special focus on automotive & manufacturing industry. He has held leadership positions in large corporations of repute in India and abroad in Global cross-cultural business and technical environment.Key areas of work :Business aligned IT strategic planning and its execution,Process re-engineering & Efficiency Modeling .ERP (SAP/Oracle/Others) Global Implementation.IT Operations Managemen.IT Audits & ComplianceLarge Contract Negotiations & Vendor ManagementOrganization Change ManagementHe was Head of IT for Tata Motors & Strategic Account Manager at Tata Technologies before joining General Motors in 2006. Currently part of GM International Operations as IT Director.Mr. Himanshu KapaniaMr. Himanshu Kapania has been the Managing Director of Idea Cellular Limited since April 1, 2011. Mr. Kapania served as Deputy Managing Director at Idea Cellular Limited until April 1, 2011. He served as the Chief Operating Officer - Corporate and Director of Operations for Idea Cellular Limited.Mr. Kapania joined Idea in September 2006 with over 21 years of industry experience. He worked with Reliance Infocomm as their Chief Executive Officer for Northern Operations covering Punjab, Haryana and HP as for three years, with IDEA Cellular Ltd., as Chief Operating Officer for over six years, with Network Ltd., as Dy. General Manager - Marketing for three and a half years, with Shriram Honda as Manager Marketing for over three years and with DCM Toyota as Sr. Executive for five years. Mr. Kapania serves as a Director of Idea Cellular Limited. He is a BE in Electrical & Electronics from Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi and a postgraduate from the Indian Institute of Management, BangaloreM. M. Singh (Batch of 1974)M M Singh is the Chief Operating Officer, Maruti Suzuki India LimitedHe leads Production vertical at Maruti Suzuki India Limited. He is responsible for rolling out 1.2 million cars from Maruti stable every year with assets under control (AUC) of USD 5 billion (Rs 30,000 crores). All manufacturing facilities at Gurgaon, Manesar , Gujarat reports to him. He leads a team of 20,000 people at 10 plants consisting of more than 150 departments.His leadership led to production of high Quality cars which were exported to EU, Latin America and Middle East, and Topping CSI and APEAL ratings in India. Every year Maruti exports about 120,000 cars made in India. During his leadership an Indian manufactured car became World’s largest selling auto brand, Alto, beating models like Polo and Accord.He is Chairman of SIAM ( Society of Automobile Engineers) Logistics, Co-chairman of FICCI Manufacturing National Committee and Chairman of CII North manufacturing committee.He has received inspired manufacturing fraternity with his patented thought process called “Production Managament System” which has set revolution in manufacturing sphere by combining Japanese practices with Indian wisdom and capturing the passion of western management.M M Singh is from the BIT BE (ECE) Batch of 1974Sudhir Mohan TrehanSudhir Mohan Trehan is Executive Chairman of Avantha Power & Infrastructure Limited and Vice Chairman of Crompton Greaves Limited.A gold medallist in mechanical engineering, he graduated from Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi. He received his Master’s degree in operational research from State University of New York at Stony-Brook, U.S.A., and successfully completed the Advanced Management Program (AMP) from Harvard Business School, Boston, U.S.A.He joined Crompton Greaves Limited in 1972 and, over the years, has held several positions of responsibility. He was appointed Managing Director of the company in 2000 and, on his retirement in June 2011, was named Vice Chairman. He is a member of the Avantha Management Board, which formulates strategy at the Group level. He is also Chairman of the Board of Governors at Thapar University.Sudhir is a highly respected and widely recognised business leader. He was named “Outstanding Chief Executive” for 2000-2001 by the Indian Institution of Industrial Engineering. In recognition of his contribution to the Indian industry in general and the management movement in particular, the Bombay Management Association (BMA) unanimously conferred upon him the “Management Man of the Year Award” for 2005-2006. He was named Business Standard CEO of the Year for 2008-09.Sudhir has worked in various capacities with industry bodies, including BMA, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufacturers Association (IEEMA) and Nashik Industries & Manufacturers’ Association (NIMA). He was Chairman of CII’s Western Region.His interests include golf, cricket and reading.Mr. R. K. Gupta (Batch of 1965)Founder & Chairman, Laxmi Publications Group & President Emeritus BITOSA DelhiMr. Gupta is founder of Laxmi Publications Group. He has over 35 years of publishing experience. A wellknown figure in the Indian Publishing Industry, he was Ex-President, Federation of Educational Publishers in India. Apart from a distinguished personality in publishing industry, Mr. Gupta has actively taken part in promoting sports in India. He has head many international delegations. He was Secretary, Winter Games Federation of India, President, Ice Skating Association of India, Secretary, Winter Games Federation of India, Member, and Indian Olympic Association. He did Mechanical engineering from BIT Mesra.Mr. Pramod Taparia (Batch of 1966 )Founder & Chairman, Wintech TapariaMr.Pramod Taparia (popular as PT) is an entrepreneur, facilitating the food processing industry, by doing required pioneering work in India. At an age of 35 years, in 1985, PT got an award from the Vice President Shri Ramaswamy Venkataraman of India for being a "Self made Industrialist", at Delhi. Collaborating with the Swedish, in 1986, he founded a company offering international Technology & Equipments at an affordable price in India. This company, together his Scandinavian partners, pioneered Potatoes, Vegetables and Seafood processing & packaging in India. In addition to a formal degree in engineering, he went in the year 1993, for an Advance Management Program of few weeks, to a well known institute in Stockholm, Sweden.Mr. Niraj Sharan (Batch of 1976)Founder, Chairman & CEO Aura Inc.Mr. Niraj Sharan is the Founder-Chairman and CEO of Aura Inc., since 1989, a leading Global enterprise catering to the global ENERGY sector through Engineering, Manufacturing & System Integration. He is also Founder & Co-Chairman, Aurys s.r.l, Italy, a leading Technology Consulting and full service Engineering Company in Oil & Gas sector. He sits on advisory Board of several For Profit and Non-Profit companies out of USA, India & EUin Technology, Health Care and Clean Energy verticals. He is “Member, Technical Expert Committee - Government of India,under Department of Science & Technology since June 2009.”, “Special Invitee” to the US Endowment Board on US – India Joint Commission on Science and Technology formed under agreement of President Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.Mr. Sunil Jain (Batch of 1977)Chief Operating Officer & Head-Wind, Green InfraSunil is the COO of Green Infra. He has over 27 years of experience in the engineering industry, particularly in the auto and infrastructure sectors. He has extensive experience in business development, both in the domestic and international markets, and in handling commercial negotiations with customers and vendors alike. Mr. Sunil is also the President, Northern Region Council and Member National Council of Indian Wind Power Association. Sunil is a Mechanical Engineer from BIT Mesra and holds an MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University.Mr. Rajiv Nag (Batch of 1971)Founder and Chairman, CyberQ Consulting & Senior Advisor at KPMGSenior Advisor of KPMG ,The founder and Chairman of CyberQ Consulting Pvt. Ltd., Dr. Rajiv Nag is amongst the world's top-notch consultants in the areas of Process consulting who has helped organizations put their processes in place. With over 25 years of experience around the world in the areas of Software Project Management, Quality Assurance and System Testing, Development of Software Integrated Management Systems, Functional and System Integration, Application Systems Development, System design, Strategic management consultancy, Development of Quality Management Methodology and Information Security initiatives.Shri T. Venkatesh, I.A.S. (Batch of 1979)Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) & Board Member, NTPCShri Venkatesh is an Indian Administrative Service officer of 1988 batch of U.P. Cadre. Prior to his assignment as Jt. Secy. (DOPT) in the Ministry of Personnel & Public Grievances & Pension, he held various administrative posts including DM (Bareilly), Commissioner (Gorakhpur) and Secretary (PWD) in the state of Uttar Pradesh. He is looking after the work of CVO and also on Board of Directors of NTPC since October, 2009. He has done Mechanical engineering from BIT Mesra and is post graduate in same.Mr. Ashutosh Pande (Batch of 1983)Managing Director (India) and Global Vice President & GM ISBU at CSR Technology (India)Mr. Ashutosh specializes in market creation for new technology and products. Strategist, visionary and sharp thinker, he is currently Member Governing Council at Association of Geospatial Industries and also heads an incubation unit within the company where they are exploring avenues that will allow CSR to diversify beyond chipsets into services. He holds MS in Electrical Engineering from University of Alberta, USA and B.E. in Electronics & communication from BIT Mesra.Mr. Nirankar SaxenaDirector, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)Mr. Saxena heads the Business Information Services Network Division (BISNET) at FICCI and manages multiple project portfolios. His responsibilities include networking with leading senior Government officials,industrialists‟ and the diplomatic corps in India as well as the visiting foreign dignitaries. Prior to joining FICCI, he was Chief Executive Officer of Osprey Software Technology (P) Ltd and Director of Team Computers (P) Ltd. He holds a Page on b.e.in ComputerSciences from BIT Mesra.Mr. Ajay Pathak (Batch of 1977)Joint Secretary, Ministry of Road & Surface Transport, GOIFormer Joint Secretary at Ministry of Finance, he is now Jt. Secretary at Ministry of Road and Surface Transport. He has done his Civil Engineering from BIT Mesra.Mr. Jagdish Mitra (Batch of 1988)Chief Executive Officer of CanvasMAt CanvasM, he leads a team of over 600 associates that are focused on providing solutions that enable customers and enterprises take advantage of the mobile ecosystem. With over 20 years of experience in the areas of business development and marketing in the global information services market. Under his leadership, CanvasM has been awarded the “Best Start-Up Company” at the Mobile Content Awards 2008 held in London.Mr. Atul Kansal (Batch of 1984)Founder and Managing Director, INDUS EnviroMr. Kansal is Founder and Managing Director of INDUS Enviro and is responsible for its activities in India and the neighboring countries. He has more than 18 years of diversified consulting experience in Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) Management particularly in EH&S Compliance and Due-Diligence Auditing. Over last 18 years, he has worked on more than 350 environmental projects in a variety of sectors. He has done his Civil engineering from BIT Mesra and Masters from IIT Roorkee.Mr. Annup Damani (Batch of 1979)Managing Director at Alloy CastMr. Damani is Managing Director at Alloy Cast (P) Ltd. Today, under his leadership, the company now boast of a capacity of over 3, 50,000 to 4, 00,000 castings per month. It has factories to cater diversified range of products and services encompassing industries like automotive, hardware, plumbing and heating controls.Mr. Abhishek Sinha (Batch of 1995)Co-founder & CEO of Eko India Financial Services Private LimitedEko democratises access to formal financial services using mobile phones as a financial identity for people at the bottom of the pyramid. Eko stands out for simplicity of user experience while still ensuring secure transactions.Eko has partnered with 1,500 retail stores bringing banking services at the next-door grocer for close to 1 million customers. Eko processes over $ 1 million every day and has processed close to half a billion dollars in transactions so far! Eko listed amongst top 10 most innovative companies in India by Fast Company | Business + Innovation!SOURCE:- www.bitmesra.ac.in