[Assam] In a first, an IIT-IIMer as MP (The Times of India , 2 Jun 2009)

[Manoj Das]

Well Mr Rai is a very nice person. He worked with Basix before joining
politics.
Had the good fortune of interacting with him personally on many occasions.

Wish Mr Rai a great innings!

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 9:21 PM, Buljit Buragohain <buluassam at yahoo.co.in>wrote:

> In a first, an IIT-IIMer as MP
>
> 2 Jun 2009, 0858 hrs IST, Amit Bhattacharya, TNN
>
> NEW DELHI: It is Indian education
> system's ultimate ticket to the corporate boardroom. According to one
> study,
> around 50% of all CEOs in India Prem Das Rai  have those magic letters on
> their CVs —
> IIT-IIM. But for all their brilliance and achievement in the corporate
> world,
> not a single member of the IIT-IIM club had so far entered Parliament as a
> member.
>
>
>
>  Now, Prem Das Rai, elected to the 15th Lok Sabha as the lone
> member from Sikkim, has the unique distinction of being the first ever
> IIT-IIMer
> in the Lok Sabha. Rai, 54, hopes to contribute his bit in changing the way
> Parliament and MPs are viewed in the country.
>
>
>
>  For the moment though,
> this IIT Kanpur (chemical engineering) and IIM Ahmedabad alumnus just wants
> to
> familiarize himself with the new job. As he puts it, ‘‘First, I need
> to look at the benchmarks of what constitutes a good MP. We are at a
> crossroads.
> People this time have voted for stability but they have also voted for
> better
> parliamentarians and parliamentary processes,’’ says the Sikkim
> Democratic Front MP, who early in his career chucked a cushy job as a
> multinational banker and later gave up opportunities in the US in favour of
> returning to his home state, Sikkim.
>
>
>
>  And what does an IIT-IIMer
> bring to Parliament? ‘‘I look at the entire IIT-IIM community as
> part of my support system. We have a very strong network. Through it I
> would be
> able to funnel a lot of intellectual capital. Then there is the skill set.
> In
> IITs and IIMs, you develop a certain way of learning, analysis and
> presentation.
> These would be handy in Parliament,’’ he says.
>
>
>
>  Rai,
> however, admits he is entering uncharted territory. ‘‘These are, as
> yet, just hypotheses. I don’t know how it will actually play out. Down the
> road you would be able to find out how I add value to governance.’’
> Rai had been marked for brilliance early in life. As a boy growing up in
> the
> then sovereign kingdom of Sikkim, he was sent to an elite school in
> Mussoorie by
> the king as part of the royal policy of promoting bright kids. After
> school, he
> cracked the JEE to go directly to IIT and then to
> IIM.
>
>
>
>  ‘‘Life in Sikkim was very feudal but in Mussoorie I
> learned that you are no more and no less than anybody else. That’s a value
> I imbibed early,’’ he says.
>
>
>
>  In the midst of his BTech
> course, Sikkim merged with India and Rai become an Indian. After completing
> his
> MBA in 1978, Rai landed himself a ‘‘great job’’ at the
> American Bank in Calcutta. A meeting with B B Lal, the then Governor of
> Sikkim,
> changed the course of his life. ‘‘Lal told me, ‘Young man what
> are you doing in Calcutta? Come back, Sikkim needs you.’ That finally
> helped me make up my mind and I returned to join a state government
> enterprise
> with a three-fourth cut in salary.’’
>
>
> (The Times of India ,2 Jun 2009)
>
>
>
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