Timothy Donald Cook - Apple Company CEO (Tim Cook)

Timothy Donald Cook (Tim Cook )

 

 

Timothy Donald Cook (born November 1, 1960) is an American business executive and industrial engineer. Cook is the Chief Executive Officer of Apple Inc., who previously served as the company's Chief Operating Officer, under its founder Steve Jobs.

Cook joined Apple in March 1998 as a senior vice president for worldwide operations, and then served as the Executive Vice President for worldwide sales and operations. He was made the Chief Executive on August 24, 2011, prior to Jobs' death in October of that year. During his tenure as the Chief Executive, he has advocated for the political reformation of international and domestic surveillance, cybersecurity, corporate taxation, American manufacturing, and environmental preservation.

In 2014, Cook became the first Chief Executive of a Fortune 500 company to publicly identify as gay. Cook also serves on the boards of directors of Nike, Inc., the National Football Foundation, and is a trustee of Duke University. In March 2015, he said he planned to donate his entire stock fortune to charity. The research published at the University of Oxford characterized Cook's leadership style as paradigmatic of founder centrism: explained as a founder’s mindset, an ethical disposition towards the shareholder collective, and an intense focus on exponential value creation.



Pre-Apple era

 
After graduating from Auburn University in 1982, Cook spent 12 years in IBM's personal computer business, ultimately serving as the director of North American fulfillment. It was during this time that Cook also earned his MBA from Duke University, becoming a Fuqua Scholar in 1988. Later, he served as the Chief Operating Officer of the computer reseller division of Intelligent Electronics, and in 1997 became the Vice President for Corporate Materials at Compaq for six months.

Bright Mind

Tim Cook was born Timothy D. Cook in the small town of Robertsdale, Alabama, on November 1, 1960. The middle of three sons born to father Donald, a shipyard worker, and mother Geraldine, a homemaker, Cook attended Robertsdale High School and graduated second in his class in 1978.

He enrolled at Auburn University in Alabama, graduating in 1982 with a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering, and went on to earn a Master of Business Administration degree from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in 1988. Additionally, Cook was awarded the title of Fuqua Scholar—an honor given only to students at the business school who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class.

Early Career
 
Fresh out of graduate school, Cook embarked on a career in the field of computer technology. He was hired by IBM, where he moved up the ranks to become the corporation's North American fulfillment director, managing manufacturing and distribution functions for IBM's Personal Computer Company in both North and Latin America.

Following a 12-year career at IBM, Cook in 1994 became chief operating officer of the Reseller Division at Intelligent Electronics. After three years he joined the Compaq Computer Corporation as vice president of corporate materials, charged with procuring and managing product inventory. His time there was short-lived, however: After a six-month stint at Compaq, Cook left for a position at Apple.

Career at Apple

 
"My most significant discovery so far in my life was the result of one single decision: My decision to join Apple," Cook stated some 12 years after joining the corporation, while speaking at Auburn University's commencement ceremony in 2010.

In August 2011, Cook was named Apple's new CEO, taking over the position for former CEO and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in October 2011 after a years-long battle with cancer. In addition to serving as CEO, Cook sits on the corporation's board of directors.

In May 2014, Apple announced its biggest acquisition to date when it bought Beats Music and Beats Electronics for $3 billion. As part of the deal, Beats co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine would join Apple in executive roles. In a letter to Apple employees, Cook said, “This afternoon we announced that Apple is acquiring Beats Music and Beats Electronics, two fast-growing businesses which complement our product line and will help extend the Apple ecosystem in the future. Bringing our companies together paves the way for amazing developments which our customers will love.”

Following this, at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2014, Cook announced the latest version of the Apple operating system for desktop and mobile, OSX Yosemite. In September of the same year, Cook unveiled the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, both of which had larger screen sizes and came with new features such Apple Pay and “Burst Selfies.” He also announced the first new product under his reign, a wearable device to track fitness and health, the “Apple Watch,” available for purchase in 2015.

Cook continued to oversee the development of new products like Clips, an app that enabled the creation of short videos for social media. A few months after its spring 2017 debut, Apple unveiled the iPhone X, which generated buzz in the tech world for its facial recognition system.

Darshan Jariwala

 About Darshan Jariwala

Darshan Jariwala (Gujarati: દર્શન જરીવાલા) (born 29 September 1958) is a Gujarati film, television and stage actor. He won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for Gandhi, My Father. He was seen as Cheddilal Chaturvedi in the show Saas Bina Sasural which aired on Sony Entertainment Television (India) between 18 October 2010 to 6 September 2012.

Born    29 September 1958 (age 59)
Bombay, Bombay State, India
Occupation    Actor
Spouse(s)    Apara Mehta

Biography
Jariwala is the son of veteran Gujarati actress Leela Jariwala (a contemporary of Dina Pathak) and Vidyasagar Jariwala. He has acted in films as well as on Indian television. One of his most remembered Gujarati TV serials is Narsinh Mehta, the saint poet and devotee of Krishna. His role of Mahatma Gandhi in the 2007 film Gandhi, My Father put him on the international map.

His Gujarati plays include Hatheli Par BaadBaaki, Patro Mitro, Mulraj Mansion and Andhalo Pato. He acted in a Hindi play Uncle Samjha Karo and in English theatre Going Solo 2. He ventured into the new age mainstream Gujarati Cinema with the Abhishek Jain directed Bey Yaar, released in 2014.

His company Leela Theatres has coproduced an English Play, Salt & Pepper, starring him, Mandira Bedi, Kuki Grewal and Vikram Kochar, written and directed by Vikranth Pawar, and produced English comedy 'Your Place Or Mine?' and Gujarati double bill 'Ramesh Aakhi Raat', comprising two one act plays based on Ramesh Parekh's writings.

He has acted in Hindi films like Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd, Guru, Aap Kaa Surroor, Phata Poster Nikla Hero and Humshakals.

Feroz Abbas Khan (director of Gandhi, My Father and a veteran theatre personality) had approached him for Gandhi's role in his famous play Mahatma v/s Gandhi. But due to date problems, the actor had to let go of the project. However, Feroz was bent on casting him as Gandhi and again approached him for Gandhi, My Father, which finally materialized.

Personal life
In 1980 he married Indian television personality Apara Mehta, with whom he has one daughter. They had another marriage ceremony in 1981 when their parents decided to perform the marriage in grand scale. They have been living separately for a long time due to personal differences, but are not officially divorced.

About Pramukh Swami Maharaj : https://greatmanwoman.blogspot.in/2017/09/pramukh-swami-maharaj.html#more

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore FRAS , also written Ravīndranātha Thākura (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941),[ sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Sometimes referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal.

A Pirali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy endures also in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.

Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla. The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.

Early life: 1861–1878

Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him for years profoundly distraught.

Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, idylls which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:

After his upanayan (coming-of-age) rite at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa.

Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of (what he claimed was) a newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha.Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of Bhānusiṃha.He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").

Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from deceptively simple subject matter: commoners. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth

Novels

Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.

Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity conceived of as dharma."

In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.

Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".