Shaikh Tanveer Asif, a 2017 batch IAS Officer of Karnataka cadre, took charge as the new Commissioner of Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) from outgoing Commissioner Ashaad-Ur-Rahman Shariff, who has been transferred, at the MCC Office on Sayyaji Rao Road here this morning.
Speaking on the occasion, Asif said he was happy to get an opportunity to serve in Mysuru, known as cultural and heritage capital of the State.
Pointing out that his first priority is to improve basic infrastructure of the city and betterment of civic and utility services, he said prominence will be given for proper maintenance of parks and regular management and disposal of all sorts of wastes and garbage generated in city.
Highlighting that the co-operation of sub-ordinates, other staff and elected representatives is crucial for meeting the objectives and goals of MCC in the best possible way, Asif hoped that Mysuru will blossom into a more prosperous city and regain the ‘Cleanest City’ tag which the city had bagged a couple of times earlier. He further said that he would give his best for bringing honour to MCC and the Government.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> News / January 27th, 2025
“It is a massive achievement as the four awardees in South Western Railway had to compete with a 37,000-strong railway workforce in the Zone,” said Bengaluru Divisional Railway Manager A K Verma
Geeta Mohapatra and K Puja
Bengaluru :
Six railway employees in Karnataka have been selected to receive the 65th annual Railway National Award from the Railway Ministry, a much coveted honour billed as a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunity. They are part of the 139 awardees across the country for the financial year ending March 2020.
Their names were belatedly announced on November 5 due to the COVID crisis and the ceremony in which Railway Minister Piyush Goyal will present the awards is likely to be a virtual one. Three of them, including two women employees, were chosen for their outstanding performance in the Bengaluru Railway Division. Another official belongs to the Central Railway Workshop in Mysuru while two work at Yelahanka’s Rail Wheel Factory of Indian Railways.
According to Bengaluru Divisional Railway Manager A K Verma, “This is the highest recognition any railway employee can get in their career. It is a massive achievement as the four awardees in South Western Railway had to compete with a 37,000-strong railway workforce in the Zone.”
The two women officers have been pioneers in their fields in the Bengaluru Division. Senior Divisional Operations Manager, Geeta Mohapatra, who has recently moved over to the Railway Recruitment Board as Member Secretary, is the the only woman to have taken over the helm of train operations in the choked rail network of Bengaluru.
Delighted to be recognised, Mohapatra told The New Indian Express, “We do not work for awards but it feels really good to be recognised. Makes you feel very confident about your work.” During her tenure here, she was instrumental in speeding up trains, maintaining punctuality of Passenger, Mail and Express trains. The commencement of the Baiyappanahalli new coaching terminal, opening of two freight terminals and despatch of cars of KIA Motors from Penukonda to North India, which have boosted the revenue of the division, figure among her achievements.
K Puja is the Senior Divisional Electrical Engineer in the division. She was the first woman to join as a Junior Electrical Engineer in the division in 2009 and has moved up the ranks. The division was the first in the country to meet the target fixed by the Railway Board for installation of escalators at railway stations and she headed the team which installed six of them. “It feels great. This is once-in-a-lifetime recognition at the highest level. I have had a very smooth career as my bosses were very supportive throughout,” she said.
K Asif Hafeez
Senior Divisional Personnel Manager, K Asif Hafeez, who was instrumental in computerising the Railway exams taken up by staffers for promotions that nearly 2,000 employees take write annually, and E Ashwathappa, Chief Depot Materials Superintendent, Central Railway Workshop at Ashokapuram in Mysuru are other SWR winners.
E Aswathappa
The awardees from Yelahanka’s RWF are C Prabhakar, Senior Section Engineer, and G Venkatesh, Deputy Chief Mechanical Engineer, Planning, who was awarded for his performance in his previous job as professor at Indian Railway Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in Jamalpur.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Good News / by S Lalitha / November 07th, 2020
Arif Hafeez taking charge as Guntur Urban SP on Wednesday
Guntur :
Arif Hafeez took charge as Guntur Urban SP on at the district police office on Wednesday.
Speaking on this occasion, he said that police officials are ready to work for people and sought cooperation of the people to strictly implement the curfew in the district.
He recalled that he worked in Guntur district and have idea about the Guntur district. He said he would try to check illegal transport of ganja, liquor and banned gutka.
The new SP thanked Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and Director General of Police for posting him as Guntur Urban SP.
source: http://www.thehansindia.com / The Hans India / Home> News> State> Andhra Pradesh / by Hans News Service / June 02nd, 2021
Ms. Taranum was among the 22 recipients of Best Electoral Practices awards in recognition of their outstanding contributions to election management, security management, voter education and inclusivity.
President Droupadi Murmu presenting Best Electoral Practices Award to Kalaburagi Deputy Commissioner Fouzia Taranum at Maekshaw Centre Auditorium in New Delhi on National Voters Day on Saturday, a day before the 76th Republic Day. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Kalaburagi Deputy Commissioner Fouzia Taranum was honoured with an award for adopting the Best Election Practices Award for 2024-25.
President Droupadi Murmu presented the award to the officer in the presence of Union Minister of State for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, and Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu at Maekshaw Centre Auditorium in New Delhi on National Voters Day on Saturday, a day before the 76th Republic Day.
Ms. Taranum was among the 22 recipients of Best Electoral Practices awards in recognition of their outstanding contributions to election management, security management, voter education and inclusivity. The awards recognised exceptional contributions across multiple categories in election management for the 2024 Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections held in 2024.
Best Performing State Award was given to CEOs of Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra. Government Departments like NIC, Railways, and Petroleum Ministry were also lauded for voter awareness and logistical support. Media awards acknowledged Radio Mirchi and Doordarshan for impactful election campaigns.
Ms. Taranum was among the 11 officers from across the country who received the award in the General Category and the only one in Karnataka.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> India> Karnataka / by The Hindu Bureau / January 26th, 2025
Karnataka Legislative Council member and Political Secretary to the Chief Minister, Naseer Ahmed, visited the Ajman Ruler’s Court and Thumbay Medicity, strengthening ties between Karnataka and the UAE.
At the Ruler’s Court, Ahmed met Sheikh Dr. Majid bin Saeed Al Nuaimi, Chairman of the Ruler’s Court, to discuss avenues for collaboration in healthcare, education, and research. He extended an invitation to Sheikh Majid to visit Bengaluru and proposed a future delegation of high-level officials from Karnataka to Ajman and Thumbay Medicity.
As part of the visit, Ahmed toured Thumbay Medicity’s state-of-the-art healthcare, medical education, and research facilities. Praising the institution’s achievements, he described it as a global hub for healthcare excellence.
Commending the efforts of Dr. Thumbay Moideen, founder and president of Thumbay Group, Ahmed acknowledged his role in establishing Thumbay Medicity as a leader in the field. “It is a matter of immense pride to witness Dr. Thumbay’s remarkable progress and the iconic achievements of Thumbay Medicity,” he said.
Dr. Thumbay expressed gratitude for the visit, emphasizing the importance of collaborations that benefit both the UAE and India. “This visit marks a significant milestone in strengthening our shared vision for excellence in healthcare and education,” he stated.
Thumbay Medicity in Ajman is known for its advanced healthcare services, cutting-edge medical education, and pioneering research. It continues to gain global recognition as a model for integrated healthcare and education.
source: http://www.english.varthabharati.in / Vartha Bharati / Home> Gulf / by Vartha Bharati / January 21st, 2025
Syed Aslam (62), retired Nuclear Scientist of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Yelwal and a resident of Kalyanagiri Nagar, passed away yesterday in city.
He leaves behind his wife, two sons and a host of relatives and friends.
Namaz-e-Janaza was held today at Abi Akhil Masjid at Azeez Sait Nagar after Namaz Zahur (1.30 pm), followed by the burial at the Muslim Burial Grounds near Tipu Circle.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Obituary / January 13th, 2025
Tasneem Fathima Khaleel has had a successful career in academia. However, quite remarkably, she came back to where she started – teaching. M A Siraj reports.
Few people end their careers where they first began; Professor Tasneem Fathima Khaleel is among those few. “I am excited about the opportunity to finish my career in the classroom. And, with a little help, I will be teaching in a new state-of-the-art…facility,” says Tasneem, the first-ever woman to have obtained a doctorate in the State of Mysore in 1970. Prior to returning as a professor of Botany, she served as the dean of faculty at College of Arts & Sciences for a decade at the Montana State University at Billings (MUSB).
Paving a new path
Tasneem has been teaching Botany in the United States for over 40 years and has received many awards for her teaching and research. She has headed, or has been a member on as many as 23 different academic bodies or advisory councils in the US. For her contribution to research, with nearly 50 research publications on subjects ranging from cyto-embriology to plant reproduction, she was awarded the ‘Outstanding Research Award’ in 1995 by the Montana Research Academy and has also won the Faculty Excellence Award five times.
The year 2014 was a special year for Tasneem – she had the rare honour of an award being named after her, for mentoring at the MUSB. Reno Charette, director for American-Indian Education, was adjudged the winner of the first ‘Prof Tasneem Fathima Khaleel Award for Mentoring’.
Tasneem studied in Bengaluru, before heading to the US in 1975 after marriage. An alumna of Central College, Bengaluru, she has coveted every opportunity to visit her ‘City of Gardens’ – which she ruefully admits is more a part of nostalgia rather than reality.
A passionate researcher, she recalls that very few women could be seen in higher studies in those days. Only a couple of them were pursuing PhD while she was registered in Bangalore University as well as teaching biology as an assistant professor at the University of Agricultural Sciences at Hebbal between 1968 and 1975. Her study of ‘Flora at the GKVK Campus’ and ‘Weeds in Karnataka’ are still quoted as seminal works.
Writing her own destiny
Tasneem had finished her BSc and MSc by the time she was barely 19 years old. Wanting to be a teacher, she had put in her application, but was rejected, as the dean told her, “You look like a school girl, how would the students take you seriously?”
Instead, he directed her to register for a PhD programme, which had just been started in the Bangalore University. The Doctorate took longer than usual to complete because there was lack of guidance and direction, and the programme had several fits and starts.
Finally, at 26 when she got her her doctorate, she was being looked as ‘a confirmed spinster’ in her own cultural surroundings. Marriage was nowhere on her mental radar. It took her brother several sittings to convince her of getting married.
Tasneem travelled a long and twisted path – one shaped by her culture and her drive to excel, to become the distinguished professor that she is today. For most Americans who had only preliminary idea of Islam, a woman with covered head and such drive for excellence and perseverance was a combination of incongruities. “Women have rights in Islam. Muslim women didn’t even have to fight for those rights. The religion has given them those rights,” she says.
Dr Stn Waitr, her successor, says, “Dean Khaleel has raised the level of rigour, excellence and success in the College of Arts & Sciences to a standard that should serve as a model for the entire institution.” Interestingly, Tasneem even built a herbarium at the MUSB, which has around 17,000 specimens and is currently engaged in digitising it. She recalls with pride that she was the most productive member on the faculty of science at the MSU, which has nearly 22,000 students today in two campuses. Tasneem’s most significant discovery was the finding of mammalian steroids in plants, which she says, are responsible for sex expression in plants.
Author of four books, 10 external and 17 internal grants at the MSUB, Tasneem is excited about beginning her teaching career once again. “It had never ended. I had maintained a room in my department building, even while I headed the faculty,” she says.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Content / by M.A. Siraj / June 26th, 2015
After teaching for over 40 years, Dr. Tasneem Khaleel is retiring
MSUB readies to part with long-time Professor Dr. Khaleel
Retirement party in honor of Dr. Khaleel set for 2 p.m., April 26 in the Beartooth Room in the Student Union Building. Food and refreshments will be served.
MSU BILLINGS NEWS SERVICES — Hanging on the wall in Dr. Tasneem Khaleel’s office are the many awards and accolades marking the dedication and service she has given to Montana State University Billings over the past several decades.
Khaleel is retiring at the end of this semester and her presence and legacy will be with the science department and University for years to come.
Dr. Christine Shearer, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said that without the dedication and perseverance of Khaleel, the College and its students would not be where it is today.
“Dr. Khaleel has devoted her professional career to Montana State University Billings in a variety of capacities. She has been a tireless researcher and developer of the internationally-renowned Herbarium, a deeply committed advocate for the sciences and science education, a leader of a complex and diverse unit, and has been a staunch supporter and mentor of female scientists and academic professionals in all disciplines,” Shearer said. “Her tenacity and resilience advanced the College of Arts and Sciences and its programs, including the establishment of the Women’s and Gender Studies Center, which serves the university and the community. Her involvement in Girls-n-Science impacted hundreds of young women planning STEM careers.”
Khaleel has been paving the way for women in STEM since the beginning of her career. She has the honor of being the first woman recipient of a Ph.D from Bangalore University, India, where she graduated with a degree in Botany in 1970.
In 1976, Khaleel would begin her tenure with MSUB, as would her signature project: the establishment, maintenance, and management of the internationally known MSUB Herbarium.
“The Herbarium is one of my professional accomplishments that I am most proud of,” Khaleel said.
Dr. Tasneem Khaleel, center, assists Heidi Carter, left, and an unknown student during a lab experiment. (Photo circa 1980)
Post-retirement, she will continue being involved in the herbarium, which includes some 16,000 vascular plant specimens, some of which date back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Herbarium serves as a tool for basic research in plant systematics, ecology, phytogeography, and evolution.
While Khaleel’s career is highlighted by the 11 years she served as dean for the College of Arts and Sciences, from 2004 to 2014, she has no regrets to returning to the classroom before retirement.
Throughout her time on campus, she moved up from an assistant professor to department chair and says coming full circle made her last two years with students, “the best.”
“I wanted to retire as a faculty member,” Khaleel said. “Having that time as Dean allowed me to hear so many perspectives that my focus shifted when I returned to the classroom. My focus shifted from teaching to learning, to becoming a mentor and being more supportive.
For the last eight years the Tasneem and Shafiq Khaleel Endowment for Scholarships to Science has provided $1,000 awards to two students.
source: http://www.msubillings.edu/ucam/releases.2017/2017apr19Khaleel.htm / University Communications and Marketing / April 19th, 2017 / Montana State Univeristy Billings
My Ph.D is from India, at Bangalore University and I was the first woman to get a Ph.D from that university. I started education at a very young age because I started school when I was about 3. In those days there was not an age limit to start school, when your parents felt you were ready they took you to school. From then on it was up to you. When I started off, there was no kindergarten or pre-school, it was first grade. I sat on the teacher’s lap most of the time because I was so little.
Why did you study botany?
When I was a student in India, botany was a man’s field. They did not really take women in graduate courses for botany because they look at botany as a field science. Since the graduate seats were so limited they didn’t take a whole lot of graduate students. They thought if they took in a girl student, the only option for her would be to teach botany, not go out to the field. They still looked at women in those days as better at home and in the classroom than in the field. That was a challenge for me. I just wanted to prove to them one could be in the field as well.
When did you know you wanted to become an educator?
Oh I loved teaching right from the beginning. One of the reasons you do your masters in any discipline in India was so that you can teach in college. When I graduated with my masters degree in botany, I was 19 years old at the time and so I went off to find a job. There was one person who was in charge of recruiting and allocating all of the lecturer positions. So I talked to him and said, I need a job but he took one look at me and said, you look like you just came out of high school. He didn’t think I would be impressive enough in front of a classroom and to be able to control a classroom, the kids wouldn’t take me seriously. So I sat there and cried, I wanted the job and he refused to give me something that I had a passion to teach. I didn’t want to keep all the knowledge to myself. So then he said how about if you went and did a Ph.D. and then came back a few years later and by then you will have grown up a bit. I took him up on that option but there was no Ph.D. program at the university so he said he would help start one, which he did. And then we got the university grant fellowship to support me and I did my Ph.D. By then I wasn’t interested in going to him anymore to teach because people were after me to come and teach being I was the first woman with a Ph.D. there.
Tell us about your passion, building the herbarium at MSUB?
The value of the herbarium is based on what plant collections you have in it. When I first came here there were just two wooden cabinets here, with maybe 500 specimens. And they said, this is your herbarium. It was shocking because where I came from there is a whole building dedicated to the herbarium. So I challenged myself to build a herbarium here. The very first grant I wrote was to buy herbarium cabinets. The next step I did was to call out to local agents here who had small collections to see if they were willing to consolidate to a central location. The US Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Land Management and Rocky Mountain College were all very willing to give collections and we incorporated those in our herbarium. Over the years, the herbarium is a part of the national database with about 16,000 specimens.
Of the classes you teach, what is your favorite?
All of my classes are my favorite classes. I love teaching. I teach freshman biology, in fact that’s one of my most favorite classes to be honest. That’s when students are first starting out and I’m introducing them to biology for the first time and to get them excited about that. I really enjoy doing that and it gives me opportunities to mentor students because they’re just starting out. My second most favorite is plant systematics, they are both equally enjoyable classes for me. I just love teaching botany.
source: http://www.msubillings.edu/snapshots/2015-16/Khaleel.htm / msubillings.edu / by Cassie Winter, University Communications and Marketing / October 09th, 2015 / Montana State Univeristy Billings
Professor Tasneem Khaleel is an extraordinary educator, who has set the standard for excellence among her peers and captured the hearts and impacted the lives of her students through exceptional teaching and caring.
For four decades, Professor Khaleel’s leadership in the Department of Biological and Physical Sciences has been innovative and visionary, influencing generations of science students.
Her absolute passion for supporting her students as well as MSUB’s mission have been recognized with numerous honors and awards. But, this year Dr. Khaleel is the recipient of an award she says she is proudest of—the inaugural Faculty Award for Exceptional Support of Students with Disabilities.
Tasneem’s positive nature and friendly manner are a welcoming presence, explained by her student nominator.
“Dr. Khaleel’s guidance has helped me adapt to college life. She patiently taught me how to use lab equipment and spent extra hours in the lab helping me with my assignments. I have talked to other students with disabilities, and they agree that she goes the extra mile to assure they have a fair chance,” her student nominator said.
“This reward is very meaningful to me,” she said. “These students are special to me. Anybody can teach an ‘A’ student—they just need pointed in the right direction. But to bring a student who has no confidence in their abilities due to his/her disability, who has to compete with the ‘A’ students in class, and to have the courage to come to class everyday. I think this is the biggest reward of teaching.”
She adds that she thinks it takes more courage on the part of the student than that of the instructor.
“The least the instructor can do is be supportive and give these students the self assurance they need to perform. Nothing is beyond their abilities.”
She is an example of someone who does not treat her role simply as a checklist of duties, but a mentor who uses her position to educate, inspire and encourage those around her.
As one colleague notes, “Tasneem is an exemplary educator and leader: She is innovative, she thinks about teaching and learning far beyond her own discipline, and she inspires others to do the same.”
source: http://www.msubillings.edu/faculty/2016/khaleel.htm / Montana State University Billings
