Environmentalist Ashok Mahindru Leads RYAN International School on Earth Day 2013

Ashok Mahindru interacts with Students of Ryan International School on International Earth Day 2013

Well known Environmentalist, Scientist and leading Businessman Mr. Ashok Mahindru, Chairman, Advance Group & Mahindru Charitable Trust interacted with Ryan International School, Sohna Road, Gurgaon students on the International Earth Day 2013. Mr. Ashok Mahindru got the students to take pledge and spread the message of protecting mother earth on International Earth Day on 22nd April, 2013. Through various art and cultural activities, the school joined billions of individuals, communities, organizations, and governments across the globe in the celebration of 43rd Earth Day.

Mr. Ashok Mahindru who has been an advocate of environment friendly technology in businesses said, "Even though humans are the youngest children of mother earth in the animal kingdom, we are the only ones to deliberately disturb the equilibrium of nature. We only try to take advantage of natural resources in the name of progress without caring to return back what we have extracted from earth. While we use technology to make our lives easy, we as responsible global citizen must practise and implement steps for conserving energy, recycle, reduce waste and use Green technology”. “Students should opt for new areas of studies in Green Energy, Carbon Emission & Rating, Alternative and Reusable Resources etc. so they can bring in a positive change in the industry,” added Mr. Mahindru highlighting the role of students and industry. 

Principal Ms Mouna Gupta while addressing the students and teachers said that, "Earth Day showcases collective power of individuals taking action across the world. The objective is to inspire tomorrow's leaders into action and inspire ourselves to redouble our efforts in the fight against climate change. As a small steps towards ecological balance Ryan International School Shona Road Gurgaon has started the concept of organic farming where students do the farming themselves and sell the vegetables to the teachers while using the funds generated from this exercise in creating more awareness regarding environment safety and protection." 

The students and teachers of Ryan International School actively participated in the interactive session with full enthusiasm. Participating students expressed that the session with Mr. Ashok Mahindru has been an enriching experience and vowed to take all the steps in their capacity to protect mother earth. Mr. Ashok Mahindru also expressed his delight for the overwhelming response from students and teachers which further boosts his efforts to continue his advocacy towards the green environment. 

The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. Earth Day Network (EDN) now has over 22,000 partners in 192 countries to broaden, diversify and mobilize the environmental movement. More than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world.

Media coverage:

Ashok Mahindru on Earth Day 2013 - Dainik Jagaran

Ashok Mahindru on Earth Day 2013 - Aaj Samaj

Ashok Mahindru on Earth Day 2013 - Hari Bhoomi

Hindustan Times

Ashok Mahindru on Earth Day 2013 - Hindustan

Ashok Mahindru on Earth Day 2013 -  Navbharat Times

Ashok Mahindru on Earth Day 2013 - National Dunia

Ashok Mahindru on Earth Day 2013 - Punjab Kesari

Ashok Mahindru leads Advance Group in Multi-sector Business Consultancy

Advance Group, with its pool of highly qualified and experienced personnel led by our Chairman Mr. Ashok Mahindru has successfully completed prestigious consultancy assignments in mining, environment, petrochemical and oil refining areas.

The Group under Ashok Mahindru offers design, engineering, project management services including erection, supervision for research & development, layout improvement, energy conservation, HAZOP and offers project modules in hydrocarbon area on lump sum turnkey (LSTK) basis. 

The mining consultancy wing developed by Mr. Ashok Mahindru - Advance Coal Management and Marketing Pvt Ltd (ACMM) can help clients / investors by formulating Development, Exploitation & Beneficiation schemes that lead to selection of appropriate technology for delivering optimum techno-economic solutions. ACCM's forte lies in following areas and it can undertake specific studies as per the client's requirements:

• Project Formulation: Mine planning and engineering services - Conceptual and detailed studies including evaluation of mining properties specially overseen my experts under Mr. Ashok Mahindru personally
• Energy Planning, Management, Technical Audits and Resource Conservation
• Mine Construction and Planning: Mr. Ashok Mahindru and team devises stage plans for opening of mining property and construction activity for attaining commercial production, including commissioning of the plants/equipment
• Coal Beneficiation: Beneficiation planning and selection of optimum plant and equipment, project management again led by Mr. Ashok Mahindru
• Mr. Ashok Mahindru personally oversees the echnical review of already completed projects to assess the deviations and corrective actions to be initiated, including optimisation studies
• Evaluation of Foreign Technology and assistance in implementation as Mr. Ashok Mahindru believes in regular upgradation of knowledgebase 
• Mr. Ashok Mahindru undertakes specific studies for improvement in methods of exploitation and work systems 

The team under Mr. Ashok Mahindru has successfully completed over 50 assignments for clients such as: 

World Bank, TICAPCO (BSES), IPCL, Coal India, SAIL, Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation-G.O.I., PICUP (U.P. Government), INDAL, Monnet Ispat Ltd., Jindal Power Ltd., Necco Jayaswals Ltd., Prakash Industries and Kalinga Power.

Ashok Mahindru emphases on the importance of R & D in product and process imporvements

Under the leadership of our Chairman Ashok Mahindru Advance's surfactant business has been driven with the sole objective of product and process improvement. Mr. Ashok Mahindru lays emphasis on continuous effort to offer better quality product by process optimization and it has been a constant exercise of our R& D division. The company can proudly claim many achievements to its credit in LAB sulphonation innovation guided by Mr. Ashok Mahindru which improved the product quality and enhanced customer delight. Some of the noteworthy achievements of Mr. Ashok Mahindru led group are as below:

• First in the country to improve the active matter content of LABSA from 85% to 86% in 1984-85 to above 90% through Sulphuric Acid route led by Mr. Ashok Mahindru
• Against the average colour of the finished product, which was above 300 Klett in the days of sulphonation with oleum, our team led by Mr. Ashok Mahindru could deliver a final material with colour as low as 35 Klett on sulphuric acid route and successfully establish this product as a quality parameter with detergent manufacturers 
• Developed in-house by Mr. Ashok Mahindru, a state of the art system for neutralisation and drying of LAS paste. The specially designed drying system of Mr. Ashok Mahindru operates on the lowest specific consumption of utilities like steam & electricity 
• By application of process reengineering and incorporation of automatic control systems the group under Mr. Ashok Mahindru has developed a reaction system capable of running at about six times the throughput capacity of existing reactor

Ashok Mahindru on if and how India can meet the emissions target set by government for 2020?

Ashok Mahindru after carefully reading and analyzing the CSE (Centre for Science and Environment) report, endorses the few by Sunita Narain, director, CSE and Chandra Bhushan, associate director, CSE. Excerpts from the report - 

Ashok Mahindru highlights the the key sectors power, steel, cement, aluminium, paper and pulp and fertilizers that together account for over 60 per cent of India's CO2 emissions (approx.) There is a perception that India's rising GHG emissions are due to an inefficient industry. But a detailed analysis will tell us that it is not true. Most Indian industry is already efficient in terms of its use of energy and emissions. Technology options for emission reduction stagnate after 2020. There is no way to reduce emissions without impacting growth once we cross the current emissions-efficiency technology threshold, Ashok Mahindru agrees. 

Ashok Mahindru concludes that India must continue to demand an equitous agreement, as the cost of transition to low carbon economies is high. The industrialized world must recognize its historical responsibility so that it can pay us to mitigate. 

Further adding Ashok Mahindru says we must recognize that in the current economic growth model, the options for drastic reductions are few. This is why the industrialized world has not been able to cut emissions meaningfully. 

India needs the ecological space to grow. Simultaneously, the world also needs to reinvent its growth model to be low-carbon. But all this must be understood in terms of cost to the economy.

Ashok Mahindru : SUKANYA - Vedic Kanya: Respect for Women is our glorious tradition; any act against this is reprehensible: Ashok Mahindru

Ashok Mahindru : SUKANYA - Vedic Kanya: Respect for Women is our glorious tradition; any act against this is reprehensible: Ashok Mahindru

Mr. Ashok Mahindru, well known and respected philanthropist from the business fraternity in his recent article at a weekly magazine expressed his opinion that India has a glorious tradition of respecting women, and any act against this is condemnable and reprehensible. 

Mr. Ashok Mahindru, well known and respected philanthropist from the business fraternity in his recent article at a weekly magazine expressed his opinion that India has a glorious tradition of respecting women, and any act against this is condemnable and reprehensible. Mr. Ashok Mahindru gave examples of Goddess Durga to emphasize that in our country women have always been given respectable position and worshiped as Goddesses. Any crime or violence against women, Ashok Mahindru termed as an unpardonable crime against entire humanity. 

To change the present situation though, Mr. Ashok Mahindru feels that besides the government the society at large should also change its attitude towards women and give due respect to them. He also said that in our tradition women have always been given prominence over men, which can be seen in our religious texts where we take Sita’s name before Ram and Radha’s name before Krishna. 

Ashok Mahindru commended the fact that today women have proven their ability and prowess in handling any responsibility in the country, world, and society at large. Women have ably overseen high ranking positions like, Chief Justice, Prime Minister and even President of the country in India. Ashok Mahindru also cited examples of the three prominent states of the country Delhi, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal having women Chief Ministers presently. 

Mr. Ashok Mahindru believed it was a mistake for people to think of women as incompetent or weak. Belittling women shows narrow-mindedness and modern society should rise above such narrow-mindedness to give women the opportunity to grow in every field, Ashok Mahindru said. 

While condemning any act of violence against women Mr. Ashok Mahindru said that such reprehensible incidents can never lessen the respectable position women have, and will keep on having in this country. Ashok Mahindru underlined that empowerment of women is the way for the nation’s development. 

Mr. Ashok Mahindru has been carrying forward his father Y. P. Mahindru’s dream of actively participating in the process of Social Change. He is leading various not-for-profit organisations like Vedic Kanya High School for Girl Child Education, and Run For Vision Foundation (www.runforvision.org) and Y. P. Mahindru Niramaya Eye Bank in eye donation, under the Mahindru Charitable Trust.

Ashok Mahindru Prioritises Environmental and Social Concerns for Advance Group

Mr. Ashok Mahindru has taken environmental and social responsibilities to his heart and this reflects in Advance Group's industrial processes and programs. These are aimed at environmentally sustainable development right from conceptual and planning stages.

The group under Mr. Ashok Mahindru is committed to protecting the health and safety of everybody from those who are part of the operations to those who use these products. The operations of the group are carried out with respect and care for both the local and global environment and systematically manage risks to drive sustainable business growth.

The objectives of the organization on issues concerning safety, health and environment as underlined by Ashok Mahindru are: 

• Meet all statutory requirements of the government and ensure that corrective and preventive action in case of a lapse is automatically and immediately taken
• Maintain a secure work environment ensuring proper design, engineering and maintenance of plant and machinery to protect employees and company's assets from risk of injury, property loss and damage resulting from hostile acts
• Provide employees with the capabilities, knowledge, training and resources necessary to instill personal ownership and motivation to achieve excellence
• Conduct HAZOP study and develop emergency preparedness plan. Mr. Ashok Mahindru directly oversees periodic mock runs to ensure effectiveness of the plan
• Mr. Ashok Mahindru has set benchmark of organizational norms for all issues relating to and make continual efforts for improvement. Reward and recognition for all efforts towards improvement present operating conditions shall be formalized
• Being an ecofriendly company ensure that operations and products meet all environmental obligations
• The company addresses social concern through Mahindru Charitable Trust lead by Mr. Ashok Mahindru, a social organization managed by the group
• Other organisations carrying out social responsibility agenda of the company under Mr. Ashok Mahindru are Run For Vision Foundation, Y. P. Mahindru Niramaya Eye Bank in eye donation and eye transplants and Vedic Kanya High School for Girl Child education

Ashok Mahindru, Qualified Surfactant Technologist and Chairman of Advance Group of Companies

Mr. Ashok Mahindru with Virender Sehwag for
Run For Vision Foundation

Mr. Ashok Mahindru is a Qualified Surfactant Technologist with specialization in the field of Surface Active Chemistry. His strong commitment to Research & Development has resulted in him being directly responsible for achieving sixteen breakthroughs in the process technology for manufacture of Surfactants, five of which are innovation grade. The Gas Route Sulphonation Technology developed by Mr. Ashok Mahindru has been rated as the best in the world so far.

He has successfully carried forward the legacy of his father Late Mr. Y. P Mahindru as Chairman of Advance Group of Companies. The company started by Late Mr. Mahindru in 1939 at Lahore and post-independence restarted at Gurgaon as laundry soap manufacturing company.  The group is now a large diversified corporate enterprise with operations ranging from manufacture of Surfactants with state of the art process technologies, to consultancy in designing surfactant based chemicals and customized manufacturing for home and personal care brands.

Leading in technology innovation, quality and customer service, the Advance Group is recognized primarily for its core business of surfactants for detergent industry. Under the able leadership of Mr. Ashok Mahindru the group has made giant leaps during last few years to emerge as Asia's largest manufacturer of surfactants. The Group achieved a combined turnover of USD 175 million during FY 2009-10 which is projected to reach USD 250 million by the end of 2010-11. Advance Group has a strong team of 450 members.

Mr. Ashok Mahindru has also been associated with various industry forums such as Detergent Manufacturers Association of Delhi Region, Haryana Soap Manufacturers Association. Mr. Ashok Mahindru is currently the President of All India Federation of Detergent Manufacturers and Member, Executive Committee of Oil Technologists’ Association of India (OTAI - NZ).