Kolkata-based Gaurav Tekriwal (30) is a man with a mission. He is hell-bent upon abolishing the fear of mathematics (aka maths phobia), ubiquitous in school and college students. A numbers and calculus wizard in his own right, this finance postgrad of the University of Calcutta and certified chartered financial analyst believes that maths phobia can be reversed into zeal for this exact and stimulating science.According to Tekriwal, this mental and psychological miracle is possible through the study of Vedic mathematics. This ancient and time-tested system enables a learner to make mathematical calculations 10-15 times — 1,500 percent — faster than in normal mathematics. The sutras of this mathematics system are easy to understand, apply, remember and develop the left and right sides of the brain by increasing visualisation and concentration abilities. Most importantly, Vedic maths is fun to learn. It dispels maths phobia which millions of students suffer from because theyve been taught this joyful science the wrong way, explains Tekriwal.
Founder president of the Kolkata-based Vedic Maths Forum India (VMFI), a full-time Vedic maths educator and motivational speaker, Tekriwal decided to be an entrepreneur ab initio. When I was preparing for my MBA entrance exams in 1998, I came across Vedic maths which was a quicker way to do calculations. I was blown away by its potency and spellbound by its sheer simplicity and ease and shared it with a few friends. Later a workshop I conducted got rave reviews in the press and prompted invitations from schools where I organised Vedic maths learning sessions. It was at this point that I decided to transform my passion for maths into a career. I learnt from several Vedic maths masters including the current Shankaracharya of Puri and Shakuntala Devi for four years. In 1998, I decided to set up VMFI with a capital investment of Rs.25,000, he recalls.
Since then VMFI which currently has a full and part-time faculty of 200 has expanded its footprint in India, and in several countries including the US, UK, South Africa and Malaysia where it has trained over 600,000 students in workshops and online tutorial classes. Our growth strategy is to work with education ministries of state governments in India and national governments abroad. Most of them are looking for alternative pedagogies to make maths learning easier for their students. Therefore there are huge domestic and foreign markets for Vedic maths, says Tekriwal.
Way to go!
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)

Nirupama Sunderraj
A promising young athlete who is showing encouraging signs of emerging as a track star of tomorrow is Bangalore-based Nirupama Sunderraj (18). In the 26th National Junior Athletics Championship 2010 which concluded on December 3, Nirupama clocked 11.93 seconds in the 100 metres dash and set a new meet record in the 200 metres event (24.28). This double crowned her the undis-puted junior sprint queen of India.
A class XII student of the Ebenezer International School and Junior College, Nirupama was eight when she won her first race at the Baldwin Girls High School annual sports day event. Subs-equently in 2005 she participated in the Karnataka state athletics tournament in the under-14 category, and won golds in the 100 metres high jump and long jump events. It was only after winning in state-level championships that I started taking athletics seriously and focused on 100 and 200 metres sprints, says Nirupama who has been training under former national coach V.R. Beedu since her very first race.
In October 2008, she competed in her first international athletics meet championship — the Commonwealth Youth Games, held in Pune — where she was a member of the winning 4 x 100 metres relay quartet. A month later at the 24th National Junior Athletics Championship, Nirupama bagged silver in both sprint races. Improving conti-nuously, she struck top form at the 25th State Junior Athletic Championship in 2009 winning gold medals in the 100 metres and 200 metres dashes, a sprint double which she replicated in the national championship last December.
Nirupama attributes her penchant for athletics to a sports-loving environ-ment at home. My grandmother and mother Manjula were athletes while my father B. N. Sunderraj played school-level basketball. Therefore Ive never lacked family support, she says.
Well aware that her personal best timings in the sprint events are a long way behind the worlds best — Jamaicas duo of Shelley-Ann Fraser (100 metres in 10.78 secs) and Veronica Campbell-Brown (200 metres in 21.74 secs) — Nirupama is training hard, waking up at 4 a.m six days per week and putting in 30 hours of weights workouts coupled with track training.
My immediate objective is to do well in my class XII boards next month and qualify for admission into a top-rated athletics-intensive US university. Intensive training and international competition should prepare me for the Olympics where I intend to do India proud, says this teenage athlete with her head in the clouds and her feet running hard on the ground.
Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)