Dinesh Vaswani
Dinesh Vaswani served as an Indian Air Force officer from 14 December 1991 until 31 March 2017. For his distinguished service in the Indian Air Force, he was awarded commendation medals by Chief of Air Staff, Vice-Chief of Army Staff, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief and thrice by General Officer Commanding-in-Chief. He was commissioned in the Indian Air Force in 1991 as a Pilot Officer and took early retirement as a Wing Commander. Dinesh Vaswani is an alumnus of Mayo College, New York University and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
His philosophies of "Connecting the dots" and "Last mile connectivity" along with the utilisation of theory, experience and practicality brought major changes to the ways of education, designing, architecture, and strategic decision-making processes. He was recognised by various learned communities. Vaswani later became a professor teaching and preaching various fields of science integrating humanity and also became an architect.[citation needed]
Early Education
After initial education at Allahabad, he moved to the prestigious school for royalties – Mayo College, Ajmer. He studied at Mayo College from 1979 to 1986. Although an average student in studies, he displayed exceptional all-around qualities in all spheres of life. He was a keen sportsman, participating in nearly all sports including basketball, football, hockey, cricket, tennis, and volleyball. He also excelled in indoor games like table-tennis, badminton and proved to be a strategist in chess.[citation needed] Besides, his keen interest in arts and crafts brought him closer to the world of design. He was given accolades in unique designing for his craftwork by Lalit Kala Parishad twice. With his interest in natural history, he was appointed as Student Curator of the Mayo College museum, which is one of the biggest school museums in the world. He started mountaineering at an early age of 15 when he completed an Adventure Course at Nehru Institute of Mountaineering. He was awarded the Best all-rounder by Padma Shri (Col) D.K. Khullar. Thereafter, he went on to complete more mountaineering courses at Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. He underwent training with some of the world's best mountaineers like Padma Bhushan George Medal Tenzing Norgay ,Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan Nawang Gombu , Ang Dorje Sherpa, and Sange Dorjee Sherpa.[citation needed]
Vaswani encountered not only tough situations in undergoing mountaineering but also survived dangerous accidents on two occasions. He suffered a one-inch-deep injury on his ankle just before leaving for the 1st Adventure Course and completed most of the course despite the injury. He had a disastrous fall of over 300 feet after the waist belt of his rucksack snapped open and the backpack of over 25 kgs flung over his head, turning him into a ball and sending him rolling down a steep slope.[citation needed] During his ascent to Mt BC Roy (18,600 feet) he slipped into a deep crevasse and had to be rescued. During this fall he lost his snow goggles and was advised to return to base camp; however, he was determined to reach the top. He became the youngest ever to have completed the Basic Course and successfully climbed Mt BC Roy. He was appointed Secretary of Mayo Mountaineering Club and is the only student to date to be awarded colours in mountaineering. He also received job offers at various institutes as a rock climbing instructor.[citation needed] In 1985, Vaswani was awarded the prestigious international award – the Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Award, considered the highest award given to a school/college child for exceptional all-round performance. He received the award from then Vice-President of India Shri R Venkataraman. Thereafter, he joined St. Xavier’s College, Ahmedabad in 1986 and completed his graduation in B.A. (Economics) in 1989. Alongside his college education, he joined the National Cadet Corps (India)(NCC). During his undergraduate years, he took to basketball in sports and became the editor of both the college and NCC publications. His first encounter with an aeroplane started with his sitting in the cockpit of a glider (Rohini) for his first training sortie. His natural adaptation to excellence in NCC won him Best Cadet at a national camp along with Best in Rifle shooting. On completion of NCC ‘C’ Certificate, he was given the chance of appearing for the Service Selection Board and successfully qualified to join the Indian Air Force as a trainee pilot. He was the last pilot to be inducted into the Indian Air Force from a purely non-science background.[citation needed]
Military Career
On 14 December 1991, after completion of rigorous training of 18 months, he was commissioned as a Pilot Officer into the Transport aircraft stream of the flying branch. During the pre-flying training course, he was awarded Best in Academics and Best All-Rounder Cadet. He excelled in air-to-ground firing and in formation flying. After undergoing specialised training on Hawker Siddley (HS-748) for one year, he was posted to a VIP squadron. He served as a VIP pilot for two and a half years before being transferred to an aerial photography role for 4 years. He soon mastered photography, including aerial photography, and qualified as a specialist in ultra-low-level flying. In subsequent years, he had undertaken all roles of transport flying, viz parachuting drops, casualty evacuation, air-ambulance, and aerial electronic-intelligence besides cargo and passenger carriage. During these flying tenures, he also undertook missions from very short runways, over-sea flying, forward area runways, and cross-border tasks in enemy territory. He has flown over 3,000 hours and was also awarded Flight Safety Stars for accident/incident-free flying.[citation needed] His continuous lookout for improvement led him to make modifications in components from a Russian fighter aircraft and utilize it in HS-748, which led to increased intelligence-gathering capabilities. He was also given a long tenure as Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) combatant commander for four years. During "Operation Parakram", he was deployed at the borders of Jammu & Kashmir for 18 months as an independent commander of the missile battalion. The camp was the closest ever deployment of such a large battalion by the Indian Air Force. The camp came under attack by infiltrators several times, all of which were thwarted due to his leadership and adoption of natural stealth security measures. For this, his citation for a gallantry medal was raised, and he was awarded the Chief of Air Staff Commendation medal. He also undertook live firing of the long-range SAM with clear kills being granted both times. He gathered expertise in all spheres of SAM systems, including radars, generators, and heavy vehicle systems, which saw the Squadron being awarded Best Squadron of the IAF twice. He also made technical innovations to existing communication equipment for improved connectivity over the widespread camp.
His management qualities were put to use when he was given the responsibility of core committees handling the prestigious Annual Air Force Day Investiture Parade in 2006, 2007, and 2008. He was appointed as Mess Secretary of the Officers’ Mess. Although a routine activity, he brought about revolutionary changes in the accounting system while changing the very look of all the elements, viz library, gymnasium, VIP and guest rooms, gardens, and sports facilities.[citation needed]
During the last seven and a half years of his career in the Indian Air Force, he served at HQ South Western Air Command, which has the area of responsibility over the region of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Goa. As the officer-in-charge of all transport aircraft operating in the region as big as 1/8th of Europe, he set about making changes to the systems to ensure increased utilization of the fleet. He studied the system and worked towards higher coordination with all other branches of the Indian Air Force. Along with the full team, he put together software for near-real-time monitoring of the entire Air Force's aircraft movements. Coupling this with logistics, armament, and engineering branches, the utilization or Tonnage Per Hour suddenly shot up by 400–600%. This caught the attention of the Air HQ, and the software was implemented pan-India. For this, his citation was raised for the civil national award – Dr Biren Roy Award for three consecutive years. He soon found himself becoming part of the core team managing the grand Iron-Fist exercises of 2010,[1] 2013, and 2016.[2] The event showcases over 200 aircraft displaying live air-power capabilities in front of the highest elite audience of the President of India, Prime Minister, Cabinet Committee of Security, Defence Minister, Defence Attachés from over 60 countries and is live-telecast across the globe. His contribution included designing the logo, First-Day-Cover, Grand-Stand, to handling a major part of the events, commentary, crisis management, air and road transportation, security, designing and distribution of very large quantities and varieties of memorabilia, accounts, planning, and execution. For dedicated involvement, his citation was raised for Presidential awards thrice.
His strategic understanding and natural quick decision-making based on "connecting the dots" found him being part of several important and vital decision-making teams. He was considered[by whom?] a "one-man-army" of decision-making as he was always ahead in gathering information and could piece together several fields instantly.[citation needed] This saw him working closely with the Indian Army and Indian Navy through several joint exercises. As a key member in strategic planning of the Indian Air Force, Indian Army, and Indian Navy, he assisted in providing unprecedented reduction in time frames of casualty evacuation, leading to saving hundreds of lives. This won him several citations and commendation medals from the Army and Navy.
Disaster Management
It was during this HQ tenure that he was seconded to assist the state governments of Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra during various natural disasters. Wing Commander Dinesh Vaswani got to the root causes of why so many lives were being lost and went about developing methods on how to maximize the saving of lives.[3] This started the deepening of bonds with various civilian government departments including some top educational institutions. He broke through various channels of bureaucracy and red-tapism and integrated the armed forces seamlessly with the disaster management systems. This led to a reduction in air-borne rescue missions being launched in just under 45 minutes from the earlier over several hours. This coordinated method and introduction of joint training camps and capsules with civilian government authorities led to the direct rescue of over 5,000 lives and over 40,000 lives by indirect support provided to other regions across India and during the April 2015 Nepal earthquake. The state governments of Rajasthan and Gujarat requested the IAF HQ to take his guidance as a core-committee member for managing all forms of crisis. His valuable inputs led to his being recognized by both governments, awarding him citations. His proactive, pioneering, and prodigious methodology saw him giving lectures and addressing international gatherings in the field of disaster management. Everyone wanted to understand this new movement of “Last Mile Connectivity” during all phases of the disaster management cycle which he started. He was invited by Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar,[4] CEPT University,[5] National Institute of Design, Nirma University, and Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Gujarat Institute of Disaster Management appointed him as a permanent Resource Person; Gujarat Forensic Sciences University and CEPT appointed him as visiting faculty; NID appointed him as a project guide for masters students’ final projects. Institute of Seismological Research launched him on international forums by way of symposia.[6] While addressing international experts at these symposia,[7] he was approached by some country heads of disaster management to assist them in vetting their national plans. All major educational institutes of Architecture, Forensics, Management, Engineering, and Design have appreciated and recognized in writing his contributions towards humanity. Most of them have included this as part of their syllabi.
Further Education and Educator
Coming from a non-science background and being appreciated in specialized fields of various sciences encouraged Wing Commander Dinesh Vaswani to further accrue his understanding of various disciplines, and thus he started on another journey of further education. He would do his office work during and well beyond office hours, finding time late into the night or on weekends to catch up with higher education. He went on to complete several undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral degrees, including – a Masters Programme in Human Rights, an MBA in Human Resource Management, Bachelors and Masters in Architecture from JAS Australia, and a Doctoral degree in Management. He also received the Gold Medal from New York University for International Relations. He completed several short courses on disaster management, design thinking for innovation from University of Virginia and Darden School of Business, Green architecture, Sustainability, mediation & negotiation, conflict management, Area Studies of Africa, Latin America, and Africa from United Nations Peace Operation Training Institute (POTI),[8][9][10] Six Sigma Green Belt, Women & Child Development POTI, Operations Management from IIM-B, Smart Grids from IEEE, Strategic Management from Copenhagen Business School.
He converted this continuous gain of knowledge into deeper principles of philosophy towards furthering the "connecting the dots" and initiated imparting professional and pro-bono education. For the institutions, it was professional, and for individual students, it was pro-bono. He decided to take educating students to the next level by using simple methods of child psychology – he would become more of a friend than a Professor or Instructor. This way, the students would share their inhibitions, and he could go to the basic root explanations to help them build a strong base for the specialized field.[citation needed]
Post Retirement
His early personal life at home, at school, and then after marriage was full of severe downhills.[citation needed] He had decided to divert his attention towards better things in life such as work, education, and humanity. He decided to retire from the Indian Air Force. He requested early retirement, which was finally granted, and he retired on 31 March 2017. As part of resettlement, he joined Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad[11] and completed the fully residential Business Management Studies, which has one of the most grueling Masters Programmes in the world.[citation needed] Post-retirement, he was awarded the Veer-Soldier Award of Gujarat along with a few others by the Defence Minister at a grand function held on the river-front banks of the Sabarmati. He has been invited by some leading schools and colleges (SGVP, Gujarat Institute of Technology, LD College of Engineering, etc.) as the Chief Guest and given honours for his contributions towards the nation and humanity.
He has started on a fresh journey of trying architecture. He combines technology with practicality, nature with modernism, culture, tradition with realism.[citation needed] He has given a different meaning to green and sustainable architecture by adding regenerative as the most significant element to it. His belief that architecture is not just about creating a design, but about adding a heart and soul to the structure and then living that structure before submitting it to a jury has taken him from philosophy to spiritualism in architecture. It is this thought that has inspired him to prove to the world at large that the world does not need only sustainability (sustain implying maintaining the status quo).[citation needed]
During his retirement, he started painting. Having never held a paintbrush,[citation needed] he started with acrylic on stretched canvas and has made about 20 paintings which he plans to use to decorate the walls of his upcoming house designed by him. He recently[when?] ventured into the old art form of painting on leaf skeletons, thus adding nature even to paintings.[citation needed]
See also
- Mayo College
- B.V Doshi
References
- ↑ "Vayu Shakti 2010 Exercise". www.indiatvnews.com. 3 March 2010.
- ↑ https://www.hindustantimes.com/photos/india/iaf-s-iron-fist/photo-Un8KuCjN4eSTezHTzUV98H.html
- ↑ "IAF comes to the rescue of Maldharis stranded in swamps of little Rann of Kutch".
- ↑ Dinesh Vaswani (11 November 2016). "Invite-IIT Gandhinagar 2015".
- ↑ https://cept.ac.in/events/ft-expert-lecture-series-dinesh-vaswani
- ↑ http://ises.co.in/Report-AES2015.pdf
- ↑ http://secutechexpo.com/pdf/SISSC-Conference-brochure-2018-day-1.pdf
- ↑ Dinesh Vaswani (11 November 2016). "WPS_AP_certificate".
- ↑ Dinesh Vaswani (11 November 2016). "gender-perspectives-certificate".
- ↑ Dinesh Vaswani (11 November 2016). "logistical-support-to-un-peacekeeping-operations-certificate".
- ↑ https://www.iima.ac.in/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=0a051be6-1645-434f-aeaf-5d8da6a6abf4&groupId=59758
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