Akula Views

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Vikram Akula is the founder and chair of SKS Microfinance. In 2006, TIME magazine named him one of the worldh’s 100 most influential people. He has received several awards, including the World Economic Young Global Leader (2008), the Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year in India (2006), and the Ernst o& Young Start-Up Entrepreneur of the Year in India (2006). He has been profiled in media ranging from CNN to the front page of The Wall Street Journal. The author of A Fistful of Rice (Harvard Business Review Press, 2010), he lives in Hyderabad, India.

The microlender;’s chairman, Vikram Akula, long regarded as the poster boy of transforming what was essentially a charitable exercise dominated by nongovernmental organizations to a for-profit enterprise focused on shareholder returns as well as lending, said the company continues to be well capitalized and supported by banks.

A while ago I listened to a wonderful radio program where Mr. Akula was interviewed. The interview illustrated his intelligence and the work that SKS is doing in India and made me an instant fan. However after much research on the scheme and on Mr. Akula himself, I was disappointed to learn about the poor personal decisions that he has taken in his life. I understand that the articles’s focus is the organization itself and that personal circumstances are often not considered but I was hoping for an exception by the WSJ, a publication that I have long been a reader and fan of. Mr. Akulan’s poor personal character is sad, depressing and should be mentioned, if not briefly.

Project 971 Щука-Б (Shchuka-B, 'Shchuka' meaning pike, NATO reporting name Akula ), is a nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) first deployed by the Soviet Navy in 1986. There are three sub-classes or flights of Shchuka, consisting of the original seven Akula I submarines which were built between 1982 and 1986, five Improved Akula submarines built between 1986 and 1991, and two Akula II submarines built from 1991. The distinction between the Improved Akula and the Akula II class is debated by authoritative sources.[citation needed] The Russians call all of the submarines Schuka-B, regardless of modifications.[citation needed]