வணக்கம். என்னுடைய இரண்டாவது சிறுகதைத் தொகுப்பு நாளை சனிக்கிழமை மாலை நாடாளுமன்ற உறுப்பினர் தமிழச்சி தங்கபாண்டியன் அவர்களால் வெளியிடப்பட உள்ளது. ரூபாய் 250 மதிப்புள்ள இப்புத்தகம் முன்பதிவு திட்டத்தில் ரூபாய் 150க்கு நாளை வரை வழங்கப்படுகிறது. தங்களுக்கோ தங்கள் நண்பர்களுக்கோ தேவையெனில், தொடர்பு கொள்ளுங்கள்??? அன்புடன் கோ.‌ஒளிவண்ணன்

Four years ago, I was walking in the corridor of an engineering college after having delivered a lecture on the topic, “The joy of being an entrepreneur“, to final-year students. A student came up to me and said: “Sir, I wish you had told me this when I was in school. I would not have wasted my time and money for the last three years.“ I told him that he could still be an entrepreneur after completing his degree. Tearfully, he said: “Sir that is not easy .I have fourteen arrears to clear along with eighth semester papers; moreover the course doesn't interest me at all,“ he said. He said he wasn't interested in engineering but his widowed mother pledged her property so her son could get a professional education that would give him a high paying job in the IT industry .Such stories are common in the more than 500 engineering colleges across the state. The IT industry , the great big hope for engineering colleges, is drawing down on recruitment as disruptive technologies such as cloud computing and dynamic automation take over. Interested in bringing down attrition rates, recruiters are now eyeing arts and science colleges.What started four years ago has now reached a point of crisis. At least one lakh engineering graduates come out with bleak prospects of landing a high paying job despite their families having spent lakhs of rupees in fees and other expenses.Many engineering colleges built with huge infrastructure in every nook and corner of the state over the years are proving to be a liability .Many are not able to fill up their quota of seats. Last year, nearly a lakh seats went vacant and unfilled.Many of these colleges are run by politicians, former and current ministers. If the colleges fail, they will likely convert their buildings for other purposes depending on market demands. None of them will go bankrupt, but we have to look at the fate of the students.The National Employability Re port says that only ten per cent of the engineering graduates in Tamil Nadu are employable. Few of the top-notch jobs come Tamil Nadu's way . This is really where we have to start. Recently the Central government for the first time appointed a minister for skill development and entrepreneurship. We need a similar ministry in Tamil Nadu that can find solutions to what is threatening to become a social issue ­ lakhs of un employed engineers, a few of who are tur ning up in police chargesheets.Engineering colleges work towards two goals: Maximum percentage of marks and guaranteed placement. But the mindless pursuit of one can have a long term effect on the other. Students are required (or compelled) to focus only on their studies and are not encouraged to have co-curricular or scholastic ac tivities. For the student, the college is nothing but an extension of his or her school. Faculty members try to ensure that their class students clear the exams without arrears. Whether the students understand concepts or acquire practical knowledge is immaterial, for their only goal is to clear all papers.It is time the colleges look beyond the syllabus and develop students' technical skills, soft skills, and proc ess-specific domain skills. Outdated syllabuses are one of the primary reasons for poor employability . In the changing scenario, employers no longer look at what the student knows, instead focus on what the student can do with that knowledge.Universities and colleges should understand this paradigm shift and adapt to the new environment. One simple solution is to offer sandwich courses to help students develop practical skills.Too often students choose branches based on false information. Once I asked the principal of an engineering college about this.He said that it all depends on the student who joins their college with the highest percentage of marks in his plus two exams. If he chooses civil engineering, the news spreads and most others select civil engineering. Unfortunately , we have no mechanism to guide students to select the branch of engineering on industry demand. Only a few students select branches based on their interest. We have no idea of how many engineers we require every year and what are the opportunities available to them when they go out into the world. The proposed state ministry can put out studies on industry demand and projections that would help students plan better.It is time the government focuses on and develops micro-entrepreneurship. We have seen that larger manufacturing industries have not helped to generate sufficient employment opportunities. The MSME sector provides substantial employment opportunities. The industry is growing at nearly nine percent.The current pool of recruiters ­ IT and core engineering companies ­ is not big enough. In the end, the curricular and other inputs put into a four-year engineering degree should be attractive enough for recruiters who do not fall under the category of IT or core companies.

Please watch my interview in Kalaingar TV on closure of village libraries.. The YouTube link is below https://youtu.be/QcYcxDUBgAQ

A small skit played by young children at the time of launching of the book 'Public Speaking Made Easy', in 2016. https://youtu.be/4AtAk5eBq_0

At Madurai Book Fair our books are available at Emerald Publishers, stall no 185.

This is one of my latest and favourite one. A short speech, yet able to communicate what I wanted to do. More importantly the level of engagement with listeners was good. https://youtu.be/M5QBUmRsD2o

Please enjoy watching this video https://youtu.be/_3G4ShaloR8

friends, enjoy watching this video

Please watch the video and comment https://youtu.be/jYgxdIn-K7g

20 long year journey as a publisher.... It was in the year1999 my father M.D. Gopalakrishnan passed away and I took over as CEO of Emerald Publishers. Untill then I was Managing Director of the printing unit. My father was particular that I take up publishing as a career than printing. Immediately after taking over the publishing company, the first thing I did was to wind up the printing unit so as to give undivided attention. The second most important decision was to get Nallini to quit her job and join in the business. The last 20 years has been an exciting experience for both Nallini and me at Emerald..  For us, these 20 years can be grouped as four- five year journeys. The first 5 year merely continued from where my father had left the legacy. Traditionally we are academic publishers catering to the needs of colleges and universities. But the market for academic books was volatile and profits were diminishing due to various factors such as increasing number of autonomous universities and colleges. Emergence of more and more local authors too posed a threat which absymally shrunk the market. We slowly moved towards publishing trade (general ) books. The second five year was the best one, as Emerald published many number of general titles. Starting 2004 I was a regular trade visitor to the Frankfurt book fair. We scouted for liscenced works to publish in India. Authors and Publishers across the English publishing world, UK, USA, Australia offered their best works for reprint in India, through Emerald. The third five year starting 2010 was disastrous. The advent of ebooks, the spread of kindle and availability of free contents via internet caused serious concern. At some point of time, we even decided to look at alternative business. Thankfully, ebooks didn't pose a big threat. Both formats of books coexist in their own sphere and we survived. Things changed drastically when new forms of printing and new models of publishing emerged in the last five years. This helped us print fewer copies in a print run and reduce burden of a large inventory. Changes in printing technology helped us adopt the print on demand concept. We adopted a new model 'copublishing', a win-win concept for both authors and the publisher. This has proved to be successful and popular and helped us grow enormously. In the last two years, we have published  400 titles in various genres.  Also, copublishing helped us diversify into Tamil publishing. We have brought out close to 100 Tamil titles in this short span of time. Indeed it is a very proud confession. As the next five-year project we have embarked upon an innovative strategy to engage readers with books; the emergence of digital technology and increasing use of smartphones compelled us to integrate them with the printed books. We have joined hands with some of the best brains, experts in diverse fields to form a new entity to make our dreams into reality. We have created a new portal myauthorz.com which would help readers engage with their authors. It is a small step yet would surely be a giant leap in revolutionising reading experiences for an individual.