1. When Henry Ford III - the chairman of Ford Motor was at logger heads with Lee Ia Cocca, (the then president of the company), he decided to sell of the private plane of Lee. He ordered "I want that plane out of here today". The company lost bundle on the deal, because it was sold in haste. After an internal audit, Henry had to pay back $34,000 to the company. (to his own company). Some lesson on transparent accounting.

2. Walter Wriston, Ex-CEO of Citi Bank, remembered every story of loan debacle and he included them in training programme for 'would be' lenders and bank employees, both.

3. Once Ratan Tata, when he was chairman Nelco, had to cancel the leave of a personnel head, as he was going abroad. Later when he met the couple on Linking Road in Mumbai, Mr Ratan Tata got down from the car and talked to his wife to explain the circumstances in which the leave was cancelled.

4. Sam Walton, the founder chairman of 'WalMart' (Ranked 4th most respected company in fortune 500 in list 1999) went through each and every book on retailing before he launched the first store in 1945.

5. While the world over the women are now flying aeroplanes and fighter jets, in Saudi Arabia, a woman can be arrested simply for driving a car.

6. In the famous salt march, Gandhi walked nearly 400 KM in 24 days.

7. In 1950, Toyota (Japan) was producing 40 cars a day, while Ford (USA) was making 8000 units, a 200 times difference.

   Today, Toyota makes car in 24 countries and sells $90 billion worth in 160 countries.

8. Tipu Sultan and NASA.

   Towards the end of my visit, I went to the Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island in East Coast, Virginia. This place was the base for NASA's sounding rocket programme. Here, I saw a painting prominently displayed in the reception lobby. It depicted a battle scene with few rockets flying in the background. A painting with this theme should be the most common place thing at a Flight Facility, but the painting caught my eye because the soldiers on the side launching the rockets were not white, but dark skinned, with the racial features of people found in South Asia. One day, my curiosity got the better of me, drawing me towards the painting. It turned out to be Tipu Sultan's army fighting the British. The painting depicted a fact forgotten in Tipu's own country but commemorated here on the other side of the planet. I was happy to see an Indian glorified by NASA as a hero of warfare rocketry . - Dr APJ Abdul Kalam

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