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First Asian player to win the Junior Wimbledon’s Boys singles title. 1954 .

Ramanathan Krishnan was the first Indian and the first Asian tennis player to win the boy’s singles title at Wimbledon Championship 1954, beating Ashley Cooper in the finals.

On the playing court Krishnan was a magician, off it, a thorough gentleman. His playing style was known as ‘touch tennis’. Lance Tingay of The Daily Telegraph described his tennis as “pure oriental charm”. Robert Philip wrote that “each and every Krishnan rally was a thing of rare beauty”. Krishnan was a peerless symbol of a sportsman exuding simplicity that contrasted beautifully with the majesty of his play. Krishnan a prodigy, went on to become the top Indian player of the era. The Krishnan saga symbolised a glittering phase in the beginnings of the Indian tennis history.

He has the unique honour of having breakfast with the then Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in London. A telegram breakfast invitation that he received at his hotel,the day he won the match aginst Jaroslav Drobny in London in 1956.

Singles: In singles his records includes victories against Czech Jaroslav Drobny and Australian legends Rod Laver and Roy Emerson.

Davis Cup: Krishnan made his debut in the Davis Cup at the age of 16 against Belgium in Perth .In the Doubles final against Australia, Ramanathan Krishnan and Jaideep Mukerjea won the doubles rubber against John Newcombe and Tony Roche. Krishnan was a key member of the Indian team which reached the Davis Cup final for the first time in 1966.

National: Krishnan won the Indian national title for eight years consecutively.

Book: ‘A touch of Tennis: The story of a tennis family ‘. Krishnan has written a book alongwith his son Ramesh Krishnan and Nirmal Shekar. The book covers 3 generations of tennis-playing Krishnans published by Penguin Books India.

T K Ramanathan his father introduced the 10 year old Krishnan to the game at the Talkatora club in New Delhi. T K Ramanathan was rated third amongst the Indian tennis players in the 1930’s. T K Ramanathan hailed from Tenkasi in Tamil Nadu. The family subsequently moved to Chennai(Madras) to keep up with the frequent travel required for Krishnan to participate in all the tournaments nationally and internationally.

Krishnan’s son Ramesh Krishnan emulated his fathers feat by winning the Wimbledon Junior title and went on to become a leading Indian tennis player of the 1980’s.

Krishnan lives in Chennai where alongwith his son Ramesh they run the ‘Krishnan Tennis Centre’. The Centre has 11 courts and have all been sponsored by the top stars each one named after them. He also manages a gas distribution agency.

NBA’s first India-born majority owner. May 2013 .

Vivek Ranadive became NBA’s (National Basketball Association) first India-born majority owner of ‘Sacramento King’. NBA Board of Governors unanimously approved the sale of Sacramento Kings on Tuesday, May 28th, 2013.

Vivek Ranadive a minority owner with the Warriors joined a team led by health-club financier Mark Mastrov and billionaire Ron Burkle to bid for the Kings to help keep them in Sacramento. Ranadive emerged as the leader, which also included the Jacobs family from San Diego, another Indian-born businessman Raj Bhathal and Australian Silicon Valley entrepreneur Katrina Garnett. The Investment Group led by Ranadive succeeded in competing and beating the $406 million bid led by Steve Ballmer ,Microsoft Chief Executive Officer. The deal was concluded from the team’s existing majority owner since 1999 – the Maloof family of Las Vegas Hotel fame. A new stadium is part of Ranadive’s package. Sacramento City Council now has a public-private deal in place to build a new 18,500 seat arena and retail centre downtown.

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA and Cal Berkeley star says of Ranadive ” He’s a visionary. He understands technology and startups, he’s built businesses “.

Vivek Ranadive was born in Juhu October 07th, 1957. With $50 in his pocket he left Bombay bound for the U.S. at the age of 17. He went on to complete his Bachelors and Masters degree in Electrical Engineering at MIT. Subsequently pursued an MBA at Harvard University in 1983 where he was a Baker Scholar.

Ranadive a slight and unassuming man, worked his way turning his enterprises as Founder and CEO of a multi-billion dollar real-time computing company of Palo Alto’s TIBCO Software.He is a Tae Kwon Do Black Belt and a sports buff. Ranadive has 3 children.

Awards: 1)2002: Info World’s 2002 Top Ten Technology Innovators (2) 2002: Ernst & Young Software Entrepreneur of the Year (3)2005: Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award (WIBTA): North America Technology Change Agent Award (4) 2008: South Asian CEO of the Year – by the South Asian MBA Association (SAMBAA)

Books: Vivek Ranadive has authored the following books. (1) ‘The Power of Now’- 1990 ( a New York Times best seller) (2) ‘The Power to Predict’- 2006 (International best seller and was profiled in Forbes, Harvard Business School and the Wall Street Journal’s – Smart Money (3) ‘The Two Second Advantage – How We Succeed by Anticipating the Future Just Enough’ – 2011 (the book was New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today best seller).

Sacramento, is the capital of State of California, USA.

India – World’s first country to launch “Phonesat” smartphone into space. February 2013 .

India launches world’s first “Phonesat” smart phone successfully launched into orbit. Loaded with a number of experimental ‘Apps’, some services some just for fun. The Mission was designed to test commercial technologies in outerspace. This launch was SSTL’s first with ISRO.

The British built Strand-1 Spacecraft, a nano satellite developed by scientists in Surrey was sent into orbit from Sriharikota in India. To test the capabilities of a standard smartphone in a space environment.

Amateur radio operators can track STRaND-1 from across the world. Details of frequency are available at www.amsat-uk.org