Issue: #5 | August 2014
RE
aligning is the way forward
In this issue: Opportunity for Responsible Business in Ac on TATA STEEL LIMITED: Values Stronger than Steel
Self Help Groups & Poverty Allevia on Fiinobserva on of Interna onal Days
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Opportunity for Responsible Business in Action It was not too late that many CSR professionals and enthusiasts applauded when the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi announced his suggestion of corporates investing their CSR funds for building and maintaining toilets in most schools of India by 2015. The Prime Minister is determined to launch the 'clean India' campaign from 2nd October this year and see it through in the next four years. Capturing the true essence of corporate social responsibility the PM on the occasion of Independence Day marked a turning point in the history of CSR in India. In his invigorating speech, the citizens of the country were encouraged to meet the urgent need of integrity and ethics. He was suggestive of leashing the pessimistic factors of greed, corruption, crime, communal disharmony and terrorism. To overcome all these factors he reiterated the importance of CSR. It was a call to the corporates' conscience to take care of the basic needs of the masses through their CSR practices. This speech came at a very opportune time when the Companies Act, 2013 has made India the first nation to mandate CSR. The schedule VII of the act has placed the communities in the forefront of all development practices. Only five days post the PM’s speech the repercussions have begun to show. The corporates have announced huge investments in building toilets in support of the 'clean India' campaign. Two of India's biggest companies, Tata Consultancy Services and Bharti have committed Rs 100 crore each to build toilets in schools for girls. Coca-Cola hopes to further build on its ongoing sanitation programme to construct toilets in schools. In addition, politicians have a choice to adopt a village each and transform it into a model village through the 'Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna' which would soon begin to reflect how innovatively and responsibly can the bureaucrats engage with communities and drive them towards development. The PM addressed the needs and responsibility of both the stakeholders and shareholders who have a shared responsibility and accountability. His speech was inspirational but corporations must be cautious in ensuring the CSR movement does not lose its charm. They should not get carried away and invest only on building toilets. The focus should be on strategizing the matters of cleanliness, equality and safe environment through innovative and impactful programmes which are scalable, replicable and sustainable. Behavior change cannot be imposed but can be facilitated through leadership that is motivation driven. CSR and sustainability should be used as change agents that help achieve inclusive growth. India till date is known for its rich historical past with respect to culture, politics, economic development and welfare of the people. No matter how long the route to development is, all efforts are directed towards enhancing equality and equity. CSR
in India must play an important role by participating in nation building while increasing the value of intangible assets like loyalty, honesty and trust. To reach a conclusive beginning we need to keep in mind that CSR is an ambit of opportunities for the development sector. We must look towards strategic alliances. - Nidhi Vatsa
What the Influencers Said… I call upon the corporate sector also to give priority to the provision of toilets in schools with your expenditure under Corporate Social Responsibility. – Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India CSR is an integrated, systemic approach by business that builds ‐ rather than erodes or destroys ‐ economic, social, human and natural capital. ‐ Wayne Visser, CSR Interna onal
The future is green energy, sustainability, renewable energy. ‐ Arnold Schwarzenegger, Actor
The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural resources, or at least not try to defy them. ‐ Paul Hawken, Environmentalist
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TATA STEEL LIMITED: Values Stronger than Steel
Sport a way of life! “Be sure to lay wide streets planted with shady trees, every other of a quick‐growing variety. Be sure that there is plenty of space for lawns and gardens. Reserve large areas for playing football and hockey and parks. Earmark areas for Hindu temples, Mohammedan mosques and Chris an churches.” ‐ Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata
Tata Steel Group is among the leading steel manufacturers in the world with an annual crude steel capacity of over 26.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa). It is now the world's second most geographically diversified steel producer, with operations in 26 countries and commercial presence in over 50 countries. The group's vision is to be world's steel industry benchmark in “value creation” and “corporate citizenship” through the excellence of people, the innovative approach and overall conduct. “Welfare of Communities” has been the primary purpose of the business that is embedded in their genes. Tata Steel is serving communities in and around its areas of operations. The community welfare initiatives are directed towards education, healthcare, empowerment, sustainable livelihood generation and preservation of ethnicity and culture of indigenous communities. Tata Steel's community initiatives are implemented through social arms of the company which include the Tata Steel Rural Development Society, Tata Steel Family Initiatives Foundation, Tribal Cultural Society & Tata Steel Skill Development Society and Urban Services. Tata Steel promotes the role of sports for personal as well as societal development. Sport for the company is a powerful vehicle for achieving larger goals, particularly in advancing development and for beneficial aspects of psychological and emotional healings. It is a key factor in holistic development of the community and the company recognizes this to inculcate and nurture sports for engendering opportunities, supporting communities and employee engagement.
in different disciplines of which 383 are from the SC/ST category. Over the last five years, more than 80 trainees from sports academies have been employed with police and railway services. Both men and women trained by the Tata Steel sports have excelled at competitions both at home and abroad. In FY 2012-13, 17 international and 78 national medals were added to the sports departments. Over the years, these initiatives have helped produce 5 Olympic Games winners, 6 World Championship winners, 36 Asian Games winners, 33 Asian Championship winners, 4 Commonwealth Games winners, 6 Commonwealth Championship winners, 11 Padmashrees, 41 Arjuna awardees, 4 Dronacharya awardees and 1 Padma Bhushan, which speaks volumes of the commitment of the Tata Group to Indian sports. The Tata Steel Rural Development Society aims to start a Hockey Academy in Odisha or Jharkhand in FY'14.
The Tata Football Academy, Tata Archery Academy, Tata Athletics Academy, the JRD Tata Sports Complex in Jamshedpur and the Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (headed by Ms. Bachendri Pal, India's first woman Mt. Everest Climber) underlie how sports has been an integral part of the company's philosophy to empower the community. The Tribal Cultural Society has been reviving and promoting tribal sports like Kati, Chhur, Bahuchor, Sekkor and Ramdel by organizing tournaments at village level. The company has also created infrastructure for every popular sport discipline which includes cricket, basketball, boxing, chess, volleyball, table tennis, lawn tennis, handball, swimming, badminton, roller skating etc. Currently there are 1300 trainees
- Nidhi Vatsa
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Self Help Groups & Poverty Alleviation Self Help Groups (SHGs) evolved through the Grameen Bank model in Bangladesh in the late 1970s. Self Help Group, as the name suggests, was an idea which aimed at women empowerment through "Self Help". The SHG model focuses on inter-loaning and group savings generally among rural women to increase financial independence and as a measure for poverty alleviation. Apart from this it also acts as a platform to initiate capacity building trainings that lead to a federation model comprising of many SHGs. India has seen phenomenal growth of families linked to SHGs from 1993 with a growth rate of over 80%. According NABARD, there are more than 7 million SHGs in India out of which 5.9 million are women SHGs. There has been a mixed response as far as the success of the SHG model in India is considered. Experienced social workers feel that the credit linkage schemes run by large banks are the reason for the failure of many of the groups. Banks have set up specialized cells which deal with SHG loans and credits. These cells have annual targets of loan disbursal, and the managers to meet their targets generally push loans on to SHGs. Newly created SHGs generally agree to the loans and are seen as defaulting on their loans. It was envisaged that SHGs would empower women folk by bringing them together and enabling the creation of multiple rural microenterprises. The initial few months are used as capacity building for the women to work in groups since this is the most challenging aspect of a formation of a SHG. Behavior change, as we know, is the most difficult outcome to achieve in any development sector programme. Once the women are acquainted with working in groups, and the group dynamics are somewhat stable, they are then taken to the next level of developing a business plan, or are trained in specific trades which act as the foundation for setting up an enterprise. Many organizations in India have been working extensively in the field of women empowerment through SHGs. The most common observation from these organizations has been that once the women reach the stage of financial stability, they become more confident and aware of their rights. When they become aware, they demand, this demand has seen many a changes in the rural areas of the country wherever SHG model has been a success. The Self Help Group model for poverty alleviation has been a success wherever it was implemented in a manner as it was envisaged in the beginning, and has been a failure with many lessons wherever it was implemented with an agenda to only alleviate poverty from a region.
1 Self-Help Group = 10-20 women
1 Cluster Level Association = 6-8 Self Help Groups
1 Federation = 8-10 Cluster Level Associations Cluster Level Associations Representative Federation Representative
- Vipin Vijayan
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Fiinobservation of International Days The UN passed a resolution accepting to observe 12th August as International Youth Day. The UN adopted 15 priority areas which included education, employment, hunger and poverty, health, environment, drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, recreational activities, girls and young women, participation, globalization, Information and communication technologies, HIV/AIDS, Youth and conflict and Intergenerational relations. Approximately, 1.8 billion people of the world population are youth and the theme for this year is "Youth and Mental Health.”
Interna onal Youth Day 12
August
In a developing country like India, mental illness is shrouded in stigma, ignorance and superstition. There are approximately 20 million Indians suffering from mental illness. As per WHO, 20% of India's population will suffer from some form of mental illness by the year 2020. Innovative Financial Advisors Pvt. Ltd. believes that barely 12% of the health budget is dedicated to mental health, in comparison to 10 to 12% in other countries. Since youth play a prominent role in development of a nation, the government needs to work towards increasing the available opportunities for them. Efforts needs to be directed towards advocating the issue and helping the public become aware about the issue. Youth will play a pivotal role towards improvement of mental health Every year, 19th August is observed as the World in respect of training, research, and provision of clinical Humanitarian Day. This day recognizes the work of those services to promote mental health in all sections of society. who faced dangers and adversity while helping others. The - Rahul Choudhury
World Humanitarian Day 19
August
theme for this year is “The World Needs More”. 19th August is also the date of the brutal terrorist attack that took place at the UN headquarters in Baghdad in 2003 which killed 22 people, including UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. World Humanitarian Day is also an occasion to rejoice the spirit that inspires humanitarian work around the globe.
Innovative Financial Advisors Pvt. Ltd understands that every year many natural calamities and political crisis take place leading to a number of deaths and injuries. We support the observation of this day and seek to draw attention towards the existing humanitarian needs worldwide. Countries like Afghanistan, Syria, Haiti, Sudan, Iraq are reeling under sever humanitarian crisis and millions of people are waiting to receive assistance to help them recover from the humanitarian emergency. The world needs more… ’campaign is unique and aims to turn words into aid creatively and innovatively. Innovative Financial Advisors Pvt. Ltd. urges people to remember those often forgotten as they help remind us of the dream of a peaceful planet, where everyone lives with safety and dignity.
- Rahul Choudhury
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