Global PR, Communication & Media events

Creating Podcasts - Presentation by Prime Point Srinivasan

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 06:22:00 +0000

Session on Creating Podcast

Prime Point Srinivasan made a presentation on #Podcast to the trainees of National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research (NITTTR) on 13h July 2022. NITTTR, an Instition under Ministry of HRD, Government of India provides training and refresher programme to all the Technical teachersof various Engineering and Polytechnic Colleges in South India.

The presentation was made to the participants who were the faculty members of various Government Polytechnic colleges in Telangana.

Prime Point Srinivasan exhibited the various formats of audio and video podcasts created by him. He also explained the methods of creating podcasts using simple tools and softwares. The participants were also asked to create a podcast to get hands on experience.

Please watch this sample podcast.

https://youtu.be/hLGKgS84N3w

Building Brand Image for political leaders - Presentation by Prime Point Srinivasan

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 15:10:00 +0000

Participants with senior political leaders

Next Gen Political Leaders (NGPL), a registered NGO organised a workshop on 'Çommunication and Personality Development'on 15th Feb 2020 at Chennai. Many young leaders of all political parties participated. Many senior leaders of all parties and experts shared their experiences. NGPL is an unique and the only of its kind platform in India to bring together young political leaders for developing their knowledge and leadership skills. NGPL is the fifth initiative of the eMagazine PreSense, published by Prime Point Foundation.

Prime Point Srinivasan made a presentation on "Building brand image for young political leaders". During his presentation, he explained how the perception is formed , how brand image gets developed and the techniques for building brand image,including the risks involved.

Senior leaders of political parties viz. Shri Selvaraj (CPI MP of Nagapattinam), Dr Jayakumar (Congress MP of Thiruvallur) and Shri D Kuppuramu (Sr. Vice President of BJP, Tamil Nadu) were also present during this presentation.

The power point presentation is appended below.

Building brand image for young political leaders ngpl - 15022020 from Prime Point Foundation, Chennai

Presebntation on Crisis 'Communication Management' by Prime Point Srinivasan

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 10:37:00 +0000

Prime Point Srinivasan made a presentation to the MBA students of VIT University, Chennai campus on 'Crisis communication management' on 1st August 2018. He shared as to how the crisis gets formed and the techniques to handle them without damages to the individuals and the organisation.

The slide show is given below.

"Join politics only after understanding the problems of the country and society" - T K Rangarajan, Member of Parliament

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 23 Oct 2016 07:16:00 +0000

Interactive session with Com T K Rangarajan MP (Inset) Nurullah presenting memento to TKR

The ezine PreSense (Published by Prime Point Foundation) and Sansad Ratna Awards Committee organised an interactive session with Rajya Sabha CPIM MP T K Rangarajan on Saturday the 22nd October 2016 at HSS Library, IIT Madras. It was a closed session with select invitees who aspire to join or grow in politics.

T K Rangarajan is one of the well respected political leaders in India for his balanced and intellectual views. Though he is a communist leader, he has more admirers in all the parties, including BJP, irrespective of political ideologies.

T K Rangarajan advised the youth to join politics only after understanding the problems of the country and the society. He quoted the example of Mahatma Gandhi, who went round the country as suggested by Gopalakrishna Gokhale to understand the problems of the nation, before his joining politics.

He also traced the history of politics. He defined the politics as the 'concentrated economy'. He said that in the world all the wars have happened with focus on 'properties'. He also quoted from Ramayana and Mahabarata, as to how the desire to acquire property had led to dispute and war.

He also explained as to how the economy changed in the past centuries. Last century changed the 'barter trade' to 'merchant trade'.

He raised a thought provoking question to the audience. Thousands of years ago, India had great scholars like Aryabatta, Bhaskara. Also India gave 'zero' to the world and we had great mathematicians. In spite of the ancient wisdom, India did not attempt industrial revolution. But it happened only in London. He explained as to how the religion prevented industrial revolution even in England and how it was overcome. He concluded that any religion cannot stop the growth of science and technology.

To a question who was his Guru, he said that as an industrial worker, he learnt many things from workers. His leaders guided him in politics.

To another question on the linguistic partition of India, T K Rangarajan said that before Independence, Madras Province consisted of Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Kerala and Karnataka with Madras as Head Quarters. Though the four states were under Madras Province, the Congress Party had the Presidents based on the language only. Hence, he said that though officially the states were under single province, practically, they had linguistic division, even prior to independence.

Some of the elected representatives of Students Legislative Council (SLC) of IIT Madras including Venkat (Speaker of SLC), Dr Sudarshan Padmanabhan were also present and interacted with T K Rangarajan. Nurullah, Vice President of Sansad Ratna Awards Committee presented a memento to T K Rangarajan.

In appreciation of the discussion, the participants honoured T K Rangarajan with standing ovation.

Prime Point Srinivasan advises students to use social media with high responsibility and not get addicted

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 22 Oct 2016 17:51:00 +0000

Section of the NSS Students listening to Prime Point Srinivasan (Inset)

Prime Point Srinivasan addressed nearly 100 National Service Scheme (NSS) students of Anna University on Saturday the 22nd October 2016.

While addressing the students, Srinivasan, insisted the students to use the social media with high level of responsibility and not to get addicted to social media. He advised the students to understand the difference between the real world and virtual world.

He said that there were three eras that influenced the mankind in the world, particularly youngsters.

1. Before the introduction of internet commercially i.e. before 15th August 1995.
2. After the introduction of internet, but before the emergence of social media like Twitter and Facebook i.e. between 1995 and 2004.
3. After the emergence of social media i.e. after 2004 till date.

Srinivasan said that before the concept of internet, the people had enough time to interact personally with each other and to spend enough time on various productive activities. He considered the second era as a 'Golden era', during which time, the blogs and other internet tools emerged. These tools were very helpful to improving the writing and thinking skills of people.

He expressed concern that after the emergence of twitter and facebook, youngsters spent lot of time in the social media in an unproductive manner. He also felt that the writing skills of the youngsters got damaged due to the shortened terms.

Srinivasan cautioned all the youngsters, particularly, ladies not to share the private information in the social media and also not to share their passwords with others, however close they might be. He quoted examples of how the ladies were victimised because of the social media.

Finally, he appealed to all youngsters to use social media like 'shoes' which are left outside the house and use them when necessary. He appealed to them to enjoy the real world by interacting with all friends, instead of spending time in the social media.

The programme was organised by Anna University and National Council of Rural Institutes. Dr Arutselvan, Associate Professor of Media Science Department coordinated the event.

Please see the photographs:

Bish Mukherjee, an Indian communication professional makes every Indian counterpart proud

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 16:34:00 +0000

Recently, Bish Mukherjee, an Indian Communication professional became the first Indian to be recognized with the highest honour that any communication professional can get in the world. He has become one of the less than 100 IABC Fellows in the world today.

The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) is a global network of communication professionals committed to improving organizational effectiveness through strategic communication. Established in 1970, IABC serves members in more than 70 countries for networking, career development and personal growth.

In an exclusive interview with Sukruti Vadula, Editorial Team member of PreSense, Bish Mukherjee shared his journey from a RBI official to communication professional. Excerpts.

What made you enter the field of PR ? How did this start ?

It was accidental. I was working in Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in Exchange Control when I was hand-picked by the Editor of Without Reserve, the house magazine of RBI, to help editorially him out with the publication. This was in addition to my regular duties as Exchange Control Officer (ECO), which in itself was a very heavy desk, as I was in-charge of issuing RBI permits for foreign travel. In those days you could not get foreign currency for travel overseas without RBI permits.

In my role of ECO, I used to meet numerous VIP-s (or their senior representatives) and iconic people from different industries. I met cricketers, musicians, dancers, shipping magnates, travel agents, airline companies, eminent doctors, sportsmen and women and industrialists. I tried to take a realistic view of the applicants' requests for foreign exchange requirements and tried to help out in a genuine way. Word went around inside the bank that I was very people friendly and that I had PR skills.

Soon I was made one of three RBI's nominees for the Association of Business Communicators of India (ABCI). That paved the way for me to later become the Secretary and then the President of ABCI.

I got transferred to RBI's Without Reserve Cell and started work for RBI as their PR representative. In those days RBI had a Press Relations Officer but no PR Officer. My efforts at Without Reserve started yielding results as the journal got several awards in the coming years.

In later years, my work in PR and editing work in RBI was recognised by the RBI Governor in the presence of the top brass of the organisation when I was given a plaque and certificate during the bank's platinum jubilee celebrations. I had left the bank many years ago but they traced me and offered me return airfares and hotel accommodation to come over to Mumbai and accept the award and also be part of the gala dinner etc. It was so touching and memorable.

How did it feel to be the First Indian to receive the IABC Fellows award in the USA ?

In 1987 when I received the Accredited Business Communicator's (ABC) recognition from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) in the USA, I was the first Indian to become accredited. There are 800 ABCs in the world today. I was in Colgate-Palmolive as the head of PR, Sponsorships and Publications at the time, and there was a big party at the US Club in Mumbai to celebrate it with the President of Colgate-Palmolive opening the champagne bottle in my honour. It was an unreal experience.

Now, after so many years, I have been recognised with the highest honour in the world that the communications profession can bestow to a professional. It is an industry award bestowed by the IABC for the recipient's sagacity, experience, reach and overall contribution to the communications profession globally. There are less than 100 IABC Fellows in the world today. Once again, I am the first recipient of this top award in India. It is a very proud moment for me and for the communications profession. I am deeply humbled.

Who is your role model and mentor ?

I have never believed in soothsayers and parrot-readers for my success in life. I have believed in continuous upgrading of knowledge, skills and tactics, in unbeatable strategies, in hard work, sheer perseverence and staying focussed and calm despite provocations. I have learnt immensely from industry leaders, from my colleagues and subordinates, and from my peers and bosses. I started emulating successful leaders from my school and college days which lead me to earning the St Xaviers School Gold Medal for Elocution and the College Blue. I believe in standing up for honour and truth and never compromise on ethics.

What is the road map for the freshers to soar in the field of PR ?

Be honest. Be unambiguously truthful and never compromise with ethics. Freshers must learn to do jobs with dedication and commitment. They need to take on each job in an organised way, that is, to be sure as to what they are doing and to do it in the best possible way and then to measure the outcomes and communicate to the bosses. If you have done good or great work but are not able to measure the impact of that work to the company' bottomline and then to communicate effectively to management, then that job may not be counted by them for your career growth in the organisation. That really is the secret mantra for freshers.

You being an Accredited Business Communicator(ABC), where do you see the standard of Indian Business Communication in comparison to the global market ?

PR standards in India have evolved over the past couple of decades, thanks mostly to the plethora of multi-national companies entering the Indian markets. They have brought with them the best practices and guidelines that are of uncompromising standards. They have trained the staff in their Indian sites as per their requirements, they have brought in an era of Planning and Measurement in business communications that is so vital for an orgnisation's success.

In the process, Indian companies are recognising the importance of communicating effectively as evinced from the various workshops they are running to upskill their staff. Mr Srinivasan of PreSense has conducted a few such workshops for Indian Bank, IOB and others. PR is an important function even in Government today as evinced from the Advisory role being played by Mr MB Jayaram in a major PSU today after he retired from the company he was working for. The impact is evident even in the education sector. Institutes and Colleges are competing with each other to get the best PR people as guest speakers at their campuses. It is all good for the Indian business communication scene.

How will you define PR in your experience.

There are many ways you can understand PR but there is only one way you can know PR - that is through experience and experience alone.

Is PR just a "Call for Attention" mantra or much beyond. People generally think PR as media and publicity. What is your say.

PR is really an all-inclusive, all-pervading concept. If you split the two words you will find the meaning yourself. Anything related to public (corporate public) is PR and anything that enhances the effective relationship of the organisation or the individual with that corporate public is PR. And if the word public includes media, publicity, events, publishing etc so be it.

What is the Scope of PR in India and in the global market ?

Scope of PR in India is massive. Association bodies that are espousing the cause of PR in India are doing monumental work and there is no denying it. The untiring professional efforts by the Public Relations Council of India (PRCI), ABCI, PRSI, PRCAI and other bodies must be commended in this respect.

When the Union Carbide crisis unfolded in Bhopal, the company realised how important it was to have had a good PR outfit in India. They didn't have that advantage then. The World Vice-President for Communications at Union Carbide Mr Bob Berzok flew down the very next day from Connecticut and had a meeting with me in Mumbai. He asked for help. He asked me to join the company and immediately swing into action in crisis communications mode. I had to decline his gracious offer as I had just joined Colgate-Palmolive after very respectfully turning down job offers from Phillips, Hoechst and UTI. Bob asked me for 3 names which I readily provided. Bob recruited Mr Kishore Hattangadi who did a fantastic job at Union Carbide. Rest is history. Such situations are waiting to happen in many companies which do not believe in corporate PR. The sooner that gap is filled up the better it will be for our industry.

We have a little catching up to do in India so far as global standards are concerned. The very fact that Indian companies send in so many entries to world competitions in communications but win very few awards is a pointer in that direction. Judging entries from all over the world at the Gold Quill Awards at Shanghai, I noticed that apart from US, Canada, UK and Europe, even China and the Philippines were winning heaps of awards in various categories but the Indian entries suffered from lack of slick presentation skills and adequate responses to the measurement criteria. We need to work hard on these two aspects to find a bigger place in the global scenario. Tatas, perhaps, is the only exception which keeps winning awards in communications year after year in various categories.

What are your top three marketing and PR tips for the PR Professionals.

1. Know and understand your organisation, its products and services thoroughly

2. Plan, strategise and evaluate your work on a daily basis; relate everything that you do to the organisation's bottomline and its stakeholders

3. Be honest and ethical in whatever you do; be a leader but with utmost humility

Seminar on National Education Policy 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 04 Sep 2016 10:23:00 +0000

Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) of Government of India has published in their site the draft copy of National Educational Policy 2016 prepared by them. They have requested all the stakeholders to debate and submit their recommendations and suggestins to MHRD.

The eMagazine PreSense (published by Prime Point Foundation) and Sansad Ratna Awards Committee organised a seminar at Dr MGR Janaki College of Arts and Science for Women, Chennai on Saturday the 3rd Sep 2016. Susan Koshy, Editor of PreSense welcomed the audience and explained the purpose of the seminar. Sivakeerthi, education consultant coordinated the programme.

The programme had two panel discussions. The first one on 'School Education' and the second one was on 'Higher Education, Research and Governance'. R Nurullah, senior journalist moderated the panelists.

P Ravi (Regional Director of National Institute of Open Schooling), Dr Jahitha Begum (HOD, Department of Education, Gandhigram Rural University) and Lakshmi Radhakrishnan (Former Chairperson of Madras Dyslexia Association) were the panelists for 'School Education'.

In the second panel, Dr A Kalanidhi (Former Vice Chancellor of Anna University), Dr Sudarsan Padmanabhan (Associate Professor of IIT Madras), Dr R Jagannathan (Former Vice Chancellor of Middle East University, UAE) and Harish Metha (Secretary, SS Jain Education Society) shared their views on higher education.

The participants also shared their suggestions for incorporation in the recommendations. A Sub Committee headed by Ramesh Sethuraman is preparing the recommendations for submission to MHRD.

Bhawanesh Deora, Secretary of Sansad Ratna Awards Committee proposed vote of thanks.

Seminar on National Education Policy 2016 (NEP2016) at Chennai

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:27:00 +0000

&
Sansad Ratna Awards Committee

Cordially invite you to a Seminar on

‘National Education Policy 2016’

Dr MGR Janaki College of Arts & Science for Women,

Chennai 600028

(Formerly known as Sathya Studios – Near Adyar bridge)

Saturday, 3^rd September 2016 at 10 am

10.00 am to 11.30 am - Panel discussion I – School Education

· Dr Santhosh Babu IAS (CMD, Tamil Nadu Handicrafts Development Corporation Ltd - He brought back to School more than 12000 'out of school children' in Krishnagiri district as District Collector - Appreciated by Dr Abdul Kalam).

· Dr Jahitha Begum (Head of the Department of Education, Gandhigram Rural University - She has done extensive research on education)

· Mrs. R. Malathy (Senior Consultant, TN State SSA – 40 years of experience in Corporation Schools at Chennai- Retired as Supervisor of Schools in Zone 5 – National Award winner 1998)

· Mrs Lakshmi Radhakrishnan (35 years of experience, of which 25 years in mainstreaming special children - Former Chairperson of Madras Dyslexia Association)

11.45 am to 1.15 pm - Panel Discussion II - Higher Education, Research and Governance

· Dr A Kalanidhi (Former Vice Chancellor, Anna University)

· Dr R Jagannathan (Former Vice Chancellor of Middle East University, UAE - Visiting professor for International Universities)

· Dr Sudarshan Padmanathan (Associate Professor, Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras - IITM)

· Shri Harish Metha (Secretary, SS Jain Educational Society)

Moderator : Shri R Nurullah, Senior Journalist

No Registration fee – Tea / Lunch will be provided – Registration needed

RSVP: only SMS or WhatsApp - with name, email id & profession

Mr Sivakeerthi, Programme Co-ordinator - 9043211200

Dr Bhawanesh Deora, Secretary, Sansad Ratna Award Committee – 9385363537

Ms Susan Koshy, Editor, PreSense – email editor@corpezine.com

Leadership Communication by Prime Point Srinivasan at Vinobha IAS Academy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:39:00 +0000

Vinobha Bhoopathy, an enterprising advocate launched Vinobha IAS Academy at Velacherry, Chennai on 29th August 2016 to prepare IAS aspirants to face the examination and interview. Dr Anbumani Ramadass MP inaugurated the IAS Academy and spoke about the role of bureaucracy in the democracy. As a former Union Cabinet Minister, he quote several examples of how bureaucracy has saved the system by providing proper guidance to the Government. He also quoted the example of Smt Amudha IAS, who did an excellent work at Dharmapuri District. He suggested all IAS aspirants to prepare well for the competitive examination and be successful. He suggested them to keep the interest of the nation uppermost.

Prime Point Srinivasan spoke on Leadership Communication. He was quoting the examples of how a leader emerges in a situation. He suggested that a leader should be a visionary and also a good communicator. He explained as to how body language, eye contact, listening and verbal communication skills make a good leader.

He quoted the example of a young political leader, when introduced to him was casually shaking hands exhibiting an arrogance. Such gesture and body language may not give a good impression to others, he added.

E Ramesh (Formerly in civil service) and Nivas IAS shared their experience.

Prime Point Foundation honoured with Narada Award for Digital Journalism

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 17:01:00 +0000

Vishwa Samvat Kendra is honouring journalists across the nation for positive journalism for more than two decades with 'Narada Awards'. For the first time they selected five journalists of Chennai from (1) magazine (2) Newspaper (3) Radio (4) Television and (5) Digital categories.

K. Srinivasan, Founder, Prime Point Foundation was honoured with Naradha Award under Digital journalism category for positive journalism. Smt Lokeswari (Editor of குமுதம் சிநேகிதி), Shri Sudarsan (All India Radio) and Shri Nijanthan (TV producer) were also honoured on 7th August 2016. Prime Point Foundation maintains various online discussion groups since 1999 on different subjects like India Vision, Communication, Journalism, etc. Also the Foundation publishes a 'digital only' eMagazine PreSense since March 2006 spreading positive journalism.

Though Srinivasan received the Award personally, he dedicated this recognition to his Mentor Dr Abdul kalam who inspired and encouraged him towards positive journalism. Also the dedicated ezine PreSense team and Sansad Ratna team have made this possible. The ezine's tagline itself is 'spreading positive vibrations'.

In the acceptance speech, Srinivasan made out the following points.

Naradha (நாரதர்), the sage in the ancient epics was a great communicator. He was a carrier of communication between the people. Unfortunately, he is being portrayed wrongly as a person creating conflict. Hence this award is named after Sage Naradha.

Srinivasan said that he used to quote in his lecture sessions on communication and journalism as to how Lord Krishna and Hanuman were the greatest communicators. As a communication professional himself, he used to wonder about the communication strategies adopted by Lord Krishna on several occassions. In Ramayana Lord Ram after meeting Hanuman for the first time, introduces Hanuman to Lakshmana as a great communicator. Through two slokas, Lord Ram describes the essentials of good communication quoting Hanuman. This is relevant even today.

From next year, Vishwa Samvat Kendra will be honouring the journalists for positive journalism under different categories in other centres of Tamil Nadu also.

Please listen to my acceptance speech in Tamil (9 minutes)

https://youtu.be/PJgQ7T96ZyI

"Role of Parliamentarians"- Talk by Prime Point Srinivasan

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:41:00 +0000

Dr Sridharan (Fomrer Parliamentarian), Prime Point Srinivasan and G Narayanaswamy (President, Rajaji Centre)

Rajaji Centre for Public Affairs organised a talk by Prime Point Srinivasan on "Role of Parliamentarians" on Sunday the 17th July 2016. Many eminent persons like Shri B S Raghavan (Former IAS Officier and who served with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru), Shri G Narayanaswamy (famous Chartered Accountant and President of Rajaji Centre) and Dr Sridharan (Former Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Member) were also present.

Prime Point Srinivasan explained the functioning of the Parliament and the constitutional responsibilities of both the Houses. He also compared how Parliamentarians can participate in the proceedigns of the House under various opportunities. He also compared the performance of 15th Lok Sabha and the present Lok Sabha under different parameters.

The power point presentation is embedded here for the benefit of public.

The photos taken during the occassion are:

Internet and Social Media for education purposes - Presentation by Prime Point Srinivasan

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 12:50:00 +0000

Participants from Bangladesh at NITTTR, Chennai

National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research, Chennai (Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India) has organised a four week programme to the engineering faculty members and civil service officials of Bangladesh Government.

Prime Point Srinivasan addressed the participants on how to leverage internet and social media for education purposes. He shared as to how Wikipedia, Blogs and Podcasts can be of great use for education purposes. He also suggested them to start their own blogs and share their thoughts.

NITTTR had provided laptop and internet connectivity to all the participants. Dr. Brazendranath Sarkar, one of the participants created a blog on the spot for himself. Some of them expressed their eagerness to create podcasts.

The programmed is organised with the help of External Affairs Ministry. The participants expressed their happiness about the stay at Chennai and the friendly attitude of people here.

Dr Malliga is coordinating this programme. NITTTR is a specialised Institution under HRD Ministry to train the Technical Teachers across the nation. They also train the professionals from foreign countries.

The presentation

Internet and Social Meida - presentation by Prime Point Srinivasan at NITTTR on 2nd June 2016 from Prime Point Foundation, Chennai

"Shed I know it all attitude"- Prime Point Srinivasan

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 17:48:00 +0000

While inaugurating the ICTCON'16 (Information, Communication and Technology Conference 2016) at Saveetha Engineering College, Chennai, Prime Point Srinivasan advised the students to go for innovation, to make India strong at global level.

"Though Indians have very great capability and knowledge of global standards, India has not brought out any global product like Microsoft or Adobe. Many Indians are working behind these products. At global level, India is at 81st position in the Innovation index. Hence, Indian students should innovate more and patent their products. The main problem with Indian youth is the lack of self confidence. They should realise their potential and work hard to achieve greater heights. They should not give up with initial failures", he said.

He pointed out that another main hurdle was the 'I know it all attitude' amongst the corporates and many entrepreneurs. Because of this attitude, he said, that many organisations were not able to compete at global level. In the days of specialisation, the companies or organisations should approach the experts in the domain for guidance and support, instead of assuming that they have a better capability than the experts. He also quoted the example of Dharmaputra playing dice alone with Sakuni, when Duryodhana invited him to play dice. Dharmaputra, instead of playing himself, should have invited Krishna to play against Sakuni. The attitude of Dharmaputra that he could manage Sakuni alone, without seeking the expert advice of Krishna, had led to lot of crisis, Srinivasan added.

During this Conference, 51 papers were selected for presentation. The best paper award was received by Vimal Jenifer SJ and Naveen Kumar, University College of Engineering, Tindivanam. They had presented a paper on "Clinical decision support system for classifying chronic kidney disease using data mining technologies".

This National Conference was organised by the Department of IT of the College under the guidance of Dr Ganesh (Principal) and Mr Vijayaraj (HOD). The entire faculty team enthusiastically participated.

Some of the photos

Branding challenges for start up companies - Discussion at Chennai

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 26 Mar 2016 18:17:00 +0000

Salin Amanda Louis speaks - Prime Point Srinivasan looks on

Green India, a Chennai based NGO founded by Prasanna Venkatesan (Chartered Accountant) and V Ravi organised a Seminar at Chennai on the theme of 'Make in India - Start up Companies' on 26th March 2016. Many experts from Technology, Finance, Investment, Audit, Tax Laws shared their views.

Prime Point Srinivasan spoke on 'Branding Challenges for Start up companies'. During his talk, he was critical about the existing and new companies who never gave importance to the branding and communication strategies. He expressed that the amount of importance given to technology, law, finance, etc was not given to communication. "The companies should package their performance, so that their marketability goes up. The mantra should be 90% performance and 10% packaging through communication techniques, i.e. branding", he said.

Prime Point Srinivasan also said that many of the Indian companies were suffering from 'I know it all syndrome'. The CEOs never approached the right professionals for communication and hence, they were unable to plan proper strategies.

Prime Point Srinivasan was assisted by Salin Amanda Louis, Co-Founder of Persona, a branding and leadership strategy firm.

"What one needs to understand is that Branding is strategic and marketing is tactical. Many Indian companies focus a lot on the product but fail to brand and communicate the product with the right message to the right audience using the right tools at the right time." Salin Amanda said. She elaborated the importance of right message, right audience, right tool and right time with her own experience. She quoted the example of a company, who did not care for the advice of the consultant, later lost heavy market to their competitor who implemented the right strategy in right time. She was repeatedly insisting on the 'right time' to implement communication strategies.

She also added that Branding was often mistaken for advertising which was not the case. Branding was the theme/concept while advertising was just a tool to convey the concept.

She concluded by saying that in the current changing environment, only 'specialists' could make an impact than the 'Generalists'.

Picture courtesy : Sridhar

Soka Ikeda College organises Business Communication workshop for PG students

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 16:43:00 +0000

Soka Ikeda College of Arts and Science for women, Chennai organised two-days workshop on 'Business Communication' to benefit the first year Post Graduate students. Around 45 first year PG students of Commerce, HR and Social work departments participated in the workshop. Prime Point Srinivasan was the workshop leader. Smt. Sujatha, HOD of Commerce Department coordinated the workshop effectively.

The participants were exposed to the fundamentals of communication, non verbal communication, writing skills and presentation skills. Ten students made presentations on the given topic and they were reviewed.

This College is part of Sethu Bhaskara Group of educational Institutions. This group has 12 colleges with 14,000 students. Dr Sethu Kumanan, Chairman of the group gives lot of support to the poor students in all the institutions.

Interestingly, Dr Sethu Kumanan himself attended few sessions, symbolically showing the importance of communication sessions. Dr R Jagannathan, President of the Managing Committee also participated in most of the sessions.

The workshop was inaugurated by Shri V Kamaraja IPS (Retd), Former Addl. DGP of Haryana. Valedictory address was given by Dr Sornam, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Madras University. Dr Sornam distributed the Certificates.

At the beginning of the workshop on the first day, two students Subashree and Saranya expressed their difficulties in making presentation due to fear and lack of organising ability. During the course of workshop, they were given lot of opportunities to make good presentation. Interestingly, these two girls proposed vote of thanks during the valedictory session and shared their experience fluently with audience.

All the participants realised that they had lot of potentiality in them, which needed to be brought out with full of self confidence.

Please watch some of the photographs

Business Communication workshop at Sethu Bhaskara Agricultural College

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 16:32:00 +0000

Prime Point Srinivasan (extreme left) and Dr R Jagannathan (extreme right) helping a student to make a good presentation

Sethu Bhaskara Agricultural College and Research Foundation, Kalam Kair village (Near Karaikudi) organised a Two Days workshop on 'Business Communication'. This being the first year of operation for the College, the Management decided to impart the importance of 'Business Communication' in the first year itself for the students, so that they can improve their employability skills before they complete their graduation.

Keeping this concept in mind, a two day module was framed to improve the communication skills of the first year students. The workshop was held on 6th and 7th Feb 2016 at the College premises itself. Around 60 students participated. Though most of the students came from rural background with Tamil Medium education, they showed keen interest in developing their communication skills. Though they had fear and hesitation at the initial stage, they enthusiastically participated in discussions and in presentations.

Prime Point Srinivasan conducted the two day crash course. Dr R Jagannathan, (Former Vice Chancellor of Middle East University and American Medical University, West Indies), one of the Management Committee Members actively took part on both the days.

Dr Thirupathy of Apollo Hospitals, Karaikudi gave valedictory address and presented the certificates. Some of the students, who were hesitating to speak due to stage fear, boldly came forward to showcase their presentation skills during valedictory event.

Though the workshop was held on holidays like Saturday and Sunday, involvement and enthusiasm shown by the students, teaching and non teaching staff, including the hostel employees and the drivers were highly praise worthy.

Some of the photos taken during the event.

New Trust formed to support in 'Hearing Health care''and 'Learning disability' at Puducherry

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 08:47:00 +0000

Prof. N D Rajan, a senior and well known Audiologist and some of his professional colleagues have launched a new Trust 'Bharat Educational & Social Charitable Trust (BEST)' on 24th Jan 2016 at Puducherry.

For the first time in India, this Trust will honour the Audiologist professionals across the nation for their best research papers and innovations in the field.

This Trust will also address the issues relating to 'Learning disability'among the school children. Studies reveal that nearly 10% of the school going children in India are affected because of 'Learning disability'. It is a hidden disability and these children can perform better in many other areas, if they are properly guided by the parents and teachers.

Dr N K Majumdar, a well known ENT surgeon of Puchucherry and Dr. R Jagannathan, Former Vice Chancellor of American Medical University, St. Locia, West Indies inaugurated the Trust. Prime Point Srinivasan released the brochure and delivered a speech on 'Safe use of internet'.

Prof. N D Rajan can be reached at rajannd@yahoo.com

Their website is www.hearingfoundation.in

You can listen to the speech of Prime Point Srinivasan in Tamil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhCIpGkrMYs

Please also see some of the photographs.

Former Police Officers of 1976 batch organise seminar on 'Community Policing' at Chennai

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Jan 2016 17:44:00 +0000

Prime Point Srinivasan speaking on 'Community Policing' . C Sridhar IPS (third from left), Additional Commissioner of Police, Chennai looking on

Former Police Officers of 1976 batch (FoPs1976), an active body of the retired Police Officers at Chennai organised a seminar on 'Community Policing' on Sunday the 10th Jan 2016 at Dr MGR Janaki College, Chennai. Shri C Sridhar IPS, Additional Commissioner of Police, Chennai was the Chief Guest. Prime Point Srinivasan was the main speaker.

While addressing the audience, Prime Point Srinivasan explained about the online survey conducted by him two days earlier in order to understand the views of general public. He mentioned that he got 72 quality responses from different age group and gender through net. He also mentioned that the average trust shown by the general public on the Police was 45, which was neither too low or high. That means, the general public (online) had a reasonably a good trust on the Police system. However, he mentioned that there was a large gap between the Police and the general public.

While the respondents appreciated the good work and commitment shown by the Police force during the recent rains and floods, Srinivasan added that public crticised the Police for corruption, bad behaviour, arrogance, treatment to the public inside the station, etc. Srinivasan also added that respondents perceived that the Police had nexus with politicians and criminals.

Giving out the reasons for such perception, Srinivasan, explained that due to the large gap between the Police and the Public, good works done by the Police did not get reflected in the perception and only the bad things are highlighted. Further he felt that many of the field level Policemen were handling only the criminals during the most part of their time, unlike other professionals, these Policemen get into the same mood always and they show bad behaviour on the genuine citizens. He requested the Police Authorities at top level to continue to give training to the filed level Policemen.

Further Srinivasan said that due to the large gap in the relationship between the Police and the Public, citizens did not come forward in large numbers to help the Police. He suggested continuous interaction between the authorities at the regional level and the citizens of that area. He also suggested the model of 'Neighbourhood Watch Associations', as practised in Australia and other European countries.

He quoted the example of the work done by Police few years ago with the support of Rotary Club and Action 2020 Team, in which Srinivasan was also involved. He added that the project could not be taken further, as the Officials were transferred and none showed interest thereafter. He insisted on the sustainability of any project, involving the citizens.

Shri C Sridhar IPS, Additional Commissioner said that people joined the Police force only from the society. The natural degradation of values in the society also reflected on the people who joined the Police force. He agreed that regular training to field level police men and interaction with the citizens have to be planned to improve the system. He praised the involvement of the members of FoPs1976 to improve the system and to serve the society, even after their retirement.

Shri Ashok Kumar, Former Superintendent of Police and President of FoPs1976 welcomed the gathering. Shri Balu, Former Addl. Supdt. of Police and Secretary introduced the 4th edition of their monthly magazine 'Kakkiyin Pakkam'. Every month, through this magazine, they share the investigation experiences of their members for the benefit of their juniors. Shri Rajan, Vice President anchored the event.

Rural based Sembodai RV Engineering College starts a Business Communication Club, after a four day workshop

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 13:16:00 +0000

Inauguration of Four days business communication course at
Sembodai RV Engineering College

Sembodai RV Engineering College (Nagapattinam Dt) organised four days workshop on 'Business Communication'. Prime Point Srinivasan conducted the workshop (16th to 19th July 2015) with the support of Dr Jagannathan Ramasawmy (Former Vice Chancellor of Middle East Univeristy). Shri Ponraj Vellaichamy (Scientific Advisor to Dr Abdul Kalam) inaugurated the workshop over phone from Delhi and he stressed the need for improvment of communication skills. Susan Koshy (Former General Manager of IDBI and Communication expert) and Narayanan Sundararajan (Senior official in an IT firm) shared their views from Chennai over phone and interacted with students on the strategies for improvement of communicaiton skills.

The Chairman and Founder of Sembodai RV Engg College Shri Varadharajan was personally present during many of the sessions on all four days. The faulty members took lot of initiative to provide support services.

During the validictory function, the Chairman of the College Shri Varadarajan launched a google group for the participants to discuss among themselves various tips and strategies to improve communication skills. This initiative will help around 60 students (participants) to improve their skills.

Nearly 100% of the students studying in this college are from rural areas and from poor and lower middle class families. Even for Management quota students, the college charges only the lower fees. For Scheduled caste and Scheduled Tribe students, they provide free transport service during the entire study period of 4 years.

The course was designed and conducted by Prime Point Srinivasan. Dr R Jagannathan (Former Vice Chancellor of Middle East University, UAE) supported the course.

Dharmapuri MP Dr Anbumani shows the way - Organises Education Loan Awareness programme for bankers and students

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 16:47:00 +0000

Dr Anbumani Ramadoss MP (third from left), Prime Point Srinivasan (fourth from left)

Dr Anbumani Ramadoss (Former Union Health Minister and sitting MP of Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu) organised an unique event on 1st June 2015 at Dharmapuri to create awareness about education loan among the students and parents. He had also invited all the local Bank Managers.

Probably this is the first time, a sitting MP is organising such awareness programme anywhere in India for the benefit of people in his constituency. They made a wide publicity through media, banners and pamphlets. More than 300 students and parents participated in this event.

Prime Point Srinivasan, Convenor of Education Loan Task Force (ELTF) was the Chief Guest and he delivered a talk on various aspects of Education Loan guidelines. This event helped to ease the tension between the bankers and the public and to understand each others difficulties.

Two important things observed was that though Reserve Bank of India and Indian Bank Head Office specifically advised all the banks not to follow 'service area concept' for education loans, Lead District Manager of Indian Bank openly admitted in the meeting that they were following service area concept for their convenience. However, ELTF has taken up the issue with Indian Bank Head Office.

Secondly, the local State Bank of India has not been granting any education loans presently citing bad debts. This matter is also being taken up by ELTF with State Bank of India Chairman.

While addressing the gathering, Srinivasan explained the application procedures, eligibility of interest subsidy, grievance redressal mechanism, etc.

While summing up the views, Dr Anbumani MP said that this programme was more a sensitization programme for both bankers and the students. He also assuired to take up with Finance Minister the mess up of interest subsidy matter.

This event was an unique event which can be emulated by other MPs and MLAs in their constituencies. Another important matter which needs 'three cheers' is the total neutrality of the programme. Though Dr Anbumani is the leader of a big political party, his team ensured that no political colour was given to the event.

Some of the photos:

Cyber Society of India bats for Net Neutrality and review of 66A judgement

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 15:53:00 +0000

(L to R - Kapaleeswaran, Dr P Vanagamudi, G R Swaminathan and V Rajendran)

Cyber Society of India (CySI) organised a Seminar at Dr MGR Janaki College, Chennai on Saturday the 25th April 2015 on the recent trends in Cyber Laws. Dr P Vanagamudi, Vice Chancellor, Dr Ambedkar Law University, Tamil Nadu inaugurated the Seminar. G R Swaminathan, Asst. Solicitar General, Madras High Court (Madurai Bench) delivered Key note address. Many Senior Lawyers, consumer representatives also shared their views.

The Seminar focussed generally on the recent Supreme Court Judgement on 66A of IT Act and the much debated 'Net neutrality'. Dr Vanagamudi was in support of the Judgement. Other speakers Shri G R Swaminathan, Shivakumar (Advocate, Bangalore High court), Sujatha (Consumer activisit) and V Balu (Adocate, Madras High Court) felt that the Supreme Court Judgement was erroneous. They uniformly felt that this judgement may pose risks to women They wanted the Government to file a review petition before the Supreme Court.

Dr B Muthukumaran, Technical expert explained the various aspects of Net Neutrality and emphasised that there should not be discrimination while providing internet connectivity to the consumers. Even Sujatha also felt that there should be net neutrality and it should not be changed.

The powerpoint presentation made by Dr B Muthukumaran on Net Neutrality.

Photos taken during that occassion.

Retired Police Officers publish ezine to share their investigation experiences

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 12:53:00 +0000

(Mr Anoop Jaiswal IPS, Director General of Police (third from right)

releasing the print edition of the ezine 'Kakkiyin Pakkam')

The retired Police Officers of 1976 (Direct Sub Inspectors) batch in Tamil Nadu have formed an association by name 'Former Police Officers 1976 Chennai (FoPs76Chennai) recently. All the professionals from various organistions, when they retired, they form an association only to keep their contact in tact. These retired Police Officers decided to document their investigation experiences and case studies for the benefit of their juniors and publish every quarter an ezine (emagazine). They also named this ezine as 'Kakkiyin Pakkam' (Pages of Police). They will be sharing this ezine through email with all the Police Officers and Police Stations in Tamil Nadu. In order to make this ezine more meaningful, they have decided to publish in local language Tamil, so that even the constables can avail the advantange.

The print edition of this ezine was launched by Mr Anoop Jaiswal IPS, Director General of Police, USRB, Tamil Nadu in the presence of a galaxy of present and past police officers. While appreciating the efforts of the retired Police Officers, he also appealed to them to write freely all their experiences, so that the juniors could get the benefit of their wisdom. Shri Rajendran, Addl DGP and Dr Vanagamudi, Vice Chancellor of Ambekar Law University also felicitated the new initiative.

Prime Point Srinivasan provided the technical support to their Editorial team to bring out this ezine. He was also honoured by the Director General of Police.

The Associations of retired officers from other organisations like Banks, bureaucracy, etc. can also emulate the example of these Police officers, by documenting their experiences for the benefit of their junior colleagues.

Congratulations FoPs76Chennai Team!

The ezine can be downloaded from the link (11 mb in pdf format)

http://goo.gl/8inXxS

Supreme Court Ruling on 66A of IT Act – Freedom of Expression Gained; Protection to Women Lost

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 07:24:00 +0000

In 2011, six young ladies in Coimbatore filed a complaint with the Cyber Cell of the Police Department, alleging that they were receiving menacing calls repeatedly from an unidentified number. Investigations traced the call to a single person making similar calls to various other young ladies repeatedly. Although hundreds of ladies were reportedly victims, only a few came forward to complain to the police. The police arrested the person under Sec 66A of IT Act and got him convicted in 2014 to one year of imprisonment. He is in prison now.

There are hundreds of such complaints under 66A, pending all over India, in many police stations and courts for punishment of cyber stalkers. In all the cases, the victims are young girls. After the recent Supreme Court judgement scrapping Sec 66A from the IT Act, these cyber stalkers will walk free from jail or the pending case, unpunished for their crime. The entire media and even the young ladies celebrated this judgement of “newfound freedom for the society”, not knowing that it protects the cyber stalkers from arrest for harassing their victims, especially women. Unfortunately, without realising the implications, the electronic media, politicians and youth, including women, have been hailing this as landmark verdict and as a great victory in the freedom of expression.

Freedom of Expression in the Indian Constitution

Article 19 (1) (a) of the Indian Constitution provides freedom of speech and expression to all citizens. At the same time, Article 19 (2) empowers the State to make any law to impose reasonable restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression, in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence. This article provides sufficient powers to the Government to enact any law to reasonably restrict the freedom.

Referring to this Article in one of the cases, Justice Patanjali of Supreme Court observed on 19th May 1950 that “man as a rational being desires to do many things, but in a civil society, his desires will have to be controlled with the exercise of similar desires by other individuals”

Background of Section 66A

Dr Manmohan Singh, the then Prime Minister agreed to review the Information Technology Act 2000, after the arrest of the CEO of baazee.com in 2005. In 2008, some clauses of IT Act 2000 were amended to improve its clarity. Section 66A was taken verbatim from Sec 127 of Malicious Communication Act 2003 of United Kingdom. The original IT Act 2000 and the amendments in 2008 were passed without any discussion in the Parliament. “I consider that it is not correct to say that Section 66A was introduced to protect anybody in Congress/UPA as reported in the media. However once the law was available, a senior minister perhaps thought of using it to take control of the social media at different points of time, leading to the last elections. Let’s give neither credit nor discredit the politicians for Section 66A” says Mr Naavi, a Bangalore based Cyber law expert and the author of the first Indian book on Cyber Law.

Impact of Removing Sec 66A

Some politicians did abuse and misuse Sec 66A for their benefit. The media hyped the issue, attributing the abuse to the prevalence of this section. A large population of the country, who rely on the electronic media for current updates, started believing that this section was 'draconian'. In reality, there are many other clauses in IT Act 2008 and IPC that are draconian and can be misused by the police and the politicians, and the people.

“Why blame only the police and the politicians for misuse of 66A? When the police wrongly arrested a person, they were anyway produced before a Magistrate. If the Magistrate had felt that the police had abused Sec 66A, he could have reprimanded the police officer and taken suitable action. Instead, in all the cases, the courts remanded the accused persons or granted bail. That shows the lack of awareness about the clause 66A even in the judicial system. I know that thousands of innocent girls were protected because of 66A. Unfortunately, none of the media houses had taken a serious note of this, as the clause protected only ordinary, poor citizens and not VIPs. I know myself, that every year nearly 2000 complaints are received in the cyber cell of the police at Chennai and Coimbatore. Other states may also receive a large number of complaints. Nearly 50 to 60% of them relate to 'cyber stalking' of women. Instead of removing 66A from the IT Act, the Supreme Court should have advised the Government to frame rules on the lines of UK, and train the police and judicial system on the interpretation of the clause. This judgment has now closed the only available route for women to complain against cyber stalkers”, says S.N. Ravichandran, a member of the Cyber Society of India at Coimbatore.

Rules Governing Prosecution in UK

When Sec 127 was included in the Malicious Communication Act 2003 in UK, similar arrests occurred in UK. When the matter was taken to the Apex Court, they upheld the clause. In June 2013, the UK Government issued some guidelines on prosecution cases involving messages sent through the social media, and clarified the implication of the Act. The notification can be accessed at

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/communications_sent_via_social_media/

“Some of the words in the various Acts are defined through usage over a period of time and cannot be defined in the Act itself. They all depend on the circumstances under which an action is done and the intention of the person. The main objection in the 66A was the undefined words like 'grossly offensive', 'menacing', etc. In the judgment of UK's Apex Court, the judges have treated them as ordinary words in English language and wanted the meaning to be verified from the dictionary. Similarly, this section 66A was not intended to curtail the freedom of speech or expression. It was intended for the communication between two persons or group of persons through digital devices, and not those meant for the public domain. The Supreme Court verdict was based on the presumption that Section 66A was applicable to the publishing of content in the public domain. This presumption was wrong. Since the premise itself was wrong, the verdict deserves to be overturned. The Government and the women activists should move the Supreme Court for review immediately', adds Naavi.

Cyber Stalkers vs. Women Victims

The entire Indian media seem to be ignorantly misleading the public that women can get protection from cyber stalkers through the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and also though Sec 67 of the IT Act. “If a cyber stalker transmits obscene or sexually explicit material to a woman, then he can be booked under Sec 67 and also under IPC. But, if the same person transmits an annoying message like 'I love you' persistently or calls up a woman and disconnects the phone several times, the woman could have filed a complaint and got protection under 66A. After the recent judgment, she might not get sufficient protection under IT Act and IPC. The only solution available to her might be to change her SIM card and her mobile number. Post the Supreme Court verdict to scrap Sec 66A from the IT Act 2000, thousands of complaints from women victims, pending with the police or the courts in such cyber stalking cases may not get remedy”, says Ravichandran.

This sudden repeal of Sec 66A has increased the threat to innocent women. All the media houses, political parties and women organisations should start a debate on this issue after understanding the real implication of the repeal, to compel the Government to file a review petition before the full bench.

There is an ancient Indian wise saying. “Let us not burn down the house in order to save it from the bugs”. Instead of rejoicing over the ‘freedom of expression’ gained through this verdict, one should ponder over what would happen if their own sisters, mothers became victims of ‘cyber stalkers’. Will they leave it as a freedom of expression given to the ‘cyber stalker’?

By K Srinivasan, Editor in Chief, PreSense

source: www.prpoint.com/ezine/presense0315.pdf

News7 Tamil TV interviews Prime Point Srinivasan on Image Audit and Sansad Ratna Awards

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 05:55:00 +0000

News7 Tamil, a popular Tamil TV channel interviewed Prime Point Srinivasan during their breakfast show on 24th March 2015. During the interview, Srinivasan spoke about India Vision, Action 2020, Image Audit, communication needs for youth and Sansad Ratna Awards for Parliamentarians. Please watch this interview in Tamil (18 minutes).

Is Freedom of Expression Absolute?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 16:07:00 +0000

Case Study 1: Charlie Hebdo

On 7th January 2015, the whole world was shaken by the shocking news of the massacre of 17 journalists and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, as well as some innocent people, by a group of Islamic terrorists in Paris. The reason was that in 2011, the magazine had carried some objectionable cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed. It is reported that the magazine had published similar cartoons of icons of other religions, as well.

More than three million people including 40 world leaders participated in a march across France to protest against the killings. Journalists and cartoonists debated about “freedom of expression”. There were also counter protest marches in several parts of the world against the magazine, Charlie Hebdo for hurting the sentiments of a religious community.

Case Study 2: A Book in South India

Around the same time in South India, another controversy cropped up. Perumal Murugan, a Tamil writer had published a book, ‘Mathorubaagan’ in 2010. In the novel, the author wrote about the childless married women of a particular community in a particular town in the state of Tamil Nadu in South India. He narrated how they used to have clandestine relationships with other men during the temple festival day and bear children thereafter. (Although the author had named the community and the town in his book, the same is withheld in this article.)

When the English translation of the book was released in 2014, the particular community raised protests and demanded the withdrawal of the book from the market. Writers and activists ganged up in defence of the author, claiming ‘freedom of expression’. The entire town showed their solidarity against the author, by pulling down their shutters for a day in January 2015. Although the author was defended in the social media as well as in seminars held in the cities, none of the activists had the courage to defend the author in that particular town.

The Government formed a peace committee to address the crisis. The author later apologised for the contents and admitted that he did not possess any documentary evidence to support his claim. All his books were withdrawn from the market. In spite of these steps to resolve the situation, the topic was debated on various TV channels and other media, in their attempt to defend their freedom of expression.

How Far Does One’s Liberty Extend?

These two incidents have brought the issue of the freedom of expression to the forefront. Can there be an absolute freedom of expression for anyone in the world? There is a saying in English, “Your liberty to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins”.

Does the media, the writers or anyone have the right to absolute freedom of expression because they express their views in public domain? Is there or should there be a restriction?

Double Standards of the Media

Very unfortunately, in India, the media exhibit double standards on such sensitive issues. One of the leading newspapers published ‘I am Charlie’ posters, with a photograph of marchers in Paris protesting against the killing. After printing nearly 50 percent of the newspapers, the editorial board realised that such photos might hurt the sentiments of a section of a community in India. The photograph was withdrawn from the remaining issues of the newspaper. An apology was also published to state “Some copies of XXXX (name of the newspaper withheld) dated January 18, 2015, carried an image of people holding copies of the French magazine, Charlie Hebdo, featuring the cover page with the image, which might have offended a section of our readers. The image was removed mid-way through the print-run. XXXX (name of the paper) regrets and apologises for the inadvertent and accidental use of the image - Editor”.

Four days prior to this incident, the same newspaper had concluded their editorial stating, “The rights under the Constitution are designed to protect the freedom of expression of writers like Perumal Murugan who may seek to question uncomfortable truths from the past. It is a pity that a range of forces conspired to silence him”.

A few years ago, there was a protest in the media against Salman Rushdie, who wrote some portions in his book that hurt religious sentiments. The same media defended M. F. Hussain, the artist who portrayed a Hindu goddess in what many people regarded as distasteful and disrespectful. They justified it as freedom of expression in art.

‘Faith’ is always a ‘Faith’

Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc. are called ‘faiths’. Billions of people worship their respective gods or their founders. Such allegiance and belief is built and followed only on faith and it is often difficult to rationalise them scientifically. Any writing, picture or speech which portrays these faiths in poor light is likely to hurt the religious sentiments of these billions of followers. In this scenario, nobody can claim any absolute liberty that risks hurting the feelings of a large number of people. Protesting and defending such actions selectively is also unfair and not in good taste.

The same can be said of the cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo. The Islamic people have the right to decry such cartoons and take suitable legal actions against these publications. Unfortunately, the killing of the cartoonists by the terrorists has diverted the focus from the issue. Charlie Hebdo received the sympathy and support they did not deserve. They cannot claim the publishing of such provocative cartoons as their freedom of expression.

The Indian Constitution and IPC

Article 19(1) of the Indian Constitution provides freedom of speech and expression to all citizens of India. Article 19(2) imposes reasonable restrictions on the same, on grounds of security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency and morality, contempt of court, defamation, incitement to an offence, and sovereignty and integrity of India.

Sections 153A, 153B, and 295-298 of the Indian Penal Code contain the restrictions on the freedom of expression. It also includes the punishment for violation.

Freedom of Expression and Misuse of this Right

We often forget the fine line between freedom and misuse of a right. While freedom of speech gives a person the right to express his opinion, he should not forget his responsibility to respect religious sentiments. The media too should address these issues objectively and fairly. They should not defend or protest selectively. The freedom of any one person should not infringe upon the rights of the society in the name of creativity.

By K. Srinivasan, Editor-in-Chief, PreSense

www.prpoint.com/ezine/presense0115.pdf

Making of emagazine (ezine) - Important tips

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 11:44:00 +0000

Prime Point Srinivasan addressing NTPC officials

NTPC, India's biggest power company in public sector organised a workshop for their senior officials drawn from Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad on 'E-Magazine'. NTPC produces more than 43000 MW of power (more than one-fourth of India's power requirement). They are publishing internal emagazines for internal circulation. In order to improve the quality and to professionalise the emagzine, they organised a workshop on 29th Jan 2015 at their Chennai office.

Prime Point Srinivasan, Editor in Chief of ezine PreSense was invited to make a presentation on 'Making of ezine'. Mr T N Ashok, Member of the Editorial Team of PreSense and Mr S Balu (Former Addl Supdt. of Police), expert in Cyber law also joined Srinivasan.

Since the internal emagazines are made by technical people, Srinivasan encouraged them by saying that the technical people were used to 'accuracy and precision', they could do better in communication too. He also the quoted the example of Mr Sridharan, a mechanical engineer and Chief PRO of Southern Railway few years ago. Mr Sridharan was awarded by the then Railway Minister for designing the present railway time table.

Srinivasan walked the audience through various aspects of making of emagazine and also gave important tips.

Mr T N Ashok gave suggestions for improving writing skills. Mr S Balu emphasised the need for complying with the cyber laws.

The programme was organised by Mr Elbert, Dy. GM, Corporate Communication of NTPC, Hyderabad. Shri Bhowmick and Shri R M Radhakrishnan, General Managers of NTPC were present during the entire workshop. Ms Usha, Mr Praveen and Mr Narayanan, Senior officials ensured the logistics.

NTPC plans to organise similar workshops on Communication tools at different centres.

The power point presentation used by Srinivasan can be viewed here.

The photographs taken during the occassion.

Encouraging innovators - RAIF way

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 17:27:00 +0000

Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Foundation (RAIF), a Chennai based NGO is silently encouraging the innovators at national level since 2013. RAIF founded by Kris Kumar and Sukruti Vadula last year has been organising competitons among the school children across the country on 'robotic themes'. Within few weeks of their founding, the founders were able to rope in Indian Institute of Technology (Madras), Anna University and US Embassy as their partners to conduct the competition and talks, besides many experts as their advisors.

Sukruti Vadula, President of RAIF says, "School children have more innovative skills than the senior level students. Even IIT Professors were amazed by their talents. They need hand holding to bring out their talents".

That was why RAIF started targeting the school children and organised competition to showcase their innovation in 'robots' in 2013. Around 5000 school children witnessed the grand finale held at IIT Madras.

From this year, they have started the series of seminars titled 'RAIF TALKS' by inviting eminent speakers on various aspects of innovation. They are inviting the students from schools and colleges who want to innovate to interact with these experts.

Speakers at RAIF TALKS at IIT Madras on 5th July 2014 with Founders

On 5th July 2014, RAIF TALK was held at IIT Madras on the theme 'Invasion through Innovation'. Many experts, including innovators talked on various aspects of innovation. We are sharing two videos for the benefit of youngsters. For more details contact president@robotzindia.com.

Inspiring and exciting talk by Prof. L S Ganesh, Management Professor of IIT Madras (Former Dean of IIT)

Another inspiring speech by Prof. R Jagannathan (Former Vice Chancellor of Middle East University, UAE)

The photographs taken during the RAIF TALKS held at IIT Madras on 5th July 2014

Be ware and be aware of social media risks

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 06 Apr 2014 09:29:00 +0000

Prime Point Srinivasan addressed the members of Junior Chamber International India - Madras Marina on 5th Apri 2014 on the topic "Be ware and be aware of social media risks".

During the presentation, Srinivasan emphasised the need for safe use of internet and social media tools. He quoted some of the interesting case studies. He explained some sections of the Information Technology Act 2000, like Section 66A.

During the talk, Srinivasan insisted every one, particularly young girls, not to share their personal information in the public domain. He quoted some of the cases in which the young girls were victimised because of their casual approach. He emphasised the need for using strong passwords and maintaining the secrecy of such passwords.

Srinivasan quoted the examples of 'confession pages' that are popular among students. Some of the students without knowing the consequences were maligning others, he said. In many cases, the victims had gone to police authorities. Srinivasan said that the offender could be arrested immediately punished upto 3 to 5 years of imprisonment.

Srinivasan cautioned all the social media users to use the social media properly without infringing on the rights of others. He also insisted not to become addict to the social media.

In the concluding remark, Mr Prabhakaran, President of JCI India Madras Marina suggested that everybody can keep away from social media one day a week, to avoid being addicted.

The photos taken during the event (Photo courtesy: Hari Balaji

Seven steps to overcome challenges of business communication

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 10:51:00 +0000

Prime Point Srinivasan made a presentation on 'Seven Steps to overcome the challenges of business communication' at Sathyabama University, Chennai on 25th Feb 2014. The programme is part of 'Power lecture series' of the University. Under this series, the University invites experts from different fields to share their views with the students. This is the brain child of Mrs Mariazeena Jhonson, the Director of the University.

Around 700 interested students drawn from the engineering and management courses attended the lecture.

During the presentation, Prime Point Srinivasan through interaction with audience ascertained the various challenges the students faced in writing and speaking. Then, he walked through seven steps of overcoming these challenges. He also emphasised the need for practising 'active listening' and 'reading habits'. He insisted that the students should practise writing and speaking skills on a day to day basis, instead of looking only during the needed time.

Srinivasan explained as to how the social media tools like facebook and twitter have spoiled the writing skills of the youth. He suggested the students to start writing blogs frequently on any subject of their choice, so that they could develop good writing skills. He advised the students not to get obsessed with social media all the time.

Prof. Lakshmi, Head of the Computer Science Department coordinated the event. Please download the power point presentation.

Tenth International Public Relations Conference at Iran on 'Integrated PR'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 09:07:00 +0000

10th International PR Conference at Iran 13th Jan 2014 - (Inset) Prime Point Srinivasan addressing through skype

Tenth international conference on public relations was held at Tehran on 13th and 14th Jan 2014 at the Department for Education and Research of Iran’s Foreign Ministry.

Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ali Jannati. Mohammad-Mehdi Mazaheri was the chairman of the conference and launched the conference with his opening speech. Mehdi Baqerian, secretary-general of the conference and many communication experts shared their views. Around 600 professionals participated in the Conference.

I had the honour of addressing this Conference from Chennai (India) through 'skype' on the topic "Integrating social media into PR strategies'. My presentation was translated into Persian language simultaneously by a translator at their end. The presentation was well received by the audience.

My presentation and the photos sent by the organisers are embedded below.

Integrating social media into pr strategies from Prime Point Foundation, Chennai

Book Release: Shobha Warrier's "Diary of a journalist"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 Dec 2013 08:50:00 +0000

Shobha Warrier, a Chennai based Senior journalist (presently Associate Editorial Director at Rediff dot com) has authored a wonderful book tiled, "Diary Of A Journalist The Little Flower Girl And Others" recently. She has shared lots of her experience as a journalist. This will be a very useful book for the young journalism/ communication students and professionals to understand the nuances of the profession.

I reproduce below the note published in the back cover of the book.

The Little Flower girl and Others: Diary of a journalist

A story teller unravels the extraordinary stories of some ordinary people. On our journey through life we meet so many people--many we forget but some leave memories that refuse to fade away.This is a collection of true stories-of actual meetings and encounters that the author had with these people over the years as a journalist. The 11-year-old flower seller with her unfulfilled dreams, the gay men forced into lives of heterosexual unhappiness,the heart-wrenching stories of abandoned HIV positive children whom no-one wants to adopt. There are poignant stories of old women in old age homes.Among the exploited prostitutes there stands out Sandhya who proudly describes how being a sex-worker has enabled her to educate and marry off her siblings.Poor home-less pavement dwellers live together amicably regardless of their religion.One old lady tells the author:"here everyone has only one caste-Ezhari jaati-(the caste of the poor). Yet what shines through these stories isn't despair but hope and triumph of the human spirit against all odds.

About the Author

Shobha Warrier works as the Associate Editorial Director at rediff.com.She is also a short story writer in Malayalam, having published three collections- Ramakundam, Meghana and Jalavidya. She was awarded the Lalithambika Antharjanam award for the young woman writer in Malayalam in 1996 for the book Jaalavidya. Her short stories have been translated into Kannada and Telugu.

There are 36 diaries on real people, the marginalised in society like AIDS orphans, HIV+ people, transgender, gay people, abandoned mothers, sex workers, etc.

Details of the book

Title: The Little Flower Girl and Others: Diary of a Journalist

Publisher is Vitasta Publishing House, Pages- 134. Price Rs. 245

Available online - Flipkart and rediff books.

Deplorable quality of debates in Tamil TV channels

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 05:44:00 +0000

TV debates in Tamil Channels

Between 7 pm and 10 pm every day, all the Tami channels telecast debates on various themes, whether relevant or irrelevant. The quality of the debates are highly deplorable. Among the political parties only BJP and Congress are represented. None of the regional parties take part. The so called 'social workers' also join the panel. There are ready made panelists (other than political party spokespersons) who can participate in any channel, any time on any topic. These panelists can talk (most of the time shout) on theme ranging from rural politics to international politics, science and technology, nuclear physics, rocket science, kapadi to international chess, cricket or olympics, etc. They use languages which are not of good taste. How can a single person be an authority on all the subjects? They come to the debate with assumed information and start shouting in the discussions, to win a point. I see many times, the panelists with real knowledge go unnoticed, unheard and remain silent, because some other panelist intervenes often countering the points without waiting for his turn.

More than this, the channels are highly biased, based on their affiliation. In most of the debates, either Congress or BJP gets isolated. They make 3 panelists to oppose one person. I am not able to understand this logic of lining up three persons against one.

The big question is what the listeners get ultimately in these debates. Only the noise prevails.

After Sathyam TV incident, wherein a caller abused in vulgar terms the Chief Minsiter of Tamil Nadu and the woman panelist, a time has come that the TV channels should introspect among themselves and produce a decent, healthy and balanced (without bias) debates, so that the audience get the right information.

Temporarily, I have stopped watching Tamil TV channel debates.

PR helps to manage competition and ignoring PR during crisis will be disasterous

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 15:37:00 +0000

L to R: Jhon Arockiaswamy (GRI), Prime Point Srinivasan,
Sakthi Prasanna (MSL Group).
Divya Ganesan (GRI) leading the discussion

Srishti jointly with Indian Institute of Technology, Madras organised a two day programme for students interested in entrepreneurship inviting various speakers on various themes.

A panel discussion on 'Public Relations and Communication was also included as one session.

Prime Point Srinivasan (Prime Point Public Relations and Prime Point Foundation), Jhon Arokiaswamy (COO, Good Relations India P Limited), Sakthi Prasanna (Sr. Manager, MSL Group) and Divya Ganesan (Accounts Executive, Good Relations India P Limited) were the panelists, representing the four generations of public relations professionals in India.

Divya Ganesan moderated the discussions with lead presentation. The discussions were held on the importance of Public Relations, strategies, tools, managing brand image through public relations, crisis management were discussed.

Srinivasan also quoted as to how corporates cut the PR budget and PR time whenever they face crisis, leading to more expenditure and complicating the crisis. He said that this phenomenon is prevalent mostly in India due to lack of PR awareness among the educational institutions providing MBA courses and also among the Corporate CEOs.

Panelists appreciated Hari Balaji VR of Srishti for including PR as one of the sessions for the budding entrepreneurs.

Increase cyber crime awareness among all stakeholders

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 14:27:00 +0000

Dr Chellappan, Justice Jyothimani, S S Ramasubbu. V Rajendran on podium

Cyber Society of India organsed an one-day workshop on 'Combating Cyber Crimes: Compliance and evidence" on Saturday the 9th November 2013 jointly with Anna University, Chennai at the University auditorium. Dr Justice Jyothimani (Member Judicial, National Green Tribunal, New Delhi), Shri S S Ramasubbu, (Member of Parliament, Tirunelveli) and Dr C Chellappan, Dean of the University participated and shared their views.

While inaugurating the workshop Justice Dr Jyothimani insisted on creating cyber crime awareness among the investigating agencies, advocates and judicial officers. Due to lack of knowledge, many cyber crimes go undetected or unpunished, he said. He also suggested even an act to be passed in the Parliament.

Shri Ramasubbu MP assured to take up all the suggestions received from Cyber Society of India in the ensuing winter session of the Lok Sabha.

In the day long workshop, many cyber experts, investigators, lawyers, users spoke on the various theme.

Those who are interested to know about Cyber Society of India activities may kindly visit www.cysi.in

C K Sardana's book "The Challenge of Public Relations" - Second edition released

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 06:19:00 +0000

Ram Naresh Yadav, Governor of M.P., formally released the book on October 01, 2013 at an impressive function at Bhopal. On extreme right is the writer, C.K. Sardana. Next to him is K.S. Sharma, Former Chief Secretary, M.P. Government.

Shri Ram Naresh Yadav, Governor of Madhya Pradesh formally released the second edition of the book titled "The Challenge of Public Relations' on 1st October 2013, authored by Shri C K Sardana, one of the veterans in the Indian Public Relations industry.

Shri Sardana during 1980s and 1990s was heading the Corporate Communication Department of BHEL, one of the biggest Public Sector Undertakings of India. After 1991, when the liberalisation process started in India, he was building awareness about PR among the Public Sector organisations. He was also the President of the Public Sector PR Forum at Delhi.

I personally know Mr Sardana from early 1990, when he was the President of Public Sector PR Forum. In early 1990s, I used to have lot of discussions with him on various aspects of PR and he used to share his rich experience with me.

With that influence and with the support and guidance of Mr S Narendra, then PIB Chief and Advisor to the then Prime Minister, we started a similar Public Sector PR Forum at Chennai to bring together all the Public Sector organisations and to create PR awareness.

In his book (206 pages), through 18 chapters, Mr Sardana has brought out in lucid style various aspects of Public Relations concept. Though the first edition was published in 1995, immediately after the launch of liberalisation era, he has revised the second edition with additional inputs, including sensitive case studies like Bhopal gas leak, to educate the new generation PR professionals.

There may be changes in the style and practise of public relations in the current social media era. But whatever be the changes in the communication medium, we need to remember that the target group viz. human beings remain unchanged. Public Relations professionals deal with the human beings, their sentiments, their emotions, their culture, etc. Many eminent communication professionals have endorsed this book in their foreword. I personally feel this a good handbook for the young PR and Corpcom professionals and corporate CEOs, to understand the nuances of the PR concept..

This book is published by Har-Anand Publications Pvt Limited, New Delhi and priced at Rs.225/-.

News report dated 2nd October 2013 in Hitavada

Shri Sardana after retirement is now settled at Bhopal, mentoring young communication professionals. He can be reached at casardana@gmail.com.

I am very proud that one of my senior colleagues has brought out the second edition of his book on public relations, which has been released by the Governor of Madhya Pradesh.

- Prime Point Srinivasan

Tata Sons Director Gopalakrishnan talks about corruption

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 07:30:00 +0000

15^th PoleStar Award Winners - From left to right:

Geetika Rustagi from Mint, Ayushman Baruah from InformationWeek (India), R Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director, Tata Sons, Arun Jain, Founder, PoleStar Foundation and Chairman & Group CEO, Polaris Financial Technology Limited, Srikanth RP, from InformationWeek (India) and Kandula Subramaniam from Outlook Business

Chennai based Pole Star Foundation honoured 4 Indian journalists on 4th October 2013, for their excellence in Business and IT journalism. After presenting the 15th PoleStar Awards, R Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director of Tata Sons delivered the key note address.

Gopalakrishnan focussed on the 'corruption' in his speech. He threw light on history of corruption in India and in other societies across the world. He said, “Just as adolescence is a necessary part of a person’s growth, widespread corruption that touches almost everybody represents an adolescent phase in a development of a nation. Just as adolescence passed, corruption also morphed from being widespread and petty to fewer but bigger instances”. When commenting about the media in India, he pointed out that “as a nation, India is the only country among the emerging markets to have a vibrant media. Though media in India can go overboard, it is however good to have an active media than a docile media.”

Please listen to his inspiring and interesting speech. (22 minutes).

This speech can also be listened from the following link.

http://youtu.be/Pr6FaISMdk8

Photo and audio courtesy: Pole Star Foundation

How to be successful in social media? - Sree Sreenivasan of Columbia University shares tips

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 11:48:00 +0000

Prof. Sree Sreenivasan, Chief Digital Officer and Professor of Journalism Columbia University during his short visit to India, spent nearly two hours with the students, faculty members and social media enthusiasts at Anna University, Chennai on 5th August 2013.

During his session on 'digital media', he expressed concern that many youngsters collect lot of information and share more information through social media, in excess of what is needed. Many times, people have landed in difficulty for sharing more information, he added.

Prof. Sree quoted the example of more than 35,000 journalists of traditional media losing their job in US. He also cautioned Indian media that a storm may come in another 4 to 7 years. Since Indian media makes money through traditional media, internet media is not growing, he observed.

He also explained as to how fast the technology was growing. It took 75 years to telephone to reach 50 million people; radio took 38 years; television took 13 years; internet took 4 years and the latest iphone apps took only 8 days to reach this audience. Hence, he suggested every one to make use of the technology in a more responsible manner.

Prof. Sree shared success formula for social media. He suggested 13 factors that are responsible for social media success. He appealed to the users to ensure that they satisfy as many parameters as possible. The following are the parameters.

The presentation of Prof. Sree may be downloaded from the following link.

http://www.bit.ly/sreeslides

The programme was organised and coordinated by Dr Arulchelvan (Asst. Professor of Media Science Department) and Dr. A. Azad (Director of Centre for International Affairs).

Photos taken during the event. (Photo courtesy: Hari Balaji)

How to use social media sites safely? - Seminar by CySI

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 31 May 2013 11:10:00 +0000

Prime Point Srinivasan, Gunasekaran and S Balu

Cyber Society of India (CySI) and HTC-ITMR organised a programme on social media networking and the safety aspects on 30th May 2013 at HTC towers, Chennai. It was a well attended programme.

Presentation on social media networking sites

Prime Point Srinivasan, Chairman, Prime Point Foundation made a presentation on the advantages, challenges and the safety aspects of social media networking sites. During his presentation, he emphasised the need for the youth keeping themselves within the limit while using the social media and not to get addicted. He also informed that 500 million status updates were shared; 300 million mails were sent and 250 million photos were uploaded every day in the social media sites. He posed the question as to how much percentage of them were useful and qualitative. Out of all the social media usage, he estimated around 80% of them were only casual and trash.He wanted the users to think over the amount of productive professional time spent on trashes and the cost of server and the bandwidth involved in the transmission. He also advised not share any private details in the social media sites.

Srinivasan wanted the social media to be used effectively only when it is needed and to keep away when not needed.

His presentation is embedded below.

Presentation on security and legal aspects

S Balu, Former Addl. Superintendent of Police, Cyber crime made a presentation on security and legal aspects of social media. He shared some of the cases investigated by him, which ended up in convicatin of the culprit. He also suggested not to share any private details in social media sites like facebook, twitter, etc.

The presentation of S Balu is embedded below.

Gunasekaran, CFO of HTC Global made an interesting presentation on the various implications of putting 'likes' and writing 'comments' on the status of others in facebook. He even quoted a case of person's visa getting rejected, because of the person had marked 'like' to a social media status against the country to which, he sought visa. He advised youth to be very careful, while clicking 'like' and adding 'comments' on the controversial statements found on the status.

The event was organised by Kapaleeswaran (Vice President of CySI) and Dr Muthu (Head of HTC ITMR) meticulously. Please watch some of the photographs taken during the event.

Convocation (Graduation day) address at Jaya Institute of Technology by Prime Point Srinivasan

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:56:00 +0000

Jaya Institute of Technology (JIT)

Jaya Institute of Technology (JIT), one of the Jaya Group of Colleges organised 8th Graduation Day on Friday the 17th May 2013. Nearly 120 engineering graduates who passed out in April / May 2012 received the degree certificates.

Prof. A Kanagaraj

Prof. A Kanagaraj, Chairman of Jaya Group of Colleges presided over the event. In his presidential address, he stressed the importance of self confidence among the youth. He also focussed on the importance of good attitude and discipline in the life, when they undertake the jobs. He wanted them to become good citizens of this nation.

Graduates waiting to
receive degree certivicates

Dr Suresh Babu, Principal

While welcoming the students and parents, Dr Suresh Babu, Principal of the College recalled the pains taken by the individual parents of the students, to make the students an engineering graduate. He wanted all the graduates to fullfill the dreams of their parents.

Prime Point Srinivasan

Prime Point Srinivasan, who was the Chief Guest in his Convocation (Graduation Day) address stressed the importance of good communication skills. He suggested all the graduates to learn as manay languages as possible, including Hindi and English properly to become successful in their career.

Please listen to the convocation (Graduation day) address of Prime Point Srinivasan (17 minutes).

Please see the photographs taken during the event.

Demand for total prohibition by NGOs and Politicians

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 07:13:00 +0000

In the recent days, voices demanding total prohibition is increasing in Tamilnadu. It is because in Tamilnadu, out of 6 crores of population, one crore people is in the habit of taking liquor. The Government is earning a revenue of around Rs.25,000 crores, constituting approximately 25 to 30% of State revenue.

Tamilnadu is the only state in India where liquor is sold through the Government owned retail outlets TASMAC. Two decades back, the Schools and Colleges were run by the Government, while the liquor shops were run by private licensees. Now, the scene is reverse with Educational Institutions run by licensees and the liquor shops run by the Government directly.

Since the Government is running the retail liquor shops with bar, even those who felt shy to take liquor in the earlier decades are now visiting proudly these Government owned liquor shops to take drinks. Because of the increase in the drinking habits, large number of dalit families are affected badly. Liquor habit spoils the health of the person also. Mor ethan 60% of the road accident occur due to drunken driving.

In the past few months, many of the NGOs and some of the political parties have started the movement against the liquor and demanding total prohibition in the State.

One Mr Sasi Perumal, a Gandhian from a village near Salem is on fast for the past 33 days (as on 3rd March 2013) demanding total prohibition.

All India Prohibition Council and many of the Gandhians organised National Conference at Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya, Chennai (the Vidyalaya founded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1933 for the poor and downtrodden). Representatives from all the States participated. Gandhian Mr Mahavir Thyagi, Secretary of the All India Prohibition Council and former Minister in Gujarat Government was the star attraction of the Conference.

Many of the NGOs and Political leaders participated and shared their views, in the day long Conference. At the end of the Conference, a resolution was passed requesting total prohibition in the country. All India Prohibition Council is now working on the Action Plan for imposing total prohibition in all the States.

A mention has to be made about Mr Annamalai, Gandhian and Director of Gandhi Study Centre at Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya. Mr Annamalai and his team planned this Conference meticulously, including the time management.

Please see some of the pictures during the event.

Youth Health Mela 2013 at Chennai - Need of the hour

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 12:06:00 +0000

Some of the NGOs, socially conscious doctors are organising every year a Health Mela for the youth since 2012. Youth Health Mela 2013 is being held at Valluvar Kottam, Chennai from 24th Jan to 27th Jan 2013.

The main focus of the Mela is to create awareness among the youth about the ill effects of tobacco, alcohol, junk foods, etc. Many of the NGOs, Educational institutions have put up their stall and through their students, they are exhibiting various aspects of keeping good health.

Mr A Sharfudeen

Today, I visited the Health Mela to get the first hand information. Various seminars, symposiums, drawing contests are held by various NGOs to create health awareness. In the exhibition, I met one Mr A Sharfudeen (62), who got cancer due to chain smoking in the food pipe. He lost of his vocal chord, because of the smoking. Others may not be able to understand his voice. Hence, he is using a vibrator like device to amplify his speech. Through this device, he is advising all the youngsters to stop smoking to avoid cancer.

Organs speak to you

In another stall put up by students, the listeners can sit and listen to the individual organs speaking to you about how they get affected due to our life style and habits. Mr Jgan, a III year student of Media Science Department of Anna University has made this video. With his permission, I am now publishing this in this site for the benefit of all the youth. If you want to congratulate this student Jagan, you can send a mail to him at jagan13media@gmail.com.

Another interesting and powerful stall is about our TASMAC. The stall put up by Paadam, monthly magazine depicts how alcohol causes health problems. This stall is put up like a 'bar'.

This Health Mela organised by the various social activists have not attracted much of the TV and print media. The mainline media have not found this worthy enough for good coverage. I request all the readers to share this information through social media and visit this Health Mela at Valluvar Kottam, Chennai before 27th Jan 2013.

Some of the photos taken by me during my visit.

Book Review: Employee engagement & Communication Research

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 14:34:00 +0000

PodUniversal Edition 157

I had the opportunity of going through the book 'Employee Engagement and Communication Research' authored by Ms Susan Walker ABC, from London. This book was published last month by Kogan Page Limited at London and US.

Generally all the companies make huge noise about the employee motivation and employee satisfaction. But in reality, they remain more in paper. A serious research or study is not made by any company to understand the ground reality of the employee perceptions. Whatever the surveys done in the name of 'employee satisfaction survey' serve the ISO audit purposes only.

In this book, Susan deals with the various aspects of communication research, development questionnaire, measurement, interpretation of data, strategies and action to be adopted. She also explains as to how such communication research can help the companies in the employee engagement.

The author has divided the 20 chapters into three sections, viz. (a) Measurement, (b) Strategy and (c) implementation. Even the complicated technical details have been presented in a simple manner. She has also shared interesting and relevant case studies in these chapters.

This book will serve as a good handbook for the Communication Managers, HR Managers and Research organisations. This book is available in UK, USA and in India.

The author Susan’s career began in the internal communications field before joining Market and Opinion Research International (MORI), the major UK research agency where she headed the employee research practice. She is now running her own engagement and communication evaluation research business.

Susan is a Fellow of the Institute of Internal Communication and an Accredited Business
Communicator (IABC). She has held various posts within IABC UK Chapter in the past and presented
at events worldwide including IABC conferences in New York, Los Angeles and Brussels.

The author can be contacted through mail at commevaluation@hotmail.com.

I interviewed Susan over mobile. Please listen to the interesting conversation. The transcript of this conversation is also given below the YouTube flash player. This podcast can also be listened from http://youtu.be/uIj12P8p4qQ (6 minutes)

Transcript of this conversation:

What prompted you to write this book?

I was inspired to write the book because I had looked at the market and there were books about research, and engagement and communication but there were really no books that tied all three together and looked at employee research from that point of view - that is what stimulated me to write the book.

What is employee engagement?

Well, there are all sorts of definitions of employee engagement and I think a lot if it is down to an employee who is interested in the company, understands its purpose, who feels part of it – and that feeling that they with the organization and want to help it.

Many companies conduct conduct employee satisfaction surveys for ISO purposes. can it be considered as communication research?

Yes, I think so, it concerns satisfaction which is really I suppose another work for engagement and especially if there are communications quests as well, I think It would be considered as engagement and communication research.

What are the areas covered by you in the book?

Three main areas: first of all measurement. This covers basis tools such as objective questionnaire design, statistical reliability, sampling. Then the second section about strategy which is engaging senior management, looking at benefits of research and linking with the business. Then the third section about action planning, defining what needs to be done from the survey results. And also a number of case studies and also interviews with leading professionals around the world: an important part of the book to have that global perspective.

What is the trend of communication research globally?

Interesting talking to people from all over the world Brazil, Russia ,China and of course India and although circumstances and cultures vary it seems that many of the challenges we face are the same The prime one being engaging senior management and convincing senior management that it is worthwhile measuring their employee engagement and communications. Also making sure that action happens as a result. So although we may come from different places, we all seem to share the same challenges.

Somewhere in your book, you have mentioned about 'Arthasastra'. How you got impressed with Arthasastra?

What impressed me, it was written many thousands of years ago and people think things written a long time ago have nothing to teach us. In fact this is said to be the very first management book that was ever written. But what impressed me was that it did not just look at aspects like the military and the economy but it also looked at welfare. And a lot of the advice which was then said to be for the King could be said nowadays to be about the CEO of the organsiation – like the King of the organization. And I felt that a lot of what was written there was just as applicable today as it was then.

Making of Podcasts and EMagazines

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 12:19:00 +0000

Prime Point Srinivasan addressing the students

On 1st December 2012, I was invited to address the broadcast journalism students of NDTV-IndiaCan Education on the subject 'Making of Podcasts and EMagazines'. Since I have been publishing podcasts and Ezines for the past several years, they invited me to share my experience.

I shared with them the techniques of making effective podcasts and also the emagazines. It was a wonderful experience for me to have interacted with the young budding broadcast journalists.

I am sharing the ppt presentation for the benefit of interested persons. If anybody wants to get more details or inputs about the techniques of podcasts and ezines, he/she can contact me through mail prpoint@gmail.com

Some of the photographs taken during the event.

PR workshop at Sevalaya

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 07:52:00 +0000

Sevalaya, a Chennai based NGO offers a wonderful service to the rural poor, by transforming their life for the past 24 years silently. Inspired by Mahakavi Bharathiyar, Mahatma Gandhi and Vivekanada, Mr Muralidharan, a software engineer founded this trust to take care of the really underprivileged and destitute children and old age people.

Now, they have entered the 25th year of operation. They are running a Higher Secondary School (Mahakavi Bharathiyar Higher School School) in Kasuva village near Thiruninravoor (40 KM from Chennai) providing high standard education and moral values to 1650 poorest children. Every year, they get 100% results in the State Board Examinations of 10th and 12th Standard.

In the past 24 years, a minimum 15000 children from 33 villages would have benefited by way of education. They are running one old age home with 60 elderly inmates deserted by their family members. 160 boys and girls are living in the orphanage. Even 50 cows are taken care of the Goshala.

Interesting part is that all the services are provided free of cost. Probably this is the only school in Tamilnadu with so much of children without any 'fee counter', but providing high class education. (shortly we are writing about them in our site www.action2020.in).

Since they do not collect any money from the children or elderly people, they have to depend on the sponsors for the support. Many good hearted individuals and corporates are supporting them silently Shortly with the support of some of the corporates, they are going to start one Industrial Training Institute to provide vocational courses for the children, to make them employable. This service also will be provided free of cost.

Their administrative office at Chennai has a small team to look after the public relations and sponsorship. In order to improve the skills of this team, Prime Point Foundation arranged a one day workshop at their office to expose them to the professional handling of Public Relations.

I conducted the workshop. I was supported by Mr Nurullah (Senior Tamil Journalist), Mr Sakthi Prasanna (Senior PR Professional working in a PR Agency) and Ms Bhanu Gomes (Spokes Person of IAC and a Social activist).

The PR team of Sevalaya was trained to make use of Public Relations tool to project the image of the organisation and to get sponsorships.

During the workshop, we called up Mr S Narendra of Delhi (Former Information Advisor to Prime Minister) and Mr Ananda Padmanabhan (Jaya TV) over phone. They shared their professional views to improve the PR skills and to increase the sponsorship base.

Last week, I personally visited the School and the campus. These children deserve support from the public. Those who want to get in touch with Sevalaya may contact Mr Muralidharan, Founder and Chairman of Sevalaya at sevalayamurali@sevalaya.org

Photos of the workshop:

Internet is a double edged weapon - Use technology with caution

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 16:31:00 +0000

Tamilnadu and Pucherry wing of Indian speech and hearing Association held their 2nd TAN-ISHACON at Puducherry (Pondicherry) on 13th and 14th October 2012. This Conference was attended by speech language pathologists and audiologists of medical profession. Though this two-day conference was fully packed with various speeches and presentations on papers relevant to their profession, they had organised a session on 'Cyber Challenges' by Prime Point Srinivasan, President of Cyber Society of India. Probably. This is the first time, any professional conference in India had included an important topic like cyber safety, to create cyber awareness among their delegates.

In the presentation, Prime Point Srinivasan focussed on the various challenges faced by the internet and mobile users and also explained as to how to manage the challenges. He compared the internet with a 'double edged weapon' and cautioned them to be more careful while using the technology.

Dr S Manoharan, President of TANISHA and Dr N D Rajan, Conference Chairman organised the event at Pucherry in a professional manner.

Please see the presentation of Prime Point Srinivasan.

Please see some of the photos taken during the occassion.

Why Accreditation is a must for communication and marketing professionals?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:13:00 +0000

In the globalised competitive era, the individuals and the companies have now started bench marking their knowledge, proficiency and quality to globally accepted standards. Companies world over subject themselves to ISO or BS Standards, which are globally recognised. Unless the companies get ISO certification, they may not be able to participate in the tenders internally and globally.

In the same way, IT professionals have now started benching their individual talents through Microsoft Certification and ISACA certification. These certifications enable the IT professionals to compete globally and succeed professionally.

In the same way, communication and marketing professionals also need to get themselves certified to the global standards, if they want to succeed in their career in future. I have been impressing upon the need for such global accreditation for the past eight years. None of the professional bodies in India are able to come up with any globally accepted certification or accreditation process. We need to prepare our younger generation communication and marketing professionals to compete at global levels.

Just like we have accepted globally recognised certification process in other areas, the communication and marketing industry also can adopt the globally recognised and accepted certification process to develop their career in future.

US, UK, Australia, South Africa, Singapore and few other countries have already started accrediting their communicaiton and marketing professionals. The employers give priority only to such accredited professionals in the internal promotions. Professionals can get accredited in their chosen field, only after few years of experience.

APR Accreditation by Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and FCIPR Accreditation by Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), London are highly popular in US and Europe.

International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) is one of the respected International bodies operating in more than 100 countries. They offer ABC Accreditation (Accredited Business Communicator). All the professionals who are connected with Business Communicaiton field like Public Relations, Corporate Communication, Marketing Communication, Journalism, etc are eligible for Accreditation process. Only working professionals can apply for Accreditation.

Accreditation process involves 3 stages. (1) Application, (2) Submission of two Portfolios (work samples), based on the applicant's own experience and (3) written and oral examination. Senior Accredited professionals will mentor and guide the candidates.

Recently, I recorded an interview with Mr Bish Mukherjee, President of IABC's India South Chapter. Mr Bish was earlier the Accreditation Director for Asian countries and now the Asian coordinator for the prestigious Quill Awards of IABC. He has mentored many professionals.

I have also recorded an interview with Dr Rajiv Kumar. He is one of the top management officials in the Tata Group handling Corporate Communication. He is presently the Director in the Accreditation Committee of IABC. He supervises the Accreditation process of Asia Pacific, Europe, South America and Africa.

Please watch this interesting and informative podcast (12 minutes). If anybody wants to get more information and guidance, they can send mail to Mr Bish Mukherjee at bmiabc@hotmail.com.

This podcast can also be watched in YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHYSgH0jZEk

Seminar on Education Loan by Puthiya Thalaimurai Foundation

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 08:09:00 +0000

(L to R) Pon Dhanasekaran, Prime Point Srinivasan
R Ramkumar, N Bhuvaneswari

Puthiya Thalaimurai Foundation (PTF) organised a Seminar on "Education Loan" at Sri Sankara Vidyalaya Metriculation Higher Secondary School, Urapakkam, Chennai on Saturday the 11th August 2012. The programme was attended by the senior students and their parents.

Mr R Ramkumar, Advocate and Special Officer of PTF explained the salient features of Right to Education Act.

Mr Pon Dhanasekaran, Joint Editor of Puthiya Thalaimurai - Kalvi Magazine explained the various opportunities and scholarships available for higher education in India. He suggested to students to look for other higher education courses, instead of flocking towards only engineering courses.

Mr K. Srinivasan of Prime Point and Convenor of Education Loan Task Force (ELTF) explained the various aspects of Education Loan scheme available with Public Sector Banks. He also explained about the latest IBA guidelines on providing education loan to vocational courses. He clarified the doubts of the parents.

The programme was organised by Mrs N Bhuvaneswari, Principal of the School. Earlier, Mr Abdul Kareen, Deputy General Manager of PTF made a presentation on the various activites of PT Foundation.

Please see the pictures.

Seminar on Cyber Security at Panimalar College

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 09:19:00 +0000

Cyber security workshop

Panimalar Engineering College, Chennai organised a two days workshop on "Cyber Security" jointly with Cyber Society of India on 10th and 11th August 2012. The workshop was inaugurated by K. Srinivasan (Prime Point), President of Cyber Society of India on 10th August 2012. Engineering students, faculty members of their college and other colleges participated.

Inaugural function

Dr K. Mani, Principal of the College during his welcome speech expressed concern over the increasing cyber frauds. Dr Sankara Gomathi, Dean emphasised the importance of creating awareness about the cyber security and cyber laws.

Inaugural speech by K. Srinivasan

While inaugurating the Workshop K. Srinivasan, President of the Cyber Society of India explained as to how the internet and online activities were on increase. He said while the growing technology offered lot of advantages to manking, the same technology also posed greater challenges to the society. He insisted that students and faculty members should spread awareness about the cyber challenges, so that the technology was used with greater care for the maximum advantage.

He also appealed to youth to use the social media with responsibility. "There is no absolute freedom for writing in social media. Nobody can claim more freedom than allowed by the law", he cautioned the youngsters, so that they do not get caught by the cyber law implications.

Student chapters in colleges

Srinivasan also announced that Cyber Society of India would encourage student chapters in every college, to enable the students interact with external experts and gain more knowledge. For such student chapters, Cyber Society of India would provide all technical assistance. He appealed to the representatives from other colleges to write to info@cysi.in, if they were willing to start a student chapter in their colleges. He said that this should be volunteers based without any membership fee.

Principal of Panimalar College also assured that they would soon start a student chapter in their college, so that the students could organise quiz, seminars, present papers on cyber related issues.

Dr. S Kannan, Head of the Department of ECE propsed vote of thanks.

About the workshop

Two days programme include discussions on cyber law, cyber security, testing technologies, Credit cards/ATMs related issues, implications of cyber crimes, data security in cloud computing, cyber crime investigation, virus meance, etc.

Experts from Cyber Society of India Mr V Rajendran, Mr J Prasanna, Mr Shanker Kumar, Mr S N Ravichandran. Dr B Muthukumaran, Mr N Ramamurthy, Mr Kapaleeswaran and Mr R Ramamurthy share their views on different topics.

Dr Sankara Gomathi, Dean is personally coordinating the organisation of this workshop. Please see some of the pictures taken during the inauguration.

Communication skills for auditors - Ford sets a new trend

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 07:31:00 +0000

Generally, all the Companies arrange communication skills sessions only for their employees, who are communicating externally, like marketing, public relations professionals, etc. In reality, communication is the 'live wire' of the organisation.

Every employee in an organisation, whether he/she belongs to x department or y department, he/she needs to improve the communication skills. Many of them may not communicate externally, like marketing professionals. But they communicate internally within their organisation.

Internal Audit Department of Ford Company at Chennai started thinking in this line. Most of the time, the internal auditors in any organisation are the 'unwanted people' by others. because of their nature of job. But their role is highly important in the smooth functioning of the system. Most of the time, they become 'UnSung heroes' of the organisation, but they are subjected to sharp criticisms from their own colleagues. In all the organisations, a big gap exists between the auditors and the rest of the employees.

Ford organised a three day 'Annual Conference' at Chennai to review their performance from 26th June 2012. Around 30 auditors from all the Units of Asia Paciic Region were the participants.

In order to bride the gap between the auditors and the other employees, the Audit Department of Ford invited me to present a session on 'Communication skills for auditors - Get the message across'. After the formal inauguration by Mr Vadivelan, General Manager of the Audit Department, they asked me to handle the first and inaugural session. This indicated the importance given by the Audit department for communication skills, for better relationship.

During the course of my presentation, I was explaining the various ways, the communication from the sender may get distorted leading to bad relationship and misunderstanding. The auditors have a great role to play in any organisation and their role cannot be compromised. Hence, they are required to handle the situations very carefully without demotivating the other employees and without getting misunderstood. I shared some of my experiences and gave tips for improving the communication skills.

This concept of introducing a session on 'communication skills' in the auditors conference was conceived by Mr Vadivelan, General Manager and Mr Balachandar, Manager of the Audit Department. Ford has set a new trend, which can be emulated by other companies.

Advisory to CSR - New initiative by Good Relations India

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 13:10:00 +0000

http://www.mxmindia.com/2012/06/here-for-the-long-haul-anthony-good/

Here for the long haul: Anthony Good

If an agency has been around for almost a quarter of a century in India- and more than 40 years in existence globally – there must be something valuable about its offerings that may be setting it apart from its peers in the business. True to its objective, Good Relations India has been one such agency that has been the bedrock for clients who continue to flock to its doorstep for seeking solutions, however small or complex they may be.

Anthony Good

As part of its continuing efforts to provide the best solutions to its clients, Good Relations has announced the rollout of its CSR initiative – CSR Advisory and CSR Audit, with which it hopes to redefine the way clients approach the function. With Anthony Good, Founder & Chairman, Good Relations and Deepak Kanulkar, CEO, India leading the drive, the company has an imperative plan up its sleeve as they take to the new terrain in India .

In conversation with Johnson Napier of MxM India, Anthony Good and Deepak Kanulkar delve deep into the need for such a service in India, analyse how the CSR marketplace is currently placed in India and predict what’s in store for the agency in time to come. Excerpts:

The Good Relations Group boasts a legacy whose origins sprang at a time when the PR industry itself was in its infancy. What was the thought process you went through to come up with an agency that was much ahead of its time?

Anthony: We were one of the first public independent agencies to start here in India in 1988. Before that the agency took wings in the UK even before you were born. Our claim to fame was for two things: one was that we were the first to float in the London Stock Exchange, making us the only PR company at that time to do so. The reason we got there was because we were pioneers in extending the bricks of the PR service from pure Press Relations. I myself was a journalist and started at the lowest level but it’s funny what you learn as a beginner and when it stands you in good stead. I then spent time doing PR for an airline group and that responsibility led on to a marketing role. When I left to start a PR agency, I realised at that stage that PR even then was moving away from press relations to a broader range of responsibilities. In fact, when we floated Good Relations in the UK we had seven operating subsidiaries. We were also the first agency to own a design firm and have an advertising arm – though not in the conventional sense. Unlike the way things were structured in those days, where many ad agencies owned PR subsidiaries our ad agency was designed to carry forward programmes which were PR programmed.

Having planted the seeds of ingenuity across several domains, how did your tryst with CSR come about? Also, when did India figure in the scheme of things for the Good Relations group?

Anthony: One of the domains that has always been high on our radar is the area of social responsibility. Let me illustrate with an example. You may have social issues relating to, for example, water pollution. Now you may need to use advertising as a tool to tell people what you are doing so that they get the message from more than one source. That led us to believe that the future of PR was combining a number of specialist areas so that for any given set of requirements of the clients you could bring together the specialists in those areas. But one may wonder why we didn’t do that when we came to India ? The answer to that I’d say is: India wasn’t ready for it at that point in time. It wasn’t even that way when I originally started Good Relations. We didn’t have seven specialist units then. PR wasn’t ready, even we launched on the London Stock Exchange, but when we floated we had a range of offerings, which meant we could feel like specialists in each of those areas. Now you may say: aren’t these things that companies can do for themselves?

Exactly. And, also you do have companies that have an in-house CSR facility…

Anthony: In fact there is a tendency with bigger companies to only do these sort of things (CSR) in-house. Even in a country like Britain, which is in no way near as hierarchal like India, and I say this with a bit of experience – this is my 371st visit to India – and I have learnt that Britain may be hierarchal, but India is the expert at that. If you are not at a decision-making level in an Indian company, you are unlikely to be able to convince the senior management that what you are saying is right. I think it is a dangerous thing to keep all these responsibilities in-house. If you are talking about basic press relations, a large retail store for example, will need to have in-house people who will know the ins and outs of merchandise, stores and management, but when it comes to rather broader issues not only do you need a greater breadth of experience but also you need the ability to say: Mr client, you are wrong!

When you come to Corporate Social Responsibility, often you will find companies who think that they know what they have to do and what not to do and actually reminding companies of their responsibilities in this area of the importance of developing a reputation into the community relaying a very important message that if you are not at a decision-making level then it may be just as difficult. What we are doing here is very much to duplicate what we did in Britain but also having regard to the particular need of this environment. One must realise that doing the right thing lasts a very long time but doing the wrong thing lasts even longer, maybe forever.

How would you differentiate CSR from Crisis Management, which is another important function that’s receiving due attention by most agencies?

Anthony: The two, in a sense, go hand in hand. Being responsible and making companies aware of their need to be seen as part of the community in which they operate, establishing what the needs of the community are and being seen as a source of solutions looking at what they should be doing and what they should not be doing. I remember what someone told me during one of my trips to this country: nothing ever moves upwards in an Indian company. The best advice that one can give to companies looking to come to India is that bit of advice. We know of companies who have tried meeting company ‘x’ for years but nothing comes out of it as things only move downwards. That’s why I feel it is important to have a consultancy relationship, because the top people do listen to consultants. There is a need for specialised professional advice but they are unlikely to think that it will come from within their own business.

Do you provide consultancy services to any other units of Good Relations across the world?

Anthony: You must know that Good Relations Group Plc, which we floated in the UK, was acquired by the Lowe Group which was also acquired by the Interpublic Group. And, you may know that there are two big communication companies in the US namely, Omnicom and Interpublic. The Good Relations agency was bought out by one of my friends and refloated as Chime Communications. So I am no longer part of that group, however, we had started GR in India when it was independent. My personal involvement as of now is only with Good Relations in India .

Deepak-Khanulkar

As you make a dash for floating CSR into India, what has been the attempt in finding out what is it that is desired from this unit in India?

Deepak: I have been on the client side of the business before I joined Good Relations in 2007 and what I have seen is that whenever it comes to CSR – especially at the ground level – clients start doing CSR initiatives as per the specifications provided by the local panchayats without even due diligence as to what is required in that particular area. This, I feel, is a huge gap. In the sense that the money is being spent but whether it is rightly spent is the question to be asked. In most cases, this used to be the actual ground situation where the money is spent because the sarpanch is saying so. What we plan to do is something different.

What is the difference you seek to bring with your offering?

Deepak: We would be offering two services: CSR Advisory and CSR Audit. Where CSR Advisory is concerned, when a company has to set up office in a certain location apart from other branches of engineering, what is also important is social engineering. Where is the location, what is the demographics, breakup of population and so on, it is important to have adequate knowledge of the entire social scenario. There is that gap which I have always seen. I’ve seen it rampantly. I have travelled a lot; I have travelled in interior places and I have seen ground realities. I have travelled to the village where UID card was launched…and I have seen people and I have seen the requirement, there is always a gap between what the company does – although they are spending on CSR -but whether it is effectively benefitting the community and the company nobody knows. So, I think our product which we are offering will bridge this gap. Each rupee has to be spent prudently and each rupee spent has to achieve its objective.

What about CSR Audit?

Deepak: The other product is CSR Audit. Now, normally companies do CSR directly or indirectly through the NGOs. The person who is sitting in the HQs is not getting a real picture of what is happening at the ground level. The NGOs are reporting that everything is happening properly; occasionally they send photographs of the activation programmes. But I think that like we have financial audits, there should be an audit from a third-party, not really the CSR company representative or the NGO local catalyst. It has to be done by independent body or agency which will actually go and see what is being implemented and report it back to the management. Normally, it doesn’t get reported in the right frame or the right percentage to the management. I used to work with a couple of MNCs and one thing I have realized is that whenever there used to be someone visiting from, say, Singapore or Hong Kong, it always reminded me of my school inspection days. On that school inspection day, you’ll have everything neat and tidy. Everything will be organised and in place. During inspections, things are taken care of, which isn’t the case otherwise.

What is the connect you are trying to draw with CSR?

Deepak: With the above example, the bosses here are showing the super bosses from the APAC region only what they want to see. And if the company is going to have a certain strategy on the basis of what is shown to them then that strategy is definitely going to fail. Because you are not giving them the right picture or a full picture, or maybe both. So, I think for sustainable organizations, we have to look in the mirror and assess ourselves and project the right picture. For a management, be it any strategy, a right picture has to be given. And our products, both the services that we are offering, are actually kind of an outreach program which will give the right picture. And if CSR is about helping the communities around, we have to make sure that it is ‘actually’ helping the companies around. I remember some time back Rahul Gandhi had mentioned that out of Rs100 that is spent on social initiatives, only Rs5 reaches the poor while Rs95 is getting evaporated.

I think same could or would be happening in the corporate funding front for social products. And this needs to be arrested especially because CSR Bill has taken shape now; companies having a certain slab of turnover and profitability have to spend 2 per cent of that on CSR. I think this is a very big and good move and which is why we are getting into this. It’s because CSR is going to be something which is not a feel-good kind of a thing but something which deals with corporate sustainability. It will be an integral operations issue, it will be related to the DNA of the organization and not something that I am doing because I am liking it or not liking it. This is very important and this is why we are coming up with the two offerings.

When do the two units flag off?

Deepak: Right now, as we speak. And the reason we are doing so is because we want this to reach out to the corporate audiences. And of course, this will be available at a cost because this is not a CSR that we are doing. We are doing it as a service which will be chargeable. But there is a proper framework that has been put in place. It is not that services are being launched for the sake of launching. They are being launched after understanding all that I discussed with you and also there is a framework of not only system in process but also of right people. So we have people who are part of NGOs, we have people from the public life – MPs and MLAs who have done a lot of good work at the ground level , we have people from academics who are into CSR… So it’s not something we say that we know everything about it. No. We have taken partners in progress who are experts in the domain of social responsibility. This is broadly what it is.

Any other USP to expect from your CSR venture?

Deepak: In terms of specifics, each CSR mandate is going to be unique and the biggest thing which is going to happen is that in each CSR, it will be mandatory for each team to go on a ground visit. We are not going to teach or preach CSR by sitting in AC offices. We are going to roll our sleeves and go and hit the ground and do an audit. And when we are doing a third party audit, we are going to do it independently, so that we get an honest feedback from the beneficiaries. We are not going to go as a part of an NGO or a company because the opinions can be twisted. We are going to go there as independent people and get the real picture.

Not many PR agencies have a CSR Audit unit which in a sense makes you different from the lot…

Deepak: People have CSR advisory but I don’t think they have Audit. For this, I have worked on grass root level. And CSR is not something which you can start or launch by sitting here in Mumbai. You have to have the experience of working in the interiors. I have travelled to tribal habitats where a concrete road ends 6kms away from the village. I don’t need packaged water but can have water from the railway station because my system has become immune. So, it’s about your ability to reach out to the grassroots and how many companies will be in the capacity to have this? None. We have in-house team members who have travelled inside-out across many states of India . You need that passion.

It’s a product that we are offering but one needs to have that passion to have that sympathy and empathy to drive this as a product. We are not developing this as a profit making machine; it is because we feel that if India has to grow, Bharat has to grow. And if Bharat has to grow, we all need to take an inclusive approach. India cannot grow at the cost of Bharat. We are there as messengers of finding the truth at the grass level and getting it on discussion platforms. Until and unless we honestly get it out from Bharat, it will be difficult of India to manage Bharat and Bharat to be part of India . Although, we are a one country but there is a Bharat and an India . And through this product we are attempting to see that Bharat benefits from the money India makes from India and Bharat.

So for 2012, CSR is going to be a big thing for GRI.

Deepak: It is a good thing and we are looking at it in a way that a rupee saved is a rupee earned. So it is all about sustainability and it is all about going and ensuring that the rupee spent is spent on right cost.

How would you rate the growth of your agency in India thus far?

Deepak: This is my fifth year at GRI. I have seen the slowdown of 2008 and at that point I was very new in the company and I was promoted to head the company. We are in the business of relationships, although everyone wants to make money at the end of the day.

We did not lose a single client at that particular time which means we have a valuable service to offer. I still remember that there were some clients who were offered same services by competition at 35per cent of our fee. I got a call from a CEO of a company to know how the other company was offering same service at that fee. So I went and met him and quite a few others and told them how they are offering you can ask them, but why and what I am offering is because we are very prudent in terms of taking business. As a company policy we are not into rat race.

What is it you desire to see becoming of Good Relations in time to come?

Anthony: We are not in this business for the short term; we are here for the long haul. We have been around for almost 25 years so we must be doing something right. Our effort is to see that the relationship we share is a win-win for both the client and for ourselves. What we intend to do is have an annual fee review which is based on work done on our side and value delivered to our clients. And with inflation making a comeback here, we hope to have an inflation-proof fee which will see us giving the best value to our clients even in dire times. In every business there are two sets of people: those who are there for making a quick buck and those who are there for the long ride. And I can claim that we are very much here for the long run.

Knowledge driven communication - an initiative by Adfactors PR

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:13:00 +0000

Communication professionals in the session

Adfactors PR, India's leading Public Relations Agency has moved to a spacious premises a couple of weeks back at Mumbai and Delhi visualising their long term business growth. Mr Madan Bahal, Managing Director of Adfactors PR invited me to visit their new facilities and to address their communication professionals. Adfactors PR ranks in the top 10 among the Asian PR agencies and also in the top 100 at global level. They are No 1 in India for their revenue.

I visited them on 19th April 2012. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mr Madan Bahal himself had come to airport personally to receive me. I was highly impressed with his humbleness and simplicity, in spite of his holding top slot in the industry.

The centrally located new premises in Mumbai has nearly 50000 sft of carpet area in three floor. I am told that no PR agency in the world has so much of space, that too in a single location.

Many meeting halls, conference halls, gym with latest equipments, recreation centre, pantry, canteen, spacious working table were highly impressive. An excellent library with books, periodicals is a star attraction. They plan to add audio and video books also. The new facility can accommodate nearly 450 employees.

In all the three floors, they have brought out ancient Indian wisdom through paintings.

They have a new conference hall meant for conducting press conferences fitted with the latest gadgets. I had the opportunity of addressing their communication professionals in this hall. Probably, I had the unique honour and opportunity of inaugurating this conference hall by addressing them.

During the course of my discussions with nearly 50 plus of their professionals, i was taking them to the glory of communication strategies in the early Ramayana and Mahabarata days, which are relevant event today. The discussions ranged from the new PRSA definition to the clients' expectations to the traiditional media to social media.

I insisted on bridging the 'knowledge gap' of the professionals to keep themselves updated. This could be possible only through constant updating of their knowledge. I suggested to them to attend to the seminars, conferences and to join the communication groups and participate in debates.

I was also focussing on the need for getting International Accreditation from institutes like IABC, PRSA, CIPR to become globally competitive.

Mr Madan Bahal was present throughout taking notes of the discussions. Finally, I made a small request to Mr Madan Bahal. Since they have such a huge infrastructure and facility, they can also start an initiative to organise workshops, seminars and discussions for the middle level and senior level professionals of the PR and communication industry. More than 10,000 professionals are working in Public Relations and Corporate communication segment in India. As on date, there is no proper mechanism for bridging the knowledge gap.

Since, the tag line of Adfactors PR itself is 'knowledge driven communication', they can take up the initiative to strengthen the knowledge base of industry. Mr Madan promised to take it forward.

I even suggested the name as 'Adfactors Academy', which can functions on the lines of National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM), Pune. NIBM provides training support to the Bank officials at senior and top management level, to update their knowledge. NIBM is supported by all the Banks. Now even senior bankers from other countries prefer to take training here.

All PR bodies, PR Agencies and Corporates can join hands to take it forward.

Please watch the pictures.

CySI institutes an award for internet banking

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 14:13:00 +0000

A joint programme by Cyber Society of India,
Centre for comparability EU studies and IIT Madras

Computer Security Day is observed worldwide on Nov 30th. This year Cyber Society of India (Cysi) marked the day with a Workshop on Cyber Security at Dept of Humanities and Social Sciences IIT, Madras on 02-Dec-2011, thanks to the sponsorship and patronage received from the Humanities and Social Science (HSS) Dept of IIT and Centre for Comparitive European Union Studies.

The meeting commenced with a Welcome Address by Shri K Srinivasan, President of CySI. In his address, he dwelt briefly on the activities of CySI especially on its commitment to create awareness on the threats and vulnerabilities of an e-transaction and the use of ATMs and Internet Banking. He announced institution of an award for the best bank with the most secure and user-friendly Internet Banking features. Selection criteria, the committee of jury and other related procedural issues are being addressed, he said.

Shri V Rajendran, Senior Vice President announced the purpose of the Meeting and introduced the distinguished panel of speakers describing their individual capabilities and talents.

Dr C Pandurangan a senior Professor of IIT Madras and Head Indian Statistical Institute, setting the tone for the workshop emphasized the importance of PIN and the password in ATM and Internet Banking transaction. He added that security is not the responsibility nor the domain of a single person or one entity but the collective task of the regulators, users and the service providers.

Inaugurating the workshop, Smt Sonal V Misra, I.P.S. Supdt of Police, CB-CID Chennai spoke on the global scenario on cyber crimes, especially on the dangerous trend of some economies which mainly thrive on fraudulent money. She said the public needed safety and justice from the state, which mainly consists of the police, the prosecution and the judiciary adding that what is needed is certainty of punishment and without much delay, admitting that it is a long way to go in India to ensure speedier justice, a tech-savvy administration, a deterrent punishment system and above all, a computer-literate net-savvy users at the grass-roots level.

Key note address was delivered by Shri M Ramkumar General Manager Canara Bank He spoke about the responsibilities of banks and public sector banks in particular to ensure customer focused and customer-centric service and use IT as an enabler in all electronic delivery channels . He added that more initiatives like introduction of a 2-factor authentication in the form of One Time Password for Internet Banking transaction, more secure ATMs with CCTV enabled are all being considered.

After the Tea Break, there were three thematic sessions, the first one on Network Security by Dr. B. Muthukumaran, Country Head, Secure IQ. He spoke about bots and compromised networks and the threats posed by them. Shri S.N. Ravichandran, CEO Nilagiri Chemicals, Coimbatore spoke about the ills of social networking sites like Facebook and cautioned against posting personal information in it. Shri S. Balu, Addl Supdt of Police (Retd) T.N Police presented the legal provisions highlighting the strength of I.T. Act 2000 and ITAA 2008.

There was a very lively and extremely interactive session with participants posing questions on a variety of topics like the strength of ISO 27001 standards, the level of security in a Card transactions, the legal position in the event of loss in an ATM or other card transaction etc, all of which were aptly answered by the panelists on the dais.

The meeting concluded with vote of thanks by Shri V Kapaleeswaran, Life Member of CySI followed by lunch.

(Report by V Rajendran and Kapaleeswaran)
please also watch a report by NDTV Hindu on this event.

Workshop on 'Business and Competitive Intelligence' at IIT

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:55:00 +0000

One group working on competitive strategies in the 'War Game'.
Prof. Prakash Sai (IIT) and Prof. Murali Dharan (MGSM) looking on

Department of Management Studies (Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai) jointly with Madras Management Association and Macquarie Graduate School of Management (Macquarie University, Sydeny) organised a two-day workshop for the senior corporate executives on 'Business and Corporate Intelligence" on 28th and 29th October 2011.

In the highly competitive world, all the companies are required to compete globally to fight for their space. Before preparing for the competition, the companies need to spend enough time to know about their competitors also. This is known as 'competitive intelligence'. It should be done in a legal and ethical way. It is reported that many of the Indian Corporates do not take the 'competitive intelligence' seriously and hence they lose many good projects. China is one of the good examples of using competitive intelligence and hence, they are dominating in the world as a powerful nation.

Probably for the first time in India (since no data is available), IIT has organised this workshop to create an awareness about 'competitive intelligence among the Indian Corporates. .

As part of the workshop, they also organised a 'War Game'. They divided the participants into four groups. Each group represented one major existing company viz. Infosys, TCS, Accenture and IBM. The groups were given before hand the real profile of each company and they were also advised to collect more details about their company and their competitors through various other sources.

An Imaginary Government e-Health project worth of 10 billion dollars, spread over 10 years was given as the project for 'bidding'. The groups have to prepare their competitive strategies based on their strength and the competitors' strength.

Finally, all the groups were made to present their strategies for evaluation. The concept of 'War Game' can also be used in the training workshops. It is reported that some of the major MNCs use this 'War Game' concept within themselves, to understand more about their competitors. Some of their own employees will be made to represent their competitors in their 'in-house war game'.

At this stage, I am reminded of a Thirukkural, by Saint Thiruvalluvar who wrote this following couplet 2000 years back. This Thirukkural summarises how modern day corporates can manage the competition.

வினை வலியும் தன் வலியும் மாற்றான் வலியும்
துணை வலியும் தூக்கிச்செயல் - Thirukkural 471

(Before undertaking any task, weigh judiciously (1) the nature of the task on hand, (2) your own strength, (3) Competitor's strength and (4) the strength of your support team, allies and partners.)

PodUniversal Edition 142

This Thirukkural shows, how important is the 'Competitive intelligence' before undertaking any task. Please watch 8 minutes interview on this workshop.

This video may also be watched from http://youtu.be/6eouWvA7IlM

Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) Platinum Jubilee Commemorative Oration - "Corporate Governance"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 12:31:00 +0000

Live Blogging from Taj Coromandel, Chennai - 24th October 2011 - 5.55 pm

Live Blogging Team : Mr D. Murugesan, A.R. Sridhar, Prasanna,(all from IOB) under the guidance of Mr Prime Point Srinivasan and Mr V. Rajendran of Cyber Society of India

The live blogging team welcomes you to the grand event of the Oration of Dr. M. Veerappa Moily, Union Minister of Corporate Affairs.

Please keep refreshing your browser for continuous updates.

Many eminent personalities of Chennai were present in the hall. Prayer song was rendered by IOB's Amrithavarshini team.

Bank's CMD Mr M. Narendra presented a shawl and a bouquet of flowers to the Chief Guest.

Welcome by CMD of IOB

Mr M. Narendra CMD welcomed the gathering and the Chief Guest. He explained the development of Bank since its foundation in 1937. He stated that the total business as of Sep 2011 had crossed Rs 2,91,000 crores. The Bank had opened its 2,250th branch in the holy town of Sringeri.

Corporate Governance has become an important aspect in Banking Industry. Dr. Veerappa Moily is a very competent person to talk about the Corporate Governance. Dr. Moily's tenure as CM of Karnataka is hailed as one of the best. He has contributed a lot in the education field. Dr Moily Was Chairman of several commissions.

Dr. Moily is an eminent lawyer. His books prove his literary skills.

After Mr Narendra's welcome speech, Dr Veerappa Moily made his presentation on 'Corporate Governance'.

Dr Veerappa Moily speech

Dr Moily appreciated the growth of IOB in the recent years and also appreciated the good work done by Mr Narendra, CMD. He was confident that IOB would move from the present 7th position to 2nd or 3rd position in an year or two.

He goes on to say what Corporate Governance is and what an important role it plays. India should occupy 2nd or 3rd in terms of governance.

Corporate Governance has to be value based. Senior leadership should have strong values. A good governance is not just compliance but performance. Business should be principle-based.

Though many circulars are issued, they are not practised effectively to bring in an ideal governance.

Cadbury Report in UK brought about many reviews in India. Best Practices Code have been introduced. Corporate Governance is an ethical attitude issue.

Indian banking has undergone many transformations. Performance and credibility and sustainability of the Indian banking system is the best. But, despite this, we should not feel complacent. Best practices have to be formulated. Good governance is the most important characteristic of the banking system.

Denationalisation was professed by some. But nationalisation of the banks in India is a good thing which has happened and because of this only banks have stood the test of time. Even in the nationalised stage, banks have shown their competitive spirit.

3 reasons for the need for good corporate governance in banks

1. For retail depositors

2. For loans and advances - opaque

3. Contagion effect - if one bank fails in corporate governance it might affect the system.

By stipulating standards, regulators ensure corporate governance.

Objectives of Basel II are also in sync with the objectives of good corporate governance. RBI has also come up with many standards. European Commission has come out with good corporate governance standards.

Each individual has a role to play in corporate governance. The collective performance of the individuals make the corporate governance.

"Occupy Wall Street" is an example of the effect for ineffective corporate governance. Banks and FIs should ensure good corporate governance because they are the pillars of an economy.

Some economists say that competition will ensure good corporate governance. Banking industry may be exposed to less competition. Hence, Banks have to take more efforts to ensure corporate governance.

Liberalisation policy has to be gradual. Reforms needed to rebuild economic movement. Success of the Indian economy depends upon the expansion. India's economic reforms have contributed to the growth rate.

Present crisis in Europe is the most serious crisis in banking system in Europe since 1930.

In India, there is a need for infra spending. Biggest challenge is to ensure that the current concerns regarding the present crony capitalism do not lead to do any damage to liberal capitalism. we use to tie you with red tape. now you are welcomed with red carpet.

Country can march forward if economic and political freedom are ensured. Banking sector should become the models for setting the standards of corporate governance.

IOB has been a pioneer in setting high standards and wish that the Bank gets the award for the best governance.

Minister ended his speech with thanks to IOB.

Mr Narendra and Mr Bansal, Executive Director presented a memento to Dr. Moily.

Mr Bansal, Executive Director, proposed the vote of thanks.

Disclosure of IT risks should be made mandatory for all Indian companies - Cyber experts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 14:39:00 +0000

Dr Santhosh Babu IAS, IT Secretary of Tamilnadu Government
inagurating the Media Workshop

"Disclosure of duly audited IT risks should be made mandatory by SEBI for all Indian companies for the information of investors, as it is being done in US" said cyber experts at the Media Workshop held at Chennai Press Club on Saturday the 15th October 2011.

Cyber Society of India (CySI), one of the pioneer bodies in India established in 2004 to create cyber awareness among the public, conducted a Media workshop on Saturday the 15th October 2011 at Chennai Press Club. Dr Santhosh Babu IAS, IT Secretary to Government of Tamilnadu inaugurated the workshop. Mr Bharathi Thamizhan, Joint Secretary, Chennai Press Club delivered the key note address. Around 30 media professionals participated in this workshop.

While welcoming the participants. K. Srinivasan, President of CySI emphasised the need for introducing cyber related lessons at the school level itself, so that the students are prepared to understand the cyber challenges and the consequences of cyber law.

Dr Santhosh Babu IAS explained how Tamilnadu Government is implementing e0Governance in the state. He also said that the Government is planning to recruit officers as 'Information Security Officers' to manage the information security.

Mr Bharathi Thamizhan, Joint Secrretary of Chennai Press Club explained how online media has grown compared to the print media. He also explained the how the new gadgets like IPad have changed the style of communication.

The inaugural session was followed with a panel discussion.

Mr V Rajendran, Vice President of CySI and Cyber Advocate explained some of the important features of Cyber Law and the penalties involved.

Mr S N Ravichandran, Joint Secretary of CySI and Cyber crime investigator explained the risks involved in social media networks and how cyber crimes were committed using various internet media. He also explained how the investigators are able to book the culprits, wherever they are.

Mr M L Srinivasan, a well known cyber security expert emphasized the need for transparent disclosures of IT risks by all corporates in India, as it is being done in US at the direction of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Annually, the Auditors include the financial risks in the Annual Reports for the information of invesotors. Same way, he insisted SEBI also should issue guidelines making the disclosure of IT risks as mandatory in the Annual Reports for the information of investors.

Dr Muthukumaran, an academician turned cyber security expert discussed on increased security for net-Banking transactions by way of advanced 2-Factor Authentication methods. He also stressed the need for Indian companies getting ISO 15489 certification for preservation of records. Due to the technological changes, the data stored in the servers, become unreadable over a period of time and banks and other organizations find it difficult to provide digital data for more than 10 years. Government need to store citizen data for several decades under e-Governance model. Hence, the data should be stored in neutral digital data format, so that they could be presented even after several years. Dr Muthukumaran said that ISO 15489 certification guides an organization on maintenance of archived digital data in the proper format. Unfortunately, in India, so far, only one company had gone for such certification and all other companies, including banks should go for such certification immediately, he said.

Mr Nurullah, a senior Tamil Journalist anchored the programme in an interesting manner. Mr Shanker Kumar, Secretary, CySI proposed vote of thanks.

Please see the photo stream of this event.

National Media Conference 2011 - Valedictory - 180911

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:39:00 +0000

Live reporting from Mount Abu

Please see the earlier postings of this Conference.

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/national-media-conference-

2011-welcome.html

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/national-media-conference-2011-first.html

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/media-and-conferance-exhibition-2011.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/national-media-conference-2011-second.html

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/national-media-conference-2011-second.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/national-media-conference-second-day.html

Live Blogging start at 6.30pm by team K Srinivasan, Satish Surve,Aniruddha Kulkarni, Harshad Wadadekar.

S S Tripathy
(National President,All India small news papers association,Lacknow.)
Mr. S S tripathy has started their speech by saying, media has supreme power to build and destruct the government, people should unit and help media in social development.

B K Om Prakash
(Chairperson,Media wings, Indore.)
Om prakash is happy as the basic thought of organising seminar is achieved because of the participation of experts from traditional media,social media,PR media and other professionals from different part of country.media is very important and can play major role in changing society.
He read out seven line resolution and urged traditional media, media professionals to adopt ethics and moral values for healthy peaceful developing society.

Mrs. D K Aruna
(Hon'ble minister for information and PR, Govt. of A.P.,Hyderabad.)
She expressed her concern about the unholy alliance of media leading to media being misused for commercial gains. She was hopeful that a day will come that media would follow ethics and values.

Dr Dadi Janaki, Chief of Brahmakumaris

Dadi Jankiji the chief Bramhakumari shared their experience and ended up, her appeal to the traditional media to follow the values of benefited society, with blessings to all.

The two-days conference ended up with B K sarla Anand,President of Global Forum for Public Relation, proposing vote of thanks.

National Media Conference - Second day - Panel discussion - 180911

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 09:24:00 +0000

Live reporting from Mount Abu

Please see the earlier postings of this Conference.

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/national-media-conference-

2011-welcome.html

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/national-media-conference-2011-first.html

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/media-and-conferance-exhibition-2011.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/national-media-conference-2011-second.html

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/national-media-conference-2011-second.html

Live Blogging will start at 3pm by team K Srinivasan, Satish Surve,Aniruddha Kulkarni, Harshad Wadadekar.

K C Mouli
(Sr. Faculty, PR & Advertising, MLCN University of journalism, Bhopal)
Mr.K C Mouli Start Their speech with question that what is proactive media?
saying media highlights news of VVIPs before it happens known as proactive media. Media plays important role in these case like kagil war, women selling, child marriage,bribes, politicians and in anna hajare campaign media played proactive role.Growth of media has assumed better significance with rise in technology.
informer, educator, communicator & also an activist.
participation of media in proactive way is good message for dvelopment of india.

Mr. Rajeev Khosla
(Addl Director,I & PR, Govt. of Hariyana, Chandighar.)
Media can be social, its not only commercial, media mates mass aware & touches life of masses haryana sex ratio has been highlighted with help of media. Media can be great force in social development.

Dr. Devendra Sharma
(Sr. Cartoonist,Indore.)
He Said about media role in society, how it looks towards society & how society looks towards media.

B K Niranjana
(coordinator,media wings,Baroda(Alkapuri)Subzone)
Its not only responsibility of media but also everyone to change for society. i assume you these three days would be helpful for you knowing proactive media. people should change their mentality on their own to remove corruption, One has to understand self which is spirituality.meditation is the biggest answer to increase self power.

Irfan Khan
(Ex-Director,corporate communication, Hindustan lever,Mumbai)
Media Played important role in india against corruption campaign. Media itself is a undergoing transformation, people are moving up, print media is suffering a loss since last five years are social for theme. we need to move for better technology, better media & better world for new generation.

Arun Arora
(Sr.vice-president,corporate communication,Jindal steel,delhi)
Short term punishment work long term reward is best option motivation works as effectively as reward and punishment.If one focuses on strength the weaknesses will disappear. Media person can stop reporting on negative reporting and should report positively.Change the mind set, that normal news also be a good news why not talk about good news, change containt by using simple language while talking about spirituality.we should forget the past and concentrate on, now what we can do.

Ashish Gupta
(Regional Mnager,Sadhna News,Indore.)
Its wrong always blaming media, its not bad, the way it has been taken. we should stop adding masala to the news and give the exact message. Media is bridge between society and government, it should awaking both sides.media is not at fault, media is giving whatever is demand of audience. people knows how to criticize but not how to fight against it. common man has to change first then only the society will change.

Dipendra shrestha
(Station director,radio annapurna, pokhra, Nepal.)
Information is power and media is power to change society. Today a big question arises, is it a business or service. we can not do everything we have planed, due to religious problems.Media has started collecting money for campaigns. contains, quantity and quality are three things where we need to concentrate.To change the society we have to change media insight.

National Media Conference 2011 - Second Day - Plenary Session 180911

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 05:28:00 +0000

Live reporting from Mount Abu

Please see the earlier postings of this Conference.http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/national-media-conference-
2011-welcome.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/national-media-conference-2011-first.html

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/media-and-conferance-exhibition-2011.html

Live Blogging By Satish Surve(Media Trainee)
The second day session started at 10.30am with plannery session on the theme Challenges and Opportunities before Modern Mass Media

Mr. B K Sushant (Natinal Co-ordinator Media Wings Delhi) felt the soft skills need to improve among the media persons.he is saying there are some good and bad things in media but we have to select what will be benefited for us.
there are people who things that to be in media there is nessesity of English
language and every language has its own power.

Dr.C V Narasimha

(Former Director,Information and PR,Govt Of A.P.,Hydderabad)

During independence media role was vital,now media becomes business,false occupations they manipulate news for business,political interference is much more Dr.Narasimha Reddy was saying about there dream where they saw golden triangle which having three pillars. humanity is depending upon three pillars govt.,media and god,when this three pillars will work properly india will be punyabhumi.there will be love, peace and value.

Prof.Ujjwal K. Choudhary
(Dean, Whistling Woods School of Communication,Mumbai.)

He quoted its good to includes spiritual things in media but we have to concentrate on main stream media. He also said how media is engaged in cricket, crime, celebrity and cinema. lets look insight people changing their view toward media the good eg. is Anna Hajre campaign. After 15-20 years media become now multidimensional called an user generated media,we have to find good things in today's media.

Mr. Ravindra Bastola
(Editor,Pakhra Awaj Daily,Pokhra,Nepal)
He urged for freedom of press. He discussed about terrorist issues saying people should unite and fight against challenges. Media should play the role shaping the society.

Session ended with Guided Meditation by B K Vimla.

live blogging team,
K.Srinivasan, Satish Surve, Aniruddha Kulkarni, Harshad Wadadekar.

Media conferance & Exhibition 2011 - Dialogue sessions - 170911

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 09:14:00 +0000

Harshad from Whistling Woods reporting live from Mount Abu with help of Aniruddha and Satish

Please see the earlier postings of this Conference.
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/national-media-conference-2011-welcome.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/national-media-conference-2011-first.html

Dialogue 1 -Restortion of moral & social values

Rajaesh Rajore [Resident Editor,Dainik Dshonnati,Khamgaon]

He in his addressal said morals come from society we live,art of being happy is to live in good society giving example of Anna Hazare's Campain he also said its duty of media to provide the right information

Dialogue -2

A catalyst for positive change

B.K Girish [Sr Journalist & Faculty,Value Education,Gyan Sarovar,Mt Abu]

Speaking to the audience he said,there should be positive changes in media,it should play major role against corruption.Media should play role of catalyst.We the people from society have whole right to raise our voice against corruption and we should always be on right path.

Jaikrishna Gour[Editor,Charaibeti & Nano Darshan Magazine,Indore]

He briefly discussed how media is distributed in multimedia.Increase in Technology helped media spread evrywhere,post 82 media started developing,he also said during his time people use to trust what ever written in newspapers but now-a-days its getting dificult to trust the newspapers too.

Dialogue 3

Electronic Media,its Scope & Challenges

Sanjeev Chouhan [Crime Editor News Express Channel,Noida]

Focusing on TRP's he briefly discussed how masala is added to news before telecast.Also he mentioned Freedom of Press and maintaining accuracy is huge task for Press upcoming years.

Ashima Singh Gureja [Ast Prof Dept of media studies Vivekananda Institute,Delhi]

She discussed about scope and challenges in media,talking about electronic media she said electronic media is not only concise its above that,its not only news its beyond that.one has to be focused and concentrate on ideas.Less creativity and media being mirror of stories,whatever media thinks is always not possible are limitations she mentioned.

Satish Kapoor[President Brotherhood Film Festival,New Delhi]

He gave an idea about how difficult it was organising film festival in earlier days due to lack of research and creativity,now due to development in technology we can conduct research, creativity has increased too,so division of work helps makes the work simpler is what he quoted.

Dialogue 4

New media scope and challenges

K.Srinivasan[CEO,Prime point]

He explained the various challenges post by the technology media like social media networks and mobiles and internet sites,he said the time had come that the school teachers and parents realise the importance and create proper awareness among the children on proper use of the new media

B.K.Yashwant[Coordinator,IT & Communication Dept,Bramhakumaris Mt abu]

He explained how Bramhakumari's are using internet media,mobiles and broadcast media successfully for conveying positive messages

Dialogue 5 [Group 1]

Developing PR Code of Conduct

Narsimha Reddi [Former Director,I.T & PR govt of Andhra Pradesh]

He discussed in brief about Code of Conduct for Public Relations

Proffessionalism,Ethics & Personal Ethics.Combination of three make code of conduct.He also said spirituality is more important in PR,love is an external quality of code.

Prof Ujjwal Kumar Choudhary [Dean Whistling Woods International,Mumbai]

He gave an idea of need for ethical presentation of content based information,He quoted "Any bad news is Good news" your intention should be good,then he gave an idea how social networking plays an important role and ended saying Good actions speak about values of your organisation.

Dialogue 5 [Group 2]

New Media and PR

Arun Arora [Senior Vice President,Corporate Communication,Jindal Steel]

He explained with examples how western countries make use of the social networking sites for effective customer relations

Arpita Prashant[Asst prof M.O.P Vaishnav college for women,chennai]

She explained her study on how people perceive media negatively

Madhavan Varadarajan [PR consultant,Chennai]

He emphasised imortance of traditional Public Relations, not withstanding the growth of social media

K.Srinivasan [CEO,Prime Point,Chennai]

He explained with examples how social media is driving the main-line media.He quoted recent example of Anna Hazare's anti corruption movement which was initially promoted by social media and mobile media and later picked up by regional media

National Media Conference 2011 - First day - Inauguration

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 05:32:00 +0000

K. Srinivasan, Prime Point reporting live from Mount Abu. I am being assited by Harshad, Aniruddha and satish students of Whistling Woods Mumbai, MBA batch.
Pl read the earlier postings at
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/09/Anational-media-conference-2011-welcome.html

The first day of the Conference started at 7 AM with a session on Meditation by Sr. B K Usha. She was giving the techniques of meditation. She also emphasised on the need for removing negative thoughts from the mind and to fill with the positive thoughts. Such positive thoughts would help to reduce the stress, she added.

The inaugural session started at 10 AM with invocation. Raja Yogi B K Karuna, Vice Chairman, Media Wing of Brahmakumaris welcomed the augidence. During his speech, he quoted President Pratibha Patil, who launched the Platinum Jubilee of Brahmakumaris yesterday at Delhi.

Now Harshad from Whistling Woods reporting live from Mount Abu

Prof Kamal Dixit[National Co-ordinator Society of Media Initiative for values] gave brief introduction about the seminar and mentioned successful campaign of Anna Hazare.Later Ganesh Vndana by Raju Bhai and Group,then

B.K.Omprakash[Chairperson,Media Wing Indore] explained the objective of the conference,to understand oneself and mentioned Dadi Jankiji as source of inspiration to all.

B.K.NIRWAIR [Secretary General,Bramhakumaris] shared nice thaughts in his Adressal he mentioned article in Speeking Tree,Times of India how they have explained exact difference between Spirituality and Politics.And also said Spirituality brings peace and lack of sprituality brings corruption

Irffan Khan [Formar Director Corp Comm HUL,Mumbai] in his addressal he said if we want to save India from everything one has to be strong enough to handle any circumstances.

Rajeev Ranjan Nag [Editor India News] He explained how channels have changed chasing the TRP ratings.He quoted recent example of Indian Prime Minister addressing the media on 2G scam,he said at the same time wellknown actress Rakhi Sawant was addressing the media,some of the channels in order to gain mileage of TRP ratings shifted from PM's press conference to Rakhi Sawant show.

Rajyogini Dr. B.K.Dadi Janakiji
95 year old Dadi Janakiji in her innaugeral address expressed the concern of increase in corruption in all segments.She also expressed the concern that Small things are made big and Big things are made Small by media,now media has to play a positive role in the development of society.Inaugural session ended with B.K Chandrakala proposing vote of thanks.

National Media Conference 2011 - Welcome Session

noreply@blogger.com (India Vision) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:41:00 +0000

Live report from Mount Abu - 16th Sep 2011 8.00 PM

Report by K. Srinivasan, V Madhavan and Ms Arpita Prashanth

Brahmakumaris, one of the leading spiritual organisations is organising a National Media Conference and Exhibition at Mount Abu, Rajasthan from 17th Sep to 19th Sep 2011. This Conference coincides with the Platinum Jubilee Celebrations of Brahmakumaris and Silvee Celebrations of their Media Wing.

Around 1500 Media and PR professionals across the country are expected to participate in this Conference. As we are writing this live blogging' many delegates are arriving at the venue from various places.

They have organised a 'welcome session' today evening at 6 PM to brief the participants about the programme.

The theme of this conference is "Value based Media - Need of the hour". An Exhibition is also organised to showcase the latest developments in the media industry. Pl see the photographs of the welcome session and the exhibition.

Do not become slave and addict of social media; Keep at arm's distance

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 13:13:00 +0000

K. Srinivasan, Founder, Prime Point Foundation addressed the members of Social Media Club at Chennai on Saturday the 27th August 2011. He was speaking on "Public Relations (PR) through Social Media". During his speech, he explained the growth of internet and social media in the recent years. He also explained how corporates and individuals could use social media effectively for promoting their products or services. He also explained how HR departments were looking at the social media links of the candidates and judge them. Hence, he suggested all youngsters to use the social media properly.

Srinivasan also quoted various examples of his own podcasts which were used by mainline media. He also cautioned the audience about the security aspects of various social media. He concluded his speech with a caution that social media, though to be used at appropriate time, should be kept at arm's distance. He advised the audience not to become addict to social media. He suggested wherever possible use 'face to face' or one-one-voice communication, instead of social media, to bring 'human touch'.

As the speech was going on, some of the members were live tweeting the bullet points.

The Photos taken during the event is streamed below:

The presentation is also given below.

Pr through social media 270811

View more presentations from Prime Point Foundation, Chennai.

Even the so called 'transparent' companies need to conduct image audit

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:05:00 +0000

K. Srinivasan addressing the Rotary Club of Temple City.
Rtn M S Srinivasan (President) and
Rtn. Hemachandran (Secretary) on the stage.

K. Srinivasan, Chairman of Prime Point Foundation was invited to talk on "Image Audit" at the Rotary Club of Madras Temple City on Thursday the 11th August 2011. During his talk, he emphasised the need for studying the 'hidden perception' of the stake holders, to understand the real internal and external image of the organisation.

He explained that the perception was being formed by every individual on any organisation based on the (a) performance of the organisation (b) personal experience with that organisation, (c) what he hears from others and (d) the rumours floating around about the organisation He also quoted the example of current elections and political parties to prove how across the state, people perceived uniformly.

He added that the net effect of individual perception created the image about the organisation. He also said that same logic applied to commercial and non commercial organisations, political parties, NGOs, educational institutions and even individuals.

Srinivasan, quoted the examples of how the perception had played greater role in making or ruining the organisations. Hence, he insisted that all the organisations study the 'hidden perception' of their stake holders, more specifically their own employees to plan the future strategies.

During the "Q &A' session, members posed lot of interesting and brilliant questions. One of the members asked whether the companies who were following 'transparent' practices need to study such hidden perception. For this, Srinivasan responded by saying that though the persons regularly performing exercises and yoga, with clean habits, need to possess good health theoretically, it never happened in reality. Hence, they also undergo health check up.

"Transparency is a relative term. What is transparent according to the management, need not be the same in the perception of employees. Hence, even the so called 'transparent' companies need to audit the perception of their employees regularly, to understand and strategise their plans", he added.

This Rotary Club is one of the oldest clubs in Chennai City with many VIP members. President of this Club Rtn M S Srinivasan and Secretary Rtn. Hemachandran organised this event. Please see the photo stream.

Era of Mr Era Sezhiyan, a legendary Parliamentarian with impeccable character

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 15:26:00 +0000

The book 'Parliament of the People' being released by
Justice Natarajan (Second from right). Mr Era Seshiayan (left extreme) looks on.
Thuglak Editor Cho Ramaswamy receives the book
Photo courtesy: The Hindu

Mr Era Sezhiyan (88), an octogenarian Parliamentarian is one of the most revered political leaders of India. He has served Indian Parliament for more than 22 years and is considered today as one of the authorities of Indian Parliament system. Even now, the Speakers of Parliament and other politcal leaders used to consult him on various procedures of Parliament. He belongs to the generation of leaders like Morarji Desai, Jayaprakash Narayan, Vajpayee, Somnath Chatterjee and many others.

We can feel proud to live in an era, when Mr Era Sezhiyan is also living. Since many of his friends could not spell the name 'Sezhiyan', he is popularly known as 'Era' among the Parliament members and Government officials. I am greatly fortunate to interact with him several times on various national issues and to invite him for the Prime Point Foundation's events.

A few months back, he compiled and released a book on Shah Commission Report about Emergency exceesess. We had also at that time, recorded his exclusive interview and published in our PodUniversal.

In the span of more than 22 years in Parliament, he has made several speeches, which drew the attention of then Government and which are also relevant today. Institute of Social Sciences has compiled some of the important speeches and published a book titled 'Parliment for the People". This book was released by Justice Natarajan, one of the former well known Supreme Court Judges on 9th July 2011 at Chennai.

Many leading personalities admired the services of this legendary person. Mr Era Sezhiyan, though not a member of Parliament, is quite active in public life, sharing his views through media.

Please see the photo stream of the function. The report of The Hindu is given below.

Please read the Hindu report dated 10th July 2011

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2215867.ece

"Era Sezhiyan, a person of impeccable character"

A host of speakers, led by S. Natarajan, former Supreme Court Judge, on Saturday hailed Era Sezhiyan, veteran parliamentarian, for his services to Parliament and steadfast commitment to the protection of constitutional institutions, advocacy of decentralisation and the importance of propriety and probity in public life.

Launching “Parliament for The People,” a publication of Mr Sezhiyan’s speeches in Parliament, at a function here, Mr Natarajan described the parliamentarian as a person of impeccable character and integrity, a man of erudition and a constitutional expert.

He recalled that after Mr Sezhiyan’s defeat in the 1977 Lok Sabha election, several national leaders including the then Prime Minister Morarji Desai and External Affairs Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee wanted him to enter the Parliament again through Rajya Sabha by getting elected from any of the northern States where the Janata Party was strong. But, Mr Sezhiyan had turned down their offer. The issue was resolved in 1978 when the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran, on the advice of Mr Desai, had agreed to extend his party’s support to Mr Sezhiyan’s election from Tamil Nadu to the Rajya Sabha.

Mr Natarajan, Editor-in-Chief of THE HINDU N. Ram and industrialist R. Veeramani recounted that in August 1989, in response to Mr Sezhiyan’s appeal, then Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and Vice-President S.D. Sharma had expunged disparaging remarks made by members in the House against the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in the light of the Bofors scandal.

The former Supreme Court Judge said this episode had demonstrated how much respect was given to Mr Sezhiyan, who was no longer a member of the Upper House then. He added that the book brought out effectively how legislative business could be carried on with dignity and decorum in spite of serious differences of opinion among members of the legislature.

The function was organised by the VIT University, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi and the Rajaji Centre for Public Affairs, Chennai.

Mr Ram, who received the first copy, said interactions with Mr Sezhiyan on a host of issues over the years were educative, enriching and productive. He was never a high-profile parliamentarian but extremely active from the start.

Referring to Mr Sezhiyan’s defence of the CAG on the Bofors deal controversy, Mr Ram said this had a contemporary relevance. The CAG, a relatively low-profile institution, had made a valuable contribution on the 2G spectrum allocation scandal. Mr Ram said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was otherwise soft spoken, had done a wrong thing by criticising the CAG.

George Matthew, Director of the Institute of Social Sciences, which had published the book, explained how Mr Sezhiyan, through an indepth study, had highlighted the constitutional impropriety inherent in the functioning of the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme.

Describing Mr Sezhiyan as a wonderful activist too, Dr. Mathew said he observed Mr Sezhiyan’s organising skills during the visit of former Prime Minister V.P. Singh to Tamil Nadu in 1990 after the National Front government was unseated from power.

G. Viswanathan, VIT University Chancellor, who presided over the function, recalled the moments that he and Mr Sezhiyan spent together as Members of Parliament (Lok Sabha) during 1967-1977. During those years, members rarely rushed to the well of the House or displayed unruly behaviour.

He described Mr Sezhiyan as a deep thinker and a person who expressed his views in a forthright manner.

Cho S. Ramaswamy, Editor of ‘Thuglak,’ said when Mr Sezhiyan spoke in Parliament, he was heard with rapt attention. He was respected by all members including former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. B.S. Raghavan, former civil servant, commended the Parliamentarian for raising the level of political discourse.

Mr Sezhiyan said he was trained by leaders such as C.N. Annadurai and Jayaprakash Narayan. (EOM)

Blog writing will improve the writing skills - Seminar at Vivekananda Vidyalaya

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 13:51:00 +0000

Smt Durgadevi choudhary Vivekananda Vidyalaya, Kolathu, Chennai has a 'Journalism Academy', started in 2009. The students from 6th Standard to 10th Standard are the members of this Academy. This academy provides opportunity to the students to improve their writing skills and also shape them as a future journalist. Frequently, the School is inviting senior journalists to interact and share the views.

Students interacting with K. Srinivasan on journalism

On 2nd July 2011, I was also invited to share the views with the students. Mr P A Narrendiran, another PR and Communication professional also joined me. Around 150 students participated in this seminar.

When I asked the students, as to how many of them were having e mail account, almost 90 percent of them raised their hands. When I asked them, as to how many of them were using Facebook or twitter, more than 60 percent of them raised their hands. Finally, when I asked the students, as to how many of them were writing blogs, nobody raised their hands, excepting one girl.

This is a general trend among the school. and college going students. Present day students prefer facebook or twitter because of the sms lingos. On the other hand, one has to spend time for writing blogs, that too in a formal language.

Though facebook, twitter and other social media networks are good social media tools for connectivity, they are spoiling the writing habits of these students. In these social media, the students use sms lingos and abbreviated languages without proper spelling and grammar. Finally, when they are writing formal letters, they find it extremely difficult to write even a 100 word communication. I explained to the students the 'challenges' while using social media tools and how 'blog writing' can improve their writing skills.

Since the new generation students are highly techno savvy, I suggested them to create new blog and start writing once or twice a week. I asked them to write about any topic of their interest, including the sports, games, music, etc. I told them such blogs will improve their writing skils in long term and also their self confidence. Some of the students assured me that they would start a blog on the same night and report to me. I am awaiting their response. Mr Thanukrishnan, Principal and other teachers also offered to help the students by reviewing their blog and guiding them to improve the writing skills.
Another important aspect that I need to mention here is the perception of the students on the current media (Television and Print). Many of them rate the credibility of the media at less than 50 percent. Though, the students are very young, they seem to assess on what they see and hear. From the pictures given below, the readers can see the amount of interaction, the students had with me on the various aspects of media and journalism.

Please see the photo show:

Media management workshop for Police Officers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:16:00 +0000

Participants of the workshop with Mr S. Dorairaj, SP

Tamilnadu Police Academy, Chennai organised an one-day workshop on 14th June 2011 to 25 senior Police Officers drawn from various districts of Tamilnadu. Officers in the rank of Inspectors, Deputy SPs and Addl. SPs participated in the workshop.

There is a general perception among the people that even an insignificant event gets 'sensationalised' by the media and some time, taken to national media level. It is also perceived that during sensitive investigations, the plans and movement of the police team is also projected through media, causing inconvenience for the investigation process. On the other hand, media professionals also accuse police officers not being transparent and not sharing the information in the public interest.

This one-day workshop provided an opportunity to the participating police officers, to understand the changing trends in media and the importance of maintaining a good relationship with media professionals, for mutual advantage.

K. Srinivasan (Chairman, Prime Point Foundation) and John Arokiaswamy (COO, Good Relations India Ltd) handled the sessions providing various situations leading to sensationalisation of news. They also offered tips to handle such situations more professionally. They screened various news shows, that were sensationalised with various case studies. Mr P A Narrendran, another senior corporate communication professional also joined them to provide expert views.

Various senior professionals like Bhagwan Singh (Consulting Editor, Deccan Chronicle), Nurullah (Senior Tamil journalist), Prem Shankar (ET Now) and Narendra (Fomrer Media Advisor to Prime Minister) were called over phone from the class room for interaction session.

Mr S, Dorairaj, Superintendent of Police, Police Academy handled the session on 'Image Management' for the Police. Prateep Philip, IG of Police, Police Academy gave valedictory address.

This is a good initiative by the Police Academy. We have also suggested them to arrange for similar workshops for senior level police officers, so that they could also understand the nuances of professional media management.

Please see the photo stream:

TN Police Academy conducts one-day workshop on communication for Police officers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 10:38:00 +0000

Tamilnadu Police Academy

Tamilnadu Police Academy, Chennai was set up by the Government of Tamilnadu to provide highest standard of training to senior police officers. The Academy built over 130 acres of land, has excellent infrastructural facilities to offer the best training to even the top level Police Officers.

On 7th June 2011, the Academy organised an one-day workshop for the officers at Sub Inspector and Inspector level working at the field level. The focus of the workshop was to provide or enhance their communication skills, so that they could be more effective in discharging their duties and handling the general public. Around 25 participants across Tamilnadu participated.

K. Srinivasan, Prime Point Foundation was requested to handle two sessions (a) Listening skills and (b) Assertive Communication.

The sessions included games and role-plays to effectively communicate the techniques of communication and listening habits. Mr John Arokiaswamy, Chief Operating Officer, Good Relations India Ltd and a communication expert also joined with K. Srinivasan and provided expert views during games and role plays.

Mr S. Dorairaj, Superintendent of Police and Mr Panneerselvam, Addl Supdt. of Police of TN Police Academy joined at the end of the session and delivered valedictory address.

Police Officers at the field level are connecting the common man with the administration. At the same time, they have the greatest responsibility of maintaining law and order. More often, due to pressure of work and pressure from various quarters, their health is affected. Developing good communication skill will help them to handle their profession more efficiently and to avoid health problems.
I appreciate TN Police Academy for taking such pro-active initiative to provide communication skills to their field level officers. My suggestion is to extend such workshops even to senior level officers from Superintendent of Police, so that they could also get the benefit of enhancing their communication skills. Good communication skills will reduce their mental pressure.

Please see the photo show"

NTPC organizes PR Workshop in Pachmarhi

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 May 2011 12:55:00 +0000

Participants of the PR workshop

Report sent by Mr K. Ravindran, Senior Manager (PR), Western Region, Mumbai of NTPC.

The Western Region-I Headquarters of NTPC organized a two day Public Relations workshop for its senior management employees from the western region on 22-23^rd May 2011 at Pachmarhi. The program began with the inaugural address by Shri S C Pandey, Regional Executive Director of NTPC. In his address, Shri Pandey spoke about the way the media and challenges of dealing with the press are challenging organisations across the board with the transformation of the world into an economic and social global village were any news has the potential of becoming national or international news within a fraction of a second.

This was followed by the session on corporate public relations by Shri M Gopalakrishna, IAS former chairman of Rural Electrification Corporation of India who gave broad view of corporate public relations. The other speakers who spoke on various aspects of Public Relations included Shri Joe Scaria of Economic Times, Shri B N Kumar, CEO of Concept Public Relations and Ms Susan Koshy of Konfluenz, Chennai.

The aim of the workshop was to make the senior executives of the company aware of the nuances of dealing with media and their role as spokespersons of the company in future. The two day workshop also included practical knowledge of the public relations with the simulation of a mock press conference for the executives to learn from and adapt to.

There were over 20 participants who took advantage of the workshop and gained knowledge on corporate communications and the success of the organization in building lasting relationships with the media.

Earlier, Shri K Ravindran, Sr Manager (PR), Western Region, Mumbai welcomed the participants and Shri A K Bhatnagar, GM, Corporate Communications & HR, NTPC Ltd gave overview of the workshop. Subjects such as CSR, branding were also discussed during the interactive sessions which was appreciated by all the participants.

Image Audit helps to improve the employee management

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 May 2011 16:54:00 +0000

L to R: K. Srinivasan, Rtn Latha Rajan (President),
Rtn. R. Narayanan (Secretary Elect)

K. Srinivasan, Chairman, Prime Point Foundation delivered a talk on "Image Audit and measuring techniques of image" at Rotary Club of Adyar on 17th May 2011. During the course of his talk, he explained as to how perception is being formed based on (a) performance, (b) ones own experience, (c) what others say and (d) rumours.

He also said that such perception formed by stakeholders create positive or negative image. Generally, employees have 'hidden perception' on the management and normally, they do not reveal to the management, for various reasons.

He regretted that many corporates, particularly CEO managed, organisations do not prefer to conduct Image Audit on the employees, for fear of their administration being reviewed frankly by their employees. Image Audit is like a 'master health check up' for any person and even if the employees give negative perception, it would help to streamline the administration. On the other hand, the organisations managed by 'owners' at the top level, prefer to conduct image audit.

K. Srinivasan addressing

Srinivasan said, through Image Audit techniques, we can bring out the hidden perception of employees and other stakeholders. This would help the management to undertake mid-course corrections and also to avoid any possible future crisis.
He also explained with example as to how 'perception' formed by the voters has played a greater role during the recent assembly elections.

For more details on Image Audit, he requested the audience to visit www.imageaudit.com.

Rtn. Latha Rajan, President of the Rotary Club of Adyar presided over the meeting. The meeting was attended by members of the club, who represented various industries and profession.

The slide show of the power point file is appended below.

View more presentations from Prime Point Foundation, Chennai.

Dr Abdul Kalam honours cartoonists at Cartoon Festival 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 12 May 2011 10:50:00 +0000

Dr Abdul Kalam

Cartoon Watch, the only cartoon magazine in India organises Cartoon Festival every year and honours the senior cartoonists since 2003. Cartoon Watch is being published from Raipur. Cartoon Festival 2011 was held this year at New Delhi on 29th April 2011. Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, Former President of India launched the Cartoon Festival by drawing a symbolic cartoon and honoured senior cartoonists Mr Ajit Ninan, Mr Kaak, MrMr Hussain Zamin, Mr B V Panduranga Rao, Mr Jagjeet Rana and Mr Sudheer Nath for their lifetime achievement in the field of cartoon.

Mr Triambak Sharma, Editor, Cartoon Watch organised this event. Mr Triambak Sharma is also the cartoon Editor of our ezine PreSense and the cartoon character PRince created by him was also launched by Dr Kalam three years back at Chennai. Dr Kalam also made a reference about the cartoon characters like common man and PRince in his speech.

During his speech, he also advised the cartoonists to set their mission. Dr Abdul Kalam is one of the admirers of cartoons and wherever he goes, he always encourages the media to use more of cartoons, to convey the message to the people in an effective manner.

Full text of Dr Kalam's speech is available in the official site of Dr Abdul Kalam and may be read by clicking this link.

Mr Ashish Agarwal, cartoonist has given the full account of the event in his blog. Please read this blog in the following link.

http://ashishagarwal.net/cartoon_festival.html

Please watch the photo stream of the event.

Lok Sabha Heroes and UnSung Heroes honoured

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 08 May 2011 15:33:00 +0000

Prime Point Foundation, Chennai and Corporate ezine PreSense honour the top performing MPs of Lok Sabha since 2009. Top 5 MPs of 14th Lok Sabha were featured in the ezine PreSense.

Mr Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, Mr Anandrao Adsul, Mr S S Ramasubbu, award winning MPs with Mr N Vittal, Mr Sthanunathan, Mr Era Sezhian and K. Srinivasan

In 2010, the Foundation instituted Annual Awards for the top performing MPs (calculated till the end of 31st March of every year based on the data provided by Lok Sabha Secretariat and compiled by PRS India. Mr Hansraj Gangaram Ahir (BJP MP from Chandrapur, Maharashtra) and Mr S S Ramasubbu (Cong MP from Tirunelveli) were honoured for their top performance in the 15th Lok Sabha till the end of March 2010. Mr Ramasubbu, stood first in debates, private bills and questions in Tamilnadu.

For the year 2011, a simple and impressive function was organised at Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya on 7th May 2011. Mr Era Sezhian (well known veteran octogenarian Parliamentarian), Mr N Vittal (Former Central Vigilance Commissioner of India) and Mr Sthanunathan (Secretary of Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya and a Gandhian) were the chief guests.

During this function, Mr Hansraj Gangaram Ahir (BJP MP from Chandrapur, Maharashtra), Mr Anandrao Adsul (Shiv Sena MP from Amravati, Maharastra) and Mr S S Ramasubbu (Cong MP from Tirnelveli, Tamilnadu) were honoured for their top performance in the Lok Sabha till the end of Budget Session 2011.

Mr Hansraj stood first for overall tally and also in introducing Private Member Bills. Mr Adsul stood second in the overall tally and also first in raising questions. It may be noted, Mr Adsul stood first in raising questions even in 14th Lok Sabha.

Mr Ramasubbu, stood fourth in the overall tally at national level and first among Tamilnadu MPs.

A round table discussion was held on the theme "Social leadership and development politics". There was a huge particpation of youth in this programme.

Besides the award winning MPs, Dr Jayaprakash Narayan MLA of AP (President of Lok Satta Party), Mr Vivek Pandit Independent MLA from Maharashtra, Ms Jothi Mani, General Secretary of Youth Congress also participated and shared their views.

At the request of K. Srinivasan, Prime Point Foundation, the award winning 3 MPs agreed to take student interns to train them in parliamentary proceedings and procedures. Department of Humanities and Social Science of IIT, Chennai has agreed to nominate students to these top performing MPs. Based on the experience, this concept will be extended to other willing MPs. This is the first of its kind in India.
Besides the three top performing MPs, the Foundation has also honoured Manam Malarattum, Build Future India, the NGOs and serial inventor Mr Arvind Thyagarajan (30) who holds 40 patents in his name.

Mr Sudhangan, a well known TV anchor, moderated the discussion.
Indian Overseas Bank, Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd, Good Relations, Karnataka Power Corporation sponsored this event. Cyber Society of India, India Vision online group and Action 2020 Team supported this initiative.

Please watch the photo stream:

Image audit helps to foresee and manage crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 04:35:00 +0000

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/economy/article1699725.ece

Mr K. Srinivasan, Chairman, Prime Point Foundation, and Chief Strategist, Image Audit, addressing management students of the Sri Manakula Vinayakar Institute of Technology, Pudhucherry, at a Business Line Club lecture at the institution.

CHENNAI, APRIL 15:

While a company undertakes annual audits of its finances, stock, costs, and the health of its employees, it does not audit the ‘hidden perceptions' of its internal and external stakeholders.

Studying hidden perceptions could unearth lot of information, and could help it foresee even impending crisis, said Mr K. Srinivasan, Chairman, Prime Point Foundation, and Chief Strategist, Image Audit.

He was addressing management students of the Sri Manakula Vinayakar Institute of Technology, Pudhucherry at a Business Line Club lecture presented by Tata Photon.

STAKEHOLDERS' PERCEPTIONS

Internal and external stakeholders form their own ‘perceptions' based on various factors such as performance, their personal experience, hearsay and rumours.

Normally, they do not reveal such hidden perceptions to the management for different reasons. Such ‘hidden perceptions' affect the image of the organisation, he added.

CRISIS AVOIDANCE

“A regular audit of their image by companies can help them avoid crisis by making mid-course corrections.

This will also help companies understand the mindset of the employees of target companies during the M&A process,” Mr Srinivasan added.

During the interactive session, Mr Srinivasan also shared some of the live case studies where Image Audit had helped organisations overcome challenges in time

Indian Overseas Bank's (IOB) PR Workshop launched by M. Narendra Chairman

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:47:00 +0000

Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) is now celebrating the Platinum Jubilee Year and they have coined the slogan ''Touching Hearts - Spreading Smiles''. In the platinum jubilee year IOB is planning to 'reach the unreached' and develop an effective relationship with all the customers. As part of their strategy IOB has organised a three-day workshop at their staff training college Chennai from 7th to 9th March 2011. K. Srinivasan, Prime Point Foundation is the workshop leader.

Mr. M. Narendra, Chairman and Managing Director of the Bank inaugurated the workshop. He said the bank would cross Rs. 5 lacs crores business in next three years and their staff members were being prepared and motivated to achieve this milestone. In order to reach the committed goal the bank will aggressively use PR strategies. Mr. Chandrasekharan and Ms. Geetha Shetti, General Managers were also present.

Participants with CMD and GMs

Twenty eight senior officials drawn from various regional offices across the nation are participating in this workshop. Experts from media, Television, PR agencies are sharing the views in the workshop. Some of the experts like Mr Irfan Khan, Mr T N Ashok, Mr S Narendra will be sharing their views through tele-conference from the classroom.
Please see the photo stream of the first day.
(Report prepared by Vishal Joshi, IOB, Mumbai)

Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi speaks on 'electoral and political reforms'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 11:31:00 +0000

National Election Watch conducted their 7th National Conference on Electoral and Political Reforms at Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai on 12th and 13th Feb 2011. The current Chief Election Commissioner of India and Former Chief Election Commissioners, political leaders, NGOs participated to discuss the theme.

Shri Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Shri Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Former Governor of West Bengal and the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and Rajaji inaugurated the Conference. In his speech, he traced the history and quoted how in the past, great national leaders were giving importance to electoral and political integrity.

His inspiring speech may be downloaded in the pdf format (80k) from the following link:

http://www.prpoint.com/gopalkrishnagandhi-speech-120211.pdf

Please watch and listen to excerpts from the speech of Shri Gopalkrishna Gandhi (10 minutes).

The video may also be watched from the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRfdZiwQjYs

National Election Watch - Political party reforms -13th Feb 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 02:11:00 +0000

The Second day session of the 7th National Conference of National Election Watch was held on Sunday the 13th Feb 2011 at IIT, Chennai. The proceedings (recorded through live blogging) is given below:

The earlier 4 proceedings of the first day sessions are available in the following links.

Inaugural Session

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/02/national-election-watch-7th-national.html

Discussion on Electoral Integrity

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/02/national-election-watch-discussion-on.html

Discussion on Election bound states

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/02/national-election-watch-election-bound.html

Media and Elections

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/02/national-election-watch-media-and.html

Photo stream of the second day sessions:

Live report of Second day proceedings from Central Lecture Theatre, IIT Madras. (Reported by Arun Sudarsan, Binny Alexander and Chandni Chandran)

(Live reporting starts at 9.30 am)

POLITICAL PARTY REFORMS (Inner Party Reforms and Financial Accountability)

Chair: Prof. Jagdeep Chokkar

Panelists: Mr. T K S Elangovan (DMK), Mr. Gnana Desikan (INC), Mr. Madhavan Kutti (CPI-M), Dr. Maithreyan (AIADMK), D Raja (CPI)

Chair: The Election Watch and ADR have been working in the scene for many years. The aim is to bring about transparency into the system. Two major issues that stick out are internal party democracy and financial accountability.

Dr. Maithreyan (MP, AIADMK): Happy to represent my party here in the Conference. The present system of first-past-post system has not allowed the party system to crystallise and stabilise. There is a large number of criminals getting elected to the representative bodies. There are large instances of cash for votes scam. Does this imply that a large section of the electorate is forced to be corrupt? In a recent study, it has been estimated that in the upcoming Tamil Nadu elections, each candidate will spend approximately 5-10 crores. For years, ECI had remained a passive institution. But with the coming of T N Seshan, the scene changed. Of late, ECI has been more successful in curbing money and muscle power during elections. Though I may be digressing from the topic of discussion, I feel the main issue is to make elections free and fair. Talking about inner party democracy may be futile since dynastic rule is the order of the day though it is a very important issue to be tackled.

Mr. Desikan (MP, INC): Good morning everyone. Reform must start from the political system itself. INC has a constitution which provides for election rules for each of the PCCs in the country. INC has made a parallel election authority at the centre and state level which has been quite successful in more than half the states in India. In a democracy, dissent is a right. One is entitled to voice his opinions. But a party member may not be allowed to air his views outside his party. The dissent has to stay within the party system to maintain the political system of India. INC allows it members in legislature to voice their opinions during Question Hour, discussions on Private bills etc.

Mr Madhavan Kutty (CPM): One of the things I will be talking about is the RTI act. It is an important tool for developing a democratic ethos in our country. A public interest broadcasting system which challenges the biased mainstream media will also do much to improve the state of democracy in the nation.Decentralisation of power will also lead to less corrupt parties. Despite the increase of financial capital, our democracy teeters dangerously on the brink of collapsel. Our rural voters are voting in larger numbers than ever before - this should not make us forget the plight of the agrarian system and of farmers. Political reforms should be organic. Corporate tycoons get elected in our country with surprising regularlity. It is immature to talk of innert party democracy at this stage.We should try to influence the political environment to ensure that political parties act democratically. If we are not to succumb to a 'media'ted election, a public broadcasting system is a must.

Mr. CA S B Zaware (ICAI): I am here to present the views of the study group of the Institute of the Chartered Accountants of India. These views after being divulged to the public, and their opinions/ reactions being factored in, will be presented to the Election Commission. Under the Income Tax act of 1961, every political party is required to submit annual returns to claim the exemption from tax. For this , accounts need to be regularly and accurately audited by chartered accountants. The party should maintain books of accounting on accrual basis. According to me, the annual earnings is a public document and as such, should be freely available to the common man. Further, we hold that financial documents should be submitted within 6 months after March 31st. Right now, these financial documents are prepared and audited, but not submitted or exposed for public review. This should be changed. It should also be published in English in the national newspaper and in the local languages in the regional newspapers. Source of income of political parties is sale of coupons. We are unable to track this money. Therefore, it is said that there should be a system of checks and balances. Political parties should follow accounting standards - related party disclosures are part of this. The auditee appoints the auditor now - that is, the political party. We suggest the auditor be chosen for the political party and be rotated on a regular basis to ensure independence and forestall corruption.

Mr. T.K.S Elangovan (DMK): As organisation secretary of the DMK, I will speak of inner-party democracy. In the DMK, democracy is followed in the truest sense. Office bearers will not be changed before their alloted term of 5 years runs out, except in cases of wrongdoing. Party accounts are audited by internal auditors and then handed over to external auditors- everything is transparent. A point about dynastic rule - the party itself is a family affair. However, one particular family does not dominate. The entire DMK is a family. However, that does not make us compromise on inner-party democracy.

D. Raja (CPI): The country is passing through a moral crisis today. Credibility crises exist in all spheres- judiciary, bureaucracy, defense included. In such a situation, national conferences like these are very important. What is a political party? What is my party? We are a party of the working-class. Our hierarchy is not personality-centric. We are going to enter a life of contradictions. Ambedkar said : In politics we will have equality while in social and economic life we will have inequality. But in our social and economic life, we shall by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny equality. This places our democracy in peril. If this continues for long, those who suffer will blow up our democracy.
We do not recruit criminals in our ranks and when there is no question of recruiting criminals there is no question of electing criminals to our ranks.

Mr. R. Velu (PMK),Former Railway Minister : Our party policy advocates against liquor and tobacco. Campaigning on this platform lost us the election. If we ever come to power, the first measure will be to eradicate drinking. No other political party can make this claim. Women are the ones most affected by the curse of alcohol.
We feel that greater funds should be allocated in the budget for education and health.Focus on rural youth.
We maintain proper accounts and submit returns on time. Financial transparency and inner party democracy are assured with the PMK.

We now have a question and answer session with the panelists.Here are a few questions posed by the audience:

Why are you not getting pre-approval from the Election Commision for the sale of donation coupons?
Why do we not have open book-keeping for the party's finances?
Why is service tax not imposed on proceeds from the sale of donation coupons?
Do members get receipts for donating money?(posed to the CPI)

The panel answers:

Service tax is applicable only when services are rendered or received, therefore it is said that sale of coupons is beyond the purview of service tax.

Mr. Gnana Desikan(INC): In the future, political parties will discipline themselves. I am willing to entertain any discussion/debate on inner party democracy and auditing.Political leadership is built on psychophancy and I stand by it. Praising a leader is something I am free to do, without license or permission. We also support the amendment made by Manish Tiwari allowing MPS to disagree with their political party.

Mr. Elangovan(DMK): Educated people who are critical of government should enter politics . The only power available to many people in India is the power to vote. To exercise this power, they take money. So power does corrupt. My party's government in TN has provided employment for 5.5 lakh people in government in the past 5 years. Political parties are essential and inseparable from the system of democracy.

Mr. Madhavan Kutty(Leftist): A political cycnism damages the political system. Politics plays an important rule even at the grassroots level. There is a kind of hypocrisy in the middle-class cynicism.Cynicism is not the answer. The Election Commission is toothless and so cannot monitor party elections.

Mr. D.Raja(CPI): Our accounts are properly audited. All donations to our party are transparent and accounted for.We have electoral tactical lines which decide our alliances. Black money debases value and undermines our electoral system. Try to understand while bashing politicians, that not all politicans are bad. Be objective in your criticism and your statements. In a democracy, it is political parties that form our government. Respect that fact - politician-bashing is futile and pointless. A politician's life is always under scrutiny. Our lives are difficult. At the end of the day, we try to serve the nation and its people.

Mr. R.Velu(PMK): No other party in the country has provided for the general secretary to be a Dalit. Ours is not a communal party. The ruling party wants to suppress opposition parties and it will adopt any tactic to achieve this end. Our party has enlightened leadership.

Moderator's closing remarks: Democracy is in peril because of the contradictions inherent in providing both social and political equality. We as citizens expect more and better governance and cannot be faulted for this.

National Election Watch - Media and Elections

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 11:24:00 +0000

Live report from Central Lecture Theatre, IIT Madras. (Reported by Arun Sudarsan, Binny Alexander and Chandni Chandran)

Please read our earlier posts
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/02/national-election-watch-7th-national.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/02/national-election-watch-discussion-on.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/02/national-election-watch-election-bound.html

MEDIA AND ELECTIONS
Chair: Srinivasa Jain, NDTV
Panelists: Bhagwan Singh (Deccan Herald), Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, V Eshwar Anand (The Tribune), K B Kothari (Rajasthan Patrika), Mr. Anil Sharma (Amar Ujala)

Mr. Jain: The entire nature of political journalism has changed in the past few years. Media has become a part of the political oligarchy. Media needs to question itself in the light of 'paid news' controversy.

Mr. Paranjoy (Freelancer, Senior Journalist, did a recent story on the mining controversy on Karnataka, Member of press council of India): Certain members of the Fourth Estate have moved to real estate. Media itself has been seen as a very lucrative business. Corruption in media has got institutionalised. The 'so called' leaders in the Media have led the media into the corrupt practices. It all started with the Page 3 phenomenon. Private treaties being signed between media companies and advertising companies. In the run up to the election there is a demand for news. The reader is duped into believing the news which was paid for. Media has lost credibility. Ordinary people believed that journalists could bring changes. Now that confidence is eroding. The corruption in media can be seen as old as hills, reference to the movie Citizen Kane and the subsequent reaction of the American media. But one must not paint the entire Media in black. There are journalists who wrote about the 2G scam and Radia tapes for years. The cleanest to come out of the Radiia tapes was in fact Ms.Radiia herself because she was paid to lobby for Mr. Ratan Tata and the like while the role of journalists have come under the scanner. There are good guys and not-so good guys in media. Regulatory mechanisms of the media not effective. PCI is a toothless tiger which cannot even whimper. We need to punish the black sheep in the media.

Mr. Jain: The National Broadcasting Authority was set-up after the Mumbai attacks 2008 which acts as a self-regulatory body. It has not get into punishing the 'black-sheep'. The NBA is headed by Justice J S Verma.

Mr. Anil Sharma (Amar Ujala): Good evening. (speaking in Hindi. rough translation given below). Apart from money and muscle power, in Bundelkhand, dacoits influenced the elections. I would like to start with an anecdote. During the panchayat elections, there has been an expenditure of 3-9 lacs for a single candidate when the ceiling for a MLA candidate is 10 lacs. Seats being bought is a regular affair in the area since politics has become a big business. BSP tickets were bought for 60 lacs. What is the source of this money? There is also a sudden increase in the candidate's wealth in most of the cases. There should be a close watch on the candidates from the moment they file their affidavits, to the end of their tenure. There are programmes for endangered species, but not for the extinction of dencent and sincere people.

Mr. K B Kothari (Rajastan Patrika): Long term projects and campaigns. 3 month long voter awareness campaign conducted. engaging the elected members of panchayat and assembly after the elections. a pre-election dialogue with the public. Rajastan Patrika playing an effective role in the area of elections in the state. The campaigns, though, is not welcomed by all. They feel that this programme has been over-structured. Now using RTI to get information regarding the MLALAD and MPLAD funds from 32 districts. The political parties doesn't particularly like this activism.

Mr. Jain: The paper Rajastan Patrika deserves credit for taking up this pain staking campaign.

Mr. Eshwar Anand (The Tribune): We are passing through difficult times including all pillars of a democracy. The disruption the Parliament is condemnable. The executive is also equally pathetic in functioning. The recent controversy regarding the appointment of Mr. P J Thomas as the CVC is disappointing. Judiciary is also not devoid of problems. The last resort of the people, the media, is also losing its credibility. The Paid news controversy highlights that the Editor is gradually losing control over the matter being published in the newspaper, since paid news are being handled by the Advertisements and Marketing department of a newspaper. Electronic media is also corruptible. There is a need for stronger regulation. NBA and PCI are like courts of ethics and not courts of law. Self regulation is not enough. A break less, unregulated media is a danger to the society. I commend the CEC Mr. Quraishi for setting up and Election Expenses monitoring committee which had unearthed a few paid news menaces in the recently concluded Bihar Assembly elections. Stringent measures will only help the press to redeem itself.

Mr. Jain (to Mr. Kothari): Kothari Sab, what is the impact of the campaign initiated by the Rajastan Patrika?

Mr. Kothari: Varied response. Most of the MLAs signed the letter of commitment. We published a rank list of performance of MLAs in the assembly which made Congress unhappy. Yet, the campaign is quite successfull.

Mr. Paranjoy:Rajastan Patrika is a glowing example of a popular newspaper rejecting the paid news.

Mr. Jain: Now we are opening the session for questions.

Question: What is the opinion on the channels owned by political parties?

Eshwar Anand: People are wise enough to understand affiliations/ownership of particular channels.

Mr. Jain: The scenario in Tamil Nadu is quite disturbing since there are no independent channels in the state. The thumb rule is that the viewer/consumer of news knows that who has what affiliations.

Question: What is your take on journalists being nominated to Rajya Sabha?

Mr. Paranjoy: In a democracy, anyone can be nominated to the Rajya Sabha. There is nothing wrong in getting nominated to the Council of states.

Question: Advertisments have already been coming in channels and papers even before the elections are announced. What can be done to curb this?

N. Gopalaswamy: The authority of ECI begins only on the day of announcing the elections. There is no ceiling on the political parties' expenses.

Question: The number of scams being exposed these days, doesn't it trivialise the entire corruption being exposed?

Mr. Paranjoy: There cannot be any scam fatigue.

Mr. Jain: The session ends here. Thank you for listening.

DAY 1 ENDS

National Election Watch - Election bound states - discussion

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 09:19:00 +0000

Post Lunch session was devoted for debating the problems in election bound states. The Session was chaired by Mr N Praveen Kumar, Chief Electoral Officer of Tamil Nadu. Dr Sudarsan, Convenor of Tamilnadu Election Watch introduced the theme.

Please read our ealier posts
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/02/national-election-watch-7th-national.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/02/national-election-watch-discussion-on.html

Mr. Maity, Panelist from West Bengal
Stresses on some of the pressing issues in the West Bengal election scene enhancing the involvement of civil society especially the youth. Information dissemination is the key area that is being stressed by the authorities.

Mr. Victor, Panelist from Puducherry
Created a peple's manifesto. How the people visualise Puducherry in the next 2-3 years. Suggestions from the people: Politicians should educate their children in government schools and get treatment only in Government Hospitals.

Mr. Satish Babu, Panelist from Kerala
Elections to be held in April-May 2011. Party based calculations doesn't make any sense in Kerala due to the coalition politics existing in the state. Some of the main issues plaguing the Kerala elections are that pages are missing from the affidivts filed by candidates, candidates with similar names contesting in the same consitutency to mislead voters, assets of few candidates listed in multiple international currencies. There is a centralised software to feed information regarding the Kerala electoral scene. Last compilation was made during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

Anil Bairwal, Paneslist from Bihar
Nitish Kumar's assurance that MLAs with criminal charges would not be made ministers fell flat and the Civil society protested.The multiple phases in the recent Bihar elections made it easy for the civil society to concentrate on each region quite efficiently.The political parties, ideologically opposed to giving tickets to criminals in elections, continued to do the same even after sustained protest from the people.

N Gopalaswamy comes in with a suggestion to list out the constituencies and the polling booths within the constituencies having the least polling percentages and further suggesting the NGOs to work on Voter Awareness in those areas.

A Member of the audience suggests that the candidates submit their biodata four months prior to the election so that the people get enough time to select the best possible candidate.

STATE ELECTION WATCH REPORTS
Chair - Dr. Ajit Ranade

Mr. Bamang Tago, Arunachal Pradesh
Disseminating information regarding the candidates'affidivits to the voting public.

Mr. Uma Prakash Ojha, Chattisgarh
Red corridor. Maoist insurgency making it dangerous for the electoral officers to perform their duties. Special care needed.

Mr. Sudhir Pal, Jharkhand
Pre-election voter awareness campaign conducted. Setting up of 100 panchayats as model-panchayats. Strengthening Gramsabhas.Training modules in partnership with GoI and UNDP.

Mr. Sridhar, Karnataka
Not peaceful times politically in the state. Multiple issues of obtaining and processing the affidivits. Reached out to grass root level organisations. Effective information dissemination. Triple checking of facts before putting in the public domain.

Mr. Rakesh Rajan, Madhya Pradesh
Man Andolan. People do not trust the representatives that they themselves had elected.

Mr. Laikynmaw Buam, Meghalaya
Local cheifs and village heads more powerful than the bureaucrats. Election watch tries to involve them in the aim of ensuring free and fair elections. Youth being mobilised despite a few of their dissatisfaction with all the candidates standing for the elections. No criminal records on any of the candidates who stood for elections though investigations suggest that at the grass roots level there is a link between the candidates and militant groups, to rig the election process. Politicians control the media.

Mr. Ranjan Mohanty, Orissa
Media, senior retired bureaucrats part of the Election Watch. District level work being carried out by the Election watch. People with more than 2 children cannot contest in Panchayat Eleciton. ECI should appoint Independent auditors to audit political parties. There is a lack of inner party democracy in the Political parties in the state.

Mr. Biswendu Bhattacharjee, Tripura
Highest voter turnout in the country ranging between 87% to 93%. Highly cadre based state. The state politics is dominated by a single party. Civil society and NGOs largely under the control of politicians.

End of Session.
Next session - Media Session chaired by Srinivasa Jain (NDTV)

National Election Watch - Discussion on Electoral integrity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 06:25:00 +0000

Please read the earlier post on Inauguration
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2011/02/national-election-watch-7th-national.html

Second session was held to discuss the Électoral Integrity - A shared responsbility'. The session was chaired by Dr S Y Quraishi (Chief Election Commissioner of India) and co-chaired by Mr N Gopalaswamy (Former Chief Election Commissioner of India)

Reported by T P Kurian, Arun Sudarsan, Binny Alexander

Mr N Gopalaswamy made opening remarks

Media exposes. It also indulges in paid news. Less than 10 percent of illegal cash transactions in elections are exposed. Elections are a mammoth affair. We hope these six presentations cover the issue adequately and give us enough to ponder upon.

The first panelist is NL Rajah, Senior Advocate. He will be speaking on Constitutional and Legal Imperatives.

This government has begun the process of consultation and dialogue which will hopefully lead to reform. The rules of the game need to be changed so that the players change. The word 'act' as a noun is easy to achieve in India. As a verb, it is near impossible.
26 proposals sent by the ECI have not been acted upon by the government for more than a decade.
6 major issues that plague the electoral system. Some of these are:

- Decriminalisation of the electoral process: six committees already constituted to look into the matter. various civil society organisations also have gotten in the act. However, reform is slow.
Conviction of accused criminals takes years. In a country where everyone is guilty until proven innocent, criminals spend years at large in politics while waiting for the slow wheels of justice to turn. People in jail for being accused on criminal charges should be allowed to vote. If one is innocent until proven guilty this is implicit, and a failure to allow unconvicted prisioners the right to vote is a gross violation of our right to be considered innocent until proven guilty

- Negative or neutral vote. People demanding the introduction of negative or neutral vot. Ganesh Goswami report of 1990 concludes that the negative and neutral vote serves no purpose. However it is time to re-open this issue and reconsider the efficacy of such a measure. A case ispending in the Supreme court on this issue. Parties will search for the right/good candidate if the negative vote is introduced.

- Rule making power of the ECI. It is recommended that power should be given to the ECI to make rules regarding the election procedure. Do not refuse to confer to the CEC the power to make rules regarding election. Let him be empowered to expediently make rules regarding his domain.

The second panelist is P.K.Dash, DG,EC. He speaks on Election Commission measures to combat money-power.

We are in an era of coloured money. Black money, gray money.Money power is the oxygen of multi-party democracy. It is not without its cons, though.

"However deep and dense the darkness, the lamp has never accepted defeat." With this attitude one hopes to contest the insidious power of money in the forthcoming elections.
Risks of money power- uneven playing field, political exclusion, campaign debt, tainted governance.
One can be imprisoned for a year for distributing liquor and cash with a view to influence voters.
Candidates must keep true and accurate records of election expenses. Failing this, the candidate is liable to be disqualified from contesting for three years.
There exists a ceiling on expenditure for contesting candidates, but not for the political party.
Mechanisms for monitoring money in elections:
-Income tax dept. authorised to keep watch on airports, pawn brokers
- All expenses to be made through cheque. This is merely an appeal, not law.
- Call centre and complaint monitoring mechanism for each district.
-Flying squads under each police station to act immediately upon complaints.
-Static surveillance teams deployed on the roads.
- Expenditure Observers for each district
- Video surveillance teams in each constituency to record all public events and expenses related to these.
- Shadow Observation Register to record accounts
-Paid news is a disease. Media certifying teams to go through media advertising.
-Banks will be asked to report suspicious withdrawal of cash.

Individuals who require any of the information relating to the financial dealings which have been documented will be allowed to access the information.

Naresh Gupta, Former Chief Electoral Officer of Tamil Nadu now speaks on An Effective State Election Machinery

Mr. Gupta describes the processes and details that go into the making of a fair and successful election. To strengthen the process, deploy micro-observers under the observers of the ECI. They have to be trained properly under the ECI observers. All the officers should work under the control and superintendence of the ECI. Year-round updating of Electoral processes. Electoral roll verification can be carried out in Public-Private-Parternship model.

The moderator adds that NGOs could be used as micro- observers.

Sam Rajappa, Senior Journalist chimes in with what he considers the role of media is in ensuring fair elections.

It is unrealistic to expect the media to be free of corruption. The independence of the press is violated by paid news and biased reports that seem to have infiltrated the formal structure of certain large media companies. Advertisements masquerading as news have flooded the media in recent times. The Andhra Pradesh union of journalists have estimated the market for paid news at between 300 and 400 crores.

A report on the issue was submitted to the press council and is under review. The primary victim of this fraud is the lay person who is unable to distinguish paid news from unbiased reportage. Some media houses even boast of their revenue from this spurious source with no shame. One media house has set up a media net which gives you the rates for stories, articles etc. and pass off these doctored articles as genuine news.

Positive views of voters, glossed over negative commentary, positive editorials and the like consitute the majority of this paid news. Paid news is not the only aberration in the media. Here are a couple of personal experiences. In the 1982 election in AP, there was a great deal of interest at the national level in the election. A senior official was sent to cover the election. He was offered a car, a guide and a hotel. The tab for all this was covered by the political party. Such a system compromises journalistic integrity. Reports produced under such circumstances tend to be at variance with unbiased reportage on the same issue.
Journalists are also courted by companies with offers of free liquor, coupons and the like. In such a climate, the truth becomes hazy and hard to discern.

Mr Madhav Rao, Former Chief Secretary tales about the Role of Government Servants

Free and fair elections depend on a good voter's list, the role of money and muscle power and a good election mechanism.
The voters list should be linked up with the UID and the postal office.
Money power is yet to be tackled. Government servants are literally 'government servants' as opposed to public servants.

Professor Trilochan speaks on 'Youth and Civil Society'

Ask not what the Election Machinery can do, but what we as the Civil Society can do. On a lighter note, he points to the 'young' members of the panel. The need to use technology. People have begun to understand the influence of money during elections. The link between misuse of money and bad governance should be clearly understood by the voting population. Our task as the civil society organisations is to work with the great people of India to curb the money power.

Questions from the audience - Answered by the Panelists

S Y Quraishi: ECI has recommended to the GoI to include the 'none-of-the-above' button in the EVM. Please concentrate energy on positive campaigning. As for the legal position stands, the candidate with the most number of votes will win irrespective of the number of votes being polled in the 'none-of-the-above' button. Hence, he is sceptical of the effectiveness of the recommendation.

Political parties are public authorities. Therefore they should come under the purview of the Right to Information Act (RTI).

The reality of India is that 2-party system might not work in India because the regional parties are very strong in India. Coalition government has become the order of the day.

On a question of reserving seats for farmers, the CEC feels it is powerless to make such law though it is a relevant issue.

Biometric identification is a good idea. Linking it with the EVMs will reduce frauds.

The EVMs are stand-alone machine without Operating System which makes it un-hackable. EVM has one-time-programmeable chip which cannot be tampered with. ECI is not afraid of any debate on the issue.

Paper trail, in the form of receipts cannot be given to the voters as it will violate the secrecy of the process. This can even endager their lives.

Digital machines which has low probability of damages are more reliable than mechanical device.

On compulsory voting - It is not desirable, not possible, because compulsion and democracy don't go together. The answer here is voter education.

Youth Unite for Voter Awareness (YUVA): The Voter Awareness wing of ECI. Will be consolidated further.

Qualification for candidates? Illiterate can be wise. Debatable issue. ECI will remain neutral.

A hostelite can choose to vote either in the consituency where he is staying or his native constituency.

'Marriage parties' without the groom or bride conducted during election time.

Introducing ceiling on the expenses made by political parties being considered.

ECI looking for legal basis to prosecute candidates using paid news as an election campaign strategy since it includes an element of deceit.

End of Floor Interaction.

National Election Watch - 7th National Conference at IIT Chennai - Inauguration

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 04:08:00 +0000

12th Feb 2011

Inaugural Session

Live reproting from Central Lecture Theatre, Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai

Reporting by K. Srinivasan, T P Kurian, Jerin Jacob Matthew, Binny Alexander

The Conference started with Tamil Anthem and National Anthem.

Mr Trilolchan Sastry, Co-Founder of this movement and Dean of IIM, Bangalore welcomed the audience.

Mr G Devasahaytam, Convenor of Forum for Election Integrity is making the opening reforms and presenting the theme of this two-day conference.

Dr S Y Qurashi, Chief Election Commissioner of India
India has the largest population of voters in the world. Our model code of conduct is the 'best' in the world.
Though we blame the bureaucracy, the same bureaucracy is conducting the elctions properly.
Media is supplementing the election works. They send the cameras to the field and bring out the election violations. Civil society has shown the maturity by analysing the works of politicians.

Some reform proposals are pending for nearly 18 to 20 years. Election Commission has been taking up with the Government. I also talked to Mr Veerappa Moily, the Law Minister and we decided to organise regional and national symposiums to discuss about the electoral reforms. We have already started the symposiums at various centres. Prime Minister will be participating int he National Symposium. Then, the final conclusion will be brought to the Parliament.

First item of the agenda is to bar criminals from contesting elections.Political parties are opposing this. They fear this will be a short-cut for the opposing parties to frame charges and to bar the politicians from contesting elections. We are trying to get a via-media solutions. Only rapes, murder will be taken into consideration.

Political parties need to be more transparent in their source of income. '"Elections are becoming the biggest source of corruption". People are asking what Election is doing. Increasing the expenditure is not a solution.
If a party puts up a criminal candidate, other parties are hesitant to put up another good candidate. Same way is for money also. Level playing is the mantra of election commission.

Many people are suggesting 'state funding'. I am sceptical about this.
We are seeking ban of advertisments six months in advance of the elections. We also suggest advertisements and door to door campaign should be banned in the last 48 hours before the election. That is the time, where money changes. "48 hours should be allowed to the voters to decide, after two weeks of hectic campaign".

Opinion polls interfere with free and fair poll. Paid news is another main challenge. They need to be banned.

Mr Gopalakrishna Gandhi, Former Governor of West Bengal (He is the grand son of Mahatma Gandhi and Rajaji)

In the pre-independent India, elections were held with more integrity.

Rajaji wrote 25 years before the freedom, predicted that injustice and efficiency of governance after independence, may make the people to think that earlier regime was better. This has become true now.

In 1937, When Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Sastri went for election campaign, they had to take tea in a railway platform and they did not have enourgh money. This has been written by Lal Bahadur Sastry.

Now, black money with white money made the whole system 'grey'. Corporate funding has made independent candidates suffer.

Çurrencies coming to election scene in trucks and vehicles is causing serious concern.

In 1957, Tata Steel wanted to make contributions to political parties. Even the Courts held at that time, íntegrity of voters are more important. Voters should refuse to accept any consideration for their votes.

Organisations and NGOs who are watching elections, should maintain the highest probity and they should not accept foreign donations. Media needs soul searching.

NGOs should reward and award the candidates, whether they win or lose, for their electoral conduct. Election Commission should also ensure that the environment pollution is not made by the candidates during the election campaign.

Measuring of internal and external image - Image Audit

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:19:00 +0000

Hindu Business Line organises 'Business Line Club' in various colleges and arranges interaction session with industry experts on all topics. K. Srinivasan, Founder of Prime Point Foundation was invited by Hindu Business LIne Club to give a talk on "Measuring internal and external image - Image Audit" to the Management students of Manakula Vinayakar Institute of Technology, Puducherry on 31st Jan 2011.

In the talk, K. Srinivasan explained how perception was getting formed and the importance of understanding the 'hidden perception' of stake holders. He also explained how perception leads to image. He explained the techniques of studying the 'hidden perception' known as 'Image Audit'. He advised the students to visit www.imageaudit.com to know more about this concept and to look at some of the sample reports.
Srinivasan answered various questions posed by the students on the concept of image and perception.

Please see the photo stream:

Business Communication Course at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan sets the trend

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 06:06:00 +0000

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chennai launched an unique skill based Business Communication Course for the working professionals in July 2010. This is a week-end course spread over 120 hours (20 week ends - 40 days x 3 hours each) focussing only on skill development. 15 experts and 10 CEOs/achievers handled the sessions. The course was launched by Dr Abdul Kalam in July 2010 at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.

L to R: K. Srinivasan, N Ravi, M Narendra,
T S Krishna Murthy. K N Ramaswamy and Vaidyanathan

The convocation to distribute the certificates was held on Sunday the 2nd Jan 2011 at Bhavan. Mr T S Krishna Murthy (Former Chief Election Commissioner of India and now the Chairman of Bhavan's Chennai Kendra), Mr N Ravi (Vice Chairman of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and Editor of The Hindu), Mr M Narendra (Chairman and Managing Director of Indian Overseas Bank) participated and shared their valuable thoughts on communication trends.

The photo stream of the event:

Mr K. Srinivasan, Chairman of Prime Point Foundation and the Course Director presented a brief report on the course.

Mr T S Krishna Murthy, Chairman of the Chennai Kendra delivered his special address. In his address, Mr Krishna Murthy stressed the growing importance of business communication in the competitive environment.

Mr N Ravi, Editor of The Hindu presided over the function and delivered his address. Mr Ravi emphasised the need for maintaining long form of communication, which is now distorted due to SMS, Email, etc. Mr Ravi will be the Chairman of the 'Board of Studies' for the Second batch, which will start in February, 2011.

Mr M Narendra, Chairman of Indian Overseas Bank was the Chief Guest and delivered his address focussing on the need of internal communication in organisations. He said that only internal communication leads to external communication.

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chennai will be launching the second batch of the Business Communication Course in February 2011. Interested may contact through email bizbvb@gmail.com

Prasar Bharati to introduce new HR Policy to suit global standards

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 10:55:00 +0000

Prasar Bharati Board has set up a committee headed by Mr V Shivakumar, Member (Personnel) to draft a new HR Policy, including recruitment and service conditions, to suit the changing needs.

V Shivakumar

While disclosing this in a Seminar on "Public Service Broadcasting" organised by Programme Staff Association of AIR and DD, here today, Mr Shivakumar said that the policy would be drawn up to meet the global standards. He also said, that the draft policy would be submitted to the Prasar Bharati Board in 3 months, who would forward to the Government of India for approval.

The Seminar was organised to get the feedback from the persons of different walks of life. Mr K. Srinivasan, Chairman, Prime Point Foundation urged the Prasar Bharati to change its mindset to manage the competition from the private operators and adopt new techniques.

Mr R Bhagwan Singh, Consulting Editor, Deccan Chronicle said that if they could not improve the Prasar Bharati, they could close down the organisation.

Dr G Ravindran, HOD, Department of Journalism of University of Madras said that Government of India was the third largest advertiser for the private channels, while they did not support Prasar Bharati for improvement.

Mr G Jayalal, Deputy Director General of AIR, New Delhi said that both DD and AIR had great competencies for handling any situations. Even during natural calamities, only the public service broadcasters were providing information to the public. He also said, nearly 70 percent of the programmes broadcast by them were not commercial and were only in public interest.

Mr R Srinivasan, General Secretary of Programme Staff Association, Mr Sanjay Kumar, President and Mr A Rajavelu, State Secretary also spoke.

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan completes the first batch of Business Communication course

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 17:05:00 +0000

PodUniversal Edition 123

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chennai Kendra launched a skill based business communication course in July 2010. This is an unique course in India, probably, the only of its kind with 120 hours of teaching and working sessions (40 days x 3 hours). This course contents were designed after an extensive research and understanding of the needs of working professionals and industry. This course was formally launched by Former Indian President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam on 10th July 2010.

N Ravi, Editor, The Hindu

The course was completed in December 2010. A function was organised by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chennai to award certificates to the participants who completed the course. Mr M Narendra, Chairman and Managing Director of Indian Overseas Bank and Mr N Ravi, Editor of The Hindu, one of the leading Indian National dailies delivered inspiring speeches.

In this edition, we publish an extract from the speech of Mr N Ravi, Editor, The Hindu on the importance of business communication. During his speech, he focussed on the following points:

1. Presently, though youngsters possess excellent domain knowledge, they do not have adequate business communication skills.

2. Even educational institutions do not give importance to develop communication skills of their students. They remain satisfied with the text book knowledge. On the other hand, developed nations like US provide enough importance on developing communication skills at schools and college level.

3. The youngsters should get trained in business communication skills through such courses, to fill the gap in their communication skills.

4. SMS / Emails have brought a new culture of short form communication. Though such short form of communication is done for quick communication, only long form communication is accepted in the formal communication. Youngsters should focus on the long form communication more.

Please listen to his speech by clicking 'play' button. (7 minutes). We will separately publish the speech of Mr M Narendra.

This video may also be listened from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYjs9qEGZUQ

Convergence of print and web media - A discussion

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 08:24:00 +0000

Adiya Sinha, Sudarshan, K. Srinivasan

All India Radio, Chennai broadcast a discussion programme on 9th December 2010 on the topic "Print and Web". Mr Aditya Sinha, Editor in Chief of New Indian Express and K. Srinivasan, Chairman of Prime Point Foundation participated in the discussion.

In this programme, both discussed about the convergence of print and web media.

The programme was produced by Mr Sudarshan of All India Radio.

Please listen to the audio (13 minutes) by clicking the 'play' button. The streaming of the audio will be comfortable in broadband connections. If streaming is not smooth, you may also download the audio (12 mb) by right clicking this link and saving the file in mp3 format to your desktop.

This audio may also be listened from the following link.

http://www.podbazaar.com/permalink/144115188075857533

All India Radio trains their producers to attract youth

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 06:23:00 +0000

K. Srinivasan addressing
the participants

Staff Training Institute of Prasar Bharathi, Bhubaneshwar organised a five-day workshop for the producers of All India Radio (AIR), drawn from various states. The workshop was held at the studios of All India Radio, Chennai. The focus of the workshop was to discuss the strategies of packaging programmes for youth, to attract more youth towards AIR. The course was designed and conducted by Ms Rashmi Pradhan, Deputy Director of the Institute.

While, all the private broadcasters focus mostly on entertainment and sensationalism, AIR has been silently producing and broadcasting many useful and innovative programmes for the benefit of all sections of the society. Presently, we talk about tele-conferencing in the broadcast media. I know personally well, way back in 1978 or 1979, All India Radio, Chennai organised an innovative live discussion programme simultaneously with the people on ship, plane and ground, using the then available technology. At that time, all the media appreciated the efforts of AIR and Dr Sridhar, then young producer of AIR for this innovative programme.
As public broadcaster, they have large infrastructure, skills, technology, etc. But very unfortunately, due to various reasons, they are not able to compete with the private broadcasters and have lost leadership over the decade. They need to re-package their excellent programmes, to reach the young audience.
With this background, the five-day workshop organised by Prasar Bharathi is significant to train their producers to re-orient themselves and to compete with the new generation broadcasters.
I was invited to talk on 3rd December 2010, on the theme, "internet radio and podcasting". In my talk, i was focussing on the current trend in the internet growth and how AIR can make use of the internet through streaming and also through archiving their programmes.
If All India Radio management changes their century old mindset and adopt the policy of using the modern technologies properly, they can give a run for the private broadcasters. With more than 80 years of broadcasting experience, AIR can do wonders.

Please watch the photo stream.

Communicating with the past employees - Corporation Bank way

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 11:22:00 +0000

Retired officers of
Corporation Bank @Chennai

If any organisation feels proud about their current status, it is mainly because of the hundreds of faceless past employees. Unlike the new-generation companies, the employees in public sector serve the organisations for long years and they retire after serving a minimum of 25 to 30 years. Rarely, the managements of public sector organisations, including public sector banks realise the contriutions made by thousands of such faceless people, who were responsible for taking their organisation to the present level.

I am an ex-senior official of Corporation Bank. After serving nearly 25 years, I took voluntary retirement in 1998, to start my own on communication agency and media venture. Last week, i was pleasantly surprised to receive a nicely worded letter from Mr Basti Narayan Shenoy, General Manager of Corporation Bank, Zonal Office at Chennai inviting me for a Diwali get-together on 6th November 2010 evening in the bank premises. I also understood, he had invited other retired officials for this get-together.

The letter from Mr Shenoy said, "Every time we do well and our bank dons another feather in its cap, our thoughts veer around to you all, who have toiled so tirelessly and relentlessly to build a strong foundation and edifice of our bank. Whatever the bank is now is in no small measure due to your contribution. ........"

When I received this letter, though I was rejoicing over the nice gesture shown by the Zonal Manager and his team, i could not resist going back in my memory lane to the bitter experiences, I suffered, when I left the bank in 1998.

Normally, Corporation Bank used to be in the habit of harassing the officials, when they put up their papers in the middle of their service. Though, I had contributed substantially for the image building of the bank, I decided to quit the bank under normal scheme of VRS, for starting my own communication and media outfit. Then only, I could see the real ugly face of their HR. After suffering harassment, i had to leave the institution, which I served nearly 25 years, with heavy heart. (I will write about the harassment story separately in the next posting). Though Corporation Bank used to be No 1 in the business, with the support of their staff members, they never used to connect with their past employees.

When I was talking over phone with Mr T R Bhat, former Chairman of Corporation Bank Officers Organisation, he also recalled an incident when a retired General Manger of the Bank (retired after 40 years of service) wanted to meet the then Chairman Mr J M Garg, to invite him for the Foundation Day of the retired Officers Association, the Chairman of the bank did not even give him the appointment.

Such 'unfriendly and indifferent' attitude of the top management always sends a strong feeling among the present employees that they are being used as 'business tools', rather than 'human being'.

When the Bank was celebrating the 100th year, sadly, none of the past employees were invited for the grand celebrations held by the bank at different centres, though they had the complete database. The Bank had spent huge amount for providing 'gold coins' to their current employees. In a Bank with nearly 13,000 employees, the retired and past surviving employees with dedicated services of more than 25 or 30 years would be hardly 500 persons across the country.
When they spend crores of rupees on the lavish celebrations to project themselves, an invitation costing Rs.10/- would have enormously and emotionally increased the conectivity and goodwill of the past employees and their family members with the bank. Even a small parker pen with inscription of the great moment in the history of the bank, would have been a life long memory and recognition for those, who built the organisation stone by stone and brick by brick.

For the past 12 years, I was suffering in silence about the poor and ugly HR face of Corporation Bank Management. The get-together on 6th November, gave me mental comfort for my 12 year old hurt feelings.

As a Communication professional, I feel that past employees can still support the organistion through their wisdom and experience, without much expectations. What they need is only 'emotional connectivity'.
Normally, good things flow from 'top to bottom'. In this case, Chennai Zone has made a good beginning. Hope this will escalate from 'bottom to top'. Head Office of the Bank and other Zones will start the 'emotional connectivity' with past employees.

Hope Mr Ramnath Pradeep, the new Chairman, will give new dimension to the HR policies of the Bank and connect with the past employees, for betterment of the bank. This will send a strong message both internally and externally.

Please see the photo show.

Podcasting - an alternate media: A session by a journalist group 'Sigaram'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 05:15:00 +0000

K. Srinivasan making
presentation on Podcasting

Around 50 journalists from print and broadcast media have joined together at Chennai (India) to form an informal group 'Sigaram' (meaning 'Peak' in English). Through Sigaram, they want to create awareness about the positive development journalism and also to update the skills of journalists to suit the modern requirements. Sigaram was formed three months back. Mr Jana (Jaya TV), Mr Anantha Padmanabhan (Kalaignar TV), Mr Veda Sridhar (Freelancer) and few others have taken initiative to create this forum. Every month, they invite one expert to share the views and to enhance their skills.

The organisers invited me to address their members on 24th October 2010 on "Podcasting - An alternate media". In the session spanning over two hours, I focussed on the following:

1. Though freedom of press and expression is being talked i high pitch, in reality, freedom of expression in main line media is more market driven and for fear of losing advertisement and market, mainline media owners do not allow their journalists full freedom. I also quoted some examples of some instances, which were not reported by any mainline media, but got circulated only in social media. This phenomenon has created more importance to social media and citizen journalism.

2. I also focussed on the emergence of podcast as a powerful supplementary and alternate media to mainline media. I also quoted and screened some of the podcasts, which were picked by mainline media.

3. I also explained how a podcast could be created and uploaded using simple tools, without any expenditure.

The programme was held in Jayagopal Garodia Vivekananda Vidyalaya, Anna Nagar.

Around 30 Senior journalists attended the programme.
Mr Jana, President of Siigaram can be contacted at nellaijana@gmail.com. Please see the pictures.

India's global leadership in nuclear energy discussed in PSPR Forum

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 06:54:00 +0000

Dr M R Srinivasan, Former Chairman,
Atomic Energy Commission

Public Sector Public Relations Forum (PSPR Forum) organised a programme on 8th October 2010 at the newly inaugurated Anna Centenary Library at Chennai. Former Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Dr M R Srinivasan spoke on the India's leadership in nuclear energy sector and the importance of nuclear energy in the development of the nation. Dr Srinivasan is also presently the member of Atomic Energy Commission.

The programme was held in the newly built Anna Centenary Library, which was inaugurated last month. This new-gen library houses more than 12 lakhs books and is the seocnd largest hi-tech library in Asia, next to Singapore.

Public Sector PR Forum was launched in 1995, to bring together all the Communication professionals of the Public Sector organisations operating in Tamilnadu. Over a period of 15 years, the Forum has contributed significantly to create communication awareness among the Public Sector organistions.

The contributions made by the Advisor Mr Hariprasad (Chennai Port Trust), President Mr S Ansar Shah (Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd) and the Secretary Mr Vaidyanathan (UCO Bank) in the growth of this Forum is highly significant. Now that, both President and Secretary have retired from their services, the batons have now been handed over to a new team headed by Mr Vaidynathan (Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd). Mr Daniel Chellappa (Atomic Energy Commission) will be the new Secretary and Mr Ravi (Tamilnadu Tourism Corporation) will be the Joint Secrertary. We wish the new team a great success.

Please watch the photographs of the event and the new-gen library.

National Media Conference 2010 - Valedictory Session

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 13:49:00 +0000

K.Srinivasan and Susan Koshy reporting live from Mt.Abu.

The Valedictory function commenced with a welcome dance by a young girl, Akankshya Mishra of Orissa.

The Valedictory Session on the topic "Media Action Plan for a New Social Order" has the following panelists on the dais to talk on it:

Guests of Honour -
S.S.Tripathy, President, All India Small Newspapers Association, Lucknow
Prof.Ujjwal K.Choudhary,Executive Director, School of Communication, Institute of Business and Media, Pune
Prof.Mufti Mohd Haroon Nadvi ji, President, Zamiat - Ulama Hind (Dist.Jalgaon), Jalgaon.

Presentation of Action Plan - B.K.Atam Prakash, National Coordinator, Media Wing, Mt.Abu

Coordinator - B.K.Dr.Savita, Sr.Rajyoga Teacher, Mt.Abu.

The panelists deliberated on the topic and the following media resolution and action plan is proposed:
- restore pre-independence India's media ethics and values in present day journalistic practice and profession.
- enhance media freedom by reverting to its pristine role of guiding and showing right path to human society.
- not treat media as reflector of ills of society
- strengthen and spread culture of development communication.
- discourage sensationalism in mass communication.
- extend media's support to social organisations which aim at integrity.
- support wider usage of cyber media for holistic development of the nation.
- live up to the expectations of Indian democracy, as fourth estate.

The event ends with a vote of thanks by B.K.Gangadhar, Jt.Editor, Om Shanti Media, Mt.Abu.

National Media Conference 2010 - Podcast Workshop : 190910

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 13:18:00 +0000

Susan Koshy reporting from Mt.Abu.

K.Srinivasan, Editor, PodUniversal, Chennai (www.poduniversal.com) held a workshop on the intricacies of podcasting.

B.K.Shikha coordinated the event.

After a theoretical session about podcasting, Srinivasan demonstrated a live podcasting. B.K.Binny, Manager, Public Relations & Mass Media, Global Hospital, Mt.Abu was invited to give an interview on Stress-free Living. Dr.Sanddhya of Pune was invited from the audience to interview Binny Ji. The interview was recorded in an MP3 recorder.

Kunal Panchal of Mumbai, from the audience did the editing of the recording under the guidance of Srinivasan, for uploading on youtube website.

National Media Conference 2010 - Panel Discussion : 190910

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 07:12:00 +0000

K.Srinivasan reporting live from Mt.Abu.

A Panel Discussion on the topic "Is Mass Media in Mess".

Panelists:
B.K.Sushant, National Coordinator, Media Wing, Delhi
Madhukar Dwivedi, Editor, Mahamedha Daily, Bhopal
Dr.Manoj Lodha, HOD, Dept of Journalism and Mass Communication, North Gujarat University, Patan
Susan Koshy, Former General Manager, IDBI, & Trainer, Corporate Communications, Chennai
Anjana Yatnoor, Station Director-Incharge, All India Radio, Gulbarga
Chairperson - Prof Kamal Dixit, National Coordinator, Society of Media Initiative for Values, Bhopal
Coordinator - B.K.Komal, Executive Member, Media Wing, Mt.Abu

The panelists were of the opinion that media was not in a mess, although one of them opined in jest that the media instead created the mess.

There was a question and answer session before the conclusion of the discussions.

National Media Conference 2010 - Plenary Session II : 190910

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 04:46:00 +0000

Good morning. K.Srinivasan and Susan Koshy reporting live from Mount Abu.

PLENARY SESSION II
The day's events has started with the second plenary session on the topic "Good Governance & Mass Media".

Panelists are:

Keynote Speech - Prof. K.C.Mouli, Faculty, PRr& Advertising, Makhanlal Chaturvedi National Univ of Journalism, Bhopal
Guest of Honour -K.D.Chandola, member, Central Press Accredition Committee (PIB) New Delhi
Guided Meditation -Rajyogini B.K.Ranjan, Zonal Coordinator, Media Wing (Gujarat), Valsad
Coordinator - B.K.Nandini, Jt.Zonal Coordinator, Media Wing (Gujarat), Ahmedabad
Chairperson -Rajyogini Dadi Ratan Mohini Ji

Dr. Bhanawat emphasised the role of the media in changing the society through its communication.

Prof Mouli covered the impact of politicisation of public services, tarnishing the good governance model of these services. Media enjoys the status of fourth estate, the fourth pillar of democracy and therefore plays a responsible role in exposing any flaw in any governance. It enjoys the power of freedom of speech that the other three estates do not really enjoy. Instead it has in some way relegated its role to the background.
Media is also guilty of mercenary writing and paid news. Media has to revisit its values, role and responsibility in ensuring good governance in the country.

K.D.Chandola dwelled on the various points of good governance that one should adhere to while executing one's duties.

Rajyogini B.K.Ranjan has taken the stand for a guided meditation session with the delegates.

Please keep checking by periodical refreshing of the page...

National Media Conference - Dialogues Sessions - 180910

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 13:47:00 +0000

K.Srinivasan and Susan Koshy reporting live from Mount Abu.

DIALOGUE SESSIONS
A series of Dialogue Sessions were held in the afternoon. There were five sessions held concurrently in the campus of the centre of the Brahmakumaris, Shanthivan. Each of the five sessions were handled by a panel of professional experts, deliberating on the topic, "Media Values & Strategies for Positive Change", each with a focus on the print, electronic and cyber media, and PR professionals respectively.

A synopsis of the discussions was presented later in the evening.

National Media Conference 2010 - Plenary Session - 180910

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 07:25:00 +0000

Professor U.K.Choudhary, Executive Director, International School of Business and Media, Pune continues the live blogging.

Prof Kamal Dixit earlier with Makhanlal Journalism University denounced the reflection of blatant violence in media in the name of mirroring the society. However, the decay of the civil society and the fall of the state are responsible for series of bad news.

Quoting Alvin Toeffler he espoused the role and impact of media. He urged the media not to be a blind mirror. The reflection has to be socially responsible. He lamented that the vision of pre and post independence years has gone down in media today.

Human values in civil society and politics need to be re-championed to make the right reflection in media. Further, media by itself can take a lead in changing these values. Corporatization and profit-maximization of media cannot do this job, cannot fulfill this expectation of a change in the civil society.

Gandhi, Tilak and Makhanlal Chaturvedi were writers and editors of courage, they truly represented the civil society. Their internal strength impacted on their journalism.

Prof Dixit ended by noting that he is optimistic about the future role and impact of a positive media in India. He quoted Dushyant noting that creating social unrest is not his goal, but social change is my goal, and wherever the fire of transformation burns, my our your heart, let it continue burning.
Yogesh Joshi, heading Association of Business Communicators of India, and GM Corporate Communications, Tata Group, Bombay House, Mumbai.

Speaking in the second session of the first day of the National Media Conference in Shantivan, he noted that there has been a phenomenal rise of the middle class, and today around 30 percent of the people are below poverty line as against 50 percent during independence. But the rise of middle class has also marked the decline in social morals and personal spiritualism in the society, leading to virtually a state of social disorder. Mandal to Kamandal, no politics of the middle class has given any new social vision.

Chairman of the second plenary session: Dr C V Narasimha Reddy

Raja Ram Mohan Roy edited Sambandh Kaumudi and used this publication to raise opinion against satee pratha. We need new visionary media persons like that today.

Even the leading magazine today notes that the leading defects of Indian society are corruption, unproductive bureaucracy, and vision less politics. Should not the media go full hog on to expose these and put forth alternatives.

Four issues for change of society: Vision of Satya Yug, Golden Age. Even the Constitution of India gives a futuristic vision. The vision here is being put into practice through 18 departments. Let media understand the implement this vision,.

National Media Conference 2010 - Inauguration: Sep 18, 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 04:53:00 +0000

K.Srinivasan, Prime Point Foundation, Chennai, and Susan Koshy, Vice-President, GFPR, Southern Zone, Chennai reporting live from Mount Abu.

The Conference Room is fast filling up with the delegates as the inaugural session starts with an invocation song. B.K.Shashi, National Coordinator, Sports Wing, Mt. Abu welcomes the delegation. The official delegates of Brahmakumaris are assembled on the dais to welcome Justicoe G.N.Ray, Chairman, Press Council of India as the Chief Guest.

Rajyogini B.K.Dadi JankiJi, Chief of Brahmakumaris, Mt.Abu, has now taken her place on the dais.

WELCOME DANCE
The welcome ceremony is being graced by a classical dance recital.

On the dais are Rajyogini B.K.Dadi JankiJi, Chief of Brahmakumaris, Mt.Abu, Justice G.N.Ray, Chairman, Press Council of India, B.K. Om Prakash, Chairperson, Media Wing, Indore, Rajyogi B.K.Nirwair, Secy Genl, Bhahmakumaris, Mt.Abu and Rajyogi B.K.Karuna, Director, PR, IT & Communication, Mount Abu.

WELCOME ADDRESS
B.K.Om Prakash is delivering his welcome address.

He is speaking on the significance of vision in life. The highlight of the current world is corruption and negativity. The media has an important role in influencing the change needed in the current world. Presently, the media gives prominence in their coverage of the 4 Cs, viz, crime, cinema, cricket and celebrities with their sensations not necessarily of the positive nature. The media need to input information and education. To effect this change in the society, we need to change our mindset first.

We need to empower our souls through Rajyoga, enabling us to be empowered from above. The media should be able to give the products positively productive in the society.

OBJECTIVES OF THE CONFERENCE
B.K.Karuna is invited to the podium to deliver the objectives of the Conference.

He speaks of the 24/7 role of the media, where news is on real time basis. Thus the media is high activity and stress profession. Therefore, the delegates are invited to the Conference to share 'no news'. They are invited to refresh and be energised for a more efficient execution of work once back to office. Dadiji's slogan "Give happiness and get happiness". Peace is also news... better news. Therefore, seminars, panel discussions and dialogues have been arranged with this objective in mind. In conclusion, he requests the delegates to take advantage of this opportunity.

GREETINGS
B.K.Nirwair, who is a senior brother in the Brahmakumaris, is invited to share his wisdom in his greetings.

Expressing a very warm welcome, he reminds that the Media Conference is conducted annually, and the event is becoming more significant every time. He congratulated those delegates who are attending more than the first time.

B.K.Nirwair touches on the New Society.The New Society is one with the Supreme God. However, the newspapers including the one he holds in his hand, contains derogatory information about prominent personalities of the country. There needs to be a realisation for good news.

CANDLE LIGHTING
The function continued with the lighting of candles by the principal guests on the dais.

CHIEF GUEST ADDRESS
Justice Ray is now delivering his address to the delegates. He recalls his visit to the Brahmakumaris' (BK) centres in India and abroad. He lauds the role of the BKs in bringing about a new society that is positive and energised.

He observes that while the media is churning out news on a real time basis, what is the type of news and its impact on the people of the country? He reminiscences on the history of the media, especially the print medium. Today, media has become corporatised and influenced by the market forces. Media has become insensitive. Large scale abrasions have taken place in the media especially in the big media houses. The media as the watchdog of the nation and the conscience of the society, has now changed. Media has now trivialised news for the sake of sensation.

The media has a responsibility its reporting. This is generally not being observed due to the deterioration of values at work. He appears to the media to adhere to values in work. Profit will follow. As the fourth estate and the conscience keeper of the society, vision is primary. Values is primary. He appeals to the delegates to take a look at the state of affairs of the media. He expresses shock at the abrasion of the values by the media houses who resorted to paid reporting in the previous year's elections.

He feels communications is tainted in India. He appeals for serious introspection in media, before the society decides 'this much and no more' in tolerance of the media's tainted image. It is the solemn duty of
the media to adhere to values and ethics.

Rajyogini B.K.Dadi Janki Ji is being invited to share her words of wisdom and her blessings. She is a tireless, 94-year old active and energised person who still travels round the world, meeting spiritual delegates.

BLESSINGS OF DADIJI
Dadiji said she says 'Om Shanthi' thrice - one to say 'What am I', second is 'Who am I' and third 'Why am I'.

She talks of the teachings of the Supreme Father. She says in spite of reading the many scriptures since 5 years old, she felt ignorant. Today, touching on the compliment that she is of stable mind in spite of her age, she says her focus in life is clear. Be not deceived and do not deceive. We must 'realise' ie. look internally at ourselves. We may be aware about others. We must instead be looking internally and be honest with ourselves. We must transform to be transparent and be truthful. This leads to happiness and removes depression. When we transform and improve, the world will transform and improve. What we need to do, we need to do today and not postpone. Baba used to say, 'if not now, then never'.

We need peace and love. Where there is peace, there is power. We need courage and patience too. With the power to lead the life, we need to lead others to peace. Let us recognise ourselves as children of God.

She concluded with a three-minute silence and meditation with the delegates.

The function concluded.

National Media Conference 2010 - Live Blogging - 17 Sep 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 13:45:00 +0000

K. Srinivasan, Prime Point (Chennai) and Susan Koshy (Vice President, Southern Zone of Global Forum for Public Relations GFPR) reporting live from Mount Abu, Rajasthan.

It is past six o'clock in a shower-blessed evening at the Brahmakumaris' Centre, Shanthivan when the delegates from the media are given a warm reception. We find the attendance of several hundreds of them at the venue.

PRAYER SONG & DANCE
A prayer song has just been delivered followed by a colourful and animated dance recital.

WELCOME ADDRESS
B.K.Atam Prakash, National Coordinator, Media Wing, Mount Abu in his welcome address said that there has been various revolutionary changes that has taken place in India. However, the most important revolutionary change for our betterment is the imbibing of values in our lives.

BLESSING ON THE OCCASION
Rajyogini Dr.B.K.Nirmala, Director, Gyan Sarovar Academy, Mount Abu, has given an inspirational talk as a blessing on the occasion.

ABOUT BRAHMAKUMARIS AND THEIR VALUES
B.K.Mrutujaya, Vice Chairperson, Education Wing, Brahmakumaris has now taken over at the podium, briefing the audience about the history, purpose and value beliefs of the Brahmakumaris. He is emphasising the role of the Brahmakumaris in bringing about a value-based education to the current generation of students.

He emphasises the importance of positive thinking and moral values while imparting education.

He heralds the role of the media as the medium in bringing the kind of news that influences people in their thinking, opinion and approach. The media therefore are moral guides. In the current world, deceit and corruption are being tolerated.

A proactive role by the media can influence in a big way in bringing back good life values. If we become source of spiritual light to eradicate the moral pollution, we can bring India back to its original spiritual glory, and also a new social world, clean from spiritual contamination. Thus B.K.Mrutujaya concluded his talk on a motivational note.

GREETINGS
Rajyogini B.K.Usha, Sr.Rajyoga Teacher & Management Trainer, Brahmakumaris, in her greetings to the delegates, emphasises the importance of vision in our living. She says that a clear vision in our life would enable us to lead a purposeful life. The media has a crucial role in creating an awareness among the people about this. The media has a great responsibility in influencing the people positively with messages of peace and prosperity in order to establish a new society. There was a purpose in the delegates being in the profession of media broadcasting. This unique capability and responsibility has been recognised by God. The delegates need to recognise their responsibility.

People these days are wanting to experiment and do new things and new ventures. The media people can guide these people in their mission by guiding them through value based reporting and creating of proper awareness among them.

While conveying her good wishes to the delegates, she implores them to develop good attitudes and powerful thinking through meditation, which helps in this direction.

Rajyogi B.K.Munni, Programme Director, Brahmakumaris, Mount Abu says the place the delegates have arrived to is a pilgrimage centre, where one leaves something and also takes something from it. She asks them to leave behind any burden that they might have in life and might have carried along with them. And she implores them to take good from their experience during their stay here. Rajyogi Munni says she has been lucky to be associated with Gandhiji during his time and also with the Dadi Prakash Mani of the Brahmakumaris. She was glad to say that the Brahmakumaris has grown to be present in 8500 centres in over 130 countries with over 22000 dedicated brahmakumaris serving.

B.K.Karamchand, Zonal Coordinator, Chandigarh is presenting his vote of thanks. He says all the media should have an inculcation of positive approach, and play a role in uniting India, remove hypocricy in the society and influence it towards value-based existence. For this, the media should have a value-based working.

There will be panel discussions and dialogues during the two-day media conference. There will be dialogues for the print and electronic media, IT and PR. He is requesting the delegates to attend the morning sessions from 7am. The centre houses the world's largest solar energy plant, as well as its 25000-capacity auditorium. He concluded with a request to the delegates for active participation during the conference.

National Media Conference 2010 - Live Blogging Begins

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 17:52:00 +0000

K.Srinivasan reporting from Mount Abu - September 16, 2010.

Mount Abu is getting ready for hosting the National Media Conference 2010. About 2000 media, PR and communication professionals are expected to participate in the three-day conference. A grand reception is being planned for the delegates on September 17th evening. On September 18th morning, Janki Dadi (94 years), Chief of Brahmakumaris, will be inaugurating the sessions. On September 17th and 18th, they have planned various panel discussions, workshops, dialogues and cultural sessions.

We will be reporting live from the venue on the proceedings.

We have taken a podcast interview from Br.B.K.Karuna, Director, PR, IT and Communications, who is the livewire of this event, on the upcoming events. Please watch his interview

Communication skills needed for career growth

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:42:00 +0000

Society for Technical Communication, India organised their Chennai Regional Conference on Saturday the 28th August 2010. I was also invited to be one of the speakers. I made a presentation on "Communication Skills needed for career growth". I was quickly covering the various aspects of communication skills needed for the present day youth. Please see the pictures.

This is the presentation made by me.

Communication skills needed for career growth

View more presentations from Prime Point Foundation, Chennai.

Spare two hours a week, to achieve Vision 2020

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:21:00 +0000

ECE Department of VelTech Dr RR & Dr SR Technical University, Chennai organised a National Technical Symposium known as OMZOIC 10, on 14th August 2010, inviting students from different engineering colleges. More than 600 students participated in the event. I was invited by them to be the Guest of Honour during the inauguration. Dr Rangarajan, Chancellor and Founder of the University was also present.

K. Srinivasan addressing
OMZOIC 10

The event was organised in a professional manner. The multimedia presentation (short film) made by the ECE students was highly professional. Since, it was held on the eve of Independence Day, they had requested me to talk on the role of youth in achieving Vision 2020.

In my short speech of 7 minutes, I reminded the students of the struggle made by our freedom fighters and the role of youngsters in achieving the dream of our elders. Among other things, I appealed to the students to spare two hours a week for the society, so that we could achieve our Vision 2020 easily. Please listen to my speech by clicking 'play' button.

This can also be watched from the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMw6cRHPFY0

Inaugural session of Business Communication Course at Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 17:48:00 +0000

After the formal launch by Dr Dr Abdul Kalam and inspiring welcome speech by Mr T S Krishnamurthy, former Chief Election Commissioner of India and Chairman of Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan on 10th July 2010, the regular sessions started on Sunday the 11th July 2010. Inaugural talk by Mr P K Doraiswamy IAS (Retd), Former Chief Secretary to Government of AP and the Chairman of Board of Studies of the Bhavan was an eye opener for the participants. His inspiring speech covered four pillars of communication namely 1) Technique , 2) Content , 3) Morale and 4) Context. The other members of Board of Studies also shared their views briefly during this opening session.

Mr. V N Gopalan , Former Director General of Defence accounts and presently the Director of Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan, Chennai expressed the importance of communication covering 1) Choice of words 2) Tone 3) Body Language and shared his experience with Political leaders.

Prof V. Chandrasekar, covered many areas stressing upon importance of communication through ABC technique. 1) Accuracy 2) Brevity 3) Clarity. His interpretation of “Medium is Message” as “ Medium is Massage” and “Medium is Mass Age” was quite revealing. He suggested the participants to read good quality news papers and watch good channels to improve the communication skills.

Prof K. Prabakar expressed his views about the importance of communication in his own style focussing on positive thinking.

Mr.Srikanth, Managing Director, Diana Shutters Limited stressed the importance of brief and effective communication.

Ms.Meera Raghavendra Rao, a well known columnist expressed the critical importance of communication quoting her real time experience from the Journalist perspective.

Program Director Mr K.Srinivasan and Academic coorinator Prof. S. Krishnamurthy managed the entire program for the day and fine tuned the course schedule, timings, Topics, and Attendance etc. in consultation with the participants to suit their requirement.

I, on behalf of all the participants, thank all the organizers of this wonderful programme for their dedication to make this courese very successful one. Great effort from everyone. I am sure this is going to be the best course we have ever attended in our life.

Pl see the photo stream of the first day session of the course.

(contributed by Narayanan Sundararajan, a participant)

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Dr Abdul Kalam launches Business Communication Course at Chennai

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Dr Abdul Kalam, former President of India formally launched the skill based diploma course on Business Communication on 10th July 2010 evening at Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan, Chennai Kendra. This course is designed for the working professionals to enhance their communication skills and to equip themselves for the competitive environment.

The course commences on 11th July 2010. This course is of 120 hours duration. Classes are held on Saturdays and Sundays (3 hours each) for 20 week ends. Many experts from academic and industry are lined up to interact with the participants (Bhavan has avoided the word students). More details are available at www.bizbvb.co.cc.

On 10th July, Dr Abdul Kalam formally handed over two kits to two participants. Capt. Bavicca Bharathi (youngest commercial pilot and commander in India) and Mr Kamalakanth, an IT professional received the kit from Dr Kalam. (photo below)

Please watch the photo stream.

Use social media tools for building customer relations and marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 06:18:00 +0000

http://www.blonnet.com/2010/06/10/stories/2010061052492100.htm

Photo and story courtesy: The Hindu Businessline
Our Bureau Chennai, June 9
The effective use of social media tools can help to improve customer relations and marketing, according to Mr K. Srinivasan, Editor of ezine, PReSense, and Podcast magazine, PodUniversal.

While delivering a lecture on ‘Presentation skills' at a BL Club event held at the Priyadarshini College of Engineering, Nellore, he said corporate professionals needed to develop good presentation skills that would be needed both internally and externally. The idea was to convey the message to the audience in as brief a manner and with as much clarity as is possible, he said in his address to the MBA students of the institution.

As a social media evangelist, Mr Srinivasan added that the emergence of social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, ezines and podcasts had changed the style and method of communication globally. A message that was earlier communicated in 1,000 words was now presented in 100 words. These social media tools provided companies a number of opportunities to present their products and services to a larger audience quickly.

“If professionals learn the techniques of these tools and use them for their presentations effectively, they can reach a wider audience and improve their business. The effective use of key words would also help the search engines. In fact, these tools are a great boon for marketing professionals. Unfortunately such tools are not properly used for marketing purposes in India due to a lack of knowledge,” he said.

Public Relations Council of India (PRCI): 4th Global Meet and Chanakya Awards

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:39:00 +0000

The Fourth global meet of Public Relation Council of India was held at Delhi on 3rd April 2010. Many eminent personalities like Dr. Kiran Bedi, Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyer (former Union Minister), Mr. Bishma Narain Singh ( Former Union Minister and Governor) and Mr. Joginder Singh (Former Director, CBI) have participated and shared their experiences.

PRCI's Chanakya Awards and collateral awards were also presented to the winners. Some of the notable personalities like Dr Kiran Bedi, Ms Burkha Dutt (NDTV), Dr C V Naraismha Reddy (PR Voice), Mr A G Agarwal (PR Communication Age), Rajayogi B K Karunaji (Brahmakumaris, Mount Abu) were also the recipients of Chanakya Awards 2010.

Mr Anil Nayak (PRCI Bangalore Chapter), Mr B K Sahu (Zonal Chairman of PRCI, East Zone), Mr Krishna B Mariyanka (Executive Committee member of PRCI) and Hyderabad Chapter of PRCI were honoured for their best performance within PRCI. Pune Chapter was honoured as the best promising chapter of PRCI.

We congratulate the Award winners and Mr M B Jayaram and his team for their sustained efforts in promoting PR and Communciation through various Awards.
Mr M B Jayaram may be contacted at jayrammb@gmail.com

ETHOS10 - An exciting Management event at Anna University

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 17:14:00 +0000

Ethos’10 provided an excellent platform for the budding managers of the future. The students proved their mettle through the various events lined up. This year, the DOMS (Department of Media Studies) included guest lectures by eminent personalities of corporate arena, to enlighten the students on various issues pertaining to career choices, entrepreneurial suggestions, etc. The events were designed in such a manner to extract the best out of the students and test their managerial, communication, analytical and decision making skills which are vital for an MBA graduate. Thus students from different B-Schools participated in the event, Ethos’10 provided a chance for the students to find out where they stand and show them what needs to be done to improvise themselves.

Ethos’10 had a plethora of events.

The Negotium is the business quiz which tested the student’s intellect and their knowledge of the current affairs.

Board Room – the paper presentation brought out the original thoughts and ideas of students to the fore.

For those political manic the Mock Parliament drilled out their governing skills. Mr. T.K.S. Elangovan, Honorable Member of Parliament presided over this highly charged event.

Chanakya – The Best Manager picked up the best budding manager out of the participants from various institutions.

Virtual Stocks and Shares was meant for thosefascinated by the stock market. Infinitas – the marketing event aimed to test the creativity and the marketing skills of the students. New Inc was an event for the promising entrepreneurs with innovative ideas to come out with an ‘out of the box’ business plan.

Big Fight was an event which gave the students an opportunity to share the stage and debate with dignitaries from the corporate world.

Eight events, prizes worth one lakh all at one place that’s ETHOS’10.This event was an intriguing challenge to the MBA grads at DOMS, Anna University.

For further details, contact the Ethos team at ethos2010.doms@gmail.com or the websitewww.ethos10.com. You can also contact Dr. Fatima Jacob, Ethos Coordinator @ 9840523938.

(Report by Divya, I Year MBA, DOMS, Anna University)

Lectures on "Presentation Skills" for MBA students

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 09:12:00 +0000

Hindu Businessline Club organises lectures by experts on various management topics at various Colleges, to enable the students to interact with industry people. I was invited by HBL Club to deliver a talk on "Presentation Skills" to the MBA students of Priyadarshini College of Engineering and Technology (Neloore) and Narayana College of Engineering (Gudur) on 19th March 2010.

In both the colleges, I addressed the first and second year MBA students and the faculty members. Please see some of the snap shots.

Prime Point Foundation, the non profit public trust provides one day workshop for all the corporates (traditional and new generation companies) on 'Presentation Skills in 5 steps'. The Brochure may be downloaded form the following link:

http://www.prpoint.com/presentation-skils-in-5-steps.pdf

"Presentation skills in 5 steps" workshop @ Laser soft (A Polaris group company)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:40:00 +0000

Prime Point Foundation has already announced a special module on 'Presentation Skills in 5 step" for Techies and Non Techies. Laser Soft Infosystems Limited, Chennai (A Polaris Group Company) organised a one-day workshop on 20th Feb 2010. Around 20 Senior level Project Managers and few marketing officials participated in the workshop.

K. Srinivasan, Chairman and Founder of Prime Point Foundation was the workshop leader. The module included various steps in preparing a presentation and then the tips for making effective impact of presentation.

This was followed by the participants making a live presentation on a subject of their choice ranging from films to high end technical products. The presentations by the participants were recorded in a digcam and then replayed on screen for review by all. This exercise gave them the required confidence and ability to organise the presentation systematically.

The programme was inaugurated by Mr B Suresh Kamath, Founder and Managing Director of Laser Soft Infosystems Limited and valediction was given by Mr S S Rao, Vice President (HR). This indicated the importance of this theme to the participants and also how the company was taking up this theme seriously.

Prime Point Foundation, a non profit public trust promoting communication awareness has seriously taken up the task of creating presentation awareness among the small and medium companies. Further details may be obtained from the brochure, which can be downloaded from

http://www.prpoint.com/presentation-skill-brochure.pdf

Enquires may be sent to training@ppoint.com

The above video may also be watched from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6xNwIumKHw

http://blip.tv/file/3246205

Launch of special module on "Presentation Skills for Techies in 5 steps"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:44:00 +0000

Prime Point Foundation has today launched a special module for one-day workshop on "Presentation Skills for Techies in 5 Steps". During the month of Feb 2010, the corporate ezine PR-e-Sense conducted an on-line survey to understand the requirement of Techies of next generation companies. The survey revealed lack of Presentation skills and Business Communication skills among Technical persons, though, they had sufficient knowledge in their domain.

This prompted the Foundation to launch a 'special one day module' for the techies to quickly train them on presentation skills and to unearth their hidden communication skills. The speciality of this module is that all the participants would be asked to make a live presentation, which would be video recorded and played back for review and suggestions for improvement.

For time being, this module is available only as an In-Company programme. The Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation with the motto 'communicate the communication'. In view of this, the Foundation will be charging only a nominal and reasonable fee to the companies, to spread the awareness and to reach maximum number of young professionals.

Interested may contact email id training@prpoint.com or mobile 91 91766 50273.

The Brochure in pdf format may be downloaded from the following link (90 k)

http://www.prpoint.com/presentation-skill-brochure.pdf

Please see the preview of the brochure:

Workshop on Presentation Skills at TNSC Bank

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:57:00 +0000

In the last October, 2009, I wrote about the Staff Training College of Tamilnadu State Apex Cop. Bank, who are training the officials of all District and State level Cooperative Banks. Unlike the 'robotic' approach of all training institutes of so called 'professional' Corporate Houses, TNSC Bank Training centre thought 'out of the box' and planed to train their officials on 'Presentation Skills'. I was invited again on 3rd Feb 2010 to conduct half-day session on Presentation Skills.

After one hour of introductory presentation by myself aboit the concept, the participants were asked to make a presentation for 5 minutes each about anything ranging from their own products to the latest movie. Ultimately, the participants should market with the audience about the product or movie. The presentations were videographed and immediately played back for review by audience.

The main hurdle for any person to attempt a presentation is only an ' assumed fear'. When I asked the participants, to volunteer for presentation and video-graphing at the beginning, there was a reluctance on their part, due to fear. Two persons were forced to make presentation. Then, after 10 minutes, nobody wanted to leave the chance. Everybody started coming up to the stage for testing their ability.

Almost all of them had the capability to make a good presentation. Unfortunately, lack of self confidence and fear prevent them from making public presentation. At the end of the day, every one realised their 'hidden' potential.

Though, we all assume that cooperative bodies are unprofessional, i personally feel they are more professional than the so called professional institutions. Three cheers to Mr Manohar, Principal and his team!

Make Business Communication part of curriculum

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:31:00 +0000

Photo and report courtesy : Hindu Businessline
http://www.blonnet.com/2010/01/30/stories/2010013054872700.htm
Make Business Communication part of curriculum
Our Bureau
Chennai, Jan. 29

Business communication should be made a part of the curriculum for all students at the college level irrespective of their subject of study. This was essential to prepare the students for global competition, said Mr K. Srinivasan, Chief Executive Officer, Prime Point Public Relations Pvt Ltd, Chennai.

Addressing participants of a BL Club event held at the Mar Gregorios College of Arts and Science here recently, he said currently only MBA students were given an exposure to Business Communications as a subject. Students of other streams of study did not have the opportunity to learn the subject at the college level.

Today all youngsters, irrespective of their domain expertise, were exposed to global competition unlike in the past. Hence, he stressed the need for developing business communication skills among all students. He was addressing the students on ‘the development of presentation skills'.

“Nowadays, youngsters soon after taking up employment, have to make presentations at their workplaces. More than 80 per cent of them lack good presentation skills in spite of their domain expertise. That is due mainly to the fact that educational institutions do not provide them sufficient opportunities to develop their business communication skills,” he said.

He added that sticking to the time limit during presentations, paying attention to the relevance of content to the audience and providing only the required information to the audience without overloading them, were some of the important aspects that young professionals should keep in mind while making their presentations.

Mr Amurdam, Principal, Mar Gregorios College, and Mr Balachander, Head of the Commerce Department, were present at the event presented by Karur Vysya Bank.

Presentation on 'Emergence of Social Media' at NITTTR, Chennai

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:30:00 +0000

National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research, Chennai provides training to all the Engineering College Teachers in South India to update and improve their teaching skills. This is one of the autonomous Institutions under HR Ministry of the Government of India.

The Institute is located in a 27 acre sprawling green campus. They had invited me to address their faculty members and research scholars on the 'Emergence of Social Meida' on 2nd December 2009. Dr. S Mohan, Director and other Senior Faculty members were present. Some of the pictures taken during the occassion:

This is the presentation, I made on that day.

The meeting was professionally well coordinated by Ms Malliga Padmanabhan, Sr. Systems Analyst of NITTR. This is one of the four Institutions set up by the Central Government to train the Engineering College teachers. More details about them can be had at http://www.nitttrc.ac.in/

Telugu Journalists' Association (TEJOUS) event on Media 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:32:00 +0000

Telugu Journalists' Association (TEJOUS) on 21st November 2009 organised a presentation session at Chennai by K. Srinivasan, Prime Point Foundation on the latest trends in technology media, which is otherwise known as Media 2.0. Mr R Bhagwan Singh, Founder President of TEJOUS and presently Consulting Editor of Deccan Chronicle delivered the key note address and introduced the subject. Gist of the talk is given below the photographs.

K. Srinivasan in his presentation broadly explained the following:

1. Bird's eye view of the growth of internet at global level and specific reference to India.

2. How the traditional mainline media like print and television use the internet

3. Comparison between English papers and Regional language papers (net editions) in their traffic ranking and unique visitors per day.

4. Impact of important events like YSR Reddy accident on the net editions

5. Various types of social media and their emergence in the past one decade

6. How journalists can make use of the social media for their professional needs

We will also publish the power point presentation along with audio shortly as PodMagazine in our PodUniversal site.

Combating cyber crimes - A workshop by Cyber Society

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:15:00 +0000

Cyber Society of India held an one-day workshop at Chennai on 23rd October 2009 on "Combating Cyber Crimes in financial transactions and the role of Standards". The workshop was inaugurated by Mr T S Krishnamoorthy, former Chief Election Commissioner of India. Please read the proceedings below and watch the photographs.

Report by V Rajendran, Secretary, CySI

Proceedings of the CySI Workshop on "Combating Cyber Crimes in financial transactions and the role of Standards" - on 23-10-09, at Hotel Savera .

Inauguration

The meeting started with a welcome address by Chairman Shri R. Ramamurthy. He gave an introduction of CySI’s activities and a brief account of CySI’s commitment in spreading awareness on Cyber Crimes and related areas. Talking from his past experience of participating in international conferences on Cyber Crimes, he narrated the various crime-prone areas and the tasks ahead for citizens, investigators, governments and finally the NGOs.

The Chief Guest of the workshop Shri T.S. Krishnamurthy was introduced by Shri K. Srinivsan, CEO Prime Point Foundation and a founder-life member of CySI. While introducing, he narrated the tremendous contribution of Shri TSK in his role as Chief Election Commissioner, when for the first time, the country went on a 100% EVM-based elections.

Mr T S Krishnamoorthy

Shri T. S. Krishnamurthy former Chief Election Commissioner, inaugurated the workshop. In his inaugural address, he briefly discussed the cyber crime scenario in the country. He narrated the various vulnerable areas in computers and stressed the need for increasing awareness on the use of computers, its fraud-prone areas. He wondered how even educated people fall an innocent prey to computer crimes falling victims to greed for money. He presented the modus operandi in Nigerian Crimes, credit card frauds etc. and finally lauded the efforts of CySI and assured to be closely associated with the activities of CySI in all its socio-academic activities in future.

Mr C L Ramakrishnan

Shri A Vijayakumar Life Member of CySI introduced Shri C.L. Ramakrishnan, former DGP adding that as a former DGP and a former DVAC, he has rendered memorable service in the police force, which is worthy of emulation for any police official. He added that Shri CLR enrolled for and completed his Ph.D. in Vedanta after his retirement.

Shri C.L. Ramakrishnan, delivering the key-note address stressed the relevance of I.T. Act, the circumstances under which the Act was passed and its use in investigation. Drawing from his experience as a top police official of the State, he said the basic urge to commit any fraud is greed and lust for some thing that do not belong to the individual. He said that only the modes of committing the crime vary in a cyber crime and it is basically an electronic variant of normal crime only. He jocularly added that in a cyber crime, it is sometimes easy to commit and difficult to detect, whereas a normal and physical crime is difficult to commit and easy to detect. He highlighted the efforts of the police in nabbing a cyber criminal and the special tasks that it normally involves.

Mr V Rajendran

After the tea break, Shri V Rajendran Secretary of Cyber Society of India and a practicing Cyber Law Advocate and Consultant presented the various cyber crimes reported and the role and relevance of I.T. Act 2000 and the amendment Act 2008. He presented some of the most important sections of the Act and compared it with the significant provisions of I.P.C. which bear relevance in the I,T. scenario. He presented how effective the Act has been, over the past years and the significance of the 2008 amendments.

Mr N R Krishnakumar

Shri N.R. Krishnamukar Regional Director of DNV, the main sponsors of the event gave a very rich presentation. He described the best practices in the industry to combat cyber crime and the usefulness of ISO 27001 standards and 27002 standards. He discussed the requirements of such standards and highlighted the importance of putting these into practice and going for the appropriate certification adding that expenditure on adherence to best practices and standards is like expenditure spent on a life-jacket or a fire-extinguisher and that the return on such expenditure should never be calculated in simple terms.

Dr B Muthukumaran

After the lunch break, Dr B. Muthukumaran Chief Security Consultant of Gemini Communications Ltd presented the security aspects in a typically networked environment stressing upon the need for having sound systems like anti-virus, fire-wall with intrusion prevention and intrusion detection. He gave a demo in the form of video clipping of a typical scenario describing the features of good security practices in a corporate organization. He urged upon the corporates and security heads present to understand the requirements of a sound security policy in the organisation.

Mr S N Ravichandran

Shri S.N. Ravichandran, from CySI Coimbatore gave a simple interesting and user-friendly talk on the various cyber crime cases being reported to the police every day. He explained the practical difficulties in investigating a cyber crime. He stressed the importance of parental care and monitoring when the children browse the net. He also explained how many vital cases go un-reported and how many ISPs and Banks handle such issues without proper care that they deserve, like opening an account without address verification in a Bank, giving a mobile with an id proof etc.

Mr M L Srinivasan

Shri M.L. Srinivasan started his rich presentation commenting about the meaning of the words, threats, vulnerabilities and risks. He described the practical implications of risks in an enterprise and described what is popularly called a bot and botnet. He gave pictorial representations of how a computer system gets affected by a bot and how it acts as a zombie invariably without the knowledge of the rightful owner of the PC. He gave useful tips on how to guard against such threats for a home user as well as for a corporate user.

Interaction session

Participants gave a wonderful feed-back introducing one after another. Participants from banks commented that more sessions could have been included on topics concerning cyber crime areas in financial transactions especially in banking. Almost everyone praised the way the workshop was conducted sticking to the time schedule and giving a good coverage of all the areas planned for.

There was a very good interactive session with participants posing questions on the various areas covered by the speakers right from mobile frauds, credit card frauds, phising, guarding against id theft etc

Sum-up

Shri U.P. Prakasham Treasurer of CySI summed up the entire proceedings of the day in a very brief and crisp manner narrating the highlights of every session. He proposed vote of thanks thanking everyone for the successful conduct of the programme and every participant for the valuable contribution in the interactive and other sessions.

Public Sector PR forum event at Chennai

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:34:00 +0000

Public Sector Public Relations Forum, Tamilnadu organised a meeting on 20th October 2009 at Chennai. Dr T V Somanathan IAS (Secretary to Government of Tamilnadu and Managing Director of Chennai Metro Rail Limited) made a wonderful presentation on the proposed Chennai Metro Rail project.

Dr Somanathan, holds a Ph.D in Economics. He is a qualified Chartered Accoutant, Cost Accountant and a Company Secretary. He is a student of Harvard Business School. 1987 batch IAS officer, Dr Somanathan stood second at all india level in the IAS and also won the Gold Medal as the best probationer of his batch.

Dr Somanathan explained the details of Chennai Metro Rail project. The cost of project is estimated at Rs.14,600 crores, besides the cost of acquisition of lands which is etimated at around Rs.1,900 croroes. 45 KM metro line, when completed in 2014 or 2015 will be the fourth largest metro rail project in the world. This project will be completed in two phases.

Presently, Chennai has around 28 lakhs of vehicle population (1.4 laksh in 1984) and is growing at 14% annually. Chennai city is one of the oldest cities of the country with narrow roads. Due to the economic growth, the traffic is increassing in large number. Presently, the electric suburb trains transport around 8 lakhs of passengers every day, while MRTS transport nearly 90,000 passengers. The city buses transport around 48 lakhs of passengers. When Metro Rail project is completed, it may likely to transport around 8 lakhs of passengers every day.

Dr Somanathan explained various challenges that this project may face, like land acquisition, traffic management, shifting of existing utility services and also co-ordination with other projects, etc. He was also explaining as to how they propose to meet the challenges to minimise the inconvenience to the general public and to complete the projects in time.

Dr Somanathan said that when the Metro Rail projects gets completed, it would help the chennai citizens greatly. However, he appealed to the people to bear with the inconvenience caused to them during the project works. For nearly one to two years, the Chennai citizens may suffer inconvenience in the traffic, as if 35 fly-overs are being constructed simultaneously. However, they are working out so meticulously, to minimise the inconvenience to the people.

Let us all pray Almighty for save and successful implementation of the Metro Rail project at Chennai. On behalf of the citizens, we should also extend maximum cooperation and understanding with the project officials for smooth and safe implementation.

Presentation and Public speaking skills - Workshop

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:08:00 +0000

Normally, whenever, we think of Co-operative Banks, we assume to be old dilapidated buildings with improper maintenance. But, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Agricultural Co-operative Staff Training Institute (ACSTI) at Madhavaram, in the outskirts of Chennai. I had the opportunity of visiting the Institute on 6th October 2009 to conduct half-a-day workshop on "Presentation and Public speaking skills" for their trainees.

This Institute is managed and run by Tamilnadu State Apex Co-operative Bank Limited. The Institute situated in 5 acre natural green environment provides a conducive atmosphere for training. The dining hall, hostel rooms, class rooms and conference halls fitted with modern gadgets, library, etc. give the look of corporate training centre. They provide all types of training from freshers to senior level management executives on banking. Very unfortunately, they are not known outside.

I wondered when I was invited by Mr Manohar, Principal of the Institute to conduct a half-a-day workshop on 'Presentation and Public speaking skills' for their trainees. Probably this is the first time, this Institute had thought of inclusion of this workshop in the regular training schedule. Even when the Nationalised Public Sector Banks and Corporate giants have not thought of exposing heir employees for the much needed presentation skills, this Institute had pro-actively planned to prepare their trainees to face the competition from the public and private sector banks.

Around 50 trainees participated in this workshop. The purpose of this workshop was to create confidence amongst the trainees for presentation skills. After 45 minutes of introductory session, I asked a few participants to talk on theme of their choice for 5 minutes. Some people were asked to speak extempore. All the speeches of the participants were recorded in video and later played and reviewed. Surprisingly, many of the trainees, who had expressed 'stage fear', 'lack of fluency'. 'lack of confidence', etc. have all done well, belying their own apprehensions. Ultimately, this exercise has proved that people had only false fear or apprehension about themselves without any base and when they were given an opportunity they performed better.

Public Sector and Private Sector organisations should take cue from this little known 'Co-operative Training Institute' to train their own employees.

National Media Conference,09, Day 2, session 3

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:48:00 +0000

National Media Conference,09, Day 2, session 2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 06:48:00 +0000

Noopur Bapna, Divyaraj Brahmbhatt and Manjiree Gohad, students of Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, reporting live from Mount Abu.

For more information on the conference see-

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2009/09/national-media-conference-09-day-2.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2009/09/national-media-conference09-day-1.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2009/09/national-media-conference09-inaugural.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2009/09/national-media-conference09-mr-ashok.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2009/09/national-media-conference09day-1.html

Self Regulation in Media- Role of Spirituality.

Participants in this discussion are
Mr. Om Gupta, Prof. & Dean, Centre for Media Studies Academy, Delhi
Prof. K.C. Mouli, Faculty, PR & Advertising, MLNC University of Journalism, Bhopal
Mr. Akshay Kumar, Former Director, PR, in PM Office, Delhi
B.K. Aasapi, National coordinator, Media wing, Mumbai
Jai Krishna Gaur, Chief Editor, Swadesh Hindi Daily, Bhopal
Prof. Ananya Mehta, Faculty, Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication
Mr. K.d. Chadola, President, Association of Small & Medium Newspapers of India, Kanpur
Mr. Santosh Bhartiya, Ex MP, Chief Editor, Chauthi Duniya, Delhi

Q.1. to Prof. Ananya Mehta-
Today the media is said to be deteriorating in values and ethics, still there are no courses which instill values in media aspirants, why?

A. Quotes," Media professionals should have licenses like medical and law professionals."
Today the media is giving out news which will create biases and negative opinions. There should be ethics. If the media wants to enjoy the position of the fourth administrator then it needs to check itself. We take a lot of things from the west, but the west has taken values from us and they need to be retained by the Indian Media.

Q.2. to Prof.K.C. Mouli
While reporting how much can a reporter excersise self-regulation?
Can he succeed?

A. If a reporter can understand his responsibilities by himself he can regulate himself completely. Facts are sacred they must be presented neutrally. Facts cannot be twisted. A reporter must keep in mind that anything he reports has an effect on the society. Thus the reporting should not take place to increase the circulation of the paper or TRPs of the channel but for social good, he will succeed completely.

Q.3. to Mr.Jai Krishna Gaur
What is the importance of words in journalism?

A. Wars were fought because of words. Words create problems. Mahabharat occurred because Draupadi insulted Duryodhan, by calling him 'Son of the blind'. Truth should be presented sensitively, so that the society does not infer wrong meanings and create disharmony. Words have to be used with care and awareness.

Q.4. to Mr.Santosh Bhartiya
What kind of Information comes in front of you in context to news, how do you decide which news to publish?

A. There are different aspects of news reporting, reporting about cinema,etc does not mean the reporter is not a reporter in the true sense. While reporting I follow one rule to try to find out the truth and see what are the origins of the news. Then we see whom is the news affecting.

Q.5. to Mr.Om Gupta
Literature is the mirror of the society, but does this mirror show the truth or what the society wants to see?
What kind of effects were you able to see?

A. We must accept one truth that media, today, is a business. Many researches take place, however the research that takes place on a large scale is, 'How is the media affiliated to the market?' Media wants reach its buyers not its audience. Media is a product, where you expect profit. In this research we try to find out wat will motivate buyers to consume the media.

To improve this condition we study the media and its relation with society. Pro-active media helps the cause, they counter the negative effects of the mainstream media.

Q.6. Sister Niranjana
How can Rajyoga be incorporated in media?

A.The media is doing its job to some extent. However to exercise self-regulation reporters must know themselves from within, their goal must be clear, this can happen with the help of Rajyoga.

Q.7. to Mr. K.C. Mouli
Reporters have to work in dangerous situations, in such a scenario how can they exercise self-regulation?

Many professions are hazardous, that doesn't mean the people from that profession lose self-regulation. You are in this field by choice, no one has invited you to be a journalist. After joining the profession if you are afraid of the dangers then you have no option but leave the profession.

Q.8. to Mr. Santosh Bhartiya
Media is not able to regulate itself because advertisers rule the journalism, how can you regulate yourself in such a condition?

A. It is not true that advertisers control the news. They might take up space in the newspapers, but no one will say that you cannot publish some kind of news, or that we will give ads only if you publish this kind of news. All that ad people care is about the circulation or TRPs, so ads cannot be used as an excuse to publish negative or biased news.

However, Mr. Mouli differs with this opinion, he feels newspapers have to come out of the influence of the advertisers in order to report fairly.

Q.9. to Mr. Om Gupta
Every day a new newspaper is launched, there is no regulation on who can launch a newspaper, why is that so?
How much is technology helping reporting?

Its unfortunate that to start a newspaper you do not require Government permission. However, if not control there should be some kind of regulatory policies.
There was a time when it took days to spread news, today via e-mails we can send news within minutes. Thus, technology is a boon. However, content is more important than technology, technology is a mere vehicle.

Q.10.to Mr. Ananya Mehata
How can channels stop broadcasting shows that encourage violence?

Channels must realise they are alive as long as there are viewers. They must learn to respect sensibilities of the society. To bring about this change, we require regulation, at-least till the time channels realise their duties, to stop such programmes.

Q.11. to Mr. K.D. Chandola
Why are snippets like horoscope, etc.incorporated in news?

A. Such columns are present for entertainment. They may remain but should not be given importance as they are not giving any message.

National Media Conference, 09, Day 2, Session 1.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:13:00 +0000

National Media Conference,09,Day 1, Session 2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 09:58:00 +0000

Noopur Bapna, Divyaraj Brahmbhatt, and Manjiree Gohad, students of Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, reporting live from Mount Abu.

For more information on the conference see-
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2009/09/national-media-conference09-day-1.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2009/09/national-media-conference09-inaugural.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2009/09/national-media-conference09-mr-ashok.html

The second session of the National Media Conference,09, Mount Abu has started. There are four panels discussing, the 'Role of Media as the Messenger of Peace', simultaneously.

Workshop-1

B.K. Urmila says,
"It is impossible to make media a messenger of Peace unless and until we transform ourselves.

Mrs. Usha Sharma, chief Editor, Samay Srijan Times, Delhi emphasised on the need of writings that promote social good.

Mr. Narayan Murthy - Choosy 49 Fortnightly, Delhi put forth the request not to publish any type of work which creates tension and communal disharmony.

Workshop-2
Dr. B.L Jalan National Gen. Secretary, Rural Journalist Association of India said Media needs to understand its impact on the masses. News which leads to transformation should be given priority and news imparting 4Cs should take the backseat.
Media is a pictured as a quicksand , sooner we realize better it will be.

Mr. Sukhram Yadav, Senior Editor , Natkhat, Rajbiraj, Nepal
According to him Media is the weapon to change the world. It's responsibility is to educate rather than entertain. Irresponsible journalism will not only destroy lives but the whole nation.

Workshop-3
Mr. Tarun Sheth emphasized on purifying minds by being optimistic. To promote progress it is necessary to inculcate good thoughts in minds of people.

Mr. Ramesh Shah, Chairman, Vision True Media Group, Delhi
He stated using various examples that job of Media professionals is not easy. At times news spoil moods and thoughts but they need to be published.

Mr. Ajay Indrekar, News Editor, All India Radio, Ahmedabad
According to Mr. Indrekar Media is the most powerful pillar of the democracy. He spoke about 24 Hour News channels where every bit of news is broadcasted as Breaking News. There is much more ambiguity on the authenticity of both news and source.

Workshop-4
B.K. Nirupam says,
"News of positive, moral and educational nature can bring about change in the people."

Dr.S.N.Shukla, Chief Editor,Chikhta Bharat,UP, says,
" Media presents sensational news like murder with different angles. However, constructive incidents are hardly reported. Change in the attitude of the media is the need of the hour. Reach of the media adds to its effectivity."

Mr. Shyam Kumar, Editor Samachar Vaarta,Lucknow says,
"While positive news will help in spreading peace, the importance of reporting the wrongdoings cannot be belittled. It is the awareness about what is happening which can help in establishing peace."

National Media Conference,09, Mr. Ashok Bairwa.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 07:37:00 +0000

Noopur Bapna and Manjiree Gohad, students of Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, reporting live from Mount Abu.

For more information on the conference see-
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2009/09/national-media-conference09-day-1.html
http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2009/09/national-media-conference09-inaugural.html

Honourable Minister for Information and PR, Rajasthan Mr. Ashok Bairwa was the Guest of Honour at the National Media Conference.
The minister congratulated Brahma Kumaris Media Wing for addressing an important issue like 'Role of Media and Spirituality.' He said that Indian philosophy gave importance to spirituality. Westerners and foreigners alike turned to India for spiritual experiences.

He urged the media professionals to incorporate messages, that have social relevance and will increase social benefit. According to him it is the primary responsibility of the media to create awareness. He believes the media can bring about a change in the society, and hopes that media will influence people positively, and help in creating the new world the Brahma Kumaris wish to create.

National Media Conference,09, Inaugural address

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 06:50:00 +0000

Noopur Bapna and Manjiree Gohad, students of Symbiosis Institute of Media and communication, reporting live from Mount Abu.

For more information on the National Media Seminar go to-

http://prpoint.blogspot.com/2009/09/national-media-conference09-day-1.html

Honourable Minister for Urban development and Housing Nitin Bhai Patel gave the inaugural speech at the National Media Conference, 09 held at the Brahmakumari Shantivan, Mount Abu.

He said that everywhere in the world power and intellect is respected. Media has the power and the intellect. Today India has so many newspapers, channels, magazines,etc. Why?Because media has the power to create awareness. How this power is utilised is in our hands. For e.g, Atoms can be used to create a bomb or, create electricity.

He suggests that the viewers should make a choice too. The choice of receiving media which is beneficial to them, and shunning the media which serves no purpose. This will automatically lead to a socially aware media.

Media has the power and authority to get work done. Its media's duty to follow up the work that needs to be undertaken for social welfare.

Media is such a powerful entity that it cannot be controlled or censored.

National Media Conference,09, Day 1, Session1

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 04:49:00 +0000

Noopur Bapna and Manjiree Gohad, students of Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, reporting live from Mount Abu.

Brahma Kumaris media wing, has organised a media seminar to define the role of media in promoting spirituality for peace and development. Veterans of various media houses and newspapers have graced the occasion.

The traditional song and dance welcome proceedings have taken place.

The dignitaries on the dias are,

B.K. Geeta Behen,

Rajyogi B.K. Karuna(Vice-chairperson, Media-wing)

Dr. V.C.Narsimha Reddi,(Editor PR Voice; Ex Director,Information & PR, Hyderabad)

Rajyogini B.K. Sheilu (Director, Rajyoga Shivir, Mount abu)

Rajyogi B.K. Om Prakash (Chairperson Media Wing, Indore)

Mr. Ashok Panda (MLA, Bhubhaneshwar)

Rajyogi B.K. Nirwair

Honourable Ministers,

Mr. Ashok Bairwa, (Minister of State for Information and PR, Govt. of Rajasthan)

Mr. Nitin bhai Patel, (Minister for Urban Development &Housing, Gvt. of Gujarat)

1500 media persons, from across the nation, have gathered here to attend the conference

Mr. Om Prakash, has expressed happiness over the presence of the media persons, he is putting forward the validity of media's role on this topic.

According to him, the destruction that took place during WW2 was due to the importance given to the Intelligence Quotient, however, Emotional Quotient was ignored. Once that was recognised, they found something else lacking i.e. Spiritual quotient.

The media is focused on 4 c's 1. Cricket, 2. Crime , 3. Cinema, 4. Celebrities.

Its primary focus should be- Social Development and upliftment of people

Mr.V.C. Narsimha Reddi says, there are two trends today

1. Urge to earn money, by hook or by crook- which has led to unrest.

2. Due to this unrest people are turning to spirituality

3. The media is capitalising on this trend. We have channels like Astha, etc.

However, the media is not giving it a right direction. Today news is on sale. Money runs the business, not social responsibility.

He suggests there should be

1. National survey of role of media in promoting spirituality

2. National mission for spirituality

3. Media should be empowered with spiritual thoughts.

4. The golden triangle of professionalism, ethics and spirituality must be incorporated in media.

5. Well led public relations for spiritual organisation.

The conference is well-linked with all technological devices like translating device, video recording, etc.

Mr. Ashok Panda feels that media should follow ethics and social norms, it should not peek into others private affairs, unless they affect the society.

The lighting of lamp has taken place, the media conference has been is declared open.

GFPR launches Chennai Chapter with an UnConference

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:36:00 +0000

Global Forum for Public Relations, (GFPR) a global body of PR professionals launched their Chennai Chapter on 9th May 2009. Young team of PR professionals and students took oath as Managing Committee members.

Sakthi Prasanna (Chairman), Narrendiran (Vice Chairman), Raja Marthandam (Secretary), and other Committee Members Poornima, Krishnamurthy, Sampath took oath during the launch function. (see picture below)

Please see this visual show of the event, by clicking 'play button'.

The launch function was followed with an "UnConference" on the theme "Communication during recession". Since it was an UnConference, all the participants had the opportunity to share the views. Experts like Madan Behal (MD, Adfactors PR), Ravi Srinivasan (Editor, Mail Today), Arun Aroa (Associate VP, GMR Dial), C J Singh (MD, Core PR) and Chandra Mouli (CEO, Blue Lotus PR) shared their views live during the UnConference over telephone from their places. They also answered the questions from the audience. B N Kumar (CEO, Concept PR), T N Ashok (Corporate Consultant and former Economic Editor of PTI), Susan Koshy (Former General Manager - Corporate communication, IDBI), B K Karuna (National President, GFPR) were personally present and shared the views.

The important issues that were discussed were:

1. whether recession is a myth or a relaity?
2. Which are the sectors that are affected by this slow down?
3. How to convert this situation into an opportunity for growth and out-of-the-box thinking?
3. What are the communication strategies that we need to adopt?

and many more issues. Please listen to the excerpts from the UnConference session, by clicking 'play' button in the flash player. If the streaming of audio is not smooth, you can right click this link and save the target as mp3 file in your desktop and listen through your player. (22 minutes)

The audio may also be listened from the following link
http://www.podbazaar.com/permalink/144115188075857418

Media students intereact with Former Chief Election Commissioner

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:25:00 +0000

PodUniversal Edition 75

Madurai Kamaraj University provides Distance Education programme at Post Graduate level on Mass Communication/Journalism and Advertisement/Public Relations. Contact classes were held at Chennai during this week for the first year PG students of Mass communication. For the first time ever in any University, the University organised a live Press Conference and Interaction programme for these students with the help of Chennai Press Club. They had invited Mr T S Krishnamoorthy, Former Chief Election Commissioner of India for this interaction session.

Mr S P Lakshmanan (Editor, Arasiyal), Mr Bharathi Thamizhan (Joint Secretary of Chennai Press Club), Mr Nurullah (Senior Journalist), Prof. M V Nagarajan (Co-ordinator for this Distrance Education programme) were also present. Since, I am in the Board of Studies of this University, I was also invited. The interaction session lasted for one hour. The future journalists, were very creative in asking several questions.

Please listen to the excerpts from the interaction session (16 minutes), by clicking 'play' button in the flash palyer. (The streaming of the audio will be smooth in broad band connections. If you find any difficulty, right click this link and save the link to your desktop and listen through mp3 player.)

The audio may also listened from the following link
http://www.podbazaar.com/permalink/144115188075857401

If you want to know more about the distance education programme of Madurai Kamaraj University please visit http://www.mkudde.org/ or send your mail to Prof. M V Nagarajan, Co-ordinator to naga_mku@yahoo.co.in

Young students organise mega media events in 22 cities of the country

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:14:00 +0000

Symbiosis Institute of Media and communication, pune popularly known as SIMC, a reputed media and communication school of Asia is arranging events called ‘footprints’ all over India since 1999 to promote media and communication awareness amongst the students during November and December every year. All the events are organized by their own students as part of their on the job training.

During 2008, SIMC had organized this Footprint event in 21 Indian Cities and one at Dubai, with uniform theme of Citizen journalism. The entire mega event is organized by 364 PG and UG students, by dividing the cities amongst themselves. During this year, more than 15000 young media students had participated in all the 22 footprints. They have involved more than 260 eminent professionals across the country as speakers. These footprints events generated more than 500 media reports across the country, besides social media write ups. These events involved an expenditure of around 75 lakshs, which was generated by the students through various sponsors.

From this year onwards, they have also instituted two awards for the young professional achievers in the media line in each center. They have honoured 34 such young achievers in the current year throughout India. These events helped all the students to have an hands on experience on marketing the events, sponsorship, public relations, photogrpahy, videography, advertisement, event management, etc.

When they had organized the footprint event on 5th December 2008 at Chennai, I spoke to Ruhi Jhunjhunhwala, a first year PG student of SIMC and the team leader of the Chennai Footprint team. Please listen to the interview by clicking 'play' button (12 minutes). (If you have a broadband of atleast 100 kbps, the streaming will be smooth. if the streaming is not continuous, you may download this file in mp3 format and listen)

This interview may also be listened in the following link
http://www.podbazaar.com/permalink/144115188075857333

Todownload in mp3 format, right click this link and save to your desktop (11 mb)

First edition PRCamp - UnConference at Chennai

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:48:00 +0000

Who can participate

Chennai PR Club and Prime Point Foundation(supported by Public Sector PR Forum) propose to organise a PRCamp Edition1 - UnConference on Sunday the 14th December 2008 at Chennai. In the concept of UnConference, audience becomes the speaker and vice versa.

Public Relations, Corporate Communication professionals, PR and communication students, teachers, journalists who want to enter Corpcom domain and Corporate CEOs may also register the names.

The venue is at Tenth Planet, 6th Floor, 807, Anna Salai, Chennai (opp. to LIC building) . This will be one-day UnConference from 10 am to 5 pm.

Registration of participants

The themes are decided by the audience and every one of the participant can share the views. Those who are interested to participate, may kindly register their names and contact details and how they will contribute to this UnConference.

Moderators

We need atleast 5 to 10 moderators who will be moderating the sessions. Participants who are interested to be moderators, may also register their names.

Themes for discussions

Please suggest various themes/ topics for discussions.

Sponsorship

We need sponsors for hall, lunch, etc. The sponsors can display their banners in the hall. Those who are interested to sponsor the event, may kindly enter the details or contact Srinivasan at 94440 50273.

General

Or please click 'edit' against the relevant title and then add the entries. Please do not forget to 'save page' after adding your information.

There is no participation fee. It is abolutely free. PRCamp needs only your knowledge and not your money.

Please register your name and other details by clicking the following wiki
http://wiki.prpoint.com/mediawiki-1.12.0/index.php/PRCamp

What is lacking in the banking sector communication in India?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:21:00 +0000

Private sector banks communicate excessively; Public sector 'No communication' and only Chairman centric

Indian Banks Association (IBA) and Consumers Association of India (CAI) organised a Seminar at Chennai on 6th October 2008 on "Rights and Responsibilities of consumers and banks in banking services". Top officials from Reserve Bank of India, Banking Ombudsman, Information Commission, Banking codes and standards of India, IBA and Commercial banks from public and private sector participated in the seminar. From the consumers side, many eminent consumers participated. This is the first time, that consumers and banks are interacting at macro level in India in a large scale.

The entire pre-lunch session was devoted for the banking authorities to speak about their issues, problems and expectations from customers. Post lunch session was devoted to consumers to share their views on their experiences and expectations.

Ms Usha Thorat, Deputy Governor, Reseve Bank of India participated and delivered the valedictory address. (we will be releasing her speech in our next part)

On behalf of the consumers, K. Srinivasan, Founder, Prime Point Foundation delivered a talk on "Communication in Banking services". The script of his speech may be downloaded from the following link (pdf 50k)

http://www.prpoint.com/banking.pdf

Please watch and listen to the podcast - lecture by K. Srinivasan (14 minutes) - Click to play (the podcast needs a broad band of 150 kbps for smooth streaming. In case, the streaming is slow, you may download in your desktop and listen through windows media player)

You may also watch / listen to this podcast from the following links

http://blip.tv/file/1332052/
http://www.podbazaar.com/permalink/144115188075857306

Download the wmv format of this podcast - Right click and save to your desktop ( 5.85 mb)

Role of Indian Public Sectors and PR in the National building

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 07:47:00 +0000

Mr S Anshar Shah, Chief Manager (PR), Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited (CPCL), Chennai, one of the largest refineries in South India retires from the services of CPCL on 30th September 2008. Mr Ansar Shah is also one of the co-founders of Public Sector PR Forum (PSPRF) and he is the President of the Forum since its inception. PSPR Forum organised a felicitation and farewell function at Chennai on 26th September 2008.

In the picture below, Mr Vadiyanathan, Secretary of PSPR Forum (left) and Mr N Ravi, Treasurer of PSRP Forum (extreme right) are seen felicitating Mr Ansar Shah (centre) with Shawl and bouquet for his contribution to the PR movement.

Mr K K Acharya, Managing Director of CPCL was the Chief Guest. Besides, many eminent personalities like Mr Ganesan (Director General of Doordarshan, Delhi), Mr Deenadayalam (Former Chairman of CPCL), Mr Ramalingam (Former Chairman of CPCL) fecilitated Mr Ansar Shah. Many Senior Journalists of the City and representatives of Media also participated int he event. It is an unique event where a Public Relations professional is felicitated for his achievements by the Media professionals and his own past and present CEOs.

Picture below : Mr Ganesan , Mr Ansar Shah, Mr K K Acharya, Mr Deenadayalan Mr Ramalingam, N Ravi

Mr K K Acharya in his felicitation speech gave a detailed account of how Public Sector organisations in India are contributing to the National development. He also emphasised the need for Public Relations in transparent communication, so that people get the right message at the right time. Please listen to his speech.

(This podcast needs a broadband of minimum 150 kbps. If there is a lower bandwidth, you can wait till the buffer gets completed and then play to get the proper view. or you can download this in your desktop and listen)- Please click to play

You can also watch this podcast in the following link

http://blip.tv/file/1300872

http://www.podbazaar.com/permalink/144115188075857299

You may download in wmv format (can be played in windows media player) - Right click and save to your desktop

National Media Conference 2008 in India - A Roundup

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:38:00 +0000

A National Media Conference and Exhibition 2008 was organised by Brahmakumaris (a well knwon spiritual organisation) and Global Forum for Public Relations (GFPR) at Mount Abu from 20th September 2008. Around 2000 media and PR professionals across the country and Nepal participated.

Many eminent professionals shared their views on the current trends in media and communication. Please watch the podcast on the National Conference- Roundup. Rajayogi B K Karuna, Vice Chairman of Media Wing of Brahmakumaris and also the President of GFPR explains the purpose and the proceedings.

(streaming of this podcast will be good in the broadband of minimum 150 kbps. If it is less than this, you may download and then watch fully or allow this to buffer fully and then watch)

You may also watch this podcast from the following links
http://blip.tv/file/1295828/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv57_N1O9lQ

http://www.podbazaar.com/permalink/144115188075857298

If you want to download the podcast in wmv format (you an play in windows media player), right click here and save to your desktop

National Media Conference - Social Media: An overview

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:46:00 +0000

Report by K. Srinivasan

In the National Media Conference held on 22nd September 2008, I delivered a talk ln 'Social Media'. Please watch the podcast and listen to my talk. (14 m)

You may also watch this podcast in the following link
http://blip.tv/file/1290612

To download this file in wmv format (can be played in media player) - Right click here and save to desktop

Live from Mount Abu - National Media Conference - Second Day

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:58:00 +0000

Report by K. Srinivasan from Mount Abu (Rajasthan, India)

Plenary Session II - 22nd September 9.30 AM to 11.30 AM

The Second day sessions started with the disussions on "Role of Mass Media in changing scenario". B K Nikunj (Chairman of GFPR, Mumbai) initiated the discussions. Prof. K C Mouli (Bhopal), Akshay Kumar (Former Director PR of Prime Minister of India), Devendra Patel (Consujlting Editor, Sandesh, Ahemadabad), Vijay Saihgal (Former Editor of Tribune, Chandigarh), K. Srinivasan (Prime Point, Chennai) shared their views. (see picture below)

Speakers emphasised that Media was not above law and they had to function with more responsibility to the society. One of the speakers pointed out that though the media was doing great job, they are caught like 'Abhimanyoo' in Mahabaratha war. They find it difficult to come out of the various influences. Another speaker pointed out that because of the reporting by media, the Courts have taken up the genuine cases suo-moto and punished the culprits. One speaker mentioned that the media is a double eduged weapon and needed to be handed carefully.

Social media came in for discussion. How the social media has started influencing the youngsters and the need for following cyber laws was also discussed. (In the picture below B K Nikunj is initiating the debate)

Panel Discussion - Need for socially committed media - 3.30 pm to 6 pm

In this session Prof. Pradeep Mathur (IIMC, Delhi), Madhurjee (CPRO, IIIT, Roorke), Jai Krishna Gaur (Govt. of MP, Bhopal), Anil Kumar Anal (Nepal), Shyam Kumar (Lucknow), Dr R L Jalan (Jaipur) parfticipated and shared their views. (picture see below)

Valedictory Session - Spritualism for holistic and sustainable development 6.30 pm 8.00 pm

B K Om Prakash, Chair Person of Meida Wing of Bramakumaris chaired the session. Dr V M Prasad (Jawaharlal Nehru Technical Univeristy, Hyderabad) delivered the valedictory address. B K Sarala (Vice President, GFPR) concluded the sessions.

Nine Point resolution was also passed. The resolutions demanded ethical and responsible reporting by the media; establishment of a Media Council; coordination of PR and Media for Nation building, etc. (see picture below)

A special mention need to be mentioned about the large contigent of delegates from Hyderabad, representing GFPR. They also demanded an one-day Public Relations Conclave at Hyderabad to enable the participation by South Indian professionals. (see picture below - Hyderabad delegates).

A mention has to be made about the environment and finest arrangements made to the delegates, including accommodation, food, meditation sessions, etc. Around 1600 delegates representing various Media and PR organisations participated in the two day Conference.

Live from Mount Abu - National Public Relations Conclave

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 01:51:00 +0000

21st Sep 2008 - Afternoon - PR Conclave - Session 1 (picture ab ove)

Theme : Emerging New India

Rajayogi B K Karuna, Chief of Media Wing of Brahmakumaris and President of GFPR welcomed and stressed the role of communication professionals in the Nation building. Dr C V N Reddy (Hyderabad), Dr V M Prasad (Professor in JNTU, Hyderabad), Mr Ananya Mehta (Professor of Symbiosis), Mumtaz Fatima (Vice President of GFPR) and K. Srinivasan (Prime Point) shared the views. All the speakers stressed the role of communication professionals in building the Nation. After the financial crisis in USA, India is likely to emerge as a financial giant in the world. Hence, the need for preparing ourselves to face the new paradigm was discussed. B K Aditi (Secretary of GFPR, Delhi) coordinated the session.

Session II was focussing on the paradigm shift and enhancing the values.

Prof. K C Murali (Bhopal), Dr A P Natarjan (Hyderabad), Ms Manju Wadgekar (PGIMER, Chandigarh), Kamalesh Meena (Rajasthan Govt), Madhuarjee (IIIT, Roorkee), Vasanth K Sharma (Northern Railway, Jaipur) aad)nd P B Raghavendra Rao (Hyderabad) spoke stressed the need for developing value in the profession. They also insisted on how CSR has to become the part of PR profession. (See pictures below). B K Heena of Perfect Relations, Mumbai coordinated the entire session.

Live from Mount Abu - National Media Conference - Inauguration

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 11:40:00 +0000

Reporting from Mount Abu - K. Srinivasan

National Media Conference organised by Brahmakumaris and Global Forum for Public Relations was inaugurated on Sunday the 21st September 2008 here. Mr B K Om Prakash, Chairperson, Media Wing from Indore and Mr B K Karuna, Vice Chairperson of Media Wing from Mount Abu explained the objectives of the Conference. The inauguration was formally done by lighting lamps (see picture above)

It was followed by the first Plenaruy Session with Dr C V Narasimha Reddy, Editor, PR Voice from Hyderabad chairing the session. Prof. Pradeep Mathu from IIMC, Delhi, Mr Akshya Kumar, Former Advisor to Indian Prime Minister, Dr Sudhakar, Director, Doordarshan Kendra, Hyderabad, Mr Sarat Mishra, Publisher and Editor of Samaj Daily, Cuttack and Mr N K Sindh, Political Editor of ETV, Delhi shared their views. (phto below)

The following points emerged during their talks:.

1. Presently, Indian Media is giving importance to 4Cs (Cricket, crime, cinema and celebrities). Vision is needed for Media and they should focus more on developmental communication.

2. Empowerment of journalists

3. Any freedom without restriction leads to chaos; Media has to develop National responsibility;

4. Media is accused of promoting sex and violence. They are also accused of glorifying the criminals;

5. Media should function like a watchdog;

6. Media should follow positive approach; get themselves prepared for that and train the journalists towards that purpose;

7. Valued based journalism is getting eroded. Spritualism plays a greater role to develop values and systems;

8.Media instead of reflecting the community voice, reflects only the corporate voice; Instead of public interest, media has developed commercial interest;

9. TV Channels have changed the culture of our country, which could not be done by even Britishers during their 200 years rules.

10. There is a disconnect between mass media and the masses (general public);

11. Media should develop self code of conduct, keeping the public at large.

Live from Mount Abu - National Media Conference and Exhibition 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 02:22:00 +0000

Reporting from Mount Abu - K., Srinivasan

A National Media Conference and Exhibtion is being organised on 21 and 22nd September 2008 at Shanthivan, Abu Road (Rajasthan) by Brahmakumaris and Global Forum for Public Realations (GFPR). A grand receiption was held for the delgatges and speakers on Saturday the 20th September 2008 evening. An exhibition was also inaugurated depicting the various activities of the Media and PR wing of Brahmakumaris.

There are more discussions on 21st and 22nd on the various aspects of Media and Public Relations in India. I will try to report live and also podcast on the two day event.

Photo top: Reception meeting
Photo below : Section of the audience ( aroiund 2000 people participated)

Live from Olympics 2008 - Gym & Massage Parlour for Journalists

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 09:46:00 +0000

Mr S Sukumar, Photo Journalist reports from Beijing Olympics 2008:

The Media Professionals around the Globe now in Beijing have to keep their nose to the grind stone. May be they have to work for about 20 hours a day, since venues of the sports events are spread out through out Beijing. One cannot cover all events taking place at one time hence they have to pick and choose the sports events they are interested as well their country is participating. Even though the Media Transport system is available round the clock it will take hours to reach certain venues like Rowing, Boxing etc. Inside Beijing itself. For Sailing Competitions one has to go out of BEIJING.

The Media professionals could not get time to attend to their personal work hence Hair Cutting Saloon, Gym & Fitness Centre with latest equipment, Massage parlour, Library etc are provided inside the Main Press Centre Complex.

Live from Olympics 2008 - Indian Ambassador to China honours Indian Media

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:47:00 +0000

Mr S Sukumar, Chennai based Photo Journalist reports from Beijing Olympics 2008

Indian Ambassador to China Ms Nirupama Rao hosted a party to all Indian media persons & athletes in Marriot hotel in Beijing. Shri Suresh Kalmadi the president of Indian Olympics Association (2nd from left)& his wife seen with media professionals of India during party at Marriot hotel, Beijing.

S.Sukumar, Photo Journalist & other Media members are seen with the Indian Ambassador Ms Nirupama Rao

The IOA (Indian Olympic Association) hosted a party exclusively for the journalists and photographers of India in Beijing Taj pavilion restaurant. The extraordinary arrangements done by Mr Sandeep Metha, Chief PRO of IOA and the immaculate & unimaginable service provided by Shri Deepak Patel, Restaurant Manager (2nd from right, 2nd row) need to be appreciated. . The party was well attended by all the journalists in spite of their busy schedules. The President and General Secretary of the IOA Shri Kalmadi and Shri Raja Randhir Singh were also present.

The Restaurant Manager Deepak Patel with his Staff members. (Chinese Girls dressed in Punjab style)

Liender Paes is seen with Sandeep Metha the Chief PRO of Indian Olympic Association

M B Jayaram gets IMM Excellence Award 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 05:39:00 +0000

2008 IMM Award for Excellence, of Institute of Marketing & Managemen was conferred to Mr M B Jayaram, Chairman Emirates of Public Relations Council of India (PRCI) as the 'Best Public Relations Person of the year'. In a function organised by IMM at Delhi on 14th August 2008, Dr.A.R.Kidwai Governor of Haryana presented the Excellence awards to Mr Jayaram.

Media facilities at Olympics 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 04:48:00 +0000

Mr S Sukumar, Chennai based Photo Journalist reports from Beijing Olympics 2008 :

I shall write about the media hotels, media massage center, media saloon, media gym and fitness centers provided exclusively for the World media persons in Beijing.

Beijing Olympics organising committee has approved some good Hotels in Beijing who are providing all the facilities to the journalists and visiting spectators from around the globe.

Here in Beijing the Olympics is celebrated like Deepavali in India. Hotels are decorated; visiting journalists and spectators are picked up from the airport.

The journalists and visitors are provided with 24 hours internet service free and big screen to view the Olympics games.

The above pictures shows the journalists updating their laptops with the current ongoing games thro the monitors of hotel Zaoyuanju - Hutong inn hotel.

A hotel called 'hutong inn', also known hotel Zaoyuanju is providing all facilities to visiting journalists and spectators. Tickets are being sold at the hotel venue.

Live Photos from Olympics 2008 - Food Court and Media Work Station

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:05:00 +0000

Mr S Sukumar, Photo Journalist has sent the following pictures from Beijing, China.

Food Court for Media persons

Media Work Stations

Live report from Olympics 2008 - Food Court for Media persons

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:21:00 +0000

Mr S Sukumar, Photo Journalist of (Chennai, India) reports from Beijing, China:

The media people viz. the journalists & photographers have been provided with 24 hours work facility in 2 floors in an unimaginably huge halls.

A huge Food Court for the Media is being maintained by Mc Donand, with international food, beverages, coffee, tea etc available to every media person.

Especially a Pure Vegetarian like me "PAZHAYA SADAM" (cooked rice soaked in water) is also available apart fromwhite rice & vegetable rice. I have been provided with curd also every day as a very special case by the chief Chef from inside his kitchen.

These arrangement is being made by a Lady called MS. MOUNA who has been assigned the task of providing Curd every day. As you are well aware a south Indian cannot live without Curd Rice which ultimately cools our body system.

S. SUKUMAR

Olympic Games 2008 - Day 1 - Press Centre

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 05:20:00 +0000

Mr Seshadri Sukumar, a Photo Journalist from Chennai, india reports exclusively for our blog from the Olympic village at China.

His report on the Day 1

It was too late yesterday. when I finished my work. it was 3.30 am

The media persons are well attended in Beijing. There are about 5900 journalists working in Beijing for their respective news papers of various countries. Managing this particular journalists population is very difficult, because the Journalists/photojournalists are always specious and argumentative.

Many Media Work Stations are provided in the Main Press Centre and all these are fully occupied by journalits to send their reports/photos. Kodak has a separate work stataion which they offer free for the Journalits/photographers. The speed of the Internet is superb

without which the photographs with high resolutions cannnot be transmitted immediately.

It is a nice experience meeting all the Photo Journalists/Journalists of various country at one place. Most of the faces are very familier, since I have been meeting them in similar

international games abroad.

(In the photograph, Seshadri Sukumar is seen standing in front of the Main Press Centre at Beijing)

India's pride : Chennai NGO gets International Award

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:19:00 +0000

Suyam Charitable Trust founded by Ms Uma and Mr Muthuraman in 1999 helps around 260 poor children. More than 50 percent of these children are 'street children', who do have any facility or support for their livelihood. The rest are picked up from the bottomline of the society. Suyam Charitable Trust runs "Siragu Montessori School" and provide education to these children.

Suyam is also a partner organisation for the India Vision Group. Impressed with their commitment, we have highlighted them as Unsung Heroes five years back in our India Vision site.

Akzo Nobel is one of the leading paint companies in the world and their Community Development initiatiaves have been ranked as No 2 at global level. They are supporting around 550 projects in 45 countries with 2500 volunteers. Every year, they select 15 projects for the best practices at global level. The entire group of volunteers vote for three organisations (out of this 15) for cash awards of EUR 30,000. 20,000 and 10,000 for the first three best projects.

Siragu Montessori School was selected by them for the Second prize of EUR 20000 at International level. Mr Gerard Helmink, Director, IT Shared Services, Akzo Nobel, Netherlands and Mr Mahesh Somu, Indian Operations Manager presented the Awards on 11th April 2008 at the School itself personally. This amount should be utilised by the Trust for construction of new building and development of infrasture to these children.

I had the opportunity of interacting and recording a podcast interview with Mr Gerard Helmink. We will be publishing it in our PodUniversal and Corporatezine PR-e-Sense at the end of April 08.

Suyam has brought glory and pride to all Indians. "Though we have founded this trust, the entire credit of global glory, is because of the support and guidance given by our donors, friends and teachers who have the total dedication for bringing up these unfortuante children" says Mr Muthuraman humbly. Suyam may be reached at suyam.awake07@gmail.com

Please watch some of the pictures:

Flickr Slideshowgreat free widgetsWidgetbox

Singapore PR Academy holds conference on New Media

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:20:00 +0000

PR Academy, Singapore organises their 7th Annual Conference. Themed "Strategic Communication: Communicating in a New Media Environment" the event comprises a 2-day pre-conference New Media Bootcamp(20-21 May 08); conference proper on 22 May 08; and a post-conferenceworkshop on "Facilitation Skills for Community Engagement" (23 May 08).All three events can be booked seperately or as a package.

Details can be found at our conference website www.pracad.com/praconf2008 and delegates can register on-line as well.

Detailed programme is available at http://app.pracad.com/pr_programme.htm

Hindu Business Line collaborates with Educational Institutions

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 08:37:00 +0000

The Hindu Business line, one of the leading Business dailies of India has been organising 'Hindu Business Line Club" in various Universities/ Colleges. In Chennai Region alone, 125 Educational Institutions covering around 15,000 students are part of this Club. Since Business Line has wide contacts with senior level Corporate Managers and Management experts, they organise lectures in all the Institutions for the benefit of the students, involving them. Otherwise, it would be difficult for the Colleges to get such experts to talk to their students.

Since I am also in their panel of resource persons, I had the opportunity of participating in their grand get-together on 12th April 2008. Representatives from more than 100 educational institutions and senior level corporate managers / experts particpated. Mr T V Mohandas Pai, Director of Infosys Group was the Chief Guest. He shared his views on the HR Challenges facing the country.

While welcoming the audience, Mr N Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu Group of Publications expressed his concern over the declining reach in the traditinal media, due to the internet growth. He said that due to the enormous growth of new media, people are not willing to pay for news. He expressed that no rigourous survey had been done in India on the use of new media.

Mr T V Mohandas Pai said that India was growing at fast rate and India would be touching the GDP of US $ 2.5 trillion within 10 years from the present level of $1.25 trillion. That would open up a large job market for skilled persons. He insisted on the creation of large institutions with in-take of more number of students and to provide quality higher education. There should be more of partnership between industry and educational institutions.

During the interaction session, Mr N Ram was sharing his concern about the lack of soft skills amongst the students. He said, neglect of soft skills start from communicatin and leads to unemployment.

Please read the full stories in the following links:

http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/13/stories/2008041353660500.htm

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/04/13/stories/2008041351290500.htm

5th World PR Conference at London - Early bird discount till March end

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 03:35:00 +0000

5th World PR Conference & Festival programme launched – and booking are open

The programme for the World PR Conference and Festival taking place on 23 and 24 June in London is now available and bookings can be made online at www.cipr.co.uk/wprf08. Early bird discount will be available for the bookings made before 31st March 2008.

The Conference and Festival themed ‘The public benefit of public relations’ includes 30 sessions on issues as diverse as::

■ How cities attract investment – the reputational issues that count
■ Appealing to different audiences and cultures – lessons from the front-line
■ Communicating in London, the world’s most diverse city
■ How businesses such as car manufacturers and gas suppliers can handle climate change and environmental challenges
■ How the ‘New’ was put back into New Zealand and how fundamental change has happened in South Africa

Colin Farrington, director general of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (UK) and chair of the Global Alliance, said: “Hosting the 5th World Public Relations Conference and Festival offers the PR industry globally a tremendous opportunity to communicate to the wider business community just what PR contributes to commerce and society worldwide.

“The programme is the product of extended consultation and it is our aim to maintain this level of interactivity at the event in June, allowing PR practitioners from across the globe the opportunity to come together to discuss some of the key issues facing the industry.”

The 5th World PR Conference and Festival takes place in London on 23 and 24 June at the InterContinental Hotel, Park Lane. Hosted by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (UK) the event is run in association with the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management.

To view the conference programme and to secure your place visit www.cipr.co.uk/wprf08. There is a discount on bookings made before the end of March 2008.

London embraces different people and cultures and what they have to offer: arts and culture, business and commerce, sports and events, food and entertainment. To find out what else is going on in London around the time of the World PR Conference and Festival and to ensure you make the most of your stay in London, visit www.visitlondon.com/ and be inspired.

10th PRISM Awards function by IPRS, Singapore

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 10:42:00 +0000

10th PRISM Awards function at Singapore

The Institute of Public Relations of Singapore’s 10th PRISM Awards Gala Dinner, the highlight of the PR industry, was held on Friday the 14th March 2008 at the St.Regis Hotel. His Excellency, President S R Nathan and Mrs Nathan were the Guests-of-Honour. President Nathan presented the Awards to the five winners of the Individual categories.

Held biennially, the PRISM Awards celebrated its 10th Anniversary this year. It unfolded many new chapters, showing strong signs of the industry’s growth and development since its establishment in 1987.

Firstly, it received a record number of over 100 entries from both the private and public sector. It is a clear indication of the importance that organisations place on public relations which contribute much to corporate reputation.

Secondly, IPRS introduced two regional awards. The Outstanding Corporate Reputation Campaign (International) award recognised PR efforts by Singapore based companies in three or more overseas markets.

The Outstanding Corporate Reputation Campaign (Asia Pacific Countries) award recognised efforts by organisations outside Singapore in any markets within APAC (Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands, excluding USA. These awards were introduced to highlight standards in corporate reputation, to foster quality networking within the region and provide benchmarks for campaign excellence in this region. These categories had good participation.

Lastly, the IPRS introduced new Individual awards for PRISM Awards 2008.
For the first time, an award was introduced to recognise a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or top executive who is PR savvy. The Outstanding PR Champion of the Year Awards was presented to an individual who contributed towards the PR activities and developments within the organisation to strengthen corporate reputation.

Mr Khoo Teng Chye, Chief Executive Officer of PUB-The National Water Agency walked away as the proud recipient of this inaugural award. The other special awards conferred were the Lifetime Achievement Award to Mr Basskaran Nair, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications, CapitaLand Limited; another new award, the Outstanding PR Mentor to Ms Winifred Chan, Managing Director of Barr & Chan Communications Pte Ltd;

PR Professional of the Year 2008 to Mr Michael Rose, Chief Executive Officer of MRA Communications Pte Ltd; and finally the Young PR Professional of the Year 2008 to Ms Lee Ling Ling, an Associate Consultant at Bang PR Pte Ltd.

President of IPRS, Ms K Bhavani said " I am very heartened to note that many Singapore organisations are striving to achieve excellence in their public relations efforts which contribute much to corporate reputation. Corporate reputation is slowly becoming a board issue. Senior management realise that reputation should be a critical business asset. The PRISM Awards thus encourages organisations to set benchmarks in public relations and communications."

The awards were presented at a black-tie, gala dinner which was attended by 450 guests. Heads of PR agencies, PR practitioners and CEOs and senior management from the private and public organizations were present. It was a record turnout and an evening befitting an industry which was fast growing in Singapore and internationally.

Created by IPRS, the PRISM Awards was started in 1987 as one way to recognise and reward organisations and individuals for outstanding contributions and achievements in Public Relations and Communications in Singapore. A highlight in the PR industry calendar, the biennial event aims to encourage creativity, originality and best application of public relations and communications practices across all sectors, in commercial as well as non-for-profit organisations. PRISM stands for “Public Relations in the Service of Mankind’.

Ms K Bhavani, President of IPRS, Singapore may be contacted at bhavani_k@mica.gov.sg

GFPR's Conference on "Good Governance" at Hyderabad

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:33:00 +0000

GLOBAL FORUM FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS

[India International Association for Values and Ethics in Public Relations]

-An initiative of Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University-

Regd. No: 924/2006

(A report by Sister B K Shalini, Secretary, GFPR, Hyderabad)

Two Day Global Conference ends with recommendations on good governance

A two day Global Conference on Good Governance: Media and Communication Strategies concluded on 9th March, with a powerful recommendations to the Government: At the Inaugural Session Honourable Minister for Labour & Employment graced the occasion besides other dignitaries viz. Sri Atluri Subba Rao, President, FAPCCI, Rajayogi, BK Karuna ji, Chief of Multi Media & PR, Dr. CV Narasimha Reddi, Former Director (I&PR) ; Iranian Diplomat Respected Sri Pariyabi Zadeh; Sis. BK Rachel, Former Director, HRAM, London, Sri A.Chandra Sekhar Reddy, Press Secretary to CM, Sri Nagesh Kumar, Editor, the Hindu, Rajayogini BK Kuldeep behnji, Director, Shantisarovar, and others.

The Conference comprised five different sessions focusing on the key topic dealt by eminent personalities like Smt. Santa Sinha, The Megasase Award Winner, Dr. T.Hanuman Choudhuri, Former IT Adviser, Sri Narendra Luther, IAS, Former Chief Secretary to Govt. of AP, Sri K.Srinivasa Reddy, Member, Press Council of India, Sri Yogesh Joshi, President Associated Business Communicators of India, Sri Dilip Kumar, Director, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Sis. Rachel from London Sri MVVS Murthy, IIS, Dy.Director General of Press Information Bureau, Dr. PJ Sudhakar, Director, Doordarshan etc.

The topics were:

Globalisation and Good Governance: Challenges and opportunities for Corporate India
Corporate Social Responsibility: A road map for reputation management
Changing National Media”: New strategy for Global Public Relations”
Corporate Ethics and Spirituality: Meaningful relations with Stakeholders
India as a Global Player: A Paradigm shift in corporate communication perspective.

At the Valedictory Section, the following recommendations were presented by Dr. CV Narasimha Reddi, Former Director for (Information & Public Relations).

Honourable Minister for IT, Communication, Youth Services & Sports Sri R.Damodar Reddy graced the valediction and complimented the efforts of Global Forum for Public Relations in leading the profession into right direction and he was sure with the intervention and support of an organization like Brahmakumaris this professional forum is going to give excellent benefits to the entire world a new and ideal direction. Sri Parvataneni Updendra, Former Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting greeted the Conference for a great success ahead and shared his views on the role of Public Relations in the world. Others who participated at the valediction were Sri Atluri Subba Rao, President FAPCCI, Rajayogi BK Karuna Bhaiji, Chief of Multi Media & PR, Brahmakumaris, Mount Abu, Rajastan.

Second Anniversary of ezine - Roundtable on Corporate Governance - Gist of discussions

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:53:00 +0000

Prime Point Foundation and PR-e-Sense organised a Roundtable discussion on "360 degree Corporate Governance" at Chennai to mark the second anniversary of the ezine. The programme was held on Saturday the 1st March 2008 at Hotel Palmgrove.

Mr N Vittal (Former Cental Vigilance Commissioner of India), Mr T S Krishna Murthy (Former Chief Election Commissioner of India), Dr U Srinivasa Raghavan (Former Chairman of Indian Postal Services Board), Mr Yogesh Joshi (President, Association of Business Communicators of India (ABCI), Mumbai) were the expert panelists. Ranging from management students to Senior level CEOs participated in the discussions and shared their views.

Mr Kiruba Shankar, a well known Indian bloger and podcaster was moderating the discussions in an interesting manner.

Second Anniversary issue of the ezine PR-e-Sense was released by Mr N Vittal and Mr T S Krishna Murthy. This issue carries the exclusive interviews of Dr Abdul Kalam and Dr Y S Rajan, duo of India Vision 2020 document.

Narrendiran, Sakthi, Selvakumar, Veena, Shvetha and Satish who are associated with the ezine almost from the beginning were honoured with mementoes.

Please see the snap shots of the event. The gist of the discussions are given below the pictures.

The gist of the discussions are :
1. Corporate Governance

a. Business is a win-win exercise and corporate governance is a measure to ensure transparency in operations
b. Corporate good behavior
c. Corporate legal citizen and should discharge their duties as law abiding citizen
d. Vision and the active involvement of the Board
e. Doing business ethically driven by innovation, for profits and to increase shareholder wealth.
f. Ethical - do actions based on the following questions, is it legal? is it fair? and will the action cause embarrassment?

2. Corporate Arrogance

a. Greed is a root cause of arrogance
b. Insensible communications
c. Not knowing or understanding the needs of the society

3. Corporate Indifference

a. Knowing the needs of the society and not doing anything about it

4. Corporate Social Responsibility

a. What comes from society should go back to the society
b. Knowing the needs of the society and doing something about it

5. Leadership

a. Executing, communicating and motivating the organization on corporate governance and corporate social responsibility

(Main sponsor for this Roundtable - Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited

Co-sponsors : Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited and Corporate Clinic)