08/03/2015

08/03/2015; 23:20:


8th March, 2015 saw another first on the IIM-Indore campus. The IPM community, fueled by their passion for change, organized ‘Utkarsha’- the Social Fest. ‘Utkarsha ‘means to rise and that is exactly the sentiment that the fest hoped to capture. ‘To rise’, above it all, to rise, just enough to see beyond everything that is wrong, out over all the good that exists somewhere, within each human, to rise and reach beyond one’s own selfish interests, to rise above the petty few and reach for the grand that is it all, to rise, and move away and beyond the one that’s always been there, to reach out and discover that which could be and deserves to be, to rise, to the depths beyond and then, reach out to another you.
And, what better day to rise to, than International Women's Day!

The event began close to 9 a.m. The event took off with an address by AishwaryaMangla, the convener of the fest. This was followed by words of inspiration courtesy the IPM Chair, Dr Amitabh Kodwani. Ashwini followed this up with a presentation on the social initiatives undertaken by the IIM-Indore community. Mrs. SudhaKaul, the keynote speaker and guest of honour then took centre stage, speaking most necessarily of an inclusive and socially responsible society. She is a Padma Shree awardee and the founder of the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy. The architecture of an inclusive society is based on Democracy, Development, Diversity and Dialogue. Corporate Social Responsibility is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families, as well as of the local community and society at large. We need, today, more than even before to ‘belong’ to the society that we live in.

The CSR-NGO conclave which took the form of a panel discussion withProf. SatyajitMajumdar (Profeesor , TISS) as the moderator began soon after. The panelists included Mr. Raghavendra K(VP, HR, Infosys BPO) , Dr. K KUpadhyay (CSR Head, FICCI Aditya Birla Center for Excellence); Mr. Bhoopendra Singh (Project Head, Reliance Foundation) ; Mr. Rajesh Tiwari(Founder, ICCSR); Mr. Syed Kazi (Deputy Director, Digital Empowerment Foundation); and Mr. ShubhranshuChoudhary (Founder, CGNetSwara). The topic under consideration was “Creating an enabling environment for Corporate- NGO partnerships in India; Tackling problems faced in forging strategic and long term Corporate – NGO ties”

The discussion opened with the question ‘ Why do corporates in India engage with non-business organizations such as NGO’s ?’ It then moved to ‘Do we see some conflict of interests while corporate association with NGO? Or is there convergence of values?’ This sparked off a healthy debate, among the panelists and also made participants raise questions. The two value systems are inherently the same- their roots may be different, but, even with two viewing angles to the same situation, their values remain the same. Corporates ought to focus on ‘talent development’ in a big way- The closing question wondered whether corporate engagements consider issues related to sustainable development. Corporates focus not only on ROI- return on investments, but also on ROI- return on imagination. The steps to sustainable development begin with feeding, teaching the person how to fish, and continue to hand-holding, to give the person confidence to keep the initiative going, by themselves. CSR helps not only in product differentiation but also in product innovation. There was the talk of reactive and creative stories in journalism and how similarly, CSR ought to be creative rather than merely reactive. Do not just pay the beggar; find out why the beggar exists in the first place- that sums up how society ought to react.

This was followed by a presentation by the trustee and students of Aasthagram Trust, Khargone. Mr. Wajid Khan with his unveiling of his ‘nail-art’ canvases and his story from being a simple village boy to one who is now a record-holder was up next. Mementos for all were provided by Archies& Twenty19.

Later in the day, there were stalls set up by various NGO’s, both to spread awareness and to display products that they create. A gramophone playing hit Bollywood numbers kept the atmosphere lively, through the warm afternoon. We managed to have a pani-puri eating contest, with the loser paying for the other’s food; I very happily enjoyed my free pani-puri.

A CSR-Modelling competition which is definitely the need of the hour, given the huge money involved, with proper channels not always being available to route this fund to the needy, was held, as was Avdhaarna- the Social B-Plan Competition. The CSR-Modelling Competition was won by SPJIMR College. Avdharna was won by SRCC, new Delhi and SCMHRD, Pune.