The Hindustan Times on the front page carried the story of fresh FIRs being filed in the Ruchika Girhotra’s case. The second headline read: 19 Years later charges say Rathore hid evidence, tormented girl’s brother.
It’s not that CBI has had a change of heart or unearthed new evidence or been provided new facts to base its case against Rathore. So what’s changed in the last few weeks after the court pronounced a minor fine and a six month jail term for a person who had tormented a girl to commit suicide and drove her family away from their home in Panchkula.
The answer is in the third part of the same HT story in the box titled “When Public Pressure Worked”. It goes to list the cases of Jessica Lall, Nitish Katara and Priyadarshini Mattoo, who were initially denied justice as the culprits had political clout, money and power to subvert the judicial system. However, the public pressure that was Click to Read More
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I was recently invited by OWW consulting , a leading CSR consulting firm in Malaysia, to speak at their CSR conference in Kaula Lumpur. It was a very impressive conference with many experts presenting their views. And listening to them all I could think of was the fact that I had so much more to learn.
Incidentally, I was the only speaker from the world of public relations or what they called reputation management – the link between CSR and Corporate Reputation. I took my cue from this brief and made a case which could have got me into a lot of trouble with my hosts!
I made a case that CSR as we know it is dead or dying and a new avtaar is emerging. My hosts were generous and kind and here I am sharing with you the contents of my argument. Hope you enjoy it and share your views after thinking it over.
CSR is only a three letter label today
For far too long, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has stood for nice-to-have initiatives that round off a hard-nosed Click to Read More
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I watched with interest the ‘tweet that went wrong’ saga for our Junior Minister of Foreign Affairs Shri Shashi Tharoor. How an innocent TWEET led to knives being drawn out. As the call for his head became louder, the media incessantly reported the views of his party members, opposition, and all and sundry who had a point of view - and as Indians we have a point of view on anything - so there was a lot of content to fill pages, airtime! To top it all his OSD added fuel to fire by “tweeting” on behalf of his boss! It finally ended after several days with a glum Mr. Tharoor emerging from a meeting with the Party President Smt. Sonia Gandhi. I was reminded of a picture of him and Mrs Gandhi in an animated conversation at the Prime Minister’s Iftaar Party in the Indian Express. It looked as if as he was getting ‘gyaan’ from her!
So, how did a tweet about a phrase that we use so commonly to describe economy travel go wrong? How did a person who was Undersecretary of Communication at the United Nations get his own communication wrong? A person who has spent his Click to Read More
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Back after a bit of radio silence as I was snowed under work. My colleagues thought I had a nice holiday at Cannes so they thought that we better put him to work and make him earn his pay! So, I am back.
Came across this research report from several sources at the same time. My colleague Charu Kohli sent it to me. Then I also got to the link from The Holmes Report and this just further confirms what I have been saying for a long time. Public Relations will become irrelevant in the communication mix if it fails to embrace the new online reality. The sources of ‘information and influence’ are shifting and the ‘age of conversation’ is upon us. Public Relations is best placed to as it is seen to be the champion of transparent and credible conversations with organizations stakeholders! At least that’s what it is meant to be!! All the more so, as trust is broken by companies repeatedly and consumers, employees, investors, media increasingly Click to Read More
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This is not going to be a long piece as I skipped the third day seminars to spend the day trawling through the shortlists and Lions winner entries along with films which were put after the announcement of the PR, Direct and Promo Lions. A special venue has been created where all the shortlisted, winning work is displayed and it was an educative exercise. More about that later but first to the PR Lions.
Last evening saw the first ever PR Lions being introduced at the 56th International Advertising Festival. The PR Lions are the 11th awards category being introduced. This by itself is a growing recognition of Public Relations and Public Affairs in the overall marketing and business strategy mix. Also, the Lions provide a well recognised and a very highly aspired for platform, which till now was sorely missing. If you don’t know about it yet, visit www.canneslions.com for more.
Overall there were 400 plus entries that were shortlisted down to 30 plus by 18 members of the PR Lions jury. Boy, they Click to Read More
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