TCA Srinivasa Raghavan gets Shriram Sanlam Life Time award

• Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu unveils Special Booklet of “Top 100 Articles of 2014”   
• Eminent journalist TCA Srinivasa Raghavan conferred with Lifetime Achievement Award
• Author and columnist, AV Rajwade conferred with Hall of Fame

NEW DELHI: Shriram Sanlam Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism for the 3^rd year in succession was conducted in a well attended glittering function held here on  May 15, 2015. 

The highlight of the event was the key note address delivered by Gideon Rachman, Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator, Financial Times.

For the first time ever, the top 100 nominations found its coverage in a special booklet released on the occasion by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.

(From L to R): Ian Kirk, T N Ninan, Atmadip Ray, N Madhavan, A V Rajwade, T C A Srinivasa Raghavan, Ajay Piramal, Aarati Krishnan, Goutam Das, Debashis Basu, M Rajshekhar, Devangshu Datta

TCA Srinivasa Raghavan was conferred with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award and Mr. A V Rajwade was conferred with the special Hall Of Fame Award at the 3^rd Edition of the Shriram Sanlam Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism by the Chief guest, Hon. Union Minister of Railways, Government of India, Suresh Prabhu in the presence of Mr. Ajay Piramal (Chairman, Shriram Capital Limited) and Mr.Ian Kirk (Deputy CEO, Sanlam Group) amongst others. Winners and Runner Ups in various categories are:

1.      Economic Policy – No Winner 

2.      Financial Markets –Winner : Debashis Basu , Runner Up -: Devangshu Datta

3.      Financial Institutions – Winner: Raghu Mohan, Runner Up: Atmadip Ray & M. Rajshekhar

4.      Sectoral Issues – Winner:  Aarati Krishnan , Runner Up : Goutam Das & N. Madhavan

Mr. G. S. Sundararajan, Wholetime Director, Shriram Capital Limited said, “The winners of Shriram Sanlam Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism 2014 represent the best of that fraternity.  Shriram Capital and Sanlam recognize that the potential of Financial Journalism and the positive impact it can create to the economy as a whole. These awards are aimed at encouraging a transformational approach to Financial Journalism in the medium term.” 

Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR), Chennai played an important and independent role in the selection process by scrutinizing the nominations and making them available for the Jury Members for their consideration.

The distinguished panel of independent jury members comprised of Mr. Gopal Srinivasan (Chairman & Managing Director – TVS Capital Ltd.); Mr. Srinivasan K. Swamy (Chairman & Managing Director, R. K. Swamy BBDO); Ms. Ashu Suyash (MD & CEO, CRISIL); Mr. Adit Jain (Chairman, IMA Asia), Mr. Swaminathan S. Aiyar, Consulting Editor of Economic Times and Mr. T. N. Ninan (Chairman, Business Standard). 

About Shriram Capital Ltd.

Shriram Capital Limited (SCL) is the overarching holding company for the Financial Services and Insurance entities of the Shriram Group, created with the primary objective of optimizing the synergies across the Group’s entities. Established in 1974, Shriram Group is one of the most respected Groups in India with a predominant presence in financial services. Shriram Capital Limited (SCL) is the overarching holding arm of all the financial services entities of the group. Currently its financial service businesses include commercial vehicle (CV) financing, retail financing, chit fund, equipment financing, mortgages, life insurance, general insurance, stock broking, distribution of financial products and wealth advisory services. The Group manages assets of over US$ 13 billion. The Group has been promoting Financial Inclusion of low income families and small businesses. SCL and its operating entities, have an overall customer base in excess of 10.2 million, more than 42,000 employees across 2,400 offices.

About Sanlam Group

Sanlam Group established in 1918, is a financial services group based in South Africa. The Sanlam Group conducts its business through Sanlam Limited, the corporate head office and four business clusters. Sanlam provides financial solutions to Individuals and Institutional clients in the form of individual, group and short-term insurance, personal financial services such as estate planning, trusts, home and personal loans, savings and linked products, investment, asset management, property asset management, stock broking, risk management and capital market activities. Sanlam operates throughout South Africa, and has business interests elsewhere in Africa, Europe, India, Malaysia, USA, and Australia.

Royal Skirt or Royal Bow?

The Queen's third, and supposedly the last, trip to India 

would be remembered for wrong reasons!  

By S.Narendra

(Former Information Adviser to PM and Government Spokesperson)

Queen Elizabeth Regina of Britain visited India, the erstwhile ‘jewel in the crown’ of British empire, in 1997,the year  India was celebrating her  50^th anniversary of independence. This third visit (she had come to India in 1961 and 1983) of the present British monarch was supposed to be her last. Unfortunately, this ceremonial visit became the most memorable for the wrong reasons.

The sour points of the visit began with the itinerary itself, as she was to arrive in India after a visit to Islamabad. India has always frowned upon the big western powers linking the two nations with a hyphen India-Pakistan. As I said in my last column, the then ruling labour government of Tony Blair and its foreign minister, Robin Cook, had taken the stand that Britain as a former ruler of the subcontinent had a mediator’s role in the bilateral Kashmir dispute. Further, the Labour Government had   reiterated its support for holding a plebiscite in J&K, a demand of Pakistan that  had been long ago rejected by  India.

The officials of the Buckingham palace who had arrived in advance   for making arrangements for the royal visit had irked the Indian side, thanks to their overbearing behaviour. Like most ceremonial visits, this royal one was a big lens photo op, mainly to be presented to the people in both the countries through pomp and ceremony feeding the visual media

This story concerns the Queen’s proposed visit to Jalianwalabagh martyrs memorial near Amritsar, that was included in her itinerary. The British government had suggested this visit as a political gesture to the Indian, especially the Sikh community back home, who form an important political constituency. This proposal had run into considerable controversy as the sections of people in Punjab had demanded that the Queen tender a public apology for the atrocity committed in Jalianwalabagh in 1929 and the media in Punjab had taken up this call. It will be recalled that General Dyer had used his troops to shoot   on a peaceful assembly of people on Baisaki festival day, April 13, in which thousands had been killed, although the official records showed only 329 as dead. It became a turning point in India’s freedom struggle.

After the independence, India has built a martyrs memorial at the site. The entire national media, particularly the visual media (about 60-80 strong in Delhi and their brethren in Punjab) were keen to be present for covering this historic visit by the Queen.

In the normal course, it used to be one of my responsibilities to oversee media arrangements for such visits but for some reason I had not been involved in this instance! It so happened that when prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral was attending a function in Delhi, the visual media association representatives complained to him that the arrangements being made for the Queen’s visit to Jalianwalabagh were inadequate and they were bring excluded. The prime minister then and there took me to task (I did not mind it because it was more for effect) and instructed me to take a helicopter and visit Jalianwalabagh, accompanied by the office bearers of the Visual media association and officials of the External Affairs ministry.

I held a preliminary meeting with representatives of the ministry of external affairs, visual media, British high commission, and officials of the Buckingham palace. The latter were very reluctant to revisit the arrangements they had planned. I, with my journalistic instinct, had earlier suggested to the visual media representatives that they should threaten to boycott the entire visit if they were excluded from the Jalianwalabagh coverage. When they aired this threat, it had the desired effect. Accompanied by representatives of the British government, MEA and visual media, I visited the site. On arrival, the officials of the   Punjab government poured out the difficulties they had faced in dealing with the London officials on the one side and from the protests they were facing from the local media on the other.

On site what I found was a small platform built at a height of six feet that could hardly accommodate about a dozen people. The British representatives had insisted on accommodating all British visual media, leaving barely room for the Indian official media.  The platform itself had been placed about 30 to 40 feet away from the actual memorial where the queen was to lay a wreath and spend a few minutes. The platform was positioned at the back –end, instead of facing centre point of the memorial where visitors pay the floral tribute.

I made notes and a sketch of the site and the platform’s position and informed the accompanying Indian and foreign team members that I will apprise the prime minister of what I had witnessed and recommend my plan. On return I submitted my conclusions to PM and requested him to direct the MEA to invite the senior officials of the British commission and Buckingham palace for a meeting with me in my chamber.

A meeting was duly held in my room in Shastri Bhavan where the British Deputy high commissioner along with the Buckingham palace officials were present. Expressing my dissatisfaction with the arrangements, I argued for maximum access to national and state level visual media. One of my suggestions was to totally change the position of the platform and place it in such a way that it faces the royal visitor.

The memorial consists of a structure where a visitor has to enter from the from the left, place  the wreath at the memorial and move right to exit. The British team was willing to enlarge the platform to accommodate a larger media contingent but averse to my suggestion to place it facing the visiting dignitary. After exasperating negotiations, I explained : “Gentleman, I am  sure Her Majesty would be wearing a skirt, and while placing the wreath, she would bend, making the skirt go up and the visual media located as it is at present could capture something we all don’t want them to capture!”

The Author
(sunarendra@gmail.com)

The British negotiating team had a hard time in suppressing their embarrassed laughter and agreed to shift the platform. Addressing the visual media representatives, I told them: “Gentleman, given the controversy surrounding the Jalianwalabagh, our attempt should be to enable the visual media to get a good view of the Queen and the expression of her eyes. I am sure Her Majesty would also slightly bow her head while standing for a few minutes in front of the site. Such visual coverage would convey the intended message more than any words’.  

The Queen’s floral tribute at Jalianwalabagh went down very well with the people and the media. Here is a headline from a British newspaper: In India, Queen Bows Her Head Over a Massacre in 1919.

The queen’s consort, Prince Phillip, who had visited the Jalianwalabagh site before the Queen, had put his foot in the mouth by questioning the casualty figures. But the Queen’s bow made amends for her husband’s indiscretion.