Get Set, Go! Bengaluru Awaits You

11th Global Communication Conclave - March 3,4,5 - 2017

PRCI launches Swachh Bharat Survey

BENGALURU, February 8, 2017: As a prelude to the forthcoming 11^th Global Communication Conclave with theme as ‘Disruption’, Public Relations Council of India (PRCI) has embarked on a nationwide survey on the efficacy of the Swachh Bharat campaign.

“Swachh Bharat ought to have created a positive disruption and through the survey we plan to find out the effectiveness of the massive communication programme,” said PRCI national president B N Kumar.
In Mumbai, the survey is being conducted in association with The Press Club

Powered by Concept PR, The survey will be completed in the next ten days and a comprehensive report will be presented, along with interesting anecdotes, during the three-day Conclave to be held in Bengaluru from March 3.

“The campaign touches all of us at every step of lives and we will know the level of awareness and people’s involvement,” said M B Jayaram, Chief Mentor and Chairman Emeritus of PRCI.

During the survey, PRCI volunteers will ask simple questions on Swachh Bharat and check in their localities whether people in general and the authorities that are responsible for cleanliness are making efforts or not. PRCI hopes that the survey will also help in reminding people of the need to maintain cleanliness for good health.

“We will have young communicator volunteers going around in their respective localities, asking questions,” said Geetha Shankar, Chairperson of Young Communicators’ Club (YCC) – the youth wing of PRCI.

PRCI is mobilizing 500 volunteers to ask questions.

Disruption of Corporate kind? Mehli Mistry takes on Cyrus Mistry

In ongoing Tata related stories, here is an interesting narrative - disruption of corporate kind?

Disruption: Brace yourself for the future shock!

Launching Disruption series as a prelude to the 11th Global Communication Conclave, Bengaluru - March 3 to 5, 2017 

By Deepak Menon

Business Strategist

Deepak Menon

Disruption represents change and, therefore, is usually not welcomed in our lives. It implies changing of longstanding norms and adapting to something new. Most people do not like that and prefer to smooth sail into the future. At times disruption can be good news, no matter how difficult to internalize. We all learn to adapt sooner or later.

In recent times forces that are causing disruption include the Environmental Crisis, Population Explosion, Economic Monopoly, Global Terror on the negative side and the Internet, Technology, New Discovery, Spirituality (not religion) on the positive side. These forces impact every society in every country in every possible way. Human beings are becoming increasingly aware of notions of a global village, a global community and that we are all in it together. There is certainly a marked shift in our preferences, decisions and actions. The choices we then make influence everything around us: politics, governance, education, societies, cultures, businesses, and borders.

Disruption that has an international impact compels communication norms to be adjusted or redefined so as to be most effective and efficient. The stakeholders involved, the channels being used, the skills required, the sensibilities of focus groups, the industry best practices are all subject to an overhaul. In such a scenario, all communication upgrade and development seem to revolve around two focus-points: Culture and the Internet.

Culture is both contemporary and traditional, both local and international. Communication practices that speak a language which is all-inclusive are most likely to succeed in a disruptive environment. Individuals with a keen sense of geographies, languages, music & arts, literature and human behavioural sciences surely have an upper hand and are prone to endure in the long-term. Lessons must be learnt quickly and on the fly. Street smartness and hands-on experience will therefore prevail over conventional academic achievements.

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Add the Internet to the mix and you have a very strong prospect for success. Thankfully, contemporary societies have already evolved with the Internet and embrace it as the preferred medium to communicate. This already makes all intercultural and international public-relations exchange happen today over the various channels offered by the Internet. Digital sensory communication like videos, images and sounds are most effective today. It is no surprise then that traditional channels like newspapers, radio and even television are slowly phasing out.

Today, more people resort to Google for knowledge,  Youtube for news & entertainment, Twitter for breaking news and trends,  Facebook and various apps to develop relationships, to Skype for business and personal meetings than ever before. With the advent of smartphones and their growing reach we are already living in the Web 3.0 version of the Internet. Everybody is connected, everybody can be reached somewhere and in the shortest time.

Perhaps the biggest implication of disruption is to adapt by developing new strategies. On the foundation of culture, the Internet and strong leadership, a plan to stay afloat, stay relevant and stay efficient can be conceived. This requires careful analysis and an approach that leverages past learning and experience into a whole new world of things. Being politically-correct is being replaced by being culturally-correct. For example, a plan that incorporates high integrity, good intention and strong values helps dodge imminent pitfalls. International partners with equally strong values, and public domain endorsements from historically progressive organizations matter most in a disruptive environment.

The skillset of the workforce changes too - the more heterogeneous the skillset the better, the more variety of ideas in the teams the better. Ideas and thoughts have to be vetted, used, archived and reused; slowly building an arsenal of multipurpose tools that can be deployed to tackle disruption in the immediate, short and long-term. These tools cannot be bought off the shelf, they have to be developed in-house based on a plan with a vision for the future.

Humanity has taken a quantum leap from the past decade towards a future time and space where uncertainties are the only certainty. International communication societies and individuals are likely to encounter disruption more than ever in the era of Web 3.0, Mars Missions, alternate Ancient Histories, Economic Consolidation, Global Environmental crisis, depletion of Planetary Resources and the dawn of Consciousness. Challenges will include economic survival, continuation of existing partnerships, engaging audiences consistently and finding your place in the overcrowding of the Internet. Brace yourself, pace yourself and tread forward strong. (Twitter:@TheDeepakMenonLinkedIN:https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepakmenonmba)

Budget Bytes: Digital Boost

Aneesh Reddy, 

CEO and Co-founder, Capillary Technologies

"As a retail and technology centric startup, we were hopeful around 3-4 high impact areas revolving around digitization measures, GST, corporate and individual taxation laws and differential duties on certain products.

It was heartening to hear about the Digital theme focused measures revolving around digital payments through BHIM app and Aadhar based payment initiatives. The referral bonus and the cashback schemes would further encourage cashless transactions by consumers and adaptability by merchants.

The MAT credit extension from 10 years to 15 years will help start-ups and companies in investment phase to utilize their MAT credits for a longer period. 

However, it would have been more beneficial to waive off MAT for start-ups entirely. MAT eats up the cash in the initial years when they need it the most.

Although the Finance Minister, had suggested that GST bill will spur economic growth, we were hoping for an announcement on the implementation of  GST bill starting this financial year.  

Overall, this budget has created the most positive impact as far as digitization measures are concerned. 

The digital transformation initiatives coupled with a spike in the digital transactions would encourage more startups like ours to play a vital role in innovating and significantly contributing to boost the digital economy in the country."

Budget Bytes: It's Foursome Handsome!

Sujayath Ali, 

CEO and Co-founder, Voonik

Four ways the Budget 2017 will benefit Startups:

Abolition of FIPB: Government has signaled clear and loud that it is committed to liberalizing FDI policy to attract more more investments. Once the FDI reforms are announced, they will not only attract fresh funds into the current startup ecosystem, but will also promote new ventures in many untapped or underserved sectors of economy.

Merchant enabled Aadhar Pay system: Digital payments play a pivotal role in ensuring consistent customer experience and increasing verified transactions. New merchant enabled Aadhar payments will bring many new consumers who do not have a debit card, into the digital payment environment. This will help startups improve their user identification and engagement.

Schemes to promote BHIM: Mobile penetration has still not peaked in the country. Even those who don’t have PAN card, have a mobile phone. Also a large consumer base of housewives, teenagers, dependent parents etc  who are currently transacting on cash, will now be able to use linked accounts for transactions. This will further help startups to increase prepaid contribution to overall transactions.

Income Tax rate for companies with turnover of over Rs 50 crore has been reduced to 25%: It will not impact tech startups and ecommerce companies directly. But it is a very positive move for the seller ecosystem. Lakhs of sellers are finding new avenues with the growing e-commerce industry in the country. These sellers will benefit from the government move and will be able to plough back money in further scaling up.

Budget Bytes: 6.5 on a scale of 10 for Jaitley

Ajith Mohan Karimpana, 

CEO and Founder, Furlenco

"This budget is a continuation on the path towards improving tax administration & compliance and increased emphasis on digital transactions; Similarly the attempt to clean up political funding is also commendable.

However, given the strong emotions that the Demonetization exercise evoked from the country at large and impending implementation of GST, the government refrained from bringing in any pathbreaking changes on direct  taxes. Most of the proposals of personal and corporate tax have marginal impact for the tax payers.

Specifically coming to the extension of tax break for startups to 7 years, this change was definitely required as there are very few startups that actually generate profits in first 5 years of their existence; reduction in corporate tax rate for entities with turnover less than Rs.50 Cr may not be of much use for new age startups that take 5-7 years and much larger turnover base to turn profitable.

Income Tax rate for companies with turnover of over Rs 50 crore has been reduced to 25%: The impact of this proposal is very minimal as very few startups are profitable at Turnover levels of Rs. 50 Cr; secondly, even if they are profitable, post the expenses, the net profit chargeable to tax is very minimal; tax rate is reduced from 30% - 25% for that  minimal profit - In our view this provision is not necessarily useful for most of the startups.

Overall on a scale of 10 we would rate the budget 6.5.

Budget Bytes: Ignition for Startups

By Anurag Avula, 

CEO and Founder, Shopmatic

"It’s agreeable to see positive reforms being proposed in favour of digital pay systems for the

common man, more specifically in rural and semi-urban areas. The move for forming reduction on tax for small and medium enterprises’ is a boost to “The Make in India initiative”, that will encourage the nation to keep in lines with motivational 2017-18 budget theme of Transform, Energize and Clean India.

It’s also great to see improvement on the high speed broadband connection in rural and tier 2 and 3 cities, which further nurtures the country’s tech essence.

What is interesting to note is the government’s interest in start-ups   and on energising youth and creating jobs. The Profit linked-deductions for start-ups that has been reduced to 3 years out of 7 years, will certainly ease the process.

It's a  good budget for anyone wanting to their business online. With more and more people getting encouraged to use digital payments, merchants will benefit from taking their sites online- since more customers will now, find it easier to buy products from them.

Our platform makes it really easy for people to set up ecomm stores, since we have payments integrated in our site too. Its a win-win for all.

In all its completeness we are quite pleased with the start-up and SME announcements. We believe that the fresh moves made will cultivate the rising upsurge of tech and digital initiatives to further energize the GDP of our nation."

Budget Bytes: Reforms roadmap with rural focus

By Dilip Davda

Veteran Journalist

The third Budget from BJP led government, which was also the first to be advanced by a month as well as a complete budget exercise combining the Railway Budget for the first time in the Indian history, came out with a reforms promise focusing on  rural road map.

Again this was the budget in the backdrop of post historical move of last four decades in the form of Demonetization and, hence, there were many expectations across the board.

As GST implementation is scheduled from 1^st July 2017, the FM kept indirect taxes unchanged for a while but gave boost to the MSME sector with lower corporate tax, enhancing Mudra funding by hundred percent and boosting realty sector with low cost/affordable housing liberal guidelines.

Salaried and low income class got the desired concessions, although they were short of expectations. Individuals (having income up to Rs. 5 lakh per annum) and senior citizens got concessions in tax rates.

Textile and infra sector, including power and road construction, as well as defense sector got higher allocations that will ensure speedy development of economy coupled with security and thus it was a well balanced budget.

This budget has also plugged in the loopholes in political party funding and has also dealt with generation of black money. Th fiscal deficit and the inflation targets seem to be within the desired limits. 

PRCI Global Essay Campaign makes news!

PRCI Collateral Awards - New deadline Feb 5, 2017

In view of the long week-end holidays, several contestants have asked for extension of deadline to submit entries for PRCI Collateral Awards-2017 to be presented at the 11th Global Communication Conclave at Bangalore on March 04, 2017.

​Hence the deadline has now been extended till February 05, 2017. 

Please ensure that your entries reach PRCI by then.​

Please check the attached brochure for details of categories, entry fee and eligibility.

B N Kumar

National President - PRCI

Padmavibhushan for Pawar, Yeshudas

25-January-2017 17:31 IST

Padma Awards 2017 announced

Padma Awards - one of the highest civilian Awards of the country, are conferred in three categories, namely, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. The Awards are given in various disciplines/ fields of activities, viz.- art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service, etc. ‘Padma Vibhushan’ is awarded for exceptional and distinguished service; ‘Padma Bhushan’ for distinguished service of high order and ‘Padma Shri’ for distinguished service in any field. The awards are announced on the occasion of Republic Day every year.

            These awards are conferred by the President of India at ceremonial functions which are held at Rashtrapati Bhawan usually around March/ April every year. This year the President of India has approved conferment of Padma Awards to 89 persons as per the list below. The list comprises of 7 Padma Vibhushan, 7 Padma Bhushan and 75 Padma Shri Awardees.  19 of the awardees are women and the list also includes 5 persons from the category of foreigners, NRIs, PIOs and 6 Posthumous awardees.

PADMA VIBHUSHAN

Sl. No	Name	Field	State
1.	Shri K J Yesudas	Art-Music	Kerala
2.	Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev	Others-Spiritualism	Tamil Nadu
3.	Shri Sharad Pawar	Public Affairs	Maharashtra
4.	Shri Murli Manohar Joshi	Public Affairs	Uttar Pradesh
5.	Prof. Udipi Ramachandra Rao	Science & Engineering	Karnataka
6.	Late Shri Sunder Lal Patwa (Posthumous)	Public Affairs	Madhya Pradesh
7.	Late Shri PA Sangma (Posthumous)	Public Affairs	Meghalaya

Padma Bhushan

Sl. No.	Name	Field	State
8.	Shri Vishwa Mohan Bhatt	Art-Music	Rajasthan
9.	Prof. (Dr.) Devi Prasad Dwivedi	Literature & Education	Uttar Pradesh
10.	Shri Tehemton Udwadia	Medicine	Maharashtra
11.	Shri Ratna Sundar Maharaj	Others-Spiritualism	Gujarat
12.	Swami Niranjana Nanda Saraswati	Others-Yoga	Bihar
13.	H.R.H. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn (Foreigner)	Literature & Education	Thailand
14.	Late Shri Cho Ramaswamy (Posthumous)	Literature & Education –Journalism	Tamil Nadu

           

Padma Shri 

Sl. No	Name	Field	State
15.	Smt. Basanti Bisht	Art-Music	Uttarakhand
16.	Shri Chemanchery Kunhiraman Nair	Art-Dance	Kerala
17.	Smt. Aruna Mohanty	Art-Dance	Odisha
18.	Smt. Bharathi Vishnuvardhan	Art-Cinema	Karnataka
19.	Shri Sadhu Meher	Art-Cinema	Odisha
20.	Shri T K Murthy	Art-Music	Tamil Nadu
21.	Shri Laishram Birendrakumar Singh	Art-Music	Manipur
22.	Shri Krishna Ram Chaudhary	Art-Music	Uttar Pradesh
23.	Smt. Baoa Devi	Art-Painting	Bihar
24.	Shri Tilak Gitai	Art-Painting	Rajasthan
25.	Dr. Prof. Aekka Yadagiri Rao	Art-Sculpture	Telangana
26.	Shri Jitendra Haripal	Art-Music	Odisha
27.	Shri Kailash Kher	Art-Music	Maharashtra
28.	Smt. Parassala B Ponnammal	Art-Music	Kerala
29.	Smt. Sukri Bommagowda	Art-Music	Karnataka
30.	Shri Mukund Nayak	Art-Music	Jharkhand
31.	Shri Purushottam Upadhyay	Art-Music	Gujarat
32.	Smt. Anuradha Paudwal	Art-Music	Maharashtra
33.	Shri Wareppa Naba Nil	Art-Theatre	Manipur
34.	Shri Tripuraneni Hanuman Chowdary	Civil Service	Telangana
35.	Shri T.K. Viswanathan	Civil Service	Haryana
36.	Shri Kanwal Sibal	Civil Service	Delhi
37.	Shri Birkha Bahadur Limboo Muringla	Literature & Education	Sikkim
38.	Smt. Eli Ahmed	Literature & Education	Assam
39.	Dr. Narendra Kohli	Literature & Education	Delhi
40.	Prof. G. Venkatasubbiah	Literature & Education	Karnataka
41.	Shri Akkitham Achyuthan Namboothiri	Literature & Education	Kerala
42.	Shri Kashi Nath Pandita	Literature & Education	Jammu & Kashmir
43.	Shri Chamu Krishna Shastry	Literature & Education	Delhi
44.	Shri Harihar Kripalu Tripathi	Literature & Education	Uttar Pradesh
45.	Shri Michel Danino	Literature & Education	Tamil Nadu
46.	Shri Punam Suri	Literature & Education	Delhi
47.	Shri VG Patel	Literature & Education	Gujarat
48.	Smt. V Koteswaramma	Literature & Education	Andhra Pradesh
49.	Shri Balbir Dutt	Literature & Education-Journalism	Jharkhand
50.	Smt. Bhawana Somaaya	Literature & Education-Journalism	Maharashtra
51.	Shri Vishnu Pandya	Literature & Education-Journalism	Gujarat
52.	Dr. Subroto Das	Medicine	Gujarat
53.	Dr. (Smt.) Bhakti Yadav	Medicine	Madhya Pradesh
54.	Dr. Mohammed Abdul Waheed	Medicine	Telangana
55.	Dr. Madan Madhav Godbole	Medicine	Uttar Pradesh
56.	Dr. Devendra Dayabhai Patel	Medicine	Gujarat
57.	Prof. Harkishan Singh	Medicine	Chandigarh
58.	Dr. Mukut Minz	Medicine	Chandigarh
59.	Shri Arun Kumar Sharma	Others-Archaeology	Chhattisgarh
60.	Shri Sanjeev Kapoor	Others-Culinary	Maharashtra
61.	Smt. Meenakshi Amma	Others-Martial Art	Kerala
62.	Shri Genabhai Dargabhai Patel	Others-Agriculture	Gujarat
63.	Shri Chandrakant Pithawa	Science & Engineering	Telangana
64.	Prof. Ajoy Kumar Ray	Science & Engineering	West Bengal
65.	Shri Chintakindi Mallesham	Science & Engineering	Andhra Pradesh
66.	Shri Jitendra Nath Goswami	Science & Engineering	Assam
67.	Shri Daripalli Ramaiah	Social Work	Telangana
68.	Shri Girish Bhardwaj	Social Work	Karnataka
69.	Shri Karimul Hak	Social Work	West Bengal
70.	Shri Bipin Ganatra	Social Work	West Bengal
71.	Smt. Nivedita Raghunath Bhide	Social work	Tamil Nadu
72.	Shri Appasaheb Dharmadhikari	Social Work	Maharashtra
73.	Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal	Social Work	Punjab
74.	Shri Virat Kohli	Sports-Cricket	Delhi
75.	Shri Shekar Naik	Sports-Cricket	Karnataka
76.	Shri Vikasa Gowda	Sports-Discus Throw	Karnataka
77.	Smt. Deepa Malik	Sports-Athletics	Haryana
78.	Shri Mariyappan Thangavelu	Sports-Athletics	Tamil Nadu
79.	Smt. Dipa Karmakar	Sports-Gymnastics	Tripura
80.	Shri P R Shreejesh	Sports-Hockey	Kerala
81.	Smt. Sakshi Malik	Sports-Wrestling	Haryana
82.	Shri Mohan Reddy Venkatrama Bodanapu	Trade & Industry	Telangana
83.	Shri Imrat Khan  (NRI/PIO)	Art-Music	USA
84.	Shri Anant Agarwal (NRI/PIO)	Literature & Education	USA
85.	Shri H.R. Shah (NRI/PIO)	Literature & Education-Journalism	USA
86.	Late (Smt.) Suniti Solomon (Posthumous)	Medicine	Tamil Nadu
87.	Shri Asoke Kumar Bhattacharyya (Posthumous)	Others-Archaeology	West Bengal
88.	Dr. Mapuskar (Posthumous)	Social Work	Maharashtra
89.	Smt. Anuradha Koirala (Foreigner)	Social Work	Nepal

            The above details are also available on MHA website, mha.nic.in, and padmaawards.gov.in

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