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PRESS RELEASE Prime Minister of Mauritius Pravind Jugnauth on his first official tour after assuming office in January 2017 visited India on May 26. On his three-day visit to India, he met President Pranab Mukherjee and held delegation-level talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi. President Mukherjee said India would like to cement its close historic ties with Mauritius and will continue to extend all assistance and support to Mauritius. He said cooperation in important areas like joint EEZ surveillance; anti-piracy patrolling and hydrography will help maintain peace and security in the Indian Ocean region. As frontline states of the Indian Ocean, Prime Minister Jugnauth and PM Modi agreed that effective management of conventional and non-conventional threats in the Indian

PRESS RELEASE Chief Minister of Assam Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan, accompanied by Dinesh K. Sarraf CMD, ONGC dedicated the ONGC multispecialty hospital Chaolung Sukaphaa to the people of Assam, with an investment of Rs 313 crore by ONGC. Endorsing the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ‘build modern infrastructure in Northeast’ and to unlock its potential, ONGC under its CSR initiative is spearheading the multi-specialty hospital in the region. The hospital is dedicated to the people of Assam to ensure quality and affordable health care. Speaking on the occasion, Sonowal said the state government is committed to the development of Assam and exhorted the people of Assam to actively participate in the

OPINION In a free enterprise, the community is not just another stakeholder in business; it is in fact the very purpose of its existence. CSR professionals in the real estate sector have to understand the social and environmental impacts and come out with a detailed Social and Environmental Risk Materiality mapping. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in India came into limelight with the amendment in the Companies Act of 2013 which makes it mandatory for companies to spend two per cent of their three-year average annual net profits on CSR activities in each financial year. However, CSR as a concept is not new. It is as old as business itself. Responsible and socially-aware companies engaged in CSR projects even 50 years

INITIATIVE An estimated 70 per cent of under-five children, 56 per cent of adolescent girls and 58 per cent of pregnant mothers are anaemic in India. The Wadia Group through Britannia Nutrition Foundation and Wadia Hospitals is doing its best to find sustainable solutions for malnutrition among children by partnering with state governments and engaging with communities.   According to a data by UNICEF, every two out of four children under the age of five years suffer from malnutrition in India, while the data from 1990- 2015 showed one out of four children suffered from it. There has been a two fold increase, which is quite alarming and a threat to the future generation. Understanding the gravity of the situation,

INITIATIVE Born with the idea to improve the lives of people and make the world a better place, Amway in India is contributing to the social well-being through its programmes for children, visually impaired, victims of natural calamities, conservation of water and a lot more. Amway was born out of the belief that “by helping people live better lives, we could make the world a better place”. Giving back to the society and contributing to the social well-being is in the ethos and belief system of Amway. This is a visionary element of our business brought alive by the two founders of Amway—Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel. This philosophy of theirs has been carried forward even to this day

PRESS RELEASE The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, the sister organisation of the World Economic Forum and the Jubilant Bhartia Foundation of Jubilant Bhartia Group have announced the finalists of the Social Entrepreneur of the Year (SEOY)- India 2017 Award. The finalists for the Award were identified on the basis of rigorous due diligence process. The finalists are: Madhu Pandit Dasa, Akshaya Patra, Bengaluru Safeena Husain, Educate Girls, Mumbai Urvashi Sahni, Study Hall Educational Foundation, Lucknow  The SEOY India Award puts a spotlight on the most remarkable change makers from the country. The finalists are addressing the needs of underserved communities in both scalable and sustainable ways. Their efforts span poverty, hunger, gender inequality, women empowerment and education. The efforts

PRESS RELEASE President Ram Nath Kovind, launched a nationwide sanitation campaign, ‘Swachhta hi Seva’, at Ishwariganj village in Kanpur on September 15. He also administered the ‘Swachhta hi Seva’ pledge to all present there whereby they resolved to create a clean, healthy and new India. The President honoured villagelevel champions who contributed to making Ishwariganj village ‘Open Defecation Free’. Addressing the gathering, the President said India is fighting a decisive battle for cleanliness and hygiene. Today, all of them had taken an oath that committed them to ensuring public hygiene, personal hygiene and environmental hygiene. Cleanliness is not the responsibility of only sanitation personnel and government departments; it is a multi-stakeholder national movement. Together we should make the effort to

INITIATIVE The River Ganga is important not only for its cultural and spiritual significance but also because it hosts more than 40% of the country’s population. Addressing the Indian community at Madison Square Garden in New York in 2014, the Prime Minister had said, “If we are able to clean it, it will be a huge help for the 40 per cent population of the country. So, cleaning the Ganges is also an economic agenda.” To translate this vision, the Government launched an integrated Ganga conservation mission called ‘Namami Gange’ to arrest the pollution of Ganga River and revive the river. The Union Cabinet approved the action plan proposed by Centre to spend Rs 20,000 Crores till 2019-2020 on cleaning

INITIATIVES SAURAV GHOSH, Ashoka Fellow 2016, shares with NEETI JHA the pleasures of creating wealth for the poor. Social sector activist Saurav Ghosh started off his career as a wealth manager. However, he was soon to be disillusioned with the work he was doing as he found that in India wealth management was about getting more wealth for the already wealthy. It was then he decided to create wealth for the not so wealthy. When he started doing that, Ghosh realized it was easier to do work under CSR schemes by shifting out of a plush corporate office to the more Spartan workplaces of social sector organisations. Saurav, an MBA, was interested in the art of handicrafts and the supply