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NITIE Plays Host to Yet Another Samiksha

PaGaLGuY.com News Service

Keeping their tradition of taking up unusual but highly relevant topics, the students of Industrial Safety and Environmental Management (ISEM) at NITIE organized a panel discussion on Corporate Social Responsibility. The discussion titled “Corporate Social Responsibility: A reality or an Illusion” had a panel graced by eminent speakers like Mr. Debi Goenka (Bombay Environment Action Group), Mr. Krishna Das (VP-HR, Mahindra & Mahindra), Mr. Subhash Baxi (Corporate Manager-SHE-Greater Asia Region, Kodak), Mrs. Seema Unnikrishan (Professor Environment Management, NITIE. The event was divided into two parts, a session of talks by the panel members and a discussion among the panelists. Prof. H.V. Bhasin, Dean (Programs and Consultancy) at NITIE, moderated the panel discussion in a very efficient manner, especially with the audience participating enthusiastically in it.

Professor Unnikrishnan began the event by giving an academician’s perspective about CSR as a whole & how things fit into the scheme of sustainable business model. She introduced many current CSR initiatives in

India detailing how the community is benefiting from such activities. Mr. Das followed by sharing his 25+ years of field experience. Mr. Debi Goenka then spoke at length about the role NGO’s have traditionally played in such initiatives. Panelists also discussed interesting ideas line- industries should stick to their core competency & leaving CSR initiatives to NGO’s who have sufficient exposure & experience in the field by providing enough corpus funds. Mr. Baxi shed light on how companies have gone to great extents in the past to modify their products or processes so that they are better for the society in general and do not harm the environment.

This Samiksha brought out the unanimous view of academic, corporate as well as NGO community that CSR, though in its nascent stage, is being practiced in

India and it will surely pick up in the years to come. It revealed that the corporate world is realizing their social obligations and coming out of myopic objective of profit maximization.