Confederation of Indian Industry Connect

SPECIAL EDITION

POST SUMMIT REPORT

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Prasanna Rajagopalan, Chairman, Yi Southern Regional Summit & Head of the Regional Management Team (South) delivered the welcome address for the summit congratulating the Kochi team for putting up a good show at short notice. He also mentioned that the regional summits have become platforms of not only exchange of thoughts and ideas, but also for the organisation to become stronger by taking up new initiatives that come out as outcomes of these summits.

Srikant Suryanarayan, National Chairman, Young Indians, started off by saying corporate governance is thinking beyond business. He mentioned that Yi had 28 chapters at this stage and that it will continue to expand in the years to come. Elated that the eventual goal of Yi was to have one chapter in each MP constituency, he said that this summit gave an opportunity for 23 chapters amongst 28 to come together as one and experience the wisdom of elders and the motivation of the youngsters. He was of the view that the world had huge expectations from India in terms of growth and progress and that India was considered as the ''entrepreneurship capital''.

The inaugural session of the summit took place at 1815 hrs at the Ramada Cochin Hotel on 23 August 2013.

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Young Indians (Kochi chapter) hosted the 1st Young Indians Southern Regional Summit for 2013-14 on the theme, “We Build India – On Good Governance” on 23-24 August 2013 at Kochi.

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Shyam Srinivasan, Vice Chairman, CII Kerala State Council and Managing Director & CEO, The Federal Bank Ltd., felt it was important to have controlled growth. It essentially meant corporates needed to focus on sustainable growth keeping in mind the larger interests of the society. He cited a couple of relevant cases wherein companies faced large issues and how they came out of those situations. In one such case, Citibank merged with the Travellers' group in the 1990s leading to a new identity and in the process creating a lot of unrest and conflictswithin the new identity. It was only natural that such conflicts occurred taking into account the complex human emotions resulting from mergers and acquisitions. Hence, it is vital to carry out a cost-benefit analysis before rushing into such decisions.

Navas Meeran, Deputy Chairman, CII Southern Region & Chairman, Eastern Treads Ltd. felt the working of Yi with CII was to be closely integrated so that both were aware of the national goals and the bigger picture. He also appreciated Tamil Nadu for its innovative ideas in governance by citing the example of the mid-day meal scheme by MGR and how it made an enormous positive impact on the number of children attending school. He felt good governance could not become a reality unless the problem of sanitation was addressed. As far as sanitation was concerned, waste management was a major issue impacting the lives of thousands of people and the question was whether to have a centralised or decentralised system in place to dispose of the wastes. Each system has its merits and demerits and a suitable system was to be adopted based on the requirement.

T P Sreenivasan, Vice Chairman and Executive Head, Kerala State Higher Education Council, Former Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, Author, Writer and Professor, started off differently by saying “When adjective is added to ideas, the latter gets diluted”. He said that there was a paradox when terms like sustainable development and human security were used because development should automatically mean sustainable and security would naturally cover human aspects. He opined that the developed world had its own problems and in fact it had a lot to learn in terms of governance and models adopted in developing countries.

According to him, some of the positives of India were democracy and self-governance and governance essentially meant welfare of the people. Some areas where India needed improvement were poverty alleviation, RTE, affordable healthcare and so forth. He mentioned that some of the major areas of

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concern for India were corruption, inefficiency, lethargy to change and deterioration of moral values. He cited a good example of corruption where ministers from Kenya and Italy were involved and concluded by lamenting that there were many officers who were getting into corruption and that it was a sorry state of affairs to be in. He also called upon the Young Indians to actively participate in governance and related areas and said that the youth must make noise against the acts of corruption and non governance.

Namrata Khona Samra, Chair, Yi (Kochi Chapter) & Co Chairman the Yi Southern Regional Summit said that she and her team in Kerala were extremely delighted to be able to receive Yi members from across the country. She also mentioned that her association with Yi spanned many years and that it was one of her memorable occasions to have led from the front of organising a world class summit, that dealt with a topic of extreme importance to the country today. A copy of the “HappenYings” was released during this occasion.

The first plenary session of the evening had Dr Rahul Mirchandani, Past National Chairman, Yi & Executive Director, Aries Agro Ltd moderate the session with Justice Santosh Hegde, Former Judge of the Supreme Court & Lok Ayuktha, Karnataka.

Santosh Hegde said that there were three pillars of the constitution, viz., Constituent Assembly, Monarchy and Dictatorship. He mentioned that democracy formerly was by the people, of the people and for the people. During the speech, he clearly distinguished between right to vote and right to contest. “As rightly pointed out, the trademark of a leader was in his ability to go down to the grassroots level and understand the problems of the society in order to convince the members to act accordingly” he said. Carrying on with his address, he touched

upon various cases of corruption in the Indian context. He seriously felt the need to get the Lokpal Bill passed in the Parliament mentioning that the bill was sent once in the past in 2010, but did not see the implementation. He took the example of the recent scams like the Commonwealth Games and the 2G scam and mentioned that there were some inherent flaws in the Indian society affecting the way services were rendered and problems addressed. He noted that the Public Distribution System (PDS) was in place even before Independence but the benefits were not completely reaped by the citizens even today. He concluded the speech by saying the moral values were deteriorating and only the rich were being respected.

Naveen Philip, Past Chair, Yi (Kochi Chapter) was glad to introduce speakers in the last plenary session of of the day. Dr Nirmala Kannan, Rear Admiral (Retd) spoke on morality and good governance and talked on her long stint of 36 years in the Indian navy. She mentioned she was insulated from civilian life during this period and that some of the indicators of quality of life, according to her, were education, healthcare, drinking water and the right to security in the society.She felt governance was to be predictable and reasonable to be appreciated. She firmly believed in free press and a strong civil society to root out problems in society. “There is an urgent need for course correction and it could be achieved only with concerted

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efforts from the government, self and the institutions” she remarked. Nirmala, being from the medical background, was able to throw sufficient light on common malpractices in the way drugs are manufactured, sold and disposed of in India. She was critical of the fact that the same drug was marketed under different names and brands which affected the common man.

Shwetha Menon, Actress and Television Model was the last speaker for the day and started off the special address with a casual interaction with the audience. She was thrilled to talk about her recently released movie and requested the audience to watch the same. She spoke on her long stint with the film industry and how, as an individual with a celebrity status could, in her own small way, influence the youngsters in the country to become positive examples on their own. She also emphasised that she has always used the medium of cinema and television to show the true side of India and that she will continue the dame with passion and commitment.

Following this, there was an entertainment evening and dinner with cocktails enjoyed by all members present for the summit. (Pictures in pages to follow).

The day started off with the welcome address by Namrata Khona Samra and the overall context by George M George, Co-chair, Yi (Kochi Chapter) & Executive Director, The Muthoot Group.

The Context for the first plenary session of the day was set by Manoj K Das, Resident Editor- Times of India and had the presence of Subramaniam Swamy, Former Union Cabinet Minister, Former Visiting Professor of Harvard University & Senior Leader of BJP. He addressed the gathering on Governing principles for rebuilding India and elaborated on the setbacks of society and measures to overcome the same through good governance. He also stated that with the weakening economy and the falling rupee, good governance became a necessity than a luxury. Swamy felt the fundamental principle in governance is to be effective and instantaneous. Good governance, he thought, should favor the middle and lower class strata of society. During his entire speech he focused mainly on economic liberalization, prompt payment of income tax and pricing the project right (eg: Spectrum Bandwidth Allocation) when sold to the private sector can bring about significant changes in the functioning of the economy.

“To strengthen the economy, black money or unaccounted money that is routed via the hawala market or other means should be ceased and the surplus has to be brought in by adopting fool-proof mechanisms. The youth of today play a major role in transforming India by establishing sound policies and practices in governance” he said and further mentioned that all need to be aware of common laws and practices in the country. He said that with growing incidents of sexual assaults and brutal attacks on women, it is the right of every Indian woman to be trained in martial arts for self-defense. He stressed on the importance of meditation in the lives of youth especially because of their exposure to stress and an unhealthy lifestyle.

The plenary session to follow was of a special one with India@75 and had Rajan R Navani, Chairman, CII National Committee on Indis@75 who interviewe Adi Godrej, Chairman of the Inda@75 Foundation and Chairman, Godrej

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Group who gave the keynote address, spoke on his childhood days and his experience with family business spread across 20 countries and strongly advocated the use of his products. He said he was so fond of reading that he even read while travelling. Adi Godrej gave a famous quote during his speech saying “The world knows that India can lead the world with its moral leadership” but was surprised that employability was a great concern in India. He said that only a good economy can form good governance and modern leadership strategies had to be devised in every organization.

During his interaction with Shruti Mishra, Anchor from CNBC TV 18, Adi Godrej said, “The problem of economic slowdown needs serious attention and the basic measure would be to get the pending projects cleared quickly thereby releasing locked up money. There is a need for change in the mindset of people and introduction of reforms to boost economic growth. We have to strive towards economic development even when the going is good so that drawbacks can be identified and corrective action taken immediately.” He felt the underlying problem in the Indian economy was waiting for things to get worse before taking suitable action.

During the interaction with the audience, Adi Godrej informed that the youth had great talent compelled with the opportunity to make a difference. He also answered specific queries related to Godrej entering into the housing business and said that he foresaw that this sector of the Godrej shall become one of its biggest contributors of the group, also because since there was no big group in this sector. During the course of the interaction, the video on India@75 was played. Srikant Suryanarayan summed up the session by highlighting the key points covered by Adi Godrej.

The context for the next plenary session was set by Vivek Krishna Govind, Chair – Finance, Yi (Kochi Chapter) & Partner, Varma & Varma Chartered Accountants and the topic was Public Private Participation to good governance.

T K A Nair, Principal Advisor to the Prime Minister, Government of India said that in India (Rajasthan), the public-private partnership, commonly referred to as PPP, came into being long before and observed that in various cases, the public and private entities have joined hands to provide affordable health care and come up with initiatives to manage the ecosystem effectively. “Licence permit Raj is another example in which the private industries worked with the government to help promote industries” he said and mentioned the role of the '’Panchayati Raj'' as an accepted local body consisting of five wise men to settle the disputes.

He also effectively spoke in depth on the various measure taken by the government in curbing inflation and to productivity amongst all sections of the society. Dwelling upon the current state of the economy, he said that in an interconnected world, one has to face the reality of being affected by the performance of the other countries and informed that all measured were being taken to get the economy back to track. He also mentioned that in a democratic set up that our country

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has willingly accepted as the mode of governance, decisions will take sometime, but he said that all of them in parliament were unanimous in working for the India that the youth of this country aspire for.

The first session post lunch had the brilliance in the form of Nachiket Mor, Board Member, IKP Centre for Technologies in Public Health & Board Chair, CARE India, who spoke on the moral responsibility of business. He stated that business was a bundle of resources and the moral responsibility of any business should be to earn “maximum profit”. He stressed on the fact that board members had to be part of the decision-making process thereby ensuring fair and transparent governance. “All this could lead to improving the goodwill or brand of a company” he said and also referred to the fact that company's in a certain business must focus on what they do best and not club what that with the CSR work. He urged the young members present that the work on CSR must be outsourced to organizations that are actively in the space in which the company's want to make a change through their CSR budget, while they should continue to bring in maximum value to their customers.

During the interaction with the audience, Mor was at his best in answering them. He shared his personal stories of how he was in board meetings and questioned the fundamentals of organizations. He also advised that it is always good to have independent directors in companies who question, so that the best comes out of those meetings and helps the organization grow.

DNV Kumara Guru, who moderated this panel discussion also questioned the transformation of Mor from a banker to a person with many portfolios today and recalled that the first MoU for Yi was signed in his presence at Chennai in 2007 on behalf of the ICICI Foundation. The thunderous applause from the audience made it clear that the session and interaction with Mor was nothing short of the best.

The first panel discussion of the day was on “Individuals as Positive Powers of Governance'' and was moderated

by Shankar Vanavarayar, Past National Chairman, Young Indians & Joint Correspondent, Kumaraguru College of Technology.

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Megha Ghosh, Founder, I See India, addressed the gathering on the topic of “Role of Positive Media in Building India-Inspire, Integrate & Implement” by starting off with an inspiring video of “I see India” and clearly stated that we had to keep our eyes and ears open to see the beautiful things happening around us and appreciate them. Megha stated that sharing positive news through electronic media and the overwhelming response to the content brings her a great sense of satisfaction.

Sangeeth Varghese, Founder & Managing Director, Leadcap, spoke on the topic “Building a nation of leaders” and beautifully stated the fact that “the father of good governance is bad governance”, and that “whenever something is wrong, we have to get the right thing out of the wrong”. He said that the key ingredients of good governance were participation, consensus, consistency and transparency. He beautifully narrated the story of '' India before Independence” and appealed to the youngsters to introspect so that their hidden talent would be unleashed thereby channeling the same towards betterment of the society.

Siddhanth Srivastava, Law Researcher, Judge's Chamber Delhi High Court, who delivered an awe-inspiring speech on the topic “Role of Youth in International Diplomacy & Policy” had a vision that talent sharing must be an aspiration for every youngster and stressed on the role of media in playing a vital role in showcasing the talent of individuals. He shared his marvelous experience of representing the nation in ''G20 Young Entrepreneurs'' Summit and delegated the duty of promoting entrepreneurship to the youth. As the youngest person in that panel discussion, he shared his experience of being at Russia and spending time with the youth of the other 19 countries who has the common vision of making the world a better place through entrepreneurship.

Vijay Anand, Co-Founder & President, 5th Pillar assigned with the task of addressing the audience, was of the opinion that corruption is all-pervasive and can be rooted out only with self-regulation and discipline. He said a corrupt country is equal to a diseased country facing problems of poverty, starvation and inequality. He had researched and developed a beautiful system in which he introduced a “zero rupee note” to defend bribing which yielded positive results. Anand felt good governance was possible only with concerted efforts and perseverance. As someone who has been working on this area for many years now, he felt that the issue of corruption was only getting larger and that youth, as one generation must come together to root this out.

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The opening remarks of the valedictory session by was given by Umang Patodia, Past Chair, Yi (Kochi Chapter)& Managing Director, Patspin India Ltd who also introduced the last speaker of the evening, Hibi Eden, Member of the Legislative Assembly (Ernakulam District) & President, National Students Wing of the Indian National Congress who was to deliver a special address. Eden said that participative governance was the best path to good governance and the right opportunity at the right time is most valued, especially in the field of education. He insisted that cutting-edge technology was needed to educate the gen-next. He also mentioned the significance of RTI and its role in eliminating corruption. During the interactive session, he shared his interest for movies, food and cultural events. As a very young person in politics, he answered all queries from members with grace and conviction mentioning that, as a politician, he was focused on doing the best for the country. A very humorous interactive session followed with the audience in which all his replies were very candid and came from heart.

The formal vote of thanks by was given by Namrata Khona Samra marking the end of the day on a happy note. During her speech, she thanked the guests and delegates for their valuable participation and conveyed a special message to the media and the organizing team for their contribution towards making the Summit a grand success. The Summit concluded with the members and staff rising up for the National Anthem.

The summit was attended by around 350 Yi members from students from 25 cities around India. V Guard was the Principal Sponsor of this summit and the Co Sponsors included South India Bank, Muthoot Finance, Eastern Treads Ltd, Geojit BNP Paribas and Synthite.

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Release of "HappenYings" – Yi Kochi Chapter's newsletter

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Response session "Achieving Good Governance In India - Dream or Reality”

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Entertainment Evening

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