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Harish Bijoor, the panel moderator, had some interesting ‘jolt-points’ about CSR. "It is a buzz phrase with plenty of buzz and less action. It is a politically correct arena to dabble in," he said.
Bijoor stressed that the socio-political-economic challenges of India needs innovative and effective ideas which are feasible, measurable and sustainable. "We need ideas which can be ramped up. We need to now know the difference between genuine CSR activity and benign branding activity." Madhav Chavan, Founder, Pratham, an NGO which has been working in the field of universalising education since 1994, urged everyone to go beyond the stereotypes of CSR, and join hands to redefine it. "We do not need jargons. We need individual responsibility, and a social capital," Chavan said. He also said that terms like ‘marginalised’ and ‘underdeveloped’ need to be demolished, and the need of the hour is to go beyond structures. "Social responsibility today is nothing short of nation building, be it roads or schools. We need to facilitate an ecosystem, where mindsets which limit constructive partnerships will break down," said Chavan. He concluded that what India needed today was, most importantly, a "cultural change".

Cecelia Adorna, Country Representative, UNICEF, said that the social sector in India "is stagnating." He felt that corporations, development partners and civic bodies need to chip in for delivering effective public services. "It is about recognising reforms. It is about a viable system that mobilises community, and it is about corporations pitching in, not with their money, but their ability to be business savvy," said Adorna. Timothy McGuill, Director, Public Affairs, Intel India, spoke about a Corporate Social Innovation model. The model, based on the ripple effect, showed how innovation led to business growth. "CSR is not only about profitability; it is an awakening inside multinationals who are trying to get into new and emerging markets," said McGuill. The plenary session ended with Vikas Goswami’s coherent justification of CSR, and definition for a working model of CSR. "We need to make CSR a strategy of doing business so that there are no questions raised about its legality. CSR is beyond and above what law prescribes," she said. Goswami maintained that vision alone could not help in addressing social issues. Ground level operations were more crucial.

The afternoon session had Sohoni Bhattacharya, Director, South Asia Partnerships, Ashoka, speak of her organisation’s experience in social entrepreneurship. As an example, she cited an initiative first started in Bangladesh that incentivised primary education for children. Children were taught to engage in business activities right from school going age, and the revenue earned would be paid as dividend at the end of the year, provided a minimum attendance requirement was satisfied. The model encouraged children to attend school, and even cut dropout rates by half while providing an answer to parents who did not send children to school because they could not give up on the earnings of the child. Bhattacharya said that a social entrepreneur was one who often disrupts accepted models in initiating an idea. In that sense, social entrepreneurs are "change initiators".

Ingrid Srinath, CEO, CRY, spoke about the need for businesses to scale up social entrepreneurship efforts. "Why is it that when we think of business, our scales are global, and when we think of social responsibility, it is down to just 5 villages?" she said. Aparajita Ramakrishnan, Program Officer, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who manages the Avahan HIV prevention programme, was critical of the lack of efforts of businesses in India to deal with the HIV epidemic. "Business is lagging in its response to HIV," she said.

Concluded.

Contributed by -
Ms. Bhuvana Ramalingam,
Director - Communications,
Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.