
12 Nov, 2019
jayrammb@gmail.com or mailbnk@gmail.com
+<p><span style="font-size: 14px;">M B Jayaram, Chief Mentor and Chairman Emeritus, PRCI:98806 82490</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14px; font-weight: initial;">B N Kumar, Chairman- Governing Council, PRCI: 98201 28332.</span></p>
<p>M B Jayaram Chairman Emeritus & Chief Mentor Public Relations Council of India 3140/B – Krishna 5th Cross – 1st Phase J P Nagar BENGALURU 560 078<br><span style="font-size: 0.88rem; font-weight: initial;">B N Kumar, Chairman – Governing Council, PRCI, News Cottage, Plot 26-B-1, Next to Marathi Sahitya Mandir, Sector-6, Vashi, NAVI MUMBAI 400703</span></p>
6th PRCI Global Communication Conclave
8th Global Communication Conclave
Facebook APAC chief @12th Global Communication Conclave
Kochi Calling!
COAI voice @ 9th Global Communication Conclave
CEC Sunil Arora @ 13th Global Communication Conclave
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DEHRADUN, April 27, 2019: Public Relations Council of India (PRCI) today announced the launch of its 32nd Chapter in Dehradun at a ceremony in Doon University Campus.
PRCI, as a matter of policy, has stopped giving bouquets at its events. Instead, we give Green Certificates to our guests planting trees in their names.
NAVI MUMBAI, OCTOBER 13, 2018: Supporting the campaign to scientifically recycle e-waste, Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation has announced its plans to set up a Swachh (Cleanliness) Park to spread awareness about electronic waste that is being increasingly generated by the society.
Salutes Neerja Bhanot Pan Am Trust Women
A report on PRCI’s South Zonal event at Mysuru on Daughter’s Day celebration by Bitha Sadanandan
Social responsibility isn’t a corporate job alone. I was moved by a Wealth Mail sent by my personal finance adviser. One of the top personal finance resolutions for 2019 was – remove 1/4th of your wardrobe and give it to the needy. What a suggestion! And is doable. Most of us who keep buying clothes do not know what do with the old clothes. These keep piling up. There is a limit to which the maid can use them for mopping the floors. Stack them, pack them and give them to charities, NGOs. It creates a feel-good factor when you give something to the needy. Those of us working in corporate are well aware of the CSR. The government has redefined CSR under the new Companies Act and made it mandatory to spend at least 2% of the profits on CSR to benefit the society around the areas where the companies do their business. Some companies do encourage employee CSR and as PR practitioners we do strongly recommend it. One of the popular schemes is ‘picnic with purpose’ on the lines of the NSS voluntary service that one did during one’s college days. Go to nearby villages and attend to their issues; go to schools in backward areas and do some story-telling for children there; show movies with a social message; clean the streets and so on and so forth. We as Indians react to crisis with responsibility. Be it the Mumbai blasts, Kerala floods, Hyderabad explosion – as a society we have reacted with speed and helped those in the grip of crisis. Here, I would like to pause and praise PRCI Kerala team for their exemplary work during the flood ravage. All our team members plunged into action, worked with an NGO in making sure that the displaced families are treated with due honour and dignity. The team actively worked with community kitchens run by an NGO, collected food items from across and coordinated collective efforts. In fact, Kerala was to host the 13th Global Communication Conclave with all gusto, but owing to the natural calamity, we moved the event to Jaipur. But I think now time has come for all of us to think in terms of doing something for the society. Its not about giving it back which means you are paying back your debt. Its about doing your own bit with a sense of responsibility. At PRCI, we would like to call it MSR – My Social Responsibility. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s message ‘Be the Change that you want to see in the world’, we at PRCI, we would like to take a step further and say: I want to be the change. It’s also just not ‘yes, we can’, It’s Yes, I can…and I will. We have adopted MSR as part of our DNA and you will see PRCIans implementing it. One need not take up only charities or helping the needy in crisis. Our governing council chairman BNK has launched www.iamvigilant.com and began involving people around him in a small way. He has taken up the cause f environment. He pointed out to the Navi Mumbai municipal corporation the grave situation arising out of open drains near two schools where thousands of students and parents visit. The civic body quickly acted and finished the drainage work. We firmly believe that such individual efforts will definitely have a collective impact on the society. PRCI campaign #StepOut2Vote is another example of MSR. If each one of us resolve ‘I shall vote’, India will vote. One day, we might have newspapers and TV news channels screaming with headlines: India Votes and not 45% voting in Karnataka or 5% vote in J&K! So remember MSR which does not require 2% allocation. (The author is Chief Mentor & Chairman Emeritus, PRCI, and PR consultant)
It’s all about MSR, not just CSR - By M B Jayaram
Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. – Abraham Lincoln. With that being said, public relations has drastically changed over the years, but through all this, the definition has remained unchanged. Public relations, literally means to establish and maintain a positive relationship with the public by constantly communicating with them. It is all about looking after the organization’s reputation, and maintaining a good will. Successful public relations has to do with recognizing amazing ideas and how much value they hold. In order for businesses or brands to generate good press, they have to come up with fresh new concepts on a regular basis to launch their products and build up hype among the public for the same. Many analyses that have been conducted have shown that raw ideas of high quality have generated and increased sales. Moreover, people who are good at coming up with PR ideas aren’t just naturally creative, but they are on the constant run of analyzing the media. They look out for the current trends in the media, and try to make connections with them. Public Relation professionals are said to be naturally creative and effective communicators. They are well versed with the ongoing media affairs and the trending digital culture. Being in the public relations department is all about the chaos; the constant effort to maintain your organization’s image as a whole, to manage crisis on a bad news day, to spend time writing press releases, and so much more. To call public relations a mundane job would be very harsh, unless you’ve been forced to choose it as your career; if you are someone who enjoys working in the PR department, it definitely isn’t a routine job, because you don’t know what to expect out of those press releases, or maintaining the public image of the organization, you have to be prepared for anything and everything that the media throws at you. You have to be on your toes all the time, because unexpected things happen anytime. However, at times it can get quite tiresome and hectic, and lead to increasing rates of attrition. To mitigate attrition, firstly you need to find a balance with compensations. Every office has their own set of uniqueness. Different group of employees expect different benefits. Hence, some would prefer professional development training, while there are others who want networking opportunities. Focusing on the benefits that actually empower your employees quality of life will help in boosting the employees’ morale to work harder. Secondly, the next best option is to ask your employees what will keep them happy and loyal to the organization. It’s always good to arrange a formal or informal discussion with your employees, so that they can share their set of problems in a more individual setting. Looking for people who are fit for the role of handling public relations is quite a task, although it is to be noted that there definitely isn’t a shortage of talent in India, because many talented individuals tend to get neglected due to the lack of awareness and knowledge in regards with the scope and existence of PR as a career option, and not forgetting the taboo of working as a PR professional. The rise in the number of mass media colleges in India – Mumbai Metropolitan region alone has 100 plus institutions - is a positive sign as they are trying to incorporate new programs, such as interning at agencies in different cities, having a study tour abroad and attending workshops with international faculty; hence many talented individuals now get a platform to hone their skills and gain knowledge which was not the scene when we entered this profession almost three decades back. All in all, public relations is something that needs to be dealt with utmost care, because the goodwill and the public image of the organization is at stake in the hands of the PR professionals. (The author is Additional General Manager -corporate communication- at NTPC Ltd)
PR, a mundane job? By Ravindran.K
In India, agriculture is not just an ancient mother occupation but the basis of modern business and market prosperity. It has also been the foundation on which PSA or public service communication in the fields of Health, mother and child care, and others developed. The Grow More Food campaign begun in the early years of independence required the refashioning of the war time ‘publicity and propaganda ‘machinery like the radio, documentary film division, PIB into development communication vehicles. Understanding the importance of face to face communication with farmers and the rural people, the five year plan publicity directorate was started in the I&B ministry. The ‘Takkavi loan movement (though it became notorious for misuse, later), for minor irrigation and the need for transferring farm technology from lab to land, the early demonstration farms, the training and visits scheme for farmers became part of the Farm Extension units of the agriculture departments. The 1960s witnessed some of the worst droughts leading to enormous food shortages. The country became heavily dependent upon concessional food aid from the US. It was the period of ‘ship -to -mouth’, meaning the food supply to ration shops was dependent upon the arrival of food shipments at ports. The development of agriculture became the top political and economic priority for two reasons. The political communication of the times, like prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s famous slogan: ‘grow two grains where one grew before’ resonated with the message of high yielding varieties of wheat, rice and other crops. In order to gain political endorsement of these high yielding varieties, the then agriculture, food, irrigation, community development, cooperation minister C. Subramaniam converted the enormous lawns of his Delhi ministerial bungalow for growing the high yielding variety of wheat, developed by Norman Borlaugh. He would invite legislators to this urban wheat farm demonstrate its effectiveness. I was lucky to have been with the agriculture ministry in those days as the assistant campaign officer, later posted to Bihar to work as the communication officer of the Bihar Famine Relief Committee headed by Jayapraksh Narain. The river Kosi command area development in north Bihar had registered its green revolution way back in 1967-68, in the same way the irrigated areas of undivided Punjab had recorded. Posted to Karnataka in early 1970s, I was made a member of the state government’s team implementing the new schemes for small farmers,dry land development, Dairy, and other so-called subsidiary occupations, as part of prime minister Indira Gandhi’s anti-poverty programmes. At first hand I was able to observe the lab to land public service communication as a communicator participant. The radio AIR played a stellar role in the green revolution saga. Driven by the commitment of a senior AIR official Krishnamurthy and the farm extension units personnel, the Radio Rural Forums were set up in most in strategic rural areas. The farmers were encouraged to gather around the radio beaming farming related programmes in which real farmers exchanged their experience and sought answers from agri experts for their queries. The AIR farm units Outside Broadcast (OB) team would go out to record the discussions taking place among the farmers groups and selectively rebroadcast them for the benefit of RRForums. The era also saw a radio revolution as the government subsidised the sale of medium wave transistor sets for Rs 70 or less, becoming really a mass media. The effectiveness of RRFs was such that when the farmers in south India grew a high yielding variety of rice, applied chemical fertilisers, pesticides as per the advice coming though the Radio, they called the rice variety as Radio Rice. The concurrent communication research that went with this movement was very impactful. In fact, the name of American academic Prof. Everett Rogers is worth mentioning here. It was his research among farmers in US that gave us the phrase ‘early Innovators’ or early adopters of new technology who help in the spread of new practices that go to change social norms. This research was widely used in designing health related communication. In fact, he came to India and personally conducted research in ‘social marketing’ of family planning methods including the use of condoms. There is an urgent need for the communication lessons learnt in achieving food self sufficiency (now we are significant exporters rice and wheat) in India should be reactivated and brought into play now for assisting the farmers for coping with the challenges of climate change. The farmers are required to adjust to climate change from season to season; drought prone areas are getting wet, while wet areas are going dry. The hot, dry days in a year are increasing raising the risk factors for farmers. The farm technologies that are being developed for dealing with freak weather have to reach the farmer more promptly. (The author is a former Govt of India spokesperson and ex-adviser to PMs)
Communication for Agriculture. By S NARENDRA
This premier network connects PR, Corpcom, Media, Advertising, Marcom and HR professionals apart from mass communication academia and students
M B Jayaram, Chief Mentor and Chairman Emeritus, PRCI:98806 82490
B N Kumar, Chairman- Governing Council, PRCI: 98201 28332.
jayrammb@gmail.com or mailbnk@gmail.com
M B Jayaram
Chairman Emeritus & Chief Mentor
Public Relations Council of India
3140/B – Krishna
5th Cross – 1st Phase
J P Nagar
BENGALURU 560 078
B N Kumar,
Chairman – Governing Council, PRCI, News Cottage, Plot 26-B-1, Next to Marathi Sahitya Mandir, Sector-6, Vashi, NAVI MUMBAI 400703
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