Category: Education

Despite not required to spend under CSR, private sector bank IDBI Bank had donated used computers to government and municipal schools for the benefit of students in the 2019-20 fiscal. According to the Companies Act, 2013, the companies are required

Despite not required to spend under CSR, private sector bank IDBI Bank had donated used computers to government and municipal schools for the benefit of students in the 2019-20 fiscal.

According to the Companies Act, 2013, the companies are required to spend at least 2 percent of their average net profits made in the preceding three years on corporate social responsibility (CSR).

In its 2019-20 annual report, IDBI Bank said there was no requirement for the bank to incur any spends under CSR for the 2019-20 fiscal because it had suffered a net loss in the preceding three years.

However as a conscientious corporate citizen, the bank had donated used computers to government and municipal schools for the benefit of the students as a part of its CSR initiatives during the reporting year.

Going forward, the bank should be able to do more CSR activities with improvement in its performance.

For the first quarter of 2020-21 financial, the IDBI Bank today reported a standalone net profit of Rs 144.43 crore as against a net loss of Rs 3,800.84 crore in the year-ago.

IDFC FIRST Bank today announced the opening of its MBA Scholarship programme for the batch of 2020-2022, as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). About 150 scholarships will be granted by the Bank this year. The application for scholarship

IDFC FIRST Bank today announced the opening of its MBA Scholarship programme for the batch of 2020-2022, as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

About 150 scholarships will be granted by the Bank this year. The application for scholarship can be accessed on https://www.idfcfirstbank.com/csr-new/mba-scholarship.html.

The last date for applying for this scholarship is July 31, 2020, the bank said in a statement.

The scholarship programme aims to financially support students from weaker social economic backgrounds, enabling them to pursue a management degree from a B-school of their choice.

To qualify for the scholarship, the candidate needs to secure admission into a two-year full-time MBA programme and the family income has to be less than Rs 6 lakhs per annum.

The initiative provides financial assistance to students so as to ease the burden of fees payable by them and to make admission to the best colleges and universities accessible to economically weaker students.

IDFC FIRST Bank CSR Head Rachana Iyer said: “We believe expenses of MBA are rather high and even meritorious students often drop out from pursuing their careers because of financial difficulties.”

Through this initiative, the bank wants to lend a shoulder with Rs 2 lakh per student for two years, to students from vulnerable communities, to pursue higher education and to attain a higher standard of living.

The scholarship supports students from over 150 B-Schools all across India. Since the number of applications far exceed the number of scholarships, the Bank prioritises and ranks-orders the applications for scholarships based on criticality of need, which may involve factors such as family income, socio-economic background and other such criteria.

The MBA Scholarship programme was instituted as a CSR initiative by erstwhile Capital First in 2016 and continued after the merger which resulted in the formation of IDFC FIRST Bank. So far, 530 students from both urban and rural India have benefitted from this programme.

These students belong to diverse family backgrounds with parents being retired lower-income scale government employees, auto-rickshaw drivers, farmers and other such backgrounds.

As an extension of this programme, IDFC FIRST Bank also provides scholarships to students pursuing higher education or teaching in the mental health space, students with autism, students enrolled in the Young India Fellowship programme of Ashoka university, and to youth from shelter homes and underprivileged backgrounds.

In an effort to upskill the youth and enable them to make productive use of lockdown, global NGO Aide et Action today launched the “iLEAD Goes Online” initiative through a Facebook Live session. The objective of the programme is to impart vocational

In an effort to upskill the youth and enable them to make productive use of lockdown, global NGO Aide et Action today launched the “iLEAD Goes Online” initiative through a Facebook Live session.

The objective of the programme is to impart vocational education to youth from marginalized sections of the society. The initiative encompasses 13 iLEAD courses through a digital medium, an official statement said.

The development comes amidst the World Youth Skills Day. Amidst the lockdown induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, digital education is a viable option to continue academics.

After having trained 2,50,000 youths in more than forty domains with the placement of 75 percent, the NGO is launching iLEAD online skill training courses.

“The training can be undertaken remotely from the safety and comfort of home on a digital platform. The initiative aims to provide livelihood education among the youth from underprivileged families and help them to utilize the lockdown period effectively. And this will also help to develop a new strategy for the organization across the globe” Aide et Action South Asia Board President Rajiva Wijesinha said.

The iLEAD alumni, along with the current trainees along with trainers and other stakeholders shared their views on this initiative.

The 13 courses which are now available online are Tally, Computer Operator, Beauty Therapy, Fashion Designing, BSPA, CRR, Automobile, ITeS, Electrician, Hospitality, BSPC, Beautician and Electrical. The platform is available to the registrations through our skill training initiative iLEAD.

Elpro International has partnered with Shiksha Seva Foundation for supporting education and well-being of underprivileged children, especially girls, as part of its CSR initiative. The initiative aims at donating funds to provide a safe and nurturing

Elpro International has partnered with Shiksha Seva Foundation for supporting education and well-being of underprivileged children, especially girls, as part of its CSR initiative.

The initiative aims at donating funds to provide a safe and nurturing environment where children can access education, nutrition and healthcare.

Elpro will be educating around 50 girls under this initiative.

Elpro International Chairman and Managing Director Deepak Kumar said: “As a responsible corporate, we have been continuously evolving at the CSR front and devising action-based solutions to bring in a societal change along with our customer-centric initiatives.”

The company is delighted to partner with Shiksha Seva Foundation on this project to educate and empower the girl child.

Elpro International has Elpro City Square Mall as well as Elpro International School under its umbrella.

The education sector received the maximum CSR funds to the tune of Rs 15,742.33 crore during financial year 2014-15 to 2017-18, the government informed Parliament on Tuesday. In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha on December 10, Union Minister of State for Finance

The education sector received the maximum CSR funds to the tune of Rs 15,742.33 crore during financial year 2014-15 to 2017-18, the government informed Parliament on Tuesday.

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha on December 10, Union Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs Anurag Singh Thakur said the CSR spending on education has increased on a year-on-year basis since 2014-15 fiscal.

The CSR spend stood at Rs 2,589.42 crore during 2014-15 fiscal, which rose to Rs 4,057.45 crore in 2015-16, Rs 4,500.82 in 2016-17, Rs 4,594.64 in 2017-18 and Rs 15,742.33 in 2018-19 financial lyear, he said.

The Union Minister further said that that CSR is a Board driven process and the Board of the company is empowered to decide the activities to be undertaken as per Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013 taking into consideration the recommendation of its CSR committee.

The entire CSR architecture is a disclosure-based and CSR mandated companies are required to file details of CSR amount spent annually in Ministry of Corporate Affairs registry.

The Minister also mentioned that the details of project undertaken by the company is not maintained separately by the government.

Barco Electronic Systems celebrated a vibrant Children’s Day at the Swaminarayan Akshardham temple in New Delhi by hosting a day-out for 30 children aged 6-12 years from Sakshi NGO. Celebrated across the country, Children’s Day is an occasion to increase awareness of the rights, care and education

Barco Electronic Systems celebrated a vibrant Children’s Day at the Swaminarayan Akshardham temple in New Delhi by hosting a day-out for 30 children aged 6-12 years from Sakshi NGO.

Celebrated across the country, Children’s Day is an occasion to increase awareness of the rights, care and education of children.

The children received a guided tour of the temple and enjoyed interactive exhibitions during the visit, the company said in a statement.

During their three-hour visit, the children enjoyed the shows at Sahajanand Darshan – Hall of Values; Neelkanth Darshan – Large Format Film aired on Barco’s latest installation at Akshardham, the XDL 60K true RGB laser projector and Sanskruti Darshan – Cultural Boat Ride.

The fourth major attraction at Akshardham, the Sahaj Anand multi-media water show is also powered by Barco, through the UDX 30K laser phosphor projector.

Commenting on the occasion, Electronics Systems Managing Director Rajiv Bhalla said this initiative not only supports the company’s CSR efforts but also reinforces the Barco’s cultural building block ‘we care, we grow’.

To mark the Children’s Day, Canon India in partnership with Cinepolis Group organised a special screening of a 3D movie ‘The Lion King’ on November 14 for children of all the four adopted villages in Haryana, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Karnataka. The movie was screened in four adopted villages

To mark the Children’s Day, Canon India in partnership with Cinepolis Group organised a special screening of a 3D movie ‘The Lion King’ on November 14 for children of all the four adopted villages in Haryana, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

The movie was screened in four adopted villages — Maheshwari in Haryana, Sol Gohalia in Kolkata, Karanjoti in Mumbai and Maharaja Katte in Bangalore — as part of its CSR initiative ‘Learning Beyond Books’ which aims to offer experiential learning beyond homes and school boundaries.

The Lion King, a movie symbolic of wisdom, courage and compassion, is packed with unforgettable life lessons, extremely crucial for the children to learn to succeed in their future endeavours.

Speaking on the occasion, Canon India President and CEO Kazutada Kobayashi said: “At Canon, we strongly believe in leading by our corporate philosophy of ‘Kyosei’, through which we align our business objectives with our sustainability initiatives.”

He said education and empowerment form two intrinsic pillars of its “4Es CSR policy” and with children as the building blocks of any society, the aim is to implement maximum efforts to ensure their holistic development.

‘Learning Beyond Books’ is one such initiative through which the company intends to empower children from our adopted villages, to carve a brighter and better tomorrow, he added.

Cinepolis India Deputy CEO Devang Sampat said, “We believe that cinema is one such alternate way that has the power to influence and empower the masses. It gave us immense pleasure to join hands with Canon India.”

Canon’s CSR endeavours are driven by their corporate philosophy of ‘Kyosei’, which mean the ‘spirit of living and working together for the common good’.

The company is involved in various community welfare programs aligned with their 4Es CSR policy implying Education, Eye Care, Environment and Empowerment, in an effort to build progressive self-reliant communities.

Through their flagship ‘Adopt a Village’ project, Canon has four adopted villages across the country, focusing on the overall development of the village communities with a major focus on 4Es.

Eldis – Impact and Policy team at the Institute of Development Studies in the UK has come out with a study that discusses the role of business in the fight against HIV and AIDS with a particular focus on the private sector in India

Eldis – Impact and Policy team at the Institute of Development Studies in the UK has come out with a study that discusses the role of business in the fight against HIV and AIDS with a particular focus on the private sector in India. The report highlights particular interventions by Indian five companies ranging from advocacy and education to prevention and treatment.

Further, the report argues that because a large share of the country’s HIV-positive population are employed by Indian industry, businesses can gain from early decisive action to prevent HIV and AIDS. The paper also shows the advantages businesses bring to the fight, and how the Indian government supports companies involved in HIV and AIDS interventions.

In India both private and public sector companies are pursuing notable programs of HIV and AIDS awareness and prevention for employees and for local communities. The report highlights lessons from HIV and AIDS interventions by Indian businesses. These lessons include:

• partnerships with local NGOs, State AIDS Control Societies, and other agencies have proved critical  to the success of several programmes
• companies have used several approaches to communicate HIV and AIDS messages to their workforce and local communities
• programmes to support mobile target groups such as sex workers and their clients are important in preventing the spread of the virus
• lack of government health facilities has created challenges in accessing medical and testing facilities
• most programs have encountered resistance to HIV and AIDS messages because of the stigma attached to the epidemic and to topics related to sex

Experience in combating HIV and AIDS in India points to several key recommendations for private and public sector programmes:

• taking early decisive action on prevention before the epidemic gets out of control will pay off for companies
• improved monitoring and evaluation will help in planning and implementing programs, in identifying gaps, and in sustaining, scaling up, and expanding initiatives
• continued financing is especially essential for treatment programs, which, once initiated, must not be interrupted.