Wednesday 9 March 2011

Women Director in Company Bill, 2009


I just wanted to share this post which appeared on www.moneycontrol.com  your comment is solicited.
you can navigate yourself through this link. 
Coinciding with International Women's Day, the Corporate Affairs Ministry on Tuesday said it would make it mandatory for companies having five or more independent directors to have at least one female independent director.
Companies having five or more independent directors would have to necessarily have at least one female independent director, Corporate Affairs Minister Murli Deora said.
The proposal would be part of Companies Bill 2009, which is expected to be tabled in the current session of Parliament.
Industry body Assocham in a study titled 'Corporate Women: Close the Gender Gap and Dream Big' on Monday said that women executives would play a fundamental role in shaping market-leading institutions.
However, the study said that presently out of 1,112 directorships of 100 companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, only 59 positions -- or 5.3 per cent -- are held by women.
This figure compares with 15% in Canada, 14.5% in the US and 12.2% in Britain.
Last month, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Companies Bill 2009, which seeks to replace a half-a-century-old Act, would be presented in Parliament in the ongoing session.
"The Companies Bill introduced in Parliament in 2009 has been received by the Parliamentary Standing Committee. The proposed Bill will be introduced in Lok Sabha in current session," Mukherjee had said.
Meanwhile, sources within the Ministry of Corporate Affairs have said that the decision to reserve board posts for women is final. Sources said at least 27,000 companies will need to have women directors. The ministry does not anticipate any shortage of candidates. The proposal will empower women in India Inc.

Monday 7 March 2011

Corporate Citizenship in Letter not in Spirit

There is a concept of Corporate Citizenship which tells us about the commitment to improve community well being through voluntary business practices and contribution of corporate resources leading to sustainable growth. It is not business activity mandated by law or moral or ethical in nature but certainly expected of the corporates.  Corporate responsibility is achieved when a business adapts all of its practices to ensure that it operates in ways that meet or exceed, the ethical, legal, commercial and public expectations society has from such business.

JRD Tata the chairman of the Tata Group believed that "to create good working condition, to pay the best wages to its employees and provide decent housing to its employees are not enough for the industry, the aim of  an industry should be to discharge its overall social responsibilities to the community and the society at large, where industry is located."

Today scene is changed, competition is throat cutting. Corporate are facing stern competition. they mean business at any cost, let country be at stake in respect of security, we have to make money. Recently there was a news on IBN7 about the sell of Pre-Activated Sim Card at Indo-Nepal border. Any body can pay the sum without any identity proof and use it (may be against country) because there is no proof of identity of the person with operators.

Who bothers about corporate responsibility. Even BSNL Sim is available without any identity proof. Corporate is sleeping so is government.

Term corporate citizenship implies the behavior, which would maximize a company's positive impact and minimize the negative impact on its social and physical environment. It means  moving from supply driven to more demand led strategies; keeping in mind the welfare of all stakeholder.

But for the mobile operator it is all limited to compliances and annual return and not more than that. Hope they will wake up and will show the corporate citizenship atleast for the shake of country and its security.