ABCI website gets new look

Association of Business Communicators of India (ABCI) has redesigned its website.  Easy to navigate and impressive, the website is full of information, archives of past achievements and activities, and coming events.  The brochure inviting nominations for the 52nd ABCI Annual Awards to be held at Mumbai in September is already up and, just like earlier years, one can look forward to a galaxy of brilliant speakers.
Congratulations to ABCI's President Yogesh Joshi who continues to provide his creative leadership and bring together the communicators in the country on to this single platform for meaningful interaction and contributing to the knowledge base.

Yogesh Joshi is Regional Representative of WCF

One of the most dynamic communicators of our country, Yogesh Joshi, Chairman of ABCI and Head of Tata Chemical's communications in Mumbai, has been nominated as the Regional Representative of prestigious World Communication Forum (WCF), with its headquarter in Davos.

He is the first and the only Indian to be nominated to WCF. As regional director for South Asia, he would be spearheading the communication movement in India, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, etc. 

Reciipient of many awards and recognitions, Yogesh Joshi  was shortlisted from among 1500 communicators from across the world, to head the south Asian regional initiatives. 

"I have several plans which I shall be unfolding shortly," he said in a telephonic discussion today.  The biggest advantage for the communicators in this region would be the opportunity to interact with international speakers with WCF, he added. 

We are proud of his elevation and surely, we are in for good times ahead. 

PRCI Chandigarh Chapter is Most Innovative

Congratulations to Mrs. Renuka Salwan, Chairperson, PRCI Chandigarh Chapter, on receiving the Most Innovative Chapter of PRCI award during the 6th Global PR Conclave held at Mumbai on 13th February. Indeed, Chandigarh Chapter had been regularly organising interactions with communication practitioners besides holding seminars and workshops for the practitioners.
Public Relations as a practice today requires a very strong intervention by the professional bodies so as to upgrade their skills and knwoledge, and make them future-ready. 

6th Global PR Conclave at Mumbai

The countdown for the 6^th Global PR Conclave & Chanakya Awards event  being hosted by PRCI has begun.  It is just round the corner,  on Monday, February 13, 2012. 

Time: 10 AM onward

Venue: Rooftop, Trident, Nariman Point, Mumbai

The conclave theme is:

PR – Interface or Interference – Media and PR perspectives

We will also have panel discussions on:

• PR Interface or Interference
• New Age- New Rage: Challenges and Opportunities in social/digital media
• Political/Government PR: Opportunities and Limits

PR professionals can participate as delegates with an on-the-spot registration @ Rs 3,500

We plan to start the Conclave at 10 AM with a formal inauguration to be followed by the key note address.

Maharashtra DGP Mr. K Subramanyam has given his consent to the chief guest.

Veteran journalists H K Dua, Kumar Ketkar, D K Raikar, Ayaz Memon, Ashok Advani, Shishir Joshi will grace the occasion, apart from corporate honchos and communication professionals

One of the signature properties of PRCI is the annual Chanakya Awards that recognizes the outstanding contribution made by corporate, educational institutions, to the PR profession and the society at large.

PRCI also felicitates PR practitioners for their outstanding contribution by inducting them into the PR Hall of Fame. The entire award process is determined by an independent jury.

PRCI Global Conclaves have so far been held Bangalore, New Delhi and Chandigarh and this time round Mumbai chapter has offered to play the host.

PRCI is engaged in providing training, setting standards of professional excellence, and uphold principals of ethics. As a leading voice in the industry, PRCI also advocates for greater understanding and adoption of public relations services. Established in 2004, PRCI has its headquarters at Bangalore with over about 20 active chapters located in Mumbai, New Delhi, Baroda, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Kerala, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Pune, Manipal, Mysore, Chhattisgarh, Guwahati and Mizoram.

B N KUMAR

Chairman – PRCI Mumbai Chapter & Global Conclave

6th Global PR Conclave & Chanakya Awards

The countdown for the 6^th Global PR Conclave & Chanakya Awards event  being hosted by PRCI has begun.  It is just round the corner,  on Monday, February 13, 2012. 

Time: 10 AM onward

Venue: Rooftop, Trident, Nariman Point, Mumbai

The conclave theme is:

PR – Interface or Interference – Media and PR perspectives

We will also have panel discussions on:

• PR Interface or Interference
• New Age- New Rage: Challenges and Opportunities in social/digital media
• Political/Government PR: Opportunities and Limits

PR professionals can participate as delegates with an on-the-spot registration @ Rs 3,500

We plan to start the Conclave at 10 AM with a formal inauguration to be followed by the key note address.

Maharashtra DGP Mr. K Subramanyam has given his consent to the chief guest.

Veteran journalists H K Dua, Kumar Ketkar, D K Raikar, Ayaz Memon, Ashok Advani, Shishir Joshi will grace the occasion, apart from corporate honchos and communication professionals

One of the signature properties of PRCI is the annual Chanakya Awards that recognizes the outstanding contribution made by corporate, educational institutions, to the PR profession and the society at large.

PRCI also felicitates PR practitioners for their outstanding contribution by inducting them into the PR Hall of Fame. The entire award process is determined by an independent jury.

PRCI Global Conclaves have so far been held Bangalore, New Delhi and Chandigarh and this time round Mumbai chapter has offered to play the host.

PRCI is engaged in providing training, setting standards of professional excellence, and uphold principals of ethics. As a leading voice in the industry, PRCI also advocates for greater understanding and adoption of public relations services. Established in 2004, PRCI has its headquarters at Bangalore with over about 20 active chapters located in Mumbai, New Delhi, Baroda, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Kerala, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Pune, Manipal, Mysore, Chhattisgarh, Guwahati and Mizoram.

B N KUMAR

Chairman – PRCI Mumbai Chapter & Global Conclave

What ails Indian public relations?

Dr. C.V. Narasimha Reddi, Editor, PR Voice, shares his concerns about the PR industry.

●        The greatest pitfall of Indian public relations is that instead of being two-way communication, it operates by and large only as one way communication without any provision for effective feedback information mechanism and measurement.

●        As a management discipline, public relations is expected to reach every section of the public such as employees, shareholders, customers and assess their feelings. Unfortunately, public relations professionals rarely meet the stakeholders for one-to-one interaction to know their pulse towards organisational policies and programmes. We tend to reach them only through representational media like pamphlets, house journals, newspapers, TV, posters, confining to media relations rather than presentational media face-to-face.

●        Public relations in India is suffering from identity crisis. Other professions like journalism, marketing, advertising, finance, human resources etc. are called by one name., whereas public relations is given different names such as corporate communications, public affairs, corporate affairs etc

●        Lack of professional educational qualification is another major pitfall of this profession. About 60 percent persons working in this profession entered without any  basic qualification in public relations. And that public relations courses are offered only in a few educational institutions. A major challenge is lack of professional public relations education in the Indian Universities.

●        Though India lives in her villages, public relations survives in urban India without any machinery at the grassroots.

●        Lack of standard public relations textbooks, case studies, induction and inservice PR training, and public relations research are other characteristics that hinder the  growth of public relations profession and demands professionalism.

Mission : A Paradigm Shift for PR

What public relations profession needs today is a sense of mission. Public Relations Mission is the need of the hour to shape the future of this profession. Who will design the future plan? It is the primary responsibility of the national PR professional bodies and the educational institutes that are preparing the public relations students to design ‘Public Relations Mission’. What should be the areas of mission? Let us debate both on pitfalls and future mission