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15th Star Nite Awards – Setting new Benchmark in Indian ICT Industry
A sparkling award ceremony and a day-long session on CSR @ Disability in the presence of a host of glitterati’ s from the ICT industry, PSUs, Government dignitaries from Ministries & agencies and other
distinguished personalities comprising of System Integrators / Solution Partners, IT Associations, CIOs, CMO’ s, distributors and VARs is how the annual event of Star Nite Awards unfolded this year.
The 15th Star Nite Awards which was a resounding success was divided into 2 sessions – the Morning Session under the theme CSR @ Disability that saw several rounds of discussions keeping CSR and Disability into focus and the Evening session themed Digital & GST Impact on Business Eco-system that primarily was an Awards evening, besides serving as a melting ground for the Indian ICT industry, meeting together to discuss the latest trends in ICT.
Morning Session: CSR @ Disability
With the Government’ s vision to transform India into knowledge economy and to spend the mandated 2 % of their profits on Corporate Social Responsibility( CSR) activities, SPO INDIA and NASSCOM Foundation are trying to bridge an alliance between the Industry and Government to discuss on CSR and Sustainable developmental goals and the role for the private sector in engaging with a development agenda. With this mind, the event CSR @ Disability took place that aimed to address this issue at large.
The event was covered in 2 sessions – the first session covered the theme CSR @
Shri Thaawarchand Gehlot, Hon’ ble Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, GOI
“ Historically, it has been a tradition to do something good for the society, to work for its welfare in terms of both economic and social goodness. Though the term‘ CSR’ has been coined only recently, the emphasis fundamentally has always been to uplift the society; corporates earning huge profits contribute 1-2 % of its income to the betterment of the societal good. There are people who earmark this money for religious work too. Keeping this in mind, the government realised that government funds and subsidies are just not sufficient to work for social good. Unless this made into a law and urging every corporates to contribute 2 % of profits towards this cause, CSR would never meet its objective
34 of serving November the community 2016 www and. the varindia society. com at large.”
Ms. G Latha Krishna Rao, IAS, Secretary, Social Justice and Empowerment- GOI
“ We are talking about Corporate Social Responsibility very often but for a long time there has been a generous funding of the corporate sector towards several societal causes. They have done it on their own and that funding we are trying to formularizing it through CSR. I was going through the funding that the sector received from the corporates, but I think if we have a little respect for this sector that we should be doing more than what we have been doing. If you really want to do something then do a good job, other than doing it just to earn a mere name. Giving a very small portion of your corporate funds for a sector as vast as this, is not the only answer. They should open up more if they have the willingness to serve this sector."
Mr. Avanish K Awasthi, Joint Secretary, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment – GOI
“ Vibrant Ability or Vibrant Inclusion is what the government should be talking about. ALIMCO has taken the first big step in addressing the disabilities and rehabilitating them. All across the country, 4500 camps have been organized to provide aids and devices to the disabilities. The idea is not just to give these at their doorstep; but it is to change the mindset of the people and the country towards the disabled population and bring them the motivation and change. The Honourable PM has been present individually in many of our programs, including his constituency Varanasi. The program held at Navsari gave away 11,000 devices to the disabled persons from the state. Gujarat should be a model state for all of us that in one stroke changed the way people look at this sector.”