ET Exclusive with Yasmin Premji, Rohini Nilekani, Sudha Murthy “Fast Track justice needed”
Transcript
00:00 Speaker 1: By the time when India Inc. Is struggling to rope-in more women in the workforce and also ensure their safety, the first wives of the industry, Yathleen Praymti, Sutha Munthi, and Drogani Lilicani, spoke exclusively to Ithinaust Laranganauchan on the ongoing protests of a crime against women, and also, what solutions can be offered to make it a safer world for at least half the global population. We get you an excerpt.
00:23 Speaker 2: Rather than the quantum of punishment, I think it’s the immediacy. I think there should be a fast court summons. Instead of one month, I would say within two months action must be taken. I feel the punishment should be harsh and higher degree, so that people should get scared. Of course they will take care of their safety first. And in case somebody is like, you know, you find like that, he should be punished really severely.
00:46 Speaker 3: You know, I think some incidents have the power to galvanize society. And I think young people are very frustrated. They feel like the government is not doing it’s job well enough. And the response of government sometimes seems too little, too late.
01:02 Speaker 4: Lastly, the IT sector is ahead of the curve in terms of ensuring a lot of safety measures, because 50% of the workforce are women. So, are there lessons that the society can take?
01:13 S3: Technology is one aspect of it, but, there’s a lot of change that has to happen. As I was saying earlier, very patriarchal and feudal still in our society. Attitudes towards women have to change.
Businesses now contribute to development through avenues other than the generation of employment and economic growth, such as corporate social responsibility initiatives, corporate accountability movements and alternative business models, using several partnership formats to deliver. A panel with representatives from leading corporations, NGOs, and a public sector bank discussed the changing nature of corporate power, responsibility and ownership, the greater congruence between the goals of business and society, and how their organisations responded to the changes and opportunities.
This round table provided a forum in which the practices of several businesses were examined concerning their impact on development. More specifically, the panel discussed whether different companies are likely to understand and contribute to growth in different ways, including alternatives to traditional business firms such as co-operatives and state-run enterprises. In this forum, the focus will not be primarily on the CSR practices of such firms but rather will extend to their core business activities (including their profit and investment strategies, their human resource policies and procedures and the sustainability of their production techniques) and, to a lesser extent, their governance practices.
Anchors: Ananya Mukherjee Reed and Darryl Reed Panellists: Anant Nadkarni, Vice President, Group Corporate Sustainability, Tata Council for Community Initiatives. Gijs Spoor, Founding Director, Zameen Organic. N Narasa Reddy, General Manager, Priority Credit Wing, Canara Bank. Narayan P S, General Manager, Eco Eye, WiproTechnologies. Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson, Arghyam; Co-founder, Pratham Books.
