A must read document on Brand Council by Interbrand.Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
MUST READ: Mr Singh & Mr Advani, if you think you’re strong, what do you call these voters?
http://news.indiamart.com/news-link.html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Etelegraphindia%2Ecom%2F1090416%2Fjsp%2Ffrontpage%2Fstory%5F10829763%2Ejsp
Mr Singh & Mr Advani, if you think you’re strong, what do you call these voters?
ANANYA SENGUPTA
New Delhi, April 15: Nirmal Kumar Jain has every reason not to vote, but he will.
Unfair imprisonment, joblessness, crushing poverty, death of two children — his life has been an unbroken litany of misfortune. But nothing has broken his resolve to do what he says is his “constitutional right”.
It has kept him going for 33 years and half a dozen elections. It will keep him going this time, too. Not tomorrow, when the first round of polling begins, but a fortnight later when his turn comes.
Is there a message in his dogged tenacity?
Maybe, because Jain’s tale is the story of all underdogs and their bleak struggle for at least a semblance of fairness.
Jain was a manager of Sekkari Bank in Damoh, Madhya Pradesh, when he was falsely accused of misappropriating Rs 4,816 by another manager and jailed for 14 months during the Emergency in 1976.
As the prison door clanged shut, came another blow. He was suspended from service.
After 17 years of tedious litigation, a court found that the charge against him was false and acquitted him in 1993. Despite being cleared, Jain says he was reinstated only in 2002 as a manager, but with the salary of a peon — probably because the court did not specify the salary in the order to let him resume his service.
The 61-year-old also says he was offered Rs 1.4 lakh as arrears for 25 years instead of the Rs 10 lakh he deserved.
Jain refused. He knocked on the doors of the state and national human rights commissions and successive state governments.
In December 1997, the then chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission, former Supreme Court Chief Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, wrote to then chief minister Digvijay Singh with a request to “personally look into the matter”.
“The commission is of the view that no purpose will be served by his (Jain) pursuing his complaint to the commission and relief can come only from a benign government sensitive to human suffering,” the letter said. “I request you to personally look into the matter and ensure Mr Jain is given adequate assistance from the chief minister’s benevolent fund. He has suffered for no fault of his.”
By the time Singh wrote back in 2000 saying he “would find out what help could be given”, Jain’s daughter Babita had committed suicide by setting herself on fire on July 10, 1999. In her suicide note, she told her father she was “relieving him of at least one of his responsibilities”.
Soon after her death, Justice J.S. Verma, who headed the NHRC then, wrote to Singh asking for assistance for Jain.
No help came. Instead, came the second blow.
Jain’s son Rajesh, an unemployed postgraduate, swallowed pesticide on August 23, 2000.
“There is no justice for the common man. When I had taken my case to the NHRC, I had a home and three children. My son earned his degree by cutting betel leaf, ab uski degree ka main kya karun? I want the NHRC to take up my case. Politicians have used me and thrown me away,” says Jain, who is in Delhi to again plead with the rights commission.
Four Supreme Court chief justices have written to the Madhya Pradesh government to look into Jain’s grievances. In all, 27 letters have been sent from the office of four Presidents, and from that of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani.
Nothing happened.
But it hasn’t stopped Jain from hoping — and voting.
Jain, a BJP loyalist, has always voted for the party despite being promised hope and then forgotten once elections were over.
“They held press conferences saying how the (state’s previous) Congress government had treated me shabbily. They used the dead bodies of my children to gain political mileage. But that was when they were in the Opposition. As soon as they came to power, they forgot all about me,” he says, showing clippings of BJP leaders demanding justice for him.
But his spirit is hard to break.
“I have to vote,” he says.
Come April 30, Jain will troop to the nearest polling booth with his wife Kanta, and press the button — for the Lotus again.
“Voting is my constitutional right,” he says. “I hope the next government will do more than just listen to my pleas. I hope I will get justice before I die, so that people don’t suffer like I did.”
Mr Singh & Mr Advani, if you think you’re strong, what do you call these voters?
ANANYA SENGUPTA
New Delhi, April 15: Nirmal Kumar Jain has every reason not to vote, but he will.
Unfair imprisonment, joblessness, crushing poverty, death of two children — his life has been an unbroken litany of misfortune. But nothing has broken his resolve to do what he says is his “constitutional right”.
It has kept him going for 33 years and half a dozen elections. It will keep him going this time, too. Not tomorrow, when the first round of polling begins, but a fortnight later when his turn comes.
Is there a message in his dogged tenacity?
Maybe, because Jain’s tale is the story of all underdogs and their bleak struggle for at least a semblance of fairness.
Jain was a manager of Sekkari Bank in Damoh, Madhya Pradesh, when he was falsely accused of misappropriating Rs 4,816 by another manager and jailed for 14 months during the Emergency in 1976.
As the prison door clanged shut, came another blow. He was suspended from service.
After 17 years of tedious litigation, a court found that the charge against him was false and acquitted him in 1993. Despite being cleared, Jain says he was reinstated only in 2002 as a manager, but with the salary of a peon — probably because the court did not specify the salary in the order to let him resume his service.
The 61-year-old also says he was offered Rs 1.4 lakh as arrears for 25 years instead of the Rs 10 lakh he deserved.
Jain refused. He knocked on the doors of the state and national human rights commissions and successive state governments.
In December 1997, the then chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission, former Supreme Court Chief Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, wrote to then chief minister Digvijay Singh with a request to “personally look into the matter”.
“The commission is of the view that no purpose will be served by his (Jain) pursuing his complaint to the commission and relief can come only from a benign government sensitive to human suffering,” the letter said. “I request you to personally look into the matter and ensure Mr Jain is given adequate assistance from the chief minister’s benevolent fund. He has suffered for no fault of his.”
By the time Singh wrote back in 2000 saying he “would find out what help could be given”, Jain’s daughter Babita had committed suicide by setting herself on fire on July 10, 1999. In her suicide note, she told her father she was “relieving him of at least one of his responsibilities”.
Soon after her death, Justice J.S. Verma, who headed the NHRC then, wrote to Singh asking for assistance for Jain.
No help came. Instead, came the second blow.
Jain’s son Rajesh, an unemployed postgraduate, swallowed pesticide on August 23, 2000.
“There is no justice for the common man. When I had taken my case to the NHRC, I had a home and three children. My son earned his degree by cutting betel leaf, ab uski degree ka main kya karun? I want the NHRC to take up my case. Politicians have used me and thrown me away,” says Jain, who is in Delhi to again plead with the rights commission.
Four Supreme Court chief justices have written to the Madhya Pradesh government to look into Jain’s grievances. In all, 27 letters have been sent from the office of four Presidents, and from that of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani.
Nothing happened.
But it hasn’t stopped Jain from hoping — and voting.
Jain, a BJP loyalist, has always voted for the party despite being promised hope and then forgotten once elections were over.
“They held press conferences saying how the (state’s previous) Congress government had treated me shabbily. They used the dead bodies of my children to gain political mileage. But that was when they were in the Opposition. As soon as they came to power, they forgot all about me,” he says, showing clippings of BJP leaders demanding justice for him.
But his spirit is hard to break.
“I have to vote,” he says.
Come April 30, Jain will troop to the nearest polling booth with his wife Kanta, and press the button — for the Lotus again.
“Voting is my constitutional right,” he says. “I hope the next government will do more than just listen to my pleas. I hope I will get justice before I die, so that people don’t suffer like I did.”
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Future of Advertising
A very interesting ppt on future of advertising. Those seeking details are free to write to me.
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