The evening started with our patron, Mike Nithavrianakis sharing his opening remarks. He shared the recent ministerial visits as well as the upcoming ministerial and trade visits in May and June. This was followed by views on UKTI by Barry Lowen, National Director, UKTI who was visiting Chennai. Richard Heald, CEO, UKIBC then shared the plan on British Business Centres across India and the role they will play in supporting British companies wanting to set up in India.

The first presentation of the day was by our member Aravind Srivatsan, Partner, KPMG on UK-India Business and the current state of trade between the two countries. He spoke at length about the acquisitions between both countries.

The guest speaker of the day was Mr. T. Shivaraman, MD &CEO, Shriram EPC Pvt Ltd and President, Madras Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI). He spoke about his role at MCCI as well as the power sector. An interactive Q&A session followed the presentations.

BBG – Bangalore now moves into formation stage with the right founding members coming into place. During a visit to Bangalore, Christie Cherian called on Ian Felton, Deputy High Commissioner, BDHC, Bangalore and met a couple of potential conveners to put BBG – Bangalore into play with Chennai’s offer of help and assistance. The Queen’s Birthday celebrations on 15th March 2013 hosted by Ian Felton was also an occasion to bring together around 25 potential members. A meeting is planned for 23rd March to initiate the activities.

BBG Chennai have offered all support to the Conveners Sai Prakash and K C Janardhan with best wishes for the success of this new BBG. In line with BBGs reciprocity arrangements, invitations have been extended to potential Bangalore members to attend our meetings on April 18th and May 16th

Contacts for BBG in Bangalore:
Sai Prakash +919844327783 / saierin@hotmail.com
KC Janardhan +919845186482 / kcjanardhan555@gmail.com

On 6th of March, the British Deputy High Commission (South India) hosted a reception to celebrate the birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The reception was attended by many BBG members apart from various other dignatories. During the course of the evening Mike took the opportunity to round up the events anchored and organised by the BDHC and UKTI. He spoke of the successful Olympics 2012, PM’s visit to India and various other visits by Ministers. Mike also had a special mention of BBG Chennai and its successful National Conference in September 2012. Mike congratulated the entire BBG team and Christie for anchoring the activities successfully. He added that BBG Chennai has been striving towards a wider range of activities to improve bilateral trade and commerce. The evening ended with fellowship and a concert by Oscar winner, Tanvi Shah and her band.

For the benefit of BBG Members and ASA clients, ASA & Associates (a BBG member) conducted a very useful seminar reviewing the recently announced Budget. ASA’s Ajay Sethi gave an insightful presentation on India’s current economic position followed by Sunil Arora’s highlights on the Budget. Attendees found the information extremely helpful. Capt. Ramaswamy of Sea Team provided their Training Centre for the event.

Last week, Mike Nithavrianakis accompanied the High Commissioner, James Bevan to Trivandrum. Although this was Sir James’s first visit to Trivandrum, he has visited Kerala before; most prominently when he led the largest ever trade delegation to the State for Emerging Kerala in September last year. Last week’s visit included calls on the Chief Minister, the Director-General of Police and ISRO. The High Commissioner also visited Technopark and had a very good meeting with UK firms and Indian investors. Many thanks to BBG committee member Vijay Kumar (Test House) for organising the gathering and to Rakesh Gupta of Allianz Cornhill (ACIS) for hosting it at their premises.

The High Commissioner was delighted not only to meet lots of UK firms doing business in Kerala, but he was very happy to see BBG Chairman, Christie and several Chennai-based colleagues, including R. Jeevanandham, R. Balajee, Dev Nair and Shajee Varghese present. The networking reception on the evening of 27th February was a very useful opportunity for the High Commission to reach a wider section of the business community and it was to terrific to see the BBG strongly represented. As James Bevan later tweeted “Great visit last week to Thiruvananthapuram. Saw Indian Space Research Organisation & Padmanabhaswamy temple, 2 sides of incredible India”

“The Beacon Fellowship Charitable Award” supported by JP Morgan for 2013, recongnises the various forms that philanthropy can take and this award for impact investment honours those who have imaginatively used their financial resources to promote the public good, without necessarily depleting their fiscal resources in the process. Impact investors are primarily motivated by a social, environmental or charitable challenge, but seek to generate a positive ‘blended’ return from their investments, of both social and financial nature, often with the goal of expanding their philanthropy resources, rather than seeking enrichment for its own sake.

Winning this “JP Morgan Beacon Fellowship Award for 2013” is important to TCW, because it proves that, despite common misconceptions, the business of philanthropy is not about solely giving away money; it is about solving problems and advancing causes that people care about. Achieving meaningful change in a complex world requires more than money – it also relies on money being well deployed, as those honoured . The awardees under this “Impact Investment” category for 2013 are:

Sir Ronald Cohen
Nick O’Donohoe
John Pontin OBE and Wendy Stephenson

In the image, Mr. John Pontin, OBE and Wendy Stephenson can be seen receiving the award.

On 25th of February, Hand in Hand celebrated its 10 years of service to the community in a function in the shore temple town of Mamallapuram. Its CEO, Dr. Kalpana Sankar is a member of BBG Chennai.

Hand in Hand India is a grass root level NGO serving in 8 States in India and 7 countries across 3 continents. It has an integrated program of poverty elimination and women empowerment through various programs. With the support of its dedicated team comprising 2,500 employees of whom 65% are women, as well as 52,000 volunteers, Hand in Hand India has involved 8.5 lakh women in 57,000 Self Help Groups. It has also mainstreamed nearly 1.65 lakh children , after eliminating them from child labor.

The theme of the meet on 25th Feb was “Learning through reflection and looking forward” and Hand in Hand took the opportunity to felicitate all its 2,500 dedicated employees for achieving the following milestones:

Creation of 1.3 million jobs. This was a 5 year programme, scheduled to conclude in 2014. Due to the indefatigable energies and commitment of the Hand in Hand family, the goal was achieved in January 2013, which was 14 months before target date.
Crossing the threshold of Child Friendly Panchayats. A panchayat is designated as “Child Friendly” once child labor has been totally eliminated and all the children there attend school.

The program was graced by a galaxy of dignitaries which included Mr. N. Sanyal, IAS, Special Secretary – ministry of Women & Child Development, Govt of India; Ms. Jennifer McIntyre – U S Consul General : Guest of Honour; Mr. Siddharth Varadarajan – Editor : The Hindu – who delivered the Presidential Address; Representatives from the leadership teams of various Hand in Hand arms across the globe, viz. UK, Sweden, South Africa, Kenya, Afghanistan; Board of Trustees of Hand in Hand India and all employees of Hand in Hand India from rural interiors across all 8 States where they serve.

Dr. Kalpana Sankar, CEO, and the force behind Hand in Hand India, while felicitating all employees as well as thanking all donors, partners, well-wishers and supporters, made a presentation on the overall vision as well as the plans on going.