RajivSpeak

New research underlines urgent need for strategies and transition plans to combat climate change, remain successful and meet stakeholder expectations. As world leaders gather for COP 28, ACCA (the Association of Chartered Accountants), IFAC (the International Federation of Accountants) and professional services firm PwC released a  new report : "The role of the CFO and finance function in the climate transition: driving value and sustainability", based on a survey of 1,000 senior finance professionals around the world. The research reveals that 20% of organisations in India don’t have an emissions plan in place and 25% of those don’t intend to develop one. The research found that, globally almost half of respondents (46%) have yet to produce a plan for reducing their carbon emissions. Alarmingly, 70% of those respondents without an emissions plan say they currently have no intention of developing one. This is a significant problem given that successful transition planning to ...

  The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has expressed deep concern over the adverse health effects caused by packaged foods high in salt, sugar, and saturated fats. Recognizing it as a violation of the Right to Life and Right to Health of Indian citizens, the quasi-judicial body called for a response from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) regarding its selection of front-of-pack labels aimed at providing consumers with information to make healthier choices.

  The Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad's (IIM-A's) latest round of Business Inflation Expectations Survey (BIES) has found that sales and profit margins of Indian businesses have remained subdued despite  tall claims  by the Government of India (GoI) that the Indian economy doing well even as world is going in wrong direction.

Recently, reputed Gujarati journal "Sarthak Jalso", edited by well known writer Urvish Kothari, published an article by Shruti Shah. I posted its pdf version, sent to me by Urvishbhai, on a blog Shruti and I run:  https://saankal.blogspot.com/ .   The article is about our seven year long stay in the former Soviet Union during the turbulent period that led to the collapse of the Communist rule -- 1986-93. I thought Gujarati readers would be interested in reading the article, hence I posted a link of the blog post on Facebook. Prompt came Facebook's reply: the link violates it's community standards, so I should withdraw the article or send my objection. I sent objection, but nothing happened!  I don't understand which community standards was the Facebook referring to. The link carried snapshots of cover of "Sarthak Jalso" and first page of Shruti's article.  The cover has photograph of two towering mountain edges very close to each other and a person, ...

I was much amused to read the "visual story" about Reliance World Plaza put open in Mumbai. Top celebrities of Bollywood participated in the event. Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani, Nita Ambani, others must be feeling great about it. The event ironically took place a day after I visited ISCON mega mall in Ahmedabad. The mall, to put it mildly, is in tatters. Yes, it too is part of Reliance framework. It used to have some of the big names quoted in the Reliance World Plaza Mall visual story. Once a throbbing attraction of Amdavadis, the ISCON mall's 70% shops are closed. Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has sealed several of the high profile shops of the Ahmedabad mall for failing to deposit tax. Even elevators and lifts are not working, hence senior citizens have to climb up on stairs, which are dirty. Its passages are dark, as there are no lights there. ISCON mall used to have an excellent food court, a bakery shop. Nothing of it exists now. Do Muk...