 We do have Dr. Sanjay Bharu here with us who chaired the jury and the evening that you will see here tonight is a culmination of a lot of hard work, sweat, blood and grime for the past I think five months. The team at Exchange for Media has been working relentlessly to put this together and put up this show for you. And I would like you to join me in my co-passenger's seat to see where we have come from and finally culminated into this evening. Could we have the introduction, A.B. please? Eighth edition of the E4M India PR and Corporate Communications Awards. The most extensive and exhaustive awards to recognize the contribution and success of the communications fraternity. With four categories and 25 subcategories, E4M IPR CCA is a path breaking initiative to salute and recognize the contribution within the PR and corporate communication domain. The judging process involved two levels. First, a pre-jury round in which every jury member went through a certain set of categories and shortlisted the top five entries based on the selection criteria. Second, the physical jury meet. Here all the shortlisted entries were presented to the entire jury board and winners were chosen after careful discussions. The shortlisted agency representatives were given an opportunity to meet the jury board one-on-one and impress upon them. A chance to present their case in their own words in the category best use of PR by a brand. And now, ladies and gentlemen presenting the jury of the eighth edition of the E4M IPR CCA. The jury was led by Dr. Sanjay Abaru, Secretary General, Fikki and it consisted of some of the biggest names in the community, people who are respected and have in-depth knowledge of the industry. Corporate communications, public relations, advertising, these are fields that over the years have attracted some very good talent in India. India has been a vibrant industry in each of these areas. And we have some extremely creative offers from India which have made an impact internationally. This year I find that a lot of the ideas are actually riding on other existing social waves. For example, we have had demonetization. For example, we have wave of women's empowerment issues. These wider social issues seem to be providing the ground on which a lot of the ideas are now actually riding. I would like to see the field of corporate communications, the field of public relations, the field of advertising, create waves for the new India. What are the new ideas that we can generate that the rest of the world can learn from? I think that's one issue that comes up looking at many of the entries this year. On the other hand, I must say that there are still very talented professionals coming in. This is a field that continues to attract bright young people. So I believe it's a promising field, but I would challenge you to think more creatively, not just write other people's waves or waves created by other social, political and economic phenomenon, but see if you can create your own wave. E4M India PR and Corporate Communications Awards and the Jury Board congratulates all the winners. I like that tweet right there, Beauty and the Beast. Amit Prabhu, thanks. And we do have the jury chair amidst us here. We will hear his point of view request, Dr. Sanjay Bharu, to please come up to the podium. He's an accomplished author. He shared that, you know, non-fiction normally takes just about 10,000 copies to become a bestseller and his book within six months, I think, crossed over, what was that, one lakh copies sold in six months? 90,000 copies sold. Yeah, that's quite amazing. Of course, he's had a very robust journey. He's been the advisor to the prime minister. Now, of course, Secretary-General Vicky, Dr. Bharu, thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're a busy man, but you've come here tonight and also through the jury. We would want to know how your experience was, what were the kind of campaigns that you saw, what is the benchmark that you would like to set for the communication fraternity? Thank you, Suparna. When Suparna invited me to be chair of the jury, I was unemployed, sitting at home and beginning work on another book. And so I thought, okay, I can do this. And then within a few days after I said yes to her, I landed a job which now keeps me on my toes, traveling all the time, sitting through meetings all the time. So I'm afraid I have not had the kind of time both for the jury and this evening that I would have liked to. This is my second round with Exchange for Media. I was a member of the jury a few years back and I was delighted to be chair. First of all, let me compliment members of the jury. Over time, I spent, as you saw from the visuals here, I was truly impressed by the amount of energy, effort, dedication they brought to the judgment process. I was more of an umpire, but they were all professionals, or they are all professionals. And I was truly impressed by the knowledge of the business, by the amount of time they were willing to spend looking at different entries. And so I must begin by complimenting members of my jury. And therefore I should say that whatever has been decided was based on a very professional in my judgment, a very professional analysis of the entries. The second thing I'd like to say, which is what I said in that brief clip, is that this year for example, we had a lot of entries coming from, I just mentioned this as an example, PATM, which was a great success story this year. And I took the view that we had to distinguish between success based on your professional contribution and success based on what I call riding the wave. The wave was created by Narendra Modi without demonetization, could PR alone have delivered the results, demonetization created a tremendous opportunity. The second example is that we saw a lot of entries in which the focus was on women's empowerment or a portrayal of women in a manner that was gender sensitive. But again, that is a wave in the last couple of years, we have had a new social phenomenon in which there is increasing assertion of gender rights and increasing sensitivity to gender rights. So, these are what I call social trends that PR agencies, advertising agencies are riding. The question I have for all of you and for the business as a whole is, when was the last time we created a wave? That is an idea that in itself became revolutionary and made an impact. I remember a couple of decades back, the use of very Indian narratives in advertising, for example, the NIRMA campaign, these were completely new ideas coming into the field of advertising. Till then, the business of advertising PR was very much of a boxwala kind of culture, you know, the South Bombay, South Delhi, South Calcutta kind of class, but we were able to make an impact globally by indigenizing the business in a way that had not been tried earlier. So, there are ways in which you can be creative where you make an impact that not just rides on a wave, but in fact creates a wave. And I think that is what unfortunately is missing. I don't know if it's because of internet and the new media that we are constantly exposed to ideas from around. I don't know if it's because we have more foreign players in the Indian market and we borrow ideas from abroad. I don't know what is the reason, but the Indianness to our campaigns is missing. And so what I would urge is go back to the drawing board, create a campaign or a strategy that is able to show how it is rooted in the culture of this country and others will learn from it. One of the things that the foreign companies have learned from the Indian media is the use of Hindi in the campaigns, right? The lot of products now which are marketed, a lot of campaigns which actually use Indian language with English alphabets, that's become a trend. But when it first started, it was something new and it was in a sense being forced on those who are entering the Indian market from outside that this country is different. I don't know if you guys follow the Twitter and the Facebooker debate in the last couple of days on this stupid moronic New York Times article about the saree. I don't know how many of you have read it. New York Times did this stupid article on the saree saying, oh, Indian nationalism is resulting in more Indian women wearing the saree. The Indians are becoming nationalistic. Hello. I mean, it's completely ignorant of the Indian reality. The Indian reality is that the saree has not yielded space. A lot of young people including in this room do wear western clothes, but at the end of the day, handlooms have reasserted themselves. The saree has reasserted itself. There is an Indian-ness to India which is not there, which is not there in China. Another modernizing Asian nation, another civilizational nation, they talk about 5,000 years of history, and yet if you look at Chinese campaigns, if you look at Chinese metaphors, they are all borrowed western metaphors. In fact, their dress is borrowed. You have the Chinese Prime Minister wearing a black suit while an Indian Prime Minister starts a new trend with his colorful half-coats. That is the strength of this country. I remember years ago when I was in Japan, a Japanese industrialist saying to me, you know, what we like about India is it's different. We cannot use in India the same strategies that we use elsewhere in Asia because you guys are rooted in your culture. And therefore, I think for the PR business, for the communication business, tapping back into that culture and creating new ideas that are then internationally relevant or can create international brands is the challenge for you. How do you do the two things? The person, you know, my friend from exchange for media came before me and said this was a great year for PR. I'm not sure. We had the Tata Fiasco, we had the Infosys Fiasco, two of our icons in India. The reputation of Ratan Tata and Narayan Murthy has taken a beating. Is this a year in which PR has done its job or not? A lot of Indian companies, Vijay Malia, GMR, think of the number of companies that are being questioned. Today Indian business is on the defensive. Let me tell you, I'm now the Secretary General of FICI and I can tell you a sense within my membership. Indian business is on the defensive. Questions are being asked about blackmail come, about, you know, siphoning of funds. You saw the Indian Express campaign, Paradise Papers, Panama Papers. How many big Indian companies have figured that? There is a sense that Indian business is not, you know, clean. This, you know, so is that a failure of business? Is that a failure of PR? Is that inability of companies to communicate correctly what is the real story? Is it that all of them are black sheep or is it that some people are tarnishing the reputation of others? In which case is it possible for us to change the image of Indian business? This is a challenge. In fact, for me it's a personal challenge. How do I change the image of Indian business today as the head of a business chamber? And what role can PR play in that campaign? Because if you do not do that, then the enormous gains of liberalization, don't forget in 1992, six months after Narasimha Rao de-licensed, decontrolled, opened up the Indian economy, he gave the first and regrettably the last Bharat Ratna to JRD Tata in January 1992. Till then, no businessman was given the Bharat Ratna. And the reason Narasimha Rao gave JRD Tata the Bharat Ratna was to make the point that businessmen are nation builders, that the companies you work for, the companies you serve, the brands you promote, that these are India's pride, that we must empower Indian business, that we must go around the world building brand India, the India brand equity foundation was created after that, after 1992. So there was a wave of strengthening Indian brand. What has happened to that wave? What has happened to Indian brands? When your top most brands are battling for reputation, where are we? So there is a crisis. And really my message to the profession is, let's not fool ourselves. Of course there are a lot of good professionals and we are recognizing their good work. It doesn't mean that there is no good work going on. But there is a difference between doing your job and making change. A lot of what we recognize is good work done. But how much of it is changing the political narrative? How much of it is changing the image of Indian business? After all, all of you serve Indian business. How effective have you been in making ordinary people believe that the Malia is an aberration, that all Indian businessmen are not thieves? I think that is a challenge for PR. And if you grapple with that challenge, then you will make enormous difference to Indian economy and Indian business. Thank you. Can you hear me now? Can you make some noise? Request Rohit to please come up on stage and offer a token of appreciation to Dr. Baru. Of course you said that he's been your mentor and I also got to know a little bit of secrets about you from Dr. Baru. Thank you so much both Mr. Bansal and Dr. Baru for taking the time for being here with a loud round of applause please.