Business

Threats of consumer backlash and criticism from unions and the media have sensitised many Western companies to pay greater attention to how their Bangladesh suppliers operate. But that's only a starting point, as many have been aseerting. So, what next? This subject has been explored by Motoko Aizawa and Salil Tripathi of the Institute of Human Rights and Business (IHRB) in a paper titled 'Beyond Rana Plaza: Next steps for the global garment industry and Bangladeshi manufacturers' in Business...

Senior journalist Salil Tripathi has long-standing experience in advancing the business and human rights agenda. As a researcher at Amnesty International (1999-2005) he participated in negotiations that created the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme and represented Amnesty in the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights process from its inception until 2008. Tripathi is a contributing editor at Mint and Caravan, and was formerly a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review...

The pomp and glitz surrounding the launch of Reliance Jio's 4G services on Monday was all-pervading. It would have one believe that the company, part of the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) conglomerate, had done something revolutionary. But then, it hadn't. Neither had it introduced a new technology, and nor launched an innovation. It had only annnounced the rollout of its 4G telecom services, something that rival Bharti Airtel had done way back in February 2014. The promotional blitzkrieg...

The media blitz surrounding Reliance Jio's launch of 4G services (albeit for its employees, as of now) has been as overwhelming as the launch event itself had been a spectacle. But the real story is hardly about the rollout of a broadband service as it is about being a personal milestone for Mukesh Ambani, the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). For more than ten years Ambani had been biding his time—to get into the telecom space. When the undivided RIL had...

On Wednesday last, many news establishments diligently reproduced a press release announcing Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) as the first Indian company to partner with the Global Goals Campaign that aims to reach seven billion people in seven days with news of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Among other things, this campaign seeks to tackle climate change for everyone by 2030. What went unnoticed, however, was that this news came just a few days after RIL figured miserably in...

For a business to keep operating legally, the process is not as easy as it may sound. Businesses must comply with a number of requirements regarding the company’s transactions, labour practices, safety procedures and of course environmental obligations. Compliance regulations can be internal or external, with environmental compliance being of the latter kind. What is unfortunately true in India is that most businesses, especially smaller ones, don't have the faintest clue about what actually...

Hectic parleys are currently on to end the impasse over the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill that is hanging fire in the Rajya Sabha. The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Second Amendment) Bill, 2014 that was introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 19, 2014 by Union Minister of Finance Arun Jaitley, has already been passed by the Lower House of Parliament, and is currently being deliberated by a Select Committee of the Upper House. Exact dates are still uncertain, and it is still early to...

It's more than six months away, but the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP21 or CMP11, which will be held from November 30 to December 11 this year, remains in the news. But, it's all about businesses and governments, and murky deals in the background. It's rather ironic that with climate change itself remaining in the news for one reason or the other, the role / contribution of the individual in the entire process remains underplayed – the individual is left out in the cold. The role...

The more it becomes obvious that the state of the environment is a cause for concern, the more one hears of buzzwords in business circles. One of these that has been gaining currency over the last few years is “natural capital” – one that safely assumes that nature is capital. To say that the concept has been getting wider acceptance of late does not mean that the concept itself is new. The broader concept is that of ecosystem services (ESS, in parlance of environmental economics), one that...

The talk about sustainability has been on for a while. And the responsibility, to a considerable extent, of moving towards a sustainable world lies with businesses. But are corporations ready for the cleansing act? Are they willing to change themselves so that the world too changes in the bargain? On the face of it, apparently many industry leaders are rising to the sustainability challenge. At least, they assert so. Corporate leaders now are definitely more persuaded of the value of...