Kasmin Fernandes

World Heart Day 2020 is being celebrated on the penultimate day of National Nutrition Month. What could be more fortuitous? #PoshanMaah stands for a healthy body and strong heart. Gauging the importance of nutrition for the heart is like asking if a fish needs water. The heart's resistance to cardiovascular disease (CVD), high blood...

Corporate social responsibility in education has always taken the lion’s share of the funding. Although there is a bigger focus on health projects due to the COVID-19 pandemic, funding CSR in education is still top priority for Indian companies if we look at the latest sustainability reports and annual declarations. Access to quality education...

Rashtriya Poshan Maah or National Nutrition Month 2020 as the anglicized would call it, is coming to a close next week. Nutrition has acquired more significance than ever, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Apart from exercise and good sleep, a nutritious diet forms the third leg of the immunity tripod. Immunity, of course, is...

In an earlier editorial on the future of CSR funding in post-lockdown India, we had raised doubts over the transparency of the PM CARES Fund. Turns out, The CSR Journal is not alone. Trinamool Congress leader and MP, Mahua Moitra, broke the internet with her intelligent critique on this same Central government scheme in...

September 2020 marks 50 years since Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman told us that “greed is good”. His polarising editorial, 'The Social Responsibility of Business Is To Increase Its Profits,' was published in New York Times Magazine on September 13, 1970 and went on to haunt the markets for decades to come. However, the...

India was on a slow yet steady trajectory towards sustainable development, with NITI Aayog acting as the planning and monitoring body. COVID-19 swept in uninvited and became the biggest obstacle to global and national development. It's a case of two steps forward, one step back. Statistics already showed our lack of preparedness for Zero...

Artificial intelligence in agriculture and allied activities is having its moment in the sun. At a time when the whole world is disrupted by COVID-19 and social distancing is the norm, electronic mandis, for example, could offer an excellent way for transactions between farmers and customers in the post-COVID world. The e-mandi concept has...

Wealth creation by self-employed entrepreneurs is the only way the grassroots economy can fully contribute to the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan. For this to become a reality, the government is looking at the vast untapped potential of industries like pottery and incense-making. This is how women of the vast rural population that Indians living in...

We often come across millionaires and billionaires who eventually go broke. They are usually self-made businessmen carried into oblivion by delusions of grandeur. However, none of them is like Charles 'Chuck' Feeney. He has gone broke on purpose! The generous former billionaire in America has earned himself the moniker “James Bond of Philanthropy” for...

Some things are essential for our existence but are so ubiquitous that we forget about their existence and take them for granted. Like oxygen in the air, the pumping of the heart, or the ozone layer, without which we would cease to exist. World Ozone Day 2020 is a helpful reminder of this precious...

COVID-19 has taken up the lion's share of CSR funding. We were keen to know what the companies adjudged for Best Practices in 2019 have achieved more recently. Tata Chemicals Ltd. was ranked the number one company third year in a row for Sustainability & CSR practice in Responsible Business Ranking 2019, a study...

Do you hate being addicted to your phone but check your feeds anyway? Spending a few minutes browsing through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat feeds is enough to make anyone anxious. The anxiety of social media is the sweet poison that has everyone hooked, from toddlers with phones to self-conscious teens, millennials and the...