Melissa Waggener Zorkin is the Global CEO and Founder of WE Communications. One of the largest independent communications and PR consultancies in the world with more than 1,000 experts in the technology, health, and consumer sectors. She gave a keynote address on 360Respect at Praxis. She spoke about how today’s world of motion has created a new urgency for brand leaders and communicators to adopt a new business model of showing respect. How important 360-degree respect is when it comes to customers, environment, people and finally your self because one to respect its values. We must show that we can deliver exceptional products while creating a positive social impact. According to her, the business imperative is The New Brand Loyalty, and it will take a New Leader rooted in 360-degree respect, for all stakeholders not just shareholders. She made us think about, who is your hero? And that hero’s number one quality? She mentioned how consumers are demanding and how we can use data as a tool to gain insights. She said that when creating a campaign we can’t just make a purpose, it has to be in the DNA of the brand. Customers won’t buy the brand’s products if they are disappointed. She spoke about Miranda’s campaign #Releasethepressure about teenagers facing exam stress from their parents and Dettol’s campaign Swachh Banega Bharat. The consequences that come with purpose are considered to be most valuable. She said that leadership is quality and that’s what we should look for in everyone to invoke change. According to her what we do is the best job on this planet, this is the best time to enter the communications world because one can make a huge difference in the community. Her advice to the audience and her success mantra was to do what you love, do the right thing and be honest about what you don’t know.

The 8th edition of Praxis was held on 27th to the 29th of September in Goa at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Praxis is the platform where all Reputation Management professionals from around the world come together to connect, learn and share. This was my first time attending Praxis and my level of excitement had touched the sky. The first night in Goa the entire organizing team got together putting together the last moment work. I and my nineteen other friends helped the organizing team in packing the welcome kit for the guests, organized and segregated the name badges of the guests attending. At the event group of five were allocated duties like front desk, social media team and content team. I was appointed at the front desk where I and nine other girls had to help guests register and provide them their badges and coupons. I was guided by Gurbani Bhatia, Ameeta Vadhera and Dhyan. They helped us throughout the continuous seventeen hours we spent at the front desk. Even though the job was a little chaotic their guidance helped us work smoothly. I had the best experience working. Praxis turned out to be a successful event with all of us working in unity. End of the first day we had a live performance by The Local Train where even though exhausted, everyone came together, enjoyed their performance, danced and sang together and enjoyed the vibe. Everyone working together created a homely environment, made us feel like we were working with our family. Praxis gave an insight into how team unity works and how everyone together can make anything happen in a short period. Team spirit is an important aspect in one’s professional space and Praxis has helped us understand that. Praxis included working hard but also was filled with laughter and making memories.

Praxis is the platform where all Reputation Management professionals from around the world come together. The 8th edition of Praxis was held in Goa at the Grand Hyatt hotel. This year the theme for Praxis was ‘Building Trust’.The event where all PR professionals wait for, as this place gives the best opportunity to learn, unlearn, reboot and of course, the Masterclasses. My first time attending Praxis and also, visiting Goa and I felt motivated, eager and excited to make the best out of this. Big thanks to my mentor Amit Prabhu who happens to be the co-founder of Praxis. My work at Praxis was at the front desk along with other members of the Valour group, which I was a part of. Our duties were to help around 700 people register for the event due to which I ended up meeting more than 250 PR professionals around the globe. I got to personally introduce myself to many of the CEOs, Corp com heads, and many other practitioners. Probably the best place to connect and exchange cards. The best part about Praxis is that most of the people are humble and welcoming to the newbies. They gave us advice and insights about the corporate world. This has helped boost my confidence level for approaching people. Actor Richa Chadda spoke on ‘The need for a more trusting world’. Patrice Tanaka, Chief Joy Officer -Joyful Planet also shared her story and how important it is to help individuals to live their purpose. Barri Rafferty, CEO of Ketchum gave us insights on a few campaigns. She also said how important it is to use both our left and right brain effectively. Melissa Waggener Zorkin, CEO of We Communications gave us a piece of great advice. She said, “If you believe it then just say it”. We must always be true to ourselves and our values, be honest with what you don’t know.

There are many PR campaigns that have created such a remarkable impact on society. Some of them have left me gobsmacked. According to me, Burger King comes up with some of the best PR campaigns against their rival McDonald’s and one of them was when in France, McDonald’s had put up hoardings that gave the precise directions for the closest Burger King which was a scant 258km away before pointing out how close the nearest McDonalds which was nearly 5km away. At a point like this, how would the opposition, Burger King react we may wonder? This is where creativity comes into play. Burger King is the savage that they are showing the continuation of where the McDonald’s ended their campaign. Burger King shows that the couple takes notes of the hoardings and pulls into the drive-through at their nearest McDonalds, before ordering only a coffee to keep them going for the long journey to Burger King. This has almost two million views and over 100 pieces of international online coverage. Another one that I would love to share is by State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) a campaign called “Fearless Girl” back in 2017 on the 7th of March when a bronze statue of a young girl was placed in front of charging bull a day before international women’s day in New York City. The statue was installed at Bowling Green, at the intersection of Broadway and Whitehall Street. This campaign was created by an advertising agency called McCann New York. The main objective of this campaign was creating and promoting gender diversity. It quotes, “Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference,”. It highlighted that women today can take up leadership and that no dream is too big. This campaign did wonders for brand awareness and sales for the company. Within the first 12 hours, the image had more than 1bn Twitter impressions and the first 12 weeks this figure had reached 4.6bn, and there had been 215,000 Instagram posts. The campaign ranked the most successful one promoting good causes in 2017 by The Good Report advertising website and the campaign grabbed four Grand Prix awards at Cannes. This campaign still gives me goosebumps every time I watch it, truly an outstanding campaign.

Khadi is three in one including fashion, comfort and a green alternative. Khadi can not only be projected as a fashionable item but also can be used in lifestyle essentials like towels, table mats, shampoo, face products, handkerchief, bedsheets, curtains, oil and many more. Talking about brands that use khaldi include:

Gaurav Jai Gupta’s Akaaro: contemporary handwoven textiles with an ethical approach to converting a finished piece of luxury has earned attention on the international fashion industry and has had successful collaborations with Jimmy Choo and Heminstone Paris. The designer’s autumn/winter 2018 offering, titled ‘Irreverence’ showed a unique blend of khadi in a variety of charcoal blacks and natural indigos. Designer Ujjwal Dubey laid the foundations of Antar-Agni, a brand acknowledged for its silhouettes. They collaborated its Raymond collection with Anita Dongre at the Lakmé Fashion Week 2019. Both the brands brought into being ‘Weaving Partnerships for Change’ by working with IMG Reliance and UNDP India which showcased the handspun garments created by women weavers from Assam. THREE clothing by designer Pallavi Dhyani offered the Lakmé Fashion Week winter/festive 2019 runway with trench coats and midi kurtas by giving khadi her spin with a colour palette progressing from greys and whites to deep blues. As India’s second Woolmark Prize-winning designer, Ruchika Sachdeva’s Bodice highlights khadi-panelled cotton shirts, loose trousers, with zero wastage followed through the entire process. The designer will be working for Paris Fashion Week spring/summer 2020 where she will showcase a blend of the handspun fabric and silk. She is recognized for giving traditional textiles a contemporary makeover. Designer Gaurav Khanijo after his debut on the Gen Next runway at Lakmé Fashion Week winter/festive 2016 collaborated with the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) with the help of a gala to celebrate 150 years of Mahatma Gandhi. He is seeking support from handwoven khadi blankets called ‘khes’ and is providing everything from stone-washed denim trousers to shawl jackets. 

Khadi also is known as Khaddar is a handspun, hand-woven, natural fiber cloth that is made out of cotton. The term Khaddar is also used in Bangladesh and Pakistan. The cloth is usually woven from cotton and may also include silk or wool. Mahatma Gandhi started his movement for khadi because he thought of it as a way to increase employment in the non-agricultural sector. Now many A-list Apparel companies have amalgamated with The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) to launch brand new collections using khadi. Many labels are focusing on khadi as a fashion statement for India’s future. From dresses and jackets to bridal lehengas to silhouettes, country’s top labels like Raymond, Anita Dongre, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Peter England, Anavila, Rajesh Pratap Singh and Abraham & Thakore have used the translucent fabric to create trendy fashion wear. Khadi has taken over as a sustainable fashion. According to the designers, nothing can be more luxurious than khadi. They say looking back at their collections they are most proud of the ones involving khadi. Designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee is considered as the pioneer for using khadi for bridal couture and costumes for celebrities like Vidya Balan in Paa and Aishwarya Rai in Raavan. He originally started utilizing khadi back in 2002 and his latest Summer Collection 2019 also hallmarked khadi. The Couturier says that his khadi bridal lehengas are the collection which he is most proud of over the past 20 years. On one of his Instagram posts, He said that most of his customers globally have chosen to wear khadi lehengas for their ‘Big day’ as they create a magnificent and timeless image when put together with Indian jewelry and flowers. 11.11 clothing label is taking khadi from India to Canada, Korea, and Japan. During the Lakmé Fashion Week winter/festive 2019 runway 11.11 turned the natural yarn-dyed khadi in hues of chambray and indigo. Khadi cotton was emphasized with traditional art like bandhani, mud resist prints, kalamkari, and shibori.

Author: Ashwin Sanghi

Published: 31 October 2014

Author Ashwin Sanghi has beautifully explained the rhythm of common people who grab every opportunity that comes their way which initially leads to them being lucky. In this book, the author has changed the perception of people who think that some people are just born bloody lucky by explaining it in the format of a few steps. The author here has given us an insight on how in order to be lucky one must be: be Confident, stay Alert, Unlearn old attitudes, make best out of bad Situations, listen to self Intuition, strengthen Network, understand the power of Goodness, take calculated Risks, stay Informed, stay Positive, seek Passion, Leverage preparations, Experiment new things. He says that successful people understand their abilities and limitations and hence take calculated risks. He has given the background, experiences, approaches of many successful people that have alongside influenced him. Some of them are his father himself, Shah Rukh Khan, Anand Mahindra, Salman Rushdie, Brian Acton, Jan Koum, Warren Buffett, Howard Schultz, Mohandas Gandhi, Sachin Bansal, Harland Sanders and many more. He mentions that lucky people have developed the ability to distinguish between a dip and a cul-de-sac and to escape dead ends while staying focused and motivated. The power of persistence is also a key element for success which was explained with the story of Washington Roebling, who despite being paralyzed completed the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. So if one is persistent, Lady Lucky is left with no alternative but to manifest herself eventually. Good luck is all around us, but we are often unable to recognize it because it could appear in disguise and we are usually not alert to this face. He also explains how successful people also tend to make the best out of bad situations with the help of Narendra Modi’s story when he was mocked as a chaiwala by some of his political opponents. He then marketed his origins during the election campaigns, his team organized meetings at tea stalls and called them Chai Pe Charcha, where Modi would interact with his audience over video conference which turned into a deadly weapon making him the fifteenth Prime Minister of India.  Beethoven composed his best-known masterpieces after he became deaf. The life stories of some of the luckiest people reveal that most of them thrived under conditions of adversity. The author has also explained the ‘Dalai Lama Factor’ which is not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. Communication skills are also important that will help us to change our strategy towards harnessing opportunities. Also, overcoming fear and shyness will help us become more capable of seizing opportunities. Lucky people hang on to ideas and absorb things. They notice things and are always very curious. The author also shares his experience meeting Mr. J.R.D Tata where he says that lucky people are not only nice, polite, humble and considerate but are also intuitively aware of the power of karma. They understand that the greater the positive deeds they put out, the better the chances of their attracting good luck. He also explains how important it is to unlearn old attitudes and approaches to open the key to the gates of luck by talking about how he forgot that he was a businessman to write his first book. The book ends with the author mentioning the fourteenth step for good luck which is: Lucky people are those who can see how lucky they are. He says lucky people not only implement the thirteen steps to attract good luck. They are also able to objectively appreciate what they already have.

The use of Khadi brings in a touch of earthiness in our lifestyle. Khadi can be used on a variety of occasions in our lives, not only for professional wear but also during festive seasons. Over the years khadi has become popular worldwide.

Indian Embassy in Nepal had organised a khadi Fashion Show on 2nd October at the Indian house to mark the culmination of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th Birth Anniversary showcasing the traditional khadi kurtas in a creative way which was also attended by former Ministers, high-level officials, and ambassadors. Uttar Pradesh Khadi Mahotsav 2019 had also organised a fashion show to promote Khadi clothes which were attended by famous fashion designers Ritu Beri, Rina Dhaka, etc. Khadi has also entered the Fashion industry in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Dubai, etc. Bess Nielsen a Danish textile designer from Paris named his store after the name khadi. It has also been used in Blockbuster movies like Star Wars. A fashion house in Jaipur founded by a US-based fashion designer stores a wide range of clothes made of this organic fabric as people around the world has started realizing the medicinal benefits of organic khadi. Sparas an initiative of Sajimon Parayil, an NRI industrialist, actor, and film producer has started its first showroom, ‘Sparas’, at Janatha Junction, Vyttila in Kerala. Their main aim is to promote khadi. In the past five years, the production of the fabric jumped by 62 percent, which is a growth rate of 164 percent.

As Mukherjee said on his Instagram, “As a bridal designer, I keep thinking, ‘What’s next?’, and I keep coming back to khadi. For me, it is the equivalent of wellness, and nothing can be more luxurious than that.” This generation of millennials is conscious and they tend to stand for eco-friendly products. As a result, nothing can be better than khadi.

God’s own country was yet again under distress as an impact of heavy rainfall that came pouring down on the 8th of August, 2019. Malappuram, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Ernakulam, Idukki, Thrissur, Palakkad, Kannur and Kasargod districts were worst affected. Around 125 people died and 17 people went missing in the landslides that occurred in Malappuram and Wayanad, which also wiped out two villages. A team of experts from Hyderabad started their search on the bodies that were buried under the mounds of the earth. They will be using radar technology which is Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to locate the dead bodies. In Malappuram a total of 60 people lost their lives and 11 went missing whereas, in Wayanad 14 people died and five people are missing. Malappuram suffered the maximum number of deaths. Around 1,789 houses have been completely destroyed due to the landslides and more than one lakh people were evacuated and taken to the relief camps. Kochi airport was shut for three days because of water logging. The state government will be offering Rs four lakh to families of the deceased and a compensation of Rs 10,000 for immediate assistance to about three lakh victims. Ten dams were opened due to the rise in water level including – Maniyar dam (Pathanamthitta), Kundala dam (Munnar), Malankara dam (Thodupuzha, Idukki), Peringalkuthu dam (Thrissur), Mangalam dam (Palakkad) and Kanjirapuzha dam (Palakkad), Kakkayam dam (Kozhikode), Kallarkutty dam (Idukki), Pambla dam (Idukki) and Walayar dam. The train services were also disrupted due to flooding and trees falling on rail tracks and around 15 lakh power lines were damaged. More than one lakh volunteers from different organizations have come together to start the process of cleaning the affected areas. Now, since the rains have subsided, people have started returning to their homes from the relief camps. However, it will take some time for the flood-hit areas in the state to completely recover from the destruction caused by the rains.

What does carbon emission mean and why is it harmful? Carbon emission is the release of carbon from natural and human sources into the atmosphere. Natural sources include decomposition, ocean release and respiration whereas, human sources include cement production, deforestation, and burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. These emissions initially lead to global warming which severely affects our climate cycle leading to frequent storms, drought and shortage of rainfall, wildfires, acid rain and also impacts human health. From 1901 to 2010, the global average sea level rose by 19 cm as oceans expanded due to warming and ice melted. Even if we stop the emission of carbon today, global warming will continue for a few more decades.

We know that the climate apocalypse is coming and we must prevent it for the survival of the human race. This is an era where we cannot hope for things to get better on its own, we should rethink what hope means and start preparing ourselves for the upcoming disasters. To save our planet, the first initiate must be taken by the governments including the media and the people aware of the situation globally by educating the mass about the real situation of our planet starting by getting united and planning necessary campaigns and new policies. A video posted by Amir Zakeri on Youtube called ’50 Minutes to Save the World’ has received 3.9 million views in two months. This video had an intense impact and people from around the world contributed to the organization ‘Save The Reef’.

All the companies that produce non-renewable energy have to be banned or else they should start to navigate an alternative in reducing its emissions. Investors also should stop investing in companies that produce fossil fuels. Also, architects need to maximize energy efficiency in the construction process. Every part of society has to participate. The use of public transport must be encouraged. There has to be a major change in our lifestyle including our consumption of food, emphasizing meals containing meat. In the household sector, we can save power by using LED lights, buy gas and electricity from retailers who sell renewable power, putting solar panels on the roof, be a consumer of those companies that support the switch to a low-carbon future. Implementing JFM (Joint Forest Management) which is an endeavor to fulfill the forestry-related needs of the local people. In this program, Forest departments and forest groups join with their active participation that helps to protect and maintain the forests. This is proved to be an effective program. Everything we do now is arguably a hedge against the hotter tomorrow, but the really meaningful thing is that it’s good today. As long as we have something to love, we have something to hope for.