MUSCAT: Admitting that the Indian economy growth this year could be slow due to the current global financial crisis, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has averred that there was nothing to worry.
“However, we still hope to achieve a growth rate of seven to seven and a half per cent next year. The fundamentals of the Indian economy are very strong. Our banking system and financial institutions are well capitalized and their depositors are wholly secure,” Dr Singh said speaking at Oman.
“I have constituted a high level committee to monitor the evolving global situation and suggest short-term and long-term measure to use this opportunity to further accelerate our growth,” he told the NRI community at a reception. “I hope that you will continue to display the same confidence in the future and invest in the future of our children and grand children,” Dr Singh said in his major PR drive with NRIs.
There are over 130 companies from India who are currently engaged in Oman. Several Omani companies are engaged in business in India. We will continue to encourage a much greater flow of investment into each other’s countries.
The Prime Minister said; “The Government of India is constantly alive to the welfare of the Non-Resident Indian community. Yesterday, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between India and Oman on Labour Mobility, Protection and Welfare of workers. This important initiative will provide a framework for strengthening cooperation between our two countries in the field of human resource development.”
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Sea water turns sweet in Mumbai!
By bn kumar
Sea water turns sweet! Though irrational, this news about sweet water in the sea spread faster than forest fire and engulfed the entire city of Mumbai.
‘Lord Ganesha is drinking milk!’ went the frenzied rumour. In less than a couple of hours, long queues materialized at milk shops and temples across the country. It took a whole day of scientific explanation to convince spell-bound devotees that there was nothing even remotely ‘divine’ about this phenomenon. Yet, they stubbornly refused to see the truth. ..The story doesn’t end here.
For full story pl check: http://www.conceptpr.com/
Sea water turns sweet! Though irrational, this news about sweet water in the sea spread faster than forest fire and engulfed the entire city of Mumbai.
‘Lord Ganesha is drinking milk!’ went the frenzied rumour. In less than a couple of hours, long queues materialized at milk shops and temples across the country. It took a whole day of scientific explanation to convince spell-bound devotees that there was nothing even remotely ‘divine’ about this phenomenon. Yet, they stubbornly refused to see the truth. ..The story doesn’t end here.
For full story pl check: http://www.conceptpr.com/
Press Release? Don’t dismiss it please
A Press release is an announcement coming from a company or a service organization. While those who issue press releases should keep this in mind, those at the “receiving end” must (yes, must) also look at it in the same way.
Often Press releases serve as a kicker to a major story that can be unfolded in the near future. For instance, if a Press Releases says, a CEO forum has an cautious optimism over the slowing of Indian economy, it gives the journalist an opportunity to b rush up his knowledge bank. The release, with a host names of participants gives enough ideas to media persons to contact them for his or her future stories, participation in industry related stories and features for supplements.
I for one, when I was an active journalist, grab all the releases that would come to my agency, keep important contact numbers in my phone book. Many of my colleagues would often borrow my phone book for contacting people for reactions on major announcements, RBI surveys etc.,
Here are some tips for those who write Press Releases:
• Please remember that a Press Release is what one would like to read in print, in a newspaper.
• It is not meant to be used as an ego massager for your boss or client.
• Sometimes you can be a bit nasty, by showing similar ‘ego massager’ from competition and ask your boss/client if he would like to read the stuff in print! His reaction would be “bull shit”!
• As I have always been telling my clients the size of wastepaper baskets (you may call them dust bins!) is ever increasing. And if your target is those bins, then you may have a field day!
• A Press release should be brief, and to the point. Journalists do not have time to read through your research document, however well written it may be, just you do not have time to read through every news item in its entirety.
• State the most important point first.
• If you have to make an announcement about India winning at NSG, you do not have to begin the release by saying that the nuclear impasse in India began many years ago with the Left parties opposing the deal!
• Nobody would like to read your essay, not even your child!
So, be a reader before you become a writer!
Often Press releases serve as a kicker to a major story that can be unfolded in the near future. For instance, if a Press Releases says, a CEO forum has an cautious optimism over the slowing of Indian economy, it gives the journalist an opportunity to b rush up his knowledge bank. The release, with a host names of participants gives enough ideas to media persons to contact them for his or her future stories, participation in industry related stories and features for supplements.
I for one, when I was an active journalist, grab all the releases that would come to my agency, keep important contact numbers in my phone book. Many of my colleagues would often borrow my phone book for contacting people for reactions on major announcements, RBI surveys etc.,
Here are some tips for those who write Press Releases:
• Please remember that a Press Release is what one would like to read in print, in a newspaper.
• It is not meant to be used as an ego massager for your boss or client.
• Sometimes you can be a bit nasty, by showing similar ‘ego massager’ from competition and ask your boss/client if he would like to read the stuff in print! His reaction would be “bull shit”!
• As I have always been telling my clients the size of wastepaper baskets (you may call them dust bins!) is ever increasing. And if your target is those bins, then you may have a field day!
• A Press release should be brief, and to the point. Journalists do not have time to read through your research document, however well written it may be, just you do not have time to read through every news item in its entirety.
• State the most important point first.
• If you have to make an announcement about India winning at NSG, you do not have to begin the release by saying that the nuclear impasse in India began many years ago with the Left parties opposing the deal!
• Nobody would like to read your essay, not even your child!
So, be a reader before you become a writer!
Who needs PR?
Who needs PR? Or put it differently, “Why do I need PR?” These questions are often raised in corporate circles.
From Presidents to president aspirants, from corporate honchos to cops, from publishers to reporters there is no one that doesn’t need PR. Definitions could be dime a dozen, but put it plainly PR is nothing but relationship building and maintaining it. It is planned. It is deliberate and it has to be sustained.
With apologies to Shakespeare let me say that a friend is a friend is a friend! Can any one be a friend of yours for a limited time? If it is so, that relationship is nothing but an arrangement. Similarly, PR can just not be a business of arrangement or a marriage of convenience.
Some may like to dismiss PR is a functionality of HR which is also a relationship business. The result: neglect PR as one ignores HR.
I worked with many corporate houses including some top notch ones. And my experience is that HR people do not get the importance that they deserve. They are looked down upon as people with bureaucratic tendencies and sticklers to the rule book. I know of an HR lady of a PR agency who ultimately ended up a consultant to a housekeeping firm! Not that I have any disrespect for housekeeping people.
Every one needs them to keep the house spick-and-span.
If you have scant respect for your HR, how can you expect yourself to treat PR as something great?
When you need PR, you need people specialized in it – the business of building maintaining relationships. Not certainly those who start PR firms as a pastime or because they have nothing better to do.
These may sound like random thoughts, but thoughts certainly they are! Aren’t they?
So, next time if any one asks “who needs PR” as him or her: who doesn’t?
From Presidents to president aspirants, from corporate honchos to cops, from publishers to reporters there is no one that doesn’t need PR. Definitions could be dime a dozen, but put it plainly PR is nothing but relationship building and maintaining it. It is planned. It is deliberate and it has to be sustained.
With apologies to Shakespeare let me say that a friend is a friend is a friend! Can any one be a friend of yours for a limited time? If it is so, that relationship is nothing but an arrangement. Similarly, PR can just not be a business of arrangement or a marriage of convenience.
Some may like to dismiss PR is a functionality of HR which is also a relationship business. The result: neglect PR as one ignores HR.
I worked with many corporate houses including some top notch ones. And my experience is that HR people do not get the importance that they deserve. They are looked down upon as people with bureaucratic tendencies and sticklers to the rule book. I know of an HR lady of a PR agency who ultimately ended up a consultant to a housekeeping firm! Not that I have any disrespect for housekeeping people.
Every one needs them to keep the house spick-and-span.
If you have scant respect for your HR, how can you expect yourself to treat PR as something great?
When you need PR, you need people specialized in it – the business of building maintaining relationships. Not certainly those who start PR firms as a pastime or because they have nothing better to do.
These may sound like random thoughts, but thoughts certainly they are! Aren’t they?
So, next time if any one asks “who needs PR” as him or her: who doesn’t?
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