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NATCO Pharma & Thejo Engineering Win Moneylife Foundation's
1st Corporate Governance Awards |
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| Dear Moneylifers, |
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| Wish you all a very happy, healthy and safe New Year. Even as Omicron is threatening to shut us down again, we started the year with a bang! Hyderabad based Natco Pharma Ltd and Chennai based Thejo Engineering Ltd were the winner and runner-up respectively from among five superlative finalists who are each shining examples of good governance. Mr M Damodaran, former SEBI chairman announced the awards and also share wonderful insights on what constitutes good governance and the many areas that need improvement. |
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| I would strongly urge you to watch the event if you missed it, and interviews with each of the finalists, conducted by Debashis Basu and R Balakrishnan. And don't forget, this is just the beginning. If you know of amazing companies that deserve recognition do email us at [email protected] with one paragraph on why you think the company deserves to be considered for the award. |
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| Let me tell you a little bit about the rigorous process that we adopted – at the urging of our trustees Mr T S Krishnamurthy (former chief election commissioner) and Mr Walter Viera (marketing expert) to create, what we think is a solid evaluation process. The public nominations were put through a rigorous screening template followed by multiple rounds of deliberations by the jury, which narrowed the list of nominees to five finalists: KPR Mills, Laurus Labs, Natco Pharma, Suven Pharma and Thejo Engineering. These were then screened through the watchoutinvestors.com database to finally arrive at the final choices. You can read more about the award selection process and also about the five finalists here. |
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 Mr Damodaran delivered an excellent keynote address at the awards ceremony, which saw an attendance of over 150 people on Zoom, while 500 watched it live on YouTube. His suggestion that we have an award for the best and most informative annual reports of companies in the future, is of great interest to us and we intend to follow it up. Those of you who missed the programme can watch a video recording of the session here and also read more about it here. |
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| I am also urging you to make an effort to spread the word about what we do and encourage people to become members and watch our videos. Over the coming months, we will be announcing more programmes with eminent individuals, so do keep an eye out for them. We also look forward to your suggestions on webinars and would be happy to conduct a programme on an interesting topic of your suggestion. |
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| The Fab Five |
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 KPR Mill, started by three brothers from an agricultural family understand and empathise with the thirst for education and a better life. They run a very large, continuing educational programme for their employees especially women. More than 27,000 employees have benefitted from it. What is unique is that 200 of their own employees have been placed in the IT industry – a unique programme. It has also separately set up classes to coach students for the UPSC examinations. |
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 The mantra of Dr Satyanarana Chava of Laurus Labs, a first generation entrepreneur is 'winners never cheat, even in difficult times', the title of a book by billionaire businessmen Jon Huntsman of high integrity. His investors are convinced he lives by this dictum. |
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 Natco Pharma is of course famous for bringing in low cost medicines through patent challenges. We have also come across several heart-warming stories about the founder, including how he paid salaries to all employees by selling his own land holdings when the company was passing through difficult times. |
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 Suven Pharma has always taken the difficult road of innovation, which can never succeed unless the business is run with impeccable integrity and honesty every single day. Both Suven and Natco have been frank in communicating to investors that revenues will remain uneven, given their unique business models. |
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 Thejo Engineering, though listed in the SME segment of BSE, has set an extremely high standard, which emphasises transparency, accountability and integrity in all its business dealings, even at the cost of losing business. |
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 We have completed our report on Rental Housing in India and have sent it along to HDFC Ltd and also to the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs. The report attempts to cover the present status of rental housing in India, rules and regulations governing it and the stumbling blocks that prevent it from being a viable alternative form of housing for Indians. We hope we will see some action on it in the forthcoming budget. The report will be put in the public domain later this month. |
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| Join Moneylife Foundation |
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| Do encourage your network to learn and benefit from Moneylife Foundation's free Membership and our helplines by sharing this message. |
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| I also want to draw your attention to our 'how to..' series on a range of issues such as – succession (How To Handle Inheritance Issues on the Death of a Parent/ Spouse?), filing consumer complaints for online shopping (Cheated while shopping online? Here's How To Get Your Money Back), obtaining a legal heir certificate (How to obtain a legal heir certificate?) or registering a complaint with your bank (How To Register a Complaint against Your Bank with the Banking Ombudsman) etc. |
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| Do watch our series of financial literacy videos, to keep your savings safe and learn how to save for the future. |
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| Counseling on Helplines & Zoom Meetings |
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| Our counseling sessions on various issues remain online (Legal & Credit Helplines) until full normalcy is restored, we also have Zoom counseling meetings for members when necessary. If you have a query on housing society, insurance, banking, credit or any other issue, please do become a member of Moneylife Foundation and take advantage of the knowledge imparted by our experts who guide through our helplines. |
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| Forthcoming Webinars: |
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| Register and become a member of Moneylife Foundation, to be added on to our mailing lists, so that you are notified when we announce new webinars and also receive information about our activities and initiatives. Also, allow me to also remind you that you can always catch up on our past financial literacy programmes on our YouTube channel as well. As always, we look forward to your active feedback on issues that you would like us to discuss, and we will do our best to make it happen. Please do write to us at [email protected] |
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| Programmes in December |
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 This month we had the pleasure of hosting former Chief Information Commissioner, Shri Satyananda Mishra for our 7th 'Conversations on RTI with Shailesh Gandhi' session. This time the conversation revolved on the evolution and impact of the RTI Act since its enactment and whether transparency has flourished under RTI. You can read more about this session here and also watch a video recording on our YouTube channel here. |
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 We also has the pleasure of having Dr Pratap Bhanu Mehta for our 4th Annual RTI lecutre, where he spoke on The Collapse of Civil Society – Reflections on Democracy and the Public Sphere. The lecture was followed by a spirited discussion with social activist Nikhil Dey and Prof Ritu Dewan, who shared their thoughts on the topic. While we are uploading the transcript of the lecture to our website soon, do watch the video on our YouTube channel and read about it here. |
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| Moneylife TV & Helplines |
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| With the outbreak of Covid, our physical events and daily clinics for this month continue to remain suspended for the safety and benefit of all those involved. However, in this lockdown period you can still take advantage of our numerous videos of past seminars and workshops which are always available on our YouTube Channel – Moneylife TV and Moneylife News Bites. |
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| Although counselling on various issues from our experts is not possible in-person, you are welcome to email on [email protected] with your details. We shall forward your mail to the expert for guidance and do our best to get your query resolved. |
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| You also have the option of posting your query on either our Legal Helpline or Credit Helpline. |
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| Also, Moneylife Foundation is now on Telegram and Instagram, so do follow us on these channels to stay updated on our activities and events. |
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| Best regards, |
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| Sucheta Dalal |
| Founder-Trustee, Moneylife Foundation |
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| Trustees: TS Krishnamurthy, Walter Vieira, Sucheta Dalal, Debashis Basu. | | | | Moneylife Foundation is registered with the Charity Commissioner of Mumbai, is an Affiliate member of OECD's International Network on Financial Education, is a Supporter Member of Consumers International, Development Partner of Advocates for International Development (A4ID), and is a winner of the 10th MR Pai Memorial Award. | | |  | | | | Donations are eligible for tax benefits under Sec 80G of the Income Tax 1961 (50% tax exemption) and MLF is registered under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010. 80(G) Reg No: DIT(E)/MC/80G/685/2010-11 dated 7.2.11 effective 8.+9.2010 | FCRA Registration No: 08378138  | | | |
