Tata Capital scripts a happy ending with its #Half Stories campaign

 18th December 2013    Good and Bad PR 

Tata Capital scripts a happy ending with its #Half Stories campaign

Here’s a lovely bit of good cheer just in time for Christmas. Tata Capital launched the next phase of its ‘Do right’ initiative in partnership with global NGO, United Way of Mumbai. Under this campaign Tata Capital identified “Half Stories” of extraordinary courage and survival from all parts of India and helps bridge the gap and script a happy ending using the power of social media.

The campaign firstly helped the Gaddi community from Dharamshala:

The campaign has now turned its attention to the Himalayan Buddhist Culture School in Batahar Bihal near Manali., which is 10,000 feet above the sea level. The school was short of ten heaters which were essential for the young children to carry on studying through the bitter winter. In just one day by using social media, Tata Capital was able to raise enough money for the ten heaters.

Watch their happy ending here:

A campaign that actually raises money for concrete issues and situations. With the CSR bill now making social development mandatory for large companies, hopefully there will be many more genuine campaigns that emerge. Great PR will end up being a welcome by-product.

Bad PR

Senior IPS officer makes an astonishingly racist comment about Northeast Indians, Nigerians

I could scarcely believe my eyes when I read this story. As per Deccan Herald, while speaking at a function 'Information Security Awareness’ organised by the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI), Roopa D, Superintendent of Police, CID (Cyber Crime), complained that banks do not properly verify the address and antecedents of a person before allowing him/her to open an account.

Now here comes the statement. Roopa D went on to highlight her views on race in an open forum saying that, "Sometimes such (bank) accounts are traced to the Northeast and our inspectors, with great difficulty, go to the Northeast… Manipur and Nagaland. First of all, it’s so difficult to go there, and there everybody looks alike.”

Not content with insulting her fellow Indians, the police officer then decided to go international with her observations. She also said that Nigerians were "look-alikes” who buy fake bank accounts in India.

As per Deccan Herald Roopa said that even if such Nigerian nationals who operate the "fake” accounts were traced, Roopa claimed, police would not be able to take any action." There is a Nigerian Colony in Delhi and one in Haryana. In Bangalore, there is one in Kammanahalli. There everybody looks alike (sic)… in Delhi even if our inspectors go, they don’t get much cooperation and it is very unfortunate. But you know they are 'hatta katta’ (burly). Inspectors are no much. It is a sad state of affairs but it is a reality,” Roopa added.

So not only do people look alike, but apparently some of them are much too burly to take on for our inspectors!

This is not the first time senior police officers have shot their mouth of in public. In mid-November, CBI Director Ranjit Sinha’s deeply offensive remark likening legalising betting in India to rape landed the country’s top sleuth in trouble.

The police service in India is in urgent need of some sensitivity training and lessons in PR and the art of public speaking.

BJP demands arrest of homosexual partners of US diplomats

This one is called shooting yourself in the foot, just in time for the general elections! I thought the silly season for news in India was the hot summer months – but the foggy climes of Delhi seem to have affected the brains of some of our “dear leaders”. After a stunning electoral victory in the state elections, the BJP has annoyed people with its stand on homosexuality after the Supreme Court reversed a 2009 High Court order to decriminalize sex between consenting adults of the same gender.

First the party President Rajnath Singh said that gay sex was unnatural – now senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha says that in retaliation of the “arrest and alleged mistreatment of diplomat Devyani Khobragade in the US, India should reciprocate by arresting the same sex companions of American diplomats “after the Supreme Court ruling. After this statement #Yashwant Sinha was trending on Twitter earlier this week.

Just when BJP had managed to position itself as a progressive party, this statement has revealed its roots as a deeply conservative and insular centre right party. If this is a demonstration of its foreign policy, it’s only going to get miles of bad press.

Have you seen any great or bad PR?

Write to Paarul Chand at paarul@prmoment.in or tweet @PaarulC or @PRmomentIndia throughout the week and we’ll happily credit you for your trouble.