Samhita

Category: Samhita in the News

  • Mahindra Logistics joins the India Workers’ Alliance

    Mahindra Logistics joins the India Workers’ Alliance

    Samhita Social Ventures welcomes Mahindra Logistics Ltd. as a pillar of the India Workers Alliance to provide immediate relief to its driver community by transferring Rs 3,000 to their bank accounts to enable them to buy essential commodities.

    Born out of the Samhita Model, the India Workers Alliance propogates a collective CSR fund for economic support and recovery of India’s workers. Through instant digital cash transfers the Alliance is providing immediate relief and at the same time building resilience of workers to ensure an easier segue into normalcy post the pandemic. The Alliance ensures quick funding to replace lost incomes to take care of basic necessities, facilitates access to government social schemes, micro loans and health insurance products.

    These aid solutions are recommended by senior experts like Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee and Dr. Nachiket Mor to reach aid to the COVID-19 affected – the ones dispossessed and at risk.

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  • Clean energy taps limited CSR funding, report says – Live Mint

    Clean energy taps limited CSR funding, report says – Live Mint

    “Companies may not be implementing CSR in clean energy because of various reasons. Many companies perceive energy access interventions to be highly technical. This could’ve discouraged some companies that did not have capacities and capabilities to implement such projects. Companies also find it difficult to source qualified and technically competent implementation partners in geographic areas of interest” – Priya Naik, Founder & CEO, Samhita Social Ventures.

    This article features Samhita’s clean energy report, created in association with Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation and International Finance Corporation. The report is titled ‘Energising Development – CSR in Clean Energy: What are India’s top companies up to?’.

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  • Tech underpins a new wave of Indian corporate social responsibility

    Tech underpins a new wave of Indian corporate social responsibility

    “There is something magical about the convergence with people halfway around the world. The issues you are dealing with in South Africa are so similar to the ones we are going through in India.” So says Priya Naik, founder and CEO of Samhita Social Ventures in India, addressing delegates at the Trialogue Business in Society Conference in Johannesburg today.

    IT News Africa reports on Priya Naik’s keynote speech at Trialogue 2018

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  • Impact Assessment Needs To Move Away From ‘Output’ To ‘Outcome’

    As companies’ CSR and sustainability strategies are growing more sophisticated, they are demanding better measurement and evaluation of the impact of their investments.

    Priya Naik talks with Nidhi Bennur at Creatively Unsettled on the need for Impact Assessment among social enterprises

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  • These social enterprises have been helping corporates with CSR, long before it became law

    These social enterprises have been helping corporates with CSR, long before it became law

    Priya Naik’s mission is clear. “India has a vibrant social sector and there are complexities associated with the nation too,” she says. “We want multiple stakeholders to come together, collaborate and create value using their core competence.”

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  • Financial Inclusion – Key to Economic & Social Development

    Financial Inclusion – Key to Economic & Social Development

    Priya Naik, Founder and Managing Director of Samhita Social Ventures emphasizes on financial inclusion as the key to economic and social development in an article in CSR Mandate.

    In India RBI describes financial inclusion as the process of ensuring access to appropriate financial products and services needed by vulnerable groups such as weaker sections and low-income groups at an affordable in a fair and transparent manner by mainstream institutional players. 

    Financial inclusion is a fundamental cornerstone of economic and social development. The mandatory CSR spending, as stipulated by the Companies Bill 2012, can help foster partnerships and help achieve a joint approach to promoting financial inclusion in a way that is mutually beneficial to all stakeholders.  In order to realize the goal of universal financial inclusion, each stakeholder has to play its part and more importantly, collaborate with each other to harness the benefits and synergies of shared efforts.

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  • Wondering About Corporate Spend? Here Are Three Sectors CSR Should Focus On

    Wondering About Corporate Spend? Here Are Three Sectors CSR Should Focus On

    The Better India featured Samhita’s report on CSR in Clean Energy. ‘Energising Development – CSR in Clean Energy: What are India’s top companies up to?’ was created in association with Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation and International Finance Corporation.

    “By comparison, almost 90% of the companies have a CSR program in education, sanitation or skills and livelihoods. It’s not as if these issues aren’t important, but that energy access plays a critical role in addressing better health, livelihood or education outcomes. It’s all about inculcating an integrated approach towards achieving social change.”

    “By comparison, almost 90% of the companies have a CSR program in education, sanitation or skills and livelihoods. It’s not as if these issues aren’t important, but that energy access plays a critical role in addressing better health, livelihood or education outcomes. It’s all about inculcating an integrated approach towards achieving social change.”

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  • With longer shifts, fewer workers can run factory operations; infection risks will be lower: HUL

    With longer shifts, fewer workers can run factory operations; infection risks will be lower: HUL

    FMCG major Hindustan Unilever CMD Sanjiv Mehta on Monday supported states for increasing shift times in factories to 12 hours a day, saying the move will help in restricting the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    He also added that aspects like social security and sufficient rest to the factory workers are essential.

    Taking cue from Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, a slew of states have announced temporary changes in factory laws to allow for longer shift times with mandatory higher wages, but the same have come under some criticism from workers” unions.

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  • Govt, business, civil society must implement direct cash transfers to avoid ‘society-wide poverty trap’, says Noble Laureate Esther Duflo

    Govt, business, civil society must implement direct cash transfers to avoid ‘society-wide poverty trap’, says Noble Laureate Esther Duflo

    Esther Duflo, 2019 Nobel laureate, on Monday said that it is essential for government, business, and NGO stakeholders to focus on cash transfers to economically vulnerable populations to avoid entering into a ‘society-wide poverty trap” in India. Duflo said “this is something business should be keenly interested in and very much behind it, not just because it’s the right thing to do morally, but also because I think it is the most responsible thing to do economically…self-interested business should be very much lobbying for this cash transfer.”

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  • REVIVE Launch Announcement

    REVIVE Launch Announcement

    In a bid to restore livelihoods lost during the COVID-19 crisis, Samhita-Collective Good Foundation (CGF), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Michael & Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF) and Omidyar Network India have collaborated to launch a $6.85 million blended finance facility called REVIVE.

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