S Sivakumar to take charge as Chairman, Executive Committee (CEC) at leading media conglomerate Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd. , BCCL. Raj Jain will be concluding his tenure with the media group on March 31, 2020 after a tenure of five years.
Sivakumar will take charge on April 1. In the new role all functions of the company will report to Sivakumar as CEC. In addition, the RMD team will relate with Mohit Jain who in turn will relate with Sivakumar.
According to an office advice, both Sivakumar and Jain will join the Board of BCCL as Executive Directors.
After a number of questions were raised on the safety and efficacy of handling newspapers due to Covid-19 outbreak, BCCL CEO Raj Jain put out a statement on Tuesday:
“Let’s not go by rumour mills and fear mongers. The newspaper delivered to your home is safe. And this fact is endorsed by several reputable authorities.
WHO, perhaps the organisation in the best position to comment on the matter has stated that couriers or packages delivered to homes (and that would include newspapers) carry a very low risk of infection even if they come from an infected zone!
“It is safe to receive a package even from an area where COVID – 19 has been reported.” In their release, they’ve further state that “The likelihood of an infected person contaminating commercial goods is low and the risk of catching the virus that causes COVID-19 from a package that has been moved, travelled, and exposed to different conditions and temperature is also low.”
Eminent doctors and leading virologists of India have stated categorically that newspapers delivered to your home are safe.
The government itself which has put the country in a lockdown have maintained that newspapers are an essential service and plays a positive role in disseminating authentic information and updates on the epidemic.
Despite the assurances from medical and other authorities certifying the newspaper delivered to homes as safe, we as the publishers continue to take extraordinary precautions to avoid infection under any circumstances.
Our plants are fully automated so the risk of infection is zero. The transportation and handling right up to the depot is done in fumigated trucks by masked and gloved handlers.
The vendor community is acutely aware of the dangers of infection not only to themselves but to the readers they cater to. With the help of the publishing community, they are taking extraordinary precautions themselves. They are turning back any delivery boy who has any symptoms like cold, cough or fever. They are using sanitizers liberally as also gloves and masks wherever they are available.
We are confident that the product we deliver is safe and we encourage our readers to enjoy their daily read with confidence.
The Times of India has announced the first edition of an attempt to bring out the best of print creativity in the country and make it work for a company or brand. In this competition, creative teams across agencies will vie for the top spot and not only win the Power of Print award at the Kyoorius Creative Awards (KCA) in June, but also see their winning campaign released in the pages of the Times of India group publications.
Power of Print will be conducted as an open contest to create a print campaign based on a live brief set out by a brand/company. The idea is to get a ‘real’ brief from an advertiser with a real and current business problem that will help use the print medium as the solution for it. This initiative will seek to motivate communication agencies to come up with award-winning campaigns for a real cause / brand.
Nestle India has come on board as the partner brand for the first year to promote a noble cause – #EducateTheGirlChild.
The entries will be judged by an esteemed jury comprising Prasoon Joshi, Bobby Pawar, KV Sridhar, Raj Kamble, Agnello Dias, ArunIyer, Senthil Kumar, KainazKarmakar, Swati Bhattacharya, Shrijeet Mishra of The Times of India group and Chandrasekhar Radhakrishnan from Nestle.
Speaking on this occasion, Suresh Narayanan, Chairman & Managing Director at Nestle India said: “We continue our corporate social initiative of #EducateTheGirlChild with the objective to sensitise and draw attention to the fact that society needs to embrace collective responsibility in ensuring that more girls have the opportunity to pursue education. We are very excited to partner with The Times of India group on this initiative and especially pleased that the entire advertising community is coming together to contribute their unique creativity towards this cause, leveraging the print medium.â€
Added Raj Jain, CEO at BCCL:“Power of print is a unique initiative by the Times Group to drive creativity and engage the best creative minds in print advertising. Print advertising is one of its kind and appeals to all the five senses. Just like a book is almost always better than the movie based on it, we believe print advertising has so much more to offer. We are glad that Nestle has come on board as the partner for the first year with a very noble cause to ‘Educate the Girl Child’. I think this program will help spur the creative minds and rekindle the romance with the medium.â€
S Sivakumar to take charge as Chairman, Executive Committee (CEC) at leading media conglomerate Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd. , BCCL. Raj Jain will be concluding his tenure with the media group on March 31, 2020 after a tenure of five years.