“In our society, there is a huge divide between haves and have-nots and we need to address this issue as taught to us by Bhagwad Gita. People who are rich have to become the trustees of their wealth and use it for the benefit of the society”, said Ajay Piramal, Chairman of the Piramal Group of Companies and speaker, at a meet on “Business with a Purpose” organised by “Artha Forum” an independent not-for-profit initiative founded by Mr. Rajeev Srivastava, CEO & Managing Partner @ Basil Partners & Late Dr Narendra D. Desai, Chairman of Apar Industries. Many CEOs and CFOs of corporate companies attended this Conference held at Bombay Stock Exchange recently hosted by Mr. Ashish Chauhan- CEO , BSE
“Our greatest treasure here is our own culture. India has a historic opportunity in today’s times to do incredible great things for the benefit of the country and the World, said Radhanath Swami Maharaj, Spiritual Leader, motivational speaker and Author and one of the Keynote speakers of Artha Forum
“We have to recognize where our wealth lies. Dharma is essentially to earn with integrity and live with compassion and Dharma is the basis of our culture. We always have choices and all great institutions, people and philosophers have always said that we have to make positive choices,” Swamiji said.
“Greed and Exploitation is the greatest state of inner poverty. It is the state of ignorance. The wisdom of all sages is to teach the people that they need to make sacrifice for a higher purpose of life and that they need to be compassionate,” the spiritual leader said.
Rajeev Srivastava, Founder member of Artha Forum, said the essence of Bhagwad Gita when applied to business make it much better for the business and the society at large. When entrepreneurs are focused on a higher purpose than simply making profits, the business does much better.”
Srivastava added In 2014, 81 people had more wealth than the bottom 47% of the world population. This number reduced to 62 in 2015. The world does not need this typical western model of capitalism in which wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
When India followed the Vedic teachings Model of Capitalism, our Country witness over 29% of the GDP of the world. The Model of Earning with Integrity and Spending with compassion is what the whole world needs. Basil Partners and our group Companies have seen fantastic growth day by day after we applied the teachings of Bhagvad Gita, This was a very exhilarating and satisfying experience. It also gave much deeper meaning to business and motivated the entire team to work harder. We wanted to take this experience to more people especially young entrepreneurs so that they can include giving back to society as part of the business model from the beginning and this gave birth to Artha Forum
Praveen Pardesi, Principal Secretary to the Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Phadnavis, said “If business is driven by a purpose it becomes easier for the government to have this interface and then build bridges with the business.
“It is also important for us to understand how one can leverage private business for economic growth and how can government be both enabling and providing public goods and services which the private sector cannot do,” said Pardesi.
On the occasion, a book titled “Business with a purpose” was released by Artha Forum which has organized several such meets in the past all over the world such as Silicon Valley, New Jersey, Seattle, London, Dubai and Singapore.
Kaushal Desai, Managing Director of Apar Industries, also spoke about charity in business and talked about contribution of Dr N D Desai towards establishing Artha Forum.
