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Mr Pavan Kumar Vijay, President, the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, with Mr N.K. Jain, Secretary, addressing a press conference in the Capital on Tuesday. --Ramesh Sharma

New Delhi , Sept. 9

THE Institute of Company Secretaries of India has lined up a series of `Secretarial Standards' to help the corporate sector in better implementation and understanding of the existing laws.

"In a month's time, we expect to bring out secretarial standards on buyback of shares," Mr Pavan Kumar Vijay, President, ICSI, said. "Another set of standards on investor services, directors report, corporate report and issue of bonus shares are likely to be in place by December," he added.

The three-day 31st national convention of ICSI, to be held in Agra from September 11, will, in fact, see the release of a concept paper on video conferencing. "This is to generate a debate on the issue before coming out with a standard on the same," he told Business Line.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, Mr Vijay said that ICSI has also proposed the setting up of an international federation that will lay down common secretarial standards across the world in tune with the changes brought about by WTO. "We have proposed an international federation of institutes of company secretaries," he said.

Elaborating on the proposed federation, he said that it would seek to bring uniformity in secretarial standards and draw up common course curriculum. "It will eventually enable a federation member to freely move to any part of the world for work," Mr Vijay pointed out.

ICSI has an agreement with UK's Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA). With this, any member of ICSI wishing to practice in the UK only needs to appear for an additional three papers in the UK. Since ICSA has branches in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore, ICSA-qualified professional could practice in these countries as well.

Talking about the theme of the national convention, he said that accountability and transparency, the hallmark of corporate excellence, are ideal norms for business and the profession. However, in view of the successive recurrence of scams and increasing instances of corporate failure, the accountability has outstretched its arm to embrace both public and private enterprises with ethical overtones. "So much so, that accountability and transparency, which complement each other in practice have acquired social value index. In such a scenario, the theme of the convention is `Corporate excellence and professional accountability," he said.

The convention also seeks to make an in-depth analysis of the theme by deliberating in four technical sessions: Corporate law - imperatives for future; Securities laws and capital market - changing scenario; Globalisation of professional services; and Business ethics and professionalism.

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