The Hindu Business Line : `Co secy must rise to globalisation challenges'

THE newly-elected President of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI), Mr Mahesh Anant Athavale, wants company secretaries to equip themselves to meet the challenges of globalisation. The institute plans to play a facilitating role to this end.

"With increasing globalisation of trade and services, opportunities are opening up for members both in India and abroad. We want to equip our members so that they are able to meet the challenges from the multinational firms, which provide single-window services," he said.

Elaborating on international opportunities, he told Business Line that these include issues on corporate governance, advisory and compliances in multinational regulatory environment, investment advisory, intellectual property rights, commercial arbitration, BPO and related services, and host of other services.

In fact, the previous council had also taken up the issues and deliberated on them, institute sources said. Apart from the issue of globalisation of the services, the council would also be working towards enhancing co-operation between government, regulators, industry and the Institute. "For bringing good corporate governance, co-operation between all these bodies is vital. The institute is actively represented on various committees of the Department of Company Affairs (DCA), the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and sister professional bodies," he said.

The members also need to prepare themselves to appear before the National Company Law Tribunal NCLT), he said. The Companies (Second Amendment) Act, 2002, which envisages setting up of NCLT provides that the applicant or the appellant may either appear in person, or authorise one or more chartered accountants or company secretaries or cost accountants or legal practitioners or any officer to present his or its case before the tribunal or appellate tribunal.

"This would be opening lot of opportunities for our members," he said.

Summing up the agenda for the new council, he said, "Co-relation with the sister institutes and consolidation of the initiatives taken by the previous council will be the focus area."