Rich India feeds on poor India, but poor India does not necessarily get to do the same. At least not with equal vigour, depth and degree of passion.

Let me look at how rich India feeds on poor India. Rich India gets its land from poor India. Most of the time at a pittance. At a price that would be considered completely exploitative in many a business destination. The poor really don’t know the price of land. At least, not when they cannot see beyond the horizon of the next meal, the next wedding in the family that needs to be funded and the next child-birth that might need hospital sustenance. When rich India wants to buy their land, poor India really considers it to be a blessing. Never mind the price and never mind the lost opportunity of the future.

Rich India gets its labour from poor India. At prices that are considered competitive. Rich India really, really feeds off poor India.

Poor India, in contrast, does not eat as much from the rich. What it eats is just about sustenance-level stuff. Stuff that makes for the day’s three square meals and possibly a night’s drink that is totally functional in its ability to give a good night’s sleep to the aching bone and heart.

There are just too many poor people in our country. And too few rich people. And from amongst these very rich people, there is a smaller sub-set of the rich with a genuine interest in the poor. At best, the interest is lip service. At best it is that wee bit of an effort at cheque-book philanthropy that does not pack passion into the effort. It’s just money!

At times it is that CSR effort aimed at earning those CSR brownie points for corporate comfort. Look deeply into that one defining ratio in the books of companies and you will see the answer staring you in the face. The key ratio to look at: the ratio of net profit of the company to that of CSR expenditure. The percentage looks very nano in most companies. In a few it is as healthy as 2 per cent. And these very companies spend as much as 4.5 per cent of their net profit on research and development activity, and 2.7 per cent on average on consumer market research.

The concern of corporate India for the poor of this country is ensconced in these numbers.

Giving in many ways is an art, a science and a philosophy. The art of giving has been mastered by corporate India. The science of giving has been taken care of. The philosophy of giving is unfortunately not learnt at all. Corporate India needs to re-learn the philosophy of giving once again. The key philosophy is simply this. Giving is, first, not easy. When you have decided to give, you can give in degrees.

The first degree of giving is giving what you just need to give. To save on tax, for instance.

The second degree of giving is giving what can get you those CSR brownie points. Maybe even an award or two. Good write-ups on your benign efforts in the press as well.

The third degree of giving is what I do believe we need to focus on as corporates. Give till it hurts! When a corporate enterprise digs into its profits to give openly to the poor, till it hurts.

I do believe only the ‘third degree’ of giving can help balance out the need, want and desire of poor India on every count. If rich India wants to feed poor India for a while, affirmative action is the need of the day. Affirmative action that embraces the third degree of giving. Giving till it hurts!

Out of home media(OOH) is growing globally. Why not in India? Or, is it?

- Joshua Sampath, Bangalore

Josh, globally digital OOH media is big. OOH media is essentially of two types. One is pure-play OOH, which translates into outdoor hoardings, airline draw-bridges, bus-stops, railway stations, street furniture and so on. The second is really about digital in-store media that is an efficient medium in itself. Both these are big in terms of ubiquity and appeal. So also in terms of delivery, where the impact of OOH can be quantified rather quickly and precisely, unlike the impact of in-home advertising such as television, print and radio. In India, the medium is nascent. It is seen to be a high-cost alternative to the existing options of non-digital outdoor. The country is, however, morphing on this count. As much as 0.76 per cent of the outdoor market is currently occupied by digital media.