Golden Peacock Awards Jury under the scanner: most members not active
http://www.livemint.com/2009/01/17003248/Most-jury-members-not-8216a.html
New Delhi: As organizers of the Golden Peacock Awards review nominations for India’s top companies for this year on 16-17 January, several jury members in the long list of eminent persons said to be associated with the awards claim they are no longer active, and yet, their names find mention on the official website.
A few were surprised that they were still being associated with the awards, one claimed he was never part of the process, and at least one former government official, who was a jury member at least eight years ago and whose name still appears on the website (www.goldenpeacockawards.com), maintained that his name had not been removed despite making a request.
The Golden Peacock Awards were in the news recently when its organizers announced they had withdrawn the 2008 award for corporate governance to Satyam Computer Services Ltd after its former chairman B. Ramalinga Raju confessed to the biggest accounting fraud in Indian history. Satyam had also received a Golden Peacock Award for corporate excellence in 2002.
In fact, in 2007 and 2008, Satyam was the recipient of at least 17 awards from consultancy firms, software vendors and a business school. “Companies do have an interest in winning awards and its associate publicity, but ultimately their real worth will be judged by their share prices in the capital market,” said T.T. Ram Mohan, finance and accounting professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
The annual Golden Peacock Awards are organized by the New Delhi-based Institute of Directors (IOD), which also conducts corporate training programmes for managers across the country. Its official website lists 40 jury members, including four former chief justices, at least 15 senior officers belonging to the Indian Administrative Service, apart from two former prime ministers, Joe Clark of Canada and Ola Ullsten of Sweden.
The country’s leading businessmen and politicians, including former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former home minister L.K. Advani, have routinely attended the events. Pictures of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and a galaxy of politicians and business leaders hang on the walls of their south Delhi office.
The founder of the awards and institute, Madhav Mehra, a former Indian Railways officer turned management guru, also figures in the panel of judges. The 70-year-old Mehra, however, said he was not aware of the content of the website and does not oversee the awards’ process.
After leaving the railways, Mehra moved to London, where he said he worked as a management consultant and went on to set up half a dozen organizations, including the World Council for Corporate Governance, the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, as well as the World Environment Foundation.
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