August 28

Why we changed our vision & programmes from August 28, 2013 ?
On 28th August 2013, one of our cofounders had an almost fatal accident at 5.30 AM when he had gone for a morning walk with his father. His father who was 82 years then (he wants each one to donate blood and had keen interest in helping nomadics / tribals), had the courage to get him home and then to the hospital with his younger son (he was in 11th standard then). His wife had to stay at home because his older son has sensory integration challenge and cant live alone at home. Within an hour, when relatives came home to take care of older son, his wife rushed to the hospital. (We later realised that even world champions go through similar cases and you can see Jordan Spieth is world champion in Golf. But sports is not the only thing in his life. Ellie, Jordan’s younger sister with special needs, is his constant source of support and grounding. We have never met individual citizen Jordan Spieth but please imagine his goodness and the goodness of so many individuals who go through such situations in life)

Within 3 months of the almost fatal accident, our cofounder started working from home and also started going to office by an auto (the office is 3 minutes away by walk and it takes 1.5 minutes to go there by an auto. Our cofounder couldnt walk to go to the office because of the traffic). Now he works on all days treating the work as a hobby with responsibility.

He also realised the importance of all stakeholders irrespective of their age, caste, religion, political significance or profession because good people came to support him financially as well as keenly invested time in the hospital (especially the school mates of the cofounder who stayed overnight with him like Abhay who is more than just a school mate because he helped adoption of a person way back in 2003)

Our cofounder & his family can never imagine the help he received from his college mates Sunil Joshi & Anil Bhot who used to come to the hospital & at home to teach basics.

Key organisations which are Indian organisations as well as Multi National Corporates, supported him immediately. It was nice to have faith in our organisation because in October 2013, 800 to 1000 employees from an MNC including the CEO were in Municipal schools in Mumbai, an employee volunteering programme we do with them since 2008.

One person (highly difficult for anyone in this world to replicate) who supported the family considerably was Venkat Krishnan (IIM - A post graduate and founder of Give India; he spends most of his time in helping India develop faster)

Our cofounder realised the key fact that doctors (he is thankful to Jupiter Hospital ) treat a patient like a patient irrespective of the mother tongue, caste, religion, nationality. While legally our cofounder was borne in India, had a religion & caste, he now believes that he is a universal citizen, with truth as the religion and he does not believe in any caste.

Our cofounder realised the fact that millions of individuals & institutions are doing good for the community and instead of investing time in working for the benefit of the small size of community, we now need to integrate the goodness of millions of individuals & institutions which work on all social, developmental, nation building, sustainability issues for their communities, countries, continents, world and this universe.

Our cofounder also realised that as humans we take care of humans & nature. But it is key to take care of
living things (like tigers who are part of wild life. Yes, some humans treat them with goodness but most of humans are scared to go close to tigers) and
non living things (like the vehicles we use to go to our offices...these buses, trains, automobiles, some times air planes.. all are non living things but how useful they are to people).

While communities, countries, continents are key, we also realised the importance of oceans (seeing how our solid waste which is thrown in the oceans damages countries). See Midway lands which was formed roughly 28 million years ago. Of the 1.5 million Laysan Albatrosses that inhabit Midway, nearly all are found to have plastic in their digestive system. Approximately one-third of the chicks die. The reason for these deaths is attributed to the albatrosses confusing brightly colored plastic with marine animals (such as squid and fish) for food.

Our vision now is universal development by 2050. Of course this is with or without us.

We were working on development issues in India. We always knew that corporates as a stakeholder are one of the key source of sharing time & money and all the corporates put together have millions of employees who can share their time, skills, core competency in management for the communities and those who work with the communities..

We were doing research on CSR since 2000. That time, for most of the corporates, CSR was seen as philanthropy. We started global CSR (India and other countries across the world) research in 2010 and our research indicated that for many corporates, CSR has gone far beyond philanthropy. First of all, the corporates must be good in terms of its ethics, governance, diversity (sustainability tree roots), then they must ensure that every business process (like materials management, purchase, finance, HR ...) must have an angle of CSR within. Similarly issues like regulations, compliances ... are key.

We then realised that it is not just corporates but governments, NGOs, funding agencies, media, celebrities, consultants, researchers, ad agencies, PR agencies and all institutional stakeholders must follow these practices.

We know that globally CSR is known as Corporate Social Responsibility. Keeping CSR word same, we changed the long form of CSR to Conscience, sustainability & reputation.

Now, while one of our cofounder works to make a living because after the almost fatal accident, we realised that money is critical for human existance, our cofounder who had a fatal accident, works for promotion of all stakeholders across the world doing good. And instead of just one country and other countries in this world, we have started promoting the good work being done by great citizens for the oceans and this universe.

Events

475 – The Roman general Orestes forces western Roman Emperor Julius Nepos to flee his capital city, Ravenna.
489 – Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths defeats Odoacer at the Battle of Isonzo, forcing his way into Italy.
663 – Silla–Tang armies crush the Baekje restoration attempt and force Yamato Japan to withdraw from Korea in the Battle of Baekgang.
1189 – Third Crusade: the Crusaders begin the Siege of Acre under Guy of Lusignan
1521 – The Ottoman Turks occupy Belgrade.
1542 – Turkish-Portuguese War (1538-1557) – Battle of Wofla: the Portuguese are scattered, their leader Christovão da Gama is captured and later executed.
1565 – Pedro Menéndez de Avilés sights land near St. Augustine, Florida and founds the oldest continuously occupied European-established city in the continental United States.
1609 – Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay.
1619 – Ferdinand II is elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
1640 – Second Bishop's War: King Charles I's English army loses to a Scottish Covenanter force at the Battle of Newburn.
1789 – William Herschel discovers a new moon of Saturn.
1810 – Battle of Grand Port – the French accept the surrender of a British Navy fleet.
1830 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's new Tom Thumb steam locomotive races a horse-drawn car, presaging steam's role in US railroading.
1833 – The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 receives Royal Assent, abolishing slavery through most the British Empire.
1845 – The first issue of Scientific American magazine is published.
1849 – After a month-long siege, Venice, which had declared itself independent as the Republic of San Marco, surrenders to Austria.
1859 – A geomagnetic storm causes the Aurora Borealis to shine so brightly that it is seen clearly over parts of USA, Europe, and even as far away as Japan.
1862 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Battle of Second Manassas.
1867 – The United States takes possession of the, at this point unoccupied, Midway Atoll.
1879 – Cetshwayo, last king of the Zulus, is captured by the British.
1898 – Caleb Bradham invents the carbonated soft drink that will later be called "Pepsi-Cola".
1901 – Silliman University is founded in the Philippines. The first American private school in the country.
1909 – A group of mid-level Greek Army officers launches the Goudi coup, seeking wide-ranging reforms.
1913 – Queen Wilhelmina opens the Peace Palace in The Hague.
1914 – World War I: the Royal Navy defeats the German fleet in the Battle of Heligoland Bight.
1914 – World War I: German troops conquer Namur.
1916 – World War I: Germany declares war on Romania.
1916 – World War I: Italy declares war on Germany.
1917 – Ten Suffragettes are arrested while picketing the White House.
1924 – The Georgian opposition stages the August Uprising against the Soviet Union.
1931 – France and Soviet Union sign a treaty of non-aggression.
1937 – Toyota Motors becomes an independent company.
1943 – World War II: in Denmark, a general strike against the Nazi occupation is started.
1944 – World War II: Marseille and Toulon are liberated.
1953 – Nippon Television broadcasts Japan's first television show, including its first TV advertisement.
1955 – Black teenager Emmett Till is murdered in Mississippi, galvanizing the nascent American Civil Rights Movement.
1957 – U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond begins a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on Civil Rights Act of 1957; he stopped speaking 24 hours and 18 minutes later, the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator.
1963 – March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech
1963 – Emily Hoffert and Janice Wylie are murdered in their Manhattan flat, prompting the events that would lead to the passing of the Miranda Rights.
1964 – The Philadelphia race riot begins.
1968 – Riots in Chicago, Illinois, during the Democratic National Convention.
1979 – An IRA bomb explodes on the Grand Place in Brussels.
1988 – Ramstein airshow disaster: three aircraft of the Frecce Tricolori demonstration team collide and the wreckage falls into the crowd. 75 are killed and 346 seriously injured.
1990 – Iraq declares Kuwait to be its newest province.
1990 – The Plainfield Tornado: an F5 tornado hits in Plainfield, Illinois, and Joliet, Illinois, killing 28 people.
1991 – Ukraine declares its independence from the Soviet Union.
1991 – Collapse of the Soviet Union – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.
1992 – The show Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos gets pulled off the air 30 minutes in and is replaced with a Cheers rerun
1996 – Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales divorce.
1998 – Pakistan's National Assembly passes a constitutional amendment to make the "Qur'an and Sunnah" the "supreme law" but the bill is defeated in the Senate.
2003 – An electricity blackout cuts off power to around 500,000 people living in south east England and brings 60% of London's underground rail network to a halt.

Holidays and observances

Assumption of Mary (Eastern Orthodox Church, a public holiday in the Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, and Georgia)
Christian Feast Day:
Augustine of Hippo
Saint Hermes
August 28 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

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