Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on September 17, 2014 At Henderson Hall,Army Officers Institute, Kolkata

Present

Patron                                   General Shankar Roychowdhury, Retd. (SRC)                                     President                               In the chair :       Lt Gen J R Mukherjee, Retd. (JRM)

Governing Council
Mr Ranjit K. Dutta (RKD), Vice President (Finance)
Mr Shekhar Datta (SD), Vice President (Strategy)                                                                                        Mr VS Bhandari (VSB), Member Industry                                                                                         Maj Gen Arun Roye, Retd. (AR), Executive Director
Mrs Karuna Singh (KS), Secretary

Members in attendance:

Ms Arpana Dutt,                          Ms Roma Bhagat,

Prof Jayanta K. Ray,                   Dr Harish Mehta,

Mr Aniruddha Lahiri,                    Mr Ajit Nandkeoylar,

Prof Surendra Munshi,                 Mr Sitaram Sharma,

Col Ashish Das,                           Mr Babulal Madhavji Varma,

Maj Gen N S Mukherjee, Retd.   Col Pradeep Baidya, Retd.

Amb K Srinivasan                        Col P B Sarkar

Mr Vikash Singh                          Mr Ravi Todi

Mr  Asok Das Gupta

 

Proceedings:

 

 Remarks of The President

1. The President, Lt Gen J R Mukherjee, Retd (JRM) welcomed all. JRM’s opening remarks covered the following :-

 

1. A) He informed all present that according to records, CENERS-K had 33 individual members, and 3 Corporate members (TIL, Oil India, and Numaligarh Refinery Ltd.)
2. B) Mr Shyamal Datta had requested that his resignation on personal reasons be accepted. His resignation was accepted.
3. C) Membership of two other members, Brig D K Ghosh and Col Subimal Ganguly was terminated on account of the fact that neither had attended any meeting over the last three years.
4. D) It was noted that CENERS-K had lesser numbers of young members, as well as lady members and suggested that an effort be made to reach out to these groups.
5. E) JRM reiterated that CENERS-K was formed with the vision of running it as a think tank. With that in mind, he expressed the view that CENERS-K must take up more research work.
6. F) He suggested that in keeping with our area of focus, one more member be inducted onto the Governing Council from the North East.
7. G) An appeal was made to all members to come forward to assist with CENERS-K events. Until now much of the spade work for the events was done by the Governing Council members alone.
8. H) JRM suggested that Sub Committees be formed for each event. The committees to be made up of members who offered to contribute their services, and would include former Governing Council members. He appealed to members to come forward and help.

 

2. Remarks of the Executive Director Maj Gen Arun Roye Retd (AR). AR read out the 2013 AGM minutes.  These were unanimously passed. The following was also brought out :-
3. Mr S L Dugar, our Chartered Accountant, was given leave of absence as he had to go out of town on urgent business, In the absence of the appointed Chartered Account, AR shared the Statement of Accounts, which were unanimously passed.
4. He mentioned that the cheque signatories so far had been JRM and himself and this required a change. In the absence of any volunteers the house voted to continue the arrangement until a new and willing pair was designated by the Governing Council .
5. He read out the decision taken at the 2013 AGM about the term of the president being limited to two years only, and mentioned the proviso that still remained unresolved about extension of this term should no other candidate came forward. The house asked the Governing Council to take a final decision, and inform all members.
6. He mentioned that all membership charges – whether individual, life or corporate had gone up by 20 percent. He also brought up the issue to, limit the life member span to Five years, after which it should be renewed. The house allowed the Governing Council to take a decision on the issue at the next meeting of the Council.
7. AR shared the information that a part time clerk and a part time accountant had been hired, as authorised by members at the 2013 AGM.  The remuneration to the clerk was RS, 2,000 per month for 6 hours of work per week, and to the accountant, Rs. 3,000 per month for 3 hours of work per week.
8. He informed the house of the good news about the overwhelming response to CENERS-K seminars held in Kolkata. He also shared the good news that CENERS-K now had Tax exemption under 80G and 12AA, thus allowing all donations to come to it tax free, and also some monies spent.
9. AR said that CENERS-K presently had Fixed Deposits worth Rs. 33.5 lakhs, and liquid cash of Rs. 3.5 lakhs. Some bills of the recent Seminar was yet to be cleared. The last Seminar had cost about 3 lacs.
10.   Other Points raised / discussed.                                                                                                                  A)  JRM mentioned that CENERS-K needed to have a corpus fund of Rs. 1                      crore to enable the organization to hire fellows to conduct research.                                                B)  Regarding the continuation of the present Chartered Accountant Mr S.L                      Dugar, Mr VS Bhandari (VSB), Member Industry suggested that as the

CA had provided excellent services, he be asked to continue, and the Patron endorsed this.  The matter was passed unanimously.  AR mentioned that Mr Dugar was doing the work pro bono. The patron suggested that if there was  compulsion in the Companies Act that a payment needed to be made, then a nominal amount of Rs. 1 could be given to Mr Dugar.

 

4. Agenda Points
5. A) AR took up the item on the agenda about preparing a centralized data bank of contact information of potential invitees to our future programs and asked all to send in lists to the Secretary. Secretary Karuna Singh (KS) mentioned that certain lists could be prepared in advance, such as the Consular Corps, academic institutions, but that these would be limited as lists would vary from programme to programme. Mr Shekhar Datta (SD), Vice Present (Strategy) raised the point that members would need to know in advance the subject and type of upcoming programmes if they were to help with the data bank lists.  He volunteered to provide the list for the Consular Corp.                                                                                                                                  B)   Programmes:  AR read out the list of seminars agreed upon at the 2013 AGM and mentioned that Seminar on  ‘Vibrant and Futuristic Bengal’ for Kolkata, and ‘Youth and Development’ in Imphal had not been held due to various reasons.  However, additional seminar, not listed at the 2013 AGM had been very successfully conducted, the last two in particular, to rave reviews and Standing Room Only audiences.  On the list of future programmes to be held were a seminar in Bhubaneswar, that awaited Lt Gen Kapil Dhal Samanta’s assistance to crystallize and a programme at Guwahati in November 2014 as part of the CII’s National Council meet.  SD requested JRM to elaborate on the latter. The date has been subsequently finalised for 24^th Nov 2014.                                                                                                            C)  JRM explained that AR and he would be making presentations on security and on successful business ventures in the North East before the assembled CII members.                                                                                                                         D)  He also elaborated on a seminar planned in Itanagar in April 2015 that would focus on India and China border issues and explained that there was no recording of traditional knowledge about which parts belonged to which country in order to prepare documentation of traditional information to enable India to present a strong case for territories beside the border. Col Ashis Das offered to help with this programme as he had worked in the area and had good knowledge about it.  VKB wondered if this would not be duplication as the Indian government had announced that it would be carrying out documentation.  JRM clarified that the CENES-K work would only help to synergise and accelerate ongoing efforts.  Mr Sitaram Sharma, Director, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies (MAKAIAS) offered that his organization would be happy to collaborate with CENERS-K for this seminar as the subject matter was of concern to them, and that the Institute had signed an MOU with the Rajiv Gandhi University in Arunachal Pradesh to do collaborative work.                                                                                                                              E)   VKB suggested that since CENERS-K is located in Kolkata, some programs should be planned for West Bengal state.  AR invited members to send in their suggestions and asked if member Aniruddha Lahiri (AL), of The Chatterjee Group with major holdings in Haldia would come forward to host an event in Haldia.

 

5. Points by Members

AL  said that to fulfil the aim of CENERS-K being an effective think tank, there must be a mechanism for discussions and a way to reach out and make these more inclusive.  He suggested that if there was a calendar of events, people would have time to think about ways to offer their services.  As regards, data collection, he mentioned that the world today ran on data, but that this data needed to be analyzed.  He suggested systems of Business Information be implemented rather than what he termed ‘data warehousing’ and offered to help in setting up such systems.  He also mentioned that when we look at development in the North East, we need to go beyond tea and oil and reach out to people who have set up industries.  For example, he mentioned that Hindustan Lever in the past had tea plantations, but today had industries.  He also recommended that government clearances needed to carry out business in the North East must be studied and other ground work also done.

1. JRM stated that so far, the aims and objectives of CENERS-K were met by each of the programmes held. However, there were funding constraints as CENERS-K didn’t want to get government subsidy nor be an organization funded by a large corporate house, which might come with restrictions.  He said that CENERS-K was independent and had come a long way from the initial Rs 10,000 each that AR, Mr Bhagat, him and others had made to begin CENERS-K.  He hoped that the objective of achieving Rs 1 crore as corpus fund would come about, soon.
2. JRM also said that a calendar of events as proposed would be compiled.
3. He reiterated the need to have another person from the North East as a member of the Governing Council. He said we were fortunate to have Mr Ranjit K. Dutta (RKD), Vice President (Finance), who was one of the best authorities on matter related to oil, and was from the North East.  We needed more like him.  He also thanked AL for bringing up the point about corporate that are conducting business in the North East.
4. AR said he was also aware of ITC and the Emami Group’s work and asked that all members share any other information they might have.
5. Member Harish Mehta asked if CENERS-K intended expanding their spheres of operating to South East Asia where many countries had culture that was akin to India. AR said that was a good point He mentioned that CENERS-K had already held programmes that focussed on Bangladesh and Myanmar.
6. Member Jayanta Ray asked the chair for permission to speak. His views were that during his many years heading government-funded institutions such as MAKAIS, his experience was that governments were busy managing large institutions and really left smaller ones such as CENERS-K could be categorized, to run on their own so CENERS-K should not worry about interference and seek funding from governments.  Mr Sitaram Sharma endorsed this view.
7. SD asked the chair for permission to speak and stated that, in his view the aims and objectives of CENERS-K did not always come out clearly.  He also mentioned that funds were needed to attract the best speakers that would automatically draw in crowds as was seen at the September 6, 2014 seminar on ‘Climate Change and its Impact on Economy.’ It was held on a Saturday afternoon, yet there were so many people that some had to be regrettably turned back.  What attracted the huge audience was the line up of excellent speakers.  He also mentioned that so far seminars had been funded by Public Sector Units and the private sector. The putting together of each program placed an enormous burden on the Governing Council (GC) members, but there really was a limit to the amount of time and effort the GC members could put in so more members must come forward to help.
8.  Member Harish Mehta asked the chair for permission to speak.  He suggested that a book should be compiled with the papers presented at the CENERS-K seminars and offered to help put this together..AR agreed with this and said that CENERS-K was looking for a reliable transcriber to take on the job.  Member Surerendra Munshi said he could help identify such a person.

 

 

6. Patron’s Remarks

 

Paton General Shankar Roychowdhury (SRC) Retd was invited to give his views.  He mentioned that when he was serving in the Army, the Western border was more important than the North East one.  In addition, he said that then the North East was seen as the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and Mizoram. However, he said that presently, the North East border has gained in importance and, that South East Asia begins with the North East of India.  He also said that beyond Siliguri in West Bengal, it is really the North East, so we should focus on North Bengal as well.  He mentioned that we needed to focus on Bangladesh which was getting to be a hot spot, and on Myanmar and the Kunming District of China.  On the issue of attracting younger audiences, especially students, SRC mentioned that in his view, a sense of perspective is required to be maintained when assessing the success of the meeting on environment and climate change addressed by Mr Jairam Ramesh. First was the speaker himself.  Mr Jairam Ramesh ,who was an infrequent presence in Kolkata, and hence something of a celebrity in this city. Second was the theme of environment on which he spoke which was a  topic of general interest to all.  SRC wondered how many of the present generation would be interested or concerned by themes on national security in the East and North East of India, which had really been the original aim of CENERS(K) and for which it had been created. Would the younger generation attend such gatherings in such large numbers? Ceners(K) would have to design its functions accordingly, he said.

 

 

 

7. New Members

AR introduced Harish Mehta, an author and professor who had recently joined CENERS-K.  Additional Four new members were proposed by SD and seconded by VKB.  These were: Mr Ravi Todi, MD Srachi Group, who introduced himself.  The other three were Barrister Jayanta Mitra, Mr Umesh Chowhury, MD Titagarh Wagons Ltd (and Hony Consul General for Switzerland) and Mt Sunil Mitra, a former senior IAS officer. As the last three were unable to be present at the AGM due to unavoidable circumstances, AR read out a brief introduction for each.  All were welcomed with applause from the house. AR also introduced Col Pradeep Baidya, for a new intake which was seconded by Col P B Sarkar  With the new entrants, the total membership now stood at 38 members.  It was decided to place a ceiling of membership to a total of 50.  It was proposed that potential new members be looked at from among younger groups and women.  Mr Sitaram Sharma offered to help with this.

 

 

 

8. As no other matter came up for discussion, JRM asked KS to give the vote of thanks, and the proceedings were closed.

 

 

( Arun Roye )

Secretary