Category: Culture

As UN Secretary General Warns of Dysfunctional World, Worrld We Want promotes collaboration for a better world through revolutionary ideas and responsible goals

193 world leaders adopted The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, an ambitious plan to end global poverty, tackle climate change and reduce inequalities by 2030. In response to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ warning at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos 2019 that the world’s problems are becoming more ‘integrated’ but its responses more ‘fragmented’ and ‘dysfunctional’, an ambitious new organisation aimed at revolutionising the social impact and advocacy sector through cross-sector collaboration is launching to empower the next generation of leaders, businesses and change-makers to support social good causes.

Worrld We Want (WWW) is a global impact enterprise launched to unlock the collective strength of people, ideas, networks and technologies to accelerate achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

2019 represents a fast-changing world, where the assumptions and rules of old no longer apply, and where new ideas are born every day. As the UN Secretary General highlighted in Davos, issues of climate change and inequalities remain the world’s biggest challenges due to a lack of cooperation. The rise of social justice activism and corporate social responsibility reflects a generation imbued with the desire to do well by doing good. WWW has been launched with the aim of harnessing that sense of purpose to convert into meaningful action, combining revolutionary ideas with responsible goals.

With an international team of experts based in the UK, India, USA, Hong Kong and the UAE, WWW has been co-founded by Teji Singh and Natasha Mudhar, seasoned entrepreneurs and the driving force behind the award-winning global business communication strategy consultancy Sterling Group.

WWW is powered by “Accelerator” ventures aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals, with a focus on convening leading organisations, corporations, public figures including celebrities, campaigners and thought leaders around the world to awaken social consciousness and drive meaningful change. Ventures include identifying and enabling the change makers of the future through events, indexes, mentorship and incubation initiatives, empowering the world’s citizens through supporting open data policies, harnessing the power of celebrity and pop culture to entertain and inspire audiences and supporting critical impact projects through an ethical investment fund. “Accelerator” ventures include:

• W: More than a consultancy, W will help businesses to turn their social good initiatives into a movement, through storytelling, communication strategy and encouraging cross-sector collaboration. With W’s guidance, more businesses will understand how they can do well by doing good, and how to create clear and compelling narratives that reflect what audiences really care about.
• CHANGE4GOOD: Change4Good will look to the change makers of tomorrow. With the solutions to tackling complex challenges likely to come from creative, idealist, ambitious and energetic minds, Change4Good will showcase young leaders who are already making a difference. This will culminate with the launch of a Globe Shakers index profiling young change makers.
• POWERTOPEOPLE: PowerToPeople will aim to support open data initiatives to empower the world’s citizens and provide solutions to major global issues. Through working together to build a strong data ecosystem, PowerToPeople will create the opportunity for everyone to access the knowledge they need to help to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
• RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS: WWW will also have an expert service that will help companies to craft CSR strategies and become more trustworthy, accountable and responsible. Businesses will be given guidance on how to modify leadership, values and actions to craft a credible Corporate Social Responsibility strategy for today’s corporate world, respecting the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit
• PopularCulture4Good (PC4Good): Pop Culture is a useful tool that can be used to develop a national and international communication strategy. PC4Good will help businesses to use the power of celebrities – from artists, musicians and film stars to cultural leaders -to bring attention to social good causes and to create impactful change
• W Impact Investment Fund: The W Impact Investment Fund is a global consortium that has been set up to support critical impact projects, backed by investors seeking sustainable finance and green investment portfolios. Through ethical investment, the fund will help to create action and impact around the world. Supporting critical impact projects around the world through ethical investment.
• Tashan: An ethical lifestyle and wellness retail brand with the core values of creating style with substance, centred around a planet conscious way of life. Tashan will aim to be a noble model for retail – creating a value driven enterprise, sustainably sourced and ethically created for the modern consumer.

 Speaking about the launch of Worrld We Want, Co-founder and Chairperson Teji Singh said: “Worrld We Want represents an exciting opportunity to convene changemakers from around the world and help to create new ones, all working to achieve the sustainable development goals. Now is the time to take action, and it will take our collective expertise, resources and willpower to build a better future for the world. We look forward to working with our partners and businesses to create truly effective global impact through cross-sector collaboration.”

Co-founder and CEO Natasha Mudhar said “We are proud at last to unveil Worrld We Want. After years of bringing brands closer to their purpose, with WWW we aim to turn that purpose into action, by supporting new ideas for global impact and social good across sectors.  The UN Secretary General is right that a dysfunctional and fragmented response from the world only makes challenges more difficult to overcome. Most of today’s social challenges are too complex for any single individual or institution to solve. And that’s why we believe cross-sector collaboration is the game changer for social change. We believe that by working together, with revolutionary ideas and responsible goals, we can build the best possible world – the worrld we want.”

Find out more: https://worrldwewant.com/

‘No Presents Please’ originally written in Kannada by noted author Jayant Kaikini and translated into English by eminent translator Tejaswini Niranjana has been announced as the winner of the prestigious DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2018 at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet in Kolkata, India. The DSC Prize has always encouraged writing in regional languages and translations, and this is the first time that a translated work has won the prize. This magnificent book gives us a protagonist that is vivid yet full of contradictions, spirited yet lonely, embattled yet big-hearted – the city of Mumbai. Empathy and survival are the constant, codependent themes that unify every strand of this extraordinary book, creating a shimmering mosaic of a conflicted city that is as kind as it is, at times, cruel.

In a glittering award ceremony, the US $25,000 DSC Prize was awarded to Jayant Kaikini and Tejaswini Niranjana along with a unique trophy by eminent writer Ruskin Bond. As per the prize process, the prize money would be equally shared between the author and the translator. The world’s literati including writers, publishers, media and literary enthusiasts who had gathered for the Award Ceremony at the iconic Victoria Memorial Hall enthusiastically applauded the winner of the DSC Prize 2018.

The six shortlisted authors and books in contention for the DSC Prize this year were Jayant Kaikini: No Presents Please (Translated by Tejaswini Niranjana, Harper Perennial, HarperCollins India), Kamila Shamsie: Home Fire (Riverhead Books, USA and Bloomsbury, UK), Manu Joseph: Miss Laila Armed And Dangerous (Fourth Estate, HarperCollins, India), Mohsin Hamid: Exit West (Riverhead Books, USA and Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House, India), Neel Mukherjee: A State Of Freedom (Chatto & Windus, Vintage, UK and Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House, India) and Sujit Saraf: Harilal & Sons (Speaking Tiger, India)

Jury Chair Rudrangshu Mukherjee, speaking on behalf of the jury said, “The jury decided to award the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2018 to ‘No Presents Please’ by Jayant Kaikini which has been translated by Tejaswini Niranjana and published by Harper Perennial. The jury was deeply impressed by the quiet voice of the author through which he presented vignettes of life in Mumbai and made the city the protagonist of a coherent narrative. The Mumbai that came across through the pen of Kaikini was the city of ordinary people who inhabit the bustling metropolis. It is a view from the margins and all the more poignant because of it. This is the first time that this award is being given to a translated work and the jury would like to recognize the outstanding contribution of Tejaswini Niranjana, the translator.”

Malavika Banerjee, Director of the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet, made the opening address and welcomed the DSC Prize to the city of Kolkata. As part of the evening program, the 5 member international jury panel of the DSC Prize was introduced, the shortlisted authors read excerpts from their books, and culminated with Ruskin Bond, the Chief Guest for the ceremony, presenting the trophy to the winner of the DSC Prize 2018.

Administered by the South Asian Literature Prize & Events Trust, the prestigious DSC Prize for South Asian Literature has helped to raise the profile of South Asian writing around the world by rewarding authors who write about the region. The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature which was instituted in 2010, is an established international literary prize that awards the best work in South Asian fiction writing each year. The past winners have been from various countries and their work has reflected the importance of South Asian culture and literature.

Congratulating the winner, Surina Narula, MBE and co-founder of the DSC Prize said, “My heartfelt congratulations to author Jayant Kaikini and translator Tejaswini Niranjana for winning the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2018 for their brilliant book ‘No Presents Please’. It was a pleasure reading the shortlist. The challenges faced by the authors to weave their protests against the wave of anti globalization into their writings of seemingly harmless pieces of literature could be seen through their work, migration being a major theme this year. The DSC Prize has completed eight years and reading South Asian literature written in English including translations has enabled larger global audiences to understand the issues globalization has brought about. The jury as usual has to do the difficult task of selecting the better amongst the best. My congratulations to the jury for their excellent choice of the winner.”

 The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2018 was judged by a diverse and distinguished five member jury panel comprising eminent figures drawn from the international literary fraternity who have worked in or around South Asian literature and issues. This year’s international jury panel included Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Jury Chair, Professor of History and the Chancellor of Ashoka University and an internationally acclaimed historian of the revolt of 1857 in India, Nandana Sen, a writer, actor and child-rights activist and author of six books, who has worked as a book editor, a poetry translator, a screenwriter, and a script doctor, Claire Armitstead, who has also been a theatre critic, arts editor and literary editor, Tissa Jayatilaka, who was the Executive Director of the United States-Sri Lanka Fulbright Commission and is the author of several publications and has translated and edited many journals, and Firdous Azim, Professor of English at BRAC University, Bangladesh, whose research has focused on women’s writings in the early twentieth century Bengal.