"CSR is Motivation for Me, my Passion to Help the Needy", Rusen Kumar, Founder - India CSR Network

I know Rusen Kumar for almost 15+ years now and we are friends forever. The most common factor that has bonded this friendship has been our common passion for community service. We both have been driving CSR without any personal interests or motives. We both of devoted a considerable amount of time, energy and golden years to serve the needy.

It is very interesting as how we came to know each other.

Rusen has this nag for tapping all that is being done in the CSR space. I was running my project "Khushi" on nutrition-health-education of deprived & underprivileged children, and Rusen brought-out a magnificent article about me in India CSR Network. We spoke, and the mutual admiration started converting into recognizing CSR professionals from across the country.

Rusen keeps thinking all the time. He wants to do something different that no one has ever touched before. Once his thoughts get matured, he starts converting them into presentations and then finally they get materialised into events.

One day he asked me to Chair the hashtag#Jury of National hashtag#CSR Awards and I also readily accepted, not knowing that there would be some companies from Vedanta Group as well - hashtag#BALCO Hindustan Zinc Vedanta Limited - Aluminium Business Vedanta Sesa Goa Vedanta Limited - Sterlite Copper .

He then said, "Pavan Kaushik when you start judging them be more sharp and critical, let them answer each and every question of yours. Since you know the quality of CSR these companies are doing, do not spare them. Let them be examples for others to follow."

Rusen Kumar works on the principles of trust and honesty. He says, "the reflection of CSR should also be seen by people around you."

It took him almost 10 years to decide to honour me "CSR Person of the Year" - in 2018. No complaints. Perhaps, it has given me more satisfaction.

Today, I align corporate hashtag#communication and CSR for achieving business objectives. I also speak about safety (including hashtag#roadsafety) and rural hashtag#women hashtag#empowerment in hashtag#corporates and hashtag#educational hashtag#institutions.

Nothing comes free, no doubt, but then, you can not give a price-tag to passion.

CSR would always remain as Collective Social Responsibility - Community Social Responsibility - Character in Social Responsibility, besides being a Corporate Social Responsibility.