International conference on CSR

Last week I was invited to be a speaker at a two days International Conference on CSR, organised by the University of Central Punjab at the PC Hotel, Lahore. I was a little taken back by the invitation, as I am not an expert on CSR. As such, I rang up Dr Shahid Mahmood, who was the Conference convenor and explained that my expertise was consumer protection and citizen’s rights and not CSR.
I was pleasantly surprised when he informed me that he felt that as consumers are major stakeholders in matters relating to the way corporations behave, their point of view relating to CSR should also be heard. I warned him that some of my views on such matters do not conform to the general perception of CSR and was more consumer-oriented.
However, he insisted that I participate in the Conference and requested me to send him an extract of my paper. As Helpline Trust had already organised two CSR Award functions, which were based on “Putting the consumer first’, all the information I needed was easily available.
So I dug into my computer, searched for my CSR files, wrote up a paper and left for Lahore on the three o’clock PIA flight on Monday. I used to be a regular visitor to Lahore for Basant, but when the kite flying turned into a ‘blood support’; it lost its charm. As such, I was returning to this exciting city after many years and was looking forward of catching up with some of my ‘Lahori’ friends.
Salmaan Taseer, Governor of Punjab was the Chief Guest, to which Shaukat Tarin, Adviser to PM on Finance and Shahnaz Wazir Ali, Special Assistant to PM on Social Sector, were also invited. Surprisingly the Governor attended the conference as per schedule, but both ST and SWA failed to do so.
The various sessions of the conference were to be Chaired by Sartaj Aziz, former Finance and Foreign Minister, Dr. Mohan La I Agrawal, Director, Jaypee Business School. India, Khadeeja Balkhi, a CSR Sustainability Consultant, who had also prepared our CSR questioner for the awards and other experts. As expected, the Indian delegation failed to attend the Conference as our FO refused to issue them visas.