LAWS & PUBLIC RELATIONS

Laws in free societies are statements of principles people have agreed to live by in order to get along together and to live in peace and harmony, protecting and advancing societies cherished values and discouraging those actions considered detrimental to public welfare. 

Law deals with what is right or wrong, proper and improper, permissible or denying; through them for all frustration is sometimes produced we would all be in solid state. For PR professionals no single area is more important. Law and regulation with their application tell our institution what they can do and cannot do where with whom and for how much. Equally important to tell us what others can do and cannot do to us. Simply stated they are the rules and we cannot play games effectively unless we understand goods.

LEGAL SENSITIVE

Conflicts can quite frequently arise between PR professionals and attorneys playing on some team and representing visiting the same client or institution. Most frequent argument for simple matters, openness, how much we can say. PR professional must be aware of basic legal consideration; effective institution served in general and intimate laws and relations that govern professional’s actions or professionalists.

Five major areas of concern

While law is complex and exhaustive most of the matter PR professionals need to be concerned with can be grouped into 5 categories

a.   Communication Law and Regulation

b.   Law and rules concerning financial relation

c.   Consumer relation

d.   Employee relation

e.   Environmental laws

 

a.   Communication Law and Regulation

The first involves those laws and regulations that in one way or other deal with communication and most particularly with truth, accuracy and fairness in communication with privacy and regulation of individual and organization.

b.   Laws and rules concerning financial relation

Second involves laws and regulation concerning how in business deals with and communicates to its shareholders both present and potential. For most part this is a matter of ruling and administrative laws laid down at securities and exchange, commission and major stock exchange.

c.   Consumer relation

Third major area concerning legal sensitivity is the way business deals with customers, quality and safety of its products and services and how it condensed itself as competitor and how it regains itself in respect to state laws under which it is clustered.

d.   Employee relation

Fourth is the matter of way in business or institution condensed itself in relation to its employees. Central, state laws and regulation in this area flow from labor dept, enrollment dept, and occupational safety authority.

e.   Environmental relation

Finally is the matter of law how an opposition condenses itself with respect to environment as protection of public from hazards or harms that might be created from its operations. PR persons should be aware of environmental and pollution regulation enacted by various central state and municipal authorities and keep in mind that this is moving target. New laws are passed each day. New regulations are made, all of which are to underscore fact a law or regulation exists somewhere governing practically any move an organization makes and they all have PR in implication. A professional must be individual smart enough to keep in mind all laws are a result of required needs. Injustice or inequality and most laws are result of legislature reacting to what they think their constituents think about an issue. Another way of saying it is that most laws have their basis in public opinion. Public opinion is public turf. For business organization and PR officials it is for better to be sensitive and responsive to public welfare in first instance than to have to deal with corrective rules later. Part of professionals job is to make sure his or her management colleagues understand this.

COPYWRIGHT AND CONTEMPT OF COURT

Those engaged in PR should also be familiar with laws concerning liable contempt of court and legislature and copyright.

Liable – It is a writing tending or amounting to harm or injury and regret character of person who is the object of it. It is a defamatory statement published in press or otherwise while slander is old defamation, liable is the publication of a false defamatory statement expression (printing or by signs, picture or in some similar form) which is permanent and published without lawful justification or excuse concerning a person and which injures ones reputation. Statement is divided into following categories:

a.   Exciting hatred, contempt, scorn or ridicule

b.   To be shunned or avoided by society

c.   Effecting profession or office

d.   Effecting trade or business

For instance, calling person a liar or villain or a swine or making dishonorable comparison of person to character in history, fiction or mythology or announcement lyharus statement.

Difference usually put up a justification, privilege, fair comment an innocent to mark to express truth about person for public good or to express in good faith and opinion about contempt of public servant in discharge of his public function or of any person touching any public question is not liable similarly publish substantially true report of court of law or to comment on good faith or merits of civil and criminal cases is not considered defamatory. A reporter carries press in good faith and opinion on merits of case, which have been decided, or merits of any performance, which its author has submitted to judgment of public. He can also make comment on another person. A good faith if it is for production of person making it or any other or for public good. Acceptance of defense as indicated depends upon interpretation of statement made and appreciation of evidence by court. Solution available to aggrieved person in India is of two parts – civil action under common law and criminal proceeding for deformation. In first essential for damages by minority compulsion, in criminal proceeding it is punishment with fine or imprisonment.

 

CONTEMPT OF COURT

Any act done or writing published calculated to bring court of law into contempt or lower authority or obstruct or interfere with new course of justice or lawful process of court is contempt of court. For instance publication of proceedings of court are being heard in camera, false and grossly inaccurate reporting are court proceeding, publication that made them to interfere with orderly administration of justice or publication that scandalizes the court, adjures counsels, parties or witnesses are contempt of court and also comment should be made and for care should be taken in reporting when case is subjoined.

Press does enjoy privilege of fair comment but personal attach on judges attributing in competency, corruption, partiality, judicial dishonesty, political or caste bias, improper motives are considered contempt of court.

 

COPYRIGHT

Copyright is a right to a person in respect of a work produced by him as a result of exercise of skill, judgment and labor. Under copyright act protection is given to literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, archaeological or any work related to craftsmanship in writing and also to films, television, broadcasting production, reproduction, performance in public. However, a fair dealing with literary, musical, artistic work for the purpose of research criticism, review, reporting, current event in newspaper or magazine or judicial process etc do not constitute infringement or violation of copyright under copyright act registration of any work in which copyrighting existence is entirely voluntary. In absence of registration, interest for fringement to be under common law.

MEDIA AUDIT

 Media auditing is the practice of checking that the media that a client has bought is in the right places, at competitive prices. Being in the ‘right places’ is critical here: firstly, the audit has to establish that the media was transmitted, and if that is so, then that its placements are appropriate for the target audiences, environments and tasks that the advertising client needed for his brands.

 

Why media audit?

Media is typically the single largest line-item in the marketing budget (the making of the ad itself is typically about a sixth of the size of the media spend). For some organizations, media space or time (i.e. airtime on the TV or radio) is actually the single biggest purchase they make – ahead of any single raw materials cost. Because the sums involved are large, and because they can be cost-controlled via a media audit, it is simply good business practice.

 

Who uses media auditing?

Most major advertisers use media auditors in markets where developed solutions are possible.

At the basic level, media audits help marketers to check media rates they’re paying vis a vis the competition.

At a tactical level, media audits can report on the efficacy of media plans for a given time period. This includes suggesting alternate media options available to replace / supplement the existing mix.

And finally at a process level, media audits can track processes deployed at the marketer’s end and map them vis a vis “best practices” in the industry.

Thus, a media audit can be seen as a periodic review of the constantly evolving media scene from the advertiser's viewpoint.

 

Scope of Media Audit

An independent media audit team acts as independent consultant to brand marketers to assess whether the marketer’s media agency & their offering are aligned to the business needs of the client. In order to do that a media audit team provides the following services:

· Process Audit

· Planning Audit with New Media Options

· Buying Audit

Thus, Media Audit scrutinizes processes of media buying, scheduling, planning, rates across media and compares it with a benchmark. Media Audit essentially examines whether client got what it ordered, and if you they are paying for what they intended.

 

There is various aspect of Media audit.

 

a. Financial Audit: This audit essentially examines whether client got what it ordered, and if they are paying for what was intended.

Another aspect of financial audit is the payment. Client pays Media Buying Agency (MBA), who in turn pays the media supplier. Did the client money reach them, and did it reach on the due date? That involves reconciliation between what client paid for and where it went. Apart from this, there is also a need to check if the authority is being exercised correctly.

 

b. 'Return of rebates and discounts': The second type of audit is what is called 'return of rebates and discounts', which some media owners give the MBA directly for space or airtime bookings in excess of a certain volume.

So MBAs push advertisers to spend on a given medium or channel to gain volumes, and thus rebates. It is called agency volume discount. Advertisers would want that discount passed back to them, in proportion to their spends.

 

c. Critique: The third aspect of media audit is a critique on the way media planning has been done by the agency. Media audit examines if where client advertised was correctly optimized, both in terms of cost and in terms of thinking. A critique can, therefore, go into the kind of media chosen and then make qualitative assessments and comments. The media auditor audits the media plan to examine if the plan was fair and optimum.

DEVALUTION OF RUPEE

Devaluation of Rupee refers to the fall in the value of rupee in terms of foreign currency. Specifically, it implies deliberate official lowering of the value of the country's currency with respect to the foreign currency. 

Devalutaion prevails under the fixed exchange rate regime. This implies that value of rupee has fallen and the value of foreign currency has risen. It means that now (after devaluation) one US$ can be exchanged for more rupees. This encourages exports and discourages imports as the former is cheaper now for foreign countries and the latter is expensive for Indians.

WORLD WIDE WEB WWW

The World Wide Web or The Web is an information system where documents and other web resources can be found and are accessible on the internet.

The resources of world wide web are transferred via hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) and can be accessed by users on a web browser. 

The World Wide Web has had an impact on our every day lives and is an important part of the globalization process.

AGRARIAN CRISIS in India

In the 60’s Green Revolution created a substantial increase in food grain production. Factors responsible were better seeds, irrigation facilities, use of pesticides and insecticides and chemical fertilizers.

However, Indian agriculture depends on monsoon rains which are uncertain, ill distributed and erratic in nature.

Poverty of farmers and small land holdings lead to limited mechanization of crops.

Failure of land reforms, exploitation by landowners and unbalanced development of agriculture leads to limited production of food grains.

Indebted farmers – The growing input cost of agriculture affects small farmers and their families. In Punjab ‘the breadbasket of India’ 89% of farmers are under debt.

Introduction of SEZ – In the name of development, fertile agricultural land is diverted to builders’ lobby to construct high rise buildings, IT Parks, etc.

Poverty – Due to crop failure, rural poverty is on the rise.

Water scarcity – MNC’s food processing, etc., have their plants in rural areas. These MNC’s require huge amounts of water and thus they reduce the ground water. This creates water scarcity in rural areas.

Farmer suicides – 70% of farmers are cultivators of small plots of land. 60% of farmers belong to marginal category. Small land holdings, growing cost of production, increasing debt, low prices of agricultural commodities, lead to farmer suicides

Hall Ticket - Do's and Dont's (University of Mumbai)

The University of Mumbai provides hall tickets to all eligible candidates via its website.

There are two options:

1. You take a print out of your Hall Ticket

2. Your College takes a print out of your Hall Ticket and Distributes the same duly signed.

Note: 

DO's

Please see that the print out is a clear one.

Affix a recent passport sized photograph

The Hall Ticket must be signed / stamped with the signature of the Head of the Institution / Principal.

You will also need to sign the Hall Ticket

Take a photocopy (xerox copy) of the Hall Ticket and keep it safely. (This is especially important for those who tend to lose stuff easily)

Some Hall tickets have provision for signature of the examination supervisor at the center of the exam and the signature has to be taken on the day of the exam (during the exam). This is very important as it is proof of your attendance.

DONT's

Do not write anything unnecessary on your hall ticket

Hall tickets are your ticket to the exam... Do not fold it such that the printing gets distorted.

Hall tickets are a MUST for you to answer the exam... Do not leave for an exam without checking to see whether you have carried your hall ticket with you

Wish each one of you All the Best with the exams!!!

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