Dr Ajit Pathak
National President
Public Relations Society of India
Every year, led by Public Relations Society of India, Public Relations practitioners across the country
observe April 21st as National PR Day. The Public Relations Society of India (PRSI) was established in
1958 to formulate and interpretthe objectives and potentialities of Public Relations as a profession
and also to undertake professional development programmes.
National PR Day Message-2013 A decade later,the PR professionalsfrom all overthe country met forthe first time in New Delhi at the 1 st All India Public Relations Conference on April 21, 1968. This was a very significant public relations meet in our country, when a professional approach was given to public relations besides adopting the IPRA Code of Ethicsfor PR profession. This milestone event marked the beginning of professional public relationsin India. To commemorate thislandmark event, 21st April is celebrated as
National PRDay We have witnessed during the last two decades that Change in organizations is happening tremendously ever since we learned about globalization and open economy in India. Business visions, objectives and strategies are also changing with changing times.More and more organizations are pushed to reduce costs, improve the quality and products, scale greater levels of productivity, mark greater standards of customer satisfaction and exploring new avenues.
Corporate Communicators have to be the change agents in this transformation and biggest task for them is to create and communicate visions and strategies. While the rules of the game are changing, changes are coming in the media and technologies as well. Digital media used for corporate communications is quickly becoming a key business tool for any size of company, due to the availability and effectiveness of the technology. Digital media is cost effective to keep their entire workforce informed, focused, and aligned with key business initiatives. In the Digital Media era, organisations can leverage the Internet and theirintranet investmentsto more effectively communicate with theirstake‐holders with faster pace, without national boundaries.
In order to underline the role of digital media, the theme of this year’s National PR Day has been chosen to be “DIGITAL MEDIA INCORPORATE COMMUNICATION“. While the Digital world has revolutionized the communication opportunities with its reach and speed it has also attracted many crooked minds who make life of others difficult. Crimes have also increased by exploiting the power, user
friendliness and availability of digital equipment as well as by unethically taking advantage of the easy accessibility to information. We also need to be alert on this front to draw full advantage of the digital development.
All the chapters are requested to celebrate the National PR Day on the theme and organize relevant programmes. Let us use the power of digital media to make Public Relations and Corporate Communications more effective than ever before. I send my good wishes for the success of your efforts.
