Category: PRISM

  • PRISM CSR Podcast: India’s First Platform for CSR Conversations

    PRISM CSR Podcast: India’s First Platform for CSR Conversations

    Introduction – PRISM CSR

    India spends over โ‚น26,000 crore on CSR every year.

    Yet if you asked most CSR managers where they go to genuinely learn โ€” to hear candid conversations about what works, what fails, and what India’s social development ecosystem actually needs โ€” many would struggle to answer.

    The PRISM CSR podcast was created to fill exactly that gap.

    Launched in 2013 by PRISM India โ€” a flagship initiative of Samabhavana โ€” the PRISM CSR podcast is India’s first podcast dedicated entirely to Corporate Social Responsibility. Not a wellness channel dressed up in CSR language. Not a brand visibility exercise. A real, substantive dialogue between the people who shape how India’s corporate sector engages with its communities: government officials, corporate CSR heads, civil society leaders, and social sector practitioners.

    Over a decade on, the PRISM CSR podcast remains the only platform in the country where these three worlds โ€” government, corporate, and civil society โ€” routinely sit at the same table, on the record, and talk honestly about where India’s CSR ecosystem is heading.

    This post explains what the PRISM CSR podcast is, why it was created, what it covers, and why it has become essential listening for anyone serious about CSR in India.


    What Is the PRISM CSR Podcast?

    The PRISM CSR podcast is the audio and video content arm of PRISM India โ€” Partnering Resources for India in Sustainable Movement. PRISM India is a national multi-stakeholder platform built to strengthen how India approaches Corporate Social Responsibility, housed under Samabhavana, one of India’s most experienced CSR implementation partners with over 25 years of community development work across the country.

    When PRISM India was founded in 2013, the CSR landscape in India looked very different. Section 135 of the Companies Act โ€” which made CSR spending mandatory for qualifying companies โ€” had not yet come into force. But Samabhavana’s team saw the shift coming, and recognised something that many organisations missed: that mandatory spending without meaningful knowledge exchange would produce CSR that was compliant on paper and hollow on the ground.

    The PRISM CSR podcast was the response to that problem. A platform where the people with real knowledge โ€” the practitioners, the policymakers, the community-facing NGO leaders โ€” could share what they knew, challenge received wisdom, and help build a smarter CSR ecosystem.

    More than a decade later, that mission has not changed. What has changed is the scale of the problem the PRISM CSR podcast is addressing. CSR budgets have grown dramatically since 2014. But the gap between spending and impact remains. The PRISM CSR podcast exists to close that gap โ€” one conversation at a time.


    Why India Needed a Dedicated CSR Podcast

    The absence of dedicated CSR knowledge infrastructure in India is not a minor problem. It is a structural weakness in the entire ecosystem.

    When a CSR manager at a manufacturing company in Pune is designing a skill development programme for the first time, where do they go for guidance? When a CSR head at a PSU wants to understand how to navigate community health programming without duplicating government schemes, who do they ask? When a civil society organisation wants to understand what corporate partners actually need from an NGO, how do they find out?

    Before the PRISM CSR podcast, the honest answer was: there was no good place to go. CSR knowledge was locked inside organisations. Lessons from successful programmes rarely travelled. Failures were never discussed publicly. The same mistakes were made repeatedly โ€” not because CSR professionals were careless, but because the sector had no shared knowledge commons.

    The PRISM CSR podcast was conceived as that commons. A place where hard-won experience could be shared, where the realities of on-ground CSR implementation could be discussed openly, and where the people shaping India’s social development agenda could be heard by the people funding it.

    This is why the PRISM CSR podcast is not a generic business or leadership podcast that occasionally covers CSR. It is exclusively focused on Corporate Social Responsibility in the Indian context โ€” covering compliance frameworks, implementation models, sector-specific programming, community engagement, impact measurement, and the evolving policy landscape under which all of it operates.


    What the PRISM CSR Podcast Covers

    The PRISM CSR podcast spans the full range of issues that define serious CSR work in India. Across episodes, the key themes include:

    The regulatory and compliance landscape: What Schedule VII of the Companies Act permits, how CSR-2 filing requirements are evolving, how MCA interpretations are shifting, and what companies need to know to remain fully compliant while maximising community impact.

    Sector deep-dives: The PRISM CSR podcast regularly features conversations on specific CSR programme areas โ€” education, healthcare, skill development, women empowerment, livelihoods, mental health, environment, and diversity and inclusion. These are not generic discussions. They feature practitioners with real implementation experience sharing what actually works in specific community contexts.

    Public-private partnership models: One of PRISM India’s core convictions is that India’s most pressing social challenges cannot be solved by any single sector acting alone. The PRISM CSR podcast consistently explores what genuine government-corporate-civil society partnerships look like, how they are structured, and what makes them succeed or fail.

    CSR leadership and organisational culture: The podcast features candid conversations with senior corporate CSR leaders about how CSR is positioned within their organisations, how they build internal credibility for social investment, and how they measure and communicate impact.

    Civil society perspectives: Perhaps uniquely among Indian CSR platforms, the PRISM CSR podcast gives significant airtime to NGO leaders and community practitioners โ€” the people who ultimately implement the programmes that corporate CSR budgets fund. Their perspective on what the corporate sector gets right, and what it consistently gets wrong, is some of the most valuable content the podcast produces.


    Notable Voices on the PRISM CSR Podcast

    The credibility of the PRISM CSR podcast is built on the calibre of guests it has hosted. Among those who have joined the platform:

    Dr. K.K. Upadhyay โ€” a recognised authority on CSR, sustainability, and corporate responsibility, whose conversations on the podcast have addressed some of the most pressing structural questions facing India’s CSR ecosystem.

    Brigadier Rajiv Williams, YSM (Retd.) โ€” a decorated war veteran and former Group Head of CSR at JSL, whose perspective bridges the discipline of military service with the demands of corporate social leadership. His episode on the PRISM CSR podcast is widely regarded as one of the most substantive discussions of what genuine CSR commitment looks like inside a large organisation.

    Shri Saroj Kumar Apato โ€” Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at ESSCI, bringing direct experience of how skill development ecosystems operate at the intersection of government policy and corporate funding.

    These are not guest bookings made for follower counts. They are conversations selected because the guest has something specific and important to say about CSR in India โ€” and because the PRISM CSR podcast’s audience, which includes CSR heads, government officials, NGO leaders, and social sector researchers, will learn something from it.


    The PRISM CSR Podcast as Part of a Larger Platform

    What distinguishes the PRISM CSR podcast from other podcasts touching on social impact is the infrastructure behind it.

    The podcast is not a standalone content product. It is one arm of PRISM India โ€” a full platform that includes multi-stakeholder conferences, structured dialogue sessions, and the COINS mission framework (Corporates Investing Socially), which translates the platform’s conversations into actual partnership formation and resource alignment.

    This means that when a CSR head listens to the PRISM CSR podcast and hears an NGO leader describe a model for community mental health that their company could fund, there is a pathway from that conversation to actual implementation. PRISM India and Samabhavana can facilitate the introduction, structure the partnership, design the programme, and deliver it with the full compliance infrastructure โ€” beneficiary data, impact reporting, CSR-2 filing support โ€” that corporate CSR partners require.

    The PRISM CSR podcast is, in this sense, the beginning of a conversation โ€” not the end of one.


    Why CSR Professionals Should Listen

    If you work in CSR โ€” whether as a head of CSR at a corporate, a manager at an implementing NGO, a government official overseeing social development programmes, or a researcher studying India’s CSR ecosystem โ€” the PRISM CSR podcast belongs in your regular listening.

    Here is the straightforward case:

    The PRISM CSR podcast gives you access to peer-level thinking that you cannot get anywhere else. The guests are not speaking from theory. They are speaking from the experience of having designed, funded, implemented, audited, and sometimes watched CSR programmes fail. That experience is invaluable โ€” and it is not available in any report or textbook.

    The podcast is indexed and searchable. If you are about to design a skill development programme and want to understand what others have learned, there are episodes for that. If you are navigating a community health CSR programme and want to understand the linkages with government schemes, there are episodes for that. The PRISM CSR podcast is a knowledge library for Indian CSR โ€” one that grows with every episode.

    The podcast keeps you current. India’s CSR regulatory environment is not static. MCA guidelines evolve. Reporting requirements change. The PRISM CSR podcast tracks these shifts through conversations with the people closest to them.

    And perhaps most importantly: the PRISM CSR podcast puts names and faces and voices to the CSR ecosystem. It humanises a sector that is too often reduced to compliance percentages and budget allocations. The people on the podcast are doing serious, difficult, important work. Listening to them is a form of professional respect โ€” and professional development.


    Frequently Asked Questions

    Q1. What is the PRISM CSR podcast? The PRISM CSR podcast is India’s first dedicated podcast on Corporate Social Responsibility. It is a PRISM India initiative launched by Samabhavana in 2013, featuring conversations with CSR heads, government officials, NGO leaders, and social sector practitioners.

    Q2. Where can I watch or listen to the PRISM CSR podcast? The PRISM CSR podcast is available on the PRISM India YouTube channel at youtube.com/@PRISMINDIACSR. Episodes are also accessible through the PRISM India page.

    Q3. Who is the PRISM CSR podcast for? The podcast is designed for CSR heads and managers at Indian corporates, PSU CSR teams, NGO leaders seeking to understand corporate sector expectations, government officials working on social development programmes, and researchers and journalists covering India’s CSR sector.

    Q4. How is the PRISM CSR podcast different from other social impact content? The PRISM CSR podcast is exclusively focused on CSR in the Indian context. It features guests with direct, on-ground experience rather than general social impact commentary. And it sits within the PRISM India platform, which means conversations on the podcast connect to real partnership formation and programme implementation through Samabhavana.

    Q5. How often does the PRISM CSR podcast release new episodes? New episodes are released on a regular schedule. Follow the PRISM India YouTube channel or LinkedIn page for notifications of new episodes.

    Q6. Can my organisation participate in the PRISM CSR podcast? Yes. Samabhavana welcomes conversations with CSR heads, NGO leaders, and policy practitioners who have substantive perspectives to share on India’s CSR ecosystem. Reach out via info@samabhavana.in to discuss.


    Conclusion

    India’s CSR ecosystem is maturing. The years of mandatory compliance are giving way to a more sophisticated conversation about impact, accountability, and genuine community partnership. But that conversation needs a home โ€” a place where the people driving change can speak openly, share what they know, and challenge the sector to do better.

    The PRISM CSR podcast has been that home since 2013.

    It is not the loudest voice in India’s social sector. It is one of the most credible. Built on 25 years of Samabhavana’s community development work and more than a decade of multi-stakeholder dialogue, the PRISM CSR podcast offers something that is genuinely rare: honest, substantive, experienced conversation about what Corporate Social Responsibility in India actually looks like โ€” and what it could become.

    If you are serious about CSR in India, the PRISM CSR podcast is where that seriousness is reflected back at you.

    Watch and subscribe: youtube.com/@PRISMINDIACSR Learn more about PRISM India: samabhavana.in/prism.html

    Partner with Samabhavana: info@samabhavana.in | 022-45658306

    Samabhavana is registered with Niti Aayog and holds valid 80G, 12A, and CSR1 certifications. All CSR programmes are fully documented for MCA compliance and ESG reporting.


  • A Powerful Conversation with Shri Uttam Lal Ji โ€“ Understanding NHPC Ltdโ€™s CSR Vision Through PRISM

    A Powerful Conversation with Shri Uttam Lal Ji โ€“ Understanding NHPC Ltdโ€™s CSR Vision Through PRISM


    Explore insights from PRISMโ€™s conversation with Shri Uttam Lal Ji, Director (HR), NHPC Ltd. Learn how NHPCโ€™s CSR initiatives focus on grassroots development, sustainability, and community empowerment across India in alignment with Samabhavanaโ€™s mission.


    Introduction: CSR Leadership Insights from NHPC Ltd

    In one of the most insightful episodes of PRISM by Samabhavana, we had the privilege of hosting Shri Uttam Lal Ji, Director (HR), NHPC Ltd โ€” Indiaโ€™s largest green power company and a prestigious Navratna Public Sector Enterprise.

    The conversation offered meaningful insights into the CSR process of NHPC Ltd, highlighting how corporate social responsibility can go beyond compliance and create sustainable, grassroots-level transformation.

    NHPC Ltd operates under the CSR framework defined by Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013, which governs CSR in India.
    🔗 Reference: https://www.mca.gov.in/

    However, as Shri Uttam Lal Ji emphasized, NHPCโ€™s CSR philosophy extends far beyond statutory obligations โ€” it focuses on long-term empowerment and community resilience.


    NHPC Ltd: A Navratna Company with a Purpose-Driven CSR Approach

    NHPC Ltd is widely recognized for its leadership in hydropower and renewable energy. As a Navratna company, it stands for operational excellence and national development.

    But NHPCโ€™s commitment does not stop at energy production.

    Through structured and strategic CSR initiatives, NHPC focuses on:

    • Need-based development
    • Community participation
    • Sustainable growth
    • Long-term empowerment

    The objective is not short-term relief โ€” but sustainable transformation.

    This vision aligns closely with Samabhavanaโ€™s mission of building self-reliant communities through education, health, and empowerment initiatives.

    🔗 Explore Samabhavanaโ€™s Mission & Vision
    https://samabhavana.in/


    How NHPC Plans and Implements CSR Initiatives

    1. Need-Based Assessment Before Action

    A key insight shared during the PRISM conversation was NHPCโ€™s strong emphasis on groundwork before implementation.

    Before launching any CSR initiative, NHPC teams conduct detailed field surveys to understand:

    • Community needs
    • Local socio-economic challenges
    • Livelihood opportunities
    • Gaps in education and healthcare

    This ensures that projects are relevant, practical, and impactful.

    As Shri Uttam Lal Ji explained:

    Development should not happen in isolation. When one area grows, surrounding communities should grow together.


    2. Collaboration with Local Stakeholders

    NHPCโ€™s CSR projects are implemented in collaboration with:

    • District administrations
    • Village committees
    • Local leaders
    • Community representatives

    This collaborative model ensures transparency, accountability, and shared ownership.

    Such partnerships reflect the broader vision of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
    🔗 Reference: https://sdgs.un.org/goals


    Real Impact at the Grassroots Level

    The PRISM episode highlighted several inspiring examples of NHPCโ€™s CSR impact across India.

    Women-Led Livelihood Programs in Arunachal Pradesh

    NHPC supported womenโ€™s empowerment through:

    • Sericulture training
    • Cooperative business models
    • Income-generation initiatives

    These programs strengthened economic independence and boosted local confidence.


    Strengthening Education in Remote Regions

    NHPCโ€™s CSR efforts in education include:

    • Smart classrooms
    • Computers and digital tools
    • Uniforms and learning kits

    Such initiatives reduce educational inequality and improve access to quality education in underserved regions.

    🔗Learn more about Samabhavanaโ€™s Smile Hub Programme
    https://samabhavana.in/


    Healthcare Support in Challenging Terrains

    NHPC has also invested in healthcare infrastructure, including:

    • MRI machines
    • X-ray facilities
    • Telemedicine services

    In remote areas like Ladakh and Kashmir, these initiatives have significantly improved access to healthcare services.


    The Core Philosophy: Empowerment Over Dependency

    One of the most powerful messages from the conversation was clear:

    CSR is not about holding someoneโ€™s hand forever โ€” it is about helping communities stand strong on their own.

    This philosophy resonates deeply with Samabhavanaโ€™s work in:

    • Promoting self-reliance
    • Strengthening education systems
    • Building health awareness
    • Supporting sustainable livelihoods

    Both organizations believe that meaningful change comes from empowerment, not dependency.


    Why PRISM Matters: Beyond a Podcast

    PRISM is not just a series of interviews.

    It is a platform for:

    • Honest conversations
    • Real-life experiences
    • Lessons from challenges
    • Reflections on grassroots realities

    Guests are encouraged to speak freely โ€” without pressure or scripted responses.

    Behind every successful CSR initiative are:

    • Field-level struggles
    • Difficult decisions
    • Learning from setbacks
    • Community engagement efforts

    PRISM brings these authentic stories to light.


    A Platform for Learning and Collaboration

    Each PRISM episode features voices from CSR leaders, development professionals, and changemakers.

    At Samabhavana, we believe sustainable change happens when people:

    • Listen with empathy
    • Share knowledge openly
    • Learn from lived experiences
    • Collaborate across sectors

    In todayโ€™s fast-paced world, PRISM creates space for reflection and thoughtful dialogue.

    Listeners have described the episodes as relatable, inspiring, and deeply informative โ€” particularly for those interested in CSR partnerships, education reform, and community development.


    PRISM: Strengthening Relationships Through Stories

    PRISM stands for:

    • Building understanding
    • Strengthening relationships
    • Learning from real journeys

    Every conversation opens new perspectives and challenges conventional thinking about development.

    Guests trust Samabhavana with their stories โ€” and that trust is honoured through respectful, meaningful engagement.


    Moving Forward: Conversations That Create Change

    PRISM exists because:

    • Stories matter.
    • Listening matters.
    • Conversations create change.

    Through PRISM, Samabhavana continues to amplify voices that contribute to Indiaโ€™s social development ecosystem.

    Behind every CSR initiative, every partnership, and every success story โ€” there are human journeys.

    And PRISM is here to share them.

  • PRISM India: Where CSR Conversations Create Real Change

    PRISM India: Where CSR Conversations Create Real Change

    Introduction – CSR podcast India

    India’s CSR ecosystem is vast, diverse, and sometimes frustrating in its fragmentation. Thousands of companies are spending billions of rupees on projects across hundreds of sectors and geographies, yet the practitioners โ€” the CSR heads, the NGO implementers, the government officials who shape policy โ€” often operate in silos that limit learning and reduce collective impact.

    Into this landscape, PRISM India has carved a distinctive and necessary role. Among its many functions, PRISM India stands out as the country’s most enduring CSR podcast India platform โ€” a space where the conversations that shape India’s social investment agenda happen out loud, in public, and with rigour.

    PRISM โ€” the Public-Private-Civil Society Responsibility Interface for Sustainable and Meaningful engagement โ€” was founded in 2013 by Samabhavana, making it India’s first formal dialogue platform of its kind.

    More than a decade later, it remains the only platform that systematically brings together corporate CSR leadership, government ministries, PSU CSR teams, and civil society organisations in structured, on-record conversation. That is not a small distinction. It is the foundation of PRISM’s value.

    What PRISM India Actually Is

    Understanding PRISM India requires understanding the problem it was designed to solve. Before PRISM, there was no neutral, sustained forum where a Ministry of Corporate Affairs official, a CSR head from a large manufacturing company, and a field-level NGO implementer could sit together and examine why a given CSR intervention was or was not working.

    There were conferences, yes โ€” but conferences are episodic, often performative, and rarely produce the kind of sustained relationship that generates real change.

    PRISM is different in design and in practice. It is a year-round dialogue platform that operates through structured roundtables, policy consultations, and โ€” significantly โ€” a podcast format that extends these conversations to a much wider audience.

    The podcast component captures candid, substantive discussions between practitioners, policymakers, and civil society leaders, and makes them available to anyone working in or interested in India’s CSR and social impact space.

    Partners who have engaged with PRISM include some of India’s most prominent PSUs and corporates โ€” GAIL, BSES, IRCON, and Suzuki among them. These are not sponsorships in the conventional sense; they are substantive engagements where these organisations bring their CSR challenges and learnings to the table and contribute to a shared body of knowledge about what works.

    Why a CSR Podcast India Matters Now More Than Ever

    India’s mandatory CSR regime, established under Section 135 of the Companies Act 2013, has created a large and growing ecosystem of corporate spending. Total CSR expenditure crossed โ‚น34,900 crore in FY 2023โ€“24, with 61% of reporting companies exceeding their mandated 2% spend.

    The number of companies filing CSR reports is at a historic high. BRSR (Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting) is now mandatory for the top 1,000 listed companies, requiring detailed disclosure of ESG and social impact metrics.

    Yet quantity of spending does not automatically translate to quality of impact. India’s CSR ecosystem faces well-documented challenges: duplication of effort, poor outcomes measurement, short-term project cycles that cannot produce lasting change, and a persistent disconnect between what companies want to fund and what communities actually need. These are not new problems, but they are urgent ones as the scale of CSR spending grows.

    A CSR podcast India that brings serious practitioners together to examine these challenges serves a function that no report, conference, or annual CSR award can replicate. It creates a public record of thinking โ€” of what has been tried, what has worked, why something failed, what the next frontier looks like.

    For a CSR head joining a new organisation, a PRISM episode is a faster and more honest education than any consultant’s deck. For a government official designing a new Schedule VII category, hearing directly from the people implementing CSR at scale is irreplaceable input.

    The Voices on PRISM

    PRISM’s credibility comes from the quality and diversity of the voices it convenes. CSR heads from large Indian corporates and PSUs bring the perspective of organisations navigating mandatory compliance, stakeholder expectations, and the practical challenge of implementing social programmes at scale.

    Government officials bring the policy lens โ€” the regulatory context, the national priorities, the infrastructure of schemes and programmes that corporate CSR can align with or fill gaps around.

    Civil society voices are PRISM’s most distinctive contribution. NGOs and social enterprises often hold the most granular, honest knowledge of what happens on the ground when a CSR project meets a community. They know which assumptions funders make that do not hold, which metrics are easy to measure but do not capture what matters, and which interventions have a durable impact versus a brief one.

    Giving these voices equal standing in a multi-stakeholder dialogue is what makes PRISM unusual โ€” and unusually valuable.

    The podcast format amplifies this. A 45-minute conversation between a CSR director, a district collector, and a field programme manager can convey more nuance, more authentic learning, and more actionable insight than any formal publication.

    The CSR podcast India format reaches audiences that formal reports never do โ€” mid-level CSR managers, students of social work and public policy, journalists covering development, and the general public with an interest in how India’s corporate sector engages with social challenges.

    PRISM and Samabhavana’s Broader Mission

    PRISM is not a standalone initiative. It is the expression of Samabhavana’s belief that dialogue, knowledge exchange, and shared accountability are preconditions for effective CSR implementation.

    Samabhavana has been implementing CSR programmes for 25 years โ€” in education, health, skill development, women empowerment, and diversity and inclusion. That ground-level experience informs every PRISM conversation.

    The organisation brings to PRISM what very few conveners can: the credibility of being an implementer, not just a commentator.

    When Samabhavana facilitates a dialogue about what works in community health CSR, it is not drawing on secondary research alone โ€” it is drawing on years of programme delivery across Maharashtra and beyond. This combination of implementation depth and convening breadth is what makes PRISM’s conversations different.

    For corporate CSR teams looking to align their programmes with national priorities, understand the regulatory landscape, and learn from peers who have navigated similar challenges, PRISM is an invaluable resource.

    Explore the full PRISM platform at PRISM INDIA.

    The Topics PRISM Covers

    PRISM’s dialogue agenda tracks India’s most pressing social and policy challenges. Recent conversations have covered the integration of CSR with the government’s flagship schemes โ€” PM SHRI in education, Ayushman Bharat in health, PMKVY in skill development.

    The platform has addressed the challenge of measuring social impact rigorously in the context of mandatory BRSR disclosures, and has hosted discussions on the role of corporate CSR in supporting India’s mental health infrastructure โ€” a Schedule VII-eligible area that remains severely underfunded.

    PRISM has also been a forum for honest conversation about what CSR gets wrong. The tendency to fund what is visible rather than what is impactful. The preference for urban over rural implementation. The challenge of CSR committees approving projects that are strategically misaligned with national need. These are uncomfortable topics, but they are the conversations that improve the quality of CSR practice over time.

    For organisations working in specific sectors, Samabhavana’s programme pages provide further context on the areas where CSR investment can make the greatest difference: education, health, skill development, and women empowerment.

    The Future of PRISM: Scaling Dialogue for Greater Impact

    As India’s CSR ecosystem matures, PRISM’s role becomes more important, not less. The shift from compliance to strategic CSR โ€” driven by BRSR requirements, ESG investor scrutiny, and growing community expectations โ€” creates a greater need for the kind of candid, evidence-based dialogue that PRISM facilitates.

    Companies navigating this shift have a complex set of questions to answer:

    • Which implementing partners are genuinely capable?
    • Which Schedule VII categories offer the greatest impact leverage in specific geographies?
    • How do national policy shifts โ€” in education, in health insurance, in skills infrastructure โ€” change the optimal design of CSR programmes?

    PRISM is expanding its reach through the podcast format, making these conversations accessible to a much wider audience than can attend physical roundtables.

    CSR professionals in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, in PSUs in remote operational locations, in civil society organisations working in areas with limited connectivity to the Mumbai and Delhi CSR networks โ€” all of these audiences benefit from conversations that were previously confined to conference rooms.

    The democratisation of CSR knowledge is one of PRISM’s most significant contributions, and it is one that grows as the podcast audience grows.

    Samabhavana is also exploring how PRISM can serve as a platform for joint learning across the corporate-government interface. As BRSR reporting matures and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs continues to refine the CSR regulatory framework.

    PRISM’s ability to convene candid, on-record discussions between regulators and the regulated creates genuine public value โ€” informing policy with ground-level evidence and giving companies a channel to raise implementation challenges that the regulatory framework may not yet have addressed.


    FAQ – CSR podcast India

    Q1: What is the PRISM CSR podcast India?

    PRISM India is India’s first public-private-civil society CSR dialogue platform, founded by Samabhavana in 2013. Its podcast component captures substantive conversations between corporate CSR leaders, government officials, and civil society practitioners โ€” making practitioner knowledge accessible to India’s broader CSR community.

    Q2: Who participates in PRISM India dialogues?

    PRISM convenes corporate CSR heads, PSU leaders, government ministry officials, district administrators, and NGO practitioners. Key corporate and PSU partners have included GAIL, BSES, IRCON, and Suzuki, among others.

    Q3: How is PRISM different from a typical CSR conference?

    PRISM operates year-round through structured roundtables, policy consultations, and podcast recordings. Unlike episodic conferences, it builds sustained relationships and creates a public record of practitioner knowledge that can be referenced and built upon over time.

    Q4: What topics does the PRISM podcast cover?

    PRISM covers the full range of India’s CSR landscape โ€” education, health, skill development, women empowerment, mental health, rural development, and the regulatory framework of Schedule VII, mandatory reporting, and BRSR. It also addresses the harder questions about measurement, impact, and the gap between CSR intent and implementation outcomes.

    Q5: Why was PRISM founded in 2013?

    PRISM was founded by Samabhavana in response to the fragmentation of India’s emerging CSR ecosystem. The Companies Act 2013 was establishing mandatory CSR for the first time, and Samabhavana saw the need for a sustained, multi-stakeholder dialogue platform that could help translate regulatory obligation into genuine social impact.

    Q6: How can an organisation join PRISM India?

    Corporate CSR teams, PSUs, government bodies, and NGOs interested in participating in PRISM dialogues or the podcast can Get in touch through samabhavana.in/contact-us.html.

    Samabhavana welcomes partners who want to contribute to and learn from India’s most substantive CSR dialogue platform.


    CONCLUSION

    India’s CSR ecosystem needs more than good intentions and adequate budgets. It needs knowledge, honest conversation, and the kind of mutual accountability that only sustained dialogue can build.

    PRISM India has been providing exactly this since 2013 โ€” and its podcast continues to be the most accessible expression of that mission.

    Whether you are a CSR head trying to design a more impactful programme, a government official looking to understand how corporate investment aligns with national schemes, or a civil society practitioner wanting your field experience to shape the broader conversation, PRISM India has a place for you.

    Connect with Samabhavana to explore how you can participate in PRISM โ€” India’s defining CSR podcast India, where conversation becomes commitment, and commitment becomes change.