Interview of Anthony Kanickaraj (Vikram), the Founder Chairman of ICBN.
by Amodh Bardhan
Anthony Kanickaraj (Vikram) is the Founder–Chairman of International Christian Business Network (ICBN). He did his bachelor of commerce from St. Joseph’s College & his MBA (incomplete) from AMC College, Bangalore. He served as a Consultant for HDFC-SLIC. He is also the Proprietor of Digital Printing Unit. He Produced & Directed a Kannada Film for International Film Festival. He was the Former State IT wing President for JDS Party of Karnataka & Former State Senior Vice President of JDS for the Christian Wing besides being a Working Committee Member for JDS Party. He was also the Former State General Secretary of BSP Party & presently he is associated with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) at Karnataka.
He is the President of RACSHA NGO, the President of Karnataka Christian Forum (KCF) & the President of Reverend Ferdinand Kittel Foundation. An RTI Activist, he is also the Editor & Proprietor of ‘Common Man News’ and has Directed few Short movies on social awareness.
Anthony Kanickaraj (Vikram) spoke exclusively to “Global TV Live 24x&7” apropos ICBN. Here’s the excerpts from his interview with “Global TV Live 24×7”…
Q1. What is ICBN? What are its mission & vision?
Anthony Kanickaraj (Vikram):– ICBN was started in 2017 as CBG (Christian Business Group) and later changed to ICBN in 2020. ICBN Stand for International Christian Business Network. It was started with an intention to bring in all Christian entrepreneurs under one umbrella and help them to become better businessmen.
Five “E”s of ICBN Core Values are – Ethical Mindset
Ethos of Christian & Biblical Principles in Business
Economic Development Focus in every ICBN Business
Enabling the business eco system within Christian community.
Encouraging members with the value-based knowledge sharing.
Its Vision is to create suitable business networking platform for the ICBN members and Uniting, Enabling, & Enhancing the entrepreneurship among them to create an economically strong Christian business community GLOCALLY (Globally + locally).
Q2. How does ICBN intend to evolve over the years? What are future plans?
Anthony Kanickaraj (Vikram):-There are lots of projects in pipeline, due to corona all the projects are kept on hold. We would like to have various chapter of ICBN across States and get in touch with other big Christian entrepreneurs across the globe. This in turn will help the Christian community to grow economically stronger.
Q3. Which are some of the companies/brands/start-ups that are associated with ICBN ?
Anthony Kanickaraj (Vikram):- There are many companies enlisted with ICBN, from pharma sector to IT, interior designers, builders and developers etc., and also professional service providers like CAs, Doctors and Advocates.
Q4. Have you been actively involved in politics? Does ICBN or you at your personal level intend to work for the Political empowerment of your community?
Anthony Kanickaraj (Vikram): – Politicians are law makers of this country; unless educated and good people don’t participate in active politics, the life of ordinary Indian citizens will be in the hands of corrupted politicians. We need our community people to contest from panchayat election to Presidential Election.
Q5. As per your opinion what all aspects needs to be emphasised upon for Political empowerment of the community?
Anthony Kanickaraj (Vikram): – The missionaries, who came to India, taught Christians primarily two values, i.e. service and forgiveness. Service in the field of health and education. Along with this service, if they had taught us how one can become a good leader by participating in active politics, today, we would have been in better position to govern the nation and get the rightful share of justice in all sectors. The church should start training young people to get into active politics. As I said we need our community people to contest from panchayat election to Presidential Election. So I shall be making efforts to see that some political parties of the country consider Christian candidates for the highest constitutional office of the country in the next Presidential Elections. I along with some friends of mine from Odisha, Prime Abhilas & Rev. Dr. Pallab Lima, have been coordinating with national leaders towards these initiatives.
Amodh Kumar Bardhan
Editor-In-Chief
Global TV Live 24×7
