Ahimsa Fund – Social Caring Mutual Fund
Ahimsa Fund – Social Caring Mutual Fund
Socially responsible fund is a new concept in Indian context. But this concept has acclaimed a vast popularity in the US mutual fund market. There it is being used as an investment vehicle for years. Ethical funds as they are popularly known are specifically designed to cater the investment needs of people with personal ethical codes. This investing community is not in line with the normal investment practices.
They consider environmental social and ethical issues like animal cruelty human rights before investing in a particular company. Ethical funds follow a process of elimination while taking investment decisions and will not invest in companies engaged in running abattoirs meat processing and packaging production of liquor tobacco leather goods pesticides pisciculture and sericulture etc.
Now this concept is striking the mindset of Indian mutual funds majors due to the growth of vegetarianism growing popularity of organizations like people for animal PETA human right groups etc. Ethical funds are all set to strike the Indian mutual fund market. This fund is designed to cater to the needs of investors with strong personal ethical codes in the Indian market. As a balanced fund this new incarnation of mutual funds in Indian market will invest in equity and debt but would focus on Ahimsa simultaneously. The ‘Ahimsa’ fund is the Desi version of American Ethical fund. It provides investors with two options income and social care opportunity.
Ahimsa fund is gaining its momentum steadily. An example of this is the JM heritage fund. This fund invests in areas like petrochemicals auto metals banking and finance engineering and technology companies. It also invests in FMCG and pharmacy companies provided that these companies are above board with respect to cruelty issues. JM Mutual Fund during the process of short listing the companies to invest wrote to about 1000 companies and sought response to questions on their operations.
During this process a number of interesting issues came to the fore. For instance Dabur does not experiment with animals before the launch of a new product but uses deer horn as an ingredient for Chyawanprash. Thats why JM MF rejected Dabur as an investment destination. Apart from this JM MF has decided to invest in only those biotech companies which are trying to replace animal testing.
About the writer: Author Bio: For more tips on finance community for you and your family. Addi Vardhaman works as a business writer for Paisawaisa. To find online finance community Indian financial community www.paisawaisa.com
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