This book tries to collate the different ideas of socialistic thought contained in the vast corpus of Swami Vivekananda's writings and speeches. His humanism led to numerous social activities with the idea that God is present in human beings. He said that education was the solution to all social problems.

In this book the author has equated Swaraj with Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘self-rule’, Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s ‘birthright for freedom’, Aurobindo’s ‘Sanatana Dharma’, Raja Rammohun Roy’s ‘individual liberty’, Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘humanity’, and Swami Vivekananda’s ‘love of the motherland’.

Objective Some researchers claim that the quality of informed consent of clinical research participants in developing countries is worse than in developed countries. To evaluate this assumption, we reviewed the available data on the quality of consent in both settings. Methods We conducted a comprehensive PubMed search, examined bibliographies and literature reviews, and consulted with international experts on informed consent in order to identify studies published from 1966 to 2010 that used quantitative methods, surveyed participants or parents of paediatric participants (...) in actual trials, assessed comprehension and/or voluntariness, and did not involve testing particular consent interventions. Forty-seven studies met these criteria. We compared data about participant comprehension and voluntariness. The paucity of data and variation in study methodology limit comparison and preclude statistical aggregation of the data. Results and Discussion This review shows that the assertion that informed consent is worse in developing countries than in developed countries is a simplification of a complex picture. Despite the limitations of comparison, the data suggest that: (1) comprehension of study information varies among participants in both developed and developing countries, and comprehension of randomisation and placebo controlled designs is poorer than comprehension of other aspects of trials in both settings; and (2) participants in developing countries appear to be less likely than those in developed countries to say they can refuse participation in or withdraw from a trial, and are more likely to worry about the consequences of refusal or withdrawal. (shrink)

In this paper we analyze the non-coercive ways in which researchers can use knowledge about the decision-making tendencies of potential participants in order to motivate them to consent to research enrollment. We identify which modes of influence preserve respect for participants’ autonomy and which disrespect autonomy, and apply the umbrella term of manipulation to the latter. We then apply our analysis to a series of cases adapted from the experiences of clinical researchers in order to develop a framework for thinking (...) through the ethics of manipulating people into research participation. All manipulation disrespects autonomy and is therefore pro tanto wrong. However, only deceptive manipulation invalidates the consent that results from it. Use of the other forms of manipulation can be permissible, but only if the outcome of using manipulation is sufficiently good and if the research cannot be carried out using ethically preferable means to obtain consent. (shrink)

Research studies increasingly use genomic sequencing to draw inferences based on comparisons between the genetic data of a set of purportedly related individuals. As use of this method progresses, it will become much more common to discover that the assumed biological relationships between the individuals are mistaken. Consequently, researchers will have to grapple with decisions about whether to return incidental findings of misattributed parentage on a much larger scale than ever before. In this paper we provide an extended argument for (...) the view that the default position for researchers ought to be the non-disclosure of misattributed parentage. (shrink)

In the twenty-first century, corporate social responsibility is not a new phenomenon to India’s capitalist development model. Instead, the concept itself is implicitly rooted in traditional values, customs, and ideal systems of charismatic leaders. Trusteeship is one such ideal notion of Gandhi’s work on economic justice and equality, which influence business communities for voluntary activities. However, with exposure to globalization, the adaptation of new economic policy and its adverse impacts changed business communities’ role towards voluntary activities and forced the state (...) for the enactment of statutory provisions through the Companies Act 2013. In this context, the present paper employed the content and content configuration analysis method to analyze the relevance of these two ideas—trusteeship and statutory provision of CSR, in the current state of development. For that, the paper makes a comparative analysis between these two ideas with their eight inherent similar segments. After comparing and interrogating what present CSR deficient, the paper concludes that the alternative and future of Indian CSR practice and sustainability lie within the practice of trusteeship. Corporate and state need to incorporate the Gandhian idea of “trusteeship” within the present CSR framework to achieve a long-term sustainable society. (shrink)

Jesudason and Weitz's article examines two public policy debates in California, where both sides of the debate used similar language that had the potential to be detrimental to women. Specifically, they show how anti-abortion crusaders in California used similar language to describe why women's rights should be curtailed as pro-choice advocates use when fighting for more choice and privacy for women's reproductive decisions. This commentary builds upon their article by demonstrating the harm that such co-opting causes to women's rights using (...) the example of sex selective abortion. By examining the legislative history of state and national bills to ban sex-selective abortion, this commentary demonstrates how the anti-abortion lobby has adopted the language of pro-choice advocates quite effectively. Although the framing of this issue as being “woman-protective” is strategic and insincere, such political framing is powerful, as Jesudason and Weitz have noted. Anti-abortion activists have convinced lawmakers in many states that sex-selective abortion is a dire issue in their state and that they must restrict it in order to protect women. In fact, there is no evidence that sex selective abortion is a problem in the United States, yet these frames have been very effective in weakening women's privacy rights. Whenever woman-protective framings are invoked for self-serving purposes, women's rights advocates must work hard to uncover the truth behind these discourses to prevent successful legislative efforts that curtail women's reproductive freedom. (shrink)

Dummett construes that the issue of realism does not centre around the nature of entities; it is rather associated with the nature of truth. The real question is not the objectivity of entities of a certain class; it is rather a question of objective truth of statements of a certain class, and the class possesses an objective truth value independently of our means of knowing it. This has been criticized by Dummett in his proposal of an anti-realist position. The disputed (...) or given class (the class about which the question of objective truth arises) may be that of statements about physical objects or about mental events, or about mathematical entities, or about past or future. Realism about the disputed class is characterized by Dummett as the belief that the statements of the disputed class possess an objective truth-value, that means the statements are true or false independent of any means of recognition. The realist therefore admits evidence transcendent truth of statements in question and every statement of a given class is determinately either true or false. Dummett has argued that this principle cannot operate globally because there is no determinate truth available for a large segment of natural language. It can operate where we can verify the truth/falsity of statements. For him any cognition transcendent truth is beyond our cognition grasp and therefore it remains forever indeterminate and unknowable. If truth is beyond our cognitive grasp, we cannot explain how truth can be ascribed to language at all. We cannot even explain the meaning of statements if truth-conditions of those statements themselves are beyond our knowledge. He holds that the world is empirically real in so far as it is given in experience, but it cannot be transcendentally real as there is no such reality which can be made intelligible at all. Transcendental reality is an incorrect assumption as it has no foothold in our verifiable language. My aim in this paper is to deal with Dummett’s view on meaning where he has discarded the truth-conditional theory of meaning by denying truth to be the central notion in the theory of meaning. He holds that the truth-conditional theory should be substituted by verifiability and hence Dummett’s view is called as semantic anti-realism. The paper also discusses briefly Rorty and Davidson’s view on truth and meaning. (shrink)

Recent data breaches underscore the importance of organizational cybersecurity. However, the high costs of such security can force chief financial officers (CFOs) to make difficult financial and ethical trade-offs that have both business and societal implications. We employ a 2 × 2 randomized experiment that varies both an observed scenario CFO’s investment decision (invest/not invest in security) and organizational outcomes (positive/negative) to investigate these trade-offs. Participant managers assess the observed CFO’s investment behavior and indicate their own intentions to invest. Results (...) indicate that when the observed scenario CFO invests in security, managers primarily follow their peers when making investment decisions. However, when the observed CFO does not invest in security, managers make their own decisions by engaging in more in-depth reasoning that includes assessment of the seriousness of consequences, as well as the ethical and societal considerations. Moderated mediation findings further deconstruct and corroborate these relationships. (shrink)

The current study has mapped the impact of changes in different climatic parameters on the productivity of major crops cultivated in India like cereal, pulses, and oilseed crops. The vulnerability of crops to different climatic conditions like exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive indicators along with its different components and agribusiness has been studied. The study uses data collected over the past six decades from 1960 to 2020. Analytical tools such as the Tobit regression model and Principal Component Analysis were used for (...) the investigation which has shown that among climatic parameters, an increase in temperature along with huge variations in rainfall and consistent increase in CO2 emissions have had a negative impact by reducing crop productivity, particularly cereals and oilseed. Among various factors, adaptive factors such as cropping intensity, agricultural machinery, and livestock density in combination with sensitivity factors such as average operational land holding size and productivity of cereals, and exposure indicators like Kharif temperature, heavy rainfall, and rate of change in maximum and minimum Rabi temperature have contributed significantly in increasing crop vulnerability. The agribusiness model needs to be more inclusive. It should pay attention to small and remote farmers, and provide them with inclusive finance that can facilitate the adoption of climate-smart financial innovations, serve the underserved segments, and help them reach the target of a sustainable and inclusive agribusiness model. Though the social, technological, and economic initiatives can enhance the adaptive capacity of farmers, political measures still have a major role to play in providing a healthy climate for agriculture in India through tailored adaptive approaches like the adoption of craft climate adaptation program, dilating the irrigation coverage and location-centric management options. Hence, multidisciplinary and holistic approaches are worth emphasizing for evaluating the future impacts of change in climate on Indian agriculture. (shrink)

This essay argues that feminist legal theory offers an important, and underutilized, perspective to examine health law and policy. We use several theoretical frameworks developed by feminist legal theorists including relational autonomy, intersectionality, vulnerability theory, and the feminist critique of the public-private divide to demonstrate the utility of these theories to health law analysis. These frameworks provide insights relevant not only to issues that obviously relate to gender, but also to matters of choice, quality, and access that are less obviously (...) gender-related. We map three key areas of existing scholarship and future inquiry at the intersection of health law and feminist legal theory: patient choice and relational autonomy, patriarchy, power and patient safety, and access to health care and healthy living conditions at the public-private divide. Uniting these areas of inquiry is a nagging question central to the relationship between critical legal scholarship and pragmatic action to combat injustice: Can we use legal rights to achieve our aims even as we recognize them as tainted tools that have propped up oppressive social structures? A feminist agenda for health law and policy must grapple with this dilemma. (shrink)

The Research Studies The Problem Of Personal Identity, Dealing With The Nature/Source Of The Problem, The Approach Of Traditional/Modern Philosophers And Its Proper Analysis. It Finally Shows That Bodily Continuity Is The Primary Criterion Of Personal Identity.

These Essays Look Afresh At The Varying Connotations Of Social Justice In Its Moral, Legal, Economic, Political And Historic Perspectives. They Consider Social Justice Vis-A-Vis Democracy, Gender Questions, Justice-Making Mechanisms, Retribution And The Hindu Karma.

The year 2018 is the 150 anniversary of the Tata group. This article is an attempt to examine the role of spiritual family values in shaping Tata as a sustainable business. Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, the founder of Tata, was a trained Parsi priest, who was greatly influenced by Humata or good thoughts, Hukhta or good words, and Hvarshta or good deeds toward others. Since its founding in 1868, the Tata leadership legacy has persistently followed those watchwords of the Zoroastrian faith. (...) The extant workplace spirituality literature posits that the role of spiritual and religious values is vital for organizations and individuals to prosper. Employing historical data and biographical method, we trace the history of Tata to examine the causal mechanism between spirituality and sustainable business, under the influence of stakeholder concept, sustainability and family values-based leadership. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

_In the mainstream culture to identify oneself as a "feminist" has been a fashion. Feminism covers all issues degrading and depriving women of their due in society vis-à-vis male members and it has started a crusade against atrocities on women across the globe. It is therefore regarded as synonymous with a movement and revolution to defend and promote issues involving women. However, the concerns that feminism raises do seem alien to tribal inhabitants in the Koraput district of Orissa, because, unknowingly, (...) they are its champions. Its principles are ingrained in their very culture. They practice and follow feminism as a matter of habit that has come to them down the ages. They do not follow it out of fear, compassion, enlightenment, education or compulsion; it is a necessity that comes quite naturally to them. It has been spontaneous and indigenous._. (shrink)

How does one decolonize and reclaim the meanings of research and researcher, particularly in the context of Western research? Indigenous communities have long experienced oppression by Western researchers. Is it possible to build a collaborative research knowledge that is culturally appropriate, respectful, honoring, and careful of the Indigenous community? What are the challenges in Western research, researchers, and Western university methodology research training? How have ‘studies’ – critical anti-racist theory and practice, cross-cultural research methodology, critical perspectives on environmental justice, and (...) land-based education – been incorporated into the university to disallow dissent? What can be done against this disallowance? According to Eve Tuck and K Wayne Yang’s suggestion, this article did not use the concept of decolonization as a substitute for ‘human rights’ or ‘social justice’, but as a demand of an Indigenous framework and a centering of Indigenous land, Indigenous sovereign... (shrink)

This paper presents conceptual arguments to suggest that trust within organizations and trustworthiness of organizations are built through ethical governance mechanisms. We ground our analysis of trust, trustworthiness, and stewardship in the business literature and provide the context of business school governance as the focus of our paper. We present a framework that highlights the importance of knowledge, resources, performance focus, transparency, authentic caring, social capital and citizenship expectations in creating a basis for the ethical governance of organizations.

The philosophy of “presence” seeks to challenge current understandings of meaning and understanding. One can trace its origins back to Vico, Dilthey, and Heidegger, though its more immediate exponents include Jean-Luc Nancy, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, and such contemporary philosophers of history as Frank Ankersmit and Eelco Runia. The theoretical paradigm of presence conveys how the past is literally with us in the present in significant and material ways: Things we cannot touch nonetheless touch us. This makes presence a post-linguistic or (...) post-discursive theory that challenges current understandings of “meaning” and “interpretation.” Presence provides an overview of the concept and surveys both its weaknesses and its possible uses. In this book, Ethan Kleinberg and Ranjan Ghosh bring together an interdisciplinary group of contributors to explore the possibilities and limitations of presence from a variety of perspectives—history, sociology, literature, cultural theory, media studies, photography, memory, and political theory. The book features critical engagements with the presence paradigm within intellectual history, literary criticism, and the philosophy of history. In three original case studies, presence illuminates the relationships among photography, the past, memory, and the Other. What these diverse but overlapping essays have in common is a shared commitment to investigate the attempt to reconnect meaning with something “real” and to push the paradigm of presence beyond its current uses. The volume is thus an important intervention in the most fundamental debates within the humanities today. Contributors: Bill Ashcroft, University of New South Wales; Mark Bevir, University of California, Berkeley; Susan A. Crane, University of Arizona; Ranjan Ghosh, University of North Bengal; Suman Gupta, Open University Ethan Kleinberg, Wesleyan University; John Michael, University of Rochester; Vincent P. Pecora, University of Utah; Roger I. Simon. (shrink)

Empirical studies suggest that re-corruption is a common occurrence in developing countries, and we know little about what transpires between corruption and re-corruption. The objective of this empirical study is to discuss the practices of government officers in between phase of corruption and re-corruption. It does so by considering the case of a government officer working in an agricultural marketing yard of India. The findings from the case suggest that officers choose to mimic honest dispositions after their transfers to new (...) postings as it gives them more choices in the practice of corruption. The hibernation model of re-corruption is used to explain this behavior of the officers. The study is critical and inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice. The findings from it will directly contribute to the design of anti-corruption policies. (shrink)

Knowledge sharing is a typical activity of using different ways to share ideas, skills, expertise, and opinions among friends, family members, peers, communities, and employees. Knowledge can be shared with a firm's internal and external stakeholders, and it can improve process efficiency as well as product quality. Not many studies have examined the influence of knowledge sharing among different stakeholders of a firm and its impact on a firm's innovative performance. Also, studies that understand the role of modern technology usage (...) in firm innovation performance are scant. Using stakeholder theory, other views, and existing literature, we have developed a theoretical model that was validated using the PLS-SEM technique to analyze 341 respondents from different firms in India. The study demonstrates that knowledge sharing has a significant impact among stakeholders on improving firm innovation performance. The study also finds that stakeholder usage of modern technology has a significant moderating impact on the relationship between process innovation, product innovation, and innovation performance of firms. (shrink)

Construction of rural roads started to expand in Nepal since the 1980s and is still an ongoing process, however environmental considerations have been considered since the mid 1990s. Adoption of environmental safeguards in development projects have been an important aspect of project cycle although there is lot more to do at the field level. In this study, three different ongoing projects in different regions of Nepal have been accessed at the field level and mitigation measures were examined in order to (...) study the effectiveness of those measures. This study reviews a lot of mitigation measures that have been proposed and each of them were implemented at the field level. A successful implementation of mitigation measures was found but it still recommends that there is still a lot more room for improvement. (shrink)

This book provides a radical rethinking of the prominent Indian thinker Rabindranath Tagore, exploring how his philosophy of education relates to the ideas of Western theorists such as Kant, Plato and Aristotle. Tagore's thoughts on pedagogy, university and formal education are subjected to a fascinating critique within Ghosh's transcultural framework, referencing a wide range of thinkers across varying time periods, places, and cultures, and developing a greater sensitivity to other traditions, languages, and forms of thinking and writing. The book changes (...) the way we have so far thought about the educationist Tagore, and will be of interest to scholars and specialists of literature, Indian history, and philosophy of education. It is political, deeply philosophical and has a transcultural take on our understanding of a variety of issues relating to Tagore and to philosophy of education in general. (shrink)

The book deals with philosophical issues concerning the understanding of the literary text and its distinctive nature, meaning, and relevance to life. It also provides an occasion to revisit many of the seminal ideas towards these ends by contextualizing them in the current ongoing philosophical discourse on art, in general, and literary art, in particular. Some of the questions addressed in this book are: What is a literary text? What do we understand by the concept of intention in the context (...) of literary arts? Are the feelings experienced in a literary text real? What then is the sense of “truth” in literature which is fictional in character? What relevance do moral concerns and perceptions have in appreciation of the literary text? These are some of the seminal questions that are dealt with by critically responding to views of contemporary thinkers. In short, the book makes an attempt to provide a critical overview of contemporary debates and discussions of literary aesthetics mainly from a Western analytical perspective. The author argues that understanding a literary text is not a purely cognitive exercise; on the contrary, we experience aesthetic meaning or truth in terms of valuable insights that play a role in our understanding of life and emotions. This book is useful for scholars, researchers and students of philosophy and literature interested in aesthetics. (shrink)

fusion theory challenges efforts to see theory as inhibiting by presenting an approach that is innovative, eclectic, and subtle in order to draw out competing and constellating ideas and opinions. This collected volume of essays examines fusion theory and demonstrates how the theory can be applied to the reading of various works of Indian English novelists.

An effective and enriching discourse on comparative historiography invests itself in understanding the distinctness and identity that have created various civilizations. Very often, infected by bias, ideology, and cultural one-upmanship, we encounter a presumptuousness that is redolent of impatience with the cultural other and of an ingrained refusal to acknowledge what one’s own history and culture fail to provide. This “failure” need not be the inspiration to subsume the other within one’s own understanding of the world and history and, thereby, (...) neuter the possibilities of knowledge-sharing and cultural interface. It is a realization of the “lack” that provokes and generates encounters among civilizations. It should goad us to move away from what we have universalized and, hence, normalized into an axis of dialogue and mutuality. What Indians would claim as itihasa need not be rudely frowned upon because it does not chime perfectly with what the West or the Chinese know as history. Accepting the truth that our ways of understanding the past, the sense of the past, and historical sense-generation vary with different cultures and civilizations will enable us to consider itihasa from a perspective different from the Hegelian modes of doing history and hence preclude its subsumption under the totalitarian rubric of world history. How have Indians “done” their history differently? What distinctiveness have they been able to weave into their discourses and understanding of the past? Does the fact of their proceeding differently from how the West or the Chinese conceptualize history delegitimize and render inferior the subcontinental consciousness of “encounters with past” and its ways of being “moved by the past”? This article expatiates on the distinctiveness of itihasa and argues in favor of relocating its epistemological and ideological persuasions within a comparative historiographical discourse. (shrink)

When Matthew Arnold's wandering scholar-gipsy encounters former colleagues in a country lane who "of his way of life enquired," he replies thatHe spends the rest of his days in this lonely pursuit, "waiting for the spark from heaven to fall." If literature is compared to the scholar gipsy, what would be the politics and dynamics of the "spark"? Both have their presences, but in trying to understand their character—via the normative, aesthetic and cultural ways of understanding how they both matter (...) —have we forgotten the absences that circumscribe their existences? Is knowing the scholar-gipsy and literature as significant as knowing that both are also elusive? How can they be known outside their established and .. (shrink)

Although not a professional historian, the author raises several issues pertinent to the state of history today.Qualifying the "non-historian" as an "able" interventionist in historical studies, the author explores the relationship between ...

How empty and barren would life be if all our art and literature were taken away. What a calamity!Beyond the circle of the reading room are the world's greatest collection of books and the finest works of art from all places and times—sculpture from the Parthenon, Ming vases, Viking jewelry, great stone bulls and lions from Assyria, Egyptian mummies, medieval tapestries—brought together and taken out of context and time, like Keats's Grecian urn, because in themselves and in conjunction they create—they (...) are—art. In the courtyard before the huge pillars of the classical front of a Greek temple, thousands of people waited in long lines, like pilgrims at a shrine, to be admitted to look for a few moments at the rare .. (shrink)