Over the last 140 years, the Tata Group has been a pioneer not only in corporate India, but has been a leader of sorts in the social sphere also. It has contributed substantially to nation building. Among other initiatives for social development and welfare, it has established eminent institutions, such as, the Indian Institute of Science, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. This article studies the structure of the Tata Group and its main (...) Trusts which facilitate the unique philosophy of the Group that integrates social responsibility and corporate functioning. Over two-thirds of the Tata companies are held by the Trusts, and these Trusts are focussed on social welfare initiatives. This is a unique example in the corporate world deserving a detailed study. This article details some innovative initiatives undertaken by the Tata companies in their respective industries for the society and local community. The study is based on triangulation of data and follows the descriptive research design and the anecdotal style of narration. The data collection has been done by the author through personal interviews with top executives of the Group companies, responses to an Executive Perception Survey on the society and local community, and secondary data gathered through the information available in the public domain. (shrink)

In recent times there have been scores of corporate failures all over the world due to moral turpitude, lack of good governance, and erosion of values. The need for a change in corporates’ approach towards stakeholder management is greater now than ever before. Though the term ‘stakeholder’ was first used in the West in the 1930s, this concept has been highlighted in the ancient Indian scriptures written centuries ago. These highlight the methodologies the kings used to ensure the welfare of (...) all their stakeholders. The kings of yore, who considered themselves as trustees of their kingdom, can be compared to the top management in corporates of this era. Thus, the concepts highlighted in these ancient scriptures find as much relevance and applicability even in today's times. This article takes a brief look at few of the studies undertaken in this area and also highlights excerpts from the ancient Indian scriptures to prove that the concept of stakeholder management owes its origin to India. (shrink)

The society and local community is the resource pool from which any organization gets its manpower and also so to say ‘the license to operate’. The society is the entity to which an organization owes its existence. The organization exists in the society because of the inputs received from it—material and human—and ultimately sells its products and services to it. Any organization must pay its due in various ways to this important constituency. In this article, the authors have used the (...) case study of an Indian Public Sector Undertaking like Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd to describe its Society and Local Community-related initiatives. Being a PSU and true to its mandate, BPCL has undertaken lot of innovative CSR initiatives in and around the areas of its functioning. An attempt has been made here to highlight the same. The data collection for the case has been done by the authors through personal interviews with top executives of the Company and supplemented through other information available in the public domain. (shrink)

The world is going through unprecedented environmental crisis. The type of destruction and dissolution of natural resources and elements by individuals and institutions that has been witnessed in the last century is much more than that witnessed in the previous millennia. To tackle this, for more than three decades, a number of discussions have taken place at diverse international fora, and frameworks and propositions have been put forth for corporate implementation. Consequently, a perceptible change has come about in the understanding (...) of corporations and their approach towards the Natural Environment, as a vital organizational stakeholder. While many companies use the pro-tection and preservation of the Natural Environment as a tool for brand building and corporate communications, many others have integrated economic and environmental goals to create mutually beneficial win-win situations. This article attempts to study such Natural Environmental Responsibility practices in corporate India. Through a mixed-method inductive study the article also proposes ‘Natural Environmental Responsibility Framework’. This is based on the triangulation of data wherein the quantitative data has been gathered through responses to an Executive Perception Survey with 400 responses from 125 organizations; and qualitative data has been gathered through personal interactions with 40 senior management executives from six eminent corporations across industry categories in India. The framework and its major components are based on empirical data of practices as existent in corporate India in contemporary times. Hence, the framework could be considered as a working model of NER in India. (shrink)

In India, society and social welfare has always been an important part of business and its broad objectives. From Merchant Charity to Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Social Responsibility has undergone a lot of change over the past many centuries. Whatever be the nomenclature, the objective remains the same—ensuring the welfare of the society and local community as an important stakeholder of an organization. While many companies use CSR as a strategic tool, many others undertake CSR activities for genuine altruism. In both (...) cases, CSR can be a very powerful tool for inclusive growth—the need of the hour. In this article, an attempt has been made through a mixed method study of proposing a Society and Local Community Welfare Framework. The quantitative data is gathered through an Executive Perception Survey wherein 400 responses from 125 organizations were gained and statistical analyses of the same were undertaken by the author. The qualitative data was gathered through personal interactions with senior management executives from nine eminent corporate organizations across industry categories. The framework and its major components are thus based on empirical data of practices as existent in corporate India today. Thus, the framework could be considered as a working model of CSR in India. (shrink)

Since the times of yore, the Indian culture has always laid importance on service to society as an important responsibility of the business/trader community. The society and local community is the resource pool from which any organization gets its manpower and also so to say ‘the license to operate’. The society is the entity to which an organization owes its existence. Any organization must pay its due in various ways to this important constituency. Though a number of models and frameworks (...) have been identified by experts for Corporate Social Responsibility, the author has found a dearth of real-life cases of leading organizations and their endeavours towards societal welfare and environmental protection. The author has used the case of Hindustan Unilever Ltd, a leading company in the FMCG sector in India for the past seven decades, to highlight their best practices towards the society, local community, NGOs and the natural environment. In spite of being a multinational organization, the Company has lived up to the Indian values of service to society. The case follows a descriptive research design and the findings include diverse, innovative and landmark initiatives undertaken by the Company to contribute to societal welfare through rural and women’s empowerment, livelihood generation, rehabilitation and natural environment protection and preservation. The data collection for this case has been done by the author through personal interviews with top executives of the Company and supplemented through other information available in the public domain. (shrink)

This paper is going to be a small study in the arena of comparative philosophy of the east and west. This study will show that ancient philosophies of India are still relevant in the modern world, and the modern philosophies in the western world is not a fruit of frustration, but both of them are two chief currents of thebrilliancy of human mind according to the development of human being and their need. Advaita Vedanta finds its extreme in nonduality, or (...) non-existence of brahman, which is the negation of all materialistic subjects\ topics \things in this world, or basically it denies the complete existence of the present world. On the other hand, Post Modernism finds its goal in decentralization of any object\theory in this world. Therefore, we can say that the both the systems have almost same conclusion regarding the non-existence or decentralization, but there is a radical difference in their dates. Advaita Vedanta and Post Modernism have also similarity in their methods to find their conclusions: “netineti” is a prime tool for Advaita Vedanta to prove the non-existence of brahman, and Post Modernism follows the “logic of Difference” to decentralize any existence in this world. This study will explore the differences and similarities of both of the systems, and will try to present a common conclusion, which should be acceptable for both of the systems. (shrink)

Prior research in judgment and decision making (JDM) has investigated the effect of problem framing on human preferences. Furthermore, research in JDM documented the absence of such reversal of preferences when making decisions from experience. However, little is known about the effect of context on preferences under the combined influence of problem framing and problem format. Also, little is known about how cognitive models would account for human choices in different problem frames and types (general/specific) in the experience format. One (...) of the primary objectives of this research is to investigate the presence of preference reversals under the influence of problem framing (gain/loss), problem format (experience/description), and problem type (general/specific). Another objective of this research is to develop cognitive models to account for human choices across different problem frames and types in the experience format. A total of 320 participants from India were randomly assigned to one of eight between-subjects conditions that differed in problem frame, format, and type. Results revealed preference reversals in the description condition; however, they were absent in the experience condition. Moreover, preference reversals were less pronounced in the general problem framing compared to the specific problem framing. Furthermore, specific problems influenced risk-seeking behavior among participants. We developed cognitive and heuristics models using instance-based learning theory and natural mean heuristic. Results reveal models’ dependency on recent and frequent observations during information sampling. These experience-based cognitive models could help build artificial intelligence models with fewer preference reversals. (shrink)

This important and comprehensive work of 18th-century Islamic religious thought written in Arabic by a pre-eminent South Asian scholar provides an extensive and detailed picture of Muslim theology and interpretive strategies on the eve of the modern period.

This experiment investigated the effect of format (line vs. bar), viewers’ familiarity with variables, and viewers’ graphicacy (graphical literacy) skills on the comprehension of multivariate (three variable) data presented in graphs. Fifty-five undergraduates provided written descriptions of data for a set of 14 line or bar graphs, half of which depicted variables familiar to the population and half of which depicted variables unfamiliar to the population. Participants then took a test of graphicacy skills. As predicted, the format influenced viewers’ interpretations (...) of data. Specifically, viewers were more likely to describe x–y interactions when viewing line graphs than when viewing bar graphs, and they were more likely to describe main effects and “z–y” (the variable in the legend) interactions when viewing bar graphs than when viewing line graphs. Familiarity of data presented and individuals’ graphicacy skills interacted with the influence of graph format. Specifically, viewers were most likely to generate inferences only when they had high graphicacy skills, the data were familiar and thus the information inferred was expected, and the format supported those inferences. Implications for multivariate data display are discussed. (shrink)

Contemporary Kantianism is often regarded as both a position within normative ethics and as an alternative to metaethical moral realism. We argue that it is not clear how contemporary Kantianism can distinguish itself from moral realism. There are many Kantian positions. For reasons of space we focus on the position of one of the most prominent, contemporary Kantians, Christine Korsgaard. Our claim is that she fails to show either that Kantianism is different or that it is better than realism. Our (...) strategy is to argue that what are supposed to be claims that conflict with realism in fact do not. (shrink)

The U.S. Federal regulations allow institutional review boards (IRBs) to approve non-beneficial pediatric research when the risks are a minor increase over minimal, provided that the research is likely to develop generalizable knowledge about the subjects' disorder or condition. This “subjects' condition” requirement is quite controversial; commentators have argued for a variety of interpretations. Despite this considerable disagreement in the literature, there have not been any attempts to apply principles of legal interpretation to determine how the subjects' condition requirement should (...) be understood. (shrink)

This essay begins by focusing on four cultural characters that signify different but associated aspects of the changing destiny of the human figure at the end of the twentieth century and beyond. These characters embody the human figure, in the double sense of form and metaphor, at work, at leisure and at war, and as gendered cultural and philosophical ideal. It is our suggestion that they provide excellent images of a general economy of the future present. Their significance as indices (...) of the destiny of the human resides in the way that they disclose the effects of a restricted economy that overflows its boundaries to incorporate, utilise and restrict every element of its generalised expenditure, to use the categories of Georges Bataille: its sumptuary excess, its sacred forms, its abjected waste, its modes of eroticism, its violence. The essay continues by discussing the implications of, and consequences for, human life in the face of the corporate or techno‐bureaucratic drive to incorporate the ‘impossible‐real’. For Paul Virilio, the technological desire to overwrite the temporal and spatial dimensions of ‘the actual’ discloses something of the ‘divine’ in this new technology. In conclusion, then, the essay questions what resistance there might be to the law of the machine‐God who lies, impossibly, as the immanent being of machinic efficiency, operativity and becoming excellence. (shrink)

Current formal dialectical models postulate normative rules that enable discussants to conduct dialogical interactions without committing fallacies. Though the rules for conducting a dialogue are supposed to apply to interactions between actual arguers, they are without exception theoretically motivated. This creates a gap between model and reality, because dialogue participants typically leave important content-related elements implicit. Therefore, analysts cannot readily relate normative rules to actual debates in ways that will be empirically confirmable. This paper details a new, data-driven method for (...) describing discussants’ actual reply structures, wherein corpus studies serve to acknowledge the complexity of natural argumentation. Rather than refer exclusively to propositional content as an indicator of arguing pro/contra a given claim, the proposed approach to dialogue structure tracks the sequence of dialogical moves itself. This arguably improves the applicability of theoretical dialectical models to empirical data, and thus advances the study of dialogue systems. (shrink)

تشخيص فكري ومعرفي لمفهوم الأسرة ومكانتها في الفكر الإسلامي، وتفحّصٌ علمي ومنهجي لأسس البناء الأسري ومقاصده، وكشفٌ عن تأثير التحوّلات الاجتماعية في الأسرة والتحديات التي تواجهها، وتتبعٌ لانعكاسات الفكر الغربي في المنظومة القيمية للأسرة، وتبيّنٌ لبعض التجارب والخبرات في مجال المحافظة على دور الأسرة، لا سيما بعد هيمنة النموذج المعرفي الغربي، ومحاولة طمسه للخصوصيات الثقافية والمجتمعية. حاولت بحوث هذا الكتاب أن تجيب عن تساؤلات معرفية ومجتمعية مهمة مثل: ما أهم التحديات التي تواجه الأسرة المسلمة في الراهن المعاصر وكيفية مواجهتها، وما (...) التغيرات التي طرأت على الأسرة المسلمة في ظل التطورات والتسارعات المجتمعية والاقتصادية والتقنية إلخ، وما التصوّر الإسلامي لدور الأسرة في بناء المجتمع، وما دور مؤسسات المجتمع المدني في الحد من تأثير الاستلاب الثقافي، وما الإسهام الذي قدمته حركات الإصلاح الإسلامية في مجال المحافظة على الدور المحوري للأسرة في تشكيل الشخصية الإسلامية القادرة على تفعيل النهوض الحضاري؟ وقد أسهم المشاركون في هذا العمل الجماعي، الذين بلغ عددهم واحداً وعشرين باحثاً، في محاورة هذه الأسئلة المعرفية، وفي التأسيس لمنظومة معرفية مجتمعية قادرة على الإسهام في البناء الحضاري، وفي توجيه دفة الأسرة بما ينسجم مع التوجيهات الربانية والفطرة الإنسانية. (shrink)

Research teams have made considerable progress in treating absolute uterine factor infertility through uterus transplantation, though studies have differed on the choice of either deceased or living donors. While researchers continue to analyze the medical feasibility of both approaches, little attention has been paid to the ethics of using deceased versus living donors as well as the protections that must be in place for each. Both types of uterus donation also pose unique regulatory challenges, including how to allocate donated organs; (...) whether the donor / donor's family has any rights to the uterus and resulting child; how to manage contact between the donor / donor's family, recipient, and resulting child; and how to track outcomes moving forward. (shrink)

This study aims to draw a gender based analysis of social and economic conditions of child labourers living in Karachi. Globally the issue of child labour is growing constantly and children are engaged in all sorts of hazardous forms of work, like adults, which deprives them from education, healthy life, child hood activities and balanced diet. In Pakistan the child labour is very common in all economic sectors, but it is mainly found in the informal sector and the household sector. (...) Purposive and convenience sampling techniques of non-probability sampling are used to collect data through structured questionnaire from 900 respondents from eighteen administrative districts of Karachi, which is based upon primarily quantitative and narrowly focused qualitative research methods. The findings of the study reveal that mostly children between the ages of 12 to 14 years are commonly inducted in different economic sectors. This clear violation of child rights makes them vulnerable to health and safety threats and putting them forcefully in hazardous occupations to earn bread and butter for their family by compromising their education. (shrink)

Writing the Mughal World: Studies on Culture and Politics. Muzzafar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. Pp. xviii + 516. $89.50, £62 ; $29.50, £20.50.

Visual masking of primes lowers prime visibility but spares processing of primes as reflected in prime–target congruence and prime–response compatibility effects. However, the question is how to appropriately measure prime visibility. Here, we tested the influence of three procedural variables on prime visibility measures: prime–target similarity, prime–response similarity, and the variability of prime–response mappings. Our results show that a low prime–target similarity is a favorable condition for a prime visibility measure because it increases the sensitivity of this measure in comparison (...) to a high prime–target similarity. (shrink)

Believing that p, assuming that p, and imagining that p involve regarding p as true—or, as we shall call it, accepting p. What distinguishes belief from the other modes of acceptance? We claim that conceiving of an attitude as a belief, rather than an assumption or an instance of imagining, entails conceiving of it as an acceptance that is regulated for truth, while also applying to it the standard of being correct if and only if it is true. We argue (...) that the second half of this claim, according to which the concept of belief includes a standard of correctness, is required to explain the fact that the deliberative question whether to believe that p is transparent to the question whether p. This argument raises various questions. Is there such a thing as deliberating whether to believe? Is the transparency of the deliberative question whether to believe that p the same as the transparency of the factual question whether I do believe that p? We will begin by answering these questions and then turn to a series of possible objections to our argument. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to define some new operation laws for the trapezoidal linguistic cubic fuzzy number and Hamming distance. Furthermore, we define and use the trapezoidal linguistic cubic fuzzy TOPSIS method to solve the multi criteria decision making (MCDM) method. The new ranking method for trapezoidal linguistic cubic fuzzy numbers (TrLCFNs) are used to rank the alternatives. Finally, an illustrative example is given to verify and prove the practicality and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Examining the coverage of the 2016 US Presidential election of the highest circulating New Zealand newspaper—the New Zealand Herald (NZH)—this study argues that this newspaper sets agenda against Donald Trump—the Republican Party candidate in the 2016 US election. Examining all news, editorials and photographs published in NZH, it discursively argues that this newspaper overshadowed and dehumanized Trump and especially his leadership ability. The other major candidate—the Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton—was applauded in the coverage. The NZH repeatedly focused upon the (...) activities of Trump through news, views and images to dehumanize him. The repetition, therefore, does not necessarily mean that a particular media outlet favors a particular candidate. It also argues that the media outlet of a distant nation that cannot influence its reader to vote for a particular candidate may still set the agenda in favor of a candidate. (shrink)

This paper proposes two formal models for understanding real-life dialogues, aimed at capturing argumentative structures performatively enacted during conversations. In the course of the investigation, two types of discourse with a high degree of well-structured argumentation were chosen: moral debate and financial communication. The research project found itself confronted by a need to analyse, structure and formally describe large volumes of textual data, where this called for the application of computational tools. It is expected that the results of the proposed (...) research will make a contribution to formal systems modelling and the evaluation of communication from the point of view of argument soundness. (shrink)

Background: Healthcare providers who are accountable for patient care safety and quality but who are not empowered to actualize them experience moral distress. Interventions to mitigate moral distress in the healthcare organization are needed. Objective: To evaluate the effect on moral distress and clinician empowerment of an established, health-system-wide intervention, Moral Distress Consultation. Methods: A quasi-experimental, mixed methods study using pre/post surveys, structured interviews, and evaluation of consult themes was used. Consults were requested by staff when moral distress was present. (...) The purpose of consultation is to identify the causes of moral distress, barriers to action, and strategies to improve the situation. Intervention participants were those who attended a moral distress consult. Control participants were staff surveyed prior to the consult. Interviews were conducted after the consult with willing participants and unit managers. Moral distress was measured using the Moral Distress Thermometer. Empowerment was measured using the Global Empowerment Scale. Results: Twenty-one consults were conducted. Analysis included 116 intervention and 30 control surveys, and 11 interviews. A small but significant decrease was found among intervention participants, especially intensive care staff. Empowerment was unchanged. Interview themes support the consult service as an effective mode for open discussion of difficult circumstances and an important aspect of a healthy work environment. Conclusions: Moral distress consultation is an organization-wide mechanism for addressing moral distress. Consultation does not resolve moral distress but helps staff identify strategies to improve the situation. Further studies including follow up may elucidate consultation effectiveness. (shrink)

Why, when asking oneself whether to believe that p, must one immediately recognize that this question is settled by, and only by, answering the question whether p is true? Truth is not an optional end for first-personal doxastic deliberation, providing an instrumental or extrinsic reason that an agent may take or leave at will. Otherwise there would be an inferential step between discovering the truth with respect to p and determining whether to believe that p, involving a bridge premise that (...) it is good (in whichever sense of good one likes, moral, prudential, aesthetic, allthings-considered, etc.) to believe the truth with respect to p. But there is no such gap between the two questions within the first-personal deliberative perspective; the question whether to believe that p seems to collapse into the question whether p is true. (shrink)

Comparative Political Philosophy: Studies Under the Upas Tree examines four major traditions of political philosophy and discusses similarities in their key ideas and assumptions. An intellectually daring enterprise, this fascinating volume focuses on key texts from Chinese, Indian, Western and Islamic political philosophy.

Allocating access to unapproved COVID-19 drugs available via Pre-Approval Access pathways or Emergency Use Authorization raises unique challenges at the intersection of clinical care and research....

Volume 20, Issue 6, June 2020, Page 17-19.