Biobank-based research is not specifically addressed in Indian statutory law and therefore Indian Council for Medical Research guidelines are the primary regulators of biobank research in India. The guidelines allow for broad consent and for any level of identification of specimens. Although privacy is a fundamental right under the Indian Constitution, courts have limited this right when it conflicts with other rights or with the public interest. Furthermore, there is no established privacy test or actionable privacy right in the common (...) law of India. In order to facilitate biobank-based research, both of these lacunae should be addressed by statutory law specifically addressing biobanking and more directly addressing the accompanying privacy concerns. A biobank-specific law should be written with international guidelines in mind, but harmonization with other laws should not be attempted until after India has created a law addressing biobank research within the unique legal and cultural environment of India. (shrink)

Rather than a hatha how-to guide with asanas and step-by-step instructions, The Spiritual Roots of Yoga explains yoga’s origin and underlying philosophy. The book dives straight to the heart of the yogic tradition embodied in the figure of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, an understanding broadened through an examination of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. It then provides the framework for an accessible comparison between yoga and Christian, Buddhist, and other systems of thought. The author of several acclaimed interfaith studies, (...) class='Hi'>Ravi Ravindra writes from a deep understanding of not only the philosophy but the context from which yoga evolved, as well as its standing within the community of religious thought and practice, offering practitioners and other spiritual pilgrims a deeper appreciation of the tradition. (shrink)

A new translation of the great classic--with wide-ranging, multi-traditional commentary that emphasizes its practical advice for living with integrity. 'All there is is Krishna.' Upon hearing this famous and enigmatic line from the Gita's seventh chapter when he was a boy, Ravi Ravindra embarked on a journey to understand its deep meaning. The search led him far beyond the tradition from which the text originally arose to an exploration of world mystical wisdom, including Zen, Christianity, Yoga, and particularly (...) the teachings of J. Krishnamurti and G. I. Gurdjieff. Dr. Ravindra's fresh prose translation with wide-ranging commentary, is the fruit of that lifelong process. It stands out from the many other versions with its assertion that the Bhagavad Gita is at heart a universal guide to navigating the battle of life required of each and every one of us. It is through that navigation, he shows, that we can discover and connect with the Krishna deep within ourselves: The Eternal Witness who is above the battle, and who is, ultimately and joyfully, all there is. (shrink)

Formalized by the tenth century, the expansive Bhāgavata Purāṇa resists easy categorization. While the narrative holds together as a coherent literary work, its language and expression compete with the best of Sanskrit poetry. The text's theological message focuses on devotion to Krishna or Vishnu, and its philosophical outlook is grounded in the classical traditions of Vedānta and Sāmkhya. This translation and detailed analysis of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa includes endnotes that explain unfamiliar concepts and essays that elucidate the rich debates (...) found in the Sanskrit commentaries. The book makes a central Hindu masterpiece more accessible to English-speaking audiences and more meaningful to scholars of Indian literature, philosophy, and religion. (shrink)

'... this book represents a welcome addition to the literature on PP and is recommended for readers interested in risk assessment, decision making and the precautionary principle.' - Krishna Ravi Srinivas, Political Studies Review.

Approaching comparison through attention to stories of gods rather than through explicit doctrines, and in particular to stories of gods in their infancy and childhood, is an arresting proposal in comparative theology. It was this unusual character which first drew my attention to Kristin Johnston Largen’s Baby Krishna, Infant Christ. Largen’s prose is fluid and clear, and the structure of the argument is also readily apparent. And thus the work held my attention and convinced me that it is deserving (...) of review here.An introduction and first chapter offer a description of and an apology for comparative theology. Part I, comprising chapters two and three, is focused on ‘Baby Krishna,’ first recounting some of the main stories of Krishna from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, before reflecting on the significance of those stories from the perspective of understanding how salvation is conceived and experienced in those Hindu traditions for which Krishna bhakti is crucial.The fourth and fifth chapters, .. (shrink)

Libertarians are an increasingly prominent ideological group in U.S. politics, yet they have been largely unstudied. Across 16 measures in a large web-based sample that included 11,994 self-identified libertarians, we sought to understand the moral and psychological characteristics of self-described libertarians. Based on an intuitionist view of moral judgment, we focused on the underlying affective and cognitive dispositions that accompany this unique worldview. Compared to self-identified liberals and conservatives, libertarians showed 1) stronger endorsement of individual liberty as their foremost guiding (...) principle, and weaker endorsement of all other moral principles; 2) a relatively cerebral as opposed to emotional cognitive style; and 3) lower interdependence and social relatedness. As predicted by intuitionist theories concerning the origins of moral reasoning, libertarian values showed convergent relationships with libertarian emotional dispositions and social preferences. Our findings add to a growing recognition of the role of personality differences in the organization of political attitudes. (shrink)

Individualized customer information is at the heart of on-line commerce. Using increasing amounts of customer-specific data enhances the success and value of one-to-one on-line marketing; but the extensive gathering and use of data specific to individuals also causes alarm over the loss of digital privacy, setting up a confrontation between e-commerce and society. Governments and nations, particularly in Europe, have reacted with a reliance on sweeping laws governing digital privacy protection while other nations such as the U.S. have generally preferred (...) to allow companies and industry associations to regulate themselves. This tenuous balance is under attack from both sides. In this paper, we set up a framework which incorporates the environmental context, ethical perspectives and firm-specific considerations to help firms develop a strategy for handling digital privacy concerns. (shrink)

A comparative study of wonder in South Asian religions.

I argue that moral principles involve the same sort of generalization as ordinary yet elusive generic generalizations in natural language such as 'Tigers are striped' or 'Peppers are spicy'. A notable advantage of the generic view is that it simultaneously allows for pessimism and optimism about the role and status of moral principles in our lives. It provides a new perspective on the nature of moral principles on which principles are not apt for determining the moral status of particular actions (...) while they may be apt, and even fundamental, to our acquisition of moral knowledge. A natural consequence of the view is variation amongst moral principles, with some regularly warranting exceptions, and some appearing arguably exceptionless. It is also argued that this generic conception of moral principles has significant advantages, as a normative model of moral reasoning, over the view of moral principles as defaults advanced in recent years. (shrink)

A prevailing thought is that generics have a covert modal operator at logical form. I claim that if this is right, the covert generic modality is a weak necessity modal. In this paper, I pr...

The spread of digital technology to all parts of our lives has led to meaningful benefits, ranging from the conveniences offered by ride-sharing apps to prediction of mental health crises and track...

This volume critically explores the cultural significance and fate of 'the literary' in the European and Indian traditions as it traces the history of the reception of works that have a deep hold on the lives and sensibilities of people across time and culture. The book grapples with three major concepts in the humanities-the literary, the philosophical/theological, and the historical. It looks at Homer's reception by Plato; Virgil's reception by Christianity; the many responses that The Mahabharata has received over centuries (...) and across cultures in India; and the reception of Kumaravyasa's Kumaravyasabharata, among other works, and analyses the understanding of truth, time, and history that influence the reading of these works in different times and cultural contexts. Part of the Critical Humanities across Cultures series, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of philosophy, literature, history, comparative literature, cultural studies and post-colonial studies. (shrink)

The use of Nasogastric (NG) feeding in the provision of artificial nutrition and hydration at the end of life has, for the most part, been regarded as futile by the medical community. This position has been led chiefly by prevailing medical data. In Singapore, however, there has been an increase in its utilization supported primarily by social, religious and cultural factors expressly to prolong life of the terminally ill patient. Here this article will seek to review the ethical and clinical (...) impact of this treatment and provide some understanding for such decisions in the light of the Duty of Palliative Care [DoPC]. Complemented by virtue ethics theory, the DoPC highlights and seeks to realize the individual case specific goals of care that maximize comfort and quality of life of the patient in the face of rapid attenuation of treatment options and the eminence of the final outcome by considering each of these factors individually in order to provide the best outcome for the patient and the family. (shrink)

Ali comparative studies imply simultaneously an identity and a difference, a situation that is replete with intellectual difficulties which give rise to interminable disputes regarding whether we are talking about the same thing or different things. One may cut the gordian knot by deciding either way, but the situation would reappear again as it is bound up with the comparative perspective itself and not with any particular example of it. How long shall we go on “naming”, for the process is (...) unending and ultimately “everything is what it is. and not another thing”. Or, if we do not like “names” as they hardly give us any knowledge and if we opt for “description” which gives us “facts”, then they too are as unending as the “names”, for, as the Jains taught us long ago, they are a function of the dṛṣti that we have or the point of view that we adopt. (shrink)

Since the end of the Second World War, the Australasian economies have fared poorly relative both to the high-income states of western Europe and North America and to the `miracle' economies strung along the Pacific coasts of Asia. This article attempts to analyze the post-war trajectories of antipodean economies in the context of the reconstruction of the world market under US hegemony after the end of the Second World War. The first section traces the rise of Japan and the emergence (...) of Pacific Asia as a consolidated nexus of densely interwoven patterns of relational networks. The second section examines how ongoing processes of capitalist restructuring undermined the Asian miracle economies. Finally, the last section seeks to analyze the causes for the disproportionately adverse impact that processes of worldwide transformation have had for the two antipodean settler states. (shrink)

Eukaryotic genomes are packaged into nucleosomal chromatin, and genomic activity requires the precise localization of transcription factors, histone modifications and nucleosomes. Classic work described the progressive reassembly and maturation of bulk chromatin behind replication forks. More recent proteomics has detailed the molecular machines that accompany the replicative polymerase to promote rapid histone deposition onto the newly replicated DNA. However, localized chromatin features are transiently obliterated by DNA replication every S phase of the cell cycle. Genomic strategies now observe the rebuilding (...) of locus‐specific chromatin features, and reveal surprising delays in transcription factor binding behind replication forks. This implies that transient chromatin disorganization during replication is a central juncture for targeted transcription factor binding within genomes. We propose that transient occlusion of regulatory elements by disorganized nucleosomes during chromatin maturation enforces specificity of factor binding. (shrink)

God as a term denoting that which is ultimately real and absolutely valuational is simultaneously the necessary presupposition of all thought and action and also their ultimate goal. Yet, it is equally true that it is neither known nor even knowable in principle in the sense that any finite being or set of such beings may hope to know it in any determinate manner. Being generally conceived as beyond both space and time and transcending them in the sense that, even (...) when considered as immanent in the world, It can never be regarded as completely revealed at any particular point in space or time, it cannot but be unknown and unknowable in the deepest sense of the word. Yet, however paradoxical the idea of God may be, it is a symbol of that which man as a self-conscious reflective being, who both knows and acts, has to encounter at every turn. (shrink)

Familial determination, replete with its frequent usurping of patient autonomy, propagation of collusion, and circumnavigation of direct patient involvement in their own care deliberations, continues to impact clinical practice in many Asian nations. Suggestions that underpinning this practice, in Confucian-inspired societies, is the adherence of the populace to the familial centric ideas of personhood espoused by Confucian ethics, provide a novel means of understanding and improving patient-centred care at the end of life. Clinical experience in Confucian-inspired Singapore, however, suggests that (...) personhood is conceived in broader terms. This diverging view inspired a study of local conceptions of personhood and scrutiny of the influence of the family upon it. From the data gathered, a culturally appropriate, clinically relevant and ethically sensitive concept of personhood was proposed: the Ring Theory of Personhood that better captures the nuances of local conceptions of personhood. The Ring Theory highlights the fact that, far from being solely dependent upon familial centric ideals, local conceptions of personhood are dynamic, context dependent, evolving ideas delineated by four dimensions. Using the Ring Theory, the nature of familial influences upon the four dimensions of personhood – the Innate, Individual, Relational and Societal – are examined to reveal that, contrary to perceived knowledge, conceptions of personhood within Confucian societies are not the prime reason for the continued presence of this decision-making model but remain present within local thinking and practices as a sociocultural residue and primarily because of inertia in updating ideas. (shrink)

Making transformative services such as healthcare accessible to low-income consumers is an ethical challenge of vital importance to marketers. However, most low-income consumers across the world are excluded from the market for such transformative services because of financial constraints arising from poverty. In this paper, instead of focusing on the micro-interplay between firms and consumers, we examine the macro-interplay among firms, consumers, and public policy in addressing the ethical challenge of market inclusion at the base of the pyramid. Specifically, we (...) examine how the Vietnam government used a policy of free and universal health insurance for children under the age of six as a means of lowering affordability barriers and fostering market inclusion in the healthcare market. Overnight in 2005, all children under the age of six living anywhere in Vietnam became eligible for free health insurance. Using this policy intervention as a natural experiment, we compare market inclusion outcomes of children under the age of six with older children who were ineligible before and after the program was implemented. We show that lowering affordability barriers through public policy increases access to target services, increases consumers’ overall out-of-pocket spending, and increases access to complementary services. By adopting a macromarketing lens, this study makes a strong case for collaboration among firms, governments, and communities in addressing the ethical challenge of system-wide market inclusion in base-of-the-pyramid markets. (shrink)

It is a familiar point that we can use generic sentences to express generalisations that are tolerant to exceptions and then go on to state those exceptions explicitly. It is a less familiar point that switching the order of the generics has deleterious effects on their felicity. For example, the sequences ‘Ravens are black, but albino ravens aren’t’ is perfectly felicitous and judged to be true, whereas its reverse ‘Albino ravens aren’t black, but ravens are’ is infelicitous and contradictory-sounding. This (...) paper argues that such sequences pose a problem for extant theories of generics: while they have no trouble predicting the felicity of the first sequence of generics, they are unable to explain why reversing the order results in infelicity. I propose to account for these observations by adopting a dynamic semantic theory of generic sentences. (shrink)

Small and medium-sized firms form 90% of the worldwide population of businesses. However, it has been argued that given their smaller scale of operations, resource access constraints and lower visibility, smaller firms are less likely to participate in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. This article examines the different economic motivations of firms with varying combinations of visibility, resource access and scale of operations. Arguments are presented to propose that in terms of visibility, resource access and operating scale, very small and (...) very large firms are equally motivated to participate in CSR. However, the motivational bases for CSR participation are likely to be different. Medium-sized firms are the least motivated. This suggests a U-shaped relationship between firm size and CSR participation. This study contributes towards resolution of the long-standing debate on the effects of firm size on CSR participation, and highlights the importance of considering configurations of firm characteristics in the study of CSR outcomes. In conclusion, cautions are raised against the broad categorization of firms, without adequate attention to the underlying dimensions of such categorizations. (shrink)

The “class play” is an annual tradition in residency training programs and medical schools that celebrates the end of the academic year. It is also a locally generated narrative that reveals important components of an institution’s values, culture, and group dynamics. Exploring the class play is a reflexive exercise that allows one to reflect on his or her professional development and place in the department in a structural, historical, and experience-near driven way. In this way, the creation of and examining (...) of the class play may be seen as an opportunity to understand and expand upon medicine’s Hidden Curriculum. (shrink)

The practice of paying prisoners to for their participation in research has long been debated, and the controversy is reflected in the differing policies in the U.S. prison systems. Empirical study of financial payments to inmates who enroll in research has focused on whether this practice is coercive. In this study, we examined whether monetary incentives have the potential to be unduly influential among fifty HIV‐positive prisoners. The majority of prisoners surveyed believed that inmates should receive some compensation for their (...) involvement in research and disagreed with statements suggesting that the offer of payment constitutes undue influence. However, a sense of potentially being susceptible to undue influence was significantly higher among participants who had spent a longer time in prison and had less education. Overall, our findings suggest that most prisoners feel that they would be able to make a decision about research enrollment that is not solely based on an offer of monetary payment. (shrink)