Reprint. Originally published: Rajini's punchtantra: value statements on business and life management. Chennai: New Horizon Media, 2010.

Festschrift honoring Kalyāṇasundaraśāstrī; comprises articles on Advaita in Hindu philosophy.

Contributed essays with focus on Advaita Vedantā.

We investigate the role of social-media-triggered public pressure on corporate social responsibility that includes expectations of transparency and accountability on the firm’s part, and participative/evaluative inputs on the public’s part. Using the date when S&P 500 firms established corporate Twitter accounts, we investigate the impact of corporate social media exposure on CSR outcomes. Results from baseline regressions indicate that firms with Twitter accounts significantly outperform industry peers in CSR rating, after controlling for firm and industry characteristics. To test potential reverse (...) causality, we use a dynamic treatment effect model to explore within firm changes of CSR, and find that firms’ CSR rating improves in year one- and year two after establishing a Twitter account, while no difference emerged in similar comparisons with peers prior to the Twitter account establishment. Additionally, Granger causality tests results show that corporate Twitter presence improves CSR performance; it is also shown that CSR outcomes do not motivate corporations to establish a social media presence on Twitter. Finally, firms with more experience on Twitter, and those with more followers, tweets or Twitter accounts are associated with improved CSR outcomes. We draw on two theories and qualitative interviews with senior CSR executives to explain why social media influences CSR firm behaviors. (shrink)

In this important study D. M. Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesises but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and (...) rigorously this-worldly account of the most general features of reality, argued from a distinctive philosophical perspective, and it will appeal to a wide readership in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

Equity, equality and inclusivity have been themes of abiding interest to philosophers, politicians, social reformers and activists alike. In the modern Indian context of political and social reformation spearheaded by Gandhi during the first half of the twentieth century, the imperatives of mainstreaming women in public and private spheres of activity was a theme that engaged many scholars and statesmen and attracted his serious concern. Not giving women their due share of responsibility and authority was to him as much a (...) case calling for greater inclusivity as was the exclusion of vast proportions of the population from equal opportunities based on other legacy prejudices of caste, creed, and so on. Despite remarkable progress in many other spheres, countries in general are still way behind in rectifying the gender inequalities that still persist. This article discusses, within the broader framework of equality and inclusivity, the theme of women in corporate governance with particular reference to India. Corporate boards, key instruments in governing corporations, are still too thinly populated with women directors; there is comparatively little representation of women in positions of influence and importance within the bureaucracy associated with corporate legislation and market regulation; active involvement of women in policy-making legislative bodies like the parliament and its committees as well as in the ministerial ranks in post-independent India is minimal. This situation calls for speedy correction in developing countries like India, which can arguably benefit most from such inclusion. (shrink)

String theory has transformed our understanding of geometry, topology and space-time. Thus, for this special issue of Foundations of Physics commemorating “Forty Years of String Theory”, it seems appropriate to step back and ask what we do not understand. As I will discuss, time remains the least understood concept in physical theory. While we have made significant progress in understanding space, our understanding of time has not progressed much beyond the level of a century ago when Einstein introduced the idea (...) of space-time as a combined entity. Thus, I will raise a series of open questions about time, and will review some of the progress that has been made as a roadmap for the future. (shrink)

A human being is a complex entity consisting of the Self (also known as Consciousness), mind, senses and the body. The Vedānta tradition holds that the mind, the senses and the body are essentially different from the Self or Consciousness. It is through consciousness that we are able to know the things of the world, making use of the medium of the mind and the senses. Furthermore, the mind, though material, is able to reveal things, borrowing the light from consciousness. (...) From the phenomenological point of view, we have to answer the following questions: how does one know the mind/the mental operations/the cogitations of the mind? Does the mind know itself? Is it possible? There is, again, the problem of the intentionality of consciousness. Is consciousness intentional? According to Vedānta, consciousness by its very nature is not intentional, but it becomes intentional through the mind. The mind or the ego is not part of the consciousness; on the contrary, it is transcendent to consciousness. It is difficult to spell out the relation between consciousness and the mind. How does consciousness, which is totally different from the mind, get related to the mind in such a way that it makes the latter capable of comprehending the things of the world? The Vedānta tradition provides the answer to this question in terms of the knower-known relation. Consciousness is pure light, self-luminous by its very nature, that is, although it reveals other objects, it is not revealed by anything else. When Sartre describes it as nothingness, bereft of even ego, it is to show that it is pure light revealing objects outside it. (shrink)

Contributed research papers presented at the annual sessions of the Indian philosophical Congress.

This article analyzes efforts to govern men’s reproduction in postwar India’s population control program from 1960 to 1977. It argues that the Indian state’s unconventional emphasis on men was linked to a gendered strand of social scientific research known as family planning communications and its investments in reframing reproductive control in behavioral terms. Communication scientists’ goal to understand the role of mass communications in shaping “reproductive decision-making” dovetailed with prevailing cultural ideologies of masculinity that readily associated men with economic rationality (...) and calculative reasoning. Consequently, scientists cast Indian men as indispensable targets of behavioral interventions into reproduction due to their ostensible status as familial and social “decision-makers.” This reframing prompted Indian family planning officials to create novel interventions into men’s reproductive bodies and beliefs, exhorting them to use contraception and desire fewer children. The study thus offers new approaches for theorizing how men become framed as legitimate subjects of reproductive control. (shrink)

Description: Originally published in French, The Civilization in Ancient India by Louis Renou deals with various aspects of polity, life and thought in ancient India. Based mainly on the great body of Indian lore supplemented by the data from epigraphical, literary as well as other sources, this work encapsulates vast information about India's ancient past covering the period up to the middle of the seventh century. In the four preliminary chapters in the first part of the book is given a (...) succinct survey of history, literature, religion and philosophical speculations. The second part deals respectively with caste, family, elements of civil law, penal law, the state, politics and war, economics and public and private life. The facts culled from the substantial data marshalled by the author on these different aspects have indeed made this work invaluable alike for the serious student and researcher. A brief chronology of the period and bibliography on different subjects discussed in the book have added to its value. (shrink)

Contributed articles on Vedanta, a study.

" -- Africa Today "The excellence of this book lies in the wealth of perspectives that it brings to the discussion on what constitutes philosophy, rationality, ...