Journal of Human Values, Volume 28, Issue 1, Page 29-43, January 2022. The COVID-19 crisis has revealed a need for rethinking approaches to education and livelihoods. Education in its present dispensation does not provide equitable access to children from marginalized segments of the population. It also suffers from deficits in the areas of social and emotional skills, over-emphasis on the three Rs, language used as a medium of instruction, and excessive competition for scoring marks, among others. There is very low (...) uptake of vocational education. The National Education Policy 2020 tries to address some of these issues and plans on closer integration of vocational education with the school framework. High unemployment rates of educated youth, along with underemployment due to skill mismatch, show poor school-to-work transition and underscore the importance of TVET for youth in the future. Skill already exists in the economy in informal knowledge systems which are largely undocumented and thus not acknowledged in the formal system. These need to be combined with Western-centric knowledge systems so that the imbalance between formally educated/trained workers and informally trained workers is redressed. There is also a need to bring back the joy of learning, as Tagore’s experimentation with education has demonstrated. (shrink)

This paper is about Gandhi's critique of politics, of which his ambivalence towards democracy was a part. I argue that for Gandhi the ground of moral action is fearlessness, while that of political reason is security and self-defense. Gandhi sees the context of moral action in the mundane fabric of everyday life, in places such as the family and the village. For that reason he does not believe that moral action requires being supplemented by the particular kind of unity which (...) politics and the state call for and necessitate. (shrink)

The enduring appeal of liberalism lies in its commitment to the idea that human beings have a "natural" potential to live as free and equal individuals. The realization of this potential, however, is not a matter of nature, but requires that people be molded by a complex constellation of political and educational institutions. In this eloquent and provocative book, Uday Singh Mehta investigates in the major writings of John Locke the implications of this tension between individuals and the (...) institutions that mold them. The process of molding, he demonstrates, involves an external conformity and an internal self-restraint that severely limit the scope of individuality. Mehta explores the centrality of the human imagination in Locke's thought, focusing on his obsession with the potential dangers of the cognitive realm. Underlying Locke's fears regarding the excesses of the imagination is a political anxiety concerning how to limit their potential effects. In light of Locke's views on education, Mehta concludes that the promise of liberation at the heart of liberalism is vitiated by its constraints on cognitive and political freedom. (shrink)

Shedding light on a fundamental tension in liberal theory, Liberalism and Empire reaches beyond post-colonial studies to revise our conception of the grand liberal tradition and the conception of experience with which it is associated.

Recruiting nurses from other countries is a long-standing practice. In recent years many countries in the developed world have more frequently recruited nurses from the developing world, causing an imbalance in the health services in often already impoverished countries. Despite guidelines and promises by developed countries that the practice should cease, it has largely failed to do so. A consortium of authors from countries that have experienced significant nurse poaching consider the ethical aspects behind this continuing practice.

Decolonization of the European empires in the twentieth century was spurred by the colonized based on two purposes: the desire for independence, and the desire to build a sovereign political identity. The most obvious feature of the first intention was the formation of anti-imperialist movements, organised under the banner ‘they must leave’. The latter was characterized by the establishment of constitutional government, which highlighted the identity of a novice country in a political and unified form and which featured a central (...) source of power. These two purposes share a complex relationship. For power to be sovereign, independence must be gained first. Power cannot be obligated to the wishes of another power or constrained by the laws of another regime. The struggle for independence of European empires did not readily create the conditions for the exercise of a sovereign power. It was elusive at the moment of independence. This chapter discusses some of the implications of these two purposes, with emphasis on the second purpose and the Indian experience. It addresses questions such as: what is the meaning of collective identity to those newly independent countries in the context of politics; what were the pressures on the claims to political identity and unity; how did these pressures encourage a revolutionary mindset in the conceptualization of constitutional provisions and political power; and how does the struggle for political identity relate to the history of nation and its struggle for independence? (shrink)

In the past decades, the world has witnessed significant growth in environmental issues such as the generation of waste, climatic changes, and depletion of natural resources. Due to this, there has been a substantial upsurge in consumers who prefer green products. Hence, exploring the stable set of characteristics of green consumers becomes extremely important for organizations to develop customer‐oriented targeting and segmenting strategies. The present study attempts to explore key factors influencing green purchase behavior and the behavioral profile of green (...) consumers in the Indian context. The study surveyed 400 respondents from Punjab. Multivariate analysis was performed to analyze the data. The results of the analysis revealed three distinctive consumer clusters based on green purchase behavior. “Pro‐environmentals” represent the segment of green consumers. Consumers of this cluster were found to be highly environmentally conscious. Besides this, the study confirmed noticeable differences in the three clusters in terms of gender, age, number of children, and marital status. Finally, the results indicated the behavioral profile of green and non‐green consumers and explained prominent differences between the three clusters. This knowledge shall enable marketers to design tailor‐made marketing strategies focusing on the specific needs of each consumer cluster. (shrink)

This paper presents a method for the study of the influence of stability of a power transformer on the power system based on the vibration principle. Traditionally, the EMD and EEMD algorithms are employed to test the box vibration signal data of the power transformer under three working conditions. The proposed method utilizes a partial EMD screening along with MPEEMD method for the online monitoring of power transformer. A complete online monitoring system is designed by using the STM32 processor and (...) LabVIEW system. The proposed system is compared with EMD and EEMD algorithms in terms of the number of IMFs obtained by decomposition, maximum correlation coefficient, and mean square error. The inherent mode correlation, when compared with the mean square error of the reconstructed signal, shows that the reconstruction error of MPEEMD algorithm is 4.762×10−15 which is better than the traditional EMD algorithm. It is observed from the results that the proposed method outperforms both EMD and EEMD algorithms. (shrink)

Editing human germline genes may act as boon in some genetic and other disorders. Recent editing of the genome of the human embryo with the CRISPR/Cas9 editing tool generated a debate amongst top scientists of the world for the ethical considerations regarding its effect on the future generations. It needs to be seen as to what transformation human gene editing brings to humankind in the times to come.

Arguing that intellectual movements, such as deconstruction, postsecular theory, and political theology, have different implications for cultures and societies that live with the debilitating effects of past imperialisms, Arvind Mandair ...

In business ethics, there is a large body of literature focusing on the conditions, factors, and influences in the ethical decision-making processes. This work builds upon the past critical reviews by updating and extending the literature review found in Craft’s :221–259, 2013) study, extending her literature review to include a total of 141 articles. Since past reviews have focused on categorizing results based upon various independent variables, we instead synthesize and look at the trends of these based upon the four (...) ethical decision making categories: Awareness, Behavior, Judgment, and Intention. We focus on the moderation and mediation effects found within these studies and provide an in-depth analysis of future trends. Furthermore, we also highlight key statistical and methodological concerns, outline overarching trends, and directions of future research in empirical ethical decision making. (shrink)

The Indian philosophers lay emphasis on mind-control. Mind-control is not only negative practice. For, we are not only required to check and curb our evil tendencies but also employ them for a better purpose. The lower constituents of human beings can not be annihilated but can only be tamed and reformed. Cessation of bad tendencies is coupled with cultivation of good tendencies and is followed by good actions. According to Jainism & Buddhism, the path of liberation from sufferings starts with (...) mind-control. The Jainas emphasize on right faith, right knowledge and right conduct which are regarded as Triratnas, three Jewels. Right conduct consists in abstinence from injury, falsehood, stealing, self-indulgence and attachment. According to Buddhism, way to Nirvan (cessation from suffering) consists in eight-fold path which is nothing but self-control. It starts from right views, right determination and right speech and proceeds through right conduct to right livelihood to right effort and to right mindfulness. This process of self-control finally culminates in right concentration. The Upanishadic thinkers and the systems based on Upanishadic traditions have also recognised the importance of self-control. In view of the importance of mind-control in familial, social, moral and spiritual lives we should consistently and constantly make endeavour to practice mind-control and should fight despondency with enthusiasm in the event of some initial failures. (shrink)

Philosophical interpretation of Sikh hymns.

This book presents a critical analysis of sense-making practices through an exploration of acoustic, creative, and artistic spaces. It studies how local cultures of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch are impacted by global discourses and media, such as television, popular music, digital media, and literature. The authors look at sense-making practices and spatial discourses through an interconnected discussion on thought and experience that seeks to present a multidimensional cartography of the global, the local, and the glocal, to closely analyze (...) the phenomenon of globalization. The volume is an investigation of the possibilities of alternate, sustainable modes of being and existing in a world which requires a unified, ethical, biopolitical worldview that challenges the disparity of its fragments while speculating on their synesthetic conditionality. A unique contribution, the book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of English literature, media studies, cultural studies, literary cultures, post-colonial studies, globalization studies, philosophy, critical theory, sociology, and social anthropology. (shrink)

To meet the shifting needs and preferences of the contemporary sales workforce, sales organizations are deploying idiosyncratic deals (I-deals), or mutually beneficial individualized workplace arrangements between salespeople and the organization. However, research is lacking on how, and under what conditions, I-deals facilitate work engagement and performance among salespeople. In this study, based on analysis of data gathered from 221 business-to-business salespeople, we demonstrate that I-deals are positively related to two foci of salesperson work engagement (i.e., social engagement and change engagement) (...) and salesperson performance. Furthermore, we find that ethical self-leadership, which is driven by ethical leadership, functions as an internal self-governance mechanism that strengthens the impact of I-deals on salesperson work engagement. Based on these results, we delineate novel theoretical and practical implications on the role of I-deals in facilitating effective sales talent management. (shrink)

Rules regulating social behavior raise challenging questions about cultural evolution in part because they frequently confer group-level benefits. Current multilevel selection theories contend that between-group processes interact with within-group processes to produce norms and institutions, but within-group processes have remained underspecified, leading to a recent emphasis on cultural group selection as the primary driver of cultural design. Here we present the self-interested enforcement (SIE) hypothesis, which proposes that the design of rules importantly reflects the relative enforcement capacities of competing parties. (...) We show that, in addition to explaining patterns in cultural change and stability, SIE can account for the emergence of much group-functional culture. We outline how this process can stifle or accelerate cultural group selection, depending on various social conditions. Self-interested enforcement has important bearings on the emergence, stability, and change of rules. (shrink)

This article probes the relative absence of religion within discussions of intersectionality, and begins to address this absence by bringing intersectionality studies into conversation with another significant field within feminist theory: the study of religious women's agency. Although feminist literatures on intersectionality and religious women's agency have garnered a great deal of scholarly attention, these two bodies of work have rarely been engaged together. After surveying both fields, I argue that research on religious women's agency not only exposes an ambiguity (...) at the heart of intersectionality between identity and oppression, but also challenges several aspects of intersectionality studies, especially as recent theorists increasingly turn away from identity politics in favor of a structural critique of power. These aspects of intersectionality include its often unsituated critique of power, as well as its reliance on a negatively defined consensus on anti-oppression. (shrink)

Comparative study of philosophy of Islam, Sufism, Christianity in relations to Adi Granth.

The demarcation of the private and public life leads to role of the state in private life. Many individuals have been the unflinching voice for moral dissent. In the western philosophy, debate on private morality and public life was instigated by Attorney General’s Commission Report which was submitted in 1986 and recommended no blanket ban on homosexuality and prostitution. However, a contemporary liberalist, Ronald Dworkin, castigates this Report. He argues that the report has an antagonistic approach because of its permissive (...) attitude towards pornography and the same time hospitability towards the enforcement hypothesis, which holds a preventive attitude towards pornography. In this paper, I analyse the feminists’ discourse of pornography connected with Dworkin and the Committee Report and adds more possibilities that put Dworkin’s arguments closer to the Report. Therefore, in this paper, I argue that Commission Report and Dworkin’s strategy towards pornography embodying as two sides of the same coin, and enforcement strategy is in the far away footing implies antagonistic approach. (shrink)

This paper investigates how specific notions of gender and ethnicity are integrated into diversity discourses presented on 241 top European company websites. Large European companies increasingly disclose equality and diversity policies in statements on websites. Such statements may be used to promote an ethical image of the company in terms of how well it manages diversity and guards against discrimination. In this paper, we argue that diversity statement discourses are important as they play a key part in socially constructing how (...) diversity should be regarded in the company by minority and majority groups, as well as indicating corporate values to external stakeholders. Sometimes, the notions of gender or ethnic diversity are positioned as a liability in need of protection, whilst in others, as a source of competitive advantage. We find evidence of use of discursive tools such as problematisation, rationalisation, fixation, reframing and naturalisation of the notions of gender and ethnic diversity, reinforced by use of symbols, such as statistics, photographs, membership badges and awards. Few statements directly associate gender and ethnic diversity with enhanced corporate performance. We found that diversity statements sometimes appear to reinforce existing business stereotypes of women and people from ethnic minorities, and in a few discourses, create new ones, particularly evident in photographs illustrating the diversity web pages. (shrink)

This paper investigates how specific notions of gender and ethnicity are integrated into diversity discourses presented on 241 top European company websites. Large European companies increasingly disclose equality and diversity policies in statements on websites. Such statements may be used to promote an ethical image of the company in terms of how well it manages diversity and guards against discrimination. In this paper, we argue that diversity statement discourses are important as they play a key part in socially constructing how (...) diversity should be regarded in the company by minority and majority groups, as well as indicating corporate values to external stakeholders (investors, government, community, press etc.). Sometimes, the notions of gender or ethnic diversity are positioned as a liability in need of protection, whilst in others, as a source of competitive advantage. We find evidence of use of discursive tools such as problematisation, rationalisation, fixation, reframing and naturalisation of the notions of gender and ethnic diversity, reinforced by use of symbols, such as statistics, photographs, membership badges and awards. Few statements directly associate gender and ethnic diversity with enhanced corporate performance. We found that diversity statements sometimes appear to reinforce existing business stereotypes of women and people from ethnic minorities, and in a few discourses, create new ones, particularly evident in photographs illustrating the diversity web pages. (shrink)

La literatura nacida en ámbito monástico o asociada al mismo, ofrece aspectos ponderables sobre la antropología teológica. Señalaremos algunos conceptos al respecto, sobre todo a partir de la memoria y la construcción de la propia identidad. El Himno de la Perla se caracteriza por haber sido objeto de disímiles interpretaciones, siendo considerado desde un texto iranio a una composición gnóstica. Presentaremos una lectura narrativa, tomando como categorías de aproximación el recuerdo y el olvido, a partir de las cuales plantearemos un (...) posible vínculo entre el Himno de la Perla y el Pseudo-Macario. Quispel, ya en 1967, estableció un parentesco de Teología (Verwandschaft der Teologie), destacando que también se encuentran paralelismos de forma. Tomando en cuenta este notable aporte, procuraremos indagar en la literatura pseudo-macariana acerca de tales parentescos con el Himno de la Perla y la literatura sobre el apóstol Tomás. (shrink)

The social science literature on identity politics around questions of race and ethnicity is profuse, prolix and contentious. Indigenous identity politics have seen a parallel growth and are equally complex. While there are analogies and overlaps, indigenous identities and social movements are neither conceptually nor empirically a sub-set of ethnic identities. The central issue of indigenous groups is the place of first peoples in relation to the nation-state system. This takes different forms in old world states of Asia and Africa (...) to those of new world settler states of the Americas and Australasia. While the major issues of the indigenous peoples have expanded beyond their national boundaries, their modes of participation in the national political arenas vary. They share a gradual nationalization of indigenous movements, including stronger links with socio-political forces of the respective countries in the region, a heightened consciousness of global processes and the broadening and enrichment of their socio-cultural and economic objectives. This paper looks at trans-national dimensions of indigenous social movements and identity politics in relation to nation-state policy regimes and examines the varying routes taken by indigenous peoples to achieve their goals. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In his ‘Rationality versus Normativity’, John Broome argues against the view that rationality is reducible to normativity. Broome’s argument rests on the claim that while rationality supervenes on the mind, normativity does not. In this commentary, I argue that Broome's arguments succeed only against views on which reasons and normativity are univocal. Once we admit of multiple kinds of normative reasons, some fact-given and others non-factive, a version of the reasons-responsiveness view emerges that is untouched by Broome's arguments. On (...) such a view, rationality supervenes on non-factive reasons, not on fact-given ones, so rationality supervenes on a kind of normativity that supervenes on the mind. This shows that Broome has not refuted reasons-responsiveness views wholesale. Moreover, because Broome’s arguments do refute univocal versions of reasons-responsiveness views, they provide a justification for preferring non-univocal versions of reasons-responsiveness views to univocal ones. (shrink)

There is significant research on the motivations and migration experiences of South Asian international students in Australia and the United Kingdom (UK); however, the employability journeys of this group are not well understood. This article addresses this gap, illuminating the specific employability challenges experienced and perceived by South Asian postgraduate international students enrolled in Australia and the UK. Drawing on qualitative research comprising semi-structured interviews with 30 South Asian postgraduate international students studying at a university in Australia and in the (...) UK, the findings highlight significant barriers to employability along four key axes: time pressures from study and adjustment issues (micro); lack of internship opportunities offered at the universities (meso); lack of culturally tailored university career services (meso) and perceptions of employers’ as well as Government policy implications (macro). Acknowledging and understanding these findings are important for universities to support South Asian international student employability experiences and graduate outcomes to remain competitive in the global job market. The findings suggest recommendations to enhance the employability of South Asian students in the UK and Australia. (shrink)

Background: Poverty and social deprivation have adverse effects on health outcomes and place a significant burden on healthcare systems. There are some actions that can be taken to tackle them from within healthcare institutions, but clinicians who seek to make frontline services more responsive to the social determinants of health and the social context of people’s lives can face a range of ethical challenges. We summarise and consider a case in which clinicians introduced a poverty screening initiative into paediatric practice (...) using the discourse and methodology of healthcare quality improvement. -/- Discussion: Whilst suggesting that interventions like the PSI are a potentially valuable extension of clinical roles, which take advantage of the unique affordances of clinical settings, we argue that there is a tendency for such settings to continuously reproduce a narrower set of norms. We illustrate how the framing of an initiative as QI can help legitimate and secure funding for practical efforts to help address social ends from within clinical service, but also how it can constrain and disguise the value of this work. A combination of methodological emphases within QI and managerialism within healthcare institutions leads to the prioritisation, often implicitly, of a limited set of aims and governing values for healthcare. This can act as an obstacle to a genuine broadening of the clinical agenda, reinforcing norms of clinical practice that effectively push poverty ‘off limits.’ We set out the ethical dilemmas facing clinicians who seek to navigate this landscape in order to address poverty and the social determinants of health. -/- Conclusions: We suggest that reclaiming QI as a more deliberative tool that is sensitive to these ethical dilemmas can enable managers, clinicians and patients to pursue health-related values and ends, broadly conceived, as part of an expansive range of social and personal goods. (shrink)

The globalization, increased migration, and mobility of workforce necessitate the need to study religious diversity in organizations, which has not yet received adequate academic attention of management scholars. The paper attempts to define and understand the nuances of religious diversity with the help of certain theories from psychology and sociology domains. It aims to present the legal provisions of different countries regarding workplace religious discrimination and endeavours to synthesize and analyze the pros and cons of religious diversity at workplace. The (...) paper follows a systematic literature review approach. The descriptive analysis of search results and thematic analysis of the literature reviewed has been presented. It is found that the theories from other domains can be borrowed to understand the root cause of different perceptions for religious diversity. The favourable and unfavourable outcomes of workplace religious diversity have been identified and categorized at two levels i.e. individual and organizational. It is realized that the favourable outcomes of bringing religion to workplace outnumber the unfavourable outcomes and therefore it is time to leverage workplace religious diversity. Lastly, the paper attempts to equip the human resource managers with certain strategies to better deal with religious diversity issues at the workplace. (shrink)

Plant reproduction is vital for species survival, and is also central to the production of food for human consumption. Seeds result from the successful fertilization of male and female gametes, but our understanding of the development, differentiation of gamete lineages and fertilization processes in higher plants is limited. Germ cells in animals diverge from somatic cells early in embryo development, whereas plants have distinct vegetative and reproductive phases in which gametes are formed from somatic cells after the plant has made (...) the transition to flowering and the formation of the reproductive organs. Recently, novel insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying male germ‐line initiation and male gamete development in plants have been obtained. Transcriptional repression of male germ‐line genes in non‐male germ‐line cells have been identified as a key mechanism for spatial and temporal control of male germ‐line development. This review focuses on molecular events controlling male germ‐line development especially, on the nature and regulation of gene expression programs operating in male gametes of flowering plants. BioEssays 29:1124–1132, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In the last decade, formal concept analysis in a fuzzy setting has received more attention for knowledge processing tasks in various fields. The hierarchical order visualisation of generated formal concepts is a major concern for the practical application of FCA. In this process, a major issue is the huge number of formal concepts generated from ‘a large context’, and another problem is their ‘storage’ complexity. To deal with these issues a method is proposed in this paper based on Shannon entropy (...) and Huffman coding. The proposed method is illustrated using crisply generated concepts such that the changes between obtained concepts can be measured using Levenshtein distance. The analysis derived from the proposed method is illustrated with an example for FCA in a fuzzy setting. (shrink)

In this paper, I’ll discuss the philosophical debate that took place between Michel Foucault and his student Jacques Derrida on Rene Descartes’ doctrine of cogito. In my exposition, I shall discuss Descartes’ contributions to modern philosophy in twofold manner, namely the central and the marginal doctrines. At the centre of Cartesian modernity, there is cogito and the emergence of human subjectivity, reason and rationalism, truth in terms of clearness and distinctness and the existence of God. On the margins, we come (...) across madness, deception, demon and so forth. These are the issues, which are subjected to rigorous criticism and rejection by Foucault on the one hand, and Derrida on the other. The debate tries to reallocate the central and the marginal themes by overemphasizing the marginal issues and thereby moving one step forward. However, in the process of doing that they have under-emphasized the central doctrines and have gone two steps backward. The ambition lies in paving the way for an internal departure from Cartesian modernity to Foucauldian–Derridean postmodernity. Instead of going to a critical reading of Derrida’s interpretation of the Cartesian text step by step and his debate with Foucault, the present paper hopes to provide some of the basic issues involved in Descartes and Foucauldian–Derridean reaction to those issues. In my attempt to articulate the debate, I shall furnish some clarifications, annotations and summations that may be useful for the limited end of preliminary acquaintance with Descartes on the one hand, and Foucault and Derrida on the other. (shrink)