Study of four works of Sri Krishna Prem, 1898-1965, a Vaishnavite teacher; includes a bibliographical sketch.

In developed economies, powerful legislative and regulatory frameworks, for people with disability over the last five decades, have provided major motivation for business compliance with disability in the workplaces. However, developing economy like India is marked by emergent disability legislation, weak institutional enforcement and an evolving disability rights movement. In the absence of strong institutional expectations, the private sector’s role in mainstreaming the disability agenda has been largely an act of voluntary participation. Drawing upon an in-depth, multilevel, cross-functional qualitative study (...) of four Indian information technology sector companies, this paper explores why these companies engage in pro-social corporate behaviour in favour of disability. The study locates itself in the context of conceptualization of PWD as employee stakeholders and the literature on strategic CSR. The findings reveal that strategic factors promote voluntary business engagement with disability at workplaces and contribute to understanding of workplace integration of minority employees. (shrink)

Description: Jain Philosophy : Historical Outline interprets the fundamentals of Jain philosophy from the viewpoint of their historical genesis and development and shows that the incipient stage of the Jain thought-complex agreed totally with the pythagorean approach to philosophy which was based on observed realities and was quite in harmony with the existing socio-political conditions of the time of Lord Mahavira while the sophisticated stage marked by the a priori doctrines and dogmas it had generated in course of its development (...) and by the traditionally floating ideas in regard to the belief in a eternal moral order in the universe, the law of karma, ignorance as the cause of bondage and knowledge as that of liberation, the efficacy of meditation, and so forth, was a persistent juxtaposition in the evolutionary stages of the former. Since no system of Indian philosophy allows a purely isolated treatment, a comparative study of all the philosophical systems has been made here to determine the real nature of the Jain standpoint with more emphasis on the original dynamism of Jainism which had contributed to the growth of various natural sciences, including those of biology and astronomy, on the total rejection of the concept of a supernatural agent in the form of God, on the theories of valid knowledge and on the unique logical system based on the principles of relativity. Contents Preface of the Second Edition Preface of the First Edition Chap. I : INTRODUCTION : 1. The Jains as they are 2. Researches on Jainism 3. Literary Sources 4. Archaeological Sources : Architecture and Sculpture 5. Archaeological Sources : The Epigraphs 6. Parsva and Mahavira 7. Ecclesiastical History Chap. II : THE INCIPIENT STAGE : 1. The Prehistory of Jainism 2. The Historical Background 3. Material Basis of the Great Intellectual Movement 4. The Conflicts in the History of Indian thought 5. Contemporary Philosophical Schools 6. Purana Kassapa 7. Pakudha Kaccayana 8. Makkhali Gosala 9. Sanjaya Belatthiputta 10. Ajita Kesakambalin 11. Social Experiences of Mahavira 12. The Social Basis of Jain Ethics Chap. III : THE SOPHISTICATED STAGE : 1. Jainism and Indian Philosophical Tradition 2. Jain Atheism 3. Jain Logic 4. Scientific Enquiries : Cosmology 5. Scientific Enquiries : Classification of Jiva 6. Scientific Enquiries : Biology, Physiology, Etc 7. Scientific Enquiries : Diseases and Medicines 8. Scientific Enquiries : Astronomy 9. Scientific Enquiries : Atomism 10. Jain Cosmography 11. The Unfounded Speculations and their Ethical Considerations 12. The Nine Fundamentals and the Doctrine of Karma 13. Classification of Karma and the Gunasthanas 14. A Review of the Jain Metaphysics 15. Theory of Knowledge 16. Psychological Ingredients 17. The Non-Absolutist Standpoint Chap. IV : A COMPARATIVE STUDY : 1. Jainism and Vedic Tradition 2. Jainism and Buddhism 3. Jainism and Ajivikism 4. Jainism and Materialism 5. Jainism and Samkhya 6. Jainism and Yoga 7. Jainism and Mimamsa 8. Jainism and Nyaya-Vaisesika 9. Jainism and Vedanta 10. A Subjectwise Comparative Study of the Systems. (shrink)

The presence of vegetation on railway tracks threatens track safety and longevity. However, vegetation inspections in Sweden are currently being carried out manually. Manually inspecting vegetation is very slow and time consuming. Maintaining an even quality standard is also very difficult. A machine vision-based approach is therefore proposed to emulate the visual abilities of the human inspector. Work aimed at detecting vegetation on railway tracks has been split into two main phases. The first phase is aimed at detecting vegetation on (...) the tracks using appropriate image analysis techniques. The second phase is aimed at detecting the rails in the image to determine the cover of vegetation that is present between the rails as opposed to vegetation present outside the rails. Results achieved in the current work indicate that the machine vision approach has performed reasonably well in detecting the presence/absence of vegetation on railway tracks when compared with a human operator. (shrink)

Spatially and temporally restricted expression of Hox genes requires multiple mechanisms at both the transcriptional and the post-transcriptional levels. New insight into this precise expression mechanism comes from recent findings of a novel sense–antisense miRNA combination from the bithorax complex of Drosophila melanogaster.1-4 These two miRNAs encoded from the same locus target 3′ untranslated regions of anterior hox genes, Antp, Ubx and abd-A to establish the dominance of posterior hox gene Abd-B in its expression domain. Such double-edge tools, sense–antisense miRNA (...) combinations, also operate at multiple loci in the genome implicating their wider impact on the post-transcriptional gene regulation in eukaryotes. BioEssays 30:1058–1061, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This volume combines rigorous empirical and theoretical analyses with political engagement to look beyond reductive short-hands that ignore the historical evolution and varieties of Islamic doctrine and that deny the complexities of Muslim societies' encounters with modernity itself. Are Islam and democracy compatible? Can we shed the language of 'Islam vs. the West' for new political imaginaries? The authors analyze struggles over political legitimacy since the Arab Spring and the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS in their historical and political (...) complexity across the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. Distinguishing multiculturalism from interculturalism and understanding multiple modernities, philosophers in the volume tease out the complexities of civilizational encounters. The volume also shows how the Paris massacres or the Danish caricature controversy do not remain confined to Europe but influence struggles and confrontations within Muslim societies. Gender and Islam are addressed from a comparative perspective bringing into conversation not only the experience of different Muslim countries with Islamic law but also by analysing Jewish family law. (shrink)

The Book Studies The Different Aspects Of Tantrism, Its Vastness And Intricacies, Its Heterogeneous And Contradictory Elements And Gives A Historical Perspective To The Conglomeration Of Ideas And Practices Through Space And Time. It Also Incorporates A Review Of Tantric Art And A Glossary Of Technical Terms.

Resumen El presente estudio, de carácter interpretativo-descriptivo, se ocupa de la relación existente entre el lenguaje verbal, la descortesía y las emociones en contextos de cultura hispanohablante. Se investiga dicha relación para algunos tipos de actos descorteses, correspondientes a tipos de una escala de intensificación de la fuerza de descortesía, Cortesía y conversación: de lo escrito a lo oral. Tercer Coloquio Internacional del Programa EDICE, Vol. 3. Valencia/estocolmo: Universidad de Valencia- Programa EDICE, Kaul de Marlangeon y Alba-Juez. 2012, A (...) typology of verbal impoliteness behaviour for the English and Spanish Cultures. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada 25, pp. 69–92), y la consiguiente construcción discursiva de las emociones presentes en ellos. A tal fin, se adopta el punto de vista sociocultural de la pragmática, necesario tanto para el análisis del discurso de cortesía como para el de las emociones intervinientes en los distintos tipos de actos de descortesía, éstos y aquéllas asociados a sus respectivos contextos socioculturales y situacionales. De igual forma, se acoge el punto de vista de la psicología social, especialmente aquél que pone el énfasis en la dependencia contextual de las emociones y las considera como una construcción social. El pertinente corpus de ejemplos ha sido recogido en diferentes contextos de cultura hispanohablante que validan una interpretación ingtercultural. Los resultados de la descripción émica muestran que en cada tipo de descortesía considerado concurren complejas experiencias emocionales, sobre todo negativas, activadoras de conductas agresivas y de su grado de intensidad o de intencionalidad. (shrink)

The article addresses the following question: if an extensive period of globalization and also democratization after the fall of the Berlin Wall has been followed by populism, does this mean that there is something wrong with liberalism itself? Must liberalism be substituted by alternative economic and political concepts? The article presents three alternatives to liberalism that are supposed to counter populism: a new communitarianism, a renewal of the democratic project as much as novel conceptions of social justice. However, it takes (...) also into account positions that address the current crisis from within the liberal framework itself. (shrink)

The modern republican history of Turkey and its relation with the question of ethnic diversity could be understood via the tension between the processes of system integration and social integration. This article, based on Jürgen Habermas’ conceptual framework, draws the sources of such tension with reference to the Kurdish identity in Turkey since the early republican era. For this purpose, from the 1920s to the 2000s, policies and discourses of system integration aiming at a certain degree of ethnic homogenization to (...) eliminate ‘possible threats’ to territorial integrity and national unity are discussed in detail. While system integration processes reflect an exclusionary and assimilative-securitist logic of state practices regarding the Kurdish question, this article argues that the Kurdish challenge to republicanism and to its system integration logic promises more for the dynamics of social integration. Especially since the 1990s, while processes of system integration are still in force; national, regional and diasporic achievements of Kurdish politics and its call for a democratic transformation of the republic based on decentralist, participatory and multiculturalist values have become much more visible. This new focus on democratic transformation demands more for social integration through internalization of roles as well as through promotion of an active communication between citizens by raising the claims of active participation to social and political spheres as well as by making identity visible in different aspects of socio-cultural life. Degree of social integration and its success vis-à-vis system integration will be decisive in the democratic transformation of Turkey in the future. (shrink)

Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) is a powerful technique that can be used for global analysis of gene expression. Its chief advantage over other methods is that it does not require prior knowledge of the genes of interest and provides qualitative and quantitative data of potentially every transcribed sequence in a particular cell or tissue type. This is a technique of expression profiling, which permits simultaneous, comparative and quantitative analysis of gene‐specific, 9‐ to 13‐basepair sequences. These short sequences, called (...) SAGE tags, are linked together for efficient sequencing. The sequencing data are then analyzed to identify each gene expressed in the cell and the levels at which each gene is expressed. The main benefit of SAGE includes the digital output and the identification of novel genes. In this review, we present an outline of the method, various bioinformatics methods for data analysis and general applications of this important technology. BioEssays 26:916–922, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In the celebrated tantric manual, the Tantrāloka, Abhinavagupta and his commentator Jayaratha establish a non-dual Śaiva theory of reflection using the key metaphors of light and reflective awareness. This paper attempts to explain the philosophical problem of reflection from the standpoint of these non-dual Śaivas. It also evaluates the problem in its hermeneutical context, analysing multiple layers of meaning and interpretation. Is the metaphor of reflection only a way of explaining the particular currents of the Śaiva phenomenology represented by the (...) concepts of prakāśa and vimarśa? What philosophical problem does Abhinavagupta seek to solve by complicating the category of reflection and giving it a quasi-paradoxical status? Why does he use the model of the subtle elements to explain the theory of reflection? What does the ‘untaintedness of the mirror of consciousness’ mean for his system? These questions form the focus of this paper. (shrink)

Proletarian journalists are ?professionals?; in America's news factories. Their ?conversion downward?; took place over several ?long waves?; of capitalist development that linked commerce to ideology and legitimated marketplace practices. ?Independence,?; ?objectivity,?; and ?social responsibility?; emerged as ideological corollaries of commercial strategies deployed to stabilize marketplace crises and class conflicts within journalism.

The article introduces to the issue of religion, rights and the public sphere. It analyzes 4 challenges that the conception of the public sphere currently faces: Does there exists a trade-off between the public sphere and a legal regime of civil rights? Does the public sphere really require us to keep the good and religious questions outside of it? To what extent is the public sphere neutral and not rather itself the outcome of a particular and contingent conception of the (...) good? Whatever might be our answers to the questions 1 to 3, does not Islam constitute a special challenge for any conception of the public sphere? The article draws following prudent conclusions: First, rights are somewhat fundamental for a democratic public sphere. Second, a democratic public sphere cannot exclude religion. Third, little indicates that the public sphere is only a western concept. On the contrary, the public sphere has a universal character. Fourth, Islam does not pose any specific challenge to the public sphere, at least no more than the other religions. (shrink)

In the celebrated tantric manual, the Tantrāloka, Abhinavagupta and his commentator Jayaratha establish a non-dual Śaiva theory of reflection using the key metaphors of light and reflective awareness. This paper attempts to explain the philosophical problem of reflection from the standpoint of these non-dual Śaivas. It also evaluates the problem in its hermeneutical context, analysing multiple layers of meaning and interpretation. Is the metaphor of reflection only a way of explaining the particular currents of the Śaiva phenomenology represented by the (...) concepts of prakāśa and vimarśa? What philosophical problem does Abhinavagupta seek to solve by complicating the category of reflection and giving it a quasi-paradoxical status? Why does he use the model of the subtle elements to explain the theory of reflection? What does the ‘untaintedness of the mirror of consciousness’ mean for his system? These questions form the focus of this paper. (shrink)

This essay is one more attempt of understanding the non-dual philosophical position of Abhinavagupta viz-a-viz the problem of reflection. Since when my first essay on ‘Abhinavagupta on Reflection’ appeared in JIP, I have once again focused on the non-dual Śaiva theory of reflection (_pratibimbavāda_) (3.1-65) as discussed by Abhinavagupta (_fl.c._ 975-1025 CE) in the _Tantrāloka_ and his commentator Jayaratha (_fl.c._ 1225-1275 CE). The present attempt is to understand their philosophical position in the context of Nyāya realism where a reflection is (...) simply caused by an erroneous apprehension of an entity. For Naiyāyikas, according to both Abhinavagupta and Jayaratha, a reflection (_pratibimba_) does not have a real existence at all. There are only two ways of looking at a reflection: it can either simply be an original image (_bimba_) or an illusion (_bhrānti_). There is no scope for any third entity apart from something being an error or a non-error. In contrast to this, establishing a Śaiva theory of reflection, Abhinavagupta is corroborating a valid ontological status for the seemingly illusory objects of perception or imagined objects, such as, to use Abhinavagupta’s own language, ‘an elephant with five trunks and four tusks who is running in the sky’. In other words, he is pleading for the valid cognition of objects which are otherwise deemed to be an error or external to consciousness. While Abhinavagupta’s system has generally been referred to as ‘idealism’, I argue that by establishing the dynamism of reflective awareness that is deemed to be absolutely real, his system should be referred to as ‘dynamic realism’ i.e., the ‘dynamism’ that is common to both ‘real’ and ‘ideal’. This is why he uses the metaphor _consciousness-as-mirror_ (_ciddarpaṇa_) in establishing a non-erroneous ontological status for otherwise illusive idea of reflection. (shrink)

. Speaker recognition has been an active research area for many years. Methods to represent and quantify information embedded in speech signal are termed as features of the signal. The features are obtained, modeled and stored for further reference when the system is to be tested. Decision whether to accept or reject speakers are taken based on parameters of the data modeling techniques. Real world offers various degradations to the signal that hamper the signal quality. The degradations may be due (...) to ambient background noise, reverberation or multispeaker scenario. This paper presents a survey of various feature extraction, data modeling methods, metrics that are used to take the decisions and methods that can be used to preprocess the degraded data that have been used to perform the task of speaker recognition. (shrink)

We can distinguish two liberal paradigms that stand in opposition to each other. Liberalism as non-domination seeks to eliminate identities resulting from domination and oppression and hindering the emancipation of individuals. Liberalism as recognition holds that ‘the idea of a human world without identities makes no sense’ (Appiah) and considers identities to have their source in individual liberty and to provide the grounds for pluralism. The two liberal paradigms come to largely different results regarding the role of the state and (...) civil society. The paradigm of non-domination tends to enforce individual rights, if necessary against a hostile cultural and religious context. The paradigm of recognition defends mostly individual liberties, if necessary at the expense of certain individual rights. Liberalism stands here in front of a major dilemma: Either it protects individual rights in the sense of freedom as non-domination, or it defends individual liberties in Isaiah Berlin's tradition of negative liberty– in too many cases and in too many parts of the world, liberalism, understood in the terms presented here, cannot have it both ways. This review article argues that the liberal paradigms of non-domination and recognition are complementary; liberalism is about both recognition and non-domination. Following policy recommendation can be drawn: (1) Democratic institutions (parliament, political parties and constitutional courts) and democratic rights (right to vote, right of assembly and freedom of speech) are most efficient in fighting domination. (2) Although social identities are not fixed and open to change, they cannot be engineered by the state or civil society organizations and grow out of some form of social consensus. (3) The consensus around identities takes place within the pluralist public and civil sphere of a community. (4) While the support in the development of individual capabilities by the state is effective against domination, also history and collective memory help to overcome the traumatic experience of domination. (5) Systemic transformation requires the support from below, notably from the civil society, and is based on individual liberties. (shrink)

This article identifies the colonial imperative of ‘we must develop them, with or without their consent’, which is used by the Indian state in order to dominate Kashmiri Muslims, and argues that this notion of development combines patriarchal silencing of the subjugated as well as a gendered fantasy of liberating oppressed Kashmiri women and minorities. While the colonial nature of Indian rule over Kashmir has been a long-term phenomenon, the focus in this article will primarily be on a specific political (...) transformation imposed by the Indian state since August 2019, when even the pretence of autonomy and recognition was given up, and all phenomena constituting coloniality became conspicuous and acute. Adopting a feminist lens, I highlight nine features of contemporary Indian coloniality in Kashmir: denial of consent, paternalism, violence, enforced silencing, lack of accountability, arbitrariness, divide and rule, humiliation and a specious idea of development. I further argue that such a notion of coloniality as development is better understood as ‘econonationalism’ (akin to homonationalism and femonationalism), where the supposed liberatory ideas are rhetorically deployed to mask a dehumanising subjugation. (shrink)

Today we can identify two challenges of pluralism: the ever-growing conflicts between religious, national and ethnic groups on the one hand and the oppression of dissenting individuals by their respective communities on the other hand. Both intercommunitarian and intracommunitarian conflicts find their origin in a communitarian conception of our political, cultural, or religious identities. After presenting some of the problems of the communitarian solution in particular with regard to the challenge of internal pluralism, I introduce alternative conceptions of multiculturalism that (...) consider our commitments to be part of our personal or individual identity. Distinguishing a conception of identity based upon self-knowledge from liberal, postmodern theories (Richard Rorty) and alternative non-cognitive theories (Bernard Williams) that consider identity to be individual in nature, I propose that the awareness of the individual nature of commitments makes it possible for us not to impose our values upon other individuals who do not share them while at the same time justifying the multicultural project. (shrink)

Today we can identify two challenges of pluralism: the ever-growing conflicts between religious, national and ethnic groups on the one hand and the oppression of dissenting individuals by their respective communities on the other hand. Both intercommunitarian and intracommunitarian conflicts find their origin in a communitarian conception of our political, cultural, or religious identities. After presenting some of the problems of the communitarian solution in particular with regard to the challenge of internal pluralism, I introduce alternative conceptions of multiculturalism that (...) consider our commitments to be part of our personal or individual identity. Distinguishing a conception of identity based upon self-knowledge from liberal, postmodern theories (Richard Rorty) and alternative non-cognitive theories (Bernard Williams) that consider identity to be individual in nature, I propose that the awareness of the individual nature of commitments makes it possible for us not to impose our values upon other individuals who do not share them while at the same time justifying the multicultural project. (shrink)