This study examines the impact of the Chief Executive Officer ’s interlocking, created through serving on other companies’ audit committees and/or boards, on corporate social responsibility performance of the focal company and that of its linked companies. We find that CEO interlocking positively affects CSR performance of both the focal company and its linked companies. Further analysis shows that interlocks created by the CEO enhance CSR performance and in turn the financial performance of both the focal company and its linked (...) companies. Our findings are robust to a battery of analyses, including Heckman’s selection bias correction, propensity score matching, alternative measures of CSR performance, and CEO interlocks. These findings are important to regulators, company management teams, and other stakeholders with an interest in how the social ties of CEOs influence companies’ CSR performance and in the CSR–financial performance nexus. (shrink)

This article emphasizes the need for silence to become transformed from the death oriented Dasein of Heidegger to the life oriented Dasein of Karl Rahner. In between this article makes a case for Shakta worship to be taken as the loci for Hindu-Christian interreligious dialogue.

pt. 1. Classical versions of Nyāya and Mīmāṁsā theories of Upamāna -- pt. 2. Critical development of the Mīmāṁsa theory of Upamāna -- pt. 3. Critical development of the Nyāya theory of Upmāna -- pt. 4. Some more objections from internal and external critics -- pt. 5. Positive views of two Naiyāyikas.

On the negative theory of meaning (Apohavāda) in Buddhist logic; critical edition with text and translation.

Study of philosophy of self in Sāṅkhyakārikā by Īśvarakr̥ṣṇa and Essay concerning human understanding by John Locke, 1632-1704.

This blog post shows why atheism is a non issue within Hinduism.

Kaviraj Sudipta’s Languages of Secularity outlines two main concerns: recent debates about secularity in Indian social science, and the colonial side of modernity. The former focuses on the reexamination of Indian thinking, and analyzing the historical changes in politics, religion, and Indian society. Sudipta argues that this change in thought was a significant moment in political theory, as it shows how India began to move away from Western social theory, and how the nature of social theory depends on (...) the extension and elaboration of ideas combined with academic thinking from the historical world. Sudipta’s second part of the paper concerns the differences between early modernization theory and more recent theories. Casanova, Jose. (shrink)

This paper asks the following question: can an atheist reader fully taste the aesthetic meaning of poetry written by a theist author? This question is discussed with specific reference to the devotional poetry of Tagore. The paper discusses forms of pre-modern religious thinking which influenced Tagore’s conceptions of God, his relation to Nature, human society, and the human self. But it stresses that Tagore’s time was different from those of pre-modern believers. Tagore, as a modern thinker, had to fashion a (...) response to the ‘problem’ of disenchantment. He constructed a philosophic vision that embraced modern science, but argued that it did not dispel the sense of living in an enchanted universe. Consequently, it is argued that a nastika can enjoy his poetry. This requires the nastika to view the idea of God not as a failure of cognition, but as a triumph of the imagination. I can continue to enjoy Tagore’s poetry without unease. (shrink)

Ashapurna Devi, a prominent Bengali woman novelist (1909–1995) focused on women’s creativity and enlightenment during the colonial and postcolonial period in Bengal, India. She herself displayed immense will power, tenacity and an indomitable spirit which enabled her to eke out a prominent place for herself in the world of creative writing. Her life spanned both colonial India and independent India and these diverse experiences shaped her mind and persona and helped her to portray the emerging face of the enlightened Bengali (...) middle-class woman. Her writings trace the evolution of the Bengali woman as an enlightened and empowered individual struggling against the shackles of discriminatory norms imposed upon her by society. She traces the extremely conservative upbringing that the female members of her generation were subjected to and goes on to show how different individuals responded to these structures in different ways. Some would comply unquestioningly, some would comply simply because they did not dare to protest, while others would break free and find their own niche in the outside world. These issues are addressed by Ashapurna Devi in many short stories as well, but a critical analysis of her trilogy Pratham Pratisruti (1964), Subarnalata (1967) and Bokulkatha (1974) enables us to experience this struggle against a gradually unfolding backdrop where India moves on from being a British colony to an independent country. The trilogy traces the life of three generations of a family — Satyabati, Subarna and finally Bokul and establishes Ashapurna Devi as a path-breaking champion of women’s emancipation in an era when such endeavours were few and far between. (shrink)

This blog post begins by showing the pejorative connotations inherent in the term 'Hindu' and goes on to lay bare the differences between Hinduism and other religions including Jainism and the Abrahamic religions. So that this necessary project of dialogues is not hijacked by celibates of various traditions; the post ends with these reflections: "The Hare Krishna movement, and all other prominent movements within the Sanatana Dharma including the various well known cults of hero-worship are all structured around centralised superstructures (...) which we acquired during our long history of colonisation. Many of these movements appeal to the Western mind because they are authoritarian with strict rules. But these rules have been negated within the Sanatana Dharma by thinkers ranging from Sri Utpaladeva to Sri Abhinavagupta to Sri Kshemraja. The Sanatana Dharma stresses marriage over celibacy not because it is akin to Protestantism. There is none to protest against. Nor is it better to marry than to burn. It is simply this; marriage is not a lower state than other choices in life. It is a first step towards recognising that one can indeed be two who form a monad.". (shrink)

This is a rudimentary paper written to claim my connection that the American and the erstwhile Indian modes of psychoanalysis are more authentic modes vis-à-vis the French mode. Some of the claims I make in this paper have been already published in Prabuddha Bharata and some are forthcoming. For instance, I have written on Ritalin which is pertinent to this discussion yet I have avoided mentioning this since my contention regarding Ritalin is pending publication in Prabuddha Bharata. Addition : 2020, (...) my comments on the efficacy of Ritalin have been published last year in Prabuddha Bharata. (shrink)

We identify the ways the policies of leading international bioethics journals limit the participation of researchers working in the resource-constrained settings of low- and middle-income countries in the development of the field of bioethics. Lack of access to essential scholarly resources makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for many LMIC bioethicists to learn from, meaningfully engage in, and further contribute to the global bioethics discourse. Underrepresentation of LMIC perspectives in leading journals sustains the hegemony of Western bioethics, limits the (...) presentation of diverse moral visions of life, health, and medicine, and undermines aspirations to create a truly “global” bioethics. Limited attention to this problem indicates a lack of empathy and moral imagination on the part of bioethicists in high-income countries, raises questions about the ethics of bioethics, and highlights the urgent need to find ways to remedy this social injustice. (shrink)

The field of bioethics continues to struggle with the problem of cultural diversity: can universal principles guide ethical decision making, regardless of the culture in which those decisions take place? Or should bioethical principles be derived from the moral traditions of local cultures? Ten Have and Gordijn and Bracanovic defend the universalist position, arguing that respect for cultural diversity in matters ethical will lead to a dangerous cultural relativity where vulnerable patients and research subjects will be harmed. We challenge the (...) premises of moral universalism, showing how this approach imports and imposes moral notions of Western society and leads to harm in non-western cultures. (shrink)

Rapid advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology are profoundly influencing the ways in which we conceptualize the world of the future, and human ability to manipulate matter at the atomic and molecular levels offers previously unimagined possibilities for scientific discovery and technological applications. The convergence of nanotechnology with biotechnology, information technology, cognitive science, and engineering may hold promise for the improvement of human performance at a number of levels. Based on a National Science Foundation-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program in nanoscience (...) and nanotechnology at the University of Central Florida (summer 2002), a variety of social and ethical issues associated with these advances is discussed. Implications for the future of science-technology-society studies and K-16 science education also are presented. (shrink)

The question at the centre of this paper is part of a larger debate. Though the more limited question is hardly ever asked in academic discussions, the larger question – how can knowledge - or more broadly and less helpfully- thought in the world outside the West can be decolonized is at the center of lively debates surrounding the ‘end’ of postcolonial theory. Even this question can be asked in two significantly separate forms: about decolonizing knowledge in these societies; or, (...) alternative, knowledge about these societies, which would presumably include knowledge produced in the Western academia about these societies. The two propositions make a lot of difference. This essay, therefore, deals with that larger question of the humanistic and the historical sciences indirectly, because I believe that without becoming clear about this smaller question – what is Western about Western thought? - which might strike people as odd, we cannot make much progress. Indeed, my claim is that so much of uncertainty still attaches to the first discussion – whether we are making any progress at all or not – is precisely because the second question is not seen with clarity as being a precondition to making progress in the first. (shrink)

This is an excerpt of a crucial dialogue engaged in by a Hindu and an Orthodox Roman Catholic. The excerpt touches on evil and the supernatural.

This is part of a proposed monograph on the Law, and jurisprudence and is to be used for understanding punishment through wergild to the early Modern and to even the post-modern. The paper is just a draft and in the future will be published as a monograph.

Civil society is one of the most used - and abused - concepts in current political thinking. In this important collection of essays, the concept is subjected to rigorous analysis by an international team of contributors, all of whom seek to encourage the historical and comparative understanding of political thought. The volume is divided into two parts: the first section analyses the meaning of civil society in different theoretical traditions of Western philosophy. In the second section, contributors consider the theoretical (...) and practical contexts in which the notion of civil society has been invoked in Asia, Africa and Latin America. These essays demonstrate how an influential Western idea like civil society is itself altered and innovatively modified by the specific contexts of intellectual and practical life in the societies of the South. (shrink)

This article notes the revival of interest in the idea of community in recent debates in political theory. It argues that one of the clearest presentations of the problem was in Hegel, taken up by the radical tradition from Marx. It analyses the further elaboration of the structure of the problem in Marx but argues that there is a baffling difficulty because the answer to the problem of community comes in the form of the state – an apparatus least likely (...) to create communal connection among alienated individuals. Next, Toennies’s classic analysis is taken up for scrutiny. Finally, it suggests that this large question can be broken up into more manageable smaller ones if we think about the artistic representations of the community idyll. (shrink)

This is my (Subhasis Chattopadhyay's) draft of PhD pre-submission. Dr. Scriver has (had) put it up online in her blog and I found it today, that is 1:06 pm, 28th May, 2017. I am grateful to her since intellectual ideas can otherwise be hijacked. She has done a wonderful editorial job.

A wide body of research in the field of happiness economics shows that individuals adapt to both prosperity and to adversity and return to their usual levels of happiness. In this paper we used novel methods and data to assess the effects of the deep economic crisis of 2008-2009 on well-being in the United States. We found, as expected, that the crisis had profound effects on happiness levels, as well as on individuals' assessments of their standards of living and of (...) their future. These attitudes varied significantly depending on respondents' socioeconomic cohort, the industry that they were employed in, and their pre-existing states of mental and physical health. Our most notable finding, though, is a clear, U-shaped trend in reported happiness, with levels falling sharply with the onset of the crisis in mid-08 and trending downward until late March 2009 — around the time that stock markets stopped their free fall. From that point on, happiness levels increased, eventually surpassing the levels that they were in the pre-crisis period of early 2008. This general pattern supports our previous research suggesting that although people react negatively to unpleasant events, they adapt to unpleasant certainty better than they do to uncertainty. (shrink)

In this work, we have investigated the validity of the generalized second law of thermodynamics in logamediate and intermediate scenarios of the universe bounded by the Hubble, apparent, particle and event horizons using and without using first law of thermodynamics. We have observed that the GSL is valid for Hubble, apparent, particle and event horizons of the universe in the logamediate scenario of the universe using first law and without using first law. Similarly the GSL is valid for all horizons (...) in the intermediate scenario of the universe using first law. Also in the intermediate scenario of the universe, the GSL is valid for Hubble, apparent and particle horizons but it breaks down whenever we consider the universe enveloped by the event horizon. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide an updated synthesis on the works of Archimedes and the fundamental impact these have had on subsequent mathematical practice. The influence his mathematical processes have had on modern mathematics and how these have helped develop the field is discussed in historical perspective. Some of the recent investigations into the Archimedes Palimpsest are discussed and synthesized, namely, how they alter our understanding of some of his earlier works, and how Archimedean principles are seen to have laid (...) the foundations of possible new branches of mathematics. (shrink)

Buddhist account of consciousness provides a new way of looking into contemplation, where absorption into meditation does not only bring in changes in the neural level but in the very personality of the individual, turning him into a good human being. The Buddhists recommend the practice of vipassanā, literally meaning insight but actually standing for the realization of the supreme enlightenment breaking off all the internal fetters through the practice of seven different types of purity, such as purity of morals, (...) mind, views, and insight, etc. In early and later Buddhist literature, it has been categorically emphasized that one should not practice solitary mindfulness but should practice enriching the higher qualities of the mind such as compassion, friendliness, etc. The point is that the contemplated individual, the Bodhisattva, should possess the perfection of wisdom and be equipped with the skill of upāyas. The practice of these upāyas, however, will not create any new bondage for the contemplative mind. When the individual is able to attain this broad outlook, he will be said to achieve the highest contemplation – this is the ultimate objective of Buddhist meditation. Meditation is needed for this change of outlook – transition from “I” to “we”. This is the only way to bring peace of mind and peace to the whole world. (shrink)