This paper signifies the inevitability of the responsible practices of leadership into the relation with the subordinates in the Indian organizations. The theme of this study revolves around the responsibility and ethical approach of the top management which directly or indirectly influence the job-related attitudinal behavior of employees. To analyze it empirically, a questionnaire is designed and 138 middle-level managers from four private sector telecom companies in India rated their superiors on 11 items of leadership scale. This study used internal (...) consistency reliability, Pearson correlation, and exploratory factor analysis as statistical techniques. Factor analysis of the scores on such items yielded two dimensions. The paper examines the impact of leadership of managers upon their subordinates in the context of enhancing job satisfaction, affective commitment, and knowledge performance. The results of the study are not completely substantiating empirically to the theory that ethical attitude of leaders enhance commitment and satisfaction of subordinates in Indian context. (shrink)

Médecins Sans Frontières is one of the world’s leading humanitarian medical organizations. The increased emphasis in MSF on research led to the creation of an ethics review board in 2001. The ERB has encouraged innovation in the review of proposals and the interaction between the ERB and the organization. This has led to some of the advances in ethics governance described in this paper.

Proceeding of the 22nd International Congress of Vedanta, organized at the Special Center for Sanskrit Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi during December 27-30, 2015.

The Médecins Sans Frontières ethics review board has been solicited in an unprecedented way to provide advice and review research protocols in an ‘emergency’ mode during the recent Ebola epidemic. Twenty-seven Ebola-related study protocols were reviewed between March 2014 and August 2015, ranging from epidemiological research, to behavioural research, infectivity studies and clinical trials with investigational products at early development stages. This article examines the MSF ERB’s experience addressing issues related to both the process of review and substantive ethical issues (...) in this context. These topics include lack of policies regarding blood sample collection and use, and engaging communities regarding their storage and future use; exclusion of pregnant women from clinical and vaccine trials; and the difficulty of implementing timely and high-quality qualitative/anthropological research to consider potential upfront harms. Having noticed different standards across ethics committees, we propose that when multiple ethics reviews of clinical and vaccine trials are carried out during a public health emergency they should be accompanied by transparent communication between the ECs involved. The MSF ERB experience should trigger a broader discussion on the ‘optimal’ ethics review in an emergency outbreak and what enduring structural changes are needed to improve the ethics review process. (shrink)

'The Liberals tells us the story of an India in transition from a very personal vantage point, one that is full of cheeky intelligence and delicious insight. Hindol Sengupta has given us lots to think about and even more to chuckle about'- Santosh Desai 'Here is an account of Manmohan's children, the Gen Next who have the world as their oyster... Hindol Sengupta's droll memoirs at such a young age will echo in many a young person's mind. Hindol (...) speaks for India's future and a funky future it is too!' - Meghnad Desai 'An engaging personal tale of the post-reform generation told with spirit by one of its children' - Gurcharan Das 1991. The year the Indian economy opened up to the world and unleashed a billion desires and dreams. But who are these restless dreamers? This is a very private story of a very public middle-class consumption revolution. From proselytizing American schools in Calcutta to Page-3 parties in Delhi and television studios in Bombay, The Liberals brings to life unforgettable characters spawned by the needs of the world's largest democracy. Communist Bob Dylans jam with murderous villagers, girlfriends give lessons in capitalism, TV stylists snarl over white shirts, Amar Singh talks about love and Akshay Kumar about what it takes to be the boy next door. Through it all, Hindol Sengupta lives to tell the tale of GDP rising. This is the autobiography of liberalization, entertaining and immensely relatable, and an insider's account of finding one's place in a newly liberalized India. (shrink)

I defend a relational account of difference in the moral status between fetuses and newborns. The difference in moral status between a fetus and a newborn is that the newborn baby is the proper object of ‘parental responsibility’ whereas the fetus is not. ‘Parental responsibilities’ are a moral dimension of a ‘parent-child relation’, a relation which newborn babies stand in, but fetuses do not. I defend this relational account by analyzing the concepts of ‘parent’ and ‘child’, and conclude that the (...) difference in the moral status between fetuses and newborns means one may claim abortion is morally permissible while also claiming infanticide is not morally permissible, without inconsistency between the two claims. (shrink)

In this discussion note on Michal Pruski and Richard C. Playford’s “Artificial Wombs, Thomson and Abortion – What Might Change?,” I consider whether the prospect of ectogenesis technology would make abortion impermissible. I argue that a Thomson-style defense may not become inapplicable due to the right to life being conceived as a negative right. Further, if Thomson-style defenses do become inapplicable, those who claim that ectogenesis would be an obligatory alternative to abortion cannot do so without first showing that fetuses (...) have a right to life, something that Thomson assumed rather than argued for. I also include a discussion on ethical problems concerning what to do about children born from artificial wombs put there by those who looked to terminate their pregnancies because they sought to avoid parenthood. (shrink)

It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.– Leonardo da VinciPhysicians often believe that a conscious commitment to ethical behavior and professionalism will protect them from industry influence. Despite increasing concern over the extent of physician-industry relationships, physicians usually fail to recognize the nature and impact of subconscious and unintentional biases on therapeutic decision-making. Pharmaceutical and medical device companies, however, routinely demonstrate their knowledge of social psychology processes on behavior and apply these principles to their marketing. (...) To illustrate how pharmaceutical marketing strategies use psychological techniques to promote targeted therapies, we draw on the relevant social psychology literature on conflicts of interest and on the six principles of influence articulated by the eminent social psychologist Robert Cialdini. Hospitals, professional organizations, medical educators, and other stakeholders must also draw on social psychology to respond effectively to commercial activities that compromise good medical practice. (shrink)

Pharmaceutical and medical device companies apply social psychology to influence physicians' prescribing behavior and decision making. Physicians fail to recognize their vulnerability to commercial influences due to self-serving bias, rationalization, and cognitive dissonance. Professionalism offers little protection; even the most conscious and genuine commitment to ethical behavior cannot eliminate unintentional, subconscious bias. Six principles of influence — reciprocation, commitment, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity — are key to the industry's routine marketing strategies, which rely on the illusion that the (...) industry is a generous avuncular partner to physicians. In order to resist industry influence, physicians must accept that they are vulnerable to subconscious bias and have both the motivation and means to resist industry influence. A culture in which accepting industry gifts engenders shame rather than gratitude will reduce conflicts of interest. If greater academic prestige accrues to distant rather than close relationships with industry, then a new social norm may emerge that promotes patient care and scientific integrity. In addition to educating faculty and students about the social psychology underlying sophisticated but potentially manipulative marketing and about how to resist it, academic medical institutions should develop strong organizational policies to counteract the medical profession's improper dependence on industry. (shrink)

This article traces the history of the earliest bilateral tax treaties which were concluded prior to World War I. There are currently over 3000 bilateral tax treaties in existence and their fundamental concepts and terms can be traced back to the earliest treaties. This article explores the political and economic context of the early treaties to understand why countries entered into tax treaties. Tax treaties play an important role in facilitating economic integration and as the European Union and other regional (...) blocs seek to establish a single market, the historical context of tax treaties can assist in understanding their role in modern international economic relations. (shrink)

The main purpose of this article is to broaden U.S. scholars' awareness of the similarities and differences of gender literature in another part of the world. In providing this partial review of gender scholarship in India, the authors hope to foster critical reflection on the inequities of global knowledge production and consumption and the role of U.S. academic institutions and scholars in this project. The article is written not by scholars who are based in India but by those who are (...) based in U.S. academies. Given their location, linguistic and cultural competencies, and scholarly expertise, the review, at best, can be described as a glimpse of gender scholarship in India. The four sections of this article feature theoretical and methodological issues, the women's movement, and violence against women in India. (shrink)

The medical profession is under a state of increasing scrutiny. Recent high profile scandals regarding substantial industry payments to physicians, surgeons, and medical researchers have raised serious concerns over conflicts of interest. Amidst this background, the public, physicians, and policymakers alike appear to make the same assumption regarding conflicts of interest; that doctors who succumb to influences from industry are making a deliberate choice of self-interest over professionalism and that these doctors are corrupt. In reality, a myriad of evidence from (...) social science indicates that influence from conflicts of interest often occurs on a subconscious and unintentional level. This poses an important issue, since such conflicts can steer wellintentioned physicians away from their primary professional goal to provide the best medical advice and treatment possible. (shrink)

This paper defends an account of moral worth. Moral worth is a status that some, but not all, morally right actions have. Unlike with merely right actions, when an agent performs a morally worthy action, she is necessarily creditworthy for doing the right thing. First, I argue that two dominant views of moral worth have been unable to fully capture this necessary connection. On one view, an action is morally worthy if and only if its agent is motivated by the (...) features of the action that make it right. On the other, an action is morally worthy if and only if its agent is motivated by the action’s rightness itself. Neither of these views captures the connection between moral worth and creditworthiness, because each view leaves room for cases of accidentally doing the right thing. Next, I develop a new account, which I call the Guise of Moral Reasons Account. On my account, morally worthy actions are right actions that are motivated by moral reasons as such. This account rules out cases of accidentally doing the right thing, thus capturing the necessary connection between moral worth and creditworthiness for doing the right thing. (shrink)

The Present Book Contains The Philosophy Of Organism Associated With The Teachings Of Prof. An Whitehead With Comparative Reference To Indian Philosophical Doctrines And Chinese Philosophy Of Change. In Part I The Author Deals With Sage Philosopher'S Conc.

This chapter discusses some of Anscombe’s contributions to the philosophy of practical reason. It focuses particularly on Anscombe’s view of what it is to act for reasons. I begin by discussing the relationship between acting intentionally and acting for reasons in Anscombe's theory of action. I then further explicate her view by discussing her rejection of two related views about acting for reasons: causalism (the view that reasons are a kind of cause of actions) and psychologism (the view that reasons (...) are mental states like desires and beliefs). In the process, I try to show that Anscombe’s rejection of these theses does not leave us with mystery, but rather sheds light on an interesting and serious heterodox view of acting for reasons. I conclude by suggesting that though Anscombe's views have been taken sufficiently seriously by philosophers of action, they should be taken more seriously by philosophers of practical reason. (shrink)

Our concern in this paper lies with a common argument from racial discrimination to realism about races: some people are discriminated against for being members of a particular race (i.e., racial discrimination exists), so some people must be members of that race (i.e., races exist). Error theorists have long responded that we can explain racial discrimination in terms of racial attitudes alone, so we need not explain it in terms of race itself. But to date there has been little detailed (...) discussion of whether it is better to explain racial discrimination in terms of race or in terms of racial attitudes alone. Our goal is to offer a novel and detailed argument in defense of explaining racial discrimination in terms of racial attitudes alone, by attending to the neglected phenomenon of misperception discrimination, which involves differential treatment due to misperceived race. We argue that the discriminatory action in misperception cases must be explained in the same way as cases where (according to the realist) the victim’s race is accurately perceived. Thus, the victim’s actual race cannot provide the best explanation. The main upshot of our argument is that explanatory arguments from racial discrimination to realism about race fail. (shrink)

As a neo-liberal economy, India has become one of the new health tourism destinations, with commercial gestational surrogacy as an expanding market. Yet the Indian Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill has been pending for five years, and the guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research are somewhat vague and contradictory, resulting in self-regulated practices of fertility clinics. This paper broadly looks at clinical ethics in reproduction in the practice of surrogacy and decision-making in various procedures. Through empirical research in (...) New Delhi, the capital of India, from December 2011 to November 2012, issues of decision-making on embryo transfer, fetal reduction, and mode of delivery were identified. Interviews were carried out with doctors in eighteen ART clinics, agents from four agencies, and fourteen surrogates. In aiming to fulfil the commissioning parents’ demands, doctors were willing to go to the greatest extent possible in their medical practice. Autonomy and decision-making regarding choice of the number of embryos to transfer and the mode of delivery lay neither with commissioning parents nor surrogate mothers but mostly with doctors. In order to ensure higher success rates, surrogates faced the risk of multiple pregnancy and fetal reduction with little information regarding the risks involved. In the globalized market of commercial surrogacy in India, and with clinics compromising on ethics, there is an urgent need for formulation of regulative law for the clinical practice and maintenance of principles of reproductive ethics in order to ensure that the interests of surrogate mothers are safeguarded. (shrink)

The Present Book Contains The Philosophy Of Organism Associated With The Teachings Of Prof. An Whitehead With Comparative Reference To Indian Philosophical Doctrines And Chinese Philosophy Of Change. In Part I The Author Deals With Sage Philosopher'S Conc.

Are social sciences that are indigenous to the West necessarily universal for other cultures? This collection of South Asian scholarship draws on the experiences of the region to discuss this question in depth.

This study investigated the immediate effect of slow yoga breathing at 6 breaths per minute simultaneously on working memory performance and heart rate variability in yoga practitioners. A total of 40 healthy male volunteers performed a working memory task, ‘n-back’, consisting of three levels of difficulty, 0-back, 1-back, and 2-back, separately, before and after three SYB sessions on different days. The SYB sessions included alternate nostril breathing, right nostril breathing, and breath awareness. Repeated measures analysis of variance showed a significant (...) reduction in reaction time in 2-back condition immediately after ANB, RNB and BAW practices. Similarly, the accuracy was improved in the 0-back condition after RNB, and in the 2-back condition after ANB and RNB practices. These results suggest that SYB practice enhances cognitive abilities related to memory load and improves the functioning of cardiac autonomic activity, which is required for the successful completion of mental tasks.Trial registered in the Clinical Trials Registry of India. (shrink)

Many real-world optimization problems usually require a large number of conflicting objectives to be optimized simultaneously to obtain solution. It has been observed that these kinds of many-objective optimization problems often pose several performance challenges to the traditional multi-objective optimization algorithms. To address the performance issue caused by the different types of MaOPs, recently, a variety of many-objective particle swarm optimization has been proposed. However, external archive maintenance and selection of leaders for designing the MaOPSO to real-world MaOPs are still (...) challenging issues. This work presents a MaOPSO based on entropy-driven global best selection strategy to solve the many-objective software package restructuring problem. EMPSO makes use of the entropy and quality indicator for the selection of global best particle. To evaluate the performance of the proposed approach, we applied it over the five MaOSPR problems. We compared it with eight variants of MaOPSO, which are based on eight different global best selection strategies. The results indicate that the proposed EMPSO is competitive with respect to the existing global best selection strategies based on variants of MaOPSO approaches. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to examine the mediation effects of resilience and stress, two perceived opposite constructs, in the relationship between mindfulness and happiness. Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, Subjective Happiness Scale, Depression Anxiety Stress Scales short version-21 were administered to 523 undergraduate university students in India. Structural Equation Modeling with bootstrapping was applied to test the mediating effects of resilience and stress. Results showed that resilience and stress partially mediated the mindfulness-happiness relationship. In addition, (...) resilience partially mediated the relationship of mindfulness to stress. Findings suggest that mindfulness may play an influential role in enhancing happiness through the mediating effects of resilience and stress. (shrink)

Commemoration volume for Kalidas Bhattacharya, 1911-1984, Indian philosopher; comprises articles on Indian philosophy.

This book discusses a variety of world views that we can find to describe human relationships with the environment, and the underlying values in them. It reviews existing international legal instruments discussing some of the ethical values that have been agreed among member states of the United Nations.

This book incorporates seven 'Introductions' that Hegel wrote for each of his major works: the Phenomenology, Logic, Philosophy of Right, History, Fine Art, Religion and History of Philosophy, and includes an Introduction and Epilogue by the Editors, serving to introduce Hegel to the reader and to situate him and his works into their wider context.

Euro-American misrepresentations of the non-West in general, and in particular on Hinduism and ancient India, run deep and have far greater colonial connections than that have been exposed in academia. This book analyzes the psycho-social consequences that Indian American children face after they are exposed to the school textbook discourse on Hinduism and ancient India. The authors show that there is an intimate connection—an almost exact correspondence—between James Mill’s colonial-racist discourse and the current school-textbook discourse. The very parameters and coordinates (...) on which James Mill constructed the discourse are the ones that are being used to describe Hinduism, Hindus, and ancient India in the textbooks currently. Consequently, this archaic and racist discourse, camouflaged under the cover of political correctness, produces in the Indian American children a psychological impact quite similar to what racism is known to produce: shame, inferiority, embarrassment, identity confusion, assimilation, and a phenomenon similar to racelessness where the children dissociate from the tradition and culture of their ancestors. This book argues that the current school textbook discourse on Hinduism and India needs to change so that the Indian American children do not become victims of overt and covert racism. For the change to occur, the first step is to recognize the overarching and pervasive influence of the colonial-racist discourse of James Mill on the textbooks. For the reconstruction of the discourse to take place, the first step is to engage in a through deconstruction, which is what the book attempts. (shrink)

We study the question of how to decompose Hilbert space into a preferred tensor-product factorization without any pre-existing structure other than a Hamiltonian operator, in particular the case of a bipartite decomposition into "system" and "environment." Such a decomposition can be defined by looking for subsystems that exhibit quasi-classical behavior. The correct decomposition is one in which pointer states of the system are relatively robust against environmental monitoring (their entanglement with the environment does not continually and dramatically increase) and remain (...) localized around approximately-classical trajectories. We present an in-principle algorithm for finding such a decomposition by minimizing a combination of entanglement growth and internal spreading of the system. Both of these properties are related to locality in different ways. This formalism could be relevant to the emergence of spacetime from quantum entanglement. (shrink)

Bhakti is a remarkable existential tendency that shows itself in the rich expanse of the tradition originating from the Vedas. Recognized as a prize possession of the religions, philosophies, and culture of India, it has often won fascination and admiration from students of Eastern heritage. However, its nature, role, and history remain misunderstood and have not received all the attention they deserve. Its role as a gatherer of life, love, thought, and the divine is missed in its partial characterizations as (...) “Hindu devotion” or “divine love” or “theism implicit in polytheism.” Its status as a perennial thematic concept of the Indian civilization is missed when its pervasiveness is overlooked by the cultural historians preoccupied primarily with its periodic eruptions. Furthermore, the philosophical role of bhakti is missed when it is deemed as an alternative to jnana (knowledge) rather than “the living of jnana.”. (shrink)

Background Post-September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has labeled thousands of Afghan war detainees "unlawful combatants". This label effectively deprives these detainees of the protection they would receive as "prisoners of war" under international humanitarian law. Reports have emerged that indicate that thousands of detainees being held in secret military facilities outside the United States are being subjected to questionable "stress and duress" interrogation tactics by U.S. authorities. If true, American military physicians could be inadvertently becoming complicit in detainee abuse. (...) Moreover, the American government's openly negative views towards such detainees could result in military physicians not wanting to provide reasonable care to detainees, despite it being their ethical duty to do so. Discussion This paper assesses the physician's obligations to treat war detainees in the light of relevant instruments of international humanitarian law and medical ethics. It briefly outlines how detainee abuse flourished in apartheid South Africa when state physicians became morally detached from the interests of their detainee patients. I caution U.S physicians not to let the same mindset befall them. I urge the U.S. medical community to advocate for detainee rights in the U.S, regardless of the political culture the detainee emerged from. I offer recommendations to U.S physicians facing dual loyalty conflicts of interest in the "war on terror". Summary If U.S. physicians are faced with a conflict of interest between following national policies or international principles of humanitarian law and medical ethics, they should opt to adhere to the latter when treating war detainees. It is important for the U.S. medical community to speak out against possible detainee abuse by the U.S. government. (shrink)

India has witnessed an unprecedented rise in the production of movies around the theme of rape, especially after the 2012 BBC report of the horrific Gang-Rape of Nirbhaya in Delhi that shook the en...

The aim of this article is to return to the concept of bricolage as theorized in 1962 by the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss and examine its presence and utility in the art and architectural history of the twentieth century. While Lévi-Strauss was the first theorist to present bricolage as an analogy for the creation of mythical thought among indigenous cultures, the concept has seen a wide range of conceptual, methodological and practical applications across different fields, including design, visual arts, urban (...) planning and the built environment. This article will examine the applicability of bricolage as a technical metaphor for the creative process and its relevance to artistic creation by tracing its trajectory over the course of the twentieth century. It will evaluate the significance of objects and events of ‘everyday life’ in the creative practices of contemporary artists, and draw attention to the emerging role of the architect as bricoleur or improviser, to conclude that it was the art of the ‘ordinary’ that gave creative inspiration to twentieth-century artists and architects to engage with the materiality and past experiences of the world. (shrink)

The paper explores the relation between reason and action as it emerges from the texts of Āyurveda. Life or Ayus (commonly understood as life-span) is primary subject matter of Ayurveda. Life is a locus of experience, action and disposition. Experiences and actions are differentially determined by dispositions that characterize the organism; otherwise all living organisms will be identical. Ayus of each living being is uniquely individual and remains constant between birth and death. In this journey, upkeep of ayus is the (...) purpose of Āyurveda or science of life. Ayurveda is a science of experienced matter as well as of experienced body. The living body is critically dependent on the influx of matter for its upkeep. Āyurveda offers a conceptual system to reason about balance and imbalances of the system and the causal role of the material flux through the system. This sensate matter is causally open and makes room for definite causal role for the individual and the effective insertion of the felt-purpose of action. Some of the strengths of Ayurveda are brought forth in the paper such as (a) reasoning out the compatibility between the bodily processes and the selection of the natural products for diet and drug, (b) role for heuristics in medical diagnosis, which takes into cognizance the particularity of each living body and the teleology evident in the very act of diagnostic reasoning. The paper shows that Āyurvedic theory is built on experiential datum whereas scientific medical theory is built on experience-independent datum. Āyurveda explores causal efficacy of ‘secondary qualities’ whereas scientific medicine explores causal efficacy of ‘primary qualities’. The actionable experiential reasoning is at the foundations of Āyurveda whereas modern medical science is ab initio saddled with difficult ‘hiatus theoreticus’ between theory and practice. For Ayurveda it is experience of qualities that discloses behavior of matter. The types of qualities that appear in experience have a special significance for theorizing about the actions of matter with the help of qualities. The paper explores the relation between experience of qualities and the method of science. It shows how efficacy of medical practice is based on the foundational stance of experiential realism in theory. To bring the point home, the paper borrows Aristotalian concepts to show how the relation between phantasm and phronesis is honored in the very theory of Āyurveda. (shrink)

In this essay, Amy Voss Farris and Pratim Sengupta argue that a democratic approach to children's computing education in a science class must focus on the aesthetics of children's experience. In Democracy and Education, Dewey links “democracy” with a distinctive understanding of “experience.” For Dewey, the value of educational experiences lies in “the unity or integrity of experience.” In Art as Experience, Dewey presents aesthetic experience as the fundamental form of human experience that undergirds all other forms of experiences (...) and that can bring together multiple forms of experiences, locating this form of experience in the work of artists. Particularly relevant to the focus of this essay, computational literacy, Dewey calls the process through which a person transforms a material into an expressive medium an aesthetic experience. Farris and Sengupta argue that the kind of experience that is appropriate for a democratic education in the context of children's computational science is essentially aesthetic in nature. Given that aesthetics has received relatively little attention in STEM education research, the authors' purpose here is to highlight the power of Deweyan aesthetic experience in making computational thinking available and attractive to all children, including those who are disinterested in computing, and especially those who are likely to be discounted by virtue of location, gender, or race. (shrink)