In this paper, we offer a childist reading of school strikes for climate in an overheated world. We argue that school strikes can be understood as offering a dynamic counterweight to formal education, by providing opportunities for children to self-educate, and for others, especially adults, to learn from them. We suggest that taking school strikes seriously as sites of political appearance—which highlight interdependencies and vulnerabilities in the face of crises in Anthropocene neoliberalism requires rethinking the boundaries of democratic participation and (...) education. In particular, we highlight that school strikes for climate serve as an invitation for adults to let children contribute to their own ongoing formation. A childist philosophical attitude that emphasises mutual teaching—i.e. the adult capacity to see and hear what children show and say—can expand through an engagement with, rather than against school strikes. Children’s political appearance on streets to influence political priorities from an intergenerational global justice point of view is a gift for adults and adultist structures. It is a passage to grasp deep interdependence and to assume appropriate responsibility. If ‘education’ is a beacon of hope in times of overheated despair, then the hope is in educational philosophies that have room for mutual teaching. The philosophical assumption that it is adults who must always, and necessarily, teach children to prepare them for a better future would have to be discarded. (shrink)

Women and children have often been affected by conflicts taking place in India’s Northeast. Although human rights abuse by armed forces and militias has been addressed in academia time and again, the weaponisation of ‘rape’ has not declined in the region as evinced by the recent incident in Manipur. As such this essay argues that solidarity among women can not only prevent such heinous crimes but can also dismantle the patriarchal structures that breed rape cultures. Further, literature can work as (...) an agency through which such consciousness of protest and solidarity can be generated. By taking into account the political and cultural discourses of this region and its manifestation in literary works with reference to Arupa Patangia Kalita’s novel The Story of Felanee the essay argues that ethnic assertions diminish the rights of women due to the patriarchal nature of these societies. Since the inter-ethnic conflicts are engineered by the patriarchs of a community in which the women are hapless sufferers, Felanee’s resilience, like the grannies of Shaheen Bagh, exemplifies resistance against oppressive structures. The essay explores the literary representation of patriarchal conditioning of ethnic resurgence, its contestation with cultural hybridisation, and the subsequent dehumanisation of women. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine how an organization narratively constructs its prototypical disabled employee. Data comprise public narratives of the Government of India, the country’s largest employer of disabled persons. Narratives during 2008–2016 were considered as this timespan witnessed the design of inclusive legislation that emphasized defining disabled persons and their entitlements. Findings indicate that the label of “disadvantage” was consistently used to portray the target employee. Alongside other narrative material suggesting, for example that the target employee was someone who (...) required employment assistance, this label was supplied to external audiences to convert them into potential partners. This supply of narrative material further reinforced the portrayal of the target employee. Consistent use of this expansive label subsumed changing definitions of who is a disabled person, allowed for aggregations with diverse disadvantaged collectives, and accommodated changes in employment entitlements and ecosystem partners, thereby allowing the reading of change in stable narratives. The contributions of this paper lie in highlighting how the consistent use of an expansive label can cast narrative stability and change as complementary, and in suggesting that narrating a prototypical employee entails shaping the setting outside the employing organization toward employee categorization. (shrink)

This essay attempts to outline a philosophical anthropology with dialogicality as its key concept. It argues that it is impossible to explicate this concept with any bias toward the ontological primacy of either the subject or the knowable object. The essay develops from the philosophy of Martin Buber who vindicated the need for subject-object binarism to be superseded by a relational ontology of human existence, that is, a space between the dialoguing I and Thou. From this point of view, different (...) sectors of human studies – including those involving politics or socio-political crafting of human states of affairs – must be approached according to their unique dimension. The essay’s envisioning of knowledge of humans by human being beyond any subject-object dichotomy implies a new perspective of self-other relationship whereby the phenomenological notion of intentionality is apprehended in its dialogical mode. (shrink)

The Original Work Presents A Totally New Methodology For Understanding The Concept Of Aesthetic Experience Through The Medium Of Dialogue A Dialogue Between The Subject And Object, I And Thou.

The control of women's public form of mourning in India was undertaken in the colonial era by male social reformers. The article argues that this was both a part of the process which enabled the consolidation of colonial rule – since laments were repositories for the social memory of the dead which could lead to vendettas – and that this fed into the construction of a specific domestic ideology. The latter was predicated on the privatization and interiorization of grief, whereby (...) women were enjoined to bear themselves with rectitude. The taming of the transgressive form of mourning, whereby women who had earlier exhibited their grievances in a spectacular form through lament, took to more quietist (devotional) forms, has reconfigured the relationship to death and mourning. However, this has been a partial phenomenon, limited to the upper-caste, middle-class milieu. Where women continue to hold a dependent position within community, nation-state and international economy, the article suggests that, in contexts of modern conflicts and warfare, where death runs ‘wild’, the exhibitionist and ‘wild’ forms of showing grief and anger continue to be demonstrated by women as an appropriate public response. (shrink)

The central idea of the bifocal stance theory (BST) by Jagiello et al. has substantial relevance to scientific research. Both tradition-following and exploration-innovation are important in science and researchers subconsciously try to optimize their strategies. We outline three important dimensions of this optimization and argue that attempts to understand this complex process can help us design better science education, research training, investigation, and science publication.

“Confrontando el Adultocentrismo: Intervenciones Infancistas y Decoloniales en las Filosofías e Instituciones Educativas” explora el potencial transformador del infancismo (childism) como una orientación para criticar y transformar el adultismo y la colonialidad dentro de la educación. Editado por Tanu Biswas y Toby Rollo, el dossier especial se basa en las discusiones del Childism Institute para centrar a los niños como agentes epistémicos y desafiar la marginalización estructural de la infancia en los ámbitos sociopolíticos y filosóficos. El infancismo deconstruye y (...) critica los sesgos adultocéntricos, proponiendo un cambio profundo hacia el reconocimiento de la interdependencia entre infancia y adultez, y perspectivas relacionales únicas como esenciales para la justicia intergeneracional. Los artículos examinan cómo los sistemas educativos tradicionales (eurocéntricos) refuerzan las jerarquías adultistas, viendo a los niños y a las niñas como seres incompletos en una fase preparatoria llamada "infancia". Abogan por la reimaginación de los sistemas educativos con relaciones pedagógicas inclusivas en cuanto a edad, donde los niños y las niñas participen como contribuyentes activos. Los temas clave incluyen la educación democrática y la liberación como un proyecto intergeneracional, las críticas decoloniales de las filosofías de la infancia subyacentes a las prácticas educativas y el papel de los niños y de las niñas como agentes epistémicos y activistas. Algunas contribuciones argumentan a favor de desmantelar las estructuras adultistas e integrar a los niños, niñas y la infancia en marcos democráticos y liberadores. Otras vinculan explícitamente el adultismo con la colonialidad, mostrando cómo los proyectos coloniales eurocéntricos infantilizaron a los pueblos colonizados. Los artículos extienden el alcance del infancismo para abordar los legados históricos de la opresión racializada y epistémica, incluyendo exploraciones de imágenes racializadas de la infancia. Colectivamente, el dossier impulsa el infancismo como una intervención oportuna para reconfigurar la educación, la filosofía y las políticas, abrazando las contribuciones presentes de los niños y fomentando la equidad intergeneracional. (shrink)

This study reviewed and analysed the phenomenon of employer branding. We began with a review of recent research in employer branding. Next, drawing the theoretical knowledge from OB, HRM, and marketing, a framework is developed depicting the antecedents of employer branding and its impact on the company performance. For this, primary data were collected administering a questionnaire survey on 347 top-level executives in 209 companies in India, and secondary data were collected on financial performance. The results revealed that realistic job (...) previews, perceived organizational support, equity in reward administration, perceived organizational prestige, organizational trust, leadership of top management, psychological contract obligations, and corporate social responsibility influence employer branding, which in turn impact non-financial and financial performance of companies. Furthermore, leadership of top management is the most potent predictor of employer branding. Greater deviation of the existing state from the ideal state of antecedents adversely affects employer branding. Management can use this framework for developing strategy towards implementation of employer branding. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of women’s board representation on the proportion of women senior managers in the United Kingdom (UK) from 1999 to 2019. We take a multi-theoretic approach, drawing on the trickle-down effect, critical mass theory, and agency theory, to explore several aspects of this topic. We find that more women on boards is associated with more women in senior management as suggested by the trickle-down perspective. We also find support for a critical mass effect; while one or (...) two women on a board is beneficial for advancing women into senior management, three or more women directors is more advantageous. Consistent with agency theory expectations, the relationship between women on boards and senior management gender diversity is driven almost entirely by women in non-executive, rather than executive, board positions, presumably as a result of the relative independence non-executive directors have compared to their executive director counterparts. Our study suggests that increasing women’s board appointments is a potential solution to the underrepresentation of women senior managers and may assist in building a pipeline for future CEO and board appointments. (shrink)

Genotoxic stress, arising from various environmental sources and endogenous cellular processes, pose a constant threat to genomic stability. Cells have evolved intricate mechanisms to detect and repair DNA damage, orchestrating a robust genotoxic stress response to safeguard the integrity of the genome. Recent research has shed light on the crucial role of co‐ and post‐transcriptional regulatory mechanisms in modulating the cellular response to genotoxic stress. Here we highlight recent advances illustrating the intricate interplay between pre‐mRNA processing, with a focus on (...) 3′‐end processing, and genotoxic stress response. (shrink)

Introduction: Pharmaceutical companies offer various gifts to physicians to encourage them to prescribe their products. This collaboration has some negative and positive aspects. Different countries have established guidelines to limit the collaboration and reform such relationships. This study aims to determine the attitude of Bangladeshi medical students towards pharmaceutical gifts, physician-pharmacist collaboration, and associated factors. Methods: An online cross-sectional and correlational study was conducted through email and Google-Forms among Bangladeshi medical students. A total of 435 students from different medical colleges (...) completed the questionnaires in May and June, 2016. Results: Monthly parental income was moderate among the majority of medical students. Less than 16% had a physician or pharmacist parent. Most of the students were taught about medical ethics, but 73% were not taught about the ethics of physician-pharmacist collaboration. About 85% did not have any experience of interaction with marketing representatives. Drug samples and pennotepads were the most appreciated pharmaceutical gifts. Jewelry and gifts costing more than 100 thousand were said to be the least appreciated pharmaceutical gifts. Attitudes towards drug companies and representatives were assessed by fifteen statements. Medical students had a variety of attitudes regarding its ethical justification. Attitudes were correlated with gender, parental income, physician parents, academic years, and having been taught about pharmaceutical collaboration with physicians. Conclusion and Recommendations: medical students should elaborate on ethical reasoning before accepting pharmaceutical gifts. Medical colleges and curriculums should teach them about the interaction. A national guideline may be needed. (shrink)

"Bioethics A Very Short Introduction" for UG level or beginners.

Buddhism has a rich tradition in Bangladesh, developed through the development of Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism in ancient Bengal. The followers of Buddhism in present-day Bangladesh mainly live in the Chittagong region. Their religious life is reflected in temples, monasteries, and social activities. The non-violence and humanism of the Buddha's teachings have had a profound impact on the culture here. However, as a religious minority in modern times, the Buddhist community faces various challenges. This chapter analyses the historical context, current (...) impact, and prospects of Buddhism in Bangladesh. (shrink)

"El baile cambió mi vida. Por primera vez sentí que hacía algo que me gustaba", recuerda Shampa Roy, de 18 años. Shampa , nacida en Calcuta, capital del estado indio de Bengala Occidental, creció entre orfanatos desde los cinco años, tras la muerte de sus padres. "Siempre estaba enfadada, no sé por qué. Pegaba a las otras niñas a la mínima provocación, la gente me evitaba. No respetaba ni a los profesores ni a la gente mayor", confiesa. Hasta que descubrió (...) la danza. Shampa se dio cuenta de que podía expresar sus inquietudes internas a través de pasos de baile. Explica que fue un descubrimiento que la llenó de alegría. (shrink)

Customarily, reflections on the need to educate sensory and bodily enactments with the world, take for granted that it is the child who must be educated. However, the educational passage of becoming 'rational' and 'grown up' often leaves the adult divorced from her own embodied self. As part of my engagement with childism in this article, I ask: Who needs sensory education? In response, I propose that it is adults who need sensory education more than their temporal others Reimagining childhood (...) studies, Bloomsbury Academic, London, pp 57–74 2018) i.e. children. As Merleau-Ponty has shown, the richness of embodied perception that children experience, is relatively distant for adults. The particular lived-experience I reflect on is the sense of temporality. Accompanied by two distinct, yet interconnected examples of encounters with Baby Ole and Captain Duke, I suggest that being-with-children can enable philosophical clearings for adults to re-cognise plural temporalities, as opposed to a singular clock-time perception of Time. (shrink)

In the Sāṁkhya, Puruṣa (self) is free, inactive and it is the nature of consciousness (cetanā). It is beyond time and space, and it has both merit and demerit, attachment and detachment. It is real form which is not bounded. All actions, pleasure and suffering, change and feeling, etc. are the distortions of the body. Puruṣa (self) is beyond the bodily and mental suffering (dukhaḥ). Puruṣa (self) is neither the cause nor the effect. Puruṣa (self) is not material, and it (...) is also not known by direct perception. Ācharya Śaṅkara critiques the Sāṁkhya view and says, If Puruṣa (self) is inactive then how can it possibly influence the others? Śaṅkara also questions the relation of the Puruṣa (self) with the Prakṛṭi (non-self). This paper elaborates the nature and the existence of Puruṣa (self), purpose of the inactive Puruṣa (self), the subjectivity of Puruṣa (self) from the text “Sāṁkhyakārikā”. A critical analysis of Śaṅkara‟s critique of the “Sāṁkhyakārikā” is made and by providing an analytical assessment of the self (Puruṣa) and its relation with the non-self (Prakṛṭi) the paper attempts at arguing against Śaṅkara‟s logic. (shrink)

Arguments for a just transition are integral to debates about climate change and the drive to create a carbon-neutral economy. There are currently two broad approaches rooted in ethics and justice for framing just energy transitions. The first can be described as internal to the transition and emphasizes the anticipation, assessment, and redressing of harms created by the transition itself and the inclusion in transition governance of groups or communities potentially harmed by its disruptions. In this article, we propose a (...) second approach to ethics and justice in an energy transition, which we describe as systemic or societal in scope. This approach complements attention to the proximate dynamics and impacts of the transition process with a focus on the distant societal and economic outcomes the transition brings into being and how they compare to conditions prior to the transition. It poses the question: do the transformative social, economic, and technological changes wrought by energy systems create more just societies and economies, or do they instead reinforce or recreate long-standing injustices and inequalities? We illustrate this approach with an assessment of one of the most significant existing forms of energy injustice: the energy-poverty nexus. We argue that the energy-poverty nexus reflects configurations of socio-energy systems that create complex, extractive feedbacks between energy insecurity and economic insecurity and, over time, reinforce or exacerbate poverty. We further argue that just energy transitions should work to disentangle these configurations and re-design them so as to create generative rather than extractive feedbacks, thus ending the energy-poverty nexus and creating long-term outcomes that are more just, equitable, and fair. (shrink)

Newtonian gravity is modified minimally to obtain a Lorentz covariant theory of gravity in a background flat space. Gravity is assumed to appear as a potential. Constraint Hamiltonian dynamics is used to determine particle trajectories in a manifestly covariant fashion. The resulting theory is significantly different from the general theory of relativity. However, all known experimental results (precession of planetary orbits, bending of the path of light near the sun, and gravitational spectral shift) are still explained by this theory.

Samkhya philosophy is one of the oldest philosophies in the Indian philosophical system. This philosophy is independent in origin and mainly known for its evolution theory. Samkhya philosophy has accepted the two ultimate and independent realities, Nature and pure Consciousness. This paper is an attempt to comprehend the notion of deep ecology from the Samkhya’s evolution theory perspective. In this paper, firstly, we have elucidated the Samkhya philosophy of suffering and the solution to the problem. In the second part of (...) the article, we have argued that how Samkhya's philosophical notion of Nature demonstrates our embeddedness in Nature. Therefore, the idea of deep ecology is always there in one or another form in Samkhya philosophy. It has also connections to the idea of sustainable development. (shrink)

Sāṁkhya philosophy is the oldest philosophical school. Sāṁkhya philosophy explains the universe accepting only two fundamental categories which are prakṛṭi and puruṣa- where prakṛṭi is unconsciously active and puruṣa is consciously inactive. Similarly, Sāṁkhya philosophy discusses the mind-body relation in terms of puruṣa and prakṛṭi. Sāṁkhya also talks about the subjective identity as well as objective world. Although Sāṁkhya discusses about manyness of selves (bahu-puruṣa), but there is an argument that Sāmkhya philosophy would not establish the existence of other minds. (...) So, the argument of Sāṁkhya for other minds seems to stop midway. In this paper, I purport to discuss Sāṁkhya perspective and existence of other minds presented in Sāṁkhya philosophy. The paper also critically examines the Sāṁkhyakārikā of Īswarakṛṣṇa to bring out the possibility of epistemological argument of the other minds. (shrink)

Contributed articles presented at the national seminar entitled "Ethical Issues in Anthropological Research", organized by Department of Anthropology, West Bengal State University during 19-20 January 2012.

Gestures can serve as external representations of abstract concepts which may be otherwise difficult to illustrate. Gestures often accompany verbal statement as an embodiment of mental models that augment the communication of ideas, concepts or envisioned shapes of products. A gesture is also an indicator of the subject and context of the issue under discussion. We argue that if gestures can be identified and formalized they can be used as a knowledge indexing and retrieval tool and can prove to be (...) useful access point into unstructured digital video data. We present a methodology and a prototype, called I-Gesture that allows users to (1) define a vocabulary of gestures for a specific domain, (2) build a digital library of the gesture vocabulary, and (3) mark up entire video streams based on the predefined vocabulary for future search and retrieval of digital content from the archive. I-Gesture methodology and prototype are illustrated through scenarios where it can be utilized. The paper concludes with results of evaluation experiments with I-Gesture using a test bed of design-construction projects. (shrink)

The paper attempts to evaluate whether corporate social responsibility can contribute towards achievement of inclusive growth in India. Using content analysis of annual reports belonging to 42 non-financial companies across 8 years, the study identifies company disclosures under areas that fall within the purview of both inclusive growth, as conceptualised by the Indian government and themes of CSR subject indices mentioned in corporate social disclosure literature. The study is unique in its attempt to address the relation between CSR and inclusiveness (...) through a longitudinal analysis of 322 annual reports, in a timeframe when governmental intervention regarding CSR was negligible and the disclosures were primarily voluntary. The findings revealed that company CSR efforts are in congruence with some requirements for inclusive growth, like CSR activities in areas such as health, education, infrastructure, environment and energy and can contribute to the welfare of special interest groups such as women, children and backward sections. Apart from contributing to CSR literature in India, the paper will be of interest to corporations, government and other stakeholders of the CSR process. (shrink)

Ethical workplace climate has been extensively researched in the for-profit context but neglected in nonprofits. Perhaps because nonprofits promote shared values, engage with people, and implement development interventions creating public good, they are considered implicitly ethical. This assumption has been questioned in recent studies. We attempted to develop a psychometrically valid scale measuring ethical workplace climate following a sequential research design to fill this gap. We interviewed 74 employees from 30 nonprofit organizations using the critical incident technique to generate statements (...) on ethical workplace climate. The statements generated were categorized with expert judges' help, followed by a survey of 507 nonprofit employees across India. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and subsequent confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) resulted in a 43-item scale, further reduced to 26 items using stepwise regression. Results of subsequent application of EFA and CFA confirmed a four-factor solution: self-interest, collegiality, internal legitimacy, and stewardship. A follow-up study of 243 members of nonprofit organizations confirmed the hypothesized relationships that ethical work climate has a significant effect on affective commitment and job engagement. Finally, we discussed our findings along theoretical contributions, implications, limitations, and future direction. (shrink)

Background and rationaleWhen deception is used, a conflict ensues between the need to use it to answer a research question scientifically whilst protecting the participants’ autonomy simultaneously...

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)

Everywhere in the world, and in every period of human history, it has been common for energy decisions to be made in an ethically haphazard manner. With growing population pressure and increasing demand for energy, this approach is no longer viable. We believe that decision makers must include ethical considerations in energy decisions more routinely and systematically. To this end, we propose an applied ethics framework that accommodates principles from three classical ethical theories—virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism, and two Native American (...) ethics (Lakota and Navajo)—all considered from the perspectives of the impacted communities. We illustrate this framework by evaluating five recent energy decisions: the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Navajo Nation’s possible transition from coal to solar, hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania, uranium mining in Virginia, and the construction of the Xiaolangdi Dam in China. An applied ethics framework is preferable to existing ethical analyses because it can serve to sharpen arguments for (un)ethical decisions and action. Rather than treat ethical reasoning as a matter of opinion, we argue that applying ethical principles in a universal and standardized way adds rigor to energy sector decisions by presenting a position available for objective scrutiny. Because our framework identifies which aspects of a targeted action (if any) must adjust to improve ethical merit, it can serve as a practical tool for improving decision-making as we enter a new era of energy transitions. (shrink)