Twin Rules on ethics

I was having a discussion with one of my college friends. She just mentioned that I am an ethical person. I have received this compliment from others as well but did not think much about it. I am wondering what they mean when they say I am ethical. I think what they mean is I am a man of principles and values. (It’s a nice compliment and I enjoy writing this blog). I can’t say if I am a man of principles but I can assume that I am perceived to be one. Also the fact I got this compliment from many people spread over a period of a year will help me in assuming that I am indeed one.

Ethics and morality come into picture when you have to take a decision or to make a choice. Your decisions and the choices determine what sort of person you are. I can safely assume that I have been consistently making those choices that people expect a principled man to make. More interesting question is how I do it. Do I follow a rule consciously to help me make a decision or is it just natural? If its natural, am I doing it subconsciously and the process is so innate that I fail to perceive it? To find answers, I thought of situation where in I was faced with a difficult decision. After replaying many incidents, I think I have discovered the twin rules that help me decide on the choices.

Rule 1
Whenever you have a choice to exercise, evaluate each of the option carefully. Think over the options in great detail understanding what each of them means for you. All these years, you must have a developed a system of values for yourself, certain ideals that you cherish. Just ensure that the choice you make does not contradict those. Because, when you look back at these decisions, you should be proud about it irrespective of their monetary or social benefits. At the end of the day, when you see your image in the mirror, it’s always better to see a guiltless face and proud shoulders than a guilty face and drooped down shoulders.

This rule works for 80% of cases. You generally have two or at most 3 options and this rule helps. For the remaining minor cases you can use rule two.

Rule 2
Identify a set of people you admire and whose views you respect. It would generally be your family members and some friends you respect a lot. The set should consist of people who understand you well, should be your well wishers and you reciprocate their feelings as well. Now evaluate each of the options and see if they approve of it. Does your action increase or reduce your reputation and respect in their frame of reference. Will they be happy and proud of the choice you exercised? These questions go a long way in helping you make the choice.

Countdown begins...

Finally, the wait is over. I have formally resigned today from the job and need to serve the notice period of 1 month. I expect to be relieved on 18 June. Even though I had intimated my decision to my manager and team members 3 weeks ago, I held on the job so long so as to complete one year of service. I am unable to express my feelings now. I am neither sad nor elated. The feeling is very similar to the day I got this job on campus.

Looking back at this one year, I made some good friends, learned a lot both professionally and personally and on the whole am more mature than what I was a year ago. Company, though not a good pay master ,offers a good quality of life. Lot of perks and encouragement to do things that you want to do makes it one of the better places to work for. The disappointment of leaving the company is masked by the fact that I am going to IIM L. It’s a new inning and hope that I start on the front foot right from the first ball.
1 down, 29 more to go.


I plan to write a series of blogs to share my experiences of the journey to Hel(L). Watch out this space.

BudgetBlog - Social Sector

FM Chidambaram has called education and health care the twin pillars of the social sector. The increased outlay for both education and healthcare is a step in the right direction. However, the allocation falls way short of the target of 6% and 3% of GDP as mentioned in the CMP. The countries that have achieved high growth over a prolonged period have done so because of their strong emphasis on education and health. Education can make the difference between half a billion mouths to feed and a billion hands to earn. Health care goes a long way in ensuring battle ready soldiers in the fight against poverty.

Mid-day meal scheme, a concept pioneered by the late Congress leader Kamaraj ( former CM of TamilNadu) way back in 1960s is being now introduced all over the country. Well, better late than never! Establishment of 6000 model schools, opening of more Nehru Yuva Kendra, 3 new IITs and other excellent institutes of higher learning are laudable steps. Not only this, the govt. should expend all its energies in improving the quality of all institutes of higher learning in this country. Today we have few institutes of excellence like oases in deserts. It is the right of every Indian to see a forest of excellent institutes.

INSPIRE, if properly implemented can go a long way in ensuring an army of technologists and scientists that the country would need in days to come. To sustain a position of economic pre-eminence in this century, the role of science and technology can not be over emphasized. To tackle the problem of jobless growth, the FM has proposed the up gradation of ITIs and the launch of a world class skill development programme. He should have also considered the demands of IT and BPO industry for setting up of finishing schools for the graduates.

All the well intentioned policies of the govt. would come to nought if we do not focus on its effective implementation. A system of controls should be established so that projects are completed without cost or time over runs. Our record when it comes to implementation has been very poor and it’s an historic opportunity to set the record straight. Let’s march towards our rightful place at the top of the world order. CHAK DE INDIA.

Sustainable Development

CSR has come a long way from a being a dangerous fad to one of the functions of business. I feel time is not far when CSR wont be taken up just as an act of charity but for strong economic and business reasons. CSR is just one aspect of the broader idea of Sustainable Development. I believe Sustainable Development practices will be taken up by more and more companies as they see its advantages particularly in the long run. What exactly is Sustainable Development (SD)?

SD, as I understand, has three aspects to it- environmental, social and political. When the business practices are socially sustainable, politically sustainable and environmentally sustainable we have a business model that’s economically sustainable for perpetuity. Environmental sustainability deals with practices that do not harm the environment irrevocably. The companies need to be concerned about the natural resources that they consume and if possible, replenish them so as to remain resource neutral. Political sustainability deals with respecting the regulations of the countries in which we operate not only in letter but also in spirit. It calls for highest standards of corporate governance and business ethics. This is the only way we can forge a long term meaningful relationship with our customers, employees and the suppliers.
Social sustainability relates to the idea of inclusive growth. Our business divides the members of the society in two parts- one who are benefited by us and the others who are not benefited by us. It should be our endeavour to continually increase the count in the former group and reduce in the latter group. The logic for such a step can be easily seen from the fact that most of the countries today are democracies and it’s the numerically stronger group that decides the policies (at least on paper!). So, inclusive growth is no charity but a strategic move to cover up for the potential catastrophic losses in the future. It’s like buying insurance or going for hedging.

The time has come for all of us to embrace SD for our own benefits and long term survival.

hi

read the scientific method blogs, bottom up.

from part 1, 2 .... , final.

thanks for reading

Scientific Method - Final Part

SHANKARA WROTE:

Hi Kislay,

You have mentioned about the "process of drawing a map" and have equated it to the mathematical method of representing it in terms of symbols and formulae.i believe your analogy is incorrect.

The natural phenomenon is the territory. The process of enquiry is the conceps of drawing a map. Sceintific model of enquiry is just one of the ways of drawing a map. The problem with your argument is that you are equating one of the instances of the class with the class itself. This
probably comes from the belief that it is the only instance possible. It is precisely this dogma that I am uncomfortable with. Just as scientific enquiry, we can possibly have some other kinds of enquiry, which though may not be as popular as scientifc one, yet may have the potential to explain natural phenomena.

The reason for such a belief stems from the fact that scientific inquiry has advanced quite a lot and is now capable of explaining many concepts. But this alone does not give us the justification to claim that it IS THE ONLY MODE OF ENQUIRY POSSIBLE. I think, what we require is a multi disciplanary approach. We need to draw lessons from metaphysics, easterm mysticism and others schools of thought. Or in fact, a systematic study of Vedas should also help us understand many natural phenomena. Its not without reason that Dayanand Saraswati asked us to go back to the vedas.

Scientific Method- Part 6

KISLAY WROTE:

Hi,
ALL RIGHT, it took me one night to see why your second arguments about the map And the map maker sounds so plausible even though I know it is crap. But I think I finally got it. So here goes.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
1.You believe maps are not independent of territory. Perfectly agree, 100%. But you also seem to suugest that territory is not independent of maps. It is this backward mapping from concepts to reality that I object to.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You misunderstood me about the two way mapping. What I meant was that if I Understood a map, I could picture the territory by using it. Also if I was actually Standing in that territory, I would be able to visualize what part of THAT PARTICULAR MAP it is. The territory is definitely completely independent of the map. It Would exist independent of the existence of any map.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
2. you believe maps are true representation of territory. I contest this. Maps are just a perspective of the map-maker about the territory. If map maker changes, so does the map.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now this is what was bugging me. What you are saying is true. But here you are being inconsistent with your own initial problem statement, viz, the ability of science to help explain phenomena.If the map maker changes, so does the map. Correct. But it still remains a map. Situation being analogous to multiple scientific theories to explain a single phenomenon, One or more of which may be fully or partioally correct.

What you ORIGINALLY said that is there a way of doing this without maps at all. You wanted something which would put you yourself IN the territory, instead of you having to infer the territory from the map.
Change the map maker as many times as you will, you still need a map.

Maps are representations their makers perspective on the teriitory??? As both you and I agree, The territory is a fact. It does not brook any perspective on it. All you can do is choose HOW to represent this fact. The map maker has to present his Key to the map in advance. He may be Somewhat incorrect. Some road may be longer or shorter than what it appears to be in the map.Then the maker has to make the effort of corrcting his map as soon as such a flaw is found.
What I mean to say is:
You may find faults with a map or a map maker, but you can not fault the CONCEPT OF DRAWING MAPS To represet territory. The only way for you to actually BE IN THE TERRITORY to use your mind to Understand a map.

What you are saying about locality maps is bullshit. I don't need a map of my locality Because I already have it in my head. And the map in my head has much more detail than Would be found in a usual map, but it's a map a map nonetheless. Everytime I take a left from the paan waala to reach the playground I am referring that map subconsciously.

But I will need that locality map if you want to know what is the cumulative length of all the roads in my colony. It is requied for quantitative measure.

Similarly, what suport tools do you want to do away with? Since you are very comfortable with English can you do away with the grammar or punctuation??? If you are very worried about Delta T Then allow me to remind you that as far as understanding the territory of natural phenomena goes You don't need that abstraction. It comes into the map only when you try to obtain a quantitative measure of phenomena. It is like scale of the map, not required if you want only a general layout Of the territory but required if you want to measure it.

I hope THAT has killed your little unscientific rebellion.