Session Wise Reading

Class Schedule

Indian Social and Political Environment

First Session: October 23, 2003
Can grassroots creativity be a source for India's renaissance?

How do we think? Can learning from grassroots enrich our heuristics for problem solving in other sectors as well?

Desirable readings:

Gupta, Anil. K., The Honey Bee Network: Linking Knowledge-rich Grassroots Innovations, Development, New Delhi, Sage Publications, pp.36-40, 1998

Gupta, Anil. K., Rich in Ideas, International Herald Tribune, October 11, 2001 Drucker Peter F., My life as a Knowledge Worker, Inc. Publishing Company, 1997

Second Session: October 24, 2001
Sustainability: Six principles

How do we restrain our ever increasing appetite for consumption of goods and services which create pressure on environment?

What kinds of green consumers we have? (A typology based on surveys done through students at IIMA and other collaborators)

What are the lessons we can learn from our culture and local institutions about sustainable resource use?

Desirable reading:

Gupta, Anil. K., Sustainable Institutions for Natural Resource Management: How do We Participate in People’s Plans, in People’s Initiatives for Sustainable Development: Lessons of Experience, (Eds.) Syed Abdus Samad, Tatsuya Watanabe and Seung-Jin Kim, APDC, 1995.

Gupta, Anil. K., Science, Sustainability and Social Purpose: Barriers to effective articulation, dialogue and utilization of formal and informal science in public policy, Int. J. Sustainable Development, Vol 2, No.3, pp 368-371, 1999

Third Session: November 28, 2003

Brainstorming on new ideas for products, services and utopia

Each student will bring at least one or more ideas for improvement in existing products and service or creation of new products and services, which fill vacant niches in our society in any sector of economy

Purpose is to unravel our ability to break out of existing moulds of thinking. Best ideas will be given special prize and a possible venture fund support to implement the same in the II year. Concept of business incubator for nurturing new ideas set up at IIMA will also be briefly discussed along with exposure to the concept of GIAN. It will also be illustrated how innovations at grassroots level have been already licensed to companies in USA to generate global markets for unsung heroes of our society.

Desirable reading:

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, Happiness with Creativity: Going with the flow, The Futurist, September-October 1997, p. 8 – 12.

Fourth Session: November 29, 2001
Bridging the communal divide.

Kakar Sudhir, Reflections on Religious Group Identity, Seminar, Issue no. 402, Feb 1993, pp 50-61.

Varshney, Ashutosh, Ethnic Conflict Civic Life, Hindus Muslims in India, Yale, 2003, pp 3 -22.

Fifth Session: December 4, 2003
Evolution of Indian Polity: Some milestones

How do we interpret major milestones during post-independence social and political and economic history?
Are we so accustomed to mediocrity in science, technology, enterprise and other institutions that we work hard to fail?
If prices have increased by two or three times during last few years, can commitment of masses to reforms be taken for granted?
Will markets monitor the misery?
Is search for equitable development in society no more on agenda?

Desirable readings:

Understanding the evolution of forces of change in Indian Social and Political Environment; Milestones in contemporary political history

Sen, Amartya, Description as a choice, Oxford Economic Paper 32(3); pp. 353-369, 1981

Rai, Shirin, Class, Caste and Gender: Women in Parliament in India, International IDEA Women In Politics: Women in Parliament.

John Samuel (www.unssc.org), Public Advocacy in the Indian Context

http://www.unssc.org/unssc1/programme/partnerships/
knowledge/sharing/case_studies/ncas/public_advocacy.pdf

S. Gopal & U. Iyengar (Ed), The Essential Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru, New Delhi, 2003, Oxford University Press , selected pages : 81-85, 134-137, 142-144, 722-723, 739.

Sixth session Accountability in Public Life. December 5, 2003

K. Ashok Vardhan Shetty, India Needs A Whistleblowers Protection Act, www.hinduonnet.com, March 25, 2003

Gwendolyn Freed, 2003, Choosing the Whistle; The Star Tribune, August 7, 2003

Whistle-blowing is on the rise, helped by new laws and the long series of corporate scandals. But for those who have exposed wrongdoing, it's no picnic.

A Whistle-Blower Rocks an Industry: Doug Durand's risky documentation of fraud at drugmaker TAP is prompting wider probes; PEOPLE, June 24, 2002, http://search.businessweek.com

Seventh Session: December 11, 2001
What is the accountability of state towards the disadvantaged people?

Will not rising aspirations of rural and urban poor make new demands on the delivery systems for transparency?

Can we bring about social change without political transformation? What role can technology and new institutions play in overcoming poverty?

Brainstorming on new initiatives for making India a developed country.

Eighth to Eleventh Session – Workshop on Ethics, RJMCEI Auditorium ; 8.00 am – 12.00 noo1

Personal Ethics and Society

Is business without sound ethics legitimate at all? How does one link one's personal values with corporate ethics?
Is business ethics not an insurance for better customer as well as employee relations? If yes, why is it not so pervasive?
What are the practical ways of linking individual and social values? To what extent the dilemma arising out of the hiatus between the two resolvable within the framework of corporate responsibility?

Each student will send by email an instance of ethical dilemma faced by oneself or someone very close, and specify on the note whether it can be shared in the class with or without disclosing one’s identity. Faculty will build upon these experiences to draw some lessons for our collective guidance.

Desirable readings:

Gupta Anil K., and Sinha R, Environmental Conservation: Ethical Concerns in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, N. J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes (Eds.) Oxford, Pergamon, Baltes (Eds.) Oxford, Pergamon,

Batstone, David, Saving the Corporate Soul,
2003, San Fransisco, Jossey-Bass, pp 73 – 100, 239 – 244

Half a day Workshop on Business Ethics will be organized on November 8, with the help of visiting faculty as well as internal faculty to discuss case studies / case situation based on real life dilemma involved in combining ethics with efficiency and effectiveness.

Twelveth session · December 18, 2001
Perception of Society from Within: Students' Presentation

Thirteenth Session: December 19, 2001
Presentation by the students

Feedback by students, Synthesis of students' presentation and prize distribution at 4.00 p.m. in one of the classrooms.
Other Desirable Readings

http://www.dhl-usa.com/cultural

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/au24-401.htm

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/ari_ldr

_guidelines.htm

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/mcdp6/ch2.

htm#decisionmaking

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ndu/

strat-ldr-dm/cont.html

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ndu/