BS Murthy

In his Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda, quoted Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s idea of nationalism in his own words thus:
”I call myself a nationalist but my nationalism is as wide as the universe; it embraces all nations. My nationalism includes the prosperity of all nations. I want a strong India able to transfuse its strength to other nations …. Let us look for something new; let us try the power of love and God which are the truth.”
Elsewhere, Gandhi had proclaimed that ‘loyalty to the country is always subordinate to loyalty to God’ and reemphasized that his nationalism was ‘not exclusive’ but isof ‘intense internationalism’.
Hisaverment that ‘nationalism is as wide as the universe’, indeed, is the upanishadic concept of vasudhaiva kutumbakam but as it does not sync with the absolutist precepts of the Semitic faiths, obviously it is of no avail to further the cause of Indian nationalism. Be that as it may, it enabled Gandhi to ascend the throne on international moral hig…

‘Why is life hard on some while being soft on others?’ Roopa contemplated after Sandhya had left. ‘The sastras would have us believe that it’s all owing to karma, while the philosophers stress that life is conditioned by a combination of circumstances. It could be true either way, but how does that help me anyway. For all that, does life play favorites? But that’s unlikely, for after all, why should life be partial to some when all bear its own patent. Yet, some like me get condemned, all the time, don’t they? But why is that so?’ ‘It’s as though life has an obligation for itself as a whole and not to the beings that make up that whole,’ she tried to probe into the proclivities of life as though to solve the puzzle of her state. ‘It would appear as if life feels a monotonous regimen would bore people to death, bringing the creation to an unintended end. Therefore, for the larger good of itself, life could have found it expedient to take recourse to individual inequities to keep the gen…

The assets of an organization can be categorized as the fixed and the current. Whereas infrastructure and machinery constitute the fixed assets, human resources and material inventories make up the current assets. Whilst most of the organizational assets tend to depreciate with the passage of time, conversely, its human resources tends to appreciate progressively. Thus, it is the manpower component that has a decisive bearing on an organization’s performance, which in turn determines the state of its functioning, so much so that it is not the technological advancement that determines the viability, no to speak of the profitability, of an enterprise as the level of the managerial and operative skills available therein. Hence, high employee turnover is disquieting to any business venture in that it tends to drain its organization of its cream, as it is the more talented and enterprising among the employees that generally contemplate change and find new employers. An attempt is made here …

The value addition that an efficient material management function brings to an organization though well and widely recognized, in principle, seldom in practice, conditions conducive to it are embedded in the body management that is notwithstanding the complexities of the present day business world that necessitate them, for it to serve the organizational interests the way it is capable of and destined to. Let it be stated, at the outset, that I have no pretensions, whatsoever, for being a practicing materials manager, in the stricter sense that is, or much less an expert on the subject, for my experience is limited and my exposure is peripheral, and consequently have no intention of arrogating to myself the air of an author, in this which is essentially a maiden foray to try to conceptualize the fascinating concept of materials management. Lest it should be inferred that the stray thoughts on which this exercise is based, whether worthy of attention, not to speak of one’s contemplation…

In 2014, it was on the plank of ‘high hope’ that Narendra Modi, with self-belief, sense of purpose and Herculean effort, had navigated his party to power through the stagnant Indian electoral waters. This extraordinary achievement, so to say, was unbelievable in the Indian electoral context that’s traditionally devoid of any semblance of nationalistic fervor for the callous politicians having nursed the majority community on divisive caste lines and groomed the minorities on unifying religious grounds for narrow electoral gains, any sense of nationalism failed to take roots in India’s pre-partitioned social soil. What’s worse the vote-bank politics of post-independent India fomented an Islamist mind-set amongst the formidable Muslim minority that turned it against Modi’s nationalist party for long. However, with his personal charisma and forceful oratory, he could alter the electoral psychology of the Hindu majority to get on to the Delhi gaddi to usher in systemic changes not only to…

Recruitment is a managerial function to enroll manpower to augment, replenish, and reinvigorate an organization’s human resource base. As the entrepreneurial efficiency and the organizational efficacy depend on the human resources, it is imperative that the recruitment be done on scientific lines in a professional mode. Sadly, though for most part, the recruitment models in most Indian organizations, especially those in the public sector, lack the needed understanding and required sensitivity to further the cause. Barring honourable exceptions, the exercise of recruitment is perceived by those involved in it as an opportunity to further their own careers by heeding to ‘referrals to favour’ of the powers that be. In the absence of trained professionals, well-versed in the art of interviewing and the science of evaluation, the tendency is to induct more and more ‘heads’ into the selection panels. Given that, it is no wonder that such exercises invariably turn out to be more of interroga…

This short story “Love Jihad”, based on Madhuri Banerjee’s prompt[*] for Times of India’s Write India Initiative (2016), is excerpted from the author’s “Stories Varied – A Book of Short Stories”, a free ebook -------- Syed and Gayatri didn’t mean to fall in love.  But love happens when you least expect it. It creeps up suddenly. When someone needs attention, care, conversation, laughter and maybe intimacy. Love doesn’t look at logic or at backgrounds and least of all religion. Gayatri was from a very conservative South Indian family that went to a temple every Saturday. Syed brought goats to his family every Eid. That said it all. Their paths would never have crossed if it hadn’t been for that fateful day. That day when he walked into the coffee shop. Gayatri wondered if destiny chose our loved ones for us. Did we have any role to play at all? She looked at her watch. Syed was late. They met every Thursday at five pm to catch up. Their conversation lasted for hours. Sometimes in the café,…