Education is the best contraceptive.
Development is the best contraceptive.
#Population Control
#GS 1/3
#Essay
Lessons from Mahabharata
📌Duty is sacrosanct – perform your duty even if it means going against your beloved ones is the message of Krishna to Arjuna
📌Respect inherent dignity of every human being – A kingdom/society which violates human dignity is bound to decimate. Kaurvas act of tampering with the dignity of Draupadi decimated the whole Kaurvas
📌Uphold Dharma & Truth – life of Yudhistira is an epitome of truth & Dharma. it symbolises that Dharma needs to be upholded even if it means loosing the war
📌War is bound to cause misery & destruction for millions of years to come– Even fought for a just cause,war is full of destruction & thus, in a way Mahabharata teaches the importance of diplomacy
📌Teacher is equivalent to Good – even standing on the opposite side of battle, Arjuna first payed respect to his teacher.
📌Immoral means like corruption, cheating only provides momentary gains, in long-terms truth always becomes victorious as exemplified by victory of Pandavas over Kauravas
🔆INTEGRITY
✅ Integrity means adopting similar standards or moral principles in similar situations across time and interested parties.
✅ According to Ministry of Personnel, a person with integrity "Consistently behaves in an open, fair and transparent manner, honours one's commitments and works to uphold the Public service values."
✅ It is a four-step process:
1. Choosing a right course of conduct;
2. Acting consistently with that choice, even if that is inconvenient;
3. Openly declaring where one stands; and
4. The results of one’s actions.
✅Example: Senior IAS officer, Ashok Khemka has shown professional integrity with consistency in his thought,
actions and has chosen a right course of conduct.
✅ Personalities with highest degree of integrity are T N Sheshan, Ashok Khemka, Abdul Kalam.
✅Abraham Lincoln said “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”
✅Moral Integrity : It refers to consistency and honesty in the application of standards of morality or right and wrong; used for judging others as well as our self.
🔸 Example: Buddha emphasized on the purity of ‘thoughts, words and deeds’ and showed unconditional commitment to this ethical principle.
✅Intellectual Integrity : Intellectual integrity is defined as recognition of the need to be true to one's own thinking and to hold oneself to the same standards one expects others to meet. It requires one to overcome self-deception and temptation and act in accordance with one’s truthful conscience.
🔸 Example: Gandhi revoked Non-Cooperation Movement after Chauri-Chaura incident
etc.
✅Professional Integrity : It refers to acting in accordance with professional values, standards and norms with consistency and willingness; even in the face of criticism or allurements.
🔸Example: Sanjiv Chaturvedi showed professional integrity during his tenure as the Chief Vigilance Officer of AIIMS, Delhi and uncovered several large scams.
✅GOVERNANCE :According to UNDP, Governance is the exercise of political, economic and administrative authority to manage a country’s affairs.
🔸 According to World Bank, Good Governance refers to the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development.
✅GOOD GOVERNANCE : Good Governance means eliminating poverty by empowering the poor, unprivileged and the exploited and also a system and a structure that are democratic, transparent, clean, efficient, equitable, sensitive and accountable.
🔆SELF-AWARENESS
✅It is the ability to form an accurate model of oneself, knowledge of one's strength and weaknesses and understanding how to utilise one's strength and weaknesses to encash the opportunities that comes in one's way. It includes self-confidence, realistic self-assessment and self-deprecating sense of humour.
✅ Example: In a company, if a manager is competent but not good at his behaviour and he is not aware about this then he can offend others with his behaviour.
🔆SELF-REGULATION
✅It is the ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts and behaviours effectively in different situations. It includes trustworthiness and integrity; self-control; ability to adapt; openness to change etc.
✅Example: If a person working in a company, is excited about some good news and want to take leave but the boss is angry at the moment then he/she has to regulate his/her emotions for some time to ask for leave. Due to self-regulation, Gandhiji was able to handle the situation after Chauri-Chaura incident even after facing criticism.
🔆INTERNAL MOTIVATION
✅It refers to finding internal reasons to work beyond external rewards like money and status. It includes strong
passion for the work, ability to counteract disappointment that results from occasional failure and thrive under adversity.
✅Example: The COVID-19 pandemic has put enormous stress on the doctors and they had to find internal motivation for keep working for patients.
🔆EMOTIONS
✅ Emotions are generally understood as intense feelings, favourable or unfavourable that are directed at someone or something.
✅ Emotions are irrational.
✅Emotions are unproductive.
✅Emotions are subjective.
✅Emotions should never guide administrative actions.
✅ Example, happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise etc.
As much as 80% of adult’s “success” comes from EQ – Daniel Goleman
Cultural Capital:
✅it is the communication skills, accent, books or academic accomplishments that Children inherit from their family.
✅Cultural capital ensures that a child is trained unconsciously by the familial environment to take up higher education or high posts commensurate with their family’s standing.
✅This works to the disadvantage of individuals who are first-generation learners, because their parents could not provide them with such cultural capital or social networking. Therefore, While examinations are a necessary and convenient method of distributing educational opportunities, marks may not always be the best gauge of individual merit. Therefore reservation and welfare schemes are necessary.
🔆BR Ambedkar
✅BR Ambedkar was born in Mahar caste which was considered as untouchables. One day young Bhimrao drank water from a public water tank and he was beaten mercilessly for this. As a child he was not allowed to study sanskrit because of him belonging to a lower caste. These incidents had a deep impact on his life.
✅BR Ambedkar went on to become one of the most literate Indian of his generation. Ambedkar was the first Indian to pursue an Economics doctorate degree abroad. He was also the first Ph.D. in Economics and the first double doctorate holder in Economics in South Asia. During his three years at Columbia University, Ambedkar took twenty-nine courses in economics, eleven in history, six in sociology, five in philosophy, four in anthropology, three in politics and one each in elementary French and German.
✅In 1927, Ambedkar launched Mahad satyagrah to fight for the right of the untouchable community to draw water from the main water tank of the town. By leading a group of Dalits to drink water from Chavadar lake in Mahad, Ambedkar didn’t just assert the right of Dalits to take water from public water sources, he sowed the seeds of Dalit emancipation.
✅Ambedkar was an economist, educationist and the chief architect of the Indian Constitution. He dedicated his life to fight discrimination, degradation and deprivation
faced by lower caste.
✅Lessons: Perseverance
and Dedication, Rationality and
Reason, Social equality,
Humanism, Dignity for all, Courage.
Administrative ethics
1. Transparency: Administration must not only adhere to transparency laws but must also voluntarily disclose all information to the public so that corruption and mala fide decisions are prevented and public knows the true picture of the government. Woodrow Wilson rightly said ‘corruption thrives in secret places, and avoids public places.’
2. Integrity: Integrity is often called the value of values. It demands that administrators must strongly and uncompromisingly uphold the values of civil service. It is said that if integrity is there, nothing else matters…if integrity is not there, nothing else matters.
Civil servants like Ashok Khemka, Sanjiv Chaturvedi are shining examples of integrity and inspire present and future civil servants.
3. Objectivity: Civil servants must take decisions in an objective manner based only on facts and logic without the undue influence of bias or prejudice. For example, a civil servant’s advice to politicians should not be based on personal beliefs but facts of the matter.
4. Compassion: In an underdeveloped country with widespread poverty and hunger, civil servants must show compassion towards the weaker sections in order to fulfil their needs. For instance, if a needy beneficiary under a scheme does not have valid documents, an officer should not simply reject the application but make efforts to get him necessary documents and provide him due benefits.
5. Dedication to public service: Governance in a democracy involves many challenges and pressures and hence, requires utmost dedication on the part of civil servants so that they can strive to serve the people despite the challenges. Such dedication ensures that civil servants remain motivated throughout their long careers. Recent UN Award for community policing to Bastar police shows the dedication of the police department of the district.
6. Impartiality: Civil servants should treat everyone equally regardless of their religion, class, caste etc. This is essential for rule of law and maintains people’s faith in democracy. Article 14 and 15 of the Indian Constitution establish the right to equality for all citizens of India.
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
Читать полностью…
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced
Читать полностью…
15 powerful life lessons to learn from Lao Tzu
Читать полностью…
----------GRATITUDE---------
Definition: The definition of gratitude is a feeling of being thankful and appreciative.
When you feel gratitude, you're pleased by what someone did for you and also pleased by the
results.
#quote-The Bible says, “There is faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.” And yet gratitude is greater.
What is Ethics?
Ethics is a system of moral principles that define what is good for individuals and society.
Ethics affect how people make decisions and lead their lives.
The term is derived from the Greek word ethos which means custom, habit, character or disposition.
Gratitude: feeling of being thankful and appreciative.
When you feel gratitude, you're pleased by what someone did for you and also pleased by the results.
#Ethics Terms
Integrity:
• C.S. Lewis said “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is looking.” •Integrity is a foundational moral virtue, and the bedrock upon which good character is built.
• Acting with integrity means understanding, accepting, and choosing to live in accordance with one’s principles, which will include honesty, fairness, and decency.
• A person of integrity will consistently demonstrate good character by being free of corruption and hypocrisy.
• It is revealed when people act virtuously regardless of circumstance or consequences. This often requires moral courage. Indeed, integrity is the critical connection between ethics and moral action.
🔆CONSEQUENTIAL ETHICS
✅ Where an act can be considered as good if it’s able to produce positive results.
▪️At Individual level
✅At Individual level it will builds self-confidence, courage of conviction, trust and credibility.
Examples:
✅ Court ruled out accusation charges against Ex Chairperson of ISRO Madhavan Nair and also asked govt to pay compensation for his mental suffer.
✅ Edward Snowdon’s leaking of highly classified CIA personal data monitoring across the world
✅ Wiki leaks founder Julian Assange’s home arrest by Leaking US army’s intelligence mischief.
▪️At organizational Level
✅At organizational Level, its brand quality improves, creates trusts among people. But whistle blowers may face life threat for leaking mischief happening in the organisation.
Examples:
✅Election Commission of India – Even after seven decades it conducting elections free and fair manner. People and political parties posed tremendous faith on ECI for conducting elections
✅ TATAs known for their social service. Its brand never become as history even after independence.
✅ Recent Infosys whistle-blower’s letter to SEBI regarding mischief happening in management salary structure. Such an organisation protects such whistle blowers.
▪️At societal level
✅At societal level, it creates social capital, communal harmony, absence of greed, distributive justice.
✅Examples: Bhutan is one the happiest nation across the countries because they measure wealth in terms of Gross National Happiness.
EMPATHY
✅Empathy and Compassion mostly used interchangeably. Empathy is about thinking and feeling from others perspective. As Swamy Vivekananda said,
“Prefer a man with kind heart rather than intelligent mind”.
✅Empathy is considered as one of the important values that should be possessed by any civil servant. If a civil servant having empathy nothing else matters but if he doesn’t have empathy again nothing else matters.
✅SOCIAL COMPETENCE : It is the ability to handle social relations effectively. Given the complexity of social interactions, social competence is the product of a wide range of cognitive abilities, emotional processes, behavioral skills, social awareness, and personal and cultural values related to interpersonal relationships. It depends on age to age or person to person and situation to situation it varies.
• Example: To do friendship with kids we may have to behave like kids and do childish things before them
o To inculcate different cultures, we have to learn and practice their cultural practices .
✅SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE :
Social intelligence (SI) is the ability of a person to tune into other people’s emotions and read the subtle behavioural cues to choose the most effective response in a given situation. It aids people to successfully build relationships and navigate social environments.
🔆Difference Between Emotions And Feelings
✅Even though both the terms are used similarly, but feeling is used to refer to a person’s private emotional experience or self-perception of a specific emotion. When an event occurs, one first responds automatically at a physical level even without awareness (emotion) and then registers or evaluates this (feeling). Feelings are created by emotions.
✅Example: when one sees a snake nearby, their heartbeat, breathing, perspiration (physiological arousal) might increase immediately, causing the action of running away. Only later might one realise that the feeling they experienced was fear.
🔆HOLISTIC COMPETENCE: 4Es
✅ETHOS : Exhibits citizen centricity and inclusiveness, promotes public good and long-term interests
of the Nation, People First, Strategic Thinking, Organizational Awareness, Commitment to the Organisation, Leading Others
✅ETHICS : Self Confidence, Attention to Detail, Taking Accountability, Demonstrates integrity, transparency, openness and fairness
✅EFFICIENCY : Promotes operational excellence and value for money, manages human capital and nurtures capability, Results Orientation, Conceptual Thinking, Initiative and Drive, Seeking Information, Planning and Coordination, Desire for Knowledge, Innovative Thinking, Problem Solving, Developing Others, Self-Awareness and Self-Control, Communication
Skills, Team-Working.
✅EQUITY: Treats all citizens alike, ensures justice to all, with empathy for the weaker section, Consultation and Consensus Building, Decision Making, Delegation.
🔆BR Ambedkar
✅BR Ambedkar was born in Mahar caste which was considered as untouchables. One day young Bhimrao drank water from a public water tank and he was beaten mercilessly for this. As a child he was not allowed to study sanskrit because of him belonging to a lower caste. These incidents had a deep impact on his life.
✅BR Ambedkar went on to become one of the most literate Indian of his generation. Ambedkar was the first Indian to pursue an Economics doctorate degree abroad. He was also the first Ph.D. in Economics and the first double doctorate holder in Economics in South Asia. During his three years at Columbia University, Ambedkar took twenty-nine courses in economics, eleven in history, six in sociology, five in philosophy, four in anthropology, three in politics and one each in elementary French and German.
✅In 1927, Ambedkar launched Mahad satyagrah to fight for the right of the untouchable community to draw water from the main water tank of the town. By leading a group of Dalits to drink water from Chavadar lake in Mahad, Ambedkar didn’t just assert the right of Dalits to take water from public water sources, he sowed the seeds of Dalit emancipation.
✅Ambedkar was an economist, educationist and the chief architect of the Indian Constitution. He dedicated his life to fight discrimination, degradation and deprivation
faced by lower caste.
✅Lessons: Perseverance
and Dedication, Rationality and
Reason, Social equality,
Humanism, Dignity for all, Courage.
Cyber ethics
1. Obeying the law: Users of the internet must abide by the law of the land and not use internet for illegal activities such as hacking, defrauding, stalking, harassing etc.
2. Intellectual property rights: Content created online is often protected by copyrights which must be respected by other users. This is essential for innovation and authenticity on the web.
3. Privacy: Despite availability of modern technology like mass surveillance, spyware etc. users must respect each other’s privacy and dignity. Informed consent must be taken from users before their private information is obtained by online platforms.
4. Free and open internet: Governments, service providers and other stakeholders must ensure that internet remains open for all and free from any barriers. The recent demands for net neutrality aim to uphold this ethic of cyberspace.
5. Respect: Users are expected to show basic respect and courtesy in their behaviour online so as to provide a healthy and stable environment to all. Recent problems of trolling, abusing, shaming etc. highlight the importance of this ethic.
6. Public decency: Since internet is a public platform, users must ensure that their content is decent and appropriate for all audience including children. Offensive content like pornography, brutality must be avoided.
7. Honesty: In the age of social media, users apart from platforms can also create content of their own. Both user as well as platforms must create and share only true, complete and accurate information. Violation of this norm leads to the menace of fake news, rumour mongering etc. which ultimately goes on to undermine people’s faith in internet.
There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more
Читать полностью…
Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil. C.S. Lewis
Читать полностью…
Money and success don’t change people; they merely amplify what is already there. #ethics
Читать полностью…
𝙇𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙖 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚, 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨, 𝙝𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨, 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙜𝙚, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙞𝙥𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙚 ... Reliance on 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 alone results in 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨. Exercise of 𝙝𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 alone results in 𝙬𝙚𝙖𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨. Fixation on 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙨𝙩 results in 𝙛𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙮. Dependence on the strength of 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙜𝙚 results in 𝙫𝙞𝙤𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚. Excessive 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙞𝙥𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙚 and sternness in 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙙 result in 𝙘𝙧𝙪𝙚𝙡𝙩𝙮. When one has all 𝙛𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙫𝙞𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙚𝙨 together, each appropriate to its function, then one can be a 𝙇𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧.
— Jia Lin, in commentary on Sun Tzu, Art of War
#leadership
🔆Ethical dilemmas in Indian administration
Public servants find themselves in dilemmas that include conflict between:
✅ Between different values of public administration – such as efficiency v/s accountability
✅Aspects of the code of conduct- accepting rewards or gifts for performance of duty
✅ Personal values v/s those of senior or a governmental directive
✅Professional ethics v/s following an unjustified order by a supervisor/authority
✅ Blurred or competing accountabilities- such as towards department or society.
The set of fundamental principles or criteria that integrate the process of dealing with ethical dilemmas in public administration are:
✅Democratic accountability of administration,
✅The rule of law and the principle of legality,
✅ Responsiveness to civil society.
This can be described as the ALIR (Accountability, Legality, Integrity, Responsiveness) model of imperatives of ethical reasoning in public administration.
What is Ethics?
Ethics is a system of moral principles that define what is good for individuals and society.
Ethics affect how people make decisions and lead their lives.
The term is derived from the Greek word ethos which means custom, habit, character or disposition
