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Showing posts from November, 2023

Dealing with Conflict -Understanding Conflict

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                                           Dealing with Conflict-  Understanding  Conflict Conflict is as old as human brain. Humanity has been attempting, throughout the civilization, to solve its conflict, in a manner desirable to it. These attempts loom across a large spectrum spanning between illegitimate methods (absolute violent conflict like murder, genocide and war) and more refined functional procedures (persuasive conversation, dialogue, dialectics towards mutually acceptable position like agreement, accordance and consensus). Contemporary life in a global village is very complex, so are the conflicts arising therein. This calls for a refined response to conflict if we intend to build sustainable human society. Conflict presupposes a prevailing relationship. There can be no conflict between parties that are not connected. Conflict actually means estrangement in relationship; a strain or an anomaly in the conduct of relation. Attempts to resolve conflict is essentially

Towards an Understanding of Gandhi’s Vision of Development

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  Towards an Understanding  of Gandhi’s Vision of Development The entire superstructure of the modern development paradigm is based on the forces released by industrial revolution, which brought about a radical change in the life and living of people. It resulted in great advancement in technologies and inventions which transformed rural societies into industrialized, urban ones. We are living in a world of artificial intelligence  and robots. In October 2017, Sophia an  AI-enabled android, was given Saudi Arabian citizenship.   Sophia became the first robot to receive citizenship of any country. The end result of all these developments are drastic changes in value systems . Only a few thinkers and philosophers took a critical view of the entire process of modernity and modern development. Among such a group, Gandhi stood out as one who not only offered a critique of modernity but also offered an alternative framework or system to overcome its maladies.  As early as 1909, Gandhi

Assignment Attendance Tutorials

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  Assignment Attendance Tutorials November 06, 2023 Dear friends in Peace , Greetings. As we progress in to the IFPNP-II, we need to intensify our learning exercises. Some of the self-study exercises, as you may remember, are 1. Assignment : Monthly three assignments 2. Neigbourhood Engagement (desired)   : Three hours a week (neighbourhood engagement) 3. Tutorials : Fortnightly (2 hours) for those interested in exploring any subthemes for further details 4. Journal writing (desired): Regular recording of one’s Learning and self-reflection on N P 5. Attendance : Complete attendance expected. Attendance less than 80 per cent indicates, ‘Course-not-completed’ 6. Project : Periodical sharing and final report submission   Progress of the participants will be assessed by their involvement and comprehension that are evident in their self-study exercises. I. Submission of the Assignment (for the first month): a. Assignment guidelines i. Each assignment can be of  

Alternative Models of Development

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                       Alternative Models of Development The world we live in today is entirely different from the post-war economy in 1944 .The inadequacies and limitations of the mainstream development model developed in the post war economy have become more and more evident   than ever before. It led to search for alternative models and concepts of development even within the basic framework of mainstream economics. Even though for decades the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) remained as the main criterion in the hands of economists to measure economic development or growth of a country nowadays there is a growing realization that it is the high time to leave GDP behind. As a result of this realization exclusive pursuit of economic growth and rising incomes are no longer considered as main goals of development.   A number of new concepts and ideas of development emerged within the framework of mainstream economics and these became part of policies and programmes of economies of differ