Parthasarathi Banerjee

Aesthetics of navigational performance in hypertext

A hypertext learner navigates with a instinctive feeling for a knowledge. The learner does not know her queries, although she has a feeling for them. A learner’s navigation appears as complete upon the emergence of an aesthetic pleasure, called rasa. The order of arrival or the associational logic and even the temporal order are not relevant to this emergence. The completeness of aesthetics is important. The learner does not look for the intention of the writer, neither does she look for significance. Lexia has a suggestive power and she is suggested in the arrival of aesthetics. Hypertext learning does not depend on communication. The learner in her pleasure transgresses the bounds of space-time to be in communion with several writers/learners. Hypertext learning does not appear to be fundamentally different from the analog learning; however, in performance, as in navigation, the learner assumes a mental state that helps her in her emergence into aesthetic bliss, of an arrival to the completed lexial navigation. This completeness is owing to aesthetics and is not owing to either the semantics or the query-fulfilling qualities.

Narration, discourse and dialogue: issues in the management of inter-cultural innovation

Knowledge issues in the management of innovations are addressed properly when the importance of language and in particular of utterances are recognised. This is a new paradigm of management, named here as management by utterance. Unspoken knowledge is not communicated and unspeakable tacit knowledge cannot be of much use in such innovations. Knowledge can be utilised in innovations when its generation and sharing are accomplished through linguistic acts such as a narration or a drama. Discourse necessarily takes a back seat. Utterances and other linguistic forms such as narration or drama bring forth the inter-cultural issues which a manager must resolve in order that a globally diversified research, production and consumption culture remains dynamic and innovative. These inter-cultural aspects have been detailed in this paper by a description of how European and Indian cultural stereotypes understand and appreciate the same narration or utterance. It appears that cultures differ widely in their appreciations of the same management language. Moreover, such variations belittle the discourse-based styles and emphasise the foundational aspects of global communication.

Constructivist Management of Knowledge, Communication and Enterprise Innovation: Lessons from Indian Experience

Abstract: Prime movers of enterprise innovation are inside the organisation. The enterprise NIIT, studied in this paper, tells us how elicitation and recognition of knowledge and its contents set an enterprise on the move. Recognised knowledge is actionable. Each act of recognition is an addition to knowledge content, and such additions took place in NIIT through acts of communications and self-searching. These contents form a large collage that cannot be strewn into a single novelistic episode. Perspectives and context, motives and suggestions render to each member of the enterprise different disjoint appearances of knowledge. There are thus many knowledge systems and multiple narrations, each with small episode-like finality. Enterprise innovation is achieved not through any grand episodic integration of all knowledge contents, but by constructively eliciting further new contents of knowledge, and encouraging acts of communications and discourses on this new knowledge. Constructive management of knowledge and communication towards enterprise innovation has thus been defined. Through such constructive management, NIIT enabled itself innovationally and empowered its members in eliciting knowledge and acting communicatively. A critical feature of knowledge work is that it requires multidisciplinary expertise and mutual learning in order to achieve a complex synthesis of highly specialised state-of-the-art technologies and knowledge domains. A convivial work culture and a culture of communicative acts enable sharing of the non-informatised yet recognised contents of knowledge.

Ethical issues in our times of technology: select exploration

The age of technological society demands that ethical concerns of the path are not forgotten. Technological powering of a personal act shortens the gap between organization and person, and personal ethical concerns then face a dilemma. Indian’s thought suggests that if a mental state of equanimity without contention prevails over as a process, the evils and demerits disappear and ethical dissonance reduces because there is no common evil. Further, it is no longer necessary to translate potential consequences of the choices in terms of risks. Liberty peace and love in this technological time come through the state where the approach is for hands-off.

Non-R&D Innovation in Indian Organized Factory Enterprises

The system of organized business enterprise is amongst the important actors of the national innovation system. Given the wide variations in ownership, size, nature of competition, there would be similar differences in the depth and types of innovative activities. The economic dynamics of this group of enterprises is very diverse, allowing investigation into changes happening beyond an individual enterprise. For instance, within the manufacturing group of relatively large enterprises, changes towards improved performances that could be described as innovative can be portrayed at three levels of (1) units (2) sector and (3) inter sector. All the 3 levels of innovation have dissimilar inputs and those at sector and inter sector levels are often macro in nature, flowing out of public policies.

Coordination and Governance of S&T Structure and Infrastructure in India

Over several decades of developmental investments and developmental democratic public governance, India has experimented with and has evolved a very complex web of ST however, ST (2) as part of instrument/capacity build up; and (3) as part of a major national mission such as on space. Apart from the fund from line ministry, a proposing organization may seek fund from extramural facility of another ministry, or from the instrument/capacity build up funds from other line ministries. A facility such created is in general a dedicated (or laboratory) facility, not easily accessible to outside researchers or outside private parties. Fees based laboratories do exist in India but their functions are almost always limited to testing, standardization, certification areas and/or they happen to belong to public executive authorities such as on standards. Private fees based laboratories do exist at higher secondary school science level and at undergraduate levels. Infrastructure level research, experimentation facilities are yet to come up. A large number of specialized research institutes have come up over the years. The Research and Development Statistics 2007-08, from the Department of Science and Technology reported the presence of 3,960 RD especially, the number of laboratories with the CSIR constitutes less than 1% of the total number of R&D laboratories in the country. State-wise distribution, as per the DST Research and Development Statistics at a Glance 2007-08, is: Maharashtra with 835 R&D institutions, Tamil Nadu with 402, Andhra Pradesh with 338, Delhi with 321, Karnataka with 311, Gujarat with 273, West Bengal with 260, Uttar Pradesh with 223, Kerala with 139 and the rest of the states with the remaining 858 R&D institutions. The private sector has R&D departments/units with respective economic enterprises and sometimes with trusts supported by such private enterprises. Moreover, there are S&T/R&D units with several social sector NGOs/NPOs. Last few years have seen foreign companies investing in owned R&D establishments in India. Professional scientific societies or associations are weak in India relative to several advanced countries, notably the USA. Role of professional control in management of S&T organizations has remained sparse, few and far between, and is often exercised in conjunction with administrative organs and under typically governmental administrative rules, budgetary practices, cash flow managements, information channel controls, organizational processes, audit requirements as prevail in respective ministries/departments controlling the concerned S&T/R&D organization. The peer controls, the gate keeping roles and peer hand-holding or reviews etc. are naturally very weak and do accommodate administrative rules and principles. It is understood that although over the years growth of S&T infrastructure has taken place significantly, the achievements are yet to become very promising. The socio-economic sector laboratories which are expected to harness S&T for the developmental aspects of the society quite often suffer from mismatch and are expected to perform up to their expected targets. The key reasons behind such mismatch could be shifts in and softening of governance, poor S&T infrastructure including laboratories and workshops, multiplicity of S&T goals, changing S&T charters and research agenda, locked-up levels of skills and competencies of personnel, among others. Absence often of transparent coordination mechanisms or instruments renders this large structure weak. Goals multiplication and shifting charters/agenda often appears to have resulted from changes in governance structures and governance imperatives. This in turn results in a fuzzy set of expected deliverables and locked-up skills and competencies of personnel. Almost always research institutes are run under administrative rules and structures analogous to those prevailing in, and for, the line ministries. The public audit system too has very significant influence on modes of functioning and the capability to deliver. We also find that India has a huge S&T infrastructure in which there is wide variance in the governance structure. The gains from such varied structures have definitely been very impressive, however, with one caveat. Unlike a singular mode of governance where gains are defined well and beforehand and where measurement of gains are easily computable, visible and are large – the Indian web of federated democratized stakeholders-related governances have defined multiple goals, varied types of deliverables, complex modes of negotiations and regulations and the Indian governances have therefore delivered very large number of relatively inscrutable grass-roots gains that are not easily amenable to accumulation. In fact, standard instruments of direction such as laws and audit systems have accommodated, especially in the phases of implementation of S&T based developmental programs, the roles of negotiation and aspirations of the local structures of governance. The distinct gains from this very distributed mode of goals and governances are that widely distributed capacity and very diverse capabilities have been sustained and generated. This is perhaps very unique to India and few nations can be proud of such great diversities. The future of Indian S&T and the developmental discourse needs to recognize these albeit weak very diverse capacities, capabilities, gains and governances as the central feature.

Pattern of Innovation and R&D in Select Sectors by Listed and Other Companies of India

Innovation behaviors of listed firms are likely to be different from business enterprises that are not listed, such as privately held family firms. The listing entitles a firm access to supposedly cheaper capital market. Listing also makes it obligatory on the part of companies to divulge performance and investment data beyond what accounting standards require. This probe is based on much of such data provided by listed companies as also by other companies and as provided by the Prowess database of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Most stock exchanges globally and Indian exchanges too have either proved indifferent to or sometimes even hostile to expenditure on RD (2) de-risk the listed company by hiving off the vehicle that would undertake RD (3) not report on RD or (4) not undertake R&D or no major developmental project. Perhaps most important would be - what defines R&D expenditure? In fact very often firms abroad classify activities of a not strictly R&D type under this head in order to gain tax rebates or to secure strategic mileage. Most importantly a large number of firms are busy in innovative development, while not owning a formal R&D set up. In this section, therefore, we would look into reported cases of R&D without looking into issues of business strategies and the non-R&D elements of innovation.

Technology of culture: the roadmap of a journey undertaken

Artificial intelligence (AI) impacts society and an individual in many subtler and deeper ways than machines based upon the physics and mechanics of descriptive objects. The AI project involves thus culture and provides scope to liberational undertakings. Most importantly AI implicates human ethical and attitudinal bearings. This essay explores how previous authors in this journal have explored related issues and how such discourses have provided to the present world a roadmap that can be followed to engage in discourses with ethical and aesthetic implications of contemporary cognitive sciences.

A sketch of blissful actions and democracy based upon rasa

Contemporary democracy has given primacy to thought. Building up institutions on thought and reasoned discourse excludes out human actions derived not from thought that one thinks. Ordinary life is visited by emotion and passion. Such actions of unknown origin are captured best in the drama. Indian theory and practice of drama and the poetics offer communion between the performer and the viewer. Blissful relish of the actions and the dialogues lift up the banal actions from the ordinary to a state beyond simple event. Relishing thus resides in cognition. Drama in theory and in its practice thus offers foundation to institutions that could embrace independent actions as well. In relish there is cognition and reasoning alone cannot lay claim. Folk life and folk actions thus could be emancipatory.