Transformational leadership from the Bhagavad-Gita and the significance for human capital development

The significance of transformational leadership has received great deal of attention in the leadership literature during the last two decade as the current business environment requires organizational leaders to be transformational. This is also due to several studies, which have been done in this area, leading to a wider recognition that transformational leadership style is extremely essential for organizational growth and development as it is the quality of the leaders and their leadership determines the quality of the organizations. In this paper, an attempt has been made by the authors to explore transformational leadership from an ancient Indian Vedic philosophy and provide the significance to human capital development. A review of literature in transformational leadership shows that there are thousands of articles which have been written by several academics on this subject from numerous perspectives, but limited articles have been written from the philosophical perspectives. As a result, this paper not only fills the gap in the literature of transformational leadership, but also provides some significance and insights on human capital development from the ancient Indian Vedic philosophical perspective. For this purpose, the authors have selected the Bhagavad-Gita, which provides the essence of the Indian Vedic thought to explore transformational leadership concepts for human capital development. This paper is based on hermeneutics, a qualitative research methodology which involves study, understanding and interpretation of ancient or classical text. The Bhagavad-Gita is more than 5,000 years old and is written in Sanskrit language. In a nutshell, the Bhagavad-Gita provides an inside-out approach to leadership and human capital development which is the self leadership first before leadership of every other thing. The organizational leaders are advised to firstly conquer the enemies within such as desires, anger, greed,arrogance, infatuation, envy, pride or ego and foolhardiness as it is often said that a leader who conquers the enemies within will be able to conquer his self and also others. The prospects of analysis of the Bhagavad-Gita in other areas of organizational leadership such as strategic management, organizational behavior, human resource management and employment relations can be considered for future research

Contribution of Tamil literature to moral education

The purpose of this article is to show the importance of Indian Literature in Moral Education. It plays an important role in building and instilling positive values among secondary students. Moral education is a combination of literacy and moral values. Students need to have the mental, physical, moral and emotional capacity for the betterment of the society at large. It will be a great achievement if every individual is a worthy person. Story and novels are modes to communicate character and background events, which is an effective way to nurture students and instill moral values among readers. Readers will be able to appreciate the values, and it will be forever in their minds. It should be noted, educated or not a reader should be able to appreciate moral values that he or she has read, and the end effect is that it should revitalize their souls. As humans we naturally use values to guide us in our daily action

Language choice of Malaysian Tamil students in Facebook: a case study in a Malaysian university

Language is a powerful identity of an ethnic group. It is with difficulty that a minority group maintains its mother tongue in a multilingual society, particularly so when other languages such as Malay, English and Chinese have economic advantages over Tamil. Even though in Malaysia Tamil language is taught in primary schools for children aged 7 to 12 and in secondary schools for the students aged 13 to 18, only a few continue to study this language in their higher education. It is a challenge for the educators in higher education institutes to encourage and attract students to study Tamil and is equally challenging to encourage them to maintain Tamil language in their daily conversations. The main aim of this study is to identify the language used in Facebook communication among the Malaysian Tamil students in the university. Reasons for their language choice and some strategies to maintain the usage of Tamil language in social networking platform are also discussed in this paper. Students aged 22 to 24 from a university in the central region of Peninsular Malaysia which offers Tamil studies, are chosen as the participants of this study. The participants were interviewed for their language choice. The finding shows that the participants with excellent Tamil language competency, used code mixing, Romanised Tamil more than Tamil or Tamil script in Facebook communication. This study found a way to make the participants converse solely in Tamil. An altered language behaviour in cyberspace emerging out of unknown consideration, was thwarted and normal language use was restored

Ethics (business ethics) from the Thirukkural and its relevance for contemporary business leadership in the Indian context

This paper explores the dimension of business ethics from ancient Indian times and its contemporary relevance for business leadership. In the Indian context, during the past one decade we have witnessed an increase in number of literatures on applying ancient wisdoms especially from the Bhagavad-Gita (Mahabharata), Valmiki Ramayana and the Arthashastra in the business leadership context. However, very few works are found on business ethics from the Thirukkural and its relevance for contemporary business leadership. The Thirukkural is a well-known treatise on ethics which was authored by Thiruvallavar in the second century BC. It is considered to be the first work which covers ethics in Indian (Tamil) literature. In presenting the business ethics from the Thirukkural, the authors employed hermeneutics, a qualitative methodology which is the interpretation of ancient or classical literatures. The findings reveal that Thirukkural advocates a consciousness and a spirit-centered approach to the subject of business ethics based on eternal values and moral principles that should govern the conduct of business leaders. The prospect of highlighting the Thirukkural in other areas like leadership can be considered for the near future

Revisiting the ancient Indian and Chinese leadership wisdom from the perspectives of Kautilya and Confucius

Abstract not available

Identity and language of Tamil community in Malaysia: issues and challenges

Malaysia's ruling party came under scrutiny in the 2008 general election for the inability to resolve pressing issues confronted by the minority Malaysian Indian community. Some of the issues include unequal distribution of income, religion, education as well as unequal job opportunity. The ruling party's affirmation came under critical situation again when the ruling government decided against recognising Tamil language as a subject for the major examination (SPM) in Malaysia. This move drew dissatisfaction among Indians, especially the Tamil community because it is considered as a move to destroy the identity of Tamils. Utilising social theory, this paper looks into the fundamentals of the language and the repercussion of this move by Malaysian government and the effect to the Malaysian Indians identity

Lindernia Micrantha D. Don (Linderniaceae): A red listed plant species new discoveryto Tamil Nadu, India

Lindernia micrantha D. Don is a red listed (Least Concern) species, recorded first time from Sathuragiri hills, Madurai District, Southern Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu, India. This communication brings with detailed description, distribution, phenology and photographs of the species for easy identification. © 2020 Plant Archives. All rights reserved

Hikayat Seri Rama: Establishing the source

Purpose of the study: The main aim of this paper is to establish the Tamil literary sources of the Hikayat Seri Rama. Various recensions of the Hikayat Seri Rama demonstrate the close identity between one text and the other which would seem to indicate that all these texts were apparently derived from some older versions of the Rama story, which was the common source of all the recensions. Methodology: The methodology employed in this article is qualitative in nature. It is library research based on the existing published materials. Four steps of Hermeneutics approaches have been employed to produce findings which are objective in nature. This research is aimed to contribute to the existing body of knowledge about the sources of Hikayat Seri Rama. Main findings: This study would enable us to appreciate the close similarity of motifs and episodes between HSR and the Rama story in Tamil tradition. The Rama story in Tamil folklore itself stands out as a great proof to manifest that the Tamil sources are predominant in Hikayat Seri Rama compared to any other sources. Applications of this study: This study will contribute to the existing body of knowledge and will enable one to appreciate the close cultural relationship between the Tamil and the Malay literary traditions. Hence, it provides a platform for the positive cultural as well as civilizational dialog between the two communities. Additionally, this article can also contribute to the comparative studies involving Indian and Malay literature. Novelty/Originality of this study: Literature reviews clearly show that there is no other similar study to this work conducted elsewhere. Hence, the originality of this study is established. Previous studies failed establish the source for the Hikayat Seri Rama as most of those studies ignored Tamil literary sources. This study managed to prove the source of Hikayat Seri Rama based on Tamil literary sources.. © 2019 Primrose Hall Publishing Group

A critical analysis of siddha tradition in the context of Malaysian hindu culture

This paper explores the origin and development of Siddha philosophy in the context of Malaysian Indian culture. Although the development of Siddha philosophy has been written by several scholars in the context of South India, hardly any studies are found outside India. Scant literature is available on Siddha philosophy from Malaysia; and any related literatures found are generic in nature and not in depth. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to expand the literatures on the Malaysian Siddha philosophy which is becoming relevant in the Malaysian Indian culture focussing on Tamil Siddhas. The methodology employed for this paper is qualitative in nature and it includes inputs gathered on Siddha philosophy and Siddhars from various discussions held with many scholars at conferences, Siddha practitioners in Malaysia and a review of the existing literatures on Siddha philosophical traditions. This paper is to be considered as the first to explore the current development of Siddha philosophy among the Indians in Malaysia