General
XLRI Organised the ‘24th Annual JRD Tata Ethics Oration on Business Ethics
In his oration, Mr. Shekhar Gupta delved on the topic – “Changing Role of Media in Today’s India” through an interactive session with the students.
In his speech Mr. Gupta shared his experiences from his almost 40 year long career as a journalist and talked about the evolution of media and its role through the years. He observed, “Truth never hurts anybody, but where there is nobody to tell the truth, rumours become the truth.” Discussing about both the positive and negative sides of media and news reporting system in India today, he said that ‘a painful and noisy media is anytime better than a bunch of lies’. He said that any normal citizen with a smart-phone can have access to media, thus becoming a part of the media. However, he also stressed his concern that anybody with money and power opening a media house for their vested interests and utilizing media as a tool.
The session was attended by Mr. T. V. Narendran, Chairman, Board of Governors, XLRI & MD, Tata Steel India and South East Asia, Fr. E Abraham, S. J. Director of XLRI, Dr. Pranabesh Ray,Dean [Academics] at XLRI and Fr. Oswald Mascarenhas, S.J, JRD Tata Chair Professor of Business Ethics at XLRI.
In his welcome address, Fr. E Abraham, S. J. Director of XLRI said, “While Ethics is a set of principles of right conduct or a system of moral principles, Business ethics in particular can be regarded as the study of business situations, activities, and decisions where issues of right and wrong are addressed. Ethics in most of the cases runs parallel to law and shows due consideration to others rights and interests in a civilized society. The culture of an organization is set by the tone at the top. Chief executives must lead by example. The senior management also needs to be trained to develop ethical sensitivity – an understanding of fairness, openness, transparency, integrity, responsibility to others and the ability to recognize conflicts of interest.”
“XLRI has always emphasized on the importance of adopting an ethical code of conduct within the corporate world. We believe that no management education curriculum is really complete, unless and until the students are instilled with a set of values that are necessary decision-making ingredients for the corporate manager today. It is for this reason that a core course on “Managerial Ethics” is offered to all our students at XLRI. It is our firm belief that Ethical behavior must begin at the very top of every organization. It is largely a leadership issue and the CEO must set the tone and set an example which would ultimately lead to a more humane and just society,” he further added.
In his address, Mr. T. V. Narendran, Chairman, Board of Governors, XLRI observed, “Ethics encompasses the entire spectrum of human conduct. However, today, ethical deficit and lack of integrity in public affairs has become such a major issue that public confidence and trust in public officials and private organizations have taken a severe beating in our nation. In fact, the slow growth of the Indian economy in recent years is also partly attributed to the policy-making stalemate as a consequence of greater scrutiny and focus on unethical transactions in the private and public sphere. Therefore, it is most fitting that we pause for a while to dwell upon the impeccable legacy of ethical public life left behind by giants of industry like JRD Tata and other stalwarts.”