Call it an initiative to add a dash of Indian knowledge systems to management science or something else! IISWBM, India’s oldest B-School, affiliated to the Calcutta University, is teaming up with Bhaktivedanta Research Centre (BRC) to offer a PhD programme in management, public systems and social welfare involving research based on Indian knowledge systems, for the first time in the country. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) to this effect was signed between the two premier and prestigious institutes on 27 February in Kolkata. The MoU was signed by Dipankar Dasgupta, Director, IISWBM & Dr Sumanta Rudra, trustee and dean (academics), BRC.
Significantly, one of ISKCON founder Bhaktivedanta Swami’s (fondly referred to as Srila Prabhupada) utmost desire expressed in 1975 at Los Angeles was for ISKCON to jointly offer a serious academic degree program under the affiliation of the University of Calcutta.
BRC, on its parts, was founded with the objective of emerging as a leading global institution serving India’s literary heritage by collecting, preserving, researching and teaching its ancient wisdom through state of the art means for the welfare of the society at large. The new PhD programme will deal with technological interventions in Faith-based organisation including voluntary behavioral aspects, group behaviour, sound therapy/sonic intervention and Spirituality effects on organisational behaviour/human performance, etc., said Aradhya Bhagaban Das, deputy registrar, BRC.