December 18th 2021 Never before in the progress of our civilization we have been in a time zone when the very formulae that drove the socio-economic development and the governance processes of nations, are being questioned. Particularly with the (i) increasing imbalances in Ethics, Ecology, and Equality at a macro level and (ii) rising violence, accelerating suicides, spreading terrorism, to name a few at a micro level, the intrinsic potential of humanity is becoming fragile, if not endangered.
Accordingly, in the 21st century, humanity will need to deal with two fundamental mega tensions that are threatening the advancement of our civilization: (i) tensions between nature and humanity and (ii) tensions between different communities/societies/ ideologies across nations and within nations. Indeed, we need a fundamental reset so that we could genuinely uncover and engage with the inner beauty of our planet with a holistic perspective.
In that spirit, I am indeed delighted that the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur building on its impressive track record on pursuing academic excellence, is launching the Academy of Leadership to advance leadership movement within India and across the world, - much needed and urgently required.
It is my hope that based on the unison of Eastern and Western Philosophies, the Academy of Leadership will continually help the participants innovatively bridge the “universe within” with the “universe outside”. Leadership that we are talking of are not necessarily skills that can be taught by the classical approach to education; they are personal qualities that must be nurtured in experiential learning environment for the development of inner conscience, in a continuum with conventional disciplines of science, technology and engineering.
Only then the future problem solvers, in an era of tectonic shifts will be able to demonstrate greater intellectual and spiritual resiliency to bring people from multiple backgrounds and multi levels of intellectual preparedness together towards a higher-level purpose to bring about mega scale changes.