Ethics: September 2022 Current Affairs | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly - UPSC PDF Download

Q.1. Examine the relevance of the following in the context of civil service:
(a) Transparency
(b) Accountability
(c) Fairness and Justice
(d) Courage of Conviction
(e) Spirit of service.

(a) Transparency means sharing information and acting in an open manner.  Transparency is essential for controlling corruption in public life, to uphold accountability and deliver information to stakeholders about the activities, procedures and policies of the Government. It also allows stakeholders to collect information that may be critical to uncovering abuses and defending their interests.
(b) Accountability is the process whereby public sector organisations, and the individuals within them, are responsible for their decisions and actions and submit themselves to appropriate external scrutiny.  Accountability is the fundamental requirement for preventing the abuse of power and for ensuring that power is directed towards the achievement of efficiency, effectiveness, responsiveness and transparency in civil services. It is needed to prevent covert unethical behaviour which would affect public service and due entitlements of stakeholders.
(c) Justice means giving each person what he or she deserves while fairness is associated with an ability to judge without reference to one's feelings or interests. The principles of justice and fairness can be thought of as rules of "fair play" for issues of social justice. These principles of justice and fairness are needed in civil service to ensure that the common man receives his due without biasness, inefficiencies or greed of the civil servant affecting his entitlements.
(d) Courage of conviction: In public service, while facing different situations one may be buoyed by the circumstances, fear, passions, greed since the decisions at the helm would be affecting many interests, vested or non-vested. It is during these trying moments that courage of conviction helps a civil servant to stay on the best course of action despite various temptations and risks, staying firm in his beliefs, values and duty. Hence, this quality assumes importance in public service.
(e) Spirit of Service: Quality of being committed to public service without any self motives. The domain of civil service calls for duty in the spirit of service for country, society and its people and sacrifices by putting aside greed, personal entitlements and engagements. This is the single most important value that marks civil services apart from other service and keeps the civil servant motivated to keep working for the betterment of society.

Q.2. (a) How will you apply emotional intelligence in administrative practices? 

Answer: Emotional Intelligence can be defined as an ability to comprehend and manage one’s emotions and also of others. It is important for making sound and objective decisions thus making it crucial for success as an administrator. EI can be applied to administrative practices in the following manner -

• Being self-aware as an administrator helps us in having a clear picture of our strengths and weaknesses. If people are self-aware, they always know their feelings and how emotions affect the people around them.
• Administrators must self-regulate themselves effectively. A self regulated administrator would not verbally attack others, make rushed or emotional decisions and/or stereotype people or compromise values
• Administrators should constantly motivate themselves and their team members thus consistently working towards their goals. This also helps in maintaining an extremely high standard for the quality of their work.
• Applying empathy in administrative practices is critical to managing a successful team or organization. Administrators with empathy have the ability to put themselves in someone else’s situation.
• By developing social skills administrators would also become great communicators thereby getting their team support and will also be good at managing change and resolving conflicts diplomatically. 
• To summarize emotional skills have gained foothold in the public administration sector and are essential for good administrative practices and customer service.

(b) Strength, peace and security are considered to be the pillars of international relations. Elucidate.
Answer:

• Peace is one of the foremost reasons why we engage in and maintain international relations. This is because, after the two World Wars, the appetite for war and violence decreased dramatically across the world. War became unethical behaviour, unfit for civilisation, hazardous for humanity. We needed to establish peace world over and in order to establish peace we need security. A secure and peaceful world allows us to preserve, protect and create newer solutions to our problems. Peace builds communities, expands trade, aids development, helps sustain the environment, and most importantly, helps us claim our socio-political rights.
• Security is derived from having strength. Strength in international relations is the ability to successfully negotiate in one’s favour. Strength can be sourced from military power, economic strength, a ‘soft-power’ status etc. An ethical use of strength to negotiate for peace and security is ideally what is required in international relations, but such is not always the case. For example, China has been using its strength to claim territories of other countries in the South China Sea, which is nothing but an unethical use of strength, and as such may not lead to peace and security in the region.

Case Study -1

• Ranbir is the Chief executive officer of a company. The Company has been growing and has recruited quite a few specialists recently. The functional heads in the company have to meet their staff in an open meeting every two months. Ranbir detested these meetings. It was open to everyone in the office. The staff came up with a long list of trivial and tiresome complaints and grievances. 
• They repeated the same things and spoke at length. Even when the staff knew of the constraints, they went on with their complaints. They wanted more space for lounge, for bathrooms and crèche. Ranbir pointed to lack of space, and yet the staff continued to complain. Ranbir cultivated a habit of sitting through the meeting with a cheerful face, but with his mind switched off from the proceedings. The meeting became a tiresome ritual he had to get through.
• Due these issues many employees had left the company and its further hampering the Business of the company.

Q. In Ranbir’s situation what action would you have taken and why?

Answer: The question focuses on understanding the needs of a team and the leader’s role in resolution of mundane problems of the team members. The source of the problem in this case is perhaps rooted in the fact that success of the company has brought forth induction of new team members and the present accommodation has thereby become inadequate and the situation had become worse due to Ranbir's attitude towards the grievances of the employees, lackadaisical approach towards the meeting with the employees.

Stakeholders involved in the case are:

• Company’s Ceo
• Employees of the Company
• New & old employees
• Shareholders of the Company

The situational challenges that are faced by the CEO are:

• Crisis Management: Handling crisis efficiently with limited resources and without or minimum adverse effects on the employees.
• Timely decision making to prevail the healthy work culture in the office and trust among the public for efficient decision making.
• Conflict management: Conflict management is another skill that managers need. The conflicts here mean the quarrels and disputes which frequently arise in organizations.

Ethical Components that could be utilised

• Emotional Intelligence: Emotional intelligence refers to ‘the ability to identify one’s own emotions and those of others, harness and apply them to tasks, and to regulate and manage them.
• Emotional Quotient (EQ): It is a measure of one’s EI i.e., through a standardized test, one’s awareness of emotions in relation to self and others is known.
• Empathy: It is an awareness of the needs and feelings of others both individually and in groups, and being able to see things from the point of view of others.
• Social Skills: It is applying empathy and balancing the wants and requirements of others with one’s. It includes building good rapport with others.

CEO’s course of action to resolve the issue,

Concrete Plan of Action

• Since the business of the company is thriving and more specialist staffers have been recruited, Ranbir should quickly look for a bigger and better workplace.
• If employees still face issue:
  • Till such time that office expansion takes place relieving the pressure on facilities, he can take some small steps like:
  • Cleaning Toilet: Taking very small steps to impress the employees like cleaning toilet on regular basis, but the problem is of space and not cleanliness, this step could impress the employees for few days but it would not be the final solution.

Attentive listening

• By Carefully listening to the employee’s and then solving their problem are marks of sincere concern for any individual or group as a whole. Leaders in office need to show this quality. So, he has to be attentive however much he dislikes the grievances or narration thereof in the meetings.
• He need not switch off in the meeting, rather he should listen to the grievances of the employees more empathically. These meetings serve a purpose. If he ignores all that the staff members have to say, the present employees could also resign. He has also to be responsive to what staff members say.
• Ignoring their Demands: He can ignore their demand and work as nothing has happened, but this step could hamper the productivity and future prospect of the company.
• Work from Home alternative: This step could be the possible alternative, as by providing hybrid model of work, it will ease the problem of space as employees can easily work from home and some employees can still come to office, so it eases the pressure on the office infrastructure.
• Allocation of office space on rent: By allocating a separate rental office space nearby only for temporary period till the proper office space is not required could solve the problems of faced by employees and satisfy all the parties to the dispute.

Conclusion

The conflict can only be resolved through the collective effort by all the stakeholders involved in the situation, where the company need to take initiatives to improve emotional intelligence, empathy and emotional quotient among its CEO, employees and other staff, so, there could be an open discussion and employees can freely express their concerns and CEO and management of the company should listen to the problems more attentively and should take proper measures to address the issues in due time.

Case Study - 2

You are the Managing Director of Metro Rail Corporation (MRC) of a metropolitan city and you have received orders and funding for construction of the metro track and a parking space in a densely forested area of the city with houses of few underprivileged families as well in it.

For the construction, the forest has to be cleared and the families have to be moved to some other place. The locals have started a protest after knowing about the order. They are highly raged about cutting down thousands of trees and the affected families have also joined them because the forest holds emotional value for them.

On the other hand, the minister who directly controls the MRC is pressuring you to start the felling process as soon as possible. You know that going against his orders will have serious repercussions.
(a) What are the ethical issues involved and the options available to you in such a situation?
(b) Also, suggest a course of action you would like to follow. (250 words)
Solution: Being the Managing Director of the Metro Rail Corporation, my foremost duty is to maintain the sustainability of project along with fulfilling my constitutional and ethical duty towards the environment and the underprivileged. As per Gandhian philosophy, the public servants are the trustees of natural resources, therefore the development process should be inclusive of the voice of all without compromising on future developmental needs.

Stakeholders Involved

• Government
• Underprivileged people living in the forest area
• Members of Civil Society protesting against environmental damage
• Metro Rail Corporation
• Future commuters

The ethical issues involved

• Development vs Environment: As the population in cities is increasing, infrastructural development is essential to accommodate the growing demand, but environmental protection is a necessity for the sustainability of life which cannot be neglected at any cost.
• Rights of Underprivileged: Development cannot be done at the cost of marginalised section and their rights should be safeguarded at any cost. So, evicting people’ from their homes is not just treatment.

The various options available are

• Starting the felling of trees and eviction process as per the orders: This option allows me to fulfil my duty of following the administrative orders. But it violates the universal virtue by exploiting nature and legal rights of underprivileged.
• Stop the felling of trees and eviction orders: It may fulfil my duty towards the environment and will reflect my ethical concerns towards the marginalized people. However, I may face punitive actions for not discharging the official orders as the minister is personally involved in the case.
• Forming a committee to resolve the issue: It will provide an opportunity to incorporate the views of different stakeholders and arrive at a peaceful solution. It will make the development process more inclusive.
• In such circumstances, it would be necessary to ensure the sustainability of the project so that needs and rights are not compromised on either side.
• Firstly, proper two-way communication should be established between the protestors and authorities so that both sides get a due chance to present their views.
• Secondly, a proper plan for rehabilitation of underprivileged (to be evicted) should be put into action in order to safeguard their rights, along with taking care of their livelihood and adequate compensation. For this purpose, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Fund could be utilized.
• Thirdly, the design of the project should be reconsidered in order to cause minimum harm to the environment. A pooled fund could be created, where a certain percentage of revenues earned from the project could be used for environmental restoration.
• In fact, the protestors should be motivated to help local authorities to create an even bigger green patch in the city and Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAMPA Fund) could be used by the local government for afforestation.
• Finally, the political and public pressure can be averted by forming an independent committee involving the members from civil society, environment experts, design engineers and government representatives to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
• Development needs in this dynamic world cannot be compromised but environmental protection as mandated by Directive Principles of State Policy is also a State responsibility, therefore a proper balance between the two is essential for a peaceful existence.

Case Study -3

You are a government official. One day you find out that your subordinate is infected with HIV. Before you could stop the news from spreading, it had already become a topic of discussion among other members of the office. Now, they are pressuring you to suspend, sack or transfer him as they fear that his presence in the office might lead to other members getting contaminated with the virus. You try to make them understand that HIV does not spread from touching, but they are so skeptic and scared that they refuse to even listen to your reasoning. They all decide to not work till the HIV positive employee. Your office is already under a lot of work pressure and in the next week you are to finish some work within a deadline. How will you tackle this problem? Elaborate the steps that you will take to handle it.
Solution: 

• This situation deals more with an implementation problem of a decision (already in mind) and not with taking a decision. We must keep in mind that HIV infected people also have the right to life and personal liberty as enumerated in Article 21 of Fundamental Rights. Based on this, they cannot be deprived of a dignified life. 
• It has been established beyond doubt that HIV is not transmitted through air, food or water, and touch. So, the demand of the members of the office is absolutely unreasonable. Besides being unreasonable their demand is also unethical as instead of social ostracisation, the HIV affected must be supported in this time of personal crisis. Hence, any action against the HIV infected person is neither desirable nor legal. However, as a team lead, one has to maintain social cohesion in the team and try best to assuage any suspicion in the minds of the people. Hence the following steps are desirable:
• One can start by explaining the employees that a diseased person is to be empathized with and definitely not to be hated. To substantiate one’s arguments one can put forward few scientific researches in front of them to make them understand that they are not vulnerable to get infected.
• In spite of the above if the employees persist with their stand then one can write to one’s seniors apprising of the situation and requesting to arrange an alternative team with similar skill sets so that they can complete the task.
• In the mean time one can pass an executive order that the complaining employees have no option but to work with the current setup. Besides strict disciplinary action will be taken against all those who fail to comply with official orders.
• In the mean time one can put all efforts to meet the deadline. One can try to organize medical educational camps to raise awareness.
• To have a positive demonstrative effect, one can start by making the affected person sit next to oneself.

To know more information

• Ethics Case Studies Compilation (1 to 5)