Author: Ram Kumar

Dr Shriddha Shah, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, SIAS delivered a talk on ‘Animal Laborans to Homo Faber: Rethinking Labour and Work Through Arendt and Marx’ at Human Sciences Research Centre, IIIT, Hyderabad​ on 1 October 2025.

About the Talk

The concept of labour with its various implications is central to the structuring of the modern political economy. It is also the cornerstone of Karl Marx’s assessment of the capitalist political economy. Hannah Arendt, in The Human Condition, offers a critique of Marx’s thesis on labour, and thereby his ensuing assessment of society and politics. This paper argues that there is a significant change in the conceptualisation of labour, as discussed by Hannah Arendt, particularly in her examination of the distinction between the concepts of labour and work.

Marx in his thesis makes no distinction between work and labour. However, for Arendt the lack of this distinction is a critical component of her criticism of Marx’s thesis on labour. This paper addresses this issue and argues that Arendt’s thesis rests on presuppositions of metaphysical and methodological dualism, in contrast to those of Marx, and the changed conception of labour is not contingent or a matter of oversight but is based on commitments to different points of view. The paper further argues that this change also influences subsequent formulations of labour and its issues, in contemporary assessments of the political economy.

Dr Vivek Tewary, Assistant Professor, Mathematics, SIAS, presented a talk on ‘Regularity Theory for Nonlocal p-Laplace Equations’, at the GANIT symposium on ‘Stochastic Processes and Related Topics 2025’, at IIT Gandhinagar from 13-15 September 2025.

About the talk: Brownian motion is related to the Laplace operator as jump Levy processes are related to the nonlocal Laplace operator. Similarly, the p-Laplace operator has a probabilistic interpretation in a tug-of-war game with noise and the nonlocal p-Laplace operator comes from a nonlocal version of this tug-of-war game. A recent turn is to study these operators using non-probabilistic methods. While the probabilistic interpretations are linked to non-divergence type operators, in this talk, they focussed on one of their divergence type counterparts. In particular, they discuss the local boundedness and local Holder regularity of solutions of the parabolic divergence type nonlocal p-Laplace equation.

About the workshop: The aim of this meet is to bring together researchers in the country working on stochastic processes and related areas (such as partial differential equations, dynamical systems) for a series of stimulating lectures and discussions. It is hoped that this can be the first meet in an annual tradition and provide a forum for explorations of new ideas and forging of new collaborations.

​Dr Vijaya C, Assistant Professor, Finance, Accounting and Quantitative Finance, IFMR GSB presented her case study titled, ‘Saroja Modern Rice MIlls: Complexity of Sales and Operations Planning’, co-authored with Professor N Chandrasekran, Professor, Operations and Strategy, ​ at the INDAM Special Conference on ‘Vibrant MSME 2025 – Leadership and Sustainable Growth in Focus”, held on 12-13​ September 2025 at K J Somaiya Institute of Management, Mumbai.

INDAM Special conference, on the theme of “Vibrant MSMEs – Leadership and Sustainable Growth in Focus”, was a joint event of Indian Academy of Management (INDAM) and KJ Somaiya Institute of Management (KJSIM), Somaiya Vidyavihar University, Mumbai. The conference focused on three sub-themes – Business Growth, Circular Economy & Sustainability, and Leadership & Succession. The conference interweaved the perspectives of academicians and practitioners through discussions in the form of panel discussions, paper presentations, case studies, poster presentations, exhibition and experts’ discourses.

The case study on ‘Saroja Modern Rice Mills: Complexity of Sales and Operations Plan’, brought out the challenges of a classified small business in the modern technology oriented rice mill in planning its sales, operations and working capital requirements. The case also highlights the need for a champion as the business leader who truly realises the value of a small business as an asset, amidst various challenges inherent in the cyclical agri-business.