Indian Institute of Management Calcutta

About: Indian Institute of Management Calcutta is a education organization based out in Kolkata, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Supply chain & Emerging markets. The organization has 415 authors who have published 1354 publications receiving 21725 citations. The organization is also known as: IIMC & IIM Calcutta.

An Approach Towards a Decentralised Disaster Management Information Network

Abstract: The existing Disaster Management (DM) approaches are quite unstructured and are usually centralised in nature with the instructions following some sort of fixed hierarchy. This results in poor resource management and hence inefficiency. Since Disasters themselves are unstructured in scope and hence can’t be managed centrally, there is a need for a user centric decentralised hierarchy independent approach wherein even the end user is empowered accordingly for quick and effective results. This working paper addresses the novel approach by underlining the need for a decentralised Information Network whose main objective is to match the available resources at any time with the needs, at the right time and to the right people. Our network uses concepts of multi mobile agents, mobile/AdHoc networking, real time operations, etc. The paper also presents a descriptive implementation setup of the network with the benefits accruing like efficient & effective resource management, real time networking, user centric and enabler decentralised operations, etc. Given the canvass and time-critical aspects of disasters, by this approach the level of success could be exponentially increased leading to an efficient, real time, and effective Disaster Management.

Developing a coherent global view for post disaster situation awareness using opportunistic network

Abstract: Situational awareness is a critical component in a post-disaster recovery operation for assessment of needs and identification of available resources at different parts of a disaster-affected area. This information, in turn, may help the relief agencies to appropriately coordinate, manage and channelize their resources. A major hindrance in developing such global situational awareness is the non-uniform interaction pattern of relief workers. Volunteers in a particular region have much better knowledge of the local situation than those belonging to regions further away. This information asymmetry leads to deviation in perceptions of volunteers working in different regions, thereby affecting the resource distribution process. Thus, a unified global situational view of the entire disaster affected area is essential to bridge the perception gap of volunteers and to help them develop a common understanding of the actual scenario. In this paper, we propose a scheme for developing such a coherent global view of the post-disaster situation using local situational information in a smart-phone based delay tolerant peer-to-peer network environment.We focus on generating a comprehensive view which is consistent for all workers irrespective of their location or mobility. The proposed scheme takes into account the spatial locality and spatial regularity properties of human mobility and uses a concept of “opportunistic knowledge injection” to disseminate local situational knowledge to other remote areas without significant network overhead. The effectiveness of the proposal is evaluated on the ONE simulator.

The Many Faces of Green IT

Abstract: The importance of sustainable development has been widely recognized by people, society, governments, and the business world. Green information technology IT has therefore become one of the latest considerations to improve the environmental sustainability of a business. Yet, as important as this term is, it is being used in so many different ways that it might lose meaning altogether. It is important to clarify the different meanings of green IT to understand how to pursue it better as a business, economic and social objective. Four different perspectives on green IT, and the benefits and barriers of green IT strategy adoption are reviewed and discussed in this article.

Subalterns, empowerment and the failed imagination of markets

Abstract: In our earlier paper, we drew upon Franz Kafka’s literary writings to attend to the repressive sides of the State and markets and their impact on subaltern positions. Moreover, we pointed to some of the key limitations in the theories of the base of the pyramid and subsistence marketplace. In this paper, responding to the commentaries, we clarify some doubts, provide correctives to misinterpretations and further develop the broad theoretical argument we made in our earlier paper. In response to Viswanathan’s commentary, we specifically clarify the role of neoliberal ideology as it impels discourse of subsistence markets. Moreover, as a corrective to Karnani’s reading, we explain the limitations of the State, markets and private enterprises in alleviating poverty in India. Through these clarifications, we ask scholars to attend to systemic features of the current political economy that create poverty and call for an imagination beyond the current capitalist zeitgeist to empower the subaltern.