Answer: Bribery refers to the offering, giving, soliciting, or receiving of any item of value as a means of influencing the actions of an individual holding a public office. A kickback is a form of bribery wherein an illegal commission is paid to someone typically in exchange for preferential treatment. For example, a buyer receives kickbacks from a supplier in exchange for being issued a purchase order in preference over other suppliers whose goods or services may be of lower price or higher quality. Bribery may lead to lower profit margins, and returns, and lead to a decline in employee morale. Despite this, the World Bank reports that roughly one-third of firms around the world use kickbacks. Therefore, corporations must have a resistance plan in place to address this practice. Such a plan should be informed by the following:

• Anticipate bribery risk: Management must better understand what motivates the official seeking the backhander. They can then offer alternatives that are within their mandate and laws of the land.
• Account for the cost of avoiding bribery into projections: Denying bribes to the seeker may be as costly as offering it. It may lead to delays in delivery or even an outright failure to get a contract. Firms should calculate these costs in their business plan and also explain this to the investors.
• Identify new markets: Certain markets, often called ‘moon markets,’ are infamous for the lack of motivation to change. Corporations may choose to treat these markets as inaccessible and revise their ambitions. This may mean a contraction in profits in the short term, but in the long- run, it also means building a more resilient company.
• Gather intelligence: Firms must invest in gathering intelligence to identify moon markets and other costs associated with avoiding bribery. For instance, Coca-Cola uses data from Transparency International to build a map of its bribery risks and then determines where to focus its anti-corruption efforts.
• Recalibrating performance-based targets: In markets with high corruption risk, frontline employees have little incentive to refuse a kickback if it means failing to meet their targets and risking a significant portion of their compensation. Employees should not receive “a haircut” for saying no to corruption. For instance, after paying multi-million dollar fines for bribery, GlaxoSmithKline did away with sales targets. Also, Novartis capped its performance-based compensation, and representatives are now rated based on their values and behavior, and not sales quota.
• Reporting cases: A corporation must be transparent in its commitment against bribery and allied practices. They must report such instances through appropriate channels as they deem fit.

An enlightened management must rely upon its products and services rather than bribery and kickbacks. Companies that create state-of-the-art products and strategies to sell them without bribes will help dismantle this age-old system that perpetuates poverty abroad and stifles creativity within.

Answer: Compassion is the ability to recognize the suffering of others and then take action to help. It embodies a tangible expression of love for those who are suffering. Thiruvalluvar places compassion as the most important virtue with the potential to solve the myriad problems facing humanity. Compassion as a gracious virtue:

• Goes beyond feelings and promotes action: Compassion goes beyond the feelings of mere pity, sympathy, and even empathy and drives people to act to help relieve the suffering people.
• Build social connections: It enables people to listen and understand the issues faced by others in a mindful and caring manner and take corrective actions. This promotes the feeling of fraternity and promotes humanism in society.
• Addresses the root cause of suffering: It goes beyond the symptoms of pain, distress, and hardships. It allows people to understand the problems faced by others in a non-judgmental manner and help them solve them.

Significance of the virtue of compassion:

• Individual growth and development: Compassion gives one an opportunity to not be too critical regarding his/her own mistakes and find solutions to his/her own problems.
• Address the social evils: Compassion can empower people to understand the root causes of social evils such as poverty, hunger, child marriage, beggary and slavery, drug abuse, untouchability, sexual violence, and inequality and drive them to address these issues.
• Help save the environment: The feeling of compassion among individuals and leaders can help them better understand the negative impacts of their actions and inactions on climate-related dangers.
• Prevent wars and conflicts: They are the result of disputes over natural resources or struggle for power, influence, and wealth. It can be avoided if the feelings of humanity, brotherhood, fraternity, and welfare of all take precedence.

Compassion can be imbibed by being more altruistic, avoiding judgment, practicing gratitude, and learning from the lives and teachings of great personalities like Gautam Buddha, Gandhiji, and Martin Luther King Jr., etc. who practiced compassion.