Ravi SharmaFounder, Institute of Goodness Goodness Score
Writing

The column in
Business India

Nine columns so far, one argument. Each links to the Institute’s edition and to the original.

23 September 2026 · 11 min read

Building the Character Infrastructure of India

Physical infrastructure can transform an economy. Character Infrastructure can transform the quality of life.

  • Roads, stations and digital systems change what a country can do; they cannot by themselves decide how people behave on them.
  • Goodness is made concrete through five values: integrity, responsibility, respect, compassion and stewardship.
  • Behaviour follows the norm around it. Once enough people practise goodness, it reaches a tipping point and begins to sustain itself.
  • Personal Social Responsibility (PSR) complements CSR: it asks what each of us owes the society we belong to.
  • Knowing goodness is not practising it, so the Institute’s PSR curriculum moves from learning to practice to habit, from nursery to university.
  • Low trust works like a friction tax on every transaction; character pays a dividend.
Business India
16 September 2026 · 10 min read

Viksit Bharat: Beyond economics

A developed nation must be measured not only by the wealth it creates, but by the quality of life, institutions and society it builds.

Read the edition Business India
6 July 2026 · 12 min read

Richer, not Happier

The hidden cost of prosperity without goodness.

  • Prosperity improves the conditions of life; it does not automatically improve the quality of life.
  • Pleasure is a spark; happiness is steadier, and rests on trust, relationships and character rather than consumption.
  • Respect is allocational — it shows in where time and attention go — and goodness is the chain that leads from respect to happiness.
Read the edition Business India
25 May 2026 · 7 min read

The road to Viksit Bharat 2047

India must lead in the values that make civilisations endure — the character dividend.

  • Infrastructure is a nation's hardware; character is the software that decides whether prosperity lasts.
  • The character dividend: integrity lowers friction, responsibility lowers supervision, trust lowers transaction costs.
  • Enforcement matters, but fear cannot do the work of conscience — character has to be taught, from kindergarten to graduation.
Read the edition Business India
21 May 2026 · 8 min read

Balance sheet's bankruptcy

Success without goodness is a net loss.

  • A silent bankruptcy is unfolding that never appears on a ledger — in homes, relationships and inner lives.
  • The race for success shrinks the Circle of Care until only the self is left inside it.
  • The most honest indicator of a successful life: in a crisis, are you the person someone calls?
Read the edition Business India
7 May 2026 · 8 min read

Redefining high performance

Goodness is the invisible infrastructure upon which everything else is built.

  • Most of what organisations call high performance is maximum extraction — output at the cost of the person producing it.
  • Real performance is the capacity to keep showing up fully, year after year, across five dimensions of life.
  • Inner state is a precondition for results, not a by-product of them; goodness is what sustains the inner state.
Read the edition Business India
22 April 2026 · 9 min read

Why do we need a Goodness Index?

If we want a better world, we must begin by measuring what makes it better.

  • Our instruments decide our priorities: what a society measures, it optimises for.
  • Rising wealth and rising despair coexist because goodness has been left off every scoreboard.
  • A Goodness Index complements GDP; it does not replace it — and what is measured is finally valued.
Read the edition Business India

The ideas behind the columns

Eight ideas, explained in plain words, each with a line to share.

Explore the ideas