This interview was conceived for the purpose of gaining a dispassionate view of the field of organisation development (OD) from one of the oldest researcher-practitioners in India. Prof Vijay Padaki was associated with Ahmedabad Textile Industry's Research Association (ATIRA) for many years. OD professionals in India will know that the landmark project in Calico Mills in Ahmedabad was one of the earliest instances of planned organisation-wide change, based on the socio-technical systems framework. Padaki had interacted with A. K. Rice and, later, was in touch with other members of the pioneering team like Eric Trist and Fred Emery. Stanley Seashore invited Padaki to Ann Arbor. Many years later, he developed a lasting friendship with Russell Ackoff. What characterised these relationships was the common concern for a meta-operational view of OD beyond tools and techniques-a search for a philosophy of OD. Many readers might not know that Padaki was trained originally as a clinical psychologist. He realised early in his life that his calling was in applied research, and in the field of organisational behaviour. However, Padaki has always maintained that his early training as a clinician gave him a perspective to the function-dysfunction conundrum that remained valuable all his life. If clinical psychology appears to be preoccupied with dysfunctional states, it can only be with clarity about what is functional. He has held that this two-sidedness of phenomena applies to all living systems beyond a single individual. In planning the interview with Padaki for this special issue of the journal, it was clear that it could not be a set of preset questions in the nature of an 'interview schedule'. It would be best to suggest the broad scope of a conversation, and let Padaki take it in directions he considered important for the objectives of the exercise. If there was one preferred emphasis the editor wanted from Padaki, it was his macro perspective, being rooted over many years in systems thinking. In addition, he could serve as the institutional memory for the current generation of OD practitioners. So much of the formative years seems to have happened in the city of Ahmedabad where his early career was shaped. Readers might be interested to know that Padaki was invited by the Indian Council of Social Science Research to prepare a chapter for the Annual Review of Psychology in 1975. He chose to invite a development economist, Dr Vinod Vyasulu, to work on the chapter with him. The two of them produced what was perhaps the first systems perspective for psychologists in the country (Padaki & Vyasulu, 1980). He followed that up with an action research project for Ford Foundation titled 'Rural Socio-Technical Systems', towards a research perspective for doctoral students in the social sciences (Padaki, 1978). The policy research programme that he conceived and led later at the Chimanlal Lalbhai Centre for Management in Ahmedabad culminated in the first research-based policy for the Indian textile industry. The book coming out o...

This edition has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, like much else in 2020. Prospective authors opted out and then in again for a while and out again. Our contributing authors strived amid social, physical and personal constraints to complete their articles. The editor was also caught in the throes of strandedness, evacuation, quarantine and resettlement in novel adaptations to life. So, the stresses of the context bears upon this edition. What survived may still bear out lessons for the future of practice and research in India on the subject of this special edition: Organisation Development in India: Present and Future. The practitioner has often been an object of role modelling in organisation development (OD). In the social dynamics of India, this has often meant excessive adulation of 'hero' figures, much to the neglect of the avowed processes that could make organisations effective or ineffective. Academic treatment of the practice, however, has been inadequate to trace the rigors of science or theorisation that informs OD practice in India. Generalisability, accuracy and utility, for example, are criteria by which OD theory could be examined. The applied behavioural science implication of the practice has been erroneously socialised as the tendency to value utility, or the pragmatic resolution of tensions that the OD consultant is hired to be an agent for-in the cause of the change sponsor-not necessarily of the whole system whose members participate to yield in the outcomes of change. What We Have and Do Not Have for You in This Edition In the editorial process for this edition of the NHRDN Journal, we invited authors whose intellectual moorings of their own practices for India are both long laboured and respected. The authors' nuanced discretions uphold adaptations in practice for their contexts in India. These are forthcoming for the reader through their writing. Often, truncated scopes like role interventions or relatively stand-alone workshops on leadership capabilities masquerade as organisation-wide change intentions. While there are many an adaptation that appropriate the label of OD, we biased this edition to organisation-wide, multi-level interventionists whose work is not limited to point-in-time 'events' (or a series of them) but is more representative of a process of engaging organisations more comprehensively than as a discrete or singular learning offsites. Yet, we did not subject their works to critical content validity of OD, lest we lose even traces of their practice. We also have for you three book reviews by scholars and practising managers from institutional, private and social sectors. One book traces the work-life history of a change agent, a disciple of Ron Lippitt no less. Bob Crosby's Memoirs of a Change Agent is as close to the source of OD as we could get to in 2020. Another review traces value-based leadership, making a difference to how organisations transform in the book Alchemy of Change by Rajan Sinha and Dr H. N. Arora. Their work brings examples of organisations from ...

is an alumnus of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). His PhD thesis (TISS) was on the Evaluation of Organization Development (OD). His M.Phil. thesis (TISS) was on Learning Styles and Entrepreneurial Orientation. Since 2011, Partner with Workplace Catalysts LLP, Bangalore, he is coach and facilitator of Leadership and ODand advisor to start-ups,for clients in manufacturing, infrastructure projects, IT services, Big Data analytics and financial services. Prior experiences based on line, staff & consulting assignments spanning over 2 decades, have been with organizations such as Wipro, Spaco Technologies, CCMC and Blue Dart Express. As professional, he is a life member of NHRDN, and member of the OD Network (USA). Recognized by the Society of Human Resources (SHRM, India) as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in Learning and Development, he is also a member of CIIs Innovation Forum.