(a) One of the tests of integrity is complete refusal to be compromised. Explain with reference to a real life example. (150 Words, 10) (b) Corporate social responsibility makes companies more profitable and sustainable. Analyse. (150 Words, 10).

(a) Integrity as complete refusal to be compromised

• Integrity means the public or professional role is not for sale, not in a large envelope and not in a small "facilitation".
• Complete refusal is the test because a half-compromise trains the next demand. The first gift is a hook, not a thank you.
• Compromise here is not ordinary negotiation over a lawful alternative. It is trading the truth of a file, a tender or a diagnosis for private gain, fear or belonging.
• Lal Bahadur Shastri resigning as Railway Minister after a serious accident, taking moral responsibility that the law did not strictly force, is integrity as honour, even though the stem's harder test is refusal of a corrupt bargain.
• A clearer refusal: S. R. Sankaran, as a civil servant, was known for siding with the landless and for not bending a welfare file to a local notable; the point is the habit, not a statue.
• Ashok Khemka's repeated transfers after acting against irregular land deals is often cited as the cost of refusal; whether every file is agreed or not, the public lesson is that integrity may be punished by posting, and still must not sell the stamp.
• T. N. Seshan as Chief Election Commissioner used the office to enforce the model code against parties that were used to a soft Commission; the compromise refused was the idea that elections are a private arrangement of the powerful.
• In daily life, a junior engineer who will not certify a weak culvert for a contractor's Diwali gift is the same test without a headline.
• Complete refusal needs a system: asset rules, a whistle-blower path, and colleagues who do not isolate the one person who said no. Integrity is personal, but it dies faster in a lonely office.

(b) CSR, profit and sustainability

• Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in India is, after Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013, a statutory spend for eligible companies, not only a voluntary smile.
• The claim in the stem is that CSR makes firms more profitable and more sustainable. Analyse, do not recite.
• How it can help profit: a firm that is trusted on labour, environment and local consent faces fewer shutdowns, fewer court stays and a more stable workforce. That is risk reduction, which is a form of profit over time.
• Brand and talent: buyers and skilled staff prefer a firm that is not famous for a dead river. In export markets, social and environmental standards are often a ticket to the shelf.
• Shared value, as later business writing named it, is when a company solves a social problem that is also its supply chain — water for a beverage plant, skills for a factory town — rather than a random donation.
• How the claim is overstated: a two-per-cent spend can be a brochure while the core business still evades tax, poisons a stream or cheats a contract worker. That is not sustainability; it is makeup.
• Forced CSR can become a political slush or a favourite-trust pipeline if governance is weak. Profit then is a politician's, not the community's.
• Sustainability is environmental, social and financial at once. A CSR well that is photographed while groundwater is mined unsustainably fails the test.
• The honest analysis: CSR, done as strategy and as compliance with a clean core business, can support long-run profit and a social licence. CSR as a substitute for paying taxes, wages and effluent standards does not.