Everything You Need to Know About Narcissistic Personality Disorder

We often are annoyed when we find someone wanting all the attention, regardless of the causes and consequences, being extremely sensitive to anyone’s remarks. To handle them cautiously is advised, as those might be signs of a narcissistic personality disorder.

What is Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality disorder?

Narcissism, often described as increased importance given to own physical self, has been developed from the Greek example of Narcissus to a cultural conception in the United States labeled as a mental disorder by the late 20th century (Jauk et.al, 2021).
We might also notice people wanting to stand out because of low confidence, feelings of loneliness, being vulnerable to remarks, which are features profound in Eastern Countries (Jauk et. al, 2021)
The narcissist meaning and definition goes beyond culture, into certain common traits, divided into different criteria by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders:
1. The idea of being unique
2. Attention seeking
3. Wanting special treatment
4. Lacking the will to understand others
5. Feeling shamefulness and humiliation
6. Hating criticism
These broad signs of a narcissist: portraying the need for creating a false sense of an impressive personality and the lack of relating to others, cause an alarm of concern, as they also stem from internal factors of low self-worth, lonely and sensitive feelings (Ronningstam, 2010)

Source: https://brightside.me/inspiration-family-and-kids/11-narcissistic-traits-of-mothers-who-dont-even-know-theyre-ruining-their-kids-lives-802783/

Sub – divisions of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

The diverse nature of humans cannot be reduced to certain common traits. Caligor et. al (2015) analyze specific case studies to understand the sub-variations and severities that characterize narcissistic behavior:

The grandiose overt narcissists: those seen as attention seekers and arrogant over their ability to charm others, coming off as dominative, with a lack of concern for others.
The vulnerable covert narcissists: those who might respond negatively to criticism, often being disturbed over it, but might also compare themselves to others due to feeling inadequate or jealous.
The high functioning and autonomous narcissists: They share traits with the grandiose overt types, but they also use them for their development, so being competitive and sexually advanced also fall under their category. As they come across like any other human, their cases are rare to come out.
The malignant narcissists: the extreme kind, as their standoffish nature might turn to sadistic tendencies that they derive satisfaction from. The need to treat them and the difficulty faced thus increases.

(To know more about the subtypes and their association with other disorders, visit https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.14060723)

Narcissists and Relationships

It is important to note that individuals carrying narcissistic personalities also communicate and form relationships, subject to the same socialization process. Vaknin (2004) explains the influences, varying from birth to them being adults, as markers of the narcissistic relationship:

Those with narcissistic parents are often bound to share the same tendencies due to control seen in a positive light or opposite traits due to control seen in a negative light. This can also manifest as wanting to be with a narcissist, influenced by their upbringing.
The narcissist, prone to known influences being the right way, may often mistake their abuse for love and understand criticism as hate.

So, what might seem like a narcissistic abuse relationship, is their inability to form a meaningful connection. The need to control turns into an unstable relationship.

Source: https://abusewarrior.com/toxic-relationships/narcissistic-abuse/gaslighting-phrases/

Treating Narcissistic Traits

The recent statistics of population segments that identify with narcissistic traits are patients seeking mental help, military servers, and medical students. Under therapy, it’s not unusual to find other conditions like depression, substance use, bipolar, and eating disorders (Hull,2021).

Yakeley (2018) explains the problem faced during therapies involving narcissists:

The narcissists seek therapy due to the fault or difficulties they find in others that bother them, willing to less reflect on themselves. The therapist’s advice might strike the wrong side, leading back to square one of them being receptive to criticism.
The willingness to have the upper hand for the narcissist might also affect the therapist who would have to deal with the pointed error of their ways or criticism to get to the healing process.

So, how do we treat those suffering from this disorder? Weinberg and Ronningstam (2020) analyze various patterns of therapies and suggest ways that can work better:

If the patient ever faces difficulties starting or even continuing the treatment, finding the causes behind them to create a healthy response to further development might help. Here, lining out an agreement or providing ultimatums that keep a constant check on their progress works.
To handle a patient’s criticism effectively that a therapist might face initially.
To provide clear-cut goals and achievable alternatives so that the therapist and the patient can work together.
To motivate the patients to work on themselves so they recognize the positive outcome of it.
Once patients are aware of broadening their perception, the process of recognizing their strengths and weaknesses, can be initiated in an open-minded way.

Conclusion

So, to be aware and not promote the tendencies that make a narcissist more confident should be discouraged, pointing out the abuse and seeking help should be recognized and applied practically and constructively. Along with therapies, daily communication also goes a long way.^[1]

This article highlights the markers of someone having NPD, the cultural and psychological factors, the diagnosis and treatment for a varied population that falls under this category. To recognize and know the disorder, researching and learning about it, is the first step. Change starts when reflecting and acting becomes a norm with abnormality and harm.

References

Caligor, E., Levy, K. N., & Yeomans, F. E. (2015). Narcissistic personality disorder: Diagnostic and clinical challenges. American Journal of Psychiatry, 172(5), 415-422.

Hull, Megan (2021). Narcissistic Personality Disorder Statistics. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/narcissistic-personality-disorder/npd-statistics/

Jauk, E., Breyer, D., Kanske, P., & Wakabayashi, A. (2021). Narcissism in independent and interdependent cultures. Personality and Individual Differences, 177, 110716.

Ronningstam, E. (2010). Narcissistic personality disorder: A current review. Current psychiatry reports, 12(1), 68-75.

Vaknin, S. (2010). Excerpts and Case Studies from the Archives of the Narcissistic Abuse Study Group. Narcissus Publishing.

Weinberg, I., & Ronningstam, E. (2020). Dos and don’ts in treatments of patients with narcissistic personality disorder. Journal of personality disorders, 34(Supplement), 122-142.

Yakeley, J. (2018). Current understanding of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder. BJPsych advances, 24(5), 305-315.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

Environmental issues harmful to human beings, animals and plants.They are environmental issues like pollution, deforestation, climate change, Ozone depletion, waste management.

MAJOR TYPES OF ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES:-

* Climate change

* Deforestation

* Ozone depletion

* Biodiversity Loss

* Acid rain

* Human overpopulation

* Global warming

CLIMATE CHANGE:-

Climate change is the long-term alteration of temperature and typical weather patterns in a place. It is both natural or artificial.But most of the it is because of humans.By burning of fossil fuels and natural gases like oil,coal which causes the release of green house gases leads to the alternation of climate.

DEFORESTATION:-

Deforestation is defined as removal of large amount of trees from forest and destroying agricultural lands for human deforestation is one of the major problem causes soil erosion,no rain, disturb water cycle and natural habitats.

OZONE DEPLETION:-

ozone depletion, gradual thinning of Earth’s ozone layer in the upper atmosphere caused by the release of chemical compounds containing gaseous chlorine or bromine from industry and other human activities.ozone depletion cause increase in uv radiation leads to skin cancer,eye cataracts,immune defeciency.It also affect plants growth and reduce agricultural productivity.In survey of 2020 17 percentage of ozone is destroyed.

BIODIVERSITY LOSS:-

Biodiversity loss includes the extinction of species worldwide, as well as the local reduction of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological biodiversity loss is caused by habitat loss, invasive species,ove exploitation, climate change and global warming.some example for biodiversity loss is extinction of plants and animals.Redicing rate of amphibians are some examples.

ACID RAIN:-

Acid rain, or acid deposition, is a broad term that includes any form of precipitation with acidic components, such as sulfuric or nitric acid that fall to the ground from the atmosphere in wet or dry forms.Acid rain is caused due to the chemical reaction with sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides introduced in air.It pollutes air and soil.It have impact on soil, freshwater cause killing aquatic life forms.It cause corrosion of steel structures.

HUMAN OVERPOPULATION:-

Human overpopulation means that human population becoming very large.It is mainly in developing countries like India,china . Human overpopulation is because of birth rate is higher than that of death rate.Human overpopulation leads toenvironmental issues, silently aggravating the forces behind global warming, environmental pollution, habitat loss, the sixth mass extinction, intensive farming practices and the consumption of finite natural resources.

GLOBAL WARMING:-

The excess heat in the atmosphere which causes the rise in temperature is called global warming.Global warming is mainly caused by climate change, industries and the green house gases.It is serious threat to life on earth in the forms of widespread flooding and extreme weather.Reduce water supply, Decrease agricultural yields , rise in temperature and drought.It is harmful to all living organisms in the earth.

“Earth is like a pressure cooker it controls itself only to limit If it exceeds everything is destroyed”.

THE IMPACT OF COVID 19 AND LOCKDOWN IN STUDENT’S LIFE

The WHO declared Covid 19 as a global pandemic on 11th March 2020. It is obvious that we all have been affected in an adverse manner. All parameters of society was unstable as a result of the outbreak of this pandemic. But the challenges faced by each individuals different according to their social status. For example, the digital age helped a lot of people to work during this pandemic. While some people tried to adopt to the current situation, through the advantage of technology, some other sections of the society was under a huge economic and mental stress. This stress even continues even after one year of the outbreak. The situation is similar with educational sector also. Students were largely affected by the pandemic as the government decided to temporarily close educational institutions in an attempt to reduce the spread of COVID 19. Even though online mode of education is provided by majority of educational institutions, there are many limitations to this mode.

Even though online education is significant during the pandemic, it has certain advantage and disadvantage. The major factor is the access to online study materials. Most of the students, especially college students use smartphones for accessing study materials. And the use of laptops and computers are less compared to smartphones. It is obvious that some students, who are from financially backward families, find it very difficult to access online study materials in time. And this adversely affects the consistency of their studies also. So the students who learn the given study materials on a regular basis are very less. Another problem faced by students during online classes is the connectivity issues. Many of them face connectivity issues, insufficient data and unfavorable environment. Even though online education permits students to sit in their comfortable environment at home, many students do not have suitable environment at home. Many families have more than one or two students at home and this is one of the reason for unfavorable environment and lack of privacy. And as per the result majority students go through mental stress.

Some educational institutions provide recorded classes to students, so that they can access them at their convenient time. And majority students prefer recorded classes than live classes so that their connectivity issues and insufficient data will not limit their learning.

While analyzing the impact of COVID 19, lockdown and online mode of education with respect to the life of students, it is evident that most of the students prefer offline education. It is good for learning, knowledge and mental health. Many students suffer from stress which is increased than pre covid times. More than learning offline classes helps the students to attain social skills by learning with their peers. To tackle this mental stress interactive counseling sessions with students, systematic scheduling of class hours and classwork will help.

Council raises GST on low-cost footwear, garments to 12%

In its first physical meeting in two years, the GST Council on Friday effected several long-pending tweaks in tax rates including an increase in the GST levied on footwear costing less than ₹1,000 as well as readymade garments and fabrics to 12% from 5%.

The new rates on these products, a decision on which had been deferred by the Council over the past year owing to the pandemic’s impact on households, will come into effect from January 1, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.

The Council approved a special composition scheme for brick kilns with a turnover threshold of ₹20 lakh, from April 1, 2022. Bricks would attract GST at the rate of 6% without input tax credits under the scheme, or 12% with input credits.

While this will please States like Uttar Pradesh that had sought a special scheme for brick kilns, a decision on extending such a scheme for other evasion-prone sectors like pan masala, gutkha and sand mining was put off.

The Council also decided to extend the concessional tax rates granted for COVID-19 medicines like Amphotericin B and Remdesivir till December 31, but similar sops offered by the Council at its last meeting in June for equipment like oxygen concentrators will expire on September 30.

The GST rate on seven more drugs useful for COVID-19 patients has been slashed till December 31 to 5% from 12%, including Itolizumab, Posaconazole and Favipiravir. The GST rate on Keytruda medicine for treatment of cancer has been reduced from 12% to 5%.

Life-saving drugs Zolgensma and Viltepso used in the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy, particularly for children, has been exempted from GST when imported for personal use. These medicines cost about ₹16 crore, Ms. Sitharaman said.

Food delivery tax shift:
The Council also decided to make food delivery apps like Swiggy and Zomato liable to collect and remit the taxes on food orders, as opposed to the current system where restaurants providing the food remit the tax.

Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj stressed this did not constitute a new or extra tax, just the tax that was payable by restaurants would now be paid by aggregators. Some restaurants were avoiding paying the GST even though it was billed to customers.

“The decision to make food aggregators pay tax on supplies made by restaurants from January 1, 2022, seems to have been done based on empirical data of under reporting by restaurants, despite having collected tax on supplies of food to customers,” said Mahesh Jaising, Partner, Deloitte India.

“The impact on the end consumer is expected to be neutral where the restaurant is a registered one. For those supplies from unregistered, there could be a 5% GST going forward,” he added.

Aircraft on lease:
The GST Council has exempted Integrated GST levied on import of aircraft on lease basis. This will help the aviation industry avoid double taxation, the Finance Minister said, and will also be granted for aircraft lessors who are located in Special Economic Zones.

Goods supplied at Indo-Bangladesh border haats have also been exempted from GST.

What are Carbon Markets ?

Carbon Markets: Carbon markets facilitate the trading of emission reductions. Such a market allows countries, or industries, to earn carbon credits for the emission reductions they make in excess of their targets. These carbon credits can be traded to the highest bidder in exchange of money. The buyers of carbon credits can show the emission reductions as their own and use them to meet their reduction targets. Carbon markets are considered a very important and effective instrument to reduce overall emissions.

A carbon market existed under Kyoto Protocol but is no longer there because the Protocol itself expired last year. A new market under Paris Agreement is yet to become functional. Developing countries like India, China or Brazil have large amounts of carbon credits left over because of the lack of demand as many countries abandoned their emission reduction targets. The developing countries wanted their unused carbon credits to be transitioned to the new market, something that the developed nations had been opposing on the grounds that the quality of these credits — the question whether these credits represent actual emission reductions — was a suspect. A deadlock over this had been holding up the finalisation of the rules and procedures of the Paris Agreement.

The Glasgow Pact has offered some reprieve to the developing nations. It has allowed these carbon credits to be used in meeting countries’ first NDC targets. These cannot be used for meeting targets in subsequent NDCs. That means, if a developed country wants to buy these credits to meet its own emission reduction targets, it can do so till 2025. Most countries have presented climate targets for 2025 in their first NDCs.

The resolution of the deadlock over carbon markets represents one of the major successes of COP26.

Achievements of the Glasgow Summit 2021

What was achieved?

Mitigation: The Glasgow agreement has emphasised that stronger action in the current decade was most critical to achieving the 1.5-degree target. Accordingly, it has:

1. Asked countries to strengthen their 2030 climate action plans, or NDCs (nationally-determined contributions), by next year.

2. Established a work programme to urgently scale-up mitigation ambition and implementation.

3. Decided to convene an annual meeting of ministers to raise ambition of 2030 climate actions.

4. Called for an annual synthesis report on what countries were doing.

5. Requested the UN Secretary General to convene a meeting of world leaders in 2023 to scale-up ambition of climate action.

6. Asked countries to make efforts to reduce usage of coal as a source of fuel, and abolish “inefficient” subsidies on fossil fuels
Has called for a phase-down of coal, and phase-out of fossil fuels. This is the first time that coal has been explicitly mentioned in any COP decision. It also led to big fracas at the end, with a group of countries led by India and China forcing an amendment to the word “phase-out” in relation to coal changed to “phase-down”. The initial language on this provision was much more direct. It called on all parties to accelerate phase-out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies. It was watered down in subsequent drafts to read phase-out of “unabated” coal power and “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies. But even this was not liking to the developing countries who then got it changed to “phase down unabated coal power and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies while providing targeted support to the poorest and the most vulnerable in line with national circumstances…”. Despite the dilution, the inclusion of language on reduction of coal power is being seen as a significant movement forward.

Adaptation: Most of the countries, especially the smaller and poorer ones, and the small island states, consider adaptation to be the most important component of climate action. These countries, due to their lower capacities, are already facing the worst impacts of climate change, and require immediate money, technology and capacity building for their adaptation activities.

As such, the Glasgow Climate Pact has:

Asked the developed countries to at least double the money being provided for adaptation by 2025 from the 2019 levels. In 2019, about $15 billion was made available for adaptation that was less than 20 per cent of the total climate finance flows. Developing countries have been demanding that at least half of all climate finance should be directed towards adaptation efforts.

Created a two-year work programme to define a global goal on adaptation. The Paris Agreement has a global goal on mitigation — reduce greenhouse gas emissions deep enough to keep the temperature rise within 2 degree Celsius of pre-industrial times. A similar global goal on adaptation has been missing, primarily because of the difficulty in defining such a target. Unlike mitigation efforts that bring global benefits, the benefits from adaptation are local or regional. There are no uniform global criteria against which adaptation targets can be set and measured. However, this has been a long-pending demand of developing countries and the Paris Agreement also asks for defining such a goal.

Finance: Every climate action has financial implications. It is now estimated that trillions of dollars are required every year to fund all the actions necessary to achieve the climate targets. But, money has been in short supply. Developed countries are under an obligation, due to their historical responsibility in emitting greenhouse gases, to provide finance and technology to the developing nations to help them deal with climate change. In 2009, developed countries had promised to mobilise at least $100 billion every year from 2020. This promise was reaffirmed during the Paris Agreement, which also asked the developed countries to scale up this amount from 2025. The 2020 deadline has long passed but the $100 billion promise has not been fulfilled. The developed nations have now said that they will arrange this amount by 2023.

What does the Glasgow Agreement say?

Following are the major observations of the Glasgow Summit :

1. A deal aimed at staving off dangerous climate change has been struck at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

2. Expressed “deep regrets” over the failure of the developed countries to deliver on their $100 billion promise. It has asked them to arrange this money urgently and in every year till 2025.

3. Initiated discussions on setting the new target for climate finance, beyond $100 billion for the post-2025 period.

4. Asked the developed countries to provide transparent information about the money they plan to provide.

5. Loss and Damage: The frequency of climate disasters has been rising rapidly, and many of these cause largescale devastation. The worst affected are the poor and small countries, and the island states. There is no institutional mechanism to compensate these nations for the losses, or provide them help in the form of relief and rehabilitation. The loss and damage provision in the Paris Agreement seeks to address that.

Introduced eight years ago in Warsaw, the provision hasn’t received much attention at the COPs, mainly because it was seen as an effort requiring huge sums of money. However, the affected countries have been demanding some meaningful action on this front. Thanks to a push from many nations, substantive discussions on loss and damage could take place in Glasgow. One of the earlier drafts included a provision for setting up of a facility to coordinate loss and damage activities. However, the final agreement, which has acknowledged the problem and dealt with the subject at substantial length, has only established a “dialogue” to discuss arrangements for funding of such activities. This is being seen as a major let-down.

What are Carbon Markets ?

Glasgow Summit 2021

A MACBETHIAN ANALYSIS OF JOJI

Malayalam movies are getting wider audience attention since the development of OTT platforms. Even before that Malayalam film industry was also considered as one of the best industries among Indian film industries. Joji (2021) is one of such movie which gained worldwide attention through its plot, making and casting. This 2021 film was written by Shyam Pushkaran and directed by Dileesh Pothan. In the title itself the makers said it is ” inspired from Shakespeare’s Macbeth”.

The plot revolves around a wealthy family of three sons, their father , daughter in law and grandson Poppy in Kerala. Joji , the character played by Fahad Faasil is the youngest son of the family is the protagonist of the movie who has a negative shade. Joji along with his elder brothers Jomon and Jaison lead a submissive life under their dominating father Panachel Kuttappan. Bincy (Unnimaya Prasad) is the daughter in law of the family. Though the father of the family is old, he is fit and active in the family affairs. The elder sons aids him in agriculture and business, but Joji is financially dependent on the father and running unsuccessful ventures, where Bincy, wife of Jaison manages the household chores and is always in the kitchen. As the movie progresses Kuttappan meets with an accident while engaging in affairs in pond and become paralyzes. However Kuttappan returns home bed ridden and unable to speak. Joji was happy for this but his other brothers arrange for his last rites. But after a surgery the father’s condition gets improved. At this all both sons ask money from him for their ventures , but he rejects. Here, we can see that Bincy is the brain behind these actions by Joji and Jaison. Bincy shares her frustration and also triggers Joji by saying that ” your good days will be wasted on this kitchen slab”. Joji finally decides to kill the father. Then Joji replaces father’s daily medication, and this is witnessed by Bincy. Bincy and Jaison too secretly wishes for the death of their father. Finally the father, Kuttappan dies soon. After the death, Dr Felix, a family friend presides for the partition of the dead father’s estate. After this an encounter with an employer of the plantation results in the death of Jomon. This was also a murder by Joji. Over the next few days the family members finds that Joji is the killer of Jomon, but Joji denies the claim. Towards the end Joji attempts suicide by firing the same air gun he used for killing Jomon. In the suicide note left by Joji he blames the family members and society for all his acts. In the final scenes we can see that Joji survives in the hospital bed , while the police officer asks Joji to confess his crime by blinking his eyes, Joji forcefully does not blink and at this the movie comes to an end.

While analyzing Joji in the light of Macbeth, Joji can be identified as Macbeth, with his aim towards power. The tragic flaw of Macbeth was over ambition. Here Joji’s character also shows this same ambition and power and he needed independence from the dominating power of his father. Macbeth’s ambition began from the moment, when he witnessed and heard the witches. Their prediction was one of the reason for his change. In the same way Dr Felix addressed Joji as “rich” and this triggered Joji. Whereas the character of Bincy (Unnimaya) who is Joji’s sister in law, resembles all the characteristics of Lady Macbeth. By being a mute witness to Joji’s acts, she agrees to all his acts. While Joji longs for power and money, Bincy’s motive behind these acts are independence from the patriarchal family. Like Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Joji and Bincy are the powerful characters who shares same dependence. Bincy clearly knows the state of mind of Joji. That’s why she says to Joji in his father’s funeral to “wear a mask and come”. Whereas other son Jomon is loyal to their father like Banquo, who was loyal to King Duncan, and in many ways Macbeth’s opposite.

After the murder Joji feels the same kind of frustration and confusion, which Macbeth felt. But on the other hand Bincy is portrayed as powerful than Joji. The dream of dead father, resembles Macbeth’s three apparitions and visions. His soliloquies in the closed room (Joji’s Palace) also resembles that of Macbeth’s. But he was not ready to reveal and confess his crime, that’s why he blamed the society for all his acts. There is a slight deviation in the characteristics of Joji from Macbeth. Macbeth is the one who always was the winner, and this made him greed. He believed that with his greatness in the battlefield he deserves the throne of Scotland. But on the other hand Joji is the one who is an engineering dropout, who doesn’t have any ambition, but only greed.

Towards the end Macbeth is stripped of “honor, love, obedience, troops of friends” and there is a kind of sympathy towards Macbeth in the end. But in this film, the police says to Joji that “you didn’t die, so it is trouble for you and us as well”. Even though Joji resembles the plot and narrative aspect of theatre, there are a lot of variations. With the praiseworthy performance of Fahad Fasil, Unnimaya, Sunny and other casts, Joji fits in the universe of Macbeth. Dileesh Pothan brilliantly fits Macbeth in the twenty first century universe with Joji’s palace. The music and cinematography makes this film a classic one.

Five terms that came up at the climate change conference in Glasgow 2021

The main task for COP26 was to finalise the rules and procedures for implementation of the Paris Agreement. Most of these rules had been finalised by 2018, but a few provisions, like the one relating to creation of new carbon markets, had remained unresolved.

After two weeks of negotiations with governments debating over provisions on phasing out coal, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and providing money to the poor world, the annual climate change summit came to an end on Saturday night with the adoption of a weaker-than-expected agreement called the Glasgow Climate Pact.

The Glasgow meeting was the 26th session of the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP26. The main task for COP26 was to finalise the rules and procedures for implementation of the Paris Agreement. Most of these rules had been finalised by 2018, but a few provisions, like the one relating to creation of new carbon markets, had remained unresolved. However, due to clear evidence of worsening of the climate crisis in the six years since the Paris Agreement was finalised, host country United Kingdom was keen to ensure that Glasgow, instead of becoming merely a “procedural” COP, was a turning point in enhancing climate actions. The effort was to push for an agreement that could put the world on a 1.5 degree Celsius pathway, instead of the 2 degree Celsius trajectory which is the main objective of the Paris Agreement.

The United Nations

The United Nations (UN) is one of the largest and most familiar international organizations. It is an intergovernmental organization responsible for maintaining international peace and security and international cooperation among nations. The organization’s objectives include maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development, and upholding international law.

The UN succeeded the ineffective League of Nations, the first worldwide intergovernmental organization whose mission was to maintain world peace. The League of Nations was created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and disbanded in 1946. The League lasted for 26 years; after which the United Nations (UN) replaced it in 1946 and inherited several agencies and organizations founded by the League. The UN was established after WWII to prevent future wars.

At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; with the addition of South Sudan in 2011, membership is now 193, representing almost all of the world’s sovereign states. UN is headquartered in New York City and has other main offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna, and The Hague.

Charter of the United Nations:

The Charter of the United Nations, also known as the UN Charter, is the founding document of the United Nations. The Charter establishes the purposes, governing structure, and the overall framework of the UN system. It was signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, after the United Nations Conference on International Organization, and came into force on 24 October 1945. The United Nations can take action on many issues due to its unique international character and the powers vested in its Charter, which is considered an international treaty. As a charter, its rules and obligations are binding on all members.

The UN has four main purposes:

To maintain peace throughout the world.
To develop friendly relations among nations.
To help countries work together to improve people’s lives, to conquer hunger, disease and illiteracy.
To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations to achieve these goals.

The Main Bodies of the United Nations:

The United Nations is part of a broader framework called the UN System, which includes many institutions and entities. It has six principal organs –

The General Assembly:

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ. All 193 Member States of the UN are represented in the General Assembly, making it the only UN body with universal representation.

The six committees of the general assembly include: (1) Disarmament and International Security, (2) Economic and Financial, (3) Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural, (4) Special Political and Decolonization, (5) Administrative and Budgetary, and (6) Legal.

The Security Council:

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. It is responsible for establishing peacekeeping operations, international sanctions and authorization of military action. It has 15 Members (5 permanent and 10 non-permanent members) with each member having one vote.

The Economic and Social Council:

The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is a central forum responsible for discussing and coordinating international economic and social issues and formulating policy recommendations. It is the central platform for reflection, debate, and innovative thinking on sustainable development. It has 54 member states, and over 1,600 NGOs have consultative status with the council to participate in the works of the UN.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ):

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), sometimes known as the World Court, is the primary judicial organ of the UN. It is a universal court for international law; its functions are to settle legal disputes between states following international law and gives advisory opinions on legal issues. The ICJ consists of a panel of 15 judges elected by the UN General Assembly and Security Council for nine-year terms.

The UN Secretariat:

The United Nations Secretariat is the administrative organ of the UN, headed by the United Nations Secretary-General and assisted by a staff of international civil servants worldwide. It provides studies, information, and facilities needed by United Nations bodies for their meetings. It also carries out tasks as directed by the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and other bodies.

The Trusteeship Council:

The Trusteeship Council was established in 1945 to provide international supervision for 11 Trust Territories under the administration of seven Member States. It also aimed to prepare the Territories for self-government and independence. By 1994, all Trust Territories had attained self-government or independence. The Trusteeship Council suspended operation on 1 November 1994.

Specialized Agencies of the UN:

The UN specialized agencies are autonomous organizations working with the United Nations. All were brought into relationship with the UN through negotiated agreement, some of which include –

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

The International Monetary Fund (IMF)

World Health Organization (WHO)

The World Bank Group (WBG)

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)

Programmes and Funds of the UN:

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

The World Food Programme (WFP)

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)

UN Women

UN-Habitat

Successes and Failures of the United Nations:

The U.N. is credited with helping negotiate 172 peaceful settlements and helping more than 30 million refugees. It has provided safe drinking water to more than a billion people and food to millions of people across 80 nations. It has assisted countries with their elections, provided vaccinations for children, helped millions of women with maternal health and protected human rights through some 80 treatise and declarations.

Currently, approximately 100,000 peacekeepers from 120 countries are serving in 13 missions. The U.N. and its agencies have had success in coordinating global efforts against diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola, cholera, influenza, yellow fever, meningitis and COVID-19, and has helped eradicate smallpox and polio from most of the world. Ten U.N. agencies and U.N. personnel have received Nobel prizes for peace.

UN inaction is responsible for a number of ongoing crisis, including Russia’s takeover of part of Ukraine; China occupying disputed territories in South China Sea; the Iraq War; the Israel-Palestine conflict; civil wars in Syria, Yemen, Libya and the Democratic Republic of Congo; and the treatment of Rohingyas in Myanmar, Ughyurs in China and Kashmiris in India.

Despite having many short-comings, the United Nations plays a crucial role in the world. The work of the United Nations reaches every corner of the globe. Although it is best known for peacekeeping, peacebuilding, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance, there are many other ways the United Nations and its System (specialized agencies, funds and programmes) affect our lives and make a change in the world.

POLLUTION

Pollution is defined as introduction of harmful particles in the environment.It can be man made or natural.The reason for pollution is many like toxic gas from industry, plastics in water,sound from vehicles etc.

TYPES OF POLLUTION:-

* Land pollution

* Noise pollution

* Water pollution

* Air pollution

* Light pollution.

LAND POLLUTION:-

Land pollution means that contamination of soil or land. Land pollution leads to contamination of ground water.Land pollution is caused due to urbanization, deforestation, mining and throwing plastics in the land.

NOISE POLLUTION:-

Noise is,defined as unwanted sound. Sound which pleases the listeners is music and that which causes pain and annoyance is noise.Noise pollution is majorly from vehicles,industrial works.Noise pollution leads to hearing problems, sleepless,cardio vascular issues and psychological problems.

WATER POLLUTION:-

Water pollution is defined as introduction of unwanted materials in the water.It is one of the serious type of pollution Harmful to human, plants and animals.water pollution is caused by industrial waste,oil spills,marine dumping plastics,sewage,mining activities.It leads to serious problems like cancer,diarrheal disease, respiratory disease, neurological disorder and cardiovascular disease.

AIR POLLUTION:-

Air pollution is a mixture of solid particles and gases in the air. Car emissions, chemicals from factories, dust, and mold spores may be suspended as particles. Ozone, a gas, is a major part of air pollution in cities.Some air pollutants are poisonous.It is harmful to all living organisms in the world.Air pollution leads to breathing problems, asthma, heart attack and stroke.

LIGHT POLLUTION:-

Light pollution is unwanted over usage of artificial light.It wash out star light in the night, disturb ecosystem,interferes with space research.Light pollution alters their night time environment by turning night into day.spark from artificial lights can also impact wetland habitats that are home to amphibians such as frogs and toads.

CONTROLLING MEASURES FOR POLLUTION:-

* By controlling wastes.

* With the practice of recycle.

* Going with natural ways.

* Using eco friendly products instead of plastics.

* planting trees.

” Save nature

Save world”.

Positive news about Global Warming.

With increasing awareness and demand for drastic measure to avert the crisis of climate change. It might actually be possible to keep the impacts well below disastrous. The world is making progress in the right direction as we join hands and unite with agreements such as the Kyoto protocol, Paris agreements to a name a few.

Plant Based Meat.

Although, the biggest culprit in global warming is deemed to be carbon dioxide. Other gases such as nitrous oxide and methane are a lot more potent and thus are a cause of major concern. Methane is largely released during livestock farming. As demand for meat has exponentially increased in the past years, it is without a doubt that if things went on the same as they are. The hope to keep temperature rise well below 2c will merely remain a dream. But with a new innovation of plant based meat. The turnover to eating largely plant based may not seem impossible. A faux meat – made entirely out of plant based ingredients- is intended to taste and look exactly like meat. It is believed that in 30 years or so, all meat and dairy will be replaced and only plant based products will triumph. These plant based substitutes have close to negligible carbon footprint and therefore, it is a sound solution.

Renewable Energy

The demand for energy is ever on the rise. But this demand is being fulfilled mainly by renewable energy sources. In the past years, renewable energy sources like solar panels and wind turbines have been a lot cheaper to install than they used to be a decade ago. Thus, more and more countries are looking to utilize mainly renewable energy sources to fulfil their energy demands. India, also, has promised to increase share of renewable energy to 50% by the year 2030 in the conference held at Glasgow, COP26.

Afforestation.

Deforestation of forests for farming, timber production etc alone contributes to about 15% of greenhouse gas emissions. The amount of trees cut has roughly doubled since the past decade and this a cause for major concern. But steps in the right direction are talking place. Countries like Brazil and Indonesia have invested money to fund agricultural subsidies. And with the efforts of China, India and South Korea alone have managed to sever close to 12 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Electric Cars

Electric cars have also been on the rise as a green solution to reducing pollution cause by cars. Countries have also announced future bans on fossil-fueled cars. Car companies like Jaguar, Volvo, Land rover are all looking to end production of fuel based cars.

There is a lot of hope that countries will follow through and estimated control will be very much possible. Green economic growth is the only long term goal.

E-Commerce

E-commerce, also known as electronic commerce, refers to the buying and selling of goods and services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the internet. Electronic commerce draws on such technologies as electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. In the emerging global economy, e-commerce and e-business have increasingly become a necessary component of a business strategy and a strong catalyst for economic development.

For example preveri-podjetje.si

Business-to-Consumer (B2C):

Business-to-Consumer (B2C), also called B-to-C, refers to the transaction of goods and services that take place directly between a business and a consumer, who is the end-users of its products or services. This type of ecommerce is among the most popular and widely known sales models. B2C traditionally referred to mall shopping, eating out at restaurants, pay-per-view movies, and infomercials. However, the rise of the internet created a whole new B2C business channel in the form of e-commerce or selling goods and services over the internet. Amazon is an example of B2C e-commerce.

Business-to-Business (B2B):

Business-to-business (B2B), also called B-to-B, is a form of transaction between businesses, such as one involving a manufacturer and wholesaler, or a wholesaler and a retailer. Simply put, it refers to business transactions between two companies. These transactions commonly happen in the supply chain, where one company will purchase raw materials from another to be used in the manufacturing process.

Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C):

Customer-to-customer (C2C), also called C2C, is a form of business model whereby customers can trade with each other, typically in an online environment. C2C transactions actually represent a form of bartering. It represents a market environment where one customer purchases goods from another customer using a third-party business or platform to facilitate the transaction. Two implementations of C2C markets are auctions and classified advertisements. eBay and Etsy are examples of C2C companies.

M-Commerce:

M-commerce, also called Mobile Commerce refers to the buying and selling of goods and services, paying bills, mobile ticketing and doing transactions through wireless handheld devices such as smartphones and tablets. Many choose to think of mobile commerce as “a retail outlet in your customer’s pocket.” M-commerce can be used by businesses to improve their customer base and increase their revenue. Some types of m commerce include online shopping, mobile banking, mobile app payments through PayPal and Google Pay, and booking tickets online.

F-Commerce:

F-commerce, also called Facebook Commerce, refers to the selling of goods and services on Facebook. It has become a major online trading vehicle. Facebook being a popular social media site provides a captive audience to transact business. Many small businesses rely more on their social media presence than they do on traditional websites. This is one of the newest forms of e-commerce, that has become popular with young entrepreneurs which makes shopping on Facebook pages convenient for the young generation.

THE TOP 6 COMPANIES WITH THE BEST CSR REPUTATION

By: Moksha Grover

Its been six years of the advent of the Companies Act, of 2013 that obligated companies to contribute over a specific size and profitability, a portion of their profits or benefits towards societal development, discourses about corporate social responsibility, or CSR, is all over the place. There have been workshops, seminars, meetings, newspaper articles, and award distribution ceremonies galore on the matter. Today, CSR has become an important aspect for all companies in contributing towards both, society as well as increasing the brand value reputation of the companies. As corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not compulsory, many companies might not prioritize it or engage in it. However, there are many companies ranging from middle-class companies to highly valued companies who have contributed a lot to CSR and continue to contribute, knowing its importance. The top 6 companies with the best CSR reputation are:

INFOSYS LIMITED

Infosys Limited is ranked as the top company in India, contributing the most towards CSR. Being an early adopter of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, its contributions to the environment and society have been key factors in the holistic growth of its business.

The company spent nearly Rs. 360 crores on various CSR schemes in the financial year 2019-20[1]. It has contributed to many covid relief works and among its main CSR initiatives in the financial year, 2019-20 were a 100-bed quarantine set up in Bengaluru in partnership with Narayana Health City, and another one which had 182 beds for COVID-19 patients for Bowring and Lady Curzon Medical College & Research Institute[2]. This company has also established the Infosys foundation— a nonprofit nodal body aimed at contributing toward community and society development and betterment and also fulfilling its CSR commitments. Infosys Foundation has worked with many non-government organizations for implementing its projects. Highlights of the Foundation’s interventions in the past include the introduction of Aarohan Social Innovation Awards, restoration of water bodies in Karnataka, enabling the pursuit of access and excellence in sports through the GoSports Foundation, and disaster relief efforts in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala[3].

The above graph shows CSR spending of Infosys Ltd. in the last 5 years[4]

ROLEX WATCH CO. LTD.

Rolex has been on the top 10 list of the most reputable companies in the world for four consecutive years. Rolex’s success is attributed to the authenticity and longevity of its charity work. By investing in and committing to long-term social enterprise projects, Rolex has an impressive record of over forty years of philanthropic work[5]. The Rolex Awards for Enterprise which were established to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Oyster Chronometer is a great example of CSR activity carried out by the company. All the individuals who demonstrate leadership and entrepreneurialism in the areas of technology, applied sciences, and the environment are presented with these awards. Since the inception of the Awards, 33,000 people from over 190 countries have applied, and 140 laureates have been selected[6]. These laureates have worked on projects benefitting millions of people in 60 countries across the globe[7]. Several initiatives under the Rolex Perpetual Planet have been taken up for upgrading our environment. These include watching over the Earth’s blue heart, Heroes of the Oceans, and Paula Kahumbu: defending rights for elephants.

MAHINDRA AND MAHINDRA LTD.

Mahindra and Mahindra ltd. is known for its contributions to climate change and sustainable business practices. The company spent INR 93.50 crores on CSR initiatives during the financial year 2018-19[8]. The biggest CSR project for educating girls in India known as Nanhi Kali was conducted by Mr. Mahindra. This project provides free education to girls, who belong to low-income backgrounds and also empowers their families. The group works closely with non-profits like Naandi Foundation, which feeds over 1.3 million government school children every[9]. This project also encourages environment-friendly farming practices by working with many small farmers. Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd. has also won the award for India’s best CSR project in the Environment and Sustainability category for its green initiative of project Hariyali, which aims at planting 1 million trees on India’s green cover every year. In the financial year 2019-20, Mahindra & Mahindra planted 1.32 million trees, taking the total tally to 17.93 million trees[10]. Of these, 10.78 million trees have been planted in the Araku Valley, which besides greening the environment, also provides livelihood support to tribal farmers growing coffee in the region[11]. The company’s other CSR projects include Mahindra Pride schools: a unique 90-day livelihood training program for youths from socially and financially disadvantaged communities, Integrated Watershed Management Programme, saving a life with safer roads, employee social options, and covid-19 releif[12].

The above graph shows the CSR Spends of Mahindra and Mahindra Limited for the last five years.

WALT DISNEY COMPANY

Considering the Walt Disney company CSR report, it can be said that it is well organized, and consistent, and is in connection with the global reporting initiative (GRI) too. The company has contributed a lot towards renewable energy, workforce investment, community engagement, charitable giving, and diversity and inclusion. In the financial year of 2019-20, Disney brought online a massive 270-acre, 50+-megawatt solar facility onsite in Orlando, in collaboration with the Reedy Creek Improvement District and Origis Energy USA[13]. The facility generates enough power from the sun to operate two of the four theme parks at Walt Disney World annually[14]. This, along with other initiatives, helped to reduce the net emissions by 47% in FY19 from 2012 levels[15].

Disney has also donated a lot towards workforce investment, supporting the long-term career goals of its employees through education.

The company is investing $150 million over the first five years to cover 100% of employee tuition, books, and education fees[16].

Disney also gave $338.2 million in cash and in-kind donations to non-profit organizations that bring comfort, inspiration, and opportunity to kids, families, and communities around the world[17].

COCA- COLA COMPANY

Coca-Cola aims to create a sustainable and better future. For this, they follow various activities like Focusing on a World Without Waste, Maximising water conservation, reducing carbon footprint, etc.

In addition to this, all the countries where coca-cola has its market, have increased employment and helped to raise the standard of living which has, in turn, helped to strengthen the national economy.

The company has also launched its project known as the last mile, which aims to expand access to HIV and malaria medicines across Africa. The Coca-Cola Foundation recently awarded a $2 million grant to Project Last Mile—$1 million for South Africa and $1 million for additional countries across the continent—as part of the foundation’s $20 million “Stop the Spread” fund[18]. An additional $500,000 grant from The Coca-Cola Foundation has supported COVAX, a program co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO) to ensure equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccine tests and treatments in the world’s poorest countries[19].

The company also aims at making all its packaging 100% recyclable and also reduce its carbon emissions 25% by 2030 from a 2015 base year[20]

TATA CHEMICALS LTD.

The CSR model of Tata chemicals limited is very unique. Although the prescribed CSR for 2019-2020 was 21.39 Crores, the company went on to spend 37.81 crores on community development projects[21]. Tata Chemicals spends INR 12 crores on CSR annually, and wildlife conservation accounts for 30% of the budget of the TCSRD[22]. The company has also established the Tata Chemicals society for rural development. The company’s CSR agenda also focuses on empowerment, inclusion—especially of women and socially backward communities, volunteering, technology, innovation, etc. At Okhai, the company provides sustainable livelihood to 900 rural women artisans by applying their traditional handicraft-making skills to create marketable products[23].

Blossom: Promotion and development of native handicrafts •Enhance: Overall enhancing the quality of life, Aspire: Education and vocational skill development, Conserve: Investment in Bio-diversity, natural resource, and climate change management leading to increase in environmental sustainability, Nurture: Health care, sanitary solutions, and safe drinking water are some of the other projects taken up by Tata chemicals ltd[24].

[1] Kasmin Fernandes and Hency Thacker, ‘Top 100 companies in India for CSR in 2020’, The CSR Journal (November 3,2020) < https://thecsrjournal.in/top-indian-companies-for-csr-in-2020/> accessed 18^th October,2021

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Hency Thacker, ‘The Ultimate Report on CSR of Infosys Limited’, The CSR Journal (May 18,2021) < https://thecsrjournal.in/infosys-csr-report-india-2020/> accessed 18^th October,2021.

[5] GivingForce Team, ‘Rolex: CSR Business Model Analysis’, GivingForce (July 18, 2018) <https://www.givingforce.com/rolex-csr-business-model-analysis/ > accessed 18^th October,2021

[6] Felix Scholz, ‘LIST: 5 times Rolex helped to make the world a better place (for more than just your wrist)’, Time Tide (September 26,2016) < https://timeandtidewatches.com/list-5-ways-rolex-helped-change-the-world/> accessed 18^th October,2021.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Kasmin Fernandes and Hency Thacker (n 1)

[9] Ibid.

[10] Hency Thacker, ‘The Complete CSR Report of Mahindra and Mahindra Limited’, The CSR Journal (January 27, 2021)< https://thecsrjournal.in/mahindra-csr-corporate-social-responsibility-activities-report/ > accessed 18^th October,2021.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] ‘Disney Publishes its 2019 Corporate Responsibility Report’, The Walt Disney Company (March 12,2020)< https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/disney-publishes-its-2019-corporate-responsibility-report/ > accessed 18^th October,2021.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] ‘Iteration, for Good: How Project Last Mile is Supporting Covid-19 vaccine distribution in Africa and Beyond’, The CocaCola Company (September 20,2021)< https://www.coca-colacompany.com/news/project-last-mile-covid-19-vaccine-distribution > accessed 18th October,2021.

[19] Ibid.

[20] ‘Sustainable Business’, The CocaCola Company <https://www.coca-colacompany.com/sustainable-business > accessed 18th October 2021

[21] Kasmin Fernandes and Hency Thacker (n 1)

[22] Ibid.

[23] Alka Talwar, ‘Championing CSR’, Tata (March,2018) < https://www.tata.com/newsroom/alka-talwar-championingcsrtatagroup#:~:text=Tata%20Chemicals%20works%20closely%20with,technology%20and%20innovation%2C%20and%20volunteering.> accessed 18^th October,2021

[24] Amit Khurana, ‘India’s Top 10 Companies for CSR Initiatives in 2018’, Cross Barriers (November 8,2018)< https://crossbarriers.org/indias-top-companies-for-csr-initiatives-in-2018/ > accessed 18^th October,2021.

Positive Psychology

Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living, focusing on both individual and societal well-being. It is a field of study that has been growing steadily throughout the years as individuals and researchers look for common ground on better well-being. As a field, positive psychology deals with topics like character strengths, optimism, life satisfaction, happiness, well-being, gratitude, compassion, self-esteem and self-confidence, hope, and elevation. Positive psychology focuses on eudaimonia, an Ancient Greek term for “the good life” and the concept for reflection on the factors that contribute the most to a well-lived and fulfilling life.

Positive psychology began as a new domain of psychology in 1998. It became popular when Martin Seligman, who is known as the ‘father of positive psychology’, chose it as the theme for his term as president of the American Psychological Association. He was of the belief that past practices of psychology weren’t helpful and the new ones should instead focus on the enhancement of positive human attributes. From this point in time, theories and research examined positive psychology interventions that help make life worth living and how to define, quantify, and create wellbeing. Positive psychology can have a range of real-world applications in areas including education, therapy, self-help, stress management, and workplace issues.

Positive psychology focuses on the positive events and influences in life, which includes:
Positive experiences (happiness, joy, inspiration, and love).
Positive states and traits (gratitude, resilience, and compassion).
Positive institutions (applying positive principles within entire organizations and institutions).

Three Levels of Positive Psychology:

Subjective level: focuses on feelings of happiness, well-being, and optimism and how these feelings transform your daily experience.
Individual-level: a combination of the feelings in the subjective level along with virtues such as forgiveness, love, and courage.
Group level: positive interaction with your community, including virtues like altruism and social responsibility that strengthen social bonds.

The PERMA Model of Well-Being:

The PERMA Model is a well-being theory developed by positive psychologist Martin Seligman. It identifies five essential elements to well-being. PERMA is an acronym for the five elements of well-being – Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishments.

Positive Emotions: Positive Emotions is much more than just happiness. It includes other emotions such as hope, joy, compassion, pride, and gratitude. Positive emotions are prime indicators of flourishing and can help improve well being. Increasing positive emotions helps individuals build physical, intellectual, psychological, and social resources that lead to this resilience and overall well-being.

Engagement: Engagement is something that an individual becomes engrossed in and is in line with the ‘flow’ concept, which includes the loss of self-consciousness and full involvement in an activity. This concept of engagement occurs when there is a perfect combination of skill and challenge involved. The concept of engagement is something much more powerful than simply “being happy,” but happiness is one of the many byproducts of engagement.

Relationships: Relationships include all the various interactions individuals have with partners, friends, family members, colleagues, and their community at large. Relationships in this model refer to feeling supported, loved, and valued by others. It is based on the idea that humans are inherently social creatures.

Meaning: Having a purpose in life helps individuals focus on what is important in the face of significant challenges or adversity. Having meaning or purpose in life is different for everyone. A sense of meaning is guided by personal values, and people who have a purpose in life live longer, have greater life satisfaction and have fewer health problems.

Accomplishments: A sense of accomplishment is the result of working toward and reaching goals, mastering an endeavour, and having self-motivation to finish what you set out to do. This contributes to well-being because individuals can look at their lives with a sense of pride. Accomplishment includes having a passion to attain goals. But flourishing and well-being come when accomplishment is tied to striving toward things with an internal motivation or working toward something just for the sake of the pursuit and improvement.

BRIHADESWARARAR TEMPLE

The big temple, Thanjavur, Unesco classified monument. | Flickr — **BRIHADEESWARAR** **TEMPLE**

INTRODUCTION

Built by Raja Raja Chola I in 1010 AD,  is an ancient temple at Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu. The deity of the temple is Lord Shiva—in his dancing pose—who is called the Nataraj. The temple is also known as Rajeswara Temple, Rajarajeswaram and Periya Kovil. The temple was built, like a fortress on the shores of a river, by the king to grace the Chola Empire. This thousand-year-old temple is now part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site adding to its exceptional historical and cultural value.

FEATURES

The Big Temple of Tanjavore is a stunning monument that speaks oodles about the architectural mastery of the Chola era. This 212 ft (64.8 meter) towering Shiva temple is home to one of the largest Shiva Lingas of the country. A majestic Nandhi (bull), measuring a gigantic 19.4 ‘ x 8.23’ x 12’ (5.94 x 2.51 x 3.66 in meters) stands guard over the temple. This is the second largest Nandhi in India and is carved out of a single stone. Everything about this temple is big, majestic. No wonder it is referred as The Big Temple.

King Raja Raja Cholan had the main temple built completely with granite. It is hard to imagine how, in that age, more than 130,000 tones of granite was brought to the temple site, especially given that there is no granite quarry within a hundred kilometers of the temple site. Another stunning architectural feat is the Vimana / Shikhara – the spire atop the temple. The beautiful lotus shaped stone of the Big Temple weighs a stunning 80 tons. We can but marvel at the engineering mastermind who managed to hoist an 80 ton carved rock up a 212 feet tower back in the 11th century.

The chief architect of the temple was Kunjara Mallan Raja Raja Perunthachan. The layout of the temple is based on the principles of Vastu Shastra, the ancient Hindus science of architecture and construction and Agamas, the ancient scripts that define principles behind temple construction. The central temple site is surrounded by a rectangular boundary 885 ‘ x 450 ‘ (270 m by 140 m). The temple boundary holds many sub shrines besides the main temple and the Nandi.

The niches on three sides of the temple hold images of Shiva, Vishnu and Durga. The southern wall has sculptures of Ganesha, Vishnu with his consorts Sridevi and Bhudevi, Lakshmi, a pair of Dvarapalas, Vishnu anugraha murti, Bhikshatana, Virabhadra, Dakshinamurti, Kalanta and Nataraja. On the west side there are images of Harihara, Ardhanarishvara, a pair of dvarapalas and two Chandrasekharas, one with and the other without halo. On the north, in the lower series, the depiction of Adhanarisvara, Gangadhara, a pair of dvarapalas, Virabhadra (with a sword and a shield), Alingana Chandrasekhara, Siva holding a Sula (spear), a pair of dvarapalas, Sarasvati, Mahishasuramardini and Bhairava. The north series shows a number of Tripurantakas repeated in each niche. In the small circular space of the top niches are present the carvings of Ganesha, Vrishabavahana, Bhikshatana, Narasimha and Varaha.

Besides these, each wall of the temple and the surrounding architecture are filled to the brim with carvings and paintings depicting the rich history of art, culture, mythology and science of the era.

“IF HAD A TIME MACHINE ,I WOULD GO BACK 1000 YEARS FOR CHOLA PERIOD TO SEE HOW THEY BUILT A BRIHADEESWARAR TEMPLE(BIG TEMPLE)“

SOLAR ECLIPSE

A solar eclipse occurs when a moon is directly between earth and sun. which fully or partially blocks sunlight.During this earth,moon and sun are in a alignment. Such alignment coincides with a new moon indicating the Moon is closest to the ecliptic plane.

TYPES OF SOLAR ECLIPSE:-

* Total eclipse

* Annular eclipse

* Hybrid eclipse

* Partial eclipse.

TOTAL ECLIPSE:-

A total eclipse occurs when the dark side of the Moon completely observe the bright light of the Sun.During total eclipse totality occurs at only in a narrow track on the surface of Earth. This narrow track is called the path of totality.

ANNULAR ECLIPSE:-

An annular eclipse occurs when the sun and moon are exactly in line with earth but one side of the moon is smaller than that of sun.so that region looks very bright.

HYBRID ECLIPSE:-

It is very rare type of eclipse shifts between the total eclipse and the annular eclipse.sometimes it appears as a total eclipse on other side it appears as annular eclipse.A hybrid eclipse occurs when the magnitude of an eclipse changes during the event from less to greater than one.

PARTIAL ECLIPSE:-

A partial eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are not exactly in alignment with the Earth. One partial side of the moon observe the bright light of the sun.The phenomenon is called partial eclipse.It seen most part of the earth.

HISTORICAL SOLAR ECLIPSE:-

The first appearance of a solar eclipse can be found in the Rig Veda, the oldest document from India dated to between 1700 and 1400 BC.

The longest solar eclipse in history is 6 minutes 53 seconds on July 11,1991.

IMPACT OF SOLAR ECLIPSE:-

When in total solar eclipse moon is between earth and the sun. It creates unusual weather conditions.It cause drop in temperature and lack of light.It have impact on weather, animals and plants.

IMPACT ON HUMAN:-

Eye injury: Viewing the eclipse with naked eyes can damage your retina and even lead to blindness.

Digestive issue: The eclipse is believed to disturb the digestive system. For the reason, eating or drinking during the eclipse is to be avoided.

SAFETY MEASURES:-

Projecting the Sun through a box projector, or we can see using binoculars or telescope, or simply 2 pieces of card is a safe and easy way to view a solar eclipse.

Bio-diversity and climate change (Nature’s cries for assistance)

Bio diversity is the biological variability of life on earth. It is the variation of animal, plants, fungi and microorganisms like bacteria. Biodiversity is a variation in the genetic, species, and ecosystem level. Terrestrial biodiversity is usually greater near to the equator. Biodiversity is not equally distributed on earth. There are only 10% of tropical evergreen forests on earth but they contain about 90% of world species. Marine Biodiversity is greater is usually higher along the coast in western pacific where the sea temperature is highest. Biodiversity generally tends to cluster in hotspots and has been increasing through time. Biodiversity supports everything in nature that we need to survive: food, clean water, medicine, and shelter.

But as people put expanding weight on the planet, utilizing and devouring more assets than ever some time recently, we hazard disquieting the adjust of biological systems and losing biodiversity. Quick natural changes regularly cause mass terminations. More than 99.9 percent of all species that ever lived on Soil, producing to over five billion species, are evaluated to be terminated. In 2006, numerous species were formally classified as uncommon or imperiled or undermined; in addition, researchers have assessed that millions more species are at chance which have not been formally recognized. Approximately 40 percent of the 40,177 species surveyed utilizing the IUCN Ruddy List criteria are presently recorded as undermined with extinction—a add up to of 16,119.

The factors affecting the biodiversity are Residential & commercial development, Farming activities, Energy production & mining, Transportation & service corridors and human activities. Pollution is an another major cause of loss of biodiversity causing habitat destruction. Territory devastation has played a key part in terminations, particularly in connection to tropical woodland pulverization. Components contributing to living space misfortune incorporate: overconsumption, overpopulation, arrive utilize alter, deforestation, contamination (discuss contamination, water contamination, soil defilement) and worldwide warming or climate alter.

Climate change is the long-term alteration of temperature and normal climate designs in short. Climate alter might allude to a specific area or the planet as a entire. Climate alter may cause climate designs to be less unsurprising. These unforeseen climate designs can make it troublesome to preserve and develop crops in districts that depend on cultivating since anticipated temperature and rainfall levels can now not be depended on. Climate alter has too been associated with other harming climate occasions such as more visit and more seriously tropical storms, surges, deluges, and winter storms.

Effects of climate change are Hotter temperatures Nearly all land areas are seeing more hot days and heat waves; 2020 was one of the hottest years on record. Higher temperatures increase heat-related illnesses and can make it more difficult to work and move around. Wildfires start more easily and spread more rapidly when conditions are hotter. More extreme storms Changes in temperature cause changes in precipitation. This comes about in more extreme and visit storms. They cause flooding and avalanches, pulverizing homes and communities, and costing billions of dollars. Many more effects like Droughts, Rise in the level of oceans, shortage of food and more health problems.

Securing biodiversity could be a exceptionally complex errand since most of human’s activities have a negative impact on biological systems by overexploiting them. For occurrence, human exercises create contamination that influences living species. Deforestation crushes the living space of numerous animals, reptiles, and plants. Limiting deforestation Reducing the artificialization of natural environments and preserve natural areas as much as possible Reduce air pollution (by limiting our use of transport and our energy consumption, by switching to renewable energies) Fighting global warming by creating regulations for activities that contribute to the greenhouse effect. Making changes in the way industrial agriculture works and using more agroecology methods.

What is HR – Human Resource

Human Resources (HR)

What Is Human Resources (HR)?

Human resources (HR) is the division of a business that is charged with finding, screening, recruiting, and training job applicants, as well as administering employee-benefit programs. HR plays a key role in helping companies deal with a fast-changing business environment and a greater demand for quality employees in the 21st century. John R. Commons, an American institutional economist, first coined the term “human resource” in his book “The Distribution of Wealth,” published in 1893. However, it was not until the 19th century that HR departments were formerly developed and tasked with addressing misunderstandings between employees and their employers.

Photo by Edmond Dantu00e8s on Pexels.com

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Human resources (HR) is the division of a business that is charged with finding, screening, recruiting, and training job applicants, and administering employee-benefit programs. Additional human resources responsibilities include compensation and benefits, recruitment, firing, and keeping up to date with any laws that may affect the company and its employees. Many companies have moved away from traditional in-house human resources (HR) administrative duties and outsourced tasks like payroll and benefits to outside vendors. Understanding Human Resources The presence of an HR department is an essential component of any business, regardless of the organization’s size. An HR department is tasked with maximizing employee productivity and protecting the company from any issues that may arise within the workforce. HR responsibilities include compensation and benefits, recruitment, firing, and keeping up to date with any laws that may affect the company and its employees. Research conducted by The Conference Board, a member-driven economic think tank, has found six key people-related activities that HR must effectively do to add value to a company. These include: Managing and using people effectively Tying performance appraisal and compensation to competencies Developing competencies that enhance individual and organizational performance Increasing the innovation, creativity, and flexibility necessary to enhance competitiveness Applying new approaches to work process design, succession planning, career development, and inter-organizational mobility

Managing the implementation and integration of technology through improved staffing, training, and communication with employees1 Beginning in the 1980s, there was a push for strategic initiatives within HR departments. This movement was based on research related to the impact of employee-related issues on a firm’s long-term business success. Collectively, these strategies are sometimes referred to as human resource management (HRM) strategies. HRM is a comprehensive approach to managing employees and an organization’s culture and environment. It focuses on the recruitment, management, and general direction of the people who work in an organization. An HR department that adopts HRM strategies typically plays a more active role in improving an organization’s workforce. They may recommend processes, approaches, and business solutions to management. Google is one example of an organization that has adopted a more active approach to employee relations through their HR department. The company offers tons of employee perks, and the company headquarters have a wide range of facilities for employees, including wellness centers, roller hockey rinks, and horseshoe pits. For Google, happy employees are equivalent to productive employees.

There are many online portal where you can search for HR professionals and get your Human Resources executive search completed with ease.

Special Considerations

Since the start of the 20th century, some companies have started outsourcing some of the more traditional administrative, transactional HR functions in an effort to free the department to recommend and implement more meaningful, value-adding programs that impact the business in positive ways. Functions that may be outsourced in this process include payroll administration, employee benefits, recruitment, background checks, exit interviews, risk management, dispute resolution, safety inspection, and office policies. The use of more moderns tools, such as the best recruitment software, can also afford HR departments more leeway by improving their efficiency. Compete Risk Free with $100,000 in Virtual Cash Put your trading skills to the test with our FREE Stock Simulator. Compete with thousands of Investopedia traders and trade your way to the top! Submit trades in a virtual environment before you start risking your own money. Practice trading strategies so that when you’re ready to enter the real market, you’ve had the practice you need.

Public Administration: Meaning And Scope

Administration is a part and parcel of our daily lives. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the goods we buy, the streets and highways on which we travel, the automobiles in which we ride, and the many services we enjoy – education, medical care, housing, facility, entertainment, protection of our lives and property, and many others – are made possible by administration.

Public administration, at least in its embryonic form, was born primarily and principally to regulate group action and behaviour. When a group of people started living together and emerged as a community some common problems made themselves felt which needed collective resolution. One such concern has been the maintenance of peace and prevention of crime. It was in this category of needs that for the first time public administration was born.

Regulation of group action was as inescapable a necessity as was the need for group living. It was only at a much later stage in the course of its evolution that it found itself engaged in carrying out positive functions intended to promote happiness and welfare of the people.

Origin Of Public Administration

Public administration in the beginning was necessarily measly in size, its functions being absolutely minimal. We do not have figures of the government employees in India when the crown took over the East India Company in 1858. What we know is that the Government of India employed nearly 11 lakh just prior to the year 1947, when the country had not become partitioned and divided. The United States of America could perhaps be an apt example.

Public Administration is as old as our ancient civilization. But as an independent discipline Public Administration cannot claim for a long history.

Public Administration as an academic discipline is barely 131 years old but as an aspect of governmental activity, public administration has been co-existing with every political system as the action part of government for the fulfillment of the objectives set by the political decision makers.

Meaning And Definitions

• L.D. White defines Public Administration in the broader terms. He said, “Public Administration consists of all those operations having for their purpose the fulfillment or enforcement of public policy.”

• Luther Gulick, on the other hand, views Public Administration as embracing the executive branch of government only. “Public Administration”, he writes, “is that part of the science of administration which has to do with government and, thus, concerns itself primarily with the executive branch, where the work of government is done though there are obviously administrative problems also in connection with the legislative and judicial branches.”

• John M. Pfiffner defines it as “Public Administration consists of doing the work of government, whether it be running X-Ray machine in a health laboratory or coming money in the mint.”

• Woodrow Wilson, the father of Public Administration defines, “Public Administration is the detailed and systematic application of law. Every particular application of law is an act of administration.”

Significance of Public Administration

Public Administration plays an important role in the modern society. First of all, it is an instrument for providing services. It protects the life and property of people by maintaining law and order. It provides a number of services for people such as public health, education, housing, and social security, among others.

The various services provided by public administration affect the life of every citizen from birth to death.

Public Administration is also responsible for implementing laws and policies of the government. It is an instrument of socioeconomic change and national integration. It is the public administration that translates the decisions of the government into reality.

To sum up, public administration plays an important role in modern society.

It is an instrument to formulate and implement public policies. It maintains law and order. It is an instrument of social change and economic development.

In the era of liberalization and privatization, there is a change in the role and scope of public administration. Now it has to promote and encourage as well as regulate the private sector in order to protect public interest.

In Public Administration, good sense would seem to require that public expectation be kept at the lowest possible level in order to minimize eventual disappointment.
John Kenneth Galbraith

Reference
1. Public Administration In A Globalizing World By Chakrabarty and Kandpal
2. Public Administration By Avasthi and Maheshwari

Yoga

Yoga is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that has its origins in ancient India. The word Yoga first appeared in the oldest sacred texts, the Rig Veda and is derived from the Sanskrit root “Yuj” which means to join or unite.

According to the Yogic scriptures, the practice of Yoga leads an individual to the union of consciousness with that of universal Consciousness. It eventually leads to a great harmony between the human mind and body, man & nature. The prime objective of Yoga is Self-realization, to overcome all types of sufferings prompting ‘the state of salvation’ (Moksha) or ‘freedom’ (Kaivalya).

Yoga in the Bhagavad Gita:

The Bhagavad Gita (‘Song of the Lord’) is part of the Mahabharata and contains extensive teachings on the discipline of yoga. In addition to an entire chapter (chapter. 6) dedicated to traditional yoga practice, including meditation, it introduces three prominent types of yoga:

Karma yoga: The yoga of action.

Bhakti yoga: The yoga of devotion.

Jnana yoga: The yoga of knowledge.

The Gita consists of 18 chapters and 700 shlokas (verses), with each chapter named as a different yoga, thus delineating eighteen different yogas. Some scholars divide the Gita into three sections: the first six chapters with 280 shlokas dealing with Karma yoga, the middle six containing 209 shlokas with Bhakti yoga, and the last six chapters with 211 shlokas as Jnana yoga; however, this is rough because elements of karma, bhakti and jnana are found in all the chapters.

Branches of Yoga:

Raja Yoga: Raja yoga is also known as ‘Classical Yoga’ and this approach is closely linked to Patanjali’s Eight Fold Path of Yoga. Raja refers to ‘royal’, ‘chief’ or ‘king’, and alludes to being the best or highest form of yoga. The focal point of this branch is meditation, aiming to ‘control’ the intellect and thoughts through meditation. A connection with ‘God’ or ‘consciousness’ is worked towards by un-identifying with the ego-based self and identifying with the universal true Self.

Karma Yoga: Karma Yoga (Religion of Love), also known as the ‘yoga of action’ is based on the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. Karma Yoga is an intrinsic part of many types of yoga. The word ‘Karma’ is derived from the sanskrit Kri, meaning ‘to do’. Karma yoga suggests that we relinquish attachment to the consequences of our actions and instead focus on the moment in action. Awareness of each thought, word and deed and mindfulness are an important part of Karma yoga, which allows the practitioner to truly experience that moment-in-action. Karma yoga is based upon selfless service and acting without any expectation of benefitting from the service. It occupies a large part of Indian thought and through this practice, union with ‘the divine’ is achieved through making any action an offering to God.

Hatha Yoga: Hatha yoga is also known as ‘the yoga of force’. Many teachers equate Ha to mean ‘Sun’ and Tha to the moon, and reason that the physical yoga practice is intended to ‘balance’ the Sun and Moon energies within us. Whilst the physical yoga practice is intended to bring about a state of equilibrium within the human organism, the real meaning and essence of Hatha yoga is to change the physical body and mind by way of experimentation, movement and physical ‘force’. Hatha yoga is anything that uses the physical body. First mentioned and practised around 1100AD, it is the most ‘modern’ branch of yoga.

Bhakti Yoga: Bhakti yoga is also known as the ‘yoga of devotion’ and describes the path of devotion. The word Bhakti comes from the word ‘Bhaj’, of which the essence is ‘to share’. This form of yoga is based upon the heart, love and devotion towards a chosen deity. Much like Karma yoga, dedicating all actions towards a deity or ‘God’ is an intrinsic part of Bhakti yoga. Seeing the divine in all of creation, bhakti yoga is a positive way to channel the emotions. The path of bhakti provides us with an opportunity to cultivate acceptance and tolerance for everyone we come into contact with. Bhakti yogis express the devotional nature of their path in their every thought, word, and deed.

Jnana Yoga: Jnana yoga, also known as the ‘yoga of knowledge’ is the yoga of the mind, of wisdom, the path of the sage or scholar. This is the yoga of ‘knowing’, of realizing the truth of oneself. This path requires development of the intellect through the study of the scriptures and texts of the yogic tradition. The jnana yoga approach is considered the most difficult and at the same time the most direct. It involves serious study and will appeal to those who are more intellectually inclined.

Mantra Yoga: Mantra yoga is the yoga of sound. Considered sacred utterances, mantras are syllables, words, or phrases representing a particular attribute of the Divine. Mantra yoga is the practice of becoming centered through the repetition of mantras.

Yoga as a Physical Practice:

Yoga as an exercise is a physical activity consisting of asanas, often connected by flowing sequences called vinyasas, sometimes accompanied by the breathing exercises of pranayama, and usually ending with a period of relaxation or meditation. Yoga as exercise was created in what has been called the Modern Yoga Renaissance by the blending of Western styles of gymnastics with postures from Haṭha yoga in India in the 20th century, pioneered by Shri Yogendra and Swami Kuvalayananda.

Today, yoga has developed into a worldwide multi-billion dollar business, involving classes, certification of teachers, clothing, books, videos, equipment, and holidays. In 2015, The United Nations General Assembly established 21 June as “International Day of Yoga” and celebrated annually. On 1 December 2016, UNESCO listed yoga as an intangible cultural heritage.

Benefits of Yoga:

Building muscle strength
Enhancing flexibility
Promoting better breathing
Supporting heart health
Helping with treatment for addiction
Reducing stress, anxiety, depression, and chronic pain
Improving sleep
Enhancing overall well-being and quality of life

Yoga is the medicine for nearly every problem. As you practice yoga, it does not only help you to improve your physical body but also helps in maintaining your inner peace and relaxing your mind. Yoga is not just a one-day practice; it’s a lifelong commitment.

NATIONAL DONOR SABBATH

Donor Sabbath invites faith leaders to encourage organ donation – Jagwire — **GIVE THANKS,GIVE LIFE**

Each year, National Donor Sabbath is observed two weekends before Thanksgiving Day, from November 12 to November 14 this year. The concept behind this day is to unite the different people of different religions, while learning how to save a life by donating vital organs to those in need. America is a land of great diversity — there are people from different races, backgrounds, and nations. There may be huge differences in their lifestyles and ideas, but one thing all these people have in common is belief in humanity or human kindness. National Donor Sabbath is a three-day observance of prayers, worship, and coming together of the leaders of different faiths to participate in services, programs, and initiatives. Time is taken to talk about the importance and public need of saving lives through organ and tissue donation. Organ donations transfers life to others via transplantation so that the recipient has the chance of a full, long life, free of diseased organs such as kidneys, hearts, and even eyes. These organs are donated by the families of loved ones who pass away in accidents and the like, with their organs intact, thus giving people with organ problems a second chance in life.

HISTORY

The National Donor Sabbath spreads awareness on the topic of organ donations. The concept of organ donations comes from a century old goal of healing patients and saving lives by transplanting organs from a donor to a recipient. Starting off as a minor side study pursuit, it soon began to expand as cases of people needing organ transplant started surfacing. In 1906, doctors were able to perform the first ever successful cornea transplant in a patient who was completely blind in one eye. This proved to be a major milestone in the history of organ transplant and paved the way for future transplant to happen. As medical advancements were made, doctors started performing effective transplants of lungs, liver, kidney, bone marrow and other vital organs from deceased donors.

By 1968, the first initiative to register donors and give them a donor card was made under the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act. This led to the first-ever observance of the National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week, which is dedicated to spreading awareness of the need to donate the organs after death to save the lives of others. Soon, another act was passed by the Congress which made the sale and purchase of organs illegal in the U.S. This act was the National Organ Transplant Act. Organ donations are voluntary, free and usually based on decisions made to be a donor ahead of time, and communicated with family members or in the written last will of a person.

Finally, in 1997 as part of the national donation initiative, National Donor Sabbath was announced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and since 1997 it has been celebrated every year when leaders of different faiths stand together to spread awareness about the campaign.

PATHWAY

THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL CORNEA TRANSPLANT – 1906

This is the first success story of organ transplant,which in future would pave the way for more successful and advanced transparent procedures.

ORGAN PROCUREMENT AGENCY IS FORMED – 1968

The organ procurement organization(OPO) is established in New England,Boston.

FIRST ORGAN AND TISSUE DONOR AWARENESS WEEK – 1983

Congress declares the first National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week, meant to spread awareness on the need of registering oneself as a donor.

NATIONAL ORGAN TRANSPLANT NETWORK – 1984

A system of Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (O.P.T.N.) is launched to make sure that the organs are being allocated fairly and to the people who need them.

NATIONAL DONOR SABBATH IS LAUNCHED – 1997

The theme of “GIVE THANKS.GIVE LIFE” is main focal point.

*******DONATING ORGANS IS A GESTURE OF LOVE*******

Hobbies. You can never have enough.

We all enjoy doing certain things in our free time. What you choose to do with you free time directly reflects on what kind of person you are. Your hobbies and interests define the kind of person you are and the personality you have. It is really good to pickup a new hobby.

Learn how to draw.

Drawing, for example is a great hobby to pick up. If you don’t already, I suggest you start drawing. It doesn’t matter whether you are good at it or not. Just draw. Drawing is a medium to express oneself. At first you might be bad at it. You might want to give up and abandon the drawing. But don’t. Work on it, look at things more objectively and use your skills to figure out how to improve. In doing so you will be fully engaging your mind and learning how to draw better, practicing will make you feel more content. Enjoy the learning experience. It will take time but it will be fun. When you look back at how far you’ve come. You will feel a sense of accomplishment and looking back at old drawing will be a lovely feeling.

Learn a new language

Learning a new language is of course difficult at first. But once you get into the flow of it and start leaning more and more vocabulary it becomes enjoyable just as fast. Being able to communicate with people of a foreign nation, appreciate their culture, art would make things a lot more interesting once you learn a new language. That’s what adds spice to life. It is a great exercise for your brain as well, as it is challenging to properly converse in new language. Thus, you improve your memory and thinking skills.

Play a new instrument.

Image result for person playing the guitar

There are numerous benefits of picking up a new instrument. Not only does it increase your cognitive ability and mind-body coordination. It is also extremely fun. It makes you more creative and makes you appreciate other things even more. Learning a new instrument also improves memories. And it is also a pretty impressive skill to have. Learning how to play an instrument also requires patience and determination to excel at it. Which will teach you so many things once you start.

Joining a new sport.

Sports as we know it is great for your physical health. Not only does it keep your body fit, but your mind too. As it requires strategizing and devising game plans in order to win. It is also a great way to socialize and meet other people. Collaborate and play with others. Occupying your free time with sports is immensely fun.

Pursuing a new hobby helps you cultivate curiosity, and engages your mind and keeps you happy. It also makes you a more interesting person. A lot of people usually give up when they don’t do so well in the beginning. But if you can make it past the initial failure and work on improving, that’s where the fun begins. Besides no one has ever really gone far with just natural talent. A little effort is required in all domains of life. There’s a lot to learn and a sea of options to pick from!

Social media marketing

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing means selling or promoting the products of the company by using social media.For example social medias like Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest etc.

Uses of social media marketing:-

* It is used to sell or promote the products in the world level.

* With a strong social media strategy and the ability to create engaging content, marketers can engage their audience

* social media marketing allow people to get what they want.

EFFECTIVE TYPE OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING:-

* Facebook advertising

* Twitter advertising

* Instagram advertising

* you tube advertising

* Pinterest advertising

* LinkedIn advertising.

BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING:-

* Grow your sales and your fanbase.

* Use customer generated content for ads (which perform better, too!).

* Better target new and regular customers so the waste can be reduced.

DISADVANTAGES OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING:-

* The main disadvantage of social media marketing is highly rely on ads.

* No direct interaction with the people to solve problems.

* One of main issue is security and privacy policy.Many of us can be faced.

CONCLUSION:-

There is no better marketing strategy for selling and promoting products than social media advertising. No other strategies can deliver consistent, scalable, quality leads and customers from day one that can supplement any promotional marketing.

Animal Husbandry And Veterinary Science

Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.
Animal husbandry is the branch of agriculture where animals are reared, bred and raised for meat, fiber, eggs, milk and other food essentials. It refers to livestock raising and selective breeding. A large number of farmers rely on animal husbandry for their livelihood.

Food is necessary for the development and survival of all the organisms. To deal with the need of food with the increasing population, it is necessary to increase food production. There are many technologies which increase yield such as plant breeding, animal husbandry and modern technologies like tissue culture, genetic engineering, embryo transfer.

Types Of Animal Husbandry

Out of many methodologies, there are four major types of animal husbandry practiced in the world today. An elaborated description of the same has been stated under:
Dairy Farming – It is mostly concerned with the long term production of milk, which is then processed to obtain dairy products such as curd, cheese, yoghurt, butter, cream and so on and so forth.
Poultry farming – It is concerned with raising and breeding of birds for commercial purposes. The eggs and meat hence produced are a rich source of protein.
Fish farming – It is the process of raising fish in closed tanks or ponds for commercial purposes. Another name one can call it is pisciculture.
Fish farming or pisciculture is of two types, namely:
Extensive aquaculture, based on the local photosynthetic production.
Intensive aquaculture, based on the external food supply given to fishes.
Bee farming – Also known as apiculture, is the practice of maintaining bee colonies by humans in man-made hives.

Role Of Animal Husbandry In Human Welfare

• Animal husbandry is beneficial to human beings in a decent number of ways, one of which is production of dairy products.
• Animals such as cows, goats, sheep are the major source of milk and milk products such as yoghurt, cheese, butter, etc.
• Meat is another very important product yielding via husbandry of animals such as pigs and goats.
• Animals also produce fibres or textiles such as wool and leather. Just as sheep are reared for wool whereas leather can be obtained from camel.

Strategies For Enhancement Of Food Production

An improved variety can be produced by induced mutation and by selecting improved mutants. Genetic engineering is also an option.

Main Steps Required For Developing New Varieties

The first involves collection of variability, genetic variability, being the main reason behind breeding.
Akin to this fact, evaluation and selection of parents certainly becomes equally as essential.

Hybridisation, which is the process of making cross between two genetically diverse parents to obtain a progeny with desired superior traits, is the third and a very important step for developing new varieties.
The fourth step involves selection and testing of superior recombination, which is more or less as the term suggests. It comprises selecting, among the progeny of the hybrids, to be specific, those plants that have the desired character combination.
This is the crucial step for the success of breeding objectives and requires careful scientific evaluation of progeny.

Plant breeding is one of the shortest and most effective routes to improve global health through better nutrition.

Handling Criticism Like A Pro

Everyone of us, at some point in our lives, would have faced criticism in one form or the other (except of course if we’ve chosen to shut ourselves up in a room and not attempt anything at all in life). It might be about anything – about what you have said or done or not done or the way you dress or about your work, the list just goes on. Criticism pops up everywhere. It’s as much a part and parcel of our lives as the air we breathe, and hence learning how to deal with it gracefully is an important life skill to have.

Is Criticism good for you ?

Criticism, wrapped up and delivered even in the best of the packaging, is not something that anybody actually enjoys. The instant reaction to it in most cases is to close ourselves up and get into defensive mode. So identifying whether it’s constructive or destructive is a key step that’ll help you in figuring out whether it’s good or bad for you.

So, what exactly is Constructive and Destructive criticism ?

Constructive Criticism is a way of giving feedback with an intention of helping you improve yourself. It not just points out your mistakes and weaknesses, but also includes suggestions for improvement and the actions that need to be taken. It can be considered as that much needed reality check which we all need from time to time.

Destructive Criticism on the other hand is given with the sole intention of tearing you down. The reasons for doing that may be many – jealousy, insecurities, ignorance, complexes, boredom etc. Here, instead of commenting on the actions of a person, the focus mainly is on attacking the person and pulling him down. The critic in this case, is not in the least interested in your well being or improvement.

So, as you might have figured out by now, constructive criticism more often than not, represents an opportunity. It helps you in identifying your weaknesses, which you might otherwise be unaware of and enables you to see things from a different perspective. Whereas destructive criticism is more or less an attempt by a person to let his steam off at the expense of others.

How do you identify them ?

Honestly, when you are out there at the receiving end, identifying whether it’s constructive or destructive would probably be the last thing on your mind. But before you pounce on your critic, just pause and take a deep breath. Wait, what ? Yes you read it right. Pause and take a deep breath (Remember, deep breath not an annoyed sigh ! You don’t want to worsen the situation, do you ?) Let the emotions flow through you. Do not restrict it but also do not take it out on the other person.It’s not easy but it’s definitely doable. If you find it hard to refrain yourself from blowing a fuse, excuse yourself and take some time out before responding. Setting your emotions aside and getting into a frame of mind where you are calm enough to analyse the situation rationally, is the most difficult but important step to take, while facing criticism.

Once you have calmed yourself down, listen to the other person without interrupting. By listening, I meant active listening and not just nodding along while thinking about ways on how to attack the critic back. Allow the other person to share their thoughts and comments completely. While listening, focus on the content of the comment and not on the tone. Sometimes even the best intended criticisms may sound harsh or even worse, the most toxic comments may be presented in the most tactful manner. So it’s very important that you detach the content from the tone.

At this point, you can try and repeat back what you have heard and understood. Be careful to do that in a non aggressive tone. By repeating back, you are not only making sure that you aren’t misinterpreting their comments, but also helping yourself understand the comment better. When you take a step back and remove yourself from the equation and focus just on the comment, chances are that you may be able to view it through a different lens. At this stage, by analysing it objectively, you will be able to figure out the intention behind it – whether you are actually being attacked or is it just your ego playing tricks on you.

If you are still confused, seek clarification. Break it down and ask questions. When you are asking questions, do it with an open mind and not with an intention to prove the other person wrong. You can ask for specific examples to get better clarity on the issue raised or ask for suggestions on how the situation could have been handled differently. Be genuinely curious in finding the intention. If the critic actually means well, he’ll be able to give you answers or suggestions or atleast give you valid and logical reasons to back his comment, which might help you to see things from the critic’s perspective. Destructive criticism shatters under scrutiny – no logic, no reasons, nothing but just a set of toxic statements thrown at you with the sole intention of hurting your self-esteem and pulling you down.

_{Photo by SHVETS production on Pexels.com}

How to deal with criticism ?

So now that you have calmly analysed the issue and identified whether the criticism was meant to help you or to tear you down, it’s time to take action.

Okay, but before that, you may now take a moment to appreciate yourself for successfully pulling off the I-Can-Be-Calm-No-Matter-What version of you. A little bit of self appreciation always helps to put that vulnerable little child inside you in a better mood.

Alright, now that you are slightly in a better mood, let’s get to business. Let’s say you have identified the criticism to be toxic, what do you think you should do next ? Tell them that their points are baseless ? Make them understand that you are right and argue until you prove your point ? Or give them a taste of their own medicine and criticise them ? Well, the best course of action here would be to ignore. Ignore ? Seriously? But how can you just walk away when somebody is attacking you and challenging your self worth?

Well, it might sound all philosophical and seem like something that only people roaming about with a halo around their heads can do. But trust me, it is the most logical thing to do, given such a situation. Think about it, here is a person who is trying to derogate and destroy your self-esteem, confidence and reputation using some baseless and illogical set of arguments. Do you think if that person was logical enough he would have stooped to this level ? No matter what you do, understand that he has come with a closed mindset and a fixed agenda, that is,to insult you. Nothing you say or do is going to knock sense into that person’s head. And moreover it’s not even your responsibility to do that.There’s no point in wasting your time and energy on such people, so just let it go. Politely excuse yourself, thank the person for the feedback and move on with your life.

Now, let’s come to constructive criticism. When you receive it, ask yourself ‘Does this align with my priorities ?’ For example, you might be criticised for not making that perfect pasta or for being lousy at tennis. Ask yourself, does it really matter ? Is this really a priority in your life ? Well, depending upon your goals, it might or might not be. In any case it is important that you identify that. And if the suggestion doesn’t align with your priorities, even though it is constructive, there is no point investing too much of your time in it. So, take note of it and ask for suggestions on how to improve, if you feel a need for that and move on.And hey, don’t forget to thank your critic !

Now, what if it aligns with your priorities ? Then set your ego aside and ask yourself – ‘Deep down, do I agree with what is being said ?’ If you can’t bring yourself to agree to it, respectfully disagree. Present your side of the story. Engage in a constructive discussion.Chances are that when you do it, the other person may understand your perspective or vice-versa.Either way it’s a win-win. However, there are chances that you both might not come to a conclusion at all. Accept the fact that everyone is entitled to have their own opinions and perspectives and it’s perfectly okay not to be on the same page always. So just agree to disagree and peacefully move on.

Finally, let’s say that the little voice inside your head secretly agrees to all the charges that you are accused of. In that case, buckle up, it’s time for action. If you find that there is truth in what the other person has said, then do not shy away from acknowledging it. Analyse the comment, deconstruct it and figure out what needs to be addressed and what measures need to be taken to learn and evolve from your mistakes. You may even take suggestions from your critic on the steps that need to be taken. Accepting your mistakes and learning from them is a great way to kick-start your journey of self improvement.

Bottom Line

Criticism comes in all shapes and forms. Neither can you avoid it nor can you control the way others perceive you. The only thing you have control over is your attitude towards it and the way you choose to respond to it. It is important that you identify the intent behind it and take action accordingly. And depending on it, you can either use the criticism as a foundation to build a better future for yourself or choose to ignore it if it’s not worthy of your time and energy. Having said that, I also want you to know that developing a positive attitude towards criticism is not something that comes easy. It takes time, patience and hell a lot of practice. So be gentle with yourself; take it one step at a time. And while you are at it, don’t forget to acknowledge and celebrate even the smallest of your milestones. Good Luck !

The Role of Civil Services in a Democracy

In a democracy, civil services play an important role in the administration, policy formulation and implementation, and in taking the country forward towards progress and development

Democracy is an egalitarian principle in which the governed elect the people who govern over them. There are three pillars of modern democracy: Legislature, Executive, and the Judiciary.
The civil services form a part of the executive. While the ministers, who are part of the executive, are temporary and are reelected or replaced by the people by their will (through elections), the civil servants are the permanent part of the executive.

The civil servants are accountable to the political executive, the ministers. The civil services are thus a subdivision under the government. The officers in the civil services form the permanent staff of the various governmental departments. They are expert administrators. They are sometimes referred to as the bureaucracy or also as the public service.

Importance of the Civil Services:

The civil service is present all over India and thus has a binding character.

It plays a vital role in effective policy-making and regulation.

It offers non-partisan advice to the political leadership of the country.

The service results in coordination between the various institutions of governance.

It offers service delivery and leadership at different levels of administration.

Functions of the Civil Services:

Civil services are the basis of governments. No government can function without an administrative machinery, which is necessary for implementing policies.

Civil services are responsible for implementing laws and executing policies framed by the government. The role of Civil Servants across the domains of policy making and policy implementation is critical to the development process.

The civil service is chiefly responsible for policy formulation as well. The civil service officers advise ministers in this regard and also provide them with facts and ideas.

Amidst political instability, the civil service offers a sense of stability and permanence. Civil services carry on the governance when governments change due to elections etc. While governments and ministers can come and go, civil service is a permanent fixture giving the administrative set-up continuity.

Successful policy implementation will lead to positive changes in the lives of ordinary people. The task of actualizing schemes and policies fall with the officers of the civil services.

Civil services are also managing public enterprises and public utilities in the interest of socio-economic justice. Public utilities are either publicly owned or strictly regulated in most countries. Government also imposes controls over private economic and business activities in the public interest.

The services offer welfare schemes such as providing social security, the welfare of weaker and vulnerable sections of society, old-age pensions, poverty alleviation, etc.

The services perform varied developmental functions like promoting modern techniques in agriculture, promoting the industry, trade, banking functions, bridging the digital divide, etc.

The civil services also perform quasi-judicial services by settling disputes between the State and the citizens, in the form of tribunals, etc.

Assisting ministers in fulfilling their responsibilities towards the parliament and its committees.

Handling financial operations of the state

Problems Affecting the Civil Services Today:

It is widely recognized that the civil services have contributed to stability in terms of maintenance of peace, the conduct of fair elections, managing disasters and the preservation of the unity of the nation, providing stability and maintaining order in a vast country prone to various conflicts – ethnic, communal, regional etc. Nonetheless, various committees including the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC II) have pointed out that, there are certain criticisms with respect to the performance of the civil services, towards realizing a results-oriented government. Some of them are:

Lack of professionalism and poor capacity building.

The incentive system is ineffective and does not reward laudable and upright civil servants.

The rules and procedures are rigid, which doesn’t allow civil servants to exercise individual judgement and perform efficiently.

There is a lack of accountability and transparency procedure, with no adequate protection for whistle-blowers.

Political interference causes arbitrary transfers and insecurity in tenures. There has been regular political interference in the functioning of civil servants to further narrow political agenda, which undermines the public welfare at large. Fear of transfer and lure of promotion sometimes impairs judgement of civil servants making them politically compliant.

Rampant corruption and nepotism is common due to an erosion in ethics and values.

Patrimonialism (a form of governance in which all power flows directly from the leader) is prevalent.

Resistance to change from the civil servants themselves.

Metaverse. Sounds interesting, but will it make real life less interesting?

What is metaverse?

Metaverse is a frictionless integration of various technological components that include virtual reality, as well as augmented reality and videos. All intended to create a digital world, which users can exist in. This allows the user to be almost anywhere they want, but of course, digitally.

Companies like Meta (formerly known as Facebook), Microsoft, Roblox, Epic Games and more are already looking into building this immersive experience and creating this digital world of tomorrow. As impressive as it sounds, to what extend does it stop being glorious and fascinating and only contribute to decay our society?

The metaverse brings us closer to the dystopian future we’ve until now, only heard and read about. A world where users are free to create any identity they please through characters and virtual possessions. Making it easier to escape reality. It is highly possible that individuals will use this as a way to escape their real life, avoid the problems and emerge into a state of ignorance. They will want to completely immerse themselves in this virtual world as it much nicer than real life. It can distort our sense of reality. We will grow to become unable to perceive reality, lose the ability to talk to people and all in all, become lazy and unimaginative. Kill our creativity and lose our sense of curiosity to explore the real world and our openness to new experience. As we allow algorithms to do their magic, collect data and perfectly curate personalized suggestions for us. Basically, letting our past dictate our future. Users will gladly accept this false reality a third-party fabricates.

It’s also bound to make us more anxious, irritable and paranoid. We are already slaves to our devices. Indulging in a system that makes it even harder to step away from and have real-life interactions will only make us more miserable. Social isolation is inevitable, when one can create their own personalized individual bubble. It will create a vast divide.

“You’ll be able to hang out with friends, work, play, learn, shop, create, and more. It’s not necessarily about spending more time online — it’s about making the time you do spend online more meaningful,” – Meta

But? What’s wrong with the way we already do those things? The only difference is true quality is snatched away and replaced by a sense of distorted glory.

Technological advancements are an integral part of our future and the reason for it is to make our lives easier, simpler, better. Of course, there are domains that benefit wonderfully by these advancements. For example, using VR for training pilots or using integrated virtual augmentation system to train the soldiers is a great economic and efficient way to tackle insurance of quality training. If used properly technology is a great tool. But it is just as easy to drown in it’s quicksand.

SUBHASH CHANDRA BOSE

INTRODUCTION

Subhash Chandra Bose is fondly remembered as one of the greatest freedom fighters of India, and popularly known by the name of ‘Netaji’ (Respected Leader). He was strongly influenced by Swami Vivekananda’s teachings, and also believed that the Bhagavad Gita was a great source of inspiration for the struggle against the British. Bose was an Indian nationalist, and a prominent figure of the Indian independence movement. He was superior head for Indian National Army during World War II. He always pitched for complete and unconditional independence of India from the British Rule.

CHILDHOOD

Subhash Chandra Bose was born to Prabhavati Devi and Janakinath Bose on January 23 in 1897 in Odisha. He took admission into the Protestant European School which was run by the Baptist Mission. He did B A in Philosophy from the Presidency College in Calcutta, and was later expelled for assaulting Professor for the latter’s anti-India remarks. After the incident, Bose was considered as one of the rebel-Indians.During his college days, he gradually developed nationalistic temperament, and became socially and politically aware.

POLITICAL LIFE

18 Subhash Chandra Bose Books Which Prove Massively Impactful — **THE GREAT FREEDOM FIGHTER**

After a few years, Bose returned to India as he resigned from his civil service job in April 1921, and later joined the Indian National Congress to fight for the independence of India. Subhash Chandra Bose started the newspaper known as ‘Swaraj’, and took charge of publicity for the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee. In 1923, Bose was elected as the President of All India Youth Congress and as the Secretary of Bengal State Congress. He was also editor of the newspaper called ‘Forward’, founded by his mentor Chittaranjan Das, and he served as the CEO of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. By December 1927, Bose was appointed as the General Secretary of the INC.

In November 1934, he wrote the first part of his book ‘The Indian Struggle’, which was about nationalism and India’s independence movement during 1920–1934, but the British government banned the book. By 1938, he agreed to accept nomination as the Congress President, and presided over the Haripur session. However, due to his strong differences with Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, he resigned in 1939.

ROLE IN INDIAN INDEPENDENCE

S C Bose was always in favour of armed revolution in order to expel the Britishers from India. During the time when the Second World War took place, Bose form the Indian National Army (INA) with the help of the Imperial Japanese Army, and also founded an Indian Radio Station called ‘Azad Hind Radio’.

A few years later, he travelled to Japan, where more soldiers and civilians joined the INA. Even when faced with military reverses, Bose was able to maintain support for the Azad Hind movement. In Europe, S C Bose sought help from Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini for the liberation of India. Bose had struck an alliance with Japan and Germany as he felt that his presence in the East would help India in the freedom struggle against the British.

MEMORIAL

Bose was featured on the stamps in India from 1964, 1993, 1997, 2001, 2016 and 2018.Bose was also featured in ₹2 coin in 1996 and 1997, ₹ 75 coin in 2018and ₹125 coin in 2021. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose international Airport at Kolkata, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Island, formerly Ross Island and many other institutions in India are named after him. On 23 August 2007,Japanese Prime minister visited the Subhas Chandra Bose memorial hall in Kolkata. Abe said to Bose’s family “The Japanese are deeply moved by Bose’s strong will to have led the Indian Independence Movement from British rule. Netaji is a much respected name in Japan.

In 2021, the Government of India declared 23 January as Parakram Divas to commemorate the birth anniversary of Subhas Chandra Bose. Political party, Trinamool Congress and the All India Forward Bloc demanded that the day should be observed as DESHPREM Divas.

*****MY HERO IS SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE THIS ARTICLE IS DEDICATED TO YOU*****

“JAI HIND” this slogan is said by Subhas Chandra Bose .

Srinagar designated a creative city by UNESCO

On November 8, 2021, UNESCO designated Srinagar a creative city. Srinagar became the sixth city after Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Varanasi, and Jaipur to achieve such distinction. With this, the capital city of Jammu and Kashmir has entered the club of 295 creative cities network across the world.

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network is a project launched by UNESCO in 2004 to “promote cooperation among cities which recognized creativity as a strategic factor in their urban development”. According to UNESCO, the cities designated as creative cities work together towards a common objective of “placing creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their development plans at the local level and cooperating actively at the international level”.

On Monday, UNESCO designated 49 cities as part of the creative cities network. With this, the total number of creative cities in the world has reached 295 across 90 countries. The Srinagar city had applied in 2018 also but the application was rejected then.

UNESCO designates the creative cities in seven fields — Craft, Folk Art, Media Arts, Film Design, Gastronomy, Literature, and Music. The Srinagar city has been designated the creative city in Crafts and Folk Arts — the only second city in India in this category after Jaipur. While Mumbai has been honored in the film category, Chennai and Varanasi have been made part of UCCN for their music. Hyderabad is a UCCN city in the gastronomy category.

GANDHI’S GOAL-SHANTI SENA

SHANTI SENA

* SHANTI SENA is a word derived from Sanskrit.

* SHANTI means peace and SENA Means army.

* SHANTI SENA is also called as peace army.

MAIN GOALS OF SHANTI SENA:

*. Service to peoples as a volunteer at any time.

*. Give to a cause close to your heart.

*. Most important goal is to bring the non-violence.

*. No religion diverse all religions must get equal rights and respect.

QUOTES BY PEACE ARMY:-

“THE GREAT GOOD IS WHAT WE DO FOR ONE ANOTHER”.

” TREES NEED FOR SEED PEOPLE NEED FOR SHANTI SENA”.

NON – VIOLENT LIFE :-

* Non violent is a personal practice to not make harm to others.

* Gandhi introduced the concept of ahimsa ( Non-violence).

*. Non violence is powerful tool for the social protest.

*. To create non violent children.It is crucial to maintain the peaceful environment.

*. It is the active out pouring of one’s whole being of another.

*. Non violence love is active not passive.

IMPORTANT OF NON VIOLENT COMMUNICATION IN Society:-

* Non violent will bring peace among the people.

* Non violent communication help us to express our feelings.

* Non violent communication means complete lack of violence in the way we communicate with others.

* To respect our people.

MAIN COMPONENTS OF NON VIOLENT COMMUNICATION:-

* Observation.

* Feelings.

* Needs.

* Requests.

SHANTI SENA:-

* SHANTI SENA makes love and peace to the people.

* SHANTI SENA brings non violence to the people.

* SHANTI SENA is not only to maintain peace also good relationship.

* SHANTI SENA is the non weapon war of peace.

* If one should have shanti sena he should ignore annoyance.

* SHANTI SENA avoid us from the jealous and competition with the people.

* SHANTI SENA is one of the fundamental peace policy of people.

” soldiers army save country

Peace army save courtesy”.

DON’T QUIT-DON’T STOP

Do you know, What is the easiest thing to do in the world? Think a bit. What is the easiest thing to do? It is to say these two words,”I Quit”. A few decades ago. There was a young man, who saw a big dream. He wanted to climb, the world’s highest mountain. The mighty Mount Everest. Everyone told him, it cannot be done. It was impossible to climb Mount Everest. No human has never done it before. However, the young man was determined. His name was Edmund Hillary. And on 29 May 1953.. he achieved his dream. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first humans to reach the top of Mount Everest.People across the world, lauded their triumph. They both accomplished what was the earlier called as ‘impossible’. But what happened a few days later puzzled the newspapers. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay had taken 7 weeks to climb Mount Everest. But can you guess. How many weeks they took to climb down from the to pand return back to the base? They took… 6 weeks? 5 weeks? Or 3 weeks?”NO”. They took only 3 days to return to their base camp. A 7-week journey while climbing up. Was done in mere days, while they were coming down. Few journalists were shocked.How is this possible? How they came back in just 3 days? Edmund Hillary replied…The most important factor of him reaching the top and returning early, was not climbing. It was “MOTIVATION”. In his 7-week journey, here were days he felt scared. There were days, he doubted himself. He thought about, what others had told him before, How Everest was unconquerable. But, amidst all this internal turmoil. He did one simple thing. He kept himself motivated to keep on moving forward. Even with all self-doubts, and all the fears. He didn’t stop. And once they reached the top, all the fears and doubts, went away, As their mission was now complete. While coming down, the journey which took 7 weeks to climb up was reduced to only 3 days not only because now they were climbing down,But also because, now they were climbing down without the burden of fears and doubts. They were climbing down without the burden of failure. In our lives, we also carry the burden of fear and self-doubt. That burden makes it harder… to continue.

That burden makes us want to say..”I Quit”.

But let me tell you one important fact from my own life experience. We often quit by justifying to ourselves, that there were obstacles, there were the problems and I had to quit. But the fact is, No obstacle has the power to stop you. No problem has the strength, to make you stop. Before leaving just remember , this simple life lesson.It is very easy to Quit anything. But real courage is when even after facing all the challenges you stand tall. Real courage is when even after facing failures again and again, you keep on trying harder. Real courage is when you DON’T STOP moving ahead. That’s real courage. So please.. DON’T STOP.

“Only you can stop yourself. If you continue, you might fail or succeed. But if you stop, turn back from your goal you will fail 100 %.”

BREAK FREE FROM YOUR MIND

Far away, there was a village, A “CURSED” village. It was known to everyone that whoever will cross this village boundary will “DIE” instantly. Generations passed, and no one crossed the boundary of the village. One day an innocent little boy mistakenly crossed the village boundary. His mother screamed at the sight of losing her beloved child. Hearing the scream all the villagers gathered at the spot and they were all SHOCKED. “There they saw the little boy was standing across the boundary and he was safe and smiling back at them. That was the moment, they all realized. There was no curse on the village.” It was all a LIE. But in reality, there was one CURSE on their village. The curse, which made them FEAR the unknown. The CURSE which TRAPPED each of them inside the village. That curse was only in their MIND and Nowhere else. Your MIND is a symphony of thoughts. Your MIND is the valley of wonders. It can visualize your greatest dreams. It can conceive the greatest ideas and make the biggest discoveries. But sometimes, It also LIES to you. It scares you makes you afraid. Your mind tells you, you are wrong. Your mind tells you it cannot be done. It tells you, you are NOT GOOD enough. It tells you to STOP and quit. Your mind wants you, to not take any chances. To never try anything new. It tells you, you will FAIL if you will hurry. You will FAIL if you take action. Your mind DEMANDS you to take time. To achieve perfection, even before trying. You know one thing, Your mind is LYING all along. Not because it is our enemy. But because it is filled with fear. It is fearful of all failures that might come. It is fearful of what others might say. It is fearful that your hope and dreams shall be shattered. It wants to stop you from taking any action. Because if you don’t act, you will never fail. It wants an existence without pain, grief, and failures. But what’s life without taking action towards your dream. What’s life without tears and joy. What’s life without its ups and downs.

So tell your mind NOT TO WORRY. Tell your mind to NOT TO SCARED. To NOT OVERTHINK your worst fears. “Just take ACTION towards your goal and BREAK FREE from the clutches of your fearful mind. “

“If you spend too much time thinking about something.. you’ll never be able to make it, a REALITY.”

A GLASS OF WATER

Once upon a time, a psychologist was teaching stress management to the audience. She raised a cup of water and asked everyone. How heavy do you think this glass of water is? Expecting another half- full/half empty questions, The crowd gave various answers from 50 gm to 400 gms. But she said the absolute weight of the glass doesn’t matter. It actually depends on how long I hold it. A minute won’t be a problem. After an hour, I might feel a dull ache. If I hold it a day, my arm would feel paralyzed. But, The weight of the water never changed the longer I hold , the heavier it felt. Then she said, the stresses and worries of our life are just like the cup of water.Think about them all day and you’ll feel paralysed and helpless. It’s important to remember to let go of your stresses. Don’t carry them for hours and days and months. Remember to put down the glass!

Moral:”Think about them for a while nothing happens. Think about them longer, it starts to hurt.”

A TRUE STORY OF A CARPENTER

Mr.Chris Myler, an elderly carpenter who was ready to retire. He told his employer of his plans to leave the house of building business to live a more leisurely life with his wife and enjoyed his extended family. He would miss the pay cheque each week but he wanted to retire. The employer was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favour. The carpenter agreed and started working on the last project of his life. Since it was his last project, he worked half-heartedly. He said goodbye to overtime. He did not consider to find the best cement mixture. He did not consider having a swimming pool in this project. He did not use quality wood for doors. The furniture was not good quality. The employer called the carpenter in his office and gave the keys of this newly built house to the carpenter saying, “ This is my gift to you for your such a commendable service over 15 years. The carpenter was shocked. What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. So it is with us. We build our lives a day at a lime, often pulling less than our best into the building. Then, with a shock we realise we have to live in the house we have built. If we could do it over, we would do it much differently. But you cannot go back, you are the carpenter and every day you hammer a nail, place a board or erect a wall. Someone once said, “ life is a do-it-yourself project”. Your attitude and the choices you make today, help build the house you live in tomorrow. Therefore, build wisely!.

10 MINUTES TO START YOUR DAY RIGHT

Unless you take risks. Nothing. Nelson Mandela said: “ There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that’s less than the one you’re capable of living. I am sure in your experiences in school in applying to college. In picking your major, in deciding what you want to do with life, people have told you to make sure you have something to “fall back on”. Make sure you got something to fall back on, honey. But I never understood that concept have something to fall back on. If I’m going to fall, I don’t want to fall back on anything except my faith. I want to fall forward. I figure at least this way I’ll see what I’m going to hit. Full forward, this is what I mean. Reggie Jackson struck out 2600 times in his career the most in the history of baseball. But you don’t hear about the strikeouts. People remember the home runs. Fall forward. Thomas Edison conducted 1000 failed experiments. Did you know that, I didn’t either because 1001 was the light bulb. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success. It’s good for you to go take your place in the world, have some ambition; have a vision; have a goal; have a strategy. Try to be a good person and not because it’s your duty precisely because that’s the proper way to live. We’re in danger of undermining all of that. And it’s not good for people. One of the things that I’ve really learned, for example, recently, is that learned to articulate better is that there’s a very tight relationship between aspiration and responsibility. So let’s say, well, the first question might be do you need to aspire to something? An answer is, well, yes, because you have to do something. If you just sit there, you’ll die. You can’t just sit there. You have to go act out in the world. Ok, so act towards what? Well, that’s whatever your aspiration is. You have to have an aim. Ok, well, what should the aim be? Well, it should be something worth doing, let’s say. Why do something that you don’t feel is worth doing? What do you think’s worth doing? Well, if you watch other people and you judge when they’re doing something worthwhile, usually judge them positively, if you see that they’re taking responsibility at least for themselves. What do you want to be completely useless so other people have to take care of you? That’s pretty pathetic and may be you could get your act together. So you’re taking care of yourself and your family and maybe you could even do better than that and your family and your community. I know I’ve gone on stage infront of 10000 people and I thought I should have more PowerPoint. I should have more reminders, and I just remember walking out and saying, I’m here to help rise these people up, to give them capabilities to change their life. It’s my vision, it’s my goal. It’s my obligation to use my unique ability to just help these people and live for my heart. All I think is changing these people’s lives. And when I got out there, I wasn’t perfect on stage. I wasn’t robotic and say the right things, and I didn’t have the crisp, clear PowerPoint. But when I spoke from the heart, it overcame all of that and I get to be one of the best presenters wherever I go because I speak from the heart. Now you might say that, Deen that’s your unique ability and may be that is. But I know for you in life there are circumstances where you have to prepare. You have to do a PowerPoint, you have to do presentation and I want to tell you passion and from the heart. Always wins over over prepared and thinking from the head. Well, let me just ask you something right now in the crazy presidential race, the GOP race. You know, Ben Carson is probably the smartest guy when it comes to Booksmart out of the whole group. And I don’t watch the news a lot, but I just read a lot. And somebody said this the other day and it just hit me. Someone said, Man, Ben Carson is probably the smartest guy in that GOP race that’s going on. Whatever I’m going to share my opinion. But you know that, the guy said when he was done, he’s like, We all know the smartest guy never wins. And I was like, Wow, we all know that the smartest guy never wins. And what does that mean. And it’s kind of what I’m sharing today. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be smart. I’m sure, so many of you were probably way smarter than I am. But what I want to tell you is enthusiasm and passion and living from your heart. To me, one hundred percent of this time. Outweighs being over-prepared and robotic and trying to think what to say. I hope I’m getting the right message across today. I’ve had this question from so many people. How are you so easy to talk on camera on stage? And I never have a good answer, and I really fought through it. And that’s the answer. I am here right now doing this video for you because each week I want to delivery you a nugget that you can just place into your life and make a tiny shift towards a better life. So I don’t need a teleprompter. I don’t need a script. I come here and just want to deliver, and it’s coming from your heart. Now I have practise. I’ve been on video for 15 years. I’ve been doing these for 7-8 years, and maybe that’s not what you do, but you’re still going to have these circumstances where you have to talk to your children, talk to your owner, talk to your employees and talk to your employer. And if you get stuck in your head, that’s when you get worried. That’s when you try to remember what to say and you leave and go, Oh, why did I say that? Or why didn’t I say more? Well, if you can go in and say, Why am I going in and live with passion and have it come from your heart, then that’s truly you, and you’re giving the answers you’re supposed to do from the real you, not the facade that sometimes life makes us where. One of the challenges I think many people have is really the discernment of information. It’s really difficult to know what’s the truth anymore just because information is so accessible. And I used to say that in an age of information, ignorance is a choice. And now we have to confront a whole another level and that is the information that we’re getting. It is actually supporting us or is it something that really is an incentive to to cause us to make choices? So for me, I think the biggest challenge has been ust really an awakening to what kind of information I want to expose myself to. And I think it’s now more than ever a challenge for a lot of people in the world. You don’t have to be perfect to inspire others. You can inspire people by how you deal with your imperfections. Don’t feel that you have to have it all. Know it all to make an impact? You don’t. You just need a soul full of desire and compassion, right? It was Martin Luther King who said, “ You don’t need a college degree to serve. You don’t need to know how to fill a sentence to serve. All of you need is a heart full of soul, right? And a half and have compassion. That’s all that’s needed. That’s what we need to focus on. Let’s not be limited by feeling. We need other resources apart from love and compassion to make an impact. Because we don’t right? You actually don’t need them. We are going to create a baseline for ourselves that’s based on intention. This is around 1989, when I’d read Gary Zuka book called The Seat of the Soul, and that book was life changing for me because in it, he talked about the power of intention and that cause and effect. What goes out comes back is determined by your intention. The energy of your intention is what determines your life. Most people don’t think about their intention, they just think about what they want to do. Most people don’t think about why they want to do it, but what’s going to come back to you? The energy that’s going to come back to you is the real why of why you did it. And so I then said to my producers, we’re not going to do any shows that are intentional. So don’t bring me an idea. Unless you have an intention for the show that you want the outcome to be, and we’re going to strive to see if we can live up to our intentions. And so around the late 80’s, we started a pre-show to talk about what the intention was. And then it polls show, after every single show to say, Did we fulfill that intention? And that’s about the time I realize this is bigger than me.

Things to do after BA in English Literature

BA in English Literature is an undergraduate course that is opted for following the completion of the 10+2 formal schooling. Do you have a knack for analysing poetry or writing one? Are you keen about learning the history and evolution of different forms of arts and literature? Then a BA in English Literature was an ideal choice for your graduation. Many great inventions today across different fields such as astronomy, engineering and medicine are influenced by ancient literature and several art forms.

For example, Nicolaus Copernicus’ book “The revolutions of the celestial spheres” popularised the heliocentric theory that proposed the sun as the centre of the universe. With the majority of students opting for medical, engineering or legal degrees, Bachelor of Arts as a degree course is often undermined. There are a lot of common misconceptions and stigmas surrounding this graduation course.

Students studying BA in English Literature are assumed to lackluster in studies.
It is a course often idealised as suitable for women.
Students opting for BA in English LIterature can only become a teacher or professor.

Many students graduate in English Literature as they are passionate about what the course has to offer. Although women are the majority among English Literature graduates, Men also specialise in this field and go on to pursue post graduation alongside women.

As we have debunked some of the misconceptions and stigmas surrounding BA in English Literature, let us look at the doors of opportunities this course leads us to.

Courses to take up after BA In English Literature

BA in English Literature is a three year graduation course that familiarises you with the evolution of English language and its literature through plays, different forms of poems, novels and theatre. Its curriculum consists of literary analysis, literary criticism and communication skills. Graduating in English Literature qualifies you for several job opportunities and higher studies.

For further specialisation or better job opportunities, doing a Masters course following BA in English Literature might be an ideal choice.

Here are the following courses you can consider following your graduation in English Literature.

Master of Arts in Communication

MA in Communication is a postgraduate program for the duration of 2 years which equips students with information regarding transmitting messages and principles of communication.

This masters course prepares its candidates for professions such as film directors, producers, screenwriters, journalists, public relations officers, and other professional careers.

Eligibility

Minimum requirement for admission to MA in Communication is a Bachelor’s degree in any stream from a recognized university.
Students must have secured 50% in their bachelor’s degree course.
Candidates may be required to pass entrance exams conducted by specific colleges or universities.

Employment Opportunities

Choosing MA in Communication following BA in English Literature can set you up for the following employment roles.

Television or Film Director
Content Writer
Event Management
Digital Marketing Expert
Journalist
Public Relations Professionals

Master of Arts in Sociology

MA in Sociology is a postgraduate program like MA in Communication. Students keen about social studies, politics and economics can pursue this masters course following BA in English Literature. The MA Sociology curriculum consists of the study of religion and society, political society, Indian society, economy and society, social development, and research in sociology.

Eligibility

Interested candidates must be graduated in any stream of education from a reputed university.
Candidates must have scored a minimum of 50% in the undergraduate level.
Some colleges expect students to be a graduate in psychology while the others accept candidates across different streams.
Colleges conduct entrance exams that need to be cleared by the admission seeking candidates.

Employment Opportunities

MA in Sociology opens doors to an expansive range of career opportunities after your graduation in English Literature. Following are some of the job profiles that might get you interested.

Counselors
PR Executives
Administrators
Educators
Sociologist
Researcher

Master of Arts in English Literature

Nothing seems more appropriate than studying for MA in English Literature post your graduation from BA in English Literature. This post graduation course in English Literature is the study of ancient and modern English literature, consisting of poetry, drama and fiction. Literature in the English language is not only written by English authors from England but also writers from across the world.

Post graduation in English Literature sets you up for job profiles such as a teacher or a journalist. Candidates interested in writing and translating for agencies can also benefit from this masters course.

Eligibility

Already being a graduate in English Literature, one needs to make sure that he or she has earned upto 50% marks to be qualified for admission.
Your graduation course should be from a recognized university.
Admissions can be provided on both merit basis as well as clearance of entrance exams.

Employment Opportunities

Upon completion of your post graduation course, you will be qualified for the following job profiles.

English Language Specialist
Translator / Interpreter
English Teacher
English Editor
Junior Parliamentary Reporter

Bachelor of Law (LLB)

Bachelor of Law is a popular choice for higher studies among graduates of English Literature. A degree in LLB familiarises students with environmental law, consumer protection act, arbitration, and insurance law including others. Following the completion of Bachelor in Law, candidates can opt to study LLM (Masters of Law) for further specialisation, practice law after registering with certain agencies or take up careers as legal professionals in public or private sectors.

Eligibility

Students aspiring to study Bachelor of Law must have graduated from a recognized university with an aggregate of 45% in any stream.
Selection for the course is based on the results from entrance exams such as SLAT, CUET, and CLAT.

Employment Opportunities

Careers after a Bachelor of Law are not confined to courtroom duties involving defending clients. Law graduates today have scope for job profiles in corporate firms, legal agencies, IT firms, and administrative services. Following are some of the job profiles mentioned below.

HR Manager
Legal Advisor
Lawyer
Attorney
Legal Manager

Bachelor of Education

Graduates who want to begin a career in the field of teaching can further study Bachelor of Education. This post graduation course acquaints the candidates with different learning methods and Pedagogy of a school subject. The course lasts for a duration of 3 to 4 years.

After the completion of B.Ed, clearing aptitude tests such as TET and CTET will qualify you for teaching in primary and secondary schools.

Eligibility

A bachelor’s degree from a recognized university with 50% aggregate marks.
A master’s degree from a recognized university with 50% aggregate marks.
Aspirants for B.Ed must be at least 21 years old, irrespective of their graduation or post graduation.

Job Profiles

Job profiles for B.Ed graduates are usually related to the field of teaching. One can become a teacher with specialisation in a particular subject or head teacher in a primary or secondary school.

Happy Learning!

References

Vinayak Kashyap, mycourseguru.in/courses after ba english/

Team Careers360 | Updated on Sep 29, 2021 – 3:32 p.m. IST career360.com/10 best career options to progress with after llb degree/

What is digital marketing?

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that utilizes internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services.

At a high level, digital marketing refers to advertising delivered through digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile apps. Using these online media channels, digital marketing is the method by which companies endorse goods, services, and brands. Consumers heavily rely on digital means to research products.

Digital Marketing in 2021:

1.Voice Search Optimization:

According to research on voice search, they found that 55% of teenagers use voice search every day. This massive adoption by the entire generation shows how popular voice search is going to get in the future.

Google claims that they have achieved 95% accuracy with their Voice Search. With higher precision of search, the ease of use factor for voice search has jumped up. Now with better accuracy to match what you ask for, and the ease of using your voice to get results makes the process personalized and attractive.

2. Programmatic Advertising:

Programmatic Ad Buying is the use of software to purchase digital advertising. While the traditional method includes human negotiation, requests for proposals, and quotes, programmatic buying makes use of algorithms and machines to buy ads.
Programmatic Advertising is when AI is used to automate so that advertisers can target more specific audiences.
Programmatic Advertising is rapidly increasing every year and is predicted to be used for a huge majority of display advertising in the next couple of years.

3. Chatbots:

Chatbots are considered one of the top digital marketing trends in 2021,the AI-based technology makes use of instant messaging to chat with customers, and with site visitors. It is designed to communicate with customers by textual or auditory methods.
Businesses can leverage the use of chatbots to engage with customers. Since there are plenty of users visiting the website at once, it advantageous to have a technology that answers hundreds of users at once. The benefits of having chatbots are 24/7 customer service, instant responses to inquiries, and answers to simple questions.

4. Personalization:

If you want to outperform your competitors and want to stand out in the market, you must focus on personalizing content, products, emails, etc. Personalization is the next big trend that will soon become an industry standard.
The best example to understand the power of personalization are Amazon and Netflix, they have personalized recommended movies for each user. Here are some other examples of brands that are progressively using personalization at present.

5. Video Marketing:

Video Marketing is also one of the top digital marketing trends in 2021 and is likely to be at the top for more years to come. Here are some stats that will demonstrate the importance of including a video in your digital marketing current trends list.
One of the issues faced by marketers in recent years was to showcase long-form texts on mobile screens, as it becomes too difficult and tedious for users to read them.

6. Instagram Reels:

The Instagram Reels was great news for marketers & content creators. Especially since Tik Tok was banned in a few countries, reels have served as the best replacement.
The great news for digital marketers is that Reels are providing more than double engagement rates when compared to posting a normal video.
video can present the same information in a much better way regardless of the device.
As a marketer, you can use this feature to showcase many kinds of content such as informative content, behind the scenes of the organization, product reviews, etc.

Disasters and Disaster Management

A disaster is a sudden event that results in massive damage, loss, and destruction of life and property beyond a community’s capacity to cope. It can be either natural or human-made and leads to disruption of the daily life of the community. The damage caused by disasters is immeasurable and varies with the geographical location, climate and the type of earth surface/degree of vulnerability. It causes human, material, and economic or environmental losses.

Disasters are classified as per origin, into natural and man-made disasters. Natural disasters include earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, floods, and fires. Man-made disasters can include hazardous material spills, fires, groundwater contamination, transportation accidents, structure failures, mining accidents, explosions and acts of terrorism.

No country is immune from disaster, though vulnerability to disaster varies from country to country. There are four main types of disaster:

Natural disasters. These disasters include floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and volcano eruptions that can have immediate impacts on human health, as well as seconday impacts causing further death and suffering from floods causing landslides, earthquakes resulting in fires, tsunamis causing widespread flooding and typhoons sinking ferries

Environmental emergencies. These emergencies include technological or industrial accidents, usually involving hazardous material, and occur where these materials are produced, used or transported. Large forest fires are generally included in this definition because they tend to be caused by humans.

Complex emergencies. These emergencies involve a breakdown of authority, looting and attacks on strategic installations. Complex emergencies include conflict situations and war.

Pandemic emergencies. These emergencies involve a sudden onset of a contagious disease that affects health and disrupts services and businesses, bringing economic and social costs.

Worst Disasters of India:

A few of the worst disasters India has faced:

The Bengal Famine (1943): The Bengal famine of 1943 affected the Bengal province of British during World War II. An estimated 2.1–3 million died of starvation, malaria, and other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement, unsanitary conditions and lack of health care.

Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1984): The Bhopal Disaster is considered among the world’s worst industrial disasters. It occurred due to a gas leak incident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. At least 30 tonnes of methyl isocyanate gas killed more than 15,000 people and affected over 600,000 workers.

Gujarat Earthquake (2001): The Gujarat earthquake, also known as the Bhuj earthquake, occurred on 26 January, 2001. Bhuj, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Kutch, Surat, Surendranagar, Rajkot district, Jamnagar and Jodia districts of Gujarat. The earthquake killed between 13,805 and 20,023 people, injured another 167,000 and destroyed nearly 340,000 buildings.

Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami (2004): The Indian Ocean tsunami occurred on December 26, 2004 affected parts of southern India and Andaman Nicobar Islands, Sri Lanka, Indonesia etc., and resulted in the death of more than 2 lakh people.

Uttarakhand Flash Floods (2013): The Uttarakhand Flash Floods of 2013 caused devastating floods and landslides, becoming the country’s worst natural disaster since the 2004 tsunami. It affected 12 out of 13 districts of the state. Four districts were worst affected namely; Rudraprayag, Uttarkashi, Pithoragarh, and Chamoli.

Disaster Management:

Disaster management refers to the conservation of lives and property during natural or human-made disasters. Disaster management plans are multi-layered and help tackle catastrophes such as floods, hurricanes, fires, mass failure of utilities, and the rapid spread of disease and droughts. Disaster management includes seven administrative decisions and operational activities: Prevention, Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, Recovery, and Rehabilitation.

There are three key stages of activities in disaster management:

Before a disaster: to reduce the potential for human, material, or environmental losses caused by hazards and to ensure that these losses are minimized when disaster strikes;
During a disaster: to ensure that the needs and provisions of victims are met to alleviate and minimize suffering; and
After a disaster: to achieve rapid and durable recovery which does not reproduce the original vulnerable conditions.

National Disaster Management Authority:

The Government of India set up a High-Powered Committee (HPC) in August 1999 in recognition of the importance of Disaster Management as a national priority, and a nation committee after the Gujarat earthquake, for making recommendations on the preparation of Disaster Management plans and suggestion effective mitigation mechanisms.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is the apex body for Disaster Management in India, headed by the Prime Minister. The NDMA was established through the Disaster Management Act 2005 enacted by the Government of India. NDMA is responsible for framing policies, laying down guidelines and best practices for coordinating with the State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs) to ensure a holistic and distributed approach to disaster management. The vision of the National Disaster Management Authority is “to build a safer and disaster resilient India by a holistic, pro-active, technology driven and sustainable development strategy that involves all stakeholders and fosters a culture of prevention, preparedness and mitigation.”

Functions and Responsibilities:

Lay down policies on disaster management
Approve the National Plan
Approve plans prepared by the Ministries or Departments of the Government of India in accordance with the National Plan
Lay down guidelines to be followed by the State Authorities in drawing up the State Plan
Lay down guidelines to be followed by the different Ministries or Departments of the Government of India for the Purpose of integrating the measures for prevention of disaster or the mitigation of its effects in their development plans and projects
Coordinate the enforcement and implementation of the policy and plans for disaster management
Recommend provision of funds for the purpose of mitigation
Provide such support to other countries affected by major disasters as may be determined by the Central Government
Take such other measures for the prevention of disaster, or the mitigation, or preparedness and capacity building for dealing with threatening disaster situations or disasters as it may consider necessary
Lay down broad policies and guidelines for the functioning of the National Institute of Disaster Management.

Disasters are inevitable. Countries need to be prepared to survive unforeseeable impending disasters. It is necessary to stay watchful, and a structured and preplanned preparedness and a healthy response to the disaster will help save lives.

Environmental Pollution

Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that causes harm to plants, animals and human beings. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat, or light. Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants. Pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and premature death. Pollution causes more than 9 million premature deaths (16% of all deaths worldwide). Major forms of pollution include air pollution, light pollution, noise pollution, plastic pollution, soil contamination, radioactive contamination, thermal pollution, and water pollution. The following are a few types of pollution:

Air Pollution:

Air pollution is the presence of undesirable substances in the air that are harmful to human health and the environment. It is the contamination of the air by any chemical, physical or biological agent that modifies the natural characteristics of the atmosphere. Vehicle emissions, fuel oils and natural gas to heat homes, by-products of manufacturing and power generation, particularly coal-fueled power plants, and fumes from chemical products are the primary sources of human-made air pollution. Pollutants include particulate matter, carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide.

Air pollution has various health effects. Short-term exposure to air pollutants is closely related to COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), cough, shortness of breath, wheezing, asthma, respiratory disease, and high rates of hospitalization (a measurement of morbidity).The long-term effects associated with air pollution are chronic asthma, pulmonary insufficiency, cardiovascular diseases, and cardiovascular mortality.

Water Pollution:

Water pollution occurs when harmful substances—often chemicals or microorganisms—contaminate a stream, river, lake, ocean, aquifer, or other body of water, degrading water quality and rendering it toxic to humans or the environment. Water pollution reduces the ability of the body of water to provide the ecosystem services that it would otherwise provide. Water pollution traditionally is attributed to four sources: sewage, industry, agriculture, and urban runoff. The main water pollutants include bacteria, viruses, parasites, fertilisers, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, nitrates, phosphates, plastics, faecal waste and even radioactive substances.

Water pollutants may cause disease or act as poisons. Bacteria and parasites in poorly treated sewage may enter drinking water supplies and cause digestive problems such as cholera and diarrhoea. Hazardous chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides from industries, farms, homes and golf courses can cause acute toxicity and immediate death, or chronic toxicity that can lead to neurological problems or cancers.

Light Pollution:

Light pollution refers to the excessive and unwanted use of poorly implemented artificial light by urban and other heavily-populated areas. This light is from artificial sources, mainly electricity from houses, offices, streetlamps, billboards or car headlights. It disrupts the natural patterns of wildlife, contributes to the increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, disrupts human sleep and the activities of nocturnal animals, and obscures the stars in the night sky.

There are three other kinds of light pollution: glare, clutter, and light trespass. Glare is excessive brightness that can cause visual discomfort (when driving). Clutter is bright, confusing, and excessive groups of light sources (Times Square in New York City). Light trespass is when light extends into an area where it is not wanted or needed (like a streetlight illuminating a nearby bedroom window).

Noise Pollution:

Noise pollution, also known as environmental noise, refers to the unwanted or excessive sound that can impact human health, wildlife, and environmental quality. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines noise above 65 decibels (dB) as noise pollution. To be precise, noise becomes harmful when it exceeds 75 decibels (dB) and is painful above 120 dB.

The sources of noise include loud music, transportation, lawn care maintenance, construction, electrical generators, wind turbines, explosions, and people. Poor urban planning may give rise to noise disintegration or pollution, side-by-side industrial and residential buildings can result in noise pollution in the residential areas. This type of pollution can contribute to cardiovascular effects in humans and an increased incidence of coronary artery disease. In animals, noise can increase the risk of death by altering predator or prey detection and avoidance, interfering with reproduction and navigation, and contributing to permanent hearing loss.

Soil Pollution:

Soil pollution or soil contamination refers to the toxic chemicals (pollutants or contaminants) in the soil in high concentrations that poses a risk to human health and the ecosystem. Soil pollution consists of pollutants and contaminants. The major pollutants are biological agents and human activities. Soil pollution is mainly caused by deforestation, soil erosion, mining activities, industrialization, construction activities, sewage treatment, and overcrowded landfills.

Soil pollution affects plants, animals and humans alike. While anyone is susceptible to soil pollution, soil pollution effects may vary based on age, general health status and other factors, such as the type of pollutant or contaminant inhaled or ingested. Soil pollution may cause a variety of health problems, starting with headaches, nausea, fatigue, skin rash, eye irritation and potentially resulting in more serious conditions like neuromuscular blockage, kidney and liver damage and various forms of cancer.

The Awe-Inspiring Journey of Captain Lakshmi

The era of Indian Independence Struggle is one of the most painful and shattering phases in the country’s history. But it was also a period which saw the emergence of some of the finest leaders of the country.

Captain Lakshmi Sehgal is one such leader who ardently fought for the freedom of India. At a time when most Indian women rarely stepped outside of their society approved roles, here was a woman who not only broke all the social conventions but also aced her roles as a firebrand revolutionary and a medical practitioner.

Early Life

Born to a progressive family in Madras, to S.Swaminathan, a criminal lawyer at Madras High Court and A.V Ammukutty, a renowned social worker and activist, Lakshmi Sehgal aka Captain Lakshmi was an iron lady who dedicated her entire life to public service in various capacities. She wore many hats: she was the commander of Rani of Jhansi regiment – the all-women regiment of the Indian National Army, a doctor, social activist and a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Right from her childhood, she never missed a chance to voice her opinions or rebel against the social evils. She came from a family of active Gandhi supporters who had strong nationalist leanings, so it was only natural that she was drawn into the ongoing freedom struggle.

Lakshmi Swaminathan to Captain Lakshmi – The Journey

In 1940, she left for Singapore, where she set up a clinic with a focus on making medical treatment and facilities available for people from all walks of life. Meanwhile, she also joined the Indian Independence League, formed by Rashbehari Bose. It was around this time, in 1942, that an army for Indian independence was formed by Captain Mohan Singh and a few other Indian war prisoners in Singapore. The army was slowly losing its initial momentum due to the lack of a firm commitment from the Japanese side regarding their participation in the war. It was the arrival of Subhash Chandra Bose which proved to be a real game changer for the Indian independence movement in Singapore.

Captain Lakshmi was one among the many who had gathered to listen to Bose while he addressed the crowd in 1943 at Singapore. He was keen on forming an army not only composed of Indian war prisoners but also of civilian Indians settled in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. He also wanted to create an all-women regiment.

Rani of Jhansi Regiment

The turning point in Lakshmi Sehgal’s life came when she was asked by Netaji to form and lead the all-women regiment. Whether it was healing wounds or holding firearms, she always put her heart and soul into whatever she did. This young woman took charge and managed to mobilise around 25-30 women for the regiment. These were mostly second or third generation Indian women who had grown up in South East Asia, who were fighting for the freedom of their motherland that they hadn’t even seen. Her ability to galvanize such a group of civilians, train them and form a regiment speaks volumes about her determination and charisma.That was the beginning of the Rani of Jhansi regiment and her life as Captain Lakshmi.

The INA marched to Burma in 1944, but before they could enter Imphal they had to beat a retreat and she, along with others, was captured by the British army. She was placed under house arrest in Burma and was later sent to India in 1946.

She was a woman of mettle and nothing could ever dampen her spirits. She continued to fight for the freedom of the country once she was back in India and actively campaigned for the release and rehabilitation of the imprisoned INA personnel. Her fight for freedom continued even after the release of the war prisoners, including Col.Prem Kumar Sehgal, in March 1947. Later she got married to Col.Prem Kumar Sehgal and moved to Kanpur.

Later Life

For a person as enthusiastic and passionate as her, every day was a new opportunity to serve her country and its people. She continued her medical practice in Kanpur and was actively involved in providing aid for the refugees pouring into the country following the partition.

In the early 1970s, through her daughter Subhashini who had joined CPI(M), it was brought to her attention the need for doctors and medical supplies for the refugees from Bangladesh. She didn’t have to think twice before packing up enough supplies, clothes and medicines and leaving for Calcutta to provide her service in the Bangladesh refugee camps along the border areas.Her ideologies were inherently communist, and hence, she joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 1971 and represented the party in Rajya Sabha.

She never shied away from going out onto the streets of Kanpur during the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, to confront the anti-Sikh mobs and to ensure the safety of the Sikhs and Sikh establishments near her clinic. She participated actively in the restoration of peace during the riots.

She was rightly called Captain Lakshmi for she was a born leader. Be it leading the campaigns and activities of the All India Democratic Women’s Association or the medical camps in Bhopal following the Gas Tragedy, she conducted it all with ardent passion and dedication.

Her charisma, dedication and undying spirit to fight for what she believes in were a few of the many reasons why she was selected jointly by all four leftist parties as the sole opponent of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam in the 2002 Presidential elections. In spite of knowing that her chances of winning are slim, she took that as a golden opportunity to scrutinise a political system that allowed the weeds of poverty and injustice to grow by feeding divisive and irrational thoughts to the society.

At an age when most people retired to the comforts of their homes, she regularly treated patients at her clinic. Service to humanity was the motto of her life and she never let her age get in the way of service.

She was honoured with Padma Vibhushan in 1998 and was also bestowed with an honorary doctorate by Calicut University.

Captain Lakshmi was one such person who was hard to box in by the conventions of the society. During the course of her entire life, which was only a couple of years short of a century, she had seen it all – the colonial rule, India’s struggle for independence and the post-independence nation building and transformation of the country. And through it all, she had been an active contributor to the society, who always positioned herself firmly on the side of the oppressed and needy.

Captain Lakshmi passed away on 23rd July 2012 following a cardiac arrest, but not before leaving behind her a legacy of sheer will, compassion and valour, which continues to inspire thousands of people across the country.

Social Evils that prevail in India

India is a country which is known for its diverse heritage and mesmerizing culture. However, it also has some unavoidable rigid belief systems or evils which, if not reformed, can be really harmful for the Indian society. Such social evils can also be harmful for the growth and progress of the society.

Social evils can be defined as the toxic beliefs due to which the societal progress is hindered. Such evils can be born out of sheer ignorance or blind faith in religion or culture or both. These evils are not only harmful for the believers themselves but for the society as a whole.

There have been several personalities who, in order to bring reforms in the society, tackled and attempted to remove the practices of some rigid belief systems which, in turn, brought reforms in the society.

Here are some evils that either prevailed or still prevail in India due to the stiff nature of the society:

The Caste system:

The caste system has its roots in the ancient Indian society where the common folks were divided into four categories on the basis of their skills and abilities. Those categories consisted of Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra.

But as the time passed, this system became so rigid that the people belonging to the higher castes were seen as superior to those of the lower castes. Brahmins were known to be next to God and were respected by almost everybody. On the other hand, the Shudras were discriminated and were considered as ‘Untouchables’. Although the Indian Constitution has outlawed the practice of Untouchability, it still exists in some parts of the Indian Society.

The Dowry system:

The word ‘dowry’ means payment (of property or money) from the bride’s parents to the groom or his family at the time of marriage. This stems from the belief that a daughter is a liability for her parents and for her bright future she has to be married off to a decent groom. In order to get a good marriage prospect, the bride’s family starts saving money as soon as the daughter is born. This puts an unimaginable of amount of burden on the bride’s family.

This system has also made many Indian women victims of the atrocious crimes by the groom and his family. There have been many cases where crimes against women were committed by their husbands or their in-laws. In such cases, women had to go through unimaginable physical and emotional abuse.

Although we have laws in the constitution against the practice of the Dowry System, it is still practised in some of India. The government is taking measures to eradicate this system by bringing in policies to educate and the girls and parents of the country. They have also started schemes to aware the parents about the negative outcomes of the Dowry system.

Female Infanticide:

Female infanticide is the intentional and deliberate killing of a baby girl once she is born due to the preference for a baby boy. Even though this is an illegal practice, people in some parts of India still practice it. According to a census in 2001, there are only 933 females to every 1000 men. Another census in the year 2011 showed a decline in the Child Sex Ratio (CSR) where there were only 918 females to every 1000 men.

Female infanticide is more prevalent than male infanticide in south Asian countries like India and China due to cultural reasons. In the Indian Society, some families kill their new born daughters to avoid the burden of paying Dowry to the groom or his family. For families with several daughters, it can be a huge financial burden and hence, killing the baby girl seems like an easier option to them.

The Indian government has tried to take several initiatives to tackle and eradicate this issue. In several Indian states, the government took the responsibility of educating the girl child which, in turn, freed the parents from their financial burden.

These are some of the dreadful evils in the Indian society which need to be tackled and solved so that a better and more reformed society can be created. However, there are more such evils like Poverty, superstitions and corruption. These issues have become pretty common in the Indian Society.

With the years passing by, these issues have risen instead of coming to an end. Therefore, proper action must be taken by the government and the society to change the mindset of the existing society.

Digital Marketing Strategies

Digital marketing refers to advertising delivered through digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile apps. Companies use digital marketing to endorse their goods, services, and brands, using online media channels. In the past decade, digital marketing has become a vital component in organizations’ overall marketing strategy. It allows companies to tailor messages to reach a specific audience, making it possible to market directly to people who are likely to be interested in their product. Digital marketing encompasses a wide variety of marketing tactics and technologies used to reach consumers online.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process used to optimize a website’s technical configuration, content relevance and link popularity so its pages can become easily findable, more relevant and popular towards user search queries. Search engines recommend SEO efforts that benefit both the user search experience and the website ranking by featuring content that fulfils user search needs. SEO targets unpaid traffic, organic results rather than direct traffic or paid traffic. Unpaid traffic may originate from different types of searches, including image search, video search, academic search, news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM):

Search engine marketing refers to marketing a business using paid advertisements that appear on search engine results pages (or SERPs). Advertisers bid on keywords that users of services such as Google and Bing might enter when looking for certain products or services, which gives the advertiser the opportunity for their ads to appear alongside results for those search queries. Search engine marketing’s greatest strength is that it offers advertisers the opportunity to put their ads in front of motivated customers who are ready to buy at the precise moment they’re ready to make a purchase. No other advertising medium can do this, which is why search engine marketing is so effective way to grow your business.

Pay-per-Click (PPC):

Pay per click advertising is an umbrella term for online paid ads where you pay each time someone clicks on your ad. Paid search ads are the ones that show up in the search results. Most of the time (except for some home services queries), those ads are search ads triggered when someone searches for a particular set of keywords. Within pay per click, there are a few different types of ad strategies: Paid search campaigns, Social media campaigns, Google Local Services ads, YouTube ads, Display ads, Immersive ads (VR and AR), Shopping ads (e-commerce), and Nextdoor ads.

Social Media Marketing (SMM):

Social media marketing refers to the marketing activity done via social media profiles and platforms to build a brand, increase engagement and promote the business. Social media is an ideal place for brands looking to gain insights into their audience’s interests and tastes. The way experts see it, smart companies will continue to invest in social media to achieve sustainable business growth. Seven out of ten consumers expect a business to have a well-maintained social media presence, and 17% of consumers actively use social networks to know more about the business. The top platforms for social media marketing are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Content Marketing:

Content marketing is a long-term strategy that focuses on building a good relationship with the target audience by giving them high-quality content that is relevant to them consistently. Content marketing uses storytelling and information sharing to increase brand awareness. Ultimately, the goal is to have the reader take action in becoming a customer, such as requesting more information, signing up for an email list, or making a purchase. Content can mean blog posts, resources like white papers and e-books, digital videos, podcasts, etc.

Email Marketing:

Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message to a group of people using email. Every email sent to a potential / a current customer could be considered email marketing. It involves using email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations. Email marketing helps you connect with your audience to promote your brand and increase sales.

Mobile Marketing:

Mobile marketing is a multi-channel strategy that aims at reaching a target audience on their smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices, via websites, email, SMS, social media, and apps. In recent years, customers have started to shift their attention to mobile. Because of this, marketers are doing the same to create engagement. Mobile marketing is an indispensable tool for companies large and small. To earn and maintain the attention of potential buyers, content must be strategic and highly personalized. Some types of mobile marketing are mobile app marketing, in-game advertisements, quick-response barcode, mobile banner ads, proximity or bluetooth marketing, and voice marketing.

Google honors Dr. Kamal Ranadive with a Google doodle on her birthday

On the occasion of the 104th birth anniversary of Dr Kamal Ranadive, an Indian biomedical researcher, Google dedicated a Google doodle to her where she can be seen holding a microscope. She is well-known for her revolutionary cancer research and her commitment towards promoting social justice through education and science.

Dr. Kamal Ranadive was born in Pune on November 8, 1917. Her father, who was a biologist, encouraged her to study medicine but she had different aspirations. She decided to study botany and zoology as her main subjects and got her Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) in the same field from Fergusson College in Pune. She then moved to the Agriculture College in Pune for her post-graduation.

She successfully won a doctorate in Cytology (also known as cell studies) in the same year as working as a researcher at the Indian Cancer Research Center (ICRC), and thereafter, was qualified to gain a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. She thereafter returned to India and established the first tissue culture laboratory in the country in Mumbai.

She closely examined the links between cancer and different viruses, and also the link between breast cancer and heredity. She also studied Mycobacterium leprae (a type of bacterium that causes leprosy) and gave her contribution in the development of a leprosy vaccine.

Dr. Kamal Ranadive and a few of her workmates initiated the establishment of the Indian Women Scientists’ Association (IWSA) in the year 1973 to promote women in the scientific field. The organization as of now has 11 branches across the country. It provides scholarships and childcare to women in working or researching in the scientific area.

Ranadive received the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award, in 1982 for her contributions to medicine. In 1964, the Medical Council of India presented her with the first Silver Jubilee Research Award. This award comprised of a gold medal and an amount of Rs. 15000. Another award that she received was the G. J. Watumal Foundation Prize in 1964 for her work in leprosy.

Dr Kamal Ranadive was loved and admired by many of her students and colleagues. They fondly called her ‘bai’. She always encouraged her colleagues and students to work and do various scientific researches in their own country. She also worked in rural Maharashtra after her retirement, training women as healthcare professionals and teaching them about health and nutrition.

Dr. Kamal Ranadive passed away in the year 2001 but she still continues to inspire the youth especially the women of this country to work hard and be an inspiration for many.

A man called Ove: Review

A book beyond the principles of judgment and society, barring the barriers of age, this masterpiece will remold your soul towards the kvetches in your life. A man called Ove, Created and written miraculously by Fredrick Backman, is a thin but infinitely everlasting book that will always stay with you once you turn the last page. As described on the cover page, it is a story about a man called Ove, and the short but satisfactory chronicles of his life. Being a cranky curmudgeon, he has a big habit of floccinaucinihillipilliphication. Big word, isn’t it? Google it (secretly gushing). He basically thinks every new technological thing that he cannot understand is paltry. His neighbors, His friends, everyone thinks he is an old trout. Well, when you are always seen with disgust and disappointment searing in your eyes, you wouldn’t expect much. But if you get to know the man who is called ‘the sorehead’, there is something irresistibly beautiful about Ove.

The story starts with a pouty old man who is seen buying an IPad or at least trying to buy an IPad, with a ‘you just broke my most precious possession and now I am going to kill you’ look. At that moment, the bewitching chronicle takes its first step into a beautiful tale about love, lived and lost.

Ove is a man who believes in practicality. Inaccuracy. In reality. Having a mighty adoration for tools, he was a straightforward man with no tolerance for nonsense, contrasting opinions, or even a happy sunshiny personality. Even after all this, there were so many things about Ove that were magnificent and adorable. That man’s life was simply great, he was arrogant, but down to earth. A man with a heart too big.

You’ll only feel the inklings of dismay and somewhat a sigh as the right side of the gem grows thinner page by page. The words start to reach the deepest core of our hearts, the dark noir on the crisp paper seems like the only world to exist. This little infinite tale will make you laugh out loud, and cry till you can’t breathe. My heart goes out to the author who has created such a magical fable, such an everlasting magnet of love and appreciation. Thank you. Fredrick Backman. Well done. Overall, I recommend this book to you, and I will do it again and again. Believe me.

it is worth it.

10 FAMOUS INDIAN AUTHORS YOU MUST READ

Internship

An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period. Once confined to medical graduates, an internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and government agencies. They are typically undertaken by students and graduates looking to gain relevant skills and experience in a particular field. Employers benefit from these placements because they often recruit employees from their best interns, who have known capabilities, thus saving time and money in the long run. Internships are usually arranged by third-party organizations that recruit interns on behalf of industry groups. Rules vary from country to country about when interns should be regarded as employees. The system can be open to exploitation by unscrupulous employers

Some benefits of Internship for college students

1. Apply your theory

Internships offer students the chance to put what they are learning into action, in a real-world environment. This helps you better understand the theories and strategies you have been reading about, cementing the learning process and giving you greater focus.

2. Get a feel for the work environment

For students who are exploring their career options, internships are great! By joining a team, you will have a much better understanding of what it’s like working at a particular company and get a clearer idea of the industry itself.

This knowledge will help you in your job hunting in the future, giving you an better idea of the types of jobs you want – and perhaps more importantly – the types of job you don’t want.

3. Boost your confidence

Of course, taking on an internship helps you learn about the work environment, but it also helps you learn about yourself.

You will have a much clearer idea of your strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes. Most importantly, knowing that you have hands-on experience will give you far more confidence when it comes to job seeking and interviews.

4. Build networks

As Porter Gale wrote, “your network is your net worth” and internships offer students great networking opportunities. You’ll meet colleagues and team members, take part in meetings and get to know new people in a professional environment.

If you distinguish yourself during your internship, you can make life-long connections who can help you find positions, meet clients, or even make recommendations.

5. Improve your CV

Students who put themselves forward for an internship show that they are willing to take responsibility, work hard, want to learn, and are interested in getting experience. These are all qualities that hiring managers are interested in and this helps you differentiate yourself in a competitive jobs market.

No matter how successful you were in your internship, you can hold your head up high and explain what you learned and what responsibilities you had.

6. Getting a reference or letter of recommendation

When it comes to finding your first graduate position, references and recommendations can be the difference between an offer and a rejection.

Most managers will be happy to offer a reference or letter of recommendation after completing an internship with them, so when the times comes you will have a greater chance of getting the job you have always wanted.

(With some references https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internship)

About the author: L.M. Montgomery

the creator of thoughtful grins on little souls, the molder of a legend, the light of an eye-blinding ray of literature, Lucy Maud Montgomery, or better known as L.M Montgomery is one of THE most phenomenal and unparalleled authors I have ever known. the beauty of her writing is miraculous, the plot of her stories is out of this world. She is honestly my crush and will be lifelong. Bloomed into this world on the 30th of November, 1874 in the chilly town of Clifton to Clara Woolner Macneill Montgomery and Hugh John Montgomery. Hardly had she reached her 2nd year in the world, when her mother, Clara, passed away suffering from Tuberculosis. Since then, she was lonesome and quiet. A blessed child, the seven-year-old lucy, moved to Prince Albert to lead her childhood with her grandparents, when she found her imaginary friends holding her hand, later, that time of her existence was credited as a development and expansion of her creativity. In 1887, the witty and bright lucy of 13, wrote in her diary that she had, quoting, “early dreams of future fame”, she didn’t know that fate took her ‘early dreams’ very seriously.

the year 1883 was spent with her attending the Prince of Wales college to get a teacher’s license, and slowly, her love for Prince Edward Island grew as she strolled solitarily through the tranquil and starry paths down the countryside. Remarkably extraordinary as she was, Lucy completed her two-year teaching program in one year, clearly a prodigy. After, she explored the fields of literature at Dalhousie University, Halifax, nova scotia.

A part of her life was spent teaching in various schools located in Prince Edward Island after she left dalhousie university. Though Not a fan of teaching, it lent her the time to write, a hobby she loved more than herself. The spree of resplendent writing began in the year 1887 when she started publishing her short creations in several newspapers and magazines. And look how it turned out, over a hundred stories were published and hence started her journey to endless fame and love.

A gorgeous beauty, she was known to own her ‘good looks’. Those good looks resulted in many love interests in Lucy’s life. At the blooming age of fourteen, a boy named Nate Lockhart gained her affection, In response, she got the same too. Their liking turned into a relationship, for lucy, the relationship meant merely a humourous and witty friendship. Unfortunately, the love between the two birds ended abruptly when she refused his proposal.

The year 1908 can be called THE BIG BREAK for Montgomery. It is the divine and holy year ANNE OF THE GREEN GABLES was published. No surprise an immediate success, by November 1909, It had accomplished more than 6 printings. Still alive in the shelves of bibliophiles and the history of literature, We can still feel each emotion throbbing through every page we turn in the book. Every sentence is magical, some parts of the story representing real circumstances in Montgomery’s life, it is partly fictional, The plot of it almost real. This light, funny, and beautiful story is the epitome of a relax read with fun and philosophical expressions. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll have a new perspective of seeing things. The readers can feel the author’s soul which is put into it.

So many years have passed, so many revolutions the earth has taken, and still, here I am, writing about this miraculous phenomenon whom we know as our beloved L.M Montgomery.

Remembering Savitri Khanolkar, The Designer of Param Vir Chakra

Param Vir Chakra is India’s highest gallantry award.From Major Somnath Sharma to Captain Vikram Batra, 21 brave hearts of the Indian Armed Forces have so far received the prestigious Param Vir Chakra award. When Major Somnath Sharma, the first recipient of this award, laid down his life while defending his motherland, this award actually did not exist. It was later, when India became a republic in 1950, that the award was introduced, but with effect from 15th August 1947.

I’m sure most of you might have heard about this award, but what many are unaware of is that India’s highest military decoration was designed by a Swiss-born woman Eve Yvonne Maday de Maros aka Savitri Bhai Khanolkar.

Life as Eve Yvonne Maday de Maros

Eve was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland, to a Hungarian father Andre de Maday and a Russian mother Marthe Hentzelt, on the 20th of July 1913. She was raised by her father, after her mother’s death. She spent her early childhood in Geneva. As a child, she loved nature and liked being outdoors.

A turning point in her life was when in the winter of 1929, on a skiing holiday, she met Vikram Ramji Khanolkar, a young Indian Army cadet. Vikram, at that time was undergoing training at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and was holidaying in Switzerland during a team break. The meeting was just the beginning of what later blossomed into a cross country love story. Neither Vikram’s age nor her father’s disapproval stopped her from pursuing her love. She moved to India a few years later and got married to the love of her life in 1932. She converted to Hinduism and adopted the name Savitri Bhai Khanolkar after moving to India.

Life as Savitri Khanolkar

Savitri Khanolkar was a European lady with an Indian soul. She loved everything about India and its culture, which made her cross-cultural transition rather smooth and comfortable. She picked up Hindi, Marathi and Sanskrit within a couple of years and could converse fluently in all the three. She was keenly interested in India’s history and culture and devoted herself to learning more about the country’s mythology, traditions and religious scriptures. She was a talented artist and made a series of paintings depicting the various ideals and principles of Vedanta and Hindu philosophy. She also wrote two books – ‘Sanskrit Dictionary of Names’ and ‘Saints of Maharashtra.’ Those who knew her personally described her as a warm and compassionate person with a great passion for the Hindu philosophy.

*_{Maj General Vikram Khanolkar and Savitri Khanolkar | Image Source: indiatimes.com}*

Designer of Param Vir Chakra

After India became independent in 1947, especially in the light of the Indo-Pak war that had broken out, there was a pressing need to create new military honours and awards for independent India. Adjutant General Major General Hira Lal Atal had been assigned this responsibility. Major Atal hardly needed to think twice before choosing Savitri Bhai for the task. Her passion for Indian culture and Vedanta philosophy, talent as an artist and her in-depth knowledge of the country’s ancient history and traditions made her an ideal candidate for the job. Her military association as an army wife was an added bonus. She was asked to design the Indian equivalent of the British Victoria Cross – the Param Vir Chakra.

Param Vir Chakra : Design Inspiration

Savitri Bhai took inspiration from India’s ancient puranic literature and legends to design the Param Vir Chakra medal.She selected Indra’s weapon, the Vajra, which was made from the bones of Maharshi Dadhichi for the design. Maharshi Dadhichi was known for the ultimate sacrifice that he had made by giving up his body and thereby enabling the Gods to fashion the deadly weapon Vajra from his bones. The presence of Vajra in the medal is symbolic of the power and the selfless sacrifices of our legendary war heroes.

The final design consisted of the National emblem embossed in the centre, surrounded by four replicas of the double Vajra imprinted on the medal face and the rear side had the words ‘Param Vir Chakra’ inscribed both in English and Hindi, separated by Lotus flowers.The medal was cast in bronze and held by a purple ribbon.

Apart from the Param Vir Chakra, she also designed other gallantry medals including Ashok Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra, Kirti Chakra, Vir Chakra and Shaurya Chakra.

Coincidentally, the first PVC recipient turned out to be Savitri Bhai’s future son-in-law’s brother, Major Somnath Sharma.

Later life

During the course of her life, Savitri Bhai always found time to engage in social work. She was a follower of Sri Ramakrishna and she immersed herself in numerous social activities through Ramakrishna Mission. She also worked for the welfare of Jawans and their families and refugees who had been displaced during partition. She lost her husband to a heart attack in 1952, after which she found solace in spirituality and retired to Ramakrishna Math.

The life of Savitri Bhai Khanolkar was truly a remarkable one. Be it joining the North India Flying Club or learning Indian classical dance and music or attending Patna university, she enjoyed every bit of her life as an Indian woman. She passed away on 26th November 1990, after leading a full life.

Things to know before taking up Mass Media and Communication courses.

Let’s begin by knowing what Mass Media or Mass Communication is. Mass media refers to the media technologies such as movies, songs, news, podcasts, advertisements and photos, that are utilized to carry information to the masses.

Importance of Mass Media

This blog you are reading is helping you gain knowledge about Mass Media and communication. Hence this blog becomes a media technology and educating you in the field of Mass Media defines its importance. From applying for a job to reaching out to a friend on your phone, everything becomes a portion of Mass Media as they help users pass on information from one place to another or one person to another.

Here are some advantages of Mass Media to highlight its importance.

It becomes a voice for the voiceless: Mass Media provides every individual with an opportunity to practice their freedom of speech and spread their ideas among the world. YouTube is a great example of Mass Media. As a platform in this 21st century it helps both small and large creators publish their videos for everybody to watch.
Enables widespread communication: Today, the world is often referred to as a global village. This is made possible due to several types of mass media technologies such as social media, internet, and other digital content. It helps governments, businesses and organizations to communicate with each other and stay connected.
Diversifying culture: Mass Media helps in diversifying languages and cultures beyond its place of origin. A good internet connection and a mobile phone or a computer is all you need to learn a new language or gain knowledge about a new culture. You can even take a peek around the world without leaving your home.

The Evolution of Mass Media

Mass Media can be traced back to the 800 AD which consisted of prehistoric arts, writings and some basic printing technology. The introduction of Gutenberg’s printing press in the 1450s helped art and literature gain a wider reach among the people.The year 1605 witnessed the publishing of the first weekly newspaper in Antwerp, known as ‘Relation’. This was followed by the inventions of radio and television in 1895 and 1925 respectively. Finally in 1990, the world wide web was introduced by Tim Berners Lee.

The number of people benefiting from these media technologies witnessed a steady growth from a handful, to thousands, and millions with the introduction of newspapers, radios and televisions. Today, due to the internet, these numbers are reaching billions. In 2018, the number of World Wide Web’s users was estimated to be 4 billion.

The 21st century has introduced the ability for even individuals to broadcast a customised message for thousands across the globe. You no longer need to be a part of some huge networking channel to do so. A good internet connection and a hand held device can do the job.

The functions of Mass Media

Mass Media, in the form of writing, podcasting, and publishing, has a significant effect on the masses. Commercials on television, billboards and social media influence the audience into buying a product or availing a service. Hence companies across the world look for suitable mediums such as social media, blogs, forums, or video streaming platforms to convey their messages based on their businesses. Once they find the right mass media technology, they conduct campaigns to communicate their ideas.

Majority of the companies today create and maintain their social media pages, maintain blog posts on their websites, and run advertisements on video streaming platforms to educate viewers about their products or to entertain them. These define the functionality of Mass Media.

Courses in the field of Mass Media and communication

Photo by Redrecords u00a9ufe0f on Pexels.com

After addressing the ‘Wh’ questions of Mass Media, let us dive into the courses one can opt for in the field of Mass Media and communication. There are three kinds of courses available for aspiring students in the field of Mass Media and communication. Courses at undergraduate, postgraduate and diploma levels.

BJMC (Bachelor of Journalism & Mass Communication)
BJ (Bachelor of Journalism)
BMC (Bachelor of Mass Communication)
MJMC (Master of Journalism & Mass Communication)
MJ (Master of Journalism)
MMC (Master of Mass Communication)
PG Diploma in Mass Communication

Both the course levels familiarise students both practically and theoretically in the field of Mass Media and Communication.

Eligibility for courses in Mass Media and communication (UG PG)

A student aspiring to seek admission in a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication course, he or she must fulfil some eligibility criterias.

The applicant should have completed senior secondary schooling (10+2) from a recognized university.
The applicant must have scored a minimum of 50% from the aggregate in their senior secondary schooling.

Similarly, students aspiring for seeking admission in the Master of Arts in Mass Communication course must fulfil the following eligibility criterias.

The applicant must have a Bachelor’s degree in any stream from a recognized university.
The applicant must have scored a minimum of 50% from the aggregates in their Bachelor’s degree.

Institutes may also require you to give an entrance exam to fulfil the admission process.

Here’s what you will learn from Mass Media and Communication courses

Courses in Mass Media helps you get acquainted with subjects such as Public Relations, Design and Graphics, Digital Media, Reporting and Editing for Print Media, Data Journalism, Photojournalism, Event Management, and Media Law and Ethics. The courses are inclusive of Computer based learning, Guest Lectures, Seminars, Workshops, Massive Open Online Courses, Individual and Group projects, and community based projects.

Scope for Mass Media courses under employment prospect.

With an increase in media technologies following new inventions and establishments such as Television Channels, Radio Stations, Advertising Agencies, PR Agencies, etc. Scope in this field is also parallely increasing. Here are some of the job profiles candidates can look out for upon completion of the course.

Journalism
Public Relations
Advertising
Media Planner
Broadcasting and Production
Event Manager

Conclusion

Mass Media and Communication as a field in academics has a great scope in India and overseas. Freshers with expertise in specific areas and sufficient experience will be hired by prominent media companies for different job profiles. Individuals with good communication skills, writing proficiency, and passion for learning can pursue an undergraduate or a postgraduate course in Mass Media and Communication.

References

Ritika Shrivastava, May 17, 2021 09:36 IST, shiksha.com

Akanksha Sirohi, July 15 2020, collegedekho.com

https://www.careers360.com/courses/mass-communication-course

What does your taste in music reveal about you?

pink headphone isolates on blue background.

Music plays an important role in the lives of people all over the world, which is why many wonder what individual factors might influence musical preferences. Ever thought, Could the contents of your playlist, for example, reveal something about your personality?

Personality Traits Linked to Musical Styles

One large-scale study conducted by researchers at Heriot-Watt University looked at more than 36,000 participants from all over the world. Participants were asked to rate more than 104 different musical styles in addition to offering information about aspects of their personalities.

According to the researcher, Adrian North, the reason people sometimes feel defensive about their taste in music might be related to how much it relates to attitudes and personality.

North suggests that people define themselves through music and use it to relate to other people. His research points to the connection that people often make between who they are as an individual and their musical tastes.

Keep in mind that these are the results published in only one study rather than being replicated and validated by a variety of researchers and different study designs. The following are some of the personality traits the study linked to certain musical styles.

Pop Music

Fans of the top 40 pop hits tend to be extroverted, honest, and conventional. While pop music lovers are hardworking and have high self-esteem, researchers suggest that they tend to be less creative and more uneasy.

Rap and Hip/Hop Music

Despite the stereotype that rap lovers are more aggressive or violent, researchers have found no such link. Rap fans do tend to have high self-esteem and are usually outgoing.

Country Music

Country music fans are typically hardworking, conventional, and outgoing. While country songs are often centered on heartbreak, people who gravitate towards this genre tend to be very emotionally stable. They also tend to be more conservative and rank lower on the trait of openness to experience.

Rock/Heavy Metal Music

Despite the sometimes aggressive image that rock and heavy metal music project, researchers found that fans of this style of music are usually quite gentle. They tend to be creative, but are often introverted and may suffer from low self-esteem.

Indie Music

Fans of the indie genre are typically introverted, intellectual, and creative. According to researchers, they also tend to be less hardworking and less gentle. Passivity, anxiousness, and low self-esteem are other common personality characteristics.

Dance Music

According to researchers, people who prefer dance music are usually outgoing and assertive. They also tend to rank high on the trait of openness to experience, one of the five major personality traits. People who prefer fast-paced electronic music also tend to rank low on gentleness.

Classical Music

Classical music lovers are typically more introverted but are also at ease with themselves and the world around them. They are creative and have a good sense of self-esteem.

Jazz, Blues, and Soul Music

People who enjoy jazz, blues, or soul music were found to be more extroverted with high self-esteem. They also tend to be very creative, intelligent, and at ease.

THIS RACE CALLED LIFE

Once upon a time, there was a young athletic boy hungry for success for whom winning was everything and success was measured just by winning. One day, the boy was preparing himself for a running competition in his small village, himself and two other young boys to compete. A large crowd had gathered to witness the sporting spectacle and a wise old man, upon hearing of the little boy, had travelled far to bear witness also. The race commenced, looking like a level heat at the finishing line, but sure enough the boy dug deep and called on his determination, strength and power. He took the winning line and was first. The crowd was ecstatic and cheered and waved at the boy. The wise man remained still and calm expressing no sentiment. The little boy, however felt proud and important. A second race was called, and two new young fit, challenges came forward, to run with the little boy. The race was started and sure enough the little boy came through and finished first once again. The crowd was ecstatic again and cheered and waved at the boy. The wise man remained still and calm again expressing no sentiment. The little boy, however felt proud and important. “Another race, another race!” pleaded the little boy. The wise old man stepped forward and presented the little boy with two new challenges an elderly frail lady and a blind man. “What is this?”, quizzed the little boy. “This is no race” he exclaimed. “Race!”, said the wise man. The race was started and the boy was the only finisher, the other two challengers left standing at the starting line. The little boy was ecstatic, he raised his arms in delight. The crowd however were silent, showing no sentiment toward the little boy. “What has happened? Why not do the people join in my success?” he asked the wise old man. “Race again”, replied the wise man, “ this time, finish together, all three of you, finish together” continued the wise man. The little boy thought a little stood in the middle of the blind man and the frail old lady, and then look the two challengers by the hand. The race began and the little boy walked slowly, ever so slowly, to the finishing line and crossed it. The crowd were ecstatic and cheered and waved at the boy. The wise man smiled, gently nodding his head. The little boy felt proud and important. “old man, I understand not! Who are the crowd cheering for? Which one of us three?” asked the little boy. The wise old man looked into the little boy’s eyes, placing his hands on the boy’s shoulders, and replied softly.

What is Customized Report Writing Service

Report writing is an art and skill that all students should learn during their academic years in the university as this skill skill is must for a corporate and professional life.

Together, we can achieve this by utilizing custom report writing tools to extract data from your system and present it back to you in almost any format you desire. We have years of experience optimizing the functionality that exists within custom report writers. The customization request we receive most often is to present data based on certain circumstances, also known as conditional reporting. For example, when analyzing the profitability report of your business, you may want the color of a field to change when invoices are below a 25% margin level, or to have the ability to define this margin level each time you run the report. This is just one example, and these types of conditions are limitless as defined by your needs.

Take advantage of our expertise to work with Oasis Solutions to either design the report exactly as you need, or let us train you to design your own custom report.

It is a fact that the role of custom report writing is very vital and essential in order to determine the business needs and improvement required to enhance the organization. People can use the top free statistical software of 2020 to make their custom report effective and efficient. In these types of reports, an individual tends to work on the critical parts of the data so that higher dignitaries would come into a position to know about the loopholes in the management, sales, and other key areas. In a custom report basically, you have to pick the dimensions and metrics and plan how would you showcase that information as per the convenience of the reader? Almost, all the finest education system in the world loves to inculcate custom report knowledge amongst the students who are willing to learn the same art. Let us now attain some deep knowledge regarding the same subject.

Some true statements regarding the role of custom report writing

It is a fact that a detailed object present in Master-Detail cannot be treated as a secondary object for sure.
A person who is creating a report can choose any object unless and until it isn’t visible to him or her.
When the primary object of the report is deleted then make sure to delete reports related to it.
As soon as the report type is saved with the primary object then the primary object cannot be changed.
It is quite obvious that custom summary formulas can take reference from other custom summary formulas.
Also, reports can be grouped or organized by a custom summary formula result in a proper way.

Steps to create a custom report type in salesforce

There are several steps that help with the presentation of the custom reports and it is very essential to learn those ways in order to make your report effective and professional

From the setup section, you have to enter report type in the Quick find box
Then, click on the new custom report type and choose the primary object of the specific report.
Make sure to enter the report type label and report type name that can be of 50 characters.
Do not forget to select the category in which you want to store the report.
In the end, you should select the development status and click on the next option.

What are the benefits of making custom reports?

The role of custom report writing possesses lots of significance in the life of an individual who is making different reports on a daily basis and in the below section you are going to get some idea about the same.

Help to save time with automation: time-saving is one of the most prominent key benefits of making custom reports because it eradicates the long process of crunching the numbers in Excel and then having to create the report.
Create excellent custom visualization: creating your own visualization as per your comfort zone helps to attain better interpretation of the data and it also lets a person make informed decisions by granting instant solutions.
Give a measurement of performance: every organization works on different goals that make them use different metrics and with the usage of custom reports one can easily design his or her goal and perspective about anything related to work.
Increased productivity: as we all know due to possessing flexible features custom reports tend to work in an excellent manner for all types of organizations by translating any data into actionable insight in an appropriate manner.

Pros and cons of creating custom reports

Pros

Controlling: senior people who hold the decision-making power in an organization often use these reports to take over the control of the crucial decisions about the organization.
Motivating employees: through different reports, managers tend to get knowledge about the contribution of his or her employees that helps the staff to get appraisal and recognition of their work.
Evaluating performance: by reading several reports one can easily evaluate the performance of the employees working on all levels in a better and proper manner.
Helps in decision-making: these reports generally point out the loopholes in the policies and way of working in the organization that leads to the best decision making

Cons

Biasness: it is a fact that if an individual who is making the reports tends to favor some person or the situation then he or she would end up creating biased reports.
Time-consuming: creating and generating reports is a time-consuming process and it tends to waste valuable time on useless data gathering.
Expensive: making different reports may lead to an increase in the cost or expense of an organization because it needs experimentation and evaluation.
Difficult to understand: it is the most obvious fact that these reports could become complex to understand because they include the deep study of various factors.

Method to create a custom student report

Custom student reports can be considered as a tricky task because it includes complex features like naming the report, specifying the report criteria, choosing the data field to be included, and so on.

First of all, you have to click on the module access icon then the data and reports option followed by choosing the custom reports option.
Tap on the new student report option present on the top right side of the screen and enter the name of the report into the field.
Make sure to select the report criteria and do not forget to choose the data field to be included in the report by clicking the arrow icon.
In the end, you need to click on the save button situated at the bottom of the page and click on the show report option to get a preview.

Custom Report Writing Service

I hope, you are now well aware of the use and role of custom report writing. In case you are a student and your college or university has given you assignments regarding the same report the all you need to do is to navigate to Custom Report Writing Service in order to buy assignment help in reference to any topic and matter. Here, the expert educators tend to deliver the best possible solutions to all sorts of queries in context with your academics. Our trained teachers strive to work day and night in order to bring out excellent solutions to your service. So, what are you waiting for when you are getting all possible help from our side? It is advisable not to panic at the time of emergency and get in touch with well-trained and educated teachers on an online and offline basis. We work for 24 hours and try to answer every query without causing a delay. At the same time, our teachers conduct free revision sessions for all types of students that too in an efficient and effective manner. Providing online classes as per the region’s preferences is our responsibility. All you need to do is to connect with the experts as and when you need expert guidance.

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system in which a country’s trade, industry, and profits, are controlled by private companies instead of the people who contribute their time and labour to the company. In this system, private entities own the factors of production such as entrepreneurship, capital goods, natural resources, and workforce. Individual capitalists are typically wealthy people who have a large amount of capital invested into the business and benefit from the capitalistic system by making increased profits and thereby accumulating more wealth.

Capitalism requires a free market economy to succeed. It distributes goods and services according to the laws of supply and demand. The law of demand says that when demand increases for a particular product, its price rises. When competitors realize they can make a higher profit, they increase production. The greater the supply reduces prices to a level where only the best competitors remain.

Capitalism results in the best products for the best prices because consumers will pay more for what they want the most. Businesses provide what customers want at the highest prices, but the prices are limited by business competition, making their products as efficiently as possible to maximize profit. Most important for economic growth is the reward of capitalism for innovation, including new products and more efficient production methods.

Capitalism does not provide for those who lack competitive skills, including the elderly, children, the developmentally disabled, and caretakers. To keep society functioning, capitalism requires government policies that value the family unit. Despite the idea of a level playing field, capitalism does not promote equality of opportunity. Those without good nutrition, support, and education may never even make it, and society will never benefit from their valuable skills. People who can find work may face low wages, limited possibilities for advancement, and potentially unsafe working conditions. In the short term, this inequality may seem to be in the best interest of capitalism’s winners. They have fewer competitive threats and may use their power to rig the system by creating barriers to entry. Capitalism also ignores external costs, such as pollution and climate change, in its pursuit of increasing levels of consumption and growth. The system makes goods cheaper and more accessible in the short run, but over time, it depletes natural resources, lowers the quality of life in the affected areas, and increases costs for everyone.

Story of Netflix

When Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph founded Netflix (formerly known as Kibble) in 1997, the company appeared to be little more than an upstart DVD rental business whose only real value proposition was the mail-order element of its operation. Fast forward two decades and Netflix has become one of the biggest TV and movie studios in the world, with more subscribers than all the cable TV channels in America combined. How did Netflix go from renting movies to making them in just 20 years?

By consistently doing the obvious.

For Netflix, however, doing the obvious rarely meant taking the easy way out. It meant making business decisions that were so difficult and so ambitious, few people could even see them, let alone understand them. Netflix has innovated in several key ways. They started with a frictionless DVD rental business facilitated by the internet, developed an entirely new streaming business from scratch, and finally invested in original content creation. But many of the most pivotal moves Netflix has made during the past 20 years haven’t been all that surprising. As we’ll see, it makes perfect sense that Netflix became a movie studio. It just didn’t look that way to most people in the beginning.

1997-2006: From Video Rentals by Mail to Smart Suggestions by Algorithm

To the casual observer, Netflix might look like one of the luckiest companies in the world.

For every major change or development in the home entertainment market, Netflix always seems to be just off-screen, waiting to capitalize on the latest consumer trend. Netflix has had its fair share of these kinds of opportunities, but good fortune had very little to do with the company’s early wins.

Netflix’s secret weapon wasn’t luck but rather a keen understanding of its market. Hastings and Randolph may have built their initial business around DVDs, but they knew they wouldn’t be in the DVD business forever—even if nobody else did.

Legend has it that Reed Hastings decided to start Netflix after returning a copy of Apollo 13 to his local Blockbuster. Upon returning to the movie, Hastings was told that he owed $40 in late fees. Fearing what his wife would say about such a steep late fee and convinced there must be a better way to rent movies, Hastings began to devise what would later become Netflix.

Although Randolph later disputed Hastings’ story about their company’s origins, Netflix did indeed set out to change the way we rented movies. In 1997, Blockbuster was the undisputed king of the home entertainment rental vertical, which made Netflix’s mail-order DVD rental business unique. As a result, when Netflix launched in ’97, many people understandably thought the business was focused exclusively on distribution—most people saw Netflix as nothing more than a more convenient way to rent movies.

Although this was a crucial element of Netflix’s early business, Hastings and Randolph never set out to be the best entertainment distribution company. They saw an opportunity to use the internet to decentralize entertainment and unbundle premium TV from the monopolistic grip of Big Cable, even if nobody else recognized their initial play for what it was. DVD rentals were never Netflix’s endgame – they were just a way for the new company to gain a tentative toehold in an intensely competitive market.

1997: Netflix launches with a video library of approximately 900 titles, with a 7-day maximum rental policy. By April 1999, Netflix’s video library expands to 3,100 titles. Rentals initially cost just 50 cents each. By January 2000, Netflix’s catalog reaches 5,200 titles.

HOW TO DEVELOP SELF CONFIDENCE

Confidence isn’t walking into a room thinking that you’re better than anyone. It’s walking in knowing. That you don’t want to COMPARE yourself to anyone. Comparing yourself to another person that isn’t even in your system. There’s no thought of comparisons. There is no competition with any other human. You are not below anyone that’s confidence. When you can get to the place in your life. Where comparison is dead. When you are good enough not to others. But to yourself that is confidence and you can be good enough right now. Because you are good right now. You might just need to change your mindset.” CONFIDENCE “can be developed in many ways. You can start with your physiology, your posture. If I asked you what a confident person looked like would you be able to tell me? Of course you would they look strong, sure of themselves. How are they standing? They are standing TALL. How are their shoulders? They are BACK, upright. They make eye contact their head is up, not down. Now a SHY or introverted person might say. Yeah, well that’s all good for outgoing people but I will never be confident. Anyone can develop confidence. Some might have to work on it harder than others because they have conditioned themselves into a lack of confidence for much of their life but anyone can develop confidence. Even the majority of shy people have moments where they aren’t shy like around people they trust may be family, friends or their partner. Moments where they can be themselves fully. So the shyness is selective which means you can make confidence permanent. If you CONSCIOUSLY decide to be the person and do the things you do not just around those you trust the most, but all the time. Being confident doesn’t mean you are LOUD. It isn’t about being the one that has to be noticed. I’s the opposite, it’s knowing you’re great, without having to be seen. It’s the silent winner. It’s the humble champion. If you lack confidence, you can change. If you lack anything, YOU CAN CHANGE. You can be anything in life including radical personality change. IF you are COMMITTED to finding the answers. “UNLOCK THE GREATEST VERSION OF YOURSELF”. Your true nature of confidence of pure positive energy. Unlock your authentic power today.

Major Somnath Sharma – The Hero of Battle of Badgam

The day November 3rd 2021, marked the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Badgam. This battle was one of the most prominent defensive encounters which took place at Badgam in Kashmir valley, between troops of the Indian Army and Pakistani tribal raiders, on the 3rd of November 1947.

On this occasion, let’s take a look at the life of the legendary war hero, Major Somnath Sharma whose name has become synonymous with the Battle of Badgam. Major Sharma was martyred in action during the battle, while repulsing the infiltrators. He made history by becoming the first recipient of Param Vir Chakra, India’s highest military decoration, for his exemplary leadership and gallantry.

Early life

Major Somnath Sharma was born on 31st January 1923 at Dadh, Kangra (present day Himachal Pradesh).He was a second generation army officer. His father Amar Nath Sharma was an Army Medical Corps Officer and several of siblings have also served in the military services. His uncle Captain K. D Vasudeva, who had died during the Malayan Campaign in World War II, was also a great influence throughout his career.

Somnath, fondly called as Somi, and his brother, called as Tindy in the army circles, were sent to Hampton Court Convent Mussoorie at a young age, as their father was sent to England for a medical course. The brothers then went on to pursue their studies together in Sherwood College, Nainital. Somnath was enrolled in Prince of Wales Royal Military College in Dehradun after his schooling. After passing out from there, he joined the Indian Military Academy, in 1941 but the military training program had to be stopped in between due to the World War.

*_{^{Major Somnath Sharma. Source: Honourpoint}}*

“The enemies are only 50 yards from us. We are heavily outnumbered. We are under devastating fire. I shall not withdraw an inch but will fight to our last man and our last round.”
_{Param Vir Chakra Citation}

Military Life

After a rigorous training of 9 months, in February 1942, he was assigned to the 8th Battalion, 19th Hyderabad Regiment(which later came to be known as 4th Battalion, Kumaon Regiment), at the age of 19.

Arakan Campaign

Under the command of Col. K.S. Thimmayya, he saw action against the Japanese in Burma. Once during a deadly combat with Japan, when a saw a wounded Kumaoni soldier who was stranded on the field due to his injury, Somnath picked him up and carried him on his back through the Japanese shelling to a safe place. He was mentioned in dispatches for many such acts of bravery exhibited during the Arakan campaign.

Battle of Badgam

On the 22nd of October 1942 the Kashmir valley was invaded by Pakistan. In response to that, on 27th October 1942, a contingent of troops of the Indian army was airlifted to Srinagar. Around this time, Major Somnath Sharma had returned to India and was an adjutant in 4 Kumaon, where he had picked up his duty to ensure internal security of Punjab. That and his experience in working with the police and administration during the 1947 unrest, qualified him to be chosen as a commander of D company of the 4th Battalion of Kumaon Regiment. Somnath at this time, was recovering from an injury sustained previously on the hockey field and his left hand was still in plaster cast and hence initially, the commanding officer of 4th Battalion Kumaon was hesitant in sending Somnath along with the troops, but ultimately had to give in to Somnath’s persistence.On 31st October, D Company of 4 Kumaon Regiment was flown to Srinagar.

On November 3rd 1942, a batch of 3 companies – A and D company of 4 Kumaon, led by Major.Sharma and 1 Para Kumaon commanded by Captain Ronald Wood – was deployed to Badgam to search for the infiltrators and stem their advance towards Srinagar.

Major Somnath’s company had taken position and dug trenches on a hill west of the village and 1 Para Kumaon had positioned themselves in the south east part of the village. According to the Major’s report, the village seemed calm and eerily quiet. Detecting no enemy movements, 1 Para Kumaon was instructed to take a round of the east and go back to the airbase in Srinagar. By around 2 p.m, A company was also removed from the field and D company was instructed to stay in position until 3 p.m.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the border, the Lashkar, under the leadership of a Pakistani major was planning an attack on the Indian soldiers patrolling the area and was accumulating in small units, to avoid suspicion.

Half an hour after the withdrawal of A company, a group of villagers who had gathered around a nala (water body), began to move around and disperse in different directions. Little did the Kumaonis know that these were the infiltrators disguised as civilians with their weapons hidden inside their loose cloaks.The company was hence shocked when firing commenced from the houses in the village. In order not to endanger the lives of innocent civilians, counter-fire was not ordered. While Major Sharma was reporting the changed situation in the village, a large group of around 700 odd raiders barged in and surrounded the company from three sides. The enemy opened heavy mortar fire on the company.

The company suffered heavy casualties from the attack and were vastly outnumbered by a ratio 7:1. Realising that the city of Srinagar and the airfield would be vulnerable if they failed to engage the raiders, Major Sharma held onto his position and urged his men to fight tenaciously. Even when he knew that his company wouldn’t be able to stop the enemy for long, he and men fought ferociously. It was a real challenge to keep up the spirits of his men alive in the given circumstances. This is when he displayed his exemplary leadership skills by rushing from one post to another boosting the team’s morale and motivating them to put up a brave defense. He laid out panels to guide the Indian aircrafts, which were coming for their aid, to the enemy targets. On realising that his company’s firing power had been adversely affected as a result of the heavy casualties suffered, he took up the task of filling the magazines and issuing them to his men operating on light machine guns. While he was at it, a mortar shell exploded on a pile of ammunition right next to him, leading to his death.

His exceptional courage set an example for his men, who continued to fight even after his death with all the vigour that they had. However, by the time reinforcements arrived, the company had suffered severe damage including the death of Major Somnath Sharma, one Junior Commissioned Officer and 20 other soldiers. Sharma’s company was successful in inflicting much heavier losses on the enemy. The raiders had lost over 200 men and their leader had been incapacitated, which resulted in their movement losing its momentum. The fierce resistance of Sharma’s company delayed the enemy for 6 crucial hours, thus giving the Indian Air Force enough time to get into position and thus preventing the infiltrators from gaining the airfield.

For his exceptional valour, exemplary leadership and supreme sacrifice, Major Somnath Sharma was awarded the Param Vir Chakra posthumously, on June 21st 1950.

On the 75th ‘Battle of Badgam Day’, November 3rd 2021, the Indian Army paid tribute to this brave son of India who laid down his life to defend his motherland.

Sustainable Development

Sustainable development refers to development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It is the idea that human societies must live and meet their needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable development attempts to minimize greenhouse gases, reduce global warming, preserve environmental resources, and provide communities that allow people to reach their fullest potentials. The concept of sustainable development formed the basis of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The summit marked the first international attempt to draw up action plans and strategies for moving towards a more sustainable pattern of development. It was attended by over 100 Heads of State and representatives from 178 national governments.

Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the first woman prime minister of Norway was asked to chair a United Nations commission to address “a global agenda for change.” She came to make strong impact on the commission’s work, widely referred to as the Brundtland Commission. She developed the broad political concept of sustainable development in the course of extensive public hearings. Brundtland has become known as the “mother of sustainability” since the release of the 1987 report, Our Common Future.

Pillars of Sustainability:

The three pillars of sustainability are a powerful tool for defining the Sustainable Development problem. This consists of the Social, and Environmental, and Economic pillars.

Social Sustainability:

Social Sustainability is the ability of a social system, such as a country, family, or organization, to function at a defined level of social well-being and harmony indefinitely. Problems like war, endemic poverty, widespread injustice, and low education rate are symptoms of a socially unsustainable system.

Environmental Sustainability:

Environmental Sustainability is the ability of the environment to support a defined level of environmental quality and natural resource extraction rates indefinitely. This is the world’s biggest actual problem, though, since the consequences of not solving the problem now are delayed, the problem receives too low a priority to be solved.

Economic Sustainability:

Economic Sustainability is the ability of an economy to support a defined level of economic production indefinitely. Since the Great Recession of 2008, this is the world’s biggest apparent problem that endangers progress due to environmental sustainability.

Sustainable Development Goals:

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the global goals, includes 17 interlinked goals, addressing global challenges, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace, and justice. In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the SDGs intending to meet the target by 2030. The goals are a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.

No Poverty – End poverty in all its forms everywhere.
Zero Hunger – End hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.
Good Health and Well-Being – Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all of all ages.
Quality Education – Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all.
Gender Equality – Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
Clean Water and Sanitation – Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
Affordable and Clean Energy – Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all.
Decent Work and Economic Growth – Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.
Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure – Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.
Reduced Inequalities – Reduce inequality within and among countries.
Sustainable Cities and Communities – Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
Responsible Consumption and Production – Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
Climate Action – Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
Life Below Water – Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
Life on Land – Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.
Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions – Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
Partnerships for the Goals – Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

Benefits of solo travel

These days, an increasing number of modern explorers are taking vacations by themselves. As the solo travel movement goes from strength to strength, we are highlighting some of the positive aspects of taking a trip on your own. Here is my look at the benefits of solo travel.

You can be completely selfish

This may be the only context in which selfishness isn’t a bad thing. Traveling with others means making plans with others. Checking out local landmarks, museums, restaurants, and attractions can be challenging when each traveler has something different in mind. But what if you could spend each day in any way you like? Fancy spending six hours in a single museum, or trekking for miles in chilly conditions? Go right ahead.

You meet interesting people

When you travel with others, you typically stick together. In other words, you’re less likely to wander away from your group. But traveling alone brings something truly valuable to the table – you’ll be more likely to chat with locals, meet new friends and generally be more sociable.

You come to know yourself more intimately

These days, we’re constantly bombarded by stimulation – relentless connectivity to others, as well as the Internet. Rarely do we get the chance to sit with ourselves and simply be. Solo travel provides the opportunity to do just that. Being on your own in a new place serves as a permission slip to slow down, without the distractions you’d feel buzzing around you when traveling with companions. Being alone, and embracing it, is a wonderful part of solo travel.

You can rest without feeling guilty

Feeling wiped out from a long flight? Or from exploring a new city on foot? Let’s face it, there’s only so much running around you can do. But when you’re traveling with friends, the pressure to keep going can be intense. When traveling alone, on the other hand, you can head back to your room for a guilt-free mid-afternoon nap.

Traveling alone can provide the restful break you need. Photo: Darkydoors/Shutterstock

You step outside your comfort zone

When traveling with friends, you often troubleshoot travel hiccups together. Can’t find your way around? The solution usually comes by talking it over. Taking a trip on your means you have to get out of any tricky trip situations by yourself, which can help with problem-solving, dealing with pressure, and developing self-belief.

You’re less likely to feel stressed out

When you’re out and about with your usual friends from home, it’s easy for old routines and group dynamics to creep up on you. Not so when you’re on your own. You’re there for you and you alone – the only drama you’re going to experience is the drama you make yourself.

You’ll have the time and inspiration to work on creative projects

Been dying to delve into a creative project? Whether it’s writing poetry, developing a new business plan, or playing the guitar, traveling alone provides the opportunity – and inspiration – to tap into these desires. When you’re untethered to the demands of others you’ll probably find it easier to nurture your creativity.

It might make you happier in the long term

Research suggests that getting into vacation mode has the potential to increase our happiness levels. And spending time alone has also been shown to stave off depression. The takeaway? Heading off on a solo adventure just might be good for your overall well-being.

Solo travel can help you develop new skills. Photo: Daxiao Productions/Shutterstock

You’ll probably improve your language skills

What better way to learn a new language than to throw yourself in headfirst? Full immersion in a foreign culture (and tongue) is possibly the best way to dismantle the language barrier. When traveling with others, you’re more likely to rely on them for help with translating. And, let’s face it, chances are high that you’ll communicate with one another in your native language. When you’re alone, on the other hand, you’re forced to constantly practice the new language.

(With reference from outlook.com)

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

WHAT IS CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR)?

INFOSYS LIMITED

ROLEX WATCH CO. LTD.

MAHINDRA AND MAHINDRA LTD.

WALT DISNEY COMPANY

COCA- COLA COMPANY

TATA CHEMICALS LTD.

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Origin Of Public Administration

Meaning And Definitions

Significance of Public Administration

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Types Of Animal Husbandry

Role Of Animal Husbandry In Human Welfare

Strategies For Enhancement Of Food Production

Main Steps Required For Developing New Varieties

Rate this:

Is Criticism good for you ?

So, what exactly is Constructive and Destructive criticism ?

How do you identify them ?

How to deal with criticism ?

Bottom Line

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Courses to take up after BA In English Literature

Master of Arts in Communication

Eligibility

Employment Opportunities

Master of Arts in Sociology

Eligibility

Employment Opportunities

Master of Arts in English Literature

Eligibility

Employment Opportunities

Bachelor of Law (LLB)

Eligibility

Employment Opportunities

Bachelor of Education

Eligibility

Job Profiles

References

Rate this:

6. Instagram Reels:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Rate this:

Early Life

Lakshmi Swaminathan to Captain Lakshmi – The Journey