a creative marketer more artist or entrepreneur.Historically, the term “marketing creative” has been associated with the words and pictures that go into ad campaigns. But marketing, like other corporate functions, has become more complex and rigorous. Marketers need to master data analytics, customer experience, and product design. Do these changing roles require a new way of thinking about creativity in marketing.

To explore this question, we interviewed senior marketing executives across dozens of top brands. We asked them for examples of creativity in marketing that go beyond ad campaigns and deliver tangible value to the business. Their stories and the five wider trends they reflect help illustrate what it means to be a creative marketer today.

Create with the customer, not just for the customer

Everyone likes to talk about being “customer-centric.” But too often this means taking better aim with targeted campaigns. Customers today are not just consumers; they are also creators, developing content and ideas — and encountering challenges  right along with you. Creativity in marketing requires working with customers right from the start to weave their experiences with your efforts to expand your company’s reach.For example, Intuit’s marketing team spends time with self-employed people in their homes and offices to immerse themselves in the customer’s world. Through this research, they identified a pain point of tracking vehicle gas mileage. Based on these marketing insights, Intuit created a new feature within its app that combines location data, Google maps, and the user’s calendar to automatically track mileage and simplify year-end tax planning.

Invest in the end-to-end experience 

Every marketer believes the customer experience is important. But most marketers only focus on the parts of that experience under their direct control. Creative marketers take a broader view and pay attention to the entire customer experience from end to end. This includes the product, the buying process, the ability to provide support, and customer relationships over time. That takes time and resources – and it also requires bringing creative thinking to unfamiliar problems.

Kaiser Permanente believes that as health care becomes more consumer-oriented, the digital experience becomes a key differentiator. The marketing team instituted a welcome program to help improve the experience for new plan members. Members are guided on how to register for an online member portal, which provides access to email your doctor, refill prescriptions, make appointments, and more. The welcome program required coordination with many areas of the business.

Turn everyone into an advocate

In a fragmented media and social landscape, marketers can no longer reach their goals for awareness and reputation just through paid media and PR. People are the new channel. The way to amplify impact is by inspiring creativity in others. Treat everyone as an extension of your marketing team: employees, partners, and even customers.Plum Organics gives each employee business cards with coupons attached. While shopping, all employees are encouraged to observe consumers shopping the baby category. When appropriate, they ask a few questions about shoppers’ baby food preferences and share business cards with coupons for free products as a gesture of appreciation

Bring creativity to measurement 

The measurability of digital engagement means we can now know exactly what’s working and not working. This gives marketing an opportunity to measure and manage itself in new ways. In the past, marketing measured success by sticking to budgets and winning creative awards. Today, the ability to measure data and adjust strategies in real-time enables marketing to prove its value to the business in entirely new ways.Cisco has created a real-time, online dashboard where the entire marketing organization can look at performance. The leadership team conducts a weekly evaluation to assess, “Is what we’re doing working?” This analysis can be done across different digital initiatives, geographies, channels, or even individual pieces of content. The result is an ability to quickly adjust and re-allocate resources.

Think like a startup

In the past, marketers needed to be effective managers, setting goals well in advance and then working within budget to achieve those goals. Today, creative marketers need to operate more like entrepreneurs, continuously adjusting to sustain “product/market fit.”

The start-up Checkr represents a trend we are seeing more of in the Bay Area in particular. Marketers are adopting the business practices of entrepreneurs such as lean startup and agile development. For its background check solution, Checkr wasn’t getting the results it wanted from traditional sales and marketing tactics as it expanded into new market segments. They realized they had to think beyond marketing as promoting an existing product. Adopting an agile method of customer testing and rapid iteration, they worked with engineering to rethink the product and bring a “minimum viable product” to market for these new buyers. As a result of this integrated, agile approach, the company easily hit some early 2017 revenue targets with conversion rates that are four times what is traditionally seen in the industry.

By : G Gnana Priya dharshini

Knowing someone who has an addiction is not uncommon, but knowing the best way to help a loved one with an addiction can be confusing and even scary. When someone has an addiction, it can affect every aspect of their lives as well as the lives of their loved ones. You will inevitably be concerned about your loved one, and it can be difficult to know what to do and what not to do, but it’s important to remember that recovery is a solution. Once you’ve noticed the signs of addiction like alcohol addiction or an opioid addiction, for example you’ll need to know how to talk to and treat them in a way that is positive and helpful. There are several ways to do this, some easy to practice and others that require a little more effort and understanding on your part. Here are few do’s and don’t for helping someone with an addiction:

DON’T:

• SHAME OR CRITICIZE:Human nature sometimes forces us to shift the blame because it’s easier to understand a problem if we know its source. But the cause of addictions isn’t so black and white, so there’s never really just one thing to blame. Most importantly, the person with the addiction is not at fault for the disease. Avoid implying or outright stating that the person is to blame for their addiction. Shaming or criticizing a family member who is struggling with alcohol addiction is often counterproductive to their recovery. Instead, talk with positivity and encouragement, offering the idea of a future of successful long term recovery. Provide verbal and physical encouragement rather than lectures and nagging.
• EXPECT IMMEDIATE CHANGE:One of the best ways is to be realistic in your expectations. Long term recovery is not a quick fix. It’s an ongoing process for the person that takes time, effort and continued support from professionals and family alike. Some treatments may work for some time and then need to be changed. if one treatment doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean all treatments will fail. It just means you’ll have to find the specific one that will work for the person.
• ENABLE THEM:There can be a fine line between helping someone with an addiction and enabling them. Sometimes when we think we’re protecting the person from the consequences of their addiction, we are actually enabling them to continue with potentially destructive behavior. Studies show that people with addictions are more likely to proactively seek treatment when they are forced to face the consequences of their actions. So, if you want to know how to help someone with addiction, allow them to make mistakes without the promise of your rescue.
• GIVE IN TO MANIPULATION:When a person with an addiction is unwilling to seek treatment, they will resort to whatever they need to do to continue feeding their addiction. This may include lying or trying to guilt the people who care for them. It’s important to establish boundaries and learn how to say no. It may be very difficult to not react negatively or to stick to your established rules, but it’s necessary for everyone involved.
• VIOLATE THEIR PRIVACY:In taking care of yourself and attending therapy, you may be tempted to vent about the person with addiction. While you should be as honest about your feeling as possible when getting therapy, it’s important to respect their privacy. This is especially relevant when discussing someone with addiction with friends or family. Make sure the person is okay being talked about and having their struggles discussed. If you attend counseling with the person, make sure you don’t reveal what was said in session to others. If the person attends therapy or counselling on their own and don’t want to discuss what they talked about in session, respect that and don’t push them into detail.

DO’S:

• HAVE COMPASSION:Addiction is a disease. Normally, we wouldn’t fault someone with a physical disease, like diabetes or cancer instead, we would likely be compassionate and willing to help them survive their illness. Addiction deserves the same compassion and understanding. Recognize that addiction isn’t a character flaw or a choice, but rather a disease. It’s also crucial to understand there may be external factors that encourage an addiction, like stress or mental illness. Addiction is often a coping mechanism for stress, providing temporary relief. The fleetingness of the relief may contribute to repeatedly seeking out potentially destructive habits that develop over time into an alcohol or opioid addiction.
• EXPECT DIFFICULTIES:Rehabilitation can be difficult for the person. There are many reasons a person may be reluctant to seek treatment:
  • SHAME-They may feel like they will be looked down on or endanger their jobs and relationships by admitting to having an addiction.
  • STIGMA-Unfortunately, there is still a lot of stigma around diseases of the brain, like addiction and various mental illnesses, and your loved one may be unable or unwilling to expose themselves to it.
  • DENIAL-Someone with an addiction may not be willing or able to admit that they have an addiction at all, let alone consider treatment.
• EDUCATE YOURSELF:Knowledge is power, and educating yourself on addiction and treatment is a benefit when learning how to help someone with an addiction. Educate yourself on the specific type of recovery that the person is in, so you can better understand that what he/she is going through and what sort of help is he/she is receiving. It’s also useful to learn about addiction in general. The more you know, the better you’ll understand what is going on and be able to better help the person.
• SEEK COUNSELLING OR THERAPY:Addiction affects everyone, from the person in treatment to the person. It’s importance to ensure you’re well enough to manage the potential stress of helping someone dealing with addiction. Acknowledging that you may be in over your head and in need of professional help is normal and healthy. It’s also necessary for you to help your loved one to the best of your abilities.
• TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF:Indulging in self care is not selfish, especially when you’re helping someone dealing with addiction. You cannot let the addiction of the person derail your own life. Continue with healthy activities, like hobbies and social outings, and take care to look after yourself. Therapy or counselling is part of that process, but indulging in activities that aren’t centered around the person is necessary. Determine what it is that you need to keep yourself well indulge in it.

The international day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking is a united nations international day against drug abuse and illegal drug trade it is observed annually on 26th june since 1989 the date 26th is to commemorate lin zexu,s dismantling of the opium trade in humen,ending on 25th June 1989 just before the first opium war in China the observance was instituted by General assembly resolution 42/112 of 7 December 1987 ON 26th june 1987 two important texts( comprehensive multidisciplinary outline of future activities in drug abuse control and declaration of the international conference on drug abuse and illicit trafficking) were adopted at the international conference on drug abuse and illicit trafficking which was held in Vietnam during 17 to 26 june 1987 the conference recommended that a annual day should be observed to mark the importance of the fight against drug abuse and illicit trafficking both the dates 17th june and 26th june were suggested and in the later meeting 26 june was chosen and written into the draft and final resolution o IT is often referred to by Anti drug campaigners as 6/26 a play on Marijuana smokers’ 4/20″ day to celebrate cannabis The United nations (U.N) 2007 world drug report puts the value of illegal trade of US$322 billion a year ….. 1) Campigns,rallies,poster designing and many other programs are conducted people of different countries celebrate the day together As drug use increase the day become more important HEALTH FOR JUSTICE, JUSTICE FOR HEALTH;the theme for INTERNATIONAL Day against Drug abuse and Illicit trafficking, 2019 highlights that “JUSTICE and HEALTH are two sides of the same coin when it comes to addressing drug problems TOP TEN DANGEROUS DRUGS ARE: 1] Penicillin:First on all lists .. 2] INSULIN:The first hormone therapy 3]Smallpox vaccine 4]Ether:The making of the modern surgery 5]Morphine:Banning the bane of pain 6] ASPIRIN:More than a headache pil 7] SALVARSAN :The cure for lust 8] Psycartist medications 9] Birth control pill …….. 10] Help for the heart Six treatments for drugs addiction: 1] Detoxification 2] Congitive behavior therapy 3] Rational Emotional behavior therapy 4] Contingency Management 5]12 _ step facilitation 6] Treatment with medication . …SIDE-EFFECTS OF DRUG ADDICTION: ADDICTION . ……. TOLERANCE STROKES Heart attacks HEALTH FOR JUSTICE

Women empowerment is the process of empowering women .it may be defined in several ways

Based on the assumption that women differ from men in their social  position and that those different consists of assymetric , unequal power relations between the gender women empowerment refer to the process of increasing women access to control over the strategic life choices that affect them

Women empowerment can be defined to promoting women sense of self worth , their ability to determine their own choice and their right to influence social change for themselves and others in western countries female empowerment is often associated with specific phases of the woman right movement in history .

The whole world is going to a rapid increase in population growth. The sudden increase in the number of individuals in a community is termed as population explosion. Studying world history,  it can be said that in the past 200-300 years the world population has increased Tremendously. It has been predicted that the human population will increase by 1 billion in the next decade. The basic reasons for population explosion are accelerating birth rate, decreasing infant mortality and increasing life expectancy. There are different perspectives of looking at  population explosion,  some people believe it to be an  opportunity for the country, whereas, others look at the same concept negatively. It is not incorrect to say that population growth can be considered as a blessing until it creates some sort of pressure on the resources of the nation. 

STATUS OF POPULATION IN INDIA

India is the second most populated country in the world after China, as nearly a fifth of the world population resides in India. As per the census conducted in 2011,  the population of India is 1.21 crores with 62.37 crores males and 58.6 crores females. However, The geographical area of India is not as large as compared to the population residing in the country;  as a result the density of population in India is very high. The census shows that the density of population is 382 persons per square kilometer. Also,  a UN report of “the world population prospects 2017” that has been revised by the department of economics and social affairs has predicted that India’s population will surpass the population of China by the year 2025. 

CAUSES OF POPULATION EXPLOSION

Population growth and explosion is a multidimensional concept. It is not caused by some specific factor,  rather,  different factors affect the population in different ways.  The Scholars suggest that the population explosion is highly impacted by various fields. The improvement in the Healthcare sector has also contributed to the increase in population. Various social,  economic and political factors have their impact upon the growth of population in India. 

• Social Causes: The highest literacy rate and lack of nationalism among the people has been the main reason for increasing birth rate. The Illiterate and conventional people are unaware of the consequences of high population growth and  they fail to adopt a proper family planning method. The religious orthodox that  compelled the people to believe in a certain manner also  contributes to the increasing population. The families who desire to have a son continue to reproduce even after having many daughters. The other reasons can be emphasis on agriculture, dominance of the joint family system and high composition of the rural population. 
• Economic Causes: The economic backwardness and Widespread poverty also causes higher population growth. The poor people believe that more children names more assets, however, They fail to analyse the maintenance cost of the children. Also,  the weak social security system for the children is a factor ignored. 
• Political Causes:  India is a democratic polity where the political leaders are seen as the Patron in chief of the community.  The representatives of people are selected on a majority of votes and the respective community leaders discourage population control measures. Even  if such measures are enforced in the country,  a complete application is not possible. The illiterate sector of the country will consider it as the infringement of their rights which will lead to riots or protests. 
• Geographical causes: It is one of the most importantly contributing factors to the increasing population. Around 50% of India’s population is directly or indirectly indulged in agriculture which is their substance in nature,  they consider more children to be helping hand in performing their agricultural operations. Also, The residential area for the people is comparatively very less then the growth of the population. 

ADVANTAGES OF POPULATION GROWTH

• Increasing population contributes to a larger working population, larger population provides a greater man power which can be utilised to increase the efficiency of different sections of the nation to move towards prosperity. 
•  Also India’s population is termed as young population with the average age of 25-26 years which can be considered as a productive age and this kind of production can help the economy to grow. 
• More population means more consumers for the industries so then dresses can focus upon increasing the production to meet the increasing demand which will consequently contribute to more demand of labour. Thus,  the cycle between increasing production and increasing labour force goes on. 
•  Population explosion also provides us with the people of multi talents in different fields such as Sports,  music,  arts, etc. Therefore, countries’ investment on such human resources can provide enough opportunities to the people to outshine. 

DISADVANTAGES OF POPULATION GROWTH 

• Increase in population exerts pressure upon the natural resources of the nation. This can lead to an overall shortage of land,  employment,  capital,  and help services in the country. 
•  a rapidly growing population has also affected the environment and resources negatively leading to their degradation. 
• Providing the basic amenities and ensuring a good standard of living for all the individual citizens of the country becomes a difficult task with the growth of population. 
• Large population requires more production of food even though the land under the agriculture remains static, increasing the production becomes a difficult task.  the population increase and the production of food are unlikely to correspond to each other. 
•  increasing population causes employment issues in the country. India is already facing the problem of unemployment and such Rapid increase in the population will obviously contribute more to the issue. 
• This will ultimately cause a decrease in the per capita income, standard of living of the people and lead to economic failure.

CONCLUSION

The population explosion can be seen as an opportunity for some and as a disgrace for others. Therefore,  there is an immediate need to look upon the matter. The government needs to  formulate laws and regulations that control population growth. Any disagreement to these laws and regulations should be dealt with strictness. 

Pfizer has always prided itself on its commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR). The drugs giant talks loftily about “embracing our responsibility to society”. It insists that it does as much as it can to make sure that the world’s poor can gain access to its products. It is particularly proud of the work that it does with NGOs and “other global health stakeholders” to strengthen and improve health-care systems. But this has not deterred it from seeking a gargantuan “tax inversion”. The company intends, as part of a $160 billion takeover of Allergan, to shift its tax domicile from America to Ireland, where Allergan is domiciled, and where corporate-income taxes are considerably lower. Pfizer’s shareholders no doubt rejoiced: in 2014 the company would have saved $1 billion of the $3.1 billion it paid to the US Treasury. But many Americans were outraged: Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, promised to impose an “exit tax” on companies that engage in such tactics.

A paper in the January issue of the Accounting Review suggests that Pfizer is far from unusual in trying to perform this pro-CSR, anti-tax straddle. David Guenther of the University of Oregon’s Lundquist College of Business and his co-authors compared the effective tax rates paid by a sample of American firms between 2002 and 2011 with a measure of those companies’ CSR programmes compiled by MSCI, an index provider. It found that the companies which do the most CSR also make the most strenuous efforts to avoid paying tax—and that those with a high CSR score also spend more lobbying on tax.

Read the full article “Social saints, fiscal fiends

Swiggy is India’s largest online food ordering and delivery platform, founded in 2014. Swiggy is based in Bangalore, India, and as of March 2019, was operating in 100 Indian cities.In early 2019, Swiggy expanded into general product deliveries under the name Swiggy Stores.Swiggy Swiggy logo.svgType of business Private Available inEnglishFounded2014; 7 years ago Headquarters Bangalore, India Area served300+ cities across India Founder(s)Nandan Reddy Sriharsha Majety Rahul Jaimini Key people Sriharsha Majety (CEO)Vivek Sunder (COO)Rahul Bothra (CFO)Dale Vaz (CTO)Industry Online food ordering Services Food delivery Revenue Increase ₹ 2,776 crore (US$390 million) (2020)Profit Negative increase ₹−3,768 crore (US$−530 million) (2020) Parent Bundl Technologies Private Limited[3]URLwww.swiggy.comAdvertisingYesRegistrationOptionalCurrent status Active Native client(s) on Android, iOS, website In September 2019, Swiggy launched instant pickup/dropoff service Swiggy Go.[10] The service is used for a diverse array of items, including laundry and document or parcel deliveries to business clients and retail customers.Swiggy is operated by Bundl Technologies Private Limited.

History:

In 2013, the two founders, Nandan Reddy and Sriharsha Majety, designed an e-commerce website called Bundl to facilitate courier service and shipping within India. Bundl was halted, and was rebranded to enter the food delivery market. At the time, the food delivery sector was in turmoil as several notable startups, such as Foodpanda (later acquired by Ola Cabs), TinyOwl (later acquired by Zomato) and Ola Cafe (later closed) were struggling. Majety and Reddy approached Rahul Jaimini, formerly with Myntra, and founded Swiggy and parent holding company Bundl Technologies in 2014.The company built a dedicated delivery network and grew rapidly, primarily driven by the focus on logistics and locking in key resources.In May 2020, Swiggy laid off 1100 employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.In August 2020, the company launched their groceries delivery platform called InstaMart.In 2021 the company announced that it would cover the vaccination cost for its delivery partners.In March Swiggy set up Health Hub across Chennai, Tamil Nadu.In June 2021, Swiggy and ANRA Technologies joined hands to introduce drone delivery trials in India.

“6 SECRETS ABOUT CUSTOMER SERVICE TRAINING THAT WILL BOOST YOUR TEAM’S RESULTS”

If you are looking to improve your company’s customer service training, this article is for you.

While training and preparing your employees is clearly the first step taken by a good management team, it is nevertheless advisable to focus on what type of training they need and how to implement it. Below we will give you 6 secrets that will help you improve your customer service training and provide a significant boost to your business.

1) Train ALL your employees:

Customer service is something that interests and concerns the entire company, not just a single department. In one way or another, the work of all your employees resonates with the end customer. For this reason, it is essential to provide customer service training instruction to your entire staff: not only will they be prepared to meet (or exceed) the expectations of users, but you will also be transmitting a consistent message across the company regarding the importance of customer service.

2)A coherent message: the customer comes first

While customer service training could include numerous technical aspects and personal skills, the essential message should be loud and clear: the customer comes first. These few words should waft throughout the organization as if they constituted a religious mantra. If your training is built upon this principle (which should be repeated until exhaustion), the foundation you are laying will help everything else run smoothly.

3)Practice, practice and continue practicing:

If you want successful training, you have to commit to practice. Numerous studies confirm that experiential learning and learning by doing increase brain activity and the ability to memorize knowledge. Have your employees practice everything that they are learning so that they will never forget anything.

4)Exercise attitudes, positivity and empathy:

Many customer service training programs forget to teach the basics: kindness, empathy, positivity and courtesy. While many of these skills could appear naturally, the reality is that they must be reinforced and fostered throughout the company. Make sure that your courses drive home the need to be positive, smile, refer to the customer by name, remain calm, have patience and walk in our users’ shoes. Never assume that your employees are capable of doing all this in their day to day tasks.

5)Personalize your training:

Every company is its own universe, and every customer support service is different. For this reason, if your company has some particular processes that you want to implement (welcome greeting, presentation of a product, packaging, closing a sale, returning an article, etc.), it is worth investing time into personalized training that satisfies the needs of your company and business.

6)Ongoing training: reinforce, reinforce and continue reinforcing:

Customer service training should be a never-ending learning experience. Running a course during a month or two will neither significantly impact your staff nor improve your business’s figures. Employees (just like everyone else!) forget what they have learned and easily fall back into their old habits. It is thus essential to hold regular training courses (e.g., changing formats) to continue shoring up all the new knowledge and skills learned.

The ultimate guide to improving customer service in your company:

Before we begin, let us clarify what we mean by customer service. The term refers to the way a company interacts with its customers, and encompasses everything from the initial contact, presentation of a product, closing of a sale, provision of a warranty and the handling of complaints and problems. Whenever there is direct contact with a customer, we are talking about customer service.

While this is the basic definition, the fact is that the concept has much wider implications for the whole company. In recent years, the term “customer experience” has become a buzzword; it refers to the entire customer journey and the creation of a unique experience in their relationship with the company. A host of companies all over the world are striving to enhance this experience in order to build their reputation, increase customer loyalty and drive sales. Indeed, when asked about the company’s main competitive advantage, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was quick to define it as:

“Creating a customer experience superior to anything my competitors can create.”

6 invaluable tips for creating a successful customer service strategy:

Wanting to place your customer at the center of your business sounds easy, but it is much harder than you think. For years, companies have been developing a specific company culture and have pursued a set of priorities that are difficult to change. Very often, putting the customer first means relegating shareholders and employees to second place. So, how can we bring about this transformation? Here are six strategies that will help you to achieve it:

1)Demonstrate that the customer is important:

Many of your co-workers (and even your boss) will tell you that the customer is the number one priority, yet two seconds later they are making decisions that do not take the customer into account. To really change the culture of a company and the reasoning behind important decisions, you have to prove to the entire company (without exception) that the customer is the lifeblood of every business.

There are a host of arguments you can use: it is the customer who pays everyone’s salaries, awards bonuses at the end of the year and even serves the shareholders. Good customer service has a direct impact on the company’s bottom line. A company is nothing without its customers; they are its most important asset. Repeat these techniques over and over again (for example, begin each meeting by talking about a particular customer) and provide numerous examples to demonstrate that this is true.

2)Establish fast and user-friendly customer service processes:

Many companies have spent years building barriers and bureaucratic hurdles in customer service. If you want to make the customer the real boss in your company, you have to knock down all these walls and make communication as smooth as possible. Ensure that customer service is fast (no customer should have to wait more than 30 seconds on the phone), set up different touchpoints (telephone, chat service, email, face-to-face contact, etc.) and processes that allow you to deal quickly with product returns, customer complaints and inquiries.

3)Hire professionals that care about the customer:

If you want to create a customer-centric company, bear this in mind when hiring staff. Ask candidates about their experience in customer service (even if they are never going to see a customer!), take advantage of the interview to tell them about the company’s values and look for people who are empathetic, friendly and good communicators. If you want to provide the best customer service experience, you have to hire the best.

4)Empower employees:

regarded as the guru of customer service, never tires of repeating this: employees should have the freedom and power (empowerment) to make quick decisions for the benefit of the customer. Very often, employees dealing with the public are obliged to check with their supervisors or seek their approval for product returns. In Tschohl’s opinion, this is one of the greatest bottlenecks of customer service. Employees must be empowered to make decisions at top speed, on the spot, and always for the benefit of the customer.

5)Use new technologies:

While face-to-face contact is always important, when you have hundreds, thousands or even millions of customers you are going to have to invest in technology. And we are talking about technology developed specifically to enhance the customer experience. This might include a live chat service 24 hours a day, automatic options for product returns (with a simple click), online warranty services or free delivery. The goal, once again, is to ensure that your customers enjoy your service (and become fans of your brand).

6)Measure, measure and measure again:

If you want to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your customer service, you will have no choice but to measure, measure and then measure some more. This exercise will help you to understand the importance of the customer and the huge impact they have on your organization. To do this, assess basic indicators such as the Net Promoter Score (NPS, or recommendation rate), use the mystery shopping technique, measure the number of complaints, average waiting time, number of interactions needed to resolve a problem and the key performance indicators. This will not only help you to enhance the customer experience, but also to raise awareness of the “cult of the customer” throughout the organization.

Take it seriously:

Get training. Many people think that customer service is something that comes “naturally”. At the end of the day, we all deal with people in our day-to-day life. However, this attitude is a big mistake that could cost your company millions of dollars. Customer service is far too serious and important a business to be left to chance; your employees need to take it seriously, receive the appropriate training and learn.

Listen carefully:

The first customer contact is about what the customer has to tell us. They may be interested in a new product, have a problem that needs solving or demand that their money be returned immediately. We should always pay close and careful attention, and listen calmly and attentively so that we don’t miss a detail. You’d be amazed by the number of people who constantly interrupt the customer or let their minds wander during the conversation.

Be human:

We all like to be treated like people, so don’t speak like a robot. Always ask the customer for their first name and tell them yours, whether you are behind a counter or at the other end of the phone or online chat.

Apologize:

While you are probably not to blame for your customer’s complaint, that is irrelevant: as the company representative, it’s your job to apologize. A company that apologizes is a company that cares about its customers. Don’t blame others and don’t be afraid to say the words “I’m sorry”… it’s often the best way to calm down a customer and show empathy before sorting out their problem.

Solve the problem:

The customer needs and wants you to solve the problem, not make excuses or bombard them with technical explanations. Focus on finding out what they need and offer solutions (offer a number of alternatives if possible). If you can’t help them, find someone who can. Always look for a solution.

-MEREZJA F

“WHY YOGA CAN BE SO IRRITATING (ALTHOUGH YOU SHOULD GO ANYWAY!)”

In addition to being somewhat crazy  a shrink once diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder, which I thought was a bit of a stretch until I realized that, like everyone else, he just wanted to have sex with me — I am a yoga teacher. I don’t know what your idea of a yoga teacher is, but should you, recoiling in horror as you read along here, find yourself asking, “But how does someone like this become a yoga teacher?” — the short answer is that I gave a man with a beard and his hot wife $3,200 dollars. The long answer is… well, I’d like to say that it’s because if I hadn’t gotten obsessed with yoga I’d probably be dead, because that’s what people always say about things like this: “If I hadn’t discovered writing, I’d be dead,” “if I hadn’t found Alcoholics Anonymous/married my amazing wife/started making autumn-inspired hand-knit legwarmers and selling them on Etsy, I’d be dead.” But saying, “without yoga I would probably be dead” would be, frankly, a little overdramatic. Let’s just say that if I didn’t do yoga everything bad about me would just be worse, and what is bad is already bad enough.

Now, because you can’t get something for nothing, there’s a problem. Which is, Yoga Can Be Extremely Annoying. So if you’ve been meaning to get yourself there but have been thinking, “I’m afraid it will annoy me,” here’s some good news: You might be crazy but as far as this particular fear goes, rest assured, it’s the product of whatever shred of sanity you may have retained.

There’s no getting around it. Yoga has moments of such profound annoyingness that after I finished Eat, Pray, Love (needless to say, I read the ashram section 100 times) all I could think was, “You wrote an entire book about yoga and meditation and you never mentioned, ‘oh, by the way, sometimes you will want to punch these people in the face’?” And this is where I perform my public service; in yoga we call that a “seva” (how annoying is that?). All the stuff Elizabeth Gilbert was too high on homemade pizza and Javier Bardem penis to mention, you need to know. Everyone’s always telling you how great yoga is, and that’s true, but then you go there and maybe the studio smells like onions steamed in cat pee, and it might have been helpful to know about that beforehand! You need to know exactly what will disturb you before you get there, so you can prepare; and you should also know that, even though everyone around you will seem perfectly unperturbed, someone  someone who stayed   feels your pain. Oh, and by the way, I want to underscore that what follows below is what bugs me about yoga; everything else is a glittering gift from Lord Shiva. Namaste!

People who just saw each other yesterday will hug like one of them was just rescued from a burning airplane. I’ve always thought of a hug as a slightly protracted, lightly physical way of saying hello to people I know fairly well or have not seen for a long time. Regular practitioners of yoga see hugs as a great way to spend an afternoon. You will want to stare at them and wonder, “Are they really pressing their whole bodies together?” (yes); “are their eyes closed?” (they are); “do they really have dreamy looks on their faces?” (yes, yes, yes). But remember, while you’re staring you’re wasting valuable time in which you could be cultivating your “I am not the sort of person who likes to be hugged for long periods of time” vibe. This is easier said than done because you will sometimes see people at yoga  like, people who you actually know, who are your friends  with whom you may wish to make brief, friendly physical contact. Engage in such exchanges as you wish, but realize that you are setting yourself as a person who willingly receives hugs, and these people will not take the extra mental step to say, “oh, but above the waist hugs,” or “hugs that only last a second.” Make no mistake: these people are looking to soul-blend. To avoid: Arrive early. Lie down with closed eyes. Bring flip-flops  they’re essential for a hasty exit.

During hard poses, women and gay men will remain silent and straight men will laugh self-deprecatingly. Imagine being at a gym. Men are lifting heavy weights. They strain, grit their teeth, sweat. But they don’t laugh. So why, here, as they sink into their thighs in Warrior Two or lift their chest skyward during Upward Facing Bow, do they feel the need to let out a little chuckle? More importantly, why does this irk you so? Because, my friend, you are witnessing An Unconscious Assertion of Masculinity. That little laugh is their way of letting you know that hey, they’re not really embarrassed about being so bad at this, because they’re not even supposed to be here, they’re not really doing this, they’re good at other things, like, for example, sitting in an airport bar working their way through a 1- dollar for the upgrade double scotch, a bowl of nuts and a “Two and A Half Men” re-run on the corner TV. Of course, there is also the other type of straight guy in yoga, the guy who can wrap his arms around his ankles and turn himself into a perfect circle, the guy who can stand on his hands in the middle of the room, and he is his own version of Hell. Why, you ask, does this man wear his hair in a bun, on top of his head? There are some secrets that no amount of enlightenment will reveal. I will tell you this: These guys tend to get a lot of ass, so laugh as you will, but know that they’re getting the last one upside-down.

There will be Yoga Overachievers. You will be doing Cat-Cow at a normal pace, and they will be bucking and heaving like mechanical bulls. You will be expending an amount of effort somewhere in between “challenging yourself” and “able to retain sufficient muscle strength to remove shampoo bottle from shower caddy.” They will be straining, grunting, grimacing. When the pose is over, they will often emit some hideous but presumably cathartic howl. I always want to say to those people, “The auditions for the high-school production of The Trojan Women are in the Lotus Room today,” but I don’t think I need to tell you that your basic yoga overachiever does not have the greatest sense of humor. Then, when class is over, and everyone does that weird little bow, the Yoga Overachiever will bow down for, roughly, an hour. Seriously. You will have already taken your own little I’m-so-spiritual-and-humble-before-the Creator bow, put on your flip-flops (good job!), hightailed it away from the would-be hugger/soul blenders, made and consumed a meal, masturbated to some violent pornography and be just about to crawl into bed with the fall Anthropologie catalog, and they remain on the floor in the yoga studio, thanking God for making them, well, them. As these people have a tendency toward spraying you with saliva and noxious BO (see next item) you should give them a wide berth, and don’t attend any functions at their homes, because, for reasons with which the universe has not yet supplied me, they’re almost always horrible cooks.

People will have chive crotch. I developed the term “chive crotch” when, as a mere girl, I was visiting a friend in Oregon and attended a county fair with her. This was my first time on the West Coast. I had smelled body odor before, of course, but never body odor strong enough to make me almost pass out. This was not mere sweat, this was, I said to my friend, the scent of a person who, after carrying around the same bunch of chives in their underwear for an entire summer, had found themselves mid-August with no shower, no clean underwear and, needless to say, no fresh bunch of chives. This is what about 15 percent of people smell like in yoga class. Look, I will confess to having mild body odor myself at times. But I believe smelling like a person who showered recently, applied a non-Alzheimer’s causing deodorant or crystal to her pits and sweated a little in the car is a far cry from chive crotch. The thing that’s really annoying about people stinking is they always have this look on their faces like smelling bad makes them somehow closer to the earth, more spiritual, than evil clean people who have used up precious natural resources and unleashed sodium lauryl sulfates into the environment for the mere purpose of not befouling the rooms they share with others.

There are teachers and students who think flexibility is some kind of indication of how good a person you are. A teacher once said to me, “Your hamstrings are tight is because your mind is not flexible.” I said, “Have you ever taken differential calculus?” She said, “What?” I said, “Have you ever taken differential calculus?” She had not. She said she was terrible at math. I said, “Well, I am very good at math.” (This was not strictly true, but I was quite confident I was better at math than she was.) “Is there something wrong with your mind that you aren’t?” (No, this was not just a strategy to stop this person from soul-hugging me, but it did have that fortunate side effect.)

While we certainly hold tension, trauma and rigidity in our limbs and joints and muscles (otherwise The Universe wouldn’t have given us Bengay), there is no reason to imagine there’s some absolutely direct correlation between how well we can move and how functional or healthy our mind is. I seriously doubt that Einstein or Susan Sontag had less flexible minds than, I don’t know, Rodney Yee. My point is, some physical limitations can be aided through the practice of yoga and some can’t and no one needs the increased pressure of someone telling them, every time they strain to get their heels on the floor in Downward Facing Dog that this is because their mind is all fucked up. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but you just wait until the day when there’s a public forum where people can pay $10-$18 dollars to get in a room with other people to demonstrate how good they are at math. Actually, there is such a place and I guess that would be called “school” and it goes on much longer than a yoga class and often costs much more and it scars people horribly and makes them grow up angry and thinking of ways to humiliate people who can’t touch their toes.

So if, one day, your teacher says, we hold a lot of stuff in our hips and hamstrings and as we begin to let this stuff go and become our authentic selves we will be able to wrap our arms around ourselves eight times, look around the room. You will probably see a guy who can do that, while smiling, and I’ll bet you a $100 prAna gift certificate that you will eventually hear from someone in class about the time he flew into a rage and broke a car window with a shop vac. When your hamstrings become authentic, maybe they can help him.

Teachers talk like Yoda’s MSW-having Mom. If you were to ask your yoga teacher, “Can my newly authentic hamstrings help the angry guy?” she might say something like, “That depends on whether they were coming from a space of pure intention.” The word “honor” is used a lot, as in “honoring yourself,” or “honoring your practice.” Other popular words: “Joy.” “Integrity.” “Space,” but not as in outer space, as in “Go into a space of,” and “place,” but not as in “that place next to Shoe Pavilion,” as in, “Let yourself come into a place of…” When class is over, the teacher will say something like, “Bow to your inner wisdom,” or “take a moment to thank yourself for committing to your practice,” which always makes me intone the prayer, “Please, God, make me less fat than I was an hour and a half ago.”

The worst part about yoga world vocabulary, of course, is how quickly you may find yourself learning and using it. The hope is that because yoga has made you — I’m sorry, I mean, allowed you to open up a space to become — so much more self aware and less narcissistic, you will only talk this way in front of other people who talk like that too. And now that you are friends with so many of them, because you have, after so thoroughly mocking this world basically joined it, that means practically everyone you speak to. My final warning, when you are talking to one of your new yoga buddies, do not accidentally buttdial an old friend, especially if he is a sniping, gym-going homosexual, and allow him to hear you speaking the lingua franca of Yogaland, because, after seeing the record of the call and hoping he heard nothing, you will receive a text message reading: “YOU ARE SO FUCKING BUSTED BITCH — YOU’RE A LOSER!” and no amount of yoga will ever mitigate the shame.

“How are you?” is not a simple question at yoga. No one at yoga is ever just fine. They’re “working through a lot of heavy stuff,” or “dealing with a lot of craziness.” That said, when people ask you how you are, don’t say anything bad. If you are broke, the universe is just trying to teach you a lesson about how much you already have. If someone dumped you, the universe removed that person from your life for a reason. (And that reason is that person is no longer interested in having sex with you!) The universe is very busy in the yoga world, always trying to show you things. I have simply let the universe know, hey, I have seen enough. I have learned enough. Until you can give me a billion dollars and a soundproof room filled with 2002 Zinfandel and organic goat cheese cheddar where all I have to do is watch “Foyle’s War” until I drop dead, please leave me alone. But it’s determined to keep pestering me. At any rate, when people ask you how you are at yoga, don’t tell them anything bad has happened to you unless you’re prepared for the suggestion that you look at your misfortune with an attitude of grace and gratitude. And while I think grace and gratitude are both wonderful things, I also think they are attitudes best preceded by bitterness, rage and self-pity.

So yes, in the beginning it’s all about slipping the car keys inside the flip flops so that all the tools of your escape are in a neat little package. But just keep showing up. In no time you will become sufficiently like all these people that they won’t bother you at all. And then some crazy asshole will make fun of you. Is the circle of eternity beautiful or what?

Sarah Miller is the author of Inside the Mind of Gideon Rayburn.

– Jerisha. S

The Clubhouse app brings an exciting twist to social media, but it has a long way of providing a more intuitive user experience. Here I give it a shot!

With enough apps to fill the social media space, Clubhouse is a refreshing concept of interacting with people by voice. And with big names like Elon Musk giving it a shot, people are flocking to try the app!

In a nutshell, Clubhouse allows you to follow specific topics and based on that, you will be suggested rooms in which you can voice chat with the rest of the audience. It is like a podcast where everyone can chip in. How does it make it any different from other social media platforms like Twitter — is that you don’t have to spend time synthesizing your thoughts into (limited) text. Instead, you can be more impromptu and engage more efficiently with the rest of the audience.

The app is currently available only for iOS (as of Feb’21) and is admittedly different looking than other apps in general. Like the use of emoticons ✌🏽 in buttons and the friendly-looking “squircle” shaped profile pictures!

Squircle profile pictures (room interface)

But when it comes to intuitiveness and usability, it does have problems at certain spots. And upon sharing my thoughts on the app’s UX with my fellow mates (to prune the perspective bias), they too had some views on similar lines.

Hence I decided to collect those opinions and try improving the interface with few ideas. This article will only cover the “room” interface and the rest of the app in further articles.

The “Room” experience

The room interface is the heart of the application, where the users spend most of their time. It has a grid for profiles of those present in the room, and they are split between stage (speakers+moderators) vs audience (listeners). Anyone from the audience can raise their hand, and the moderator then allows that person to be on the stage and speak.

Current design

The overall interface of the room is spotless and efficient, as you get to see only the image and the first name of a person. But the problem starts when there are many people on the stage, and it becomes one hell of an experience trying to figure out who’s is currently speaking. This is mainly because the active speaker never comes up in the grid of profiles, and if that person is not visible in the viewport, you keep scrolling up and down in the stage area tracking speakers.

Accompanying this rough behaviour, there are other minor issues like you don’t get to see the room’s plan or the count of speakers/audience or

The current design for room

If you click a profile, there comes a bottom sheet (that’s what material design calls it) with the bio of that person and a set of actions.

The current design for viewing profile inside a room

Ideated design

I started by picking the most impacting problem at hand — tracking the active speaker and re-did the interface for the stage area.

Ideated design for room

Another missing factor in the current design is room agenda/information, and there is no way to access that while being in the room. This becomes a problem when people join the space in the middle (thereby missing the introduction by moderator), and they have no way to know what that room is strictly talking about.

Also, with people switching to languages that may be unknown to some in the audience, it can be an excellent addition to have the language(s) in the room plan/information and, in a way, regulate it. 💬

Ideated design for room agenda/information

Lastly, I made some changes to the profile interface as well to improve the visual hierarchy of the content.

Ritesh Agarwal founded Oravel stays in 2012, which he later changed to OYO in 2013, which is currently valued at 8 Billion Dollars. Oyo Rooms has revolutionized the hotel industry by providing them with the proper way to increase their business and helped them to optimize their customer experience by completely renovates the rooms by solving the everyday problems related to hotel rooms; by this, they wanted to provide a consistent experience in their hotels across the globe. Oyo partners with hotels to offer a similar experience at a compelling price than the competition. Currently, Oyo has a total of 17000 employees across all locations, of which approximately 8000 are from India and other Asian countries.

Funding of OYO.

In September 2018, OYO raised $1 billion, of which the RoC filing for the amount of $100 million raised from Star Virtue Investment Ltd. was made on 13 February 2019. 

In February 2019, Oyo received $100 million funding from the Chinese vehicle hire company Didi Chuxing.

In July 2019, Founder & CEO Ritesh Agarwal, through RA Hospitality Holdings (Cayman), signed a $2 billion deal to buy back shares from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia India, to increase his stake in the company to 30%. The company was valued at $10 billion with this deal. 

In October 2019, Oyo raised Series F funding of $1.5 billion led by SoftBank Group, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia India.[

Financial results.

In 2019, OYO registered a record revenue of about 950 million dollars. A 4.5X growth compared to the previous year, which was 211 million dollars.

Acquisitions by OYO. 

In the meantime, with increasing business, OYO has acquired several companies; for example, In march 2018, OYO Acquired  Chennai-based service apartment operator Nova scotia Boutique Homes. In March 2016, OYO acquired the team of Qlik Pass to expand itself in the data science sector.

William Shakespeare was certainly a very famous writer. The man is credited with an unbelievable thirty-eight plays, two narrative poems, several other poems and a whopping one hundred fifty-four sonnets. Shakespeare is the world’s pre-eminent dramatist and according to many experts is the greatest writer in the English language. Furthermore, he is also called England’s National Poet and also has the nickname of the Bard of Avon. Such a worthy reputation is due to his top-notch unmatchable writing skills.William Shakespeare was born to a successful businessman in Stratford-upon-Avon on 23rd April in the year 1564. Shakespeare’s mother was the daughter of a landlord and came from a well-to-do family. About the age of seven, William Shakespeare began attending the Stratford Grammar School.Shakespeare was a leading member of the group from 1594 for the rest of his career. 1594 had produced at least six of Shakespeare’s plays; During Shakespeare’s life, there were two monarchs who ruled England. They were Henry the eighth and Elizabeth the first. Both were impressed with Shakespeare, which made his name known.
Shakespeare became a member of one of the famous theatre companies in the city. Moreover, this company was ‘the Lord Chamberlain’s Men’.Shakespeare was a leading member of the group from 1594 for the rest of his career. 1594 had produced at least six of Shakespeare’s plays; During Shakespeare’s life, there were two monarchs who ruled England. They were Henry the eighth and Elizabeth the first. Both were impressed with Shakespeare, which made his name known. Also, the theatre companies during that era were commercial organizations that were dependent upon the audience who came to watch the plays.From the year 1594, Shakespeare became the leading member of the acting group and remained that for almost the entire rest of his career. By the year 1594, the production of at least six plays had taken place by William Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare’s story writing skills are of an extremely high-quality. Furthermore, his works are characterized by outstanding narrative building around the topics of jealousy, mystery, love, magic, death, murder, life, revenge, and grief. That is why William Shakespeare is so famous.Some of the most famous works of William Shakespeare are as follows:Romeo and Juliet,The Merchant of Venice,Henry V,Much Ado About Nothing,Hamlet.
William Shakespeare was a very talented man known for his various works of literature. His works include poems, plays, and sonnets. His works are then broken down into tragedies, comedies, and histories. Shakespeare left this world centuries ago, but his writings continue to live throughout the world today.
Shakespeare’s poems and plays show love for nature and rural life which reflects his childhood. In London, Shakespeare’s career took off. It is believed that he may have become well I known in London theatrical life by 1592.Shakespeare was a leading member of the group from 1594 for the rest of his career. 1594 had produced at least six of Shakespeare’s plays; During Shakespeare’s life, there were two monarchs who ruled England. They were Henry the eighth and Elizabeth the first. Both were impressed with Shakespeare, which made his name known.

it is important that every human being respects them and uses morals and ethics when they were dealing with them.

Main environmental issues in India :
📌Water pollution: major rivers are polluted by sewage, chemicals, agricultural and industrial waste.
📌Air pollution: Vehicles releasing chemicals and industries releasing chemical fumes in the air are the major causes of air pollution.
📌Deforestation:reduction of trees wilfully or naturally
📌Plastics and other waste:plastic is made up of non-biodegradable material which cannot be broken down into simpler substances. They can stay on earth for more than a thousand years, thus contaminating soil and water bodies.

“Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance”

-Former PM Jawaharlal Nehru

India gained Independence from British colonial rule, after prolonged freedom movement and struggles. With Independence, India became the master of its own destiny and the process to make India a super power and self-reliant began soon. One of the challenges that the country was going to face was with regard to financial viability, as soon after Independence, the economic growth of the country was near to negligible with very low Tax collections. In the Midst of these situations, the country had to invest on human resources in order to build a responsible and knowledgeable work force for the future. As the country was in a state of desperateness, people were not financially strong to even bear the costs of educating their children. Constituent assembly of India, while deliberating with regards to the Obligation of State to educate children, considered all these factors & situations and consequently placed this obligation under Directive principle of state policy (Part IV) rather than Fundamental rights (Part III). We find this observation from the language of Article 45 of the Constitution of India, wherein the obligation on the state to educate children up to the age of Fourteen years, was deferred for Ten years from the adoption of the Constitution. But the turmoil in the Indian Politics never realized this obligation into a reality, the duty of the state underlined in Article 45 came to fora only after 55 years of Independence when 86th Constitutional Amendment act was passed by the legislature that included the Article 21A in the Indian constitution making Education a fundamental Right, also it specified the need for a legislation to describe the mode of implementation of the same which necessitated the drafting of a separate Education Bill.Consequently Right to Education Bill, 2005 (Hereinafter RTE Act) was drafted and was further enacted in 2009. It was a landmark day for the people of India, since one of the Visions of our Constitution framers was coming to life that was Right to compulsory education for children between the ages of 6 to 14 years. The Legal framework was put into place, but the hopes of the majority of population faded with each passing year. The Schools established under the abovementioned legislation, was inadequate and most of the schools even failed to pass the norms already in place governing the education system. One of the Achievements of Right to Education was that it motivated village population to allow girl students to enroll, and it subsequently saw rise in enrollment ratio with changes in some states. But, several discrepancies began to be grounded with regards to “Schools with No Education”, “Schools with No Sanitation” and Schools with No Structures”. On many occasions, even students being taught under a banyan tree was called a school under the Aegis of RTE Act, which talks about serious structural lapses on the implementation of such fundamental right. The Constitution also provides for Article 21 that is Right to Life, which has been interpreted in a very wide manner. If we were to compare the protection of Article 21A with that of 21, it would be like state saying “You have the right to life and liberty, But Sorry we are not accountable for your food”, even Right to food is a fundamental right. This example is to portray the stark differences in the Implementation of a fundamental right, revered by our constitution framers. The Situation would further worsen, if attempts are not made to sincerely take effort in uplifting the standards of Education of poor and under-privileged children. This would portray development of a country in toto.

As in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “The best way to predict your future is to create it”, If India has to achieve the goals of becoming a Super power and self-reliant, it needs to take strides in order to develop its Public Education Infrastructure.

Oil pulling is an old Ayurvedic dental action which apparently dates back approximately 3,000 years ago. It basically comprises of whooshing a tiny quantity of oil in mouth for a short time, then spitting it out. The thought is that the oil pulls out bacteria and other toxins that hide within your mouth.

How Does Oil Pulling Work?

When you get up in the morning, get a tablespoon of any oil and swish it around your mouth for about 20 minutes, like when you use mouthwash. However, don’t do it as robustly since you’ll be doing it for far longer and your jaw will get exhausted.

Mildly swirl the oil around your mouth and pull it through the spaces between your teeth. Ensure not to swallow any of it, or you’ll devour the foul things in your mouth gathered by the oil.

When you’re done, spit the oil in the dustbin. Do not spit it in your sink because when the oil congeals, it may block up your pipes. Wash your mouth out with warm water then brush and floss like normal.

What are the Benefits to Oil Pulling?

Oil pulling has been qualified to a number of advantages that include whiter teeth, better gums, clearer sinuses, stronger jaw, and a decrease in bad breath and gingivitis.

It’s important to keep in mind that oil pulling is not meant to substitute regular dental hygiene. You still need to brush, floss at least twice a day and visit your dentist twice a year.

Some of the benefits are as follows:

1. Can kill Harmful Bacteria in your mouth

2. Could help reduce bad breath

3. May Help Prevent Cavities

4. Seems to Reduce Inflammation and Improve Gum Health.

5. May have other benefits

Some claim that it’s able to pull stains from the surface of teeth, resulting in a whitening effect, although there is no scientific research to back this up

6. Cheap and Easy to add to your routine

Two of the biggest benefits to oil pulling are how simple it is to do and how easily it can be incorporated into your daily regimen.

HOW To Oil Pulling in 4 Simple Steps

Oil pulling is easy to do and involves just a few simple steps.

Here are the 4 simple steps to do oil pulling:

1. Measure one tablespoon of oil, such as coconut, sesame or olive oil.
2. Swish it around in your mouth for 15–20 minutes, being careful not to swallow any.
3. Spit the oil into a trash can once you’re done. Avoid spitting it into the sink or toilet, as this can cause a build-up of oil, which may lead to clogging.
4. Rinse your mouth well using water before eating or drinking anything.

Repeat these steps a few times per week or up to three times daily. You may also want to work your way up, starting with swishing for just 5 minutes and increasing the duration until you’re able to do it for a full 15–20 minutes.

For best results, most recommend doing this first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, although you can adapt based on your personal preferences

Even though no village in India is without an elementary school, the students who come out of these schools are not able to compete with English medium school students or with others who have had their education in private schools in towns and cities. When elementary education, which is the foundation of one’s education itself, is very weak, there can be no concrete superstructure. In rural India, parents cannot send their children to elementary schools at age five due to grinding poverty. Even otherwise, the quality of instruction and the infrastructure are far from satisfactory. This stands in the way of a sound education. Therefore, the government must make an introspection to improve the quality of elementary education in rural areas. There should not be a problem if the government is sincere about raising the standard of education in the villages.
It is imperative to construct strong buildings with all facilities, especially blackboards and furniture, and separate toilets for boys and girls. It is well known that the number of teachers falls far short of the requirements in rural elementary schools. A teacher has to look after three or four classes at a time. Hence, it is impossible to pay individual attention to the growing children necessary at the elementary level. The students in their tender age must be taught with models as envisaged by the Montessori system. This adds color to teaching and draws the children’s attention towards the lessons being taught. All said and done, and the playground facilities must receive special attention. In rural India, space is no problem, but the facilities and sports equipment are nowhere to be seen. There can be no sound education without a sound body. Sports have become an instrument of national pride in the international sphere. Hence, the students at the elementary stage must be given training in various disciplines of sports. This will certainly contribute to enhance the standards of the sport of our country. In the process, the rural youth may find gainful occupation in places of their birth and help develop the villages they live in. It will also help reverse the exodus of unemployed youth into the already extended city problems. The implementation of these suggestions should be taken seriously by powers to realize the dream of our funding fathers.

Maroju Sanjana

Some say if you want success surround yourself with successful people. I say if you want true and lasting success surround yourself with people of integrity

                                                                                                      Charles F. Glassman,

It is often regarded as brain drain. It’s a serious problem of developing countries. Talented students of India get migrated to several foreign institutes every year.

Needless to say, it’s a great loss to our country. Developed countries like USA, UK etc. offer the best students the best jobs with lucrative salaries and the best opportunities to research. As a result students become reluctant to lose the opportunity

To solve the problem government should set up the infrastructure and facilities up to the mark for those students who are getting migrated every year.

According to me it should not be the case of the government only. Students should also have the patriotism and responsibility towards their motherland. If they become enough qualified and get the confidence in themselves to make more like him or her literate, then that would be more beneficial for him and the government too.

To be honest, prosperous villages have turned into the towns of today. It should also be mentioned that a town life and the country life can never be compared because both of them have merits and demerits.

In town there are good market shops good means of communication, there good hospitals schools etc. People can get good physicians, nursing homes medical centres in town but a town life is thickly polluted. Every single element of environment gets polluted by the atmosphere created in town. Indeed, it is the fault of the people who live there. The factories take part in both air pollution and water pollution. Also in times of festivals, people use loudspeakers crackers with vigour to create noise pollution.

In the other hand, village is free of pollution there are lots of extensive meadows, green fields ,lots of fruits, flowers, trees, plants .Villagers can enjoy fresh food and vegetables and sound sleep and comfortable  rest, free of sound and air pollution. But in village, one cannot get good nursing homes good physicians hospitals proper education and necessary communications.

If one lives in a town, he will be deprived of fresh air and a satisfactory atmosphere. Also if one lives in village, he will be deprived of all the necessary things which are needed in the modern era.

At the end we can conclude by saying that one should be satisfied bye by the conditions made in the particular area so that one never get deprived by himself.

Citizens are getting modern. Human beings are touching the sands of moon. People also have witnessed the magic of computer and have entered an era of curiosity. But there are some age – old beliefs which are neither scientific nor reasonable. Those are called superstitions.

At the time of starting from somewhere, if someone sneezes or someone calls one back or a cat crosses path, one must stop and start afresh. The hooting of an owl, shouting of a domestic dog and the site of one Martin bird is held ominous. In rural backward places, people believe in witchcraft and sometimes kill innocent old hags out of superstition. It destroys the power of one reasoning .They decelerate one’s progress and sometimes make one inhuman and eccentric.

The only way to stop spreading superstition is education. If students get the proper education, they can spread it at a large scale and after becoming the new citizens they can witness a society which will be free of superstition.

At least we can hope so.

Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not a preparation for life but is life itself. 
                                                                              -John Dewey

Privatisation in education in India is an interesting issue. Critics think that it will make education a luxury commodity and some of them also think that the above is not correct at all.

If you think deeply, then we can realise that if education is privatised the whole system will run on the principles of commerce. So poor people will be deprived of higher education, in this way the poor but meritorious students will not get the place they should achieve and may suffer from anxiety, depression and other mental problems.

Our Indian constitution says that every student has the equal right of education but if education gets privatised poor students will be the example of obligation of our national constitution.

But those who support it, argue that a privatised system will demand quality education and teachers will be compelled to teach seriously so the overall system will improve.

In a conclusion, we must say that it may be right or wrong but to make it perfect and achievable the government should work accordingly and make a strong administration to maintain it for a long time.

A sound mind is one that dreams of a better world and works for a better world while being mindful of the limitations of the present world.”

• Abhijit Naskar,

Indian society is burnt with the cause of many social evils many great people came in front of the society to form the society in a new pattern.

Ram Mohan Roy made a vehement protest against the age-old evil practice like the notorious suttee rite. He succeeded in persuading the British governor general lord William Bentinck to declare it illegal.

Another great man was Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar who came forward and spread female education he set up schools for this purpose not only that he introduced widow marriage and stop child marriage he had to struggle hard for introducing this to reforms.

However there are some places in India where the social reforms are not even working perfectly many places like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh have not get the light of this social reforms made by this great human beings.

In this case West Bengal should also be considered as a matter of disgrace. Malda and some other districts of this state is also a victim of several social causes people should stand family and sincerely against the social evils to make better and expected society in the new generation.

Pollution is making something dirty or impure by adding harmful substances. It is the greatest misery of today’s world. Each and every segment of environment is getting polluted by human activities.

Everybody knows that air is life. But sadly air is being polluted by smoke from factories and gases emitted by motor vehicles. Not only has that people through cigarettes and things like those polluted the air. Nuclear explosions also contribute a lot to air pollution a number of diseases such as tuberculosis bronchitis heart and nerve diseases are caused by air pollution.

Man cannot live without trees but water is the main ingredient of protoplasm which is the main thing to survive for plants. Chemicals and other wastes from factories pollute water. polluted water kills fishes and other aquatic animals and makes the situation more grave the problem of arsenic contamination is also there we suffer from various water borne diseases and skin diseases by using polluted water.

Noise pollution also takes place at the same time it is caused by the indiscriminate use of electric horns microphones and crackers the bursting of bombs and tires also causes sound pollution it affects the attention of students and the steps sleep and best especially of the patients children and the aged people.

As it is our world we think it is our bounden duty to stand against the pollution and recreate our surroundings by planting more and more if we fail to check this pollution the world of tomorrow would be a deaf world.

Clearly, the title emphasises the education of women. Yes, it is important. The male-female ratio in our India is not correct. Moreover, the education of women is dominated in several parts of India. To prove them, they need a competence and hence the education is significant.

            But history says that Indian women had equal position and honourable status like men in the Aryan ages. Women then had the right to educate themselves, they took part in studying and writing the Vedas and holy scriptures-  Gargi, Apala,Ghosha ,Lopamudra are some of them. Then a drastic demotion in women education came all over the India and remained for a long time.

However, now girls are getting the same education as boys in an institution meaning indicated girls are coming out of s nurses teachers and doctors now so they are self supporting and bringing financial help to their families above all a well educated mother only can make an ideal family.

The poor and middle class people all over the world are facing a lot of problems today. The gravest of them is perhaps the price rise.

The prices of essential commodities are getting higher by leaps and bounds. Continuing a healthy and safe life is becoming a impossible task for middle class families. In this way, rich people are getting richer and poor are getting poorer.

Some cases are there which must be executed. People often collect these needed commodities and create an artificial scarcity so that the price get raised in an unexpected rate. Goods are not present according to the demand and that’s why price rise takes place.

However, the national economy gets affected harshly. A comprehensive economy policy and strict vigilance are urgently needed.

The modern era is another name of SCIENCE. Actually we are surrounded by presents of science. The newspaper, with which the day starts of a middle class family, is a product of science to satisfy our hunger of information. The television is also a part of our life which connects two different worlds. The electric light used to lighten rooms or the oven to prepare breakfast is example of presence of science without which we cannot even imagine anything.

Two of the gifts of science which should be mentioned specially are mobile and computer. At a time, it was a part of luxury in human life. But now, it has become a necessity. Mobile has no external wire, hence it can be carried anywhere. It is important in the present life of haste and hurry. The whole world gets contained in the tiny screen of mobile. Same stands for computer. As it has external wire, laptop has been invented t make things easier.

The think which also should be covered that numerous fierce weapons comes under the invention of science. Countries are behaving like rivalry warriors to show their greatness and abusing the SCIENCE. So to conclude, we can say that science is a concept. We just have to change our approach to catch it.

Labour is sacred, labour is honourable.

• Thomas Carlyle.

Some people are so proud and consider manual work to be below their dignity. It must be remembered that all work ranks the same. Every person with his/her profession contributes a lot to the nation. To be honest, in behalf of the majority, can be claimed that people like to have some white collar jobs and paid a handsome salary.

At the same time, there are taxi drivers, rickshaw pullers, butchers, cobblers, teachers who do their jobs efficiently to give themselves and the nation too. People of India should understand the dignity of labour and work accordingly. The students at first should understand this concept. They should be learnt this things so that the upcoming generation become morally strong.

When everyone will realise the dignity of labour, self-reliance, strength and independence will be created. In India, manual labour is now a part of the curriculum of the education.

“THE BENEFITS OF AN ONLINE WRITING TUTOR”

Writing is vital for success in most careers and disciplines today, so students must begin to acquire good writing skills early to prepare for adult life. Sometimes students need additional help to develop these skills. This is true for both public/private school and homeschooled children. In the classroom, the teacher doesn’t always have the time to work one-on-one with students. At home, parents who may well excel at teaching (and grading) math and other more straightforward subjects, are often uncomfortable critiquing their children’s writing. Not to mention that writing is a process, requiring much “re-doing,” which can lead to power struggles between parents and students.

Developing strong writing skills has a number of benefits for students:

1.Improvement in all coursework, not just language arts.

2.Preparation for standardized testing (including the all-important SAT)

3.Enhancing college entrance and performance

4.Boosting career possibilities.

5.Thinking critically.

6.Becoming a better overall communicator throughout life.

In other words, helping a student grow as a writer is an investment in their future. But how can an online writing tutor help them develop these skills?

Depending on a student’s level, it may be helpful to begin with online writing tutorials covering the basics such as sentence structure, then working systematically through paragraph writing and essay writing. An effective writing instructor provides engaging exercises and encouraging feedback, guiding students until they reach the point where they can write effortlessly and reason convincingly.

So, whether to improve school grades, score well on standardized tests, or develop lifelong communication and reasoning skills, an online writing tutor can help students achieve both these short-term and long-term goals. At Time4Writing, every writing teacher is a certified teacher who works individually with each student to improve writing skills.

It All Starts With Sentence Writing:

Sometimes a sentence can be as simple in construction and easy in comprehension as “I love peanut butter and jelly.” How would you complete this sentence? “Peanut butter and jelly ____ delicious.” Would you use is or are? Learning the intricacies of subject-verb agreement from an online writing tutor is just the start of developing strong writing skills, from simple statements to more complex sentences. Once students learn the foundational concepts, it isn’t long before they move on to higher levels of creative writing.

Even middle school students who haven’t truly mastered the subtleties of strong sentences can benefit from an Elementary School Sentence Writing review. Knowing the basic sentence-writing concepts of subject-verb agreement, singular and plural nouns, as well as declarative and interrogative sentences is key to being able to move toward crafting compelling paragraphs.

A dynamic writing tutor teaches these ideas through fun and interesting writing assignments, so students look forward to and enjoy learning the early steps in the writing process. With this sort of personalized writing help, students are soon writing detailed, well-constructed sentences, with proper punctuation and language.

Ready for Paragraph Writing:

Imagine the great feeling when a student recognizes the power sentences have as the building blocks of paragraphs! A capable online writing tutor can lift homeschoolers and other students to this point, moving from a simple understanding of the structure of paragraphs all the way to using them to create a complex and nuanced argument in an essay. Beginning with tutorials in the objectives of Elementary School Paragraph Writing, students get the full overview of paragraphs from topic sentences through closing sentences.

Once students understand these writing basics, the sky is the limit! Their online writing tutor helps them become more adept at making a point and getting it across. From Middle School Writing Paragraphs to High School and College Prep Paragraphs, an online writing tutor shows students how to create writing paragraphs that are interesting as well as informative. With the support of an online writing tutor, students come to know how to make people want to read what they write.

Essay Writing:

Fact versus opinion: do students know the difference? Teaching that difference is one of the crucial tasks of an online writing tutor focused on longer-form styles of writing such as essays. Starting with Elementary School Essay Writing, students learn how to construct an argument with adverbs and verb tenses, character and plot, and how to put all of these details together. An online writing teacher makes sure students learn these concepts systematically, reducing confusion or frustration along the way. To make essay writing even more engaging for students who need an extra challenge, a creative way to introduce elementary level students to Narrative Writing and Informative Writing is by adding the incentive of the wild animal kingdom!

By the time students complete Middle School Essay Writing, their online tutoring in writing has taught them how they can research sources for interesting information to use in their essays as well as how to back up their conclusions. At the Middle School Advanced Essay stage, the students’ online writing tutor shows them how to use the “five W’s” (and the “H”), as well as how to use scripts and dialogue, as they learn to persuade with their words.

At the High School & College Prep Essay Writing level, students’ work reaches a pinnacle as their online writing tutor teaches them polish and finishing. Soon, it becomes almost effortless for them to take their writing ideas and build from an opening statement toward a conclusion. Other important steps in the writing process with which an online writing tutor helps students include editing, revising, proofreading, and finally publishing their work. All these steps are critical to college writing success and will also serve a student well in any future career they pursue.

Don’t Forget the Grammar:

All along the way of writing progress, students need the reinforcement of correct grammar and mechanics. The one-on-one input of an online tutor is invaluable especially at the Elementary School writing level. This is when homeschoolers and classroom students learn about nouns, verbs, and other parts of speech, and begin dealing with subjects, predicates, and structure.

Voyaging through basic Middle School grammar courses, advanced Middle School writing enhancement, and on to High School & College Prep grammar, an online writing tutor guides students through the areas of plural and possessive nouns, subject-verb agreement, and the rules of correct punctuation. Not every student gets excited about the rules of proper grammar, so a masterful writing tutor will integrate activities that engage students to go farther than rote memorization of mechanics principles. Seeing grammar and usage concepts put into action goes a long way toward helping students remember them.

-Jerisha. S

“REMEMBERING JANET MALCOLM: HER INTELLECTUAL COURAGE SHAPED JOURNALISM, BIOGRAPHIES AND HELEN GARNER”

Journalism has rarely had a fiercer critic, nor a finer practitioner than the longtime writer for The New Yorker, Janet Malcolm, who died last week aged 86.

Some might quibble with the description of Malcolm as a journalist, but journalism is a far more supple practice than commonly believed. One list of the best American journalism of the 20th century, for instance, had Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s Watergate reporting for The Washington Post ranked highly, but the top place went to John Hersey’s Hiroshima.

Published in 1946 in The New Yorker, Hersey’s 31,000-word article revealed in horrifying details the experiences of the victims of the first atomic bomb. It was also a pioneering, influential piece of what we would now call narrative non-fiction.

Malcolm began contributing to the magazine 17 years later, in 1963.

Over the next nearly six decades, she wrote many long reported pieces, profiles and essays that were published first in the magazine, then as books. Few journalists’ work has had as much influence on the way people thought about a range of topics – psychoanalysis, journalism, biography and the law.

She achieved this through a formidably sharp intelligence and sentences that were, as the magazine’s current editor, David Remnick, wrote last week, “clear as gin, spare as arrows, like no one else’s”.

A quiver of these sentences opens her withering critique of journalism, The Journalist and the Murderer, published in 1989.

“Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself [sic] to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse”

When this was published, journalists exploded in outrage, not least because Malcolm had pierced the omertà observed by journalists concerning how they went about their work. There are all sorts of legitimate qualifications to be made about Malcolm’s insight, but more than three decades later it remains a key prod to any journalist, especially those working on longer projects, to reflect on the messy complexities inherent in the relationship between themselves and their sources.

Helen Garner’s ‘shard of horror:

Malcolm’s influence extends to Australia, primarily through Helen Garner, who came to fame through her fiction but forged a second career as one of the nation’s foremost practitioners of narrative non-fiction, and a highly controversial one, too.

When Garner read The Journalist and the Murderer, she said it immediately struck a chord. “It sends a shard of horror right through you,” she said in an interview for Meanjin in 2012.

Later in the same interview with Sonya Voumard, she talked about her debt to Malcolm when writing The First Stone (1995), her still much-debated account of a sexual harassment case at Melbourne University’s Ormond College in the early 1990s.She recalled interviewing a retired judge who had once chaired the Ormond College council and was a “tough, smart old lawyer” who revealed little. As they talked and drank tea, Garner found herself gobbling up the homemade shortbread biscuits he had provided.

After she’d had three, he put the lid on the jar, saying “I didn’t do that to keep you out”, but he had.

Garner recalled:

“It wouldn’t have occurred to me, unless I’d read Janet Malcolm, to put a Freudian interpretation on his closing the jar – I mean Freudian in the sense that people are always doing and saying things that enact their real purpose. He would have thought the incident was about biscuits. But unconsciously he was indicating to me that he was in charge of how much would be given and taken”

A writer of unusual intellectual courage:

At that stage Garner had been reading Malcolm’s The Silent Woman (1993), her excoriating attack on biography in general and the industry surrounding the short life and tragic death of Sylvia Plath in particular.

In it, Malcolm likens biographers to professional burglars:

The voyeurism and busybodyism that impel writers and readers of biography alike are obscured by an apparatus of scholarship designed to give the enterprise an appearance of banklike blandness and solidity.

Readers, as well as biographers, are skewered for colluding in the exciting, forbidden undertaking of “tiptoeing down the corridor together, to stand in front of the bedroom door and try to peep through the keyhole”.
Biographers were as outraged as journalists had been a few years earlier. Readers don’t appear to have objected. They — we — seem to think Malcolm must be talking about other readers, the voyeuristic ones. She couldn’t possibly be talking about us.

But she was, of course. One of the paradoxes of Malcolm’s work is she continued to practice the crafts that she forensically critiques — journalism and biography. For some, this might amount to hypocrisy. To me, it underscores her intellectual courage, taking seriously the power and influence inherent in the practice of these two forms, and refusing to shelter behind loyalty to her tribe.

Which brings me to my favourite rhetorical aria of Malcolm’s, also from The Silent Woman:

The narratives of journalism (significantly called ‘stories’), like those of mythology and folklore, derive their power from their firm undeviating sympathies and antipathies. Cinderella must remain good and the stepsisters bad. ‘Second stepsister not so bad after all’ is not a good story.

Malcolm refused to write fairytales. Her stories may be as sharp as arrows; they also fly true.

– Jerisha. S

“MISTAKES HELP YOU LEARN – FREEDOM TO FAIL IN GAMES AND LANGUAGE learning”

It is not uncommon for English language lessons to favour communication over accuracy: real life is nothing like a classroom! In real-life situations, when you make a mistake in the language you are learning, context provides ample information as to what the intended message is. In fact, most of the time, impeccable accuracy is not needed at all! ‘Don’t worry about making mistakes,’ I used to tell my English language students, ‘communicating is the most important thing!’

What does the research say?

While making mistakes when trying to master a language might seem counter-intuitive, letting learners freely communicate and negotiate meaning is key to success. A learner who communicates a lot while making a few mistakes is much more likely to develop confidence for dealing with real-life situations than a learner who communicates very little because they’re afraid of making any. In communicative language teaching, for example, the teacher is tasked with both encouraging the learner to express themselves and with providing corrective feedback in a way that is not obstructive to communication .

This means that if a learner says, ‘I go swimming last night,’ it is much more effective to respond with, ‘Oh, that’s nice, you went swimming. What did you do after?’ rather than, ‘No! You went swimming! Use past simple for past events!’ – the former encourages the learner to continue their narrative while the latter is much more likely to make the learner stop in their tracks, re-evaluate the context, and think twice before expressing themselves again in the future, for the fear of making a mistake again. Teachers need to be careful not to parrot back everything the students say in this manner, of course, but the technique can be an effective method of acknowledging the content of a student’s response, while also providing feedback on accuracy.

The importance of the freedom to make mistakes in language learning is also supported by research in psychology, which suggests that learners who try a task without having mastered it completely experience improved retention of new information (e.g. Kornell et al 2009, Moser et al 2011). A similar experiment in the context of language learning also indicates that the process of making mistakes activates a greater network of related knowledge in the brain, which leads to superior learning outcomes .

Top tips for helping learners … make mistakes!

In Cambridge English, we believe that the key to helping learners feel relaxed and ready for communicating freely in the classroom is authenticity. This means that there should be both a real communicative need for a learner to speak and the authentic reaction from those around to what the learner has said.

Let’s look at how this works in our new language-learning world in Minecraft. There’s a dwarf called Hungry who asks the player for some fruit. The player of course responds to Hungry not because they will get a mark from their teacher for it, but because they want to progress through the game, and because Hungry is nice and there’s also an alluring vending machine full of treats nearby! Just like in real life, the player is free to choose whatever they like from the vending machine. There isn’t a low mark for buying the wrong item. Instead, Hungry rewards the player with more language, pronouncing the name of the food item he’s brought, and sending the player back to try again.

Here are a few ways of how such authentic communicative interactions can be practised in the classroom:

surround learners with the English language – encourage them to speak to you and each other in English
don’t worry about diverging from topics that are not strictly covered in your lesson plan – sometimes the best communication is spontaneous
model communication by telling your students stories and anecdotes about your own life and encourage them to do the same
let your learners have fun with English – give them colloquial expressions to try and ask them to share some expressions that they’ve heard or seen elsewhere
do not overcorrect – if an error is recurring, make a note of it and cover it in subsequent lessons
avoid the temptation to turn what was intended as speaking practice into a full-on grammar lesson.
While easier said than done, especially when the outcome of an exam is at stake, it is worth remembering that Cambridge English examiners, just like the people that our learners might come to interact with outside of the classroom, are driven by the natural desire to understand the people they communicate with. This is especially powerful when practised in the context of a classroom – via role-playing activities or language-learning experiences like the one we’ve built in Minecraft. They set the learners up for success in real-life communication.

– Jerisha. S

LABOUR HISTORY

KEITH FLETT:

When Gordon Brown, a Labour history PhD, became British Prime Minister in 2007, it was perhaps a sign that labour history had come of age, though one tempered by New Labour’s perceived ahistorical tendencies in government. Perhaps a more relevant sign of the discipline’s contemporary weight is the existence of a Wikipedia entry for ‘labor’ history.

The origins of the modern subject can be dated to 1960, the year when the Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH) was formed and first published its bulletin – now Labour History Review – in the UK, and Labor History (its US equivalent) also started.

Labour history journals for Scotland and Wales followed,and later in the 1960s and 1970s still extant labour history journals covering the north-west and north-east of England emerged.

Marcel Van Der Linden, in a magisterial survey, has argued that the origins of labour history can be dated back to the third quarter of the 19th century when the first labour and working-class movements were active internationally.

Van Der Linden notes that although the subject has always been internationally based, many of the most authoritative figures in labour history – Royden Harrison, Eric Hobsbawm, John Saville, E. P. Thompson – are British, and many of the categories of the subject are characterised by British origins.

Key people such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb and G. D. H. Cole provided parameters for the discipline, and Essays in Labour History, edited by Asa Briggs, supplied some important indicators for the development of the subject. That volume contained E. P. Thompson’s essay about the birth of the British Independent Labour Party in the north of England in the 1880s, ‘Homage to Tom Maguire’.

In his opening paragraphs Thompson laid down some ideas about where and how he would like labour history to develop. He suggested that histories that focused on institutional developments in trade union head offices in London did not reflect the real labour movement, noting that ‘the national historian … tends to have a curiously distorted views of goings-on in the provinces’.

In the 1960s Thompson did a huge amount to shape a view of labour history which was not focused on General Secretaries and trade union machines. His landmark Making of the English Working Class led to Thompson becoming the first head of the Centre for the Study of Social History at Warwick University.

However, this raises an important issue of definition. Van Der Linden notes that only in English is it possible to deploy the term ‘labour history’ to cover what in other languages is differentiated as Marxist history, people’s history, working-class history, and so on. Hence there is no fully agreed remit for what labour history does or does not cover. It remains a subject whose boundaries are comparatively fluid.

In his edited volume People’s History and Socialist Theory Raphael Samuel included labour history as one part of the whole, but later in the same decade Eric Hobsbawm wrote about it as a distinct and separate subject. Hobsbawm argued against any trend for labour history to be antiquarian and underlined that while recovering the history of working people is important the resulting research must still be robust, asking awkward questions of the subject matter where necessary

Writing in Social Science History Harold Perkin raised a sharp criticism of the way the subject had grown, heavily influenced, he suggested, by Marxist historians focused on the cadre of the labour movement with a certain view of how working-class movements should develop and how they should not.

Yet as Ian Birchall and Norah Carlin note in a review of the work of Eric Hobsbawm, understanding how labour movements become revolutionary, or why they do not, is an important historical question for the labour historian. Hobsbawm focused on the same issue in an earlier and influential essay, ‘Trends in the British labour movement’, published in the (at the time largely unproblematically gender-specific) collection Labouring Men. In the same volume Hobsbawm reviewed his pioneering work on the concept of a labour aristocracy as one explanation for the failure of revolutionary hopes.

Perkin argued for a labour history that was written by worker historians, something which was encouraged by the History Workshop movement from the mid 1960s, and history written about workers who were not necessarily revolutionary and perhaps even reactionary. A landmark text here was the edited volume by Raphael Samuel, Village Life and Labour, where in an extended essay he wrote about working-class life in an Oxford suburb which was based on quarrying.

By the 1970s the subject of ‘labor’ history was also making significant inroads in the US and Canada, influenced by the British historians, but promoting a new layer of authoritative figures such as Herbert Gutman and David Montgomery.

With the collapse of official communism during the 1980s and defeats for labour movements in much of the world the old certainties of labour history were questioned and post-modernist categories began to have an influence. Questions of identity, ethnicity and gender started to have a more significant presence, but historians like Neville Kirk were able to demonstrate how these could be effectively encompassed in a Marxist approach to the subject.

More recent times have seen the boundaries of the subject expand further. Historians like John Breuilly and Rick Halpern have pioneered a comparative approach to labour history, which has led to studies that look at labour movements in the US, South Africa, the UK and elsewhere. Meanwhile historians such as Peter Alexander, writing on miners, and Ralph Darlington, on syndicalism,have produced pioneering works.

The future for labour history may well include further moves away from its previously Anglocentric base, but there remains work to be done on this terrain. Histories of trade unions, and what general secretaries, union executives, head offices and labour parties got up to, have become deeply unfashionable. There is a need for historians who can address these not as the Webbs or G. D. H. Cole might have done but with the new insights that E. P. Thompson, and feminist and comparative historians have brought to the subject over the last 50 years.

-Jerisha. S

“TIPS ON WRITING A PERSUASIVE ESSAY”

The Five-Step Writing Process for Persuasive Essays:

At Time4Writing, we believe the five-step writing process is the best approach to learning how to write a persuasive essay. Here are persuasive essay tips for each phase of the writing process.

1) Prewriting for the Persuasive Essay:

The prewriting phase of writing a persuasive essay is extremely important. During this phase, students should plan every aspect of the essay:

1)Choose a position. Students should think about the issue and pick the side they wish to advocate.

2)Understand the audience. In order to write an effective persuasive essay, the writer must understand the reader’s perspective. Is the reader undecided or inclined to favor one side or the other?

3)Do the research. A persuasive essay depends upon solid, convincing evidence. Don’t rely on a single source. Pull information from multiple websites and reference materials. Speak with community experts and teachers. Read and take notes. There is no substitute for knowledge of both sides of the issue.

4)Identify the most convincing evidence, as well as the key points for the opposing view.

Organizing the Persuasive Essay: Outline and Structure:

Next, create an outline. Organize the evidence to build the strongest possible argument. If the teacher has specified an essay structure, incorporate it into the outline. Typically, the persuasive essay comprises five or six paragraphs.

Persuasive Essay Outline

Introductory Paragraph:

Grab the reader’s attention by using a “hook.”

Give an overview of the argument.

Close with a thesis statement that reveals the position to be argued.

Body Paragraphs:

Each body paragraph should focus on one piece of evidence.

Within each paragraph, provide sufficient supporting detail.

Opposing View Paragraph:

Describe and then refute the key points of the opposing view.

Concluding Paragraph:

Restate and reinforce the thesis and supporting evidence.

2)Drafting the Persuasive Essay:

When writing the initial draft of a persuasive essay, consider the following suggestions:

The introductory paragraph should have a strong “hook” that grabs the reader’s attention. Open with an unusual fact or statistic, a question or quotation, or an emphatic statement. For example: “Driving while talking on a cell phone, even hands-free, is the equivalent of driving drunk.”

The thesis statement should leave no doubts about the writer’s position.

Each body paragraph should cover a separate point, and the sentences of each paragraph should offer strong evidence in the form of facts, statistics, quotes from experts, and real-life examples.Consider various ways to make the argument, including using an analogy, drawing comparisons, or illustrating with hypothetical situation (e.g., what if, suppose that…).

Don’t assume the audience has in-depth knowledge of the issue. Define terms and give background information.

The concluding paragraph should summarize the most important evidence and encourage the reader to adopt the position or take action. The closing sentence can be a dramatic plea, a prediction that implies urgent action is needed, a question that provokes readers to think seriously about the issue, or a recommendation that gives readers specific ideas on what they can do.

3)Revising the Persuasive Essay:

In the revision phase, students review, modify, and reorganize their work with the goal of making it the best it can be. Keep these considerations in mind:

Does the essay present a firm position on the issue, supported by relevant facts, statistics, quotes, and examples?

Does the essay open with an effective “hook” that intrigues readers and keeps them reading?

Does each paragraph offer compelling evidence focused on a single supporting point?

Is the opposing point of view presented and convincingly refuted?

Is the sentence structure varied? Is the word choice precise? Do the transitions between sentences and paragraphs help the reader’s understanding?

Does the concluding paragraph convey the value of the writer’s position and urge the reader to think and act?

If the essay is still missing the mark, take another look the thesis. Does it present the strongest argument? Test it by writing a thesis statement for the opposing viewpoint. In comparison, does the original thesis need strengthening? Once the thesis presents a well-built argument with a clear adversarial viewpoint, the rest of the essay should fall into place more easily.

4)Editing the Persuasive Essay:

Next, proofread and correct errors in grammar and mechanics, and edit to improve style and clarity. Having a friend read the essay helps writers edit with a fresh perspective.

5)Publishing the Persuasive Essay:

Sharing a persuasive essay with the rest of the class or with family and friends can be both exciting and intimidating. Learn from the experience and use the feedback to make the next essay even better.

-MEREZJA F

“WHAT IS FIELD MARKETING AND HOW CAN IT HELP YOUR BUSINESS”

Field marketing is a type of direct marketing that involves selling one’s service. This is done primarily by interacting with potential customers face to face.

Field marketers can use the personal contact they have as an advantage. This helps encourage customers to take action on their offer.

The goal of field marketing is not only to sell products and services. It is also to generate revenue through leads generated from prospects. In this article, we will cover everything you need to know.

So whenever you’re ready to dive deep into this topic, keep reading and get your notes handy.

Field Marketing Basics:

For marketing to be “field marketing”, it must occur outside of the four walls of one’s office. Field marketing can be subject to classification as either corporate or consumer field marketing. This depends on who it is targeting and what type of product/service they are selling.

Field marketers use a variety of tools to create connections with potential customers. Some of the ones used in their local communities are:

1.Personal contact at tradeshows or other events where people gather for similar interests (i.e., outdoor sports)

2.Pamphlets distributed door-to-door that offer coupons for services such as car washes

3)Coupons mailed out to residents in specific areas which give them discounts when they visit certain stores.

4.Pamphlets or postcards sent out to selected households that feature coupons for local stores and restaurants.

Field marketing is subject to use as an effective way to reach potential customers in your area. Primarily, this is a great way to reach that may not be aware of your services. However, it’s important to note what type of field marketing is best suited for your business prior to spending any money.

Which Customers Are Targeted Best By Field Marketing?

When it comes to field marketing, the best customer to target is one who is not currently a client of your business.

Typically, these prospective customers are within the same community as your storefront. They may even live nearby.

They probably know very little about what you do. But, they are likely to be receptive to getting information from a trusted source. For instance, a friend or neighbor.

Field marketing strategy can involve sending flyers door-to-door that list deals on certain products. Or, you can visit local neighborhoods with pamphlets promoting specific services at a discounted rate.

How about advertising special offers through social media channels such as Facebook groups? What about participating in religious events by passing out fliers mentioning offer discounts?

Field marketing is any form of advertising that relies on personal interaction with customers, usually by someone who lives in the same area as they do. It’s a great way to get your message out.

List shoppers and browsers alike are important to the success of any business.

Effective merchandising is key in attracting these different types of customers. Retailers recognize through promotional campaigns target shapers who influence their friends’ purchase decisions. These are people who share positive experiences with them.

Field Marketing Tips:

To succeed with field marketing, some things can be done right and some things can be done wrong. To succeed with field marketing, you must have a plan in place before you start going door to door. This is where mapping out neighborhoods can come into play.

Did you know someone living near their clients could provide an emotional connection? It’s not likely they’ll give up personal information on their neighbors. But, they may offer helpful information about places nearby businesses are located.

It also helps when you have a map outlining what areas will be covered. This can be how many doors will need to be knocked on within one day (i.e., 20). Be sure to factor in travel time between destinations too!

You should also establish trust with your customer by establishing an emotional connection to the product or service.

Next, advertise and brand yourself before you go into the field marketing process. This is so customers are aware of who they’re dealing with when they see someone from your company.

It’s helpful if this occurs through some sort of media, such as social media accounts, websites, and mailers.

Be knowledgeable about what type of branding will get good results for your business (or know how to find out). This may depend on whether you need people to remember you from across the street or just down the block. It also depends on where most potential clients live: city, suburb, or rural area.

Be aware of the potential risks or disadvantages that field marketing poses to your company and be prepared for them. You don’t want to be met with thousands of issues that you simply did not have the courage to foresee. Take your time and learn the ins and outs of field marketing.

Street Promotions:

Street promotions are a great way for marketers to get the word out about their business. A promotion could be anything from handing out flyers, coupons, or incentive cards with your contact information on them.

All of these things will ensure that people associate you and your brand with being fun!

When done right, consumers may come back in anticipation of another chance at winning.

Merchandising:

Merchandising is making sure that retail displays are attractive to customers. They require coordinating with retailers.

Savvy retailers will make sure that products face with the customer and well-stocked. But a marketer can negotiate special displays or particular shelf space.

A savvy retailer would not purchase your product unless you provide them an incentive such as negotiating bulk purchase discounts in advance. This is so they won’t lose profits when consumers buy it at higher prices later down the line!

The field marketist aims to cultivate his/her relationship with both companies. This includes other digital marketing professionals who work in similar fields like merchandising.

This is because working together, everyone wins. After all, without teamwork, the dream doesn’t work.

-MEREZJA F

The Human freedom index 2020 ranked India 111th among 162 countries. India fell 17 spots compared to the 2019 rank. The index scans the civil, economic and personal freedom within a country. In the past year, a lot happened in India. The protest against the farm bill, unimaginably large list of cases under UAPA, sedition charges, the new norms for social media platform and the face-off between the private companies and the government with regard to this issue are to name a few. In fact, the new IT rules allegedly infringe the right to privacy which is again a human right.

By definition, human rights are simply the rights and the freedom that an individual enjoys by virtue of being a human. The Universal Declaration of human rights is the document but lays down its foundation. It was proclaimed by United Nations General Assembly in Paris in 1948. The document comprehensively along with the two covenants- the international covenant for civil and political rights and the international covenant for economic, social and cultural rights the International Bill of Rights.

On the lines of the document, India established statutory committees in 1993 the National Human Rights Commission and State Human Rights Commission under the protection of Human Rights Act, 1993. It is a watchdog institution. Recently it was amended in 2019. Despite having a statutory body to overlook human rights Indian performance in the human freedom index was dismal. According to many experts, the Commission is a toothless body. The Commission has practically no power of investigation and hence it is reduced to a recommendatory body. Government can reject its recommendations. Also, most of the pleads go unheard since the legal period for registering a complaint is one year from the incident. The chairperson of the National Commission can be a person who has been chief justice of the Supreme Court or a judge of the Supreme Court. There are three members (At least one should be a woman) who are selected from amongst retired judge of the Supreme Court or retired Chief Justice of a High Court. From the structure itself, it is clear that most of the members are judicial and therefore critics often complain about NHRC being a retirement plan for judges. State Human Rights Commission have even more restricted powers.

We all know what is required to rehaul the system and make it more resilient. Firstly, few changes in the structure of the National Human Rights Commission and states Human Rights Commission by giving them more investigative powers can be the starting point of reforms. Secondly, dissensions should not be muffled. The government should withstand the scrutiny of the activists and answer their queries. No government is bigger than human rights in a democracy. Sedition charges or UAPA should not be used as tools of silencing. These are not new suggestions. The supreme court in its numerous judgements, expert committees and civil society have advocated for a robust human rights system. The wait for a more responsive system is not over and the people are sanguine that reforms will happen in future.

“EARTH IS TRAPPING TWICE AS MUCH HEAT AS IT DID IN 2005″

Planet Earth is now trapping twice as much heat as it did 14 years ago, according to findings of a new study, which raise concerns about the possible acceleration of climate change.

For the study, researchers looked at data from the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument, which flies on several NASA Earth-observation satellites and measures how much energy the planet absorbs in the form of sunlight and how much of that it emits back into space in the form of infrared radiation.

The difference between the incoming and outflowing energy is called the energy imbalance, and the study found that in the period between 2005 and 2019 the imbalance doubled compared to the years before.The scientists used additional data from Argo, an international network of robotic sensors distributed all over the world’s oceans, which measure the rate at which oceans heat up. The researchers said comparing CERES data to Argo helped strengthen the findings as global oceans are known to absorb up to 90% of the excess energy trapped by the planet.”The two very independent ways of looking at changes in Earth’s energy imbalance are in really, really good agreement, and they’re both showing this very large trend,” Norman Loeb, lead author for the new study and principal investigator for CERES at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, said in a statement. “The trends we found were quite alarming in a sense,” he added.

Loeb and his team concluded the increased heating is a result of both naturally occurring and human-made processes. Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in Earth’s atmosphere lead to more heat being trapped by the planet.

Meanwhile, the shrinking size of ice sheets, caused by the planet’s warming, leads to less of the incoming energy being reflected away from the planet’s surface.But the researchers found that a natural recurring pattern called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is also contributing. The PDO cycle causes regular fluctuations in the temperature of the Pacific Ocean with its western parts becoming cooler and the eastern parts warming for ten years, following an opposite trend a decade after. An unusually intense PDO phase that began in about 2014 caused a reduction in cloud formation above the ocean, which also resulted in the increased absorption of incoming energy by the planet, the scientists said.

1. “It’s likely a mix of anthropogenic forcing and internal variability,” said Loeb, referring to the effects human activity has on the heat exchange between the Earth’s atmosphere and the surrounding space environment and the natural variations in the behavior of the planet’s ecosystem. “Over this period they’re both causing warming, which leads to a fairly large change in Earth’s energy imbalance. The magnitude of the increase is unprecedented in this record.”

EARTH:

“I only feel angry when I see waste.

“The Earth is what we all have in common.”

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

“Time spent among trees is never time wasted.”

“Away, away, from men and towns.

-MEREZJA F