Friday 30 November 2018

Unsung champs of Freedom Struggle amid SC, ST and OBCs




Dr BR Ambedkar, Jyotirao Phule, Narayana Guru, Annadurai of DMK, Birsa Munda, Simaram Kanwar, Raghunath Singh Mandloi, Tantya Bhil, Shankar Shah and Bheema Nayak are few of the names which have been mentioned amongst freedom fighters of India who came from the backward castes, now identified as SC, ST and OBCs.

Fighting for the freedom of India, the fighters were all Indians rather than belonging to general castes or backward castes. The same philosophy determines the ethos of the Indian Armed Forces, and rightly so. Unfortunately when it comes to peace-time normal civilian life, the caste-divide starts looming large.

Freedom fighters do not appear to have been defined along caste lines. 70 years after independence, it would make sense to do so now, before their sacrifices and memories start fading away; for the following reasons:

· They may generally be known only in their areas; such recognition will confer some national stature and increase awareness about them;

· Such recognition will generate a sense of integration and belongingness among SC, ST and OBCs. When their heroes get due recognition they will not go astray and it may even ease the problems like Naxalism;

· Upper Caste Indians will feel a sense of gratitude towards the SC, ST and OBCs for their shared contribution towards the freedom of the nation; and

much more...

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Wednesday 28 November 2018

BRANDS have a ‘HALO’ – BRANDS also have ‘HORNS’



“Customers rationally weigh the pros and cons of competing products to select one that best fits their needs,” this is the classical economic view of consumer decision-making; but watch or ask anyone who has compulsively bought a giant block of “Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Silk” at 3:00 am and one realises that purchasing decisions are not always so logically driven. Consumers report a desire to buy sustainable products, but their purchasing decisions do not always reflect that desire.

The psychological processes that influence this intention-action gap are being explored through the field of decision neuroscience. Neuroscientists conduct experiments using tools such as fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to explore the activation of different brain regions. Certain regions of the brain are activated when a customer makes purchasing decisions. Scientists have observed reduced activation in the reward system in the brain when consumers are viewing ‘green’ ads.

Because consumers are not aware of their own psychological factors at play in decision-making, the best way to capture these processes is to use measures that don’t rely on a conscious response, such as reaction time measures, eye tracking or “fast” choice tasks. By coupling these with more traditional market research methods, such as surveys, one can paint a fuller picture of the rational and irrational components in the product-purchasing process.

Emotional intensity during the purchasing process can be monitored through physiological methods, including electroencephalogram (EEG), which measures brain waves; or galvanic skin response (GSR), which measures the amount of sweat conductance on the skin. These studies have indicated that ‘green’ consumer decision-making involves a high degree of emotional processing.

In a recent study a combination of eye tracking, biometrics, and EEG was used to explore the effect of food cues on consumer choices. The study first measured consumer responses to a variety of brands, creating a hierarchy of brand perceptions that ranged from “healthy” to “unhealthy.” Healthy and unhealthy brands were then paired with healthy or unhealthy foods and displayed to the consumer — for example; a McDonald’s salad represents an unhealthy brand selling a healthy food.

The study revealed two phenomena — the HALO effect, where people believe that the unhealthy foods marketed by healthy brands are better for them; and the HORNS effect, where consumers believe that the healthy products sold by unhealthy brands are more harmful to health. The study has implications for the obesity crisis, as consumers may be purchasing high-calorie foods from “healthy” brands without realizing that they have made an unhealthy choice. It is also possible that these two phenomena could also be at play in consumer perceptions of “sustainable” and “unsustainable” brands.

The consumers are willing to accept a black coloured (product attribute) toothpaste for making their teeth shining and pearly white but they may be unwilling to accept Woodland, Kiwi, Brasso, Silvo or CherryBlossom toothpaste. How about a Colgate Shoe polish?

(Fresh from the conclave of over 2000 representatives from the global community of Marketers and Neuroscientists on June 04, 2018 at Vancouver, Canada)

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Monday 26 November 2018

Delayed Education Policy*



Today's world is signified by the mutual union of two important trends: faster development of technology, and faster growth (and better reach) of information and knowledge equally. Linear Progress - go to college first; get a bachelor's degree; then earn the first job where you can learn job-based skills; and then only go and become a productive employee- this arrangement is no longer sufficient. For the graduates to arrive at the very first job, equipped with special disciplinary or subject-matter skills, job related skills, and soft skills is increasing, since they are now expected to be up and running on the day of their arrival.

Many recent surveys show that 70-80 percent of students graduate without special job skills. Employers complain about the lack of preparation for even entry level jobs. About 70 percent of the employers say they are not able to find people with the skills needed for entry-level jobs. The traditional model of higher education, focusing on the development of educated citizens - even if not completely broken still, is not far from breaking.

Adjustment of the higher education system to the labour-employment market, nimble and flexible education programs, customised delivery of education according to the needs of the individual, creation of right personality traits and the ability to focus better, combining academic experience with lifelong learning, these are the top-priority action points which are apparent even without the so called extensive analysis by the ‘group of experts.’

Moving forward from the discipline focussed higher education to the inter-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary education was the development witnessed in the last century. In the 21st century, academic curriculum will need to focus on effectively integrating skill development with disciplinary knowledge.

Competent, enabled, efficient and effective higher education system needs equally competent, motivated, efficient, innovative, curious and committed teachers who are in a perpetual mode of learning. It is necessary to improve teachers' qualifications and competence rather than diluting the established norms of entry to the vocation. A policy adventure of the recent kind wherein just to enable easy entry into higher education jobs, even the entry level marks for SC/ST candidates for admission into PhD programmes were scaled downwards is just dirty politics. Such kind of policy disposition will be suicidal for the future of the country.

We want to a send a manned-space-mission to the moon in 40-45 months but we cannot make a National Education Policy in 18-20 months – What an irony?

Or is it that being in politics needs no education and therefore good education is never a political priority, notwithstanding the fact that education space is always captured by the politicians.

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* The Committee to design a new National Education policy was setup by the Ministry of HRD on 24.06.17. Extensions in its tenure have been granted on 27.12.2017, 06.04.2018, 20.06.2018, 28.08.2018 and 31.10.2018. It is so unfortunate that the policy makers never undertake any proactive policy making; and when they do get down to reactive policy making, by the time they make a draft policy, the world has already move so far ahead.

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Friday 23 November 2018

Men Gender Discriminated – It’s Coming





Yale University and the University of Southern California are under investigation by the Department of Education for programmes and scholarships for women. An organization to get more women on the golf course—long a bastion of male power and a frequent locale for business deals—was sold and shut down after settling with a plaintiff for holding women-only events. The head of Chic CEO, an organization that hosted online resources for women starting their own businesses, downsized her company after settling a lawsuit alleging the group excluded men from networking events. And The Wing, an exclusive all-women co-working and social space, is under investigation by the New York City Commission on Human Rights for gender discrimination.

The most recent women’s empowerment organization to go public about getting hit with a gender-discrimination lawsuit is Ladies Get Paid a for-profit organization that holds networking events and classes on negotiating salaries and raises, managing money, and building confidence. After two men were denied entry to two women-only Ladies Get Paid events in August and September 2017 in San Diego and Los Angeles, respectively, they filed two lawsuits alleging discrimination.

Had Ladies Get Paid gone to court and lost, the group would’ve had to pay all associated legal fees. That bill could have run into the six figures—which likely would have sunk an organization with just two full-time employees. Ladies Get Paid has crowd-sourced the money to defray legal costs associated with the settlement, and they’ve raised over $100,000 from nearly 2,000 individual donors.

There is a strong distinction between businesses running gender-specific promotions as a way to drum up business (like a ladies’ night drink special in some Pubs in Gurgaon) and the women-focused business, networking, and empowerment events and programs, where there is a legitimate policy, rather than commercial, interest in excluding men.

The law doesn’t prohibit businesses from “drawing distinctions” among different people—as long as those distinctions are “reasonable” rather than arbitrary.

Women activists have called these men as bullies. In the future, feminist organizers targeted by men or men’s rights organizations will band together before settling. If future groups choose to fight back, there’s reason to believe they’ll find plenty of support, financial and otherwise. Such efforts would likely widen, rather than decrease, gender inequality.

[Based on: When Men Sue Women’s Empowerment Orgs for Gender Discrimination; By Rebecca Gale, July 03; https://slate.com/ Picture courtesy: Slate. Images by Ingram Publishing]

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