Monday, February 29, 2016
‘Knowledge Economy’ to drive Economic Growth
Source: Elets News Network (ENN) Posted on February 27, 2016
In the run up to the Union Budget 2016, Sivaramakrishnan V, Managing Director, Oxford University Press, India, shares with Elets News Network (ENN) the key areas where government should lay emphasis on, from an education perspective
The relevance of education in any growing economy is uncontested. Its significance in a country like India that has a young demography with aspirations to be a part of the global knowledge pool, makes it exceptionally relevant.
While our policy planners have traditionally accorded priority to the education sector, the focus was mostly on programmes that would shore up the country’s literacy rate. In the changing world order where India’s ubiquitous position as the ‘knowledge capital’ has grown manifold, literacy is no more the terminus – it is in fact the start point! Life-skills, vocational, digitisation and skilling are the new buzzwords that now delineate education in India. The expectations from the upcoming budget are hence not just around policy reforms or increase in outlays – it is about providing impetus to a range of existing schemes, setting measurable goals and, most importantly, stressing on the efficacy of the work undertaken. Below are the four areas where we think the Union Budget of 2016 should lay emphasis on from an education perspective:
Teacher Training and Development: Teachers are the biggest influencers on students and hence hold a pivotal position in the education ecosystem. The teaching profession itself needs to be made more attractive for young professionals so that it becomes a career of choice. This could be done through increase in outlays for teacher salaries, incentivising them on the basis of student performance and outcomes or even with launch of a mass media campaign. Alongside, it is equally important to focus on the professional development of Teachers and Educators. This keeps them up-to-date on student related research, technology tools for classrooms and curriculum related aspects. A large-scale intervention targeted at training of teachers and educators, delivered through the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model, can provide the much needed impetus to classroom learning outcomes across schools, colleges and professional institutions.
Life-skills and Employability: Around 50 per cent of India’s population is under the age of 25. It is only prudent that we think of the employability of the growing young demography, as they have a critical role to play in the future economic development of the country. Programmes, such as ‘Make in India’ designed to make the country a manufacturing hub of the world, stand to gain from such measures. There is also a strong need to make our workforce globally employable, and proficiency in English language can immensely contribute to that effort. Therefore, English language courses must be incorporated in all life-skill programmes. Quality conscious private sector organisations can easily play a role in filling this gap through partnerships with bodies such as the NSDC.
Technology Proliferation: Technology is a great enabler and can prove to be the game-changer in education. While technology adoption in the Indian education space has happened at a rapid pace (especially in the K-12 segment), it is still limited to urban pockets. The real benefits of technology reaching classrooms will emanate once we ensure proliferation in tier 2 cities and sub-urban towns. This is possible through providing institutional subsidy on education technology products so that educational institutions find it affordable to adopt technology.
Research: Research spending and scholarly work in India is on a downward spiral – this is a very unfortunate situation. The budget spend on research has remained static at 0.9 per cent of GDP for the last decade. India presently has barely 200,000 researchers for a population of over 1.2 billion people. It has one of the lowest densities of scientific workforce, ranking even below countries like Chile, Kenya, when it comes to research workforce density in the labour population. As an example, in 2013, South Korea filed over 4,400 patents per one million of population while India could manage only 17 (Source: data compiled by Nature Magazine, May 2015). The education sector will be expecting some impetus for research in the country to spur innovation, modernisation and advancement.
We are quite confident that the policy makers will take a considered view of the needs of a modern and educated India, which is beginning to make its mark as a growing economy on the world economic and knowledge arena.
Source: Elets News Network (ENN) Posted on February 27, 2016
A thing of beauty is a ploy forever
For Samir Zeki, the father of neuroaesthetics, studying the neural mechanism that goes into aesthetic appreciation became an entry point into framing debates around the uses of beauty.
Students of the humanities may have been debating the meaning and value of art and beauty for centuries but they still don’t take kindly to interventions by scientists. So it was with Professor Semir Zeki, a renowned neurobiologist who in the late 1990s turned his attention to the study of what happens to the human brain when it sees or experiences art. His 1999 book, Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain, serves as the founding text for the field of neuroaesthetics and one of his major arguments is that there can never be a complete theory of aesthetics without taking into account the role of the brain and how it correlates such experiences.
Not surprisingly, over the course of hundreds of lectures delivered on the subject, Professor Zeki, who teaches at University College London, has often been confronted with the accusation that he is attempting to demystify concepts such as beauty or even love. “I ignore these arguments now,” he says with a resigned smile as we speak over coffee during his recent visit to Mumbai as part of a lecture series organised by the British Council. “What I really object to is the use of these pejorative terms like ‘demystify’ because these criticisms are not consistent. A physicist who talks about matter has to break it down to electrons and neutrons and so on, so why just go after the neuroscientists?”
The misunderstanding, Professor Zeki explains, lies in the fact that art historians are suspicious about the fact that neuroaesthetics seeks to give an answer to the question of what is beauty, a subject, he says, that they have been debating for thousands of years without coming to an answer. But have they got the question wrong all along?
“Neuroaestheticsdoes not ask the question of what is beauty, but only the brain mechanism that engages with the experience of beauty,” he explains.
Beauty and the brain
Studying the neural mechanism that goes into aesthetic appreciation has allowed Professor Zeki to frame debates around the uses of beauty that go beyond the art historian’s domain. In a 2011 study, for instance, he found that the same part of the brain that is excited when you fall in love with someone is stimulated when you look at great works of beauty. Viewing art, the study showed, triggers a surge of the feel-good chemical, dopamine, in the orbitofrontal cortex of the brain — which is involved in the cognitive processing of decision-making — resulting in feelings of intense pleasure. Apart from its utility as a scientific argument, the study also raises questions about whether more exposure to art could improve mental health. And conversely, it raises the question of whether a diminution in our ability to experience beauty is a sign of depression.
Studying the neural mechanism that goes into aesthetic appreciation has allowed Professor Zeki to frame debates around the uses of beauty that go beyond the art historian’s domain. In a 2011 study, for instance, he found that the same part of the brain that is excited when you fall in love with someone is stimulated when you look at great works of beauty. Viewing art, the study showed, triggers a surge of the feel-good chemical, dopamine, in the orbitofrontal cortex of the brain — which is involved in the cognitive processing of decision-making — resulting in feelings of intense pleasure. Apart from its utility as a scientific argument, the study also raises questions about whether more exposure to art could improve mental health. And conversely, it raises the question of whether a diminution in our ability to experience beauty is a sign of depression.
The questions that Professor Zeki is currently dealing with go even further — studying the correlation between the experience of different sorts of beauty. “Whether it is physical beauty, visual beauty, musical beauty, all cause activity in the same part of the brain. But, above all, the phenomenon is interesting because it holds true for mathematical beauty,” he explains.
Of immaculate conceptions
What does mathematical beauty allude to? Plato called it the highest form of beauty because it told you something about the structure of the universe. And Immanuel Kant wrote that the pleasure that we derive from a mathematical equation is that it “makes sense”.
What does mathematical beauty allude to? Plato called it the highest form of beauty because it told you something about the structure of the universe. And Immanuel Kant wrote that the pleasure that we derive from a mathematical equation is that it “makes sense”.
It is often said that mathematicians strive for beauty in their work the way painters do. And that some mathematical equations are simply found to be more beautiful than others. “Take for example Einstein’s theory of relativity, which was widely accepted because it imported a concept of extreme beauty into mathematics in the way that it sought to stabilise all that we know about the universe. And only recently, with the discovery of gravitational waves, it was proven to be true,” Professor Zeki explains. In experiments conducted in 2014, Professor Zeki attempted to demonstrate that for mathematicians the conclusive test for the veracity of an equation is not whether it is simple or complex but whether it is beautiful. “I depart from Darwin now, whose theory was that the uses of beauty are simply related to sexual selection,” he says. “I think beauty is a sign towardsthe truth about the universe.” He goes on to elaborate his hypothesis: “Take string theory for example. It has not yet been conclusively proven or accepted but I wonder if any of the equations in string theory are really beautiful and if that is what they need to strive towards.”
From causing consternation in the world of art to a deeper understanding of how the brain responds to the experiential, Professor Semir Zeki’s explorations of the nuance of beauty will perhaps end up humanising science as much as decoding art.
jayant.sriram@thehindu.co.in
Source: The Hindu,29-02-2016
Three Indian beaches among Asia’s top 10: Survey
However, none of the beaches from India feature in the category of the world’s best beaches.
India has three of the top 10 beaches in Asia favoured by travellers, a survey by travel website TripAdvisor said.
The beaches are Agonda, Palolem (both in Goa) and Radhanagar on the Havelock Island in the Andamans, according to TripAdvisor’s top 10 ‘Asia’s Travellers’ Choice Award-Winning Beaches’.
“India, with its extensive shoreline, is dotted with beautiful stretches of sand and it’s great to see these gems gaining recognition globally,” TripAdvisor India’s Country Manager Nikhil Ganju said.
Travellers’ Choice Award-winning beaches were determined on the quantity and quality of traveller reviews and ratings on the TripAdvisor website gathered over a 12-month period.
This year’s awards honour 343 beaches, including the top 10 in the world and lists for Asia, Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, Central America, Europe, South America, the South Pacific, the UK and the US.
Three of India’s beaches have featured in the list of top 10 beaches in Asia.
Agonda beach (Goa) has been ranked at number four position in the Asia top 10 list, mostly for being wide, quiet, picturesque and a great spot for sunbathing and relaxing with relatively few tourists around, the survey said.
Goa’s Palolem beach has been ranked 8th in the list for its beach hut accommodations.
Stretching between two magnificent head lands, Palolem beach is lined with towering coconut palms and is largely unspoiled. It is inhabited by local fishermen and foreign tourists alike.
Radhanagar Beach on the Havelock Island in the Andamans has been placed at number 10 in the list for its stretch of white sand with picture perfect waters lined with palm trees, it said.
Ngapali beach in Myanmar has topped the list, followed by Nacpan Beach in Philippines and Kata Noi beach in Thailand, it said.
Yapak beach in Philippines stood at number five, followed by Nai Harn beach in Thailand at number six and Sunrise beach in Thailand at the seventh spot, while Otres beach in Cambodia was ranked number nine, it said.
However, none of the beaches from India feature in the category of the world’s best beaches.
Grace Bay beach in the Caribbean has topped as the world’s number one traveller’s choice beach, followed by Baia do Sancho beach in Brazil and Playa Paraiso beach in Cuba, the survey said.
Keywords: Goa beaches, Havelock Island beach, Asia top 10 beaches, TripAdvisor’s top 10 ‘Asia’s Travellers’ Choice Award-Winning Beaches
Source: The Hindu, 29-02-2016
Karma is Action
THICH NHAT HANH
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Action that inspires confidence and removes doubt and suffering is wonderful karma.Karma in Buddhism is action.Action in the form of thinking.Thinking is acting. Speaking is acting. Doing things is acting. Every act has a result. That is karma. And nothing can be lost. It continues always.The shameful action continues and if you perform positive karma, it will continue very well if you help other people.So karma should be understood in a positive way also. To produce a type of loving kindness, compassion and understanding is a wonderful karma that can bring happiness to so many people.
To say something that inspires confidence and remove doubt and suffering, that is wonderful karma. And to do something to help people suffer less, that's wonderful karma, and that karma we encourage, and the Buddha always will produce this karma during his whole life. So Karma should not be seen only as something negative. Why the negative Karma should not be continued, should not continue the cycle of samsara.
The good karma should be included to be reborn and reborn because if you practice love and kindness, you produce love and kindness in your child, in your student. And if he continues, if she continues, she will practice love and kindness and will transmit to her children and that is why we encourage the continuation, the rebirth of the good things. We only want to discourage the continuation and the rebirth of bad karma.
To say something that inspires confidence and remove doubt and suffering, that is wonderful karma. And to do something to help people suffer less, that's wonderful karma, and that karma we encourage, and the Buddha always will produce this karma during his whole life. So Karma should not be seen only as something negative. Why the negative Karma should not be continued, should not continue the cycle of samsara.
The good karma should be included to be reborn and reborn because if you practice love and kindness, you produce love and kindness in your child, in your student. And if he continues, if she continues, she will practice love and kindness and will transmit to her children and that is why we encourage the continuation, the rebirth of the good things. We only want to discourage the continuation and the rebirth of bad karma.
Federalism In Structure, Pluralism Of Views
Written by the editors of The Times Group
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The Times Group follows a unique model, drawing on the Indian philosophy of anekantwad
The word federalism derives from the Latin word foedus, meaning pact, compact or treaty. The Times of India Group is a compact an agreement that its many units, including its flagship brand, The Times of India, will chart their own destinies, while remaining a part of the collective. These entities, including TOI, need only to subscribe to a couple of overarching principles defining the federation: Break no laws, and do not secede.Otherwise, they are the masters of their individual domains, encouraged to carve out their own distinct identities and never required to follow one centrally determined “line“. Their freedom of thought and action is unlimited. This unique model is absolutely unparalleled in any disparate media company across the globe.
However, federalism for The Times Group is not a matter of expediency . Federalism defines the Group, in the sense that the inspiration comes from a civilisational Indian trait: Respect for individual autonomy and creativity , drawing deeply from the Indian philosophy of anekantwad, appreciation that truth is a land that can be approached from multiple paths.
Long before India was a nation-state, it was a collection of independent kingdoms and many peoples with their unique languages, traditions and cuisines. However, a certain tolerance for one another existed because of the overarching cohesive force of a similar set of principles and beliefs.Therefore, a federal structure along with a certain unity founded on respect of each other despite the many diversities thrived even before the audacious experiment that is modern India was born. In a sense, then, federalism has long been a part of the value system of most Indians, so it should come as no surprise that The Times Group takes to it so readily . Hence, behind that remarkable statistic, that TOI, the world's largest English language newspaper, is now over 175 years old is a really simple, but deeply Indian philosophy .
Federalism in this Indian tradition is, therefore, a balance between two conflicting forces that always apply to any collective human endeavour authority and liberty . Neither can exist on its own, both need to feed off each other, and they always challenge each other. Progress is a tug of war between authority and liberty .Federalism provides for the best solution to this conflict because, while there is an authority , the powers of that authority are limited by liberty , and those powers diminish as the collective grows.
The Times Group's federalism is, then, ultimately a reflection of its deep faith in liberty . Any collective needs an authority to stay together, but all constituents need liberty and freedom of thought and action if they , and the collective, are to evolve and flourish. A federal structure allows evolutionary dynamism; it frees all constituents from unitary determinism, the defining attribute of a centralised structure.
All of the above points to a basic underlying fact: Not only is there no central “line“ or policy or indeed one single “controller“ in The Times Group, but there is also a positive tendency towards “decontrol“.
To many in the media industry where ownership of media is towards an end or agenda, such a view is incomprehensible.But can a “control freak“ understand the mind of the “decontrol freak“?
One way would be to exemplify how this works on a day-to-day basis.
No one “House“ view or “line“. Total freedom for each separate media entity within The Times Group:
Given that The Times Group is federal by nature and instinct, many of its media entities have news and views that totally differ from each other.
For instance, Navbharat Times' coverage may often be opposite to that of TOI's. In fact, NBT is sometimes found to be running editorials with a headline that proudly proclaims “TOI ke virudh“! This can be unsettling for some, including editors of long experience who would otherwise claim they welcome opposite points of view; one TOI editor, for instance, was profoundly upset that his view, as articulated on the TOI's Edit page, had been totally opposed by his counterpart in the columns of NBT and demanded the setting up of an “editorial board for the Group“. He soon found another job.
Similarly , Anna Hazare's social “movement“ took most of the English press and its readers by storm not so long ago. However, keen observers would have noticed that The Times Group's Maharashtra Times was far more dispassionate and blase ... simply because its reporters had first-hand, decades-long experience of Anna Hazare's tacticsagitprop in Maharashtra and had reported in depth about their impact at the local level.
Aconstant source of speculation is why and how, Times Now anchors are often seen fulminating against Pakistan, sometimes on the very same day when TOI may have run its Aman ki Asha campaign. In fact, Times Now's Arnab Goswami has been asked most indignantly several times on air by dumbfounded peaceniks from both sides of the border, how he can be allowed such a hard line of questioning on Pakistan, when the TOI happened to have been doing the opposite that very morning.
The answer is simple the two entities are completely different, indeed in separate companies, with independent teams who rarely talk to each other but flaunt their freedom to follow their own “line“ as a rite of passage in their journalistic careers. There is no one “House line“ here. There can never be.
Diverse opinions, points of view often within the same newspaper:
The pluralism and freedoms described above are not just limited to different newspapers and TV channels across The Times Group but occur within the same newspaper itself in many different ways.
For instance, the TOI often ends up saying the opposite thing on its News and Edit Opinion pages; this is aided by the fact that these two teams are not only separate, but also do not report in to the same editor.
In fact, the various editions of TOI are encouraged to write their own editorials to reflect local concerns and aspirations; what's more, their positions may not always be in line with the “view from New Delhi“.
Each edition of TOI is a separate franchise:
The pluralism at play is best exemplified by the franchise model across TOI.
Each edition of the TOI is often very different from another even as the overall look and feel remains similar. This is because each edition of TOI is a different franchise albeit governed by a set of broad rules in the same way as the Indian franchise of a foreign magazine like, say , Grazia, is different from its franchise in another country . As a result, each edition has a separate print line, with a different editor in charge. The task of the overall TOI editor, then, is to ensure that the independence of each editor is maintained, and to manage the system where these franchises run smoothly .
It is but obvious, then, that different resident editors are, for instance, at liberty to drop a story that is Page 1lead in a sister edition, and free to exercise their judgment on individual stories.Not only does this mean that a story of interest to Nagpur may not appear in Mumbai, but it would also mean that often, stories that one might read in South Mumbai or Bandra or Andheri, do not appear in even Navi Mumbai.
This is systematised wherein the TOI editor asks, for instance, editions to split their evening news lists into three sections National, State and Local based on each bureau chief 's judgment of the extent of relevance of a story . Obviously , there is an element of subjectivity inherent in any such sectionalisation. But the final decision on which “outstation“ stories to use, rests with individual editions, based on their mental and physical distance from the edition where a story originates.
The decentralised nature of TOI is underlined by the editor's observation in an internal note that even when he travels to editions outside Delhi and Mumbai, he consciously takes a backseat during the evening news meeting as he does not trust himself to know for sure what Ahmedabad or Chennai or Bangalore or even Kolkata, should or should not play up on Page 1 or inside. “In Chennai, for instance, I'm told the obsession with Pakistan is far less than in Delhi“, he pointed out.
Why do we say “mental and physical distance“? Some years ago, the company decided to distribute the Bangalore instead of the Mumbai edition of The Economic Times in Kochi due to proximity . But readers in Kochi weren't happy . They said they related more to the Mumbai edition, and it didn't matter that Bangalore was the nearest large city in south India.
All of this makes the editors' job of selecting stories that much more difficult.On any given day , even editions with relatively generous space are not able to use more than perhaps 10% of what the national network produces because an overwhelming majority of stories are used only in the edition of origin, and nowhere else. There is nothing wrong with that 95% of the stories that even Pune or Nagpur produce, do not appear in Mumbai; similarly , most of the stories that Mangalore or Mysore or Hubli produce, do not make it into the Bangalore edition.
Any insistence, then, on all editions carrying the same story with the same emphasis, would therefore mean trying to enforce a single line, and would go against all the precepts outlined above of federalism and liberty and would militate against the Group's dharma of plurality .
A question that is often asked is, if there are scores of media units in The Times Group's federal structure, and if all of them have the freedom to differ with one another, then which of the Company's many units best embodies the “Times“ belief system?
The answer is: All of them.
This is only achieved because in terms of operational philosophy , The Times Group's many publications and divisions are free to do what they want, and the federal authority (the management) encourages diversity that is truly unparalleled across any media company in the world.
The advantage this confers over a model that emphasises “a House line“ or “view“ is this: A federal media company structure allows all its publications to evolve, in different ways, with different views, approaches and at different paces, in response to different challenges and consumer needs. The Times structure allows units to react with speed and seize unexpected opportunities as they see fit.This makes the Group larger than the sum of its many parts.
A centralised authority works on the principle that it knows best, that all constituent units must receive their wisdom from a single person or body , and that there is one view. This limits every unit's ability to be unique and different and change and cater to their relevant readersviewers.
However, federalism for The Times Group is not a matter of expediency . Federalism defines the Group, in the sense that the inspiration comes from a civilisational Indian trait: Respect for individual autonomy and creativity , drawing deeply from the Indian philosophy of anekantwad, appreciation that truth is a land that can be approached from multiple paths.
Long before India was a nation-state, it was a collection of independent kingdoms and many peoples with their unique languages, traditions and cuisines. However, a certain tolerance for one another existed because of the overarching cohesive force of a similar set of principles and beliefs.Therefore, a federal structure along with a certain unity founded on respect of each other despite the many diversities thrived even before the audacious experiment that is modern India was born. In a sense, then, federalism has long been a part of the value system of most Indians, so it should come as no surprise that The Times Group takes to it so readily . Hence, behind that remarkable statistic, that TOI, the world's largest English language newspaper, is now over 175 years old is a really simple, but deeply Indian philosophy .
Federalism in this Indian tradition is, therefore, a balance between two conflicting forces that always apply to any collective human endeavour authority and liberty . Neither can exist on its own, both need to feed off each other, and they always challenge each other. Progress is a tug of war between authority and liberty .Federalism provides for the best solution to this conflict because, while there is an authority , the powers of that authority are limited by liberty , and those powers diminish as the collective grows.
The Times Group's federalism is, then, ultimately a reflection of its deep faith in liberty . Any collective needs an authority to stay together, but all constituents need liberty and freedom of thought and action if they , and the collective, are to evolve and flourish. A federal structure allows evolutionary dynamism; it frees all constituents from unitary determinism, the defining attribute of a centralised structure.
All of the above points to a basic underlying fact: Not only is there no central “line“ or policy or indeed one single “controller“ in The Times Group, but there is also a positive tendency towards “decontrol“.
To many in the media industry where ownership of media is towards an end or agenda, such a view is incomprehensible.But can a “control freak“ understand the mind of the “decontrol freak“?
One way would be to exemplify how this works on a day-to-day basis.
No one “House“ view or “line“. Total freedom for each separate media entity within The Times Group:
Given that The Times Group is federal by nature and instinct, many of its media entities have news and views that totally differ from each other.
For instance, Navbharat Times' coverage may often be opposite to that of TOI's. In fact, NBT is sometimes found to be running editorials with a headline that proudly proclaims “TOI ke virudh“! This can be unsettling for some, including editors of long experience who would otherwise claim they welcome opposite points of view; one TOI editor, for instance, was profoundly upset that his view, as articulated on the TOI's Edit page, had been totally opposed by his counterpart in the columns of NBT and demanded the setting up of an “editorial board for the Group“. He soon found another job.
Similarly , Anna Hazare's social “movement“ took most of the English press and its readers by storm not so long ago. However, keen observers would have noticed that The Times Group's Maharashtra Times was far more dispassionate and blase ... simply because its reporters had first-hand, decades-long experience of Anna Hazare's tacticsagitprop in Maharashtra and had reported in depth about their impact at the local level.
Aconstant source of speculation is why and how, Times Now anchors are often seen fulminating against Pakistan, sometimes on the very same day when TOI may have run its Aman ki Asha campaign. In fact, Times Now's Arnab Goswami has been asked most indignantly several times on air by dumbfounded peaceniks from both sides of the border, how he can be allowed such a hard line of questioning on Pakistan, when the TOI happened to have been doing the opposite that very morning.
The answer is simple the two entities are completely different, indeed in separate companies, with independent teams who rarely talk to each other but flaunt their freedom to follow their own “line“ as a rite of passage in their journalistic careers. There is no one “House line“ here. There can never be.
Diverse opinions, points of view often within the same newspaper:
The pluralism and freedoms described above are not just limited to different newspapers and TV channels across The Times Group but occur within the same newspaper itself in many different ways.
For instance, the TOI often ends up saying the opposite thing on its News and Edit Opinion pages; this is aided by the fact that these two teams are not only separate, but also do not report in to the same editor.
In fact, the various editions of TOI are encouraged to write their own editorials to reflect local concerns and aspirations; what's more, their positions may not always be in line with the “view from New Delhi“.
Each edition of TOI is a separate franchise:
The pluralism at play is best exemplified by the franchise model across TOI.
Each edition of the TOI is often very different from another even as the overall look and feel remains similar. This is because each edition of TOI is a different franchise albeit governed by a set of broad rules in the same way as the Indian franchise of a foreign magazine like, say , Grazia, is different from its franchise in another country . As a result, each edition has a separate print line, with a different editor in charge. The task of the overall TOI editor, then, is to ensure that the independence of each editor is maintained, and to manage the system where these franchises run smoothly .
It is but obvious, then, that different resident editors are, for instance, at liberty to drop a story that is Page 1lead in a sister edition, and free to exercise their judgment on individual stories.Not only does this mean that a story of interest to Nagpur may not appear in Mumbai, but it would also mean that often, stories that one might read in South Mumbai or Bandra or Andheri, do not appear in even Navi Mumbai.
This is systematised wherein the TOI editor asks, for instance, editions to split their evening news lists into three sections National, State and Local based on each bureau chief 's judgment of the extent of relevance of a story . Obviously , there is an element of subjectivity inherent in any such sectionalisation. But the final decision on which “outstation“ stories to use, rests with individual editions, based on their mental and physical distance from the edition where a story originates.
The decentralised nature of TOI is underlined by the editor's observation in an internal note that even when he travels to editions outside Delhi and Mumbai, he consciously takes a backseat during the evening news meeting as he does not trust himself to know for sure what Ahmedabad or Chennai or Bangalore or even Kolkata, should or should not play up on Page 1 or inside. “In Chennai, for instance, I'm told the obsession with Pakistan is far less than in Delhi“, he pointed out.
Why do we say “mental and physical distance“? Some years ago, the company decided to distribute the Bangalore instead of the Mumbai edition of The Economic Times in Kochi due to proximity . But readers in Kochi weren't happy . They said they related more to the Mumbai edition, and it didn't matter that Bangalore was the nearest large city in south India.
All of this makes the editors' job of selecting stories that much more difficult.On any given day , even editions with relatively generous space are not able to use more than perhaps 10% of what the national network produces because an overwhelming majority of stories are used only in the edition of origin, and nowhere else. There is nothing wrong with that 95% of the stories that even Pune or Nagpur produce, do not appear in Mumbai; similarly , most of the stories that Mangalore or Mysore or Hubli produce, do not make it into the Bangalore edition.
Any insistence, then, on all editions carrying the same story with the same emphasis, would therefore mean trying to enforce a single line, and would go against all the precepts outlined above of federalism and liberty and would militate against the Group's dharma of plurality .
A question that is often asked is, if there are scores of media units in The Times Group's federal structure, and if all of them have the freedom to differ with one another, then which of the Company's many units best embodies the “Times“ belief system?
The answer is: All of them.
This is only achieved because in terms of operational philosophy , The Times Group's many publications and divisions are free to do what they want, and the federal authority (the management) encourages diversity that is truly unparalleled across any media company in the world.
The advantage this confers over a model that emphasises “a House line“ or “view“ is this: A federal media company structure allows all its publications to evolve, in different ways, with different views, approaches and at different paces, in response to different challenges and consumer needs. The Times structure allows units to react with speed and seize unexpected opportunities as they see fit.This makes the Group larger than the sum of its many parts.
A centralised authority works on the principle that it knows best, that all constituent units must receive their wisdom from a single person or body , and that there is one view. This limits every unit's ability to be unique and different and change and cater to their relevant readersviewers.
Source: Times of India, 29-02-2016
Bengal village teen bags top Nasa scholarship
Saibal Gupta
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Kolkata:
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Eighteen-year-old Sataparna Mukherjee, a Class 12 student from a village around 30km from Kolkata, has been selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) for its prestigious Goddard Internship Programme under the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).She is among five scholars chosen from across the world for this programme.Nasa's GIP selects five exceptional individuals from across the world every year and funds their entire education after school.
Sataparna, who will appear for her school-leaving exams this year from St Judes School, Madhyam gram, in Kamduni -it gai ned notoriety for a bruta gangrape in 2013 -will be at Oxford University , where she she will pursue graduation post-graduation and PhD (as Nasa faculty) in aerospace engineering at its London Astrobiology Centre.
Sataparna told TOI, “It all started in May last year when I was a member of a group on a social networking site where there were many members, including some scientists. One day I shared some of my thoughts on `Black Hole Theory', and one of the members of this group gave me Nasa's official web site and told me to post my findings, which I did.“
Sataparna's paper on Black Hole Theory , and how this could be used to create a `Time Machine', was hugely appreciated. “I am very happy to get this opportunity where I will also work as a researcher at the Nasa centre in London,“ she said.
Under the Goddard In ternship Programme, Sataparna will work as an “employee and researcher“, where she will be part of its earth science and technology development programme. Nasa is paying her a generous sum as honorarium, apart from bearing all her expenses.
Her father Pradip Mukheree, a headmaster of a primary school who led a people's movement against goons and political pressure to drop the infamous June 2013 Kamduni gang-rape case, said, “She has made us, and the entire country , proud.“
Pulak Chakraborty , a professor of English at the Nabagram Hiralapal College, who's acting as Sataparna's referee at Oxford, said, “She is a very good student and her ability should not be judged through her marks alone. She is original, and that has made her attain so much.“
“She is going on August 17,“ said Pradip. “Though every cost is borne by the uni versity and Nasa, we will arrange for the passage money, which is quite high. I am thinking of taking a loan because I don't want to let this opportunity go,“ he said.
Sataparna, who will appear for her school-leaving exams this year from St Judes School, Madhyam gram, in Kamduni -it gai ned notoriety for a bruta gangrape in 2013 -will be at Oxford University , where she she will pursue graduation post-graduation and PhD (as Nasa faculty) in aerospace engineering at its London Astrobiology Centre.
Sataparna told TOI, “It all started in May last year when I was a member of a group on a social networking site where there were many members, including some scientists. One day I shared some of my thoughts on `Black Hole Theory', and one of the members of this group gave me Nasa's official web site and told me to post my findings, which I did.“
Sataparna's paper on Black Hole Theory , and how this could be used to create a `Time Machine', was hugely appreciated. “I am very happy to get this opportunity where I will also work as a researcher at the Nasa centre in London,“ she said.
Under the Goddard In ternship Programme, Sataparna will work as an “employee and researcher“, where she will be part of its earth science and technology development programme. Nasa is paying her a generous sum as honorarium, apart from bearing all her expenses.
Her father Pradip Mukheree, a headmaster of a primary school who led a people's movement against goons and political pressure to drop the infamous June 2013 Kamduni gang-rape case, said, “She has made us, and the entire country , proud.“
Pulak Chakraborty , a professor of English at the Nabagram Hiralapal College, who's acting as Sataparna's referee at Oxford, said, “She is a very good student and her ability should not be judged through her marks alone. She is original, and that has made her attain so much.“
“She is going on August 17,“ said Pradip. “Though every cost is borne by the uni versity and Nasa, we will arrange for the passage money, which is quite high. I am thinking of taking a loan because I don't want to let this opportunity go,“ he said.
Source: Times of India, 29-02-2016
Saturday, February 27, 2016
OSU, IndoGenius develop Online Course to Educate Students about India -
Ohio State University (OSU) – one of the largest universities in the US and Delhi-based IndoGenius have developed an online course to help students learn about the importance of India.
The course, launched by Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, will be delivered via the world’s largest online course platform, Coursera.
Funded through the US Department of State’s Passport to India initiative, the massive open online course (MOOC) will be jointly managed by Ohio State and IndoGenius.
Passport to India seeks to enhance the number and diversity of American college and university students studying abroad and interning in India by 2020.
The course curriculum was developed by Brian Joseph, a distinguished professor of Linguistics at Ohio State University and Nick Booker, co-founder of IndoGenius, and implemented through the Office of Distance Education and eLearning.
Titled, “The Importance of India”, the course covers a broad range of topics, from India’s ancient trade relations with the Roman Empire, South East Asia and China to India’s rapidly growing startup ecosystem and its role in creatively solving global problems through technology.
By educating students about India through the MOOC, Ohio State and IndoGenius are expecting that it will make a major contribution toward meeting Passport to India’s goal of increasing the number of students studying abroad in India annually from its current, 4,583 to at least 10,000 in the coming four years.
Source: Elets News Network (ENN) Posted on February 22, 2016 -
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