Monday, February 08, 2021

2020 has been a difficult year for everyone, students included. It is now over 10 months since schools shifted over to the online platform of education in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even now, as we have begun the New Year 2021, while most students long to return to the familiar environment of school, the timeline for them (particularly of primary and middle schools) to return to regular schooling is still sketchy. While humanity continues its relentless battle against this resilient virus, these young ones are fighting their own battle to remain motivated and focussed.

Here, we look at some of the ongoing challenges for students attending online classes and examine ways in which online learning can be made more interesting, comfortable, productive, and safe for students.

The new user-experience of attending classes online

Because of online classes, students do not have direct access to faculty or peers to discuss and clarify academic matters. This creates a hurdle for effective learning. To make things even harder, there are other challenges that present themselves: frustrating technical issues (such as a weak internet connection), having additional responsibilities in the house, and distractions (such as the presence of other people in the house, the ubiquitous mobile phone, or easy access to other websites). All this makes it hard for students to stay focussed. The following suggestions could help them make the most of attending online classes from home:

Proactively interacting with faculty and peers can help students understand course expectations more clearly, learn better, and stay focussed. For this, students can take advantage of technological tools such as videoconferencing programs like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, or the mobile phone or emails to connect with classmates or a teacher.
Finding a productive workspace as well as a quiet work time at home can go a long way towards improving motivation and productivity. The study space needs to have access to a high speed internet connection. Ensuring that their devices are charged and working efficiently before class time and study time can save students a good deal of frustration. Students can reduce distractions by using a website blocker and by keeping their mobile phones switched off during classes and study time.
Building and maintaining an effective daily and weekly schedule (similar to the one they had during regular school) creates a sense of familiarity and accountability and also helps in planning and time-management.
Not everyone learns the same way. By understanding their particular learning style (such as a visual or auditory learning style), students can employ effective study strategies for themselves at home.
Impact of online classes on students’ physical and mental health
As a result of classes being held online, students often spend hours in front of an electronic screen. This can cause physical and mental health issues such as headaches, eye-strain, body pain, stress and anxiety, a feeling of isolation and boredom, an inability to focus, and disturbed sleep patterns and food habits. Here are some simple, effective tips to help students take care of their health:

Attending online classes in a well-lit and well-ventilated room helps make the experience more comfortable. Using blue light filtering glasses can reduce the negative impact of prolonged screen time. Students can also use the short break time between online classes to wash their eyes and do basic stretching exercises. Having ergonomic furniture can help them steer clear of posture-related issues. Importantly, students need to make a conscious decision to limit their overall screen time.
Having nutritious and tasty meals/snacks can keep students energetic and happy. In addition to this, consuming adequate amounts of water through the day is essential to stay healthy. Sufficient and good quality sleep also goes a long way towards keeping students physically and mentally fit. Parents can help their children with this by keeping them away from anything that may keep them awake late at night.
Creating a healthy balance between personal time (time for oneself), study time, family time, and time for socialising is important and can contribute to one’s good health. Weekends could be kept free of school work and instead be filled with relaxing, recreational activities.
Attending online classes for over 10 months, with the possibility of this continuing for perhaps a little while longer, has been difficult for students. It is important for family members and teachers to understand this predicament and continue to journey with them so that they don’t feel alone in thier struggle. They need to be encouraged to stay motivated, while assuring them that schools are most likely to open up in the near future.
By Ashlon Noronha

Source: Indian Express, 5/02/21

Regulating online speech with due process, transparency

Restrictions on online speech should be reasonable in every sense. Else, cyberspace will lose its most distinguishing feature — that it is an arena where individual liberties can be exercised without fear or favour.The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) and Twitter are sparring over an official order to block certain social media handles and tweets, posted by users on February 1. The content in question is about the farmers’ protests. Twitter is reported to have received a blocking order under Section 69A of India’s Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, after which several user accounts were disabled. However, Twitter proceeded to reinstate many of them within 48 hours, claiming that the contentious tweets were “newsworthy” and so constituted “free speech”. MeitY has threatened penal action against the company.

This latest imbroglio over political speech shared on social media has wider ramifications than meets the eye. Indian commentators often invoke former United States President Donald Trump’s executive order on online censorship and dub social media platforms as the “21st century equivalent of the public square”. There is indeed a strong case to be made for this assertion — given the scale and ubiquity of social media in India. Over 700 million people have access to broadband internet and nearly half-a-billion use these platforms to share diverse information, making India’s online sphere the largest democratic discussion board in the world. Equally, these inclusive characteristics challenge the monopoly of governments or private actors over censorship of online speech.

Section 69A of the IT Act gives the Centre powers to block public access to any information available online. An emergency provision under this section, which was reportedly invoked to issue orders to Twitter, also allows for “strict confidentiality” about complaints and requests received, and action taken by government to block such access. In other words, neither Twitter nor the government needs to provide citizens with a detailed rationale for content takedowns.

As a result, aggrieved users have limited judicial recourse since they are unable to access or understand such orders. This procedural opacity is comparable to the umpteen examples of unilateral takedowns of user-generated content by social media majors. The most prominent one was Twitter’s removal of Trump’s account last month, following the riots on Capitol Hill.

While “reasonable restrictions” under the Constitution limit the freedom of speech and expression in India, erroneous speech in public squares can redirect to truth only if participants are made aware of its falsehoods. In his famous thesis, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argued that “all silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility”. The government or social media platforms, on refusing a hearing to an opinion, assume a position of absolute certainty. This runs contrary to the history of humankind, which is replete with examples of the fallibility of those who have the power to censor. The digital sphere is celebrated as an exceptional space for individual liberties. In the extant case, a compromise on free speech absolutism online should only be made through transparent and proportionate means. A detailed rationale for blocking information on social media must always be accessible to the public. The confidentiality of the blocking process under Section 69A sets a bad precedent. It stems from the presupposition that the average citizen is too immature to distinguish between good and evil. In doing so, it legitimises unilateral blocking of speech by private actors too. India should instead use this latest digital governance crisis to remedy its approach to social media regulation. Platforms must be made accountable through mandates for greater transparency in their content moderation practices and legal blocking provisions must be modernised to reflect a graded, citizen-centric approach.In Anuradha Bhasin vs Union of India, the Supreme Court affirmed that the wide reach of the internet should not become the basis to deny the right to free speech. Therefore, restrictions on online speech should be reasonable in every sense. Else, cyberspace will lose its most distinguishing feature — that it is an arena where individual liberties can be exercised without fear or favour.

Vivan Sharan is a Partner at Koan Advisory Group, New Delhi

Source: Hindustan Times, 8/02/21

Friday, February 05, 2021

Quote of the Day

“Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.”
Confucius

“जो आप खुद नहीं पसंद करते उसे दूसरों पर मत थोपिए।”
कन्फ्यूशियस

India’s first Centre for Wetland Conservation and Management to be opened in Chennai

Why it will be set up?

This Centre for Wetland Conservation and Management will be set in a bid to address the knowledge gaps and specific research needs for the conservation and management of wetlands.

Centre for Wetland Conservation and Management

The Centre for Wetland Conservation and Management (CWCM) will be set up by the central government in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
This conservation centre would be a part of the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management. This national centre is an institution under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
The CWCM will play a significant role to design and implement the regulatory frameworks and policies. It will also help in monitoring, management planning and targeted research in a bid to conserve the wetlands.
The conservation centre will also act as a knowledge hub.
It will enable the exchange between the wetland authorities in States or Union Territories, managers, wetland researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and users.
The centre will further help in building the networks and partnerships with the relevant international and national agencies.

What are wetlands?

Wetland are a distinct ecosystem that are flooded by water. They are flooded either permanently or seasonally. In such ecosystems, oxygen-free processes prevail. Wetlands helps in water purification, water storage, processing of carbon and the stabilization of shorelines. It also provides support to the plants and animals. They are the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems. They occur naturally on every continent and the water in the can be either freshwater, brackish, or saltwater.

Wetlands in India

India has 42 Ramsar sites that have been designated as Wetlands of International Importance. They cover around 4.6% of Indian landmass.

World Wetlands Day

In a bid to conserve the wetlands, February 2 is observed as World Wetlands Day. In the year 2021, the day marked the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. This convention was signed at Ramsar in Iran in the year 1971.

Current Affairs – February 05, 2021

INDIA

‘Chauri Chaura’ Centenary celebrations inaugurated

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated ‘Chauri Chaura’ Centenary Celebrations at Chauri Chaura, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh on February 4, 2021. The day marks 100 years of the ‘Chauri Chaura’ incident, a landmark event in the country’s fight for independence. A group of freedom fighters participating in the non-cooperation movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi in 1922 were fired upon by police, leading to death of many of them. In retaliation, protestors attacked and set fire to the Chauri Chaura police station, killing many of its occupants. Gandhi had called off the movement due to the violence.

Rajpath redevelopment project begins

The government’s Central Vista Avenue redevelopment project began on February 4, 2021 with Housing and Urban Affairs (HUA) Minister Hardeep Puri performing a “bhoomi pujan” at India Gate. The avenue, which stretches from North and South Block till India Gate, and includes Rajpath and its lawns and Vijay Chowk, is 3 km long. The project was awarded to Shapoorji Pallonji & Company Private Limited on January 8. After the construction of the new Parliament building began in January 2021, the redevelopment of the avenue becomes the second part of the government’s larger Central Vista revamp project to begin.

PM Modi holds phone talk with Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a telephone conversation on February 4, 2021 with M. Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa. The two leaders discussed the continuing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and in this context the vaccination campaigns being undertaken in their respective countries.

Economy & Corporate

Agreements/MoU signed on Feb 4 at Aero India 2021 in Bengaluru

Several agreements/MoUs were signed on February 4 at the three-day Aero India 2021 in Bengaluru that will conclude on February 5. Israeli defence technology company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) are teaming up for joint induction of an anti-torpedo defence system called ‘SHADE’ for the Indian Navy. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) received a Request for Proposal (RFP) from the Indian Air Force for 70 HTT-40 Basic Trainer Aircraft. HAL and Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited (MIDHANI) have signed MoU for development and production of composite raw materials that are used in manufacture of aircrafts and are currently being imported. Israel’s SpearUAV, developers and suppliers of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) solutions, has signed an MoU with Paras Aerospace to introduce encapsulated Ninox 40 system to the Indian market.

Banks wrote off Rs 62,000 cr loans of top 100 willful defaulters: RBI

Banks have written off almost Rs 62,000 crore of loans of top 100 wilful defaulters as of March 2020, with Jatin Mehta’s Winsome Diamonds & Jewellery topping the list at Rs 3,098 crores. This data was shared by the Reserve Bank of India shared with Right to Information Act activist Biswanath Goswami.

L&T’s CEO & MD appointed as Chairman of the National Safety Council

The Ministry of Labour & Employment has appointed S.N. Subrahmanyan, CEO and Managing Director, L&T Ltd, as the Chairman of the National Safety Council for a period of three years.

Govt. launched KAPILA for IP Literacy and creating patent awareness

Govt. launched KAPILA (Kalam Program for Intellectual Property Literacy and Awareness Campaign) for Intellectual Property Literacy and creating patent awareness

The Government has launched a campaign namely Kalam Program for Intellectual Property Literacy and Awareness Campaign (KAPILA) on 15^th October, 2020. This information was given by the Union Minister for Education Ministry, Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on February 4, 2021.

Serum Institute, UNICEF enter into long-term supply for Covid-19 vaccines

Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) and UNICEF have entered into a long-term supply agreement for the AstraZeneca/Oxford and the Novavax vaccines, with the UN children’s agency saying it will have access to up to 1.1 billion doses of vaccines for around 100 countries. This was announced by United Nations International Children Education Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Henrietta Fore.

World

US extends New START Nuclear Arms Control Treaty with Russia for five years

United States has extended the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) nuclear arms control treaty with Russia for five years till February 5, 2026. The treaty, which first went into effect in 2011, limits the US and Russia to deploying no more than 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads each and imposes restrictions on the land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.

Pak tests nuclear-capable surface-to-surface ballistic missile Ghaznavi

Pakistan on February 3, 2021 said it has successfully test-fired the nuclear-capable surface-to-surface ballistic missile Ghaznavi which can strike targets up to 290 kilometres.

International Criminal Court convicts former Ugandan warlord of war crimes

The Hague, Netherlands-based International Criminal Court (ICC) on February 4, 2021 convicted former Ugandan warlord Dominic Ongwen of war crimes and crimes against humanity between 2002 and 2004 in northern Uganda when he led a brigade of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

UK revokes China Global Television Network’s license to air its programs

In the United Kingdom, the broadcasting regulator Ofcom has revoked China Global Television Network’s (CGTN) license to air its programs in the country. Ofcom said that Star China Media Ltd (SCML), which owns the UK licence for CGTN, does not have day-to-day control over the channel, which is against its rules.

International Day of Human Fraternity celebrated on Feb 4 by UN

The International Day of Human Fraternity was celebrated on February 4, 2021 by the United Nations. 2021 theme: ‘A Pathway to the Future’. A meeting between Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad al-Tayyib, on 4 February 2019 in Abu Dhabi had resulted in the signing of the document entitled “Human fraternity for world peace and living together”.

Hebrew University of Jerusalem launches MA in Smart Cities and Urban Informatics

The Rothberg International School at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem launched MA in smart cities and urban informatics. Taught by the Department of Geography, faculty of social sciences, the programme aims to develop a new generation of urban planners, analysts, and policymakers with the requisite toolbox for addressing the challenges of the smart city.

The university claims that the course capitalists on the existing programme in urban planning at the Hebrew University and the geoinformatics track in the department of geography. “It is curated for social science students who want to acquire a broad-based understanding of contemporary urban development utilising state of the art techniques in spatial analysis,” it added.

The programme focuses on smart cities and urban informatics. Where the former is an urban ecosystem optimising city functions and driving economic growth while improving quality of life, the later is a suite of tools and methods applied to urban issues. Geo-data is crucial for a better understanding of human interactions with the city.

The programme is a one-year, 32-credit course taught in English. “It is structured such that students acquire the key analytic competences in a relatively short-term frame the programme offers an opportunity to study in and experience the City of Jerusalem. With an active technological ecosystem, the city offers the ideal backdrop for the programme,” the university says in official statement.

Interested can apply at smartcities.huji.ac.il/. The application process will be open till April 29. A $200 scholarship will be awarded to students who apply to the programme by April 29, 2021, are accepted, and pay tuition in full by May 13, 2021.

The university will be conducting a Virtual Open Day on March 14, 2021 for students looking to study and gather information about the programme. Anyone who has studied an undergraduate degree from a recognised university in India can apply for the course. The students are required to have an average of 85 per cent or equivalent grade average with a recommended band of 6 or above in IELTS.

Source: Indian Express, 4/02/21

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