Engineer’s Day 2022: The Engineer who received the Bharat Ratna and British Knighthood

 To commemorate the birth anniversary of Sir Moksha Gundam Visvesvaraya, India celebrates 15 September as Engineer’s Day. Known as the father of Indian engineering, he is regarded as one of the nation's greatest engineers. His remarkable contribution to the world of engineering has changed the way we perceive the field today. Along with India, other countries such as Sri Lanka and Tanzania have also honoured him by marking 15 September as Engineer’s day.

Significance:

National Engineering day serves as a day for thanking engineers for their immense support and contribution made to the nation’s development. In 1968, the Government of India decided to observe 15 September as National Engineering day with the intention that aspiring engineers would look get inspired by Visvesvaraya’s consider him to be their role model and guiding light.

India has often been referred to as a country of engineers. This is no surprise, considering engineering is still one of the most earnest and popular career choices in India.

About Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya:

Born on 15 September 1861 in Karnataka, Visvesvaray initially attended the University of Madras to become a Bachelor of Arts. However, he soon made a career transition and instead pursued a Diploma in Civil Engineering from the College of Science in Pune. His remarkable innovation of creating ‘block systems’, where he installed an irrigation system with water floodgates at a reservoir near Pune, became a feather in the cap for him. The system helped in increasing the water supply level as well as storage. This irrigation system was initially installed at the Khadakvasla Reservoir, along with Tigra Dam at Gwalior and Krishnaraja Sagara Reservoir, KRS Dam in Mysuru, Karnataka.

In the year 1955, he was conferred the ‘Bharat Ratna’ by the President of India for his exceptional contribution to the development of India. He has also been awarded the British knighthood and served as Diwan of Mysore from 1912 to 1918.

India and Engineering in 2022:

The advancement in technology, ease of access and growth in the IT industry would not have been actualised without engineering. It is the link which holds every industry together. India in particular is making significant investments in IT. Our country also currently has the highest number of engineers graduating, as well as several top-level engineering colleges and institutions. Engineering, in particular, is an ever-expanding field where new development keeps on happening with every passing year. This in-demand and highly skilled profession is one to stay.

Source: Telegraph, 15/09/22

An Indian paradox: India’s voluminous media is without bite

 The news media in this country is a paradox. It is voluminous in numbers but, increasingly, without bite. We are on track to becoming the world’s fifth biggest newspaper market in terms of revenue by 2026 and have the largest newspaper readership, overtaking China by 2025. The size of our population, low internet penetration compared to other newspaper markets, growing literacy, and low pricing will ensure this. Even as India also continues to be a strongly mobile-focused market, with 72 per cent people already accessing news through smartphones.

But it will not be our journalism or reporting that takes us to any international heights. The New York Times currently has 1,700 journalists reporting from 160 countries. But the past two or three decades have seen India’s television news channels withdrawing feet on the ground and replacing news with debates. Our biggest newspapers have shrunk their foreign correspondent deployment to three or four major countries, at best, and state bureaus within India have shrunk to a single correspondent. The eight states in the Northeast are likely to be covered by one or two people for national newspapers. When the Hindi heartland newspapers expanded in the late 1990s and early 2000s to reach villages, they pioneered the extensive use of citizen stringers — it was cheaper than deploying journalists.

The closest one can get to the number of journalists reporting for different newspapers is the total figure of media and publishing employees from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s monthly employment data and the figures big media companies give on LinkedIn regarding their employees on the network. Take a closer look at The Times of India and Hindustan Times, for instance,and you would find management personnel figuring generously in the lists, which are around 1,400 and 2,600 employees respectively.

This government figured out in its first tenure that you can ignore the media and still win elections handsomely. It could have left it at that but there were scores to settle, going back to the reporting of the Gujarat riots of 2002. Hence the periodic efforts to regulate and harass the media via regulatory agencies. Today you can be bullied regularly by the government and let it set the news agenda on a daily basis with few questions asked. You can thus be one of the biggest media markets in the world and still have dismal freedom of press ranking. Since the last edition of this column was written, the system and its allies have not been idle.

To begin with the allies, on August 23, the Adani Group launched a hostile takeover bid of NDTV. It acquired convertible warrants through the acquisition of a company originally owned by the Ambanis. This group company had entered into a loan agreement with a promoter company, RRPR Holdings, owned by Prannoy and Radhika Roy, in 2009 and 2010. It has since changed hands before being acquired by Adani. This move to convert the warrants into shares triggered an open offer to acquire another 26 per cent of NDTV. Given the closeness of the Adani Group with the ruling establishment, this was widely seen as an attempt to tame a channel that the ruling party finds particularly galling. Considerable coverage of this takeover attempt ensued both here and abroad.

Later that month, The Washington Post reported a whistleblower complaint in which a former security chief of Twitter alleged that the Indian government may have forced Twitter to “put one of its agents on the payroll, with access to user data”. This was allegedly done at a time of intense protests in the country even though the protests were not specified. This is being cited as an example of efforts to police social media.

Earlier this month, there were income tax ‘surveys’ on three establishments— the Delhi-based think tank, Centre for Policy Research, the Bangalore-based Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation, which funds a number of digital web entities, and the funding agency, Oxfam India. The exercise involved confiscating and cloning of telephones and computers of personnel at these establishments and photocopying of records and papers to take away. No reasons were given for the surveys. In September last year, there were similar ‘surveys’ (the term, ‘raid’, is not used) at the offices of the news sites, Newslaundry and NewsClick.

Meanwhile, the much-reported case of the Kerala journalist, Siddique Kappan, who was apprehended and jailed in Uttar Pradesh while on his way to report on the Hathras rape in October 2020, continues to simmer. The Supreme Court granted him conditional bail earlier this month in the UAPA case even as the NIA court in Lucknow stymied his release with bail conditions demanding two local sureties of one lakh rupees each. His lawyers and family struggle to find UP residents who will oblige and bail in a PMLA case brought by the Enforcement Directorate is yet to be granted.

A confident government whose leader is constantly striding on the world stage should not need to be quite so hyperactive in its efforts to control the public narrative and harass journalists to boot, particularly when much of the media is happy to let the government and Narendra Modi set the agenda for coverage. A sanguine example for this government came with the reporting, earlier this month, of the September 8 agreement reached to disengage by Indian and Chinese troops in the area of Gogra-Hot Springs (PP-15). Most reports stuck to what the ministry of external affairs spokesperson said.But a few looked closer.

Deccan Herald reported that India has ended up conceding to the creation of yet another ‘buffer zone’ in its own territory. A Karan Thapar interview on The Wire reinforced this by suggesting that grazing lands used by shepherds in the area have been given away. As much as a full kilometre of Indian territory has been lost, he suggested. NDTV, according to Thapar, had also reported the loss of some 30 km of grazing territory in length. All reports were based on local sources such as councillors and graziers in the area.

Both Thapar and NDTV are already in the doghouse as far as this government is concerned for past reporting/interviewing sins. But some dogs, thankfully, continue to bark.

Sevanti Ninan

Source: the Telegraph, 19/09/22

Quote of the Day

 

“A wise man’s actions speak for himself.”
Sabahat

“एक बुद्धिमान व्यक्ति के कार्य उसके बारे में जानकारी प्रदान कर देते हैं।”
सबाहट

Current Affairs-September 11, 2022

 

INDIA

– PM Modi speaks to his UK counterpart Elizabeth Truss on phone
– Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announces holding of Swachh Amrit Mahotsav from Sept 17 to Oct 2
– National Conference on Sustainable Coastal Management in India being held at Bhubaneswar in Odisha on Sept 10-11
– Indian Embassy in Beijing issues advisory for students seeking medical degree from China; those who wish to seek admission for undergraduate clinical medicine programme in China are required to obtain a license to practice medicine in China before they appear for the Foreign Medical Graduates Exam (FMGE) in India
– PM inaugurates 2-day ‘Centre-State Science Conclave’ in Ahmedabad via video conferencing
– India’s eastern-most military garrison of Kibithu in Arunachal Pradesh named after Gen Bipin Rawat
– Chhattisgarh: CM Bhupesh Baghel inaugurates 2 more districts: Manendragarh-Chirmiri-Bharatpur and Sakti, takes total to 33
– Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel unveils ‘Cinematic Tourism Policy’
– Renowned archaeologist Braj Basi Lal dies at 101

ECONOMY & CORPORATE

– India stays out of Trade Policy Pillar at IPEF (Indo-Pacific Economic Forum)– Piyush Goyal addresses event hosted by US-India Strategic Partnership Forum in Los Angeles

WORLD

– King Charles III proclaimed Britain’s new monarch
– UK: King Charles III names William and Kate as the Prince and Princess of Wales

Current Affairs- September 12, 2022

 

INDIA

– Navy launches stealth frigate Taragiri, built by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders, in Mumbai
– President Droupadi Murmu nominates Gulam Ali from J&K to Rajya Sabha
– Rajasthan launches ‘Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Scheme’ to provide 100 days of employment in a year to families residing in urban areas
– India signs MoU with Gulf Cooperation Council to facilitate consultation
– External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar addresses diplomats at the Prince Saud Al Faisal Institute of Diplomatic Studies in Riyadh.
– Army conducts Exercise Parvat Prahar in Ladakh sector
– Centre fixes total number of seats in Municipal Corporation of Delhi at 250
– Veteran actor and former union minister Krishnam Raju dies aged 83 in Hyderabad
– Dwarka peeth Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati dies at 99 in Narasinghpur (MP)

ECONOMY & CORPORATE

– Two-day National Defense MSME Conclave and Exhibition begins in Kota, Rajasthan
– Production of Vande Bharat train to begun from October: Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw
– Centre imposes 20% duty on rice exports of various grades

BUSINESSLINE CHANGEMAKER AWARDS

– Presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi in six categories
– Changemaker of the year: Bharat Biotech
– Iconic Changemaker of the year: Mithali Raj
– Changemaker Digital Transformation Award: DeHaat
– Changemaker Financial Transformation Award: Zerodha
– Changemaker Social Transformation Award: Ramesh Raliya
– Young Changemaker Award: Akash Singh and Prachi Shevgaonkar

WORLD

– Russia announces troop pullback from two areas in Kharkiv region of Ukraine
– Last reactor at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant stopped says operator Energoatom
– 3 dead after 7.6 earthquake hits remote part of Papua New Guinea

SPORTS

– US Open tennis in New York: Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz (men’s), Poland’s Iga Swiatek (women’s) win singles titles
– Max Verstappen of Red Bull wins Formula One Italian Grand Prix at Monza
– Sri Lanka (170/6) defeat Pakistan (147/10) by 23 runs in final at Dubai to win Asia Cup
– Karnataka win 75th Senior National Aquatic Championships held in Guwahati

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents

 

Vol. 57, Issue No. 37, 10 Sep, 2022

Editorials

Expansive Social Security Programmes a Top Priority

Comment

Social Sensitivity of Mental Health Systems

Sudarshan R Kottai

From the Editor's Desk

In Search of New Norms of Politics

From 50 Years Ago

From 50 Years Ago: West Germany: European Scholarship on India

H T Parekh Finance Column

Another Global Debt Crisis

C P Chandrasekhar

Commentary

Needles, Blood, and Data - The Case of COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects

Meghna Roy

Regulating Creditors - Addressing the Next Frontier of Corporate Bankruptcy Governance

Urmil Shah

Monetary Policy and Stagflation - Keynes Meets Classics

Sugata Marjit, Ranajoy Bhattacharyya

Book Reviews

Children as Citizens

Amman Madan

Do Fewer Births Bring More Prosperity? - Learnings from Global Experiences

Milan Das, Srinivas Goli

Learning to Dissent

Rajarshi Dasgupta

Insight

Sri Lanka–China Relations - Analysing Sri Lankan, Chinese, and Indian Perspectives

Rajiv Ranjan, Asantha Senevirathna

Special Articles

Dynamics of Government Budgets, Growth, and Welfare

Niten Chandra, Himanshu Sekhar Rout, Padmaja Mishra

The Indian Time Use Survey 2019 - A Critique

Indira Hirway

What Does the COVID-19 Experience Tell Us about Indian Growth Drivers?

Ashima Goyal

Current Statistics

Current Statistics

Postscript

From Home to Asylum (or Deportation?) - The Refugee Journey

Ganesh Gaigouria

On P G Wodehouse, or How an English Literary Chappie Became My Favourite Author

Anupama Kumar

How we remember the hands

Anannya Dasgupta

Last Lines

Letters

Subaltern Collaboration and the Colonial State

Dwaipayan Sen

Food Security in a Post-COVID-19 World

Renu Modi, Johann Salazar

Career as a Career counsellor; what does a career counsellor do?

 Who is a career counsellor

Once we enter into our professional lives, we spend a lion’s share of our day engaged in our work. Hence, choosing the right career and starting on the journey as early as possible are of the utmost importance. Your interests, skills, values, personality, background, environment, every such thing contributes to your career development. Apart from that, there are also other factors that make a difference. Career counselling is a process that helps you understand both yourself and the corporate world. Armed with this knowledge, you can choose the right courses to study or jobs to apply to for success.

Career development is not simply restricted to deciding where you will work post your graduation. Its wider purpose is to provide you with the knowledge and skills you need for making your future career bright.

What does a career counsellor do?

Career counsellors are trained to help people make the right career choices. Whether the person is new to the workforce or or is looking for a career change, a career advisor can steer them in the best possible direction.

These professionals analyse the candidate’s complete background, interests, education, skills and personality so as to understand what would be the best fit for you. Then then use the information to steer them towards the best educational options as well as job opportunities, depending on their requirements.

As a career counsellors, you must have in-depth knowledge of the skills required in various fields, as well as the ability to gauge a person’s soft skills through various means of assessment. After assessing clients, you will then match them wih jobs that match their skill levels, interests, qualification and of course salary expectation.

As a career counsellor, you will also be in a position to advice the candidate on key factors that affect their choices - such as how much salary and what perks they should expect, how they should approach an interview, what extra curriculars they should take up alongside their studies to land their dream job, etc.

Here are some of the things that good career counsellor do as a part of their job:

• Conduct personality and career tests to assess the client's skills and areas of interests
• Identify career opportunities and educate clients about those options
• Provide references to different programs like training opportunities and educational programs
• Assist clients in finding good internships and jobs opportunities
• Train clients to crack interviews by conducting mock interview sessions with them
• Advice them on what they should expect out of a job or a course, and how it fits into their ultimate career goal

Career counselling scope in India

With new technological and social developments happening every day and the lines between traditional professions blurring constantly, it is not easy to pinpoint one profession that a person should opt for. With numerous and often confusing channels of information, people always pfer to turn towards well-trained career advisors to clear the confusion and provide clear actionable advise. Career advisors should, thus, be very familiar with market trends so they can greatly contribute to career development at the individual level.

At over 350 million, India has the largest student population in the entire world. Understandably, there is a need for career counsellors for guiding these students as they progress through their academic careers. With more and more students willing to start the discussion about a career at an early age, the need for career guidance is rapidly growing.

As a direct result, the market for career assessment, advisory and counselling services in out country is only projected to grow, creating more room for competent career counsellors to enter into the market.

Click here to know Nidhi Nagori's take on career counselling

Online Courses

Career counselling is an industry that anyone can enter into - the only prerequisite needed being people skills and having a real passion to help people change their lives for the better. Regardless of your technical or educational background, the door to this profession is always open for you. Mentioned below are a few of the finest online courses that can serve as the perfect stepping stone into a promising career in career counselling.

• The Certified Career Analyst Programme
• Certified Career Counsellor by Udemy
• Basics of Counselling and Career Counselling For Beginners by Udemy
• Career Counselling Certification for coaches and job seekers by Udemy

The field of career counselling helps you build great personality, but it will also help you become more organised as a person. Career counsellors analyse, and use tools to help individuals determine their career paths. They work with a wide range of clients at different stages of their life. So are you ready with your tool now?

Source: The Telegraph, 7/09/22