“You can tell the size of your God by looking at the size of your worry list. The longer your list, the smaller your God.”
Anonymous
“आप अपने भगवान के सामर्थ्य को अपनी चिंताओं की सूची के आकार को देखकर बता सकते हैं। जितनी लंबी सूची होगी, उतना ही आपके भगवान का साम
Are you considering studying abroad but wondering about the course fees? Know about the OCSI scholarship and how it can help you study at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge if you’re planning to take up courses there.
The Oxford and Cambridge Society of India (OCSI) Scholarships are given for undergraduate, post graduate and research courses in any subject/ course or field of study available at the Universities of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, UK. It is a part-cost scholarship offered to Indian students wishing to study abroad and aids them financially as well as academically. The selection of this scholarship is based on the academic excellence of the candidate.
OCSI Scholarship: About the awards
OCSI Scholarship: Eligibility Criteria
To be eligible for the OCSI scholarship, the candidate must note the following eligibility criteria:
Candidates must follow the usual admission procedure of the concerned University. They should also note that the OCSI will not take any responsibility for assisting students' admission. Also, relatives of the Executive Committee of the Oxford and Cambridge Society of India are not eligible for these scholarships.
OCSI Scholarship Parameters:
The scholarship is awarded to a candidate based on three factors which are:
Application Process:
Here’s a look at a few important points to note for the application process for the OCSI Scholarship.
So what are you waiting for? Apply at your earliest for the scholarship and get your dream of studying at the top colleges of the UK fulfilled.
Source: The Telegraph, 31/10/22
The word, ‘development’, is usually associated with a change for the better, a progression towards an improved state of affairs. When used in the context of an economy, it usually means material enhancements in the standard of living of some, if not all, members of that economy. The essence of the matter revolves around the word, ‘change’, towards something more desirable or preferred. There are many difficulties that arise when we use the word, development, in a loose fashion. A number of questions crop up. When we say that, for instance, the economy of the United States of America is more developed than that of India, do we merely compare national incomes or national wealth? In most instances, we do so. However, the deeper question is this: why should we always take material wealth or consumption of goods as the ultimate criterion of economic development?
A simple example will suffice. Consider the two economies, China and India. If we are to compare the state of affairs at a point of time in the two countries, can we say that China is more developed than India? Has it progressed more than India? Towards what end? Consider an alternative situation — India in 1947 and India in 2022. Can we say India has developed during this period of time? We are comparing China and India now, or we are comparing India circa 1947 and India now? The points of comparison show differences. How do we evaluate these changes? The changes can constitute progression, stagnation or regression. Hence development, as change, is dynamic, and requires an evaluating criterion (or a set of criteria).
There are many ways in which socio-economic change can be viewed and evaluated. There are a number of economists who argue that development is about growth in the availability of goods and services. To produce more, industrialisation and the use of science-based technology are considered the best instruments of change. The institutional apparatus that facilitates this growth is usually assumed to be parliamentary democracy and free markets with voluntary exchange. Hence, according to this view, the end state of development is a materially rich country with free markets and democracy. The future is best handled by keeping these quantitative changes going: more goods, more incomes, and more consumption. Progress is purely quantitative and material.
There are other economists who believe that an end state will arrive in the process of economic development, but there will be substantial qualitative changes leading to transformations in the market economy and the distribution of political power. For instance, Marxists would tend to believe that the current structure of market economies is inherently unfair and unstable. A classless worker’s state would be the end result of economic development. There are other scholars who tend to argue that development is uneven, unpredictable, and changes occur in a non-linear fashion over time and geographies. Hence, there is no predictable end state of development, and there is no progression to a better or more desirable world that humans could create.
There are problems associated with each of these intellectual positions. Consider the belief that the market economy and its wealth creation apparatus are the ultimate economic structures in human history. It is now clearly evident that such an economy cannot progress and develop in a purely quantitative way without bringing about its own collapse. The inability to factor in natural resource constraints and the failure to control waste emissions would bring about a downfall in the economy. The capitalist market economy, the way it functions now, is patently unsustainable.
The ideas of radicals and other scholars who dreamt of some utopia different from the capitalist order have been unable to demonstrate that such worlds could be actually sought after and created by human agency. Indeed, some of the efforts to create such worlds, like the twentieth-century experiments to create socialism, have failed resoundingly. Those who believe that history has no meaning and development is a kaleidoscopic pattern of endless variations of the same components might have difficulty in explaining the massive changes that human societies have witnessed since the recorded history of humankind. Substantial change has occurred over time, and that change cannot be captured by mere material improvements or some convergence towards a predictable end state.
A number of scholars have emphasised the expansion of freedom and liberties in a society as the hallmark of development — more freedom to do things an individual or society chooses as well as greater freedom from constraints to a good life, such as freedom from hunger or ignorance. This view is the most acceptable in terms of justice and fairness and does not talk about a final end state of development. However, this view, too, has some limitations when we consider the sustainability of the process of expanding spaces of freedoms. This worldview does clarify that individual and social freedoms cannot restrict the space of freedom of other individuals or other societies. However, it does not clarify that freedoms and liberties cannot encroach on natural processes so as to damage them in irreversible ways.
Human history started when change was perceptible in society and was different from nature, which was considered to be changeless, static. Humans began to perceive time through a series of social events with broad consequences. In most of these cases of momentous change, human knowledge about the planet and about themselves increased significantly. Humans were able to bring about substantial changes within small periods of time because they were able to transmit accumulated knowledge from one generation to the next. This was the real well-spring of human development. This helped tear asunder human history from the larger planetary history of evolution. Biological development is about transmission of genetic inheritance and occurs over millennia. Economic development is about the social acquisition of characteristics that can occur within a generation. For instance, the human brain of modern humans is about the same size as that of humans 5,000 years ago. But the effectiveness of human thinking has multiplied manifold.
One might argue, then, that human development is the accumulation and transmission of knowledge over generations. This cannot be measured through material progress alone. Human beings are part of the biological evolution story too, and they are just another (albeit smart) species in the animal kingdom. Hence the history of humanity cannot be completely independent of the planetary story of evolution. If history, in this bigger framework of the planet, is a journey, then the accumulated human knowledge must sustain this journey. Changes brought about in economy and society ought not to lead to a series of crises and disruptions in the forces of nature and natural processes.
One can view history as a voyage of development of knowledge that makes humans free from debilitating constraints of hunger and disease and provides freedom to do things of their choice, such as leading a preferred lifestyle. No story of economic development can be meaningful if it is inconsistent with the planetary history of evolution. Hence, development must be sustainable — the use of human knowledge must do no harm to destroy nature. Yet, the human ability to cause harm to nature is much more than the ability to conserve and create. Economic development must be viewed as a progression of ideas and understandings that protect and preserve nature in its entirety, yet making human life easier and more enriching. Achieving it is not easy even though we are a clever species. The big question remains: are we clever enough?
Anup Sinha is former Professor of Economics, IIM Calcutta
Source: The Telegraph, 4/11/22
– PM launches new Complaint Management System portal of Central Vigilance Commission (CVC)
– Ministry of Education releases Performance Grading Index for States/UTs for 2020-21; Kerala, Punjab, Chandigarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh attain Level -2 grading
Gross Enrolment Ratio improves at all levels of school education in 2021-22: UDISE (Unified District Information System for Education Plus)
– President inaugurates Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) North Eastern Regional Campus at Aizawl
– Karnataka makes 10 min daily meditation compulsory in schools, pre university colleges
– MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan launches Ladli Laxmi 2.0 financial assistance scheme for girls
– Gujarat Assembly elections to be held in two phases on Dec 1, 5; result on Dec 8
– Indian Army Registers ‘Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)’ of the New Design and Camouflage Pattern Uniform
– Finance Minister launches biggest ever coal mine auction of 141 mines
– Urban Mobility India Conference & Expo 2022 to be held in Kochi on Nov 4-6; organised by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in collaboration with Govt. of Kerala
– Unemployment rate surges to 7.77% in Oct against 6.43% in Sept: CMIE
– India abstains on Russia-sponsored draft resolution at UNSC for probe on Ukraine’s alleged bio weapons
– Grain ships leave Ukrainian ports after Russia resumes participation in UN-brokered deal
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath recently inaugurated Yotta D1 – India’s second and North India’s first hyper-scale data centre – in Greater Noida.
Yotta D1 is the first of the 6 data centre buildings currently being built in the Greater Noida data centre park. The first data centre was operationalized in just 20 months with an investment of around Rs.1,500 crore. The hyperscale data centre was developed by Yotta Infrastructure – an arm of the Hiranandani Group. It is situated at a strategic location close to important business hubs of India’s National Capital Region. This provides a major boost for the region’s digital economy.
The data centre spans across 3 lakh sq feet, having a ground floor and 7 other floors. It has an IT load capacity of 28.8 MW. It is capable of hosting 5,000 racks across 7 server floors. It offers fail-safe 48-hour power backup on full load.
Spanning across 20 acres, the Yotta Greater Noida Data Center Park is the first data park in the region. It will have 6 interconnected buildings, providing a total capacity of 30,000 racks, four dedicated fibre paths and an IT power capacity of 160 MW. The park is being developed at the cost of Rs.7,000 crore.
Yotta Infrastructure announced that it will invest Rs 39,000 crore in Uttar Pradesh in the next five to seven years. This investment will be used for the construction of data centre campus and procuring IT equipment and other hardware by Yotta and its customers.
Heatwaves
With heatwaves becoming more common and severe due to climate change, data centres are at risk of overheating. Greater Noida is experiencing a concerning level of heatwaves during summers.
To address this, Yotta Infrastructure’s data centres will be equipped with adiabatic cooling system, which will help the chillers to reduce heat. These chillers will not be used during winters since there will be natural cooling from the atmosphere. The Yotta has an automatic system that identifies whether the outer atmospheric temperature is lesser than the desired temperature in the data centre. During such instances, the chillers will automatically stop working and the external cool air will enter the centre to maintain the temperature in the internal environment.
Cybersecurity
Data centres are very attractive targets for to cyberattacks. With India rapidly shifting towards digital economy, data centres in the country are getting the attention of the threat actors. To address this concern, Yotta currently has around 20 services providing cybersecurity measures. It has also partnered with cybersecurity service providers and is involved in educating its consumers about these threats.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) warned that several world heritage sites may become glacier-free by 2050.