How to stay relevant in constantly changing world

With the advancement of technology, we are only going to see the pace of change accelerate and continuously upskilling yourself has become the most sensible way to stay relevant.

There has been a dramatic shift in the way we do business in the past decade. Businesses are more global and technologically advanced, which requires highly skilled employees who thrive in a time of change. What started as a slow process, has been propelled forward, and now both businesses and employees are faced with the challenge of how to best adapt to the rapidly changing environment.

With the advancement of technology, we are only going to see the pace of change accelerate and continuously upskilling yourself has become the most sensible way to stay relevant.

In a report by McKinsey, the consulting firm concluded that it is an urgent business priority to invest in retaining and ‘upskilling’ existing workers. It is no longer enough to think about what works for the business right now but rather developing strategies for future growth through investment in the employees. The shift from skilling continuous learners to connected learners maximizes the core value for corporate learning; there is a culture of simultaneously learning and developing the skills that an individual acquires, thereby fostering an environment for connected progression. As a result, it is imperative for corporations to lead the way with upskilling their employees.

In another report by PwC, the research shows that employees who lack the right skills can become a major threat to business growth and development. The global survey discovered that business leaders are willing to upskill their employees to fill the current skills gap when presented with options to either retain, outsource and/or take in employees with a strong academic background.

Both entrepreneurs and business leaders alike have consistently emphasized that the single most important thing to achieve and sustain market leadership is relevance. Relevance comes along with upskilling and innovation which acts as a growth imperative for companies. With the surge in technologically complex tasks, the need to upskill has never been more critical. Better innovation, lower costs of additional training, a decrease in outsourcing and client understanding are some of the benefits that in-house upskilling and training offer. Employees tend to become highly adaptable when presented with opportunities to upskill, which the organization can harness effectively, leading to business development in all areas of the business.

Microlearning helps learner engagement

The workplace continues to evolve, with increasing demands on employees’ time and performance. Microlearning is the practice of delivering just the right amount of information to help a learner achieve a specific goal. The short nature of microlearning fits easily within a busy workday, and it’s what most employees prefer. This is why shorter videos can maximize learner engagement.

Agile Learning

It’s increasingly critical to understand the business needs for each part of the organization. While it’s important for every learning and development team to tie learning back to organizational objectives, it becomes crucial when the objectives vary largely throughout the business. Business leaders should consider implementing an agile approach and modernise their solutions to manage constant disruption and deliver learning and development at the speed of the business.

Blended Learning

Blended learning has become a powerful method to drive upskilling as new digital technologies are redefining learning experiences in the modern workplace. While in the past blended learning programs meant combining the best of the classroom and online learning, today, blended learning experiences mean layering classroom learning and online learning with a wide variety of digital technologies and social practices.

Scalable coaching

There are a number of ways learning and development leaders are incorporating coaching into the learning experience. This might involve layering social learning and one-on-one coaching post-classroom to reinforce learning on the job and ensure behavior change occurs. Or, it might be offering to coach in a more scalable and affordable way by leveraging internal group mentors, video-based meetings, and coaching tools to ensure outcomes are achieved.

Lifelong learning is the answer to staying relevant in today’s fast-changing business world. There are many different ways an organization can help its employees upskill and prioritizing that will stimulate growth, for the organization as well as the individual.

(Irwin Anand is Managing Director, Udemy India. Views expressed here are personal.)

Source: Hindustan Times, 31/10/2019

Hold That Outburst

A series of right actions eventually come around to insulate you from the undesirable situations and events in life. Good thoughts, words and actions culminate to become your shield. It’s not that life will stop shooting arrows, but you are protected. And, I think most people can see the value in this strategy: postpone your unkind actions and do the kind ones with a sense of urgency. The issue, perhaps, is not in understanding but execution. That is, how do we ensure we remember this when we are mad with anger and all wisdom is heading south? Temptations, habits, urges and our automatic responses trigger forgetfulness. A fit of rage scares and flees the goodness out of us like a loud clap does to birds. How do you ensure that the mindfulness required to deliver a measured and delayed response stays with you when we need it the most? First, of course, is the practice of mindfulness itself, which is cultivated by repeatedly bringing your awareness to the present moment. Two simple questions will do it for you: (a) what am I doing right now, and (b) what should I be doing in the present moment? Second, even more importantly, a conducive environment is critical to the practice of mindfulness and kindness. Put yourself in the right environment and watch the miracle of mindfulness unfold effortlessly. Our handling of any situation depends primarily on two things: our view of life and our habits. A change in these brings an automatic shift in our feelings, reactions and comebacks. Always postpone an outburst. Never delay a good deed

Source: Economic Times, 1/11/2019

Quote of the Day

“There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience.”

‐ Hartley Shawcross, Barrister (1902-2003)

“ऐसा भी वक़्त आता है जब व्यक्ति को अगर अपनी अन्तरात्मा के प्रति जवाबदेह होना हो तो उसे अपने नेता की सुनने से इंकार करना पड़ सकता है।”

‐ हार्टले शॉक्रॉस, बैरिस्टर (1902-2003)

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents

Vol. 54, Issue No. 43, 26 Oct, 2019

Editorials

Mandate for a Strong Opposition

Turkey Invades Syria

From the Editor's Desk

In Search of a Morally Sensitive Democracy

Gopal Guru

Strategic Affairs

Perils of Relying on American Support

Atul Bhardwaj

Commentary

Stares of the Blind - Neglected Facet of Human Bonding

Hemachandran Karah

Troubles with Cash Food Subsidy - A Case Study of Jharkhand Villages

Barun Kumar Barnwal, Mrityunjay Pandey

Road Map for Agricultural Technology Transfer and Commercialisation

Manoj P Samuel, Karim Maredia, R Kalpana Sastry

Book Reviews

How Developing Countries Can ‘Beat the Odds’

Rahul A Sirohi

Emergent Nation State and the Class of Capitalists - Through the Lens of the Bombay Plan

Arjun Jayadev

Perspectives

Caste and ‘Seeing Double’ - The Challenge of Aniket Jaaware’s Practicing Caste

Sasheej Hegde, Sanjay Palshikar

Special Articles

Are You Talking about ‘Jungle Patta’? - FRA Implementation in West Bengal

Bidhan Kanti Das

Pushing Back Delhi’s ‘Day Zero’ - Centralised Efforts Needed for Rainwater Harvesting

Georgina Drew

Subaltern Historiography, the Working Class, and Social Theory for the Global South

Kristin Plys

Postscript

The Killing of Avni

Gana Shruthy M K

From Albert to Salim - The Bookends of a Jarring Transformation

Ananya

A Monsoon Bus Ride to Uttarkashi

Kaaren Mathias

Last Lines

From 50 Years Ago

From 50 Years Ago: Is Telengana Over?

Letters

Corporate Tax Cut

Sudip Das

Need for Inclusive Education

Supriya Singh

Minimising Global Poverty

Mukul Jaspal

Current Statistics

Current Statistics

Abandoning Gandhi: The idea of Truth, the reality of it, has been the biggest victim of our times

There is a tiny chance that we will look for the Gandhi in ourselves. That, indeed, would be a greater miracle than the miracle of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

Have we forgotten Gandhi? In this year, when we are celebrating the 150th anniversary of his birth, the answer has to be a resounding “No!” The spate of articles on him, the debates, discussions, lectures, the books that continue to be published on him — all these make this abundantly clear. Even otherwise, Gandhi was always very much among us. We live in an age of documentation, and all school children know about his fight for India’s freedom, his twin weapons of Ahimsa and Satyagraha. There are, besides, millions of images and pictures. Gandhi has always lent himself easily to the artist; a few lines can provide a beautiful minimalist picture, often enhanced by a tuneful, soulful Vaishnava Jana To playing in the background.

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Unfortunately, in time, even this picture becomes a cliché, and stories harden into legends, they become banal and tired. If we want to get to the real man, we need to get rid of all this clutter and go to his story as he told it: The Story of My Experiments with Truth.

It is a dramatic story, even in his own plain, unexaggerated words. From being a shy young man from Kathiawad to becoming a barrister in London, from going to Africa to earn some badly needed money for the family and becoming, overnight, another man who knitted together a whole community, from being a man who came to India looking up to giants like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and, in the course of a visit to Bihar, because of an importunate poor farmer, discovering the weapon of civil disobedience with which to fight the British and awaken a whole country — it is a roller coaster ride like none other. As if these were not enough, he branched off into matters like a vegetarian diet, sanitation (he and his team were always there to clean the latrines), brahmacharya, the swadeshi and khadi movement.

What does one make of a man who dabbled in such disparate matters? Not so disparate to him, because for him all these elements were linked to his obsession with the Truth. His deep interest in them was part of his search for the truth.

To describe the truth as it has appeared and in the exact manner in which I have arrived at it has been a ceaseless activity.

Indeed, it was a ceaseless activity. The word Truth resounds throughout the book. Over and over again, he questions himself, asks if he has strayed from the Truth. To read about the incident when he left his dying father to go to his wife because of what he bluntly calls his lust is to wonder where he got the courage to be so honest. For this was the early 20th century, when India was still caught in the grip of Victorian morality and prudery. The story of his giving in to his doctor and agreeing to drink goat’s milk is equally fascinating. Why did I agree, he asks himself. Did not my vow include all milk? What sophistry made me separate goat’s milk from the other kinds of milk? He was more scrupulous about keeping the vows he made to his mother (no meat, no wine, no women), observing them in the spirit, not the letter. When he realised he had kept back the fact that he was married from an English woman who had befriended him, he wrote to her, confessed the truth and apologised. Endless self-questioning, endless weighing himself on some unseen moral scales, and finally admitting he was wrong if he thought he was wrong.

A devotee of truth must always hold himself open to correction and whenever he discovers himself to be wrong he must confess and atone for it.

If this is the real Gandhi, the man who believed in admitting to one’s own fault and then atoning for it, we lost Gandhi long back. I doubt whether, even then, in the heyday of Gandhism, there were many who implicitly followed all of Gandhi’s teachings. There was often impatience even among his co-workers at Gandhi’s mixing up of the big issues with small ones. But nothing was small to Gandhi if it was about truth. According to Gandhi, Truth, Ahimsa and God are the same.

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This idea of Truth, the reality of it, has been the biggest victim of our times. Not only do we no longer care about Truth, we will not be able to recognise it even when it appears before us. Lies have become the common currency of public life, there is a mass culture of denial and refusal to take responsibility for one’s words. By this one standard alone, we have failed miserably, we have abandoned Gandhi. Perhaps it requires a Gandhi to have the courage of absolute honesty. In fact, this is the time of liars, of lies which prompt a person to say, I never said that, or, I never did that, or, I was misquoted misrepresented, quoted out of context.

This is a time when rapists walk with a proud swagger, men and women who cheat and loot the country brazen it out, a person in power is arrogance personified and hypocrisy is rampant. How, then, do we dare to say that Gandhi lives among us? We have had our chance. Perhaps there is a tiny chance that we will look for the Gandhi in ourselves. That, indeed, would be a greater miracle than the miracle of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

This article first appeared in the print edition on October 29, 2019 under the title ‘Abandoning Gandhi’. The writer is a novelist, whose most recent book is Shadow Play

Source: Indian Express, 29/10/2019

What women need in post-disaster situations

Studies show that natural disasters tend to lower life expectancy more in women than in men.

The recent Bihar floods and flood alert warnings in Kerala are just the latest in a long line of natural disasters that periodically strike in India, leaving behind a trail of devastation. The focus afterwards is on assessing the loss of lives and economic cost and, of course, rehabilitation. But though it is well known, the gender dimension of such disasters is not emphasised enough.

Studies show that natural disasters tend to lower life expectancy more in women than in men. This has to do with their lack of physical ability to get to safety, their sacrificing their safety for their children and elders, and their cumbersome clothing. Apart from this, in the aftermath of a disaster, women are much more vulnerable to trafficking, rape, and violence. After the Nepal earthquake, there were reports of women and children being preyed upon by traffickers. Given the inadequate socio-economic resources available to them, women also find it more difficult to rebuild their lives after disasters. They have limited livelihood avenues, little access to loans, and little knowledge of relief and rehabilitation available to them.

The psychological stress they face from witnessing devastation and seeing their families in danger or being killed is rarely addressed. In fact, in India, trauma counselling after natural disasters is not seen as a priority nor is trained personnel easily available. In such situations, her access to economic and educational resources gets even more restricted. Then, there are the problems that women face in camps away from their homes after disasters. Here, they are not only faced with danger in the form of predators but also suffer from hygiene problems. After the Kerala floods last year, despite the efforts of the state government, women suffered due lack of privacy and compromised reproductive health.

Our disaster management does not take into account practical ways to help women overcome some or all of these issues. The first is to engage with the woman on her needs. From this will flow support on rehabilitation, access to finance, sanitation and legal help. She will also need psychological support. The task of rebuilding their lives in unfamiliar surroundings is overwhelming for many women who have not had any exposure to the outside world or the educational and social tools to deal with this.

There are services available for women in post-disaster situations, but the problem is that in many cases they neither know about these, and, if they do, they have no means to access them. In disaster rehabilitation and response efforts, a lot of programmes by different organisations are being directed to benefit women. But there remains a wide gap between the availability of services provided to women and women’s ability to access these services. When and if she is able to get hold of governmental assistance, she is vulnerable to being exploited by touts or even members of her own family who can either trick or coerce her into parting with it.

In the case of the elderly women, all these factors are magnified. But unfortunately, after each disaster, women are at best subjected to ad hoc measures. They are not involved in relief efforts and hence left out of all decision-making. This was so even in literate and progressive Kerala.

Let us be clear, natural disasters are likely to increase thanks to climate change. Undoubtedly, our response mechanisms have improved. But it is still to become more holistic and look at the specific needs of women. I wonder what has happen to the women displaced in the Kedarnath landslide, the Kerala floods, the Bihar floods. Where are they now and how have they rebuilt their broken lives?

A documentation of this would be a good place to begin addressing this issue more seriously.

Source: Hindustan Times, 28/10/2019

Is Asia’s oldest insurgency close to a resolution?

A peace pact is welcome. But bringing NSCN (I-M) on board is important

The Naga insurgency has been one of India’s oldest conflicts. Right from Independence, Naga groups have asserted their distinct identity and sought to break away from the Indian State. Led by Angami Zipo Phizo, the movement for secession took a violent turn in the 1950s. When some elements signed a peace accord with the government, a more radical outfit — the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) — was set up under the leadership of T Muivah, Isak Swu and SS Khaplang. The group eventually split.

The movement itself had two major strands: Recognition of Naga sovereignty; and the integration of all Naga-speaking areas (particularly of Manipur) into a Greater Nagaland. These were demands that no government in Delhi could meet. The first — sovereignty — would undercut India’s claim over the region; the second — integration — would create a backlash in Manipur. But since the 1990s, Delhi began engaging closely with NSCN, led by Isak and Muivah (I-M). A ceasefire was declared. Multiple rounds of negotiations were held. Violence dipped — even though the insurgents maintained a parallel government in the state. And, in 2014, a “secret” framework agreement was signed.

Delhi is close to signing a final peace agreement with a section of the Naga groups such as the Naga National Political Groups, but this does not include the NSCN (I-M). There has been an evolution in the Naga position. Demands for Independence have faded. But symbolically, they want a recognition of a distinctive Naga identity. This, for NSCN (I-M), means a recognition of the Naga flag and a separate Naga constitution — demands that Delhi finds hard to accept. It is also clear that Delhi will not redraw state boundaries. With a clever mix of engagement, coercion, co-option, and inducements, Delhi has managed to neutralise the Naga extremists. A peace agreement will be most welcome. But unless NSCN (I-M) is brought on board, sustainable peace and closure of the insurgency will be hard to achieve.

Source: Hindustan Times, 28/10/2019