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Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Changing Work Culture - After Covid

Deepak Devaraj

Wipro

Changing Work Culture - After Covid

The Pandemic that this world had witnessed was unprecedented and unexpected.
Never before did something like this bring the whole world to a standstill and that
too for consecutive years. When it comes to the workplace environment, this
Pandemic brought in many changes to the style and approach of the functioning of
various corporates. In this article, we shall discuss how the work culture would
change going forward. 


Work-Life Balance
According to a survey conducted on September 2021 by Prathidhwani, welfare
organization of IT employees in Kerala, 53% of the employees preferred a hybrid
model of work. 36% of employees preferred work from home option whereas only
11% preferred the work from office setup. The survey includes around 3000 IT
employees working in IT companies of Technopark, Infopark, and Cyberpark IT
campuses of Kerala. 
 
More than 60% of the employees mentioned that their work-life balance has
improved after the implementation of the Work from Home model. The working
hours, on the other hand, have increased considerably as per the information
provided by a majority of the employees.


From this survey, we can interpret that many employees have got adjusted to the new
working style. This Pandemic scenario has allowed family members to come together
and share joy and happiness with each other.
 
Flexible Workspace 
My father used to work in the Accounts Department. He used to narrate to us
regularly how he along with his colleague used to work at the same desk in the same
office for 20 years. I also know a few of my ex-colleagues who used to work in the
same company and on the same project for many years.  


Sometimes I used to wonder how the life of those people would be when they keep
doing the same kind of work at the same place for many years. Surely they would be
able to master the role and the skills that they are playing, but it would bring less
change and variety to their lives. 


This pandemic however brought in a big change to the life of an IT Professional. On
the negative side, it reduced the physical interaction we used to have with our
colleagues and friends within the campus. However, on the positive side, we are left
with a choice to decide our workplace. We may choose to work in our home, our in
law's home, our relative's home, or even any other place where there is good network
connectivity. 


There is also uncertainty on the mode of operation of the IT companies going
forward. Whether it would be work from home, work from the office, or a hybrid
model of work is still uncertain. However, one thing is certain that this pandemic 

situation has brought in a lot of adaptability and flexibility in the working style of the
professionals.  
 
The Human nature 
The best part about humans is that when they are challenged, they come out with
their best. Many times we have seen great people in history who came out with flying
colors when they had their back to the walls. This Pandemic has taught a lesson to
mankind to become humble and to give primary importance to health. It has also
given man yet another opportunity to introduce futuristic and innovative ideas to
this world for the benefit of everyone. 
 
Digital Technologies 
Every business is now moving towards the digital space. For an entrepreneur, the
whole world is like a sea of opportunities to tap into and explore. Having a fully-
fledged website and an efficient ECommerce platform is essential if you would like
your business to succeed in the market. Having integrated automated systems within
the existing business is good for reaching out to potential customers. 
 
The Power of the Internet  
Make the best use of the Internet. Know more about the websites and apps that are
doing well in the market today. Know the purpose served by each one of them.
Evaluate how those apps can benefit you in shaping up your career. Look for
opportunities to reskill yourself. Nowadays the companies themselves provide a lot of
learning opportunities in the Online mode. Make the best use of the Online training
from the comfort of your home. Open up new pathways in your career that could
benefit you in the long run. 
 
The Unorganized Job sector 
This Pandemic has affected the unorganized job sector in a big way. Our sympathies
go out to those low-skilled workers who are affected by the pandemic. These people
are doing everything that they can to look after their family members. To help this
category of people, we have to make efforts to spread awareness, information, and
news related to job opportunities to these people. They have to be educated to join
certain job sites, social media groups from where they would get proper information
related to new jobs and opportunities. If there are people who are not aware of how
to use smartphones or computers, then they should be given free sessions on how to
use certain apps on the mobile or a computer by those who would like to volunteer. 
 
Socializing holds the key 
Nowadays you see statements in the media like - Together we shall win. Teamwork
and Collaboration is the key to success. Be in regular touch with your teammates and office mates. 

When we become part of a team or a social group, we get the benefit to learn 

a lot of new things from the members. We also get a
chance to share our knowledge and ideas with other members. Teamwork,
volunteering, and social service are also important activities that are taken up by the
social groups. Along with our personal development, we are also ensuring the
development of other people in our group and society. The development of society
marks the beginning of the progression of our state and our nation. 
 
Moving forward with Technology 
We have seen that technology is ever-expanding. As we seem to have got a foothold
in one technology, there comes another technology or a new version of it. We must
become aware of every new technology atleast at a high level. The purpose and
benefit of every technology need to be understood. Learn how the new technology
would help you with your career or business before adopting and applying it to your
work. The lockdown scenario has given enough opportunities to attend online
training by which a person can keep up-to-date with the latest trends in technologies
and the happenings of the IT industry.  
 
Conclusion
The work culture is set to change in the upcoming months. Whether we like it or not,
let us adapt and be flexible to this new culture and try to come out with our best
during these times. There is a hidden opportunity in every situation. Let us explore
the possibilities brought in during this current work environment and make the best
use of them for the benefit of everyone. The world will certainly overcome this
pandemic for good. Let us play our part to support each other during these times.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Work Culture as an Introvert post COVID

Neethu John

TCS

Work Culture as an Introvert post COVID

When Covid kicked in 2020, every one moved from office culture to work from home culture. I was very few people enjoyed lockdown life.  Most people were depressed as they could not enjoy parties and get-togethers any more but for me as an introvert I enjoyed the loneliness and quiet time after a long time.

It was like heave finally heard my prayer; I no longer needed to have awkward meeting people where I have to continuously look for new topics to talk about. I could spend my time in reading and writing after long time. I kept my pseudo-extrovert character closed and enjoyed being myself.

As my Home became office now, my entire work culture changed, it was very productive initially, I could work without must distractions, able to focus more. I could spent time with family more. But as time went, I started getting depressed to monotone tasks. I started getting lazy and more tired. i stopped reading books and even simpler task become very drained me.

It started even affecting my work, I could not complete my works on time due to procrastinate and always get stressed to work on last minute.

As I started getting drained mentally and physically, I decided to have change  in it. I started forcefully doing my task. I created planned in such a way that I have different thing to do each day. If I feel lazy to do  a task , I used count from 1 to 10 by on reaching 10 I will be already started doing my task. By these steps I started overcoming my depressions and started enjoying work from home culture

So work from home was relief for me for some time but if you not take care of yourself you will fell into laziness trap that will drain your productivity and your happiness.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Changing work culture after covid

Changing work culture after covid

They say that necessity is the mother of invention! COVID-19 has taught us that lesson once again.

During the recent global health crisis, it had been crucial to rapidly innovate so that we can fulfill people’s needs and resolve issues quickly.
Technology’s role in this effort was undeniable. We understood the need to stay safe and contactless, and we’ve found myriad innovative ways to continue working, learning, and solving household needs. Organizations quickly adapted to work from home mode so that business is not impacted much.

  • Education has changed dramatically with e-learning, with teaching taking place remotely on digital platforms.
  • Online shopping has become the predominant way of buying essentials.
  • Contactless digital transactions are the need of the hour.
  • Virtual meetings are the new normal for ensuring business continuity.
  • Resilient organizations were able to quickly course-correct with work-from-home options and they continued the business as usual.
  • organizations developed skills that enable employees to take care of multiple opportunities for their career development.
  • Companies looked for opportunities to reduce infrastructure costs and focused on collaboration between people, as human skills were needed wherever AI/robots cannot help.

As mentioned earlier, the speed of recovery from any crisis is a crucial factor for business survival. Tech-driven innovation helped us accelerate the revival and made post-COVID life seamless. Here are a few areas that are primed for a leap forward.

1. AR AND VR FOR EDUCATION AND HEALTHCARE
Imagine learning history and geography by virtually exploring historical places, studying the various phenomena on Earth, and virtually touring foreign countries while staying at the comfort of your home.

This can engage our students better and help them fall in love with learning. Skillful integration of games and immersive elements has shown increased engagement and motivation toward learning — especially among younger students.

AR and VR additionally empower learners to explore and learn at their own pace. A recent article published by the World Economic Forum shows that the integration of information technology in education will be further accelerated, and online education will eventually become an integral component of school education.

Today, AR is being widely used in healthcare facilities for several applications such as vein visualization, surgical visualization and training. In addition to making medical subjects more accessible to students and residents, AR aids in surgery planning and treatment and helps explain complex medical situations to patients and their relatives.

2. AI-ENABLED PLATFORMS FOR AUTOMATED WORK
Everyone is familiar with the virtual assistants Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and more. The more AI solutions we develop, the better we’ll be able to focus on our core work and leave busy time-intensive rote tasks to the machines. By digitizing repetitive tasks, enterprises can cut costs and eliminate human errors, thereby improving efficiency leading to better results.

Outbreaks like the coronavirus will continue to be a threat for healthcare providers and public health institutions. By harnessing big data and AI to predict and forecast epidemics, and source medical supplies, we can possibly mitigate the impact of such pandemics. AI can also help us in agriculture, retail, shopping, security and surveillance, sports analytics, manufacturing, inventory management, healthcare, logistics autonomous vehicles, and more.

3. IOT AND WEARABLE DEVICES FOR BIOMEDICINE
Wearable tech devices like smartwatches help people accomplish their fitness resolutions and also allow them to receive rapid alerts about any sudden health issues or concerns. These tech gadgets are already part of our fashion statement and wearable tech will continue to be one of the most exciting businesses. Whether it’s via smartwatches, smart jewelry, smart glasses, smart clothes, implants in the user’s body or even tattoos on the skin, we are seeing changes in the way we wear and interact with technology.

That’s not to mention swallowable medical devices (like wireless camera pills for diagnosis and surgery) and brain-computer/mind-machine interfaces (that enable bidirectional information flow), all of which are on their way!

4. BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY FOR THE REAL ESTATE SECTOR
While all other industries reap the fruits of advanced technology, the real estate sector is sure to follow. From blockchain to VR home tours, technology is reimagining the real estate industry for the better. Already, more than 70 percent of today’s buyers search for homes online.

Blockchain can also disrupt a related industry: banking. When it comes to huge financial transactions in the property sector and real estate sales, blockchain technology enables the parties involved to seamlessly and securely transact funds without the need for intermediaries like banks. Blockchain can bring improved security, efficiency, and transparency to real estate transactions.

A global economic outlook report by PwC estimates that, by 2050, the world economy could more than double in size due to technology-driven improvements. Several ecosystem players are looking at innovative solutions to solve current problems, and achieving that level of innovation will require a willingness to fail and learn.

Businesses cannot function without constant communication and connections. Cross-sector collaboration will be essential if we hope to come back from the current crisis. By identifying the problem — or the opportunity, some might say — we can deploy our human imagination,  unwavering determination, continuous testing, and technological innovation to overcome and succeed.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Changing Work Culture - After Covid

Vishnu R

Tata Elxsi

Changing Work Culture - After Covid

"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change." This quote by Albert Einstein aptly sums up the survival strategy for the pandemic era. Adapting to the changes happening in the surroundings is crucial for the survival and progress of not just human beings, but for any living organism. The unprecedented challenges and uncertainties caused by the global lockdown and travel restrictions, imposed due to the pandemic, has brought forth a paradigm shift in the conventional ideas about workspaces. Reimagining the work culture has become indispensable to the organization's management for ensuring the safety and enhancing the productivity of its workforce. Management has woken up to the fact that the workforce doesn't necessarily have to be physically present in the office to get the job done.

Changes in the work culture of organizations had been a very gradual process in the pre-pandemic period. The work culture that was being followed was firmly rooted in age-old concepts of how people perceive work and workplace. But the Covid-19 virus and its consequences has brought forward some drastic changes in peoples' perspective towards work.

In spite of the fact that digital collaborative technologies such as cloud storage, version control systems, video conferences and screen sharing had been around for a while, organizations were hesitant to adapt them in the times before the pandemic. But the pandemic has acted as a fillip for companies worldwide to embrace the transition to such virtual collaborative technologies. Consequently, companies face the threat of data privacy and cybersecurity owing to the fact that the sudden and unplanned adoption of digital technologies has made them more exposed to security risks and vulnerabilities in the cyber world.

The introduction of work from home has been the greatest benefaction of the pandemic. Nowadays, working from home has become the norm rather than a privilege. Working remotely might imply that employees will be working for longer durations, than they did in office, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the quantum of work that gets completed will be more since people often tend to become less productive while working remotely for long durations. Working from home has started to negatively impact the work-life balance of many remote workers since the work hours tend to extend beyond the normal office timings in a remote work environment. The employees will be more conscious about the end of work hours and the need to switch off when they see their colleagues leaving at the end of day while working in an office environment. Also, in-person conversations and small talks happening within the office were essential for building rapport among team members in an organization. Management has to proactively take the initiative to engage more with the employees to preserve the social interaction within the team.

In the post-pandemic era, most of the companies will not be focussing on reverting back into the old work culture but instead the focus will be on leveraging the best of both worlds by shifting to a more hybrid work culture. The hybrid work culture will use the office space for work that requires intensive collaboration such as planning, analysis, reviews etc. while the actual execution of work (the ones that can be performed individually) will be done remotely. This will change the role of offices in the organizational context. Office spaces will have to be redesigned to suit collaborative work and thereby enhance interaction among the workforce. Personal cubicles will gradually make way for more conference rooms in the near future.

Flexible work policies will become the standard in the post-pandemic era. Flexibility in the work environment will be quintessential for companies that want to project an employee friendly image. Flexibility will be not just in terms of space, but flexibility in time, also, has to be provided by the management. The work culture will transform to be more employee-centric as the focus is being shifted from work to employee welfare, thanks to the increased awareness on mental health necessitated by the lifestyle changes triggered by the pandemic. A work culture that celebrates employee recognition has become the need of the hour. Also, a transformation into an inclusive work culture that embraces diversity and gender equality should become the priorities of the management in the post-pandemic period.

Organizations are facing the crisis of "The Great Resignation" as there is an increased exodus of talented employees towards greener pastures. Employee burnout and lack of job satisfaction fuelled by poor work-life balance are the main causes for this mass resignation. Retaining good talent within the organization has become a major concern for the management. Organizations should ensure that they are conducting regular employee engagement activities so that the workforce gets a happier employee experience. Also, companies will have to ensure that their employees are always ahead of the game in the latest trends in the industry. Attrition rates tend to be lower in companies that are willing to actively invest in the development of their employees.

Management will have to shift its focus from 'adjusting to the pandemic situation' to 'recovering from the pandemic situation' in the post-pandemic period. Identifying the possibilities and challenges that lie ahead will help in carving out a work culture that is motivating, rewarding as well as engaging for the employees. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for this situation. The employees have to be involved while envisioning a new and customized solution for each organization. Yes, this can be a subtle process, but it can prove to be beneficial and rewarding in the long run.

 

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Changing work culture- after covid

Changing work culture- after covid

The most devastating pandemic of the recent century arrested the entire professional industry for a couple of months or  can be corrected as 'till now'. Covid definitely defined the infrastructure essentials: a laptop or computer, uninterrupted power supply and network strength, software tool or license or remote access as you can mention it. This predominantly clarifies the work from home requirements of IT service professionals; the rest of the world has its own issues to tackle. If the stake is taken for a country like India, a smaller state like Kerala may manage where main cities and the rural upliftment are happening in parallel. Remaining metropolitan cities have people struggle to reach over network, power stabilities in their hometown. Recruiting agencies are running over at the new year opening to fill open positions in these cities as people are coming back to Silicon Valley.The golden wrap kept in offer letter- onsite opportunity is now kind of cold bread. The nature of work got the attention of  people at top management on the basis of meeting or working hours which actually is disturbing the manpower efficiency. While companies do surveys on getting people back to Work from Office, the 2 years of Work from home syndrome have serious consequences on people managing their family,work-time balance, travel and related expenses. When you have to attend the meetings on US timings and work update on IST, the day clock will not save employee's mental or physical health. The kind of training being given for a fresher and the responsibility transfer from a relieving person balances the risk pressure for delivery completion on committed deadlines. A 40 minute debate with interviewer confirms the recruiter for a job offer; but the discussion with HR for appraisal in the same company doesn't long for more than 10minutes.

For the manufacturing sector where people work on shifts with heavy equipment handling and the plants having deadlines for a couple of 1000s, the social distancing is a " Do or Die" situation. That is why after 6 months, even the Govt norms on the lockdown pattern gave way for the people finding their own income. Whether it is design, development, testing, production, sales or marketing the possibilities for doing it online creates hurdles on the implementation scenario;we were not ready for the Indian market on this. Uncertainty is being spread over all domains and the concept to be explained should be foresighted within the schedule or it should be able to wrap back anytime.

So this is all about people sitting on chat boxes or meeting applications without any physical contact for months. The kind of hangouts or gatherings missing for the corporates have been balanced in the vaccination drives conducted, through which indirectly the company is reaching to the employee's family members well being. Health insurance, policies and perks have been upgraded in the salary structure like never before as the situation demanded it. 

The boom that happened in the delivery business is a nightmare. While most of us get the groceries at doorstep delivery, it's food for us and work for them. From bigger investors to local supermarkets, the free delivery and mobile application support for customers gained it's huge roadway.

Like someone said, the pandemic was aimed at creating a scarcity for the demand hike towards the largest producer country of the world;and at the end of the day, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. 

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Coronian Day

Divya Rose R

Oracle

Coronian Day

 

I was riding on a white horse on a road filled with tulips on either side. It was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. The yellow tulips felt like a gold mine. I rode the horse and reached the end of the road. The sun was too hot and I felt tired. I searched for water but couldn’t find it anywhere. Then started the rain, as if God heard my prayers. I drank the rainwater and felt good. Soon it was dark. I took a long deep breath and rode the horse chasing away all the darkness. Suddenly there was lightning and thunder. I was afraid and all alone. I heard a kitten crying and went searching for it inside the forest. The closer I went, the familiar the sound became. The forest was so magical. A tree with 3 branches was dancing on top of me. I wandered here and there and finally found the crying kitten. It was a cute black kitten and on her forehead, it was written as 7:00 AM. Whattt???!!!! OMG!!! Another horrible dream!!!

I woke up. I felt sleepy. Kept a pillow in between the kids and went straight to the toilet. Hurried back to the room only to see my younger one crying. I started feeding him and quickly went through today’s meetings and other emails on my phone. After feeding for, what I felt like an hour, I went to the kitchen to cook my masterpiece recipes – Diplomat Ragi Porridge, Oats Porridge and Rice and carrot porridge. Come on, I have a 7- month-old baby and I am at my husband’s home since the lockdown.

It has become a tradition for the kids to sleep until 10 am on weekdays and get up sharp at 7 am on weekends when I crave some extra sleep. But I have made it very clear that 9 am is our wake-up time. And this applies to all. So I prepared white juice for my daughter and woke her up. Meanwhile, I gave an oil massage to my son and took him for a bath. Got him ready and handed him over to my husband. My little girl now knows she is next and started throwing tantrums. I put on the bad mother’s face and took her for a bath ignoring all the screaming. Got her ready and came downstairs.

I have a list of items in the priority order to be done after coming downstairs. The list goes like this.
1. Tell my husband to help the elder one to brush her teeth.
2. Put diapers in the waste bin which is kept outside the kitchen. The bin was inside the kitchen when we first came here. It was moved outside after a lot of fighting between my husband and MIL.
3. Remind my husband about brushing.
4. Wash the feeding bottles. Yes. My 2.5-year-old daughter still uses a feeding bottle. I tried to wean her a lot of times but in vain. It reminds me of the time I struggled when she rejected a bottle and I had to go back to work.
5. Give a second reminder to brush.
6. Make dosa for the little girl.
7. Brush her teeth!!!

The next step, before starting work, is repeating a three-letter word a thousand times. EAT. In between uttering the word again, again, and again, sometimes I will have to attend scrum calls as well. Scrum meetings are funny nowadays. Sometimes there will be 4 little monkeys jumping on the bed and sometimes the wipers on the bus goes swish swish. Sometimes Peppa will be crying and other times there will be Paw patrol on the go.

Finally, after finishing all the assigned tasks, I started working on a deadline. My little one was hungry and I was feeding him when my husband appeared from nowhere and declared, “I won’t be available today evening. I have a lot of work. So I won’t be playing with the kids today”. My mind had already slapped him twice. But my heart reminded me that my hands were not free and it’s better to just ignore them. So I nodded.

My boss wanted the project to be completed by the next day and here I am struggling with two kids. Okay. Let me focus. I put the younger one back in the crib and put the laptop on my lap. And there goes the fire alarm. The elder one wants to poop. I hurried her to the toilet, waited for her to finish, cleaned her, and was back in a jiff. Then I sat with my laptop for about 15 minutes, my fingers dancing to the rhythm of the song my daughter was singing, ‘Rain rain go away’ and my mind trying to remember what I was doing. After a lot of thinking, I am back in action.

2 lines of code and the younger one has already started crying. I hurried to him, took him and suddenly took my phone and recorded my findings. Can’t spare another 15 minutes on thinking. Smart me!

I went to the kitchen and gave a quick look at the baby’s lunch. Came back, changed his diaper, and put him back in the crib. I looked at the clock and realized that it is already lunchtime. I quickly heard the recording and made up my mind on what needed to be done next. But the sound of my keyboard was overridden by the Teams call. Okay. Now what? I quickly connected my new bluetooth headphone and took the call. On the other end was my colleague who had the same doubt he had years back. I cleared it and quickly did some of my code changes as well. It’s already quarter past two and my little ones have given the hunger cues.

I rushed to the kitchen and took a quick look. The elder one needs either fish or egg for lunch and as an add-on and there is no fish today. I took out an egg from the refrigerator and prepared scrambled eggs for her. I took her lunch and rushed to the sofa only to see her half asleep. I woke her up and started bargaining. No lunch, no cocomelon. And there she is, fully awake and ready for lunch. I switched on the television and the smart youtube now shows only cocomelon in the recommendation. 45 minutes of cocomelon and the plate was still half full. I asked her whether she was full. She said she needs more rice. Poor hungry child. Or the cocomelon lover? I somehow finished her lunch and came back with the baby’s food. Started feeding him his favorite rice porridge and it is already 3 o’clock. Since Corona has shown its bad face and work from home has started, I have given 3 – 5 as my available time. I quickly cleaned the baby and put him back in the crib. Switched off the television and my elder one started her usual tantrums, to which I do not respond much nowadays.

I had a meeting at 3 and I joined 15 minutes late. In the background was my daughter’s screaming and so I muted the meeting. In another 15 minutes, she found herself something to play on and was distracted. The meeting was going at a very good pace, with me explaining things, arguing for what is right and I felt like a very bold woman inside. But that didn’t last for long. The baby started crying and I had to put the call on mute again. I checked on him and he has pooped. OK Life. I am ready for round 2. Took him and started cleaning. In the meeting, people were asking for my suggestions. I had a few in my mind but all I could think about was poop. No. I did better. I said, ‘All is well’.

Meeting ended at 4 o’clock. I fed my baby and gave him to my MIL who was already tired after the kitchen chores. Took the elder one on my shoulder and tried to put her to sleep. By half-past 4, the climate suddenly changed inside the house. Yes, you guessed it right. Both my little monsters have slept. I started my work, seems like the deadline is moving closer and closer and I still have lots to finish. And then came the villain – the blocker issue. I made a few changes to the code. But he is still there. Again I made some changes and was pretty sure I nailed it. But he is still there with a sword out. Then it was a game of thrones (codes) that happened. I died many times but came back to life with the help of Melisandre, the fire lady (read StackOverFlow), and killed the white walker (blocker issue). Suddenly Sam called me from behind and asked me whether I could make tea for him. Whaaaat??? Waitt… I was so into game of thrones… It is not Sam. It’s my husband. Oh, and he wants tea. I made notes of what I did to fix the issue and hurried to make tea.

My kids have woken up. Prepared oats porridge for the baby and asked MIL to feed him and I fed my elder one who always wants her bottle the first thing when she wakes up. I deployed all the code and asked QA to start testing. My husband rushed back to his room and started working. I was forced to stop working as both kids now want my full attention. The elder one started playing in front of the house. I sat nearby with my younger one. What followed was a series of phone calls from the office. I felt like a machine, replying to the call with one hand, handling the baby with the other hand, and watching the toddler. I could barely notice the playing kid as the one on my lap has switched on his excitement mode. Suddenly I heard the kid crying and I rushed to her with the baby in one hand. She fell down and was crying helplessly. Hearing the screams, my MIL rushed to me and took control over the baby who did not understand why his sister was crying and he started crying because he doesn’t know what else to do. I took the crying kid on my shoulders and brought her inside. Gave her a biscuit with paste. It’s her term for a cream biscuit. Her eyes glowed seeing the biscuit and was now happy.

MIL put the baby in the crib and headed to the kitchen. It’s tea time. He started crying. He has outgrown the crib and hates being put on it. I took the baby and fed him. I looked at the clock and it’s 7 pm. This marks the worst time of the day. FIL and MIL are in the living room and have started watching serials. OMG. I hate serials and it’s horrible to watch it. So I handed over the kids to in-laws and went to the kitchen. If you need anything other than wheat dosa and coconut chutney for dinner, then DIY. That’s the rule of the house. So I prepare dinner for kids and husband, wash and sterilize the bottles and wash the utensils. By 9 pm, I’ll start feeding the kids and by 10 pm, I’ll put an end to the dinner program. Kept the bottles, milk, water, flask ready and called my husband to come down. He came back and we together with the kids went up. He changed the elder one’s dress while I changed the younger one’s. Fed milk to both and switched off the lights. Usually, I sleep before my daughter sleeps. But this particular night, I was not able to sleep. I kept thinking… thinking about my aspirations, how much time I spent in the office before my wedding. Things were not different even when I was pregnant with my first baby. But everything changed drastically after my daughter was born. Sometimes, I wonder, how do women thrive in the IT field? I took my phone and googled: ‘percentage of women employees in higher positions in the IT field’. This came up as the first search result.

An analysis indicates that over 51 per cent of entry-level recruits are women; over 25 per cent of women are in managerial positions but <1 per cent are in the top level/C-Suite (Raghuram et al. 2017).

No wonder why the percentage is very low. After you have children, your responsibilities double. Men also have responsibilities. But I wonder how big it is when compared to women. For example, my husband today said he has work, so he won’t be playing with kids. OK, Acceptable. But what if I have work? Can I run away from my responsibilities? Suppose I have a meeting or I have lots of work, is it OK not to bathe the kids? Is it OK not to wash the kids when they poop? Is it OK not to feed them? Yes. That is the basic difference. A father can skip his responsibilities for a day. But a mother cannot.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Environment Vs Urbanization

Environment Vs Urbanization

One afternoon when I was sitting back reading a book my gaze suddenly fell on an unusual visitor in the garden. It was a Blue Mormon, a common sight during my childhood, not so common now. I ran inside to get my one year old. She may not get a chance to greet such a visitor in her life again. There is a daunting thought that flashes in my mind time and again. How do I preserve the beautiful sights in nature to my children, or to the next generation?

There are many questions like this which might fill the heart with dismay for some of us. But very soon these may be a problem of many and not much later a reality. It is just human nature to think that we have enough time and we will correct it later. Or, we may just pass on the responsibility to our successors.

When we say that the natural environment is fast disappearing, there is another side to the coin which is the rapid transformation in living standards. The world population has outgrown almost anything and are now larger than any settlement that ever existed on Earth. The single species is the dominant inhabitant, ironically with much greater demands than any other. Urbanization is a natural consequence of ever evolving human settlements. As a natural outcome the urban dwellings and workplaces are fast expanding to cater to the increasing needs of demography.

Urban development and town planning along with other needs of commutation, transportation, community needs of education, health, entertainment etc forms the basis of infrastructure development in any settlement. This puts tremendous pressure on land use and harnessing of natural resources. Modern man is used to all the modern amenities and there is no going back on this. Development is a continuous process and it is true for urban development also. Technological innovations are taking the world to new heights and man can do little to keep it away from his own cosy space. From fulfilling necessities to adding comfort and style, his interiors, work space and whatever space that is accessible is being converted into a living space. We can ourselves see the difference, we are hardly satisfied with the kind of facilities our parents had and our children will not be with what we have now.

The change is quite visible around us. We can take the example of a typical work space, some thirty years back, it would have been a multi storied building that can house a hundred or utmost few hundreds with a workstation that consisted of a wooden/metal table and chair along with some basic shared facilities. But now the work spaces have transformed immensely to include a host of electronic devices, interior decorations that energize the mind, comfy chairs, shared pantry, vending machines that dispense refreshments and of course air conditioned,with a capacity to house at least a few thousands. The materials used for construction has also undergone changes. In addition to cement a lot of non-biodegradable materials found the way into daily life. Tiles used for roofing and flooring, poly carbonates, plastic and Poly vinyl chlorides in various combinations and synthetic foams to name a few. The electronic era has a whole new set of compounds adding to it. Accumulation of poisonous chemicals like Lead, Cadmium, Bromine etc in soil, water bodies and release of toxic fumes into the atmosphere book the entry to food chain thereby into the bodies of living organisms.

Non-biodegradable waste management is one of the biggest challenges to urbanization with the problem scaling at exponential rates every day. Reservoirs of earth, be it air, water, soil, needs to absorb the waste that ends up in land fill. From daily use low micron plastics to bottles, clothes, household items and industrial waste, land fills cannot hold it within anymore. I had this thought to try organic farming in the backyard once and dug up some holes to plant few seeds. There was less soil and more plastics. No doubt the polymers are reducing soil permeability, but the degraded parts are finding way into life cells. Land fills are visible to our eyes, but the ocean floor miles deep being piled up and choking the sea life might need a Tsunami to wash it ashore.

Waste management is not the only problem. There are many others, for instance, changes in land use pattern. The total forest area and vegetation cover has declined much below the prescribed levels. For India it is currently just over 20% which should be at a prescribed level of over 33%. This is including the area under plantation which could be disputed if it serves the actual purpose of forests. The recent, first of its kind health emergency declared in the national capital gave us what could be possibly seen as just the tip of the iceberg. Serious degradation in air quality and resultant shutdowns are now perennial for the National Capital Territory of Delhi.

Urban land use pattern has changed a lot over the years. With an over-sized population the per capita space consumption has risen manifold. The urban centers are jam packed with buildings which is normal, but the ecologically sensitive zones are being encroached increasingly. Safety codes, utilization of natural resources, eco-friendly construction practices like proper drainage, landscaping that should allow water permeability are not given much importance by people and not enforced by the authorities. The general public lacking awareness of such things is a growing concern. When we face water stress and shutdowns like that happened in Chennai due to acute shortage of water, we can no longer turn a blind eye on it.

Are all these problems of urbanization? Answer should be yes, because in some way or the other these are direct outcomes or derivatives of our deeds in daily life. When there is a problem there needs to be a solution.

Development, especially urban development cannot be held back, never in the past and certainly not in future. The Mahatma thought of this decades before and much before the world started actively discussing about sustainability. He said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need but not any man’s greed.” It is quite natural that he, being a visionary, had answers to many of the problems the world is facing. The idea of sustainable development is to “fulfill the present needs without compromising the needs of future generation.” How is this even possible?

The world has already shown us the solutions for most of it, the remaining solutions can be thought out and implemented. For instance, conservation of water bodies is a topic in discussion from ages. But most of the highly populated cities of the world suffer from water stress. There is alarming decrease in ground water levels in India, replenishment, obviously a serious concern. We are never short of policies or Government schemes, latest in the list Jal Shakti Abhiyan. Guidelines are in the right direction of water conservation, rainwater harvesting, water shed development, reuse and recharge of existing structures, renovation of traditional and other water bodies, wastewater treatment and management so on and so forth. If such programmes are actually making visible changes in the country requires thought. There are leaders who stand out and show us the path. Israel has world’s best water conservation initiatives, that it can fully function without rain. They have developed best implementations of drip irrigation and wastewater management.

Apart from government initiatives, some innovations could bring in radical changes. The Great Bubble Barrier is one such initiative. The idea is to create a bubble barrier by pumping air through a large tube into river mouths or any source of flowing water that it pushes waste that is carried by water to a corner which can then be removed easily. This will not block the movement of ship or fish and is a very effective method of plastic waste removal which is carried by rivers to ocean. It is of equal or more importance to desalinate water. Current technique of desalination using fossil fuels enormously contribute to pollution, climate change and may inflict drought conditions locally. Desalination making use of renewable energy sources is an innovative thought and needs to be widely adopted. If Iceland can meet 80% of its energy needs through renewable sources of energy, why can’t rest of the world?

Ideas of environment protection need to be part of our everyday life. Wherever possible we should make it a personal obligation to follow a green method for our own future. The clothes we use, the synthetic clothes mostly end up as landfills. There are easy alternatives which are completely eco-friendly, biodegradable and skin friendly too. Polythene bags can be replaced with paper, jute bags; plastic bottles with metal or paper bottles if used for single time. There are also options of glass, ceramic and earthen pots to supplement it. The actions that require community participation like avoiding food packaging in plastic covers, discarding use of plastic bottles in general household and grocery shops need participation of local governing bodies. It could be totally restricted except for use in life saving medical purposes. Targets can be set for local bodies, state bodies and national bodies. If we could take it to the level that we meet national goals many of the natural disasters, we face could also be averted.  

The pressure we put on nature for mere existence is incomparable. For man it would be useful to think and understand that nature has its own way of maintaining its equilibrium, at whatever cost. The single large species is not just the priority of nature.

 

The other day while I was browsing through one of the social media websites a featured video caught my attention. It had a group of adults given a paper and a box of colours. The organizers instructed them to draw a picture of their choice and make it as colourful as possible but with a caution note, choose your colours diligently. When they were done, came in the second group. A group of small children. They would also need to do the same exercise, but with whatever colours the adults have left behind. The adults were disheartened when they saw that they used up all the beautiful colors and left the new generation with a dull world.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  The Right to Privacy - Is there really an Option?

The Right to Privacy - Is there really an Option?

Have you ever come across the term called “Privacy Policy” when browsing through a random website on the internet? If so, have we ever, taken effort, to atleast glance through that carefully vetted document? The answer is simply No, atleast for the majority of us. Now, how is this 3-page document going to affect us? Well, the Privacy Policy document is the website’s way of explaining to visitors that their personal data, which they voluntarily enter, can be used so as to benefit their business or their customers in general. The document is a legal evidence which we unknowingly acknowledge to allow the respective business to make use of our data. 

 

Ever since the dawn of the internet, most of the tech giants have built a lean business model that not only uses the customer’s data but also aggregates & analyzes it to benefit their business. Amazon is a prime example of how the company turn customer’s interest into targeted ads on broad daylight. It has been more than 30 years since the creation of the World Wide Web (www) but the right to privacy is something that’s still being debated among ourselves. While some people claim that it is completely illegal to collect any private information from the customers, there are a group of individuals who goes against saying that the data collected could be put to our own good use. 

 

How do we reap the benefit of a particular website without agreeing to their privacy policy? Is that even an option in today’s world? Let’s look into the facts.

 

Transparency & Privacy

 

The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal which was used to mitigate the US Presidential election is not new to the mass public. A private firm collected information from millions of users; their interest, their personal data so as to utilize the same in manoeuvring the US election and is still one of the most widespread scandals in history. What might come as a shocker is how the Indian political parties used Facebook as a platform to deliver targeted ads during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Now ads itself is not, per se, illegal, however, the nature of which the content was delivered to the voters is something to be looked upon.

 

Nayantara Ranganathan, a lawyer who is also the founder of New Delhi-based “Internet Democracy Project” said in an interview that the political parties that competed in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections spent more than 10 crore rupees in targeted ads via Facebook & other social media platforms. What’s alarming is that the way these ads were delivered. For instance, voters between the age 18 to 21, received personal messages stating that their vote for a particular party can aid in providing low-cost internet when the respective leader comes to power. The idea behind this message is that teenagers tend to spend more time on the internet when compared to the rest of us. These messages were carefully crafted by professionals so as to sound appealing as well as not to look like spam. Another example is when Indian IT professionals received personal messages with promises to restructure tax slabs so as to benefit the maximum employees. 

 

How do these political campaigns know you? How do they know whether you are 18 or 30 years old? And most importantly how do they know your personal mobile number? While there are many organisations involved, the obvious culprit is tech giants such as Facebook. While you first sign-up Facebook, your automatically providing them with the liberty to use your data to accelerate their business. The problem is that companies like Facebook look at Privacy and Transparency as two different entities. Facebook should provide manual control for each user over their own respective data. However, the said model is next to impossible since Facebook is a free-to-use software and their primary source of revenue is via targeted ads. 

 

Government Regulated Privacy Attacks

 

The bitter truth is that government-aided public surveillance is legal upto certain extent. The parliament clearly states that the Indian government is empowered by the law to intercept, decrypt any information stored, received or transmitted via an individual. In other words, the government can spy on any person at a given time legally under certain restrictions. The problem is that we, as a citizen of the country do not have the luxury to know even if the said law is being misused. The irony is that Article 14, 19 and 21 of our constitution directly states that privacy is a fundamental right of all citizens of the country. Now, how do we protect our personal information from government-aided searches?

 

The government should elect regulatory bodies for each business verticals in the nation. For example, the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information. In other words, the information gathered by government and private funded hospitals from the patients are safeguarded under the HIPAA legislation of 1996. These regulatory bodies ensure that the information we share with the providers (doctors, hospitals) are in-fact safeguarded and is never used against us without our approval. The issue here is that only certain business verticals such as Healthcare, Defence, Insurance & Aviation are constantly looked after by the government-regulated legislations. Areas such as retail, banking and travel are still vulnerable to risks of a privacy breach and misuse of public information. 

 

How to report a Privacy Breach?

 

Be it an organisation or an individual using a personal computer, it lies on our shoulders to report the possible security breach that could affect our information. The government of Canada enforced strict laws to govern the use of public data by private companies. The PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) form is readily available on the Government of Canada’s website for its citizens and organisations to report a potential security breach that is capable of disrupting one’s business as well as their personal lives. Even though the Government of India doesn’t have such readily accessible report mechanism, the government-aided and private organisations are forced to mandate regular audits throughout the infrastructure to identify a potential data breach. 

 

Best Practices to ensure Data Privacy

 

  1. Make sure to at least glance through the Privacy Policy document while visiting a new website; Just to understand how your data might be used.

  2. Have a backup email address which can be used to sign up on websites which send you targeted ads and unnecessary newsletters. 

  3. Make sure to retain bank-issued gift cards. It can be used to sign up for a free 30-day trial in most of the modern applications thereby protecting your actual credit card details.

  4. Use tools such as Evernote to take notes and save sensitive information since the company doesn’t sell your data for ads.

  5. Make sure the website you visit adheres to the Right to Privacy Act enacted by the respective governments.

 

Conclusion

 

A privacy breach is not a new topic in this fast-growing digital world. However, the mass population’s understanding of this subject is very limited. The “Right to Privacy” is something to be taught in schools since pre-school teenagers are some of the easy targets susceptible to data breach. Similar to the “Internet Democracy Project” there are many organisations that closely examine the potential data thefts and publish them for the general public’s reference. The government should enforce statutory groups in different areas of the business to ensure that a common man’s data is not being misused without his knowledge. 

 

In the end, it all comes down to the question; Is Right to Privacy really an option provided for a country’s citizens? Or Is it still a myth used by some governments to bring in more revenue? Coming from a common man’s perspective, we can never be sure.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Right to Privacy

Sumesh R Nair

Livares Technologies

Right to Privacy

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying, “This is mine”, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of the civil society.

Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

Have you ever come across a situation where somebody trespasses into your house or plays a loud music at midnight in your neighbourhood? How will you react when somebody bursts crackers in a way which disturbs your sleep? Do you like if anyone peeps into your mobile when you are travelling in a public transport? Well, the answer for the all queries will be a big ‘No’ and your reaction may vary from being unresponsive to aggressive outbursts. Even though we, human beings are social animals, we built a space away from the mob, away from pressure where we find peace and happiness. It can be our home, our bedroom or the virtual space in our laptop or mobile device which we call the ‘private space’. Any indulgence into this space, let it be people intervention or even in the form of sound or light, it causes a violation of our private space. It was something very personal since a decade ago, but with the changing attitudes, needs and problems, it has transgressed the private space and has moved to the public sphere which has led to the birth of Right to Privacy.

India, the world’s largest democratic country is a land of innumerable laws. The number of laws in India outnumbers the challenges, crisis and issues that exist in the country. With the longest written constitution, our country gives its subjects diverse rights to lead a peaceful life. In the course of time and with the needs of people these rights were subjected to amendments which have changed the way people access and execute these rights. The Right to Privacy as a legal right in India is considered as a part of Right to Life and Personal Liberty under Article 21 of the Indian constitution. Article 21 provides that,
“No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.”  The Supreme Court came up with this right during the AutoShankar Case (R.Rajagopal vs State of Tamilnadu, 1994). The court said that, “a citizen has a right to safeguard the privacy of his own, his family, marriage, procreation, motherhood, child bearing and education among other matters. None can publish anything concerning the above matters without his consent, whether truthful or otherwise. However the rights of public servants stand on a different footing. In a democratic country public officials must be always open to criticism”. This right in India is very different from the Western notions of Right To Privacy as in India it is largely based on the ‘culture of trust’. This can also be the reason of why in India these laws are assumed to be weak in nature. Before we talk about the nature and legal ties of Right to Privacy, let’s probe into the concept of privacy.

The concept of privacy is often considered elusive. The general assumption about privacy is synonymous to secrecy. The etymology of the word, can be traced from its basic Latin form ‘privus’, which meant ‘single’. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, in 1590s the word carried a meaning, ‘a private matter, secrecy’ and in 1600s it meant, ‘seclusion’. From 1814, it meant, ‘state of freedom from intrusion’. The desire for privacy was so strongly associated to the idea of private property initially. It conveyed an urge for autonomy which means an independence from the control of others. From private property, the boundaries expanded to family, home and possessions including the material objects. It even includes the spiritual, emotional and sensory nature, confidence, reputation, goodwill and products of the mind. But with time, the individual autonomy (private sphere) and the public sphere collided which led to a third party intervention, that is the law system which is considered as an objective, unbiased body. In general, the private space is considered to be subjective and is highly dependent on one’s culture, environment and economic condition. Thus, the changing meaning of privacy from one social context to another has given multiple interpretations to the whole notion of privacy.

The Right to Privacy today is part of the Human Rights and is highly influential that it can play a role in the development of an individual’s personality, integrity and dignity. Today, with the advancement of communication technology, the need to protect privacy not only includes the physical space but the cyber space as well. The three technological advancements that led to this whole business of publication and reproduction is digitisation of information, networking and www. Data protection, which is a subset of privacy laws and data privacy have become hot topics of debate in the recent era with the innumerable challenges faced, especially, with the very characteristics of internet. Commercialisation of internet has become a great challenge to the freedom of expression. Cyberprivacy issues include but not limited to copyright issues, optical disc piracy of movies, music and softwares and unauthorised file sharing with the advancement of social media and peer technology. Technology gives an access even to the personal information stored in computers or storage devices which can be easily manipulated. Telemarketing is another major domain where there is a transfer of personal information of the subscribers. Even the applications and softwares today demand an access to the user’s privacy. The nature of issues and challenges are even gender biased as in online victimization and bullying. In India, the Copyright Act of 1957, amended upto 1999 is yet to take these issues into consideration. The need for privacy in personal data in public and private databases has not yet been adequately addressed.

Data privacy in media is an important aspect to be noted. Media has crucial role in disseminating information as the categorisation of information as to what is private/ confidential and what falls outside that realm itself is difficult.  In most of the discussion shows or talk shows, we see that sometimes the journalists do not disclose the details of the person involved or any details that interrupt the privacy of an individual. This privilege of anonymity often supports the freedom to talk or express and allows the individual to speak openly. This anonymity often helps the rape victims as the society even in the 21st century humiliates the woman in such cases.

The often quoted term ‘Celebrity privacy’ is a kind of individual privacy which determines the amount of personal or professional information which the celebrities wish to expose. Bio-piracy concerned with the rights of indigenous people, is another important area which even questions the prevalent legal system. The interventions of this right is there in all the domains as it encompasses privacy of person, privacy of personal communication, territorial privacy and privacy of data and has a widespread impact. Right to privacy is often used as a mechanism or agency of power to control or curtail as in the adoption of a National ID card like Aadhar. Aadhar was a nationwide identity system introduced to check illegal migrations, identify frauds, and check terrorist activities and to bring electoral reforms. With the coming of Aadhar, the biometric data became the identification criterion. But India’s population is so large that a unification process and the maintenance of a secure database is not very easy. Studies prove that it failed to achieve the objectives for which it was made. A massive chaos was there when Aadhar was introduced as half the population doubted its validity and reliability. Moreover, the technical issues during the recording of biometric data left them in panic. It created a range of unforeseen administrative and social complexities. Rectification of errors was another herculean task. With the introduction of Aadhar there was a shift in power from the individual to state. There occurred a breach in individual privacy as the government could access any kind of data pertaining to an individual and sometimes it even paved way for a misuse or manipulation of the data.

 This right has always confronted the state power of searches and surveillances. In many ways, surveillance has helped in maintaining law and order. The CCTV footages have been powerful evidences in many legal cases. But as a coin has two sides, surveillance can even affect the freedom of movement in the form of not just physical inhibitions but psychological as well. As in the case of places like Kashmir, surveillance is a way to exert power on people by the State and the Army. With the recent decisions of the State and court regarding the land and the consequent breakdown, Kashmir had to face not only privacy issues but also traumatic experiences due to the identity crisis which was always there in its soil.

With all the above mentioned privacy issues, we can see that the loss of a private sphere has serious implications on the individual and society as a whole. This loss cannot be negotiated until the huge gap that exists between the privacy needs of an individual and existing legislative protection in India is bridged. An initiative from the government must be there to address the existing voids in the law system.  It is high time for our judicial system to reconsider the rights and laws and place them within the socio-cultural-political and economic context of India. The laws must not be just adopted, but must be synthesised, constructed or refined according to the needs of the land and people and must ensure the privacy of an individual at different levels from mishandling and manipulations.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Right to Privacy

Lakshmi M Das

Allianz Technologies

Right to Privacy

“I cherish my privacy and woe betide anyone who tries to interfere with that” – Jeff Beck.

 

The notion of privacy  is an old concept finding its origin in the natural law theories. William Blackstone and Aristotle had tried to  make a distinction between public wrongs and private wrongs. It’s hard to come up with a definite legal definition of ‘privacy’. Even though certain  legal experts define privacy as a right enjoyed by every human being by virtue of  their existence, the boundaries of privacy has always been a matter of dispute. The aspect of privacy can be extendable from physical integrity to dignity, confidentiality and above all freedom of non-disclosure of private information. Over the time, many attempts had been made to give a common framework and predefined dos and don'ts for privacy. We shall see the detailed evolution ,progress and expected improvements in these attempts. 

 

International Legal Framework  :

 

International law provides a legal framework on the topic of privacy. The human right to privacy and its protection is outlined in Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) .

 

“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy,family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” (UN 1948, 4; UN 1966, 10).

 

Across the globe, we can find different versions of legal  conventions supporting the above. There are over 150 national constitution which has mention of right to privacy.Article 11 of the American Convention on Human Rights  or Article 8 of the European Convention  are few among them. Apart from these European union recently introduced GDPR(General Data Protection Regulation). This regulation aims at protecting sensitive data of EU citizens. In digital age, where data is the treasure, regulations like GDPR are seen with utmost importance.

 

Evolution of right to privacy in India 

 

The concept of privacy can be traced out in the Upanishads. If we look at the ,Hitopadesh' it says that certain matters (worship, sex and family matters) should be protected from disclosure. But 'Hitopadaesh' never corresponded to a ‘law’ it was just a guidance to ‘positive morality’. Taking this to consideration we could come to the conclusion that even in ancient Indian culture, privacy was a vague concept. 

The Right to Privacy had been very much debatable in India because the Indian Constitution did not expressly grant Right to Privacy. The drafters of the Indian Constitution put forth Right to life as an essential right. The Supreme Court of India has also given various interpretations to Article 21 of the Indian Constitution expressly granting Right to life to all the citizens of India and with the growing times, right to life has been given too much expanding horizon with so many other rights coming within its ambit like right to speedy trial, Right to shelter, and many others. The explanation given by the Apex Court to “life” and “liberty” under the Indian Constitution has always been expansive to the extent that it does not mean mere animal/physical existence.

In modern India an official discussion on the issue of right to privacy occurred for the first time in debates of constituent assembly were K.S. Karimuddin moved an amendment pointing to  the US Constitution, where B.R. Ambedkar gave it only reserved support. This did not secure the incorporation of the right to privacy in the constitution of India. Earlier the stand of supreme court of India was against making right to privacy as a fundamental right .Hon Court even observed  the attempt to ascertain the movements of an individual which is merely a manner in which privacy is invaded is not an infringement of a fundamental right in the M.P. Sharma vs Satish Chandra case.

But later court had taken a lenient approach on privacy specifically in Govind v State of MP case. The observation made was like this “The right to privacy in any event will necessarily have to go through a process of a case-by-case development” , which means right to privacy varies with case or rather this meant right to privacy is a foreign concept and Indian culture might face problem with that, or right to privacy has to be interpreted in an Indian way, which would obviously take time. Maneka Gandhi Vs Union of India Case was considered as  the wide interpretation of Right to Life, which actually helped the Right to Privacy to fall into to the scope of Right to Life. More over Unni Krishnan v State of A.P. case numbered right to privacy as one of the twelve meanings of right to life .

 

Fundamental right 

 

In a mile stone judgement on Aug 24 2017, Supreme Court of India declared that privacy is a fundamental right for each of its 1.3 billion citizens protected under the country's constitution.

The ruling is the outcome of a petition challenging the constitutional validity of the Indian biometric identity scheme Aadhaar (Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd) vs Union of India). This judgment reconciles those different interpretations to unequivocally declare that privacy is a fundamental right and also concludes that privacy is a necessary condition for the meaningful exercise of other guaranteed freedoms. With this judgement which withholds "Privacy as the constitutional core of human dignity", India, world’s largest democratic country had joined United states ,Canada, European Union, South Africa and United Kingdom in recognizing privacy as fundamental right.

While adopting this landmark judgement, it is necessary to define the borders of privacy on a case by case basis. This would  be a tedious task considering the various aspects that the term privacy might get involved in. 


 

Major After effects

 

  1. Article 377:

Making use of the foundation of privacy as fundamental right ,On 6 September 2018, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the application of Section 377 to consensual homosexual sex between adults was unconstitutional, irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary. With this mile stone decision India had joined about 30 countries across the globe , who had decriminalized same sex relationships.

For a country like India where culture and traditions rule the mind of a vast majority of population, this judgement was indeed a milestone. The right of the LGBT community for not being considered as criminals had to be considered much earlier ,but we should be proud that at last we value  them as they are.

 

  1. Aadhar Scheme:

In response to the 27 petitions against the ‘draconian’ nature of  Aadhaar, for which       Government of India had collected many sensitive information of citizens , including biometrics ,Supreme Court of India mentioned collection of basic details of citizen for unification and distribution of privileges  will not contribute to violation of right to privacy. However it had  scrapped article 57(which allowed private entities to use Aadhaar for verification purposes) and article 47(which deprived citizens of any right to file an FIR against anyone violating his or her privacy by illegally using his or her Aadhaar number) of Aadhaar act. 

This judgement is a prime example of the definition of border of privacy. Collection of basic details of citizen which includes demographic and biometric data, is not a violation because its purpose is to provide a digital identification and there by targeted delivery to citizens. Whereas sharing this information with private firms can lead to misuse of the information, and hence this section was dropped. With this court is trying to making it clear the reason for collection of personal information is important , at the same time, the chance of it getting misused should also be prevented.


 

Privacy in digital age:

 

 The right to privacy in the digital age is threatened aggressively by data automation If privacy is at risk or threatened, we might miss the chance for personal assessment of the political process, one based on critical evaluation and self-reflection of our choices and preferences.

 

Data collection, through hacking or simple data harvesting combined with data analytics , allows governments and commercial entities to amass huge banks of information about common citizens and their online behaviour. Privacy incursions occur frequently, affecting our search and digital behaviour patterns. These incursions are not only about a person or in this case a user – they can also affect a group, a family, a community. Government surveillance may include complete tracking of the calls and activities of an individual who they categorize as a threat to nation. But this facility can be used for tracking details for political and business purpose. Private entities who capture and sell  personal data of users are prominent in almost all parts of the world.  The latest scandal involves Facebook users and Cambridge Analytica researchers mishandling the data of over 40 million users. FB claims that its interface is based on the illusion that users are in control of what it is shared. In reality, Facebook users have next to no control what is covertly shared about them. Whether the threat comes from governments or private entities, these occurrences pose a significant question to the right to privacy of an individual. Strict laws need to be formulated for handling privacy intrusions that can happen in a digital age.

 

Conclusion

With the recognition of privacy as a basic and fundamental right of an individual, India definitely cannot lag behind. The judgment of the Supreme Court is correct and true and with the growing information Technology, privacy needs to be fundamental right. However, it is also true that stringent laws needs introduction after this. An expert committee must be formed to probe into the matter as to how many privacy infringement issues are taking place in India and accordingly legislation exclusively dealing with such problems must be enacted. Data protection laws must be made more stringent and must conform to guidelines. Only one or two sections like section 43A of the IT Act won’t be sufficient to regulate the data protection at such a large scale when schemes like Aadhar are to be implemented.

When it comes to conflict between infringement of privacy and public interest, reasonable care must be taken to choose as to what is more important. Individual interest cannot override public interest. Hence, the Government must take into account the pleasure of larger number of people should try to inflict lesser pain. There must be regulation on the arbitrary use of power by the Government with respect to personal information of the people. One of the greatest advantages that India has is that the Privacy bill, 2011 is still pending in the Parliament. Hence, relevant amendments can be made to it before enacting it as legislation. We shall hope for a well framed structure for privacy which covers all relevant aspects to be implemented in India at the earliest.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Artificial intelligence and future job thoughts

Artificial intelligence and future job thoughts

Whoever controls the strongest artificial intelligence controls the world.
Artificial intelligence is the most important technology of the 21st century.
It is therefore important to understand global ambitions and movements. So far, the first wave of digitization has developed without much government influence. Although there are now plans to break Google's monopoly (USA and Europe), for example by imposing European fines on Google and Facebook, politics is lagging behind the market by over a decade. As far as AI is concerned, for the first time in recent history I have observed a multitude of initiatives, strategies and actions by dozens of governments around the world - with very different goals and approaches.

Today In: Innovation

Artificial intelligence is and remains an issue that politicians and administrations of all nations have to deal with. AIs are relevant for climate protection and economic policy. AIso influence the governance of domestic industry, the security and privacy of citizens.

Economic power through artificial intelligence

While politics provides the framework conditions for research, financing, education, data, promotion and regulation, in the medium term AIs must be developed by companies and brought onto the market. First of all, national interests have to be taken into account. These include, often with their own agenda and independently, global corporations with their own AI research and AI products. In my view, Google, Amazon and Microsoft are global leaders. The Chinese Internet giants Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent are also relevant players.

There are two types of companies: Those that develop and sell AI as a core product and those that use AI to complement their value chain. Either way, any company active today has to deal with artificial intelligence. On the one hand, AIs can replace existing business models, and on the other hand, they can be integrated into countless company-internal processes: Accounting, controlling, production, marketing, sales, administration, personnel management and recruiting. By the way, this is the primary driver of applied artificial intelligence: reduce costs and maximize profits. And, of course, it's also about control. Every AI used takes over activities that were previously performed by humans. Often, after a while of training, the AI is faster, more efficient and cheaper than the human being was before. People become ill, they need holidays, food and sleep. They have to be entertained, quit or retire. AIso work 24/7 and do not demand a wage increase. The more companies use AIs, the more independent they become of human labour.

Data is a competitive advantage

The foundation of any artificial intelligence is data. We therefore need data on several points. First of all, we need data for the research and training of narrow artificial intelligences. The more digital your business model is, the more data you have. For this reason, marketing leaders (Google, Facebook), software companies (Salesforce, Microsoft) and e-commerce retailers (Zalando, Amazon) have been heavily involved in AI for years. Some banks also recognized the trend early on. Therefore Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan have already recruited thousands of employees with a focus on machine learning and data science. Those who have their own data can achieve an enormous competitive advantage. Those who have no data have to collect, store and evaluate data. However, this is where the different national data protection laws come in, which is why Europe is at a disadvantage. GDPR/DSVGO may indeed have the good intention to create a European data internal market, but currently form an enormous location disadvantage for Europe. The fear of the regulation paralyzes whole industries. Personal discussions with clinics and doctors showed me that the health industry no longer shares any data. This literally costs human lives, because this obstacle is detrimental to health research and life-prolonging algorithms. This is just one example among many. Uncertainty about data is paralysing our entire European industry. For fear of penalties, data is not collected at all. We are creating a culture of data anxiety at a time when data is actually our strength. Europe is the most important data market in the world, but we are wasting our potential. China, on the other hand, is the extreme opposite. The state helps with a lively exchange and centralization of data. In addition, the population has fewer concerns about the free handling of data. De facto, privacy no longer exists in the 21st century. Every digital action is measured and stored. However, we Europeans are sticking to an old ideal.

Artificial intelligence start-ups are the giants of the day after tomorrow

Start-ups are essential for any economy because they take on two essential functions of an ecosystem. Start-ups are drivers of innovation. These young companies are often more courageous, faster and more flexible in developing new products than established companies. Backed by the capital of venture capital funds and business angels, start-ups take high risks in the expectation of extraordinary success. Although 95% of start-ups do not survive the first 5 years, the entire ecosystem benefits from them.
Companies can buy new products and innovations through acquisitions.
Former employees find new jobs and transfer their knowledge.
Investors and founders learn and take their knowledge with them into new projects.
Perhaps the young company will survive the 5-year threshold. It secures financing (from seed to IPO), gains talent, grows, develops products for which customers pay, scales and becomes a corporation. Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Uber - all started out as start-ups and are now dominant market leaders.
Charles-Édouard Bouée, former CEO of Roland Berger, said at the 2018 Rise of AI conference that the next wave of trillion-dollar companies will mainly be AI companies.
This won't work without start-ups. That's why we need to encourage building start-ups.

Without infrastructure there is no artificial intelligence

By infrastructure I mean not only the availability of data but also the necessary computing and performance capacities.
NVIDIA used to be known for their graphics cards among gamers. Today, NVIDIA is one of the leading manufacturers of GPUs, which are increasingly used for AI applications. Google, Intel and many other companies are very active in the development of new AI chips in various forms.
At the same time, Microsoft, AWS, Google and IBM are expanding cloud capacity around the world to meet growing demand.
While China will focus strongly on 5G, which is critical for real-time AI applications and the networked industry, Europe will not play a leading role in this technology issue either.

Artificial intelligence must be financed

The development of artificial intelligence is expensive.
Top AI researchers are rare and receive salaries of up to €300,000 per year.
Data must be collected, sorted and labelled. Developing AI models takes time for experiments, mistakes and new methods.
AIs need data, must be trained and educated.
These costs are borne by companies, start-ups, investors and also the state.
China has understood this and is investing over 130 billion euros in the Chinese AI market. Provinces such as Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin are each investing tens of billions in local AI industry.
In the USA, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Apple have already invested over 55 billion dollars internally by 2015.
Without money, there is no artificial intelligence.
And once again Europe is too stingy to invest in the future.
A comparison of the orders of magnitude: In 2018, the German Bundestag had budgeted as much as € 500,000 for AI funding. A further 500 million is planned, but the funds are not yet available.
Progress will not succeed in this way.
At the same time, China is financing 400 new chairs for AI. To date, we have seen nothing of the 100 new professorships planned under the German AI Strategy.

Where does Europe stand in the global AI arms race?

As I mentioned earlier, Europe is currently losing the competition for the leading AI nations.
While Europe is still considering whether to compete at all, China, the US, Israel, the UK and Canada are already competing for data, markets and talent.
Our problems in Europe are homemade, they are the result of our inertia, lack of vision and ambitions.
There is a lack of money for education. Not only are our schools and universities underfunded, but so is the education labour market. Our children are not learning enough about digital skills. Our students rarely take AI-relevant subjects. Our working population lacks retraining opportunities that also meet the needs of the growing digital industry.

The transfer of research results to industry is sluggish. Results either disappear into the drawer, or the IP transfer is in bureaucratic terms a horror, especially for young companies and spin-offs.
Our European AI start-ups are significantly underfinanced. Those who currently need money from investors must market e-bikes and e-scooters, but they should not include technology. The more complex the product, the more difficult it is to get capital. The simpler the business model, the faster the accounts are filled.
Although many talents from Asia and America want to work in Europe, it has become bureaucratically complicated. Since the wave of refugees, the offices have been overwhelmed. It is almost impossible to hire talented AI developers from Iran, Russia or China. There is currently a spirit of rejection rather than openness in Europe.
Europe lacks a single strategy. Countries such as Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands or France have their own AI strategies and, moreover, a great deal of ambition. Germany, in particular, is blocking a common European approach and thus possible success.
When I was with the European Commission in 2018, a Bulgarian researcher said that she would be happy if her country had a plan at all. According to her, entire sections of Europe are significantly worse off than we are in Western Europe.
I am not saying that politics must solve all our problems. Companies still have to build products, founders have to start start-ups, VCs have to finance these start-ups and researchers have to do research.
But politicians can support us with a clear strategy. It can build up regulatory structures instead of inhibiting them. It can create incentives for investment and act as a role model. And it must be a matter of course for politicians to take care of the education of pupils, students and qualified further education in general.
Europe is marked by power struggles, egoism and technology phobia.

Global challenges for humanity

But Europe is only part of the world and must adapt to a global power order.
Therefore, there are many challenges for the growing artificial intelligence industry.
First of all, there is the issue of data protection. Which standard will prevail? Europe has currently set clear standards that will ensure that companies develop their AIs outside the EU.
Will we completely abandon data protection in the future and have Chinese free movement of data? Or will the European system prevail in the medium term?

Artificial intelligence needs supervision

Furthermore, all governments must think about the regulation and supervision of artificial intelligence. AIs are increasingly influencing the media, industry, education, security, military and financial markets. There is therefore a need to regulate how artificial intelligence (and the companies that design it) is controlled. 
For example, the Chinese company Squirrel AI helps millions of students to develop individual learning content that matches their learning pace and skills. But who in Europe would control and supervise these AIs in terms of content and subject matter? I cannot imagine that thousands of local education ministries are currently in a position to do so. 
Authorities must therefore recruit the necessary specialist staff, develop concepts and put them into practice. This takes time and should happen sooner rather than later.

It needs an artificial intelligence ethics framework

Artificial intelligences make decisions every second and almost every decision has an ethical component. AI ethics and AI morality are inseparable from the research and application of artificial intelligence. 
Artificial intelligence can prevent - or reinforce - prejudice, racism, corruption and sexism. 
Therefore, an AI ethics framework is urgently needed. At the upper level, every cultural area (often organized in states) has to deal with this.
This social discourse must be actively started and conducted. Currently, AIs are being developed without controlled morality. It is up to the developers to decide how the machines act later. But society itself should have this sovereignty over right and wrong. 
Therefore, every nation, every state system and every ethnic group must begin to discuss their own AI ethics frameworks.
The same applies to companies. Every company needs an AI ethicist, just as there are data protection and equality officers. The AI ethicist ensures that the data is unbiased and that the AIs do not discriminate against anyone. 
This also requires AI ethics frameworks in companies that are based on social values and also reflect the corporate culture in the code.

The rise of strong artificial intelligences

We also need to address the issue of growing intelligence and the influence of artificial intelligence. 
OpenAI recently received another billion dollars from Microsoft for research into General Artificial Intelligence (AGI), in addition to the billion dollars from Elon Musk. 
There is a reason why Musk, Zuckerberg, Hawking and Gates warn against artificial intelligence. Siri may still be stupid today, but could surpass your intelligence in 10 years. 
Artificial intelligences become smarter, more knowledgeable, more capable and faster every day. Contrary to our biological nature, there are no limits to the AIs.

The machines are energy hungry

Another global challenge is the energy requirements of the machines. While our brain needs as much electricity as a light bulb, AI applications are extremely energy-intensive. 
So if we want to maintain technological progress, we need to solve our energy problem. Otherwise, not all people will be able to live long and healthy lives.  
We therefore need energy sources that are sustainable and scalable.

A society without work?

Furthermore, as a society, we must start talking about our work. We Germans in particular are afraid that the machines will take away our jobs. 
Personally, I think it would be great if machines could relieve me of work. 
But the machines won't steal your job. I estimate that 50% of today's human activities are carried out by machines in 20 years because they are cheaper and faster. 
This development is therefore a good thing, at the same time it is a challenge. 
There will be many new activities that we do not even suspect today. These will include AI kindergarten teachers, AI trainers, AI ethicists and AI controllers.
It is therefore important that we think about how we can retrain those people who perform tasks today that will be performed by machines tomorrow. 
It will be the greatest retraining in human history. Some people will not make this change, what happens to them?
Others will use freedom and redesign their lives. 
I hope that in the future the meaning of life will not be work, but the joy of life. I hope that we get to the point where everyone works because they want to, not because they have to. Let the machines do the work that nobody wants to do. And let us finally pay better the people who take over important social activities such as bringing up our children, teaching pupils and caring for us in old age. 
Either way, we need a radical new social model, because the earth does not need 10 billion philosophers, artists, entrepreneurs or programmers.

How do we distribute wealth?

Probably not the last, but a crucial challenge is the question of how to distribute wealth. 
If fewer and fewer people are needed for the same productivity, companies' profits will increase. But companies are often in the hands of a few selected families and funds. Today, 40% of all publicly listed companies in the US are already owned by four gigantic funds. 
This trend will result in very rich people becoming much richer. A few chunks of this wealth will then fall to the administrative class (lawyers, bankers, entrepreneurs, investors) and hardly anything remains for the remaining 99% of the population.

Civil war or a carefree life?

With artificial intelligence, this trend will become more extreme. I fear that in 30 years around 100 people will control 90% of the world. We are not just talking about money here, but about access to the machine code and thus to the control of the global economy, the military and information. 
And what if the majority of people lose their current importance for the system, namely to work and consume? Does the idea of the Club of Rome then become real and we reduce ourselves (involuntarily) to 500 million people? 
AI makes it possible.
So if we want to prevent a civil war, prosperity must be distributed beforehand. In any case, so much of it that no one has to fear hunger, homelessness and poverty anymore. 
There are many approaches and ideas. Let us please discuss them further, such as the basic income and liquid democracy.  
Let us ensure that we live in a world where the machines serve all of humanity.

Friend or foe?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve productivity, efficiency and accuracy across an organization.

With AI continuing to be a prominent buzzword in 2019, businesses need to realize that self-learning and black-box capabilities are not the panacea. Many organisations are already beginning to see the incredible capabilities of AI, using these advantages to enhance human intelligence and gain real value from their data. 
As there is increasing evidence demonstrating the benefits of intelligent systems, more decision-makers in the boardroom are gaining a better understanding of what AI can really offer. Research conducted by EY explains “organizations enabling AI at the enterprise level are increasing operational efficiency, making faster, more informed decisions and innovating new products and services.”

Today In: Innovation

The first companies employing AI systems across the board will gain competitive advantage, reduce cost of operations and remove head counts. Whilst this may be a positive from a business perspective, it is obvious why this a worry for those working in roles at risk of displacement. The introduction of these technologies will likely trigger an issue with unions and job security due to the substantial operational changes.

Although AI will affect every sector in some way, not every job is at equal risk. PwC predicts a relatively low displacement of jobs (around 3%) in the first wave of automation, but this could dramatically increase up to 30% by the mid-2030’s. Occupations within the transport industry could potentially be at much greater risk, whereas jobs requiring social, emotional and literary abilities are at the lowest risk of displacement.

A positive future with artificial intelligence

Many businesses and individuals are optimistic that this AI-driven shift in the workplace will result in more jobs being created than lost. As we develop innovative technologies, AI will have a positive impact on our economy by creating jobs that require the skill set to implement new systems. 80% of respondents in the EY survey said it was the lack of these skills that was the biggest challenge when employing AI programs. 
It is likely that artificial intelligence will soon replace jobs involving repetitive or basic problem-solving tasks, and even go beyond current human capability. AI systems will be making decisions instead of humans in industrial settings, customer service roles and within financial institutions. Automated decisioning will be responsible for tasks such as approving loans, deciding whether a customer should be onboarded or identifying corruption and financial crime. 
Organisations will benefit from an increase in productivity as a result of greater automation, meaning more revenue will be generated. This thus provides additional money to spend on supporting jobs in the services sector.

How to take advantage of AI

Due to the vast array of jobs that could be impacted by AI, it is fundamental to address the potential pitfalls of these technologies.

·         Business need to overcome the trust and bias issues surrounding AI by achieving an effective and successful implementation that makes it possible for everyone to benefit.

·         Governments must ensure that gains from AI are shared widely across society to prevent social inequality between those affected and unaffected by these developments. For example, this could be through increased investment into training.

·         With the additional cost-savings from implementing AI systems, employers should also focus on upskilling their current employees.

To properly leverage the power of AI, we need to address the issue at an educational level, as well as in business. Education system needs to focus on training students in roles directly associated to working with AI, including programmers and data analysts. This requires more emphasis to be put on STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Also, subjects centered around building creative, social and emotional skills should be encouraged. Whilst artificial intelligence will be more productive than human workers for repetitive tasks, humans will always outperform machines in jobs requiring relationship-building and imagination.

Artificial intelligence will change our world both inside and outside the workplace. Instead of focusing on the fear surrounding automation, businesses need to embrace these new technologies to ensure they implement the most effective AI systems to enhance and compliment human intelligence.

Future Job Thoughts

Technological advancements have had a direct impact on jobs, creating new ones and eliminating the redundant. Today, technology and digitisation have made the lives of consumers simpler, while enabling businesses to leverage advanced tools like AI and Machine Learning to build better products and services. A recent Gartner report noted that the next couple of years will be a defining period as AI will be a major job-creator.

The report stated that, by 2020, AI will generate 2.3 million jobs, exceeding the 1.8 million it is expected to replace. It also revealed that the number of new jobs created by AI and AI-powered tools will reach 2 million by 2025.

A large number of sectors and enterprises that have integrated AI are using the technology primarily for Big Data Analytics through Machine Learning tools. In the digital age, gigabytes of data are created each second by millions of consumers. In order to reach out to customers in a more efficient way, data-driven personalisation is a key element of effective customer service.

Hence, businesses are going to great lengths to ensure they are equipped to use this deluge of data to their advantage—for delivering a higher quality of services and products to customers, and staying ahead of competitors.

Thus, AI has come to play a critical role in key processes like sales and marketing. From powering recommendation engines of Google, Netflix, Amazon that push personalised content towards consumers, to performing complex functions like data and cybersecurity, financial trading and fraud detection, AI can perform a range of functions.

But the application of AI and Machine Learning is largely limited to functions like collecting and processing data, and hence a skilled human workforce is essential for creative tasks and roles that demand human skills, and qualities like emotional intelligence. As of now, less than 5% of occupations are entirely automated, and about 60% comprise 30% tasks that can be automated.

It’s more likely, then, that humans will continue to guide machines, and dominate jobs that require essential skills such as interpersonal relations, emotional range and complexity, dexterity, and mobility, as opposed to the idea that machines will make us redundant.
 

Upskilling for new-age jobs

Constant learning and skill-building will play a critical role in preparing global workforce to deal with the impact of technology on jobs. Investing in human capital is important for companies to develop skills in employees who are required to work with modern technologies.

The current workforce, both employed and unemployed, should have access to reskilling and upskilling opportunities, and businesses must identify the skills that employees must have, and provide them with the right training. According to a survey by Capgemini of 1,000 organisations, 71% companies have pro-actively initiated reskilling programmes for employees to provide them with skills that equip them to work with AI and automation.

The current and future workforce must have better access to lifelong learning opportunities, which is critical to adapting to an ever-evolving technological and business ecosystem. Simultaneously, we need to fundamentally revise our school and higher education curricula and teaching systems to emphasise more on practical skills and knowledge.

These measures will be crucial to enable both the workforce of today and tomorrow to realise its full potential, and taking the country to the next stage of economic growth.
 

Jobs AI can do better than humans

While AI is making exponential advances year after year, the popular media often like to exaggerate what it is capable of for the sake of eye-catching headlines and anxiety-inducing news soundbites.

The truth is, while technology is making great strides in simplifying and automating some work, the truth is that many of these tasks are actually much simpler and fewer than you might think.

For example:

1.      Empathy and communication: While AI is being used in medical applications to do things like more accurately detect diseases on a scan, I certainly wouldn't want to get a robocall to break the news that I have cancer. Even though we are making strides towards affective computing, we are a long way away from any technology that can genuinely recognize human emotions and respond to them appropriately, so any job that requires empathy like primary care physicians, caregivers, and therapists are unlikely to be outsourced to technology any time soon.

2.      Critical thinking: I love the old science fiction shows where the human asks the computer what they should do in a terrible situation, and the computer predicts a 99 percent probability of failure — but the human goes and does the thing anyway, and usually succeeds. To me, it's a beautiful metaphor for the fact that, no matter how advanced our AI may be, we still need a human to make judgments and critical decisions, even to "go with our gut," in certain situations. A more contemporary example might be that law firms are employing AI to help identify relevant documents in legal cases, but we still need a human judge to adjudicate a decision. (A computer judge and jury would be an entirely different sci-fi horror story in the making.)

3.      Creativity: Computer programs are good at spitting out a number of options, but they're not necessarily good at providing quality of creative choices. While AI can technically produce food, music, or art, the results can be… Well, less than inspiring. We've probably all seen the funny lists of AI-generated recipes or paint colors or even inspirational quotes. Any job that requires true creativity, such as writers, engineers, inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, etc., are probably safe for a long while based on these results.

4.      Strategy: In business especially, we're beginning to see a lot of automation of marketing practices and the like. For example, I can tell a program to send a Tweet for me at a particular time of day, every day. And while these can be huge time savers, the automation tools are just that: tools. They don't provide the overall strategy needed to give the individual tasks meaning and relevance. Any job that requires strategic thinking is likely to be safe, and improving your skills in that area can help robot-proof your job.

5.      Technological management, installation, and upkeep: Until the robots have robots of their own to install and maintain them, humans are going to be needed to design, plan, install, manage and maintain any robotics, technology, or AI systems. This takes us back to my first point about understanding what technology is capable of; the more familiar you are with the technology, the more valuable you will be in helping implement and maintain it.

6.      Physical skills: While robots are being created that can do increasingly tricky things, like make your morning latte, there are still a significant number of physical skills robots haven’t mastered. Additionally, we humans seem to love to watch each other accomplish incredible physical feats (the World Cup is just one example). So if you have any amazing physical skills, from crafting to sport, you’re also safe for now.

7.      Imagination and vision: Finally, one quality I can't quite imagine a robot or AI ever possessing is just that: imagination. The way AI currently works is by taking existing data and making logical inferences based on parameters we give it. Imagination and dreaming are merely not programmable skills. Activists, entrepreneurs, visionaries, thought leaders, authors, speakers and others have a distinct advantage over technology in this field, and that isn't going to change any time soon.

10 Jobs That Are Safe in an AI World

Psychiatry

Psychiatry, social work, and marriage counseling are all professions that require strong communication skills, empathy, and the ability to win trust from clients. These positions require keen emotional intelligence, professionals who are capable of communicating with patients, consoling patients in times of trauma, and providing long-term support. These are all weaknesses for machines.

Therapy

Dexterity is a challenge for AI. Physical therapy, as well as chiropractic and massage therapy, involves applying very delicate pressures with our hands and being able to detect minute responses from a client’s body. In addition, therapists of all kinds are tasked with customizing care for their clients, avoiding accidentally hurting a client, and providing ongoing, professional, person-to-person interaction. These essential features of therapy make this profession inherently humanistic, and not fit for AI.

Medical care

The healthcare industry is expected to grow substantially due to increased income, greater health benefits, AI lowering the cost of care, and an aging population who require more care. Many of these factors will foster a symbiotic relationship between humans and AI, which can help with the analytical and administrative aspects of healthcare. Healthcare professionals like doctors and nurses will still be necessary to carry out the features of care fueled by compassion, support, and encouragement.

AI-related research and engineering

As AI grows, there will naturally be a jump in the number of AI professionals. Gartner Research Company estimates that in the next few years, these increases will outnumber the jobs replaced. However, as AI technology improves, some entry-level AI positions will also become automated. AI professionals will need to keep up with the changes caused by AI just as, in recent years, software engineers have had to learn about assembly language, high-level language, object-oriented programming, mobile programming, and now AI programming.

Fiction writing

Storytelling requires one of the highest levels of creativity, and one which AI will have difficulty emulating. Writers ideate, create, engage, and write with style and beauty. The success of a great work of fiction lies in original ideas, interesting characters, an engaging plot, and poetic language. All of these essential components of writing are hard to replicate through algorithms. While AI will be able to write social media posts, suggest book titles, and perhaps even imitate writing styles, the best books, movies, and plays will ultimately be written by humans, at least for the foreseeable future.


Teaching

AI will be a great tool for teachers and educational institutions, as it will help educators figure out how to personalize curriculum based on each student’s competence, progress, aptitude, and temperament. However, teaching will still need to be oriented around helping students figure out their interests, teaching students to learn independently, and providing one-on-one mentorship. These are tasks that can only be done by a human teacher. As such, there will still be a great need for human educators in the future.

Criminal defense law

Top lawyers will have nothing to worry about when it comes to job displacement. reasoning across domains, winning the trust of clients, applying years of experience in the courtroom, and having the ability to persuade a jury are all examples of the cognitive complexities, strategies, and modes of human interaction that are beyond the capabilities of AI. However, a lot of paralegal and preparatory work like document review, analysis, creating contracts, handling small cases, packing cases, and coming up with recommendations can be done much better and more efficiently with AI. The costs of law make it worthwhile for AI companies to go after AI paralegals and AI junior lawyers, but not top lawyers.

Computer science and engineering

A McKinsey report shows that the number of engineering professionals like computer scientists, engineers, IT administrators, IT workers, and tech consulters will increase by 20 million to 50 million globally by 2030. But these jobs require staying up-to-date with technology and moving into areas that are not automated by technology.

Science

Science is the ultimate profession of human creativity. AI can only optimize based on goals set by human creativity. While AI is not likely to replace scientists, AI would make great tools for scientists. For example, in drug discovery, AI can be used to hypothesize and test possible uses of known drugs for diseases, or filter possible new drugs for scientists to consider. AI will amplify human scientists.

Management

Good managers have essential human interaction skills including the abilities to motivate, negotiate, and persuade. They can effectively connect with employees on behalf of companies. More importantly, the best managers are able to establish a strong workplace culture and value system through their actions and words, which elicits hard work from their employees. While AI may be used to manage performance, managerial work will continue to be carried out by humans. That said, if a manager is merely a bureaucrat sitting behind a desk and giving employees orders, they will likely be replaced by other humans.


Conclusion

 

AI is at the centre of a new enterprise to build computational models of intelligence. The main assumption is that intelligence (human or otherwise) can be represented in terms of symbol structures and symbolic operations which can be programmed in a digital computer. There is much debate as to whether such an appropriately programmed computer would be a mind, or would merely simulate one, but AI researchers need not wait for the conclusion to that debate, nor for the hypothetical computer that could model all of human intelligence. Aspects of intelligent behaviour, such as solving problems, making inferences, learning, and understanding language, have already been coded as computer programs, and within very limited domains, such as identifying diseases of soybean plants, AI programs can outperform human experts. Now the great challenge of AI is to find ways of representing the commonsense knowledge and experience that enable people to carry out everyday activities such as holding a wide-ranging conversation, or finding their way along a busy street. Conventional digital computers may be capable of running such programs, or we may need to develop new machines that can support the complexity of human thought. 

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Environment Vs urbanization

Reji Thomas Mathew

Tech Masters

Environment Vs urbanization

Industrial revolution has given way to job and better life to many. Due to this, pace of urbanization also is at a very high rate in last few years, which is very good, but at the same time we should ensure it doesn’t affect the environment adversely. If an eco system is curtailed for better living, it will have its own repercussions. Recent incidents also state these truths. Let us see few of such incidents and think about some practical solutions to reduce such impacts.

 

Flood in Kerala – In 2018, Kerala faced its worst flood in hundred years. With that we went back by 50 years and it will take years to rebuild the charm fully. Though it’s debatable on whether we could have controlled it, since it’s a political sensitive topic I don’t want to rub pepper into it. We had heavy rain fall and didn’t have proper mechanism to evaluate and forecast rains. I am not sure whether such systems are being implemented anywhere effectively?  Let us leave such things and rather put our thoughts into why this much damage occurred? If we look into that we can see we filled paddy fields, did constructions on river beds and all such areas affected badly. We had to close down Cochin airport for many days! Huge boundary walls fell down. Digging soil from rivers has caused damages. We should be doing nature friendly constructions and not damage the scenery of the environment.

 

Landslide in 2019: Though not as severe as floods in 2018, landslide also caused heavy damage and death toll also was on higher end. If we flatten the mountains, cut down the big trees and move the soil to other low level areas, surely such things will occur. Lucky that it was not worst. Few farmers do farming of one item alone (like rubber) depending on what give more yield and profit. This is not the right approach. You should simulate natural forest concept of different variety trees. That will control soil erosion. The unfortunate incident is induced and inducted by land mafia lords. They have made huge ransom out of these anti environmental actions and even stay somewhere else happily. It’s the poor people who has hit badly. What wrong they did to see such a bad fate. Never alter the nature in such a manner, rather keep such changes minimal.

 

Girl’s death due to snake bite: All Medias are behind teachers who didn’t take care of the snake bit child. It’s so unfortunate, but why should snakes come to school? Because the school is near a forest area. So to make it simpler human has gone to forest and acquired that to make a school. Now where will snakes go? Why tigers or pigs or monkeys come to populated area? Because forest is being curtailed animals are forced to get into human space now. Let us understand that world is a place for all living beings and not just human.

 

There is a song sung by KJ Yesudas “gori thera gaav bada pyara me tho gaya maara aake yeha re”. you know who made that song/ it was by Bombay Ravi. He came to kuttanad and when he saw the beauty of  nature he wrote those lines. But now what is the stage of Kumarakam, Kovalam etc? Lot of garbage. We make our life more miserable. I have seen educated professionals throwing plastic bottle to drainage pits in Bangalore. You know the reason? 90% of such professionals are from other states and not Bangaloreans. So they are least bothered about the cleanliness of the city. Similar is the issue we saw with Chennai flood. Improper waste management leads way to more troubles. Few years ago Trivandrum city water management was very poor. But thanks to the strong leadership of Trivandrum corporation under mayor V K Prashanth, city waste water management is much better. Even high court requested Cochin Corporation to study the measures taken by Trivandrum Corporation. When we travel in train and near Kollam, we see lot of plastic being dumped. That is going to be big menace for society. We should take environment friendly steps. Plastic banning need to be more vigorous and rigorous.

 

We need good leadership, planning and thought process with good funding to do things in a professional and better manner. It is not just the leaders who implement this. It’s the common man, with civic sense who can respect nature and environment, failing which sooner the world will not be a good place to live. If we do urbanization considering the environment, then surely world will continue to be known as a better place to live in.

JAIHIND

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Artificial intelligence and future job thoughts

Jaidev Chandrasekharan

UST Global Campus

Artificial intelligence and future job thoughts

Artificial intelligence, which used to be a theme of science fiction until two decades ago has become a major transformative force in our planet at the moment. With or without our knowing we use some form of AI in our life and work every day. A machine learning based predictive model makes sure that all unwanted emails go to your spam folder without bothering you. When you login to Amazon or Netflix, they show you recommendations based on your behaviour patterns which they learned with the help of Machine learning.

 

With the arrival of deep learning algorithms which makes use of Artificial neural networks, the growth of AI acquired a pace none ever imagined. Many marvellous achievements including Sofia, the intelligent robot, self-driving cars were made possible by this.

 

These changes which are already happening in a rapid pace are further expected to speed up, once we start making use of Quantum computing technology, which is still in its early stages.

 

What will happen to our jobs as AI continue to enhance its capabilities?

To answer this question sensibly, let us look at it from a long-term perspective. If we imagine our future after two or three decades, we can see that it is unavoidable that AI powered programs and robots will replace majority of the "jobs" that are carried out by human beings today.

 

 Jobs that may go extinct first would be the repetitive tasks, tasks that require physical labour and tasks that are hazardous in nature. But as AI algorithms evolve further, it is possible that it may replace even the tasks that require critical thinking and creativity.

 

Human computer programmers could become redundant with the arrival of advanced AI powered programs that are capable of enhancing themselves as required.

 

Even parts of a Doctor's job can be taken over by AI. With the arrival of sophisticated learning and prediction algorithms, an AI doctor would be able to diagnose diseases with more accuracy than a human doctor. Also, AI powered robots would be able to perform critical surgeries with no room for human errors. Not only that, an AI doctor program would be able to diagnose and treat hundreds of patients all at the same time, while a human doctor can practically address only one patient at a time. Once we reach this stage of technological advancement, there is no reason why we should not use the AI doctor just to keep the human doctor employed. Because, the reason why we have doctors is to keep the society healthy, and not for the sake of keeping the profession.

 

Another example is the job of drivers, which would be replaced by self-driving vehicles. This is a major employment concern in a country like India. The Road transport minister of India has recently made a statement that the country has no plan to introduce driver-less cars in the industry anytime soon, because the government is concerned about the jobs of around 4 million drivers in the country. Though this is a humanitarian stand, it is yet to be seen how any country can resist the onslaught of this fast-evolving technology in long run. A major share of road accidents is caused by human errors which includes road rage, drunk driving, sleep deprived drivers, use of mobile phone during driving etc. An advanced AI driver will never have these problems. This means a drastic reduction in the number of road accidents. Think about a complicated intersection where the self-driving cars approaching from different directions talk among themselves and create a right of way protocol before they reach the intersection. Such a solution can even save the cost of setting up traffic lights.

 

AI is going to be an unavoidable element in various sectors including Defence, Agriculture, Retail, Banking etc. Even if some country or community decides to keep away from this, they will not be able to do that for long, because they will be at a disadvantage compared to the early adopters. So, it is a probable assumption that everyone will end up welcoming AI in almost every sphere of life sooner or later.

 

Should we worry about our jobs?

My opinion is that once all the hard labour has been taken over by AI systems, humans will be able to focus on the kind of activities associated with their creative self-expression. There may be more scientists, innovators, philosophers, artists etc. I am making a broad assumption that this society will be a prosperous one because of the efficient labour and service provided by the machines, augmented by absence of corruption. So humans should have the necessary resources to meet their needs without working. Such a society is called "Post work society".

 

To make sure that people in a post work society have income, policy makers across the world are discussing a concept known as the Universal Basic Income (UBI). If this is implemented, the Government should make sure that every citizen receives sufficient income to meet his or her basic needs.

 

The point I was trying to say is that it is inevitable that most of our jobs will go obsolete in the next two or three decades. We and our children need to be prepared for it.

 

How will we prepare for this change?

The kind of education we receive in our Schools and Colleges may become insignificant in long run.  We are living in a world of information deluge. It is very easy to find the information we need when we need it without having to memorize much. What the world needs are people who knows how to make use of the available information, rather than someone who remembers so many information in his or her head.

 

The skills humans would require most in the age of AI would be learning, unlearning and relearning on demand.

 

There is a widely accepted notion among educational experts about what should be the focus of education in 21st century. That is known as the 4 Cs of education - Creativity, Collaboration, Communication and Critical thinking.

 

Conclusion

I would like to conclude this article by pointing out that it is inevitable that AI will disrupt our life styles and work environments drastically in the coming decades. We have to be prepared for the changes by mastering the art of learning, unlearning and relearning. And for our children, even if we are not able to change the educational system, we would be able to make conscious effort to make sure that they master the 4 C's of education for 21st century, which are Creativity, Collaboration, Communication and Critical thinking.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Struggle for gender equality must first rise in the minds

Aravind Ramesh

Calpine Technologies

Struggle for gender equality must first rise in the minds

It seems that there isn’t a more opportune time than the present to talk about gender equality in India. While the global #MeToo movement was gathering steam in India, with actors and journalists at the forefront, Supreme Court ruling in allowing women of all age groups in Sabarimala temple added a much needed impetus to the national discourse on gender equality.

Yet in your naivety, if you take for granted the newfound spring in the society’s step towards liberalism, you are in for a rude awakening. If you cast a cursory glance at the media – social media or traditional media – you can find that not many among men or among women see these advancements in positive light. There is cacophony of diverse voices casting aspersions on the character of women who are part of the #MeToo campaign. There is a brute majority out there, including women, who call the Supreme Court verdict on Sabarimala excessive and needless.

Without a significant change in the patriarchal attitude of the society that considers women as second class citizens, no material or moral progress is possible. As is the case with all kinds of resistance against the immoral and unlawful exploits in the history of mankind, the struggle for gender equality must also first rise in the minds.

Revolutions have always sprouted in the minds, where they might lay dormant for some time, but drawing nutrients from the thoughts and challenging the intellects, before rising into action – sometimes peaceful, often violent – in the alleys of institutions and the streets of cities, stirring every hamlet and every soul residing in them.

Renaissance that our society, particularly Kerala society, witnessed many decades back is in serious danger of wilting and disappearing under conservative pressure. The more we change, the more we remain where we are. The progressive society that we assume we have become has turned out to be a myth. Education that aims at ennobling people to an advanced state of progressive existence has apparently brought material prosperity, but hasn’t brought any moral advancement.

Though the allusion may seem trite, it must be reiterated that while Russians are sending women to space, we in India are still squabbling on whether menstruation is impure or not. No society can progress when the majority of its citizenry believes that a physiological characteristic of human body is inherently impure. Every idea that gains traction in the society must pass the twin test of analytical and logical consistency. Nothing that defies logic and reason must be allowed to gain foothold.

In order to gain their rightful space in the society women need to assert themselves. There is much to be admired and to be followed in the way in which Women in Cinema Collective has declared their intention to seize what is their due. In the film industry exploitation of what the society calls the “meeker gender” is entrenched. Financial disparity is obviously present, which is in itself awful, but sexual abuse is widespread, which is ethically and legally criminal. It took such a long time to actors to open up on the abuses they faced shows what is all wrong with this malevolent male dominated society.

It was with enormous shock that we learnt that sexual exploitation is widespread in the field of journalism too, which we had assumed to be a domain where liberal values had its most expansive expression. Women can no longer allow the narrative of victimhood to describe them. An attitude change has become inevitable; they need to take the bull by the horns. 

The womankind must understand that the struggle for justice that women in one part of the world fight is a struggle that has implications to the lives of women in other parts of the world as well. If you abdicate the responsibility of standing with your fellow women in their struggle for equality then you would be committing a historical wrong. It is a struggle women can ill afford to lose.

Esoteric religious texts and their narrow interpretations, together with archaic traditions and customs could be the driving force behind one’s personal spiritual journey, but the basis on which a society runs its business could only be the liberal tenets enshrined in the constitution. Women’s emancipation and gender parity could be achieved only if such liberal values flourish in the society. Real hope for change lies only in a generational shift in the attitude of the young, where indoctrinated conservative dogma takes a backseat and liberal values take over.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  How to build a culture to preserve our nature

Reji Thomas Mathew

Speridian

How to build a culture to preserve our nature

How to build a culture to preserve our nature?

Few years back I wrote a column in  Ys Men International a social organisation bulletin on the importance of loving the nature with title “Am I in love with her?“. Even my wife had a shock when she saw the heading J . Since our topic of discussion is around preserving nature, let me take few leafs from that article. If you love / has a potential to love nature, you will surely like this piece of share. By her, I was mentioning about the nature around me. Its also heartening to know that Ys Men International this year has taken up “Be with nature” as its project. 

I have a small beautiful garden on my roof top as well as portico. It gives me lot of pleasure when I see a new flower / fruit / vegetable grow. This erases the many a pressure / trouble you have in life. It gives a new energy for the day to live. May be the oxygen you get at that time, plays the trick. Who knows? Stop your never ending run behind money and fame for a while and think, see the nature around you. How beautiful its. Have we done anything to make it more beautiful? Have we helped to make it clean? Have we benefited from it?

There are many ways in which we can benefit and we can give back to We can. If we decide so. What are the ways in which we can bring a difference? Here are some simple things that we can do to make a habit to retain our nature and build it better.

Garden – have some good plants that has multi colored leaves and flowers. That add color to your life. After having small, but beautiful garden, I have started meeting like minded people and funny thing is that we exchange seeds and saplings on old age barter system. The fragrance of the flowers wipes out the bad breath in the polluted environment. Keep a simple objective that I will add one species every month. I even give saplings as gift to my dear ones.

Trees – plant a tree on every special occasion (like birthdays, wedding anniversaries etc in your family). It will provide pure oxygen for you. It also prevents soil erosion and conserves water. We could have controlled most of the flood impact recently, had we got enough forestation. Once grown up sufficiently, it can be used for furniture as well. I have a bit of land which I maintain like a man made forest with lots of teaks, coconut trees etc.

Vegetables and fruits – a bit of back yard or terrace space can give you your day’s fibrous food, free from chemicals, yet cut down on your monthly budget. Collect different coloured vegetables and fruits. That gives us all the body wants. Make it a habit to eat seasonal fruits and vegetables.  Fruits like Papayas, planton, banana, water apple, custard apple, lemon, mango, jack fruit, chikku, guava, tomato, pine apple etc are easy to be cultivated. So is eatables like tapioca, yam, chembu etc. vegetables like spinach (cheera) – that too different variety like chaya manza, normal keera, green / red spinach etc grow very fast. A bit of lady finger, chillies, cabbage, cauli flower, beans, brinjal, palaks are easy to maintain. I even have a rare collection of medicinal plants. Plants such as thulsi, muyal cheviyan, pani kuruka etc are easy grow able bushes and really good medicines for fever etal.

Solar energy saurorjam (not sarithorjam) – tapping energy from non-conventional energy will help sort out the power scarcity and no need to fear power cuts. Also can save a bit of money on electricity charges as well. We can run any kind of devices like even fridge, iron box, television, computer and AC also with solar energy. Now a day there is provision to give back power to state power grid, which will be equivalent to an income to us. We can have solar water heater also implemented. Wind energy and tidal energy also are good options, if there is provision to invest more. Solar lanterns are very common since thirty years. We keep thinking of investment since we have conventional energy available, but soon (within twenty years) there will be severe power scarcity and its better we switch to non-conventional energy earlier.

Rain water harvesting – why curse the water authority and old poor pipes when you can benefit from natural rain water. Collect the water from roof top to a tank and use it as needed. This is comparatively less costly affair. No need to do any additional overhead pipe fittings. Just let the rain water flow and be diverted to a sump / tank. From there it can be used. Common uses like watering plant, washing car, cleaning floor etc can be easily managed with this water.

Building ground water – now a day, when rain comes, we see water gushing through streets and it all flows to ocean. It takes lot of manure and soil also along with that. We can control this if we plant trees. Not only that, we need to go for the step cultivation or have small bunds which will reduce the flow of water. Then the water will percolate into earth, which will add to ground water strength. We need to go for digging small holes in between, which will be water storage. Its known as “mazha kuzhi”. Digging wells, where possible will be good to retain the natures normalcy.

Waste management – implementing pipe / ring compost can help in better waste management. This is cost effective and the manure can be used for plants as well. If we invest a bit, we can have a gas plant implemented which work on waste. The slurry can be used as manure for plants.

Handling non degradable – keep it a habit to carry bags to shopping, this way we can reduce usage of plastic bags. Don’t throw don’t degradable just like that. When we do some excavation in land, it’s a pity we find plastic and electronic items there. By throwing ti like that, we are creating a menace to the environment.

Pets– pets like cat, dog, hen etc also help in better waste management.  Hens give good natural fresh eggs. There excretion also is manure.

Through such small and simple, yet powerful and result oriented habits, we can have our living from nature itself, thereby giving back to nature. If you need any more information / guidance or help on any of the above things, please feel free to reach out to me. I am happier to help out be it through giving saplings or seeds or tips on setting up of these.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  How to use modern technology in re building Kerala

How to use modern technology in re building Kerala

How to use modern technology in re building Kerala

This is a relevant topic in before me that being engineer, I should fulfill my duty towards my country by giving the technological measures to re build Kerala.
The recent flood is the most devastated disaster that ever happened in the history of Kerala. This was Kerala’s worst flooding. To the enormous shock of the people, luck ran out of God’s Own Country. Now the people will have to pick up the pieces: of their broken psyches, their social and economic devastation, the environmental damage and try to rise up like the Phoenix. 
More than 40000 hectares of farming land were submerged under water, 83,000 km of roads were damaged. Crops lost in 54,000 hectares.   Over three lakh farmers affected. As many as 221 bridges were damaged. The flood-ravaged state has to embark on a massive reconstruction exercise—economic, social and political—to restore the status of God’s Own Country.  Technology can play a vital role in the quick and effective recovery of the state.
Kerala was known as a consumer state rather than a producing state. Since the vast majority of our crop fields have wanted out during flood, we are forced to start from scratch in terms of our agriculture is concerned. Less area and low interest for the people in agriculture were the factors that limitedKerala to a consumer state.
For this problem, the vertical farming technologies can be adopted. The countries like Japan has already adopted this kind of agriculture practices and Kerala should learn from them.
Vertical farming is the practice of producing food and medicine in vertically stacked layers, vertically inclined surfaces and/or integrated in otherstructures. The modern ideas of vertical farming use indoor farming techniques and controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) technology. Hydroponic systems can be lit by LEDs that mimic sunlight. Software can ensure that all the plants get the same amount of light, water and nutrients. So in all means, vertical farming is a very good option for Kerala to meet itsagricultural demands. Also Proper managements means that no herbicides or pesticides are required, that a healthy generation can be made by this method.
With the flood came a large quantity of debris from the water bodies, which include mainly the plastics, and also other materials. There needs to be a plan to recycle the debris, so here also the technological advance can be made use by the government.  The recent technology have advanced machines that can recycle the plastics in an advanced way. So instead of throwing it back to the water, government can look for these alternative ways.
Dams are blamed as the main cause of the floor, so emphasis should be given for an integrated dam management system using advanced systems. There should be flood monitoring stations with sufficient software support inevery junctions of rivers that contribute to dams. Also these systems should be interconnected that it should have the functionality to communicate each other. An alert should be given in every mosque, temples and all nearby crowded areas at the time of flood. The speakers in the pilgrimage sites should be used for this purpose. For finding additional funds, government should sell the excess sands deposited in the floors of dams. The sand deposited has also been a reason for the increased impact of flood that these deposits have lowered the capacity of dams.
Flood mapping should be implemented using digital mapping and datacollection. Flood Hazard Mapping is a vital component for appropriate land use planning in flood-prone areas.
One of the largest disaster in the recent flood was that of the landslide atMalappuram, which took the lives of two whole families. Adequate steps should be given to measure the humidity rate inside the soil. Each type of soil has some particular water holding capacity, landslides mainly occur when the soil has more water moisture rates than the rate it can hold. So by using soil moisture measuring sensors, we could predict the landslides during ratings and this can reduce casualties.
The above mentioned steps are adequate for avoiding such a situation of flood ever in the future. But since now we are in the affected state, we have to do the steps to mitigate the effects of flood. The government is now faced by a lots of challenges to bring Kerala back on her track. The great challenge for the government to face after the flood is to estimate the loss occurred during the flood. 
In order to calculate the loss occurred during the food, the scientific tools or technologies that are used in geography can be used. Geographic information system (GIS) is a good tool for that purpose. It helps in gathering, managing, and analyzing data that analyses spatial location and organizeslayers of information into visualizations using 3D maps and this it completelyapt for the situation.
GIS applications are tools that allow users to create interactive queries (user-created searches), analyze spatial information, edit data in maps, and present the results of all these operations.
GIS can refer to a number of different technologies, processes, and methods. It is attached to many operations and has many applications related to engineering, planning, management, transport/logistics, insurance, telecommunications, and business. For that reason, GIS and location intelligence applications can be the foundation for many location-enabled services that rely on analysis and visualization.
Satellite images of high resolution can be used for accurate analysis of the land parcels affected due to the floods and landslides, the land especially the road network and the inundated areas alongside the river banks. The difference in the images between the pre and post-flood maps would result in precise change detection as well as ground truth verification of the static as well as the dynamic attributes of land cover. 
The application of remote sensing technology, as well as image processing, can determine the exact length and breadth of roads that have been affected, the land that had been submerged or inundated, the green cover that has been lost and the extent of soil erosion. As for the loss of houses, the re-survey records can form the base layer and the geo-referenced cadastral map can become another layer and satellite imageries as another layer in a GIS environment.  For documenting the loss, an attribute table with the survey/re-survey number, the building number assigned by LSGDs, the name of the land owner, and other attributes in the department registers have to be entered.   

As an aftermath of the flood, many are have become unsuitable for living. The soil in these regions have become so less quality, that any construction on these areas would bring landslides. So it is essential to classify the flood hit areas as habitable, semi habitable and not habitable based on itscondition and the level of flood affectively.
For this purpose, the satellite images can be used. ISRO can provide the satellite images, or else Satellite imaging companies sell images by licensing them to governments and businesses such as Apple Maps and Google Maps, so government can make use of it Based on the image results, theNon habitable areas should be moved to safer places and fair compensation should be given to them.
By using connected technologies, the Government can accurately and scientifically assess damages occurred to life and property, without themanipulation from any of the stake-holders including politicians and officials. The estimation of losses will be completely scientific and it helps to build a high degree of authenticity. The geo data published in internet would render the whole process transparent; eliminate nepotism by bureaucrats and would serve a model for others.
Kerala has full potential and resources to overcome all its current difficulties. The government and people should work shoulder to shoulder to rebuild Kerala and may Kerala rise up like the Phoenix from the ashes and set an example to the world. 
With these I am concluding my article and thank you for giving me an opportunity.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  How does a Film Industry Recognize Women?

How does a Film Industry Recognize Women?

How does a Film Industry Recognize Women?

 

The Film industry, around the world, is one of the most distinctive areas which requires a systematic collaboration between different entities and businesses. The filming of Baahubali took nearly four years to complete which means the project has provided jobs to more than 10,000 people through different areas of interest. The Visual Effects department, The Makeup Team, The Stunt Coordinators, The Food department, each of them have their part to play for the successful completion of any movie, whether it turns out to be a blockbuster or not.

 

However, the people working behind the screens are often overlooked. Apart from the ones who share the spotlight, many others and their talents are frequently ignored. Along with it, the role and importance of women in the Film Industry have been on debate for over the years. Of course, several movies portray women as strong and equal to men, but we often ignore the things that happen behind the screen. How well their contributions are recognized offscreen? How well are they compensated and treated behind the screen? Even though the facts on the internet suggests that women earn equally as men in the film industry, we cannot conclude just by analyzing their pay scale.

 

The Influence of Women in the Film Industry

 

Apart from acting, there are plenty of women contributors to the recent Film Industry. For example, Mary E. Vogt, a notable Costume Designer from New York has extensively worked on movies such as “Enthiran (2010)” and the upcoming movie titled “2.0”. The importance of an experienced costume designer can be observed through these movies which had portrayed every scene and especially the songs more beautifull than we can ever imagine. Suhasini, an actor, director, and writer, spent her fair share of her career in crafting commendable dialogues for many blockbuster movies. Archana Borhade, the brilliant cinematographer behind movies such as “My Name is Khan” and Robin Wright, who acted as well as directed several episodes of Netflix’s “House of Cards.” It’s safer to say that in recent years more women are working and striving towards the Film Industry as their long-term career.

 

However, from a director’s point of view, everything seems different. Earlier, around 30 years before, its very rare to see female directors in Hollywood. Even if there were any, they hardly received any spotlight for the movie’s success. The best example is Jane Campion, who directed “The Piano,” received the Palme d’Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993. In fact, she was the only female filmmaker to have won such a prestigious award till date. Of course, over the years this trend is changing, and we can see the directors are awarded based on their talent rather than discriminating based on gender. The Cannes panel of judges which used to have only male members now consists of an equal number of women to consider an impartial decision.

 

All things being said, we have to understand that Change, happens slowly and its evident that it is taking place. However, during the recent Cannes Film Festival held in 2018, around 82 well recognized and talented women directors walked the Red Carpet as a silent protest to bring in more diversity in Filmmaking Industry. Such incidents make us wonder, are we really witnessing the much-needed diversity? Or Are we still kept in the dark from the actual events happening behind the screen?

 

Nepotism - Does it favor women more in the Film Industry?

 

If we are brutally honest, Nepotism is the only practice that does not discriminate based on gender. More specifically, Nepotism in Indian Film Industry is no news. We’ve seen both men and women, generation after generation, rocking the Indian Film industry, just because of their surnames their elders left them with. The reason I’ve mentioned the influence of Nepotism is mainly because there are talented and aspiring actors, directors out there who had succeeded in breaking the clutches of Nepotism. They proved that an influential surname is not necessary to shine in the Film Industry rather Passion and Hard Work would do.

 

Many notable female celebrities worked up their way to the top in the Movie Industry. Mithila Palkar is one of the most recent examples of commendable personalities who is now shining in Bollywood. She started her career through several short films, advertisements and gradually worked up her way through which she recently grabbed a prominent role in the movie “Karwaan.” There are more such celebrities, but the point being that there are several aspiring young models and filmmakers, both men and women, who are working very hard to outshine the significant herd in the Film Industry.

 

The Latest Fad of Objectifying Women in Movies

 

One of the most widely debated topics is how the filmmakers often objectify women in their movies by portraying them in the most degrading way as possible. While the young aspiring models are often roped into this practice without even them realizing it, several experienced actors don’t seem to have any problem with this. Now, the main reason is how the audience tends to perceive these movies. We don’t require those scenes, however, if depicted in a film we never oppose it publicly. This is just because the majority of the audience are not mature enough to withstand new changes in the film industry. Movies such as “Trapped” & “Newton” are not well recognized in Bollywood because the audience is not ready to accept new scripts. While several websites rate a movie’s performance through numbers and stars, the actual success is determined by how much money the film has made so far. Let’s be honest; we cannot blame the filmmakers for objectifying women since from their perspective a movie is an investment, and it should in-turn provide them with substantial returns. If they are investing so much money in such degrading scenes, then that could only mean that there is just more demand for that, which in turn lies directly on the audience’s shoulders.

 

Conclusion

 

For several years we have asked different versions of a very familiar question to ourselves.

When will Indian Film Industry improve their standards? The harsh reality is that, we, as an audience or at least the majority of them are simply not ready to accept new changes. We fight for equality in every field but fail to realize that it has to start with ourselves first. At the same time, change happens gradually, and the talented will always find a way to succeed. Leonardo DiCaprio began his film career in 1979, and even though he has given a lot of successful movies, he could only grab the Oscar in the year 2016. It’s not because he was less skilled but because of the numerous competition.

Similarly, in the current generation, there are plenty of opportunities for women in the Film Industry and along with it comes a great competition. The future is to hope that the said competition should be focussed between the talented, rather than the genders. An equal amount of responsibilities lie on the audience’s shoulders as well, and it’s high time we encouraged the most talented.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Women and Film

Women and Film

Women constitute about half of the human population. It is not clear when exactly the subjugation of the other gender seemed like a plausible prospect to men. As it happened, at some point in our history, men managed to keep a tight rein on women and have been doing it to this day. Patriarchy has always been a deep-seated notion in societies all over the world. Even today, relatively few women have the liberty to make decisions of their own accord. At large, it's the men closely related to a woman who call the shots regarding her life. 

Given this reality, it shouldn't actually be surprising that women are often relegated to secondary roles in the majority of films. An objective portrayal of women is seldom seen in mainstream cinema. Since the preponderance of the mainstream films are produced and conceptualized by men, the female characters are often viewed through the 'male gaze' (a term coined by the film critic Laura Mulvey). Women are shown on screen from the perspective of, in most cases, a heterosexual man. More often than not, in mainstream films, the ideal woman is depicted as the one who is content with playing second fiddle to her male partner – the one who is too happy to sacrifice her dreams and ambitions for him, the one who bears with all his misdemeanors without daring to question them, the one who accepts infidelity on his part as an inherent trait of manhood and forgives it, and so forth. Any female character who doesn't conform to these rules is readily denounced as being brash and undignified. An ambitious man is often depicted as being worthy of praise whereas a woman with the same trait is hardly ever shown in a positive light. Such a woman is often shown as being remiss in her duties as a mother or wife. It goes without saying that this character often eats humble pie towards the end of the story and realizes how 'wrong' she was in desiring something apart from a family life. Also, it's almost impossible to find a scene in mainstream films wherein the topic of the conversation between two (or more) female characters is something other than a man. The female characters often have nothing going on in their lives other than their thoughts about a man. 

This is not to say that independent female characters don't exist at all; they do, but they are few and far between. They are so rare that whenever a film's protagonist is a woman, people get preoccupied with that fact and refuse to treat the film as a thriller, fantasy, comedy, or a whodunit. The film is readily filed under the genre 'woman-centric'.

Another disturbing trend in cinema is the romanticization of stalking. As per section 354D in the Indian Penal Code, stalking is an offense that can be penalized with up to three years of imprisonment. Nevertheless, since time immemorial, stalking has been depicted in cinema as the most efficacious avenue of winning a woman's heart, an essential part of courtship. The message given out is this: a woman, in spite of putting on an outward protest when being stalked, secretly enjoys being chased, and that when she says 'no', it isn't actually 'no', but 'yes' in disguise. This exercise becomes all the more pernicious when the stalker is played by a superstar who is looked up to by legions of impressionable youth. Then again, such films almost never regard the hero as a stalker. He is depicted as a hopeless Romeo who is so much in love with the lady that he has zero respect for her choices and decisions.

And as far as actresses, especially those who play leading roles, are concerned, they have to deal with what their male counterparts don't: shelf life. Very few actresses have been fortunate enough to continue acting, let alone play the leading role, post their marriage. Upon getting married, they are expected to give up their career in cinema and be a good homemaker. Those lucky ones who keep at it even after their nuptials barely ever get to play the leading roles again. They are invariably handed down the roles of the hero's mother or sister, characters that are often inconsequential to the plot. In many cases, the curtain is brought down on a female actor's career before they can explore and hone their craft further.   

Many of the problematic conventions in cinematic storytelling regarding the depiction of women can be resolved only if educated, well-read women become part of the creative process of a film. Any substantial change in the status quo is virtually impossible without the support and solidarity of the men in the industry, especially the stalwarts who hold all the aces. One can only keep their fingers crossed and hope that a level playing field will materialize quite soon.

Srishti-2022   >>  Article - English   >>  Ritual Customs and Indian Constitution

Ritual Customs and Indian Constitution

Ritual Customs and Indian Constitution

 

India as a land of numerous ancient cultures and civilizations

 

The wonder that is India is disguised by its vast and eventful cultural history. The fertile land that nourished innumerable cultures that eventually bloomed into civilizations. The ancient and medieval history of India largely shaped the cultural heritage that is visible in the diversity of food, clothing and customs followed by every Indian. When we travel from the eternal Himalayas to the cultivated peninsula in the far south, from the deserts of the West to the humid deltas of the East, from the dry heat and cold of the Central Plateau to the cool forest foothills, Indian lifestyles clearly glorify the ethnicity they derive from the regional traditions.

 

Link to the ancient past, peculiarities of Indian society

 

India in the 21st Century still carries the trail from the history, the smaller regional kingdoms that was unified to form the country is held together by the boundaries of the Union of India. The Indian way of life reflects this diversity in all respects. The food you eat, the clothes you wear, the language you speak in and the God you worship all show these aspects. The peculiarity of ancient cultures is its rigid prescription of customs and traditions. As India’s existing cultures are all reminiscent of ancient cultures majority of the Indian social customs bear descendance from the ancient followings. The popular way of greeting in India, Namaste is an age-old custom indicated by folded palms placed before chest. The Sikhs carrying a Kirpan (a traditional dagger), one of the five articles of faith as per the Sikh Commandants, are subjects of news in several international airports even today. Most of the communities in India despite the belief, religion, tradition follows a set of ritual customs which becomes an integral part of their lifestyle. The traditional weddings are well known for the rich colours and rituals that showcase a vast variety of traditions. It is most likely that several ritual customs form part of the daily routine of a typical Indian.

 

The Indian society collectively reflects the characteristic evolution it had from the civilizations that made this land their home. The ancient tribal settlements that formed the seedlings of the Indian society at large for a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multilinguistic groups were mainly patriarchal in nature. This naturally became the general characteristic of the society. The social order construction was based on rigid hierarchy of class, caste and gender. Women were considered a particularly inferior species. The traditional patriarch has vested interests in keeping the larger section of population under control and so mechanism devised in this direction is always intended at retaining the power, keeping a check at questions and handing over the power to inherited descendants only. Thereby ensuring supremacy of the upper class and conserving it for future.

 

The ritual customs are used as a powerful method to give a spiritual and devotional dimension to the restrictions enforced. It is worth noting that the original manuscripts did not follow an ideology of restriction of power, knowledge or access to any strata of people in the society. When the need for keeping a check on power arose and to safeguard it with vested interests, the specific portions were added to the popular scripts that came to be accepted by the larger population. This almost ended up in the rituals never being questioned or if at all, quashed as disrespect to tradition, belief and unquestioned faith. The blind beliefs often evoke fear in human mind of calamities and inviting supernatural anger that can destroy the eternal self and wipe out existence.

 

Indian society at the time of Independence:

 

Indian society at the time of independence was a turning point in many aspects. It shaped the modern India that we witness today. It took decades of transformation to slacken the rigid social structure and extreme malpractices in the name of religion and culture. With the advent of western education and access to modern ideologies, Indians began to look beyond the impermeable walls of religious intolerance, caste, marginalization of women and minorities, extremes social evils like immolation of widows, child marriage, female foeticide, polygamy, untouchability, bonded labour etc to name a few. When religions attached more importance to external form than to inner reality, there was no qualm of conscience even in most horrific performances which could be disguised as grave crimes against humanity. This was not confined to any religion or class, but a predominant character of the society.

 

Resurgence of Indian Society and Draft Constitution

 

The Indian awakening was facilitated by various reform movements and the rise of new class of intelligent middleclass possessing liberal thought, influenced by developments happening all over the world. The young Indian was a rationalist and was sceptical about the blind followings. There was a gradual emergence of public opinion based on logical thinking, demanding revival of the society. They stood for the democratization of the society, removal of superstitions and decadent customs, spread of enlightenment and development of a rational and modern outlook. This was also the time India was undergoing transformation from an imperialist colony to an independent nation. The constitution of India, which lays down the fundamental law of the land was formulated, and the country declared its constitutional supremacy, placing it above the parliament and judiciary.

 

The forefathers drafted the constitution keeping in mind the peculiarities and shortcomings of the society. The prime responsibility was to keep the fragile fragments united and protect the unity in diversity. For this the policy adopted in the constitution was giving freedom to profess, practise and propagate any religion and not restricting any secular activity which may be associated with religious practice. The idea was to create an environment where different ideologies can coexist in peace and harmony. Any one is free to practise according to their beliefs and ideology they intend to follow. This is a unique version of secularism which was customized to fit the Indian context. The citizens could follow their traditions and customs without the law of the land restricting unless it is anti-democratic or having an impact in the fundamental rights of the citizens or national integrity.

 

Challenges in upholding secularism a multicultural, liberal, ritualistic patriarchal society

 

The Constitution upholds the fundamental rights of equality, freedom of religion and prohibits any discrimination on the grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth, or any of them. While guaranteeing the fundamental rights it also took stringent stance at the social stigmas. Abolition of untouchability, protection of interests of minorities and prohibition of discrimination are evidence of this. The challenges in safeguarding the underlying principles of equality, freedom and non-discrimination are achieved by making the fundamental rights as not-absolute and not-sacrosanct. There can be reasonable restrictions enforced by the state in these rights for protection of public interest.

 

The Article 25 is one of the pillars of fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The relevance of this legislation can be gauged only when one understands the importance of preserving the pluralistic ethos of the country and the idea of harmonious coexistence of different religions.

The Article 25 states that every individual is “equally entitled to freedom of conscience” and has the right “to profess, practice and propagate religion” of one’s choice. Practicing religion or the act of propagating it should not, however, affect the “public order, morality and health.” The Article doesn’t put any restriction on the government when it comes to making any law to regulate “economic, financial, political or other secular” activities, which may be associated with religious practice.

Thus, the right balance of personal liberty and social integrity is maintained.

 

Conclusion

 

The colourful traditions of India live through the customs and rituals followed by the people. It also forms our responsibility to preserve our rich cultural heritage. The spirit and enthusiasm in following them should be by upholding humanitarian and social values. Any thought or action implied at humiliation, exclusion or discrimination should be trashed as crimes and not acclaimed in the name of culture. We need to confront the dogmas through the wisdom and rationalism that were imparted to us through the enlightened souls who entrusted the Union on us. 

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