is it worth?

Improve your QoL

Standard of living? Or Quality of Life? Rahul Kapoor on work-life balance

In today’s fast paced life, everyone seems to be chasing targets and achieving goals to eventually enhance their standard of living. So, people work harder to afford expensive clothes, buy the latest gadgets and spend in expensive hotels. There are rewards, recognitions and popularity yet there is a feeling of emptiness; people are lost and confused. Ever wondered why? It is because of misplaced priorities and a lack of balance in life.
Zig Ziglar says, “If standard of living is your major objective, quality of life almost never improves, but if quality of life is your number one objective, your standard of living almost always improves.’’
If you are earning lots of money but at the cost of your health and peace of mind, is it worth it? If you are growing in your career but do not have time for self, friends and community, is it worth it? If you own a house but do not have time for your parents, spouse and children, is it worth it?
True success is always multi-dimensional. So, if you have wealth, comforts, material goods and other necessities but struggling to cope with your family, then you have failed, you are a loser. It means your standard of living may be fine but quality of life suffers.
The power of being content, being at peace with yourself, finding time for your loved ones, being able to sit and enjoy a nice meal or a conversation is your first step in order to improve your quality of life. Introspect and write down answers to the following questions: Why are you here? What difference do you hope to make? What values drive you? How can you contribute to society? Family? What are your personal and spiritual growth plans? List things you have always wanted to do but never found the time to: Make a commitment to yourself that you will get started. It may seem difficult to fit everything in a day or a week. But with courage and discipline, you will find what works best for you and unleash an incredible power that will take you to new heights and redefine success in your life. Someone rightly said: Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has yet to come. Live in the present and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering. Live today, live for yourself, live for your loved ones and make each day count. Go on, improve your Quality of Life (QoL).
– Rahul Kapoor is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker and presenter

Don’t overcommit

WORKWISE

Learn not to take on work you and your team cannot handle, says Rahul Kapoor

Any manager will tell you it is a grave mistake to take on work the team does not have time and resources to handle. Yet, people become victims to overcommitment and invite trouble.
There can be many reasons for this — urgency to meet targets, temptation to make more money, fear of losing an opportunity, fear of looking inadequate, inability to say no, avoiding disappointing customers; the list goes on. However valid the reason, it still has an adverse effect on people, relationships, quality of work and eventually the health of the business.
Overcommitment forces people to overstretch, make compromises of different kinds, live under stress, and make errors; timelines can suffer creating unhappy customers; eventually it takes away the peace and joy of doing things.
Every professional must rise to the occasion and deliver. But it is equally important to ensure that one makes commitments that can be kept. Here are a few suggestions that help:
1. Consult your team, take their views on how much everyone can stretch to, to deliver quality results; make the commitment accordingly.
2. Spend adequate time on planning, allocate the right resources to ensure the work is done in time.
3. If needed, increase your resources temporarily, seek support from other teams or out-source the job if you can keep tabs on quality.
4. Be transparent and honest with your customers while you make a commitment, especially if it is a last minute order or request. Keep them posted on your schedules and let them know that it will be a stretch. This approach will not only earn you respect and understanding but also avoid misunderstanding.
5. Let go of some assignments if you really cannot deliver. It is better to do some jobs extremely well rather than ruin most because of over commitment.
6. If you must say no, say it honestly without guilt. Be assertive and let your customers know why it is not possible to service them then. You can however support by referring them to someone who you think can do justice to their needs. Most businesses survive on referrals and feedback; so it’s important not to make commitments and break them. No reasons are valid, no excuses are acceptable, the only thing customers need — results.
– Rahul Kapoor is the author of a book on work place matters

 

Expectation Brings Frustration

Osho

If you expect too much, you will be frustrated. If you don’t want to be frustrated, don’t expect. Live without expectations and there will be no frustration.
But people go on expecting; then frustration comes in – frustration is the shadow of expectation. When you feel frustrated you think that existence is doing something wrong to you. Any asking is asking too much. Don’t ask, be. And then you will be surprised – whatsoever happens is good; you have no way to judge it.
I used to stay with a rich family in Calcutta. Once i went; the family had come to take me from the airport. The husband was very sad. I enquired, “What is the matter?” He said, “There has been a great loss.” Listening to this, his wife started laughing. She said, “Don’t bother about what he says. There has been no loss – in fact, there has been a great profit.”
I was puzzled. I said, “You both are here. Please try to explain this riddle to me.” The wife said, “There is no riddle. He was expecting ten lakh rupees and he got only five lakh rupees. So he says, `Five lakh rupees’ loss,’ and I say, You have profited’ – but he won’t listen, and he is very sad.”
When you expect ten lakh rupees and you get five lakh you feel frustrated. If you are not expecting and you get five lakh rupees you are full of joy, thankfulness, gratitude.
Don’t expect, and you see your whole life becomes a joy. Expect, and your whole life becomes a hell. Expectation is the cause. If you want to change, never start by the effect, start by the cause. Frustration is the effect. You can go on fighting with frustration – nothing will happen, you will become more and more frustrated. Whenever you are feeling miserable, go into it and find out where the cause is. If you want to drop the effect then avoid the cause; then become aware, more and more aware.
There are many people who enjoy frustration. There are many people who enjoy being miserable. In fact, they cannot tolerate happiness at all. When they are miserable they are happy, when they are happy they feel very miserable. Whenever you are miserable you gain something: sympathy, attention. Whenever you are happy nobody shows any sympathy – in fact, people become jealous. When you are unhappy everybody is a friend, everybody sympathises with you – even your enemy will sympathise with you. When you are happy even your friend will become jealous and inimical.
When you are happy nobody pays any attention to you. People avoid you. In fact, they start thinking you must be mad: Happy? Who has ever heard of anybody being happy! When you are unhappy they accept you. Then they think everything is okay, because this is how things have to be. And people enjoy your unhappiness, that’s why they pay attention – because whenever you are unhappy they can compare themselves, and deep down they can feel good.
You love frustration? Then go into it. Become more artistic about it, decorate it a little more; make new possibilities, new doors to become more frustrated. If you don’t enjoy it, then i don’t see the problem. Just go deep into it, watch, and you will find some expectation hidden behind. Whenever you expect, you are asking for frustration. Drop expectations!

Parents spend a fortune on pre-school Day Care Costs Rs 1.5L Per Year

Bangalore: What does it take to get a two-year-old tot into pre-school? Only Rs 1lakh. What was once considered a place to leave the child for a few hours, colloquially termed ‘baby-sitting’ or ‘play home’, is now big business. Parents sift through pre-school brochures as they once did for school. Many are also ready to shell out a fortune for the toddler.
The two formative years a child spends here offer a niche business opportunity, and pre-schools are mushrooming across the city — a few are also part of national chains. Some pre-schools also double as creches providing day care, and charge astonishing rates. One such school in HSR Layout charges Rs 1.38lakh per year for day care of kids up to two years old. Timings are 8.30am to 6.30pm — one hour less costs Rs 1.25lakh, and till 3pm, it’s Rs 96,000.
There are some pre-schools that charge up to Rs 1.5lakh. A prominent national chain, with a branch in Indiranagar, charges around Rs 80,000. On an average, Rs 30,000-35,000 is what you will need to give your child a headstart in life. Most schools have also started their own pre-schools, from where the children automatically move on to nursery.
Some don’t accept cash, fee is to be paid by cheque, credit card or DD. Some offer a rebate of 10%, depending on how much you pay and date of payment. Insurance cover for the child is appreciated. And yes, the ones who charge a fortune ensure that the child gets royal treatment. Carpeted floors, free food prepared with care in their kitchen, one staffer per five children, ID cards, safe toys, a ride home and curriculum developed by experienced educationists — all meant for the holistic growth of the child.
Pre-schools which take in babies as young as six months don’t teach them anything, but design their activities in such a way that their motor skills are developed. These pre-schools claim they make children school-ready and that their brand helps children bag seats in elite schools.

Distance learning vs Classroom teaching

Unlock Their Minds

Infusing the vitality of classroom lecture-discussions into virtual learning is a challenge

Narain D Batra

University campuses in the United States are increasingly becoming wireless, enabling students to use their laptops or mobile devices from anywhere. Classrooms are getting “smart” in the sense that teachers can connect to internet sources from their classrooms, besides using other instructional tools. Many professors put up their class notes and other teaching materials online. Online discussions and wikis are becoming common teaching tools.
An institute of higher education with graduate and postgraduate research programmes needs a sophisticated environment of virtual learning that allows its students and faculty to access not only its own databases but also global intellectual resources. Some universities such as MIT, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, University of California at Berkeley, for example, have made available their courses including video lectures online to the public. Through their opencourseware, these universities have established global collaborative relations with other institutions and in the process built up their social capital and enhanced their reputation.
MIT offers more than 2,000 free courses online, including many courses on India, for example, “A Passage to India: Introduction to Modern Indian Culture and Society”, and “Music of India”. As of today, its opencourseware site has received 70 million visits from 215 countries. Some of its faculty members have become global brands.
India’s technology elites are not lagging behind. Taylor Walsh, in a recent book, Unlocking the Gates, has profiled India’s “National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning”, a collaborative project of seven IITs and IISc, Bangalore, which at present offers 229 courses mostly in science and technology.
Making a classroom “smart” and globally available requires the university to have a professional studio/staff to help faculty members to digitise and upload their lectures and other teaching materials online, apart from having enough server space to accommodate requests for access from the general public. It is an expensive undertaking. Some universities have developed virtual campuses for their graduate programmes, supplemented with periodic on-campus residencies during which students and faculty members make presentations, hold symposia and seminars.
Of the various instructional methods used for teaching by American professors, the use of computer-aided instruction especially at the undergraduate level is limited to PowerPoint or video primarily to break the monotony of a long lecture. PowerPoint gives teachers an illusion of mastery of their subject matters but its excessive use can be a barrier to engaging students in class. Some students resent the technology because it tends to shut them out of live exchange. No one has come up with an equally good alternative to the lecture-discussion method that has been at the heart of the teaching-learning experience since ages.
Lecturing is done primarily to establish an intellectual and personal relationship with students even if the same material may be available in the textbook. Sometimes lecturing becomes a necessity especially when a tough topic and fundamentals have to be explained. When the textbook along with supplementary readings is brought to bear upon a discussion topic in the classroom, you see the beginning of learning, which is further enhanced through projects, term papers, weekly essay assignments, and the stimulus of quizzes, and midterm and final examinations.
Nonetheless, online teaching is raising some interesting possibilities. While in classroom discussions some students, especially girls, hesitate to participate, i have found that most students participate very enthusiastically in online discussions. Many of them express themselves freely whenever free-style discussion is encouraged. Online discussion creates a level playing field between the extrovert and the shy type.
Of course, students and professors miss a lot when there are no face-to-face encounters, dramatic moments which occasionally result in witticism, humour and other delightful confrontations that enhance teaching and learning, and make the dialogue such a joy.
Information technology causes stress on the campus because no one can always keep up at the cutting edge of technology. Even younger faculty members who have grown up with the internet feel stressed; information technology is not always user-friendly.
Teaching online requires a different attitude because communication between students and teachers is asynchronous. Many adult students find working on their own time a great advantage. But how to get one’s point across without facial gestures and vocal cues is a challenge. Classroom liveliness and vibrancy, the thrill of being with students, are absent online. Lecturing is performance and some of us become teachers because it gives us a sense of participation in the learning process.
Physical presence and faceto-face meetings can bring out the best in students. The adrenaline rush that one feels in the class when there is something unexpected, the laughter, the body language and voice inflection, and the instant feedback, all are absent in the virtual classroom. How to bring one’s personality into the virtual classroom is a serious challenge.
Global exposure can be an incentive for some professors to improve their teaching but the jury is still out on whether a smart online presentation is all that we mean by good teaching. But how can one disagree with the MIT’s motto “Unlocking Knowledge, Empowering Minds”, whatever it takes, virtual or real?
The writer is professor, communications and diplomacy, Norwich University.

 

Uploading knowledge, anytime, anywhere

Vision 2031: A doctor for every 1,000 people

 

RACING AGAINST TIME

Vision 2031: A doctor for every 1,000 people

Could Be Short Of 9.54L Hands

Kounteya Sinha TNN

New Delhi: India has just one doctor for 1,700 people. In comparison, the doctorpopulation ratio globally is 1.5:1000. An internal note prepared by Medical Council of India’s “Undergraduate Education Working Group” said the target being put in place for India is 1 doctor for 1,000 population by the year 2031.
The note, available with The Times Of India, also looked at the situation in other countries. Somalia hasonedoctor for 10,000 population, Pakistan has one doctor for 1923 and Egypt has one doctor per 1484. China’s doctor-population ratio stands at 1:1063, Korea 1:951, Brazil 1:844, Singapore 1:714, Japan 1:606, Thailand 1:500, UK 1:469, US 1:350 and Germany 1:296.
The working group looked at the existing number of medical colleges, the intake, and the critical mass of doctors needed to achieve this target. India currently has 330 medical colleges with 35,000 students. With this intake, the shortfall of doctors by 2031 is estimated to be 9.54 lakh. To meet this target, the current intake and the doctors needed to be at least doubled.
The group also looked at the problem of teacher shortage in medical colleges. India at present needs 29,400teachers,butthereis a shortfall of 6,340 teachers. There will be an additional need for 35,740 teachers in India soon, the report said. Subjects like anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, pathology, surgery, medicine and forensic medicine each need 2,000 faculty members. But almost all these departments have a current shortfall of 500-1,500 teachers. Additionally, all these departments would each need 2,100-3,500 teachers in the near future.
Community medicine at present needs 2,400 teachers and has a shortfall of 500 teachers and would additionally need 2,900 teachers. Gynaecology currently requires 1,600 teachers and would need an additional 1,760 faculty members. The committee has recommended increasing the intake in existing medical colleges.

 

REUNION

Mobile use in pregnancy tied to ill-behaved kids?

‘Cellphone Exposure In Womb Ups Behavioural Issues by 30%’

London: Moms-to-be, please note — regular use of cell phones during pregnancy could cause behavioural problems in your offspring, says a new study.
Researchers at the University of California and the University of Southern California have found that the risk is even higher if the offspring start using mobiles themselves by the time they are seven. In the study, involving 29,000 youngsters, the researchers found children who were exposed to mobile phones in the womb and then in early childhood were 50% more likely to have behavioural problems aged seven than youngsters exposed to neither.
Only being exposed to mobile phones while in womb was linked to a 30% increase, while youngsters who’re exposed to phones in childhood but not in the womb were 20% more likely to display abnormal behaviour, The Daily Telegraph reported.
The study is the second such research by the same team to find such an association. When the results from both studies were combined, more than 10% of children exposed to mobile phones in pregnancy had mothers who spoke on them at least four times a day, while half women had their phone turned on at all times. PTI

IT ke side effects

My name is…

What makes an Indian take on an American pseudonym or a Chinese last name? Why are desi babies named Spring, Evening or Tiara? Welcome to the changing complexities of the name game

In a scene from Om Shanti Om, Shah Rukh Khan’s character is told by his best friend that there’s no way he’s going to be able to make it in the Hindi film industry with a name like Om Prakash Makhija. “You’ll remain a junior artist unless you get a fancy name,” he is told. And just as well. The post-interval new and improved SRK is called Om Kapoor or ‘OK’ and has everything a rich, young, popular actor could ask for.
In Bollywood, many actors, right from Dilip Kumar (Yusuf Khan) and Madhubala (Mumtaz Begum Jehan Dehlavi) to Akshay Kumar (Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia) and Mallika Sherawat (Reema Lamba), have gone in for a change of name before their star has shone on the marquee.
And why only actors? A recent news report reveals that to make business more personal, expat execs working in the India arm of Chinese company Huawei changed their first names to user-friendly Indian ones. So there’s a Chetan Chen, a Deepak Xu and a Rajeev Yao, all determined to make the cultural crossover for the sake of their job. “This is an international practice followed by all expats who work in different countries,” explains a Huawei spokesperson. “Since foreign names—especially Chinese, Korean, Japanese and other Far Eastern ones—are difficult to pronounce, it is advisable to have common names in order to facilitate effective two-way business communication.”
Many Indians who go to China on assignment also use corresponding Chinese names for better communication.” As, incidentally, was the case when BPOs brought business to Indian shores many years ago and changed a Revati Bansal to Rebecca, an Aathira Sashi to Susan, Suresh Tumkur to Sam and Pratip Chandran to Peter.
Is it fun to have a pseudonym at work? “It’s something nice to look forward to everyday,” says Susan (Aathira), adding that a new name fits her put-on accent very well. “It just makes life easier and also saves time,” adds BPO employee Sam (Suresh Thakur). “If I identify myself as Suresh to a caller, he will definitely ask me to repeat my name, then ask which country I’m from.” Sometimes your name by default ends up as what people have called you over the years. When TOI columnist Jug Suraiya was born in Puri, he was almost named Jaggannath. “Finally my parents settled on the less wordy Jagdish,” he says. “It was my Archie comic fan older sister who kept referring to me as Jug, maybe because I was a greedy little thing back then. Eventually, the name stuck. Today if someone came looking for Jagdish, I would gladly point them in the opposite direction,” he chuckles.
It’s now perfectly acceptable for a child in school to be called ‘Jug’ or ‘Melody’ or ‘Immaculate’. In fact, if you’re expecting a child, slap shut the gigantic name book and turn on some MTV. Prerna is out and Panaya is in, Karan is out and Keyan is in. New Age parents, in their quest for eternal uniqueness, are coining new names, swearing by two or three syllables and “internationalising” old ones. “There are names you’ve never heard before. They are modern, short and unique,” says Maureen Sequeira, principal of Mumbaibased pre-school Headstart.
Parents argue that simple and global names are the need of the hour at a time where an individual is not limited to interaction within a community or country. “I wanted to name my baby something everyone, in any part of the world, can easily pronounce. If she grows up and travels abroad for an education, I don’t want her friends fumbling over her name,” says new mom Deepika, who has named her twomonth- old ‘Tiara’.
At an annual function at Mumbai’s Christ Church School, the principal inspired many expecting teachers with a chief guest’s choice of names for his kids: Spring and Evening. But having an extremely westernised name and an Indian surname could also be a recipe for fatal revenge from one’s offspring, warns a to-be mom. “That’s why I think names like Dia, Ria and Kaya — which are Indian but are also pronounceable — are extremely popular,” she says, adding that the quest for unique names has another sound reason: “Parents don’t want their children to share their names in a class. Your name makes you who you are.”
Which might not be entirely untrue. The illustrator of this piece was actually born Ramchandran. “But I feared that with a typical name like that, I might just end up being an accountant or a typist, so I shortened it to Ram,” he says.
(With reports from Mansi Choksi, Shalini Singh, Mini Joseph Tejaswi)

 

Future perfect

ENGINEERED ASPIRATIONS The economy is back in shape and positive trends can be observed in different sectors of India Inc today. The engineering, manufacturing and construction sectors too are looking up and have witnessed a good amount of growth in the recent past. This positive development has paved the way for aspirants looking at exploring the various opportunities these sectors have in store. Yasmin Taj takes you on a journey into the world of engineering, manufacturing and construction PICTURE PERFECT? Talking about how engineering, manufacturing and construction sectors are faring at this point in time, Muninder Anand, general manager – HR, operations and transformation, Schneider Electric India expresses, “The industry accounts for 28 per cent of the GDP and employs 14 per cent of the total workforce. During the period of the slowdown, it were these sectors primarily that helped India emerge quicker than the rest of the world.” Uday Kulkarni, managing director, Schindler India Pvt. Ltd. elucidates, “The brick and mortar industry saw stability not only during the downturn, but also emerged stronger and is an active contributor to the emergence of the ‘Indian Tiger’. The government’s focus on improving the infrastructure has given an impetus to this industry. Also, as a growth economy, the FDI flowing in from major MNCs overall has given a strong fillip to this sector.” ON A HIRING SPREE It is great news that things are looking bright and positive in this sector. So, how has this impacted the hiring scenario here? According to Kulkarni, “Positive growth trends have encouraged companies within this sector to accelerate the expansion plans and therefore, we see an upswing in hiring.” MS Krishnamoorthy, senior vice president – HR, Larsen and Toubro states, “Hiring has almost gone back to the same state as it was before the slowdown, because we are anticipating a fair amount of growth. Since companies are also expanding into newer areas, specific skills for these new areas are also being hired. Hiring is taking place across all levels. There are opportunities for freshers as well as experienced people.” Anand opines, “The hiring trend in these industries is relatively higher than the previous years’. The focus has actually moved from products to providing complete solutions to the customers. Many companies have set up and are also in the process of initiating exclusive outlets for services to customers. It has become extremely important for organisations to not only hire the right talent, but also retain the existing talent population that they have.” AN OCEAN OF OPPORTUNITIES With things looking absolutely bright in the future, an ocean of opportunities has opened up for aspirants and fresh engineering graduates seeking a career in this industry. Talking about the kind of career prospects available in this sector, Kulkarni adds, “Today, firms are able to offer a multitude of roles depending on the clarity of the career aspirations. After a year training on-the-job – we can offer careers in sales, projects, services, R&D, field engineering, supply chain, quality, technical training, etc.” According to Anand, “Fresh engineering graduates actually bring with them technical skills, aptitude for research and development, problem-solving ability and thereby, have very strong prospects in the market. Most organisations in this sector while hiring for people in finance and HR, try and look at a flavour of engineering in them.” The engineering, manufacturing and construction sectors are considered to be the backbone of the economy and is intricately linked with umpteen other core sectors for its demand. In fact, this industry helped a great deal in the recovery of India from the economic slump. The future, hence, is only looking brighter. So, if you are amongst those who want to make it big in this industry, gear up and pull up your socks, as this is just the beginning to a fulfilling future! FOR AN IDEAL ENGINEERING CAREER… According to Anand, the skills required to excel in the engineering and manufacturing sectors, can be classified in five categories: 1. EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION 2. PROJECT MANAGEMENT 3. TECHNOLOGY AWARENESS 4.TEAM MANAGEMENT 5. STRATEGIC THINKING Kulkarni shares, “Companies hire for ‘attitude’. Firms are looking for engineers with the passion and drive for facilitating ‘urban mobility’ – a mindset for proactively seeking avenues to exceed customer expectations.The ability to deliver solutions that engage our customers for the long term is also vital. An engineering qualification guarantees key skillsets of logic, systems orientation and process design. A good product coupled with the right approach to customer expectations will ensure success.“