Provoke some...

Fear… A word whose mere mention brings in more of it. You would have heard and read so many times that ‘Fear is our greatest enemy’ yet day after day, month after month, year after year, we keep nurturing it such that it starts festering our entire existence. Just so as to comfort you, fear has been mentioned in ALL, yes ALL, religious & spiritual tomes across the world since writing came in existence. So, you are not the first or the only human facing it. In fact, each and every human and every other living creature, fears something or the other. So, you can take a deep breath and relax since you are not all alone is this or you are facing some unique challenge that no one else has faced earlier or now. You must have also heard or read that the universe is ‘time’ & ‘space’. Have you wondered how? Your body occupies ‘space’ while your mind is always in ‘time’. Isn’t it? Your mind is either thinking about the ‘past’ or the ‘future’ which is nothing but time. Also, while t...

You thought you knew it all. Isn’t it? You were sure about what you were doing and why. You knew what was ‘important’ and what wasn’t. You accepted the look and feel of the world. You kept resisting change till like a coil spring, change rebounded so dramatically that you are now living in a world you couldn’t have imagined even a month back. Not just illness, Coronavirus has brought with it STRESS, unanticipated both in terms of quantity and form. Let’s look at 7 things you can do to mitigate this unprecedented stress brought in by Coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown which has restricted you to your homes. 1.        STAY INFORMED To defeat the enemy, you need to know it well. Find out exactly what is Coronavirus and what can you do to keep it bay and eventually defeat. It is important though that you get your information from genuine sources and don’t believe in everything that you read or listen. In fact, your first reaction should be to ...

Think of all the stories from the 80s/90s we tell (or hear) when a car (read Maruti) was considered a luxury or the only way most people saw an airplane was when it roaringly flew overhead. When the summer vacations meant nani ka ghar and eating out was maybe once a month and that too mostly chaat , idli-dosa or chowmein. When we played chhupam chhupai, ikkal dukkal, gitti phod, kanche and flew kites. When we spent most of the time at home with our families or when we physically visited people to meet them. When we bought new clothes only at Diwali / Eid / Christmas and if we were nice then for the birthday as well. When a camera roll could only snap 36 pics which even how hard we tried to carefully click would end up with 5-6 out of focus or over exposed. When the starting salaries, even for IIT / IIM graduates, were just Rs 5,000-10,000 a month. When buying a house to live in was the prime goal. When SENSEX was about 500 while most people invested their savings in FDs which d...

Let's look at the origins of world's Top 10 most popular sports: Football - 1863 Cricket - 1877 Hockey - 1875 Tennis - 1873 Volleyball - 1895 Table Tennis - end of 1800s Basketball - 1891 Baseball - 1845 Rugby - 1823 Golf - 1764 Homosapiens have inhabited this planet since 200,000 years. Wonder what kind of evolution did the Human race go through between 1850 to 1900, a measly 50 years, when the Top 8 most popular games were invented? Even the modern Olympics commenced from 1894 coincidentally during the same 50 years. There are basically Three different types of sports viz team games (football, cricket, hockey, volleyball etc), individual games (tennis, table tennis etc) and field events (racing, swimming, gymnastics etc which predominantly take place during Olympics or similar world/continent events. Let's now look at what exactly happens when we play these games? In the Team games, there are two opposing teams (started off as countries) who fight over...

Has your flight every got cancelled? Yes, maybe and you felt really bad when that happened. When that happened the airlines booked you in another flight. Has it ever happened that the flight you were booked into ALSO got cancelled? Well, that happened to me yesterday on returning from SJR @Roorkee. I took 28 hours to reach Mumbai from Roorkee. I am sure some of the US/UK batchmates would have reached earlier. That should have really pissed me off. But you know what? It didn’t. The spirit (I like the Hindi word “Suroor”) of meeting all friends and visiting the campus was so high that nothing mattered. “Will I recognize anyone?" was the question that repeatedly did rounds in my head, "Has the University changed after so many years?" (I still don’t feel like calling it IIT), "Does the UOR spirit still lingers?" and many such thoughts were put to rest the moment I laid my eyes on the first set of classmates who had flown from around the world for t...

3 Idiots, the iconic film that left an indelible mark on the millennials through a statement that loosely translates into English as “Don’t run after success. Instead learn and be worthy & passionate. Success will have no choice but to come after you.” The timing of the film’s release couldn’t have been better.  This was the time when India’s economy grew at a rapid pace and income levels of Gen X, the parents of the millennials, skyrocketed. This made the millennials being the first generation in India since independence which didn’t have to forcefully acquire education and get a job to survive. But was that the only problem? While the various job options and entrepreneurship opportunities opened up, the typical Indian mindset which was far deep rooted than expected became the biggest roadblock to let the children follow their hearts or passions. While they told their children to live their lives and did whatever they wanted yet the love for traditional schooling, mar...

A study completed recently in India on online education by KPMG & Google reveals heart-warming statistics; total revenue will grow from $0.25Bn in 2016 to $1.96Bn in 2021 @CAGR of 52%, Internet users to grow from 409 Mn to 735 Mn and that Smartphone penetration would increase at breakneck speed. The revenue growth is expected to be across all categories viz Primary & Secondary education (which is expected to get the largest share of the pie), Test preparation, Reskilling and online certification, Higher education and Language & Casual learning. Such a market makes online education a ripe fruit to be plucked by many. But this fruit laden tree lies beyond a thorn adorned path that in itself is arduous and serpentine. The challenges spread across all the blocks which need to come together to give shape to this entity called online education. Let’s look at them one by one. Statutory In India, education falls under the not-for-profit category and is totally regulated by t...