The Role of Media in the Indian Society

Media is called the fourth pillar of democracy due to its important role in shaping public opinion. But instead of covering news that is of paramount importance, they often cover trivial issues and sensationalize the same. They have a habit of exaggerating and blowing things out of proportion.

Now-a-days gaumless television channels and newspapers are making a fast buck by cashing in any way they choose to. In the race to become more popular and make more money, they have broken all the rules they must follow while serving to build a healthy and truly avant-grade society. They have scant regard for both veracity and public sensibilities.

The Indian media to make matters worse, has adopted a self-imposed right of intruding into the privacy of people, be it the common man or celebrities. Sometimes just for the sake of making more money frivolous news is given so much priority that the real news is not even brought to notice.

Media is an integral part of our society and does entertain us, again that could be a contentious issue because by entertainment we mean healthy entertainment and not just hogwash. Media being a quintessential medium for the dissemination of information surely must act more responsibly than at present.

The Solitaire Story

I was purchased as an engagement gift. I was going to be the tie that was to bring two people together. The salesperson gift wrapped me in a shining pink paper and put a pretty bow on the box. He wrapped me so tightly that I could hardly breathe and was left gasping for breadth. I kept hollering but nobody could hear me. Being a tantalizing 3-carat gold solitaire, I was not used to being treated so shoddily!

We reached our destination before dusk. At home I was taken out of the box and was displayed to all the guests who had come for the occasion. Oh, how I loved being the cynosure of all eyes. I was passed around and admired for the house was crammed with people. What a pandemonium! For everybody wanted to be the first to touch me. Most of them articulated their merriment by applauding.

The ceremony was held in a plush hotel that was aesthetically decorated. The bride to be was in awe of me during the exchange of rings and lo behold! That’s when I first laid my eyes on him. The groom to be acquired a simple yet elegant ring wrought in white gold and that piece of work took my breadth away!

I was head over heels in love with Mr White Gold, but was utterly petrified of betraying my feelings.

There was an atmosphere of joviality and the couple waltzed the night away while I wallowed in utter despair. Suddenly I heard a soft chuckle that made me light-headed. It was none other than Mr White Gold himself. He was scrutinizing me with a look of complete amusement and affection. I finally mustered all my courage and told him about my feelings for him. He acquiesced and my happiness knew no bounds. I had finally come home! A match truly made in heaven.

Female Infanticide

Female infanticide is a heinous crime and a bane of society. It is increasing at a disquieting rate in India. In countries like china and India where patriarchal societies are still the order of the day, the status of woman is considered inferior to that of men. Female children are often unwanted and clobbered. The stigma has continued to burgeon by the day. Organized efforts to tackle the social ill have remained mostly hypothetical and hence, mostly feckless.

What is appalling is the number of our erudite population who continue to engage in this, overtly or covertly: shockingly, mothers are the ones who often perpetrate the crime with the support of other women in their network.  If spared, the predicament faced by the girl child is even more perilous, as she is often subjugated and subjected to recurrent physical abuse. Female infanticide and abuse are barbaric and cruel and should be controlled without further ado. I believe it is up to each one of us to take stock of the situation and work towards eradicating this menace irreversibly.

India needs brilliant minds with a research focus….

India needs a revolution in higher education. The number of world class higher educational institutions in India is very few. Research in most of the educational institutions is almost non-existent. The quality of teaching is also very average, with even the prominent institutes facing a crunch of quality faculty. Also, there is a mismatch between what the industry needs and what institutions are producing, resulting in most graduates being considered unemployable by the industry.

Take for example, engineering education in India. If India needs to make a mark in Engineering, it needs to inculcate the spirit of research and innovation amongst the students and have excellent motivating teachers. Unfortunately, there are very few quality PhD’s being produced in India each year and this is a serious issue that needs to be collectively addressed by the Government, the public and the private sector.

Unfortunately in India, there is a perception that an MBA degree is the gateway to great careers in the corporate world. Only those academically inclined need to go for MPhil’s and PhD’s. Nothing could be further from truth. In today’s knowledge economy there is a huge demand for research professionals, with research professionals, with researchers and MBAs drawing comparative salaries.

In this century of the Mind, when India is trying to emerge as a knowledge super-power, it needs brilliant minds with a research focus.

We are at the Nano and IT stage where India has to generate new ideas and concepts. India is short of quality PhDs by at least 100 times of the requirement. We cannot develop in this Knowledge economy without research.

Encouraging our youth to pursue Master’s and Doctoral level studies and open their eyes to the real prospects and rewards accruing from the same can be done only by making students’ aware about the excellent prospects available today in the field of research. Educational institutes should play a key role in bringing about that awareness.

Also students should be encouraged to make the decision according to their own orientation whether they want to be specialists or generalists, whether they want to work on their own or within a team, and whether they are inward, or outward looking. They may be able to find an answer to these questions by deeply analyzing their own approach to problems. If for instance, they prefer to go to the heart of the problem and seek its root cause; they may be more tuned to an MPhil and PhD kind of a degree. If on the other hand, they like to take a holistic view by looking at the interconnections between things, an MBA might b the correct choice.

In today’s Knowledge economy, it is becoming essential for learners to possess and inquisitive and research bend of mind to understand complex and fast changing scenarios. It is equally important to be able to apply this knowledge for problem solving using a holistic approach.

India is increasingly emerging as an R&D hub with most companies setting up their R&D facilities in India. Hence contrary to the general perception, there is a huge demand for the trained/technical professionals is being acutely felt across all industry sectors, making M. Techs and PhDs a favoured lot.

Looking Beyond a Degree

“If Thomas Edison went to business school, we would all be reading by bigger candles”.

Perhaps a bit exaggerated, but this fact by and large retains its veracity. Education in the 21^st century is a different world altogether. Driven by a zealot’s frenzy through business schools, we have churned out a new generation of MBAs with a marked pride that accompanies this feat of becoming to an assembly line of business graduates which stamped degrees. Our systems of education are so ridden by the obsessive need of possessing a degree (an MBA or any other) that the latter has come to be regarded as a measure of one’s intelligence and intellectual capacity.

Everything in today’s world has taken on a speed, a quick desire to make it big without having really put in all the necessary efforts, be it in any aspect of our personal and professional lives. In this mad rush, it is easy to loose track of the basics in life. It surprises me even more that people increasingly fail to realize that just a degree, just doing an MBA, is not a solution to everything in life. There is much more to life, to be done and to be experienced which any conventional education fails to get you. We need to broaden our visions and learn to look beyond the limitations, the horse blinkers that conventionalism imposes upon us, this need to conform to a standard format of success.

It is easy to forget that one of the most important factors in one’s life is to be happy, to achieve happiness through the pursuit of one’s passion, an activity or profession in which one obtains maximum satisfaction and inner peace.

What it takes to be happy: You do not want to be rich – you want to be happy. Many people mistakenly believe that the former leads to the latter. While it is certainly true that money can help you achieve goals, provide for future, and make life more enjoyable, merely having money doesn’t guarantee happiness.

Many of us get wrapped up in the belief that money is the key to a better life. But it’s not. The key to a better life is increased happiness. Undoubtedly, for some people that does mean more money. Most of us would be better served by:

-         Creating rituals around the things we love to do

-         Expressing gratitude for the good things in our lives

-         Setting meaningful goals that reflect our strengths instead of dwelling on weaknesses

-         Simplifying our lives – not just the stuff, but the time

We are more likely to lead happy lives by putting these principles into practice than by getting another raise at work – especially if the increased income would only lead to increased spending. When we focus on monetary goals, we run the risk of becoming trapped on “hedonic treadmill”, working hard to make more and more money.

Pursuing your passion: A few steps

“If we resist our passions, it is more through their weakness than from our strength”

Pear is what prevents us from going after the things we desire. Whether those wants are tied to career, love, hobbies or life in general has little to do with the issue. What we miss, however, in questioning our motivations and variations of possible outcome, rather simply seizing the moment and creating a life of our own design, is that the clock is ticking… and it truly is a lot better to be able to say you tried to say you tried and failed than it is to be stuck with the reality that you never tried at all. Not to mention the fact that you very possibly may succeed!

Identify the essence of your passion

With everything that we do, there is an essence we are trying to deliver and there is the medium we are delivering it through. For example, if you are passionate about dancing, the essence of your passion may be excellence, elegance and freedom and the medium you express them through dancing. The first step is to identify the essence of your passion. Identify what it is you are passionate about doing. Then, identify the essence of this passion. What is it you are trying to seek/achieve? Do you want to inspire people? Help people? Entertain people? Express your creativity? Achieve excellence? This is actually the most important of the 5 steps, because this is where you look beyond a certain fixed way of pursuing your passion and start looking at the underlying message you are trying to achieve.

Identify your preferred form of expression

In the second step, nail down the ways in which you would like to express your passion. Some examples can be singing, drawing, dancing, sports, writing, educating, designing, constructing, cooking, speaking, acting, producing, and so on. Some people may have preferences towards certain manners of expression, such as singing or drawing, while some people may have no specific inclinations at all. Perhaps you like to pick out forms of expression in which you already have strengths, which is fine too. The most important thing is it has to be an expression you feel passionate about.

Brainstorm on the mediums

Based on your passion and your preferred forms of expression, start brainstorming on all the different mediums you can use to pursue your passion. Mediums refer to the channels which let you reach out to others. This is where you get really creative and start listing everything possible. Keep listing all types of different mediums and don’t stop until you have listed everything. One way to get new ideas is to look at the people who are already achieving success in the area you want to move in and study the different mediums they use to express themselves. The most important thing is not to limit the pursuit of your passion to certain fixed mediums. Expand to everything possible and imaginable.

Pick the mediums you are most passionate about

Based on the whole list of mediums, circle the mediums which you are most passionate about. There is no need to limit it to just one medium – you can have more than one. These would be the mediums you choose to bring your passion to life.

Create your plan to bring your passion to life

Now that you have clarity on the mediums to pursue your passion, create your plan to bring your passion to life! Crystallize your long-term vision, break them down into short-term goals, design your strategy and create your action plan.

Leaders learn to heed the voice within

Introspection is the key to building a leadership personality. Introspecting, looking into oneself to analyze, to reflect on what you really want. Introspection should unlock one’s access to creativity and intuition. Developing the right brain part of our personality is very important and though our society does not encourage it much, almost everybody has the capacity to do both logical and more creative processing of information. Right-brain cogitation is as easy – and as difficult – letting go. Let go first of the notion that reflection is a purely intellectual process under our control. Equally important is heeding, emotions and the often disconcerting thoughts that rise, unbidden, from the unconscious. A proven discipline towards achieving this goal is meditation, an act of one-pointed focus that inspires the mind and leaves it receptive even to faint impulses from within.

The ultimate goal of introspection is what our religious philosophy calls egolessness, a state of mind that transcends selfish concerns.

Commitment is everything; learning to reflect takes a lifetime, but is built on regular practice. Whatever you do to get in touch with yourself – and it could be anything from jogging to psychiatry to woodworking to meditation – do it for its own sake. If you give yourself to the process, goals will come to realization by themselves. If you experience pain along the way, consider it a signpost of progress. And if you gradually become more comfortable in your skin, if you feel a spreading sense of oneness with all creation, don’t fight it. There is more to us than the sniveling, snarling organism that craves power and approval. The clarity and contentment we seek lies deep inside us all.

Being “Generally Knowledgeable”

You are asked – ‘what is the parliament of Israel called? Which provisions of the constitution make Hindi the official language of our nation? Which is the Indian state that has the greatest proportion of women in the population?’

And you feel lost and perplexed. Perhaps even a bit irritated. You wonder what the need for this knowledge is. Where is the connection, what do I have to do with these facts? In some cases, self-doubt also creeps in; if I am being asked all this and I don’t know, does it mean that I am not good enough?

We are looking at a very common train of thoughts and emotions that many young people experience as they write different competitive or professional examinations, a majority among which has a section devoted to testing the general knowledge of candidates. Improving your general knowledge has become critical for success today, whether its an MBA entrance examination or a job interview. And the very first step towards sharpening your general knowledge is to fathom and acknowledge the significance of having a well rounded knowledge of the world around you. Once you have done that, building on your GK may not be agonizing any longer.

General knowledge as the name itself suggests, refers to a “general” awareness and knowledge of the basic facts and developments in different fields. Thus while knowledge of new technology innovations and gadgets across the world may be something every computer professional needs to know as an imperative, for a hockey player or a historian, it would be just “general knowledge”.

GK helps us to stay connected. No man is and island, as the famous saying goes and this was probably never truer than in today’s world. We live in times when barriers are crumbling and geographical divides are getting blurred where business or personal interaction is concerned. Co-operation, networking and interaction are the buzzwords today. The connectedness of all communities, disciplines and schools of thought always existed, but is now being leveraged to an extent never witnessed before. And so, you will always be rewarded in tangible as well as intangible ways if you step out of your immediate sphere and learn what is there (and what’s evolving ) beyond.

Personally, however, I feel that the greatest benefits of general knowledge come to you in the form of what it does to your persona and the way people perceive you. Answer yourself honestly: don’t you feel a sense of awe and deep admiration when you meet a very well-informed individual? Don’t you feel respect for him/her who has such a hunger for knowledge and has actually taken the pains to satiate that? And I think it is precisely that which educational institutes and employers value when they test your general knowledge. A good general knowledge acts as a signal of your thirst for knowledge and capacity for constant learning – a behavioural trait that adds value to every personal as well as professional pursuit of yours just as much as your IQ does. Knowing the Constitutional acts and articles may not reflect your managerial acumen but it certainly indicates you want to know more about everything – a characteristic that is common to every motivated, successful individual in every walk of life.

Rule 1: Read, Read and Read

I don’t think one can overstate the importance of reading. In an age of endless distractions and alternative media, reading is one practice that’s slowly waning. And yet, there is nothing effective as reading to add to your bounty of knowledge. Daily newspapers, a couple of general interest magazines, perhaps even that encyclopedia which has been gathering dust since you stepped out of middle school – yes, they are must reads. And it is not necessary that you have to read the print versions of the same – if you are comfortable with electronic content, you can always turn to the respective websites keeping in mind the authenticity and veracity of the information that you gather online.

Rule 2: Keep your eyes and ears open

This is a very important fact that we need to notice and understand in our day to day life that we hardly analyze things that we do or see in our day-to-day activities. The point is that even in the course of your regular activities during the day, a lot of information may present itself to you in unlikely or inconspicuous form. You have to identify and assimilate it to build on your storehouse of knowledge. Take a constructive interest in what is happening around you and you will be surprised at how much you come to know by it.

Rule 3: Ask

It’s a fact that as we grow older, our inhibitions and reservations gradually take our tendency to question. It is not always that we are not curious, but more often than not, we are afraid or ashamed to ask.

“What will he think if he finds out that I don’t know this?” “This must be such a stupid question, I am sure I’ll make a fool of myself if I ask this”.

These are the thoughts which constantly restrict us. And that is the first habit you have to kill if you want to develop your general knowledge.

No amount of reading, no level of observation will help you unless you actively seek knowledge. It is only natural that you will not understand everything that you read, or see the rationale behind every development in  the world, but if you take interest and ask people who would know, you will soon find that your own understanding and knowledge have proved radically.

On a concluding note, a lesson or a particular skill may be learnt in a day but knowledge is something that has to be developed over time. It may or may not help if you only pore over some standard GK books a few days before your test. Developing GK requires enthusiasm, method, hard work and time, but it’s a great investment in the end. As Benjamin Franklin said, ‘If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest’.