Cross Roads

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Indian Job Market - Emerging need for skills

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In the initial days of 2020, the COVID19 pandemic has thrown a tumultuous challenge to the world's economy and to the leadership of every nation on the planet.  Along with many other countries, India also went into a lockdown to reduce the spread of the pandemic. At this point, along with the shortage of medical infrastructure, India faced another major challenge - the impact on the job market by the end of April 2020.  People were losing jobs as the domestic and international markets reeled under severe pressure due to the decline in production and demand. Along with this, the global lockdowns seized the opportunities for new jobs. Unemployment shot to unprecedented levels. India being the second-most populous country in the world is often viewed as an asset as India has nurtured abundant human resources for global manufacturing and service industries over the decades. But this asset turned into a liability with indefinite lockdowns and declining global demand. The unemploym...
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Virtual classrooms - Are they sustainable?

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It was in late Feb 2020, the Indian government decided to shut down all the educational institutions indefinitely as a part of the fighting against the pandemic, COVID19. A similar situation prevailed in other countries too. Given the acute stress of the alarming infection rates of COVID19, all the schools and colleges complied with the regulation. But at the same time, the management of the educational institutions are bothered due to chronic stress associated with the long term plans of the institutions and the uncertainty about the resuming the classes. This stress extended further to the ed-tech companies supporting these institutions technically and academically. To support the ongoing academic activities, some schools and Ed-tech companies came up with a solution to provide virtual classes and training to students and teachers by mid-April. While the institutions provided infrastructure support, the Ed-tech companies restructured their products to suit the virtual pro...
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Guha, Godavari and Ganga - A myth, a king, and an epic.

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Guha, a character that needs no introduction to people who have watched or read something about Ramayana. Many of us remember this character as someone who helped Rama cross a river. But how many of us remember or correctly know which river Rama crossed with the help of Guha? I asked the same question on different social media platforms with the following options: Ganga, Yamuna, Brahmaputra, and Godavari.  The question received 60 votes as below: Ganga (33.9% - 20) Yamuna (14.3% - 9) Brahmaputra (3.6% - 2) Godavari (48.2% - 29) Godavari got the highest number of votes, but the correct answer is Ganga . Then how did we end up with Godavari getting the highest votes? This can be attributed to movies in regional languages and a slight mistranslation of the Valmiki Ramayana. So, what does Valmiki Ramayana have to say about Guha and his role in Ramayana? The episode of Guha begins in Ayodhyakanda, Sarga 50, with Rama reaching the banks of the Ganga. The intro of Guha goes like this: तत्...
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