April 27, 2020 | Adamas University

VALUABLE CONTENT MARKETING: A strategy to succeed.

Among the modern strategy adopted by modern or smart marketers today is strategy of content marketing. Valuable content marketing is an attempt how to make quality content the key to success of any business today. Marketing has changed if you do not change, perhaps you will be out of business. Question comes to mind of young management graduates today what content should do. Content may be anything in the form of text, graphics or images which is relevant and interesting message for a customer, prospects, and a lead. Valuable content is just that valuable. I may appeal to future managers must know valuable content before your competitor do or else you will be sorry.

In management education some educators believe in the philosophy that the best way of learning is to relearn. As like managers must un-think what he/she learn is sales & marketing communication. In today’s technical savvy, smart shopper’s old style marketing communication no longer works. If you are a smart manager you can attract business that chase business then only valuable content marketing for you. Challenge to engage your potential customers and help your organization stand out of the crowd, by doing the things differently.

STOP pushing noisy sales managers get online and make your marketing valuable to those you want to do business with, from websites to white papers, blogs to tweets, and newsletter to videos, not more than ever CONTENT IS KING.

What should content do:

Content must have the power to move your audience towards your brand or company.
Must earn attention in order to move your audience towards your products and services. That is only possible strategic content developer to make fascinating to audience.
In order to make your content interesting or relevant to viewers use techniques like humor, stories, slice of life, dramatization, demonstration or emotion.
Content is worth consuming it is being read, listened watched or share.
Content must have a spark which can be create by a sales person, customers, channel partners, CEO or any other stake holders. Valuable content developer must be curious about everything in the organization may be music, technology or a rocket science.
Valuable content is voice of your organization.
Effective content use head line which command attention. As because a study reveals that people read three times head line than the body copy. It is because of distracting human nature and information over loaded.
Good heal line can hook and pull the audience reason being it is useful to audience, solve a problem, and engage them.
The head line must be single focused point which must have specific objectives.
Every piece of content should teach audience which resulted into purchase, use more of the company’s product, or referral to new customer. Ogilvy once remarked if your advertisement could not make a sale it’s a waste.

Valuable content marketing strategy shows you how to create and share the type of information that clients, customers, and search engine or tags really want. No doubt valuable content marketing strategy will show you how to grow your business by raising awareness of your brand , turning prospects into buyers and buyers into loyal customers. Valuable content marketing strategy is a tool for management practitioner, entrepreneurs, technocrats, researchers above all future managers i.e. students of management to succeed in any business.

COVID 19, Looming Death and A Happy Birthday!

Are We Really Afraid of Death?

Death is felt and not described by those who have been through it. It can only be described by those who have survived. So, what do the observers say of death? Death does not invoke a singular feeling. For some, it is a fearful thing; Shakespeare says, “Ay, but to die, and go we know not where?” It is this cessation of all motion, which is associated with life, that perhaps makes death fearful. Tagore says at another time, at another part of the world – “Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come”. However, no one dares to ask, can the dead see this dawn? Perhaps, to the dead, this new dawn is as dark as the darkest night. This image of an eternity of darkness and solitude perhaps makes death so dreadful. Even, the very idea of heaven hardly encourages solitary confinement and eternal sleep as ultimate truths. Religion offers an escape from this fearful predicament.

Mankind has made tremendous progress in the last few centuries. Medical science has enhanced the average duration of mortal life. Like a forgetful child, man has embraced materialistic plenty to add meaning to his stay on earth. However, the influx of an invisible array army of virulent savages, who has got no materialistic desire, has turned man perplexed. He faces an army of microscopic organisms, which do not desire anything apart from man’s life. The fight is then between one form of life and another. The fight is between life and death.

The War between Life and Death

I have used the word “fight” to describe the interaction of these two species. I understand that fight requires resistance. Man has undertaken several strategies to resist death in the form of COVID 19. Research for vaccination, masks, instant test kits is underway. A message of hope has been rallied, that a potential vaccine has been prepared, which is yet to undergo human trials. Needless to say, we are waging the war against this alien, invisible enemy. Well, of course, its alien, why would it not be? The virus does not understand racial segregation, barriers of caste, hierarchies of gender. Nor does it understand filiality, love, family, age. Nor does it conform to codes of honour and rules of conventional warfare. In other words, the enemy is as ruthless as they come.

Previously, I have said that the fear of death, invokes responses which may be categorised differently. One such response is laughter! Smiling even in the face of death. Some may call it ignorance, some may term it irresponsible, however, I would like to ask, is it also not courage? Remember that 90s cartoon show about a dog and its masters which we all watched? I am talking about Courage, the Cowardly Dog.

Courage was indeed afraid of all the supernatural phenomena taking place at his house, but he refused to quit. He gathered the traces of sanity left in him and convinced himself that he must act in order to save his house. In doing so, he saved the day.

Laughter as Resistance

I believe a large portion of our society identifies with Courage these days. Social media is flooded with memes on COVID 19. If some are calling it offensive, some laugh them away. I believe, it is a sort of resistance towards the finality of death. It is a resistance towards an enemy who is ruthless and fatal. It is a desperate attempt to clutch life, even when in the vicinity of death.

Of many memes, one such meme focuses on people who have their birthdays in March and April. I find this association of death and a reminder of life to be of special significance. Beneath all the morbidity, there is a movement towards life. A desperate attempt to connect with others, even amid this lockdown.

Resistance is not always visible. Sometimes resistance may not yield the person any validation from the government and its institutions. Resistance may not always yield project grants. However, resistance like this grants courage and the conviction to carry on, unafraid even when the existential dread of insignificance gnaws at mankind.

Dealing with Lockdown

Initially, it may seem that staying home and not stepping out of the perimeters of one’s comfort zone is not that challenging a task. However, we must not forget that solitary punishment is one of the harshest disciplining methods practiced even today. The duration of the punishment is not to exceed three months as stated by the Indian Penal Code. We are on lockdown, albeit with our beloved (or, perhaps not so loved) family members. Not only that, but we have completed a month and counting. It is absolutely not as unsettling as solitary confinement. No comparison can be done on these two issues. But my point is, there is no denying that it is certainly challenging.

Probably, the creator of this meme wanted to mean lockdown, but the word quarantine has been used. It is not an easy matter, but we must think, why are memes like this one popular around the social media platforms? Can we generalise everyone as insensitive who are sharing this image? Or perhaps there is another aspect which we are often overlooking. This apparent helplessness portrayed in the image is juxtaposed with the laughter emanating from its circulation. People are afraid, they are helpless during this unprecedented crisis called COVID 19. Yet perhaps memes like this are an attempt to laugh away their fear and passivity.

Let me not distort this light-hearted mood through a proper conclusion. Because a topic like this does not demand an ending note. Instead, I want to stay faithful to the topic, and end today’s musing by using an immensely popular meme from the Game of Thrones.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR BIOPROCESS INDUSTRIES TO COMMUNICATE IMMUNO BOOSTING ROLES OF NUTRACEUTICALS DURING COVID-19

Student Contributors:

Arkajit De (B.Tech Biotechnology UG-IV)
Srijan Chatterjee (B.Tech Biotechnology UG-IV)

Present Scenario of the World

As the world in under a pandemic state of Coronavirus (COVID-19), a disease caused by a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV(Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus) which was first identified in 2003 in civet cats. These viruses belong to a large family of enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA viruses, known as Coronaviridae which causes illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases. Coronaviruses are broadly classified into i)Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and ii) Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

A novel Coronavirus or nCoV-2 has been identified as a new strain in 2019 that has not been previously identified in humans. However, an outbreak of unusual respiratory condition was first observed in Wuhan, China, due to the infection caused by novel Coronavirus, now known as COVID-19. It was declared a pandemic on 11^th March 2020 by World Health Organization (WHO).

Majority of infected people and aged people with the COVID-19 virus is going to experience breathing problem and those who are suffering from medical issues like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory pulmonary disease (COPD), and cancer are more susceptible to develop serious illness.

In this present scenario, there are no specific or distinct vaccines or treatments discovered for COVID-19. However, there are many research activities going on around the world where they are dealing with anti-viral treatment and developing new therapeutic drugs for eradicating this disease. Therefore, all people must take care of their health to protect themselves from this pandemic disease and must boost their immune system to combat against COVID-19.

Immunomodulatory elements that reduce the risk of infection

The immune system plays a vital role in combatting against all diseases. The immune system involves different types of cells that synthesize, store, and secrete hormones such as lymphocytes (T-cells, B-cells, and NK cells). T-cells or T- lymphocytes are produced in the thymus which plays a versatile role in the regulation of antigen-specific immune responses. B-cells or B-lymphocytes are produced in the bone marrow which also plays a crucial role in the humoral immunity component of the adaptive immune system by secreting antibodies that are activated by the binding of antigen to receptors on its cell surface which causes the cell division and cell proliferation. Some B-cells becomes plasma cell which secretes antibodies which helps to boost our immunity. NK cells or Natural Killer cells are a subset of bone-marrow-derived lymphocytes that helps in the host-rejection of both tumors and virus-infected cells. Therefore, the cells are further activated as the adaptive immune response which generates antigen-specific cytotoxic T-cells that can clear the infection in response to macrophage-derived cytokines or interferons. The immune system also involves various hormones and proteins responsible for boosting our immunity power such as thyroid hormones (TRH, TSH, T3), growth hormone (GH), prolactin, melatonin, histamine, serotonin, etc. In human beings when any pathogen enters our body white blood cells (leukocytes) play an important role in protecting our body against any disease.

White blood cells or leukocytes, a cellular component of the blood which lacks hemoglobin (Hb) (i.e. a protein found in red blood cells that carries oxygen to your body and it gives the blood its red color as hemoglobin contains iron in it), it has a nucleus, which is capable of motility, and also defends us against diseases and infection by the process phagocytosis. Therefore they also bind to disease-causing bacteria (i.e. pathogen) which further incorporate them in a phagosome, which further matures and acidifies through fusing with endosomes and lysosomes which gives rise to phagolysosomes for destroying the contents which are non-essential for our body.

Immunomodulatory Agents: Nutraceuticals

Nutraceuticals in broad aspect can be described as food supplements that provide extra health benefits in addition to the basic nutritional value found in foods without any side effects. The two broad classes of nutraceuticals that help in boosting the immunity in this pandemic situation are:

Herbal Nutraceuticals
a) Bioactive constituents like menthol found in peppermint can be used for curing chronic diseases like flu and cold.
b) A healthy diet is incomplete without vegetables. Vegetables play a pivotal role in boosting immunity and is a rich source of many nutrients. Vegetables contain carotenoids (a phytochemical) which enhances the immune system.

c)The dried herbs of Echinacea purpurea contain alkyl amide and echinacoside which acts as an anti-inflammatory and antiviral agent.

Fortified Nutraceuticals
a) To carry out the metabolism in a proper way, one needs to uptake diets rich in Vitamins. They are required in small proportions but are very essential to boost our immunity. However, deficiencies of Vitamins A, C, D, and E inhibit the resistance against any infections and result in a negative impact on the immune system.
b) Another class of nutrient that is essential for the proper functioning of the white blood cells is “micronutrient”. Deficiencies of zinc, iron, selenium, copper, and magnesium also inhibit the resistance against any infections and have negative impacts on the immune system. The health supplement industries can communicate how these micronutrients and mineral work do and support a healthy immune system.
c) Another important supplement that is present in very few foods is Vitamin D. A diseased person should require at least 50mg of Vitamin D supplements regularly because it enhances the killing capacity and promotes differentiation of monocytes to microphage.
d) Interferon production (a group of signaling proteins released by host cells in response to a virus) can be increased by consumption of 50-100 micrograms of Selenium. The production is downregulated by Vitamin A whereas Vitamin C, zinc, and iron play a role in its production.
e) Vitamin C, D, and Zinc help in maintaining the serum levels of proteins which helps in enhancing the process of phagocytosis. Vitamin D primarily helps to regulate the expression of these proteins.
f) Copper has intrinsic antimicrobial properties that destroy a wide range of microorganisms.

g)The stimulus transmission of interferons is governed by anti-stress Vitamins namely Vitamin B complex and folic acids.

h) The chain reaction of viruses once it enters the host is inhibited by magnesium. Thus, the consumption of this micronutrient is also very essential in boosting immunity.

Immunity can be boosted by nutraceuticals

To face the pandemic stress, the immunity of a human being should be very strong. The health supplement industries should prepare a food supplement that is enriched with the above-mentioned nutraceuticals. The nutraceuticals should not be present in a huge amount but an optimum level should be maintained as per the requirements by the body to combat the disease. The supplement should not contain any material which will have a side effect. Moreover, it should act as support for the immune system.

Impact of Bioprocess Industries responsible for producing nutraceuticals

Bioprocess is an expanding field related to any process that uses living cells or their components to obtain specified products. Bioprocessing industries aim to enhance high productivity by utilizing the latest manufacturing processes. Bioprocess industries play a pivotal role in producing high-end nutraceuticals. The new era of bioprocessing will be driven by basic biological sciences in harmony with conventional engineering approaches. Bioprocessing depends on ever-advancing technology and will continue to evolve as new methods are developed. Bioprocess comes under the broader scope of biotechnology which requires specialization in multiple areas especially Molecular Biology, Recombinant DNA Technology, and Chemical Engineering. In these situations, bioprocess industries can communicate with people by producing high-end nutraceuticals. Bioprocess is a broader scope of Biotechnology. Amidst this pandemic situation, Biotechnology comes up with new hope. These tools are the savior for us in this pandemic situation.

Targeting the cytokine storm: An Immunologic perspective to address the role of Hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 treatment

Student contributors: Megha Dutta, Shatarupa Biswas , Sayandip Jana

When we hear the word “trending” it reminds us of some form of new entertainment, fashion, incidence, or habit. But in the current scenario, the prevailing trend is to divert all aspects of our life towards the only seemingly persistent difficulty of our life and that is the pandemic of COVID-19 caused by the novel coronavirus, officially known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The disease has been jeopardizing human civilization since December 2019 to date.

The immune system in COVID-19 patients

In all afflicted parts of the world, the apparent mild cases of COVID-19 rapidly transmute into severe cases with pulmonary involvements. Patients infected with COVID-19 are reported to have elevated amounts of proinflammatory cytokines in serum (e.g., IL1B, IFNγ, IP10, IL-1Ra, IL-2Ra, IL-6, IL-10, IL-18, HGF, MCP-3, MIG, M-CSF, G-CSF, MIG-1a and MCP1), that probably leads to activated T-helper-1 (T_H1) cell responses. As a result of this cytokine profile similar to SARS and MERS-CoV, critically ill patients with COVID-19 suffer from pulmonary inflammation and substantial lung damage. Interstitial mononuclear inflammatory infiltrates in the lungs, dominated by lymphocytes together with increased concentration of IL-1Ra, IL-2Ra, MCP-3, and IL-6 in serum are also reported to be associated with the COVID-19 disease severity and prognosis. Over-activation of T cells accounts for the severe immune injury characteristic of the disease. Moreover, patients requiring respiratory support are observed to have increased concentrations of GCSF, IP10, MCP1, MIP1A, and TNFα than less severe patients, suggesting that the disease severity could be associated with a cytokine storm.

What is a cytokine storm?

The cytokines are a group of low molecular weight secreted proteins/glycoproteins that mediate the complex cellular interactions involving cells of immune, inflammatory, and hematopoietic systems. A cytokine storm is an overproduction of immune cells and their activating compounds cytokines—namely, GCSF, IFNϒ-induced protein 10, MCP1, MIP1α, and TNFα, which is often associated with an outpouring of activated immune cells into the lungs. The subsequent lung inflammation and fluid accumulation can progress to respiratory distress and can be worsened by ancillary bacterial pneumonia. Also, the surge in immune molecules can contribute to fatal multi-organ failure. As a result, the mortality rate is increased.

Treatment – Is there any?

Despite an untiring attempt of the scientists and clinicians, till now this situation no proper treatment measures are available to confront this state of “public health emergency”. Several antiviral drugs like remdesivir, favipiravir, ivermectin, and antiparasitic drug like the chloroquine (CQ) and its derivative hydroxychloroquine(HCQ) with/without Azithromycin have been tested. Among them, CQ and HCQ in combination with azithromycin have shown some promising effects.

Mode of action of CQ and HCQ

Chloroquine is well-known for its use in the treatment of malaria and amoebiasis. Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) sulfate, a derivative of CQ with an additional hydroxyl group, was demonstrated to have less toxicity than the parent compound. HCQ is still widely used for the management of autoimmune diseases like systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis. Being a weak base and immune system modulator, CQ, and HCQ are potential candidates of therapeutic activity against COVID19with following mode of actions:

CQ increases endosomal pH and interferes with the glycosylation of the cellular receptor of SARS-CoV. CQ also inhibits the enzyme quinone reductase that is involved in sialic acid biosynthesis. These attributes confer this drug with a wide-spectrum antiviral activity.
CQ alters the pH of lysosome and inhibits cathepsin that results in the formation of autophagosome where SARS-CoV 2 spike protein is cleaved off.
CQ inhibits MAP-kinase and alters virion assembly, budding, and interfering with proteolytic action of the M protein(membrane protein).
CQ can also bind the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2(ACE2) receptor glycosylation thus prevents SARS-CoV-2 attachment to the target cell.

Proposed Immunological Aspects of HCQ treatment of COVID-19:

There is an uncontrolled cytokine release as COVID-19 symptoms transform into acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). HCQ inhibits the cytokine storm of proinflammatory factors by suppressing T cell activation. Moreover, since acidification is essential for maturation and function of the endosome, and hence membrane fusion, it is assumed that HCQ therapy might suppress endosome maturation at intermediate stages of endocytosis, failing further transport of virions to the eventual releasing site. Therefore, chemoprophylaxis with CQ or HCQ can prevent COVID-19 associated pneumonia and thus block the transmission of disease by decreasing the number of the asymptomatic carrier by inhibiting viral transmission.

Cautions and contraindication with CQand HCQ:

Use of both the drugs need some precaution to be undertaken that include frequent monitoring of hematological parameter(RBC, WBC, platelet count), serum electrolyte, blood glucose, hepatic as well as renal function.
Before starting the therapy with this drug routine electrocardiography is required.
All doctors must know contraindication before they prescribed these drugs like hypersensitivity, epilepsy, retinopathy, Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency, recent myocardial infarction.
HCQ is less toxic than CQ, but prolonged usage or overdose can cause poisoning.

Conclusions:

Evidence of effectivity of CQ and HCQ in COVID-19 treatment is limited based on in vitro experiments and only two small human trials. A recent report also claims no effect of HCQ in reducing the risk of mechanical ventilation in patients with COVID-19, although they could not infer about asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic patients. Although according to the theoretical concept of immunology, HCQ is a promising drug to delimit the disease spread from both asymptomatic and symptomatic patients; more experimental evidence in a larger cohort of the patient population is needed to confirm the effectivity of the drug for COVID-19 treatment in practicality.

Looking for a career – What Shall I choose- BBA or B.Com?

As the 12^th board examinations are approaching towards end, it is the biggest challenge and question for the pass out students what shall be their choice after 10+2. Not only students but parents also remain worried about their future and their selection of Bachelor degree programs. It is a very important decision, as the selection determines the direction in which a student will take his or her career in future.

So, here we are going to discuss different perspective of two most opted Bachelor degree programs one is Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and the other one is Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com). Both the programs offer different set of learning with some basic similarity but different in terms of their content by large, different in terms of teaching pedagogy and also in terms of higher studies options available once one complete their graduation. We will discuss in brief about all these aspects in the coming section of the discussion.

Differences in Content

We can observe very significant difference in terms of the content and offerings in both the programs. However, both the program do have some basic courses common in each other and that is the reason which also creates confusion in the minds of the students which one is better and why. So, we have to understand one thing that the courses which are similar in BBA and B.Com are always the foundation courses which build the basic knowledge in any discipline such as accounting, principles of management or financial management or marketing for say.

However, if we talk about the skill advancement courses or courses which develop or build up the professional knowledge of students are different for both the program. Therefore, students who want to pursue his or her career in future as a financial accountant or cost accountant or auditor or as a company secretary shall choose B.Com. As it offers different courses which help one to qualify for professional examinations such as Chartered Account (CA), Cost and Work Accounts (CWA) or Company Secretary (CS) or Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Courses like Auditing, Cost and Management accounting, Company Law, Corporate Tax, Corporate Accounting, Financial statement Analysis familiarizes a student with the different concepts before he or she prepares for any of the above mentioned professional examination.

On the other hand, BBA along with the foundation courses offers altogether a different set of skill advancement courses which are generally not offered in B.Com program. Courses such as Business Communication, Business Environment, Business Mathematics, Business Statistics, Fundamentals of Accounting, Management Accounting, Management Concepts & Practices, Managerial Economics, Marketing Management, Organizational Behavior. Along with the above mentioned courses one also chooses specialization or honors in some specific functional areas of management such as Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, Operations, Supply Chain and many more. So, a student who want to pursue his or her career in the field of management and want to work in corporate organizations or want to start their own start up should choose BBA program. This would help him or her to build up foundation for any business. This would also support in getting familiarized with different functional areas of a business organization. One can also study Master of Business Administration after completing the BBA in order to have further expertise and sharp the concepts. So, those who have clear focus and want to become future manager or entrepreneur can select BBA program as their first step towards their journey in the corporate world.

School of Management, Adamas University offers a unique BBA program with different specialization options available. Areas of specialization offered include Finance, Marketing, Human Resource, logistic and supply chain, digital marketing etc. One can choose any of the area of specialization according to interest.

Differences in Teaching Pedagogy

BBA is considered to be a professional program in contrast to B.Com which is a traditional program. The teaching pedagogy that is the mode of delivery, tools for teaching, focus of teaching and learning process are also different for teaching to BBA students. Different tools such as role plays, case studies, simulations and many more are used to offer real life corporate culture learning to students. Students are evaluated not only the basis of their end term examinations but they have to go for continuous evaluation process. In the continuous evolution process a student need to take different projects, assignments which enable them to make application of their classroom learning in the real corporate world. Therefore, BBA focus not only in giving theoretical knowledge but it also provides scope for learning the application of different theories in real life problems. Students also need to take up different courses for developing their soft skills which are considered to be the most important in business world as whatever we know if we cannot express that in effective ways one cannot succeed.

At School of Management in Adamas University, we encourages our students to take live projects where they can become more close to the real corporate world, students go for summer internship for two months after the completion of their 4^th semester examination. During the summer internship they learn the corporate culture and different functions in the corporate organizations. During the final semester, students also take a dissertation work which is also based on their specialization or area of interest. All this approach makes a student fit for the corporate world at the end of three year graduation program. We make a student ready for facing different real time challenges in the corporate and come out with the solutions.

Options for Higher Studies

mentioned before there are different options available for one after completing BBA or B.Com. Where one student can go for professional programs such CA, CWA, CS or CFA after completing B.Com, a wide range of options are available for a student after completing BBA program. After BBA one can go for MBA with different areas of specializations available. Students can go for MBA in Finance, Marketing, Supply Chain, Human Resources, Digital Marketing, Business Analytics, Management Information System and many more. One thing to be remember that it is not so that you cannot pursue MBA after B.Com but a student who have done BBA do have a foundation of many of the courses which are taught in MBA.

Another area of concern, where we need to be clear that any students who have done 10+2 in commerce, science or arts can join BBA program with minimum qualifying marks in last examination appeared. However, for B.Com one must have studied commerce in 10+2 level. Therefore, the BBA offers a wide range for students from different discipline.

Conclusion

So, whether we choose BBA or B.Com it depends on your area of interest and also on our future goals. Those who are very much keen in making their career in the business world, want to become future managers of corporate originations, or want to become successful entrepreneurs may choose BBA as the first step towards their journey in the business world. And those who want to serve business organizations as accountants or company secretary or financial analyst can choose B.Com as an option.

The selection totally depends on one’s future goals where he or she wants to be and in which role you want to see yourself in future.

Virtual Internship for Teacher Education Program

Internship is the most important part of any teacher education program. It gives pupil-teachers hands- on experience to be acquainted with total school practice including teaching, evaluation, administration, clerical works, community involvement, handling student issues, student support services and the like. Can it be arranged virtually? If it is so, why? It can be answered in two ways: at first it can be arranged during adverse situations where it is totally impossible for organizing school internship in actual mode. We are now in COVID 19 situation where the total school is declared to be remained closed but in different schools teaching-learning practice has been continuing virtually. If teaching-learning is possible in alternative mode, why not school internship? Secondly, virtual internship can be taken into consideration when we try to instil techno-pedagogical skills among student-teachers. As per the current trend, student-teachers should have the techno-pedagogical expertise for imparting education in technology based environment like online teaching.

Fundamental aspects which are considered vital at the time of school internship are highlighted here in the perspective of virtual internship.

Permission Issue: The Teacher Education Institution (TEI) can tie up with any school for encouraging this type of innovative teaching-learning encounter. Virtual internship can also be planned at the time of emergency like the period of COVID-19. The cooperation of guardian is another vital factor for scheduling it for their children. Participants can also be taken globally where the online teaching-learning culture is very much popular.
Learning design: Preparation of learning design at pre-teaching phase is a vital tool of trainee-teachers. Virtual internship calls for techno-pedagogy based learning design where due importance is given to TPAK (i.e. Technological Knowledge, Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Knowledge) on which the learning design for teaching is to be prepared.
Teaching: There are various apps and web based platforms like ZOOM Cloud Meeting, Google Hangouts, Webex Meet, Skype Meetings etc on which a virtual classroom can be made for imparting education. Thus teachers teach and the students learn in real-time, face to face but via web based technology devices.
Use of T-L-M: Delivering lesson through teaching-learning-materials is inevitable part of teaching. Here, trainee-teachers can switch on share screen option for displaying power point, videos, photographs, diagram, pictures, sketches etc to students in respect to the given topic.
Evaluation: Online test can be planned for the students in respect of examining their learning outcome. Learning tasks can be scheduled for them and evaluation can be done virtually. Students can also express their learning outcome in creativity based productive forms like painting, collage making, singing, reciting, video production and the like.
Supervision: Classroom teaching given by trainee-teachers must be supervised by teacher-educators. Here, any teacher-educator can enter in the classroom through web link which is to be notified to him/her at earlier. In the same way, the Head Teacher or Subject Teachers of schools can join in the classroom for supervising their teaching practice.
Action Research: Action research, a tool of practitioner develops the professional competence of interns. Trainee-teachers as interns can also practice this virtually. For instance, the education and schooling of a child having mild visual impairment can be investigated virtually. Student-teachers can meet the child at online platform, make a discussion with him, observe his behaviour, and take an interview of his parents & teachers. In this way, a case study based action research can be prepared.
Other Activities: Student-teachers can arrange a parent –teachers meeting virtually. When they require attending a meeting with head teacher and other teachers, it can be scheduled here easily. Video conferencing can be used for sharing knowledge of senior and experienced teachers in respect of creating more effective classroom teaching. The web pages of different schools can be searched for gathering more knowledge on daily practice of school.

Student and parental supports are two imminent factors for materializing virtual internship practice in reality. Students are always eager to accept new things. But the financial supports, technology supports, internet supports, encouragement are required from parents. A parent-school-TEI meeting can be organized for boosting up them towards accepting innovation for the academic welfare of their children.

Now, the question is how you should implement this in curriculum. Teacher education programs are run under the strict guidelines of a controlling authority NCTE which does not recommend this type of virtual internship programme till today. What should you do? Obviously, it is the only alternative weapon at the time of adverse situations like COVID-19 where we have to maintain lockdown strictly. So, it can be used at trial basis for few days. Besides, it can easily be included at the practicum part of the course Information and Communication Technology in Education (Critical Understanding of ICT). For this, it may be practiced for few days during long vacation of school for instilling techno-pedagogical skills among student-teachers. So let’s think of virtual internship for incorporating in teacher education program.

IMPROVEMENT OF I.T STOCKS’ PERFORMANCE ON ACCOUNT OF DIGITAL EDUCATION IN THE ERA OF THE PANDEMIC COVID 19

Why Digital Education?

COVID 19- the contagious disease caused by coronavirus, has been considered as global pandemic by World Health Organisation, which disrupted the socio-economic conditions of global citizens enormously. It also led to a global recession since the beginning of 2020, with a massive trash in the global business scenario on account of production curtailment throughout the whole world. Rising economic stress has led to a drastic decline in demand for both manufacturing and services sector on account of the urge of social distancing.

Among all the other sectors of Indian economy, COVID 19 has a gigantic negative influence on the education sector. The Central and State Governments announced lockdowns throughout the country in the month of March 2020.

On account of the reliance only on traditional chalk and talk methods of teaching-learning procedures, almost all the public schools and colleges started facing massive problems in completing their regular courses. Here, comes the need of Digital Education, which has been started by some of the renowned Private Schools, Colleges and Universities.

Digital Education- A Brief Concept

Due to the rapid advancement of internet facilities, mobile phones, laptops and other modern technology oriented devices, today’s world is going digitalized more rapidly. As technology dominates modern life so there is an emerging need to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education, commonly known as ‘Digital Education’.

ICT has the capacity to provide higher quality interactive potentiality for users in developing their individual, intellectual and creative ability. Digital Education is nothing but learning assisted by technology, where learning is not restricted within the four walls of a classroom but it can be expanded throughout the world due to the intimation of upgraded technologies in learning.

Recently, ‘digital technology in the classroom’ (DTC) not only promotes active learning and knowledge creation but also allows remote communication and sharing of information among teachers and learners in distant physical classroom locations.

The traditional educational system faces several problems as all activities in the organization are carried out manually, teachers have to maintain all the chapter contents to be taught in the class on paper, attendance records are maintained in register book, etc. This digitalized education system will help not only the educational institution but also teachers, students and their parents. Students can get all the notes and related contents taught in the class and view class history online from home. They can also attend extra-curricular classes and tutorial classes available in school itself by means of tutorial modules with very low cost.

Hence, the latest trends in digitalized education system include both adaptive as well as collaborative learning where each student is engaged by practicing, sharing things and gaining knowledge in a collaborative environment.

Impact of Digital Education on Stock performance of Information Technology companies

Since the outbreak of COVID 19, the stock markets have been experiencing a severe dampening effect both in the Indian as well as global markets. BSE SENSEX and NIFTY50 (the two benchmark indices of Indian Stock market) slumped down by around 16000 points and 4500 points within February – March 2020.

Figure 1: Movement on SENSEX since last 3 months (in base points)

(Source: www.moneycontrol.com)

Figure 2: Movement on NIFTY50 since last 3 months (in base points)

(Source: www.moneycontrol.com)

Alike other sectors, the Information Technology (IT) sector comprising of major companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, 3i Infotech Limited, HCLTechnologies, Wipro, etc. faced similar dampening effects on account of negative investor attitude for their lack of clarity of the immediate way forward.

However, on the account of the advancement of Digital Learning in the scenario of pandemic COVID 19, some of the major IT companies became the market gainers with a very short time span.

TCS, the largest revenue generating IT company (as per NASSCOM-The Trade Association of Indian IT BPM industry), retained itself as the major IT market gainer, thereby imparting the platform of Digital Learning through its renowned online learning software TCS ion.

Unlike all other universities, the No.1 ranked Private university- ADAMAS UNIVERSITY has already started using this Digital Learning platform for providing 24/7 online teaching-learning facilities to all faculties and students living in distant regions of the country as well as the whole world.

Figure 3: Stock price performance of TCS in S&P BSE and NIFTY50 indices since last one month (in base points)

(Source: www.moneycontrol.com)

Figure 4: Movement on S&P BSE IT since last one month (in base points)

(Source: www.bseindia.com)

Figure 5: Movement on NIFTY IT since last one month (in base points)

(Source: www.moneycontrol.com)

Thus, modern technology is the only instrument for creating a positive impact on education, with solving the big educational problems of the economy India. Thus, there is a great need of creating a digitalized education environment with the help of modernized technology by all educational institutions for helping students learn better and teachers teach better.

Why Does a Master in Quantitative Finance Matter? – Alluring Career Path Ahead

The job of Quantitative Analyst in financial sector is now in fashion, and of course the ‘Quants’ are in high demand. Financial sector is an integral part of an economy. During the 2008 Global Economic Recession, global financial sector was hit badly, and since then financial sector regulations across the world has become more stringent. For example, risk transparency for financial assets has become such an important issue like never before that the financial sector globally has been increasingly emphasizing on increasing financial assets with lower risks.

Given the increasingly complex scenarios of financial sector, the act of security pricing has become a tricky task that demands professionals who can work well on them. These professionals, who are also fashionably known as the ‘Quants’, are expected to be equipped with the skills of building mathematical models that would ensure financial securities to be traded at optimal prices.

These professionals should also ensure that these assets generate profit and bear lower risk factor. In this age of vast amount of data floating around you, you just need to apply a clever combination of mathematics, statistics, analytics and programming to complete the task of optimal pricing for financial assets, and the branch of study that makes you efficient in doing this job is Quantitative Finance.

Given the growing complexity of financial sector and its highly volatile nature, if you become a Good Quant, you will have a lucrative career ahead.

What does a PG Program on Quantitative Finance exactly intend at?

To understand the changing structure of financial markets and develop appropriate skills to act as professionals in this sector one has to go through some proper training and guidance. A perfectly structured Post Graduate Program in Quantitative finance help you to become successful “Quants”.

A PG Course in Quantitate Finance make you learn the application of diverse mathematical models to wide rage of data sets on financial market instruments and how to analyse those data. For example, you will develop the skill of optimal price setting for derivative securities, such as options, futures, etc..

A Master degree in Quantitative Finance also helps to gain efficiency in risk management mainly in relation investors’ portfolio management. In short, it makes to efficient in financial decision making, developing new financial products, understating the link between the theories and quantitative applications in this field.

Are you eligible to enrol in a PG Course in Quantitative Finance?

Are you ambitious?
Do you have educational background in Economics, Finance, Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics?

If your answers to both the questions above are “Yes”, they you are perfectly suited to this programme.

There is no need for prior knowledge in Finance, Economics and Commerce. But, a well-structured course makes the student ready for jobs in the departments of risk management, treasury, asset-liability management and research and analytics in domestic as well as global financial markets.

However, since this course involves mathematical modelling of financial markets, one should to at least have Mathematics background at 10+2 level.

Career Path Ahead for a Good Quant aka Quantitative Finance Professional:

A well-functioning financial system forms a strong foundation for a stable economy and a financial system becomes well-performing only when calculative moves are made at every step. Quantitative Finance professionals are those who possess the capacity of using raw data in intelligent decision making in businesses through the application of mathematical and statistical models and analytical tools.

You can act as a Good Quant only if you have a strong educational background in this field of study. Thus, it would not be too tough to say that these professionals possessing such technical skills automatically possess high potential of earning lucrative remunerations. According to Quantinsti.com, average base salary for a Quant earn is around 10 Lacks per annum in India.

With a Master in Quantitative Finance, you can build your career in the financial and banking industries as professionals in the areas of financial engineering, financial research and analytics, financial and bank risk management as quantitative analysts or ‘quants’.

The demand for good quants are coming not only from banking industry, but also from a various asset management companies, software providers, exchanges, market regulators and various other firms that are linked to financial sector.

With a dynamic domestic and international economic scenarios, political and the continuously changing the regulatory system, Quantitative Finance is here to stay and it is all set to flourish in the future.

So you see you don’t need to be strong in Economics or Finance if you wish to make your career as a quantitative analyst, but you can still gain the required expertise to become a good ‘Quant’ if you enrol yourself in a well-structured PG program on Quantitative Finance. We can help you in this regard. If you like it, then share it.

Is our perception of the Universe going to change soon?

A Few years back a paper in the prestigious Physical Review Letters (see here) has claimed that they found a holographic model of our Universe can explain the data on Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) better than the standard cold dark matter model of cosmology (Lambda-CDM model). What does this result really mean to a common person? Well, if we try to decipher it then we find, one set of model is found to be better than the other type of model to explain some data on the properties of our Universe. And in that sense, there is nothing new. This always happens in scientific study. But the puzzling thing is that the better model appears to be a model which envisage our Universe to be a hologram. Wow! that is quite dramatic!

Almost all the objects we see around us are 3-dimensional, means they have length, breadth and height. On the other hand hologram in our daily life is a piece of 2-dimensional sticker inside which a 3-dimensional image appears to be embedded in. Now if we are to believe that our Universe is a giant hologram, then it would mean that our objective reality is nothing but an illusion! If true, it would bring a paradigm shift in the perception of our Universe.

Thus you see this is worthy of something that should be pursued further. So, let’s delve deeper and find out what is really being said here.

History of our Universe: To know the history of our Universe we have to go back in time, 13.7 billion years back. Let us start with the present. At present, our Universe is uniform (homogeneous and isotropic) on a cosmic scale (a cosmic scale is a distance of millions of light-years). The current understanding of our Universe indicates that it is expanding and galaxies are moving farther away from each other. It is not like the galaxies themselves are moving farther away, rather the space-time which holds these galaxies are expanding. As a consequence, the distance between galaxies is also increasing. Let us illustrate this expansion with the help of a rubber membrane. Mark any two points on the membrane. If we stretch the membrane the distance between the two points will increase. The membrane here is the space-time and two points are two galaxies. Now if we travel back in time, then we would find our Universe to be contracting until it converges to a point or very small region of space-time. That point is called the ‘Singularity’. Our Universe started its journey from this singularity with a bang! a violet explosion releasing an unimaginable amount of energy. The phenomenon is known as Big Bang.

Timeline of the evolution of our Universe. Image credit: Rhys Taylor, Cardiff University

Ever since it’s birth in a hot dense state, the Universe is expanding and thereby cooling its’ temperature. The story of the evolution of the Universe roughly goes like this: shortly after (10^-35 sec) the birth, the baby Universe underwent a brief period of rapid expansion known as inflation (still a conjecture!). The expansion speed was so rapid that it even exceeds the velocity of light. After the period of violent expansion, the Universe continues to expand but at a much slower rate. By the time elementary particles appeared, forces of nature as we know today, manifested in its current form. The expansion continues and at some stage, quarks get confined within protons and neutrons (quarks are the elementary particles that made up the protons and neutrons). Later on, atomic nuclei are formed. But the formation of a neutral atom is still far away as the thermal speed of the electrons was so great to bound them within the confined boundary of the atoms. All these events stated above was completed within 1 minute after the Big Bang!

Other features of the Universe start to appear at a much much later stage compared to this time scale. It took a few hundred thousand years for neutral atoms to form. With time those neutral atoms coalesce forming gas clouds. These gas clouds at later stage give rise to stars. With the evolution of the Universe, those stars slowly start to form groups out of their gravitational attraction. Those groups will later on form galaxies. And slowly the Universe starts to take our present form. Our solar system comes into being at a much later stage, about a few billion years after the Big Bang when our Universe was grown to two-thirds of its present size.

तमसोमाज्योतिर्गमय (Tamso Ma Jyotirgamaya): The account of the history of our Universe presented above sounds good. But without evidence, the scientific exposition would reduce to a work of fiction. That evidence can be found in the form of radiation coming from the early stage of evolution of our Universe. It is a story of going towards the light from the darkness.

Shortly after the Big Bang, the Universe was hot dense soup (plasma) of particles like electrons, protons, photons (light carrying particles) etc. The photons got scattered and re-scattered from the electrons, protons of the soup making it hard to escape. Our Universe was in the dark and foggy state. As time passes, those protons and electrons bind together to form neutral atoms. And when it happens, the light (photons) got a chance to escape carrying the message of the early Universe. Those photons can still be seen in our present-day Universe in the form of radiation known as Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR). Now questions come to your mind why can’t we see it when we look at the night sky with our naked eye or an optical telescope? The space between stars and galaxies all appear to be dark.

Well, you need a special type of telescope to see the glow – a radio telescope. When photons travelled through the expanding Universe, it’s wavelength got increased. The value of this wavelength falls into the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum and thus the name Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. Several experiments have been performed to detect and characterise the CMBR to date. Among them COBE, WMAP from NASA and PLANCK mission by European Space Agency are notable. According to the available data, we come to know that the cosmic radiation is uniform in all direction with an average temperature of 2.7 Kelvin. But, tiny fluctuations here and there around this average temperature have been observed. As the saying goes, The devil lies in the details. The understandings of those tiny fluctuations are extremely important. This would not only reveal the information regarding the anisotropy of our Universe that persisted right after the Big Bang but will also reveal the details of the large scale structure formation (like a galaxy) in the Universe.

The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. The warmer regions are shown in red and the cold regions are shown in blue. Image Credit: European Space Agency

Holographic Universe: A detailed understanding of those tiny fluctuations in CMBR is an active area of current research. In this context, the paper mentioned at the very beginning of this article considered two models as viable candidates to explain the observed data on CMBR. Among the two models, they found the holographic Universe model can explain the data in a slightly better way than the standard model of cosmology. This positive result inspired the practitioner of the model to pursue their ideas further. While for us, the common people, the idea “Holographic Universe” is a little disturbing. So let’s find out what the idea suggests.

In physics, there is a principle called duality. It is a connection between two theories/models. Information from one theory/model helps us to extract information about the other. Consider for example two languages. If you have the dictionary then you can always switch between two languages easily using the dictionary. The holographic model of the Universe exploits the duality between volume and surface. Let us illustrate with an example. Suppose you want to know how many people work in a particular organisation on a particular day. Assume the shape of their office is like a football. They have installed electronic attendance machine on the surface of the football. Now to know how many people are working on a particular day, you can go inside and count each people. Otherwise, you can also collect data from the electronic attendance machine installed at the gate and easily count the number of people. Here going inside the football can be compared with the collecting information from the volume and collecting data from the gate can be compared with the information contained at the surface. Thus we see, the information contained in a volume can be obtained from the information stored at the surface. The connection here is the electronic attendance machine. Mathematically speaking the volume can be represented as a hologram of the surface. This is the principle that the holographic model of the Universe uses. And it is quite different from the fact that our Universe itself is a giant hologram. Hope it is now clear that our apprehension for the term holographic universe was misplaced. The name stems from the underlying mathematical principle used. It remains to be seen (if true) what will be the consequences of this model. But it can be safely assumed that there will be no observable difference to our naked eyes. Though a subtle difference at the cosmic scale may be expected.

Scientific progress is always incremental. Successive small steps constitute a great leap forward for human knowledge. We hope one day models like standard model of cosmology, holographic model of the universe will be able to shed light on the different unresolved areas of the early Universe and led us to the path of illumination from ignorance.

Trivia: Are you interested to listen to the sound of the Big Bang? A noise that is as old as our Universe, carrying the message from our baby universe. (Audio Clip credit: (c) John G. Cramer – 2013, please visit his website for details and longer version of the clip)

THERE IS A FILM APPRECIATOR IN EACH OF US

Nancy H. Kleinbaum, the iconic American writer, once said, “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.” Indeed so! Imagine humanity sans poetry. Imagine a life when your deepest feelings are not resonated by poems, when your darkest desires are not expressed through tepid poetry. Life would be so monotonous, so dull and so darkly emotionless.

Now, let us extrapolate Nancy’s thought to the remarkable field of cinema and it would make perfect sense. We don’t watch cinema because it is cute. We watch cinema because we are members of the human race. The celebrated French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, one of the pioneers of the experimental French New Wave, couldn’t have been truer when he said, “Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world.”

This fraud keeps us alive and makes us tick. This is true in so many levels in the contemporary world. A relatively newer art form, cinema embraces all the other art forms for its own expression and this is exactly where it becomes so unique. Indeed, as members of the human race, we can’t but appreciate cinema not just as a storytelling platform, but as a manifestation of humanity in itself.

What Is Film Appreciation?

There is an oft-repeated term called ‘Film Criticism’. This term is problematic on so many different levels. It somehow suggests that we see a movie to criticize it, to find faults with its fundamental premise. Hence, the term ‘Film Appreciation’ is much more acceptable – much more democratic, so to say.

Now the obvious question arises. What is Film Appreciation and who are these Film Appreciators? Well, the first question is rather simple to answer. Film Appreciation is the process of analyzing the various elements of cinema and evaluating the same using some standard benchmarks. The answer to the second question is a bit tricky. There are people who appreciate cinema professionally. These are people, who write and speak on specific movies in order to give the prospective audience a clear idea about what the movie qualitatively stipulate. On the other hand, each one of us, who watch and admire cinema are film appreciators in some form or the other.

While cinema is a creative art and there can’t be any set parameters to analyze it, it makes us better film appreciators if we start understanding some of cinema’s ingrained elements. This process makes watching cinema all the more enjoyable and meaningful. Cinema is a chronicler of contemporary history. Thus, it doesn’t hurt if we analyze movies against the backdrop of time.

Now, let us take a sneak peek into those elements that we need to understand in order to appreciate cinema in a more fruitful way:

Theme: To put it in simple words, theme is the fundamental premise on which a given movie is based. Some examples of themes could be romance, power, control and the likes. Let us take an example to understand the concept of theme a little more clearly. If we take up Guillermo del Toro’s Spanish masterpiece ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ (2006), the theme would be death. The movie is all about the infallibility of death.
Message: While all movies do not necessarily have a central message, there are instances when the filmmaker wants to convey something to his audiences. There are other times when a film is left to the imagination of the audiences. If we take the example of Rajkumar Hirani’s ‘3 Idiots’ (2009), the central message would be the redundancy of streamlined and process-oriented education, one that kills the creative sparks among students.
Metaphor: A metaphor is a literary figure of speech. These are commonly used in cinema to enhance the experience. A metaphor is an element that means something different from their literal meaning. Metaphors acquire fresh dimensions when used in cinema. James Cameron’s blockbuster movie ‘Avatar’ (2009) could be considered to be a metaphor for the exploitation of indigenous people all over the world.
Subtext: A movie creates multiple meanings and conveys numerous messages. Some of the meanings and messages are intended and some are not so. Meanings and messages that are conveyed beneath the visible surface of a movie are known as subtexts. We can take the example of Satyajit Ray’s timeless classic ‘Pather Panchali’ (1955). The death of Durga could be a subtext for the deplorable condition of women in the Indian society.
Motivation: There can be several elements in a movie. At times, the presence of some of the elements is justified in the movie itself. This justification could be construed to be motivation. We can take the example of Ritwik Ghatak’s masterpiece ‘Meghe Dhaka Tara’ (1960). In the movie, there is a scene where there is a juxtaposition of classical music with the sound of a train. This is representative of troubles that might befall in the protagonist’s life.
Motif: When an element is repeated in a movie in order to create a symbolic meaning, a motif is created. We can have a motif in the form of a dialogue or a piece of music or a technical element or an object. Let us take the example of Sam Mendes’ critically acclaimed movie ‘American Beauty’. Here, rose is a motif that represents lust.
Point of View: At the end of a day, a movie is also about a certain perspective or a point of view. Is the movie neutral? Is the movie objective? Is the movie biased? Whose point of view does the movie represent? The answers to these questions determine the point of view of a movie. We can take an effective example here. John Ford’s ‘The Searchers’ (1956) is essentially told from the point of view of the European settlers in America.

While the above mentioned elements are critical to the deconstruction of a movie, there are other elements as well that require critical examination. However, we can reasonably make sense out of movie if the mentioned elements are dissected.

Let us all become active movie viewers rather than being passive consumers of cinema. Not only will it enhance our creative cognition, it will also make us better human beings.