Dipankar Khasnabish, Author at Adamas University

COVID – Economy – Business – Part 1: The Fundamentals

COVID and/ or Corona is all around us. All of us are discussing this. Many times with fear – how we will protect ourselves and our near and dear ones from this. But many times it is also about what the future foretells?

How is this going to change us when it all ends? How will society change? What will be the economic impact? What will be the effect on various industry segments, how we work, how we travel, how we get entertained, how we connect?

These questions are being increasingly deliberated, but it will take a while to come to some answers. And for most we will not have an answer, we will discover through the journey.

But first the basics. What is Corona, what is COVID-19 (and all such terms), where it came from and how, and where is it headed?

Corona – where did the name from?

If we will look at the definition of Corona, it essentially means a crown (we are familiar with the coronation, when someone becomes a king or queen and the crown is put on the person’s head).

Corona – something suggesting a crown, such as

a usually colored circle often seen around and close to a luminous body (such as the sun or moon) caused by diffraction produced by suspended droplets or occasionally particles of dust
the tenuous outermost part of the atmosphere of a star (such as the sun)
a circle of light made by the apparent convergence of the streamers of the aurora borealis

Coronation – the act or occasion of crowning

Ref: https ://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary

If you look at the photograph above which is a typical crown, it has this pointed, you know pointed structures which are ball-shaped at the top. And Coronavirus (left top) is it looks under the microscope, the similarity can’t be missed.

And the other definition of Corona is on the bottom left – it is the outer edge of something glowing, like a star. And here too, the similarity of the virus is un-missable.

31^st December 2019, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission in Wuhan City reported a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown causes, with a common link to Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a wholesale fish and live animal market. The market was closed down on 1^st January 2020.

9^th January 2020, the China CDC reported that a novel coronavirus (later named SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19) has been detected.

10^th January 2020, the first novel coronavirus genome sequence was made publicly available.

20^th January 2020, there were reports of confirmed cases from three countries outside China.

23rd January 2020, Wuhan City was locked down.

30^th January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared this first outbreak of novel coronavirus a ‘public health emergency of international concern’.

11^th March 2020, the Director General of the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic

India began thermal screening of passengers arriving from China on 21 January.

The first case of the in India was reported on 30 January 2020, originating from China.

Notes:

SARS: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

CoV-2: Coronavirus 2
COVID: Coronavirus Disease

Source: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/novel-coronavirus/event-background-2019

COVID – The sequence of the Events

The sequence has been controversial, with many questioning it in multiple dimensions. The source, Wuhan becomes all the more contentious because of Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is at Biosafety Level 4, the highest level. There are speculations from many credible sources that the virus may have originated from the lab. However, we sure need to wait on this.

COVID – India’s response

Another key area to focus on is the strategies that had been adopted by various countries to control the spread. India created the first task force on COVID-19 on 7^th of January, it circulated the preliminary guidelines to all the state governments on 18^th January. India gave notice for thermal screening and various airports and 21^st January for China returned individuals. India had been the pioneer in many ways – in terms of restricting foreign travels and probably the most stringent lockdown.

Pandemics – a long history

Incidentally, around 18 years back we had a similar attack from another virus of the same family – Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). However, the impact of that was significantly lower than the present. (The scientific name of the virus is CoV-2, Coronavirus 2. However, in general, it is known as COVID-19, Coronavirus 2019).

The crisis was declared a pandemic on 30^th January 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO). This is a critical development, and probably this is the point where we should get a little into the various terms – epidemic, pandemic, etc.

Epidemic: A disease that affects a large number of people within a community, population, or region.

Pandemic: An epidemic that’s spread over multiple countries or continents.

Epidemic vs. Pandemic: An epidemic in multiple countries

Endemic: Something that belongs to a particular people or country.

Outbreak: A greater-than-anticipated increase in the number of endemic cases.

The declaration of COVID as a Pandemic is critical to the fight, as this aligns the world with a common goal, common plan, and in many ways common resources. It also helps countries to make decisions which in normal times can well be contested – like travel restrictions.

Pandemics – dooms over the centuries

But while we today are extremely perturbed with COVID, the pandemic has a long history. And some of them had been much more devastating, at least in terms of deaths than COVID had been so far.

Name	Time period	Type / Pre-human host	Death toll
Antonine Plague	165-180	Believed to be either smallpox or measles	5M
Japanese smallpox epidemic	735-737	Variola major virus	1M
Plague of Justinian	541-542	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	30-50M
Black Death	1347-1351	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	200M
New World Smallpox Outbreak	1520 – onwards	Variola major virus	56M
Great Plague of London	1665	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	1,00,000
Italian plague	1629-1631	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	1M
Cholera Pandemics 1-6	1817-1923	V. cholera bacteria	1M+
Third Plague	1885	Yersinia pestis bacteria / Rats, fleas	12M (China and India)
Yellow Fever	The late 1800s	Virus / Mosquitoes	100,000-150,000 (U.S.)
Russian Flu	1889-1890	Believed to be H2N2 (avian origin)	1M
Spanish Flu	1918-1919	H1N1 virus / Pigs	40-50M
Asian Flu	1957-1958	H2N2 virus	1.1M
Hong Kong Flu	1968-1970	H3N2 virus	1M
HIV/AIDS	1981-present	Virus / Chimpanzees	25-35M
Swine Flu	2009-2010	H1N1 virus / Pigs	2,00,000
SARS	2002-2003	Coronavirus / Bats, Civets	770
Ebola	2014-2016	Ebolavirus / Wild animals	11,000
MERS	2015-Present	Coronavirus / Bats, camels	850
COVID-19	2019-Present	Coronavirus – Unknown (possibly pangolins)	160,717 (12AM IST 10th April 2020)

The Spanish Flu which happened approximately a hundred years back lost 40 to 50 million people. And estimates show around 500 million got affected, about one-third of the population at that time.

Historically, pandemics have happened because of bacteria or viruses. And in all the cases, there had been a pre-human host, from whom it had jumped to the humans. And here we need to pause and look at a few things, especially in the coronavirus.

COVID – how does it affects us?

A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. And it needs a host, the living organization which activates the virus, helps it to reproduce and transmitted. When infected, the host cell is forced to rapidly-produce thousands of identical copies of the original virus.

There are millions of viruses (though only 5,000 types have been studied in detail), and they are all around us. Many of them are carried by other animals, and even by us but with no symptoms. But once in a while, one virus will mutate in an animal host (the pre-human host), and “jump” to humans. The coronavirus is one such, and it is deadly too (especially since it affects the pulmonary system).

As of today, there is no clarity on the pre-human host of COVID. The image above, which shows Pangolin as the pre-human host is speculative. The same is the theory that it has jumped to humans when someone consumed animal meant purchased at the Wuhan market. There is even a theory now made public by Luc Montagnier, who won Nobel Prize for discovering AIDS virus, claimed that it may be a misadventure at the Wuhan Lab while trying to develop a vaccine for AIDS. However, what is the truth? We need to wait to know about it.

As we saw before, any virus, which mutates and finds a host in humans may not be having manifestations, and even ones that affect us may not be deadly (as with common cold). However, for the virus which affects us, the impact is seen in two dimensions – how badly it affects us, and how quickly it spreads.

COVID – how does it spread?

The contagious nature of the virus is defined by the metric R0 or R naught. This is how many people, on average, will be infected by one infected person.

The R0 for COVID is 2.5, whereas that for measles is 16. So clearly measles is much more contagious, but COVID is much more deadly – with a significantly higher percentage of patients who need intensive care, as well as face fatalities.

Add to this the fact that there is no known cure and no vaccine. So if unchecked, this will progress geometrically – with possible doubling every few days if unchecked. Add to this the fact that 86 percent of the infected people are asymptomatic, that is no symptoms at all. So there is the possibility of infected people, who don’t know that they are carriers, may unknowingly transmit the virus.

COVID – how does it transmit?

The transmissions typically happen by personal contacts, through touch or when an infected person sneezes in proximity (and globule carrying the virus reaches the potential victims).

The graph above is the global trend on 19^th April 2020 – 10 PM IST. It is geometric in progression.

So how we ensure that people avoid social contacts, and flatten the curve (so that there are not too many infected people, who will put tremendous stress on the entire system, especially the healthcare.

Given that humans by nature are social, the methods followed by most of the governments are lockdown – where people are being forced to maintain distance over some time, with expectations that it will become am habit in the times to come.

COVID – what lies ahead?

So here we are – there is the deadly virus called Corona which has spread globally with no signs of slowing down. It has no treatment, and no vaccine (which is understandable given it is NOVEL or new) However it is deadly, highly contagious, and affects the pulmonary system – which is one of the most vulnerable, as well painful experiences if affected.

Add to this the dispute on the origin of the virus, the supposed non-cooperation of China, and the confused handling of the situation across many countries.

We are now in the middle of the ravages which the virus is inflicting. As it slows down (hopefully shortly), we need to look at other areas – society, economy, industry and other facets. We will revisit the same in the coming days – as a continuation of these discussions.

Postscript

Well, it will not be out of place to have a small note on HxNx, a term made familiar by H1N1 – the terms associated with Swine Flu (swine influenza) and bird flu (avian influenza).

What does H & N mean? They stand for Hemagglutinin and Neuraminidase respectively – proteins on influenza (also called flu) surface which helps invade the host’s cells.

There are 16 varieties of H and 9 of N, and the combinations of them make 144 varieties of influenzas – from H1N1 to H16N9.

All of them are around – but vary in severity, categorized as A-B-C. The Cs and Bs are the ones we can live with, but the category As – like the H1N1 is deadly.

References:

Global Data

https ://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/events-as-they-happen

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https ://www.bing.com/covid

India Data

https://www.mygov.in/covid-19

Apps

https://www.mygov.in/aarogya-setu-app /

Background

https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_the_next_outbreak_we_re_not_ready

https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_how_we_must_respond_to_the_coronavirus_pandemic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyFT8qXcOrM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A3jiM2FNR8

Readings
https://www.covid101.in /

https://padlet.com/prakashbagri/btqqopgsibb75hjf?utm_campaign=transactional&utm_content=peek_image&utm_medium=email&utm_source=started_a_padlet
Highly recommended

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

https ://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

https ://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-out-of-many-one-36b886af37e9

Also check

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/05/07/180808276/whats-in-a-flu-name-hs-and-ns-tell-a-tale

COVID and Us – The Journey

COVID-19 is changing the behaviour of people in many ways, and we have just seen the beginning.

But first the basics.

COVID has now spread to 208 countries and territories and has exposed almost 100% of the world population. So it is something which we have not seen in our lifetime, and hopefully will not be seen again either.

But right now the prayer on all lips is how to come out of this healthy – as an individual, as family, as community, country, and humanity.

But sure this will have profound changes in us, and many of that we are already seeing.

These are my takes:

Capitalism has always focused on individual success, and success is about cornering resources leaving less for others. So if someone has a big house, big car, large TV he/ she is naturally considered more successful that one who lives in squalor, walks to work, and has no gadgets.

We work hard all our lives to build barriers that will prevent others from having a share of what is scarce – through degrees, entry criteria, connections, manipulations, cartelization, and many more.

But suddenly we find that all these will not help us in our fight against COVID. It is where we are up against an enemy who does not differentiate between who we are, or what we offer.

It can affect anyone, the lack of any treatment/ vaccine is true for all, and the acute lack of preparedness is staring at all of us.

COVID has brought a shared society concept back in a very perverse way and made us rethink many of our assumptions – like figuring out what to do, or taking control of our destiny, or life planned out or retiring at 40, or many more.

Humans have again been posed with the realization that life is uncertain, and no plan is good enough to overcome the future.

Who is our neighbour? Is there a neighbour at all? How are they keeping? Are they keeping well?

When did we last ask these questions? Maybe quite a while. But why so?

Thirty years back the connectivity – both digital and physical was weak. The private sector was not developed, and the public sector was having limitations.

We kept in touch with people are around as because neighborhood support was an alternative to the lack of institutions.

But over the period, we have become nuclear and isolated. Technology and money have given us access. Today we don’t need to reach the neighbor for support if someone falls sick, we call 108. The same is for everything – we can get entertainment on TV, on streaming media, on social media, in Multiplexes.

Groceries on call away, so is plumber, beautician, the food. So we forgot the neighbor, and to be fair – neighbor to forget us.

But COVID suddenly made us acutely aware of the neighborhood.

Are people around me safe, healthy? Have they returned from abroad? Are they quarantined? And if so, are they following the regime? And if they are at home – can we ensure that they do not come out? We help them get the supplies? The groceries? Other help?

Suddenly the neighborhood, the mohalla, the pada is back.

We have the maids, we have the drivers, and we also have other employees who work for us. Most of us are good at them in giving salary in time and ensuring generic wellbeing.

But when did we last asked them about their health, gave them gloves, gave them holidays, gave them advances, and even called them not to come to work?

As again, the health of the people who we typically care less about became as important as that of my family.

“Working for Home”, and it is different from “Work from Home”.

A legion of people, without the comfort of the maids (a very Indian privilege, because labor is cheap, and exploitation is high) suddenly started working on the daily chores. Washing, cooking, cleaning, and dusting. And found that they are not that busy, rather lazy. And yes, of course, there is a newfound awareness about how much slog the maids do for a pittance, and at times some romantic thoughts too – how much our mothers worked to help us grow.

Volunteering as never before has caught up with the nation, with the handicap of not being able to go out. Many want to help, many need help as much of our personal resources locked out, and we now need to reach people unknown to us get at times critical support. And that is also turning many into volunteers themselves.

There are the traditional NGOs who are working at full steam, but what has surprised many are ordinary individuals with no background have sprung up with new models to reach out.

There are social media-based groups like “Caremongers India” who are connecting needs with help. There are local and hyper-local groups who are reaching daily supplies to the folks who are stuck with little or no money. People are standing on the roadside to help walking migrants. Some going out on the roads to give supplies in clusters.

In fact, this possibly is the most redeeming part of COVID, the emergence of unknown, faceless heroes who cares for nothing but humanity.

The nation got a sense of “Working from Home”, at least for a large segment of the services industry.

Traditionally it was the privilege of the select few, mostly in certain large organizations in the IT industry. And many others wondered, often with a sense of indignation, as to how life will be fun with it.

Now a large swathe of the industries has got a test. The devices and connectivity have been tested. The Zooms of the world have become commonplace. The concerns that business can’t be done remotely has been busted in many ways, along with the concern that employees may be malingering or data will be compromised.

But this has also given ideas to many that maybe they do not need so much physical space, or transport to bring in the employees, or for that matter – so many employees itself. How these learnings will change the way we work at organizational levels – we need to wait and watch.

And another area to look at will be business travel. We all know it is bunkum, a way to incentivize people to have a good time. Much of the travel can be replaced by other modes. This will also improve cost – but it will also have an impact on the travel industry.

The rise of government agencies and essential services has been another revelation.

The hospitals are coping up, the banks are running, the telecom is working, and the supplies are on – for the most part.

But what had been more fascinating had been the rise of the police, who in most parts are feared and loathed.

From supplying essentials to singing songs to keep the morale high, to cajoling folks to come out of crowded spaces, to making incessant campaigns – all while keeping the tensions and (largely) the Lathis in check – had been astounding.

The country has seen real heroes who have put their lives in the line of death so that others will leave. I hope that it will significantly alter many professions going forward.

And yes, except for a few exceptions like Bill Gates, the moneyed had been mostly either ineffectual or self-entered in the crisis. It shows that big house, swanky cars, and large balances are of limited value to society at large when there is a crisis.

The capitalist society traditionally scoffed at welfare economies. This coupled with the success more aligned to grabbing than sharing ensured services, where RoI is not too clear, has suffered. Education and healthcare had been traditionally neglected. This, however, has helped the minority of affluent – to get cheap labor who has no voice.

But COVID has shown this model has flaws. Lack of education is clearly a barrier in effective communication – and we see many are still thinking about the issue as something which they are immune to, or don’t really care about.

But what has really shaken us is the lack of adequate healthcare and associated facilities. Though the developed countries will eventually manage to tide over, the developing countries will suffer hugely.

The lack of beds, PPEs, ventilators, oxygen cylinders, sanitizers, isolation wards is staring at us. Given this, and the corruption that ails our healthcare system – we may face situations where we may go a-begging without any treatment whatsoever. At least for people who are not “connected” in the traditional sense.

Brace for a wave of investments in the primary healthcare post COVID. The fear will be real, and drive everyone to focus on this space.

Commerce will change in a significant way. Travel will be curtailed, both by individuals and organizations.

There will be significant travel restrictions that will be there for months, if not months among countries, but maybe inside the countries.

There will be an attempt to take as much business as possible online. We may well see a global design and localized manufacturing to compress the supply chains. Local innovations will rise – both from safety as well security from future disruptions. Entrepreneurship, especially in small scale manufacturing and content (of any form) will see a boost.

A lot of effort will be there to build trust across the board. How do we ensure that the nations, companies, individuals can trust each other with the dissemination of information, confidentiality, and support in situations like this? What will be the new models? I won’t be surprised if the likes of Blockchain become reality beyond the hype.

The slowing down is already showing the benefits of an improved environment. We can see peaks of mountains which were invisible in our lifetime. The satellite images show improvements. The cities have cleaner airs. And sure over time, it will positively improve the climate and the health of people.

Sustainable? Not sure. But momentous? Sure.

What Next?

But the question is – how much of these changes will be permanent?

Well, all will depend on how long the COVID pandemic will play out, and how many people will be affected.

As of now, it looks like a long game. A vaccine to be discovered, trials to be done, released in the market, reaching all the 7+ billion to immunize will be a long haul.

Unless the virus mutates to a less lethal version. But then it may be the other way too.

No one can look into the future. But as of now, it looks that life will change in a significant way for many of us. And for a large part, it will possibly be good.

The world needed a reboot – and it is getting it.

What’s wrong with the agriculture sector?

The farmer is really angry, or rather sad. And that is the case for decades now. 100,000 taking their lives, gives a sense of the misery millions are facing. A lot is being discussed as to how it can be addressed. I am no expert, but I do think some of the areas can be focused on priority:

1. Marginalization of farmers – while the economy has moved to 65% to service sector, this has benefitted only the English speaking, primarily urban population. The loss is magnified in BIMARU states, where Hindi is the language people speaks, but local job creation is minimal. This has resulted in the fragmentation of the land parcels, making mechanization a challenge.

2. Over the years the cooperative movement, which was especially strong in many states has weakened. As the leaders like Sharad Joshi died, there place has been taken by the politicians who wanted to destroy the collective bargaining power. An example – Sugar lobby in Maharashtra.

3. The fertilizer subsidy has been lopsided, so is the insecticides / pesticide. This has led to contamination of top soil with Nitrogen, bringing down the productivity. The issue with Endosulfan is a well-known case.

Also, this led to one size fits all in the application because of price arbitrage, which has affected ecological balance.

4. Only 30% of India gets perennial water as well irrigation – making farmers treacherously dependent on monsoon (the shifting monsoon due to global warming in another challenge).

Given the individual nature of the beneficiaries with low bargaining power, remoteness of the activity, lack of well-defined success metrics, and its dependence on a host of other factors like monsoon, it has become an intractable issue. There are estimates that almost 10 million tube/ deep/ bore wells are either defunct or non-existent. Add to this the canals, land acquisition, other modes of irrigation, prioritization and allocations. The issue just multiplies.

5. Subsidized electricity, with low quality of power is another dimension. One part is only the rich can afford this, and there is rampant pilferage towards domestic and commercial purposes. But the more long term impact is on the water table.

As the power is free and uneven, the farmers just leave the pumps on through the night – with disastrous impact on the level. In certain places, it has reached 1000 feet or more, with unknown content like arsenic or heavy metal being pumped out.

6. The procurement remains as area of grave inefficiency. It has many parts:
a. The Minimum Support Price (MSP) – this at many times has not kept pace with the inflation, and more often than not below the market price. Also MSP for too many of the produce and overall create distortion in crop pattern.
b. The stranglehold of Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) is not reducing, giving the farmer very few options of reaching the market. There are initiatives like e-NAM has so been ineffective.
Example – a coconut which costs INR 2 in Mandya is selling at INR 25 in Bangalore, the middlemen takes the cake.

7. Credit for the farmer at affordable rate is distant dream. Just when microfinance was taking roots, either the promoters became too greedy or politicians found a loophole for populism. There had been some changes with likes of Jan Dhan, but the local moneylenders still rules the roost with the convenience and clout.

Loans are usually taken by the relatively well-off farmers, who then join ranks with the poor farmers for a waiver. This is lose lose for all.

8. While agriculture contributes less than 30% of the GDP, more than 60% of the population are still dependent on that. Add to this the perennial uncertainty – and farmers become a great bogey for all political discounts. So we see things like tax waivers, loan waivers, unreal MSP, subsidies in abandon – in anticipation of the votes. But who really benefits beyond the hyperbole? Not the poor farmer.

This possibly is a very small subset of the challenges the farm sector faces. The poor farmer who provides food for us is today (and yesterday and tomorrow) is a harassed person, with no control on their destiny. So time to time they protest, we all sing paeans. The age old photograph of the poor farmer holding the plough, with the famished family generates a lot of sympathy. But what we need rational empathy, and coordinated plans to address the issues.

The shifting competitive advantage of the IT sector globally and in Bengal

India played a significant role in the Information Technology wave globally. A constant supply of technical talent, proficiency in English, business synergies with OECD countries, first moving advantages and dynamic leadership give it a dominance for over three decades.

However, there is a distinct shift that is happening in the space. With ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT), increasing availability of structured data, exponential growth if computing power, virtualization and cloud enablement of infrastructure, smarter algorithm and overall appreciation that the AI winter is over, is having needle shifting impact in the space. And India is keen to ride this wave as well.

The traditional advantages that helped shape IT revolution remains as our competitive advantages, but where we need focus is developing the human talent who can harvest the advantages of data and compute environment. We need, literally thousands of

– Data scientists who will capture, annotate, clean and retrieve data
– Data modellers who will help clean and structure the data
– Mathematicians who will be developing the data models and algorithms
– Computer engineers who will develop new hardware infrastructure, as well maintain them
– Domain experts who will decide what data to capture as well interpret the results

It is in this context, West Bengal is having competitive advantages which can be leveraged from the sub-continent perspectives

– Premier academic institutes with legacy: first IIT, first IIM, first ISI, Jadavpur, Presidency, Kolkata
– Premier researcher institutes: Bose Institute, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, CSIR, VECC
– A tradition of learning, the only city in South Asia with eight Nobel laureates
– A liberal and vibrant culture which attracts talent from across the world

Adamas University, only non-government Unitary University in Bengal, with an integrated campus of ten schools, an academic group heritage of around four decades, with a low ration of student & faculty (who are from some of the most prominent institutions across the world), with complete residential facilities is uniquely positioned to play a lead role in this space. We will propose a more detailed discussion at convenience.

New Education Policy 2019 – A Discourse

The Draft National Education Policy 2019 submitted by the Committee under the Chairmanship of Dr. Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan and has been uploaded on the Ministry’s website
http://mhrd.gov.in/relevant-documents

The ministry requested comments on the same, with a provision to upload the comments/ recommendations at
https://tinyurl.com/feedback-nep2019

The following are summary overview comments, categorized under relevant heads.

School Education

Some of the key challenges that are seen in the current School Education are:
Lack of infrastructure, including availability of toilets
Under prepared teachers, and no continued education program to keep them updated
Outdated curriculum, which are not updated over a significant period of time
Language challenges – when instructors are familiar with the local languages, or the course contents are not localized
Low level of motivation, high levels of absenteeism of both the staff and the students
Weak pedagogy and evaluations resulting in poor outcomes, as demonstrated by ASER surveys every year
A series of steps has been suggested in the NEP 2019 to address these areas, covering recruitment of teachers, improving quality of teacher training schools, two part early education program, board examinations to test only core concepts, skills and higher order capacities, concept of school complex, long term deployment of the teachers, no non-teaching activities during school hours, continuing professional development programs, School Management Committees in unaided schools, and focus on teaching the core and reduce rot learning are some of them.

Some of the other areas where more details are needed will be:
– How to overcome the resistance of the vested interests in some of the reforms that are proposed. There should be some principles which will explore the possibility of partnerships with the existing players rather than confrontations.
– How to ensure the current set of students, who are already in the system, and have accumulated a backlog of under developed competencies, and needs to be brought to acceptable levels to extract the democratic dividends
– The issue of budgetary constraints have been addressed at the policy level, however the areas like efficient use of the current infrastructure and the available funds to be deliberated in the detail
– While RTE has opened up opportunities for millions of underprivileged students, without a robust bridging model the potential benefits are not fully realized

Higher Education

India has built a number of world class institutions in the years following the independence, but over a period time the initiative have largely moved to the private sector. While it is a welcome trend, it has also added to the challenges that the sector is facing today. Some of the key areas are:
Ensuring the uniformity of the standards and acceptability of the academic institutions across the public and private segments
Increase in Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) while not compromising the intake quality. Rather, we need to have a model for significant interventions at the entry level to improve the faculties of the current batches of the school education for the time the interventions in school system shows results
Quality of the faculty, specifically given the standards of PhDs are of increasing concern, and the same being a gating criteria for almost all academic positions
Avenues to augment the financial resources for the institutions so that they can make significant investments for capacity building
The regulatory compliance, lack of clarity at times, and significant time and energy expended to ensure that an institution is not in violations
NEP 2019 makes a significant number of recommendations to address many of these areas. Some of the significant ones are proposals to set up the National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA) – which will limit the role of all professional councils to setting standards for professional practice, the role of the University Grants Commission (UGC) will be limited to providing grants to higher educational institutions, separating NAAC from the UGC into an independent and autonomous body, that higher education institutions could be allowed to be set up through a Higher Education Institution Charter from NHERA, restructuring the institutions into three categories – research, teaching, and only undergraduate, allowing private institutions to open campuses in other countries etc.

The policy also looked at the lack of growth path and continuing education for the faculty members. However it does not adequately address the issue of lack of fundamental academic capabilities being absent in a significant number of faculty members, and how to address that in a mode of “refuelling while on flight”.

Education Governance

Some issues of the governance have been highlighted in the previous section. A significant challenge is the complexity, at times rigidity, and the time taken for approvals. Compliance is still largely physical and time consuming.

A good number of measures have been suggested, including creation of a National Education Commission or Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog, as an apex body for education. The Draft Policy reaffirmed the commitment of spending 6% of GDP as public investment in education. However this is a goal which with some variance is present all through post-independence, but issue of how to make that a self-sustaining model could have been deliberated in detail.

Adoption of technology

India had been the seat of IT revolution, but it is a tragedy that technology still plays a very limited role in our education system. This spans both the adoption of technology for better learning, as well the faculties available to take the students through the frontier subjects.

The technology adoption of Indian academic institutions suffers from many challenges – budget, infrastructure, connectivity, mobility, terminal devices. However the biggest challenge is the lack of the strategic intent. So most cases the policy makers and implementers both are not thinking incorporation of the technology as a building block. The low awareness and adoption of MOOCs for example is an instance to note.

NEP 2019 suggests some measures – like setting up a National Repository to maintain all records related to institutions, teachers, and students in digital form, as well a mission to encompass virtual laboratories that provide remote access to laboratories in various disciplines. However this needs a much bigger involvement of the technology industry leaders, as well academicians exposed to next generation tech-enabled learnings, for incorporation of the relevant content.

Vocational education

NEP 2019 observes that less than 5% of the workforce in the age-group of 19-24 receives vocational education in India, and suggests all school students must receive vocational education in at least one vocation in grades nine to 12. It also proposes that the Higher Education Institutions must also offer vocational courses that are integrated into the undergraduate education programmes.
While these are noble thoughts, the integration of the vocational skills with the jobs needs to be worked in greater detail. As our experience in the IT industry has shown, when there is an opportunity, capability building happens because organizations become active partners. A much deeper deliberations, including the possibility of the adoption of a similar model, can be looked into.

Adult Education

While we are building the next generation through the School and Higher Education, bringing at least the functional literacy among the adults who are not educated, and outside the academic years, is a critical component in building a just and inclusive society.

NEP 2019 proposed establishing an autonomous Central Institute of Adult Education (as part of NCERT) will develop a National Curriculum Framework, developing relevant courses for youth and adults will be made available at the National Institute of Open Schooling, development of a cadre of adult education instructors and managers, as well as a team of one-on-one tutors etc. It also proposed that the Adult Education Centres will be included within the proposed school complexes – which, if implemented can be a revolutionary idea.

Education and Indian Languages

The three language formula, which was always there, has come under much criticism, and there is a need to deliberate and build consensus around it. However the idea to promote to promote Indian languages, establishing a National Institute for Pali, Persian and Prakrit is a commendable thought. Also the goal that all higher education institutes must recruit high quality faculty for at least three Indian languages, in addition to the local Indian language.

Ethical Education – The Policy Review

Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD), Government of India has come out with Draft National Policy on “Academic Ethics” and solicited inputs on the same. The document is available at
https://static.psa.gov.in/psa-prod/publication/Draft%20National%20Policy%20on%20Academic%20Ethics%202.pdf

The following are the views on Adamas University on the same. The same could not be uploaded on the MHRD designated link, as it is restricting the comments to only 200 characters. So the same is being published as a blog.

The following are summary feedbacks.

On Teaching and research

Documentation and publication of a policy for the same by every institution is a must. It should be displayed in public spaces. This needs to be incorporated in the policy.
The document is silent on the recommended actions on the policy violations. Without that it is only in recommendation stage. This is specifically relevant when an institution or a faculty or an official is in the violation.
We need to ensure that individual moral and ethical standards are not propagated in the class

On Purity of data
The document does not talk of data privacy, safety, access, or areas like collecting only what is needed.
It also does not talk of IP violations. These need be included.
On Publications
Predatory journals – the document ideally should talk of making a black list of them, and publishing the same.
Also, it need to clearly state the onus of authors if one publish in predatory journal. A guideline on how one may recognize the same will be helpful.
The document is silent on the plagiarism on course content created by the faculties, as well the student submissions. In fact anti plagiarism should be made mandatory as a first step for all evaluations.
Need to anti plagiarism software being mandatory not mentioned. Rather it downplays the value of this. It needs to be looked into.
On Safety and Environment
Safety guidelines should be mentioned in the document.
All safety compliance records should be available on request of the stakeholders – background checks of staff members, fire audit NOC, Standard Operating Procedures etc.
All institutions should publicly display their affiliations (aided, unaided, deemed, CBSE etc.) and status (minority etc.). It should also state the Rights and Duties of all stakeholders through prominent communications.
On Bias and discrimination
The document does not talk of need for audit for finding biases which creeps into content, delivery, evaluation etc. at times unknowingly.
It does note talk about the adoption of Vishakha guidelines not mentioned.
It does note talk about the adoption of POSOCO guidelines not mentioned.
Call out Women as a group, but with the evolution of the society we also need to call out “Others” in particular. The same is true for the LGBTQ community.
On Public interaction and outreach
Responsibility of creating inclusive forums not mentioned in the document.
On Science administration
There should be benchmarks at every stage, ideally not global benchmarks, to understand where one stands at any point of time. They are not mentioned.
Need to baseline oneself through peer reviews, wherever possible, not mentioned in the document.
The document also does not mention the need for independent audits.
On Role of whistleblowers
The document does not talk of protection when whistleblowing is done in good faith but accusation don’t stand. This is fundamental to protection against victimization when someone acts in good faith.
It is also silent about the long term protection of whistleblowers.
On Regulatory Norms
Publication and display of all the relevant documents in wherever appropriate is a necessity. This needs to be articulated.
Overall the draft is a good attempt to bring a structure on a very vast and difficult area. It is hoped over the period, based on experience and deliberations it will be fine-tuned for desired outcomes.

If anyone wants to share individual views, the same can be posted here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSclwTqhcrEopuYjpdkifNZiWbWj35VOiOxrXATeXxPPOevMsA/viewform?usp=sf_link

Driverless cars – challenges beyond price, adoption and performance

A lot of excitement and concern is around driverless cars today. Tesla, Google, Apple, automobile manufacturers, starts ups are investing billions in a technology which is expected to transform the transportation sector in the coming years. Tectonic shifts are expected in the employment in the industry, automobile buying behaviors, shared economy and even cars becoming a utility rather than possession.

However, beyond all these, there are some questions which are slowly popping up around the concept, and needs to be addressed as we progress. Here are my top five picks:

1. Whom does the car protect in case of an untoward incident? How do we design the software? Will the car always protect the driver? Or the co-passengers? Or the pedestrians? What will happen if the choice is between hitting an income truck vs. a bunch of people on the road?

Some people are calling this as “deciding who will die, and writing a code around that”. This will be a moral and ethical quagmire.

2. Who is responsible for anything which happens to the car? Today the driver is first port of law for the law enforcement authorities unless some mechanical malfunction is proved.

But how do we decide going forward? Especially given manual override is always an option? And what happens when a driverless car has involved another entity managed by a human (like a driven car)? Will the manufacturer be held responsible or the person on the driver’s seat, or the other car driver? What happens if there is no one on the driver’s seat? Or for that matter, the driverless car is being operated by a ride provider? These are some of many questions that need to be addressed as we go forward.

3. Who audits the software? All of these are being developed as proprietary software, and will only be audited based on anticipated used cases. The same is the case with for example aircraft, trains, ships or missiles. But the first three are always on tracks away from people, and the missiles are almost never used on civilians unless there is a war.

However, cars will always be on the road, which is shared by people almost all the time. And the possibilities of the mishap cases are technically infinite, as every person on the street thinks differently. So however much we may plan, there will always be a gap in the logic. How do we ensure the safety of such proprietary software’s, whose malfunction can turn a vehicle into a killing machine – maybe even for the people inside the car?

4. Who will ensure that cars are not hacked, and controlled for nefarious use (either individually or in large numbers)? What do we do in such a case? Will there be some remote control which will be activated in case such situations are suspected? What will happen in case there are false alarms?

With the number of cases where automobiles have turned itself onto the passer-bys in recent past, such possibilities are more real today than ever before. Today individuals are involved today and already really bad, juts imagine of many cars turn rogue at the same time.

5. What will be the impact of human civilization? Today car and house are possibly the two most common aspirations for people across the world. People, especially in the developing and underdeveloped countries, spend their lifetime in fulfilling these desires, and thus they are significant drivers of one’s pursuit of happiness.

What happens if one of the two is no more relevant? Add to that the whole psychology of belonging to an automobile, the sense of being responsible while driving others around, the whole expertise of the journey with its human frailties and uncertainties. What happens if all these vanishes? Will society move one step closer to robotization? And how will people react to all that?

How do I connect with my teenage kid: The Adamas Way

Globally teaching has changed significantly over the last few decades. Teachers are no more the ones who has all the knowledge, they are more like enablers who partner in learning together.

With data or information or increasingly knowledge being more freely available given the digitization of the content, and consumption on the network – the asymmetry is now gone. So today it is not possible for a teacher to enter the class with all the cards. They should rather focus more on methodology, understanding, co-learning, co-creation, and finally as propounded by many including Sugata Mitra, teachers should be asking the right question.

All these are great developments. Progressive, productive. But this has an impact on an adjacent relationship. What happens at home?

It had been a while that the parents, especially in the affluent sections, are increasingly becoming friendly with the kids. The cane is out, the intrusive enquiries are out, the curiosity about what is going on the lad’s life is out. In fact many are taking it farther. They are giving independence to the children to shape their own life. Including even taking an hands off approach to academics.

So far so good. But then there is a conflict. While the parents have evolved, and the kids have become accustomed to a new way of living, the world outside has not changed as much.

Academics still remains the best insurance of the families for the settled future of the next generation. And the world outside remains uncertain as ever.

So in every parents mind is now a conflict – how do I know what is happening in the life of my kid, without being a snapper?

How is the academics going? How is the attendance? Who are friends? How are the soft skills? How do I know the interests? The passions?

This seems to reach a crescendo specially in the teenager years, when the child stops speaking less at home, and parents become old enough to feel helpless. And social media only adds to the worry. What is he/ she doing on the phone? Who are the connects? I am so worried, but I can’t ask to stop using it. It is so uncool and unreal.

I think this is a space where a partnership between the parent, the teacher will be help. The triangulation of the three will help all to be in the same page, as partners, in a non-threatening way. The passion of the students, the discipline of the educational institution, and love of the parents can do wonders in shaping a balanced future.

How can one do that? Well there are many ways, but I suppose there is still no better way than having an open, candid and transparent Parent Teacher meeting, with the students present.

At Adamas University we have taken this up with passion.

Every three months, by rotation, the parents of the students from three to four schools meet the entire faculty, Chancellor and Vice Chancellor in the University auditorium. The students are also welcome.

The seating is not face to face, rather the teachers mostly sit with the audience. The functional heads, VC and Chancellor takes the questions. Faculties are called in as an when a relevant question is there.

But it is not the meeting per se, but the spirit what matters. No questions are off bound. And there are no pre-set questions. I have seen parents standing up, introducing themselves in reference to their child, and then complaining about the food. Or students talking of how they are not getting enough practical exposure. Or food committee students mentioning they are not being made partners in the decision making.

Interdisciplinary – the new word in education which is not a buzz

Targeted medicine has taken the world of healthcare by storm.

It started when Craig Venter set up the Celera Genomics in 1998, and the long standing dream of mapping the “code of life” started taking shape.

Celera and many more organizations have been able to overcome the challenge of codification of the two billion genes in the DNA of human beings. The double helix structure which was first written about by James D. Watson, and it’s connections of guanine, adenine, thymine and cytosine (ATCG) was cracked. Over time, the cost of mapping the genome code (genome sequencing) of an individual has fallen dramatically – from almost $10 million in 2008 to close to $1,000 today.

And with this came up the discussions on targeted medications.

ICD 10 defines diseases under more than 155,000 categories. Add to these thousands of types of drugs, poisons and allergies. The total combination is approximately 32 billion. That then needs to be mapped to the age, previous illnesses, the gene pool of a geographic location – and the problem becomes gargantuan. No wonder the medication is always a best case scenario, dependent on the doctor’s understanding, clinical knowledge, patient constitution, treatment and medication history, and many other parameters.

So targeted medication, which brings in the knowledge gathered from the “code of life” of an individual, along with the history and crunching the data to find the best case scenario is an area which excites the medical community like never before.

But what it takes to make such a drug? Well of course we have already spoken about gene mapping, the medication history, the gene pool, the diagnosis, the dugs/ allergy/ diseases/ poisons. That is lot of healthcare.

But we need a lot of data, the storage and computing of that. That needs cutting edge hardware, software, and analytics tools. And we need engineers who has that skills.

We need people who can articulate the vision of the targeted medication and make people aware of the possibilities. Those are people who understands the society, the psychologists, the technical writers, the marketers.

We need the physicists and chemists to understand the interactions between molecules and the human body. We will need simulators who will help design the drugs. We will need companies who will help doing clinical studies, and social groups who will find volunteers.

We will need people with knowledge of law and medicine, to draft the rules and the agreements. We will need mechanical, electrical, chemical and computer science engineers to understand the needs of the sophisticated machinery and build them.

We will need the compute power, and data repositories. Also skills who can help in data capture, storage, annotation and access.

And overall we will need social and political leadership to ensure that the society is ready for such disruptive treatment.

So where we have come? From healthcare of drug discovery, to a comprehensive multidisciplinary activity – where so many people are involved.

And that is one of examples of the cutting edge initiatives that we are having today in every sphere. Gone are the days where we can bucket something – for everything people with different skills and knowledge needs to come together.

So spots need management for making better sports persons and infrastructure, and physicians and mechatronics individuals for finding the right movements. And doctors, physics and nutritionists for the right diet and supplements.

And that is where a Unitary University comes handy. But there are rare – as it needs space to have all the departments in one campus. Like Presidency, Jadavpur and Adamas – only three in Bengal.

Here the students may take advantage of being close to all the departments outside their own. They can take classes there with credit sharing mode. They can form interdisciplinary teams, they can attend conferences spanning across disciplines.

And they be more ready for the workplace of the future. And have a head start.