How To Stay motivated During A Lockdown Crisis?

When confirmed cases of Covid-19 are rising each day it is causing a lot of stress and anxiety among people. They are in state of panic as it has worsen their lives and livelihoods. At present when there is no possible treatment of Coronavirus the only cure is social distancing.

This pandemic induced lockdown was imposed by government to stop the chain of Coronavirus and to save lives of our loved ones. Soon this lockdown was followed by social distancing and quarantine. I know being at homes for several days may sound like a cabin fever but if we want to survive the norms of social distancing must be followed.

So stop now, each day thinking what will happen in future? When will this lockdown period get over? When will markets, schools and offices will open? Think now how to better utilize this precious time. Invest your energy and mind in productive stuff. This will bring positivity in your life.

Here are a few simple tips to help you motivated, productive and most importantly positive during this crucial time.

Set your goal – This is the best time especially for students preparing for any competitive exam. You have plenty of time. Set your goal and work each day hard so that in future you can say yes I have cracked it. Your day will surely come. Till then practice, practice and practice.

Develop yoga habits – You can start your day with yoga or any sort of meditation that keep you out of mental stress. Yoga will make you both mentally and physically fit. So it is advisable if you want a good body image as well as learn how to stay focused and concentrated yoga is surely the best option for you.

Involve yourself in household chores – Why it is so that each time we have to burden our moms or wives with the household activity. This is the only time when you are free and can engage yourself in household activities. This will surely give you moms and wives some me time for themselves where they can relax and enjoy. Your little efforts will bring huge smile on their faces and this will be a small token of love from your side. So think about it!

Take care of mother nature by planting trees

You can also show your love and care towards nature by planting trees at your homes or nearby surrounding.

Explore your hidden talent – Everyone has some or the other hobby or any area of interest. So explore your interest. Invest your time in your hobbies such as dancing, painting, singing, gardening etc. This is the time to find your inner self. Discover yourself and be passionate about it.

Experiment with your food- You can also do some sort of experiment with your food by cooking different different dishes. At this time when your favourite restaurants are closed you can daily experiment with some new food items and can treat yourself and your loved ones.

Develop habit of writing diary- At this time when we all our full of various mixed feelings, delimas, experiences writing diary is the best option to store them all for our future memory.

Spending quality time with our loved ones- This is the perfect time where you can spend quality time with your family members and loved ones and can make your bond even more stronger. You can play indoor games with them, can watch classic and good movies, can cook with them, can innovate new things with them, can laugh with them and a lot more stuff that over years you have regretted of not able to do with them. So make this moment your lifetime cherished memory.

I hope the above tips will help you stay motivated in your lives. Till then stay connected with your friends and family. Explore new things. Find your improved version. Stay confident, stay happy, spread happiness soon these gloomy days will disappear. Till then pray from God that everyone gets enough strength to cope up with this situation and soon the entire world gets rid away from this pandemic.

the concept of gender roles : what we think and what it is…….

Although, we have known the word gender in grammar obviously, it is being used differently now. The word gender is now being used Sociologically, or as a conceptual category, and it has been given a specific meaning. In its new incarnation gender refers to the socio-cultural definition of man and woman and assign them social roles. It is used as an analytical tool to understand social realities with regard to women and men.

The nature of this article is not based on feminism but to define what people see in terms of gender roles. Today also it is taught in school textbooks of kids that a woman is meant to be a house maker or a teacher or a nurse and same as a man is meant to be a doctor or a business person. When these jobs are reversed, we fall into a huge whirlpool of thoughts, is it even possible. And we sometimes take these things to be wrong. But, this is not the way gender roles works.

Gender Division of Labour: Gender division of labour, refers to the different roles, responsibilities, and tasks to women and men based on societal ideas of what men and women should do and are capable of doing. Different tasks are assigned to girls and boys, women and men according to their sex-gender roles, and not necessarily according to their individual prefrences/ capabilities.

Gender division of labour also leads to hierarchies and inequalities because men and women’s labour is not valued or rewarded equally. Even now, equal pay for equal work is not the norm in most countries; housework is unpaid; and women are the first to be fired when recession hits the workplace. The gender division of labour is not the same everywhere. It is specific to culture, location, and time. To challenge the gender division of labour in society means challenging what being a “man” and “woman” in a society entail.

The situation may not always be intolerable; but it is impossible to predict that it will not become so. Clavdia von Werlhof

The gender division of labour is responsible for statistics like : Globally women hold only 14 per cent senior management positions (UNDP Human Development Report, 1995) ; the ratio between women’s salaries and men’s salaries in US continues to be 3:5 and this has not changed in the last one hundred years. Seventy per cent of the world’s poorest and illiterate people are women.

This data exactly show that what we thought of gender roles and what they really are. These are how the tactics work in this world. It is said that, “Woman’s place in the house, therefore women should be in the both houses of Parliament “.

In the conclusion, there is a need to focus on the positions women are placed in the society. Because women gives birth to a child and feed the child, it does not mean that the work of women is to nurture only. To assess the position we need to look at the social relations of gender or power relations between men and women. To improve women’s position the existing norms, structure and power relations between men and women have to be changed.

Refrences:- 1. Understanding Gender by Kamla Bhasin 2. Lerner Greda, 1986, The Creation of Patriarchy. gender-inequality-in-higher-education

Exam matters lives don’t!

Writing this post for obvious reasons. We are in such a horrible situation where people think twice to come out of their home even for daily/basic needs, and these people don’t even think before keeping exams. Future of the country they call’s but there future exist or not they don’t care, they have no concern over the lives but what matters to them is exams., yes exams are important and if the situation were normal then students may have written no doubt. But why make a fuss over here, this is not the right time to ignore the pandemic and focus more on the exams. Its cent percent true that exams are only the basis on which ones future gets decided as per our education system but in that case there should be future. Who do you think will take the responsibilities of students if they get infected. Many are jobless as of now and are not able to afford transportation, many are out of town, they are struggling to get back to their home town while you are making hype among the students to write exams.

Wow, I mean I am blown by the decisions of various universities, state boards who without any second thought making every possible arrangements. This looks as, if students didn’t write these particular exams they will be loosing very valuable thing. As myself being a university student they are constantly asking for the payment of the examination fee, I mean seriously will these people stop bragging about exams and concentrate on how to save people and they should not involve with each other in any case.

Even if somehow students get to the examination centre, are they sure that they will not mingle with each other before and after the exam. No matter how hard they take precautions from their side but there are double the chances that students may get infected. We students aren’t searching for reasons to avoid exams, if that would be the case why we would have wrote the previous exams. And writing one more would not have hurt our ego but this does because we students prefer our lives more than exams.

PS:- Lastly no offence. This is just my concern over the necessary topic which is taken too much to be heard by the officials.

Effect of COVID-19 and Lockdown on Education System

As we all know India is facing a pandemic situation due to coronavirus. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all the systems not only in India but also in the World. It has affected the educational system all over the World. Most government around the world has closed the educational system of their country to reduce the spread of coronavirus.
As in present situation, it is spreading very fast. 8000-10,000 new cases tests positive for coronavirus daily. In this situation, the reopening of schools, colleges and universities is uncertain. It is not safe for students. No doubt, this is an important time for education sector because entrance exams of several universities and competitive exams are held during this time. Many state boards and cbse board exams are pending, which is an important part of a students life. Exams of all universities are pending.
The immediate solution of coronavirus is necessary because of these days passes, it will not only be a short term impact in India but also can cause social and economic consequences. Closure of schools and colleges has affected round 600 million learners across the world.
The lockdown has generated uncertainty over the exam cycle. University may face impact on the internships and placements of the students and lower fees collection that can create hurdle in managing the working capital.
According to government instructions, schools has started online teaching. Technology has played an important role in this lockdown period. Students had gone away from the studies. They are not able to understand online as they understand in their schools. Low-income private and government and private schools may not be able to adopt online teaching methods. As a result they had completely shut down due to no access to e-learning solutions. Due to this, the students are in a great loss.
Central and State government need to take some measures for the progress. Time never waits for anyone, it will pass. It cannot be forget that capacity building of young minds is necessary. So there is a need to improve online teaching methods for a better of students.

Virtual classes- boon or bane?

Amid the tensions of the world pandemic, (the ‘Novel Coronavirus’)all at once changed in our lives, as if the time has stopped and we all have been taken into thinking that everything would sank back and our lives would become monotonous and dull. But thanks to our technology, the rapid growth of the science community that our lives have been eventually saved, despite all the worries and abominable thinkings of getting stucked at our houses. And surprisingly, we were and are still able to connect to our nearest and dearest ones.

This boon of technology massively profited the professionals and people engaged in tertiary sector to try and get back to the track of life through virtual meetings, so to say webinars;the idea of work from home which was only associated with big MNCs and IT companies now became one of the major revolution in the country like India. But this revolution also approched to every little child who always tried and escaped from going to school. And here comes the irony, children enjoyed taking these virtual classes more seriously contrasting with the adults who thought it has been a punishment to them, to manoeuver both home as well as offices at the same time. Talking about the children who eventually grew desire to attend these online classes, we unopposedly can come to a conclusion that they must have taken such an interest because of the following-:

Having the smartphones in their hands make them look that they are busy and tend to be the apple of their parents’ eyes.

Since it’s a common tendency of today’s adults, who are parents to make their child busy by providing them the weapon called the smartphone, and as a result their child sinks into the world of their own creation and stop being a burden on them.

Online learning or e-learning is one the new trial for all of us to ease the learning process and provide more of the information in short period of time. It will be definitely and surely a worthy experience to start a new initiative and promote more of virtual learning in the near ffuture-government is doing so by starting “Diksha for school students and EVidya Programme for college going ones-. While we could appreciate the sudden rise in the desire of studying in the students, we can also not forget the children of remote areas who pay off a good amount to study in cities but could not afford a good internet connection back in their homes. What about them? It is one of the big question that has been heated all over the country. Although we find that most of the students do not face a big deal with attending these virtual classes, still many lack at the village and remote levels.

A recent incident of a girl from the state with almost 100 percent of the literacy, i. e. Kerala is evident enough to show us that we are still somewhere lagging behind. Although she had the access and Kerala government did a great deal by starting a channel to ease the pain of poor students, but then her blind will to study online made her sacrifice her life.

The agitation of students protesting against online exams is no less a situation which is to be taken no notice on, since it flooded over all over the internet.

Although it’s one of the effective methods for the coming future and will bring more and more students on a digital platform. But for now the problem lakhs of children are facing is inevitable, and cannot be ignored but has to be repaired. The addiction to our smartphones and the desire to grab this new method on has also made the situation to get worsen.

Bazil’s President Bolsonaro Threathens to quit WHO

Following the footstep of his counterpart Donald Trump, President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro has warned to quit the World Health Organization (WHO) unless it ceases to be a “Partisan political organization.” 

The president said “I tell you here, the United States left WHO, we are considering it in the future (…). Either WHO works without ideological bias, or we are leaving it too.”

“We don’t need outsiders to give their feelings about health here,” he told reporters in Brasilia.

All over the world, around 4,02,428 people had died because of the coronavirus Pandemic since it emerged last year in China. This pandemic affects every nation among those nations European countries are affected very much.

 Brazil ranks third among the European countries with total deaths of around 36000, while this figure has crossed 1,00,000 in the USA.

Governments of all over the world are focused on resuscitating economies, which has declined due to the lockdown of several months. 

 Suspension of the clinical trial of the drug hydroxychloroquine –

Accusing WHO as the puppet of China, last month US President Donald Trump also announced to take back US membership from World health organization.

 Mr. Bolsonaro criticized WHO for suspending clinical trial of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and warned to pull out of World health organization like US President Donald Trump.

Earlier the study published in The Lancet, can not answer the question of whether hydroxychloroquine can help the patient fight Covid-19 or not, and with the use of this drug the death cases increase or not. But a recent study found that those patients of Covid-19, treated with hydroxychloroquine drug had a higher risk of death than those who didn’t take it.

The WHO has also changed the guidelines on the face mask and asks to loosen the social distancing.WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said that a key criterion for lifting lockdowns was slowing transmission and asks to loosen the social distancing.

“The epidemic, the outbreak, in Latin America is deeply, deeply concerning,” she told a news conference in Geneva. 

The positive cases all over the world are increasing every day. Coronavirus infected almost 6.7 million people and 4 lac deaths globally.

Every Nation is trying to recover from this pandemic after risking its economy into the deepest recession since the great depression of the 1930s.

This impacted even the country with the largest economy. The US with 1.9 million the highest number of COVID-19 positive cases and 1 lac death Mr. Trump is trying to bring the economy on the track again.

Mr. Trump also said the economy was bouncing back. “We had the greatest economy in the history of the world. And that strength let us get through this horrible pandemic, largely through, I think we’re doing really well,” he told reporters.

The Country which is never behind

India a country which is never behind the other countries have once more proved it that they won’t stay behind anyone. But this time it’s for the wrong cause. India has climbed the ladder of the worst affected Corona countries rather rapidly and now it’s already on the 5th position. Even though precautions were told to be taken still people didn’t obey all the rules set up by the government which would be said as the major cause for increase in cases. Doctors and all the medical staff and working day in and day out but still the fight is yet to won against Covid 19 and even though India has crossed Italy and Spain in the ladder there is still 4 places from which we have to take care so that India doesn’t climb this ladder so soon.

English Literature

                                                 

English literature refers to all the works that are written in English language.Literature of a country actually depicts the social,economic and political background of that country and gives the vivid idea of the changes that take place over the years. .Starting from short stories or novellas to novels and dramas,English literature is considered to be vast and huge and at times a bit tough to grasp.In order to understand English language and literature one has to study it deeply by reading its history,different English writers and their work.
Studying English language and literature does not simply mean reading English writers. While studying English language and literature we see that there are different periods and these periods show different ages through which English literature has evolved. These periods give profound information about the background of English literature and how it has changed. The different periods are given below along with their years:-
450-1066 – Old English [also known as Anglo Saxon Period]
1066-1500 – Middle English Period
1500-1600 -The Renaissance
1558-1603 -Elizabethan Age
1603-1625- Jacobean Age
1625-1660-Commonwealth PeriodPeriod
1660-1785- The Neo classical Period
1660-1700-The Restoration
1700-1745-The Augustan Age[Age of Pope]
1745-1785-The Age of Sensibility [Age of Johnson]
1785-1830-The Romantic age
1832-1901-The Victorian Period
1848-1860-The Pre Raphaelites
1880-1901-Aesthetism
1901-1914 -The Edwardian Period
1910-1936-The Georgian Period
1914- The Modern age
1945-Post Modernism
Now,the English writers were born in these periods and they have written mesmerizing masterpieces that has contribited to make English literature what it is today.The different periods along with the writers that are born in that age along with their famous writings are discussed in a nut shell.
During the Anglo Saxon Period, the Norman Conquest took place in 1066 and after the Romans left in 410,the British population became open to the inroads of the invaders from the north. Many of the poems of this age have the features which are associated with the pagan past, namely Widsith and Beowulf. Among all the Old English poets we find the direct mention of Caedmon. The name of another poet is Cynewulf. We get to know about him because he had signed his poems in runic letters at the end of four poems. Many of the prose and poetry have been translated from Latin. The works for translation were the books of Bible., the lives of the saints and many works of practical nature. Regarding the manuscripts, only a portion has survided. The theme of the poem Beowulf is Continental German.’Widsith’ is considered to be the oldest poem in English language which consists of 150 lines of verse. In the poem a traveller, considered to be more imaginary than real recounts the places and the illustrious people that he had visited. From the historical point of view the porm is very important. ‘Waldere’ consists of two fragments and is of sixty lines and talks about some of the exploits of Aquintaine. Again ‘The Battle of Maldon ‘describes the battle that took place in 993 and’ ‘The Battle of Brunanburh’ is a piece based on the war of of 937. Then there are some elegies like ‘The Wanderer’, ‘The Seafarer’, ‘The Wife’s Lament’and ‘The husband’s Message’ that are found in the Exeter Book.
The Middle English Period is considered to be the period of transition and of experiment. And most of the surviving works are poetry. Poetry of Middle English can be classified unto three groups:-
(1) Chronicles-
(a) Layamon’s Brut-It was written in 1205 by Layamon and it has sixteen thousand alternative lines about the history of Britain from the landing of Brute to the death of Cadwallader.
(b) Robert of Gloucester-He is known for his rhyming chronicle.
(2) Religious and Didactic poetry-‘The Ormulum’ was witten by Orm in 1200,of enormous length(ten thousand lines even incomplete) It was written in North East Midlands dalect.
(3)”The owl and the Nightingale’ is propably written in the eary part of the 13 th century.
The alliterative poems include ‘Pearl’,Purity’, ‘Patience’. Moreover there are numerous romances concered loosely or closely with King Arthur-‘Arthur and Merlin’, ‘Morte d Arthur’, The matter of Rome, ‘Matter of France’
One of the famous writers of this period is Chaucer. He was born in 1340 in London. His literary career was divided into 3 periods-French, Italian and English.One of his most famous works is ‘Canterbury Tales’
Beast epics were also found during this age like ‘The fox and the Woolf’,Chaucer’s’The Nun Priest’s Tale”.Pier’s the Plowman’ is an allegorical poem written in old alliterative meter in the later part of 14 th century. The author is taken to be William Langland.
The Renaissance was started in Italy specially in art and architecture. Renaissance signified the adoption of humanist philosophy.It was the beginning of the modern world in the areas of geography ,science, religion, politics, society and art. London became the capital city of England. New literary genres such as essay(Montaigue), new metrical forms such as sonnets (Petriarch) and Spenserian stanza actually made their appearance. The dominant art forms of the English Renaissance were literature and music.
Spenser is considered to be one of the finest writes of Elizabethan age. ‘The Shepherd’s Calender’ was published in 1579 and this had marked his formal entry as a new poet. He is considered to be the first modern poet to exploit true poetic resources of English language. Again John Donne belonged to the school of Metaphysical poets.. He was born in 1573 in London. He had written satires like ‘Of the Progress of the Soul’.’Songs and Sonnets’is Donne’s love poem. His poems are extremely personal and reveal a complex being for example ‘Extasie’, He had written 19 holy sonnets and his prose include ‘Sermons’, ‘The Pseudo Martyr”During the Elizabethan Age we also find some poets who were called The University Wits. This group consisted of writers like Christopher Marlowe whose works include ‘Dr. Faustus’, ‘Jew of Malta’, ‘Tanburlaine the Great’., Thomas Nash whose only surviving play is ‘Summer’s Last Will’ and the Testament’. Another work is ‘The Unfortunate Traveller’, Thomas Lodge who collaborated with Shakespeare in ‘Henry 4’, Robert Greene, George Peele who used to write in blank verse and Thomas kyd whose most famous work is ‘Spanish Tragedy’. Ben Jonson is another famous writer and his most successful play is ‘Man in His Humour”. Shakespeare is one of the finest English writers and his famous works include’The Merchant of Venice’, ‘Romeo And Juliet’, ”Hamlet’. John Milton’s famous writing ‘Paradise Lost ‘ is considered to be a masterpiece.
During the romantic age emphasis was given to self expression and emotions.The famous Romantic writers include Wordsworth, Coledrige, Byron, Shelley, Keats. Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth and his famous works include’Prelude’ and ‘Daffodils’. Coleridge was born in Devonshire and some of his most famous works are ‘Kubla Khan’ and ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’One of the most famous writings of Shelley is ‘Ode to the West Wind’and Keats’s most famous works include’Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘To Autumn’.
The victorian age can be considered to be the age of peace. Some of the famous Victorian writers are Jane Austen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Blake.E.B.Browning has written ‘The Seraphim and Other Poems’ and ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’. Tennyson was born in this age and some of his works are ‘Ulysses’,’The Princess’ etc. Christina Rossetti was a Victorian woman poet and her most famous collections ‘Goblin Market and other poems ‘appeared in 1862.It received widespread critical praise. She has also written a book of devotional prose called’ The Face of the Deep’.
Some of the modern day poets include Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Moreover Virginia Woolf who has written ‘To the Lighthouse’ and T. S. Eliot who has writen The Wasteland’ are considered to be the greatest modernist writers.
To conclude English Literature is the amalgamation of beautiful masterpieces written by exceptionally talented writers who have given their thoughts a character, emotions a life and imagination a shape.. There are various genres and sub genres and the history of evolution of English literature is itself the evidence of its richness.

IIT-HYDERABAD DEVELOPS CHEAPER COVID-19 TESTING KITS


Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad have developed a first of its kind testing kits for COVID-19 , which can deliver results in under 20 minutes.

“We have developed a Covid-19 testing kit which can deliver results in 20 minutes for symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. The uniqueness of this test kit is that it functions sans the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR),” Shiv Govind Singh, the professor at IIT-Hyderabad’s Electrical Engineering Department said.

The test kit has been developed at a cost of Rs. 550 , but can be reduced to a cost of upto Rs. 350, if mass produced, they said.

According to researchers, these test kits do not employ the Reverse Transcript Polymerase Chain Reaction, which is the one that is currently being used to detect COVID-19 . Instead provides for an alternative testing method .

While a patent has been filed , the team is conducting test trails for the same at ESIC Medical College & Hospital in Hyderbad. They have also sought for an approval from the Indian Counsil for Medical Research (ICMR) .

“The low cost testing kits are easy to carry around and tests can be done at point of care. The testing methods used is an alternate to the currently employed method.We identified a unique sequence of conserved regions of COVID-19 genome,” said Mr. Singh , who lead the three-member team.

The researchers have also claimed that the ones they have developed were “probe-free” as opposed to the “probe-based” method employed by testing kits currently being used.

Before IIT-Hyderabd, IIT-Delhi became the first academic institute to have obtained the approval of ICMR for a real-time PCRP-based diagnostic assay.

Recent estimates have shown that India has now become the fifth-worst COVID-19 hit country, as it has surpassed Spain by reporting a total of 2,41,970 cases through out the country.

INDIAN EDUCATION IN future

In a trendy world, Education has become a part of the survival of being. The level of the educational system is based on the country’s development. Such a process of gaining knowledge is called as an Education.

Among various countries, our Indian Education is exceptional in such cases. Our educational system is pick up with the primary level and then move. On to higher or senior secondary. Further, they have to lead their ways in lifetime courses as “technology and professional” by means of their own, so-called Graduation. Both technological and professional courses had a sufficient scope for the young generation.

With these enriching qualities, our educational system also has to struggle among ignorant people. In India, nearly 30 million pupils at the age of 10 to 16 did not know about schooling. It will be a prodigious drawback for Indian Education in the future. This drawback was held because of the reasons like less number of schools in rural India, and unfilled vacancies of teacher and make the far distance to get schooling, expenses spending for Education. As the rich became richer, the learner became a scholar but the unbeknownst people remains the same, by the time passes their day to day life became worse. The only solution is to change unawareness among our Tri-Colour Nation is to educate everyone. It is possible nowadays.

Compulsory school education must proclaim every part of India. Heraldically government should take its own risk for well being of educating people. It will result in a drastic change to younger India to face its economic crisis.

Education is digitalized nowadays, but it was not familiar with everyone. Only people who are in metropolitan cities are gaining their luxurious moves.E-learning is not wider for all. The reason behind it was our India is a staple agricultural county. Since the population covers 40%of elderly people whose life based on farming, some remaining of them got to push to live below the poverty line to free themselves from their own sufferings.

A.C.Amali

Still, we can find child labor as we can see teenagers in a roadside hotel, grocery stores, construction workers, and so on working for their daily life. The government should strictly announce an outlaw to it. By executing free and compulsory education which is not a solution, it should be taken as a resolution to every citizen around here. Some Indian states are good at going free educating people, but the effort of these moves is not enough, it seems. Awaiting to see developed India.