Glossophobia is the fear of public speaking, a kind of social phobia, the fear of the social situation. Too many of us scared to speak not only in front of the group even also with a stranger, in short, but it can also even occur in front of a few people. A study tells that 4 out of 5 choose to die over public speaking.
The people who are suffered from these always tried to avoid social gatherings also get symptoms such as Sweating, headache, increasing heartbeat, dry mouth, suffocation and mental stress. Glossophobia can be successfully treated with several ways .one of them is Cognitive- Behavioural Therapy (CBT) but the best way is yourself only, you are the only therapist who can come over from this if you really want to do. You will gradually command over your speech and confidence which will help out in public speaking.

Increasing Use of AI and Machine Learning 

According to Gartner’s 2019 CIO Agenda survey, the percentage of organizations adopting AI jumped from four to 14% between 2018 and 2019. Given the benefits that AI/ML offers in business analysis, risk assessment, R&D, and resulting cost-savings, AI implementation will continue to rise in 2020. 

However, many organizations that adopt AI and Machine Learning don’t fully understand these technologies. In fact, Forbes points out that 40% of the European companies claiming to be ‘AI startups’ don’t use the technology.

While the benefits of AI and ML are becoming more evident, businesses will need to step up and hire people with the right skills to implement these technologies. Some are well on their way. KPMG’s recent survey of Global 500 companies shows that most of those surveyed expect their investment in AI-related talent to increase by 50-100% over the next three years.  

Transparency Trends in AI

Despite becoming so ubiquitous, AI suffers from trust issues. As businesses plan to increase their use of AI systems, they will want to do so more confidently. After all, no one wants to trust the decisions of a system that they don’t understand. 

Hence, there will be a bigger push for deploying AI in a transparent and clearly-defined manner in 2020. While companies will make efforts to understand how AI models and algorithms work, AI/ML software providers will need to make sophisticated ML solutions more explainable to users. 

With transparency becoming a key conversation in the AI space, the roles of professionals who are in the trenches of programming and algorithm development will become more critical.

Long before the coronavirus pandemic, college costs had already entered unprecedented territory. According to a study by Broke Scholar, the average cost of tuition and fees — in inflation-adjusted dollars — at both private and public schools has more than tripled from the academic year 1971-72 to 2019-2020.

• In 1971-72, average tuition and fees at a private nonprofit four-year institution cost $11,540 in 2019 dollars. For the 2019-20 academic year, the current average cost is $36,880 for tuition and fees: an increase of 220%.
• In 1971-72, average tuition and fees at a public four-year institution cost $2,710 in 2019 dollars. For the 2019-20 academic year, the current average cost is $7,730: an increase of 285%, which means it nearly quadrupled.

Thus, the costs associated with attending a college or university were already moving in an unfavourable direction for the average American household. But throwing the COVID-19 pandemic into the equation is now presenting a multitude of issues that could accelerate this trend or send it off into erratic directions. On the other side of the equation, the colleges are facing troubling financial straits due to the disruption in tuition, fees and on-campus life.

“When it comes to higher education institutions, the pandemic has had — and will continue to have — a drastic financial impact. Institutions are suffering from lost revenue to partial tuition refunds, room and board, fees, etc.,” said Michael Hansen, CEO of Cengage. “For example, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, which oversees 14 universities, including the first HBCU (historically black college and university) of Cheyney University, and 17,000-student West Chester University, is projecting a $100 million loss from room and board and other fees. And the University of Wisconsin at Madison is estimating a $100 million loss due to COVID-19 impacts, which does not include potential lost revenue from lower enrolment in the fall. While a select few institutions have large endowments to help them navigate through this unprecedented period, the majority do not.”

PARENTS FROM DIFFERENT STATES MOVES SC SEEKING MORATORIUM ON SCHOOL FEES FOR LOCKDOWN PERIOD

A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court by the parents of children from different States seeking declaration of moratorium or deferment of payment of school fees during the COVID-19 induced lockdown.

The plea also seeks direction to Centre and all the States for directing all the private unaided/aided schools to only charge the proportionate fees based on actual expenditure towards the conduct of the online virtual classes and no other fees from the students since April 1 till the commencement of physical classes.

“The Petitioners belonging to different states of the country have come together being constrained to approach this Court seeking inter alia the protection of fundamental right to life as well as education guaranteed under the Constitution of India, 1950 which the children & students enrolled up to the Class XII of various Indian states are being deprived of due to supervening factors namely, the ongoing pandemic- COVID-19 period,” the plea said.

It said that due to COVID-19 induced lockdown, financially incapacitated parents have to bear the brunt of the fees of the children, even after being faced with constant financial and emotional hardships which may leave a few of them with no option but to withdraw their children or students from seeking institutional/school education for an unforeseeable period of time.

“The Petitioners are also aggrieved apart from other issues as raised in the present petition by the unorganised and adversely influencing education imparted in the name of online classes, without addressing the supervening factors of incapacity of 25 per cent EWS category students, adverse impact of education of children of unregulated online education for students of Standard Nursery to 5th and for other students as well,” the plea said.

The parents through the petition filed through advocate Mayank Kshirsagar and drawn by advocate Pankhuri said that they are highlighting various factors leading to creation of hostile discrimination of children and parents of various states in India as some protection may be available for children or students in some states and the same may not be available in other states.

Parents of the school going children who have moved the top court hail from Rajasthan, Odisha, Punjab, Gujarat, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Delhi and Maharashtra.

In their plea they said that considering the adverse impact of online education, ban has been imposed by Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh while other States have not considered its impact.

It said that after COVID-19 disease was declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization, on March 25, 2020, a country wide lockdown was announced whereby all the activities including the educational sector were shut down completely having a catastrophic effect over the economy of the country with many people losing their jobs or getting a deducted or nil income and facing immense sufferings in their daily life.

“The school going children and students were unable to attend the physical classes at their respective schools. Some of the private aided/unaided schools made arrangements for online classes in April, 2020 however the same has not been universally made available and even cases where no online classes are being conducted the schools are charging normal fees and rather some schools have hiked the fees,” the plea said.

It added that many of the schools hiked their fees and/or started harassing the students’ parents to pay the entire quarterly fees in advance despite the non-functioning of the schools and the students not availing any of the services provided by the schools.

The petition said that despite circulars issued by various States asking private aided/unaided schools ought not to hike their fees in the times of the pandemic, no substantial relief in the form of waiver of fees, or reduced fees, or proportionate fees as per actual expenditure etc. was granted to the students in most of the states, leaving their parents with a huge financial burden to bear, impliedly resulting in the student’s right to life and education getting infringed and violated.

“It is further noteworthy that no specific provision/direction was issued by various states as mentioned with regard to the 25 per cent economically and socially backward/weaker students under the RTE Act, 2009,” it said.

The plea sought directions to Centre and all the States for directing all the private unaided/aided schools to not charge any fees whatsoever from the enrolled students of such schools for a period of three months starting from April 1 till July 1 or till the commencement of offline/physical school classes.

It also sought directions to Centre and all the States for directing schools to only charge the proportionate fees based on actual expenditure towards the conduct of the online virtual classes and no other fees whatsoever from the enrolled students of such schools since April 1 till the commencement of offline/physical school classes.

The petition said that direction be issued to schools to only charge the ‘tuition fees’ and no other fees whatsoever from the enrolled students since April 1 till physical classes resumes.

IMPACT OF THE SCHOOL FEE PAYMENT PROBLEM ON TEACHING STAFF

However, while there is uninterrupted dissemination of education services provided by our valiant teaching staff despite awaiting their dues, their sacrifices along with the non-teaching staff must be appreciated.

It must also be noted that these teachers who are going beyond the call of duty are solely dependent on their salaries for their livelihood.

There are an approximate 5 Crore teaching and non-teaching staff employed in over two Lakh schools across India who are hoping that parents come forward at the time of crisis so that salaries can be paid to the staffers.

Here, the government and parents should ensure teachers’ concerns are considered by releasing adequate funds as an immediate resort which will help reduce the financial strain on them.

The government, state bodies, education boards, financial and educational institutions, and parents should jointly formulate a mechanism to make sure that academics and institutions don’t come to a grinding halt or a closure due to paucity of funds.

 

HERE ARE THREE THINGS THAT CAN BE DONE TO SOLVE THE SCHOOL FEE PAYMENT ISSUE DURING LOCKDOWN

1. Providing interest-free loans to parents to pay fees as education is a part of the priority lending sector

This will ensure that no pillar of India’s growth will be compromised due to dearth of funds.

While RBI has on numerous occasions infused stimulus packages in our economy, this would be the first time the Central Bank can issue loans with zero interest and also provide relaxation in payment tenure for schools and higher education fees.

2. Interest-free loans should be extended to schools to pay salaries

The past decade has witnessed many sectors benefiting from the Finance Ministry and Reserve Bank of India to prevent collapse of business and these sops have helped these sectors revive their growth story.

While education is part of a priority lending sector, granting them interest-free loans to pay fees for crore of teaching and non-teaching staff would immensely help them and also reduce the burden of the parents who are obligated to pay timely fees.

This would also help conduct urgent repairs in schools to prepare them for the resumption of the academic year post-pandemic.

3. Provide subsidies for school bus operators due to drop in oil prices

The world has witnessed a slump in the oil market and while it is important for India to adjust costs owing to the pandemic by keeping a check on the excise rates and taxes on petroleum products.

Citing the present state of affairs, the government should also look into certain tax breaks or subsidies to aid these operators. This will have a direct bearing on the economics of every parent who are sending their children to school.

Fruit commercialization is adopting the scientific method and detecting, grading, packaging the fruits on the basis of comprehending the physiology metabolism law, protecting and improving the quality, and achieving the change from the elementary raw material to high added-value commodity. Nowadays, reducing the consumption of post-harvest fruit is the most concerned question for the world agricultural trade. It
was reported that the consumption of post-harvest fruit in developed countries accounted for the 15-20% of the total amount. China is the world’s largest fruits and vegetables production country. The breeding, culturing, and pest control was paid much attention, however, the post-harvest processing technology was neglected, the question of detecting, grading, transporting, preservation was not solved, so the lost of post-harvest fruits and vegetables in circulation was huge, the loss ratio was 30%~40% every year.

With the rapid development of science and technology and computer vision technique to the development of agricultural field, new methods of non-destructive detection for fruit quality were provided. The main methods included optical properties, sonic vibration, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), machine vision technique, electrical properties detection, computed tomography and electronic noses technique and so on.

In recent years, fruits (of any variety) has become one of the most dependable organic product produced by farmers across the world; this lived much to its expectation as it serves not only for direct consumption, but also as a raw material for other products. Organic products grading and sorting is a vital procedure for producers, which influences the natural products quality assessment and export market. Despite the fact that the grading and sorting can be and has always been done by human, it is slow, tedious and prone to error, hence the need to evolve a smart fruit grading and sorting machine system. Researchers, at various level had come up with various designs with different algorithms for fruit grading by utilizing textural and morphological elements to distinguish the healthy fruits from the defected ones. Subsequently, these features, otherwise known as optical sorting, is the automated process of sorting solid products using sensors. Such sensors utilize product driven knowledge of the picture preparing system, by detecting the colour of fruits, shape and other auxiliary properties. The sensor (sorter) compares fruits based on client’s characterized acknowledgment to distinguish, sort and expel defected fruits and other foreign material from the creation line or to isolate result of various evaluations.

Tejas is an LCA (Light Combat Aircraft) designed by HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) for the Indian Air Force and Indian Navy. The HAL Tejas is an Indian single-engine, fourth-generation, multirole light fighter. It came from the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) program, which began in the 1980s to replace India’s aging MiG-21 fighters. In 2003, the LCA was officially named “Tejas”. It was developed as a replacement for older Mig-21 Aircraft.

As of 2019, the Indian Air Force has planned for a total of 324 Tejas in several variants. The first batch of 40 Mark 1 aircraft consists of 16 Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) standards that were delivered in early 2019. The delivery of the second batch of 16 Full Operational Clearance (FOC) standard aircraft commenced in late 2019 and led to the formation of the second Tejas squadron — No. 18 Squadron IAF Flying Bullets — in Sulur on 27 May 2020. The IAF will also go on to receive eight twin-seat trainers. The next 83 are to be to the upgraded Mark 1A standard. By the time these first 123 are delivered, the Tejas Mark 2 is expected to be ready for series production by 2025–26.

Recent news says that India is likely to finalize the INR 40,000 crore contract for 83 Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas jets, 20% cheaper from previously quoted price, next February at DefExpo-2020 event in Lucknow city, Uttar Pradesh state. In November 2016, Defense Acquisition Council (DAC), India’s highest decision-making body on procurement, approved the purchase of Tejas Mark-1A fighters by the IAF at a cost of Rs 50,025 crore. Subsequent negotiations between defense ministry, Indian Air Force (IAF), and manufacturer Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) have helped bring down the price of the jets from INR 50,025 crore to INR 40,000 crore, Indian media reported late last week. “The draft contract of the deal has been readied by the HAL and the cost of the deal has now come down to around Rs 40,000 crore. This is Rs 10,000 crore less than the Acceptance of Necessity given by the Defense Ministry in 2016,” defense sources said. In December 2017, the IAF had issued a single-vendor tender to the HAL for procuring 83 LCA, but the negotiations and other related issues have been going on since then mainly due to issues over the price.

The aircraft will have improved serviceability, faster weapon-loading time, enhanced survivability, a better electronic warfare suite, an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar that will significantly enhance its capability.  The Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification (CEMILAC) had provided the Final Operational Clearance to the Tejas LCA earlier this year during Aero India in Bengaluru approving its capabilities including beyond visual range air-to-air and air-to-ground attack capabilities as well as longer endurance through mid-air refueling. In a previous order, the IAF had signed a deal with the HAL for 40 Tejas LCAs. So far, around 18 LCAs have been delivered to the IAF from the previous order.