admin, Author at ArdorComm Media Group

National Centre for Good Governance conducts a training programme for senior JK officials

The National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG), an apex-level autonomous institution of the Government of India, has begun capacity building programmes for senior officers in the Jammu and Kashmir administration, according to a Personnel Ministry statement issued on Tuesday. According to the statement, the capacity building initiative is scientifically designed to enable civil servants in Jammu and Kashmir to provide robust and seamless services to the people. The cutting-edge knowledge and new skill set obtained throughout this programme will assist these civil servants in providing efficient public service delivery to better people’s lives, according to the statement. In July 2021, it was decided to train 2,000 senior Jammu and Kashmir government officials, and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the J&K Institute of Management, Public Administration, and Rural Development (J&KIMPARD) and the NCGG to promote excellence in capacity building and reorient officers of the Jammu and Kashmir government. In order to put this MoU into action, the NCGG has already held three such capacity-building programmes for Jammu and Kashmir officials. In his inaugural address, NCGG Director General Bharat Lal emphasised the importance of translating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of good governance into concrete action. He emphasised the importance of changing the strategy and acting as facilitators to attract investment, encourage entrepreneurship, and increase job creation by assuring public service delivery. According to Lal, “we are living in a highly competitive and globalised world” and as a result, businesses need to be supported in order to attract investment. He asserted that everyone’s time is valuable and that rapid service delivery and time value must go hand in hand. Lal emphasised the obstacles and stated that the reorientation programme will enable officers to give technology-enabled solutions to people’s problems. “The aim is to reorient the officers to enable them to work with single-mindedness to improve the quality of life and create opportunities for the people of Jammu & Kashmir. The officers are given exposure to the best practices in governance from across the country to emulate these practices of good governance, transparency and efficient service delivery in Jammu & Kashmir,” the statement said. The fourth capacity-building programme is set at the NCGG campus in Mussoorie from November 28 to December 9. The training modules are produced by practitioners, experts, and academicians in the fields of public administration and good governance, including e-government. The NCGG, established by the Centre in 2014, is tasked with training civil servants from India and other nations. The Centre has also trained a substantial number of officers from Bangladesh, Kenya, Tanzania, Tunisia, Gambia, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Laos, Vietnam, Bhutan, Myanmar, and Cambodia in recent years.

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Hirect fires 40% of its employees as part of strategic changes

admin / Human Resource Community

Hirect, a chat-based direct-hiring platform for startups, has laid off 40% of its workforce as part of organisational restructuring and strategic changes to its business model. That means the startup is laying off over 200 staff. Hirect is a platform that enables recruiters to employ candidates through the app’s audio and video calling features. It focuses on high-growth startups and small companies, finding the best talent without the use of consultants. The Company, which mostly serves the startup sector, appears to be suffering from a slowdown in new hires. According to the company’s LinkedIn profile, there are approximately 472 employees. According to Mint, the Bengaluru and San Francisco-based company employed over 600 people at its peak. Three of the impacted employees were reportedly requested to leave in mid-October, but they have yet to receive their release letters. According to these individuals, management did not meet its commitments and did not provide severance pay or job-search aid. Furthermore, prior to the layoff, the employees were asked to relocate to the Bengaluru office. Meanwhile, management has stated that its first objective is to settle employee dues. Hirect aggressively marketed in Gurugram, Noida, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Pune last year, at a time when hiring, particularly for tech-related positions, was a hot topic in the start-up world. To expand its reach, the chat-based direct-hiring platform partnered with major brands and multinational companies in July. Hirect initially catered primarily to startups, but the company later redesigned its website (www.hirect.in) in an entirely new format to provide a better user experience.

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Ireland’s privacy watchdog fined Meta $276 million over leaked user data

admin / Media Entertainment & Art Community

Meta was fined $276 million by the Irish Data Protection Commission for its handling of sensitive user data. Following the recent announcements, the parent company of social media giants Facebook and Instagram will be fined more than $1 billion by European regulators. Ireland’s privacy watchdog also stated that this marks the end of their inquiry, which began in April of this year after the personal data of over 500 million users were leaked and published online. Meta has recently been the topic of much debate in Europe, with many claims of mishandling user data and various groups raising privacy concerns about the platforms. In 2019, 533 million users’ data were released on a private website, including their names, locations, and, in certain circumstances, email addresses. While the company claimed that the breach had been fixed, the authorities initiated an investigation, and they are now facing a slew of fines. The implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation, a European Union-wide law, is widely regarded as the global standard for online privacy. The fines were part of the process, and they raised the pressure on Meta, which was already facing significant losses. With the failure of the Metaverse, Meta has suffered a gradual decline in revenue over the last year, sparking rumours of Mark Zuckerberg quitting the firm as CEO. The company opted to terminate over 11,000 employees and stated that it will announce additional layoffs in the future.

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Data regulation provisions will be incorporated in the upcoming Digital India Act, according to MoS IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar

admin / Governance Community

The government intends to incorporate data regulation rules in a new Digital India Act, according to Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT. Chandrasekhar stated at a Foreign Correspondent Club event on 5G that the recently issued draft of Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) focuses on the protection of data of Indian citizens. “It (DPDP) does not intend to appoint a regulator and create regulation for the data ecosystem. That is down the road when we create a new bill for Digital India Act. This is a bill which narrowly focuses on data protection of consumers,” Chandrasekhar said. The government has issued a draft of a new data protection bill after withdrawing the previous version of the bill from the Lok Sabha in August, citing various overlapping requirements in the updated version of the bill. Speaking of 5G, the minister stated that the next-generation technology is based on an open technological ecosystem, giving India the opportunity to lead the segment rather of simply being a consumer of the technology.

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Punjab will become a medical education hub, according to state CM Bhagwant Mann

admin / Education Community

Punjab will become a global hub of medical education, said Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Sunday after inspecting the site of a new medical college in the district. According to an official announcement, he stated that the medical college, which would be built on 20 acres of land at a cost of 428.69 crore, will be named after Guru Nanak Dev. The design has been finalised, and work on this huge project will begin soon, according to the chief minister. He stated that since a large number of students from various states will attend this college, a hostel facility as well as a 300-bed hospital will be built. The Punjab government has decided to build 16 medical colleges over the next five years, bringing the total number of such institutions in the state to 25, according to Mann. The foundation stone for the Sant Attar Singh State Institute of Medical Sciences in Sangrur’s Mastuana Sahib had already been set, and work on two medical colleges in Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur will begin soon, he said. Students wishing to continue medical education would no longer have to travel to nations such as Ukraine, according to the Punjab chief minister, because they will receive quality medical education here. He accused previous governments of not paying attention to medical education and claimed that the AAP government’s primary focus areas are health, education, power, and clean water. Mann reiterated that the state government is entirely dedicated to maintaining Punjab’s hard-won peace, and that strenuous measures are being taken to discourage gun culture, and that police personnel have been told not to spare anyone uttering hate speeches. Mann later visited the site of a future medical college in Hoshiarpur, which will be named after martyr Shaheed Udham Singh. He stated that the medical college will be built on around 23 acres of land at a total cost of 418.3 crore.

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PM Modi’s request to India’s youth and judiciary on Constitution Day

admin / Governance Community

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that the spirit of the Indian Constitution is youth-centric, and he asked government institutions and the judiciary to make efforts to raise constitutional awareness among youth. Modi also encouraged the country’s youth to participate more in constitutional discussions and debates. “Our Constitution is open, futuristic and known for its progressive views. The spirit of our Constitution is youth-centric. The development of our country is on the shoulders of the youth,” said Modi at a Constitution Day function at the Supreme Court. “I request government institutions and judiciary to make endeavours to inculcate more awareness about the Constitution among our youth… To make the youth understand the Constitution better, I urge the youth to participate more in discussions and debates regarding the Constitution. The youth must know of the constituent assembly debates,” Modi stated. In addition to Modi, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, and Attorney General of India R Venkataramani spoke at the event. Since 2015, the day has been observed as Constitution Day to commemorate the adoption of the Indian Constitution by the Constituent Assembly in 1949. During the programme, the prime minister announced several new initiatives related to the e-court project. The initiative is an endeavour to give services to litigants, lawyers, and the judiciary by enabling courts with ICT. The PM’s initiatives include the Virtual Justice Clock, JustIS mobile App 2.0, Digital Court, and S3WaaS Websites. The digital court is an initiative that aims to make court records available to judges in digitised form in order to facilitate the transition to paperless courts.

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More than 200 government schools in Kerala to install weather stations to educate students on climate change

admin / Education Community

In a first-of-its-kind project in the country, as many as 240 government schools in Kerala will soon install weather stations, recording daily variations in weather conditions in the state. The project is part of an effort to train the next generation about climate change and how to take the required precautions in the wake of frequent natural disasters such as floods in the southern state. On Friday, General Education Minister V Sivankutty inaugurated the unique project at the district level in Kozhikode at the Kayanna Government Higher Secondary School. During the occasion, he stated that the General Education Department has already begun the process of installing weather monitoring stations in 240 schools around the state, which is a first-of-its-kind effort in the country. Students would gain firsthand experience and understanding of what they had learnt in weather textbooks through such centres. “Daily changes in atmospheric conditions will be monitored and recorded through the school weather stations. Thus, every child can be made a weather observer… the data collected will be used for further research,” he said. Each school weather station would include 13 instruments such as a rain gauge, thermometer, and weather data bank. Weather stations are being installed in 18 government higher secondary schools in Kozhikode, where geography is an optional subject. Children would record the amount of rain that fell in the area, the wind speed, and the atmospheric pressure in a special chart. The data gathered from the school weather stations would be recorded by the students themselves in a separate chart. The ministers also stated that special training would be provided to geography students and teachers as a part of the project.

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Prof. (Dr.) P. M. Udani, Director General, CVM University, Anand emphasizes on the importance of hard skills and soft skills along with regular curriculum

admin / Interviews

“Being an ISRO scientist, hard skill I will give 70 percent weightage and 30 percent yes definitely required a soft skill, that is the ratio a university leadership has to plan and accordingly students should be groomed,” says Prof. (Dr.) P. M. Udani, Director General, CVM University, Anand in an interview with Chandan Anand, Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAGujarat #ELSAAhmedabad Would you like to highlight some of the initiatives under your leadership which is happening in CVM University? See when NEP was rolled out in 2020 and what we have done in last two years is immediately we planned at least 20 to 25 minor degree programs having a capsule of a four courses, one mini project an entire credit structure is 18 to 20 credit and this we have started offering since last one year and this year we are rolling out another 10 minor degrees and few minor degrees are curated with the help of Coursera also because we have 6000 license of Coursera and the kindness of the CVM management is we are not going to charge a single paisa for minor degree offered from CVM University. For example, a 20 credit is equivalent to one semester course so when you are offering minor degree of 18 to 20 credit to the student and not charging anything that means you are giving a scholarship of one semester to the student, that is the greatness of the CVM University. How is hard skill and soft skill important along with the regular pedagogy and regular curriculum? Being an ISRO scientist my inclination will be always towards hard skill. Soft skill is required in today’s world because a remote environment you are collaborating with many colleagues and your product design also may be done at different places so that kind of things are required but if a mechanical engineer is not able to assemble or design a machine then his soft skill has no value. So, being an ISRO scientist, hard skill I will give 70 percent weightage and 30 percent yes definitely required a soft skill that is the ratio a university leadership has to plan and accordingly students should be groomed. But if I had to restructure my entire curriculum my preference would be let us have a 30 percent classroom teaching 40 percent lab so that is core curriculum where you have to take examination as per the curriculum and framework of the country and 30 percent should be only startup and innovation where there is no curriculum there is no standard set of examination and you can guide students just like a research supervisor is getting a research student you have a unique problem for a group of students and they will be demonstrating their hard skills and soft skills and everything and that is a 30 percent weightage in an entire curriculum and that 30 percent weight will relieve student also and faculty also from that conventional kind of a teaching learning process that is what everybody should do it but we are going to attempt from next academic session. I’m sure you must be having an alumni association also do you do a regular program which encourages the current people who will be coming out, who have faced last two years of difficulty for a motivation or an industry reaction? See university was started in 2019, it is a two years old university but our most of the institutions have legacy of 70 years, 50 years, 30 years. We have alumni of more than 1 million so we have a rich alumni association and they are helping our student also. Many are giving donations for establishing laboratory facilities, establishing centre of excellence and they are continuously interacting with our student also online or offline mode and that is the because of our legacy. University yes started in 2019 first batch was admitted in 2020 but we have a legacy of 1 million alumni and they are helping our student in a very great way so we are also very much thankful to the all the alumni more than one million spread across the world. As you know that the event name is New Normal Education Leadership Summit and Awards, what is the word new normal for you stands? So, before pandemic it was totally a brick and mortar system, New Normal is going to be blended only and that is what morning session upGrad also pitched the same idea. When you design a course you have to make it very clear if somebody has taken admission in B.E. Mechanical engineering at the time of admission we have to make it clear these are the courses which will be taught in a brick and mortar system in your offline mode and these are the courses including subject course, Course Code Credit and hours and everything will be taught in an online mode and something can be blended more. So, when student is taking admission at the time of admission is clear by how program will be transacted what is the component in online mode, what is the component in offline mode and what is component in blended mode but what will be repercussion? It would be your entire business model may change near future. Today we are admitting student per semester and student is paying fee per semester it’s just like eating a Gujarati thali, Italian thali or Rajasthani thali you are paying for enter thali. Tomorrow a student will register for the courses and fees also will be decided according to the courses that is what I am visualizing next two three years things will happen something like this. I’m glad and happy to share that we recently celebrated our one year and it has been a wonderful journey from the pre-pandemic during pandemic and post pandemic, any message would you like to give for ArdorComm Media Group? First of

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Sushil Mundada, Co-Founder, ExtraaEdge shares their journey of six years and five years plan

admin / Interviews

“In over next five years and backed with our investors and backed with our strong team I think I’m very confident of achieving the same,” says Sushil Mundada, Co-Founder, ExtraaEdge in an interview with Chandan Anand, Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAGujarat #ELSAAhmedabad What’s the extra and what’s the edge in this? So, thank you again for asking this question again a lot of people have been asking us, so ExtraaEdge we are an edtech startup based out of Pune working with higher education, coaching and schools for six years now. Primarily their entire admission processes we automate, we ensure that the new age marketing technologies like WhatsApp or automation can reach to them and institutes and universities can get more and better students that’s the focus area we have and we have been helping around 300 plus institutes now happy to share in around six years now we’ve been working with them and helping these institutes to grow year on year. Can you focus and highlight some of your products and services under ExtraaEdge? Yeah so primarily we have four products the first one is on the CRM and marketing automation that’s like our core product which is there institutes can manage their leads and nurture their leads via the product. The second product which we have is on WhatsApp automation so students today are much more heavily focused on WhatsApp so that’s the product which we have so ensure consent and receive WhatsApp in an automated or a direct way via the product and then we also have products like chatbot and live chat again to interact with the students. The Institute can use this and the last product which we have is an application management and a tracking system so especially in universities and higher education when institutes want the student to get attracted to them and apply to them in a seamless manner they can potentially use this product and all these four products work hand in hand with each other to increase the number of applicants and students which Institutes can acquire. So, Sushil how has been these six years journey and what’s the five years plan? Yeah so again happy to share that six years ago when we started we did not understand the market as much neither the market understood this technology. We were the first to coined this term called education marketing technology and some introduced this so we created a category around this so in six years we’ve been able to completely create a category, reach out to a lot of institutes now in India I think almost every city and town we are present, we have always also expanded our horizons outside of India now present in Middle East and some customers in UK and US as well. So, that’s going to be the plan, continue to build more products in India solve the problems on the ground like what exactly in admission what exactly problems an Institute faces so solve them and then make India proud by going outside and have more customers outside of India as well that’s plan. In over next five years and backed with our investors and backed with our strong team I think I’m very confident of achieving the same. Yours is a startup and you have been funded by many of the organizations a very nice questions I would like to ask if you want to answer it, what does an investor look for before investing in edtech? Okay so again a very tricky question in edtech so I think by default every investor looks for a returns I think that is unfed at the rule but I think investors also look at what’s an impact which is happening right when it comes to education and edtech a lot of investors potentially also looked at what’s an eventual impact which is happening on the industry as a whole and of course the country and overall economy as a whole so that’s like a very macro level view. Every investor potentially wants to ensure that technology I’m talking about technology investors right so technology comes to education and doesn’t reach only to tier one and tier two only to a metro level town but even tier two and tier three towns and cities and institutes right. So, I think a lot of investors they ask us, even happy to share that today we don’t just work with just metro cities like Pune and Mumbai right so we have got customers right from Jammu and North to around the lowest part in Tamil Nadu today and some customers in Kerala, Gujarat, smaller coaching institutes larger universities so I think that’s what investor looks at the impact on the overall ecosystem as a whole. So, the event name over here is New Normal Education Leadership Summit and Awards according to you how would you define on your own words New Normal? Yeah so, I think thankfully all of us have passed covid that’s what I can say personally I have been looking forward to this new normal. I can meet people like you and so many people, I can meet now but most importantly I think as far as pre-covid and post-covid is concerned everybody’s understood that we cannot do away with the technology but most importantly we cannot do away with the personal human touch as well. So, we need to kind of have a hybrid whether it’s a learning side, whether it’s on the business side, whether it is on any kind of a communication which is to be there right. So, if I have an option of meeting online I should but that cannot be replaced completely by face to face meeting so even for as far as our team is concerned we have followed hybrid model where most of the teams works out of office but then people want

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Amitabh Bachchan’s voice and image cannot be used without permission: Court

admin / Media Entertainment & Art Community

The name, picture, or voice of Amitabh Bachchan cannot be used without his permission, the Delhi High Court ruled today while hearing the actor’s petition. The court also ordered that flagged content be removed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and telecom service providers. “It cannot seriously be disputed that the plaintiff is a well-known personality and is also represented in various advertisements,” Justice Navin Chawla said, adding that the actor is “aggrieved” with people who use his popularity to market their goods and services without his permission. Amitabh Bachchan, popularly known as “Big B,” had appealed the court “against the world at large” to protect his “name, image, voice, and personality attributes.” “I am just giving a flavour of what is going on. Someone is making t-shirts and started putting his face on them. Someone is selling his poster. Someone has gone and registered a domain name, amitabhbachchan.com. This is why we have come,” Senior Advocate Harish Salve argued on behalf of Mr Bachchan. The megastar has also filed a restraining order against other businesses, including book publishers, T-shirt vendors, and others.

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