A lesson from my exams - III

India collapsed before the final of Asia cup after a loss to Pakistan, their tagged arch rivals. Sahara chief  Mr. Subrato Roy tasted black ink due to a non refund of money to their investors. LS polls’ dates have been released leaving the prestigious IPL in disarray with its head either in UAE or Bangladesh and tail in India. So, India has really a lot of activities going on. Amid all these, I try to make you sleep over the third way of reinforcement which is named punishment, a frequently used noun. Remember the second part of the series? This one is exactly its mirror image because in the second one we eliminated a negative situation while in this one we throw upon a negative situation, all for the same motive of a positive change. By now, parents must have relived the minutes of scolding their toddlers and teachers, the tight slaps to the mischievous students’ club of schools! Punishments are being used since the earliest of time to make the wrong doers realize their mistake. The Big Five punishments of ancient dynastic china were brutal and really can force a person to fear the wrong. It included tattooing, cutting off the nose, amputation, castration and finally death.

Punishments are an effective way to combat unpleasant behavior but they are like antibiotics, excessive use has dangerous side effects and should be used after correctly judging the requirement. When a sick throat can be handled with a handful of Tulsi leaves then antibiotics should be at a distance. Similarly when a wrongdoing can be rectified with mutual understanding or the previous two ways then punishment should be far off or you will blame yourselves for another wrongdoing, this time by you but side by side sometimes antibiotics is the only option left for us.  

The bangles are jangling loudly

Commencing with raising a toast for all the women there, giving respect and warm wishes to them on this women's day, I want to tell you what were the highlights of my day before today. I know that I am a day late on this post but this is according to the calenders. Yesterday, while running for the breakfast, I just braked by an irregularly thick copy of hindustan times which had the disappearance of a malaysian airlines owned boeing 777 over the south china sea as the front page filler. Inside were lots of articles and columns, all for and by our bangle bearers that got me engrossed in them right from the first line. Here, I want to particularly share some interviews' extracts of students, entrepreneurs, producers, directors, sportspersons and one of a gaffer. A student in her 15th year of life had a very inspiring collection of words in her synopsis ed  interview that "of all the days, it is today that we all get a brief glimpse of a true developing nation". Then there were mithali raj's words echoing her troubles leading the 11 women in blue. She said that belonging to a tamil family made it odd for her to take cricket seriously since no one in her family was into this. So, she had to face questions but was mostly shielded by her parents who always stood for her, financially and as her strength. She also recalled that while in train journeys, when the co passengers had the 11 acknowledged as their national women cricket team, they cracked all types of jokes, giggling and her team sat there as stooges. Then my eyes had the name of hetal dedhia on their retina. As a prelude, she is our bollywood's first female gaffer. I honestly had not expected a woman in this profession but she said that her father was her biggest source of inspiration. She enjoys her work, surrenders to stress somedays but dreams to reach heights.
so, the bangles are jangling loudly and can dominate any sound, be it the devil sound of rapists only
Kudos to all...     

A lesson from my exams -II

Good evening friends! it has been long since I have blogged last so let us start from a quick recap for which one statement would be enough, positive reinforcement has been proved to be a good way to make people change, adopt or drop a behavior. We had decided that we would be pondering over four ways or four stages of reinforcement. So, the next in the line is negative reinforcement. Starting from its definition, negative reinforcement refers to the eradication of a bad situation, circumstance or even a consequence from a person's life when he/she agrees for positive behavioral changes. This is in fact another form of positive reinforcement with the person being rewarded indirectly in this. Also, positive reinforcement works more on children and for our respected elderly generation, I give preference to negative reinforcement. Here I would like to make the meaning of reinforcement clear to all, it refers to the strengthening or regular practicing of a behavior in return of a direct or indirect reward. By now, you all would have situations running through your mind where you unknowingly had used negative reinforcement to take charge of the situation or you may be comparing negative reinforcement with the method you had used at that time. One situation in which I think our government used it, may be unknowingly is the provision of mid day meals during school hours. I cited this example because the biggest responsibility of parents in poor families is to make their children's stomach undergo digestion atleast two times a day. So, if their children are having a complete meal during daytime then the burden and tension of parents reduces to half which is the subtraction of a negative situation from their lives. The positive outcome from this indirect reward is the practice of sending children school daily to learn and make their future. I know that the problems of both the parents and children does not end here but atleast the light of education is lit to disperse the darkness. So, happy reading and may your wrong habits, if any find you a bad host.      

A lesson from my exams - I

Reinforcement, as you all know is a synonym of strengthening. While doing a thorough study of ways(for my exams !) to change our or someone's else behavior, I came across the induction that reinforcement is the most effective way to change a behavior. Taking you into some detail of it, I would like to tell you that reinforcement to change behavior is categorized into four types - positive, negative, punishment and extinction and hence we will be merging ideas for development and reinforcement in 4 parts, first being the present one and 3 more to follow. Now, positive reinforcement means applauding, praising or rewarding a person everytime he acts or behaves in a way that you desire him/her to act in or which is good for him. A recent news channel was airing the news of SPEED STAR. The event exactly fitted in the example that I wanted to give in positive reinforcement. SPEED STAR is an athletics initiative by KOOH sports with PT Usha as its brand ambassador. The event had already struck chords in its first season and is now enjoying a grand welcome both by students and its shareholders in its second entry. The show aims to hunt for 100m running talent from over 20,000 students of 600 schools from all over India. The beliefs behind the startup of this event is a raise in the popularity and standard of athletics in India with respected PT Usha adding seniority and coach like presence in addition to being the brand ambassador. Another belief of the KOOH sports is that through SPEED STAR they will be able to bring children out of their homes and out of their digital world so that they become perfect both physically and digitally. So, you see that if we encourage our children or anyone towards an activity or behavior through these events which reward them if they adopt the behavior for themselves, then changing them is not that difficult. I hope that other of our established companies should invest their money in starting such events for the betterment and talent hunt in our country. I don't exactly remember the prize but can assure our little champs of a foreign trip if they win this season of SPEED STAR.
so, gear up guyzz, tighten your laces and run the circle.    

Microsoft, Go On

So, the hot discussion is whether Microsoft will regret its investment of taking over Nokia or not. Looking for the reason for such a thought, I found that since Google has backed off from investing in Motorola, Microsoft now faces less competition which it could take on without owing Nokia. I personally think that Google did a haste in handing over Motorola to the Chinese smartphone leader, Lenevo. Looking over the years, the new technologies and updates to the older ones that Google brought to us, it did have the skill and the talent to succeed in its new start up  but just because it didn't have that will power or dedication and desire to take on the challenge, it dissolved the idea . Google just wanted the patents and nothing else and now we are thinking that Microsoft will be having the same complex. I don't think that competition for Microsoft is going to decrease because now Google, with no hardwork to do in the hardware will be focusing on improving its android software using its skills and ofcourse the patents of Motorola that they have bought. In this case, it would be a wise and not a cowardly step for Microsoft to  start a new extension all together in the form of cellphone hardware using its windows software and the quality and brand name of Nokia.
So in between all this trade and business, I am expecting some slow but fantastic improvements for our dear android and in turn some really amazing softwares embedded in attractive and dependable hardware to roll out in the market, so get ready for it AND SAMSUNG AND APPLE, BE ALERT.  

The election disaster

Coming straight to the point, can you guess how much a lok sabha election can cost to the government. As per the ministry of law and justice, the 2009 election cost was about 1200 crore while in 1999 the figure had stopped in 3 digits at 948 crore. So, a 21% increase in a decade,  which I think is not acceptable. There has been no major tweaks in our election procedure which justifies a 21% hike. Brooding over the possible areas of the election expenditure, I hit upon a news cutting paraphrasing the happiness of the railway authorities in between the current 2014 lok sabha elections. The reason for their smile was of course an increased flow of money because of starting of special election trains and an increase in the frequency of train routes to drop our politicians to give speech and collect votes at different places. In all, transportation had the biggest gulp in the 1200 pie chart. A newspaper had reported that in the amount a contestant spends on his/her party today, India had conducted its 1950 general elections. Now you may well argue that between 1950 and 2009 lies a long time and my justification would be the question as to why the parties then ask for loans for their schemes when they a lot of money.
I think the figures of election expenditures can be reduced if we say hello and then maintain a  good relationship with it i.e it should not be a one time visit. Like the  the facilities of the TVs we can arrange one day theaters for the people and the contestant can address them from his/her office only. This will somewhat reduce the travelling expenditures but their are still so many areas where we have to stop the wastage, if any. One move, I think can solve the whole problem and it is simply a step based on our instincts.  If we constraint the parties with the fund, then what other way they have other than to adjust the same elections with a lower balance and our politicians will themselves prove that the elections can be conducted as superbly as with a heavy pocket. Other than this a categorization should be made regarding the areas where the central government will provide fund and where the contestant will have to spend on his own and last but not the least,a try to reduce corruption can work wonders.
SO, HAPPY ELECTIONS AND MAY WE CHOOSE THE CORRECT PRIME MINISTER FOR US

A Helping Hand

Hello, hoping that you are enjoying your lives replacing the negativity with some new, positive and energetic ideas. Today, I want to fan the the idea spread by the Sohail Khan production, jai ho. I want to tell you all that like you all I also firmly believe in helping others. When asked whether you want to help, I am sure nobody would decline but the main reason of back out is the lack of time for helping others but it is only us who can try to anyhow spare time for lending a helping hand. Now, helping can be anything. It's not a matter of only financial or materialistic help. Helping is making an uneasy person feel comfort in his/her tough situation. A dialogue in jai ho has the interpretation that people know that their help is needed but somehow just ignore it. So, notice the people's suffering, drop that ignorant attitude, if you have it and help them.
ENJOY LENDING YOUR HELPING HAND.