The people who have inspired me to write

First, I have to mention why I wrote "people" rather than "person". Because there is more than one.

This one is special, who motivated me to write, not just by saying things like " you can write, because you have the skill, blah, blah....". It was because, she was a writer herself, and everytime I read what she wrote, I have this desire burning in me to start writing, to become a blogger. I first came to know her, when i was doing my Masters. Like all friends in the beginning we too did not get along very well, but soon picked up on our lane of friendship. She was a voracious reader and could finish huge novels in no time. So again I was inspired by her to read, not because she told me to, but I found that she was different because she read a lot and she had the knowledge of a special person, because of her reading.

Now the other person, who pushed me to write was this guy, who is a critique and who could easily spot mistakes in anything I did. But you know what the best part of it was, the way he critiques your work, would never ever hurt you. He is so good and genuine when he gives his comments and makes me feel, that the mistake I commited was a good one though. You know why? Because then he can comment on it. So I always look forward for his comments whenever I do some academic writing or assignments. This time too he commented on my blog, and the first thing he found was a mistake.Ha Ha! I know if you are reding this you want to know who the person could be, I would not make you curious further, he is my husband.

So I owe them two this credit mostly, and there were others, colleagues, past workplace and present, who have mentioned to me that I am capable of writing. Ha Ha, I meant that they have boosted my confidence.

It is for them I dedicate this post of my blog.

Where do we start?

Global warming is discussed everywhere-  among nations, organizations , educational institutions, corporate offices, and amdist people, who are part of the world that is going through this negative phenomenon.

Contributions to this change in earth has to be understood from the basic. Kyoto Protocol: a measure in reducing the emission of green house gases, and the Protocol tried to get the developed nations to commit to this agreement, though adopted in 1997, it was put into force only in the year 2005.

These are quite complicated terms for us, because not all of us are scientists.  Fine then, let us look into it in  common and easy to understand terms- How can human beings contribute in stopping this negative phenomenon?

 We first have to know a few things.

What are the  impacts of Global warming?
1. The recent Tsunami that devastated Japan,
"Climate change doesn't just affect the atmosphere and the oceans but the earth's crust as well. The whole earth is an interactive system," Professor Bill McGuire of University College London told Reuters, at the first major conference of scientists researching the changing climate's effects on geological hazards.
2. More earth quakes that have been taking place over the recent years in the past
3. Human beings exposed to more number of diseases and allergies, due to atmospheric pollution, cancer being most common
4. Meltdown of polar region ice bergs, which will eventually increase the level of water in natural reservoirs, threatening floods into residential regions. A rise of sea level by 25 metres by year 2100 has been predicted.


What are the causes of Global warming?
1. Higher emission of Green house gases(GHG)-water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, chlorofluorocarbon being released into the atmosphere act like a mirror, which reflects the sunlight that was radiated back to the atmosphere at a longer wavelength. More the emission of GHG, more will be the heat radiated to the earth through them.

How can we prevent, or at least slow down the process?

Stop the emission of GHG would be a quick answer, but not a possible one. So "WHERE DO WE START"?

At home: reduce wastage- whatever it may be-food, water, electricity,etc. Recycle plastic bags when u are going to the supermarket,  reduce the consumption of styrofoam containers, recylce metal that can be recycled,  reduce the consumption of paper-try to go paperless, say if you wanna read the newspaper , use your computer and access the news online.

At Office: Car pooling to work, taking the public transport to work are  most major ways that reduce the consumption of petroleum, which is the major cause of global warming. Reduce the consumption of paper, recycle paper for internal usage, with the advancement of technology try to view soft copy of documents, rather than printing every document in need. Save electricity by switching off the lights of offices not occupied, reduced usage of air conditioners, by switching off the air conditioner when rooms are not occupied.

Though we cannot expect an overnight change in our attitude, we could still make an effort, to make the world a better place to live in. Shall we?

Learning from your students is great fun

A lecture session of three hours is not easy, once in a week is when you see your students and teaching them for all of three hours means to get them to listen to all of what you are gonna lecture. This could sometimes turn out to be monotonous, starting the third week, fourth week and so on, until when you realize that it is important to make the class interactive. Like the montessori, even college students should have to be involved in your lecture to keep the class from getting bored.

So how do you do it? Here comes the biggest question, and I am blinking, because, it is not the same set of students I handle and the subjects are varied. So for every class I have to think of some different way to get them involved in my lecture.

To begin with I would want to share one particular lecture experience, where out of the three hours class, I decided to get my students to conduct  a mock focus group. The subject was Product Development Strategies and the Topic for the day was "Identifying Customer Needs". The students were given the liberty to choose the product, for which the focus group ( where  a few of my students took up the role of customers and one of them was the interviewer, and I took up the role of the moderator to sum up the needs matrix and to keep the focus group focused) was going to discuss the needs.

Having chosen Apple iPhone 6(if there is gonna be one) as the product, students as customers came out with good ideas. The list below is a summary of the discussion
1. The New product to be developed should be able to play flash files, currently not being supported by present iPhones.
2. Battery power  should last longer
3. Alternative option provided to use solar cell for power, in order to reduce the usage of electricity and use natural energy for power of phone( aiming to lower the impact of global warming).
4. Compatibility of Apple applications with other software providers' apps(sure not gonna happen, nevertheless customer can mention them).
5.  Two different industrial designs-one meant for female customers and the other  meant for male customers(but well how Apple is  gonna acheive economies of scale is not the customer's problem).
6. 3D screen.
7. Lesser radiation of heat when the phone is used for calling or while receiving calls.
8. In built LCD projector.

There were many more suggestions, but I  have only listed a few and they are not in prioritized order.

More experiences will be updated in my blog.Keep reading.