Learning the online work culture!
It is a totally new experience!
It seems a long way indeed!
One new learning is that sometimes big changes, be it high tech or even simple things come not by inventions and innovations they seem to come in a very sudden, brutal physical changes or happenings. The coming of the Covid pandemic is one such event that has thrown the entire word into a spin. We don’t know for certain how long. The pandemic lasting and how we, our lives will all change and what new world. We are going to confront and how the future is going to unfold. Of course nothing like this has happened and we are yet to understand the reach of the pandemic and when the world would turn to normalcy. So to turn to our work culture, both in our domestic lives and the lives and activities in our economic, transport and other socio-cultural and industrial activities. One big unexplored world is the world of work.
We have worked so far in a settled, office environment. From now onwards we have to work in a remote online, digital ways. So, it looks everyone of us seems to be learning. Even in the Western societies there is confusion and contradictory voices. There have been so many U turns! In the USA, it is hellcat the White House and the coming General Elections would be a landmark.
The migration problem is going to create new tensions in all the Western countries. Indian migration to the USA and UK is not going to be easy. Inside India, we have to sort out issues, as the government is going to see new challenges from the way the Centre-State relations are building up. New elections inside India is going to throw up many pressures on our well-regulated Constitutional norms, each regional party is doing things, not in high Constitutional manners. Corruption is going to be a new challenge.
You can’t run the elections under the very opaque manners. The major national parties, the Congress and the BJP are now strictly respecting the electoral laws and norms. So, what role the media once well-respected, today everyone joining and changing parties. So, media, both print and online with the new tech tools like Social Media have to do their legitimate jobs and we have to analyse the issues and ponder over the role of media, print, TV, online and also such issues like fake media, media monopolies etc. Let us give some thought on this subject.
The power of the print media has always been recognised all over the world and the digital transformation of the media is only of recent development. Ever since mankind came to acquire the skills to invent letters and inscriptions, the printed word took of course some few thousand odd years to get a written script. Since the ancient world information we get only through these scripts and much of the ancient world. Wisdom is accumulated in the various divided forms, scrolls and stone carvings from. We have travelled a very long way. You can see some of these historic scripts on various devices.
Even today you are likely to see some of these rare scripts and devices on marble stones, as in Athens in the agora museum, these stone scripts we learnt were used as official messages used by the democratic governments that were functioning there for some 50 odd years and it was thrilling to see these ancient historic sites! So too in many other museums in Europe and other continents. In Cambodia we saw some such stone scripts and some of these scripts are similar to Tamil scripts! That gives us some idea of how the ancient Tamil kingdoms reached the Cambodian shores and particularly one ancient Tamil Chola King, Jaya Varman built the ancient majestic Angkovat temple complex.
Today we live in a very different world indeed. The IT revolution has ushered in an instant information age and the Internet has made us to what we today in the instant email age.
The covid pandemic had enforced a new code of conduct, that is, the digital revolution in all spheres. Our education and office systems all have been forced to adopt and online work culture in all our activities.
Among all the industry reviving talk and many new initiatives, the agri sector is perhaps the most unattended one. For us, it is our high priority sector, in which we are there for a long term, almost for over a quarter century! Yes, there are giants in the media meaning print media and they are also facing much more challenging problems.
That is the age-old issue of freedom of the press. Compared to other countries, even big Democracies the freedom of the media is still a sticky question. There is a visible shift in the mainstream newspapers, many have changed their idea of a free press, they have all turned themselves into captive press and their newspaper criticism and opinion pages have all been almost abandoned and they have all gone soft with the incumbent power holders.
Inside India, this is true while one can guess what is the state of press freedom. As far India is concerned there is this satisfaction of the absence of any ill-treatment of journalists. In other countries, there are more gruesome stories of journalists arrested and even jailed. We seem to have reached some funny state where the major countries, while ill-treating the high political functionaries like a foreign minister travels to Norway for what? For requesting the country not to award the Nobel Prize to the dissenters!
Looking at various aspects of Indian life and society, we seem to be in a unique way much blessed.
We should raise India’s image as a moderate political culture-based country and our brand image in comparison with other countries a superior nation of culture and civilisation.