Joblessness in the country!

India has the biggest pool of the young ones in terms of population in the world and it is said that a young population is a key towards a well accomplishing nation, not just in terms of economy but also in terms of social structures. But alas, India has always been a path breaker and although half of the Indian population is under the age of 30, it still lags behind from the world, despite surpassing others in terms of human resources and a prominent reason behind it is unemployment i.e. despite having the talent there is no room for its expression.

Statistics reveal that, in the year 2018, 31 million people in India are jobless and the numbers are constantly on rise. Every year, hundreds of thousands of students graduate from college and venture out for earning opportunities. However, only a few of them prove to be capable enough and lucky enough to grab a decent job. The major reason behind this scenario is the lack of quality of education and the scarcity of jobs in the market. This creates a desperate situation wherein people applying for jobs, which are below the stature of their qualification. Many try to secure government jobs and the others look forward for private ones. In a recent study it was observed that for every 1000 jobs that gets available, there are 1 lakh candidates applying for it.  Due to the scarcity, students decide their courses not based on their orientation but on the earning opportunities of it.

So, do you now understand where we all are going wrong? It’s a simple math’s.  

Job seekers > job creator’s

There exists a huge gap between the number of jobs available and the number of candidates applying for it. To bridge this gap we need to generate jobs, which can be done only by bringing in new companies (multinationals) or starting our own i.e., startups.

80% of all the students who graduate, look forward towards working for a well renowned organization, opting an easy way out. The rest 20% dream to nurture their own company. This not just generates job but it also boosts up the economy.

In the past, the United States, The Scandinavian and the other north European countries were the ones who used to foster the culture of innovation and entrepreneurships. Now, even India has begun to walk on their path. In the year 2015, The Indian government initiated a policy named “STARTUP INDIA”, which was meant to encourage young entrepreneurs to start their own company.  Apart from startup India, government also started “stand up India” to bring out talent from certain underdeveloped categories. This policy allows a person from specified category to loan money from 10 lacks to 1 crore, just to encourage people towards innovation.

Under the policy, the government decided to assist the drive creators, not just financially but also in every other possible way. The government here works as a backbone, just in case if the business fails then the policies lessen the blow for the business person. It can thus be said that in today’s time,  the Start up’s are very crucial for economic growth and if, in the near future India manages to thrive mere 10 start up’s, then we can be sure about economy being on track with a boom in no time.

The Inner Turmoil

We, humans are too naïve to understand that happiness is an inner phenomenon. No outer element in this cosmos can deter it. But apparently we are on a path, where our emotions and moods depend on someone else or something else. The cost of our happiness is over-hyped as we look forward towards materialistic gains to feel more joyful. Whatever we do for our survival is an act of making ourselves and our closed one’s happy. Our unsaid destination is to feel good, and everything that we do, is meant to make us feel happy. The job that we are running behind is our imaginary journey towards a pleasant feeling called happiness, the reason behind this is a conclusion made by us, which states that a stable life with the help of a stable job would end up making us happy. But is it so? Is it so that after getting a job, all your life problems go away?  Due to this misconception we mistake our journey as our final destination. For an instance, stop running behind things and start enjoying what you already have.

Many of you might not sympathize with what I said but I am sure that any sane person would agree with the fact that ‘just money’ can’t bring any sunshine to our dull lives. If it was so, then the richest nations would have been the happiest ones too but on quite the contrary, they are the most neurotic and depressed ones. Money brings us comfort, which we directly relate with our happiness and this keeps our happiness always on the fluctuation mode. When money comes, we become happy and when it goes, it takes away our happiness. In all these efforts of fixing the world, we give away the keys of our happiness to the circumstances around. It is up to us what our definition of happiness is and should be. It can be anything starting from a simple smile to a million dollar car. But I would definitely recommend you to make your happiness so cheap that a penny-less person could also earn it. Not just this, the concept of ‘enough’ is not engraved in our system as our greed and desire for new things makes it difficult for us to harvest happiness. When you learn to put a full stop to your personal desires that is when you attain contentment.

What we are marching towards is not development or maturity but inflation.
In our childhood days when we used to see a ten rupee note, we used to get elated. But today even ten thousand rupees are not enough to bring smile on our face, this is not growth, this is inflation. What could have been done with a small ice cream to a little child needs a thousand things and multi dollar notes to be fixed for an adult. As a child we were not inflated but now our demands are high. The simple villagers who were simply happy with a full rainfall in the season, today needs high speed internet, huge infrastructures and the whole governing body to re frame itself to feel a little satisfied. We are making ourselves and all around us hugely inflated which is making it difficult for people to smile naturally.
As a child, we lived the lives of a slave, we had to eat when others fed us, used to clothe what others decided on our behalf, used to wake up and sleep as per instruction, we were quite helpless, but you cant call it an exploitation as we were happy all the time, just because we had simple economic routes to happiness and were not inflated in our minds and ideas. Today we enjoy heavy freedom but the inflation cost of happiness makes it difficult for us to let go and smile like a human

The initial step that is to be taken by us is to fluently manage our senses between controlling them and allowing them to flow freely. You should know when to put a full stop to the economics of our lives. The clarity of this crucial decision makes you think different from everyone.  On one hand, you have to be in charge of your senses with total control and on the other hand, you should know when to loosen the reigns that you hold. By doing this you allow them unravel the dimensions that were never looked upon.  

Once in a while be happy for no apparent reason.

WALKING TOWARDS OUR DOOM

Ever heard a child desiring to be a farmer?
Agriculture has been there with us ever since the origin of human civilization and it would not be wrong to say that, our ancestors survived here due to this knowledge of land. The excavation of early Indus valley civilization points towards the fact that people of the ancient time considered agriculture as an incumbent element for their survival and consequentially were able to contrive many agriculture techniques which escalated the production multiple times over. Moreover the kind of farming practices they used flourished both the crops and the resources. The prevalent techniques of farming of that time also are mentioned in the Vedas. For  example, the Angara preparation i.e. earthworm seeding, coating of seed with ghee before planting,  pest control with the help of cow urine and spraying amritpani, which is an accumulation of special herbs, in the fields, greatly enhanced the bioactivity necessary for farming. But over time many of these techniques were lost due to many reasons.
The scenario is quite the opposite in today’s time and the methods used to increase the production are very cruel towards the soil and other natural resources. India’s 5th largest import is towards organic and inorganic chemicals. By this we can make a judgment as to how much we are making our fertile lands suffer. Instead of exercising our pristine and lasting methods of organic farming, we are shifting to rely more on chemical fertilizers to magnify our output. Though we can agree on the fact that chemical fertilizers help the farmers earn more profit but the questions that needs to be addressed are, “at what cost?” and “is it sustainable”.

The usage of these fertilizers has lead towards a situation where the land is turning sterile, incapable of growing any other crop. Not just this, it is also affecting the soil’s potency to hold water and nutrients and this method, over a certain period of time begins to build up toxic elements which are capable of killing a plant lives and destroying the soil nutrients.
The sole reason why farmers use these chemicals is to increase their profit but today, the scenarios of the hiked input costs, low market selling price and zero risk coverage is hardly leaving them with any penny. The situation is worsening as over a hundred thousand farmers have committed suicide in the last ten years in this country. However the realities are beginning to change now as government have started prioritizing the farming sector, the value of MSP have been increased and the farmers are being educated about various biotechnology such as forming manure from sewerage.
Before independence, 70% of the India’s GDP used to come from agriculture but today it has dropped down to 53%. It signifies our shift from being producers to becoming importers. Today the crops that used to be grown in India are being imported from different countries. Growing population and decreasing number of the farming population is definitely not a beneficial combination for India. Just last year, India imported 2.7 million tons of wheat from Australia, Ukrainia and France. The sad part is that we are turning incapable of feeding our own population.

We all seems to live under an illusion that all these realities doesn’t affects us in any way, but the unveiled truth is that it has been affecting us and will do so more in the coming few years. It’s just that we are busy turning a blind eye over it, trying to somehow avoid the sad reality. In last 40 years, earth has lost 33% of its arable land and we all the responsible for this fiasco. However it remains retrievable even now if we take the necessary steps. If not now, then I am sure that we are walking towards another dust bowl, which could be fatal. We are in a world where the population is growing at a rapid phase and the need for food is dire. It is said that if we save the amount of food that is wasted every year, we can feed up to almost 3 billion people on an average. So, the next time you throw something out; remember that in the coming years you won’t be fortunate enough to have it.

NURTURING A NEW LIFE

 The right way of parenting is yet to be known by the mankind. It’s a complicated process, while indiscriminate affection might lead them to become unreasonable, not expressing enough love can make them feel secluded. No matter what you do, loopholes are unavoidable here. The environment in which you are brought up plays a major role in what you become. You do something wrong, and your parents get blamed for that more than you. It’s easy sowing a seed than nurturing it.

The crucial ingredient of near perfect parenting is to spend your time with them.  In such a young age whatever we do, it affects their life. So we must make sure to be on our best behavior when around them because whatever we do, they will mirror it. Growing trends of nuclear families, not enough space to play; increasing role of electronic gadgets is hindering the healthy process of growing up. Teenagers are getting diagnosed by diseases at a very early age and the major reason behind it is our contemporary sedentary lifestyle.    

With modernization, countries of the east are mirroring the steps taken by the west, even in something as intricate as parenting. The modern day parents are willing to make their infants spend their childhood in crèches instead of home. The ways of the west are getting prevalent in India in the name of development.  In the surveillance of babysitters or crèche’s, both the mother and the father are leaving their child unattended in the name of providing a better future for the child with more income.It can be said that in the name of a better and stable future, the child’s presentis being played with. Crowded crèches makes it difficult to pay enough attention to every child. There is nothing wrong with crèches or baby care centers, as long as they take appropriate care. The fact remains that unlike the countries of the west where they have developed a certain alternatives of babysitting, we are not well equipped with the intricacies of childcare in a city atmosphere, yet.

This process is also affecting the child at many levels. The early years of isolation leads to many psychological issues and builds a far fletched gap between the emotions of both the parties. Your absence from your child’s infant years makes you less reliable for them in the years to come.

The outbreak of puberty can be dramatic as well as rebellious and trying to control them at that time would be a cumbersome effort. These are the phases when you need to shift yourself from a parent to a friend, like a patriotic friend, who won’t judge them for their wrong decisions. It’s the time to let them know that making mistakes is fine, as long as they learn from it, for them to know that failing an exam is okay. To build up a certain level of trust to ensure that they don’t fabricate lies to you is important. All of these things will make sure to strengthen your bond. What’s needed is involvement, not interference as it might threaten their personal space, for a child to become a man, some space is needed and we have to be considerate of that.

Bringing in a new life into this world and then nurturing it to make sure that it turns out to be an incorruptible and fine soul is definitely an exemplary accomplishment. This may seem like an easy path to follow, but when you travel it, it gets just convoluted.

IT’S NOT PLASTIC, IT’S US

It’s simple. We use the planet’s resources and blame others for its deterioration.  Mankind has always led a very self-centered life and look where we are today due to it. The source of our life i.e. water is depleting at an alarming rate, soil is turning into sand and lush green forests are becoming stringent deserts. The negligence of human mind has very much contributed to the world’s environmental decay.For all these variations, we play the blame game.

Today there has been a new trend to decry plastic. According to a study only 9% of the plastic manufactured is recycled. That is why I say that it’s not plastic that is acting as a major factor to deplete earth’s value, it’s us, humans. Plastic is not an issue; but the way we utilize it and dispose it is the only thing that matters. Plastic has been an adept making of the human mind but we perceive it as a hazardous element, because we fail to observe the merits of it. The production of plastic is quite affordable along with its selling cost which makes it the ideal choice of the marketers. We don’t need to emphasize more on its existence. What we have to do is to make sure that all the plastic that is manufactured is disposed absolutely and properly. It is being predicted that by the year 2050, our oceans will have more plastic than fish. To believe that we can’t face this upcoming disaster is not a utopia; it can be very much achievable if we bring in mass awareness and take sensible action. This time we need to override individualism with unification.

The good news is that the plastic recycling market is gaining speed. The market size of the recycling industry in 2018 is said to be of $37.6 billion, 7.1% growth since 2017. Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi’s annual turnover is about 665 million rupees just by recycling.  The recycling industries are less in number; hence there are more opportunities in this field.  People just need to understand the worth of the waste.

To understand it more clearly we can take an example of Kamikatsu, a village of Japan who has mastered the art of ‘zero waste’ can definitely teach us some productive methods to overcome plastic salvaging process.  80% of the plastic waste is being recycled in kamikatsu, whereas only 20% is disposed to landfill. The villagers categorize plastic into 32 categories to simplify the process of recycling. The good thing about them is that instead of consuming their time on pointing a finger on plastic, they are utilizing it to find an economic and ecologic solution bringing it benefit for all involved.