🔵 Durgabai Deshmukh: A Legacy Beyond Time

🔆 My journey as a reader, writer and a speaker. ❤️

~E 💛

🔵 Inquiring the Un-touch-able : Touch Unable versus Not-Touchable | Economic and Political Weekly

https://www.epw.in/engage/article/inquiring-untouchable

#Untouchability

Good Morning 🌞

🔵 Dowry is still a dream-killer in Kerala - The Hindu

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/dowry-is-still-a-dream-killer/article67637838.ece

❌ Trigger Warning: the following article contains references to suicide. Please avoid reading if you feel distressed by the subject.

🔵 Minor domestic worker held captive in Gurugram | The seamy side of India’s millennium city - The Hindu

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/minor-domestic-worker-held-captive-in-gurugram-the-seamy-side-of-indias-millennium-city/article67637814.ece

Working at a household for about a decade, Salma says she was not paid “enough” and often made to put in extra hours of work without any additional payment. It was difficult for her to find another job in the same township if she quit. “Madam will give me a bad name, spreading rumours about me among other residents on WhatsApp groups. Madam log sab WhatsApp per jude hue hai. Agar koi kaam chhodta hai to fir usko koi aur nahi leta (All employers are connected through WhatsApp groups. If someone quits a job, no one hires her),” she says.

#Domestic_Labour

🔵 New cyber threats catch India’s IT capital, Bengaluru, unawares - The Hindu

https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/cyber-threats-throw-an-it-city-into-chaos/article67636818.ece

Changing nature of cyber threats 

“A person sitting somewhere, hiding behind the anonymity that VPNs provide, took just a few minutes to send the IT capital of India, a city of nearly 14 million and a growth engine of the country, into a tizzy. It is pretty low-tech. This is the best illustration of how asymmetric cyber threats are,” said a senior police official with considerable experience in fighting cybercrime.

If a hoax bomb threat can send an entire city into a tailspin, imagine what can happen if a city’s power grid is hacked and shut down as a result. That’s precisely what happened in Mumbai on October 13, 2020. A cyber attack on the city’s power grid brought the country’s financial capital to a halt for nearly half a day. The famed local trains stopped, and the stock exchange shut down, even as hospitals struggled to keep ventilators running. The attack was reportedly traced to state actors in China, reported The New York Times in February 2021, a claim acknowledged by Ministers in the government of Maharashtra. India and China relations were tense in October 2020 over the Galwan Valley clash.

Several key cyber attacks were reported on critical information infrastructure in India in recent years: on the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in 2019, on Goa’s flood monitoring system in 2020, ransomware attacks on nationally important institutions like New Delhi-based All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Bengaluru-based National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in 2022. The Karnataka State Data Centre, the information nerve centre of the Government of Karnataka, fell prey to the WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017.

#Cyber_Crime #Technology #Challenges

🔵 ‘Authenticity’ in a post-authentic world - The Hindu

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/authenticity-in-a-post-authentic-world/article67639042.ece

‘Infocalypse’ is imminent

According to AI scientist Nina Schick,

“Infocalypse”, the biggest information and communications crisis in world history, is imminent. Further, the boundary between mainstream and social media is getting blurred.

For instance, in October, the fake news of Amartya Sen’s passing swept the media, originating with a post on social media.

Have we slipped down the rabbit hole of AI and social media and into the era of post-authenticity? “Trust,” however, is the biggest casualty in effect. In his 2021 book of the same name, journalist Michael Grothaus described how society is transforming into a place where we would “Trust No One”.

Today, anyone may cast a doubt on anything by just publicly doubting its authenticity, regardless of how real it is. It helps the bad actors; in 2018, American law professors Bobby Chesney and Danielle Citron popularised the phrase “liar’s dividend”. The greatest risk to mankind is that we might soon cease to take anything at face value.

Because of AI’s presumed ability to create seemingly convincing text and data, researchers and journal editors are becoming increasingly concerned about integrity. Allegations of falsified or wrong data on various topics important to the common people, such as GDP, employment, inflation, and COVID-19-related statistics, frequently rock different societies. With the AI boom, the falsification of data and text could evolve into a new realm in this post-authentic age.

#AI #Technology #Misuse #Social_Media

🔴 Only 16 days remaining.

It's time for a transition.

It's time for a change.

If you haven't started studies yet, please begin.

Good Morning 🌞

🔵 50% of India’s children don’t have access to quality education after primary school: development economist Amir Ullah Khan - The Hindu

https://www.thehindu.com/education/50-of-indias-children-dont-have-access-to-quality-education-after-primary-school-development-economist-amir-ullah-khan/article67641574.ece

Socio-economic conditions of the underprivileged are such that several members of a family live in a single room without proper access to utilities; this makes getting an education a challenge for them.

#Education #Underprivileged

✅RELEVANCE: Paper - 2, Section - C : Disparities in education

Rishi Sunak Considers Social Media Ban For Under-16s In UK: Report
Read more at: https://dbrief.news/d/F0upe

What is your opinion on social media ban for under-16s?

🔵 Assam to introduce bill to ban polygamy in February 2024- The New Indian Express

https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2023/dec/16/assam-to-introduce-bill-to-ban-polygamy-in-february-2024-2642116.html

#Marriage

🔵 How a virtual dissection table can help medical students

https://www.thehindu.com/education/how-a-virtual-dissection-table-can-help-medical-students/article67628731.ece

The medical landscape is evolving rapidly, with technologies like telemedicine, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) becoming integral parts of healthcare. The virtual dissection table prepares medical students for this technologically advanced future by familiarising them with these tools. The ability to provide risk-free, comprehensive, and interactive learning experiences could make it an asset for modern medical study.

#Education #Medicine #Technology

🔆 FOOD FOR THOUGHT 🔆

Have you ever been unemployed? If so how did it make you feel? What social and psychological effects might unemployment have on the traditional 'breadwinners' - men and on the traditional 'housewives' - women? Given that many more women are also now in paid work, is high unemployment potentially a more disruptive social problem today than in the past?

#FoodForThought

Good Morning 🌞

🔆 Giving up is easy 🔆

🔵 Sex determination racket | IMA’s State unit extends support to government in detecting, probing malpractices; demands inclusion in task force - The Hindu

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/sex-determination-racket-imas-state-unit-extends-support-to-government-in-detecting-probing-malpractices-demands-inclusion-in-task-force/article67644742.ece

Mere strict laws cannot prevent female foeticide. We all have to create an environment where women are respected by informing everyone about the fact that men and women are equal. There is a need to create awareness in this direction. We urge the government to implement a stringent law that will punish the parents, relatives and agents who come asking for sex detection,

#Female_Foeticide

The report ‘Ride Hailing — A Platform for Women’s Economic Opportunity in India’ projects the impact that ride-hailing apps can have in boosting the economy through their empowerment of women.

Read here

#Sociology
Suicide

all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim, which he/she knows will produce this result (Pickering & Walford, 2011).

) Fatalistic
- individuals are kept under tight regulation, placed under extreme rules or high expectations
which removes a person’s sense of self or individuality.
Ex : Slavery, Prostitution
celebrity Kim Jonghyun ended his life due to severe depression and the pressure of being in the spotlight as he felt that he could not fulfil the society’s expectations of his performance (Lee, 2018).

---------------------------------------------------
) Anomic :
- lack the regulative influence of social control.
- occurs during high levels of stress and frustration.
- Anomic suicide is caused by social factors that have occurred suddenly.
extreme financial loss, the disappointment and stress that individuals face may drive them towards committing suicide as a means of escape.
Ex : Studies by center for disease control found that historically, suicides for people aged 25 to 64 rose during economic downturns (Sternheimer, 2011). There was a significant increase in suicide rates in USA from 1928 to 1932 when unemployment rates were nearly 24%, On the other hand, suicide rates were at a low in 2000 when unemployment was about 4%
- Also during disasters, difficult to rebuild lives and livelihood crisis for instance : 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan.


) Altruistic
- too intimate, social group involvement is too high. So much so that willing to sacrifice themselves.
- Individuals kill themselves for the collective benefit of the group or for the cause that the group believes in
- opposite of egoistic
Ex : suicide for the sake of a religious or political cause, such as the infamous Japanese Kamikaze pilots of World War II, or the hijackers that crashed the airplanes into the World Trade Centre

) Egoistic suicide
When integration is weak, egoistic suicide occurs
- when Betty, a loner with few friends, no husband, and no children, died by suicide
- absence of social integration / social outcast / alone and outsider
- unable to find their own place in society and have problems adjusting to groups.
received little and no social care.
✅Suicide is seen as a solution for them to free themselves from loneliness or excessive individuation.


~ Prometheus.