Day: October 14, 2021

Top 3 Hindu-Muslim Unity Advertisements

Advertisements have the potential to change human thoughts, behaviour and actions. They can do a lot more than just promoting brands. Through visual and auditory modes, advertisements have the competency to bring about a societal change and provoke a positive impact on people. Readers can have a glance at such impactful advertisements through the examples listed out in this blog.

Red Label (Tea Brand)

A man visits a store to place an order for a Ganesh idol (A Hindu God). The shopkeeper exhibits the different idols created by him to the man. While having a conversation with the buyer the shopkeeper also illustrates the meaning behind the different forms of the Ganesh idols. To the buyer, this shopkeeper seems to be a very knowledgeable man, who has much information about the Hindu worship and reverence. While conversing with the buyer, the shopkeeper puts on the Kufi (skullcap worn by Muslims). The Hindu buyer is taken aback after realising that the shopkeeper selling the Ganesh idols is a Muslim by religion. He attempts to cancel his order and go to his workplace. The Muslim shopkeeper offers him a cup of tea before leaving. The vendor explains him that , work is worship too, one need not compulsorily pray. The Muslim man was in fact worshipping God, by creating his idol. The buyer takes a sip of tea and plans to change his mind. He does not cancel his order and amiably buys the idol from that vendor on that day itself. The Brand, Red Label intends to portray that their product attempts to create harmonious relations between different religions.

Kaun Banega Crorepati (Reality Game Show)

Six years ago, KBC came up with a phenomenal ad campaign featuring communal unity. In the ad it has been shown that, a Hindu boy had been selected for the episode. His family members were all set to bid him a goodbye as he was about to step out of his home, while his Muslim neighbors were watching him from the floor above. Just as the Hindu boy was about to step out, his neighbor sneezes. Sneezing while someone is about to leave from the doorstep is considered as a bad omen in the Hindu community. The Hindu boy’s family members feel agitated at the neighbor for sneezing and they misinterpret that, he had done it deliberately. Hours later, while facing a difficult question on the show, the Hindu participant decides to use the option of ‘Phone A Friend’ (According to the game’s format, this option is availed to all participants only once, whenever they wish to make use of it). He then rings up the same Muslim family and asks them the question i.e ‘What is the meaning of As-Salaam-Alaikum ?’ The man is overwhelmed by such a trustworthy gesture by the young boy. He answers his question accurately and assists him in winning the prize amount. This advertisement touched the hearts of many Indians. It indeed reflected the idea of communal harmony.

Surf Excel (Cloth Detergent Brand)

The advertisement broadcasted by this brand, intends to portray how Indian festivals are secular in nature. An individual from any community can enjoy a festivity according to his/her discretion. It is shown that, on the day of the Hindu festival of Holi (people celebrate this festival by applying colour on each other and splashing water with waterguns/waterballoons), a little boy wearing a white robe is hesitant to step out of his house. A girl of the same age as his, notices this and challenges her friends around, to smear all their colours on her. Her friends do accordingly, by throwing all the colour on her, from the floors above, as she waits down on her little bicycle. By doing so, she makes them use all their colour supplies on her and no colours are left out with them. Later, she offers to drop the boy to the place where he wants to go. It is then shown that, she drops him to the mosque, where he wanted to go to offer Namaaz (Islamic prayers). She also jests that, after he’s done with his prayers, the other kids will not leave him without including him in the merry festivities. He agrees to join them in the Holi celebrations after his prayers are done. The ad tagline said, “Rang Laaye Sang, Daag Acche Hai” (colours bind people together, such stains should be cherished). This advertisement depicts how mutual respect for each other’s religion can bring about unity. The principles of unity in diversity must be inculcated in children from their grassroot years, so that peace and harmony prevails in the society.

Advertisements can have a huge impact over the society, in terms of patriotism, unity, cohesiveness and peace-keeping. Various brands are positioning their ad campaigns around the pivot of National Unity in today’s times as the audience nowadays is readily accepting things which were not accepted earlier. Brands thus, not only create a name in the market with their products but also with their ad campaigns promoting social values and messages.

International news flow after the end of colonialism




The mass media are seen today as playing a key role in enhancing globalization, facilitating culture exchange and multiple flows of information and image between countries through international news broadcasts, television programming, new technologies, film and music. If before the 1990’s mainstream media systems in most countries of the world were relatively national in scope, since then most communication media have become increasingly global, extending their reach beyond the nation-state to conquer audiences worldwide.

International flows of information have been largely
assisted by the development of global capitalism, new technologies and the increasing commercialisation of global television, which has occurred as a consequence of the deregulation policies adopted by various countries in Europe and the US in order to permit the proliferation of cable and satellite channels. Globalization theorists have discussed how the cultural dimension of globalization has exercised a profound impact on the whole globalization process.

The rapid expansion of global communications in the 21st century can be traced back to the mechanical advancements of technologies during the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, which started mainly with the invention of the telegraph in 1837, and included the growth in postal services, cross-border telephone and radio communications and the creation of a modern mass circulation press in Europe. It was however the evolution of technologies capable of transmitting messages via electromagnetic waves that marked a turning point in advancing the globalization of
communications.

The emergence of international news agencies in the 19th century, such as Reuters, paved the way for the beginnings of a global system of codification. Nonetheless, it was not until the 1960’s, with the launch of the first geo-stationary communication satellites, that communication by electromagnetic transmission became fully global, thus
making the globalization of communications a distinctive phenomena of the 20th century.

Key theories in international communications grew out of international relation studies. The “modernization” or development” theory in the area of communication research
emerged in the Cold War context and were largely preoccupied with the ways in which the media could help transform traditional societies to include them into the capitalism orbit. Among the key theorists in this tradition was Wilbur Schramm with his sponsored UNESCO work, Mass Media and national development – the role of information in the developing countries.

The idea was that international communication media could be used
as a tool to transfer the political-economic model of the West to the growing independent societies of the South. Schramm’s views was that the mass media could be used by elites to
raise the ambitions of the populations in developing countries, who would cease to be narrow-minded and conformist and would be active in their own self-development. The dependency theories the 1960’s and 1970’s were perceived as an alternative approach grounded in neo-Marxism, and which adopted a theoretical framework that saw
capitalism and inequality as a key perspective in understanding the impact of power relations on global communications. According to the argument, transnational corporations based in the North engaged in a web of interdependency with the economies of the South, setting the terms of global trade, dominating markets, production and labour.

Dependency theorists and Latin American scholars argued that these economic relations worked within an exploitative dependency model that promoted American capitalist mentality in developing countries (Mattelart, 1979). Development was thus shaped in a way that benefitted largely the developed nations, maintaining the peripheral countries in a continuous position of dependence. Latin American scholars stressed that it was Western
media companies that were reaping the rewards of the modernization programmes, and that they were actually reaching out to the South in order to conquer new markets for their
products.

Globalization is thus seen as having consequences for the distribution of power and wealth both within and between countries. Cultural imperialism theories of the 1970’s and 1980’s highlighted how the media in developing countries imported foreign news, cultural and television genre formats (i.e. talk-shows, sitcoms) and also values of capitalist consumerism and individualism. The core critique of the imperialism thesis was that the
developing countries had established a relationship of subordination.

Written by : Ananya Kaushal

Cryptocurrency simplified

In the simplest of terms cryptocurrency is a digital currency used to make transactions. It is currently not being used to make transactions but can be potentially used to do so. Before jumping to cryptocurrency let’s clear our basics.

Understanding currency 

Think of cryptocurrency as any other currency, we use currency to fulfil our needs and we exchange currency because we are aware that we will be provided with goods and services in return. Now, this currency is not limited to just notes or coins but can be anything. Like in olden times barter system existed where people would exchange goods and services for other goods and services in return but this concept had a lot of limitations so currency started evolving. We moved to commodity money i.e., gold, silver then to metal money then paper money then plastic money(cards) and now we are moving towards crypto. These currencies evolved because the previous methods of transaction had their own drawbacks.

Like any other method, the method of transaction that the world operates on now also has drawbacks like centralisation, elasticity, the ease with which it can be issued to name a few.

Need for Crypto

Now, this is where cryptocurrency comes into play. It is a virtual form of currency that uses blockchain technology. Blockchain technology is a virtual decentralised ledger that keeps a record of transactions. Cryptocurrency is secured by cryptography which is a secure communication technique.

Now, keep in mind that it does not physically exist, one can’t hold up a bitcoin because it is based on a network distributed across computers. So you don’t have to carry it around, kind of like net banking or online transactions but online transactions are made through banks and can be monitored by any authority. Now, imagine you want to transfer your friends 5 bitcoins. You can do it without a bank or an intermediary interfering. It can be done anonymously with your privacy being protected. And since no authority controls it, that currency cannot be altered either. 

With paper currency, the government can print as much money as they want because they control it and printing a lot of money causes inflation but that is not the case with cryptocurrency because  only a limited number exists. 

For example, only 21 million bitcoins exist on the web. Bitcoin is a form of cryptocurrency created allegedly by a Japanese fellow Satoshi Nakamoto. Now , this could be a pseudonym or perhaps more than one person was involved in the development of said currency. However, for the most part that person’s identity still remains anonymous.  

Now,  this number of 21 million cannot be changed, it is constant. There will always exist 21 million bitcoins and can be found out through miing. This is done by solving puzzles. The more puzzles you solve, the more bitcoin you get. As more and more bitcoins are mined, the puzzles get tougher. These bitcoins are not easy to find and it is definitely not easy to solve the puzzles. Perhaps, that is why Bitcoin is so valuable. 

It is possible that somewhere in the not so far future we would not be using paper currency but crypto. For now, cryptocurrency is highly volatile and is used only for investing money.

K- show recommendation

It’s usually called ‘drama’ . Korean shows have recently been gaining popularity. The new show ‘Squid game’  has instantly trending worldwide.

K-show makes up to  2.02 bn revenue for South Korea.

They have also given nations incredible soft power over people around the world. They can influence trends and cultures or sometimes lifestyle too. It also proved a boomer of business to other sectors in Korea. Here are a few top shows that might interest you.

1)Mr. Queen: One of most hilarious drama in the newest realise. It has a story of how a woman in the history of Korea suffered in a royal Household. It also has a light romance side.

2)Vincenzo: It’s old mafia styled. A italian consilerr comes back to Korea and finds his good side working for a lawyer. It is available on Netflix.

This series is a must watch for beginners.

3)Crash landing on you: it’s a romantic drama with sorrowful twists. It shows the relationship and difference between North Korea and South Korea in the present day. If you are into romance drama it is best k-shiw can do for you.

4)Goblin: Show made it 2016. It is a cult hit in Korean shows. It set a benchmark for supernatural genre show. It feels story of a supernatural being looking for a wife to end his life. It’s a sorrowful romance that will make you cry till the end.

About that artist- Claude Monet

Claude Monet is considered as the initiator of impressionism along with Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Frédéric Bazille, who he met while studying under Charles Gleyre.

Early Life

Oscar Claude Monet was a French painter born in 1840 in France. Monet was the eldest kid in his family. He grew up around the coast, which plays a significant role in some of his works. In 1851, Monet got into  Le Havre secondary school of the arts. In his early years Monet started to show inclination towards art and would draw caricatures, which brought him initial success at the age of 15.

In 1858, he met Eugène Boudin through whom he was introduced to multiple techniques namely “en plein air” or painting in open air which he would go on to use in most of his paintings throughout his painting career .

Introduction to Art 

In 1858, Monet started studying in Paris where he was introduced to artists like  Charles Daubigny and Constant Troyon. Monet was called for military service under  Chasseurs d’Afrique

In Algeria. Every experience, every scene for an artist has the potential to serve as an inspiration for an artist and his time in Algeria did exactly that. The colors of Northern Africa were an inspiration for his later research. He was forced to return to Le Havre in 1862 due to illness. He met Johan Barthold Jongkind, who also played an important role and shaped his artistic perception along with Boudin.

In 1867 Monet had a child whom he named Jean with Camille Pissarro. 

A lot of his success comes from the work that he produced between 1865-75. One of those works include Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe which he finished in 1866 which shows a group of well dressed people enjoying a picnic. His paintings from this period portrayed very trivial, domestic scenes.

Some of his paintings from this period include The Beach at Sainte-Adresse(1867), The Woman in the Green Dress (1866), Portrait of Claude Monet, Carolus-Duran (1867).

In 1972, Monet came across Japanese paintings  which influenced his later paintings. Since then, his paintings revolved around nature. Monet is most known for his series of motifs that he started creating in the 1880s, these were impressionist paintings.

Later Years 

In 1883, Monet moved to Giverny with his family. Here he started working on a series of paintings mostly inspired by his surroundings. These paintings represented the River Thames, Charing Cross. During this time Monet frequently traveled to Lomdon and Venice. In 1893, Monet started to assemble a water lily garden and soon this garden became a subject of his later paintings. Most of his work in the 1900s remained unknown to a large population till the mid 20th century. In the later years of his life, his eyesight began to deteriorate despite that he did not stop painting, he painted almost all his life. In 1923, he went through a cataract surgery which improved his sense of sight a bit and went back to some of his older unfinished paintings. In 1926, Monet passed away. Hw spent most of his later years grieving for his friends who he had lost in World War I and perhaps this grief resulted in a series he called Weeping Willow which is regarded as one of his most beautiful series that he painted  

Are perpetual motion machines possible or not? Free energy?

Most of us might have had this idea, that magnets attract each other in opposite poles, so why can’t we use this to create free energy. Like placing a magnet or a metal in a car and attach the other magnet with a rod or something and place it in front of the car that keeps them attract each other. With this idea, we can move the car without any energy, forever. A perpetual motion machine is a device that is supposed to work indefinitely without any external energy source. Imagine a windmill that produced the breeze it needed to keep rotating or a light bulb whose glow provided its own electricity. These devices have captured many inventers’ imaginations because they could transform our relationship with energy. It sounds cool right? But there is only one problem, it won’t work.

Bhaskara’s wheel -The oldest perpetual motion machine

In countless instances in history, people have claimed that they have made a perpetual motion machine. Around 1159 A.D. a mathematician called Bhaskara the learned sketched a design for a wheel containing curved reservoirs of mercury. He reasoned that as the wheels spun, the mercury would flow to the bottom of each reservoir, leaving one side of the wheel perpetually heavier than the other. The imbalance would keep the wheel turning forever. Bhaskara’s drawing was one of the earliest designs for a perpetual motion machine. And more people have claimed that they made a perpetual motion machine, like Zimara’s self blowing windmill in the1500s, the capillary bowl where capillary action forces the water upwards, the oxford electric bell, which takes back and forth due to charge repulsion, and so on. In fact the US patent office stopped granting patents for perpetual motion machines without a working prototype.

Why perpetual motion machines won’t work?

Ideas of perpetual motion machine all violate one or more fundamental laws of thermodynamics. These laws describe the relationship between different forms of energy. The first law of thermodynamics says that “Energy neither be created nor be destroyed”. You can’t get out more energy than you put in. that rules out a useful perpetual motion machine right away because a machine could only ever produce as much as it consumed. There wouldn’t be any leftover energy to power a car or charge a phone. But what if you just wanted the machine to keep itself moving? Let’s take the Bhaskara’s wheel, the moving parts that make one side of the wheel heavier also shift its center of mass downward below the axle. With a low center of mass, the wheel just swings back and forth like a pendulum and will stop. In the 17th century, Robert Boyle came up with an idea for a self watering pot. He theorized that capillary action, the attraction between liquids and surfaces that pulls water through thin tubes, might keep the water cycling around the bowl. But if the capillary action is strong enough to overcome gravity and draw the water up, it would also prevent it from falling back into the bowl.

John Keely’s perpetual motion machine

For each of these machines to keep moving, they had to create some extra energy to nudge the system past its stopping point, breaking the first law of thermodynamics. There are ones that seems to keep moving, but in reality, they invariably turn out to be drawing energy from some external source. Even if engineers could design a machine that didn’t violate the first law of thermodynamics, it still wouldn’t work in the real world because of the second law. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that energy tends to spread out through processes like friction, heating. Any real machine would have moving parts or interactions with air or liquid molecules that would generate tiny amount of friction and heat, even in a vacuum. That heat is energy escaping, and it would keep leeching out, reducing the energy available to move the system itself until the machine inevitably stopped. Like I said about the idea of a car with magnets, the magnets in it won’t able to move the car. Even if the magnet is so powerful to move the car, the friction came into action and will eventually stops the car. So these two laws of thermodynamics will destroy every idea for perpetual motion. With these, we can conclude that perpetual motion machines are impossible.

  YOU  CAN’T  GET  SOMETHING  FOR  NOTHING.

IMPORTANT BOOKS TO READ IN YOUR 20’S

Reading is good for you because it improves your focus, memory, empathy, and communication skills. It can reduce stress, improve your mental health, and help you live longer. Reading also allows you to learn new things to help you succeed in your work and relationships.Reading has been proven to keep our minds young, healthy and sharp, with studies showing that reading can even help prevent alzheimer’s disease. Reading also develops the imagination and allows us to dream and think in ways that we would have never been able to before.

1) How to win friends and influence the people

How to Win Friends and Influence People is a self-help book written by Dale Carnegie, published in 1936. Over 30 million copies have been sold worldwide, making it one of the best-selling books of all time. Carnegie had been conducting business education courses in New York since 1912. The book is very easy to read and provides great examples and stories which makes it 10x easier to relate to and remember. I highly recommend this book, it has helped me improve certain aspects of my relationships and interactions with others.The core idea is that you can change other people’s behavior simply by changing your own. It teaches you the principles to better understand people, become a more likable person, improve relationships, win others over, and influence behavior through leadership.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People

2) Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich was written by Napoleon Hill in 1937 and promoted as a personal development and self-improvement book. He claimed to be inspired by a suggestion from business magnate and later-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_and_Grow_Rich The “secret” of Think and Grow Rich is to place yourself within the overall scheme of creation, obeying natural laws that inevitably and invariably beget growth, expansion, renewal, and generativity.

3) The Power of your subconscious mind

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind has been a bestseller since its first publication in 1963, selling many millions of copies since its original publication. It is one of the most brilliant and beloved spiritual self-help works of all time which can help you heal yourself, banish your fears, sleep better, enjoy better relationships and just feel happier. The techniques are simple and results come quickly. You can improve your relationships, your finances, your physical well-being. Your subconscious mind is a powerful force to be reckoned with. It makes up around 95% of your brain power and handles everything your body needs to function properly, from eating and breathing to digesting and making memories.

4) The Richest Man in Babylon

The Richest Man in Babylon is a 1926 book by George S. Clason that dispenses financial advice through a collection of parables set 4,000 years ago in ancient Babylon. The book remains in print almost a century after the parables were originally published, and is regarded as a classic of personal financial advice.This point is actually the crux of the book: the classic principle of paying yourself first. Clason recommends saving at least 10% of all income earned. Even in his example of those who are paying off debt, he still advocates setting aside this one-tenth. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon#:~:text=The%20Richest%20Man%20in%20Babylon%20is%20a%201926%20book%20by,classic%20of%20personal%20financial%20advice.

5) Atomic Habits

An atomic habit is a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do but is also the source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. While it is well worth reading cover-to-cover as it is chock full of useful and actionable information about habits, from how and why we form them to how to break them and make them, I’ve decided to highlight my top takeaways and share with you the lessons I felt were the most profound. https://medium.com/tom-thoughts/i-finally-read-atomic-habits-here-are-my-top-5-takeaways-57dd6f904ab4

New Zealand Reports Biggest Rise In COVID-19 Cases In Six Weeks

Some 1.7 million people in Auckland are under strict stay-home orders until Monday as officials look to stamp out the highly infectious Delta outbreak, the first major spate of community cases in the country since early in the pandemic.

New Zealand reported on Thursday its biggest rise in COVID-19 infections in six weeks, with all cases detected in Auckland, raising prospects of a further extension of lockdown restrictions in the country’s largest city beyond next week.

Some 1.7 million people in Auckland are under strict stay-home orders until Monday as officials look to stamp out the highly infectious Delta outbreak, the first major spate of community cases in the country since early in the pandemic.

Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said the surge in case numbers in Auckland was not unexpected “but they are rising more quickly,” and blamed illegal home gatherings for the spike.

“Now is not the time for complacency,” Robertson said during a media conference in Wellington, urging residents in Auckland to strictly follow the level-three rules, under which most people are required to stay at home unless they have urgent reasons to go out.

A total of 71 new local cases were reported in the country, all detected in Auckland, up from 55 a day earlier.

Today’s new case numbers are sobering but not unexpected because of where we are in the outbreak,” Director of Public Health Caroline McElnay said.

About 2.49 million New Zealanders have been fully vaccinated, or about 59% of the eligible population, with officials promising to end lockdowns once 90% are vaccinated. Officials are looking to administer a record 100,000 doses in a single day during a mass immunisation drive on Saturday.