With an intention to create a platform for academic discussion and debate, the Centre for Development Documentation and Communication came up with a new initiative ‘LibraryTalks’. Dr. Akanksha Shukla, Associate Professor &Head, CDC, said that the initiative is meant to bring together the faculty members and staff of NIRDPR to discuss and debate important issues related to rural development and explore new ideas that arise in the process.
This initiative has been planned as a series of talks which will be organized every month. Each talk will be delivered by the faculty members of different Centres.
The first ‘Library Talks’ was conducted on the eve of Librarians Day. Librarians Day is celebrated on the birthday of Dr. S. R. Ranganathan, the Father of Library & Information Science. On the occasion, the portrait of Dr. S. R. Ranganathan was unveiled by Director General Dr. W. R. Reddy, IAS.
Faculty from the Centre for Panchayati Raj (CPR) delivered the inaugural ‘Library Talk’ at Library Building on August 10, 2018. The event was inaugurated by Director General, Dr. W R Reddy, IAS, and Deputy Director General Smt. Radhika Rastogi, IAS, and was coordinated by Dr. Akanksha Shukla, Associate Professor & Head, CDC.
June 21, 2019
LibraryTalks session on International Day of Yoga
Topic: Elimination of stress through Transcendental meditation
Speaker: Mr. Anil G.
May 7, 2019
Better Livelihood through Livestock.
Speaker: Dr. Y Ramana Reddy, Prof. & Head, Centre for Livelihoods, NIRDPR
Topics discussed: Role of domesticated animals in the evolution of human culture, need of livestock and its significance (why livestock matters?), livestock and rural income (particularly in the lives of smallholders in developing countries), Big livestock opportunities, action to transform smallholder livestock agriculture, Scenario in India, etc.
12th March 2019
Library Talks on Geoinformatics Applications for Rural Development
The Centre for Development Documentation and Communication at NIRDPR launched Library Talks as an initiative to organize academic discussions and debates on various topics that can benefit the faculty members, staff and students of various centers. Library Talks on geoinformatics applications for rural development was held on 12th March 2019. The key speaker was Dr. N. S. R. Prasad, Assistant Professor, C-GARD.
Dr. Akanksha Shukla, Head, CDC, introduced the guests and welcomed the audience comprising faculty members, staff and students of NIRDPR.
What is GIS? A geographic information system (GIS) is a framework for gathering, managing, and analyzing data. Rooted in the science of geography, GIS integrates many types of data. It analyses spatial location and organizes layers of information into visualizations using maps and 3D scenes. With this unique capability, GIS reveals deeper insights into data, such as patterns, relationships, and situations, helping users make smarter decisions (source: https://www.esri. com/en-us/what-is-gis/overview).
Dr. N. S. R. Prasad provided key information on the subject geoinformatics and its applications in the field of rural development. GIS stores both spatial and non-spatial data in different layers like administrative divisions, water availability, resource maps, etc. This information helps one in analyzing an area’s location, its conditions, trends (be it agriculture, water or housing patterns) and also helps in modeling that area.
GIS is integrated with remote sensing. The sensors used in remote sensing collect data in the form of images, and provide specialized capabilities for analyzing and visualizing these images. Dr. N. S. R. Prasad, while discussing some of the advantages of remote sensing, put forth that, it can further be used productively know the locations of wasteland, which can be productively used to generate income and employment. It will also help in watershed management.
GIS can be used in agro-climatic planning, where it can be used for soil mapping, finding dominant crop types, crop suitability, drought assessment, crop insurance mapping, land use pattern, land degradation, irrigation, elevation, rainfall, temperature and for knowing other cultural features of that area.
GIS can also be integrated with government schemes like MGNREGS and be used for developmental planning monitoring and management of roads. GIS is effectively useful in administrative and development sector, especially in disaster management, groundwater management, flood mitigation, flood warning system. It can also help in asset monitoring under various government schemes like the Swachh Bharat Mission.
The speaker, Dr. N. S. R. Prasad, also spoke extensively on ’Bhuvan Panchayat’. Bhuvan Panchayat is a web portal that functions on a crowd-sourcing approach. It offers high-resolution data of a region which helps in visualization.
Smt. Radhika Rastogi, Deputy Director General, NIRDPR, appreciated the team of C-GARD for coming up with good research in the field of GIS, which is useful for effective monitoring in administration.
Towards the end of the program, Dr. Akanksha Shukla thanked the speaker for an enlightening session.
15th February 2019
Library Talks on the impact factor of a journal and ways to improve it
The Centre for Development Documentation and Communication at NIRDPR had launched Library Talks as an initiative to organize academic discussions and debates on various topics that can benefit the faculty members, staff and students of various centers. As part of the initiative, a talk on the impact factor and ways to improve it was held on 15th February 2019. The key speakers were Dr. P. Krishnan, Principal Scientist, NAARM and Dr. M. V. Ravibabu, Associate Professor, C-GARD.
Dr. Akanksha Shukla, Head, CDC, introduced the guests and welcomed the audience comprising faculty members, staff and students of NIRDPR.
The impact factor (IF) is a measure of the frequency with which article in a journal has been cited in a particular year. It is used to measure the importance or the rank of a journal by calculating the times its articles are cited.
Dr. P. Krishnan spoke extensively on impact factor – how has these metrics for a journal come into existence, how is it calculated and some of the limitations. Impact factor helps us to know the importance of a journal. The higher the impact factor, the more highly ranked the journal. It is calculated based on a two-year period and involves dividing the number of times articles were cited by the number of articles that are citable. “Citations and publication are a different ball game”, says Dr. P. Krishnan. Dr. P. Krishnan put forth some of the limitations of the impact factor. He mentioned that it includes only 4-5 percent of the world’s journals. There are some cases where the author or the article influencing research but it is not effectively captured. Also, the impact factor cannot be used to compare different fields. The software that is used PRAGATI, February 2019 22 NIRDPR cannot distinguish between similar but different names. One of the major drawbacks of the impact factor is that it is available only for journals in the English language.
Dr. M. V. Ravibabu detailed on some of the facts about the impact factor. He asked all the faculty members, researchers and students present during the talk, to enroll themselves in the SCOPUS database. This would give better visibility to the researchers in various fields. Similarly, by enrolling in Google Scholar, which gives access to reports, books, conference papers, etc., one can help new researchers in a particular field.
Talking about ways to improve the impact factor of a journal, particularly the Journal of Rural Development, published by NIRDPR, Dr. M. V. Ravibabu said that editorial strength of the journal must be increased. “Online reviewing process must be done. Also, giving open access to the journal will improve its visibility and help more and more researchers in the field”, he said.
October 26, 2018
Prof. Umesh Arya delivers a lecture on neuro-linguistic programming
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a psychological approach created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in California, the United States in the 1970s that involves analyzing strategies used by successful individuals and applying them to reach a personal goal. It relates thoughts, language, and patterns of behavior learned through experience to specific outcomes.
Each individual behaves and responds according to a set of behaviors consisting of habitual thoughts, feelings, reactions, beliefs, and traditions programmed in his/her mind. A change in this behavioral pattern can bring in positive changes in his/her perspectives and approaches.
A person trained in neuro-linguistic programming knows how such programs are structured in the mind and how to access them so that autopilot behaviors can be changed.
The Centre for Development Documentation and Communication at NIRDPR had launched Library Talks as an initiative to organize academic discussions and debates on various topics that can benefit the faculty members, staff and students of various centers. In the Library Talks held on October 26, 2018, Prof. Umesh Arya from Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology, Hisar, Haryana handled a session on neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).
Dr. Akanksha Shukla, Head, CDC, introduced the speaker.
“A professor of mass communication, Prof. Umesh Arya is a multi-faceted person, who has delved into spirituality, past-life regression therapy deals with the present life ghosts of our life to the extreme end of IT usage. Neuro-linguistics deals with the mind, the healing powers of mind and how to go forth in life. It’s a spiritual realm based on self-healing,” she said.
Prof. Umesh Arya started the session with a quote from Apple CEO Steve Jobs about the customers. “According to Jobs, Customers do not know what they need. Steve Jobs made an instrument for them and told them that this is what you need. At the stroke of a pen, he brushed aside all management theories and consumer insights, and people are happily using Apple products,” he said.
“NLP says that human beings are habitual of behaving in a patterned way. For instance, when you take a bath in the morning, all your actions are programmed in the same way for the past few years. Same applies to the way of our reaction. Subconscious program is the seat of learning, which is guiding our responses and patterns.
Sometimes, we behave in a different way and we don’t know why we are behaving in that manner. Neuro-linguistic programming says we should use the language in order to talk to this subconscious mind so that we can program it accordingly and it can execute the function the way we want, not otherwise,” he said.
“NLP says that the angle of perception, which human beings adapt to see a particle or situation is decided as per their way of action or pattern. Prof. Umesh further asked the audience whether they believe that the past can be forgotten.
Evaluating the response, he said nobody can forget the past.
“If you expect a person to perform miraculously, and if he has failed many times in the past, he/she will not be able to perform in similar situations in the future too. The external factors are providing all kinds of incentives. The past guides the present and the present guides the future. If the past was turbulent, you will be feeling the shockwaves right now. It will have an effect on your present life too. According to NLP, an individual is conscious of only about 5 percent of the cognitive activity. All your actions, patterns, and behavior emotions depend on 95 percent of brain activity, which is beyond the conscious awareness,” he said.
“NLP says everything should work effortlessly and perform smart work which is utilizing our subconscious mind. We have to update the software. Any memory has a structure in order to be there in the mind. We have demolished it and it won’t come back provided the memory deletion is performed the right way. The subconscious mind cannot differentiate reality and imagination and hence past can be repaired. Moreover, we cannot judge a person as he/she is behaving as per the patterns of the past,” he said.
He further guided the audience through a few processes for memory deletion, reliving the happy moments from the past, shielding the mind from negative thoughts and constructing the future as per the desire of an individual.
Prof. Umesh Arya wound up the session by stating that thoughts are like electromagnetic fields. “NLP says to focus on your thoughts. The whole exercise of NLP boils down to improving the thoughts,” he added.
Smt. Radhika Rastogi, IAS, Deputy Director General, NIRDPR, faculty members, staff and students attended the program.
NEURO-LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is an approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in California, The United States in the 1970s. NLP’s creators claim there is a connection between neurological processes (neuro), language (linguistic) and behavioral patterns learned through experience (programming), and that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life. Bandler and Grinder also, claim that NLP methodology can “model” the skills of exceptional people, allowing anyone to acquire those skills. They claim as well that, often in a single the session, NLP can treat problems such as phobias, depression, tic disorders, psychosomatic illnesses, nearsightedness, allergy, common cold, and learning disorders. There is no scientific evidence supporting the claims made by NLP advocates and it has been discredited as a pseudoscience.
Scientific reviews state that NLP is based on outdated metaphors of how the brain works that are inconsistent with current neurological theory and contain numerous factual errors. Reviews also found that all of the supportive research on NLP contained significant methodological flaws and that there were three times as many studies of a much higher quality that failed to reproduce the “extraordinary claims” made by Bandler, Grinder and other NLP practitioners. Even so, NLP has been adopted by some hypnotherapists and also by companies that run seminars marketed as leadership training to businesses and government agencies. It uses perceptual, behavioral and communication techniques to make it easier for people to change their thoughts and actions. Source: Wikipedia, various websites
September 10, 2018
How should we treat children with special needs?
What is the definition given by
society for children with
special needs? Are we giving them a fair
treatment? Can we treat them on par with
normal kids? Do they require any special
attention? What are the constraints faced
by them in day-to-day life?
Parents, teachers, and students who
come across such children at least once
in their life might have hundreds of such
questions lingering in their minds. The
Library Talk held on September 10, 2018
at Dr. B R Ambedkar Block focused on
clarifying many of the above-mentioned
queries.
Welcoming the guests and audience
comprising faculty members, staff and
teachers of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s
Vidyasharam situated on the Institute
premises, Dr. Akanksha Shukla, Head,
CDC elaborated the objectives for
choosing the topic for discussion.
“Children with special needs are
a silent community we have often
neglected because they are not voters.
As teachers, parents, and citizens of this
country, we have to understand them,”
she said and introduced Dr. T Vijaya Kumar,
Associate Professor, CHRD, NIRD&PR, the
key speaker on the occasion.
Dr. T Vijaya Kumar started his lecture
by underlining his involvement in four
significant flagship programs of this
country.
“As a monitoring officer, I have been
associated with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
which was later renamed as Samagra
Shiksha Abhiyan, Rashtriya Madhyamik
Shiksha Abhiyan, Saakshar Bharat
Mission, and Mid-day Meal Scheme. As
part of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, there is
a big intervention is known as inclusive
education. Under that umbrella, the
persons with special needs and children
with special needs are covered largely for
the inclusion into the education. Based on
this experience as well as the monitoring
reports presented by NIRD&PR, The central government, and many State
governments introduced this as a paper
for teacher training courses particularly
for Andhra Pradesh. The Diploma in
Education Programme has a paper called
inclusive education. Introduced in the year 2010, it instructs teachers on how
to handle children with special needs in
a regular classroom to make an inclusive
classroom,” he said.
Dr. Vijaya Kumar further shared his
observations about children with special
needs on the basis of school-based research.
“Who are the children with special
needs? Most people used to put
handicapped and disabled children in
this bracket. Earlier, it was restricted
to physically, visually and speech
impaired children and children with
other impairments. Under the Persons
with Disabilities Act, 1995, they were
categorized into seven groups. Recently,
it was replaced with Rights of Persons
with Disabilities Act, 2016 by including 21
disabilities. So, comprehensive coverage
has been given to this area by adding
three blood disorders: Thalassemia,
Haemophilia and Sickle Cell disease for
the first time,” he noted.
“Children with special needs have
a single or a combination of disabilities.
Sometimes, it may be one; sometimes
it may be a combination, for example,
mental retardation with cerebral
palsy, physical disabilities with visual
impairment, which makes learning a
difficult process. As far as education
is concerned, accommodating such
children in regular classrooms become
a daunting task,” Dr. T Vijaya Kumar said.
“They can have speech and
language impairment, physical disability,
vision problem, cerebral palsy and other
conditions, attention disorders, attention the deficit, children with hypertension,
emotional disorders, etc.,” he added.
“Why we should learn about these
children is an important question. Every
kid has a potential and if you are able to
nurture and unlock his potential, he/she
becomes an asset to the country. With
attention and proper care, each child can
reach his full potential. We have to help
each individual to attend his or her full
potential. The more a parent understands the growth of his/her children, the
better prepared they will be to recognize
the special needs and seek help
accordingly. That’s why we should know
children with special needs - every friend,
parent, teacher and community member
should know about them,” he said.
“Of the many barriers faced by such
kids, the first one is attitudinal. Parents,
teachers, fellow students, and community
members are having a negative attitude
towards them. As a friend, parent or
teacher, one needs to address these
issues.Based on programs such as
World Programme of Action for Youth and
Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with
Disabilities, 2013-2022, many developed
countries have made interventions for the
mainstreaming and educate such children.
In India, while the Ministry of Social Justice
and Empowerment has established
separate schools which are managed by
the NGOs, Ministry of Human Resource
Development developed inclusive
education model,” Dr. T Vijaya Kumar said.
“Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan brings
concerns about children with special
needs under the inclusive education
adopting zero rejection policy. If a child
who wants to learn approaches school,
he/she should be provided space for
education. So we must adopt a zero
rejection policy across the country. No
child should be left out of the education
system. Then only we will be able to
achieve universalization of elementary
education. Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan,
2018 has a multi-action mode of education
delivery. Across the country, the uniform
policy was introduced under this umbrella
to create access. Vocational skills, need-based skills, functional literacy skills,
activities of daily life were included in the
curriculum for mainstreaming children
with special needs,” he said. “Mainstreaming of children with
special needs should be done through
regular schools, not special schools.
MHRD has directed that they should be
mixed with normal children. Then only it
will be called inclusive education. Without
inclusive education, you cannot achieve
inclusive development,” he pointed out.
“Home-based education is another
beauty of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. These
kids are categorized into mild, moderate
and severe. There is a provision called
home-based education for kids in severe
category and teachers to visit their home.
In 2015, the Prime Minister has come out
with a new campaign called Accessible
India campaign. The goal was to make
all government institutions located in
the national capital and State capitals
disabled-friendly by July 2018,” he said.
“People are talking about only
physical access but not the attitudinal
access. This is a major hurdle and
there should be an attitudinal shift
and attitudinal reinforcement.
Poor infrastructure and unscientific
construction is posing a big challenge.
The infrastructure has to be redesigned
to cater to the needs of the disabled. Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan has earmarked ` 15,000
for each school across the country to
create ramps. However, field reality is
entirely different. Some schools did
not have ramps while some did not
have handrails. How can you expect a
physically impaired kid to use a general
toilet? Limited access to toilet results in a high dropout rate and low attendance
rate,” he warned. Most often, we speak about physical
access but what about psychological
access and attitudinal access? Are
we treating them as a fellow human
being? Are we respecting them? Are
we respecting their rights? A lot of
discrimination - most often hidden
discrimination - is prevailing. As a result,
people are denied access. The quality will
enhance only if access to the classroom
transaction, teaching, learning material
assisted teaching and learning process is
ensured.
“Also research about such children is
less. Some institutions are doing research,
there is no database of this research. For
the mainstreaming of children/persons
with special needs, the broader objectives
are: providing them access in all forms,
equal opportunities for development
on par with normal children or normal
person, instruction for education so
that independently they can leave and
participate in various activities,” Dr. Vijaya
Kumar concluded.
Further, Dr. Praneetha, Associate
Professor, Sweekar Multi Speciality
Rehabilitation Centre, Hyderabad gave an
overview of the activities carried out by the
Institute for attending to learning disorders.
The program ended with the vote
of thanks proposed by Dr. Akanksha Shukla.
August 10, 2018
CDC organizes first Library Talk on Role of Women in Panchayati Raj: Reservation in Panchayati Raj System in India and its Impact
The inaugural talk was delivered by CPR team on the topic ‘The Impact of Reservations in the Panchayati Raj: Evidence from a Nationwide Randomized Experiment’, from the series of research papers published by Dr. Esther Dufl o, a scholar from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Dr. Kathiresan, Associate Professor, CPR, who initiated the talk, said that the paper brings out a detailed analysis on how reservations helped women secure power in the Panchayati Raj system. The study also provided evidence that women’s leadership provided governance with negligible corruption and minimum caste-based discrimination in service delivery. The study highlights that most of the women elected representatives performed their duties effectively. At the same time, Dr. Kathiresan also pointed out from Dr. Esther Dufl o’s findings that despite the success stories, the reservations for Scheduled Castes and women in the Panchayati Raj system are often criticized the following grounds:
• Potential candidates miss the chance of contesting elections due to panchayats being reserved for women and especially those of backward communities
• Some working pradhans do not work wholeheartedly because of the reservation is given on a rotation basis and they are likely to indulge in corruption to make money during their term • In some cases, Panchayats are run by husbands of sarpanches
• Some women elected representatives lack the capabilities and experience to function as sarpanches.
• Female sarpanches are perceived to be ineffective by people.
However, the speakers at the event contradicted the abovementioned criticism and made the following observations: • One term is not enough to prove efficiency. Hence, it is unfair to judge a woman representative for their performance
• Despite the hard work, their services are not recognized by society
• Women leaders focus more on water, sanitation facilities and service delivery
• Women leaders are less corrupt when compared to their male counterparts and they tend to exhibit negligible caste-based discrimination.
Dr. Anjan Kumar Bhanja, Associate Professor, CPR critically reviewed the article “Unappreciated Service: Performance, Perceptions, and Women Leaders in India” written by Dr. Esther Dufl o and Petia Topalova. The article, published in October 2004, focuses on the impact of reservation for women on the performance of policymakers and how voters evaluate the performance of male and female leaders.
Analyzing the observations of the authors that the representation of women has led to increasing in women’s access to political decision-making and winning an election is difficult for them as it is perceived that women would be less effective once in office, he said, “This the notion of the voters has to be changed. We have to discard the Aristotelian view on sexes like the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject.”
Dr. Vanishree Joseph, an Assistant professor from CPR critically analyzed Esther Duflo o’s article on ‘Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in India’ from a feminist standpoint and postmodernist perspective. She criticized the methodology adopted for the study and said that it lacks women’s perspective on policymaking. Randomized controlled evaluation is often suggested by several institutions to evaluate the intervention of certain social policies. Because they consider randomized controlled evaluation is effective to assess significance and judge causation. Feminists have criticized this method on three grounds, namely principle of random allocation uses change and there is the absence of design; the issue of informed consent; and third problem concerns the epistemology, ownership, and distribution of certainty. Similarly, feminist researchers have criticized the research based on the patriarchal perspective of traditional ‘science’, both past and present, have contributed to the perpetuation of women’s position of subordination within society. Feminist research, along with active dissemination of results can act as a catalyst for the emancipation of women and other marginalized groups alike. Since most of the developmental issues are based on gender discrimination, the methods and methodologies to evaluate politically determined goals through the implementation of social policies should have a feminist concern. Principally, evaluation studies had still failed to develop sufficient theoretical and methodological tools for capturing the complexity of women in all their diversity.
Feminist standpoint and postmodernism have solutions to address the complexity in the research as well on the subject matter of evaluation. In order to take into consideration gender and all of its complexities, a key aspect of methodologies that are sensitive to gender is their ability to adapt to different circumstances and situations. Important to the concept of research from a gender, perspective is the recognition that there is not one specific method or combination of methods that necessarily makes research ‘feminist,’ but rather that the research comes from an approach that is considerate of the multifaceted nature of gender.
Continuing the talk, Dr. S N Rao, Associate Professor, CPR stated that women leaders face many hurdles in their job. It has been proved that women leaders elected across the country have proved their efficiency. However, their abilities are still undermined and their success often goes unnoticed due to deep-rooted gender bias in our society. There is a need for more women leaders in the panchayats, Dr. S N Rao opined.
The Director-General, Dr. W R Reddy, IAS appreciated the CDC for taking up the initiative of Library Talk. He further said that it is important to discuss the role of women in the successful panchayats and the lessons learned from their experiences. “There are many gram panchayats with great potential for development. “If we at NIRD&PR can provide the necessary support to such gram panchayats, they can achieve extraordinary results. There is a need for a nation-wide study on women in Panchayati Raj,” the Director-General concluded.
The Deputy Director-General Smt. Radhika Rastogi, IAS, said that the study done by Esther Duflo gives valuable evidence to support the policy of reservation for women in panchayats.
The first Library Talk was attended by staff and faculty members from various centers of NIRD&PR. The program concluded with final remarks by Dr. Akanksha Shukla, Associate Professor & Head, CDC, and vote of thanks by Dr. M Padmaja, Senior Librarian.
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