In what will go a long way in ridding the country of the menacing second wave of the pandemic, the attempts to earn political brownie points amid the unprecedented times should be shunned. The need of the hour is to put an immediate halt to the ongoing mudslinging and levelling of one allegation after the other against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government. So, what is needed is the constructive role of the political parties in the Opposition which can come into play by backing PM Modi to help the government in its efforts aimed at dealing with the pandemic efficiently. Prioritising effective governance and public health over political point-scoring will be laudable at this point.  

This is exactly what we saw in other countries of the world, where concerted efforts, cutting across the party lines, have been made to fight the Covid-19. From the USA, France, Spain to the UK, everywhere, a narrow political agenda was set aside by everyone to strengthen the hands of their respective leaderships in the battle against the Coronavirus.

This is not the right time to point fingers at each other— as has been said repeatedly not only by the political leadership of the country but also by several significant members of the medical fraternity. The message is loud and clear: a bid to derive political mileage—out of whatever is happening in every state of the country— diverts the focus of the frontline warriors from the key task of fighting the pandemic and guarding the people against its havoc. Merely any state has been from the onslaught of the Covid-19. Needless to say that the governments of almost all the political parties are grappling with the corona-induced crises, and there is a possibility of every single party being questioned on the issue of proper strategy and a sufficient healthcare system. Recently, Congress and other parties, complaining about ‘faulty’ ventilators allegedly sent by the Centre to their states, ended up getting embarrassed when it was found that ‘they did not recalibrate settings according to geographical location. So, what does this suggest? Does it not suggest that political parties are deliberately trying to send out a wrong picture about the central government in a bid just to gain their narrow political agenda?

Similarly, a section of media and social media was flooded with the story claiming an RSS leader allegedly being left in the lurch after which he ‘succumbed to corona’. But it came to light that he was helped by the BJP and RSS workers. Was it not an attempt to politicise the matter to project the government and leadership in a poor light?  

Likewise, if one goes by a report, then the AAP leader and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s demand— to give what he called vaccine formula to all the companies in India to prepare vaccines— seems to be a statement aimed at scoring political points only. A report appearing in the media says, “Firstly, in the process of vaccine production, there is no formula. It’s a process that involves enough R&D. Even if someone acquires the information, it will take nearly a year to start producing the vaccine in the BSL-3 facility.” Now, how can one not describe Kejriwal’s statement as a political one?   

One can recall how SP leader and former UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav refused to get inoculated, saying that it is for the BJP. His statement was an outright attempt to send out a message to the minority community, obviously out of political desire.

With the political parties in the opposition apparently seeing political opportunity in crisis, who is going to be hit the most? It is the common people. There is no denying that this kind of political opportunism in myriad ways, at some level, hinders the ongoing battle which has been launched by the Modi government to eliminate the coronavirus and put the economy back on track. Many believe that political parties are duty-bound to back the Prime Minister and his government for his ‘efforts on war-footing’.   

But the question is whether any kind of finger-pointing is going to solve the problem? Will the trading of charges not defeat the real purpose? All this kind of political agenda should be immediately stopped. Analysts and political observers firmly believe that the political moves and messages targeting the Modi government either on social media or elsewhere are detrimental to the objective of defeating the pandemic.

It is undeniably difficult to lead in a crisis, and leading the political opposition is not easier either. But it is the responsibility of the opposition parties to be supportive of the leadership of the government of the day. Many European countries witnessed how the major opposition parties supported governments’ calls for unity and backed most of the decisions in what was called the unprecedented time of crisis.   

The whole world saw how opposition in France and Germany cooperated with their respective governments during the pandemic. Similarly, coordination was exercised between the opposition and government in Italy.

Another European nation Poland was a glaring example where the opposition stood away from the exercise of punching holes in the government’s decisions. The government and the opposition in Poland were on the right foot. The government’s tight and strict restrictions met with support from all the sides.  Spain was among the worst-affected countries by the coronavirus pandemic, and most of the opposition leaders in the parliament supported the government’s bid to tackle the exigencies posed by the Covid-19 virus. In the USA and the UK too, the governments received relentless freedom and support.

With all this in view, the opposition in India should also go by what the world has depicted so far. However, the respective situation in India so far is not encouraging.  The political faultlines over the Covid second surge have sharpened. A dozen of major opposition leaders wrote a joint letter to PM Modi asking the Centre to procure vaccines centrally from the global and domestic sources to ‘begin’ a free, universal mass vaccination campaign across the country. Ironically, these parties have made such demands at a time when the global tenders have already been sent by the different states for procuring vaccines from abroad. Political observers and crisis managers do not see such moves as a positive development that could do any service to the people of the nation. What they need to do is come out with constructive and enriching suggestions, sans politics.

 Anshuman Rao is a political analyst and former Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh Electronics Development Corporation. Views expressed are personal.

With the Opposition trying to take a political mileage out of the ongoing crisis, the common man is going to be hit the most. There is no denying that this kind of political opportunism is going to hinder the ongoing battle which has been launched by the Narendra Modi government to eliminate coronavirus, and put the economy back on track. It’s the duty of each political party to back the Prime Minister and his government in these Covid times.

Anand Verma, Co-founder, Tekie, recently joined NewsX’s special series NewsX India A-List, wherein he spoke exclusively about the platform, it’s USP and entrepreneurial journey. Tekie, founded by Naman and Anand Verma in 2017, is a platform to teach programming for the students above 12 years. The platform went live in July, 2020.

Recognised for excellence in business leadership, Anand spoke about what makes Tekie different from its competitors and said, “Other platforms are more focused on block used coding, which is more suited for kids between the age of 6 to 10. When kids go above 10, they start to develop an appetite and aptitude to learn more text-based coding. That’s where Tekie differentiates. It has a story-telling way of teaching the students where we rolled out a long format movie like series. On top of it, we have multiple other gamified content. Using all this blended content, we’re able to make learning more interesting and thus we’re able to bring text-based coding to classic students.”

When asked the USP of their platform, Anand expressed, “Essentially, we spent the first two years doing a pilot with lots of students on ground to understand what kind of learning outcome we’ve been able to get. One of our students whom we prepared for two years, we made him participate in a global coding competition organised with Google and he became globally second. The entire product is more of an analogy as to how we help prepare these students. We, as a company, are able to give tangible learning outcomes instead of having some marketing gimmicks. We are focusing on communicating and articulating the students and coding is something which commands a lot of patience. You’ll have a lot of instances where you’ll have a lot of demotivation and that’s where the entire learning plan has been gamified in a way that we’re able to focus on tangible learning outcomes, instead of just a plain market.”

Speaking about the design and courses offered on their platform, Anand shared, “We have a concept of internal, which we call coder’s journey from zero to ten. Zero is a point where students are absolute beginners, who are just trying to get a flavour of what coding is all about and 10 is the point where the students have developed tangible skill sets. In this entire journey of zero to ten, we have multiple programs. The initial program gives them foundational knowledge around all the basic concepts of coding and then we have a second program that focuses on specialisation, which is built on the foundational course, where we again depending on which direction the student wants to grow. We help them grow in that direction. The last program is apprenticeships. Like college internships, we have brought about the format in the form of apprenticeships for school students, where they were able to work on real projects in a real atmosphere and are available to develop job-related skills.”

Sharing light on his entrepreneurial journey, Anand said, “In initial days, it was definitely a struggle. We took an unconventional path with Tekie because when we started off, coding was a fairly new concept for the schools back in 2017. The reason why we spent four years is simply because of the opposition we carried for building good products and that’s where we saw a lot of non-linear things happening. linear things happening, in the journey because we were bootstrapped. We grew to a team of 50 plus today and most of the people haven’t drawn any kind of salary from the last three years. We decided to bootstrap because we didn’t want to go for any kind of investments. We felt investors would have apprehensions because they’re always worried about their underrate and all those things. We wanted to have some flexibility in terms of how we approach the product so that is the reason why we decided to bootstrap. Though in initial days, it was tough, now we have millions of funds.”

Finally, speaking about the launch of Beta version, especially in a year when the country was hit by Covid-19 second wave , Anand acknowledged that there were difficulties but also pointed out at the brighter side, with him launching the beta version of Tekie as a good sign for Edtech. He further mentioned how experts from the institutes like IITs, IIMs are now associated with their platform Tekie and thanked them for their contribution in the entire journey. 

Business is a cocktail of vision, belief, and execution. A balanced mixture of these three ingredients churns out a perfect blend of a successful business. Mr Pratik Gauri, the president of 5th Element Group, who is also known as the pioneer of 5th industrial revolution, recently joined NewsX’s special series, NewsX India A-List and shared his insights on business leadership.

Speaking about the 5th industrial revolution, Mr Pratik said, “The 5th industrial revolution is all about using the advancements of the 4th industrial revolution such as Artificial Intelligence, 3-D printing, IoT for the betterment of humanity. The 5th industrial revolution is all about working at the intersection of purpose and profit. It means that, even as a fortune 500 company, if you have a purpose, you can maximise profit. If the company is consumer-centric, it gives the company a purpose and subsequently increased profits. Through this revolution, we also aim at using the language of the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals, the 17 global goals, in our process. The 5th Industrial Revolution agenda is to shift from a for-profit paradigm to a for-benefit paradigm.”

Pratik Gauri wears multiple hats, including that of an entrepreneur and an investor, to achieve his goal. Talking about how he is using it to achieve his vision, he said, “I have founded more than eight companies and have invested in many. I also indulge in public speaking and motivate people from the age of 19 to 30 years to take the initial steps for becoming an entrepreneur in the space of the for-benefit paradigm. At 5th Element Group, we are creating what we call Omni-win solutions. We bring four sectors – Fortune 500 companies, the government, ultra-high net worth individuals and family offices, and social entrepreneurs – that helps us create these Omni-win solutions.”

The model uses the resources of a Fortune 500 company to bring the vision to life, the government’s backing to achieve a national scale, using the social entrepreneurs to get intel on the impact scale, and the high net-worth individual for the capital. This model helps in creating omni-win solutions (everybody wins). Pratik gave the example of such a model in progress. He told NewsX, “Mission Paani by Harpic is one such project. We brought the fortune 500 company Reckitt Benckiser, and not-for-profit organization ‘Water for People’ as execution partners and together took them to World Economic Forum. This initiative will impact millions of people in India by giving them access to clean drinking water, starting from Maharashtra.”

Covid-19 impacted businesses, both big and small, in one way or the other. However, the situation was different for Mr Pratik. “On the personal side, Covid impacted everybody adversely. Although, it has also been a blessing in disguise for the professional work. What I have been trying to promote for decades has amplified due to the pandemic. This is because the consumer has now started believing in the power of health, power of consumer-centric, purpose-driven brands, and they realize that purpose is more important than profit,” he expressed. Talking about the three aspects of capital – Financial, Relational, and Human – Pratik further explained how his capital and his message had found a wider reach than before.

Pratik’s latest project that he is particularly proud of is a charitable sweepstakes platform called ‘Win Together’. It involves micro-donors by allowing them to become a part of these solutions, and the incentives like getting a chance to win a Tesla Cyber truck are given to people. Such projects will impact consumers through SDGs on a big scale in the coming years. Wrapping up the talk with few golden tips for budding entrepreneurs, Pratik said, “One big piece of advice for young entrepreneurs is to trust the process and never lose hope. If you trust the process, big things will happen; it takes time. It is also essential to believe in yourself as much as possible, as people will not believe you until you believe in yourself.”

Sonia Rathee is an American-Indian actress who has been famous in the industry for her excellent acting performances. She is known for Broken But Beautiful (2018), Night Encounters and 100: The Tribute (2014) among the cinephiles. Rathee also worked as a production designer prior to her entry as an actress. She recently appeared in AltBalaji’s Broken But Beautiful 3. The actress joined NewsX for an exclusive interview as a part of NewsX India A-List and shared her experience in the industry.

While asked about her full-fledged digital debut into the film industry, Rathee said, “It is surreal. The response has been incredible which I didn’t expect it to be, especially for my visit. It’s also surreal just seeing myself on screen. It’s the first time I’m seeing myself. So, I’m still very overwhelmed and very grateful. It’s still hitting me. It’s taking time, but I’m just very happy.”

Addressing to a question about the reaction of fan or people she closely associated with, the actress added, “Well, there’s obviously a variety of compliments and comments, but one thing I remember when my parents or any family members or friends first watched it, all of them and that has always stuck with me from the beginning.”

Replying to what convinced her the most to join the project, Broken But Beautiful 3, Rathi again stated, “It was the character and definitely the script. Besides, I knew about Broken 1 and 2. I also knew that Broken 3 was a huge deal and while giving the audience I immediately got connected to it. Then I spoke to my director Priyanka, who is delighted to work with, and accordingly we spoke about the script. I was very intrigued and I think the script was a roller coaster.”

Clearing the difference between her on-screen and real-screen portrait, she said, “Physically I’m the exact opposite. I don’t do jewellery, the hair that appeared. But, in terms of emotional side to her definitely some points are relatable. Again, I’m not feisty as she (the character) is but at some point a lot of people can connect to certain emotions from her.”

When asked about the connection of her role to real world happenings, the actress replied, “I had a lot of discussions about love with different people like why do they stay in a relationship even though they don’t necessarily love the person. There was one scene where some director says she doesn’t love him, she loves the way he loves her. I think that’s huge and I had to continuously have those conversations and it is a toxic relationship to some extent. I thought that was an important part but relatively was a family portion of it with my sister, my parents that I brought from relatability.”

Addressing the content about the series, Rathee mentioned, “Before we did have a hundred percent pure or hundred percent evil characters which is not relatable. No one is hundred percent perfect or evil, and there is always a middle ground. People watch because they want to portray reality and that I consider my job is to portray reality for which we want to show stories that can happen in reality. The content is incredible and OTT platforms are making it possible. It’s not only giving opportunities to actors but directors, writers and new ideas.”

Sharing with our viewers the actor’s future plans and about her dream role, Rathee said, “I’m just taking it one step at a time and seeing where my cards fall. I’m very excited to see where I end up. But in terms of dream roles, I’m just excited to play everything and I don’t think there’s exactly only one dream role that I want to do. But it’s definitely a variety like I do want to play a highway and want to do a romantic comedy along with being interested to do an evil character. I’m all over the place. I’m just excited to get on my feet.”

With the unprecedented arrival of the pandemic, almost all sectors were severely hit. The case with the real-estate sector was not different. NewsX recently interacted with Platinum Corp Founder and CEO Vishal Ratanghayra as part of its special series NewsX India A-List, where he explained the face of real-estate during the pandemic.

Speaking about the impact Covid-19 had on real estate especially as having a plethora of commitments, Mr Vishal said, “Covid affected all industries including real estate. Due to this, construction slowed down. Along with this reverse migration, lack of availability of labourers, shortage of construction material was there. This impacted the industry severely. Slowly by the end of May 2020, we were able to start working again but with special permission. However, as the stamp duty was reduced, and as sales increased, the industry was recovering suddenly. One of the best sales in the past 5 to 10 years happened between September to December 2021. Further, we managed to give possession to land buyers. This was possible as Covid made us work more efficiently and more technology-driven. Overall it can be said that our effectiveness increased during the pandemic.”

When asked about how the company managed the increased cost of raw materials which further affects affordable housing, Mr Vishal said, “Cost of raw materials like cement and steel increased dramatically in the past one year. Due to this, the cost of labour increased as well. Luxury projects in metro cities cost 20-35 per cent, the affordable sector cost 60-70 per cent. Hence covid impacted affordable housing rather negatively. This further results in increased house prices and ultimately affects the budget of home buyers. We have sent representation to the Government and they have assured us that prices will come back to normalcy within 5 to 6 months or else it would be very difficult.”

While talking about the further expansion plans of the company amidst the second wave, he said “currently we have little sluggishness in terms of decision making. However, in the next 6 months, real estate will be in huge demand and hopefully, there will not be a third Covid wave.” He further said that “nowadays demand for housing has increased in a lot of countries. Everyone owning a home wants a larger home, people in small apartments wish to upgrade the size of their home, so most probably demand will pick up. As of now, we are looking out for projects after 12 months”

Platinum Corp is based in Mumbai where the property prices are high. When asked about what will be the situation there, especially if people may not have enough money like in previous times, he said “ Our focus is not on luxury. Our target audience is the people who want to buy their first or second home and those people moving from rented apartments. As the EMI cost is anticipated to increase at a larger scale soon, they would probably own a house with whatever they have. Ours is a need-based kind of home. Eventually, when we come out of this situation, it could focus more on high income which is 2 or 3 years down the lane”.

On a concluding note, Mr Vishal added that “Foreign investors are looking at India favourably. They are extremely hopeful about real estate infrastructure here. Usually, they come with 5 to 15 years horizons and there is a lot of appetite for international investments. India is looking much better in the next 5 to 10 years.”

R.V. Raghu is spokesperson of ISACA, a global IT professional association and learning organisation. Raghu has over a decade of hands-on global expertise in engineering, manufacturing, information technology, chemicals, mining, and telecommunications. He recently joined NewsX for an exclusive interview as part of the NewsX India A-List and discussed ISACA and its importance in India.

“One of the most fascinating aspects of today’s world is the rise of technology. Technology has been similar to energy or water in that we use it without considering what is behind it. This is where an organisation like ISACA and what ISACA does in the Indian context is very important. We are very good at implementing innovations but only later do we find out about cyber protection problems or any other obstacles that are behind the technology. It is here ISACA provides experts with the resources they need to ensure that technology risks are identified at an early stage and handled effectively,” he said.

In terms of ISACA certifications, Raghu elaborated, “We provide four kinds of certifications in India—CISA, Certified Information System Auditor, which is the oldest certification that we offer. It is really popular because it helps you inspect technologies and anything related to them. The other qualification is the CISM, which stands for Certified Information System Manager. CRISC and CGEIT are two new ISACA certifications that have piqued my interest. One of them is the Information Technology-certified associate, which is something that works for anybody who is new in the business and is trying to prove that they have the understanding of the fundamentals.”

He explained ISACA’s background, saying, “ISACA is a multinational, not-for-profit organisation. The firm has been in operation for 50 years. It all began with a group of experts in the United States deciding that we needed to work together to provide a better mechanism for auditing, and the great thing about ISACA is that it is entirely motivated by desire. ISACA has approximately 220 chapters in 188 countries and 150,000 members. We’ve been in India since 1968, with the first chapter set in Chennai. Today we have chapters in almost every corner of the country. As a result, once an individual becomes member, he or she has access to all of the services that ISACA provides at both the national and local levels.”

“One of the things that ISACA has recognised is innovative learning methodologies,” he said when asked about the organisation’s current offerings. “Traditional pedagogical approaches are no longer effective. Not only have methodologies evolved as a result of the pandemic, but also as a result of the Internet. We have the ITCA (Information Technology Certified Associate) certification. It aids in the comprehension of foundational concepts in fields such as networking, basic cybersecurity, software development fundamentals and data science. CET (Certification of Emerging Technologies) is another certificate we have. It allows professionals to keep up with the latest developments in technology.”

He clarified the philanthropic aspect of the organisation by saying, “ISACA recognises that, while we are a volunteer-driven organisation, there are segments of society that are under-represented that need access to all of these resources. The word “opportunity” has always stood out for ISACA. We’re attempting to address three issues: young adults, the shield stick, and inclusivity. If someone wants to become a member then they have to go to isaca.org to get access to all member-related information, or they can contact one of the several chapters in India or around the world.”