chakravarthy

Teaching is an extremely rewarding profession, but stressful as well, emotionally and physically. A classroom is definitely a high-pressured environment, what with naughty, adamant students talking loudly, leaving their seats and refusing to obey. Constant class disruptions and tantrums coupled with a stubborn lack of motivation to learn can drive the most composed of teachers up the wall. It gets difficult for teachers to keep their cool amidst the incessant stress, worries and frustration. Some yell, others punish - but there is no end to the students' behavioural problems. In fact, emotional responses only further aggravate the situation as students defiantly challenge the imposed authority. Teachers may even lose control leading to further deterioration of the classroom ambience. Tough as it may sound, educators have a moral responsibility to control their temper when interacting with students. Angry outbursts seem normal, but can inflict irreparable damage on the young min...

How many monarchies still exist to this day ? With the growth of parliamentary authority during the 19th century and the rise of communism after the First World War, most most monarchies have ceased to exist, they are in most cases just ceremonial heads of states, while the power to rule and hence make law is vested with elected legislatures. There are 43 or 44 countries that have monarchies as the ceremonial or the real head of the state, depending on whether or not the Vatican is counted among them. Of these, 7 (including the Vatican) are absolute monarchies, 16 are Commonwealth realms and the remaining 21 are constitutional monarchies. Which countries have absolute monarchies ? In Vatican City, Brunei, Swaziland, Saudi Arabia and Oman absolute power is vested in a single person and the monarch is the head of the state as well as the government. Qatar is also an absolute monarchy, but the head of state and head of the government are different persons. The UAE is a federal preside...

In 2014, Sarah Fortune, a marine ecologist at the University of British Columbia, Canada, was trying to tag bow-head whales with transmitters so she could study their feeding habits. But the whales kept swimming into a small, shallow bay with large boulders, where at least one removed a transmitter by rubbing against the rocks. Though she didn't know it at the time, the mystery of the rock-rubbing whales dates back at least 170 years, with several papers noting the behaviour and usually concluding the whales were using the rocks to rest. But Fortune noticed that large pieces of skin were peeling off some of the whales. Perhaps, she thought, they were "using these rocks like humans using pumice stones, to get rid of calluses or dead skin".  Fortune and a team of researchers published a paper in 'PLOS One' on 22nd November, 2017 (Wednesday) that seems to confirm her suspicions. Overhead footage of whales taken in 2016 - part of another study - reveals the animal...

Last year Erin Bligh, the proprietor of Dancing Goats Dairy in the US, planned to introduce a new cheese - hard, with spicy peppers - called Madam President, in what she assumed would be a fromage homage to a historic election. After the unexpected result, she renamed the cheese General Leia Organa, after the Rebel Alliance leader in 'Star Wars', and sent chunks to fortify friends attending the women's march in Boston. "This is my small piece of the resistance", a local customer told her, brandishing a wedge. Soon thereafter she decided to name cheeses after Ruth Bader Ginsberg (Cheddary, enrobed in black) and Josephine Baker (Sardo-style, with a natural rind and slightly sweet). "We have got a Marie Curie", she said, "We are just releasing our Jane Goodall, and we had an Amelia Earhart - two wheels of it and it sold out in a second, because everyone's like, 'Yeah, that's my girl'". Along with all the noisier revolutions of ...

Credit risk is a big deal these days. What we fail to grasp is the inherent complexity in the credit business. it might help to remain realistic amidst all the sensational din surrounding defaults. Formal lending practices make reasonable assumptions about the future prospects of the borrower. Working capital loans assumes reasonable values of current assets; personal and credit card loans make assumptions about future personal income; and home loans and asset-based loans assume that the future value of the asset will cover the loan. Lenders use past data and analysis of businesses to make assumptions. There are no guarantees here. It is important that care and diligence are exercised before a loan is made. Regulations prescribe the processes, disclosures and penalties to ring-fence this risky business. The risk of unexpected events, including changes in the ability and willingness of the lender to choose well and the borrower to keep commitments is always present. Can this risk be m...

Making Bharat a Vishwa Guru - a reformer and teacher to the entire world - is a grand endeavour. The BJP-RSS combine adopted this courageous mission more than a decade ago. But the chances are they will fail. Their quest is rooted in India's past, not her present, and it lacks a practical approach. Instead of utilising the tremendous strengths offered the country by its glorious past, their tactics are squandering them. This is not helping the world solve its problems of the day. Being a Vishwa Guru would make all Indians proud. We all yearn for glory of those days when our people reached the pinnacle of thought, achieved great understanding of the divine, and invented excellent ways of living. However, India cannot simply reclaim such a position; it must be earned afresh. Our people will have to do the necessary tapasya once again, with new thinking for modern times. We can be guru only if the global community acknowledges us as such; we cannot thrust our gurudom upon them. Wh...

After some back and forth, Patidar quota leader Hardik Patel and Congress have finally agreed to quota formula for Patidars and other non-reserved castes in Gujarat. Congress is hoping this will bring in the promised Patidar support in the coming Gujarat polls. Reportedly, the formula worked out envisages reservations for Patidars under Article. 31(C) of the Constitution of India. The latter clause is the fountainhead for the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution where laws are parked to keep courts from examining their legality. In the present case it means Patidars will be given reservations in government jobs and education under a special category that will allow the state government to breach the 50% cap set by the Supreme Court. It remains to be seen whether Congress will be able to circumvent  the SC-mandated quota cap if it comes to power in Gujarat. After all, the courts have struck down similar attempts by state governments in Rajasthan and Maharashtra to raise quotas beyon...