The Real Meaning of Independence

We are going to celebrate another independence day and like every year again several of our leaders are preparing for a long list of speeches about freedom, development, policies etc. As an Indian, I feel proud to myself to be born in a great nation of the world but another side I also feel ashamed of myself when I read or hear the news about girls is heckled by men on the street or girls are raped by some of our intellectual class of people. As per the record, In India, 106 rapes occur every day and on average a rape occurs in every 54 minutes.

Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, in his speech as the first Prime-minister of free India, said: "A moment has come, which but comes very rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance…..we end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again." So, post-independence, it was the journey of a long-suppressed nation towards freedom, development, and enhancement.

So what has changed after the 71nd years of independence? What does Independence mean for us? India is obviously free more so on paper and the good thing about August 15 is that it is only independence for a nation and not for its citizens. India today, is asking for justice – Justice for Bihar Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case, Justice for the Utter Pradesh Deoria shelter home rape case, Justice for the kautha rape case, Justice for the Unano rape case and Justice for all of our sisters and daughters of the nation.

Being a free nation and a proud citizen, it’s our responsibility need to liberate ourselves from the caste and religious biases in which we often indulge. We must not force others to live the way we want them to and yet we want the ‘freedom’ to do exactly what each one of us wants.

Are we really proud of the present status of the country? Every day in the news, there is one disaster story after another and still after many years of independence a large number of people in our country who do not have the freedom to eat, sleep, bathe or go to the toilet.  It is a vital truth to accept as the number of Billionaires from India is increasing but at the same time number of people living below the poverty line is also increasing so what we have achieved through the independence?

India is in the process of change and we should not feel shame in accepting that our country is not the best in many areas (like Governance, security, infrastructure, and education, healthcare). It’s up to the conscious citizens to decide whether people would like to live in a Global power where creativity flourishes, ideas emerge or they want to live in a traditional way of functioning

So, on this day, we all citizen have to pledge to unite against every wrong doings in the society and should not differ in our voices against the quality of education, jobs, equality, justice for all and ultimate our working systems.  If everyone will give equal participation then no doubt India will find its real meaning of Independence.  

The Skills of Yesterday will be Obsolete Tomorrow

               
Technology is reshaping the world and every moment a new innovation taking place in our daily lifestyles. The dynamics of every sector and industry are changing faster than ever. Sometimes what we imagine, somewhere it is already exists or someone start working on it. 

There is no exception India will surpass China to become most populated country by 2022. According to labour ministry data, around one million people enter the workforce in India every month. And in context of the revolution the world is going through, agriculture is no longer the dependable occupation it used to be. 

According to the Future of Jobs report by jointly the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI)- Nasscom with Ernst & Young (EY). The report provides insights into the future of jobs and vision of change for the job market in India by 2022. The report claims that 9% of India’s 600 million estimated workforces would be deployed in new jobs that do not exist today. This will be due to the impact that various primary forces such as globalization, demographic changes and adoption of exponential technologies by Indian companies are expected to have on key sectors. 

As per the UN based International labor organization (ILO) report Unemployment in India is projected to increase from 17.8 million last year to 18 million in 2018. It is sadden for a country like India whose 60-65 % of population is below 35 Yrs old.  There are several questions arises like who is responsible?  Where we are lacking? And how long it will take to solve these problems?

No doubts there are several challenges and it is not new for everyone. Still after several years of independence we are helpless to produce tech giants like Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and etc in India. We are not able to offer quality education as per the changing trends on time to time. It is a need of the hour to offer a platform to our kids from the school days to think about the solutions of a problem rather than to inform/teach them about the problems, whatever the conclusion arrives among the students, their ideas should be appreciated, whether it is wrong or right? This way of education somehow will be helpful for our budding generations to develop entrepreneur skills in their thought process. 

From the first industrial revolution which was triggered by the steam engine, the second revolution was discovery of electricity and assembly line. The third revolution which we all are familiar and was driven by computers, digital technology and the internet. Today, we are stepping ahead in the fourth industrial revolution which is being driven by several technologies that are transforming industrial production: autonomous robots; censors based driver-less cars and vice versa.

A McKinsey report estimates that 400-800 million people around the globe could be displaced by automation and will need to find new jobs by 2030, for which they will require new skills. There will be considerable need for re-skilling and training and this fourth revolution will build a new creativity and leadership opportunity among job seekers because it will develop a market among youngsters how innovative skills can apply.  

Startup culture in India is nowhere and mostly people are dependable on findings a secure job instead to look for anything else. Now the time has come to regain the India’s image in the worldwide through its education system and our focus must be on social sector – education, health, nutrition where new technologies will enable us to improve the quality of life and enhance our human development index.

In our education system the teaching methodology should be appropriate as per the current market demand; it will not only help to minimize the unskilled work forces but a new and well knowledgeable skills forces will produce which will be directly and indirectly helpful for India. 

The current need of the changes is;
- First, we must focus more on practical based education system rather than mere degrees.
- Secondly, we must constantly upgrade skills, which is very essential in the current context as India needs massive upgradation programmes in new technologies.
Third, we must focus on to teach our budding kids to finding a solution of the problems instead to tell them about the problems.
Finally, the world is changing and we should also have to change accordingly if we want to be a global power.

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