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Ashvini Ranjan's avatar

Dear Pras,

I don’t want to dwell too much on your abilities as a gifted writer, thinker and the brilliant idea to communicate your thoughts over a ‘cuppa’. That too with an endearing name ‘ Filter Coffee’. You and I go back to the days of one by two ‘Kapee’ Filter was probably not invented. I have complimented you sufficiently’ More sugar will spoil the taste of coffee !

Two things prompted me to write this. Rea’s cute quip about the difference between real class room and online class. And the other about enabling your maid to access learning for her children by giving her an IPad. Since I work in the space of children’s education in village schools, over seven lakh children in our program are currently in a mute mode.

To them an IPad is a dream and so is internet connectivity. It took many boxes to think out of and say Hakana Matata to them. We are now gearing up to impart knowledge capsules on what matters to them most to survive not only through this crisis, but life itself. All this by enabling their parent’s ability to communicate. A program to make the parent (grandparent too) as a teacher. We update the information that the parent already has on subjects like crops, crop nutrients, livestock, kitchen garden, health home remedies etc etc. Video capsules of not more than 2to3 minutes on each topic are being made and delivered via Whatapp. Our volunteer teachers in villages follow up to ensure that the parent imparts this information to the children. Fifty topics are being readied. Initial trials have created quite a buzz.

Now lets sip the brew man before it cools off !

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Shahji Jacob's avatar

Liked your second Sunday musings particularly for the general optimism it brought about.

The example quoted of a company with a level of debt that was beginning to give some of its investors the jitters, in almost next to time, moving on its way to becoming a net debt free company was indeed apt. That the investment has come from within (ex: rights issue) and without the country (ex: face book investment) shows that India’s business stock is still high amid the general world-wide business gloom.

While the debate of India’s demographic dividend being a boon or bane continues, especially in view of the possible lob losses that these covid times could create, it’s indeed a test of positivity that India offers to the world. It’s also an example of how things could change in a jiffy if problems are confronted with positive thoughts and affirmative actions.

Talking of positivity, the brilliant video (sans audio) was a great concept on how to convert negativity to positivity without creating much noise. Great work and very thoughtful of you to get it featured in your stack up for the rest of us who didn’t get to see it before.

Again I liked the way how, while discussing the future of opening up of businesses and resuming operations, you brought in the problems associated with commuting to workplace, the need for new rules at the workplace etc within the overall EHS Policy. It was, I thought, another brilliant example of how to subtly bring positivity into any discussions - even on something as morbid as covid. Here’s someone talking of opening up even offering suggestions on how to go about it while most of the world is talking of a possible endgame scenario.

Keep it up. Looking forward to more brilliant thoughts ahead. Hakuna Matata.

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