Social Influence and Popularity

 Social Influence and Popularity

Money comes from Popularity:

In this era of technology and social media, everyone wants to be famous in very little time. There are three most lucrative ways, kids dream to use for instant popularity and making money i.e. Become an Actor / Actress in Movies, Become a Politician, Become a Cricket Player. Earlier, the most lucrative way was to become an IAS or Doctor or Engineer. 

Money Money and Money

The idea of "Three Idiots" movie is not being used in real life even today. People are still crazy to make money even with choosing beyond the interest of their children. The annual income of IAS or Doctor or Engineer is on an average between 10 lacs to 1 Crore but the incomes of Celebrities of Cricket, Bollywood, and Politicians are in Crores. 

No doubt, their contribution is really great in uplifting the economy and the new generation also take dreams to become a celebrity for gaining prestige. But do you think, becoming celebrity for gaining prestige will uplift our nation?

Would you say unbecoming of IAS or Doctor or Engineer will help nation to get more progress if youth put efforts in becoming celebrities? Obviously No.

Then what to do to get rid of the culture making children attract to play or to participate in talent shows or to try becoming politician without being passionate for it. Let's take the time of crisis from Covid-19, the doctors come ahead as warriors to safeguard the citizens of whole nation. Take example of earthquakes, the engineers come ahead to safeguard and rebuild the nation. Take the example of corruption, the IAS community come ahead to ensure Good Governance and e-governance. The economic growth depends upon fair conduct of all economic activities, corruption-free nation however, it has become a dream for most of the countries of world. It's true if a country not get progress Socially, intellectually, culturally then strategically, it always become backward in future. Due to rise in unproductive areas of becoming celebrities,   soon the corruption will increase and honest people will not have any place in society.

Today's need of the hour is to appreciate and honor the professionals contributing in building nation including Doctors and Engineers. The spirit of nationality should be inculcated in children.

Mahatma Gandhi – An Exceptional Personality:

Everyone knows Mahatma Gandhi for Non-violence but before his social influence, he was an ordinary person who believed use of non-violence to get rid of problems of a common man. He is known for peace today due to his great contribution in making India independent from England with movements in 1947. He brought Human Rights for common man and eliminated injustice which was involved due to caste system in the societies. He influenced the social in very different ways, let us have a light upon the same:

(a) Visionary Leader:

At the time of Salt Movement, nobody imagined that a simple movement can change the perspective of British Government ruling India at that time. Indians learned a lot and proceeded to fight for freedom from the British Rule using non-violence ways and ultimately success was achieved due to entire vision of great leader Mahatma Gandhi.

(b) Simplicity in Life:

Instead of being too rich to defeat British people with only ideas of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi was too simple to wear only clothes made from spinning yarn. The servant leadership style was used as he was serving each common man in touch with him with full devotion. Before coming to India for freedom movements, he was known for his work in South Africa. It was proved by him that with the spirit of sacrifice for others, and movements, anybody can influence the rulers.

(c) Ethics and Values in Life:

The principles of Mahatma Gandhi even today inspire the Ministers, Bureaucrats and no doubt all common men to adopt ethics and values in life. He makes the people learn not to disobey the inner voice, in the face of pressure from outside. Due to his principles, ethics and values are still in the behaviour of Indian as well as the great personalities of the world being influenced from him.

(d) Never Forget the Tenets of Mahatma Gandhi:

If anybody wants to be great social influencer, then it is must to adopt the tenets of Mahatma Gandhi in life i.e. 1. Truth, 2. Non-violence, 3. Right Means and Right Ends, 4. Primacy of Duties over Right, 5. The Deed, not the Doer, 6. True Religion, 7. Non-possession, 8. Sacrifice and Service, and 9. Nonviolent Conflict Resolution

(e) Patriotism and Nationalism:

Each child in childhood in India, is taught the lessons of Patriotism and Nationalism with the stories of Mahatma Gandhi. His exclusive contribution in fighting movements during the British rule, cannot be forgotten and he is known today with his exceptional Gandhian Thinking on which basis, Bollywood even telecast a lot of movies.

No doubt, Today India is leading to establish true democracy with following his principles in life.

Hashtag #SushantWasMurdered:

It is true that everyone wants to be famous enough to influence others in this world. After the death of Sushant Rajput, a renowned Bollywood star, a hashtag trended on Twitter #SushantWasMurdered and people came on social media to demand justice in the case of Sushant. Various renowned personalities claim that there may be mastermind behind the death of Sushant. But the same personalities have lack of courage to come in the court and say something in front of all to disclose the mystery. Noone can easily challenge the judiciary in Democratic country not due to lack of freedom but due to presence of crime.

Whether everything is to gain popularity?

Even there are people who tweeted that the case of Sushant is being promoted to gain recognition, love, and make him popular enough. Will such popularity can work for someone? Yes, it can gain sentiments of people to come ahead for proper enforcement of law and it worked well in many earlier cases.

Alarming Problems affected Economy:

The new alarming problems affecting India are Politics, Drugs, Mafia, Nepotism, and Biasness in decisions on the basis of Social Influence. More popular the personality, more the social influence is created with the help of media including Social Media platforms. The CBI Police, Court interventions, Debates on Television Channels, and most important consuming valuable time of Bollywood personalities to solve this matter; lead to huge economic loss which cannot be measured easily.

Justice Matters a lot:

Can justice be so costly in a democratic country. How to expose a mastermind behind such deaths? The role of Mafia sometimes become more influential than the fair people’s role. Identifying the right one is very critical and also difficult. No one can imagine the growth of nexus of worst people in such cases. It is rightly said, “Our Lives Begin to End the Day We Become Silent About Things That Matter”. But it is also true that we cannot raise voice in every case for every one for supporting him to get justice. Isn’t it?

Who detect what and how?

The cases of money laundering are detected by Enforcement Directorate of concerned nation. The cases of murders or crimes are investigated by Police Authorities may be CBI or FBI. The Drugs related activities are exposed by different authorities like NCB in India. The decisions are made by Judiciary and implemented by Executives. The twist is that everyone is suspected even after successful decision after consuming months in the case. And the things led to social influence on social platforms and gaining of popularity by people involved in it.

Thanks for reading my article. I hope you like it and share it with someone near to you.

*Copyright © 2020 Mrs. Rashmi. All rights reserved.

Imparting Morality - A Great Challenge

Imparting Morality - A Great Challenge

By Dr. Lalit Kumar Setia 

Train your mind to see the good in everything...Positivity is a Choice.

In most of the countries, the Government and Vigilance Officers on part of Government; have been receiving complaints regarding corruption, malpractices, and humiliation of teachers, trainers, faculty members etc. in the institutes, universities of repute. In India, such incidents have happened in National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Uttarakhand during the year 2013 to 2016 even former Chief Minister Sh. B.C. Khanduri complaint for such incidents*. The coming era of technology will make the parents’ knowledge obsolete because the change is coming at higher rate and the parents cannot make themselves grow with the speed of change to stand with the children in gaining the technical knowledge. 

Dreams and concentrating on Aim lead to desired actions:

When a person determine to realise a particular thing in life, he is required to spot that thing frequently in his mindset and perform hard work to realise the same and soon it will be realised. A person looking for job, cannot stay idle. If he is making efforts constantly to find a job, definitely he will be able to spot the job opportunities and work will be there in his hand to earn an income. 

Similarly, when a person loose the hope and be negative towards non realisation of goals, spotting a failure in mindset, made the person fail in upcoming course of actions in life. That's why the motivational speakers always tell others to focus upon staying positive in life. In nutshell, "You become what you constantly think about and it is a must to realise this fact."

How to inculcate morality

In such circumstances, the children may start thinking themselves superior enough and may start disobeying their parents. The following tips can work well to train children for keeping morality in life:

    1.     Be child with them and then give suggestions: 

     Merely giving suggestions to children cannot work always. It is must to play with them, spend time, and take them in confidence to take your suggestions seriously. While spending enough time, narrate stories which provide a lesson in practical life and mold their attitude. It is also necessary to ask questions to know their views on a particular problem and help them to get rid of problems.

    2.     Reduce the adverse impact of social media: 

    The most crucial thing which requires urgent attention of parents, is to supervise the involvement of children at social media. What they chat on Whatsapp with their friends, what they discuss on Facebook and what ideas or comments they share at social media platforms. After getting their ideas or comments, the parents should think and try to reduce the adverse impact of social media in life of children either by giving new tasks to children or make them involved at week-ends in good activities like humanitarian deeds.

    3.     Religious stories, religious works, and religious music: 

    The religious belonging of children also build their character with morality. The parents should prefer to involve the children in religious activities, narrate them religious stories, and play religious music, songs in home at least for few time in a day. Such activities will increase their trust in God and the children will be guided by their positive thoughts.

    4.     Provide tasks which they would like to do: 

     Everyone likes to perform the functions, he or she is interested into. The parents should identify the hobbies of children and should encourage them for the good hobbies. The book-reading, listening music, playing sports are really good as far as today’s era is concerned. It is required to encourage children to adopt such hobbies and it can be best done by providing them tasks related to such hobbies. Treat children as your friends and be involved with them for doing such tasks in life.

    5.     Appreciate, appreciate and appreciate: 

   In case, the children are doing good job either in study or in social activities or in religious activities; they should be appreciated whenever parents can appreciate them either personally or in front of others. The appreciation is the best thing to make the children stay in good habits. It is must to raise the morale of children to perform the good tasks again and again. The appreciation of parents not only motivate them but also improves the image of parents in the eyes of children. In case, the children are disobeying their parents, such praise of their good functions make children to obey the parents.

   6.     Understand their emotions and take necessary steps: 

    Sometimes, the children become so rude to obey the instructions of parents. The parents are using all the five steps as detailed above but even after that the children are not obeying as per the desire of parents. The teaching or suggesting something is very easy for the parents but it is must to understand the emotions of children. The children are usually govern by their emotions and it is must to understand the emotions they are carrying before arriving at conclusion that they are not obeying the parents and elders. Since the growth of morality is an ongoing process and cannot happen in one day, one week, one month or one year; the parents should try for it even for the long life-time.

    7.     Allow growing children to do mistakes and learn from the mistakes: 

   The parents sometimes become so sticky that the children are not provided enough freedom to do mistakes. It reduces their mental and physical growth. It is must to make them learn from mistakes. Definitely the children should be guided how to act and behave with others, how to solve a particular problem but at the same time, their liberty to do mistakes should not be captured by the parents.

    8.     Propose some ideal personality to follow: 

    The world is full of great personalities and every successful person has its own good traits. Children should be narrated with the stories behind the success of successful persons so that they can be motivated to look at successful personalities as their ideals, took inspiration from them and lead the life with success.

    9.     Don't pinch again and again for bad habits: 

   In case the children perform any bad habit or anything they should not do; then the parents should guide them. As a guide, their suggestions can work well but their guidance should not seem as pinching to the children. How to guide, is also an art and the parents require to look into their childhood how their parents make them learn good habits and leave bad habits. The same culture is required to be originated again the family so that the children cannot consider the suggestions as pinching. The parents should also take care that their advice is taken seriously.

The impact of immorality:

In the end, it is required to emphasize character development which depends upon the above nine points, must to be considered while imparting morality in children. It is must to make children keep a special place to discipline, to learn how to handle conflicts with others, and how to grow in spirituality. Please give your comments if you want something more as per your experience. 

Code of Ethics for Social Media Platforms:

From 1st March, 2021 the Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 be applicable. The social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter etc. have to appoint a person as Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), who shall be responsible for implementing the Ethics code. Through CCO, the social media companies will inform their respective users not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information that are false, misleading and defamatory in nature; also not to publish any information that is harmful to minors, infringes patents, or violates the law. As per Ethics code, the users of Social Media, also be restricted through CCO, to post any content that threatens unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states.

*Copyright © 2018 Dr. Lalit Kumar. All rights reserved. 
References:
*This information is retrieved from India Today News dated 2nd May 2016, 'Complaints of corruption, malpractices in NIT Ukhand: Govt'.