The business world needs to cope with the rapidly changing sustainability landscape while balancing their financial performance and growing costs of energy and raw materials. The sustainability performance question spans diversely with academic disciplines such as human resource management, marketing, economics, accounting, tourism, operations, law, governance, supply chain and many more. Although handling a fusion of these diverse disciplines is a tough job, yet, being realistic is most important for survival of the planet.

For many of us, the meaning of sustainability remains elusive. Some equate it to environmental wellbeing while others think of sustainability as equivalent to corporate social responsibility. Let us understand this: business sustainability refers to the ability of firms to respond to their short term as well as long term performance needs without compromising on their future growth that requires the natural and human resources available in the external environment. One more fact is that the balancing of economic, social, and ecology is fragile in nature. Therefore, sustainability encompasses voluntary corporate strategies geared towards an integration of environmental, social, and economic objectives into the fabric of the organisational life (Quinn & Dalton, 2009). Let’s look at some brilliant examples of how companies are innovating.

The world’s largest shipping companies such as DHL, UPS & FedEx need to bear tons of maintenance fees for the maintenance of their vehicles, as well as the costs of oil and gasoline to keep them running. As an alternative to that, and also to cut through busy and crowded streets, each of the companies has been innovated various new delivery methods. DHL has set up couriers on bicycles in nine European countries so far, including its most recent entry in a few German cities. The company replaced 33 trucks with 33 cargo bikes in the Netherlands, which DHL estimates saves them $575,000 annually and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 152 metric tons per year. The company knew customers were asking for a “cleaner transport alternative” to the gas-guzzling trucks, and the bikes as part of clean environment solution. The efforts of DHL are highly appreciable for it aims to utilize bicycle couriers in the next few years anywhere in the world to improve their customer service and effectiveness.

Cargo bikes are also taking various forms for FedEx and UPS — each of course with the company’s standard logos and colour schemes. FedEx began piloting electric tricycles in Paris as early as 2010, and UPS expanded its use of electric Cargo Cruisers since 2012 in several European cities. Other businesses like Whole Foods and Ikea are also experimenting with delivery through bicycles.

LanzaTech is a clean-tech company that’s revolutionizing the way the world thinks about carbon waste. The company uses a bacterium for its fermentation, Clostridium autoethanogenum, which eats carbon monoxide and emits ethanol without using water or land resources. The company treats carbon as an opportunity instead of a liability. LanzaTech’s proprietary microbes capture and recycle waste gases before they are emitted as greenhouse gases, reducing harmful nitrous and sulphur oxides by over 85%. Essentially, they’re turning air into something of value. The company estimates it can apply its process to 65% of the world’s steel mills, with the potential to make 30 billion gallons of ethanol, or 19% of today’s current jet fuel demand. Kudos to this company!!!

Google’s Nest: uses a system that turns food waste into compost or that a shipping company is doing what it can to cut down on emissions, there are also companies providing you with direct ways to impact the environment yourself. One of those is Nest, the smart thermostat system that was acquired by Google in 2014. According to Nest, half of your energy bill is affected by your thermostat alone. The company estimates that by using a programmable thermostat that automatically adjusts for sleeping, when you’re awake, and other learned routines, the system can decrease by about 20%.

In India, Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd is a diversified entity with turnover in excess of one billion dollars. The company has a global presence with 30 manufacturing bases spread over four continents. Through its 6700 dealers and distributors worldwide, the company has reached over 4.5 million farmers. This is world’s second largest Micro-Irrigation company. Its Micro-Irrigation Division manufactures a full range of precision-irrigation products. Jain irrigation provides services from soil survey, engineering design to agronomic support. It nurtures a sprawling 2000 acre Hi-Tech Agri Institute including a Farm Resource R&D, Demo, and Training & Extension Centre. It also undertakes turnkey projects for agricultural and irrigation development with holistic & integrated approach. Over 1500 agri and irrigation scientists, engineers and technicians are engaged in offering services for complete or partial project planning and implementation e.g Watershed Development through Wasteland Transformation, including crop agronomy, protected cultivation etc.

Their Tissue Culture Division can produce 80 million plantlets of banana at full capacity and has established matching primary and secondary hardening facilities as well as independent R&D and virology labs. Similarly, a modern Bio- tech lab equipped with all modern and state–of–the–art facilities meet the needs of continuous genetic improvement and validation program in cultivators of onion, banana, mango, pomegranate etc. They process tropical fruits like mango, banana, and pomegranates into purees, concentrates, juices and IQF products. The Dehydration Facility dehydrates onions & vegetables. The Spray Drying Unit processes gooseberry and other fruit purees into powders. The best part is that agricultural and fruit processing waste is converted into biogas to generate power of 1.6 MW capacities along with waste heat for refrigeration and soil conditioner.

Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan: Unilever in 2010 launched its blueprint for sustainable business, named the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. Sustainable living brands, including Dove, Lifebuoy, Ben & Jerry’s and Comfort are integrated into the contribution they make to the world and into their products’ ingredients and lifecycle. The consumer goods giant says about 50 percent of its growth in 2014 came from sustainable living brands, which also grew at twice the rate of the rest of the business. Not only are Unilever’s sustainable living products more profitable than standard products by 2 gross margin points, these products also drive other top-line benefits, Unilever says. This purposefulness and sustainable living plan attracts and retains young talent. No wonder, Unilever is among top 3 most sought-after employers globally. About 50 percent of graduates cite Unilever sustainability credentials as the main reason for wishing to join the company.

GE Ecomagination: GE’s Ecoimagination line of products and services has generated more than $200 billion in revenues since GE started the program 10 years ago. Revenue from Ecomagination products totalled $34 billion in 2014, representing about 30 percent of total GE sales. A key success factor for Ecomagination is to reduce energy and water waste in manufacturing, Intel Corp works with GE to develop advanced manufacturing and digital optimization techniques to increase resource productivity in manufacturing.

Ikea Sustainable Home Products: This Company contributes to a more sustainable life at home for consumers. Its entire lighting range is now LED. It plans to become resource and energy independent which means helping to replace the industry with key raw materials like cotton and wood, investing in renewable energy and becoming more efficient in operations and supply chain. Ikea wants to make every product more sustainable while keeping the quality, function, form and affordability for their customers.

Conclusion: The environmental aspect of sustainability considers the impact of organisational activities on natural resource depletion, pollution and emission management, waste management, and energy and resource use among others. The social aspect of sustainability reflects on the social obligation of the organisation to the communities by managing issues such as poverty, income inequality, disease, access to health care, clean water, sanitation, education and broader societal problems that organisations are increasingly called upon to solve. Finally, the economic aspect of sustainability concerns the viability of the organisation to financially thrive in a competitive marketplace by balancing both environment and society.

 White lie is not dangerous, in sense it doesn’t harm anybody; it’s a trivial lie, especially the one told to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. The average person tells 4 lies a day or 1460 a year; a total of 87,600 by the age of 60. Isn’t that scaring? These can be white lies, big lies, and serious ones spoken to cheat, to please, to get favor anything. And, we ignore the amount of energy we waste on lying. Think of it. Cooking up stories for reaching late for a function, to office, to school, college; complimenting somebody’s dress even if it doesn’t suit the person; praising somebody when you don’t want to….the list is unending.

We think that relations last only if we don’t always say exactly what we’re thinking. We have to disguise our feelings, to trick, to smile sometimes when we want to shout, to be polite when we want to punch. In short, we keep lying. I think people who find themselves most deceived by the lies of lovers are the ones who have the most unrealistic and impractical expectations about truthfulness. And the people who are most inclined to believe the lies they shouldn’t, are the ones who tell themselves the biggest lies….

When we say the truth or talk factually it does not require us to remember anything; it requires no further work on our part. When we tell the truth, we don’t need to keep a track of it. On the other hand, lies need to be protected. And, the truth is lies beget other lies. Wisdom says once you stop telling lies the universe starts believing you. The universal energy starts caring for you because every word out of your mouth is truth.

But, we live in a society that conditions us to lie by telling us that in many situations lies are justified. The secretary tell visitors that “boss is busy” when in fact he is yapping with a friend on phone; the firms exaggerate the qualities of their products; job applicants fake their SWOT analysis; doctors give false diagnosis to their patients for heftier bills; lawyers lie in the court blatantly to save wrongdoers in society. And, governments promises new hope to its citizens while continually deceiving them. Leonard Saxe, a PhD and a polygraph expert and professor of psychology at Brandeis University, says, “Lying has long been a part of everyday life. We couldn’t get through the day without being deceptive.” Polygraph is a machine designed to detect and record changes in physiological characteristics, such as a person’s pulse and breathing rates, used especially as a lie detector.

Check this out: while talking to a close friend, how many of us tell only our part of a story? Do we even once bother to tell the other side of the story? Don’t we rephrase the conversations we had with third parties? Do we even think once what impressions we might create about the third persons in our friend’s mind? Basically, while lying so many things, don’t we manipulate our friend to say what we want to hear? And isn’t it foolish when we control a response by shading the truth, inadvertently we create an alternate, a false reality between us and another person.

We talk lies in many ways; by omitting facts, by exaggerating, lying to protect self, gossip, or sometimes lying for the sake of it.

People tend to exaggerate to hide their insecurities about themselves. By exaggeration, a person may try to preserve a certain image of him for the sake of seeking approval from others. However, when you exaggerate or don’t represent yourself honestly, you are left feeling like a fraud, which further hurts your self-esteem. When people exaggerate their skills, their talent, contacts, qualifications, happiness, reputation, it only leads them in deep trouble because their actions fail to match their words. It’s difficult to hide results; it may be a broken promise, a missed meeting or poor performance. Exaggerating reckons a person’s dishonesty.

We all have an inner critic in us who coaches us to say things which we don’t intend to. This inner coach makes us apprehensive. This critic often damages things instead of setting them right. It makes us vulnerable. It makes us downplay our role for trivial things. It makes us act sometimes rude, sometimes generous, and sometimes overtly friendly. It drives us away from our real goals. Keeping the little ghost (our inner coach) in check is necessary.

When people gossip they are full of white lies, serious lies, big lies, foul lies, and gossip has no limits. We don’t really think when we gossip and it’s everywhere. In every household, office, gym, school, college, coffee house – go anywhere somebody or the else is busy gossiping. We don’t realize that gossip breeds pessimism and distrust. It destroys goodness in the world. Why can’t people communicate directly? Gossip is infectious.

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth” this has its origins in an actual Buddha quote. You can take chances on the people you care about by being a lot more honest and direct with them. You can find healthy and considerate ways to express yourself and to be sensitive to the other person’s sense of reality. The truth may not always be easy to hear or said, but in the long run it might save elegance and serenity. And, you will earn a lot more trust and respect from the people whose opinion matters to you the most. Finally, this world may not be perfect, nor is the truth always easy to take, but you can find peace and freedom if you take a chance and create a world around you that is real.

All of us come across people who love to talk, talk and talk about themselves. We sometimes have to put up with someone who just won’t shut up, or someone who is too loud, or who has little to say but takes long time to say it, or someone who always talks about the same topic over and over again. It’s killing and frustrating for others who either try to be patient or good for the sake of it. At times, this “I”,”me”, “myself” is a boss whom you need to tolerate for obvious reasons; sometimes it can be somebody senior in age or relation. Why do they do this and what’s the best way to handle them? Such boring people simply lack social skill. They think they are enjoyable to be around with. But the fact is actually they make other hate them.

Do you know people who say ‘I’, ‘me’, and ‘myself’ frequently suffer with depression and anxiety? According to a new research conducted by scientists of the University of Kassel, Germany, found that the people who use first-person singular “I’ are more likely to be depressed than those who tend to use plural pronouns, such as ‘we’ and “us”. The finding suggests that these people are unable to spend time alone and are attention-seekers. By contrast, those who use ‘we’ in conversation are healthier mentally and more social. They are good at balancing their relationships, https://www.opaortho.com/valium-treatment-anxiety/.

In the age of social media everybody is busy sharing information, photographs and details about themselves on face book and tweeter; people like to update their status, their opinions on various issues. Nobody may care about their opinion except themselves, but new brain research suggests that it can make a person feel good simply by sharing his likes and dislikes. A research suggests that it provides some sort of subjective value: It feels good. Let’s get it right, science says 30 percent to 40 percent of our speech has to do with ourselves “self-disclosure.” It is a behavior that we do all of the time, day in and day out.

So, why did evolution encourage humans to feel good when they talk about themselves? People are motivated to self-disclose for the reason of bonding with someone, with a group or a circle. Dr. Paul Zak, a brain researcher and founding director of the Center for Neuro-economics Studies at Claremont Graduate University, says that human beings are social creatures; if they did not disclose information, then others might stop interacting with them. Animals do this with smells and movements, and humans do this with speech. This study reveals how our brain evolved to motivate sociality, which is quite fascinating.

Check yourself; are you the “I”, “me”, “myself” person? Do you always seem to find a way to make the conversation go about yourself? If yes, please understand that others feel very uncomfortable around people using the word ‘I’ more than three times per minute. Too much usage of the word ‘I’ can be an indication of either of two things: lack of empathy or excessively large longing for validation. As far as empathy is concerned, all of us in this world have a need to socialize with fellow human beings; socializing consists of exchanging of thoughts. Conversation is but obviously exchange of thoughts. Discussions are an endeavor that allows us to live together in this densely populated world. However, whenever the balance between giving and taking of thoughts becomes vague and distorted, we start feeling uncomfortable and we try to withdraw. By talking about ‘I’ too much, the conversation goes tangentially haywire. By talking about what ‘I believe this’ n ‘I believe that’ habitually, you totally take away the right of others with who you are in discussion. You disallow others from contributing to the conversation. And that is what is considered to be anti-social behavior.

As far as validation is concerned, if someone is using the word ‘I’ frequently it means the person has a disproportionately large need for receiving validation from social environment. This need consists of a sense of ‘wanting to be listened to.’ The question is: Why would someone keep talking about his own ideas while knowing that the listeners might not find his discussions pleasant? Well, maybe the person does not understand that his behavior is considered to be anti-social. Somebody needs to tell him to curtail the “I” in him. Or maybe the person knows the entire above but still doesn’t consider it to be anti-social; then he can only be called loathsome.

However, it is often very difficult to draw a line between what is a healthy contribution to a conversation and what is a smug or an arrogant urge to express one’s ideas. The former is admirable and can function therapeutically, constructively and even emphatically. Speaking is after all the best medium we have at our disposal to make others aware of our thoughts and beliefs. Of course creative arts such as poetry, a book, a story, a painting, a musical piece says a lot about the creator and his message. Yet, social interaction in terms of the spoken word still seems to govern human expression.

Even in the age of social media, face-to-face communication allows people to absorb the often subtle gestures, facial expressions and tonality that are required in order to express our deep thoughts. These days in over usage of electronic communication, a well-intended well written frank statement is much more likely to be misinterpreted than the same message being spoken out loud. Oral communication has advantage as the intricacies present in human speech can make all the difference for interpreting a message in either the intended or unintended way.

All said and done, sometimes however it might be infuriating, we just have to let the ‘I-talkers’ realize that it’s time they listen to others tolerantly. Occasionally we just have to be ‘harsh’ and tell them that their conversation is going bizarre and haywire. And, we can learn something from it; even by mistake if we sometimes do the “I-talking” how boring it is for others.

Crime against women has become a major topic to be dealt with all over world in recent years. And, the crime is on rise than ever before. Why do men behave so sickly? For ages we have believed that men are stronger than women biologically; and this notion has been used to portray never-ending inequality and the division of labour between men and women, as women having responsibility for children and the family and men being the economic providers. So women are expected to underplay their roles even if they are smarter and stronger.

Do you’ll realize that often it is difficult for a man to understand how a woman thinks? How she feels? How she evolves? Unless a man gets closely influenced by the women in his life, he really does not till end understand the fabric of womanhood. Women process things differently and in their own way. When women face challenges, they look for solutions within. They push the boundaries to find solutions. I think those men who see their mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, next door girls in stronger positions and characteristically gutsy do try to understand a woman’s state of mind.  The brain circuitry for emotional processing is different in men and women. A new research suggests men really don’t understand women’s emotions.

Men suppress women because of their own insecurity. Rapes happen because some men are unsure of themselves, they are afraid of being rejected or deserted by the woman and they need to feel in control of the woman and therefore they rape. Rapes also happen because they go unpunished. Many societies hush up rape incidents. Our society believes men when they deny having raped a girl/woman and women are not believed when they shout rape. It’s appalling but true that rapes happen because rapists are secretly admired by other men who’d like to be rapists but are afraid of getting caught. Rapes happen because of rampant sexual desire, sexual frustration and the urge of men to control women. Men have this deep sense of insecurity and they are just not ready to accept women who disturb the balance of power.

Men have always blamed women after raping her. Instead of holding the rapist responsible for the rape, the society blames the victim. In court, defense lawyers can also use myths to attempt to undermine the evidence of the rape survivor; this prevents justice to the victim. The rape survivors feel too ashamed or too guilty to report the rape or to share it with friends and family. The survivor ends up isolated and does not get the support she needs to recover from the distress of the rape. Studies estimate that only one in nine survivors report rape. This means that most rapists walk freely in the midst of us, unpunished and they become habitual rapists.

There is no sure description for a rapist: a rapist can come from any social class, caste, creed, age, education or environment. It is difficult to generalize who might or might not rape based on stereotypes. There is no hard and fast rule as to who can rape and who cannot.

Nicolas Groth has described different types of rapes: in Anger Rape the rapist wants to humiliate and hurt the victim. The rapist expresses his contempt for the victim through physical violence and irreverent language. For these rapists, sex is a weapon to tarnish and degrade the victim. In Power Rape, the rapist rapes to compensate for his basic feelings of inadequacy and tries to gain mastery, control, dominance, strength, intimidation, authority and capability. The intent of the power rapist is to assert his competency. In case Sadistic Rape, the rapist gets a sadistic pleasure to see the anguish of the victim. For this rapist, sexual excitement is associated with imposing pain to his victim. In gang rape, a gang of usually young men commit the crime cause for them sexual aggression is often a defining characteristic of manhood in the group and is significantly related to the wish to be held in high esteem.

It’s observed that few men blatantly ogle at women; treating them like sex objects, staring at their lips, chest, legs, and butts and obviously undressing them with their eyes. Famous Indian movie director and screen writer Sai Paranjpye had said in one of her interviews that man undresses a woman with his eyes. When he looks at an attractive woman he thinks how hot she might be and how much fun she could be in bed instead of listening to what she has to say during a friendly conversation, a business meeting, in a seminar or even when he barely knows her. Well, some men are good at camouflaging their intentions.

Rape culture thrives in passive acceptance of female getting degraded. We should at once stop blaming the victim. Stop hyper-masculinity in our communities. We should hammer the real problem: when an instance of sexual assault makes the news and the first questions the media asks are about the victim’s soberness, her clothes, or sexuality, we should all be prepared to hinge to ask, instead, what teachings the rapist has received over their lifetime about rape and about being a man. Instead of asking the rapist what victim was doing/wearing/saying when he raped her? The right question would be ‘what made him think this is tolerable?’ Sexual violence is an invasive problem that cannot be solved by analyzing an individual situation.

We should understand this seriously that masculinity does not mean violence, brutality,   aggression and hostility. And especially masculinity does not mean torturing women.  When would men understand that rape is not a normal or natural masculine urge?

It’s high time that we globalize awareness of rape. I think men should be educated about rape right from their schooling; they should be educated about it’s after effects and the legalities. Only a small percentage of rape education programs are designed specifically for men, approximately 8%. Some programs have confirmed success in changing men’s beliefs and attitudes regarding rape and some programs have also reduced men’s self-reported likelihood to rape. There is evidence to suggest that some prevention programs might reduce men’s actual sexual aggression. Socially, our notion about when a child becomes an adult is very contradictory or inconsistent. The age of ‘major’ and ‘minor’ is defined by the law; but, at personal levels we define and re-define whatever suits us.

We must stop the abuse of child marriage, teenage pregnancy and domestic violence. Is there really a sense that boys and men are fed before girls and women, so that if there’s not enough milk to go around in a family, it goes first to the boys. In poor families boys are educated first. These double standards have spoilt things more.

 To prevent the crime rate further speedier delivery of justice will serve as an effective solution. From 1953 to 2011, rape cases all over the country went up by 873 per cent, the only way left is to deal with the problem efficiently, expeditiously and in a specific time frame. To drive home a strong message that the judiciary will respond seriously against crimes. Women are not valorized and this is common in all societies. This senseless importance given to men spoils their mentality. Legal experts point out that the notion that women are less important is widespread and accepted norm; this notion needs to be eradicated from grass root levels. A large section of society still accepts that women are there to service men, that men are justified in hitting their wives and contempt them. We can tackle the problem of rape only when we globally decide to put up with the sham that men are powerful than women.

While the world is talking of gender equality and empowerment of women, we are ignorant about so many child marriages still taking place in many parts of the world. The young, innocent girls live a life worst than animals. They lose their autonomy even before they understand what world is all about. They become vulnerable without any mobility and zero economic power. How can the rest of the world be so apathetic to the one of the biggest threat and abuse to human right?

The arrangement of child marriage is a curse to the mankind; which often prevents the girls from getting the basic education and restricting them to follow their dreams. It can be devastating physically, psychologically, economically and socially. On one hand when we celebrate women empowerment, on the other hand we ruthlessly shrug off the factual instances of the child marriages still prevailing among some communities.

Childhood emotional mistreatment (CEM) has lasting effects. These kids when grow in adulthood; struggle emotionally and socially throughout their lives as a result of being neglected in childhood. Although there is an abundance of literature and research that focuses on the negative impact of childhood maltreatment (CM) in general, the rampant system of child marriage is discussed and argued only when instances are published in media, few people make little noise and the topic gets calmed down.

Child marriage “is an evil worse than rape” and should be completely eradicated from society, said a Delhi court while ordering registration of a case against a girl’s parents for getting her married at a tender age of 8. The Judge of the court said “Child marriage is an evil worse than rape and should be completely eradicated from the society. This will not be possible if the stakeholders like the state fail to take appropriate action against the offenders.”

Now and then young girls are married off to men much older than them. The adult men harass these timid, under grown and gullible girls sexually, physically and mentally. The helpless and devastated girls have no place to return. They are unexposed to the society, often illiterate and have absolutely no experience of life – where do they go? The parents should be pulled up for committing “serious offense”.

Child brides often die young contracting HIV and other venerable diseases, and dying while pregnant or giving birth. In India child marriage is more common among certain groups and among disadvantaged communities in almost all states. Child marriage is marriage before the age of 18, which is usually forced and occurs when the bride is 8-9 or 11-12 years old. The husband is typically several years older than his wife, sometimes decades older. In 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights established that marriage should be a consensual choice. But who’s listening, who is observing, and who is bothered?

Child marriage is mainly prevalent in West Africa, South Asia, North Africa/Middle East, and Latin America.  According to the International Center for Research on Women, the highest rates are in Niger, Chad and Mali where over 70 percent of young girls are married. But, it is said that girls are at risk of child marriage in India than most other countries combined.

If this curse is not ended soon, it will get worse. While we are talking about the world getting progressively bigger, people are becoming selfish; self-centered and least bothered about their surroundings.  It is estimated that today there are 60 million girls that were married as children, which will double to 100 million in the next 10 years. Millions more child brides are now adult women with families of their own, and their daughters will most likely become wives while still children.

Can you imagine in today’s ultramodern and tech savvy world virginity is a symbol of honor, both for the girl and her family? Therefore, families often marry off daughters early so that when she does start to have sex, it is with her husband. The feeble hypocrite society wants girls to become good wives and mothers; this is how a girl can gain status and honor within the family and community. And the worst is alliances between groups are formed through marriage through the exchange of dowries and bride payments, creating bonds between communities. So are we talking of girls as humans or girls as objects?

Education is the only solution to shun child marriage; but when the most basic necessity of food and shelter is not met with, many economically downtrodden find educations very expensive. Girls are considered burden, and parents think she has to go to another family why spend on her education? Often they invest in their sons instead. Another fact is girls are valued less than boys. Is marriage different than barter system? Marrying off a daughter can bring wealth to her parents in the form of a bride price paid by the husband-to-be, which often helps parents to buy goats or other livestock. We should feel ashamed of such a monstrous system still existing in our society. And, giving away a daughter in marriage means that she is now the responsibility of her husband, thus parents wash off their hands of their daughter’s responsibility. Her husband is free to use her the way he wants. In so many instances when a young wife dies, the man remarries without any delay.

As learned and responsible citizens of this world, let us take little responsibility of those small, little girls; let them not be forced to grow up when they are still kids! Let them study, let them play, let the laugh. They are like budding flowers, let them grow and use their potential for something nice and good.

In our society we are tremendously obsessed with academic qualifications; as a result, we check qualifications of the bride and groom before finalizing matrimony, before giving membership in a club, an association, a forum, in a sports club, while applying for a job, qualifications are checked. A person’s aptitude, ability and skill are judged by his/her academic qualifications. Any bio-data résumé or curriculum vitae are deplorable without the inclusion of education qualifications. Therefore it is an impromptu rule of both the corporate world and the social world that a man’s academic qualification is a key to his entry to a coveted position in society.

Education does help add finesse to life; it helps developing moral, civic values. It prepares us with good manners, proper behavior, hygienic living. Aacademic education gives people an encompassing experience of life, with lots of opportunities to meet people from different walks of life and to consider the importance in life of values and culture. These are necessary for a person’s growth. Educated citizens help in building a civilized nation. It uplifts our morals and ethics by exposing us to the great thinkers of the past. It makes us aware of our rights and liberties, and helps establish a liberal democracy with active citizens and an active media.

But when we spend twelve years of our life in schooling, and several more years of our precious life in college on graduation and often post graduation, and then one fine day it strikes us that our degrees are not required for success; why because Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Dhirubhai Ambani and many other rich people were schools dropouts and they built great fortunes!! Unfortunately the materialistic world has changed the concept of success.

We are also a fixated society about grades in qualifications. We have a wrong notion that grades alone can help getting success in life. If success and opportunities were measured by grades then the corporate world and potential marriage partners would not ask for bio-data, where other credentials are also mentioned. Nor would they interview the candidates in order to find out what they are like as people. Education helps us modify our people skills, our thinking, our character and our inventiveness. It prepares us for life life’s success. IT helps in honing our physical characteristics, personality, and a willingness to work hard. Grades are really irrelevant.

We have somewhere misinterpreted grades/marks in education. We attach so much importance to marks that it has become a rat-race where every student chases grades and therefore the entire perception of success and affluence has changed. Rather than studying to reach one’s full potential, children simply mug up for examinations. Further, they get frustrated when they don’t get jobs. More time is spent in job hunting than in education. Many people find themselves in the wrong profession and lacking job satisfaction. The business atmosphere is highly politicized, favoritism plays key role, and we see wrong people in big positions. In short, our idea of education has got mistaken, our idea of prosperity is mistaken, and our definition of success is changed. With so many years of education finally we misread that if anyone is able to save his/her job then he/she is successful!

If we look at some very successful people in the world, who are doctors, engineers, researchers and IT, professionals, many of them are employed by people like Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Ambani who have built empires devoid of formal educational qualifications.

Does education corrupt minds? I think yes, because by going to schools and college students do rote learning and taking multiple examinations. It forces people to learn and think like millions of other graduates. This spoils chances of some brilliant minds which can come up with the truly mould-breaking insights and “disruptive” ideas on which successful innovations and new business models are built. Our education is not outcome based; today’s students cannot implement and apply what they have learned, they are not capable of putting their knowledge into practice in an increasingly complex and challenging environment. The emphasis, therefore, should be on practical, sensible, workable learning — rather than simply accumulating information which becomes outmoded in shorter span.

And what about those fake degrees sold by thriving illegal rackets in the market? So many dubious agents are selling degrees and people are buying them. Nexus between state universities, education intermediaries and private/public educational institutions are flouting norms, often jeopardizing the careers of students by conferring on them a degree, which may not be legitimate. And, if such students get trapped, he/she loses job, reputation and chances of making a decent living thereafter.

Another question is raised against academic qualification – that is whether it can stop us from becoming a civilization of drunkards, rapists, war-mongers, immoral money launders, criminals, and villains. If you look at countries where the largest numbers of people have higher academic qualifications, they are the ones most affected by social breakdown. Can we call America a successful nation for its wars on Iraq and Afghanistan? Can we call it superior by any chance? Can we call Russia a mighty nation for creating the Crimean crisis? Can we call some fluent Indian and Pakistani politicians wise for not solving the Kashmir issue? Are the “educated” politicians of India and Pakistan solving problems of the innocent Kasmiris?  India and Pakistan have fought at least three wars over Kashmir, but still the problem is not resolved.  Does education teach us to delay and drag important decisions?

Academic qualifications may not be enough on their own to ensure success, but they indicate that their possessor has got courage, daring, moral values to speak out against any kind of injustice. I think it’s high time we bring in changes in our education system. Today’s academic qualifications have no real relevance to the jobs graduates are employed to do. A few decades ago employers in areas such as banking, engineering, management and government service recruited people straight from school at the age of 15 or 16, trained them on the job and promoted them to higher levels of responsibility according to their ability. And, those people contributed to the growth of businesses and society.  Today none of these jobs has changed very much, but all of them require applicants with university degrees. Why has this changed? One reason is that the upper and middle classes are trying to protect their own jobs – demanding new recruits have expensive academic qualifications.

Our nation needs an education system that excites and stimulates children, providing them with the learning they need and be worthy of to accomplish their potential.  This means we need a curriculum of practical and vocational learning alongside theoretical study. This need for change has become more and more critical.  Let’s except a simple fact that the world has changed whereas our education system has not changed. The gap is very big. Indeed, it is largely based on a system developed over a century ago. Our assessment standards need change, our pedagogies need change, and we need to educate teachers first. Let’s not make our schools and colleges mere factories churning out graduates – where children are placed on a learning conveyor belt, then sorted, packaged and labeled with degrees.

And finally please understand this – academic qualifications are futile if they are not helping you to lead a happy and peaceful life.

We all are used to multi-tasking in our lives. We have so many responsibilities in life that we forget to take care of ourselves. And while it’s hard to prioritize activities, we tend to forget giving our health its due priority.

On the other hand, sometimes self-help can become an obsession. One can be overly involved with self improvement. People spend a lot of money on vitamins, fluids, fruits, all sorts of ‘health foods and health drinks’. These individuals keep checking their weight, BP, blood sugar – they exhaust their energies on minute details regarding their health. When they are in this fury; they visit all sorts of Gurus, Babas, astrologers, EFT trainers, Yoga trainers, exercise regimens. This is where we all need to be careful, not to overdo it. When we get obsessed with self help, our imaginations run wild and one of such wildness can be illustrated as self medication.

Why sel-care without the advice of a physician should be avoided

The medical dictionary defines self-medication as medication of oneself especially without the advice of a physician. This is the practice whereby individuals treat their ailments and conditions with medicines which are approved and available without prescription. In developing countries, private pharmacies are the major drug dispensers and “pres­cription only” drugs are available for sale in official pharmacies. Modern medicines though of prime im­portance to mankind are potentially hazardous when administered indis­criminately in the form of “self medication”. Many universities and consulting firms have conducted researches in this area. The drug store plays a vital role in the entire supply chain of medicines.

How self-care is enhancing societies

Self-care is enhancing in the societies due to a number of factors. These factors include socioeconomic factors, lifestyle factors, ready access to drugs, the increased potential of people to manage their own illnesses through self-care, increased awareness about deceases and their treatment on internet and magazines, and greater availability of medicinal products.

In the midst of decisive economies, ever stressed pharma sectors in most parts of the world, increased emphasis on R&D and many new entrants in the pharma business governments, healthcare sectors and individuals worldwide are struggling with escalating health care costs. Many countries are establishing mechanisms whereby these costs can be controlled and health care made more cost-effective.

Worldwide, self-medication is being promoted as a means of reducing the health care burden on the public budget. Structural changes including increased reliance on private sector delivery are also increasingly being put in place.

How is the role of pharmacist is changing in the era of self-care?

The role of the pharmacist has been changing over the past two decades. The pharmacist is no longer just a supplier of medicines, but also a team member involved in the provision of health care whether in the hospital, the community pharmacy, the laboratory, the industry or in academic institutions. For the purposes of this definition, medicines include herbal and traditional products. Pharmaceutical care is growing in importance with the challenges of self-care. For pharmacists, their greater involvement in self-care means greater responsibility towards their customers and an increased need for accountability.

This is a common scene for all of us; patients narrate their symptoms to chemists who in turn give them medicines by deciding themselves what medicine the patient should take. This is very dangerous as wrongly administered medicines can cause serious complications. The pharmacist must initiate dialogue with the patient and the patient’s physician (when necessary) to obtain a sufficiently detailed medication history in order to address the condition of the patient appropriately before dispensing the medicines. The pharmacist must ask the patients key questions and pass on relevant information to him or her (e.g. how to take the medicines and how to deal with safety issues). For doing this, the pharmacist must be prepared and adequately equipped to perform a proper screening for specific conditions and diseases, without interfering with the prescriber’s authority, when the patient comes with a prescription. Though today’s customers have more information, the drugstores need to educate the patients on the threats of self-medication, and it’s the drugstore which can inform the customers that taking drugs without medical advice is perilous.

This might sound outlandish but the drug stores should be a little strict in their transactions with the customers. It may be convenient to simply pop a pill for common health complaints but ignoring the fine print on packaging could lead to problems worse than one can think. Some of the common drugs are Crocin, Combiflam, antibiotics like Amikacin, Gentamicin, Neomycin, Dcold or Benedryl, and the sleeping pills, https://buyzolpideminsomnia.com. Medicines such as Codine, Pereton and other cough syrups can cause dizziness, nervousness or sleeping problems. They are not ideal if someone  has high blood pressure, diabetes, thyroid or heart disease. Oral contraceptives are an emergency measure; if they are used on a regular basis, they can cause hormonal imbalance and disrupt the menstrual cycle. Some medicines can also react with food and if taken improperly, hamper its absorption.  Don’t take medicine with alcohol; don’t take a higher or lower dose of the medicine than the label tells you to, or more frequently than suggested. Are you aware of your allergies? Don’t forget to keep track of your allergies, avoid medicines that have the same ingredients of your allergies. Discuss with your family members before you instantiate any self medication, keep them informed in case of any emergencies they must be prepared.

What are the concerns regarding self-care?

The other growing concern is medication adherence. It refers to whether patients take their medications as prescribed (eg, once daily, twice daily), as well as whether they continue to take a prescribed medication. Medication non-adherence is becoming alarming to clinicians, healthcare systems, and other stakeholders. Because of mounting evidence that it is prevalent and associated with adverse outcomes and higher costs of medical care. Till date, measurement of patient medication adherence and use of interventions to improve adherence are rare in routine clinical practice.

To conclude, life is precious; when you arise in the morning, think of what a precious freedom it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. Don’t take your life for granted, watch before you pop those pills thoughtlessly.