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Rise and Fall of Byjus: Did they mess with the middle-class dream?
Opinion
The Letter to America by Osama :Did American Gen Z fall victim to Tiktok?
If you don’t know this is about Osama’s Letter to America with a clear reason for 9/11 .Cut short he is killing nonbelievers as he believes that’s what he is destined to.
That is not unbelievable what’s horrific is American youngsters are feeling “existential crisis” because of that !The education system and parents both need to look inside because it’s never easy accepting that behavior .
But starting with a prayer.Thank God Tik tok and tiktoking is not legal in India .Because spreading disinformation, misinformation seems dangerously easy with little scope of culpability.
Since the content is misinformation I didn’t share the videos reading the letter.But sharing this to let you know that some people like chaos and they make money when ordinary citizens fall victim to terror and chaos.Don’t believe videos on social media,whatsapp about any even unless you can verify the source personally.Also don’t forward anything in Whatsapp groups which are legally,medically and financially problematic if classified as misinformation or disinformation.
Sharing is good Karma!
Tomorrow Never Comes: Kal Ho Na Ho what Sheetal Devi and SRK taught me
Tomorrow Never Comes: Kal Ho Na Ho what SRK taught me is a post I had to write because of many things happening at once. The state of unrest in the world and serious health news on many fronts made me feel glum last week and then I read a tweet by a fellow X er.
It was a light bulb moment. It was a video clip of Sheetal Devi the sixteen-year-old young girl, who made us proud Indians in the Asian Para Games . When you see her taking aim, you realize how full of hope the world is.
This is a Tweet by @theskindoctor13
Incidentally, SRK’s Kal Ho Na Ho was a movie whose songs I loved. I especially loved the name “Kal ho no ho and before launching on any of my adventures that’s what I told my then-boyfriend now husband.
He was not an SRK fan but tolerated my love for SRK movies and then Ra 1 happened and I simply couldn’t watch SRK movies again. It was a growing-up moment. But my disappointment with Ra 1 is not important.
Anand Mahindra puts this in perspective when he tweeted about Sheetal Devi. Problems appear minuscule when we see what Sheetal Devi has achieved.
What’s important is the message of living in the present, doing our best, and balancing QOL with productivity, for sustainable prosperity. Like SRK did with his movies. He made loads of money by working in formulaic movies and making the masses happy. But now he is making movies which he wants to make. They may be misses or hits but he is now working for his own creative passion. Because again, Kal Ho Na Ho.
Remember you can’t wait for retirement to live healthier, travel, socialize, sleep, or be happy. You have to plan your life today to live better now. It’s a barometer we all have. That of well-being and happiness. But it’s not easy to choose Aaj (today)over Kal tomorrow. What can be done today can be done best now. Don’t be a procrastinator.
A well-lived today is the best way to ensure a beautiful tomorrow. As doctors, we are forever giving a multitude of lifestyle advice but the system doesn’t always let us follow those same health tips.
Most Government Healthcare setup is overwhelmed, understaffed, underpaid, overworked, and simply running on threadbare resources. The Government’s good will is strong in most cases, but the system is overwhelmed.
70 percent of poor socio-economic people who come to my clinic(both male and female ) either have some kind of addiction or work in bidi factories. They have a long history of treatment by quacks,and treatment in Government setup and still persistent symptoms of allergy or some kind of pain or infection. Their lack of comprehension about lifestyle habits is sad. But they understand the quality of life when I explain how stopping the addictions could help them get better sooner.
Because tomorrow will only come if we survive today.
But will they choose the right thing to do today?Survival of the sensible and the fittest seems to be the writing on the wall.
Sharing is good Karma!
Momspresso Shutdown: Lesson for Bloggers
Momspresso has shut down. Content creators take note: Discover why having your own platform is essential in this day and age.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Momspresso was previously known as mycity4kids and then they started the MyMo app the Momspresso money app and the Momspresso blog which was using user-generated content from parents. It turned eventually into a barter and some pay-for-content model. But the company has now retired the Momspresso wing. Bloggers who were exclusive to them will be left high and dry and will have to start again from scratch if they don’t start their own websites. If you are a content creator in this day and age it’s best to have your own exclusive platform too.
Did you know Women’s Web gave up too ?
Starting out, I did a few barter here and there but since I had to pay my blog bills(hosting, domain, peripherals ) I couldn’t continue working with platforms that exclusively paid-in shampoo, conditioners, and face washes. There’s only so many products you can buy (even at a discount) and the amount of jumping through loops needed in some cases made the barter deals unattractive for me.
Currently, the Miss Malini app(the good creator) which showed tremendous promise has fizzled down into a barter-gaming-constant challenge app where exactly when and how much one gets paid with what remains a challenge.
Indiblogger was once good with nice Amazon vouchers but they wound up. Blogchatter is going strong. They too have a point system where redeeming points happen after a threshold. They also have interesting campaigns where the pay is good. Their business model looks stronger and more sustainable.
When I asked Geethica a friend, blogger, and long-time content creator for Momspresso and now a Blogchatter friend, about her thoughts regarding this she said:
Momspresso or as I remember it better as My City for Kids will always remain close to my heart. As every mother who wants to search work online and loves to write signs up on their website. I started sharing my experiences on their portal and soon got many eyeballs as I wrote the truth in family issues. Soon I got my first paid assignment and from there I started my journey as a professional blogger.
Geethica https://thoughtsbygeethica.com
They gave me community of mothers and respect as a mom blogger in events they organaised. With them only, I tasted the feel of professionalism attending work events.
They were my initial years of hand holding and from their I picked up on my own. Today, the news of Momspresso shutting down didn’t come to me as a surprise. They were maintaining a very low profile for a couple of years now. Things changed when they replaced their human team with their app and quality of work with social following.
Nevertheless, every milestone is a learning and I am proud to be once associated with Momspresso.
Read about my Treadmill Desk and how it helps me write and walk
When I asked Deepa another blogger friend who was a regular with Momspresso she expressed her sadness Docdiva traveler also known as Dr.Mandira Adhikari, shared how she too was disappointed with the way the Momspresso blog ended. Remember the blog folded up. Not the Momspresso website. The Money app folded up because the company was running into loss. Mamaearth acquired Momspresso in 2021.
The My Mo app folded up.Not Momspresso.My Mo App a venture of My Momspresso was retired and I have written about my sad experience with the platform.
The many brands which the parent company owns are all still being marketed. But all the heartfelt posts that moms shared on Momspresso are no longer hosted on the Momspresso website. Because it is a long run. The data can be huge and so is the cost of upkeep. If there is no monetization plan what is the use?
The issue with brands spending lakhs to rope in “celebrities” who endorse anything and then expecting bloggers to work for peanuts no longer surprises me. It’s okay when you are starting out but when you are self-hosting your blog, you need money for the hosting, domain, and everything required for content creation. How will you pay your blog bills with soap, shampoo, or free water bottles? Remember I am not even talking about maintaining family expenses, but just the website-blog entity.It’s not something anyone cares to even care about.
I have worked with several marketing websites and except for Blogchatter, most make you run after them for your money, while many believe in amazing coupons challenges, and products as payments, just like Momspresso. The good thing was that Momspresso allowed bloggers to download their content as a zip file with adequate notice. But it was sad that content that helped them earn money and few people earned real revenue share . That’s like today’s social media where people share content with hardly any revenue share from the platform. Now Twitter will let you monetize content if you are a paid X customer. Facebook is letting you earn coins, and Instagram is helping sell directly. But how easy is it all?
Lesson for bloggers
Have your own website to publish your content, not a third-party free platform that way you can charge for the work you do. Digital media includes blogs and having your blog as your business is a business model. But it’s not just write-publish-money in the bank. But that’s a conversation for another blog post.
Read about How I manage Internet Access for my child
Sharing is good Karma!
Tips for Internet Safety for kids: Internet Doesnot Discriminate
Whether your child is six or sixteen, the internet doesn’t discriminate. Some kids research online for education, some for entertainment, and some searches might have unfortunate unforeseen repercussions. Internet safety needs to work differently for a child, a preteen, and a teenager. It can’t be one size fits all.You need filters in place and that’s why I found Happinetz to be a good solution for my home.
Even though we try to protect them, screen them, and make the world a safer place just like Maa Durga fighting the demons, we simply don’t have her resources.
But guess what?
She answered my prayers and now we have Happinetz a device that helps you set filters to screen content for your little one, and keep your preteen happy and teenager safe.Happinetz helps me set the filters the way I want them so that only certain categories of websites are visible on my daughter’s device.
Yes, she can bypass Happinetz. Does she do it? No, not as far as I know. You might think it’s too much screening, that they will be able to choose right. But imagine being a kid in a world like this. I knew chocolates made me get dental caries, but did I stop eating them? I knew certain friends were unreliable, didn’t it take long years to find the good ones? Happinetz helps you give your kids access to the good of the web. It helps you teach and entertain without becoming a hovercraft. It helps you make a more controlled decision while keeping them safe.
What is Internet security?
Internet security can be provided by the most reliable software like Kaspersky. They help you keep your device protected from malware, harmful software, phishing sites, and the massive dangers on the web which are known to be illegal, dangerous, and harmful and can steal your money,and personal data.. But what about things that need to be age-appropriate? What should you do then?
Life doesn’t give everyone a second chance like the Netherlands mom whose eight-year-old son ordered an AK47 through the dark web. Sounds like science fiction or a parenting horror story. The truth is you do need a village to raise a kid and in this day and age we need all the help we can get, to help our kids. Because unlike you the internet doesn’t know your kid and neither does it care. In this enormous opportunity hides a darkness that must be kept reigned in and that’s why a device like Happinetz helps.
So what needs screening?
Age-inappropriate content. So an age filter a category filter and an option to make allowlists of websites or block them.If you want to have internet safety for teens ,its a different filtering option,while if your kid is a child prodigy adavanced educational content access will be needed.
Certain topics like drugs, buying medicine, buying guns, graphic videos showing violence or sexual content, gaming sites, grooming sites, and access to adult chat rooms need to be blocked. All this may be done through active monitoring. But for that, you will need to sit behind them every time they are online. That going to be difficult and in certain instances impossible as they grow up.
Teaching them to choose right won’t happen instantaneously. The best-behaved kids may be under peer pressure to be more knowledgeable. If you remember yourself at their age you know you will never sit in peace again. But you need to try and do the best you can. Even if the Internet doesn’t discriminate, you can discriminate between good and bad content and what’s good for your kid.
Don’t let Google be the only judge of what your child will see, on their device. You as a parent have a lot of say in this matter and what they learn and see in this impressionable age will go a long way in making their life better or worse.
You know the Internet doesnot discriminate between the people searching online.It will show things which Google thinks is helpful content for the search term.It will screen out content which it thinks is unhelpful .But building a DIY gun or buying a bomb is definitely not the right content access for kids (or adults for that matter) and should definitely be strictly restricted. Who knows what kids want to know more about.
So what will be your decision? Will you sit back and let Google (or some other search engine)do their thing? Or will you research more about cyber security and take charge? Parents are God’s angels to take care of the work that God can’t do himself always. So don’t let down your kids, but let down your hair, as you set a device like Happinetz filter and help kids find content to educate and entertain and not fall for any traps.
It’s not everything and it may not be for everyone. But for parents like me who realize the power the internet offers, it’s a golden opportunity to teach and learn but let it be a force for the good.
This post is a part of Happinetz – Internet Does Not Discriminate and you have a chance to voice your opinion if you do participate.
Sharing is good Karma!
This moment in Time
31st July 2023
The best things in life often turn up unexpectedly. We all want to make our own plans. But the Universe has it masterplan for all of us.
We are here for a reason. We do the work we do for several reasons. But all work that is worth doing is worth doing well.
That is not a mantra I learned quickly or easily . It’s not alway possible to do my best. But for that moment of time, that best is the best I can do .
For that moment in time is the “now”. It’s never coming back again. So Goodby to 31st July 2023 We are officially (hopefully) inching towards cooler months Durga puja celebrations & more .
This is what I realized this July .What was the one thing you realized this month ?Let me know in the comments below .
