INDIA NEWS
Nov 1-15, 2020 - Vol 1, Issue 9
SPECIAL FEATURE
Coping with depression: Help not attention is critical By Vijay Lokpally Trigger warning: The following article mentions suicide, and may be disturbing for some Solitude, a soulmate Sadness has been an integral part of my life: the sadness of losing loved ones, friends, family members. I would read of a stranger’s death and skip a meal, brood. I loved it, this being alone, being sad. I was surrounded by family and friends, all of whom loved me, yet I revelled in solitude. I don’t know when I began to love melancholy in cinema, and dreamt of being Rajesh Khanna from Anand or Guru Dutt in Kaagaz ke Phool. Why would anyone feel alone amidst so many people? It is hard to explain, but easy to understand if you are in depression — a condition I was diagnosed with only later in life, but probably had even as a boy — where you want to shut yourself off from the world and just disappear. The first time it came to the fore was when I was 12 years old. I was emotionally attached to my sisterin-law. She was a friend, sister, mother, and I drew inspiration from her. One day, she scolded me for something silly and my world seemed to have crashed. I slipped out of her home in Delhi and wandered around, looking for ways to end my sadness. Over the next few days, I contemplated suicide many times over, often showing up at a spot in the city.
This one time, a ragpicker had been observing me, and that day, two strong hands pulled me back from the brink. He dragged me to the police station nearby, and I pleaded with them to let me go. They took pity on me, and did. I returned to my sister-in-law’s arms and just broke down. That was my first brush with death. I grew up with the guilt of having caused suffering to my vahini (Marathi for sisterin-law). I also grew up avoiding people, not turning up for social events, because I wanted to stay in my room. I never understood why; my family thought it was the anger that goes with teenage years. It wasn’t. Working at it As a sports journalist travelling around the world, I have walked around both strange and familiar cities alone, not wanting to communicate with people. Many have misunderstood this to mean that I call only when I want something. Playing football and cricket, and my sports writing kept me afloat, but I did not have the courage to confide in anyone that there was something wrong inside. What would they think of me?
ways. Being alone was weird. Then 15 years ago, my family doctor confirmed I was suffering from acute depression, when I repeated the suicidal episode. This time, I had my wonderful wife and son — Sunanda and Akshay — and office colleague C Rajshekhar Rao to look after me. They hijacked me from my work, and sent me off to the mountains — 15 days of bliss. I came to terms with myself and settled into a routine, looking to make new friends, basically to convince everyone that I was normal. Only a few knew. Kadambari Murali Wade, a fellow journalist at the time, was one, and would speak to me for hours on end over the phone. Books, my saviour I looked for refuge in books and for peace by forging new friendships. In fact, I excelled at striking up conversations with strangers of all ages, mainly because they wouldn’t ask me, “Tu paagal toh nahi hai?” I wasn’t sure if it was written on my face, this sadness. I dreaded the mirror because it reflected a sorrowful image. I decided to fight it by immersing myself in work.
I had the best parents. They pampered me, and then I lost them in quick succession when I was 30. Much before they took leave of this world, they had come to understand what some of my friends thought were my “weird”
My coping mechanisms also lay in writings on spirituality. The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda became a companion and I loved it when Virat Kohli tweeted a selfie with that book a few years ago. Not that he had my mental health
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condition. Swami Vivekananda also became my new friend. Of course, I was ravaged time and again by painful memories of losing the people I loved, one by one — in just four years, I had lost three close friends. The realisation that I wouldn’t see them again would leave me acutely depressed. It would become worse when seeking help from friends — as grateful I am for them, at the time, I felt they all had their own worlds and could not always spare time for me. During the lockdown My low moods were becoming more frequent and damaging, and worsened after the lockdown. My diabetes and hypertension forced me to stay home for months. I began to read literature online about battling depression. I was never convinced that counselling would heal my mental state. I believed in facing it on my own. But a few online counselling workshops during this period gave me the strength to come to terms with life and my condition again. Then I got this priceless recommendation from a friend. I ordered Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression — and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari and slowly accepted that depression was a condition that could be dealt with, and that the stigma attached to it should be broken — hence I am writing this.
I realised that your best friends are at home: my family, and my childhood friend Ghaus Mohammad. They have all the time for you. I have learnt to smile again, thanks to them. I have acquired the courage to accept my condition and look for ways to conquer it, rather than deny it or pretend it isn’t there: a daily walk, reading a variety of literature, and writing that often gives me an escape. I have learnt to enjoy my life in the moment. To the question, ‘Tu paagal toh nahi hai?’ I would say, I am seeking help, not attention. Vijay Lokpally is a veteran Indian sports journalist. This article was originally published in The Hindu, for the series My Mind Matters that encourages people to talk about their experiences with mental health.
AIBC hosts webinar on cyber security global collaboration A
ustralia India Business Council (AIBC), a non-profit organization, established in 1986 to foster the bi-lateral relations between India and Australia, conducted an online interactive workshop on Australia India cyber security collaboration opportunities and market launch on October 28. As part of the Australia Cyber Week, the October 28 AIBC webinar was organized under the Australia India Innovation Bridge series. The event which was moderated by Irfan Malik, the AIBC National Chair for Startups and Innovation had among its speakers and workshop panelists Manish Gupta, Consulate General of India, Sydney; Ashok Mysore, the AIBC National Chair for Digital and ICT; Dr. Sriram Birudavolu, CEO, Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence (CCoE); Prerana Mehta, Chief of Ecosystem Development, Aust Cyber, Australia; Penny Wong, CEO, Radmis Advisory, Australia; and Prasanna Lohar, Head of Innovation, DCB Bank, India. Mysecurity Media, Sumeru Solutions and Vertex security were the three cyber security specialist start-ups that were presented towards the end of the webinar. Burgeoning cyber vulnerabilities
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Talking about the pathbreaking reforms that have been undertaken in the last years hastening India’s transformation into a digital economy, Manish Gupta, Consulate General of India, Sydney expressed his concern over the extremely high cyber vulnerabilities which have been laid bare. While the Indian government’s flagship programmes such as Digital India and Skill India have been aiming at harnessing the power of digital economy to develop digital backbone for urban areas; much needs to be done for the cyber disruptions which the Indian business ecosystem faces in the form of phishing, malware and ransomware. However, he feels that there are a lot of opportunities for collaborations between India and Australia to strengthen cyber security, in the form of innovative partnerships between Australian universities and Indian institutions. He suggested that these partnerships need to be leveraged so that the Australian universities can share cutting-edge cyber security know-how with India and even establish centres of excellence in India. Awareness, Accessibility and Adaptability- keys to combat
Ashok Mysore, the AIBC National Chair for Digital and ICT asserted that with massive digitization right across the industrial sector and with the advent of cloud computing, government and private business have a wide network over the internet like never before. In the wake of the pandemic, work from home has become the new normal with people conducting business through laptops, mobile phones and tablets. This has exponentially increased the points of connectivity in the world wide network but at the same time opened up multiple points of cyber intrusion and failure. According to him, cyber security is about staying ahead of the threat as otherwise it can spread like a pandemic. With 83% workload expected to be carried out through cloud computing by 2025, it has become all the more necessary to counter the top cloud security threats of data breaches, misconfiguration and account hacking. In the last 12 months, there have been around 2200 cyber security incidents in Australia and of these 35% have affected the critical service providers such as health care and education. The only solution here is to make the government, industry and citizens more aware
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about cyber threats, and have access to the best cyber security measures through regular cyber security audits and upgradation in which help of white hat hackers needs to be sought. AIBC can play an even more significant role in creating more business networks, providing regular updates on ICT and help in organizing more trade and business delegations between Australia and India especially since the private sector has a lot of collaborative opportunities to fortify cyber security. Aust Cyber enabling cyber security growth Prerana Mehta, Chief of Ecosystem Development, Aust Cyber, Australia highlighted the significant role that Aust Cyber- a federally funded autonomous agency- has been playing in assisting the government in policy formulation for cyber resilience and representing the industrial sector in Australia. Stating the need to increase awareness regarding cyber security among the public, small businesses and government, she gave a brief overview of how Aust Cyber is providing opportunities to the cyber security businesses to connect directly with small and medium enterprises and also by providing a range of inexpensive solutions to counter cyber threat
issues. She emphasized the need for multiple level involvements between the Australian and Indian governments, business to business involvements, and business to customer as well as customer to customer involvements to achieve outcomes in cyber security sector in both the countries. CCoE building cluster of cyber security companies Hyderabad-based Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence (CCoE) which is a part of Data Security Council of India, a cyber security arm of India’s largest IT industry body, NASSCOM is working on building a cluster of cyber security companies in the Indian state of Telangana. Participating in the webinar on behalf of CCoE, Dr. Sriram Birudavolu, CEO reiterated the importance of a strong and resilient business ecosystem to combat cyber security threats and the need to build a talent pool keeping in mind both the quantitative and qualitative aspects to service the rapidly burgeoning market of cyber security. He also stated that collaborations between India and Australia involving start up cyber security agencies and large corporations both in India and Australia having sufficient venture capital, is the key to a robust cyber environment in both the countries.
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