Seasonal Magazine - Karnataka - Cover Story

Managing Editor

Jason D Pavorattikaran

Editor

John Antony Director (Finance)

Ceena

Associate Editor

Carl Jaison

Senior Editorial Coordinator Jacob Deva

Senior Correspondent

Bina Menon

Creative Visualizer

Bijohns Varghese

Photographer

Anish Aloysious Office Assistant

Alby CG

Correspondents

Bombay: Rashmi Prakash

Delhi: Anurag Dixit Director (Technical)

John Antony

Publisher

Jason D Pavorattikaran

Editorial & Business Office

Cochin: 36/1924 E, Kaloor-Kadavanthra Road, Near IGNOU, Kaloor, Cochin-17.

Ph:0484- 2345876, 2534377, 2340080 Mob. 09947141362

Delhi: H.No: P-108, Uppal Southend, Sector 48, Sohna Road, Gurgaon, Haryana – 122018

Ph: 9891771857|099471 41362

Mumbai: 202, Woodland Heights Building, St. Martins Road, Bandra West, Mumbai400 050 Mob: 919947141362

Bangalore: House No: 493, Block 3 3 rd Main, HBR Layout, Bangalore-4209731984836, Email:skmagazine@gmail.com www.seasonalmagazine.com

UK Office: “CRONAN”, Boundaries Road Feltham, Middlesex, UK TW13 5DR Ph: 020 8890 0045, Mob: 00447947181950

Email: petecarlsons@gmail.com

Reg No: KERENG/2002/6803

BIG TECH’S BIG THEFT

THE WORLD IS GOING GAGA OVER CHATGPT, THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BASED CHATBOT DEVELOPED BY OPENAI, FOR ITS STUNNING CAPABILITIES. BUT WHAT IS THE REALITY?

here is a word that is almost used as a synonym for ‘innovation’, ever since the startup culture caught on. Yes, it is ‘disruption’ itself, and how it came to be a positive word despite its quite negative meaning is a feat that only Big Tech could manage on this planet.

It is said that angel investors and venture capitalists have made disruption an important yardstick while assessing the ‘innovative potential’ and ‘scalability’ of startups. For a startup idea to click bigtime it should ideally disrupt the lives of the incumbent players and the people they employ. But of course, all for the common good.

Maximum the disruptive potential, maximum will be the scalability. The logic? It is quite simple to understand, and can be explained with two real world examples. Uber has to first disrupt the lives of millions of cab drivers across the world, so that this huge segment will have no option but to enrol for Uber. Or Oyo has to disrupt the lives of lakhs of hotels and lodges, so that they will have no option but to enlist themselves for Oyo. But all for the common good.

hat sets apart a leader in any sector is how it performs during downturns rather than in good times. The first three quarters of this fiscal delivered serious headwinds for the entire real estate sector, as it witnessed unprecedented rate hikes by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its bid to contain the inflation contagion that hit Indian shores too due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But a sector leader like Prestige Estates Projects faced these headwinds with considerable strength, which is readily seen from its H1 (Q1+Q2) results as well as the ongoing sales momentum in Q3 & Q4. The Bengaluru headquartered developer which had guided for Rs. 12,000 crore of pre-sales for this current fiscal, could surpass more than halfway of this - Rs. 6500 crore - by the end of H1 itself. The listed developer has done extremely well in both its residential and office / commercial segments. This helped the developer report an 80% surge in its consolidated net profit at Rs 140.7 crore in Q2 of this fiscal year, on a year-on-year basis. Total income rose to Rs 1,474.7 crore in the second quarter of this fiscal year from Rs 1,345.2 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. Sales bookings during Q2 rose 66% year-on-year to Rs 3,511 crore on higher demand despite a rise in home loan interest rates. For the full half year of this fiscal or H1, Prestige Estates’ sales bookings more than doubled to Rs 6,523.1 crore from Rs 2,845.9 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. The developer sold 3,210 units during the second quarter, translating to 36 Prestige homes sold every day on an average basis. Total sales during H1 was 8.18 million square feet with an average realization of Rs 7,976 per square feet. In its core and traditional market of Bengaluru, its pre-sales was largely led by the sprawling Prestige City project so far, and going forward, Prestige has a pipeline of 25 million sq ft of upcoming launches to keep the residential momentum in high gear, of which around half is from non-Bengaluru markets like Mumbai, NCR-Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and smaller markets like Kochi and Calicut. It also has Rs 6,500 crore of inventory in ongoing projects to rely upon in Q4 and beyond. Earlier, in FY’22, Prestige had reported sales bookings of Rs 10,400 crore, thereby becoming the first real estate company to breach Rs 10,000 crore pre-sales mark in the country. Despite its entry into the Mumbai market only a couple of years back, Prestige was among the top sellers in the central suburb of Mulund with sales worth Rs 883 crore in 2022. Prestige Estate’s commercial portfolio is also doing extremely well, and it is most bullish on Mumbai from where it expects around 50% of its overall rentals to come from by the next few years. Prestige has three office towers, spread over 10 million square feet coming up in the core Mumbai business district of Bandra Kurla Complex, as well as upcoming office towers in Pune, Hyderabad, and Kochi too. But the bigger story from Prestige is that the company has performed well during the recent headwinds, and that these headwinds are now all set to subside with inflation easing and rate hikes getting paused or even reversed soon. This will deliver significant tailwinds for the company in Q4 and beyond.

CONTENTS

KARNATAKA PUSHES FOR MASSIVE DEVELOPMENT UNDER CM BOMMAI

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai is leading Karnataka into a new phase of massive economic development, with definitive plans to come back to power in the assembly polls planned for April-May this year. And CM Bommai has the full backing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is all set to visit the state for the sixth time in recent quarters to lay the foundations for major new infra projects worth Rs.16,000 crore. However, the highlight of PM’s visit is the inauguration of the Bengaluru-Mysuru Expressway, which will reduce the travel time between these two key Karnataka cities to just 1 hour 15 minutes from the current 3 hours.

10 PROVEN WAYS TO LEARN FASTER, FOR CHILDREN AND ADULTS ALIKE

Modern socioeconomics is demanding that both children and adults learn more and more new things, faster. Thankfully, neuroscience has taught us a lot about how our brains process and...

HOW TO FIND YOUR LOST KEY, LIKE HOW A NAVY FINDS A LOST SUBMARINE

Everyone has misplaced something from time to time, be it a phone, wallet, or set of keys. When something extraordinarily valuable, like a nuclear submarine, is lost,

HOW GRATITUDE DRIVES HAPPINESS

It really is that simple to make yourself a little happier. And yes, you can get happier in just 3 minutes each day.

THE SECRET HEALTH BENEFITS OF HUMMING

Experts explain why the simple act of humming is so good for the human body.

WHY YOU OFTEN NEED TO BE UNHAPPY TO BE SUCCESSFUL

If you make happiness your primary goal, you might miss out on success as well as the challenges that give life meaning. In 2007, a group of researchers began testing a concept that seems, at first blush,

3 RULES TO COMMUNICATE MORE EFFECTIVELY

Actor and science communicator

Alan Alda shares his three rules of three for effective and empathic communication. Whether you are a public speaker or having a heart-toheart, it can be challenging..

WHY UNION BANK IS FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS

The Union Bank stock which had already been on an upswing since July, recently shifted to overdrive after the second quarter results were announced. The recent vertical climb was of course prompted by the overall good numbers recorded by the bank in Q2, but there is also more to it than catches the eye. For instance, under its new MD & CEO A Manimekhalai, who took charge only in June this year, Union Bank has outperformed the entire banking system’s credit growth..

WORLD CLASS ACHIEVEMENTS AT GALGOTIAS UNIVERSITY

With over 96% placements including in some of the world's largest firms, during the last five years, including the most troubling pandemic years, the Greater Noida based Galgotias

THE MAGIC OF COMPOUNDING: WHY SMALL STEPS LEAD TO BIG GAINS

Compounding isn’t just useful in finance. It is a principle that applies to all of life. Brad Stulberg researches and writes on sustainable excellence and wellbeing, explains its magical

WHY SATHYABAMA IS IN A WORLD CLASS LEAGUE

The world’s best universities are outpacing the rest of the pack on two key domains - research projects and startup incubation. Chennai based Sathyabama Institute of Science &

SIMPLE BRAIN HACKS FOR BOOSTING YOUR MOOD

You can boost your brain's 4 happy hormones - dopamine, serotonin, endorphin and oxytocin. Here's how to do it naturally.

WORLD CLASS FEATURES OF ICFAI FOUNDATION FOR

HIGHER EDUCATION

ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE), the flagship deemed University of ICFAI Group at Hyderabad, and its constituents ICFAI Business School (IBS),

ACCELERATING FORTUNES AT INDIA'S LARGEST DEFENCE SHIPBUILDER

Unlike many PSU stocks, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders' stock has risen steadily. That was until July of this year, after which the stock shifted to an exponential gear. The stock has doubled during the last 12 months and it is no wonder really as MDS is eyeing Rs. 1.59 trillion worth of orders from Indian Navy, after having launched its stealth frigate..

PRESTIGE ESTATES IS READY FOR AN EVEN BETTER FY’23

FY’22 had gone down in India’s real estate sector, with a unique change in the pecking order. Noted Bengaluru headquartered developer, Prestige Estates Projects had zoomed past sector leaders DLF, Macrotech (Lodha) & Godrej Properties by way of sales booking in the last quarter of FY ’22. If anyone thought it was a one-off or anomaly, Prestige has proved that they are wrong, in Q1 of this fiscal. Despite the significant headwinds by...

SRM GROUP ACHIEVES WORLD CLASS PLACEMENTS, TOP OFFER OF RS.1 CRORE FROM AMAZON, GERMANY

SRM Institute of Science & Technology (SRMIST), the flagship deemed university of

WHY YOU NEED TO BE BAD FIRST AT ANYTHING

Christine Carter PhD is a writer, speaker, coach and sociologist, as well as a Senior Fellow at the Greater Good Science Center. Here she explains a simple yet profound idea that why we need to be bad at all goals first before we can be good at it eventually. From TED’s ‘How to Be a Better Human’ series.

HOW THE JAPANESE ETHOS OF WABI SABI CAN HELP YOU

Perfectionism is on the rise and its consequences for mental health can be devastating. The Japanese philosophy of wabi sabi helps us appreciate our imperfections. By accepting our faults as part of our journey toward improvement, we can..

SPARKLING IN RESEARCH AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research is fast growing to be a powerhouse in basic and applied research as well in entrepreneurship development and startup..

OVER 5000 FAILURES BEFORE WINNING BIG!

James Dyson Created 5,127 Versions of a Product That Failed Before Finally Succeeding. His Tenacity Reveals a Secret of Entrepreneurship, says Aytekin Tank, the Creator of Jotform Tables, one of the notable technology startups in recent years.

KARNATAKA PUSHE DEVELOPMENT UND

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai is leading Karnataka into a new phase of massive economic development, with definitive plans to come back to power in the assembly polls planned for April-May this year. And CM Bommai has the full backing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is all set to visit the state for the sixth time in recent quarters to lay the foundations for major new infra projects worth Rs.16,000 crore. However, the highlight of PM’s visit is the inauguration of the Bengaluru-Mysuru Expressway, which will reduce the travel time between these two key Karnataka cities to just 1 hour 15 minutes from the current 3 hours. This Expressway that encircles a portion of NH-275, includes four rail overbridges, nine significant bridges, 40 minor bridges, and 89 underpasses and overpasses. The 118-km-long project has been developed at a total cost of around Rs 8,480 crore, and speaks volumes about the kind of public investments going into the development of Karnataka these days. Meanwhile, in a bid to woo international manufacturing giants including Apple and Foxconn, Karnataka has gone in for a landmark legislation allowing changes that allow for 12-hour work shifts and night-time work for women. The Basavaraj Bommai administration plans to make Karnataka a $1 trillion economy, and has proposed several new projects and initiatives for this which includes four new metro lines for Bengaluru to provide citizens metro access within 1-2 km of their place of work or residence by 2032. Karnataka government has also recently released Rs 900 crore to 1.14 lakh beneficiaries of various schemes.

ES FOR MASSIVE DER CM BOMMAI

rime Minister Narendra Modi will also be laying the foundation stone of MysuruKhushalnagar four-lane highway, which is a 92 km long road project, which will be developed at a cost of around Rs 4,130 crore, and thereby boosting connectivity of Kushalnagar with Bengaluru and will help halve the travel time from about 5 to only 2.5 hours. Other projects that PM will inaugurate include the IIT Dharwad, the longest railway platform in the world at Sri Siddharoodha Swamiji Hubballi Station, the electrification of HosapeteHubballi-Tinaighat section of the railway network and the upgradation of Hosapete station, various projects of Hubballi-Dharwad smart city, and laying the foundation stone of Tupparihalla Flood Damage Control Project.

There was a time in the United States of America, when the term ‘Bangalored’ meant outsourced abroad. A US job getting Bangalored meant that it ceased to exist in the Silicon Valley, and got shifted to India’s Silicon Valley. While the term is not much used anymore, due to other outsourcing hubs emerging in India and elsewhere, some recent stats show that such an early mover advantage is difficult to beat and that Karnataka has been building upon this advantage effectively in recent years under the visionary leadership of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai. The state could attract Rs. 10 lakh crore worth of investments from the Global Investors Meet (GIM) held last year, and its investment proposals are being fasttracked under the direct supervision of the Chief Minister. If the current momentum continues, Karnataka is all set to overtake Tamil Nadu as India’s second largest industrial state.

The inbound investment scene has turned hypercompetitive among various Indian states in recent years. States that were never in the reckoning for Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) are today major destinations that have succeeded in attracting major projects. This headway that some of these states have made in recent years would make it seem that

Karnataka and its capital Bengaluru have been overtaken in the race for economic development. But some core stats show that things are otherwise.

Leading real estate consultancy Knight Frank had recently published their report for 2022, which shows that as far as office space consumption was concerned, Bengaluru led the whole of India with 14.5 million square feet. This figure would be more appreciated when you know that the runner-up, National Capital Region (NCR-Delhi) was a distant second with just 8.9 million square feet, and the country’s economic capital Mumbai even behind that.

When it comes to residential real estate consumption too, Bengaluru recorded a sector-leading 40% rise by way of residential units, growing ahead of Chennai at 19%, Hyderabad at 28% and Mumbai at 35%, with only NCR-Delhi ahead of it at 67%. But a closer look at the absolute numbers show that the difference is not so huge, with Bengaluru selling 53,363 residential units as against NCR-Delhi’s 58,460 units, and in fact this difference may not mean anything given the huge difference in sizes between these two urban agglomerations.

When it comes to attracting high quality

companies to Bengaluru, one big advantage that Karnataka enjoys is that it doesn’t have to do anything much, other than facilitate the new entrant. A recent example of this phenomenon is the US based Q2 Holdings which selected Bengaluru for its India office. Q2 is a publicly traded fintech major that works with Fortune 50 Banks globally and features as the fintech partner for 40% of all the US banks.

Bengaluru was never unknown to Texas based Q2 Holdings, as another Texas based giant and one of the Top-10 semiconductor companies in the world, Texas Instruments, was the very first company that started the offshoring wave in Bengaluru in the early 90s. But Q2 is in a very different business and offers comprehensive financial services including digital banking and lending solutions to banks, credit unions, alternative finance and fintech companies in the US and internationally. If you ask where else in India but Bengaluru would such a company set shop, you are correct, but only 50% correct. Yes, Bengaluru is indeed India’s fintech capital. When Q2 was considering India, Bengaluru would have been the first choice if not the only choice.

Ashwath Narayan Minister for IT, BT, S&T, and Higher Education

But the bigger story is that Q2 was most probably considering India itself due to Bengaluru’s preeminence in the global fintech map, and not the other way around! How can anyone guess it? Just take a look at their list of geographical locations. Apart from their various offices across the United States, Q2 has only three offices worldwide - in London, in Sydney, and now in Bengaluru!

Q2 CEO Matt Flake explained the rationale behind selecting Bengaluru this way, "At Q2, we have invested in our state-of-the-art office space in Bengaluru and we will continue to invest approximately 40% of our revenue and workforce to expand our Bengaluru office, and our mission is to build strong and diverse communities by strengthening their financial institutions. The opening of the Bengaluru office will enable us to deepen our mission’s impact by supporting our local India team members and their communities, as well as attracting new talent.”

Yes, talent, that is the attraction! Bengaluru has got talent. India has got talent too, but Bengaluru has got it within

one city premises so that companies like Q2 can hit the ground running, whether it is work-from-office, or work-from-home or hybrid models that they are pursuing. Bengaluru’s talent pool when it comes to highly trained and highly experienced professionals, be it software engineers, fintech specialists, data scientists, biotechnologists, researchers etc is unparalleled anywhere in India. In fact, the very reason why it became the global outsourcing hub starting from the 90s is that it had the maximum number of electronics & computer science engineers as well as PhD holders among any city in India.

This actually happened in Bengaluru in the 90s due to two reasons - one, the presence of high-tech PSUs like Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), Bharat Earth Movers Ltd (BEML), Indian Telephone Industries (ITI), Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) etc, and secondly due to Bengaluru’s long running focus on the higher education sector, especially engineering colleges. While some of these PSUs like ITI and HMT are no more active, and while the private sector giants like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Biocon etc have emerged stronger, the focus on higher education is something that Karnataka takes seriously to this day.

A recent example of this priority for higher education was seen when under the guidance of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, the Minister for Higher Education CN Ashwath Narayan and the State Higher Education Council (SHEC), coordinated a hitherto unseen kind of international tie-up, by which four public universities in Karnataka were facilitated to partner with different renowned universities in the US state of Pennsylvania.

Under this unique and long-term engagement model,, these four universities - Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Bangalore University, Bangalore City University and Mangalore Universitytied up with different renowned universities in Pennsylvania like Commonwealth University, Kutzdown University & Millersville University. During the formal signing ceremony of

this partnership, the Vice Chancellors of all the four Karnataka universities and the high-level delegates of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) were present.

The four Karnataka universities will benefit in different areas as per the individual tie-ups and it includes partnerships in diverse domains like computer science, business administration, geography & geo information science, strategic communications, English language, sports management and sports psychology. Universities on both sides

will benefit as this opens the doors for twinning programs and joint development of research projects and academic programs.

Such tie-ups as well as academic and research agreements are nothing new for Karnataka’s famed central institutions like Indian Institute of Science (IISc) or its well-run private sector deemed universities like JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research (JSSAHER) and Nitte Deemed University. But this is the first time that the state’s prominent public universities have been facilitated by the

Matt Flake, CEO, Q2 Holdings

Dr. Murugesh R Nirani. Minister for Large and Medium-scale Industries

state government to undertake such partnerships with leading universities in the US.

Such long-range planning and implementation have always been a hallmark of Karnataka, and it is accelerating now under Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s strategic leadership. And this is showing some great results in the corporate sector too. Ever since the global and Indian inflation rates spiked, the massive inflow of risk money into India’s celebrated startups had waned, and everyone expected Bengaluru to take the biggest hit, being the country’s startup capital. But the numbers reveal a different story.

According to a recent PwC India report on the subject, while the overall fund inflow into Indian startups declined by 33% in the calendar year 2022 over the previous year, it was Bengaluru startups that continued to raise the maximum capital. As many as 679 Bengaluru based startups succeeded in raising capital ranging from less than $20 million to greater than $100 million in 2022, as against only 466 such startups in NCRDelhi and only 336 such companies in Mumbai that could raise this kind of capital.

More than $100 million each was raised by 25 Bengaluru-based startups, including ?DailyHunt?, ?Swiggy?, ?Udaan?, Table Space, ?ShareChat?, ?Dunzo?, Byju’s and ?Ather Energy?, while there were only 15 such large fund raises in Delhi-NCR and only 8 such successful funding rounds in Mumbai. Bengaluru also led its bigger peers in the highest number of unicorns with 29 of these giants, followed by NCR-Delhi with 16 unicorns and Mumbai with 11. Indeed, if Bangalore 1.0 was about PSUs, and if Bangalore 2.0 was about IT & IT Services, Bengaluru 3.0 (its name change was in 2014) is about startups and sunrise domains like fintech and biotech. These relentless waves of economic boom have resulted in an unprecedented 584% rise in Bengaluru’s total built up area, as the city struggles to employ, and to house and to transport 12 million people.

This has invariably resulted in deep ecological impact especially to its once famous lakes, and also in its now infamous traffic congestions. Studies done earlier have estimated that billions of dollars worth of man-hours are lost because of IT workers getting stuck for long on its congested roads. But under CM Bommai’s leadership, considerable headway has been made in easing the congestion to reasonable levels.

This includes better day-to-day planning, going in for multi-modal transport systems, and also long-range plans to develop other cities and supporting infrastructure like national highways so that Bengaluru is not squeezed further. The Basavaraj Bommai Government is getting good support in this regard from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari. Minister Gadkari who recently visited Karnataka and inspected its national highways, had announced new projects and updates. He has announced that the 10 lane Bengaluru-Mysuru expressway will be open for operations in February, which will significantly ease the traffic flow between these two major cities and industrial cum tourist hubs. A brand new highway too has been announced, which is the 72-km six lane highway

between Karnataka's Chitradurga and Davangere districts.

This will be built by NHAI at a cost of Rs. 1400 crores and will extensively use sustainable methods like plastic in bituminous concrete and milling material in service roads, which will reduce the maintenance cost of these roads in the future. But the most exciting part of this project is that it will be a vital segment of the longer highway connecting India’s IT capital Bangalore with its financial capital Mumbai, reducing travel time and congestion. Another new highway between Karnataka’s Nelamangala and Devihalli which falls under National Highway-75 has also been announced. Following his vision to take development of the state to every nook and corner of Karnataka, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has recently directed officials to start mini-textile parks in 25 taluks spread across the state. The Minister for Major and Medium Industries Murugesh Nirani has also informed the Legislative Assembly that close to 90% of investments received during the recently concluded Global Investors’ Meet (GIM) in Bengaluru would go to Tier II cities in Karnataka.

The government is also getting good support from major conglomerates for

furthering industrial development outside of Bengaluru. One such key deal is happening right now, as Tata Electronics is taking over the operations of leading Taiwanese based iPhone maker Wistron Corporation, with their plant in Kolar more than 50 kms away from Bengaluru.

The city’s air connectivity is also getting a shot in its arm with Bengaluru Airport’s Terminal 2 beginning domestic operations from 15 January. Almost coinciding with this, helicopter service provider Blade India has announced that their services will connect Bengaluru Airport to Hosur Aerodrome in 20 minutes, whereas by road it now takes up to 3 hours during busy traffic.

On the ecological front too, the Basavaraj Bommai Government has been making great strides. A recent study shows that Karnataka’s groundwater levels have improved, and while much of it is due to the favourable wet year, there is no doubt that the lake revival projects have also positively impacted groundwater. The state also got a major endorsement recently when the World Bank announced that it will be bringing Sub-Saharan farm officials to Karnataka to learn from its science-based watershed model that is aimed at developing climate-resilient agriculture.

Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the New Terminal T2 of Kempegowda

WHY YOU OFTEN NEED TO BE UNHAPPY TO BE SUCCESSFUL

If you make happiness your primary goal, you might miss out on success as well as the challenges that give life meaning.

In 2007, a group of researchers began testing a concept that seems, at first blush, as if it would never need testing: whether more happiness is always better than less. The researchers asked college students to rate their feelings on a scale from “unhappy” to “very happy” and compared the results with academic (GPA, missed classes) and social (number of close friends, time spent dating) outcomes. Though the “very happy” participants had the best social lives, they performed worse in school than those who were merely “happy.”

The researchers then examined a data set from another study that rated incoming college freshmen’s “cheerfulness” and tracked their income

nearly two decades later. They found that the most cheerful in 1976 were not the highest earners in 1995; that distinction once again went to the second-highest group, which rated their cheerfulness as “above average” but not in the highest 10 percent.

As with everything in life, happiness has its trade-offs. Pursuing happiness to the exclusion of other goals–known as psychological hedonism–is not only an exercise in futility. It may also give you a life that you find you don’t want, one in which you don’t reach your full potential, you’re reluctant to take risks, and you choose fleeting pleasures over challenging experiences that give life meaning.

The way to understand the study above is not to deny that happiness is good; rather, it is to remember that a little bit of unhappiness has benefits. For instance, gloom has been found to aid in problemsolving. The author Emmy Gut argued in 1989 that some depressive symptoms can be a functional response to problems in the environment, leading us to pay appropriate attention and come up with solutions. In other words, when we are sad about something, we may be more likely to fix it. Psychologists call this the “analytical rumination hypothesis,” and it is supported by research.

Obviously, this is not to argue that clinical depression is good — misery can quickly render people incapable of

solving problems. Nor am I saying that depression passes a cost-benefit analysis. Rather, the analytical-rumination hypothesis is evidence that getting rid of bad feelings does not necessarily make us more effective in our tasks. And if these emotions can help us assess threats, it stands to reason that too much good feeling can lead us to disregard them. The literature on substance use suggests that this is so: In some people, very high degrees of positive emotion have been connected to dangerous behaviors such as alcohol and drug use and binge eating.

An aversion to unhappiness can lead us to forgo a meaningful life. Indeed, as one group of researchers that surveyed college students in 2018 found, fear of failure is positively correlated with meaning derived from romance, friendship, and (to a lesser extent) family. When I talk with people about their fear of negative outcomes in life, their true source of fear in many cases centers on how they will feel about having failed, not about the consequences of the failure itself. This is similar to the way discomfort with uncertainty causes more anxiety than guaranteed bad news. To avoid these bad feelings, people give up all kinds of opportunities that involve the possibility of failure.

But bringing good things into your life, whether love, career success, or something else, usually involves risk. Risk doesn’t necessarily make us happy, and a risky life is going to bring disappointment. But it can also bring bigger rewards than a life played safe, as the study of happiness, academic achievement, and income suggests. Those with the highest performance at work and school made decisions that were probably unpleasant at times, and even scary.

None of this is to say that we should shun good feelings, or that we’re foolish for wanting to be happy. On the contrary, the desire for happiness is natural and normal. However, making the quest for positive feelings—and the fight to banish negative ones—your highest or only goal is a costly life strategy. Unmitigated happiness is impossible to achieve (in this mortal coil

at least), and chasing it can be dangerous and deleterious to our success. But more important, doing so sacrifices many of the elements of a good life. As Paul Bloom, a psychologist and the author of The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning, has written, “It is the suffering that we choose that affords the most opportunity for pleasure, meaning, and personal growth.”

Happiness itself would lose its meaning were it not for the contrast that we inevitably experience with sadness. “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness,” Carl Jung said in an interview in 1960. “The word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” You can take Jung’s words to heart by committing to a regular practice of gratitude in which you give thanks not only for the things that make you happy but also for the ones that challenge you. It feels unnatural at first, but it will come easier each day.

Some of the most meaningful parts of our lives are a direct result of negative feelings that slipped through, despite our best efforts to block them out. For example, I am the father of three young adults; it was not long ago that my wife

and I were going mano a mano with three teenagers. We lost a lot of sleep then, but I wouldn’t trade away a moment of those experiences (now that they are safely behind us).

Some people take these lessons to lengths that might seem unimaginable. One is Andrew Solomon, the author of The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. “If one imagines a soul of iron that weathers with grief and rusts with mild depression, then major depression is the startling collapse of a whole structure,” he wrote. But as he told an interviewer several years ago, he eventually found a way to love his depression. “I love it because it has forced me to find and cling to joy,” he said.

This, in a nutshell, is the paradox of being fully alive. To strive for relentless positivity is to aim for the dimensionality of a Hollywood movie or children’s book. So though suffering should never be anyone’s goal, each of us can strive for a rich life in which we not only seek the sunshine but fully experience the rain that inevitably falls as well.

(By Arthur C. Brooks for The Atlantic Daily)

PARENTING

THE 4 SECRET HABITS FOR RAISING SUCCESSFUL KIDS

BILL MURPHY JR. IS THE AUTHOR OF ‘HOW TO RAISE SUCCESSFUL KIDS’ WHICH IS IN ITS 7TH EDITION NOW. HERE HE SHOWS WHAT IT TAKES TO RAISE SUCCESSFUL KIDS, ACCORDING TO SCIENCE WHICH SAYS THESE 4 HABITS MATTER, BIGTIME. STUDIES SUGGEST THAT IF YOU WANT TO DO RIGHT BY YOUR KIDS, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY DO THESE THINGS.

There comes a time in some people's lives when their aspirations for their children begin to rival or even exceed their aspirations for themselves.

It's happened to me since I've become a parent myself. As a result, I've been on a years-long mission to collect as much science-based advice as possible regarding how to raise successful kids. Here are five of the most interesting and useful strategies I've found and highlighted recently. The science suggests that if you want to do right by your kids, you should probably do these things.

1. Make them do chores. 1. do chores.

1. Make them do chores. 1. do chores.

Researchers at La Trobe University in Australia recently set out to determine whether children who do chores at home would develop better working memory, inhibition, and other success-predicting behaviors.

They broke chores into three categories: self-care, other care, and pet care. Writing in the peer-reviewed Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, they said their studies showed that kids who did self-care and other-care chores were in fact more likely to exhibit better academic performances and problemsolving skills.

But pet-care chores did nothing either way for the kids' later development. Why not? Maybe it's because pet care chores aren't as strenuous as other chores, or maybe because the kids didn't really view the kinds of things you have to do to take care of a pet dog (walk it, feed it, etc.) to be work.

The bottom line, however? Make your kids do chores. They might not love the idea to start with, but you've got science on your side.

Teaching kids to say "please" when they ask for something can reinforce their tendency to be polite, which makes them more persuasive when they're older. Teaching them to say "thank you" habitually encourages gratitude, which stimulates happiness and makes stress easier to deal with.

And teaching them to say "you're welcome" reinforces confidence by emphasizing that the things they do for others are worthy of thanks. (This is especially true when you juxtapose "you're welcome" with other things people say in response to "thank you," like "no worries!" or "no problem!")

3. Work on their emotional 3. on their intelligence. intelligence. intelligence. intelligence.

Children who develop emotional intelligence also develop "a higher chance of graduating, getting a good job, and just being happy," according to Rachael Katz and Helen Shwe Hadani, authors of The Emotionally Intelligent Child: Effective Strategies for Parenting Self-Aware, Cooperative, and WellBalanced Kids.

Oh, and remember that kids are just that: kids. It's unfair often to expect them to react and respond to things like adults would (or at least, should!).

4. Help them figure out their passion(s). This study was fascinating. Researchers in Scandinavia wanted to determine whether passion, grit, or mindset was the most important factor in predicting young people's success, specifically in an athletic context.

In short, passion turned out to be far more predictive of whether kids were successful; while mindset and grit might have predicted that young people would continue attempting to succeed, it was passion that best predicted whether they actually would.

"For people who are the best of the best in their field, passion is absolutely the biggest factor. It's the essential key to success," one researcher said. So, when kids are kids, let them explore different things to determine the ones that they're truly passionate about. That's where they're most likely to become the absolute best in their field.

2. Teach them to be polite.

2. Teach them to be

This one focuses on three specific words: please, thank you, and you're welcome.

There are many things you can do to develop emotional intelligence (many more listed here), but at the outset, model your good thinking and use of emotions for them, ask them for their ideas, and try not to judge.

Look, no matter what any of us does as high achievers or entrepreneurs, chances are our kids will be a very big part of our legacies.

PELE THE LEGEND'S INFAMOUS INDIA VISIT

PELE THE LEGEND'S INFAMOUS INDIA VISIT

O YOU LIKE TO BE ADDRESSED AS YOUR EXCELLENCY, MR PELE? A REPORTER IN THE EASTERN INDIAN CITY OF KOLKATA (THEN CALCUTTA) ASKED THE FOOTBALL LEGEND DURING HIS THREE-DAY-TRIP TO PLAY AN EXHIBITION GAME WITH HIS STAR-STUDDED TEAM NEW YORK COSMOS 45 YEARS AGO. THE BRAZILIAN STAR, THEN 37, GAVE A "DISARMING SMILE AND BURST INTO LAUGHTER," REPORTED THE HINDUSTAN STANDARD NEWSPAPER, A DAY BEFORE THE GAME ON 24 SEPTEMBER, 1977 AGAINST MOHUN BAGAN, A STORIED LOCAL TEAM AND ONE OF THE OLDEST FOOTBALL CLUBS IN ASIA.

ndia's football-crazy city was agog with excitement over Pele's first game in India at the iconic Eden Gardens stadium, which then accommodated more than 60,000 spectators. Mohun Bagan, the papers said, had spent nearly 1.7 million rupees to get Pele and the glamorous US club to play in the city. Around 35,000 policemen would be deployed to control rowdy fans. Tickets were priced between five and 60 rupees.

The papers variously called him "King Pele" and "The Emperor". The Hindustan Standard rhapsodized: "Without appearing to be even immodest, let alone vain and arrogant, Pele can compare himself with the other all-time greats in history like Leonardo da Vinci and Beethoven. Maybe to connoisseurs of the game, Pele's football is as rapturously beautiful as the Mona Lisa

or the Ninth Symphony".

The build up to the game was intense. Pele - and that too in Calcutta is unbelievable, said a tea shop billboard. A local paper ran a graphics-led series on its front page explaining how Pele played his game. The star's name

featured in advertisements for health drinks. Long queues of fans to buy "lottery coupons" - tickets would be sold after a draw - snaked outside football grounds. An astrologer played spoilsport, predicting Pele would fall ill and would not be able to play the entire duration of the game.

When Pele arrived in an Air India plane from Tokyo - Cosmos Club was ending a two-week goodwill trip to Asia, with stops in Japan and China - around midnight on 22 September all hell broke loose. Mass hysteria had gripped the city. Newspapers reported a sea of screaming fans inside and outside the airport. Cries of "Long live Pele!" rent the air. "I have never seen such a crowd at this time in the night outside the airport. Fans have come from all over the city and the suburbs," a reporter with the Ananda Bazar Patrika, the largest-selling Bengali newspaper, wrote.

On the tarmac a wave of fans brandishing garlands broke through the security cordon and surged towards the Boeing 707 plane. Pele stepped out of the plane, his fingers in his familiar V salute, and went back inside after seeing the scrum below, according to the papers. Only after the police dispersed the crowd, the footballer stepped out with wife, Rosemeri, followed by the rest of the team, that included stars like Brazil's World Cup-winning team member Carlos Alberto Torres and Italian player Giorgio Chinaglia. They went to the terminal building, where Pele told waiting reporters: "I am tired, will see you in the field."

So much was the desperation to know more about Pele, reporters pounced on a Japanese co-passenger on the flight. "I thought I would get friendly with him on the flight. But the English is poor and I didn't want to impose myself on him. Also Pele slept through the flight," the passenger said.

The mayhem continued. Inside the airport, police baton charged fans who smashed glass panes and flung shoes for not being able to catch a glimpse of their idol. Outside, thousands of fans prowled around the car park. Occasionally a roar would go up - "Pele is leaving! Pele is leaving!" - and fans would run in all directions trying to find the vehicle that would take the team to the city, the papers said.

The police whisked Pele and Cosmos players into a bus to take them to a luxury hotel in the heart of Kolkata. Fans teemed outside, and crowded the hotel lobby. Over the next two days, according to the papers, Pele was mostly holed up in his suite with his wife, secured by his "enormous bodyguard" in the next room. He turned up at two receptions hosted by the US consulate and Mohun Bagan. "We are trapped in this fortress of love," Rosemeri told a reporter.

Pele, of course, turned up at the Eden Gardens with his team for the weekend game, vowing to play for the entire 90 minutes, despite the wet and slushy ground and a grim weather forecast, according to local papers.

Novy Kapadia, a football writer, offered a different version in his book, Barefoot to Boots: The Many Lives of Indian Football. "Pele almost refused to play because of the slippery conditions...

"PELE WAS INVITED TO KOLKATA SO THAT OUR YOUNG FOOTBALLERS COULD LEARN MORE ABOUT THE GAME. AT LEAST, THAT'S WHAT THE ORGANISERS TOLD US. WHAT THEY ACTUALLY LEARNT FROM PELE IS HOW TO SPEND 90 MINUTES ON THE FIELD WITHOUT DOING MUCH," WROTE MOTI NANDI, A RESPECTED BENGALI SPORTS WRITER, IN ANANDA BAZAR PATRIKA.

Police officials implored Pele, saying the crowd would get violent and lynch the Mohun Bagan officials if he did not play. The great Brazilian finally relented, but was cautious throughout the match," he wrote.

By most accounts, the game turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax. Despite taking a few unsuccessful shots at the goal, Pele was mostly off-colour against a spirited home team on a muddy ground battered by rains earlier in the week. The game ended in a 2-2 draw. When Pele left the ground, there was a hushed silence, the papers said. In contrast, tens of thousands clapped in frenzied unison when the Mohun Bagan team left the field.

Kolkata's manic love affair with Pele was beginning to unravel. One headline said: "It is clear that Pele has grown old". Local football pundits were unforgiving.

"Pele was invited to Kolkata so that our young footballers could learn more about the game. At least, that's what the organisers told us. What they actually learnt from Pele is how to spend 90 minutes on the field without doing much," wrote Moti Nandi, a respected Bengali sports writer, in Ananda Bazar Patrika. The hysteria

over Pele now evaporated quickly. Crowds outside his hotel thinned. A deflated fan accosted a minister of the ruling Communist government and said "a fake Pele had been brought to Calcutta". A Communist MP told the same minister: "You need to refund the ticket money for the game."

So when Pele left for New York on a Sunday night, there were no crowds at the airport. "The King's Depressing Departure," headlined a newspaper story. The exuberance of fans had waned. Santosh Kumar Ghosh, a veteran journalist, said a fraction of the money spent on Pele and Cosmos could have "beautified many of the roads in the city". The parting shot on this "most uncompetitive match" was provided by Arijit Sen, a well-known sports commentator of the time.

"The Cosmos players did not offer more than 25% of their capacity and were content to play out the time," he wrote.

"Their purpose had been served. Their kitty had swelled with the poor Indians' hard-earned money".

(Credit: BBC)

11 SIMPLE HABITS THAT WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY EVERY DAY

DO YOU WANT TO BE HAPPIER? MOST OF US THINK THAT THE KEY TO GREATER HAPPINESS IS TO MAKE BIG CHANGES IN OUR LIVES. SURPRISINGLY, RESEARCH SHOWS THAT INCREASED HAPPINESS OFTEN COMES FROM TINY CHANGES TO OUR DAILY OR WEEKLY ROUTINES. EACH OF THESE HAPPINESS HABITS CAN PROVIDE A POWERFUL LIFT TO YOUR MOOD AND YOUR OUTLOOK ON LIFE. DO SEVERAL OF THEM TOGETHER, AND YOU'RE GUARANTEED TO MAKE YOURSELF HAPPIER.

hat advice comes from Cassie Holmes, professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management and author of Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most. In a review posted to UC Berkeley's Greater Good site, psychologist Jill Suttie explores how Holmes's recommen dations can translate into a happier, less stressed life for all of us.

The key to increased happiness, Holmes writes, is how we spend our discretionary time--the hours when we get to choose what we do. Studies suggest that spending too much time watching TV or on social media can lead to unhappiness and even depression, whereas activities such as social interaction, exercise, and spending time in nature lead to greater happiness.

With this research in mind, starting a few small habits can have an outsize effect on how you feel. Give a few of them a try, or try all of them together if you want a real happiness boost.

1. FOCUS ON RELATIONSHIPS.

We've all done it. You're out for dinner with a loved one or good friend, but your attention keeps drifting away to the social media messages or work emails popping up on your phone. Our instincts tell us that these important messages require our attention right now, but when we give in to these instincts, our own happiness and well-being suffer because we lose some of the opportunity to interact and bond with the person who's in front of us. Even when we're on our own, a real conversation with someone we care about trumps a social media message.

So Holmes has a stunningly simple suggestion: "Simply close out of that social media app you're in and dial up a friend to actually talk."

2. GIVE YOURSELF MOMENTS OF FLOW.

When you're working on something--at your job, a side hustle, a creative endeavor, or even a hobby--you'll be happiest when you can get into "flow," that state where you're fully engaged in what you're working on to the point that you lose track of time. So give yourself opportunities for flow by scheduling chunks of time for you to focus on your project and work with as little interruption as possible.

Conversely, at moments when you're not focusing on a project or complex task, look for opportunities to interact and have real conversations with your colleagues. Just as stronger relationships make us happier in our personal lives, stronger relationships at work will make us happier on the job.

3.

GET SOME EXERCISE EVERY DAY.

You already know that getting regular exercise will help you feel healthier and live longer, but there's also ample evidence to show that it will make you feel happier and less stressed. That's a very good reason to make time for exercise every day, or as close to every day as you can manage. Not only that, recent research shows that exercise helps you sleep better and feel more refreshed and energetic the following day. So the hour or half-hour you invest in a walk, a run, or a workout pays dividends that make it very worthwhile.

4.

"BUNDLE" ONEROUS ACTIVITIES

WITH FUN ONES.

You may already do some of this, for example if you listen to your favorite podcast or watch your favorite show while on the treadmill. Life is full of opportunities for making tedious tasks more fun, for instance listening to dance music while you fold the laundry, or a fun audiobook during your commute. And you can up the happiness quotient by adding relationships to the unpleasant task. For example, have a cooking party with one or more friends where you hang out together in the kitchen, preparing meals for the coming week.

5. MEDITATE, OR JUST BREATHE.

There's a lot of scientific evidence that meditation makes us happy as well as improves our brain function. In fact, the most measurably happy human on the planet is a Tibetan monk who spends most of his time meditating. But not everyone is comfortable meditating. Holmes writes that she's "too fidgety and impatient" to do it. But even focusing on your breathing for a few slow breaths can calm you when you're stressed and improve your mood. And being more mindful in general, by focusing on the present moment and what you're seeing, feeling, and experiencing, reduces stress and improves well-being. These are all elements of meditation and you can use them even for a few moments at a time, no lotus position required.

6. DEFEND YOUR WEEKENDS.

Holmes recommends treating the weekend "like a vacation." That means not filling it up with chores and obligations and making sure to spend time doing something you truly enjoy. The weekend can also be both more

enjoyable and more memorable if you do something you don't usually do, such as going to an exhibit or a concert. You'll come back to the workweek feeling more relaxed and energized than if you spend those two days catching up on paperwork.

7. Find awe.

A fascinating study found that people who experience awe, defined as "the emotion that arises when one encounters something so strikingly vast that it provokes a need to update one's mental schemas," feel less pressed for time as a result. One of the best ways to experience awe is to get out into nature, even in a park, if a forest or beach isn't immediately available. And a 15-minute "awe walk" in nature consciously seeking awe is shown to make people happier. It's well worth taking those 15 minutes to find awe for yourself.

8. Do small acts of kindness.

Another surprising way to feel less time crunched is to perform small acts of kindness for others. I found this very counterintuitive when I first read about it--after all, the acts of kindness in themselves take up time. But an experiment led by Holmes showed that when participants performed a small act of kindness (in this case writing a brief letter to a gravely ill child), their sense of their own available time expanded.

Separate research has shown that spending money on others will make you happier than if you spend it on yourself. So go ahead and do something nice for someone--it's guaranteed to increase your own happiness as well as theirs.

9. Practice gratitude.

Research consistently shows that feeling gratitude will make you happier. And gratitude is one of the few emotions that, at least in my experience, is under our control. Most of us can't will ourselves to feel happy or loving. But we all have plenty in life to be grateful for, and if we stop for a moment and consider some of those things, we will feel grateful, at least for those few moments.

For years, I've started my day by mentally listing three things that I'm grateful for before I get out of bed, and (important) before I pick up my smartphone or tablet. Give it a try and see if gratitude lifts your spirits, as well.

10. Mix it up!

Lots of things that make us happy delight us less over time. I had a striking version of that experience when, after wanting one for years, I finally bought my first electric car. Every time I got behind the wheel, I marveled at how smooth and silent it was, how quickly it responded to the accelerator, and how it always

started the day fully charged so I that never had to worry about rushing to the gas station when I was already late for an appointment. Six months later, I still loved the car--but it didn't fill me with joy the same way it did in those first few weeks.

This is called hedonic adaptation, and it applies to everything that gives us pleasure if we repeat it often enough. So change things around--do something you love in a different setting, with a different person, at a different time, or in a different way. "We stop noticing when the same good thing happens again and again. Change, however, makes us pause and pay attention," Holmes writes.

11.

Make happiness part of your schedule.

One of the nicest things you can do for yourself is to make a happiness plan. Holmes recommends looking at your schedule every week and blocking in time to spend with friends or loved ones, time in nature, time for yourself to daydream--any of the 10 suggestions above, and anything else that makes you feel truly fulfilled. When something's written into our calendar, we tend to do it. It's a great tool for making sure that happiness is part of your week.

(By Minda Zetlin for Inc.)

STRESS MIGHT BE PSYCHOLOGICAL, BUT ITS BEST SOLUTIONS ARE PHYSICAL

IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR STRESS HAS BEEN NEXT-LEVEL LATELY, YOU MIGHT FIND A TINY BIT OF COMFORT IN THE FACT THAT YOU’RE DEFINITELY NOT ALONE. ACCORDING TO THE AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION’S 2022 REPORT, CONCERNS ABOUT MONEY AND GLOBAL UNCERTAINTY, TO NAME TWO HUGE FACTORS, HAVE SPIKED PERSONAL STRESS TO SKY-HIGH LEVELS.

art of the reason we’re all so unnerved: 87% of respondents agreed that “it feels like there’s been a constant stream of crises over the last two years” (understatement), and 73% reported that they feel “overwhelmed by the number of crises facing the world right now.” And on top of an ongoing global pandemic, ever-upsetting news cycles, and rising gas and grocery costs, many of us are also still dealing with common daily-life stressors like family, career, and relationship drama.

There’s no quick-fix way to make stress disappear, of course. But there are expertbacked stress-relief activities you can experiment with when you’re feeling overwhelmed.

By drawing from research on

psychology practices including cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, and meditation, you might be able to build a kit of coping tools that work for you when life becomes too much. Below, two licensed therapists share their favorite strategies for getting short-term relief from stress and anxiety. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, stress is your body’s reaction to something that’s happening to you or around you. An important presentation at work, a hectic and noisy commute, or even a date with someone you’re excited to meet can all put your body on notice that something big is happening, which can activate your fight-or-flight stress response. A stressor can be a one-time thing (like an upcoming exam or turbulent flight) or a

long-term occurrence (in the case of a chronic health condition, for example, or an overwhelming job).

Stress is a bit different than anxiety, though, which many of us are also familiar with. When you’re stressed out, your physical symptoms will usually naturally resolve once the stressor goes away. Anxiety, on the other hand, which is your body’s internal reaction to stress, might not dissipate so quickly. Even when there isn’t an immediate physical or emotional threat, anxiety is a psychological state that tends to linger. Some physical symptoms of both stress and anxiety include, an elevated heart rate, increased blood pressure, headache, restlessness or insomnia and racing thoughts or worry.

No matter how your stress manifests, if it

starts to feel overwhelming and you’re looking for relief, consider trying some of these expert-backed stress-reduction strategies for relaxing your mind and body.

1) Count down to get grounded. 1) Count to grounded.

When your internal pressure is high, tuning into your external environment is one stress-relieving practice that might help you feel a bit more chill. Rhayvan Jackson-Terrell, LCSW, wellness director at NYC Health and Hospitals and a telehealth therapist, tells that she often recommends the “5-4-3-2-1 method” to her clients as a mindfulness activity designed to get you out of your head and into the present moment.

Here’s how to do it, she says: Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Next, take a look around and notice the details of your surroundings. Then, count down from five using your senses: Name five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you taste. That’s it—by stepping out of your stressful mental narrative and dropping into your environment and sensations, you might be able to relax your mind and body. As Jackson-Terrell puts it, “Being able to stop for a moment and identify how we feel can actually help us calm down. It gives us space and grace for our body to regulate itself.”

your face can calm your autonomic nervous system, decreasing your heart rate and slowing your breathing.

to Dr. Murray.

2) Activate your “dive reflex.”

2) Activate “dive reflex.” Activate

You know that movie moment when the main character runs away from a stressful situation and into a public bathroom? When they take a deep breath and splash cold water from the sink on their face as a way to show the audience that they really need to calm down?

Melodramatic as it may seem, a version of this grounding technique could actually help you in real life, since splashing cold water on your face is a way to activate the “dive reflex,” your body’s natural way of focusing blood and oxygen to your vital organs when you’re submerged in water.2

“This tool can be helpful when people are starting to kind of panic—they’re going into a presentation or a meeting they’re really nervous about and they’re feeling acute anxiety due to a stressor,” says Nicole Murray, PsyD, clinical director and CEO at telehealth therapy group Cultured Space. Cold water on

3) Practice box breathing.

3) Practice box breathing.

3) Practice box breathing.

3) Practice box breathing. breathing.

Breathing techniques are another simple strategy that might help you calm down, and Jackson-Terrell recommends one called box breathing as a go-to stress reliever. She says she likes this coping activity because of its accessibility: “It’s something we can do no matter where we are, no matter what environment we’re in.”

Box breathing is named for its four-step process of four counts each, which is meant to conjure the mental image of a square. It requires breathing in for a count of four, then holding that breath in for a count of four, exhaling for another count of four, and holding your breath out for four more counts. You can continue breathing in this way until you feel your body start to let go of tension, Jackson-Terrell says. And you can do it before, after, or during a nerve-wracking experience, making it a versatile addition to your stress-SOS toolkit.

4) Try relaxing your muscles, one 4) Try relaxing your muscles, one 4) Try relaxing your muscles, one 4) Try relaxing your muscles, one Try by one. by one. by one.

Progressive muscle relaxation is a technique for tension release that’s been shown to provide relief from stress and anxiety.3 Dr. Murray recommends it as an effective activity for times when you need to relax but aren’t feeling acutely anxious (you’re not exactly in a onemuscle-at-a-time place if you’re really revved up, you know?) - maybe at the end of a stressful day or as a calming way to ease into the weekend. All you need is a comfortable place to sit and a few quiet moments.

Start by curling your toes under and tensing the muscles in your foot for a few seconds before slowly un-tensing those same muscles. Do the same with your lower legs, then your upper legs, your torso, your chest and stomach, your shoulders and neck—all the way up to the top of your head. The idea is to invite tension into each muscle group, one by one, before consciously releasing it. This builds the connection between your brain and your body, grounding you in the current moment (so you’re not lost in your stressed-out mind) and giving you a sense of control over how much tension you’re holding on to, according

5) Do a stress rehearsal.

5) a stress rehearsal.

5) Do a stress rehearsal.

5) a stress rehearsal.

5) Do a stress rehearsal.

There are some instances where stress may be triggered by spending time with a specific person in your life. (Hello, nerve-wracking holiday party with your boss’s boss, or Thanksgiving with your hyper-critical family member who just knows how to get to you.)

When that’s the case, Dr. Murray suggests borrowing a tool from cognitive behavioral therapy called stress inoculation, a coping mechanism in which you imagine yourself in a stressful situation and mentally run through how you’ll handle it.4 Basically, she recommends mentally rehearsing scenarios ahead of time as a way of managing your stress level.

“You’re almost preparing yourself to be triggered,” she says. “Walk through possible conversations and imagine how you’ll respond if a loved one says something to offend you, or how you’ll avoid someone who you don’t feel comfortable around. Practice ways to respond, and have a plan B— remembering that it’s always okay to leave a situation if you need to,” Dr. Murray says. This won’t necessarily calm you in a moment when you’re already stressed or anxious, but it can help you keep things in perspective so you don’t go into a dread spiral.

And on days when you know other people are going to activate your stress response, Dr. Murray recommends protecting yourself by removing as many additional stressors as possible. In other words, as an act of self-care, don’t schedule a job interview or medical procedure on the same day you know your in-laws are going to pepper you about your reproductive choices again at dinner.

When to see a professional for help managing stress and anxiety

Jackson-Terrell points out that feeling some amount of stress and anxiety doesn’t mean you have an anxiety disorder or another mental health condition. Some level of stress is just part of being human. Chronic stress, however, can have a negative impact on your long-term physical and mental health.

(Credit: Kathryn Watson for SELF)

G20 SHOULD FOCUS ON INDIA’S UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION IN THE SOCIAL SECTOR

jay Khanna writes about how India’s social sector is transforming rapidly and supporting government schemes and initiatives. Social enterprises are contributing hugely to the economy and society through the massive use of technology and innovation

India’s G20 presidency is a chance to showcase its capabilities to the world, including the work of its thriving and committed social sector. This is crucial because India has established that accelerated, inclusive and resilient growth and progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will also be the priorities for the G20.

The nation’s social sector has been contributing towards the advancement of SDGs by using path-breaking innovation. The social sector — which includes social innovators, entrepreneurs, cooperatives, self-help groups and foundations — has pioneered distinct business models and prioritised equity and societal and environmental benefits. These organisations have explicit social objectives and inclusive governance models and work with groups that face gender, race, ability and economic barriers.

India’s social innovators and entrepreneurs are doing remarkable work at the bottom of the pyramid with extraordinary challenges. Despite the significant contribution of the social economy in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment, their contribution has not been recognised. They work on shoestring budgets, and one would be amazed at their zeal, tenacity and value system to do what they do with a sewa bhav (sense of service).

With its complex socioeconomicenvironmental challenges, India is a fertile ground for social innovations and offers a unique opportunity to demonstrate leadership. Government initiatives such as Skill India and Digital India have provided social enterprises multiple avenues and support to accelerate their work, impact and reach. However, they need the government’s support and encouragement to showcase them on international platforms to catapult to the next level of global operations.

Under India’s presidency, India’s social sector should be an integral part of the G20 agenda since they are forerunners in some of the priority areas identified by India during its presidency. Some pointers on why India’s social entrepreneurs need a push under India’s G20 presidency are as follows.

First, technology. The use of technology in social innovations has increased multifold in recent years. Social entrepreneurs have been using technology and digital stack to accelerate equality and growth for the marginalised. During Covid-19, they employed innovative digital tools to ensure continuity in services. With digital and technology as the centre of India’s G20 presidency agenda, the experience of these social entrepreneurs could be valuable.

Second, jugaad. The jugaad way of finding solutions to complex problems is unique. It also sums up how some Indian social entrepreneurs work with scarce resources and yet find outstanding solutions to challenges that even large enterprises sometimes fail to address.

Third, firms repose trust in social entrepreneurs. More and more corporate firms are working closely with social entrepreneurs to ensure an impact on the ground. Corporations also choose them as business partners for innovative marketbased solutions, bringing equal value to their businesses, and have set up various foundations to supplement their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives.

Fourth, to boost women-led development. India has shared its focus on women-led development for advancing the G20 priority areas. Social entrepreneurs have been working strategically around the principle of women-led development for years. As a result, many social innovators in India are successfully led by women entrepreneurs.

Fifth, as the government’s impleme ntation partners. Social entrepreneurs play a crucial role as they support and reinforce the government’s efforts to reach the maximum number of people at the bottom of the pyramid. In addition, they ensure that the gap between government schemes and beneficiaries is minimised.

Sixth, they have an active role in advocacy. Social entrepreneurs are executors and

strategists in their areas of work and undertake the advocacy of pressing issues that are broadly around SDGs. Their role in advocacy and feedback helps policymakers develop deeper insights to make an informed decision.

Seventh, they can be role models. Social entrepreneurs play a significant role in advocating a better world for future generations. Today’s young seek fulfilment at work and are eager to be a part of the bigger picture. Social entrepreneurs with the perfect merger of financial success and making a change and impact on society inspire several youngsters to be part of the transformative journey.

Eighth, global linkages with social entrepreneurs. Organisations such as the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship (sister organisation of the World Economic Forum) along with the Jubilant Bhartia Foundation (the CSR arm of the Jubilant Bhartia Group) have been recognising and providing a global platform to social entrepreneurs for over a decade through its annual Social Entrepreneur of the Year India award. Platforms like these offer social entrepreneurs a world view, giving insights to solve global challenges. Recently, the Schwab Foundation organised an India Learning Journey, supported by the Jubilant Bhartia Foundation, for a cohort of 35 social entrepreneurs from around the world, including from the G20 countries.

India’s social sector is transforming rapidly and supporting government schemes and initiatives. Social enterprises are contributing hugely to the economy and society through the massive use of technology and innovation.

India must use this unique opportunity to showcase its social entrepreneurs’ experience and capability on international platforms such as the G20. Several engagement groups are identified by India, such as the B20, Civil-20, Startup-20, Women-20, and Youth20. Through their experience and capability, India’s social innovators can provide solutions for some of the challenges facing the G20. Therefore, India needs a “Social Entrepreneurs20” or integration of social entrepreneurs into the B-20.

INTERNATIONAL

SUPER-POWER RIVALRY IS HERE TO STAY

SUPER-POWER RIVALRY IS HERE TO STAY

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN CALLS THIS THE “DECISIVE DECADE”. YET THE LABEL SCARCELY CAPTURES THE MOMENT—THE START OF A POST-POST-COLD-WAR EPOCH IN WHICH THE AMERICAN-SHAPED WORLD ORDER MAY BE VIOLENTLY UNDONE BY RUSSIA AND CHINA. “GREAT-POWER COMPETITION” IS TOO TAME AMID RUSSIA’S DESTRUCTION OF UKRAINE; THE “NEW COLD WAR” TOO REDUCTIVE GIVEN THE WEST’S COMPLEX ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCE WITH CHINA.

Russia’s Russia’s Russia’s Russia’s Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shattered the norm, established after the second world war, that borders should not be changed by force. It has revived the spectre of nuclear war for the first time since the end of the cold war, with a twist: Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has wielded the threat of nukes not as a last resort but as an opening gambit to shield his war of aggression.

Russia, though, represents only the “acute” problem, as America sees things. The greater threat to the world order—what the Pentagon calls its “pacing” challenge—comes from China, the only country with the potential to dethrone America as the world’s preeminent power. China’s armed forces are expanding rapidly. It already has the largest navy in the world, the thirdlargest air force, a thick array of missiles and the means to wage war in space and cyberspace.

What if the friendship “with no limits” between Russia and China turns into an actual alliance? Right now there is little evidence of China helping Russia’s war. But the Eurasian autocracies regularly hold military exercises, and some senior American officials think the two are bound to draw closer. As China builds up its nuclear arsenal to perhaps 1,500 warheads by 2035—approaching the size of the American and Russian arsenals—the United States will have to learn the novel art of three-way nuclear deterrence. That, in turn, may lead to a

new arms race, particularly if the New start treaty, which limits American and Russian nukes, expires in early 2026 without a follow-on accord.

The transformation is taking place at a time when America’s relative weight in the global economy has declined. Over the past century America’s gdp has been much greater than that of its rivals— Germany and Japan in the second world war, the Soviet Union and China in the cold war. These days, though, China’s gdp is not far behind America’s (and already exceeds it when measured at purchasing-power parity). American defence spending, though gargantuan in absolute terms, has been close to historical lows as a share of gdp. That is starting to change, after Congress voted on December 23rd to approve an increase in defence spending substantially larger than Mr Biden had requested.

Heartland v Rimland Heartland v Heartland v Rimland Heartland v

Old geopolitical theories are being reexamined. In 1904 the British geostrategist Halford Mackinder argued that whoever controlled the core of Eurasia—roughly between the Arctic Sea and the Himalayas—could command the world. In that analysis, an alliance between Russia and China could pose a grievous threat. In contrast, Mackinder’s American contemporary Alfred Thayer Mahan reckoned that control of commercial sea lanes was the key to global power. Somewhere in

between, Nicholas Spykman, another American, argued in 1942 that what mattered was not Eurasia’s heartland but its rim. He held that the maritime borderlands stretching from the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean, around south Asia to Japan were the vital ground. “Who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia,” he wrote. “Who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world.” In seeking to boost its alliances to counterbalance its Eurasian rivals, America seems to be hewing closest to Spykman’s thesis.

At the western end, nato has been revitalised to strengthen Europe and confront Russia. American and other allied forces have been reinforced along the border with Russia. Abandoning the last vestiges of neutrality, Finland and Sweden have applied to join nato. Assuming the final obstacles to ratification, from Turkey and Hungary, can be overcome, the new members ought to join in 2023.

Above all, the Western allies have extensively armed and supported Ukraine to start pushing back the Russian onslaught. Despite grumbling from “America first” devotees of Donald Trump, Mr Biden’s predecessor, Congress agreed to provide $7bn more than the $37.7bn requested by Mr Biden in aid for Ukraine in the fiscal year ending in September 2023. Far from weakening the Western alliance, Mr Putin has invigorated it. Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace, an American thinktank, lists two other unintended consequences: “He has created a moment of bipartisanship in America. And he has offered Biden a moment of redemption after the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.”

At the eastern end of the rim, meanwhile, talk of a future war with China over Taiwan has intensified, especially since a controversial visit to the island in August by the speaker of America’s House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. Mr Biden hopes that his recent in-person meeting (his first as president) with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, will have put a “floor” on deteriorating relations. Mr Xi may be preoccupied with troubles at home, not least the slowing economy and the upheavals of his covid policies. But American military officials, in particular, say he wants to develop the military capability to seize Taiwan by 2027.

America has no nato-like alliance in Asia to constrain China. Instead it operates a

hub-and-spokes system of bilateral defence agreements with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Thailand; these countries do not have obligations towards each other. To create greater coherence, America has been working on expanding ad-hoc schemes. The “Five Eyes” (with Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand) share intelligence; aukus (with Australia and Britain) is seeking to develop nuclearpowered submarines and other weapons; and the Quad (with Australia, India and Japan) discusses everything from vaccines to maritime security. South Korea and Japan are setting aside old grievances to conduct joint exercises, amid intense missile launches (and an expected nuclear test) by North Korea.

Japan has announced plans to double defence spending over the next five years, but is still hamstrung by its tradition of pacifism. The self-governing island of Taiwan has no formal diplomatic relations with most countries and is excluded from America’s many regional military exercises. Mr Biden has

repeatedly suggested he would defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion, but much remains unclear. Under the doctrine of “strategic ambiguity” America will not say precisely in which circumstances it might intervene and what it would do, especially in the case of “grey-one” attacks such as a blockade. That makes it hard for Taiwan to heed America’s call to shift more fully to a “porcupine” defensive strategy. Congressional budget appropriators, moreover, have largely ignored a bipartisan bill to provide Taiwan with billions of dollars’ in grants to buy military equipment, akin to the aid given to Ukraine and Israel.

The middle of Spykman’s rimland is tricky. The Biden administration has worked hard to woo members of asean, the South-East Asian regional group. But for the most part they don’t want to be forced to choose between China, their main trading partner, and America, the principal guarantor of regional security.

India remains the big prize for American

strategists. It has a tradition of nonalignment and pro-Soviet leanings, but has drawn closer to America as its relations with China have frayed. The yearly Malabar naval exercises between America and India have grown to include all members of the Quad. Differences persist. India has been coy about directly criticising Mr Putin’s assault on Ukraine. Nevertheless, says Kurt Campbell, a senior White House adviser on Asia, it represents “far and away the most important bilateral relationship for the United States into the 21st century”.

In the Middle East and central Asia, meanwhile, successive American presidents have sought to reduce their military commitments after decades of fruitless war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Expect a new Republican-dominated House of Representatives to harry the Biden administration over the chaotic departure from Afghanistan. But the drone strike in Kabul in July that killed al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, underlines Mr Biden’s claim to be keeping up an “over-the-horizon” fight against terrorism.

Moreover, the spike earlier this year in oil and gas prices aggravated by the war in Ukraine has reaffirmed the geopolitical importance of the Gulf. Having once declared Saudi Arabia a “pariah”, Mr Biden visited the country in July and fist-bumped Muhammad bin Salman, the country’s crown prince and de-facto ruler. “We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran,” Mr Biden told Arab leaders in Jeddah. He got little in return, either in terms of a reduction in oil prices or Saudi normalisation with Israel. In December Gulf leaders gave Mr Xi a noticeably warmer reception.

America’s relations with Israel may also be tested by the return of Binyamin Netanyahu at the head of a coalition including far-right ministers. Mr Biden’s hope of restraining Iran’s atomic programme by reviving a nuclear deal has come to naught. Any accord to lift sanctions is now impossible given the extensive anti-regime protests in Iran. Yet Iran’s work on uranium enrichment continues apace, presenting a challenge to Mr Biden’s vow to prevent the mullahs

from ever acquiring nuclear weapons.

As for the wider world, America and its allies have mustered a succession of lopsided votes denouncing Russia at the un General Assembly. Yet support for the West in the global south is fragile. Many countries regard themselves as victims of a faraway war in Europe which has increased fuel and food prices, and diverted international attention from other crises. Moreover, they do not want to be caught in the middle of a cold war between America and China.

The West has responded to such concerns in several ways: by pressing for a mechanism to allow Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports; attempting to impose a cap on Russian oil prices; promoting global health initiatives; and creating a Western mechanism to finance infrastructure projects and challenge China’s Belt and Road Initiative. More broadly, Mr Biden has toned down his early effort to divide the world into democracies and autocracies. He has hosted a succession of large regional summits, not least with leaders from Asia, Pacific islands, Latin America and Africa.

The big hole in his strategy is the lack of an appealing economic and trade policy to bind allies and friends closer together. The us-eu Trade and Technology

THE OTHER ENDURING WORRY IS ABOUT DEMOCRACY IN THE WEST—PARTICULARLY IN AMERICA, NEARLY TWO YEARS AFTER A PRO-TRUMP MOB STORMED THE CAPITOL.

Council is a useful talking shop for emerging tech. The 14-country IndoPacific Economic Framework promises future initiatives on the digital economy, supply-chain resilience, clean energy and fairness (ie, rules on tax, money laundering and bribery). But these do not amount to substantial trade deals. America will not, for instance, heed Asian allies’ wish for it to join the 11country Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (formerly the tpp).

Indeed, Mr Biden’s “foreign policy for the middle class” features much protectionism and industrial policy. Recent measures include subsidies for green technology and semiconductors, and restrictions on China’s access to advanced chips. These policies are causing tension with European and Asian allies by limiting access to the American market, restricting exports to China and diverting investment. The European Union may respond by subsidising its own green-tech and semiconductor industries. But Jake Sullivan, Mr Biden’s national-security adviser, appears to regard the prospect of a subsidy war as a good outcome. He told the Carnegie Endowment that America was helping middle classes elsewhere by encouraging “a virtuous cycle of investment in other parts of the world”.

The other enduring worry is about democracy in the West—particularly in America, nearly two years after a proTrump mob stormed the Capitol. America appears to be moving away from Mr Trump and his fellow electiondeniers, but its politics remain intensely polarised. The health of America’s democracy is essential to its ability to attract friends and assert leadership. Mr Sullivan recounted how in November, when Mr Biden attended an Asian summit in Phnom Penh, other leaders wanted to know the details of midterm elections in places such as Nevada. As Mr Sullivan put it, “it was a reminder that the rest of the world is looking at the state of American democracy…and saying: ‘What does this tell us about America’s staying power on the international stage?’”

STOP CALORIE COUNTING,

STUDIES SHOW YOU DON’T NEED TO COUNT CALORIES IF YOU FOCUS ON IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF THE CARBOHYDRATES YOU EAT. THERE IS A SIMPLE DIET SWAP TO HELP YOU LOSE WEIGHT AND LOWER HEALTH RISKS TOO.

or many people, figuring out the best diet for optimal health isn’t easy. But studies show that almost anyone can lose weight and improve their health by making one simple change to their diet.

The trick: Cut out processed carbs and replace them with high-quality carbs. These include fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils, quinoa and whole grains like brown rice, barley, farro and steel-cut oats.

According to a large and growing body of research, this one swap could help you lower your risk of cancer and Type 2 diabetes, reduce your likelihood of dying from heart disease or a stroke and help you shed pounds without counting calories.

While it sounds simple, for many people it will be a big change. These highquality carbs make up just 9 percent of all the calories that Americans consume. For most people, processed, low-quality carbs are dietary staples. They make up

42 percent of all the calories that Americans consume. They include the packaged foods that dominate many supermarket shelves and household dinner tables, like white bread, pastries, pasta, bagels, chips, crackers and foods with added sugars, such as breakfast cereals, flavored yogurts, desserts, juices and soft drinks.

What happens when you swap What happens swap What happens when you swap What happens swap What happens when you swap out processed carbs for high- out processed for high- out processed carbs for high- out processed for high- out processed carbs for highquality carbs? quality carbs?

Studies show that the fiber in these foods has multiple benefits. It promotes satiety, which helps you feel full. It nourishes the microbes that make up your gut microbiome, which can lower inflammation and protect against chronic diseases. And it improves your blood sugar control and cholesterol levels

A large meta-analysis in the Lancet examined the health effects of eating different types of carbs. The analysis,

based on data collected from 4,635 people in 58 clinical trials, showed that adults who ate the highest levels of whole grains, vegetables and other fiber-rich carbs had a 15 to 31 percent reduction in diabetes, colorectal cancer and their risk of dying from a stroke or heart disease compared to people who ate the lowest amounts of these foods.

They also lost more weight — “despite not being told to eat less food or do more physical activity,” said Andrew Reynolds, a nutrition epidemiologist at Otago Medical School and co-author of the research.

Why are processed carbs so bad for are processed carbs so bad for processed so you? you? you? you?

On average, Americans eat five servings a day of foods with refined grains, like white bread and pasta, and just one serving a day of foods that are whole grain, like brown rice and barley, said Fang Fang Zhang, a nutrition

epidemiologist at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts University and author of a study in JAMA that examined the types of carbs and macronutrients that Americans consume.

In her research, Zhang found that Americans have been cutting back on their intake of sugary sodas and other foods with added sugar, thanks to growing public awareness about the damaging health effects of sugar.

But at the same time, we’ve been eating more and more foods with refined grains, in part because they are so ubiquitous.

“We are seeing an overall trend toward increased consumption of refined grains,” said Zhang. “With refined grains we are missing our target.”

These foods have been stripped of their fiber, vitamins and minerals and industrially converted into flour and sugar. This causes them to be rapidly absorbed by the body, prompting blood sugar and insulin levels to spike and activating reward regions in the brain, all of which can lead to cravings, overeating and a cascade of metabolic changes that lead to poor health.

Healthy carbs are those that haven’t been highly processed and stripped of their natural fiber. Fruits, vegetables, beans and whole grains are fiber-rich and full of health-promoting nutrients that help protect against heart disease and other leading causes of death.

If your goal is to lose weight and improve your metabolic health, you don’t need to count calories or go on a restrictive diet. Just start by cutting the empty carbs from your diet. Here’s how to do it:

Cut the white foods. Cut back on foods like cereal, pastries, white bread, white pasta, juices, sweetened beverages and other foods with added sugar.

ADD HIGHER QUALITY “NUTRIENT DENSE” FOODS BACK INTO YOUR DIET. THESE FOODS CARRY DIFFERENT LABELS THAT CAN HELP YOU IDENTIFY THEM. LOOK FOR DESCRIPTORS LIKE “MINIMALLY PROCESSED,” “SEASONAL,” “GRASS-FED,” “WHOLE GRAIN” AND “PASTURE-RAISED.”

Add healthy carbs. It’s simple. Eat more vegetables, whole grains, beans and lentils.

Add healthy fats and protein: After getting rid of those empty carbs, some people find that they feel better replacing them with foods higher in fat and protein, like nuts, seeds, avocado, eggs, poultry, yogurt and seafood.

Add healthy grains: Try replacing white and highly-processed carbs with whole grains, whole wheat breads, beans, peas, lentils, legumes, quinoa, fruits, vegetables and other unrefined carbs.

Add higher quality “nutrient dense” foods back into your diet. These foods carry different labels that can help you identify them. Look for descriptors like “minimally processed,” “seasonal,” “grass-fed,” “whole grain” and “pastureraised.”

It may be tough at first to cut back on some of your favorite refined carbs, but you won’t feel as hungry if you replace them with fiber-rich carbs and healthy fats.

In one randomized trial that was published in JAMA, overweight people who were counseled to cut back on added sugar, refined grains and highly processed foods for a year lost weight — without counting calories — and showed improvements in their blood sugar and blood pressure levels. This approach worked whether people

followed a diet that was relatively low in fat or relatively low in carbs. The findings showed that for weight loss, diet quality trumped diet quantity, said Christopher Gardner, the director of nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, who has studied the effects of different diets on metabolic health and weight loss.

If you want to eat a healthier diet, your first step, he said, should be “to get rid of the empty carb calories that just come with glucose and no fiber, vitamins or minerals.”

He recommends replacing those foods with what he calls a “foundational diet” rich in plant foods that are eaten by cultures around the world, like beans, nuts, seeds and vegetables.

In Latin American cuisine, red, black and pinto beans are staples. In the Middle East, people have been using chickpeas and sesame seeds to make hummus and other dishes for centuries. In India, red and yellow lentils can be found in delicious dal, soups and stews. And in the Mediterranean, many dishes incorporate things like fava beans, cannellini beans and split peas.

“Americans eat a shockingly low number of beans, nuts and seeds,” he said. “We should eat more like these other cultures around the world.”

(Anahad O’Connor for Washington Post)

ou may know that being adequately hydrated is important for day-to-day bodily functions such as regulating temperature and maintaining skin health.

But drinking enough water is also associated with a significantly lower risk of developing chronic diseases, a lower risk of dying early or lower risk of being biologically older than your chronological age, according to a National Institutes of Health study published Monday in the journal eBioMedicine.

“The results suggest that proper hydration may slow down aging and prolong a disease-free life,” said study author Natalia Dmitrieva, a researcher in the Laboratory of Cardiovascular Regenerative Medicine at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, a division of NIH, in a news release.

Learning what preventive measures can slow down the aging process is “a major challenge of preventive medicine,” the

EXTEND LONGEVITY

authors said in the study. That’s because an epidemic of “age-dependent chronic diseases” is emerging as the world’s population rapidly ages. And extending a healthy life span can help improve quality of life and decrease health care costs more than just treating diseases can.

The authors thought optimal hydration might slow down the aging process, based on previous similar research in mice. In those studies, lifelong water restriction increased the serum sodium of mice by 5 millimoles per liter and shortened their life span by six months, which equals about 15 years of human life, according to the new study. Serum sodium can be measured in the blood and increases when we drink less fluids.

Using health data collected over 30 years from 11,255 Black and White adults from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study, or ARIC, the research team found adults with serum sodium levels at the higher end of the normal range — which is 135 to 146 milliequivalents per liter (mEq/L) — had

worse health outcomes than those at the lower end of the range. Data collection began in 1987 when participants were in their 40s or 50s, and the average age of participants at the final assessment during the study period was 76.

Adults with levels above 142 mEq/L had a 10% to 15% higher chance of being biologically older than their chronological age compared with participants in the 137 to 142 mEq/L range. The participants with higher faster-aging risk also had a 64% higher risk for developing chronic diseases such as heart failure, stroke, atrial fibrillation, peripheral artery disease, chronic lung disease, diabetes and dementia.

And people with levels above 144 mEq/L had a 50% higher risk of being biologically older and a 21% higher risk of dying early. Adults with serum sodium levels between 138 and 140 mEq/L, on the other hand, had the lowest risk of developing chronic disease. The study

DRINKING ENOUGH WATER CAN PREVENT KILLER DISEASES,

HYDRATION CAN SIGNIFICANTLY IMPACT YOUR PHYSICAL HEALTH, STUDY FINDS.

didn’t have information on how much water participants drank.

“This study adds observational evidence that reinforces the potential long-term benefits of improved hydration on reductions in long-term health outcomes, including mortality,” said Dr. Howard Sesso, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, via email. Sesso was not involved in the study.

However, “it would have been nice to combine their definition of hydration, based on serum sodium levels only, with actual fluid intake data from the ARIC cohort,” Sesso added.

Biological age was determined by biomarkers that measure the performance of different organ systems and processes, including cardiovascular, renal (relating to the kidneys), respiratory, metabolic, immune and inflammatory biomarkers.

High serum sodium levels weren’t the only factor associated with disease, early death and faster aging risk — risk was also higher among people with low serum sodium levels.

This finding is consistent with previous reports of increased mortality and cardiovascular disease in people with low regular sodium levels, which has been attributed to diseases causing electrolyte issues, the authors said.

The study analyzed participants over a long period of time, but the findings don’t prove a causal relationship between serum sodium levels and these health outcomes, the authors said. Further studies are needed, they added, but the findings can help doctors identify and guide patients at risk.

“People whose serum sodium is 142 mEq/L or higher would benefit from evaluation of their fluid intake,” Dmitrieva said.

Sesso noted that the study did not strongly address accelerated aging, “which is a complicated concept that we are just starting to understand.”

“Two key reasons underlie this,” Sesso said. The study authors “relied on a combination of 15 measures for accelerated aging, but this is one of

many definitions out there for which there is no consensus. Second, their data on hydration and accelerated aging were a ‘snapshot’ in time, so we have no way to understand cause and effect.”

Drink enough fluids every day enough fluids day

About half of people worldwide don’t meet recommendations for daily total water intake, according to several studies the authors of the new research cited.

“On the global level, this can have a big impact,” Dmitrieva said in a news release. “Decreased body water content is the most common factor that increases serum sodium, which is why the results suggest that staying well hydrated may slow down the aging process and prevent or delay chronic disease.”

Our serum sodium levels are influenced by liquid intake from water, other liquids, and fruits and vegetables with high water content.

“The most impressive finding is that this risk (for chronic diseases and aging) is apparent even in individuals who have serum sodium levels that are on the

upper end of the ‘normal range,’” said Dr. Richard Johnson, professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, via email. He was not involved in the study.

“This challenges the question of what is really normal, and supports the concept that as a population we are probably not drinking enough water.”

More than 50% of your body is made of water, which is also needed for multiple functions, including digesting food, creating hormones and neurotransmitters, and delivering oxygen throughout your body, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

The National Academy of Medicine (formerly known as the Institute of Medicine) recommends women consume 2.7 liters (91 ounces) of fluids daily, and that men have 3.7 liters (125 ounces) daily. This recommendation includes all fluids and water-rich foods such as fruits, vegetables and soups. Since the average water intake ratio of fluids to foods is around 80:20, that amounts to a daily amount of 9 cups for women and 12 ½ cups for men.

People with health conditions should talk with their doctor about how much fluid intake is right for them.

It's important to write down not only what your goals are, but also when, where and how you'll accomplish them.

“The goal is to ensure patients are taking in enough fluids, while assessing factors, like medications, that may lead to fluid loss,” said study coauthor Dr. Manfred Boehm, director of the Laboratory of Cardiovascular Regenerative Medicine, in a news release. “Doctors may also need to defer to a patient’s current treatment plan, such as limiting fluid intake for heart failure.”

If you’re having trouble staying hydrated, you might need help working the habit into your usual routine. Try leaving a glass of water at your bedside to drink when you wake up, or drink water while your morning coffee is brewing. Anchor your hydration habit to a location you’re in a few times per day, says behavioral science expert Dr. B.J. Fogg, founder and director of the Stanford University Behavior Design Lab. (Credt: CNN)

ABOUT HALF OF PEOPLE WORLDWIDE DON’T MEET RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DAILY TOTAL WATER INTAKE, ACCORDING TO SEVERAL STUDIES THE AUTHORS OF THE NEW RESEARCH CITED.

espite volunteering and working out at the gym several days each week, socializing frequently with friends and family, reading all manner of books and doing daily crossword puzzles, 85-year-old Carol Siegler is restless.

“I’m bored. I feel like a Corvette being used as a grocery cart,” said Siegler, who lives in the Chicago suburb of Palatine.

Siegler is a cognitive “SuperAger,” possessing a brain as sharp as people 20 to 30 years younger. She is part of an elite group enrolled in the Northwestern SuperAging Research Program, which has been studying the elderly with superior memories for 14 years. The program is part of the Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

“I’ve auditioned twice for ‘Jeopardy!’ and did well enough on it to be invited to the live auditions. Then Covid hit,” said Siegler.

“Who knows how well I would have done,” she added with a chuckle. “What I have told my children and

HOW TO BE A SUPERAGER?

HERE ARE THE SECRETS OF ‘SUPERAGERS’ WHO POSSESS BRAINS AS SHARP AS PEOPLE 20 TO 30 YEARS YOUNGER.

anybody else who asked me: ‘I may know an awful lot about Beethoven and Liszt, but I know very little about Beyoncé and Lizzo.’”

To be a SuperAger, a term coined by the Northwestern researchers, a person must be over 80 and undergo extensive cognitive testing. Acceptance in the study only occurs if the person’s memory is as good or better than cognitively normal people in their 50s and 60s.

“SuperAgers are required to have outstanding episodic memory — the ability to recall everyday events and past personal experiences — but then SuperAgers just need to have at least average performance on the other cognitive tests,” said cognitive neuroscientist Emily Rogalski, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Feinberg School of Medicine.

Only about 10% of people who apply to the program meet those criteria, said Rogalski, who developed the SuperAger project.

“It’s important to point out when we compare the SuperAgers to the average agers, they have similar levels of IQ, so the differences we’re seeing are not just due to intelligence,” she said.

Once accepted, colorful 3D scans are taken of the brain and cognitive testing and brain scans are repeated every year or so. Analysis of the data over the years have yielded fascinating results.

Bigger, tau-free neurons Bigger, tau-free neurons

Most people’s brains shrink as they grow older. In SuperAgers, however, studies have shown the cortex, responsible for thinking, decision-making and memory, remains much thicker and shrinks more slowly than those of people in their 50s and 60s.

A SuperAger’s brain, usually donated to the research program by participants after death, also has bigger, healthier cells in the entorhinal cortex. It’s “one of the first areas of the brain to get ‘hit’ by Alzheimer’s disease,” said Tamar Gefen, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern, in an email.

The entorhinal cortex has direct connections to another key memory center, the hippocampus, and “is essential for memory and learning,” said Gefen, the lead author of a November study comparing the brains of deceased SuperAgers with those of older and younger cognitively normal people and

people diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s.

SuperAger brains had three times fewer tau tangles, or abnormal formations of protein within nerve cells, than the brains of cognitively healthy controls, the study also found. Tau tangles are a hallmark sign of Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

“We believe that larger neurons in the entorhinal cortex suggest that they are more ‘structurally sound’ and can perhaps withstand neurofibrillary tau tangle formation,” Gefen said.

Gefen also found the brains of SuperAgers had many more von economo neurons, a rare type of brain cell, which so far has been found in humans, great apes, elephants, whales, dolphins and songbirds. The corkscrewlike von economo neurons are thought to allow rapid communication across the brain. Another theory is that the neurons give humans and great apes an intuitive advantage in social situations.

The von economo neurons were found in the anterior cingulate cortex, which forms a collar in the front of the brain linking the cognitive, reasoning side with the emotional, feeling side. The anterior cingulate is thought to be important for regulating emotions and paying attention — another key to good

memory. Taken together, these discoveries appear to point to a genetic link to becoming a SuperAger, Gefen said. However, she added: “The only way to confirm whether SuperAgers are born with larger entorhinal neurons would be to measure these neurons from birth until death. That obviously isn’t possible.”

Can environment play a role? Can environment play a role?

SuperAgers share similar traits, said Rogalski, who is also the associate director of the Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer Disease at Feinberg. These folks stay active physically. They tend to be positive. They challenge their brain every day, reading or learning something new — many continue to work into their 80s. SuperAgers are also social butterflies, surrounded by family and friends, and can often be found volunteering in the community.

“When we compare SuperAgers to normal agers we see that they tend to endorse more positive relations with others,” Rogalski said.

“This social connectedness may be a feature of SuperAgers that distinguishes them from those who are still doing well but who are what we would call an average or normal ager,” she said.

Looking back at her life, Carol Siegler

recognizes many SuperAger traits. As a young child during the Great Depression, she taught herself to spell and play piano. She learned to read Hebrew at her grandfather’s knee, poring over his weekly Yiddish newspaper.

“I have a great memory. I’ve always had it,” Siegler said. “I was always the kid that you could say, ‘Hey, what’s Sofia’s phone number?’ and I would just know it off the top of my head.”

She graduated from high school at 16 and immediately went to college. Siegler got her pilot’s license at age 23 and later started a family business in her basement that grew to have 100 employees. At 82, she won the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament for her age group, which she said she entered “as a gag.”

After seeing an advertisement for the SuperAger program on television, Siegler thought it too sounded like fun. Being chosen as a SuperAger was a thrill, Siegler said, but she is aware she was born lucky.

“Somebody with the same abilities or talents as a SuperAger who lived in a place where there was very little way to express them, might never know that he or she had them,” she said. “And that is a true shame.”

UNIVERSITIES EXCELLING IN PLACEMENTS

THE TSUNAMI OF LAYOFFS AND THE LOOMING RECESSION IS MAKING PLACEMENTS THE KING AGAIN.

ampus placements have always been one benchmark with which students assess universities, but with the current global and Indian wave of massive layoffs in the corporate sector, placement performance is going to be the number one criteria with which institutes of higher education will be chosen.

While most universities are striving to move ahead in placements, year after year, only a few are able to consistently better their performance to near 100% placements for their students. At such institutions, it can often be observed that placement isn’t an afterthought, but starts from the day one of an admission cycle.

Apart from the ability to obtain placements for almost all interested students, what sets apart such universities is their ability to attract better and better employers and better and better CTCs over the years. It is a known fact that some of the lower performing universities are able to place only a few students with the big names, with the rest of the students being recruited by tier-2, tier-3 or lower firms.

Interestingly, from this economic cycle on, there are also additional factors vexing students. While generally speaking, bigger the company, greater the job security, with the current round of layoffs, the opposite seems to be true. With the kind of 11,000+ layoff announced by Meta / Facebook, which is arguably one of the strongest tech and social media firms out there,

both universities and students would need to be more discerning. Companies and sectors that would be most affected going forward would be those that went in for too much stretching during the pandemic period. Ready examples are technology companies, startups, digital lenders, e-commerce firms, gaming companies, vaccine manufacturers, and firms in many such sectors.

The exodus of students from India, who are going abroad for higher education and jobs will gather momentum, given the emerging opportunities in many European & North American nations as well as in Australia, New Zealand and even in many Asian tigers. Banks are already experiencing high growth in educational loans due to this gathering momentum.

In India, there is likely to be more placement opportunities with traditional sectors that are now trying to come up like banking, insurance, financial services & fintech, hospitality, healthcare, biotech, R&D and IT & IT services. A dark horse that may emerge, especially in India, is the PSU sector, especially the defence oriented public sector undertakings that are on a huge expansion spree. Students are expected to make a beeline for such companies, given the unfolding global recession.

Seasonal Magazine brings you a highly refined selection of private and deemed universities excelling in campus placements year after year.

WORLD CLASS FEATURES OF ICFAI FOUNDATION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE), the flagship deemed University of ICFAI Group at Hyderabad, and its constituents ICFAI Business School (IBS), IcfaiTech, ICFAI Law School and ICFAI School of Architecture, are all setting world class benchmarks in their own spheres. IBS, which had already emerged as a world leader in the creation of business case studies and the case pedagogy based on it, has pioneered the new micro case studies that are revolutionizing the delivery of its online MBA programs now. WiseViews leadership conversation series has been an innovative strategy to educate online MBA students by interactions with distinguished experts. IFHE has also signed an MoU with Andhra Pradesh Medtech Zone (AMTZ) with a mutually fruitful arrangement of furthering PhD programs on one side and business incubation on the other. IFHE is led by renowned leaders in public life and academia. While Dr. C. Rangarajan, renowned economist is the Chancellor of IFHE, Prof. (Dr.) J. Mahender Reddy is its Vice Chancellor and Prof. (Dr.) Bidyut K. Bhattacharyya is the Pro VC. Prof. (Dr.) C.S. Shylajan heads ICFAI Business School as its Dean, Dr KL Narayana is the Director of IcfaiTech, Dr. AVN Rao is the Director of ICFAI Law School and Prof. Ar. Munavar Pasha Mohammad is the Principal of ICFAI School of Architecture.

he ICFAI Group includes 11 Universities, 9 Business Schools, 7 Tech Schools, 7 Law Schools and significant Online and Distance Learning Programs. ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE) comprises of five schools - ICFAI Business School, IcfaiTech, ICFAI Law School, ICFAI School of Architecture and the Centre for Distance & Online Education (CDOE) - and delivers undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral & certificate programs across, management, engineering, science, humanities, law & architecture, by incorporating the latest sunrise specialities in these broad domains, so that its graduates are highly sought after in placements.

The 91 acres of custom built residential campus of IFHE with state-of-the-art classrooms, auditoriums, physical & digital libraries, campus wide wireless broadband connectivity, and 3200 single occupancy rooms for boys and girls separately, is one of the finest campuses in India currently.

ICFAI Business School conducts the IBSAT admission test for all the 9 campuses of IBS across the country. These campuses are at Hyderabad, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Jaipur and Dehradun. Among these campuses, MBA is offered at Hyderabad, Bangalore, Jaipur and Dehradun, while PGPM is offered at Mumbai, Gurgaon, Pune, Ahmedabad and Kolkata.

Shortlisted candidates who have cleared the admission test are called for the selection process which includes Group Discussion & Personal Interview. Final selection and allotment of the campus will be made on the basis of overall performance of the candidates throughout the selection process right from the admission test.

SEASONAL MAGAZINE

The ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education has been permitted by the Ministry of Education, Govt. of India to start an Off-Campus Center at Bengaluru, Karnataka, and IBS Bengaluru is a constituent of it. For the Academic Year 2022-23, the following programs are being offered under the aegis of IFHE at IBS Bengaluru, Off-campus centreMBA, BBA, B.Sc (Data Analytics). Starting from the academic year 202324, IBS Bengaluru will also offer a doctoral program in Management, leading to PhD degree.

ICFAI has been an early adopter of emerging technologies that facilitate better delivery of higher education. As such, they are keeping a keen watch on emerging digital environments like metaverses, and their enabling technologies like virtual reality, augmented reality and extended reality. The university has been taking the initial steps in deploying these technologies in industry sessions, symposiums, panel discussions and case studies.

Some of these tech led projects have already been executed. It is now expected to move into the corporate training programs and the regular programs. And eventually these are expected to get in all their programs from science and technology, law, architecture and the business school. Here are the world class features of ICFAI that make it stand out from peer universities.

WORLD CLASS LEADERSHIP IN CASE STUDIES

IBS is the third largest contributor of business case studies to The Case Centre, a global repository of case

studies, next only to Harvard Business School and INSEAD. Today, IBS Cases are taught in more than 900 B-Schools across 80 countries in the world. In 2021, IBS had bagged the Top 3 positions in The Case Centre’s Top 50 best selling case authors list, and there are 7 IBS case authors among this top 50 list. The central force of IBS Case Research Centre (IBS CRC), which was set up as a Centre of Excellence, was Dr. Debapratim Purkayastha, who had retained the number one position for the sixth consecutive year in 2021. Unfortunately, this ace young researcher and professor of strategy at IBS, succumbed to Covid in May last year, just before his 45th birthday. However, his legacy in case studies goes on through the hundreds of textbooks that carry the business cases he authored.

WORLD CLASS ONLINE MBA OF ICFAI ONLINE

Apart from the well established incampus MBA, ICFAI Online has been conducting its Online MBA program quite successfully. A notable

uniqueness of the Online MBA is Micro Learning with Case Methodology which relies on well prepared micro case studies. ICFAI Online developed this keeping in mind the fact that the attention spans of students are far less today than it was a decade back. There is huge competition for the student’s time and motivation. Hence, ICFAI Online has built learning objectives which require between 2 to 15 minutes of time. Students are presented with a micro case followed by a learning point and an activity, These are made in visual and readable forms for learner convenience. Personalization is another unique feature of ICFAI Online MBA. If you are a learner, your experience and your aspiration is personal. Your experience is a unique strength to you. But how do you pitch it towards your aspiration? Using unique methodologies, ICFAI Online relates to your work experience and your aspiration through the conceptual framework that the Online MBA program provides. The practicum that the program provides is a landing point to showcase your proposal for your aspiration based on your identity. The course projects in every course, explore these dimensions from the conceptual framework of the course and provide perspectives and insights which inform the practicum. In a manner of speaking this is active learning as well as action learning. The unique faculty team of ICFAI Online MBA drives the innovative support needed for this initiative. This approach has proven to be a re-imagining of the MBA. The program is therefore not comparable with any other. There are 20+ best practices

Dr. C. Rangarajan, Chancellor IFHE Prof. (Dr.) J. Mahender Reddy Vice Chancellor Prof. (Dr.) Bidyut K. Bhattacharyya Pro VC.

Dr. K L Narayana, Director, IcfaiTech, Hyderabad

Prof. (Dr.) C.S. Shylajan , Dean, IBS, Hyderabad

Dr. AVN Rao, Director, ICFAI Law School, Hyderabad SEASONAL MAGAZINE

in learning that have been implemented in the Online MBA.

WORLD CLASS INTERNSHIPS & STARTUP INCUBATION AT ICFAITECH

IcfaiTech, which is IFHE's tech school is graded at 'AAAAA' and ranked 13th among Top Private Engineering Institutes in India. Internship is unique to first degree and higher degree programs offered at IcfaiTech. Internship helps students gain real time work experience and prepares them to face the challenges in professional life. The Internship Program ensures that linkages are developed and sustained with real time industrial units, scientific laboratories, public sector undertakings, manufacturing units and other external organizations. Technology Innovation Center (TIC) at IcfaiTech is offering a parking space for start-ups and Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) having innovative ideas and which are looking for resources in terms of manpower and infrastructure. It will extend consultancy opportunity for faculty members for mutual benefit of institute and start-up. It is also a platform for students of IcfaiTech to develop their entrepreneurial skills. Students will have an opportunity to work on real time problems solved by both start-ups and MSMEs.

WORLD CLASS PEDAGOGY IN ARCHITECTURE AT ISARCH

The ICFAI School of Architecture (ISArch), a constituent of IFHE is established in the year 2018. ICFAI School of Architecture offers 5 years (10 semesters) full-time Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) degree Program, approved by the Council of Architecture. ISArch was established with an aim to evolve a center for excellence in Architecture, through a unique and wholesome approach in Architectural pedagogy, which is based on bringing together all the courses of architecture to create an

exemplary approach to Design. The curriculum is revised regularly as it shall be beneficial to the students who are up to date with the potentialities of the present & the future. ISArch believes in the constancy of change to which students shall be equipped. The design studio is leading all the other activities in an integrative manner, bringing in the capacities of all the subjects to their maximum benefit.

WORLD CLASS LAW EDUCATION FOR TODAY’S CHALLENGES, AT ICFAI LAW SCHOOL

ICFAI Law School is a constituent unit of IFHE which takes up the responsibility of grooming law professionals that today’s legal profession needs - distinctive, wellqualified, analytical, and with academic excellence and practical exposure to address the complex challenges posed by the ever changing business environment. The ICFAI Law School, with its excellent and continuous teaching / learning processes, student centric and industry friendly dynamic curriculum and real life exposure provides best in class, legal education to the student, thus carving them to be market ready legal professionals. Unique fatures include diversified teaching methodologies, internships, industrial interface and networking with professionals, excellent placements and career oriented training, modern infrastructure facilities and learning environment. The ICFAI Law School offers UG Programs (Five year

integrated campus based full time programs), PG Programs (One Year campus based full time programs) and Doctoral Program (Full time and Parttime programs) and Certificate Programs. All the UG programs offered by the ICFAI Law School are approved by the Bar Council of India and other programs are in accordance with the UGC norms.

WORLD CLASS PHYSICAL & DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Campus infrastructure, both physical and digital, are already facets in which IFHE has always been among the very best in India, if not Asia or the world. The 91 acre custom-built and eco-friendly campus is in the city of Hyderabad itself. All classrooms are networked and fitted with audio visual tools to enhance the teachinglearning experience, with lecture theatres and classrooms designed to facilitate the case pedagogy, which is the key strength of IBS. Seamless internet facility (150 MBPS) is available across the campus, with the complete campus area covered under the umbrella of Wi-Fi network, on which students get connected to the internal network and internet on their laptop inside and outside the classroom and lab as well as in hostels. Video conferencing facility is available and extensively used by prospective employers for placements. The Campus Central library has a collection of 75,582 books and documents, and there are separate libraries in the Faculty of

ICFAI Law School Hyderabad

Science & Technology and the Faculty of Law. Library is fully supported by IT infrastructure, and has subscribed to several renowned online academic databases like EBSCO HOST, Econlit, Emerald Management Xtra, ProQuest, JSTOR, Science Director (Elsevier), Cabell's directory, the World Development Indicators, CMIE databases, Capitaline, business and research oriented databases like Reuters, Business Insights and Marketline. IFHE has subscribed to 46 International Journals and 62 National Journals, and access is also enabled to 5000+ Journals through the databases.

WORLD CLASS RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES

The University is a fully residential campus with 2000 single seated rooms for boys and 1200 single seated

rooms for girls. The campus is equipped with all supporting facilities like well equipped dining halls, indoor sports facilities (for Badminton, TT, Squash), outdoor sports grounds (for tennis, football, cricket, basketball, swimming pool), and fitness and recreation facilities (like Gym and cultural clubs). The residential facilities are managed by a dedicated team of full time wardens, estate manager and other staff. The clubs are managed by the students' services department and faculty. The University has its own transport facility, round the clock clinic with beds and 4 doctors, nurses and 2 ambulances. The auditorium has features like step sitting arrangements, while the hall has a seating capacity of 300 people. There is also an Open Air Quadrilateral which has a stage and seating arrangements for conducting various activities.

WORLD CLASS INTERNSHIPS & MENTORING

IFHE takes industrial internships quite seriously. For instance, the entire student education during the Internship Programs is supervised or mentored by the assigned faculty and forms a part of the students’ total credits toward their degree. The internship programs require that the students undergo the rigors of the professional world in form as well as in substance, and provide them with an opportunity to apply their classroom knowledge to live situations. The Internship Program will be of five and a half months duration, implemented in either the VII Semester or the VIII Semester, during the final year. There are several benefits to the students from these programs which include the opportunity to work on real-life problems in actual working conditions, development of useful work-related skills, enhanced placement opportunities and opportunity to earn while they learn.

In recent years, students of the University have interned at Tata Motors, Tech Mahindra, General Motors, Polaris, Qualcomm, CDAC, CMC, DRDO, IIT Hyderabad, NCC Urban, NIC, Nuclear Fuel Complex, Ramky, Schneider Electric, Virtusa and many more similar as well as smaller organizations too which are however leaders in their niches.

IcfaiTech Hyderabad

MANAV

RACHNA

Faridabad based Manav Rachna Educational Institutions (MREI), comprising of Manav Rachna International Institute of Research & Studies (MRIIRS), a deemed-to-be university, and Manav Rachna University, are excelling in every facet of higher education be it accreditations, tie-ups, industry-led curriculum, research, startup incubation, internships or placements. A strong player in diverse domains like engineering, management, hospitality and more, Manav Rachna's innovations in its MBA Programs have been truly remarkable, and is a model worth emulating by peer B-Schools in the country. The Manav Rachna Business Incubator is set across more than 5,000 square feet area and has spawned over 80 startups so far, making it one of the most productive of such facilities in the country. In the field of applied research, Manav Rachna scholars, including both faculty and research students, have so far filed for over 535 patents, presented around 7800 research papers in international & national journals as well as in global conferences, and has an impressive 28h index for quality publications as per the SCOPUS database.

Manav Rachna continues to innovate across all facets of higher education and nowhere is it more seen than in its MBA programs. Already, the MBA program has been a forte of Manav Rachna campuses, and it has strengthened it even further by adopting a unique 4-tier mentoring program (peer, industry, faculty & alumni mentors) that the students are bestowed with during the MBA, which prepares them to be both ‘mentees’ and ‘mentors’. To accelerate industry interaction and understanding of the industry dynamics among the students, students are also given an opportunity to work on more than 120+ case studies.

Manav Rachna has a Strategic Mentoring Board, whose members bring their leadership skills, experience and business acumen to the management classrooms. The board comprises of thought leaders of the industry including SY Siddiqui, Executive Advisor, Maruti Suzuki India; Mr. Rajeev Dubey, Advisor, Mahindra & Mahindra; P Dwarkanath, Executive Director – HR, GSK; and many other ace professionals from leading MNCs and Indian companies like Soft Bank India, PwC, Indian Oil, AIMA, Hero Motors, HCL, and many more.

Manav Rachna also has senior management professionals deployed as ‘Professor of Practice’ who bring several years of their industrial experience to impart insights integral to the market readiness of the students. This elite team of professors include Dr. Vikas Singh,

Behavioural Economist, Author & Mentor; and Anil Chopra, Senior Management Executive, among others. Industry veterans also interact with the management students of Manav Rachna under its flagship lecture series ‘Countdown to Corporate Careers’, which has been delivered by several industry stalwarts from both the private and public sectors.

Manav Rachna has been able to source mentors from its alumni base too due to some unique achievements. Over the decades, it has never shied away from building up formidable departments in almost every domain that matters including engineering, business management, economics, computer applications, humanities, education, law, commerce, psychology, interior design and more. This has resulted in a huge and successful alumni base of over 34,000 professionals, who have been well employed with over 500 reputed MNCs and Indian companies.

Thanks to this, Manav Rachna alumni today includes ace engineers, senior managers, country representatives of international firms, judges, lawyers and more. This widespread presence helps Manav Rachna in different ways, one being such mentor roles they play, and the other being that their companies have regularly come to source candidates from Manav Rachna campuses.

Besides this, the Manav Rachna classroom adopts an experiential

learning approach, thereby using different pedagogical means like exercises, case studies, field visits, lab exercises, research projects, and workintegrated activities. Students also get a diverse outlook through the student exchange program.

To provide ample practical exposure, Manav Rachna organizes various leadership building activities for management students that include MBA Roadies, Young Leaders Conclave, MRCON International Conference, HR Round Table, and Outbound Experiential Learning. These programs fine tune the skills of MBA students in leadership, sustainability, technology and entrepreneurship.

Manav Rachna offers MBA Dual Specialization with an industry-specific approach. Some of the specialization options available for students are Finance, Events and Media, Marketing, Human Resource and Organizational Behavior, International Business, Information System, Business Analytics, Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management, Operations Management, Banking and Insurance Management, Aviation Management, Healthcare Management, and Waste Management.

Pursuing MBA degree in Business Analytics from Manav Rachna has multiple other advantages like exposure to the state-of-the-art data visualization tools, getting hands-on experience in the industry by learning under the mentorship of the industry experts,

exposure to live projects and internships, a continuous evaluation process that ensures that learning remains intact and much more.

This specialized MBA program is offered in collaboration with IOA (The Institute of Analytics) - The Global Body of Analytics, UK, making Manav Rachna University the first University in NCR to collaborate with IOA for Business Analytics. The Institute of Analytics (IoA) is the Professional Body for Analytics and Data Science professionals in the UK and therefore highly respected across the world.

No wonder then that Manav Rachna's MBA students have achieved remarkable placements across the industry spectrum in companies like KPMG, Fortis, Reliance Jio, Jaro Education, Amazon, Grofers, IBM, Zomato, HT Media, IndiaBulls, PayTM, BYJU’s, Bank of America, Ericsson, Airtel, Indian Oil, American Express, Ernst & Young and many more.

Two other areas in which Manav Rachna has forged ahead of competition is startup incubation and applied research, much like the world's best universities. Day in and day out, Manav Rachna Educational Institutions (MREI) witness a hotbed of activity at its state-of-the-art research labs, research and innovation clusters, innovation and incubation centre, and in its research projects, including funded R&D projects. Altogether, this robust ecosystem helps in grooming students in advanced areas. In a first of its kind international tie-up, global research publications major Springer Nature has launched its first Academic Research Lab in India at Manav Rachna Educational Institutions.

In the field of applied research, Manav Rachna scholars, including both faculty and research students, have so far filed for over 535 patents, with a significant percentage of them being granted. These Manav Rachna research scholars have also presented around 7800 research papers in international & national journals as well as in global conferences with participation from over 13 countries. Manav Rachna boasts of 28-h index for quality publications as per the SCOPUS database.

The Manav Rachna Business Incubator is set across more than 5,000 square feet area and caters 24X7 to the requirements of budding entrepreneurs. Over the years, more than 80 companies have been incubated at Manav Rachna Campus, which have earnestly begun their participation in the global phenomenon of creating job providers rather than job seekers.

Faridabad based Manav Rachna Educational Institutions (MREI) in the field of higher education include Manav Rachna International Institute of Research & Studies (MRIIRS) and Manav Rachna University. Both have the coveted NAAC ‘A’ Grade accreditation, and have also been internationally benchmarked by QS.

MANAV RACHNA ALSO HAS SENIOR MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONALS DEPLOYED AS ‘PROFESSOR OF PRACTICE’ WHO BRING SEVERAL YEARS OF THEIR INDUSTRIAL EXPERIENCE TO IMPART INSIGHTS INTEGRAL TO THE MARKET READINESS OF THE STUDENTS.

Manav Rachna International Institute of Research and Studies (MRIIRS) is a Deemed-to-be-University under the UGC Act, and has been awarded QS 5-Star rating for Teaching, Employability, Academic Development, Facilities, Social Responsibility, and Inclusiveness. Manav Rachna University is a private university constituted under an Act of the Haryana State Legislature, and has been bestowed with the QS I-GAUGE Overall DIAMOND rating. It has received a QS I-GAUGE Diamond Rating for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Faculty Quality, Facilities, and Social Responsibility and QS I-GAUGE Platinum Rating for Employability and Academic Development.

Admission to these Manav Rachna universities are done competitively, fairly and transparently through the Manav Rachna National Aptitude Test (MRNAT) which is a multiple-choice test of 90 minutes covering questions of general aptitude (arithmetic & logical reasoning, general English, general awareness).

This National Entrance Test is conducted for admission to 100+ UG and PG Programmes across Engineering, Law, Education, Computer Applications, Information Technology, Design, Interior Design, Psychology, Allied Health Sciences, Digital Marketing, Physiotherapy, Nutrition & Dietetics,

Behavioural and Social Sciences, Business Studies, Commerce, Hotel Management, Media Studies among many others.

One of the highlights of Manav Rachna higher education is the industry-oriented specializations in emerging fields. These include Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Cloud, DevOps and Fullstack Development, Cyber Security & Threat Intelligence, Smart Manufacturing & Automation, Embedded System & VLSI, Forensics, Business Analytics, Internet of Things, Automation and Robotics, and many more.

Towards this, Manav Rachna has collaborations with several global technology majors including Microsoft, Intel Corporation, Xebia, Mitsubishi Electric, Amazon Web Services, Altair, Daikin, Truechip, and Quick Heal. Experts from these companies help in either academic or curriculum delivery and facilitate internships.

A higher education institution may tick many boxes needed for student success, including infrastructure, faculty, curriculum, pedagogy etc, but the ultimate test remains the kind of high achievers it produces. This is a facet in which Faridabad based Manav Rachna Educational Institutions (MREI) have been excelling for many years now. While almost every university, engineering college or business school would have an alumni association, how many of them would dare to present before the public, a collection of their topmost achievers? Yet, this is what

Manav Rachna did recently when it created a one-of-its-kind book that features the impressive success stories of its Top 25 Alumni.

Perfectly titled as 'Utkrisht - Icons of Manav Rachna', this landmark book was launched by none other than one of India's greatest achievers, Kapil Dev, in the presence of Manav Rachna's top functionaries Dr. Prashant Bhalla and Dr. Amit Bhalla, and other dignitaries. The highlight of the book is the kind of diverse and well-rounded achievers that Manav Rachna has produced so far.

Showcasing this diversity, these high achievers were classified into six major categories - Art & Glamour, Entrepreneur Magnets, Government & Administration, Industry Barons, Social Flag Bearers and Sports - thus spanning almost every sphere of high influence in modern society. How is Manav Rachna able to deliver this kind of performance? The simple answer is the kind of world-class maturity that Manav Rachna has grown into, during the 25 years of its existence.

Recently, a Centre of Excellence for Culinary Art was launched at the Faculty of Hotel Management (FHM), Manav Rachna International Institute of Research and Studies (MRIIRS). The Centre has been established in collaboration with Creative Cuisine Inc. Learning (CCi Learning), founded by Virender Handa and co-founded by Chef Kapil Middha. The Centre of Excellence is fully equipped with top-ofthe-line equipment and a comprehensive collection of cooking essentials to prepare students for the industry. To start with, the center is offering B.Sc. in Culinary Arts and will soon be launching an advanced diploma program in the same genre.

Manav Rachna is already an education hub known for its academic excellence and industry exposure through a multitude of Industry Knowledge Partners that facilitate top-notch learning, training and research benefits. With CCi Learning as their new Knowledge Partner for the Culinary Arts Programme, Manav Rachna students are assured of expert knowledge and skill-based training from the Master Chefs of the industry.

The programme offered at Manav Rachna has been designed with the best in the industry along with the state-of-theart infrastructure created especially to support the holistic learning of students. The Centre has top-notch facilities for teaching and training in Culinary Art.

Like all world-class universities, Manav Rachna is also leaving no stone unturned in attracting top-notch student talent by offering 100% scholarship to them. So far, scholarships worth Rs. 8 crores have been availed by Manav Rachna students based on their score in MRNAT.

THE MANAV RACHNA BUSINESS INCUBATOR IS SET ACROSS MORE THAN 5,000 SQUARE FEET AREA AND CATERS 24X7 TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF BUDDING ENTREPRENEURS.

ACHIEVING OVER 1 LAKH PLACEMENTS

WITH OVER 96% STUDENTS GETTING PLACED LAST YEAR WITH BETTER CTCS, AND HAVING CROSSED THE MILESTONE OF PLACING 1 LAKH STUDENTS, THIS YOUNG UNIVERSITY FROM THE GALGOTIAS STABLE IS SURELY GALLOPING AHEAD.

Greater Noida based Galgotias University has swiftly emerged as a leader in the world of quality education by delivering consistently excellent results across academics, research and placements. Galgotias is inspired to carry forward the vision of Hon. PM Shri Narendra Modi Ji of making India a Vishwaguru and the dream of Hon. UP CM Shri Yogi AdityaNath Ji of making Uttar Pradesh a truly Global Knowledge Superpower. It has recently achieved NAAC A+ accreditation with a high score that makes it the second highest among all state private universities in the country. In the NIRF 2022 Rankings too, Galgotias has achieved excellent ranks across several domains, including engineering, management and pharmacy. In the OBE Rankings 2022, the university is placed in the Platinum Band with Grade A++. Galgotias’ MBA and BPharm

GALGOTIAS IS INSPIRED TO CARRY FORWARD THE VISION OF HON.

PM SHRI NARENDRA MODI JI OF MAKING INDIA A VISHWAGURU.

programs are also NBA accredited for adhering to world class standards. When it comes to innovation and innovation too, the university has been top ranked, having been placed in the Excellent band under the Union Government’s ARIIA framework. And Galgotias University shot into national limelight recently when it received 3,99,373 applications under the newly introduced CUET exam, thereby becoming one among the topmost 8 preferred universities in the country for admissions. For the academic year 202223, the university’s admissions are now open for several career focused UG/PG/PhD degrees across almost every domain including engineering, computer science, business, pharmacy, nursing, medical & allied sciences, law, hospitality & tourism, agriculture, media & communication studies, liberal education, basic & applied sciences, finance & commerce, and more. Under the dynamic leadership of its CEO Dhruv Galgotia, the young university has succeeded in attracting exceptional faculty, forged tie-ups with MNC majors like Infosys,

Cognizant & Wipro for the benefit of students, and is also planning a major foray into the healthcare and hospitals sector.

GALGOTIAS UNIVERSITY FOLLOWS THE DREAM OF HON. UP CM SHRI YOGI ADITYANATH JI OF MAKING UTTAR PRADESH A TRULY GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE SUPERPOWER.

Galgotias University has recently emerged as a national leader in higher education by bagging the highest benchmark in academic excellenceNAAC A+ accreditation - in its first accreditation cycle itself. With a NAAC Score of 3.37 out of 4, Galgotias has also become the only private university in Uttar Pradesh with such a high score, and the second highest among all state private universities in the country.

In the recently released NIRF 2022 Rankings, Galgotias has attained 59th Rank in Pharmacy, 93rd Rank in Management and 147th Rank in Engineering.

With over 96% placements including in some of the world’s largest firms, during the last five years, including the most troubling pandemic years, the Greater Noida based Galgotias University has also achieved the escape velocity needed to climb to an international orbit.

For the 2021-22 batch, there were over 4500 offers from over 450 recruiters, with 32% students getting Dream Offers, and an overall average CTC of 5.25 Lakhs Per Annum. The highest package this year was Rs. 44 LPA from Microsoft, bagged by BTech CSE student Guru Prakash Singh.

In MBA placements too, Galgotias has come out with flying colours with 850+ offers from 300+ recruiters with highest CTC being Rs. 17.55 LPA and Average CTC being Rs. 5.10 LPA.

On the admissions front too, Galgotias has been faring well, coming in as the 8th most preferred university in CUET, after majors like Delhi University and BHU.

Almost all Departments of Galgotias have been faring excellently, with School of Hospitality & Tourism getting 2nd Rank in UP in GHRDC Survey; BPharm Program getting NBA accredited; School of Nursing achieving 100% placement; and School of Law getting 3rd Rank in a recent national survey.

Three GU students have also been selected for this year’s prestigious Google Summer of Code program. Galgotias University has also been ranked among the top institutions worldwide in teaching and facilities by

the QS star rating system. Typically, when universities are assessed by the public or even some of the rating agencies, what counts more is the achievements - like campus placements, highest CTC, research projects, startups incubated etc. But for all such achievements to flow sustainably from an individual, he or she needs to have emotional intelligence first. Otherwise such achievements will just be a one-off event that can’t be replicated for their own benefit and the benefit of the community around.

With this idea in mind, Galgotias University has been trying to inculcate emotional intelligence into its courses, and it achieved a breakthrough recently when it became the first private university in India to conduct a value added course on non-violent communication.

The 30-hour value added course on nonviolent communications involved a series of lectures on the theme ‘NonViolent Communications’ designed and delivered by Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti (GSDS), Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India. The lecture series was an outcome of a collaborative effort of the Department of Humanities, School of Liberal Education, Galgotias University and GSDS.

The course was made available to Galgotias’ undergraduate and postgraduate students for their all-round development including academic and personal development. A pre and post survey too was

conducted and presented in the event to map out behavioral change among the youngsters. The survey indicated a positive intervention and held a future prospect of constructive impact in students’ lives.

To ensure national standards for its postgraduate programs and to ensure greater transparency, Galgotias University has become one of the eight new universities that have opted for the Common University Entrance Test PG (CUET PG). Earlier, the new test was launched with the participation of 42 participating universities, dominated by 35 Central Universities and prestigious names like Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, and The English and

Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad.

With the farsighted vision by Galgotias University to be a pioneer in this new program by the Central Government, it has become one among 50 internationally renowned universities and institutes of India. Administered by the National Testing Agency (NTA), the CUET PG is an online entrance exam that provides a common platform and equal opportunities for admission to these 50 prestigious universities. It will be a computer based test for admissions to various courses like MA, MSc, MCom and LLM at these participating universities and will be conducted in both English and Hindi. Galgotias University was recently the host for the Grand Finale of Toycathon 2021-2022 (Physical Edition). Under the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’ initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Toycathon 2021 was conceived to challenge India’s innovative minds to conceptualize novel toy and games based on Bharatiya civilization, history, culture, mythology and ethos. Toycathon is an inter-ministerial initiative organized by the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell with support from All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of MSME, Ministry of Textiles, and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

Galgotias University has been attracting top-notch talent to its advisory and faculty panels. The University grabbed national eyeballs when it took in Justice JR Midha who had retired as a Delhi High Court Judge in 2021 to be an Advisor and Professor Emeritus.

The unique reason behind this enrollment was that Justice Midha’s has a vision to reform legal education in India. This renowned scholar and practitioner has been exhorting for an overhaul of professional advocacy skills based on the development of rational thinking, logical processes, legal reasoning and strong communication skills.

Soon enough, Justice Midha’s vision resulted in a first initiative, when

Galgotias University recently launched India’s first judicial training programme under his mentorship. Galgotias’ School of Law has collaborated with Universal Institute of Legal Studies & Law Curators for this prestigious “Advanced Course on Judicial Service & Professional Advocacy”.

Galgotias University has also won much appreciation for providing this Value Added Course free of cost to the students. The course will prepare students to be updated on recent case laws, and inspire in them the importance of hard work, dedication and perseverance to be an ace legal professional.

In recent years, Galgotias University has also strengthened its flagship engineering programs for which it has been most famous. Industry tie-ups are continually being forged and strengthened so that GU graduates and postgraduates in engineering are industry-ready from day one of their careers in corporates of any size or scale. Such tie-ups include guest lectures from industry experts, internships, joint curriculum development and many more such activities.

These are being pursued on a continuous basis and the major such programs at Galgotias University include Infosys-Campus Connect Programme, Cognizant Digital Nurture and Wipro Talent Next. GU students are already reaping rich dividends by way of internships and placements from such partnerships for which the management has always taken a proactive stance.

Galgotias University, despite being relatively young, has an overall placement status of 96%. Even in the recent pandemic years, when recruitments nosedived at many peer universities, Galgotias has stood its ground. The average CTC has also been on a continual rise despite the emerging challenges across the industry sectors. Overall, Galgotias has placed over 1 lakh students in reputed companies so far. Galgotias has also emerged as one of the first private universities in India, to attain the prestigious NBA accreditation for several of their programs at an extremely rapid pace. These accredited programmes include Computer Science & Engineering, Mechanical Engineering

and Communication Engineering.

GU has fared well in national rankings like NIRF and global rankings like QS and Times Higher Education. Its overall NIRF ranking is steadily moving up, while its pharmacy and management programs have received attractive positions. Galgotias’ School of Hospitality & Tourism has also recently won a coveted global certification.

Dhruv Galgotia, CEO of Galgotias University, is also pursuing a major foray into the healthcare sector with an investment of Rs. 1200 Crores in the next 3 years. The venture, Galgotias Hospitals Pvt. Ltd. plans to establish one 500 bedded hospital in Greater Noida with state of the art equipment imported from Germany and United States of America. A second hospital is also being planned for Gurgaon. The full foray over the next several years will see 10 hospitals pan India each with 500 beds. Galgotias Hospitals is also working out tie-ups with world class research hospitals and medical centres in Singapore and USA to ensure the latest technologies and know-how are

brought to India and offered to the people of India at affordable costs. Medical tourism is also being eyed, with the Greater Noida Hospital being attached to a 5 star super deluxe hotel, having a separate division for international patients and customers wanting to get world class treatments and medical care at affordable costs in India.

Some of the specialities being planned for Galgotias Hospitals are Cardiac Surgery, Electrophysiology and Pacing, Clinical and Preventive Cardiology and Interventional Cardiology, where an integrated team of cardiac surgeons and cardiologists will work together. A fully dedicated wing for cancer patients is also being planned.

Galgotias Hospitals will be backed up with the latest technology including a unique hybrid operating suite, dedicated teams of cardiac / cancer/ laparoscopic surgeons with more than 200 types of Surgeries being performed by specialized doctors. The hospitality foray is poised to make Galgotias Group’s valuation to cross Rs. 5000 crore.