Bhanu Stuff

Helpline - Are you depressed, feeling lonely or having suicidal thoughts?

2020-06-16T12:01:00.002+05:30

Hi there,

If you are reading this then probably you are looking for some's help to get out of your bad mood or negative thoughts that have been trying to take over your mind. I believe you couldn't find any helpline or positive help online and most of the helplines that claim to help were not working. If that's the case and you are in a very bad situation, then you can probably discuss it with me without hesitation. I'm sharing my personal contact no., which I never used to share with my blog followers. I'm based in India and if you are in India too you can call my no. +91-9052579495. If there's an emergency, I can attend calls at any time. If the call wasn't picked then please understand that I'm not near to my phone or I'm with some meetings etc. If you want to write to me instead of calling, you can mail me at bhanu.chander1@gmail.com or get connected with me in my social profile to ping me. Whattsapp with the same no though I don't keep WhatsApp ON all the times. The choice is yours. For immediate discussion, you may use the no. Also, please don't share the no. or misuse it. Understand the purpose :) It is better if you try to share your issues with someone (preferably family and friends) and get moral support than keeping that within yourself. If you are not able to share with your close ones, then you can reach out to a third person like me.

To give you an intro about me, I'm a researcher and an engineer graduated from IIT Madras and currently working for an engineering MNC firm at Pune. Despite my profession being engineering, I mostly work towards some social cause. I've a blog where I help people/students for free with around 3500+ followers. This is my personal blog where I share my free books, give career guidance, and also discuss other stuff. The motto behind creating this page and sharing my personal no. is solely to give moral assistance and also make people understand the importance of their life. I also want to make sure people understand why their living is so important and how they are going to bring big differences to others' lives as well.

To understand why depressed people are not able to reach out to NGOs, I went through several NGO websites and tried to go through the process. I tried to volunteer and get involved in personal chat, but surprisingly, none of the so-called suicide helpline or depression chats were giving me a chance to people like me to get in touch with people to help them. I was surprised. Apart from that, the NGO's were putting too much of fund requests asking to donate to help their volunteers or asking the subscribers (with depression or suicidal thoughts) to pay and get professional counseling. After going through all this I felt this as crap. Why would an NGO need money to help someone that doesn't involve finance? why they are not allowing interested volunteers like me to reach out to the needy? And most importantly - why the heck they have to ask the depressed people to pay and get help? I felt this as total nonsense and that's why this thought of taking the initiative of reaching out directly to the needy. I'm not sure how much help I can be but I do have some experience in giving moral support to people. You can check the free books below and see my ideology in case you want confirmation. Btw the discussion will be completely free, private, confidential and you can consider me as a bro or family:) So, if you ever have suicidal thoughts, your heart is broken due to some incident, getting depressed these days, or feeling lonely and in an emergency, feel free to reach out to me. This is not a crisis situation no. or recognized suicidal helpline. I'm neither a psychologist nor a therapist. I'm just an individual with the motto of being a helping hand - friend or bro to be specific :)

The free books that can help bring positive thoughts

Free book on Short Moral Stories to give positive energy and to help you motivated in life

Free book on motivation and positive thinking with several life examples to remove frustrations and negative thinking

By the way, I will be releasing youtube videos on how to overcome loneliness, depression, or suicidal thoughts. I will update this page once they are ready.

My social profiles

Personal Facebook page

Instagram

Stay safe and be happy. You have so much to achieve and to prove yourself. Your life is important and precious. Most importantly, don't miss your family and friends :)

Experience It: Learn the Secrets of a Successful and Happy Life

2019-05-20T21:31:00.001+05:30

Hi,

Introducing my second book on self-help (motivation and positive thinking)

'Experience It: Learn the Secrets of a Successful and Happy Life from an IITian'.

Available in all ebook platforms.

Link to the book page in Amazon

Link to the book page in Kobo, Apple, Nook, Scribd, 24s, Playster, Angus & Robertson

Are you facing:

low confidence, lack of motivation, negative thoughts, life and/or family problems, dissatisfaction, frustration, jobless situation, depression, suicidal thoughts, love failure, lack of positivity, restriction/unfreedom, stress, tension, dissatisfaction with your son/daughter, unsatisfactory married life etc. and, are your parents restricting you from taking up your desired job or career or relation or lifestyle?

Then this book is definitely for you.

'Experience It' tries to provide practical solutions to most of the above-mentioned elements and talks extensively on converting negatives into positives. This will help you change your perception by removing your negative thoughts. The author has shared his best thoughts based on his analysis of the negatives in life. This book is thus a best source for boosting your confidence, motivation, and positive thinking, by way of thought-provoking analysis, success mantras, short moral stories, real-life experiences/examples and lessons learned from them. This is an attempt to assist you to realize your inner strengths and the true purpose of your life, thereby helping you achieve the real happiness and success in life. The book has been written in very simple English so that everyone can understand.

Free Book - Bag of Short Moral Stories

2019-05-19T23:55:00.000+05:30

I’m here today because of the problems that I faced and the morals that I learned when I was young!

This book tries to demonstrate the importance of moral thoughts—that we, as a human, should be having in our day to day life. The list of points at the end of each story was meant to highlight the important lessons that we can learn from that particular story.

FREE BOOK - Get my third book on Short Moral Stories for free as Pdf in this link

I strongly believe that reading short moral stories (especially at an early age) would help our thought process mature and would make us behave ethically. And, that’s the very reason why I considered distributing this book for free so that this will reach to everyone. I hope this free book with 38 short stories will be helpful to you and your children/family/friends. Also, help me in spreading this book through your social media.

Here is the list of stories in the book:

Story 1 – Digging the water well

Story 2 – The biggest diamond

Story 3 – I won the challenge

Story 4 – The magical Tree

Story 5 – A Competition between a Bicycle, Car, Truck, Ferry

and a Plane

Story 6 – A diamond to the sage

Story 7 – The merchant and his dog

Story 8 – The story of Rivers

Story 9 – The never-ending desires

Story 10 – Who is the king of Vidyaranya?

Story 11 – An eye for an eye

Story 12 – The Two Dearest Friends

Story 12 – The Cunning Fox

Story 13 – Your problems are simpler than mine

Story 14 – The greedy man and his gold

Story 15 – Expecting to be asked

Story 16 – I want the best

Story 17 – The Real Rakshas

Story 18 – The Changes that were too difficult to digest

Story 19 – I became old

Story 20 – Touch me not

Story 21 – The Insane Idea

Story 22 – A challenge between an ant and an elephant

Story 23 – The story of a white and a black horse

Story 24 – A race to become the king

Story 25 – The Greatest Doctor

Story 26 – I’ve a new status

Story 27 – The two friends

Story 28 – A Miraculous Treatment

Story 29 – The Interview

Story 30 – The God’s mistake

Story 31 - The Marriage of a Prince

Story 32 - The story of a donkey and a horse

Story 33 – The Loyal Dog

Story 34 – The King and his two sons

Story 35 – What is this fruit called?

Story 36 – A bridegroom selection

Story 37 – A Magical Utensil

Story 38 – The warrior brothers

Now I Know Who I am - Fiction Fantasy

2019-01-02T08:33:00.001+05:30

Hi,

Welcoming you to an all-new imaginary world with the introduction of a fictitious superhero - who has Indian Mythology roots.

'Now I Know Who I am' is the story of the superhero from the past, who has been assigned the responsibility of saving the world at present. The first part of this fantasy fiction describes the tale of a youngster, Somu, who faces several hurdles in his life.

The book contains the elements of

heroism,
adventure,
power,
humor,
friendship,
family,
emotions,
trust, and,
the right qualities of a good-natured human.

Now I Know Who I am - (Part 1) The legendary tale of a superhero

The story narrates on how Somu overcomes his negative thoughts and how he perceives them as positives. Soon, he realizes that he was made to suffer for a reason. Despite his sufferings, some supernatural powers keep watching him and impose difficult yet miraculous situations to test his abilities. After he overcomes those difficult situations by exhibiting his compassion, courage, deterministic, lust-free and celibate qualities, the supernatural powers appear and educate him of his connection with the superhero, who happened to be a warrior.

While the current book revolves mostly around the story of Somu, the upcoming sequel will narrate the tale of how Somu realizes the superhero, how the superhero gains his previous as well as new powers and how he saves the whole world from the upcoming danger.

Available only as e-book in India - Amazon Site kindle edition

Available as ebook in ibooks, kobo, scribd, Barnes and Noble, Playster, Angus and Robertson

This happened to be my first book and is best for all age groups including children. I took all care in using very simple English so that everyone can read. The above-mentioned elements were highlighted so as to induce moral behavior in the readers. Especially in today's digital world where we all have access to different platforms that can easily distract us, talking about someone who does heroic deeds by exhibiting the praised qualities might try to change the mindset of the readers - making them think and act ethically (children and adult in specific). So, the characters in the story were carefully designed accordingly. This book is thus best for gifting to your dear ones and to youngsters.

Note: I'm a bit of environmentalist and I do worry about the climate changes and the prevailing global warming. So, I prefer to recommend you go for e-book, instead of a paperback, especially because this is a fiction genre. Unlike non-fiction or self-help books, these categories are just story telling. For my upcoming two books, which are more of motivational, inspirational, Positive thinking with life lessons and self-help kind, (which have the ability to remove negative thoughts and help in moral behavior), I will publish in paperback format too. I suppose these kind of books are worth to be stacked in shelves for the future generations and for lending to the people in need. Hope you too support me in my endeavors.

Happy reading :)

Bhanu Chander

Things that make you Great - Being a responsible citizen

2018-04-26T17:47:00.001+05:30

Check the inforgraphic and see what are the things are important for everyone to follow given the present day scenario.

Career Selection After 10th and 12th (Self Guide - Detailed)

2018-04-26T02:04:00.002+05:30

Hi,

In this post, you will get free PDF's, materials, and videos related to your career and course selection after both 10th and 12th. This is a part of Project:Vidhya-Spurthi. You can also get posters and pictures for your future.

Free downloads

(PDF - Slide) Career guidance and detailed course list after 10th and 12th

(Slide Share) Career guidance and detailed course list after 10th and 12th

(PDF) After 10th and 12th detailed course list (print version)

(Picture) Color Poster of courses list after 10th and 12th

(Picture) Black and White Poster of courses list after 10th and 12th (Print)

(Picture) List of Exams after 10th and 12th

Youtube Video in Hindi

Youtube Video in English

A New Multi Bug Path Planning (MBPP) Algorithm

2017-07-27T11:45:00.002+05:30

Hello there,

in this post, I will introduce you to a new algorithm which I termed as "Multi-Bug Path Planning Algorithm" dubbed as MBPP for planning an optimal (best) path in a given (known) static environment.

If you are referring MBPP algorithm in any of your paper, please use the following citation :

Bhanu Chander V, Asokan T and Ravindran B,
"A new Multi-Bug Path Planning algorithm for robot navigation in known environments," 2016 IEEE Region 10 Conference (TENCON), Singapore, 2016, pp. 3363-3367. doi: 10.1109/TENCON.2016.7848676
URL: IEEE Xplore link

Related Works

In the field of Artifical Intelligence, there are plenty of path planning algorithms ranging from heuristics to several algorithms like Genetic Algorithm etc. Most well known of all being 'A*' read as A-star. In the literature of path planning, several variants of A* have been successfully implemented. A very good online blog for learning the theory (and implementation guide) of A* algorithms, along with other related basics is available in Amit page on Games and Algorithms

In spite of the improved performances, A* variants still employ the fundamental A* concepts i.e. they still need CLOSED and OPEN lists in order to construct a path, to avoid revisiting of states as well as to expand the next node (while planning) by sorting the list using costs and heuristics. These lists consume memory, especially when the search space is large. Pruning (reducing the size) of OPEN and CLOSED lists are always a concern in Artificial Intelligence studies. Although many researchers came up with several A* pruning techniques, still not much work on applications of pruned A* methods for robotics has been found.

My work puts forward a new global path planning algorithm that uses approaches similar to bug algorithms. Proposed algorithm (MBPP) eliminates the need for OPEN and CLOSED lists. This algorithm basically takes greedy actions in the search space. Greedy behaviour of algorithms often results in the problem of getting stuck in local optima. But my proposed method uses conditions to move from greedy to non-greedy behaviour as and when required thereby eliminating the danger of giving local optimal results.

Advantages of MBPP Over A*

Expands only relevant grid cells
Avoid lists
Adapt Re-planning
Have multiple paths
Applicable for off-line and on-line path planning

The biggest advantage of MBPP is its nature of being adaptable to online planning (planning when the robot is on the go). Currently, my focus is on offline (when path planning is done before the robot moves) only but I anticipate the extension of this work to the online case too.

MBPP (Multi Bug Path Planning) Procedure

It's better to discuss the algorithm with a case study example. Let me consider an environment with two obstacles. Given Start state and goal state in the environment, the algorithm initially set a straight path (as shown in Fig.1) between the two considering no obstacles. Calling this as m-line hereafter.

Fig. 1

Now, the beautiful part of MBPP lies in the assumption that the search progress (movement of algorithm from state to state) is assumed as the movement of a virtual bug. The bug continues to move along the m-line and let us say it encounters an obstacle in its path as shown in Fig. 2. Denoting this bug as b1

Fig. 2

Once, the bug hits an obstacle, it now gives birth to a new bug. Now, the parent bugs move along the wall while the child bug also moves along the wall (wrapping) but in the opposite direction, Let the second bug be b2. This is shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3

Wall following of the original bug (calling it parent bug) and the newly generated bug (calling it child bug) continues. As the bugs wraps around and it continues until any bug meets the m-line. In this example, b2 meets the m-line first. Let us call this state of m-line adjacent to the wall as L1, representing leave 1 state. After the bug reached the line, it stops wall following but now moves along the m-line. The other bug (bug b1) continues wall following until it reaches m-line. Now, since this state has already been left by b2, so, b1 stops moving any further and waits at this L1 state as shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4

b2 continues along the m-line, and say let it encounters another obstacle as shown in Fig.4. Now, at this new state, b2,. now gives birth to a new virtual bug (b3) and both continue to follow the wall as we saw previously (wrapping around the wall).

Fig. 5

Let us say b3, after wall following meets the m-line first than b2, then it stops wall following but moves along m-line and reaches the goal as shown in Fig. 6. Meanwhile, b2 follows the wall and meets the leave state (say L2 adjacent to the wall near to the m-line). But since b3 already left this state, b2 waits at this L2 state.

Fig. 6

Finally, as all the bugs either reaches goal, or waits or get terminated, the algorithm stops. Now, the notion of virtual bug movement is to note down the important corners around the obstacles. For our example, the important corners identified are shown in Fig. 7

Fig. 7

Using the identified corners, MBPP algorithm can now identify all the possible yet feasible paths that a robot can take as shown in Fig. 8.

Fig. 8

Out of which, a feasible path will be chosen and the rest paths will be saved for any future use (if in case while the robot is moving actually in real time and finds any dynamic obstacle, then it can choose to switch to the nearest alternate route or plan a route to the nearby corner identified earlier).

Fig. 9

Now, apart from the regular bug movement, at each step, a line-of-sight check will be performed between the previously identified corner and the current state. Line-of-sight (LOS) check is just a check to verify whether there is a sight (with no disturbances) from the previous corner to the current state. If in case at any state, LOS returns that the sight is not clear, then the previous state will be noted in the memory of list of corners for that bug. This is shown in the next four figures.

Fig. 10-13

A very interesting phenomena exhibited by MBPP is, if say in case the robot moves in the real world (actually) performing the navigation task, and if it encounters an obstacle not visible in the map, then, instead of doing a complete search from the start, MBPP tries to find the interesting corners around the identified obstacle and plans the alternate path accordingly.

Fig. 14

Fig. 15

MBPP Consitions

Apart from that, MBPP needs some conditions to determine when to terminate a bug, when the bug waits and when to leave the wall following behaviour. These are dealt in detail in the paper.

C1: Termination condition
C2: Leaving condition
C3: Waiting condition

MBPP Properties

MBBP is Correct
MBPP is complete
No two bugs travel in the same direction
Bugs generation are bounded, no infinite looping

You can get the complete code in my GitHub repository

If you are referring MBPP algorithm in any of your paper, please use the following citation :

Bhanu Chander V, Asokan T and Ravindran B,
"A new Multi-Bug Path Planning algorithm for robot navigation in known environments," 2016 IEEE Region 10 Conference (TENCON), Singapore, 2016, pp. 3363-3367. doi: 10.1109/TENCON.2016.7848676
URL: IEEE Xplore link

PART - 2, What to choose after 12th ? B.A course list

2017-07-15T18:07:00.000+05:30

hello brothers and sister,

Check the below poster to get to know the several career/course options after your 12th Arts. Also, check the videos for a detailed explanation of almost each individual course and their benefits along with disadvantages too.

(click the image to download as well as to see the enlarged view)

Complete course list for 10th and 12th

Please note that you are free to distribute, print or circulate to anyone for free and not for earning purpose. I request you to share this printed version (Black and white in A3 size) if you happened to visit any nearby state medium schools/colleges or any rural schools to bring awareness among the students for their benefit. Thank you :)

Project: Vidhya-Spurthi

(Color Version)

(Print Version)

Video - After 12th Arts - course choice (Hindi version)

Video - After 12th Arts - course choice (English version)

Part 1 - What to choose after 12th ? B.Com course list

2017-07-15T12:29:00.001+05:30

hello brothers and sister,

Check the below poster to get to know the several career/course options after your 12th Commerce. Also, check the videos for a detailed explanation of almost each individual course and their benefits along with disadvantages too.

(click the image to download as well as to see the enlarged view)

Complete course list for 10th and 12th

Please note that you are free to distribute, print or circulate to any one for free and not for earning purpose. I request you to share this printed version (Black and white in A3 size) if you happened to visit any nearby state medium schools/colleges or any rural schools to bring awareness among the students for theirs benefit. Thank you :)

Project: Vidhya-Spurthi

(Color Version)

(Print Version)

Video - After 12th Commerce - course choice (Hindi version)

Video - After 12th Commerce - course choice (English version)

Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) implementation on Iris data (Python)

2017-07-04T15:18:00.000+05:30

Hello there,

In this post, I've implemented unsupervised clustering of Iris dataset using Gaussian mixture models (GMM) in python. A detailed introduction about GMM is available on this Wikipedia page. The original implementation of the code was done by McDickenson available here in Github- considering two Gaussian mixture model as inputs. Here, I've modified the code using Iris data as input in 2D.

Code begins

1. Importing necessary libraries and initial settings

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from scipy.stats import norm
import random as rand
from sys import maxint
from sklearn import datasets

2. Importing data from Iris dataset

iris = datasets.load_iris()
X = iris.data[:,:2]
Y = iris.target
Y[:] = Y+1;

Note that I've considered only two dimension of the Iris data which is usually 4 dimensional for better visualisation purpose. iris.target holds the labels for the data and hence Y is nothing but an array of labels

Making a dictionary and dataframe out of the available data

data = {'x':X[:,0],'y':X[:,1], 'label':Y}
df = pd.DataFrame(data=data)

3. Visualising the actual dataset

Before implementing any ML algorithm, it's always good to visualise the date. Let us do this

fig = plt.figure()

plt.scatter(data['x'],data['y'],34,c=Y)

c=Y here is used to identify the label for each data and assign color accordingly

4. Initialization of parameters

Gaussian Mixture models work using Expectation Maximisation algorithm which initially assumes parameters of the model, and using the assumed parameters, it updates the parameters by maximising it by applying to a function. Then it again uses this maximised parameters for the further expectation of the parameters and the cycle continues until convergence.

So, we initially need to input parameters (mean (mu), variance (sig) and the probability that a point can be drawn from the mixture (lambda)). Assuming that we are focused on three clusters and in order to do this, we sample three data points randomly from the input data as the initial means. Choosing some point which is not in the range of the dataset results in unexpected behaviour and you will not see clustering happening. So, the chosen initial means should be in the dataset range.

Choose three random index no's from the length of dataset

k1 = rand.randrange(len(X))
k2 = rand.randrange(len(X))
k3 = rand.randrange(len(X))

Make intial guesses using the index numbers

guess = { 'mu1':[X[k1,0],X[k1,1]],
'sig1':[[1, 0],[0, 1]],
'mu2':[X[k2,0],X[k2,1]],
'sig2':[[2, 0],[0, 1]],
'mu3':[X[k3,0],X[k3,1]],
'sig3':[[0.5, 0],[0, 1]],
'lambda':[0.3,0.3,0.4]
}

Some other initials

shift = maxint
epsilon = 0.01
iters = 0
df_copy = df.copy()

Initially, assign all data points randomly to one of the clusters

df_copy['label']=map(lambda x:x+1, np.random.choice (3,len(df)))

Further

params = pd.DataFrame.from_dict(guess, orient = 'index')
params = params.transpose()

5. Loop until convergence

while shift > epsilon:
iters += 1

Expectation-step

updated_labels = expectation(df_copy.copy(), params)

Maximization-step

updated_parameters = maximization(updated_labels, params.copy())

Updating the shift distance

shift = distance(params, updated_parameters)

Finally, updating the new labels and parameters for the next iteration

df_copy = updated_labels
params = updated_parameters

The function here is used to evaluate whether the distance between points within the cluster is reducing or not. In other words, it's acting like a cost function. If the distance change is very less (less than epsilon threshold) then it's time to stop the algorithm. This function looks like

Function: distance()

def distance(old_params, new_params):

dist = 0

for param in ['mu1','mu2','mu3']:

for i in range(len(old_params)):

dist+=(old_params[param][i]-new_params[param][i])**2

return dist**0.5

The function Expectation assigns labels based on the probability of the data sample being sampled from a Gaussian mixture.

Function: expectation()

def expectation(dataFrame, parameters):

for i in range(dataFrame.shape[0]):

x = dataFrame['x'][i]

y = dataFrame['y'][i]

#assigning the probablilities of each cluster

p_cluster1=prob([x,y],list(parameters['mu1']), list(parameters['sig1']),parameters['lambda'][0])

p_cluster2=prob([x, y],list(parameters['mu2']), list(parameters['sig2']) parameters['lambda'][1])

p_cluster3=prob([x, y],list(parameters['mu3']), list(parameters['sig3']),parameters['lambda'][2])

# Labelling each data according to the probabilities of cluster

if(p_cluster1>=p_cluster2)&(p_cluster1>= p_cluster3):

dataFrame['label'][i] =1

elif(p_cluster2>=p_cluster1)&(p_cluster2>= p_cluster3):

dataFrame['label'][i] = 2

elif(p_cluster3>=p_cluster1)&(p_cluster3>= p_cluster2):

dataFrame['label'][i]=3

else:dataFrame['label'][i]=np.random.choice(3, len(df))+1

return dataFrame

Function prob above is given by

Function: prob()

def prob(val, mu, sig, lam):
p = lam
for i in range(len(val)):
p *= norm.pdf(val[i], mu[i], sig[i][i])
return p

Now, fucntion Maximization looks like

Function: maximization()

def maximization(dataFrame, parameters):

points_assigned_to_cluster1=dataFrame[dataFrame['label']==1] points_assigned_to_cluster2=dataFrame[dataFrame['label']==2] points_assigned_to_cluster3=dataFrame[dataFrame['label'] == 3]

percent_assigned_to_cluster1=len(points_assigned_to_cluster1)/float(len(dataFrame))

percent_assigned_to_cluster2=len(points_assigned_to_cluster2)/float(len(dataFrame))

percent_assigned_to_cluster3=1-percent_assigned_to_cluster1-percent_assigned_to_cluster2

parameters['lambda']=[percent_assigned_to_cluster1,percent_assigned_to_cluster2,percent_assigned_to_cluster3 ]

parameters['mu1']=[points_assigned_to_cluster1['x'].mean(),points_assigned_to_cluster1['y'].mean(),None]

parameters['mu2']=[points_assigned_to_cluster2['x'].mean(),points_assigned_to_cluster2['y'].mean(),None]

parameters['mu3']=[points_assigned_to_cluster3['x'].mean(),points_assigned_to_cluster3['y'].mean(),None]

parameters['sig1']= [[points_assigned_to_cluster1['x'].std(),0 ], [0,points_assigned_to_cluster1['y'].std()],None]

parameters['sig2']= [[points_assigned_to_cluster2['x'].std(),0], [0,points_assigned_to_cluster2['y'].std()],None]

parameters['sig3']= [[points_assigned_to_cluster3['x'].std(),0], [0,points_assigned_to_cluster3['y'].std()],None]

return parameters

Now that we have all the functions working, putting it together and running the code will result in the following results

Actual 2D Iris data sample

Three clusters from GMM algorithm

Modifying the same code for two clusters resulted in the following result after just two iteration

Two clusters from GMM algorithm

Hope, this post helped you

You can download the code from Github repository here for free

What to choose after 10th (SSC) ? check the several career options available

2017-07-02T22:33:00.000+05:30

hello brothers and sister,

Check the below poster to get to know the several career options after your 10th. List of courses available after 10th for science, arts and commerce fields. Also, check the videos for a detailed explanation of almost every individual course and their benefits along with disadvantages too. Very soon, I will also make a video on what to choose after 12th and the career options best fit for you. Until then, go through the video shared.

(click the image to download as well as to see the enlarged view)

Project: Vidhya-Spurthi

New Poster that covers exams and courses list for 10th and 12th

Project: Vidhya-Spurthi

(Color Version)

(Print Version)

List of Exams for 11th and 12th students

Downloads

Exam Lists for 11th and 12th students - Download PDFs, Images

Complete Posters for career selection after 10th and 12th

Course selection after 10th here (Hindi version)

Course selection after 10th here (English version)

Course selection after 10th here (Marathi version)

Course selection after 10th here (Tamil version)

Course selection after 10th here (Telugu version)

K-Means scikit implementation on Gaussian mixture sample data

2017-06-29T23:25:00.001+05:30

Hello there,

In this post, I've tried to apply a simple K-Means algorithm (in Python) to a dataset obtained from Gaussian mixture models of say n-mixtures. A very good introduction about K-Means is available here in wikipedia page and very good documentation on actual implementation of K-Means algorithm on Iris dataset along with the codes (in Python) is available in official scikit page here

Here, I've modified the code taken from scikit-learn documentation/tutorial section and used dataset that has been sampled from 'n' Gaussian mixtures having different parameters for each mixture.

Code begins

1. Importing necessary libraries and initial settings

import numpy as np

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

from sklearn.cluster import KMeans

2. Initialization of parameters

In this example, we consider data points being drawn from three different Gaussian models, considering two features. Since we are dealing with two features, the plots will be in 2D, visualisation of which will be good/clear. So, all the data points are for this example are in the form of (x,y). If you consider trying with say 4 features, then the data points might be represented in the form of (x,y,z,r) etc. Let us first try out with three clustering case. So, the initial input/setting for the K-Mean algorithm will be the centres of these Gaussians.

centers = [[1,1],[-1,-1],[1,-1]]

We also need to initialise the parameters for these three Gaussian distributions. Assuming that we give manual inputs, let us consider the following mean and variance settings

mu1 = [0,-2]

sig1 = [[2,0],[0,3]]

mu2 = [5,0]

sig2 = [[3,0],[0,1]]

mu3 = [3,0]

sig3 = [[1, 0],[0, 4]]

Note that sig here mean the variance of the model and they should be diagonal. In particular, the sigma matrices should be positive definite with non-negative elements to perform well. If the variance were considered negative, then results would be unsatisfactory. mu here defines the Mean of the gaussian distribution.

3. Sampling data from the Gaussian models

We consider drawing 100 data points from each Gaussian distribution. The code fro this would look like

X1,y1 = np.random.multivariate_normal(mu1,sig1,100).T

X2,y2 = np.random.multivariate_normal(mu2,sig2,100).T

X3,y3 = np.random.multivariate_normal(mu3,sig3,100).T

However the input to the K-Mean will not be in three different sets, but it has to be a single set, so we club them all to make a single array.

x = np.concatenate((X1,X2,X3))

y = np.concatenate((y1,y2,y3))

x and y will have dimensions (1L x 300L), but for K-Means fitting (or commonly, for any machine learning algorithm, we consider data in the from m x n where m is the number of samples and n is the number of features. So, altering our data set

x= x.reshape(300,1)

y= y.reshape(300,1)

Now that we have x and y data separately, it's time to join them together to form (x,y) format

X = np.column_stack((x,y))

labels = ([1]*100)+([2]*100)+([3]*100)

labels above will be used while doing scatter plots to visualise the data in different colors. First 100 data has been labelled as 1, next 100 data as 2, and the last 100 data samples as 3 as an initial setting.

4. Visualising the actual dataset

Before implementing any ML algorithm, it's always good to visualise the date. Let us do this

fig = plt.figure()

plt.scatter(x, y, c = labels)

Now that you have seen the initial plot, let's implement K-means using scikit-learn which is pretty straight and damn simple. c = labels) here is used to identify the label for each data and assign color accordingly

5. KMeans in Scikit-learn

estimator = KMeans(n_clusters=3, max_iter =100)

Above snippet says that estimator is a K-Mean implementation with no. of clusters being 3. After the K-Means initialization. We need to fit the model using the available data and then predict the labels for these data points.

esti_fit = estimator.fit(X)

y_predict = esti_fit.predict(X)

sklearn does the looping and for every iteration, labelling will get changed for some dataset and the algorithm stops when the mean error difference between the current mean and the previous mean is below some threshold.

6. Visualizing the clustering output

Finally, it's time to see how our K-Means has clustered the assumed sample data

fig = plt.figure()

plt.scatter(x,y, c = y_predict)

plt.title('Kmean for cluster size = 3')

As you can see, using scikit-learn library, implementation of Machine Learning algorithms are pretty easy except that you need to know how these algorithms actually work by going through the working theory, that runs inside the library. c = y_predict here is to grouup similar colors to the same labelled objects.

7. Outputs

Below shows the plots from the trial runs

Actual data sampled from three different Gaussian mixtures

Clustered data with n_cluster = 3

Clustered data with n_cluster = 2

Clustered data with n_cluster = 4

Below are few challenges that you can consider giving a try for learning purpose

Try changing the input settings - centroids, mean and sigma values
Try considering different clusters like k=2,4,5,8 etc
Try sampling less and/or more data from the gaussinas (instead of 300 as taken in this example)

You can download the code from Github repository here for free

Hope, this post helped you implement a very powerful unsupervised algorithm, yet with few lines of codes. Happy coding :)

What to do If I couldn't get job after doing Engineering ?

2017-06-18T17:57:00.000+05:30

If I'm not wrong, more than 50% of the Engineering graduates have no job opportunities in India, and, usually after their graduation, they have to face many hurdles like frustration, family problems, family and relative pressures, unable to bear the one common question question

"what are you doing now?"

Also, we might ourselves feel bad for not being placed in any company. If you're one among them, then maybe this post could help you in making you aware of some option available in order to get rid of the frustration of being jobless after BTech/BE.

But, before going through the possible options, I just wanted to bring out few facts on "why we didn't get placed?", so that, at least, at this point, we would know the exact reason behind our backfill or will try to guide our juniors or the freshies in preventing them fall into the same pit and sufferings as we are facing now.

Some possible reasons for not getting jobs:

You did your engineering from some random private institute which didn't offer proper placement facilities. This is the first reason why many of today's students are not able to get a proper seat. Is that right? well, that is true only to some extent! Let me tell you the truth - that this is only a fair reason. If you have performed well even in that institute and if you have scored proper percentages, then, you might have got offers from outside your colleges also - like walk-ins, online, LinkedIn etc. If your profile is good and your education backgrounds were good, then the possibilities of getting jobs from various sources would have been more.

You have poor family background and you couldn't get placement - this case happens sometimes. But, saying that I'm poor and because of some situations I couldn't get placement is like just an EXCUSE! If your financial status is not that good, then you should've been EXTRA-CAUTIOUS and should have given more focus towards studies from the day 1, instead what might we have done ? spent time on FB, chit chats, girl friend etc.

Think for yourself. You may ask "My college doesn't have placement what's my mistake?". Well, the actual mistake is that you didn't put your efforts before you joined engineering in private college. Imagine, if you've worked super hard and secured proper state entrance exams ranks during your 12th boards, then, you would have got several options and opportunities. You would have got seat in state government institutes that itself would have reduced the college fees burden to 2/3rd or even 3/4th of your private college fees. Is this not good? That way you could have lessen the burden on your parents, right? Even, most of the state government colleges have fair level of placement and so you would've got better placement offers. But instead, we didn't bothered getting ranks but didn't hesitated joining private institutes (which made your parents suffer interms of paying the huge college fees) and now being jobless we complain that our college has no facilities. Is this proper? Can't you have put effort earlier, (long before you joined btech) ?

3) Spent time for other matters

We get plenty of time for friends, TV's, whatssapp, FB etc and we even get time to make girl-friends/boy-friends and chat with them day and night, but when it comes to studying/reading or even doing a project, we feel bored and exhausted. The level of enthusiam that we put in the other activities are far higher than the level we utiize for studying. Am I wrong? Just give a quick recall and remember how many hours you spent everyday infront of books/laptop compared to how many hours you spent with mobile phones in hands and with the company of friends, raoming around for parties, movies, public places etc. Why is that we didn't showed interest in studying ? why didn't we keep other activities in limits ? Is that good to suffer after all the four years of relaxation/enjoyment rather than enjoying the rest of your life by working hard those minimal four years ? Afterall,

studying is the easiest job that one can get in their whole life!

agreed? Just think and understand the fact. Guide your juniors or friends properly.

You didn't had interest in studies, you prefered to chill out after just 2 years of hard work in 11th and 12th and now left with no option. Well, I can't comment on this because this is what you chose to be!

Was forced to take engineering even if you didn't had interest in it and now you couldn't do well during your studies. Well, I agree that this is one painful part of our lives as we might have forced to take because of family pressure or we ourselves have chosen engineering path as we might not have left with many options back then. The best thing in this case is to satisfy ourselves that after BTech we can do what we wished to do during our masters or mould ourselves to tune to the situations. Remember, there are millions out there who didn't got even this opportunity and we are at least lucky enough to get some path.

Something is better than nothing !

and in this way we can move forward. If you have design interest but did BTech, you still have the chance to do masters in design through CEED exam. This is just one example to tell you that options are there in future too, but, the key thing is we should not neglect what we are doing now! Whatever you do, try to put your good effort aiming at completing the task totally instead of doing only part of it with uninterest.

Above five cases are few of the several reasons for not getting jobs after your Engineering. I can't help but I've to mention the reason just to remind you the fact. It's not about bad luck or it's not that we were forced to do, but it's purely our personal choice. If we had enthusiam and will power to succeed and achieve things in life, we would have achieved anything!

Most importantly, we could have been serious during our studies. So, may be you can now guide your relatives, friends or even your juniors by making them aware of the possible down effects of chilling out during BTech or even before 12th and the down effects of not being serious in properly planning in upgrading our profile. We had plenty of time for learning softwares, improve programming skills, make projects etc, but we did very less or nill!

Now, coming to the actual topic - What can we do if we don't get job after engineering

Well, usually placements happen during the first sem of the final year or in the worst case during the earlier weeks of the second sem of final year. So, by the mid of our last sem, we would get to know whether we are in safe zone or not. So, in case if you sense like you may not be able to get placement/job, then you may plan for any one or several of the options below. I will think and try to add more options, but for now I think the below options mightt come handy to you

1. Internship:

One of the best option that one can choose is to plan properly and apply for internship offers in severaal institutes/colleges, companies or even abroad (if you can afford). Uusally for internship, the company (or some times the institute) will provide you supporting fund. So, if you can try hard (by making your profile/resume attractive) and succeed in getting an internship, then you can use the time for doing some projects.

This will help you in keeping you engaged and also connect you with company people and if your performance is good and if they liked your work, then, may be you will get the opportunity of upgrading to permenent employee (in case of company) or joining into degree (in case of internship in institutes). So, you will be having double advantage, you can show your intern work in your resume which adds value to your profile and at the same time get an offer from them. So, be on it.

2. Project Staff

Many Research institiutes (espacially IIT's, IISC and may be design institutes also) will have projects and so professors will be needing some temporary project stafffs to work on that projects. That will be like you will be paid monthly or weekly, and at the same time you may get the chance of converting into regular MS or PhD. So, this will come handy. All you need to do is go through the professors profiles in the institiute websites and write to them (mail them) asking him/her if he/she has some projects that he/she can give you.

But, before that you should be ready with your resumes as well as preferably a cover letter. Your cover letter should state properly your interests as well as your profeiciencies/skills. Change/modify the cover letter depending on the work domain of the professor inorder to attract him. I've seen plenty of people do this away after their BTech. After six months or one year of their projject work, they switch to regular masters program and so that way they kept themselves safe without having some gap. I think this is one of the best way of utilizing time especially when you are interested i ngoing towards tech and/or research.

3. Online Learning

There are plenty of courses available online on platforms like Coursera, Udacity, Khan academy etc. Try to take free courses by watching their videos. In that way build your profile and you can show in your resume the number of courses you did. Also, to be precise, doing courses which are trended/hot in the current scenario will be very good, and might fetch you with good career options. I agree that we are interested in core jobs, but frankly speaking even if you go to core jobs, you won't get satisfied as much as you expect.

So, if you are in full pressure, then whether it's IT or core, just take it, may be later once you complete one or two years, you may plan to switch. But mostly you will see the nature of work is mostly unsatisfactory in the current job/work scenario (whether core or IT) and so it's better that you don't miss the opportunity.

4. Join some other courses/porgrams

May be it's time to switch the track. If you are say design institute, then do prepare and give design based exams like CEED/NID etc. Or if you have any speciific interestes like Civils, MBA etc, look for the options available for doing these courses and plan from your last year to give them and do your best. May be changing the stream might reduce the frustration upon you. If you've interest, you may also try for GRE, CAT and other national/international exams

Some hot fields (2017)

Machine/Deep Learning
Data Science, Big Data etc
Data Analytics
Analytics
Computer Vision
Artificial Intelligence and many more

5. Programming/coding

Like I said earlier, it's ok to opt for IT field since not all jobs are satisfactory even if that's core. Even the most wished and top company works might not leave you with satisfaction. At the end of the day, you will feel like your potential is not being utilised effectively and you feel like you could have been given better responsibility. So, just to be flexible enough, it's good that every engineering student has some hands on coding skills especially on programming languages.

Some of the recommend languages and scripts (for all engineering fields)

C++
Python
R language

Additional for core fields: AutoCAD/ProE (for mech, civil etc), Matlab (for mech, EE, ECE, CS) etc

6. Building Profile

Just like a resume is used to show our identity, online professional presence is turning to be a very important platform for helping the recruiters find us. Linkedin is one such online network that helps us connect with professionals. If we maintain our profile properly - showcasing our extra and necessary talents, then the recruiters themselves will find us and check our interest in their company openings. Such is the advantage of having a very good profile in LinkedIn. So, do develop and keep searching for relevant jobs in their network, which his absolutely free.

7. Low paying Jobs

Sometimes it's ok to accept some jobs which pay very less, like some 10k etc, especially when your family financial status is not that good. During your job, you may try hard in finding other suitable option, but at least until you get some good job, you need to be confident and motivated and this is why I'm suggesting to go with even small earnings. Remember, without motivation and being frustrated, you might not perform well and may not be able to find suitable options. So, accept even small offers, but, keep looking for better options. This may take from 3 months to 2 years also, but it's worth being engaged than being idle.

8. Take some short term courses

If you're interested in pursuing further studies, you may plan to join courses for GATE and other exams including TOEFL, CAT etc. You may also try some certified courses which will be on paid basis but which might give you some specific proficiency in a field leading to jobs like say for example learning piping engineering software like Autodesk Plant3D etc. Some coaching institutes claim that they will give you coaching for a week or 3 months and finally provide you a job. Well, I don't want to say but be careful in choosing this option. Some might be fake claims and not that they can provide you job offers 100%. So, be careful before you spend.

_________________________________________________________________

That's it, above are the few options that popped in my mind as of now. If I get to know some more options, I will update here. Let me wrap by saying that unless you're not serious and have the will power to achieve, you may not be able to get good offers.

So, at least from now onwards try to be productive by performing well in whatever you take/do, be it is studies, training, job etc.

That is the way of toppers!

All the best from your bro :)

MS by Research in India - an overview and comparison

2016-08-21T16:05:00.000+05:30

Usually whenever we come across M.S. degree, we believe that it's a foreign course offered abroad for admission to masters. But, it's not a big surprise that even indian institutes are offering MS degree especially in some IITs. While both MS and M.Tech are masters programs, both have different course structures and differ a lot. I will try to give my views about the difference and advantages of MS over M.Tech as well as MS degree in abroad in this post. I'm currently pursuing MS (Research in Robotics) in Engineering Design department of IIT Madras and I've seen through the way MTech is compared with MS. So, I believe I can give better judgement in this regard. In fact, I'm enjoying this and I'm sure I might not have enjoyed much if I were to join any MTech course!

First thing to note is; MS is a Research based program and is basically meant to act as a platform to strengthen ones research skills and make one ready for their doctors (PhD). I can say it's like a mini PhD, just like you have minor projects in your B.E./B.Tech final years. MTech is more like a course program, an extension to BTech course, with more concern towards industry and career progress. You might have already known about the way B.Tech (or any UG course) structure is, it's more of book study with of-course some workshops and practicals, but it will just give an overview of several fields related to a particular stream and will not allow one to do extensive study on a particular topic, which is what one does in MS/PhD. I feel, because of overview-kind of study in India, we are seeing less specialized persons (what we call experts in that filed). In Research, one identifies/takes a problem related to a field/stream and works on various aspects of that.

So, it's like working on a specific topic of interest with some output/result at the end. I believe this way is much better than getting overview of subjects, we are in masters stage, and we still don't have to go through the overview kind of study which we can do by self-study. In fact, the biggest difference to mention between MS abroad and M.Tech in India is the structure that has been followed. MS courses in Europe and other counties (not including India) are industry related and deal with a specific filed of study, such that once the course is over, they can choose career related to that specific field. While it seems like having diverse knowledge is good, but it turns out at the end of the day that the student lacks in grip over a particular field or area of work. In other words, the study goes in theoretical context. So, I think MS in India will act as a kick starter to open up ones application/research capabilities, suitable for ones growth.

The other important disadvantage of doing MS abroad is funding and admission fees. Colleges fees (especially in US) are pretty high and funding/scholarships are not that easy to get, unless you hail from a rich family. I came across many IIT (Btech) guys whom got abroad opportunities/admissions but they didn't prefer to go, just because they couldn't get funding (even in Europe). Instead they spent some time waiting to get a direct PhD offers, which is funded sufficiently. Yes, PhD in abroad are funded pretty descent and is a good option. After MS in India also, one can choose this option. In fact, if in case one happened to do PhD in India, then they have the chance of doing PDF (Post Doc.) abroad for a span of 6-12 months with very good stipends. So, this is also another option that you can aim.

MS by Research in India opens wide scope and opportunities to prospect students. The advantages are

The student can choose a career, and can sit in placements just like MTech does with equal packages. Jobs are provided in some companies.
Some IITs in India allow conversion from MS to PhD allowing the student to complete both MS and PhD in very short duration (typically 5-6 years), while PhD in abroad will itself takes 5-6 years, and MS takes 3 years.
Stipend (equivalent to MTech stipend) will be provided
Student can go abroad and do their Research while being affiliated to Indian institutes, through any of the exchange programs offered by the institute
Student will get a broad idea of what actually Research is and will help as a stepping stone for their future research. This is especially helpful if the applicant is aiming to choose teaching (professor) as their career.
In fact, present scenario in Indian (top) IITs are different, we have adequate facilities/lab-equipment to work with, unlike in most abroad institutes where the problem of funding for any procurement exists. But I have to agree that IITs are still developing in terms of resource availability while some abroad institutes are well developed already!
Period of Research is flexible (esp in IIT Madras, not sure about other IITs), usual period is 2 years, but we can extend to 3 to 3.5 years. It all depends on choosing the right adviser/guide. If you are lucky to have a good adviser (esp in India), then thing will move smoothly, otherwise there are cases where frequent cold war happens between the student and the adviser just because of attitude problems!
Good academia connect
It has to be noted that there are several career restrictions after doing MS abroad (esp in US). If you are planning to land there, be careful and check the career provisions for international students in that institute
Course work in MS is less. Student have to do less subjects. Much emphasis is on Topic selection and Research. In MTech course work per sem will be more - it mean one has to take more courses, although in the second year emphasis will be given to Project which will not be to the level of MS Research most of the times.
Finally, after MS, doing PhD will be very easy, which is not the case with MTech, because the student has already undergone the stages of research, seminars, thesis making and conference/journal publishing.

Bottom line:

If you are interested in doing jobs (industry oriented career) and would like to overview courses rather than getting in depth on a topic, then go for MTech. If you have future plans of getting into academia (teaching profession), and have plans for PhD, then MS is one best option. If your family financial background is good and you want to get the honor/credit of having a degree from foreign institutes, or if you find suitable funding source for MS degree, then you may for abroad MS degrees. In either way, have plans for PhD abroad, or at least Post Doc. especially to be into academia. These are just my views. Hope you can make a decision now.

List of IITs offering MS by Research

IIT Madras
IIT Delhi
IIT Kanpur
IIT Guwahati
IISc Bangalore
IIT Kharagpur

I'm not sure about other institutes, please check individual websites to check if they offer MS or not.

Nututring your children - tips and best ways

2016-04-23T18:19:00.003+05:30

We made our children join schools and there are teachers to teach them as well as take care of their activities, then why we have to bother ? Is that required for us to care from our side (except food) ? Well, Learning from parents and the environment in which the kid raises are the first influencing factors in any/most child's life and so it's definitely required for us to attend and nurture our kids by way of proper monitoring and strategies, even if your kid joined a world-class international reputed school! There are several things that the children learn from you (parents) that they cannot learn from their teacher. Future of a child depends on what he/she learnt/did/exposed at his/her younger ages. So, after becoming teen/adult, the credits of whether the person is good/bad goes firstly to their parents!

Imagine the situation, where there are bunch of kids (not less than 10) in the class along with your kid, and do you expect a teacher to take care of children with special (individual) attention ? Even if they do, to what degree/level they can ? After all they are your children, and the care and the teachings that you give (that they learn from you) will have deep effects in their future.

Pic source : Familyand communityministries

Problem is not with the saying 'Panditha puthra parama sunta' (meaning: children of a wisdom person is not wisdom) - real problem is with our thinking and the ways of being OVER-disciplined, high expectation and aspiring immediate results from them. Just because you are a well renowned person, doesn't mean that your child will get into wiki page in his/her school age itself. you shouldn't be in that perception. You know how much time it took to get to a stage/position, then why you're expecting your child to be like you, getting name at such younger age like you got at this older age? If you're a musician, you're child need not be a musician, you are a teacher, your child need not necessarily be the topper of his class. If he/she is much enthusiastic about your profession and is following your footsteps with interests, then that's really great, no worries. But if it's other way, then also, you don't have to worry. May be he/she will prove to be good in some other fields. You just have to identify what he/she is good at and tune him or provide resources/studies for that so that they would shine in whatever efforts they take in the future.

Forget about what your colleagues or outside world thinks about your situation or speaks about you and your child. Let him pursue what he/she is good at, rather what outside world is expecting based on your profession, based on your expertise rather than on actual fact of what the child is actually good at and INTENDED TO BE!

Imagine the situation where you have a petrol car and you try to use kerosene, thinking that it would be cost effective, gives higher mileage, easily available and so on. Do you think the vehicle performs well ?, do you think it will give the same mileage as you expected or as previous fuel (petrol) used to give ? The actual fact is, the vehicle engine will itself get shut down and you might not be able to use the car just because its engine is damaged. You have the choice of getting it repaired with some expense, but even after that, it won't be performing very well as it used to perform earlier (before damage).

Compare this example with your kids case! If you try to impose restrictions on the kid or ask them to take different path than what they are intended to be or wanted to be, then may be their system might function badly, or their output will be decreased to a greater extent, and remember, engine might have the option of getting repaired, but there might be cases where once the kids desire is broken, then his enthusiasm/interests cannot be revoked. So, please make sure from your end that you are not imposing any restrictions on them for good cause!

Now that I've covered some motto for this session, let me give the actual points that might come handy for you in nurturing your kid.

Create an environment for them

Environment in which they grow strongly influence their mind, thinking, decision making, career selection, belief about either men/women etc. If the environment is HUNGER-FREE, full of desire-fulfilment, full of comfort, no-punishments etc, then that is the situation where there is very high possibility of child getting spoiled or not performing well because of having no vision for future or no care just because they would be in a perception that you are always there for anything!

When the environment is like exposure to family problems, HUNGER, optimized/less comfortable scenario, with reasonable punishments, then he/she will grow well. Thus is the case, when they are forced to realize about the situation and also adopt to them. This will help them learn very quickly about their inner strengths as well leave them some vision on what they need to do. If you don't wish to expose your kid to hunger, comfort less environment etc out of parental love, then at least do the following:

Often take them to homage, or tell them how, many children are hunger, home-less, parent-less, education-less, leading a pathetic life etc. I've explained this in depth after two headings below.

Some parents restrict children from mingling with children, many times not allowing to play with them too. Actually mingling is required to certain level, but in controlled manner, I mean they should make you well informed with whom they are moving, what they are doing etc, so that you can analyse and tell them with whom to move and whom to avoid. Avoiding doesn't mean hating, but asking them to keep far .....like hi for hi and bye and bye....that's it.

Don't Punish/beat always for small issues !

Beating is required at times to remind him/her about the importance as well as give him/her some internal fear so that they would grow disciplined and understand why you are insisting on the issue. If not now, at this age, they will understand and realize about the importance when they reach maturity level or when they were about to do such mistakes for what you tried to punish. But it's not like you punish them often, even for silly things, especially when the child does the mistake for the first time. If they are doing again and again after your repeated warnings, then dear parents ..... it's time for you to get hold of sticks, belts etc (any standard parents weapons) :)

Book Reading

Watching TV (cartoon, Discovery etc) is not bad. Actually children develop creative ideas watching cartoons, and, of course little entertainment is needed for them to keep their minds fresh and active. Remember, boring minds will be dull. By the way, don't make them sit besides you when you are watching crazy, boring/dumb serials :P I saw many kids speak like adults, because of watching serials. Elder people at home have the habit of watching serials and making their grand children watch too! This is really bad and they will learn undesirable things.

So, for god sake or for my sake :P, kindly don't make them sit if any of you or your elders are watching TV serials. It's usual that kids sit in front of TV's and watches cartoons 24 X 7. Not bad, ....... but instead, drive their interest towards reading stories (story books), especially inspiring moral stories as was used to available several years ago, like chandamama, tinkle, champak etc, rather than giving some useless marvel kind of comic stories which might be thrilling but has got little or zero moral in them. Story (moral, short stories) reading at an younger age will have drastic impact/influence on the child. I'm sure it has, I can assure you!

It brings discipline, importance, ideas, reading interest and other interests to the kid, apart from delivering values and making child thinkable. Best pack of stories that I recommend which brings fun, moral etc are Akbar Birbal stories, Tenali Ramakrishna stories, Vikram Bethal stories, Panchatantra animal stories etc. Marvel comics are good for thrilling and fighting but they are just dumb and has got less moral in it! I don't think you should be allowing your kid to give first preference to these stories rather than the stories that I mentioned above!

Awareness about lives of downgraded people

Forget about kids, even we - the elders, learn bad things fast (and faster) than good things. It takes few seconds for a man to prove himself as bad but it takes several years for the same man to turn as a good human. And this (turning into a right and good being) can be speed up if supported by parents, in proper manner with proper support, moral teachings, caring etc. Expose them to the pains and sufferings of surrounding society. Expose them and let them understand how people (especially kids) are suffering even for a meal once in two days or so. Often show them the critical situations faced by many desperate people surrounding us, either offline or online. There are plenty of good documentaries that can help you in this regard including youtube videos. Take them often to homages, Ashrams for the deserted (abandoned children) and for physically disabled.

Let them see how people are suffering even for a meal, how they are lucky enough that they got family and care takers, how lucky they are that they are getting sufficient food, education, clothing, shelter etc. You need not have to point all this every time. Showing the above will itself create a thinking and realization in the hearts of the kids, whom will be moved by the stories and conditions of poor. They will soon try to realize the importance of having education, importance of parents and their teachings etc. This in fact will have a greater impact throughout the end of their life. Remember, there's nothing like being human, and if your kid turn as a socially responsible person, then their story would definitely turn as a inspiring lesson for the coming generations and thus they live long in the form of name and in books. What else do you wish ? :)

Enjoy the naughtiness

There is nothing like enjoying the naughty behaviour of your children especially when they are between the age group of 0 to 12. You should enjoy their company and of course THEY SHOULD enjoy being in your company. There is no point of having a kid if you are only worried about their future but not worried about their inner feelings, their social and moral developments etc. One need not be good at education. Like I always say, education is just one thing and there are several things that can help a person in their lives. Like sports, their creativity, their art, their imagination, their marketing and advertising skills, their speaking/writing skills etc. IITs are considered as top reputed institutes in India.

Most of the parents put their kids into stress by joining training and coaching institutes right at the age of 12, and their stressful life continues throughout their education. Of course, many parents are successful in getting their children ranks to get seat in IIT. All is well, right ? now you know what the attitude and behaviour of these children are ? don't know ? Alright, check the below list where I pointed very very few points!

Some children can't even speak, walk properly, don't know how to eat also! and mostly will be in other world (don't know which world!)
Some got high analytical, remembering skills and are theoretical but mostly don't have common-sense
Some give no respect to fellow, and are always in a state of pride

Guess what ? many of these people might not survive in companies, that's why, they usually end up starting their own startups etc.

Why I took strain writing all the above stuff ? that's because I want to convey you that your part is very important in shaping your kid!

Common sense

Like I pointed above, common sense is very important for a child to grow as a successful person. Educate your child about some basic common sense in every day life activities like how to eat, how to respect elders/seniors, basic self defence steps etc. Educate them about environment, climatic conditions, how humans are responsible for the natural disasters happening around etc. Instruct them to be always be in saving mode, if not money saving, but resources! like saving electricity by switching off power appliances (light, fan etc) when not in use, saving/conserving water, how solar light is helpful etc.

If you have a girl kid, then it's very important that you turn them to be self defensive, thinkable, situation analysing etc by giving them tips and suggestion (now and then) on how to mingle, what to avoid, how to be careful, how to optimize, how to be brave enough to tackle situations etc. If possible, join them to basic self defence courses. Small small learnings brings big impact in their future, trust me!

Games

Many of us think that gaming is bad, but in actual, they are mind boosters and I think they ARE REQUIRED. Proper selection of games is needed. There are some dumb games that your kid don't have to play. But there are some really really cool and mind boosting games that improve analytical, imaginative, derivative, problem solving, aptitude and several other skills. It Keeps your child active and improve fast thinking/response behaviour. Even you may try your hands on some games and see how relax you feel after playing some of them for some minutes. If you play everyday, then your thinking will and abilities will likewise improve, needless to say the benefits to kids.

Two very very bad attitude from your side that definitely spoil your child! be aware and careful

Being Very very loose (not controlling your kid and letting them do whatever they wished even if it's wrong) till some part of your kids life (say until his/her 12-15) and suddenly turning to be more strict coz of netting seeing proper academic results, coz of getting complaints or not satisfied with the way they talk, the way they behave etc is a very very bad attitude from your side
Opposite of above, that is being very very strict during earlier stages, teen turning very vey loose after some part, is also a bad attitude that might spoil your child.

In any stage of your kids life, have control over them so that they will always be disciplined at least towards you! I've seen many elders >60, still fearing for their parents who are not in a position to even lift a stick ..... forget about beating :P. Reason is simple, their parents consistent control and monitor/care over them! Be in moderate way of the above two attitudes. Agreed?

Dressing - stylish is ok - but culture shouldn't be neglected - at least from South Indian perspective, make them learn that putting bottu ( or sticker ......) is a culture!

Possibility of behavioural changes of the child when they are exposed to HUNGER-FREE, comfortable, punishment-less, take/buy whatever you ask, over-studying, pride, teacher/elder blaming type etc are listed below. The child may exhibit many or all of the listed behaviours because of the above mentioned issues. There are cases where the child might turn as right human even when raised in the above mentioned environment, but very rarely!

Egoistic, full pride type
selfishness (his/her work is their first priority no matter what consequences are - for example loss to others, no use to others etc),
non-humanistic
Not caring type,
no respect to people,
arrogant,
Less socialising nature, introvert (for always study type)
Most fearing thing is some might turn up Pschycos :(

What can be done ?

Monitor your child regularly even if you decide to put them in hostels
Make him socialise from an earlier child age
If you're child is arrogant and not like listening to you. You should be very careful and should take proper steps , even if it demands minor punishments. If you don't take steps out of compassion, then their future might not be good (may not be correct always)
Let them play and mingle with children
If you've daughter then make her defensive type ...... able to tackle/understand situations. Prevent over-socializing especially in their teenage.
Counsel them directly/indirectly and understand what is his/her status, compared to back date
Ask him/her about their small interests/hobbies and try to help them fulfil.
Involve your child more in hands on works like building things, writing, drawing/painting, collecting things, making posters on social awareness etc
Save your anger and don't turn your work tensions or anger towards others on your child! It's the worst thing that spoils your child! be careful.....!
Forgive small mistakes and with smile, tell them that it is not proper. After all, they are children and they don't know what is right and what is wrong, unless somebody (especially you) tell them.
Help your child select/choose career/stream of study by considering his/her interests (by then you must have already known about your child), by asking him/her what they wish to do, and by putting your own analysis of what is best for them based on your experience with them.
Properly communicate them that something would be a better choice to them by telling them directly their goodness in that field or subject. Just a smooth recommendation from your side that will help your child think for himself and accept with what you suggest is right to a greater extent!
Think several times before joining them in hostels ! (I explained regarding this (in depth) at the end with a real life incident of my friend)
Take them to historic places, museums, art galleries, science fairs (check if their school has these facilities - if not, you may consider planning for outside trips). Do this often to boost their observation as well as make aware of outside world.
Introduce them to INTERNET, but make sure that you monitor what they are doing.
Ask them to start learning computer programming and see if their interest turns towards coding!

Let him/her learn priority things rather than brilliant things! Like don't ask her/him to learn driving, instead ask them to learn swimming. Some thing similar to this, make his focus towards priorities again not forcefully but through proper explanations and examples.

Remember - children DO LISTEN to us when said properly, nicely, and of course in caring way. So, if you try this from your kids kinder age, then his chance of growing as a better person will be very very high. But if it seem like your kid is turning like NOT-LISTENING type, and turning like 'what I wish is needed for me in any case' by way of crying, not listening to your kind words, skipping food etc, then definitely you need to do some extra effort of beating them or punishing them mildly !!! Small small punishments are of course required in many cases. You don't have to provide them whatever they wish like if they demand chocolates for every hour, you know the consequences, so at situations like this you need to show your control over them!

Answer their questions patiently

Don't be rude by overthrowing their doubts. I saw parents getting irritated with their kids queries. Don't discourage them and make them stop questioning. Questioning is an art and especially children learn from the answers that they receive for their doubts. Remember that the doubts they are ask are natural and not just asked for name sake. So, you must try to answer them even if it seems silly question. It might be silly to you but must be a great learning to them. The more doubts they are asking, the more intelligent they are in thinking, and you don't have to suppress that behaviour of your child like I said above.

Introduce children to Ted talks, and involve/take them to expos (like robotic expo, science/book fair's etc) - Drive their interest towards several of these activities so that they keep themselves busy with creative, self-motivating, inspirational, thought-provoking, and any mind-involved activities largely spending much of their weekends with these activities (apart from playing with you or fellow children).

Here are some activities that you can ask your kid to do

These activities are helpful for you to understand what your kid is good at so that you can provide more resources related to that for your kids development. These activities are helpful for your kid to understand what he/she is good at, what options are available (making them do many unknown activities will expose them to those new activities, so that they come to know about that as well as their interest level towards it).

Paper crafts,
Pencil drawings
Sketch and color drawings - (Ask them to draw with pencil/sketch/pen by giving them a simple picture, and also ask them to draw something that they know or some kind of scenery out of their imagination)
Ask them to write answers to your own questions. Question examples - what else can we do after using water bottles (multiple uses) without throwing, what can be done with used news paper
Give them writing exercises. ex - Ask them to write about their school, write about their trip if any, write about their friends etc. Ask them to write about a lesson (say a chapter in English lesson) in their own words. Review what they did and appreciate them even if there are some mistakes or faults. Thereafter suggest them improvements what can be added, what shouldn't be added, how to write etc. Now ask them again by giving different situation.
Origami
Constructing things with Lego, builders etc
Make them focus more on pictogram, image based questions, puzzles, maths (basics and geometry), shapes, colors etc.

By the way, keep your kids super thin ...... ya, you heard it right, I mean super thin, not like skinny bunny .... but thin enough to keep them active. Don't show your care in terms of how fat you make them turn. The more fat your kid means doesn't mean the more care you took. Okay, I agree, the you took more care, but you cared for turning them lazy :P

Don't you agree ? Remember parents, its easier to gain weight any time later but it's difficult to loose weight once it picks up. You might know this fact very well. I guess, now you will agree with me.

Finally,

Hostel joining ?

(A small real life story of my friend)

Many parents do the MISTAKE of joining (throwing ?) their children in a reputed hostel at an younger age (even before their 2nd class), thinking that he/she would grow disciplined, would always be engaged with studies, might get good communication skills, or just because both the parents are working and they didn't get time to look over their child. This, I think, is very ...... very bad idea and might result in bad future for their children. If not true in all cases, but there are several stories of children getting spoiled and negatively depressed (many more to say) around us. Let me tell you the real story of one of my friend, currently doing research at IIT Madras, although not from the same department, but we joined together.

He hailed from a small village of Bihar, and their parents along with their relatives and village neighbours, all wished that he would turn up as an IPS officer or kind of Indian service related officer in higher ranks, who can serve the nation just like some of his family elders did. So, since that village doesn't have proper study facilities, their parents and relatives decided and joined him in a sainik school as a hostel resident, far from his home. My friend (being a kid) was wondering what is happening with him as he was just in his 4th class. He said he missed them a lot and went into negative depression many times, cried secretly in bathrooms etc.

His grades was good before he entered hostel life, but immediately after joining hostel, he was one among the bunch of students getting least scores. His parents was called and questioned by school authorities, and their parents/relatives saterd pouring fire on him saying that 'you are draining all our hopes, we are spending on you even if it's beyond our limits but you are spoiling all the plans .......' and so on. Imagine, what a small kid (who is hardly in his 10's) can know all about this ? why someone has to have that much high expectation without knowing the interests and skills of kids ? Those are play class ages and if you expect them to be in IIT level at their 7th standard (or so), then ya ...... may be chances are there to become a highly talented children but, likewise more chances are there that he/she will become mad! trust me, not all can survive that intelligence and load at that small age group.

Education is required, I agree, but most importantly moral values, culture and of course common sense is required for any individual to lead a successful life. Ok, sorry, let me get back to the story. This kid (my friend) started even more naughtier and dumb day by day. And yes, let me tell this too! This kid along with his two other intelligent kids made their minds to leave the hostel and ran away ....!!! sad, isn't it ?

He explained to me that they planned for several days and one fine day, they ran away from the school play ground while in PT period, without any ones notice and disappeared in the nearby forest which led to a hill. Their plan was to cross that hill and reach a nearby town (that they remembered while coming to school from home), and with the help of their savings, which they thought would be sufficient to get train tickets to their home (he said that they actually had money that could have bought them some choclates :P).

See, how depressed the kids must be....... that they took risk of leaving the school by themselves. Ok, they travelled some 20 mins, and he said that they can see their school and play ground with children playing, just as the size of ants! I mean they ran to a far distance. Then these intelligent kids stopped and one of them (not my friend :P) started saying that 'if we get caught, then we will have to face lot of punishments .....' and like that they started discussing and without any thought or without even knowing what they are upto, started running towards their school, and within few minutes after lots of hits with trees and after getting wounded by way of falling several times while running back, they at last reached their school ground and joined the others silently.

That's the story, and I have to tell you this to remind you the thinking of children. Their mind are faultless and innocent and they do what they think is right. They don't realize that something is wrong unless they realize themselves after they do or someone tell them smoothly. Although, not everyone are able to understand, but this is what most kids are at. So, next time, when you think of putting your kid in hostels, think twice, thrice ....... hundred times or even thousand times before you do!

That's it for today, hope you didn't get bored with my lengthier writing. Actually, I have two selfish reasons for writing this particular article.

I want the environment around me to be positive and successful so that I can get inspired by it and do more! This is possible if today generation is growing well in responsible manner.
Writing might make me a better person!

See you again.........!!!

Jobless ? Sitting at home ? Several options for you ......

2016-04-10T19:27:00.000+05:30

Hello friend,

Before listing out the possible options for you, let me write something relevant, to motivate you. I apologize for the long writings, but I think it's worth sharing here :)

It's a historic belief that education is the identity of a person. Education is not the only platform to judge a person. Having a degree and getting distinctions is not the only criteria in deciding whether you are knowledgeable or not. Trust me, no one is perfect in every thing. Studying in top institutes (for ex. IIT for Indians) doesn't mean that he/she is far superior in thinking, creativity, fastness, getting chances etc. Everyone has their own ups and downs. The only thing is we need to figure out which things we are good at (sports, arts, creativity, speaking/writing, acting, directing, entrepreneurship, business, strategist, biologist etc) and this is possible only if you TRY. Unless you don't try, you won't come to know whether something is fit to you or not.

Source : Politicaloutcaste

There are several reasons for not getting a job, or being at home - your college has no proper placement cell, recession, or the companies that you visited is not fit for you, you're married and have children, have family burden etc. Fault is never always from your side, but many factors accounts. Well, not having a job or not clearing or getting higher ranks in competitive exams usually end up either in making you wait till 6 months or 1 year, during which we might end up in a state of frustration. Listening to the words or so called advices of Your surroundings (especially your relatives and sometimes may be your own parents) start pinching you. You yourself might get bored doing no productive work at home and for depending on someone for living! and you might feel sad just because your friends are in high paying jobs, even though you feel like you are no inferior to them.

Well, friends, let me remind you that being idle and having free time are of course kind of advantage to you.

Guess why ? ............ Alright, listen !

Being idle without any job or after graduation is the time when you evoke your hidden talents. It's actually an opportunity to you to explore your strengths/capabilities, to find alternatives, to make you search through and learn unknown things and also to help you master the power of tackling hard situation. If you cannot face that kind of situation, then you may not be able to do a job, or you may not bear your fiancée in future :P. One need to be patient and should understand that, the more you wait, it means something good/better is waiting for you. You didn't get a job - probably that job is not fit for you, that's why! or something better option is waiting for you. Remember guys, it takes time to achieve success in life and is not an one step process.

But wait ........ all the above things that I'm telling you is not possible if you procrastinate all the time and spend time watching TV's or just roaming around trying no other activity! If you're like that, then you must/need/HAVE to change from now. Make use of your time. Wasting time is the best 'worst thing' that I ever saw. This is the time you need to be more cautions and if don't utilize it (time) properly, then you may end up continuing where you are! sorry for this but it's true. You really need to do something without wasting your time even if it doesn't help in your career growth. Keeping yourself motivated by engaging with several productive activities is the key thing to get you away from frustrations as well as help you unleash your opportunities. In many cases, build your own door instead of waiting some opportunity to knock your broken doors!. It's ok if you've wasted your time during studies, but its not ok to do so while being idle! trust me.

So what to do ?

You got plenty of options to keep you productive, help you grow and master new skills, as well as get hands on experience with several of your already known, but hidden skills. So that the way you keep yourself engaged, will itself kick the (so called) frustration and you will be amazed with the results and you will really thank god for letting you idle for some part of your life! Even viewers (parents, relatives, friends etc) will be amazed with your productive work. So, below are the topics that you might want to try if you are not preparing for any competitive exams and have no pressures from home for jobs etc. Even if you are appearing for any competitive exams but got plenty of time to spend, then you might consider doing few things as a hobby to help you keep positive and fresh!

Key note

If you're seriously aspiring for any competitive exams and you don't have free time, then you really have to focus on that exam only, instead of trying any other thing. This is for those whom have time or can spare time for their career development as well to establish an identity. Below I have listed what I know

1. Online free courses (MOOC)

The best free source for subject knowledge and for getting expertise on a specific filed is through online courses. A big hearty thanks to a friend of mine - Chaitali Patil, who suggested me to take courses. She gave a hint of what it is and then when I started exploring topics, I couldn't resist stopping that. Back then when I was sitting at home in 2014, she introduced me to online courses. I started taking courses one by one and soon within 3-4 months, I completed 15+ courses achieving free certificates (statement of accomplishments (SOA)) from the universities, which you can see here in my LinkedIn profile - Thanks to her again and that is the power of online presence and network. You get to know good amount of knowledge or you yourself can act as a source of knowledge to others. That is why I never hesitate to share what I know because many could get benefited out of it like I got benefited from my friend.

The first and best thing you can consider is doing some online courses. There are countless courses available online on diverse topics from many reputed institutes, from around the globe. Topics range from basics to advanced studies covering what not ? almost all fields of studies. Good part is more online courses are available for current hot research and high paying fields. I will cover the list of top areas that is highly paying (and that has demand in the future) in my upcoming posts. But, for now, do search through the online platforms for the courses and enjoying being a part. I have listed best online learning platforms that I know below. But note that unfortunately most of them stopped offering free certificates, yet you can access all the videos and take part in course. Still, since utilizing time is important by gaining expertise/knowledge in the field, I would recommend you to take them (free courses, not paid ones!) even if you don't get certificates.

Coursera website

Udacity website

edX website

MIT open courseware

(You can google more)

Even now, being in IIT institute, I mostly rely on online courses instead of class courses for my research and studies. I wish they would start again offering SOA/certificates to encourage free education and for your benefit. You know what, they do add value to your profile/resume and we certainly get credit out of it. After updating my profile in LinkedIn with these SOAs, I got offers from top MNC institutes, but since I'm studying now, I didn't took them seriously!

2. Don't do specific, be diverse

Doing courses that is related to your field is ok, but be diverse and do studies or work on other closely relevant or not related but highly relevant/required fields. Like say Sustainability studies, climatic and Energy studies, alternatives, management and strategic studies, health care, finance, psychology, Leadership, entrepreneurship and humanitarian studies, marketing, team playing, communication, design, biology (this one is really specific to medical guys), computer science, decision making etc. This will help you get leadership skills and of course many companies love to see them in your profile. They expect you to be a managerial person with diverse knowledge especially concerned to social welfare and future thinking kind. So, try your hands trying new things and see yourself the beauty in it!

3. Internship

If you're a student and waiting for job or have time before getting through admissions, then internship is definitely a good option to keep yourself engaged. You can take internship by approaching to any institutional professors, industries/companies, start-ups, offices, any teaching institutes and many more. Doing internship related to your study domain is recommended although working on other domains are secondary. In case of India, if I'm not wrong, all the top central institutes (especially IIT's are offering summer internships with stipend! but with certain eligibility conditions. Here is an example from our institute - IIT Madras Summer Fellowship Programs

4. Don't be in earning mode, be in learning mode!

Well, I've seen many (especially B.Tech/BE engineering students) doing teaching jobs in private institutes for some small earnings. I agree, its a cool idea. If your family has some financial problems, then having a temporary teaching jobs or joining any organization with less pay (like Rs. 6000 pm) is ok for some months. But, you should not make it your permanent job. Earning few bucks is not meant for you. Just by compromising and adjusting and moving along what is happening shouldn't be your nature.

While doing these temporary jobs, have plans and look for options or even studies/training that will help you advance in your career or life. So, never think these small jobs as your permanent sources (if you have calibre and are willing to face), instead wait for the right time to beat the competition and reach your desired zones. Till then be in learning mode and push yourself beyond the limits either to cracks exams or to identify your skills/alternatives.

5. Blogging and Social Networking

Ahhh ..... here comes my best buddy ..... blogging. I never thought I would be writing this kind of lengthy paras. Back then, when I understood that I have to leave my job and pursue higher education, I wondered what to do till my admissions. Then somehow luckily I tried my hands on blogging (My first blog - Stuff You Look blog - Design exams resources, tips and guide) which was my long desire (but earlier couldn't tried because of fear). Slowly, I started sharing what I know and what I felt is useful to at least few out there, and you know what my first blog is a big hit helping many students with their design exam preparations in self study phase. I appreciate my own attitude of maintaining patience, by waiting instead of expecting immediate results. Blogging/writing takes time to master.

Learn my guide on - Step by step procedure to build fre blog in blogspot

Remember it takes years for a seed to turn into a strong tree and there are no short cuts for instant success! Blogging helped me know my writing skills (forget about my poor grammar even now :P, but I feel my grammar has improved to some extent compared to what it was when I started writing).

Write/share whatever you know, whatever you are good at and whatever you wish is insufficient and needed by many. It can be about studies, life, health, photography, women, politics, art, reviews, technology, science, novels, stories, gadgets, sports, books, quotes, beauty tips, how to's (how to write English, how to drive a car, how to procrastinate or avoid procrastination :P) etc. what not......anything. It's your call and you're free to use free platforms. You know what, if you're content (what you share) is useful and is attracting many people, then you can also make ways of earning a good fortune from blogging, seriously!

I know many bloggers, some were talented coders, some were doing highly paid jobs in MNCs, some were employees etc whom left their jobs and made blogging as their primary source of income. (example ? - check this blog - Shout Me Loud). Probably, they must have found satisfaction in what they are doing and are self employed! instead of being under a bossy hierachy - listening to the firing words of bosses as in corporate companies.

But, I'm not telling you to do same, I mean leaving job and start blogging. It can be your hobby, your extra source of fun, income and the biggest thing is ............ it is the best source of network! having links with people. I mentioned about my friend Chaitali Patil above right ?, and who do you think she is? my classmate .... nope!, relative .....nope!.....then?, she is one of my online blog friend. Now, you must have understood the beauty of having social network either through blogging or other way. Don't you agree that the info she shared about online courses brought me (and probably to you too!) fortune?

So, apart from blogging, start having a strong community/network, either with a professional network of related field or with any others, using social media like LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook etc. Take part in discussions (in twitter) and search through groups (in FB and others) to gain knowledge of what they are posting about your related fields or new things that you don't know but that interests you. Share your ideas as well for other gain.

Well, my blog might feel bad if I share/speak only about others and not about me :P consider my story as also a success one too. But the only thing is, I use different metric to rate success. Bloggers/business people use factors like income and the number of page views per day as their metric but I use number of people benefited and the satisfaction that I got, as my own metric. I'm not serious in making money from blogs (by including popup ads or giving wrong ad link), but instead my first intention is spreading of what I know! Ahh .... see the cheerful face of my blog, seems like it's happy now :)

6. Experimental

Use the free time as your experimental gateway to experiment on something that you felt like having a fruitful results like say blogging just as I discussed, start-up ideas, collaboration etc. You can do experiments also on say music, sports, software usage, programming/coding, digital art, hands on experiments with mobiles etc. so many things you can try.

7. Entrepreneurship, online business and eCommerce

Like I mentioned earlier, many people (like me :P) don't like working under a boss or to be an employee. Entrepreneurship is the best option for them. If you have some business plans, then use your time and start making plans for it, like finding sources of funds, how to set-up things, procure, human resources etc. Remember it takes time and guts to start a business! and one should be ready to accept risk or face any consequences. Alternatively many do a backup being in business. Survey about your interested fields and check the possibilities, latest trends and competitors. Do a thorough investigation/search and see if you can be an entrepreneur. At least, trying and investigation will help you unleash your managerial skills.

Business doesn't always mean you have to have men power, doesn't mean to invest on it heavily etc. It can be small scale to large scale. Couple of days ago I read an interesting story in YouStory website. A 22 year young man left his MNC company and started (along with his brother) an online selling platform where they make customized products with 1 lakh rupee initial investment. Their turn out was 34 lakhs in the first year itself! I was amazed reading this.

You can get inspiring social and entrepreneurial stores in the below two blogs

Your Story

Better India

There are numerous options available. Like for example, you can use platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, ebay etc to create your own account for selling things online sitting at home! There will take care of collecting product from you and delivering it to the customer (logistic) as well as collect money. You need to take care of packing and they charge some amount like say Rs.10 per package, something like that. Women who wish to create their own brand can think something like this. Here is a motivational video on how this works that I found in Amazon webpage

You may also open your own blog, link with online eCommerce service providers (whom take care of logistics as well as create a portal for online money collection) other than amazon, flipkart etc and have total control on your business.

Here is a women from Panache Studio who came to IIT Madras last week as part of some function. She is currently one of the branding entrepreneur in India. FYI and motivation.

As, you can see, there are numerous options available to be an entrepreneur. All you need to do is come up with a proper business idea and execute it, if you're a really interested. In fact PM N.Modi released a new venture, where startups gets loans on three years interest free basis. Some 2000 crores (I guess) were sanctioned for this purpose. You can check the details here - Pradhan Mantri Yojana

What can we think of selling online

Answer is almost anything. It could be books, gadgets, accessories, appliances, garments/wears, products, art/paint, gifts etc. You can make your own idea of say design your own T shirt etc. Just like the 22 years young guy, who did his unique business like I mentioned above.

7. Social Entrepreneurship

Social Entrepreneurship ? how different is that from entrepreneurship ? well what I understood is any startup or self work that aims/tries at economic development, for social/environmental causes are termed as Social Entrepreneurship in which case revenues/profits are secondary only. In this case, scaling/measuring metric is mostly in terms of the impact that the idea bring to the social causes and say for ex. number of people/animal etc taht got benefited from the idea. Earnings are there but mostly to sustain the company/startup/organization etc. Where as, usual Entrepreneurship is a self esteem business model, with primary focus on profits, gains, shares and growth in terms of market, business, competition etc.

Social Entrepreneurship is a very hot area which is mostly evolved coz of the passion of the individual towards economic growth and human/social welfare. Making a change and helping in sustainability is the key motto of SE. If you are in India or in any developing part of the world, then you have greater scope and wide opportunities to become a social entrepreneur. Reason ? because, you can identify lots of social problems that is not solved or partially solved or neglected. You can come up with your own ideas or ideate from already existing methods/ideas to find some solutions and make it a model/product. Indian Government is helping social entrepreneur in all possible respects by funding/incubating etc. Actually, any social entrepreneur is warmly welcomed from all parts of the nation and holds the highest pride of being helpful to the society as a whole. I attended UKISEEN Conference on SE here at IIT Madras and most delegates were from UK, and I came to know from them they already did some kind of internship, projects around different places of India. After returning back, I did an internet search to understand the scenario, and I learnt that most of the foriegn nation SE mostly work in places like Africa, India, Bangladesh etc, the first three being their major concern. Why do you think they are landing at these places ? For humanity ? ............. yes of course, it is, but wait .......... other reasons also adds. They didn't find the need there, and most importantly they could spot lot of OPPORTUNITY in terms of development, idea generation as well as work.

So, if someone from outside are able to identify as well as implement ideas, can't we do ? So, my questions is, are you going to be a social minded person ? ......... Probably you should! The two links (yourstory, BetterIndia) that I provide above are the best hubs for having lots of inspirational stories. Go through at least three stories and see how social entrepreneurs vision are helping many deserved/helpless for better tomorrow.

8. Freelancing

Freelancer is a person who is self employed and who takes short assignments/works from any source (online/offline) complete it, and earn money for the work done. Freelance is a kind of temporary agency and work is in his/her control, whether to work or not he/she decides and if took, he/she commits to complete it. In other words its a part time job and anybody can try this - including those who are in job. Women after their marriage takes up freelancing jobs especially online writing. Freelancer doesn't need to be a brand, no investment is required most of the times and so on.

Below paras are sourced from Wikipedia

Fields, professions and industries where freelancing is predominant include:
music, journalism, publishing, screen writing, film-making, acting, photojournalism, cosmetics, fragrances, editing, photography, event planning, event management, copy editing, proofreading, author editing, indexing, copy-writing, writing, computer programming, web design, graphic design, website development, consulting, tour guiding, post-secondary education, video editing, video production, translating, illustrating etc

9. Startup

Startup is similar to entrepreneurship, difference is that startup can be social or economic development related, or to improve brand or person value or create so called a identity around the world, with not that much care about returns. Here also passion is what that motivates and drives many people to build their own. Here is a social entrepreneur (startup) who developed a eco-friendly stove for rural people that releases almost no smoke and is easy to use.

10. Online Marketing

One big thing that is driving the world is marketing, be it is social media marketing, content marketing or online marketing. As the data is growing and as the usage of internet by people is increasing, there is a strong need for marketing strategy for every company, organization, institutes, and even for individual. Jobs openings for marketing especially online marketing are always there, and you can also learn marketing techniques just for your future career growth, for your current/future business plans etc. So, have a presence in the online world and develop your value!

11. Portfolio

If you're not willing to engage in any online platforms and is concerned more about jobs or career and if you're from art background or wanted to land in design based companies or do design courses, then utilize your time making design/art/digital works, so that it could be included in your portfolio. Your portfolio speaks about your skills! Use social media like Pinterest, devianart, Behance etc.

12. Support for resume

All the above idea that I gave like online courses, blogging, extra experimental works like art, writing, programming etc will add value to your profile and you can proudly show them in your resume to get advantage in career growths.

Additional video - Journey of Harsh as an entrepreneur

I guess, you enjoyed reading this lengthy post and if this is not useful to you, and if you find someone who are jobless or need some motivation, then please do let him/her know about the alternate options available, that you got to know today, so that you will became a role model for him/her :)

- Good luck for your start :)