1. 'Rainbow', directed by Nagesh Kukunoor: Hetal Gada won the best actor award in Competition International Live Action - Adult Jury category for her memorable performance in the film.

2. Tamil film 'Yellow Festival', directed by Kamal Sethu, was selected as the best short film in Competition International Live Action - Adult Jury category.

3. The best feature film award went to 'Blue Mountains' by Suman Ganguly in the Competition Asian Panorama - Child Jury category.

Source: krishmovies.com

4. The best short film award went to 'Chinese Whispers' in the Competition Asian Panorama - Child Jury category.

5. In the Competition Little Director - Adult Jury category, which focused on children in the age group of 13 and 16 years, 'Hue am I?' by Arya Ganguly was judged the best.

6. Along with Arya’s film, 'The Silenced Siren' by Siya Chandrie was also declared the best film in the Competition Little Director - Adult Jury category.

Source: cfsindia.org

7. 'A dream of Apara' made by Abha Naktode got a jury mention with a certificate.

8. In the Competition Little Director - Adult Jury category for films made by children in the age group of six and 12 years, 'A rainy day' by Rohit Deepak Shivgan won an award.

9. In the same category, 'Hook' by Aastha Sudhir won the award too.

Like this story? Or have something to share? Write to us: contact@thebetterindia.com, or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter (@thebetterindia).

If you’ve bought yourself a DSLR and, after unpacking it from the box, you are intimidated by the number of buttons and dials, and by the thickness of the manual, it can be very tempting to put the manual down, flick it onto ‘Auto’ and start shooting.  Whilst that is fine for some, it may not be long until you crave the creative control that inspired you to purchase a DSLR in the first place, but where do you begin? 

If you consider yourself a beginner who is unsure of how to make the most of your camera, this post is designed for you.  It’s intended to be a brief, a one-stop shop to help you take your camera off auto, and take control of your DSLR.  It isn’t intended to be a replacement for your camera manual, so will not explain every last setting in great depth, but will cover enough of the basics to get you in control of your camera, and give you the key topics to go back to your manual to read.

The topics covered in this post are:

1. Shooting modes
- aperture priority
- shutter priority
- program
- manual
2. ISO
3. Completion of the ‘exposure triangle’
4. Metering
- exposure compensation (+/-)
5. Focussing
- focussing modes (AF-S/AF-C)
- focus points
6. File size/types
- raw vs jpeg
7. White balance

Which should be more than enough to get you on your way.  So let’s begin…

1. Shooting modes

The best place to start is with shooting modes.  The shooting modes will most likely be found on a dial labelled with ‘auto, Av, Tv, P, M’ and maybe more.  Selecting a shooting mode will determine how your camera behaves when you press the shutter, for example, when ‘auto’ is selected, the camera will determine everything to do with the exposure, including the aperture and shutter speed.  The other modes, ‘Av, Tv, P, M’, are there to give you control:

Don’t worry if your mode dial looks a little different; different manufacturers use different abbreviations for the shooting modes.  Your mode dial may have the letters ‘A, S, P, M’ (instead of Av, Tv, P, M), yet they all function in the same way.  Below, I have given each abbreviation for the given mode.

Aperture Priority (Av or A)
Aperture priority can be thought of as a ‘semi-automatic’ shooting mode.  When this is selected, you as the photographer set the aperture and the camera will automatically select the shutter speed.  So what is aperture and when would you want to control it?

The aperture is the size of the opening in the lens through which light is allowed to pass whenever the shutter is opened – the larger the aperture, the more light passes through.

The aperture is measured in ‘f-stops’ and is usually displayed using an ‘f-number’, e.g. f/2.0, f/2.8, f/4.0, f/5.6, f/8.0 etc, which is a ratio of focal length over diameter of the opening.  Therefore, a larger aperture (a wider opening) has a smaller f-number (e.g. f/2.0) and smaller aperture (a narrower opening) has a larger f-number (e.g. f/22).  Reducing the aperture by one whole f-stop, e.g. f/2.0 to f2/8 or f/5.6 to f/8.0, halves the amount of light entering the camera.

Aperture is one of the most important aspects of photography as it directly influences the depth of field – that is, the amount of an image that is in focus.  A large depth of field (achieved by using a small aperture (large f-number)) would mean that a large distance within the scene is in focus, such as the foreground to the background of the landscape below.

An aperture of f/13 was used here to give a large depth of field, ensuring that the whole image, from the foreground grasses to the background mountains. was sharp

Whereas a shallow depth of field (achieved by using a large aperture (small f-number)) would produce an image where only the subject is in sharp focus, but the background is soft and out of focus.  This is often used when shooting portraiture or wildlife, such as the image below, to isolate the subject from the background:

A large aperture of f/4.5 was used to capture this water vole, against a soft, out of focus background

So when using aperture priority, you can get complete control over your depth of field, whilst the camera takes care of the rest.

Shutter Priority (Tv or S)
Similarly to aperture priority, this is another ‘semi-automatic’ shooting mode, though in this instance, you as the photographer set the shutter speed and the camera will take care of the aperture.  The shutter speed, measured in seconds (or more often fractions of a second), is the amount of time the shutter stays open when taking a photograph.  The longer the shutter stays open, the more light passes through to the sensor to be captured.

You would select a short shutter speed if you wanted to freeze a fast moving subject, such as shooting sports, action or wildlife, for example:

A very fast shutter speed of 1/4000th sec was used to freeze the motion of this grouse in flight

You would use a long shutter speed if you wanted to blur a moving subject, for example water rushing over a waterfall (slower shutter speeds will require you to put the camera on a tripod to ensure the camera is held steady whilst the shutter is open):

To capture the motion of the waves, and render the water with a soft, milky texture, a shutter speed of 6 seconds was used here

So whilst you worry about what shutter speed you need for a given photograph, the camera will determine the appropriate aperture required to give the correct exposure.

Aperture and shutter priority shooting modes may be semi-automatic, meaning that some may deride their use because they’re not fully manual, however they are incredibly useful modes to shoot in that can give you enough creative control to capture scenes as you envisage them.

Program (P)
Program mode is almost a halfway house between the semi automatic modes of aperture/shutter priority and full manual control.  In program mode, you are able to set either the aperture or shutter speed, and the camera will maintain the correct exposure by adjusting the other one accordingly, i.e. as you change the aperture, the shutter speed will automatically change, and vice versa.  This gives you additional freedom that using either aperture priority or shutter priority cannot give without switching between shooting modes.

Manual (M)
Manual mode is exactly what it sounds like, you are given full control over the exposure determination, setting both the aperture and shutter speed yourself.  There will be an exposure indicator either within the viewfinder or on the screen that will tell you how under/over exposed the image will be, however, you are left to change the shutter speed and aperture yourself to ensure you achieve the correct exposure.

Practically Speaking: as a first step to taking your camera off ‘auto’, aperture priority and shutter priority modes offer two very simple ways to start to understand how the different setting impact your images and are a perfect starting place for learning how to use your camera more creatively.

2. ISO

ISO is a measure of how sensitive the sensor of your camera is to light.  The term originated in film photography, where film of different sensitivities could be used depending on the shooting conditions, and it is no different in digital photography. The ISO sensitivity is represented numerically from ISO 100 (low sensitivity) up to ISO 6400 (high sensitivity) and beyond, and controls the amount of light required by the sensor to achieve a given exposure

At ‘low’ sensitivities, more light is required to achieve a given exposure compared to high sensitivities where less light is required to achieve the same exposure.  To understand this, let’s look at two different situations:

Low ISO numbers
If shooting outside, on a bright sunny day there is a lot of available light that will hit the sensor during an exposure, meaning that the sensor does not need to be very sensitive in order to achieve a correct exposure.  Therefore, you could use a low ISO number, such as ISO 100 or 200.  This will give you images of the highest quality, with very little grain (or noise).

Taken at ISO 100, the image does not show signs of noise (even when looking at the 100% crop (right)

High ISO numbers
If shooting in low light conditions, such as inside a dark cathedral or museum for example, there is not much light available for your camera sensor.  A high ISO number, such as ISO 3200, will increase the sensitivity of the sensor, effectively multiplying the small amount of available light to give you a correctly exposed image.  This multiplication effect comes with a side effect of increased noise on the image, which looks like a fine grain, reducing the overall image quality.  The noise will be most pronounced in the darker/shadow regions.

This image was taken as the sun was going down, meaning there was not much ambient light. Therefore, this was shot with ISO4000, however you can see very obvious noise in the 100% crop (right)

Practically Speaking: you want to keep the ISO as low as possible, as the lower the ISO, the less noise and the higher the quality of the resulting image.   Outside on a sunny day, select ISO200 and see how it goes.  If it clouds over, maybe select an ISO between 400-800.  If you move indoors, consider an ISO of around 1600 or above (these are approximate starting points).  

Most digital SLRs now have an ‘auto-ISO’ function, where the camera sets the ISO depending upon the amount of light in which you are shooting, keeping it as low as possible.  Auto-ISO is a very useful tool when starting out with your camera, as it is allows you to define an upper limit i.e. where the images become too noisy such as ISO1600 or 3200, and then forget about it until situations where you specifically want to override the automatic setting, for example if taking landscape images using a tripod, you can afford to use the lowest ISO possible. 

3. Completion of the Exposure Triangle

It’s important to note that aperture, shutter speed and ISO are all part of the ‘exposure triangle’.  They all control either the amount of light entering the camera (aperture, shutter speed) or the amount of light required by the camera (ISO) for a given exposure.

Therefore, they are all linked, and understanding the relationship between them is crucial to being able to take control of your camera.  A change in one of the settings will impact the other two.  For example, considering a theoretical exposure of ISO400, f/8.0, 1/10^th second.  If you wanted to reduce the depth of field, and decided to use an aperture of f/4.0, you would be increasing the size of the aperture by two whole f/stops, therefore increasing the amount of light entering the camera by a factor of 4 (i.e. increasing by a factor of 2, twice).  Therefore, to balance the exposure, you could do the following:

• Situation 1: Reduce the shutter speed by a factor of 4, i.e. to 1/40th second.
• Situation 2: Reduce the ISO by a factor of 4, i.e. to ISO100
• Situation 3: A combination of the above, shutter speed by a factor of 2 (to 1/20th second) AND reduce the ISO bv a factor of 2 (to ISO200).

Aperture, shutter speed and ISO are all facotrs that influence your exposure, and are all linked. It’s just a case of balancing the books!

They all have the net effect of reducing the amount of light by a factor of 4, countering the change in aperture.  It’s just a case of understanding that they are all linked, and so changing one setting, will cause a change in another.

Using a combination of the semi-automatic shooting modes and auto-ISO would mean you won’t necessarily need to think about adjusting your exposure in such a way initially, however understanding the relationship that ISO or aperture has with shutter speed, and knowing the practical implications is a big step in mastering your DSLR .

4. Metering

Through out all of the above discussion, I have said that the camera calculates the exposure depending on the amount of available light, but what is it actually doing?

When taking a photograph, using any form of automatic exposure calculation (e.g. aperture priority mode, shutter priority mode, auto-ISO etc) the camera always tries to calculate an ‘average’ exposure.  It will asses the entire scene, both light and dark areas, and determine the exposure so that all of the tones within the entire image average to 18% grey – called the ‘middle’ grey.

This is known as metering, and it is the reason that if you point your camera at a bright white scene, such as after it has snowed, and take a photograph the resulting image will always appear darker than you or I see it.  Similarly, if you point your camera at a really dark scene, such as a low-lit room, and take a photograph the resulting image will always be brighter than you or I see it.

The scene is always being averaged by the camera and most of the time that results in the image appearing to be correctly exposed.  However, you can control what areas of the scene are being assessed by the camera in order to influence the way in which the exposure is metered.

Generally, there are three metering modes that you can choose from:

Average - The camera will assess the tones across the entire image form corner to corner, and expose the scene to 18% grey from that assessment.

Centre-weighted – The camera weights the exposure reading for the area in the centre of the viewfinder that can total up to approximately 80% of the scene, ignoring the extreme corners of the image.

Spot metering – The camera will use a very small area of the scene, typically a small circle in the centre of the viewfinder that totals approximately 5% of the viewfinder area.  It will make the assessment of dark/light tones in this area and expose the entire scene to 18% grey, from that assessment.

Practically speaking: when starting out with your camera, either average or centre weighted metering are a good starting point.  They will both provide a fairly consistent measure of the exposure required and, if you select one mode and stick with it, you will soon begin to understand when a scene will be under exposed (i.e. too dark) or over exposed (i.e. to light) compared to how you see it with your own eyes.

But what can you do if a scene is under/over exposed?  That is where exposure compensation comes in.

Exposure compensation

Generally found on a small +/- button near the shutter, this is one of the most useful functions to learn how to use.  It allows you to either increase or decrease the cameras default meter reading to account for the actual brightness of a scene.

If a scene contains primarily bright tones and is being rendered too dark, for example, a bright white snow scene (that will typically be reduced to 18% grey by the default metering system), you can apply positive exposure compensation to let the camera know that the scene should be lighter than middle grey.

A spring lamb leaping in front of a snowy hillside. Left: Straight out of camera, with the snow caught as grey. Right: With +2 stops exposure compensation (added in post processing). The bright snowy background caused my camera to underexpose this scene by nearly two stops, which could have been corrected by exposure compensation in camera.

Conversely, if a scene contains primarily dark tones and is being rendered too light, for example, a dark night scene (that will typically be increased to 18% grey by the default metering system), you can apply negative exposure compensation to let the camera know that the scene should be darker than middle grey.

5. Focussing

Regardless of what shooting mode you are using, or what ISO you define, the chances are there will be a subject of your image that you want to have in focus.  If that focus is not achieved, the image will not be what you wanted.

Autofocus modes
DSLRs come with a range of autofocus modes, however, for simplicity, the two that are most important to understand are AF-S and AF-C

AF-S – autofocus-single.  This is best used when taking photos of stationary subjects such as portraits of people, landscapes, buildings etc.  When you half-press the shutter, the focus will be acquired and locked on that point for as long as you hold the button down.  If you want to change to focus, you need to release the button, recompose and then re-half-press.

AF-C – autofocus-continuous.  This is best used when taking photos of action or moving subjects such as sports and wildlife.  When you half-press the shutter, focus will be acquired and locked on to a given subject.  When that subject moves, the focus will adjust with it, refocusing all of the time until the photograph is taken.

(These modes are not to be confused with the AF/MF switches on the lens, where AF stands for autofocus and MF stands for manual focus.  That switch is an override for if you want to manually focus your lens.  If you want to make use of the autofocus modes discussed above, ensure the lens is set to AF).

Focus Points
Both of those focus modes rely on what are known as focus points.  When you look through the viewfinder, you should see a number of squares/dots overlaid across the screen.  When you half-press the shutter, you should see one of these squares be highlighted in red.  That is the active focus point, and it is that position within the frame that the camera is focussing on.  A viewfinder with 9 focus points is shown below:

New DSLRs can come with over 50 focus points and the temptation is to leave it on fully automatic focus point selection, with the thinking that the camera will be able to select the correct focus point.  However, only you know what you want to focus on, and there is no better way than ensuring the correct subject is in focus than by using one focus point, and placing that focus point over the subject.

If you select a single focus point, you should be able to change which point is active fairly easily either by using directional buttons one of the dials.  If you select a focus point that is on your desired subject, you will ensure that the camera focuses where you want it to.  After a small amount of practice, you will soon get into the habit of being able to change the focus point without taking the camera away form your eye.

Practically speaking:  Initially, set your camera to use a single focus point (your camera manual should tell you how to do this).  This way, you will be able to choose what you are focussing on, ensuring that the subject you want to capture is in focus.  Once you are familiar with the basic focussing modes and focus point selection, you can then explore the more advanced modes that your camera may offer.

6. File Size/Types

You will have the option to be able to change the size of the images that your camera records, and in which file type.  You want to set the file size to the largest possible (whether it is ‘large’ or ‘fine’ or ‘super fine’) to ensure that you are making the most of the mega pixels that you have just invested in.

You will also have the option of choosing whether to record the images as ‘raw’ or ‘jpeg’ file type.  A raw file is uncompressed, and so contains a lot of image data that allows for a lot of flexibility during post-processing (i.e. on your computer) but also comes with additional complications such as the need to ‘process’ every file using dedicated editing software and a larger file size.  A jpeg is a compressed file type, that is automatically processed by the camera.  They will be ‘print ready’ straight out of the camera, and are much smaller files, meaning you can fit more images per memory card.

Practically speaking: When starting out with your camera, using jpeg is the most straight forward.  It will enable you to get the best results whilst you learn the basics or your camera before complicating matters with post-processing of raw files.  

7. White Balance

If shooting in jpeg, as recommended above, you will need to make sure you set your white balance before taking a picture.  The white balance can significantly impact colour tone of your photographs.  You may have noticed that sometimes your images have a blueish tone to them or, in others, everything looks very orange.  This is to do with the white balance and, whilst you can make some adjustments to the image on your computer, it is much simpler if you get it right up-front.

Different light sources (such as the sun, light bulbs, fluorescent strips etc) emit light of different wavelengths, and therefore colours, which can be described by what is known as colour temperature.  Light from a candle, or from the sun during sunrise/sunset, is very warm, and contains a lot of red/orange wavelengths; whereas light from a fluorescent strip is much cooler, containing a lot of blue wavelengths.  This coloured light is reflected off of surfaces, but our brain in clever enough to recognise this and automatically counter the effect, meaning that we still see a white surface as a white surface.  However, your camera is not that intelligent, and unless told otherwise, will record the orange or blue tones giving the colour cast to your images.

Left: The image captured using auto white balance has a heavy yellow tone from the artificial street lighting. Right: the same image, corrected for a ‘Tungsten’ white balance, giving the cooler tones on the stone work, and the bluer sky

As the colour temperature of different light sources is well known, there are a number of presets built into your camera that help to overcome the different colours of light in different situations – cooling the warm light, and warming the cool light – all in the cause of trying to capture the colours of the scene accurately.  The ‘auto’ feature (auto WB or AWB) will attempt to predict the colour of the light by detecting the predominant colour of the scene and then countering it, however it may not necessarily make a correct decision, leaving you with inaccurate colours.  Therefore it is best to set the colour balance before you take your image and just to make sure (note: the above image was a raw file giving me a lot of latitude for white balance correction.  Jpeg files are not as susceptible to white balance adjustments, meaning the white balance correction needs to be made before the image is taken):

Daylight – To be used on clear sunny days.  Bright sunlight, on a clear day is as near to neutral light that we generally get

Cloudy – To be used when shooting on a cloudy day.  Adds warm tones to daylight images.

Shade – To be used if shooting in the shade, as shaded areas generally produce cooler, bluer images, so need warming up.

Tungsten – Used for shooting indoors, under incandescent light bulbs, or under street lights, to cool down the yellow tones.

Fluorescent – Compensates for the green/blue tones of fluorescent light strips when shooting indoors.

Flash – the flash will add a cool blue cast to the image, so used to add some warmth.

Practically speaking: avoid auto white balance and set the white balance manually.  Generally, you will be able to look up at the sky and see what kind of day it is, and determine the colour balance required pretty easily.  If you move indoors, just check the lighting that you are shooting under, and again select the appropriate white balance.  It will soon become second nature to set it as you take your camera out of the bag.

Conclusion

So that is an overview of the settings you will encounter when you want to take the leap and take your camera off ‘Auto’.  You don’t necessarily need to consider them all straight away, but  exploring and understanding the effect of each setting will soon have you in complete control of your camera.  The biggest step, that will give you the most noticeable difference in the feeling of control and direct influence on creative results, will be to start using the ‘aperture priority’ or ‘shutter priority’ shooting modes and once you are familiar with those, you can start thinking about exploring further.  Soon enough, you will no longer think of your camera as a mysterious black box, but understand how to achieve the photographic results that you bought it for in the first place.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

The Ultimate Guide to Learning how to use Your first DSLR

Washington, DC. After 65 Indian MPs involved him in domestic politics of India, US President Barack Obama is taking a keen interest in Indian politics and planning a more pro-active role.

“I didn’t knew so many Indian parliamentarians have such a deep faith in me, I’m touched,” said a happy Obama after receiving the letter signed by 65 MPs from India, twice over a period of few weeks.

“Since the US constitution doesn’t allow a third term as a President, and Indian constitution doesn’t bar a foreign born person from fighting elections, I am planning to commence my political career in India,” Obama told Faking News.

Obama couldn’t control his laughter when he was told that he’d be counted as one of the young leaders of India when he makes his political debut.

Obama further told that he was planning to project himself as a “secular” alternative to Narendra Modi.

“Frankly I don’t know this secular-communal shit in Indian politics, I tried to read up but it’s all so mixed up,” Obama said, “But it appears that people are secular if they oppose Narendra Modi, so be it! I’ve already the support of 65 anti-Modi MPs.”

“I also have a Nobel Prize, so even Amartya Sen can’t oppose me,” he added.

Experts believe that Obama’s move could indeed create a major upset in 2014 general elections. Since Obama is amenable only to US Congress and not to Sonia Gandhi’s Congress, the current ruling party could start attacking Obama.

“Obama is reported to be keeping a small idol of Hanuman, and this information could be used by Digvijay Singh to claim that Obama was communal,” a political expert predicted.

BJP is confused as they don’t know how to react. While Obama’s presence could divide anti-Modi votes, there is a risk that Obama sweeps the elections and BJP could lose yet another election.

Sources further claim that recent visit by US VP Joe Biden was actually to find political allies for Obama. One of the electoral promises Obama could come up is to promise US visa to Indian professionals – something that could help him sweep elections in cities populated by IT professionals.

Among other strategies that Obama could adopt, is not to lose American accent even while speaking Hindi.

“Winning elections by speaking Hindi with an accent is not new to India. Someone did it before, Mr. Obama will do it again,” winked Obama’s personal adviser, who has finalized this retirement plan for the incumbent US President.

Possibly Related News:

1. China eyes secularism market in India, plans to manufacture skullcaps
2. Clashes break out in India as Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize
3. Gays form their own political party, to fight assembly elections
4. Narendra Modi to support Nitish Kumar’s campaign against himself
5. Scare in India as Obama gives a full back massage to Merkel

New Delhi. In a startling announcement, Rahul Gandhi has declared that he will give India her very own Royal Baby. Sonia Gandhi, backing her son’s decision, has acknowledged that Rahul hasn’t worked too well for the country and its time for another baby.

Speculation is rife on who the mother-to-be will be. The media has been camping outside the Rahul Gandhi’s quarters on 12, Tughlak Lane, New Delhi for the past 48 hours since this announcement, capturing footage of every secretary/ female attendant who has thus walked into Rahul Gandhi’s chambers.

“Doing it for the country,” said Rahul.

“There needs to be some kind of expectation management,” complained Digvijaya Singh. “This is Rahul Gandhi, not Bill Clinton. And the Royal Baby is not some jhat-pat two minute Maggi noodles!”

Sources close to the Gandhi family claim that Rahul was extremely moved when he saw clippings of thousands of loyal British subjects collecting outside the Queen’s Palace to welcome (their) Royal Baby. That was the kind of support Rahul has always dreamt of.

It is widely acknowledged that production of the Royal Baby is probably the British Royalty’s only real contribution to their economy. It is estimated that the Royal Baby’s birth will add $ 550 million to the British GDP this year alone due to extended celebrations and boosted tourism.

“I offer this nation the only meaningful thing I bring to the table – My genes,” an inspired Rahul Gandhi declared to roaring applause 3 days later in New Delhi. “The government needs a fresh face. Someone young, dynamic and mobilizing,” continued the leader of the Indian Youth Congress.

The baby will be titled “Chotta President of the Indian National Congress,” thus becoming, possibly, the cleanest and least corrupt member of the Indian parliament. It is not long, however, before the baby is expected to learn the tricks of the trade and the number of Gs in his alphabet.

It has been decided to institute a festival every year similar to Janmashtami to mark the birth of the Royal Baby. We have celebrated Makhan Chor for so long. It is now time to celebrate the Tax Chor.

The sex of the baby is still unknown but it is widely acknowledged that the weight of the new born baby will be greater than the weight of our 82 year old prime minister.

Meanwhile, NDTV Imagine has announced to relaunch itself with launch of a new reality TV show titled “The Game of Thrones”. It is similar to a pageant wherein viewers vote for who they think to be the most eligible contestant to become Rahul Gandhi’s wife.

Political analysts have lauded the move, saying that this will perhaps become the most democratic way in history in which our Government’s Chairperson will be selected. Many girls are reportedly excited to get married to the ‘young’ Gandhi, these include girls taking part in DID SuperMoms, Kingfisher air-hostesses, and even waitresses from foreign countries.

Rahul Gandhi is unavailable for comments as he has already gone on his paternity leave.

Possibly Related News:

1. Manmohan Singh and others react on arrival of Royal baby
2. Rahul Gandhi to become Prime Minister of India on Children’s Day
3. Rahul Gandhi vows to marry if Congress is voted to power in Uttar Pradesh
4. Rahul Gandhi’s article on corruption published in Champak magazine
5. Microsoft releases new OS, Rahul Gandhi becomes an icon

Former cricketer, part-time politician, occasional minister, and full time comedian Navjot Singh Sidhu has assured millions of his fans that his TV work won't be affected after he became a minister in the newly appointed Punjab government.

The post My TV work won’t be affected by this ministry: Navjot Singh Sidhu appeared first on Faking News.

A view of a sunset, viewed by Pankaj Udhas, the ghazal singer, and Pankaj Pachauri, the media adviser to the Prime Minister of India:

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder

Possibly Related News:

1. Himesh beats Phoonk 2, declares 10 lakh challenge for his album
2. “Rampant ugliness makes men cost-inefficient for beauty contests”
3. Miss Universe title captivates Venezuela, but could start regional conflict in India
4. Sunday Magazine: BT Brinjal, so is it really safe to eat or not?
5. Rahul Gandhi gets ‘blinking eyes’ image like Govind Tiwari

Allahabad. A 19-year-old student from IIIT (Indian Institute of Information Technology) here has claimed to develop a software that can come up with news and opinion articles on Narendra Modi with a mouse click.

“I have been an internet troll and have trolled on every topic,” Ranjit Prasad, the third-year student proudly told Faking News how he got the idea to develop the software, “After 3 years of full-time trolling and part-time studies, I finally concluded that anything related to Narendra Modi trends on the internet instantly.”

There is no upper cap on the number of articles a website can publish on Modi

“People feel duty bound to express opinion on Modi and media organizations work against killing deadlines to come up with reports on Modi. I could see a huge demand for Narendra Modi based articles,” the developer of NaMoPad application claimed.

NaMoPad – the software can meet this demand, Ranjit claims. All one needs to do is to feed in some keywords and indicate world count, and a grammatically correct article on Narendra Modi will be ready for publication within seconds.

“Premium version of the software will be able to come up with opinion articles containing in high-sounding philosophical and economical terms. I’m currently working on them,” the soon-to-be-rich teenager revealed.

All leading journalists and media houses (including Faking News) have expressed desire in buying this software as no one wants to lose on the potential traffic a Narendra Modi article can attract. The only journalistic concern is about the articles being “exclusive” and unique.

“Of course, unique articles can be generated using the software. Yes, primarily it will use the same old arguments and content, but with clever permutations and combinations, a seemingly new article can be generated,” Ranjit explained the working of his software.

“That’s precisely what anyway happens when an article on Narendra Modi is written in the real world by real people,” he added.

Ranjit is further planning to develop an Android and iOS application that will automatically tweet or update Facebook status messages about Narendra Modi.

“Windows already has MODI (Microsoft Office Document Imaging),” he pointed out.

Possibly Related News:

1. Google News blocks “Narendra Modi” articles, users asked to visit Google Plus
2. Blank news report on Narendra Modi receives 3720 comments
3. 5 reasons why Narendra Modi will surely lose Gujarat elections
4. Narendra Modi cancels dinner with himself to improve his image
5. Narendra Modi to charge APCO for promoting them in India

Q: Why is no one talking about Jobs? 

A: Because there aren’t any.

Sample these statistics:

• Each 1% in GDP growth creates 1.5m direct jobs  & 3 times as many indirect jobs. A 1% drop therefore leads to about 6m (direct & indirect) jobs disappearing. A 4% GDP drop (of the kind we are witnessing) will shrink job opportunities for approximately 24million people, affecting almost 120m Indians
• “The phenomenal growth India..achieved during the last five years was jobless growth”. Actually, not just the last five years, but almost the entire last decade has been widely recognised as a decade of jobless growth
• Worse may be yet to come. A recent FICCI survey said that the current economic slowdown may force the economy into “jobless de-growth”
• The job “jobs scene” in India is among weakest globally & the worst in 8 years

Why does this matter?  It matters because “We have about 550 million youths under 25 years of age..” for whom we “need to create 15 million jobs annually”. So says Sam Pitroda.

But it gets worse. The “dis-aggregated data of employment in terms of educational attainment” shows that “unemployment is highest among educated urban youth”. Read that again: “Educated Urban Youth”. This is the “Young India”. The India that checks facebook before it reads the newspaper. This is the India that carries a smartphone in its pocket. These are aspirational young Indians with dreams in their eyes but very little by way of skills.

I meet such youngsters almost every month during one of my frequent outreach events across colleges and cities in India. You can find them in Thiruvananthapuram, in Bhubaneswar, in Mumbai, Indore, Bengaluru, Chandigarh.. in fact, in every metro town, Tier II and Tier city in India.  Dr SK Sasikumar, National Labour Institute says that“..of the youth between the age group of 15-29 years, 26.9% neither working, nor studying and not even looking for a job”. There is a neat acronym that describes this group. It is called NEET – “Not in Education, Employment or Training”.

Where do you think this is heading? Social strains? Societal instability? or worse, massive unrest?

And yet, no one is talking about this.  In a country with the world’s largest young population, fundamental issues that concern these youngsters get little attention from our leaders – or media. When I think about this, I wonder whether India’s young population a time-bomb waiting to explode?

Just how bad is it? On a relatively calm day last week, I noticed something interesting on twitter. Among the trending topics on that particular day was “Job Description”. Now I know Twitter Trends are fickle and can change in the most unpredictable ways but still I thought it was interesting.

According to a NASSCOM report, each year over 3 million graduates and post-graduates are added to the Indian workforce. Of these, only 25 percent of technical graduates and 10-15 percent of regular graduates are considered employable by the industry. A recent report from Indore mentioned how of the 20,000 Engineers that pass out from the 60+ Engineering Colleges in the city, less than 2000 get “placements”. A vast majority of such graduates remain under-employed, clocking time in low-skilled jobs, hoping for a better future. A lot of them remain vague about what they want to do in life; quite a few have no interest or passion in the subject in which they have graduated. Many struggle with “soft skills” – in particular communication and social graces. This email is symptomatic of such “youth” (it was sent in all caps)

Dear sir
I dont know how to express my thoughts about ur articles… They are always “eye openers”. Sir actually b’coz of our hilarious education system. I’m not able to express my thoughts in English or Hindi properly. Its a kind of hybrid language hinglish. I would lyk to know ur opinion wid dis. Its a major issue. We r just hanging between hindi and english.

Sir i need ur help wid another matter. M engineering final year student. I want to work for business related firm. Engineering was really a wrong decision . I dont hav any idea about dis business kinda thing. I dont know “ki mujhe kya karna chahiye “. U hav a gr8 experince wid both of these engineering as well as business related things. Plzz suggest me !
I’ll be v.thankfull to you .

This not a laughing matter. It is truly unfortunate. But where are the jobs?

Sample some more statistics: In the UK, SMEs contribute 50% of the country’s GDP and provide ~ 60% of total jobs. In the US, the sector contributes 50% to the country’s GDP. In Japan SME contribution is even higher – 56.8% of GDP. In contrast, Indian SMEs contribute less than 20% of the total GDP of India and 40% of jobs. Clearly technology, productivity and poor investment has something to do with this.

Unfortunately in India, SMEs are no one’s favourites. Too small to “contribute” to election funds, they remain at the fringes of policy making. For most, business means managing to stay afloat in the swamp of rules and regulations, high interest rates and cash crunch.

In fact, the smaller you are, the worse it is. For example, a fruit vendor shells out Rs 50/- every day as “Mamool” in Bengaluru. Even a head-load worker is not spared. He needs to pay Rs 5/- just for the privilege of sleeping on the pavement!

Fact is it is bl**** hard to start and run a profitable business in the stifling environment of rules & regulations in India. What else is wrong?

What else? How about fixing “Education”? And I don’t mean tinkering with things like “RTE”. I mean really “fixing” it. Re-building it from scratch, revamping the curriculum, getting accountability in the system and getting government out of it. In the end it is really about making the right choices. Choices such as:

• Keep them busy digging holes vs. impart some useful skills
• Helping entrepreneurs vs. guaranteeing employment
• Creating vs. Distributing
• Sense of Entitlement vs. Spirit of Enterprise

And focusing a bit less on those who “need help” and a bit more on those who can “offer help”. Making these choices & taking  tough decisions is crucial so that India’s 500 million youngsters grow up with skills and knowledge better prepared for the world they face. Otherwise be prepared for a situation in which it may be better to get a robot than to hire Indian labour. That would not be nice. Would it? Jai Hind, Jai Bharat!

Related Posts: Why Politic Matters – even to Entrepreneurs and The Coming Jobs War and my own tiny effort..

Now we all know ‘infomercials’ are designed to do two things, 1. Relate to your problem 2. Offer you a product that will solve it. The trouble is despite their best efforts to be compelling many of their products are either utterly useless to verging on the pointless. Yet for every 100 people that roll their eyes and change the channel, 1 person will pick up the phone and order an item which when it finally arrives, they will instantly regret.

To highlight just how ridiculous infomericals have become, here’s a series of 22 unliley scenarios they’ve created – all with the sole of aim of selling you a product for only 4 easy payments and a free set of cheap kitchen knives. Do let us know your favs! And own up, have you ever bought any from the shopping channel?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

ENJOYED IT? SHARE IT!