Travelogue on Murudeshwar,
A beauteous location!

The Murudeshwar Temple in Karnataka is a must visit for nature lovers and of course, the
devotees of Lord Shiva, who would love to look at the magnificence of the Shiva statue there.
The huge Shiva statue made me stand awestruck and mouth shut, looking at the grandeur
of the Statue. The Murudeshwar temple is built on the Kandukla Hill in the quaint town of
Murudeshwar, which lies in the Bhatkal Taluk of the north Kannada district. Yes! This is the
best part. Since the temple is located here, the temple and the statue are surrounded by
beautiful views of the Arabian Sea which falls on three sides of the temple.

Basically, Murudeshwar is one of the forms of the great Lord Shiva who is being praised by
devotees throughout the world. The most famous and breathtaking view there is the massive

Shiva statue nearby the temple Shrine. You can spot the statue even from really far distance.
 This monumental statue is about 123 feet tall and it took 2 years to finish the statue.

The other interesting fact about this Shiva monolith is that the statue will sparkle once the
sunlight falls on the statue. We could actually see that the statue is strategically built in a
way so that it will shine when the morning light falls on it.

Right next to the statue, a 20- storey tall Gopuram is built. There are elevators inside the
Gopuram, so that the devotees and visitors could go on top of the Gopura to take a breath
taking aerial view of the whole place including the awe inspiring view of statue surrounded
by the Arabian sea. This one view is totally worth travelling all the way from your place to
Murudeshwar.

There is an interesting narration behind the building of the temple. It is that, Ravana had
received the lingam as a gift from Lord Shiva for his penance. Ganesha tricked Ravana into
forsaking the lingam, but planted it at Gokarna. This infuriated Ravana which made him to
uproot the lingam, eventually breaking the lingam into pieces. One of the pieces fell at
Kandukla Giri where the Murudeshwar temple was later built.

The temple is not just a pilgrimage site. Since the Murudeshwar beach stretches for a few
kilometres north of the temple, it is a wonderful picnic spot as well. You can go to this place
just for its extra ordinary ambience that you’ll get in no other pilgrimage spot. Just going to
a temple itself will work on your mood enormously and induce positivity. In that case, this
place, a temple and a monumental statue presented with an aerial view is simply a must visit.

Since there is no other place to visit in Murudeshwar other than the temple, you can plan a
one day trip to visit the place. There are lots of hotels and resorts near and quite far from the
temple. So, one can find no issue in staying there.

If you think that it is a pilgrimage spot and only elderly people can enjoy it, then you are
wrong. It is the kids who will enjoy the most. Because the location of the temple is such that,
the ambience there will make us so enthusiastic, even the kids. You are allowed to play in the beach as much as you want and when the sun starts to set, the atmosphere there becomes so exquisite.

With such an ambience and unique location, your visit to Murudeshwar will be etched in your
memories forever. Plan a trip and you’ll never regret choosing this place.

Degradation of education system!

Education is no more something that boosts the confidence of the students, rather it
kills the self confidence in the students who can’t study or be mechanical up to the
teachers' expectations, particularly our Indian education system. On a positive note, we
could say that this education system has made the students so competitive and made it
possible for them to compete globally with the students abroad. We all know that Indian
students play a major role in the commercial and economical growth of the countries abroad.
This would be only because of the stringent and rigorous up bringing in their schools and
colleges.

Having seen the positive side of our education system, we should also admit that it has some
great flaws as well, for plundering the creativity and natural skills from the students. This is
because of the practices that are so mechanical, drilling their students for the highest
percentage. The modern day schools have no concern about the special skills of the children.
The students are practiced to follow the syllabus and blueprints for the exams without
any diversion but they fail to practice them to follow their passion. They are taught to
score the maximum marks but not taught how to develop their skills that they have other
than studying.

The other important fact to note is that the modern day schools refrain the students from
excelling in sports, thinking that would deviate them from concentrating on their studies.
It's totally unjustifiable. A student who doesn't score maximum marks in his studies, maybe,
will have the ability to excel in his favourite sport. The school managements nowadays
seek popularity for their Institutions instead of concentrating on the students’ passion and
real interest.

We cannot blame just the modern day schools but the parents should also be inculpated.
When parents themselves don't seem to understand the plight of their own children, how
do we expect the school institutions to really care for the students. Parents should understand
that just marks cannot frame their child's future. They should not be judgmental about their
children's abilities based on their marks. Only when the parents become aware of this, their
children would stand out of the crowd, trying hard to prove their skills and will understand
that education isn't everything. Their parents should support their children and be their
backbone in helping them expose their hidden talents, that even their children or aren’t
aware of.

On the whole, our Indian education system promotes rat race where they conduct several
examinations in a year, not knowing how stressful it could be for the students. Having
lots of examinations continuously makes the students numb and they lose their imagination
and creative power. It would be so rejuvenating and helpful for the whole student community
if the government takes some serious steps to bring changes in our education system. When
it comes to students and parents, it's just about thinking out of the box and not focusing on
winning the rat race.

Impingement of technology

Google

Ask the younger generation today, “if they’d rather starve or go on a day without gadgets?”
This, of course is a rhetoric question, because everyone knows the answer. Of course they
will choose to starve. Why blame just the younger generation! Their parents, uncle, aunt,
and sometimes even their grandparents are the ones to be blamed for getting addicted to
today’s modern technology and unconsciously teaching their children the same.

Shout at others without respect, your child will do the same. Be affectionate to everyone,
your child will do the same. Eat nastily, your child will eat the same way. Be at the mercy
of technology always, your child will do the same. Now, who is to be blamed? The younge
r ones or the elder ones? I am not a gadget person and so I can boldly go on with this topic.

All these are mistakes that are unconsciously committed and then there’s something where
people are forced to be the slaves of technology at their work place. Today, there’s no work
that could be done without the use of technology. Not just at work, even for studying at
school level, children are getting used to using gadgets. When I did my schooling, we used
to listen carefully if the teacher informed anything, so that we don’t end up in trouble not
knowing what the teacher told. Nowadays, students are like, “why fear when there’s
WhatsApp!” Even we do the same in our college. This might sound simple. But, thinking
that we are however going to receive the information, the listening and grasping capacities
are being squandered from today’s students. Moreover, the concept of reading books are
completely out of the box, because Google is there for you, and if you have to see which
one’s conducive, of course google will win the poll. I’m a literature student and I know the
importance of reading. But, I also see students choosing not to read the books and
preferring the easy way of using google. We would have thought all these as our simple
daily routine. But it’s not. This is how we are using technology in a negative way thinking
that we are developing ourselves.

Of course there highly productive sides of technology as well. But the problem is that people
tend to depend on technology to an extent where they couldn’t expose their inner skills at
times, ignoring the positive side of the technology. All these could be merely accepted because
people do it unconsciously. But there are some cheap hearted animals who use technology
against girls and women through this cyber crime and stuff, which is is so inhumane. Crimes
like these are being done at the cost of many precious lives. But these kind of offences have
been taken care of and are under control during recent times. The other worst part is children
getting addicted to games. With such games, they start to create their own small world.
The house that filled with lots and lots of gadgets and technologies, is no more happy.
Kids are the happiness of the house and they are silenced by this technology dependency.
To what extent children are addicted to mobile phones can be obviously seen with an
example, where the parents of the country have had sleepless nights because of a
catastrophic mobile game called “blue whale”. Everyone knows the aftermath of the game.
These are such instances where we are forced to admit the evil side of technology, though
it has even more better side.
It’s all about what we decide to choose, when we have an ocean of good and bad gelled
together.

STRESS MANAGEMENT

Everything in today’s world is so difficult but at the cost of facing such difficulties, we get stressed
out easily. As everyone knows, getting stressed gives us various harmful effects, both physically and
mentally. In today’s modern life, a man without stress would be asked to undergo some medications.
This is how the current scenario is!

The reason for getting stressed out often can be anything. It could be financial problems or issues
between relatives for may also be due to having low level of self confidence. So, people stressing
out is not just because of the concerned individual, but the society is also holding its part. People
should learn to react to a situation, be it something sad or something happy. Because getting over
excited for a happy situation will make us less prepared for something sad that’s going to confront
us. And then, there are unexpected surprises that are to be unfolded in our lives. This is when people
stress out to a major extent.

In today’s materialistic world, people have unconsciously developed a mentality, where, the more
they get what they want, the more they become unsatisfied, because of the fear of losing everything.
Or else, they end up in failure trying so many ways aiming at huge profit. Experiencing what they
like, or what makes them happy may also stress them out, fearing that they can’t experience it
forever and the thought that after sometime they have to go back to their normal life style will
extremely stress them out.

People who tend to be determined not to get stressed out, who always think positively also do not
seem to go on so long without getting stressed. Because people like them do not seem to let go of
things easily and they also undertake various challenges, which is of course a very good quality.
Facing negative results while undertaking such challenges, stress out these people as well. So,
whatever mindset people are in, be positive or negative, everyone undergoes stress in their own way.

In olden days, at least kids and children would have faced comparatively less stress when compared
to the adults. But nowadays, it is the children who face more stress than adults. The school education
system has transformed to such a way that the children can’t handle it anymore. Not knowing how
to balance the situation and how to satisfy both parents and teachers, today’s children are having a
really hard time. They concentrate on how to tackle the situation rather than concentrating on studies.
With such scenario, we can imagine how stressed out students should be. No matter how people are,
no matter how their situation is, they unconsciously undergo various stress levels. The only
precaution or the only way to reduce its effects is to be cautious about how we react to the surprises
in our lives, and to what extent we expect things.

A lack of sleep is also a significant cause of stress. Unfortunately though, stress also interrupts our
sleep as thoughts keep whirling through our heads, stopping us from relaxing enough to fall asleep,
Just talking to someone about how you feel can be helpful.

MEDIA SELECTIVITY

If there is anything that could influence the public opinion, then it is the media. Of course the
politicians do that comparatively better. But it is the media that creates an impact on both literates
and illiterates. Unfortunately, the media also has the power to choose which stories get the most
attention. Many incidents in the world remain unreported, this is where we are forced to question
on media selectivity.

Nowadays, professionals in the media are compelled to decide the stories that would kindle the
spectators’ curiosity. Unlike olden days, it is not easy to run a news channel. They strive hard to
compete with the online news sources, though both are inclined to the same notion. So, they focus
on interesting or peculiar occurrences more than the pivotal global conflicts. Like, the news of a
celebrity couple getting divorced will be a hot news but a news that is concerned about global
warming or agriculture will remain blithe.

To survive in such an industry, everyone, be it newspaper or news channel or online news, fail
to focus on important news but interesting ones. Once in a blue moon, if someone stands out and
delivers the crucial need of the hour news, then he won’t get public interest. Even people tend
to select some particular aspects of given information which they incorporate into their mindset.
The audience select the news based on their perspectives, interests and beliefs. While picking their
favorable information, they unconsciously ignore the unfavorable.

If the white-collar people in the media is focusing on a particular issue, then it implies that, they
have assumed the public would continue to seek out the information on that particular news even
after they have taken a stance on it.

Most of the times, media miscarries its obligation by delivering less prominence news as wild
and woolly. Doing this, the media deviates from its path. Sometimes, it would hype up hate crimes
against different kinds of minorities and this overtly perpetuates ignorance and discrimination.

Moreover, all the major networks have a distinct political bias. Primarily, every political party
in our state operates a news channel and blows their own trumpet and picks apart other political parties.
This would be the sole drive of such channels. In such cases, people get fed up with the clichéd
news and look out for some hot news. This is exactly how media has modeled the public. In a 2017
study, the Pew research Centre found that 31% of adult viewers stop watching at least one network
because it didn’t provide the information they wanted.

As lifesavers, some downright journalists and reporters like Prannoy Roy, Gauri Lankesh, Arnab
Goswami etcetera have tried to change the face of Indian media. One should not forget that some
of such reporters and journalists have even been mercilessly silenced. These people strive hard
to sustain the esteem and value of the ‘powerful’ media.

One cannot blame just the media for such selective media exposure, but the public contribute to
it as well. Otherwise, in order to sustain viewers’ interest, the professionals in media must be
aware of media selectivity and take steps to counteract it.

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION

Most of the people remain confused about what the term ‘cultural appropriation' means. For anyone to whom the term seems obscure, it is when people take a culture for granted and adopts and follow its style and tradition. This is not the problem. We find this inappropriate because they tend to do this without any actual respect for the culture they imitate. This is totally unacknowledged because, if you see, only dominant people or society adopts such customs, practices and ideas from a subordinate society. This appropriation is mostly linked with racial and ethnic lines but with little understanding of the history, experience and tradition they borrowed.

This cultural appropriation paves way to unnecessary stereotypes. Predominately, the African
culture falls quarry to this appropriateness. Even we Indians become victims to this. Disputations
about this appropriation aren’t always pocket-sized to cross-racial borrowing. When we trace
back the history of this term, we could see that during colonialism, the colonisers not
only extracted the natural resources of the colonised but also their cultural booty. And this
is how everything got rolling.

An apt example to explicate this topic further would be, let’s say, this generation demonstrates
this appropriation in the name of fashion. Yes. It is an overt fact that designers and models
look to other cultures for ‘inspiration’. They are actually not inspired. Instead, they imitate
without the acknowledgement of the imitated. For example, American celebrity, Kylie
Jenner, has been impeached of appropriating black culture in the form of dreadlocks and
yaki ponytails. Actress Amandla Steinberg even remarked on her looks by saying,
“when you appropriate black features and culture but fail to use your position of power
to help black Americans by directing attention towards your wigs instead of police brutality
or racism”.

This one instance could state that cultural appropriation is totally indefensible. Not just fashion,
but cultural appropriation takes many forms including arts and music. We could actually avoid this

Every individual can have the rights to make their own choices, but when it comes to appropriating
others, one should realize that it’s something more sensitive. At these times, self-analysis would
be helpful by asking questions to one’s self like, why are we adopting or borrowing?
How respectful or disrespectful could it be? How would someone from that particular culture
feel about it?

‘Cultural appreciation’- doesn’t this sound good?

There is a very fine line between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation. We could
define appreciation as having a genuine or authentic interest, and inclination to learn about the
history and more over to respect the culture in all terms.

One cannot appropriate a culture if he appreciates it. Because once you start to appreciate,
you will almost be able to discern whether your actions will be seen as disrespectful or consented
by the people of that culture. Jessica Andrews, digital fashion editor at Teen Vogue states, “When
brands culturally appropriate while discriminating against people of colour, it sends the message
that your hairstyles or your style of dress is acceptable, but your bodies and lives are not”.

This sort of borrowing is mere ‘exploitation’ and moreover it’s like robbing the credits of the
disadvantaged that they actually deserve.

It just takes one word, ‘Respect’ to modify appropriation to appreciation. So, let’s better gear
up to appreciate a culture instead of appropriating it. It’s that simple!

TECHNOLOGY FOR VOTERS FROM ELECTION COMMISSION

With the announcement of the schedule for the imminent Lok Sabah polls, the entire nation is
gripped by election fever. However, apart from the dates and clarifications over electoral
procedure, the Election Commission in its communiqué has also spelt out the provision of some
online/mobile facilities for the voter.

For effective conduct of elections, the ECI has integrated use of telecommunications and
smart technology in various processes of elections. Here are a few help lines and apps that
will be useful as you get ready to cast your vote in the mammoth democratic exercise coming
up in a few weeks from now.

Helpline 1950

The Voter Helpline 1950 has been activated across the country to cater to voters’ queries.
Citizens can call this universal toll-free helpline number to connect directly to the District
Contact Centre. All districts & CEO Offices across all states/UTs have established Contact
Centres to provide Information and register feedback, suggestions and complaints.

Any user can call 1950 and obtain information about his Voter details in the electoral roll,
check for the status of his enrollment application and also lodge grievance. An SMS facility
has also been made available on this number to enable electors to verify their names on the
Electoral Roll.

Now, why is this important?

In the past, the Commission has received complaints that even some persons having EPIC
were denied the right to vote because their name was not found in the electoral rolls. In its
poll announcement, the Election Commission has clarified that only those persons are allowed
to vote at a Polling Station who are enrolled in the electoral roll for that Polling Station. EPIC
is only an identity document and does not confer the right of vote on any person, whose name
is not in the electoral roll. Also, the law does not allow inclusion of names in the electoral roll
after 3:00 PM on the last date of filing nominations, till the electoral process is complete.
You must, therefore, check that your name is in the electoral rolls and apply at the earliest if
it is not.

Facility of checking is also provided on the website of the National Voter’s Service Portal.
If the name of any person eligible to be enrolled is left out for some reason or has been wrongly
deleted, such a person should immediately fill application for inclusion of name in Form 6

The cVIGIL app

Consequent to the announcement of the Schedule for the General Election, the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) for the Guidance of Political Parties and Candidates comes into operation with immediate effect in the entire country. This will be applicable to all political parties and the Union and State Governments and UT Administrations.

The cVIGIL app will enable citizens to promptly report to election authorities on any violation
of Model Code of Conduct as well as any incident of intimidation or inducement, within minutes
of having witnessed them and without having to go to the office of the returning officer.

cVIGIL is a simple, Android-based mobile app available on Google Play,which is user-friendly and
easy to operate. All that one has to do is to simply click a picture or to take a video and briefly
describe the activity before uploading it on the cVIGIL mobile application. If the complainant desires
to remain anonymous he has the option to do so.

cVIGIL is a simple, Android-based mobile app available on Google Play here which is user-friendly
and easy to operate. All that one has to do is to simply click a picture or to take a video and briefly
describe the activity before uploading it on the cVIGIL mobile application. If the complainant
desires to remain anonymous he has the option to do so.

cVIGIL provides time-stamped evidentiary proof of the Model Code of Conduct / Expenditure
Violation, having live photo/video with auto location data.The District Control Room allocates
cVIGIL cases to the Flying Squads etc. through GIS based platform. Flying Squads investigate
the matter and the Returning Officer takes the decision. The status of cVIGIL is shared with the
cVIGIL complainant within 100 minutes.

The Voter Helpline Mobile app

This would help all citizens find their names in the electoral roll, submit online forms, check
the status of the application, file complaints and receive the replies on their mobile app. All forms,
results, candidate affidavit, press notes, Voter awareness and important instructions are available
through the mobile app. This app is available at the Google play store.

PwD app

Eligible citizens/ citizens in the category of Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) can request for
new registration, change in address, change in particulars and mark themselves as PwD through
the use of the mobile application. By simply entering their contact details, the Booth Level
Officer is assigned to provide doorstep facility. PwDs can also request for a wheelchair during
polling. The app is available at Google Play store.

Samadhan portal

The Election Commission of India has designed a single integrated web portal for registering
and resolving citizen Information, suggestion, feedback and complaints (IFSC). The universal
portal is available for Election as well as non-election period. All the EROs, DEO, CEO and
ECI Officials are connected to the Samadhan Portal and the complaint lodged in Samadhan
directly connects to concerned official. There is an escalation \matrix configured into the system
and if within a time frame the matter is not addressed by ERO, it gets escalated to the next levels.