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Should comedians be allowed to make fun of personal issues?

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In a society which promotes freedom of speech, comedians have a right, and often, an expectation to be controversial. Audiences are as entitled to be offended by a joke as they are to find it funny. The offense, when taken from a joke's lack of sensitivity, is perfectly understandable. However, one person being offended may not necessarily mean someone else will be offended too. This is the subjective nature of comedy, and debating on whether it should be censored is a debate which will rage on in a continuous storm of competing ideologies. But tragic events since the start of the year have made the debate on comedy’s relationship with societal norms debateable.

Joking at the expense of something is disempowering, at all levels of society, and is more likely to cause offense. Even the most clever, well-written jokes will be interpreted differently. If you are offended by something which you are not willing to try and understand from a different perspective then perhaps the best reaction is to ignore it and change the channel.   But comedy exists within a bubble, with the freedom to say things on a public platform which politicians, journalists, and other public figures cannot. That is something worth celebrating, not censoring.

Thoughtful comedy on any subject can be a powerful tool, with a purpose to educate as well as entertain. However, comedians should be cautious, on where to draw the line.

                                                   

                                                                                             -  Vedanth Bharpilania

                                                                          1 BBA B

Counterview-

A few months ago, a video was put up on YouTube by comedian Nicole Arbour that caused a massive outcry on social media. The video, which was highly offensive talked about how she does not believe that "fat shaming" is even a "thing" anymore. The video caused such an outcry that YouTube was forced to ban it. The repercussions were so bad that she even lost a few movie roles.  This whole controversy raised an even bigger question of where to draw the line in rules pertaining to comedy.

The conversation about offensive comedy has been having been brought up by many comedians. In today's world where everything has to be politically correct one has to wonder about what can be talked about and what can't be. This, however, doesn't make what Nicole Arbour said acceptable. What Arbour talked about in her video was mean and cruel to a group of people who already face societal pressure. There is a massive stigma against people who are overweight and to make a video that denies this truth is in very poor taste. Even if she is joking, the way she delivered her video was just downright mean.

The thing about comedy is that it give a few people the right to poke fun at our society. To find humor in the most trivial things in our society. I do not believe that comedy should be censored so heavily because we do live in a country where freedom of speech is one of our God given rights, but we have to remember that there is a line for what is acceptable to joke about and what is not.

As our country grows more politically correct and censorship finds its way into more light-hearted issues, you have to wonder where the line will be drawn.

                    

                                                         Pranav Kinger

                                   I BBA B

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Should gay marriage be legalized?

VIEW:

The most common argument against allowing gays to marry seems to be that we need to protect the institution of marriage. This argument is ridiculous for many reasons. While the main reason people in the India seem to get married is out of love, it is by no means the only reason.

There are people who marry for money, non-sexual companionship, even health insurance, do these reasons also threaten the institution of marriage? Furthermore, we have to look at marriage historically. For many years a wife was considered the property of her husband. For generations, royal families would marry their children off for diplomatic reasons, even "lower class" families would marry their daughters off to wealthy and/or powerful families so that they may reap the benefits. Many countries still have arranged marriages. To me, it appears that marriage is not exactly as "sacred" an institution as some would like to think.

Another argument against same-sex marriage is that we need to "protect" our children. Are we worried that letting homosexual people get married will, in turn, convert their children? If we are talking about the children of a gay couple whether through adoption (that is a whole other issue), artificial insemination, surrogacy, or the old-fashioned way; then would it not be more beneficial for these children to have a married couple as parents, particularly for legal reasons? Some may say that the "ideal" situation for children to be raised in is a loving mother and father. While this may not be wrong, it is not reality. It would be great if everyone had a loving mother and father, but how many children are being raised by single parents because one parent took off, or have a mother and father but are neglected or abused? It seems absurd to even suggest that it would be more beneficial for a child to be raised in an abusive home over that of a loving same-sex couple.

Practically all of the arguments against gay marriage come back to the issue of religion. Many extremely religious conservatives like to remind us that there is freedom of religion in this country, but some do not seem to understand that freedom of religion does not mean everybody conforming to your own personal religious beliefs. Some will say that since gay marriage is against their religious beliefs it is a violation of their freedom of religion.

The same argument can be made for homosexuals, though. We are all entitled to our own beliefs, but we should not expect everybody else to conform to them. Same sex marriage has no logical impact on the everyday lives of religious conservatives, but religious conservatives denying same-sex couples the right to marry does have a direct impact on the everyday lives of homosexuals.

The whole argument really comes down to letting consenting adults do as they wish, provided they are not hurting anybody, and keeping our beliefs out of the lives of others, just as we expect for ourselves. Homosexuals getting married really has no effect on anybody but themselves. 

• Avish Crasta

            1BBA ‘A’

COUNTER VIEW:

As the world's oldest democracy legalizes gay marriage nationwide, it is time for the world's largest democracy to perform some much-needed introspection - are we, as a people, society, and country ready to legalize gay marriage?

Unfortunately, the answer is no.

The problem isn't the Indian judiciary. I personally believe that, barring a few decisions (including Section 377), the Indian judiciary is, by far, India's most forward-looking institution, easily beating even Narendra Modi in terms of progressiveness and liberalism

There are several points to prove my thoughts right.

It is a well-known fact that the same – sex couples will not be able to reproduce their own kids and this would bring down their family generation. Having a kid of your own is an integral part of the marriage systems and the society.

A child needs both a mother as well as a father. Children who are raised without a mother are deprived of the emotional safety. Children who are raised by same – sex parents face more difficulties rather than the normal kids.

According to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom, marriage is not a right but a privilege. The society should oppose the people marrying from the same sex. Marriage is a traditional concept which takes place between a man and a woman.

The same – sex marriages weaken the institution of marriage. India is a country where the traditions are followed since time immemorial. In India, the institution of marriage is defined as a process which takes place between a man and woman.

The same-sex marriages are considered to be immoral in most parts of the world including India. Around 50% of the people who have undertaken the activity of homosexuality, know that what they are doing is immoral and unnatural. Marriage is considered to be pure and homosexual people tend to break that concept. The majority of the people in North America consider same – sex marriages as a sin.

Few religious texts like Quran also go against the concept of same – sex marriage. Quran has a saying that when a man mounts another man, the throne of the God shakes. The scriptures also consider the lesbian intercourse as an unlawful intercourse. No ideologies have been created which deletes the concept of a man marrying a woman.

With Ireland legalizing the concept of same – sex marriage, we hope that few other countries would also join this ideology. There are still many orthodox countries which shut their door to the idea of same – sex relations. Apart from legal, there are many moral and social aspects of same-sex relationships. In the near future, India might support the concept of same – sex marriages.

• Anto Sajosh Poovelikunnel

1 BBA ‘A’

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Once bad at math, a person will always be bad at math.

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Modern sciences challenge our basic assumptions about various subjects, some of which have discouraged a lot of students from sticking with it.

The most popular and damaging of these assumptions has been that some people can do math and others just can’t. Advances in neuroscience are revolutionizing our approach to education, and they have various implications for the way we teach math. Parents believe it, most teachers believe it, and soon enough, the students believe it too. There has been a recent study which stated that if a student did not have a good math teacher during the fifth and sixth grade, there is a high possibility that the student would not be able to cope up with the difficulty of the subject in higher grades. Math is a subject in which a person can’t do well if he/she is not well-versed with the basics and therefore a student must have good guidance right from the elementary level.

Every child can’t do well in math .

The simple answer is that we don’t approach the subject in the right way, conceptually or philosophically. Schools continue to single out who is good at math — and who is not — at a very young age. That has to change.

Another myth I think is important to confront is this notion of a “wall” in math. According to this popular idea, you can take all the math classes you like until you hit your personal wall, and then you can’t go any further. Approximately half the people in the U.S. have a fixed mindset, and the other half have a growth mindset. More people have a fixed mindset about math than any other subject. It has been found that kids with growth mindsets achieve more. They do so because a growth mindset goes along with certain behaviors — they are more persistent and more willing to learn from mistakes.

• Gurleen Singh  1BBA-B

Counter-view:

Math uses made-up rules to create models and relationships. Textbooks rarely focus on understanding; it's mostly solving problems with fixed formulas. It saddens me that beautiful ideas get such a rote treatment. Research proves that Math is a way of thinking, and it's important to see how that thinking developed rather than only showing the result. Psychological studies point out that mindset is key to learning. Factual learning is not understanding, we must keep an open mind and delve deep into the true meaning of things and not just look at the superficial coating applied unintentionally by our mind. It's often seen that applying theories to real world phenomena helps understand the theories much better. We must realize we are capable of learning a lot more than we think we can. We must not give up easily, a characteristic quite common in humans. Therefore, a person can get better at math if he/she wants to because at the end of the day it's the mindset of the person that sets his/her limitations. Math skills are increasingly important for getting good jobs these days, so believing you can’t learn math is especially self-destructive. But, I also believe that math is a great mental monster for an unconfident individual. If we can convince you that anyone can learn math, it should be a short step to convincing you that you can learn just about anything, if you work hard enough.

While schools tend to focus on math problems around third grade, and math learning disabilities often are diagnosed by fifth 
A study found the ability to work with numbers may be something that is entirely choice-based. If you want to, you can.

• Anuj Talera

            1BBA-B

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Mental illness and health is a taboo and considered unimportant in today's Indian society.

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In a so-called 'modern' world and a society that has progressed so much, we still have managed to take a hundred steps backward when it comes to mental health and illness. 

In spite of an escalating number of mental health patients, the subject of mental health illness is still a taboo topic for several Indians. 

WHO studies report that 6.5% of the Indian population suffers from some form of mental disorders. Mental illnesses are amongst the most common ailments, and yet are the least understood in today's society. This is a large contributor to the misconceptions, misunderstandings, ignorance and insensitive attitudes towards mental disorders and health. Psychological disorders are often considered the result of personal weaknesses or a personality flaw, when the actual cause, which is the imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain, is pushed aside and not even looked upon. In our societies today, people view mental illnesses as a state of permanency and little importance is given to the fact that they are completely treatable. The Society also associates the causes of mental health issues with bad parenting and social hierarchies, while numerous researches show that mental disorders are caused due to multiple interactions of biological, psychological and genetic factors. The roots of psychological disorders most often stem from the childhood stage and remain untreated until adulthood, because most parents refuse to accept that their children suffer from mentally illnesses out of fear of embarrassment or social stigma. For example, it is a myth that suicide is an impulsive action when in reality, there are numerous signals that people contemplating suicide give that indirectly indicates their feelings of helplessness and desperation. 

The failure of developing an environment where the subject of mental health can be discussed freely and openly is a large contributing factor that makes mental health and disorders a taboo in Indian societies. There are 113 laws in the Indian constitution that take away the rights of individuals with mental ailments. This serves as the reflection of the shambles of our society's sophistication and acceptance when it comes to mental illness and health. It remains to be a taboo due to society's failure to recognize the importance of mental health and it's treatment as well as the mythical beliefs surrounding it.

• Natasha Raphael

1 BBA ‘B’

COUNTER-VIEW:

Mental Health in India was a very big taboo, but slowly thanks to education and social media awareness programs, we Indians are opening up and becoming more aware, sensitive and supportive of mental health and such issues.

India’s health minister unveiled the country’s first-ever mental health policy, The National Mental Health Program, calling for an increase in funds to provide those with mental illness accessible and affordable care. The policy calls for a higher number of mental health professionals to be trained, from community-based counselors to specialized psychiatrists. In a country where mental health has long been ignored, the policy is extraordinarily progressive and sensitive to the social impact of mental illness, like stigma and poverty. The emphasis of the new policy is on the rights of the mentally ill including the suggestion that attempted suicide should be decriminalized. The policy also draws attention to the largely-neglected need to support caregivers, who are almost always family members in India.

Bollywood too has opened up to mental health, normalizing the subject and not making it seem like such a taboo. Stars like Shahrukh Khan, Ileana D'Cruz, Randeep Hooda, Varun Dhawan, Anushka Sharma and much more have openly spoken about their battles with mental health conditions. Deepika Padukone, not only opened up about herself suffering from depression in a TV interview but also took a step ahead to establish a center for mental health to help people going through the same phase.

All this goes to show how the Indian mindset is slowly opening up and changing to be more open and supportive with regards to mental illnesses. All urban schools have counselors. Therapy and counseling are no longer looked upon as an embarrassment.  On social media one can clearly see the outpouring support for awareness programs, for example, Project Semicolon, a  movement dedicated to presenting hope and love to those who are struggling with depression, suicide, addiction, and self-injury. Progress might be slow, but change is happening.

• Shania Nunes

1 BBA ‘B’

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THE HEADPHONE JACK REVOLUTION

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Apple has been removing features from its products and daring customers to complain about it almost since Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997.

Jobs’s first major product announcement after his return was the iMac the most controversial thing about the iMac was that it removed the floppy drive, which was then a standard part of virtually all Macs and Windows PCs. Apple also removed several ports that had been included in every Mac for a decade, replacing them with a cutting-edge standard called USB.

Removing the floppy drive from the iMac (and soon other Macs) made them lighter, cheaper, and smaller. Ditching older ports encouraged the development of Mac-compatible USB products like keyboards and printers. Before long there were plenty of them to choose from. A decade later, Apple introduced the MacBook Air, a laptop Apple made razor-thin by eliminating the CD-ROM drive and the Ethernet networking port — both industry standards at the time. Once again, customers grumbled but many found its slender profile impossible to resist.

Apple took this to an even further extreme with the latest MacBook. It has just two ports: a souped-up USB port on one side and a headphone jack on the other. If you want to plug in other devices, like an external monitor or an Ethernet cable, there’s a variety of splitters and adapters that allow that lone USB port to perform many functions simultaneously.

Apple introduced AirPods, providing a wireless audio experience that immediately sets up with all the devices signed into your iCloud account, including your iPad and Mac. Dual optical sensors and accelerometers in each AirPod that work with the W1 chip to detect when AirPods are in your ear, so they only play when you are ready to listen. An additional accelerometer in each AirPod detects when you’re speaking, enabling a pair of beam-forming microphones to focus on the sound of your voice, filtering out external noise to make your voice sound clearer than ever before.

Apple’s decision to remove the headphone jack as part of an underlying push towards wireless Specifically, the size of the audio jack became a frustrating nuisance when trying to incorporate the respective camera systems inside of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Removing the headphone jack enabled Apple to increase the size of the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 battery by 14%, ultimately providing users with an extra two hours of battery life. And last, removing the 3.5mm jack finally helped Apple deliver a more water-resistant iPhone.

Obviously, no customer is asking Apple to eliminate features from its products. But customers do like it when products are smaller, lighter, and more affordable. Removing little-used ports and drives also leaves more room inside for batteries, enabling longer battery life. The healthy sales growth suggests that Apple is on to something.

NIKHIL REDDY

1 BBA A

COUNTERVIEW

If you take Apple’s word for it, removing the headphone jack was a pure expression of its desire for technological progress, why not get rid of it the same way Apple killed the CD drive and Ethernet port on laptops? After all, this is just another connector that can be replaced by something wireless.

But there were clear and tangible benefits to those changes (namely, much thinner and lighter laptops), whereas this change comes littered with downsides. Most headphones in existence are incompatible. You can’t charge the phone and listen to wired headphones at the same time. And if you do want to use old headphones, you need to keep a small adapter handy

The benefits for Apple are much easier to see. The iPhone 7 will be bought by millions of people and its lack of a headphone jack is going to make many of them consider buying Lightning or Bluetooth headphones. Apple profits from both.

Any company that wants to make a pair of Lightning headphones has to go through Apple’s licensing program. Apple Inc.'s MFi Program is a licensing program for developers of hardware and software peripherals that work with Apple's iPod, iPad and iPhone. The program covers various device connectors including the headphone jack, original dock connector and the newer Lightning connector.

Though its fees are kept a secret, reports have indicated that Apple charges a flat fee for every device sold using one of its connectors. So, a bump in the likely low popularity of Lightning headphones is a win for Apple, since it’s getting a cut no matter who sells them.

And that’s just Lightning. More likely is that the lack of a headphone jack on the iPhone and increasingly, on android phones as well — will lead to an uptick in sales of Bluetooth headphones. And it just so happens that Apple owns the number one Bluetooth headphone company, Beats

Beats brings in more revenue from Bluetooth headphones than LG, Bose, or Jaybird, according to NPD figures released in July. In terms of unit sales, it controls over a quarter of the Bluetooth headphone market.

Bluetooth headphones are also disproportionately profitable among headphones. NPD has them accounting for 54 percent of all dollars spent in the market, despite representing only 17 percent of units sold. These headphones sell at high prices with high margins, and Apple’s company is making the best of it so far.

Sales of Bluetooth headphones are already growing, with units up 64 percent year over year according to NPD’s figures. And Apple’s removal of the headphone jack is likely to give them another boost.

It certainly benefits Beats the most as the market leader. Not surprisingly, during its iPhone announcement, Apple gave some stage time to Beats, which announced three new sets of wireless headphones: The Solo 3 Wireless, the Powerbeats 3 sport earbuds and a neck-wraparound called the Beats X.

Apple is asking a lot of customers, even if it manages to convince its own customers to make the switch, the loss of a venerable standard could still be a sad development. Hopefully in the long run, Apple and Android device makers will be able to converge on a new, open, digital standard (most likely a version of USB) to become the universal connector for smartphones.

MATHEW ISSAC

1 BBA A

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Should people who download music/movies illegally be punished?

Introduction:   

When a movie or song is made and marketed, everyone involved in the process gets his/her monetary gain. Therefore, if any of the content which is protected by the copyright law cannot be copied, reproduced or sold without the permission of the owner of that product. The Indian copyright law protects literary works, dramatic pieces, melodious works, artistic works, films and music recordings. But these days’ people don’t seem to follow this law at all. The internet being a boon to all of us, we misuse it and disrespect the artists whose works we download illegally.

View: Artists, Directors, Producers and every other person connected to the making their masterpieces put in a lifetime of hard work and dedication, It be A music recording, A documentary, A movie and others. Downloading all of these content is equivalent to stealing someone else’s property. Something that is made by using a lot of resources. Piracy directly contributes to the destruction of the business. It damages the entertainment companies and industries. This in turn leads to unemployment and causes a lot of harm to the economy. People who illegally download these products should be punished. The government should take it seriously and do its best to track down the people following this absurd trend and make the copyright law more effective. If a person can go to jail due to robbery, why shouldn’t a person who illegally downloads music and movies be punished?

I BBA B

Suraj Bagewadi- 16SJCCB123

Counterview: its common sense: taking a thing that you used to pay for is not virtuous for the people who created that thing. But when it comes to entertainment piracy, lots of folks—whether motivated by statistical inquisitiveness, forward-thinking vision or a desire to rationalize their own law-breaking—have argued that things aren’t quite so simple. Now, with the release of a new analysis of 16,000 European music consumers, those on the side of piracy, like myself have evidence to back us up. Specifically, the study found that legal purchases would be about 2 percent lower without illegal downloading available—meaning, yes, illegal downloads boost legal downloads. The positive effect of streaming was even larger. And of course, as the study’s authors do acknowledge, sales data are not the only reason music-industry professionals don’t like piracy. Conclusion: people who download pirated music/ movies mostly do so for tunes they wouldn’t have ever spent money on. Therefore, it should be my choice to pay for what I want and not for what I don’t want. I shouldn’t be legally bound to do so!

I BBA ‘B’

Taaha Syed- 16SJCCB118

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JIO SIM CARDS: BOON OR BANE?

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With the release of the reliance Jio 4G services, it is a matter of conversation whether the SIM card is as beneficial to society as the advertisements suggest. Let’s talk about its advantages. We are all familiar with the financial situation in rural India; even with the ever-growing demand for internet services, it was usually unaffordable for most people to access the internet.

This is the advantage the Jio SIM card offers, it enables people of lower income to have access to the same internet facilities on the go, this, in turn, presents an opportunity for the everyday entrepreneurs and workers to complete their work without the worry of an exuberant phone bill at the end of the month.

The price is not only beneficial to the user of the Jio SIM cards but also the users of competitor’s SIM cards as it will force competitors to offer more competitive rates for their users as well thus, making the market more competitive, which in turn is a benefit to us the consumer of the services.

Sharan Shyamsundar

16SJCCB167

1 BBA B

Counter View

All calls and messages to any network existing in India are free, the only charges are for data. Jio has cut the prices so much and has made it easier for the customer to pay for their services, 1GB of data is said to cost only Rs. 50 which is one-fifth of what the other operators are charging. Jio has claimed to give us free messages on festivals like Diwali when other operators usually charge extra on these days.

Some of the disadvantages are as follows:

Reliance officially did not unveil any of the data pack which offers Rs. 50 per GB. Instead, the company said that the normal data charges cost 1MB per 5 paise, which adds up to Rs.50 per GB. Therefore, voice calls won't be free if you don't recharge the phone with a data plan.

As Reliance is offering unlimited night data with all its tariff plans, there is a small catch to it, Night data will only be limited from 2 AM to 5 AM, which is much lesser compared to the other telecom services that offer night data from 11 PM to 7 AM.

Another disadvantage is that a user with 4G LTE enabled Smartphone is able to use the Jio SIM card only, however, he won't be able to make any voice calls. Reliance Jio found a solution to that and asks every user to download their Jio4GVoice app for not-interrupted voice calls.

Reliance has launched the Preview offer is now called as a Welcome offer which is applicable for all users until December 31, 2016. But, unlike the preview offer, the welcome offer comes with a daily data cap of 4GB.

Jio claims, the voice calls on the Reliance Jio is truly free, but you need to refill with a data pack to make voice calls, hence the consumers have to spend more on recharging their phone.

Jason Francis

16SJCCB141     

1 BBA B