By Somali K Chakrabarti ‘Mostly leaders are born. Some inherit leadership. Some come by default.’ These statements coming from an acquaintance on social media induced me to write this post. When we think of leadership, traits such as charisma, authority, courage, oratory skills easily and instinctively come to our mind. These qualities are associated with great leaders or inspirational figures such as Margaret Thatcher, M. K. Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr.or Churchill and most these seem to be inborn qualities. It goes without saying that not all of us can have the style, presence or oratory skills of these great historical figures. Just like some people are gifted singers, while many others struggle to strike the right notes, some people are naturally bestowed with a charismatic persona, while others are not. Does it mean that in absence of inborn leadership traits, one cannot be a leader? Let us dig into it a bit more. Here I list down 8 key traits of leaders, in an attempt to identify which of these leadership skills can be developed. . . 1. Clarity of Purpose A purpose can change a life from ordinary to extraordinary. Only an individual with clarity of purpose can inspire, motivate…
Warli Wall Art Festival, 2014. When the walls of a school were used as canvas, it resulted in some amazing paintings! The Wall Art Festival was organized for promoting sustainable international cooperation through the Power of Art. The walls of a primary school in Warli, Gujarat were used as a canvas on which two artists, one from India, the other from Japan, made paintings on the majority of the wall in two separate classrooms. Read the complete article on
Akin to Darwin’s theory of ‘Survival of the Fittest’, admission into the premier public institutes in India is about ‘Survival of the Brightest’. With the scores in board examinations soaring as high as the mercury levels in most parts of the country, both students and their parents feel the heat as competition for admissions into colleges gets tougher. A score less than 90% is unlikely to fetch a student, a seat in the general category, in a premier public institute. Even so, a score above 90% alone does not suffice for entrance in most of the leading public engineering institutes, where selection is determined by the combined board score and score in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE). The tough selection criteria coupled with growing number of applicants each year (over 1.3 million students registered for JEE in 2014) leaves many meritorious students missing the mark to secure a place in the publicly funded institutes. Into this void of demand and supply, have stepped in some private engineering institutes that aim at providing quality education to the students.
I came across these two articles with historical facts presumably unknown to many, as they were to me, so found them worth sharing. The section ‘Facts & Trivia’ (on the Menu) includes some informative and interesting articles. In this post I am including some tweets. Retweet is possible from the included tweet itself. Britain has invaded all countries in the world barring 22 countries at different points in time. Contrary to the common belief that the British rule extended to a quarter of the atlas, a study indicates that barring 22 countries in the world, all other countries have experienced an invasion by the British at different points in time.