Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Convergence in media
The Gutenberg era is over. A new digital communications technology has emerged. An electronic superhighway is beginning to girdle the globe as voice, video and data converge, bringing in their wake a new basket of digital, multimedia and interactive communication technologies.
But it is not just the technologies that concern us. It is the social change that accompanies the technologies that must be our prime concern. The new technologies are doing much more. They are changing the way we live-the way we work, relax, manage our money, trade and communicate with each other. The new technologies are changing the way we perceive people, cultures, countries and companies and our expectations of them and also our expectations of ourselves.
The Past Days of Communications
Several preliminary steps occurred in human history which are the basis for all human communication. While it can be argued that the species has always had an underlying basis of verbal and nonverbal language, the organization of the verbal language into discrete components with a lexicon and syntax allowed the eventual development of forms of written communication, which progressed from symbolic drawings to phonemic symbols. A significant revolutionary step in the development of written communication was embodied in the printing press, which allowed a rapid reproduction of written thought and eventually the reproduction of drawings and photographs, as well. However this means of communication is essentially one-way and /or nonreal time.
The first remote communications method that exhibited a real-time nature was telegraphy. The telegraph allowed an instantaneous transmission of text characters to a remote receiver. Telegraphy utilized a coded translation (via the Morse code, among other ) of letters and numbers into an on/off digital representations that could be easily decoded at the remote end by a trained human operator, who listened to the clicks of a remote solenoid . Later, telegraph progressed to a constant-length code that was encoded and decoded by mechanical means. This coded representation became the basis for storage, retrieval, and transmission of text by computers. Although telegraphy provided an important means of communication for critical business and personal one-way communication, it created little change in every day life. This was the first generation of communication.
The invention and proliferation of the telephone, on the other hand, did provide pervasive change in everyday interpersonal communication. Unlike written correspondence or telegraphy, two parties could now give immediate feedback by responding to statement, answering questions, providing needed information, or taking needed action. In addition, the telephone added a critical component" one could not only recognize the other person's voice, but hear the tone, urgency, and emotion that is so important to effective interpersonal communication. Subsequently, the development of wireless voice communication through two-way radio equipment provided similar benefits without the need for fixed wiring.
The deployment telephone and two-way radio systems have brought us instantaneous voice communication. As a result, we can have quick and easy voice access to others around the world, and even in aircraft and ships at sea.
Video communication has also moved quickly to influence our everyday lives. From the early beginnings of television, we have had the ability to communicate fixed and moving images in real time. One-way transmission of video and audio content are now second nature, although recent years have seen the addition of more extensive content selections through cable and direct satellite transmission. Now technological advance will allow new applications for video communication that are not limited to a single direction, one-to-many mode.
These Second generation systems are digital and capable of providing voice, data and fax transfer, apart from a range of other value-added services. At present second generation systems are still evolving with ever-increasing data rates via new technologies such as HSCSD (high-speed circuit switched data) and GPRS (general packet radio service). At the same time, there is an increasing demand from consumers for data delivery, telephony services, global roaming, E-mail, video and Internet access on one single device. These needs have resulted in global standards that are more open, like Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). Applying high-speed data transfer and radio terminal technology (like bluetooth), third generation systems are now evolving to provide the bandwidth required for multiple usage. The 3G enables multimedia and is currently in the process of being standardised under 3GPP ( a Standardisation body with representatives from Asia. Europe and the America which is helping to establish technical specifications). Among the three types of system to be standardised (WCDMA -DS, MC-CDMA and UTRA TDD), Japan and Europe will adopt WCDMA-DS when they usher in 3G in 2001-2002.
For the first time a merging of communications media is becoming practical. Properly implemented, this will make immediately available the vast knowledge base we have been busy computerizing. It will also make direct voice and video communication ubiquitous. Data sharing, with adequate security and safeguards, we allow information and commerce flow freely. We will create a true global village, with instantaneous multimedia communication which will provide substantial increases in productivity, a better quality of life, enhancements in education and recreation, and cross-cultural understanding.
The Genesis
The roots of network convergence can be traced to the advent of digital communications, which reduced information into discrete, identifiable and thus, more easily transferable pieces of information. It also efficiently maximizes the transfer of information by allowing more signals to move through a single communication path. Network convergence utilizes this attribute of digital communication to efficiently and effectively distribute different types of information - voice, video and data on the same communication network. Moreover, network convergence reduces the inefficient flow of voice, video, and data whose different characteristics led to the development of separate communication network that were designed differently, and are often incompatible.
Network convergence has also developed from the implementation of digital packet-switching technologies. Such as IP telephony that permits the transmission of voice, video, and data over computer network that were originally developed only for data transmission.
The New Paradigm
With blurring of geographical boundaries, thanks to the distance insensitive Internet, majority of business and individual are becoming part of a high-speed networking fabric which will enable secure digital communication of voice, data, and video to or from anyone, any where and anytime. Till recently, it wold have sounded like a chapter straight out of science fiction fortunately, the technology now exists to deliver it. Customers now want to pick and chose from narrowcast and broadcast. They want a fusion of voice, data, and video in all possible mixes. In other words, this means the availability of multiple technology choices to fulfill the customer's desire for anytime access to people, information, and commerce.
But convergence does not necessarily sound the death knell of age-old-technologies. In fact, it leaves enough room for many technologies to co-exist and one will not replace the other outright. This is because no one technology can meet all the requirements of the market-place. Hence, each technology will find its niche and redefine new and old classes of service and user terminals. In this context one can safely assume that there will be a rash of new user terminals that will let us communicate in ways we dream.
Convergence is the key today. We can think about convergence in several different ways. One is in terms of the actual industries converging, such as communication, entertainment, and computing. Another is converging voice, video, and data over a common infrastructure or within a common computing platform.
One important factor during convergence is the transformation of the desktop computer through faster processors supporting advanced graphics and multimedia capabilities. The PC today is a collaborative communication and media tool .
Another factor driving convergence is the cost of maintaining three separate networks for voice, video, and data. Corporations can realize substantial saving in equipment, staff, and services by using converged networks.
Enterprises are looking at cost savings in the WAN as the first leverage point for convergence. Using Voice-over-Frame Relay, VOIP and Voice-over-ATM the same WAN lines can be used for voice as well as data, resulting in substantial cost savings.
Next, enterprises want to install the LAN and WAN infrastructure to do real-time video and audio information delivery.
For education, a professor's lecture can be delivered to remote campuses live or as stored video-on-demand files on a web sites, Converged networks can also be used to deliver corporate communications, presentations, and training to employees directly at their desktop.
Its Affect on Data Networks
Convergence is fundamentally changing what a data network is , from a traditional data packet store-and -forward mechanism, to a real-time communication infrastructure. That really changes data network requirements and drives the need for higher bandwidth, class and quality of service, multi-cast support, and policy management.
Many people believe that we still need to run ATM to the desktop to support these new features. Ethernet has evolved into a very suitable technology for delivering these advanced features at about a third of the cost of running ATM to the desktop.
Using Same Application Standard
With standards-based converged applications, we see interoperability between different vendors - high-end videoconferencing systems, for example, can talk to low-end desktop system using the same application standard.
Payload convergence is that aspect of converged networking wherein different data types are carried in the same communication format. However , the payload convergence does not prohibit the network form handling packets, according to their service requirement.
Protocol convergence is the movement away from multi-protocol to single protocol (typically IP) networks. While legacy networks are designed to handle many protocol and one type of data, converged networks are designed to handle one protocol and provided the services necessary for multiple types of data (such as voice, one way video, and interactive video).
Physical convergence occurs when payloads travel over the same physical network equipment regardless of their service requirements. Both multimedia and Web traffic can use the facilities of an edge network, even though the former has more stringent bandwidth, delay and jitter requirements than the later.
Device convergence means the trend in network device architecture to support different networking paradigms in single system.
Application convergence represents the appearance of applications that integrate formerly separate functions. For example. Web browsers allow the incorporation of plug-in applications that allow web pages to carry multimedia content such as audio, video, high-resolution graphics, virtual reality graphics and interactive voices.
Technology convergence signifies the move towards common networking technologies that satisfy both LAN and WAN requirements. For example, ATM can be used to provide both LAN and WAN services.
At the technical level, digital transmission has the potential to deliver integrated interactive text, video, voice and data to a mass audience what we might call 'real multimedia'. However, historically each part of the spectrum and mode of transmission became associated with a different form of communication : point-to-point communication became the province of the telephone, and wireless transmission became associated with broadcast news and entertainment . This is now changing with digital compression techniques the limited transmission capacity of existing telephone and cable infrastructures can be expanded to deliver a range of multimedia services that previously could only be carried on expensive broadband networks. Similarly digital compression allows point-to point communication to be conducted increasingly by advanced forms of radio transmission.
Institutional convergence
Nowadays digital technology allows a substantially higher capacity of traditional and new services to converge towards the same transporting networks and to use integrated consumer devices for purposes such as telephony, television or personal computing. Convergence is happening already on a global scale. One key message is that convergence should not lead to additional regulation. Current rules should be reviewed to check whether they will still be relevant in the light of convergence. The countries need to have the right regulatory framework in order the maximise the benefits of this convergence in terms of job creation, growth, consumer choice, cultural diversity. Traditionally, communications media were separate. Services were quite distinct - broadcasting, voice telephony and on-line computer services. They operated on different networks and used different "platforms". TV sets, telephones and computers. Each was regulated by different laws and different regulators, usually at national level. Nowadays digital technology allows a substantially higher capacity of traditional and new services to be transported over the same networks and use integrated consumer devices for purposes such as telephony, television or personal computing.
Telecommunications, media and IT companies are using the flexibility of digital technologies to offer services outside their traditional business sectors, increasingly on an international or global scale.
CONVERGENCE REGULATIONS
The extent to which convergence will really transform markets and the speed of any changes are two crucial factors affecting the debate on regulation. There is a wide range of views, falling between the two main camps, the maximalists and the minimalists.
According to the maximalist, most current regulation originated in an era when distinctions between sector were clear. Convergence will increasingly blur all the distinctions between services, all networks will be able to deliver any service to any platform .
The minimalist point of view holds that convergence will have a more limited impact, that it will not alter the specific nature of different types of service. Its proponents argue that media policy should actively promote social, cultural and ethical values whatever technology is used for delivering services. They favour two sets of rules, one for economic aspects and another for service content, in order to guarantee efficiency and quality, as in broadcasting today.
A powerful motor for job creation and growth
Convergence is not just about technology. Convergence is a debate about the impact of technology and a quantum leap towards a mature Information Society.
The Changes will offer many new opportunities for citizens to enrich their lives, not just the economic dimension, but the social and cultural ones as well. The global nature and interactivity of new communications media like the Internet are already opening new vistas, far beyond traditional, national media. Convergence will certainly expand the overall information market and be the catalyst for the next stage in the integration of the world economy. Even small business can market globally, thanks to the low cost of the World Wide Web site.
If India can embrace the promise of convergence, by creating a supportive environment, change will be a powerful motor for job creation and growth, plus increased consumer choice and cultural diversity. By putting in place the right regulatory framework, governments and policy makers will have a key role in ensuring a supportive environment.
The cable operators deliver the cable and satellite channels to the consumers. With more and more channels going pay to air, would open up subscription revenue for the broadcasters. In future it will emerge a major source of revenue and much large than the advertisement revenue stream . the channel will be carried on two platforms - Direct to Operator (DTO) and Direct to Home (DTH). Both the services have user addressability in ear of convergence.
Direct To Operator (DTO)
The DTO is a step, moving towards subscription channels. In DTO channels are digitized and encrypted by the broadcaster. It operates using C band. The signals are downloaded by the cable operator by using the Integrated receiver decoder (IRD) and distributed to cable homes.
The DTO transmission helps in saving of the cost, tracking the subscription revenue but calls for additional investment for the decoders for down linking of signal.
It is capitalizing on price sensitiveness of consumers of India, who would not be willing to subscribe to the high cost DTH services. The subscription of the convergence is expected to the Rs 250 per month per subscriber in India.
Direct To Home (DTH)
It offers an alternative to the DTO service addressing superior reception with advance level of multi channel subscription revenue for broadcaster. The digitized channels are broadcast using the Ku (above 4800 Mhz). The consumers have the option to receive more than one signal which are downlinked by the consumer directly by using dish antenna at their home.
DTH can broadcast more than 100 channels using IRD, which ensures conditional access on payment of subscription. The investment of dish antenna and other hardware is borne by the consumer. The installation cost of DTH is high enough to deter price sensitive consumer of India and it is estimated that subscription of 2 million consumers would be needed to make the service profitable.
DTH can be broadcast using C band (below 4800 Mhz) or Ku Band (Above 4800 Mhz). The transmission at C band needs dish antenna of 3-4 meters. This C band preposition does not seem to be possible in metros where the potential consumer of the DTH would reside.
The Ku band, which requires antenna of 60-75 cm , would attract the attention of consumers. The government currently, does not permit the transmission of signals at Ku band in India. We expect these issues to be addressed in the broadcasting bill.
The growth of Cable and Satellite has opened a new vista for the Indian media sector. In a short span of two years, more than 60 (national, regional and foreign) channels are broadcast in India. It is expected that more than 30 new channels would be launched in the next three years.
The popularity and growth of channels would be driven by originality and quality content (five to six hour a day of Original Programming). The entertainment has found its roots in the regional market also. The growth of regional channels wold come on the expense of falling advertising revenue of the regional print media.
Content is Key
Content has emerged as king in the fierce battle of television channels. The success of channel is dependent on the quality of content, which attracts the attention of an audience. The content would drive the success of the channel. With more than 40 ( national and regional) channels on air and 30 more lined up in the next two years. Demand for content is expected to grow by 40 percent for three years.
The television software industry is valued at Rs. 5840 m. Content has high recyclable value, no storage cost and can be exported. A successful and good quality content has high recyclable value and can also be delivered through various delivery mechanisms such as Compact Disc, and Web Casting.
The content is shown either on terrestrial or C&S Network . the popularity of content depends upon the understanding of the audience and making the right genre of program for the target audience. The availability of intellect and low manpower cost has made the Indian content popular world over and exports of content has opened a new revenue stream for the content provider.
A good quality content has a recyclable value, can be exported and can add to the revenue stream of the IPR holder. The content producers working with DD have built up a substantial library (IPR) of content and are exploring the same.
The merger between telecommunications, computer and broadcasting is going to change the way people will work, play and live.
The 'convergence' of these technologies has given birth to the prospect of multimedia services which will offer interactive compute based applications that will combine text, graphics, audio and animation features into a media experience for users.
Conclusion
The increasingly competitive environment in the multimedia industry promises tremendous user benefits through increased savings in time, greater choice, and an explosion of innovative services and products. This is the promise, to date, truly interactive services allowing the viewer to descend through a series of levels of information are still at the experimental stage.
The development of multimedia services will not replace judgment value that is provided by the traditional media. Hence, the traditional media will still have a large role to play in the new multimedia world.
Multimedia has the potential to vastly increase the range of services available, and offer its users a larger choice of applications but new technology alone will not ensure success; it is the people who use it who will decide the future of multimedia. The users' wants and needs; how they will manage the flood of options; and, above all, whether or not they will pay for the freedom of choice are what counts.
Convergence : technological and institutional
'Convergence ' has become a cliche of the information age. In its current usage it refers to two distinct though related phenomena :
- The way that all transmission media become bit-carriers so that different 'network platforms' can carry similar kinds of services and
- The tendency of the previously separate worlds of broadcasting, film , telecommunication, publishing and computing to become involved in each other's business.
Recent examples of new, convergent services include:
- Services delivered to TV sets via systems like Web TV;
- E-mail and World Wide Web access via digital TV decoders and mobile telephones;
- Using the internet for voice telephony.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Importance of Motivation & leadership in Business Management
Motivation is the word derived from the word ’motive’ which means needs, desires, wants or drives within the individuals. It is the process of stimulating people to actions to accomplish the goals. In the work goal context the psychological factors stimulating the people’s behaviour can be -
- desire for money
- success
- recognition
- job-satisfaction
- team work, etc
One of the most important functions of management is to create willingness amongst the employees to perform in the best of their abilities. Therefore the role of a leader is to arouse interest in performance of employees in their jobs. The process of motivation consists of three stages:-
- A felt need or drive
- A stimulus in which needs have to be aroused
- When needs are satisfied, the satisfaction or accomplishment of goals.
Therefore, we can say that motivation is a psychological phenomenon which means needs and wants of the individuals have to be tackled by framing an incentive plan.
Morale can be defined as the total satisfaction derived by an individual from his job, his work-group, his superior, the organization he works for and the environment. It generally relates to the feeling of individual’s comfort, happiness and satisfaction.
According to Davis, “Morale is a mental condition of groups and individuals which determines their attitude.”
In short, morale is a fusion of employees’ attitudes, behaviours, manifestation of views and opinions - all taken together in their work scenarios, exhibiting the employees’ feelings towards work, working terms and relation with their employers. Morale includes employees’ attitudes on and specific reaction to their job.
There are two states of morale:
High morale - High morale implies determination at work- an essential in achievement of management objectives. High morale results in:
- A keen teamwork on part of the employees.
- Organizational Commitment and a sense of belongingness in the employees mind.
- Immediate conflict identification and resolution.
- Healthy and safe work environment.
- Effective communication in the organization.
- Increase in productivity.
- Greater motivation.
Low morale - Low morale has following features:
- Greater grievances and conflicts in organization.
- High rate of employee absenteeism and turnover.
- Dissatisfaction with the superiors and employers.
- Poor working conditions.
- Employees frustration.
- Decrease in productivity.
- Lack of motivation.
Though motivation and morale are closely related concepts, they are different in following ways:
 | While motivation is an internal-psychological drive of an individual which urges him to behave in a specific manner, morale is more of a group scenario. |
| Higher motivation often leads to higher morale of employees, but high morale does not essentially result in greatly motivated employees as to have a positive attitude towards all factors of work situation may not essentially force the employees to work more efficiently. |
| While motivation is an individual concept, morale is a group concept. Thus, motivation takes into consideration the individual differences among the employees, and morale of the employees can be increased by taking those factors into consideration which influence group scenario or total work settings. |
| Motivation acquires primary concern in every organization, while morale is a secondary phenomenon because high motivation essentially leads to higher productivity while high morale may not necessarily lead to higher productivity. |
| Things tied to morale are usually things that are just part of the work environment, and things tied to motivation are tied to the performance of the individual. |
Motivation is a very important for an organization because of the following benefits it provides:-
Puts human resources into action
Every concern requires physical, financial and human resources to accomplish the goals. It is through motivation that the human resources can be utilized by making full use of it. This can be done by building willingness in employees to work. This will help the enterprise in securing best possible utilization of resources.Improves level of efficiency of employees
The level of a subordinate or a employee does not only depend upon his qualifications and abilities. For getting best of his work performance, the gap between ability and willingness has to be filled which helps in improving the level of performance of subordinates. This will result into-- Increase in productivity,
- Reducing cost of operations, and
- Improving overall efficiency.
Leads to achievement of organizational goals
The goals of an enterprise can be achieved only when the following factors take place :-- There is best possible utilization of resources,
- There is a co-operative work environment,
- The employees are goal-directed and they act in a purposive manner,
- Goals can be achieved if co-ordination and co-operation takes place simultaneously which can be effectively done through motivation.
Builds friendly relationship
Motivation is an important factor which brings employees satisfaction. This can be done by keeping into mind and framing an incentive plan for the benefit of the employees. This could initiate the following things:- Monetary and non-monetary incentives,
- Promotion opportunities for employees,
- Disincentives for inefficient employees.
- Effective co-operation which brings stability,
- Industrial dispute and unrest in employees will reduce,
- The employees will be adaptable to the changes and there will be no resistance to the change,
- This will help in providing a smooth and sound concern in which individual interests will coincide with the organizational interests,
- This will result in profit maximization through increased productivity.
Leads to stability of work force
Stability of workforce is very important from the point of view of reputation and goodwill of a concern. The employees can remain loyal to the enterprise only when they have a feeling of participation in the management. The skills and efficiency of employees will always be of advantage to employees as well as employees. This will lead to a good public image in the market which will attract competent and qualified people into a concern. As it is said, “Old is gold” which suffices with the role of motivation here, the older the people, more the experience and their adjustment into a concern which can be of benefit to the enterprise.
From the above discussion, we can say that motivation is an internal feeling which can be understood only by manager since he is in close contact with the employees. Needs, wants and desires are inter-related and they are the driving force to act. These needs can be understood by the manager and he can frame motivation plans accordingly. We can say that motivation therefore is a continuous process since motivation process is based on needs which are unlimited. The process has to be continued throughout.
We can summarize by saying that motivation is important both to an individual and a business. Motivation is important to an individual as:
- Motivation will help him achieve his personal goals.
- If an individual is motivated, he will have job satisfaction.
- Motivation will help in self-development of individual.
- An individual would always gain by working with a dynamic team.
Similarly, motivation is important to a business as:
- The more motivated the employees are, the more empowered the team is.
- The more is the team work and individual employee contribution, more profitable and successful is the business.
- During period of amendments, there will be more adaptability and creativity.
- Motivation will lead to an optimistic and challenging attitude at work place.
What is Leadership ?
Leadership is a process by which an executive can direct, guide and influence the behavior and work of others towards accomplishment of specific goals in a given situation. Leadership is the ability of a manager to induce the subordinates to work with confidence and zeal.
Leadership is the potential to influence behaviour of others. It is also defined as the capacity to influence a group towards the realization of a goal. Leaders are required to develop future visions, and to motivate the organizational members to want to achieve the visions.
According to Keith Davis, “Leadership is the ability to persuade others to seek defined objectives enthusiastically. It is the human factor which binds a group together and motivates it towards goals.”
Characteristics of Leadership
- It is a inter-personal process in which a manager is into influencing and guiding workers towards attainment of goals.
- It denotes a few qualities to be present in a person which includes intelligence, maturity and personality.
- It is a group process. It involves two or more people interacting with each other.
- A leader is involved in shaping and moulding the behaviour of the group towards accomplishment of organizational goals.
- Leadership is situation bound. There is no best style of leadership. It all depends upon tackling with the situations.
Leadership is an important function of management which helps to maximize efficiency and to achieve organizational goals. The following points justify the importance of leadership in a concern.
- Initiates action- Leader is a person who starts the work by communicating the policies and plans to the subordinates from where the work actually starts.
- Motivation- A leader proves to be playing an incentive role in the concern’s working. He motivates the employees with economic and non-economic rewards and thereby gets the work from the subordinates.
- Providing guidance- A leader has to not only supervise but also play a guiding role for the subordinates. Guidance here means instructing the subordinates the way they have to perform their work effectively and efficiently.
- Creating confidence- Confidence is an important factor which can be achieved through expressing the work efforts to the subordinates, explaining them clearly their role and giving them guidelines to achieve the goals effectively. It is also important to hear the employees with regards to their complaints and problems.
- Building morale- Morale denotes willing co-operation of the employees towards their work and getting them into confidence and winning their trust. A leader can be a morale booster by achieving full co-operation so that they perform with best of their abilities as they work to achieve goals.
- Builds work environment- Management is getting things done from people. An efficient work environment helps in sound and stable growth. Therefore, human relations should be kept into mind by a leader. He should have personal contacts with employees and should listen to their problems and solve them. He should treat employees on humanitarian terms.
- Co-ordination- Co-ordination can be achieved through reconciling personal interests with organizational goals. This synchronization can be achieved through proper and effective co-ordination which should be primary motive of a leader.
Leadership and management are the terms that are often considered synonymous. It is essential to understand that leadership is an essential part of effective management. As a crucial component of management, remarkable leadership behaviour stresses upon building an environment in which each and every employee develops and excels. Leadership is defined as the potential to influence and drive the group efforts towards the accomplishment of goals. This influence may originate from formal sources, such as that provided by acquisition of managerial position in an organization.
A manager must have traits of a leader, i.e., he must possess leadership qualities. Leaders develop and begin strategies that build and sustain competitive advantage. Organizations require robust leadership and robust management for optimal organizational efficiency......to continue.....................................
Role of banking sector in economic development of India ....
Money lending in one form or the other has evolved along with the history of the mankind. Even in the ancient times there are references to the moneylenders. Shakespeare also referred to ‘Shylocks’ who made unreasonable demands in case the loans were not repaid in time along with interest. Indian history is also replete with the instances referring to indigenous money lenders, Sahukars and Zamindars involved in the business of money lending by mortgaging the landed property of the borrowers.
Towards the beginning of the twentieth century, with the onset of modern industry in the country, the need for government regulated banking system was felt. The British government began to pay attention towards the need for an organised banking sector in the country and Reserve Bank of India was set up to regulate the formal banking sector in the country. But the growth of modern banking remained slow mainly due to lack of surplus capital in the Indian economic system at that point of time. Modern banking institutions came up only in big cities and industrial centres. The rural areas, representing vast majority of Indian society, remained dependent on the indigenous money lenders for their credit needs.
Independence of the country heralded a new era in the growth of modern banking. Many new commercial banks came up in various parts of the country. As the modern banking network grew, the government began to realise that the banking sector was catering only to the needs of the well-to-do and the capitalists. The interests of the poorer sections as well as those of the common man were being ignored.
In 1969, Indian government took a historic decision to nationalise 14 biggest private commercial banks. A few more were nationalised after a couple of years. This resulted in transferring the ownership of these banks to the State and the Reserve Bank of India could then issue directions to these banks to fund the national programmes, the rural sector, the plan priorities and the priority sector at differential rate of interest. This resulted in providing fillip the banking facilities to the rural areas, to the under-privileged and the downtrodden. It also resulted in financial inclusion of all categories of people in almost all the regions of the country.
However, after almost two decades of bank nationalisation some new issues became contextual. The service standards of the public sector banks began to decline. Their profitability came down and the efficiency of the staff became suspect. Non-performing assets of these banks began to rise. The wheel of time had turned a full circle by early nineties and the government after the introduction of structural and economic reforms in the financial sector, allowed the setting up of new banks in the private sector.
The new generation private banks have now established themselves in the system and have set new standards of service and efficiency. These banks have also given tough but healthy competition to the public sector banks.
Banking system and the Financial Institutions play very significant role in the economy. First and foremost is in the form of catering to the need of credit for all the sections of society. The modern economies in the world have developed primarily by making best use of the credit availability in their systems. An efficient banking system must cater to the needs of high end investors by making available high amounts of capital for big projects in the industrial, infrastructure and service sectors. At the same time, the medium and small ventures must also have credit available to them for new investment and expansion of the existing units. Rural sector in a country like India can grow only if cheaper credit is available to the farmers for their short and medium term needs.
Credit availability for infrastructure sector is also extremely important. The success of any financial system can be fathomed by finding out the availability of reliable and adequate credit for infrastructure projects. Fortunately, during the past about one decade there has been increased participation of the private sector in infrastructure projects.
The banks and the financial institutions also cater to another important need of the society i.e. mopping up small savings at reasonable rates with several options. The common man has the option to park his savings under a few alternatives, including the small savings schemes introduced by the government from time to time and in bank deposits in the form of savings accounts, recurring deposits and time deposits. Another option is to invest in the stocks or mutual funds.
In addition to the above traditional role, the banks and the financial institutions also perform certain new-age functions which could not be thought of a couple of decades ago. The facility of internet banking enables a consumer to access and operate his bank account without actually visiting the bank premises. The facility of ATMs and the credit/debit cards has revolutionised the choices available with the customers. The banks also serve as alternative gateways for making payments on account of income tax and online payment of various bills like the telephone, electricity and tax. The bank customers can also invest their funds in various stocks or mutual funds straight from their bank accounts. In the modern day economy, where people have no time to make these payments by standing in queue, the service provided by the banks is commendable.
While the commercial banks cater to the banking needs of the people in the cities and towns, there is another category of banks that looks after the credit and banking needs of the people living in the rural areas, particularly the farmers. Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) have been sponsored by many commercial banks in several States. These banks, along with the cooperative banks, take care of the farmer-specific needs of credit and other banking facilities.
Till a few years ago, the government largely patro-nized the small savings schemes in which not only the interest rates were higher, but the income tax rebates and incentives were also in plenty. The bank deposits, on the other hand, did not entail such benefits. As a result, the small savings were the first choice of the investors. But for the last few years the trend has been reversed. The small savings, the bank deposits and the mutual funds have been brought at par for the purpose of incentives under the income tax. Moreover, the interest rates in the small savings schemes are no longer higher than those offered by the banks.
Banks today are free to determine their interest rates within the given limits prescribed by the RBI. It is now easier for the banks to open new branches. But the banking sector reforms are still not complete. A lot more is required to be done to revamp the public sector banks. Mergers and amalgamation is the next measure on the agenda of the government. The government is also preparing to disinvest some of its equity from the PSU banks. The option of allowing foreign direct investment beyond 50 per cent in the Indian banking sector has also been under consideration.
Banks and financial intuitions have played major role in the economic development of the country and most of the credit- related schemes of the government to uplift the poorer and the under-privileged sections have been implemented through the banking sector. The role of the banks has been important, but it is going to be even more important in the future.
Digital Convergence: Life in the Twenty-First Century
First, a riddle: What are the differences among
- student or citizen Roopmala
- the complete works of Swami Vivekananda
- your internal test marks sheet
- the Mona Lisa
- your admit card for exam
- your baby pictures
- a call to your Valentine
- a book list for your library
- a lecture by very sincere & serious Prof. A. K. Manjhi
- a staff meeting in the Department of BCA
- slides of the college picnic trip with SSM to his favorite Tinpahar Jungle
- a program in C++
- the first Mickey Mouse cartoon
- sheet music for Schubert’s Ave Maria
- a speech by Rahul Gandhi or Mahatma Gandhi?
Imagine a place without books, photographs, movies, televisions, stereo systems, letters, post cards, billboards, telephones, and fax machines. That place is not Europe in the Dark Ages but the world that most people in the twenty-first century will inhabit. In lieu of the media that we now take for granted there will be the one great digital medium that replaces the current Internet. The process by which all these separate media become digital and come to be delivered via the global network is known as digital convergence.
Why is digital convergence such a certainty? There are three major reasons. First, bits—the 1s and 0s that computers understand—are incredibly cheap. Think of the staggering cost of cutting down trees, turning them into paper, writing words down on this paper, flying the paper via airplane across the country, sorting the paper from among thousands of other pieces of paper, loading the paper onto trucks, and paying someone to carry the paper to someone’s door. Think also of the time that such a process takes. A letter sent from Deoghar to New Delhi may well take seven to ten days to arrive. Now think of sending a piece of e-mail. Type the mail into your computer, click on a button, and the bits move almost instantaneously and at a cost so low as to be almost nonexistent, to any place on the globe. The India may has an incredibly efficient, cost-effective mail system, but traditional mail, sometimes referred to as snail mail, can’t begin to compete with the cost of e-mail. What is true of mail is even more true of such tangible products as books, music CDs, and videocassettes. A new hardbound novel costs around thirty dollars; a music CD, fifteen; a videocassette, twenty to forty. Turn each of those—the book, the music CD, the videocassette—into a bunch of 1s and 0s and you eliminate the manufacturing cost almost entirely. And, of course, there is an environmental benefit to not cutting down all those trees and not making a lot of plastics that will end up in landfills.
The second major reason why digital convergence is not simply a possibility for the future but a certainty is the quality of digital materials. Think of the difference in sound quality between an old LP recording and a music CD. The difference is that the former is an analog medium, whereas the latter is digital, and digital materials can be reproduced at any resolution, assuming that one has the storage space and the bandwidth (bandwidth is simply the number of bits per second that can be sent through a given medium, such as fiber optic cable or the air). At some point, the level of resolution achieved by digitizing a signal, such as a music track or a graphic image, becomes so good that it is indistinguishable, given the limitations of our senses, from the real thing. Television signals today are grainy and poorly resolved compared to the digital signals that we shall receive in the future. Watching a television program in the year 2040 is likely to be similar to peering through a window.
The third major reason why digital convergence will happen is that technology is rapidly approaching the stage where high-bandwidth transmission of digital information between any two places is possible. Telephone companies are replacing old copper twisted-pair cables with new fiber-optic lines that transmit billions of bits per second at the speed of light. In many areas of the United States, cable modem hookups to the Internet, which provides up to 60 Mbps (that’s millions of bits per second) for downloads, are now available. Two companies—Teledesic and Motorola—are planning, for the first decade of the twenty-first century, a system of low-orbit satellites that will make wireless global networking available to the entire globe. And, of course, governments around the globe are hard at work updating their information infrastructures, including cables, routers, and switching devices, to make high-bandwidth networking, on which economies of the future will depend, widely available.
Other technological obstacles to digital convergence are being rapidly overcome. Storage prices have dropped dramatically in the past decade. In the mid-1980s, a 20-megabyte hard drive could cost as much as seven hundred dollars. Now, a 2-gigabyte hard drive can be purchased for a fourth of that. It seems reasonable to expect that this exponential drop in the cost of storage will continue. Recordable DVD-ROM is but one of many emerging technologies that will give us all someplace to store those massive audio and video files that come streaming over the global network onto our home media centers.
In the future, almost every device will be a network device. Some of these devices will be large and immobile, like movie or television screens. Others will be small and portable, like wallets, watches, or cellular phones. All will be hooked up to the global network. It is often objected that most people do not want to read a book online, and that is indeed true given today’s display technologies. But here, again, the times are changing. Researchers at MIT have invented a kind of ink that turns a sheet the thickness of a piece of paper into a black-and-white monitor, and they are working on a color version. Within a few years, breakthroughs in display technology will make extremely high-resolution monitors commonplace. People will be able to carry their computers or even to wear them as clothing and will be able to use these computers, in any place and at any time, to send telephone, mail, video, or fax messages; to do their shopping or banking; or to receive news and entertainment. At home, the telephone, the personal computer, the mail box, newspapers, newsletters, magazines, the tape deck, the VCR, and the CD player will be replaced by one or more all-purpose devices, and one will be able to interact with these devices using ordinary speech commands.
In the future, people will doubtless still make books and other consumable information and entertainment products, but increasingly, these will become not primary delivery mechanisms but objects of art. It is no accident that at the same time that Project Gutenbergis assembling the largest collection of online books that the world has ever seen, the staff of the rare book division of the Wellesley College Library is hosting a show of handmade books—books as art objects rather than as mass media.
Most commentaries on the coming digital convergence concentrate on high-profile, jazzy applications like online movies, but the emergence of the global network and of wireless connections will also have profound effects on the everyday devices that we use. Consider, for example, the automobile. Via wireless connections, automobiles will be able to access GPS data to pinpoint a person’s location or to provide street-by-street maps . There is no good reason why other consumer products and appliances might not be hooked to the global network as well. A home heating system, for example, might communicate with the local power plant or with a national power grid and adjust itself to achieve energy efficiency and low cost. Ranges, stoves, microwaves, and refrigerators might communicate with food products manufacturers, cookbook publishers, and food delivery services. The possibilities for such networked appliances are enormous. All that awaits is the genius needed to figure out the applications. Who knows, the Edison of the digital appliance might be learning his or her multiplication tables in some elementary school as you are reading this.
A lot remains to be worked out. Cable, telephone, and entertainment companies are busily trying to position themselves for the digital future. They know that in that future they will be general media companies operating over the global network. There will be companies that provide and maintain the hardware and software for the global network, and there will be content providers, but the old distinctions among the cable company, the telephone company, the television network, the news wire service, and so on, will become part of technological and cultural history. Despite the occasional horror story in the astonishingly popular press, more and more people are realizing that conducting commercial transactions via the Internet is at least as safe as conducting them over the telephone. New technologies, such as digital watermarks, are being developed to protect intellectual property online. Plug-ins and helper applications for playing multimedia over networks are improving, as are engines for real-time videoconferencing and 3-D interactions using avatars, or virtual proxies.
The coming digital age holds much promise. It will extend human abilities and shrink space. It will make available to ordinary people, worldwide, resources that Caesar Augustus, Kublai Khan, or Louis XIV could not even have dreamed of. The real possibility exists for a renaissance of human potential, not just in so-called "developed countries" like the United States, Germany, and Japan, but over the entire globe. Certainly, traditional societies will encounter threats from the global network to their mores and ways of life, but the global network also promises to give those mores and ways of life a wider audience. The astonishing variety of the present-day Internet is but a small taste of what is to come. The future is but a mouse click away.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Paper Presentation for BBA & BCA Students on 19th February,2012....
NOTICE
NOTICE
The students of BBA/SEMESTER-1 are hereby informed that a PAPER PRESENTATION will be held on 19.02.2012.
The students of BBA D-II are hereby informed that a PAPER PRESENTATION will be held on 19.02.2012.
The topic is “ROLE OF BANKING SECTOR IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF INDIA’’.
All the Students are directed to participate in the above mentioned activity. They are also directed to submit the hard copies in A-4 size paper and soft copies( with format font –Times New Roman ,size -12) of write-ups on the said topic to the under signed.NOTICE
The students of BBA/SEMESTER-1 are hereby informed that a PAPER PRESENTATION will be held on 19.02.2012.
The topic is “Importance of Motivation, Team Building and Leadership in Business Management’’.
All the Students are directed to participate in the above mentioned activity. They are also directed to submit the hard copies in A-4 size paper and soft copies( with format font –Times New Roman ,size -12) of write-ups on the said topic to the under signed.
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/topics/leadership.html http://www.mendeley.com/research/leadership-work-motivation-cross-cultural-perspective-8/
NOTICE
The students of BCA/SEMESTER-1 & BCA\D-II are hereby informed that a PAPER PRESENTATION Will be held on 19.02.2012 .
The topic is “Technology Progression and Convergence: Storage and Digital Media”
All the Students are directed to participate in the above mentioned activity. They are also directed to submit the hard copies in A-4 size paper and soft copies( with format font –Times New Roman ,size -12) of write-ups on the said topic to the under signed.
Coordinator
Department of Vocational Courses
A.S.College,Deoghar
(please e-mail soft copies to ak.skmu@gmail.com)
Resource links :http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.21322/full ,
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