“Quintessence of Cognitive Quality & Indian Vedic Heritage”

Foreword

Celebrating “Aazadi ka Amrit Mohatsav” with the Quality Council of India & observing the 25th foundation day for QCI, This article is intended for every reader of the nation to become an active participant in nation-building as we thrive thru the new world order post-Covid to navigate all adversities with great resilience together along with a firm determination towards an Aatma Nirbhar Bharat.

?On this auspicious occasion when we all celebrate the 25th foundation day of the Quality Council of India let’s reflect upon the glorious years of service to the nation, about the phenomenal journey of those whose self-less dispensation of duties with a holistic approach and innovative Knack helped create a strong-rooted multilayered as well as an agile ecosystem which can help to take effective and bold steps towards transformation with regional and geographical sensitivity along with a strong sense towards culture, heritage, safety & wellbeing to achieve constant improvements in overall quality management ecosystem for our nation with the commitment to ensure citizen delight for everyone.

?Let’s take this time to thank each one who has contributed or worked towards striving for excellence as an individual for self-development or in service to the nation with prayers for the well-being of all families & loved ones, to seek well-being for those who departed due to pandemic and seek resilience to overcome all adversities.

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?o? sarve bhavantu sukhina? sarve santu nirāmayā? .

sarve bhadrā?i pa?yantu mā ka?cid du?kha bhāgbhavet .

o? ?ānti? ?ānti? ?ānti?

?Let all be happy, let all be free from debilitation, let all see goodness, and let there be no victims of sorrow.

?Abstract

?Background

The disruption in everyone’s life overall caused due to Covid 19 has brought a sense of fear and anxiety around the globe which has also led us to observe the highest peak of fight or flight survival behavior instinct of humans as a mass-level phenomenon ever in human histories such as panic buying or any other socio-economic activities observed with the onset of lockdowns which also reflects another emerging consequence of the global pandemic which is the signal for us as a society to adopt the new normal constantly with rapid changes in our lifestyle overall.

?

The global fight against climate change or the pandemic seems to be ever increasingly becoming more adverse with new challenges for all the systems or policymakers to ever justify the constantly growing demand be-it any segment or sector. The pandemic has caused an array of unknown or unseen social issues amidst the crisis which is related to emotional, physical, or economic issues although many were already in existence, however, the pandemic has caused all countries across the globe to make gearshift reforms for the wellbeing of their citizens.

?AIM

This article is aimed at narratively reviewing numerous articles related to the present situations from various aspects of health, education, and more to motivate all the readers towards adapting to the new normal with confidence and to overcome all challenges by seeking strength from the roots of our heritage for holistic wellbeing.

Methodology

A private & individual review by the author from lectures, webinars, online surveys & research papers was conducted and put together which were primarily based on the most pressing challenges related to children and adults of both gender as an ongoing and continual effort and as a part of the product & service development of the brand Dhee Vidhya Guru or www.dhee.guru to achieve improvement & excellence by Smentor solutions.?

Conclusion

In today's dynamic digital world of education, business disruptions & despite technological advances, students or all professional aspirants have various challenges, limiting beliefs that reduce the growth capacity, demand more time to be spent on academic achievements while focusing less on the development of the skills required for life or holistic wellbeing.

Moreover, the lack of practical opportunities which can facilitate the development of values and attributes as the foundational pillars for overall personal development and growth also becomes a major setback for every young individual who is either transitioning from high school, graduating, or working professionally while not being able to carve out a strategic growth plan for a career at the same time or while making all ends meet. Huge advancements across education verticals, subjects, the fast-changing requirement of skills, shorter deadlines, constant change in competency demand, sometimes limited resources, or tighter budgets all together also contribute towards greater pressure and demand increased abilities to focus, have a high level of body energy and a positive mindset.

The quality of one’s overall life is intricately intertwined with the environment and one’s cognitive ability at various levels of one’s knowledge, skills & attitude holistically as a person’s attributes. There is a pressing need for creating awareness about how self-development can help mitigate risks related to career or overall well-being for any individual and the answers to this can also be found in the roots of our ancient culture.

There is a pressing need for planning developmental studies and implementing evidence-based elaborative plans of action to cater to the gaps in the below-mentioned areas.

1)?????An ecosystem or a model which is inclusive irrespective of the type of schooling (Private, Public, Special, Distributed centers of education and centers of excellence along with formalizing homeschooling and Gurukul)

2)?????Bridging the gap of fundamental education outreach along with the accessibility of technology and infrastructure.

3)?????Bridging the gap of skill, digital & financial literacy along with breaking the stereotypes that hinder the development of a child or one’s success parameters during any time of one’s life as scorecards instead of development of one’s cognitive ability, behavior, skill & development of attributes overall to achieve a greater quality of life.

4)?????There is an urgent need to bridge the gap between quality professionals in the healthcare and education sector along with upskilling the existing professionals.

5)?????Tool of the trade savvy workforce development which can foster the growth of Industries.

6)?????Catering to the urgent need of providing adequate support & access to mental health needs of vulnerable children, adolescents, and parents during the pandemic & post-pandemic can provide measures to cope with the current time of crisis. Along with bringing reforms or developing healthy mechanisms and policies in healthcare, education, and other sectors that impact the quality of life for any citizen of our nation with collaborative efforts.

?The list of the above gaps or challenges is not limited to the below-mentioned but is only a few to name.

1)?????Breaking the stereotype towards, “skilling perceived as the last option” or for those who do not succeed in academic areas or drop out from education.

2)?????To ensure convergence and monitoring mechanisms between more than 20 Ministries & departments of the central government related to skill development programs.

3)?????Ease of decision making, inspiring thought clarity, or removing confusion among employers by a single-window solution which removes multiplicity of assessment or certification systems leading to inconsistent outcomes.

4)?????Bridge the gap between master trainers and industry-academia collaboration.

5)?????Bridge the gap between demand & supply at the sectoral & spatial levels.

6)?????Seamless mobility between academic, vocational & skill development plans as per the child's needs.

7)?????Increase the coverage of apprenticeships or innovate the entire apprenticeship system industries-wide.

8)?????New innovative skill curricula and overcome the obsolete.

9)?????Increasing the labor force participation rate of women

10)?Inclusion of entrepreneurship in the formal education system

11)??Adequate mentorship & access to finance for start up’s and MSMEs

12)?The impetus to innovation-driven entrepreneurship.

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Introduction

Rapidly changing world, advancement in science and technology along with Covid 19 has not only caused a global disruption but has also blown the bugle for the onset of one of the biggest Industrial revolutions ever in human history with almost all necessities being dependent on digital technologies for survival and operations at large for common or essential public service systems.

The unique opportunity that our nation has with the demographic advantage of around 62.5 % of India’s population in the working-age group. India contributes the largest number of qualified personnel to the global workforce today. India is at the forefront of new technologies such as data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, space, and emerging technologies along with advancements in the area of the research and development ecosystem. The demographic dividend opportunity that the nation has is the longest in the world which is accessible for 5 decades starting from 2005 to 2055. However, Global disruptions have impacted the lives of people in an unprecedented manner which has given rise to many other critical crises such as mental and physical well-being overall.

National skilling initiatives are giving a boost to the pace of bridging the skill gap which is fueling the economic strength, giving a rise to opportunities for new job creation & entrepreneurship. The top skills in demand for the knowledge economy will remain as “Communication”,” Creativity”, “Collaboration” and “Critical thinking”.

The challenge of overcoming the barriers of regional language along with prevalent factors such as societal stereotypes of gauging the progress of any youth with exam scores, package figures, and more has kept the youth from taking the charge & contributing towards nation-building along with various other behavioral patterns such as academic loafing, apart from the missing acceptability towards holistic development for life as the success of physical, psychological, character, social, life & professional skill development along with the rigidness towards being open to new age interventions or a majority of the times being dependent on family, friends, relatives or coworkers for decision making related to personal or professional life instead of taking the autonomy of decision making or self-development to attain an optimal state of wellbeing.

The overall quality of life we experience is our mindset, abilities, knowledge, skills & attitude, which are directly related to our character, intelligence, livelihood & approach towards either being a part of the problem or choosing to solve our gaps in these areas and contribute to being a solution. All of these attributes are a matter of constant improvement and thus demand a rain check frequently.

Let us overcome all the challenges and obstacles individually which stop us from attaining growth and contributing towards becoming a part of the solution and not the problem by choosing to become self-directed learners. A majority of the students in our nation are challenged with the inability to make decisions autonomously about life or career due to numerous factors, let’s also understand the challenges in skilling & entrepreneurship in our nation. Societal stereotypes have forced upon to perceive the highest academic certificate as a symbol of knowledge, skill is ironically perceived to be non-essential & attitude as a word in itself is used as a negative word in general communication amongst the youth while it is the most essential and must area one must work upon for life.

Skills, knowledge, and attitude together are the components of an individual success or for economic growth & social development for any country. The current gaps are of formidable proportions in all aspects since the pandemic however let’s pledge to overcome the challenges concluded at the earliest to propel the growth.

The Quintessence of Cognitive Quality and Vedic Heritage

The likeliness of overall life success has its roots in the quality of cognitive functioning abilities of any child. India has an extremely diverse geographical as well as regional and cultural diversity which goes hand in hand with the diversity in food & nutrition.

There is a ton of evidence from various international research papers about the effect of maternal antenatal iron deficiency with or without anemia on adverse pregnancy outcomes including low birth weight and prematurity. However, few studies have investigated the long-term effects of maternal iron deficiency during pregnancy on the neurodevelopment of the baby and the links between maternal antenatal mental health problems and infant neurodevelopment.

India as a nation must take an Atmanirbhar route to conduct more longitudinal studies specific to regional aspects to ascertain the risk and thus overcome the challenge and find out if low umbilical cord serum ferritin concentrations in term newborn infants correlated with impaired cognitive function at 5 years of age. Correlation between poor placental functioning and neurodevelopmental outcome rather than a causal link between maternal IDA and child cognitive defects. Although Studies provide evidence that maternal iron deficiency during pregnancy relates to lower infant cognitive development, through both direct and indirect potential pathways. First, low maternal iron storage could result directly in low iron transferred through the placenta to fulfill the fetus’ needs, leading to adverse consequences for child neurodevelopment.?Second, anemia contributes to maternal fatigue which may interfere with self-care including food preparation to ensure a sufficient dietary intake or participation in health care.

The National Family Health Survey - 4 from 2015 and the NHFS-5 from 2018 data show that the situation has remained unchanged from the high prevalence of about 60% between two and a high population of women and children who had not responded to the various programs implemented in the last five years.

A recent paper published also emphasized the need to re-examine the WHO hemoglobin cut-offs to define Anemia compared in parlance to Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) reports which show a staggering difference of 11% and 35% between CNNS & WHO respectively if the methods of the study for drawing blood samples are to be further standardized. The study suggests that Anemia is being over-diagnosed in India and that normal hemoglobin levels vary across demographics and diagnostic cut off need to be defined in more region-specific ways and that differences in the method of drawing the blood samples might have an impact on the output numbers and thus concluding that if the prevalence is truly low, then the corrective response shall also yield low results.

It is also imperative to note that POSHAN Abhiyaan or National Nutrition Mission, Aimed at holistic nutrition with a firm determination towards “Anemia Mukt Bharat” plays a critical role in improving the overall quality of life experience of our future generations to come and the activities focused on social behavioral change and communication (SBCC) during the Rashtriya Poshan Maah celebrated in September 2018 had an outreach of more than 30 Crore people in 30 days providing an impetus to the mission with over 12.2 Crore women, 6.2 Crore Men and more than 13 Crore children of both genders who participated.

The quintessence of cognitive quality-related studies can also be found in the rich heritage of our nation known for its excellence and dexterity. Gurukuls are a way of gaining great quality of life, removal of fear, and gaining confidence in oneself.

One of the most prominent cultural assets for India as a nation is the diversified heritage of languages and not to forget that there is a long list of potentially endangered languages as well. The sweetness of relationship, trust, compassion, brotherhood, respect & equity for all, in general, is a culture that remains an unresolved mystery for the world to understand how much we have to share despite being a country that holds only 2.4% of the total land on earth while about 18% of its population.

Excellence for oneself or excellence as a nation came to India much earlier than many other civilizations over four thousand years ago. The culture of native excellence and the confluence of belief in humanities and sciences have always been open to each other in India for eternity and thus the unity of the nation has been intact to fight against all odds and adversities which have posed threat to our rich cultural heritage. Modern-day science is evolving with new learning in neuroscience, with new findings and innovations to learn more and more about how the brain functions and such as the quality of Indian history of literature of having given the mental health excellence related studies and works of literature or the concept of health in Ayurveda from as early as 800 BC. Prevention is better than cure! We should not be surprised that this statement has roots in our ancient heritage and culture. ????? ???????? Nidana Parivarjana (Avoidance of Causative factors) is the basis of ????????? Chikitsa (Treatment) said Acharaya Sushruta. Since the prevention of the occurrence of causative factors for the disease is simple than treating the post-development of any disease.

The Vedic scriptures also provide us the source to take pride in our heritage by understanding that the causative factors for the strong mental health of an individual also relate to Dhee, Dhriti & Smriti which are the faculties related to manas. The modern-day education systems for decades have kept our children to stay in an environment of gaining knowledge to retain and being assessed for perfection for only one faculty of the brain “Smriti” by assessing all the students with standardized testing while keeping the child in void towards the development of other faculties of the brain such as Dhee or Dhriti leading to a massive young population available to work however with lesser quality of workmanship attributes.

?Acharya Charaka has mentioned the “Satva Sara Lakshanas” which can be considered as the Gold standard in terms of Positive Mental Health & Behavior”?

·????????Good memory [Smritimantah]

·????????Devotion [Bhaktimantah]

·????????Gratitude [Kritajnah]

·????????Wisdom [Prajnah]

·????????Purity [Suchayah]

·????????Enthusiasm [Mahotsaha]

·????????Skillfulness [Dakshah]

·????????Boldness [Dheera]

·????????Courageous in combating various situations [Samar Vikrantayodhina]

·????????Absence of sorrow [Tyakta vishada]

·????????Good body language and movements [Suvyavasthita gati]

·????????Intelligence [Gambheera buddhi]

·????????Well organized behavior [Gambheera ceshta]

·????????Virtuous acts [Kalyana abhinivesi]

Get ready to overcome all fears & sorrows that the pandemic has caused and gain your strength back, do introspect on the incidents and events of your life in the recent past to recollect the times you have showcased the above twelve characteristics in your behavior and commit to yourself for staying strong to battle out the difficult times with grit & gratitude towards the nation and pledge to serve at least one day in the service of the nation voluntarily every month or year to feel the charisma of giving it back and strengthen your inner self for the new world and for you to excel in all your endeavors with confidence.

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