Can twitter replace news feeds?

Twitter has become a growing phenomenon like Facebook surviving off by people using it. It has taken control of the social media platform and has made millions off on consumer generated content. Millions and millions of people are tweeting throughout the day leading to chats, conversations, and social action. It has already created a niche for itself and is used by millions doing a great job getting and connecting with organizations in all subjects such as news, celeb news, sports, and fashion.

Everyone, even celebrities, politicians, organizations, businesses etc have a Twitter handle. Some would say that it is one of the greatest social networking sites there is, while others would think it is for idle people who have nothing more to do, but tweet all day. Celebrities have flocked to the social media site. It has become a tool to connect with their fans as well as other celeb friends. Although it has some good points, twitter has caused many controversies among its celeb users. For example, tweeting offensive or controversial tweets of their unfiltered opinions. Fan bases of celebrities can be more than some of the world’s country population.

Many people believe that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter will dominate and soon erase original websites for news. This is a myth. Although followers do receive part of the news from these sources, most people state that they still like to visit the original news website to catch up on their news. Although research proves that the device you are using does not change which website you resource to for news, Twitter news followers are known to be more mobile, using more smart phones and computer tablets than any other news source. Demographics also show that the Twitter population is younger than the most frequently compared to Facebook. Twitter news followers rely on this social network because of its efficiency and the quickness in which the news travel.

In the sports world, Twitter has become a powerful promotional tool. While some athletes just use Twitter to “connect” with their fans, it seems that most are just trying to build a big following so they can get more lucrative endorsement deals. Twitter and sports fit together because the sports newsfeed have to be live, immediate, and suspenseful. With every touchdown, goal or home run you can literally see the spikes in Twitter activity. For athletes it’s not easy to connect with their fans all the time. Maintaining a strong relationship with fans is probably one of the most important aspects of a sport off the field, court or ice. Social networks are effective tools to improve those relationships with die hard supporters while also finding new fans.

How Twitter has also affected the world of fashion and how they spread the new trends from week to week or season to season. A great example of how fashion companies are utilizing Twitter is by looking at how Urban Outfitters uses Twitter to their advantage. From day to day Urban Outfitters updates their Twitter with new music, sales, and the latest fashions. This keeps people coming back for more because they are interested in the next best thing coming from one of the most edgy, and unique, as well as biggest retail stores in the United States. 

Although Twitter has many positives like keeping people informed and up to date and being able to keep in contact with friends and family all over the world, it also has its negatives.  From the perspective of someone that has no social networks an opinion may be considered bias, but it also may be someone who can see it from the outside looking in with fresh eyes.  From what the point of view of not having a Twitter account it is not a necessity.  Twitter is very addictive and distracting, especially for a college student.  Everyone is so dependent on technology and twitter is only adding to that.  Something like this can make college life all the more difficult because it’s something else that draws your attention away from your work, or any task at hand.

Politics in Development: A Grassroot Case Study

The Meaning of Politics

The political process can enable or inhibit development. The word politics “comes from the Greek word ‘politica’, moderated on Aristotle’s ‘Affairs of State’ the name of his book on governing and government written in Latin and translated in English in mid fifteenth century.

Politics is the art as well as science of government. It consists of social relations involving authority of power. It is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions and is not restricted to behavior within civil governments alone. Politics has been observed in all group interaction including corporate, academic and religious institutions.

In other words, political institution express and embody the wisdom of the people of the time and the route to good political and social institution is by deepening of wisdom and by broadening of vision.

Understanding Development

Development is an act or process, a step or stage in growth, progress, advancement. It is a relative term and is comparable to different countries, different sectors, different time periods.

The scope of development is vast and all encompassing – social, economic, industrial, technological and so on. However, development is strongly linked to economic growth and advancement because it is evident that economic growth usually leads to other types of development.

Development practitioners and experts have evolved different indicators for measurement of sector wise development, for example, increase in annual GDP is an indicator of the economic growth of a country. Literacy level among women is considered as an indicator of social development.

Basing on the frequently found difference in development between urban and rural areas, development is also commonly understood as rural development, i.e. the status of development in rural areas of a country. Rural development implies both economic betterment of people as well as greater social transformation.  

Indicators of Development

By consensus, the international community has accepted the following five as the indicators of development:

1. Literacy, education, and skills
2. Health: life expectancy, maternal and infant mortality, quality of life, and the levels of health care available in situations of morbidity
3. Income and economic welfare: high levels of employment, high per capita incomes, and increased gross national product, with appropriate corrections for environmental protection and for income equity
4. Choice, democracy, and participation
5. Technology: the capacity to develop technological innovations and to make technological choices)

Background

Kanpur is a typical Indian village. It comes under Nakichua Gram Panchayat of Rasgobindpur Block of Mayurbhanj district of Odisha. About 58% of the population in the villages is tribals. The village is situated at the fringe of Similipal Biosphere and is surrounded by reserve forest. Minor forest produce and wage earning on daily basis are the main source of livelihood for the tribals.

Evidence suggests connectivity leads to economic development; however that has not been the case for Nakichhua GP. Here, the community is languishing in poverty, low literacy and other characteristics of backwardness. Distress migration and distress sale of forest products are regular affairs. Local trade and commerce is mainly controlled by outsiders.

An analysis of the politico development of Nakichua reveals there has not been visible development in the gram panchayat. It is a fallacy that the people of the gram panchayat are relatively more educated and closer to developed regions but the development in their own area is much less than expected.

Kanpur is the revenue village with two hamlet villages. Nibas sahi is the tribal and dalit dominated hamlet and the other hamlet known as Kanpur is the upper class dominated hamlet. Development projects sanctioned to the village is always implemented in the upper caste dominated hamlet. But in the official record, it is reflected against Kanpur revenue village. While the Kanpur hamlet has electricity, piped drinking water, pucca internal road, community hall etc, Nibas Sahi, the other hamlet continues to remain in darkness.

Implementation of Government Programmes

In the village, the development projects are never implemented as per the scheme objectives and guidelines. Since the last 6 years, one NGO initiated some activities in the village commencing with the youth club. Initially, people from different caste and economic groups resisted the initiative as the mooted idea by the NGO did not confound to their local intra-community groupism and pettiness. It went through ups and downs often conflict among youth from different caste and economic groups. However, it seemed to catch the imagination of people from all sections despite of nasty politics by the various political party leaders at the gram panchayat or block level.

Malfunctioning of Village level Democratic bodies

In 2007, a gram sabha meeting ended mid way with fight and bloodshed between two factions of the community having support from two rival political parties. On paper, gram sabhas are held as per provisions, but villagers can hardly recall when they attended a gram sabha meeting for the last. The prevailing situation created by the local political parties doesn’t allow a villager to enjoy the constitutional right to exercise his choice and participate in development decision making process.

In connivance with the Block Chairman and other elected PRI members, BDO and engineers at the block level are only interested in cornering the contracts issued by the block office for infrastructure development of the local area under various government schemes- NREGS, Bharat Nirman, Indira Awas, Watershed Development and others. The need and priority are never looked into while sanctioning the work as the decision depends on other factors- which community group that the political party that wills the power will decide all implementation related matters. In such a situation, how an aam aadmi could expect benefit or justice?

PRIs are political bastions

Legally, the lower two tiers under Panchayat Raj system are apolitical. Panchayat elections are naturally fought without party lines or party symbols Panchayat elections are supposed to be free from any influence, be it political parties, muscle power, money power and so on. But, in reality, the political parties select candidates to contest the gram panchayat and panchayat samiti election. Political parties bring out victory processions after declaration of panchayat election results.

There is no effort from any quarter to clean the system or ensure that panchayat raj institutions remain apolitical. Perhaps, the civil society organizations are too scared to fight for the cause.

Continuous denial of justice has caused disinterest among the common villagers to participate in the process

Presence of muscle power and money power and the nexus among the local politician, PRI office bearer, business community and government officials has left no room for the common and the poor to get their right and/or justice. Those not belonging to such nexus and coterie has lost interest in the process of local self governance, participatory development decision making. Village level to district level development planning exercise has become totally a farce. What people desire is not planned. What the powerful within the community decide has been sanctioned. The concept of ‘Equity’  and ‘Right’ exists in the planning commission and the constitutional document.

Lockers: The Future of last mile delivery

Consider this scenario a couple of years ago even in the developed market. You order a product online to be delivered at your residence. What would happen at the time of delivery of your parcel if you are not at home?

1. Delivery guy will probably call you & ask for instructions?
2.  Drop the parcel with the neighbors or take the parcel back & reattempt the delivery probably at a later time or in all possibility on an alternate day.

This is a common scenario especially among the urban dwellers, who fear either the package may not be delivered or may be stolen if left unattended. This is a perfect nightmare for any online store as well. Imagine the cost associated with the failed delivery attempts in monetary terms as well as impact on the overall productivity. Add to this other factors such as cost associated with handling customer calls through customer service, dispatching a replacement item in case of lost item or even potential loss of sale due to customer switching to alternate retailer.

To address these challenges e-tailers have been working either on its own (Amazon) or closely with the logistics solutions providers such as Singapore post, Finland’s Itella, InPost Canada, Australia Post for building a network of smart lockers for delivery of parcels. It’s a win-win situation for customers as well as sellers. This solution is helping the etailers & logistics solutions providers not just to avoid the cases of failed delivery attempts, but also with improved productivity due to multiple deliveries at the same point resulting in reduced cost per delivery. Add to factors such as lesser chances of a lost parcels, deliveries during the non-peak hours resulting in avoiding the traffic congestion. Othe benefit being explored simultaneously is, for the reverse logistics. Lockers also work as pick up point for returned items.

How the lockers work?

Smart lockers are generally installed in public places such as Malls, convenience stores such as seven-eleven which are in the vicinity of the residential areas & often visited by the natives for the daily needs. It has compartments of varying sizes to accommodate wider variety of items & can typically handle items weighing upto 10 pounds.

Once the parcel has been delivered with the locker, automated tracking systems trigger the communication over email or cellular phone as preferred by the customer. Mail or SMS sends the details required of opening the lockers. Generally a passcode or QR code. Some of the locker models are also using the Bluetooth connectivity feature for added security.

Items are typically held in lockers for about 3 days for the customer to pick up the items. The backend system is designed for even reminding the customer for pickup of the items or alternate instructions in case item cannot be picked up within the set time or if customer wants the items to be returned to the seller.

While we all hear about the pilot projects of deliveries using drones to address problems relating to cost, traffic congestion, speed & agility, lockers have slipped in quietly into those convenience stores & doing the job assigned to them with ease & offering the convenience to the customers

Challenges

While the lockers are being successfully implemented in developed nations where people shop online mostly using internet banking & credit cards, it will be interesting to see how this works in developing Asian markets such as South East Asia & Indian subcontinent where preferred mode of payment is still cash on delivery.