Saturday, August 6, 2016

Easy on Strengths and weaknesses

Everyone is a unique personality who has her definite interests and traits of character. Moreover, everyone has his own strengths and weaknesses. Some people are good at sports. Other people are good at manual work. On the other hand, one can be good at intellectual activity but weak in physical exercises. Have you ever thought about your personal strengths and weaknesses? I suppose it is very important to know such serious matters about you. When you can evaluate your strong and weak sides, you can find the right occupation and develop your own personality. When you know that you are good at drawing, you can become a professional in this field if you develop this skill intensively. 

In my opinion, the understanding of personal strengths and weaknesses is the most important point of human life. Her fate depends on this knowledge and objective understanding of her potential.

Naturally, every human being is good at something. Unfortunately, very few people discover and develop their hidden potential. Of course, it depends on parents and their attitude towards their child’s. 

They should be very attentive if they want to notice their child’s strengths. It is possible to notice them when you spend much time with the child and observe his behavior and the style of his playing. 


When you see that your child spends much time building something, you can guess that he can be good at architecture or practical work. When he spends long hours drawing something, he can be an inborn painter. If you notice that your daughter dances all the time, it is wise to give her a chance to become a professional dancer. Finally, when you see that your child is constantly counting various items, he can be interested in mathematics and sciences. As you see, you should just be attentive. On the other hand, it is impossible to define the child’s strong sides objectively, because his interests can be occasional.

As I speak about myself, I have discovered my personal strengths and weaknesses at a young age. When I went to school, I could not study such subjects as English, Science and Vocab, because they were too complicated for me. Moreover, I was not interested in learning them. I always found excuses to avoid doing my homework, because I preferred studying Social, Research and History. 

Fortunately, my parents understood the problem and did not make me waste time on these sciences. 

Consequently, I managed to learn fluent General Knowledge, Politic and Social Sectors. This knowledge has become extremely useful for me. I can find a good job, because every Development sectors requires smart professionals who know several Social sector, Research and Management Knowledge. If I had wasted time on mathematics and science, I would have failed to learn these Development subject perfectly. My knowledge would have been superficial. It is unreasonable to devote time to the unnecessary activities if you can spend this time on the improvement of your strengths.

Next, I should say that my strong quality is patience, work effectively and good coordination. I can fulfill such duties, which require constant attention and time. Obviously, this skill is important for mastering a Development sectors. You have to repeat the information a few times to remember it. Then, I am very hardworking. If I like my job, I will spend much time and many efforts to it. I become absorbed in my work and I try to do it perfectly. 

Finally, I am good at learning new things. If something is interesting to me, I can learn it easily. This quality is very important for every sector, because every sector is a changeable matter. Its situation changes all the time. If you stop learning brand new ideas or theory of development, you will not master a development sectors.

Personal strengths and weaknesses is a specific topic for discussion. When you want to build your professional and private life successfully, you ought to study you own character and your interests attentively.


Wednesday, July 13, 2016

What is Success?

Have you ever thought about the meaning of the well-known word 'success'? Some people believe that success is money and career. Others say that success is health and family. One can say that success is happiness. Naturally, the concept of success is very controversial and vague. It is impossible to define the meaning of success precisely. However, I will try to observe this issue from different sides in order to find the closest definition of this term.

It is possible to say that a successful person is the person who has reached his\her goal. When you dream about something and obtain it, you believe that it is a success. Success is closely connected with happiness, because when your dreams come true, you are happy. On the other hand, it is a mistake to claim that success means happiness, because very often, successful people are unhappy. Consequently, this term has its objective and subjective sides.


When we speak about the objective meaning of success, we understand that someone has reached his goal. For example, when one has got married and started his own family, he is happy. When one has bought a new car, he is also happy and successful. When one has earned much money, he is successful, because he is able to spend this money in the way he wants. Therefore, a successful person is the person who is able to take advantage of the results of her activity. The general understanding of success is a very simple. A successful person should have a good job, a perfect family and interesting pastime. When a person can afford material and spiritual benefits, she is successful.

A subjective side of success is very controversial. Everyone has his own understanding of success and happiness. There are cases when a successful person is unhappy. In this case, we can speak about the overestimation of the material benefits. Many people think that success is money. When you have built your successful career, you become rich. You can afford many material benefits. At the same time, you gain many responsibilities and you do not have time for your family and leisure. You ought to spend much time at the workplace and work hard for the development of your company. You become dependable on your job. You possess money and reputation, but you cannot take advantage of these strong sides. Consequently, spiritual benefits are no less important. Of course, career is associated with success. Many businesspersons build their careers and they enjoy their life. They enjoy devoting their entire time to their job. They like to communicate with their colleagues and discuss the latest relevant issues. Such people are active and successful. They know how to use the strong sides of their career properly. Doubtless, many rich people are successful from the point of view of the material benefits. Unfortunately, such people are not successful spiritually. When one devotes much time to his job, he forgets about his family. As a result, this person suffers from the lack of love and understanding. No wonder, some rich men lose their wives and do not establish parental ties with their children. They are successful but lonely.

In conclusion, success is a broad and controversial issue. It is impossible to find the single definition of this term, because everyone has his own understanding of success. I will say that one can explain the meaning of this word in two ways. Firstly, it is the objective happiness. Secondly, it is the possession of money, job, reputation and social status.


Sunday, April 1, 2012


                         Book Review "The White Man’s Burden"
 Why the West’s efforts to aid the rest have done so much ill and so little good.
By William Easterly’s

The subtitle to William Easterly’s new book poses the question: Why have the West’s efforts to aid the Rest done so much ill and so little good? The book’s primary answer is that Western interventions in poor countries from World Bank development projects to military “peace building” operations have been driven by Planners rather than Searchers. Planners pursue utopian goals, design global blueprints, and implement them with little local knowledge or feedback from the intended beneficiaries. Searchers seek first to understand the needs of intended beneficiaries, and then drawing on detailed local knowledge, as well as studious trial and error identify practical ways of meeting those needs. Where Planners dominate, accountability for achieving real benefits is lacking.
Since World War II, billions have been spent on foreign aid by the western democracies in attempt to lift the underdeveloped countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere from poverty. Yet, over a billion people continue to live of extreme poverty. According to World Bank, one in five people subsist on less than $ 1 per day in the developing countries. Progress has been made since 1990, but those gains can be attributed to general economic growth and not foreign aid programs.
Easterly focuses on planners and searchers. According to Easterly, planners like Jeff Sachs and government never deal with the people who need the help but instead with bureaucrats. These bureaucrats often have little incentive to increase the standard of living of the poor. This is because they might then have to share their wealth with the poor. Planners don't listen to their beneficiaries and they don't get in trouble for dreaming up bad projects. Poor people don't have the means to hold planners accountable for meeting their needs. But, planners are accountable to people who need to feel like they are doing something good for the world no matter how ill-conceived. So, we don't treat prostitutes who are probably the single most important carriers of HIV/AIDS but instead we treat the afflicted.
On the other hand, searchers the poor, entrepreneurs and western researchers really care about finding the right answers. After all, the poor have the biggest incentive of all to find the right answers that they don't want to be poor. Entrepreneurs have the right incentives, profit. And for some reason, western researchers also have all the right incentives too. They don't care about publishing or best seller book. They get close to the people, they do things on a smaller scale and they use randomized controlled trials to test their ideas. It doesn't matter that they use the world's poor as guinea pigs for ideas frequently cooked up in the halls of the elite academic institutions of the United States. And it doesn't matter that they too are not really accountable to anyone but themselves.
Easterly argues that foreign aid is neither necessary nor sufficient to increase living standards in developing countries. Aid is not necessary because some countries have been able to raise living standard without a big aid. According to Easterly, Korea is noticeable example. And it is far from sufficient because many countries remain in poverty despite receiving substantial foreign aid. Easterly further argues, “Countries in Africa received more than 15 percent of its income from foreign donors in 1990 but that surge in aid was not successful in reversing the slide in growth of income per capita towards zero” (p. 45). Easterly suggests that, lack of growth in many developing countries is due to bad government and not due to inadequate foreign aid.
In Chapters 5 Easterly argues, searchers respect context and empower individuals, especially through markets. Accountability is at the heart of it: ‘The tragedy of poverty is that the poorest people in the world have no money or political power to motivate searchers to address their desperate needs; to make things even worse; aid bureaucrats have the incentive to satisfy rich country’s vanity with promises of transforming the ‘Rest’ rather than simply helping poor individuals’ (p 146-7). 
Easterly criticises about the Millennium Development Goals as project, about the Big Push theory, which support the UN Millennium project and African Commission. This is created outside experts that market functioning is stroke of goods. This also indicate to failure to deal adequately with ‘gangsters’ with run some developing countries, and about the ineffectiveness of the international financial institutions.
Chapter 8 reviews the experience in Africa, Palestine and the Indian sub-continent, with a number of ice-cream moments, especially about British incompetence and perfidy. Utopia, as Easterly argues, is making a comeback. Easterly talks about the better and also says, “If you think I will now offer a utopian blueprint to fix aid’s complex problems, then I have done a really bad job in the previous chapters at explaining the problems with utopian blueprints’ (Pg 321). However, it is indicative that chapter 10 is devoted to ‘home grown’ development with high praise on Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, China and India. When it comes to aid, it turns out that way forward is not to stop giving it, but rather to make agencies specialise and then use independent evaluation to hold them accountable. It would also be worth giving vouchers to individuals that they can redeem for services provided by aid agencies thereby creating market from bottom up.
Easterly is not the first to be sceptical about the value of international development targets as more than mobilising slogans. He is not the first to evince cynicism about the way in which the idea of participation has been appropriated by technocrats. He is not the first to question whether poverty reduction strategy papers and the apparatus of spending frameworks which follow are quite the panacea proponents once believed. He is certainly not the first to point out that IMF and World Bank conditionality are ineffective tools. And he is not even the first to observe that donors have found it difficult to deal with bad governance and corruption. Heavens some have even dared to challenge Jeff Sachs on Russia, on the Big Push, and, most recently, on the Millennium Villages Project.
Easterly is indeed excellent on the intellectual dishonesty of global goals to make HIV/AIDS drugs available to all but he has ignored all the aspects of opportunity cost and the cost-effectiveness of prevention versus treatment. Easterly seems not to recognize the importance of goals for poverty reduction and development work, or the role that goals play in shaping even his own thinking. His equivalence to markets is faulty. When Searchers in markets seek merely to maximize their own profits, market forces reward them for meeting unmet needs, and perform the remarkable function of allocating the efforts of many individual Searchers across activities in a socially agreeable way. Unfortunately, as Easterly also points out in another context, the poor have no money with which to translate their needs into demands. They generate no market forces to guide Searchers toward meeting their needs.
Easterly has rightly said that self-important public relations campaigns are not to be encouraged and that attention should be paid to work which accomplishes concrete tasks that help people to help themselves. He has further insisted that aid packages have specific purposes that are immediate, effective and transparent and involve indigenous populations in the administration of funds. Easterly further puts targeted projects that “give food supplements to these undernourished children, or piped water to these villages which lack it, or vaccinate this population” on the green zone; however, once minimal survival has been assured, Easterly quickly falls back upon a model of private investment that resembles the early phases of Western capitalism.
Easterly concludes his book, with some ideas about how Western assistance can be more incentive compatible and utilise feedback mechanisms for learning so that progress against extreme poverty in the developing world can indeed be made. This effort on his part is less persuasive than his dissection of the problems with the ambitious global plans for poverty alleviation. But it should also be said that this effort constitutes a very small part of the book, and his position is stated in a way which is more an invitation to study ways in which Western assistance could be more incentive compatible and incorporate local information and critical feedback loops into the process than a claim that he has in fact found the magic formula.
Easterly, has talked about Africa, Europe, and most of Asian countries in his book. He has highlighted the economics of India, China, Bangladesh and a lot of other countries of Asia, but has failed to talk about Nepal and its conditions involving foreign aid. All hell seems to have broken loose in Nepal when foreign aid is taken into consideration. With the percentile amount of foreign aid going up in Nepal’s budget and the growing level of poverty and its issues, Easterly has failed to analyse Nepal’s unique case amongst a lot of other cases that he has argued and put forth.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Bad practices in the Society



Chhaupadi Pratha is a Hindu social practice in the western part of Nepal whereby women are excluded from normal family activities during menstruation because they are considered impure. Even though the law forbids, women undergoing menstruation are kept outside the house and have to live in a shed with cows and other animals. This lasts for eleven days when an adolescent girl has her first period, and four to seven for every following period. Science defines menstruation as biological process whereas Chhaupadi Pratha is a social construct. Chhaupadi Pratha has been in practice in Nepal for a very long time and thus has turned into a tradition and culture of people in the western. Regardless of this system, Chhaupadi Pratha, with diligent advocacy, massive awareness campaign and proper education at various levels to people can be eradicated.
Women are still forbidden to touch men and even to enter the courtyard of their own homes. They are banned from consuming milk, butter, and other nutritious foods, for they fear that these women will spoil the food. Women must survive on a diet of dry foods, salt, and rice. They cannot use warm blankets as they are allowed only a small mat. They are also restricted from going to school or performing their day to day functions like taking a bath, all the while being forced to stay in a barbaric condition of the shed. This system comes from the belief that women are impure during menstruation. The superstition is that if a woman undergoing menstruation touches a tree it will never bear fruit again; if she consumes milk, the cow will not give any more milk; if she reads a book, the goddess of education, Saraswati will become angry; if she touches a man, he will become ill.
The ‘Chhau Katero[1]’ is built far from the house and the playground of children. Generally, all sheds are without a safety compound wall where everyone can go easily. Usually these sheds are made in a place where waste is disposed of. All parts of the sheds are covered except for a small hole – which is the door. The floor is made of mud and the shed is not furnished. There is a common myth that their deities would get angry if a bedstead were kept for in the shed. Mostly women sleep alone in the shed in menstruation period. Sometimes three to four women have to share the shed. Against all odds, Chhaupadi Pratha can still be eradicated.
Dailekh, Dadeldhura, Achham, Dipayal and their surrounding are the major places where Chhaupadi Pratha can be found in practice till date. Data from Central Bureau of Statistics

 (CBS) clearly indicate that the education level in the region is minimal. 66.21% of people are uneducated in those areas (CBS, 2010). It can be clearly seen that lack of awareness and lack of education has formidable hand in the continuity of this system in these area. Educating the people both, men and women, adult and child about the negative impact of the Chhaupadi Pratha in the health of women would definitely strengthen the activism to eradicate Chhaupadi Pratha. Including study about menstruation in curriculum of schools would help educate the younger generation whereas organising classes regarding menstruation in adult and literacy classes would further strengthen the cause.
In addition, launching massive awareness campaigns through radio would help in raising awareness about the malpractice going on in the society. Success stories from other places, especially from nearby villages and town would help in strengthening the moral of the women in the area. For direct penetration, organising street drama, holding talks amongst the stakeholders of community, government officials, doctors and other members of society (NGOs and INGOs), about menstruation and Chhaupadi Pratha would help in minimising the superstition amongst the people. Advocating the women’s right and the law would also strengthen the action and thereby provide a helping hand to the cause. Reproductive rights of women have been categorized by the state as one of the fundamental rights of women by the state (Nirmal, 2010).
All said and done, the culture and tradition of the patriarchal society stands out as a barrier for eradication of this system. The conservative thoughts supplemented by superstition and its linkage to God thus, creating a web that checks the process of minimizing the severity of the system let alone eradicate it. Furthermore, poverty in the area is 39.93 percent (CBS, 2005), which is one of the major causes that is directly supplementing the casualty. Since people are poor, they cannot afford to have a better place than the shed. Had it had been otherwise, advocating about better places could have been an option but even then, it would still not be able to give women mental and physical relief from the atrocity. 
Regardless of all the setbacks to eradicate Chhaupadi Pratha, with education and persistence in raising awareness and with support from the entire stakeholder i.e. the people of the community, NGOs, INGOs, government bodies, private sectors, pressure groups along with strict enforcement of the existing laws; the dream of eradicating Chhaupadi Pratha in the far western region of Nepal can be realized. 



[1] Chhau Katero; animal house ( where women are kept in menstruation period)