The Aam Aadmi Party of Arvind Kejriwal is all set to form the government in the national capital for the third time in a row, scoring a jumbo win in the 70-member Delhi Assembly as the counting of votes of February 8 polls was taken up on Tuesday.
Mr Kejriwal will head the government and his party is comfortably placed by bagging 63 seats, leaving seven seats for its nearest political rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Congress could not open its electoral account for the second successive time.
Mr Kejriwal’s victory can be easily compared to the last one in 2015 when it swept the polls in Delhi by winning 67 seats and conceding only three seats to the BJP. The Congress had drawn a blank last time too. Though the BJP’s vote share increased to 40.1 per cent, AAP’s share was a whopping 53.8 per cent and the Congress at a dismal 4.4 per cent.
In his victory speech, Mr Kejriwal blew a kiss at his supporters at the AAP office. With a beaming smile, he said: “You are amazing… I love you.”  He thanked the people for giving a third chance to his party for governing the Capital city.
“I want to thank the families of Delhi who treated me as your son and voted for us,” Mr Kejriwal said. He kept his remarks short and positive and did not make any reference to the barbs of the BJP against him.
The poll outcome in Delhi has given birth to a new kind of politics. “It is the politics of development. It is a message that Delhi will vote those who build schools, mohalla clinics, give cheap power, provide access to water and build roads… This is a new kind of politics and holds an auspicious message for the country,” he said in his victory speech. Neither he nor his senior party leaders, including Manish Sisodia and Raghav Chaddha, shied away from chants of “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” and “Vande Matram.”
There were some anxious moments during the day as AAP raced to a record win with Mr Sisodia from Patparganj and Atishi Marlena from Kalkaji being locked in close contests.

Over 1.47 crore voters people Saturday exercised their franchise to decide the fate of 672 candidates in the 70-member Assembly as exit polls have predicted the Aam Aadmi Party will retain power in Delhi leaving the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a distant second while the Congress appears to remain in the realm of political irrelevance in the capital’s political landscape.

North East Delhi registered the highest voter turnout with 62.75 percent, while New Delhi recorded the lowest turnout with  51.57 percent exercising their franchise.

North West Delhi recorded 54.35 percent turnout, South Delhi saw 53.15 percent, the Central Delhi 53.05 percent, the South West Delhi 54.69, East Delhi 56.08, West Delhi 54.88. The voter turnout in New Delhi constituency, which had the highest number of candidates–28- including the Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal, was 51.57 percent compared to 64.72 percent during the 2015 polls when Kejriwal defeated three-time Chief Minister late Sheila Dikshit by a margin of more than 30,000 votes.

Exit polls on Saturday forecast a win for the Aam Aadmi Party again in Delhi for the third consecutive time leaving the BJP a distant second while Congress may not open its account.

The Times Now-IPSOS exit polls predicted that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will retain power with AAP winning 44 seats against 26 for the BJP.

The Republic-Janki Baat survey gave the AAP 46-61 seats and the BJP 9-21 seats. The ABP News C Voter gave AAP 49-63 seats and BJP 5-1.

TV9 Bharatvarsh Cicero predicted 52-64 for AAP and 6-16 to BJP. Counting of votes will be held on February 11. A party will need 36 seats to stake a claim to form the government in Delhi. 

There was a decline of more than nine percentage points over the 2015 assembly elections in Delhi when 67.12 percent of the voters came to vote. 

This is for the first time since 1998 when Delhi has witnessed a drop in voter turnout over previous assembly elections. In 1998, the capital had recorded a voter turnout of just 48.99 percent.

In 2003, 2008,2013 and 2015, the turnout was 53.42, 57.58, 65.63 and 67.12 percent respectively.

India is facing a tough challenge in skill development. A recent report has brought forward figures that are not surprising but hard-hitting for the youth, who are struggling with the problems surrounding the higher education system and subsequent job readiness. 

Employability of India’s youth is dwindling, with only 46% of participants deemed job-ready. The report clearly calls out that imparting practical-oriented knowledge and helping in cultivating the right attitude among students towards job and learning, beginning at the school level itself will result in effective influence over the individuals. Banking and Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) BPO, KPO and ITeS Internet business will be the top sectors for 2020, predicted the report by AICTE.*

In India 56% of employers are estimated to have a hard time finding appropriate talent. Globally India is the only country with a working age human surplus and it is going to be a huge segment of the population by 2025. We started AttainU to ensure that our demographic numbers convert into a dividend instead of a burden.

What do we do at AttainU:

AttainU provides high quality, online, college alternative education to help students beat the job blues by being technically sound, and employable.  Currently, we offer a 7 month-long software engineering course that helps students with career-oriented software engineering concepts, along with life skills required to succeed in the 21st century. We are heavily leveraging technology to, at scale, deliver a vertically integrated solution covering the below key areas –

1. Counseling – this is where we help the student understand what it means to be a Software Engineer as well as figure out if they would be able to benefit from our course which is based on their aptitude, inclination and most importantly ability to put in the required effort.
   
2. Skill Building – this is the central piece which allows us to deliver high-quality learning outcomes at scale. The crux here is maintaining high student engagement throughout the course. This is achieved through facilitating highly immersive interactions with instructors, mentors and peers focused around a centrally defined course path built-in line with industry partners and delivered by industry expert faculty. 
   
3. Placements – it’s unfair to talk about higher education without providing career support. This is where we prepare the students for placements, do the match-making and facilitate the interactions between our industry partners and students.
   
4. Income Share Agreement – this is a deferred fee payment model conditional to employment. This makes sure that we have skin in the game and aspirational students can afford this high-quality education irrespective of their financial background.
   

We are one of the very few companies working on a deferred payment model for students to enroll in our courses. 

What sets AttainU apart:

Zero to One Skilling – 

Our learning tracks provide a zero to one learning opportunity i.e. neither our industry partners nor we care about the degrees a person has. We take students from scratch all the way to expert entry-level software engineers in the industry. We have also had students, without any degree or with diplomas skilled through our programs and get placed in the end.

Online Model with 90% Completion Rate – 

Through our high-engaging managed marketplace approach we have been able to achieve 90% completion rates in an online education model. This makes it possible for everyone to benefit from our courses, without the need to move cities and take on additional living expenses. 

Being online, besides making our model infinitely scalable also allows us to, for the first time, collect a lot of granular data points around students and teaching staff interactions and progress. We use all of this data to preempt any student going off track, to iterate our teaching processes towards excellence, to better predict which students would be able to benefit most from our courses and to do a closer mapping between our placement partners and graduates.

We exist for the success of our students. Our goal is to not only prepare our students for their first interview, but also for financial success and intellectually fulfilling careers in future-proof domains. This is in line with our core value of creating a skills first college alternative.

Who is this course for:

Majority of our students are those who have been victims of the broken education system in India and either due to lack of finances or exposure did not get the right platform to evolve their skills. They come from varying educational backgrounds, some don’t even have any degree and a few others have multiple gap years due to family obligations in between. At this point, right after our first batch itself, we are seeing our graduates not only doing well for themselves, but also being amongst the best performers at their respective companies. As a result we have companies coming back to us keenly waiting for our next batches to graduate. These are strong signals of the future where degrees are losing their shine in front of skills.

Over the last 11 months we have received 70,000+ student applications, out of which we have been able to enroll 700+ students after our counselling and benchmarking. At this point we are starting batches of 150 every month. Our first batch recently graduated at a 90% completion rate and 70% students got pre-placement offers. We work with 150+ partners to meet their hiring requirements.

The problem solving:

We are living in a world of accelerated advancement. What this means for the tech industry is that as new technologies become available for use, the industry wants to apply these (hardware -> internet -> big data -> cloud computing, machine learning -> artificial intelligence -> data science) to more efficiently serve their business needs. Because of this, the industry needs the employed workforce to learn these new skills to be able to implement them. 

Above mentioned regular skill upgrade is only possible when the fundamental conceptual understanding is very solid and then an individual is able to build on top of those and pick up new skills as needed. A typical coding boot camp focuses on certain very specific technologies and hence it’s graduates suffer at the time when they are required to upgrade their skills. AttainU focuses on fundamental, conceptual understanding rather than teaching only particular technologies. In this regard, we are closer to a college preparing it’s graduates for a career in Software Engineering rather than only for the first job. AttainU’s curriculum and pedagogy are designed to teach the software engineering concepts in a technology (language/framework) agnostic way to ensure that our graduates are equally, if not better suited for a software engineering career as compared to CSE (Computer Science Engineering) college graduates. Due to this philosophy, we don’t need our students to have any background in software engineering before starting the course, all they need to have is a high growth potential including the will and wherewithal to put in the required effort.

By removing all the location and money barriers we are making high-quality, outcome-oriented education accessible for all. Through a scalable platform of the first approach to education, we want to get rid of this demand-supply gap and enable all to maximize their potential. 

*The report is a joint initiative of Wheebox (a Global Talent Assessment Company), Tagged by PeopleStrong and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in collaboration with UNDP, AICTE and Association of Indian Universities (AIU). 

The Author Is CEO and Co-Founder of AttainU

A direct flight between India and Vietnam is all set to be announced during the upcoming official visit of  Vice-President of Vietnam Ms. Dang Thai Ngoc Thinh.

The Vietnamese Vice-President will be on an official visit to India from February 11 to 13, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson said here on Thursday.

She will hold bilateral delegation level talks with her Indian counterpart M. Venkaiah Naidu. There would also be a call-on the President Ram Nath Kovind.

During the visit Vice-President of Vietnam, the direct flight between India and Vietnam would be announced on February 12. The visiting Vice-President is also scheduled to visit Bodh Gaya on February 13.

India-Vietnam relations are built on the firm foundation of close cultural, historical, civilizational links and are marked by mutual trust and understanding as well as strong cooperation in regional and international fora. The visit of Vietnamese Vice-President would strengthen the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership established in 2016 between the two countries.

Punjabi Singer and Model Jagdeep Singh aka Jaggy Singh’s recent song ‘Muchh Tak Di’ released by T-Series has crossed more than 200k views on YouTube in less than 10 days. His previous release ‘HiFi Gabru’ also grabbed the eyeballs of the audience and received over one million views. Both the songs were not only highly appreciated by the audience but also helped Jaggy become the most promising urban singer in the Punjabi music industry. Jagdeep Singh who is currently working on his debut album is already flooded with great opportunities to work with big names of Bollywood and Punjabi music industry.

Born in Punjab, Jagdeep comes from a very humble family and none of his family members were previously linked to music in any way. Jagdeep Singh who moved to the U.S. at the age of 14, was fond of music since his childhood. He started following his passion for music by learning and playing Harmonium and Tabla. A few years later, he discovered his love for writing and composing. His inclination towards the music wasn’t a surprise as he had been going to Gurudwara since childhood. He started taking part in Kirtan at local Gurudwara in India and U.S and then it wasn’t too far until he realized that he sure has a voice to justify his own lyrics and compositions as well and later on pursued further vocal training.

Since the start, Jagdeep Singh’s family has always been supportive to carry on with his destiny and dreams. His inspiration for entering the music industry and following his dreams is a very selected and sheer class such as Gurdas Mann, Manmohan Waris, Harbhajan Mann, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Saab, R.D.Burman, 2Pac & Notorious BIG, to name a few.

Bali is an Indonesian island known for its forested volcanic cliffs, iconic rice paddies, beaches, and coral reefs. The island is home to spiritual locations like cliffside Uluwatu Temple. To the south, the beachside town of Kuta has vibrant bars, while Seminyak, Sanur, and Nusa Dua are prominent resort cities. The island is also recognized for its yoga and contemplation landings.

 But to provide such a mesmerizing place a touch of hospitality and the perfect blend of tourism is all furnished by the chain of luxury villa complexes at numerous sites in Seminyak, Bali, Indonesia. The resorts come up with excellent facilities like The Daha, The Grand Daha, Monaco Blu by Daha Resorts, The Daha Mansions and Casa Daha.

 To expand their villas they have initiated the construction of numerous modern villa sites in Seminyak, Ubud and Labuan Bajo. They have been around for several years and have achieved consecutive 9-10+ ratings on booking.com from their satisfied customers for their villas. Now they are all set to create a completely new gen of travel and tourism by giving them a comfortable stay and making their stay worth remembering.

Who isn’t aware of this young and powerful Influencer’s achievements? This time he has added one more feature to his cap. India’s Well-known Influencer and Youth Champion Manoj Padaiyachi has launched his fashion brand, Belive. The brand offers easy-to-wear styles for Youths including sweatshirts, hoodies, T-shirts, Crop-Tops and much more to the list, with over 200 styles that start at prices of Rs 599 onwards.

Belive Brand carries the vision of Manoj Padaiyachi to deliver something which makes you stand out from the rest.

Speaking on the concept of his Brand, Youth Icon Manoj Padaiyachi said

“The Brand name Belive is taken from the two words “Believe” and “Live”. They say that the secret of having it all starts with believing. When you believe in something, you acknowledge it, you are halfway there, but what after that? Do you live it? Do you take action on whatever you believe?

You need to ‘live’ it, right? You need to be alive. You need to experience it. So, Belive will remove the gap between thinking and taking action. It is the time to live, by wearing what you believe, on your sleeves.”

Speaking on the unique logo of belive and its dual-color, he further added, “ The arrow on the logo is very simple, it denotes onwards and upwards when you start living. The colors blue and yellow speak calmness, energy, and Youthfulness.”

Belive is launched all-over the Nation for all the Men and Women out there. Belive will be available for the US and Europe too. Every garment will be a style statement with motivational and inspirational thoughts, funky statements, and some weird captions by injecting some fun, love, and humor in the Youth’s life. For the release, belive has kept only a few designs and it will increase gradually.

The brand is specially dedicated to the young generation. It is a well-known thing that the youths are highly influenced by this 23-year-old Manoj Padaiyachi, who commands a massive young audience, especially from India.

“BeLive” is going to make you proud of who you are. So we are looking forward to each piece of garment that has a Midas touch of a great thinker.

Manoj is a firm believer to give you what your heart desires and what your mind inspires. Fiercely talented, tough, hard-working and daring Manoj has emerged as a popular face of India’s current Youth Influencers. The sky is the limit when you are going to believe in yourself and start taking action on it. So, wear what you believe and let the world know the real you.

Manoj is a Nation level Youth Champion Awardee. The President of Wealth Foundation, Manoj, has supported and contributed to the government’s social development initiatives. He has influenced the young generation through his content on social media and online blogs. He also writes about Lifestyle and Fitness.

Some are born with exceptional talent, and the one who practiced hard in the field he/she love then no one can stop them from achieving success in life. We met one fabulous talent who is multitalented, what will you call her A Fashion Designer, Entrepreneur, Tattoo Artist and what not? Divya Kapoor is a gem of talent and she is using it in the right direction. Diva who hails from North India (Jammu and Kashmir) and has her tattoo studio named ‘Taboo the tattooist’ located in the beautiful city of Jammu. She’s is only Female Tattoo Artist in Jammu (J&K). Diva is proving to be an example for all the youth who are aspiring to become a Tattoo artist. Although her journey to become one wasn’t so easy, as she did not have any formal training in tattoo art. She explains in her own words, “From being a small-time temporary tattoo artist to become an expert inking artist wasn’t a piece of cake, the journey was really hard. When I attended a seminar to learn the art, there was no one to try upon, so I used my own body and inked myself to master the art which was very difficult, but I never lost hope and never looked back”. For her passion for the art, she kept working relentlessly. Diva has picked up amazing tattoo skills at an unbelievable pace. She is inspired by her husband Gourav Jamwal, who is also a famous tattoo artist in India. Beacause of her appealing beauty, Diva is also getting offers from Pollywood. Diva is an ideal example for people who want to achieve big things in life. If you don’t get success in one thing, you can try other things in life. You have to just bring out your inner strength in life to achieve big in life. Here’s wishing Divya Kapoor all the best for her upcoming ventures. This girl will do many things in life as she blessed with some talent, and she is using her skill in the right direction by working hard on things passionately.

As the country waits with bated breath for the execution of the four convicts in the infamous December 16, 2012, Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, Buxar Jail in Bihar has again come in news for one reason– making hanging ropes.
Buxar jail have supplied the nose for Naturam Godse, who was sent to gallows in November 1949, for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi, Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, 1993 Bombay bomb blasts convict, Yakub Memom, 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks culprit Ajmal Kasab, Dhananjoy Chatterjee, a security guard in Kolkata for raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl, Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh convicted in the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, all were hanged by ropes made in this jail.
Ever wondered what is the reason why hanging ropes are made on in Buxar Central Jail.
Actually, Buxar jail has been making execution ropes since 1880 and the tradition was started by the British rulers–16 years after the East India Company established full control over the region extending from Bengal to Uttar Pradesh at the Battle of Buxar on October 23, 1764.
Four years later, that is in 1884, the British brought a machine in the Buxar jail to manufacture hanging ropes. 
Before that, the hanging ropes were imported from Manila, the capital of Phillippines and hence the name Manila Rope is popular for this grade of the noose.
Later on the Indian Factories Act, gave Buxar Central Jail, the exclusive rights to make the hanging ropes and other jails are prohibited,
Buxar Central Jail has a power loom inside its premises for the purpose of making hanging ropes. It is overseen by employees of designated for the purpose.
The jail has four to five posts for such employees. They train the inmates for rope making. Usually, senior inmates typically those serving life sentences are employed in making hanging ropes and utmost care is taken in not employing death row convicts for this work as they are not employed in any work in the jail.
Before starting with work, once the Buxar gets directive to prepare the hanging ropes, the prisoners making such ropes follow religious and spiritual practices. They observe fast to ensure their mental and physical purity before beginning the work and pray.
The said prisoners throw a stone on the direction where they are supposed to knit the hanging rope with the belief that they may never get the news of a death sentence,
Superintendent of Buxar Central Jail Vijay Kumar Arora said the hanging rope making is a complex task.
A group of eight prisoners fashion the ropes, ten in number with the help of a power loom through the twist and torque using J-30 cotton.
A particular type of yarn, called J-34 is used for making the hanging rope. The cotton for this yarn is cultivated in Punjab, which supplies the raw material to Buxar jail.
J-34 fiber are braided into yarns. A total of 154 such yarns are woven to prepare 154 braids. Six such braids are used to make a hanging rope. 
A huge quantity of water is used to make sure that hanging rope is soft. The rule of execution says that the hanging rope has to cause death of the condemned prisoner but cannot inflict any injury on the neck. It is ascertained in the post mortem of the body.
Arora said ” one rope is prepared with 7,200 fine threads– all merged by hand-rolled with a bronze brush and treated with certain chemicals so that each can bear up to 150 kg weight.  A sum of Rs 1,700 is the cost of making one such rope and the whole process takes about three days, it is believed that the task was given to Buxar jail by the British keeping in mind the climate and availability of water near the jail. Buxar Central Jail is located on the banks of the Ganga and also has well inside the premises, an uncommon feature in jails.
Humidity is another factor essential for making the hanging rope. Humid conditions make the rope smoother and yet stronger.        Another reason, the ropes got the name in the Philippines because they are made of fiber obtained from the leaves of the Abaca tree that grows in the island nation. 
That fiber is called Manila hemp. The Manila rope made in Buxar is, however, not made from this hemp.
As the suspense continues over the hanging of the four convicts, a Delhi court on January 31, postponed the execution of the death warrant on February 1, on the convicts till further orders.
The Delhi High Court on February 2, in a special hearing on a Sunday,  reserved its verdict on the Centre’s plea challenging stay on the execution of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya case.
On December 16, 2012, a paramedical student was gang-raped and brutally assaulted by six men in a private bus and thrown out of the moving vehicle along with her male friend. 
The girl died on December 29, 2012, at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore where she airlifted by an air ambulance on December 27, 2012, at midnight. 
All the four convicts were sentenced to capital punishment. The order has been upheld by the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court.
The incident generated widespread outrage across India and abroad. The fifth convict , Ram Singh, described at the main suspect was found dead in Tihar Jail from possible suicide on March 11, 2013. The sixth accused, a juvenile, was released from the correction Home on December 20, 2015, after he completed three years in the Home.

Sightsavers India, a global development organization, has opened the application for Sightsavers India Fellowship Program 2020. This fellowship is designed to enhance awareness about eye care and aims to groom the young ophthalmologists through an innovative course of mentoring and surgical exposure to expand their perspectives on rural eye health and to shape the youth into promising and skilled ophthalmologists. The fellowship is designed in a way that gives an opportunity to master the craft as a clinician and a surgeon.
Sightsavers India Fellowship Program 2020 is a promising career opportunity for ophthalmologists. It aims to take ?ve selected fellows through an exciting journey of 24 months. The selected fellows will be placed in one of the 7 states – Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha.
The last date of application is 30th April 2020, and the fellowship will begin from June 2020.
Over a period of 24 months, the fellows will experience a structured skill enhancement and mentoring process covering not only clinical and surgical ophthalmology but also managerial and holistic life skills. The process involves skills up-gradation components and personal interactions with eminent leaders in eye care and development sector.  Every stage of the fellowship program will optimize learning that will help the fellows transform into all-rounder seasoned professionals. Selected fellows will receive an attractive appreciative stipend through the fellowship period.
Speaking on the launch of the second season of the India Fellowship Program, Mr. RN Mohanty, CEO at Sightsavers India said, “The program’s vision is to cultivate a capable and motivated workforce in the eye care ?eld for rural India. Currently, there are nearly 18,000 Ophthalmologists present in the country, which is nowhere near enough with respect to the ratio of the population in India. With this program, we hope to bring about a positive substantial impact on society. An education in ophthalmology with the mettle of being a team player and attributes of empathy and zeal to explore rural India are important for the fellows to be a successful part of the program.”
Dr. Anoop Kumar Singh, MES Medical College, Kerala. Being trained at SNC, Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh said, “The programme is providing surgical as well as clinical training with excellent mentorship and guidance which would have needed more time investment outside the fellowship. My weekly schedule is packed with surgical training, clinical postings, OT observations, wet labs and lecture classes along with routine departmental presentations and CMEs. Also, the support from Sightsavers team is incomparable and rare to ?nd.”
About Sightsavers: Sightsavers is a global development organization working in India since 1966 to eliminate avoidable blindness and to ensure that people who are irreversibly blind are supported adequately to lead lives of independence and dignity.