Author name: Shubranshu Singh

The coronavirus pandemic has done deep and extensive economic, social, and political damage. Restoring confidence, reviving economic activity, rebuilding institutions and resuscitating social life will be tasks of previously unknown weight and scope. The global pandemic is changing us in fundamental, corrosive and possibly irreversible ways. Worldwide an unavoidable regimen of lockdowns enforced by ‘emergency like’ powers is inevitably going to lead to a massive setback to the economy, our social fabric, and our political system. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] There is a demand shock, eventual breakdown of global supply chains and a depressed outlook. ‘Jaan hai toh Jahaan hai’ as our Prime Minister correctly put it, is what everyone thinks but the anxiety is ravaging the mood everywhere. Will we never be the same again? Can it not be a case of reculer pour mieux sauter ? May we aspire for a better tomorrow? A quick look at the situation report will give us a prognosis. The economy has already taken the biggest sudden hit ever. Hundreds of thousands of people have no job to do. Casual and daily wage workers are locked out of a living. As the full force of the impact will be felt in months and years to come inequalities in wealth, opportunity, and access to health care will become even more conspicuous. Everyday life is impacted in unprecedented ways, be it closing of educational institutions, everyone working from home, social distancing and fear of contagion. We have been reduced to only sharing things online. Emotional fatigue is making the matters brittle. Our political system, polarised as it already was, is under stress. Only the government can act. Political formations have little role for now. The policy making function is in a state of suspended animation. The borders are effectively closed. This will paralyze the work of Parliament and the Judiciary. The biggest question is “If and not when” things will limp back to normalcy. But, where demand and economic measures are concerned the question is “when and not if ” the full blow will be felt. At the local level, quarantine measures have stopped everything beyond the confines of a nuclear family. Speculation is rife. News media, hardly known for original content before the crisis, may have been dealt a final, fatal blow by the coronavirus. Originality is a casualty. Advertising will shrink across the board. But these precautionary measures are not in question. We are all in it together and see the need for these steps. Lifting preventive measures, to revive the economy but potentially at the expense of human lives, will be a big moral impasse. If –hypothetically speaking – the coronavirus proves to be a continuing part of life and at some stage, a section of society decides to carry on with life whilst factoring in the possible risk and loss, we may bewilderingly find ourselves in the bizarre situation of demanding that the government drastically curtail all routine freedoms. The virus should not destroy our social fabric even as it kills many amongst us. Soon there will be two types of people – coronavirus immune and corona virus susceptible. At present, people who have already recovered from a Covid infection will test negative, if tested. It is currently assumed that people who have recovered from the infection might have immunity to it. If we can identify the immune population then these will be our frontline warriors. Post quarantine, the hospitals, schools, essential services etc. need them. We must create space for civil society action via grassroots, non-governmental ,flat, organizations. Where are the massive trillion dollar corporations in this fight ? Where are the numerous billionaires ? Where are the leading brands ? Society will register this presence or absence as the case may be. The crisis has hurled us into the future. A digital life with a much higher priority to fundamental issues of health, family and social priorities will emerge. Direct cash payments and free food grants will provide a lifeline to hundreds of millions of Indians. Distance and virtual learning will become hugely accessible and lead to more accessible higher education. Many Indians will ask if they actually need to go back to office. Massive adoption of telecommuting will ease traffic congestion, urban pollution and ease real estate Universal grant of minimum income as a standard where society values people for being human will fuse with minimum guarantee of employment and other welfare measures. Will we emerge more permanently distanced than ever before? Will the world see a breakdown of people meeting people casually in public spaces? Will I good naturedly say “bless you “when someone sneezes next to me on a plane? Will we restore the world we have lost with its frenzied pace, continuous travel and traffic , and its obsession with material growth and profits? What if as one globe, we continue to get more insular; if we continue in lockdowns, for say a year or two years? If everyone erodes in confidence, trust and ability what remains of human civilisation? Think hard and then ,even as we all comply dutifully with lockdown in our mortal interest and that of our society , forget not we do this to restore the good of life and living as it existed before; not to forget it and become a different, untrusting, selfish, depressed world. Survive to Thrive..

The good news is the same as the bad news – Covid-19 transmission is dictated by human behaviour. Our species is facing a threat to its survival based on how you or I wash our hands or use disinfectant. Our survival depends on our collective and individual behaviours. So, how do we change how people behave? This is the most important question of our lifetime. The way we behave isn’t just dictated by what we are told, but how we are told it. Prime Minister Modi gave a masterful address to the nation. It was personal, emphatic and plainly put. It elicited a response like never seen before since our freedom struggle. Yet, it was a day. And the day has passed. We need to change behaviours not only enforce them. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] Epidemics are a time when as a species, we come face to face with our relationship with mortality, relationships, society and way of life. It all goes through an upheaval. We see a man being the best he can. We also see a man at his worst. The role of behavioural response is crucial in tackling the coronavirus catastrophe. Governments across the world are cognizant that, after an initial high, the willingness to comply with containment measures becomes progressively lesser. ‘Compliance fatigue’, anxiety and plain ‘I care a damn’ hopelessness may set in. Like any mass campaign – what is key is when this peaking of positive response actually happens. Thanks to social media and huge mass media support, basic awareness has built up very rapidly. But is it enough to change behaviours? It brings us to the question of what, in fact, fetches the right behavioural response? It is an appeal to self-interest and the reward of social approval. Concern about social disapproval makes even the selfish, or self-absorbed, among us behave in a more desirable way. Public health authorities showcase right practices and spread information about the evidence supporting their adoption. However, a dash of design creativity in the messaging can move the needle on compliant behaviours. Government, corporations, civil society, families and all other units of civilisation will have to take the psychology of messaging much more seriously. Unfortunately, advertising and marketing have predominantly been about getting commercial results, selling and winning mind and market share. Hence “behavioural economics” won a Nobel but ‘behaviourally oriented communication’ has hardly got any attention. But that was the story till now, and the world may never be the same again. Behavioural science involves a developing refinement of hypothesis via the continuous recording of empirical evidence. At its definitional essence, it is the observation of regularities in how people behave. Therefore, it targets how context changes behaviour. It does so structurally, not relying on humanity or good citizenship in the individual but rather making the response reflexive, by design. The basic logic framed is in the form of: ‘When X is the context and Y is the message then Z is the response.’ Let’s take the case of handwashing or wearing masks. In periods of long spells of isolation, people may auto-adjust the effectiveness of what they deem to be a hassle. Some people won’t do it. Most will not do it properly. Others will give up doing it when their hope begins to crumble or when their fear begins to subside. Yet, there are ways to mitigate this. For example, messaging from friends, family, institutions, alarms and captcha style interrupts. The evidence suggests that these coaxing, cajoling or coercing steps will make the necessary responses materialise. Increased hand washing, changing how we cough and sneeze, self-isolation, avoiding travel, social distancing—these are obligations on us as individuals to protect ourselves and our fellow citizens. This messaging for “individually –collective” actions is a problem area. Firstly, millions of people have to be reached. Then they have to learn the right things – individually. Next, they have to collectively esteem those right behaviours. Finally, as a collective, they have to enforce it upon deviant or non-compliant individuals. Some of us behave selflessly and some selfishly. The majority will override self-interest and contribute to the common good, provided others pitch-in too. That is why it takes enormous stature or powerful context (often both) to make successful social outcomes happen. Three things stand out. First, co-operation is more likely if people communicate to each other why the specific behaviour is best for all. Second, people are more willing to make sacrifices for group benefit the more they identify with the group. Third, sensible punishment is needed for those who don’t co-operate. As a contagion spreads, infecting thousands, and forcing thousands more into quarantine, the world -and life as we know it – changes. With disrupted daily life, closed schools, packed hospitals, and absent social gatherings, sporting events, concerts, conferences, festivals and travel plans; life and society, as we know it, gets put on indefinite hold… In 1947, when he was 34, Albert Camus, the Algerian-born French writer provided astonishingly detailed and penetrating observations in his novel ‘The Plague.’ Camus showed how easy it is to mistake an epidemic for an annoyance. He also wrote that in times of pestilence we learn that there is more to admire in men than to despise As a marketer and communications professional, I can only pray that it’s true. http://www.businessworld.in/…/Changing-Behaviours-In-Times-Of-An-Existential- Crisis/23-03-2020-186968

In 1985, I was a young boy of eleven and a student of the fifth grade at Morse Public School, Cambridge Massachusetts. My father was a Mason Fellow at Harvard University pursuing his mid-career Masters in Public Policy and Administration at the Kennedy School of Government. In one of the programs regularly organised for spouses and families of Mason Fellows, I have gifted a set of Transformers. They were then, as today, a very famous and successful robotic toy line and eponymous TV animated series. Accompanying the gifts, with a very Harvard touch, was a short illustrated note on real (not fantasy!) robots. For me, this incident sparked a lifelong interest concerning the encounter of man and machine. I ended up doing electronics engineering before ending up in management. I remain intrigued with man’s destiny apropos machines. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] As I write this, the world is in the grips of an alarmist frenzy about the Novel Coronavirus. The panic stems from mankind’s collective recognition of its mortality. Our ignorance of what tomorrow may bring feeds our panic. However, to my mind, Artificial Intelligence and advancement of robotics will have a far greater effect on the human species, in positive and negative ways. Sir Peter Medawar wrote an essay entitled ‘What is Human about Man Is His Technology’ in which he claimed that we humans, became ‘integrated psychologically with the instruments that serve us’ This was a ‘human-first’ view where technical advancement was seen as merely an instrumentality. Back then, man had the confidence that it was he who created technical advancement. Today, we live in a world where it is way above and beyond such instrumentality. Now, technology sets the pace and we are all –as individuals and societies- struggling to keep up. Alan Mathison Turing wrote a paper in 1950 ‘Computer Machinery and Intelligence‘ where he estimated that by the year 2000, artificial intelligence would cease to be “artificial”! His benchmark test was one where a person would not be able to tell if they were having a conversation with a human or machine. It was called the Turing test. Famously mankind crossed this Rubicon in 2012 when Vladimir Veselov of the Reading University created a simulation software called Eugene corresponding to a 13-year-old’s persona. Yet, the bigger challenge is a future world where the robotic and human will be inseparable. Where the robot may be part human and the human will definitely be part robotic. The future of robotics is exponentially ahead of our collective intelligence and imagination. We still look at robots as tools – mechanical, computational or sensory. But, pay heed to what professor Erik Brynjolfsson, one of the world’s foremost AI experts has said about robotic evolution. In his studied view, once the robot gets to a baseline level of learning it has the ability to evolve and learn to do what humans do – incredibly faster – and then can further move on to learning about what humans cannot do! Judgement, emotion, tact, ethics, spirited collaboration are all deemed to be beyond machines. However, now the question is whether they are even required? The machine will be learning way ahead of us. A world of mega technology and micro technology is already emerging where we are all – as humans – structurally bound. There is so much commercial incentive that we have no choice in the matter. There is an element of sociological design at play. Whether talking to an IVR system, dealing with an ATM, doing auto check out at a store or printing our own boarding cards and luggage tags – in a myriad number of ways – we are being slowly and steadily being taught dealing with a machine interface. This is the first induction into a robotic, impersonal world. We follow the machine’s instructions even as we think the machine is doing what we want. Our world is broken into transactional encounters and our very being is fragmented into Apps. Our identity and most of our activities are miniaturised into the small handphone that we all carry. The Czech dramatist Karl Capek Introduce the word ‘Robot’ into English. In a play written in 1922, he had imagined a RUR – ‘ Rossum’s Universal Robot’. In Czech, Robota means drudgery (as in mindless, repetitive, serf-like existence). In the play, his robots are produced as living machines but without souls. Their stated purpose is “to rid humanity from worry and be liberated from the degradation of labour “ Interestingly, the drama peaks when due to the intervention from “the humanity league “, the robots are granted, souls. They eventually overthrow mankind and create their own utopian, liberated Eden. It thrills and spooks me at the same time how close the drama is to the emerging reality in many ways. One begins to grasp the true implications when one can sum up the power of invasive, available and transactional technologies on the one hand with the hugely profitable network of the technology mega corporations namely Apple, alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook on the other. Now every breath we take can be recorded into a data pool along with every step we take. Every act we commit or failed to commit may be recorded, analysed, personalised, remarketed and monetised. This seems inescapable because the very future of capitalism is beyond individuals and corporations and has acquired a self-sustaining life of its own. This phenomenon was explained as a geometric concept of the Rhizome by the French thinkers Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze in their book ‘ A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia ‘ published in 1980 In Greek mythology, Prometheus was punished by Zeus for stealing fire and using it to infuse life into clay objects. Today’s commercially motivated Prometheus fears no Zeus! In this case, his eventual punishment of servitude may come from his own creations! Machine – calculator – computer – supercomputer – robot and cyborg. What next? Lord and Master? http://www.businessworld.in/…/Prometheus-without-A-Zeus…/12-03-2020-186046

Yes, America is the world’s only true imperial power in the world. It is an empire like none before. There are definitional distinctions that make it unique and acceptable. Three occurrences of significance happened the last 10 days – President Trump came to India, the Taliban signed an agreement with the Americans in Qatar and the coronavirus situation is now effectively, a pandemic. I was in London all this while and each one of these stories found exposure in the local media. The concurrent and contextual reportage was to me, one more sign that it is America on which we must keep both our eyes fixed. The planetary network of American influence is inescapable. And why would we look to escape in any case? No people on earth are better placed to benefit from a partnership with the United States of America than us Indians. Hence, aesthetics aside, this public adoration of the American President and the First Lady was a job “well done!” [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] The two filters that I would like to apply on India –US engagement are economic and the cultural. It is private corporations, brands and economic institutions that are the most significant players here. Six months after the collapse of the Soviet Union, thirty-four of America’s most respected foreign policy strategists met at Stanford University. The deliberations were on a new philosophy for the post -Cold War world. They concluded with a need for ‘ a new organizing principle for thinking about the world and how to act in it’. No one was focused on earlier doctrines of deterrents and containment. The world had to be embraced and collaborated with, transparently and with a win-win mindset. America has stood for a ‘liberalism of abundance’. Individual liberty, political pluralism, free enterprise – these have been the ingredients in the recipe for the American style politico-economic combo meal. America does not prescribe a utopia or any “blueprint for society”. It only appeals to one’s self-interest. This American Empire has emerged as a social model – de facto – assuming the ‘one American world’ shape now. America’s co-option or control of the others relies on cultural content, control on universal content, internet& information and capital. The USA is itself witnessing an irreversible juxtaposition, mingling or fusion of all races, cultures and even religions. America is creating a vast multicultural salad bowl tossing and turning identity, race and differences. The United States is the most racially mixed area of the world. Being American is vastly different from being German French and Japanese. The American world is not a government or state enterprise. It is a private commercial project, where only the successful thrive. It is competitive enough for it to be preferred by others. The cultural export is not something that threatens the’ besieged tribe’. The central theme has always been – ‘The American dream’– social mobility, freedom and creature comforts for all. The other theme has always been the unexplored new frontier – be it the wild west, international markets or outer space! Pax Romana was established after more than a century and a half of civil war, repression, punitive anti-insurgency expeditions, foreign conquests, economic upheaval and social churn. Pax Americana is led by Netflix, Google, Facebook, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Visa, Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing and several others. The American imperialism doesn’t demand more than a trial it is not about the televised appearance of their President. It is about knowing feeling and believing that their president is important like no other person. Every telepathy, deal, the opening of a market or culture legitimises the primacy of America. Governments everywhere are privatising, deregulating, liberalising the exchange of goods and capital. They are fighting and competing for investments. All of this is in a hope to establish a direct connection with the great American Dynamo Televised and internet-driven mass culture is not going away. American brands are successful because they are liked. But pizza, camembert, tequila, nachos, tacos and sushi are American too !! That’s the magic. They embrace and Americanise everything. The Americans seem to be alone in possessing the attitudes and knowledge essential to lead and manage the internationalisation of the world. Models for the 21st century- whether they are economic, cultural or technological – are being worked out almost exclusively in the United States. But cheering crowds at the Motera stadium were not the real deal. Of course, it was a magnificent photo opportunity. But, the real deal is that Americans must create impact beyond the promise of commerce. America must export American values. These include competition between free entities, laws that apply to all, material progress and the possibility of rising beyond one’s rank in the social hierarchy and above all, a transparent democratic political system. That’s the real deal and that’s when Namaste Trump will mean the world to us. http://www.businessworld.in/…/Howdy-Means-Namaste…s…/02-03-2020-185347

The launch of the Sputnik into space by the Soviets in 1956 changed the world of popular culture even more than it changed the world of geopolitics. It made the Americans realise that world dominance would have to be achieved with soft power, not only by winning the armaments race. Today America is the centre of world culture. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] It has come to occupy this position because it consciously exported American culture as cultural feedstock across the world. Before the period of the World War, Americans had seen culture through European eyes. Importing art and exhibiting European culture was something big businessmen did in a bid to acquire respectability. The aspiration for a good taste made captains of industry such as the Rockefellers, the Carnegies and the Guggenheims donate generously to found museums, galleries and cultural foundations. The promotion of mass culture by private trusts and establishments has been a characteristic of American social life. It is true that Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain were some bright stars in literature. There was also a Hudson River school of painting. Intellectual centres in the universities such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton were thriving. America had also made an original contribution to architecture in the form of the skyscraper! But America was not a culturally advanced place. It was seen as provincial backwaters compared to London, Paris or Vienna. In the generation during and right after the First World War, young writers and poets such as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, John Steinback, Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O’Neill and William Faulkner wrote about American society. This was a generation that had an openness to the outside world. When the Nazis overran Europe, many artists, scientists and intellectuals fled to America. These included musicians such as Kurt Weill , Igor Stravinsky, Bela Bartok and Arnold Schoenberg, scientists Enrico Fermi, Albert Einstein; social scientists Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer; Architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer amongst others In every area of intellectual exertion, America welcomed talent with open arms and without prejudice. This eclectic approach made them profit from the contribution of every source. Due to this diversity of input, its culture began to acquire a universalism that continues to give it enormous strength and advantage to the present day Jazz and its offspring are in many ways the archetype of American universalism. This music became a planetary phenomenal thanks to the power of music radio. The foxtrot and the Charleston, Swing, Blues and Bebop allowed radio to take off. This led to a boom in advertising in the late 1930s. Music was central to the success of big Hollywood movies which helped, in turn, to pave the way for television and with it came the worldwide triumph of audio-visual media. America became the biggest cinema market in the world. With the intensifying of the Cold War, culture became big business and the culture industry became -indirectly -a part of the larger military-industrial complex in terms of American core interest. The recording industry, the motion picture industry, theatre and publishing were not only booming businesses but also recipients of private patronage and federal administration’s subsidies The global diffusion of art and culture from America was supported purposefully by the government and later by private enterprises. The Communication revolution aided its accelerated spread. The power of America was established in every household through television. Every American fad and fashion was spread by cross-fertilisation, juxtaposition and instantaneous circulation via technology. The Americans also realised that cultural expressions are highly context-driven and universal culture may appeal to only a small minority and therefore they ensured that the world also came to America for an experience of high culture. Just as its universities became the leading innovators, in the 1960s New York became the front-ranking world market for arts. In the 1964 Venice Biennale, Pop Art exploded into the world scene and America became the centre of ‘avant-gardism’ America also changes the definition of art and artistic belongingness, not only in popular culture but also in academic and political circles. Before the Second World War, when Europe ruled culture, the truly civilised person was stereotyped as white European. After America opened itself deliberately by the 1960s, any person of any nationality or ethnicity could arrive into the American cultural scene and succeed or be the recipient of what was being exported from there. The ‘barbarian’ was anyone hostile to progress, democracy, market forces, intellectual and social innovation namely anybody rejecting the values of America which were by definition also the values of the “free world” The openness and embracing of the outside world was decisive in aiding the assent of the American elite. It made it more internationalist in outlook and acceptable to all communities. America became the elite centre for the development of a universal global culture. America adopted Porsche, Mercedes, Gucci, Dior and Saville Row just as much as it embraced Chinese food or Brie and Chablis. The market in America supported the most niche cultural expressions – the music of Johnny Cage, the minimalism of Philip Glass, native Indian flute players from the Amazon or European experimental cinema. The classic example of this two-way corridor was the success of the French women’s magazine Elle. Its American edition was very little French-influenced and way more American international in its attitude and content. Conversely, the globalisation of the American modern woman was manifest in the success of the ‘Cosmopolitan’, an all -American magazine which enjoyed worldwide success with numerous foreign editions and millions of copies of sale. Great American publications and publishing houses got foreigners at the helm like the Briton, Harold Evans at Random House and the Indian Sonny Mehta at Knopf. Another British woman, Tina Brown became editor of the ‘New Yorker’ in 1992 and thus the east coast intellectual establishment showcased its porosity. The largest mass culture vehicle of the 20th century was rock music and it became a means of identification and communication between the members of the