Changing Landscape of Education, Institutions,Technology and Branding

      The increased thrust on e-governance is fast transforming the traditional notion of public administration to modern notion of ‘public management’. Although governments are hardly a harbinger of Internet innovation, yet use of the net to deliver services by governments world over, seem to be something like a silent revolution over the past few years. The real value of e-governance does not lie merely in putting public services on-line, but it has more to do with the ability ‘to force its agencies to rethink, reorganize, and streamline their delivery before doing’. The offices are meant to facilitate the customers, i.e.., citizens, not to frustrate the customers. The online facilities tend to lessen such frustrations of the customers by facilitating untaxing services catered to them. It is an established fact now that citizens love to be on-line instead of waiting painfully in line, for accessing services delivered by governments. In the online system, there are les...

                                                                 Resilience of Brand India           As per UNCTAD’s The World Investment Report 2020, India received USD 51 billion in foreign investment in 2019 and was the world’s 9th largest recipient of foreign direct investments (FDI) in 2019. Although in South Asia, FDI is expected to contract sharply in 2020. However, India’s economy could prove the most resilient in the region. Positive, albeit lower, economic growth in the post-pandemic period and India’s large market will continue to attract market-seeking investments to the country, as per the report. Pandemic has given an unprecedented fillip to the digitization and, therefore, the digital economy is likely to attract more investments in future also....

  Branding for Investment The World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ report in which India has scaled up from 142nd rank in 2014 to 63rd position in 2019, reflects that Brand India is becoming increasingly attractive for investors. This has also paved the way for idea of state branding in recent years. Be it ‘Vibrant Gujarat, Sunrise State of AP, Resurgent Rajasthan, Credible Chhattisgarh, Happening Haryana or Odisha-New Opportunities’, states are competing to brand themselves as better investment destinations. The new thrust on state brand identities indicate the growing aspirations reflected in the public domain through print, digital, social media, television, radio and other channels used for branding. State branding campaigns are targeting both domestic as well as global investors because investments from foreign(FDI) and domestic investors play a very important role in the development of countries and states. It is the flow of investment which is reshaping the economic landsc...

    Branding in Politics     One way of branding is repeating a word or phrase or logo until it gets stuck in the mind of the target audience (read voter here). Today voters rely considerably on flashy branding to dictate who is electable. In the process they are sometimes beguiled also. There are many elements at play in a political brand identity, like Brand slogans e.g. Obama’s campaign byline in 2008 “Yes, we can'', “Sabka Sath Sabka Vikas” and "Bihar me bahar hai, Nitishe Kumar hai", etc. in India. With increasing mobile phone pervasive reach and low-priced Internet, customized web pages, social media, Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter, etc. are being used on an unprecedented scale for political branding by political parties and candidates, etc. That’s why come elections, voters are flooded with online as well as offline political commercials, posters, banners, and stickers. Today, for winning an election, a candidate needs to be media-savvy as well. Visibility on...

  Branded Education                                                                            Even before the futurologist Alvin Toffler highlighted it, we all grew up knowing the dictum that knowledge is power. Today the maxim is being paraphrased and emphasized by all that it’s an age of ‘knowledge economy’. Since knowledge has taken a centre stage in the economies of the world, knowledge-providers are now seen more as business enterprises. This transformation of perception and   prospect of huge returns have encouraged private players’ participation in the education sector. Businesses entering the field of educati...