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No harm in blowing your own trumpet sometimes

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In every sphere of life, we often see personal preference ruling over talent or merit. Since I mostly draw parallels from cricket , the immediate that I can think of is the selection of a non-performing Washington Sundar over Axar Patel and a low-on-skill high-on-attitude Harshit Rana over Md. Seraj in the ongoing ODI series between India and South Africa . In the corporate parlance too, this is a common occurrence. I have witnessed this personally during my near-two decades of work experience, where people who perform and do the hard work often get ignored. The ones who tend to get preferred are the yes-mans (or womans) who are good at sweet talks, are friendly with seniors, or jump into praises for their bosses at the slightest pretext. This is not to say that talent or performance doesn't get its due, but they often take a backseat when it becomes a matter of personal preference for specific people. To counter this, the people with merit can stick to letting their perfor...
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Take a break to boost your mental health

In every workspace, there always comes a time when you have a lot to do, but you don't get the push from inside to get the task done. You get the feeling that your work is mundane, there is not enough appreciation, your boss doesn't treat you well, your mind is saturated with the work you're doing, and the list of possible reasons go on. This is normal and feeling depressed as a result of any of these is also very normal. What's important is what we do to cope with this, or rather get over it. You can take a break from work, go on a vacation if time permits. You may simply chill at home over movies, OTT , books and games. You may go out on dinner dates with your spouse/partner , or catch up with your friends at a happening social outlet . Options are many, and they need not necessarily assure you a getaway from your stressed state of mind. But the thought of doing something nice with your loved ones can be a good distraction that can slowly help you overcome your menta...
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Location: JCPR+G48, Nazrul Islam Avenue, Kaikhali, North Dumdum, West Bengal 700052, India
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Belief – the biggest strength that can win you the world!

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I don’t have much memory of the 2005 Women’s World Cup cricket final , in which India got a 98-run hammering from Australia, but I did watch the live telecast of the 2017 Women’s World Cup cricket final . It still hurts when I recall that India slipped from 191/3 to 219 all out to lose that final against England by 9 runs. The manner in which a match India had no business losing was thrown away suggested that there lack of belief that they could actually get over the line. It also seemed that the team didn't have the stomach to fight till the end and win. Unfortunately, this wasn't a one-off. In the years that followed, we saw this team losing several knockout matches from a position to win. The 2025 World Cup wasn't much different, as India lost their group matches against Australia, England and South Africa in similar fashion. Even fans started doubting if this team will get the necessary inspiration from somewhere to convert these defeats to memorable wins. That inspira...
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Location: JCPR+G48, Nazrul Islam Avenue, Kaikhali, North Dumdum, West Bengal 700052, India
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Be an all-rounder to survive

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Indian men's cricket team's premier spin bowler Kuldeep Yadav failed to make it to the playing XI in all the 5 tests in the recently concluded 'away' test series against England. The reason being his inability to lend batting support like a Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, or Ravindra Jadeja, hence his inclusion would have affected the team's balance. In the 'home' test series against West Indies and South Africa later this year he may again miss out as an allrounder like Axar Patel may get the nod ahead of him! The bottom-line here is that in today's competitive and cut-throat world, you must be skilled in more than one trade to survive. If we look at the corporate workspace, especially at a time today when job cuts are rampant due to the southward global market scenario and rapid surge of AI, the need to be an allrounder becomes even more important. A content person can be asked to do marketing, a sales guy can be told to engage in project management...
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Location: JCPR+G48, Nazrul Islam Avenue, Kaikhali, North Dumdum, West Bengal 700052, India
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Digital crackdown needed for social media too!

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The Indian government's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has recently banned 25 steaming platforms accused of distributing obscene and vulgar content. While this digital crackdown is praiseworthy and was indeed necessary, there are a few points that are worth discussing: 1. Most of these platforms have been operating for more than 5 years and during the COVID pandemic lockdown period, these online apps flourished big time. So the question is, why did it take more than 5 years for the I&B Ministry to wake up and take a stand on this? 2. Somewhere I read that these platforms have been accused of streaming 'soft porn' content. Who is being tried to fool here? Sources confirm that quite a few of those 25 online apps show hardcore pornographic content, which certainly can't be labelled as 'soft porn'. 3. A lot of news channels and social rights organizations have been vociferous since the time this news has been revealed. One common point flagged by all o...
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Location: JCPR+G48, Nazrul Islam Avenue, Kaikhali, North Dumdum, West Bengal 700052, India
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Corporate learnings from the Lord's Test

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Like I keep harping on in my blogs, a lot of mantras for success in the corporate space can be derived from real examples in the sporting arena. I personally follow cricket very closely, and have seen that the close, hard-fought matches often leave a lot of learnings that can be replicated in life in general, and most definitely in the professional workspace. If we look at the Lord's classic that was played between India and England in the 3rd test of the ongoing series, there are at least 3 key takeaways: 1. Don't miss out on opportunities that come your way (referring to KL Rahul's dropped catch of Jamie Smith): In any business, opportunities for new avenues for revenue generation often arrive suddenly, but you must be alert and prompt to grab the opportunity with both hands. 2. Avoid blunders that can undo the good work done (referring to Rishabh Pant's run out): Historical data shows that apart from economic downward spiral, the second most important reason for proj...
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Location: JCPR+G48, Nazrul Islam Avenue, Kaikhali, North Dumdum, West Bengal 700052, India
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Say NO to unethical practices in corporate space

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Be it in day-to-day life or in our professional space, we often look for shortcuts to get our work done faster. In the corporate parlance, we call this smart work! This is fine as long as the tactics used are within the allowed rules or norms. However, there has been a growing practice of people resorting to unethical means to get a job done, which is unacceptable. Less are those kind of people who are willing to do the hard work of conducting thorough research, study about their upcoming project or prospective client in detail, or inspect a deliverable or report minutely. Instead, there are frequent reports of corporate employees using unethical means like plagiarism, lifting content from sources that are not available on the web without providing due credit, using a colleague or junior employee's report/study/story without his/her knowledge, misusing or revealing sensitive information about the company they work for, and so on. There are also instances of employees' poaching ...
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Location: JCPR+G48, Nazrul Islam Avenue, Kaikhali, North Dumdum, West Bengal 700052, India
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