ENG II -II MID MATERIAL

3. B. THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY

Introduction: A P J Abdul Kalam, the former President of India is a distinguished Scientist. His
name is associated with the development of India’s first satellite launch vehicle SLV-3 and Agni
Missile. He is honoured with Padma Bhushan, PadamaVibhushan and Bharat Ratna awards. He
authored books like “Ignited Minds”, “Wings of fire” and “India 2020”. The present abstract
“Knowledge Society” is taken from his popular book “Ignited Minds”. In this lesson Kalam
emphasizes that poverty can be uprooted only by making a balance between the past heritage and
present day knowledge. India can reach the pinnacle of prosperity through acquisition of
knowledge and utilization of technology.

Resources of Knowledge: Ancient society is an advanced knowledge society but invasions and
colonial rule have systematically degraded Indians to lower levels of existence. India is essentially
a land of knowledge and it must rediscover itself in this aspect. Once this rediscovery is done India
will soon transform into a developed nation. Kalam says that knowledge has many forms and is
available at many places. Though Knowledge is closely associated to education, it also comes
equally from learning skills such as those possessed by artists, craftsmen, hakims, vaidyas,
philosophers, saints and housewives. Indian heritage and history, rituals, epics, libraries,
universities, environment, oceans, bio reserves, deserts and tradition are also abundant sources of
knowledge. There is an abundance of unorthodox, earthy wisdom in our villages.

Factors That Constitute A Knowledge Society: Knowledge has been the prime mover of
prosperity and power. During the last century, agricultural society has changed to an industrial
society. Technology played a key role in development of the society. In the 21st century, knowledge
has become the primary production resource instead of capital and labour. The knowledge society
has two very important components driven by societal transformation and wealth generation. The
Societal transformation is in respect of education, healthcare, agriculture and governance. It
promotes high productivity and prosperity creating new sources of employment.

The task of wealth generation for the nation has to be woven around national competencies. The
multiple technologies and appropriate management structures must work together to generate a
knowledge society. India has made its impression in Information Technology and it will develop
more in coming years. India has to evolve suitable policies and administrative procedures, bring
change in regulatory methods, identify partners and most important, create young and dynamic
leaders in order to generate wealth.

Transformation of India into a Knowledge Super Power: The societal transformation and
wealth generation are the two important components and third component is to transform India
into a knowledge super power by 2010. If India is to transform itself into a knowledge super
power, knowledge protection is a tremendous responsibility. Our communication networks and
information generators are to be protected from electronic attacks through close monitoring.

CHAPTER 4: A. INDUSTRY: SAFETY AND TRAINING

Pages 104-105 Personal versus Professional Relationships:

The term ‘relationship’ usually stands for personal relationships though professional
relationships are equally important and one needs to build and nurture these in a business
environment. Sometimes a common confusion occurs between personal and professional
relationships. In personal relationships, there are shared interests and often mutual dependence,
and a fairly high degree of openness and trust and Professional relationships are more ‘held back’
and less open. What makes the difference between these two relationships is degree of openness
and trust.
We cannot relate the same measure to work relationships that we apply to personal ones. The
nature of the two is different. In business, we may build a good relationship with a customer or
with other departments in the organisation.
Since the relationship is built in a period of time, some believe it as a personal relationship and
the people who have lot of experience say that they have a good personal bond with their
customers. Difficulties arise when there’s misunderstanding between these two relationships. It is
important to do unto your professional partners what you would like them to do to you. Honour
your commitments. Be punctual. Build the relationship. The list is endless.

Pages 108-109 Training in industrial organizations

Training forms the axis of the industrial wheel. It is an expected and continuous process in an
industrial company, and no industrial organisation can function successfully without training its
employees. C.R Dooley, an American writer, while writing about training within industry, says,
‘Training is not something that is done once to new employees- it is used continuously in every
well run establishment. Every time you give directions or discuss a procedure, you are training.’
The primary aim of training in any industry is to educate and to help its personnel rise to certain
standards to meet the workplace’s requirements. The organisation, the trainer and the trainee are
the three key factors which contribute in equal importance to the effectiveness of training.
Training plays a vital role in industries for the following reasons:
1. The newly appointed employees in any industry need to be trained to get themselves
introduced to their new employer’s work.
2. Second, if an employee is promoted, new skills should be developed.
3. Third, he or she who continues in the same job, needs to be given training to update
his technical knowledge.
4. Fourth, when employee’s skill is found to be unsuitable for the particular area at the time
of appraising his or her performance, he or she needs to be trained.
5. Fifth, training is needed to make an employee manage with the changing goals of the
organisation.
If these training programmes are ineffectively conducted, any industrial organisation will fail to
achieve its ends. Through different methods and techniques, every organisation employs
its employees. Some of the very common methods which are adopted by the organisations
are case method, role play, lectures, films, incident method, problem oriented exercises and
projects and programmed instruction.
Apart from these, the learner’s specific needs and his or her ability to understand and learn are
the other factors which make the management think of other methods of training.

Pages 118-120 Office Etiquette

Compact workstations, in an open-office format....save cost and at the same time ease
communication due to lack of physical boundaries. The current office environment at most
organisations is extremely noisy with disturbances during the day that has a negative impact on
productivity. Indian offices are extremely noisy- cramped workstations, people chatting with each
other, talking loudly on telephones, crunching food without guilt, borrowing things from each
other’s desks without permission, cell phones ringing incessantly with Bollywood ringtones-the
list is endless.
There are some rules that can be followed to make the work place more productive and
comfortable. Rules are:
Rule 1: A prairie dog is cute in the wild, not in the office
Peeping over some one’s cubicle in the office is pretty annoying. Check if it’s a good time to speak
to your co-worker instead of simply getting in. If your co-worker is talking to someone else, drop
a note on his/her desk or send an email or message if the matter is urgent.
Rule 2: Silent zones aren’t just for hospitals
Just speak in a low voice so that others may not be disturbed in their work.
Rule 3: Handle your smart phone smartly
Phones connect us to friends and family and are important for work too. Use headphones and keep
phone on ‘silent’ or ‘vibration’ mode.
Rule 4: Everything you see isn’t public property
One shouldn’t take away anything from other’s cubicle even if it is company’s belonging.
Rule 5: Wafts from a coworker’s desk can be displeasing
Put other people’s needs ahead of your own. Go to the office lunch room and join them in eating
if it’s acceptable to them. Having a meal together is a great way to strengthen office relationships.

4.B. MARTIN LUTHER KING AND AFRICA

Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian novelist, poet and a prominent name in African literature. He
has written this essay on the complex issue of racism and discrimination of Africans. In this essay,
he states how Martin Luther King was able to fight racism in America by accepting his African
roots.
 Achebe says that he didn’t have the fortune of meeting King. Yet, his work, his thoughts
and his death left an indelible impression that the man belonged to Africa. King embraced the pain
and suffering of the African continent.

King had a vision of an America in which the structure of racism must be challenged. In
preparation for this work, Dr. King made friends with many African leaders like Albert Luthuli
and Kwama Nkrumah. He had gone for progressive leaders in strategic locations.

In 1957, King visited Ghana, the flagship of modern Africa’s journey into political
freedom. The same year, along with Eleanor Roosevelt and Bishop James Pike sponsored a
document signed by 130 leaders to protest against apartheid. In 1962, along with Albert Luthuli,
he sponsored an ‘Appeal for Action against Apartheid’.

Chinua Achebe says that generally many African-Americans suffer from what James
Baldwin calls as the ‘African conundrum’. But Dr. King is an exception to this. He made great
commitment to the fortunes of America as a preparation for his great work in the US. Achebe also
speaks of James Baldwin who is clear-eyed and brilliant. But even he had the ‘problem’ with
Africa. He once lamented that his African ancestors did nothing but sit around waiting for the
white slavers to arrive.

Achebe also quotes the British historian Basil Davidson who called the trans-Atlantic slave
trade as the greatest and most fateful migration-forced migration- in the history of man. Others
call it as the greatest crime against humanity in the history of the world.

Achebe remembers a TV show where a Professor of History declared that it was Africans
themselves who captured people in their hinterland and sold them to the whites on the coast. He
didn’t say what the Whites were doing on the African coast. Achebe mocks them saying that
perhaps they were holidaying on the beaches.

Each one would like us to believe that they are not the perpetrators of slavery. Fortunately,
truth is rarely completely lost. Even in the very archives of Europe, there are entries that point out
to rational aspects.

Achebe mentions about Thomas Jefferson who concluded that Negroes were inferior in all
but memory and that in imagination they were ‘dull, tasteless and anomalous’. This thought was
opposed by another American Imlay White. White told Jefferson respectfully that nothing could
be more false than comparing the intellect and talent of two descriptions of news: one enslaved,
degraded and the other free, independent and with the advantage of appropriating the reason and
science which have been the result of the study and labors of the philosophers and sensible men.

Baldwin and Achebe met in 1980 for the first time and the last time at the annual conference
of the African Literature Association in Gainesville, Florida. He had come to see the conventional
attitudes to his ancestors and their history for what they were. A third party was responsible for
our soured relationship.Martin Luther King didn’t suffer Baldwin’s kind of anguish about his
African connection or else got over it very early. Even before he reached 39, when he was
assassinated, he got over it. King was a thinker/activist who grew, meditated on his mission and
matured into action. Achebe says that Mahatma Gandhi hadn’t even returned to India at the age of
39.

King learned from Gandhi that human beings have a fundamental obligation to respect life
in the thick of a just struggle, for if they should forget this obligation and violate the lives of others,
they would cheapen their own lives and their own humanity. But these thoughts would have come
to King out of the great Bantu dictum: Umuntungumuntunqabantu- which means ‘ a human is
human because of other humans. The Igbo culture has a proverb ‘Onyejionyen arujionweya’ which
means ‘he who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down’.Then
why is Dr. King remembered and why is he worthy of this great honor and celebration? This is
because of two things: what he achieved himself and what he stands for in a long line of a people’s
struggle for freedom and justice.

First, let us look at his personal achievement. He was a man who struggled to conquer in
himself both fear and hate, two of humanity’s most destructive and limiting emotions. He is our
hero and he enables us to become beneficiaries of his heroic journey and able to derive from it the
energy and hope to dare the obstacles on our own little side roads.

Second, he is important as a staging post in a long history of black struggle going back to
the first revolts, and as a signpost for future battles. It is important to have this historical
perspective because it is the correct one and because it saves us from the heresy that there was
once a golden age of tyranny when its victims were happy with their oppression.

Chinua Achebe mentions another incident involving J. Lowrie Anderson, a missionary

working in Nairobi, another American and a Kenyan soon after the King’s assassination. The
African said, “ We hate you Americans. You killed our Martin Luther King. The second American
replied, “Yes, I was ashamed of being an American- until I remembered that Martin Luther King
was an American also. Then I was proud.”

It is appropriate that we celebrate Martin Luther King, a man who struggled to resote
humanity to the oppressed and the oppressor.

5. A. MAN’S PERIL

Introduction

Bertrand Russell was an English philosopher, mathematician and sociologist. He was a prolific
writer and one of the greatest masters of English Prose. In 1950 he received the Nobel Prize for
Literature. His essays are marked by a witty, lucid and urbane style. The essay “Man’s Peril” is an
indepth analysis of the dangers confronting the modern world and the repercussions of atomic
warfare. He warns the nations and the general public to set aside their conflicting ideologies and
save the beautiful earth from total destruction.

Bertrand Russell’s Appeal

Bertrand Russell appeals to all concerned as a human being, a member of the species man, whose
continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts: Jews and Arabs; Indians and
Pakistanis; white men and Negroes; and above all between Communists and Anti Communists. He
requests all to put aside their politics and personal prejudices and think as a human being whose
very existence is in peril. A war with the hydrogen bombs will put an end to the human race. It is
foolish to think of military victory because the modern warfare is equally disastrous to all sides.
There will be no victors and losers, but only sufferers.

Impact of Atomic Bombs and Hydrogen Bombs

In his view, it seems that the ‘general public’ has not realized the real impact of a war with atomic
bombs. A hydrogen bomb is 25,000 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima. The
radioactive materials diffused from such an explosion will have long-term disastrous effects. If
many hydrogen bombs are used there will be universal death. He quotes eminent men of science
and authorities of military strategies who talk about the possibility of total destruction.

Stark, dreadful and inescapable problem

So the stark, dreadful and inescapable problem before us is whether we shall put an end to the
human race or if we shall give up wars. He says that the abolition of war is difficult as it will
demand distasteful limitations of national sovergnity. Moreover, people do not realize that the
danger of war is to themselves and their children. They feel that war may be allowed to continue
provided modern weapons are prohibited. But the agreements not to use hydrogen bombs will not
be respected in time of war. He requests the ‘general public’ to be more aware and assertive so
that the fate of the nations need not be decided by despotic leaders alone.

Role of the Neutrals

On both sides of the Iron Curtain there are political obstacles to emphasize the bad effects of war.
Each side of the Iron Curtain resembles duelists. Though they are afraid of their lives, it is
cowardice on their part drawing out any compromise formulae. Here neutrals should play an
important role to prevent the outbreak of a world war. The neutral powers should appoint a
committee of experts to draw up a report on the destructive effects of a war with hydrogen bombs.

Way to a new paradise

According to geological time, man has so far existed only for a very short period. But he has been
doing well for the last 6,000 years. If we remember humanity and forget everything else, the way
lies before us to a new paradise. Otherwise, we have to face universal death. Hence, Russell asserts
that the role of the ordinary people in the peace process and the only wisdom of the ordinary citizen
can ensure progress and prosperity and pave the way for Universal Peace. Thus we can save our
planet from total destruction.

5. B. Report Writing

Formal reports are written in response to instructions received from someone in authority. They
are also referred to as survey reports because the writer will need to survey, or study, for example
a subject area or the working of an industry before preparing it.

Here are some guidelines on writing official reports.

⮚ The first step in writing an official report involves the collection of data through
investigations, inquiry, meetings, surveys, etc.
⮚ The second step is to organize the information in a format used for the purpose.
⮚ The tone of an official report and the style in which it is written are usually formal.
⮚ It is important to present facts clearly and concisely in an official report because they will
be used to make decisions.

Use the format below to write an official report.

⮚ From ( Name and designation of the person writing the report)

⮚ Date
⮚ To ( Name and designation of the person to whom the report is sent)
⮚ Title of the report
⮚ Terms of reference (who authorized the report / why it is being made, what the reporter has
been asked to survey, etc.)
⮚ Abstract or summary (included when the report is very long, so that senior colleagues may
get the essence of the report quickly, without having to go through the main body of the
report)
⮚ Body of the report ( explaining how the necessary information / data was collected and
giving the findings of the investigation)
⮚ Conclusion ( containing the reporter’s interpretation of facts and his / her comments and
recommendations)
⮚ Signature ( of the person writing the report)

Sample of an official report

Dr. Surya Babu

 Assistant Medical and Health Officer
District Health Centre
Guntur

24 October 2018

Dr. Maria Abraham

Chief Medical and Health Officer
District Health Centre
Guntur

Title: Deaths due to yellow fever

Terms of reference: As instructed by the Minister of State for health, a survey was conducted to
investigate reports of over thirty people dying of yellow fever in four villages in the district.
Findings: The writer visited four villages of Pothur, Etukur, Budampadu, and Gorantla to confirm
the above reports and study the situation. The findings of the study are as follows.
a) According to the records maintained in the local government hospitals as well as in
private nursing homes, the number of patients diagnosed with yellow fever was 23 in
Pothur, 14 in Etukur, 22 in Budampadu and 30 in Gorantla.
b) While 19 patients suffered from mild forms of the fever, 70 patients presented acute
symptoms and needed hospitalization.
c) The line of treatment followed was in accordance with that recommended for the
management of yellow fever.
d) 30 deaths were confirmed by the hospitals and local panchayats.
e) For more than two weeks now, no fresh cases of yellow fever have been reported.
f) The residents of the four villages have been vaccinated against the fever.
Conclusion and Recommendations: The outbreak of yellow fever appears to have been brought
under control before it became an epidemic. It is recommended that the primary health care
centres in the district keep a close watch on the condition of the patients suffering from the
fever and report other deaths, if any. Further the centres must be instructed to immediately
alert the District Health Centre if new cases of yellow fever are reported in the area.

S. Babu
(Surya Babu)

Informal reports Samples

Write a Report for the newspaper describing a traffic jam in which you, along with many, were
trapped for many hours.
REPORT
TRAFFIC JAM : A NUISANCE ON ROADS
-Shailey John

24 October 2018
Yesterday on 23/10/2018, the main highway connecting the two major suburbs of our city
witnessed a real chaos in the form of a traffic jam in which thousands of people were caught for
several hours.

It was around 5 pm in the evening and the office goers, the school buses of various schools and
traders along with many others were returning from the busy route. The traffic was running
smoothly but suddenly the vehicles came to an abrupt halt. There was utter confusion among all.
The traffic was not moving even an inch. Soon anger erupted among many. Patience slowly melted
and there was argument, heated talks, and even several came out from their vehicles in anger.
Everyone was vexed to know the cause of that traffic jam. People were in hurry to reach their
destination but not even one traffic police officer could be seen in the vicinity. Then some excited
youngsters jumpe ond into the scene and began clearing the scene. They reached at the place where
the halt had begun. A badly wounded person was seen unconscious in damaged car. Situation was
understood and immediately an ambulance was called by onlookers. Within no time, the
ambulance arrived followed by the police too. It took two hours to clear the traffic. But finally the
injured person was taken in the ambulance, the damaged car was picked by the police and the
traffic moved.

Write a Report for your college magazine describing a Cultural Fest held in your college in which
various schools of your city took part.

REPORT
CULTURAL FEST
-Robin Dey
24 October 2018

On 22/ 10/2018, a colorful and memorable Cultural Fest was organized in our college. This event
was whole day long and was held in the auditorium of our college. In this mega event, many
colleges from our city took part.a
The grand show commenced by the arrival of various teams from colleges. Then the Chief Guest,
the District Collector, of our District, arrived with his wife. There was a colourful welcome
followed by lighting of the lamp. It was accompanied by a melodious Saraswati Vandana , hailing
the goddess of knowledge and wisdom. It was followed by a welcome speech given by the
Principal of our college. Then there was bouquet presentation to the invited guests and the grand
event began. It was a truly mesmerizing show as the teams from various colleges presented many
programmes. The events included singing, dancing, poetry recitation, skits, mimicry, mono act
shows, classical and modern combination of several foot tapping numbers. Everyone sat glued to
the show. The Chief Guest praised the entire event a lot. He guided the students with his
inspirational words and inspired them to do better. It was followed by the announcement of the
winning team, ABC college of our city. The team from our college bagged second position and
everyone complimented one another. It was followed by a formal vote of thanks and the event
concluded.
We really enjoyed a lot and dispersed with a sincere hope that such mega events should be
organized time and again giving the students a chance to display their talents.