SSB Latest Trending Topics 2022 : This blog number #1 is specially curated for the SSB appearing candidates and those who wish to prepare for Group Discussion round. To help them out and ease out their difficulties Trishul Defence Academy is providing Latest SSB Group Discussion Topic under it’s highly appreciated blog series.
TOPIC 1 Work from home –
Theme:
Due to COVID-19 pandemic, many companies allowed their employees to work from home (WFH). Some employees are happy with WFH option, but some are not comfortable with it. There are pros & cons with WFH option for both employees and companies.
Advantages for Employees:
The location will not be a barrier. Employees can get a job, even if the office is located in another city.Even in modern times, women are expected to take care of home and children. With this responsibility, several women are forced to leave their jobs. The rise in WFH culture is a boon for them. With this more women can join in jobs again.
Travel time to and from the office will be saved.
They can spend more time with family. This is beneficial for many especially for parents of young children.
If they want to get to know their office and colleagues better, they can attend the office at regular intervals like once a week.
Disadvantages for Employees:
Teamwork is a bit difficult while working from home.
Working from home from a long periods of time can hamper social and interpersonal skills.Employees have to set up a work environment at home, which will incur extra expense. Even then, some people may not focus on work due to the lack of a professional atmosphere
The line between work and home will be blurred. In general, employees leave work tensions at office and come home to relax. But this opportunity will be lost and it may cause anxiety. If work and personal life are not balanced well, work will extend to longer hours. This can create WFH burnout.
Some companies are giving so much work just because their employees are working from home.
Continuously staying at home may make some people feel isolated.
For some people, setting up office space at home may not be an option due to lack of extra space in the home.
Some jobs may require employees to be online during work hours and the continuous power supply may not be available to many.
It can be difficult to establish connections with new colleagues because the opportunity to meet and talk with them during coffee breaks will be lost.
Advantages for Companies:
Less expense for office maintenance.
Can hire talented people, even if they reside in another city.
Employees may not ask for much leaves.
Disadvantages for Companies:
Difficult to monitor work from home employees.
It’s hard to establish connections among employees
Training new staff can be tough with all the employees working from home.
Have to deal with WFH specific challenges like information security and hacking of video calls etc.
Conclusion:
Even though work from home culture is on the rise due to COVID-19 situation, work from home opportunities will increase in number to adapt to the changing times. With time, companies and employees will take steps to reduce the disadvantages.
TOPIC 2 – Statue of Unity – Symbol of Pride or Wastage of Public Money?
For the Motion
There are several points to justify this spending as a symbol of pride, as explained under the following bullet points: World over, people will be reading about the highest statue being in India. This is a massive symbol of pride.
It is also a major statement of respect paid to one of the greatest architects to India’s nation building process. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was in many ways responsible for the creation of modern India, as we know the country. This statue restores his place in the pantheon of greats.
In the long run, there will be massive tourism potential to the surrounding area, as people from far and wide, both within and outside the country would be able to visit the place. In the era of Social Media and Instagram, what better place to click a selfie than right under the world’s tallest statue!
A lot of employment was generated during the building of this monument, especially among skilled construction workers, stone masons and architects.
Over a period of time, more such employment will be generated once the entire complex is well-developed. A museum dedicated to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and the entire Freedom Movement, plus the usual souvenir shops will do a lot to develop this place.
The construction of this monument has been strategically placed to also ensure better distribution of wealth. The Statue of Unity could have been constructed in any of the commercial hubs, but it was done in the Narmada district, one of the most backward ones in Gujarat. As a result, now the returns from this mega-project will over time trickle down to the hinterland.
Against the Motion
There is an enormous cost to this project which could have been used elsewhere. Large parts of the country are reeling under climate-change-induced disasters, the funds diverted there would have been of far greater use to all. Health, sanitation, environment, education and safety could be various other areas to invest in.
There are other ways of showing respect to the icons of this nation such as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Several older monuments lie in disrepair and in much need of a facelift. Greater awareness too could be spread from primary-level onwards on the contribution these stalwarts played towards the nation-building of India.
The high petrol prices in India, at a time when global crude oil prices were in control, could also be attributed to the loans procured from PSU oil companies towards funding this venture. Oil being so fundamental to any economy, its price rise, automatically leads to several economic complications.
The tourism potential will need a lot of time to be realised as the area is under-developed in terms of connectivity and infrastructure. A lot needs to be done to make the area a tourism hub, such as building of roads, hotels and regular train links to the bigger cities. That will cost even more to the exchequer.
This development in turn, will create major environmental hazards, many of which were already created during the initial construction of the statue. Swathes of green verge were cleared in order to make space,
TOPIC -3 DRONE Technology – Pros or Cons
What is Drone technology: Drones are flying devices, which can be controlled using a remote or smartphone.
Pros of Drone technology:
Drones are very much beneficial in replacing humans for working in dangerous places such as mining.
Drones are being used for military purposes. They can prevent or reduce the loss of lives at the time of wars by replacing humans.
Drones are being used in many industries. They go to places where it is difficult for humans to go. For example, they can be used to deliver medicines quickly in hilly regions.
As per records, the earliest version of drones was used in 1849. But from then, drones were mostly used for military purposes. Only a few years ago, the miniaturization of drones allowed multiple industries to start leveraging drone technology.
Now, drones are accessible to the general public. They are being used for many reasons such as personal interests, commercial purposes, military use etc.
Drones can be used to deliver food at the time of natural calamities. Not just delivering food, using drones, rescue teams can find people that are stuck and can save them. So, drones can save lives.
They can be used in agriculture too for seed dispersal, pollinating flowers, identifying crop diseases etc.
They can decrease the workload for humans by taking care of monotonous tasks such as delivering goods, sowing seeds etc.
They can be used to provide internet access in remote areas.
Drones can replace many jobs, especially monotonous jobs. But the good thing is that drone technology is creating plenty of jobs.
Drones are cost-saving. For example, many people who bought drones for personal purposes use them for taking aerial shots. Earlier, before drones became accessible to the general public, taking aerial shots is very expensive.
Cons of drone technology:
Drones can be misused to stalk, vandalize homes and for doing many other anti-social activities. There have been many incidents, where drones posed security threats.Drones are prone to hacking.They can collide with flights
Conclusion:
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles can be used for many purposes. Drones have the potential to revolutionize many sectors. They are already being used in many industries including agriculture, construction, mining, filmmaking.
TOPIC – 4 Should reservations be based on economic status ?
Theme :-
At present, In India there are reservations on caste basis. There is a particular percentage of seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST), Scheduled Castes (SC) & Other Backward Classes (OBC) in Education and Employment. For Other Castes (OC), there is no reservation at all (Except in Maharastra, where Marathas got reservation recently). Many people find it discriminatory towards OCs and are demanding that reservation should be based on economic status rather than on caste.
In Favor :-
When the concept of caste reservations was brought in India, Dr. B R Ambedkar, the chief architect of Indian constitution added a rule that these reservations should exist only for 15 years, and can be renewed for another few years if the need is still there. But no government took the risk of ending reservations altogether with the fear of losing their vote banks. It’s been 67 years since the constitution came into force. So, it’s time for a relook into the caste reservation system.
If we analyse the statistics of below poverty line people, we can observe that there are poor people in all communities including communities that fall under OCs. Caste based reservations are discriminatory towards poor of OCs. For example, if 2 poor people with same score in the exam, one belongs to OBC and another belongs to OC applies to the last seat available in a college that allows reservations, person that belongs to OBC will get the admission, and the one that belongs to OC won’t. If a student who belongs to SC applies to the same seat, he will be chosen. Why should people be discriminated based on birth? If the reservation system is based on economic status, both students would have equal chances to grab that seat.
Only a few families are utilising reservations for many generations. There is no rule that if a person got job due to reservation, his/her child should not utilise reservation. Due to this, people who are already enjoying the benefits of reservations, using reservations again and again though they do not need it at all. And some other people are still not able to utilize reservations due to the wealth in their communities. For example, if there are 10 seats reserved for STs in a college, children of poor, illiterate people have to compete with children of wealthy families in the same community. Those who already utilized reservations can afford to train their children in quality institutes and hence they can easily get the admission. Reservation on economic basis can solve this problem.
Indian constitution advocates equality, but is not upholding the principle in reservations, especially when considering the fact that rich and poor exists in all communities.
Against :-
Caste divisions are hatred among communities is increasing due to reservations. Many communities in several states of India are fighting to give them reservations. And the consequence is people are increasingly associating with their caste. The interesting fact is that before the first caste census by the British government (1881) in India, many people do not even know what their caste is. From then, the idea of caste is deeply ingrained in Indian society. Now the reservations are making the situation even worse.
Many people term reservations as a consolation for facing discrimination some decades ago. But it’s not. Communities that belongs to SC & ST faced discrimination and abuse for many decades. They were denied of quality education and healthcare. Most of them were poor at the time of independence. At that time, not all schools were willing to teach these communities and not all employees were willing to hire them for jobs. And as result poverty in the communities would have continued for many more generations. But reservations provided positive discrimination for them and uplifted many people. Now, there are rich and middle class in these communities and that is because of reservations. Even now, if we observe the statistics of below poverty line people, a high percentage of them belong to SC & ST. And high percentage of rich and middle classes belong to OBC & OC. Still people of some communities are facing abuse in the name of caste. One case study revealed that people of some communities find it difficult to get a home for rent, and a temporary job if they revealed their caste names. These things justify caste-based reservation because people belonging to Other Castes do not have to go through all this to move to a new city, to get an education and to get a job.
For poor people of OC, there are poverty alleviation schemes and special quotas such as the ‘Economically Backward Classes (EBC) quota etc.
Removing caste-based reservations and replacing it with reservations based on economic status will face so much opposition and the legal fight may take decades. Instead, if we slowly eliminate the system of caste, there will be scope for the reservations based on economic status. If you too want to eliminate caste system, please sign this petition – Create ‘Humanity’ caste & allow everyone to migrate to it.
If there are reservations on an economic basis, people who work hard for a financially stable life will feel discouraged. There will be no incentive for working hard. Some people may not work hard and just live on government benefits.
In India, it’s easy to hide some income resources and to get a false income certificate.
Though the situations are changing for the better, it is not that difficult. Also Read : Does “NOTA” option in elections really make sense?
Conclusion :-
No one deserves to take the pain for greater good (reservations). It’s time to make changes in caste based reservation system. Reservations based on the economic status is not the right solution either.
Instead of adding new communities to the reservation quotas, continuously removing people that do not need reservation benefits will ensure that the reservation benefits will reach only for deserving ones. Efforts from people like voluntarily giving up reservation also helps a lot. This process can slowly eliminate the concept of reservation.
