Author: Loknath Das

Last summer, OCAD University student Ryan Mason spent much of his school holiday huddled in front of a television digitizing his parents’ old home movies. He purchased a new VCR and capture card just for the occasion, but the process took longer than he anticipated: he had to actually watch through each tape, from beginning to end, in order to make digital versions. It was a process awash in memories, and for the rest of the summer the 28-year-old design student couldn’t stop thinking about VHS tapes. When he returned to school in September and started brainstorming his thesis project,…

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Please use the sharing tools found via the email icon at the top of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. Welcome to the FT Business school newsletter, a weekly serving of management wisdom, reading recommendations and business-related challenges. FT subscribers can sign up here to receive the newsletter by email every Monday. If you have feedback about FT Business school, please email [email protected]. Top MBAs for finance Find out which…

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Non-banking financial company IndoStar Capital Finance Ltd. will launch its Rs 1,844 crore initial public offering today, as private equity fund Everstone Group eyes a partial exit. What’s On Offer The IPO includes a fresh issue of Rs 700 crore and an offer for sale by existing investors to the tune of of Rs 1,144 crore. The price band has been fixed at Rs 570-572 apiece. At the upper end of the price band, it will command a valuation of Rs 5,213 crore, according to BloombergQuint’s calculations. Funds raised through the fresh issue will be used to augment the company’s…

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More than 100 of the UK’s leading artists have joined forces to condemn the exclusion of arts subjects from the new English baccalaureate, warning it will seriously damage the futures of many young people. Artists including Tracey Emin, Rachel Whiteread, Phyllida Barlow, Anish Kapoor, Jeremy Deller and Antony Gormley have signed a letter, published by the Guardian, calling on the government to rethink a key secondary school policy introduced by the former education secretary Michael Gove. The letter says there is compelling evidence that the study of creative subjects is in decline in state schools and that entries to arts subjects have…

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E-learning tools provide educators and students with access to resources they couldn’t have had otherwise, no matter their status or location. A philosophy student in England can learn from the top professor a continent away, and can do so in their own time while balancing a full-time job and a family at home. But even though e-learning has become an education equalizer, it’s still not a replacement for the traditional classroom. Sure, the technology is advancing, but it’s not flawless. Just like any new, burgeoning innovation, e-learning faces its own challenges. This, to me, is where e-learning and the traditional…

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Internet blockade continued in Srinagar on third consecutive day on Monday, even as the government offices opened at civil secretariat in summer capital Srinagar as part of bi-ennial durbar move. As part of the practice, state’s bureaucracy and ministers returned to Srinagar after spending harshest winter period in Jammu. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti received the traditional guard of honour. However, Internet continues to be suspended on the third successive day after it was snapped following Chattabal gunfight in the heart of city that left three militants including a Srinagar resident dead. In the subsequent clashes, a protestor…

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Squirrels have become China’s latest internet celebrities thanks to a Sina Weibo micro blog featuring the animals. Jiang Mingli, a sophomore at Yunnan University in Kunming, launched the squirrel micro blog on April 9, and it has already received over a million clicks. “For graduates of our university, I squeak for happiness when you are happy, and I squeak for sorrow when you are sad. If you miss your alma mater, come back and feed me,” one blog post read. Jiang said squirrels have been a feature on campus for a long time and are popular with tourists. “So I…

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Just hours after Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton, 17, was shot dead in south London, his friends posted a tribute on social media. The slickly made music video on YouTube lamented the young rapper’s death, but was accompanied by numerous posts apportioning blame for his murder and calling for retribution. It highlights a growing phenomenon: the use of social media in often glamorising gang violence and fuelling resentment and reprisals from rival groups. Just last month, Scotland Yard Commissioner Cressida Dick spoke out about the exploitation of internet platforms by those bent on violence. She told the Times that websites and mobile apps…

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As executives from Silicon Valley’s social media giants — Facebook, YouTube and Twitter — gathered last week at a Stanford University forum to discuss their roles in spreading conspiracy theories, hate speech and fake news, the problems were clear. The solutions, however, weren’t. “Our industry was too slow to wake up to this threat,” said Facebook’s Vice President of Public Policy Elliot Schrage. “It’s not does it happen, it’s how you manage it. All of us in the digital sphere, particularly Facebook, have a long way to go to strike that digital balance.”The forum discussing free speech in the social…

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The move is unlikely to go down well in a country where more than 40 percent of people use the internet. Finance Minister Matia Kasaija told Reuters that the tax will levy 200 Ugandan shillings (US$0.027) per day on each mobile phone subscriber using platforms such as WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook. “We’re looking for money to maintain the security of the country and extend electricity so that you people can enjoy more of social media, more often, more frequently,” he said. But Museveni seems to have a different take on the law. In a statement quoted in Ugandan daily The Daily Monitor on April 1, he portrayed social media sites…

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