The twist in tech
Top Jobs + Tek Fog + Ukraine + Deadlines
Hello, hope you are having a great Sunday. This week we cover top jobs, the Tek Fog app and why its features are concerning, the building tensions between Russia and Ukraine & how not to miss deadlines
Top Jobs of the week
Lead, Resource Development, Caritas India
Apply- Send your resume at hr@caritasindia.org
Researcher, HISP India
Apply- send your resume to careers@hispindia.org
Location- Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh
Program Officer, SNEHA, Mumbai
Apply- Send your application to sejal.kandalgaonkar@snehamumbai.org
Fundraising Manager, SNEHA Mumbai
Apply- Send your application to sejal.kandalgaonkar@snehamumbai.org
Tek Fog- Another Danger?
The Wire on 6th January 2022 brought to light an app called Tek Fog which is being used by political workers associated with the ruling party. The purpose is to increase the popularity of the party, harass its critics, target female reporters and manipulate public perceptions over major digital platforms.
Features of the App and why its concerning-
Seize the ‘trending’ section of Socials: The users of the platform can influence the trending features by sharing or retweeting posts, and targeting existing hashtags to intensify propaganda. All of this results in the harassment of certain communities and individuals.
Phishing ‘inactive’ WhatsApp accounts: The users of the platform use inactive WhatsApp accounts of citizens to message their ‘contacts’ and upload the personal information and contact list on the app which violates the fundamental right to privacy.
Using a database of private citizens for targeted harassment: The app has an extensive cloud database of private citizens categorised according to their occupation, religion, language, age, gender, political inclination and even physical attributes.
Using Sharechat to seed hate speech: App operatives used Sharechat for curating fake news, political propaganda and hate speech before implementing it on other popular social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
Opposition’s Opinion
The Editors Guild of India criticises the online harassment of women journalists, who have been outspokenly critical of the current government and the ruling party. This is a travesty of all democratic norms and in violation of the law.
Senior Congressman Satej Patil has raised questions over the silence of the Government of India and the Information and Technology ministry over the Tek Fog expose.
(Sources: The Wire, Bloomberg)
Russia & Ukraine- The Global Battle
According to Washington, Russia has accumulated 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine, prompting fears of an invasion. It is unclear if Russia plans to invade but the forces present at the border have sparked international concern.
Backdrop-
Russia had invaded Ukraine in 2014 and annexed Crimea which is part of Ukraine. Despite the signing of a peace deal in 2015, there have been repeated ceasefire violations and more than 3,000 conflict-related civilian deaths in eastern Ukraine since March 2014.
The European Union and the USA imposed a series of measures in response to Russia's actions in Crimea, including economic sanctions targeting individuals, entities and specific sectors of the Russian economy.
The international perspective-
The USA-
In January 2022, President Joe Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on a phone call that the US and its allies "will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine." Moreover, the US has provided security assistance of $450 million to Ukraine to prepare for a possible invasion.
Ukraine-
Ukraine believes that Moscow cannot prevent Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine from building closer ties with NATO. Tensions between the two countries have been increased by a deepening Ukrainian energy crisis that Kyiv believes Moscow has purposefully provoked. The current government in Ukraine is also facing challenges of the third wave of Covid-19 and a struggling economy. In view of this, anti-government protests have taken place in the capital.
Russia-
Russia views the growing support of NATO for Ukraine in terms of weapons and training as a threat to its own security. In view of this Russia doesn’t want Ukraine to be a part of NATO. and threatens the US and its NATO allies that if they won’t change their course then it has the right to choose ways to ensure its legitimate security interests.
The NATO’s stand
Ukraine is not a NATO member and doesn't have the same security guarantees as NATO members. However, NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg left the possibility of Ukraine becoming a NATO member, saying that Russia does not have the right to tell Ukraine that it cannot pursue NATO membership.
(Sources: CNN, Al Jazeera, Indian Express)
The art of not missing deadlines
Are you someone who delays the work knowing that you have more time to finish? Well, stop right there because it’s a trap.
Kristi DePaul, founder of Nuanced, a thought leadership firm, shares phenomena of the Planning Fallacy! She explains that Minor or major delays aren’t counted when we get a deadline but we underestimate the time it takes to complete the task and it results in missing the deadline. To know more about the phenomena, she reached out to researchers Filippos Papakonstantinou of King’s College London and Jonathan Parker (MIT), who suggested how one can overcome the planning fallacy.
Take the external view
The inside view is when people focus on subjectivity, their past experiences and preferences. The outside view focuses on objectivity, data and statistics. When you procrastinate calculate the time you took in completing a similar task before. If the task is completely new, research a bit about the time management of similar projects.
You can ask a colleague to help with the estimate to remove your own biases. All in all, be optimistic but realistic at the same time.
Commit soon and openly
Commit to yourself before you start to put off things. Papakonstantinou suggests exploring commitment devices. For example- ask a roommate to disable the WiFi and switch it only after the task is finished.
You can program your brain to prevent procrastination. For this, you should know what action to take for a particular situation which will set your plans in place and boost your willpower.
Schedule a “protection time”
To reach more realistic goals and deadlines increase your original estimate by 25%. For instance, if the launch of your new product is in four weeks, keep an extra week to allow for delays. Tech features like mobile alerts, reminder apps and calendars can help you to plan out your days by blocking hours for work each day.
Assume the worst.
The researchers talk about an approach called- Premortem where you reflect on what might happen as opposed to what already has. Now, you’ll be able to view the potential issues which will make you equipped to develop a backup plan.
For instance- Conduct a premortem of the project you are assigned and identify the ways it could get derailed. When you know what issues may pop up, you can actively try to avoid them.
(Sources: Harvard Business Review)
