Effect of COVID-19 Across Sectors Deliberated Upon During Webinars at Amity University

New Delhi: A webinar on the topic ‘The Legal Regulation of a Pandemic: Legislative Delegations in Times of Crisis’ was organized by Amity Law School and was conducted by Dr. Lorne Neudorf, Deputy Dean of Law, Adelaide Law School, University of Adelaide, Australia. The talk focused on the research project being done by Dr. Neudorf designed as a comparative study of COVID-19 legislation in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom to examine pre-existing legislative frameworks and new legislation enacted in response to COVID-19.

“COVID-19 has necessitated urgent responses by governments around the world to manage the public health crises and its economic and social effects. During a public health emergency, special legislation is activated to confer exceptionally broad legal powers on the executive government. Delegated powers allow governments to quickly respond to changing circumstances (as compared to the ordinary law making process). The project is looking to contest between equipping the executive with the tools necessary to combat COVID-19 versus accountability in the exercise of public power,” shared Dr. Neodorf. He stated that the comparative study reveals different approaches and models for dealing with public health emergencies. “While all involve extensive delegation of powers, careful design can ensure proper accountability,” said Dr. Neodorf. Also present in the webinar were Prof. (Dr.) Aditya Tomer, Addl. Director /Jt. HOI, Amity Law School and Prof. (Dr.) D.K. Bandyopadhyay, Chairman, Amity Law Schools.

A Lecture by Dr Dhananjay Joshi, Dean and Professor, School of Education – GGSIP University was delivered on ‘Role of Value Education in Contemporary Society’. While addressing through webinar Dr Dhananjay said that most serious problem being faced by our society is the rapid degradation of our culture heritage which is the mirror of our values, morals and custom etc. The present condition of our society is changing rapidly with new innovation of technologies and modern mean of communications. “The fierce cut throat competition in every field has turned the man into a mechanical Robot. “Status” and “Good Salary Package” are the two factors on which the rate of success of an individual is assessed. But if this is so why after achieving these goals also people are still frustrated and unhappy? Why are people with high status and position in the society hunting for mental peace? The answer to these questions can come from our inner soul itself. Today there is total crisis of values and the country is facing rapid erosion of social, moral, cultural and political values,” stated Dr. Joshi. He advised the students to value human life and think about nature because the nature is taking revenge from us. Do full utilization of lockdown do exercise, yoga, meditation, follow your hobbies.

In a webinar on ‘Flipped Learning: A pedagogy to learn anywhere, anytime’ Dr. Fazal Malik, Dean Humanities, Arts and Applied Sciences, Amity University Dubai shared how in these testing times when the world is suffering from this global pandemic, everyone is confined to their homes. But everyone is learning new things every day. “Learning is not confined to the classrooms now and children are attending classes sitting at their home. What seemed like a task to students, learning is now an easy activity,” shared Dr. Malik. He also shared how Flipped Learning has become an integral part of the education system that is providing students with the flexibility of learning anytime, anywhere and allows them to be even more participative in learning.

A lecture on ‘Cyber Security during COVID’ was organized by Ms Yukti Arora, Director- Risk Advisory Services, Deloitte focusing on work from home protocols for corporate internet & social media usage for students and online payments and precautions and preventions of frauds. While delivering the lecture she said that work from home is The New Normal. “The Covid 19 coronavirus is becoming the accelerator for one of the greatest workplace transformation of our lifetime. How we work, exercise, shop, learn, communicate and of course, when we work, will be changed forever. Social distancing is changing the way of working for people/institution across all industry sectors, at all levels like Business, Education, Medicals, Hotels/ Restaurants chains, Law and order, Banks/Government and Entertainment. These key risks emerging due to COVID 19 like health risk, economy/liquidity risk, cyber resilience risk, data and security risk and supply chain” shared Ms. Arora.

She further stated how the present situation has led to many changes which has increased the significance of cybersecurity in today’s scenario mostly unsecured networks for working remotely are used which can lead to potential loss of privacy. “As more and more everyday objects become connected bringing our mobile to be used as IOT and laptop devices, working from home needs students/professionals to abide by cyber social distancing practice. Most attacks are now implemented by social engineering. Phishing, Data Breach, Ransomware, spoofing, sniffing, hijacking, man-in-the-middle, false authentication, password cracking are the key cyber threats associated with online education system,” added Ms. Arora. She also suggested taking steps like changing the wifi manufacturer’s default user names; avoid using public wifi; creating a guest network for your IoT devices and having a strong password for wifi and other smart devices.

A webinar on ‘Build your Gravitas to win in life’ was organized Mr. Joseph Jude – Chief Technology Officer, Net Solutions. Building an executive presence is absolutely needed if you need to excel in life and Mr. Jude shared with the students how Gravitas, which are the qualities on has, can help them excel. “We have never been in scenario like this where we are forced and compelled to maintain social distance. The dynamics and the rules of the game have been changed by the COVID-19 virus. But the young generation will change it,” said Mr. Jude. Talking about the four Gravitas pebbles, Mr. Jude shared with the students how following these including Wealth; Insights; Networking and Self Control (WINS) will make the coming generation stand apart.

With the COVID-19 pandemic making people stay at home and continue with their work and studies, incorrect posture and lack of exercises is creating many problems and diseases. To having the right posture while working from home and the kind of exercises that can help remain healthy, a webinar was organized by Dr. Rahul Sharma, Director, New Age Rehabilitation Centre, Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Delhi. Dr. Sharma explained how not sitting properly while working can lead to a number of problems and diseases. He further talked about Ergonomics that is the process of changing your environment to encourage good body mechanics that can be accomplished by modifying a tool, work station, counter height, task or job. Various diseases like pain in the neck and back, strain in the muscles of the neck, tennis elbow and golden elbow among others can occur. He shared measures and exercises to avoid these occurrences including taking breaks and avoiding constant sitting, stretching and understanding your pain.

In another webinar on ‘Aftermath of COVID-19’ by Ms. Cherryn Dogra, Head Marketing – Emaar India focused upon understanding the opportunities that would still arise despite the lock down in the entire COVID-19 scenario and be prepared for them. She shared how proactive measures by our government have been instrumental in curbing the damages caused due to the corona virus outbreak. India sacrificed its economy to save lives while the US sacrificed lives to save the economy. “Our digital knowledge has helped us live though the COVID-19 pandemic. The coming times will see a huge market and demand for cloud computing, big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence and IoT,” shared Ms. Dogra. She encouraged students to make the most of this time in hand and enhance their learning and capabilities.

A lecture by Dr. Shabistan Jafri, Principal, Columbia Foundation School was delivered on the ‘Importance of Communication Skills and School Teachers’ where it was shared how these communication skills were integral to impart effective knowledge to students. Talking about various kinds of communication, Dr. Jafri elaborated at length about what all aspects need to be focused upon to deliver effective communication and message to the students by the teachers.