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Rituals shape community sentiments. They bind people through customs, shared norms, and values. Nepal is a country of rituals. And ‘shagun’ is a unique cultural practice, a ritual that’s quite common in South Asia. It’s basically offering food to a person for good luck. It’s an auspicious ritual to invite good times and good health. It’s usually given on different occasions such as during travels, weddings, birthdays, achievements, celebrations, and festivals. In Eastern culture, harmony in our surroundings through a balance of the five elements—earth, fire, air, water, and space—is considered essential for human safety and prosperity. ‘Shagun’ is given to bring out balance between these elements. We consider it integral for manifesting success, happiness, and safety. There are items symbolizing these five elements in different ways. These items aren’t bought for a special purpose; they are food items and beverages found in any household. This ritual of giving ‘shagun’ is most prominent in the Newar culture of Nepal. But the practice of giving and receiving ‘shagun’ isn’t exclusive to the Newar community. Most castes and communities have a more or less similar version of the practice. ‘Shagun liyera matra janu’ is a popular line in Nepal. It roughly translates to ‘have some ‘shagun’ before you leave.’ I still recall memories of this everyday ritual when I had to leave home to travel. Traveling was an integral part of my job, and so was receiving ‘shagun’ before I left.  I stood close to the doorway, receiving ‘tika’ on my forehead, waiting for my mother to give me a ‘shagun’. For me, anything that my mum, dad, and sister give me before I leave is ‘shagun’. They are items commonly found at home like slices of banana, sweet yogurt, fruit, etc. What is given as ‘shagun’ depends on what we have available at home or whatever seasonal fruits we find in the garden or local market. In Brahmin and Chhetri cultures, these items are of the vegetarian variety like fruits, sweets, and milk products. For the Newar community, items for ‘shagun’ include egg, fish, alcohol, etc. These ‘non-vegetarian’ items symbolize water and fire. These essential elements are present as a part of this ritual, creating balance and harmony in chaos—or so we believe. The practice of offering ‘shagun’ intrigues some and is a way of life for others. It’s similar to an idea or a feeling that involves the humble idea of praying for an individual’s safety and prosperity. It’s a nod to our ancient civilization and heritage. It’s a blend of the old with the new. With time, there is an added element of pomp to the ritual, but the aim or rationale behind the idea remains the same. I believe that’s why it still holds a place in our culture. It’s an exchange of a high level of energy between the giver and receiver. Through this practice, a giver feels he will be safe, and the receiver feels energized. There is a mutual exchange of goodwill, and this energy is supposed to protect the receiver from harm. Over the years, this simple practice of offering whatever is available at home has metamorphosed to something more than just wishing someone good luck. It has turned into a festive occasion. People offer ‘shagun’ in the presence of friends, family, and relatives. Everyone is a part of it. As people have become richer and better able to afford more goods, a simple celebration has turned into a show of pomp and prosperity. Whatever it may be, ‘shagun’ is a practice that is a part of our heritage and our culture. The basic idea is praying for an individual’s safety and prosperity. This adds value to people’s lives and binds people and communities together for a better society. This core idea of providing protection through food will remain woven into our social tapestry for millennia to come. I believe that with time some of our cultures and practices might fade away (as is the case with many cultures and rituals throughout the world) but our practices related to food will prevail. The author is a London-based R&D chef   

The most potent technical hardware is chip or semiconductor, which has been buzzing around in recent years, particularly after the demand and supply side shock of Covid-19 halted its production. That is, we are approaching a ‘Chip War’ between China and the United States, with Taiwan and South Korea acting as intermediaries. The story is being written in such a manner that whoever rules the global semiconductor or chip manufacturing sector controls the complete technological warfare of the 21st century. Chip is essential in everything from mobile phones to electric cars and satellites to artificial intelligence. China, the world’s largest chip user, also desires to be the top microchip manufacturer. The Chinese government has devised a number of covert and overt tactics to accomplish this goal. The Sino-US competition is increasing not only on land, but also under the sea, with the American Subsea cable firm SubCom LLC granted a $600 million contract to construct a 10,500-mile fiber optic subsea cable linking France to Singapore via Egypt and the Horn of Africa. The main competitor in this deal, HMN Technologies, a Chinese firm, was forced out due to Washington's lobbying. According to a majority of cybersecurity experts, undersea cables are ideal for eavesdropping because they are located beneath the sea in an untamed environment with limited surplus for everyone. In Nepal, cross-border optical fiber lines between Nepal and China will be more likely to face Sino-US rivalries, putting the Nepali government under pressure to evaluate this operation line in the coming days. History has shown that great powers' big games have proxies in weaker countries. Semiconductors or microchip When production and supply of semiconductors or chips were stopped due to demand and supply side shock during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Sino-US technological conflict accelerated to a new level. It further deteriorated when the CHIPS & Science Act, a $52.7bn industrial strategy to support research and revive chip manufacturing in the US, was approved by the Biden Administration in August 2022. The US even moved ahead with restricting the sale of advanced chips to China after August 2022 to prevent it from gaining skills to fuel its AI. Such a slew of restrictions imposed on China by the US were firmly grounded in the belief that China's technological prowess would eventually undermine US national security because the Chinese government might jeopardize crucial data. In 1990, the US used to produce 37 percent of the world’s chips; by 2021, that percentage had dramatically dropped to 12 percent. The rising Asian nations benefited from the participatory globalization that the US once initiated when all of its jobs were exported abroad. Global companies are the drivers of globalization, and tech businesses are becoming the point at which nations clash. As an illustration, consider Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which produces 58.5 percent of the semiconductors in the world. Samsung comes in second with 15.8 percent of the market. Because of this, China and the US have suddenly established a zone of control over Taiwan to gain access to the most important technology in the world. China's chances of winning this chip war decreases as Taiwan advances further toward the US and ties with China deteriorate. In line with this, TSMC had already announced the opening of the company’s second chip plant in Arizona,US with raising its investment from $12bn to $40bn. So, as long as Taiwan moves closer to the US, the intensity of the tech war heats up. Path ahead The Sino-US geo-technological conflict has centered on the technological products created by the two countries over the last few years. During the 2016 US presidential election, potential 'Russian-backed' forces promoted materials on Facebook to the TikTok data security mechanism, where the Chinese app is accused of accessing Americans' data for the Chinese government's covert operations. From the Hi5 era to Facebook and Tiktok, and now to the rise of the Metaverse, the safety and protection of public vital data has taken a blended form of a country's national security and personal liberty spectrum. Rights-based organizations in the Western nations are demonstrating for full data security and privacy against the military industry, which has opposing views on the issue. For the military-industrial complex, any regular critical comments by citizens can be suspicious. For liberal business users, it can be just expressing one’s views. As a result of the mix of suspicious viewpoints and hard edge weapons, conflict is blown up. Sometimes such points of view lack cross-checking and result in catastrophe. The US's Iraq disaster story with nuclear weapons disinformation is a prominent illustration. The US and China both wanted to profit from chip manufacturing while also having access to the data of each other’s nation to devise defense strategy. At the same time, both countries sought to safeguard their public information. For the United States, maintaining its dominance is a critical concern, and China’s effort to undermine it is the new normal. This is the Thucydides Trap, which is completely founded on technological adventurism (previous Thucydides Trap was on territory). Within the United States, there is a schism between corporate interests and national security supporters, which has different views on developing unified policies that have both national security characteristics as well as a business flourishing process with its competitors. Despite the fact that China is the leader in global supplies, disruption with it could harm the US economy. On the basis of harmonious ties itself, the US already has a larger trade imbalance with China ($382.9bn, 2022). Politicians from Nepal to India, and from the United States to the United Kingdom, are experts at inventing an ‘enemy’ and enacting anti-policy. US lawmakers are also under duress to enact harsh anti-China policies. Republicans have been more outspoken in their resistance to China than Democrats. Of course, Biden earlier considered “Competition and Collaboration (2C)” with China, but due to China's growing influence, he was pressed to formulate many policies against China. Although the US economy is resilient, rivalry with China comes at a certain and significant expense. This has caused the entire policymaking and business groups in the United States to rethink whether the country wants to totally disengage with China on entire frontiers, thereby constructing a new global economic ecosystem. Are all of the US' European allies ready for creating a newer global structure countering China? At a moment when Europe is gripped by conflict and Eastern Europe’s bad economic performance, China's footprints are difficult to ignore. Engaging with China and keeping all important information-intensive sectors tightly controlled by the government so that theft of public information is not feasible. That can be an option. In addition, technological conflicts have once again highlighted the importance of ‘protectionism’ over the free market. Are we returning to protectionism at the expense of national security interests, in which the US has spent heavily? Public liberty versus national security is a hotly discussed subject with opposing viewpoints in the contemporary world. At last, there is no one-line answer to the Sino-US technological conflict because conflicts are intended to create superiority over others. One thing is certain: Great powers’ global tech adventurism will have many proxies in vulnerable countries like ours. It is tough to escape.

The 13th-century Persian poet and mystic Rumi once said, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” I find this saying both simple and complicated. It’s simple in the sense that if we are to cultivate meaningful and compassionate relationships, we inevitably need to be able to see beyond who is wrong and who is right. We need to connect with each other’s needs and feelings, but we fail to do this at times, and that is what makes the idea of outdoing right and wrong complicated in our relationships. Does this mean there is no way out? Let’s explore. The challenge Riya (name changed) got appointed at an organization to head the sales and marketing team. She efficiently navigated her day-to-day tasks, as did most of her colleagues. Riya had one colleague in the team Bidhi (name changed), who was good at her work, but she rushed to complete most of her tasks only toward the end of the week. Even though she met her deadlines, her work pattern sometimes creates bottlenecks for Riya and other team members. Riya tried communicating her concerns with Bidhi. She suggested ways that Bidhi could use to pace her work better. Riya asked Bidhi to correct her actions for the team to fare better, but Bidhi got defensive and said, “The previous supervisor never had a problem.” The solution The conversation between Riya and Bidhi becomes difficult despite good intentions. Eventually, both Riya and Bidhi sense that it will be tough to work together. Riya thinks Bidhi is self-centered, and Bidhi thinks Riya only focuses on appearing all-knowing because she is the supervisor. As days passed, Bidhi continued with her old patterns. When her colleagues intervened, she argued that they were trying to impress the new supervisor. Riya realized that her effort to ensure efficiency in the team had backfired. It then occurred to her that she didn’t approach Bidhi from an impact-focused Mindset, and perhaps it contributed more to the problem. Riya recalled learning about The Influence Pyramid from one of her mentors in the previous organization. She thinks now may be the right time to apply it. The Influence Pyramid developed by the Arbinger Institute shows us different steps to apply an Impact-focused Mindset. The pyramid comprises two sections: dealing with things going wrong and helping things go right. The pyramid consists of various courses of action in these two sections as follows: Correct: It’s the only step the section ‘dealing with things going wrong’ comprises. It’s what Riya tried to do with Bidhi. There is nothing wrong with correcting. Sometimes it’s enough to deal with minor issues that don’t require much effort, but it may backfire if people feel threatened by correction, which Bidhi might have experienced. She had a pattern of working that she was comfortable with. Nobody else had a problem with it until Riya asked her to change her ways. Teach and communicate: Riya realized she wanted to contribute to ‘helping things go right’ instead, which is what the pyramid invites us to do if the correction doesn’t suffice. Riya knew she had to help Bidhi understand how the team would benefit if everyone considered the impact of their work on others. Hence, Riya approached her to discuss what she envisions for the team, for which she would need cooperation from Bidhi. Listen and learn: Riya took a step forward from correcting to teaching and communicating with Bidhi, but the team could still sense some defensiveness from Bidhi. Riya then decided to hold space for Bidhi to listen to her and learn about her role, challenges, and what she enjoys at work. Bidhi didn’t cave in but eventually sensed that Riya cared for her and the team. She shared with Riya how she likes to work autonomously and under pressure because it helps her contribute well. But Bidhi also acknowledges that her preference might have created bottlenecks for others. Bidhi eventually decides to prioritize tasks that require input from others toward the beginning of the week and only then work on things she can do individually. Build the relationship: Riya knew she was responsible for helping Bidhi grow and learn. So, she had to continually make efforts toward building a good relationship with Bidhi. Riya checked in with Bidhi to know what she enjoys working on and where she needs support. Riya also shared her experiences with Bidhi to form a humanizing connection with her. She would sense that Bidhi sometimes thought all those efforts were just for better team results, but Riya didn’t let that get in her way. Riya knew that the team needed cohesion to grow together; that would not be possible until even one member felt left out. Hence, despite occasional resistance from Bidhi, she carried on. Build relationships with others who have influence: After learning about Bidhi’s role, challenges, and what gave her meaning, Riya connected with Bidhi’s immediate colleagues. She tried to understand how Bidhi’s actions impacted them and vice versa. It helped Riya identify how Bidhi and her close colleagues could support each other. Riya offered help to bridge any gaps that existed. Get out of the box/Obtain a heart at peace: Everything Riya tried—from correcting to teaching and communicating to listening and learning to building a relationship with Bidhi to building relationships with people who influence Bidhi are behaviors. They could come from either a Self-Focused or a People-Inclusive/Impact-focused Mindset. Hence, the base of the pyramid is about mindset-check. Even if any of the behaviors work, it’s still crucial that we work on developing a People-Inclusive/Impact-focused Mindset. The result Riya’s effort toward applying a People-Inclusive/Impact-focused Mindset and Bidhi’s eventual support helped them work well together. It eventually led to a culture of understanding and cooperation in the team. They faced challenges when the members got self-focused but made efforts to work their way out. Riya and Bidhi helped their colleagues learn and live the different steps of ‘The Influence Pyramid’ to enable an Impact-focused team. ‘The Influence Pyramid’ isn’t just a hack or a tool to help fix our mindset. It’s a logical sequence of actions we can resort to for creating team cohesion. There are some lessons to ‘The Influence Pyramid’ that can help us further:

•   We need to make more efforts to ‘help things go right’ (i.e., at levels of the pyramid below correction) rather than ‘dealing with things going wrong.’
•   If one level of the pyramid isn’t helping solve our problem, the level below can help us. For example, if correcting is not working, we might want to teach and communicate. If that isn’t working out, we perhaps need to listen and learn.
•   The effort at each level of the pyramid will only be effective if we are effective at the base, i.e., developing an Impact-focused Mindset.

ChatGPT has taken the world, particularly academia, by storm. Technological advances have constantly impacted the field of education, and the popularization of ChatGPT, an artificial language model, has occupied a significant space in discussions within academia. Teachers have argued for and against using this latest technological advancement within academic institutions. In this brief write-up, I explore both sides of the argument based on my personal engagements with ChaptGPT as a teacher and a rapid review of the experiences of other academicians. A prominent argument against ChatGPT in education is that it will challenge teaching and learning as it is currently practiced. This tool has access to large volumes of information and can provide instant responses to educational queries: It can swiftly answer questions that might take considerable time and effort using a traditional approach of going through available materials. ChaptGPT can write coherent and flawless essays within the given world limit; it can help students prepare for exams or conduct research. This feature provides the base for teachers’ fear concerning ChaptGPT. They fear that since the app is readily available and user-friendly, students might not put in the effort to work on assignments, given that it can work for them. They fear that undue reliance on ChatGPT could severely limit students’ abilities to look for, organize, analyze, and present relevant information and think critically or creatively. This loss of non-negotiable skills in education can be a significant educational challenge we cannot overlook. For example, ChatGPT can write personalized codes in a few seconds that traditionally require significant training and practice, profoundly changing how people work. Hence, workplaces and employees cannot function as they did until recently. From this example in the IT field, it is clear that training employees to work with ChatGPT to produce better outcomes will be more helpful than banning it. This indicates similar challenges for many other disciplines. I have experienced significant changes in student engagement and evaluation of teaching and learning over a decade as a higher education faculty. When I started teaching in 2010, my students were happy to be handed over notes or linked to guidebooks and guess papers that would prepare them for the final examinations; they had minimal expectations from teachers. However, today, students often complain that a teacher does not provide enough stimulation in the classroom, does not provide access to adequate study materials, including reference books and articles, and does not use inclusive languages and behaviors, to name a few. Students’ expectations have significantly changed. However, teachers have to rely largely upon materials from the past that might not be as relevant in the current context as they were a decade back or might not be sensitive to diverse students. For example, as a student of ‘community organization’ in 2010, I only learned about communities of geography and communities of interest. However, as a teacher of community organization in 2023, I cannot overlook the emerging communities of identities; for example, the sexual and gender minorities community. The textbooks and reference materials that were current and adequate a decade ago need significant revisions and additions today. ChaptGPT can support teachers with current and wide-ranging resources in this fast-changing context. ChatGPT can be an advantageous tool for greater accessibility and inclusion in education. The Nepali education system disproportionately focuses on content and largely evaluates student performance based on their written responses in the final exams. Academic programs and institutions that practice continued assessments or assign internal grades also largely rely on written performances from students in the form of assignments or examinations. However, we know students have diverse aptitudes and learning abilities, including visual, auditory, reading and writing, or kinesthetic learners. ChatGPT could help diversify the content to cater to each kind of learner, thus creating opportunities for all learners. Weimer (2002) underscores that although we are all in favor of learning, just as we all aspire to be thin, we have not changed what we cook and serve students. My view is that working with ChatGPT can push us to rethink learning: To change what we cook and serve students, and ChatGPT can provide recipes for that. However, teachers need to take ChaptGPT’s contents with a grain of salt since the app “is more confident that it is competent” (Hardman, 2023). In its own words, a concern with ChatGPT “is the potential for bias and inaccuracies in the information provided by ChatGPT. While the technology is designed to be as accurate and unbiased as possible, it is not infallible, and there is always the possibility of errors or inaccuracies creeping in.” To conclude this brief discussion, I believe that education should aim at teaching students to think, reflect and form opinions and not merely store information so that they prepare themselves for life and not just examinations. And this thinking and reflecting could include what ChatGPT—the state-of-the-art language processing model—brings forth. Hence, rather than looking at ChatGPT as a challenge in education or shying away from it, teachers could benefit from integrating it into their educational engagements, including research, curriculum development, and crafting diverse assignments catering to diverse students. The author is a social work faculty at Thames International College, Kathmandu, pursuing a PhD in Social Work at Boston College, USA. He can be contacted at [email protected]