Dr.Ruhail Choudhury

As children grow, they begin to discover the world with their own minds and hearts. The desire for independence and individuality is natural — it marks the beautiful journey from childhood to adulthood. Yet, in this process of self-discovery, many young hearts often forget that behind every step they take stand two unwavering pillars of love and wisdom — their parents and teachers.

In today’s fast-changing world, where modern lifestyles, social media, and global influences shape our thoughts, respect for parents and teachers is, sadly, diminishing. Whether in a humble village patshala or a modern international school, some young students find amusement in mocking or disregarding their mentors. Likewise, the deep reverence once naturally felt for parents has weakened, replaced by impatience and misunderstanding.

But life, with all its lessons, eventually brings everyone to realize the truth — that no one understands us better than our parents, and no one wishes for our success more genuinely than our teachers. Parents may not always fulfill every desire, but their every action stems from love, sacrifice, and concern. Teachers may seem strict or demanding, but behind every correction lies their wish to see us rise higher.

Sadly, this realization often comes too late — when the moments to apologize or express gratitude have already passed.

Our schools may not teach this as a subject, yet it is among life’s most vital lessons: those who guide, nurture, and correct us are, in truth, our greatest well-wishers. If we look beyond our youthful pride and listen with our hearts, we will see that our parents and teachers are not obstacles in our path, but the very light that shows us the way forward.

Venezuela’s Opposition Leader María Corina Machado Wins 2025 Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO — In a striking decision, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado, lauding her sustained efforts to restore democratic governance in Venezuela.

The committee credited her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” Machado’s activism stands out in a country where democratic institutions have been eroded and dissent harshly repressed.

Machado, born in Caracas in 1967, is an engineer by training. Early on, she co-founded the civic group Súmate, dedicated to election monitoring and promoting citizen participation in free elections. She later entered formal politics, founding the opposition party Vente Venezuela and helping to unify disparate opposition factions via the Soy Venezuela alliance.

Ahead of Venezuela’s contested 2024 election, she was disqualified from running by the Maduro-controlled authorities. Undeterred, she backed an alternate candidate, helped mobilize volunteer election observers nationwide and amassed independent tallies to contest the government’s announced results.

Despite facing threats, political bans, forced periods in hiding and a hostile state apparatus, Machado remained in Venezuela rather than flee overseas. In awarding the prize, the Nobel Committee called her “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America.”

Venezuela has slid from a relatively stable democracy to a deeply authoritarian state.The Maduro regime has gerrymandered courts and electoral bodies, disqualified opposition candidates, harassed civil society, and suppressed critical voices.

The 2024 election was marked by credible allegations of vote manipulation, suppression and the refusal to accept counter-tallies.

Meanwhile, Venezuela endures a severe humanitarian and economic collapse: hyperinflation, breakdown of public services, food and medicine shortages and mass emigration (nearly 8 million Venezuelans have left).

Machado’s Nobel Prize thus takes place against this backdrop: a nation with stripped civil space, desperate citizens and an opposition under siege.

While the Peace Prize drew political and international attention, the 2025 Nobel awards also honored major scientific and cultural breakthroughs:

• Medicine / Physiology: Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi were recognized for uncovering mechanisms of peripheral immune tolerance — how the immune system restrains itself to avoid attacking the body.
• Physics: John M. Martinis, John Clarke, and Michel H. Devoret won for demonstrating macroscopic quantum tunnelling and energy quantisation in electrical circuits — bridging quantum phenomena with mesoscopic systems.
• Chemistry: Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M. Yaghi earned the prize for their work on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) — porous materials with applications in gas capture, catalysis, storage, and environmental remediation.
• Literature: Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai was awarded for a body of work that “in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”

Russia Advances in Cancer Treatment

In recent months, Russian researchers have made headlines with Enteromix, a personalized mRNA-based cancer vaccine developed by the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA), the National Medical Research Radiology Centre, and other institutes. The vaccine is designed to treat existing cancers rather than prevent them. Key features include tailoring each vaccine dose to a patient’s tumour RNA/neoantigen profile, enabled in part by AI-assisted identification of tumour mutations.

Preclinical trials of Enteromix reportedly show strong tumour shrinkage — in colorectal cancer models the vaccine caused reductions of 60-80%, with some reports of complete elimination of tumours in animal studies. Moreover, early human trials (Phase I, about 48 participants) are said to confirm good safety. Russian authorities expect that after regulatory approval, the vaccine will be made freely available to Russian citizens.

Other lines of research are also progressing:

• A TCR-engineered T-cell therapy (TCR-T) is being developed by Sechenov University for certain blood cancers; preclinical animal model work is underway, with clinical trials expected in 2026-27.
• For glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive brain cancers, researchers have built a microfluidic “blood-flow mimicking” platform. It helps to test drug penetration (e.g. temozolomide), and with additional treatment using red light, reportedly destroys up to 95-98% of glioblastoma cells in model settings.

These developments indicate Russia is pushing into the frontier of personalized immunotherapies and engineered cell-based treatments. If Enteromix and TCR-T therapies scale successfully, it could shift cancer treatment away from more toxic, generalized chemotherapy toward more precise, patient-specific options with fewer side effects.

However, several challenges remain:

• Rigorous larger trials: While safety and tumour shrinkage are encouraging, the evidence is so far limited in scale; Phase I / preclinical results must be validated in larger, randomized clinical trials.
• Manufacturing and cost: Personalized vaccines require individualized preparation per patient, which can be logistically complex and expensive, even if governments subsidize costs.
• Regulatory approval & oversight: Ensuring that efficacy, safety, and reproducibility meet international standards will be key before these treatments can be widely adopted.
• Access & distribution: Making cutting-edge therapies widely available in Russia’s large and diverse regions — and potentially abroad — will require infrastructure, trained personnel, and funding.

In sum, Russia’s recent cancer-research — especially with Enteromix — represents a potentially important advance in immunotherapy and personalized medicine. The early results are promising, but much depends on upcoming trials, regulatory approvals, and scaling. If those go well, these technologies could improve survival, reduce treatment side-effects, and transform how certain types of cancer are managed worldwide.

Disclaimer: The article is based on news available in reputed publications however we do not confirm the authenticity.

 Cinema evokes emotions and mirrors or influences social fabrics. Language is mere communication tool. Cinema has the potential to influence. Film Studies is essential, especially in this day and age. The young minds who are the prospective future vote banks for any democratic nation, need this exposure to the worldof art and cinema.

The International Baccalaureate curriculum emphasizes on the element of ‘culture’ in it’s an effort to impart education in Cinema, and the subject is innocently labeled as ‘Film Studies.’ The oxymoronic addressing of the subject which weighs much more than mere ‘weightage’ or ‘grades’ to determine comprehension and reasoning among students, merits a ‘compulsory’ inclusion in the Diploma Program.

The veteran Academy Award-winning filmmaker of international repute, Martin Scorsese, is of the opinion that “Cinema is what is in the frame and what’s out.”  This filtering in the mind, that decides how much is to be captured by the lens, which is technically a single eye, and the manner in which it decides to present the communication. is the Cinematic grammar. This grammar invites skill, and a certain discipline and exposure of the mind. The Film Studies syllabus provides academic approach towards achieving the requisites for such communication. It’s important for impressionable minds to realise that there’s lot more to Cinema other than the glittering and candy coated misleading glamour, which is unfortunately recognised as synonymous with cinema.

I’m enjoying my stint as a Film Studies facilitator and the four students who are the first batch of this flagship subject will vouch for the fact that there’s actually lot more to the Gabbar Singh episode. Students were reflecting on their comprehension of diegetic and nondiegetic sound. They could read the cinematic piece with more clarity. The fact that the ‘belt’ is also a character. The sound of the shoes on the rocky terrain of Ramanagara (in Bangalore) has enough academic interest and actually thirsts for further investigation onit’s employment of various elements of cinema and the reflection of culture even in those frames.

The students of Film Studies have represented the school in festivals and have already won accolades. The department, called The Cinematologisits, was responsible for the Senior School’s film observing the Indian Independence Day celebration, last August. The department curated the first-ever online school one-act play theatre exhibition.

Today education is being imparted with the help of images. These images are still and moving images. The new generation of learners are banking on a separate set of devices like mobile phones, iPods, television screens, and Cinema. Cinematic grammar is not confined to mere entertainment alone. Students of Film Studies need to have a knowledge of German Expressionism, and French Wave Cinema to appreciate the works of the likes of Ram Gopal Verma on one hand and Christopher Nolan on the other.
Screening Literacy, the 2011 European Commission on film education, defined film literacy as:
“The level of understanding of a film, the ability to be conscious and curious in the choice of films; the competence to critically watch a film and to analyze its content, cinematography and technical aspects; and the ability to manipulate its language and technical resources in creating moving image production”.

Cinema illiteracy is unhealthy and the fact that here in Pathways World School, Aravali, we have launched the subject, I am hopeful that in the days to come, the stake holders will wake up to it’s cause and will realise why it’s inclusion is imperative.

The widespread pandemic resulting in nationwide lockdown had significant implications on various sectors of the economy, with the education sector being among the ones most affected. The board exams for all the students of grade 10th and 12th were postponed “till further notice” starting from 19th March 2020, and all schools and colleges were shut down starting from 23rd March 2020. Since then, “When will schools reopen?” has been one of the questions discussed most often.

When the first wave of the pandemic simmered down during the first week of May, there were talks about reopening schools, because it was found that more than 90% of students reported feeling upset because of having to stay at home continuously for more than two months. However, when the second wave of pandemic hit most of the countries, starting with France where 70 cases of Covid were reported from schools days after the Government loosened restrictions, the talks died down.

After carefully evaluating the Covid situation in the country, the government of India allowed schools to reopen in phases from October 2020, and accorded full authority to the state governments to make decisions regarding the same. Certain state governments have decided to reopen the schools for high school students, while most state governments believe that it is not safe for schools to reopen yet.

Umaima Ali, a grade 11 eleven student of Nasr High School, Hyderabad, has now been attending online classes for about 9 months. When asked what she feels about schools reopening, she said, “Personally, I don’t think schools should reopen. Even though the coronavirus curve is slowly flattening and most children are tired of staying at home, it is not safe for us and the teachers. Masks are not very comfortable and to wear them for so many hours at a stretch is not easy. When it comes to academics, yes, it will be easier with physical lectures and classes but at what cost? The least school authorities can do is give the parents and children an option which gives us the liberty to decide whether we are comfortable coming to school or not.”

Bangalore was among the states that decided to reopen schools for high school students from the 19th of January 2020. While students are happy to be able to finally go back to school, they are also anxious about the spread of the virus. Pragnya Dhar, a grade 12 student of Royale Concorde International School, Bangalore has to attend school to take part in lab classes.

“Since I’m in class 12, I will have to go to school exclusively for attending lab classes. I personally don’t mind it because it would be a good change of place for me. Online classes haven’t helped me much because there are a lot of things to distract you and nobody is really there to monitor you.

Schools should take precautions and call students in batches so that it doesn’t get crowded. The students, too, have to be careful and make sure they sanitize, use a mask, and maintain social distancing.”

 Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Punjab, Haryana, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Sikkim are the other states that have decided to reopen schools.

Meanwhile, apprehensions are running high regarding the approaching board exams for students of Grade 10 and 12.

CBSE has declared that Board exams for all students of classes 10 and 12 will be conducted offline in pen and paper, and will start from the 4th of May 2021.

ICSE has also declared that Board exams will be conducted offline, and have laid down a requirement of at least two months of learning in a physical classroom before the student can take the board examinations.

Soumyajit Pakhira, a Class X student from Kolkata who will be giving ICSE Board exams this year, feels that asking students to go back to school at this moment is like walking on eggshells. “We have been studying at home and adapting to the ‘new normal’ for a very long time, and hence I feel that getting used to the ‘old normal’ might take some time. Also, we already feel so stressed because of our board exams, there is no guarantee that the students will maintain proper social distancing once they meet their friends. But I do believe that interacting with our teachers physically will help us clear our doubts better.”

 While the students still have mixed feelings regarding schools reopening, parents seem to have reached a consensus.

A survey found that 23% of Indian parents are willing to send their children to school in January itself. 69% of parents are ready to send their children to school by April, provided the vaccine is available by then.

For Kakoli Ghosh, who works as a domestic help in Kolkata, her son’s online classes mean disruption of her daily routine. “When my son’s school started Online classes suddenly in December 2020 after almost a year-long break, it was very difficult for me to adapt to the new technology and adjust my daily routine. I wish schools would reopen, following all precautions, so that everything could go back to normal,” said Kakoli.

However, “Vaccines are not the one-stop solution to Covid 19,” experts and healthcare professionals have said, “Vaccines can prevent the virus from infecting you, but they cannot prevent the virus from passing on to someone else from you through various agents. Vaccines are not a replacement for masks.”

On the other hand, some parents are apprehensive about sending their wards to school amid a worldwide pandemic.

“Schools should not open right now. They should only open after the vaccination process is successful and one gets the feeling that the children would be completely safe. Online teaching should continue for now,” said a lady who has a daughter studying in Grade 11 in Gurgaon. Schools in Gurgaon have opened in December, and she feels anxious about the safety of her child.

Schools reopening would mean a lot of workload on the teachers. It is expected to be a long time before schools reopen fully and everything goes back to normal, and in the meantime, schools will have to adopt the “hybrid” mode of teaching, where students who come to school will be taught in classrooms, while students who do not get permission from their parents to attend classes physically will have to be taught online. Teachers have also expressed concerns regarding the possibility of infection during the travel to and from school.

“We have seen previously that various countries had reopened schools, but they had to close down soon after because of the high rate of infection. We do have vaccinations available for COVID 19 but predicting anything concerning the opening of schools is difficult. Keeping in mind the infrastructures in schools, what I feel is that schools should be opened only after universal vaccination of all the students, faculties, and other staff members,” said Fatma Jabeen, Legal Studies teacher at Mahadevi Birla World Academy, Kolkata.

For college students, especially the freshmen, not being able to attend classes physically means missing out on a very important experience.

“A few aspirations about college needed to be revisited and rethought. A year ago, the thought of attending online classes would’ve been unfathomable. But here we are, spending most of our hours before screens. Gradually we’re cozying up to it. Meeting classmates and forming friendships in person would’ve been a very different experience than the one we’re having right now. So I’d say there have been quite some drastic alterations in how we pictured college life would be,” said Amrita Choudhuri, a first-year student at Gokhale Memorial Girls’ College.

Even though the Government allowed the reopening of schools and higher educational institutions in phases from October 25, colleges in West Bengal are not scheduled to reopen before February 2021.

The pandemic and lockdown experience has been very different for the varied regions of the country. It is thus very evident that the process of transitioning to the pre-Covid situation would also be very different for different regions. While schools can be seen reopening in the smaller states, most of the metropolitan cities, with higher population density, are still deliberating on the situation and making a decision only after proper evaluation seems to be the best way to move forward.

Adrija Jana
Mahadevi Birla World Academy, Class XI
Kolkata.

Rise and Shine! It is time to rub the sleep from your eyes and answer one simple question: ‘Which career or which profession would you like to pursue when you grow up?’ 

I can see you rolling your eyes and thinking, ‘Oh! No! Not again.’ 

Now, before you leave this page and move on to something more interesting, let me assure you that I know how this one question continues to follow and haunt you, even more so, when you are a high-school student.  And it will keep on gnawing at you till you have chosen a career path. 

As a mass media consultant and educator, I often come across students – age 13/14-plus onwards who are either planning to join a field that their parents’ have chosen for them or enroll for a particular course simply because their friends are going to be there or opt for certain new-age career choices because they think that these are ‘cool’ without having adequate knowledge about the field and what it involves. I also meet students who simply follow the herd without evaluating whether they are ‘cut out’ for that particular professional field or not. These individuals – the kind I have mentioned above – become disgruntled and turn into dissatisfied professionals and unhappy souls in the long run.    

On the other hand, I am often greeted by many students who are focussed, who make informed choices, and opt for career paths that are suitable for them. It seems that they are born to be in the field that they have chosen and they know that they belong there. Their profession simply becomes an extension of who they are. Thus, they enjoy their work and attain success – not just as professionals, but also as satisfied human beings.   

So, how do these students manage to do that? 

Allow me to share some pertinent points that I hope will act as a ready reckoner and will guide you in your endeavors. 

Here are the pointers: 

• You need to know yourself. You need to know who you are as a person – what drives you, what are your likes and dislikes, your areas of interest, your core values, and what you want from life.
• It is a prudent idea to conduct the SWOT analysis as you are growing up and reaching an age where the choices you are going to make are going to set the pace for your both personal and professional life.
• SWOT stands for: Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats. So, when you are doing a SWOT analysis, you are basically evaluating yourself.  You are analysing where your strengths lie, what are your weaknesses, what are the opportunities that you are going to get and capitalise upon and what are the threats that can affect you and your career in the long run.
  
  Allow me to share a couple of examples with you that will enlighten you about the benefits of SWOT analysis: 

Example I: Let me tell you about myself – I used to be petrified of Maths in school. Physics and Chemistry were not my best buddies either, but I really enjoyed Biology. Thus, I did a SWOT analysis and came to the conclusion that despite liking Biology, I am not cut out to pursue science. On the other hand, I loved subjects like English, History, Geography et al and English literature was my favourite. Thus, by the time I was 16, I had decided that I was going to complete BA in English honours and then pursue a PG diploma course in journalism. Can you imagine what would have happened if I was told that I would have to study science at all cost and that I must work hard to get the required percentage? I would have been miserable and sunk like the Titanic. 

Example II: I have friends who are musicians. You know how it is not easy to establish yourself in this field. When they decided to pursue a career in music, they first analysed their positions, evaluated their opportunity quotients and the threats/ obstacles that they would have to face. They braced themselves to strive, work hard and knew that it would take years to carve a niche for themselves. But these knew what they wanted from life and what would make them happy. They were ready to make sacrifices and wait for the opportune moment when success came their way and above all, they never gave up. 

SWOT analysis prepares you for life and enables you to recognize yourself. Thus, instead of rambling about, you get the time to focus, to prepare and concentrate on becoming what you truly want to become.

• Maintain a journal and write down about your strengths and weaknesses et al and keep assessing yourself from time-to-time. Your area of interest and passion will evolve. You need to keep a tab of those changes.
• Take the help of career counsellors and consultants if you so wish. They can counsel and guide you and also help you with SWOT analysis.
• Talk to your teachers and family members for guidance and also inform them about your thought process.
• Always choose those subjects and that field of work that will you know you will enjoy pursuing.
• Be practical and do not make an emotional choice. Always make an informed choice.
• Talk to your school/ college seniors and professionals in the field and ask important questions. Understand how hard they have worked. Ask them to give you a realistic picture of the field and how it has evolved and changed over the years.
• Stay informed about the field that you would like to join. Remember, the field is growing and by the time you join, you will have to add something new to it and in order to that, you need to stay informed, conduct immaculate research, understand the market, analyse the future prospects and so on.
• Remember, whichever field you decided to join you will have to ideate, innovate and create.
• Stay focused and be prepared to work hard
• Never stop learning at any stage of our career.
• Brace and prepare yourself for the challenges and hurdles that will come your way.
• Stay motivated, confident and positive-minded
• At no stage of your life – be it as a student or a professional – should you allow the dark forces of negativity to win and demoralise you

Never ever give up. You have to become stronger and never think of quitting and opting out and trust me if you enjoy what you are doing, the thought of quitting will never enter your mind.

That’s all for today. I hope these pointers were helpful and will guide you to truly rise and shine.