Telugu Desam party is using all its weapons for the Telangana polls – money, star power and media.

Telugu Desam party chief N Chandrababu Naidu has asked his brother-in-law and actor Balakrishna to campaign for the party in Telangana and the actor has readily agreed.

Sources say he has also asked NTR Jr to come for campaigning but he politely turned down.

However, Balakrishna will be canvassing for TDP in all the 14 constituencies in Telangana. If time permits, he may also be campaigning for selected congress candidates.

Balakrishna will be used as star campaigner in the last segment of campaigning for 10 days. He will be taking break from the the shoot of NTR Biopic for this.

New York: India is the second largest international reservoir for the US higher education institutions having sent 196,271 students here in the last academic year, according to latest data.Their numbers continued to grow, with a 5.4 per cent increase in 2017-18 over the previous academic year, according to the Open Doors report from the State Department and the Institute of International Education.

In the other direction, 4,704 students went to study in India during 2016-17, latest period for which data is available. It was an increase of 12.5 per cent from the previous year.The report said that there was a steep fall in the number of Indian students at the post-graduate level in the US. Their numbers came down by 8.8 per cent to 95,651 in 2017-18 compared to the previous year, while the number of students in practical training programmes after graduation shot up by 32 per cent to 75,390, according to the report.

The number of undergraduate students also went up by 6.2 per cent to 23,346.Indians made up 17.9 per cent of total of 1,094,792 international students in the US last academic year.

China sent 363,341 students, the most of any country.

In 2016-17, there were 186,267 students from India in the US, a 24.9 per cent increase over the 165,918 the previous year.During 2016-17, there were 21,977 students in undergraduate programmes, 104,899 in graduate courses and 57,132 in practical training programmes.

The State Department said international students contributed $42 billion to the US economy and supported 450,000 jobs.

Gamification is the concept of applying the elements and components typically associated with gameplay to the non-gaming sector.Its applications can be observed all around, from language-learning apps like Duolingo to workspaces.

Essentially, it uses these elements of gaming to enhance the experience of otherwise ‘dull’ or ‘monotonous’ tasks to make them more ‘fun’. This acts as an encouragement to continue undertaking these activities that can often lose the attention of users quickly.

Adopting the method of gamification has been beneficial to companies specializing in various sectors, and here we take a look at some of these benefits.

Instant feedback: Through gamification, feedback can be in the form of a scorecard displaying the individual’s strengths and limitations based on performance. This has the same effect as a ‘character review’ in games, where players can choose their characters based on the targets that need to be achieved, skills of that character, and the result of their previous game. While this is essentially a performance report, gamification plays the part of making it look less intimidating and more fun. It makes individuals want to take the initiative in understanding their position, improving their strengths, and addressing their limitations.

Increased retention and enhanced learning curve: Gamification incorporate ‘friendly’ competitions and tests, borrowed from the concept of levels and tournaments seen in regular games. These are known to naturally enhance a person’s retention capacity, while ensuring a quicker learning curve. While tests are associated with stressful situations, this is avoided by creating a reward system. This has the same effect on the individual as that of winning a trophy in, say, rummy card games or racing games that hold tournaments where players can test their skills against each other. It is especially evident in situations where an individual takes up a new task for the first time. For example, learning a new language through an app that incorporates elements of gamification.

Building engagement between users: Gamification can also encourage engagement between different individuals on similar platforms, leading to team building, as well as a more intensive and rewarding experience for the individual.

Productivity boost: Introducing gamification to the work sphere can encourage employees to finish tasks faster and with more focus. This, in turn, provides a better qualitative output. The element of ‘reward system’ that tasks are often linked to results in individuals performing tasks for a ‘token’ which can then be exchanged for ‘real’ goods and services. An example of this would be gift cards at workplaces, or loyalty points provided with each booking by airlines, which can later be exchanged for discounts.

While these are just a few of the benefits of gamification that are causing widely different companies to apply them in fields like app development, product interaction, activities, and task management at work, the process used to ‘gamify’ products differ between industries and usage.

Set defined Goals: Gamification, works on the bedrock of creating clearly defined goals and then getting users or individuals to work towards achieving them. For example, a fitness app may have ‘goals for the day’ or the amount of distance the user needs to complete in 24 hours to achieve a target. Thus, the first step towards gamification is understanding the tasks to create goals accordingly, and then defining them clearly. This ensures that they are simple enough to be understood and executed by the individual without losing their enthusiasm.

Set excellent rules: Now goals can be achieved in a variety of ways. Thus, it is essential to have a simplified set of rules that explain how to accomplish such goals. These are ideally short, easy to understand, and include crisp guidelines that individuals can go through quickly to get started on. It is similar to the opening display typically observed in games, like a set of rummy rules that players can go through anytime, anywhere before they start playing the game. Thus, it is necessary to have non-conflicting, clearly demarcated rules that are completely integrated with the product or activity.

Give feedback: Feedback is one of the greatest factors that drives an individual to excel and improve. An important component of gamification, providing feedback to an individual with respect to their performance gives them insight and motivation to do better. This not only promotes healthy competition, but also ensures that an individual has an understanding of areas that need attention in order to improve their performance.

Reward system: Rewarding individuals for their accomplishments, no matter how insignificant they may seem, helps them stay motivated. This works in the same manner that leaderboards and trophies do in order to keep players engrossed. A common instance observed, be it a working environment or a language learning app, is that the individual loses interest and motivation after a period of time. In such instances, having a reward system for successfully completed tasks leads to retaining an individual’s interest, and encourages them to look forward to the next level.

Excellent motivators: Gaming serves to motivate a ‘player’ to not only keep ‘gaming’ but also to try and enhance their abilities by constantly rewarding excellent gameplay. This means setting up different motivation enhancers in the form of leaderboards, rewards, and trophies for an activity set that is tiered.

Conclusion
Gamification has come a long way since the dawn of the digital age. With a little creativity, it can be applied to any kind of industry or product, and always serves to enhance the activity to which it is assigned. In the foreseeable future, it will not be unusual for gamification to be applied to every activity. Its true potential as a catalyst for efficiency and optimisation will eventually help uncover individuals’ skills to reach their full potential.

Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is an expert at making tall claims and setting fancy targets for the officials and also his party leaders.On Wednesday, Naidu set an ambitious target for the party leaders to take up the membership driver.

While interacting with party leaders through teleconference from his Vundavalli residence, he wanted that the party membership in Andhra Pradesh should reach one crore by December end.Going through his dashboard, the TDP president said at present 75,000 member were being enrolled every day and asked the party leaders to see that it crossed 1.5 lakh membership per day hereafter.

Well, there is nothing wrong in expecting that the TDP should get more members. But, the membership drive should be done in a systematic manner and the members should be genuine and the number should be practical figure.Assuming that each TDP member has four members in the family and he or she can mobilise all their votes, the TDP should get four crore votes in the next elections.

As per 2014 election figures, the total number of voters in the state was 3.67 crore, of which 2.89 crore voters exercised their franchise. Assuming that the number of voters had increased by 30 lakh, the total number of voters would be not more than four crore.

It does mean, the TDP would be getting 100 per cent of votes, assuming that there would be 100 per cent polling.Even if one were to assume that one crore TDP members would mobilise just two votes, it should be two crore votes for the TDP, which would be two-thirds of the total number of votes polled (assuming it is 78-80 per cent).

What about the other parties, then? Especially, the YSR Congress party also has a huge membership bank. Will it not get any votes? What about those who have got elected?Interestingly, YSR Congress party also called for a similar programme last year called “YSR Kutumbam” with a view to enrolling into the party at least one crore new members, who were in the past beneficiaries of various welfare schemes introduced by YSR.

Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister and TRS president K. Chandrashekhar Rao, who filed his nomination from Gajwel Assembly constituency on Wednesday, has declared his total assets worth over Rs 20.60 crore, but neither he nor his wife owns any vehicle.His total movable assets are valued at over Rs 10.40 crore while his wife K. Shobha has movable assets of over Rs 94.5 lakh.

KCR, as Rao is popularly known, has immovable assets of about Rs 12.20 crore which includes 54-acre agriculture land valued at Rs 6.50 crore.The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief, in the affidavit filed before the returning officer, has shown agriculture as his profession. He pegged his income for financial year 2017-18 at Rs 2.07 crore including agricultural income of Rs 91.52 lakh

KCR declared that he has investments of Rs 4.71 crore in shares of Telangana Broadcasting Private Limited. He has Rs 5.63 crore in bank accounts and fixed deposit.The Chief Minister owns a house in Hyderabad and another in Karimnagar, together valued at Rs.5.10 crore. He also has 2.04 acre non-agriculture land in Siddipet district valued Rs 60 lakh.KCR owns 75 grams of jewellery worth Rs 2.40 lakh and has Rs 2.40 lakh cash in hand while Shobha, a housewife, has 2,200 grams of gold jewellery, diamonds and valuables gems/stone worth Rs 93,66,184 and Rs. 93,595 cash in hand.

According to the affidavit, KCR has liabilities to the tune of Rs 8.88 crore in the form of unsecured loans. He has no bank loans.While filing affidavit during 2014 elections, KCR had declared total assets of Rs 16.94 crore. His income for the financial year 2012-13 was Rs 6.59 lakh.KCR also provided details of 64 cases booked against him during Telangana agitation. No summons were issued and no charges were framed in any of these cases.