Revert "add post: Inspire Scholarship: Lost in The Process"

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_posts/2020-11-10-glowing-screen.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Tiny Glowing Screens: The Future of The Spring Semester?"
+image: iitr.png
+tags: [wona]
+category: bigstory
+excerpt: "In the past couple of weeks, a number of institutes have come out with definitive plans for 2021"
+---
+
+
+In the past couple of weeks, a number of institutes have come out with definitive plans for 2021. However, the pool as of now seems to be split. As such, the fate of Roorkee remains uncertain. While disdain among the student populace for the ongoing online semester is pretty self-evident, we believe a number-backed analysis of their collective concerns, suggestions, and the associated caveats are imperative for the issues to be addressed in a manner that facilitates logical discussion, as we believe there are logical arguments to be made for both sides.
+
+The following analysis by Watch Out! is based on the 1300+ student responses to the *online semester feedback form* circulated recently by the SAC.
+
+<h2>We, The People</h2>
+The survey provides valuable insight into the problems faced by students during the ongoing online semester, the bulk of which can be classified into two major categories:
+
+**Mental health**-related issues, and the imperfect **logistics** leading up to it
+
+<h2>Logistics</h2>
+
+<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://app.everviz.com/embed/tDpFiS5Su/" title="Chart: Logistics" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 500px"></iframe>
+
+**Note:** The questions were to be rated on a scale of 1 to 5. Throughout this article, we will consider a rating of 4 or more to be problematic
+
+One of the biggest setbacks of a fully online semester, both for students and professors, was leveraging online resources effectively. Less than ideal home environments and the inconvenience of online resources and lectures are quite evident
+
+About **80%** of the students claim to have problems concentrating on academics while at home. A considerable chunk of this can be likely attributed to the **lack of peer support** and a **distraction-free study environment** as well as **prolonged exposure** to tiny glowing screens that are slowly taking over reality. 
+
+**Over 78%** of the students face connectivity issues during classes, to the point of getting disconnected during lectures. **75%** of them are **unable to access the study material**, either due to connectivity issues or inadequate dissemination. Both problems arise at home exclusively, as the campus provides for good, stable online connectivity along with ample study material, both of which may not be available at home.
+ 
+These factors combined can directly influence a student’s academic performance in a remote program.
+
+
+Mental Health
+
+<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://app.everviz.com/embed/jp4JTci01/" title="Chart: Mental Health" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 500px"></iframe>
+
+With more than 3/4ths of the student populace being troubled by connectivity issues and prolonged isolation, mental health-related issues are inevitable
+
+As apparent from the graph, an overwhelming majority of the students agree that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with coursework and overall efficiency has taken serious hits. Deadlines are tight and **60%** of the students find it challenging to keep track of all allotted tasks on MS Teams. All in all, a total of **77%** report increased stress levels as compared to the usual semesters.
+
+Workload Climb
+
+Since the weightage for CWS has been increased to 50-60%, routine quizzes and assignments have gone up in frequency, and with it comes a corresponding rise in continual stress.
+
+**Average semester credits:** 						             20.18
+**Average weekly assignments + quizzes per 4 credits:**   		 1.32
+**Average lecture hours per 4 credits:**        				 3.94
+
+Which sums up to an average **6.66** assignments a week in addition to regular lectures and course projects which now hold more weightage as well given the present condition.
+
+
+<h2>A Million Little Things</h2>
+
+Commonly raised concerns over the online operation, and the consequential unrest within R-junta is the cumulative result of a number of factors; all of which may not have been expressed adequately in the statistics discussed so far. Following are some major issues addressed by students in the optional remarks section of the survey:
+
+
+The initial notification plan for the online semester declared the **“attendance rule”** to have been waived off. But while the 75% threshold no longer applies, **attendance in online lectures** can still be counted towards CWS marks and the decision is left entirely up to the professors’ discretion. The average student reported **3.18 courses** (Anywhere from 40-60% of the total coursework for the semester) where regular attendance is recorded and may be counted towards the overall grade with the same or higher weightage as offline semesters. This, combined with 78% of the students reporting connectivity issues in one form or another, is no doubt a substantial affair.
+
+<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://app.everviz.com/embed/YZkr8e1aI/" title="Chart: Attendance for CWS" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 500px"></iframe>
+
+The deadlines for allotted assignments have been reportedly tight and often take up weekends. Around 35 students from 8 different departments also complained about classes being conducted and assignment deadlines extending into the midterm break, offering students no relief from the incessant workload.
+
+Apart from this, a small number of students also mentioned long quizzes (1 hr+) being conducted to substitute for mid-semester examinations despite the initial guidelines explicitly mentioning that MTEs are prohibited for all courses
+
+Lab oriented courses have been severely affected as well, and it could be detrimental to the overall flow of the course structure if they were to be delayed by another semester
+
+Extracurricular activities have also come to a halt, with many campus groups being unable to operate properly in online mode. Even amongst those that continue to function, members struggle to find time under the pressure of continuous evaluation.
+
+The current semester also coincided with the most crucial period of internship and placement seasons. A number of students mentioned the struggle to juggle between the increased coursework and placement prep. Lack of resources at home was stressed upon, not to mention the proctoring and infrastructural shortcomings as mentioned in our [Intern analysis](http://watchout.iitr.ac.in/2020/10/interns){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}. Placements are scheduled to carry on into the following semester and students will continue to bear the implications if it was to be conducted online as well.
+
+Campus lockdown has consumed not only the current semester but also the latter half of the previous one (Spring 2019-20). In the previous semester, students were given the provision to choose an S grade in any course if unsatisfied with the awarded grade. Along with this, they were given the option to keep the grade and sit for a re-exam later on. As of writing this article, there has been no update regarding the re-exam but it’s safe to assume that they would be conducted in offline mode as IIT Roorkee’s stance on online exams so far has been largely negative. Given this, if the next semester was to be conducted in online mode as well, this reexamination would have to be postponed by another five to seven months. Many of the students that planned on applying would have by then, either graduated or sat through the internship season with the GPA that they hoped to improve through that very exam.
+
+
+<h2>Countrywide Response</h2>
+
+As fully remote education had been largely unheard of in many premier institutions in India, the sudden transition into online mode has been abrupt, and admittedly a little rough around the edges. In such crucial times, wherein institutions all across the nation are busy devising strategies for the upcoming semesters, we believe it’s important to highlight some of the strategies that have been adopted by other institutes
+
+1. UGC (University Grants Commission) released guidelines advising higher education institutions, outside containment zones, to reopen in phases, starting first with research, masters, and final-year undergraduate students. The Ministry of Home Affairs allowed state governments to decide on phased reopening after October 15. The Punjab government, for instance, has announced the reopening of universities and colleges after Diwali, from November 16 [[1]].
+
+1. IIT Ropar has declared that they would be starting their next semester in online mode, at least for the first half [[2]].
+
+1. IIT Bombay has also announced that the first two semesters for the incoming undergraduate batch will be online and the institute will provide no hostel accommodation until July 2021 [[3]].
+
+1. IIT Guwahati has allowed partial reopening for PG students on a voluntary basis. Efforts have been made to set up a Covid Testing Facility on the campus exclusive for the arriving students [[4]].
+
+1. IIT Gandhinagar has allowed students to return to the campus provided they sign an undertaking [[5]].
+
+1. IIT Dhanbad has also announced that they are currently in the process of planning a phased reopening for students. They also cover medical expenses of up to 1 lakh in empanelled hospitals [[6]].
+
+1. IIM Lucknow has already allowed 200/500 students to come on campus and were made to undergo a 14-day mandatory Quarantine. The original semester which started in an online mode on 4th August was converted to a hybrid model by allowing students to return in a 3 days window from 16th to 18th October 2020. Strict precautions are being taken by both the institutes as well as students to follow the guidelines.
+
+1. Manipal Institute of Technology has decided to call the seventh-semester students in the first phase starting from 20th November 2020, following with the fifth, third, and first [[7]]. The students are provided 3 options for the return [8] and are supposed to complete the academic activities by doing the laboratory course work and writing the end-semester examinations.
+
+1. AIIMS has approved a full campus opening for the students with appropriate precautions taken to follow Covid-19 guidelines [[9]].
+
+<h2>Elephants In The Room</h2>
+
+It’s no mystery what the students want. They voted, and **86% (over 1100 responses)** decided they’d do anything if it meant dodging another online semester. It is, however,  undeniably important to keep one’s demands reasonable and expectations realistic at a time like this.
+
+There are some glaring issues with the idea of reopening the institute immediately.
+
+For one, proper quarantine infrastructure needs to be set up before any students are called back to campus. Even with phased entry allowing students in small, manageable batches, the setup may take a while, justifiably so, and still cannot be expected to be a hundred percent safe for everyone.
+
+Even if the students were to be permitted into the campus over a 2-3 month period, it is important to acknowledge that campus life will likely not return to normal for a while. Canteens and common areas could become hotspots for covid transmission and as such will probably remain closed. Offline lectures would still be difficult to conduct safely and hybrid means, as adopted by IIM Lucknow, might be worth exploring.
+
+Furthermore, it is unclear who will be responsible for any health damage as a consequence of opening the campus. While a consent form sounds like a viable alternative on paper, does it actually mean anything if the return is mandatory? In the case of voluntary return, hybrid alternatives for classes are an absolute must
+
+The parallels being thrown around about recreational places having resumed function and implying that educational institutions should follow suit are largely redundant. A Mall bears little of the implications and none of the responsibility for anyone that happens to contract covid within their premises. The same cannot be said for an esteemed engineering college.
+
+Enforcement of social distancing protocols throughout the campus will likely result in a ban on public gatherings. Restrictions may also be imposed on commuting in and out of the campus premises.
+
+The delay associated with the phased entry, quarantine, and day-to-day safety protocols will significantly shorten the spring semester and leave a lot less time to actually teach. Most internships are scheduled to begin in May, whether remote or onsite. The academic calendar for 2020-21 and presumably the next year will be distorted and time lost may have to be compensated elsewhere.
+
+<h2>Summing Up</h2>
+
+We wish to make clear that the aim of this article is not to force out a positive response in favour of campus reopening, one way or another. Nor is it meant to disparage the efforts being made by students towards that general aim.
+
+It is, at its core, a much-needed address of the collective concerns of the student body, and the associated caveats that may have been overlooked. We hope this helps GenSecs represent the view in front of the administration and convey how adamant the students are about being allowed reentry into campus. Or if it comes down to it, we hope it at least helps push change and ensure a subsequent online semester that is received better than the current one.
+
+Transparency must also be enforced actively. Watch Out! will continue to keep the student populace up to date on any discussions going on within the administration and we urge the GenSecs to continue to do the same.
+
+
+<h2>References:</h2>
+
+[1]: https://indianexpress.com/article/education/ugc-guidelines-asks-colleges-to-extend-teaching-hours-follow-six-day-schedule-to-cope-up-academic-losses-ugc-ac-in-6963248/
+**1.** [https://indianexpress.com/article/education/ugc-guidelines-asks-colleges-to-extend-teaching-hours-follow-six-day-schedule-to-cope-up-academic-losses-ugc-ac-in-6963248/](https://indianexpress.com/article/education/ugc-guidelines-asks-colleges-to-extend-teaching-hours-follow-six-day-schedule-to-cope-up-academic-losses-ugc-ac-in-6963248/){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
+
+[2]: https://indianexpress.com/article/education/iit-ropar-to-hold-next-semester-online-6913888
+**2.** [https://indianexpress.com/article/education/iit-ropar-to-hold-next-semester-online-6913888](https://indianexpress.com/article/education/iit-ropar-to-hold-next-semester-online-6913888){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
+
+[3]: https://indianexpress.com/article/education/iit-bombay-announces-online-semester-for-first-year-ug-students-6951622/
+**3.** [https://indianexpress.com/article/education/iit-bombay-announces-online-semester-for-first-year-ug-students-6951622/](https://indianexpress.com/article/education/iit-bombay-announces-online-semester-for-first-year-ug-students-6951622/){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
+
+[4]: https://i.imgur.com/D2bNoBT.jpg
+**4.** [https://i.imgur.com/D2bNoBT.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/D2bNoBT.jpg){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
+
+[5]: https://i.imgur.com/bPsFafs.png
+**5.** [https://i.imgur.com/bPsFafs.png](https://i.imgur.com/bPsFafs.png){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
+
+[6]: https://i.imgur.com/4V8MJHO.jpg
+**6.** [https://i.imgur.com/4V8MJHO.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/4V8MJHO.jpg){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
+
+[7]: https://i.imgur.com/fxNnJgK.jpg
+**7.** [https://i.imgur.com/fxNnJgK.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/fxNnJgK.jpg){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
+
+[8]: https://i.imgur.com/6gYDTVE.jpg
+**8.** [https://i.imgur.com/6gYDTVE.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/6gYDTVE.jpg){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
+
+[9]: https://medicaldialogues.in/pdf_upload/pdf_upload-133500.pdf
+**9.** [https://medicaldialogues.in/pdf_upload/pdf_upload-133500.pdf](https://medicaldialogues.in/pdf_upload/pdf_upload-133500.pdf){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
+

_posts/2020-11-19-awards-and-scholarships.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: Awards and Scholarships Booklet
+category: academics
+image: awards-and-scholarships.jpeg
+tags: [wona]
+---
+
+The Institute Academic Council, in association with Watch Out! IIT Roorkee, brings to you the 'Awards and Scholarship Booklet'
+
+<a href="/Awards-Booklet.pdf" style="text-align: center"><button type="button" class="btn btn-primary btn-block btn-lg">Download the Booklet Here!</button></a>

_posts/2020-11-19-fee-waiver-scholarships.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: Fee Waiver Scholarships
+category: academics
+image: iitr.jpg
+excerpt: ''
+---
+
+### Fee Waiver to Economically Weaker students:
+On the basis of income proof provided in the current assessment year, UG students are given tuition fee waiver:
+1. Full Tuition Fee Waiver. (Economically backward students having family income less than Rs. 1 lac per annum)
+2. 2/3 Tuition Fee Waiver (Economically backward students having family income between Rs. 1 lac and Rs. 5 lacs per annum).
+
+### Merit Cum Means Scholarship:
+An MCM scholarship beneficiary UG student gets tuition fee waiver and Rs. 1000 per month for 10 months. All students whose family income is less than Rs. 1,00,000 per annum get full fee waiver while students whose family income is between Rs. 1,00,000 and Rs. 5,00,000 per annum get 2/3rd fee waiver. MCM is given to General/OBC category students who fulfil the following conditions:
+1. Gross Income of parents (Father/Mother/Both) for the previous financial year is not more than Rs. 5,00,000/- per annum. 
+2. CGPA and YGPA should be more than 7.00. 
+3. All registered courses should have been cleared. 
+4. Available only for the normal duration of the program. For dual degree students, it will be available only up to the 4th year. 
+5. The student should not have been penalized for unfair means/ indiscipline. 
+6. Available for up to 25% of the actual strength of the class. 
+For new students, JEE-Adv or JAM AIR, whichever is applicable, will be the criterion. In subsequent years, their academic performance in the preceding academic year will be the criterion. ITR (Income Tax Return) of the parents (both mother and father) of the current assessment year will be used as proof of income. A student whose family income falls below the prescribed limit at any point during the course of his/her program is eligible to be considered for an award of MCM scholarship from the next academic year.
+
+### Free Messing
+Students belonging to the SC/ST category are eligible for this scholarship, given their family’s annual income is less than Rs. 5,00,000. 
+The students are awarded free messing (only basic menu) and a pocket allowance of Rs. 250 per month as well as exemption from payment of the hostel room rent. In case the student does not seek free messing he can instead opt for a pocket allowance of Rs. 1000 per month. 
+
+**Note-** There is a 100% fee waiver on tuition fees for SC/ST and PwD students regardless of family income. This will be done automatically at the time of admission. 
+
+
+### How to apply for these scholarships?:
+The forms for these scholarships are made available on awards.iitr.ac.in/scholarship , so students are advised to regularly check the website for updates and to not miss out on the desired scholarship.
+The scholarships are active for a complete academic year. Hence, they need to be filled up every year to avail the benefits.
+You will need to upload a scanned copy of the ITR of the current assessment year and the PAN cards of your parents/guardians. There will be dedicated fields in the form to upload the required documents, so any changes in the documents required will be taken care of.
+
+**Note for fee waiver –** During the initial admission for the first semester of a student, they will have to pay the full fee. After the admission procedure is complete, the Fee Waiver form will be made available on the website mentioned above. Students will have to fill that form and if the waiver is granted, the amount will be refunded to them. However, for subsequent years, the form will be filled beforehand; hence they won’t have to submit the full fee and will be able to pay the reduced fee during the academic registration.
+### How to know if you’ve been granted the scholarship?
+The SCSP releases various lists on the Channel i Notice Board, consisting of names of students who have been selected for the scholarship. Applicants should regularly check back to see if their name has arrived in one of those lists. In case of any doubts, SCSP should be contacted directly. 
+### How to get the scholarship amount (in case of MCM) and excess fee deposit refund (in case of Fee Waiver)?
+When filling out the forms, you will be asked to submit your email ID. Keep this ID handy, because an email will be sent to it (each for MCM and Fee Waiver), wherein a link to a form will be attached. This form has to be filled, giving details such as bank account number and so on, and the refund/scholarship will be deposited in a few working days.

_posts/2020-11-29-in-conversation-with-prof-juan-maldacena.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "In Conversation with Prof Juan Maldacena"
+image: "juan-maldacena.jpg"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: verbatim
+excerpt: "Juan Martín Maldacena is a theoretical physicist and the Carl P. Feinberg Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study."
+
+---
+
+
+
+*Juan Martín Maldacena is a theoretical physicist and the Carl P. Feinberg Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study. He obtained his licenciatura (a 6-year degree) in 1991 at the Instituto Balseiro, Bariloche, Argentina and his Ph.D. in physics at Princeton University after completing a doctoral dissertation titled "Black holes in string theory". He has made significant contributions to the foundations of string theory and quantum gravity. His most famous discovery is the AdS/CFT correspondence, a realization of the holographic principle in string theory.*
+*On 21st November 2020, Prof. Maldacena was invited by the Institute Lecture Series Committee,IITR to deliver a webinar lecture as part of the “The Mysteries of Universe” lecture series . The topic of the lecture was "Black holes and the structure of spacetime". Watch Out! had the chance to interview him and find out more about his thoughts on theoretical physics and his experiences in this field.*
+
+**Watch Out!:** Can you give us a sense of what it is like to be a graduate student in physics in the 1990s? What plans did you have when coming to Princeton University?
+
+**Prof. Juan Maldacena:** When I started in 1992, there was excitement about the prospects for the SSC (Superconducting SuperCollider) which was being built in Texas. This was then cancelled and many theorists went from working on more phenomenological problems to more conceptual problems, such as the problem of quantum gravity. There had been a lot of progress in understanding two dimensional conformal field theories, and also string theory in two or less dimensions. Some people started to apply some of these mathematical techniques to problems in other fields, such as condensed matter, and I briefly worked in that direction. Then I switched to working on black holes, and finding interesting classical black hole solutions in the gravity theories that arise from string theory. This was motivated by interesting papers by Ashoke Sen.  When I came to Princeton, my plan was to do a PhD in particle physics or string theory.
+
+**Watch Out!:** What is the status of the Black Hole Information Paradox and what purpose will it serve in future research?
+
+**Prof. Juan Maldacena:** I have not been completely solved. For me a complete solution would involve understanding the black hole singularity. And this was not done yet. But important progress was made during the years. For example, now there is more convincing evidence that the information does come out. First through string theory constructions, the microscopic accounting of black hole entropy, and the duality between gravity and quantum field theories at the boundary. And very recently,  there is also evidence for this by computations of the entropy of Hawking radiation using the replica trick and the gravitational path integral.
+ 
+**Watch Out!:** String theory has led to insights in many allied fields, including mathematics and condensed matter physics. Do you think there will be other areas of research where string theory could throw some light soon?
+
+**Prof. Juan Maldacena:** I suspect that the holographic dualities might shed some light into machine learning. Or perhaps the other way around!
+ 
+**Watch Out!:** What inspired you to pursue theoretical physics? At what age did you know that this was what you wanted to do? If you weren’t a theoretical physicist, what do you think you would be doing?
+
+**Prof. Juan Maldacena:** When I was growing up and up to high school, I was interested in technology and exploring how various appliances work. This led me to be interested in the laws of physics, and I decided to study physics at the university to see what this was like, and what doing research was like. I also got interested in mathematics and that led me to focus more on theory.
+ 
+**Watch Out!:** Your AdS/CFT correspondence paper has been cited 20,000 times. What motivated you to work on the same? And for our readers, can you try to explain the Duality in layman terms?
+
+**Prof. Juan Maldacena:** At the time I was doing research on the connection between black holes and string theory. In particular, there are some soliton-like solutions of string theory called D-branes. These are objects that are on the verge of becoming black holes and by thinking about them I was led to the AdS/CFT correspondence. This came from the idea that two possible descriptions of these soliton-like solutions are the same, one is the description as a place in spacetime where light quantum fields live, and the other is in terms of a black hole (or black brane) solution. The AdS/CFT correspondence is the conjecture that these two descriptions are the same. At the time I thought it was an interesting result, comparable to other dualities that people had found in string theory, such as Matrix theory, etc. Later research showed that it could be applied to analyze a large variety of problems, ranging from problems in nuclear matter to condensed matter physics. Of course, at the time I had no idea about these possible applications, and they came as a surprise to me.
+ 
+**Watch Out!:** Is the string theory our only hope at present to lead to a unified theory? What is your view on, e.g., Loop Quantum Gravity?
+
+**Prof. Juan Maldacena:** We should think of string theory as a theory under construction. It had success as a perturbative theory of quantum gravity, leading to relativistic formulas for the scattering of gravitons which are (ultraviolet) finite at any order in perturbation theory. This is something that no other theory has achieved. String theory can also incorporate the parity breaking gauge theory interactions of the Standard Model without any inconsistencies. In addition, in string theory one can give a statistical accounting for  the entropy of black holes, which not only agrees with the Hawking-Bekenstein but it also correctly accounts for its quantum corrections. Furthermore, in string theory we can give a full description for certain spacetimes: some high dimensional flat spaces and some negatively curved spacetimes.  For all these reasons, string theory is a very interesting candidate for a theory of quantum gravity.  Many problems remain. The description of expanding universes, such as de-Sitter, or our own cosmology, remain hard to describe in string theory, the constructions leading to such solutions are more technically challenging and they are not understood beyond the leading order in perturbation theory. Also, important singularities, such as the black hole singularity or the cosmological singularity have not yet been understood.
+ 
+**Watch Out!:** What drives the scientific pursuit on a personal level for scientists? Is it curiosity and intellectual challenge, or does it include the urge to be remembered?
+
+**Prof. Juan Maldacena:** I think that curiosity and the intellectual challenge are important motivations. The desire to explore the unknown and to go beyond where others have gone.
+ 
+**Watch Out!:** Science will surely outlast humankind, but what do you think would be the next ‘holy grail’ of science once we reach the ‘theory of everything’? And do you see it happening anytime soon?
+
+**Prof. Juan Maldacena:** I don’t particularly like the phrase “theory of everything”. I prefer  “a quantum theory of spacetime” or “quantum gravity”. Of course, any such theory has to incorporate the other forces of nature, and include a theory of matter, since the geometry of spacetime is connected to matter via the Einstein equations. For this reason any theory of quantum gravity has to incorporate “everything’’ that exists in the universe. I think that such a theory is probably within reach, but there are significant obstacles that should be overcome. But there are many very ingenious people working on it, so I hope that these obstacles will be overcome.
+ 
+**Watch Out!:** A number of research oriented institutes have been established in India. What other efforts according to you should be made to popularize science in India?
+
+**Prof. Juan Maldacena:** I think it is important to communicate science to the general public, but  I do not know what the most effective methods are. Now, some people are producing excellent online videos where various concepts are explained. I would have loved to watch them when I was growing up. 
+ 
+**Watch Out!:** What has been the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on your research work? Do you think moving into the future, the curriculum of universities will gravitate towards the available online modes?
+
+**Prof. Juan Maldacena:** As theorists, we were not disrupted in a very significant way. It has forced us to move several activities online. I think that various online conferences and seminars have been very successful. Yes, I think that online activities will play an important role in the future.  
+