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I'll extend that date in case you are improving something. I have unfortunately no credits or grades otherwise those people who submit things in time could have been awarded a higher grade. Unfortunately there is no grade for this course. Either pass or you fail. And very limited flexibility to use the standard stick and carrot approach. There is only one stick and no carrot. Not very useful mechanism. Anyway, so how many of you have participated in any kind of automated group communication? This is something that I wish to discuss today. As an example, we would take the case of automated peer review mechanisms. So how many of you have done any kind of forced peer review? There is a part of any larger exercise. You are required to assess the quality of communication as submitted in the form of digital artifacts by several people and you get randomly assigned to assess some three, four, five submissions out of those. One, two, very few, three. Why, others did not have an occasion? You did participate? So can you explain what was the task at hand and how did you go about it as an individual? Sir, I am Amami. There I was as a faculty in the military college of telecommunication engineering at MAU. So we have a journal called Technical Journal for Four of Signals. So there are officers submit articles and journal papers to be published in that. So I was given task to review the submissions done by the officers. I used to assess whatever was submitted in terms of the originality of work, the importance related to today's current trends and the originality of work in terms of own written or is it copied from somewhere. Those things were checked and then recommendations were given for publishing or not. But that task you did as part of your instructor's duties anyway. Anybody else who has participated in a peer review? So there was a course on Coursera for coding in Python. So we used to get multiple submissions from other course-takers and we needed to make a game. So there were few questions and we needed to play that game and mark whether the question was handled correctly. So can you take an example and suggest how different people were awarded different marks by you? How different people whose work you assessed were awarded marks? Were they different from each other or was it a zero one kind of thing? Mostly most of the submissions were correct. Sometimes something went wrong. How many did you assess in this fashion, the numbers? Per submission, per assignment, 5 to 6. So apart from making your own submission, you were required to assess 5 or 6 other submissions. How much time did you have to spend on assessing those 5 or 6 the total time that you spent on making your own submission? Making the submission about 3 hours and assessing about 30 minutes. 30 minutes for all 6? Yes. So assessing was not very difficult? Yes. But did you, because these were programming assignments, did you execute that program which was submitted or you just went through it manually? Executed. We did not check the code. So here is an example of an assignment which is not very difficult to test. You can simply compile and execute a program. If it works, it works. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But if you were to assess an essay type answer, like our friend the instructor in Mahu had to do where an assignment was submitted in the form of a paper, not really an assignment but a research paper. Now you know how difficult it is to read a research paper. We have gone through that. So if you have to read every research paper carefully and then to assess whether that paper starts putting or not and it would invariably not be a zero on assessment, right? You would give some A, B, C grades or some such thing. That would be harder, right? Yes. So approximately how much will it take for a person to assess? Let us say a four-page, a four-size document which is submitted by someone. About two hours. Two hours. And how much will it take for you to write a four-page assignment? Well, if you take everything from conceptualization, it may take six to eight hours anyway, right? I mean jotting down your ideas, organizing them, rewriting them, then checking correctness, etc. So roughly the ratio is something like one is to four. That means if you spend four units of time in preparing your own submission, then you would require one unit of time typically to assess somebody else's. So three to five assessments to be done by each individual would amount to roughly the same amount of time that you would spend in your own assessment, in your own assignment. Is that a good thumb rule? Can we generalize it? It will of course vary from, for example, programming as we just discussed, just a question of routinely compiling and executing it. And that you can do six or seven assignment checks in less than 30 minutes in fact. Whereas a written essay, in the domain in which of course you have some understanding, because you have also submitted an assignment in a similar topic or same topic. So roughly the ratio can be regarded as, so creation of one submission can be considered approximately equivalent of, you agree that this could be a useful thumb rule? So which means that if you are participating in a course, such as on Coursera or what we do in IIT Bombay X, for example online courses, it would be reasonable if I form on the people at the beginning that your assignments will be of two types. One is you will have to submit your own assignment and the second is you will be required to randomly assess so many other assignments. Then that would be a fair game. All right. Now let us consider some squiggles in this. So we agree that this could be the mechanism. The reason I want you to think beyond just these statements is because you are all CS students and you would be expected to actually design and build systems which will permit this to happen. So in Coursera for example, what kind of system did you use? In Coursera in peer assessment, what kind of automated system did you use? It is obvious that there is no human being who can intervene to look at either your submission or your assessment. So it must be an automated system. So after the submission date, did you get a list of three or four or five submissions to be assessed by you? No. How did you come to know which submissions you have to assess automatically? What was the process of automation? Can you just explain that? I used to get, I mean, one by one I used to get that you need to check this submission. You would get one by one. Yes, I did not know which users submitted. So firstly it is an anonymous review so I don't know whose submission it is. It would be obviously a machine readable thing so I can't even figure out from handwriting or something like that. So it is anonymous truth. Secondly, he says he would get one assessment at a time. How much time did you get to complete that assessment? There was no time limit. There was no time limit. So suppose a lethargic person like me gets an assessment and does not submit for one week. I mean there was that one week deadline. So you see you need to be very exact. So there is a one week deadline. Now suppose I take maximum of one week and submit my assessment at the end of one week. Only then I will get the second assessment. No, no. In that one week you need to complete all the five. So let us be more precise in that automated system when you would get up to four or five such assignments submitted by others to be assessed. What is the maximum time in which you were given all four or five independent of how you completed or not completed? Three to four days. Three to four days. But they would arrive one at a time. Sometimes two or three. Collectively five were given. Collectively five were given. No, you said you will get one. One at a time means you can check by one at a time. You are talking about one unit of assessment to be done for five submissions. But you will get all five together. Yes. In what form did you get the message? Did you get an email? It was on the website. No, no. Website is all right. Website is a web page. So website by the way is if it just comes on website then I am not reminded whether something has come on my website or not my dashboard or not. That means do I have to constantly look for such thing or do I get a mail? Do I get SMS? Do I get something? I don't remember. Don't remember. But you managed to do that. Yes. All right. So if at all we need to automate such assessments what are the aspects that we need to keep in mind in order to build such automated system which he has let's say partly described. So let us assume that for an assignment or for something some digital artifacts of a similar kind have been submitted by thousands of people and we wish to carry out a peer assessment of the kind which our friend described and we want to build a system for which we wish to write the overall functional specs what should be the functionality of such a system. So as he says after every assignment he would get four or five assignments on his website but he does not remember a communication independently as an email or SMS or he was required to visit the website and keep looking at such assignments that is assessment assignments given to him. So what would you prefer a reminder mail or something but much before that how do you choose whom to give a particular digital artifact or assessment. There are ten thousand people who have submitted we have already agreed that every participant has agreed upfront to assess three to five other assignments other other submissions that we take for granted. Now how do you choose which three or five assignments will go to him which three or five will go to him which three or five will go to him yeah random is that correct? acceptable? random choice of peers now how do I make a choice if I have thousands of artifacts what could be the mechanism all that I have is ten thousand submissions again coded submissions so the file names don't reveal anything and given by ten thousand users I have a table associating each user with the assignment submitted by that user that information I have now every submission I have to select up to whatever three to five peers to assess that so how do I randomly select that everybody is familiar with random number generation but a random number generation of this kind where you are picking up one assignment and assigning it to three to five users you have to flag those three to five users to whom we have already given an assignment okay but each of them is supposed to get up to five assignments that is how the system works is it very clear in your mind as to how that algorithm will work because towards the end there will be absolutely no randomness left there will be a few people left to whom few assignments have to be assigned there hardly any randomness there so how do you go about it we could actually let's say if we want to assign three papers to each person we could have three different permutations of the whole set such that you do not get your own paper so such three different permutations I mean will obviously land you with three different papers at random so basically instead of allocating a person like you allocate a seat in gate or J.E. score dependent fashion he suggest that we could use a set of permutations assuming that I have to assign everything to three people or four people or whatever based on that parameter I could create permutations of all the assignments and all the users and create so let's say a possibility of using permutations good choice I believe but that is an algorithmic part we are not discussing that as computers and professionals you will be good in designing an appropriate algorithm just wanted to point out that it's not a trivial thing to do so all right now having done that our friend submits his assessment for these four things everyone does that but some people are lethargic like me they don't submit in time so how do we handle assessments which are submitted now by people so there is a deadline as he said within a week you are supposed to do that first of all how do you incentivise people like me to submit in time any suggestions in the armed forces there is no question of taking any liberties with deadlines right you better do that it's a survival instinct whereas ordinary mortars like us are indicative so how do we handle let us put it this way that we would like a decent easy way for people to work yet we would like them to work with the armed forces kind of discipline as far as deadlines is concerned now how do you enforce it gamification can you explain basically whatever the task that you have been assigned attach some incentives then later on based on those incentives they will get benefitted in the future so basically the word gamification is used primarily in the context of giving some kind of an incentive so gamification is not in terms of playing games but in terms of creating an incentive mechanism as an incentive mechanism anything else because in real human life carrot alone does not always work a stick is also useful our friend uses sticks very effectively there is no carrot I think in your case but we so what stick can we have very obvious I have submitted an assignment I expect it to be assessed by others just as I have required to assess other submissions now I do not complete the assessment of four submissions as is required let's say so what the system can do is dear Mr. Fartite you have submitted your assignment I am glad to inform you that that assignment was actually rated well by your peers however since you have not submitted the assessment of four other things which were sent to you we are unhappy to announce that you get a fail grade in this assignment pass fail always works or grades or marks will always work so this is an incentive the other incentive is I think we should not really make it so strict as to fail somebody we can only hold back your results till the time you do not submit it so our friend here is a light-hearted person like me I wish Professor Sarada was here to argue his case but I will argue as if I am Sarada he is suggesting that Sarada is the name of my colleague instantly many of you may know him he teaches geography in Thames and my guru in databases basically now what he is saying is that we need not be so strict alright so let me ask you a counter question suppose there is no peer assessment I am required to submit an assignment in time two possibilities I do not submit in time and two I do not submit at all or three I do a very bad job what will be the end result if it is submitted for an examination will I pass that exam hence on the kind of work that you have done oh so that means I keep getting an assignment I keep not submitting it throughout the year and I can still pass that's why I said it depends on the kind of work yeah so you are very clear that if I do not submit an assignment which is declared to be a required part of my total assessment then I deserve to fail here is the point I am pegging an assignment and assessment of four assignments at the same level that is part of your task declared upfront you don't like it don't register for the course no but I still think that giving a let's say if I submitted my assignment now after having submitted the assignment the mere curiosity of wanting to know my performance in that assignment would drive me to quickly submit the assessment so that I can correct I think that is a better a positive incentive than to really have a stake and say you will fail in this assignment if you do not submit the assignment that is because you are treating these two as independent components which have nothing to do with each other no I am saying so wording is very important how you word it upfront in your entire offering of the activity I think that is a good point he makes because ordinarily if I am a student let's say or a learner who is doing a course in course or IIT Bombay or wherever like I have gone through a conventional exercise of education and therefore I will presume that the only reason for me to do this courses and to get a grade is to give my assignments in time so as long as I do that I presume that I deserve to pass I need the course people need to specifically state this upfront that your passing depends upon you are completing the following tasks successfully one giving your quizzes and assignments in time two doing the peer assessment in time then what about the quality of the peer assessment that's a good point so that was the third point I was about to mention but in terms of incentivizing and disincentivizing I suppose if a proper language is used that should be adequate so an important point is declare the criteria upfront you can't change the goalpost after the game begins you declare it fine now having done that he raised the question this fail pass approach will work in courses but what about the conferences and journal peer review will it work there I don't think this fail grade etc is possible there is that correct what about the non-course act very good points are being made in fact so let me tell you how it is handled it is handled through a different incentivization scheme for the reviews and other things that we talk about where the recognition at the end of the long path is the only incentive so you remember when last time we did an exercise in finding out what are the different entities that will require what are the different entity types etc and one of the entity types which was mentioned was reviewer now who is a good reviewer this also embodies the question that our friend raised what about the quality so I might do I might assess five peers but I will do a shortage of it because I want to complete it quickly so either I will give all of them a grade or all of them D grades or whatever I need by the way an algorithm method to catch such a shortage of which I cannot do on individual basis but collectively when I do a statistical analysis I should be able to do and that is an important part of any automated system analysis of the reviews that are submitted but the point that you are making is actually handled like this in such systems in fact that is why I think I referred to Professor Mausam's work on crowd sourcing should read some of his papers he has built a system in IIT Delhi which Ganesh and I are trying to get implemented here so one of the aspects is that you cannot depend on the crowd that is the common wisdom what if the crowd does not participate or does not do a quality job the fact of life is that you can build enough incentives something like gamification something like gamification but here again you state upfront that such reviewers which come up to be consistently doing quality job and in time shall be recognized shall be recognized a very vague statement so to attach something concrete to that way shall give you one example of what I have thought of doing for the last scale teacher training program that we are going to run using this model the faculty development program that we have designed this April, May, June they will roll out I think I mentioned there is one faculty development program in education effective use of ICD and the second faculty development program is on online and blended or hybrid education where people learners learn both from online now as a part of the assignment roughly 10,000 teachers are expected to participate in each of the and the assignment that they have to submit are in the form of OERs open educational resources so lets say I am a teacher of thermodynamics in some college somebody else is a teacher of electrical engineering etc etc I will form groups through a mechanism that we will create which is a manual mechanism because teachers will be assembling at remote centers which are identified so there will be physical groups of 40 to 50 teachers assembling at a remote center across 300 places in the country that is something which is not possible on a complete online mechanism but we will have these 40 people assembling at a place and they will be forming teams and there will be team submissions which will be made now the incentivization that we are talking about is first of course contrary to what our friend believes we will be declaring this criteria after that so no teacher will get a certificate of passing that FDP unless every teacher A submits the required assignments and assesses other assignments that will be part and parcel we will probably use Moodle which has a mechanism of randomly assigning thing or we will take that Moodle algorithm and integrate it with IIT Bombay X that for a random assignment is given now comes the question of quality so how do you adjust the quality of assessment every assignment is assessed by 5 people and every person assesses 5 assignments it is not a round robin so I assess some 5 assignments submitted by 5 individuals and each of these individuals assess assignments which are as he correctly pointed out I can do a randomized permutation matrix at the beginning now I have these assessments it is easily possible to do a salt and see which are the assessments which assess something at level A, B, C, D whatever whatever whatever and who rated what so now suppose the majority of the people rate something as A and let's say there are 200 assignments which are rated A now those who rated all of these as A those who rated all D's as D's are obviously better reviewers because they seem to be consistent with the majority opinion majority opinion itself may be wrong now imagine if I do that because 4 or 5 different submissions throughout the length of the FDB and I have a unique opportunity after doing this these people in groups are going to participate in a physical interactive session at a place so suppose I say now these 40 people who are there from amongst these 40 you find out who did what and try to identify 10% that is 4 or 5 people whom in your opinion are great assessors we can make the information available to all of them so I have an advantage of an automated process followed by a manual intervention the manual filtering by peers it is extremely difficult to use this manual intervention to grade all 50 people from 1 to 50 assemble at one place but it is entirely possible to correctly predict the 5 best people amongst the group of 50 you agree so I am not doing a ranking of all 50 I want the system to set 5 now in some cases there may be even 10 there may be only 3 because this will be combining the automated result with the manual interface now suppose I say that these 5 people who are selected at each remote centre will be given a recognition special recognition certificate and a 1000 rupee award which means they can do a next fdp without paying any fees would it act that is a reasonable incentive these are some of the mechanisms that we need to think of in the case that I just described we are trying to combine the automated process with some human filtering at the end after the automated process has thrown some results but the fact remains that in large group communication unless you automate to the head you will not be able to run things successful take our courseera course for example would that course have the same meaning for you if you had only auto grader for the programming assignments rather than a human assessment so you did value intrinsically the human assessment which was coming your way and perhaps that was one of the reasons why you contributed by making your own assessment but purely voluntary things do not always work consistently over long periods of time that is the reason we have job with salaries otherwise everybody should be working purely for job satisfaction but we work partly for job satisfaction partly for salary large partly for salary so you need to have a combination and that is exactly what we propose to do that here I do not know how many of you are working on associated systems for example ranking algorithms the entire area of machine learning is replete with whole lot of mechanism that are available which ones to use for what purpose and how is not very clear in this particular case we will be attempting to do that over this summer we have some exciting summer interns I mean people like what you were 3 years ago before coming to IIT you would have done your undergraduate study somewhere so these are all third year students from over what should I say about 200 100 and 130 summer interns we have chosen also we had 3000 applications so how do we assess 3000 applications have you ever thought of actually looking at each application individually so Prof. Avinash Haute came up with a very simple standard thumb rule any student who is a topper at the end of 5th semester in a college is selected why is simple thumb rule is which college students are studying that topper is a topper is a topper then he said some of the institutions of repute such as NITs and so on he would go up to the second topper 3 years ago when he outlined the scheme I asked him but what about such large number of individuals who do not necessarily shine in academic performance but are extremely creative and want to do something 60-40 ratio 60% of interns he selects like this 70-80 interns are selected like that then for all the rest 2500 people he announces a software contest and in that contest people have to participate and winners of that contest are selected independent of their academic standing so that caters to a group of students who may not perform very well academically but are extremely creative and good and of course then we have this standard funny cases of plagiarism how do you detect plagiarism in such submissions programming assignments automated checkers well automated checkers also will require you to submit I mean like you check plagiarism in research papers you can check code but you see these students who copy from each other are really smart so they will introduce different variable names I mean in hand written exams I remember that is how we used to catch copying that they have actually changed the variable names most of the program but at one place the original variable name appears by mistake and then the fellow gets caught suffice it to say that in our case what they did was very simple they took all submissions from the same college is unlikely that I am in a Mumbai college and I copy a code submitted by a student in Jharsugudha it's quite likely that my own colleagues in my college is what I'll copy from so that is how they checked and they found some copying cases then they wrote a letter and and promptly in some cases there were three identical submissions in some cases too promptly we got messages saying sorry I copied she did not or he did not so admit him or her not me and that is how it was resolved anyway now these people why I am saying this is these people will come here anyone of you who gets an idea of using any known technique or algorithm that you are familiar with or you become familiar with which will help in building a system of this kind I would appreciate you sending a small email to me we propose to assign groups of these summer interns to actually build a prototype of this system for group communication in IIT Bombay using Mossams for for the interviews which I'll be conducting the mock interviews there are two major exercises which are still remaining by the way one is weaving TED talks and writing their summaries all of you are familiar with TED talks so how many TED talks have you seen have you viewed they are not very long talks they are generally 18 minutes as a thumb rule this is a good type a compromise between 5 to 7 minute course video versus a 1 hour lecture like 5 month lecture so how many such videos have you seen any numbers anybody who has seen more than 5 TED talks can you raise your hands more than 10 more than 20 fewer more than 50 1 if I continue like that it might turn out that you mostly do TED talk weaving mostly do other things I was just joking by the way these TED talks because they are talks by individuals they combine the content connect as well as emotional connect where the person is there speaking there and that is the beauty of a lecture that's why you want to attend a discourse or a talk given by someone so these are extremely useful talks I do not know whether the average it will this statistics will be generally true for the entire class or not sure that means everybody would have viewed 5 to 10 TED talks at least but which 5 or 10 that depends upon one's own now how many of you have done this exercise of weaving a TED talk and writing the summary of that TED talk in your own words that you may not have done because you try to absorb the gist of that TED talk in your mind that is the purpose of weaving anything no? video thing but a very interesting and useful exercise is to actually view a TED talk and write its summary it's almost like writing an abstract for your work based on the presentation in the seminar that you make so if you ask your examiner that I will make a presentation for 20 minutes at the end of it please write an abstract of what I said curiously that is what an examiner is doing actually while assessing you for a grade that is what the examiner is doing his or her mind an abstract is being formed of what you have stated and on that basis the assessment is made but doing that exercise is a formal exercise a very useful thing so I will be actually giving you a set of 10 TED talks we won't have any randomization there will be numbered 0 to 9 and depending upon the last digit of your roll number you are required to write an abstract but these abstracts will be published and those of you who wish can also visualize other TED talks we select them after a lot of care trying to encompass different topics and try to see whether they remain in some sense related to the activities that you do so that would be an exercise that you will have to do in the month of April and there will be mock interviews for some people so like placement interviews those of you who are already placed or something did not participate but we will select people randomly I am calling some industry associates to conduct these interviews they will be conducted in a small room but they will be recorded on camera and I will see if I can connect through AVU so while the people are being interviewed somewhere here you can see what questions are being asked and what answers are being given so that would be fun it would be useful right so that is what we propose to do it in April and that is why I don't want to cancel classes I think that is an important exercise alright thank you


Welcome Preeti. It's great that you're here. You are the chief program coordinator at Toxics Link. And Preeti has been campaigning on the issues of waste and chemicals for more than a decade with special focus on e-waste, plastic and urban hot spots. And her expertise in research and policy advocacy is well recognized. She has researched, written and presented about issues ranging from e-waste and biomedical waste to industrial pollution from mercury to plastics. So she has an in-depth understanding of the informal recycling space and has written about different models to integrate them in the emerging scenarios of waste management. She has authored many publications on some of these issues and has been widely quoted in regional, national and international media. And today she will speak to us about the environmental and social impacts of dying repair culture in developing countries. Yeah, very excited to hear your thoughts. And yeah, please go ahead. Thanks Katrin. So are you able to see my screen and hear me? Yes, perfectly. Thank you for this. And so I'll just, you know, kind of as you introduced, my work has been on primarily on sustainability and, you know, a lot of focus on circular economy. And that's how, you know, this whole idea about repair and repurposing has come into the discussion that we're having. And I think it's a pretty, I would say a strange phase in India where we are, and I'm sure this is true in not just in India and most developing countries where we're going through a phase where, you know, we've, we had a vibrant, you know, kind of repair culture, but, you know, things have changed. And it's also taking again a big circle and coming back in some way. So I think it's a strange phase that we are going through. But again, it needs a lot of support and nurturing. Just a second. Yeah, so if you look at traditionally, you know, India typically had no waste concept. So because of the prohibitive costs of goods and amenities, and also the fact that there was a lot of value attached, you know, to the material and which means that Indian homes were not even equipped with a dustbin for the longest period because there was nothing, nothing, no waste was being generated because everything was repaired, everything, I would say lasted for as long as possible. So we lived in that kind of culture. There was obviously a huge history of, you know, repair hubs and repair cultures, even, you know, markets which specialized in repair, every Indian household had, for example, a, you know, kind of a repair toolbox or a sewing kit, which meant whether it's clothes or small appliances, it got fixed at home itself. Even with the market-wise, as, you know, traditional repair, I was looking at the presentation earlier as well, and, you know, traditional repair for jewelry utensils, even, you know, cooking utensils, shoes, furniture, clothes, even, you know, the sharpening, knife sharpening, which was being spoken about in the last presentation. We had that pretty vibrant in terms that it would, you know, anytime you wanted, anytime you needed that was available. So you didn't really have to go somewhere. It was kind of also a lot of it was mobile, which meant it came to you, which made it very convenient. And there were families which, you know, kind of specialized in that, which meant the skills got passed on from one generation to the other. So, you know, the same families got into repair of the same objects year after year, which meant there was a whole legacy, you know, of experience as well, which was getting passed on. If you look at, you know, some places like Northern India, which is Kashmir, which is known as also Switzerland of India, there's a huge, you know, culture or there was a huge culture of Rafugars, which are basically people who meant clothes.  Actually, there was, you know, traditionally, since they were tax levied on a full, for example, a shawl, if you wanted to, you know, manufacture and sell it, there was a huge tax that it attracted. And that's the reason why what they did was make it to do smaller pieces, make it in four small pieces, a shawl where that it did not attract that tax. And then the Rafugars would join it. And, you know, it would be so seamless that one would never know that, you know, kind of there was any kind of mending which had happened. But, and that's why the saying that, you know, only a, only God or day knew Rafugars would know where the stitching was. So it was mended so seamlessly. This was kind of a, you know, kind of a, I would say, celebrated or revered job that, you know, they were doing a very, very important job because you were, you know, kind of had a huge economic benefits as well. So, you know, frugality, sharing, and I would say the craftsmanship like the Kashmir one, or, you know, a network of cobblers, tailors, mechanics, this kind of form the backbone of robust repair economy in India. So it was vibrant. I would say even, you know, a couple of decades back, you could see, you know, tailors like this sitting on roadside and, you know, kind of mending things, or you saw a line of cobblers like this, who were working and repairing your shoes. So anytime even if you're walking your shoe got broken, you know, it was within two minutes or five minutes of your walking, you would find some cobbler where you could get it repaired. You know, even if you wanted to repair your suitcases, you had, you know, kind of really vibrant markets where you could do that. So there was this whole, you know, if you look at huge gray markets which specialized in, you know, there were no formal markets as for the repair, but there was a huge, I would say informal economy and especially in the last decade or so because of the electronics being, you know, kind of entering the market so strongly and people owning electronics so strongly, the electronic market or electronic repair market also became huge.  They were obviously not in the clear, you know, kind of radar because they were not formal, they were completely informal and they had a lot of flexibility in operation, you know, they would shift places, they would repair anything, you know, there were a lot of flexibility in the kind of operations they had, but lately in last, I would say more so in the last decade, there's been huge changing, you know, kind of huge change in how people think, how people buy, how people consume.  We didn't have in India such a linear cycle, but lately in last 10 years or so, you do see a lot of linear cycle where you, you know, kind of mind use discard. So that's the kind of, you know, kind of consumption pattern, which is, I would say, pretty much the dominant mindset currently as well, because, you know, cheap commodities are, you know, level on online portals or anywhere you want to go, the new objects are more attractive, much more cheaper to, you know, kind of repair and also the fact that, you know, the brand manufacturers are making products in a way that it could not be repaired, especially when we're talking about electronics. So the durability is lesser because this is a design for dump and, you know, kind of, which means that since also the spare parts are not available in a lot of cases, especially again, when we're talking about electronics, which meant that, you know, the repair wasn't easy, the repair was expensive, repair was difficult.  So these are not considered as a valued or a, you know, prized profession. It's all considered, you know, people who didn't do anything would get into this kind of repair. So that's the kind of mindset which is coming and that has led to, you know, kind of the repair culture going down or declining. You know, there was a study done by an organization in, within India. And if you see the responses here pretty encouraging, yes, people, you know, kind of, a lot of people who are discarding, you know, even three or five year old devices, it's mainly because there is, you know, there are two primary reasons if you see. One is the cost of getting repaired, which is, you know, expensive than getting new material.  So that's also something which is, you know, a very, very difficult option. And that's the reason why people are not really opting for, you know, kind of repair. You see the last slide where people have decided to replace even whiteboards or appliances, which is, within five years, the primary reason has been, you know, 48% if you see, the reason has been, you know, kind of, that the cost of getting the repair was more than buying new material.  It is very difficult, even for me, for example, I have tried to repair my music system, and I've always found that, you know, a couple of people whom I've approached, they said that there are no spare parts of it available. So I think that's become a big part, especially when we're talking about electronics, because people are not really willing, you know, the companies are not supplying the spare parts and are killing the repair market as such. So obviously it's completely an unsustainable approach. There's a huge wage generation. And then there is loss of resource and also loss of livelihood. So those are, you know, kind of key, you know, kind of problems emanating from this unsustainable approach. But there's a huge debate between frugality versus aspiration. Yes, there is a section which believes in frugality and, you know, the frugal leaving. But there's a huge, I would say, growing middle class population, which is aspirational, they are aspiring for new things, bigger things, modern things.  But again, especially, I would, you know, kind of focus on the environmental impact of it. And when we're looking at electronics, there is obviously loss of precious metals like gold, silver, palladium, copper, zinc, nickel, because it's all dumped and tried to recycle. But even recycling technology is not really so robust in India. And that's why the reuse bit becomes very important because when we talk about e-waste recycling areas, when the informal sector, the whole main crux sometime back was repurposing or cannibalizing, you know, components which could be used further for repairing other objects. And that's something which is, you know, kind of since there's no demand or reducing demands dying down, which leads to, you know, kind of pollution, open burning of a lot of materials which are not treated, emissions of chemicals like dioxins and heavy metals. And there's a residual waste which gets dumped, which leads to uncontrolled acid leaching, spells, process wastewater and service water run up. So, you know, a lot of environment damage, but a lot of social damage as well. You look at a lot of these areas where, you know, since the reuse culture is dying, recycling is, you know, kind of using women and children. And there's disproportionate sharing of gains because people, you know, traders make money, but not really the workers. And, you know, a lot of vulnerable population, migrant population get impacted by this kind of activity. So what you see in pictures is, you know, a mix of a lot of repair versus, you know, recycling as well.  And then, you know, those where the working ones were separated to be sold.  You know, you see CRT, which has kind of died a slow death, which means that no longer the CRT could be used to make a newer CRT or, you know, kind of TV screens cannot be converted into a computer screen. Earlier, that's what was happening that, you know, the TVs became old, they became computer screens. And that's something which is now, you know, kind of completely redundant and you see CRT monitors being broken down here for recycling. A lot of burning operations, children involved, and you could see the kind of, you know, lack of any protective equipment. So these are lead soldering being melted to sept components and these are lead fumes if, you know, coming out, but you see a child without any precaution, any, you know, kind of safety guard working in these informal sector. Again, pictures of e-waste recycling. So there is a lot of obviously waste dump recycling, which results from unsustainable use and, you know, slow death of repair culture. But the positive note, there is some bit of return. It is still, you know, kind of, I would say, not sure that's a passing trend or it's a very, you know, because it has more, as more a niche market rather than, you know, kind of a common repair growth. Repair has returned, but that's returned as a niche market. And that's why it is there's a worry whether this is only a passing trend or it is here to stay. But the positive, I would say, a beginning which is government is planning to bring in a right to repair and framework. But again, the problem is that's completely focused on electronics and nothing else, which means the other repairs are not being, you know, kind of promoted. This is mainly looking at, you know, these farming equipment, mobile phone tablets and consumer durables. These have been pretty much listed out. The other repair cultures are not being promoted or not even being spoken about. There is some bit of, you know, reinvention of some of these craftsmen because there was a huge availability of, you know, kind of skilled labor force. And as I said, this was cultural, culturally embedded. There was a tradition of recycling. What you've seen in the pictures again, the northern part of India, which I said Switzerland India, which is Kashmir, these, you know, shore repair people are now being, you know, kind of revived. These are almost to 230 years of old family tradition, which got passed on. There is some bit of problem in that as well, because these pretty much secreted so they don't really pass on the skills to outside people. So it stays within family. So that's another, you know, kind of a problem why the communities also which repair these are getting smaller.   So it's kind of tailoring services also alter or repair. And this is also big because a lot of online shopping, you know, the brands are also using this to counter a lot of return of, you know, ordered goods, because sometimes the fittings are not good. So people are actually providing the service of altering as well within these, you know, kind of online platforms as well.  And that's what they are finding now business and they're, you know, they're, I would say livelihood has grown, grown quite a bit what they could earn in a month. Now they're able to earn 15 days. So that there is some bit of, you know, kind of growth in that side. So there is some bit of, as I said, again, it's a very niche market, which is going, and that's why it's very difficult to know whether it will survive. And that needs a very different kind of, I would say support. So yes, that's, you know, kind of for what I wanted to speak about, you know, obviously, there's environmental and loss of livelihood, which are key to this whole, you know, kind of dying repair culture. And that needs a lot of support. There are sporadic, I would say, efforts being made, but not really in a scale, which the country requires or you know, kind of the country has the possibility of. So I think that's something which, which will need a lot of, you know, work, both policy-wise, as well as, you know, changing people's knowledge and information and making change their consumption. Thank you so much. Thank you. Very interesting. Indeed, we already have a question in the chat on why exactly do you say that, yeah, how the introduction of electronics led to devaluing the repair culture also in the area of fabrics? Could you elaborate on that? Yeah, so the reason why I said that the culture of repair is going down, as I said, there is, you know, a growing middle class, there's a huge growing middle class, and that's very aspirational in nature. So it becomes very difficult or it is, you know, much more convenient or even economically very, I would say, cheaper for them to buy newer goods. And that middle class is now no longer repairing and no longer, you know, kind of, whether we're talking about fabrics or whether we're talking of electronics, they are no longer repairing because repairing is becoming very, very expensive. Even if I want to go and alter a piece of cloth, it's much more expensive. And that's why, you know, it's probably, you know, one third of buying a new cloth.  So, and that's the reason why I would say this whole culture is going down overall, because we are looking at an aspirational society which wants to buy more, which wants to consume more and not really, you know, kind of reuse or repair objects. I wouldn't say that it's, you know, electronic is connected with clothes, but it's an overall, I would say a culture which is kind of changing. Thank you. Any further questions? I really agree with some of the comments. Yes, minimalistic living obviously will help.  I think minimalistic behavior is something which a society which has consumed more or which has probably has, you know, kind of a lot of these facilities for many years can think of it in a very, very, I think, positive manner, but for a society which is developing in nature where there are paths of society within which have been deprived for a very, very long time, there it becomes very difficult. I'll just give you an example, though it's not really they connected with repair, but, you know, I also work on a lot of issues related to sustainable menstruation.  So for them it's going up using disposable item is going up. So I think that's the mindset that is, you know, kind of scary. And that's why I feel that minimalism becomes a bit of a problem. Again, I would say, you know, kind of this whole concept that you know, which is also, I think, taking shape in developed countries. And it's not yet obviously in India is about not, you know, non ownership. You know, do you want to really own things or do you want to, you know, kind of just lease things because once you lease things, then, you know, the repair becomes much more viable for the for the corporations as well. Right now they don't want to repair because they want to sell more products. But when this whole leasing concept comes in, but again, leasing concept or not owning something is a very, very big philosophical change that I don't want to own anything. So I think that kind of a society would take a huge, you know, kind of effort to change. It's not very easy. Yes, in richer areas, people are going back to reusable pads and reusable pads are also becoming popular in a niche market in India, as I would say, to people who've gone through that cycle of using disposable pads. And now, you know, one decided that reusable pads are probably more environment friendly and more sustainable. But for societies or for populations which have never used disposable pads, they feel that that's the way of being modern.  So I think it is a cycle. And that's why I said that we are in a very difficult phase of that cycle. Like the same as with bicycles, as Janet was pointing out. And Panda also had a question, whether you see like visible mending as a trend? Yes, I think, you know, the trend in terms of, you know, the repairs being invisible, yes, all of that is seen. Some of them, you know, the new trend of repair which is coming in is similar. But as I said, it's kind of right now in a niche and not really a common earlier, the trend which was there was a common man's trend, you know, it was like the rich people didn't want so much repair, but common man wanted repair. And, you know, they, they wanted to use things for as long as possible. Right now, there is a bit of role reversal, because the repair and everything is more restricted to, you know, kind of the rich, you know, out of the rich, you know, society and not really the middle class middle class doesn't want to. So there's a change in how it's coming back. But, you know, the type of repair or, you know, kind of those things are similar in nature.  And they don't want to, you know, kind of, they have things which are very, very expensive. And they want to, you know, kind of repair that now. But that's not, I would say similar for, you know, kind of 80, 90% of the population. So it's only, you know, kind of maybe the five or 10% of the population, which is looking at repair as a sustainable way of moving ahead, but not the rest. Thank you. Yes, indeed, fascinating presentation. Yeah, thank you, Piti. I think we can now move on.


Welcome everyone to the select board meeting of Monday December 16 2019. I'm Dianna Mahan to my right your left is John Herd Joe Kiro Steve Dacorsi Adam chapter in town manager And we're starting this meeting at approximately 6 p.m. Mr. Dunn is en route. This is our sort of year-end cleanup business Before 2020 comes in that's why the meeting is starting at 6 p.m. And we have somewhat of an abbreviated agenda the first Item is the consent agenda minutes of meeting October 28 2019 December 2nd 2019 request contractor Dreyer's license Samina contracting core stone and mass 7 Daniel Drive request Contractor drain layer license lock and unlock and development 7-0-9 lulestreet Matthew and mass request contractor drain layer license Super service today ink for jewel drive Wilmington mass request special one-day alcohol license 1231 19 at the Wittemore Robin's house for a private event request monotomy grill and tavern late-night event 1231 2019 to 1 1 2020 Is there a motion to Approve move approval subject all conditions are set forth Kiro seconded by mr. Second heard any further questions or comments? If not, all those of them to say I Are those opposed unanimous votes? We now go into our appointment of our newly appointed human rights Commission Member Rajeev Sony job if you could come up say your name correctly. I apologize And Mr. Kiro Made the motion to appoint and this is our first face-to-face, right? My name is Rajeev Sonya. I'm a resident of Arlington since 2005 I have moved to this country as an immigrant from India where I grew up in Bombay or now called Mumbai I moved here in the to the US in 98. So I've been here for a few fair few years now I Don't know how much do you want me to say in terms of as an introduction or why I applied for the Sure, so firstly I want to thank the select board for allowing me this opportunity to serve as I belatedly appear before this Meeting because I was appointed a month ago. I've already attended a meeting since then Thank you to the town manager as well for the interview process and Going through with the meeting with the director of the HHS as well. So thank you to her too. I as I explained I grew up in Bombay and India's home to a variety of religions, ethnicities, cultures, practices and growing up in such a cosmopolitan city allowed me to view the diversity and plurality of thought and opinions but also made me aware of all the different minorities and people who are discriminated against for a variety of reasons I Could view upfront their resilience But also the idea that they have to be supported by thoughts and action and with that intention is why I appear before This meeting to serve as a commissioner for the Human Rights Commission Over the past few years in Arlington I have tried to involve myself in the community by volunteering for the diversity task group, which is a great way to Sort of foster diversity and inclusion in the community. They do some great work in trying to appreciate every point of viewpoint of Opinion from all aspects of Arlington's populations. I've also involved myself at the diversity and inclusion groups, which are parent-led groups at the school system to allow for the same the diversity and inclusion of all aspects of Populations to be heard. So it was that with same intention I want to carry on that work with the Arlington Human Rights Commission So as we are all well aware with all the Appeals that are happening and all the recent issues not just in Arlington But all over the world these are sort of reflected back into our community So I just want to be able to Carry that Work forward which I've been doing with the diversity task group as I talked to the town manager at my meeting as well Just sort of form a link with all the various different activities that are happening And I want to be able to do so continue to do so. I got a little boost to energy from all that enthusiasm. You certainly are Well-prepared and I know you'll be will you've already served at one meeting as a commissioner And you're right. It's not just Arlington. It's unfortunately nationwide if not globally, so I Know you'll bring a lot to the table as do the other commissioners and it's a very good fine group of experts and People who serve on that and as I said previously, I think mr. Kurt curill you have made a motion Yes, and seconded by mr. Dacorsi and it was a unanimous vote by the board So thank you congratulations, and we look forward to seeing you working with you Did you want to know I just want to say I had the opportunity to have coffee with mr. Cineja probably a month and a half or two months ago, and I Think the enthusiasm you're right madam chairs come comes through I think Bringing this type of perspective and this type of energy. I think to the commission I think it'll be very much welcomed there. So thank you very much for stepping forward and offering your time Good holidays We have agenda item 8 for approval license renewals contractor drain layer class 1 class 2 class 2 non-premise auctioneer lodging houses Innkeepers secondhand dealer public entertainment automatic amusement food vendor common victual or wine and malt beverages only restaurant Alcohol restaurant or alcohol club theater license all alcohol package store sidewalk cafe Is there a motion? Move by mr. Herb seconded by second Mr. Cure Mr.. I have an amendment Just a table one of the common victual Entities and that's that's wrangler Punjab at 444 mass av I'd like to table that renewal until January 6th if the rest of the board is in agreement there seem to be some Remaining issues with the Board of Health that this this entities working, and I think those will probably be cleared up by January 6th, but it may be We take that as a friendly amendment Yes, yes, Mr. Carolls yes, and was that seconded by? Mr. Corsi excluding the Punjab wrangler Punjab a wrangler Punjab wrangler Punjab not to be confused with Long-standing, okay, so on that motion any further questions or comments Just one comment In this this motion is nothing to do with the I know a year ago There was some shoes before the board on me on the name of the entity has nothing to do with that Well, it's other issues. It just to be clear Thank you All those in favor say aye. Aye those opposed I see our vice-chair. Mr. Dunn is just about here So I'm just going to read the correspondence received Punjab restaurant concerns regarding wrangler Punjab attorney John Leone Representing the corporation concerns regarding outside appearance at Arlington liquors Arlington resident Michelle DeRosha A notice from our town manager Mr. Chapter Lane is there a motion to move receipt So moved move by mr. Curel seconded by Mr. Herd and as Mr.. DeCorsi highlighted in our previous agenda item we do have a piece of correspondence that will give some information Regarding our tabling any further questions or comments Mr.. Curel. Yeah, I think it's important to note that attached to Alongside Ms. DeRosha's correspondence regarding Arlington liquors there is a Letter from Inspectional services that they have noticed the establishment That they do have some signage issues and maintenance issues to to address under threat of penalty So it would appear that this is already underway as far as being addressed Straighten up by January 6th, and will it be the select board's office or a board of health that will notify Ms. DeRosha Okay We're joined by our vice chair Dan Dunn. Thank you so much. I apologize to everyone for being late So I saw that you called at six, but I had like no memory. So if you left a message it didn't Leave the message. I was saying I'm an ill wife. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry Okay, on correspondence received motion by mr. Curel seconded by mr. Heard is that correct? I forgot to bring a pen any further questions or comments if not all those in favor say aye Those opposed unanimous vote abstain abstention for zero one New business mrs. Cropelka Attorney high no business. Thank you Tell manager chapter. Yes. Thank you, madam chair. Just one piece of new business Just today. We learned that our candidate for the coordinator of diversity equity and inclusion Accepted the position. Her name is Jillian Harvey. We are very very excited to have her coming on board She's going to start on December 30th. She brings with her a lot of experience working on these issues as well as a passion For the issues, so we'll bring her before the board to introduce you to her I'll send around a copy of a resume so you can see it, but I'm very excited Karen will always very excited Christine So it's very good news for the town and obviously she is very vested in it She's willing to stop with us so quickly and I'm very appreciative of that. Yes, she she's actually immediately coming out of an academic program So that's why she's flexible enough to We made it very clear that start as soon as you can. Yeah, we'd love to have last week. Thank you Okay, um, that's all I'm Mr. D'Corso. No new business Mr. Herd, no new business. Mr. Carol. Just like to wish all our residents a happy Hanukkah very Christmas Happy new year and all blessings of the season and a joyous Kwanzaa. Mr. Dunn. Yep. I got one so nine years ago about this time I said I was running for Selecton and I'm announcing that I'm not going to be seeking reelection this spring I've really really enjoyed being a member of the select board and I'm really proud of an of a bunch of different things that We as a group have accomplished that the town as a whole has accomplished But I can also say that After doing it for nine years, I don't have this exact same Passion for it that I did and in particular I think the thing that I've found myself lacking a little bit is patience and that to me was the sign that I Was time to let somebody else who you know, give it a go so I Thank everybody for my for support I mean everyone who's ever voted for me everyone has ever worked for my campaign people who didn't vote for me and still kept me honest and of course all of my The people who in the town who have worked so hard for the town who made it all possible and of course my colleagues here We have four months to And I just want to very briefly just because before we came in I attended the zoning board Hearing regarding among other things vonham street oak tree you guard development proposal We had the full zoning board of appeals. We had attorney hind. We had attorney John Whitton. There were 80 to 90 people in this room with no amplification and Really a little difficult to hear so first I want to say I want to Thank Attorney Hyman I truly mean this first exemplary job of Room with such packed emotions on all three sides one could say And the fact that you know it was quite difficult to hear Clarissa row and I were down this end And we couldn't lean forward anymore, but at appropriate at the times where I was getting frustrated because I'm like I didn't hear that I think that's really important turning Hyme got up and this Booming voice explained what had just been discussed what had just been voted on what the next step would be He along with attorney Whitton, but mostly attorney Hyme Outline the process of what this meeting was what future meetings would be not only before the ZBA Concom and other boards and commissions. I did get up and ask sort of a self-serving question To Gwen noise and oak tree developers. They have new Engineer same attorney, but I asked Regardless of the fact that under law they're required to meet with other boards commissions committee Would they extend the courtesy and agree to a meeting with the select board even though? It's not necessarily required and they said yes, I just wanted to get on the record. I discussed that with Mr.. Chapter Lane, I will not if it if the need arises while I am still chair up until April if The town manager town council and attorney Whitton feel that that's the time for that meeting that I will Do that and place it on the agenda and have the appropriate Agenda items and it may be it's needed further down the road or maybe not at all I just wanted to get it on and I oh, I also noted because there was some concern by the audience members regarding Since the board has changed over the years With the new gar oak tree development. I let ever and I spoke very loud. I spoke even louder than this I let everyone know that Mr.. D'Corsi asked when he joined the board that the board reaffirm its vote Regarding the old God oak tree mu gar development that it was seconded and it was a Unanimous vote and we steadfastly stand behind that position and there was a lot of new people who had just bought houses Down in Mary Margaret Mott as well as Kellman Manor who were concerned about that and that definitely elated And so I did reaffirm all of our commitment along with others So I just wanted to and moving forward from tonight going to work with The town manager town council and mrs. Cropelka regarding it looks like we have some openings on the zoning board Or we may have some openings or something that we need to fill so and that will Play itself out and we'll all receive correspondence on that process So with that if no one else has any more new business, I'll take a motion to adjourn by some of mr. Seconded by mr. Hart all those in favor say aye We will see you next year in 2020 our next board meeting is scheduled for January 6th 2020 have a happy safe new year