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By:

Anil D. Salve

21 March 2026 at 8:11:09 pm

A Drought of Wisdom in an Ocean of Information

We live in an age where information is everywhere. With a single click, we can access news from across the world, thousands of opinions, countless videos and endless claims. Knowledge has never been so accessible. Yet, in this overwhelming flow of information, something increasingly scarce is discernment-the ability to distinguish what deserves our belief from what deserves our doubt. Information and knowledge are not the same. Reading, watching or hearing something does not automatically...

A Drought of Wisdom in an Ocean of Information

We live in an age where information is everywhere. With a single click, we can access news from across the world, thousands of opinions, countless videos and endless claims. Knowledge has never been so accessible. Yet, in this overwhelming flow of information, something increasingly scarce is discernment-the ability to distinguish what deserves our belief from what deserves our doubt. Information and knowledge are not the same. Reading, watching or hearing something does not automatically make it true. We need the ability to verify information, understand its context, recognise its purpose and only then form an opinion. In the digital age, this ability has become one of the most important forms of wisdom. Social media has transformed the way information travels. WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and other platforms have made communication faster, wider and more accessible. But the same speed that connects society can also overwhelm it. Information often reaches us before facts do. A headline is read before the full story. A short video is watched without knowing what happened before or after it. A photograph is circulated without its original context. A message arrives with the familiar words, “Forwarded as received,” and within minutes it may reach thousands of people. By the time the truth catches up, the rumour may already have done its work. The problem becomes even more serious when misinformation is deliberately created and circulated. Rumours may be planted not merely to mislead individuals but to divert public attention from an important issue, create suspicion, damage someone's reputation or push society towards a particular narrative. A distraction does not always need to be completely false. Sometimes a small piece of truth is mixed with exaggeration, selective facts or emotional language. The result can be more powerful than an outright lie because it appears believable. This is how narratives are manufactured. Social media platforms can become powerful tools in this process. A repeated claim begins to look familiar, and familiarity is often mistaken for truth. A provocative post attracts attention. Thousands of reactions create the impression that “everyone” believes it. One emotional video triggers another, comments intensify the mood, and before facts have an opportunity to speak, public sentiment may have already shifted. This is where mob psychology enters the picture. A society can move from calm to anger, suspicion to trust, or optimism to fear with surprising speed. People who would ordinarily think carefully may react differently when they see thousands of others expressing outrage, fear or hostility. The individual begins to follow the crowd, and the crowd begins to reinforce the individual. The danger is not limited to negative emotions. The same mechanism can also be used positively-to mobilise people for social causes, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, public awareness and community action. Technology itself is neither wise nor foolish. Its impact depends on how information is created, amplified and consumed. The greatest danger, therefore, is not that we have too much information. It is that we may lose the habit of thinking while consuming it. We are increasingly becoming consumers of information rather than creators of thought. Everyone has access to information today, but access does not necessarily mean understanding. The boundaries between a rumour and a report, an opinion and a fact, popularity and truth are becoming increasingly blurred. A post does not become true because thousands of people have liked it. A video does not become evidence merely because it has gone viral. An opinion does not become a fact because it is expressed confidently. An idea does not become correct simply because it confirms what we already believe. This last point deserves particular attention. We often accept information not because it is accurate, but because it is comfortable. We are naturally attracted to information that confirms our existing beliefs and suspicious of information that challenges them. In the digital world, this tendency can be amplified by algorithms that repeatedly expose us to content similar to what we have already watched, liked or shared. Gradually, we may find ourselves living inside an information bubble where we hear many voices-but mostly voices that agree with us. That is not diversity of information. It is an illusion of certainty. Discernment does not mean doubting everything. It means thinking before believing. It means asking simple but powerful questions: Who is saying this? What is the evidence? What is the context? What may be missing? Who benefits if I believe it? And have I heard the other side? These questions may take only a few seconds, but they can prevent hours, days or even years of misunderstanding. This responsibility is particularly important for the younger generation. Children today are growing up in an environment of unprecedented information exposure. They can encounter more information in a few hours than earlier generations might have encountered in weeks. Therefore, education cannot merely teach students how to collect, remember and reproduce information. It must teach them how to question, verify, analyse and interpret it. A student who can write the correct answer in an examination may be academically successful. But a student who knows how to ask the right question is better prepared for life. The classroom of the future must therefore produce not merely informed students, but thinking citizens. They must learn that forwarding a message is also a form of responsibility. Sharing a post is not an innocent act when it can affect someone's reputation, create public fear or influence social behaviour. The challenge becomes even greater in the age of Artificial Intelligence. AI can generate information, images, audio and video with extraordinary speed and sophistication. The distinction between what is real and what merely appears real may become increasingly difficult. In such a world, human judgment becomes more valuable, not less. Technology can produce an answer in seconds. It cannot automatically tell us whether that answer deserves our trust. Some answers require experience. Some require context. Many require the ability to think independently. We have more information, more technology and more connectivity than any previous generation. Yet our real challenge is to preserve something technology cannot manufacture for us: the capacity to think for ourselves. The ocean of information will only become larger. The question will no longer be, “How much information do we have?” The more important questions will be: What should we accept? What should we question? What should we verify? And what should we reject? No technology can completely answer these questions for us. No number of likes can substitute for evidence. No viral trend can replace judgment. No majority can turn misinformation into truth. That responsibility belongs to human beings. Information can tell us what happened. Discernment helps us understand what it means, why it happened, what may be missing from the story and how we should respond. Perhaps, therefore, the greatest educational challenge of our time is not to teach people how to find more information. They already know how to do that. The greater challenge is to teach them how to pause-to pause before believing, to pause before reacting, to pause before forwarding and to pause before joining the crowd. Because sometimes the most intelligent response to information is not an immediate reaction, but a moment of reflection. The ocean is already around us. It is growing deeper every day. What we need now is not more information to swim through it-but the wisdom to know which direction to take. (The writer is the Principal of Podar International School, Ausa, Latur. Views personal.)

Mad Over Modular

Writer: Rajendra Joshi
Rajendra Joshi
Mar 14
3 min read

Kolhapur: Infection control has become central to modern hospital design. The concept of modular infrastructure, encompassing modular operation theatres (OTs) and modular intensive care units (ICUs), has gained considerable traction for its ability to minimise hospital-acquired infections and improve clinical outcomes. By ensuring sterile air circulation, sealed interiors, and contamination-resistant surfaces, these systems are designed to shield patients from secondary infections and enable faster recovery. Given their widespread adoption in private hospitals, the decision to replicate such facilities in government medical colleges is, in principle, welcome.


The question that has triggered unease within sections of the medical fraternity, however, is not about necessity but about cost. And, increasingly, about clinical rationale.


Modular Mayhem

Over the past year, Maharashtra's Medical Education Department has aggressively sanctioned modular facilities at Rajarshi Shahu Government Medical College and Chhatrapati Pramilaraje (CPR) Government Hospital in Kolhapur. Between October 2023 and July 2024, seven separate administrative orders were issued, cumulatively approving Rs 126.12 crore for 21 modular facilities across departments. Work orders have reportedly been issued and several projects inaugurated.


The approvals include seven modular OTs for the Surgery Department at Rs 1.98 crore per unit; a single modular OT for Cardiac Surgery at Rs 51.27 crore; a modular ICU with equipment for Medicine at Rs 26.50 crore; a Trauma ICU at Rs 11.20 crore; a Respiratory Care ICU at Rs 7.20 crore; a paediatric NICU at Rs 15.43 crore; a Burn Care Complex at Rs 14.29 crore; a Nephrology Dialysis ICU at Rs 25.88 crore; and a modular physiotherapy laboratory at Rs 13.69 crore. The total number of units ordered was 21, and a total amount of Rs 126.12 crore was sanctioned.


Surgeons and physicians who are expected to use these facilities privately admit that the sanctioned amounts appear significantly higher than prevailing market benchmarks.


Comparisons with reputed private hospitals, including a recently commissioned super-speciality hospital in Kolhapur, suggest that modular OTs there were developed at approximately Rs 30–50 lakh per theatre, while modular ICUs typically ranged around Rs 1 crore, depending on specifications.


At CPR, the per-theatre cost in certain cases approaches Rs 2 crore, and in some approvals, even higher. In certain approvals exceeding Rs 20 crore, documentation reportedly does not clearly delineate item-wise cost components, raising further questions about financial transparency.


Market logic would ordinarily suggest that large-volume government projects attract cost efficiencies through negotiation leverage. That the sanctioned amounts are, in some cases, reportedly double or triple private-sector benchmarks has, understandably, raised eyebrows.


Nowhere is this scrutiny sharper than in the case of the physiotherapy laboratory. On 9 July 2024, the Medical Education Department issued an administrative order (Machinery-2024/PR.430/Pr.Sha-1) sanctioning Rs 13.69 crore for establishing a modular physiotherapy lab at CPR. Modular OTs and ICUs emerged from advances in infection control, particularly for patients with compromised immunity, where controlled airflow and sterile environments are medically justified.


But physiotherapy departments typically cater to patients undergoing rehabilitation for orthopaedic or musculoskeletal conditions. These are individuals who are otherwise stable and not immunocompromised. Whether a fully modular setup is clinically essential for such services, or an overextension of a concept designed for high-risk zones, is a question now being raised not only by citizens but by administrators of large private hospitals in Kolhapur itself.


A closer look at comparable institutions in the city, including four private hospitals with capacities exceeding 300 beds, suggests that fully equipped physiotherapy departments have been established at costs well below Rs 1 crore. Even voluntary organisations such as the Rotary Club, which have invested consistently in modern physiotherapy services over decades, have reportedly not incurred expenditure anywhere near the sanctioned figure.


'Excessive' Risk

Faculty members within the institution have privately described the broader trend as excessive, warning that indiscriminate “modularisation” risks turning into a contractor-driven exercise rather than a patient-centric reform. Public funds, not private capital, are at stake, and that demands stricter scrutiny. Without detailed cost audits and public disclosure of tender comparisons, suspicions are unlikely to abate.


For Kolhapur's citizens, and for taxpayers across Maharashtra, the issue is straightforward: public money must deliver public value. Modernisation, if not matched by accountability, risks blurring the line between legitimate upgrade and avoidable expenditure.

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