Using Social Media Analytics and Machine Learning Approaches to Analyze the Behavioral Response of Agriculture Stakeholders during the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19, over time, has spread around multiple countries and has affected a large number of humans. It has influenced diverse people's lives, consisting of social, behavioral, physical, mental, and economic aspects. In this study, we aim to analyze one such social impact: the behavioral aspects of agriculture stakeholders during the pandemic period in the Indian region. For this purpose, we have gathered agriculture-related tweets from Twitter in three phases: (a) initial phase, (b) mid-phase, and (c) later phase, where these phases are related to the period of complete lockdown implemented in India in the year 2020. Afterward, we applied machine-learning-based qualitative-content-based methods to analyze the sentiments, emotions, and views of these people. The outcomes depicted the presence of highly negative emotions in the initial phase of the lockdown, which signifies fear of insecurity among the agriculture stakeholders. However, a decline in unhappiness was noted during the later phase of the lockdown. Furthermore, these outcomes will help policymakers to obtain insights into the behavioral responses of agricultural stakeholders. They can initiate primitive and preventive actions accordingly, to tackle such issues in the future.

Indian government E-learning initiatives in response to COVID-19 crisis: A case study on online learning in Indian higher education system.

Recently, the whole world has faced the deadliest and dangerous consequences due to the transmission of infectious novel coronavirus (nCov). With the outbreak of COVID-19, the education learners, practitioners, and other stakeholders were at the sake of a loss, as it causes the suspension of physical classes and physical interaction of the learners. In these circumstances, Electronic learning (E-learning), Online learning, and the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools came in handy. It helped the learners in the dissemination of ideas, conducting online classes, making online discussion forums, and taking online examinations. Like the government of each country, the Indian government was also caught off-guard but the existing E-learning infrastructure was able to leverage on while devising plans to tailor them to new situations and launching new ones. The initiatives at the forefront of this noble battle launched by the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) includes Diksha, Swayam Prabha Channel, Shiksha Van, E-Pathshala, and National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER). It worth noting that apart from the Indian central government efforts, each state has various online education initiatives that are tailored to their needs. This research evaluated each of these initiatives commenced by central and state governments and present a detailed analysis of most of the relevant initiatives. Additionally, a survey is conducted to get insights of learners in concern to online learning. Despite the issues raised in this learning, the outcomes come to be satisfactorily favoring online learning.