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Quizzing fanatic? Have the lust for knowledge? Then DU is the right place to be in folks!
With a decent number of colleges in the University into substantial and serious quizzing, competion here is fairly cut throat. Oxymoron eh?
A few noteworthy quiz clubs in the University are Quiz Club of St Stephen’s College, Illuminati of Hans Raj College, the Quiz Club of Lady Shri Ram College, Jigyasa of Miranda House, and Manthan of Hindu College and so on. Quiz societies such as these focus on quizzes at the university level, as also the inter university level. The quizzing scene in DU is vibrant in its own ways, to say the least, and more so during the festival season. Every academic session, the various quiz societies hold mock written quizzes to recruit the talented and intelligent. The best are inducted and initially trained at professional quizzing, and later on sent as representatives of their respective colleges. Very often, it’s a routine feature to be just venturing out to actually see how quizzing is conducted in the university. This is considered one of the best ways to learn.
Festivals are big in DU and quizzing is very much an active part of them. The annual fest of St Stephen’s College is called Quizzotica, which holds inter departmental, freshers’ quiz and the Stephen’s quiz during Harmony, their college fest. LSR has wall quizzes every week, as well as online quizzes put up on the college website every fortnight. Their inter college quiz Quirosity is a major hit in the quizzing circuit. Meanwhile Hans Raj’s society has Ipso Facto the general quiz and Izklaide, the entertainment quiz. A lot of other colleges like Hindu and Ramjas have their own brilliant teams and so the inter college competitions are a treat to watch, if not participate!
Want to be part of the college intelligentsia? Join your quiz soc now!
Hard Rock Café. I could club the three words into one: “AWESOME”.
I have had the pleasure of visiting HRC Mumbai and Pune and was always impressed by the vastness, décor and sheer class of the phenomenon known as HRC Mumbai. Even Pune managed to impress me with its beautiful location and great style. Amazing drinks, delectable snacks and the best service in the business meant that one did not mind the gaping hole in one’s pocket at the end of the night. However this previously unblemished image of HRC changed Memorabilia and garish RED lighting made it seem more like a discothèque than HRC. Suddenly the drinks at 350-450 a glass come across as exorbitant, my Long Island Iced Tea was I suspect only Benadryll cough syrup mixed with coke, the Mojito tasted Virgin, the Burger –HRC’s Signature dish- was absolutely unpalatable! I like to believe that HRC Mumbai can accommodate the entire Mumbai and still make the band fully visible from every nook and cranny, unlike Delhi where the main section of seating is in a corner from where the stage is not even visible. As for the service- intrusive, irritating, and unaccommodating are probably words that best describe it. Bombay team’s Wasim and Tariq need to impart better training at Delhi. The high point of HRC Delhi was the panels engraved with various Band names in the washroom. All in all HRC Delhi left me disappointed and it ruined the overall impression I had of the brand
I shall attempt to make an express trip to Mumbai HRC in order to make my HRC memories “AWESOME” again.
-Aditi Malhotra
“I think it’s a great place. I like the ambience and the crowd, and the food is decently priced. A must try.”- Shweta Jain
“The music is the best best part. It is the only place where I enjoy jiving!”- Titiksha Fernandes
“It really isn’t what I expected. The music is too loud to have a normal conversation which isn’t true of Hard Rock Café’s abroad”- Mehvash Arslan
With most of the society auditions over this week, we bet you have already been inducted in some or the other society in your college. I’m sure you feel proud when you announce that you got through the Dram Soc or the Chereo Soc or the Western Music Soc or Shakesoc for that matter. Well, here we do not plan to go on about how good and happening all these well-established societies are. However, what we are definitely looking at is the availability of other lesser known sports and activities in most of the DU colleges. So, here goes:
Hansraj College: Has a well equipped electronic shooting range even though not many shooters are there in the college. Also, one can get admission in a premium college like Hansraj by the archery quota. Besides, the Economics Department has a Yearbook committee of which students can be a part of.
Lady Shri Ram College for Women: The LSR NSO boasts of quite a few unusual sports such as Judo, Archery and Shooting. However the most curious one would be Equestrian sports. The catch with it is that for this sport one is expected to get one’s own horse and practice on one’s own premises. The college has one of the few elocution societies in DU. The extraordinarily high number of journals taken out by departments or the college itself is also a unique aspect of LSR.
Jesus and Mary College: Another surprising and rather welcoming change from the conventional Cricket, Basketball and Tennis is the BASEBALL team in JMC. It certainly has a whole lot of participation from the students. Well, all we can say is, Why should boys have all the fun?
St. Stephen’s College: A few of the lesser known societies are Cine Club (members of which critically analyse educational films and documentaries), Bazam-e-Adab (which explores various genres of Urdu Literature and organizes Shayari sessions for students), Wodehouse Society, Gandhi Study Circle, Bengali Literary Society and Kooler Talk which was recently mentioned by Shashi Tharoor in his article.
Hindu College: The fact that DU students lead in new trends and dressing sense is exemplified by the Fashion Society in Hindu. Seems like this society is pretty popular and witnesses good amount of participation from the youngsters.
Miranda House: Talking about unconventional sports and activities, in Miranda we come across unconventional names of various clubs. The Consumer Club of Miranda is called Pula and the Environment Club is called M.H. Vatavaran.
Indraprastha College for Women: Also has archery as a sport.
Looks like Delhi University is no where behind other universities in giving tremendous opportunities to the students who have unconventional and refreshing tastes.
5. Let the shopaholic in you take control. Waltz into random malls and buy everything you see!
4. Remember the nasty shopkeeper who refused to bargain when you were broke? Stomp right past his shop and buy two of whatever it was you wanted from the shop beside it.
3. Take out your loaded wallet every time a hot girl/guy walks by and loudly say “If only I had a girl/boyfriend to splurge all this money on…”
2. Convert all the money into chillar, fill your bath tub with them and have a money-bath like that demented duck in some cartoon show
1. If you still have money left, spare some thought for your kind brother who made this all possible. Buy him the weirdest and most useless thing you can find!
Directed by: Imtiaz Ali Starring: Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Rishi Kapoor, Rahul Khanna Music by: Pritam I am rather confused as to whether I should recommend Love Aaj Kal to people or not. It’s not as if I don’t know how I feel about the movie, I just feel that this particular film is likely to produce rather different reactions in different people. Imtiaz Ali is an interesting director who has earlier provided us with the well directed Socha Na Tha and more recently the very entertaining and highly acclaimed film Jab We Met. However for me Love Aaj kal fails simply because it tries too hard. Perhaps the film crew too should have taken the leading lady’s advice in the movie where she advocates looking cool precisely by not trying too hard. The movie begins with the lead couple breaking up, which is quite the departure from Bollywood tradition. Jai (Saif Ali Khan) and Meera (Deepika Padukone) throw a break- up party prior to her moving to India for her work dealing with art restoration. All is peachy and light when suddenly an emotional Sardarji insists that Jai is committing the biggest mistake of his life by letting Meera go to India. Enter Veer Singh’s (Rishi Kapoor) own love story which runs parallel to the Saif- Deepika saga giving cues at every love realization junction. The parallel track is a sepia version of Calcutta which is infinitely more fascinating and charming than the done to death locales of London. A Sikh Saif Ali Khan plays the role of young Veer Singh, which is rather interesting as Veer points out that Jai reminded him of himself in his youth. We see an innocent (but not much else) love story where boy paddles behind girl in a rickshaw, travels a thousand miles to see her and stands below her balcony hoping to catch a glimpse. The two stories unfold side by side keeping the movie from turning utterly insipid. What begins as a decidedly different movie soon turns into an age old offering of bottled romance peppered with humour. The most bothersome aspect of the movie is the dialogue delivery which is in such a mish mash of English and Hindi that the viewer finds it difficult to relate. Deepika Padukone is hilarious in the most dramatic moments of the movie- “Galti ho gayi” while her accent is just plain annoying. Saif Ali Khan acts well as the gabru jawan Veer Singh, but his horrendous command over Punjabi makes his character a little comical. The actress portraying the love interest of Veer Singh, Harleen Kaur, seems to be only capable of one wide eyed expression throughout the movie, giving her a perpetually surprised look. Rishi Kapoor is adorable as ever though he seriously needs a change of track in his recent character repertoire. Rahul Khanna has the most unfair cut of all; his character had a lot more potential and he could certainly be given more screen time than the Swiss Joe that is seen hanging off Saif’s arm. The songs are immensely enjoyable but their timing is haphazard. This movie is a long roll of potential good moments. Rating: 2/5]]>
-Kriti Budhiraja
In his first innings as a politician, Dr Manmohan Singh liberated our economy. In his second, as prime minister, he brought about a paradigm shift in … our foreign policy… Our guess, and wish, is that he now does to our higher education what he did to our economy and foreign policy in 1991 and 2008, respectively.
– Shekhar Gupta
Indeed, the signals being sent out by Kapil Sibal, however vague, make an unmistakable case for the extension of neoliberalism into the sphere of higher education. In this vein, the HRD Ministry has proposed alternatives that would allow for greater ‘freedom’ and ‘autonomy’.
However, much like the economic reforms of 1991 and the paradigm shift in foreign policy reaffirmed by the nuclear deal, such promises aren’t exactly benevolent commitments to freedom. Instead, as Kavita Krishnan points out, phrases such as ‘autonomy’ and ‘freedom’ are essentially neoliberal euphemisms for freeing the state from its responsibility to provide for higher education, which is now proposed to be tied to the diktats of the market.
While it may be too soon to be sure of its specific consequences, it wouldn’t be ill-founded to fear that market forces are proposed to have an upper-hand in deciding syllabi and funding research, which could lead to the systematic marginalization of the social sciences. Further, if education turns into a money-making enterprise, it may become highly inaccessible to a large number of people. Moreover, lack of government interference in the selection process of faculty and students could possibly mean an attempt to thwart the reservation policy, which is of absolute importance given our sociological context.
Indeed, the need of the hour is to do a serious re-assessment of the situation of education in India, while keeping in mind the specificities of our context. While change is certainly imperative, quick-fix infiltration of private capital is not the most promising solution. Instead, it would be useful for us to consider problems relating to access to education, quality and content, the domination of English as the academic language, etc in a more nuanced and sensitive manner.
At this juncture, it is upon the students and teachers’ movements to make sure that the future of education is not jeopardized by crass attempts at commercialization, even as the neoliberal discourse is attractively pitched along the lines of freedom and diversity.
Devika Dutt
One morning, as soon as I opened my newspaper, I was overwhelmed by the barrage of various, seemingly unrelated advertisements of diamond jewellery, mobile phones, ipods, cards, chocolates etc. A closer examination revealed a common link; all of them suggested “special gifts” for sisters on Raksha Bandhan. I immediately sprung into action. One look at the “special gifts” served as the impetus I needed to expedite the Rakhee mailing process, which I had otherwise completely forgotten. God bless the Festival industry!
As is evident nowadays, most festivals have been completely commercialized. Love or hate the fact, you certainly cannot ignore it. It makes perfect business sense as well. We Indians like to celebrate almost everything, from birthdays of a few hundred gods to familial ties, from homecoming from exile to the evil hag dying in the fire instead of the innocent hero. All these celebrations generally entail huge amounts of expenditure on gifts and other rituals. So it was only a matter of time before entrepreneurs saw a promising new market in Indian celebrations. And they have capitalized, in every sense of the word, on our tendency to celebrate. Take raksha bandhan for example. Apart from the gifts mentioned above, other bizarre things like gold rakhis also take over the market before raksha bandhan.
Firms have also capitalized on the fact that convenience sells. So there are also several quick ways of sending gifts all over the world. So, while about a decade ago, brothers had to go visit sisters on rakhi to celebrate raksha bandhan, now a click of the mouse or the dialing of a number can do it. Various services give consumers the choice of sending gifts, both conventional and off- beat, anywhere in the world. Gifts include traditional puja thalis, candles on diwali, traditional mithai, flowers, electronic gadgets and packages like spa treatments. This has obviously worked as people find it difficult to visit other cities on every festival.
Certain capitalist enterprises have also single handedly introduced non- religious, international observances like Mothers’ Day and have completely established those times of the year as good times for business. This way, they have capitalized on the globalized Indian, who wouldn’t mind adopting a more western holiday. As most of these holidays are dedicated to a person, it gives us an extra opportunity of telling how much that person means to us. Who would mind telling their father that he is special and loved on Fathers’ Day. Of course it isn’t just restricted to telling him that. They can be accompanied by all kind of presents- wacky, thoughtful, self made, expensive, useful- but all of them are likely to fill the coffers of the people who in a way brought these holidays to India. And the most amazing part is that internationally, Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day, Friendship Day, Daughters’ Day etc have no particular date associated with it. So it is, in a way, decided by gift shops as to when these days are. Like Mothers’ Day is celebrated in India on the second Sunday of May, it is celebrated in Norway in February, in April in Nepal and so on.
So gift shop chains have completely established themselves, spread their tentacles all over the country and gripped India tightly so as to earn maximum revenue by capitalizing on human emotions. After all, it’s just good business!
The Delhi Metro can be called the throbbing pulse of the city. I shudder to think what will happen if it comes to a halt one day without preamble. Delhi Metro, even after so many years, seems like a larger than life phenomenon. The fact that it is the first metro in India and that it has surpassed all expectations makes it a wonder in itself. The present generation has gotten so used to its benefits that they would have trouble ever remembering Delhi without the Metro.
The recent hullabaloo concerning the rising number of accidents relating to DMRC made me wonder if we weren’t being a tad unfair. After all, the accident rate of DMRC is still considerably low compared to international standards. Singapore has 1.1 accidents per million man-hours, London Underground has 0.32 accidents and Delhi Metro Phase-II has 0.4 accidents. This is what DMRC Director E. Sreedharan claims. What are a few people dead here and a few there when the greater good is at stake? Well this, precisely, is what is wrong with it.
E. Sreedharan has given us an engineering marvel. The Metro gives the Mango Man convenience and comfort. Enough accolades can not be given to DMRC for making life easier in these tumultuous times. So, when there is so much right with the Metro, with the Chief, then why must it suffer from these petty flaws? There is nothing major wrong with the construction and planning. The 18 cracks that have been found in the bridges are not serious in nature according to DMRC reports. Shirish Patel and Associates have now been mandated to recheck the design of all the 18 points in detail, apart from an overall checking of Phase-II structures.
I think the DMRC needs to puff out their chests and get a spring in their step. They’d do well to pick up their tools, set the faults right and reassure the public that their favourite transport is still very much safe. Other than this, the Metro stations lack basic amenities like public toilets and drinking water. These are the small things which are impeding the Metro from becoming a world class transport system and giving the public first class satisfaction.
Radhika Marwah
With the results having been declared a week ago, students across the university are now aiming to migrate to better colleges. However, migration can be tricky if you don’t know exactly how to go about it. DU Beat gives you a lowdown on the process.
1. Aspirants seeking migration to another college are first required to check the criteria of the college they wish to apply to, the information regarding which is available with the respective Head of Department of that college.
2. If the criteria are fulfilled, the candidate needs to submit the following documents to the Section Officer (Administration) or the Head of Department:-
o an Application for migration
o a copy of the Statement of Marks of passing First Year Under-Graduate Examination
o a ‘No Objection Certificate’ from the former college
3) The candidate will then be granted a No Objection Certificate from the college to submit to the former college to obtain Transfer Certificate, after which admission to the new college can be applied for.
4. The following documents/ certificates ( original and attested copies) are to be submitted to the Section Officer at the time of admission/ migration into the college-
* Statement of marks of first year undergraduate course
* College leaving certificate
* No objection certificate from parent college ( if not already submitted)
* Class X Board Examination certificate and mark sheet
* Class XII mark sheet and provisional certificate.
* Hindi passing certificate ( VIII/ X/ XII class)
* SC/ ST/ OBC certificate in the name of the candidate, only issued by the designated authority/ declaration/ undertaking by the OBC candidates ( for OBC candidates only)
* 3 non- attested passport size photographs
MINIMUM ELIGIBILITY CONDITIONS:-
1. Candidates seeking migration into II Year Programme Courses are required to have passed I Year Under-Graduate Examination with the required percentage as per the college’s criteria.
2. Should have passed Main Papers, Subsidiary Subjects/Concurrent Courses and Qualifying Subjects.
3. Candidates are required to submit a copy of Provisional Certificate/ Statement of Marks of passing Class XII Examination. The Candidate must have passed 12th class examination in five subjects.
NOTE:-
Candidates, whose result has not been declared so far, can submit the Application within a week after the declaration of their results. The same should be confirmed from the administration of the college of preference as well.