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Riddhi Dayal

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DU Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Dinesh Singh recently announced a foreign trip for a 100 disabled students. This was done on the closing ceremony of Badhte Kadam, a campaign to raise awareness about disability. In addition to this, it was announced that all disabled students studying in DU would receive laptops by the end of December.

With regard to the recently announced foreign trip, officials feel that it would enable students to observe the facilities available in foreign universities and then enable them to give suggestions for development of infrastructure in DU itself.

The details are being worked out by Mr. Bipin Towari, officer on special duty of Equal Opportunity Cell and will be revealed soon.

In the recent past, many other reforms had also been announced by DU, with regard to differently – abled students. These include exemption of tuition and hostel fee, reduction in mess charges and an increase in number of seats in university hostels. DU had also asked Delhi Metro Rail Corportion to provide these students free metro cards with centralized recharging.

DU also plans to keep a tight reign over all colleges so as to ensure that rules are being followed, which were being violated by a few colleges. DU students with disabilities had also visited the Wagah border and stayed at Army camps as part of Gyananodyaya, an educational train journey, in October.

These decisions have been hailed as steps in the right direction, in order to promote unity and harmony in the University and thus allow for more a more inclusive environment.

Delhi University has decided to revoke its decision regarding the issue of students being asked to write their personal details on answer sheets. The decision to include this information had come under fire from both students and teachers. It was finally cancelled following protests by the student community and the threat of an agitation by DUSU.

Authorities admitted that a committee of college principals and officials met on the 29th of October to discuss the issue. Following negative reactions of students, it was agreed to go back to the earlier system wherein only an identification code would be visible on the answer booklet.

Teachers also cheered the annulment, feeling that with the earlier decision, there was scope for discrimination. Said Dr. Rekha Dayal, associate professor, Jesus and Mary College, “I’m very happy that the earlier decision’s been revoked. It would have definitely caused unwanted subjectivity otherwise. “

With this semester, DU has also decided on other reforms with respect to exams. This time, instead of one, three teachers would be evaluating different parts of one single answer sheet. DU feels this would lessen the burden of administrative department as there would be less scope for mistakes. In the earlier system, one teacher checked the answer sheet and two others rechecked it. Due to this reform, rechecking will also be scrapped as authorities feel there would be no mistakes.

With these reforms, DU seeks to redeem itself and at least seem more efficient.

In a bid to cut down the time involved in issuing admit cards, Delhi University has decided to allow individual colleges to generate them directly. Through this, they seek to replace the long and often arduous process of issuing admit cards manually though the university.

To bring about this reform, a committee of several colleges has been formed. It includes members of Hindu college, BR Ambedkar College, ARSD and IP College, among others. Through this new system, colleges will have to create a database of their students, along with details from the time of admission till the time of the exams. This information will then be uploaded to the websites of the respective colleges. Thus, the admit cards will be generated from the college’s data base.

As of now, the practice of filling the admission form and the examination form has been in operation. However, this system considered flawed, as the forms contain similar information, except for some added information in the examination form, made the process repetitive. With the introduction of the new system, unnecessary paperwork is being targeted and should ideally be beneficial. Moreover, with the colleges being given the authority to issue admit cards, the long wait for the university to issue them will also be eliminated.

Said Radhika Wadhwa, second year student of Venky, “It will of course make our task easier as we won’t have to submit the same information over and over again and we’ll hopefully then be getting the admit cards earlier than before, because it’s difficult to collect them just a day or two before the exams.”

This new system will be in effect from the coming semester exams, which start in the month of November this year and colleges have already been issued a directive for the same.

Image Credits: Additi Seth

A movie screening is being hosted by The Department of Social Work, Delhi University on Saturday, the 20th of October, at 2 pm. The venue for the film screening is the Auditorium, Department of Social Work, Delhi University. A documentary called ‘Pink Ribbons Inc’ will be showcased. This movie emphasizes on the devastating reality of breast cancer which labeled by marketing experts as a ‘dream cause,’ has become obfuscated by a shiny, pink story of success. This movie is a 2011 National Film Board of Canada documentary, directed by Lea Pool. It seeks to highlight the reality that companies often use Breast Cancer as a means of increasing sales or improving their public image, even while producing and marketing carcinogenic products. The film argues that not enough money is being invested into cancer research and prevention. It features, amongst others, an interview of Charlotte Haley, who had started a peach-ribbon campaign more than 20 years ago, in order to fight for an increase in budget of Cancer research. She turned down an offer from cosmetics giant Estee Lauder, who wanted to use her ribbons in an awareness campaign, and so company decided to simply change the colour of the ribbons to pink and go through with the event anyway. Rathi R, General Secretary, Students’ Union Department of Social Work says, “As you know, October is the Breast Cancer Awareness Month and seeing as this movie focuses on how capitalism has taken over a social cause like Breast Cancer awareness we thought it would be perfect for the event. Companies often claim that money raised will go towards conducting research and spreading awareness about Breast Cancer, but all the money doesn’t go towards the cause and ‘Pink Ribbons, Inc’ goes behind the scenes to show the reality. The purpose of screening this movie is that most people are not aware about the disease and the Pink Ribbon has now come to symbolize something beautiful and feminine. But it’s not beautiful and not feminine, there are a lot of problems that women go through and we wish to highlight the same.’ The movie is therefore a must watch, as it attempts to spread awareness and sensitize people about the problems associated with Breast Cancer. Such an enterprise by the Department of Social Work is lauded and appreciated.  ]]>

Blisspoint, the Annual Economics Festival of Sri Venkateswara College is back with a bang. The 20th edition of the event is all set to be bigger and better than before. Serving under the theme of “Sustaining India’s Growth amidst the Global Crisis,” there will be focus on the imperatives of social development and broad-based growth.

Prominent names like Dr. Pronab Sen (Principal Adviser, Planning Commission) and Prof. Rohini Somanathan (Professor at the Delhi School of Economics) will serve as Chief Guest and Guest of Honour respectively. With panel discussions by alumni and introduction of new competitions, one can anticipate a stellar experience on the cards. Events like Animal Spirits (Mock Stock), B-Plan, Be an Economist, Group Discussion, Siddharth Memorial Debate, Treasure Hunt (comprising two rounds; the first of which will focus on logical reasoning), Quiz (general, not economic) and Filler Events (including photography contests and Sudoku among others) will be making a comeback, while Sell the Sizzle not the Steak (essentially focusing on the product’s USP and not the product itself) and Marshal’s Dojo (Paper Presentation) will test the waters for the first time. BlissMUN which in its third year has managed to make a mark and be known as one of DU’s best MUNs will prove to be one of the most popular events of the festival.

Registrations for all the competitions are open and anyone wanting to participate can simply log on to the website or check out the facebook page.

Shevangee Gupta, vice president of the Economics Society said, “This edition is going to be absolutely fantastic and we invite all to participate and make it a success. We guarantee that it will be a huge amount of fun.”

So, mark your calendars for 27th and 28th of September for Blisspoint 2012 will truly be spectacular.