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Juxtapose

Should Cricket be Included in the Olympics?

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Graphic Credits :- Sahil Jain
Cricket is one of the most popular sports in the world. Here in India though, it is more than just a sport. Mass murders might bring us to India Gate with candles, but nothing can quite imitate the call to arms that a poor performance by the Indian cricket team generates.

Its popularity notwithstanding, cricket has always got a royal snub from the Olympics. With the game increasing in scope and revenue, is it finally time that the IOC accepted cricket as an Olympic sport? Or is the notion just an overoptimistic fantasy of a cricket obsessed nation?

This weeks topic for juxtapose questions whether cricket ticks all the right boxes as far as an Olympian sport is concerned. Should cricket be added to the Olympics?
Scroll down to leave your argument!
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Juxtapose

Joker V/S Bane

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Joker V/S Bane

Graphic Credits :- Sahil Jain

One has a smile chiseled on his face while the other has a ghastly mask covering most of his. One believes in chaos while the other craves extreme order. One enjoys weaving stories about his origins while the other was born in hell on Earth, no kidding. One challenged the philosophy of the Dark Knight while the other physically dissected him.

But who infests your darkest dreams? Who sends shivers down your spine? Who would you as the caped crusader least want to face up to? On the left corner we have Joker, unpredictable, manipulative and absolutely crazy. On your right stands Bane bullish, powerful, and uncompromising to a fault.

Who is the best adversary for the Batman?
Scroll down and leave your arguments in the comments box.

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News

V.C Debate

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The Second Annual Vinod Chowdhury Debate, organized by the Economics Society, was held on the 3rd and 4th of September at St. Stephens College.

The close-ended motion for the Preliminary Debate was: ‘This house believes that economics makes rational fools of men’. There were 26 speakers from various colleges including SRCC, Hansraj, LSR, Miranda House, Kirori Mal and DSE.

The motion for the Final competition was: “This house believes that small things are beautiful”, this topic to be engaged with only in relation to Economics. The judges were Ms. Das and Ms. Somnathan, both Professors at Delhi School of Economics.

Results:

1st: Vishwajoy of Ramjas College, who spoke for lower taxes on cigarettes

2nd: Gagandeep, from DSE

3rd: Prithvi and Anwesha of St. Stephen’s College

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DUTA Demands Democracy

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Formalise opposition to the semester system

In a general body meeting held last Tuesday, the Delhi University Teachers’ Association formally announced their opposition to the semester system. The Teachers body has reached a unanimous decision and expressed dissatisfaction at not only the consequences this system would have on the education system of the country but also the undemocratic way in which it is being implemented. Besides, the vice chancellor’s open addressal, very little communication has been made to the teachers regarding this issue. The irony of the matter is that within a month of introducing the system, Professor Pental’s tenure as the vice chancellor of the university shall terminate, leaving his successor with the onus of implementing the system and tackling the numerous problems that DUTA feels are sure to arise out of it.

Says DUTA Secretary ,DR. Dinesh Adlakha, on the outcome of Tuesday’s meeting. “We shall hold dharnas at the colleges and also a massive dharna at the VC’s office. Also we would take help of our students in opposing this change as this is going to affect them the most. We seek to make the civil society at large aware of the problems of the student with the proposed change.

Let me make it very clear that the teachers’ workload or their vacations will not be affected at all by this change to the semester system. Our vacations also are not going to be affected in any way. So the fight is not for the vacations but the inherent problems of the semester system in big universities like Delhi where the number of students is so large that the system cannot work at all. This internal assessment system at colleges is an example to strengthen our argument.

This attempt of the UGC to have a uniform calendar in the central universities all over the country otherwise also is a retrograde step as the weather and climatic conditions in this country are extreme in different parts of the country. Such a step is going to be counter productive.”

Considering the urgency of the matter, it is projected that the dharnas would commence in the month of August itself.  Being proposed on the recommendations of the knowledge commission , students and teachers alike have expressed skepticism at the system’s supposed success in homogenizing  education within Delhi university .This theory is however debunked if one considers the UGC and the NKC ‘s  recommendation of accreditation of colleges.

A comprehensive but detailed critique, countering the Vice Chancellor’s reasons for implementing this semester system has been made available by the association. Turn to page three for a synopsis of this report.

In an unprecedented move the Vice-Chancellor is attempting to introduce a major systemic change through the semester system at the under-graduate level without even so much as a committee of the University of Delhi having deliberated upon the issue. Obviously, he has precluded any scope of open debate on the subject. It is an issue with far reaching implications for the entire university system involving evaluation system, course structures and their contents, pedagogy, and the academic calendar including vacations. It is remarkable that the proposed change is being attempted to be introduced without even a semblance of framework for it. The proposal has come from outside the university in the context of globalization of higher education and the Vice-Chancellor is facilitating its mindless application. He has taken an arbitrary decision to implement it from 2010. It is meant to integrate the University of Delhi within the global market economy.

(opening statement of DUTA’s report on the semester system)

Semester system: An overview

Evaluation System and its implications

The switch over to the semester system would necessitate two set of examinations being conducted in the year, one in November -December , the other in April. If the examination were to be conducted by the university, it would be totally chaotic given the university’s inability to declare results even of a single annual examination on time; results are never ready before the reopening of the university after the summer break.

If the examination is to be conducted by the colleges themselves, the system would be replete with dangerous consequences for the evaluation system and the consequent gradation of colleges. It would undermine uniformity in the evaluation system and thereby introduce variation in the value of degrees so obtained by students. Inherent within the college evaluation system is the gradual gradation of colleges into a multi-tier system, which has been the agenda of privatization of higher education for more than two decades. The teachers’ movement has been consistently resisting this move.

Furthermore, the system of house examinations would have to go, thus students lose out on practice and feedback that they get out of the existing internal system.

Implications for Courses of Study

If the semester system were to be applied to the existing course structures, they would have to be artificially bifurcated into two halves, which is neither viable nor desirable. Contradictory to the idea being floated by the V.C, the exam load per session would hardly reduce, either for students or for the teaching faculty. To finish the 100 mark papers of 5 units per semester  the frequency of lectures conducted will have to be  doubled as well.

Many professors feel that this would adversely impact learning / teaching processes besides creating serious pedagogical problems. It would make it extremely difficult to impart/study fundamentals of any subject under the system of double examination pressure. It would also undermine the entire teaching system at the undergraduate level.

If new course structures and content are to be devised in a meaningful manner, a gigantic effort involving hundreds of courses of study and dozens of disciplines would be required.

Semester System and Interdisciplinary Approach

The Vice-Chancellor’s statement that the semester system would encourage interdisciplinary studies is to substitute the evaluation system for the course structures and their content. Interdisciplinary approach does not follow as a necessary corollary of the semester system. Nor are interdisciplinary and annual examinations necessarily mutually exclusive. Interdisciplinarity depends upon content of courses and their structures. If required it can easily be provided under  the existing annual exam system.

Also as Mrs. Harriet Raghunathan , an English  professor, at Jesus and Mary college points out in her detailed analysis of the semester system, BA students have plenty of interdisciplinarity in their 5 new concurrent courses or their B.A. programme foundation and application courses all of which run for a full year.

For whom is the system being made globally viable?

It has been suggested by the Vice-Chancellor that through global compatibility, the semester system would lead to free movement of students, both Indian and foreign. Such a move would enable foreign students, to avail of a semester of study at much lower costs in India while given the prohibitive cost of education abroad, it would be exceedingly difficult for Indian students to take advantage of the same. Furthermore, several European countries do not have the semester system.

It is also felt that at the behest of external agencies if the system is applied to Delhi University, it shall not be very conducive to the academic growth unlike the cited examples of the  post-graduate courses/universities or single institutes where student-teacher ratio is  higher. This would lead to gradual erosion of the existing system in the university. It would mean back door entry for autonomous colleges. It would merely facilitate the coming and functioning of foreign private universities in India, even segregating the correspondence courses from the main stream of Delhi University. There is a more pressing urgency to strengthening and optimizing existing structures before introducing any systemic changes.

(This article has been written on the basis of DUTA’s  report titled”

Critique of the Vice-Chancellor’s proposal on the Semester System” and invaluable excerpts provided by Mrs. Harriet Raghunathan, Reader, Jesus and Mary college)

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Ru ba ru on ragging

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Are a great idea

Ragging- the term initially meaning an interaction between freshers and seniors has now come to be a much dreaded word for every student, and not without reason. Some individuals, owing to their seniority, remorselessly misuse their authority for shallow pleasure, often leading the victim to suffer physically and/ or mentally. Furthermore, the lenient laws against ragging initially made it very easy for the accused to slip out of the crime with a petty penalty or none at all, thus leading to a more insecure environment for the times to come for the fresher. This reason alone held back a majority of the victims from lodging harassment cases, thus going on to show how ineffective the laws against such an abhorrent crime were and resultantly the vulnerable position which the students were forced to occupy. The population most affected by ragging was that of the outstation students, who due to the absence of guardians and familial help had become easy prey to such incidents. These factors and more made it easy for such exploitation to remain rampant.

The predicaments of ragging didn’t just end there. Such adverse incidents carried out by a senseless few eventually led to the status of seniors being questioned by the juniors and the authorities alike, thus leading to lack of communication and resultantly a lack of cooperation between the three. This has since gone on to severe the relationship between the respective parties, and none seem satisfied. Amitav Roy, a third year student of Sri Venkateswara College says, “We never had a proper interaction with our juniors last year due to the misdoings by a few people highlighted by the media which caused all seniors to be stereotyped as reprobates. Hopefully this time this myth will be broken leading to a mutual, more mature interaction between the two groups. Though the affidavits are a highly unnecessary step, if it makes the freshers feel any more secure then so be it.”

The colleges have been provided a nine page notice defining ragging and stating the newly established rules against it along with the do’s and don’ts for the freshers. According to the Union Human Resource Minister Kapil Sibal, the stringent measures against ragging this while include rustication of the student, withholding of scholarship, derecognising the institution, debarring student from appearing in any test and stopping of grant to the institution.

While the authorities seem happy with their decision, the freshers too seem to share the same sentiments. States Anant Ghughe, a freshman from Hindu College, “The ‘If we suffered, they’ll suffer too’ psyche needs to come to an end. Compromising on one’s dignity for the sake of acceptance is unjustified.” Thus strict as the new anti ragging rules are, they will finally put an end to the psychology of ragging being passed down as a right by virtue of hierarchy.

Are a disaster

The only time our country reacts to a problem we may be facing is when the problem suddenly becomes large and threatening, at which point the authorities inevitably get carried away with the solutions. This was seen during the reservations issue, when instead of offering the underprivileged equal grounds for competition they simply gave them huge advantages without the groundwork needed to support these advantages. Similarly in the case of ragging, when the Supreme Court did take action was when suicide and murder finally brought this long existing problem into the media glare, at which point in order to save face they simply announced a blanket ban on ragging without attempting to understand the situation.

The problem you see is not with the fact that ragging has been criminalized, which is perfectly justified, but that the laws doing so are so terribly sloppy, poorly thought out and ridiculous. By the extraordinarily wide definition of ragging provided in the law, anything, virtually ANYTHING can be construed as ragging. If someone is blocking the passage and you ask them to make way for you to pass, you can be booked under ragging. If you ask a fresher their name you may be seen to be ragging. Even speaking to a fresher puts you in danger of being accused of ragging. It is no wonder than that most seniors are determined to avoid the freshers like a plague, which is hardly a healthy situation to exist between co-students.

What is even more irksome is that the laws, while more than adequately protecting the ones being ragged, are absolutely deficient in shielding the ones falsely accused of ragging. The law states that it is for the accused to prove themselves innocent rather that the complainant to prove them guilty. Moreover third party complaints also hold equal weight, meaning that if any random student, senior or fresher happens to complain that you were ragging another unnamed fresher, you would still be suspended. Such extremely one sided laws are so easy to misuse it would be a huge surprise if they weren’t.

Apart from the misuse that these laws will be put to, and the lack of protection against such misuse provided to seniors, these laws combined with the affidavits to be signed will only sour the relations between freshers and seniors, a situation that can be disastrous in a learning environment. Hence though extreme cases of ragging may be avoided, the lack of interaction between the students will certainly strain the university environment, leading to a whole new problem.

The whole crisis is a result of the lack of effort in creating the laws. Instead of understanding the problem of ragging and identifying exactly which aspects of it are dangerous and how to stamp them out, the authorities decided to put together such broad laws that any and every interaction could be penalized. Instead of balancing the power equation, what they did effectively was to simply shift the power from the seniors to the freshers. Only when cases of freshers bullying seniors or a large number of seniors being unfairly expelled comes into the lime light will the authorities realize their error, at which point they shall again try to save face by coming up with more hurried and ridiculous laws with their own set of evils.

This vicious chain can only end when the law making bodies become mature enough to look before they leap, but then again that may be a far fetched dream.

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