Here is a much need reality check on how college life needs more effort, gives more competition and how we need to shed our high school persona to face all this.
NBC once used to air a sitcom called Community. Let me tell you a little something about one of its lead characters, Troy Barnes. Troy who was a high school jock but at Greendale College, hardly anyone raises a brow seeing him. It’s initially disappointing but eventually Troy finds his weird bunch of friends and enjoys his life of leading the “not so popular” student life in college.
High school is a pretty interesting phase for the students. Apart from normal humble introverts and extroverts, the highlights of every school are its star students, the trophy kissing champions, the high-ranking class toppers, the big mouthed debaters, artists, writers, quizzers and so on.
However, if the competition gets less and it hardly puts sweat on one’s brow, then one might succumb to pride and arrogance. It is quite natural. That’s what makes us human after all. Luckily after high school, if you get enrolled in an educational institution like the University of Delhi, it becomes an enlightening destination for a much-needed reality check. Be it Ramjas College or Delhi College of Arts and Commerce , Gargi College or Shri Ram College of Commerce, the colleges of the University of Delhi recruit fine students from all over the country, students who have shown mastery in academics, sports or co-curricular activities. But it takes time for freshers to understand that this mastery helped them gain entry in heir desired college but this would not help them survive in the next three years of their undergraduate course. For that, we will need to be persistent with our areas of expertise.
Many ex-head boys and head girls, school toppers, the ones that might have worn the ‘Mr’ and ‘Miss Popular’ sash in their farewell, would feel disillusioned because the world of college needs starting over. Nobody would care that much about your past achievements either because they themselves might have had better feathers on their cap or simply because they don’t care. You see, there are hardly any heroes in the college, hardly any people around whom the whole world revolves. Every student makes up the world called the University of Delhi. It is like this film set and we are all members of the supporting cast.
The school debating champion might make a face on hearing better intellectual arguments made by members of various Debating Societies. The conventional poet from secondary school might now explore more spoken word genres and different writing methods in the college literary circuit. School quizzes used to be to the point, with straight direct answers. However, in college the quizzes are more like puzzle solving questions with large paras of questions containing cryptic clues that need to be figured out to give the correct answer. Such changes apply in all fields of college life.
Therefore, it is up to us whether to continue fussing that we have lost our high school glory or whether to pick up the pieces and work on building a new glory all over again. Accepting change is a part and parcel of growing up and that is exactly what we do in a competitive artistic world like the University of Delhi. The quicker we face this reality, the better it gets. In the end, Andy Samberg’s lines from the 2016 film Popstar would best sum it up – “Sometimes, you’re up. Sometimes, you’re down. But the trick is not to lose yourself along the way.”
Whoever thought that evil eye jewellery could also be a fashion trend? Well follow these tips to ace your style game!
The evil eye glare, is a curse or a legend dating back to thousands of years back. While there are several different theories in different cultures, there is always a method to madness, when it comes to averting it or trying to avoid it.
Be it the nazar battus, or the kala tikka or the occasional cotton flame burning to ward off evil residing near us, we all at some point or the other come across this evil glare. So why not make it as trendy as possible. Whoever said that fashion is restricted to anything?
Evil eye bracelet
Image Credits – YouTube
With so many different variations in this trend, nothing ever goes wrong wearing a bracelet. You know this shield will protect you while it rains or when the sun casts the brightest rays.
The bracelets can be from your typical beaded bracelets with the evil eye pendants or the black thread, these are eye-catchers and something which goes with every outfit!
Nazar dhaaga
Amazon
While it is commonly worn by a lot of people, you can accessorize this left ankle necessity in your own way. There are so many different cultures who believe in the evil eye. So grab a real teaser and something which you love as well. You can style it in the form of an anklet or a simple kaala dhaaga (black thread), with a beautiful feng-shui pendant or a Turkish authentic battu.
Necklaces
DHgate
Be it in sterling silver or something extravagantly light, a necklace attracts attention while warding off the evil glares. You can pair up chokers with your evil eye necklace to give a more complete look. For a fancier look, you can always go for something more elite. The Riddhima Kapoor Sahni evil eye collection is a perfect addition to your style wardrobe!
Picture: [3 evil eye]
When Boho met Superstition
Pinterest
Your inner bohemian diva is in for a treat as the following tip is a conversation starter. Look out for evil eye earrings, you can easily find a lot of feng-shui inspired earrings in your local markets or on online retail. Knick Knack Knook, an online and Instagram portal also brings forward an eclectic collection of earrings. Bohemian rings are a must. A really cool evil eye inspired ring collection is what will make every day the sunniest for you.
So what is the wait for? No chiding for the ‘boori nazar wale’, it’s a nod and a go for acing your fashion game. You can buy evil eye jewellery in souks and street markets around you. Online retailers like Amazon, Myntra, and Caratlane also offer interesting finds. For those in Delhi, the Tibetian refugee market and Janpath are also excellent places for quirky, evil-eye jewellery.
When it comes to fashion, it would be safe to say that the northeasterners know how to do it right.
The people from the northeastern region of India have a distinct sense of style, which is something that the fashion- conscious students of DU can learn from. We talked to several fashionable northeastern students and they shared
with us the following tips:
1. Wear a tiny necklace with a small pendant (say, a ring) which looks cute and is practical, as opposed to big pieces. Accessorise, but don’t over-accessorise. Usually a silver necklace goes with all skin tones.
2. Dress according to your body. What looks good on a T.V. star may or may not look good on you. Take into consideration your physical aspects like height, body shape, and skin tone.
3. Take inspiration from wherever you can, but adapt it to suit yourself (in the case of the Northeastern people, South Asian dramas being the inspiration).
4. The price of an outfit doesn’t guarantee quality. You can get outfits for a few hundred rupees, provided you look in the right nooks and crannies. They suggest places like Sarojini Nagar where you can bargain to your heart’s content or H&M which conducts sales every now and then.
5. Choose comfort over everything else. A compliment lasts seconds, but you’ll be wearing what you are donning for the whole day. You won’t look good if you don’t feel good.
6. Finally, experimenting with your wardrobe is the key. Girls can switch between skinny jeans with crop tops and pleated skirts with collared shirts, while boys can switch between khakis with shirts and shorts with vests.
The people from places like Mizoram and Nagaland have access to thrift shops from where they can get a tee for as little as INR 10! That makes that an outfit in less than INR 50. Unfortunately, there is little scope for that happening in Delhi. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t let your inner northeastern fashionista come to the fore. Look good, have fun experimenting, and most of all, be comfortable.
In a letter addressed to the Director of Delhi School of Journalism (DSJ), University of Delhi (DU), students are reportedly demanding a written apology from the administration because of an allegedly unauthorised seminar which was organised in room number G6 of the DSJ campus on the 13th of September 2018. Dr. Kaushal Kant Mishra and two other speakers were present during the seminar.
As claimed by Prashant Yadav, a second-year student at the Delhi School of Journalism, people present at the seminar spoke against the Dalits in a deeply problematic way. Yadav claims that this is all a conspiracy against the anti-corruption agitation taking place at DSJ and further says that the authorities have tried their best to divide the students on the basis of caste and religion. “The organiers of the seminar run provocative social media pages and work against the unity and integrity of the country”, says Prashant. “The information about the event was posted on Facebook. The students tried to contact the OSD (Officer on Special Duty) who proved to be unavailable. After repeated attempts to contact her, the officer was informed about the event. However, she took no action to stop it. Instead, she asked the security men to chase the students out”, he continues.
However Shubham Sharma, one of the organisers who is also a second-year student at Delhi School of Journalism, claims that it was not even a seminar and that it was just an unofficial meeting. The administration wasn’t aware of this. “No such derogatory remarks were made. We are being accused falsely. We even have recordings of the entire event to prove our claim. We didn’t say anything against Dalits. In fact, the topics were on how casteism leads to anti-nationalism and how representatives in the Parliament refuse to even acknowledge caste as an issue”, says Shubham.
A couple of days back, the administration of the University of Delhi (DU) speculated the establishment of nine institutions which would impart specialised courses. However, the student community claims that before opening new institutions, the government must look at the infrastructural issues that the recently opened institute, the Delhi School of Journalism (DSJ), has been facing ever since its inception last year.
Located in the University Stadium Campus, the college has been at the locus of violent student agitations. The major cause of resentment amongst the student fraternity is the alleged lack of infrastructure that the administration had promised them. The institute, belonging to the self-financing genre, charges exorbitant sums of money as tuition fee from the students with amounts reaching well beyond INR 65,000. The pupils allege that even after paying such stupendous sums of money, they’re not being provided the infrastructure that had been promised to them. Following this, an agitation had broken out in the last week of August 2018, wherein the students had reportedly remained on a strike against the administration for two days, and it was alleged that the students had been locked inside the campus during the night hours.
The management at the Delhi School of Journalism had also suspended 8 students in this connection, which was then revoked in response to the withdrawal of the students from the protests. This reportedly came subsequent to the intervention of the OSD and the VC. Only after the student community was assured that a concrete solution shall be found to the problem, the protests were called off.
The administration, however, seems to have had put the case aside once the agitations were over. The DSJ student body alleges that the Vice Chancellor neither met with the student body nor addressed their issues. Fresh protests in order to have the demands met, however, broke out in DSJ on 18th September 2018. The furious student fraternity stood as a united front against the administration. It is said that a meeting held with the Proctor on 14th September 2018 turned out to be a conduit of dispute and agitation. Allegedly, the Proctor shook her hands off the earlier promise, stating that she can’t promise the redressing of even a single of the demands on the student manifesto, be it the construction of a library, construction of a hostel, or even the Media Lab which is considered ‘food’ for students pursuing journalism.
The students claim that they find the college area too cluttered. They add that in the absence of a library, it becomes tough for them to access adequate resource material pertaining to their discipline, and the absence of a reading room in the already cluttered campus makes it difficult for the students to engage in any productive self-study at the college.
The situation, however, took a different route altogether, when, during the newly erupted volcano of protests, a second-year student and agitator, Ambuj Bharedwaj, was arrested by the Delhi Police, which had been called in by the DSJ administration to curb the protests. It is claimed that the student was dragged by his neck openly in the college by the policemen and was brutally thrashed by the police while in custody. The students feel that the management is adopting the use of force and physical penuries to curb their right to something they have already paid for in full. Thus, according to the student fraternity, their upsurge wasn’t trampled upon by the false promises made on the management’s end. In fact, it gained a new impetus because of the use of police force. Hence, the students have decided to remain in DSJ’s campus through the night on protests, with eyes looking desperately for a solution to their problem.
DU Beat tried reaching out to the administration at the Delhi School of Journalism, but that didn’t prove feasible. Hence, their take on the matter shall be updated here as and when it is procured.
On 15 September 2008, the Financial Crisis of 2008 became official as The Lehman Brothers, THE financial service firm at the time, filed for bankruptcy, taking the world by surprise. It left well over $600 billion in debt, 25,000 employees jobless and in shock, and the global economy in turmoil. Here’s what you should know, and why you should care.
You’ve probably come across the term ‘2008 Financial Crisis’ at some point in your college life, perhaps in group discussions, newspapers, or Hollywood blockbusters like The Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short. Most explanations and reasonings for the same (and other finance related issues) comprise of jargon and (really) unnecessarily fancy words, making these trends seem within and on the fringes of elite academia. This has created an inertia regarding financial literacy among students not academically pursuing commerce. This is messy, because, if anything, a teenager’s need for financial knowledge has grown more urgent over the past decade. My point is, you’ve probably heard if it, it probably affects your life, and yet you probably don’t know exactly what happened.
Often dubbed by economists and journalists as a colossal failure of common sense, the 2008 Financial Crisis was the result of excessive risk taking, a system often called ‘Casino Banking’. The problem with risk taking is that it’s not as glamorous as The Wolf of Wall Street – building a Jordan Belfort shrine won’t bag you riches and a blonde Margot Robbie, and your demise is inevitable.
Predictably, the problem starts in the United States of America, with a ‘housing bubble’ – a bubble is created when unjustified speculation leads to rapid increase in prices (something similar is happening in the CryptoCurrency trade).
Banks provide housing loans to borrowers, who in turn mortgage the property in consideration to these banks. A borrower needs a credit history in order to qualify for a loan and prove their ability (and intent) to repay the same. A credit history includes income details, debt record, education, dependent family members, so on and so forth. The underlying cause of the US banking problem was that too many bad mortgages had been written using fraudulent credit histories, and these weren’t all going to get repaid.
Borrowings from the wholesale markets were lent and then bundled into bonds (securities). These bonds were then sold; the Lehman Brothers, a leading global financial services firm, bought several mortgage brokerages and posted record profits. This failed when the all the fraud behind the mortgages came to light, and the market basically freaked out, not willing to lend through those wholesale markets anymore.
This impasse soon spread to other debt markets. Banks began to doubt one another’s solvency. Trust evaporated. The Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, catalyzing widespread panic. On September 15, 2008, global financial services firm Lehman Brothers famously declared bankruptcy, leading to widespread panic in the financial industry. Suddenly, the U.S. economic decline, a result of the housing bubble burst in 2007, became a long-lasting global financial crisis.
Eventually, “Uncle Sam” had to jump in with aid amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars and guarantee that major banks would not fail – this couldn’t work for the Lehman Brothers. They were considered to have crossed the point of no return.
When the financial meltdown morphed into a worldwide economic downturn, it had repercussions across every industry and in every household: people lost homes, livelihoods, and their families. It was the Red Wedding of the finance world, second only to the Great Depression. This outlines the uncertainty and error inherent in ‘anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be’. No system is foolproof, and students need to take into consideration important instances from history, before making concrete decisions or getting into an overheated debate with a colleague!
Sometimes loving yourself means taking a break from giving so much of yourself to the rest of the world.
-Angel Lindberg Vazquez
In today’s world, there is this wide uproar to embody the best virtues you discover around yourself. To be more accepting, to be more outgoing and to lose yourself; because reportedly losing yourself is the key to finding your truest essence – arguably, there is some truth to this too. More often than not, this philosophical outbreak confuses me in all my trial-and-error methods of understanding the young minds in college. Are we truly accepting, to the high extents that we presume ourselves to be? Are we truly that welcoming? These are all subjective answers, and unsurprisingly, the youth will agree that they are all these things and much more. But it is our duty to question, to doubt and therefore to discover the truth. Now truth, again, is a matter that is governed by perspectives. So what we do infer is that to discover truth, you need to discover yourself. This discovery will root from the retaining of your own identity. Your own self.
It is natural for many of us to feel at home in college; to not be outcasted. We are fed with this idea that college life is all about the people and your experiences. But in college, you will realise that there are prejudices, hypocrisies, and vanities – present as they are everywhere. You will realise that you are not smart enough, or have some other inferiority of your own liking. These days you will be shook, when you face a reality that will question your outlooks. The most challenging task that you have to accomplish then is to find an answer. It is not that difficult, look closely and you will find answers – within yourself. My argument borders on pessimistic idealism, some might say, but always remember, the greatest power is in you. No question is too big nor too difficult for your comprehension. Believing in yourself is the first step towards the manifestation of the best version of you. And this is what college is about – becoming.
There are some days, when people will make you question your mannerisms and behaviorisms. When you will be left to fend for yourself – am I being too judgemental or too critical or am I out of place? In my not so humble opinion, the fear of judgement feeds on insecurities. Preaching acceptance and practising it are diametric, to say the least. One of my seniors told me once, that to have a judgment means to have an opinion; and that is the idea of education – to invite our self-introspection, to form opinions. In rude terms of this materialistic world, when something true takes roots, others will try to escape from it or in other words, they will escape from themselves; and in that they end up losing themselves. Once assumptions are made, once people start presuming, the only thing to do is steel ourselves against their supposedly true ideas. I have learned this time and again that apology is not taken in its intended spirit by an ignorant mind. It is always something that diminishes your own character in their eyes.
The choice is always ours, and ours alone.
People don’t like people for being people these days. You like a model, an ideal image of a character. If someone doesn’t suit that image, you will criticise them, and not even to their face. They can claim all their shams of maturity and sensitivity/sensibility are true, but they know the truth, and unsurprisingly, we do too. When something real happens, people will revert to their unrealistic models. And for all I know, I am not a model. And neither are you.
Judgment and criticism and appreciation follow in a particular fashion, but more often than not, ignorance will only have eyes for the first two.
Whatever you are, hold true to it. Embrace yourself and then embrace this world. No one is you, and that is your power.
You might be wondering – what is the meaning of friendship and acquaintances then? I do not seek to inspire anyone into a lifestyle of devil-may-care attitude, at all. All I wish for us to learn is that there is a truth, sheer truth within us. I wish to tell you that obstinacy of a character that you are is not wrong. I wish to tell you that this obstinacy must also be withdrawn; not because someone tells you to do so, but because you feel this yourself. So never falter in your own musings, because the best that the world deserves is you and vice versa.
Always question and always answer yourself.
Some days, when I am myself,
Alone and alone, self-cornered, self-doubted,
I fail to explore myself, even when
I am, I think, myself.
And these days I ask myself
In no uncertain terms: who am I?
I forget myself these days,
Failing reminders – I am,
I am myself and my joy is in me.
That endless joy, unmeasured,
Unending – I am, I was, I will be.
An endless ocean, my deepest depth, I am.
Strange how I should lose myself,
Bereft of warmth, bestowed with doubt.
On days like these, when you make me
Question myself and all of me,
I feel reduced, but I learned to rise too.
And so I will, always. I will.
Because on these days,
When I lose myself to your denial,
I find myself too, and I find more.
More to Myself.
In a protest, the NSUI launched an attack on the ABVP for alleged EVM tampering during the DUSU elections as well as the University administration for being complicit in this.
The National Student’s Union of India (NSUI) launched a protest in Arts Faculty in front of the Dean’s office against the recently announced election results, claiming that there was EVM tampering and fraud in the counting done by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in collaboration with the University administration. The protest happened for a brief period of time while the NSUI volunteers shouted slogans like “DU VChai hai! (down with the DU VC!)” in front of the Dean’s office. They also proceeded to burn an effigy of the Vice-Chancellor (VC) on the road in front of the Arts Faculty.
DU Beat talked to several NSUI activists on the scene. Pragya Tomar, an NSUI activist, said that out of 126 EVM machines, only the votes of 119 EVM machines were counted. “Our candidate was ahead and then in the last round, we lost by around 700 votes. So, there is definitely a conspiracy by BJP government…Also, private EVMs were used…We have given formal complaints but there has been no reply from the University administration till now.”
Another activist on the scene said, “If the central government can be complicit in tampering, this is not democracy…we want free and fair elections and if then the ABVP wins, then we have no problem.”
Meanwhile, the NSUI Delhi’s official twitter account published a letter by Manoj Kumar, the Election Officer (EVM) who claimed that the Election Commission had issued no EVMs to University of Delhi (DU).
Once again, the BJP government suppressed democracy in Delhi University’s student elections. In the election,the Chief Election Commissioner of Delhi,used in the private company’s EVM election, has himself made a statement that the Election Commission has not given any EVM, pic.twitter.com/akYlaITgTB
Leena, the NSUI 2018 candidate for the post of Vice-President, told DU Beat that the EVMs were also brought in from the back door, instead of the front door at the counting centre, which spoke of ghotala (scandal). “They (ABVP) were scared because they knew they would not secure even one seat in DU…We will go the courts looking for answers about why such betrayal has happened with the students of DU.”
DU Beat talked to Bharat Khatana, the State Secretary of ABVP Delhi who dismissed the allegations as baseless. “The counting and the election was not done by ABVP. It was done in the presence of candidates and media. Only one EVM malfunctioned of about 440 votes in Ballot no. 10 which had no candidate. Counting was halted. Then, all the parties accepted that these votes would not be counted…And then after everyone agreed, counting started again.”
When asked about the allegations of the University administration being in league with the ABVP, Mr. Khatana said, “Then the NSUI should also accept that last year they were in league with the University administration when they won two seats…these are totally false accusations.”
DU Beat also talked to Shakti Singh, the newly elected DUSU Vice-President and Jyoti Chaudhury, the newly elected Joint Secretary of DUSU, both of whom repeated Mr. Khatana’s arguments. When asked about the EVMs being issued by private companies instead of the Election Commission, Shakti Singh said, “It is the mandate of around 1.5 lakh students which should be respected. These issues should be handled by the University administration and Election Commission.”
The Electronic Voting Machines used during DUSU2018 elections were not issued by the Election Commission of India, and this revelation casts a shadow on the credibility and fairness of the election and its outcome.
The Vote Counting for the Delhi University Students’ Union Elections 2018 was held on Wednesday, 13 September, and true to its legacy was riddled with controversy and skepticism owing to claims alleging that the elections were rigged after the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) stopped due to technical glitches. This was catalyzed by reports that the EVMs in question weren’t ECI-EVMS (Election Commission of India EVMs).
Amid rising confusion and mistrust, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer in Delhi issued a press release on Thursday, 14 September 2018, the contents of which clarified that the EVMs used in Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) election have not been issued by the Election Commission and seem to have been procured privately. This sparked debate among students and authorities regarding the credibility of EVMs and DUSU results.
Meanwhile, sources from theUniversity of Delhi said that the EVMs used during the student union polls were procured from the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) and were of a different module than those available with the Election Commission.
In a series of insinuating tweets by Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi claims that it’s impossible to manufacture or procure EVMs privately in India, and ownership of the same is a criminal offence. These claims remain unacknowledged by the office of the Electoral Commission of India.
The usage of EVMs in India has been challenged time and again with respect to credibility, reliability, and robustness. Since 2001, the issue of possible tampering of EVMs has been raised before various High Courts. ECI-EVMs are currently manufactured by only two Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) in India — Electronics Corp of India Ltd (ECIL), Hyderabad, and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), Bengaluru. Private sale and manufacture of only ECI-EVMs are prohibited, while the law remains ambiguous about private sale, manufacture and ownership of all (those excluding ECI-EVMs) EVMs.
Sunny Chhillar, the former Presidential candidate from National Students’ Union of India added to the discourse by questioning the authenticity and source of the EVMs used, “Humein Jawab Chahiye ki Election Commission ke paas khud ki machines nahi thi kya? Humei ye bhi nahi batare ki EVMs kis firm ya organisation se li gyi. (We want to know, did the Election Commission not have their own EVMs? They won’t even inform us of the source of these privately acquired EVMs)”
Feature Image Credits: Office of Chief Electoral Officer, Delhi
The DRCSU Election 2018-19 presented itself all enveloped in controversies. A new face of politics revealed itself to the students as they fought, protested, won, and lost.
The Daulat Ram College Students’ Union (DRCSU) Election was held on 10th September 2018 and the voting hours were between 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Here are some major and vital highlights of the same:
The Absence of NOTA
“I entered the hall to cast my vote with the above-mentioned prospects of a ‘democracy’ clear in my mind, only to realise that a violation of these prospects was waiting for me in the form of an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) where there was no option of ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA). I voted only for candidates whom I believed were worthy of voting. As I made my way out of the little space reserved for voting, a teacher told me to cast my vote for all the posts. I told her that I wanted to vote only for two posts. But then, I was informed that voting for each post was a compulsion. Apparently, the vote wouldn’t be recognised if one person from each post was not voted for.”
In a survey conducted by DU Beat, among Daulat Ram College (DRC) students which asked ‘Do you think the option of “None of the Above” (NOTA) should have been there while voting?’ 80.1% marked their opinion as a ‘Yes’, out of the 500 people who participated in the survey. The whole purpose of having NOTA as an option is to provide the voters with a space to express that they do not find any of the candidates contesting the election deserving. NOTA gives us an explicit insight into a picture of the elections. It creates scope for future candidates to improve their ways.
Mismanagement
In the DRCSU Elections, students had to wait for more than 2 hours to cast their vote, in a humid and crowded corridor. A few voters standing in the queue were seen backing out too. “The entire scenario could have been avoided if voting happened in slots. Subject wise, we could all be made into groups and asked to vote. It would have created much less havoc”, a second-year student who chose to stay anonymous suggested when asked how the situation could be improved.
Ill-working of the EVMs
As mentioned before, it was mandatory for the voters to select one person each for every post. The vote would be invalid if not cast for each post. According to this, the number of votes for each post should be equal. However, it was not so. A recent count of the votes says that there is a difference of about 200 votes between the post of General Secretary (GS) and others. Meaning, there are 200 more votes for the post of GS as compared to others. How and why such a discrepancy occurred is unknown but it sure questions the spirit of the voters.
When asked about the working of the EVMs, a few voters were reported saying that some of the buttons on the machine weren’t working when they pressed them. A little here and there is still something that can be understood. But a difference of 200 votes may turn all the tables.
The Controversy: Where it started
The candidates contesting for the prestigious post of college President were in a tussle long before the elections even began. Neha Beniwal, a presidential candidate allegedly claimed that unlike her, none of her opponents (Sonia Sehrawat and Diksha Verma) had the minimum percentage of attendance required to contest for the post. The shortage of attendance was a problem for several other candidates contesting for the posts of Vice-President as well. All the candidates were, just before the declaration of the nominations for DRCSU, made to sign undertakings promising the completion of 75% attendance in the ongoing semester, to be able to be eligible to contest in the elections. The college was, as a result, witness to a lot of protests and counter-protests.
The rivalry soon took an ugly turn. On the evening of 10th September, the results of the elections were declared and, Diksha Verma was elected as the President of the 2018-19 Students’ Union of Daulat Ram College. Out of the total votes cast (1439), she got 40% votes and won with the margin of 71 votes. The victory was celebrated by her supporters but was short-lived. She was questioned by the opponents from the panel, which won a significant majority in the DRCSU, but their presidential candidate, Sonia Sehrawat, had lost.
The most contentious matter however, was the result of the General Secretary post, wherein the total votes did not tally with the other posts, and an increment of 200 votes was seen.
The panel, along with their supporters, alleged that the EVMs were not working properly and demanded the recounting of votes, despite having tested the EVMs on their functionality on morning of the elections themselves. All electoral candidates were invited by the Election Commission to affirm the correct working of the EVMs, post which they signed a document, confirming the same.
They staged aggressive protests outside the Principal’s office on the evening of the elections, wherein things got violent as students banged the doors and the windows of the admin block, demanding an answer from the administration.
The 11th of September was a new day for everyone but it brought with it the putridity of protests. The other two candidates, along with their followers assembled outside the staff room of the college, sat there and shouted slogans. Interestingly, the protests questioned Diksha Verma’s win, rather than questioning the working of EVMs. “Diksha Verma nahi chahiye” (We don’t want Diksha Verma) “Goondaraj nahi chahiye” (We don’t want hooliganism), were some slogans that the students were heard shouting. Most of them, it is believed, belonged to the college hostel.
This protest witnessed around 100 students blocking the corridor of the college, as they were sitting outside Lab 5, the room in which the Students’ Advisory Board (SAB) was deliberating the fate of the elections. The protesters were joined by Debangana Baruah, who was the DRCSU President from 2014-15, and Nandita Nain, who was a presidential candidate in 2017. Both ex-students of the college were seen enticing the students and motivating them to raise such slogans. This practice raised several concerns as it is a clear violation of the Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations Clause 6.3.1.
Nandita Nain (ex-student, in white, with a black bag), seen with Sonia Sehrawat, the opposing Presidential candidate (standing next to Nandita) during the protest.Debangana Baruah (in a green kurta), the Ex-President of DRC in the college during the protest.
Later, a demand for re-elections was also raised by the protesters. The Election Committee agreed to it and informally announced the scheduling of the re-elections to be held on the 13th of September, 2018. However, no such notice was delivered officially to the students from the administration or the Principal. The protesters rejoiced and dispersed, and the news of the re-elections, which was still not confirmed officially, spread like wild fire.
The evening of 12th September, brought about a message from the convenor of the SAB, calling all electoral candidates to the committee room of the college on 13th of September, at 10 a.m. The SAB along with the Principal of the college addressed all the queries and concerns of the candidates, they were re-assured that the elections have been carried out in a fair manner, with discrepancies in the post of General Secretary, which were caused due to a fault in the buttons of that specific post. The meeting resulted in the official declaration of Diksha Verma as the President of DRCSU 2018-19. The solution for the matter of General Secretary was not that of a re-election, but the inculcation of all three electoral candidates in DRCSU as the General Secretary.
The official notice was uploaded on the DRC website after the meeting.
The Oath Taking Ceremony was held on 14th September, wherein only the President, General Secretary, and ICC member participated. Meanwhile, the opposition continued their protest outside the college building demanding “justice.”
Diksha Verma, during the official oath taking ceremony held today.
Feature Image Credits – Students of Daulat Ram College
