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DU Annual Fest Season

Confluence'16, Hans Raj College ends with Honey Singh and Indian Ocean

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Misba from Shri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce won the western dance competition while Tanz from Miranda House emerged as runner ups | Image by Vegh Daswani for DU Beat[/caption] A street play competition was also organised by HT City Youth Nexus. It was judged by Ajit Kumar and Ankita Chauhan. Navrang The Hindi Dramatic Society of Institute of Home Economics who won the competition had performed ‘Na Idhar Ka Na Udhar ka’ a play based on the problems of middle class. Ijaad from PGDAV evening performed ‘ Panch sitambar’ and were declared the runners up. This was followed by a North East Festival organised by the North East Cell of Hans Raj College. The event show cased the culture of not only the North Eastern states of India but included Ladakh and Tibet. Students performed Bihu, Manipuri dance and various group songs such as those by the students from Tibet. A fashion walk was also conducted as a part of the NE festival. Immediately after the NE fest, fans started pouring in huge numbers for a guest appearance of Honey Singh for the promotions of his upcoming movie, Zorawar which is due to release on 6th May. The humongous crowd went hullabaloo when the singer sung some of his famous songs. Though the crowd created trouble, Hansraj Student’s Union managed the situation well. [gallery ids="40746,40747,40749"] Indian ocean, as a part of Coke Studio also performed at Confluence’16 in association with HT Youth Nexus. They closed the three day eventful festivity with some soulful music. The Students Union of Hansraj College was thanked and praised by the team of HT City Youth Nexus and Indian Ocean. [caption id="attachment_40748" align="aligncenter" width="594"]Rahul Ram plays with his band Indian Ocean to close Confluence'16 Rahul Ram plays with his band Indian Ocean to close Confluence’16 | Image by Prateek Singh for DU Beat[/caption] Tooba Towfiq Srivedant Kar Arindam Goswami Images by Jasmine Chahal, Vegh Daswani, Prateek Singh and Paurush Bhardwaj for DU Beat   Feature image by Paurush Bharadwaj]]>

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Sex Amma

Sex Amma: Experimenting and Shedding Inhibitions

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Sex Amma

Ques. Dear Amma, my boyfriend is very keen on experimenting while ‘doing it’! He has been involved in physical relationships before me, however he is my first time. And because of this reason, I’m very apprehensive about experimenting. Is it worthwhile?  Should I shed my inhibitions and go ahead with it?

Ans. My little, little, oblivious idli! Trust Amma on this, experimentation is beautiful (and not to mention, fun)! Amma has been a particular fan of experimenting while, what you like to call, ‘doing it’. That been said, it’s okay if you are apprehensive about the idea. It’s okay to be not as keen as him about spicing it up. And if you are sure that you don’t want to go ahead with it, don’t. Meanwhile, it’s also important to tell your partner about what you’re comfortable and uncomfortable with.

As for your question about it being worthwhile, well, Amma can swear on her favourite Rava Idli that it definitely is worthwhile. It is worth shedding all your inhibitions and letting your wind blow (yes, quite literally!) Not only does it spice up your relationship, it adds to the connection and trust you both share. As you mentioned, your partner is more experienced than you, so trust him with this. You will not want to look back at the conventional ‘mission’ ever again!

Read up a little, research more, talk. Share your fetishes, what you’d want in bed. Communication is the key. And be sure about making complete peace with the idea. Make sure you’re comfortable with what you’re getting into; it can be a not-so-pleasant experience otherwise. And if things work out (which they will, if you do it right!) you can go further in exploring what you both enjoy. Just like a little more spice makes Rasam a delight, a little role-play will of course make it a treat!

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DU Annual Fest Season

Hans Raj College hosts first day of Confluence 2016

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Hans Raj College hosted the first day of its annual cultural festival, Confluence on 18th of March. The first day of the festival was packed with competitive and non competitive events.

Confluence 2016 was inaugurated by the Principal of the college, followed by a Kavi Samelan presided over by the renowned Indian poet, Vineet Chauhan. The JNU row in the light of the recent challenges to the idea of nationalism was  discussed.  The festivities were further graced with the Choreography competition, organised by Terpsi Chorean, The Choreo Society of Hans Raj College.  The Founder of Friends of Art, Sohini Dutta and Himanshu Sharma were the judges of the competition.

Yet again, The Choreo Society of Hindu College secured the first position for their performance called ‘Vengeance’.  The production called ‘Maya’ and ‘Apes of Oblivion’ by the choreography societies of LSR and Gargi College booked the second and the third place respectively. KMC’s choreography society Sensation got a special mention.

Simultaneously, Youth Nexus in collaboration with Confluence 2016 also kick started other events on the outer stage. Rigo Fashion show was held in which students from Hans Raj set their fashion trends on the ramp in front of Mr Arjun Gehlot, Director of Ambience Mall and his wife, Shahista Gehlot. This was followed by Rockonova, a Battle of Bands between four selected teams.  ‘Knight Shades’ from Delhi College of Arts and Commerce won  and ‘Muffils’  from Manav Rachna Institute of Technology were declared  the runners-up. The stage was soon taken over by Sufi Rock performers, Dastak- The Band.  

The evening dawned with the performances for the Western Group Dance Competition which was judged by Priyasha Bhardwaj, The Director/Choreographer of Beyond Routine and Aditya Dogra.  Misba, The Western Dance society of Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce won the first place while Funk in Motion from Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology and Enliven from Gargi college secured the second and the third place respectively.  This was followed by a performance by Suryaveer with his band Ehsaas. Dj Sumit Sethi drew the curtains for Day 1 of Confluence with some popular Bollywood numbers.

 

Tooba Towfiq

Arindam Goswani

Arushi Pathak

 

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

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Hindu College

Caucus, Hindu College organises annual discussion fest Vaktavya 2016

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Caucus, the group discussion forum of Hindu College organised Vaktavya 2016 on the 15th and 16th of March. The two day fest commenced with an interactive session with Dr. Suborno Chatterjee on the topic ‘Giving refuge: The Syrian refugee crisis in Europe’ followed by a book discussion on Khaled Hosseini’s renowned novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns.” The discussion, which was moderated by Nemisha Kawatra and Muhammad Daniyal, the President and General Secretary of Caucus respectively, took an interesting trajectory with the plight of women in areas of conflict, artistic freedom and the change from resistance to terrorism being discussed among other things. The first prize at the end of the discussion was awarded to Nimisha Savapandit and the second prize to Mehtab Kamboj. The second day started off with a group discussion on the topic ‘Is objectification of women indispensable in the comic verse?’ moderated by Adya, the Vice President of the society. Asis Mansingh was declared the best speaker at the end of the event. This was followed by the final event of the two-day extravaganza, a screening of a short movie, Little Terrorist. The movie followed the story of a 10 year old Pakistani boy named Jamal who accidentally crosses the border between India and Pakistan and finds an unlikely ally in a Hindu Brahmin named Bhola. As Indian soldiers search the village for the so-called terrorist who crossed the border, Bhola’s family insist that they cannot harbor a Pakistani under their roof as a result of which Jamal’s only hope is the humanity that is shared between people separated by this artificial barrier. The movie was followed by the final group discussion of the event where Shreya Parmar emerged as the winner. Provided by Caucus, The Discussion Forum of Hindu College ]]>

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DUB Speak

Switch off lights on this Earth Hour, Watch the Indo-Pak match with neighbours instead

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What started in August,2014 as a project called ‘You’re wonderful;’ is now on the verge on being configured into an NGO that aims at rescuing people, especially teenagers from the abyss of anxiety and depression, that if not taken care of, might culminate in self-harm and even suicide.

A team of enthusiastic individuals at YWP redresses the people on friendly terms, making them realize that they are infact, wonderful. The project has recently collaborated with WWF for the upcoming Earth Hour 2016 Campaign which is set to launch on 19th March.

The movement that initially took off as ‘one hour of switching off lights across the globe could have a cumulative impact in saving energy’, later on went beyond the one hour ideology and focused on more things such as use of renewable energy and saving resources which is denoted by the ‘+’ in 60+ Earth Hour logo. This year, Earth Hour India focuses on Solar Energy and WWF has partnered with YWP.

The current Earth Hour team being run by You’re Wonderful Project has 3 Core Committee heads who have  28 Core Team members who in turn handle 10 zones around Delhi NCR, with a total of 350+ volunteers. Interestingly, the volunteers are approaching all the RWAs(Resident Welfare Associations) across Delhi NCR and requesting them to set up a projector so that the whole Society can enjoy the Indo-Pak match on the 19th and can switch off all the non essential lights at home.

The Nukkad Natak and the Flash Mob teams perform regular drives on the important environmental issues. The face painting team spreads awareness by painting pandas on people’s faces. With Shikhar Dhawan as their Brand Ambassador and a website for mass-involvement, the efforts of the project clearly stand out. WWF India is also organising a Cyclothon and walkathon on 19th march morning, symbolising  ‘Pedal for the planet’ or ‘Chalo Paidal’ for the planet.

Picture Credits: Team You’re Wonderful Project 

Shreya Srivastava

[email protected]

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DU Annual Fest Season

Mosaic’16 at Ramjas College: Events and highlights

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Ramjas College held its annual fest Mosaic 2016 from 15th March – 16th March.
Day 1 started with a colour marathon. The marathon was a 3 km run starting and ending at Ramjas College covering Daulat Ram College, Patel Chest, SGTB Khalsa and Vishwavidyalya metro station. The event saw participation from over 1500 enthusiastic students. The run was powered by Roposo and aimed at promoting women empowerment. The Chief Guest at the event was the Deputy Commissioner of the Anti Corruption bureau of Delhi Police. The Principal of the college, Dr. Rajendra Prasad cheered the crowd and initiated the run. The students were provided t-shirts and during the course of the run were showered with colour to add to the fun.

 

This was followed by a street art display in association with MTV Junkyard Project.  The DUSU members had arranged a display in the college. The idea behind the project is to clean up places in an innovative and quirky manner. The team from MTV had artists painting the boundary walls with some cool street art, keeping it cool and clean. The project has had successful endeavors in Mumbai and Pune and regularly spring up at college fests to spruce it up with quirky paintings and keeping the premises clean.   The fashion show followed next with 9 teams participating. The teams were from Amity, Institute of Home Economics (IHE), Dyal Singh college, Kamala Nehru college, Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies, Sri Guru Gobind Singh of Commerce, Satyawati college, Shavji college and Bharati college. The performances, costumes and themes, all made for a show worth watching. The judges were Suraj Soni, who was part of the Ramjas fashion society and Stefy Patel, actress and model. The first position was bagged by Kamala Nehru College followed by Dyal Singh college and IHE tied for second and Shivaji college in the third position.

  The star cast of Kapoor and Sons arrived as the fashion show was going on. Sidharth Malhotra, Alia Bhatt and Fawad Khan came on stage as the shouts and screams of fans. The highlight of the event was that it was Alia Bhatt’s birthday and the crowd screamed ”happy birthday” along with the people on stage. Balloons were let loose as part of the celebration and free CD’s were distributed among the crowd as a part of the movie promotion. After they had left, the fashion show resumed from where it had stopped.

    The second day of Mosaic 2016 began with the annual western dance festival, RAQUS, organised by the dance society of  Ramjas college. Eleven teams consisting of Satyawati evening college, Hansraj college, Mata Sundari college, Janki Devi Memorial, Maitreyi, Aurobindo, Venkateshwara, Lady Sri Ram, Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology, Indraprastha and Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi competed in the event, in that order. After a tough competition, the judge finally selected the winning  teams. Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology’s ”Funk In Motion” won the first position and Venkateshwara’s ”Verve” tied for second place with LSR.

Maharaja Agrasen College's Funk In Motion won the western dance competition | Image by Tejaswa Gupta for DU Beat
Maharaja Agrasen College’s Funk In Motion won the western dance competition | Image by Tejaswa Gupta for DU Beat

  RAQUS was followed by a Punjabi powered performance by Gurnam Bhullar. The songs were a hit with the crowd as they danced to every song. After Gurnam’s short performance came the most awaited event of the day, Anushka Manchanda’s performance. The crowd sang and cheered along as she sang popular hits like ‘Dance Basanti‘ and ‘Manma Emotion Jaage‘.  After a lot of selfies and lots of song requests, the show finally came to an end as she sang the last song of the evening from the film Dil Chahta Hain.

 

 

Images by Chirag Sharma, Tejaswa Gupta and Harshit Thukral for DU Beat

Kriti Sharma

Arindam Goswami

Akshara Srivastava

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S.G.T.B Khalsa College

SGTB Khalsa College’s internal exams fiasco

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As the fest season draws to a close, it is time now for the internal exams to begin. The general practice at colleges in Delhi University has been to hold a 10 mark test for the students as a recap of the syllabus covered over the semester.


This year however, the administration at SGTB Khalsa College has decided to hold mid-semester exams, exactly like the semester end exams. Particular dates have been allotted to the students and the exam will be conducted across all courses at the same time. The idea behind this move was to ensure that the students take the test positively as opposed to earlier when many didn’t turn up for the test and continuously requested teachers to conduct a retest.

The weightage for the test also increases from ten to fifty. Many teachers in the college aren’t happy with the decision of the administration and feel that it defies the whole purpose behind having internal tests. Mr Saikat Ghosh from the English department says, “Earlier when students didn’t turn up, we had other ways to evaluate them. The whole idea behind holding internal exams is to continuously assess students over the course of the semester. With this move however, the purpose behind internals is defeated. It also adds to the pressure of the teachers and lessens the already meager number of teaching days in one semester. It simply isn’t sound academic logic.”  

The students too are stressed out about the approaching exams. Shreya Mago, a first year student from English Hons remarked that, it “unnecessarily adds to the pressure.”  A few however have different views. A first year student of Political Science feels that “more students will take the test seriously now as compared to earlier.”  
The tests will be conducted continuously over a course of four days, from 18th March -22nd March.  No other college has decided to hold tests in this manner. The college hasn’t come out with any official statement clarifying the reason behind such a move.

Akshara Srivastava

[email protected]

 

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Maitreyi College

Department of Chemistry, Maitreyi College organises ‘Chemsophy’

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Chemsophy was organised on 3rd March 2016 by Department of Chemistry, Maitreyi College. The fest received a participation of around 150 students from various colleges like KMC, IIT Delhi, Sri Venkateswara college, Gargi, DCAC, IGNOU.

The fest started by lighting of the lamp by our chief guest Dr. S. C. Mittal, Executive Director, Premier Forensic Sciences Institute and Labs. An informative lecture was delivered by the chief guest on the topic “Forensic Science: Solving White Collar Crimes”. The lecture made students aware of fingerprint extraction, detection of fake documents under UV rays and more.

The lecture was followed by Paper Presentation on the topic was Forensic Science or IPR. The competition was judged by the Chief Guest. . The best speaker went to Nancy from Sri Venkateswara College. In Poster Making Competition, the topic was given on the spot – Forensic Science or Green Chemistry.  During the second half of the day “Quizeolite” – A scientific quiz which organised by Quizcraft Global, one of the largest quizzing company took place. A cross team from Kirori Mal College and Delhi College of Arts and Commerce emerged as winners.

Shortly after, “Fun in Lab” was organized where different techniques of chemistry were being used to detect the knowledge of participants under very legitimate rules and regulations. The first prize was bagged by Miranda House and second by Gargi College. All the winners were awarded cash prizes, coupons and goodies.

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Campus Central

Economics Society of Aryabhatta College organizes Sciminoce'16

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IMG_0013 An eating competition called ‘Khatron ke Khiladi’ was also organized. Artonomics, a painting competition saw young artists showcasing their talent. The topic for the same was caste and identities. The final event of the day that concluded the festival was the ‘Deadly Hunt’ that witnessed the maximum number of teams. The event was a blend of 2 rounds beg, borrow, deal and a murder mystery. A game zone section was also set up to provide entertainment. Radio mirchi also tied up with the college to organise an event of their own giving an opportunity to do a FBB campaign with Varun Dhawan.]]>

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Campus Central

Things you'll relate to if you live in a Hostel/PG

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Game of homes Initially we all sympathised with Walter White’s decision to cook meth due to his poor circumstances no matter how wrong the decision was on moral grounds. It is time to stop for a moment and think about all the hassles you faced in your day to day lives while living in PGs and hostels. The leaking pipes, the malfunctioning of the AC, the breaking ceiling gives you goosebumps all the time. The time and cost spent in getting all these things repaired for sure had made you ponder to follow in the footsteps of Walter White at least once for sure. breaking bed   And the rents of course. The ever increasing rents and broker fees leaves you no choice but to end up in the vicious circle of borrowing from your friends in order to survive. To make yourself feel better about it, the least you can do is compare yourself to a television star and who better when it comes to borrowing than Penny? Bazinga! big rent theory   Apart from all these hassles that we just talked about there is a brighter side to living in a rental room if things turn out in your favour. Who doesn’t fantasise about living the life like F.R.I.E.N.D.S? We all end up relating our buddies to Chandler, Joey, Rachael, Ross and Monica and if we are lucky we sometimes find exactly the bonds to carry for a lifetime! The late night Maggie sessions, the economical shopping spree and the nonstop chatting make the worst of days worth reminiscing! friends4_v copy On Netflix we become spectators to ruthless pragmatism, manipulation and power in the House of Cards and enjoy all the drama that surmounts the storyline. However we don’t like to witness any of it in reality. Time spent in hostels with buddies gives you an opportunity to escape the harsh reality and rejoice in good company. You have endless laughter moments, late night talks and so much fun that can cheer you up even when you’re in the saddest mood. House of Laughs   Who doesn’t want to have an awesome roommate experience like Ted and Marshall? Every teenage dreams of finding buddies that they can bank upon in the years to come and grow old with. Time spent in hostels and PGs give you an opportunity to make friends with whom you can play video games, do stupid talks and have an awesome college life. Your life becomes legen wait for it dary! True story. himym It comes as no surprise how well we can relate with these television celebrities. Even in the most depressing moments our favourite characters give us a reason to cheer. CoHo.in, an innovative tech platform pioneering the concept of coliving spaces for the first time in India bring all the good elements you need for a #betterliving experience tailor made for you. Enjoy the best of rooms and roommates in fully-furnished managed spaces offered by CoHo.in, at affordable price points absolutely broker-free. And who knows you meet your fantasy television star like friend right there! Conceptualised by Chirutha Kalra Designed by Amaan Hassan Khan]]>

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