Mrityunjay Sharma, a third year B. Com student from Shri Ram College Of Commerce, has broken the world record of the longest piano recital (previously in the name of Polish pianist Romuald Koperski for playing for 103 hours) by playing for 130 hours.
The event was called 7 Notes 7 Days, and although the aim was to play for 155 hours, Mrityunjay had to discontinue after 130 hours due to health issues. After taking only 1 break of 5 mins in the first 24 hours, he played continuously to earn a break of 20 mins after 100 hours. He had previously entered in the Limca Book of Records for playing incessantly for 52 hours. He has been learning to play the instrument since the age of three and also has a flair for cooking and sketching. “I feel grateful that I could do something for my nation as this record will last with the foreign countries for many years” said Mrityunjay. He wasn’t allowed to repeat the tunes once played at least for the next 24 hours. The entire video of his recital was recorded and has been sent to Guinness Book of World Records for assessment. He was constantly motivated and encouraged by his friends and teachers. His friends from hostel sang, clapped and cheered for him during the nights to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep.
The piano he played on was provided by an alumnus of SRCC. Vice chancellor Dinesh Singh was present in the auditorium on Thursday night, October 15 when Mrityunjay finally broke the record and was awarded one lakh rupees by the college. The music played by Mrityunjay was generated in four different categories to help in the mental development of autistic children.
Comquest, the Annual National Commerce Academic Meet organized by Department of Commerce of Lady Shri Ram College for Women took place on 15th and 16th October with a diverse array of events from popular B-Plan competition to insightful Committee Simulation. The two-day event comprised of eight commerce specific events which gave the participants a platform to discuss the ever changing fads of the known corporate arena.
The first day of the highly awaited meet started off with a Panel Discussion on topic ‘Emerging Start-Up Culture in India’. The event saw principal as well as Commerce department faculty members along with participants from Bhutan, Kathmandu, and various colleges of Delhi and NCR region. Panelists included founders of some top notch startups such as Food Talk India, Carzonrent, I Impact India and so on. The discussion was moderated by Ms. Nagma Sahar, as the panelists spoke about their personal experiences and take on the fast growing startup culture in India.
Another highlight of the day was ‘Gameplan’, the B-plan competition. In all, 11 teams participated from various colleges like NSIT, Aryabhatta College, Motilal Nehru College, Keshav Mahavidhyalaya and even from colleges based in Nepal and Bhutan. Judges were Mr. Rohan, Mr. Sumedh and Mr. Abhed. 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions were all taken by NSIT students. Consolation prize was given to the team from Nepal.
Finally, there was a business quiz ‘Les Quizerables’ conducted by The Dais as a part of Comquest 2015. The quiz masters for the event were Balasubramanyam Pattah, Raman Umamaheshwaran, Gokul S and Aastha Mathur. The event saw participation of 100 teams having two members each and the prelims had 30 questions and 8 teams advanced to the finals. The Final round witnessed a tight competition between the finalists and Sreshth Shah and Raktin Vag emerged as winners. The event was a grand success and it was a treat for the audience who gained a lot of knowledge.
On day two of Comquest, there was India High Level Economic Meet – a committee simulation, Paper Presentation Competition namely ‘Vortag’, Best Manager Competition called ‘Virtuso’ and Stock Maze.
For the event Best Manager Competition, there were 19 participants and three rounds. The first round was related to auction bidding where each participant was given budget of Rs. 15 crores and he had to purchase items within this budget for a luxurious hotel. In the next round, a case study was given to participants. For the final round, five participants were selected. They were given a product and they had to think of a unique product in replacement of that product.
The first edition of Controversus ’15, the annual fresher’s conventional debate was held on 14th of October at Daulat Ram College (DRC). A total of 15 teams participated from various colleges like SRCC, IIT Delhi, Kirori Mal and so on. The debate was bilingual and the motion for the same was “This house believes that internet.org is the beginning of digital colonisation”.
The event was judged by Dr. Shachi Chawla, an assistant professor at DRC, Dr. Meena Sharma, a member of Hindi Sahitya Academi and Dr. Madhu Jha, who has a lot of publications to be credited to her name. As the topic of the debate is quite relevant to the news that has been making headlines since the past few days, a keen interest was witnessed in both, the participants to put forward their views and in the judges to comprehend the points correctly.
The proponents of the motion gave arguments based on net neutrality, and called internet.org nothing but a monopoly of the wealthier companies to assert their power. The opponents of the motion, on the other hand, talked about free basics and it being a platform to familiarise people and give them exposure. After hearing both the sides and deliberating over the presented arguments, the judges came to a conclusion and announced the results.
The best team was awarded to IIT Delhi comprising of Kartikeya and Atharva. The best speaker for the motion was presented to Aditi from DRC, and against the motion was presented to Dimple from KMC. The best interjector was awarded to Priyam from DRC. The judges, in their addressals to the audience, talked about the importance of a thought and how one should always be versatile and aware enough to adopt the right school of thought in life.
This was followed by an award ceremony where the winners were felicitated with the trophies. The judges too were presented with mementos as a token of thanks on behalf of the entire debating society of the college.
“I am elated that our society has been able to pull off two major events within a span of one month. To observe the participants speak with such enthusiasm makes all the hard work worthwhile” said collectively Disha Singh and Shubhi Vadehra, the President and Vice president of the debating society, DRC, respectively.
Owing to its age old popular reputation of making last minute changes, be it in the syllabi or in the admission process and other rules, Delhi University is all set to introduce the first ever mid-semester break assignments or ‘holiday homework’ online on its website.
Keeping in mind the wave of Digital India doing the round these days and Dussehra festivities approaching, the University has left no stones unturned in following the ‘upar se aya order’ and make students go digitally desi with their assignments. A few insiders, not wishing to be named, have informed us about some of the probable tasks that we can expect as homework. For instance, Journalism students across DU maybe asked to hoard social media with ‘Safe Festivity Posts’; English Honours students in all probability are to be given the task of reading the English translation of ‘The Ramayana’ and formulating an essay on the same, narrate our credible sources.
It has also come to light that, B. Com Honours students may be asked to create business models to push ‘Chinese crackers’ out of the Indian markets during these Dussehra holidays in order to help Indian manufacturers thrive and promote the ‘Make in India’ dream.
While most colleges have welcomed this guideline without much resistance, colleges like Lady Shri Ram College, St.Stephen’s College and Shri Ram College of Commerce have sent the university a notice that they won’t comply with the university homework. They have proposed to upload their own online assignments for their students instead.
An agitated student from a South Campus college talked to us about her heplessness. She said, “DU is becoming so much like a school. They expect us to use our ‘break-time’for such stupid assignments. This is unfair. I thought it was a rumour, but it’s a shocking revelation.”
Through endless efforts during a four month long social entrepreneurship competition, ‘Change the World Internship’ structured by a US established Non-Profit Organization- A Million for a Billion, Project Sanjeevani, planned and prepared by the students of Connecting Dreams Foundation-SRCC Chapter, ultimately qualified to be demonstrated at UN headquarters in October, 2015.
Lack of resources, technology, infrastructure and most significantly awareness has deprived the rural area manufacturers of the potential market that lies ahead. Project Sanjeevani, a papad manufacturing and distribution oriented business model, stipulates a linkage between the rural food product manufacturers and their prospective consumers, makes the product more vendible, and thus making them less exposed to a social problems. It offers a distribution channel of wholesalers, retail consumers and refectory departments. The project provides a market link for a group of 8 women belonging to Shyampur Village of Uttar Pradesh who possess the required skills at cookery and make hand rolled papads without the usage of any machines. Thus, It helps make the product as well as the business strategy financially and commercially viable.
A clear win at the initial stage by Shreya Gupta and Harsh Agarwal helped them acquire a revenue that made the project sustainable consequently made it to top 5 finalists of the Change the World Internship. The project is to be next presented before a fundraising and investing company DC Arch Angels in Washington DC on 14th October and United Nations Organization Headquarters before UN Habitat and Barbados Mission on 16th October respectively. Tamanna Goel [email protected]
The Inter University North Zone Chess Tournament, organised by UP Chess Association, was held from 5th to 9th October at Bundelkhand University, Jhansi. 26 teams from different state universities participated in the tournament. The tournament strictly followed World Chess rules and was supervised by Mr. A.K. Raijada, Secretary of UP Chess Association.
Delhi University, yet again, won the whole lot, i.e. all the 12 matches of the tournament, and has successfully made their way to the Nationals which would be held in Tamil Nadu during the coming winter. “I have never seen such a big margin in the final result. It is the first time I have witnessed a team scoring full points in North Zone Tournament.” said Mr. A.K. Raijada.
The Delhi University team comprised of total 6 students; Yogesh Gautam, Ankit Gajwa (All India Open below 2000 champion), Prince Bajaj (Asian Games medalist), Aishwarya Sinha (Jharkhand state champion), Deep Kapoor (Delhi state champion) and Prachet Sharma (Philadelphia Open below 2000 champion), 4 being from Shri Ram College of Commerce and the remaining 2 from Hindu College and Kirori Mal College respectively. The team was captained by Yogesh Gautam from SRCC, the former champion of the 42nd World Open at Virginia and the 7th New York International.
“We were provided with Shatabdi Train tickets and were give accommodation in a 4 star hotel. The whole tournament was organised and managed remarkably. They were very strict about the rules. Losing a game to me made a chess player Aishwini Grover, with a rating of 1788, so frustrated that he smashed all the pieces to floor and left the hall without signing the score sheet. An appropriate action was taken immediately against him and he was prohibited from playing in the second round.” said Yogesh. In the closing ceremony the winners were felicitated enthusiastically with rounds of applause and cheering.
College life is often described as the best phase of life. But each student faces several problems in college. Delhi University has finally decided to pay heed to this issue. The Mind Body Centre of the University has launched free student counselling through email/telephone to help students cope with issues such as low self-esteem, family discord, anxiety, etc. MBC is a centre inaugurated on 13th February 2014 by the Vice-Chancellor of DU, Prof. Dinesh Singh with the objective of promoting wellness of girl students at the University. With its budding popularity and a need for expansion, its services can now be availed by all the students of the University. It is moving forward with the motto, ‘Health beyond Healthcare’.
And in order to seek help, there are three ways- phone-based, email-based and face-to-face counselling. For the phone based counselling, the toll free number is 1800-3000-7303. One may also seek their expertise by dropping in an email at [email protected]. Face-to-face counselling is only available for female students.
For further details one can log in on www.mbc.du.ac.in and get a better view of the assistance the centre can provide you with.
The Department of Journalism at Lady Shri Ram College for Women kicked off its Annual Academic Meet, Juxtapose 2015 on October 7. The theme for this year’s meet was ‘Deconstructing Identities, Reconstructing Perceptions’ and shined through in the topics of the various events.
Team from LSR at Media Quiz
Panel Discussion Day 1
Hall of Panel Discussion
Aamir Bashir, in Panel Discussion
Adil Hussain, in Panel Discussion
Winners of Ad Mad
Pre Juxtapose, 7 October- All India Media Meet
The issue of freedom of expression in the light of recent killing of journalists was subjected to heated discussion at The All India Media Meet of Department of Journalism, Lady Shri Ram College on 7th October 2015. The discussion shed light upon the subjective issue of freedom of press. The major issues of whether killing of journalists is an ultimate resolution to the “offensive” content produced by media was put to discussion. The major issues addressed during the course of discussion were the need of media and government to be independent bodies, inadequate self-regulatory mechanism prevalent in media, how killing of journalists is a direct consequence confrontational journalism.
The conference finally sought to address the two major issues of implementing an ideal law exclusively for the safety of journalists and the question of the actual identification of journalists considering how the concept of citizen journalists has led to ambiguity in the definition of journalists. Other issues of media blackout,the thin line of difference between hate speech and criticism and the leading consequences of defamation of judiciary by the press were address.
The debate whether an independent body other than the Press Council of India is required for safeguarding the interests of journalists was the final question addressed towards the end of the discussion. The discussion concluded with the following recommendations by the delegates of the committee –
Creation of a committee that gives licenses to freelancers and not citizen journalists and ensures that these licenses are not misused.
Ensuring that the committee formed shall ensure legal safety of journalists.
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting should put forward these recommendations to the Parliament.
Periodic meetings like AIMM must happen frequently to address these issues.
Day 1, 8 October- Turncoat Debate, Panel Discussion and AdMad
The topic for the Annual Turncoat Debate – Vox Pop at Juxtapose 2015 was whether film certification works in favour of the state or the public. Ideas like state propaganda, state mandate, to name a few, surfaced. Speakers spoke of how the Indian government compresses its citizens into a monolithic identity while at many a times completely disregarding the plurality of the country and on the other hand, how the state’s “parental attitude” was essential and justified.
‘Kissa Kursi Ka’ was a movie cited as an example by many speakers. However, as felt by the judge, Ms. Ishita Tiwary, what happened to the movie after it was banned wasn’t talked about by the speakers. This was an integral part as it shows the lengths the state can go to, to prevent anything that goes against its interests. After drawing comic reactions to a reference by speaker Chandrashekhar to Ragini MMS and how it had a “mentally scarring” effect on children, he went on to win the debate. The second and third positions were bagged by Naman Malhotra and Kushal Mishra.
The panel discussion, the second event of the day, was on the topic, “Media’s content: A state of compromise or progression?” The panelists included eminent personalities from the field of media – Abhinandan Sekhri, Shoma Chaudhary, Ritu Kapur and Supriya Sharma. Anshul Tewari, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of YouthKiAwaaz.com, was the moderator.
“Digital media has really shot up in the last 7-8 years. Though it has received a fair share of criticism but it has emerged as a powerful tool for people to speak up,” said Anshul Tewari. “Yes, digital media is limited there is no denying but I think over the next few years it will go deeper,” said Ritu Kapur, co-founder- The Quint. They further went on discussing the impact of digital media to which Abhinandan Sekhri’s stance was very unambiguous. According to him it’s a screen and it doesn’t really matter whether it is NDTV or News Laundry or Scoop Whoop. Also, he said that he believes that the number of views is not a yardstick to judge whether something has impacted people or not, rather, it’s the time they are spending in reading it which speaks.
On comparing the online media with print, Supriya Sharma, recipient of the Chameli Devi Award, given for excellence in Journalism, pointed out that online media is an interactive media with young readership and a sense of feedback. For her it is really very exciting to be able to influence the young minds of the country.
Towards the end the panelists discussed free speech and reasonable restrictions to which Abhinandan responded by saying that he is an absolutist and does not believe that any restriction is reasonable. His opinion was seconded by Ms. Shoma but with two caveats, which were – factuality and incitement to violence. The session concluded with a question and answer session with the audience where in issues like gate keeping, hate speeches and corporate ownership were discussed.
The AdMad competition was judged by Professor Shikha Jhingan and Professor Vibhushan Subba, from the Department of Journalism at LSR. One team that stood out was the one given a “mind reader” to sell. Their mind reader was a pair of flashily lit glasses. Team 4, consisting of Khushwinder and Dhruv, from who advertised an online grocery store bagged the first position, followed by Team 8, Manan, Akhil, Ishan and Vikas from Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology. The second runner up was Team 10, consisting of Manan Batra and Tushar Singh from Sri Venkateswara College.
Day 2, 9 October: Paper presentation, Panel Discussion, Media quiz
“Media presents to the audience what the audience wishes to see.” A paper presentation competition, Samantha vs. Savitri, organized by the Department of Journalism at LSR, kicked off the final day of their Annual Academic Meet – Juxtapose 2015. This platform acted as a podium where speakers presented their papers, on the question of representation of gender identities in 21st Century Sitcoms. The five participants present here had been shortlisted on the basis of their abstracts submitted much in advance. The event was judged by Ms. Abhija Ghosh, a student of Cinema Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
The presentations highlighted how women in particular are stereotyped as being submissive, prudent, and emotional with lack of strength. While the debate concentrated move over the roles of women, reference to other genders were also brought in by speakers. They mentioned how genders apart from the males and females are hardly mentioned as they are considered “unnatural”.
One of the participants, Sukanya, from Daulat Ram College, said, “Ironically, the small screen acts a harbinger of change”. But what change are we talking about if the whole concept of sitcoms dwell on reinforcing stereotypes in just a “funny or new” manner. Indian television serials show mainstream drama projecting the relationship between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law as being manipulative and competitive to gain the sympathies of the son/husband.” Another participant, Azra Qaisar, who also happened to be the winner of this event, quoted Naomi Wolf, “Women are allowed to have a body or brain but not both”. A student of LSR itself, her paper focused on the women characters in the famous American sitcom The Big Bang Theory.
The title of the panel discussion of Day 2 was Alternative vs. Mainstream Cinema, will the spectrums ever converge? The panelists on board were Mr. Pankaj Butalia, an award winning documentary filmmaker known for his films like Moksha and Textures of Losses; Mr. Aamir Bashir, a renown Indian actor and filmmaker, known for his work in films like Harud and A Wednesday; Mr. Adil Hussain, an Indian stage, film and television actor most known for his work in Life of Pi and English Vinglish; and Ms. Shohini Ghosh, is the Zakir Hussain Professor of media at the AJK Mass Communication Research Center, an essayist on popular culture and a documentary filmmaker. The discussion was moderated by Ms. Abhija Ghosh, who is a student of Cinema Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University. The discussion began with the moderator asking each panelist to define what mainstream and alternative films are to them.
One particular analogy given by Shohini Ghosh, was that of “the king’s highway and the detours” referring to the mainstream and alternative films, respectively, was used extensively througout the debate. Ms. Ghosh looked more towards the intersection of the two ways, and the ways in which each has its own importance. She quoted the example of Christopher Nolan, as to how he converged the king’s highway and the detour to completely redefine film form. She said, she prefers the term ‘independent cinema’ over alternative cinema. Documentaries, she believes, create the ground for content based movies in the mainstream cinema and have an invisible network of screening and reaching the audience.
Mr. Aamir Bashir wondered where the “dung on the detours” would go with the “swachh abhiyaan” happening. He said that the problem was of appropriation of alternative into the mainstream and how the mainstream tries to proach the alternative. He questioned the distribution system and market economy and how these forces were not willing to back alternative content. He also clearly mentioned, how he wasn’t very optimistic for the future of alternative films in India.
Mr. Butalia was concerned with documentaries and the lack of importance given to them in conversations about films in general, saying that it was “almost as if they do not belong to the category of films“. In the words of Mr.Batalia, we look at the “content” and “form” to distinguish between alternative and mainstream cinema. As the content gets more and more acceptable, it gets appropriated into mainstream media. The demands of commerce do not constrain the alternative film whereas a formula is literally laid out to govern the mainstream cinema; while the alternative cinema experiments more with the form. According to him, creativity is the defining factor in alternative media.
Adil Hussain said that all people who act, make or criticise movies are only human. Human nature and tendencies lead to mainstream media to be more widely accepted than the alternative, simply because it is more familiar and more acceptable to the masses. According to him, the greatest flaw in the medium of film is the need for money to begin making it. While comparing films to theatre, he mentioned how theatre needs no such investment. He defined alternative or more artistic films as those which put the characters and content under an electron microscope, giving them a completely new perspective rising from extreme curiosity and respect towards the arts.
The final event of Juxtapose 2015, was the media quiz. This year’s quiz was conducted by QuizCraft Global Knowledge Solutions. The Quiz Master was Mr. Adittya Nath Mubayi, Director of QuizCraft Global.
The quiz began with a preliminary round of 25 questions. A total of 65 teams participated out of which 6 made it to the final. Each team consisted of two members. To break the ice, Mr. Mubayi interacted with each of the final teams and asked them which journalist they would become, if given a chance, for 60 seconds.
The teams that made it to the final quiz had some really interesting names like Inter Galactic Hanuman Sena, Merry Pranksters and Bazingaa to cite a few. In the first round, each question was backed up by 2 hints. Each team had to recognize a person. First the audio was shown then the first hint would be a fact and the second would be the photo. Answering without using hints meant 60 points while it came down to 40 and 20 with the use of the first and the second hint respectively. The second round had direct oral questions. The third round was named Look here, Look hear which included audios and visuals. It covered questions right from the iconic interview with Princess Diana to who the voice of the Delhi Metro is. The fourth round again had direct questions. The last round was the buzzer round. This was a +40 and -20 round and had eight questions. The interesting part about the quiz was that each round began with a question from the audience and ended with the same and also when no team could answer, it was passed on to the audience. For every correct answer from the audience Amazon Kindle e-vouchers were given as gifts.
Team Chapter 11 which had Sreshth Shah of Amity University and Raletim of IGNOU won the quiz with a total of 440 points, they were given a cash prize of Rs. 5,000 and gifts from Support Foundation, Muskaan the NGO and Print Octopus. “The quiz was quite tough and interesting and we are lucky to win it,” said Sreshth Shah after his victory. They were followed by Merry Pranksters which had Gokul and Arunav, students of Atma Ram Sanatan Dharm College and Aryabhatt College. There was tie between LSR’s Bazinga and Gulabbo for the third position and with a tie breaking round, Team Gulabbo grabbed the third position. The runner ups were awarded with cash prizes and gifts from the sponsors.
Compiled by: Sakshi Jain Megha Kalia, Maitreyee Misra, Tanvi Jalan and Saloni Singla
Udghosh’15, the annual sports festival of IIT Kanpur, was conducted from 1st-4th October, 2015. It sees massive participation from all over the nation year after year and has been growing well since its inception.
This year, Udghosh’15 showed the amount of raw talent that the youth of this nation possesses and that all it needs to be moulded into a sporting force to be reckoned with are encouraging tournaments.
The festival also saw some wonderful performances in the first two days. Day 1 featured a lively and soulful performance by “The Local Train”, which enthralled the crowd and was a perfect start to the festival. After a long day of tiring sports, the students found it the perfect platform to let off their steam. The second day featured bike stunts by the “Ghost Ryderz”, which was the first of its kind in any sporting festival in India. The crowd was wooed by the amazing daredevilry shown by the group, and was left waiting for more.
Day 3 featured an amazing performance by Nikhil D Souza, the voice behind some of the most romantic songs of our generation such as Mere Bina, GubbareandSang Hoon Tere among many others. The crowd was especially captured by his wonderful rendition of Mere Bina.
On day 4, the crowd was entitled to a raft of amazing sports performances by all the final day participants. The success of the festival was even clearer by the fact that all the competitions were conducted fairly and it was unanimous that the winners of all competitions were definitely the best among the lot.
The most important spectacle of Day 4, however, was the Closing Ceremony graced by Mr. Sanath Jayasuriya. His pearls of wisdom will definitely last forever with everyone who was present at the OAT that day. His humility and dedication towards sports was something which all the participants must look up to if they want to be successful in life. His words showed us that talent might make you a good player, but it is your attitude and dedication that makes you a great sportsperson.
Apart from all this, a plethora of informal events went on side by side during the four days, which kept the non-participants busy. The adventure villa and the poker tournament received massive participation and was a huge success.
Himadrish Suwan, a second year student of Political Science, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, has been presented the RTI Awareness Award 2015 by the RTI Institute of India on 28th September, 2015 (International Right to Information Day), for his contribution in the field of RTI activism.
Himadrish has filed over a 100 RTI petitions. The very first petition he filed was to replace the old, outdated coaches of the Ranchi Rajdhani with safer Linke Hofmann Busch coaches that will not turn turtle in the event of a collision. The Indian Railways swung into action and replaced 16 of the old coaches with LHB ones. Himadrish has also addressed several other RTI petitions to the Delhi Police, Central Board of Secondary Education and the Prime Minister’s Office.
On what it feels like to be the youngest to be honoured with this award, he says that it is a matter of pride. “If you have your question ready, it takes only a few minutes to file an RTI online. I consider the RTI to be a tool for social change and the day to day problems prevailing in the society inspire me to work,” he says. He feels that, rather than wasting time on social media, time may be spent on such constructive work, keeping in mind the larger interest of the society.
Himadrish also writes for various dailies and magazines and is the National Convener and founder of Mission E-Safai, a contribution of DU students to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan initiative.
