DU Beat, Author at DU Beat - Delhi University's Independent Student Newspaper

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Waiting to Catch a Breath

By DU Beat May 4, 2021

As patients are left gasping for air, what are the chinks in the medical oxygen supply chain that lead to this dire situation? This article takes a dive into the oxygen shortage the country is facing in the second wave of this deadly pandemic by exploring the logistical issues that exist in the system.

The Government of India recently claimed that “there was no shortage of medical oxygen in the country” during a hearing in the Supreme Court on issues related to COVID-19. This statement is in stark contrast with the on-ground reality.

Each day, news reports of hospitals running out of oxygen and patients dying because of it are coming out. As hospitals run dry and continue sending SOS messages to authorities, families of patients scramble to arrange oxygen. Social media platforms are cluttered with pleas and requests for different oxygen equipment like cylinders, cans, concentrators, and refilling facilities. The prices of oxygen equipment have increased dramatically, with people paying 3-5 times the normal prices. All of these are signs that give a clear indication- there is an acute shortage.

A closer look at the situation reveals that India’s oxygen scarcity is not a production problem but a faulty supply chain.

DEMAND-SUPPLY ANALYSIS

India’s demand for Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) has shot up since the pandemic. According to industry estimates, pre-COVID demand for LMO was about 700 tonnes per day (TPD). This increased four times to be 2800 TPD in the first wave of the pandemic. The requirement for the second wave has increased even more. India now needs 8000 TPD of medical oxygen according to the Union government’s submission to the courts.

To meet this growing demand, the government has taken initiatives to fast-track production.
On April 21, the Centre admitted to the Delhi High Court that India’s current production capacity of LMO was 7200 TPD, short of the 8000 TPD required. By the end of the month, it was reported that production had been ramped up to 9000 TPD. This was a result of increasing the capacity of existing LMO-producing industrial units. Moreover, the government has announced that 500 oxygen plants will be set up across the country over the next three months.

According to the government figures, it checks out that there is no shortage of LMO in the country. The per-day production is enough to meet the per-day requirements, at least for now.
Then why is there an oxygen shortage in the hospitals?

THE JOURNEY

Even though the daily production of medical oxygen is enough to meet the growing demands, transporting this oxygen to the final consumer i.e. the patient, is causing a huge bottleneck in the system.

TROUBLESOME TRANSPORT

The supply chain of industrial gases- including liquid oxygen was not ready to be shifted for medical use. Before COVID-19 there was just a 20% medical requirement for liquid oxygen. Today, 90% of liquid oxygen production is being diverted for medical use.

India has a total of 1919 vehicles for the transportation of industrial gases. Out of these 1919, 516 are exclusively used for the transport of liquid oxygen. There is a dearth of tankers that can transport liquid oxygen from the production units to the distributors. It takes almost 12-14 days for these tankers to travel from the oxygen-producing states of Chhattisgarh and Odisha to the states affected the most by the second wave- Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Delhi.

In an attempt to speed up this process, India decided to transport tankers through railways and airlift empty tankers back to the production units. However, in the one week since the Ministry of Railways began transporting oxygen, it was able to ferry just over 450 metric tonnes of oxygen. All of it went to the states of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi. To put the amount transported into perspective, Maharashtra alone needs 1550 TPD of medical oxygen for meeting its requirements. Delhi’s requirements are estimated to be 700 TPD. While the carrying capacity of one oxygen tanker is usually between 14-18 metric tonnes. This low capacity also contributes to the bottleneck in the supply chain.

The lack of tankers seriously diminishes the amount of medical oxygen reaching the hospitals. Inox Air Products, the largest producer of liquid oxygen is producing about 2000 TPD but ends up transporting only 20% of that. (image credits: Abhishek Chauhan)

As states and the Centre work to arrange more tankers, leading hospital chains- Apollo, Fortis and Max approached the courts in a bid to replenish their supplies. However, there is inequity in the distribution of LMO as the major share goes to these hospitals, while the smaller facilities operate on pleas.

CONCLUSION

While there might not be a shortage of oxygen in the country, there is a shortage in the hospitals of the country. The supply chain of liquid oxygen was unprepared for providing quick oxygen for medical use. As a result, people died, waiting for the most basic medical facility. The government showed a lack of preparedness. The centre had sanctioned the building of 162 oxygen plants in public health facilities back in 2020, only 33 of those are functional. With some foresight and preparedness, a lot of deaths could have been avoided.

For the readers- This second wave is difficult. All of us have lost someone or something that we hold dear to this pandemic. It’s important to take some time off to process and grieve. If you feel like writing to someone to express yourself, my email address is written below. I’ll try my best to reply and offer words of support. Take care and stay safe!

Feature Image Credits- BBC

Abhishek Singh Chauhan
[email protected]

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Examination Facade: University and The Pandemic

By DU Beat May 4, 2021

The second surge has hit the Indian subcontinent; posing a dual challenge for the government, marked by mounting cases and a collapsing healthcare system. Amidst all this, the interests of the university students closely hangs on the thin thread of ignorance. Read to find out more.

The NCR (National Capital Region) has been transformed into a hellhole, the healthcare framework is being pushed to its breaking point, marked by acute shortages of Oxygen and medical resources while the death tolls are breaking records each day. In a situation like this when every household is being pushed into the grasp of the Pandemic, the plight of varsity students regarding the semester examinations is being pushed to a hotline of discussion.

Several student organizations have taken numerous positions on this argument about the examinations. On Saturday, 24th April 2021, All-India Student Association (AISA) of Delhi University wrote to the Vice-Chancellor, PC Joshi, demanding the cancellation of exams amidst the COVID-19 crises. Simultaneously, on Sunday, April 25, 2021, Student’s Federation of India (SFI), Delhi University, issued a release demanding immediate postponement of even semester examinations for all students of the university. The lines of demands were quite the same highlighting the status quo of students not being mentally prepared for the line of examinations, also highlighting the exclusionary nature of the online classes. After numerous appeals from the student masses and DUTA, the University of Delhi gave out its take on the exam contention, pushing the final-year examinations to 1st June.

But now the question comes to the nature of this decision. Was it just a mere action of pacification; is it useful in the current environment and what do the concerned parties say about this?

Since the beginning of the second surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, institutions such as DU fail to postpone the university examinations . It poses a dual challenge for them to effectively manage the pressure on its respective students in these tumultuous times. However, the postponement is not at all a clear solution for the stress-reduction or effective management.

Professor Satish Deshpande, last year wrote about the same overlapping nuances of exams and pandemic,

There is a logistically viable and ethically fair alternative that also meets the basic objective of avoiding uncertainty and delay in the award of degrees. This is to cancel the final semester exams while using the average of the marks obtained in previous semesters as a proxy for the final semester examination marks. The logistical advantages of this option are obvious – pandemic restrictions are automatically respected, and there is no need to worry about connectivity because prior examination results are already available. This is also a fairer option in every sense – it does not add to existing inequalities, and it is based on each student’s performance in earlier examinations held under normal conditions.

“Moreover, this prior performance will account for the bulk of the degree programs – for three out of four semesters (in most master’s degrees) and five out of six semesters (in most undergraduate degrees). This is likely to be true even when the final semester has a higher weight (because of more papers, or papers with higher marks) than the previous semesters. Finally, this method does not preclude the normal options that students have for re-taking examinations to improve their performance if they so wish,” added Deshpande in his article.

The student organizations across Delhi University have similar takes on this mosaic of examinations. Akhil, the conveyor of SFI DU talked to DU Beat regarding this boiling topic, stating, “We need to consider that examinations are not possible in a situation like this where our households are on economic and mental breaking points. Postponing is contingent as we need to consider the changing circumstances in play; plus, this hanging uncertainty due to the unclear notification on postponement brings a lot of anxiety in the psyche of the students. There should be clarity in the decision, but this hanging sword of postponing would be unfair.”

Another insight was added by Abhigyan, a student activist of AISA. While talking to DU Beat, he held, “This cancellation has taken place because of the mass mobilization of the student and teacher masses, summing up to be a tool of pacification, giving no real relief to the students. Even if you schedule the exams for let’s say June, certain things need to be considered here, several students would still be suffering at that time being referred to as collateral damage. Plus, the responsibility of the University needs to be questioned here, they haven’t provided any kind of reading material or anything to the students, without considering the online class divide but expecting them to know everything and appear for examinations.”

“AISA’s first demand is to cancel these OBEs, then pass the students and explore other alternatives so that the future of the students doesn’t tamper. Seeing continuous death tolls on your screen tears you up and then the University comes is expects you to appear for the OBEs, is rather inhumane in its very nature,” added Abhigyan.

The OBEs give a singular advantage that they allow conduction of examinations in a pandemic. But, it fails to consider technological and economical stagnation. Moreover, it also worsens the conditions inevitably for students with different backgrounds. Privilege may play a significant part in the OBEs, but considering the mental state of the students, where every family is affected directly or indirectly by the second surge; the students are not in the stable headspace to appear for these examinations. In an online classroom mode, only the students with adequate technological resources and connectivity status can stably attend the lecture, the rest are excluded, and expected to adjust to the online exam model.

However, cancelling the examinations without any alternative model puts the students into a more vicious situation rather than acting as a solution. For this DU Beat approached Siddharth Yadav, the state Secretary of ABVP. Yadav held, “Cancelling the examinations for final year students is not a very feasible option, last year the AVBP resented the idea of cancelling the examinations because of the problems that come with it like the degrees would show that the students passed due to the COVID-19 situation, which questions the credibility of the student in the long run. Any form of metric assessment such as the examinations should be present in the status quo for the benefit of the final year students. But when it comes to the time of such assessment, it needs to be closely monitored and the varsity needs to be flexible regarding this considering the changing situation. We are keeping an eye on the situation and shall make sure a student-friendly decision is taken.”

Considering the multiple stakeholders and the principle of inclusive education in these raucous times, the University should engage more on the well-being of the students by exploring other alternative means, rather than imposing a system of assessment that is legitimized with closed eyes. Thereby, transforming the privileges into merit.

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Feature Image Credits: The New Indian Express

Nirmanyu Chouhan

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Debris of the One Left Behind in Death: To have Loved and Lost

By DU Beat May 3, 2021

This piece is an open letter to anyone suffering the loss of a loved one, and the author’s attempt to share your grief.

If you are reading this, you have probably either lost someone very dear to you, or you are afraid you might, and you just want to feel prepared. I know you have a lot of questions, and full disclosure. And I honestly don’t have answers to perhaps even half of them, but I have a lot to say (or write), and I want to be there for you. Don’t worry, I am not going to walk you through your “5 stages of grief” because I don’t think the amount or way in which you grieve the loss of a loved one is linear or can be put into a formula. Everyone processes death in a different way, your loss is personal and you are entitled to choose your own journey towards healing from it.

Neither will I tell you to “get over it”, because how do you even get over the fact that you have for eternity, lost someone around whom was a huge chunk of your life premised. I am here to be your friend, to probably make some “unhealthy” choices with you, but most importantly to tell you that you don’t have to “leave it all behind” – the memories and experiences you shared with your human to “move on”, because you cannot erase the recollection of moments you spent with your loved one. The more you will try to run away, the more the grief will catch on. I believe that embracing the loss, love and memories together, and moving forward with them is a healthier, if not easier way around it.

My 2 cents on life and death

Universe is a gigantic chaos. On a principal level, we still don’t know how and why things happen the way they do. We wonder if everything that we ever experience is carefully crafted scheme of events by some higher power, or a bedlam of randomness that conjures itself up; whether butterfly effect is impacting every moment of people’s lives, or we are too trivial as nihilism suggests, to ever have a tangible impact on how things function. There are so many questions we have for the cosmic that have no answers, but we do know one thing: the cycle of life and death is inevitable.

Amidst the absurdity of being born without consent and dying without it, we try to extend some sense to our otherwise meaningless lives, by filling it with people we can love. But life as we know it has only one constant, i.e., change. Different phases of our lives are marked by different sets of people that we grow to admire and surround ourselves with. The thrill and joy of making new friends and cultivating new relationships is perfectly balanced by the hurt associated with losing the ones you currently hold dear. Sometimes, you outgrow each other, sometimes you break each-others’ hearts, but the most devastating of all is the loss by death, because of how abrupt it is. All of a sudden, a human you hold so dear leaves you behind without any sense of closure, and you will never see them, hear from them or hug them ever again.

Death is a price you pay for living, and this is one tax you cannot evade. But is death so bad? If we really think about it, the beauty of doom hides in the fact that it makes us live a little extra each day. If life were eternal, we would never really appreciate it. We get to love our dear ones harder, every single day, because deep down we all know our life might end sooner than we anticipate, and we ourselves aren’t immune to death either.

How to deal with grief of death?

Grief is not a task but a process, a rollercoaster ride, if I put it in that way. While there isn’t a step-by-step guide on how to recover from the death of a loved one, here is a list of advices from a friend who wants to be there for you:

Accept death as the part and parcel of life: Easier said than done, accepting death as an inevitable end to every beautiful journey of life, with grace, makes the process of letting go and moving forward easy. Listen this, maybe this chaotic universe isn’t that meaningless after all, and anyone who comes has a purpose to fulfill, and once it’s done, they tip their hat and sign off. Sure, they won’t be around to witness the blossoms of seeds they’d sown, but they can still see it whenever they wish to, from up there.

Embrace how you feel: The void that comes with someone leaving is a haven of emotions that feel alien, but are very real, and the only way around, is to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Dear one, in grief there is no such thing as a right or wrong feeling. It’s okay to be mad at them sometimes because they had plans, you had plans together and now it’s just you left behind. It’s okay to cry your eyes out when you miss them terribly without feeling the need to be strong. It’s also okay if you don’t feel sad but choose to cherish your time together and all of the things you have been through – good or bad. It’s okay if you choose to execute the plans you made together, alone in their honor. In grief, you can choose to celebrate their life and validate your hurt, however you want.

Coping with change: The most difficult thing about accepting death is the change that comes with it, because your life will never be the same again, without someone you had premised a huge chunk of your life on. It’s okay to struggle with that change, take time with it and let yourself get sunk in it for some time.

Let others be there for you: No, you’re not burdening your friends with your emotions if you need to talk/rant/sob about your pain. Reach out if that makes you comfortable. They would love to be there for you, they just don’t know how to. You can also reach out to people suffering the loss of same person as you do, share beautiful memories or anecdotes, and reminisce the beauty their life was.

Art as an outlet: Sketching/painting/Music/Dance/Cooking or literally anything you love losing yourself to, do it. Let yourself get soaked by your passion, even if you have to push yourself initially. Even psychotherapist Megan Divine in her book “It’s okay if you’re not okay” recommends pouring emotions into art while grieving. At the end, I know how hard it must be for you, or maybe I don’t and never would, but I hope my small attempt to share your pain and grief wasn’t a total waste.

With love and warm hugs

A friend trying to be there for you

Featured Image Credits: nickoch’s blog

Cherishi Maheshwari

https://twitter.com/himantabiswa/status/1385891353842708480?s=20

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The Resource Surge: COVID-19 and Pointing Fingers?

By DU Beat May 3, 2021

The new 2021 COVID-19 surge has engulfed the Indian masses, with people losing their loved ones and the country’s healthcare system being pushed to its breaking point; the trends seem a gaslighting and blaming figure rather than mature accountability.

Trigger Warning: Covid Trauma

The situation in India has simmered down to a point of the NetherRealm, with a new double mutant of the Coronavirus having hit the country hard. Hospitals are running out of beds, oxygen stocks are hard to hunt for and mortuaries are being brighter and brighter day after day. And then, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal got into a minor fracas during the Union government’s video conference with Chief Ministers of States on 23rd April 2021. With a high COVID-19 strain in the NCR, Kejriwal live streamed his interjection at the meeting, desperately calling for help from the Centre, regarding the increasing requirements from the NCR healthcare system. As a stimulus Modi objected to what was happening, mottling it went against the protocol of such closed-door meetings.

At the meeting, Kejriwal informed PM Modi that a big tragedy could happen because of the oxygen shortage in Delhi hospitals and sought the Prime Minister’s intervention; Please sir, we need your guidance. On Thursday, 29th April 2021, the city had logged a positivity rate of 36.24%, the highest since the pandemic reached. Delhi on Saturday, 1st May 2021 added 357 deaths due to COVID-19, the highest ever single-day spike while 24,103 new cases of COVID-19 took the caseload to 1,004,782, according to the health department’s bulletin. Though the number of COVID-19 cases in the NCR has dropped gradually from the last week’s figure of 28,000+ to a figure of 24,000 a day, there is tremendous pressure on the healthcare infrastructure of the National Capital, with the hospitals at their breaking points, shortages of beds, medications and oxygen. The Chief Minister during the lockdown extension announcement on 25th April 2021, furthered, “While have failed to deliver oxygen at some places, in other places we have succeeded… the situation should be under control in the coming few days. Currently, though the Centre has increased Delhi’s oxygen quota again from 480 to 490 metric tons, the access problems remain. The requirement is 700 metric tons and what’s reaching us is 330 to 335 metric tons only.”

After the virtual debate with the PM, the social media started boiling up, with tweets and post alleging Kejriwal’s interjections as aimed schedules at politicizing the meeting to give the impression that the Centre was being heavy-handed with the States. Ironically leaders started to take a stance against the so-called mismanagement of the Delhi Government. Not surprisingly the media went on crossing the line of conscience, ultimately ending up fibbing the Delhi government on simple rhetoric around the PSA oxygen plants, and how Kejriwal deliberately impeded their set up? The Union alleges that the Delhi government played an active role in delaying the site readiness for installing eight PSA Oxygen plants.

The Government sources stated to the ANI that to enlarge the medical oxygen capacity of the NCR to treat COVID-19, eight PSA oxygen generation plants are being installed with the support of the PM Cares Fund. Adding the sources also said, “These plants will enhance the capacity of medical oxygen by 14.4 metric tons. Of the eight PSA plants to be installed in Delhi, one was already installed at Burari Hospital, Kaushik Enclave on March 17. Four plants, one each at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, Lok Nayak Hospital, Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, Rohini and Deepa Chand Bandhu Hospital, Ashok Vihar are expected to be completed by April 30.”

The centre asserts that the government of Delhi deliberately delayed the site readiness despite the weekly reviews since November 2020, alleging that for Ambedkar Nagar Hospital, Dakshinpuri, the site has been readied as late as 19th April, 2021 by the Arvind Kejriwal-led government. Also, the Government alleges that the site readiness certificate of Satyawadi Raja Harishchandra Hospital, Narela has not been submitted by the Delhi government yet.

Image Captions: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal during the COVID-review conference on Friday.

Image Credits: ANI

Kejriwal in response to this allegation on Sunday, 25th April 2021, stated in a media address that the Central government decided to set up 162 PSA plants all over India and issued tenders for the same in October 2020. Adding to this he said,

“The plants were to be set up by Union Health Ministry through PM Cares fund, and not a single rupee was given to state governments. All these plants were supposed to have been installed by December 2020 and handed over to state governments. However, the Central government gave the contract for 140 of these plants to a single vendor, who ran away. As a result, across India, not even 10 of these 162 plants have been made operational till date.”

“After multiple follow-ups with the Central government, plants for five hospitals were delivered in early March 2021. Typically, these plants take three to four days for installation. However, once again, the vendor was non-responsive and after multiple follow-ups with the Centre, only one of the five plants has been made operational to date,” added Kejriwal during his address.

The Delhi government alleged that for the remaining two hospital locations, the plants have not even been received on site. In response to the site readiness allegation by the Center, the government of Delhi stated in an address, “We are shocked to learn that Central government is now making the excuse of site certificate not being available from the Delhi government as a reason for the delay in plants. This has never been brought to Delhi government’s notice and is an outright lie.”

Kejriwal also added that 7 out of 8 plants in the National Capital Region were set up at the Delhi government Hospitals and one at the Central government hospital in Safdarjung, stating that the PSA plant has not been made operational at even Centre’s own Safdarjung hospital, claiming that the Centre is caught in the web of its lies.

The essence of Democracy, as explained by our PM during the Bengal rallies, is that the governments are expected to take responsibility when actions go wrong. Well, the logic here lies in the fact that you can never equate the atmanirbhar justification in the mass death and chaos of the citizens, you promise to work for, and setting a precedence by brushing away the questions with the pyre ashes. For the people, the God-figure is silent to their prayers, far away from the time of coming out of the shadows of denial and taking responsibility for the chaos, acknowledging the failure.

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Feature Image Credits: Anadolu Agency

Nirmanyu Chouhan

Features

For the ‘Could Haves’ and the ‘Should Haves’: Dealing with Lost Time and its Many Dilemmas

By DU Beat May 2, 2021

There is a looming sense of regret that sits right in the middle of my chest. It pokes my arms every day, pestering me to get out of my room, meet my friends, and “live” in a way that would make me seem more interesting. We have stepped into 2021, and yet it feels like our life has been put on one of those repeat telecasts, much like we are just living in 2020 2.0

College has been a very numbing experience. I find myself operating on auto-pilot, hardly making sense, processing what I am feeling each day, let alone acknowledging how far I’ve come. When you start functioning in a certain way, start putting up with deadlines, attending classes, submitting assignments, it all becomes part of a fixed routine that starts to attach itself to your identity. To find yourself at the end of two extremes, either jostling with a stringent routine or vehemently searching for it, navigating and placing your life and all its social interactions have been an indescribable and numbing experience. Every day is about grappling with the thought of losing out on the days you were meant to live out the freedom you were promised throughout your school years. Going out on spontaneous drives, spending hours aimlessly wandering markets all over the city, impromptu night-outs, all were meant to be the small pleasures of your DU experience.

A Day at a Time

I lie on my bed, witnessing days after days becoming miserable: my anxiety meter has broken all records, my interest seems to have wandered off to far off lands which only exists in surrealist visions and getaways, and my mother watches me as I hang in there. There is this constant need to go out and ‘live’ my life, and yet on some days, I barely find myself “living” at all.

This pandemic has given us a lot of things including exclusion and lone. I find myself detached from everyone and everything, and yet glued to this screen of my laptop or my phone. People ask me “when does your college reopen?” and I look the other way, too numb now to grapple with that question.

With third years not getting the graduation they were supposed to have and not having been able to make the best out of their college experience, I wonder if I will suffer the same fate, and so will my batchmates who came to the University with varied hopes, ambitions, and dreams: who only now sit and watch as all of that withers by.

Far Away From Reality

And then there are first-years, who haven’t even experienced college yet and no one knows when they will get to. I see potential and I see all of that fade away into the thin virus-prone air while they sit in front of their laptops (if they are privileged enough) trying to make sense of what the administration refers to as an “online education”. One of the biggest challenges one may have faced as a fresher attending the University online is the pressure to prove their likeability to other people. This aspect manifests itself quite differently offline as conversations and plans have a way of flowing naturally, leaving little to no space for any kind of pretence or forcefulness. Who you are, what you should be, and how you’re expected to be the gap between these three personas seems to become wider and wider as we spend more time away from real existence. Now, both the external and internal worlds have mixed to leave no balance and no actual place to go to when in need of some respite. Life at home is inextricably tied to visualizing your life outside. While opening up things is still not viable, I somehow wish people would remind themselves of the larger lessons these years were meant to teach us. That of slowing down and easing up. Not having to do too many things in too little time and feeling like you’re losing out on all of it. Not much has changed in terms of measuring levels of productivity. These years seem to have hit everyone differently yet it’s as if we are moving far away from all sorts of individuality.

Seizing a Sliver of Hope

While I sit at home, I’ve formed my own set of simple pleasures and little yet significant sources of joy. For homebodies and introverts, it is comparatively easier to find hope and inspiration to continue, especially if you add some romanticization and a stable home environment into the mix. But, things start to become blurred. The hope that you so strongly rely on gets hidden amidst the uncertainty of the future. You’ve imagined a stage of your life pan out in a specific way and suddenly you have to deal with the destruction of that imagination. It is this living in your head, imagining what could have been and what should be that takes an eventual toll. This toll and turmoil persist especially if you see things and people around you progress and live in ways that somehow resemble how you imagined life to be. It is a persistent struggle between privilege and tip-toeing around how morals come into effect in an ongoing global pandemic.

For Lost Time and Growth

We all have had to deal with the loss of a substantial amount of time which somehow keeps piling up. Earlier, I didn’t pay enough attention to lost time as it was often made up for. But, now there is grieving not only for all those days and endless memories that could have been but also for ourselves. It is known for a fact that you can’t possibly get to experience and hold everything in life. Things are bound to come to you at their own pace and when you least expect them. This once again starts to seem too simplistic especially when you operate within a limited time frame to make the best of your formative years.

There is this other thing, though. My creativity helps me breathe, and so I write with all that I have and lay bare all my emotions. I have learnt to cherish every moment and every conversation that I get, even if it’s just in the form of a text or a call because I have realised that that’s all I’m going to get for a while, so might as well hold on to it. And so I dare you, I dare you to hold on to everything that makes your day just a little bit more liveable: scrolling through that relatable meme page or watering that plant or waking up and feeling the sun on your skin, or talking to that one person who stayed by you throughout all of this, and so much more in the form of stardust and pixie rainbows. Anything and everything that can still manage to bring a smile on that face too weary to go on any further and rejuvenate that mind exhausted from deadlines and a failed chance at a “college experience” and everything in between.

And as much as I despise even accepting this, all this time and space with myself has allowed me to grow and sustain myself in a manner that no other space or degree could have. Yes, had I been in college, my experiences and my confrontations would have looked differently but am I willing to trade off finding my voice during the pandemic with the hope of something better? No. I let go of my time and energy, wondering the possibilities and plausibilities, and yet it has only made me more miserable. You don’t satiate your hunger by staying hungry, you do it by the act of going and getting food. And so, if you are an introvert or an extrovert or just a person still in the excavation of finding themselves, find your tether. It can be your family, your friends, or just the hope of meeting your favorite person or having cheese chilly Maggi in your college Nescafe for the first time or just being amid Delhi University’s red walls: surrounded by brilliant minds and a vision to aspire more, dream more, and act more. Hold on, so that when you really get the chance to be out there in the world, you are your most vulnerable unapologetic self, in the most YOU way possible.

Featured Image Credits: Vyamin

Annanya Chaturvedi
[email protected]

Uncategorized

A Rundown of DU’s Indifference to our Plight

By DU Beat May 1, 2021

The University of Delhi (DU) has outdone itself in willfully failing to acknowledge the grievances of its students and teachers by deciding to conduct OBEs amidst the collective trauma that the country is going through. This article is an exploration of the gravity of the issue, the opinions of those whose well-being is the most at stake and the secondary considerations that cannot be overlooked.

“ In extraordinary times like these however, it’s so integral to give yourself the benefit of the doubt. This is not the time to feel guilt or regret over days spent taking care of your physical and mental health rather than being conventionally productive”.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused an upheaval in the functioning of the country as palpable fear and anxiety to loom around its people, exacerbated by the ever-proliferating number of cases and deaths. Today, the insanely overburdened and under-equipped health infrastructure of the country is nearing its collapse as it faces shortages of hospital beds, medical equipment, treatment drugs, and healthcare workforce. Despite the best efforts of the healthcare workers and those who’re religiously following all precautionary measures against the virus, innumerable families are currently grieving the loss of their loved ones, some of whom couldn’t even get the resources they needed to recover. The government has barely taken any concrete measures besides willfully failing to provide any sort of relief to those who are suffering. This blatant disregard for the plight of the common people has prompted students all over the country, who themselves might be suffering physically or mentally or might be taking care of their family members who are COVID-19 positive, to take up the task of verifying and amplifying pandemic- related resources, regardless of whether they have time to spare or not.

Numerous college societies and student-run NGOs have started their COVID-19 relief helplines to increase the accessibility of these extremely limited resources. The upsetting reality is that millions of people today are relying heavily on the mental effort, energy, and hours invested by these students in helping others, while the government continues to be indifferent. To add to the mayhem, the University of Delhi (DU) has decided to hold the final examinations of second and final year students, thereby adding to the distress and emotional anguish of lakhs of students who are already anxious about and preoccupied with taking care of themselves, their families and others in need. This has resulted in widespread criticism from the affected students, their teachers, and unions like the Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) as the consensus among all is that the University’s resolution to conduct examinations in such emotionally and physically challenging times reflects its lack of empathy for those it claims to serve.

Since the onset of the pandemic, DU has conducted online semester examinations thrice. Each time, its decision to hold OBEs was based on the unfounded assumption that all its students, backed by varying family incomes, had the necessary facilities to attend classes and sit for their exams smoothly. If there’s one thing that’s stayed constant throughout last year, it’s the University’s disinterest in considering the specific privileges of a proportion of its students, or lack thereof. Except for this time, the frightful state of the country and its toll on the mental and physical health of the students has further added to their adversity. A common sentiment shared by most students and professors is that it is out rightly brutal on the University’s part to subject
them to such mental pressure at a time when the majority of them are grieving the loss of a relative or are down high fever, severe body ache and other ghastly symptoms of COVID-19.

Image caption: DU students to DU Beat

“We’ve already lost some of our colleagues, so many are suffering and there’s no record of the number of students who are currently COVID-19 positive. The exams scheduled for May end must be postponed immediately,” said Mr. Rajib Ray, the President of DUTA, who expressed these concerns in a letter to the acting Vice-Chancellor and appealed for the extension of deadlines of Internal Assessments as well.

Even more than the University’s lack of consideration and understanding, what’s agitating the concerned students and teachers the most is the dearth of response from the University’s end for their queries, appeals, and grievances. Time and again DU has reinforced its inability to take a proper stance to back its students and its teachers. It is only after a series of requests, mass protests, strikes, and other forms of demonstration that the University feels compelled to take some sort of action. The current situation however has thrown several issues out into the open, one of them being whether the University is politically hindered and is unable to support its students and teachers and help them. It feels as if the modus operandi of the institutional structure disallows it to consider all viewpoints and perspectives, even if they go against the establishment. There are a lot of confusing elements at play and it’s normal for any student to get utterly perplexed and dejected by the overwhelming amount of things happening around. Firstly, as mentioned, the youth is significantly and virtually running the health infrastructure. It’s not as if students have an enormous amount of free time but the kind of helplessness that has pervaded and persisted has inevitably forced us to take the reins of the situation into our hands. While some colleges have ensured and implemented some amount of leniency, the experience across the University has been extremely varied. Moreover, while Universities like Ambedkar, NIFT, Delhi Technological University all have suspended regular classes, the situation isn’t as smooth and comfortable for the country at large. The recent incident at IIT Kharagpur is a testament to that.

Secondly, when it comes to the conduction of OBE examinations for the second and third-year students there’s a lot of conversation and an overall explosion of opinions from all sides which have to be heard and considered before the University takes any decision. Postponing exams could be a probable cause for added pressure later on, as it will not only hinder further academic prospects for the final year students but also rests on an idealistic
assumption that things will improve fast. The students studying at Delhi University come from all over the country and with such a diverse demographic, going ahead with the exams at a time when the country is burning is downright inhuman. “Firstly it’s not an easy yes or no when it comes to cancelling exams altogether. We need to realize how we are dealing with a lot of different people and individual differences. We need to consider the problem of the third-year students fulfilling their academic timeline which is integral for pursuing their Master’s and can reflect in their employment as well.” says Karthika Sajeev, President of the LSR Student Union.

There must be a realization that the consequences of the second wave of the pandemic are way more drastic and sudden as opposed to the first wave, making this year a substantially difficult year to keep a track of all your commitments. Sajeev further points out how for most students it is physically and mentally impossible to sit for exams let alone attend classes. According to her, even the faculty members are not in the right mind space to properly devote themselves. Attendance has gone down significantly, with most classes not even seeing fifty percent of students turning up. “Last year the situation was better but we need to realise how the situation plays out in multiple ways. We have yet to receive our results from the last semester and if the university goes on ahead with the examinations, who is going to evaluate them?” Sajeev remarks on the lack of clarity and communication from the University’s end. Indian Universities indefinitely have a habit of valuing hustle culture over normal, human concepts such as taking breaks, work-life balance, etc. With that being said, if the university goes ahead with the examination it will be a highly discriminatory move against those who are COVID-19 positive and have lost their family members. Some might argue that online classes are relatively easier to navigate. We understand that disrupting the entire academic calendar of an institute as significant as the University of Delhi isn’t an easy decision. However, providing students and teachers with absolutely no relief after a tsunami of tragedies in the country is heartless, to say the least.

“The University has made no attempt to provide relief to the families of the teachers we’ve lost, the teachers who have to teach despite not having the mental bandwidth for it, the students who are suffering or the ad hoc teachers who lack essential job privileges. Moreover, the propagation of fake news by the government to divert people’s attention from genuine concerns of the aggrieved and its inconsiderable and inconsistent contribution to dealing with the pandemic crisis have shown its utter disregard for the well-being of its citizens,” said Miss Abha Dev Habib from DUTA. The idea isn’t about flexibility as much as a heartless approach being employed to deal with the situation. Citizens are left, alienated, and disowned to look out for themselves. There’s no idea of a welfare state looking after the necessities. No scope of communication with any regard or empathy for those who’ve been potentially traumatized for the rest of their lives.

Image caption: “Exams or no exams, classes suspended or not, we must reach a larger and conscious acknowledgement of the fact that we all need to slow down”.
Image credits: Elzeline Kooy

At one instance, teachers and students are struggling to find Oxygen and Remdevisir leads, and the very next moment you’re struggling to finish assignments, attend lectures, take notes and juggle internships side by side. This is to assume you’ve not been affected directly by the pandemic. When you’re running pillar to post, struggling to find basic resources that should otherwise be easily accessible, completely ruptured by the whirlpool of uncertainty around, you can’t possibly think of grueling yourself further with the complicated OBE exams. “Our session will get over on the 30th of April, most Internal Assessments are already there with the respective professors. At this point it’s all about how the University responds. We’ve sent emails to the Vice Chancellor, the Dean and we just hope that the University makes a quick decision in the favor of the student and faculty body.” Sajeev points out with a hint of optimism.

Once again the question that arises is of the complete breakdown of all mechanisms to seek redressal. As brought forth by Sajeev, a lot of DU colleges do not have an active student body that will actively communicate the students’ grievances while also keeping in contact with the faculty members. The situation has lapsed beyond control and one is left to realise that often students have to face crises disproportionately. It’s imperative to remember that the principal reason for the existence of the University is to bring value to its students and professors. The institute was built to serve us and not the other way round. And no matter how strenuous it gets to navigate the right path to collective betterment, it is still vitally important that the University places the well-being of the students and teachers over all secondary considerations, at every step of the way, including this very moment. And the need of the hour is to let the affected parties decide for themselves what the best approach to soothe their afflictions would be. What holds paramount importance right now is that the grievances and opinions of the students and professors, the ones who are the most
affected by the University’s decision, are heard and entertained, despite what the University may consider to be the better judgment. It is quite certain that the mental and psychological consequences of the impact will be deep- rooted. At present, there are no clear-cut solutions to the problems that we as students and as citizens of this exhausted country are facing. Exams or no exams, classes suspended or not, we must reach a larger and conscious acknowledgement of the fact that we all need to slow down. We all need to give each other the space to grieve, process our emotions, collect our thoughts or simply take a break. There is no certainty of the fact that things will get relatively better. In extraordinary times like these however, it’s so integral to give yourself the benefit of the doubt. This is not the time to feel guilt or regret over days spent taking care of your physical and mental health rather than being conventionally productive. Our only hope is that things will get better. People will look out and support each other. empathy will replace apathy, The government will be held accountable for the grave terror they’ve carelessly caused. And, most importantly the voice of the youth will be heard.

Featured Image Credits: LA Johnson, National Public Radio

Tara Kalra
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Shirley Khurana
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Farewell Season

In the Hope of Relief from the Hellish cycle

By DU Beat April 26, 2021

As I said, there is no escape from this cycle, but there is relief for sure. Relief you will find in trying, be it these matters of national importance or your personal calling. There is calm for sure in giving it another go. College tests you in all ways possible, it is after all our first step into the real world.

Passing and leaping over many deadlines, I have come to this, my last article for DU Beat. In the past few months, the horrors of the blank page have devoured me, the blinking cursor, and the lying pencil have become devils waiting for me. It’s hard to write but it’s a lot harder to write daily. As I prepare myself to leave college and the excellent organisation of DUB (the source of my entire identity in college), the fear of blank pages is still on my back, chasing me every now and then.

Though, I entered college with a different set of fears altogether, this blank page didn’t even exist then. There were lists of things to be done and places to be visited, all huddled in a diary that has preserved tears from my school days. So in my college of just about one year or maybe some months more than that, I am happy to say, I never got the time to even visit back that diary. Lists were made daily and were lost in scours of pages in my wallet or got mixed up with bank receipts or pink tickets from DTC.

I still remember my first article written about DU titled “Entering DU via Whatsapp”. The 2021 student in me wrote, actually posed the question- “So will we, the first batch to join DU virtually, be able to foster friendships that will go beyond similar watch and playlists?” Hardly knowing that I was about to lose almost every friend, I had at that moment. The problem then was to meet those friends in person, the problem today is we haven’t even talked since last year. The best thing about DU or in fact any college is the dynamic and the huge spectrum of problems that it throws at you. From not giving physical degrees to students, suspending them for screening a documentary, and not allowing elections of student unions for more than three years, to heartbreaks, broken friendships, loneliness, and inferiority complex, it gives us all.

There is actually no escape from this hellish cycle, I could have painted this article with beautiful nostalgia for red-bricked walls, mustered up some beautiful imagery about the campus, a short anecdote from Khan market and a quick motivational line at the end asking you all to strive towards change. (Would have made a cute article though.) But that’s the sad part, change here has been going backwards and there seems to be no anchor strong enough to stop this ship from sailing towards the wrong side. So the challenge for you, all upcoming ones, is not to drive towards change but rather to try and stop it from happening. Be it censorship of our syllabuses (please read Bama, Sukirtharani and Mahasweta Devi’s work) or rather a complete refurbishing of them, turning our colleges into the sanctum of their ideological frameworks, using our hostel lands as gaushalas, organising dubious and extremely biased literature festivals, not paying our karamcharis and teachers their salaries or allowing men who call for genocide as guests of honor in our fests. The tide of ideological supremacy is gulping the entire nation into it, and so are going down our universities deep into it. More than anything the change and push towards privatisation of education needs to be stopped. More than change and more than an urge to become something else, what is of urgent importance is for us to be students – learners and practitioners.

As I said, there is no escape from this cycle, but there is relief for sure. Relief you will find in trying, be it these matters of national importance or your personal calling. There is calm for sure in giving it another go. College tests you in all ways possible, it is after all our first step into the real world.

But there is more that our time and circumstances demand, to be students aware of the changes being induced towards them, those who know the power of asking questions and use it correctly. It’s not a call to fight or to resist on streets, this is a call to be conscious of things going around, to question while you sit in your class and the teacher sushes down an argument by other student on the pretext of fear, to join in and understand the problems of karlamcharis and teachers, to point out language imposition and discrimination of any sort when you see it. This is a call to ask for your college to be a part of DUSU, for if this university still remains a democratic space, every college student must get the right to vote for their union representatives. There is no escape but the relief will be in democracy only, both at the national, college and personal level.

Luckily, I found my relief in DU Beat and the people who work here, for which I will remain grateful forever. Be it my personal woes or the university ones, I got the platform to address them all. But yes, the fear of blank pages and the fear of not being a student anymore devours me, but I will try to keep refreshing my set of fears and to keep the student in me alive, always.

In hope of relief.

Kashish Shivani

https://dubeat.com/2012/10/signature-campaign-by-tibetan-youth-congress/

Uncategorized

The Complexities of Nature as a Muse for Art

By DU Beat April 22, 2021

Nature has inspired art in a myriad of ways, be it music, literature, movies or paintings. This has acted as a tool to not only connect with the world around one but also rediscover it through aesthetic eyes.

Our art is an extension of a never-ending quest for soul searching, a gaze into the depths of our being- into the depths of what lies around us. We find inspiration in the complexities of the world around us, in the bustling streets of the city and the quaint hills of the countryside. The world around us in all of its natural glory is but our greatest muse- nature brings out feelings and emotions and beautiful art from within the depths of our mental limitations.

Nature is our greatest artistic muse, and it has inspired many great works in the past- both overtly and covertly. It has manifested as a backdrop for startling drama and chaos as well as symbolised inner meanings of what artists try to bring out, it often takes a centre stage as the overarching theme and umbrella under which everything unfolds, be it literature, movies and paintings. Our subtle and romantic relationship with the beauty of nature- be it snowy peaked mountains or pinky sandy beaches, the leafy green of a luscious hillside or the sensual golden of dunes in the desert inspires both performative and literary art in inexplicable ways.

In both movies and music, nature is infused with emotion and the sounds of nature are used to complement the dialogue and artistry of the medium. A lot of music is derived from the sound and essence of nature, like Chopin’s raindrops, inspired by the soft mellow sound of raindrops falling. In many movies, nature is used strategically not only to contribute to magnificent sets but also woven into subtle aspects of the plot, like the movie October, and the Shiuli flower, after which the lead female character is named.

In literature, some of the most famous work has been inspired by or symbolised through nature. William Shakespeare’s iconic “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day” is a sonnet written comparing his lover to a summer’s day, using it as an allegory to bring out both beauty and immortality. This has been used as a poem of love for time immemorial- a testament to the endless beauty of nature and natural allegories. Many of Wordsworth’s poetry, like “Daffodils” and “I wander lonely as a cloud”, are inspired by the humaneness of aspects of nature, speaking to the emotions of loneliness and happiness subjectively. In these poems, the artist has a simplistic yet profound relationship both with his art as well as the nature that inspired it- a versatile canvas as well as a theme for art across time and space. Other poetry and great works of literature, like the Tempest, refer to deeper symbolic themes like a psychological storm and experiences of confusion, of conflict both inward and between characters, as well as a backdrop for action and drama.

Often, art depicts nature in its most explicit form, as we see in the breathtaking painting Starry Night by Van Gogh, Water Lilies by Monet or Sunlight and Shadow by Heade. These are not only vivid portrayals of nature but also expressive of the implicit emotions and feelings behind these portrayals, the angst or the wander, the light and the shadow.

Nature has a complicated relationship with the different kinds of art as well as the artist, and sometimes this journey of emulating nature in one’s art can be a spiritual experience of connecting with something bigger than oneself.

https://dubeat.com/2020/04/the-call-for-earths-voice-to-be-heard/

https://dubeat.com/2015/11/peaking-into-the-real-heaven-on-earth-kashmir-du-beat/

Featured Image Credits: Starry Nights

Riddhi Mukherjee

Uncategorized

Earth Day: DU’s Goblet of Green Smiles

By DU Beat April 22, 2021

This Earth Day – 22^nd April, 2021 – is a day for celebration. 2020 has been very merciful, in terms of environmental pollution of Earth, thanks to the lockdown. But in the long run, what are the contributions of DU to environmentalism?

The prolonged lockdown that was put in place also bought human-origin pollutants to an all-time low and has greatly benefitted Earth to remediate its badly injured environment – gave some time for the self-care of Earth. Even though last year has granted some brief respite from pollution, the vigil of environmentalists isn’t – for there is a long way to go in this ‘domain’ before we could take any rest (Thank you for such beautiful lines, Frost!). And in this ongoing ‘war’, it must imperative that each and every one of us contributes to it in every possible way we can. And when contribution at an individual level is that imperative, the need for the same from organizations can’t be underscored enough. So, how is our DU doing in this regard?

First off, Environmental Studies (EVS) is one of the compulsory courses that students of Delhi University have to study for a semester under Ability Enhancement Compulsory Courses (AECC). This has been implemented under the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) to make the students aware of the environment they reside in. From covering the basics of the environment to raising issues about the tortures done on the same by human actions; the course covers it all. Considering the fact that zero empathy is shown by most individuals from our generation towards nature, the above course is needed – very much. Not even the invisible creator of this universe can undermine the importance embodied to our beloved Earth. Earth can be personified as a loving mother, desperately longing for her son (humans in this context) to return back only to be ignored by the latter. The course acts as a connecting bridge between the students and nature; within whose pallu we used to hide while playing hide and seek in our childhood. Moments as such are only just a figment of the tangled webs of our memories.

However, ask any student about their likeness towards and most of them will react with a disgusted look. “EVS kisko pasand hai, yaar?” is the most common statement that can be heard over almost all the tongues. Be it the syllabus or the subject itself, you’ll hardly find a student interested in the same. The dislike towards the subject is so much that an interested student would be no less than an alien for many (but no less than a god for notes before exams).

“I am interested in knowing about the environment but the syllabus rendered to the subject is an ultimate thumbs down for me. I mostly sleep in all of the classes.” – Anonymous

The syllabus needs to be changed, no arguments on the same. The entire syllabus excluding a topic or two is a mere repetition of what has already been taught to us in school days. From ecosystems to the various kinds of pollution, students already have an idea about these. Learning about already known things is a bit of a turn-off, isn’t it? At least for me, it is. Including topics such as the philosophy of nature, sociology of nature, energy science etc. is the need of the hour. Experiments are being carried out in nature with the passing of each day. Young environmentalists are emerging one after another with ideas that deserve truck-loads of praise. We are tired of learning the same things again and again. Change in the syllabus is the only action that can save students from the boredom attributed to the same.

“We have an excellent teacher for environmental studies. However, the I-don’t-care attitude portrayed by my fellow classmates is discouraging. They need to learn to be more respectful.” – Anonymous

Students are to be brought in a negative light as well for some reasons. The boredom attributed to the same is understandable. However, one shouldn’t completely neglect a subject in its entirety. Till the time the current syllabus is being taught, one should at least give an effort to know the contents of the same. Knowledge never goes to waste. Only if we respect a subject, the subject will respect us back. The same goes for the environment as well. Respect is a two-way virtue.

But not stopping with that, the colleges have also engaged in many short-term measures to curb environmental pollution immediately. Many colleges have taken concrete steps to make their campuses more environment-friendly – the details of which are available on their websites. Many colleges like Hindu College, Mata Sundri College, Sri Aurobindo College have implemented various measures to minimize the adverse impact they have on the environment. It is noteworthy that Hindu College has ‘acoustically enclosed’ its generator – in an attempt to address noise pollution, something that is often overlooked by many. Some DU colleges have set up Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) as per the mandate of the Union Grants Commission (UGC) in a bid to incentivize colleges to be more active in the remediation of environmental pollution. Though colleges have set up bio-gas plants, solar plants, rainwater harvesting, plastic-free campuses, efficient electrical appliances, encouraged use of public transport and bicycles, promoted paperless documentation, and planted many trees as part of Van Mahotsav, the problem inherent here is that the shoddy implementation of these measures. Though there are various measures on paper, there are only very few which have been implemented satisfactorily; many haven’t been implemented yet or are stagnant halfway. But it is at least encouraging that DU has some environmental remediation measures on paper and we can only hope and voice that their implementation must be fast-tracked and made more efficient.

However, despite this, the Eco Clubs set up by the students of various colleges offer a ray of hope that even if the colleges slack, there are students who don’t. Even during the pandemic, the Clubs have been active – recruiting members and conducting various webinars and other activities online. For example, the Eco Club of Sri Venkateswara College have conducted a webinar on ‘Know your Wetlands’ and competitions associated with it. Taking their work very seriously, the members of the club have even travelled to the college to check on the vermicomposting pit they had set up – during the pandemic. This shows how dedicated these students are to the welfare of Earth, contributing in every way they can – creating vermicompost to manage waste, planting trees, clearing waste off public places. The dedication of these students to this cause shows light to humanity on how just important the environment is. And it also promises a better and brighter future in which youngsters take care of Earth consciously.

Most recently, in the pursuit of environmental remediation, DU has announced that it would set up a School of Climate Change and Sustainability (DSCC&S) with Professor C R Babu – a renowned environmental scientist – under the Institute of Eminence scheme. As per the official statement, “DSCC&S will take up research in priority areas like how to make our cities climate resilient? How to achieve sustainability in the face of environmental challenges?” It will encourage and incentivize research and development in sustainable development pursuits – resource enhancement, energy, resource recycling, waste management amongst others. This could very well catapult India into a position to comfortably navigate economic development while cutting on carbon emissions as per the Paris Agreement. But this stands upon the assumption that the implementation is fast and efficient and DU must make sure it is – for Earth is above everything else: religions, linguistics, boundaries, countries, continents.

In a nutshell, on this Earth Day let’s promise ourselves to at least be a bit more attentive in our EVS classes and gather the unknown from them. Bringing a bit of Indian philosophy at the end, mother Earth can be everything. She can be sattvic i.e. calm and all the good things; however she can be tamasic as well. The COVID-19 pandemic is nothing but mother Earth making us realise the atrocities that she had faced because of us – evident from the fact that the environment has been much healthier in 2020 than it has been for a long, long time. The only planet kind enough to nurture life is Earth and let’s make sure it stays that way and doesn’t crumble into a barren wasteland.

Feature Image Credits : Sourav Sreshth

Himasweeta Sarma

Harish Leela Ningam