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

An ‘All India Convention on Higher Education Under the NEP 2020’ was hosted by AIFRTE to deliberate upon the New Education Policy (2020). The event included a long list of educationists, coming from various parts of the country, who presented their views on the subject. Read ahead to find out more.

The All India Forum for Right to Education (AIFRTE) organised an ‘All India Convention on Higher Education Under the NEP 2020’, on 27 May 2022 at the Gandhi Peace Foundation. The event was attended by renowned educationists and professors, who came from various parts of the country to deliver speeches on a subject of shared interest. Various student and teacher organisations including All India Students’ Association (AISA), Students’ Federation of India (SFI), Collective, and Democratic Teachers’ Front (DTF) were also present, among others.

Among the first speakers, who were scheduled to speak in the First Session, Mrigank delivered his speech on ‘NEP 2020: Background and Purpose’. He is the Senior Vice President, IFTU, National Executive Member, AIFRTE, and Convenor, People for Science (Delhi). Through his speech, he stressed on how the policy is a ‘complete corporatization of education’. He stated that the entire document reflects a budget cut of the government and further claimed that this policy would give birth to a population of ‘zombies’ who would not have a mind of their own.

Following this, Professor. Surjeet Majumdar, who is a Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and a former secretary of JNUTA, spoke on the subject, ‘Killing several birds with one stone: Higher Education in NEP 2020’. Professor Majumdar asserted that neither there is an increase in the public expenditure on education nor there is an increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). With his speech, the first session culminated for a short break of a few minutes.

Beginning the next session was Professor Minati Panda, who is a professor at Zakir Husain Centre for Education Studies, JNU. She made her speech on ‘The Question of Language and epistemic justice in Higher Education in NEP 2020’. The Professor found the policy to be a ‘verbose document’. She stressed the subject of multilingualism, claiming that when someone goes around the first few pages of the policy, they ought to find it in contradiction to the realistic experiences.

Multilingual education is going to end the concept of multilingualism in the future.” –Professor Minati Panda

Continuing this flow, the next speaker was Joga Singh. He is a former Professor of Linguistics at Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab. He took upon the subject ‘Bankrupt Language Proposals in NEP 2020’. He strongly voiced his thoughts on the language section of the policy. He stated that the policy says that students will have to study three languages ‘wherever possible’. Stressing on the latter part, he claimed that the phrase ‘wherever possible’ here simply means ‘nowhere possible’. To support his notion, he asserted that people get jobs only with knowledge of English and a majority of parents prefer sending their children to an ‘English-medium school’.

Privatisation and Commercialisation stands on english and the entire policy talks about them so english is nowhere to go.” -Joga Singh

The next speaker was Professor Madhu Prasad. She is a former Professor of Philosophy at Zakir Husain College, University of Delhi (DU), Spokesperson, and Presidium member, AIFRTE. She spoke about ‘NEP 2020 and digitalisation of education’ and she found it to be unfortunate that when the pandemic hit, the government rushed to shut down schools and colleges, even before malls and parks were closed. She believes that the government had already planned this NEP and hence used the period of the pandemic to give it a further push.

Digitalisation is talked about as a technique but instead it is a process through which one makes knowledge a merchandise.” -Professor Madhu Prasad

The session was resumed with Dr. Shamsul Islam, a former professor from Delhi University. Following him, Dr. Maya John, who teaches history at Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University, spoke on the ‘Rhetorics and realities of higher education in NEP 2020: a critique of UGCF from the margins’.

When the constitution was being drafted and Right to Education was removed from the Fundamental Rights and put into the Directive Principles of State Policy, why was it not questioned?” -Dr. Maya John

She talked about how this policy was a “part and product of the international milieu”, something that will help in the creation of labour with multiple skills, aiding only “the global elitist needs”. She also brought out the contradictions that exist in the NEP 2020 and focusing on how the guarantee of education from 6 to 14 years of age is not enough, demanded:

Nothing short of education from KG to PG— public funded education from KG to PG.”

Representing Jamia Millia Islamia, Dr. Shikha Kapur, went on to talk about how education is moving towards centralisation and towards capitalism, and questioned the UGC’s step aiming towards uniformity through NEP.

But when the country is diverse… where will uniformity come from in this diversity?” -Dr. Shikha Kapur

She went on to talk about how the education policy has led to the quantification of education, with social sciences and languages also being marked on the basis of MCQs, and how CUET will block the pathway of education for many groups, including first-generation learners.

Dr. Shikha Kapur was followed by Prof. Nandita Narain, Professor at St. Stephen’s college, DU, and former president, DUTA and FEDCUTA, who spoke on the ‘Degradation of quality through restructuring of academic courses (FYUP, UGF, ABC, CUET) and governance (fragmentation, corporatisation, privatisation, and exclusion)’. She talked about the condition of education during the years of lockdown and how this step towards digitalisation will again push us back into the same dark tunnel.

Speaking against the CUET, she brought attention to how this will only aid institutions in earning more money and also spoke in disfavour of the recent CUET crash course organised by Ramanujan College.

This [NEP 2020] is a privatisation blueprint’” -Prof. Nandita Narain

Dr. Abha Dev Habib, who teaches Physics at Miranda House, DU; Secretary, DTF; former treasurer, DUTA; and former member of the executive council, DU, spoke on ‘CUCET, FYUP, and UGF: Illusion of choices’. Comparing NEP to a packet of chips, she says “Jiske pass jitna paisa hai, valise hi chips ka packet kharidega, aur kitne log hain jo wahan tak pahunch bhi nhi payenge”.

She brought attention to the fact that when students opt for the multiple exit option, exiting after three years, they will still be considered drop-outs under the FYUP. She went on to call the students to fight against the NEP 2020.

Agar Modi Sarkar ko kisi ne lalkara hai toh woh students hain ” -Dr. Abha Dev Habib

Representing Ambedkar University, Dr. Shivani Nag, spoke on the ‘fallacy of gender inclusion in NEP’ and the contradictions with the NEP 2020.

3 saal ki degree kafi nahi hai, 4th saal chahiye par 1 saal ke baad students chhod sakte hain [talking about the multiple exit options].” -Dr. Shivani Nag

Jagmohan Singh, Chairperson, AIFRTE; General Secretary, AFDR, Punjab; and Director, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Creativity Centre, Ludhiana, talked about ‘How NEP is contrary to the legacy of the freedom struggle: Need for students’ and youth’s movements.

If centralisation is happening from top, then only an effort by people from below can contradict it.” -Jagmohan Singh

In a press statement released by AIFRTE on 28th May 2022, the event was concluded with a call for active mobilisation against NEP.

While these grave and burning issues surround the current policy, the progressive and pro-democratic forces of the country resolve to fight for equal, free, and quality education for all. We demand immediate annulment of the National Education Policy 2020. The BJP-RSS’s agenda for communalisation, de-academisation and privatization of education must be fought by mobilizing students, teachers, parents, and communities. AIFRTE unequivocally demands revocation of this irrational course structure. Else, students, teachers and parents will go on resisting this programme without any compromise.” -press statement, AIFRTE.

Feature Image: DU Beat Archives

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DUBR: Modern Love Mumbai, a Love Letter for the Lovelorn

By Manasvi Kadian May 22, 2022

Love stories can never really be picture-perfect fairytales and not all love needs to be romantic. In a series of just six episodes, Modern Love Mumbai makes you believe in love, and not just in a traditional way. The only question that remains– when do we get a Delhi version?

Watching a show about romances in the city where the greatest romances of Bollywood took shape, you might expect grand settings and soft violins playing in the background (and Shahrukh Khan asking you to “palat”). But what does happen is stories in the Mumbai local and conversations about Misal Pav, the harmony that comes with music and food coinciding, and the infamous Bandra-Worli Sea Link being the ultimate Mt. Everest of self-love, the acceptance of that chasm between the differences in our cultures and the self-acceptance that you struggle with at 60 or in your late 20s.

Keeping in with the tradition of Modern Love, Modern Love Mumbai doesn’t make it feel as if you are watching all these stories from far away, an ethereal figment of someone’s imagination that will never be yours. It makes it all so real that in every story you find a part of yourself, some parts being the ones you knew about and some being the ones you didn’t. And if that wasn’t enough, the intro segment with photos of real people and real stories will definitely force your overly-cynical self to realise how real all this love is and can be.

Raat Rani

With that Kashmiri accent putting an other-worldly beauty in the scenes of the first episode and Lali’s passion and energy and optimism staining every word that was uttered, we saw a tale of dependency and a journey of self-exploration unfold on the black screen that came after the Amazon logo. From closure coming in in the form of one spoon, one scoop ice-cream (not that sad tub you might eat in one sitting) to the realisation that “mujhe apne aap ke liye maintain krna h”, we see Lali going through everything alone for the first time since she left Kashmir and her shikaras. We see the curious brightness of a kid’s eyes and we see the brokenness of loss seeping in on the sides. Lali and Lutfi give us a dynamic we really needed to see, the dynamic of the one who stays and the one who leaves– the power they might hold over you, the hope that you might be clinging on, the control they will feel every time they say I might come back if I want to; and there is our lesson in what breadcrumbing is. You might change the settings and the context the story exists in, but all of us have lived this story at one point or another. The story of loving too much, loving too passionately, a sort of mad love. So when Lali “crosses the highway”, when she dances on the Sea Link as if it’s a two-year-old on their birthday, when she gobbles up the ice cream alone, when she sets up the raat rani stall, when she puts on her headphones and cycles on the same route that earlier wouldn’t let her cycle alone, when she questions the world and this society for everything that is “not allowed”, when her lips utter “uss se raat rani ki khusbhu toh kam nhi hogi na”, she spins our stories of desperation and loss into something that can no longer be categorised as broken or unbroken and all she does is that she gives us hope.

Baai

Moving to a whole different area and a whole different story, we find what seems like the love story of Manzu, presented to us in a flashback of lingering hands and longing glances with Chandni Raat playing in the background (as if right on cue). But then there’s a slap, a confrontation, the tears of “humse kya galti ho gyi?” and “tu yeh kyun nhi chhod deta?” replacing that soulfulness of Chandni Raat and fast forwarding us to Manzu singing ‘Kaisi Baatein Karte Ho’, taking away your breath and your heart and everything in between, a story being told in the language of food and music. Enter Rajveer to fulfill the former with his Nihari, the first overlap we see between him and Baai– Baai who stood at the door undauntingly during the riots and the one for whom they were willing to twist their heart’s desires– but how could Manzu even expect acceptance from her when his own parents couldn’t give him that? How could he do anything but nod at her mentions of Nikah, hiding from her his wedding band? While Manzu hides his beloved from Baai, we see a subtle overlap in characters, a realisation that Baai might have loved Rajveer as we hear them both say the only ingredient food needs is love. From Baai’s sheer korma and yakhani pulao to Rajveer’s Nihari and Manzu’s wedding vows, we see the language of love breathing through its different forms. But no, this story wasn’t Manzu’s love story as you would have thought it to be. It was the story of the unconditional love of Baai that none of them realised was actually, truly unconditional; it was the story of acceptance, acceptance that came too late but also not too late as we see Rajveer and Manzu carrying their rings on their fingers during her funeral procession.

Mumbai Dragon

‘Mumbai Dragon’ might be that story that speaks out to our most feral and deeply-embedded fear, the fear of sharing someone and the fear of not being loved by the same someone we love. When we see Sui’s possessiveness towards Ming and her calling Megha a “vegetarian dayaan”, it is the fear of her son forgetting his culture, but more than that it is the fear of a mother losing her son, a woman who fears losing another person. Her stubbornness and her fixation with getting Ming married to someone from their own community seem more about keeping Ming close to her than bigotry. Cue a Bollywood style, tadakta-bhadakta melodramatic scene of taking a shapath that “ab kabhi hindi mein baat nhi krungi” which ends up giving us major mere Karan Arjuna aayenge vibes. Her love that can be found in those dabbas filled with food are part of a universal tradition of the holy intermixing of love and food in a single breath and when one dabba comes with baingan ki sabzi, we find that even though love can be all-consuming but love can also be as giving.

My Beautiful Wrinkles

Our mind has been trained to look for love in couples, so much so that sometimes we forget about all the love that exists beyond romance and beyond the bond of two. We open to Dilbar, an apparently aged lady, who doesn’t in fact look like your stereotypical old person at all (I aspire to be her). She is cold, cynical about love, giving advice left, right, and centre, but somehow, we see a crack in the hardened, pretentious exterior. An invitation to a reunion opens up a bundle of questions– what did I achieve in my life? What difference did I make? But then we move to Kunal, a scene bursting with tension and then a subtle nudge that it could become something more. All attention diverts to this story of two people with “too huge of an age gap”, and then the apparently shy Kunal comes in (and Dilbar) with a suggestive portrait of her. She might have been offended, angry, but behind closed doors, his attention maybe helped her find her deeply buried confidence. That is when we get a glimpse inside Dilbar’s heart– one that wants to be held at night, one that craves love, one that is burdened with guilt, one that is still tied to not a person but more so his things. Letting go of his car, making a choice to let go of the burden but not the memory, made her open her heart– not to Kunal or someone else, but to herself, a self that was free from being tied to a past she could only watch without colours.

I Love Thane

Saiba, like any of us, is looking for love, but what isn’t clear is that is the love she’s looking for something that she wants or just something that the society wants. We see her going on dates, meeting people (jerks), and feeling the hopelessness that comes with the hope of love weighing her down. She has an appreciation for all things real (as in the plants she uses in her landscape designing) but how much real can you find in love that works on a left swipe and a right swipe? Enter Parth. Not on social media, isn’t boastful or unnecessarily “cool”, just a simple person with simple interests and a thing for Thane. This story might be the most ordinary out of them all– they don’t know when their feelings actually start, they don’t go to romantic getaways, they don’t call all the time or chat all the time to show a progressing interest in each other and in them– all they do is all the things we would. They work together, they go to different places, they have lunch, they talk about the things that come up. A complete opposite of a Bollywood-style, big, romantic, splashy story if you will. And that is exactly how the story remains. Simple like Parth. Simple like Saiba wanted it. Because life is only as complicated as you make it (a next episode reference. Kudos to me.)

Cutting Chai

Onscreen writers are those characters that take away any writer’s heart in a single second; the glimpses of yourself through someone else’s eyes does that to you. Latika, who is the writer in this story, is a married woman with kids. The irony is that there is no need to explain how and why that is a problem. In a society that preaches feminism but still empties its workload on women, Latika feels estranged from her own writing– never being able to finish that one book she had started. “Agar tumhe Likhna hota toh abhi tak likh chuki hoti” is what her husband Dan said and that is exactly where her brain dropped her from. Apart from having an absolutely amazing Arshad Warsi as Dan, we get to see Chitrangda Singh looking stunningly beautiful as Latika in a curly, messy bun, jhumkas, and saree. Every single moment she spends is a moment she spends questioning the path her life took and the creepy shouting in unison by the crowd is a manifestation of all the things her brain is thinking about. With her, we travel across all the ‘what ifs’, seeing her drowning in a swirling mess of something that seems like regret. From the what-ifs of her career, we jump to a sore spot in her marriage– Dan never being on time. Making her wait, making her anxious, making her lose hope, but then turning up at the absolute last moment. Is that something she had wanted? Or were we only seeing glimpses of a waning marriage? But these flashbacks weren’t complete pictures. They were the perspectives of someone who was seeing only what they wanted to, all the shortcomings and the problems. But when you have someone who makes up for something that they know is a habit they just got wrong, do you berate them or do you hold them close? How do you measure mistakes in proportion to love, and how do you say that no, this isn’t enough?

Modern Love Mumbai properly takes away your heart and like Modern Love does, leaves you swooning and crying and sitting there with a stupid smile on your face. But the ending was the one thing that was definitely forced. We did not need to see every single character of every single episode come across one another in this huge sea of people, but maybe what they wanted to do was show that this, right here, is what Mumbai is made of.

Featured Image: Times of India

Manasvi Kadian

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DU Prof. Ratan Lal Granted Bail by Delhi Court

By Manasvi Kadian May 21, 2022

The Tis Hazari court granted bail to DU Associate Professor, Ratan Lal, who had been arrested on Friday by Delhi Police responding to an FIR lodged against him in regards to the ‘shivling’ comment controversy. Read to find out more.

Delhi University Associate Professor, Ratan Lal, who was arrested on Friday night, 20th May 2022, after an FIR was lodged against him for making alleged objectionable remarks through a Facebook post, has been granted bail, on a bond of Rs. 50,000 and a surety of likes, by the Tis Hazari court.

The complaint, which was lodged by a Delhi-based lawyer, Vineet Jindal, alleged that Lal had recently shared a “derogatory, inciting and provocative tweet on the Shivling”.

The DU professor had been arrested by the Cyber Police Station, North under IPC sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and 295A (deliberate act to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion). The Delhi police had been seeking a 14-day judicial remand of Professor Ratan Lal in order to facilitate a proper investigation in the case, considering that they had received six complaints against him so far.

Appearing on behalf of the police, Additional Public Prosecutor, Atul Shrivastava, told the court that, “prima facie some comments have been passed that have the potential to disturb public tranquility”.

Accordingly the FIR was registered… the most important aspect, not expected from such an educated person, was after making such type of remarks, he has not stopped there, he has been defending himself through different videos uploaded on YouTube,” Shrivastava argued.

On the other hand, Professor Ratan Lal’s lawyers (Advocates Amit Srivastava, Aditya Kumar Chaudhary, Dr Satya Prakash, Sanjay K Chhadha, ND Pancholi, Rahul, Mukesh, Deepak Jakhar and Karish Kumar Mehra) had moved his bail application before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Siddhartha Malik, arguing that his arrest was in violation of the Supreme Court guidelines as mentioned in the Arnesh Kumar judgement.

What circumstances happened that you had to make an arrest? He was not a criminal or a habitual offender. He is a professor in a reputed college… You had proper time, you could have served notice, waited for a reply, and if there was an unsatisfactory reply then you could have arrested. This is contempt of Arnesh Kumar judgment and the officers involved in this arrest should face departmental enquiry,” Lal’s lawyer submitted.

On Saturday, 21st May, 2022, students as well as student organisations had held a protest outside Arts Faculty, DU against the arrest of Professor Ratan Lal. This included organisations cuh as AISA, Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS), and DSU taking a stand in support of the professor. The students participating in the protest held placards saying “Stop attack on our teachers”, “Stop curbing democratic voices”, and “Release professor Ratan Lal”.

The FIR has been lodged against Prof. Lal under the section of blasphemy, an act which has no place in a country such as India which is not a theocratic state. Our constitution recognizes itself as a secular country, promoting all contending schools of thought, including those that are against institutional religions. Therefore, blasphemy must be decriminalized. It is only a tool in the hands of religious fundamentalists to quell voices who stand firmly against religious mongering,” said Noel Benny, SFI Delhi State committee member, while addressing the student gathering.

SFI Delhi also issued a statement in solidarity with the professor, condemning his arrest and the arbitrary action of the state.

This punitive action against Prof. Lal is characteristic of a Brahminical state. Brahminism since its inception as a hegemonic ideology has always violently suppressed its opposers… The current instance of using state machinery and constitutional provisions to penalize critics is only a manifestation of the oppressive ideology, which reaffirms that the state continues to follow the traditions of the Brahmanical order,” read the statement made by SFI Delhi.

Taking its decision, in addition to granting bail, the court directed the DU Professor to refrain from making any new social media posts or from engaging in different means of interaction such as interviews concerning the ‘shivling’ controversy.

In regards to this issue, Professor Ratan Lal had previously argued and made a statement that all he had done was impose a question to the general public as a student of history.

People can be hurt by anything. Academic discourse cannot be sidelined on account of perceived hurt. I had asked a simple question to enquire if the so-called shivling was broken or cut. Mullahs and Pandits don’t need to comment on it. An art historian should answer this question,” said Professor Ratan Lal.

The court said that considering that the concerned remark by the professor had not been made with the intention of inciting any particular group or promoting tension/ enmity between people and had been made on a structure that was being claimed by different groups as different religious symbols, the court considered that “the post of the accused may be a failed attempt at satire regarding a controversial subject which has backfired, resulting in the present FIR.”

The presence of an absence of intention to create animosity/hatred by words is subjective nature as is the perception of the recipient who reads/hears a statement,” the court order stated.

The court also remarked that the feeling of hurt by one individual cannot be considered representative of an entire community or group of people. Thus, any such complaints should be considered in the larger context of the actual facts and circumstances.

This controversy also launched a lengthy discussion on the concept of tolerance as it exists in the Indian culture and the array of opinions that people might have on this subject.

It is observed that Indian civilisation is one of the oldest in the world and known to be tolerant and accepting to all religions. The presence or absence of intention to create animosity/ hatred by words is subjective in nature as is the perception of the recipient who reads/hears a statement,” the court remarked.

The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate also commented that with India being a country of more than 130 crore people, there can be 130 crore different views and perceptions on any given subject.

The undersigned, in personal life, is a proud follower of Hindu religion and would call the post to be distasteful and an unnecessary comment made on a controversial topic. For another person, the same post can appear to be shameful but may not incite the feeling of hatred towards another community. Similarly, different persons may consider the post differently without being enraged and may in fact feel sorry for the accused to have made an unwarranted comment without considering the repercussions,” said the court, talking about how different people might view the controversial post differently.

https://images.assettype.com/barandbench/2022-05/95080cc7-8d4c-4537-9525-eb04df387e6d/State_v__Ratan_Lal.pdfThe judge noted that the anxieties of the police could be understood and had not been completely ill-placed as they were only trying to accomplish their task of maintaining peace and order amongst the people. However, the court made its decision considering all the facts that were presented before them.

It is true that the accused did an act which was avoidable considering the sensibilities of persons around the accused and the public at large. However, the post, though reprehensible, does not indicate an attempt to promote hatred between communities,” they stated.

Additional Resources:

https://images.assettype.com/barandbench/2022-05/95080cc7-8d4c-4537-9525-eb04df387e6d/State_v__Ratan_Lal.pdf

Featured Image: @profdilipmandal on Instagram

Manasvi Kadian

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UGC Approves Guidelines; Makes Internships Compulsory for UG Courses

By Manasvi Kadian May 15, 2022

The UGC-approved guidelines make internships compulsory for students pursuing undergraduate courses. The guidelines come after the UGC’s previous attempt at bolstering student participation in internships and other similar activities. Read to find out more.

On Tuesday, 10th May 2022, the University Grants Commission (UGC) approved the guidelines for making research internships compulsory for students pursuing undergraduate courses. These guidelines come in accordance with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 which also aimed at making such internships compulsory for all graduation courses. The guidelines mention two purposes of these internships– “to enhance employability of an individual student” and “to develop research aptitude of an individual student”.

The integration of Research, Innovation and Technology Development is the foundation of Atma-Nirbhar Bharat (Self-reliant India). An institutionalisation of Research Internship at Undergraduate Levels is expected to play a pivotal role in catalysing inter-disciplinary/multi-disciplinary/transdisciplinary and translational research culture embedded in NEP 2020,” read the guidelines from UGC.

Internship Length

While this step makes internships compulsory for all students, the length of the internship would depend upon the duration of the course a student might be pursuing. Students pursuing a four-year degree course with research would have to do 10 weeks of internship along with one year of actual research work. The students pursuing a four-year undergraduate course without research will also have to do at least 8-10 weeks of internship. Even in the case of students wishing to exit their FYUP programme after the second or the fourth semester, the completion of one internship of 8-10 weeks is compulsory.

ugc internships

Source: news.careers360.com

Credit System

The completion of the internship would award the student with 10 credits upon a completion of 450 hours. This means that 1 credit implies a minimum of 45 hours of engagement in internship work and activities. Students in FYUP would have to complete an internship amounting to a minimum of 20 credits.

In addition, the UGC has also proposed to respective higher education institutions (HIEs) to offer Research Ability Enhancement Courses (REAC) worth 10 credits.

Few Research Ability Enhancement Courses (RAEC) in research and analytical tools and techniques, worth 10 credits, to be offered during the 7th semester as pre-requisite courses for 4-year degree (Research) students, …. Research work in the form of dissertation/project work preferably in interdisciplinary/multi-disciplinary/trans-disciplinary areas worth 30 credits,” read the draft.

Research Supervisors

Under research projects, students will be attached to research supervisors, preferably belonging to other HEIs, for a specified duration at the research facility of the supervisors to conduct a time-bound internship project. Students would be given hands-on training in research equipment, methodologies, techniques, etc., and would learn other aspects of research training, allowing them to gain experience.

Research internship experience can be gained by working with faculty/ scientists in education institutes, research institutions, industrial research labs, nationally reputed organisations and individual persons distinguished in specific fields,” the guidelines read.

Application

Students would be allowed to apply for internships on their own or through faculty mentors by registering on an online portal. After registration and application, students will be selected based on the selection criteria specified under different internships. Further communication would take place with the potential intern through the portal itself or via email, with the host organisation asking for confirmation or acceptance. After that, the students can join the internship upon getting permission from the parent organisation.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Student will undergo internship in the supervisor’s lab/ working space at the host organisation. During the period of internship, the parent HEI through the mentor will arrange to keep track of the activities and performance of students as interns at the host organisation, based on periodic reports submitted by students,” the draft reads.

After completing the internship, the students will also have to submit an internship report, copies of which will be submitted to their parent organisation and the host organisation.

Upon completion of the internship, the student would be given a certificate by the organisation.

Feature image: Financial Express

Manasvi Kadian

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A Flawed Education System: A Two-Fold Discussion

By Manasvi Kadian April 25, 2022

The transition from school to college is more of a time of change than any other, but some things end up staying the same.

When looking at someone who is just leaving school and another someone who is already in college, the difference in age might just be a year, but the difference in the hopes, dreams, and everything else in between looks like one that might exist between two widely different people. Your classmates from school would rarely know this confident, pumped-up, college version of you, but the one thing that they would relate to are your ever-lasting rants, more importantly, your rants on our never-changing education system.

In conversation with Trisha Saxena, a 12th grader pursuing commerce without maths, and Rubani Sandhu, a first-year student from LSR, we find places where these two conversations converge at a single point and places where the conversations could not be farther away— a proper representation of your school-to-college transition, if you will.

Even though a lot of us go into college expecting it to be more freeing than school— that new sense of being an adult, of being away from home, and of being free with your own ideas and thoughts, none of us are really able to actually fathom the intensity if the difference that is brought into our lives with this transition. Being not so much about the academics and the non-academics, the college makes you want to crawl back to school sometimes, for school was so free of so much of this burden of responsibilities. But school can also never be what college is— that one place where you can be anything (yes, college is Zootopia).

Indian Education: Practical education?

The one question that strikes a chord, regardless of what you are studying and where you are studying— how practical is Indian education? There are some things that continue to haunt you for the rest of your life, and frankly, this is one of them.

“I see my batchmates struggling with integration, differentiation, calculus and not all of them want to be mathematicians. I studied maths up until 10th grade and I can promise you I am never going to use Pythagoras Theorem in my real life. Why do we have to calculate square roots by hand when everyone has a calculator in the real world? If you want to teach us something, teach us about our finances, teach us real life skills— how to cook, how to open a bank account— things that will help us in the long run,” Trisha continues, speaking out for every kid who barely passed in maths, calculating useless stuff we could have very easily found out answers to using a calculator.

“I mean I sympathise with the fact that school makes us study a lot of things and frankly, a lot of subjects that might just turn out to be useless, but that is one area where college gets better. You get a choice. The education might still be largely impractical and rote-learning might still be the building block of every course syllabus, but atleast you get a choice in what you end up learning (even if it ratta).” says Rubani, giving her perspective on the college life.

College does end up giving us a lot of autonomy, in terms of it literally being about the subjects WE want to talk about (lord help the BAP kids studying non-discipline courses against their will), but wasn’t that what classes 11th and 12th offered us too? How much of a difference did it make? We just found new subjects to hate, and new classes to bunk, because at the end of the day, it is only the book we are going to be following, so what’s the point?

CUET and NEP— can they make things different?

“Atleast the government is taking some kind of initiative with CUET and NEP… But this is also a two-sided sword. A lot of my batchmates, including me, are now thinking that when we have to give CUET to get into colleges, then why do even have to give boards? What is the point? Why not just bunk the boards and spend our time preparing for CUET?” continues Trisha.

On the other hand, Rubani gives her opinion, “I think yes, it is not going to make a very drastic change in the way education takes place in India, but it is a step towards creating a single platform for all the students to be judged upon, regardless of their backgrounds or their boards. Obviously, this means that there is going to be a change in the way admissions take place in colleges and I think that is going to make a significant difference,”

Two very different perspectives, but both of them perspectives that are not ill-placed. Maybe CUET and NEP are a step in the right direction, maybe it all going to fall on our faces, but isn’t it too early to call the end result, placing bets when the coin hasn’t even been tossed yet?

Is the Indian education system flawed?

“On a scale of 1 to 10? A solid 8.79… there is an immense focus on memorising and the teachers don’t want us to go beyond the scope of the NCERT. In all the boards in India, there are some key points that the examiners want and if you do not write them, you won’t get marks. But what if I have understood the concept and I just don’t remember that one big fancy word that you use in your textbook, does that mean I am dumb?” says Trisha.

“I don’t think the answer to this question really changes when we move from school to college. The education was and is flawed, and there is no way around that. However, much we try to incorporate projects and assignments, all of them still end up falling in that same narrow scope and we are still shunned for asking questions that might stretch beyond the prescribed reading,” adds Rubani.

So, does it really make a change— that move from school to college? College does give us a lot of practical skills, it does make us learn things like budgeting and saving, that we wouldn’t have learnt before, but then this isn’t a feat of the education system. We might be blaming the education system for more than what is due, but isn’t education that one place where we expected things to be different? Isn’t education the place where we are supposed to be free to ask questions in? Isn’t education that one thing that is supposed to uplift us and allow us to become better than becoming a shackle in our leg and a leash on our throat?

Manasvi Kadian

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Campus Central

Maithry elects new cabinet: 2022-23

By Manasvi Kadian April 22, 2022

Maithry, DU’s Kerela’s student fraternity body, recently held elections for a new cabinet for the term 2022-23. Read more to find out the results.

Maithry, a Delhi University student fraternity body for Malayali students and students coming from Kerala, recently held elections on 19th April 2022 for forming the cabinet for the term 2022-23. The result for the elections came out on the same day with new members being elected to 12 different posts.

The mantle of being the president of Maithry at Delhi University was passed on from last year’s president, Darsana R, to the newly elected president, Najm Paleri. Other candidates who came to be elected were Emil Jose as the General Secretary, Salih as the Treasurer, Krishnendu as the General category Vice President, Stephy J Sam as the Vice President under Women, South Reserved category, Ribin Pary as the PRO, Sandra S as the Working Secretary (Women), Govind Unnikrishnan as the Working Secretary (South Reserved), Haris Pattalam as the Joint Secretary (General), Fathima Bathool as the Joint Secretary (Women), Asif Muhammed as the Joint Secretary (South), and Samra P C as the Joint Secretary (Women, South Reserved).

The new cabinet, sworn for the welfare and reassurance of students, will deepen structural reforms and focus on better academic and co-curricular activities this year,” said Stephy J Sam, The Vice president of Maithry, in conversation with DU Beat.

In the past year, the Maithry cabinet has focused on being able to bring the Malayali students under one student fraternity body, providing a feeling of comfort and a home away from home. The testimony to the working of last year’s cabinet lies in the role it played in the transition of students from online to offline mode, catering to their needs at a time when the sudden notification by the DU administration left the far away outstation students in a state of confusion and problem.

Manasvi Kadian

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Arts & Culture

Dear White People: A Truly Real Reflection

By Manasvi Kadian April 20, 2022

From racism to casteism to patriarchy, Dear White People resonates with any and every person who has faced an instance of systematic oppression, finally a movie with not just a token representation but a real one.

Humanity, as a collective, has consistently shared one thing— the feeling of being different; the feeling of being isolated, alone, and deeply ununderstood. Dear White People ends up striking exactly this chord with every single person in the audience. It holds up a metaphorical mirror to society, forcing us to look around, observe, and realise, that in all our talks of unity and diversity, maybe we have forgotten what unity is supposed to look like.

The movie being largely inspired by film director Justin Simien’s book by the same title, finds a place to showcase its literary roots in the structure of the movie itself. The movie begins with a very storybook-like screen and the words ‘Prologue’ etched onto it. This trend follows throughout as if taking us systematically through the chapters and finally leaving us at the ‘Epilogue’ to mull.

It isn’t a new phenomenon, the feeling of being comfortable with other people belonging to the same backgrounds, regions, histories, and realities. Neither is its manifestation in academia new.

The movie brought forward the historically entrenched power equation between unequals, the groupism that is not just embedded in our public lives but also our private, and the dichotomy of being different— of being too much or too less, just never enough. It grapples with the question of personal choices and stereotypical ones and the struggle of not wanting to subscribe to the prejudiced notion people form of you upon your first meeting.

Dear White People ended up being more of an explanation about the need for people to find others belonging to the same circles, not because of something that they have seen or been taught, but simply by the reason that others who are the same as you have a considerably less chance of wanting to bully you for your choices, teasing you and your inherent differences, or stereotypically putting you in a box. Following Lionel’s story, the struggle of fitting in was something we could all relate to, but the fact that he was trying while the world was stuck in the ways of decades past, spoke more about that ingrained racism that found its foothold over centuries of oppression and takes more than having “two black friends” to refute.

When Lionel asked “Am I black enough for the Black Student Union?”, when Sam broke down the divisions mentioned in Ebony & Ivy, when ‘Coco’ consistently tried denying her own identity, we ended up seeing shades of different ideas and opinions, with refreshingly the oppressed being a reflection of their own oppression.

Not surprisingly, the arguments used by the “whites”— the most repeated one being that the most difficult thing in today’s world is being a white man— are the same ones that we have seen and heard in real life, on Twitter, and on the streets.

The movie ended up being a brilliant portrayal of reality and more than being solely about racism and its struggles, became a reflection of every other instance of systematic oppression, finally showing a real representation.

Feature Image Credits: Athena Film Festival

Manasvi Kadian

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Uncategorized

Students Now Allowed to Pursue Two Academic Degrees Simultaneously: UGC

By Manasvi Kadian April 16, 2022

In a decision which received its go-ahead in 2020 and according to guidelines released on 13th April 2022, the UGC now allows students to pursue two academic degrees simultaneously. Read to find out more.

The University Grants Commission has given a ruling under which students are now allowed to pursue two academic degrees simultaneously. The guidelines under this ruling were finalised and formalised on Tuesday, 13th April 2022, making the decision official.

The UGC has been planning for such a provision for a long time, even forming a commission for the same in 2012, but this decision finally received the go-ahead in 2020.

These guidelines apply to all programmes available to students across India, enabling them to either choose a combination of a diploma programme and an undergraduate degree, two master’s programmes, or two bachelor’s programmes. It even allows the students to pursue a postgraduate degree along with a bachelor’s degree, provided the student is eligible for the same.

MPhil and PhD courses do not fall under these guidelines.

With the rapid increase in demand for high-quality higher education and the limitation of only enrolling about 3 per cent of students on physical campuses, there have been many developments in the fields of open and distance learning, as well as online education. Many universities are now offering both offline and online programmes,” said M. Jagadesh Kumar, UGC Chairman and former JNU Vice-Chancellor.

Furthermore, the guidelines explain the intricacies of the dual-degree decision:

A student can pursue two full academic programs simultaneously in physical mode if class timings for one programme do not overlap with class timings for another programme.
One programme can be pursued in physical mode and another in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) /Online mode; or up to two ODL/Online programmes simultaneously.
Degree or diploma programmes under ODL shall be pursued with only such Higher Education Institutions that are recognized by UGC or the Indian government.
These simultaneous full-time degrees or diploma programmes shall be guided by UGC or the respective statutory councils, whenever necessary.
No retrospective benefits can be claimed by students who have already pursued two full-time degrees or programmes simultaneously, prior to the release of guidelines.
Universities are also provided the flexibility of choice in terms of deciding whether to offer such a provision to their students or not.

This decision comes as a part of the New Education Policy (NEP) vision, being based on the rationale that allowing students to pursue two academic degrees simultaneously will help them in gaining a diverse skillset and help in an aggravated development by allowing the students to pursue interdisciplinary courses.

A student will be able to pursue a B.Com. and a mathematics degree together if the student wishes to, and if he or she is eligible to do so. The idea is to provide as much flexibility to students as possible…. In the last commission meeting held on March 31, it was decided to issue guidelines which will enable students to pursue two academic programmes simultaneously because the NEP 2020 emphasises the need to facilitate multiple pathways to learning involving both formal and non-formal education forms, in the sense that a combination of the physical model, as well as the online form, should be used to provide more freedom to the students to acquire multiple skills,” he continued.

However, some academicians believe that this objective could have been pursued and achieved without the setting up of such new guidelines. According to S Vaidhyasubramaniam, Vice-Chancellor, SASTRA-deemed university,

Multiple skill set should be a subset of a single degree and cannot traverse between two degrees. This decision needs a review considering that there are existing options to achieve the desired objective without a need for this new policy…”

Many of the decisions and nitty-gritties regarding this policy have been left to the discretion of the universities and their respective statutory bodies, including the issues of attendance requirements and examination overlaps.

The students would be required to complete the credit requirement for both the degrees being pursued, as specified by the university guidelines.

There are also no set criteria guiding the time frame according to which the second degree must be enrolled in. This allows students to start their second degree not just in their first year of the first degree, but also in the subsequent years.

Admission criteria and requirements have also been largely left to the universities and the programmes being pursued, while significantly remaining unchanged.

“The process and eligibility for admission and exams will be decided by the respective institutions. If a university requires a student to sit for CUET (common university entrance test), they will have to do that, if another institution he or she is looking at does not have such a test then they will have to follow that particular institution’s admission process,” UGC Chairman explained.

While many believe that there might be a lot of positive aspects to such a dual degree programme, such as the pursuance of degree programmes that have been traditionally-shunned as well as a breakdown of a historically-ingrained subject hierarchy, many academicians have voiced their concerns against this decision, arguing that this would allow for a “dilution” in education.

Abha Dev Habib, an associate professor at Delhi University’s (DU) Miranda House College, said,

The UGC, by issuing any such guidelines, will be diluting its full-time degrees and their worth. For holistic growth, classroom time has to be balanced with time for self-study, group study, extra-curricular activities, summer projects etc. Education is a social activity and students learn through interactions. There has to be time built in for that. It is one thing to allow students to earn degrees with extra credits but to allow students to pursue two “full-time” degrees will be disastrous.”

Rajesh Jha, another DU professor, lamented the fact that the UGC is assuming the student is “superhuman”. He said,

By offering double degree programmes, you are diluting honours courses. The basic philosophy of honours courses is to provide comprehensive, intensive and advanced knowledge to students and even under honours courses, students can opt for discipline centric courses… If we talk about interdisciplinarity, then there are BSC and BA programmes. By doing this, you are raising questions on your programmes. This will lead to utter chaos in the education system.”

Feature Image Credits: english.jagran.com

Manasvi Kadian

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DUB Speak

The Rewriting of Education: A Distorted POV

By Manasvi Kadian April 10, 2022

Education has been considered a weapon for betterment. But more than creating a “better nation” or “better future’, has it just ended up becoming a rendition of the voice of the powerful?

They said “Padhega India tabhi toh badhega India” but what if the things India is studying aren’t history, or political theory, or literature, but rather an anomaly crafted out of politics and agendas, moulded to the needs of those upper-class, upper-caste, 60-year-old men sitting in high chairs?

Education has always been the easiest, most accessible, and most influential sphere in any society. From Communist propaganda in the Soviet Union to the widespread antisemitic beliefs in Nazi Germany, education has been at the centre of it all, watching the world catch on fire while helping this fire find its stronghold in new minds.

But this isn’t just a lamentation about something plucked out from a page of some book of the past, but rather a lamentation about the present, and more importantly about the future.

In a very recent case, a PIL was filed at the Delhi High Court, explicitly seeking a removal of portions teaching the history of the Mughals from the NCERT textbooks. In the past, this trend has been observed in the cases of state boards as well, making this not just an isolated incident which can be ignored and buried. Maharashtra state board removed the history of rulers like Razia Sultan and Muhammad Bin Tughlaq, deeming such history “irrelevant” for the students, replacing the space with an elaborate history of other rulers such as Chhatrapati Shivaji. A similar case from Rajasthan led to a controversy over the rewriting of the “distorted” history in textbooks, the one of concern being that of the ‘Battle of Haldighati’. On the other hand, the suffix ‘the Great’ from Akbar’s name was removed in textbooks. Following this was the recent decision of a committee to revise the Karnataka board textbooks, including the removal of a chapter about the introduction of religions like Jainism or Buddhism from the books.

But all this exaggerated focus on schools doesn’t mean that college curriculums are safe. From the replacement of poems by Dalit writers, and the deletion of the feminist interpretation of the Ramayana as well as sections from the “Interrogating Queerness” paper in the English curriculum a few years back to the deletion of an essay on the Ramayana by A. K. Ramanujan (one considered of extreme importance in the study of history by academicians) as well as the sidelining of (you guessed it right) the Mughal history, Delhi University itself hasn’t been spared.

So, has this just ended up becoming a propaganda-driven education, changing with every election? Does it mean that more than inculcating representation or inclusiveness, it has just become a hollowed-out skeleton in the hands of a selected few? Maybe India’s secularism has been hidden into a corner, blindfolded, and tied up so that there are no questions.

But all of this has still ended up raising questions— Till how long can the remaking of history, be passed off under the veil of revision? If these revisions were really to correct distortions, why have their end results ended up as distortions too?

Feature Image Credit: The Citizen

Manasvi Kadian

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Opinion

Dark Humour, Coping Mechanism, or just Plain Indifference: The Ukraine- Russia War

By Manasvi Kadian March 22, 2022

Open either Instagram or Twitter, one thing that remains constant is the running commentary on the Russia- Ukraine war; and more than words, it is memes that are speaking.

Dark humour or dark comedy is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discuss. In this modern age where social media occupies our every living and breathing moment, it would be completely absurd to think that dark humour doesn’t leave its footprints in the social media world. Every time the world is going through a crisis or a tragedy, it feels like someone goes ahead and shouts “Social media assemble”, flooding everything— from Instagram to TikTok (or its counterparts in the case of India), Facebook to Twitter— with tweets, posts, and stories.

Everyone, ranging from the common people to official accounts of nations, end up jumping on this bandwagon, trying to put forward their own point of views and critiques. But more often than not, this ends up taking the form of internet’s most common currency of conversation, memes. Memes about World War 3, about being drafted for the war, about the inaction on the part of NATO and the UN, all ended up making rounds in the recent past. Some of them are still being reshared, while new memes keep coming up every hour of every day.

pic.twitter.com/IaqFbpayqz

— Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) February 24, 2022

These memes tend to usually (always) carry an underlying tone of humour— a sort of romanticisation of tragedy and misery, maybe even a humanisation of these atrocities.

But does this joke-making and meme-sharing indicate a general apathy amongst the people of the world? Or does it only point towards a “Gen-Z urge” to use humour as a coping mechanism?

(Part of the meme response is about) glorifying the war for sure, but also not realising what war really is and what it means. So, dealing with in a laissez-faire kind of way.”

Says Dr. Saleem Alhabash, a professor at the media psychology department, Michigan State University.

The world of social media comes with pros of its own, one of the most obvious being that there is barely any consequence to your actions. This means that people from around the world get a green card to give out their opinions (and not necessarily opinions that are empathetic or even sympathetic, or opinions that are put forward in an acceptable way), leaving social media to become a space that is shadowed and claw-marked by a general dehumanisation of humanity, something that rarely gets appreciated by those living the reality you end up making jokes about.

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A post shared by WithUkraine | independent media (@withukraine)

In all this conversation about making dark humour and using humour as a coping mechanism okay, there is one clear unsaid understanding, a clear demarcation, that making jokes on a tragedy is only acceptable when these jokes are made by someone who actually has the right and authority to do so (morally-speaking). Thus, the so-called “gallows humour” only works if you are the person facing the gallows; otherwise, it is just a callous and pathetic attempt to infringe and capitalise (in the form of fame) on someone else’s misery.

But maybe this indifference is not even indifference in its truest form; maybe it is just an outcome of the constant influx of information on social media and our constant scrolling, that we never get the chance to sit, stop, and actually listen. To pull at our heartstrings, anything needs a moment; social media just doesn’t let it have one.

So, does that mean that “crisis meme-making” is an embodiment of all things evil? Not really. Although these memes are a creation of the people, they are also just a reflection of reality (to some extent atleast).

So, when we look at how ubiquitous these memes are in the modern world, we also need to consider how they might just be the reflection of a common identity, fear, or anxiety; how they might just be creating a world community; how they might just be threading together all these numerous different lives, leaving none of us to feel alone.

Feature Image Credits: Digital TV Europe

Manasvi Kadian

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