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When opening a present feels like ripping off a Band- Aid: Vani Vivek, Editor 2015-16

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Farewells are usually like impending exams – you know they’re inevitable and yet they manage to sneak up on you out of nowhere. At DU Beat, farewells are like bittersweet presents – bursting at the seams with memories, experiences, and lessons. For two years, I had helped gift this present to seniors; to be at the receiving end this time feels… weird.

DU Beat has grown exponentially since I joined as a starry-eyed fresher, and I have very proudly grown with it. From about 10,000 likes on Facebook in the summer of 2013, we are at over 2,15,000 today. By covering events live, reporting on relevant issues, and presenting opinions on matters pertinent to the youth, DU Beat has continued to be a source of dependable news for students and faculty alike.

This year, we aimed at letting more voices from the University emerge through polls on DUSU elections, and providing more coverage to off- campus colleges by signing up as media partners for more than 300 events across Delhi University. The organisation itself has grown to a team of 70 students making up the editorial, design, marketing, and human resource departments.

It has been a privilege to have learned from seniors who laid the foundation for DU Beat’s growth and to have led a team of enthusiastic students who will undoubtedly do wonders with this space. Working with a group ready to slog under the June sun to distribute admission- special issues and sacrifice sleep to meet deadlines, my years at DUB have ingrained in me the worth of having a committed team by one’s side.

To be a part of this team that has come to define college life for many of us, send your CVs to [email protected].

 

Vani Vivek, Editor (2015-2016)

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Innovation Projects

Innovation Projects 2015-16: Kalindi College takes up issues faced by the elderly

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One of the 300 Innovation Projects for the session of 2015-2016 approved by the University of Delhi is ‘A Socio-Economic Study of the Condition of the Elderly In the Old-Age Homes of Delhi’. The study aims to undertake an examination of the facilities provided to the elderly residing in old age homes and seeks to conduct an assessment of their well-being.

Principal investigator: Dr. Ruchi Tyagi, Ms. Indu Choudhry

Co-investigator: Ms.Kanika Gaur

Student Members: Priyanka Tiwari, Ayushi Jain, Chanchal Aggarwal, Harshika Sondhi, Banni Chug, Chhaya Gandhi, Cheshta Wadhwa, Anshul Jain, Avisha Alawadhi and Jaidita Seth.

With its findings, the study will contribute towards sensitization of people towards this much neglected and discarded section of the society. This research will be relevant at all times as one cannot eliminate old age from a person’s life; one needs to understand and appreciate all phases of human life.

According to Priyanka Tiwari, a student involved in the project, “Our innovative project will help sensitize people to the issue and bring about new alternatives to the problem.” Therefore, the project aims at revisiting, researching and re-creating aspects of traditional Indian society.

The age-old joint family system has been instrumental in safeguarding the social and economic security of elderly people in the country. With rapid changes in the social scenario, India currently sees an increase in nuclear family set-ups. The elderly are likely to be exposed to emotional, physical and financial insecurity in the years to come.

Keeping in mind the growing numbers of the elderly and the increasing levels of urbanization and modernization, it is imperative to understand the needs of the elderly and to assess if institutionalization of care services for the aged may act as a reasonable substitute for the support to be provided to them in future. Moreover, research on this subject is likely to suggest a way forward for the government to plan and implement policies regarding the elderly and to sensitize the youth (through visits, documentaries and seminars) about the condition of the elderly in old age homes.

Featured image credits: www.dnaindia.com

Shreya Srivastava

[email protected]

 

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Campus Central

Gandhi and food: Round table conference explores the connection

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Indraprastha College for Women organized the third Round Table Conference on Gandhi on the theme ‘Gandhi and Food’ on 8th April, 2016.
The session began with a welcome note by the Principal, Dr. Babli Moitra Saraf, who acquainted the audience with the idea of the Round Table Conference and the theme of the third edition. She mentioned that the incidents involving beef ban and the contentious issue of cow slaughter that gave rise to religious tensions recently, were, what triggered discussion on this topic. As per the Concept Note of the Conference, in the Gandhian discourse, food is not just what one eats, but is visualized as a paradigm that exhibits a range of issues. The whole exercise of the conference was perceived to be useful to engage and confront many key quandaries of our times, and answer many conundrums ranging from diet control for personal reasons, being vegetarian on moral grounds, fasting for religious or political expediency, to debate contestations between right to culture and food choices.

Shri Anil Nauriya, Advocate and Member, National Gandhi Museum, New Delhi, delivered the introductory remarks, and quoted instances and anecdotes of Gandhi’s meetings with different people, Sam Higginbottom and Richard Gregg to name a few. This was followed by 12 well-fleshed out paper presentations. Dr. Madhulika Banerjee, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Delhi and Dr. Babli Moitra Saraf, Principal, Indraprastha College for Women judged these paper presentations.

The students presented a variety of riveting and thought-provoking presentations, ranging from a critique of Gandhi’s moral basis of vegetarianism to food in the context of Brahmacharaya as perceived by Gandhi in his times, with peppy titles like “You are not what you eat”. A plethora of viewpoints were discussed: how food is a cult in itself, and how unless there’s moral disgust in animal slaughter, there’s no moral superiority associated with vegetarianism.

The first prize was awarded to Asmita Jagwani, who presented the paper on “Food Asceticism: The Gandhian Grammar of Diet” where she explored the idea of gastro politics, explaining that for Gandhi, vegetarianism was a way of life that  was rooted in his moral convictions and not just an adherence to a filial vow. She was praised by the judges who mentioned that “such sophistication of rhetoric as a means of persuasion leaves you stupefied.” The second position was bagged by a team comprising of Anamika Dass and Ateka Hasan who explored food from the perspective of untouchability. Prerna Mishra, who explored “Salt and Satyagraha” in her paper, was adjudged as the winner of the third position. A judges’ special mention was awarded to Nihita Kumari who spoke on how food was a weapon for Gandhi. All winners were given cash prizes.

Dr. Jyoti Trehan Sharma, the Conference Convener, explained the philosophy behind the theme, and also drew the attention of the audience to the significance of the date when the conference was being held, as the date coincided when Gandhi got arrested at Palwal in 1919, just a few days before the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Punjab. This was also the date when in 1929, Bhagat Singh, alongwith Sukhdev and Rajguru, made his motherland echo with the slogan “Inquilab Zindabad”.

The Judges congratulated the participants on building such relevant arguments that led to a very pertinent discourse. They also provided constructive feedback and inputs on the same.

The round table conference at IPCW

Image Credits: Kritika Narula

Kritika Narula

[email protected]

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Uncategorized

Major creative writing platforms started by DU students

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Thinkopolitan

Over the years varsity students have come together to celebrate free writing on the internet for the space it offers. Living the tradition, many platforms have sprung up in various colleges in the recent past. These platforms are essentially transforming the way in which writing as an art form operates. Here are some of the creative writing platforms that started at Delhi University and are now running successfully at a national level:

1.) An Inception

An Inception
An Inception

This platform is a brainchild of a bunch of students from Motilal Nehru College and aims at covering all the creative writing forms at one platform. It has sections on health, poetry, short stories, campus news and lifestyle with the poetry and short stories sections being the most consistent ones. The facebook page of the website has regular updates and anecdotes too.

2.) Thinkopolitan

This platform was started together by some students of Hindu College and IP University. It celebrates free writing and responsible expression. Major sections on the website include literature, poetry, short stories, politics, photography and cartoons. The website is also associated with Youth ki Awaaz, a major online platform in the country. What’s distinctive about this platform is its ability to include photography among other creative fields. The authors at this platform hail from across the country.

3.) Born of a Million thoughts

Born of a Million Thoughts
Born of a Million Thoughts

Started by a student of Lady Shri Ram College for Women, BOMT is the newest of all the platforms at the varsity but is growing at a fast pace. This platform is fairly diverse and has content ranging from interviews of eminent personalities to personal accounts of students. It also has sections on poetry, fashion, entertainment and food. Moreover, you are most likely to find a BOMT correspondent at every major festival in the city.

Image Credits: Facebook pages of BOMT, An Inception and Thinkopolitan

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Innovation Projects

Innovation projects 2015-16: Assessing stress in young adults by Bharati College

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The innovation projects were conceptualised by the Delhi University Vice Chancellor against the background of opportunities and limitations reported in colleges of the University. Over 300 projects submitted by students and faculty of colleges around the University made it to the final list. A project submitted by the faculty members and students of Bharati College has made the cut.

 

Project title: Assessing Stressors Among Young Adults: A contribution towards building a stress-free and youthful India

 

Principal investigator: Dr. Anupama Mahajan

 

Co-investigators: Dr. Rekha Sapra, Ms. Deepika Dewan

 

Students’ team: Amprapali Aggarwal, Anjali Kalra, Garima Choudhary, Pragya Malhotra, Priya Jain, Sukriti Jain, Sanjukta Chauhan, Tanisha Malik, Vanshikha Khandelwal, Yukti Sinha.

The project aims to comprehend levels of stress among young adults between the ages of 18-35. Through the medium of specially created questionnaires, a pilot study was conducted. The team worked on samples of young adults and found that innovative and creative minds can show maximum efficiency only when they are free of stress. The project which commenced in September last year is still underway.

 

According to the team, the reason behind selecting a sample of young adults is that people aged 18-33 are the most stressed individuals in the world, and that after the age of 33 stress levels tend to reduce. Statistics show that in India about 46,000 suicides occurred each in the age groups 15-29 and 30-44 in 2012 (about 34% of total suicides).

Initially, the team considered issues related to personal relationships, sexual life, peer pressure, parental pressure, etc. while studying the factors responsible for stress among the population, but gradually other reasons surfaced like medical problems, gender bias etc. Stress-busters were also identified.


“Considering the fact that persons in 15-29 age group are most stressed, we visited both South and North campuses of DU. For the assessment of stress factors among working classes, we conducted surveys in various areas across Delhi, like Gurgaon, Noida, Connaught Place, etc.” said Garima Choudhary, one of the students involved in the project. “It is obvious that the problem can’t be completely controlled, but at least some of it can be,” she added.

Workshops, interactive sessions, seminars, and open house discussions were conducted by the team during the course of their study. The team hopes to make innovative brains stress-free through their project.

 

Image credits: bharaticollege.com

Mir Uzair Farooq
[email protected]

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Enactus

Enactus Maitreyi’s Project Unnayan leads to economically empowered women

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Leading by Bushnell’s quote, “The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.” the Enactus Society of Delhi University’s Maitreyi College has grown, within only two years of its inception, into a well established platform of social transformation that aims to achieve a holistic development of all the weaker sections of the society and help them attain a sustainable livelihood through various development programs and social entrepreneurial projects.

Founded by Sanchila Arora in 2014, the society consists of some forty members who together took on their very first entrepreneurial initiative – Project Unnayan. Adhering to the purpose of the word ‘Unnayan’ which means ‘Upliftment’, the project works towards the process of improving the living conditions of all women residing in the socially and economically backward sections of the society by training them in making and selling liquid dishwashing products, Clean Ninja.

Clean Ninja
Clean Ninja

 

There are many areas in Delhi where economic trends are extremely weak which not only lessens economic opportunities for all but also leads to low incomes, poor living conditions and health of families and low levels of sustainability due to unemployment. There have also been several instances, as confessed by women to the members of Enactus Maitreyi, in which their husbands have spent all their income in consumption of alcohol and even became violent when tried to be stopped, further leading to the deliberate wastage of all their money on unruly wants instead of being used for basic requirements of care for their families.

The members of Enactus Maitreyi therefore, get together with the targeted set of women in a safe and hygienic working environment on a regular basis, and train them in the basic techniques of producing the liquid dishwasher, Clean Ninja. They do so by teaching them the methods of measuring and mixing all the ingredients correctly with the help of different apparatus and neatly packaging the products simultaneously once they are created. Once they are familiar with this art of producing the dishwashing liquid, they are guided to the process of marketing and selling the products as well. Apart from the production, the women employed under Enactus Maitreyi are also taught about the basic necessities of wearing gloves and masks during the whole process and the uniqueness of these products which lies in their quality and uniformity along with the environment-friendly aspect adjoined with it. In short, the team members do everything they can to help them gain proficiency in all the essential skills and knowledge required for becoming strong, self sufficient and economically independent women in the society.

Enactus maitreyi

 

Rashmi Verma, President, Enactus Society of Maitreyi, strongly believes that “There aren’t any people, who wouldn’t want to make a change in the society, but there are indeed, very few who successfully create a difference. More than dreamers, we are the ‘do-ers’. Being an all girls team, we have learnt the strength and courage each one holds within us. There is nothing in the world which can deter our unity now and stop us from turning any idea into a reality once we put our mind to it. Through Project Unnayan, we provide women a platform where they can explore new arenas of life and start living a life they never believed they could experience. All women employed under our initiative are thus, working voluntarily and are extremely happy with this effort crossing their lives.”

The Enactus Society of Maitreyi College has also recently won the KPMG Grant Competition 2015, where they have been awarded with a grant of Rs. 50,000.

Due to the consistent positive response gained for their results of Clean Ninja, once their current project becomes stable and the women of the community gain complete self reliance over their work, the Enactus Society of Maitreyi College has decided to come up with the production of many more variants of the same product with a new set of workforce, and would also be seen creating many more successful projects in the near future.

Picture Credits: Shagun Marwah for DU Beat

Shagun Marwah

[email protected]

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St. Stephen's

St. Stephen’s College’s BA Programme Society organises the first edition of its annual fest, Confluence 2016

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After some period of inactivation in the previous year, the BA Programme society of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi organised a number of events this year ranging from talks to trips to seminars. On Monday, the society organised the first edition of its annual fest, Confluence 2016. The fest was spread across five events. There were two talks, a story-writing competition, a fun event where students were required to caption pictures, and a Dastangoi performance – an Urdu storytelling art form.

The fest kicked off with an informal event, ‘Caption That’ in which students were to caption the pictures and paintings handed out to them by the organisers. Prizes were distributed among the winners.
‘Caption That’ was followed by a talk on the Monumentalisation of Buildings by Dr. Hilal Ahmed who is an assistant professor at the Centre for Study of Developing Societies, Delhi and also a Rajya Sabha fellow. He talked about the concept of monumentalisation of buildings in general and about the religious contextualisation that buildings find themselves today in.

Another talk was organised after the lunch. The speaker was Dr.Pulapre Balakrishnan who teaches Economics at the Ashoka University. He spoke on Inclusive Growth in India focussing on inclusive growth, political economy and economic equality. The talk was followed by a vibrant discussion between the speaker and the studentswho were enthusiastic enough to keep the speaker indulged during the time refreshments were being served.

There was also a story-telling competition held in which the participants had to select random genres and end their stories with random plot twists. The students were seen writing very passionately and all appeared captivated by dramatic twists of plots.

The fest ended with the major highlight of the day – Dastangoi. Dastangoi is an Urdu oral storytelling art form that originated in the 16th century. The artists who performed were Nadeem Shah, Shankar Musafir and Manu Sikander Dhingra. Nadeem Shah has been doing Dastangoi since 2010 and teaches history at the University of Delhi while Shankar Musafir is an educationalist with an avid interest in the art of storytelling and Manu Sikander Dhingra is an entrepreneur, an eminent theatre personality and a veteran storyteller having done show across India, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The artists delighted the audience through their art.

They started with Husn-e-Faiz covering the legendary revolutionary poet, Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s life and ended with an adaptation of one of the folktales of Vijaydan Detha, ‘Kahani Pandit Ki’. The event was concluded with a vote of thanks and some interactions with the performers in the lawn while the refreshments were being served.

 

Mir Uzair Farooq
[email protected]

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Maitreyi College

Department of English, Maitreyi College Organises Literary Fest- Ekphrasis 2016 on Visualities

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The Department of English, Maitreyi College, organised their annual literary festival and national seminar, Ekphrasis, on 18th and 19th March, 2016. It included many engaging and riveting paper presentations and talks by renowned scholars and proficient student researchers.

The first day started with a keynote address by Professor Christel Dewadawson, a Ph.D. scholar from the University of Cambridge and the head of the English Department at St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi. She began with a demonstration of pictorial satires and spoke about the relationship between sacred and secular contours. She explained how the emergence of pictorial satires in India deliberately sought and found new worlds to conquer, and gradually grew into a thoughtful platform that represents and responds sensitively to both personal as well as national issues of grief and morality today.

Dr. Shanta Roy, Professor of English at Maitreyi College, then welcomed the new Editorial Board of their Literary Newsletter, Dialect, with Dr. (Prof.) Richa Chilana, Swarnima Narayan and Nimisha Sinha as chief editors, along with Anna Dasgupta, Illica Ratan, Anubha Gautam, Navya Kanwar, Srishti Chaudhary, Varsha Sharma, Arushi Sundaram, and Yasmeen as the rest of the editorial team.

DSC_0468

The first session of paper presentations titled ‘The Visual: Effects and After Effects’ was shared by two speakers. Rustam Singh, a renowned poet and philosopher, elucidated on the nature of different kinds of visual objects and believed that the void essence behind objects can be easily deciphered through one sole look. Sohum Mandal, a Ph.D. Scholar in English, from Jawaharlal Nehru University, spoke about the role of street art as an urban space making practice. Considering each viewer to be unique in their perception and articulation of visual representation, he says “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” He further distinguishes graffiti (spray painting) being a form of spontaneous, politically motivated act of vandalism from the legitimate profession of Street Art which involves beautification of architecture through sanctioned governmental operations.

The second session, titled ‘Envisioning the Nation’ was chaired by Dr. Manish Sharma and lead by the speaker, Kalsang Yangzom, a Researcher at University of Delhi, who presented a literary visual analysis on the protests of Tibetan struggle for freedom, wherein the subject of self immolation, “marked by nationalistic value and used as cultural symbols” was also discussed. This was followed by two more speakers, Mr. Sanjib Goswami, a researcher from Guwahati University, who gave an enthralling analytical study on the folk arts and crafts of Assam, along with Debrati Roy, a researcher from Ashoka University, who unveiled the history of Palestine Journalism through a visual documentation.

DSC_0386 (2)

The third session of the day, titled ‘Visually and its Other’ included a paper presentation on the colorful visuals of Visconti Tarot Cards by Payal from Kamala Nehru College which depicted how representations of women’s bodies stroke a meaningful connection with their role in the Pre- Renaissance period, and Saurav Chatterjee, a researcher from Jodavpur University whose paper described the birth of freedom struggle and feelings of nationalism through the Bengali Comics of Naraya Debnath’s ‘Batul, the Great!’ which portrayed Batul as an epitome of a national superhero.

The day ended with a guest appearance of Kanupriya, alumni of Maitreyi College, who gave a visual representation of the French artist, Franz Kafka’s collection of sketches and doodles which provided a powerful illustration of his psyche, state of transcendence and his willful interpretations of the world. According to her, Kafka was known, “not only for expressing a great deal of solitude in his sketches, but also for getting fully dissolved in it”.

The second day of Ekphrasis included a line-up of paper presentations by student researchers, and chaired by Sakshi Vasn, a Ph.D. scholar in English at the University of Delhi. The session began with Shantam and Snigdha Roy’s paper presentation on the topic ‘Death of an Artwork’ through which Snigdha emphasized Vivan Sundaram’s brilliantly infused artwork of memorials and T.V. Santosh’s exceptional paintings which mostly tackled the relentless themes of war and global terrorism. His painting of 2008 Mumbai Terrorist Attacks was critically acclaimed. Swarnika, an undergraduate student of English at Hans Raj College, Delhi University, was next to present her research paper on Yaoi Genre, Japanese graphic (anime) novels based on simplified notions of love, life and masculinity in the romanticism of heterosexual and homosexual relationships. Pertaining to an 85% of female readership, these visual stories were such that they illustrated a subjectivity of homo-eroticism and painted a rosy view of happy endings. The last paper was presented by Mantra Mukim on the visual analysis of Raj Comics, which were introduced in 1980s and were transnational in nature. He also enhanced animals as essential elements in graphic novels as they not make the comic’s popularity among child readership stronger, but also put everyone in a state of captivation.

IMG-20160319-WA0013

The event was followed by a talk by Vishwajyoti Ghosh, a graphic novelist, known popularly for his work in ‘Delhi Calm’, a gripping political graphic novel set in 1970s that re-imagines the city of Delhi during the period of Emergency in India. He also presented a graphic documentary film named ‘This Side, That Side’ that revolved around instances of restoring collective memories that like everything else, have too, been “partitioned”, the negotiations around borders, stories of lost love and friendships, the prejudices, etc, all of which were successful in keeping the audience glued to the screen and getting goose bumps appear on their skin. He ended by reflecting on the need to encourage children to read and make graphic novels more popular in India by getting them published in vernacular languages.

IMG-20160319-WA0015

The event also hosted a couple of fun, informal events such as Beg, Borrow and Steal, a workshop on comics by Payal AP, debate, treasure hunt and a literary quiz basing ‘Snape as a Hero’ for all Harry Potter die-hards. These saw a great number of student participation from colleges such as Hans Raj, Ramjas, PGDAV, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya among others. Overall, the two day festival of literature was fruitfully engaging and visually appealing.

Featured Image Credits: Vibhana Kanwar for DU Beat and Shubhra Arora

Shagun Marwah

[email protected]

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