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Lady Shri Ram College for Women

LSR holds three day conference – Where Women Lead

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Following the course of dialogue set by the Academic Congress on gender held earlier in the year, Lady Shri Ram College held a three-day conference  from 31st march- 2nd April 2014- Where Women Lead, in association with the Women in Public Service Project, a global non-governmental initiative aiming to build a generation of women leader who would take responsibility to further the betterment of their countries.

The conference was held at the India International Centre and concluded at the college, it was supported by Ford Foundation India and the US Embassy. The conference saw educationists, policy makers, activists and performers all come together and interact with the students and the staff. The brainchild of college Principal Dr. Meenakshi Gopinath and Dr. Rangita De Silva De Alwis, head of the  Global Women’s Leadership Initiative at the Wilson Center, the conference witnessed a total of 14 sessions as well as multiple film screenings and performances. The inaugural address was delivered by Nancy Powell, former US Ambassador to India, who spoke about how women’s issues were not just women’s issues but also those of family, economy, security and justice and that violence blocks the participation of women in society. Her message to the gathering was short and clear- we must do more.

The sessions on the opening day, focused on the importance of academic institutions in public leadership,which saw educationists from India, Sri Lanka and the United States talk about the role of women’s colleges. Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh later addressed the delegates on what constitutes the private and the public and how these notions are highly gender-ed. The later sessions on law and rights hosted by acclaimed experts like Kamala Bhasin and Vrinda Groverhow talked about how human rights and women’s rights mean the same things and the importance of rights being accessible . Each session had a dedicated time slot for a Youth Speak round where the floor was open to questions and comments from the students.

The second day saw a series of dialogues unfold around democracy and equal (or unequal) participation, representation of women in politics and policy making, i.e., how it changes when women are at the helm. Aruna Roy, founder of MKSS, spoke about the need to go beyond voting and engage in alternative politics in order for women to exercise their rights as citizens, she also spoke about the big disconnect between formal leadership and the grassroots. Planning Commission member .Meanwhile, in a parallel session, women’s representation in top decision making bodies was discussed by a group of eminent party members from different South Asian countries. The day ended with the screening of Uma Chakravarti’s Fragments of a Past followed by a discussion with the filmmaker. An installation titled ‘Women in Movement’ was also showcased at the India International Centre on the first two days of the conference.

On the third day, all the sessions was held at the college itself; the day opened with the screening of an excerpt from Aung San Suu Kyi’s address to the college in November 2012. This was followed by a discussion by the faculty members on what leadership means to women and what happens when questions of caste, class and sexuality are woven into pre-existing gender imbalances. At the end of the session, it was clear that a feminist interpretation of leadership means collective leadership and this was reiterated by Dr. Gopinath in her closing speech when she quoted from Heider’s Tao of Leadership,” like water, the leader is yielding. Because the leader does not push, the group does not resent or resist.” 

After the screening of the critically acclaimed film Girl Rising, the faculty and the students split into two different venues where each group, after over an hour of deliberation, arrived at action plans at various levels. These plans were read out and adopted as a declaration and a similar conference is soon hoped to be convened in order to implement the plan and track the progress made. The evening ended with moving closing comments and Kaleidoscope- a series of evoking recitations and performances. Through the conference, the college and especially its students hope to bring forward women’s leadership which, as put by Hillary Clinton, remains the unfinished business of the 21st century.

Photo Credits: Sahiba Chawdhary, DU Beat

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Top Societies at Delhi University Fests: LSR for Western Music

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Every year, societies from colleges across the campus compete neck to neck and put up spectacular performances during the fest season. This year too, saw certain teams shine a little brighter than the rest. We bring you a series with college societies that put their heart and soul into their respective fields and took home the top prizes at various cultural fests. The best college society in each category was selected by creating a tally of the top 3 positions at competitive events held during 13 cultural fests of this season. Whenever a society won the first prize they were award 3 points, for the second position they received 2 points and for the third position, 1 point was added to their tally. In the Western Music (Group) category, Lady Shri Ram College for Women’s Western Music Society leads the charts with 13 points in total. Sri Venkateswara College’s Crescendo follows a close second with 12 points, while Jesus and Mary College’s Echo stands third with 6 points.

The Winning Society at a glance

Western Music Society, Lady Shri Ram College for Women

Lady Shri Ram College’s Western Music society is well known for its acapella performances. Though they have covered a range of genres from Gospel to Indie music, their competitive piece is always a complex Jazz acapella arrangement. “We don’t practice for hours and hours every day. We just have a 1.5-2 hour practice session 5 days a week. But in that time, we make sure to channel our musical energies completely and make the most of our time. We are genuinely and truly fond of one another; we have the best times together as a society and as close friends. And coupled with our mutual love for music- it makes singing together a great experience”, shared the team. Performing Team Members: Kamakshi Khanna (President and Conductor), Abhilasha Sinha (Vice-President), Nolina Mishra, Kimberley Rodigues, Michri Thejaseno, Cindy Z Tlau, Anna Charenamai, Nandini Singha, Rhea Mahanta, Bhavya Kulshreshtha, Glory Salam, Varnika Prakash, Uttara Thapa M, Saakshi V Lama, Geyir Sora, Ankita Naik, Sanchia Thimanna, Sharanya S, Satwiki Adla. Note: The thirteen fests included in our analysis for this series include SRCC’s Crossroads, Gargi College’s Reverie, Sri Venkateswara College’s Nexus, LSR’s Tarang, Hans Raj’s Confluence, I.P. College for Women’s Shruti, Daulat Ram College’s Manjari, Hindu College’s Mecca, Jesus and Mary College’s Montage, Miranda House’s Tempest, Kamala Nehru College’s Ullas, Kirori Mal College’s Renaissance, SGTB Khalsa’s Lashkara. Out of the fests listed, only 8 had conducted a competitive Western Music (Group) competition.]]>

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Lady Shri Ram College for Women

LSR elects their Students’ Union for the upcoming academic year

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Come every spring and the Lady Shri Ram College for Women’s campus comes abuzz with political fervor and elections become the flavor of the season. It is the time of the year when the baton is passed on from one generation of office holders to another. In a span of two weeks, the Students’ Union, the many departments and societies, the NSO (National Sports Organization), the NSS (National Service Scheme), the NCC (National Cadet Corps) and the Residence Hall all elect their new representatives.

As in a democracy, the elections process for the Students’ Union comprises of a series of steps. Nominations are filed, core teams for each candidate formed, agendas released, campaigns carried out and secret ballots cast. The process for the various department and society associations is not an as elaborate one; however, it is as democratic in its conduct.

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Students Campaigning. | Image Credit: Mugdha for DU Beat

The Students’ Union at LSR comprises of four posts- President, Cultural Secretary, General Secretary and Treasurer; the first three in that hierarchical order. The first two posts are open to all second year students and the second two to all first year students, the Union that gets elected replaces the incumbent Union at the end of the academic year in a formal Passing Over Ceremony. This year, the college saw a considerably overwhelming number of applications for all posts and an equally encouraging voter turnout. Three students each contested for the post of the President and Cultural Secretary, five for General Secretary and four for Treasurer. When asked why the aspiring candidates chose to contest, Lakshmi Venkitesh, who contested for the post of Cultural Secretary said that it was the best way to give back to a place that had changed her for the better in more ways than one.

While the informal confrontation saw demands like Urdu rap and English nursery rhymes in Hindi, the formal confrontation saw each candidate present her agenda and take questions from the from the existing Union and the audience. In the Group Discussion, questions like ‘Should the social media be used for college election campaigning’ were deliberated upon. These events were held with an aim to intimate the student body with their candidates’ ideas and outlook.

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Students Voting. | Image Credit: Keshini Dhamania

But at the end of the day, it was the campaigning that stole the show. The two day long campaigning saw the wackiest of slogans- ‘Janhit mein jaari hai, Sabika ki baari hai’ and ‘Main Jaya Jaya chillaungi kurta phaad ke’. With the amount of clamour, sometimes musical and sometimes not, it was quite the battle of the bands, albeit with cymbals and tambourines. “Our voice cords trembled as the tempo increased but the game was on”, says Shireen Vidrohi, a campaigner for one of the presidential candidates.

The week long elections remained largely hassle-free one and some great camaraderie despite the competitive air. After the polling was conducted on 28th March, 2014, the results were announced by college Vice-Principal Priti Dhawan the very same day. The newly elected Union has Sabika Abbas as the President, Manosi Chaterjee as Cultural Secretary, Jyotirupa Das as General Secretary and Latika Sidhu as Treasurer. “I wish the new Union luck and hope that will take the collaboration model further. Work hard and party harder“, says incumbent President Tanvi Bist who is happy to pass on the reins to Sabika who assures us that she will try her best to fulfill her agenda promises and will focus on the accommodation and integration of Hindi medium students into the college.

Featured Image Credit: Mugdha for DU Beat

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Lady Shri Ram College for Women

Inside LSR’s recently inaugurated academic complex

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After the much-awaited inauguration of the new blocks by His Holiness The Dalai Lama, the students of Lady Shri Ram College for Women (LSR) are only waiting to move in as soon as the new semester sets in. The new blocks, namely, the Dr. Bharat Ram Academic Complex and the Aung San Suu Kyi Centre for Peace are expected to provide state of the art infrastructure to the students as well as solve the space crunch problem for both academic and non-academic purposes. Paucity of space had become a major concern for most Delhi University colleges after the expansion of OBC seats in 2009. With the introduction of the Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) and the number of active batches soon to be increased from three to four, this shortage is only expected to become worse.

The Centre for Peace has been constructed as an extension of the existing main building and has been envisioned as a centre for research and learning. A part of the centre is also to be used by the Department of Psychology. The Centre has been christened after the college’s most notable alumnus, Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The Dr. Bharat Ram Academic Block is an all new three-storey building which boasts of multiple lecture rooms and seminar rooms, an amphitheatre and an exhibition gallery along with a dedicated section to suit the technical requirements of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication. Dr. Bharat Ram, after whom the block has been named, was an industrialist and educationist, the son of the college’s founder, Sir Shri Ram.

The interconnected and expandable lecture rooms of the new block, 16 in number, can accommodate 25 to 100 students depending upon the requirement. The seminar rooms too have the capacity to seat a hundred. The Manju Bharat Ram Conference Hall, named after the late educationist and Padma Shri awardee, is the biggest of such rooms. As of now, the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Department of Elementary Education have been allotted rooms in the block. However, the final allocation will take place only by the end of the academic year. Along with the amphitheatre and the exhibition gallery, another new feature is the Multipurpose Room that is expected to be at the students’ disposition for extra-curricular activities.

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A glass panel on the ground floor acknowledges the contribution of the people and the organizations that helped with the college meet the financial expenditure. The construction of the blocks has been funded in part by the university and in a big way by the alumni, faculty and college associations. The exhibition gallery showcases the journey of LSR through the years, highlighting significant events and turn points while at the same time stressing upon the principles that the college seeks to uphold. And the inner walls reiterate what the college stands for- Leadership with Social Responsibility, an alternative explanation of the acronym LSR, being one of them. With all that has gone into their making, these new blocks are set to carry forward the legacy of the red walls.

Image Credit: Kanchi Malhotra

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Lady Shri Ram College for Women

Dalai Lama addresses students at LSR, inaugurates new academic complex

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His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama visited Lady Shri Ram College for Women on the 20th of March 2014. Talking about morality, ethics and the idea of a healthy inner-self, he spoke on “Success, Ethics and Happiness”.

Initially scheduled to start at 12: 30, the spiritual leader arrived for the inauguration of the new academic complex at around 2 p.m. With the sound of the gong marking his arrival, he first inaugurated the Aung San Suu Kyi Centre for Peace and then the Dr. Bharat Ram Academic Complex. This was followed by the lecture in the auditorium.

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During his address to the audience at LSR, His Holiness spoke of inner-wealth, stating that inner-happiness was above all material wealth. With the ideals of universal responsibility, compassion and altruism dominating the speech, he also focused on social responsibility. While speaking to the set of young girls, he emphasised the importance of the female community to create a better 21st century. He believes that they should play a more active role to bring compassion and empathy to the world. He also appreciated India’s secular framework, stating that it was the only nation in the world where people of all faiths and religion lived together.

Coming to ethics, he spoke of ethics being a necessity for a peaceful and happier world. He says, “Success requires ethics. Ethical life means honesty. Honesty brings trust. Trust brings friendship. Friendship brings unity. Unity leads to a more peaceful world”.

 

His ideas were followed by a series of questions that members of the audience wanted to bring about in the discussion. Students and faculty raised questions about the definition of success as well as questioned ideas of whether happiness could exist without spiritual belief. The religious leader says that even non-believers can be happy as long as there is awareness. On defining success, he stated that when at the end you are at peace and happy, that is success.

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The event closed with the vote of thanks presented by the Students Union President of the college, Tanvi Bist. This was followed by Yashaswini Basu, the Cultural Secretary of the college presenting his holiness a long life prayer with the signature of students and it’s recital in Tibetan by the college students.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama will also be visiting Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) on the 24th of March on the occasion of the college’s Annual Day.

Image Credit: Mugdha for DU Beat

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Lady Shri Ram College for Women

Taking street theatre where it belongs: LSR Dram Soc performs play on prostitution at G.B. Road

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Lady Shri Ram College’s (LSR) Dramatics society on 9th March, Sunday performed their annual street play production, “Jahaan Neelaam hai Insaaniyat” at G.B Road, New Delhi’s largest red light area. The play revolves around prostitution and talks about the rights of prostitutes and how it should be recognized as a profession and not looked down at with disgrace.

The performance was scheduled with legal police permissions with help of Khanabadosh – a theatre group of ex-Delhi University students who do street theatre only for public awareness.

At 12:30 PM, LSR Dramatics Society and Khanabadosh made a common call in the area before starting the performances. ‘Demo-crazy’ was the first play presented by Khanabadosh on politics. It talked about how democracy isn’t only the matter of voting and is formed by people and not politicians.

This was followed by ‘Jahaan Neelaam Hai Insaaniyat’ by LSR girls. The play had many spectators from all over the area. Chandu who was present there to watch the play said, “Hum zyadatar dukaandar log hai yahan jo dekh rahe hai, jinn log ko aap dikhaana chahte hain unhe koi baahar aane nahi deta.”

Performance attracted various actors from different college societies of the University. Members of an NGO, Kat-Katha which works towards the welfare of children of prostitutes were also present. Mr. Sandeep Rawat, founder of Samarth – an organization that does theatre with blind students of Delhi University was also part of the audience.

On asking about the security issues, Aishwarya – a student of LSR who had come to watch the play told DU Beat, “Yes, I had some fear in mind while coming to this area. But there was this nervous excitement as well. Theatre in the university is a mere source of winning competitions nowadays, but this step is very rare. This is where this play belongs.”

The play talked about the problems a woman in this profession has to face and how the men in our society are the leading force. It highlighted that most of the women are trafficked in our country and they don’t choose to be where they are. The play was written using various slogans that left the crowd teary-eyed like “Kya yehi vo duniya sanskari, jahan ghat ghat pe bikti nari” & “Woh auzaar thi, auzaar hai aur auzaar hi rahegi.” The play projected that the public does nothing for a woman who undergoes such trauma. “Hum to aaj ki janta, humein vaishya ki haalat se koi farak ni padta.” According to people in the audience, a small drawback for both the plays was that they had few dialogues in the English language. The message may not have been clearly delivered.

Talking about why a topic like prostitution was chosen, Nishtha Pandey – the society’s president said, “There are many preconceived notions about this matter. The incorrect fact with people is that 15% of the women choose this work on their own, whereas this percentage is only 2%. Myths regarding this subjects are not really myths. It is true that 60-70% of the women who are prostitutes are affected by HIV AIDS. Their condition is horrifying. Ours is a small step towards this.”

The president of the society also feels that addressing prostitutes as sex workers only glamourises the name and doesn’t gurantee any rights or respect. Hence the play used the term ‘prostitutes’ against ‘sex workers.’ The act also provided solutions in the end by mentioning that unionisation should be undertaken for these prostitutes to protect their rights as being done at Sonagachi, one of the biggest red light areas of Kolkata. The members of the society also said that they feel that finally the motive of making this play was achieved. Mr. Siddhant Sharma, the leading person behind organising this all also congratulated the artists from LSR.

But the most important question that arises here is that was the target audience actually targeted. As commented by a localite of that area the women are not allowed outside the brothels for any such happenings. Ramlal said, “Isse farak bohot kam padega. Aisa kaam jaari rakhna hoga jiske chalte logo ko zyada se zyada pta chalta rahe.” Due to this very fact, no questions were raised by people from the local audience during the question answer round. The team promised that they will try making efforts in this regards in the future as well.

“Kal ek vaishya ne kaha, ki aaj mujh par jung lag gya hai,
Kal tak jo mere dar aata tha, aaj wahi mujhse darr gaya hai.
Koi dalal ko kyun nahi tokta, kyun ilzaam mujh par hi lag gya hai,
Kal ek vaishya ne kaha, ki aaj mujh par jung lag gya hai.
Jab tak hum andekha karenge, tab tak chalegi haiwaniyat,
Mitta do unn hawaalon ki, jahan nilaam hai insaaniyat”

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Lady Shri Ram College for Women

LSR Genderknowledge Day 2: “Inhone apni awaaz uthayi – isiliye humne apni awaaz paayi”

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The second day of Genderknowledge, the LSR Academic Congress saw yet another set of fantastic panels, lectures and performances, and yet another smitten, awed audience.

The first plenary of the day was called “Humari Awaaz Suno: Gender and Marginalized Voices”, which started with distinguished a panel of distinguished filmmaker Anand Patwardhan and exemplary scholar Gopal Guru, moderated by Dr. Sunalini Kumar, LSR Professor. Prof. S Thoarat, Chairman of the ICSSR was also to be there but could not make it due to ill health. The panel discussed in depth the operations of caste and gender in India – with Gopal Guru speaking about the institution of marriage (something unique to the human species) as performing almost arbitrarily, the function of reproducing caste. Anand Patwardhan showed the caste and gender nexus differently, but equally powerfully – through clippings of some of his most beautiful films – Waves of Revolution (Kranti ki Tarange) and Father, Son and Holy War (His famous film Jai Bhim Comrade has already been screened as a pre-congress event a few days back).

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Session two gave us a different way of looking at gender and marginalized voices, with a panel consisting of renowned feminist writer and publisher Urvashi Butalia, Sunita Choudhary – north India’s first woman to become an auto rickshaw driver, Meenu Vadera (Secretary, Azad Foundation and Director, Sakha Consulting Wings Pvt. Ltd.) along with three women who drive Taxis at Sakha – Shanti, Saroj – the guest of honour though seemed implicitly to have been Baby Haldar, a domestic worker whose three books have been translated in multiple languages and read across the world. The session was moderated by LSR professor Dr. Nayana Das Gupta. Each of these women spoke of their lives, their experiences and many in tears.

The first half of the day also had a musical interlude by Azaad Parindey, a choir from Azad foundation. Azaad Parindey is a choir formed by a group of trainee drivers at Sakha. Their music was filled with inspiring lyrics, which the audience enjoyed a lot. The first half ended with the screening of the documentary “Fragments of a Past” by Uma Chakravarthy. Uma Chakravarty is a feminist historian. The documentary focuses on the life and works of a woman political activist. The screening was followed by a round of questions with Uma Chakravarty. The session was moderated by Bindu Menon.

The afternoon plenary was moderated by the Principal Dr. Meenakshi Gopinath and started with a lecture by the acclaimed Feminist theorist Mary.E John – her analysis on issues of violence and sexuality in India – especially discussions on the Ramisabi Case and the Mathura case were extremely intriguing. Further, she gave us a sense of the violence of exclusion in the Indian workspace – where only 15% women are getting paid for work.

This was followed by a documentary screening by filmmaker Shikha Trivedi, called Safe City Dialogues, which touched on many issues of how we look at safety, security, violence and gender.

March 6th also saw two round-table conferences on ‘Redefining Responsibility: Beyond Glass Ceiling’ with the first panel consisting of Mr. Pramod Bhasin, Former CEO, Genpact; Ms. Reema Nanavati, SEWA; Ms. Mitu Samar, CRISIL; Ms. Renu Kakar, Apeejay Surendra Group and Mr Ravi Mohan Sethi, Stellar Group of Companies. The second panel included Ms. Shahnaz Hussain, Shahnaz Herbal Inc.; Ms. Chavi Rajawat, Sarpanch, Soda Village; Mr. Rajnish Dutta, Yes Bank; Mr. Manav Subodh, Intel Corporation; Geetanjali Ghate and Ms. Jasmeet Kaur Srivastava, The Third Eye. The panel was moderated by Ms. Shweta Rajpal Kohli, Economic Affairs Editor, NDTV.

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 Ms. Kohli sparked of the discussion by asking the students for the meaning of “glass ceiling” in the corporate sector. With this definition, Mr. Bhasin claimed that these constraints exist while Mr. Sethi advised the girls to be realistic about their aspirations, at the same time, Ms. Chavi blamed the education system for the restrictions on women. Ms. Mitu Samar mentioned that some companies are moving towards the change. Ms. Reema from her experience of working for SEWA explained that with appropriate facility and availability, women prove to be good risk takers.

The concluding panel of the day however, was most apt to end a discussion on violence – we had Bhawari Devi (a rape survivor from Rajasthan) tell us her story, giving us a sense of how much we do have today thanks to women like her who chose to fight it out. Dr. Gopinath beautifully introduced her with the words “Inhone apni awaaz uthai, isiliye humne apni awaaz paayi”. Kavita Srivastava from Vishakha, an NGO in Rajasthan that played a vital role in the Sexual Harrasment at the Workplace law spoke next, explaining the intricacies and complexities of Bhawari Devi’s story.

Image Credit: Sahiba Chawdhary

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Lady Shri Ram College for Women

LSR Genderknowledge Day 1: “Sun lo ab sab baat humari – ab din hai humara, raat humaari”

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Day one of Genderknowledge – the Academic Congress organized by Lady Shri Ram College for Women – started this morning with the welcome address by the Principal Dr. Meenakshi Gopinath, who set the stage beautifully for the day to progress. She spoke about notions of gender, violence against women, queer politics and ended with a few verses of the beautiful poem titled Silence by LSR alum Anasuya Sengupta.

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Kamla Bhasin gives the keynote address.

After this, the audience was floored by Kamla Bhasin, renowned feminist and founding member of Jagori NGO, who touched upon so many issues so beautifully in so little time – she quoted a German feminist saying ‘’Women are the last colony, all others have been liberated.’’ She spoke of the male point of view which is the crux of every institutionalized structure we see today, focusing especially on religion and the idea of a masculine God. She then moved on to talk about the capitalist patriarchies we live in today, and the usefulness of the sex gender distinction in understanding these. She also explained other axis of power along which patriarchy operates – caste, class, religion – all of which could not function without patriarchy and control over women’s sexuality and reproduction. The solutions she gave to these problems were inspiring and overwhelming all the same – her spirit itself gave the entire auditorium the will to fight the system, and the song she sang and the slogans she recited (“hum abla se sable banenge saathi’’ and ‘’sun lo ab sab baat humari, ab din humara, raat humari, bus humari, train humari’’) were on everyone’s lips.

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The next address was by Kirin Mehra-Kerpelman, LSR alum and the Director of the UN Information Centre for India and Bhutan, who read out the special message sent by UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon on account of the upcoming Women’s Day. The General’s Secretary’s address raised issues of productivity and its inherent links with women’s empowerment.

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This was followed by a performance by Dr. Maya Krishna Rao – an eminent theatre personality, teacher and performer, who performed her piece created post December 16th called The Walk. The standing ovation she got after did more justice to her performance than words could ever be capable of. Later in the day Dr. Nivedita Menon said that Dr. Rao’s performance expressed beautifully how we need not to lead, but to walk together in this fight against patriarchy.

The release of a survey done by the LSR Statistics Department took place next by Kamla Bhasin and Rebecca Reichmann Tavares. The survey, which was on gender perceptions among college students again, gave some interesting perspectives on how most of us see, live and breathe gender in our everyday lives.

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The morning session then concluded with an enlightening panel discussion called ‘Yeh gender vender kya hai’ with Shivani Kapoor, LSR professor, moderating the panel of Dr. Nivedita Menon (renowned feminist and professor at JNU), Dr. Rebecca Reichmann Tavares (UN Women’s Representative for India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka) and Sunita Dhar (Chairperson, Jagori). Each speaker approached the question in different ways – speaking of how urban governance and policy planning is effecting women and creating gendered spaces to problematizing notions of gender, social constructions, masculinity and femininity. (Check our liveblog for more details)

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Image Credit: Sahiba Chawdhury

The afternoon session started with a panel discussion with Vrinda Grover (human rights lawyer and women’s rights advocate) and Jagmati Sanghwan (AIDWA) moderated by LSR Professor Megha Dhillon. They ‘Unpacked’ the Bill of Rights given by the Justice Verma committee and spoke of their own experiences of working with the gendered and obviously patriarchal Indian state.

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The day ended with a multi media experience in the form of a musical reading of Jorasanko – a book by Aruna Chakravarty on influential women in the Tagore Household. The reading focused specifically on the lives of Jnanandini and Kadambari Debi, and ended with the tragic suicide of the latter, who was also the first person to recognize Rabindranath Tagore’s flare for poetry.

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LSR organises series of pre-cursor events for upcoming Academic Congress

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Lady Shri Ram College For Women is set to begin their Academic Congress titled “Genderknowledge: Understanding Gender: Questions of Justice and Freedom” on 5th, 6th and 7th of March 2014.

The academic congress started its buzz with “Pre-Academic Congress” events and workshops conducted by various departments of the college.

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Body Image Workshop at LSR

Mirror on the Wall: Am I the Loveliest of them All?
Dr. Kanika K Ahuja, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Lady Shri Ram College for Women conducted a body image workshop, ‘Mirror on the Wall: Am I the Loveliest of Them All?’on 28th February as a pre-event to the academic congress.  It was an experiential workshop that challenged popular notions of beauty and the ideal body. A striking feature of the workshop was the Mirror Assignment, which required the participants to stand in front of a mirror, observe themselves and write down at least 6 positive qualities about themselves. In the words of Neha Yadav, a second year student, “It made me appreciate those qualities that I normally don’t care enough to notice.”

One Directional Woman and the Feminization of Labour
Dr Nandini Chandra, Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Delhi University, in her session titled, ‘One Directional Woman and the Feminization of Labour’, succeeded in giving a new perspective to feminism. Quoting from important Hindi texts like ‘Naukar ki Kammez’, she expressed the power dynamics that earlier worked, and still prevail in the bourgeois Indian families. In a society that exploits both men and women, she discussed how men are counted as ‘living labours’, with specified working hours and holidays while the women are treated no more than ‘dead labours’, machines that have to work endlessly. This was followed by an interactive question and answer session where Dr. Chandra engaged with the students and faculty.

Workshop on Sexuality
The Political Science Department hosted a workshop on “Sexuality” on 1st March. The workshop was conducted by CREA (Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action), which is a feminist-human rights organisation based in New Delhi. It is one of the few international women’s rights organisations based in the global South, led by Southern feminists, which works at the grassroots, national, regional, and international levels. The workshop focused on the sexual and reproductive rights of women and investigated the links between sexuality, rights, gender and health and their interface with socio-cultural and legal issues.

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Image Credit: Meenakshi Pahuja

Other academic congress pre-events include a “Self Defence Workshop” a five day workshop facilitated by the Delhi Police and Ms. Meenakshi Pahuja from 3rd-7th March. On the workshop, Ms. Pahuja says, “The purpose of this workshop is to empower young women especially those who travel alone in Delhi. Our aim is to emancipate women to at least help protect themselves if they are unable to help others.”

On 3rd March, the Journalism and Mass Communication Department organized an interactive session with women journalists of “Khabar Lahariya”, an Indian newspaper published in certain rural dialects of Hindi, including Bundeli and Awadhi. This session was facilitated by Nirantar, which trains and provides ongoing support to rural women journalists publishing the Khabar Lahariya newspaper in local languages.

Khabar Lahariya
The Journalism department hosts a session with women journalists of Khabar Lahariya.

The pre-congress event schedule also boasts of a creative touch to the conference with “Occupy Wall Street” where we will display graffiti art work of the students on the theme of the congress.

With that the pre-events came to end on 4th March with parallel sessions of a special lecture by Professor Jayanti Ghosh on ‘Gender and Globalization’, screening of ‘Jai Bhim Comrade’ followed by discussion with Anand Patwardhan and ‘Paper Presentation on Gender and Sports’ by Meenakshi Pahuja.

Jayanti Ghosh concluded her talk stating, “I always enjoy coming to Lady Shri Ram College. It is always nice to interact with an intelligent bunch of girls who make me feel positive about the future.”

Patwardhan’s analysis of caste on the other hand helped reflect the gendered caste nature setting a theme for the “GenderKnowledge” with special mentions like the brutal Khairlanji Rape Case.

Bilingual knowledge was also witnessed with a Special Lecture by Dr. Kanchana Natrajan on “The Question of Gender in Hindi Literature” giving a perfect prelude to the academic congress.

The pre-events ended with the declaration that the United Nations Secretary- General Ban Ki-Moon will be sending his message of solidarity through Ms. Kiran Mehra-Kerpelman, Director of the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) tomorrow for the Gender Congress on the occasion of International Women’s Day!

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