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With only one transgender applicant this year and no enrollments for regular courses since 2015, the University has had enough reminders to realise the plight of transgender students. DU Beat explores this decline.

University of Delhi (DU) receives the highest number of applications for various courses in the country, and this year was no different. The University received more than three lakh applications, though there was a decline from last year. 3,67,895 number of applications is no less a number, even as only 2,58,388 proceeded ahead and made payments.  In all these applications, women yet again seemed to have become a majority, 84,021 female candidates and 68,457 male candidates applied to the University. Shockingly, only one transgender person has submitted an application this year as compared to last year, or 2017 when the university had 36 applications.

According to the data, the scheduled tribe category saw 4,044 male applicants and 3,056 female applicants. Over 17,000 male candidates and 16,000 female candidates had applied in the SC quota and about 32,926 male candidates and approximately 22,531 female candidates applied for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) non-creamy layer quota.

The newly introduced EWS (Economically Weaker Sections) that has a ten percent quota in the university admissions also had  5,528 male candidates and 3,562 female candidates. This year the varsity has increased its capacity to 62,000 number of seats. It has been stated that there would be a separate cut-off for the EWS category.

The fact that only one transgender student has applied is a huge warning to the varsity. There seems to be very liitle that the university has been able to do to make the college spaces safe for the transgender community. It seems that the stigma attached to the community has not yet gone away and a singular application speaks volumes in this regard. There have been cases of harassments faced by transgenders from other students and staff and that may have been the reason for this decline in approaching the university for admissions.

With incidents of transgender persons being asked, “Since when have you been a transgender person?” by the admission staff. Being subjected to derogatory remarks during the admissions, they tend to take up vocational courses and steer away from the University space.

Even though the TRC (Transgender Resource Centre), established in 2018 had come up with various outreach programs to bring more students to the University fold, they seem to have not yielded substantial results. These outreach programs had begun during the month of April this year.

Equal rights activist Harish Iyer said that he would be writing to the Chief Minister of Delhi about this issue. “If that one candidate seeks admission to a college of DU, the whole college and especially the teaching and the non-teaching staff have to ensure that the student feels at ease and accepted. The civil society has to come together to address the issue.” he stated.

According to officials, last year there were applications from transgender aspirants but no one enrolled for regular courses. The varsity had introduced the Other category in 2015, but there have been no admissions to the regular course under this category so far.

Rajesh from the Department of Adult Continuing Education and Extension said, “Around 15 transgender students had come to us with queries but they all had queries about School Of Open Learning and Indira Gandhi National Open University. They usually prefer to enrol as male or female in regular courses or for distance learning education.”

The University needs to gear up to make sure that more and more transgender students feel welcome in the college space.  This year needs single registration needs to be a stern reminder for the same. It is all of us together who decide for us and others around us. Let us all try to accept each other and build a better future. Marks build your CV, not your character.

Feature Image Credits: The Indian Express

Stephen Mathew

joice.mathew [email protected]

 

 

Kurtosis 2014, the annual fest of Statistics department, Hindu College took place on the 25th and 26th of February 2014. The fest began with the inauguration on 25th morning, followed by a talk on “Risk Management” by Mr. Prem Nath, Associate Director, Nova Scotia Bank. He talked to the students about how to identify and prioritize risks or any unfortunate events and to minimize it and control it to the best of your abilities; the inspirational talk gave the right tone to the rest of the day as the fest saw many competitions like Sudoku, Photography, I.P.L Auction Action, Tambola, Mock Trading and Treasure Hunt. Abhishek Chaudhry from Ramjas won the Sudoku competition while Ramesh and Divyshry from Hindu came in second and third respectively. The photography competition was won by Raman from Hindu college.

The second day began with another talk by the chief guest Dr. N.K Chadha from the psychology department. who gave the students tips on how to manage stress. Student life can get pretty stressful at times and it is important for us to know how to manage it or it could take a toll on us, Dr. Chadha gave the students advice on how they can manage the stress with just a little bit of discipline in their life. This was followed by competitions like Ad-Mad, Brain Teaser, Scavanger Hunt and Dog in the Bone. The winning team for Ad-Mad was Pankaj and team from Hindu while for the Scavanger Hunt a team comprising of Dhruv Mittal from Kirori Mal College, Lehar Raj, Deepak Sharma and Tarun Sudan from Hindu were awarded the first position. For the Brain Teaser, the winner was Manan, Shikha Goel came in second and Tulika and Gaurav came in third.

Six-sigma – the Quiz was held in the afternoon and the winners for the same were Balasubramanyam and Darshan Kalathil from Hansraj College. Dr. Yash Pal, another chief guest who attended the fest and also the former chairman of the UGC came in for an interactive session with the students and left many pearls of wisdom like “Being merely competitive is not enough, creativity is important to achieve something.”

The fest was brought to an end with a street dance competition which was won by the team of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce.

Simulation, the annual Statistics department fest of Sri Venkateshwara College, gave a welcoming break to the students from the mundane classroom lectures and the biting chill of the stubborn Delhi weather. Held on 23-24 January, this year’s Simulation saw quite a buzz with multiple events spanning the two days.

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The fest was officially inaugurated on the 23rd of January by T.R Mohanty, the deputy director general of the Central Statistical Organisation at 11 AM. After a brief address by the chief guest, a special Career launcher session was held. In the latter half of the day, students participated in a Treasure hunt that had them run in and out of the campus. For those preferring to sit and solve classic newspaper puzzles instead of running about in the cold, a Sudoku competition was held parallel to the treasure hunting competition. Abhinav from Ram Lal Anand emerged as the winner in the same. Half an hour later, a Quiz competition was held alongside a trailer making competition. Adding more fun to the event schedule, the day ended with the game of dumb charades.

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The fest extended to the next day, the 24th of January. Math lovers found their palates satisfactorily catered to as the second day began with a competitive event called Human Calculator. Participants were expected to solve a series of long and complicated mathematical problems without the use of external aids. A fun session of Antakshari later helped cool off the steaming brain cells. Vritti Palli and Arpit from Statistics(H) IIIrd Year at  SVC won the competition.

This was followed by a three legged Obstacle Race, where tripping and blaming your own partner is a must (12:25 PM), Ad Mad, an event where budding salesmen attempted to win the favour judges for their products and Beg, borrow or Steal, a conspicuous event that, I believe, is threateningly close to receiving a lawsuit by a popular reality show.

All said and done, Simulation has been a surprisingly fun chain of events generating much anticipation for the next year to come.

Lady Shri Ram College is one of the first colleges in DU to hold its college elections, and this year, the elections began in a hurry as the date for the college day was declared late. The department elections began on Monday, 1st April with the candidates submitting their nomination forms. Elections for some departments were held on 2nd; whereas other departments had their election on 3rd. Strict rules for elections were laid down. According to the rules, any candidate found campaigning through internet or SMS would be immediately disqualified from the elections. On the 2nd History Department held their elections, whereas other departments like Political Science, Statistics, Philosophy, Economics, etc. held their elections the next day. All candidates needed a third year and a second year to nominate them, and one could see frantic first years running around asking seniors to nominate them and read their agenda. According to a first year candidate running for the post of Department Treasurer, ‘contesting the elections has been a whole new experience for me altogether. I have learnt through my research about so many problems that the students are facing, especially when it comes to accounts, and I hope I can create a more transparent accounts system for my department in case I get elected.’ The following candidates were declared Presidents of their respective department Unions: Amanjit Kaur: Sociology Vaishnavi Singh: History Srujana Yadav: Political Science Prerna Kannan: Statistics Charvi Kain: Economics Gurman Bhatia: Journalism Image: Sapna Mathur ([email protected]  ]]>