21/12/2014

21/12/2014; 00:47:

And, after a week at home, thanks to a long break between two IGNOU papers, it was good to be back on campus!
The place is buzzing with activity, what with the PGP Placement season having begun and Christmas just around the corner!
I tried and abandoned a blog post, on the 15th, right after I was back on campus; it sure was a busy few days!
10th Evening saw a guest lecture by Dr. A Sivathanu Pillai, Founder-CEO-cum-Managing Director of BrahMos Aerospace; he spoke on ‘India’s Global Leadership’. Later in the evening, the Activity Club arranged a screening of the 1952 movie, ’12 Angry Men’.
On 11th December, a third visit ,since the Social Committee has undertaken various projects this year, to Aastha Vridha Ashram was arranged. The arrangement was expanded to include the orphanage, the juvenile home and the home for victims of abuse; IPM students guided by the in-house counsellor Dr.Prarthana Sharma spent time with the inmates, spreading positivity and learning outside of their sheltered environments.
12th December – Rajnikath’s Birthday was celebrated, with a mass movie screening!
Saturday (13th) evening saw the prelims of ‘In-Quiz-itive’ being conducted, by our very own Literary Committee. 6 teams made it to the finale that was held a week later.
I was back on campus on 14th morning and spent a busy day talking! A part of the afternoon was spent trying to study for the next day’s paper; there was a SAC-EC meeting in the evening, where a proposal for a seminar on ‘Innovation in Management Education’ along with the Music Club’s proposal for a campus radio were discussed. Also certain ideas dealing with increased student safety in the light of the recent Uber-Delhi incident were chalked out.
This meeting was followed by a team-bonding exercise organized by the interim I-Help team. A treasure hunt which had a series of interesting clues to be solved with the team in tow went on for a good two hours. The interim team business, which has been set-up to help finalize the team for next year is a rather useful idea. Practical experience at running the operations is a better judge than any interview or essay can ever hope to be.
Later in the evening, a Chiraag meeting was held where the idea for the year’s ‘Secret Santa’ was discussed. ‘Secret Santa’ as the name suggests entails a random draw being made from the entire set of people participating. Each participant receives a name- of his to-be ‘Santee’, for whom he must act as a ‘secret’ Santa, leaving a trail of clues, leading up to a grand gift on Christmas Day! Apart from being great fun, the Christmas spirit is felt in all its glory.

It was a rather mundane paper, on the afternoon of the 15th- mostly because I sat all alone in a classroom meant for 60 students, writing a paper on ‘Introduction to HIV/AIDS’; so much for opting for random papers when everyone’s pursuing either a BA(Economics) or B.Comm.

16th was one crazy day, most of which was spent planning for the first Media Comm. ‘Event’ of the year, the ‘Journalist Face-Off’. From preparing questions for the Quiz round, to picking the best set of pictures for the finale, everyone worked hard at what they do best. One of the members who was looking after the visual round of the quiz managed to turn up with an entire series of impossible-to-answer questions. It was heart-breaking to explain to him that most of us have absolutely no knowledge of the topics that are so dear to him and that he ought to pick simpler (well, more mainstream) questions that dealt with the Russian Economy and Hollywood instead.
We spoke to IIM-Indore’s PRO, Dr. Akhtar Parvez and our cool English faculty, Dr. Shweta Kushal, both of whom consented to be the judges for the event.
Some volleyball later, we’d also spoken to the media, arranging to send them a report and pictures as soon as the event was over. We were excited; a Media Comm. Event definitely called for media coverage! Plus, it was going to be the best event, ever; the happy moment was when one newspaper we’d left out actually called us – ‘There’s an event happening, right?’. ‘ Yes sir, there is’. ‘Do give me the details’. !!

After a frantic morning of trying to get through at least half the syllabus and a rather decent ‘Drug Abuse and Counselling’ paper, I got working on the event that was to begin in under an hour! Round 1 entries were marked, final run-throughs of the Round 2 questions were done, Wildcard entries were watched and the lucky winner decided and soon enough , the event began.
The event had three rounds and culminated in a charged finale. The first round had the contestants write out an op-ed, an opinion piece, on a topic of their choice- writing a coherent editorial piece is the mark of a good journalist. The second round was a quiz that tested how up to date the contestants were with the currents news, for every journalist ought to have all the current happenings at the tip of his tongue.
The Quiz happened in three parts- one with visual clues, one set of MCQ questions and one Audio-Visual round where news clippings were shown and the news piece in question was to be identified.
There was also a wild-card entry round, where the students had to cover an event on campus, make a video and send it across. The winner of the wild-card round received a direct spot in the finale! 8 teams qualified for the finale, on the basis of the scores of Rounds one and two. The finale was a Face-Off, a show-down of sorts, where one team was pitted directly against the other, in a live-TV presentation round. A series of pictures that depicted the story in question were put up on screen and the teams and to run a live coverage of the incident. The final show-down saw one team impersonate the perpetrator of the crime in question, all with a funny accent and everything; other fun bits included a reporter reporting live from a comet, dazed by the diamonds that she found there; a reporter who became part of a zombie apocalypse and one team who had their very own ‘Snow White News’ channel.
The event made the students aware of the hectic schedule and the crazy demands that every journalist has to meet- it’s not all glamour and glitz, but a lot of hard-work.
The event had large participation and was successful- prizes were given out to winners, runners-up; there were also two consolation prizes and two separate prizes for the winners of Round 2; audience prizes were handed out too!

We left for Khargone on the chilly morning of 18th December. After the successful workshop on job applications, résumés and job interviews, a second edition of the workshop was held for a different set of students. It saw much larger participation than the first and it even had a small entry fee for the participants! The Digital Literacy campaign was also kick-started in a big way, with two schools being reached out to, on the very first day! The first topic that’s being covered is PowerPoint Presentations, mainly for their wide scope of use and the fact that the pictures and everything make them very attractive.
I left campus that night, getting on the late-night train home, courtesy tickets booked by my parents. I’d surprised them earlier in the month, by showing up at home, unannounced; they surprised me by informing me one night before that my tickets were ready and waiting.

Around this, the Secret Santa process began; ‘santees’ were matched with Santas by 19th night and the game is in full swing. I’ve been sending clues to my ‘Santee’ too! I haven’t received anything from my Santa, yet, though.

In other news, Canara bank has agreed to offer loans to IPM students, without a collateral, unlike the mandatory ‘with collateral’ loan offered by SBI till date.

On 19th evening, the finale of ‘In-Quiz-itive’ was held; the event was won by a team which goes by the name ‘Victorious Secrets’!
On 20th evening, a panel discussion on ‘Innovation Challenges’ was held on campus, for both faculty and students to benefit from; the discussion was moderated by our director, Dr. Rishikesha T. Krishnan.
Also, keeping with the directive on ‘Good Governance Day’, a solo speech event was organized for all IPM students, at 6:30 in the evening; the topic for the same was ‘Use of Technology and Innovations in Promoting Good Governance’.


Also, Christmas preparations are in full-swing; that ought to be another post!