The phone hasn’t stopped ringing and congratulatory messages keep flowing in for Kritika who has just received the news that she has been adjudged the global winner for the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (CSSP). The CSSP is awarded annually for best unpublished short fiction in English or fiction that has been translated from Bengali, Chinese, French, Greek, Kiswahili, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Tamil and Turkish. The Prize aims to identify talented writers who go on to inspire their communities, and also develop literary connections worldwide. Read more... |
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National Education Policy 2020 The new National Education Policy (NEP) was unveiled on 30 July 2020, indicating large-scale significant and transformational reforms in the entire education system of the country. Vice-Chancellor Malabika Sarkar in her reaction to NEP said, “We are happy that the multidisciplinary approach we have been practicing is recognised as the right way to prepare students for challenges in their careers….Ashoka has a unique one-year multidisciplinary Young India Fellowship programme that is crafted to offer students a rich postgraduate experience in one year." Read more... |
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The Project Amara: Ashoka student’s social impact initiative - Safe Period, Safe Environment “Every year in India, approximately 432 million sanitary napkins are disposed of by 13% of the menstruating population. On the other hand, innumerable menstruating women and girls who cannot afford this, resort to using ash, leaves, used gauge and cotton, paper, wood, and even dirty cloth”, says Anjali Dalmia, co-founder of The Project Amara – an alternate solution to menstrual hygiene. Read more... |
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Some highlights from June |
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CWC's Online Summer School As part of its Summer School 2020, the Centre for Writing and Communication (CWC) conducted two online workshops - a four-day Creative Writing workshop and a five-day Research Writing workshop. They received over 230 applications in total from all over India, and the participants were selected after going through a rigorous selection process. The participants ranged from several esteemed universities like Jadavpur University, IISER Kolkata, Jamia Milia Islamia, JNU, and hailed from diverse academic backgrounds like Philosophy, Mass Communication, Geography, Physics, to name a few. Apart from lectures, interactive sessions, and peer-reviewing, the participants were also given detailed individual feedback by instructors on their writing during the course of the workshops. A chapbook consisting of stories written by the participants of the Creative Writing workshop will be published soon. |
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Summer of Ishq The Summer of Ishq is an expansion of the Centre's flagship speaker series ISHQ: Issues in Society, History and Queerness, where we discuss issues of feminism, inequality, desire, resistance, and identity. We are thrilled that the summer edition gives us the opportunity to get renowned scholars and thinkers, such as Judith Butler, Ather Zia, Jack Halberstam and Paromita Vohra, to engage with our students and staff. The series was followed by over 4000+ attendees across its six sessions and has garnered a warm response from institutions across the globe. The series can now be viewed on our YouTube channel here. Date: 18 June - 23 July 2020 |
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Creative Programme by CWC| Insular Poetry Workshop Conducted by Shantam Goyal, an academic researching the works of James Joyce for his PhD at SUNY Buffalo, New York, this workshop uncovered various nuances of reading and writing 'Imagist' poetry. It was attended by more than 40 poetry lovers, and aimed to help them pull themselves away from their immersion in what they read, and try to figure out what makes something 'poetry'. A video recording of the workshop is available here. |
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Film and Book Recommendations by CWC CWC has been making some fantastic movie and reading recommendations over the last three months on their Instagram handle. Non-fiction to detective novels, blockbusters to documentaries - there is something for everyone. |
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CWC Podcast | Episode 2 CWC podcast #BackToTheTutor is available on #SoundCloud and features conversations and discussions from within and beyond CWC. In Episode 2, Poet Vivek Narayanan is in conversation with Souradeep Roy and Uday Kanungo, Writing Tutors at CWC. Click here to listen. |
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CWC on YouTube CWC started #decodingcollegeapplications, a series where voices from universities around the world answer the most daunting questions about framing that perfect college application. Now live on Youtube. |
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CWC Publications 1. CWC Writing Tutor Aakshi Magazine's opinion piece titled "The Real Horror Film" published in The Indian Express on 8 July 2020. 2. CWC Writing Tutor Apoorva Saini published the first issue of her online magazine for short fiction, The Bilingual Window. It aims to facilitate cross-ventilation for writers and readers of Hindi, English, and Hindi/English translations from other languages. The magazine is open for submissions on a rolling basis. 3. CWC Writing Tutor Souradeep Roy's essay on Sudhanva Deshpande’s book ‘Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi’ was published in Scroll.in on 12 July 2020. 4. CWC Senior Writing Fellow Jyotirmoy Talukdar 's article 'How Academia Represents Assam and Northeast India: A Comment', published in Raiot.in, on 27 July 2020. |
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Scientifically Speaking - Season 2 | Lecture 1 - Insects are Us LS Shashidhara, Dean of Research and Professor of Biology talked about a simple insect providing answers to fundamental questions about life. Date: 14 July Time: 7 PM |
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CFE | Jugaad Innovation Centre for Entrepreneurship (CFE) hosted Deep Bajaj, Founder of Sirona Hygiene - Intimate & Menstrual Hygiene Experts for an engaging session on Jugaad Innovation as part of its course on Creativity & Design Thinking on July 16. The session shed insights on how his flagship product PeeBuddy revolutionised the Indian intimate hygiene market and the inspiration behind changing the experiences of women around the country with menstrual and intimate hygiene products. |
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A session on yoga On 18 July 2020, Ashoka’s Sports Department organised a special Yoga Session for the students, faculty, and staff who have been staying on campus. The trainer taught the participants different asanas and explained the importance of those in helping build stamina and boost the immune system against various diseases. |
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CEDA and Department of Economics | Ashoka University Discussion Paper Series Professor of Economics and Director, Centre for Economic Data and Analysis (CEDA), Ashwini Deshpande's paper (with co-author Rajesh Ramachandran) on the critical role of caste identity in lockdown-induced job losses is published in Ashoka University Discussion Paper Series in Economics, DP No. 34, July 2020, titled 'Is COVID "The Greater Leveler"? The Critical Role of Social Identity in Lockdown- induced Job Losses'. |
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CSBC | Published Articles 1. Pavan Mamidi, Director and Pooja Haldea, Senior Advisor at CSBC have their article published in Economic Times on Prioritise Healthy Behaviour to Quell COVID-19. The article explores how do we encourage people to practice protective behaviours, especially many of those which involve personal sacrifice? Click here to read. 2. Smriti Verma, Associate Director at CSBC had her article published in the print and digital version of Financial Express on Infodemic during a Pandemic. In this article, she emphasises the spread of 'Fake News' is a real challenge in our hyper-connected world and explores content monitoring & self-censorship as solutions to how service providers & individuals can help curb the infodemic. Click here to read. |
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CSBC COVID-19 Response Navigating the New Normal Communication: NITI Aayog launches a national-level behaviour change campaign on navigating the new normal - with special focus on the importance of mask-wearing. The campaign is developed by CSBC and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in partnership with McCann Worldgroup. Click here for the campaign film. Click here for the New Normal website. Interpersonal Communication Pilot at Mahisagar district, Gujarat: CSBC in collaboration with the Health Department and other development partners in Gujarat is designing and piloting an interpersonal communication (IPC) strategy to reduce the impact of COVID-19 in the state. The IPC toolkit consists of an IPC job-aid meant to facilitate the interaction between the health worker and community members. The job-aid is accompanied with an IPC pocket guide for the health workers to refer and use during their interaction. In order to operationalise the pilot, CSBC will conduct district-level training of trainers (ToT), which will be cascaded to the health workers by the trained trainers. In addition to this, CSBC is providing technical assistance in completing a base-line and end-line survey to measure the effectiveness of the pilot in Mahisagar district. More details can be found here. COVID-19 Communication Handbook: The COVID-19 Communication Handbook is designed for policymakers, communication practitioners, and development and humanitarian agencies to think through how risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) can be conducted effectively using behavioural insights during the current pandemic. Click here for more details. |
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CSBC Research | Rapid KAP Assessment of COVID-19 in Gujarat As part of the COVID-19 Rapid Response work, CSBC conducted a rapid assessment survey to obtain baseline information on COVID-19 awareness and preventive behaviours in the Mahisagar district before IPC materials are distributed. The desired baseline information was the following: - Knowledge and attitudes towards COVID-19
- Practices of protective behaviours
- Sources of information around COVID-19 and protective behaviours
Key objectives can be found here. |
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Scientifically Speaking | Living Matter and Matter Brought to Life How do organisms move in different states of matter? Is it possible to recreate the movement of a flock of birds or a school of fish? The second lecture in season 2 of Scientifically Speaking was delivered by Sriram Ramaswamy, Centre for Condensed Matter Theory, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. Date: 28 July Time: 7 PM |
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CDO Preparatory Programme |
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The Career Development Office (CDO) is organising the CDO Preparatory Programme for the 2021 graduating batches from August to October 2020. These are sessions and workshops specially designed based on recruiter and alumni feedback to complement the liberal arts and sciences education at Ashoka with practical skills for the workplace. The programme has 6 modules in total: Building Professional and Leadership Skills; Interviewing Skills; Business Analytics, Excel, & PPT; Business Communication; Resume Building; and Case Studies. The programme is sketched keeping in mind the rigorous academic and extracurricular commitments expected of Ashoka students. It will be a flexible, 35-40 hour programme spread over multiple weeks. The programme will be devised and delivered by multiple facilitators, including the Founders, external professionals, and the CDO team. |
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Academic Bridge Programme by CWC |
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The Centre for Writing and Communication (CWC) will conduct the Academic Bridge Programme from 3-21, August. The programme proposes to act as a bridge for incoming students to be acclimatized to the academic culture of Ashoka. It will comprise activities that attempt to develop reading, writing, speaking and listening skills of students and aims to make them familiar with methods to think critically and articulate their ideas with precision and without hesitation in class. |
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AIM Smart City Accelerator Pan-India applications are now being accepted for the fifth cohort of the AIM Smart City Accelerator program run by the Centre for Entrepreneurship for startups in the focus areas of Health, Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH), Waste Management, and COVID-19 specific innovations in the above-mentioned areas, logistics, and supply chain, among others. |
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Framing Gender and Sexuality: Training for Workshop Facilitators by CSGS The CSGS is excited to offer a free 8 days online training program for individuals interested in facilitating workshops on gender and sexuality that emphasise conversations on consent, desire, body, pleasures as well as issues related to identity and inequalities. The training will conclude with the formation of the CSGS network, consisting of resource persons who will be carrying out these workshops in different parts of the country. Date: 16 - 23, August 2020 |
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By the Office of Communications and Media Relations |
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