Young Nopanians decided to spend their Puja vacation in a different way. Instead of pandal hopping and dancing to the beats of dandia, they visited the land of the white elephant — Thailand. It was a funfilled five days spent sunbathing on the golden beach of Pattaya and in the posh shopping malls of Bangkok. The trip was packed with activities like a speed boat ride to Coral Island, paragliding and underwater walking, which the students enjoyed thoroughly.

Akshay Shah / Mohit Kumar Gupta, Class XII, Nopany Vidyalaya,
Calcutta

MIDNAPORE
The Aussie connection

While India has not yet stopped reliving its swashbuckling victory over Australia at the Twenty20 World Cup, the Indo-Australia relationship took a more compassionate turn in its mutual attempt to straddle the two cultures at Jibanananda Auditorium of Bangla Academy, Calcutta, on October 9. A lecture series and an interactive open forum discussion on Bengal was organised by the Indian Association for the Study of Australia, Eastern Region, (IASA) and the Asia Education Foundation (AEF), University of Melbourne, Australia, for an assorted group of Australian delegates. The programme was co-ordinated by Prof. Deb Narayan Bandyopadhyay (secretary, IASA, Eastern Region) and Prof. Shibnath Banerjee (president, IASA, Eastern Region).

The 35-member strong Australian participation, which included social activists, theatre persons and academicians, was co-ordinated by Geoff Ainsworth and Maureen Welch on behalf of AEF.

Arindam Das, junior research scholar,
Vidyasagar University

CALCUTTA
A new world beckons

The freshers’ welcome of Bhairab Gangully College, Belghoria, was held on October 13, at Nazrul Mancha. Programmes by the college students were the main attraction of the evening. The principal of the college gave away prizes to the meritorious students as well as those who had excelled on the field.

He also gave a short but inspiring speech, urging students to work hard in order to achieve their aims. Then the fun part started. Alianz, a band, played to the gallery and used the latest technology in sound and lights. The show continued for more than an hour and had the crowd asking for more.

Bidyoot Sarkar, first year, journalism (honours), Bhairab Gangully College,
Belghoria

Calcutta
Shantiniketan sojourn

On October 26, the students of Class XI of St John’s Diocesan Girls H.S. School went on a two-day trip to Shantiniketan. The students visited different places like the Kankalitala temple, Visva-Bharati, Udayan and the other houses designed by Rabindranath Tagore, the glass prayer house, Amartya Sen’s house, Amarkutir and others, escorted by teachers. The excursion turned out to be both fun as well as informative.

Shatabdi Jayaswal, Class XI, St John’s Diocesan Girls H.S. School

GREATER NOIDA
Management mantras

Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH), Greater Noida, organised a team building and leadership event with the film Chak De India as its theme. Students from BIMTECH used the film as a management case study.

At the event the students discussed how Chak De projects certain crucial management principles such as multicultural diversity, workplace politics, and the triumph of ethics and commitment over all odds. The institute took special permission from the producer Yash Raj Films to use clippings of the film at the event.

Well-known personalities like Kiran Bedi, Jaideep Sahni, the scriptwriter of Chak De and TV and radio anchor Rajiv Khurana attended the event.

Birla Institute of Management Technology

CALCUTTA
Anniversary bash

Pratt Memorial School, founded in 1876 in the memory of Archdeacon Pratt, celebrated its 131st anniversary this year. To celebrate the occasion, exhibitions are held in the school every year on this day. This includes exhibitions put up by various clubs and classes.

This year the homescience department put up an exhibition and the theme was Birthday. Gillian Grey, the head of the homescience department, organised the event.

With the help of a group of girls she delved into not just the origin of birthdays but also birthday candles, cakes, the birthday song and the origin of gifts. These were interesting bits of trivia that not many students knew about.

Also, the team displayed a wide array of goodies, right from sinful cakes and yummy pies to colourful candies. The sad part was that only the teachers were allowed to indulge in the good food.

Shafia Parveen, Class XII (humanities),
Pratt Memorial School

NEW DELHI

Fashion flow

Pearl Academy of Fashion, a fashion institute, hosted its first inter-collegiate festival, Pearl Utsav ’07, on October 27 at Pragati Maidan in Delhi. Depicting evolution through well-knit sequences of drama, dances and music, the students presented an interesting blend of innovative artistic activities. The chief guest for the event was Padma Shree awardee danseuse Geeta Chandran. The inter-college competitions were

a major highlight as more than 20 colleges of Delhi University like Delhi College of Arts & Commerce, Kirori Mal, Lady Shri Ram and other fashion colleges like Wigan & Leigh, Pearl Academy (Jaipur), participated. The teams showed a lot of enthusiasm while participating in the T-shirt design competition and the street play competition titled Nautanki. These were followed by

fashion presentations, a musical extravaganza and a well-choreographed dance performance.

Pearl Academy of Fashion

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