The students of IIM Lucknow got together for a noble cause this Independence Day. Team Bhavishya, IIM Lucknow’s student-run social initiative group, organised a visit to the Inter College for the Blind on August 15. Twenty two management students spent the afternoon with students of the Inter College and donated musical instruments like the tabla and harmonium to the Inter College students. On their part, the music enthusiasts of the college entertained the visitors by belting out melodious numbers. Monika, a Bhavishya member, said, “It was an enjoyable afternoon. The children at the college were always ready with a joke or song, with no dull moment in between.”

Bhavishya, the social initiative committee of IIM Lucknow, undertakes research in the social sector, to finance and monitor projects targeted at the underprivileged strata of the social pyramid. It also works on consulting projects with various voluntary organisations. Over the years it has emerged as one of the largest social action group run by students. In the past there have been more than 1,500 beneficiaries of Bhavishya activities.

CALCUTTA
Right way to write

Be ready with your pen and paper. The British Council has scheduled two-day workshops on creative writing to be held in Calcutta on September 23 and 24 and Jamshedpur on September19 and 20. The workshops will be conducted by novelist Rimi B. Chatterjee. The workshops aim to guide young aspiring writers on the nuances of creative writing. They are designed for people who already write a bit and want to hone their skills further.

The participants will undergo a number of exercises that aim to release creativity and get over “writer’s block”, followed by a discussion on stories written by the participants.

To join the workshop, participants must first write a story (preferably not more than 1,500 words) and submit it to manish.gupta@in. britishcouncil.org before September 1. Selected candidates will be informed by mail and must register within September 10, by filling in a form and sending it back along with the workshop fee.

The workshop aims to help participants discover their inner resources, develop some basic strategies to free the imagination, have an idea about what sort of stories they want to tell and try their hand at editing, rewriting and revising work.

Gateforum is organising a free all-India mock test for the aspirants of GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering) on August 31, in over 30 cities across the country including Calcutta and Durgapur. GATE is conducted by the IITs and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

The test will be conducted in the engineering disciplines of computer science and engineering (CSE), electrical communication engineering (ECE), electrical engineering (EE), mechanical engineering (ME) and pharmacy. Aspirants will be able to evaluate their performance by comparing themselves with students from all over India. The results of the test in terms of all India rank and percentile score will be available on the website www.gateforum.com. The students will also be able to evaluate their performance in each topic of the test through the section- wise comparative analysis,which will be provided with the test results.

The top three rankers from each stream will be given 100 per cent scholarship for the Gateforum test series. In addition, the top rankers in each city will be given scholarships up to 75 per cent for the test series. A total of 450 scholarships are available across India based on the August 31 test.

The golden touch

Basanti Devi College recently celebrated its golden jubilee programme. The college was established in 1959. The programme was inaugurated by vice-chancellor of Jadavpur University Pradip Narayan Ghosh. The education minister, Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury, was the chief guest.Other eminent speakers included the mayor-in-council Chandana Ghosh Dastidar and MLAs Sougata Roy and Debashish Kumar. The cultural programme included a dance recital to Ananda Sankar’s music followed by the staging of Rabindranath Tagore’s dance drama Chitrangada.

In September, the department of English will be organising a seminar to celebrate the 400th year of Milton where eminent speakers like professors Malabika Sarkar and Amlan Dasgupta have been invited to speak under the “special lecture series” of the department. Apart from this, the department has already organised a special screening of the Ten Commandments at USIS on August 21. Other departments of the college will also be organising cultural and academic activities. The college looks forward to celebrating the Women’s Day on March 8, 2009, in a special way as well as the birth anniversary of Basanti Devi on March 25. A golden jubilee college journal will also be published at the closing ceremony.

Anwesha Chakraborty

Basanti Devi College

BANGALORE
Joint effort

A three-day workshop on nanomaterials recently held in Bangalore witnessed the coming together of science lovers. The thrust of the joint India-US workshop was on scalable nanomaterials for enhanced energy transport, conversion and efficiency. The workshop was held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research and J.F. Welch Technology Centre, Bangalore.

Timothy Fisher and Timothy Sands from the Purdue University, G.U. Kulkarni and U.V. Waghmare from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research and S. Murthy from GE organised this workshop.

MUMBAI
On guard

WatchGuard Technologies, a global provider of network security solutions, announced its partnership with Jetking Infotrain Limited, the national-level institute providing training for computer hardware and networking, to offer WatchGuard Unified Threat management (UTM) training in its curriculum. WatchGuard courseware and UTM appliances will be available across Jetking centres and students will be trained on network security management. WatchGuard has developed the customised training courseware for Jetking and has conducted the first round of “Train the trainer” sessions for its UTM solutions.

Business companies in India will now be able to employ students who have hands-on training in UTM appliances.

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