Actress and dancer Indrani Dutta celebrates Diwali with her daughter on Friday. Picture by Rashbehari Das

For the young quizzards of Calcutta, November 3 was the best time for a little brainstorming. TCS organised the annual IT Wiz, an inter-school quiz competition on information technology at Kala Mandir. Around 70 schools across east India participated in the event.

The contest was open to students from classes VIII to XII. After the preliminary rounds that took place on the same day, six teams, each with two members, were chosen for the grand finale. St Xavier’s Collegiate School, St James’ School and Loyola School, Jamshedpur, were among the finalists.

The TCS It Wiz introduced a new round titled ‘XY Indicator’ this year. Here the teams had to answer questions on a storyboard with two variables, X and Y. In another round, each team had to choose from 19 questions that were put in grids. The questions were on subjects ranging from advertisement to brands, and related to IT.

Mounik Sarkar and Sourajit Chakraborti of St Augustine’s Day School, Calcutta, bagged the first prize. “We did not expect to top but we had the confidence. And it feels great to get these,” said Mounik holding the first prize, a laptop, among other freebies.

“The performance of the city schools this year was really impressive,” said quizmaster Giri Subramaniam, known as Giri Pickbrain (picture left by Anindya Shankar Ray) in quizzing circles.

Anindya Shankar Ray

 

 

Global concern

Joseph Stiglitz had to keep reminding Thomas Friedman that the world was not flat when he addressed the discrimination against developing countries by the developed ones.

Stiglitz, former chief economist of World Bank and a Nobel laureate, spoke about making globalisation a reality at Bidyut Bhavan on November 2. The American economist was accompanied by state finance minister Asim Dasgupta and Amiya Bagchi, also the organisers of the seminar. Students from Presidency College, Jadavpur university and Calcutta University attended the programme.

Stiglitz spoke about developing nations getting an unfair treatment from the developed ones. “No agreement is better than a bad agreement,” he remarked about the treaties between such countries. He also explained the need for regulatory measures to check the unwelcome activities of people with vested interests, especially unscrupulous businessmen and politicians.

Nikhil Agarwal,

Journalism and Mass Communication, Jadavpur University

The Diary

Rebirth

There are moments when I am lost,

Going through a crowd of faceless people.

Suddenly I find you,

But you pass me by as if I were another faceless entity.

I don’t call you either.

My voice chokes:

I turn the next corner,

And again, I meet you —

A dismembered, disfigured reflection

Of my past, present and future.

It is the reflection I was seeking,

But, why has the reflection disintegrated?

Is it going to give birth to a new faceless me?

Tanushree Bhattacharya, MA, English, Jadavpur University

Swimmer

In the vast blue waters of this sunny world

I am just a blind swimmer.

I swim from coast to coast

Where there is no path to follow,

Only move ahead to reach another barrier.

Grasping, trying to stretch my hand,

To get a glimpse of what is to come.

I try to feel my way.

My hands are too small,

And the devastating waves too big,

I collide with them

They leave me wounded,

But I recover to reach a new coast.

In the vast blue waters of tomorrow,

I am only a blind swimmer.

Nivedita Bhattacharjee, GD Birla Centre for Education