Human Rights - Debate

Debate competition on Human Rights

मानवाधिकार के पक्ष में अपनी बात रखने वाले इन्सपेक्टर पवन कुमार ITBP से हैं, वीडियो में गलती से उन्हें CISF का बता दिया गया है. ये बड़ी गलती है. हमें इसका खेद है. आगे से हम सतर्क रहेंगे.
After the viral speech of CRPF Constable Khushbu Chauhan social media is abuzz with reactions. But in the same debate organised by ITBP in Delhi ITBP and Assam Rifles soldiers made speech in favour of human rights.

Final of Debate on Human Rights

The finals of National Human Rights Commission CAPF Debate Competition being held by ITBP at BPR&D HQrs, Mahipalpur, New Delhi on 27 September, 2019

Report on Activities - June-Nov 2019

A Report on the Activities - June-November 2019

This is a photo-report on the activities in which students of the Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University, Bhavnagar (Gujarat - India) participated or organized or carried out as team work.

All these activities are carried out between June and November 2019.

A Report on the Activities - June-Nov 2019 from Dilip Barad

Arundhati Roy's Novels

Arundhati Roy's Novels: 'The God of Small Things' and 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness'

About the Author:

Arundhati Roy, full name Suzanna Arundhati Roy, (born November 24, 1961, Shillong, Meghalaya, India), Indian author, actress, and political activist who was best known for the award-winning novel The God of Small Things (1997) and for her involvement in environmental and human rights causes. (Read more)

More about her activism and summaries of her novels:

Early in her career, Roy worked for television and movies. She wrote the screenplays for In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (1989), a movie based on her experiences as a student of architecture, in which she also appeared as a performer, and Electric Moon (1992).^[8] Both were directed by her husband, Pradip Krishen, during their marriage. Roy won the National Film Award for Best Screenplay in 1988 for In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones. (Read more)

The God of Small Things:

The God of Small Things is the debut novel of Indian writer Arundhati Roy. It is a story about the childhood experiences of fraternal twins whose lives are destroyed by the "Love Laws" that lay down "who should be loved, and how. And how much." The book explores how the small things affect people's behavior and their lives. It won the Booker Prize in 1997.

The God of Small Things was Roy's first book and only novel until the 2017 publication of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness twenty years later. She began writing the manuscript for The God of Small Things in 1992 and finished four years later, in 1996. It was published the following year. The potential of the story was first recognized by Pankaj Mishra, an editor with HarperCollins, who sent it to three British publishers. Roy received £500,000 in advance and rights to the book were sold in 21 countries.

In 2013, Talkhiyaan, a Pakistani television series based on the novel, was aired on Express Entertainment. ( Read more)

Why should you read 'The God of Small Things':

Set in a small town in India, "The God of Small Things" revolves around fraternal twins Rahel and Estha, who are separated for 23 years after the fateful hours in which their cousin drowns, their mother's affair is revealed, and her lover is murdered. The book is set at the point of the twins' reunion and confronts the social mores of India. Laura Wright dives into Arundhati Roy's masterful storytelling. [Directed by Martina Meštrović, narrated by Bethany Cutmore-Scott].

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness:

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is the second novel by Indian writer Arundhati Roy, published in 2017, twenty years after her debut, The God of Small Things. It has been translated into 50 languages, including Urdu and Hindi. (Read more)

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Reviews of this novel:

• A patchwork of narratives
• A scarring novel of India's modern history
• Fascinating Mess
• अरुंधति की किताब, जिसका हीरो एक हिजड़ा है

Her belief as an Author:

‘The point of the writer is to be unpopular’

Quizlets - Postcolonial Studies

Quizlets on Postcolonial Studies

Click on the links to open online quizzes on various topics of Postcolonial studies:

1. Postcolonial Studies - Key Concepts

1. Orientalism - 'An Introduction' - Edward Said

1. Black Skin, White Masks - Franz Fanon

1. A Tempest - Aime Cesaire

1. Imaginary Homelands - Salman Rushdie

Rang Mohan Youth Festival 2019 - task to write reflective blog

Rang Mohan Youth Festival 2019 - task to write reflective blog

Youth Festival is an amazing opportunity to experience various artistic expression of the young generation. It has almost all sorts of artistic events and hence it becomes 'fair of art' and 'fountain of youthful exuberance'.

Youth Festival shall never be missed out by students of art, literature and literature. It provides rare opportunity to apply literary theories on the artistic expression on the university campus by students of their own age. The critique of the artistic expression of students by students is an ultimate test of Matthew Arnold's 'personal fallacy'.

The following task was given to students to write reflective blog based on below given points to ponder:

All students shall write at least one blog on their observations of various Youth Festival activities. Here are some points to ponder upon:

1. Themes represented in various tableaux of Kala-yatra - 25/9/2019 - From Samaldas Arts College to Law College, Sardarnagar. 4 pm to 6 pm.

2. Major themes in dramatic events like One Act Play (एकांकी), Skit (लघु नाटक), Mime (मूक अभिनय) , Mono-acting (एक पात्रीय अभिनय).

3. Can you apply dramatic literary theories propounded by Aristotle (Tragedy), Ben Jonson (Comedy of Humours), Dryden (Play), Martin Esslin (Absurd theatre), Irving Wardle (Comedy of Menace) on the dramatic events presented in Youth Festival?

4. Can you categories One Act Play or other dramatic events as sentimental / anti-sentimental comedy, comedy of manners, classical tragedy, modern tragicomedy or bollywoodish theatre performance?

5. Poetry: In poetry, we have only one event in Youth Festival. સ્વ રચિત કાવ્ય પઠન: If you get chance to listen poems (as it will be in classroom and may be all do not get chance to occupy space) - write on themes, metaphors used in the poems, types of poems (sonnet, lyric etc).

6. On last day, before or after valedictory, all art events like cartooning, painting, collage, poster making, clay-modelling, installation will be open for public display. You can study themes, satire, didacticism, aestheticism in all these artistic expressions.

7. Lastly, write on which ever other events you attend and along with it, overall feeling of experiencing Youth Festival - ponder upon this - it is known as 'festival of youthfulness' - युवानी का महोत्सव.

Submit the link of your blog/s as assignment submission. If you are writing more than one blog, submit all links together.

Here are some worth reading blogs by students:

1. Kavisha + additional blog
2. Mehal
3. Nirali
4. Ravina
5. Rohit
6. Samiya
7. Sanjay J
8. Tamsa

Mind Your Language - Four Seasons

Mind Your Language - Season 1:

Mind Your Language - Season 2:

Mind Your Language - Season 3

Mind Your Language - Season 4:

Glimpses of Youth Festival 2018 - English Department

#YouthFestival2018

Congratulations to SSCCM team and Prin. Dr. Hetal Mehta for winning general championship third consequetive time, and KPES team ( Chirag V Vyas, Jagat Bhatt) for being Runner Up.

The students of

Department of English - Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University got three ranks:

1. Zankhana Matholiya - third in Rangoli;

2. Vidhya Pandya - Second in Western Solo;

3. Vidhya Pandya, Niyati Pathak, Riddhi Joshi, Jagruti Vasani, Dipti Gohil and Avni Dave - Western Group Song.

Other photos can be viewed here: 

https://www.facebook.com/dilipbarad/media_set?set=a.10156950419312472&type=3

Planting and Nurturing Trees

The Unintelligent Americans

Books on the intelligence of the Americans

1. The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future - Mark Bauerlein

This shocking, surprisingly entertaining romp into the intellectual nether regions of today's underthirty set reveals the disturbing and, ultimately, incontrovertible truth: cyberculture is turning us into a society of know-nothings.

The Dumbest Generation is a dire report on the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its impact on American democracy and culture.

 

For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down popular culture available to young people and the impact it has on their futures. But at the dawn of the digital age, many thought they saw an answer: the internet, email, blogs, and interactive and hyper-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children. The terms “information superhighway” and “knowledge economy” entered the lexicon, and we assumed that teens would use their knowledge and understanding of technology to set themselves apart as the vanguards of this new digital era.

 

That was the promise. But the enlightenment didn’t happen. The technology that was supposed to make young adults more aware, diversify their tastes, and improve their verbal skills has had the opposite effect. According to recent reports from the National Endowment for the Arts, most young people in the United States do not read literature, visit museums, or vote. They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount basic American history, name their local political representatives, or locate Iraq or Israel on a map. The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future is a startling examination of the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its impact on American culture and democracy.

 

Over the last few decades, how we view adolescence itself has changed, growing from a pitstop on the road to adulthood to its own space in society, wholly separate from adult life. This change in adolescent culture has gone hand in hand with an insidious infantilization of our culture at large; as adolescents continue to disengage from the adult world, they have built their own, acquiring more spending money, steering classrooms and culture towards their own needs and interests, and now using the technology once promoted as the greatest hope for their futures to indulge in diversions, from MySpace to multiplayer video games, 24/7.

 

Can a nation continue to enjoy political and economic predominance if its citizens refuse to grow up? Drawing upon exhaustive research, personal anecdotes, and historical and social analysis, The Dumbest Generation presents a portrait of the young American mind at this critical juncture, and lays out a compelling vision of how we might address its deficiencies. The Dumbest Generation pulls no punches as it reveals the true cost of the digital age—and our last chance to fix it.

(https://www.amazon.com/Dumbest-Generation-Stupefies-Americans-Jeopardizes-ebook/dp/B0015DWN8I)

2. The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters - Tom Nicholas

In The Death of Expertise, Nichols condemns what he describes as the many forces trying to undermine the authority of experts in the United States. He blames higher education, the internet, and the explosion of media options for the anti-expertise and anti-intellectual sentiment which he sees as being on the rise. While conceding that experts do sometimes fail, he says the best answer to this is the self-correcting presence of other experts to recognize and rectify systemic failures.

“	These are dangerous times. Never have so many people had access to so much knowledge, and yet been so resistant to learning anything.	”
— Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise

3. 

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free - Charles P. Pierce

The three Great Premises of Idiot America:

· Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units

· Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough

· Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it

 

With his trademark wit and insight, veteran journalist Charles Pierce delivers a gut-wrenching, side-splitting lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States.

 

Pierce asks how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has somehow deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate. But his thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated. Erudite and razor-sharp, Idiot America is at once an invigorating history lesson, a cutting cultural critique, and a bullish appeal to our smarter selves.

4. The Age of American Unreason - Susan Jacoby

A cultural history of the last forty years, The Age of American Unreason focuses on the convergence of social forces—usually treated as separate entities—that has created a perfect storm of anti-rationalism. These include the upsurge of religious fundamentalism, with more political power today than ever before; the failure of public education to create an informed citizenry; and the triumph of video over print culture. Sparing neither the right nor the left, Jacoby asserts that Americans today have embraced a universe of “junk thought” that makes almost no effort to separate fact from opinion.