THE TIME F BENNETTSOTHE TIME F BENNETTSOSTUDENT PAPER OF THE Times school of media GREATER NOIDA | Friday, September 6, 2019| ISSUE 1, VOL 3 | PAGES 8

Storytellers must for media: SaranBy SWADHAA R SINGH AND VANSHIKA SINGH

“Every occupation needs storytellers these days. Be it an IT firm or a me-dia house, storytelling is a compulsion and every job requires you to tell sto-ries”, said the Managing Editor of The Times of In-dia, Mr Rohit Saran as he addressed the media stu-dents of Bennett Universi-ty on August 8.

The Times School of Media organised a guest lecture for the Semester 1 and 5 students on Data Journalism.

Saran explained the art of storytelling with data journalism and the impor-tance of using data science and graphic designing in the era of Digital Media.

He added that the use of graphics and various other forms of storytelling define the progress of digi-tal media. One needs to be a multitasker knowing the art of coding and data sci-ence for various features and news websites, he said.

Saran asserted that the other word for a journal-ist should be ‘storyteller’. He explained the six verbs that define storytelling: Screening (is a screen and

is in a screen), interfacing (touch, talk, swipe, scroll: content responds and adapts), sharing (more sharing, more value), flow-ing (everything, every-where all the time), access-ing (easy and intelligent access) and self-generating (content that’s saleable), and how important they are in today’s media.

He talked about how an important informa-tion goes unread because of how it is portrayed. He mentioned that websites like ‘Up worthy’ take that information and spin it into something fun and interesting. That helps in-volve the reader and he learns something too.

News brings everyone

together. It informs people of their surroundings as well as about events hap-pening around the globe. It helps them understand the world better and influenc-es people in remote parts of the world, he added.

“The old system of dry and dusty press releases is dying. So, it’s about how well we draft our stories and describe them within different formats,” Saran said, explaining the in-volvement of advertising, storytelling, data journal-ism and digital media that involves various platforms. The response to the lecture was phenomenal, the stu-dents called it interactive, informative and entertain-ing. .

By STUTI SINGH

Life is all about challenges, said Mr Rohit Saran, Man-aging Editor, The Times of India, as he threw a chal-lenge to the students of Times School of Journal-ism in the form of a ques-tion.

The question was: “What I think the world without news media would be like.” The exciting chal-lenge came as an email to students a few days before his guest lecture.

Out of all the answers he received, the best of the lot were displayed on the screen during his pres-entation on data journal-ism. A range of answers were received consisting GIFs, pictures and memes.

It was an interactive session between Saran and the students. He was de-lighted with thought pro-cess of the students.

While discussing the answers, he took journal-ism to another level.

He said, for him jour-nalism, was all about ex-

pressing ourselves in a concise and precise man-ner.

He addressed every answer separately and dis-cussed it with students.

He said the photo-graphs that the student sent him “left me speech-less” and that he tried to guess what the picture was trying to depict, and ome of the memes made him laugh.

The main aim of this challenge was to make the students think and assess to what extent their think-ing process was fun and logical.

Editor throws a challenge

Big draw to hunt forMr & Ms FresherBy SONALIKA SINGH

Excitement filled the air as students buckled up to compete against each oth-er for the title of Mr Fresh-er and Miss Fresher, 2019, on the Bennett University campus last week.

The selection proce-dure was a difficult task undertaken by the senior students.

Selection rules for this talent round, titled the Su-per 30 lot, were short and crisp. The performances had to be of a duration of a minute and a half. The talent hunt took place in two different auditoriums which were filled with a lot of enthusiastic and nerv-ous students.

The beauty of the com-petition was that the au-dience was more excited than the performers for the event. The students performed dances, songs and stand up comedies. The audience cheered, and supported, thus boosting the confidence of the per-formers.

“The support from my friends gave me the cour-age to go and present my dance in front of the entire

audience,” said Kashish Mallik, first year BJMC student.

After the performances got over, the judges an-nounced the results and 15 boys and girls were select-ed for the next round.

One of the other meth-ods to reach the final round for Mr and Miss Freshers was to win the polls the of-ficial Instagram page of the University of the students that is ‘@bennettians’.

The procedure for get-ting selected for the wild card entry was that the stu-dents had to send a few of

their pictures to the page with a short introduction. The administrators of the page chose which students were put against each oth-er on the public polls for the competition. The stu-dents who were a part of this competition would go to other students to ask for votes and support.

“I have made a lot of new friends because of this competition and gained new experiences,” said Shreya Arora, first year BJMC student.

The winners of the re-spective rounds would be announced after 24 hours. This procedure included two rounds followed by semifinal and finale. The winners would get a direct entry into the finals of the competition and get the ti-tle for being the ‘Instagram King and Queen’.

These polls helped the page gain a following, and increased their views. This also helped the students communicate with each other. A lot of confidence, fighting spirit and enthusi-asm was showcased during the competition. The stu-dents enjoyed this new ex-perience thouroughly.

By MADHURA MAZUMDAR

Imagine just five cooks and 75 workers catering to 2,500 plus students, staff and teachers, with four meals a day. Im-agine, 14000 kg food being cooked every day, includ-ing weekends!That’s what the mess at Bennett University does on a daily basis, mostly with-out delay, glitch or fall in hygeine standards.

There are strict rules guiding food quality norms which every mess employ-ee is required to follow. They are required to carry the rules card with them and follow the guidelines at all times, a worker ex-plained.

Pradeep Sangwan, the supervisor at mess who looks after the hygiene, safety and food service says that, “to prepare one meal, it takes around two to two and half hours.”

According to him, on an average around 700g food per student is served in one meal.

There are strict norms to minimise food wastage and a live notice board shows the amount of food left over.

“The leftovers are col-lected by the staff of a pig farm where it is fed to pigs,” he said.

The Mess menu is de-cided by students in the food committee, some administrators of the uni-versity, and some of our seniors.

Recent concerns about hygeine have been tackled by the Students Council’s Mess and Dorm Commit-tee and the publicity head Triya Gulati, in a recent message, had reassured

students that all steps had been taken to main-tian high standards of hy-giene.

“We want to assure you that all the students grievances have been al-ready communicated to the administration. We are waiting for them to imple-ment all the solutions pro-posed by the Council,” she said.

The food is cooked and supplied by ICS Food Sup-ply Limited which has been working with the universi-ty since 2016. The kitchen is placed next to the sports ground in S-block, where the food is prepared and then transferred into con-tainers, which are sealed and taken to the storage rooms in the mess on a cart.

According to the Dean of Academic Affairs Rama S Komaragiri: “The food preparation is automated, and we do not touch the food when it’s being pre-pared.

“Also, the freezer for raw materials is of top quality and has automated maintenance for tempera-ture,” he added.

Talking about main-

taining strict hygiene standards, Sangwar said: “We sanitise the vege-tables and all the plates are washed thoroughly with machines before the workers wipe them dry. To maintain the hygiene, cleaning is done before and after every meal. Per-sonal hygiene of the work-ers is important so every worker here has a sanitised uniform.”

A deep cleaning op-eration takes place at the kitchen and serving and storing areas at end of day daily.

Though entirely vege-tarian, many of the fresh-ers feel that the food at Bennett University is bet-ter than other hostels.

Mayank Sinha, B-Tech, first year student, said: “The food is above aver-age. But some ingredients could be used moderate-ly.”

There are others who have had complaints about the food but speaking about them Komagiri said: “Generally the problem occurs when people start comparing mess food to mom’s food. Howsoever clean or good, college food can never be as good as mother’s food. So this is a complaint that has been going on through genera-tions,” he added.

‘Don’t compare Mess food to mom’s food’

Wails of son she left behind in Pakistan still haunt her

By VARUN MENON

Printing presses around the globe have opted for eco-friendly printing methods. The Times Of India Printing Press at Sa-hibabad is equipped with environment-friendly, ad-vanced printing machinery it takes into consideration the water shortage.

As one wonders what gigantic rolls of paper are doing in a printing press, the supervisor tells you that these are high-ly-priced newsprint rolls imported from Canada and Russia.

The printing section is brightly lit. A set of four aluminium plates are ready to go to work. “These would be rolled along with a blanket plate and the newsprint for the dyes to come onto the page,” su-pervisor Anil Kumar Singh tells you.

These plates are photo sensitive and come in four colours used universally for printing a newspaper – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK).

As the machine is switched on, the entire room starts vibrating, walking through the area to the constant whirring of

machines turns exciting.The conveyor belts

on which the newspaper travels through the print-ing process are so fast that 71000 copies can be print-ed per minute, giving it a feel like an imperial drag-on slithering across the office. The packaging room is another story. Here, the paper is bundled, 4 paper per bundle. It is wrapped in plastic and sealed, all in less than a minute. These bundles are transported to vendors who deliver the newspaper early morning at your doorstep.

There are 431 workers at this state-of-the-art fa-cility, many of them have won prestigious awards. They are trained in the us-age of modern technology.

The machine are equipped to insert phys-ical advertisement mate-rial like a music-loaded micro-chip to go with one particular advertisement. This means that when the reader opens the newspa-per and reaches the page on which the advertise-ment has been printed on, he can listen to the accom-panying music.

Indeed, it is one of a kind of printing press in the region.

By SWADHAA R SINGH

For some it’s tears of joy, for others it’s tears of pain. For Vidyavati Singh, Au-gust 15, 1947, was an inglo-rious and painful day. That was the day she left behind all that was known to her for a future unknown, in-cluding her toddler son.

Her husband, a soldier, was stationed in Gujran-wala, Pakistan to help con-tain the protests for free-dom in 1944. They lived

there with his sister and their three-month-old son born in April, 1947.

On August 14, when they found out about the Partition they started the journey to India from Pa-kistan. On August 15, while India celebrated, they were huddled up inside their home, praying that no one would find them.

They left their home in Gujranwala on August 16, 1947, and escaped through the forests. When the

guards passed them by on horses, they would lie down and cover themselves with mud and branches. They were trying to find a place to rest when they reached a village that was near the border. Everywhere they looked they saw dead bod-ies, blood and destruction.

“We thought no one was around but suddenly we heard a horse running towards us. It was too late to hide so we had to cover ourselves in the blood of

those killed, and act dead. We were almost caught but a scream from a house nearby saved our lives.”

While walking through the village, their son start-ed wailing. With the risk of getting caught being high so in a fit of desperation they decided to leave him behind. They found some potato sacks and decided to put him in one of them. ‘’The pain was indescriba-ble, but in times like those you had to think of what

would be better for every-body,” she said.

“Over the years I’ve thought about that mo-ment a lot. I am not sure whether I want to know the fate of my son or not. His cries still haunt me” she added.

They crossed the bor-der into Amritsar on Au-gust 17, and after walking for two hours, they reached a camp set up to help the migrants. They thought it would be a safe haven but a

mob suddenly attacked the camp. “They were protest-ing against ‘Pakistanis’ and wanted us to go back to our country. We tried telling them that we were Indians but they refused to listen. They started hitting us with whatever they could find. We barely escaped.” Vidyavati recalls.

She has a deep scar that runs across her shoul-der to chest while Shyama, her sister-in-law walks with a limp. “We ran till

we found an abandoned house to rest in. We had nothing and had to beg for food and water for days,” he recounts. They spent days travelling and lived off scraps before reaching Mirzapur in UP where they have settled down.

Independence Day each year for her is a con-stant reminder of the trau-ma she faced. “I remem-ber that day clearly, like it happened yesterday. I just wish I hadn’t dawned.”

Masterclass of machinery

Students enjoy lunch served at the Bennett University cafeteria Photo by Muskan Srivastava

Participants showcase their talent at the com-petitionPhoto by Rohan Dayal

Vidyavati Singh & Shyama want to forget the painful night of Partition as they lost someone dear Photo by

Swadhaa Singh

Managing Editor Rohit Saran addresses media students at Bennett Univeristy TOB Photo

Data, graphics are future of journalism

Jhol of good things

A meme sent as a response by a BAJMC first-year student

Students get fun break with RJRJ Vidit visited the campus to raise awareness about money management skills | Page 8

Students held a score of performances in acting, dancing and stand-up comedy as part of asssignment | Page 7

THE TIME F BENNETTSOTHE TIME F BENNETTSO GREATER NOIDAFriday, September 6, 20192

‘India needs to fight turmoil’ ‘Country has developed at snail’s pace’By APOORVA KASHYAP

“India is in its evolutionary days and has to work hard to establish itself as a big power in the world,” said Mr Atul Singh, 25, who is a consultant in a MNC in Delhi.

Singh comes from a town called Phusro in Jharkhand. He had to face a lot of problems related to electricity and water but today all those problems have been resolved.

“The city I grew up in is not the same anymore and has developed a lot in the means of facilities and infrastructure,connectivity has increased and the liv-ing standards of residents have improved,” he said.

Singh believes that In-dia is developing but at a very slow pace.

Issues like abrogation of Article 370 and Naxal-ite attacks are the hurdles in development. “Another thing pulling India down is intolerance and aggressive attitude” he says. “I hope that India becomes a bet-ter and a safer place. I fear that the variety of social issues and crimes that are prevailing are only going to get worse”

About Independence day he said: “15th August is the day when a free India came into existence. India is a democratic , secular and socialist country.

This day doesn’t only signify the joy of free-dom of India but also the sacrifices of the freedom fighters and a reminder of India’s travails to nation-hood.

Future rests with youthBy KARTIK PANDE

“The line separating rich and poor keeps on increas-ing and does not leave any room for development,” says Deepti Srivastava, a social studies teacher at Cambridge School, Indira-puram.

“I’ve lost all hope from the older generation, the people running our nation. The youth of tomorrow are the only ones that can fix this broken country”, she added.

For the past 15 years, Deepti Srivastava has been a teacher and has partic-ipated in various cleanli-ness campaigns to better the country. She says she’s concerned about the qual-ity of education and how there is still politics in-volved in the system.

For her, education is the most important part of any country. India, al-though, can be made bet-ter by improving literacy levels in all sections of society she feels. “I wish we focused more on our mental development rath-er than making buildings for beautifying our soci-

ety,”she said.There are no initiatives

to change the discrimina-tory ideologies of people or to change how our country thinks. The people of yes-terday are influencing the people of tomorrow, she said.

“Today, the diverse na-ture of India is in threat from people claiming to

change the nation. There are communities that are under constant danger; some even scared to step out of their homes,” she says.

“Hope slowly dimin-ishes as we continue to move towards a less tol-erant and fascist society”, she said.

India accommodates more than 1.3 billion peo-ple. The second most pop-ulous country in the world is home to a vast array of people from all castes, re-ligions, cultures and tradi-tions. As accepting as this nation seems, the biggest democracy in the world is not as fair as the people would like it to be, Srivas-tava said.

“Economically rich and powerful people usually manipulate the results in their favour regardless of the consequences on the nation as a whole”, Srivas-tava said.

She also emphasised that ignorance of such top-ics can be the reason that breaks India, and hopes that the youth carries a brighter future in their hands.

‘Co-existence is must for society today’By VARUN MENON

“We must coexist together to save India, be tolerant and not enforce certain be-liefs and finally respect our brothers and mingle with them” says Mr M Vijay, a senior fire – fighter who served the Airport Author-ity of India for forty years.

To him, India has changed a lot; he firmly believes that internal dis-putes are the main fear and on the other hand coexist-ing together as a country, as one initiative would dramatically transform the nation. “Freedom of speech and opinion, ac-cording to him define true freedom of India but there are several people misus-ing it. What happened in Kashmir before the new amendment is a good ex-ample.

“Kashmir finally join-ing India in this year’s Independence Day is very special indeed” he added. In Tamil Nadu and Kar-nataka, the Kaveri Issue is still being debated leading to waste of resources and time instead of coming up with a permanent solution.

Why not use the time in something more produc-tive and think as one coun-try instead of twenty-nine totally different states?

When asked about whether diversity and plu-rality is safe in India to which he answered, “No, it’s indeed in a threat, with the rise of killings in the name of religion as well as extremists exercising their practice under freedom of speech and expression. People are becoming more intolerant and instead of

tackling it, politicians of-ten use it as a trump card to win votes. In order to save diversity, it comes back to unity again. We have to coexist together to save it, be tolerant and not enforce a certain belief and finally respect every-one and consider them as a friend.”

Mr Vijay is an ex- member of the fire dept. of Airport Authority of India and is a member of Guru-vayurappan Temple asso-ciation Nanganallur.

By SHOBHIT GUPTA

Despite being plundered by the British, India has developed into a diverse society and the biggest de-mocracy in the world, says Virendra Singh Sirohi, MLA, BJP from Buland-shahr.

He added that after the British left the country in 1947, India evolved into a vibrant constitutional de-mocracy. Since then India has flourished in the areas of science and technology, health, infrastructure and development, sports, and many more. He also added that India is a land of di-verse people and conflicts. Though India is develop-

ing with a rapid pace, it faces some challenges also. A female is worshipped as God in this country, but some sections of the so-ciety treat them as their property. Abuses against children and females have increased over the years. Dowry deaths have in-creased. Around 32% of molestation cases against women have increased over the years. Not only this, issues like poverty and marginalisation, mob lynching, gender inequali-ty, casteism, violence, ter-ror attacks are the matter of serious concern for the country, he added.

Kamlavati Devi, 102, freedom fighter and a wid-

ower of a soldier martyred in 1962 Sino- Indian war stated that freedom was not gifted to the Indians. Many freedom fighters sacrificed their lives just to make India free from the Britishers. She raised the concern over the rising western culture among the Indians. She added “The present generation feels awkward in saying “na-maste” and touching feet of the elders. They don’t know about the cost all of us have beared to make a British Colony an indepen-dent country”. In the end she was happy to see the country progressing on the way to success and soon becoming a global leader.

By ANUSHKA TYAGI

Not only the Government but every citizen should consider himself respon-sible towards the nation, said Retd. Col Narendra Tyagi while talking about how the nation has devel-oped in the 73 years of In-dependence.

He said he felt mis-erable when a country

like India faces criticism on it’s social and cultural grounds. Being an ex-Ar-my officer, it feels worse.

When asked about the diversity of the nation Ty-agi said: “I am amazed to see a country like India which has such a diverse population which con-tinues to stay united for years”.

Talking about the

scraping of Article-370 from Kashmir, he said: “The scrapping of Article 370 from the Valley will result in the altogether de-velopment of the nation. People of Kashmir will have their own identities without two nations fight-ing for it. People will have jobs which will lead to the economic development of the state. Terrorism will

completely eradicate” . He also mentioned

some things that he thinks might bother India in the future. Women’s safety be-ing one of the major con-cerns, he explained that the country needs to focus more on the laws regard-ing women’s safety so that females can live without a fear of being assaulted. “According to him some

other things that may help India being a better nation are caste inequality, better employment opportuni-ties, education facilities and proper implementa-tion of laws.

He strongly believes that through the develop-ment India has made since 1947, It has come a long way and has a long way to go.

Nation vibrant despite British plunder

‘Scrapping 370 will help in development’

By PRANEET KAUR

It’s been 73 years since In-dia got its independence but for the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Command, Lt General J S Verma (retd.), it has developed into a na-tion with turmoil within.

“We need a powerful nation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s slogan, ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’ needs to be implemented all over India. Minorities should be taken along, like the children of one family”, Gen Verma said, insisting that this would be one ma-jor step towards freedom.

An active golfer in Meerut since his retire-ment from the Army which he served for 38 years, talked at length about his hopes and fears of India. “There is a need for better implementation of laws, a revised education system and cultural exchange pro-grams within the Indian union”, he said, after pour-ing himself a cup of tea at his stately bungalow on a sultry summer afternoon.

For Gen Verma, ego is a hinderance to devel-opment. People, he feels, consider themselves above the law and justice which is too expensive.

“Take the case of the Unnao Rape Survivor, the BJP MLA is almost a law unto himself despite be-hind bars. That should not be the case as it propels heinous crime with the perpetrator mostly going scot-free as he is in a po-sition of power,” he added.

Gen Verma also talked about how India needs In-dependence from reserva-tions and the entire quota

system. “Help the back-ward classes with other means like free education. Facilities like hospitals should have well-qualified doctors or nurses, rath-er than a quota-protect-ed person who may have failed in two subjects and would put the patient’s life at risk,” he opined.

Another major prob-lem in Independent In-dia, according to him, is language barrier. “People need to learn other re-gional languages to feel accepted in different envi-ronments other than their

homes. This will give them exposure to different parts of the country to help them understand their union better” he added.

A lot, he said, still needs to be done for real progress to set in. Religion should not be the prime focus and the gender bias should go, he felt.

“In the Sabrimala Temple controversy, even women supported the gen-der bias by objecting to the Supreme Court’s judge-ment allowing them entry into the temple,” he point-ed out, saying that such

biases are not good for any free nation.

Commenting on triple talaq, he strongly vouched for the need for Uniform Civil Code. “Every mar-riage should be registered in a court and should be annulled in court; it shouldn’t be communi-ty-specific.”

Applauding the work done by Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi, Gen Verma stressed upon the need to promote tourism in North-East, so that people get to explore this often-neglected part of In-dia.

“Make youth aware about good things, where they learn more about their culture and herit-age, rather than studying about other nations. Treat the different states of In-dia like 29 different coun-tries.” he stated.

Adding that after Late Sanjay Gandhi, Modi is the only person who spoke about population control in his 73rd Independence Day speech indicating ‘small family-happy na-tions’.

“The youth of free In-dia should learn from the Army. No matter where we get posted, we make the local religion our religion, their fears our fears, their desires our desires. Where needed, we make peo-ple accountable for their wrong or doings. As far as religion is concerned, we have Sarv Dharam St-hal where temples of all religions are in one room, so that when people pray, they pray to one God,” he pointed out, talking about the direction free India should take.

Lt Gen J S Verma (retd) at his bunglow in Meerut Photo by Praneet Kaur

Virendra Sirohi ,MLA, BJP at Bulandshahr has strong views about free India; (right) Kamla-vati is 102 years old and believes that India will soon become a superpower Photos by Shobhit Gupta

Mr M. Vijay feels that internal disputes are the main fear of independent India Photo by Varun Menon

By MAYA SURIYANARAYANA

“India doesn’t discrimi-nate between seekers and it doesn’t confine knowl-edge and wisdom to the boundaries of identity. It is a symbol of positivity” says Dr Manoj Kumar, an author, poet and a LIC of-ficer.

When asked about the ideas that bind or break India, Kumar said

“self-discovery, self-im-provement and punctuali-ty are the three main ideas that can make India a bet-ter place and this can only happen if we are ready to make changes and become an aware citizen”.

Talking about how India has progressed or developed in his state, he said, “with better trans-portation and better em-ployment opportunities

people have become more open minded’.“Bihar has done well over the years and is keeping up with the pace of development. .

“If something that has to be discarded from India it should be the caste sys-tem, and patriarchy. Our country should be a better place with better humans as after all it is about India and its people” he says.

By SNEHIL SINGH

“In future I would like to see an India where people do not have to strive to go abroad, instead people from all over the world come to India for seeking education and employ-ment,” says retired army officer Col. N N Singh.

Rabindranath Tagore’s poem, ‘Where the Mind is Without Fear’ is the com-plete identification of what India should be, he insists. Singh said “The Britishers had taken away the pride and dignity of India and had reduced it to a ‘subject nation’. If the constitu-

tional rights of the people are implemented strictly, India will become a place where people hold their heads high with pride. It should be a place where all the people stop dis-criminating against caste, creed, religion, etc and broaden their narrow per-spectives regarding super-stitions and prejudices”, he said.

During the interview, he said ,India is a secular and a democratic coun-try. The oneness of India is in all the spheres of life. When he was asked about his hopes and fears regard-ing India, Singh replied,

“M y hopes for present India under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi, are

for India to grow econom-ically, socially and politi-cally. My fears are due to

those characters who try to destroy our country inter-nally and externally. For-

tunately, our country is in safe hands.”

India is the biggest democracy in the world with the longest written constitution. In spite of all the resistance and di-versions in the country, its democracy has held up to itself. India is bound by its constitution and national-ism that most people have their faiths in.

The ideas that can ig-nite a better India are that people should become aware of certain factors like cleanliness and eco-nomic development by working in a corruption free atmosphere.

‘Citizen awareness must’

Oneness of India exists in all spheres: Singh

Deepti Srivastava, a social studies teacher, sees the youth as the only hopePhoto by Kartik Pande

In future Col N N Singh wants to see an India devoid of Brain Drain Photo by Snehil Singh

India is the big-gest democracy in the world. In spite of all the diversities, its democracy has held up to itself. India is bound by its constitu-tion and nation-alism

- Col Singh

‘India needs to be a powerful nation. For that it needs to be an inclusive society where minorities are taken along’

AAP starts ‘I love Kejriwal’ drivePTIThe Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday launched ‘I love Kejriwal’ campaign, in-viting people who wish to make Arvind Kejriwal the chief minister of Delhi again to give a missed call on a given number.

The AAP’s Delhi con-vener Gopal Rai said that the party was distributing pamphlets in the Capital detailing the work done by Kejriwal. Mocking the campaign, BJP said it was a “desperate attempt” by AAP to check the failing

popularity of the CM.Talking to reporters,

Rai said, “ the ‘I love Ke-jriwal’ campaign will be run along with the ‘Jan Samvad Yatra’, where the party leaders were taking feedback from people in each of the 70 Assembly constituencies on AAP Government’s work in the last four-and-a-half years.”

Rai said that the cam-paign was inspired by auto drivers who had started writing ‘I love Kejriwal’ on their autos.

Edited by Sonalika Singh

THE TIME F BENNETTSOTHE TIME F BENNETTSOGREATER NOIDAFriday, September 6, 2019 3

Diversity of India in views too IBy JAIKA PATTANAIK

India is as diverse as the responses of its citizens about its independent jour-ney. For a Muslim labourer religious repression, isola-tion and poverty are the agonizing buzzwords. For an Army officer, it is pride without any prejudice for the love of his country. For a lawyer, the acronym for free India is Independent Nation Democratically In-stitutionalized in Antiqui-ty.

Somewhere between these three different view-points lies the essence of a real, free India.

“Independent Nation Democratically Institu-tionalized in Antiquity” an acronym for INDIA, says lawyer Bijan Ray from Od-isha High Court.

He spoke of his as-pirations about India as a nation providing level playing field for people of all castes, races, religions, sex, region, and occupa-tion. “Democracy is perti-nent because it stays from one’s birth to one accord-ing to his capabilities,” he added.

The beauty of India is that it’s the largest democ-racy embodied with the concept of unity in diver-sity. He feels that our ed-ucated youth, labour force,

resources, and industries are the largest super pow-ers for our progress.

He would like to see betterment in the Indian Judiciary System which is the ”Lawyer’s paradise”, and eventually becomes one for the convict as well.

He condemned the division of the nation due to fanaticism. He said that

the geographical oneness of the peninsula and its rich, cultural elements re-tain the spirit and ethnicity of India.

However, Asif Ali, a muslim labourer said, “The BJP government has demeaned the ideology of democracy and has cun-ningly emerged as dic-tator. The opposition is

weak. The minorities are being exploited. Seculari-ty, democracy and equality are at stake.”

He works as a dai-ly wager in Cuttack and was highly critical of the government’s decision on banning Triple Talaq Bill, what he perceived as saf-fronisation.

”The abrogation of Ar-ticle 370 will increase in-filtrations,” he announced with authority, adding that the future of independent India can be secured only if division between the rich and poor is bridged, and the nation is not held at ransom by the empty promises of leaders.

Serving Air Force of-ficer Pankaj Mishra (name changed on request), In-dia is his motherland for which he would offer every fibre of his being to help it develop. He spoke about the co-existence of diverse regional, linguistic and ethnic groups.

His only fear is the overpowering separatists and secessionist activists, and the practice of brain drain. Mishra conclud-ed, “I am happy about the exponential growth of our country and the fu-ture of this great land is in the hands of youth who have indomitable spirit to change India”

Asif Ali, resentfully critises dirty politics in India Photo by Jaika Pattanaik

‘Freedom to me is equality’ By MEDHA SINHA

“My idea of feminism is is related to my idea of freedom. Feminism is not confined to women’s rights alone or based on misguid-ed notions where a woman needs to be better than a man and confronts him on every step.

“My idea of feminism involves equality for every-one, irrespective of their cast, creed, orientation or gender. And, that is the topic that I have tried to cover in my novella,” says Vani Raj, while talking about her book titled “On of Palettes and Masks”.

Raj who also works as a content writer at Aspiring Minds shared what kind of issues she has ever faced as a working woman.

She states that Delhi seems is pretty accepting of working women though

there are still some issues that need to be addressed. Once, one of her seniors had commented that wom-en are not smart enough to be paid more.

“I have also had people comment that I get promo-tions because I am a girl. They completely overlook the fact that I am not get-ting paid to sit in the of-fice and look pretty, I am getting paid to work and bring in good results for my efforts.”

Working women are so desensitized on so many fronts that one can’t look at things from a complete-ly neutral point of view and take the bits of profes-sional equality shown as something that needs to be applauded.

Talking about violence and abuse against women in India . Raj told TOB that violence and abuse against

women is such a harrow-ing reality of our country that nothing said would be enough.

“I don’t know of any girl in my workplace or otherwise who has never

faced one instance of vi-olence and abuse against women” she adds. Once a lady takes the metro and you will find a hand wan-dering on her back, men eyeing, stalking and creep-ing her out.

She feels that all this comes down to how as a society we are raising our children. “We , as a society, discriminate be-tween sons and daughters in such subtle ways,” she pointed out. A daughter is expected to know at least something about cooking a meal while a son isn’t, and few of the advertisements do focus on that, she said. “The issue that confronts us is not about cooking or washing clothes or doing the household chores, it is about the fact men are deliberately entitled to put themselves on a pedestal,” she concluded.

Sculpting Gen Z for a better futureBy SULAGANA BISWAL

For 47-year-old primary school teacher, Kasturi Jena, Independence Day marks another day where she shoulders the respon-sibility of India’s future.

“India is teeming with young and bright chil-dren and guiding them is a daunting task”, she re-counts, musing on her ex-periences with the unruly kids. Nevertheless, she has instilled a rigid love for her country and her profes-sion.

As a teacher, her ex-pectations from the coun-try are between few and far between – a good pay and proper amenities. For her the country is a safe space, a surrounding she explicit-ly trusts.

It is an idea built on sacrifice she wants to see grow and develop further.

She hopes to see her stu-dents shape the country into a magnanimous pow-er that the leaders had envisioned for it. As like most from her generation she entrusts the younger generation to revolutionize the country.

She wishes to give her best to enrich the minds

of these future leaders. “What keeps our country together is the wish to see a better future at the hands of our successors. It is the basis of every family here”, stated Kasturi.

She defines India by its society and fundamental rights.

“A country’s worth is reflected in its people and one’s rights defines that person”, she states.

On the topic of Inde-pendence, she came forth regarding her opinions on the abrogation of Article 370, that lean in favour of the centre’s decision. While she finds the lack of communication in Jam-mu and Kashmir jarring, her views on the decisions remain that the state had what was coming.

Despite her love for the country, she feels that her state is sorely neglected in

some aspects. Her primary concern is over state fund-ing. While in recent floods the centre has extended it’s help, she has noticed a remerging pattern of negli-gence.

“The centre has ex-tended it’s help in recent times in matters of natural calamities, education, ag-riculture etc. But it is hard to overlook the previous instances where the states pleas have been ignored in favour of other matters”, she remarked when asked of the several schemes the state has taken upon.

Jena teaches at Nilaka-na Primary School, and has also worked with NGOs to facilitate proper sanitation and toilets in schools. She hopes that in contributing towards the welfare of the children, she can extend her gratitude towards her country.

Need to ignite nationBy SONALIKA SINGH

Maj Karan Chahal, serv-ing the Indian Army com-missioned in 4/9 Gorkha Rifles, has a clear view of India and to him the name India means ‘pride’. “To be born in a country which has diversified cul-ture, an enriched history and a feeling of patriotism makes me feel lucky”, he said. His hopes from India are very high.

As a citizen of the country he wishes that the country must develop at a swift pace in all sectors. He hopes that employment opportunities increase, poverty eradicates and fe-males get equal opportu-nities as males. Along with hopes he also carries some fears such as the over ex-ploitation of water which would soon lead to water scarcity.

India as a growing na-tion should not forget its traditions and culture. He feels democracy has built transparency in the sys-tem and has given rights to people to give their per-spective. It has helped In-dia to develop as a nation. According to Major, the ideas of nationalism and patriotism bind India to-gether whereas the differ-ences between religion and caste breaks it.

He also added that, “Freedoms which define India are empowerment, speech and amicable de-mocracy”.

He said, “Beauty of In-dia as a society is that it has a friendly environment; as a country it is united by hearts, as polity it has uni-ty in diversity”.

Being a resident of Hi-machal Pradesh, he feels the society has developed

at a good rate and not only in terms of infrastructural development but also in terms of mindset. People have started showing im-portance for education; girls are being provided opportunities and an ex-posure in order to under-stand their surroundings. He added, “The state is doing well in maintaining less numbers of crime, it is expanding and developing with the growth of profes-sional colleges. Other in-dustrial projects are also coming up.

His ideas on whether diversity and plurality are under threat to new In-dia were against the topic as he said, “Diversity and plurality are helping in de-velopment of the country. It also increases feeling of brotherhood in the hearts of Indians.

“It helps in betterment of the nation. We can also see that after abolition of Article 370, the nation is trying to bring all of us under a common umbrella and igniting a sense of one-ness,” he said.

In the end the officer also said, “Some of the ide-as which can ignite a bet-ter India are knowledge, happiness, growth, unity, employment, better health and a corruption free In-dia.

Amid sacrifice & lossBy MUSKAN SRIVASTAVA Blood, wails and sacri-fices was all Rajesh Jain could remember on the day of our Independence. A resident of Kavi Nagar , Ghaziabad, on the evening of 15th August shared her experiences and grief re-garding The Partition. Af-ternoon of August 15, 1947 changed the entire course of her life.

She clearly remembers her father, who worked for the British government packing all their belong-ings to leave for which will now be known as new In-dia. “We hurriedly packed and mounted our bags on the horse to leave for Am-ritsar as it was the nearest location from our haveli in Lahore” she said.

Her father carried her younger sister as they started their journey in the night. She saw many people protesting , a few listening to the speech and many others like her, moving towards their new homes. On the evening of 16th August, Jain and her family reached Amritsar, where all of a sudden a British soldier started a fight against people com-ing from that side. All the men who had weapons like

guns and knives threat-ened others to claim their religion. Her family being Punjabi-Jains were not in much trouble but soon, they faced a group of men who were against Hindus. A group killed four men and injured many as they moved forward.

In this protest Rajesh lost her sister while her father tried and chased the men away.

They searched for hours but could not find her. Her father consoled her stating they should move on and find a safe place soon now. They spent nights on the pavements with minimum food.

The basic way to sur-vival was a far cry as even the water was not offered anywhere to them. Their clothes full of dirt when they reached a place peo-ple like them were staying.

After nearly witnessing death and loss, she real-ised people were under the same trauma.

After staying in a shel-ter which was around 300 kilometres from Delhi, her father made a small group, collected food and weapons for emergency as together they left for Delhi.

They travelled in the daylight and used to hide in the nights to stay alive. The food was not properly cooked and clothes rugged they finally after weeks reached Delhi.

They slept in the shel-ters till her father final-ly found a job as a helper with the oil merchant.

It was after three months of struggles they rented a room and could live peacefully. She still mourns for her sister on the day India celebrates its freedom.

Rajesh Jain has dealt with losses with a smile Photo by Muskan Srivastava

Vani Raj, author of the book ‘On of Palettes and Masks’ Photo by Medha Sinha

‘Freedom is all about no barriers’By SAMRIDHI THAPLIYAL

To Ravi Ranjan Kumar, a Botany teacher with the Al-len Career Institute, Kota, freedom means “anything without any barriers.”

He said he was happy with the progress that the nation has made since In-dependence.

“At every step, there’s advancement in technol-ogy and education,” he pointed ouot.

However, he was was fearful about the social evils pestering the nation. According to him, “the right to education has still not deepened its roots”.

“Democracy in India is more polished and refined now”, he stated. He added that the idea that binds this diverse country together is the concept of being an “Indian”.

He said he was satisfied with the recent revocation of Article 370. “It is a great move by the Government, since it will enhance the feeling of equality and in-tegrity in the country,” he added.

Kumar was happy and hopeful that the people of Jammu and Kashmir will be accepted as Indians and not as “Kashmiris”.

He also spoke about the initiation of industrializa-tion and new plans in the the Kashmir Valley.

“There will be an in-crease in employment and reduction in crime rate,” he said.

Kasturi Jena, primary school teacher Photo by Sulagana Biswal

Major Karan Chahal from the Indian Army Photo by Sonalika Singh

‘Make India safe place’By GALINA SHARMA

“Freedom should be for anyone and everyone,” says Tarsem Lal Saddi who has worked for the Indian Defence Services.

He is 76-year-old and leads a retired life now.

He says he is proud of having given many years of his life to make the country a safer place to live in.

However, he holds a critical view of independ-ent India and the rules and regulations it has been liv-ing under.

As a child, he had seen his family face ‘ghulami’

and humiliation by the British.

A lot of his family members, even those who were well-off in education and work, used to face ‘yat-na’ (torture) and could do nothing about this.

“All they could do and did was facing humiliation and hiding themselves so that they are not forced to indulge in illegal activities by the colonists,” he said.

He emphasised on the fact that “ India will never be in a situation it was ear-lier in as we have succeed-ed a lot as a country”.

He mentioned that in-

dustrial growth has posi-tively boosted the employ-ment level in India whereas gender inequality is still an issue that is prevelant and believes the fight be-tween India and Pakistan is one of the main reasons of fearing about his nation because of the attacks and actions it leads to.

These fights and ine-quality makes him pon-der whether India has achieved freedom in its true meaning.

Saddi feels glad how the country has succeeded and believes that though we have a long way to go.

By SHARON VARGHESE

“I feel free to dress the way I want and get the right to education,” says Soni, a teen living at the Rainbow girls shelter home in Okh-la, New Delhi.

Rainbow Hhomes is a group of 49 residential homes around India. They provide basic necessities like education, shelter, nutrition, clothing and healthcare to thousands of girls across the coun-try. Their branch at Okhla, New Delhi, has total of 106 girls where Soni lives.

Her views on India, she feels that it has a long way to become a developed

nation. For her, education, quality of life and justice system are some things that India needs to work upon. “The current situa-tion of the country is not something that our free-dom fighters would have dreamed for its future”, she says. Growing intoler-

ance, lacking regard for the environment and cleanli-ness are all serious issues. Soni aspires to be a writer in the future and a social worker.

Aarti Sharma (Welfare Officer) tells us that girls live there legally without any objection. She tells

us how most of these girls have been placed by the Children’s Welfare Com-mittee (CWC) to prevent them from being sent as wage labourers or for oth-er hazardous jobs. Aarti feels that such ventures would impact the growth and welfare of these girls and the nation. “ We can see a better future for these girls only when we take care of their present”, She says.

In the 21st century; Non Profit Organisations (NPOs) like these have been on the rise, especial-ly because youth feels the need to return as well as improve the lives of under-

She wants wings to fly freely

Adapting to a life of sacrificesBy TANMAY NIJHON

Krishna Devi Nijhon (90 years old) broke into tears on India’s 73rd Independ-ence Day, when the Prime Minister joisted the Tricol-our at the Red Fort in New Delhi.

The day reminded her of the Partition and the struggle she had to go through under the last few days of British rule.

Nijhon was born in 1925, in Muzaffarabad (now in Pakistan) and was 18 when she had to leave her birthplace due to the partition.

While the majority of enjoying the perks of free-dom, Krishna and many others had to keep running to save their lives.

Having witnessed everything so closely, she knows that a country’s moral are the biggest stake in its development and with India, there lies no doubt.

Nijhon says, “Jawaan bache hi desh ko aage le jaa rahe hai, aur lejate rahenge” (The youth is taking the country forward and will be the ones who’ll continue doing it). Despite her age, she has a broad vision for the country.

Children of the shelter home Photo by Sharon Varghese

Ravi Ranjan Kumar, Allen Kota Photo by Samridhi Thapliyal

THE TIME F BENNETTSOTHE TIME F BENNETTSO GREATER NOIDAFriday, September 6, 20194

By NAVYA MITTAL

“Even though to-day’s genearation is more evolved, modern, tech-nological and confident, there is no doubt that to-day’s India is also more impulsive, vicious, unsta-ble and sluggish”, says says 72-year-old Ratish Mohan Mittal.

For him, freedom plays a big role when it comes to India. “Our country, has been through so much, like partition in 1947 to In-do-Pak War in 1965, from first Indian satellite Ary-abhatta launched in 1975 to introduction of internet in 1995, from launch of India’s first lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1 in 2008 to Swachch Bharat Abhiyaan in 2014 and from surgi-cal strike in 2016 to ab-rogation of Article 370 in 2019,” he pointed out.

However, he fears that one day India will lose its essence, culture, its herit-age and most importantly its ethics. He believes in respecting elders, being modest and in humility which. “These traits will help India sustain its iden-tity,” he felt.

“With time, India has developed, flourished, en-hanced and evolved but the ideology has also changed, some good changes, like socialism, communism, democracy, banning of fe-

male infanticide and some bad changes, like misogy-ny, casual sexism, racism, homophobia, have hap-pened,” he said.

According to Mittal, India is a beautiful coun-try, “or to my dismay was a beautiful country”, he said.

He added that “sadly, nowadays, no one is inter-ested in beauty and nature, but money and success which is good to a limit but when it exceeds the limit, it can result in annihilation of our home, our country”.

His idea of India is a clean, peaceful, ethical,

cultural, democratic and dignified country.

He hopes that India can be the new abroad by which he means, that peo-ple should think India to be equally qualified as oth-er countries and that peo-ple won’t run away from India. “India is not eligible for studying, living, de-veloping, nurturing and evolving.

“India should gain so much dignity and love that when it is compared with other countries, it should not be referred to as infe-rior,” he said.

‘Make India new abroad’

‘Proud of being part of India’s essence’

By DHANANJAY ARORA

“Azadi toh milli lekin hum apni soch se azad nahi hue”(We have got free-dom but our minds are still captive), says Harish Chandra Malhotra, an ex- Navy admiral talking about Partition as a school student.

He said: “The beauty of India is that we have to make sure we continue to understand our diversity, every citizen must get his share of education, par-ticularly our caste system which breaks us. It is only our collective will to stick together that continues to binds us,” he added.

At the age of 12, when Malhotra was in 6th grade at a boarding school in Dehradun, he got separat-ed from his 45-50 Muslim batchmates.

He recalls how as a heartbroken youth, he went back to his family from his hometown in Rawalpindi.

“Although I did not feel any financial issues be-cause we were well off, but seeing my two uncles liv-ing with him for 20 years with nothing made me re-alize the pain of Partition,” he said.

Being a democrat, he believes that the youth is the code which can take the country to the next level and on being asked about the hopes and fears he said: “There are hopes and there are fears with every generation”.

Malhotra has been running an NGO for the past 20 years in Noida and he is the founder of Gyan Shakti Vidyalaya where students are given

free tutions for two hours after school. He has about 470 kids from class 1-12 of Government schools in Mayur Vihar.

“It is something I do to develop their personalities and transform them into good citizens of free In-dia,” he said.

According to him, “our thinking capacity has not increased due and our ed-ucation and social system both of which have failed

due to weaknesses of lead-ership,” he said.

Malhotra believes that if the Government au-thorities take their jobs seriously, things can work better.

“Problems like water problems and garbage lying all around will be greatly reduced if the au-thorities do their work and not let the nation go into environment degrada-tion,” he said.

‘It’s all about free thinking’Unity and integrity are main pillars

‘Respecting women is must for nation’

By AAVYA JOSHI

Budh Singh, a 113 year old farmer, says India has changed a lot after Inde-pendence.He feels India before Partition was clean-er and safer but now it’s completely different. Singh has witnessed various tech-nological advancements in his life. “Earlier it was rich, satisfactory and worthy as even during the British rule, theft and robberies were negligible and now not even a piece of wood is safe in open space”, he stated. Singh believes that India will develop as a powerful nation economi-cally, politically as well as socially but at the same time he is scared that na-tion might lose its cultural values with the increase in westernization.“In India, religions are united by the bond of brotherhood and diversity but let down only by political interests and , he concluded.

By PALAK AGARWAL “After 73 years of Inde-pendence, India is still struggling for Independ-ence when it comes to society’s norms for sin-gle mothers” says Nidhi Srivastav, a 26-year-old working woman.

The fight for respect-able existence is difficult and challenging for most separated single mothers in India, she said.

Shrivatava said that for her freedom is to treat people as Indians and not as rich and poor.

“India is my coun-try and I am proud to be an Indian”, adding that her views about India are mostly positive.

“Triple Talaq was as cruel as being buried alive and it was high time that the Government took a stand. What it has done is laudable,” she said.

According to her, the moment people start talk-ing instead of thinking about the society and what people say is when India will be a truly free country.

“There is nothing which I want to take for-

ward from the past for a New India, as India is growing at a fast pace. The Modi Government is able to make India a better place with development which we didn’t see in last 70 years,” she said.

On being asked how she would as an Indian citizen contribute to mak-ing the nation better, she said: “Change is needed in the mindset of people who always question the char-acter of a single mother.” Free India for her is really free only if its citizens re-spect its women.

Not even wood is safe in free India: Farmer

A service that is unforgettable

Mohan Mittal,72, hopes that India can be the new abroad Photo by Navya Mittal

Harish Chandra Malhotra,88, Ex-Navyman and founder of Gyan Shakti Vidyalaya Photo by Dhananjay Arora

By JAYA THAKUR

India being the largest democracy in the world, every decision, small or big, is the voice of the na-tion, feels Soumya Gupt.

“India represents, how I grew up loving all the odes to patriotism and po-ems for the freedom fight,” Gupta, who lives in Delhi, said.

Asked about what’s her idea for India, she replied: “The idea that binds India is being proud in it’s es-

sence, the pledge children take in the morning prayer and the National Anthem played even in all PVRs,” she said.

Being a doctor and proud citizen of the coun-try, she feels that the es-sential elements as simple as contraceptive pills or iron supplements should be made available in the remote villages and tribal areas.

“We should build on our ability to stand togeth-er during all the ups and

downs,” she adds.What breaks India is

the clash of faiths or be-liefs that do not necessarily

abide by logic, she says.“The systems were laid

down centuries ago, like the caste system, various religious beliefs or un-touchability,” she says.

What scaresher the most is that “we leave the poor and live superficial-ly.” She hopes that in fu-ture, India would broaden its horizon in every aspect and discard her prejudice towards the weaker strata of society which encourag-es inequality.

So, when asked, how

she sees future India, she answered that, it doesn’t only see technological ad-vancement in coming cen-turies but also along with sustainable development and preservation of natu-rals resources and cultur-al essence that make our country unique.

“Laws of India are laid down beautifully, allowing every sector to flourish. People have the freedom of speech and every religious ceremony is well celebrat-ed,” she pointed out.

By AYUSHI DUA

P L Rishi was born in La-hore Pakistan in 1937 and studied there up to his graduation. He says when the idea of two-nation the-ory was planted, this the-ory was used abundantly in Pakistan and thus today we find the Muslims there have been largely radical-ized.

“When it became clear that Pakistan would be formed there were occa-sional riots between Hin-dus and Muslims in La-hore in the lead up to the Partition,” he recalled.

Rishi recounts how Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the creator of Pakistan, would hold speeches say-ing that 900 years ago Muslims used to rule and that areas of India where Muslims were in majority should be a separate coun-try. So the areas which were once Punjab are now in Pakistan, which was then ruled by Unionist Party of Sir Khazir Hayat Khan. “Sindh which was ruled by an independent member Khusuruf and Baluchistan was an au-tonomous region and they all were opposed to the formation of Pakistan,” he

tells you.Rishi says that the

propaganda of Muslim League was explained by raising a famous question “What is the meaning of Pakistan “? which they answered it by saying “ La

ilaha illallah, (There is no diety but God ).”

“The appeal of the Muslim League to the Muslims was that the ed-ucational facilities will fall into Muslim hand if Paki-stan is formed. As a stu-

dent then these speeches and thoughts were very disturbing, especially for Hindus living in Lahore,” he says.

“In Lahore, between March 1947 and August 1947, there were 40-

50 stabbing cases daily. Women were targeted as symbols of community honour and over a lakh were raped,” he added.

It was on September 12, 1947 when Rishi came to Delhi after surviving the atrocities of Parti-tion. He got married and then joined the Indian Air Force. He went to the US for his training and then for six months he was sta-tioned in Italy.

“Pakistan tried to take Kashmir in 1947 and then in 1965 and again in 1971. Instead of conventional war, Pakistan decided for proxy war. In 1989, they killed a few Kashmiri Pan-dits and announcements were made that Kashmiri Pandits should leave the Valley and they gained Muslim majority which made them feel that the merger with Pakistan would be easy,” Rishi stat-ed.

Rishi concluded by saying that when on Au-gust 6, 2019 Article 370 was scrapped and that for him was the happiest mo-ment of free India. “India has now truly achieved its ‘one nation, one constitu-tion’ concept with this long awaited move”, he says.

P L Rishi speaks on formation of two nations and the Kashmir issue Photo by Ayushi Dua

India has truly achieved one nation and one constitu-tion with the Kashmir move - P L Rishi

‘Freedom of speech is must’BY MISHTI MENON

Mridula Muralidharan, a second year student of JNU, considers herself a true patriot and national-ist because all she wants is betterment of her country and is unafraid to call a spade ‘a spade’.

For her, freedom of speech and equality for all and fairness is all that mat-ters and is what will make India great and finally a develped country. Mural-idharan feels saddened

because of the current sce-nario concerning the mi-nority groups.

“I think that it’s the duty of every individual of the country to put aside their biases and try and be as politically aware as they can be because even if your community has not come under fire yet, it will be too late to speak up when it does”,said Muralidharan.

‘Raising your voice for those who cannot speak for themselves and being aware of the less privileged

and their problems’. Paying your taxes and

doing your part for the en-vironment are some ways that people can contribute to the society’,she added.

Muralidharan said, she is uncertain about where the future of In-dia is headed but remains hopeful that not only eco-nomically, but socially and politically, India and the world togther will become a better place for people to live and fullfill their goals in life.

Soumya Gupta Photo by Jaya Thakur

‘Change is needed in the mindset of people who always question the character of a single mother. Free India for me will be real-ly free only if its citizens respect its women’

By LAVANYA MAANUSRI

Diverse cultures, tradi-tions and beliefs binds us but caste system divides us. More often than not cultural and religious bar-riers divide people which ultimately causes conflicts in free India,” said Mad-hu Padhi an Economics lecturer at Ganjam Degree College, Berhampur, Odis-ha.

“This year we are cel-ebrating 73rd Independ-ence Day and Independ-ence for me is integrity, unity and sovereignty,” he added.

Padhi stated that” In-dia is a developing country and what has hampered it from being a developed country is to poverty, gen-der inequality, child abuse, violence against women and unemployment due to reservation. In an Inde-pendent nation, these are major problems,” she said.

She feels that reserva-tion has reduced oppor-

tunities and caused una-vailability of jobs for the deserving because it was meant to support people who are financially back-ward and not for the lower castes who are financially well off and this is what causes discrimination and dispute and breaks the unity.She feels laws should be same for all and there should be no partiality with the actual economi-cally weaker section of the society.

“To make India a better place to live in we must do our duties as a responsible citizen”, Padhi added. By responsibility she meant, we must start developing as a human first.

“Yes, I think diversi-ty and plurality is under threat in new India be-cause of the overshad-owing of western culture which as a result brings people of different culture and tradition come togeth-er,” she concluded.

Madhuri Padhi gives speech on Independence Day at Ganjam Degree College,Berhampur Photo by Lavanya Maanusri

THE TIME F BENNETTSOTHE TIME F BENNETTSOGREATER NOIDAFriday, September 6, 2019 5‘India has progressed’By MUSKAN RAGHAV

Celebrating the 73rd In-dependence Day with the scraping of 370, the nation evolved with its ideolo-gies, priorities, issues and strengths.

From using old British Naval vessels to buying fighter jets from France, India has certainly made progress- and it’s not the statistics speaking, but her own countrymen that say so.

“Ah, yes, I am about 2 years older than our free country,” said retired Mas-ter Chief Mahendra Kumar Singh, taking a break from his farm. “I don’t quite re-member the year we got our freedom; my memory has betrayed me over the years.

I do, however, remem-ber those times carrying a revolutionary feeling. My father proudly teaching us our new constitution and the Preamble. Young Men wanting to make a differ-ence for the nation, much like now.”

When asked about

his time in the Navy, he cracked a smile as he reminisced and said, “Of course it has changed. The years I served were when India had started doing away with the old lent down British naval vessels and buying our own ships and submarines. Now we

have our own shipbuilding yard.”

“I was serving in the Indian Naval Ship in Kir-pan back when Pakistan sank INS Khukri.

“I had witnessed it from Kirpan as we closely evaded one of the torpe-does. A lot of us were left agitated and angry, want-ing to avenge the lives of our martyred brothers, but we couldn’t.

“Years later, when the surgical strike happened, I felt a sense of pride and satisfaction to see our country not take another attack with tied hands,” he recalled.

When asked about his opinion on Article 370 and its scrapping, he simply said,

“I am not someone who experiences the daily life of a Kashmiri, so I don’t know how right or wrong the decision is. But, from what I read and hear, an overwhelming majority of the inhabitants are hap-py to not be thought of as aliens and become a more inclusive part the country.

‘India is a society of diverse culture’By SUPRIYA CHAND

On the occasion of Inde-pendence day, Dr. Ma-daneshwar Chand de-scribed India as the world largest democracy with a rich culture and a popula-tion of 1.3 billion people.

Dr. Chand explained that as Indians, we can follow any religion, we can speak any language, and we have freedom of speech and expression. He defines the beauty of India as a society with a rich culture and diversity while also be-ing a secular state. It also gives us the right to follow

any religion , he added. Ac-cording to Dr. Chand, the idea of secularism and de-mocracy binds India while casteism, discrimination, and reservation break the country.

He feels that in order to improve India, industries should be modified and foreign direct investment should be bought. Cer-tain improvements have already taken place, such as structural and industri-al development in where there has been an ncrease in government hospitals and other facilities in the region.

‘Independent India is goodfeeling’

By RITWIJ RAJ

“India, is not just a name, it is a feeling. The feeling which unites every indi-vidual to our motherland,’’ said Mr. Yashpal Singh, chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi Group of Colleges, Gwalior.

According to Mr Yas-hpal, India is a place he associates himself with although he feels confused about what it means to him.

He however, believes that India is free and egal-itarian as it has benefited many social circles and communities in raising their voices.

The meaning of free-dom to him was to speak your mind and to enquire about everything going around.

He feels that beauty of India lies in its culture and diversity. Yashpal said that by discarding the caste system, the socio cul-ture insensitivity, and the patriarchy we can build a new India.

On being asked that how do people understand and articulate the idea of India, 73 years after In-dependence, Amb Vishnu Prakash , a senior diplo-mat replied that the big change is the pride and confidence in the mother-land that every Indian has inculcated today and we wear the badge of Indian pride with honour now.

By EUSEBIA KIMDE S. SANGMA

“India lacks moral education,” says Manish Kumar Jain when asked about the cause behind the various atrocities in India. However, he still has a very positive outlook towards our ever-changing, ev-er-developing nation. Jain is a 50-year-old who is vis-ually impaired and resides in a quiet and beautiful colony of Panipat.

Jain is a superinten-dent of the Training Cen-tre for The Adult Blind in

Panipat and is the External Charge of Headmaster of Government Institute for the Blind. According to him, the most unique thing about India is the unity that exists in the midst of diversity. People across the country are divided by dif-ferent religions, languages, traditions, and customs. Nevertheless, we all have struggled as one to gain our Independence and no differences matter when all are standing under the national flag. Manish hopes for a better India even amidst the confusion

and cry that was caused by the abrogation of Article

370. According to him, the inclusion of Jammu and

Kashmir as a Union Terri-tory is a good thing for the Indian Union; however, the voice of the residents

and natives of the place should’ve been taken into consideration.

On the other hand,

in a time when frequent terror attacks, mob lynch-ing and violence against women and children are

widespread in India, Man-ish urges us to stay strong. He states that India, which is known for its religious

character, is lacking in moral education. “If the foundation of our mor-al education was strong, there would not have been so much violence and in-justice,” says Jain.

Jain has been working for organizations for the past 20 years that cater for the needs of the disabled for as long as he can re-member. Though there are a few shortcomings of be-ing visually impaired, Jain feels that his voice is heard and he can enjoy his rights as much as any other cit-izen. His disability has

Manish Kumar Jain Photo by Eusebia Kimde S. Sangma

Special day to show patriotismBy KARTIK JOSHI

“For us every day is a tough day while we show patriot-ism, and fight terrorism. All days are the same for us. On Independence Day, we just remember our brave brothers who laid down their lives for the nation,” Says Army Medi-cal Corps (AMC) member NK Tuhin Kumar Singha. Tuhin is currently posted in Lucknow serving at the rank of Nayak in the AMC. In his 9-year career, he has served in the AMC in Sim-dega, Jharkhand. He has also served under the same rank in Kerala. He believes that India is a beautiful country and despite its geological features, it has a very diversely cultured society where people from various different religions and cultures live togeth-er. He hopes that all peo-ple live together without any religious barriers and every citizen must have ac-cess to clean water as well as everyone should pre-serve water.

When asked about what fears he has about In-

dia, he states, “Every now and then there are efforts made to trigger commu-nal riots in the country, I fear that such an event can happen due to conflict-ing political parties. Caste reservation in government

colleges and jobs is also a big problem which can take a violent turn.

The AMC member boldly said that for civil-ians, Independence Day is one special day to show their love and patriotism

for the country. On the other hand, every day is an occasion where they serve the nation and patriotism is the spirit that drives them to protect the coun-try and fight terrorism. On Independence Day, they remember their brave brothers who laid down their lives for the nation.

NK Tuhin Singha ap-proves the scrapping of Article 370 and 35A as a bold and a beneficiary step which would help the development of Kashmir and the people of Kashmir would also get more em-ployment opportunities as well as various other ben-efits.

He also informed that the army has been very successful in neutralizing many terror attacks and threats in Kashmir during the lockdown.

Lastly when asked, “What do you think In-dia should get ‘freedom from?’” He replied that India should get freedom from rape cases as rape is not only a heinous but an insane crime that should be punished severely.

Towards the right path By STUTI AGNIHOTRI

“It’s all happening sponta-neously, but till when we would sit back and relax?” said Postal Superintendent Ram Tirth Sharma, Una District, when discuss-ing about the abrogation of Article 370. Though he does not have a clear opinion over how fair the proceedings were, unlike every year, this time he felt happier when he hoisted the flag. Sharma feels a bit more integrated and con-nected to his country now, where there is just one law for all.

Born in 1961, he had a chance to sense how things had been when freedom was comparatively new. While working at a gov-ernment department since then, he had the choice to view and analyze things in-side out.

He further added that though he feels India has evolved, India hasn’t reached its full potential

due to the democratic country being large and varied.

Sharma doesn’t hold any fears for India in the upcoming years as he feels that we’re all on the right path and wishes that the his career in the postal department from ground level, with a meager salary

and not too pleasant work conditions. His hard work and determination has brought him to the top to-day. Comparing his life to India’s evolution, he mer-rily states:

“The path to a sweeter day may be harsh but will come and we’ll all have to do this together.”

‘Lack of implementation of laws in country’By SANGHMITRA YADAV

As India celebrated its 73rd Independence Day, people all over India were filled with infinite zeal and passion. India became in-dependent after a lot of struggle; hence it is a very important day in our his-tory.

Arjun Kumar Vasude-va, born in 1937, is a retired director in Ministry of Oil and Petroleum, who feels proud of being an Indian. He believes that India is a fully democratic country and people have the right and freedom to criticise the government, which some countries don’t.

Mr. Vasudeva ex-

pressed that the scrapping of Article 370, the removal of the special status from Jammu and Kashmir, was a good decision as it cre-ates a sense of individual-ism among the Kashmiris. The removal of Article 370 and 35A would lead to more development in J&K.

He also believes that India is a democratic coun-try where people have the right to criticise the gov-ernment.

“People don’t real-ly know and follow their fundamental duties but they are well aware of their rights, which is a drawback of India’s implementation of laws. There is no doubt that we have laws for

everything but what India lacks is the implementa-tion, which countries like the U.S. and the UK are big on,” Says Mr Vasudeva.

He also thinks that the increasing population is a huge issue that needs to be handled. Because in near future it can lead to popu-lation explosion.

He gave a long thought to the last question which I asked him as to what ideas could make india better. He took some time to answer and came up with some really amazing thoughts.

“I think India is an emerging country, but there are still some major issues which need to be

dealt with in order to make India better.

Almost half of India’s population lives in poverty and the laws that govern-ment make for them seem to have no effects.

Then obviously we have garbage being thrown everywhere in In-dian streets. I feel certain amount of fine should be imposed for throwing gar-bage or spitting on roads.

We need people who could keep an eye on the implementation of laws to make sure that no one is misusing it. If such issues are sought, then there’s nothing that could stop In-dia from being a developed country one day”, he said.

Democracy with new agendasBy SAUMYA MISHRA

“One of the fiercest things about India as a country is the strong beliefs we car-ry from ages. The ideolo-gies that have co-existed rather peacefully, in such a crowded country, is one thing that should be ap-preciated more often,” said Dr. Laxman Yadav, Head Psychologist of Changing Minds. He is also associ-ated with numerous NGOs and has a vision for a bet-ter, newer India.

India is not just a coun-try, it’s an emotion, he added. “An emotion with which people associate themselves even after gen-erations of not being here,” he said. “It’s an emotion which the countrymen and the country feel mutually, the emotion of never aban-doning its citizens. As a vigilant citizen, one of the things that make India dif-ferent is, despite the diver-sity and the huge popula-tion enough to populate 5

Canadas, the unity and tolerance in people is just staggering and awe-inspir-ing,” he added.

It is the rather unpol-ished system of manage-ment in India, that carries 1.3 billion people every day, systematically. If any other country had such a vast population, even the finest of management sys-

tems would fail to manage. From the local trains in Mumbai, to the political system, it is evident how India continues to thrive even in the most difficult situations.

India has changed ever since independence in var-ious ways, developing in some ways and becoming complex in other.

Democracy has a new dimension now, with more laws, the citizens are more law abiding now than ever, it is the feeling of the nation, the motherland, that binds India together and continues to make it stronger, the shear unity in diversity.

Indians have always got an easygoing way with freedom of speech. Dr. Laxman quoted an exam-ple of the ancient time, telling how an old farmer once said that Lord Rama was not a man of princi-ples Afterall ; he brought back Sita.

Even in those hierar-chical times, people spoke what they believed in as long as other’s rights are not sullied, we can express.

India minus the cor-ruption and the old ide-ologies of caste and creed system, is one of the most successful country. There are things we have to learn from India’s past and things we have to change.

Laxman Yadav dressed up for Independence day celebrations Photo by Saumya Mishra

Chancellor Yashpal Singh Photo by Ritwij Raj

Ram Tirth Sharma, 58, is a postal superinten-dent who is fearless about India’s future Photo by Stuti Agnihotri

Arjun Kumar Vasudeva, a retired director in Ministry of Oil and Petroleum, feels proud to be an Indian Photo by Sanghmitra Yadav

‘Free India has constitutional freedom’

By MANAN RAJ

Ex-Armyman Shashwat, believes that democracy, having lasted 7 decades, showed everyone that there is still hope for the country no matter how di-verse its cultures and peo-ple can be.

He argues that diver-sity is an asset and that it helped our country be-come so powerful.

“Constitutional free-dom is what defines In-dia,” said Singh. No matter how different their point of views may be, there is no question that India is a great country and he is proud to be a part of it.

With time, India will grow only by making mis-takes added Shashwat.Without all the difficulties, we wouldn’t have citizens standing together under the same enemy to unite, strengthen, and build each other.

Ex-Navy officer Ma-hendra Kumar Singh Photo by Muskan

RaghavAMC BK Tuhin Kumar Singha after a long day of work at the Lucknow Army Cantonment Photo by Kartik Joshi

‘If the foundation of our moral education was strong, there would not have been so much violence and injustice’

I am visually impaired but independent: Jain

THE TIME F BENNETTSOTHE TIME F BENNETTSO GREATER NOIDAFriday, September 6, 20196

By SHUBHRALI BEN

India has had several names, like Aryavart and Bharat, but its identity has been one since time immemorial says Warrant Officer (retd) GS Pras-ad. Implying that Indians need to imbibe the sense of unity and oneness for the betterment of the country. Having served in the In-dian Air Force from 1965-1986.“We did not differen-tiate among people coming from different states, that oneness can only be found in military services,” he added.

Prasad served as the air traffic controller in the Bangladesh liberation war from 3rd December 1971 to 16th December 1971. This war was an example of what cultural and political disparities can result in. About 10 million refugees fled to India, expanding the spectrum of diversifi-cation.

India being world’s largest democracy has

faced challenges with the idea of secularism The en-tire concept is to respect each other’s religion but this is being used by politi-cal persons to misguide the people making them intol-erant. “I am a Hindu inside my house, a person is Mus-lim in his house, and when we come out we should see ourselves solely as Indian” said Prasad, emphasising the importance of identify-ing with one’s nation.

India is a mixed bag of ideologies, cultures, religions and a myriad of people. Such an expansive population is united by the tri-coloured flag and the national anthem profi-cient enough to give goose bumps to anyone. On this, Prasad said that often In-dians find disrespected in a foreign country and to overcome this, the citizens will have to begin being responsible towards their country. “If you obey to-day, you will command tomorrow,” he said. “If you

choose to be indis-

ciplined, you will be en-slaved.”

On being asked about

some fears regarding India’s future, Prasad said that there always are peo-

ple like Jaichand and Mir Qasim. “It is just like, you know, a dog in the man-ger,” he added. “They are envious and try to extract benefits with other peo-ple’s interests at stake.” Besides all such obstacles, he believes that Indians have started waking up from the “deep slumber” after being under the influ-ence of Mughals and Brit-ish for about 700 years.

When a question on abrogation of article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir was introduced, Prasad said that it should have been removed long ago as it was overdue. “370 was a hurdle in the progress of J&K,” he said, elucidat-ing the sense of oneness among the Indians.

He marked oneness and unity as the main ide-as of India.

Such a sense of unity can only be achieved when discrimination within the country is done away with. The citizens need to learn to be Indians first.

‘Idea of India is oneness and unity’

GS Prasad Photo by Shubhrali Ben

By DIKSHA KANWAR

Manan Mittal, a budding architect from MBwS school of planning and ar-chitecture, says: “India is a country which has gone through so much in its past that expecting a lot from it would be wrong on my part but being selfish as an architect I surely hope that the natural beauty of its major landmarks is not lost over the ages as they serve to be the essence of what India is perceived to

be according to many’’, he adds.

According to him, In-dia is a country that repre-sents diversity and differ-ent cultures co-existing in the purest form.

Manan aspires to one day be responsible for beautifying the monu-ments while preserving their essence and making sure the history behind them reaches the masses. He is determined to make people understand that if they want a better tomor-

row they need to learn to respect their past.

“India is learning to focus on the right things and I am grateful that the youth is given the impor-tance it needs in today’s time.

“Their opinions are valued enough that the changes will come around soon enough” , he an-swered when asked about how he thinks change can be brought in present times.

He also believes that

change is important and thus doesn’t fear in rais-ing his voice which is against popular belief that everything shall always re-main as it is and what he fears most is being static and not growing in the right direction.

His idea of democ-racy is two faced like the two sides of a coin . He strongly believes that In-dia couldn’t have reached the same heights as it has reached without being a democratic country, how-

ever it still has its pros and cons. “On the one hand it has provided a platform for the people of India to express their grievances and problems but on the contrary there are people who always end up tak-ing advantage of whatever benefits they are being giv-en”, he said.

He added that efforts are required for necessary changes to come about and that will be possible once people are made aware about what is happening

in their surroundings and then they can act accord-ingly.

“India needs more peo-ple who raise their voice for one another rather than raising hands at each other and when all my brothers and sisters realise this, then we’ll all be good to go”, is the idea behind which he works.

He also stated that he wants to accomplish reali-sation both in real life and for his country and that is the ultimate goal he is

‘Worst thing will be if people are static & do not raise their voices’

Manan at his favourite monument, Jantar Mantar Photo by Diksha Kanwar

By SAHIBPREET SINGH

“Recently, India celebrat-ed its 73rd Independence Day with a lot of remark-able achievements, ISRO has created history reach-ing the moon and sudden removal of article 370,” said Babita Sachdeva in her tuition centre .

According to her, In-dia is a colonial name, the real name is Bharat, which stands for development and contribution.

When asked about the idea of India she said, “it’s ‘Vasudhavia Kutum-bakam’ which binds every Indian, welcoming every civilization since time im-memorial. Every Indian is contributing to attain overall development, aim-ing for 5 trillion economy, good living conditions.” She feels that “fear is a mindset of people as there are few leg pullers amongst the people.”

“Corruption is at its peak, miscreants feel pride in hampering and stealing public property,” she said.

Despite that, she hopes to see India free of poverty, terrorism and gender bias. India is the only country where Ragas, spiritualism, religion and Nature are enjoyed together making it unique,” she added.

Looking at the journey of the past 73 years, she felt that the things have changed for the worst. “In-dia is now known to be one of the most polluted coun-tries in the world having one of the biggest slums on Earth,” she said.

Despite campaigns like ‘Swachch Bharat Ab-hiyaan’ there is still a lot of mess to be cleaned up. Holy rivers like Ganga is still dirty, she said.

“The key is to revive the ancient past and code which binds Indians to-gether,” she concluded.

By ROHAN DAYAL

On Sunday, August 18, Charvi Kohli brought forth her ideology about In-dia. An 18-year-old who is an active participant in multiple tree plantation drives of the AAP Govt and has worked for NGOs like Red Paws Rescue and the Salaam Baalak Trust for a combined period of 4 months. She is current-ly a student of Finance at Maharaja Surajmal Group of Institutes. The girl has a passion for poetry and mainly writes about male and female empowerment, society and romance.

The country, to her, is diverse in culture and religion which natural-ly creates a difference of opinion. This difference of opinion leads to intol-erance and thus making people taking each other’s lives. The 18-year-old feels that India has not lived up to its reputation as a dem-ocratic nation. The lack of worthy and promising leaders on the ballot and increasing number of votes for None Of The Above (N.O.T.A). does not stand for democracy. Charvi also stated that scrapping of Article 370, although a good decision, was uncon-stitutional.

According to the Arti-cle, the leader of the state has to be consulted before a step like this but the Govt. managed to place the leaders under house arrest and passed the amend-ment. The implementation was forceful to the people of Kashmir and they were oblivious about their fate with hordes of army troops patrolling the streets.

These were her reasons for India not living up to the definitions of democracy.

Charvi wishes to carry on certain aspects from India’s history to its fu-ture and would discard some. She wants India to continue being diverse in all its senses and would do away with religious feuds between people as

well as reservations and quotas. She believes that everything that divides us amongst our people is a path to darkness. On be-ing asked if whether di-versity itself, which she mentioned earlier, leads to division amongst people, she replied “Being diverse does not divide us. It adds colour to people. Different but equal.”

On being asked what she loves about the In-dian society, she replied that when there’s anything wrong happening around us, whether it is injustice or immoral, people will al-ways stand up for what is right.

The Indian socie-ty is not afraid to tack-le problems and does so together. The society is swiftly moving forward with the change in mind-set amongst people and creating awareness about controversial subjects re-garding which there is a lot of misinformation floating around.

By MIHIR RATHOD

Captain Vinay Patil, cur-rently in Indian Army, says that the first need of Inde-pendent India is to stop ‘brain drain’.

“In future I expect In-dia to create opportuni-ties for all youths and so they don’t have to strive abroad, rather people from the other countries should visit India for various pur-poses like education, trade, employment,” he said.

Patil said that India is a secular and democratic nation. The unity of India is in all the spheres of life. when he was asked about what were his expectations

and fears, Vinay replied, ”Expectations are as I see, in the present situa-tion under the leadership Prime Minister Narendra Modi, I find India develop-ing into a very strong na-tion in aspects of economy and politics.

There mightbe sever-al fears including India Pakistan disturbances ex-ternally and internally the Naxalite. Besides these af-fairs and distractions, our country is under a proper safeguarding government. “India is one of the big-gest democracies in the world. Over the years it has shown development in worldly relationships and

growth of the nation as a whole.”

India is a bound by its constitution and culture of nationalism feelings and most of the people show belief in the government. Indians follow their cul-ture which is passed by their ancestors like re-spects for elders, Love for siblings.

He said, the India there are many religions, castes but we are united and cele-brate all festivals together. “If we focus on economic development, corruption free government, gender equality and cleanliness, our country will take great pace,” he said.

By ANGELA OSMOND

Ashok Bhalla, retired Wing Commander of the Indian Air Force, craves for a ‘true democratic India.’

He believes that edu-cation is the key to democ-racy; however, difficulties like lack of proper training, poor quality of teachers, unmotivated youth, selfish behaviours, and the wrong concept of education con-tinue to persist, slowing down India’s progress.

Bhalla has been work-ing with the Indian Air Force for 25 years and he has seen India grow mas-sively since the Partition; however, not much has changed.

“Democracy would mean to respect the rights, beliefs, and requirements of each and every individ-ual.

“In India, it’s just the opposite. People here are only concerned about themselves and how they can live a more comfort-able life even if it means that the freedom of some-one else is compromised.” Bhalla explains.

The best way to fix this problem, according to

Bhalla, is education. The education system in India and the quality of teachers is very poor.

The teachers, who are only there to make mon-ey, don’t have the skills to inspire because they are

unmotivated themselves. This creates a pattern of dull and unambitious thinking which results in failure.

The ex Wing Com-mander of IAF believes that India is a selfish place;

no one cares about better-ing the nation. Bhalla finds it alarming how there are so many people in India yet the country still hasn’t reached its full potential. Most of the people leave the country to work out-

side due to the horrible conditions here.

“A lot of Indians who leave the country decide to do so because the country cannot afford to pay them well. If you look around, most of the Indians who live abroad have top posi-tions.

“If India learns how to keep their people in the country- either by increas-ing incentive or education, India would be somewhere else by now.” the ex mem-ber of IAF adds.

There is no doubt that Indians have good minds as there are many hard working people.

The issue is that they don’t know how to effec-tively use the tools that they have. Meanwhile youths are being exploit-ed to the maximum, the general population is busy thinking of how to make more money.

“Ninety per cent of Indians are uneducated. I don’t think passing exams, matriculations, schools, universities or wherever it may be is education. That is not education at all- it’s getting a degree.” Bhalla states.

By ABHIMANYU SHARMA

“A human being is truly free when he’s allowed to live life the way he wants to,” said Muzaffar Ali, a gardener at Bennett Uni-versity. Muzaffar Ali firm-ly believes that amidst the violence and corruption in this nation, the country will prosper.

Born in 1944, Ali strongly believes that there are differences from pre-independent India and present-day India.

Some good, some bad. When asked on what these differences are, he said that the difference in pric-es for purchasing a com-modity were vastly differ-ent. He further stated that products were cheap in his generation, unlike today.

He continued by saying that the prices for products have immensely increased. But, when asked on what he feels when he hears the word India or Bharat, he said he feels proud to be a citizen of this country.

He also stated that

race, class, religion and caste discrimination has decreased.

He feels that, currently the disparity between the Hindus and Muslims isn’t as prominent as what it was in pre-independent India.

He further went on to say that in his experience, the behaviour of people has changed drastically, in a positive way. He said that people are more open and greeting nowadays. This view was shared by Shubhnam Tejram who is part of the housekeeping department of Bennett University is.

When asked on what his fears are about India, he said even though the country is progressing perfectly well he does not want the country to go at war (with Pakistan).

Due to the increasingly volatile tension on the LoC he fears that both nations may start a war. He says that he doesn’t want his countrymen to lose their lives.

Division leads unity of India to darkness

‘Progress despite distraction’Bharat: From shackles to democracy

‘Freedom is how free you are’

‘Education will lead to true democracy’

Ashok Bhalla, ex Wing Commander of IAF, talks about the strides free India has taken Photo by Angela Osmond

Charvi Kohli. Diversity adds colour to democ-racy, she says Photo By Rohan Dayal

Captain Vinay Patil Photo by Mihir

Rathod

‘The implemen-tation was force-ful for the people of Kashmir and they were obliv-ious of their fate with hordes of Army troops patrolling the streets. These were her rea-sons for India not living up to the definition of democracy’

THE TIME F BENNETTSOTHE TIME F BENNETTSO GREATER NOIDAFriday, September 6, 20197

There is a Jhol behind every door on Bennett campusPhotos by

NAVYA MITTALText by NAVYA

MITTAL & DISHTI TANDON

Jhol, a popular Mumbai word used to denote mis-chief, was an ingenious ex-hibit of many talents and lively activities, organised by the student committee of 2nd and 3rd years.

The event was held on September 2, 2019 on the Bennett University campus. Students enjoyed the three-hour show.

This show was actually a group assignment given to the students by Adver-tising Faculty Shruti Jain. The students were divided into four groups to com-pete against each other.

The first group’s brand name was “Paper Boat”, and everyone was en-thralled by the drama that they brought to the stage.Group 2, whose brand name was “Bournville”, brought passion, elegance and competency with a fashion show featuring characters from the epic Mahabharata. “Bingo Mad Angles”, the third group, came to the stage wrapped in humour and vitality. It brought a smile on every-one’s face with their spon-taneous comedy and witty games. The fourth and final group, “KitKat” not only ended the evening in style but made the competition interesting with their quirky games. Members of the group brought the teachers on stage to play games.

Overall, the entire evening was exuberant with the audience getting involved in almost every activity, including the decorations done by the seniors from waste mate-rial which was admirable and eye-catching.

It was a real-time and rare stress buster evening which also motivated the students to think out of box in a fun way.

BEST OUT OF WASTE, WITH NEWSPAPER ON THE WAIST: Aspiring models and designers from the student community compete in one of the rounds of the Jhol event held on the Bennett campus on September 2, 2019

EMOTIONS ON STAGE: Students perform spontaneous drama Paper Boat presents an award show for students in the audience with unique talents

A positive start to the evening with Ganesh Vandana

NO BHARAT WITHOUT MAHABHARAT: The Bournwille group showcase the ancient Indian epic Mahabharat through an entertaining fashion show

By JASRAJ SINGH After 73 years of Inde-pendence, author and nonagenarian Joginder Singh gave a first-hand ac-count of how he has seen India develop and evolve over the years.

In his mid-20s, Joginder Singh along with his wife, migrated to In-dia from Pakistan during the Partition. When asked about the state of India during Partition he said, “Horrible, lakhs of people were displaced from their homes and there were murders everywhere.” Be-fore the partition, he felt Indians were treated like slaves.

But over the years he has seen a change in this ideology. According to him, independence means “Not being a slave. Every-one should be free and have the ability to make their decisions”.

He believes that al-though developed, India still has a long way to go.

Before the partition, the Britishers used to treat Indians like dogs. But he feels that people are still treated like dogs because of politics and the hunger for power. When asked about what he feels is the worst thing about India he replied with “politicians these days are becoming criminals.”

Living in a diverse country, he feels people are still not united. He said that people were more united before the Parti-tion.

By STUTI SINGH

“India is one nation and we all are living happily”, says Sohail Sarwar Khan, a four times PSC qualifi-er currently working as a Post Graduate teacher in Rungta.In a recent interview, he raised the topic of Article 370 and it’s abrogation.

Khan appreciated the

abrogation of article ex-plaining the clause.

“The Government has been successful in remov-ing the article without any complications,” he said.

“India is known for having the largest democ-racy in the world, if the decisions are not taken taking people into con-sideration then it will no longer be called a demo-

cratic country,” he added.People in Jammu and

Kashmir have always been drawn into political fights, he said. “But after the ab-rogation of this law, it will no longer be a matter of dispute. Pakistan has al-ways had a different way reacting to India’s deci-sion. It has always creat-ed an issue against their decision. The way Article

370 has been abolished it couldn’t have happened better,” he said.

According to him, five years down the line Kash-mir will be a developed State demographically, financially and academi-cally. “It was somewhere secluded from the other states because of this ar-ticle. Since the article has been removed, the state

will be treated like the other states are treated in the country. The State will have common powers like other states. The bi-furcation of the state into two union territories have been a good move taken by the Government,” he said.

He asserted that the removal of special status will progress be the main symbol of progress.

‘J&K will progress after removal of Art 370’ Indian talent will push nation to top

By ANUSHKA GUPTA

“India has grown expo-nentially and I hope it will continue to expand its base in the coming years,” says Rita Mitra, a lecturer in the Institute of Hotel Manage-ment (IHM) Kolkata. She believes that India is still at a developing stage.

Talking about the jour-ney that free India has tak-en in 73 years, she said: “There are a lot of difficul-ties the nation has to go through on a day to day basis, including gender inequality, poverty, child abuse, violence against

women and unemploy-ment due to reservation”.

Talking about the need to ignite nationalism in every Indian, she said: “We as citizens of Bharat,

should be proud, due to so many freedom fighters, to-day, we are free to perform things we could not ear-lier.” She said, the nation has grown exponentially grows further.

“Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi too has a big part in making India a bet-ter place, our country now comes under the category of one of the world powers. Yes, he has tried to change the way the outside world used to see India. We are a stronger nation and be-ing seen as a world power’’ Mishra said.

According to her, free

India had turned out to be an open-minded na-tion from when we start-ed off mostly due to the fundamental rights. She had strong views on the scrapping of Article 370, which she said was a bold move the Government had taken. “Removal of Article 370 is in the interest of the nation for its future, for security and safety. It will end terrorism in Kashmir and will bring Kashmiris in the mainstream. I expect a lot of investment and eco-nomic growth of Jammu and Kashmir in the coming days”, she concluded.

Rita Mishra, lecturer in IHM

By URVASHI GOYAL

“India is a country full of talent and is destined to be one of the best countries in the world”, said 63-year-old Vijay Goyal, who is a member of the Sanghcha-lak Rashtriya Swayamse-vak Sangh at Agra.

A good education sys-tem in independent India can help make a lot of pro-gress in India, he stated.

“Due to the British col-onisation, India took a step back in its path towards development,” he pointed out.

His biggest hope for free India is that “in com-ing years the Education system of India in Govern-ment schools will improve and reach a high level; when medical help is avail-able to everybody, rich or poor,” he said.

He spoke about the Westernization of the Indi-an culture which he felt is the main concern of inde-pendent India.

Goyal said he is con-cerned about preserving the Indian culture both for the upcoming generations and to attract different people from all over the world.

“The revocation of Ar-ticle 370 is a good step in proclaiming to the world that India is united and will be for eternity”, said Goyal.

“It was necessary to lock down Kashmir be-cause of the constant threats that the civilians had to face there from mil-itants. By doing so, it re-

duced the threat of retalia-tion from people who were against becoming a part of India and losing their spe-cial status,” Goyal said.

“The time period of 19 months from 26th June 1975- 21st March 1977 was a breach in the democracy of India,” he said, talk-ing about the Emergency imposed on the nation by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

“During Emergency people lost their right to freedom of speech. Anyone who raised his voice against Indira Gandhi faced severe consequences. Most of her opponents were jailed and the Press was censored. No one could print any-thing without the District Magistrate’s approval. But after 1977 India’s democ-racy is becoming stronger and will grow through the years,” Goyal said.

‘“India is a country that is diverse, secular and united and it will go on growing as a strong dem-ocratic country with the talent, willpower and ded-ication that the people of India have.

“It will reach new heights and will leave an imprint in the minds of people who cross path with this nation.”, said Goy-al.

According to him, in-dustrial development is must for free India.

“Diversity and plurality of India is under threat in new India”, he said, stress-ing on the importance of freedom of speech and ex-pression.

Partition was horrible: Singh

By SUPRIYA CHAND

“India should be devel-oped economically and socially as well as poverty should be stopped,” Dr. Madaneshwar Chand said.

On the auspicious oc-casion of Independence Day, Chand, who has been a medical practitioner for 24 years, potrayed India as the world’s largest democ-racy and also mentioned about its democracy, its

rich culture and also its large population.

He has the notion that, there shouldn’t be any dis-crimination, as India has such a large diversity and rich culture.

According to him, idea of secularism and democ-racy binds India and those ideas that break India are casteism, discrimination and reservation. Dr. Chand explained that, we

can follow any religion and we can speak any language, as we all have freedom of speech and expression. He defines the beauty of India

as a society with rich cul-ture and diversity.

He also mentioned about the recent policy, “New India” in which to increase the economy to 5 trillion, development is much needed. “Industries should be modified, for-eign Direct Investment {FDI} should be bought and discrimination, pov-erty as well as casteism should be discarded.

Big no to discrimination and casteism

Joginder Singh shares his story of Partition

Sohail Khan

‘Free India is still developing’

Madaneshwar Chand

THE TIME F BENNETTSOTHE TIME F BENNETTSO GREATER NOIDAFriday, September 6, 20198

By SHARON VARGHESE

An interesting and thought-provoking session by Sameer Soni, BCCL CEO, was held during the fourth day of the Freshers’ Week at Bennett Universi-ty. Addressing students dur-ing the session on ‘How to lead a successful life’, Soni said: “Each one of you wants to be a hero, what stops you from being a hero is the villain. Villain in our lives is the force called resistance.” Whenever we want to pursue any regimentation in our lives, be it health, financial condition, aca-demics etc. fear is the force that stops us from reaching our potential, he added.

He explained how our brain has evolved over thousands of years. “Earli-er, we were hunter-gather-ers, humans had to protect themselves from preda-

tors, hunger and fury of Nature. This created fear. Early humans faced ‘real’ and prevalent fears that had existed, but in today’s world, this fear has been taken over by an ‘ego-based fear’. Fear of shame, embarrassment, unfulfill-ment, this fear leads to a very powerful feeling of ‘resistance’. Resistance has its base in the primitive emotion called fear,” he added.

Since childhood we have been told to get rid

of your fears, but the truth is that you can never get rid of it but have to fight against it, Soni pointed out.

“Throughout our lives, it is us who will decide what seat we give fear in our car, a back seat or the drivers seat. If and when fear is given the driver’s seat it will cause doom as you have given it the veto power,” he said.

Soni then spoke about how one can befriend re-sistance, stating the steps involved. “First, don’t deny your fear, second, describe it in whichever way you feel, third, name it, fourth commit to do something about it and lastly, simply walk into it and fight it,” he said.

One has to decide what he or she wants to be and where he or she wants to go, otherwise one can nev-er reach his or her true po-tential in life, he said.

The counter force to resistance, he said, lay in inspiration. “Imagination is that incredible human superpower that allows you to envision, which is not,” he said.

Having a transforma-tive imagination i.e. ideas that can’t be conceived by everyone can get the inspired. “Imagine the fu-ture and loop it into the present, that’s when you will inch closer to your life goals and dreams,” he said.

Soni stressed on the need for physical activity not only for fitness, but for creativity and mental health too.

He concluded by saying that all he shared with the students was something that he had learnt over the years and practiced with-out fail. He said he hoped that the students would use these steps to get to their highest potential and wished them all the best.

By KARTIK PANDE

The students of Bennett University had a fun event with the famous RJ Vidit, also known as “Sharma ji ka ladka”.

The main motive of this event was to make the students aware about money management skills and why they are very im-portant.

It has often been seen that college students face the problem of an empty wallet by the end of the month, so to help them cope up with this situation, Radio Mirchi came up with a campaign called ‘Pocket Money 983’.

Under this campaign, RJs from Radio Mirchi 98.3 were supposed to

visit various colleges, play games with the college students and then give them cash prizes of Rs. 983 each, hence the name ‘Pocket Money 983’.

The event started in the B block mess around 1PM, where RJ Vidit told the students about money management and about the campaign along with the rules of the game.

He asked the students, mostly freshers to form groups among themselves in order to participate.

He then went around the groups and asked them six questions related to general knowledge, sports and the entertainment .

The groups which were able to answer at least 4 questions correctly were

given the cash prize. The winning groups were then supposed to divide the money equally among themselves.

After a few set of games in the mess, Vidit moved to the atrium in A block and then the hatchery. By the end of the event, a lot of happy faces could be seen as many students won the cash prizes.

This entire session was then aired on Radio Mirchi 98.3 from 7:00-8:00 pm, the same day. The students really enjoyed the whole event as it was not only fun but also taught them the importance of money management.

This was Vidit’s second visit to the campus in this semester.

Students get fun break with RJ ‘Sharmaji Ka Ladka’

Animals need your compassionBy STUTI AGNIHOTRI AND MEDHA SINHA

The Wildlife SOS, an ani-mal welfare organization, visited Bennett University during the fresher’s week in August.

Members of this well-known organisation had an interactive session with the students. The sessions showed the students two sides of the coin, one was how people are attached to animals, the other was how they treat them heart-lessly.

Gargi Sharma, a mem-ber pointed out that while India considered elephants as an avataar of Hindu God Ganesha, many of them were being tortured in or-der to entertain the public at tourist places.

Sharma showed the audience a nerve-wrecking video where the brutality towards animals made the spectators cry.

Wildlife SOS is a non-profit organization that actively works towards protecting Indian wildlife, mitigating man wildlife conflict and creating sus-tainable livelihoods for erstwhile poaching com-munities.

They have rescued more than 600 dancing bears from the streets, who were born and bred in captivity and were being used to entertain people in streets. The NGO now has 11 branches across India. Their current agenda is to end the suffering of abused elephants.

Gajraj, the elephant from Maharasthra, Shar-ma said, was rescued by them after 50 decades with the help of People for the Ethical Treatment of Ani-mals (PETA) and the State Forest Department. The hash tag movement #Free-Gajraj was also launched under the same effort.

Wildlife SOS has a team of veterinary doctors who take care of these an-imals throughout the jour-ney from the rescued place, after which they are kept out of their natural habi-tats but under a nurturing climate at the Wildlife SOS Elephant Conservation & Care Centre, Mathura, Sharma said.

Due to the immense torture and inhumane ways, after a time these animals develop physical and a mental sickness, she pointed out.

“They are not able to

stand properly and show signs of high mental stress and disorders. At the care centre, we make these el-ephants play in bathtubs and mud pools while keep-ing them under proper medication and care. With right treatment they finally lead a happy life.,” she said

The session ended with the members of this or-ganisation requesting stu-dents to come forward and work for the cause of ani-mals, visit animal centres and volunteer for work in their free time.

Wildlife SOS members also talked about the wide range of merchandise they sell to raise money.The money collected from the merchandise is used as contribution for the well-being of these animals.

The session instilled a love for animals among the students who were moved by the slides that the mem-bers showed them.

By AKSHITA CHAPLOT

The second annual sports house auctions of Bennett Univeristy were held on August 27 and 28, 2019. A total of 160 freshers took part in the auction.

The four houses – Mighty Boltz, Heroic Hearts, Super Spades and Keen Kickers – fought for the best player. The auc-tion was proposed by Yash Raj Saxena, a core team member of the sports com-mittee, in 2017.

The first auction was held in 2018, along with the introduction of the House System by the sports committee.

The bidding started with assigning points to each house, which was 50,000 this year along with the last one.

Next, the players were called for the bidding by advisors, secretaries and managers of each house.

The bidding took place in two stages – Open and Close. In the Open bidding, the houses had

to keep on increasing their bids to a certain point lim-it, which was 5,000. After that, the Close bidding started where the houses wrote the maximum num-ber of points they were willing to pay for and the highest bid got the prime player.

The players are judged

on the basis of their perfor-mances during trials which were held in July.

The top three bids of this year were Joseph An-tony, B.Tech student and basketball player, with 12,300 points, Yash Bisht, Times School of Media stu-dent and football player, for 9,150 points, and Shru-

ti Jha, Times Schoolof Me-dia student and badmin-ton player for 8,750 points.

Jha got the highest bid in the girls category. Bisht was the highest bid on the first day, by the Advisor of Super Spades Yash Raj Saxena. Joseph was the highest bid on the second day, again by Saxena from

Super Spades. Shruti was bid by Keen Kicker’s or-ganizing secretary Samb-hav Bhandari.

The top three bids of this year were higher than last year’s highest bid of 7,000 points.

In the next round next month, captains will be chosen.

Sports house auctions 2.0 draw students

Money management taught in a fun way by the famous RJ Vidit at Bennett University Photo by Jasraj Singh

Fight your fears, says Soni

Nandana Varshaney, advisor of heroic hearts placing a bid Photo by Abhi Bothera

By JAIKA PATTANAIK

A series of orientations for student cultural clubs were scheduled held from Au-gust 21 to August 26, 2019. It was organised so that queries if freshers coiuld be addressed on the clubs at Bennett University.

Student Council Presi-dent Bhavya Patunjal pre-sided over the session and explained the structure of the Student Council to the freshers. His address was followed by Vice-President of Governance Harris Beg, who heads of all the cam-pus clubs and was the an-chor for the evening.

Aritra Sen, Vice-Pres-ident of Outreach team spoke about his depart-

ment of sponsorship and marketing, and how it provides exposure to the students. Triya Gulati, Vice-President of Publicity verbalised the responsi-bilities of sharing infor-mation amongst students. Vice-President Abhishek Dubey shared information about the management of major events in the uni-versity. A brief mention was made for Pankaj Jha-war, the Food and Dorm in-charge, IT Department Head Aryan Kapur, and Transportation in-charge Anubhav Lamba.

Members of 13 clubs presented themselves dur-ing the orientation.

Through workshops and competitions, the

Bennett Robotics Club and its secretaries, Alok Mishra and Kunchanapal-li Manohar, help the stu-dents gain an insight about the dynamics of robotics, and strengthens technical skills.

Alexis and its secre-taries, Saumya Teotia and Sohom Pramanik, work towards the welfare of the society, it inculcates the value of giving back to its members. It has organised visits to old age homes, or-phanages and helped the underprivileged get edu-cation.

Cerebrum club and its secretaries, Gurbani Singh and Nandana Varshney, help students with differ-ent interests find their own

crew, as this club is full of interesting miscellaneous societies, such as Anime and Manga Society, Public Speaking, Quizzing, De-bating Society, Flick Picks , Blog Department , Mar-keting and Outreach team, Writing, and Book Club.

The Spark Club and its secretaries, Neharika Bi-nani and Anshuman Agar-wal, work closely with the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the Bennett Hatchery. It nur-tures creativity, encour-ages future start-ups, and helps expand industrial and entrepreneurial con-tacts.

Advaita the music club, and its secretaries Lak-shay Sharma and Shedhit

Jayaswal, help provide a public platform for vocal-ists and instrumentalists where passion, rhythm, tunes and melody merge and enchant the soul.

Spicmacay (Society for the Promotion of In-dian Classical Music and Cultural Amongst Youth) helps students stay rooted to Indian culture, art, tra-dition, music, and dance. Rupalika Johri and Me-her Dhanjal, the secretar-ies, help organise events wherein they showcase events of ethnic dances, music, or art.

Model United Nation (MUN) Club headed by Aditi Bose and Sushmita Ramkumar, has organised various workshops, MUNs,

and mock MUNs which helps the students improve their public speaking and critical thinking capabili-ties.

Silhouette club, the art club, and its secre-taries, Nesikha Srivastav and Ashna Bajaj, encour-age the different art styles which improves the artistic dexterity of its members and creates magic on pa-per and canvas.

Ansh, the drama club, headed by Gauri Shuk-la and Rehan Verma has made laudable accom-plishments with plays like Love Ka Overdose, Karma and other plays through which they have created awareness about various aspects of life through the-

atrical art.Astronomy club and

its secretaries, Aanish P and Anushka Upadhyaya, helps you discover the wonders of the universe, and connects you to the sky through its fascinating equipments and trips.

Verve, the dance club and its secretaries Saurabh Tantia and Sneha Goldar, infuse vigour and excite-ment at every event. It en-courages self-expression through dancing.

The photography club, Isac, knits stories with shots from the ordinary. Heading this club is Abhi Bothera and Jai Chhabra, they guide the students in the field of photogra-phy, cinematography and

graphic designing with the help of skilled experts, techniques, equipment and trips.

Headed by Rishabh Bansa and Kabier Malik, the Nomads explore the adventures of nature with exciting experiences like trekking, camping, and river rafting, they believe in “Let’s travel like there’s no home, let’s find shel-ter then and there”. The club has organised trips to Chakarta, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Tirthan valley.

The enthusiasm of the students to register for their desired clubs could be seen in the M-block mess on 28 August when the club registrations took place.

Freshers get to know of club culture at Bennett University

Physical activi-ty is needed not only for physical fitness but also for mental wellbeing and creativity

- Sameer Soni

SUB EDITORSMADHURA MAZUMDAR,MUSKAN SRIVASTAVA (Page 1),

SONALIKA SINGH, SAMEER KHAN (Page 2), SEJAL SONI, STUTI AGNIHOTRI (Page 3), MEDHA SINHA, SHAKVI KAUL (Page 4), ANGELA OSMOND, DHANANJAY ARORA (Page

5),VARUN MENON, MANAN RAJ (Page 6),DISHTI TANDON, NAVYA MITTAL (Page 7),

APOORVA KASHYAP (Page 8)

REPORTERSPRANEET KAUR, MAYA SURIYANARAYANA, SHOBHIT

GUPTA,VARUN MENON, KARTIK PANDEY,ANUSHKA TYA-GI, APOORVA KASHYAP, SNEHIL SINGH, VARUN MENON, SWADHA SINGH, VANSHIKA SINGH, STUTI SINGH, MAD-HURA MAZUMDAR, ANUSHKA GUPTA, URVASHI GOYAL,-JASRAJ SINGH, SHARON VARGHESE, JAIKA PATTANAIK,

SONALIKA SINGH, SAMRIDHI THAPLIYAL, MUSKAN SRIVASTAVA, SULAGHNA BISWAL, TANMAY NIJHON, MEDHA SINHA, GALINA SHARMA,SAUMYA MISHRA,

SANGHMITRA, STUTI AGNIHOTRI, KARTIK JOSHI, MUS-KAN RAGHAV, SUPRIYA CHAND, MANAN RAJ,RITWIJ RAJ, EUSEBIA SANGMA, AYUSHI DUA, NAVYA MITTAL, LAVAN-YA MAANSURI,DHANANJAY ARORA, AKSHITA CHAPLOT,-

JAYA THAKUR, AVYA JOSHI,SHUBHRALI BEN,ROHAN DAYAL, SAHIBPREET SINGH,MIHIR RATHOD, ABHIMANYU SHARMA, ANGELA OSMOND, DIKSHA KANWAR, KARTIK

PANDEY, MISHTI MENON, PALAK AGARWAL.

Published by Sunil Saxena on behalf of the Times School of Media, Bennett University, Plot No. 8-11, Tech Zone II, Greater Noida, and printed by Veekay Printers, 140 Patpar Ganj, New Delhi- 110091. The Times of Bennett

is a training paper which is written, edited and produced entirely by students as a part of their academic work.

It is for internal circulation only.

SEPTEMBER 6, 2019 | VOL. 3 | ISSUE 1

By APOORVA KASHYAP

Bennett University stu-dents have formed a fo-rum that discusses serious issues. The Awaaz Club aims at helping students enhance their vocal skills and develop confidence for public speaking.

Awaaz president Yash Mishra believes democ-racy is all about asking questions and that’s why he created this club. “I thought about creating this platform when I was a first year journalism student. The aim is for the voices to be heard,” he said.

The first session of this club was held on August 12, 2019 with the topic of discussion being ‘Is the regime of Indira Gandhi coming back?’. The session started with journalism student Harris Beg talk-ing about Emergency and the changes done in the RTI Act. Freshers said they were happy to be a part of Awaaz.

Platform to raise your Awaaz