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Beacon THE NEWSLETTER

The Department of Sociology, Lady Shri Ram College for

Women

Vol. V, Issue No. IX Sunday, November 1 , 2015

“Reality continues to ruin my

life.”

Bill Watterson, The Complete Cal-

vin and Hobbes

An important lesson that those who study the social sciences learn is that

the kinds of meanings one accords to anything and everything in life are

external to the object of scrutiny itself.

For instance, the laptop the writer is using right is nothing but a bunch of

keys and circuits wrapped in a synthetic material probably mined from

South Africa. The meaning(s) this laptop holds for said person today is

resultant of the invention of the gadget, the multi-billion dollar industry it

forms in today’s global economy, the history of the brand of the laptop,

the materials used to make the gadget and perhaps also the number and

extent of workers and tertiary employees responsible for extracting the

elements used to make the laptop, making and programming it and en-

suring the process through which the author ended up buying the laptop.

What should also be added to this complex of meanings is the general

purpose the writer uses this laptop for; the kind of information this laptop

processes. Add to this the socio-economic background of the writer and

voila! One gets access to the kinds of meanings that are accorded by the

writer to this laptop.

This is not to say that somebody indulging in this kind of an analysis will

completely understand all the meanings accorded to the object con-

cerned. But this will certainly open one’s mind to the several possibilities

that happen to be available for understanding the meanings accorded to

an object.

The all-time saying ’Life is what you make of it’ then gains clarity. All peo-

ple and objects are thus like the kind of meanings that are attached to

them. Thus, a spade is a spade only if we call it so.

Inside this Issue

Quote–Unquote

National News 2

International News

2

The Economy 2,3

Sports 3

Arts and Enter-tainment

3

A Thousand Words

4

Vox Populi 5

Notes In The Margin

6

Credits 7

Editorial

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INDIA’S MEMBERSHIP TO NSG The Chairperson of NSG (The Nuclear Suppliers Group), Rafael Grossi, will begin consultations with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and MEA officials regarding India’s mem-bership to the elite group of nuclear export. Pakistan and Israel, who are not signatories to the NPT (Non-

Proliferation Treaty), could apply. SHIV SENA ASSUALTS RTI ACTIV-IST Mallikarjun Bhaikatti, an RTI activist, was assaulted and he face was be-fouled with black ink. Bhaikatti re-vealed that approximately 14000 sq. ft. of illegal construction was carried out in Latur’s Shahu College. In Latur district of Marathwada re-gion, the activist was beaten with an iron rod in presence of over 4000 students. Abhay Salunkhe, a local Shiv Sena activist, labeled Bhaikatti a ‘blackmailer’ and justified the attack. GUJARAT SEC RELUCTANT TO IM-PLEMENT NOTA The State Election Commission of Gujarat was criticized by the Gujarat High Court for its reluctance to im-plement NOTA (none of the above) in the impending civic elections in the State. Considering the Supreme Court’s decision, the right to vote in favour of none of the candidates is an essential right of the electorate.

INDIA-AFRICA FORUM SUMMIT At the summit in New Delhi, 41 heads of government from 54 Af-rican countries were present; thus demonstrating the impor-tance both sides attach to mutual

SECOND CHILD ALLOWED, CHINA In a major bid to ease family plan-ning restrictions, China has allowed its couples to have a second child to combat the problem of increas-ing aged-population with a fast diminishing young working force. The Communist nation had applied its family planning programme strictly in the 1970's to control the escalating population. This how-ever has reduced the young able- bodied work force of the country as one in every three Chinese would be above 60 by 2050. Over 53,000 couples have already ap-plied for a second child. MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE, OVER 200 DEAD A 7.5 magnitude quake struck the north-eastern region of Afghani-stan; its epicenter in Jurm. Tremors were felt as far as New Delhi. Over 200 people have been killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the worst case being of 12 young schoolgirls who were killed in a stampede while fleeing from their school building in Taloqan in West Badakhstan. Rescue and relief op-erations were supported by the Taliban. Apart from the many peo-ple killed, hundreds of houses were destroyed which would be a cause of immense hardship due to the approaching winter season.

BANK OF JAPAN HOPES FOR ECO-NOMIC RECOVERY The Central Bank of Japan keeps its fingers crossed, hoping that the several policies implemented by the government will boost the al-ready struggling economy. The Bank is under great pressure to expand its asset-buying and quanti-

National News

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ties. This summit was the largest gathering of foreign dignitaries in New Delhi since the 1983 Non-Aligned Summit. Prime Minister Modi announced concessional credit of $10 billion to strengthen economic co-operation with Africa. India enjoys goodwill in the African continent due to its anti-colonial position in the post-Independence era.

NEPAL ELECTS FIRST WOMAN PRESI-DENT Bidhya Devi Bhandari became the first ever woman President of Nepal by de-feating, the esteemed politician, K B Gurung in a landmark victory. Bhan-dari, the daughter of a school teacher and the wife of Madan Bhandari, an eminent politician is known as a per-son who is always candid in her expres-sion. She is the leader of the banned Communist party of Nepal and her election represents a sharp polariza-tion of the politics in Nepal. POWERS MEET IN VIENNA OVER SYR-IAN WAR The major world powers backing rival sides on four-year old Syrian civil war met in Vienna to engage in diplomatic talks. The USA and its allies support the rebels and Russia, Iran and its allies support the Syrian government in the civil bloodshed. The war began after an uprising against Syrian President Ba-shar- al Assad and has killed over 250,000 people and forced more than 11 million people to leave their home-land. Most of the countries are of the view that Mr. Assad has to go, either through force or through a political process and to discuss this issue the allies came forward for an informal meeting which is just a minor step to-wards resolving the massacre.

International News

The Economy

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tative easing policies as weak ex-ports and slumped energy costs have stopped it from reaching its inflation target of 2%. POST-MAGGI SHUTDOWN, PROFIT PLUNGES BY 60% After the Maggi ban, the profits of Nestle India have declined by 60.1% in Q3 to close at ₹124 crore as com-pared to last year’s profits at ₹ 2,557 crore. Since Maggi accounts for more than 20 percent of Nestle sales in India, a ban on the pet prod-uct of Nestle affected it grossly when the company reported its first net loss of 64 crore in the last quar-ter. Maggi is however set to make its comeback again after the High Court of Bombay set aside the ban against it. AIRASIA BUYOUT TALKS Tony Fernandes, the founder of AirAsia founder and his partner, Kamarudin Menarun began delib-erations with banks to buy Asia's no.1 airlines after its shares plunged down. The Malaysian business ty-coon borrowed the money from Credit Suiss and CIMB against their 19% indirect holding in AirAsia to help fund their private investments. However, the fall in the stock prices of AirAsia has breached the collat-eral clauses of the loan agreement due to which Fernandes has initi-ated talks regarding the possibility of a management buyout.

HONOUR FOR 1968 CHAMPION Bob Beamon was presented the ‘outstanding performance’ prize on Thursday. The Association of Na-tional Olympic Committees honored Beamon’s stunning long-jump World record set at the 1968 Mexico City

Games. MS RATHORE SECURES TOP POSITIONS On Friday, at the Army Equestrian Cen-tre, MS Rathore clinched the top two positions, astride Lancelot and Savanah respectively, ahead of Sehaj Virk astride Christy in the World Dressage Chal-lenge. FOOTBALL GUIDE English Premier League: Chelsea v Liverpool (STAR Sports 4, 6.05 p.m.) Crystal Palace v Man United (STAR Sports 1, 8.20 p.m.) Bundesliga: Werder Bremen v Dortmund (STAR Sports HD1, 8 p.m.) Wolfsburg v Bayer Leverkusen (STAR Sports HD1, 11 p.m.)

MOVIE Titli, which released on 30th October, is a must-watch. Set in the Badlands of Delhi, it traces the life of Titli, the youngest member of a violent gang-family who desires to escape from the suffocating environment of crime and violence. His attempts are however thwarted and he is forcefully married of. He finds an unexpected ally in his wife; Nellu has her fair share of frus-trated aspirations. Together they form a pact to escape. Starring Ranvir Shorey, Shivani Raghu-vanshi and Amit Sial in well carved out roles, the film explores the concept of whether escaping something actually means freedom or not. PLAY Akshara theatre will showcase Gopal Sharman's acclaimed masterpiece ‘The Ramayana’ from a different and deeply human perspective. The play explores

the age old mythological charac-ters of Rama and Sita intricately and represents one of the best screenplays in India. Jalabala Vaidya is doing the opening and the closing acts in the current ver-sion.

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Sports

Arts & Entertainment

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A Thousand Words

This picture was clicked in Chandni Chowk, New Delhi in 2015

There is a surreal quality to this photograph which reminds one of how irrespective of where one is headed, he/she always returns home. Similarly, irrespective of how good or bad the day is, one will have to relive it in the future.

The Prussian philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote with absolution on many issues and themes. One of them will now be discussed here. Nietzsche was very involved with bringing ideas that were glorified in Ancient Greece but which were rendered obsolete by organised Christianity. One of these was that of amor fati.

This term literally means 'love for one's fate'. A concept propounded in most ancient theological systems, it basically m ea n s c o m in g to t er ms w i th o n e 's f a t e , r e ga r d l es s o f i t s n a tu r e . In light of this idea, it is only apt that the Theory of Eternal Recurrence be referred to here. Now Nietzsche did not come up with the theory himself, but he sure did promulgate said theory.

In a nutshell, this theory is based on the assumption that there are a finite number of elements in this universe pre-sent in an infinite period of time. Since there are only a limited number of configurations that can then be made with regard to the same, things are bound to repeat themselves in exactly the same way they happened before. Time according to this theory is cyclical and not linear.

Thus, if one was bound to live his life in exactly the same way he once did, he had better come to terms with his own fate. Ergo, amor fati.

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Vox Populi processes like ‘rectifying’ text-books. The question that arises is: Is there any possibility of imparting indige-nous knowledge in the presence of ideas from foreign lands? In this particular case, even though many new chapters promote the idea of woman empowerment, must these changes be brought at the cost of legendary ideas such as those of Mandela? Are foreign ideas and literature of no ‘value’? And most importantly, does this government-revised course offer an equal voice to the myriad perspec-tives representing all communities of the Indian society? Re-structuring education seems to raise more questions than it is able to answer. Localizing the syllabus, in considera-tion of its dubiety revision, will have a tacit impact on minds of students and teachers, i.e. it may isolate the new generation from global ideas and consequently lead to the crea-tion of a closed-education system (this reminds me of India ‘pre-liberalisation’; a plan that is logically expected to fail). We mustn’t let these changes pass without completely understanding their implications. As far as Mr Wordsworth is concerned, his daf-fodils will always find pages to bloom in as long as children are free thinking and knowledge-seeking. I uhtceare about the possible im-pacts Wordsworth’s absence may have on the students who will in the future, read an eighth grade English textbook. But only time will tell.

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Goodbye Mr Wordsworth I was a student of eighth grade when my English textbook introduced me to Mr Wordsworth. Even though he seemed unduly impressed by the most unimpressive yellow flower, the passion expressed through his simple stream of words completely changed the way I came to understand litera-ture. I began to haunt libraries. Recently, a leading newspaper re-ported that the Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education (RBSE) is all set to overhaul English textbooks for Classes I to XII by focusing more on local and national leaders by replac-ing works written by foreign authors. One of the many changes in text-books of the RBSE will be the removal of a chapter on the iconic statesman Nelson Mandela; this chapter will be replaced with a work titled ‘Tribes in Rajasthan’. However, Rudyard Kipling will be mentioned in the revised syllabus. Unfortunately, Wordsworth will not find a place to talk about his yellow flowers. The thirteen year old in me is quite upset. Vasudev Devnani's, Education Minis-ter of Rajasthan, concept of 'local to global' potentiated the textbook re-writing committee to redesign the syllabus in a manner compatible with the 'local culture and value system'. Textbooks have been a powerful me-dium of influencing public ideas and morale since time immemorial. Pre-cisely subsequent to the Second World War, many countries around the globe saw governments using textbooks as a medium to recon-struct favourable ideologies and spread a positive image of their func-tioning. From Germany to Japan, many countries have used textbooks

for not only altering pre-existing per-ceptions but also for creating new ones. There have also been efforts to use textbooks to impart a more secu-lar, objective and unbiased education but such efforts have often been paled in comparison to the efforts made to spread a specific hegemonic ideology. "NCERT textbooks will be rewritten according to the aim and objects of the nation so that it inculcates feeling of patriotism among children. Moder-nity is not westernisation. We want modernity with Indian base (marked by) patriotism and spiritualism.’’ This quote by BJP leader Murli Mano-har Joshi perfectly describes how, for our government, textbooks transcend the simple purpose of increasing liter-acy. Prime Minister Modi and HRD Minister Smriti Irani have been under scrutiny over the past year for declar-ing plans that may arbitrarily colour the content of Indian school-textbooks in favour of the ideology of the BJP party. Many of their ideas promote the usage of ancient texts such as the Upanishads and the Ve-das to develop teaching material “encapsulating’’ the glories of the Hindu “golden age’; also, replacing foreign languages like German with Sanskrit and doing away with Mr Wordsworth (yes; it is difficult for me to deal with Mr Wordsworth’s fare-well) has further raised questions concerning the government’s future intentions with respect to the quality of the content of school-textbooks. The rationale given by the change-seeking organisations has been that the rewriting of history is crucial be-cause ideologies legitimize their pre-sent position on the basis of their ‘constructed’ positive role in our na-tion’s past. Preserving the knowledge left behind by our ancestors and mak-ing use of indigenous knowledge banks is labelled as the main aim of the government when it undertakes

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Notes In The Margin

Today was one of those days. Those days when the ideas in your head refuse to materialize into coherent words. It is almost like the sight of a blank page has scared them into still-ness. Suddenly none of the things that you have been thinking about seem to be a ‘good topic’ for an arti-cle. Moreover, everything you write seems to be of substandard quality. You write and delete and write and delete and write …the only amusing thing is the sight of the cursor blink-ing and moving back and forth across the page. How can you fight a writer’s block? Especially when you do not have the luxury to wait until your creative juices are strong enough to break through the obstruction that is pre-venting their free flow. You either write something superficial and pre-tentious (which is what I was initially planning to do) or you contemplate on the obstruction…on the blank page that seems to reflect the blank-ness of your mind. What is so daunting about a block? Its essential characteristic of ‘not-thereness’ itself. And in a world where uselessness has lost all its use value, not-thereness is something that cannot be tolerated. Spending time with your loved ones frequently is fun but unproductive. Letting your thoughts wander like the spirals you draw in your notebook while study-ing for exams is a distraction. Agree-ing to put some effort into a presen-tation which will not be marked is unnecessary while working on some-thing that won’t grant you recogni-tion, prizes, certificates or a bullet point that can be added to your CV is mere naivety. And of course, doing a

discipline that does not ensure proper career prospects is being foolish about your future. Whatever you do, there has to be a point. I know that what I have said is quite problematic. Not everyone has the luxury to be unproductive or ‘take a break to figure things out’. People like me who have privilege or (to put it more mildly) ‘good luck’ on their side can very easily do so. But the fact that ways of measuring worth and useful-ness are increasingly becoming uni-form and rigid is also a reality. Coming back to the discussion on not-thereness, the philosopher Herbert Marcuse (don’t worry, I read him for an assignment and a few chapters from one of his books are there in my syllabus) said that it is in the realm of ‘that which is not there’ that the oppo-sition to ‘that which is there’ can be born. The reason why we believe the given concrete reality to be true and rational is because various forms of control, a discussion of which is not possible here, make sure that other imagined and possible realities get thwarted leading to the creation of a one dimensional society. Take another example from literature. In the book called “Mister God, This is Anna” by Fynn, there is an incident in which some people, including the four year old Anna and the author, are hav-ing a discussion in a dark corner of a street. One of the things pointed out is that when it is dark, the street can be re-imagined in ways other than how it looks during the daytime. One knows that there is a street lamp at the cor-ner of the street but since one cannot see it in the dark, one may presume that it is not there or that something

else stands in its place. It made me think about why children are made to be scared of the dark…it is a fear of the unknown, the dis-orientation of not having enough light to define things. But whereas the light shows us this world, the darkness holds the possibility of a million others. So what if you have a block, a mo-ment of not-thereness? When you think of something and put it on paper, there is no chance of that paper having something else. But a blank page is heavier with possi-bilities than a paper with some-thing on it. What if I left the paper blank today? It would have proba-bly made you think more than any one of my articles.

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A Note on ‘Not-Thereness’

R.V. Maykinsense

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Credits

Editor Puja Shukla

Sub-editor Chitrangada Singh

Photographer Harshita Sinha

Columnist Kamalini Hegde

Vox Populi Neeti Prakash

Correspondent Anwesha Chatterjee

Layout In-charge Tahira Bhatti

Contact us at: beaconlsr@gmail.com

Our website: www.beaconsociology.weebly.com

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