Independence Day 2014: Our USR

Members of the UoH Community,

My warmest good wishes to all on the occasion of the nation’s 68th Independence Day. Each year we collect to celebrate our independence, and to reaffirm our belief in the democratic values that hold us together as a country, even as we find our regional boundaries changing.

This is the first Independence Day celebration for the University of Hyderabad as we find ourselves located in the new state of Telangana. The transformation comes with new hopes and fresh challenges, even as we strive to find our feet in the new circumstances. One thing is clear, we are the premier research University of the new state, and we must pay our role to educate and we must fulfill our destiny, to educate, to enable, and to liberate.

The sense of liberation offered by education was beautifully captured by the students of our University at a recent show that they had, at the Salar Jung Museum. The title of the show was (taken from two lines from a poem, The moon is a kite) How strong the Breeze, How precious the Flight.

The University is committed to providing a strong breeze- sometimes as a strong gust that pushes you off your feet, sometimes as a tornado, that churns up your thoughts and makes you re-evaluate your positions, and sometimes as that strong but gentle wind that slowly moulds your ideas and passions into values that will last. The winds of change blow gentle sometimes, but often not, and the University is a place where we willingly enter to experience that change.

And the flight- how valuable it is when truly earned! The degrees are just one small part of it: the true value of the education that the University provides comes in the opportunities it gives to change ones life. And as so many of our students have discovered, sometimes while they are here, but more often after they have left, the University is a great springboard that can help you to reach as high as you want to. The wings you earn at the University will allow you to soar as high as your ambitions can take you.

In terms of resources, the past year has been a difficult one: we have had to bear the full brunt of the economic downturn. Our funding has been way below what we have needed, and indeed below the level that a University such as ours merits. We have been ranked among the top universities in India for the year 2014 in three independent surveys, by India Today, The Week and Careers 360. Ours is among the best Universities in the country and always ranked number one in the South. The NAAC puts us consistently at the top end of their scale. When excellence is recognized, it also needs to be nurtured, so we can only hope that with the change in the scenario at the centre, there will be some relief on this front for us all.

But there are things that we can justifiably be proud of. Our faculty and students have been recognized nationally and internationally for their research. One significant feature of our research over the years is the growth of the applied component – the number of patents that are filed and that are awarded have been increasing steadily.

I think that this is a welcome development, that the work that is done in the University should be more applicable and relevant to our society, to our times. Our University- as we all widely recognize- is a haven, a refuge that provides a wonderful environment in which we can pursue our academic and intellectual activities. We are very fortunate to be able to live and work here, and I believe we all appreciate the deep privilege that we have.

It is important that we should reflect upon how we can give back to the society that nurtures us. For many years now, there has been the notion of a “Corporate Social Responsibility”, recognition that any entity, particularly a corporation that makes profit, has both a social and a moral responsibility to the society in which it exists. We must pay attention to the manner in which we use public resources, else those very resources will be irretrievably lost to us by overuse and misuse. In our country, this social responsibility or CSR has been quantified, and on 1 April this year, the government of India implemented new CSR guidelines requiring companies to spend 2% of their net profit on social development.

What Social Responsibility does a University- our University say- have? We have usually answered this question implicitly, be it by doing what other universities do, by responding to directives that come from time to time from the outside, by admitting students from a wide spectrum of backgrounds, by having policies, explicit or implicit, that address a range of abilities.

Today I would like to suggest that we must take the opportunity to make our University Social Responsibility – our USR if you will- explicit. We must look more closely at the real needs of our society and each segment of our UoH community can do its own bit to address these needs. To start with, let us remember that our campus is in our custodianship, and we must nurture it carefully to provide a lung for the city. Our lakes must add to the water table. Our campus should be a refuge, not just for us, but also for the flora and fauna of Telengana, for the region. We should be careful keepers of the land and not owners or exploiters. This is a responsibility that devolves upon us all- the students, the teachers, and the staff- as we live and breathe here.

Our teachers share the USR in the most fundamental ways- we must live up to our label of being a research University, the best in the country. Our research must strive to be applicable and useful, and there is not an area of enquiry that does not have a chance of being so. Application is not just a matter of patents and products- research that opens our eyes, teaches us new perspectives, gives us new vision, new ideas- all these come from any field, and it is imperative that we make this our responsibility in as explicit a manner as possible.

But beyond that, we must participate in society more meaningfully. Opening our doors to as many students who can be accommodated is one- for every student here, there are almost 20 who could not be here. We therefore must address this need as soon as possible, and as effectively as possible. USR would suggest that we need to evolve at least as much as our society is evolving, in what we teach, how we teach it, and how we prepare our students to cope effectively with the India that is just outside our walls, and the India that lies beyond, both in space and in time.

Interacting with the city and beyond the limits of Hyderabad is important, especially in this day when local and global are so interchangeable and mixed into one another. Holding our conferences in the city- as the IAMCR that we concluded last month, the Dynamics Days conference that we held in Chennai, or the Women’s World Congress that we will have next week- is one way. Integrating into the fabric of our city, state or country in as involved a way as possible is another feature of what I see as our USR, and doubtless there are other ways that will occur to each one of us.

There is nothing very new in this. We have long used our truly national days- 26 January and 15 August- to reflect upon our journey as a nation, and to set agendas for the future. The social responsibility that I am alluding to today has always been a part of our consciousness, especially when we realize how fortunate we all feel to live in a free country, and in a society which, while imperfect, has sound democratic values. For long our gaze has been an inward one, which looks at our rights and privileges. We need also to turn it outward, and look at our responsibilities as a University, as we help to create the India of the future, the India that we all dream of: an India of prosperity, an India of progress, and an India of equality.

Jai Hind!

UoH on Wikipedia

hen searching for information on almost anything – and on our university in particular- one usually checks Wikipedia. Do that, and you are led to a page where the information (such as it is) is presented somewhat whimsically. For instance, one finds that the university imparts knowledge, in the Basic Sciences, Applied Sciences, Medical Science, Engineering Science, the Social Sciences, the Humanities, Arts, Fine Arts, Media Studies and Communication. In addition, traditional subjects like Folklore Studies, Health Psychology, Dalit Studies, Women’s Studies, Neural and Cognitive Sciences are also taught.

Traditional? If anything, the last named subjects are very far from traditional. But there other other inadequacies one can discover upon reading through the (rather dreary) text. There are no images, no photographs of Mushroom Rock, nothing. The description accompanying  Sukoon (सुकून) says (and I quote verbatim) that ‘Sukoon’ is an annual cultural meet for the university students. Organised by the Students’ Union, it is held in the March at the Open Dias. ‘Sukoon'(सुकून) means ‘Peace’. In this colourful event, many competitions are held for and by the students, like ‘Mr.& Ms.Sukoon Competition’, Rangoli, Shayari, Quiz, Antaakshari, Debate in English-Telugu-Hindi-Urdu, Dance, Singing, Spot Painting, etc. Other events like DJ night, Quawali, traditional folk musical events, etc. are organised. The School of Economics, we are told, offers M.A, MPhil and Ph.D in Economics, and optional subjects like Transional Economics, Law and Economics, Financial Econometrics, and Health Economics. Spelling errors apart, surely we can do better than this!

Clearly, given the nature of the Wikipedia project, in the end we alone are responsible for this. I know that several of us at the University contribute to Wikipedia- in fact there are regular meetings of the Telugu Wikipedians at the Golden Threshold campus- but it remains a reality that the existing UoH page on the English Wikipedia is really not up to the mark. Nor is the one in Telugu, regrettably.

A little effort can change that, and that effort has to come from us. Its sometimes easier to be inspired by what others have done for themselves, so here are quick links to the relevant pages of some representative universities here in India as well as elsewhere. I’d like to ask all of you at the University to take a look at the UoH page and edit it to improve the quality of the information. And the quantity and the nature of the information as well. After all, this is often the first face of the University that others will see…

Good Khabar

A recent newspaper report caught my eye, and given my fledgling attempts to learn Telugu, it felt vaguely satisfying to read that Speaking a Second Language May Delay Dementia. But it was infinitely more satisfying to learn that the research that led to this finding was done (in part) at the UoH, in our very own CNCS, the Centre for Neural and Cognitive Sciences.

Professor Bapiraju (of the School of Computer and Information Sciences and Coordinator of CNCS) wrote in to tell me that the article in the journal Neurology (the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology) that went online yesterday was the  product of collaboration among CNCS, NIMS and Osmania University, as part of a Cognitive Science Initiative project funded by the Department of Science and Technology. The full list of authors of the paper,  Bilingualism delays age at onset of dementia, independent of education and immigration status, are Suvarna Alladi,  Thomas H. Bak,  Vasanta Duggirala, Bapiraju Surampudi,  Mekala Shailaja,  Anuj Kumar Shukla, Jaydip Ray Chaudhuri, and Subhash Kaul, Anuj Shukla being an M. Phil. student of the Centre, while the other authors are at NIMS, OU, and Edinburgh.

The main features of the study, as summarized in the abstract to the paper read as follows: Overall, bilingual patients developed dementia 4.5 years later than the monolingual ones. A significant difference in age at onset was found across Alzheimer disease dementia as well as frontotemporal dementia and vascular dementia, and was also observed in illiterate patients. There was no additional benefit to speaking more than 2 languages. The bilingual effect on age at dementia onset was shown independently of other potential confounding factors such as education, sex, occupation, and urban vs rural dwelling of subjects.This is the largest study so far documenting a delayed onset of dementia in bilingual patients and the first one to show it separately in different dementia subtypes. It is the first study reporting a bilingual advantage in those who are illiterate, suggesting that education is not a sufficient explanation for the observed difference. The findings are interpreted in the context of the bilingual advantages in attention and executive functions.

This work has captured the imagination of the entire world, it seems! A blog from Brazil says: Mais um motivo para falar inglês (ou espanhol, francês, esperanto…) namely Another reason to speak English (or Spanish, French, Esperanto…). Newspapers across the world have picked up the article, from the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS to the LA Times… ​Professor Huntington Potter, Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Programs at the University of Colorado in Denver has been quoted as calling the study “very definitive” in an interview with MedPage Today. “The fact that this study was carried out in India where many people are illiterate … and still the benefit was seen, bolsters the idea that cognitive reserve can be acquired in the absence of formal schooling,” he said.

Heartening news. And also very heartening that this work was done in part at our University. What better way to underscore our belief in the importance of multidisciplinary effort!  Je सोचता हूँ என்று நான் always అనుకుంటున్నాను!

The DOI link to the article for those interested is:

doi:10.1212/01.wnl.0000436620.33155.a4

Turbulence

The other day, at a book release at our neighbouring Central University, MANUU,  I heard the chief guest quote Allama Iqbal. Apparently (or so I gathered) when his son was setting off for higher studies in London, the great poet said to him: … خدا تجھے کسی طوفان سے آشنا کر دے کے تیرے باہر کی موجوں میں اضطراب نہیں  (Khuda tujhe kisi toofan se ashna kar de, ke tere bahr ki mojon mein iztirab naheen).

I’ve looked for translations, and while none of them captures the nuance of the Urdu, the closest I could find is  May God grant you a storm! The voyage of your life is on too placid an ocean…

Literally, though the verse reads in translation, “May God bless you with some storm, because the waves in your ocean (of self) are devoid of agitation (turmoil)”. There is the resonance with Shakespeare, when Brutus talks of the “tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; […] And we must take the current when it serves“, as well as the famous Chinese curse, May you live in interesting times! 

The appositeness of the advice is something I have had occasion to reflect upon, as we pass through these interesting times. We at the UoH have such great privileges- our campus, its freedoms, its autonomy- and one cannot but feel that we should be doing something more. More what, one might well ask, so to turn the question around, is what we do enough? Just enough, barely enough or well enough? These are questions for which there are many answers, so all things considered, I think it is preferable that we have the occasional iztirab, a little anxiety, a little uneasiness. A state when we are not too comfortable is more conducive to self-examination, and thereby one hopes, to more discussion, creativity, and thereby to evolution.

But not too much discomfort, though! In the fluid case, in some ways the most interesting situation is that of intermittency, when there is smooth flow much of the time, interrupted by staccato bursts of turbulence. As much as we need the iztirab to evolve, we also need some undisturbed period to think, and to consolidate… But that is not a luxury one can always be assured of! There are enough forces at work and play both inside the University and outside it, that make this an ongoing challenge.

The images of the turbulent waves above are by artists whose work has been very inspirational: the iconic and familiar print by Hokusai and closer to home, the wave by Krishna Reddy, the great printmaker who lives in New York and who taught for many years at NYU.

The New Year, and Campus Walk 2013

Let me start with Good wishes to All for the coming year!

This New Year’s walk is dedicated to Nirbhaya and is being coordinated by our University’s  NSS.  The suggestion is to go clockwise (seeing it from above, that is) around the campus perimeter. Starting at the Admin building, we will go via the Health Centre to the small gate, CMSD, through the woods, along the wall to the Mushroom rock, to the TNGO colony… coming back via the South Campus. Here is a poorly edited map of the route, cobbled together with the help of Google Maps. We start at B and end at A.

I look forward to seeing you on the 1st. We start at 2:00 pm (for any updates, watch this space).

Gender (In)Sensitivity

In the past few months we have, to put it mildly, been going through a difficult time on the matter of campus security. There can be a fine line that runs between the need to respect the privacy of individuals and the duty of ensuring the security of us all. This is something that a campus as large and as diverse as ours can only hope to learn slowly.

That said, the incidents threw up the not entirely surprising fact that our campus is quite insensitive on matters relating to gender. The scale of the problems have helped to highlight just how inappropriate it is that in this day and age we can be quite so clueless as to how to deal with gender issues on a campus that is as educated as ours… It is not that we don’t have committees such as CASH (the Committee Against Sexual Harassment), but many of the incidents are difficult to bring up. And there is the daily subjection to mild and even self-unaware forms of insensitive behaviour that one gets inured to… But when it deals with matters of security, it is quite another matter.

I therefore requested a colleague to investigate the reality of this, to respond to specific complaints,  and some of the suggestions that emanated are given below. These suggestions have been made following a number of interviews with students, faculty, staff, security, and they have, for the most part, been accepted by the administration, with a view to change the existing environment.

The first thing that was pointed out is that the issue affects all sections of our community: students, staff, and faculty. And “gender sensitization” is needed in all sectors as well, since the overall atmosphere is created by all. On a given day, the campus has anywhere between 10 and 15 thousand inhabitants, and it is a challenge to anyone to provide a safe atmosphere for all. The first recommendation is that

• The campus needs a resourceful, committed, engaged, alert, approachable and gender sensitive Security Officer who is knowledgeable about the complexities of the present context and thus can assess the problems that emerge in a community that has approximately 6000 to 15000 people at a given point of time in the day (including employees residing outside, private personnel selling services and workers and construction work labourers) in its precincts.This university is in campus where the dominant age group is from 17 to 25. In addition to providing formal knowledge, University campuses also offer students with a possibility to engage, experience and learn to live with difference of all kinds-social, cultural and sexual. The philosophy of any security system should be based on the principles of engaging with stakeholders in terms of freedom and responsibility.

Since security persons are those that are most responsible for creating a safe environment, it is further necessary that

• Security personnel both permanent and temporary have to be given training regarding gender sensitivity. This training can be similar to the training given to the police by the Central Government and the State Governments. The administration should make this a requirement and part of its contract with the private security company. (Asmita, the Resource Centre for Women, Hyderabad has such programmes.)

A related suggestion that should not be so difficult to implement is that

• Fifty per cent of the security staff has to be women and they should also be present at all the gates. Additionally they should be available at night time when there is an incident involving women. Furthermore, students may be asked to volunteer with security personnel for joint patrolling of the campus.

But we need to be open about this:

• A gender sensitive successful security plan can be implemented only when there is continuous communication, dialogue and coordination between various stakeholders (students, teaching and non-teaching employees and their families, those selling private services etc. and security personnel) and the providers (Security personnel, Engineering dept, Water and sanitation dep., and hostel administration). The University should ensure that such a plan is put in practice.

The main need, though, is for the creation of an environment:

• Gender sensitivity and the creation of enabling non-hostile culture for women needs to be the goal of the University administration. It should ensure that all security personnel together with other teaching and non-teaching employees and students understand what constitutes a hostile environment for women in terms of speech, bodily stances and conduct.

The message could not be louder or clearer: We need to act, and with some urgency. 

There are however two not entirely unrelated issues that we should focus on, as some of the comments on this post indicate. (a) Security needs enhancement in general. (b) Awareness on gender issues needs improvement all around.

The implicit assumption here is that security staff who are more gender sensitive will provide better security. And that is a testable theory…

IMBY

The Urban Dictionary will tell you that NIMBY is an acronym for Not In My BackYard, to describe the attitude of those who will want to benefit from the advantages of a particular action, but who find that the disadvantages are suddenly unacceptable. The usual situation where nimbyism is typically decried is in an urban setting- opposing a road or a shopping mall coming up too close to ones home, for instance. Of course things are not always a clear case of either/or, so there can be both good and bad connotations to being nimbyistic.

By extension, IMBY describes the opposite attitude. Which would, of course, be acceptable in many situations, especially when there is a clear idea of the greater public good. Regrettably though, and this is the subject of the present post, when it comes to the matter of waste disposal on our campus, imbyism is simply unacceptable. The photographs here are of various sites in and around the central part, behind the Science complex, and near the School of Humanities. More could have been taken, and some of them would illustrate that even less desirable stance: IMNBY or In My Neighbour’s BackYard!

Many of you will have noticed that there is a concerted effort being undertaken to “clean-up” the campus. The quotes are there to underscore the fact that it is not an effort to prettify  the campus in some very artificial way- as superficially attractive as a manicured campus might be, it is not the way our UoH campus is. However, with the dense undergrowth that has been uncared for for many years, the foliage has covered a multitude of sins, mostly that of the way in which we dispose of our waste. Everywhere one can see discarded bottles- both plastic and glass, styrofoam packaging, all manner of trash and garbage. A catalogue of what we throw away would reveal a little too much of ourselves… and I will not go into that. But it can all be seen and sometimes the close proximity of a garbage can makes it all the more tragic.

One spot that worried me a great deal is the pool that has formed behind Gopes, one that is dangerously close to a water source. Waste management on the campus is a joint responsibility – if the system is to work in any manner at all, it needs constant supervision. Drains need to be kept flowing, so trash needs to be segregated and disposed of properly… while making sure that blockages are removed periodically. There is no other solution- we need to work together on this, and on a continual basis.

In the end, it is our campus. Emphasis on our. And keeping it clean and safe is something that all of us should want. So while it is nice to have slogans- Clean Campus, Green Campus or Mana Campus, Mana Hridayam and all that- its essential to go beyond them and see that public spaces on the campus stay unpolluted. That would be the best way we can make the campus habitable for all its denizens, the flora and the fauna, in addition to us…

Mee Kosam: UoH Podcasts

In an effort to take some instruction out of the classroom- both for the teacher and the taught- Vasuki Belavadi of the SN School’s Department of  Communication has set up our new Podcast site, uohpodcast.in.

The About Us page says: UOH PODCASTS features audio and video content from University of Hyderabad, India’s premier central university. It provides you with access to audios/videos of excellent public lectures by eminent personalities, interviews, comments by experts on various issues & tutorials. Some podcasts featured on this website are also from Bol Hyderabad 90.4 FM, the university’s campus radio station. Content on this site is being updated regularly. All content on this website is free for download.

These podcasts can be listened/ watched either online or downloaded to your computer/ mobiles/ mp3 / video players. You can also listen to them on iTunes.

One one page there is listed, as of now, a set of interviews with some recent eminent visitors- Robert Kanigel, Leela Samson, and David Shulman and Radhika Hegde, but this is just a representative fraction of the really exciting speakers we have had in the last few months… Clearly we need more.

In addition, there is a set of 5 minute long lessons, Spoken Telugu. Put together by Vasuki along with Pawan Kumar Pammi of the Telugu Department and a group of enthusiastic RJ’s at BOL FM, these bit sized instructional programs are an engaging way to learn the language. So far I have managed to learn to count along with Dipu and Ashwathi.   Their charming promo for “Your Daily cup of Telugu” made me listen, not once, but at least padi times- Feel left out amongst your Telugu friends? Want to learn spoken Telugu? This series of podcasts will be a fun, intuitive way of learning spoken Telugu. The best podcasts on the internet to learn the language as it’s really spoken. Authentic.

Clearly this is site we’d like to build up, other lectures, other languages, anything you’d like to learn or just listen to… In the end, this is really for you- the University community, and more generally, for everyone, so please write in to the podcast team,  at admin@uohpodcasts.in and let them know what you would like to hear.

Also check out Vasuki’s Blog to learn how to make a podcast! Apart from a zillion other things in communicating. Great byline, Learn to Learn!

Finding your Mojo

The other day when discussing the general state of affairs with a group of colleagues, I was talking about one of the main problems confronting a University that is growing older, namely finding relevance in the face of that endemic cynicism that comes with age.

Call it what you will – Finding your mojo, finding your groove, its about getting back something that was once there, a remembrance of things past, the way we were.

Apropos of which, a festival like the one we just experienced, last week’s SUKOON was, in many ways, refreshing. Although I felt it was poorly timed (it was too hot during the days, and many campus children had Board examinations) it was a good opportunity for students to get together and participate in group events, compete, interact. There were small things that could have been done differently, and  maybe next time around they will, but all in all, such an event focuses the vibrancy and vitality of our student life.

That said, there is a need for us at the UoH to find our mojo once again. Seriously, the urban dictionary will tell you that the word means “Self-confidence, Self-assuredness. As in `basis for belief in ones self in a situation’.” And more, but thats enough for now- its really the vibrancy and vitality  that this University had in plenty at one point in time. Maybe its just that we were younger then, or smaller, or just plain newer. But given the fact that our students change every so often, there should be a freshness that comes with this sense of renewal, something that should keep us on our toes and evolving.

And, of course,  it had best come from within.  But some things are, however, not for the asking, so one does need to make an effort. I, for one, am sure that it is there…