Articles from November 2014

“In the beginning, when I first joined this job, there were boys- wherever I saw, there were boys! They are scared of me now, they start going away when they see me coming from a distance! Now, Sharavathi is a boy-free area.” Aadiseshamma, ‘lady guard’ of Sharavathi, talks of the quirks of her job and shares some stories from her life.

“My experience at Avanti, Pondicherry helped me change my way of looking into the outside world. It reminded me about the appalling poverty which curbs meritorious students from achieving their dreams. ” Read about Shashanka’s experience as an Avanti mentor.

“While deer fatalities occur throughout the year, according to a Prakriti report provided to us by Professor Shanti Bhattacharya, about 21 deer have died, and three injured, in January 2014 alone – the month when the student fests Shaastra and Saarang are organized.” “Articles in leading newspapers of Chennai have drawn attention to these deer deaths in January, as IITM, being the leading tertiary-education institute in Chennai, is often under the ‘social scanner’. Naturally, acerbic criticism of IITM’s environmental policy is pouring in, while a management already caught up in a mess of environmental legalities balks at the mention of the issue. Fortunately, a proactive student community can take steps to reduce deer fatalities.” Kalyani and Nithin bring you the various facets of the ‘Inconvenient Truths’ facing IITM residents in this two-part series covering IITM’s environmental issues.

“There are about 4.5 lakhs of Indians who have openly come out as transgender but chances are that there are five times as many who remain closeted for fear of social ridicule.” The Colloquium on ‘Gender Diversity’ featured Kalki Subramaniam, transgender activist, who spoke passionately about the status of people alternate genders in India.

“An estimated 100 to 150 cases have been reported at the institute hospital so far, with up to 15 to 20 new cases of varying severity everyday”, says a nurse at the (insti) hosptital”. Ananth writes about the recent spate of conjunctivitis infections and precautions to take to prevent it.