Eloquent Politics Welcomed By Overwhelming Participation

On September 26 and 27 2005, a two-day seminar on 'Involvement of Youth in Political Decision Making' was organised by the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Calcutta and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (F.E.S.), under the Asihss Programme.
The first day saw the packed Asutosh Hall at the College Street campus listen with enormous enthusiasm the learned discourse by teachers of the organising department andn guest speakers from different media houses and higher educational institutes on the subject.

On Day Two eminent politician and professor of Physics, Sougata Roy mesmerised a gathering at the Ritwik Hall in the same campus by his insight into the changing response and level of involvement of youth in political decision making. He attributed the root cause of the general apathy of today's youth in politics to the failure of the post-independence political upheavals like the Naxal, the Navanirman and the Assam Movements. He regarded the implementation of voting rights from the age of eighteen as a major step forward for Indian youth and emphasized on total participation in politics as opposed to tokenism. Highlighting the point that the modern society is sitting on the mouth of a volcano ready to erupt, he urged the youth to join NGOs for all-round rural development. However, alluding to Mahatma Gandhi, he was quick to point out that politics can wait but swaraj cannot.

However, the highlight of the seminar on both the days was the overwhelming students' participation in an elocution competition on the topic of the seminar. Hundreds of students from such educational institutions as Surendranath College for Women, South Calcutta Girls College, East Calcutta College, Loreto College, Netaji Nagar College, Victoria College, Visva Bharati University, Dum Dum Motijheel College, Asutosh Colege, Jadavpur University, St. Xavier's College, Acharya Prafulla Chandra College, Maharaja Manindra Chandra College(Day), Sikkim Manipal University, and of course, the host, University of Calcutta, participated in the contest.
The judges were from the journalism department of several colleges and universities, and the CU journalism and mass communication department head, Prof. Dr. Tapati Basu, proudly declared that each of them had been her students at some point or the other.

Shreemonti Mukherjee, a first year student of the post-graduate degree course of the host department emerged triumphant, bagging the top spot, with twenty-seven other prizes awarded to the best student speakers of the session.

A novel feature of the competition was that apart from the certificates of merit awarded to each of the student speakers, certificates acknowledging the tireless efforts put in for the success of the seminar, were also issued to those students of the host department, whose helping hands made the programme a memorable one.

The other distinguished speakers on the occasion included Prof. Anangya Chanda, Inspector of Colleges; Prof. Ranjit Basu; Prof. R.C. Matthew, Principal, St. Xavier's College; Prof. Ranjit Dhar, Principal, Manindra Chandra College; Rajeshwar Dayal, Senior Advisor, F.E.S., among others.