Monday, November 19, 2012

DIWALI 2012

T&F India Club ushered in Diwali with fun-filled celebrations and a lot of cheer on 9 November 2012. Every year, we have a Rangoli-Making competition with splendid designs from all the teams & this year was no different! This year, we also introduced the Lantern-Making Competition which saw very encouraging response. We saw some beautiful creations from each team and the judges had a tough time deciding the winning teams. Here are the winners:

RANGOLI-MAKING
First Prize (Tie)
Merry Dancers (BIS Team): Poojya, Bincy, Manjari and Ruchika
and
RIOters (Routledge India Originals): Rimina, Parameshwari, Aditi, Nidhi, Debopriyo, Dipankar, Moasenla, Aldeena, Shashank, Shoma

Rangoli by ‘Merry Dancers’

Rangoli by ‘RIOters’

Second Prize
Hari Bhari (Main Office [Sales, Finance, Production and Admin teams]): Gopinath, Dimple, Sangeetha, Pankaj, Anand, Harish, Ankit, Aman, Vikram, Michelle.

Rangoli by ‘Hari Bhari’

Third Prize
Avighna (Europa World of Learning): Robinson, Sabine, Nimisha, Shveta, Sandeep
Rangoli by ‘Avighna’
The Lantern-Making competition brought out the creative best amongst everyone at T&F India. Some very innovative designs awaited the judges. The winning teams for the Lantern-Making were:

LANTERN-MAKING
First Prize
Rang-Chitra (Europa Biographical References): Anuradha Ravindra, Ankita Baruah, Divya Joy, Jubi Borkakoti
Lanterns by ‘Rang-Chitra’

Second Prize
The Lightening Spir-IT-s (IT): Sudhanshu Goyal, Ankit Rastogi, Ashish Purwar, Dhanesh Sharma, Chetan Bhatla, Shamim Khan
Lantern by ‘The Lightening Spir-IT-s’
The evening saw everyone gather at the 8th-floor bay for some fun and festivities. Our colleagues did a small ramp-walk in traditional attire, to much applause, for the Ethnic Best-Dressed Competition. After a lot of thinking, the judges chose the following winners: 

ETHNIC BEST-DRESSED (MALE): Sudhanshu Goyal

ETHNIC BEST-DRESSED (FEMALE): Parameshwari Sircar

The Routledge India (RIO) team won the prize for the best team name. There was also a special Diwali Lucky Draw and the two winners were Ankit Gupta and Divya Joy.

The results for the Rangoli-Making and Lantern-Making competitions were announced by Mr Manik during the gathering. After a lot of laughter and fun, the evening concluded with some delightful snacks.



 By Aldeena Raju & Jubi Borkakoti (Activity In-charges, Recreation Club)
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South Asia Archive Launch


Taj Ambassador Hotel, New Delhi
7th November 2012
 Highlights
  • The entire event ran smoothly thanks to the efforts of Shafina, Neeti and their teams on the day and in the build-up
  • Approximately 45 journalists attended the event, resulting in coverage in a variety of media publications (see below for updated list) in spite of competition with the US election results
  • Approximately 135 guests attended (including 33 T&F employees), and all will be signed up to receive the South Asia Archive newsletter
  • Shri Kapil Sibal whole-heartedly endorsed the Archive in front of gathered media and delegates, reassuring those present that access would be provided across India through cooperation with the UGC and INFLIBNET
  • The test site performed well, and the advanced search keyword highlighting and preview features were working during the live demonstrations
  • Questions were directed both to the Minister (on the whole related to access, and government national heritage archiving policies), and to SARF regarding content selection criteria. There was much excitement among those present about the content, and some people also offered more archival material.
  • The Cabinet Secretary offered to facilitate future content sourcing via the Ministry of Culture, cutting through what he called ‘layers of bureaucratic committees’.

On the Day

The event ran very smoothly, with Shafina’s team ensuring delegates were registered and received their welcome packs (comprising a South Asia Archive gift calendar and branded folder containing printed testimonials, a printed running order, branded pen, notepad, catalogue, promotional postcard and newsletter sign-up form). All media were given a copy of the press release.
Guests of honour on the day:
  • Shri Kapil Sibal, Minister of Communications and Information Technology
  • Shri Ashok Thakur, Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development
  • Professor Ved Prakash, Chairman of the University Grants Commission
Guests of honour were seated on a raised dais alongside Boria Majumdar and David Green, in front of a large South Asia Archive banner. Two large screens flanked the dais, showing powerpoint slides during presentations and live video feeds when the guests of honour were speaking. They also showed Shri Sibal undertaking the ‘first’ search on the Archive.

All the speeches were well received, although particular interest was reserved for Shri Kapil Sibal and Boria and Sharmistha’s section, where there was a real buzz from the audience and media.

The test site performed well during the live part of the demo, giving the audience an idea of how quick and easy the finished product will be to use.

After the presentations there was a tour of the physical exhibitions, and delegates were also able to look at the site close-up on the iPads provided.

Heads of Institutes/Universities Who Attended

  • Jawaharlal Nehru University
  • Jamia Millia Islamia
  •  Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
  •  Centre for Women's Development Studies
  • Indian Council of Historical Research
  • Society for Participatory Research in Asia
  • Indian Institute of Technology
  • Institute for Studies in Industrial Development
  • British Council
  • South Asia Research Foundation
  • National Institute of Science Technology and Development
  • Amity University
  • National University of Educational Planning and Administration
  • Indian Institute of Public Administration
  • South Asian University

Press/ Online Coverage

Here are highlights of some of the press/online coverage so far:
Coverage on Twitter also increased as a result of the launch, with an increase in the number of ‘mentions’ the archive received.
Rob Lynes (@RobLynes), Director of British Council India, tweeted: 

Leads on Key Institutions
Feedback from Neeti and Ashleigh is that we received particularly positive responses from the following:
  • Director of South Asian University
  • The Faculty of JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
  • Librarian of Delhi University – he had heard good reviews of the product from our agents who attended too
The key lead for us was that the UGC Chairman and Shri Sibal committed publicly to making the Archive available for researchers throughout India.

Q&A Session

In spite of concern beforehand, questions mainly focused on how academics would get access, with most people directing their queries to the Minister. There were no awkward questions regarding pricing or the business more broadly.

Some delegates had heard of other archives that would benefit from digitization.

As David mentioned, there was also private assurance from Cabinet Secretary to facilitate our approaches to state-held archive material.

The overwhelming feeling in the room was one of anticipation.

Selected Photos









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