Wednesday, 15 August 2012

Independence Day Celebration

NSS team had more of a supporting role in the Independence Day function of the institute where NCC and IIT security took the responsibility of the main flag-hoisting ceremony of the morning. After hoisting of national flag and singing of national anthem, our Director took guard of honour, conducted oath-taking and delivered his Independence Day speech. He reminded that IIT Kharagpur and the Bhakra Nangal Dam were two of the major initiatives to come alive after we became free in 1947. And the journey at IIT Kharagpur started from a jail where freedom-fighters were held captive. Since then the role played by this institution is immense and he gave a road map of what to come in future. We all feel proud to hear that and take a resolve on this auspicious day to shoulder our responsibility in the nation building work, being humble and sincere. There was a cultural program after this where school children of various campus schools made short but beautiful presentations. The function ended with all singing in chorus, "Vande Mataram".

NSS team arranged refreshment of school children during their rehearsal on previous two days as well as today. It was a pleasure and privilege to offer this service to young kids. We made sitting arrangements for our guests of the function. The Independence Day edition of the newsletter was published which can be downloaded from here (Link). Most of the units prepared colourful posters and exhibited them. A disciplined and uniformed NSS volunteers added to the spectacle of the ceremony. We join the rest of the nation in saluting our Heroes who earned freedom for us and take this opportunity to imbibe in us the spirit of sacrifice, service and love for the country. Jai Hind.

In the evening, many of us attended a cultural program at Kalidas Auditorium titled, "India's Urges, India's Future in the Making." This was a joint production of Alumni Association and Students Gymkhana involving larger campus community in its production. To have India's journey from Vedic era to modern times in 90 minutes of narration, song, dance and choreography was an experience by itself. Each of us emerged more proud after the show knowing who we are as a nation and our sincere thanks and gratitude to the organizers to present such a wonderful program on Independence Day evening.



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We present below the glimpses of the morning function. We shall populate this space with more pictures as and when they are available from student volunteers.

The preparation

Unit 1 to Unit 15 (In order, Unit 1 first)
Together

Independence Day edition of newsletter (Link)

Thursday, 2 August 2012

New Academic Session Begins


NSS, IIT Kharagpur extends warm welcome to all new students in the campus. We eagerly look forward to work with new batch of NSS volunteers who are joining the NSS team. Here, we report briefly two important events of July, 2012.


Advisory Committee Meeting

NSS activities at IIT Kharagpur is aligned with academic session. We had our Advisory Committee Meeting at Board Room on July 18, 2012 chaired by our Director. We had in the meeting among others, the Regional Head of NSS from Kolkata; Secretary of Midnapur Welfare Society; Dean, Undergraduate Studies; Dean, Student Affairs; Assistant Registrar, Accounts; Coordinator, Extra Academic Activity; NSS student members and Program Officers.

Program Coordinator, NSS, IIT Kharagpur presented a visual walk-through of the activities carried out in academic session 2011-2012. Support of institute administration, local administration (S.D.O., B.D.O., Panchayet) and larger IIT Kharagpur community was thankfully acknowledged. The Advisory Committee sympathetically considered the difficulty faced due to non-receipt of entitled fund (Forty percent of the fund of FY 2011-2012 still pending) due to certain issues between centre and state. All appreciated the effort of young IITians. Regional Head of NSS was very pleased and advised a report submission procedure that  would enable quicker dissemination of our work experience to NSS at national level.

Director, IIT Kharagpur encouraged NSS volunteers to take up solar lighting based initiative and pledged personal contribution towards that effort. Dean, Alumni Affairs & International Relations is helping us to get connected with one of our alumnus, an Magsaysay Award winner, who did pioneering work on this. Regional Head of NSS inspired NSS team by stating that two exploits of NSS, IIT Kharagpur were reported to Prime Minister. We are humbled. It increases our responsibility. He also wondered if there can be some technology focus. Since the NSS volunteers come from 1st and 2nd year UG students, we are communicating with faculty members and discussing the feasibility of adoption of the technology developed here for neighbourhood village / slum population. Two Program Officers have already started working on two leads. Secretary, Midnapur Welfare Association proposed workshop on child labour and their full support where they are implementing a Central Government program on eradication of child labour. The child labour issue had been a major discussion point among NSS volunteers. We look forward to some concrete work in this session. The Advisory Committee encouraged us to continue with the initiatives already undertaken and the team will certainly work on these suggestions.

The meeting ended with a 'Vote of Thanks'.



Orientation of New Students

Orientation of new NSS volunteers took place on July 28, 2012 at Kalidas Auditorium. Thanks to support received from institute ERP team, a better visibility and communication mode are established among students and faculty of NSS team within IIT Kharagpur network. Soft copy of the orientation presentations, containing (i)full contact details of the faculty members and their individual responsibility (ii)NSS philosophy, possible area of work, rules and regulations including 'Code of Conduct' were mailed to each student for reference. The list of NSS faculty for this session is appended at the end of this post.

After the presentation of Program Coordinator, the Program Officers introduced themselves to the students. Senior students present on the occasion also helped new comers. The new batch applauded and felt proud of the effort of their seniors when activities of last year were presented. There are much, much, more to do. We hope and pray that together, we shall be able to make meaningful contribution, learn from the engagement and emerge as better human beings ourselves.

NSS faculty serving the Academic Session 2012-2013

Dr. Abraham George , Program Officer : Unit 1
Dr. Rajeev Kumar Rawat , Program Officer : Unit 2
Dr. Dibakar Dhara , Program Officer : Unit 3
Dr. Debasis Roy, Program Officer : Unit 4
Dr. Dilip Kumar Swain, Program Officer : Unit 5
Dr. Manab Kumar Das, Program Officer : Unit 6
Dr. Mantu Prasad Rajak, Program Officer : Unit 7
Dr. Mintu Halder, Program Officer : Unit 8
Dr. Prosanta Guha, Program Officer : Unit 9
Dr. N. D. Pradeep Singh, Program Officer : Unit 10
Dr. Rajat Subhra Chakraborty, Program Officer : Unit 11
Dr. Saumen Hajra, Program Officer : Unit 12
Dr. Shailendra Kumar Varshney, Program Officer : Unit 13
Dr. Sudip Mishra, Program Officer : Unit 14
Dr. Venimadhab Adyam, Program Officer : Unit 15
Dr. Aradhana Malik, Resource Person : Unit 7a
Dr. Pradip Kumar Bhowmick, Head, NSS, IIT Kharagpur
Dr. Goutam Saha, Program Coordinator, NSS, IIT Kharagpur