22 - 28 July 2023

With great anticipation, promise, and potential, we embark on yet another academic year, that time of the year that is ripe with new hopes, where the sentiment of growth and transformation rule and reinforce our aim to enable learning that is future-fit. There are fresh ideas and renewal of the old, and the campus is teeming with activity and abuzz with eagerness. Students gear up to explore, discover and utilise all opportunities for learning, ready for a world that needs them more than ever. Faculty members continue to bring in their breadth of experience and perspective to guide students, in achieving the milestones they have set out to.

We are ready to tackle the complexities and challenges of this evolving world, enable the students to dream, and transform these dreams into building a muscle for change, for a resilient future. As July draws to a close and the August sun rises, here we are, raising a toast to a future that is full of possibilities.

Q-Team, the Quiz Club at IFMR Graduate School of Business (GSB) has been formed with a vision to create an environment where people are aware of their surroundings and develop an inquisitive set of thought processes, thereby having an eye for detail in every aspect that people encounter. Q-Team’s mission is to promote awareness and the usefulness of gathering knowledge in depth by conducting various events throughout the year and by engaging students in those events amidst the fast-paced MBA life.

On Krea’s social media platforms, in the coming week, we will give you a glimpse of the significant work done by Q-Team over the recent months.

The most recent addition to the research centres at Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR), WELL Labs had a formal launch at the India International Centre in New Delhi on 26 July. Water, Environment, Land and Livelihoods (WELL) Labs is an environmental research and innovation centre to address issues related to land degradation, rural livelihoods and water management. Kapil Viswanathan, President of IFMR and Member of Governing Council at Krea University inaugurated the research centre.

From 17 – 21 July, Krea-CWP held its annual faculty training workshop before the start of term. Conducted by CWP director, Dr Anannya Dasgupta, the group consisting of Neha Mishra, Sayantan Datta and Shweta Khatri welcomed two new faculty members: Deepti Sharma and Dr Mitaja Chakraborty. Ex-CWP faculty, Sameer Thomas joined online, for having agreed to teach WOC this term. Over the five-day training, the group covered topics such as: teaching without lecturing, the anatomy of class-discussions, reverse engineering an academic essay, creating assignment sequences, conducting peer reviews and giving feedback on drafts etc. CWP (with the support of the Associate Deans) hosted two external participant observers to document the workshop: Dr Shaweta Nanda from Central University Himachal and Bishal Dey from the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education. As the invited expert this year, Krea’s own Dr Sabah Sidiqqui did a presentation and led a discussion on the psychological perspectives on having conversations on emotionally difficult topics in a classroom setting. 

On 25 July, Patricia Mukhim, Editor, Shillong Times, led an insightful virtual discussion at Krea University on the escalating violence in Manipur. The clashes between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities since May 3 have raised serious concerns. The conflict originated from a court order proposing to extend tribal community benefits to the Meiteis, causing tensions between the groups.

Mukhim walked us through the timeline of events over the last 78 days in the state and briefly touched upon the many factors that paved the way for the painful circumstances. She mainly highlighted the historical grievances rooted in the 1947 Instrument of Accession with India. The colonial legacy, if anything, has only further deepened divisions between hill-dwelling tribal communities such as the Kukis and Nagas and the Meiteis in the valley. She also addressed the unfortunate xenophobia faced by the Kuki-Zo community, despite their indigenous status in Manipur. False narratives, including claims of a Kuki influx from Myanmar, worsened the situation.

Mukhim expressed her disappointment with the central government's response, pointing out inadequate attention to the underlying issues and citizens' rights. She added how the lack of understanding from the larger Indian population added to racism and ignorance concerning the challenges faced by Northeast communities.

On 4 August, from 2.30 - 4.30 pm, Dr Jyotsna Kapur, Professor of Cinema and Media Studies and cross-appointed with Sociology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale will lead a session on Third cinema and its Radical Critique of Mass Culture.

Emerging in Latin America in the 1960s, Third Cinema created an aesthetic and cultural resource in solidarity with the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggles unfolding across the world. Delving into the films and writings of these filmmakers, the session will draw lessons about the insidious nature of mass culture and how cinema could be invented as an art and technology for a revolutionary form of cognition. The talk will be hosted at Kothari Hall.

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Prof (retd) T R Govindarajan, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, and Visiting Professor of Physics at SIAS recently penned a review on Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. The review talks about the hits and misses in the movie and acknowledges that the movie is brilliantly made and worth watching for the truthfulness of the presentation of historic events with details of emotions, and empathy of scientists who made it possible. 

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This talk by Dr Neha Aggarwal, Visiting Faculty, SIAS was part of Speaker Series: Thinking Like a Psychologist for students and faculty of Krea University. In this talk held on 2 May, Dr Neha Aggarwal mainly takes the non-dualist and non-Cartesian Merleau Ponty’s phenomenology approach to an embodied mind to understand the construct of beauty. Under this approach, the speaker engaged with the everyday lived experience of beauty by using the example of ageing discourse in contemporary culture.

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