Seminars organised by Students

Sameeksha:
Sameeksha is the annual seminar organised by the Masters'' students of Social Work. The seminar is organised around a theme and students from other universities and academic institutions around the country participate in it. Some of the recent themes for Sameeksha have been:

 Voices and Silences Spaces The Margins Managing RealitiesContemporary Social Work: A Global Perspective  Rethinking  
 Development: Towards Conceptualising a New Paradigm

Manthan:
Manthan is the annual seminar of the Master''s programme of Personnel Management and Industrial Relations. The seminar provides a meaningful and constructive interaction between the academia and the industry. HR managers from the industry, academicians and students from all over the country participate in Manthan. Also organised around a theme, some recent themes for Manthan have been:

 Cutting Edge HR: Responding to the Change Imperative  Charting a Cosmos Out of Chaos: Exploring Alternatives to Unleash 
 Business Potential  Managing Business Transformation: HR''s new Value Proposition  Looking Inwards Towards Competitive 
 Advantage: A Corporate Rhetoric or an Individual Reality? Fault Lines of Transition: The Emerging Topography of Business

Clairvoyance:
Clairvoyance is the annual seminar of the Master''s students of the Health Administration and Hospital Administration programmes. Experts in the areas of health administration and hospital administration are invited to address the various issues related to the theme of the Seminar. The job placement brochure of the MHA (Health and Hospital) is released at the Seminar. Some of the recent themes of Clairvoyance have been:

 New Horizons on the Management of Health Care  Healthcare Management at its Crossroads  Healthcare Frontiers: Emerging
 Issues and Challenges Health Management in the 21 st Century: Quest for Excellence

Students Seminar 2008-2009

Manzar:
The students of M.A. in Development Studies organised Manzar, their annual Seminar, on December 10-11, 2008. The core theme was "Policy and People: Practices and Discourses". The Seminar attempted to:

(i) trace, understand and evaluate the role of policy in the Indian socio-economic context,
(ii) understand the responses of different participants in the developmental process to the shifting paradigms of policy and 
      governance,
(iii) discuss certain debates that have been central to the emerging political and economic changes. The events were sponsored
       by ActionAid,

 India, and the seminar had the following sub-themes:

  Perspectives on Civil Society, Governance and Politics Contextualising Labour in Economic Transformations Economic Reforms in 
  India: In Retrospect Art and Oppression: Transitions in Indian Cinema.

 Prof. John Harris (from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver) delivered the Keynote Lecture on the theme of ''Understanding 
 Development: Challenges in the New Era''. Prof. Mushirul Hasan (Vice-Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi) also
 delivered a lecture on ''The Challenges to Secularism in Contemporary India''. Apart from these lectures, the seminar also saw the
 participation of several students from different universities across the country, from Jawaharlal Nehru University to Hyderabad
 Central University, on different themes pertinent to the issues central to the seminar.

Manthan:
The students of the School of Management and Labour Studies (SMLS) organised their annual festival ''Manthan 2008'' with participants coming from various B-Schools such as FMS, IIT-D, IIT-B, SP Jain, MICA, NITIE, KJ Somaiyya, IRMA, XLRI, IIM-A, IIT-KGP, MDI-HR, SCMHRD, and many more. Manthan 2008 adopted the ''Go Green'' theme for this year and tied up with Unigreen International and India Development Gateway to come up with new ideas. Ideas which were applied at the event included - serving tea and beverages in a ''Kullad'' instead of plastic cups, using jute folders for attendees, and offering saplings to guests instead of bouquets. The theme of this year''s corporate sessions was "Thriving through Uncertainty, Leveraging Human Capital". The event was flagged off with a Keynote Address from Capt. Gopinath of Air Deccan. He also inaugurated the HRM&LR''s quarterly publication THINK. The inauguration was followed by the Leadership Roundtable, where executives debated on the Perceptions and Expectations from the HR Function. This, in turn, was followed by the HR Roundtable.

Manthan 2008 had various events for students, which included: Udghosh comprising 4 sub-events: Vikalp (HR event), Vitt-Shastra (Finance), Vikray (Marketing), Vidhan (Operations), which was won by FMS, Delhi.

 Ankur, the entrepreneurship event was won by participants from XLRI, Jamshedpur; the runners-up were from IIT-D. Jigyasa, the 
 corporate quiz was hosted by Avinash Mudaliar. It was won by The Mercenaries, Govind Grewal and Souvik Basu from Tata Capital.
 Anveshan, the assessment centre had 10 B-school students assessed by certified assessors from leadership development 
 consulting firm LBW. Trishna, the treasure hunt was sponsored by Syntel & Barista Lavazza, and was won by Wellingker
 Institute.Dayitva was a CSR-Plan contest. Two teams were declared joint winners - TISS (Social Work) and NITIE. Paripreksha, the
 role model talk was given by Boman Irani. Cultural events, Abeer, were sponsored by Coke India and included Kalrav (Singing
 competition), Abhivyakti (choreography competition), Dhrishti (the Ad mad show), Claim to Fame (the talent hunt show), Star nite
 and Kaifiyat (Talat Aziz nite). Dharohar, the alumni meet, was held on the last day of Manthan 2008.

Clairvoyance:
Clairvoyance is organised as an annual event of the School of Health System Studies (SHSS). The theme for this year''s event was "Empowering Healthcare through Solutions and Applications". The theme was presented in the form of modules which dealt separately the existing issues and concerns, challenges and opportunities as well as innovations which have in some way positively affected lives of the teeming millions. It was held on December 12 and 13, 2008. Clairvoyance had speakers presenting on issues covering all aspects of healthcare and hospital administration and the latest concepts in this area. Other activities at Clairvoyance were ''Antarprerna''- a business proposal presentation competition; ''Polemic'' - debate competition; ''Vivartan''- slogan and poster competition; and ''Healthcare Quiz'' competition. These events attracted the participation of students from many reputed institutes from all over the country.

Sameeksha:
Sameeksha 2008, the annual festival of Social Work students was organised on December 8 and 9, 2008, on the theme "Subaltern Expressions: Exploring Realities". The event was organised along the following sub-themes: Gender and Sexual Minorities, Religious, Ethnic and Linguistic Minorities, Disabilities and Mental Health, and Media and Dalits. This year, Sameeksha was an academic as well as a cultural fest around this theme. There were panel discussions with field practitioners, activists, and academicians; a cultural night with Solo Performance by Parnab Mukherjee. The inaugural session began with the in-house community radio programme created for Sameeksha by TISS students. ''Samarthya'', a sub-event on the event theme looked at disability and how society perceives it and the marginalisation of the disabled ''Abhivyakt'', focused on the increasingly subsumed identities, discrimination and the suppressed voices of the religious minorities. In ''Mahua'', the focus was on small groups of little political importance and attracting even less interest from financial, tourist or any other type of operator. ''Sthri'', was to explore the impact of the neo-liberal economic reforms on the women in post-colonial India. Panel discussions were conducted of the current direction of the Dalit movement from perspectives rooted in variant social contexts and on the topic, "Is the utility of media in subaltern representation merely a product or popular imagination?". Nazariya was a part of the theme dealing with media and its role in the expression of subaltern ealities.

Cut.In:
Students'' first video festival, Cut.In was organised by the students of Centre of Media and Cultural Studies from 6 to 7 of February, 2009, at the Institute campus. It invited entries from film schools and institutions across the country. The festival received a total of 46 entries of which 6 documentaries, 5 short films and 4 public service advertisements were short listed for screening, and prizes were awarded. Cut.In served as a platform for networking and discussion for young film makers. Based on the feedback of the participants, this annual event of the Centre will be scaled up next year.

Frames of Reference:
The first seminar of the Centre for Media and Cultural Studies was organised from January 29-30, 2009, on the Institute campus. The theme of the seminar was "Contested Media Realities:Unpacking the Real". The seminar tried to critically examine the representations of reality in news, documentary and fiction films. It was inaugurated by the Director, Prof. S. Parasuraman. The keynote address was delivered by Prof. B.P.Sanjay, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Hyderabad Central University. Speakers included professionals from the media industry and academics working in the area of media and cultural studies.